Chebucto Regional Softball Club

If you don't want the players to know the cliché weakness so badly, why don't you make up another monster instead of troll? Just sidestep the whole problem. It's not Troll Canyon. It's Grall Canyon. What the fuck are Gralls? No idea but they sound nasty. Because clearly, some players are going to balk at "you want us to forget this well known fantasy cliché?". And it doesn't matter if you think their playstyle is stupid. It's a game. People are trying to have fun.

> Like I think stealth rolls should be hidden. You shouldn’t have an idea that you’re not hiding well. I don't have the players actually make the stealth roll until something opposes it. They're doing the best they can. Here comes the guard. Roll, please.

> Plenty of systems have something for that, often with a variety of options. I believe 5e has a similar rule, but it seems rare for players to have actually read the rules. I don't think D&D is especially detailed about this, but I don't know where the book is to check. I don't think they give DCs, where I wouldn't be surprised if Pathfinder 2e had a simple "target number is 8 + the creature's HD" formula with guidance on what to do for the range of possible outcomes.

I feel like sometimes people refuse to "meta game" in a way that is also metagaming, except targeting bad outcomes instead of good. Like your characters live in a world with trolls. They're not a secret. Choosing to intentionally avoid fire because "that's metagaming" is also metagaming. You're using your out of character knowledge (fire is effective) and then avoiding it. Usually cleared up with a "hey dm, what are common knowledge and myths about this stuff? or whatever.

> Find people that want to play, there’s more than you can think. Something I learned a long time ago is it's easier to find people who want to play D&D (or whatever game) and make friends with them than it is to make your friends play D&D. There's probably a nicer way to put this, but frankly most people are a fucking mess. And who can blame them? This is a capitalist hellscape. But that means if you're semi randomly selecting people, you're going to get a lot of people who are barely holding on, and won't make fantasy elf time a priority.. Some of them might sincerely want to play, and overestimate their energy levels. Other people are terrified of confrontation, and will say yes even when they absolutely do not want to do that. But if you go the other way around, and find folks that seem friendly at a meetup or whatever for RPGs, they're more likely to show up. They already put in effort and showed up somewhere.

The fighter in my story is the rogue in your story? That makes sense.

That doesn't seem like the same thing at all. Can you elaborate?

Hah, I should have. I do remember letting him search first once and being petty about it. "Oh, you got a 12? A whole *twelve*? Woowwwww. I'm going to *take 10* and get a, let's see- **twenty-two**. Would be a *27* if only I had some sort of magical equipment boost" (For those of you who don't remember, "take 10" was a 3e rule where you can opt to treat the roll as if you'd rolled a 10, so long as you're in immediate danger. https://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm )

Years ago I kept having this argument with the party fighter. I was playing a rogue. He had some sort of magical lens with a bonus to find traps. I was like, "let me use that so I can find traps better. You can't even find traps with a DC above 20, rules as written. That's a rogue class feature. With the lens I'd be getting like 27 if I take 10." He was like "no. It's mine. I found it." Like, my guy. We're all in danger if we don't find the traps. You don't see me holding onto armor I can't use.

In the same sense of wanting to go to the gym can be solved by watching videos of working out, or wanting to take up weaving can be satisfied by watching other people weaving. It may be enough for some people but it's not really the same thing.

I feel like a common problem is people say they want to play D&D, but in the same way that people say they want to go to the gym, or take up weaving, or whatever. A lot of people are really bad at honestly, accurately, evaluating their future self's energy level and interest. There's also people who say they'd totally like to join their D&D game, but they don't really. They're just afraid of conflict or hurting your feelings. There's this thing some people do where they try to spare someone's feelings by being a little dishonest, and end up causing a lot more problems. I would so much rather someone just say to my face "I don't want to play D&D" than "oh yeah that sounds fun" and then they keep having scheduling conflicts or flake or ghost. So yeah, I don't know. Some people are just a mess.

I would be okay with a ban on AI generated content. At the very least, I request a disclosure on any AI content. So like, if you make a little RPG yourself and used some AI tool to make the art, you are required to disclose that. Likewise, if the flavor text for some of your game came from an AI, would-be consumers should be alerted. Heck, if it was used in the editing phase put that in the ai disclosure blurb.

Foreshadowing is a pretty effective tool, yeah. Ideally when the thing happens, whatever it is, the players go "oh that makes sense."

> I’m pretty sure loads of other classes have alignment restrictions - notably clerics and paladins I remember my D&D 3.x DM insisting we follow RAW, so if I wanted to take levels in assassin (who else remembers prestige classes?) then I **had** to be evil. 3 players went along, and the druid betrayed us to the "good" guys. Had a massive brawl where we (team evil) won, thanks in part to a hail mary "I run around the corner and hide. That's.. a natural 20 for 37" the betraying druid player couldn't beat.

The class fantasy never appealed to me. They can be powerful, but I don't have any real interest in being a dirt wizard or turning into animals. More of a rogue guy, or arcane caster if I can get over spells-per-day being my anathema.

If I ever play D&D again, I think I'm going to spend a lot of time in session 0 getting on the same page about if we're playing D&D as a resource management game, or as a wacky hijinks game. So many people want to play the latter, but expect a long rest to be as easy as it is in video games. "I'm out of spells! Can we long rest?" "You're out of spells after casting nearly every single round of combat in the past 3 fights, and you want to chill out for 8 to 16 hours here, in the court of the evil duke's castle, while he's working on a ritual to summon a demon lord in a few hours?" I mean, I kind of get it. The game is set up so you have all these cool toys. Of course you want to *use* them. That conflict is why I dislike per-day resources.

I feel like alignment hasn't really been a thing in DND for more than a decade, but there's a steady supply of people who only "know" DND from memes keeping the idea alive. I mean, have fun with it, but it's very "how do you do fellow kids" sometimes.

What is half the value of "a leather jerkin, soaked and blood and gut-juice, with two arrow sized holes and one axe sized hole"? Zero? Or perhaps a negative value because having it makes the owner look guilty of murder? I think I had a dm once say like "the armor didn't work for the last bloke, why would I want it?"

I bet someone has compiled a list of common video game tropes people try to bring into tabletop games. "Expecting a merchant to buy the blood soaked armor without questions" would definitely be on there.

Does anyone else reflexively recoil from videos with that kind of thumbnail? This could be the best game in the world and that kind of stupid face and hyperbolic text sends it right to my brain's spam folder.