Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

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Adamska said:
CR was designed in older editions with the following team in mind: A sword and board fighter, a rogue that specializes in finding traps, a cleric dedicated to healing, and a blast casting wizard. It's always been a bit wonky in terms of how they work because of that, especially when you have more than 4 players.

It was always a bit off and a rule of thumb was you look at what that monster does, and use either more of about or lower than the CR, or add a monster that's one or two points higher than the party.
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I guess it just seems more inaccurate to me because I tend to make encounters where terrain is as much of or more of a factor than monsters.
I had a encounter for level 2s with 5 giant sharks…. In puddles. Yes it was stupid but it was also a fun change of pace from just fighting sahuagin and reef sharks by using them as environmental hazards. The colossal sharks were kind of a fuck everyone group and everyone loved it as opposed to just pushing people into pits. The cleric even killed one and put shark teeth on his clothes which I determined gave a once per rest advantage on a intimidation check.
 
Argrabius said:
is it just me or is challenge rating in D&D (5e in this case) the worst explained mechanic in the books for new DMs, been forever DM for a while and some other group members have been trying to do it. Their encounters have the expected issues that are part of the learning process such as imbalanced action economy or lack of enemy variety, but one thing bothers me. They seem to religiously follow CR for building their encounters, which when looking at designing a encounter on a surface level looks fine until you realize that CR in practice only exists to grant immunity to instakills and stuff like ranger taming (or XP if you aren’t using milestone for some reason), CR rarely displays the actual strength of a creature against players, is this a common trap new DMs fall into or is my friends’ unrelenting hordes of AC20 golems at low level a unique pain.
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What @Adamska said. CR dates all the way back to 3E and it's never been particularly well balanced. It works... kinda... as a rule of thumb, but in any kind of nonstandard party it seizes up and begins making funny noises.

Use it as a guideline, but don't EVER feel obligated to honor it. If your party starts eating your lunch, start turning up the heat with higher-CR critters. Or buff your critters (my favorite quick-buff is to simply max out their HP, which prevents the barbarian from eating them like Pac-Man).
 
Argrabius said:
I guess it just seems more inaccurate to me because I tend to make encounters where terrain is as much of or more of a factor than monsters.
I had a encounter for level 2s with 5 giant sharks…. In puddles. Yes it was stupid but it was also a fun change of pace from just fighting sahuagin and reef sharks by using them as environmental hazards. The colossal sharks were kind of a fuck everyone group and everyone loved it as opposed to just pushing people into pits. The cleric even killed one and put shark teeth on his clothes which I determined gave a once per rest advantage on a intimidation check.
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Using terrain is something I need to actually do, but it is hard to come up with locale appropiate things, at most I do difficult terrain and height variation
 
You can do fun things with Gelatinous Cubes.

Have the pressure switch activate a door over the player to drop a Gelatinous Cube onto them.
Have it open a trap door that drops them down onto a Gelatinous Cube.
Put Gelatinous Cubes on acid-proof chains swinging over a bridge. (underside of bridge is black pudding nest)
Crushing spike wall trap. The exitway is filled with Gelatinous Cube.
Give them a 10 foot iron rod to check for Cubes. The rod is a mimic.
 
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Ghostse said:
You can do fun things with Gelatinous Cubes.

Have the pressure switch activate a door over the player to drop a Gelatinous Cube onto them.
Have it open a trap door that drops them down onto a Gelatinous Cube.
Put Gelatinous Cubes on acid-proof chains swinging over a bridge. (underside of bridge is black pudding nest)
Crushing spike wall trap. The exitway is filled with Gelatinous Cube.
Give them a 10 foot iron rod to check for Cubes. The rod is a mimic.
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Are teaching us how to do fun things or how torture players and get a TPK?
 
Ghostse said:
You can do fun things with Gelatinous Cubes.

Have the pressure switch activate a door over the player to drop a Gelatinous Cube onto them.
Have it open a trap door that drops them down onto a Gelatinous Cube.
Put Gelatinous Cubes on acid-proof chains swinging over a bridge. (underside of bridge is black pudding nest)
Crushing spike wall trap. The exitway is filled with Gelatinous Cube.
Give them a 10 foot iron rod to check for Cubes. The rod is a mimic.
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Glitterdust comes to mind. Or colored chalk dust or anything that lasts a round or two to negate the trait you're trying to exploit. Booze too on the last one or to just use your own pole.

Not my first rodeo dealing with oozes or abberrations. Arguably my favorite clade of monsters after constructs.
 
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Oozes in general lend themselves to some hilariously nasty traps. Black pudding garbage disposals, ochre jellies in the sewers (looks like a fatberg until it tries to eat you), sentry oozes in jars... good times.
 
Brain Problems said:
I get that you (maybe) don't want to have some constant uber serious grimdark experience where you throw someone out for being goofy but at the same time there's a severe disconnect between the story and world that's being built when the evil party member slaughters a family of begging goblins while laughing and pissing on their corpses. I guess I'm not ballsy enough or no one else cares to kind of say 'knock it off with the edgelord gross out crap' because it would probably create a schism in the group but I guess a simple non-confrontational conversation outside of the game later could most likely solve this type of situation.
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I run an Alien RPG and despite the source material, I keep the tone light. I'm new to DMing with a new to ttrpg group, so it's mainly making sure everyone is having fun. There's no sense in scaring off new players.

One player took this as an invitation to make a meme character based on some fat slob from a reality show about fat people. She was a colonial marshal and managed to make the concept of a space cop uncool. She was disruptive to others roleplaying and was being a general nuisance. If her goal was to roleplay the fattest most obnoxious pig in the galaxy, she was succeeding. I talked to her several times about her behavior and how it was annoying other players but to no avail.

There was a "boss battle" with a former crew member who turned out to be a heavily armed artificial person with a T-minus 5 minutes situation going on. Fat pig lady is downed and the NPC they brought for heavy machinery checks is almost dead after taking a rifle butt to the face from a synthetic. The party used their last med kit on the NPC and left slobbo to die in a fiery explosion before looting her unconscious soon to be corpse.

The party had the option to save her but used the last med kit on the NPC as a "Fuck you" for being annoying for the last couple hours. She was pissed but let no one say I'm not a fair DM. It was out of my hands at that point. The players choose not to help the fat unless turd whose only character trait was she was fat and her only motivation was to drink sodie. I'm hoping that she got the message from the rest of the table. If you want to make a funny character in a serious RPG, that's cool, just don't do it at the expense of everyone else's experience.
 

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Jeff_the_Thriller said:
I run an Alien RPG and despite the source material, I keep the tone light. I'm new to DMing with a new to ttrpg group, so it's mainly making sure everyone is having fun. There's no sense in scaring off new players.

One player took this as an invitation to make a meme character based on some fat slob from a reality show about fat people. She was a colonial marshal and managed to make the concept of a space cop uncool. She was disruptive to others roleplaying and was being a general nuisance. If her goal was to roleplay the fattest most obnoxious pig in the galaxy, she was succeeding. I talked to her several times about her behavior and how it was annoying other players but to no avail.

There was a "boss battle" with a former crew member who turned out to be a heavily armed artificial person with a T-minus 5 minutes situation going on. Fat pig lady is downed and the NPC they brought for heavy machinery checks is almost dead after taking a rifle butt to the face from a synthetic. The party used their last med kit on the NPC and left slobbo to die in a fiery explosion before looting her unconscious soon to be corpse.

The party had the option to save her but used the last med kit on the NPC as a "Fuck you" for being annoying for the last couple hours. She was pissed but let no one say I'm not a fair DM. It was out of my hands at that point. The players choose not to help the fat unless turd whose only character trait was she was fat and her only motivation was to drink sodie. I'm hoping that she got the message from the rest of the table. If you want to make a funny character in a serious RPG, that's cool, just don't do it at the expense of everyone else's experience.
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I'd advise talking to the player if no one from the party made it abundantly, bluntly clear "We are reviving the NPC because your character was annoying". People tend to make stupid decisions about the world of pretend especially in the vein of 'I will make this game really unfun for myself and everyone else instead of talking to people, so they'll learn!' and TTRPGs tend to attract people with various levels of the 'sperging; while lots of things should have in-game solutions "Your character was causing the game to not be fun for others, and that is why they hate you. I let it stand because it made sense from an in-game perspective because their characters hated your character." is one of those things that should be handled out of band.
Especially since you're at a natural point of "Well, I think maybe you should find something else to do on Friday night".


MT Foxtrot said:

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Babylon Bee continues to be the superior Onion.
But no Attack Helicopter on the d-100. 11/13
 
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Ghostse said:
I'd advise talking to the player if no one from the party made it abundantly clear "We are reviving the NPC because your character was annoying". People tend to make stupid decisions about the world of pretend especially in the vein of 'I will make this game really unfun for myself and everyone else instead of talking to people, so they'll learn!' and TTRPGs tend to attract people with various levels of the 'sperging; while lots of things should have in-game solutions "Your character was causing the game to not be fun for others, and that is why they hate you. I let it stand because it made sense from an in-game perspective because their characters hated your character." is one of those things that should be handled out of band.
Especially since you're at a natural point of "Well, I think maybe you should find something else to do on Friday night".
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Oh no the dude did talk to them several times about being an obnoxious cunt before they left her to die. The player was blatantly told to cool it and they instead doubled down.

So I expect that idiot to get kicked soon.
 
Adamska said:
Oh no the dude did talk to them several times about being an obnoxious cunt before they left her to die. The player was blatantly told to cool it and they instead doubled down.

So I expect that idiot to get kicked soon.
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Sometimes people miss the forest for the trees. It sounds like the player may not have gotten the hint and players being players there is about a 40% chance they will show up with an even more annoying character for "revenge".

Rather than hoping, its probably a good idea to make sure the point was carried. Especially since if there are irreconcilable differences this a natural point for the player to step away from the group without having an at-table tantrum and ruining a session.. Or if its a surmountable issue to make sure their new character is a non-shitty one that won't make everyone hate them.
 
Oh no, I'm pretty sure they got the hint at that point, they're just angy their disruptive bullshit wasn't enabled any longer. Intentionally getting killed by the entire party is a very clear message IMO. I strongly suspect that the players themselves ALSO told them to fucking quit, though if not they totally should. If they still act the wounded party or make a revenge character that's more obnoxious though fucking kick them.
 
Adamska said:
Oh no, I'm pretty sure they got the hint at that point, they're just angy their disruptive bullshit wasn't enabled any longer. Intentionally getting killed by the entire party is a very clear message IMO. I strongly suspect that the players themselves ALSO told them to fucking quit, though if not they totally should. If they still act the wounded party or make a revenge character that's more obnoxious though fucking kick them.
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Again, you're not wrong, a reasonable person should have picked up what was being laid down. Not everyone at a table is a reasonable person, and if their character they brought to an Aliens table was a fat space cop....ehhh I think social cues might not be their thing.

@Jeff_the_Thriller definitely did everything that could reasonably be expected of a GM, but sometimes going a little further will make the experience better for everyone.
 
Ghostse said:
I'd advise talking to the player if no one from the party made it abundantly, bluntly clear "We are reviving the NPC because your character was annoying". People tend to make stupid decisions about the world of pretend especially in the vein of 'I will make this game really unfun for myself and everyone else instead of talking to people, so they'll learn!' and TTRPGs tend to attract people with various levels of the 'sperging; while lots of things should have in-game solutions "Your character was causing the game to not be fun for others, and that is why they hate you. I let it stand because it made sense from an in-game perspective because their characters hated your character." is one of those things that should be handled out of band.
Especially since you're at a natural point of "Well, I think maybe you should find something else to do on Friday night".




Babylon Bee continues to be the superior Onion.
But no Attack Helicopter on the d-100. 11/13
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I did talk to her later and she didn't like the character she made. It seems counterproductive to annoy everyone at the table and play your character as running from combat. The colonial marshal was retreating from moderately easy combat.

I played last night with the group and she made her new character a kid. Here we go again. Although still kind of annoying, she did actually RP and get involved with the story.

Two characters got into some trouble, hanging over the abyss about to fall to certain death. Without me pushing her to do so, she used her high mobility to rush over to lower a wire harness down for them to grab. It was nice to see her learn from mistakes and save half the party. It really warms my cold black heart.
 
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