5e Adventurer's League

>Got talked into DMing for Adventurer's League at a local comic store.
>Want to help out and agree
>Think it's gonna be like a normal campaign but without allowing homebrew'd stuff like Miqote from ff14
>Start asking some other guys for tips because I'm not too familiar with Adventurer's League

>No user, critical fumbles aren't allowed.
>user no, you shouldn't just make that special arrow have a +1 in damage because it would technically be a magic item
>user, the 5e player's manual doesn't specify that's how it works so you can't!

I started looking over the 5e DM manual and I'm seeing a whole lot of sections that basically tell me I'm the DM and can do whatever the hell I want.

Are things like critical fumbles and houserules really banned in Adventurer's League or am I just talking to people who are telling me not to do things because they personally don't like those things?

Adventurer's League isn't about running an actual game. It's a ploy to sell product. If bad things happen to the players, then they might not buy stuff because they had a bad experience.

>He fell for the Adventurer's League meme
user, there's not a single good reason to play AL, much less to DM one. You've been tricked.

Critical fumbles are for faggots anyway please stop

Those are banned because they're trying to standardized the rules. If someone has a house rule of fighters being able to cast cantrips 'cause everyone is a bit magical, but then the next DM they play with says that no spells are allowed at all, then it's not a very consistent, standardized experience.

that's a pretty big house rule over critical fumbles though, which are fairly common practice

Sure, and also applies.

Critical fumbles fuck the PC's more than it does the DM.

Sometimes the reason is that you have nowhere else to play.

Just looked like 5e but without the ability to do some things and well...fuck that.

I do appreciate the supplemental material they put out though. Had fun with Jenny Greenteeth in Barovia.

That's a lie. There are always places to play at - on the internet, for example. Now, you could be more accurate and say
>Sometimes the reason is that nobody would play with you
Then you would be right, AL was created exactly for this sort of people. They and AL deserve each other.

if there's nowhere else to play it falls upon you to create a place to play

Playing on the Internet is far, far worse than playing Adventurer's League.

yeah but critical fumbles are dumb as hell

How so? I play online all the time. Then again it's with close friends I've know for 3+ years.

>critical fumbles

Get fucked. This one thing alone makes you a shit DM.

>Sign up as the head of a group within an organization without reading the basic documents regarding your responsibilities and the functions of that organization
Read the AL documents, nigga. Those are your chains and binds as long as you choose to DM that shit.
I advise asking for a regular spot on the same night and taking applicants for an actual game you run.

>LE EPIC HE ROLLED A ONE
>OL U STABED FRIENDMATE IN TEH EYE LMAO
E>PIC STORY NOW LOL MEMBER WHEN user'S FIGHTER KILLED THE WIZAR?

Critical fumbles are retarded anyway.

>all these babbys complaining about critical fumbles.

Get rekt nerds. Critical fumbles are an integral part of the game and the tales and horror stories they help create that are retold for years to come. I've played a lot of D&D over the years and never took part in a campaign that didn't have them. Same goes for critical successes.

What it really boils down to is how well the DM adjudicates the nat 1/20. It''s not always a "stab-me-self" but it could be a lost weapon, an overzealous hop, an inopportune blink, that changes the course of the entire encounter. They add flavor and variety, and sometimes can actually lead to more exciting and intuitive play, because now the player has to deal with a new circumstance, instead of a generic "miss".

>critical fumbles
Don't.

This. If OP had picked any other hill to die on I might have been sympathetic but fumbles are pure cancer.

I've only ever been been in two games where critical fumbles were a thing. One, interestingly enough, was an AL game. Shittiest game I've ever been in.

>No user, critical fumbles aren't allowed.
>user no, you shouldn't just make that special arrow have a +1 in damage because it would technically be a magic item
Yeah dude why would wotc make you play their game as written weird.

>Then you would be right, AL was created exactly for this sort of people. They and AL deserve each other.
I agree with this statement.

>Critical fumbles are an integral part of the game
Literally wrong.

>Critical fumbles are an integral part of the game
>I've played a lot of D&D over the years and never took part in a campaign that didn't have them.
then how would you know they're integral you fucking retard

Sucking dick is a common practice too but if you do it I'm still gonna call you a faggot

New DM here. What reason is there to not use critical fumbles?
It seems only reasonable that a player could "epicly" succed aswell as miserably fail.

The only problem i see is cringy fucks sperging out and gms fucking over their Players.

I think there are two reasons:
1. "Big Damn Heroes" shouldn't randomly stab each other or drop their sword.
2. A level 1 fighter with one attack has a lower chance of a fumble than a high level fighter with four attacks, which is patently stupid.

Its because it happens a flat 5% of the time, or 1 in 20 tries. Sometimes a big failure happens to people, sure, but 1 in 20 times is far too often.

I want you to imagine 3 scenarios, the first scenario you are just some bumblefuck peasant training to be a fighter. You train and swing your sword 20 times. Oops! critical fumble (keep in mind you have only been training for approximately 2 minutes) you stab yourself, and because you are at level 1 (or lower, if you are a commoner) this has a very real chance of killing you. its nearly guaranteed if you do it for longer. 10 minutes of training should not be a death sentence.

In the second scenario, you have a group of 5 level 1 fighters adventuring together. Once every 4 rounds, one of them shoots an ally or stabs themself in the face (on average). This does not sow camaraderie. Often they will kill each other on accident.

Well the last 2 examples were just level 1 bumblefucks, so maybe you think its ok for them to be so goddamn inept that they can't stop stabbing themselves in the face. Well here is where it gets more retared. The more you level up, the more attacks you get, and the more likely it is you do something completely fucking retarded in any given timeframe. A high level fighter could attack 10 times in one round, meaning every other round (on average). He is stabbing himself in the face, shooting his allies, throwing his weapon into a pond, etc.

Maybe you play in a wacky cartoonish campaign where the ground is littered with invisible banana peels and peasant are constantly falling to their deaths when they try to climb ladders into barn lofts, and everyone weapons are coated in vaseline and shit. But its immersion breaking, goofy, and unbalanced as fuck (since it only helps people that don't actually roll, like casters)

As an addendum to what this user said, over the course of even a session, the players make a lot more rolls than the bad guys do.

Thanks guys. Makes sense.

20th level fighter with 4 attacks will have a 5% chance per attack to have a critical fumble.

Unless my math is wrong, that's about a 17% chance per round to seriously fuck himself or his allies.

>Well the last 2 examples were just level 1 bumblefucks, so maybe you think its ok for them to be so goddamn inept that they can't stop stabbing themselves in the face. Well here is where it gets more retared. The more you level up, the more attacks you get, and the more likely it is you do something completely fucking retarded in any given timeframe. A high level fighter could attack 10 times in one round, meaning every other round (on average). He is stabbing himself in the face, shooting his allies, throwing his weapon into a pond, etc.
So do something besides FULL ATTACK every round. Trip a nigga. Go for a sunder. Getch'er Disarm on. Grapple. Mix it up a little, fighting man.

This does not alleviate the critical fumble issue

Why don't mods ban people for ironic shitposting anymore?

AL makes me fucking cringe.
The amount of rediculous butt hurt I see on my FB game store d&d page over it is rediculous.
It's d&d, it's a game about imagination and over the top shit. Why cut your legs off at the knees before a marathon senpai ?
Even our store owner scoffs at it. For the longest time when I played I'd have to get down D.C. numbers and write down my number blah blah blah. Because our store owner needed them. I went to turn it in to him once and he put it right in the trash.
We both have each other a k owing smile on that one.

>integral part of the game
I don't know what game you're playing but it isn't D&D as outlined by the books.

So what happens when you crit fail trip, sunder, disarm? You trip yourself, break your own weapon and cut your own arm off? You grab your own dick?

Instead of actually hurting the enemy by rolling more attacks you choose to (in 3.5) only do 1 attack, which has a worse chance of success, takes a whole load of feats to not get stabbed while doing this and are even more ineffective?

That's how you avoid stabbing yourself in the face?

This post is pretty great