I DM a 5e campaign and had an argument with one of my players and need to know if I was in the wrong

muh different gaems

>spotting stealth while asleep is just as easy as when awake
Here's another mistake for the pile.

This.

What the fuck did they do on their turns???

>guards instantly wake up and are fully combat capable
Yeah, you fucked up. Good job being an emotional cunt in regards to how the player reasonably told you that you were wrong though. You sound like a real joy to play with.

Not that implausible. They could have failed grapples or whatever else they've tried. Did you forget what system this is?

>>pandering to players so they don't get a boo-boo on their feels

If players don't feel good, then they won't game with that GM. Maintaining positive player feeling is the most important part of any game and should trump any rules.

Your response is way more one-sided and emotional than OP's account. You're a dirty little hypocrite.

If you feel something touching you, can you not easily determine from which direction it is touching you from? I don't really think it's a matter of him out spotting while asleep, but just someone reacting to something touching them.

You could have handled it better, and sometimes that means leaving more room/time for your players to react creatively. Specifically, I'd have the guards burn a turn waking up/getting armed.

That said, your paladin sounds like a dickhead.

You can pickpocket people while they're awake. You can also pickpocket people while they're asleep. Which one is harder to notice for the one getting their pockets picked?

The task was to pickpocket the guard which requires a roll. The likely outcome if the roll were to fail would be the guard to wake up, why would you then stack on a second buffer in case the roll was failed though?

Gutless horseshit, framed in the most disingenuous way possible. This mindset is what causes overentitled players to exist in the first place. Oh and of course by using the 'positive player feeling' and 'feel good' angle you've also slyly inserted the idea that the only way players will have fun is if they win all the time without hardship, in the hope of making the other side look like they're anti-fun. Fuck you. You're using a subjectivity at the heart of your argument while pretending it's really a fact. You're a cunt.

I like a challenge and I like the GM to play fair without any gimmes or plot armour thrown my way (beyond whatever the system might give me, e.g Edge, Fate points, bennies, whatever). I get bored by zero challenge games where nothing is allowed to go wrong because little Timmy might start crying. I'm not alone in this. There are lots of players who relish a challenge and know how to roll with the punches. The only kind of people who'd shit the bed over muffing a roll and having to pay the price for it are spoiled babbies.

If you're so desperate to pander to spoiled WAAC shitlords then that's your damage, but don't come on here trying to hit me up with all this "ITS NOT LE FUN OTHERWISE!!!! XDDD" garbage, because it's simply bullshit. It's not true in itself and it's certainly not true for the example under discussion.

the first dude is right, you reward players for doing clever things even if it's "pandering". that way they do it more

second dude is the kind of person who kicks a dog if it can't do a trick correctly

Take your meds, gramps. You're getting worked up about the 80s again.

you are reading "there is no challenge" from "the DM should work with the players so that everyone has a good time"

they are entirely consistent with each other. if you play with friends you can have a group that's all on the same page. you should try it imo

Agreed, but I would have framed it less combative.

Guard went 3rd, that means they had 2 chances to convince him everything was ok/he needs to wake up to take care of some crime happening over there wink wink.

I'd honestly have had those guards suffer penalties for their first few turns. All groggy and shit.

5e is better than your favorite system

What if my favourite system is 5e?!
Checkmate cutfags.

What's it like blindly devoting yourself to a consumer product?

If you argued with your players, you have lost control of the session and therefore everybody loses. To maintain a dramatic edge to your games, always give players a slight upper hand by giving them another roll or choice (or both) in any given situation. This way the players always feel involved in their characters fate and in turn Can't complain.

I wouldn't know, you'll have to ask a GURPSfag that one.

>>I like a challenge

It's a roll playing game, not chess! The whole point is to tell exciting stories! Sure players die but make sure it is because of SOME obvious bad dice rolls or some dramatic consequence.

Depends, OP. Did you use passive perception properly or not?
When asleep at the very least give them a -5 (disadvantage) on their passive perception which is what you check against their contested sleight of hand.

Now, as for your players. Surprise rounds don't exist in 5e. Surprise is more of a condition.
You should have done this:
Guard wakes up.
Roll initiative.
The guard that woke up is surprised, the others aren't in initiative yet.
Players get their turn, guard that woke up loses his first turn because he is surprised.
Now here's where things get a little muddled with 5e rules.
When combat starts is when you determine if a creature is surprised or not. So when the other guards wake up, are they surprised? Combat has already started. You could say combat has just begun for them and they are surprised and they effectively lose their first turn. That would have been my call.

So while your player was wrong about surprise rounds, I do think the guards should have been labeled as surprise for the purpose of the first round of combat at the very least.

>players die
Your games are fucking intense.

As asinine as that response is, I always get a chuckle out of it.

>I personally would have given them one more chance to save their ass instead of immediately making them roll for initiative.
This. Make a theater of mind encounter between the guard and the guy that woke him up.

Haven't really played 5e at all but my take on it is that a surprise round occurs when not all combatants are aware of eachother. Since the sleeping guards were not aware of the pickpocketers, but would be combatants once they woke up, there should've been a surprise round at the very least. Especially since the awake guard wasn't able to wake them up until his turn had come around, meaning combat had already started before the sleeping guards had been made aware of what's happening.

What did the two characters do on their turns before the guard screamed? Did they try to silence him or did they just make normal attacks like a regular turn based rpg fight?

Isn't a round 6 seconds in D&D? That's not nearly enough time to wake up, stand up and be ready to fight.

> Players have more fun when it's difficult
OP's premise is that his player did not have fun.

> Local man determines universal primary goal of all tables everywhere! 4rries HATE him!

As DM you have final say no matter what but i would promote the players to explain the reasoning and reward them if its inline with the character or a stroke of genious. My DM and Myself have the policy of if you can explain why its plausible it will probably happen and CR always lower with effective character roleplay. Reward your players when the deserve it but never feel like you have to give in after all this is your world your npc acted in a rational way

This guy has it right.

Hardship is fun in games, its why we are seeing a massive amount of souls-like video games.
But we are also seeing alot of games that have hunger meters that drain like Harry Norbets sinuses.

One is tough but fair, the other is just a pain in the butt.
Unless your the type of player who uses carry encumbrance rules by the gram you should agree

D6 open for life bro. 5e is the best system just as big bang is the best t.v show. Everyone just watches it.

Rule for our table
>For every pint of blood you donate you get a free reroll (If we ever play vtm this will need improving)
>For every stone you lose during your diet you get a free feat
>For every chapter you write on your novel you get an extra skill point

>people are disagreeing with me best post again and pretend someone agrees.
and people mock me for namefagin'

surprise rounds don't exist in 5e

I agree with him. Although I would have phrased it differently.

You shouldn't coddle or handhold your players. Any time they make a mistake they should face the worst consequences. Hell, in my game I let one of the characters play a corpse-eater who has to eat humans and elves or else he dies. He gets to walk around town only because he disguises himself. As soon as he draws attention to himself, and someone sees him for what he is, shit's going to hit the fan real bad. I warned him, and he's cool with it. By allowing my player to make the ""mistake"" of playing a monster, he's able to have more fun.

>mistakes of playing a monster
Yes bro. I hate it when people play half orcs or full monsters and never face any problems due to their race. A Minotaur shouldnt be able to walk bummle hamlet and buy plate off the shelf.

Every thread the same useless post

I think you made a mistake, but not the one you were accused of.

5e doesn't have surprise rounds, a creature is "surprised" or it isn't, and that is solely regarding a lack of preparation. As soon as the guard screamed, probably with "INTRUDERS" or "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK", none of them are surprised. For that matter, yelling that wouldn't have taken a guards full turn, your players wouldn't have stood for it if you made a player use their entire turn for that in the reverse situation.

The problem is that you still needed to take into account them being asleep in terms of combat prep. Casters only would have the slots they had left over, martials would be unarmored, armor takes a significant amount of time to don in 5e if it isn't light, and depending on the layout, primary arms may not be kept near the bed, but on a rack. So most of them would be scrambling for shields, weapons, and a few would be running to help with basic arms, clubs and daggers.

Likely, they also would have had some runners go for reinforcements, and to sound a more complete alarm.

Good job. From now on they'll just go straight to murderboning.

>It's a roll playing game, not chess! The whole point is to tell exciting stories!
>> Local man determines universal primary goal of all tables everywhere! 4rries HATE him!
These two posts amused me.

>I like a challenge and I like the GM to play fair without any gimmes or plot armour thrown my way
Not that user, and I'm just throwing this out there, but if, say, the GM were to challenge you while playing fair and allowing PCs to die and things to go wrong, wouldn't that GM be "maintaining positive player feeling" for you?
Just sayin'.

>Maintaining positive player feeling is the most important part of any game
Arguably the truth.

>and should trump any rules.
...and here's where you went retarded.
Let me show you:
>Spinning the wheels is the most important part of any car and should trump any other design element, like brakes, steering, etc.
No.
Just because one element is very important, or even most important, doesn't necessarily mean it trumps anything else.

Your post went stupid and you should be ashamed.

First:
>We dropped the issue and got on with the encounter with the party not having a surprise round and we left on decent terms
Doing it right.
This is how it is done.
Checking with us internet nerds as for the technically correct call later is also good.

>I'm willing to accept I fucked up but I just don't think that I made the wrong call here. Did I?
In my opinion, it depends on the nature of the guards.
In my experience, any guard caught sleeping is likely to not be hard trained to do the most tactically sound response, alerting the other guards, upon being woken up in this way.
It smacks of "npcs acting on DM knowledge to behave more tactically smart than they should," which is a tricky meta-game thing to shake.
Of course, I don't know these guards, but I would think he would have been surprised as user pointed out very well here Your irritation on the player declaring the surprise round is understandable to me though.

In the end, encourage the behavior you want in your players, despite whatever you "should" do.
If you want players to think creatively, reward creative solutions.
If you want players to adhere to RAW, then reward them when they do.
If you want players to think tactically, reward that.
If you want players to roleplay well, even if it hinders tactics, reward that.
If you want your players to shut up, accept your ruling, and move on?
Reward that shit.
Especially if your ruling turned out less than perfect.

You were in the wrong, the awoken guards were surprised and should have lost a turn in the action of waking up. The way you handled the encounter is very abusable for the PC's as well. Now if the surprise round ever happens due to an ambush or something and only ONE of your PC's managed his perception check to not be surprised in the surprise round, he can yell which is free:"we're being attacked" and now the ENTIRE party can act in the surprise round. You just set yourself up in a position where spiteful players will abuse your inability to properly apply the rules for a system as simple as 5e.