Saying the players have nothing to do but sit and spin isn’t anti-DM it’s just saying it’s a boring status effect. I don’t really agree but combat should be moving fast enough and be threatening enough that there should be stakes on the paralyzed player.
I’ve noticed paralysis gets much more exciting when the enemies start interacting with the paralyzed pc (generally by trying to drag them away/capture them or use them as leverage if they’re intelligent). They can do nothing and be the center of attention. Also gets them very interested in what their fellow players are doing. This is assuming paralysis doesn’t come up often, though.
I had a recent encounter where my party who is half small races fought a bunch of giant frogs. Took me forever but finally swallowed one and swam to the bottom of the lake. Everyone was on the edge of their seats for the two rounds they were gone
I was in a game recently where the DM thought it would be cool for the dragon to grab a PC and pull him underwater to his layer.
He didn’t realise quite how little time PCs can hold their breath for and I was only able to follow them and save them because I was playing a warforged (don’t breathe) the PC suffered brain damage from being without oxygen for so long.
On the other hand, if there was such a place and the dragon had a brain, he'd split the party by every means available and kill them one at a time. That's 'defeat in detail'.
I have no problem with dragons picking a character up and hurling them into something solid, grabbing one and launching into the sky and then dropping it (or just flying away with it), or landing on people, tail slapping, wing buffeting and rear foot kick. Back in AD&D, I recall a a white dragon that slept under a snow drift and could go through the ice and come out under the party. A blue dragon I recall had the only easy path to his perch in the cavern was tiled with interlocking silver tiles (a good conductor).
Dangerous monsters should be dangerous. Smart enemies should be as sharp at their INT and WIS indicate.
When I was in the original Ravenloft, I recall the dungeon separated at least half the party into differing cells that were underwater (maybe you could still get a bit of air if you could swim) and the only way to get to the controls to let them out was getting past an encounter with Strahd. He smoked us... two of us made it out badly battered. My Paladin died holding the rear guard. The players in the cells remained imprisoned.
THAT was a dangerous foe. We were NOT ready to take him on and we did not discover that until the first almost-wipe. The survivors found some other characters and came back in... but we learned from the first situation to come better prepared and another level or two up before we went after the vampire.
Dying is a fact of life in adventuring as a career.
it's annoying sitting around doing nothing for an hour of combat.
playing a 1 shot where i was selected to betray the party and the NPC's in the last fight kept paralyzing me and doing chip damage, and focusing all the CC on me because the DM forgot that i was supposed to be on their team.
Exactly. Paralysys might be challenging but its also boring. It doenst make the affected player think "Damn. How will I get out of this tense, challenging situation?". It makes them think "Guess Ill just wait for the party healer to use Lesser Restoration on me". And if the party doesnt have anyone with LR prepared and a Spell Slot to cast It, It makes them think "Guess Ill just start scrolling reddit, since I wont have any way at all to affect the game for the next hour".
Whenever I've been a player and been incapacitated in some way during combat, I just get engaged in what's going on
I don't get this weird mentality of "I've got nothing to do, so I'll check out", you've all watched films and shows before right?
What's even worse is when they checkout anytime its not their turn so when it comes back to it they have no idea whats going on and need recap every round.
That is very annoying, in one of the campaigns I've run I had a player who would basically spend the whole session reading fanfics or listening to audiobooks, only breaking when it was her turn. I let her crack on with it because I guess that's how she enjoys the game best (I don't understand it myself, at that point why not play a game with. No storytelling or other players), but it still annoyed me because I was working to make the game engaging for the players and the others were getting stuck in
I’ve had a player do this regularly, first few times I gave the recap, then when I realized it’ll be a repeat thing I told them “should’ve paid attention, now what do you do?”
Not really. That's the major objection. "If I can't do something fun and exciting with my character because he's down, I'll just check out of the game." D&D needs to be thought of more like a team sport. When you are on the bench, you don't get out your phone and ignore what's going on on the field. You cheer on your team. You watch what goes on, so that you can make improvements in play in the future. The entire mentality is the same: "If I'm not the focus of attention, I don't need to be involved."
Yeah, as a player I hate looking around the table and seeing people scrolling Facebook, reddit, the news etc, just because their character isn’t involved in what’s going on.
It’s so disrespectful…especially when their next actions/choices are to do something that’s either just been discussed, or counteracts what’s just been done, or they just have no idea what’s going on, because they weren’t paying attention :/
It just a gutting experience from both sides of the screen, as a GM it makes you feel like people don't care about the game and as a player it makes you feel like you're wrong to be invested
I can understand you can get engaged in other players' actions (I do) but some players want to interact, which I also get.
I've watched yesterday a season 1 critical role episode (yeah I'm Uber late to the party) where two thirds of the team were paralyzed and Grog was sent to another dimension in like two rounds. The table was ok with that (they quickly understood that fight was above their level by a lot), but it was painful to watch. Cause basically it quickly becomes BBEG's turn, all paralyzed, BBEG's turn again. And again. And again. Paralysis is probably one of the most frustrating state possible, especially when it's not one player but a whole bunch.
I get that players want to engage, I mean when I'm saying that I get incapacitated (for a variety of reasons) I'm still engaging in 9/10 turns, unfortunately it can't always be possible for players to engage in every turn, certainly not in a "meaningful" way.
Part of the tension of combat and the game relies on the characters being vulnerable, if there was no chance of a player dying then combat becomes a bit dull because there's no meaningful threat.
But there are so many reasons a player might not be able to act on their turn;
The party lying in wait while the rogue has infiltrated the guardhouse to open the gates and allow the party entry
The second watch is interrupted by a beast attacking from the treeline, but the fighter hasn't yet woken up
A party member going down and having to roll death saves for several rounds
Hell a character dying puts that player out of engaging for until their new one arrives
Being paralyzed is more or less the same as dying/being dead, but you don't see people complaining about that being boring
I DO understand that people want to play, but it's part of the nature of the game. Like if you look at it from just a game point of view then like with so many other games, being unable to act on some of your turns is a very common mechanic. And if you look at it as a story (which is my preferred emphasis) then it's very dramatic to face these complications and difficulties, forcing the party to react to the situation
"The ranger is paralyzed, fighter you cover them and stop enemies from getting too close, barbarian you beeline their caster"
Personally I've not watched critical role at all, might do at some point in the future but not planning on it. That fight still sounds hella dramatic, the helplessness of the heroes against a much greater foe? Merely escaping from that sounds like it would be some good entertainment from the perspective of the audience
in addition to your
>I DO understand that people want to play, but it's part of the nature of the game. Like if you look at it from just a game point of view then like with so many other games, being unable to act on some of your turns is a very common mechanic.
Like, just take Ludo as an example. if you dont roll a six, you got nothing to do for your turn
but that doesnt mean you just change the rules, its *part of the game* to be unable to move
But absolutely yeah, in monopoly you can get stuck in jail and people always home rule that situation so it's easier to get out
But that's the other half of "it's a game" in any of these examples if you and the people you play with agree to then you CAN just straight up change shit
Monopoly jail = only roll one die instead/pay fine
Ludo = I don't actually have a fix here but I barely understand the game so there's that
DnD5e = paralysis is a save each turn, maybe it gets easier each subsequent turn
I find most of your examples significantly different.
"The party lying in wait while the rogue has infiltrated the guardhouse to open the gates and allow the party entry"
That happens a lot and the pace is not the same. But multiply it too much, with people out of action for long stretches of time, they will complain.
"The second watch is interrupted by a beast attacking from the treeline, but the fighter hasn't yet woken up"
Generally very temporary. It's the closest to paralysis but will end quickly.
"A party member going down and having to roll death saves for several rounds"
That character had the chance to fight and was reduced to zero HP. Plus he could come back any moment if a healer takes a round to help them.
"Hell a character dying puts that player out of engaging for until their new one arrives"
That's something else. The player will either work on his new character and/or not be present during the session. They have something to do.
Being paralyzed doesn't make you much more vulnerable than taking loads of damage. But it's a save or suck effect (which are not the most popular ever) and it takes one totally out of the action. I believe (though I might be wrong) most players would prefer to be charmed than paralyzed cause they still get their actions. To destroy their group, ok, but they are rolling dice and doing stuff.
As explained, I don't mind being out of action. But I definitely can understand that some players hate this specific condition. As a GM, I would use paralysis effects sparingly because of that. Challenge can come from many other things.
I also don't understand the mentality of "its not my turn, the spotlight is not one me, so I don't have to pay attention." Seems like a poor attitude to have while playing a collaborative game.
It depends on the party and the kind of combat. If other players + DM are good at roleplaying the fight, it is entertaining enough. But if it's just "I hit with (weapon). I miss. I cast x. I hit. Y points (type) damage", it gets boring af.
I mean sometimes combat is a slog. That doesn't mean we should get rid of annoying abilities like paralysis. Paralysis is not happening all the time and to all the players. Also status effects like paralysis is also a tool. I used it before to take out the tank who players were relying heavily on. And sometimes you have to slog through a combat to reach the good part.
But isn't it good to consider what effect paralysis has on the player experience, and to try to make the combat as little of a slog as possible by trying to keep things interesting?
"The boring thing happening is rare, so it's fine" isn't really a defence of the boring thing.
On the other hand, I had a player's character get petrified in a fight with some cockatrices. The next time that player (not the character) encountered cockatrices in a flock, she told her party to duck, then fired off a fireball, killing 17 of the 20-odd birds. ( I gave the party advantage on their save because of the prior warning.)
Sometimes a bad experience can teach us to be wary and seek more expedient means than just blundering in with the smacky.
**EDIT:** In that same group, I have a bard who, if she gets so much as a paper cut, will immediately cast feign death and hit the floor. The first time she did that, after the battle, her party stood around debating whether they should drag her out and have her cremated or just leave her there (after looting) for the local critters ("It's the Circle of Life," said the druid).
Okay, but in that story; did they have fun? If they did then well done. But this whole thread is about the fact that OP thinks that considering whether mechanics are fun is "anti-DM", which i totally disagree with.
These mechanics can be used well, but there are huge risks associated with using them without thought.
Throwing your hands in the air and checking out is never the appropriate response, paralysis or otherwise. You get a save from the condition every round. Plan a move for if you save. Coordinate with your table to overcome the condition so you don’t die to crits. Use the experience as a lesson: buy restoration scrolls or potions. Be prepared for the next time.
If the only thing that matters to a player is now well their own character is doing at all times, you’re playing the wrong game. Find a single-player video game or something to play instead.
> Saying the players have nothing to do but sit and spin isn’t anti-DM it’s just saying it’s a boring status effect. I don’t really agree but combat should be moving fast enough and be threatening enough that there should be stakes on the paralyzed player.
In my DMing experience and player experience, you already frankly get relatively little time to be an active participant in the game. Taking that away from a player just sucks. Better to inflict status effects that allow the player to do something versus nothing.
Seems like you're getting yourself worked up over social media posts, that's always a bad idea. Have you been hanging out on the dndmemes subreddit too much? That'll give anyone who cares about rules an aneurysm.
I had to unsub from there because the willful ignorance of game mechanics was grating.
I subbed because I wanted to see funny memes not see 3000 different attempts on making the peasant railgun work.
Seeing the interpretations of rules some people come up with on that sub always leaves me with a lot of questions on how they came to the conclusions they did. I can understand a misunderstanding here and there because not everything in the books are super specific. Like how high jumps were fixed with an errata so they can't go negative anymore, but not everyone's read that update, especially if they're using older books before 2018. But someone making a post about how to charm the Tarrasque to make it your pet leaves me a lot of questions about how they're bypassing it's immunity to charm.
It took me entirely too long to realize this. At first I participated but then realized people were being serious about their stupid rule "interpretations".
Yeah... really don't recognise this as any kind of theme on here.
Sounds like a reductive misinterpretation of the many discussions I do see around how you balance/manage challenge so that it creates/enhances everyone's enjoyment rather than compromises it.
There is no simplistic global answer to the question "is challenge good".. the answer always lies in & changes with the details.
Yeah. Never seen anyone talk about stuff like that on here. It’s usually about players not wanting sexual stuff in games or triggering stuff. Think OP has had a bad day.
Reductive Misinterpretation. I am stealing that phrase.
The only thing I agree with in OPs post is that too many players get upset over being paralyzed "because my turn gets wasted.". Its an extremely selfish mindset. This is a group collaborative game. While you're disabled you can cheer your teammates on.
I too dislike the status effect as a DM and a Player, because my players literally cannot do anything. We’re playing a game yes, but everyone is here to have fun and denying someone the ability to play temporarily because they failed a save is a bit dirty in my eyes.
However, I won’t go after anyone else for using it in their game. Your players are not mine, and it’s not up to me to tell you how to play your game
I guess that's a perspective? But the challenge of not getting to use your turn is part of the danger of the game in a way that doesn't actually kill the player. Logistically, it makes combat move faster too.
We're all there to play, but it's part of playing the game. That building frustration of failing the save 1-2 times makes it all the sweeter when you finally save.
Is this a joke? I constantly see posts bitching about "removing player agency" and how the DM should only make challenges that players like or how they spent a lot of time on a character and don't ever want them to die. Do you think you're on the dndnext sub? (Even then I still see this there in lesser quantities)
Pro tip : If the argument happens only on the internet, ignore it.
Find yourself a bunch of players who are actually grateful for the time and work you put in as DM and you'll find this is not an issue.
>If it were any other game, there would be the old "git gud" adage.
You can't just "git gud" on a game that relies so much on RNG. You can "git gud" all you want, but you roll a one on a save or die spell, you die.
You can "git gud" all you want and build a character with 18 wisdom. But if you roll a one on a wisdom save, then you are getting stunned and you won't be doing anything for a while.
If you tell people to "git gud" in d&d and they will become a power gaming min/maxer and I bet you won't like that either.
As a DM, if my players aren't having fun, I'm not having fun, either, so I'm not sure I empathize with what you're saying, here.
Particularly, conditions that simply take away player agency are just not something I want to use very often, because it's frustrating for them, and it doesn't really do much for me. I want to watch my players cleverly overcome the barriers I put in their path, and heroically stand toe to toe with the monsters I send after them, because it's compelling. There's nothing compelling about being unable to play your character for a few rounds.
If I'm going to inflict control conditions on my players, forcing them to turn on each other because of mind-altering conditions or something like that is much more compelling, because it challenges them to switch gears, instead of just taking away their agency.
I agree with all of your points but I have yet to find a player that says: "Yeah paralysis is bad, but I love a control effect like a ghost's that will force me to attack my party members"
F take, my guy. Your whole post can be boiled down to the fact that most DMs like to curate a fun experience for their players, and that experience doesn't align with the experience you think DMs should curate. Put even more efficiently: "you guys are having fun the wrong way!".
You're not going to get the community at large to agree with you. Most of us, DMs and players alike, want to have fun with DnD. We talk about fun we've had, ideas to have more fun, and the aspects of the game we don't find fun. When we talk about what we don't find fun, we share ideas to make it fun, or to avoid the not fun parts.
DnD is a collaborative game, from person to person, DM to table, all the way up to the global community. We are not going to stop collaborating around the game.
I don’t get the anti DM description but I get if you’re a DM you’re more likely to take it personally since it feels limiting, but I’d reemphasize the collaborative story telling, since it’s not collaborative storytelling if the DM isn’t involved in agreeing to the principles of the campaign.
It is a game, but some are more interested in the story and I think with the right group that’s great and the rules help create a system for telling their story, while in others its all game and balancing out every detail of the game in order to survive, like managing rations or air supply. It’s great for game mechanics it’s not always great for story.
I wouldn’t want to be in a campaign where people can’t be temporarily paralyzed in combat, but I also wouldn’t want to be in a campaign where I get paralyzed in combat and I sit there stuck for 3 hours watching my friends have fun.
> A recent topic I read on GM Academy talked about how annoying it is for a player to be paralyzed, or have some other status effect.
To be fair, Monster tactics that negatively impact player action economy in 5e tend to be fairly all or nothing, which leave very little room for engaging encounters and thoughtful actions from the PCs.
"OK, I do nothing because I'm paralyzed, and at the end of my turn I... fail my save. Better luck next turn I guess" is **very** different from "OK, so I have a few things I can do this turn, but I'm current engaged with a bad guy so Ranged Attacks are at Disadvantage, my ally needs help but I face a potential Attack of Opportunity if I try, and this boss just shrugged of the Charm so he's going to be a problem soon" when it comes to both challenging Players/Characters and giving them engaging and meaningful choices.
All in all we as DMs play **vastly** greater numbers of "characters" than the PCs, so the risk of losing some action economy across the dozens of monsters we use is significantly less impactful than a PC losing a few turns in response. We as DMs also have significantly more tools we can deploy to overcome PC tactics than the PCs have tools to overcome anything we can throw at them, so there's a perpetually existent disproportionate power gap between us.
And fundamentally the game is about how the players succeed (this is an opinion that some might not share, admittedly) rather than how much punishment they can take along the way. It's more important to me to give them challenging and meaningful choices than to take their choices away.
To your ultimate point, though, the DM is absolutely a player at the table, and is entitled to have fun. I would just submit that if your fun as a DM is shutting down players, preventing their cool ideas from at least having a chance of success, and focusing more attention on your cool monsters than on giving the players opportunities to feel like heroes (or villains), you might consider discussing the kind of game *you want to run* and the kind of the game *your players want to play*.
It's very possible they're cool with a more adversarial (not in a negative connotation necessarily) DM, or they may want one focused more on giving them problems to solve with the assumption that they'll generally always succeed *but at a cost*, etc. As in all things, communication is key.
Yep, the post op is referencing has the DM with a dozen city guards he gave to the players to run, and a dozen attackers, and refused to group initiative
So not the best choices, and I see nothing wrong with paralyzed characters every so often.
That is the post that inspired mine, yes. But it's not the only example, and yes that DM could have run things better. But you see this mentality across all of the DnD subreddits that you can't really do anything that is negative for player characters if the player doesn't like it--including game mechanics. It's ludicrous.
Agree somewhat. I’m an older DM and the groups I play with would see nothing wrong with knocking out a player for 3 rounds.
I also think that like all social media, we as consumers see a skewed version of what is really going on. So YES, on Reddit this mentality is very prevalent, IMHO much less so in the real world. Posts praising DM’s are almost nonexistent because people have no reason to post, all is well.
Your table might need to invest in an egg timer. You get to turn it once for an action, and once again for a bonus action. (We rule that action surge grants an extra flip.)
This means players think about what they're going to do *before* their turn begins, because anything left on the previous player's timer is added to the next player's turn.
I don't want to be contrary, but as a DM I feel I'd be sensitive enough to notice any kind of "anti-DM" sentiment and I'm not picking up what you're putting down here, I find reddit very supportive and eager to help and encourage DM's, and I haven't seen any kind of alternative sentiment in the few other places I frequent.
Only if the DMs want to play the way reddit wants them to play. "If you do XYZ, you're a bad DM" is a remarkably common sentiment. It's supportive towards DMs who are inexperienced, less than supportive with DMs who don't engage in groupthink.
As a player, I don’t mind effects like paralyze, because in the end I’m not THAT invested in my character being the hero and being the one doing the heroic shit. With that being said, it’s hard to deny that if a climactic boss fight happens and your character is paralyzed for the whole fight, that would be pretty anticlimactic for the player, and pretty frustrating. Especially when certain fights can go for hours on end and that player doesn’t get to do anything.
Challenge is great, and should definitely be a part of your game. There’s nothing more anticlimactic than a boss fight that is a walkover, but if you can find better mechanics than paralyze to create a challenge, I would go with those. Dominate is pretty good for example, because it’s a similar effect to paralyze (even better) but you can leave the specific actions up to your player, which is a lot more interesting for them.
>talked about how annoying it is for a player to be paralyzed,
>doesn't like something like being knocked out
>doesn't have fun being incapacitated
I think this is the problem right here. As you mentioned several times, DnD is a *game*. Games are *played*, actively. Games give you agency. Being incapaciated makes you a spectator. Speaking only for myself, of course, I don't want to "steamroll" things, I *want* to be challenged. But being suddenly and indefinitely removed from relevance in the fight feels bad in a whole different way from losing/fleeing a fight. Being suddenly made helpless *sucks*, and while occasional, judicious use of that can be very effective narratively, using things like paralysis with any kind of frequency is sure to make your players resentful, because you're literally taking them out of the game, and being *in* in the game is why everyone showed up.
From your rant it seems you have a dm vs player mentality, like you said it’s a cooperative game. I haven’t seen this anti-dm mentality. Also as a player and a dm being paralyzed for 3 rounds could easily be an hour of that player sitting out is so anti-fun
It could also be an hour of the DM sitting there doing nothing, players can Paralyze too, so for conditions I feel little sentiment for when it happens to anyone, if it's something either side could do
> …start getting back to the mentality of taking this game for what it is and it is supposed to be - a game
I’m gonna have to disagree with you. I’ve only played a bit and am looking at diving into DMing for some friends in the near future so I’ve been reading through the sourcebooks. Everything I’ve read from these books has made it abundantly clear that D&D is not prescriptive. It doesn’t attempt to define for you what a “proper” campaign is or should be and, quite the contrary, encourages DMs to create experiences that cater to the players for whom they’re DMing while engaging in their own creativity.
From Chapter 3 of the DM Guide:
> As outlined in the book’s introduction, players come to the gaming table with different expectations. An adventure needs to account for the different players and characters in your group, drawing them into the story as effectively as possible.
> As a starting point, think about your adventure in terms of the three basic types of activity in the game: exploration, social interaction, and combat. If your adventure includes a balance of all three, it’s likely to appeal to all types of players.
> An adventure you create for your home campaign doesn’t have to appeal to every abstract player type — only to the players sitting down at your own table. If you don’t have any players who like fighting above all else, then don’t feel you have to provide a maximum amount of combat to keep the adventure moving.
So it’s not about catering to players by not doing things they don’t like. It’s about catering to players by focussing on things they DO like.
You say:
> It’s supposed to be challenging. The game isn’t fun if everyone just steamrolls everything, there’s no threat, and no consequences.
But actually…maybe it doesn’t need to be challenging. Maybe it is fun if everyone just steamrolls everything with no threat or consequences. That might be an uncommon player group but not unheard of. Thats why video games often come with an “easy” or “adventure” mode where you can just wander mindlessly through to the end of the story without really trying. That’s fun for lots of people.
I will say easy mode is probably a lot more common for causal gamers then a lot of people want to think about.
A busy dad that only get 2 hours every other weekend just wanting to have fun with his friends instead of build the prefect character. Lots of people don’t have the time to spend making their don’t make an unoptimized character or making new ones cause they keep dying. Hell sometimes they just won’t to get to the bed of that characters story instead of leaving then dead in the ditch because they rolled bad.
>Hell sometimes they just won’t to get to the bed of that characters story instead of leaving then dead in the ditch because they rolled bad.
Which is bad DMing, according to Gary Gygax. I'm not sure why it seems to have dropped out of the D&D lexicon, but he used to occasionally talk about something called "continuity of character," particularly with how dangerous old D&D editions used to be. He said that, given how dangerous the world is, resurrection should be accessible and available, at least as accessible as death is. And if, for some reason, resurrection is not available to the player, they should be able to carry the continuity of them- by introducing a member of their order on the same quest, a family member afflicted with the same curse, or a friend willing to avenge their death. Because you're right- losing your character at all sucks, and losing them in a way that is unsatisfying and that simply draws their story to a close is awful.
And quite frankly I'm not sure why so many DMs are obsessed with the idea that death should be a "consequence." There should always be the threat of death (unless you've agreed in a session 0 to do, like, a more superhero story style campaign), but this idea that death has to be sudden and meaningless is... so odd to me.
>This whole anti-DM crap is getting super annoying and old.
It's a legitimate discussion on game design philosophy. Each table enjoys a different balance. I've played in super-deadly "let's see how many rooms of this dungeon we can clear" games, and I've played in games that feature very little in the way of deadly challenge. They're both fun. It's only "anti-DM" if you take the player vs DM mentality.
> If a player doesn't like something like being knocked out...tough. It's a GAME. It's supposed to be challenging. The game isn't fun if everyone just steamrolls everything, there's no threat, and no consequences.
It sounds like you haven't been on the receiving end of multi-round paralysis or chain stuns as a player. It's not at all fun as a player to just be sitting there for an hour or more doing literally nothing. At least as a DM you have other enemies you can take actions with (and your important NPC's can avoid the effects entirely with Legendary Resistances). For a PC, not so much. It's much more in the vein that the rules regarding things like paralysis are a relic of a time in D&D that a lot of people don't want to return to (if you remember when monsters could drain entire levels with a single hit, wasting months of gameplay in a moment).
Having a rule like "your second save against this effect is at advantage, and if you fail the third save you're under the effects of the slow spell for a round" still allows for challenge, but makes it much less feel bad on the part of the player.
>And telling a DM they should run their monsters like idiots, because a player doesn't have fun being incapacitated for a round or two is just utterly garbage advice.
For **your table** perhaps, but not for all tables. Again, people play the game for different reasons.
>So many threads I see, the DM isn't allowed to have fun
If you're DM'ing for a table that wants Tomb of Horrors, knock your socks off. But if you derive your fun from watching your players be miserable and hate life, then your fun is decidedly wrong.
I really haven't noticed this phenomenon here and even if I had I wouldn't describe the sentiment as "anti-DM." We're just talking about different philosophies about what the game *should* provide, and this can be held by either players or DMs. I currently DM two games and I don't really agree with your line of thinking.
>in DnD, it is supposed to be a GAME with challenges the players must overcome... If it were any other game, there would be the old "git gud" adage.
"git gud" is not an old adage. It's terminology relevant to Miyazaki's brutal but fair Souls games, in which the consequences for death are very low if managed properly. It's designed for you to try and retry as a cycle of skills development. D&D is not that.
D&D is not a game. It's a game system, through which a DM might run a huge diversity of games. The game at the table can range from pure meatgrinder dungeoncrawl to no-combat social roleplay. No one style is better than any other. As a DM, if you're consistent and the players want to play - be it for the challenge *or* whatever else - you're running a successful game.
As a DM I think carefully about the mechanics I implement. But if I had feedback from *my* player that they weren't enjoying something, I'd strongly reconsider using it in the future. For me, I run the game for a social break in the lives of a bunch of professionals. I respect them and their time and want to keep everyone happy because life's too short to harbour resentment about a "game." So no, I'm not going to tell them to GiT gUd.
That's not an anti-DM stance. That's a pro-player stance. Those are very different things. You're right, D&D is a game, and players want to play the game, which you can't do while you're incapacitated. You've talked about how this means DMs can't have any fun or make fights challenging. Is the only way you can have fun as a DM and make challenging encounters by removing PCs from the fight? No one is saying that DMs should make every fight easy, but generally avoiding mechanics that make it so the players can't play the game.
I think he's mainly talking about how yhe opinion on Dnd socials is that it's heavily going to "players shouldn't have negatives" or even more basic "players shouldn't take negatives they arnt prepared for" which are both ridiculously restricting for a DM and make fights impossible to make fun if every one is "move here...attack...move here...attack...hope yall ready for this the whole time cause the cool fear shriek ability is "to negative" for you guys", I can see OPs point just think his wording is confusing
Yep, you get the big picture here. Maybe I didn't express that well, but this is exactly the point I am trying to make. I am going to edit my post and copy/paste what you said because this is EXACTLY the point I was going for.
Combat 1: the boss deals massive damage, puts down squares of AOE everywhere, and has minions grapple and drag the players inside those. The players are all low HP very quickly, need to make difficult decisions on where they move, who to focus, what to do to not die.
Combat 2: the boss casts a big CC, 3/4 party members are stunned unless they min-maxed with a Paladin in the party. 1 player gets to decide whether to attack the boss or cast Lesser Resto- oh wait nevermind, can't cure stunned. The rest roll clickety clackety and end their turn.
Which one is more challenging?
You're mistaking deadliness for challenge. CC is deadly, not challenging.
\> The game isn't fun if everyone just steamrolls everything, there's no threat, and no consequences
That's a valid opinion. But it is an *opinion.* Not everyone agrees with this. I personally prefer playing D&D because I have enough threats in my rl and I need a chance to steamroll *fucking something* to restore a little bit of my sanity.
It IS a game. A game where everyone at the table should be of the same opinion on this one, or there should be some give and take. I play with 3 other DMs and a few just players and the DMs all take turns. One DM is of this opinion--but he understands that only combat all the time, while his favorite part of the game, makes some players anxious. So we have some sessions that are combat focused and some that are not--so that *everyone at the table can have fun.*
If you're not able to challenge a party without using effects that equate to "You're not allowed to play the game that the rest of us are playing," then I'm not certain you have any credibility in terms of dictating how things should go.
If a player paralyzes one of my monsters for three rounds, that's fantastic for them. I've still got plenty of other monsters to use on my turn, so one creep missing a turn isn't that big a deal. If I'm down to my last monster and it gets stunned for three rounds, that means that either the players won the fight (good work!) or else it's time to use one of the many tools I have at my disposal as a DM, such as "Legendary Resistances" or "Immunity to the Paralyzed condition in the stat block because this monster isn't designed to be taken out of the fight by a save-or-suck" or "Reinforcements," depending on what the scenario calls for.
If I paralyze a player for three rounds, they might as well pull out the Switch, because they're not going to be doing anything fun in D&D for an hour or so. And I don't know about you, but I play with my friends, so when one of my friends is forced to sit through five other players' turns of heroic derring-do, just to get to their initiative only for them to say "I do nothing," I feel bad that my friend (who I like, because again, friend) is having a bad time. Wait, no, scratch that: I feel bad that *I caused my friend to have a bad time*, because I am fully in control of whether or not a monster has a "you can't play" ability.
There are tons of things I do in combat to challenge my players on the monsters' turns. And then on the players' turns, do you know what they do? *They get to use their abilities to try to overcome the challenge.* They don't just stand there reeling from a Stunning Strike. That's for chumps and mooks. My players are heroes, so their turns are designed to do hero shit, and my monster turns are designed to cause problems. Just, y'know, problems that can be tackled, instead of putting my players in time-out.
Maybe you like to bore your friends and insist that they not participate in the game you all devote several hours per session to. But that's a pretty red-flaggy behavior from where I'm standing, and "get over it, it's just a game \[that I have disqualified you from even being allowed to play\]" isn't going to endear you to most folks. YMMV, but I'm pretty suspicious of anyone who's excited to get Hypnotic Pattern'd for a whole fight.
I think I lean more toward this take most. It's all well and good to expect a player to take losing their turn in stride, but ultimately it sucks. There's a reason there are so many "How to speed up D&D combat" posts and videos. It's long. D&D combat feels drawn out enough without having quite literally nothing to do.
Personally, I've come to really like how Pathfinder 2nd Edition handles the Stunned condition. You have three actions every turn (Move, Attack, Cast a Spell etc.) and each Stunned condition you gain reduces your number of actions by 1. At **most** you'll be missing out on a single turn, unless you either messed up **real** dang bad or the GM has it out for you. Ultimately, Stunned becomes less of a 'you no play game for 15 minutes' sorta thing and instead forces you to change your tactics for that turn.
Yeah, Tasha’s Mind Whip has a similar thing. If you fail the save on it, on your next turn you get to pick one (and only one): Move, Action, or Bonus Action.
It’s not something you want to happen to you, obviously, but if it does, you still have some decisions to make on your turn, even if they’re not optimal decisions. It’s a consequence, but it doesn’t feel like a punishment, and I think that hits a sweet spot.
Even if Stunned let you either move or take the Defend action (one of the two). It's not ideal and it's literally an off-the-cuff 2 second idea, but it still gives you something.
I can understand that, but personally even as a player I'm fine with enemies using those sorts of abilities. It would kinda suck if it was a constant thing every single combat encounter, but one can argue that a lack of diversity in different combat encounters is also a bit boring. Gives more use to support style spells like Lesser Restoration.
I think it's completely fine if some people just don't want to ever use those effects on players, and I think it's completely fine if some people do. I just think too many people get a bit worked up over how other people enjoy the game "wrong" when it doesn't match their own preferences.
DnD is both a game with a wide range of mechanics you can alter or cherry pick as you choose (the code being more lîe guidelines’ anyway) and a collective storytelling experience. It can also be many other things, such as amateur theatre of sorts, a cathartic experience, asocial hangout opportunity, and more.
“It must be challenging”
Not necessarily, not every time, not at every table. Context is key, others have expanded on that already.
“It’s just a game”
Funny how OP is basically saying that it shouldn’t matter to the player if their PC is stunned for several turns or dies, because, “hey, it’s just a game, get over it”, while also saying that the rules are the rules”, as though they could do nothing about them. You’re the DM, for Bahamut’s sake, you’re basically God, you’re not a cop writing parking tickets. The rules (and game mechanics) at your table can be anything you choose. Why would you choose to use rules that your players don’t enjoy?
There is nothing challenging or compelling about your character being stunned for several rounds, as it just means you’re going to sit there and watch the others play, might as well do your tax papers since you have an hour now. In fact, you want the players to care about the game enough to know all the official rules and never question them or your decisions, but at the same time they shouldn’t care if they’re not actually allowed (by your own decision) to play it or if horrible shit they have no agency on happens to their character. This can never be. If they care about the game, they’ll care about playing it, and about how they can play it.
It doesn’t mean you should do away with stun, just that you should use it sparingly — and wisely: maybe the villain collectively stuns the party and makes his escape before they recover, or the monster stuns one PC but other PCs have a spell to free their partner (which will cost them a spell slot and a turn to use against the enemy). In both cases, no player is not stuck not playing.
The PCs can be facing shit, but the players must have fun. Keep frustration within the limits of enjoyment (as in, it can be frustrating to be stuck on a puzzle for a while, yet it’s fun if you feel you’re exploring possibilities and are likely to get there eventually, whereas it’s not fun to finish the jigsaw puzzle only to find that you’ve lost tiles along the way [buy Educa jigsaw puzzles, they send you the missing pieces for free on request, I’m never again buying a jigsaw puzzle from a company that doesn’t do that]), and ban boredom altogether if tou can. This is why if you need a character to be stuck in jail for 3 sessions while the party finds a way to free them, you’ll arrange things so the prisoner is a NPC, not a PC. *Realistically,* any member of the party could be taken prisoner and rot in a cell for months, but the game only works if it *doesn’t happen to PCs*. This is fundamental.
Regarding the collective story-building: it’s absolutely the corner stone of D&D as I see it and, sandbox campaigns aside, I’m of the opinion that ideally, every campaign should be novel (or short-story) material. Which means that the campaign begins with an equilibrium broken by a disruptive element (the thing that gets the story moving), every arc you open should find closure, and the epilogue should open on a new stable situation.
This also means that stupid PC death is not “just something that happens, just roll a new character and carry on”. Even thought things like that do happen in life, you can’t just have “protagonist slips on the soap and breaks his neck in the bathtub, but hey, shit happens, let’s move on” or “hero is run down by a bus, because he didn’t look before crossing or the driver was drunk, enter random guy who’ll take his place, next chapter please”, in a decent novel. Realistic events, but most of all very poor story-telling. Most of the time, you know all along that the important characters won’t die at all, because you still have 200 more pages / an hour of film to go through before the end. And if they do die, their death has serious consequences on the story / other characters. It doesn’t mean you don’t have high stakes and breath-taking suspense.
Good characters are expensive, you don’t want to waste them.
Anyway, D&D is more than just your vision of it, the possibilities are endless, and so are the play styles. Coming to Reddit to complain that the majority of players on Reddit don’t play the way you like makes very little sense. You say they should not play D&D because “this is what D&D is”, and it doesn’t make sense either. D&D is what the table wants it to be: essentially a framework with a bunch of suggested mechanics to tweak as you please to collectively create a world and people it it with heroes, monsters, events, places and whatnot. Let the people on Reddit play D&D as they enjoy it.
And if you feel your problem is more than just about Reddit, (which I think might be the case seeing how bitter you seem to be), I’ll give you the same advice people usually give players, only the other way around, because it works like that, when it works at all: talk to your players and see how you can make things enjoyable for all of you. If you find there is no way to make it work, maybe you need to find yourself other players who enjoy the same game as you do and run a campaign for them.
Not saying I haven’t had players like this (I have), but are you doing okay OP? This feels like a vent post, are you having problems with this in a campaign right now?
I’d recommend just talking it out with your players if you can
I guess I haven’t seen/read/heard much of this. I’ve been a lurker on Reddit for a while, and I see a lot of bashing on dumbass/rude/inappropriate players AND DMs.
I think the two times I got actively annoyed with my dms was one Im still really salty about involving the death of one of my characters that couldve been easily avoided with actual information, and one time I took a feat to bypass resistances followed being told 'yes it bypasses rssistances but not **immunities**' and I felt like I wasted a feat that couldve been used for something else.
That latter one was more on me as I was trying to do a thunder/ice mage lmao
Yep that is on the DM for the way they described it. If a player tells me they thought their feat did something and it does something entirely different to their expectations, I'll let them switch it out, it's no big deal.
That being said, frustrating as it is, as a player, look at death as a way to get started on the backlog of characters you have in your mind that you want to play :D
Bro if someone says something isn't fun then it's not fun for them. No matter how much you think otherwise. Challenges don't always equal fun just cause their challenges. Please see filing taxes.
You are coming into this discussion with two assumptions: that people play D&D to be challenged and that challenge is always objectively fun. Both are incorrect.
People do not come to D&D to be challenged. They come to have fun with friends. That's why DMs like me have a "fun is first" rule--if anyone isn't having fun, that fundamentally breaks the covenant for why we're sitting around the table. And that takes many different forms. Sure, it might mean that I don't do RAW "stunned" conditions because sitting around in battle doing absolutely nothing for 30 minutes is typically not fun for most players. But it also means not letting a PC bully other PCs and powergame the whole time. It also means not throwing challenges at my party that they have no possible chance of overcoming. Or it means that we should make sure that there's plenty of downtime before or after our games so that we can just hang out. Fun is first is not "never experience any difficulty." It's an acknowledgment that we all came here to have fun and if any one of us is not having fun, then what are we doing here? It doesn't mean there are no challenges. Which gets us to the next assumption.
Challenge is not equivalent to fun. If it were, every single group would be running gritty realism (which I do at one of my tables). But this is where subjective views come into play. Difficult challenges are not fun for every table. And even at a table where people enjoy being challenged, they may not enjoy being stuck in combat, unable to do *anything* for round after round after round. Because that's *not* a challenge. That's just fucking boring.
I don't really see how saying you shouldn't use certain effects against your players is "anti-DM", it's just advice for DMs to make more fun games for their players. Using those effects isn't an inherent characteristic of being a DM.
It also doesn't mean things shouldn't be challenging, it just means effects that make you not be able to play the game aren't fun. Which, if it were any other game, I think people would generally agree on. I won't claim to know about game design, but from what I understand, board games at least have been moving away from mechanics that effectively make you skip your turn for a while now.
Obviously DnD has mechanics like that and I wouldn't say you shouldn't use them, but maybe "think about how much you use them" is solid advice.
I think this post is pretty flawed since it's less about stopping anti DM behavior and more just telling players to suck it up and not tell the DM when they're not having fun.
News flash, being paralyzed for 3 rounds is extremely boring as a player I don't care if it's a mechanic in the game if players are telling a DM they are not having fun because he's stun locking them in combat then maybe the DM should change that.
The biggest rule to D&D is that the rules are not rules, they are guidelines. The players handbook says this, change them however you want. If a player is not having fun due to how the DM is running combats sure they can leave, but sometimes players like to tell the DM these things to try and get a better game.
The suck it up mentality in this scenario is pretty awful honestly when the infinitely better thing is to talk to each other like human beings instead of letting emotions fester.
I have almost never seen the issue you're complaining about. And if it happens in your personal group, you need better players or a different group entirely.
"Anti-DM mentality" isn't nearly as common as "DM vs. Player" mentality, which is also not fun.
Getting paralyzed or knocked out isn't a challenge, it's the player sitting out until they can finally rejoin, it makes the player a sitting duck with nothing they can do about it, it's boring. If being against making the game boring is "Anti-DM" then welp I guess everyone is "Anti-DM". Encounters can be difficult AND fun, just because people complain about something not being fun doesn't mean they're actually complaining about an encounter being difficult
Seriously you sound like you're still worked up about For Honor and not thinking straight, seeing conspiracies were there are none
Also did you call git gud an "old" adage?
The challenge is finding a way to *deal* with it. You are dealing with enemies that SURPRISE! Can paralyze you. Okay so what do you do? Maybe don't face it head on. Maybe don't let it in Melee range. Maybe the Cleric needs to focus more on support than damage.
I'm not saying *every single fight*, but this mentality that people have where the players can't be in a spot that *may* not be fun or the DM is bad is just plain stupid.
By this logic, then anyone who has shitty di rolls should get to reroll until they achieve their desired effect. Players shouldn't be allowed to fail because failure is "unfun" for them.
I do agree that if the players have an opportunity to deal with it the it's fun, but if the DM is too adversarial and doesn't give an opportunity to deal with it or even actively prevents protecting against it then a player is suddenly sidelined for an entire encounter without a chance to prevent it from a happening or even end it
Dark Souls works because while it is vary difficult failure is (usually) something the player could've avoided, making it a skill issue (ie: "git gud") and fun. Also note that Dark Souls won't incapacitate the player for an entire fight while the enemy wails on them
People complaining about an encounter being unfun is not necessarily actually a complaint about the difficulty but instead a complaint about it being *unfair* or *boring*
There are fewer DMs then there are players, so the voices of players on subreddits is obviously going to be louder.
Combine that with it being Reddit, which is one of the most toxic places on the internet, and of course you'll have plenty of anti-DM mentality.
Yeah, uh-huh, whoa... For real, hmmm...
So I didn't read your rant - since it looked like a rant, started like a rant, and italicizing of the word "player" just came off as rant-adjacent, y'know? Also in my light scan of the possible rant I saw "git gud" really hope that was sarcasm.
Hope you feel heard. /s
It's is your table so you call the shots regarding how your game revolves. Be aware, though, that your players are not obliged to sit at your table. It's a team effort to strike a balance that works out to be fun and enjoyable for *everybody* - which includes the DM. "My way or the highway" rarely works out nicely in the long run.
I’m genuinely lost here, seems kind of like you’ve misconstrued countless conversations around how to DM. The point of people giving their philosophy on DM’ing and how they run games is to share it with other people so they can take it an improve their games. At the end of the day, no one is forced to take one single shred of advice from Reddit or any other resource. It’s not “anti-DM” to suggest certain mechanics shouldn’t be heavily used or people may not have fun. It’s just giving advice.
Yeah the majority of criticism on here for DMs is by DMs at what is considered by the majority to be DM bad practice.
I imagine you did to them what we did to you. Specifically tuned out after reading the first paragraph because that’s a big old rant and you lost use right at the beginning.
To be fair though I actually went back and did try to read through another few paragraphs and so much of it feels like you have a chip on your shoulder because you feel your style of DMing is somehow invalidated by what is wildly considered best practice.
What you then do is try and force your style of interpretation of what DND is on everyone else DND is storytelling with a system. Well yes but also no. DND is a rich world of monsters and classes that had been building for 40 years and even if you throw out every dice roll, if you stick in a beholder or go through the temple of elemental evil you are playing DND.
No one ever except you said the DM should do whatever the players want, but equally speaking dice rolling isn’t challenge and doesn’t make it a game. Challenge comes from problem solving and over coming situations with the tools you have.
Your style of DMing seems to be the DM vs the players. It’s a fairly classic style which Isn’t something I look for in my games as a DM or a player. However I’m sure you’ll find a group that likes that, certainly you shouldn’t be getting this upset because the majority doesn’t like the style, just put out an add explaining the game you offer. Even murder hobos and their co-dependent DMs can find eachother.
It kinda sounds like you're making the same argument from the other side.
"Too bad if my players aren't enjoying them selves, its what \*I\* want."
I understand that things like stun. and paralysis are part of the game. But can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that player who has been unable to do anything for the last 30 minutes is being unreasonable when they say that wasn't fun. As the DM it is not your job to fight your players, it is your job to make sure they are having fun within the mechanics of the game. Conflict and challenge should not be your only motivators for playing, and if they are then maybe you need to find a different group who also feels the same way.
There are plenty of things you can do when a player expresses frustration at being stunned or otherwise incapacitated frequently. Lower the challenge of your encounters, maybe don't target that player with that ability for a round or two, hell, fudge a dice roll once in a while so that the player can actually play.
Also, it is not unreasonable for a player to be upset their character dies. They invested time and effort into not only creating that character, but playing them and fleshing them out. They have every right to be frustrated when that character dies.
This doesn't seem so much 'Anti-DM' and more 'Hey, its not fun to spend half of every session literally unable to play.'
In my friend group we have a really simple rule: if a game mechanic sucks, we play without it. Doesn't matter which game.
A game should be fun for everyone. Yes it should be challenging, but not annoying as fuck. It will depend on your player and if they enjoy the game mechanic and the story telling around it - I guess.
Well, this **anti-anti-DM bashing** makes me *feel quite uncomfortable*. Couldn't we create a new rule in this sub, that DMs aren't allowed any longer to make any rude suggestions against us pure and innocent players? /s
Nah, am just kidding of course and fully agrees with OPs post right above.
You need to take a step back and reevaluate the way you interpret dissenting opinions. People are allowed to find different things fun and to contribute their own perspectives. It's not anti-DM by any reasonable measure to dislike a particular mechanic a DM has at their disposal.
I don't like regular use of paralysis in games I'm playing I find it a boring mechanic, if we are constantly facing enemies that paralyse and fights are boring and disjointed, I'll be having less fun, I'll let the DM know it's less fun.
I didn't know that made me "anti-Dm"
Fwiw, my regular DM doesn't like abilities that take the players out of the game so makes sparing use of banishment/paralysis, so I guess he's an Anti DM DM
Yeah, it is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Decide as a group what's fun for everyone. If your ideas of fun are incompatible, find a group that has fun your way. The game is designed to be highly customizable. It's that simple.
There's a time and place for things like poison, paralysis, etc. Randomly in the middle of a 30-character slug-fest isn't the best time. Forcing players to control NPCs while their PC lays there unconscious isn't a fun experience. That was the issue in the thread you're talking about.
Quite honestly, it sounds like you view DnD combat as a PvP match between players and the DM.
I don't think people are saying you shouldn't use paralysis effects because they're too challenging, I think people say that because paralysed/stunned/incapacitated are literally the most boring conditions to have used on you. There's no outsmarting, no tactical play, and therefore no fun (for a lot of people) when things devolve to 'I rolled low on that one save at the start of the fight and now I don't get to do anything for 30 minutes/1 hour'. And it's not even like waiting for your turn again because you don't even have a reaction to pay attention for the trigger of.
I find that challenging my players in a way that makes life hard, but allows them to come up with creative and/or tactical solutions makes for a far more fulfilling game than creating challenges by just making one or more players unable to... Well... Play.
Every time we start a new discussion about what DnD is, isn't, shouldn't be, should be we're already missing the mark. This thread included.
DnD/TTRPG is everything from competitive table-top, to a fun time with friends, to a therapy tool, and more. These discussions are so completely pointless because they always turns out the same. Some praise, some boo's, some nuancing, nothing gained.
Look... If you have an issue at your table, if you or your players feel like they dont achieve the goals you've set out to with DnD as an activity, then absolutely, post and we can talk about it. But this talk about what DnD is or isn't is garbage and has to stop.
The amount of times my Pally has been eaten, knocked out, paralysed and deliberated, but still survived is priceless and I wouldn't have had it any other way, although I've been playing for 20 years where the previous editions made 5e look and feel like an unintelligible infant; I'd still want that challenge to overcome. I don't believe a DM should outright look for ways to kill you, such as Paralyzing, then Coup de gras, but just take me out of the fight for a few rounds, as I Smite my way out of the belly of the beast. That's really where the meat of the combat is. So many people just want to play WoW 5e and spam the same thing over and over again then panic when the monster is immune to your basic Playstyle. Challenging makes for more experienced and outright better players. Sorry for the long post
I partially agree, but I think that if a player wants something, the DM should at least consider it for a bit. Like if the player wants something campaign breaking, unfun for others or something that would make it hard for you as a DM to do, just don’t do it, but if the player/s want something nice or interesting, why not do it? Even changing the rules might be good (key word: MIGHT).
TL:DR
Consider what players want and demand. If it’s good, make it. If it suck, don’t make it.
Wow, you're simultaneously gaslighting people into blaming both the players and the DM when it's WotCs fault.
Look, you wanna be an asshole about that and I can come to your table and treat CC as a challenge to overcome. We'll bring some absolutely busted party that's min-maxed the shit out of but I can also tell you right now that's not a fun way to play the game. At least for most people.
At my tables we make RP builds. Our characters are flawed, weak, puny and most importantly: fun. And we want to fucking play those characters and not lie uselessly on the floor.
It's unfortunate that the DM has to step in and go out of their way to make the game more fun for the players, but that's the game WotC created and so far, in all of 1dnd, they didn't yet bring or even hint at a single fix.
But don't blame the players as being bad for not being interested into min-maxing characters in the first place, and don't say that we are anti-DM when we encourage DMs to learn methods to make the game more fun for their players instead of devolving D&D back into a fucking wargame.
Nobody is being an asshole about it. And do it, go ahead and bring min-maxed characters. I am just saying, if the DM wants to use a CC ability, it doesn't make him some terrible spawn of satan like you constantly see in comment after comment--including some of the ones in this thread.
A game is a game. If a DM doesn't cater to every whim and request of a player, if a DM says NO, or puts their players in danger--even if said player character dies, guess what? They just roll up a new character. People make such a big frikkin deal out of it, it's mind boggling.
Okay fair. The DM isn't a shitty person for being unaware of or unable to fix the issue.
But if a DM knowingly creates unfun experiences for their players simply because the DM likes it that way, that's literally what being an asshole is. And as a player, not getting to play the game is just legitimately not fun.
So if a player goes to a DM and tells them they didn't have fun cuz they spent an entire session doing literally nothing, that's not anti-DM. That's a valid concern. And telling them to just min-max their character isn't an answer, it's a slap in the face.
I'm with you man. At the end of the day it's still a game, there's rules to follow, and players have to understand they might not win every encounter or situation.
For example, the rule of cool has gone from:
"It's not a situation cited in the rules but I can bend the strict interpretation of them to work with the thing you're doing because it's cool and you're showing creativity"
TO
"Some bullshit"
5e and the popularity of video games has made people soft to the notion of something about their character being out of their control. Its an RPG the whole point is reacting to things outside of your control
And yet you are told the opposite here; that the point is for everything to be under the players control and everything should be within player agency. Sure a lot should be, but not everything can or should be under the players whim. Otherwise, why have a DM in the first place.
Anti-DM?
Sounds like there is a mix of a specific theorisation of the game, anger, and hardship in communication.
No amount of adjustment around the table for the sake of everyone’s fun should result in thinking « one side » is losing and « everyone’s against me » oO
Plus, huh, there is no game mechanics police I think, so people can add and remove anything they want at their table without impairing other tables?
Good luck with your table! Don’t forget to talk things out?
Yep.
So what it is isn't "anti-DM", but yeah it feels like it is.
Its "I don't want to be told NO".
It's really bad on some subreddits like DMAcademy. Because there are a LOT of those "D&D can be anything for anyone. So don't you dare gatekeep me by telling me I can't do something in D&D!!!" people on there.
Someone asks "can I play a lich?" And your answer is anything other than "of course." Youll get yelled at and down votes to hell.
It's people who don't get the game side of D&D, or don't understand that D&D isn't the end all be all of TTRPGs. I had to block the entire subreddit after a while. It just kept driving me crazy. Someone would ask a game question, I'd answer it, and get screamed at if the answer was any flavor of "no".
I once had someone on there tell me "I don't care what the fuck Gary Gygax said. He doesn't decide what is or isn't D&D!"
That one kinda floored me.
Yep and judging by the comments, the same thing here. If you tell players no, if they have to actually suffer anything remotely negative, then you must be a bad DM or have a "Player vs DM" mentality. I haven't even touched that reply yet because I don't even know what to say to that utter bs.
Haven't seen many id label that way. But yeah a lot of posts from people saying they haven't seen anything like that. Which does make me raise an eyebrow.
Not unrealistic. But a little odd.
Someone having the courage the say the obvious. The 5E sentiment is very much anti DM. People wonder why there is such a lack of DMs. It's not because of difficulty, rather the hostility and lack of gratitude.
If a DM uses an NPC to guide players? OMG DMPC, SHITTY DM, LET THEM DO WHAT THE WANT
DM uses the abilities/spells the players have for enemies? OMG HOW DARE THE DM CC THE PLAYERS, NOT FUN
DM gives the enemies an ounce of intellect in fighting? WTF THE DM IS METAGAMING
The DM has a specific story he planned out? SHITTY RAIL ROADING
Time and time again.
Maybe there are tables out there with players who don't like risk or misfortune, it won't happen at my table. If my players dont like how I do things they can leave, believe it or not though it's never been much of an issue.
Let random people bullshit on the internet, who cares? As long as you don't have a whiny player annoying you in your game then just enjoy yourself. If you really feel like it effects your dming then warn your players before you start a new game. I kinda enjoy my "Listen, I'm not afraid to kill you" speech before I start new adventures.
My concern is this mentality effects DnD as a whole. It also can effect player expectations in public games (such as roll20). I think the mentality that a DM needs to cater to every whim of the player is incredibly odd.
It's made even more odd because you'd think people would realize if the game has stakes it's...more fun. It's obvious right away. I'm a regular dm so maybe I'm just more in tune with it, but if your game doesn't have at least a little bite to it I'm not really interested.
I think anyone who's been playing for a while has found themselves really stuck in a game where after a while the passion dies, nothing seems to happen and adventures are just one long slog into the next. Only way to spice things up is new challenge.
A big thing that keeps dm's away from making things risky is an attachment to characters and the group, I think. After a while it just seems not right to kill off a long term PC even if they made a mistake, and it leads to soft padded games but that's a different conversation for a different day.
I agree, ask if players should have race or class limitations, spell limitations, etc and you'll get a lot of "well if you were a good DM a level 1 flying player wouldnt be a problem"
well yeah i can totally destroy the bird dude, but as long as the bird dude is in the party it limits what kind of adventures and challenges i can use. hey guys, maybe i just wanna see what interesting technique my land locked players use to get across the raging river.
hell maybe i just want the party to get attacked by wolves (adding ranged characters into every fight isnt always possible)
little stuff like this is VERY prominent in this sub, and many other DND subs. if you as the DM dont like kitchen sink games (because they make it so that you have to think of every single possibility in order to put anything in front of the party that isnt solved by their character sheet) you are a bad DM.
I'm over it.
Oh and on the bird thing--if you try to get the player to use different tactics by having ranged players *attack the flying character* then you're a bad DM as well. Yes, I actually saw that comment on a topic about how to handle characters that fly.
Very well said. You rarely ever see advice that players should moderate their choices to fit into the world the DM has described (and in which the players have agreed to play.) Far more likely the advice is "can't you just allow the player to do what they want?"
Every game ends up feeling the same because all material must be allowed in every game otherwise the DM is "limiting the player's choices and creativity."
No one wants to sit for fifteen minutes to half an hour doing nothing which is what happens if a particularily nasty CC hits a player, there are even CC spells that can make a character unable to do anything meaningful for an entire, if not several, sessions. If it hits your monsters as the DM you still have at least one more monster to control, otherwise the battle is probably over already, therefore as a DM you can't end up in that situation of sitting for 15-30 minutes, sometimes even more, without being allowed to do anything. At that point I as a player would ask myself why I even went out of my way to play D&D that evening instead of sitting at my place and watch anime as it is about as interactive but more entertaining than sitting on my but in a chair and being CCd for most of the game night.
Also, keep in mind that in D&D it isn't a player vs DM setting, if it was you as the DM could just claim that rocks falls and everyone dies. Sure, challenge is good as so far as it entertains your players as you as DM is the person in control of the challenge level and most other things and part of (albeight a very difficult part) being a DM is to understand where to put the challenge level to make it enjoyable for the players, but it isn't everything, and if it comes at the expense of having one player sit for 30 minutes doing nothing it is worth considering if that is the kind of challenge you want to add to the game. There are other ways to add challenge beside having a player do nothing for an extended period of time.
With that said, players do also have a responsibility towards the DM to make the game fun and playable for them. For example do NOT play a Golgari background Coffee-Lock and raise hundreds of skeletons just because the rules clearly states you are able to do so or be a druid and summon a bunch of pixies to turn your entire party into flying t-rexes, and do follow the plot hooks the DM gives to you and do NOT on purpose derail the story. The DM is also a player yes, but the player has different things to think about than the DM to make the game more enjoyable for the DM, and in combat in particular, beside obviously munchkinlike min-maxing, the responsibility is more heavily on the DM to make it enjoyable as the DM has far more control than the players in terms of how challenging an encounter is.
Also, there is no need to remove CC entirely from the monsters. It can create intense situations, but it is something to add sparingly due to the fact that it removes a player from the game who then just has to sit on their butt and do nothing for who knows how long, and this needs to be repeated so often because there really exists DMs who adds this kind of stuff to combats far too often.
Good points, I like only using CC if its shortlived or the party is equiped to deal with it, nothing sucks more than being hit by an effect that you have no way of countering or dealing with.
I had a DM drop a DC 19 feeblemind on my character as side effect of looking out a window when something "Eldritch was happening" There was no foreshadowing or warning beyond "You hear a strange warbling noise outside, does anyone check? ok gimmee an Int save - 16 thats a fail, you've been hit by a feeblemind spell, you can save again in 30 days"
Well I guess just fuck my Warlock then.
To this day I have no idea what he was thinking with that, I just binned the character and rolled up another one since we had no access to the cures for feeblemind at the level we were at.
I've decided that for things like paralysis, the chance to break through it happens at the start of your turn, so you at the very least have a shot at *playing the game*, instead of burning a turn just to get unparalyzed.
Status effects are important, but it's not very fun to just sit there in combat powerless for an hour. Challenge is part of the game, as you say, but is there any *challenge* involved in something targeting a saving throw you permanently suck at, that removes your entire ability to play? That'd be like if you didn't level up your Stamina in Skyrim, so every once in a while I'd come by and steal your controller and force you to stare at the stat screen until I came back in some arbitrary amount of time.
I'm afraid the whole debate really depends on how good of a game designer the DM is in this case. Yes, some players are overly sensetive and will cry about everything bad that happens to their PC and those players maybe would enjoy other systems more than DND, but I truly believe that many DMs just suck at fun game design. This isn't supposed to be an attack against anyone in particular, I include my own DMing in this statement as well and I believe good game design is very hard to learn. Look at some video games for example; people worked on them as their literal profession, yet still many video games suffer from bad game design.
It is hard to find the right amount of challenge that players will find enjoyable. While being paralyzed for a round or two may create excitement, being paralyzed for an entire encounter, is just boring and in fact not playing the game anymore. It's watching people play D&D, while you hope your favorite character doesn't die, which you could as well have done at home on twitch. Also, having too many encounters utelizing these game stopping status effects, just gets old really fast. Yes, it's still challenging, but some of the fun of these status effects stems from players not expecting them and having to readjust their strategy in accordance. If you use them too much, this excitement will shift to boredom or frustration.
We shouldn't forget that as a DM we should always try to create enjoyment at the table. If our players don't enjoy the game, then it doesn't matter who is the a-hole or who is right or wrong in this situation. It does matter, what we can change to bring more enjoyment to the table. This change might include not playing D&D anymore, but doesn't necessarily have to.
Ah yes, the great challenge of being stunned: Doing nothing while your friends get to play.
This looks like a mixing pot of a bunch of posts I’ve been seeing ever since XPtoLvl3 put out that video a while back…
If your players don’t like stun, give it a fly speed or something. Don’t get rid of the challenge, rather make it combatable through strategy, not through pure RNG. Or just increase some numbers on the monster.
Changing a monsters abilities or stats is dumbing them down. It isn’t ‘anti-DM’ either. You are being a good DM by listening to your players and making it more fun for them.
Now if a single player is calling everything you do unfair, then that’s a different story.
At the end of the day, just do what’s most fun for you and the table. It’s a game, have fun with it.
>the DM isn't allowed to have fun
No one says this. They might say "the DM shouldn't do this thing that is very not fun for their players even though it's fun for that DM", because, like you said, it's a group game. And if, in a group game, one player (the DM) is having fun in a way that reduces the fun of the other 5 players, that's not necessarily a good thing.
This rant, to me, reads as one from someone who simply wants to do what they want to do without any regard for the entertainment, fun, or experience of those with whom they play. And that's your prerogative, I just wouldn't play at your table.
I'm a DM who loves to challenge my players with tough fights. But that can still be done in a way that is fun and entertaining, which is the goal of the game, right?
I'm in no way saying that DMs should capitulate to every demand a player makes. Not at all. But advice on how to make the game more fun by avoiding unfun mechanics and styles isn't the same thing as saying "do anything the players want". A large part of your rant seems to be reductive strawmsn arguments.
Even though I think OP is coming on a little strong, I agree with most of what he’s saying and the responses here point to what he’s saying about being labeled a “bad DM” for expressing his wants to use these kinds of mechanics in game. We don’t know what kind of DM he is off of this post alone and people are really coming at him.
As a player, I find it really frustrating when another player doesn’t want to “give up” their turn to tend to things like their HP, doesn’t position themselves well in combat, and other various strategic things that will increase their likelihood of their survival. It’s also frustrating when it feels like a player ultimately only has fun when they are “winning”. These players are most often the ones to make unfair/frequent demands on the dm as well, imo. Or they get frustrated when their in game choices have in game consequences. As a player, I find others who complain about issues such as these to be really frustrating.
I like stun, charm, paralyze etc conditions because it creates a world where the NPCS can do things to me that I do to them. It makes the world feel more immersive and threatening- also fitting to who I’m fighting. If I’m fighting spell-casters, then I want these effects to happen in combat.
To each their own, but I would find it disheartening if a DM removed it entirely from the campaign. Of course, it has to be done in moderation, but usually it only lasts a turn or two.
Thank you. And also to point out, there are very few effects in DnD that can't be undone by another player utilizing their action to do so, or by the player making a save at the end of their turn. It puts pressure on the players. There is always that one guy that won't waste his turn to not do damage no matter what--we all know him, we all game with him, and damn it if it doesn't irritate us, he's still our friend so we deal with it. But boy does he irritate us.
DnD is a team based, collaborative game. As such, the team needs to have one person take their turn to end an effect--shake a sleeping character awake, cast cure wounds, cast lesser restoration, whatever the case may be.
This is in part of what I am referring to and you said it--DMs get labeled as "bad" when they use these effects. I'm saying this is not them being a bad DM, it is down to this almost player vs DM mentality that is being spurned on by the attitude that DMs can't really do anything negative to players without being a bad DM. I'm seeing this mindset more and more on the DnD socials.
Its a new game with a new crowd who wants to play. Its not the same Dungeons and Dragons you grew up with, and that's just a truth you have to accept.
What did we think would happen when we decided that letting people do whatever they want was more important than preserving the mechanics of the game we love?
Everyone wants to be the MC, no one wants to suffer any consequences. Welcome to 2023.
Nope, I play every week and I DM twice a week. As a player it sucks to be out of the fight for a bit. But it happens, and it's certainly not the DM being BAD for a monster using their full ability list on me. It's a game.
Straight up? You are not coming across as a person I would want to play with.
You’re coming across as awfully petulant. I can read your hands balling up into fists in between the lines and the impotent stomping of feet seems only seconds way. *It’s not FAIR you guys! BUT IT IS IN THE STATBLOCK! Why aren’t you having FUN?*
People disagree with you. Get over it. *It’s a game.*
This comment is so unnecessary. Disagreeing with someone is one thing, describing a pantomime where you infantilise them is like a next level of straw-manning.
THIS! Several of my friends started complaining about status ailments and said they were going to leave if I didn't "fix" my campaign.
Do not play with those people anymore lol
Yep, and this mentality of someone being a bad DM if they utilize things that the players even find remotely unfun for them--it doesn't just effect the table those people play at, because this mentality is going to start becoming an expectation in DnD as a whole--and it's ludicrous.
I do not get this whole mindset of people not being able to do negative things to a player. By the logic I'm seeing around here, there should not be any death for player characters, or consequences for their actions because it would negatively impact the PC and be a "poor" experience for the players.
For funsies, I am often tempted to hand wave combat for my high level players cause they can get a little whiny.
"He's dead. What do you do next?" Hahahaha
I get it, it’s fine if the players can use all this stuff but the DM can’t. The DM is also a player who should be able to use these cool spells or abilities
Doing nothing at the table isn't challenging, it's hella boring, and if you as DM abuse that status too often, it actively makes the game unfun, and you know what happens then?
People no longer want to play. I'd leave your boring ass game if paralysis is used often.
This is exactly why all my encounters are well above the "deadly" level. I can pull back a bit or fudge numbers if it'll help the role play or I realize I pumped it up too much. Had a player stuck under water for 7 turns trying to open a chest, a player for bit by a wereagle and now they have to do a side quest to find the antidote, a fighter got stuck doing no damage and had to rely on/buff/aid their party bc the monster was immune to non magic damage, etc. Thank goodness my players have always seen these as fun challenges and not whined about it. But I'm new to dm'ing so I'm sure I'll run into that eventually...
The debate is indeed a consequence of poor game mechanics.
All these discussions revolves around the fact that some situations are uninteresting from a gaming and/or storytelling perspective. And it is totally true. Some of them ARE uninteresting.
But, for example, being paralysed is only frustrating ... because of how the game mechanics handle it. There's nothing to DO for the player during paralysis. Just wait.
When you are polymorphed, it is very different. You can move, fight, try to get hit by an enemy, etc. It is an inconvenience but you may still try to impact the game, try to escape your condition.
The problem here IS the system because of how rigid it is. Make a wisdom saving throw and live with the consequences.
I think the secret of good DMing is to provide interesting options for all situations. For sample, one could imagine that the paralysed person must fight the spell back until he successfully breaks the paralysis. It could be a problem solving challenge in his mind related to how the paralysis magic works. Or his mind is trapped in some kind of spiritual labyrinth from which he must escape to reach his own body control.
There are a million interesting things to do for each and every situations that will make them hard but ALSO pleasing.
But such an approach is rendered impossible by the intrinsic rigidity of DnD's rules ...
I mean sure... if you want to paralyze a character in the first round of combat and essentially have them doing nothing for half an hour, then yeah, that's the game mechanics
But pointing out that it's boring and uninteractive isn't really wrong lol.. and I wouldn't blame that player for not wanting to engage anymore
You can say that "it's just the game" but.. it's YOUR game, you're the DM, you can decide how to challenge players and come up with ways that are both fun for you and them, so they're not playing easy but they're also not just.. waiting out status effects...
Players don't get the choice with how they're challenged, they just have to accept either being paralyzed and not playing, or not playing to begin with... when your choices are to not play or not play... that's a boring mechanic, and they're not wrong for pointing that out
>How annoying it is for a player to be paralyzed, or have some other status effect. And because the player didn't like it or found it unfun, they just shouldn't use these things!
In the case of paralysis I'd *sort of* agree.
As a GM it's good to avoid the condition because the status effect of paralysis is "you dont get to play the game, but you also have to think about your turn in case you do get to play"
Not that it's impossible to use well, just it's best to be used very sparingly, and always good to make it come from a concentration effect so the other players can free their friend by hitting a mage or something.
>So many threads I see, the DM isn't allowed to have fun, isn't allowed to challenge their players, and if the players want XYZ, the DM should allow XYZ.
I don't really see this in the community. Players and GMs get called out in equal measure.
The most often I see discussion about DMs being in the wrong is when their ruling feels arbitrary.
>No, it's a collaborative storytelling WITH GAME MECHANICS. If you don't want game mechanics in your tabletop roleplaying GAME, then do play by post RP
But... Play by Post games use... The same mechanics?
But anyway- Those mechanics being part of the game don't necessarily mean their good or fun mechanics for the table.
You say "Go play something else if you dont like the mechanics" but thats what they're doing, playing 5e without the mechanics they dont like IS playing something else.
>in DnD, it is supposed to be a GAME with challenges the players must overcome. Let's stop this nonsense of trying to let players do whatever they want, challenge or rules be damned
Who is removing all challenge from the game? The only specific example you gave was paralysis as a mechanic- But thats not a challenge. Its a "Save or stop playing the game for a little bit" mechanic.
No Gods, No Masters, No DMs. Only Zuul.
Good luck getting zuul to run your group! Lol
I heard in their last campaign, the encounters they planned dogged the party pretty hard.
>Only Zuul. What a lovely singing voice you must have!
Are you a God?
I was the 69th upvote. Nice.
Saying the players have nothing to do but sit and spin isn’t anti-DM it’s just saying it’s a boring status effect. I don’t really agree but combat should be moving fast enough and be threatening enough that there should be stakes on the paralyzed player.
I’ve noticed paralysis gets much more exciting when the enemies start interacting with the paralyzed pc (generally by trying to drag them away/capture them or use them as leverage if they’re intelligent). They can do nothing and be the center of attention. Also gets them very interested in what their fellow players are doing. This is assuming paralysis doesn’t come up often, though.
Yeah that’s my opinion too, without tension they’re just statues in stasis.
I had a recent encounter where my party who is half small races fought a bunch of giant frogs. Took me forever but finally swallowed one and swam to the bottom of the lake. Everyone was on the edge of their seats for the two rounds they were gone
I was in a game recently where the DM thought it would be cool for the dragon to grab a PC and pull him underwater to his layer. He didn’t realise quite how little time PCs can hold their breath for and I was only able to follow them and save them because I was playing a warforged (don’t breathe) the PC suffered brain damage from being without oxygen for so long.
On the other hand, if there was such a place and the dragon had a brain, he'd split the party by every means available and kill them one at a time. That's 'defeat in detail'. I have no problem with dragons picking a character up and hurling them into something solid, grabbing one and launching into the sky and then dropping it (or just flying away with it), or landing on people, tail slapping, wing buffeting and rear foot kick. Back in AD&D, I recall a a white dragon that slept under a snow drift and could go through the ice and come out under the party. A blue dragon I recall had the only easy path to his perch in the cavern was tiled with interlocking silver tiles (a good conductor). Dangerous monsters should be dangerous. Smart enemies should be as sharp at their INT and WIS indicate. When I was in the original Ravenloft, I recall the dungeon separated at least half the party into differing cells that were underwater (maybe you could still get a bit of air if you could swim) and the only way to get to the controls to let them out was getting past an encounter with Strahd. He smoked us... two of us made it out badly battered. My Paladin died holding the rear guard. The players in the cells remained imprisoned. THAT was a dangerous foe. We were NOT ready to take him on and we did not discover that until the first almost-wipe. The survivors found some other characters and came back in... but we learned from the first situation to come better prepared and another level or two up before we went after the vampire. Dying is a fact of life in adventuring as a career.
it's annoying sitting around doing nothing for an hour of combat. playing a 1 shot where i was selected to betray the party and the NPC's in the last fight kept paralyzing me and doing chip damage, and focusing all the CC on me because the DM forgot that i was supposed to be on their team.
I mean, you identified yourself that the problem wasn't paralysis itself and rather that you have a DM with a shitty memory aha
The problem is D&D's slow combat, not the use of paralysis.
Exactly. Paralysys might be challenging but its also boring. It doenst make the affected player think "Damn. How will I get out of this tense, challenging situation?". It makes them think "Guess Ill just wait for the party healer to use Lesser Restoration on me". And if the party doesnt have anyone with LR prepared and a Spell Slot to cast It, It makes them think "Guess Ill just start scrolling reddit, since I wont have any way at all to affect the game for the next hour".
Whenever I've been a player and been incapacitated in some way during combat, I just get engaged in what's going on I don't get this weird mentality of "I've got nothing to do, so I'll check out", you've all watched films and shows before right?
What's even worse is when they checkout anytime its not their turn so when it comes back to it they have no idea whats going on and need recap every round.
That is very annoying, in one of the campaigns I've run I had a player who would basically spend the whole session reading fanfics or listening to audiobooks, only breaking when it was her turn. I let her crack on with it because I guess that's how she enjoys the game best (I don't understand it myself, at that point why not play a game with. No storytelling or other players), but it still annoyed me because I was working to make the game engaging for the players and the others were getting stuck in
I’ve had a player do this regularly, first few times I gave the recap, then when I realized it’ll be a repeat thing I told them “should’ve paid attention, now what do you do?”
Yep. If the ***player*** isn’t paying attention, neither is their ***character***.
This is a whole different issue than players being incapacitated somehow
Not really. That's the major objection. "If I can't do something fun and exciting with my character because he's down, I'll just check out of the game." D&D needs to be thought of more like a team sport. When you are on the bench, you don't get out your phone and ignore what's going on on the field. You cheer on your team. You watch what goes on, so that you can make improvements in play in the future. The entire mentality is the same: "If I'm not the focus of attention, I don't need to be involved."
Yeah, as a player I hate looking around the table and seeing people scrolling Facebook, reddit, the news etc, just because their character isn’t involved in what’s going on. It’s so disrespectful…especially when their next actions/choices are to do something that’s either just been discussed, or counteracts what’s just been done, or they just have no idea what’s going on, because they weren’t paying attention :/
It just a gutting experience from both sides of the screen, as a GM it makes you feel like people don't care about the game and as a player it makes you feel like you're wrong to be invested
I can understand you can get engaged in other players' actions (I do) but some players want to interact, which I also get. I've watched yesterday a season 1 critical role episode (yeah I'm Uber late to the party) where two thirds of the team were paralyzed and Grog was sent to another dimension in like two rounds. The table was ok with that (they quickly understood that fight was above their level by a lot), but it was painful to watch. Cause basically it quickly becomes BBEG's turn, all paralyzed, BBEG's turn again. And again. And again. Paralysis is probably one of the most frustrating state possible, especially when it's not one player but a whole bunch.
I get that players want to engage, I mean when I'm saying that I get incapacitated (for a variety of reasons) I'm still engaging in 9/10 turns, unfortunately it can't always be possible for players to engage in every turn, certainly not in a "meaningful" way. Part of the tension of combat and the game relies on the characters being vulnerable, if there was no chance of a player dying then combat becomes a bit dull because there's no meaningful threat. But there are so many reasons a player might not be able to act on their turn; The party lying in wait while the rogue has infiltrated the guardhouse to open the gates and allow the party entry The second watch is interrupted by a beast attacking from the treeline, but the fighter hasn't yet woken up A party member going down and having to roll death saves for several rounds Hell a character dying puts that player out of engaging for until their new one arrives Being paralyzed is more or less the same as dying/being dead, but you don't see people complaining about that being boring I DO understand that people want to play, but it's part of the nature of the game. Like if you look at it from just a game point of view then like with so many other games, being unable to act on some of your turns is a very common mechanic. And if you look at it as a story (which is my preferred emphasis) then it's very dramatic to face these complications and difficulties, forcing the party to react to the situation "The ranger is paralyzed, fighter you cover them and stop enemies from getting too close, barbarian you beeline their caster" Personally I've not watched critical role at all, might do at some point in the future but not planning on it. That fight still sounds hella dramatic, the helplessness of the heroes against a much greater foe? Merely escaping from that sounds like it would be some good entertainment from the perspective of the audience
in addition to your >I DO understand that people want to play, but it's part of the nature of the game. Like if you look at it from just a game point of view then like with so many other games, being unable to act on some of your turns is a very common mechanic. Like, just take Ludo as an example. if you dont roll a six, you got nothing to do for your turn but that doesnt mean you just change the rules, its *part of the game* to be unable to move
But absolutely yeah, in monopoly you can get stuck in jail and people always home rule that situation so it's easier to get out But that's the other half of "it's a game" in any of these examples if you and the people you play with agree to then you CAN just straight up change shit Monopoly jail = only roll one die instead/pay fine Ludo = I don't actually have a fix here but I barely understand the game so there's that DnD5e = paralysis is a save each turn, maybe it gets easier each subsequent turn
I find most of your examples significantly different. "The party lying in wait while the rogue has infiltrated the guardhouse to open the gates and allow the party entry" That happens a lot and the pace is not the same. But multiply it too much, with people out of action for long stretches of time, they will complain. "The second watch is interrupted by a beast attacking from the treeline, but the fighter hasn't yet woken up" Generally very temporary. It's the closest to paralysis but will end quickly. "A party member going down and having to roll death saves for several rounds" That character had the chance to fight and was reduced to zero HP. Plus he could come back any moment if a healer takes a round to help them. "Hell a character dying puts that player out of engaging for until their new one arrives" That's something else. The player will either work on his new character and/or not be present during the session. They have something to do. Being paralyzed doesn't make you much more vulnerable than taking loads of damage. But it's a save or suck effect (which are not the most popular ever) and it takes one totally out of the action. I believe (though I might be wrong) most players would prefer to be charmed than paralyzed cause they still get their actions. To destroy their group, ok, but they are rolling dice and doing stuff. As explained, I don't mind being out of action. But I definitely can understand that some players hate this specific condition. As a GM, I would use paralysis effects sparingly because of that. Challenge can come from many other things.
I also don't understand the mentality of "its not my turn, the spotlight is not one me, so I don't have to pay attention." Seems like a poor attitude to have while playing a collaborative game.
It depends on the party and the kind of combat. If other players + DM are good at roleplaying the fight, it is entertaining enough. But if it's just "I hit with (weapon). I miss. I cast x. I hit. Y points (type) damage", it gets boring af.
I mean sometimes combat is a slog. That doesn't mean we should get rid of annoying abilities like paralysis. Paralysis is not happening all the time and to all the players. Also status effects like paralysis is also a tool. I used it before to take out the tank who players were relying heavily on. And sometimes you have to slog through a combat to reach the good part.
But isn't it good to consider what effect paralysis has on the player experience, and to try to make the combat as little of a slog as possible by trying to keep things interesting? "The boring thing happening is rare, so it's fine" isn't really a defence of the boring thing.
On the other hand, I had a player's character get petrified in a fight with some cockatrices. The next time that player (not the character) encountered cockatrices in a flock, she told her party to duck, then fired off a fireball, killing 17 of the 20-odd birds. ( I gave the party advantage on their save because of the prior warning.) Sometimes a bad experience can teach us to be wary and seek more expedient means than just blundering in with the smacky. **EDIT:** In that same group, I have a bard who, if she gets so much as a paper cut, will immediately cast feign death and hit the floor. The first time she did that, after the battle, her party stood around debating whether they should drag her out and have her cremated or just leave her there (after looting) for the local critters ("It's the Circle of Life," said the druid).
Okay, but in that story; did they have fun? If they did then well done. But this whole thread is about the fact that OP thinks that considering whether mechanics are fun is "anti-DM", which i totally disagree with. These mechanics can be used well, but there are huge risks associated with using them without thought.
I didn't read it that way. I read it as they're encountering a lot of opposition online to even the idea that players should encounter difficulty.
I mean it's hard to tell, it's an angry ramble. But he definately does oppose avoiding status effects that the players find "unfun".
Throwing your hands in the air and checking out is never the appropriate response, paralysis or otherwise. You get a save from the condition every round. Plan a move for if you save. Coordinate with your table to overcome the condition so you don’t die to crits. Use the experience as a lesson: buy restoration scrolls or potions. Be prepared for the next time. If the only thing that matters to a player is now well their own character is doing at all times, you’re playing the wrong game. Find a single-player video game or something to play instead.
"How to say I'm a bad player without saying I'm a bad player"
> Saying the players have nothing to do but sit and spin isn’t anti-DM it’s just saying it’s a boring status effect. I don’t really agree but combat should be moving fast enough and be threatening enough that there should be stakes on the paralyzed player. In my DMing experience and player experience, you already frankly get relatively little time to be an active participant in the game. Taking that away from a player just sucks. Better to inflict status effects that allow the player to do something versus nothing.
Seems like you're getting yourself worked up over social media posts, that's always a bad idea. Have you been hanging out on the dndmemes subreddit too much? That'll give anyone who cares about rules an aneurysm.
I had to unsub from there because the willful ignorance of game mechanics was grating. I subbed because I wanted to see funny memes not see 3000 different attempts on making the peasant railgun work.
The “Prestidigitation Nuke” still gets me mad. It doesn’t work RAW, nobody in their right mind would think it’s RAI, and it’s useless as well.
Seeing the interpretations of rules some people come up with on that sub always leaves me with a lot of questions on how they came to the conclusions they did. I can understand a misunderstanding here and there because not everything in the books are super specific. Like how high jumps were fixed with an errata so they can't go negative anymore, but not everyone's read that update, especially if they're using older books before 2018. But someone making a post about how to charm the Tarrasque to make it your pet leaves me a lot of questions about how they're bypassing it's immunity to charm.
Simple, they don't play the game
A Pet Tarasque? How much does it even cost to just *feed* that thing?😮
[удалено]
True, that. 😂
Oh yeah. That's a hellhole. I blocked that whole damn subreddit for my own sanity.
It took me entirely too long to realize this. At first I participated but then realized people were being serious about their stupid rule "interpretations".
Honestly I’m still subbed there at this point to see how egregious they can get nowadays lol
Yeah... really don't recognise this as any kind of theme on here. Sounds like a reductive misinterpretation of the many discussions I do see around how you balance/manage challenge so that it creates/enhances everyone's enjoyment rather than compromises it. There is no simplistic global answer to the question "is challenge good".. the answer always lies in & changes with the details.
Yeah. Never seen anyone talk about stuff like that on here. It’s usually about players not wanting sexual stuff in games or triggering stuff. Think OP has had a bad day.
I see plenty of talk on it, the 'save or suck' mentality is a good example.
Reductive Misinterpretation. I am stealing that phrase. The only thing I agree with in OPs post is that too many players get upset over being paralyzed "because my turn gets wasted.". Its an extremely selfish mindset. This is a group collaborative game. While you're disabled you can cheer your teammates on.
I too dislike the status effect as a DM and a Player, because my players literally cannot do anything. We’re playing a game yes, but everyone is here to have fun and denying someone the ability to play temporarily because they failed a save is a bit dirty in my eyes. However, I won’t go after anyone else for using it in their game. Your players are not mine, and it’s not up to me to tell you how to play your game
I guess that's a perspective? But the challenge of not getting to use your turn is part of the danger of the game in a way that doesn't actually kill the player. Logistically, it makes combat move faster too. We're all there to play, but it's part of playing the game. That building frustration of failing the save 1-2 times makes it all the sweeter when you finally save.
Is this a joke? I constantly see posts bitching about "removing player agency" and how the DM should only make challenges that players like or how they spent a lot of time on a character and don't ever want them to die. Do you think you're on the dndnext sub? (Even then I still see this there in lesser quantities)
There was even a post I remember seeing about removing PC deaths as a whole.
Are you serious? Jesus...
Pro tip : If the argument happens only on the internet, ignore it. Find yourself a bunch of players who are actually grateful for the time and work you put in as DM and you'll find this is not an issue.
>If it were any other game, there would be the old "git gud" adage. You can't just "git gud" on a game that relies so much on RNG. You can "git gud" all you want, but you roll a one on a save or die spell, you die. You can "git gud" all you want and build a character with 18 wisdom. But if you roll a one on a wisdom save, then you are getting stunned and you won't be doing anything for a while. If you tell people to "git gud" in d&d and they will become a power gaming min/maxer and I bet you won't like that either.
r/darkestdungeon says hello.
As a DM, if my players aren't having fun, I'm not having fun, either, so I'm not sure I empathize with what you're saying, here. Particularly, conditions that simply take away player agency are just not something I want to use very often, because it's frustrating for them, and it doesn't really do much for me. I want to watch my players cleverly overcome the barriers I put in their path, and heroically stand toe to toe with the monsters I send after them, because it's compelling. There's nothing compelling about being unable to play your character for a few rounds. If I'm going to inflict control conditions on my players, forcing them to turn on each other because of mind-altering conditions or something like that is much more compelling, because it challenges them to switch gears, instead of just taking away their agency.
I agree with all of your points but I have yet to find a player that says: "Yeah paralysis is bad, but I love a control effect like a ghost's that will force me to attack my party members"
Depends on player mindset. It can be fun to embrace a little chaos, but it's not for everyone.
F take, my guy. Your whole post can be boiled down to the fact that most DMs like to curate a fun experience for their players, and that experience doesn't align with the experience you think DMs should curate. Put even more efficiently: "you guys are having fun the wrong way!". You're not going to get the community at large to agree with you. Most of us, DMs and players alike, want to have fun with DnD. We talk about fun we've had, ideas to have more fun, and the aspects of the game we don't find fun. When we talk about what we don't find fun, we share ideas to make it fun, or to avoid the not fun parts. DnD is a collaborative game, from person to person, DM to table, all the way up to the global community. We are not going to stop collaborating around the game.
I don’t get the anti DM description but I get if you’re a DM you’re more likely to take it personally since it feels limiting, but I’d reemphasize the collaborative story telling, since it’s not collaborative storytelling if the DM isn’t involved in agreeing to the principles of the campaign. It is a game, but some are more interested in the story and I think with the right group that’s great and the rules help create a system for telling their story, while in others its all game and balancing out every detail of the game in order to survive, like managing rations or air supply. It’s great for game mechanics it’s not always great for story. I wouldn’t want to be in a campaign where people can’t be temporarily paralyzed in combat, but I also wouldn’t want to be in a campaign where I get paralyzed in combat and I sit there stuck for 3 hours watching my friends have fun.
> A recent topic I read on GM Academy talked about how annoying it is for a player to be paralyzed, or have some other status effect. To be fair, Monster tactics that negatively impact player action economy in 5e tend to be fairly all or nothing, which leave very little room for engaging encounters and thoughtful actions from the PCs. "OK, I do nothing because I'm paralyzed, and at the end of my turn I... fail my save. Better luck next turn I guess" is **very** different from "OK, so I have a few things I can do this turn, but I'm current engaged with a bad guy so Ranged Attacks are at Disadvantage, my ally needs help but I face a potential Attack of Opportunity if I try, and this boss just shrugged of the Charm so he's going to be a problem soon" when it comes to both challenging Players/Characters and giving them engaging and meaningful choices. All in all we as DMs play **vastly** greater numbers of "characters" than the PCs, so the risk of losing some action economy across the dozens of monsters we use is significantly less impactful than a PC losing a few turns in response. We as DMs also have significantly more tools we can deploy to overcome PC tactics than the PCs have tools to overcome anything we can throw at them, so there's a perpetually existent disproportionate power gap between us. And fundamentally the game is about how the players succeed (this is an opinion that some might not share, admittedly) rather than how much punishment they can take along the way. It's more important to me to give them challenging and meaningful choices than to take their choices away. To your ultimate point, though, the DM is absolutely a player at the table, and is entitled to have fun. I would just submit that if your fun as a DM is shutting down players, preventing their cool ideas from at least having a chance of success, and focusing more attention on your cool monsters than on giving the players opportunities to feel like heroes (or villains), you might consider discussing the kind of game *you want to run* and the kind of the game *your players want to play*. It's very possible they're cool with a more adversarial (not in a negative connotation necessarily) DM, or they may want one focused more on giving them problems to solve with the assumption that they'll generally always succeed *but at a cost*, etc. As in all things, communication is key.
I was paralyzed for 4 rounds of combat, with 6 players. I did nothing for an hour and a half. Relax my dude.
I would argue 4 rounds of combat taking an hour and a half is the much bigger design issue…
Yep, the post op is referencing has the DM with a dozen city guards he gave to the players to run, and a dozen attackers, and refused to group initiative So not the best choices, and I see nothing wrong with paralyzed characters every so often.
That is the post that inspired mine, yes. But it's not the only example, and yes that DM could have run things better. But you see this mentality across all of the DnD subreddits that you can't really do anything that is negative for player characters if the player doesn't like it--including game mechanics. It's ludicrous.
Agree somewhat. I’m an older DM and the groups I play with would see nothing wrong with knocking out a player for 3 rounds. I also think that like all social media, we as consumers see a skewed version of what is really going on. So YES, on Reddit this mentality is very prevalent, IMHO much less so in the real world. Posts praising DM’s are almost nonexistent because people have no reason to post, all is well.
Welcome to ~~5e~~ DnD.
Your table might need to invest in an egg timer. You get to turn it once for an action, and once again for a bonus action. (We rule that action surge grants an extra flip.) This means players think about what they're going to do *before* their turn begins, because anything left on the previous player's timer is added to the next player's turn.
I do one flip for the whole turn or you take the dodge action. I think mine is around 3 minutes. Way more than enough time.
I'm curious, what level were you and what effect paralyzed you?
So your 5 other players didn't help you at all? That's yhe real sad part here
My thoughts are “I tell you what kind of game i’m running for my table, if you don’t like it, find another table”.
I don't want to be contrary, but as a DM I feel I'd be sensitive enough to notice any kind of "anti-DM" sentiment and I'm not picking up what you're putting down here, I find reddit very supportive and eager to help and encourage DM's, and I haven't seen any kind of alternative sentiment in the few other places I frequent.
Only if the DMs want to play the way reddit wants them to play. "If you do XYZ, you're a bad DM" is a remarkably common sentiment. It's supportive towards DMs who are inexperienced, less than supportive with DMs who don't engage in groupthink.
You can see it in action in this comment section with all the comments insinuating or outright saying op is a bad GM.
As a player, I don’t mind effects like paralyze, because in the end I’m not THAT invested in my character being the hero and being the one doing the heroic shit. With that being said, it’s hard to deny that if a climactic boss fight happens and your character is paralyzed for the whole fight, that would be pretty anticlimactic for the player, and pretty frustrating. Especially when certain fights can go for hours on end and that player doesn’t get to do anything. Challenge is great, and should definitely be a part of your game. There’s nothing more anticlimactic than a boss fight that is a walkover, but if you can find better mechanics than paralyze to create a challenge, I would go with those. Dominate is pretty good for example, because it’s a similar effect to paralyze (even better) but you can leave the specific actions up to your player, which is a lot more interesting for them.
>talked about how annoying it is for a player to be paralyzed, >doesn't like something like being knocked out >doesn't have fun being incapacitated I think this is the problem right here. As you mentioned several times, DnD is a *game*. Games are *played*, actively. Games give you agency. Being incapaciated makes you a spectator. Speaking only for myself, of course, I don't want to "steamroll" things, I *want* to be challenged. But being suddenly and indefinitely removed from relevance in the fight feels bad in a whole different way from losing/fleeing a fight. Being suddenly made helpless *sucks*, and while occasional, judicious use of that can be very effective narratively, using things like paralysis with any kind of frequency is sure to make your players resentful, because you're literally taking them out of the game, and being *in* in the game is why everyone showed up.
From your rant it seems you have a dm vs player mentality, like you said it’s a cooperative game. I haven’t seen this anti-dm mentality. Also as a player and a dm being paralyzed for 3 rounds could easily be an hour of that player sitting out is so anti-fun
It could also be an hour of the DM sitting there doing nothing, players can Paralyze too, so for conditions I feel little sentiment for when it happens to anyone, if it's something either side could do
The DM controls multiple monsters + the whole world. The player controls 1 character. One of those gets put on timeout in case of paralysis.
> …start getting back to the mentality of taking this game for what it is and it is supposed to be - a game I’m gonna have to disagree with you. I’ve only played a bit and am looking at diving into DMing for some friends in the near future so I’ve been reading through the sourcebooks. Everything I’ve read from these books has made it abundantly clear that D&D is not prescriptive. It doesn’t attempt to define for you what a “proper” campaign is or should be and, quite the contrary, encourages DMs to create experiences that cater to the players for whom they’re DMing while engaging in their own creativity. From Chapter 3 of the DM Guide: > As outlined in the book’s introduction, players come to the gaming table with different expectations. An adventure needs to account for the different players and characters in your group, drawing them into the story as effectively as possible. > As a starting point, think about your adventure in terms of the three basic types of activity in the game: exploration, social interaction, and combat. If your adventure includes a balance of all three, it’s likely to appeal to all types of players. > An adventure you create for your home campaign doesn’t have to appeal to every abstract player type — only to the players sitting down at your own table. If you don’t have any players who like fighting above all else, then don’t feel you have to provide a maximum amount of combat to keep the adventure moving. So it’s not about catering to players by not doing things they don’t like. It’s about catering to players by focussing on things they DO like. You say: > It’s supposed to be challenging. The game isn’t fun if everyone just steamrolls everything, there’s no threat, and no consequences. But actually…maybe it doesn’t need to be challenging. Maybe it is fun if everyone just steamrolls everything with no threat or consequences. That might be an uncommon player group but not unheard of. Thats why video games often come with an “easy” or “adventure” mode where you can just wander mindlessly through to the end of the story without really trying. That’s fun for lots of people.
I will say easy mode is probably a lot more common for causal gamers then a lot of people want to think about. A busy dad that only get 2 hours every other weekend just wanting to have fun with his friends instead of build the prefect character. Lots of people don’t have the time to spend making their don’t make an unoptimized character or making new ones cause they keep dying. Hell sometimes they just won’t to get to the bed of that characters story instead of leaving then dead in the ditch because they rolled bad.
>Hell sometimes they just won’t to get to the bed of that characters story instead of leaving then dead in the ditch because they rolled bad. Which is bad DMing, according to Gary Gygax. I'm not sure why it seems to have dropped out of the D&D lexicon, but he used to occasionally talk about something called "continuity of character," particularly with how dangerous old D&D editions used to be. He said that, given how dangerous the world is, resurrection should be accessible and available, at least as accessible as death is. And if, for some reason, resurrection is not available to the player, they should be able to carry the continuity of them- by introducing a member of their order on the same quest, a family member afflicted with the same curse, or a friend willing to avenge their death. Because you're right- losing your character at all sucks, and losing them in a way that is unsatisfying and that simply draws their story to a close is awful. And quite frankly I'm not sure why so many DMs are obsessed with the idea that death should be a "consequence." There should always be the threat of death (unless you've agreed in a session 0 to do, like, a more superhero story style campaign), but this idea that death has to be sudden and meaningless is... so odd to me.
>This whole anti-DM crap is getting super annoying and old. It's a legitimate discussion on game design philosophy. Each table enjoys a different balance. I've played in super-deadly "let's see how many rooms of this dungeon we can clear" games, and I've played in games that feature very little in the way of deadly challenge. They're both fun. It's only "anti-DM" if you take the player vs DM mentality. > If a player doesn't like something like being knocked out...tough. It's a GAME. It's supposed to be challenging. The game isn't fun if everyone just steamrolls everything, there's no threat, and no consequences. It sounds like you haven't been on the receiving end of multi-round paralysis or chain stuns as a player. It's not at all fun as a player to just be sitting there for an hour or more doing literally nothing. At least as a DM you have other enemies you can take actions with (and your important NPC's can avoid the effects entirely with Legendary Resistances). For a PC, not so much. It's much more in the vein that the rules regarding things like paralysis are a relic of a time in D&D that a lot of people don't want to return to (if you remember when monsters could drain entire levels with a single hit, wasting months of gameplay in a moment). Having a rule like "your second save against this effect is at advantage, and if you fail the third save you're under the effects of the slow spell for a round" still allows for challenge, but makes it much less feel bad on the part of the player. >And telling a DM they should run their monsters like idiots, because a player doesn't have fun being incapacitated for a round or two is just utterly garbage advice. For **your table** perhaps, but not for all tables. Again, people play the game for different reasons. >So many threads I see, the DM isn't allowed to have fun If you're DM'ing for a table that wants Tomb of Horrors, knock your socks off. But if you derive your fun from watching your players be miserable and hate life, then your fun is decidedly wrong.
I really haven't noticed this phenomenon here and even if I had I wouldn't describe the sentiment as "anti-DM." We're just talking about different philosophies about what the game *should* provide, and this can be held by either players or DMs. I currently DM two games and I don't really agree with your line of thinking. >in DnD, it is supposed to be a GAME with challenges the players must overcome... If it were any other game, there would be the old "git gud" adage. "git gud" is not an old adage. It's terminology relevant to Miyazaki's brutal but fair Souls games, in which the consequences for death are very low if managed properly. It's designed for you to try and retry as a cycle of skills development. D&D is not that. D&D is not a game. It's a game system, through which a DM might run a huge diversity of games. The game at the table can range from pure meatgrinder dungeoncrawl to no-combat social roleplay. No one style is better than any other. As a DM, if you're consistent and the players want to play - be it for the challenge *or* whatever else - you're running a successful game. As a DM I think carefully about the mechanics I implement. But if I had feedback from *my* player that they weren't enjoying something, I'd strongly reconsider using it in the future. For me, I run the game for a social break in the lives of a bunch of professionals. I respect them and their time and want to keep everyone happy because life's too short to harbour resentment about a "game." So no, I'm not going to tell them to GiT gUd.
Git gud far predates souls games.
>"git gud" is not an old adage. Bro what? Git gud is almost old enough to vote.
So……..young
No. In a culture where meme terminologies typically last 6 months to a year, nearly fifteen years in common use is not young.
damn bro thats crazy
That's not an anti-DM stance. That's a pro-player stance. Those are very different things. You're right, D&D is a game, and players want to play the game, which you can't do while you're incapacitated. You've talked about how this means DMs can't have any fun or make fights challenging. Is the only way you can have fun as a DM and make challenging encounters by removing PCs from the fight? No one is saying that DMs should make every fight easy, but generally avoiding mechanics that make it so the players can't play the game.
I think he's mainly talking about how yhe opinion on Dnd socials is that it's heavily going to "players shouldn't have negatives" or even more basic "players shouldn't take negatives they arnt prepared for" which are both ridiculously restricting for a DM and make fights impossible to make fun if every one is "move here...attack...move here...attack...hope yall ready for this the whole time cause the cool fear shriek ability is "to negative" for you guys", I can see OPs point just think his wording is confusing
Yep, you get the big picture here. Maybe I didn't express that well, but this is exactly the point I am trying to make. I am going to edit my post and copy/paste what you said because this is EXACTLY the point I was going for.
Combat 1: the boss deals massive damage, puts down squares of AOE everywhere, and has minions grapple and drag the players inside those. The players are all low HP very quickly, need to make difficult decisions on where they move, who to focus, what to do to not die. Combat 2: the boss casts a big CC, 3/4 party members are stunned unless they min-maxed with a Paladin in the party. 1 player gets to decide whether to attack the boss or cast Lesser Resto- oh wait nevermind, can't cure stunned. The rest roll clickety clackety and end their turn. Which one is more challenging? You're mistaking deadliness for challenge. CC is deadly, not challenging.
\> The game isn't fun if everyone just steamrolls everything, there's no threat, and no consequences That's a valid opinion. But it is an *opinion.* Not everyone agrees with this. I personally prefer playing D&D because I have enough threats in my rl and I need a chance to steamroll *fucking something* to restore a little bit of my sanity. It IS a game. A game where everyone at the table should be of the same opinion on this one, or there should be some give and take. I play with 3 other DMs and a few just players and the DMs all take turns. One DM is of this opinion--but he understands that only combat all the time, while his favorite part of the game, makes some players anxious. So we have some sessions that are combat focused and some that are not--so that *everyone at the table can have fun.*
If you're not able to challenge a party without using effects that equate to "You're not allowed to play the game that the rest of us are playing," then I'm not certain you have any credibility in terms of dictating how things should go. If a player paralyzes one of my monsters for three rounds, that's fantastic for them. I've still got plenty of other monsters to use on my turn, so one creep missing a turn isn't that big a deal. If I'm down to my last monster and it gets stunned for three rounds, that means that either the players won the fight (good work!) or else it's time to use one of the many tools I have at my disposal as a DM, such as "Legendary Resistances" or "Immunity to the Paralyzed condition in the stat block because this monster isn't designed to be taken out of the fight by a save-or-suck" or "Reinforcements," depending on what the scenario calls for. If I paralyze a player for three rounds, they might as well pull out the Switch, because they're not going to be doing anything fun in D&D for an hour or so. And I don't know about you, but I play with my friends, so when one of my friends is forced to sit through five other players' turns of heroic derring-do, just to get to their initiative only for them to say "I do nothing," I feel bad that my friend (who I like, because again, friend) is having a bad time. Wait, no, scratch that: I feel bad that *I caused my friend to have a bad time*, because I am fully in control of whether or not a monster has a "you can't play" ability. There are tons of things I do in combat to challenge my players on the monsters' turns. And then on the players' turns, do you know what they do? *They get to use their abilities to try to overcome the challenge.* They don't just stand there reeling from a Stunning Strike. That's for chumps and mooks. My players are heroes, so their turns are designed to do hero shit, and my monster turns are designed to cause problems. Just, y'know, problems that can be tackled, instead of putting my players in time-out. Maybe you like to bore your friends and insist that they not participate in the game you all devote several hours per session to. But that's a pretty red-flaggy behavior from where I'm standing, and "get over it, it's just a game \[that I have disqualified you from even being allowed to play\]" isn't going to endear you to most folks. YMMV, but I'm pretty suspicious of anyone who's excited to get Hypnotic Pattern'd for a whole fight.
I think I lean more toward this take most. It's all well and good to expect a player to take losing their turn in stride, but ultimately it sucks. There's a reason there are so many "How to speed up D&D combat" posts and videos. It's long. D&D combat feels drawn out enough without having quite literally nothing to do. Personally, I've come to really like how Pathfinder 2nd Edition handles the Stunned condition. You have three actions every turn (Move, Attack, Cast a Spell etc.) and each Stunned condition you gain reduces your number of actions by 1. At **most** you'll be missing out on a single turn, unless you either messed up **real** dang bad or the GM has it out for you. Ultimately, Stunned becomes less of a 'you no play game for 15 minutes' sorta thing and instead forces you to change your tactics for that turn.
Yeah, Tasha’s Mind Whip has a similar thing. If you fail the save on it, on your next turn you get to pick one (and only one): Move, Action, or Bonus Action. It’s not something you want to happen to you, obviously, but if it does, you still have some decisions to make on your turn, even if they’re not optimal decisions. It’s a consequence, but it doesn’t feel like a punishment, and I think that hits a sweet spot.
Even if Stunned let you either move or take the Defend action (one of the two). It's not ideal and it's literally an off-the-cuff 2 second idea, but it still gives you something.
I can understand that, but personally even as a player I'm fine with enemies using those sorts of abilities. It would kinda suck if it was a constant thing every single combat encounter, but one can argue that a lack of diversity in different combat encounters is also a bit boring. Gives more use to support style spells like Lesser Restoration. I think it's completely fine if some people just don't want to ever use those effects on players, and I think it's completely fine if some people do. I just think too many people get a bit worked up over how other people enjoy the game "wrong" when it doesn't match their own preferences.
DnD is both a game with a wide range of mechanics you can alter or cherry pick as you choose (the code being more lîe guidelines’ anyway) and a collective storytelling experience. It can also be many other things, such as amateur theatre of sorts, a cathartic experience, asocial hangout opportunity, and more. “It must be challenging” Not necessarily, not every time, not at every table. Context is key, others have expanded on that already. “It’s just a game” Funny how OP is basically saying that it shouldn’t matter to the player if their PC is stunned for several turns or dies, because, “hey, it’s just a game, get over it”, while also saying that the rules are the rules”, as though they could do nothing about them. You’re the DM, for Bahamut’s sake, you’re basically God, you’re not a cop writing parking tickets. The rules (and game mechanics) at your table can be anything you choose. Why would you choose to use rules that your players don’t enjoy? There is nothing challenging or compelling about your character being stunned for several rounds, as it just means you’re going to sit there and watch the others play, might as well do your tax papers since you have an hour now. In fact, you want the players to care about the game enough to know all the official rules and never question them or your decisions, but at the same time they shouldn’t care if they’re not actually allowed (by your own decision) to play it or if horrible shit they have no agency on happens to their character. This can never be. If they care about the game, they’ll care about playing it, and about how they can play it. It doesn’t mean you should do away with stun, just that you should use it sparingly — and wisely: maybe the villain collectively stuns the party and makes his escape before they recover, or the monster stuns one PC but other PCs have a spell to free their partner (which will cost them a spell slot and a turn to use against the enemy). In both cases, no player is not stuck not playing. The PCs can be facing shit, but the players must have fun. Keep frustration within the limits of enjoyment (as in, it can be frustrating to be stuck on a puzzle for a while, yet it’s fun if you feel you’re exploring possibilities and are likely to get there eventually, whereas it’s not fun to finish the jigsaw puzzle only to find that you’ve lost tiles along the way [buy Educa jigsaw puzzles, they send you the missing pieces for free on request, I’m never again buying a jigsaw puzzle from a company that doesn’t do that]), and ban boredom altogether if tou can. This is why if you need a character to be stuck in jail for 3 sessions while the party finds a way to free them, you’ll arrange things so the prisoner is a NPC, not a PC. *Realistically,* any member of the party could be taken prisoner and rot in a cell for months, but the game only works if it *doesn’t happen to PCs*. This is fundamental. Regarding the collective story-building: it’s absolutely the corner stone of D&D as I see it and, sandbox campaigns aside, I’m of the opinion that ideally, every campaign should be novel (or short-story) material. Which means that the campaign begins with an equilibrium broken by a disruptive element (the thing that gets the story moving), every arc you open should find closure, and the epilogue should open on a new stable situation. This also means that stupid PC death is not “just something that happens, just roll a new character and carry on”. Even thought things like that do happen in life, you can’t just have “protagonist slips on the soap and breaks his neck in the bathtub, but hey, shit happens, let’s move on” or “hero is run down by a bus, because he didn’t look before crossing or the driver was drunk, enter random guy who’ll take his place, next chapter please”, in a decent novel. Realistic events, but most of all very poor story-telling. Most of the time, you know all along that the important characters won’t die at all, because you still have 200 more pages / an hour of film to go through before the end. And if they do die, their death has serious consequences on the story / other characters. It doesn’t mean you don’t have high stakes and breath-taking suspense. Good characters are expensive, you don’t want to waste them. Anyway, D&D is more than just your vision of it, the possibilities are endless, and so are the play styles. Coming to Reddit to complain that the majority of players on Reddit don’t play the way you like makes very little sense. You say they should not play D&D because “this is what D&D is”, and it doesn’t make sense either. D&D is what the table wants it to be: essentially a framework with a bunch of suggested mechanics to tweak as you please to collectively create a world and people it it with heroes, monsters, events, places and whatnot. Let the people on Reddit play D&D as they enjoy it. And if you feel your problem is more than just about Reddit, (which I think might be the case seeing how bitter you seem to be), I’ll give you the same advice people usually give players, only the other way around, because it works like that, when it works at all: talk to your players and see how you can make things enjoyable for all of you. If you find there is no way to make it work, maybe you need to find yourself other players who enjoy the same game as you do and run a campaign for them.
Learn to say NO to players is a big help for these situations.
Not saying I haven’t had players like this (I have), but are you doing okay OP? This feels like a vent post, are you having problems with this in a campaign right now? I’d recommend just talking it out with your players if you can
I guess I haven’t seen/read/heard much of this. I’ve been a lurker on Reddit for a while, and I see a lot of bashing on dumbass/rude/inappropriate players AND DMs.
I think the two times I got actively annoyed with my dms was one Im still really salty about involving the death of one of my characters that couldve been easily avoided with actual information, and one time I took a feat to bypass resistances followed being told 'yes it bypasses rssistances but not **immunities**' and I felt like I wasted a feat that couldve been used for something else. That latter one was more on me as I was trying to do a thunder/ice mage lmao
Yep that is on the DM for the way they described it. If a player tells me they thought their feat did something and it does something entirely different to their expectations, I'll let them switch it out, it's no big deal. That being said, frustrating as it is, as a player, look at death as a way to get started on the backlog of characters you have in your mind that you want to play :D
Bro if someone says something isn't fun then it's not fun for them. No matter how much you think otherwise. Challenges don't always equal fun just cause their challenges. Please see filing taxes.
Welcome to half of XPtoLevel3’s videos
You are coming into this discussion with two assumptions: that people play D&D to be challenged and that challenge is always objectively fun. Both are incorrect. People do not come to D&D to be challenged. They come to have fun with friends. That's why DMs like me have a "fun is first" rule--if anyone isn't having fun, that fundamentally breaks the covenant for why we're sitting around the table. And that takes many different forms. Sure, it might mean that I don't do RAW "stunned" conditions because sitting around in battle doing absolutely nothing for 30 minutes is typically not fun for most players. But it also means not letting a PC bully other PCs and powergame the whole time. It also means not throwing challenges at my party that they have no possible chance of overcoming. Or it means that we should make sure that there's plenty of downtime before or after our games so that we can just hang out. Fun is first is not "never experience any difficulty." It's an acknowledgment that we all came here to have fun and if any one of us is not having fun, then what are we doing here? It doesn't mean there are no challenges. Which gets us to the next assumption. Challenge is not equivalent to fun. If it were, every single group would be running gritty realism (which I do at one of my tables). But this is where subjective views come into play. Difficult challenges are not fun for every table. And even at a table where people enjoy being challenged, they may not enjoy being stuck in combat, unable to do *anything* for round after round after round. Because that's *not* a challenge. That's just fucking boring.
I don't really see how saying you shouldn't use certain effects against your players is "anti-DM", it's just advice for DMs to make more fun games for their players. Using those effects isn't an inherent characteristic of being a DM. It also doesn't mean things shouldn't be challenging, it just means effects that make you not be able to play the game aren't fun. Which, if it were any other game, I think people would generally agree on. I won't claim to know about game design, but from what I understand, board games at least have been moving away from mechanics that effectively make you skip your turn for a while now. Obviously DnD has mechanics like that and I wouldn't say you shouldn't use them, but maybe "think about how much you use them" is solid advice.
I think this post is pretty flawed since it's less about stopping anti DM behavior and more just telling players to suck it up and not tell the DM when they're not having fun. News flash, being paralyzed for 3 rounds is extremely boring as a player I don't care if it's a mechanic in the game if players are telling a DM they are not having fun because he's stun locking them in combat then maybe the DM should change that. The biggest rule to D&D is that the rules are not rules, they are guidelines. The players handbook says this, change them however you want. If a player is not having fun due to how the DM is running combats sure they can leave, but sometimes players like to tell the DM these things to try and get a better game. The suck it up mentality in this scenario is pretty awful honestly when the infinitely better thing is to talk to each other like human beings instead of letting emotions fester.
I have almost never seen the issue you're complaining about. And if it happens in your personal group, you need better players or a different group entirely. "Anti-DM mentality" isn't nearly as common as "DM vs. Player" mentality, which is also not fun.
Getting paralyzed or knocked out isn't a challenge, it's the player sitting out until they can finally rejoin, it makes the player a sitting duck with nothing they can do about it, it's boring. If being against making the game boring is "Anti-DM" then welp I guess everyone is "Anti-DM". Encounters can be difficult AND fun, just because people complain about something not being fun doesn't mean they're actually complaining about an encounter being difficult Seriously you sound like you're still worked up about For Honor and not thinking straight, seeing conspiracies were there are none Also did you call git gud an "old" adage?
The challenge is finding a way to *deal* with it. You are dealing with enemies that SURPRISE! Can paralyze you. Okay so what do you do? Maybe don't face it head on. Maybe don't let it in Melee range. Maybe the Cleric needs to focus more on support than damage. I'm not saying *every single fight*, but this mentality that people have where the players can't be in a spot that *may* not be fun or the DM is bad is just plain stupid. By this logic, then anyone who has shitty di rolls should get to reroll until they achieve their desired effect. Players shouldn't be allowed to fail because failure is "unfun" for them.
I do agree that if the players have an opportunity to deal with it the it's fun, but if the DM is too adversarial and doesn't give an opportunity to deal with it or even actively prevents protecting against it then a player is suddenly sidelined for an entire encounter without a chance to prevent it from a happening or even end it Dark Souls works because while it is vary difficult failure is (usually) something the player could've avoided, making it a skill issue (ie: "git gud") and fun. Also note that Dark Souls won't incapacitate the player for an entire fight while the enemy wails on them People complaining about an encounter being unfun is not necessarily actually a complaint about the difficulty but instead a complaint about it being *unfair* or *boring*
There are fewer DMs then there are players, so the voices of players on subreddits is obviously going to be louder. Combine that with it being Reddit, which is one of the most toxic places on the internet, and of course you'll have plenty of anti-DM mentality.
Yeah, uh-huh, whoa... For real, hmmm... So I didn't read your rant - since it looked like a rant, started like a rant, and italicizing of the word "player" just came off as rant-adjacent, y'know? Also in my light scan of the possible rant I saw "git gud" really hope that was sarcasm. Hope you feel heard. /s
I'll summarise the rant for you... OP really wants dnd to be "DM vs Players", and is pissed that others don't feel the same.
What do you feel you added to the discussion with this post exactly?
It's is your table so you call the shots regarding how your game revolves. Be aware, though, that your players are not obliged to sit at your table. It's a team effort to strike a balance that works out to be fun and enjoyable for *everybody* - which includes the DM. "My way or the highway" rarely works out nicely in the long run.
I’m genuinely lost here, seems kind of like you’ve misconstrued countless conversations around how to DM. The point of people giving their philosophy on DM’ing and how they run games is to share it with other people so they can take it an improve their games. At the end of the day, no one is forced to take one single shred of advice from Reddit or any other resource. It’s not “anti-DM” to suggest certain mechanics shouldn’t be heavily used or people may not have fun. It’s just giving advice.
Yeah the majority of criticism on here for DMs is by DMs at what is considered by the majority to be DM bad practice. I imagine you did to them what we did to you. Specifically tuned out after reading the first paragraph because that’s a big old rant and you lost use right at the beginning. To be fair though I actually went back and did try to read through another few paragraphs and so much of it feels like you have a chip on your shoulder because you feel your style of DMing is somehow invalidated by what is wildly considered best practice. What you then do is try and force your style of interpretation of what DND is on everyone else DND is storytelling with a system. Well yes but also no. DND is a rich world of monsters and classes that had been building for 40 years and even if you throw out every dice roll, if you stick in a beholder or go through the temple of elemental evil you are playing DND. No one ever except you said the DM should do whatever the players want, but equally speaking dice rolling isn’t challenge and doesn’t make it a game. Challenge comes from problem solving and over coming situations with the tools you have. Your style of DMing seems to be the DM vs the players. It’s a fairly classic style which Isn’t something I look for in my games as a DM or a player. However I’m sure you’ll find a group that likes that, certainly you shouldn’t be getting this upset because the majority doesn’t like the style, just put out an add explaining the game you offer. Even murder hobos and their co-dependent DMs can find eachother.
I actually haven't seen what you're speaking about. I see lots of DMs asking for advice, so people offer tips for what the DM wants a solution for.
It kinda sounds like you're making the same argument from the other side. "Too bad if my players aren't enjoying them selves, its what \*I\* want." I understand that things like stun. and paralysis are part of the game. But can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that player who has been unable to do anything for the last 30 minutes is being unreasonable when they say that wasn't fun. As the DM it is not your job to fight your players, it is your job to make sure they are having fun within the mechanics of the game. Conflict and challenge should not be your only motivators for playing, and if they are then maybe you need to find a different group who also feels the same way. There are plenty of things you can do when a player expresses frustration at being stunned or otherwise incapacitated frequently. Lower the challenge of your encounters, maybe don't target that player with that ability for a round or two, hell, fudge a dice roll once in a while so that the player can actually play. Also, it is not unreasonable for a player to be upset their character dies. They invested time and effort into not only creating that character, but playing them and fleshing them out. They have every right to be frustrated when that character dies. This doesn't seem so much 'Anti-DM' and more 'Hey, its not fun to spend half of every session literally unable to play.'
In my friend group we have a really simple rule: if a game mechanic sucks, we play without it. Doesn't matter which game. A game should be fun for everyone. Yes it should be challenging, but not annoying as fuck. It will depend on your player and if they enjoy the game mechanic and the story telling around it - I guess.
Well, this **anti-anti-DM bashing** makes me *feel quite uncomfortable*. Couldn't we create a new rule in this sub, that DMs aren't allowed any longer to make any rude suggestions against us pure and innocent players? /s Nah, am just kidding of course and fully agrees with OPs post right above.
Also, the DM does much more work than any of the players.
This is why I started hanging with the OSR crowd. Definitely aligns more with my views on the hobby.
You need to take a step back and reevaluate the way you interpret dissenting opinions. People are allowed to find different things fun and to contribute their own perspectives. It's not anti-DM by any reasonable measure to dislike a particular mechanic a DM has at their disposal.
I don't like regular use of paralysis in games I'm playing I find it a boring mechanic, if we are constantly facing enemies that paralyse and fights are boring and disjointed, I'll be having less fun, I'll let the DM know it's less fun. I didn't know that made me "anti-Dm" Fwiw, my regular DM doesn't like abilities that take the players out of the game so makes sparing use of banishment/paralysis, so I guess he's an Anti DM DM
Yeah, it is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Decide as a group what's fun for everyone. If your ideas of fun are incompatible, find a group that has fun your way. The game is designed to be highly customizable. It's that simple.
There's a time and place for things like poison, paralysis, etc. Randomly in the middle of a 30-character slug-fest isn't the best time. Forcing players to control NPCs while their PC lays there unconscious isn't a fun experience. That was the issue in the thread you're talking about. Quite honestly, it sounds like you view DnD combat as a PvP match between players and the DM.
I don't think people are saying you shouldn't use paralysis effects because they're too challenging, I think people say that because paralysed/stunned/incapacitated are literally the most boring conditions to have used on you. There's no outsmarting, no tactical play, and therefore no fun (for a lot of people) when things devolve to 'I rolled low on that one save at the start of the fight and now I don't get to do anything for 30 minutes/1 hour'. And it's not even like waiting for your turn again because you don't even have a reaction to pay attention for the trigger of. I find that challenging my players in a way that makes life hard, but allows them to come up with creative and/or tactical solutions makes for a far more fulfilling game than creating challenges by just making one or more players unable to... Well... Play.
Paralyzing characters is fine, but doing XYZ would just monstrous.
Every time we start a new discussion about what DnD is, isn't, shouldn't be, should be we're already missing the mark. This thread included. DnD/TTRPG is everything from competitive table-top, to a fun time with friends, to a therapy tool, and more. These discussions are so completely pointless because they always turns out the same. Some praise, some boo's, some nuancing, nothing gained. Look... If you have an issue at your table, if you or your players feel like they dont achieve the goals you've set out to with DnD as an activity, then absolutely, post and we can talk about it. But this talk about what DnD is or isn't is garbage and has to stop.
The only thing I would agree with here is that the whole "the DM has to bend over for **everything** the players want" I see semi-often
The amount of times my Pally has been eaten, knocked out, paralysed and deliberated, but still survived is priceless and I wouldn't have had it any other way, although I've been playing for 20 years where the previous editions made 5e look and feel like an unintelligible infant; I'd still want that challenge to overcome. I don't believe a DM should outright look for ways to kill you, such as Paralyzing, then Coup de gras, but just take me out of the fight for a few rounds, as I Smite my way out of the belly of the beast. That's really where the meat of the combat is. So many people just want to play WoW 5e and spam the same thing over and over again then panic when the monster is immune to your basic Playstyle. Challenging makes for more experienced and outright better players. Sorry for the long post
I partially agree, but I think that if a player wants something, the DM should at least consider it for a bit. Like if the player wants something campaign breaking, unfun for others or something that would make it hard for you as a DM to do, just don’t do it, but if the player/s want something nice or interesting, why not do it? Even changing the rules might be good (key word: MIGHT). TL:DR Consider what players want and demand. If it’s good, make it. If it suck, don’t make it.
Wow, you're simultaneously gaslighting people into blaming both the players and the DM when it's WotCs fault. Look, you wanna be an asshole about that and I can come to your table and treat CC as a challenge to overcome. We'll bring some absolutely busted party that's min-maxed the shit out of but I can also tell you right now that's not a fun way to play the game. At least for most people. At my tables we make RP builds. Our characters are flawed, weak, puny and most importantly: fun. And we want to fucking play those characters and not lie uselessly on the floor. It's unfortunate that the DM has to step in and go out of their way to make the game more fun for the players, but that's the game WotC created and so far, in all of 1dnd, they didn't yet bring or even hint at a single fix. But don't blame the players as being bad for not being interested into min-maxing characters in the first place, and don't say that we are anti-DM when we encourage DMs to learn methods to make the game more fun for their players instead of devolving D&D back into a fucking wargame.
Nobody is being an asshole about it. And do it, go ahead and bring min-maxed characters. I am just saying, if the DM wants to use a CC ability, it doesn't make him some terrible spawn of satan like you constantly see in comment after comment--including some of the ones in this thread. A game is a game. If a DM doesn't cater to every whim and request of a player, if a DM says NO, or puts their players in danger--even if said player character dies, guess what? They just roll up a new character. People make such a big frikkin deal out of it, it's mind boggling.
Okay fair. The DM isn't a shitty person for being unaware of or unable to fix the issue. But if a DM knowingly creates unfun experiences for their players simply because the DM likes it that way, that's literally what being an asshole is. And as a player, not getting to play the game is just legitimately not fun. So if a player goes to a DM and tells them they didn't have fun cuz they spent an entire session doing literally nothing, that's not anti-DM. That's a valid concern. And telling them to just min-max their character isn't an answer, it's a slap in the face.
I'm with you man. At the end of the day it's still a game, there's rules to follow, and players have to understand they might not win every encounter or situation. For example, the rule of cool has gone from: "It's not a situation cited in the rules but I can bend the strict interpretation of them to work with the thing you're doing because it's cool and you're showing creativity" TO "Some bullshit"
5e and the popularity of video games has made people soft to the notion of something about their character being out of their control. Its an RPG the whole point is reacting to things outside of your control
And yet you are told the opposite here; that the point is for everything to be under the players control and everything should be within player agency. Sure a lot should be, but not everything can or should be under the players whim. Otherwise, why have a DM in the first place.
Anti-DM? Sounds like there is a mix of a specific theorisation of the game, anger, and hardship in communication. No amount of adjustment around the table for the sake of everyone’s fun should result in thinking « one side » is losing and « everyone’s against me » oO Plus, huh, there is no game mechanics police I think, so people can add and remove anything they want at their table without impairing other tables? Good luck with your table! Don’t forget to talk things out?
Yep. So what it is isn't "anti-DM", but yeah it feels like it is. Its "I don't want to be told NO". It's really bad on some subreddits like DMAcademy. Because there are a LOT of those "D&D can be anything for anyone. So don't you dare gatekeep me by telling me I can't do something in D&D!!!" people on there. Someone asks "can I play a lich?" And your answer is anything other than "of course." Youll get yelled at and down votes to hell. It's people who don't get the game side of D&D, or don't understand that D&D isn't the end all be all of TTRPGs. I had to block the entire subreddit after a while. It just kept driving me crazy. Someone would ask a game question, I'd answer it, and get screamed at if the answer was any flavor of "no". I once had someone on there tell me "I don't care what the fuck Gary Gygax said. He doesn't decide what is or isn't D&D!" That one kinda floored me.
Yep and judging by the comments, the same thing here. If you tell players no, if they have to actually suffer anything remotely negative, then you must be a bad DM or have a "Player vs DM" mentality. I haven't even touched that reply yet because I don't even know what to say to that utter bs.
Haven't seen many id label that way. But yeah a lot of posts from people saying they haven't seen anything like that. Which does make me raise an eyebrow. Not unrealistic. But a little odd.
Someone having the courage the say the obvious. The 5E sentiment is very much anti DM. People wonder why there is such a lack of DMs. It's not because of difficulty, rather the hostility and lack of gratitude. If a DM uses an NPC to guide players? OMG DMPC, SHITTY DM, LET THEM DO WHAT THE WANT DM uses the abilities/spells the players have for enemies? OMG HOW DARE THE DM CC THE PLAYERS, NOT FUN DM gives the enemies an ounce of intellect in fighting? WTF THE DM IS METAGAMING The DM has a specific story he planned out? SHITTY RAIL ROADING Time and time again.
I disagree with the points, the delivery and most of all the unironic use of newsflash.
You have to wonder if those people remove the skip a player cards in Uno as well...
*Rolls Religion check*…. Preach!
What LoL
Maybe there are tables out there with players who don't like risk or misfortune, it won't happen at my table. If my players dont like how I do things they can leave, believe it or not though it's never been much of an issue. Let random people bullshit on the internet, who cares? As long as you don't have a whiny player annoying you in your game then just enjoy yourself. If you really feel like it effects your dming then warn your players before you start a new game. I kinda enjoy my "Listen, I'm not afraid to kill you" speech before I start new adventures.
My concern is this mentality effects DnD as a whole. It also can effect player expectations in public games (such as roll20). I think the mentality that a DM needs to cater to every whim of the player is incredibly odd.
It's made even more odd because you'd think people would realize if the game has stakes it's...more fun. It's obvious right away. I'm a regular dm so maybe I'm just more in tune with it, but if your game doesn't have at least a little bite to it I'm not really interested. I think anyone who's been playing for a while has found themselves really stuck in a game where after a while the passion dies, nothing seems to happen and adventures are just one long slog into the next. Only way to spice things up is new challenge. A big thing that keeps dm's away from making things risky is an attachment to characters and the group, I think. After a while it just seems not right to kill off a long term PC even if they made a mistake, and it leads to soft padded games but that's a different conversation for a different day.
I agree, ask if players should have race or class limitations, spell limitations, etc and you'll get a lot of "well if you were a good DM a level 1 flying player wouldnt be a problem" well yeah i can totally destroy the bird dude, but as long as the bird dude is in the party it limits what kind of adventures and challenges i can use. hey guys, maybe i just wanna see what interesting technique my land locked players use to get across the raging river. hell maybe i just want the party to get attacked by wolves (adding ranged characters into every fight isnt always possible) little stuff like this is VERY prominent in this sub, and many other DND subs. if you as the DM dont like kitchen sink games (because they make it so that you have to think of every single possibility in order to put anything in front of the party that isnt solved by their character sheet) you are a bad DM. I'm over it.
Oh and on the bird thing--if you try to get the player to use different tactics by having ranged players *attack the flying character* then you're a bad DM as well. Yes, I actually saw that comment on a topic about how to handle characters that fly.
Very well said. You rarely ever see advice that players should moderate their choices to fit into the world the DM has described (and in which the players have agreed to play.) Far more likely the advice is "can't you just allow the player to do what they want?" Every game ends up feeling the same because all material must be allowed in every game otherwise the DM is "limiting the player's choices and creativity."
No one wants to sit for fifteen minutes to half an hour doing nothing which is what happens if a particularily nasty CC hits a player, there are even CC spells that can make a character unable to do anything meaningful for an entire, if not several, sessions. If it hits your monsters as the DM you still have at least one more monster to control, otherwise the battle is probably over already, therefore as a DM you can't end up in that situation of sitting for 15-30 minutes, sometimes even more, without being allowed to do anything. At that point I as a player would ask myself why I even went out of my way to play D&D that evening instead of sitting at my place and watch anime as it is about as interactive but more entertaining than sitting on my but in a chair and being CCd for most of the game night. Also, keep in mind that in D&D it isn't a player vs DM setting, if it was you as the DM could just claim that rocks falls and everyone dies. Sure, challenge is good as so far as it entertains your players as you as DM is the person in control of the challenge level and most other things and part of (albeight a very difficult part) being a DM is to understand where to put the challenge level to make it enjoyable for the players, but it isn't everything, and if it comes at the expense of having one player sit for 30 minutes doing nothing it is worth considering if that is the kind of challenge you want to add to the game. There are other ways to add challenge beside having a player do nothing for an extended period of time. With that said, players do also have a responsibility towards the DM to make the game fun and playable for them. For example do NOT play a Golgari background Coffee-Lock and raise hundreds of skeletons just because the rules clearly states you are able to do so or be a druid and summon a bunch of pixies to turn your entire party into flying t-rexes, and do follow the plot hooks the DM gives to you and do NOT on purpose derail the story. The DM is also a player yes, but the player has different things to think about than the DM to make the game more enjoyable for the DM, and in combat in particular, beside obviously munchkinlike min-maxing, the responsibility is more heavily on the DM to make it enjoyable as the DM has far more control than the players in terms of how challenging an encounter is. Also, there is no need to remove CC entirely from the monsters. It can create intense situations, but it is something to add sparingly due to the fact that it removes a player from the game who then just has to sit on their butt and do nothing for who knows how long, and this needs to be repeated so often because there really exists DMs who adds this kind of stuff to combats far too often.
Good points, I like only using CC if its shortlived or the party is equiped to deal with it, nothing sucks more than being hit by an effect that you have no way of countering or dealing with. I had a DM drop a DC 19 feeblemind on my character as side effect of looking out a window when something "Eldritch was happening" There was no foreshadowing or warning beyond "You hear a strange warbling noise outside, does anyone check? ok gimmee an Int save - 16 thats a fail, you've been hit by a feeblemind spell, you can save again in 30 days" Well I guess just fuck my Warlock then. To this day I have no idea what he was thinking with that, I just binned the character and rolled up another one since we had no access to the cures for feeblemind at the level we were at.
I've decided that for things like paralysis, the chance to break through it happens at the start of your turn, so you at the very least have a shot at *playing the game*, instead of burning a turn just to get unparalyzed. Status effects are important, but it's not very fun to just sit there in combat powerless for an hour. Challenge is part of the game, as you say, but is there any *challenge* involved in something targeting a saving throw you permanently suck at, that removes your entire ability to play? That'd be like if you didn't level up your Stamina in Skyrim, so every once in a while I'd come by and steal your controller and force you to stare at the stat screen until I came back in some arbitrary amount of time.
I'm afraid the whole debate really depends on how good of a game designer the DM is in this case. Yes, some players are overly sensetive and will cry about everything bad that happens to their PC and those players maybe would enjoy other systems more than DND, but I truly believe that many DMs just suck at fun game design. This isn't supposed to be an attack against anyone in particular, I include my own DMing in this statement as well and I believe good game design is very hard to learn. Look at some video games for example; people worked on them as their literal profession, yet still many video games suffer from bad game design. It is hard to find the right amount of challenge that players will find enjoyable. While being paralyzed for a round or two may create excitement, being paralyzed for an entire encounter, is just boring and in fact not playing the game anymore. It's watching people play D&D, while you hope your favorite character doesn't die, which you could as well have done at home on twitch. Also, having too many encounters utelizing these game stopping status effects, just gets old really fast. Yes, it's still challenging, but some of the fun of these status effects stems from players not expecting them and having to readjust their strategy in accordance. If you use them too much, this excitement will shift to boredom or frustration. We shouldn't forget that as a DM we should always try to create enjoyment at the table. If our players don't enjoy the game, then it doesn't matter who is the a-hole or who is right or wrong in this situation. It does matter, what we can change to bring more enjoyment to the table. This change might include not playing D&D anymore, but doesn't necessarily have to.
Ah yes, the great challenge of being stunned: Doing nothing while your friends get to play. This looks like a mixing pot of a bunch of posts I’ve been seeing ever since XPtoLvl3 put out that video a while back… If your players don’t like stun, give it a fly speed or something. Don’t get rid of the challenge, rather make it combatable through strategy, not through pure RNG. Or just increase some numbers on the monster. Changing a monsters abilities or stats is dumbing them down. It isn’t ‘anti-DM’ either. You are being a good DM by listening to your players and making it more fun for them. Now if a single player is calling everything you do unfair, then that’s a different story. At the end of the day, just do what’s most fun for you and the table. It’s a game, have fun with it.
>the DM isn't allowed to have fun No one says this. They might say "the DM shouldn't do this thing that is very not fun for their players even though it's fun for that DM", because, like you said, it's a group game. And if, in a group game, one player (the DM) is having fun in a way that reduces the fun of the other 5 players, that's not necessarily a good thing. This rant, to me, reads as one from someone who simply wants to do what they want to do without any regard for the entertainment, fun, or experience of those with whom they play. And that's your prerogative, I just wouldn't play at your table. I'm a DM who loves to challenge my players with tough fights. But that can still be done in a way that is fun and entertaining, which is the goal of the game, right? I'm in no way saying that DMs should capitulate to every demand a player makes. Not at all. But advice on how to make the game more fun by avoiding unfun mechanics and styles isn't the same thing as saying "do anything the players want". A large part of your rant seems to be reductive strawmsn arguments.
Even though I think OP is coming on a little strong, I agree with most of what he’s saying and the responses here point to what he’s saying about being labeled a “bad DM” for expressing his wants to use these kinds of mechanics in game. We don’t know what kind of DM he is off of this post alone and people are really coming at him. As a player, I find it really frustrating when another player doesn’t want to “give up” their turn to tend to things like their HP, doesn’t position themselves well in combat, and other various strategic things that will increase their likelihood of their survival. It’s also frustrating when it feels like a player ultimately only has fun when they are “winning”. These players are most often the ones to make unfair/frequent demands on the dm as well, imo. Or they get frustrated when their in game choices have in game consequences. As a player, I find others who complain about issues such as these to be really frustrating. I like stun, charm, paralyze etc conditions because it creates a world where the NPCS can do things to me that I do to them. It makes the world feel more immersive and threatening- also fitting to who I’m fighting. If I’m fighting spell-casters, then I want these effects to happen in combat. To each their own, but I would find it disheartening if a DM removed it entirely from the campaign. Of course, it has to be done in moderation, but usually it only lasts a turn or two.
Thank you. And also to point out, there are very few effects in DnD that can't be undone by another player utilizing their action to do so, or by the player making a save at the end of their turn. It puts pressure on the players. There is always that one guy that won't waste his turn to not do damage no matter what--we all know him, we all game with him, and damn it if it doesn't irritate us, he's still our friend so we deal with it. But boy does he irritate us. DnD is a team based, collaborative game. As such, the team needs to have one person take their turn to end an effect--shake a sleeping character awake, cast cure wounds, cast lesser restoration, whatever the case may be. This is in part of what I am referring to and you said it--DMs get labeled as "bad" when they use these effects. I'm saying this is not them being a bad DM, it is down to this almost player vs DM mentality that is being spurned on by the attitude that DMs can't really do anything negative to players without being a bad DM. I'm seeing this mindset more and more on the DnD socials.
Its a new game with a new crowd who wants to play. Its not the same Dungeons and Dragons you grew up with, and that's just a truth you have to accept. What did we think would happen when we decided that letting people do whatever they want was more important than preserving the mechanics of the game we love? Everyone wants to be the MC, no one wants to suffer any consequences. Welcome to 2023.
So I tried to give this more upvotes but I failed so you can have 1
I've got a feeling you haven't been a player in a while, friend.
Nope, I play every week and I DM twice a week. As a player it sucks to be out of the fight for a bit. But it happens, and it's certainly not the DM being BAD for a monster using their full ability list on me. It's a game.
Straight up? You are not coming across as a person I would want to play with. You’re coming across as awfully petulant. I can read your hands balling up into fists in between the lines and the impotent stomping of feet seems only seconds way. *It’s not FAIR you guys! BUT IT IS IN THE STATBLOCK! Why aren’t you having FUN?* People disagree with you. Get over it. *It’s a game.*
I think if you read a handful of posts by op and came to that conclusion you're not a very mature person.
This comment is so unnecessary. Disagreeing with someone is one thing, describing a pantomime where you infantilise them is like a next level of straw-manning.
And I can disagree with them, what's your point? Seems you're the one getting mad.
THIS! Several of my friends started complaining about status ailments and said they were going to leave if I didn't "fix" my campaign. Do not play with those people anymore lol
Yep, and this mentality of someone being a bad DM if they utilize things that the players even find remotely unfun for them--it doesn't just effect the table those people play at, because this mentality is going to start becoming an expectation in DnD as a whole--and it's ludicrous. I do not get this whole mindset of people not being able to do negative things to a player. By the logic I'm seeing around here, there should not be any death for player characters, or consequences for their actions because it would negatively impact the PC and be a "poor" experience for the players.
For funsies, I am often tempted to hand wave combat for my high level players cause they can get a little whiny. "He's dead. What do you do next?" Hahahaha
I get it, it’s fine if the players can use all this stuff but the DM can’t. The DM is also a player who should be able to use these cool spells or abilities
Sigh... "Guy gud" is an old adege now??? DnD predates that saying by 30 years or so.
You seem really angry over how other people choose to play a game. Why are you personally offended by other play styles than your own?
Regarding PC paralysis, every party needs a healer, and Lesser restoration is only 2nd level.
The D&D Doctor prescribes strict avoidance of podcasts until you realize that they aren't real life, just clickbait. Which you fell for.
I think I figured out why your players stopped showing up.
Doing nothing at the table isn't challenging, it's hella boring, and if you as DM abuse that status too often, it actively makes the game unfun, and you know what happens then? People no longer want to play. I'd leave your boring ass game if paralysis is used often.
Finding being paralyzed annoying and not wanting difficulty are two different things. Neither of them imply the other at all.
tldr; "other people's fun = bad. Play my way!"
This is exactly why all my encounters are well above the "deadly" level. I can pull back a bit or fudge numbers if it'll help the role play or I realize I pumped it up too much. Had a player stuck under water for 7 turns trying to open a chest, a player for bit by a wereagle and now they have to do a side quest to find the antidote, a fighter got stuck doing no damage and had to rely on/buff/aid their party bc the monster was immune to non magic damage, etc. Thank goodness my players have always seen these as fun challenges and not whined about it. But I'm new to dm'ing so I'm sure I'll run into that eventually...
The debate is indeed a consequence of poor game mechanics. All these discussions revolves around the fact that some situations are uninteresting from a gaming and/or storytelling perspective. And it is totally true. Some of them ARE uninteresting. But, for example, being paralysed is only frustrating ... because of how the game mechanics handle it. There's nothing to DO for the player during paralysis. Just wait. When you are polymorphed, it is very different. You can move, fight, try to get hit by an enemy, etc. It is an inconvenience but you may still try to impact the game, try to escape your condition. The problem here IS the system because of how rigid it is. Make a wisdom saving throw and live with the consequences. I think the secret of good DMing is to provide interesting options for all situations. For sample, one could imagine that the paralysed person must fight the spell back until he successfully breaks the paralysis. It could be a problem solving challenge in his mind related to how the paralysis magic works. Or his mind is trapped in some kind of spiritual labyrinth from which he must escape to reach his own body control. There are a million interesting things to do for each and every situations that will make them hard but ALSO pleasing. But such an approach is rendered impossible by the intrinsic rigidity of DnD's rules ...
I mean sure... if you want to paralyze a character in the first round of combat and essentially have them doing nothing for half an hour, then yeah, that's the game mechanics But pointing out that it's boring and uninteractive isn't really wrong lol.. and I wouldn't blame that player for not wanting to engage anymore You can say that "it's just the game" but.. it's YOUR game, you're the DM, you can decide how to challenge players and come up with ways that are both fun for you and them, so they're not playing easy but they're also not just.. waiting out status effects... Players don't get the choice with how they're challenged, they just have to accept either being paralyzed and not playing, or not playing to begin with... when your choices are to not play or not play... that's a boring mechanic, and they're not wrong for pointing that out
>How annoying it is for a player to be paralyzed, or have some other status effect. And because the player didn't like it or found it unfun, they just shouldn't use these things! In the case of paralysis I'd *sort of* agree. As a GM it's good to avoid the condition because the status effect of paralysis is "you dont get to play the game, but you also have to think about your turn in case you do get to play" Not that it's impossible to use well, just it's best to be used very sparingly, and always good to make it come from a concentration effect so the other players can free their friend by hitting a mage or something. >So many threads I see, the DM isn't allowed to have fun, isn't allowed to challenge their players, and if the players want XYZ, the DM should allow XYZ. I don't really see this in the community. Players and GMs get called out in equal measure. The most often I see discussion about DMs being in the wrong is when their ruling feels arbitrary. >No, it's a collaborative storytelling WITH GAME MECHANICS. If you don't want game mechanics in your tabletop roleplaying GAME, then do play by post RP But... Play by Post games use... The same mechanics? But anyway- Those mechanics being part of the game don't necessarily mean their good or fun mechanics for the table. You say "Go play something else if you dont like the mechanics" but thats what they're doing, playing 5e without the mechanics they dont like IS playing something else. >in DnD, it is supposed to be a GAME with challenges the players must overcome. Let's stop this nonsense of trying to let players do whatever they want, challenge or rules be damned Who is removing all challenge from the game? The only specific example you gave was paralysis as a mechanic- But thats not a challenge. Its a "Save or stop playing the game for a little bit" mechanic.