>Friends have never played D&D before, ask me to DM >Help them roll characters, try running them through a few modules >They enjoy it, but I get bored and eventually stop because they always want to play Chaotic Stupid >Run a few games of Paranoia, which they don't like because "the stakes aren't as high" >About a year later, they ask me to write a campaign for them, tell them I will as long as they tone down the PvP and burning down every village they find >20 hours of writing >Another 10 of map making and other misc. shit >Start campaign last night, we play 6 hours and they make it through 2 rooms of a 35 room dungeon because they are going full Chaotic Stupid again >Any attempts to put them back on the rails instantly failed >MFW
Just...god damn it. I'm about to have a conversation with the primary cause of the Chaotic Stupid. I'm going to give them one more session and then I'm fucking done.
Wasted a fucking day of my life creating a setting they don't give a shit about and then have to baby sit them because they want to PvP, but get mad if their special snowflake gets killed or they have to wait for someone to roll a new character.
Parker Hernandez
Your player's behavior probably stems from a lack of fun in other aspects of your game.
Lincoln Bailey
Just stop playing nigga, like, close your books.
>GM must do whatever the players want and suck their dick under the table during the smoke breaks like a good bitch.
Benjamin Jackson
>20 hours of writing First mistake. >Another 10 of map making and other misc. shit Second mistake.
No plan survives contact with the enemy. And everyone at the table, save for yourself, is an enemy to your plan. Never write campaigns. Never write adventures.
Improvise.
Or play Tenra Bansho Zero.
Jace Collins
>smoke breaks
I do not tolerate cancer at my table.
Zachary Ramirez
>I know exactly what my friends want but I willingly decide to spend hours writing something that they don't, and get mad when they act exactly how I expect them to act
It's not about this. It's about having a good fit and/or compromise.
A storyteller DM simply isn't going to have fun DMing a game for a bunch of murderhobo dice-monkeys. And a complex-mechanic obsessed DM isn't going to have fun with a bunch of free form roleplay faggots who think the "feel" of the scene should determine the outcome of events rather than their stats.
You can either accommodate the tastes of your players, or you can get rid of the players and DM for another group.
It's basically like some of your friends saying "Yo user, we really want to come over to your house for a barbecue and eat hamburgers. You cool?"
And then you're like "Sure thing, senpai."
Then you spend 20 hours hitting up all the fish markets and you make some shrimp and oyster paella and when they show up, you're like "HERE YOU GO FAGGOTS, EAT THE SEAFOOD".
And when they don't like it, you get angry at them because they're ungrateful.
Which, is true, it's ungrateful, but they also literally didn't ask for that. If you don't want to run the kind of games they don't want to play, just tell them.
I frankly would have a blast with these guys as a DM, because I'm totally fine with turning my brain off and running the medieval equivalent to Grand Theft Auto with PCs.
Samuel Collins
Sounds like these players just aren't for you. You want a reasonably serious player-driven story, and they just want to fuck around and punch orcs in the dick and burn down every building they enter.
It's nobody's fault, really, they just don't match your GMing style, and you shouldn't feel obligated to change everything just for them, especially if that style of game is not fun for you.
Chaotic Stupid That Guy spotted.
Wyatt Brown
Yeah this.
OP, if you ever plan to run for them again, start with as little prep as possible and make sure it's very easy to hunt down a band of murderous psychopaths.
And forget about rails, that's bad in any game.
Levi Gomez
>And forget about rails, that's bad in any game.
Not true, at all. I have a playground that literally stands around scratching their heads and looking awkwardly across the table at each other unless they're nailed right onto the fucking railroads. They love playing, they love rolling dice and acting out the scenes, but unless an NPC or a macguffin or a literal divine intervention from a God opens the skies and puts the plothook right into their open mouths, they're hopeless.
What works = good What doesn't work = bad
All there is to it, imo.
Julian Morgan
Just play VIOLENCE!
Anthony Nelson
I could believe that if this wasn't literally the first two rooms of the campaign. There were no "other aspects of the game" yet.
It's what I'm probably going to do next time. As much as I like these guys, I've basically made it clear that if they don't want to work together, we're not going to play D&D anymore.
Yeah, in hindsight it was a mistake. but they had said that they wanted a real campaign, so I had decided to give that to them. The improvised stuff was what I had been doing previously, but I stopped because it was boring as fuck for me.
>>I know exactly what my friends want but I willingly decide to spend hours writing something that they don't, and get mad when they act exactly how I expect them to act
Eh, the issue is that they say that they want one thing, but then they actually do something else. Also, when I actually let them have what they try to play, they don't like it.
Basically, they want to kill the other PCs, but they don't want their character to be at risk. If their character dies as a result of PvP, they whine and cry about it.
Basically, they want to play a single player video game where everyone else is an NPC, but they never want to be the NPC.
Evan Fisher
Underrated post
Hudson Walker
Interesting, I'll have to give this a read through. I had been running Paranoia with them, because it basically caters to their exact play style (fuck up all the other players for arbitrary reasons), but they said they don't like it because death doesn't feel like it has consequences.
((Ignoring the fact that they don't like the consequences of death when it happens to them, just when it happens to the other players))
Hudson Sanders
He might be talking about weed user, you don't know
Carson Barnes
>weed smoke is magical smoke that doesn't cause cancer
in b4 muh vaporizers
Levi Lee
Although you do have a point technically, you can't possibly puff enough weed to be legitimately worried about lung cancer.
Easton Brooks
c Only spend ½ an hour to an hour planning a session. Even the first session.
More than that, and you're wasting detail.
Josiah Clark
well But vaporizers.
Caleb Hernandez
Dude, use published modules. Why the fuck would you not.
I bet your group would love Out of the Abyss for 5e, just force them to have a backup character at all times.
Christopher Roberts
That reeaaalllly depends on what your dealer is cutting it with. People will cut shit in that is ludicrously carcinogenic when inhaled after burning for different effects and because they're fucking stupid.
Connor Reyes
I wouldn't DM for a group that acts that way. RPGs aren't just another place for people to be douchebags to eachother and if that's all they do with it then fuck 'em.
Not everyone has the disposition for a role playing game. Some people should be left out.
Noah Martin
I never spend more than half an hour planning a session itself, but I usually spend between 50 and 70 hours on worldbuilding and mapmaking before a campaign starts so I'm totally prepared no matter where the players go.
Jace Smith
Sounds like you are not giving them the right incentives (if any) to press on.
I run for about 8 people a night on average, max of about 12.
It gets off point and off script constantly. Everyone wants to be the over the top, funny, leader guy.
The trick is making them care about what they are doing, why they are doing it etc etc.
And if they still act up, fucking murder them for it. I'm not talking in a shitty way, like, oh you walked down a hallway haflcocked without looking at your surroundings - BOOM - trap, roll saving throw, whats that? You failed, there goes you're head cunt, now go to the corner of shame and roll a new character, the rest of you, pay attention and play.
Pic related, its me, that being said though, I have to command respect among so many players.
Nicholas Sullivan
you sound like a real tough guy
Easton Carter
Spend time building the world not the game
Kevin Wood
>Basically, they want to play a single player video game where everyone else is an NPC, but they never want to be the NPC. Then tell their asses to get the fuck back to skyrim, because that's not how TTRPGs work. That you let them PvP at all and didn't immediately tell them the session is over is sad.
Gabriel Morris
Just run a randomly generated campaign, literally just make shit up as you go with only a few actual plot lines and stuff
Luis Garcia
i dont know where you live where people "cut" weed but holy shit nobody does that dude.
Wyatt Green
Dealers throw in addictive shit all the time
Noah Scott
have you ever (ever) {ever} smoked weed?
Nobody I know has ever encountered something like that, and the reason is is that you fucking lose money off it. Its a retarded thing to do because you make your money off repeat customers, and when you keep scamming people by cutting your product people are just going to switch to another dealer, not to mention it would be MORE expensive to cut weed with ANY drug unless its research chemicals you bought online. And you wouldn't do that because of what I already listed. source: used to deal weed
Nolan Ortiz
This user is correct. The other guy is trolling you though, stop biting.
Dominic Jackson
Ok I feel like I'm missing the finer details of this story, but from what you've described there's one detail I feel like you shouldn't just glance over.
Why in two hells are you throwing them into a 35 room dungeon in the very first session? How can you honestly expect any character of sound mind to immediately have the motivation to run into a meticulously planned out vault of death, let alone one the size of 2-3 mansions? Being chaotic stupid is one thing, but you also can't expect them to apply some weird videogame logic of "follow the trail of baddies to get to the fun."
I'll admit I personally can't stand the idea of dungeons for the sake of dungeons unless they house a fully disclosed and elaborated on mega-evil that justifies that level of paranoid trap-laying and meticulous architecture that would be involved in making a decrepit and spooky lair (not to mention dungeons give no agency to the player and no room for tactics at all, which makes it quickly un-fun unless they really want to get to the end). If you're going to play with a group that you know well at least make an adventure tailored around their tastes. In this case I feel like you should've gone for a more open questing environment: mercenaries is an easy one, but a pirate or viking campaign adds a particularly good flavour to the unscrupulous type you're describing. Just don't keep slapping together dank, uninviting, pitch-black caverns and then get frustrated when your players miraculously don't want to throw away their characters for the possible notion of untold treasures.
Ayden Davis
clouded by bait
Isaac Brooks
>20 hours of writing >Another 10 of map making and other misc. shit
There's your problem m8. Overplanning is a rookie mistake. Work on your improv skills, and have a backlog of mutable and refluffable encounters to throw at a party regardless of how they chose to play. It takes much less than 30 hours, and it allows a certain degree of railroading certainty without feeling like railroading to the players.