"My job as a DM is not to kill you, but to ensure that you are having a good-"

"My job as a DM is not to kill you, but to ensure that you are having a good-"
>"No, you try to kill us every time you set up a trap or when we fight enemies!"
How do you react?

Other urls found in this thread:

tuckerskobolds.com/
twitter.com/AnonBabble

"Is that what you want? 'Cause I can start doing that.
If you think that's what I've been doing so far, you haven't seen anything yet."
Summarily deploy Tucker's Kobolds if that is in fact what they want.

Conflict is what makes a game interesting. If there's no conflict, there's no entertainment. Not to mention that even if you do die, there are plenty of ways to come back to life.

Bitch if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. I am effectively god. You want me to kill you? There's a Balor. What's that, we're playing Shadowrun? I don't care. Balor. You all die.

But I don't want to kill you, I want you to succeed against the obstacles that I put in your path. I put them in your path because no story worth telling has no stakes.

"as obstacles to overcome by applying the tools at your disposal.

If you die during a fight, either i miscalculated something or you did a poor job of using your tools"

No prob pal. We'll just use Golden Sky Stories tonight.

Tuckers kobolds?

You need to sit that guy down and tell him the horror stories about how Garry Gygax DMed his games and what kind of characters that resulted in.

"Suddenly, you all suffer from simultaneous heart attacks. Game over, you lost. There! I killed you! Your characters are dead! Now piss off, I'll go find a group that isn't a bunch of crying infants."

"If I didn't have those things happen then this wouldn't be a game, it'd be me reading you a fucking bedtime story"

A term referring to monsters that are actually trying to kill the players at all costs. They're not mindless death cultists charging chest-first onto your fighter's sword. They will actually strategize, split up into squads, lure you into kill zones and traps, destroy resources to deny them, and so on. For example they don't live in 10-foot hallways of even terrain, they live in tiny, tangled tunnels that an armored adventurer would have to crawl through practically immobilized but they can dig through rapidly. Or their entryway will be lined with oil that they ignite after locking you in.
Murderholes, pit traps, collapsing tunnels, poisoned food, every damn trap you can think of.

Who actually even sets up traps?

Traps- outside of things like raiding tombs or breaking into vaults- are stupid things. Since either dumb monsters would trip them, drunk bandits, etc.

Traps might be useful if they're in rarely-used places, or if someone makes a 'trap hall' specifically to lure invaders into, but traps tend to be kind of silly to me. To the point where I allow every character to disarm and find traps no matter the DC- The Trapfinding ability rogues have just give them a +4 bonus to it.

Monsters who aren't there to provide obstacles.

Monsters who are there to kill the players.

Think Vietnam circa 1960. It's not going to be heroic, it's not going to be fun, you're going to die of tetanus and starvation and falling 30 feet into a pile of shit-coated wooden stakes.

Wizards.

>Well, I put you in dangerous situations so you'll feel strong and smart when you succeed
>Do you think there's too much danger? If so I can tone it down
>Or do you have a problem with danger in general? In that case we could play another game. Like a murder mystery.
Probably something like this.

I dunno, snares and hidden pits are a decent way to catch prey. And simple traps like tripwires are good for slowing down an opponent when you're cornered/out of time.
Obviously swinging axe blades, flame throwers and other elaborate nonsense aren't worth the investment though.

>It's not me trying to kill you, it's the bad guys.

Well, if you just want to play a bunch of princesses having a tea party then I guess there's no reason for me to be here.

>"My job as a DM is not to kill you, but to ensure that you are having a good time"
Stop being a cuck maybe. In a way DMs job IS to kill the players. If it wasn't you might as well set the game aside and tell a joke, or watch a movie together, or have an orgy, good times guaranteed. If you aren't putting the PCs in fair danger your session is limp and gay.

"The good GM does not kill the player's characters, the good GM offer the opportunity for stupid and reckless players to get themselves killed."

(You)

I really, really like this image.
Do you mind if I save it?

It's cute that you think I'm trying.

>Dear god yes that is what I want. Well, what I WANT is for you to not act so put out when a session goes by without someone dying, but if you're going to be aggressive, at least don't be passive aggressive.

Yes I have had this conversation before, why do you ask?

...

Please don't.

Take your fill, stranger. You can copy the filename too if you want.

Well, you break into the dungeons I design, steal all the treasure, and murder all the NPCs! Who's the real jerk here?

Okay. You do it.

If a player dies they should deserve it. They should have known before they took the risk that death was a possibility. They have plot armor as players. So their deaths should always be predictable and avoidable.

My players are used to me running my enemies this way. Unless it says that they’re reckless and will fight to the death, the will try to win and live any way possible. Are you telling me that isn’t the norm?

Unfortunately, a lot of GMs just uses monsters as EXP fodder between boss fights.

Is there a screenshot of this somewhere?

I get a lot of milage out of putting traps in places where the players can't just absurd disarm check their way out of it. Archers sniping at the players from up high? the stairs have some (usually easily spotted) trap on them because the archers aren't dumb and don't want to get casually stabbed. The evil high priest took to his heels and fled through that door while the party disposed of his last few minions! Make a perception check! No? Alright, so you're bashing the door dow-oh, that sets off the magic trap. now everyone within twenty feet of the door give me a reflex save before the next stage of the fight starts. Makes them have to mix up their plans a bit.

>"No, you try to kill us every time you set up a trap or when we fight enemies!"
THEY WEREN'T ENEMIES THEY WERE OFFICE WORKERS ARMED WITH WHATEVER THEY COULD GRAB BEFORE YOU SHOT THEM TO DEATH

THAT WASN'T A TRAP THAT WAS A MILLIWAVE SENSOR TO DETECT PEOPLE WITH GUNS

ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS PICK UP THE UPLOAD DISC

IT WAS THE JOHNSON'S OFFICE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD

YOU HADN'T EVEN REACHED THE OPERATIONS SITE

It is not the norm for D&D. The norm is that the monsters are just relaxing in whatever dungeon unless an alarm is raised, and their battle tactics typically amount to "charging at whatever threat they perceive at full power". They may try and retreat if it looks bad, but never advanced strategies from anything except an "anti-party" (a group of NPCs with class levels designed fighting the players on even ground).

They're usually allowed to put up strategies if the players have gunked something up and tripped an alarm, though.

Fuck that. Thats some MMO bullshit right there. Do GM/DM/Storytellers let their players level up on cats? An encounter is a step on the combat journey of a character and we know that the journey is enriched by the steps you take, not just by the destination (bbeg).

The problem with that is that it fucks over the world's verismilitude. The archers... what, spent five to ten minutes to set up that trap when the players invaded? Did they really waste all that time? Or did they have it set up weeks before, jumping over the same step every single god-damn time they go up those stairs? You'd think someone would trip over the tripwire or whatever and get FUCKING GUTTED by the trap.

In your dungeons, do you have monsters ambling through and magically not stepping on the one tile that sets the boulder rolling down the tunnel?

You don't have soldiers putting minefields between their barracks and their toilet in case someone attacks them, and then they jump between them like a kid playing 'The Floor Is Lava.' It would be just as silly for someone to set traps.

That said, magic traps are more reasonable, since they're easy and convenient (One standard action, usually) to cast, and can probably be enchantable to be selective, so that they don't trigger on allies.

its yours my friend.

Is this how modules work? I have never run one and was honestly going to give the Giant one a shot but if enemies are supposed to be this...video gamey, I’m not touching it.

Kick-in-the-door dungeons have existed long before MMOs, user.
In the first place
>An encounter is a step on the combat journey of a character
D&D is ultimately, by design, a game about killing orcs and taking their stuff. The purpose of combat is victory, not sharing a good time with the mongrels you're hacking to pieces.

Since the GM designs the world and it isn't all pre-generated, surely Tucker's Kobolds comes off more as
>"hahaha they have now surrounded you and the walls have holes they shoot poisoned darts out of and they have rigged explosives under the floor"

Tucker's kobolds were a way to show that shitty, weak monsters could still be threatening to PCs if you play them right, but really they just demonstrated that a gauntlet of traps will fuck PCs up and that the kobolds were more garnish than anything.

Wow that sounds boring

>The archers... what, spent five to ten minutes to set up that trap when the players invaded
A trap should be simple to arm and only slightly difficult to disarm. A mechanical method of doing this might simply to have a cable from the archers to the trap, and pulling the cable raises the tripwire. Simple to arm, disarming it is slightly harder.

Tiles being set off by monsters? That's a valid thing - should only be in sealed rooms.

Video games got it from D&D, user. Modules have always been this way. They're series of rooms, some rooms have inhabitants, those inhabitants will usually be hostile and also not prepared for an assault unless alerted. They might flee after taking an injury, but it's hard to tell a level 2 barbarian from a level 16 at a glance, except by how glowy his axe looks.

I realize this is a strange and foreign concept, user, but an important part of defensive design is making bits of it that only *look* like they're ways through, to encourage your enemies to take certain courses of action beneficial to you and detrimental to them. Like going through a trap-strewn no mans land. When did I ever say the archers used that particular set of stairs to get up to the high ground? The trap is easily spotted because occasionally I like my players to be able to spot an ambush before they stick their dicks in it.

Yeah I made the mistake of doing this once with my group. I had them going into a sewer to kill a youngish black dragon. Since black dragons are smart, cruel, devious fucks, I had him playing Vietcong on them. Jump out of the water, hose them with acid, dive back into the water. Let them wander for a little while, they run into a trap, he ambushes them from behind, hoses them with acid again.

I had fun at least.

I for one think it sounds boring to have literally every species design their bases like an eternal warzone and expect to be raided at every hour of the day.

You haven't actually read Tucker's Kobolds, have you?

I guess you're right but that shouldn't stop the mobs to be real opponents

Since when is escalation of conflict ever a good idea.

>That thing you think I'm doing that you don't like, how about I intentionally do more of it?

>Mobs

..but did you die?

>I have no imagination and don't understand the potential of literally any ttrpg
I feel legit sorry for you.

do you really want to peek behind the curtain?

I'm not, I'm having a race with a 3 year old.
I'm pretending to try and "win", and then taking a dive.


alternatively
I see... would you rather play a gaming without traps or fighting?
because I've got a copy of Golden Sky Stories around here somewhere...
and that one written by a chick.
the one where everyone has a sprite animal, and the worlds power by love.
you know the one

I fully understand the potential, but D&D isn't the system for it. D&D is a system built entirely around high fantasy heroes traipsing over insignificant hordes, occasionally being stalled out by some impressive looking commander type. In the first place injury is nonexistent and death is a mere inconvenience, to be purchased away at the nearest temple of Pelor.
You want something different, you really ought to play something else.

>Tuckers kobolds
tuckerskobolds.com/

you're not getting it

This. It's what I tell my players. Coleville might be a cuck, but I took what he said about monsters to heart.
My goal is to tell a story with you guys. My monsters' goal is to win.

>a system built entirely around high fantasy heroes traipsing over insignificant hordes, occasionally being stalled out by some impressive looking commander type. In the first place injury is nonexistent and death is a mere inconvenience, to be purchased away at the nearest temple of Pelor.
You described a setting, not a system. D&D has several different settings. Try your "traipsing over insignificant hordes" bullshit in the world of Dark Sun, and let me know how that works out for you.

It worked perfectly fine in the 3E update. Why the fuck would Dark Sun work any differently? You think dark themes actually change the system? No, the 18th level Barbarian is still going to crack skulls. It works the same in Ravenloft, it works the same in Planescape, it works the same in Spelljammer, and it works the same in Eberron. Until you start slamming down rule zero to forbid magic items and easy access to divine magic, it remains that way.

Fuck resurrection. If someone dies it should have impact, both on the party and the plot. Roll up a new character. If dwindling resources is a theme in the campaign, then down one level, or some equivalent of character building. If not, then something in line with the rest of the party.

Magical Brick.

"All people, from the lowest of peasants to the wealthiest of nobles, from the shortest dwarf to the tallest elf, all of them know that monsters and other terrible creatures have lived in this world since much before the first civilization began. It was a time of chaos and darkness, when the people lived in fear, and could but pray each day to the gods they would survive the night. However, even before the Age of Civilization, there were those who could and did strike against the forces of evil. Powerful demigods who could throw mountains, and cunning wizards who stole the secret language of the gods from radiant angels and laughing devils. But, at the end of the day, even those were mortals. As such, they sought for a peaceful place, of a home, where they could raise a family of many sons and daughters, or hide themselves from the rest of the world.

"It was not through the hands of man that they built their houses and fortresses and towers, but through sorcery and arcane magic. Demigods and wizards knew how to infuse material substance with fantastical properties, how to enchant and create wondrous artifacts.

"The recipes are lost to time, but you'll know when you see it. A brick, perhaps of clay, or sandstone, or granite, imprinted with a unique pattern of runes and carvings. The magic, they say, was prepared a long time ago. Gold dust baked in the clay, or the blood of a beholder smeared into the stones, some stories suggest. But these magical bricks are much valued possessions, which have the power to create and reshape the world around them. You build your house with one, or you bury it to keep it hidden, and its magic will turn the land around it into a deadly place. Pits will appear just beneath the surface. Swinging blades will grow from the ceiling. Entire new rooms will appear, hosting twisted, complex contraptions with no purpose but kill. Poison, fire, electricity.

"Leave the ruins alone, and they'll leave you alive."

I'm running a Delta Green game a couple of the players have already rolled a second character in anticipation since two almost died in Last Things Last. I also usually have a Friendly that someone can take over if someone dies.

I agree, Tucker's Kobolds have always sat unwell with me, simply because a power hungry DM would invent counters to stuff on the fly.

>Oh, you remembered to keep healing potions inside a fireproof sack? Well, you crawled over some razor wire, and tore it open.

Sort of thing. I've known way too many DMs who would think pulling a Tucker's Kobolds on the party would mean that they are very clever, and take it as an offense if they start out thinking the kobolds.

Very appropriate. I approve.

Those other guys are wrong. The dungeon is the monster, the kobolds are the cogs.

At any encounter that is mildly dangerous, the players should always be at risk of death, or at least injury. But the DM should not build an encounter with the express purpose of ensuring that the players die and have virtually no chance to survive. Unless the player has decided to literally try to beat an unbeatable foe.

I am strangely reminded of a story where a group of players were given a temp DM (their proper DM called in sick), who was apparently too lazy to adjust encounters to the party.

Out of 4 players, the Wizard tapped out as they had prior engagement, this left them without anyone with the ability conjure Fire or Acid (this is important).

The first room the 3 remaining players enter is inhabited by a group of trolls.

TPK

None of the remaining players had access to Fire or Acid, so the trolls kept regenerating infinitely.

The temp DM knew the players didn't have access to Fire and Acid, since he had their character sheets prior to start. But he still sent trolls against them, knowing it would be literally impossible for the party to bypass the regeneration.

That's fucked. Did they keep going and ignore what happened? Or did it end there?

>Set up what was supposed to be a difficult fight against skilled opponents
>PCs breeze through it without a scratch because I never rolled higher than a 10

What I think what happened was that the temp DM quickly drafted a one-shot for the 3 players afterwards with different characters. Which was a lot more fun. So it wasn't a complete waste of their time.

When the proper DM returned, they pretended like the troll encounter hadn't happened and it was just some nightmare the trio experienced prior to the entering of the dungeon due to anxiety.

Which seems like a pretty good way to hand-wave a botched encounter and no one (even the DM) wasn't happy with it; especially if the team has a Diviner in the party, or something.

"are you not entertained?"

They could have just run away, you know? There's no need to fight every encounter to very end.

I am pretty sure they tried that. Though, I don't recall them mentioning any attempts at retreat.

Though I don't see how the party would be able to outrun the trolls, or why the trolls would be happy to just let them go.

Depends on the setting

>How do you react?

I tell the little prick to fuck off. He damn well knows better so the only reason he's talking this much shit is to stir up trouble. And if he doesn't know better and he sincerely needs this explained to him, then I do not know how he got into one of my games in the first place.

"That's trying to challenge you. If you meant me to try and kill you then buckle up buttercup."

>They have plot armor as players
Fuck that

>Listen, nigger, if I wanted your shithead characters dead, they'd be dead the time I botched my rolls against the ancient black dragon. Or those other countless times. I provide the situations for you to roleplay in and challenges to overcome, not play some shitty darkest dungeons memefest.

It helps that Kobolds design their dens like that in universe, thus why Kobolds were chosen as the enemy of choice as opposed to, say, Tucker's Modrons.

I don't GM for players that think I am competing against them.

I make the problems, you make the solutions.
git gud or git out

There's no reward without risk.
You won't value a reward if there is no challenge to get said reward. It just so happens most of these challenges involve risking your life.

1. Its a game, the point of a game is to overcome odds.
2. Conflict is what makes the game interesting. Without death as the risk we might as well just play pretend with some actin figures
3. If your character does die then its time to re-roll. If they had an impact in the world maybe they'll even be remembered. Get butthurt about a character dying and you get removed, I'm not dealing with that bullshit

If you think that me trying to show you a good time means I'm pulling punches you are dead wrong. I will not fudge rolls, I will not hold back, if you are unprepared or just shit out of luck you will die.

Players can't die to you throwing overpowered bullshit at them if you also give them overpowered bullshit.

This
People who try to resolve problems by making them worse get left alone at the table while players go find a DM who can function like a rational human being.

Tucker's Kobolds = Fantasy Vietcong

"Hoy many of you died?" (If there are, "And why?")

Is the player being accusatory, like saying "You totally do try to kill us" or are they asking for it like "Please do try to kill us"?

If the former, I tell them that my end goal is not to kill the players, although sometimes through luck or miscommunication it might seem like that. Which is unfortunate, but not something anyone can do much about without ruining other aspects of the game.
If the latter, after checking the rest of the group is OK with it, I tell them that dying has always been a possibility, but if they really want I can ramp up the difficulty of the encounters, in one way or another.

/thread

the simple solution is to write the traps out ahead of time, so if the players call bs you can say "no, see, it was planned well in advance"

Goblins and Kobolds usually do, because they literally are constantly raided due to their small size and stature. they know they are at the bottom of the Goblinoid/Draconic pecking order, and sadistically plan accordingly

>we're playing Shadowrun? I don't care. Balor

This made me laugh, just the image of some demon prince popping out of nowhere in cyber-punk+magic land and dishing out some D&D high level magic dakka due to being confused as to the setting, then getting enraged at his confusion

I always tend to envision goblins as being the quick-breeding race of eternal minions, used and trained by hobgoblins or ogres or whatever, and bossed around. Their advantage is that they're outright cruel, and have a great deal of numbers. If they've got a hobgoblin boss, then they're probably actually trained. Probably to be fodder, but fodder with a slight understanding of tactics and training. And if that worked, then even after the hobgoblin dies or whatever, generations forward, the goblins would pass that forward...

Kobolds, on the other hand, don't breed nearly as quickly but probably have a bigger sense of community. They work together not through necessity, but through a sense of unity (against gnomes, at first). They've also got dragon blood, which means they've probably got sorcerers (or adept, if using NPC classes), meaning that magic isn't out of the question.

I'm actually working on an antagonist for the party who has levels in the Dungeon Lord PRC, and a bunch of ally-buffing classes and dips. Then a huge army through Leadership. I'm still not sure what to use for minions yet, though.

traps and ambushes are fucking cheap though, specially if they make absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever eg: a trap in the middle of a fucking abbey which we had entered before because the DM is mad at us.

If you're mad at your players at least have a bit of decency and make up a better excuse to slaughter their shit.

>I for one think it sounds boring to have literally every species design their bases like an eternal warzone and expect to be raided at every hour of the day.
Yeah, because orcs, goblins, bugbears, gnolls, kobolds, ratfolk, etc. aren't known for both raiding and being raided, right?

Yeah I'm playing the NPC and rolling dice and adding stats but I'm not actively trying to plot your demise. I roll behind a screen and if it succeeds I 95% I'll lift up the screen so my players can confirm the dice. The other 5% is usually in a graduated battle with multiple hits where they don't need to know the damage and/or plot specific like if an NPC is essential for story reasons

Any and all traps were set up beforehand - I don't pull that kind of shit without writing it down in the journal we keep first. That way there's no bullshit because sometimes players can think that the GM is specifically plotting against them when in reality they're just really unlucky that time.

>tldr: don't actively fuck up your players and if you're not transparent, honest, and accepting of feedback when you GM people will get salty, guarant-fucking-eed.

I like stories where goblins aren't retarded and have parental investment in their children tbqh

We can compromise max family size like 15-20 and bonus points if they're mostly polyamorous to raise up to that amount of kids

Faggot

A balor would probably be BTFO in Shadowrun, to be honest.