RPGMemes

How can you say that about Emily? Ali Beardsley makes the GM cuss at least as often. :)

It's not always bad when your GM says "Fuck you." Sometimes we say it because you just skipped to the end of the mystery that was supposed to last a few more sessions, sometimes it's because you use the spells I just gave you to kill my big-bad.

Mostly it's beautiful, because you did something I wasn't expecting and now I get to work around it in real time. It's not truly a collaborative story until you are making my life as the narrator hard, otherwise I'm just telling you a story on rails.

I prefer to get the DM to laugh and/or this:

I once knew a munchkin who literally had the GM say to them exasperatedly something like "Fine, you win!". The munchkin naturally replies with "But, you can't win at D&D", to which the GM just said "And congrats, you managed it anyway.", at which point the GM ended the campaign.

Unpopular opinion maybe, but the take on being "I made a thing" narrator and a "I'll break your thing" player feels like missing the point to me. I mean, you can build that dynamic and have fun if that's what you're into, but it is still collaborative, just that the narrator pretends to be challenged. In most ttrpgs, the narrator has almost complete control over the game. You can try to "compete" but it is never a real match, as the narrator can make your character/s disappear in an instant if she/he/they want. So this supposed pissing contest is really more like a dad playing pretend like he got bested by his kids in a fight. Which shows that this was never the point.

What to me really makes it work is setting up scenarios with a lot of input from the players and seeing the game unfold wherever they might take it. The narrator is given that power precisely because it should try to avoid controlling the story as much as it can, and instead interpret the world around the players (as if the world is the character the narrator controls) to develop surprising and captivating situations and events that play off of everyone at the table.

Also related, "Dungeon master" sounds outdated, as it points to a person that controls a 1 vs many boardgames like Descent, Mansions of Madness or Imperial Assault. Which is why the collaborative storytelling is, to me, what sets it apart from other games. One can definitely have competitive storytelling (Everyone is John), but lets not kid ourselves thinking that's what goes on in most ttrpg games being played.

I ran a cyberpunk red campaign as the GM. I set up a storyline where the group was captured by Arasaka using an experimental “flashbang” that would shut down anyone with neural implants (the whole group). The dumbest of my group attempted to escape that. He rolled a nat 20 and I had him literally commit ego death inside his mind to “wake up.” Inside the AV they were all trapped in was my version of the head of arasaka security. Basically an undefeatable t-1000.

He rolled a nat 20 again and woke everyone on the av up with advantage. Then the fucking rockerboy convinced the head of security to save him rolling his own nat 20 while the others worked to override/crash the AV before it could land at arasaka

So I ended up having the rockerboy being wrapped in a big hug by the head of security and jumping out as the av crashed (the tech lowered the speed). So the rockerboy survived with like no damage, the head of arasaka security was fucked up, the team survived, and never made it to the entire narrative I had planned.

10/10 would GM again

We found it! The type of player I would never want to play a ttrpg with. 😐

Sure, throwing away 40+ hours of work because one player chose to go completely off rail is fun once or twice, but it gets old really really fast. Nowadays I run my games on a pretty rigid railroad. At the end of the session I ask my players what they would like to do and that's what I'm preparing. Sure, there's some wiggle room, but if you decide to do something completely different, there's a pretty big chance it will result in character death.

I've been working my way through NADDPOD, and there was a great session where

NADDPOD

the party is in an airship being chased by Knights of Hell riding Nightmares. Axford polymorphed the Duke of Hell's steed into a dolphin and they fall out of the sky.

The GM is laughing, but musing that this was supposed to be a big fight and Emily just dinked it.

Another player comforts him with, you forgot wizards are bullshit.

It was such a great session. It really emblemizes how I try to approach being a GM. Have a prepared roadmap, but have space around the road for the characters to take a roadrally off-road.

I became a much better player after I DM'd.

It taught me that it is possible to thread the needle and do both.

last time I played I assassinated the main antag the DM spent weeks on. had maps, quests, characters, back story, etc.

the character was really rude and antagonizing towards me because I had the audacity to tell him to stop attacking the nearby village. just having a chat...pulled out my dagger and stabbed his bitch ass face without warning. before I rolled the DM asked, "are you sure? he's pretty high level." I rolled just high enough and dropped him inside his cottage door.

the DM just sighed, defeated and started calculating exp. We didn't even know who he was until we saw how much exp we were getting.

I felt really bad for the DM. he was really good at it for being so new. I didn't go back after because I felt I ruined the fun for everyone else.

I generally play chaotic good and absolutely lose my fucking shit to evil characters. I'm drawn to them like catnip. this wasn't the first time I ruined a campaign like this.

one time I "accidentally" burned a village down that was home to the only living heir to the kingdom we were hired to find. well, we found him. extra crispy. long story on how the village was set ablaze...

Got to play again the other night for the first time in like 15 years and there were several "I'll allow it" statements made. Fun night.

I mean there's the other approach, had the GM tell us that he didn't do as much prep as he hoped but game was still on.

My response "I'll do my best to be inefficient"

Then again the character I'm playing is with a group I've played with for years, and I sat down with them before it started with "I'm about to play possibly my most irritating character concept and I want everyone on board before I finalize."

I like to imagine doing that but doing it is just shitty and unnecessary, and probably not fun ...

Set wide goals, expect mayhem, have fun. Anything more than this is wishful thinking.

DnD is no more just dungeons and dragons. The moment it becomes an open world, the players roam around and do mischief.

If you want to play out your dream campaingn, write a book. It will never play as you expect or want. Unless you have the play fully scripted, with fixed roles and outcomes, it will derail.

You're welcome to down vote to your content.