So Veeky Forums am I a dick?

Don't, that guy's a fucking shithead and doesn't serve a spot in your group.

I mean I really don't feel good about it either. He's a good friend of mine but he just becomes an ass wipe when he plays his bard.

He said he'd come back and apologize if he got to play some home brew bullshit called a zelam warrior.

I mean it was the character sheets I printed out with my printer so yeah.

This makes me feel a lot better over the whole ordeal.

You aren't a dick. You probably could have handled the lead up better, but you handled that event just fine.
Bardo McNubface sure sounds like one though.

There were better ways to handle his antics.
It's important to remember Schrodinger's Details: Elements of the setting can be freely changed around and don't exist until you dictate them to the players.
>like drinking random potions,
Beneficial potions. If they were going to be poison, just deduct their value from the next loot payout.
>giving him their loot,
Unless it's something they've had for a while... surprise, surprise! It was cursed.
>walking into traps
Unless we're talking super obvious (uncovered spike pits), there was actually no trap.
Maybe even make super obvious shit illusions "hidden" passageways to rooms you were planning on leaving out in the open.

Really though the real problem here (besides the board's mentality) is
>rolled several low rolls and a few ones against to get to do said dumb shit.
How many aneurysms did it take before you decided to let players roll social skills against each other?
Seriously though, don't do that. Social skills against NPCs is janky enough in D&D. No sense in letting twits rob player agency too.

He'd come back and apologize, not because he was out of line, but because of the possibility that you'd let him play some bullshit homebrew?

Fuck him.

>board's mentality
*bard's

>He said he'd come back and apologize if he got to play some home brew bullshit called a zelam warrior.
Sounds like all the wants out of the game is a ground to fuck about and be a dick.

What's the class anyway? google ain't got it.

Then your parents did an alright job raising you, but could have done better. They taught you to be aware that you can be a dick, but forgot that sometimes other people are worse and feet have to be put down.

Unless, of course, you're purposely misconstrueing events to hide that you were actually a dick. Or none of this happened and you're lying on the Internet. In which case (you).

Sorry spelled it wrong. It's either Xilan or Xilam, wiki spells it both ways. They're basically Aztecs.

I mean I'm pretty worked up about the whole ordeal and I feel like such an asshole for kicking my friend. I dont see a point in misconstruing the event but I can see where you're coming from.

I just want to be a good dm for my guys, I just want to tell this adventure I've made, a world I've crafted and let them have fun in it. But man its hard when Steve is just going nuts saying I'm doing this cause I'm against him and dont want him to play his character.

Hopefully I made sense, if not I apologize.

He was way out of line. But seriously, don't let players roll for persuasion against other players. If the game had social combat mechanics like Exalted, I would allow it. But not in D&D, ab-so-fucking-lutely not.

That is, with PvP, one of the bigges "no-no"s out there, OP

If your friends are normal-ish people they'll understand. As it is, the best you're gonna get here is pats on the back from faceless anons telling you you did okay. Which I think you did, all things considered.

Still its a lot off my chest to hear strangers who could give two fucks about me saying I'm not a dick.

I still feel like a total dick.

I mean rolling for insight, deception, and persuasion were how I was taught to DM back in 3.5 so I don't know anything else.

>Today he got mad because I imposed disadvantage on him against a new PC whom he already rolled several low rolls and a few ones against to get to do said dumb shit.

No, no, no, no, no. YOU DO NOT ALLOW PCS TO USE SOCIAL SKILLS ON OTHER PCS, IDIOT!

The only acceptable social rolls between players are Bluff vs Insight and even then the player decides if their character believes the bluffer or not. Persuasion of a character trying to get another character to do something is not acceptable.

It's good that you feel like a dick because it's a shit gm move to rule that persuasion is like mind control and let the bard control the characters of the other players, robbing them of their agency.

>rolling between PCs
Yes, you're a dick, if said player doesn't convince the other player with words and compelling arguments no. Want to convice him with rolls? cast a spell with its consequences.

Well it was just how I was taught to DM and it started out harmless, him just borrowing money and saying he paid it back or another group member owed them. Simple stuff.

You were taught wrong. In fact, I'm pretty sure both 3.5 and 5e EXPLICITLY tell you not to do that. And it's for a damn good reason.

You still should not roll for it. Make him fucking RP it, faggot

UNLESS he is lying and says "Yeah, I'll pay you back."
>I roll bluff

And even then, OP, the choice is for the player to make: if my stupid sneaky friend asked me to borrow money, doesn't matter what he tells me... I am not giving him squat, unless I owed him a favour

>harmless
Never is, some classes are basically diplomancers and if you allow rolls you basically turned the party into diplomancer and his mindcontrolled slaves

I had usually left it up to the player to react but on how harshly they could about certain things. Like a PC was convinced that drinking a green potion was a great idea and it permanently changed him into a teifling. I told him he could react within a wide variety of ways but he couldn't blame the bard because it was he who agreed.

Another case was loaning money, they bought in to the idea he could triple their gold and lost it all. They were allowed to be mad and take it out on the bard but they fell for his ruse of a scam.

Good move, but you shouldn't be letting a character make persuasion rolls like that against PCs.

>I told him he could react within a wide variety of ways but he couldn't blame the bard because it was he who agreed.
That is completely and utterly retarded. Stop GMing, you're clearly too stupid to do it.

What part of "roleplay" is difficult to understand? Why in the heavens would any person with common sense think that drinking a whole vial of green, unidentified liquid, is a good idea?

Did the bard say "oh yeah, I know that potion.. it makes you stronger when you drink it"
>roll for bluff
??

That's literally how it went. He has persuasion, deception and insight at around 7-12 at level 9.

He would talk to the PCs and ask them to forgive him. I'd have him roll persuasion and he'd RP it. He was great at rping he was just a dick.

They weren't all persuasion, just a majority. Many were deception or him just fucking around. Like switching a strange red potion with a cure minor wounds potion.

Thanks but that's just like your opinion guy.

As a note for the future don't allow such interactions, many systems even say as much.

Only one generally allowed is a reactive bluff if the player decides to press the issue.In this case the bard would've seemed sincere if he passed well, unreadable if he barely passed and like a lying mess if he failed. The players are then free to give gold if they see fit to.

>I told him he could react within a wide variety of ways but he couldn't blame the bard because it was he who agreed.
Okay that's pretty wrong on your part.

What was your bard's arguments for getting others do stuff?
"this potion is totally harmles/does something cool" - if the potion fails to live up to the promise, the bard is at fault.
"This hallway is totally safe, go ahead" - if its trapped then the bard is at fault.

Even if you insist on not taking him to task OOC, such breaches of promises would get them bonuses against bard's persuasion.

>against a new PC whom he already rolled several low rolls

Wait. Are you letting him roll to persuade other players?

These guys are correct. Rolling for insight & deception are fine. For example

Steve tells Bob that Bob should drink this potion, he recognizes it from seeing a NPC/Enemy drinking from it and healing his wounds. Steve rolls to bluff/deception against Bob's will save

Steve wins "Steve seems pretty sure about what he's saying, you can't find anything suspicious about his statement"

Bob wins "Steve seems insincere about what he saw, he has that dickass grin he gets when playing tricks on people".

If the player of Bob IC "remembers" that Steve was fighting a different enemy than the one they found the potion on, or that the person Steve claims to have seen use it wasn't hurt / didn't heal, he can choose to call Steve a dickass and force him to drink the potion or try swallowing Bobs weapon regardless of whether or not it will fit in his lying mouth.

Stuff like that, you know?

Guys, let's help him become a better GM, not just yell at the dude.

In that case they were, afterwards he was using bluff to avoid their wroth and then using persuasion to apologize and become friends again.

>He would talk to the PCs and ask them to forgive him. I'd have him roll persuasion and he'd RP it.
Again, bonuses to resist/penalties to the roll because he keeps tricking them.

>Thanks but that's just like your opinion guy.
No, seriously. If someone tells me that drinking this potion is a good idea and it fucks me up, HELL YES I'm going to blame them. In fact, both in and out of character it would be perfectly reasonable response to beat the shit out of the bard or even kill/cripple them permanently.

You're just a terrible GM all around.

If your story is true, you're fine. Of course, he will have his version of story - one that paints you as an dick.

It may be valuable to learn how other players perceive the situation. Perhaps you havent made something entirely clear (what kind of game are we playing? Serious or not? ), or others enjoyed him doing stupid shit.

I admire you for having balls to sort out this difficult matter honorably.

That's not how any of those skills work in 5e, hell they haven't worked like that ever in D&D.

They're exclusively used against NPC's, with the exception of deception which doesn't fool them into taking action only in obscuring the motives or intentions as they try to do whatever it is they do.

My character would've beaten him black and blue and then left him on the curb to look for a healer who was less of a pissant.

You didn't take that possibility away from your players, at least, did you?

Which I was including penalties, but he had neigh on everything into those three skills and would just cozy back up and the others would trust him again the next session.

The only persuasions he did was for money laundering, fucking with npcs, or getting people to give him loot. He'd usually bluff to trick the others for their gear or money but would always go back to trusting him right after so I really couldn't stick him with a permanent penalty.

I appreciate the gesture but they're already on the "bad DM lynch him" boat.

It makes no difference, you can't use social skills assertively against PC's to make them take action. You can only mask your intentions and behavior.

>He would talk to the PCs and ask them to forgive him. I'd have him roll persuasion and he'd RP it. He was great at rping he was just a dick.

Well, this itself isn't so bad. RPing it definitely gives him a pass as well. If I was playing, I would personally probably go along with it because of that fact alone.

The first time.

The second time I might forgive him if he made a REALLY good apology, but warn him that I was getting sick of his shit (in character).

The third time I would probably stab him, or pretend to forgive him and come up with a plan to get back at him (usually talk this over with GM separately to make sure it's not going to wreck the game).

My question, is "Why is he doing this in the first place as a player".

> He got mad, threw a fit and started arguing against me so I told him I'll give him one chance to settle down or he's done and I'm booting him. Nope, hr continues to argue and even blatantly refuses to heal a character that was his friend. And he continues to scream about how this game is unfair.

How is nobody going "Nigger what" at this?

> So I take his character sheet and tell him to play his character, calm down, and apologize or I'll trash it.

>Big nope. So I trashed it,

HOW is nobody going "Nigger WHAT" at THIS?

OP, whoever taught you how to DM D&D made some fatal fucking errors.

I honestly don't know if this is just what makes your story actually believable, or if it's just a really well crafted troll thread.

You need to talk to your buddy Steve like an adult. Let him know that you appreciate some things he does like his roleplaying and such, but that his screwing over the other players is starting to make the game not fun for everyone else including you. Find out why he's doing it as well.

You should open with "I'm sorry I trashed your character sheet, that was out of line and wrong of me" though, because that's just being an asshole.

Not bad DM, naive or new.

>so I really couldn't stick him with a permanent penalty.
Why not.
They aren't amnesiacs.
"this guy tricked me, then apologized but then tricked me AGAIN" is going to build up.

No because the paladin after drinking a potion that turned him into a woman smote him down to -3 rose him back up and pumbled him again. And again. And again.

I'm sorry I was taught from a home brew system and played 3.5 for two years in highschool and in the last year started 5.

Also lick my ass counterclockwise you prick.

I appreciate what you have to say. It was a relaxed campaign, the monk became a luchador and the rogue runs a brothel. But they still do serious stuff and when its time to be serious he never is and almost got the party killed by a bandit king who just wanted them to pay a toll. Instead without consulting anyone he jumps up and begins telling the bandits to kill their leader. The toll was 5 gold...

Nigga, nobody is on the "bad DM lynchboat" yet. Just a couple of guys, mostly because letting PCs roll social skills against each other is - honestly, it's so wrong and not just "not as intended" but "if you read the rules, specifically pointed out as not to be used this way".

But I mean, it's a pretend game with friends so if you WANT to play it that way it's not like the D&D police are going to come and trash your character sheets.

Which ties into continuing,

IF YOU WANT to continue playing like that, I don't know your group maybe they like it, after talking to Steve you should sit down with your group and get feedback on how they think it's been working. I recommend, if you want to keep using it as a mechanic like this, adding some way of controlling it and representing its repeated use.

Having it need a cool-down period between attempts, or allowing modifiers based on RP from both Steve AND whoever he's rolling against based on roleplaying or pointing out flaws in their arguments etc. Or having a "reputation" thing like in your first post where repeated success or failure affects difficulty because he's "trustworthy" or "untrustworthy" etc.

Essentially, D&D doesn't really have a system for social "combat" between PCs so you have to make one that works instead of using social skills incorrectly to resolve situations they aren't meant to represent, so you need to come up with one that a) works, and b) your players are happy with.

Instead of just dropping new mechanics on players and starting a fight.

To recap
>Player does something stupid
>It bites him in the ass
>he bitches about it
>he gets kicked out becaus he's a sperg

Sounds like a logical conclusion to that debacle.
As long as you let the players decide on how their characters act and react to this shit, it's fine. Tearing up the character sheet was probably uncalled for, but anything else seems to be okay.

As long as you don't treat persuasion like mind control, it's cool

>played 3.5 for two years in highschool and in the last year started 5.
Not the other guy but that really doesn't mean anything. Social skills are for use against NPCs only, it's to prevent situations just like the ones you've been having.

I did apologize for trashing his sheet, I feel like an ass for that but we had all been drinking. And this is where he says he'll come back but only if I let him play some Xilam Warrior home brew thing that makes no sense.

And he knows I appreciate him as a player, he's one of the most lively players I've ever seen. And amazing at RPing. Just fucking fantastic.

They kept forgiving him. I couldn't say no you can't not forgive him. He'd sweet talk all of them and they'd have no problems letting him back in, and doing dumb shit to them.

Also just know this campaign has been going over the span of a year.

Also the other 4 are bad about keeping notes.

>I admire you for having balls to sort out this difficult matter honorably.

Dude didn't do shit all honorably. Instead of talking to his player, he changed how his skill worked without any warning from the sounds of it, and when his friend had a freak-out he trashed his character sheet instead of ending it.

> So I trashed it, the other guys laughed thinking I was kidding till they saw my face.

See, when the people watching this kind of gong show go down "laugh and then stop" it usually means you're going too far and need to step back a bit. Like, they're laughing because who would actually do that, it's funny. Then they see you're actually going to do that and it's not funny, it's being a dick.

So he's sweet talking them in or out of character? Why even bother having him roll if he's only sweet talking them physically and the decision is still in the players hands?

It's okay.

You seem like a cool dude famalam

Your players are pants-on-head retarded though. Just saying.

Yeah I've been keeping a sort of I guess "friendship" chart, and at the end of each session I ask "Ok what's your standing with *blank player*" and everytime they say with Steve "aw yeah we're great."

Only one time did the party unanimously hate Steve but next session. Yup he's cool guys. We trust him.

I know but they're my retards...

I admitted I was a dick for doing that I lost my cool, too much to drink last night. I apologized but got his shit response back.

Because its left up to not only his factor of him sweet talking in character no roll, but he's also deceiving them because he's going to betray them again. Yet somehow at then end of each session they're almost always buddy buddy with him. So I really can't stop them from trusting him.

But why is he rolling? If the whole situation of how they trust one another is determined off their own opinions what is the purpose of rolling anything? Especially if he uses his class's skills abuse the party's resources.

>to abuse

So he fucks them over towards the beginning, like with the potions. Then he waits till around 3/4 of the way thro a mission. By then he's saved a person or two, helped out a lot, role played fantastically. He makes the party laugh a lot. By then they forget about what he did, other things on their minds, persuades thro rolls hey guys I'm your buddy again, they roll and they as players agree, even tho as characters they shouldn't. They reason it out that they can trust him even tho they shouldn't. Bam betrayed again. He deceives them or will pit them against each other. He does this all the time . And they keep doing it. They keep trusting him. Just like that.

But that doesn't answer my question, why are they rolling? The interaction doesn't change if you remove this from the equation.

>So he fucks them over towards the beginning, like with the potions. Then he waits till around 3/4 of the way through a mission. By then he's saved a person or two, helped out a lot, role played fantastically. He makes the party laugh a lot. By then they forget about what he did, other things on their minds. They reason it out that they can trust him even tho they shouldn't. Bam betrayed again. He deceives them or will pit them against each other. He does this all the time. And they keep doing it. They keep trusting him. Just like that.

He's rolling deception to betray them persuasion to apologize in a nutshell. They go with it before I even dictate the majority of the rolls. It's like they want to get fucked over by him.

Read very slowly now. There is no need to have those rolls. They serve no purpose and have no affect on the scenario.

None of them have any affect on outcome as the players do that shit willingly on their own accord.

Welp, as long as you're having fun man, rock and roll! Live and let live, y'know?

Personally though, I would not let him play a homebrew class

And next time, you can just avoid saying he gets penalties to his rolls and stuff, since that does not factor in ina any way on how your players react to him in any way

That last piece of advice is to avoid him sperging out on you. Again

Precisely, they're just superfluous rolls that serve no purpose.