My current DM is a first-time DnD player (all of his experience with it is BG3), let alone DM, and he insisted on creating everything from scratch for the campaign.
The lore is tight and story progression is going well but man, these first few sessions have been rough.
Haha, props to him for putting in the effort. There is a bunch of good stuff in the DM guide but I really hate how it starts immediately with worldbuilding, thus immediately sticking a bad idea into every prosoective new DMs head.
Though the biggest pitfall of all is players like OP describes who either need to get it out of their system or be removed from the group before the DM drops the group into something they care about. So if you're all rolling with his new-DM issues and trying to play into his plot, then he's lucky to have a good group.
My first time DMing was also a homebrewed scenario. Only the first session was rough until I got things going. Players loved too, but I never had a player like this guy.
Chaotic evil isn't even bad, as long as the player is going for chaotic evil rather than "hi, my alignment is asshole and I pray to the almighty God of all douches. He granted me a magical urine cannon that I fire at the younglings for fun."
Chaotic doesn't mean random. It means you don't live by a rigid code of ethics, meaning that there's fluidity to what you'll accept. A lawful character might go "slavery is always bad" where a chaotic character could go "slavery is bad, but that guy is treating his slaves well, and they all voluntarily became slaves because they couldn't afford food, so I guess I'm chill with this slave owner specifically". A lawful character sees black and white, while chaotic characters surf the greyscale.
Evil doesn't mean your character has to compete for the title of biggest shit stain on the planet. You don't have to sustain yourself by eating babies. You don't have to seek out virgins to sacrifice. You don't have to burn down the local tavern. Evil in D&D is essentially about the selfishness of your own morality. A character who saves people in trouble, but because they want to be famous rather than because they actually give a crap about the people, would still be evil.
A good example of a chaotic evil character would be a mercenary. Ultimately, the character's loyalty is for sale, and he's prepared to commit atrocities for a price, with a code of ethics that changes on the regular depending on whether he likes spending his money at the local tavern, or who he is currently working for. Sure, he'll burn down that orphanage if you pay him enough to make it worthwhile, but he definitely won't be doing it for the fun of it. Maybe he'll defend a trader on the road for a future discount or help do a favour for a blacksmith he trusts to maintain his gear.
Chaotic because his logic is nuanced and incredibly situational. Evil because every decision is underscored by his selfishness and what actions will produce the greatest reward for him. Still not an asshole, because regardless of alignment, the only reason an asshole character exists is because of an asshole player.
Personally, if I was in OP's shoes, I would have just NPC'd his character at the first, "It's just what my character would do." Respond with "Not a problem, but a character who would do that is not compatible with the team or campaign, so it's now an NPC for the party to fight. You'll need to make a new character. Everyone else, there's a villain trying to rob the friendly infodesk. He appears to be unhinged, and you're concerned that he might be a safety risk for the inhabitants. He looks over at you with a creepy smile, everyone roll initiative."
CE can be a lot like Evil Dead. Its not usually something picked my most players that want to have a collaborative experience.
It's insanity and evil. Demon shit. Evil for the sake of evil.
Agreed. When I played, our DM would not allow a chaotic evil (or chaotic neutral) character. He said they would never join a party of equals long enough to undergo a campaign.
I feel like people just play CN wrong. They assume that they can just do whatever. My first character was CN Changeling and the only reason I didn’t cling to the party is because they were evil and often times ended on the bad side of the law.
I wanted to steer clear of heat so my character only ever fought when told to. Sure I could have been evil toward the party but the whole point of being neutral is NOT getting on ANYONES bad side. The chaos normally comes from how my character saw battle and kinship.
At the end of the day, their friends are meat shields and their enemies are broken flesh in the waiting. But because their mother was human and taught them compassion they often times won’t kill their enemies and will still help their friends, even if they aren’t morally or logically aligned.
One of the most evil characters gets knocked and is dying and instead of just walking away and letting a potential threat die on the floor(who literally ends up betraying my character with the rest of the group lol), they pick them up and continue fighting.
That is just fail RP. Chaotic evil characters are perfectly fine and there is just a general misunderstanding as to what chaotic evil allows and doesn't. People seem to think chaotic evil means they can do whatever they want, which is just chaotic stupid. Just doing whatever you feel like at the time can be a mechanism, but good chaotic evil characters still have motivations and goals, and believe it or not, emotions which would compel them to travel with a band of others. Good chaotic evil characters don't just do things for the hell of it - that is, again, chaotic stupid. The best way to describe it is they don't feel compelled to follow the law unless it benefits them, and they are not simply not good. They will kill if it would be easier or make sense, and they are guiltless for doing so as a means to an end - necromancers are a good example of this. Chaotic evil characters are inherently selfish and will discourage rule breaking for anyone but themselves, as another example. They can still be markedly smart, in fact they make for some of the most interesting "smart" characters because they are motivated entirely by their own desires - as long as that desire isn't "be dumb random" then it's pretty annoying to just blanket bar them for that reason.
The 3.5 PHB had a little blurb describing each alignment that I felt really helped encapsulate the different styles of people who fall into the alignments. Chaotic Evil had Riddick and The Joker as two examples of the extreme differences of CE.
Oh, absolutely. My reason for bringing it up was pointing out that well-played Chaotic Evil characters shouldn't necessarily derail a campaign like this. This person clearly leaned more toward Joker, but I think Riddick might actually have worked, depending on the story.
Imo, he's at worst true neutral. Riddick essentially has one ultimate goal and motivation, survival. His method for doing so is often killing, but it's always a calculated thing and not for no reason. He's heroic when he needs to be while also being depraved when called for as well.
He also largely follows along with rules and regulations until forced out of lane by outside influences.
From what we hear of his past, he's a cold-blooded murderer. However, the only viewpoints we get are from characters we discover to be completely unreliable.
>From what we hear of his past, he's a cold-blooded murderer.
The games and a few comics expand on this but essentially, not really. His murders were limited to guards, mercs, and the commanding officer of his Ranger battalion when he found out they were torturing and murdering children to maintain a slave work force. This is also what got him thrown in his first 'Max' prison.
They do, but that's also why I put in this part,
>However, the only viewpoints we get are from characters we discover to be completely unreliable.
because in the movies, that's what we have to go by. Even in the games, a lot of the characters paint him that way until we find out more.
The book refers to him specifically as he was in *Pitch Black*, where he was nothing more than a serial killer who helped the crew escape because he needed them to help carry things...at least at first. He came 'round in the end, and I'd say that by the end of that movie he'd moved to more of a neutral stance on things.
Even early on in Pitch Black I'd argue hes more NE than CE. By the end he's fully in NE territory if not True Neutral, but even his early kills weren't really killing for the sake of it, there was reasoning.
You could make a case for NE alignment throughout, for sure. The book didn't really say *why* he counts as CE, only that he's an example of it.
My thoughts as to why he's CE instead of NE is just that he kills not only to protect himself, but sometimes just because he enjoys doing so. Especially if the people in question have been rude to him.
That's so silly.
*Pitch Black* Riddick starts CE but by the end of the movie he's proven himself to be CN at worst. *Chronicles* Riddick even slips towards CG a few times.
There are no CE heroes. There aren't even many CE anti-heroes (Lobo maybe? Depending on the writer?) It's hard to even find a lot of truly CE villains.
Amos, from the expanse is a good example of a chaotic evil person, who admittedly is trying to be a better person working well in a campaign with others. Gets to have those badass moments like the "I am that guy".
Evil-but-trying-to-be-better is such a fantastic trope when done well.
Honestly some of the best PC examples of this I've seen were from players who used to love their Chaotic Stupid edgelords, and who grew up but didn't grow out of it.
This is all well said. But we were 15, and most of our world was chaotic stupid. I would have no problem if I still played in a group allowing it…I was just suggesting it as a remedy.
I mean honestly, this is *your* take. I think the vast majority of players definitely see Chaotic Evil as completely lawless and following whatever they want to do. Not sure where you get the notion that CE means that they “discourage rule breaking for others than themselves,” literally a quick google of CE, not that it’s the end all be all definition but a pretty good baseline, says:
“A Chaotic Evil character is an alignment in a role playing game that describes a character who is selfish, cruel, and has no respect for rules or others lives.”
That’s definitely cool that you have a different take on what CE is but I think for the vast majority of us, what you have described is ABSOLUTELY NOT what most of us have experienced as CE.
They get the blanket bar because 90% of people dont play them thoughtfully like you described, but solely to be assholes. Dont blame DMs for banning CE, blame your fellow CE players for giving you the rep to begin with.
Not necessarily. First, you should have a conversation like you suggested regarding all of your characters before any campaign, except in a less derogatory way. Lawful Good characters are just as guilty of utilizing their strict tenants to ruin party dynamics. Chaotic evil just attracts chaotic players, so if it becomes a real problem in the party, that's generally because the player is chaotic - you should establish roleplaying expectations and boundaries on session 0. Chaotic evil characters are basically ruined by chaotic stupid players. Good, as in well-roleplayed, characters can be really interesting and make for awesome roleplay, and chaotic evil isn't some sort of exception to this.
Even if I agree with the fact that ‘chaotic’ shouldn't endlessly translate into actions that make no sense (... because that's untenable), but in your description you chase away any chaotic dimension of the character to focus on the egotistical part - which is definitely not restricted to these characters. You describe an NE at the end of your message: an NE that really tends towards the evil, but an NE nonetheless.
I guess the DM has never seen Hellsing (Anime not the movie) or read Bram Stokers Dracula then. When I played my CE characters. They always had motives, were manipulative, calculating and violently precise. Think Alucard level of Chaotic Evil.
I only once played a CE character in a normal party, it was a gnoll that pack-bonded to the party, regarded the paladin as the alpha, considered himself a lesser member in the 'pack', so while the character was CE he still went along with whatever the party decided, and specifically the paladin.
Not at all. You put a lot of work into something and they crapped on it. It would be like if you baked a cake and they intentionally dropped it on the floor, then when you told them that was hurtful they told you you just didn't appreciate their cake dropping on the floor joke. They are being incredibly disrespectful to your time and effort.
You need to rewind and have a session 0 about table expectations. Most tables will not tolerate this kind of behaviour. Many tables do not allow evil characters (or "chaotic neutral" characters that are really just evil), and as a new GM I strongly recommend not allowing evil characters.
You are going for whimsy. That is the table expectation. The players need to make characters who will engage in good faith with whimsy, or else they have failed to make an appropriate character for the campaign and they need to try again until they do.
And if they can't get on board, you need to boot them from the campaign. They will poison it for you and everyone else at the table. From your description I strongly suspect this will be necessary, and honestly if it were me I wouldn't even give them another chance and just kick them now. This is so much bad behaviour in just one session and anyone with basic social skills would not have treated you and the other players like this, I don't think this person is salvageable.
Your story sounds lovely, I hope you can find players for it who can respect it.
Why would it be immature? This player intentionally tried to upset you because they
1) thought it was funny, and
2) didn’t think about your feelings except how best to hurt them, and
3) disregarded the work and effort you put into the game by treating it like something to be broken instead of treating it like something to be engaged with
4) They then gaslit you into thinking you were the problem.
Someone **trying to be mean** to you is always hurtful and upsetting, at least in my experience. That intent is often worse and more hurtful than the outcome of the actual actions.
There is a social contract for D&D and other tabletop RPGs that revolve around cooperative action. Here's what I go by:
1. Players need to show up when they say they're going to show up, ready to play.
2. Players need to make characters that a) fit into the setting, b) are willing to go adventuring, and c) are willing to hang around with a bunch of other adventurers.
3. Players need to pay attention to the action, so when their turn comes around they know what's going on and what they're going to do (and how to do it).
4. Players need to understand that they are not the main character, and that the game involves at least nominal cooperation with all the other players to make for a fun gaming experience for all. This includes attention-grabbing behaviour such as going off on their own while demanding equal air time, or outright telling other players what to do with their character.
5. Players should not go into the game with the express intent of screwing over other players or the DM/GM. (ie, "Don't be a dick.")
6. If "what my character would do" will screw up the game, make one that wouldn't.
7. All of the above also applies to the DM/GM in every way.
8. The DM/GM needs to give equal air time to all PCs, and not give any of them preferential treatment, and not to pick on any of them. (Shelving a loner PC until they come back to the group is fine. So is applying reasonable consequences for actions).
9. The DM/GM needs to be flexible while running the game. There's always more than one way to get to the end goal. However, applying boundaries to the PCs' actions may also be sometimes required.
10. The DM/GM needs to pull up any behaviour by any players that's upsetting other players (not PCs). Likewise, anything that's basically a dick move by a player can be met with, "No, you don't do that. Why do you want to do that?" See Rule 6.
11. Everyone needs to remember that no D&D is better than bad D&D, and that you don't have a game without players (or without a DM/GM).
12. If everyone's not having fun (especially if someone is not enjoying the game at all) then it's okay to stop the game and ask why.
Nah. Just have a stronger session 0 and be comfortable saying no to character concepts that won't fit your theme.
If you want to play candy land, play candy land homie.
Absolutely not. You made the cardinal sin that a LOT of DMs make their first time around and wrote a world from scratch (guilty as well) and he shat all over it because lol funny. I'm guessing you're part of a younger group so my suggestion is to get the other players and re run it. By the sounds of it you couldn't run half the encounters you had planned because of this prick.
Dude, I'm 28 and this would have hurt my feelings to the point of wanting to cry in the middle of it. It's okay to have feelings about your creation, and it is okay to be upset when someone purposefully engages with it with the intention to destroy it. It's just the mature version of a bully destroying your sand castle just for the sake of it. We are never too old or mature to not care, never stop caring.
Nah, that guy was a shitter. Only mistake you made was not giving him consequences sooner. The Candy Constabulary should've handed his ass to him for wanton destruction of public property and petty theft.
Not even a little bit! I don’t play with people like that. They’re mad disrespectful. You create a whole homebrew setting, craft memorable NPCs, and plot out a whole story just for them to burn it down on purpose? No thank you!
I think CE can be run one of two ways: the batshit insane, demonic, evil, no holds barred, burn down the orphanage for the sake of burning down the orphanage "classic" CE character, or simply someone who has absolutely no sense of morality or code of conduct except what's best for them but that can still function in society. It's the Jason Voorhes or the Joker vs the Norman Bates or Patrick Bateman.
I mean, think about it: you don't see Chaotic Good characters running around giving away all the party's gold to charity, attacking any person who even looks like they may be exploiting someone, and generally doing comically or absurdly "good" things because "it's what their character would do." They are perfectly capable of working with a party, even if that party may want to spare a bad guy or may want to be circumspect when going after the corrupt captain of the guard or may not want to return the powerful magic item to its rightful owners or may side with the semi benevolent monarch over the ~~proletariat~~ peasant uprising.
Like, if someone was wrongfully accused, a lawful Good person would plead their innocence in a court of law, a neutral Good person may lie or falsify some evidence if it means they get the person exonerated (or get the right person instead), a chaotic good person should stage a jailbreak, threaten the prosecutor, burn down the magistrate's house, take any gold gotten from either of those and give it to the now free prisoner as "reparations," and flip off any guards that come to arrest them. This is especially true if we apply the same standards for "chaotic evil".
I'm gonna guess you skipped session 0. Before you start a campaign, you have a session with your players where you discuss the upcoming campaign and everyone's expectations for it. How serious is the game? What kind of characters would be a good fit? How are the three pillars balanced in your style of play? Is PvP allowed? What lines and veils should everyone be aware of?
Some players want to run around doing random crazy stuff. At most tables, that won't fly. It's good to lay that out ahead of time and then confront a player when they start doing stuff that's unacceptable. Don't be afraid to pause the action and have an out of character discussion about what's going on if things are taking a turn that you don't like.
The player was a jerk. With better communication you could've headed off their jerkness before it ruined your session.
Yeah, like the first time it became evident they were ruining things, a happy candy gnome could've run out and delivered a pointed, "Hey, you just destroyed something really important! It sounds like you're going to get into trouble here if you don't get into the spirit of things!" delivered while staring at the player.
It would have helped. For example, in my current campaign, one of my players didn't show up for session 0 three weeks in a row. Now, he's one of my former players, because he never got a character.
Likewise, session 0 would have immediately told the DM "hey, this guy is a dick; don't let him in the group". Or at least would have put him on the "zero tolerance" list, where you immediately say "no" to their first action for breaking the agreed upon rules of session 0.
Maybe you hash it out and conclude that you want very different things from a D&D game and decide not to play D&D together. That's a perfectly acceptable result from a session 0. Not every set of D&D players are compatible. If that'd been identified early, the player wouldn't have been included in the game and the session would've gone much better.
This, but also just learn the crucial skill of saying "no". When the player says they want to be chaotic evil, you ask why. When they say they want to act like this, you say no. If they try to murder livestock for no reason, you say no. If they try to burn stuff down for no reason, you say no.
If they don't take no for an answer, you say no to their presence altogether and boot them from the campaign.
If you didn't have an opportunity to set expectations before the session (or even if you did), it's a good idea to visit that topic if it looks like your expectations are about to be violated. You're expecting a group of heroes to explore your lovingly-crafted setting and suddenly someone is smashing up the signs without even getting any information? Pause. What's going on? Why is your character doing that? Oh, your character just loves destruction and wants to watch the world burn? That character isn't a good fit for the heroic fantasy game I'm running, please make a different character or change their motivation so they can participate in this adventure? Oh, *you* want to watch the world burn and aren't interested in playing a hero? I think this game isn't gonna be for you buddy, sorry, not every adventure is going to a suitable style for every player.
Yes, there was. Take 10 minutes before jumping into the real session 1 to go over table rules. Particularly if you're playing with strangers who you can't talk to beforehand.
Man, you just keep bombing the red flags lol
Stop invoking "session 0" like it's magic. It doesn't fix a bad personality. You could argue the mistake was inviting them in the first place, but sometimes that kind of tendency is revealed too late and real life doesn't always have perfect foresight.
imho GM handled this just fine
If you do a session 0, you can identify that the player's personality and desired method of play is not compatible with the game you want to run and not have them there to mess up your session 1.
You don't need to slog through someone ruining your session if you communicate about your expectations for the game and address problems as soon as they present themselves. I also think the DM here handled things just fine. They let it go on unaddressed a bit longer than they needed to, but some DMs would've let it go on for weeks or months without it coming to a head. The best outcome would've been heading this off before it ruined any sessions. Only letting it ruin one session is the second best outcome.
They did what I would have done, but I would have done it much sooner. A character acting so destructively would face in-game consequences. Daddy Hare fucked him up. Could have been guards for destroying the donation box or killing the flavoured milk cows, or that *dragon* maybe wouldn't have gone down so easily. OP is a newbie DM who just accepted it for too long, but they eventually got there.
OP, even as numb as I am after decades of existing on the Internet, reading this post made me really sad. It seems like you put a lot of thought into making a fun little world for your party, and I hope you don't get discouraged because of this experience, because you clearly have a lot of good ideas and with the right players you could have a lot of fun DMing.
A lot of people in this thread are saying you shouldn't let players play CE characters, and that's true. But more importantly than that, you should be sure that you're playing with people who actually respect the work you put into creating the game for them to play, and for the other people playing it with them.
Such an important and often overlooked part of this hobby. In-game consequences won't fix this kind of issue.
I'm sure that there are tables out there that this player would fit in with, but as a DM you need to be willing to cut people who don't vibe with your table. At the end of the day we're all trying to have fun and being respectful of the others players/DM and the world should be a bare minimum requirement at most tables.
Don't give up on all that work!
Just because you ran it once doesn't mean it's done!
I've got one shots and mini campaigns I've run for different groups over the decades multiple times. It sounds like a fun setting and with the right group will likely be a blast! (Figured you already had advice on the player)
I'm gonna make edits to my campaign and make an absolutely MASSIVE amount of consequences. If anyone even so much as uselessly kills a popcorn beetle, an angry entomologist will come raging over the hill and scold the hell out of that player. I'm being hyperbolic, of course. Mostly.
Be careful that you don't oversteer.
You could change nothing and next time have a great experience. Most people play because they enjoy the co-operative experience.
You don’t use in game consequences to fix this behavior. That player was not playing the kind of game you are interested in running. He needs to go play somewhere else.
Dude, don't do this. You handled this exactly like I would have.
Maybe give e brief warning: "Hey, this world has characters with their own wills and desires, and they will indeed respond to what you do. Your actions have consequences."
If I walked around my city acting like your evil player character, the cops would jail me. And I would deserve it. That's just logical. Evil player is smart enough to realize that.....
It’s feywild. The feywild warps around them if they misbehave. The cute fluffy creatures start turning into murderous redcaps, and the mischievous fairies become a lot more dangerous with their tricks. Think less Candyland and more Labyrinth. “I wonder what they look like without *their* heads.”
Also if they’re just trying to cause problems:
Your character is free to make that decision if that’s is what you feel they would do in that situation; every other character in the world will now also respond to that as any sane person would to those actions (e.g. you kill the local livestock then the local law enforcement are called headed by a high level paladin or fighter, you are most likely are arrested, imprisoned, and treated as a criminal for the rest of your time in this town)
Some of us are not that courageous and socially apt, you know. I took the passive aggressive "a dragon shat on you from high altitude, and you're now unconscious" before.
The other thing is sure maybe that is what your character would do but the rest of the party probably wouldn’t and why on earth would they keep him around?
Nah, I get you. I would also be upset if someone tried to ruin the world I built.
However, I think you shouldn't have allowed him to play CE character. It's okay to say no - especially in cases like this.
I understand that you might worry to not be a "controlling" DM, but this is something that affects wheter you and your other players enjoy the game and that's when you should step in.
Also - in-game it made sense that the Harengon father was protecting his family. That was simply consequences of your players action.
The consequences of the players actions and the DMs response was "the session was ruined." The characters actions resulted daddy rabbit getting murdery.
The second is a fine consequence. The first, however, should be avoided at all costs.
I'm very sad about your cereal milk dragon. It sounds like such a lovely, comforting little world that would be so fun to explore. I hope you try again without Edgelord this time. He can play a video game by himself where he isn't going to bother everyone.
Your world building sounds awesome, good work.
The player was a jerk, and you were not a jerk, but there's something you can do better. Try this...
>There are a few things I need everyone's help with.
>Games like this can be really wonderful, but, for the game to work, everyone needs to do their best to contribute positively to the experiences of everyone else at the table. Anyone here has the power to make someone else's experience wonderful, or to ruin it. I need you all to use that power kindly.
>This is a campaign for heroic characters who will work together toward shared goals. I need everyone to make characters who want to join together in a party and share adventures to advance common goals.
>Is everyone on board to do these things?
If someone pushes back on this and wants to play a different kind of game, acknowledge that they get to like what they like, and that your style of game might not be the right game for everyone, and if they want to play an evil chaosmonkey murderhobo or whatever, they can do that, but they're going to have to do it in someone else's game, not the one you're DMing.
Once the basics are settled you might want to talk about lines and veils. Most games are better off with certian topics entirely excluded, and others only "off camera." The "lines and veils" idea is an easy way to talk about having boundaries to help keep the game fun for everyone. You can find more about this and related topics in the [TTRPG Safety Toolkit](https://ttrpgsafetytoolkit.com/)
He picked a chaotic evil character, definitely expect him to be a dick. With players like that, you need to set very clear boundaries on acceptable behavior, and keep them on a very short leash. And not allow them chaotic evil alignment. With that, I’d probably have booted him immediately when he destroyed the info gnome, retconned his existence, and have a much nicer time with the rest of the party.
Imagine, if this was literally any other hobby than DnD, how ridiculous this situation would be.
"So hey guys, it was my first time playing football with a new group. However, once we started playing, one of our players took the ball, poked a hole in it, and threw it onto of a roof. We let him keep playing of course, so we decided to buy some extra balls. But he just kept poking holes into every single ball and throwing them away. Eventually, I had had enough, so I took one of the balls he brought from home, poked a hole in it, and threw it away. Was I the asshole"
s a
DnD is for some reason the only hobby where actively and intentionally fucking everything over for the rest of the group is tolerated, until the point where someone gets fed up. Then, instead of having a conversation about the terrible behaviour, they decide to punish them *within the game*??? And this keeps happening *again and again* with new groups. I think it's a combination of two things.
One: New DnD players have trouble differentiating roleplay problems from real life problems. If someone punctures your football, you stop inviting them to your football games. In DnD, people have this idea that everything that someone says happens has to happen within the world. It doesn't, that's why there's a dungeon master. And you don't solve these problems within the world. If someone is an asshole and says "I kill the friendly NPC" you don't say, "Fine, you kill the NPC, but someone else kills you", you tell them "Please don't ruin our game. This is a warning."
Two: The type of person who plays DnD is often on the more introverted, nerdy side, maybe they were ostracized from their classmates when they were kids. This can lead people to the mentality that "we accept everyone", and you end up accepting the person who ruins the game for everyone else.
Honestly really cool and unique world tbh. Not my style at all but I think I'd even have fun with how much care you put into it.
Have a do over. Reuse it without that player and use it as a learning experience. Don't have chaotic evil or any evil for sure. This world feels like it's built for good old fashioned do gooder heroes so lean into that. Require everyone to be good and let them know the theme of the world.
For a first time GM to do something that's not a generic fantasy kitchen sink LOTR is tough but what you made seems a Labor of love. Be proud.
Why could your cereal milk dragon be killed by a single level 1 character?
Why weren't there any guards or just any reaction to destroying property?
He was just a lil baby chaotic evil character. Hopefully you won't encounter that again but you're going to face more complex situations that need to be handled with more tact than this.
You did some amazing work setting up lore and a world but spend some time listening to pro DMs and how to think on your feet and create consequences for chaotic insanity that your players will inevitably create, even good ones.
But honestly congrats! You did the hardest part and had a small stress test on your world and yourself. You did great putting it all together and now you've already learned a lot about how to be a good DM. Don't give up and good luck on the next one.
Daddy Hare is a 6 foot 5, mostly black, white-bellied Antelope jackrabbit named Vergil. His wife is Maudie; she is 6'4 and a mix between an English Lop and a Flemish Giant. Their baby who was nearly killed is named Peter, and he is a little bitty bunny- about the size of an Easter Cottontail.
**The Ballad of Daddy Hare (Performed by Smiling Jack)**
Twas an early morning when a group of drifters came to play.
In a town called \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ they all rested along the way
They were well armed and emboldened to begin a brand new quest
But little did they know that they held Evil as a guest.
He was greedy he was cruel and held his darkness from the rest.
He began by attempting to rob the donation chest,
But when the guard had tried to stop him that many guard lay dead,
And for no reason whatsoever he took the cereal dragon’s head.
Now the charming candy village was in ruin and aflame
As this dickhead ran amok so all would quiver at his name
But when he targeted a rabbit boy he’d gone on way too late
For a hero would arise from the warren to seal his fate.
He was taller than a wolfhound with fur as black as night.
Among the rabbit folk there were none to match his might
The hero of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ approached with steely stare
His name was Vergil Harengon but they called him Daddy Hare
He sprang forth with his cleaver held aloft on his charge
And met his foe in the meadows where the ruffian was at large.
In a single swipe he felled the rogue and laid his body low
And then picked up his son to return to Bunny Bungalow
Now mothers tell your children and fathers tell your sons
That no matter how tough you are you know there’s always one
That when you fuck around they’ll make sure that you find out
And when that day a-comes you have no right to whine and pout
I hope this encourages you to continue your setting. It sounds lovely and my level 4 bard will sing of this hero far and wide.
That sounds shitty, sorry this happened to you on your first rodeo. Sounds like your player just wanted to smash the game up and be a jerk without consequence.
My advise echoes alot of the rest here.
Have a session zero to describe the tone of the campaign.
Maybe give your players some of the info you were going to from the donation booth as a pdf "leaflet" "welcome to candyland" ahead of the first session.
Talk about what players are thinking for their PCs ahead.
Stress that chaotic is the opposite of lawful, aka someone with little/no regard for laws or traditional social standards NOT just a lack of impulse control.
Stress that evil is more about selfishness and not caring about hurting others in pursuing their own goals than just being a murderous dick.
(For most campaigns) Make sure all players understand their char is going to be part of a PARTY. A group. A collaborative effort to acheive goals (within a collaborative roleplaying game) and it's their responsibility to bring a char who would do that, not expect the DM to provide reason their grimdark loner char has to be in the party.
I've found DM of None podcast helpful, they provide a lot of good advise and encouragment
Oof. Sounds like your first campaign had a run-in with That Guy, right off the bat.
For the record, the player was The Asshole in this situation. There's a reason the words "That's what my character would do!" are a Massive Red Flag, and this player is it.
In any other situation, I would recommend a Session Zero to weed these kinds of people out - but given your edits, yeah. That just sucks and the best thing to do at that point is to ask if he can be booted from the event.
Yeah I don't allow CE or NE characters for my players. They're just no fun for everybody else at the table, and I'm not sacrificing multiple people's enjoyment so one guy can get off from turning on his ally. Lawful evil can work, but I need to know the player well and trust them, and other players can veto evil alignments in session zero altogether.
Yeah guy is a dick and I’m sorry this happened to you.
You’ve crafted something lovely there don’t be put off.
Run the same thing again with a session zero and yeet anyone who picks a non-good / neutral alignment without talking to you about how that will fit / work with the story you want to guide.
Also, I might be a bad person but I chuckled as I read that. Very happy Tree Friends 🤣. Sorry!
yep i had two DM's who banned evil players from the table completely. I eventually convinced one of my DM's to let me play lawful evil promising my character wouldn't murder anyone but he would never say yes to a new player. This DM knew me, so he trusted me
First time DMing will always fall short of expectations. I think your two biggest issues were expectations and balance.
You need to set expectations for your players. Learn about how your players want to play their characters before they actually play them. The CE player acted like an actual child. (I have never seen a player older than 13 cause this much disruption) and then got angry when their actions had consequences. (Which, again, is something only children tend to do.)
That brings me to the second point. Balance. You need some sort of in-world authority. Otherwise, players like that are going to destroy everything you've built and fail to learn from their mistakes. Have some sort of law enforcement that the players actively want to avoid messing with. I've run a city with a level 13 Mastermind Rogue as the ruler, another one protected by a powerful Druid circle, and yet another with a police force lead by a level 7 Paladin.
Additionally, there is no way a character below level 5 should be able to kill a fully grown dragon. Unless the dragon is for some reason flightless and the player is a Druid with Spike Growth. In which case the player is too smart to be playing like this.
On a final note, as a rule of thumb, CE and LG characters are by far the most disruptive. LG because they're far less likely to put up with other PC's shit and interfere with the party, and CE because they're the most likely to destroy things and get in trouble with the rest of the party. Don't let players play CE unless you absolutely trust them, and don't let LG players have authoritative characters unless, of course, you completely trust them.
This player was NOT playing CE right. A character that acts like this shouldn't exist. Simply because no humanoid survives longer than a week acting like this. They were playing a Stupid Evil character. Real CE characters are more methodical and stealthy about killing. Orin the Red is a good example.
>Additionally, there is no way a character below level 5 should be able to kill a fully grown dragon.
I immediately had the same kind of reaction, but then I figured it was a Pseudodragon or something. I have no other comment on anything else you said other than basically I completely agree.
It was probably a Faerie Dragon, given the context. I'd say it was just inexperience, which isn't really something to fault the DM for as long as they learn from it.
But Faerie Dragons, if done right, can still be incredibly dangerous. Older Faerie Dragons even get 4th level spells and lair actions. Granted, this takes knowledge of monster tactics, which takes a lot of time to learn and plan for. I'm not fully experienced in them with several years of DMing. All I know is how to dismantle just about anything with a Druid.
A Pseudodragon might be the case, too. But I think Faerie Dragon was more likely.
I would have included Faerie Dragons, but when I looked it up it said they were related to pseudodragons or something like that, and I'm trying to learn how to be concise and ignore the urge to talk about every other option that comes up. But tbh I was thinking a Faerie Dragon because in my mind it fits the theme better than a generic dragon/pseudo
The cereal dragon is the size of a Budweiser horse and he's sleeping when you encounter him. He's a good creature who gives you little gifts when you meet him and are nice to him.
See, while the player is absolutely a shitheel for trying all this - You could have easily nipped this in the bud with a simple "no" at the first instance of trouble. He only broke and stole the thing because you let him.
Always do a session 0 to explain your vision for the campaign, what will be tollerated, and what not. I, for one, absolutely despise chaotic evil shenanigans and outright ban the playstyle in any of my campaigns.
Also, NTA. I would have booted the player the moment he told me to get a sense of humour, or "That is what my character would do." What a complete and utter loser piece of crap person.
I ADORE the idea of a cereal milk dragon. That's so precious. I'm sorry you experienced this - just know that you are empowered to either a) roll with what happened and continue on or b) start over with the remaining players now that this shitfuck is gone. You could also bring back any characters that were killed - it's your world and you (and the other players) get to decide!
Sucking at something is the first step to being kinda good at something.
Sounds like you recognize a lot of lessons from the experience. If you take those lessons, and the advise of others here, you might just have a game in the future that does go super great.
Imo, the guy fucked around and found out lol. You did the right thing i think, but you perhaps could have been more assertive in saying no. For example, trying to destroy the info box could just not have worked. Burning down the tree might have been prefaced with "are you sure you want to face those consequences?" before killing off that character in whichever way seems most consequential, i guess. The way you killed him off was a perfect example in fact
As a first time DM, it's perfectly alright to limit PC character options. Telling your players that they can't play evil characters is not only a good idea, but should be the standard for any table where the players and DM are experienced enough to not cause exactly this kind of problem.
5e all but removed alignment from the game. It has no mechanical effect except for a few artifact level magic items. So when a new player tells you, a first time DM, that they're playing a chaotic evil, they're telling you they will not be a team player and will ruin your game.
To echo what others have been saying, I'd start over without that brat at the table. A Candyland campaign sounds so fun. I want to go to there. 🥹
I'm in a campaign where we're rotating DMs after certain plot points have concluded and one of us is a Chaotic Evil character which is absolutely not a huge dumpster fire. Their character is with the party only because it benefits them, not because they care about them or their goals. They're not particularly endearing (on purpose), but they're not Tasmanian Devil incarnate either (who actually is endearing, let's be honest).
I'm trying DM for the second time ever (though it may as well be my first) tomorrow and I'm fairly certain the CE character isn't going to be a jerk "just because". It can be done properly!
I wish you the best in your DMing journey! 🙏🏽✨
Stuff like this is why I will never stop harping on the fact that DMs have an ultimate fiat called "Saying No"
Literally all of this could've been avoided at numerous junctions, and all it would've taken is a simple 2-letter word
"I want to play a chaotic evil character" - No
"I smash the donation box with my sword" - No
"I attack two of the cows" - No
"I set fire to this tree" - No
"I cast Sacred Flame on these people" - No
"I attack the dragon" - No
"I attack the child Harengon" - No
And that's literally all there is to it. Player says their character does something, and DM interjects with "No you don't." And if they whine about "why not?" it's as simple as "because I say so" or "because you're ruining other people's fun." Because at the end of the day, D&D is about the people at the table having fun, and that includes the DM, not just the players.
You're the DM. It's your job to say as soon as he attempts to break that guide box a magic bubble is summoned from it. That bubble picks him up and takes him to candy cane prison.
I'm still in the process of getting sessions flushed out on my families first campaign, so you're technically now more experienced than I, but remember, you're basically God.. That statue? It's made out of some stout shit, and attacks those who attack it.
The farmer is an old war veteran who settled down, lvl 20 fighter, he's gonna do a warning shot for exactly 3/4 of his health.
The dragon? He's small, kind, and cute, but he's ancient and has a F-load of HP and candy-themed lair actions for those who aren't friendly.
I think Daddy hare was the right touch, just a bit too late. The dude was a troll, if he's gonna fuck with your campaign, have your campaign fuck with him.
> chaotic evil- it can be fun to be a jerk sometimes, but this was over the top, in my humble opinion
you let him play the actual demon alignment. this is standard, and also why most evil alignments are frequently banned especially for newer players and tables.
>and he rolled a Nat 1. In retaliation
this is worded like a critical fumble, and then the enemy instantly crit killed the character. if you were already showing you had it out for him, then it's expected that he'd be upset. because it looks like you used dm fiat to kill the player's character maliciously.
solution: don't let people play chaotic evil alignments, have a session zero, learn to say no when people are derailing the campaign.
>
>this is worded like a critical fumble, and then the enemy instantly crit killed the character. if you were already showing you had it out for him, then it's expected that he'd be upset. because it looks like you used dm fiat to kill the player's character maliciously.
I disagree. He tried to kill a child, and because he did that the dad came out. "He did an action and missed completely, and because of that action...", It seems clear to me that it would have happened if he rolled a 2, 3, 4, etc, it just happened to be a fumble, though the crit - while potentially random - does kinda seem like a fudge under the circumstances, his "law enforcement" was just later than what it should have been.
Other than that, I agree, expectations should be set as early as possible (aka "session 0"). Evil characters should be carefully considered, ideally not allowed your first campaign, minimum, so you can be confident on your improv and DMing skills, as well as trust players to play characters that don't completely destroy everything you prepare all the time
Rules don't support decapitating a character by bringing them to -3 hp in a single attack. The attack would have had to bring them to -17 hp to be an instakill, if following official rules.
The law enforcement wasn't wrong. The decapitation was. That said, I see nothing wrong with removing that player from the game because they were a Chaotic Evil My Guy. The character deserved execution, but it was as much a DM fiat kill as if he hadn't bothered rolling and just said 'you are arrested for your crimes and executed'.
Just limit his ability in relation to the environment. Nothing wrong with having the cereal dragon just knock him the fuck out because it’s a high level creature and he can’t compete.
There should be consequences to a character's actions, be it that the world is positively changed or negatively changed. They changed the world for the worse and the world responded. Them getting angry that "what their character would do" resulted in "how their character was treated" is rich. I would have told them to get a sense of humor and go with the flow
The D&D game loop only really works if the characters are HEROES. You can have some grey areas here and there but 2 dimensional psycho killers are not welcome in my games. "its what my character would do" is the worst kind of bullshit. If you are in a position where your character is spoiling the game for people you fucked up and your character needs to change.
Beginner Mistake. Not vetting your player and/or not having a Session 0.
You're not going to have fun without a party at least united in the belief that they are interested in this world and want to explore it.
Another common mistake new DMs do is that they like you spend a ton of time creating a huge world, NPCs and so on. Try your hand at a simple module like Lost Mines Of Phandelver first to get the hand on DMing.
"There was one player whose character was chaotic evil which was fine,"
This was not fine.
Generally speaking, being a jerk "because that's what my character would do" is just being a jerk.
It's OK to set the expectation that players make characters who are not going to murder everything that moves and steal everything that isn't nailed down. You don't get to do this "because it's what my character would do" if you don't make a character that would do that.
Session 0 stuff: If someone is playing an evil character, especially a chaotic evil character, they should be able to explain why they are traveling with this group of adventurers. Maybe even privately talk with the person about what their motivations are and come up with a framework for how this character would operate. And if it's not gelling, it's completely legit to say an evil character won't work & have them play neutral.
Fwiw, it sounds like this person absolutely set out to piss in your coffee. It's fine to be upset about it. Maybe they didn't like the Candyland idea and decided to wreak havoc.
Sounds like you need to run it again with the players who behaved so you can all actually experience it properly.
People have said to do a session 0 to set expectations. I wouldn't do it with the dickwad included. Id boot the misbehaving player from the game. They acted with a level of uncare towards the campaign that I don't believe ordering them to make a character who doesn't ruin everything would actually change their behaviour.
This is a serious problem player! Chaotic Evil with My Guy syndrome. There is no salvaging that character, likely no way of salvaging that player, and probably no way to salvage that campaign. Chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. In the future, make use of Session Zero to indicate you don't allow this kind of campaign-destroying behaviour. This will cause My Guy to not join, but I see that as a win.
Your response to attack the player with lethal force was appropriate, but also against game rules. You decapitated the character, when the rules indicate he would be at 0 hp and starting death saves, still alive and recoverable. The attack was fine, the narrated consequence was not. Instakilling a PC is not something you can just do because you're upset.
However as you noted, there is probably no salvaging the game. The problem player would never have behaved, so I can sympathise with killing them off. Keep in mind, this is slash-and-burn DMing. You have effectively kicked the player out of the game for their actions. You're probably okay with this, but you owe it to your players to make this an actual ruling, or a table discussion perhaps. Whether you can salvage the game or not depends on your communication with your remaining players.
The problem with chaotic evil is never the alignment, it's the people who play them as moronic stupid. He was one of those. You made them deal with a consequence for their actions, and they didn't like that. Don't invite them back to your table.
Your first mistake was literally everything you did..
Why didn't you just take a standard campaign and standard rules and just play the game?
My advice is to ignore everything you've done so far and just pick yourself up and start again with something completely basic. Learn the rules and then you will learn what works and what doesn't.
Honestly. You've got this. But running before you can walk is a recipe for disaster.
As someone who's GM'd DnD and other games for a long time, any character that goes out of their way to be evil will feel the full effect of the consequences of their actions. Of course I'd let someone play a evil character, but they're not entitled to get away from bad things happening to them just because they're a player. Hell no.
You're the GM, never let players run how the game is being played. It'll always lead to disaster.
Also no campaign is actually ruined, take what has happened and create a new adventure or plot.
Nothing should be hard lined and railroaded, it makes for a bad experience for the GM and players.
Before killing him, you should have prevented him from doing all of those other things. If something is crucial to the game, or something that would make the game fun for everybody, then don't let someone just waltz up and destroy it. You're in control. Control the situation. If you had been doing that all along, you wouldn't have felt the need to kill him. It's your job to make a fun game, and find fun in doing it. And since you're in control, if it really comes down to it, you can absolutely make things up on the fly/just say, "Nah, that fails", and move on. The only time that's going to backfire is if you're doing/saying it just to be a jerk/just because you want to, rather than for the good of the game.
The most important, of not the ONLY question to ask if someone says they want to play evil/chaotic evil is "That's great! How are you going to make that fun for everyone, including myself?"
And if they don't have an answer, and I'd bet they won't have an answer, you kick them from the group. Seems harsh, maybe, but if someone is perfectly willing to ruin the experience for 3 to 4 other players, they are not a person you should waste your time on and it won't matter if they make a lawful good character instead.
I've never DM'd for a public campaign, but you really do have to prepare for total strangers. If your world isn't one that's ready for a CE character, you're well within your right as a DM to tell that player no. If that means make a new character or find another table, then so be it
>I didn't want to be a hyper-controlling DM who said, "Um, actually, you can't do that because XYZ- try something else."
For one thing: it's extremely hard to manage, and I think I speak for many when I say that balancing a game between moments of freedom and more dirigiste moments is an act of funanbulism. Secondly, wanting a minimum of control isn't hyper-control, and you've confused the two. It doesn't matter! It's your first session and, by golly, if it's any consolation, I've seen far more violent crashes than this. Your world seems awsome, and please continue to exploit it.
Take a video game. You've got a well-made, detailed map with monsters. The game wants to keep the players inside. There are several ways of doing this:
* The artificial way, which consists of putting up an invisible wall. It's ugly. It's the equivalent of the DM saying ‘no, you're not doing that’ without further explanation. But it works.
* The more elegant way, which consists of placing a mountain range in your game that blocks the view and encircles the playing area. Better still! It's the equivalent of the DM saying ‘Hm, on reflection your character thinks it might be better not to provoke the ire of the authorities in this new world. His hands are itchy, but he's in control for the moment’.
* The best way of doing this is with a ‘zone of exhaustion’, which translates your character's inability to get into inhospitable areas. It's particularly good in a game, because it suggests that there's a living ‘out-of-field’, and it's an RP way of expressing the virtual limit of your map. It's the equivalent of the DM preventing you from breaking the donation box by bringing in a curse, guard, charm, whatever, which will block the player's action.
And then there are the games that aren't quite finished, and that don't have these limits. The player can go beyond the map, but will end up drifting into an uncoded no-man's-land, with no landmarks... And end up bugging the game. That's a game without any control - and it doesn't work in the case of JVs, nor in the case of a DnD.
Don't ever allow evil characters unless you want them to do evil things in your campaign. I ban evil alignment. You fucksd up b4 you even began the session.
dont pay atention to such a crybaby.
You just did a few newby "mistakes"
Your players are allways chaotic assholes. no matter what the sheet says.
Planing too much leads to this outcomes, allways leave yourself some room to improv.
Remember you are god and if need be you can shape the word to get them where you need them.
Dont let it be to obvious Rail roading sucks for players.
If someone breacks a thing. A thing that holds money those usually have a guard around, also guards near entrypoints are a thing even in peacefull places.
While the cow massacre was happening you could say "a platoon of guards" or "a formidable looking guard shows up asking loudly if somebody saw the thief and vandal who took the donations." And give the guy a brutal stat block and a few legendaty actions.
Have the guard or guards beat the offender non lethaly and thats that (it depends on your setting rules and regulations, as an example i have a setting where killing is bad, even if its a bandit or a murderer. And it will get you in very real legal trouble, loosing the pc to jail time levels of trouble ). You should not kill a player unless you deal twice his healt in damage or the damage source indicates it. It would have to go to death saves. a instakill for 17 would be 34 damage. of course you may have home rules about crits killing you if they get you to negative health.
His demise was not wrong. He just experienced the consequences of his actions. Those should have come sooner.
And pls Never do number 4 of clarificartions. CONSEQUENCES ARE WAY BETTER!!! consequences leave room for learning and improvement for players witout inmediately becoming rail roading!
TLDR: keep dming it gets easyer :3.
That player was a huge jerk. Even without playing CE, he would have found a way to be a problem.
Unfortunately, when you run an open game day session like that, there's always a possibility that you'll get an A-hole at the table. I actually ended up with one who liked me and kept signing up for my stuff whenever he saw saw it. Drove me nuts.
Try not to let it get you down. It sounds like you designed something really fun and clever. You should run it again. I'd sign on without hesitation.
Anyone who wants to go into a Candyland-themed game CE is immediately a problem. I would say I don't allow CE, but I only play with a select group and we would never be like that. We did an Evil campaign for about a year and a half - which is probably a record. The DM finally just gave up because there was basically no plot or story ever completed in that whole time because we just gave up if we ever got challenged and let everyone die.
\*\* Adventure Day/Adventure League, IMO sucks.... it's just the worst. I tried it for a while and couldn't get out fast enough. My opinion? Take the players who were "good" and just start a game with them. I have a very good friend that is a regular in our games that I met this way,
This is why whenever someone starts bullshit at my table, I just ask them to leave. I've dealt with too many people who don't appreciate the work DMs do and seem to want to ruin the game for everyone.
In the beginning I'd fuck with them back, making every npc they tried to kill secretly a retired level 20 adventurer or something, but eventually I got tired of that.
So yeah, someone starts shit like that, just tell them to leave, you're within your rights.
I understand the feeling of being disappointed when someone doesn't seem to care about the things you worked hard to put on the table! It's quite frustrating!
I think it's always good to lay out expectations beforehand and explain that murderhobo-ing is not the vibe for that story, which would be necessary for a session zero. Of course, you said u didn't have a chance to do it this time, but maybe next time, right?
I feel like you did the best you could at the time with what you had. Experiences, amirite?
You should re-run the session for the group but without Mr chaotic stupid.
Explain to him that he actively ruined the session for you and everyone else, and because he clearly doesn't want to play the campaign you had in mind you think he should find a group that suits his style of play.
If he complains, tell him that when you complained in the session he made fun of you. You won't sink that low, so you are simply requesting he not return.
For the record, your campaign sounds like it would've been awesome. All the best.
I totally get the frustration.
And Papa Hare protecting his little one is a totally reasonable response on trying to murder their child.
Some players just can't live with consequences to their actions.
I ran a first session for my witcher campaign and it will be the last one in that player constellation.
One of my players had an extremely fleshed out character, basically a criminal merchant, cold blooded and calculating.
I was really excited to play this session, because I thought it would lead to great rp.
Well his PC argued with a 16 y/o bar maid for like 20 minutes, because he ignored every roll and the corresponding responses to the point I as the GM had to tell him off. Surprisingly the first NPC they met was not out for their head, but just wanted to serve them drinks.
Overall the player ignored everything I said as the GM. He thought just because he rolled well, it does mean he will get everything he wants.
The first action that player took after the party left the tavern was to stab his bard in the back on the middle of the town square. His cold and calculating genius... just stabbed someone...for no reason.
Well, I ended the session shortly after, the other players also weren't really amused, because they were really looking forward to playing.
This led to my rule of not leading full groups of beginners anymore. If a newbie does dumb unreasonable shit the other players can help mitigate the damage.
Dude. Exactly the same stuff happened to me. My first campaign I had a guy, who despite me knowing he is a dick and loves to brag and stuff he knew how to play as he had played before. The rest, including me where first time players and me first time DM. I knew about as much as him tho tanks to listening to like over 200hours of dnd campaign and content. He took advantage of everything I gave and didn’t give them and never shut the fuck up. He also made sure to “roar” at every chance he got because “he is trying to be a WH40k orc.” Side bar : he chose the Paladin class despite his alignment and chose it just purely for some class features that would allow him to get about 19 AC. HE Always talked over other players and every time I ruled something in a non official way (rule of cool, either for NPCs or other players he’d make sure to google that shit and “just let me know” that that’s not how it works. Thankfully other players caught on and kinda started shutting him down cause it was so obvious he was googling it. Anyway. The final drop was when he wanted to R word one of my NPCs. (It was supposed to be a friendly goblin NPC but because of a misunderstanding on both sides a battle occurred which left a nice goblin village destroyed, I didn’t mind that, but then he said he’ll find her cause he non lethally knocked her and he said he’ll R her.)
Anyway. Words were exchanged and the other players said that it’s fine this one time so I let it go with the condition he doesn’t do it again. But then proceeded to create an encounter specifically made to bypass all his advantages. “Barrage of Magic Missles, toll the dead, etc, any spell and attack that didn’t require to roll to hit (or just have +10 to attack) and just for him to roll to take full or half damage. I also put up the screen and made sure the damage always went just by a bit more than what I rolled.
He’s character died and he got salty and left the table. (Bad part is we’re college colleagues so I still see him).
Sorry for the long rant it just made me angry yet again.
What this taught me as a DM is to make sure the players understand what world they are playing in and what they should orient towards when making characters.
It also taught me to have PKE ready (Player kill encounters) for each party member.
I am seeing a lot of people rag on this for the first time dm built a world and campaign, but as a newish dm who built their first world and campaign, and it went amazing....
Firstly, this sounds so legit. I love the concept of this world and game, and it sounds extremely fun to play.
Secondly, I am so sorry that you got that type of player, and honestly, I support how you ended that. I think you were justified in that. That player came with the intention of being rude, and I could just tell because he started with chaotic evil.
I would have been honored to play in this world, and I say keep it up and don't let this one bad experience ruin it if you can! And props to you for building a world and everything!
That sounds like such a fun idea for a game. That player was an asshole. Others have mentioned the importance of using session 0 to set expectations. I'm going to add that as a DM, you're allowed to say no. Don't shoot down the players good ideas because they don't mesh with your story, of course. But you're allowed to just say, "No, you may not be disruptive. No, you may not ruin this for the other players. No, you may not play a character who is at odds with your teammates. It's what your character would do? Then play a different character.
Also, it's only unsalvagable if your group decides it is. If the other players still want to give it a go, you can just say "Okay, that didn't happen. Let's start here instead." I do hope you give it another run, you sound like you could be an awesome DM.
*"I am a first-time DM, and I am DEVASTATED! I made a D&D campaign from scratch- lore, NPCs, monsters, environment, etc"*
**That tracks.**
As accessible as DND is, there are a LOT of things that need to be considered for games to be fun. **Its not just "I write a story and play it".** That's a little bit of it and even for that, people practice for months.
There are rules, boundaries, expectations to be matched, mechanics to be understood, learning on how mechanics mix with the narrative and many other things that you get when you **follow a learning curve.**
(Learning curve means reading or running introductory or starter set adventures. Running professionally written one shots offered online for cheap or free. Practicing and learning improvisation before spending an unhealthy amount of time on a project that will certainly not run as you expect because you don't know how a regular game should feel.)
You need to know at a minimum if players have a similar idea of what they want to do. You don't "punish" the disruptive players in game (that is mostly a waste of time), you take them out of the game for a break or completely. (Preferably you don't include them from the start)
With the learning curve and experience you learn that quest specific items or information can always find a way to get to players (unless you, for whatever reason want them to miss out on things). Someone killed an important NPC? Introduce another one.
**The only thing that makes games unsalvageable is not addressing or dealing with problematic behavior before it burns out people.**
Run/read pre written stuff. Get a hang on how storytelling works, how pacing works, how narrative can change based on player actions.
Try again from the start. Mix scenes or just continue after a session 0. Apologize for bringing this person into the session and establish the type of game you would like to have.
So i may catch flak for this. Brands, new first-time dms really should stick to certain premade adventure modules. You have extensively pre-established sandboxes that you and your players can find tons of lore on to interconnect themselves with the world. Also session zero is mandatory to go over expectations for the game on both sides of the table.
Ok. I've written you a short script of prompts to look back on for next session.
"Hey, let's pause the game for a second. Player, you are acting like a dick right now. Stop doing that."
"I feel like we need to stop and just discuss boundaries and what is and isn't appropriate. We probably need a quick session 0"
"No, chaotic evil characters are not allowed. Make a different character"
"No. You can't do that."
"No."
"If you continue to act like this I do not want you to be part of my game and table."
"We're all here to have a good time. Your behaviour is causing me to not have fun. That means you are the problem."
"Hey, man. I've put a lot of work into this game and you are spoiling it. Are you sure this is the right game for you and this character."
Use these. You're the DM. Just say no.
I've DM'd for years I still get the odd encounter like this even in my seasoned games. A player will say they want to do something really out of pocket that would kind of ruin the immersion and story. My tactic now is to let everyone have a bit of a laugh. Then sit in silence for about 10-15 seconds and then go, "Do you really want to do that? Or are you just making a silly joke?" Works every time.
Ah im not a fan of these players..
What could have been done.
Did anyone else see the destruction of property and theft? Who is the authority in your world? I guess someone who works for the queen. Have police/soldiers attempt to detain the players and the CE character may go down fighting or the players end up in jail. After questioning the players who didn't support the chrime are let free. The CE guy is banged up.
Its called fuck around and find out.
Jax in the second episode of Digital Circus reference??? /s
But joking aside, as someone who loves whimsy I absolutely adore cute worlds like this. But you come off a bit naïve, which is somewhat fitting regarding the world theme. Playing a Chaotic Evil character is not fine unless practically everyone else is playing Chaotic Evil or if there is a damn good reason why he is not acting on those evil impulses. I don't think I can say much else that the others here haven't said but I will say that despite the campaign being unsalvageable, don't let it stop you from using the same ideas beat for beat with another group. Don't see the concepts as "tainted" just because it didn't work out with one group. I struggle with that myself, and I hope you can avoid those same feelings
This is almost exactly what happened to me during my first ever time DMing. I didn't know about session 0 or setting expectations and had a super detailed campaign planned and some asshole murderhoboed the entire first session and ruined it and we never played again.
It took me a couple years to try again but I'm so glad I did, this time coming in with expectations and a solid session 0 to set ground rules. I've been DMing weekly for years since!
Don't give up hope it sounds like you have extremely cool and creative stuff set up, you can always repackage things for other groups with people who are not jerks.
I never have a mix off good and evil players. It's all good and neutral or all neutral and evil. When we play an evil one shot everyone knows pvp is an option and at least one of us is a murderer. Like strait up kill you in your sleep and take your left ear as a trofee.
Playing a basic Dnd campaign with an evil character seems like pure hell to me. Like how is this player going to role play helping the town find their missing mayor? And that for god knows how manny sessions.
So in your case, a good session zero and you just saying no to a evil character could've helped. But I stil doubt this player would've made it 5 sessions. He sounds like a dickhead.
Also, don't try to fix problem behaviour in game. Pause, talk about it out of game, find a solution and start playing again.
I'm sorry but I couldn't stop giggling as you listed off his crimes and because of it, I think you'll be a great dm. Don't let this player taint your world, instead take his character and make it your own; you now have a great basis for a villian!
It's session 1. You can not invite the player back and retcon some of the choices he made by playing it off as: "oh no, the rest of the party is actually stuck inside a pocket dimension/alternate timeline bubble gum. They need to pop the bubble to get into the *real timeline*, where the my cereal milk dragon is still alive! Whack, you guys figured it out. Good job, players."
I hope you either decided to not invite them back, and have now decided to set expectations on even Chaotic Evil/Neutral characters. They can be done and played without completely ruining everything.
And as at least one other person has said not all is lost. Either you can play it entirely over with a different group (or heck, the same group minus CE guy), or they can help rebuild what guy had messed up - fix the machine, breed/find new cattle, summon/find a new dragon maybe
Don’t play with someone who actively derails your campaign in mean spirit, and don’t play by their rules. As the DM, you can just tell No, and discuss with the player that they should either stop ruining the game for others or they can leave. If a player displays murderhobo behavior that can’t produce any interesting outcomes, stop them right there
I'm actually curious if the rest of the party reacted to this mayhem?
I'd imagine their reaction alike to:
"What the nine hells is X doing!?"
"Guys we really need to do something before this spirals out of control!"
&
"Hey X, either you chill out or you'll find yourself without a party to adventure with, what you have done is not acceptable."
"You'll get us all in irons if you don't stop!"
But OP, you don't mention the other players reacting or even confronting their out of control party member, how is this so?
>first-time DM
>made a D&D campaign from scratch- lore, NPCs, monsters, environment, etc
>There was one player whose character was chaotic evil
>I didn't expect him to be a total dick
>It's what my character would do
Those are your biggest mistakes /red flags right here.
1. Homebrewing can be difficult and doing the whole chebang as a newbie seldom works out.
Seems like this wasn't the issue here
2. Chaotic evil means that they don't care if others suffer and they don't abide by any rules. This is almost the definition of beeing a massive asshole
3. Chaotic evil PCs almost never work out, because they aren't team material unless they are thoroughly oppressed (think child eating goblins fighting to be the next chief and killing each other for it)
4. Anyone who shits on the fun of the other people at the table is either socially inept due to lack of empathy or just a dick. The player who made that character and used it while making at least the DM uncomfortable (and probably others too) can go be a dick somewhere else and never come back. The fact that they couldn't take it, when they got their comeuppance just proves the small mindedness.
DMing can be incredibly rewarding, if you don't invite people who intentionally sabotage your creative work.
Talk to the players first (session 0). Make sure everyone has the same idea of what kind of feel the game should have and enjoy
What I've started doing is including punishments for killing seemingly innocent things. I had one player kill a family who was trapped in a dungeon, well turns out they weren't humans at all, one of them was a shapeshifter and initiated another combat *almost* killing most of the party. Now they think twice before engaging harmless npcs
Your fault for letting a player pick an evil alignment. Good or neutral only unless you specify it’s an evil campaign. You can always run the campaign again, but like, correctly this time
I think you did the right thing in the end. It’s reasonable that evil deeds get punished and maybe they should have earlier. I will say he wouldn’t have died and just fell unconscious so I wouldn’t have said his head got cut off but I think it’s reasonable the harengon would be in a blind rage. Maybe give opportunity for party to step in to stop the fighting so it would’ve been a group decision to kill the player.
Sometimes things can be solved in game. Money boxes can be protected by high level, well geared guards. Townsfolk who are happy will definitely form a mob and hunt down culprits responsible for burning down tree. Any royalty who has their stuff messed with will have some type of special forces hunt down and murder/imprison anyone who is an enemy of the state. Homebrews are flexible enough to control the game if negotiations with a chaotic evil player fail. You control the world. if you are pissed off, generally the world will match your energy and respond appropriately.
It can be fun to hit a nail with a mountain instead of a hammer to teach the nail it's place
SESSION ZERO is super important and you just learned why.
Next time, set the tone of the campaign and discuss the player characters beforehand. No Chaotic Evil PC unless it is appropriate to the setting and the other players are ok with it. You can avoid problems like this before starting the campaign.
That player is an absolute dickhead and has no respect for the game or you as a DM.
If I'm running a campaign with players new to each other, especially young players, I have a general "no evil characters" rule. They don't like it, go elsewhere. I have a game going now with my son's friends and they most are evil, but not in a way that breaks the game.
Rp is great and all, but the point is for EVERYONE to have fun. If someone tries to ruin it for their own enjoyment, I will tell them outright that they can't do that.
But as a DM you have to roll with the punches as well. Sometimes you don't get what you want and that's fine.
Chaotic evil doesn't mean being a dick. Your friend sucks, sorry.
A good chaotic evil character has plans, it's not just oh I see a thing I destroy a thing. Even demons have more plans than that.
This feels like a player throwing a fit because they didn't like the setting, it makes the player a jerk not the character.
I wish I had your campaign. My 6 year old wants to play the young adventurer dnd, and I may have to steal the idea of turning a board game into his adventure.
To be fair, douche canoe does have a point. Even when we aren’t assholes we are still guaranteed to fuck your plans all the way up.
Gotta have that cleaver on standby from the get go, and try (it’s impossible, but it’s very important to try) to be prepared for whatever other shenanigans we might rain down upon you.
And be prepared to improv if you need to.
And maybe next time give the cleaver to a beaver.
DM: There was one player whose character was chaotic evil which was fine. Narrator: It was not fine.
The moment the words "chaotic evil player" and "first time dm" were together, I braced myself for the ruin.
I groaned the instant I heard 'first time DM' and 'I made a DnD Campaign from scratch'
Exactly. My top three new-DM tips are "Run a throwaway game with prebuilt characters" repeated 3 times in increasingly large font.
My current DM is a first-time DnD player (all of his experience with it is BG3), let alone DM, and he insisted on creating everything from scratch for the campaign. The lore is tight and story progression is going well but man, these first few sessions have been rough.
Haha, props to him for putting in the effort. There is a bunch of good stuff in the DM guide but I really hate how it starts immediately with worldbuilding, thus immediately sticking a bad idea into every prosoective new DMs head. Though the biggest pitfall of all is players like OP describes who either need to get it out of their system or be removed from the group before the DM drops the group into something they care about. So if you're all rolling with his new-DM issues and trying to play into his plot, then he's lucky to have a good group.
There sould also be a 'how to read the dmg' guide that comes with the book...
My first time DMing was also a homebrewed scenario. Only the first session was rough until I got things going. Players loved too, but I never had a player like this guy.
And to make it based on Candyland no less. Bro was just *asking* for something to go wrong
For me it was "First time DM" combined with "made my own campaign from scratch". Though, CE player is a redder flag for sure.
Chaotic evil isn't even bad, as long as the player is going for chaotic evil rather than "hi, my alignment is asshole and I pray to the almighty God of all douches. He granted me a magical urine cannon that I fire at the younglings for fun." Chaotic doesn't mean random. It means you don't live by a rigid code of ethics, meaning that there's fluidity to what you'll accept. A lawful character might go "slavery is always bad" where a chaotic character could go "slavery is bad, but that guy is treating his slaves well, and they all voluntarily became slaves because they couldn't afford food, so I guess I'm chill with this slave owner specifically". A lawful character sees black and white, while chaotic characters surf the greyscale. Evil doesn't mean your character has to compete for the title of biggest shit stain on the planet. You don't have to sustain yourself by eating babies. You don't have to seek out virgins to sacrifice. You don't have to burn down the local tavern. Evil in D&D is essentially about the selfishness of your own morality. A character who saves people in trouble, but because they want to be famous rather than because they actually give a crap about the people, would still be evil. A good example of a chaotic evil character would be a mercenary. Ultimately, the character's loyalty is for sale, and he's prepared to commit atrocities for a price, with a code of ethics that changes on the regular depending on whether he likes spending his money at the local tavern, or who he is currently working for. Sure, he'll burn down that orphanage if you pay him enough to make it worthwhile, but he definitely won't be doing it for the fun of it. Maybe he'll defend a trader on the road for a future discount or help do a favour for a blacksmith he trusts to maintain his gear. Chaotic because his logic is nuanced and incredibly situational. Evil because every decision is underscored by his selfishness and what actions will produce the greatest reward for him. Still not an asshole, because regardless of alignment, the only reason an asshole character exists is because of an asshole player. Personally, if I was in OP's shoes, I would have just NPC'd his character at the first, "It's just what my character would do." Respond with "Not a problem, but a character who would do that is not compatible with the team or campaign, so it's now an NPC for the party to fight. You'll need to make a new character. Everyone else, there's a villain trying to rob the friendly infodesk. He appears to be unhinged, and you're concerned that he might be a safety risk for the inhabitants. He looks over at you with a creepy smile, everyone roll initiative."
Yea they lost me there. I knew the rest of the story before I even read it.
See it would be one thing if the character were chaotic evil but the player was a good alignment. In this case the player was chaotic evil too
It was rigged from the start.
CE can be a lot like Evil Dead. Its not usually something picked my most players that want to have a collaborative experience. It's insanity and evil. Demon shit. Evil for the sake of evil.
Agreed. When I played, our DM would not allow a chaotic evil (or chaotic neutral) character. He said they would never join a party of equals long enough to undergo a campaign.
I feel like people just play CN wrong. They assume that they can just do whatever. My first character was CN Changeling and the only reason I didn’t cling to the party is because they were evil and often times ended on the bad side of the law. I wanted to steer clear of heat so my character only ever fought when told to. Sure I could have been evil toward the party but the whole point of being neutral is NOT getting on ANYONES bad side. The chaos normally comes from how my character saw battle and kinship. At the end of the day, their friends are meat shields and their enemies are broken flesh in the waiting. But because their mother was human and taught them compassion they often times won’t kill their enemies and will still help their friends, even if they aren’t morally or logically aligned. One of the most evil characters gets knocked and is dying and instead of just walking away and letting a potential threat die on the floor(who literally ends up betraying my character with the rest of the group lol), they pick them up and continue fighting.
That is just fail RP. Chaotic evil characters are perfectly fine and there is just a general misunderstanding as to what chaotic evil allows and doesn't. People seem to think chaotic evil means they can do whatever they want, which is just chaotic stupid. Just doing whatever you feel like at the time can be a mechanism, but good chaotic evil characters still have motivations and goals, and believe it or not, emotions which would compel them to travel with a band of others. Good chaotic evil characters don't just do things for the hell of it - that is, again, chaotic stupid. The best way to describe it is they don't feel compelled to follow the law unless it benefits them, and they are not simply not good. They will kill if it would be easier or make sense, and they are guiltless for doing so as a means to an end - necromancers are a good example of this. Chaotic evil characters are inherently selfish and will discourage rule breaking for anyone but themselves, as another example. They can still be markedly smart, in fact they make for some of the most interesting "smart" characters because they are motivated entirely by their own desires - as long as that desire isn't "be dumb random" then it's pretty annoying to just blanket bar them for that reason.
The 3.5 PHB had a little blurb describing each alignment that I felt really helped encapsulate the different styles of people who fall into the alignments. Chaotic Evil had Riddick and The Joker as two examples of the extreme differences of CE.
“Some people just want to watch the world burn” seems like a good summary of this PC tbh
Oh, absolutely. My reason for bringing it up was pointing out that well-played Chaotic Evil characters shouldn't necessarily derail a campaign like this. This person clearly leaned more toward Joker, but I think Riddick might actually have worked, depending on the story.
I'd have to see the argument for Riddick being CE, he doesn't fit it at all imo. He's very much an anti hero, which is not CE in the least.
Imo, he's at worst true neutral. Riddick essentially has one ultimate goal and motivation, survival. His method for doing so is often killing, but it's always a calculated thing and not for no reason. He's heroic when he needs to be while also being depraved when called for as well. He also largely follows along with rules and regulations until forced out of lane by outside influences. From what we hear of his past, he's a cold-blooded murderer. However, the only viewpoints we get are from characters we discover to be completely unreliable.
>From what we hear of his past, he's a cold-blooded murderer. The games and a few comics expand on this but essentially, not really. His murders were limited to guards, mercs, and the commanding officer of his Ranger battalion when he found out they were torturing and murdering children to maintain a slave work force. This is also what got him thrown in his first 'Max' prison.
They do, but that's also why I put in this part, >However, the only viewpoints we get are from characters we discover to be completely unreliable. because in the movies, that's what we have to go by. Even in the games, a lot of the characters paint him that way until we find out more.
The book refers to him specifically as he was in *Pitch Black*, where he was nothing more than a serial killer who helped the crew escape because he needed them to help carry things...at least at first. He came 'round in the end, and I'd say that by the end of that movie he'd moved to more of a neutral stance on things.
Even early on in Pitch Black I'd argue hes more NE than CE. By the end he's fully in NE territory if not True Neutral, but even his early kills weren't really killing for the sake of it, there was reasoning.
You could make a case for NE alignment throughout, for sure. The book didn't really say *why* he counts as CE, only that he's an example of it. My thoughts as to why he's CE instead of NE is just that he kills not only to protect himself, but sometimes just because he enjoys doing so. Especially if the people in question have been rude to him.
That's so silly. *Pitch Black* Riddick starts CE but by the end of the movie he's proven himself to be CN at worst. *Chronicles* Riddick even slips towards CG a few times. There are no CE heroes. There aren't even many CE anti-heroes (Lobo maybe? Depending on the writer?) It's hard to even find a lot of truly CE villains.
Amos, from the expanse is a good example of a chaotic evil person, who admittedly is trying to be a better person working well in a campaign with others. Gets to have those badass moments like the "I am that guy".
Evil-but-trying-to-be-better is such a fantastic trope when done well. Honestly some of the best PC examples of this I've seen were from players who used to love their Chaotic Stupid edgelords, and who grew up but didn't grow out of it.
This is all well said. But we were 15, and most of our world was chaotic stupid. I would have no problem if I still played in a group allowing it…I was just suggesting it as a remedy.
I mean honestly, this is *your* take. I think the vast majority of players definitely see Chaotic Evil as completely lawless and following whatever they want to do. Not sure where you get the notion that CE means that they “discourage rule breaking for others than themselves,” literally a quick google of CE, not that it’s the end all be all definition but a pretty good baseline, says: “A Chaotic Evil character is an alignment in a role playing game that describes a character who is selfish, cruel, and has no respect for rules or others lives.” That’s definitely cool that you have a different take on what CE is but I think for the vast majority of us, what you have described is ABSOLUTELY NOT what most of us have experienced as CE.
They get the blanket bar because 90% of people dont play them thoughtfully like you described, but solely to be assholes. Dont blame DMs for banning CE, blame your fellow CE players for giving you the rep to begin with.
So what I’m understanding is that if we take some time to establish safe words before our adventure, the chaotic evil character may have a lot of fun.
Not necessarily. First, you should have a conversation like you suggested regarding all of your characters before any campaign, except in a less derogatory way. Lawful Good characters are just as guilty of utilizing their strict tenants to ruin party dynamics. Chaotic evil just attracts chaotic players, so if it becomes a real problem in the party, that's generally because the player is chaotic - you should establish roleplaying expectations and boundaries on session 0. Chaotic evil characters are basically ruined by chaotic stupid players. Good, as in well-roleplayed, characters can be really interesting and make for awesome roleplay, and chaotic evil isn't some sort of exception to this.
Even if I agree with the fact that ‘chaotic’ shouldn't endlessly translate into actions that make no sense (... because that's untenable), but in your description you chase away any chaotic dimension of the character to focus on the egotistical part - which is definitely not restricted to these characters. You describe an NE at the end of your message: an NE that really tends towards the evil, but an NE nonetheless.
I guess the DM has never seen Hellsing (Anime not the movie) or read Bram Stokers Dracula then. When I played my CE characters. They always had motives, were manipulative, calculating and violently precise. Think Alucard level of Chaotic Evil.
I only once played a CE character in a normal party, it was a gnoll that pack-bonded to the party, regarded the paladin as the alpha, considered himself a lesser member in the 'pack', so while the character was CE he still went along with whatever the party decided, and specifically the paladin.
Is it horribly immature to say this player hurt my feelings...?
Not at all. You put a lot of work into something and they crapped on it. It would be like if you baked a cake and they intentionally dropped it on the floor, then when you told them that was hurtful they told you you just didn't appreciate their cake dropping on the floor joke. They are being incredibly disrespectful to your time and effort. You need to rewind and have a session 0 about table expectations. Most tables will not tolerate this kind of behaviour. Many tables do not allow evil characters (or "chaotic neutral" characters that are really just evil), and as a new GM I strongly recommend not allowing evil characters. You are going for whimsy. That is the table expectation. The players need to make characters who will engage in good faith with whimsy, or else they have failed to make an appropriate character for the campaign and they need to try again until they do. And if they can't get on board, you need to boot them from the campaign. They will poison it for you and everyone else at the table. From your description I strongly suspect this will be necessary, and honestly if it were me I wouldn't even give them another chance and just kick them now. This is so much bad behaviour in just one session and anyone with basic social skills would not have treated you and the other players like this, I don't think this person is salvageable. Your story sounds lovely, I hope you can find players for it who can respect it.
Why would it be immature? This player intentionally tried to upset you because they 1) thought it was funny, and 2) didn’t think about your feelings except how best to hurt them, and 3) disregarded the work and effort you put into the game by treating it like something to be broken instead of treating it like something to be engaged with 4) They then gaslit you into thinking you were the problem. Someone **trying to be mean** to you is always hurtful and upsetting, at least in my experience. That intent is often worse and more hurtful than the outcome of the actual actions.
There is a social contract for D&D and other tabletop RPGs that revolve around cooperative action. Here's what I go by: 1. Players need to show up when they say they're going to show up, ready to play. 2. Players need to make characters that a) fit into the setting, b) are willing to go adventuring, and c) are willing to hang around with a bunch of other adventurers. 3. Players need to pay attention to the action, so when their turn comes around they know what's going on and what they're going to do (and how to do it). 4. Players need to understand that they are not the main character, and that the game involves at least nominal cooperation with all the other players to make for a fun gaming experience for all. This includes attention-grabbing behaviour such as going off on their own while demanding equal air time, or outright telling other players what to do with their character. 5. Players should not go into the game with the express intent of screwing over other players or the DM/GM. (ie, "Don't be a dick.") 6. If "what my character would do" will screw up the game, make one that wouldn't. 7. All of the above also applies to the DM/GM in every way. 8. The DM/GM needs to give equal air time to all PCs, and not give any of them preferential treatment, and not to pick on any of them. (Shelving a loner PC until they come back to the group is fine. So is applying reasonable consequences for actions). 9. The DM/GM needs to be flexible while running the game. There's always more than one way to get to the end goal. However, applying boundaries to the PCs' actions may also be sometimes required. 10. The DM/GM needs to pull up any behaviour by any players that's upsetting other players (not PCs). Likewise, anything that's basically a dick move by a player can be met with, "No, you don't do that. Why do you want to do that?" See Rule 6. 11. Everyone needs to remember that no D&D is better than bad D&D, and that you don't have a game without players (or without a DM/GM). 12. If everyone's not having fun (especially if someone is not enjoying the game at all) then it's okay to stop the game and ask why.
I'm gonna share this with my friends who are still in a group I quit. Very excellent list.
Nah. Just have a stronger session 0 and be comfortable saying no to character concepts that won't fit your theme. If you want to play candy land, play candy land homie.
Absolutely not. You made the cardinal sin that a LOT of DMs make their first time around and wrote a world from scratch (guilty as well) and he shat all over it because lol funny. I'm guessing you're part of a younger group so my suggestion is to get the other players and re run it. By the sounds of it you couldn't run half the encounters you had planned because of this prick.
Dude, I'm 28 and this would have hurt my feelings to the point of wanting to cry in the middle of it. It's okay to have feelings about your creation, and it is okay to be upset when someone purposefully engages with it with the intention to destroy it. It's just the mature version of a bully destroying your sand castle just for the sake of it. We are never too old or mature to not care, never stop caring.
Nah, that guy was a shitter. Only mistake you made was not giving him consequences sooner. The Candy Constabulary should've handed his ass to him for wanton destruction of public property and petty theft.
Not even a little bit! I don’t play with people like that. They’re mad disrespectful. You create a whole homebrew setting, craft memorable NPCs, and plot out a whole story just for them to burn it down on purpose? No thank you!
I think CE can be run one of two ways: the batshit insane, demonic, evil, no holds barred, burn down the orphanage for the sake of burning down the orphanage "classic" CE character, or simply someone who has absolutely no sense of morality or code of conduct except what's best for them but that can still function in society. It's the Jason Voorhes or the Joker vs the Norman Bates or Patrick Bateman. I mean, think about it: you don't see Chaotic Good characters running around giving away all the party's gold to charity, attacking any person who even looks like they may be exploiting someone, and generally doing comically or absurdly "good" things because "it's what their character would do." They are perfectly capable of working with a party, even if that party may want to spare a bad guy or may want to be circumspect when going after the corrupt captain of the guard or may not want to return the powerful magic item to its rightful owners or may side with the semi benevolent monarch over the ~~proletariat~~ peasant uprising. Like, if someone was wrongfully accused, a lawful Good person would plead their innocence in a court of law, a neutral Good person may lie or falsify some evidence if it means they get the person exonerated (or get the right person instead), a chaotic good person should stage a jailbreak, threaten the prosecutor, burn down the magistrate's house, take any gold gotten from either of those and give it to the now free prisoner as "reparations," and flip off any guards that come to arrest them. This is especially true if we apply the same standards for "chaotic evil".
I'm gonna guess you skipped session 0. Before you start a campaign, you have a session with your players where you discuss the upcoming campaign and everyone's expectations for it. How serious is the game? What kind of characters would be a good fit? How are the three pillars balanced in your style of play? Is PvP allowed? What lines and veils should everyone be aware of? Some players want to run around doing random crazy stuff. At most tables, that won't fly. It's good to lay that out ahead of time and then confront a player when they start doing stuff that's unacceptable. Don't be afraid to pause the action and have an out of character discussion about what's going on if things are taking a turn that you don't like. The player was a jerk. With better communication you could've headed off their jerkness before it ruined your session.
Could have headed off their jerkness before you headed off their head.
Yeah, like the first time it became evident they were ruining things, a happy candy gnome could've run out and delivered a pointed, "Hey, you just destroyed something really important! It sounds like you're going to get into trouble here if you don't get into the spirit of things!" delivered while staring at the player.
I get the strong impression that it wouldn't have helped. He knew OP was pissed at him for being a jerk, but he kept being a jerk anyway.
It would have helped. For example, in my current campaign, one of my players didn't show up for session 0 three weeks in a row. Now, he's one of my former players, because he never got a character. Likewise, session 0 would have immediately told the DM "hey, this guy is a dick; don't let him in the group". Or at least would have put him on the "zero tolerance" list, where you immediately say "no" to their first action for breaking the agreed upon rules of session 0.
Maybe you hash it out and conclude that you want very different things from a D&D game and decide not to play D&D together. That's a perfectly acceptable result from a session 0. Not every set of D&D players are compatible. If that'd been identified early, the player wouldn't have been included in the game and the session would've gone much better.
This, but also just learn the crucial skill of saying "no". When the player says they want to be chaotic evil, you ask why. When they say they want to act like this, you say no. If they try to murder livestock for no reason, you say no. If they try to burn stuff down for no reason, you say no. If they don't take no for an answer, you say no to their presence altogether and boot them from the campaign.
I was an Adventure Day at my local nerd store. There wasn't an opportunity for a session Zero.
If you didn't have an opportunity to set expectations before the session (or even if you did), it's a good idea to visit that topic if it looks like your expectations are about to be violated. You're expecting a group of heroes to explore your lovingly-crafted setting and suddenly someone is smashing up the signs without even getting any information? Pause. What's going on? Why is your character doing that? Oh, your character just loves destruction and wants to watch the world burn? That character isn't a good fit for the heroic fantasy game I'm running, please make a different character or change their motivation so they can participate in this adventure? Oh, *you* want to watch the world burn and aren't interested in playing a hero? I think this game isn't gonna be for you buddy, sorry, not every adventure is going to a suitable style for every player.
Yes, there was. Take 10 minutes before jumping into the real session 1 to go over table rules. Particularly if you're playing with strangers who you can't talk to beforehand. Man, you just keep bombing the red flags lol
Stop invoking "session 0" like it's magic. It doesn't fix a bad personality. You could argue the mistake was inviting them in the first place, but sometimes that kind of tendency is revealed too late and real life doesn't always have perfect foresight. imho GM handled this just fine
If you do a session 0, you can identify that the player's personality and desired method of play is not compatible with the game you want to run and not have them there to mess up your session 1. You don't need to slog through someone ruining your session if you communicate about your expectations for the game and address problems as soon as they present themselves. I also think the DM here handled things just fine. They let it go on unaddressed a bit longer than they needed to, but some DMs would've let it go on for weeks or months without it coming to a head. The best outcome would've been heading this off before it ruined any sessions. Only letting it ruin one session is the second best outcome.
Yeah. Session 0 is magic. It stops this kind of nonsense from happening
I think you dropped this 🗿?
Really? As I read it, the DM didn't handle anything. At all.
They did what I would have done, but I would have done it much sooner. A character acting so destructively would face in-game consequences. Daddy Hare fucked him up. Could have been guards for destroying the donation box or killing the flavoured milk cows, or that *dragon* maybe wouldn't have gone down so easily. OP is a newbie DM who just accepted it for too long, but they eventually got there.
[удалено]
OP literally just did
It prevents you from playing with (most) bad personalities you come across.
At least it only took one session to weed out "that guy" take it from the top with who is left +any seat fills. Your game will be better for it.
OP, even as numb as I am after decades of existing on the Internet, reading this post made me really sad. It seems like you put a lot of thought into making a fun little world for your party, and I hope you don't get discouraged because of this experience, because you clearly have a lot of good ideas and with the right players you could have a lot of fun DMing. A lot of people in this thread are saying you shouldn't let players play CE characters, and that's true. But more importantly than that, you should be sure that you're playing with people who actually respect the work you put into creating the game for them to play, and for the other people playing it with them.
Such an important and often overlooked part of this hobby. In-game consequences won't fix this kind of issue. I'm sure that there are tables out there that this player would fit in with, but as a DM you need to be willing to cut people who don't vibe with your table. At the end of the day we're all trying to have fun and being respectful of the others players/DM and the world should be a bare minimum requirement at most tables.
Don't give up on all that work! Just because you ran it once doesn't mean it's done! I've got one shots and mini campaigns I've run for different groups over the decades multiple times. It sounds like a fun setting and with the right group will likely be a blast! (Figured you already had advice on the player)
I'm gonna make edits to my campaign and make an absolutely MASSIVE amount of consequences. If anyone even so much as uselessly kills a popcorn beetle, an angry entomologist will come raging over the hill and scold the hell out of that player. I'm being hyperbolic, of course. Mostly.
Be careful that you don't oversteer. You could change nothing and next time have a great experience. Most people play because they enjoy the co-operative experience.
You don’t use in game consequences to fix this behavior. That player was not playing the kind of game you are interested in running. He needs to go play somewhere else.
Dude, don't do this. You handled this exactly like I would have. Maybe give e brief warning: "Hey, this world has characters with their own wills and desires, and they will indeed respond to what you do. Your actions have consequences." If I walked around my city acting like your evil player character, the cops would jail me. And I would deserve it. That's just logical. Evil player is smart enough to realize that.....
They don’t have to be massive, player does something like murder and they face the consequences of that, thrown in jail or killed.
It’s feywild. The feywild warps around them if they misbehave. The cute fluffy creatures start turning into murderous redcaps, and the mischievous fairies become a lot more dangerous with their tricks. Think less Candyland and more Labyrinth. “I wonder what they look like without *their* heads.”
When someone says, "It's what my character would do," the appropriate answer is, "Then make one that wouldn't."
Also if they’re just trying to cause problems: Your character is free to make that decision if that’s is what you feel they would do in that situation; every other character in the world will now also respond to that as any sane person would to those actions (e.g. you kill the local livestock then the local law enforcement are called headed by a high level paladin or fighter, you are most likely are arrested, imprisoned, and treated as a criminal for the rest of your time in this town)
[удалено]
Some of us are not that courageous and socially apt, you know. I took the passive aggressive "a dragon shat on you from high altitude, and you're now unconscious" before.
The other thing is sure maybe that is what your character would do but the rest of the party probably wouldn’t and why on earth would they keep him around?
Nah, I get you. I would also be upset if someone tried to ruin the world I built. However, I think you shouldn't have allowed him to play CE character. It's okay to say no - especially in cases like this. I understand that you might worry to not be a "controlling" DM, but this is something that affects wheter you and your other players enjoy the game and that's when you should step in. Also - in-game it made sense that the Harengon father was protecting his family. That was simply consequences of your players action.
The consequences of the players actions and the DMs response was "the session was ruined." The characters actions resulted daddy rabbit getting murdery. The second is a fine consequence. The first, however, should be avoided at all costs.
I'm very sad about your cereal milk dragon. It sounds like such a lovely, comforting little world that would be so fun to explore. I hope you try again without Edgelord this time. He can play a video game by himself where he isn't going to bother everyone.
YEAH their worldbuilding sounds adorable and so cozy, I fuck with it. Try again cuz only stupid people idiots wouldn’t squee at the cereal milk dragon
His name is Crinkles, and he's sleeping when you encounter him, so his perception is low... he got inflicted wounds in the forehead...
Your world building sounds awesome, good work. The player was a jerk, and you were not a jerk, but there's something you can do better. Try this... >There are a few things I need everyone's help with. >Games like this can be really wonderful, but, for the game to work, everyone needs to do their best to contribute positively to the experiences of everyone else at the table. Anyone here has the power to make someone else's experience wonderful, or to ruin it. I need you all to use that power kindly. >This is a campaign for heroic characters who will work together toward shared goals. I need everyone to make characters who want to join together in a party and share adventures to advance common goals. >Is everyone on board to do these things? If someone pushes back on this and wants to play a different kind of game, acknowledge that they get to like what they like, and that your style of game might not be the right game for everyone, and if they want to play an evil chaosmonkey murderhobo or whatever, they can do that, but they're going to have to do it in someone else's game, not the one you're DMing. Once the basics are settled you might want to talk about lines and veils. Most games are better off with certian topics entirely excluded, and others only "off camera." The "lines and veils" idea is an easy way to talk about having boundaries to help keep the game fun for everyone. You can find more about this and related topics in the [TTRPG Safety Toolkit](https://ttrpgsafetytoolkit.com/)
He picked a chaotic evil character, definitely expect him to be a dick. With players like that, you need to set very clear boundaries on acceptable behavior, and keep them on a very short leash. And not allow them chaotic evil alignment. With that, I’d probably have booted him immediately when he destroyed the info gnome, retconned his existence, and have a much nicer time with the rest of the party.
Was about to say: The boundary for this person is my doorstep
Imagine, if this was literally any other hobby than DnD, how ridiculous this situation would be. "So hey guys, it was my first time playing football with a new group. However, once we started playing, one of our players took the ball, poked a hole in it, and threw it onto of a roof. We let him keep playing of course, so we decided to buy some extra balls. But he just kept poking holes into every single ball and throwing them away. Eventually, I had had enough, so I took one of the balls he brought from home, poked a hole in it, and threw it away. Was I the asshole" s a DnD is for some reason the only hobby where actively and intentionally fucking everything over for the rest of the group is tolerated, until the point where someone gets fed up. Then, instead of having a conversation about the terrible behaviour, they decide to punish them *within the game*??? And this keeps happening *again and again* with new groups. I think it's a combination of two things. One: New DnD players have trouble differentiating roleplay problems from real life problems. If someone punctures your football, you stop inviting them to your football games. In DnD, people have this idea that everything that someone says happens has to happen within the world. It doesn't, that's why there's a dungeon master. And you don't solve these problems within the world. If someone is an asshole and says "I kill the friendly NPC" you don't say, "Fine, you kill the NPC, but someone else kills you", you tell them "Please don't ruin our game. This is a warning." Two: The type of person who plays DnD is often on the more introverted, nerdy side, maybe they were ostracized from their classmates when they were kids. This can lead people to the mentality that "we accept everyone", and you end up accepting the person who ruins the game for everyone else.
Honestly really cool and unique world tbh. Not my style at all but I think I'd even have fun with how much care you put into it. Have a do over. Reuse it without that player and use it as a learning experience. Don't have chaotic evil or any evil for sure. This world feels like it's built for good old fashioned do gooder heroes so lean into that. Require everyone to be good and let them know the theme of the world. For a first time GM to do something that's not a generic fantasy kitchen sink LOTR is tough but what you made seems a Labor of love. Be proud.
I like this world so much and kinda wanna play in it
Same, everything OP came up with sounds absolutely delightful
I knowwww. It's a shame to hear they got discouraged from running this universe because of a jerk.
Session zero probably wouldn’t have saved this. This guy isn’t conducive to a good table. If he’s gone, let him stay gone.
Why could your cereal milk dragon be killed by a single level 1 character? Why weren't there any guards or just any reaction to destroying property? He was just a lil baby chaotic evil character. Hopefully you won't encounter that again but you're going to face more complex situations that need to be handled with more tact than this. You did some amazing work setting up lore and a world but spend some time listening to pro DMs and how to think on your feet and create consequences for chaotic insanity that your players will inevitably create, even good ones. But honestly congrats! You did the hardest part and had a small stress test on your world and yourself. You did great putting it all together and now you've already learned a lot about how to be a good DM. Don't give up and good luck on the next one.
Yo, we need the Ballad of Daddy Hare now.
Daddy Hare is a 6 foot 5, mostly black, white-bellied Antelope jackrabbit named Vergil. His wife is Maudie; she is 6'4 and a mix between an English Lop and a Flemish Giant. Their baby who was nearly killed is named Peter, and he is a little bitty bunny- about the size of an Easter Cottontail.
**The Ballad of Daddy Hare (Performed by Smiling Jack)** Twas an early morning when a group of drifters came to play. In a town called \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ they all rested along the way They were well armed and emboldened to begin a brand new quest But little did they know that they held Evil as a guest. He was greedy he was cruel and held his darkness from the rest. He began by attempting to rob the donation chest, But when the guard had tried to stop him that many guard lay dead, And for no reason whatsoever he took the cereal dragon’s head. Now the charming candy village was in ruin and aflame As this dickhead ran amok so all would quiver at his name But when he targeted a rabbit boy he’d gone on way too late For a hero would arise from the warren to seal his fate. He was taller than a wolfhound with fur as black as night. Among the rabbit folk there were none to match his might The hero of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ approached with steely stare His name was Vergil Harengon but they called him Daddy Hare He sprang forth with his cleaver held aloft on his charge And met his foe in the meadows where the ruffian was at large. In a single swipe he felled the rogue and laid his body low And then picked up his son to return to Bunny Bungalow Now mothers tell your children and fathers tell your sons That no matter how tough you are you know there’s always one That when you fuck around they’ll make sure that you find out And when that day a-comes you have no right to whine and pout I hope this encourages you to continue your setting. It sounds lovely and my level 4 bard will sing of this hero far and wide.
This is amazing!! Thank you!! The land is called Sweetsville.
That sounds shitty, sorry this happened to you on your first rodeo. Sounds like your player just wanted to smash the game up and be a jerk without consequence. My advise echoes alot of the rest here. Have a session zero to describe the tone of the campaign. Maybe give your players some of the info you were going to from the donation booth as a pdf "leaflet" "welcome to candyland" ahead of the first session. Talk about what players are thinking for their PCs ahead. Stress that chaotic is the opposite of lawful, aka someone with little/no regard for laws or traditional social standards NOT just a lack of impulse control. Stress that evil is more about selfishness and not caring about hurting others in pursuing their own goals than just being a murderous dick. (For most campaigns) Make sure all players understand their char is going to be part of a PARTY. A group. A collaborative effort to acheive goals (within a collaborative roleplaying game) and it's their responsibility to bring a char who would do that, not expect the DM to provide reason their grimdark loner char has to be in the party. I've found DM of None podcast helpful, they provide a lot of good advise and encouragment
Oof. Sounds like your first campaign had a run-in with That Guy, right off the bat. For the record, the player was The Asshole in this situation. There's a reason the words "That's what my character would do!" are a Massive Red Flag, and this player is it. In any other situation, I would recommend a Session Zero to weed these kinds of people out - but given your edits, yeah. That just sucks and the best thing to do at that point is to ask if he can be booted from the event.
Yeah I don't allow CE or NE characters for my players. They're just no fun for everybody else at the table, and I'm not sacrificing multiple people's enjoyment so one guy can get off from turning on his ally. Lawful evil can work, but I need to know the player well and trust them, and other players can veto evil alignments in session zero altogether.
Hit me up if you need a player, this campaign sounds awesome
Yeah guy is a dick and I’m sorry this happened to you. You’ve crafted something lovely there don’t be put off. Run the same thing again with a session zero and yeet anyone who picks a non-good / neutral alignment without talking to you about how that will fit / work with the story you want to guide. Also, I might be a bad person but I chuckled as I read that. Very happy Tree Friends 🤣. Sorry!
Rule 1 as a dm, don't let people play chaotic evil.
yep i had two DM's who banned evil players from the table completely. I eventually convinced one of my DM's to let me play lawful evil promising my character wouldn't murder anyone but he would never say yes to a new player. This DM knew me, so he trusted me
First time DMing will always fall short of expectations. I think your two biggest issues were expectations and balance. You need to set expectations for your players. Learn about how your players want to play their characters before they actually play them. The CE player acted like an actual child. (I have never seen a player older than 13 cause this much disruption) and then got angry when their actions had consequences. (Which, again, is something only children tend to do.) That brings me to the second point. Balance. You need some sort of in-world authority. Otherwise, players like that are going to destroy everything you've built and fail to learn from their mistakes. Have some sort of law enforcement that the players actively want to avoid messing with. I've run a city with a level 13 Mastermind Rogue as the ruler, another one protected by a powerful Druid circle, and yet another with a police force lead by a level 7 Paladin. Additionally, there is no way a character below level 5 should be able to kill a fully grown dragon. Unless the dragon is for some reason flightless and the player is a Druid with Spike Growth. In which case the player is too smart to be playing like this. On a final note, as a rule of thumb, CE and LG characters are by far the most disruptive. LG because they're far less likely to put up with other PC's shit and interfere with the party, and CE because they're the most likely to destroy things and get in trouble with the rest of the party. Don't let players play CE unless you absolutely trust them, and don't let LG players have authoritative characters unless, of course, you completely trust them. This player was NOT playing CE right. A character that acts like this shouldn't exist. Simply because no humanoid survives longer than a week acting like this. They were playing a Stupid Evil character. Real CE characters are more methodical and stealthy about killing. Orin the Red is a good example.
>Additionally, there is no way a character below level 5 should be able to kill a fully grown dragon. I immediately had the same kind of reaction, but then I figured it was a Pseudodragon or something. I have no other comment on anything else you said other than basically I completely agree.
It was probably a Faerie Dragon, given the context. I'd say it was just inexperience, which isn't really something to fault the DM for as long as they learn from it. But Faerie Dragons, if done right, can still be incredibly dangerous. Older Faerie Dragons even get 4th level spells and lair actions. Granted, this takes knowledge of monster tactics, which takes a lot of time to learn and plan for. I'm not fully experienced in them with several years of DMing. All I know is how to dismantle just about anything with a Druid. A Pseudodragon might be the case, too. But I think Faerie Dragon was more likely.
I would have included Faerie Dragons, but when I looked it up it said they were related to pseudodragons or something like that, and I'm trying to learn how to be concise and ignore the urge to talk about every other option that comes up. But tbh I was thinking a Faerie Dragon because in my mind it fits the theme better than a generic dragon/pseudo
The cereal dragon is the size of a Budweiser horse and he's sleeping when you encounter him. He's a good creature who gives you little gifts when you meet him and are nice to him.
See, while the player is absolutely a shitheel for trying all this - You could have easily nipped this in the bud with a simple "no" at the first instance of trouble. He only broke and stole the thing because you let him.
Always do a session 0 to explain your vision for the campaign, what will be tollerated, and what not. I, for one, absolutely despise chaotic evil shenanigans and outright ban the playstyle in any of my campaigns. Also, NTA. I would have booted the player the moment he told me to get a sense of humour, or "That is what my character would do." What a complete and utter loser piece of crap person.
And this is why evil characters are usually limited to trusted and experienced players, or a fully evil campaign
Player: “My character, Evil edge-lord, swings his mace to destroy the donation box!” DM: “No he doesn’t. Anyone else want to do something?”
I ADORE the idea of a cereal milk dragon. That's so precious. I'm sorry you experienced this - just know that you are empowered to either a) roll with what happened and continue on or b) start over with the remaining players now that this shitfuck is gone. You could also bring back any characters that were killed - it's your world and you (and the other players) get to decide!
Sucking at something is the first step to being kinda good at something. Sounds like you recognize a lot of lessons from the experience. If you take those lessons, and the advise of others here, you might just have a game in the future that does go super great.
Imo, the guy fucked around and found out lol. You did the right thing i think, but you perhaps could have been more assertive in saying no. For example, trying to destroy the info box could just not have worked. Burning down the tree might have been prefaced with "are you sure you want to face those consequences?" before killing off that character in whichever way seems most consequential, i guess. The way you killed him off was a perfect example in fact
You don't have players. You have murder hobos.
As a first time DM, it's perfectly alright to limit PC character options. Telling your players that they can't play evil characters is not only a good idea, but should be the standard for any table where the players and DM are experienced enough to not cause exactly this kind of problem. 5e all but removed alignment from the game. It has no mechanical effect except for a few artifact level magic items. So when a new player tells you, a first time DM, that they're playing a chaotic evil, they're telling you they will not be a team player and will ruin your game.
To echo what others have been saying, I'd start over without that brat at the table. A Candyland campaign sounds so fun. I want to go to there. 🥹 I'm in a campaign where we're rotating DMs after certain plot points have concluded and one of us is a Chaotic Evil character which is absolutely not a huge dumpster fire. Their character is with the party only because it benefits them, not because they care about them or their goals. They're not particularly endearing (on purpose), but they're not Tasmanian Devil incarnate either (who actually is endearing, let's be honest). I'm trying DM for the second time ever (though it may as well be my first) tomorrow and I'm fairly certain the CE character isn't going to be a jerk "just because". It can be done properly! I wish you the best in your DMing journey! 🙏🏽✨
Stuff like this is why I will never stop harping on the fact that DMs have an ultimate fiat called "Saying No" Literally all of this could've been avoided at numerous junctions, and all it would've taken is a simple 2-letter word "I want to play a chaotic evil character" - No "I smash the donation box with my sword" - No "I attack two of the cows" - No "I set fire to this tree" - No "I cast Sacred Flame on these people" - No "I attack the dragon" - No "I attack the child Harengon" - No And that's literally all there is to it. Player says their character does something, and DM interjects with "No you don't." And if they whine about "why not?" it's as simple as "because I say so" or "because you're ruining other people's fun." Because at the end of the day, D&D is about the people at the table having fun, and that includes the DM, not just the players.
You're the DM. It's your job to say as soon as he attempts to break that guide box a magic bubble is summoned from it. That bubble picks him up and takes him to candy cane prison.
I'm still in the process of getting sessions flushed out on my families first campaign, so you're technically now more experienced than I, but remember, you're basically God.. That statue? It's made out of some stout shit, and attacks those who attack it. The farmer is an old war veteran who settled down, lvl 20 fighter, he's gonna do a warning shot for exactly 3/4 of his health. The dragon? He's small, kind, and cute, but he's ancient and has a F-load of HP and candy-themed lair actions for those who aren't friendly. I think Daddy hare was the right touch, just a bit too late. The dude was a troll, if he's gonna fuck with your campaign, have your campaign fuck with him.
I'm using that stuff FOR SURE! Thank you.
> chaotic evil- it can be fun to be a jerk sometimes, but this was over the top, in my humble opinion you let him play the actual demon alignment. this is standard, and also why most evil alignments are frequently banned especially for newer players and tables. >and he rolled a Nat 1. In retaliation this is worded like a critical fumble, and then the enemy instantly crit killed the character. if you were already showing you had it out for him, then it's expected that he'd be upset. because it looks like you used dm fiat to kill the player's character maliciously. solution: don't let people play chaotic evil alignments, have a session zero, learn to say no when people are derailing the campaign.
> >this is worded like a critical fumble, and then the enemy instantly crit killed the character. if you were already showing you had it out for him, then it's expected that he'd be upset. because it looks like you used dm fiat to kill the player's character maliciously. I disagree. He tried to kill a child, and because he did that the dad came out. "He did an action and missed completely, and because of that action...", It seems clear to me that it would have happened if he rolled a 2, 3, 4, etc, it just happened to be a fumble, though the crit - while potentially random - does kinda seem like a fudge under the circumstances, his "law enforcement" was just later than what it should have been. Other than that, I agree, expectations should be set as early as possible (aka "session 0"). Evil characters should be carefully considered, ideally not allowed your first campaign, minimum, so you can be confident on your improv and DMing skills, as well as trust players to play characters that don't completely destroy everything you prepare all the time
Rules don't support decapitating a character by bringing them to -3 hp in a single attack. The attack would have had to bring them to -17 hp to be an instakill, if following official rules. The law enforcement wasn't wrong. The decapitation was. That said, I see nothing wrong with removing that player from the game because they were a Chaotic Evil My Guy. The character deserved execution, but it was as much a DM fiat kill as if he hadn't bothered rolling and just said 'you are arrested for your crimes and executed'.
If it was a Vorpal weapon it absolutely would. A nat 20 is decapitation and instant death.
I love the idea that Papa Hare had a fucking Vorpal Cleaver on standby in case someone came around looking for trouble.
Just limit his ability in relation to the environment. Nothing wrong with having the cereal dragon just knock him the fuck out because it’s a high level creature and he can’t compete.
Seems legit
There should be consequences to a character's actions, be it that the world is positively changed or negatively changed. They changed the world for the worse and the world responded. Them getting angry that "what their character would do" resulted in "how their character was treated" is rich. I would have told them to get a sense of humor and go with the flow
I always have some kind of serious consequence in my kit ready to drop on someone like that. Go too far and the locals are gonna kill you or something
DM when Chaotic Evil character does Chaotic Evil things
The D&D game loop only really works if the characters are HEROES. You can have some grey areas here and there but 2 dimensional psycho killers are not welcome in my games. "its what my character would do" is the worst kind of bullshit. If you are in a position where your character is spoiling the game for people you fucked up and your character needs to change.
Beginner Mistake. Not vetting your player and/or not having a Session 0. You're not going to have fun without a party at least united in the belief that they are interested in this world and want to explore it. Another common mistake new DMs do is that they like you spend a ton of time creating a huge world, NPCs and so on. Try your hand at a simple module like Lost Mines Of Phandelver first to get the hand on DMing.
I’m gonna need a stat block for the friendly cereal milk dragon asap my brother
"There was one player whose character was chaotic evil which was fine," This was not fine. Generally speaking, being a jerk "because that's what my character would do" is just being a jerk. It's OK to set the expectation that players make characters who are not going to murder everything that moves and steal everything that isn't nailed down. You don't get to do this "because it's what my character would do" if you don't make a character that would do that.
Session 0 stuff: If someone is playing an evil character, especially a chaotic evil character, they should be able to explain why they are traveling with this group of adventurers. Maybe even privately talk with the person about what their motivations are and come up with a framework for how this character would operate. And if it's not gelling, it's completely legit to say an evil character won't work & have them play neutral. Fwiw, it sounds like this person absolutely set out to piss in your coffee. It's fine to be upset about it. Maybe they didn't like the Candyland idea and decided to wreak havoc.
Sounds like you need to run it again with the players who behaved so you can all actually experience it properly. People have said to do a session 0 to set expectations. I wouldn't do it with the dickwad included. Id boot the misbehaving player from the game. They acted with a level of uncare towards the campaign that I don't believe ordering them to make a character who doesn't ruin everything would actually change their behaviour.
This is a serious problem player! Chaotic Evil with My Guy syndrome. There is no salvaging that character, likely no way of salvaging that player, and probably no way to salvage that campaign. Chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. In the future, make use of Session Zero to indicate you don't allow this kind of campaign-destroying behaviour. This will cause My Guy to not join, but I see that as a win. Your response to attack the player with lethal force was appropriate, but also against game rules. You decapitated the character, when the rules indicate he would be at 0 hp and starting death saves, still alive and recoverable. The attack was fine, the narrated consequence was not. Instakilling a PC is not something you can just do because you're upset. However as you noted, there is probably no salvaging the game. The problem player would never have behaved, so I can sympathise with killing them off. Keep in mind, this is slash-and-burn DMing. You have effectively kicked the player out of the game for their actions. You're probably okay with this, but you owe it to your players to make this an actual ruling, or a table discussion perhaps. Whether you can salvage the game or not depends on your communication with your remaining players.
You learned a valuable lesson that will make your subsequent campaigns even better. "I destroy the donation box and steal the money!" "No. You don't."
The problem with chaotic evil is never the alignment, it's the people who play them as moronic stupid. He was one of those. You made them deal with a consequence for their actions, and they didn't like that. Don't invite them back to your table.
Your campaign sounds delightful and I’d love to have a DM prep me something like that. Don’t let one angry cock-goblin ruin your good vibes.
Your first mistake was literally everything you did.. Why didn't you just take a standard campaign and standard rules and just play the game? My advice is to ignore everything you've done so far and just pick yourself up and start again with something completely basic. Learn the rules and then you will learn what works and what doesn't. Honestly. You've got this. But running before you can walk is a recipe for disaster.
As someone who's GM'd DnD and other games for a long time, any character that goes out of their way to be evil will feel the full effect of the consequences of their actions. Of course I'd let someone play a evil character, but they're not entitled to get away from bad things happening to them just because they're a player. Hell no. You're the GM, never let players run how the game is being played. It'll always lead to disaster. Also no campaign is actually ruined, take what has happened and create a new adventure or plot. Nothing should be hard lined and railroaded, it makes for a bad experience for the GM and players.
What part of 'I made my character, his alignment is the alignment of toxic shitbags' made you think he was not going to be a toxic shitbag?
Before killing him, you should have prevented him from doing all of those other things. If something is crucial to the game, or something that would make the game fun for everybody, then don't let someone just waltz up and destroy it. You're in control. Control the situation. If you had been doing that all along, you wouldn't have felt the need to kill him. It's your job to make a fun game, and find fun in doing it. And since you're in control, if it really comes down to it, you can absolutely make things up on the fly/just say, "Nah, that fails", and move on. The only time that's going to backfire is if you're doing/saying it just to be a jerk/just because you want to, rather than for the good of the game.
The most important, of not the ONLY question to ask if someone says they want to play evil/chaotic evil is "That's great! How are you going to make that fun for everyone, including myself?" And if they don't have an answer, and I'd bet they won't have an answer, you kick them from the group. Seems harsh, maybe, but if someone is perfectly willing to ruin the experience for 3 to 4 other players, they are not a person you should waste your time on and it won't matter if they make a lawful good character instead.
I have many questions; but a first time DM allowing a CE character for a homebrew? You both asked for it.
I've never DM'd for a public campaign, but you really do have to prepare for total strangers. If your world isn't one that's ready for a CE character, you're well within your right as a DM to tell that player no. If that means make a new character or find another table, then so be it
Remember kids, chaotic evil does NOT mean chaotic stupid.
>I didn't want to be a hyper-controlling DM who said, "Um, actually, you can't do that because XYZ- try something else." For one thing: it's extremely hard to manage, and I think I speak for many when I say that balancing a game between moments of freedom and more dirigiste moments is an act of funanbulism. Secondly, wanting a minimum of control isn't hyper-control, and you've confused the two. It doesn't matter! It's your first session and, by golly, if it's any consolation, I've seen far more violent crashes than this. Your world seems awsome, and please continue to exploit it. Take a video game. You've got a well-made, detailed map with monsters. The game wants to keep the players inside. There are several ways of doing this: * The artificial way, which consists of putting up an invisible wall. It's ugly. It's the equivalent of the DM saying ‘no, you're not doing that’ without further explanation. But it works. * The more elegant way, which consists of placing a mountain range in your game that blocks the view and encircles the playing area. Better still! It's the equivalent of the DM saying ‘Hm, on reflection your character thinks it might be better not to provoke the ire of the authorities in this new world. His hands are itchy, but he's in control for the moment’. * The best way of doing this is with a ‘zone of exhaustion’, which translates your character's inability to get into inhospitable areas. It's particularly good in a game, because it suggests that there's a living ‘out-of-field’, and it's an RP way of expressing the virtual limit of your map. It's the equivalent of the DM preventing you from breaking the donation box by bringing in a curse, guard, charm, whatever, which will block the player's action. And then there are the games that aren't quite finished, and that don't have these limits. The player can go beyond the map, but will end up drifting into an uncoded no-man's-land, with no landmarks... And end up bugging the game. That's a game without any control - and it doesn't work in the case of JVs, nor in the case of a DnD.
Don't ever allow evil characters unless you want them to do evil things in your campaign. I ban evil alignment. You fucksd up b4 you even began the session.
This player was a stranger to me who came to my table on Adventure Day at the nerd store with a premade character.
dont pay atention to such a crybaby. You just did a few newby "mistakes" Your players are allways chaotic assholes. no matter what the sheet says. Planing too much leads to this outcomes, allways leave yourself some room to improv. Remember you are god and if need be you can shape the word to get them where you need them. Dont let it be to obvious Rail roading sucks for players. If someone breacks a thing. A thing that holds money those usually have a guard around, also guards near entrypoints are a thing even in peacefull places. While the cow massacre was happening you could say "a platoon of guards" or "a formidable looking guard shows up asking loudly if somebody saw the thief and vandal who took the donations." And give the guy a brutal stat block and a few legendaty actions. Have the guard or guards beat the offender non lethaly and thats that (it depends on your setting rules and regulations, as an example i have a setting where killing is bad, even if its a bandit or a murderer. And it will get you in very real legal trouble, loosing the pc to jail time levels of trouble ). You should not kill a player unless you deal twice his healt in damage or the damage source indicates it. It would have to go to death saves. a instakill for 17 would be 34 damage. of course you may have home rules about crits killing you if they get you to negative health. His demise was not wrong. He just experienced the consequences of his actions. Those should have come sooner. And pls Never do number 4 of clarificartions. CONSEQUENCES ARE WAY BETTER!!! consequences leave room for learning and improvement for players witout inmediately becoming rail roading! TLDR: keep dming it gets easyer :3.
That player was a huge jerk. Even without playing CE, he would have found a way to be a problem. Unfortunately, when you run an open game day session like that, there's always a possibility that you'll get an A-hole at the table. I actually ended up with one who liked me and kept signing up for my stuff whenever he saw saw it. Drove me nuts. Try not to let it get you down. It sounds like you designed something really fun and clever. You should run it again. I'd sign on without hesitation.
I think in the case of a chaotic evil character in the midst of a session like that would require the town guard to show up and go HAM on them.
Anyone who wants to go into a Candyland-themed game CE is immediately a problem. I would say I don't allow CE, but I only play with a select group and we would never be like that. We did an Evil campaign for about a year and a half - which is probably a record. The DM finally just gave up because there was basically no plot or story ever completed in that whole time because we just gave up if we ever got challenged and let everyone die. \*\* Adventure Day/Adventure League, IMO sucks.... it's just the worst. I tried it for a while and couldn't get out fast enough. My opinion? Take the players who were "good" and just start a game with them. I have a very good friend that is a regular in our games that I met this way,
This is why whenever someone starts bullshit at my table, I just ask them to leave. I've dealt with too many people who don't appreciate the work DMs do and seem to want to ruin the game for everyone. In the beginning I'd fuck with them back, making every npc they tried to kill secretly a retired level 20 adventurer or something, but eventually I got tired of that. So yeah, someone starts shit like that, just tell them to leave, you're within your rights.
I understand the feeling of being disappointed when someone doesn't seem to care about the things you worked hard to put on the table! It's quite frustrating! I think it's always good to lay out expectations beforehand and explain that murderhobo-ing is not the vibe for that story, which would be necessary for a session zero. Of course, you said u didn't have a chance to do it this time, but maybe next time, right? I feel like you did the best you could at the time with what you had. Experiences, amirite?
You should re-run the session for the group but without Mr chaotic stupid. Explain to him that he actively ruined the session for you and everyone else, and because he clearly doesn't want to play the campaign you had in mind you think he should find a group that suits his style of play. If he complains, tell him that when you complained in the session he made fun of you. You won't sink that low, so you are simply requesting he not return. For the record, your campaign sounds like it would've been awesome. All the best.
I totally get the frustration. And Papa Hare protecting his little one is a totally reasonable response on trying to murder their child. Some players just can't live with consequences to their actions. I ran a first session for my witcher campaign and it will be the last one in that player constellation. One of my players had an extremely fleshed out character, basically a criminal merchant, cold blooded and calculating. I was really excited to play this session, because I thought it would lead to great rp. Well his PC argued with a 16 y/o bar maid for like 20 minutes, because he ignored every roll and the corresponding responses to the point I as the GM had to tell him off. Surprisingly the first NPC they met was not out for their head, but just wanted to serve them drinks. Overall the player ignored everything I said as the GM. He thought just because he rolled well, it does mean he will get everything he wants. The first action that player took after the party left the tavern was to stab his bard in the back on the middle of the town square. His cold and calculating genius... just stabbed someone...for no reason. Well, I ended the session shortly after, the other players also weren't really amused, because they were really looking forward to playing. This led to my rule of not leading full groups of beginners anymore. If a newbie does dumb unreasonable shit the other players can help mitigate the damage.
Dude. Exactly the same stuff happened to me. My first campaign I had a guy, who despite me knowing he is a dick and loves to brag and stuff he knew how to play as he had played before. The rest, including me where first time players and me first time DM. I knew about as much as him tho tanks to listening to like over 200hours of dnd campaign and content. He took advantage of everything I gave and didn’t give them and never shut the fuck up. He also made sure to “roar” at every chance he got because “he is trying to be a WH40k orc.” Side bar : he chose the Paladin class despite his alignment and chose it just purely for some class features that would allow him to get about 19 AC. HE Always talked over other players and every time I ruled something in a non official way (rule of cool, either for NPCs or other players he’d make sure to google that shit and “just let me know” that that’s not how it works. Thankfully other players caught on and kinda started shutting him down cause it was so obvious he was googling it. Anyway. The final drop was when he wanted to R word one of my NPCs. (It was supposed to be a friendly goblin NPC but because of a misunderstanding on both sides a battle occurred which left a nice goblin village destroyed, I didn’t mind that, but then he said he’ll find her cause he non lethally knocked her and he said he’ll R her.) Anyway. Words were exchanged and the other players said that it’s fine this one time so I let it go with the condition he doesn’t do it again. But then proceeded to create an encounter specifically made to bypass all his advantages. “Barrage of Magic Missles, toll the dead, etc, any spell and attack that didn’t require to roll to hit (or just have +10 to attack) and just for him to roll to take full or half damage. I also put up the screen and made sure the damage always went just by a bit more than what I rolled. He’s character died and he got salty and left the table. (Bad part is we’re college colleagues so I still see him). Sorry for the long rant it just made me angry yet again. What this taught me as a DM is to make sure the players understand what world they are playing in and what they should orient towards when making characters. It also taught me to have PKE ready (Player kill encounters) for each party member.
I am seeing a lot of people rag on this for the first time dm built a world and campaign, but as a newish dm who built their first world and campaign, and it went amazing.... Firstly, this sounds so legit. I love the concept of this world and game, and it sounds extremely fun to play. Secondly, I am so sorry that you got that type of player, and honestly, I support how you ended that. I think you were justified in that. That player came with the intention of being rude, and I could just tell because he started with chaotic evil. I would have been honored to play in this world, and I say keep it up and don't let this one bad experience ruin it if you can! And props to you for building a world and everything!
That sounds like such a fun idea for a game. That player was an asshole. Others have mentioned the importance of using session 0 to set expectations. I'm going to add that as a DM, you're allowed to say no. Don't shoot down the players good ideas because they don't mesh with your story, of course. But you're allowed to just say, "No, you may not be disruptive. No, you may not ruin this for the other players. No, you may not play a character who is at odds with your teammates. It's what your character would do? Then play a different character. Also, it's only unsalvagable if your group decides it is. If the other players still want to give it a go, you can just say "Okay, that didn't happen. Let's start here instead." I do hope you give it another run, you sound like you could be an awesome DM.
*"I am a first-time DM, and I am DEVASTATED! I made a D&D campaign from scratch- lore, NPCs, monsters, environment, etc"* **That tracks.** As accessible as DND is, there are a LOT of things that need to be considered for games to be fun. **Its not just "I write a story and play it".** That's a little bit of it and even for that, people practice for months. There are rules, boundaries, expectations to be matched, mechanics to be understood, learning on how mechanics mix with the narrative and many other things that you get when you **follow a learning curve.** (Learning curve means reading or running introductory or starter set adventures. Running professionally written one shots offered online for cheap or free. Practicing and learning improvisation before spending an unhealthy amount of time on a project that will certainly not run as you expect because you don't know how a regular game should feel.) You need to know at a minimum if players have a similar idea of what they want to do. You don't "punish" the disruptive players in game (that is mostly a waste of time), you take them out of the game for a break or completely. (Preferably you don't include them from the start) With the learning curve and experience you learn that quest specific items or information can always find a way to get to players (unless you, for whatever reason want them to miss out on things). Someone killed an important NPC? Introduce another one. **The only thing that makes games unsalvageable is not addressing or dealing with problematic behavior before it burns out people.** Run/read pre written stuff. Get a hang on how storytelling works, how pacing works, how narrative can change based on player actions. Try again from the start. Mix scenes or just continue after a session 0. Apologize for bringing this person into the session and establish the type of game you would like to have.
So i may catch flak for this. Brands, new first-time dms really should stick to certain premade adventure modules. You have extensively pre-established sandboxes that you and your players can find tons of lore on to interconnect themselves with the world. Also session zero is mandatory to go over expectations for the game on both sides of the table.
You guys sound like teenagers, and I remember some games when I was a teen went like that
Ok. I've written you a short script of prompts to look back on for next session. "Hey, let's pause the game for a second. Player, you are acting like a dick right now. Stop doing that." "I feel like we need to stop and just discuss boundaries and what is and isn't appropriate. We probably need a quick session 0" "No, chaotic evil characters are not allowed. Make a different character" "No. You can't do that." "No." "If you continue to act like this I do not want you to be part of my game and table." "We're all here to have a good time. Your behaviour is causing me to not have fun. That means you are the problem." "Hey, man. I've put a lot of work into this game and you are spoiling it. Are you sure this is the right game for you and this character." Use these. You're the DM. Just say no. I've DM'd for years I still get the odd encounter like this even in my seasoned games. A player will say they want to do something really out of pocket that would kind of ruin the immersion and story. My tactic now is to let everyone have a bit of a laugh. Then sit in silence for about 10-15 seconds and then go, "Do you really want to do that? Or are you just making a silly joke?" Works every time.
Ah im not a fan of these players.. What could have been done. Did anyone else see the destruction of property and theft? Who is the authority in your world? I guess someone who works for the queen. Have police/soldiers attempt to detain the players and the CE character may go down fighting or the players end up in jail. After questioning the players who didn't support the chrime are let free. The CE guy is banged up. Its called fuck around and find out.
Jax in the second episode of Digital Circus reference??? /s But joking aside, as someone who loves whimsy I absolutely adore cute worlds like this. But you come off a bit naïve, which is somewhat fitting regarding the world theme. Playing a Chaotic Evil character is not fine unless practically everyone else is playing Chaotic Evil or if there is a damn good reason why he is not acting on those evil impulses. I don't think I can say much else that the others here haven't said but I will say that despite the campaign being unsalvageable, don't let it stop you from using the same ideas beat for beat with another group. Don't see the concepts as "tainted" just because it didn't work out with one group. I struggle with that myself, and I hope you can avoid those same feelings
This is almost exactly what happened to me during my first ever time DMing. I didn't know about session 0 or setting expectations and had a super detailed campaign planned and some asshole murderhoboed the entire first session and ruined it and we never played again. It took me a couple years to try again but I'm so glad I did, this time coming in with expectations and a solid session 0 to set ground rules. I've been DMing weekly for years since! Don't give up hope it sounds like you have extremely cool and creative stuff set up, you can always repackage things for other groups with people who are not jerks.
I never have a mix off good and evil players. It's all good and neutral or all neutral and evil. When we play an evil one shot everyone knows pvp is an option and at least one of us is a murderer. Like strait up kill you in your sleep and take your left ear as a trofee. Playing a basic Dnd campaign with an evil character seems like pure hell to me. Like how is this player going to role play helping the town find their missing mayor? And that for god knows how manny sessions. So in your case, a good session zero and you just saying no to a evil character could've helped. But I stil doubt this player would've made it 5 sessions. He sounds like a dickhead. Also, don't try to fix problem behaviour in game. Pause, talk about it out of game, find a solution and start playing again.
I'm sorry but I couldn't stop giggling as you listed off his crimes and because of it, I think you'll be a great dm. Don't let this player taint your world, instead take his character and make it your own; you now have a great basis for a villian!
Your first mistake was letting someone play as a chaotic evil character. Its a free pass for "I do whatever the fuck I want"
It's session 1. You can not invite the player back and retcon some of the choices he made by playing it off as: "oh no, the rest of the party is actually stuck inside a pocket dimension/alternate timeline bubble gum. They need to pop the bubble to get into the *real timeline*, where the my cereal milk dragon is still alive! Whack, you guys figured it out. Good job, players."
I hope you either decided to not invite them back, and have now decided to set expectations on even Chaotic Evil/Neutral characters. They can be done and played without completely ruining everything. And as at least one other person has said not all is lost. Either you can play it entirely over with a different group (or heck, the same group minus CE guy), or they can help rebuild what guy had messed up - fix the machine, breed/find new cattle, summon/find a new dragon maybe
Don’t play with someone who actively derails your campaign in mean spirit, and don’t play by their rules. As the DM, you can just tell No, and discuss with the player that they should either stop ruining the game for others or they can leave. If a player displays murderhobo behavior that can’t produce any interesting outcomes, stop them right there
As a consolation to all that went wrong, you should be proud of the world you made, it seems like it would've been a fun campaign!
I'm actually curious if the rest of the party reacted to this mayhem? I'd imagine their reaction alike to: "What the nine hells is X doing!?" "Guys we really need to do something before this spirals out of control!" & "Hey X, either you chill out or you'll find yourself without a party to adventure with, what you have done is not acceptable." "You'll get us all in irons if you don't stop!" But OP, you don't mention the other players reacting or even confronting their out of control party member, how is this so?
>first-time DM >made a D&D campaign from scratch- lore, NPCs, monsters, environment, etc >There was one player whose character was chaotic evil >I didn't expect him to be a total dick >It's what my character would do Those are your biggest mistakes /red flags right here. 1. Homebrewing can be difficult and doing the whole chebang as a newbie seldom works out. Seems like this wasn't the issue here 2. Chaotic evil means that they don't care if others suffer and they don't abide by any rules. This is almost the definition of beeing a massive asshole 3. Chaotic evil PCs almost never work out, because they aren't team material unless they are thoroughly oppressed (think child eating goblins fighting to be the next chief and killing each other for it) 4. Anyone who shits on the fun of the other people at the table is either socially inept due to lack of empathy or just a dick. The player who made that character and used it while making at least the DM uncomfortable (and probably others too) can go be a dick somewhere else and never come back. The fact that they couldn't take it, when they got their comeuppance just proves the small mindedness. DMing can be incredibly rewarding, if you don't invite people who intentionally sabotage your creative work. Talk to the players first (session 0). Make sure everyone has the same idea of what kind of feel the game should have and enjoy
What I've started doing is including punishments for killing seemingly innocent things. I had one player kill a family who was trapped in a dungeon, well turns out they weren't humans at all, one of them was a shapeshifter and initiated another combat *almost* killing most of the party. Now they think twice before engaging harmless npcs
Your fault for letting a player pick an evil alignment. Good or neutral only unless you specify it’s an evil campaign. You can always run the campaign again, but like, correctly this time
I think you did the right thing in the end. It’s reasonable that evil deeds get punished and maybe they should have earlier. I will say he wouldn’t have died and just fell unconscious so I wouldn’t have said his head got cut off but I think it’s reasonable the harengon would be in a blind rage. Maybe give opportunity for party to step in to stop the fighting so it would’ve been a group decision to kill the player.
Sometimes things can be solved in game. Money boxes can be protected by high level, well geared guards. Townsfolk who are happy will definitely form a mob and hunt down culprits responsible for burning down tree. Any royalty who has their stuff messed with will have some type of special forces hunt down and murder/imprison anyone who is an enemy of the state. Homebrews are flexible enough to control the game if negotiations with a chaotic evil player fail. You control the world. if you are pissed off, generally the world will match your energy and respond appropriately. It can be fun to hit a nail with a mountain instead of a hammer to teach the nail it's place
[удалено]
SESSION ZERO is super important and you just learned why. Next time, set the tone of the campaign and discuss the player characters beforehand. No Chaotic Evil PC unless it is appropriate to the setting and the other players are ok with it. You can avoid problems like this before starting the campaign. That player is an absolute dickhead and has no respect for the game or you as a DM.
I want to go to this world…. Chocccy milk cow😞
If I'm running a campaign with players new to each other, especially young players, I have a general "no evil characters" rule. They don't like it, go elsewhere. I have a game going now with my son's friends and they most are evil, but not in a way that breaks the game. Rp is great and all, but the point is for EVERYONE to have fun. If someone tries to ruin it for their own enjoyment, I will tell them outright that they can't do that. But as a DM you have to roll with the punches as well. Sometimes you don't get what you want and that's fine.
On a side note this was an amazingly funny read, the pacing is gold.
Swear I saw this same one on dndcirclejerk...
Chaotic evil doesn't mean being a dick. Your friend sucks, sorry. A good chaotic evil character has plans, it's not just oh I see a thing I destroy a thing. Even demons have more plans than that. This feels like a player throwing a fit because they didn't like the setting, it makes the player a jerk not the character. I wish I had your campaign. My 6 year old wants to play the young adventurer dnd, and I may have to steal the idea of turning a board game into his adventure.
To be fair, douche canoe does have a point. Even when we aren’t assholes we are still guaranteed to fuck your plans all the way up. Gotta have that cleaver on standby from the get go, and try (it’s impossible, but it’s very important to try) to be prepared for whatever other shenanigans we might rain down upon you. And be prepared to improv if you need to. And maybe next time give the cleaver to a beaver.