SO! I want to stress, I'm a new DM. I've done 1 One shot session, and I've been doing a campaign now for going on 13 sessions (meeting biweekly). During the game, mostly, everything seems fine. After the session I go out of my way to ask my players "Did you have fun? Is there anything I can do better?" just to try and keep tabs on my players and make sure to keep myself in check. Despite these efforts I keep having conversations in Discord afterwards about how a specific player is feeling targeted, and about how another player has a problem with a mechanic that doesn't effect them and another effect that does effect them but not in the way they think no matter how much I try to assure them. A third player just up and left the campaign all together without a word or explanation as to why. I keep putting it all on myself but at this point I'm concerned.
To clarify, The player feeling targeted feels so because out of lord only knows how many Nat 20's they've rolled (A lot) 3 were failures because the total roll didn't beat a high level NPC.
The other player has a problem with my campaign ruling that smaller creatures below 4 1/2 ft all have reduced speed (Smaller Creature Smaller Gait) Ie. Kobolds, Goblins, Kenku etc. and a Homebrew mechanic i created for another player that generally has trouble with communication. The mechanic is for a Rogue/cleric she has that is a quieter character, and the player has trouble speaking in game becuase they can't "Find the words". I've assured them that they shouldn't think too hard about it and just go with simpler words. But during our session 0 they rolled poorly to draw in patrons to their church, so I had them get creative with one of their rogue abilities. They created Subliminal Preeching, a wis saving throw that use double speech to convey an idea. On success the target recognizes the double speech and generally is neither enticed or deterred, on failure the target isn't compelled to do anything they wouldn't elect to but may align with the intended suggestion more easily. Basically "Friends" Nerfed. The player thinks it's a charm effect without magic and refuses to allow his character to be influenced by it. In my eyes he saying that if he doesn't like something he just doesn't accept it but the rest of the party is fine. What if he turns around and says he doesn't wanna do a Death saving throw? That's not fair to the other players, or the one that this was designed to help.
As small as these issue might seem, they have both made them that much bigger, even threatening to leave the campaign and tear it apart becuase two of the other players are a girlfriend and brother.
I'm running the games as the Dm's Guide and payer handbook describe and I'm added my own elements to it (those elements being essentially the rule of cool), but despite all sources I go to and everything I'm doing to bend over backwards, rewarding and encouraging my players, adding new rule variants we didn't have before when the Second player was the DM, gearing what was supposed to be a more RP focused campaign (that everyoen agreed to and seemed excited for) into one that has 3 combats scheduled per session, these two players just seem intent on tearing it down so they can play "God mode" and the other's couldn't care less. I'm so confused on what, if anything, I'm doing wrong and many friends I have that are DM's are telling me I should probably start looking at playing with other people... But I keep trying. Despite that it seems like every session they come up with new issues.
HELP!!!!!
(for those who have been asking. Here is the ability i created for the rogue/cleric. Subliminal Preaching: DC 15 Wisdom Saving Throw, On a failure; THE CREATURE IS ENTICED BY THE IDEA ATTEMPTED TO BE CONVEYED. The target is in no way compelled to operate as dictated but may be more receptive to the idea intended. On Success the creature is aware of the double speak being projected at it and isn't swayed by it. )
Seems fine. You have some minor issues. You read horror stories sometimes of people being psychologically manipulative or bringing a knife to session two. You don't have that. You're a new DM. You're not going to do everything perfectly and you won't be able to please all the people all the time. People will drop out of your game. That doesn't mean you're doing a bad job. They might just have decided it's too much of a time commitment for their lifestyle.
It's laudable that you go out of your way to ensure your players have a good time. But on the flip side, they need to acknowledge and respect your in-game authority as DM. It is your function to make rulings in-game, and they need to accept that. If they disagree, that's fine - they have that right too. But the right way for them to deal with it is to raise the concern at the time, accept the ruling (for now), then discuss it between sessions. Once an agreement has been reached that all parties accept, then use that ruling in all future circumstances and no further arguments should be accepted. Some of your issues do make me wonder if you held a Session 0 - was this something that you did before starting the campaign?
For the player feeling targeted because the failed three checks, have you reminded them that a Nat20 is not an automatic success on Ability checks? While this is a fairly common house rule, it's not RAW. As a player, I know failing on a Nat 20 can feel very deflating, but it's almost never personal. On top of that, for the player to feel targeted, there seems to be an expectation of not being able to fail. Therefore any failure must automatically be a personal slight against them ie you don't want them to succeed. There's not much you can other than talk to them and ask them why they interpret your actions that way. You can also try brute-force transparency - declaring up front the target DC of any Ability check, or, in a contested roll, declaring the modifier and rolling openly. Then they can't accuse you of shifting the goalposts or fudging rolls to make them fail. But to be truly fair, you would need to do this for all players. That way the "targeted" player doesn't have further grounds to feel like they're being treated differently. Not all DMs like operating this way, as it removes some of the mystique.
For the small stature/slow gait: there's support on both sides for your house rule. Gnomes and Halflings have 25ft movement, while the three other races you mentioned are all 30ft. While I can understand your reasoning in reducing the speed, it may not be necessary. For creatures like kobolds and kenku, I mentally visualise their movements as very furtive and "bursty". So while they may have smaller gaits, they take more steps at a higher speed and manage to keep up. However, this is my personal interpretation, and yours obviously differs. Was this agreed to by everyone in a Session 0? If so, then the player has no grounds for complaint, and it might be worth reminding them of that.
For the final one - there are two sides to this: mechanical and player. Mechanically, on what basis is the player claiming a Charm effect doesn't work on them? Players cannot just unilaterally decide what game mechanics do or do not apply to them, even if they don't like the implications. Charm effects are distinct mechanic in the game, so unless this was agreed to by all players up front (in Session 0), or there is a mechanical reason why they are immune to Charm effects, then they do not get to make this call. I'm also not aware of any playable races that are just outright immune to Charm effects. Even if they were an Elf or Half-Elf, they only have advantage against Charm effects, not immunity. I don't know of any class features that grant immunity to Charm effects, but I don't claim an exhaustive knowledge of all sub-classes, so I'm happy to be corrected on this.
On the player side, it's possible that they player has a moral or ethical objection to Charm effects in general. Search any D&D forum, including this one, and you'll find there are a lot of arguments about why enchantment spells can be seen as repugnant or borderline evil (removal of consent, potential for abuse and manipulation etc). These are valid issues, and if the player is coming from that perspective, then they need to talk to you privately about their concern and an agreement reached.
Additionally, if you used friends as the basis for your Subliminal Preaching spell, then I recommend you and your problem player read the wording of friends very carefully. While it is an Enchantment spell, at no point does it mention applying the Charmed condition. In fact, you will note that the target for friends is "Self", not another creature. In fact, many enchantment spells do not apply the Charmed condition. And the spell has no effect on a failed save, so it's not like there's a negative impact if they fail. So their argument has little standing in my opinion.
"Some of your issues do make me wonder if you held a Session 0 - was this something that you did before starting the campaign?"
I did Individual Session 0's because their characters came from all around the world i built and only 1 of them actually added a reason in their backstory for why they went to the campaign start point. So i did it as a way to first hand showing the DM styling, testing things, asking for feedback, and helping them flesh out their characters a little further as well.
Did you hold a Session Zero for all your players at the same time? Running them individually means they had no chance to know before hand about any of your plans or expectations.
Your player with lots of Natural 20s brings up the possibility of them cheating and there is nothing you can do to prevent that. Did you actually get to see the rolls? Is this a game played at a physical table? D&D Beyond has a lovely log that shows every roll anyone makes. The only disadvantage to that is that the DM's rolls are clearly visible to the players and you can't fudge rolls in their favor or set up surprises.
If you want small races to be slower, you have every right. There is precedent, I think it is clearly what the rules intended. There must be some mechanical disadvantage to being small, or you might as well just declare all player characters to be medium sized and save yourself the aggravation.
Most players, in my experience, *hate* to have their actions dictated to them. What's the point in playing if you don't get to make decisions? As a DM I never do that. There is always wiggle room to resist the commands, or frequent saving throws to end the effect for the next 24 hours from that specific creature. Use Charm and similar effects on me, and I will complain each and every time. At about the third time, I'll hand you my character and walk out of your game. If I want to see characters make choices and have adventures without me getting to make choices, I can read a book.
I'm not clear on if you said anything about this, but one bit of advice. Never under any circumstances allow players to influence the characters of other players with dice. It almost always causes hard feelings and creates real world problems between people who should be friends or at least friendly. Don't you do it either. No matter what the difficulty class of the check, no matter if they get a save, you will almost always annoy people who want to roleplay.
I mean for the one feeling targeted, you can roll in the open.
Of course, this means you won't be able to soften the blow or anything if you accidentally crit against them and faceplant them, but well, if you roll in the open then nobody can accuse you of "targeting" them.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
How can a player feel "targeted" when their NAT 20 plus bonuses does not beat some DC level you have created? A NAT 20 on an attack is always a success, but in anything else, no.
Though I would say that a Nat 20 plus bonuses, at least for a lower level chars, should beat most challenge levels. A Persuasion check with a non-proficient CHA 8 char maxes out at 19. That may or may not beat some high level NPC's ability to resist said Persuasion, or maybe Deceit.
Can you give some examples where this char's rolls did not beat your NPC's DC level?
Vince, it sounds like it was an opposed roll... PC against NPC. And the DM maybe rolled a 19 to the PC's 20, and the NPC had a little more bonus than the PC. I mean you could easily see how a 20+3 would lose to a 19+5.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I'm also curious about the nat 20 fails. If they were opposed checks, then the player has got to deal with it, really bad luck, but it happens. But if the fails were against a fixed DC, they shouldn't have been rolling in the first place. Remember, its your job as DM to call for a roll, not the player's job to start rolling. And if the player can't possibly succeed, you should not be calling for a roll -- if only to avoid this sort of situation.
And as far as this subliminal preaching thing. Are you saying that you have players rolling a save against actions taken by another player? Because that's pretty much always a bad idea. You don't want to create PvP situations, it never ends well.
Personally, I wouldn't do the reduced speed thing. Walking speed is a racial trait, and typically its part of a larger package of abilities that are designed to roughly balance each other out against other races. Reducing the speed is basically making those creatures weaker without giving them some other benefit. (Unless you are giving them some other benefit).
Vince, it sounds like it was an opposed roll... PC against NPC. And the DM maybe rolled a 19 to the PC's 20, and the NPC had a little more bonus than the PC. I mean you could easily see how a 20+3 would lose to a 19+5.
Yeah, that is what I hope it is. If it is Nat 20's failing on an Attack, the DM is making a mistake.
Eh, man honestly my advice is just stop caring. That's it. Just stop caring.
Just show up, run your game and do your thing. Get into character with the NPCs, throw a dungeon at them, laugh a lot, have a great time. You don't need validation after a session, other than did I have as much fun as possible (YOU that is) so stop asking.
Unless something major boils over in game where you need to call a timeout and hash it out, don't sweat it. The players can decide for themselves if the little things that bug them (there are plenty of these in any game for any player) are enough to lead them to conclude this isn't the game for them. If so, hey no worries. Not your fault. There is a hundred players out there ready to take their spot.
Vince, it sounds like it was an opposed roll... PC against NPC. And the DM maybe rolled a 19 to the PC's 20, and the NPC had a little more bonus than the PC. I mean you could easily see how a 20+3 would lose to a 19+5.
Yeah, that is what I hope it is. If it is Nat 20's failing on an Attack, the DM is making a mistake.
Not really. A DC 20 is perfectly reasonable, and some players might have a -1 modifier. Did you really need to roll the d20? No, but the DM might not know every player's modifier for every skill, and the player doesn't know the DC is out of their reach. It's easier just to ask for the roll.
my only suggestion is that failed checks don't have to be all in or all out.
You could say "you failed the climb check and fall" or you could say "that was really close to a success, so you feel the rocks slipping under you, you start to tumble but grab onto a root. You are now dangling." Or if it's PC vs NPC it could be "a look passes over your enemy's face, as though he sees your point but isn't entirely convinced."
SO! I want to stress, I'm a new DM. I've done 1 One shot session, and I've been doing a campaign now for going on 13 sessions (meeting biweekly). During the game, mostly, everything seems fine. After the session I go out of my way to ask my players "Did you have fun? Is there anything I can do better?" just to try and keep tabs on my players and make sure to keep myself in check. Despite these efforts I keep having conversations in Discord afterwards about how a specific player is feeling targeted, and about how another player has a problem with a mechanic that doesn't effect them and another effect that does effect them but not in the way they think no matter how much I try to assure them. A third player just up and left the campaign all together without a word or explanation as to why. I keep putting it all on myself but at this point I'm concerned.
To clarify, The player feeling targeted feels so because out of lord only knows how many Nat 20's they've rolled (A lot) 3 were failures because the total roll didn't beat a high level NPC.
The other player has a problem with my campaign ruling that smaller creatures below 4 1/2 ft all have reduced speed (Smaller Creature Smaller Gait) Ie. Kobolds, Goblins, Kenku etc. and a Homebrew mechanic i created for another player that generally has trouble with communication. The mechanic is for a Rogue/cleric she has that is a quieter character, and the player has trouble speaking in game becuase they can't "Find the words". I've assured them that they shouldn't think too hard about it and just go with simpler words. But during our session 0 they rolled poorly to draw in patrons to their church, so I had them get creative with one of their rogue abilities. They created Subliminal Preeching, a wis saving throw that use double speech to convey an idea. On success the target recognizes the double speech and generally is neither enticed or deterred, on failure the target isn't compelled to do anything they wouldn't elect to but may align with the intended suggestion more easily. Basically "Friends" Nerfed. The player thinks it's a charm effect without magic and refuses to allow his character to be influenced by it. In my eyes he saying that if he doesn't like something he just doesn't accept it but the rest of the party is fine. What if he turns around and says he doesn't wanna do a Death saving throw? That's not fair to the other players, or the one that this was designed to help.
As small as these issue might seem, they have both made them that much bigger, even threatening to leave the campaign and tear it apart becuase two of the other players are a girlfriend and brother.
I'm running the games as the Dm's Guide and payer handbook describe and I'm added my own elements to it (those elements being essentially the rule of cool), but despite all sources I go to and everything I'm doing to bend over backwards, rewarding and encouraging my players, adding new rule variants we didn't have before when the Second player was the DM, gearing what was supposed to be a more RP focused campaign (that everyoen agreed to and seemed excited for) into one that has 3 combats scheduled per session, these two players just seem intent on tearing it down so they can play "God mode" and the other's couldn't care less. I'm so confused on what, if anything, I'm doing wrong and many friends I have that are DM's are telling me I should probably start looking at playing with other people... But I keep trying. Despite that it seems like every session they come up with new issues.
HELP!!!!!
(for those who have been asking. Here is the ability i created for the rogue/cleric. Subliminal Preaching: DC 15 Wisdom Saving Throw, On a failure; THE CREATURE IS ENTICED BY THE IDEA ATTEMPTED TO BE CONVEYED. The target is in no way compelled to operate as dictated but may be more receptive to the idea intended. On Success the creature is aware of the double speak being projected at it and isn't swayed by it. )
With regards to the character with trouble communicating, who's decision was that, the players or yours? you are forcing your player to roleplay a certain way which can be an issue, there are many ways to roleplay a TTRPG, you can "act out" the role using the exact language, but you can also describe what is said and let the exact language be implied, or you can talk the way you want to talk and have it accepted that your character is putting across that idea in their own way in the world.
If your player is feeling forced to roleplay a way they don't enjoy then it is a simple thing to allow them to roleplay how they want to and integrate it into the group. I have played with players who have no single in game conversation and instead relate everything as , My character explains how rough the journey was, My character talks to the mayor and asks him to explain what the job is.
I would also say that as a first time DM my advice is always do not homebrew anything at the start, I will generally usually go as far as to tell a first time group stick to the races classes and subclasses in the players handbook.
Once you have had that feel about the rules as written and how they run at the table, then you can think about tweaking things. In the grand scheme of things, if you are trying to run a more RP game than mechanically 5 foot of movement won't make a huge difference. I would also say, the rule of cool should never result in permanent rule changes, it is about bending the rules in the moment to allow something epic to take place, but the players understanding that is a one off and not a permanent rule change.
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SO! I want to stress, I'm a new DM. I've done 1 One shot session, and I've been doing a campaign now for going on 13 sessions (meeting biweekly). During the game, mostly, everything seems fine. After the session I go out of my way to ask my players "Did you have fun? Is there anything I can do better?" just to try and keep tabs on my players and make sure to keep myself in check. Despite these efforts I keep having conversations in Discord afterwards about how a specific player is feeling targeted, and about how another player has a problem with a mechanic that doesn't effect them and another effect that does effect them but not in the way they think no matter how much I try to assure them. A third player just up and left the campaign all together without a word or explanation as to why. I keep putting it all on myself but at this point I'm concerned.
To clarify, The player feeling targeted feels so because out of lord only knows how many Nat 20's they've rolled (A lot) 3 were failures because the total roll didn't beat a high level NPC.
The other player has a problem with my campaign ruling that smaller creatures below 4 1/2 ft all have reduced speed (Smaller Creature Smaller Gait) Ie. Kobolds, Goblins, Kenku etc. and a Homebrew mechanic i created for another player that generally has trouble with communication. The mechanic is for a Rogue/cleric she has that is a quieter character, and the player has trouble speaking in game becuase they can't "Find the words". I've assured them that they shouldn't think too hard about it and just go with simpler words. But during our session 0 they rolled poorly to draw in patrons to their church, so I had them get creative with one of their rogue abilities. They created Subliminal Preeching, a wis saving throw that use double speech to convey an idea. On success the target recognizes the double speech and generally is neither enticed or deterred, on failure the target isn't compelled to do anything they wouldn't elect to but may align with the intended suggestion more easily. Basically "Friends" Nerfed. The player thinks it's a charm effect without magic and refuses to allow his character to be influenced by it. In my eyes he saying that if he doesn't like something he just doesn't accept it but the rest of the party is fine. What if he turns around and says he doesn't wanna do a Death saving throw? That's not fair to the other players, or the one that this was designed to help.
As small as these issue might seem, they have both made them that much bigger, even threatening to leave the campaign and tear it apart becuase two of the other players are a girlfriend and brother.
I'm running the games as the Dm's Guide and payer handbook describe and I'm added my own elements to it (those elements being essentially the rule of cool), but despite all sources I go to and everything I'm doing to bend over backwards, rewarding and encouraging my players, adding new rule variants we didn't have before when the Second player was the DM, gearing what was supposed to be a more RP focused campaign (that everyoen agreed to and seemed excited for) into one that has 3 combats scheduled per session, these two players just seem intent on tearing it down so they can play "God mode" and the other's couldn't care less. I'm so confused on what, if anything, I'm doing wrong and many friends I have that are DM's are telling me I should probably start looking at playing with other people... But I keep trying. Despite that it seems like every session they come up with new issues.
HELP!!!!!
(for those who have been asking. Here is the ability i created for the rogue/cleric. Subliminal Preaching: DC 15 Wisdom Saving Throw, On a failure; THE CREATURE IS ENTICED BY THE IDEA ATTEMPTED TO BE CONVEYED. The target is in no way compelled to operate as dictated but may be more receptive to the idea intended. On Success the creature is aware of the double speak being projected at it and isn't swayed by it. )
Seems fine. You have some minor issues. You read horror stories sometimes of people being psychologically manipulative or bringing a knife to session two. You don't have that. You're a new DM. You're not going to do everything perfectly and you won't be able to please all the people all the time. People will drop out of your game. That doesn't mean you're doing a bad job. They might just have decided it's too much of a time commitment for their lifestyle.
It's laudable that you go out of your way to ensure your players have a good time. But on the flip side, they need to acknowledge and respect your in-game authority as DM. It is your function to make rulings in-game, and they need to accept that. If they disagree, that's fine - they have that right too. But the right way for them to deal with it is to raise the concern at the time, accept the ruling (for now), then discuss it between sessions. Once an agreement has been reached that all parties accept, then use that ruling in all future circumstances and no further arguments should be accepted. Some of your issues do make me wonder if you held a Session 0 - was this something that you did before starting the campaign?
For the player feeling targeted because the failed three checks, have you reminded them that a Nat20 is not an automatic success on Ability checks? While this is a fairly common house rule, it's not RAW. As a player, I know failing on a Nat 20 can feel very deflating, but it's almost never personal. On top of that, for the player to feel targeted, there seems to be an expectation of not being able to fail. Therefore any failure must automatically be a personal slight against them ie you don't want them to succeed. There's not much you can other than talk to them and ask them why they interpret your actions that way. You can also try brute-force transparency - declaring up front the target DC of any Ability check, or, in a contested roll, declaring the modifier and rolling openly. Then they can't accuse you of shifting the goalposts or fudging rolls to make them fail. But to be truly fair, you would need to do this for all players. That way the "targeted" player doesn't have further grounds to feel like they're being treated differently. Not all DMs like operating this way, as it removes some of the mystique.
For the small stature/slow gait: there's support on both sides for your house rule. Gnomes and Halflings have 25ft movement, while the three other races you mentioned are all 30ft. While I can understand your reasoning in reducing the speed, it may not be necessary. For creatures like kobolds and kenku, I mentally visualise their movements as very furtive and "bursty". So while they may have smaller gaits, they take more steps at a higher speed and manage to keep up. However, this is my personal interpretation, and yours obviously differs. Was this agreed to by everyone in a Session 0? If so, then the player has no grounds for complaint, and it might be worth reminding them of that.
For the final one - there are two sides to this: mechanical and player. Mechanically, on what basis is the player claiming a Charm effect doesn't work on them? Players cannot just unilaterally decide what game mechanics do or do not apply to them, even if they don't like the implications. Charm effects are distinct mechanic in the game, so unless this was agreed to by all players up front (in Session 0), or there is a mechanical reason why they are immune to Charm effects, then they do not get to make this call. I'm also not aware of any playable races that are just outright immune to Charm effects. Even if they were an Elf or Half-Elf, they only have advantage against Charm effects, not immunity. I don't know of any class features that grant immunity to Charm effects, but I don't claim an exhaustive knowledge of all sub-classes, so I'm happy to be corrected on this.
On the player side, it's possible that they player has a moral or ethical objection to Charm effects in general. Search any D&D forum, including this one, and you'll find there are a lot of arguments about why enchantment spells can be seen as repugnant or borderline evil (removal of consent, potential for abuse and manipulation etc). These are valid issues, and if the player is coming from that perspective, then they need to talk to you privately about their concern and an agreement reached.
Additionally, if you used friends as the basis for your Subliminal Preaching spell, then I recommend you and your problem player read the wording of friends very carefully. While it is an Enchantment spell, at no point does it mention applying the Charmed condition. In fact, you will note that the target for friends is "Self", not another creature. In fact, many enchantment spells do not apply the Charmed condition. And the spell has no effect on a failed save, so it's not like there's a negative impact if they fail. So their argument has little standing in my opinion.
I did Individual Session 0's because their characters came from all around the world i built and only 1 of them actually added a reason in their backstory for why they went to the campaign start point. So i did it as a way to first hand showing the DM styling, testing things, asking for feedback, and helping them flesh out their characters a little further as well.
Did you hold a Session Zero for all your players at the same time? Running them individually means they had no chance to know before hand about any of your plans or expectations.
Your player with lots of Natural 20s brings up the possibility of them cheating and there is nothing you can do to prevent that. Did you actually get to see the rolls? Is this a game played at a physical table? D&D Beyond has a lovely log that shows every roll anyone makes. The only disadvantage to that is that the DM's rolls are clearly visible to the players and you can't fudge rolls in their favor or set up surprises.
If you want small races to be slower, you have every right. There is precedent, I think it is clearly what the rules intended. There must be some mechanical disadvantage to being small, or you might as well just declare all player characters to be medium sized and save yourself the aggravation.
Most players, in my experience, *hate* to have their actions dictated to them. What's the point in playing if you don't get to make decisions? As a DM I never do that. There is always wiggle room to resist the commands, or frequent saving throws to end the effect for the next 24 hours from that specific creature. Use Charm and similar effects on me, and I will complain each and every time. At about the third time, I'll hand you my character and walk out of your game. If I want to see characters make choices and have adventures without me getting to make choices, I can read a book.
I'm not clear on if you said anything about this, but one bit of advice. Never under any circumstances allow players to influence the characters of other players with dice. It almost always causes hard feelings and creates real world problems between people who should be friends or at least friendly. Don't you do it either. No matter what the difficulty class of the check, no matter if they get a save, you will almost always annoy people who want to roleplay.
I hope that helps.
<Insert clever signature here>
I mean for the one feeling targeted, you can roll in the open.
Of course, this means you won't be able to soften the blow or anything if you accidentally crit against them and faceplant them, but well, if you roll in the open then nobody can accuse you of "targeting" them.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
How can a player feel "targeted" when their NAT 20 plus bonuses does not beat some DC level you have created? A NAT 20 on an attack is always a success, but in anything else, no.
Though I would say that a Nat 20 plus bonuses, at least for a lower level chars, should beat most challenge levels. A Persuasion check with a non-proficient CHA 8 char maxes out at 19. That may or may not beat some high level NPC's ability to resist said Persuasion, or maybe Deceit.
Can you give some examples where this char's rolls did not beat your NPC's DC level?
Vince, it sounds like it was an opposed roll... PC against NPC. And the DM maybe rolled a 19 to the PC's 20, and the NPC had a little more bonus than the PC. I mean you could easily see how a 20+3 would lose to a 19+5.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I'm also curious about the nat 20 fails. If they were opposed checks, then the player has got to deal with it, really bad luck, but it happens. But if the fails were against a fixed DC, they shouldn't have been rolling in the first place. Remember, its your job as DM to call for a roll, not the player's job to start rolling. And if the player can't possibly succeed, you should not be calling for a roll -- if only to avoid this sort of situation.
And as far as this subliminal preaching thing. Are you saying that you have players rolling a save against actions taken by another player? Because that's pretty much always a bad idea. You don't want to create PvP situations, it never ends well.
Personally, I wouldn't do the reduced speed thing. Walking speed is a racial trait, and typically its part of a larger package of abilities that are designed to roughly balance each other out against other races. Reducing the speed is basically making those creatures weaker without giving them some other benefit. (Unless you are giving them some other benefit).
Yeah, that is what I hope it is. If it is Nat 20's failing on an Attack, the DM is making a mistake.
Eh, man honestly my advice is just stop caring. That's it. Just stop caring.
Just show up, run your game and do your thing. Get into character with the NPCs, throw a dungeon at them, laugh a lot, have a great time. You don't need validation after a session, other than did I have as much fun as possible (YOU that is) so stop asking.
Unless something major boils over in game where you need to call a timeout and hash it out, don't sweat it. The players can decide for themselves if the little things that bug them (there are plenty of these in any game for any player) are enough to lead them to conclude this isn't the game for them. If so, hey no worries. Not your fault. There is a hundred players out there ready to take their spot.
Not really. A DC 20 is perfectly reasonable, and some players might have a -1 modifier. Did you really need to roll the d20? No, but the DM might not know every player's modifier for every skill, and the player doesn't know the DC is out of their reach. It's easier just to ask for the roll.
Why is one player saying that Subliminal Preaching won't affect their character? Is the cleric using this ability against other PCs?
As a new DM, it is probably best to try to stick to standard rules rather than introducing house rules too early on.
hi
my only suggestion is that failed checks don't have to be all in or all out.
You could say "you failed the climb check and fall" or you could say "that was really close to a success, so you feel the rocks slipping under you, you start to tumble but grab onto a root. You are now dangling." Or if it's PC vs NPC it could be "a look passes over your enemy's face, as though he sees your point but isn't entirely convinced."
I live in shades of grey in my sessions.
With regards to the character with trouble communicating, who's decision was that, the players or yours? you are forcing your player to roleplay a certain way which can be an issue, there are many ways to roleplay a TTRPG, you can "act out" the role using the exact language, but you can also describe what is said and let the exact language be implied, or you can talk the way you want to talk and have it accepted that your character is putting across that idea in their own way in the world.
If your player is feeling forced to roleplay a way they don't enjoy then it is a simple thing to allow them to roleplay how they want to and integrate it into the group. I have played with players who have no single in game conversation and instead relate everything as , My character explains how rough the journey was, My character talks to the mayor and asks him to explain what the job is.
I would also say that as a first time DM my advice is always do not homebrew anything at the start, I will generally usually go as far as to tell a first time group stick to the races classes and subclasses in the players handbook.
Once you have had that feel about the rules as written and how they run at the table, then you can think about tweaking things. In the grand scheme of things, if you are trying to run a more RP game than mechanically 5 foot of movement won't make a huge difference. I would also say, the rule of cool should never result in permanent rule changes, it is about bending the rules in the moment to allow something epic to take place, but the players understanding that is a one off and not a permanent rule change.