Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="aboyd" data-source="post: 4828536" data-attributes="member: 44797">This thread should be in general, not 3rd edition house rules.I've seen this, and generally it's a reaction to someone who is hyper-controlling.To me, I think you need to evaluate not only why you are there, but why the players are there.  It may be that they are not there to play D&D.  They may be there to have fun with friends, and D&D is a convenient excuse.  If so, and you want to keep playing with them, you'll need to switch your expectations -- you should expect to spend good time with friends, not run a D&D game.  If you get a game running, great.  But you shouldn't go in expecting it to work every time.It may be that the players had a goal of playing D&D, but changed that goal to be "gang up on the annoying control freak" when you started to care too much about them acting in character.  If their goal is to gang up on the control freak, then your goal each game needs to change from "having fun playing D&D" to "having fun not being a control freak."  Do you enforce them speaking in character voices?  Do you require funny accents?  Do you mandate that they never speak about game mechanics?  Do you eavesdrop on their team huddles (probably more like team pow-wows at the table, but same idea) and critique them?  Are you rigid about it?  Are you nitpicky?If you think you're not, but they think you are... well, it won't matter what you think about it.  They will act on their opinions only, not yours.  If they think you're handling your leadership position poorly, they'll mutiny.Different people have different skills at role playing.  Some players aren't even comfortable carrying on an in-character conversation with normal speaking voices.  They would prefer to "roll play" instead of "role play."  You're going to have to decide how important it is to enforce your standards, because some people may not be able to do it (fear of speaking, etc.) no matter how much you push it.Yeah, that's my group every game.  In fact, they even named themselves the Intraparty Fighters and we're on our local game store's calendar <a href="http://www.gamekastle.com/index.php?m=events#event194036" target="_blank">under that name</a>.This stuff doesn't have to be a problem, however.  You can impose house rules to handle this stuff.  I enforce alignment -- if they fight amongst each other, they can expect their alignments to gravitate toward chaotic.  If they cause harm to allies, they can expect their alignment to gravitate toward evil.  I allow them to lose powers because of this.  A paladin will fall.  A Dragon Shaman will lose special abilities.  I even had a sorcerer with Draconic Heritage feats lose the feats even though that's not RAW.  (Why did I do that?  Because the lawful good character chose a lawful good gold dragon as his heritage, and then killed a helpless party member in cold blood -- I decided that his gold dragon heritage was completely in opposition to the severe alignment change I imposed.)In addition, because D&D is a team-based sport, you can reasonably apply XP awards to those who participate well.  Did 3 players cooperate to defeat a pit fiend, while 2 other players bickered on the sideline?  Give the 3 who cooperated a 250 XP award for team-based roleplay.  Do this a few times over a few sessions, and the ones actually cooperating will be a level higher than the rest.  That'll really make people pay attention.I had a few players who would not show up every session -- the game was sorta their backup plan if nothing better came along.  I didn't like how disruptive it was to the game.  So, I stopped awarding XP to "the group" and instead only gave it to those who were there.  Pretty soon 1 player was 2 levels behind and he dropped out, which was fine.  Another player juggled his commitments and changed from being a so-so player to being there on time, every time.In both cases, I feel like my house rules resolved the issue in a way that was satisfactory to me.  You can do this.To me, this is just about one of the only types of fully justified PC killings.  When a single character rushes into combat alone, that is stupid -- and being that stupid in the D&D world can get you killed.  I killed a PC who did that as recently as two weeks ago, and I'll do it every time someone thinks being surrounded and hit by all the enemies is going to be OK.Unlike the other people here, I'm with you on this one.  At least, I'm with you in concept.  I care about this stuff too.  In fact, I bought the Forgotten Realms core book because it's the one with bandoleers, spell tube holders, and other special gear for quick drawing.I think, logically speaking, it makes sense that you would need a full round and free hands to whip off a backpack in the middle of combat, open it, feel around to find the needed item, close the pack, and resume carrying it.  I can't imagine doing that in fewer than 6 seconds, and I don't know what to do about any weapons that are dropped during the process.  Having said that, I do agree that making something worse than the books may cause a lot of bellyaching in the game.You may find that you care more about the rule than the players.  If so, shut down the game, post an ad looking for new players who are OK with your house rules, and try again.  Me personally, I'd probably drop the house rule, but become very well-versed in all the nuances of drawing & using items.  Drawing a scroll is a move action, but casting it costs more.  Drawing oil is a move action, but prepping it to be a Molotov cocktail is a full-round action, and tossing it is a standard action.  Drawing a sling bullet may be a free action (like shuriken) but it's a two-handed move action to load it into the sling.  You can get pretty hard-lined about <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-edition-rules/241130-ranged-sneak-attack.html#post4473396" target="_blank">what qualifies for Quick Draw</a>, too.  That'll make it more difficult for people to go around fast-drawing all sorts of stuff if you start making judgments such as "only actual weapons listed on pages 116 & 117 of the PHB qualify for the Quick Draw feat."Being a rules-lawyer about how fast people can do things is kinda lame, but at least it'll follow the RAW, so people will have little to complain about other than, "He actually follows the rules."  And that's not really much of a complaint.</blockquote>

Verification