PC problems and DM damage

[Shinizak]

I'm in the mood to hear some gaming nightmare stories.

In the first game I ever DMed there was a guy who boosted his charisma so high that he some how ended up with a +8 bonus (with a spell buffing it, and he used merits and flaws that I was unaware of him using). Then he demanded he get to make a charisma check against the female theif, when he won he insisted that she fell in love with her and threw a fit when she refused to role play being his butt monkey.

[Milskidasith]

I'm in the mood to hear some gaming nightmare stories.

In the first game I ever DMed there was a guy who boosted his charisma so high that he some how ended up with a +8 bonus (with a spell buffing it, and he used merits and flaws that I was unaware of him using). Then he demanded he get to make a charisma check against the female theif, when he won he insisted that she fell in love with her and threw a fit when she refused to role play being his butt monkey.

That's called the diplomacy skill... if he had just rolled on the table with ranks in diplomacy, the same thing would have happened.

WotC is stupid.

[awa]

pc or npc female?
Im pretty sure social skills don't work on pcs.
Second how much did he win by he didn't make her fanatic did he.

[AstralFire]

I'm in the mood to hear some gaming nightmare stories.

In the first game I ever DMed there was a guy who boosted his charisma so high that he some how ended up with a +8 bonus (with a spell buffing it, and he used merits and flaws that I was unaware of him using). Then he demanded he get to make a charisma check against the female theif, when he won he insisted that she fell in love with her and threw a fit when she refused to role play being his butt monkey.

+8... isn't that high...

This is my number one gaming nightmare story.

[Shinizak]

sorry, it was a diplomacy (he had maxed it out). And it was a player, but he demanded that since he won the check that it should affect her regardless.

[Shinizak]

+8... isn't that high...

This is my number one gaming nightmare story.

Yes, in retro spect it isn't high. but when you're playing with a bunch of new players (DM included), at level 1, un-optimized, in a mostly RP game. it's frikken astronomical.

[awa]

Personally id have a high level man come along with twinked out diplomacy come and do the exact same thing to him and then ask him are we sure we want to allow diplomacy checks on pcs?

[Shinizak]

Personally id have a high level man come along with twinkled out diplomacy come and do the exact same thing to him and then ask him are we sure we want to allow diplomacy checks on pcs?

Didn't think of it at the time. Instead I gave him a helmet that forced him to tell outlandish lies whenever he spoke.

[Flickerdart]

Didn't think of it at the time. Instead I gave him a helmet that forced him to tell outlandish lies whenever he spoke.

I'm playing a character that tells outlandish lies whenever he speaks anyway. That's not a punishment, it's great fun.

[jindra34]

I'm playing a character that tells outlandish lies whenever he speaks anyway. That's not a punishment, it's great fun.

True but it becomes tricky when you need to tell the truth. Of course that doesn't make it not fun.

[Flickerdart]

There are other party members for when you need to tell the truth. Better yet, MS Persist Serene Visage and Glibness (+50 to Bluff) and make everyone think that your lies are the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

[Greenish]

Im pretty sure social skills don't work on pcs.

Bluff and the combat use of Intimidate do (at least in theory, whether you succeed in bluffing against other players is a different matter).

But yeah, Diplomacy specifies that it can only be used on NPCs, for obvious reasons.

[Ashram]

Yeah, that's a big problem with my group. Regardless of whether a Bluff or Intimidate check succeeds (Diplomacy does NOT work on PCs since there's no opposed roll, which is why Bluff and Intimidate do), depending on who the other character is, they'll try to metagame "Oh, I don't believe you. I still think you're lying" or "I'm not afraid of you, even though I failed the Intimidate check". A lot of players are hard-pressed to let their characters be fooled by a fellow PC.

[Shinizak]

Does anyone else have a horror story?

[awa]

Well more a general pattern a number of years ago in my first gaming group we had a lot of problems with the world of darkness settings. In werewolf we always had one player who just declared himself alpha at the start of the game then said it was a time of war the entire game. As the leader he would just massively abuse his power telling the party we are doing this and hogging any benefits that can be hogged.

The other problem were the changeling games due to the way he was interpreting the rules the pretty race of fairies always took a magic item that let them mind control characters of lower rank with no save and since the pretty race had a higher starting rank that meant they regularly mind controlled the rest of the party to force them to due what they wanted and we wernt allowed to kill them in their sleep due to the nature of the setting.

As you can imagine this got quite frustrating. Of course its been roughly a decade give or take a few years so now i can think of things to do to avoid much of the problem but back i just had to take it.

edit i forget what the pretty race was called

[huttj509]

IBTL

In Before The Lankybugger

[Shinizak]

The sidhe. And yeah, that's retarded.

[Zeful]

(with a spell buffing it, and he used merits and flaws that I was unaware of him using).

Mistake one. You approved a character you did not personally audit.

Then he demanded he get to make a charisma check against the female theif,

Mistake two: PCs aren't allowed to use non-magical methods to change the attitudes of fellow PCs (note this is not explicitly stated in the rules, but if you, The DM can't do it (which is pretty much stated by the rules), the PCs can't either.

[Greenish]

IBTL

In Before The Lankybugger

He takes the cake. He deserves it. Someone ought to bake him one.

[Edit]: For the uninitiated: Episodes 1, 2 and 3.

[PersonMan]

He takes the cake. He deserves it. Someone ought to bake him one.

I dunno, man. The whole cake thing is pretty suspicious...I think that the cake is a lie, but to each his own.

[Lev]

Let the problem go, before you start the next session when you two are alone calmly and politely explain that he will be booted out if he keeps acting like a brat.

[Irreverent Fool]

Yeah, that's a big problem with my group. Regardless of whether a Bluff or Intimidate check succeeds (Diplomacy does NOT work on PCs since there's no opposed roll, which is why Bluff and Intimidate do), depending on who the other character is, they'll try to metagame "Oh, I don't believe you. I still think you're lying" or "I'm not afraid of you, even though I failed the Intimidate check". A lot of players are hard-pressed to let their characters be fooled by a fellow PC.

Bluff and intimidate don't work that way against PCs in D&D.

My horror story? Typical DMPC situation. The party was arbitrarily escorting a Mary Sue who could shoot beams of fire from his hands endlessly and alluded to more power when asked about it. The PCs seemed to fail at every situation while the Mary Sue always knew what was going on and handled it perfectly. 'Nuff said.

I'm sure I've had worse, but I've blocked them out. More recently, a DM with whom I'd learned 3.x started up a new campaign in the same world our previous party had saved from inter-planar cataclysm. He's generally a good DM and friend, but when he instructed us on how to make our characters, I informed him of what combination I was using and asked him multiple times if certain combinations were okay (he said any wotc material and Dungeon/Dragon Mag were fair game). I submitted my character to him via email and asked him to look it over in person twice before the session. He insisted it was fine.

When my level 3 kobold warmage's warmage edge gained +7 damage to low-level spells, he was suddenly upset and made a scene that convinced the other players that I had somehow cheated. I pointed out that I had asked him to look over and approve my sheet multiple times. He remained sullen for the rest of the session.

[Shinizak]

Mistake one. You approved a character you did not personally audit.

Mistake two: PCs aren't allowed to use non-magical methods to change the attitudes of fellow PCs (note this is not explicitly stated in the rules, but if you, The DM can't do it (which is pretty much stated by the rules), the PCs can't either.

I did say that it was my FIRST time.

[sambo.]

Im pretty sure social skills don't work on pcs.

they don't.

if you want to know why, play a one-shot where it's allowed and see the godaweful mess it turns into when the high bluff/diplomacy/charisma types completely dominate other players.

if you want to bluff another player into doing something, well, he's sitting at the same table, off you go, bluff him.

it's called ROLEPLAYING!

[Mando Knight]

He takes the cake. He deserves it. Someone ought to bake him one.

[Edit]: For the uninitiated: Episodes 1, 2 and 3.

I think I've read the story before, but I've never read the story before, if you catch my drift.

[FerhagoRosewood]

He takes the cake. He deserves it. Someone ought to bake him one.

[Edit]: For the uninitiated: Episodes 1, 2 and 3.

O.o;

I've seen the first two chapters.

I had no idea of the third... What a finish.... hopefully.

[Xallace]

+8... isn't that high...

This is my number one gaming nightmare story.

Ho-LEE. That guy was rank.

My horror story? Typical DMPC situation. The party was arbitrarily escorting a Mary Sue who could shoot beams of fire from his hands endlessly and alluded to more power when asked about it. The PCs seemed to fail at every situation while the Mary Sue always knew what was going on and handled it perfectly. 'Nuff said.

Haha, DMPC horror stories. Gotta love 'em. Got to love them*.


*

Spoiler

Show

Apparently this story got archived, so I can't post a link directly.

We're playing a campaign based on Fire Emblem, a game that I have little to no knowledge of. Part of a mercenary group of some kind, and with us is some guy named Ike and his family (I later recognize Ike when he appears in Super Smash Brothers). Ike's father heads the mercenary crew, and he's also a prince or something.

Now, Ike is in our group all the time. He's supposed to be our leader, our mentor, and weirdly enough, the man whose safety is apparently our sole reason for living. Now, why he needs us I have no idea, seeing as he was a full 13 levels higher than us, spoke to all of the NPCs in place of us, always came out on top in a fight (well, almost; more on that later), and ordered our characters around with the expectation that we would follow obligingly.

So I was playing a warmage in this group, one of the character concepts I was more fond of (a concept sadly wasted on a single-session "campaign"), but that information isn't really relevant to the story. Ike has some family in this group, if I recall correctly it was a younger sister. My character finds her out in the woods and some funny supernatural stuff happens; so, worried for her safety, I decide to try and bring Ike's sister back to the group. This ends with myself in a (rather embarrassing) stand-off with the girl.

The party shows up with Ike at the fore, and he attacks me forthright "because there were strange lights from this area" and I was "caught red-handed" blah blah blah something about his sister.


I later found out that I was attacked because the DM thought I was purposely derailing the plot of the video game campaign despite the fact that he invited me because I had never played the game. He claimed to have believed I went online and researched the plot, just to ruin it, just to spite him because I had at one point made mention of the fact that I thought video-game campaigns were silly when they tried to do nothing but run through the original plot without change. Talk about paranoia.

So anyway, Ike tries to attack, I beat his initiative, cast Gust of Wind and a few other defensive spells that he for some reason has no ability to get around. The party, sensing my innocence (and growing bored with the game as a whole), descend upon Ike like wolves. Our numbers dwindle, and just before one can deal the finishing blow, the DM rage quits. Campaign over, everyone go home.

[Lycan 01]

My horror story? Typical DMPC situation. The party was arbitrarily escorting a Mary Sue who could shoot beams of fire from his hands endlessly and alluded to more power when asked about it. The PCs seemed to fail at every situation while the Mary Sue always knew what was going on and handled it perfectly. 'Nuff said.

Been there, done that, broke the game and DM by seducing the plot-centric succubus mid battle.




On a related note, I'm sure most of you have read my "bad DM" story. Y'know, the one where he literally nuked my character after I lit mushrooms on fire because he got tired of dealing with me.

[hewhosaysfish]

Bluff and intimidate don't work that way against PCs in D&D.

Reference for Diplomacy...

You can change the attitudes of others (nonplayer characters) with a successful Diplomacy check;

...but I can't find any support regarding Bluff.

On a related note, I'm sure most of you have read my "bad DM" story. Y'know, the one where he literally nuked my character after I lit mushrooms on fire because he got tired of dealing with me.

And quite right he was too; fungus-arson completely destroys campaigns whenever it rears its ugly head - which as we know is far too often.










Seriously, though, LOLWUT?

[clarinetman]

The groups Druid decided to cast a spell in combat (He is a 'rage' Variant of a Druid so he mostly does melee 'IMMA BEAR' damage) for some reason. The spell is 'Call Lightning' and the Druid apparently didn't know what a '1 round casting time' was. He kept on arguing with me with how the bolt of lightning needed to strike 'Immediately after the spell was cast' which he thought was during his turn, but in reality was his NEXT turn. The whole party was trying to explain to him how this worked, but he was really stubborn and just continued to argue for about an hour. This basically broke the session that night, but I did manage to kill his character later that night. :D