D&D 5E BardTales- Woeful Table Tales + A Poll

[AaronOfBarbaria]

If the PCs decide to go shopping rather than go on the adventure they are being paid for, that does not seem like a GM issue to me.

I may be incorrect in my assumption, but I assumed this tale about buying grenades was not one of "Do the job? Nah, I'm gonna go buy grenades instead," being the player's choice, but rather that the player had expressed something along the lines of "I'd like to buy some grenades to take with me while I do this job," and the GM had decided to say "You go buy grenades and miss the job" instead of "You don't have time to go shopping without missing out on the job, so do you shop or do you do the job?"

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

That's probably less of a
"I must hit him cause the rules say so" and more of a "I just want to smack my ally.... by "accident""

It was actually a case of "Me winning this argument is more important than me being right, or any of us having fun," and a person with a personality that makes intentionally trying to agitate other people equate to having a good time. I mean, I engage in a bit of light-hearted smack-talk or insult hurling - but if someone were to actually be offended by something I'd said, rather than amused by it, I'd sincerely apologize and scratch that off my list of appropriate comments to make to the person... but this guy would intentionally bring up the same insult or joke that actually bothered someone even more because it bothered them (which was ultimately what got him kicked out of my house, for good, because he pushed so hard on me that for the briefest of moments I wasn't sure that I would actually stop myself from physically attacking him).

 

[Lanefan]

I've seen, been involved in, and sometimes caused, many a facepalm moment via what the played characters do to each other and to the world around them...and this is all (usually) good fun.

Where it gets jiggy is when the players take the arguments out of character - I've seen this too, and it ain't fun at all.

Worst one I've ever had to DM: I was running two side-by-side parties in the same world, one on Sundays, the other on Mondays. One night a Sunday player (not universally liked by the Monday crew but someone all had known for ages) stopped by the Monday game to visit, and was half-jokingly given an invitation to "roll up a character, so we can kill it". Well, he rolled up a character - a Paladin that nobody would have any good reason to kill - and brought it in to see how long it could last. In hindsight I shouldn't have allowed this, but hey...I was curious to see what would happen next, and everyone was still laughing. And sure enough the party's resident Assassin (also its longest-serving character at that point) took down the Pally at the first opportunity. The laughter stopped.

The resulting out-of-game argument went on for several weeks.

Worst one I've hit as a player: about 25 years ago one of my characters killed another PC with a fireball - he in-character claims I hit him intentionally, I in-character claim he ran into my pre-defined blast zone*. Not only did he die but several of his magic items went boom. We get back to town, and he gets revived (for free, someone else paid for it). He then takes my character to court to reclaim all the expenses and losses caused by my fireball...including the cost of his raise. He bribes the jurors and I lose big-time; I had to retire my character so she could pay off her debt in time as she didn't have anywhere near the money required.

This was also good for an out-of-character argument that went on for ages.

* - in fact both were sort-of true; he knew where I was aiming and ran in anyway, I knew he was there and took the attitude of "if you're going to be that stupid, so be it" and held my aim.

As fate would have it these two characters met again many years later in a reunion game - let's just leave the results at I survived and he did not.

Lan-"and the fallout from that reunion game still hasn't all hit the ground"-efan

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Heh, indeed! And yet, I think that the experience of gaming with strangers is important. There’s something about gathering around a table with people you don’t know and bonding over our mutual interest in the hobby. Sometimes, you do end up gaming with goons. But most of the time it ends up being pretty awesome.

Still glad I've got my regular gaming group with friends, though.

reading threads like this I am always so thankful that I don't have to rely on gaming with strangers.....although sometimes I don't think it gets any stranger than my friends

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

This, exactly. They went off to go shopping and we figured they’d rejoin us in a little bit. There wasn’t any check to fail (okay, so the GM made them make a check to drive casually, but that was it). Had we known the GM was going to sideline them for the whole adventure, I think the rest of us wouldn’t have split the party.

but rather that the player had expressed something along the lines of "I'd like to buy some grenades to take with me while I do this job," and the GM had decided to say "You go buy grenades and miss the job" instead of "You don't have time to go shopping without missing out on the job, so do you shop or do you do the job?"

 

[Eltab]

LFR Battle Interactive - something you know ahead of time is going to involve the whole team being able to pull their own weight, and work together, and almost everything will turn into a fight (so be DPR-competent).

Two players at my table were just starting to create valid characters as the session began (which involved up-scaling their characters from L3 to L11).
They played Drow. All night, "because we're aligned Chaotic", they would do the opposite of whatever The Plan was. Are we trying to run away from an overwhelming force? They'll get into melee. Do we need to kick down the big door in front? They'll block the guy with 'Pick Lock equivalent' from getting up to the door in question - and stab it with daggers.
They did not know what their characters' powers or capabilities were, so if something wasn't dagger-amenable they would just look dazed during their turn and say, "Umm...".

We were carried by the rest of the BI, since we as a single table failed all our missions but one. (Consolation Prize: My character got a dragon skeleton as a trophy because I landed the final hit that dropped it to 0 HP with ONE SECOND left in the session!)

 

[Eis]

Right on! I am not saying that gaming with strangers is a BAD thing but I would not want to have to RELY on it!

Heh, indeed! And yet, I think that the experience of gaming with strangers is important. There’s something about gathering around a table with people you don’t know and bonding over our mutual interest in the hobby. Sometimes, you do end up gaming with goons. But most of the time it ends up being pretty awesome.

Still glad I've got my regular gaming group with friends, though.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Kender are by far the most personally terrifying. However, uniquely in Darksun, they'd be food within minutes, so....no harm done.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Sorry, slight derail here..

***SNIP*** By the end of the encounter the players are all making death saves (none die), their horses are gone, and there’s an escaped slave in the middle of it all wondering, WTF?

Epilogue: The slave died in the next session after another particularly bad encounter. The monk player said that at least he was able to die with a full belly. To which the warlock player replied, “A belly full of arrows.”

Wasn't there just a thread on here about how PC's attract death and destruction or something? Anyway, I pointed this out in that thread; a slave can survive, alone, no training, no weapons, no anything, for DAYS in the wilderness. Then PC's show up. Suddenly, every few hours is a life or death struggle to survive because now all these horrible monsters are showing up to try and eat everyone. The slave should have said Hey! Help! I'm....wait... Are you guys adventurers?, and then when they confirm he heads off in the opposite direction they are going.

^_^

Paul L. Ming