QDDTOT: DM edition

Questions that don't deserve their own thread.

I have a minor disagreement with my group. Some of the players feel that I should be more descriptive of what the NPCs do in combat, make it more flavourfull and shit. However, I feel that by doing so, I'd muddle up combat and slow down the pace to much; I feel that a more to the point description of "the goblin swings at you with his axe", followed by rolling and giving a description of at most 10 words in how he hits or misses is much more clear.

What would you guys do?

Amazing. I got the fucking acronym wrong. As usual: OP a faggot.

Next session, tell them your worries, then try it out. Let your players do the descriptions of the enemy's misses, gives them opportunity to shine and saves you from creative burnout. If everybody - including you - has fun, go on with it. If not, discuss futher.

Sounds like good advice, thanks!

My group had the same issue, but i think honestly the best cause of action is basically: Try it!

Either they will love it, or they will see the same issue as you as combat drags on for way too long.

Or be straight in their descriptions: "The orc swing his axe over his head and into you, X player" *rolls* "He strikes your plate and penetrate your armor dealing" *rolls* "20 damage"

There's no ask a judge thread, so...

MtG question. If my general (in Commander) has Sword of the Animist and Armored Ascension attached to him, when he attacks, will he get the additional +1//+1 from the land that pops out before blockers are declared?

I am soon to run the introductory session for a homebrew of mine. I've never properly run anything before and I'm worried that my first batch of enemies will be either too tedious, too weak, too strong etc..
WAT IS BALANCE, HELP? How do I neatly bullshit trying to balance them if I notice a problem mid-game? Any tips and tricks on statting stuff in general?

What should I do if I have two hardcore furries who joined my game before I knew their power level and now are just ruining my game for me. The other players don't care much or are to beta to make a deal out of it, and I've told then to cut it out and tried to kick them but it just turns into petty bullshit and they won't leave. It's ruining my enthusiasm to run the game and setting cause I have deal with these sperglords.

EZ, don't stay the enemies. They fall over in 3-4 turns.

Why do this to test out your home brew? To test out the PC's ability in action. Some games have infinity billion abilities going off at once, like DnD and FantasyCraft. If it's a chore to keep track of them, doing so for NPCs will be worse

Fudge rolls.

Fudge HP.

Fudge hits and damage.

???

Perfectly balanced encounter every time

Get everyone together and have an intervention. If you and all the players talk to them about how their fetish is ruining your guys' fun then maybe they will appeal to reason
If not, boot them.

I want to have in game the party fight a "boss" then have the big bad drop in and kill it right before they can and have them go right into the next fight.
Any tips on how I can do this without wiping the party? I want it to be challenging but not sure to kill them.
I am a pretty new DM so I am sorry if this is pretty standard.

Anybody have the Naruto D20 pdfs that cost money? I don't see that shit as being worth money.

Cucking the players from the kill can seem like a dick move if you don't do it carefully. what kind of baddie is the bbeg?

Yes, because the land will drop during the "declare attackers" step of the battle phase

What are they doing?

Always underestimate your players. You can always make the encounters more difficult later.

Throw some small probing encounters at them to start with, to see how good their characters are (barring really shit luck or something).

My players don't seem enthusiastic about the game anymore. After every session I try and get some feedback, but they only give me some weak shit like "it was good" and can't elaborate when I press them for details.

What should I do?

>Describe special or important moments, not every standard attack. Crits. Spells. Kills/K.O.s Stance changes. Wounds. Depends on the system.
>Mechanically support high profile moments by either allowing made up bullshit or including NPCs with predefined mechanical bits that do meaningful stuff.
>Appeal to the senses. Sounds, sights, smells, pain, whatever. Have enemies roar, snarl, wince, bleed. It's a fight.
>Use better words, not more of them. And don't repeat. Make a list of ten or fifteen neat things to rattle off when you're coming up dry on the fly.

I didn't think about that. Maybe I should just forego the first fight and drop it in before they start that fight.
So they are on a basic rescue quest for a village boy who has been taken by bandits. They have made an extremely temp lair in a cave. The idea I had was throughout the cave there will be signs of jelly/slimes whatever. Then in the end when they come to the leader with the child they fight him and a Black Pudding falls down on him for a little twist.
Maybe I could have them kill the bandit and have the Black Pudding go after the corpse while they free the kid?
Please, feel free to point out flaws with this, I don't want to murder them or kill the fun.

All my 'female' players eventually end up wanting to ERP with me. This has happened 4/4 times in the last year.

Why? Does this happen to anyone else?

My bad, I misread your op a bit and assumed you wanted the big bad to kill the bandit then waltz away, not fight them immediately.

It might be interesting if you play as if the pudding is hunting/stalking them. Pudding might not be sentient creatures but they're still predators. Have them notice a drop of ooze from the ceiling now and again, small cracks in the stone, have them occasional hear sloshing from no discernible source. Have signs of the bandits being paranoid about the ooze (assuming they've encountered it before). Maybe have the bandit leader behind a near-airtight door and freak out when they open the door because they "let 'it' in". Then have it slink its way up behind them. Depending o how dramatic you want it to be maybe the bandit leader could be offering the kid to the ooze wen the players arrive.

Definitely lots of ways to play it.

That could be fun! I'll think about it, thanks!

Either you're hot, they're horny sluts or you look like you'd be up for some erp.

Is it in person? Around a tabletop?
If so that's even more awkward.

"Guys, i know this is just a hobby, but I put a lot of work into this shit, so it would br awesome if you could give me some honest feedback beyond 'it was good', because I want to make this a good time for all of us. I mean, we're all adults and have to cancel more important stuff for this, so let's make this game as good as possible, right? "

How do I stop worrying about my GMing? I'm anxious of being too railroady, about everyone getting as much attention/time/spotlight, if the game is interesting, am I enforcig too much/not enough crunch here and so on.
Right now I'm just "going with it", try not to repeat mistakes, being consistent and put game flow as a priority

No, online. Hence why I put female in quotes, they could just be dudes.

I'm just a normal GM, running my game as best I can.

That's unfortunate.
Sorry to hear that user.

I know, right?

I want to be as fair and impartial as I can, and that sort of thing is simply unprofessional.

If I spend Friday night describing in explicit, graphic detail how the orcs roughly have their way with her elfin body, and then saturday on game night the thief gets killed and her mage survives, people might think that those two events are related, and I simply can't have that.

I will not jeopardize my reputation as a GM over something like that.

How do you get around it? Do you sidestep it icly or oocly?

You're doing it right.

I explain that while I am flattered by their intentions, I have a strict policy for not getting involved in such things with my players, and that I value them too much as a roleplayer to jeopardize what we already have.

Our campaign was a short one to get the players into the feel for playing (doing another for some other players) before doing an actual, much longer campaign.

The first campaign is supposed to end with the party killing this orc they've heard about for the past six weeks of the campaign, but right now they have to bust a party member out of prison and the lawful good guy wants to get them arrested instead.

How should I handle it? If they all get arrested as well, the campaign will end with them rotting away in prison. Is that okay or should I try to prevent this?

The players are wrong. Simple descriptions are best. The real issue is that your combat is boring, and the time is spent on numbers just being swung back and forth that the players are bored enough to think that your lack of descriptions are the issue.

Combat should be lightning fast and meaningful, employing 1 or 2 gimmicks. Round 1: DM- "You strike the jackal and your blade turns to the side, the jackal's hide unmarked."
player 1- "Oh shit I traded away my silver dagger"
player 2- "Here, I have one here!"
round 2: DM- "You do your best to lob the dagger across the balcony to Laios, and he catches it nimbly"
Player 1- "I shove the dagger into its throat!"
"Indeed you do, and with a gurgle the werejackal dies"

Something like that. 3 to 5 rounds.

Lad, if you're worried about that shit, you probably aren't that bad

Practise. It's all about practise.

That said, how I've done it in the past is rolling all the mechanics for the round, and then spending the next round of mechanics writing out a short description of how the battle is going. Repeat until the battle is over.

No prison's inescapable.

True, but the campaign DOES need to end soon since I'm going back to university and won't have time to play anymore. Maybe I'll have the NPC who they got a favor from get them pardoned.