Disappointment in RPGs?

>sort of when Mjolinir can be lifted by other people.

That's explicitly allowed in the rules under which the work of fiction functions, assuming you're talking about Marvel comics.

Also what's to stop me from shattering the stone around Excalibur?

>The thing about it is, it's not that I'm trying to be harsh. It's that no matter what his stats said, he couldn't convince me that they were hitting it off

You described the player as being awkward and uncharismatic in real life, right? What makes you think he will ever meet an NPC he can pull off the romance?

This isn't me saying what you did is wrong, mind. I'm just saying he's going to be in for an entire campaign of cockblocking if you're going off him convincing you.

Excalibur was not the sword in the stone, the sword in the stone was placed there by Merlin as a test for Arthur when he grew up.

Excalibur was a Fairy sword made by the Lady of the Lake.

I dunno, I assume the rock was invincible too.

But fiction is full of people doing stuff that should be impossible, when in-game the impossible is in fact impossible. Sort of like Exalted, which is supposedly all-about shonen anime shenigans, but is actually a rigidly deterministic universe.

As an example, there are three levels of martial arts: Terrestial, Celestial and Sidereal. Sidereal martial arts are the most powerful, but Terrestrial Exalted cannot learn them. One Terrestrial, a martial-arts grandmaster, has spent centuries refining himself to attempt to learn a Sidereal style. He's a true prodigy and probably the best martial artist of his entire archetype.

But if he tries, he'll explode. The authors actually say "No, it's not possible. He'll die and he'll destroy most of the island with him if he attempts it. If you want to let him do it, be advised that breaks the game completely."

Exactly, he's still got a good 3/4 levels before he should look for a girl to stick it in.

You're not the hero until you're level 9.

>Also what's to stop me from shattering the stone around Excalibur?
It wasn't the rock holding the sword in place.

Man, I know, but he was really sweaty and creepy about it. You know what I'm talking about. Like, it was exactly as awkward and uncomfortable as you'd expect.

I mean, I have to suspend my disbelief to pretend the players are heroic adventurers already. There's a limit to how far I can go.

It's a common misconception

Arthurian lore autist here, the rock was not invulnerable but it *was* placed in the middle of a bustling city that was very invested in keeping the sword ritual unmolested.

You could probably get a couple good hits in with a maul before the guard or a knight stopped you.

>read walloftext
Haha, well played an...

>That gets me rock hard.
mfw

Laughed and baited, 10/10

>It's that no matter what his stats said, he couldn't convince me that they were hitting it off.
I too, insist my players perfectly mimic what their character abilities are.

Just the other day one of my players attempted to stab an Orc, and I said "Let me go get my training weapons and you try to stab me."

And when the fat ass 300 pound loser couldn't swing the sword hard enough to keep me from blocking it, I told him his attack missed. I don't care that he critted, if you can't convince me your character actually hit, it doesn't matter what you roll.

>elftits
That's a demon, though.

He invested character resources in playing a specific archetype.

Do you require the guy playing the 18-strength fighter to bench press for you before he kicks in a door?

Yeah I hear you, awkward that bad can be fixed but you're not there to be his psychologist.

My advice? If he's a good person that just wants a waifu I'd throw a nymph his way, someone regal and experienced that does most of the talking and pushes him out to do quests and deeds in her name, and when the metaphorical credits roll he goes back to wed her.

He gets a hot fairy wife, you don't have to reciprocate his spaghetti, you've just given him added motivation and you a new NPC, everyone wins.

A semen demon~

Anons, he's not saying the character had bad stats.

He's saying the player, while role playing his interest in the priestess, was godawful creepy about it. Stuttering and being bad with words is one thing and very excusable, but it sounds like he was straight up making the DM uncomfortable.

you make it sound like there are non semen demons

So basically a case of a coherent world being overwritten by LOLMAGIC just because of railroading

Oh look, the user who gets triggered by Houtengeki drawing elves.

But if the character has good stats, shouldn't it have succeeded?

Of course not. I've never thwarted his attempts to negotiate better deals for the party, to get enemies to stand down and so on.

It's just that this was different in that it's a different kind of interaction. It's a more personal thing, to boot. Either that, or I just have absurdly high standards. I've run romance-heavy games before, and I usually drop the romance like a hot potato if the PC can't handle it in a mature way.

It's like one time when the party rescued a princess (not the same game) and it ended in a shouting match. Why? Because the party's feminist (Not used as a slur, she was genuinely a feminist) wanted the princess to learn how to manipulate people and rule the kingdom from the shadows.

The princess, who didn't care for any of this, just went:

> "I have peasants to do things for me."

That lead to a half-hour argument.

I know he's not saying the character had bad stats, idiot.

I'm pointing out the hilariously stupid shit that bad DMs do when they decided that roleplay should trump character stats in social encounters, insisting that it doesn't matter if the character is built as a face, if he can't talk well then he can never convince anyone of anything.

Which is stupid dogshit, and DMs who do it should go bite the fucking curb. RPGs are often about wish fulfillment, and players like to play and do characters that do things they can't do themselves. A guy who isn't a smooth talker might decide to play one who is, and he shouldn't be fucking punished for it because the DM randomly decides that the character can only do shit the player can do.

Fuck off with that shit, asshole. If you want to insist that rolls to diplomacy don't matter, then I'm going to insist we actually act out combat encounters, stats be damned.

If the DM gets uncomfortable, he should either discuss it OOC or just shut things off. The NPC could've just made it clear she wasn't interested. If the player still insisted on hitting on her, option 1 is the way to go.

>don't draw excalibur from the stone
>wield it as a hammer with the stone being the head insyead

...

So what you're telling me is that he can only player his character the way he wants when you're ok with it, and any other time you're going to tell him he's a fag and should eat shit.

Only you aren't, you're going to be all fucking clever and coy about it and lead him on like a stupid shithead, then fuck him over at a later date.

Why should she have? She was relying on these assholes for protection. Stringing them along would make sense. If one guy clearly wants to fuck her, he'd be more inclined to protect her.

No? Merlin put the sword in there with every lord in England watching, they heard the magical prerequisites to pull it out and fully trusted Merlin as the greatest wise man (Cambrian) and sorcerer in Britain.

Nobody was going to shatter the rock because that would ruin the authority the sword wielded.

Well, if being manipulative like that was part of her character, or if the PCs didn't have a reputation for reliable, trustworthy professionalism, then I guess that could be sensible.

>The NPC could've just made it clear she wasn't interested.
We're confusing two things here.
Female NPC being flirty / leading PC on despite not being actually interested is perfectly understandable.
Tying success of PC action to properties of the player instead of PC's attributes is principally wrong unless you're LARPing.

Romance is a completely different beast than rolling diplomacy for negotiations, it requires legitimate effort on the part of the one trying to woo the woman that goes beyond mere rolls.

Dude, this was seriously uncomfortable. Being good at negotiating doesn't mean that you'll automatically hit it off with a woman.

Besides, she already had a fiancee. She wasn't about to put out for someone with nothing to offer, at any rate. I mean, maybe she'd have thought about it if he was really convincing, but he wasn't.

Why don't you just play a fucking no rules system if you're not going to use the rules?

>Romance
>requires legitimate effort on the part of the one trying to woo the woman

Then fucking tell him he's being creepy. Don't be a stupid asshole.

Read the thread, friend. The DM used the player's rolls for diplomacy plenty of times before. The only reason this failed so miserably is because romance is not and should never be something decided by a couple of dice rolls, that's something you should play out with the DM and it turns out the player was terrible at it.

>she leads the guy on and reciprocates
>dude I wasn't trying to do anything haha it was all the guy being creepy
>does anyone else get rock hard deliberately crushing my players like this haha

All from you, OP.
You couls have just had her say "Are you hitting on me? I've got a fiance, thank you"

Did she, like, say "I have a fiancee" at any point?

you expect too much by neckbeards

I also do this. When the rogues try to pick locks, I lock them outside and wait for them to pick it. If they can't in 10 minutes, they fail the check...I don't have friends anymore

No, because it was fun stringing him along.

This girl was going to be stuck in an arranged marriage for the rest of her life. This was probably the most excitement she ever had, until it stopped being fun.

I mean, it's not like she really owed him anything.

user, you're being unreasonable here. Just because you can roll for conversation does not mean every conversation should have a roll.

There is rollplay and role-play, this was roleplay.

Not necessarily. It doesn't sound like there was any "lol-I-roll-to-seduce" shenanigans going on, and the player was just flirting in character and being weird about it. And honestly, even if there was a roll, Diplomacy isn't mind control, and players need to stop acting like it is.

i'm hoping the player lets the fiance know that his girl was trying to get side action before he showed up.
and since this isn't seduction the PC can use his diplomacy skills to convince him

You best roleplay your combat encounters as well.

That's an extremely childish way to get a bit of petty revenge, don't you think? A little flirting never hurt anyone, especially if you know you'll never see them again.

This is literally a case of the player should just accept she's gone and aim for someone else.

I have literally never had problems with talking to players about stuff like this. I have never had problems with the GM or other players pointing out flaws with the way I play, either. At any rate, talking about shit like grown-ups should at least be tried.

Okay, so did you at least ask the player to roll...Sense Motive or whatever the relevant skill is when the girl started apparently reciprocating?

Would he even believe him? The girl would just go "Ugh, you mean that creepy guy? No, he's just a creep with ideas above his station."

This happened in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

But user, talking to people to make the game enjoyable for all parties is what ADULTS do, not fags like op!

Why? It's just a casual conversation.

That's as absurd as insisting the barbarian should roll diplomacy every time he talks to an NPC.

Then why insist that roleplaying social interactions should be affected by the players ability to talk?

You're selectively saying that stats shouldn't matter.

Okay. Are you incapable of reading people's expressions, body language and tone of voice if it's just a casual conversation? Do you not, like, detect irony, or scorn, or attempts at appearing calm when someone is actually upset, if you aren't specifically on the lookout for them? Should the character be blind to non-verbal cues?

>flirting
>just casual conversation
Right, thanks for pointing this out. I keep forgetting about things that happen in mixed collective.

>letting a guy know his girl is unfaithful
>childish

Yeah, but she was never serious about the other dude. It's like how the girl you're orbiting never intends to fuck you.

Yeah. Romance is different.
For exemple, some people you absolutely can't stand and see as awful creep can have girlfriends, and you just don't know why.

Judging persuasion attempts and all that without roll is bad, because you never know what can persuade someone and every NPC will be like you, but doing so for romance is way worse, because people can be attracted by very differrent things than you.

If you already planned that she was with someone, that's alright. But you sound like every fucking time this PC will try to talk to a women, he's gonna get dropped hard and laughed at.

That's not nice, or fun.

>Yo sir knight, your fiancée said I have big, strong arms and soft wavy hair.
>She's clearly an unfaithful harlot, I'm sorry.

Except women lie all the time. If he'd been a dashing rogue, she might have been romanced. He wasn't, so she went with Plan A anyway and just wrote him off.

What? What is this bullshit?

First of all, big scoop, men lie a lot too. Second, what is the bulshit you're spouting with the dashing rogue? Not every women wants a dashing rogue, that's what I'm telling you.

And you don't seem to have even read what I was saying. Go back to it.

And the character has abilities that could have forewarned him to her deception, since this is apparently D&D.

Which he was not given the opportunity to use, because the DM thought he was being funny, instead of a shit.

user I'm not the OP, but I do agree that if he's just a very creepy and awkward person than he's going to remain single for the rest of the campaign, and that's just not nice.

OP just needs to figure out a way he can find a girl that either does the romancing for him, or gets the player flirting proper (it can happen, I've seen it personally from otherwise awkward spergs.) Giving him a pity fuck based on rolls is not the way to do it, the DM has to roleplay too, and it would just be stilted and bad for both of them if he despises the experience.

>side action
>implying she didn't feign reciprocation out of both pity and fear for her own safety if she told him to fuck off when she wouldn't be safe otherwise
Seriously, this would be that situation where the PC duals the fiancé for "the Lady's hand and my honor" and gets his ass thoroughly kicked

>PC duals the fiancé for "the Lady's hand and my honor"
Duels. Also PC can live through loss of honor. Or the other honor.

>> PC grabs sword from priestess, draws it.
Shouldn't he and everyone in this thread be concerned about that?

"Charisma" should exclusively apply to physical appearance, all negotiation, bluffs, etc should simply be based on roleplaying quality.

Hilarious

And even then, not every campaign need romance.
If you can't deal with it correctly, just say "no romance in my game" and you're set.

He can perfectly have a shy girl who like awkards dudes, or a dominant girl who seduce him aggressively. It's not unrealistic by any means.

>magical realm
Stop throwing around buzzwords at every opportunity.

It's not like he wasn't told what would happen. He just wanted to be an anime MC.

I'm okay with romance, it's just that this guy is really bad at it. Another dude has a girl who really wants to fuck him, because he's actually selling the relationship very well.

OR, if for some reason the GM didn't make him a few levels higher than the PC, and the PC kills the guy through luck, then something like this happens:
>fiancé dies at the hands of this now fedora level creep
>priestess is hysterically crying and holding her dead betrothed
>PC is confused as to why she won't fling herself into his arms
>she freaks the fuck out if he even tries to touch her
>he doesn't grasp why someone would still reject him after killing her probably childhood sweetheart
From here it diverges into either: priestess murder, rape, or awkward apology since it finally clicks that they did something unforgivably wrong

Exactly, this was the learning experience OP needed to design a proper waifu for this guy, or just not give him a waifu at all.

Don't be stupid. No-one automatically gets a waifu, or deserves a love interest just by being in the party. You have to work at it.

>Another dude has a girl who really wants to fuck him

Mind giving us a greentext on that relationship and how he's selling it? Would be nice to have an example of "doing it right" after this thread of "doing it wrong."

He expected the GM to make things fun, not make him feel like a small idiot.

Because this is a game for having fun, remember? The GM could have just said "this isn't fun, dude, it's not what I came here to GM " but instead played along, and pulled out the rug from under the player just at the worst bit

Sorry, I'm from /pfg/, where "everyone gets a lover" is assumed.

A DM can design NPCs that mesh well with a player, but custom-building a girl feels sleazy. A PC falling in love with some random NPC you built is always a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Thanks for catching that, man. I screw stuff up from time to time by typing the wrong word, and auto complete doesn't help in that regard.
Honestly though, there are too many people who don't realize that they're being sperglords, and will challenge anyone for a "sleight on their honor"

Geez, it's not like she left him at the altar, it sounds like they spent a session or two having casual small-talk before moving on with the campaign. It should sting, but shouldn't be a defining moment of DM dickery.

>I'm okay with romance, if my players exactly do what I expect of romance
>You have to work at it, by doing exactly what I want

That's not good romance, or good gming tor that matters.

You don't seem to grasp that not everyone have the same expectations about romance, and not every girls and guys can be wooed the same way by the same people.

Yes, the biggest PUA you know can be ridiculed by a girl who prefer shy nerds. It does happens in life.

If you can't bring yourself to give your NPC a variety of interests and not the same point of view on romance than you, then don't do romance.

He does sounds like he will do that to that player every time just because he doesn't like how he flirt.

I'd say trying to act like a protagonist to get the girl, drawing a weapon he had no real hope of being able to use as a deus ex machina in "I'm the most important character" mentality qualifies as venturing into a type of magical realm. His character flew too high and came crashing down because of that, followed by a kick in the ribs from the DM

The DM isn't good, case closed?

Well, isnt the point to tell the gm what he did wrong so he can correct himself?
Or maybe you're just trying to shut down the dicussion by saying "well, you said he isn't good, so stop talking" or some shit, I don't know

I would be more accepting of that if not for OP's comment of the end
>You know, tease that it could l-lead t-to l-lewds, then having the girl be disgusted by the thought or just not interested. That gets me rock hard.

That's the GM pushing his NTR fetish on the players.

Sure.

> Party is on the trail of a multi-part artifact, a crest split into multiple pieces.
> Party heads to a ball, where the next piece will be displayed.
> Urban Ranger is absolutely certain that someone will attempt to steal it, and warns the party to be ready.
> Rogue notices that several members of a rival adventuring company are amid the crowd, disguised. Party moves to shadow them.
> Spot check reveals that at least one of them has concealed weapons. The rival party's leader, a sorceress, is about to signal the distraction.
> Paladin publicly approaches the sorceress, asks her to dance. She's surprised, but she can't refuse without making a scene.
> The two of them waltz. Paladin manages a decent roll on skill check.
> While dancing, he informs her that he knows they're going to make a move and try to steal the artifact.
> Sorceress asks what he's going to do with her.
> Paladin tells her that no crime has been committed, yet. If they leave now, he'll call it even.
> Sorceress asks what happens if she goes ahead anyway.
> Paladin says that he'll be disappointed in her, because he knows that she's a far better person than she pretends to be.
> After the dance, the sorceress laughs and goes "It's my loss, then."
> She's approached by some of the guards, who are beginning to wonder if her invitation is forged. (It is.)
> The Paladin introduces her as his guest, and basically tells them "She's with me, it's okay. You have my word she'll behave."

It was remarkably smooth. They manage to avoid having the artifact stolen AND avoid turning the night into a running fight. After the ball was over, the sorceress (who always aspired to be a noble, and was flattered over being treated like one) kissed the Paladin on the cheek and more-or-less told him "Call me."

I gave the party XP for the encounter even though there was no fight.

As long as the DM doesn't do something like ridicule the player when they buy a shag from a prostitute
>"when he drops his breeches, the whore kneeling in front of him cannot help but collapse into a fit of laughter, since she's seen bigger dicks on the babes born of her fellow colleagues. She proceeds to give his money back and shoo him out of her room

Okay, that's good.

I just mean that this is what we're establishing. He isn't good, that's the fact of right now. Now we tell him what he could do better.