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.
“So you touched the doorknob? And where is everyone standing?”
Oh uhhhh my character was actually still looking at those statues in the other room. So he’s waaay back.
“You hear a rumble as the statues suddenly come to life. Roll initiative.”
Dont forget to also do it even of nothing happens
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
Haha I think that might be from Matt Mercer. He says that a lot.
Oh nice. Believe it or not I haven’t watched/listened to any of his games!
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
The audio quality for Vox Machina when I tried to start was unbearable not gonna lie
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.
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.
Why not just communicate with the rest of the group that you want to play something else? Let the group help you “write” them out of the narrative.
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
Boom… immortality.
Thats the players’s superpower : they have infinite lives
