I've been playing for about 3 years with this guy on my group. He's a very nice and encouraging person and I actually appreciate him as an individual; however I just can't come to enjoy his presence as a Player.  His characters make me feel quite uncomfortable, since he always makes them way too virtuous and likes to steal the scene. His characters are either made to "troll" or lecture villains, and are also made without a trace of negative traits; they're shining examples which can get very obnoxious since he just likes to think about them as undefeated heroes, and gets quite upset when a monster or villain stomp on him...  I actually think I make my best effort to kill his characters and render them useless, since he often outshines the rest of my players and talking to him isn't working. He likes to aid the party members, but takes every chance to lecture them or make a display of heroism and concern so he can steal the spotlight and start talking.  All of us, the remaining 4 (including me) on the table dislike this, however none of us want to kick him out not only because he's a good friend, but because we had an incredibly hard time getting together to roleplay since we're not on a country in which roleplaying is even remotely popular, specially with our favorite system (Anima: Beyond Fantasy).  We agreed to talk to him, TWO TIMES, but twice, my players shied away and I was left alone to talk to him without results.  This guy wants to have a one player role playing game with him, and I don't know what to do. I haven't played in a while and I'm craving to do so, however I don't know how to actually like the characters he makes.
124242
In my time as a GM, I've always hated stuff such as magic items, artifacts, etc; even as a player, I dislike the feeling of becoming "too cool" for the game world in question.   However, I have a player that just likes coolness and is always expecting to find magic items, artifacts, and gain cool abilities. He isn't a "Power Gamer" per-se, since he favors roleplaying and getting whatever fits his "style" instead of the most damaging stuff, however I feel he always wants to be the coolest of the group.  Playing D&amp;D for example, he had a Monk, and he wanted to have a magical gourd of liquor that lets him spit a fire cone, and he ALSO wanted Wukong's Magical Cloud, and ALSO wanted to be the best friend and disciple of the god Korada from PF and pretty much "dedicate" a whole adventure arc on it.  Playing Pokemon Tabletop Untied, he's been desperately looking for a way to be able to have A LOT of combats mounted on his dragon Pokemons, I haven't, but he's always making comments on the subject, and he wants to be surrounded by said scenes of aerial badassery and combat.  On Savage Worlds, he made a character with "Weird Science" that can summon swords from books (LOTR, Narnia, etc), but he wants to make the game go long enough so he can have the 49 swords he imagined, he gave me the list, and usually takes forever to describe his actions with such swords even tho the resolution of said is simple.  Players haven't complaied about it, but I just dislike the fact he wants to be the coolest guy on town every time, and that he centers his characters on the concept "be as cool as I can", specially since he makes them in such way they're moraly "perfect" and have no exploitable negative attitudes, heck, even with SW Hindrance system he picks Hindrances that make him look like a perfect, flawless individual like "Loyal" or "Quirk: Too Heroic".  I don't want to shoo him from my table, because he's one of my best friends, I just wanna deal with this.
90229
A player left my group recently. It was mutual and not-unexpected, and during the last session, the character left for an unspecified purpose.  The character (lawful-good wizard) who left had a few magic items:   A powerful necromantic artifact. An evil necromancer's spellbook. Miscellaneous scrolls &amp; potions   These items were not an integral part of the story, and I feel OK letting them disappear together with the character. Since the player was a little problematic, I don't want the focus of the next sessions to deal with his character - I would like the spotlight to be on the players who remain.  However, It seems my players feel they are missing out on the monetary value of these items and wish to sell them to the highest bidder.  I would love some advice on how to handle the wizard's inventory and some generic advice on how such cases are usually handled in-game.
82987
I'm DM'ing a play-by-post campaign and I'm at a point in the adventure where the group all meets for the first time. They've all had something stolen from them at the same time and saw a creature that took something run into a nearby alley (there's three separate parties within the play group currently, as they've only just started, so there's three separate robbers running into alleys in the marketplace).  Ideally, I want the players to have their PCs all give chase so they end up in the same part of town, all looking for the same thing. However, I don't want to railroad my players into doing this. I know I'm not supposed to take away player agency or narrate their actions for them, but the only way I could think of was to tell them that they start giving chase.  So how would you deal with this situation? And more broadly, how can I stop something like this happening again?  If it matters, we're currently playing D&amp;D 5e.
96249
While I've been running my campaign, I'm starting to get stumped. I am playing with a party of four, and we recently switched from 3.5 to Pathfinder, but the problem was the same in both situations.  No matter what I throw at the party, they seem to have no problems. Even if I put them up against something that is supposed to be 'Epic' or 'overwhelming' in terms of CR, they make out just fine. The one exception to this is when I had several encounters in one day that taxed them to near death. Usually I have about two encounters a day, but that day I had four encounters, with two of them being APL+1 and the other two being APL+2, and that was challenging. But other than that nothing seems to faze them!  How can I make the game more challenging without making it harder?  Just for reference, the party is fairly standard, and low level (level 4):   Wizard (tends to resort to mind-affecting spells, or grease if the creature is immune) Cleric (heals a lot, but always has spells / healing left over) Rogue (sneak attack, of course, which is more potent in Pathfinder) Fighter (gets enlarged and in-charge'd)
36561
I'm going to be hosting a game at the end of the month. Myself, I am a semi-experienced DM but I will be playing with those who know only the basic mechanics of the game or have never roleplayed before. The group will consist of my wife, myself and three friends. My friends don't really know my wife as well as I do, which makes me think things might be tricky if we're going to be playing a role playing game.   Is there anything I can do to provoke role playing in the PCs (Such as making loose rules about it)? How can you encourage improvisation and in-character actions for newbies?
83279
Whenever I'm running or playing a game, I consistently run into an issue of setting atmosphere. I've realized the best way to do this is through more effective, engaging descriptions of settings, actions, and objects that the characters see and feel.  As a player, I feel that my actions are generally "I attack the goblin," or some variation thereof, but I'm afraid that I'll stumble over my words and further confuse the other players and I'll resort to "I attack the goblin" as to not drag the game out longer.  As a DM, my issue tends to be more with setting atmosphere with settings, locations, and objects. Effectively, the flavor texts that comes with walking into some amazing location that the characters (not necessarily the players) should be suitably impressed by. My goal here is to engage the players with some degree of spectacle, and be more inquisitive in their environment and whatever lies within it.  How can I create more descriptive, concise flavor text for the games I play in?
60271
Everyone in this story works mostly together. Some work friends and my wife were talking about playing D&amp;D, and I was appointed the DM. I've played the game once 20 years ago, so I've spent the past few months buying the resources and learning as much as I can about the game so I can make it as enjoyable for then as possible, we are yet to have our first session.  But to make it easier so I don't have to teach them literally everything I asked them to read the Basic Rules so they have some idea of what they are in for and the expectations of them and me are.  But they came back with "its too hard to read it, I learn by doing, that's what we have you for".  I'm super pissed by this, I've spent so much time and effort learning this game and they can't be bothered to put any effort in.  My question is should I let them know how much it's annoyed me, and reiterate they need to know stuff, or just ignore it and carry on?
23038
Game is DnD 3.5, not that it matters.   So, yeah, she is playing an Elf Rogue and she is like a ghost during the game.   In the last session, the party was searching for a guy and some Halfling told them that they can meet at midnight and he will take them to this guy. They went to the tavern and waited until it's midnight. The Ranger went early and climbed a tall building to check the surroundings. Wizard and Druid went to the meeting point, and when I asked Rogue what she wanted to do, she said "I go to sleep". I was like "Okay, you go to sleep" and then she literally went to sleep. LARPing at it's finest.  It happened one more time too. There was a lot of talking going on for some time, with PCs tying up two suspected Necromancers and trying to figure out who was the bad guy, and she just went to sleep.  While talking on our Whatsapp group, I was telling the players that I thought of something new. After each session, every player will award someone XP for good roleplaying, being active, etc. And I joked about trying not to award those who fall asleep during play. She suddenly got sensitive about my joke. Anyway, after that, I told the group to throw the old character sheets to garbage because there was a lot of stuff to update. and she said "I don't want XP. I'm sleeping during play anyway. I also lost my old character sheet."  Even when she plays, she is pretty much disinterested all the time. During combat, when she rolls one or two bad attack rolls, she is like "Well, I can't hit anyone anyway" and it's like we almost force her to roll the die. Then she starts playing with her phone while others make their move.  That's pretty much it. She still cares to come to the sessions at least. I'm setting up a quest about her character's background. If that doesn't work, I don't know what else I can do. I don't want to kick her out of the group but things are going in that way. It just downs everyone else in the group and kills the mood.  So, how do engage an uninterested player? If all fails, how do you deal with her?
24528
What are some strategies and techniques for role playing a character that is more intelligent than you actually are? It's pretty easy to pretend to be someone who is less intelligent, but the reverse seems very difficult.
84591
I'm sad to say that I have absolutely no friends who would like to play D&amp;D with me however I would love to play. I know about Neverwinter Nights and I've played quite a bit of it, but I'm looking for more of the pen &amp; paper experience.  Is this even possible?
80719
I'm playing in the Paizo Pathfinder Jade Regent adventure path and we're having a good time so far (). However, as my character has gone up in power I'm now confronting a problem with him being just too effective.  As background, I'm not a big character optimizer, in fact I find the process a little distasteful.  I'm playing a samurai and deliberately built him as a switch hitter, both melee and archery, specifically to avoid min-max syndrome.  However, a combination of just being a strong class and good treasure has made him seem almost too good especially in the arena of dealing damage.  Why do I feel that way?  Well, as an example, last session, we knew some master ninja guy was hunting us. And sure enough, he was posing as some normal guy and got in a death attack on me.  He did a crapload of damage but I made the death save and he leapt away to disappear into the crowd.  I quickdrew my bow and put something on the order of 100 points of damage into him and down he went, encounter over. Which sucked from a dramatic point of view, this was supposed to be a really complex capstone encounter. The rest of the players groused a bit, though several did the calculation and realized that in optimal conditions they could deal out a hellacious amount of damage in a round too, so I wasn't an order of magnitude out of line (after review the other PCs are probably able to deal 30% less damage per round than I am under similar conditions), but still, I don't want to overshadow other PCs (or, frankly, our opposition!).   . I was a bow/sword switch hitter but then we got  - which turned a full bow attack with multishot, deadly aim, rapid shot, point blank shot, and the most common round 1 buffs from my party (haste and bard song) into +20(x2)/+20/+20/+15/+10 for 1d8+29 points of damage per arrow.  I think it's worthwhile talking about this problem from a system-neutral perspective; Pathfinder specific thoughts are fine but I can toss the bow, take crap feats next level, etc. without your help.  I've asked a separate question about the system issue,  The real question here is if I have a character that does or seems to outstrip the other characters in terms of effectiveness, how can I adjust to at least mitigate the resulting problems (over and done encounters, PC envy)?  For an example of an adjustment I already made, back when I only got challenge with my katana, I RPed not wanting to use the katana/challenge on "unworthy" opponents so I could shoot mooks and then just use the big damage on main bosses... But now we've grown past where that helps.
90627
Forgive me for not being good at game terminology, but there is one concept that I simply have been unable to fully grasp after reading the core rulebook.  In the book, there are mentions of Character Level, Class Level and Level (just being mentioned as level or "your" level).  Are we talking character level or class level when I'm asked "What's your level?"  Could anyone make a solid explanation that I can remember? The rest of my party are rules- and character-building nuts, and they often get sidetracked with potential combinations when trying to explain even simple things.
91711
Last session, my DM made me roll a Deception check against another player. I failed the roll, and as a result I was forced to reply a specific way and reveal information I otherwise wouldn't have revealed to the other player.  Now I know player-vs-player social dice checks aren't a thing and players aren't supposed to roll against each other because that takes away the players' choice and autonomy. I rolled it once because I am of the view that you roll with the punches during the game and air out any issues that you have after the session.   I confronted the DM about this, saying I was under no obligation to obey any social checks that he demanded I make against other players. As even :     There are three skills in the game that pertain to social interaction, especially when you're dealing with non-player characters. There's the persuasion skill, the deception skill, and the intimidation skill. I often get asked, are these skills meant to be used against player characters? And honestly they're not, because so much of how a player character talks and feels is really just up to the player's decision. We don't want dice to override the characterization that a player is bringing to their character. So these skills are mostly intended to be used on non-player characters, whether by player characters or by other NPCs   (Emphasis mine.)  So I told him that in the future, I will not obey any social checks of this nature that he wants me to make against player characters, as that’s going against the core principles of D&amp;D.   He then said that I do not have to do so, but then I will just auto-fail the check. He didn't expand on what would happen if I "auto-fail".   Is a DM allowed to force a player to make social checks against other player characters? If the player fails, are they mandated to respond how the DM says they must?
18429
I am the DM for a group of players, 4 of which are very new to the game, and one of which is a very experienced player.   I have run into a problem now where the experienced player is effectively trying to play everyone else's characters (telling them what they should be doing, getting frustrated when they don't do what he says, etc..). This player is also a massive rules lawyer, making it rather frustrating for me. He argues against rules he dislikes, and tries to get me to change rules unfavorable to him. Example: He got into a 10 minute argument trying to get me to change the damage vulnerabilities of animated rugs to include fire because he thought they should, and he was a fire elemental at the time.   Additionally, he continues to play optimized characters that make it difficult to form encounters of any kind, because if an encounter works against him, he complains about how I am "specifically trying to nerf his character because he knows how to play." Specifically, the optimized character issue is an Aarakokra druid. Flies above you, turns into an elephant. He complains when I put anything that can hit him when he's in air.   I have tried to talk to him about it, but he won't back down from his position, and I'm not sure what to do. I would respectfully ask him to leave, but I DM at an after-school intramural (high school) and I am unable to make him leave, because of the nature of school clubs. We are both students. We have a faculty advisor, but they don't understand the issue.  And everyone agreed to let me DM at the beginning because I was the only one with DM experience. We have run and enjoyed one campaign together already.  Anyone dealt with a similar situation and had a solution work for them?
37273
About two month ago I got interested in D&amp;D and I decided to start playing it. I read the rules, found an adventure and got four of my friends to play with me. They always show up to play and we have fun, but I think the game could be a lot better and fun than it currently is.  I think my main problem is that the players don't seem to care that much, mostly about RP. I know you shouldn't force RP, but they never ever speak in character (Instead they choose "I ask him if..." "I try to intimidate him..." and come up with the simplest stuff when I ask them what they're saying exactly).  They don't seem to take most of the NPCs, the world, or the challenges seriously, and they don't take initiative at all no matter how I try to make them. I have to ask "What do you do?" every 5 minutes, and most of the time they say they don't know or very vague stuff, like they just wanna get the story going.    It annoys me because I like DMing, but I would also really like to be a player so I could immerse myself in the world and RP.  My players, on the other hand, don't seem interested in that, and so the only moments where anything seems to be happening are during fights.  Another problem I have is pacing. We play something like 2-3 hour sessions, and all we can do is a very tiny bit of roleplaying and at most 2 fights, or one fight and one skill challenge.    In the end I'm really frustrated, because the story doesn't move very quickly, the players don't seem to care that much about it anyway, I kinda have to hold their hands if I want something to happen, and while I was excited to roleplay with them and let them discover this awesome world that I created on my own, they don't really do that.  I really like them, they're my best friends, but sometimes it's really unsatisfying to play with them.  However, they're the only players I've got.    Oh and one last thing which may be one of the causes of the problem:  we play on Roll20, not IRL, so sometimes they just mess up with the drawing tool and sometimes they just don't answer and are kinda lost.
25160
I have had problems in the past with players who are serial character creators. What I'm referring to are the players who cannot seem to stick with a character more than two sessions at a time without finding endless reason to complain about, dislike, or grow bored with their current character.  I'm guessing the common causes are boredom, dissatisfaction, or simply a short attention span. The effects, thus far, have been players never connecting with the other players or their characters because they know the player will stop caring after a few session or will switch; and it leaves me not wanting to bother creating plotlines for them.  So what are some solutions or compromises that could be proposed to such a player?
123130
Basically, my character would be evil in secret until she could do a huge emotional betrayal and try to kill everyone. I'd have to lie to my friends and make up two separate character sheets if I did this - after all, even the least metagame-y people would change their reactions slightly if they knew one of their fellow travelers was evil. But it would be for the sake of the most epic betrayal ever and I'm pretty sure they would appreciate the cunning of it once they found out.   Is secretly playing an evil character against D&amp;D etiquette?  Are there other ways to play an evil character in a good campaign, to avoid metagaming by the other players?