New characters, first session

What a shit DM

>throwing hobgoblins with 1d8 19-20/x2 martial weapons at a party who almost died last session
>having them behave in a manner that directly counteracts the idea the party had
>having them approach weapons drawn and alert, denying them even a good ambush
>not even being able to think on your feet and give the hobgoblin a -2 strength penalty you came up with on the spot since its the first hit that monster has landed

>also a hippogrif as their first combat encounter
>also an entire DMPC party to bail them out of whatever inevitable perils you put them into
>also this was the first combat encounter of that day, which would have likely depleted the parties resources enough to make any following encounters fatal

fuck i am mad

>new characters, first session
>players are asked to find the mayor's kidnapped daugh-
>players kill the DM

Shit Gm

Don't worry about what these people are saying sonny. You will learn how to run a game soon, just keep trying.
love you
x

>hippogrif as their first combat encounter
It's CR 1. That's a medium encounter. What's wrong with that?

>First time DM
>first session, new characters
>party leader asks to see local chief
>insults him

>1d8 19-20/x2 martial weapons
The only things with improved crit range in 5e are champion fighters and hexblade warlocks. All weapons are naturally 20 only.

Also, 4 lvl 3 and 4 lvl 1 are more than a match for 2 hobgoblins. No one spent ANY resources before the route as far as I'm aware. Pretty much everyone but the monk was built for powergame.

And they definitely could have gotten first attack on the hobgoblins who, while they expected danger, had no idea where that danger was. With most of the party ranged that's a ton of advantaged attacks going off before the hobos knew where to charge.

As for why no magical -2 str, there were multiple players in that group who get super pissy when the GM "cheats," for or against them. Not real victories, rock falls, previous GMs, bad touching, yada yada. Part of why I was goodfaith rolling in front of everyone instead of using a screen. To Jimmy the numbers would have killed the group then and there. If Monk had rolled a new character instead of ragequitting there was at least a chance of things blowing over.

-later in the dungeon
>alter, clearly evil
>glowing runes around it
>dwarf pull out 1d4 penis
>rubs on alter
>acid to the penis

>Plothook ignored to go annoy a codpiece merchant

Man this takes me back.

It's amazing what you can do with just vicious mockery and cutting words. The poor DM nearly stroked out.

I've played a campaign up to 9th level and never once got vicious mockery to land. I'm full bard with now 20 cha. Finally I gave up and started using a crossbow.

What's your secret?

target the DM

>New characters, the third session, high degree of turnover.
>Players are on this island trying to find out the cause of the sudden appearances both of a monster breakout and a plague that is hitting the settlements.
>Bump into NPC itinerant cleric courtesy of a random encounter chart.
>Advises them to stay away from the biggest city in the area if they're feeling ill.
>This is met with the party leader deciding "no shitter tells us what to do", followed by the murdering of said cleric.

This is my group. I now mainly amuse myself with my internal kingdom/worldbuilding fantasies while the players are mainly petty thieves with occasional tomb robbing and general breaking and entering. I'm at a point where this even basically fine.

>New character. Fist session
>Roll storm herald genasi barb
>By session 3 I'm a combination of muscle and group dad with some dickhole thrown in
>DM declares we will now make an Evil Party, run curse of strahd and have our parties fight one another
>Roll dwarf monk. CE, play like i'm wyald. Practice roleplaying. Learn that the rest of the party is passive with any sort of personality leading
I've got 8 int. I eat people and the next thing i'm going to do is burn a seemingly haunted house down. Yes I'm Chaotic Evil but some on, somebody engage me, maybe do more then go "no..stop" out of character. I'm not going to fight you, just try and force some command so the worst character stops making the decisions

>New players, 8th session
>Party trapped inside spooky haunted castle surrounded by a green misty forcefield, find a cracked green gem leaking out green mist that is suspiciously similar to the forcefield
>Players break the gem and unleash a long imprisoned demon back into the world

>put a goblet in the game surrounded by skeletons
>goblet is filled with blood
>someone has etched a warning that if you drink from it you die
>monk player drinks from it
>dies and gets mad

We did not kill the wizard who sent us to explore a Dungeon on our first session.

I can't blame them for that at all. Your affordances made it seem like the gem was making the forcefield, their goal was to remove it, ergo break gem.

Why was it even there? Just to kill someone stupid enough to ignore the sign?

>players are sent to deal with poachers hunting in the barons woods
>players strikes a deal with poachers for a steady supply of hides
>players strikes a deal with a tanner to make said hides into leather
>players makes a deal with the local leatherworkers guild for a monthly supply of silver coin

The baron will probably get pissed if he ever finds out. But then again, he's the only one not benefiting from its all.

Have them encounter another party of the same level or one-two levels power doing what you were expecting them to do for little price.

Classic. There's always one in a group.

> Player character is a fucking dragon, clearly superior to humans and more powerful than most of them.
> Player makes a female dragon of the least warlike type breathing sleep-inducing fog instead of fire.
> She joins the army of the kingdom of humans to kill other dragons and never even enters any battle.

The thing is, by putting something like this in the game you're actively fighting the player's mindset. They're playing D&D (I assume). They're here to explore. See new things. Be heroes. Do something they can't do in real life. They can NOT drink from magic cursed cups any day of the week, but that's not why they showed up to play.

That player clearly wanted to know why the cup was there. He wanted to explore your world, to learn new things about it. In the absence of any other way, he tried the only thing he could do to find out; He drank the magic cursed blood of death.

What I'm saying is that if you put something like this in your game, give the players a way to find out more about it. Give them a rune to investigate, or a scribbled note, or an etching on the altar.

Fuck.

Wanting to explore a dragon lair does not mean running at the dragon buttnaked screaming you gonna kill him. Wanting to explore a castle of a powerful wizard does not mean pushing every lever there for shits and giggles. Wanting to explore ancient ruins does not mean jumping on every old crumbling bridge. Wanting to explore an alchemist's library does not mean you must drink from suspicious bottles with stickers saying "Poison".

See, its possible that they're just shitty players. I'm not arguing against that.

>does not mean you must drink from suspicious bottles with stickers saying "Poison"
True, but the guy did. Did he say why?

And what was the alternative? Was there a story behind the killer cup for him to find out? Was there a purpose behind it?

...

I hoped it wasn't this, and was actually an interesting story. Maybe I have too high hopes for the state of Veeky Forums

>can't find the mayor's daughter if there's no mayor
your players did the best they could with the hand they were dealt

I'm not that dude, the picture just sums up my opinion on the subject. There can be a deep and interesting backstory behind the Cup of Instant Death, but don't fucking drink out of it.

My opinion basically boils down to: Why would you put a pointless cup of instant death in the game? That would be retarded. And if there was a reason behind it, then the GM should have made it clearer so some retard doesn't kill his character with it.

>1d8 19-20/x2

3.pfags get ouuuuuuuut.

Sometimes a cup of instant death is just a cup of instant death. It doesn't need a fucking character arc.

>Why would you put a pointless cup of instant death in the game?
To weed out retards you don't want to have to play with.

>>can't find the mayor's daughter if there's no mayor
int 2
wis 18

>Shit world builder detected
Why is that cup in the game then?

Technically correct

>literally everything in the entire game world has to have a 20 page backstory
Sometimes a trap is just a trap user, even when it's shiny instead of spiky.

A cup of blood surrounded by skeletons is not a trap. Its the kind of thing the players will expect to have a backstory. Swinging blades out of walls not so much.

>A cup of blood surrounded by skeletons is not a trap. Its the kind of thing the players will expect to have a backstory.
A necromancer placed it there to kill off investigative adventurers.

We didn't try to kill the mayor when he asked us to find his caravans that bandits attacked. We did kill every bandit though, and most died while sleeping.

If that's the kind of backstory you give intriguing artefacts in your games I can see why the players voluntarily drank poison.

>waaa if the bad guys actually try to stop me I'll quit your game

>Trying to stop someone
>By leaving a glass of poison lying around and just hoping that they drink it

Well it apparently works, so why not?

user, how much does it cost them to procure the poison? Almost nothing
How much does it cost to place the skeletons there? Almost nothing
How much does it cost to keep it there? Nothing
What can they gain from doing so? Killing curious adventurers and training the rest to be less curious

>By leaving a glass of poison lying around and just hoping that they drink it
"How do people usually deal with pests using chemical compounds?" for 500

This can't be argued.
It's also a old timey thing. I had a DM do it to the party once, the druid ate the sumptuous feast at the table, I stabbed it with my sword.
Druid died, and I killed the lord wizard with a dagger.
Win/win.
Druid was a twat anyway.

That's a poor comparison. Fleas, ticks, and other bugs are WAY smarter than the players in question.

Then make it something delicious that they would eat, not something that most non-retarded humans would avoid anyway like blood.

Also, do you want to train the others to be less curious? You're basically helping them to weed out the retarded members of their teams.

So what you're saying is that dark lords should only kill adventurers after they solve fiendishly clever puzzles, to promote a natural selection of stupid heroes that are easier to defeat?

This is why you faggots make your characters as a group and have a plan of what you want to do so you can begin the campaign in media res on an agreed upon activity rather than stupid shit like this OP.

Imagine if every oneshot had a mandatory tavern scene where everyone introduced themselves like a faggot and there was a contrived reason for them to all work together.

Don't treat your players like idiots, being new to a system doesn't make them new to fiction.

>>The campaign starts in the middle of a routine burglary job gone wrong and the party need to survive, evade and escape back to their hideout while also destroying evidence
>>The campaign begins in the midst of a colosseum tournament fought in groups. The party has seen initial success but the next bout has been sabotaged against them
>>The player characters are all extended family at a funeral/wedding/ reunion when suddenly *insert event here occurs*

The most important thing in a first session is to establish why the party is working together and providing a motive for them to go out and do all the crazy shit adventurers do.

"You're hired to rescue the mayor's daughter" is railroading characters who may not give a flying fuck about damsels in distress or may have been the kind of dude to kidnap her in the first place. Come up with an urgent situation that demands their attention and doesn't feel forced.

My personal favorite is telling people I want to run a boss fight one shot, and then after running it the next week tell them i want to continue with the same characters and the following scenario

"Your party have just returned home after an exhausting journey victorious from slaying the dragon/demon prince/whatever, but upon entering the city discover another group arrived in the city via magic before you and is claiming credit for your success. They are all being named Dukes and Duchesses, and the lands ruler has promised the hand of his daughter to their leader as thanks."

Well exactly, you want the retarded ones to go out and breed

>not something that most non-retarded humans would avoid anyway like blood.
>adventurers
>non-retarded

>Also, do you want to train the others to be less curious? You're basically helping them to weed out the retarded members of their teams.
there's a difference between cautious curiosity and blind curiosity
Players should know that curiosity can help them but blindly taking everything may lead to their death.
If they had heeded the warning they wouldn't have died.
And even if not, they could have tested it on something (e.g. small critters) before testing it on themselves

Reminds me of the story of the GM that placed an extremely desiccating powder in a dungeon. The cleric's first act? Snort it

Why would you let them encounter something that can one shot them? What the fuck is wrong with you

>new characters, first session
>players are asked to find the mayor's kidnapped daughter
>players find out she happily eloped with Necromancer BF
>mayor disapproves
>"We'll fuck you, we need the money."
>"Daddy never pays adventurers. He'll kill you with his guards".
>players kill the mayor
>one player tries to use this to rule town
>reveals he's a vampire
>tries to kill town priest
>gets lynched
>rest of the party apologize, get payed by priest to just. Go.

My players.

>new characters, first session
>players are asked to find the duke's kidnapped daughter
>players spend hours in the first house they entered questioning every man, woman and potplant possible
>drew fantastical conclusions for literallynothing.jpg
>never even got out of the town
>never ran for them again

Was there any escalation there, or was that their go to plan?

>the entire world has to be tailored so I'm never in any danger
Ever considered running away?

>>Running away from a monster with a 40 ft ground speed and 60ft flight

Uh

Yeah good luck with that

You know full well there's always going to be that one guy in your party who tries to drink it anyway just because he wants to see what will happen. Even if you directly tell him what will happen. Because hey anything's possible right?

Honestly, I've seen a lot of DMs look disappointed when nobody drinks the mysterious liquid or pulls the evil looking lever. As if the players skipped a cool encounter.

headofvecna.jpg

It one shot him for more than twice his hp, when was he supposed to run?

>new characters, first session
>players are asked to find the mayor's kidnapped daugh-
>mayor never had a daughter
>mayor is nothing more than a senile old man given an honorary title by the 7 or 8 sad inhabitants of a two tent settlement
>mayor's entire family was eradicated by a goblin attack that reduced the settlement to what it is today
>proudly return with "mayor's" daughter
>nobody asks any questions
>"mayor's" daughter is confused but grateful to be away from tougher circumstances of her old life

>GM ends session on a cliffhanger before a major battle
GOD I'M SO PUMPED FOR SUNDAY

I miss the days when I could make fighters that critted on a 9 with a twohanded mercurial scimitar

youtu.be/-Tdu4uKSZ3M?t=44

5e's CRs were assigned arbitrarily by people who didn't know or care what they were doing.

Thank you, user.

DMs need to start putting a stop to this murderhobo bullshit if they ever want it to stop. If I had to put up with that shit, there would be real consequences for the players just like in real life.

Nice.

>new characters, first session
>players are asked to find the mayor's kidnapped daughter
>Marisha starts interrogating the mayor for no reason
>the mayor seemingly has nothing to hide so Marisha accuses him of murdering his daughter
>Liam tries to calm things and then says "fuck" in an inappropriate context and everyone in the stream lols
>Taelisin is getting anxious and impatient because they have talked to half a dozen people for half an hour who clearly have no information
>Matt is desperately trying to point them in the right direction
>Travis and Sam doing and saying lighthearted stuff whores to make it worthwhile
>Laura is at least trying in her own way
>Orion is trying to make it about him and trying to impress (Marisha? The stream? An NPC?) so he and his character are insolent and lie
>I stop watching

bump

Bullshit. Most new players play along because they buy in immediately. The problem players are the ones that come with lefunnymeme expectations, like some idiots who wants to play CoC because they read Old Man Henderson's greentext or the people who listen to comedy actual plays and think the game is supposed to be stand up comedy.

The few details you've let slip tell a different story. Your game was shit, plain and simple.

The fucking bible has God making the same threat and it being a lie. Any player in their right mind would risk it hoping for an interesting outcome.

>second time DM
>few sessions in
>players have killed all the bandits in a fort
>party face thinks he can forge a document in order to fool the local lord into believing that he owns the fort
>mfw

Call of Cthulhu is a totally fine game, you know. Is corruption that well known? None of my players ever heard of it.

>new characters, first session
>players are asked to find the mayor's kidnapped daugh-
>Dad! I'm right here!

>putting a full party of DMPCs
>putting monsters that can do double the hp of your melee pcs in a single strike
>not doing a Deus Ex Machina to the monk that let him at 0hp so the other players can rush to save him, be it just ignoring the massive damage rule, martial advantage or the crit
What kind of shit GM kills a pc at the first encounter of a first session?

Oh i like this one!

>give the players a way to find out more about it...like an etching
>skeletons and an engraving say "Tide pod challenge"

What do you want, a Surgeon Generals warning on random dungeon juices?