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Thread: Red Flags for DMs?
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2017-04-26, 04:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-04-26, 04:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-04-26, 06:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
You are free to suggest anything you like if that makes it fun for you. But fumbles are not part of the rules. And I for one hate anything that makes my character look like an incompetent jackass.
My enjoyment of the game comes from heroic characters doing cool shiz. Not having an imaginary puppet do slapstick comedy.
Not that either method is more (or less) valid than the other.
A red flag is when the DM doesn't understand the above sentence.
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2017-04-26, 07:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
I agree with the rule. I disagree with DMs who apply the rule when they should not.
Rolling a die is our way to bringing the correct amount of random chance into a situation. For instance; let's say that I want to go to a golf course and hit my ball off of the tee, bounce it off the Ladies' tee box marker in front of me, into the woods to my right, off a of tree, into a wooden sign on my left, the bounce back 10 yards behind me. This is a rather improbable shot, but it is mathematically possible (and I did just that one day) and warrants a roll. 5% chance of success is a bit high, but thems the rules.
However, DMs who want a skill check for standing on a two foot step ladder on a flat surface without any distractions are doing a disservice by subjecting that to a 5% auto failure. I stand by my marshmallow/moon scenario as well; that situation is NOT mathematically possible and does not warrant a roll.Avatar of Vlad Taltos and Loiosh by Bradakhan
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2017-04-26, 07:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
That is why there's a take-10 rule, though.
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2017-04-26, 07:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Avatar of Vlad Taltos and Loiosh by Bradakhan
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2017-04-26, 08:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
You may or may not squeak out a tiny bit of difference in build effectiveness, but that hardly seems worth curtailing your friends' fun. Who cares if a player always rolls Halfling Rogues or something? As long as they're having fun and not ruining things for the rest of the group, more power to them.
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2017-04-26, 08:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-04-26, 08:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
And why should the DM need to learn the rules of, say, incarnate or ToB in order to allow such a character? As a DM, I've allowed plenty of material blind, and it's worked out fine. I'm not the one running the character, the player is - it's the player who needs to understand the rules for their character.
Back in my day, we rolled 3d6, in order, and we liked it.
To paraphrase The Man in Black, I don't believe you, I've known too many adults.
Don't get me wrong, I know that what I like playing in RPGs is spellcasters. But, the less than 2% of my D&D characters that were mundane gave me a better appreciation for what the "other half" go through, how I could make a better caster to support them, and a better appreciation for the overall flow of battle & of the game.
I don't get it.
I suspect the fact that I don't get it is related to the fact that my signature wizard, for whom this account is named, is both inefficient (run, endurance, and exotic weapon proficiency: shuriken, for starters), and lacks my tactical acumen.
I... mostly very strongly agree with you? Just because I didn't specify where I was wearing my pants doesn't mean I was wearing them on my head. If I want to play a "pants on head" idiot, I can pull that off on my own, thank you very much.
Oh Keeper of the Master List, please add "spontaneous house rules"* , "doesn't allow characters to 'take 10'", "makes characters look incompetent", and "doesn't understand the concept of multiple valid play styles" to the list of red flags.
* I don't mean filling in the blanks for missing content, or RAI, or patching drown healing; house rules are explicitly changing the written rules.
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2017-04-26, 08:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
Godwin's law is sort of losing meaning in a modern context as is, with people stepping out as literal nazi's, but I don't quite see the contention with Spoony's videos. They are rambly, contient rants, but as someone who plays D&D, they are still endearing and entertaining stories or warnings of what one may encounter if one plays enough. He doesn't like 3.5, but he loves Pathfinder, which I find strange, but it's not as if he's the only one.
Or is there some kind of wider story I've missed with regards to him?
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2017-04-26, 08:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
His general persona (and personality) have created a rather nasty distate among many people. Added to the fact that he seems to have rather unorthodox but steeled beliefs and opinions on RPGs, AND the fact that a great many new players who got into the hobby due to him take his word as canon and law... I'm saying there are maybe parallels.
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2017-04-26, 10:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
I've played 4d6b3 in order for some short games. It was fun, and got me playing something I usually wouldn't.
When I started the game, the DM I played under had us using PB. It was fine, and allowed me to plan builds with more certainty.
Now that I'm almost always DMing, it has always been 4d6b3. Nobody has actually ever complained about it. If anyone actually brought it up, I'd probably allow PB instead. Low stats are hardly a setback anyway.
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2017-04-26, 10:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
Last edited by Seerow; 2017-04-26 at 11:04 AM.
If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?
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2017-04-26, 10:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-04-26, 10:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
The DM isn't strictly required to understand all the ins and out of a class. Some DMs may have issues of trust with players which is a separate issue. The player should understand the class they want to play, but it doesn't hurt having someone else know exactly how the rules for it work.
The greater concern I suppose would be in designing encounters for the party. If the DM can't accurately gauge the abilities of a class, they may end up placing the party in situations that are painfully easier to overcome or are inadequate to face.If you feel like quoting something that I have said, you have my permission to use it. Unless it makes me look stupid.
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2017-04-26, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
Guys, Godwin's law has lost a lot of meaning simply by virtue of people "invoking" it to disregard arguments.
All Godwin's Law is is a Bayesian Probability: Based on the evidence of how long a given debate has gone on on the internet, and a known prior probability of internet arguments going on for a certain length of time and a known prior probability of somebody comparing the opposing viewpoint-holders to Nazis in an internet argument, we know that the longer an internet argument goes on, the higher the probability that somebody will accuse those holding an opposing viewpoint of being Nazis.
This is usually an ad hominem fallacy. Whether the accusation is true or not rarely has any bearing on whether the opposing viewpoint-holder is actually right or wrong. I mean, if it were a debate over whether 1s auto-fail and 20s auto-succeed on skill checks in D&D 3.5, and Josef Mengele himself were pointing out that it is not, in fact, the case (and that you can succeed with a high enough bonus even on a natural 1, and fail against a high enough DC even on a natural 20), the fact that Josef Mengele is not only a Nazi but widely considered one of the top 10 worst human beings to ever live wouldn't make his point invalid.
However, calling out Godwin's Law also doesn't automatically mean the people who (supposedly) called the other side "Nazis" have lost the argument. At most, it means that their having called the other side "Nazis" was near-inevitable, and that the argument in which they did so may be an ad hominem fallacy rather than a logical argument.
Trying to "expand" Godwin's Law to include any reference you dislike strongly enough - or even that you feel is or should be widely disliked strongly enough - serves no useful purpose other than to make Godwin's Law even more useless. Frankly, I think we should stop trying to "invoke" it altogether. Remember: at its core, all it is is an acknowledgement that a certain event is more likely to happen as the length of an argument on the internet increases. (To a degree, using it in as an "expanded" means of calling somebody's argument fallacious is proving its own point, since you're essentially claiming "you can't call me a Nazi! That's mean!" as a defense against somebody's argument.)
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2017-04-26, 11:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
The designers obviously never spoke with one another
Red Flag master lists
DMs: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=215
Players: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=189
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2017-04-26, 11:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
back in the day, new characters took about 5 minutes to make, and about half that to die instantly to some 'screw-you' trap or monster.
So, you're saying that the people who have actual character ideas they'd rather not leave up to random die-rolls are the rollplayers, and the ones who will use randomness (and attrition) until they get what they want are the Real Roleplayers?
So, you take the randomness out of the random rolls.....Imagine if all real-world conversations were like internet D&D conversations...
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2017-04-26, 11:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
... Are you actually asking me to objectively justify preferences here? I shared a personal red flag and why to me it is a red flag. My experiences and yours apparently don't line up. Done.
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2017-04-26, 12:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
Fair enough. However, since you mention it, one of my red flags is the use of the term “rollplayers”.
It often correlates with unpleasant GM characteristics like:
* Thinking that knowing the mechanics well makes you bad at roleplaying.
* Dismissing other play styles in an obnoxious way.
* Heavy use of GM fiat and/or vindictive rulings.
Which I'm not saying everyone who says it does! Just - enough do to give it a bad taste. But it does at the least carry an insulting connotation toward anyone who cares about mechanics. So unless that's your intent, I'd not use the term.Last edited by icefractal; 2017-04-26 at 12:10 PM.
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2017-04-26, 10:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
Agreed, especially with the bolded part.
However, if the DM is tailoring the encounters to the party (which is one of my red flags, remember), and F's up, no big - that's just one of the 5% of encounters the DMG says you're supposed to run away from or die. No biggie.
Thanks.
Say, could I get you to do me another favor? Could you link directly to your compiled list in the other thread, or, barring that, tell me which page it's on? I haven't really been able to think of any big problems I've had with players, so I haven't bothered contributing to or reading that thread yet, but I'd love to read the cliff notes.
Hahaha, yeah.Last edited by Quertus; 2017-04-26 at 10:14 PM.
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2017-04-26, 10:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
The designers obviously never spoke with one another
Red Flag master lists
DMs: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=215
Players: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=189
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2017-04-26, 11:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
Tailoring encounters specific to the party is a flag yes. I was speaking more along the lines of not understanding the strength of a character and setting a CR inappropriately. For instance, if a DM has no experience with Psionics beyond the occasional horror story from the internet, they might throw too strong a challenge at the party when they allow a Wilder to join the group. Conversely, they are well acquainted with Monkday and know that Monks can't contribute to a fight in any meaningful way. Until it turns out the player is pretty good at optimizing and ends up steamrolling the mooks you tossed at him.
If you feel like quoting something that I have said, you have my permission to use it. Unless it makes me look stupid.
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2017-04-27, 01:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
He seems to me to have a pretty open view on RPG's though? Most of his rants are entirely informative about stories he had in the past and whenever he's been mistaken, he's been engaging with people in the comments (not on youtube of course, because it is youtube). As for his personality, I dunno, I find him a lot more bearable than most RPG players.
Clearly I need to link Spoony more on here.
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2017-04-27, 02:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
My red flag is when the GM read and approves my PC story but give it a different story in the first play.
When the GM lie to you OOC about your PC and tell you that your PC know it when you ask him about it.
(I think I should have know if I was a slave when the GM tell me that I was not a slave).
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2017-04-27, 02:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
I can't tell you how many times in the last 10 years I had to learn the rules of whatever new class/etc. a player wanted to play.
You know why I have to know the rules of their classes, and can't just go off of their say-so? Because when I do I constantly have this interaction in the middle of a session:
Player: My character activates such-and-such ability.
Me: Which does what?
Player: It allows me to do [some ridiculously overpowered thing].
Me: Wait, it does what?!
*Looks up ability*
*Reads it with knowledge of what the game terms actually mean*
Me: Um, no. What that ability actually allows you to do is this [other, non-game-breaking thing].
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2017-04-27, 02:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-04-27, 06:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Red Flags for DMs?
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2017-04-27, 06:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-04-27, 06:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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