Things I May No Longer Do While Playing XII: A Thousand-Yard Stare is not Permission

[SirBellias]

*I may no longer forget to describe the buzzsaw golem until halfway through the combat (sorry guys).

*When designing a world full of factions with complicated goals and reasoning behind their methodology, I may no longer start the campaign with "Alright, these guys kill people and shove their brains into robots."

*May no longer start the introduction scene with the characters happening to meet a few hundred feet from the large military complex they're independently breaking into and hope they get along enough to make it work.

*When planning encounters, may no longer assume the party will use some amount of stealth, when it's clear they will instead opt for running around, kicking things over and shouting at each other.

*Garrisons should not be full of troops.

*Troops should have some possibility of hitting their opponents.

*The main boss of the 1st floor should have really gotten the chance to attack at some point.

(Encounter balance should be much easier now)

[Rockphed]

*I may no longer forget to describe the buzzsaw golem until halfway through the combat (sorry guys).

Wait, so you didn't just say "it is a buzzsaw golem" and let your players figure out how doomed they were? Just because they don't know anything about it doesn't mean you can't hack their brains so they know how doomed they are.

[danielxcutter]

*I may no longer forget to describe the buzzsaw golem until halfway through the combat (sorry guys).

*When designing a world full of factions with complicated goals and reasoning behind their methodology, I may no longer start the campaign with "Alright, these guys kill people and shove their brains into robots."

*May no longer start the introduction scene with the characters happening to meet a few hundred feet from the large military complex they're independently breaking into and hope they get along enough to make it work.

*When planning encounters, may no longer assume the party will use some amount of stealth, when it's clear they will instead opt for running around, kicking things over and shouting at each other.

*Garrisons should not be full of troops.

*Troops should have some possibility of hitting their opponents.

*The main boss of the 1st floor should have really gotten the chance to attack at some point.

(Encounter balance should be much easier now)

...And what system is that?

Wait, so you didn't just say "it is a buzzsaw golem" and let your players figure out how doomed they were? Just because they don't know anything about it doesn't mean you can't hack their brains so they know how doomed they are.

I mean, unless there's some specific context I'd imagine "buzzsaw golem" would get the idea across and any further explaining would merely be decoration and details.

[Man on Fire]

* may not propose that we play a game as five GM's and one player
** the player may not be a super-ultra chosen one of destiny with incredibly powerful abilities
*** the five GM's may not work together to try and come up with as a group, challenges for this singular hero while providing various npcs
**** may not end up becoming five GM's each making their own big bads and trying to out big bad the others
***** The one player may not sit back and watch this with popcorn while egging on the five big bads to destroy each other so that they can kill the last one when they're weak and not expecting it.
****** may not be surprised when this idea turns into a big mess.

"I enter a cave"
*five dices roll*
"You encounter three bandits..."
"...four Goblins..."
"...a pair of mountain lions."
"...two Orcs...."
"....and a bear. Roll for initiative."

These should work now.
https://youtu.be/RI3fkqA9-IA

Or

https://youtu.be/nEwzFF4HeB8

Funny thing, my thought process was the other way around - I was trying to build up I will sing to people this song...and then started Country Roads.

* Not allowed to burn out all our once-per-game rerolls on clinging up the stairs.
* Upon finding the lair of giant spiders we're not allowed to just walk back to another room, then to the next one, lock the door and write "NOPE" on them.
* Not allowed to do it again upon finding back entry to the same room.
* No longer allowed to try and trick a Ghoul into entering said lair of giant spiders.
* If I keep bringing up the kidnapping the party committed when my character was absent, our tank is allowed to knock my teeth out.
** "Kidnapping people is illegal" doesn't work when everyone in the party has been killing people.
* If GM notes refer to an enemy as "B. Skeleton" we're to assume "B" stands for "Big", not "Benjamin".
* GM is to keep notes about important puzzles straight.
* My character does not have a friend who lives in a barrel and spends free time pecking chickens.

[Rater202]

*May not spend twenty minutes having an in-character conversation where I try and fail to clear up the misconception about midichlorians*

*To reiterate a previous rule, I cannot play a non-Sith that admires a Sith.
**I can not be a Force Walker being metored by a Holocron containing the Knowledge and Personality of Darth Imperious and following in their footsteps to learn the secret of binding an unlimited number of Ghosts to myself to gan the power to take over the Empire by force and outlaw Slavery.
***Darth Imprius is not stupid enough to show up in person as a Ghost. They're a Force Walker, too. They know the secrets.
****Especially considering that they canonically were modified all to hell to be super durable and know the secrets of using the Dark Side to extend someone's natural life span. They may in fact still be alive.
*****I may not forcibly bind the Ghosts of a Jedi Shadow, a Jedi Sage, a Jedi Sentinel, a Jedi Guardian, a Sith Sorcerer, A Sith Assassin, a Sith Marauder, a Sith Juggernaut, a Voss Mystic, and a force-sensitive Master of Taras Kasi who fell to the Darkside and persisted as a Darkside Ghost.
******This doesn't count as mastering both sides of the Force.

[Telok]

No: Profession (Evil Overlord) + Craft (Successful Imposter to the Throne)

No: Profession (Benevolent Tyrant) + Craft (Socio-economic Revolution)

No: Profession (Doom Cultist) + Craft (Black Hole)

No: Custom professions or craft skills.

* I may no longer take the warlock class fluff, it's power/ability names, and overall theme, and apply it to playing a character that is mechanically a druid.

** Neither may I put a full druid reskin on the warlock class.

*** Not allowed wizard <-> fighter refluffs either.

**** Especially when my backstory at level 1 is more awesome than the DMNPCs.

* May not contravene the tropes and expectations of the game so hard that, while staying completely in character, I break the DM.

** May not embrace the tropes and expectations of the game & adventure writers so thoroughly that I start causing narrative causality events to happen.

*** May no longer put landmines in my backstory. Literal or figurative, intentional or accidental.

**** No more wrecking the module's plot with backstory places, events, and people, before I even know what module we'll be playing.

* May not point out that a problem with the hot, new, popular, module and/or system was solved in adventures and game systems published before the DM was born.

[Rater202]

*May not make plans to desecrate graves of two war-heroes-turned-despised-criminals for the sake of furthering my own goals.
**Especially when those goals amount to "become the second coming of Ninja Jesus in order to force a social revolution."
***Even if I can come up with justifications about how it's good for everyone.

[Lord Raziere]

* May not use preparedness to win against an abusive mother in a duel
** may not proceed to have mother defend the characters actions even though she lost
*** my characters are supposed to suffer humbling defeats in the beginning
**** May not point out that the "humbling defeat" trope works better when used by likable opponents that will plausibly spare you and respect you for your trying and thus not be jerks themselves even if they win.

[Telok]

While I may rewrite the plot of Peter Pan as a fairy-slaver and mind controlling kidnapper rpg adventure, I absolutely may not expose young children to it as a bedtime story.

[Rater202]

I may not randomly blurt out that chianti actually pairs poorly with liver and wait to see who gets it.

[Xapi]

* I'm no longer allowed to ready an Action to attack anything that crosses a door "unless I respect it enough to let it live" when there's still party members on the other side.
** I certainly may not giggle excitedly when the DM says "given your characters track record, if the monk goes through the door, I'm rolling to see if you respect him enough or not.".
*** It is in poor form to announce after the session that seeing the DM roll to see if I would attack the monk was the highlight of the campaign so far, even if the roll failed and there was no attack.

[danielxcutter]

An Ewok who can use Force Lightning is not an Ewokation specialist.

[BlueHamsterBean]

*May not casually talk about cutting up the captive vampire spawn with my hatchet to counteract his regeneration and keep him weak.
**Seriously, I know this is a game, but you’re a doctor in real life: the cognitive dissonance is making this a bit spooky.
***May not unwittingly intimidate the GM into ruling that vampire spawn can choose not to regenerate.

*May not refer to my pockets as “The Trouser Compartment” with no explanation.
**May not insist The Trouser Compartment is an interdimensional storage space in my pants for all my prized items.
***May not take actions to make this worryingly plausible.

*Yes, as a red mage you have a fabulous hat, but you have other, greater, priorities, don’t you?
**May not suggest that the red mage’s hat is a brain parasite controlling his every action.
***Even if it would explain his many eccentricities.

[Rater202]

The game is over when you've successfully eaten Darth Vader in order to steal his midichlorians for your own use.

[Wookieetank]

*May not refer to my pockets as “The Trouser Compartment” with no explanation.
**May not insist The Trouser Compartment is an interdimensional storage space in my pants for all my prized items.
***May not take actions to make this worryingly plausible.

****May not replace my back pockets with bags of holding.
*****May not refer to their contents as "Junk in my trunk"

[moonfly7]

* I may never again make a warlock pact with a unicorn so that my moonblades sentience can take a physical body whenever it wants.
* I cannot marry my moonblades new physical form
* I cannot plan any of the above without at least telling the rest of the party
*If I do keep it secret I have no right to be surprised that everyone needs 1 whole in game hour to understand what I've done
*I'm not allowed to cry during my fictional barbarians wedding to his sword. I won't even when the Paladin of the goddess of debauchery(A PC) gives a surprisingly heartfelt and beautiful ceremony. I won't cry, I won't(Spoiler, I cried)

[BlueHamsterBean]

****May not replace my back pockets with bags of holding.
*****May not refer to their contents as "Junk in my trunk"

******May not complain when enemy archers begin attaching portable holes to their arrows and making called shots to my “trunk.”

[TeChameleon]

* I am not allowed to be surprised when, upon throwing a portion of the substance in a barrel full of viscous semi-liquid against the wall, my teammate discovers that said barrel is full of nitroglycerine.
** Nor is my fighter allowed to say, very calmly (despite having been in the path of the shockwave), "And what have we learned?", only to conclude after a flip reply, "So, nothing, as usual."

[SirBellias]

...And what system is that?

Gestalt E6 madness. With extra steps. My GMing gears are getting back to work, and my best times running games have been lower level 3.5e and silly amounts of sandboxing. This time, the group rejected the most bare-bones level of cohesion I asked for, while all independently commenting that the party being all in one organization is a great idea (without actually doing it), so they accidentally helped each other kill some affably evil robots.

I mean, unless there's some specific context I'd imagine "buzzsaw golem" would get the idea across and any further explaining would merely be decoration and details.

There was no context. I failed to use the term "buzzsaw golem" the entire fight, then described it three rounds into its presence. I'm not the normal DM

EDIT: Also:

*May not assume that all Chaotic Evil beings somehow share an allegiance with each other.
**Not even the sentient war picks.

*May not have such a chaotic party that 2/3rds of the party are being baited into staying in a collapsing building by a glorified Google Home while the other 3rd are collapsing the building without telling anyone.
**No, it's not my fault you can't communicate with each other.
***Yes, the entirety of all conversations and abilities you used in the facility were both recorded and sent into their main processing bank.
****Should not hide said Google Home's brain(s) as well as I did. You'd think the weird unexplained gap in the battlemat was enough, but I digress.

*Yes, you can get the Grey Render to follow you around with snacks. Yes, it will get hungry eventually.

*When approaching the largest and most advanced city on the plane, on the border of the evil brain sucking robot empire, one should not approach from the robot empire side.
**Especially not with a Grey Render. Which is now hungry.
***Despite all insistence to the contrary, the scythe grafted to its arm does not qualify it as "farming equipment."

*No, the easily recognized 8 foot tall rogue angel belonging to a cult frowned upon in most places would not, on second thought, be allowed into the research base.
**Shouting his name in every situation does not help his case.

*Yes, the small goblins on even smaller horses charging around with the Doom Cult's insignia on them are adorable.
**No, that's not a good enough excuse to let them approach the gates, much less come back into the city.

*May not have the first wizard they find have a sign that has "WiZZARD" painted on it.
**No, the tent may not be smaller on the inside.
***May no longer steal NPC's mannerisms from other friends games.
****Even if they'd be proud.

*"Did I ever tell you about the time I killed a dragon?" should not have a different story every time.
**It makes the shopkeep less trustworthy, for one.
***May no longer have the crazed wizard tell them to bring them a different magical beast in exchange for a possibly enchanted sword.
****May not assume that the party won't decide wholesale that this is a much more profitable venture than their other life and death quests are.

*May no longer have the Identify spell need the wizard to drink a whole bottle of wine with each casting.

[noob]

*"Did I ever tell you about the time I killed a dragon?" should not have a different story every time.

** Even if each story is true.
*** If you killed so many dragons you can tell a different dragon killing story at each time maybe you should actually start investing in dragon slaying equipment instead of always killing dragons in varied ways with random household equipment.
**** No you can not have masterwork sunglasses of dragon slaying especially if you use them by bashing the dragons with the glasses.

[Guizonde]

*despite goats being extreme omnivores, i may not let the rest of the party encourage my automatic combat goat to litterally chew the scenery.
**i guess i'm now allowed to have an automatic combat goat. (FINALLY)
***automatic combat goats do not go "bah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah".
****they go "buuuuuuuuuuurp" while spitting bullets and chunks of the scenery, apparently.

[Rater202]

*I cannot replicate the existence of dracopyres in any setting.

[vasilidor]

As a GM, I am not allowed to put anti-matter within reach of the party. within reach of their weapon ranges count as too close.

As a GM, I am not allowed to have more than five villainous schemes running at the same time. Especially if two of them are David Xanatos from different dimensions playing cosmic chess against each other.
As a GM, if I pitch a campaign about busting ghost as ghostbusters, I should probably have more actual ghost busting in the game than fighting aliens and international criminal schemes.

[Rater202]

*In the future, I should make sure I have potential players before trying to start a game.

[BlueHamsterBean]

*May not use my character’s skills as an alchemist and real life know how to attempt to make chlorine trifluoride in a fantasy setting.
**May not be put off when the GM says the damage would be typed as fire, poison, or acid, and would be resisted by a lot of the things it might burn in the real world.
***May not point out how ridiculous it is to have a generic “poison” damage type (it’s an abstraction).
****May not ask whether fire damage refers to damage from heat or damage caused by a material rapidly oxidizing.
***** ”Fire” damage is also an abstraction: roll with it.
******No more trying to apply real life physics and chemistry to fantasy settings: it causes too many headaches.

[danielxcutter]

I’m pretty sure acid would be the closest approximation for damage type.

[BlueHamsterBean]

I’m pretty sure acid would be the closest approximation for damage type.

I can see how that could work.

It still feels like kind of a mix of all three though from what I’ve read: it disintegrates the material by oxidation (acid, though redox processes are distinct from acid base reactions), generates heat (fire), and creates a lot of hydrofluoric acid (acid and poison: that stuff is nasty...).

Maybe it could cause ongoing damage of each type? Or maybe I’m just overthinking this.

*May not ask what kind of poison is in the generic poison vials we buy.
**May not point out that the GM’s description of the poison’s effect upon administration to skin is closer to that of a strong base.
***Stop overthinking the chemistry of fantasy worlds!

[Rater202]

May not take notes while listening to Acquisitions Incorporated.

[Drakeburn]

* I shouldn't start campaigns when I don't have anything prepared. Making things up on the fly isn't my strong suit apparently.
** No, a Quick Start Character Generator alone doesn't make up for the lack of prepared encounters or plot.
*** Having the first encounter ready and written out while hoping to fill in the rest of the campaign (or at least the next encounter) before the encounter is over doesn't work.
**** Having the first two encounters ready and written out while hoping to finish making the next adventure doesn't work either.

* I should not have boss fights for the first encounter of almost every game I run.
** I shouldn't justify this with the fact that the PCs can take out my boss encounters within 3 or less rounds of combat.
*** I should probably break the habit of having every boss a mindless monster that can't be reasoned with.

[Man on Fire]

* If the GM told us last session we didn't derail his campaign enteirly, this is not a challenge.
** Just because an NPC that basically our Ganbdalf is manipulative, controlling jerk and clearly trying to indoctrinate one of PCs little sister doesn't give any ouf us permission to stab her in front of her entire entourage of loyal supporters
*** If a PC talks the NPC out of killing a PC who just stabbed said NPC and instead just curse her, not allowed to threaten to put an arrow through said NPC's head if she proceeds with the cursing.
**** Realizing an NPC in question is determined to convince everyone she mad a right choice is not a sign to try to escalate the whole thing.
** If one of PCs spent whole session hugging her dog and hiding behind her wagon that is a sign we have crossed the point when this all should stop.
*** If said PC is quietly preparing her wagon to just ride away from here, this does not mean we should try a daring escape to hop onto her wagon.
**** Especially not if we didn't notice when she told us she is driving away 10 minutes ago.
***** Said daring escape should not consist of party slowly dragging unconcious body of the unconcious and one traumatized child NPC to where they think the wagon is, while every NPC gangs on us.
** Not allowed to traumatize children by showing them severed body parts of their parents sent to us as a threat from the mob.
** Abhorring violence so much you are threatening to kill people who do violence makes no sense.
*** A sentence "when was my character ever acting logical?" must never be said by any of the players.