Honestly, because it depends on what the table wants.
Maybe that’s what the meme is describing. The player decided that this is a meaningful last stand, and the DM making sure that they’re on the same page.
Or it could be a table where the players don’t expect their characters to either have a satisfying conclusion to their arc, or a meaningful, epic death. Maybe the stakes they enjoy include death being on the table more often.
And to be clear, none of these are value judgements. All are viable so long as the players (including the DM!) are on the same page and enjoy the game. Heck, I like various approaches depending on the campaign. :P
I had a situation like that. We were playing a superhero campaign and I was essentially given a Punisher/Rorschach character. No powers, police background with a brutal origin (shot in the face by the mob). Yet none of my character’s strengths (guns/police connections) made a difference and it just felt like a shitty experience week after week. I should’ve just talked it over with the GM, but I was like, “Fuck this, I’ll just go with a different character who has actual super powers, this guy can just die, I don’t care,” and I worked out a new character, intent on getting character 1 killed off.
So we’re at a shitty, run-down, dirt-cheap motel and find out the owner is getting shaken down for protection money from the mob. The GM was pretty obviously railroading us to give our money as a party for the owner. I said, “Fuck that, I’m not negotiating with criminals, we’ll wait in ambush for the goons and take them out and get their bosses location.” That didn’t seem to jive with the GM’s script, so he had literally 100 goons (I mean literally 100) show up to collect protection money from this shit-hole motel owner. Still refused to pay, so they kill the owner before we can react and he rolls for all 100 goons to shoot at us (ignoring line of sight or any of that), and just insta-kills the party.
He then retcons the TPK and basically forces us to give the money like he pre-wrote it to continue the story. I just dropped out and stopped playing after that session, it was too ridiculous at that point.
My DMs always do this but often without understanding the rules I’m taking advantage of, such as using fire or improvised weaponry. Like, I know how the game is meant to work, and it has rulings for what I’m attempting. I know what I’m trying to do is pretty weird; but I wouldn’t attempt it if I didn’t think I had a decent chance of rolling high enough to succeed.
Like once in D&D we were attacked by a giant in a forest. It was sprinting at us, so I asked if I had enough time to get a rope tied across two trees to act as a trip wire. The other players and our DM, to this day, still act like this was a silly and stupid thing to try; despite the fact it worked and got the fucker prone allowing us to kill him super easy.
The only thing I’ve done other than that they constantly joke about is the time we were playing Shadowrun and while attempting to sneak into a facility, I failed a roll and was seen by a janitor. So I shot him and hid the body; no witnesses. I don’t care if it was a janitor for the McDonald’s across the street. He saw me.
That thing with the rope and the giant literally has no rules associated with it though… that’s just DM fiat. And I say that as someone who’s done almost the exact same thing. Except in my case it was tripping a Kaiju-like monster in a city.
Depends on edition, there definitely was rulings for this in 3.5 (the edition that famously and infamously has a rule for everything), both in the Trapsmith class and as a Use Rope option, both use the Trip rules.
This exactly. We have only played 3.5, Pathfinder and Shadowrun in our group. So far. We keep making plans for a 5e campaign, but then someone’s schedule changes. 🤷🏻♂️
@Kolanaki@The_Picard_Maneuver I guess, depending on how you went about setting up the tripwire, the question then becomes "Why didn't the sprinting giant stop sprinting when it saw a rope being dragged across a gap between two trees and become taut?".
Yeah, that setup could work, but in that timeframe, it feels like it was less plausible, as it would've worked better as a prepped beforehand trap.
I mean, I asked if I had time, DM said yes but what good would it do. Then I showed him the rule. He could have made the call I didn’t have time, or rolled to see if the giant saw it.
The way I described what I’d do is that I tied 9je end of the rope to the base of one tree, then ran a circle around another to make it taught, then rolled a strength check while still holding the rope tight to make sure the giant didn’t just walk through and pull it loose since I couldn’t tie the second end down in time.
My favorite is when the DM asks this about some seemingly innocuous action like “OK so you step on the tile then?” “So you pick up the goblet?” And then it’s like well I didn’t have any doubts until this exact moment.
The one I picked up from my buddy whenever they want to do something colossally stupid or otherwise unwise is “you can certainly try.” When they hear that they always stop in their tracks and consider how badly they want to do it lol
Pretty big barrier to entry with how long the episodes are so I get it. They’re fun to put on in the background but then sometimes I miss key things. Matt is an amazing DM but I think some of the more edited dnd content is a better viewing/listening experience.
Yeah. I tried episode 1, but for me there are too many players. I enjoy smaller tables. 4 is the sweet spot player wise. But I did enjoyed the animated series
Yeah that is a tough place to start. It only lasts for a few episodes so you could power through but if you can’t take it then you could also just skip ahead and read a summary. Those early episodes aren’t super plot critical or anything.
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