Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

The thing is, your final word has to be something EVERYONE AGREES WITH. You literally can't force your opinion on everyone. Your final word has to be something EVERYONE agrees with. So yes, as a GM, you are an absolute dictator, but guess what? All the players have to agree, or they will go away.

That's where the firm but sympathetic part comes in. I explain my side and that's good enough to placate the players in nine out of ten cases, and that's good enough to where the one out of ten where I piss one or more of them off with a ruling doesn't derail things for more than a few minutes. Although I'm blessed to have players that are experienced and also mature adults with actual social skills so we all know how to have actual conversations and our egos aren't so fragile as to take personal offense at the silly little dice game. It's not like we're playing for money.

 

[demicolon]

orcs are retards ackshully

OI!
OL' GRINDLEGUTS MAY BE A LITTLE SLOW BUT HE STILL OUR FAMILY, YA GIT!

 

[Brain Problems]

Of my last campaigns I cheated for the players to try to move things along. And later on I realized that delivering the judgement of the dice would have been better and made a more interesting campaign, that's before we take into account the stakes.

This is the thing that I have learned to understand the hard way. The dice rolls are what make the story. That's why it's so important to not make PCs fucking roll for every goddamn thing because not only does it slow the game down but it takes away the magic from the something really interesting happening at an interesting time because you've been forcing the the players to make sure they don't choke to death eating a chicken wing during a regular meal.

Also to make rolls fail forward a la CoC (when it makes sense, calm down).

 

[Adamska]

we're just deliberately fucking up your game, got a cope?"

And I'd just drop them like so much radioactive asbestos right there. Fuck that. I'm here to have fun and tell a story, and intentionally shitting on my efforts is a fuck off I'm done with you as a player. If the entire lot leave, fuck em too. No game is better than you shitting on my effort because you can't be fucked to run.

I get ribbing, but that slides too far out of that zone for me. I don't brook that shit. Not after I had a cunt with that mindset in my first ever game I ran.

As for dice, I sometimes fudge, but it's usually due to RNG encounter sort of things. Sometimes in favor, sometimes against. I also do sometimes fudge rolls secretly, but not hyper often.

And can totally agree on failing forward. Always have a back door, window, or vent to give them more chances to continue. Never stonewall based on one single die.

 

[demicolon]

The only time we played ordinary AD&D after that was with a teacher who ran the D&D club. That may sound gay and lame, but he was actually really good at it and since it was an "official" school club, we would actually get something like a dozen players at peak times, so it was sort of the gathering for everyone into such things. Huge overlap with the chess club that I was also in.

I hate you so fucking much.

 

[AnOminous]

And I'd just drop them like so much radioactive asbestos right there. Fuck that. I'm here to have fun and tell a story, and intentionally shitting on my efforts is a fuck off I'm done with you as a player. If the entire lot leave, fuck em too. No game is better than you shitting on my effort because you can't be fucked to run.

I'd generally just roll with it because it wasn't "I'm deliberately making the game not FUN" but trying to test my limits. "Oh so you decided to go east and not west like the map said. Well we got something for you here, too." I would exert a bit of subtle pressure, in that the mini-scenarios I had prepared were generally, although shorter, much more deadly.

All the players in the core group were also GMs and it was sort of a metagame for us to try to fuck each other's games up. It was in good fun, not strictly speaking griefing. If something truly broke the game, we would generally have a postmortem and discuss whether that particular thing should be banned from all games, like my gnome illusionist/thief.

As for dice, I sometimes fudge, but it's usually due to RNG encounter sort of things. Sometimes in favor, sometimes against. I also do sometimes fudge rolls secretly, but not hyper often.

I'd generally never fudge against, unless I had already predetermined that if you did the "right" thing, good things would happen, and if you did the "wrong" thing, bad things would. I also kept this sparing since if you cheat the dice too often, you aren't even playing a game, you're just making shit up.

I generally reserved it for when making all the right decisions led to a really boring "game over man game over" scenario.

I'd never cheat against them, though. At most, I might tell them up front, when they're contemplating something idiotic, "you're gonna need a crit for that, sure you still want to try?" And if they somehow hit it, they hit it. Great jerb, you got a pair of cojones on you. Maybe not much in the way of brains, but. . .

 

[demicolon]

How does Delta Green act as an idea mine?

Look for real life sped ops soldiers for inspiration, such as:
- You're the single one good guys in a force full of drug dealing, sex trafficking psychos whos idea of "respect" is raping people who looked at them funny. Mission objective: try to keep them away from civilians while you're busy investingating a local cult of Azathoth. And not go insane in the process.
- Major Pyle is taking waaaay too much trenbolone lately. Also he's your superior. Mission objective: try not to laught at Marjorie Pyla's wig and lipstick while this Shreck in a dress is briefing you about your mission objectives. And not go insane in the process. IT'S MAAM FOR YOU, CORPORAL WORM.

 

[AnOminous]

Mission objective: try to keep them away from civilians while you're busy investingating a local cult of Azathoth.

Azathoth was always my campaign-ender. My favorite campaign end was "dude goes completely insane rolls the 'cast random spell' event (that I invented) and it's 'Call Azathoth.'" I actually gave the player the opportunity to back out (I had not contemplated this event actually happening) but the world was already going to be destroyed so he decided if the world was going to be destroyed, he'd be the one who was doing it. I ended the world three times with Azathoth.

 

[Adamska]

I'd generally just roll with it because it wasn't "I'm deliberately making the game not FUN" but trying to test my limits

That's a bit different then. Them going different routes is fine, though I do have limits on how hard one should try to duck out on things.

I usually have a decent slew of maps and can improv fairly well. But if you go the opposite direction on purpose repeatedly, then don't cry when I go " welp see you next week because I have dick all and it's clear you ain't engaging."

I'd generally never fudge against

In fairness I usually fudge against when I roll nothing but no encounter results. Sometimes on a d% you will get nothing but those. That's specifically what I meant there.

It's still to their benefit in the sense that it gives them something interesting to handle. Not always a fight sometimes. Just something interesting.

Not much fun traveling if you don't encounter even normal animals after all.

 

[2LtMashengo]

"You can play as cool characters like FBI agents and Navy Seals, but the game goes out of it's way to make those jobs mundane and if you fire a weapon for any reason, you have to spend time filing reports justifying the shooting!"

IDK who actually runs their games like this, but there's a reason the players are given a chapter on how to do glownigger blackbag shit and dispose of corpses.
Many Delta Green operations are not under any official auspices. If you shoot someone dead, you shouldn't be thinking about it like a cop with a bodycam who has to file reports and show up to court. You should be thinking about it like you're a criminal. If you can get rid of the body, get rid of it.


If you're doing something Program related, -under the guise of an official investigation- there is no reason to make your players do the boring paperwork route.
They're going to have to explain shooting someone one way or another, but there are much more fun ways to do it that can directly involve the agents' day jobs and skill sets.
Playing an ATF agent? Great, use those criminology skills and buy some unregistered guns to plant. DEA, FBI? That half-kilo of coke over the evidence threshold was ordered destroyed, nobody's going to miss it.

Alternatively, see the following:

Spoiler: True Detective S1 Spoilers

 

[King Dead]

This is the thing that I have learned to understand the hard way. The dice rolls are what make the story. That's why it's so important to not make PCs fucking roll for every goddamn thing because not only does it slow the game down but it takes away the magic from the something really interesting happening at an interesting time because you've been forcing the the players to make sure they don't choke to death eating a chicken wing during a regular meal.

Also to make rolls fail forward a la CoC (when it makes sense, calm down).

I think someone mentioned here that a good rule of thumb is "if it's critical to the story, don't require a roll to figure it out." Like, the PCs are in the crafty vizier's chambers looking around, and in one of the drawers is some document detailing the BBEG's plan to subvert the kingdom, critical information for them to plan out their attempt to thwart it. You add an investigation check, and somehow every single PC fails. Guess there wasn't anything untoward going on after all! Oh, oops, here comes the demonic invasion. How could we have seen this coming?

Or you set up a puzzle that they have to solve in order to unlock the door to the final boss of the dungeon. It requires items that are hidden throughout the area, but the players can't find one no matter how hard they look because, again, the dice keep failing them. Guess we're not finishing this dungeon after all!

Now obviously there are ways around that. Maybe you fudge a roll in their favor if it got close enough to the DC. Maybe you improv a way to relay the information to them some other way. Maybe you let the barbarian break the door down. But honestly, it's just easier to avoid that altogether, and like you said, cutting down on rolls helps the game flow smoother.

I also feel like a lot of DMs forget about passive perception/investigation. If someone in the group is naturally perceptive, they should be able to lock in on items of interest quickly and avoid the need to roll altogether.

 

[demicolon]

I ended the world three times with Azathoth.

If I was Azathoth I'd be suing you for overtime before lifting a tentacle for the 3rd goddamn time.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

I've never done FASERIP and was largely unaware of the system until I googled it based on your post (I think it might have come up before, but my brain dropped it) so I can't give you anything specific to help out there. But I can give some general advice.

You mean the system for the old TSR Marvel game? I only remember it as the MSHRPG system. I think classicmarvelforever is still around and active.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I've never done FASERIP and was largely unaware of the system until I googled it based on your post (I think it might have come up before, but my brain dropped it)

You mean the system for the old TSR Marvel game? I only remember it as the MSHRPG system. I think classicmarvelforever is still around and active.

I've heard of FASERIP. Not as much as DnD, PF, or CoC, but I thought it's pretty well know. I don't know what the proper name of it was, but people call it FASERIP because that's what you write for your attributes.

However, me having heard of it and people talking about it might only be because Spoony made an episode about it.

He says it's Marvel Super Heroes. Which is what I assume MSHRPG means.

As I've learned, lots of people who don't play RPGs would cite Spoony videos as gospel, so the praise for FASERIP/MSH might be overblown.

As an aside. I know Kiwis don't like him, and RPG people that don't like him do point out rules he gets wrong, or stories that contradict tellings on his blog. But a lot of the early stuff is fun to listen to. It's when he gets a set and gets into his angry grognard era that he falls off.

 

[AnOminous]

If I was Azathoth I'd be suing you for overtime before lifting a tentacle for the 3rd goddamn time.

But it's so good at entirely destroying the world, and even all of reality just by waking up. There's a reason you want it to be a blind idiot god, and ASLEEP. Because if it wakes up, you are in DEEP SHIT.

 

[demicolon]

I know Kiwis don't like him

His thread is a Groundhog Day of "do you think he's an alcoholic/ackshually retarded or just pretending/lol look at this Twitter pityposting faggot ", last time we had a serious discussion was... 2 years ago or so? Don't think there's anyone there who seriously hate him, at worst we nitpick his GMing pedigree.

There's a reason you want it to be a blind idiot god

Attached is an official suit against you for defamation of Mr. Azathoth, represented by the best Mi-Go lawyer w' 456 years of experience in this part of the galaxy (Early Life? What Early Life? I've redacted that part because I'm Azathoth, bitch). We'll see each other in the Minnesota circuit, Mr. Goodman.
If you're in a dire need of counsel, being a disbarred lawyer et al., may I refer you to a certain defamation legal expert: Mr. Nicholas Robert Rekieta? Free of charge, actually I'll pay for all the cost of him representing you. You're welcome.

Regards,
Azathoth, Supreme Deity, Lord of All Things, Ruler of Outer Gods, Daemon-Sultan, King of Kourt, Loving Father and Hot Sauce Entrepreneur.

(For real: the second time your players pulled this Call Azathoth crap you should DM them something like an Ace Attorney or Kafka's Trial campaign where they're try to not lose all SAN in court while being unironically sued by Azathoth. /tg/ storytime material)

 

[p1138]

As an aside. I know Kiwis don't like him, and RPG people that don't like him do point out rules he gets wrong, or stories that contradict tellings on his blog. But a lot of the early stuff is fun to listen to. It's when he gets a set and gets into his angry grognard era that he falls off.

It's not contradicting his blog or getting the occasional rule wrong. It's that if you watch all of his counter monkey shit read his blog, and have enough of your own experience, he's "that guy". The guy that shits up the table for everyone else, causes the DM unnecessary trouble, makes an ass of himself in public, gets booted from his gaming groups, and so on. He actually does get quite a few things right in his counter monkey videos, he's also just an asshole no one wants to play with.

He's also been on a sad boy pity binge on bluesky for the past few days as noted in his thread because he's finally realized he's been a useless NEET for a decade but still won't do anything about it.

 

[Adamska]

As an aside. I know Kiwis don't like him, and RPG people that don't like him do point out rules he gets wrong, or stories that contradict tellings on his blog

Spoony's takes on an RPG are not necessarily wrong. For example, he was pretty much spot on when it came to chems and how broken they were in cyberpunk games. He also has some decent advice against LARPs and how to handle metagaming sometimes.

The problems.come about when you have experience and see how he acts as a player versus how he acts as a GM. Because as a player it's pretty clear he is an actual disruption at the table. Feeds a guy rotten pizza just for fun. Intentionally goes against the own rule set that he hammered into his players for the first time. Tried to sabotage and ruin an entire larp for at least a dozen other people because he could not be bothered to talk with them about what the setting was like.

Then you can easily see how often he tends to sabotage campaigns by his own actions. The couple of live streams where he showed off how he played kind of hint at that.

For real: the second time your players pulled this Call Azathoth crap you should DM them something like an Ace Attorney or Kafka's Trial campaign where they're try to not lose all SAN in court while being unironically sued by Azathoth. /tg/ storytime material)

There's also a lot of other ways you can just end the world besides doing the same thing over and over again.

Some options include the following:

1. Open The gates to Yog-Sothoth
2. Flash the yellow sign on a broadcast or film
3. Awaken Cthulhu
4. Find mystery meteorite and put it in ocean
5. Rile the big space worm inside da earth
6. Free the polyps

There's many other options in just doing the same ritual.

 

[Judge Dredd]

he's "that guy".

Yes. His DM advice makes him sound like a killer DM.

Iirc he had a Channel Awesome campaign called Death Clock, and it fell apart almost immediately. I don't know how as I never watched it.

It's not contradicting his blog or getting the occasional rule wrong.

Edit: Outside of KF, I saw some complaints about rules and lore problems. His Legends of the Five Rings story about "they duel, that's what they do" and him having to know to refuse a gift 5 times or whatever. Supposedly that is all completely wrong. I'd personally blame the DM in that story, but some people got really mad at him for it.

 

[Ghostse]

I think someone mentioned here that a good rule of thumb is "if it's critical to the story, don't require a roll to figure it out." Like, the PCs are in the crafty vizier's chambers looking around, and in one of the drawers is some document detailing the BBEG's plan to subvert the kingdom, critical information for them to plan out their attempt to thwart it. You add an investigation check, and somehow every single PC fails. Guess there wasn't anything untoward going on after all! Oh, oops, here comes the demonic invasion. How could we have seen this coming?

Or you set up a puzzle that they have to solve in order to unlock the door to the final boss of the dungeon. It requires items that are hidden throughout the area, but the players can't find one no matter how hard they look because, again, the dice keep failing them. Guess we're not finishing this dungeon after all!

Now obviously there are ways around that. Maybe you fudge a roll in their favor if it got close enough to the DC. Maybe you improv a way to relay the information to them some other way. Maybe you let the barbarian break the door down. But honestly, it's just easier to avoid that altogether, and like you said, cutting down on rolls helps the game flow smoother.

I also feel like a lot of DMs forget about passive perception/investigation. If someone in the group is naturally perceptive, they should be able to lock in on items of interest quickly and avoid the need to roll altogether.

Point of order:
"if it's critical to the story, don't require a roll to figure it out." would be better phrased "if information is critical to the story or progression, don't require a roll to obtain it but instead to determine the cost of getting that information."
If progression requires the party find a document from the Vizier talking about his demonic cult gathering in the Black Woods, the party should find the document when they search his chambers. However, a roll should be required to figure out what that search cost them.
A bad roll could mean they lost several hours searching. Or maybe it means they are discovered and there are guards waiting for them, or when they show up to the cult meeting the Vizier is expecting them. A good roll means they found it quickly and were out the door before thye were noticed.

If the party is talking to a king to request his aid dealing with the goblin threat, and the party brings enough evidence that it is very clear there a threat, that is a great time to ask for a roll not to determine if they succeed but how greatly they succeed.
(this latter one used to infuriate one of my PF1e grogs to no fucking end, where I'd ask for diplomacy roll and theyd sperg out about how they did this, that, and the other thing and it should need a roll to see if they succeeded; Chill dude, you aren't rolling to see if succeeded you're rolling to see how much you succeeded. Nat Ones are not an automatic failure in this system, rolling a one it just means your result is 1 + your Skill modifier.)