Am I That Guy?

Sup Veeky Forums, I just got kicked from a game on Roll20, because of different play styles. I want to know if you think I was being a That Guy.

>Join game a few sessions in
>Be fighter. Told them that I'd be True Neutral with Criminal background, so my character would suggest ethically grey strategies for their pragmatic value. They accepted me knowing this.
>It's Curse of Strahd, level 2, down in the basement of Death House. Up to this point, apparently DM had Strahd appear and tell the PCs to continue into Death House because they tried to flee.
>Other 3 players are extremely skiddish about combat, and don't want to loot any treasure in the dungeon. They go to extreme lengths to avoid combat. The cleric is also against taking anything we find, either treasure or gear. She says it's because she thinks it would cause us to "fail Strahd's test" (DM plot point, apparently).
>In character, I argue that these things are useful for us, and keep it anyway.
>We sneak around dungeon, avoiding confrontations.
>Get to final room, aggro boss monster. We flee, hide in the next room.
>I really want to fight.
>I metagame and come up with a strategy for how to fight. GM chides me, I apologize, and lay out the same plan in character this time.
>I lobby for confronting the monster. Other PCs reluctantly agree after a while. In hindsight, they prob thought I was pushy.
>Find monster, fight it, win. I'm the only one who was in any danger, tanking the whole time and getting trounced. They kept me alive via heals and dealt damage from afar while I "distracted it" by dropping to 0 hp every turn. A shitty showing on my part, but it kept the team alive. Monster rarely attacked them.
>Finally win, they pull me out of coma #4, and they're actually genuinely pleased at their victory.
>End session.
>Later, GM messages me, says I'm kicked for different play style, no warning, and blocks communications.

Was I being a dick? Should I have been more willing to avoid confrontation and ignore treasure?

Sounds like the gm was just being a faggot. Seriously if you're playing DnD why just run and hide from everything?

From the information you provided (I'm going to assume that it isn't the full story.) it sounds like your GM was a dick for doing that.

I understand playing it smart by wanting to avoid certain confrontations and being wary of cursed items and such, but I don't think that's what they were doing. I think they just didn't want to get into fights and didn't want to take anything.

I tried to include all relevant details. I'll admit I was being pretty pushy for fighting. I didn't insult anyone though, and tried to keep my arguments grounded in-character (aside from the meta-gaming strategy after we aggro'd the boss monster). My guy was a big tough thug half-orc who worked as a gang enforcer. It would make sense for his character to be belligerent and willing to take treasure found in a hostile dungeon.

I actually really liked the tension between my character and the cleric, it made for interesting roleplaying. It was Curse of Strahd, it's supposed to be scary and tense, and having light party disagreement adds to that tension.

Anyway, if the PCs didn't like me, it was likely for that reason, that I wasn't willing to run from every fight and leave behind perfectly good gear. It's not like we were in a village and I just started robbing NPCs. We were in a dungeon occupied only by monsters. Who am I wronging?

Absolute failure to communicate on all sides.
The only one to blame is the system, really.

>failure to communicate
>let's blame the system
You dumb.

>Don't have to read
Yes kys

From the way you present the story, it sounds like the DM was a faggot.

But I'm not sure we're getting his side of the story.

5e promotes this particular brand of communication failure by advocating one-true-way-ism while simultaneously refusing to commit to any one way.

I think the GM felt forced to fudge which he didn't like doing. From what I know that creature was a shambling mound which in a straight fight should have murder fucked a low level party. So basically should have been a tpk.

Consider the mound deals 26 damage on average per turn with a +7 attack bonus and is meant to be able to engulf a target on a hit as well. Engulfed targets are blinded, restrained, suffer average 13 damage each turn and are suffocating as well which means they only have their con modifier in rounds to survive or drop to 0. IF they drop.to 0 hp from suffocation they cannot be healed unless they escape. If they're unconscious they can't escape, and continue to take damage which would mean auto death saving throw failures. The only way to save them at this point is to kill the 130 hp mound.

A cleric can't heal them when engulfed as it requires either touch to raise it and they're engulfed by the creature or sight to heal and again they're engulfed by the mound so the cleric wouldn't be able.to see them. Arguably a GM could twist either of these but its still a mean proposition and if they drop from suffocation they can't be healed at all.

So basically I think the GM got pissed because he had assumed everybody would.run away and avoid stuff as death house is ostensibly meant to murder parties if they don't play like that and your actions arguably would have got everyone killed so he had to.fudge it.

Personally if players want to get themselves killed that's up to them. If they die then that's the game if not it's pretty awesome. My players tend to put themselves in oh shit situations and
I love.it when they pull through with some thing when I half expect them to.die. I don't fudge anything and run everything straight by the dice , rules and fiction as.much as possible

Obviously we don't know his side of the story either but he does seem harsh for punishing you for not playing the adventure in the way he wanted you to.

>roll20.net
>Curse of Strahd
>D&D Next
>criminal background
>"metagaming"
>D&D in general

More red flags than a Communism rally. Sounds like the DM was a cunt, though. "kicked for different play style" what a fucking joke. Taking the game way too seriously, and I am a fairly serious DM.

He switched the Shambling Mound to an Otyugh. And he didn't fudge shit. He kept realizing that there were certain things he was forgetting, like the creature getting 3 attacks instead of 2, etc. I spent most of the fight slipping in and out of comas, and stun locked from constant tentacle grapples. Since I wasn't engulfed, just grappled in a tentacle, the cleric was still able to keep me healed. DM wasn't going easy, and the team still managed to kill it, fair and square, by whittling it down over time and then finishing it with a clutch as fuck critical hit from our Ranger's bow.

When we won, the other PCs were actually cheering over their mics, they were really happy that we won. I thought things were going great, that's why I was so surprised when I got booted.

If he changed the monster AND 'forgot' to use its attacks he was fudging. You didn't kill it fair and square.

An Otyugh should have grapple fucked you to death in much the same way, it literally slams the things it has grappled in its two tentacles to death and has time to bite them too and given you nice dose of disease and poison to boot.

There's no reason it shouldn't have also been grappling the cleric to death as well as you. There's also no reason it shouldn't have killed you instead of just leaving you unconscious for the cleric to heal you multiple times somehow.

As I say you forced the GM to fudge an encounter and he didn't appreciate having to do it as he expected everyone to run away hence asked you to leave as you were the instigator of fighting rather than running. Personally I'd have just killed your character and tpkd the rest or given them a chance to escape if they so choose after seeing your characters corpse get mangled by the thing.

Probably a nicer approach than kicking you honestly.

If I were you, I'd contact the other players and ask about details.
When the group loves a (thing) focused session and the GM kicks a player for instigating (thing), something's fishy.
It's very possible the DM told everyone else you decided to leave.

I don't really care that much, I'd rather not rejoin the group to be honest. I'm just trying to figure out if what I was doing was douchey so I don't repeat it again in the future. I don't want to be That Guy, I want to be a fun team player that people enjoy having in their game.

Your GM sounds like a beta Faggot who can't commit

There's an old adage on Veeky Forums saying "If you're worried about being That Guy, you're probably not That Guy" you were far from that guy in this situation if what you're telling is the whole truth.

Honestly you seem fine from what I've heard.

You seem to play to your character (A criminal fighter would probably prefer a head-on approach to problem solving) and had in-character disagreements which usually went against your character, since despite suggesting looting and fighting you mostly snuck around.

Did you at any poiny just invalidate the group's decision? Like, say they decided to sneak past a monster and you said it might be a good idea to fight. If you discussed it and snuck by, that's fine. If you then charged in and forced a combat, that's a dick move. Or similar if they all decided not to loot things and then you snuck in and stole stuff.

But it sounds like you were just offering an alternate solution to things, which is just role playing.

Can you explain how you were metagaming when coming up with a combat strategy? I'm not sure what that means.

...Also my party fought the shambing mound in a straight fight and won with some minor difficulty, mostly via kiting and hitting it with ranged attacks, so I don't know what these people are on about

It'd be good to actuall get feedback from the other players.

And if the GM blocked you, he is being that guy, as he's obviously unwilling to even talk about it or explain his reasons in more depth (give feedback).

Generally people who immediatelly resort to blocking are people who can't stand things not going their way.

I'm guessing the metagaming involves was that healing somebody at 0 in 5e lets them instantly stand up and act, so if you have enough healing spells you can keep someone endlessly fighting at 1 no fairly easily.

It's pretty gamey, and I could see why the DM would dislike him discussing a plan to abuse that rule, along with going through with it, but even in that case it's a problem of the DM not establishing his dislike for it beforehand and changing the rule so they couldn't gamr the boss.

Hardly that guy behavior

Unless the monster just murders the unconscious charafter before the healer can act. Which a multi attackmonster can do trivially. OR just murder the cleric. Or both.

My group beat it by having opening the bars leading to the ledge over water in that one corner of the room, then having one of the characters lure the mound into this alcove, at which point the character luring it climbed up the ledge with an amazing skill check, and the players assailed the mound from afar (which they were able to do because I decided a shambling mound would be too stupid to know to go around, so it kept trying to attack them from the bottom of the ledge)

I loved that encounter because it wasn't a straightforward who-can-sponge-up-the-most-damage fight, and it actually forced the players to strategize and find a way to kill an enemy much stronger than them.

If you ask yourself what you did wrong, that is the first sign that you are not that guy.

From your story, it seems like the GM was in the wrong and just a prick. Maybe the only thing was that you had turned up pushyness up to 11 but other than that, I think that you did well.

You've just described every edition of DnD except for the very fucking first one. Please stop pretending like 5e is somehow the cause of these problems, when it's simply more readily apparent that table top gamers are not generally socially interactive and there's even more variations of "I do my best to disengage from society" to de-conflict now with the access created by the internet.

Thanks, I'm glad. I don't want to be a dick, I want to be a good player

The GM is a fag for blocking you after booting, but kudos to him, because he actually did something about you. See, you sound like an even bigger faggot.

>loot any treasure in the dungeon
>aggro boss monster
>I really want to fight
>I metagame

They had fun playing an rpg, you wanted to push your murderhobo bullshittery into their game. They actually sound like a fun group and I really like how they avoid confrontation or "looting" for storywise reasons.

Yeah nah. Even if you're entirely right about the Otyugh, the GM is being a fuckbasket. I don't know how pick-up-game etiquette is, but kicking a player because you let him win an encounter he shouldn't have won is 'spoons made me fat' tier stupid.

What was he supposed to do? Kill the character and have the player throw a fit?

>one-sided self-justifying story, doubtless with loads of shit left out
>OP still comes off as That Guy

Actually the 1st edition is also at fault here. 2nd AD&D is fine, but 1st edition DMG was basically Gygax trying to explain the game to someone else by telling how he did it.

By comparison, 5e is so far into Player Freedom and "DM Your way with Your Friends" that it triggers /pol/ for having an open-ended paragraph about gender.

>OP is a bad player for looting treasure and fighting boss monsters in a dungeon
What the hell is wrong with people on this board

My best guess? We're a bunch of Redditors who left the board and are now trying to establish how not-Reddit we are and establish a "superior identity" by being "Teh Contrarian Anarchist 4chans."

That and the Election basically caused a major split between nearly every major net-culture and we ended up having a massive migration of people from other forums.

Bad for playing it like a fucking MMO maybe? For trying to bring his looting and monster killing bullshit when the rest of the group is more interested in avoiding danger and roleplaying?

Yes. Because then he has adequate grounds to remove that player.

Not every player throws fits when dying. But by removing him when the player didn't really do anything the GM is at fault.

I was with them for 2 sessions, each about 3-4 hours. I played it their way for all of first session and about half of the second, so that's like what, 5-6 hours? It wasn't until halfway through session 2 that I started lobbying for a fight, and then another hour before we actually engaged the monster. The fight was like 40 minutes. So my playstyle only took up like 20-30% of the time we played, while theirs was the remainder. I don't think that's particular unfair to them.

Looting and monster killing has been the core of D&D since long before MMOs were a thing

The group agreed to fight the thing, remember. You act like he just ran out and started swinging against the group's wishes.

Correct. They didn't want to fight the thing initially, and they weren't crazy about fighting when they agreed to the fight, but I didn't make a move against the monster until the group agreed to the fight. I held back and made sure they were all in before the attack.

>Playing P&P RPGs online

Yes, you are to blame.

Next time you have a thought like that, please refer to this player handbook cover where the party has slaughtered a tribe of lizardmen in order to obtain the valuable eyes of a statue

>Am I That Guy?
A That Guy pursues their fun without regard to the fun of everyone else.
You waited, re-approached the issue in-character when told you were metagaming, and got party consent before acting.
Finally:
>When we won, the other PCs were actually cheering over their mics, they were really happy that we won.
When everyone is happy and having fun because of your actions, you are not That Guy.

>Was I being a dick?
You played a belligerent and greedy "big tough thug half-orc who worked as a gang enforcer" in a scenario where being reckless can kill the party.
Presumably, the GM okayed this character though.

>Should I have been more willing to avoid confrontation and ignore treasure?
Probably. When joining an established group that are proceeding with a certain style, such as stealth and guile, then the polite thing to do is find excuses to play your character to match their style as best you can.
Which it sounds like you did for an entire session before pushing for what you wanted.
In short, I agree with your GM, you had a different play style.
But it seems the GM was the only one who had issue with it.

>GM messages me, says I'm kicked for different play style, no warning, and blocks communications.
Any GM that does this is a great big bag of dicks.

>I just got kicked from a game on Roll20, because of different play styles. I want to know if you think I was being a That Guy.
Yes. I didn't need to read any further. Because if you got kicked by the group because of differences, you were that guy by definition, regardless of right or wrong

>Seriously if you're playing DnD why just run and hide from everything?
t. WOTCbabby

you're taking this as some sort of personal insult, but it does sound like your playstyle didn't match up with the group/the GM
so a good call that maybe could've been handled more diplomatically

>doesn't like criminal backgrounds
>he doesn't play crafty con artists

With the help of a wizard I once convinced a king I was his daughter and got to live the rest of my days being pampered and catered to.

But Charlatan is for con-men. Criminal is for every other criminal type.

You want to fight and loot, they didn't want to fight and loot so they kicked you out for different play style.

I don't see how this is hard for you to understand. If I were you I would have left their game because it sounds boring.

you might not be that guy but your character is boring and it is something i activeley discourage as DM.

I pretty much considered banning neutral alingments that arent Lawfull Netural for exactly that reason.

You are playing a Video game protagonist.
Morally grey, pragmatic.
These things sound great untill you realize thats just "doing whatever the fuck you want and using you roleplay to justify powergaming"

It realy is what you do. You have created a character with no moral compass who will do whatever is most usefull. In other words you are playing Skyrim.

You need to develop better taste.

same campaign similar situation
>creepy children standing outside house
>other pc's want nothing to do with it and ignore kids
>i aint playin this sit around and wait for a retarded motivation magically to fall into my lap shit
>play my wizard as LG try to comfort kids and tell them ill rescue their brother and shit
>party of ranger, cleric, and rouge all follow me begrudgingly
>get attacked by monsters
>stand my ground and start flinging spells
>other 3 retreat, at least ranger plops off arrows
>cleric tries to flee house out a window
what the fuck guys?

i'd rather have characters who self insert and do what they feel like at the time over hardcore "roleplayers" who need 5 invitations a red carpet and a blowjob to feel like they have to investigate a spooky house

Yeah, That Guy who refuses to do anything because it's "unrealistic" who's playing a fucking D&D game needs to fuck off forever. If you want to play that type of game go play it. Somewhere else.

>but it does sound like your playstyle didn't match up with the group/the GM
death house is literally: investigate spooky house and kill monsters the mission
the fuck was he gonna do talk the animated armor into marrying his daughter so he would gain ownership over 1/100ths of the estate by proxy?

>D&D Next

Who could be behind this post?

because thats the only two options there are.

either you are powergaming or you are not interrested in actually playing the game.

try running a game with powergamers, its not fun.
They will ignore all consequences to their actions and dissolve into murderhobos faster than you can say "that Guy"

i play the game for two reasons. engaging combat and worldbuilding.
but if these two things arent connected then why are you even playing an RPG.
If your combat and your strategies are not tied into the world then why dont you just play a wargame which is probably better at it anyway?

If you want to play a game you need to be equally capeable of making a character that isnt just a bunch of spreadsheets aswell as you need to be capeable of understanding the premise of the game and what you are supposed to do.

These things arent mutually exclusive.

I saw that once. In a Roll20 game the GM said one of the players had to leave because his schedule changed. The guy later invited me to a game he ran, turned out he was kicked for attacking an enemy he wasn't supposed to attack or something odd like that. The GM in general was a sligjt weirdo. Ended tje whole campaign a few games later because we were not being heroic enough.

He had told us to make a team of sci fi bounty hunters.

Go back to wod

Unless you are leaving out information, you don't sound like you were a jerk. A lot of games don't work because the GM has a specific idea of how he wants it to be played, but doesn't tell people what it is. Some GMs, you can ask them directly if a pure combat character is a good fit in a game where they don't ever want a combat to even occur, and they will say yes. Happens more than you would think.

>because thats the only two options there are.
you are retarded
but lets pretend like you aren't
either force good only alignment or tell the cowards to do something or to stop wasteing your time
"but my character wouldnt investigate the spooky house!"
yes he would because unlike you, your character isnt a cowardly bitch who stands around waiting for life to suck his dick, he is an adventurer and he knows doing shit like this is what puts bread on the table

Uh, no?
4e, for instance, was very clear about its way and about communicating it to the players, which is why so many players used to ambiguous BS hated it.

Sounds to me like he simply wanted to play a morally grey character with a character with a criminal background and role played that character well. Plus, he went along with the party for the most part, and when he did something his character wanted he at least consulted and convinced the party to do it first. I frankly can't see how it's OP's fault in this if his character was approved by the DM and his party went along with his plan, after OP had went along with the party without real complaint for most of the session. If the DM didn't feel that the player matched the play style then that is completely fair, but he could have at least talked to OP first and maybe either change the character a bit or roll a different for the sake of the campaign. Just kicking a player with no real explanation or discussion on any problems they may have it never justified, no matter what. If they end up kicked, then they're kicked, but the DM has to at least put some effort in talking to the player first and seeing if he can fix the issue or reach a compromise.

Not that user, but I think the retard bell tolls for thee.

user you responded to was merely pointing out how the others had replied as if there was a dichotomy at play between being a "video game protagonist" or a role-player reluctant to act.
Then they went on to make a solid point.

You, on the other hand, quoted a sarcastic line, obscuring your point, then suggested bad advice and the most caustically phrased way to suggest that the players make useful and appropriate characters.

Clutch as fuck?

Bullshit, its entirely the DMs fault if he fudges an entire encounter because PCs decide to tackle it.

Your playstyle was indeed different but you've done none of the That Guy stuff. Your ideas could be suspicious but you did play with others and added to the session rather than just fucking everything up. GM possibly should have talked with you after the session if they're worried your attitude could disturb some ideas they have too much and you could then consider some ground rules but outright banning you was an overreaction and rather shitty approach on GM's part. I'd probably share my thoughts in similar manner as I do here with them, put them on my shitlist for that and avoid future games with them. They're not a good GM is merely not approaching the game in the narrow boundaries of what they want is enough to make them drop the player.

Consider however a bit more believable, RP plans for dealing with combat too, though. "I'll let myself be beaten up into passing away several times as part of my distraction plan" does sound a bit retarded immersion-wise.

Oh, I think we know!!!

Know what?

Everyone is so mad here for some reason

>unironically playing the single worst edition of D&D
There's your problem.

Not OP and I realize that you're just meme-ing, or whatever, but there's something I have to point out.

Let's assume that someone was playing what really was the single worst edition of an rpg.
If they were doing so unironically, I would seriously question their taste in games.
If they were actually playing an rpg ironically, I would seriously be tempted to stab them in the neck for being such an obnoxious douchenozzle of a shitrooster.

Food for thought.

I never said differently. The GM handled the situation poorly by fudging and then I think got pissed off about it and kicked OP.

I didn't let myself get beat up to 0 HP. That wasn't part of the plan. I got stunlocked into a cycle of escaping and getting trapped in grapples, effectively leaving me with no Action option other than Death Saves when 0hp, and Escape Grapple when conscious. Every time I escape, my turn was done and the monster just grappled me again. That's not what I wanted to happen. However, because it was using all its actions on me, it wasn't attacking the other PCs, so in a sense I was tanking (I know how pathetic that sounds).

Yeah. We were out of heals, the monster was dragging me off, Ranger chases, shoots an arrow, gets a critical hit, and does JUST enough damage to kill the thing. If it didn't die right there, the monster would have eaten my character and I'd be rolling a new character. She saved my ass.

>She saved my ass.

You mean your GM fudged the roll and saved your ass.

More information needed. But here are the possible answers at this time.

You're that guy.
The GM is that guy.
You're both conflicting that guys.

Are ppl so afraid of their characters dying that they dosen't even engage in combat?

Dude, it's a fucking Ravenloft module.

Sounds to me like it's on the GM then, you shouldn't just straight up kick a player with no discussion first because you had to fudge a fight to keep him alive.

Why would the GM fudge rolls for a character, if he was planning on kicking the player anyways?

Either because he didn't fudge it, or he's just an asshole

At least you can talk! Who are you?

One of my favorites

Doesn't seem like anyone walked out of that fight looking well. I don't think you did right by abusing this mechanic, though it looks more like a flaw in the system, it made the battle look more like a crappy video game scene. Though the GM could have done something to keep it from going this way either way. I think it's best that you keep out of the game, not just because of play style, but more because it sounds like it's shit and not fun at all. The GM probably could just have talked to you, but for whatever reason he decided to just kick you out. Not exactly uncommon in pick up games, but not ideal either.

...

I wasn't consciously trying to abuse the mechanic. I didn't know about the 0hp mechanic until the first time I got KO'd and I asked the GM what I do now. He told me about Death Saves and then I got back to 0hp when the cleric healed me. That's how I found out about it.

I include that detail to show that I wasn't trying to powergame or abuse some mechanic. Would a powergamer exploit the mechanics to allow himself to get trounced by the monster or to kick the monster's ass? I think the latter is more likely.

I got stuck in a shitty cycle of life and death, unable to do anything. I didn't intend for that to happen, I wanted to stay alive and conscious and fight the monster normally.

I think the DM didn't want you to metagame every encounter forever, which is why he kicked you, he maybe thought you would do it everytime

move on

there are more games out there than you can ever imagine.

I had some asshole online GM unexpectedly make nonlethal weapons horrifically lethal because they were a sick sadistic fucker. Move on.

I have. I've got a great group for Tales of the Yawning Portal and a pretty good-looking group for another Curse of Strahd. I think I'll be ok.

yes because I too as a retarded trash eating monster would make sure to take my time killing one of the four things that have intruded on my territory as the other three attack me.

the DM was being a stupid cunt. If he was so upset that he "had" to fudge something then he should have just killed them

Woah really smart for you to realize you can attack more than one enemy at a time.

Except if the GM did that the players would call him out on metagaming

Not the same user, but how in the hell would that be metagaming?

Because he is using tactical information of outside his character's point of view.

The monster would attack the weakened character, the one that's closest to him. Going beyond that tactical knowledge would be considered metagaming.

the monster can't see the other people shooting him?

are you implying my logic is flawed?

apparently that makes to some people
It's pretty flawed

Alright elaborate. Give me one reason why a wolf would stop attacking the wounded human and attempt to attack a second one before finishing the first one.

Because the second one is now more of a threat than the wounded guy.

Animals arent retarded, if someone attacked them they would not just ignore them to go after a "prey" target, they would either run away or defend themselves
Imagine the evolutionary drawback if a flock of deer could just sacrifice one body and then just have the stags trample the tunnel vision wolves
I imagine a more aggressive beast would just go after the able targets, or withdraw while holding downed prey if able

Don't you guys think this sort of behavior should be literally stated in the monster manual or something?

Like how do you expect the GM to know that?

Do you need help moving your goalpost?

You could probably make some intelligence class yeah, like sapient, beastly, idiot, idiot-savant etc
but I haven't played any tabletop rpgs yet

>but I haven't played any tabletop rpgs yet
nutg everyone