Confession time:
Tell us about the time(s) when YOU were That Guy/GM.
I'll start: I kicked a player out of my game for fucking around on his smartphone too much. When other players protested, I kicked them out, too. Ended up dismissing half the party entirely.
I dont think this counts but anyway.
>Been playing shadowrun 5th for a year.
>Quite interested to run a few games .
>Forever GM has GF in town and states that he will not run game as usual because of this and asks if anyone else wants to run game that night.
>Time to shine and take the spot.
>I had a 3-4 scenario long campaing under works and the first few were ready.
>Except I had to do math and statting for the combat encounter dudes.
>My favorite thing in SR is summoning and spirits so the "boss" for the night would be a big posessed troll.
>In fact all the cannon fodder dudes were posessed too.
>The game goes pretty well.
>Scenario about cult kidnapping a rich kid and trying to get him posessed by their masters.
>Shit happens, players are players and trying to herd them without railroading was quite fun.
>Now our usual GM had a edgyish Major from GitS character (cool dude, just never understood why)
>His GF had a mage with loads of touch range spells.
>Rest were "I beat face with fist" troll adept and a "a chair is a legit throwing weapon" orc adept.
>Eventually they get into the final fight for the night.
>Now I had failed statting my troll from reading the rules for posession wrong basically giving him way too many stats.
>And posession would make him already hard to kill.
>So I had planned the spirit inside the troll would follow a simple logic (I think I used guardian spirits)
>"If anything hurts me, I will attack the last thing that hurt me"
>So beefed up troll will CHARGE anything that hits him with a combat knife.
>players actually shoot most of the time so charging was not that bad and troll did few good hits.
>Then it happened
>For obvious reasons usual GM and his GF in character were standing quite close
>Troll charges GM
>Major dodges
>Touch mage attacks the troll and back off
>Troll charged her and basically kills her but no because fate points.
>Silent table until next combat they snipe the troll ded.
Last game I ran.
If the GM makes us roll for stats, I fudge/reroll/ tweak the stat after the fact until I have at least an 18 in something.
this actually sounds kinda fun user. i would not be mad at this character death. games arent fun without a little risk and you presented a way for them to avoid the danger of the fight and still be effective.
>one guy wants to do a one shot level 20 campaign
>I basically decide to play a silly monk
>cue weird old martial arts movie references, and a jojo's bizarra adventure reference
Ah yeah, there have been a couple "kill the newbie's / first time player's/ introducing to the game's" character moments at our table.
I chalk it up to our veterans know a little basic min maxing and strategy so we overtune our fights, but it basically boils down to dumb luck and bad rolls. Luckily, you can judge a new player pretty well on how well they react to their character getting killed so mercilessly.
Why though?
So he can have the bonuses associated with an 18, of course.
I don't see what that helps, unless you're playing an incredibly gamist system.
Usually when I GM things, I give characters with low stats extraneous stat increases as story rewards.
Like... you meet Yoda, you learn some stuff, you get some plot tokens, you get a stat boost. It's a nicer story and you don't lose anything in the process, honestly.
Bump for more stories.
Hm...I've told it before, but that was a while ago.
>running Shadowrun 4e for the first time
>have THAT GUY in who wants to play
>obviously super awesome sniper character
>plays catgirl, after telling him that I don't want a catgirl or him to play a female character
(he's the sort that always plays females as turbo-sluts, which I hate)
>inform him if he insists on playing catgirl he will die immediately
>he insists
>first mission is to infiltrate facility, should be a milk run
>hacker buddy is on the plan to kill catgirl
>notes are passed
>security is "bypassed"
>sniper holds over-watch
>starts killing NPC's with a very illegal rifle as the rest of the team evacs
>second the rest of the team is clear, cops appear to arrest sniper
>he wasn't able to escape
>absolutely GM fiat
>turns out hacker didn't hide the sniper
>cops had footage from the sniper shooting and NPC's dying
>they were able to use that to prove catgirl shot them.
>catgirl was furious at being sentenced to life in a work camp
>player rage-quit
>we continued with the campaign
>consisting of catgirls wife, my buddy, and my buddies boyfriend.
>much fun was had.
I was THAT GM with THAT GUY and I regret nothing.
The needs of the four outweigh the needs of the one cunt.
I doubt you'd even need the Hacker to edit the footage for him to get caught. The fact that they brought him in and they have multiple bullets on the scene that match his gun would be enough.
Reading this shit just made me so paranoid. I have my players roll, and I trust them enough not to cheat. But one guy has come in with two characters with ridiculously good stats in what they need
>good stats in what they need
I've never once made a characer before I rolled their stats, have I been doing it wrong?
It didn't make much sense to me that a frail smart guy would be a fighter or a brainless jock would become a wizard.
>I have my players roll, and I trust them enough not to cheat.
You poor, poor, naive little child.
EVERYBODY cheats on "randomly rolled" stats. EVERYBODY. EVERY -FUCKING- BODY, I don't care how incorruptible they are in real life.
This is why I always go for a standard array or point buy in my own games.
I convince my players to play characters I find interesting while also only hosting things I'm interested in.
That isn't to say that they have no freedom or I've never taken a suggestion, but. I have never run a campaign with a party I didn't like.
Nor run a campaign with a premise that I hadn't come up with.
If I have to host, which I always do, then I'm going to make it to where I want to.
Nobody has ever confronted me. If they do, I'll say if they don't like it they can either host themselves or find something else to do.
I feel no guilt and do not care how selfish this is.
Yeah I worded that like a retard. I mean their monk and like an 18 Dex and 16 Wis, and their new barbarian has like a 20 in strength
I know you prolly think this is stupid, but I genuinely can't see the rest of my players cheating on something like this
>I know you prolly think this is stupid, but I genuinely can't see the rest of my players cheating on something like this
I know that your players might be completely honest in all other regards to playing the game, but in all my years of playing D&D, EVERYBODY always fudges their attribute rolls if they initially roll a set they don't like. It's not hard to see why: They are more or less stuck with those attributes for the rest of the campaign except for whatever bumps they get from level advancement or magic items. So they're really important, and it really sucks to be stuck with a bad set of attributes for an entire campaign. So the pressure is really high to roll up a good set of stats, one way or another.
...or you have a sessions 0 where everyone discusses the setting, whats appropriate in it, the overall tone of the campaign, and cooperative chargen. Pretty hard to cheat if everyone is watching and the GM notes your rolls and how you put them.
Seriously not sure why most groups wouldnt do this. At least for face to face games, regardless of rolling stats or not. Thongs just wprk better when everyone is on the same page.
>Pretty hard to cheat if everyone is watching and the GM notes your rolls and how you put them.
I tried that. More than once. Most players who roll up a shitty block of stats that I have witnessed and they have no way of wiggling or bargaining out of usually ended up with a really pissy attitude because of it. Or even if they were seemingly nice and tolerant about it, they never showed up for the next session.
This is because most players want to play the class they want to play. If they are unable to roll up a set of stats that is compatible with the class they want to play at that moment, that really takes A LOT of wind out of the sails of their desire to play the game in the first place.
So, point buy and standard array it is. Have fun playing exactly what you want.
Of course, players still get pissy at me for not being able to roll dice for stats, but again: EVERYBODY fudges "random" stat rolls.
Way I've done it is each set of rolls can be traded between players. If bob rolled an alright wiz block and you want to play it, you can swap blocks. As long as all blocks rolled get played by someone, we dont mind.
Occasionally weve experimented with 2 blocks per player, then when swaps are concerned both blocks move together. Once its all settled you pick which of the 2 in front of you you are using.
Everyone still has a shot at playo g something they either really wanted to, or is ok with compromising. And since its all done together, it sorta helps team build with newer players. If blocks dont land write we usually discuss what party comps seems feasible all around then we sorta bid/discuss who gets to play what.
I suck at greentext so here it goes
>old friend from high school is back in town.
>old friend offers to DM for a one shot. He isn't the sharpest tool in the shed but we just want to play together again.
>fucking rad, I thought,
>"3.5, level 30."
>Yes 30, not 20.
>"I'll tell you about the setting later."
>Ok whatever
>Game night, old friend says, "guys, I spent the last 12 hours writing this adventure"
>12 hours huh? thats cool i guess.
>Show him my character
>I made a level 30 dread necromancer and choose leadership so I have a level 28 martial with me.
>Also at level 20 of dread necromancer you actually become a lich so I thought this was cool.
>that was my first fuckup. I shouldn't have made two characters but I thought it was legal, core rules and all. In hindsight it was kind of a dick move because at epic level play a difference of a level or two doesn't matter that much so I threw a big wrench in the plans
>all monsters immediately target me.
>I one shot the first encounter with an empowered wail of the banshee spell or something.
>and then the second encounter.
>third encounter we actually need the whole party so we had fun.
>by now the party realized that all the encounters and rooms are just featureless rooms to fight monsters.
>there aren't even doors to the next room we just get teleported to the next encounter
>It's worse than a shitty video game.
>I act like a That guy and say
>"How the fuck did this take you twelve hours to plan? Were you sleeping for eleven and a half?
>party looks at me and snickers
>monsters start critting me in the next room.
>"Dude I'm a lich, you can't crit on undead."
>"you killed my martial follower? I'll just resurrect, no biggie. Have you played this game before?"
>eventually, in the room before the final boss, my character dies.
>Old friend looks pleased with himself.
>"well im out for the final battle"
>old friend "I'm just really happy I killed user, that was my goal from the beginning."
>"Actually I'm a lich, ill respawn at my phylactery in 1d10 days so I'm not really dead.
>old friend whispers "Fuck" behind the DM screen.
I had a beer with him afterwards and he told me that he had wanted to kill my character from the first planning stages.
True. That's part of the reason why I killed him.
Actually Connecticut (I think, could be wrong) tried to do similar. All guns sold there had to have a ballistic sample. So they could "match" the firearm. Didn't work for shit. Don't get me wrong, that CSI shit sounds really awesome, but most of it doesn't work in real life.
No, I mean multiple bullets on the scene that are the same caliber as his clearly illegal rifle from a rooftop that has direct line of sight to several of the people he killed. You could easily find the angle of entry and trace the shots back to the roof.
It'd be pretty easy to pin it on him.
I don't. As a GM or a player, I will always let the dice rule. All rolls are in the open and so on.
My group allows re-rolls and our GM's are good enough to compensate (as in, if everyone was a barbarian they would be able to compensate for that). That said, we'll still allow some negotiation if someone rolls absolute crap.
Yes, but that would take more time. Unlike the cops seeing a live stream of "her" actions and being able to use that in court. Also, the live stream would allow the cops to act faster. What you are suggesting would give "her" time to escape. I wanted a specific "rocks fall and everyone dies" on just that specific character. Seriously, my only two rules for characters are:
A) Don't cheat
B) Don't play the opposite sex as a complete slut/whore/whatever
He happily breaks both of those rules. Which is why I warned him during character creation. He ignored it, even after I told him I would kill him during the first session. So I regret nothing.