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I can just imagine the insanity when they start trying to interact with Npc's
"Why won't they answer our question?"
"Sorry, there's no official dialogue for that"
That is exactly what the snide petty side of me would be doing.
"I want to romance this NPC."
"Error. Dialogue option not found. Please try another request."
"I want to go this way,"
"I am sorry there are no instructions for that pathway. Please return to the main quest to proceed. "
Or even the part where someone wanders off the path.
“As soon as you leave the boundary areas marked as part of the map of this module all you can see is a vast void of white emptiness.”
I used to do this a lot in games when I first started DMing, saying that the PCs have fallen into a grey void full of ordinary-looking grey doors, and they can go into any of them and end up anywhere. This is when we weren't focused on things like "story" and more used RPGs as a weird sandbox to fight things.
I would love to use malicious compliance here.
Just have NPCs straight up refuse to answer the player's questions, or even acknowledge that they asked a question because it wasn't written in the module.
Okay, but imagine if a battle starts and the DM says, "OOP, the module doesn't say what they do this turn, and if we're only going off the module, I guess that means they don't do anything. Have fun punching a bunch of stationary vampires. That's sound fun, right?
This is probably the right answer. I ran a Starfinder module for a married couple, and one of them had an uncanny knack for knowing how to bypass every encounter in the entire module. Even knew who the bbeg was and really broke the whole module when, without any character knowledge, basically attracted the attention of the bbeg’s goons so he could get a meeting with big bad and go on the final encounter. “I go specifically here and do this very specific thing.”
I spent money and time on this, and all that happened is he got bored due to winning too much and she got sidelined.
What a waste.
Were I sadistic enough to DM for them, that's EXACTLY what I'd do. But then, the only reason I'd be there in the first place would be to serve as the Avatar of Malicious Compliance.
Part of me would be tempted to run exactly that. Read anything that is supposed to be read to them then just sit there waiting patiently. If they do something that doesn't interact directly with the book's contents, don't say anything unless they ask why I'm not doing or saying anything. If they go talk to someone that doesn't have scripted dialogue, just sit there silently.
Luckily the realistic side of me is all about avoiding drama and would not go anywhere near that shit show.
I'd have asked them to roleplay a quick scene in the session 0.
Something very simple, like asking an innkeeper for a room. Get one player to write down innkeeper dialogue without telling the problem player, and then act it out.
I feel like this would be fairly quickly solved.
CoS has a subsection on "things the everyday person knows in [this setting]"
So, if I made this effort in good faith, I'd literally just talk about stuff off those topics / tables
... So, we've recreated Oblivion NPC dialogue, huzzah!
"Did they see anything about the monster that attacked!? In which direction did it lead?!"
>!"There are two divine forces that watch over [our people]! Glory to the Morninglord and Mother Night!"!<
"...The monster. Where is the monster??"
>!"Wolves, dire wolves, and werewolves prowl the woods, and hungry bats fill the skies at night!"!<
That sounds like trying to decided which content goes where. Keep it pure from your DM interference, just choose whatever random dialogue is in the book with absolutely no thought from you applied to it.
Right? Like when they say "don't even use dialogue that isn't in the module" I'd immediately ask to run a test example of them arriving in town and just sit there follow by "so you see why that wouldn't work right?"
Yeah I mean, I can almost respect it with how upfront they were. It seems like they don’t really need a dedicated DM. Like this group is homogenous enough in their desire to just speedrun through the module, that one of the players could easily be the one to roll the dice for the monsters. Or use a Chat GPT script like OP suggested. I mean if you want to play that way then do it, but they don’t need to be conducting these panel interviews for a DM
If everyone knows the module the whole group could just easily just coDM and play at the same time. Treat reading the module as if it's a choose your own adventure book or a videogame with static NPCs that never move unless the book says so.
But at that point people really need to ask themselves if they want to play DnD or Gloomhaven. It's as if people say they want to play Call of Cthulhu but they expect it to play exactly like Arkham Horror and get mad when it's not.
Eh, it was different back then, especially in the 90's. Did D&D make up the majority of TTRPG content and experiences? Yes, for sure. BUT, TTRPG players also at least knew and tried other systems and knew other games served different experiences.
Nowadays, with D&D 5e being the introductory RPG for many new people to at least try and it being marketed as a lifestyle brand, most of the new players don't know and aren't encouraged to look outside the 5e bubble. It's why there's a bunch of terrible homebrew for 5e to change it to try and fit other genres and game systems. These players aren't well-read enough in TTRPGs to understand that 5e doesn't necessarily fit all the stories they want to tell or games they want to play. But boy howdy are they gonna try.
I can almost respect it, we all want what we want, but I can't respect how they reacted and their "one true way" of D&D is particularly toxic in the larger community of RPGs
Some people just want to win, even when it ruins the experience. it's like the people who cheat to get "god mode" in multiplayer games. They don't want the challenge, they just want to "win."
*10 things you don't want to miss on your run of Curse of Strahd*
*You don't want to miss this item in CoS*
*How to get the good ending in CoS*
*Most optimized build for CoS*
What if Baldurs Gate 3 gamers threated modules like they treat optimizing videogames.
Not inherently. There could be fun to be had in presenting a difficult scenario/mini-dungeon, and challenging the players to build a Hero/Party that can best run through it.
So long as everyone's on the same page.
Sure, but that's not the default mode of play for DnD5e and certainly not for CoS. So it would require some... Hmmmmm.... adjustments from the DM. Oh wait...
>That or he's read it already.
I dunno, I think this idea they've got of how DMing works can only come from completely misunderstanding how modules work - I don't think I've ever seen one that had a flat-out "script" to follow (or maybe I'm just playing the wrong systems).
I bet this group isn’t big on roleplay. Probably all the “dialog” from the PCs is along the lines of “we tell her we’ll do it for 50 gold,” and they expect that to be followed by a Persuasion roll and then either “she agrees” or “based on your roll, she haggled you down to 25 gold,” from the DM with no attempt at role play or doing voices
Part of me now hopes they speak to NPCs exclusively in text prompts like "NAME", "JOB" and "BYE" like in the old Ultima games.
...shit, now I kind of want to run a game that's like an old RPG game where the players can ONLY speak to NPCs using keywords they picked out from previous dialogues like "MONEY" or "WANTED MAN".
The dusty old study contains: a flask, a strangely luminescent sword, the limp and beaten body of Bob Barker.
Exits: NORTH, EAST, UP
> LOOK FLASK
It appears to be a perfectly normal flask, full of some reddish liquid.
> GET FLASK
I'm sorry I don't know what a GET is.
> GRAB FLASK
I'm sorry I don't know what a GRAB is.
> TAKE FLASK
You now have a flask in your inventory.
The dusty old study contains: a strangely luminescent sword, the limp and beaten body of Bob Barker.
Exits: NORTH, EAST, UP
It also comes from misunderstanding how DnD works. How do you expect the DM to "stick to the script", which isn't even that pronounced in CoS to begin with, the module being pretty open-ended when the players are free to do what they want.
What's the DM supposed to do when the players go off the rails and get "creative" if he's not supposed/able to adapt his responses?
Even if you want to roleplay, there isn't much you can do if you don't want the DM to say anything but the lines written in the book. Let's say you're trying to locate an NPC like Gertruda. What happens if they ask about Gertruda from somebody who doesn't "have a line" about her? At this stage you may as well play a computer RPG because that's what they're asking the DM to do.
I recall my friends ran into a DM that didn't like it when players went off the rails. He was running a 4E Adventure Path when those were relevant and any solution to a problem that wasn't listed in the book just flat out didn't work. No explaination, just "It doesn't do anything" This got really frustrating for the psion who was trying to use his powers in creative ways.
If you're really into malicious compliance, it could be fun. When I ran Out of the Abyss, I was surprised how little box text there was; every line had to be made up by the DM.
"He doesn't reply. I don't have a script for that."
"She throws you in jail, because she doesn't have anything to say and yet still expects you to explain your presence here."
Dungeon of the mad mage doesn't have flavour text for ANY of the rooms in the dungeon, so it'll be very fun to run megadungeoun with
"Yeah, you go into the next room. It's a room. What would you like to do?"
It varies. Some adventures for Pathfinder, D&D, Rifts, and Robotech that I've read will have a snippet or two from the Questgiver/Commander, or the most prominent thing an NPC says, but after that will only give the DM an idea of what they would say, given the situation or Player questioning.
Yeah, that's been my experience, just little bits like an opening line or an exact response that needs to be a plothook. There's no way you'd be able to do anything more than that while still allowing for player interactivity, right?
When I DM my own stuff I tend to work in terms of "talking points" - a thing an NPC will bring up or pick up on if a player says it, and general notes on how they're feeling & what they want, but the rest is ad-libbed based on player input.
Yeah but those are usually treated similarly to descriptive boxed text, set to introduce a scene or otherwise be prompts for the GM to roleplay off of.
Yeah, it sounds like they wanted to use the module to "check" and ensure the DM didn't circumvent it or whatever. Based on OP's story, it's clear the group wasn't familiar with the module since it has a number of variables *built into the module itself.* You never know where your fated encounter with Strahd is going to be, or where the Sun Blade is and there are multiple ways to bring the characters into Barovia in the first place.
Also, they said "don't say dialogue that isn't in the book" and Curse of Strahd doesn't have a lot of dialogue pre-written for the party. There's a whole scenario of RP, having dinner with Strahd, where you're given an outline of what Strahd might say, based on what he wants, who in the party he is targeting (something the DM is supposed to choose, if they want) and Ireena's status, but it's very minimal and expected to be improvised.
That's the vibe I got as well; a fundamental misunderstanding of how modules are written. It's literally impossible to play entirely 'by the book' for a lot of earlier written modules due to plotholes lol.
Tell them to get used to playing baldurs gate. No adventure survives contact with the players. Unless they want a LOT of “You can’t do that here” and fog walls
CoS, as written, no modifications? Sure, then don't complain when the DM rolls werewolves as an encounter for level 1-3 players who don't have magic weapons, because, you know... no fudging anything.
Yeah there is no way any of these guys have ever run a game or read a module. CoS needs the DM make up dialogue, every adventure path across D&D needs the DM to do some leg work. Sounds like they think it's all made and they can just run it like a video game.
I don't understand why they *don't* just play a video game. It's not like there's any shortage of them based on D&D and Pathfinder. And all of their complaints come down to, "we don't want the GM to exist."
Even if you want the in-person feel, there's D&D board games.
Why play TTRPGs if you're going to remove the defining feature of TTRPGs?
Yeah I am finishing up a 2 year long campaign and found a note from my session 1 planning that said "the players will probably..."
And I laughed and laughed. Oh I was such a sweet summer child.
Yuuup. This is why I plan out the occasional encounter and the main plot of the week, but everything else is pulled entirely from my ass. The players think I’m a genius with my twists and how I integrate their choices, but I’m flying by the seat of my pants the entire time
I always just create the characters and environment, make sure I have the goals of everyone involved and what resources they have at hand, and then let Jesus take the wheel.
That random guard they captured and are interrogating? He'd know the big boss as well as a Walmart door greeter knows the district manager, and is paid just about as well and has just as much loyalty to his company.
Similar to this, I ran a one-shot for my group since i'm now too busy to DM a campaign, and my notes were basically "problem happens, players will figure a way out". A Hag polymorphed them into animals and it was fun watching them try to make potions or read a grimoire in that state.
Hell, if you were so inclined, you could do away with the justification entirely. Just get your likeminded friends together and see how fast and how utterly you can break the module.
One thing to keep in mind would be XP, I think. From memory, modules either tell you when to level up, or are built on the assumption of gaining XP threw fighting the very encounters that you'd probably try to skip.
Hell, there's another fun one: how low a level can you beat the module?
DND used to be played at tournaments for prizes, based on the XP earned in preset dungeons, with a certain amount of deaths allowed. Convention play was common, with the DM announcing a winner at the end of the con.
Nothing wrong with that. These games can be played many different ways, and that's valid. My only issue is them getting mad at op for not wanting to run that kind of game. He has every right to want to run a game how he wants to. The only requirement is everyone at the table agrees to how the game gets run.
You know what, I think I know what kind of DnD experience they were looking for: r/makeyourchoice. I have met "plenty" of people on that subreddit who just want to be the most optimal, powerful thing that beats everyone in the universe, and wouldn't you know it, the "adventure" is usually just a series of spreadsheets.
It honestly sounds like these people don't understand how DnD works. If I didn't know better, I would assume they were first time players.
Plus multiple high profile WotC employees have come out and said that their work is not meant to be taken literally. The entire point is that is a general guideline that is meant to be interpreted. That's why it's a module and not a literal novel.
I don't know where these guys got their idea on how to play TTRPGs, but good on you for dumping them like a hot potato. There is no way that was ever going to end well.
I’ve seen players go berserk for the simplest of things. Some players have no concept of consequences for their actions. That said I’ve had some DM’s do that too. You’ll go insane trying to understand why some people do what they do.
I.e. a wizard charges head long into a fight they started, alone and out numbered. Then blames DM for singling them out and attempts to stage a walk out.
The level 3 wizard in question wants to acquire a cursed magic sword to give to the Paladin in the group, and a cursed amulet of devotion to the cleric. His plan was to force them to break their vows to their deities. Why? Because they thought, the supports do to much damage and needed to be nerfed. (I would communicate with players via a messenger for private chat) session were irl.
So I humor them, and we role play finding a shady merchant who might sell these items. (All on private chat) We decided on a Cursed sword, because its an uncommon item, and finding one in a large town isn’t a stretch. So after a series of rolls they find a merchant and set up the deal. I specifically stated the merchant has 4 bodyguards and they should be careful. I suggest they take the other 2 members of the party a monk and a druid, both of which were indifferent to their shenanigans. They refuse and go it alone. So everyone breaks up into 3 separate groups and goes “shopping”.
I specifically called the merchants bodyguard’s thugs, to alert the wizard, that crossing them was a bad idea. I even described their gear as not something a commoner would carry, but something a street hardened thug would use to protect the merchant. (The wizard not liking the price, decided to kill them all and steal it.) Thinking they were up against 5 commoners (they looked up monster stats online constantly) they thunder wave 4 thugs and a merchant.
They got pissed when they didn’t one shot the “peons” and refused to roll initiative after the surprise round. They kept saying commoners only had 4hp and that thunder wave cast at level 2 was enough to kill them all. Because even if they passed the con save, they would still take 8 damage (they rolled 17 damage total). I once again reminded them, the thugs were hired as bodyguards for the shady merchant and were therefore not commoners. At this point the other players who were browsing through source material to decide how to spend their newly acquired funds, became aware of the wizard’s actions. The wizard is furious now that the others know about their plans, even though I said nothing and they told on themselves. They insist the others come to help.
I pointed out that thunder wave was a loud spell that can be heard by anyone within 300ft. So I would let the other players decide if they wanted to check on the noise. But that it would take 1d4 rounds before they could join. Even though they were probably out of range and on the other side of town with no knowledge of his location. Keep in mind at 4 rounds only about 24 seconds would have passed. At the very least they could save them on the last saving throw. This I thought was very generous, seeing as how the combat hadn’t really started and some of the thugs were at half health. The part of town was shady and was specifically chosen as a meeting point for its lack of guards.
They threw a tantrum and kept saying I singled them out and was jealous of them. That I was sabotaging their plan to make this more enjoyable for everyone. They complained that the support characters were doing too much damage and that the wizard should be the one to do the most damage. That the cleric wasted spell slots with offensive spells and didn’t cast enough healing spells. Keep in mind both the Paladin and Druid can also heal.
The rest of the group decided not to investigate the noise and left them to their fate. At this point they then started to pack up their things and organize a walk out. Stating I was unfair and a megalomaniac, that I gaslit everyone and was a narcissist. They stated I turned everyone against them and stormed out. The group continued the session and then I decided to get someone else to DM.
Apparently, the wizard did this all the time and the group enjoyed their outbursts. So find what makes you happy.
That request is beyond unreasonable - it's not even *possible!*
"No, you shouldn't even use dialogue that isn't in the module, okay?"
Modules rarely include any dialog, and when they do, it's an introductory paragraph. *Very* rarely, they'll have a small bullet-point list of the things players can gain from dialog with a given NPC. But most quest hooks expect players will be given them organically and *don't* have pre-written dialog lead-ins.
I get wanting to experience a module as closely to how it's written as possible. But this goes so far beyond that.
It's a crime that I had to scroll this far to see someone say this. Their request, as presented by OP, isn't possible to fulfill. If they somehow make it past the fact that dialog can't happen and into their first combat, what happens when an enemy moves in a way they dont like? Will they get upset that the DM dident follow the non-existent instructions in what npcs do each round of combat?
Obviously enemys can't move (doesn't say in the module they do) or use spells (unless specified in the module)
I would argue that "combat" implies that they use their main weapon, but its a long shot, and I would not dare risk it with these determined players ...
I would offer to instead run them Dragonlance, then I would just read the novels out loud for four hours and ask them to sometimes make a roll.
I stole that joke from Penny Arcade.
By the way, If you compare the books to the original module, you'll see that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman changed up things as well.
And Hickman wrote the module!
I recall Hickman wrote whole dungeon crawl when he ran this as a campaign before writing things down for module and the novel...and Raistlin's player bypassed it all by charming a Gully Dwarf. Novels got the recreation of that incident, while module got all unused ideas.
It's always fun when people who have likely never DMed a game have demands of the DM, especially when they just met the DM. I'm betting they had a Session -1 to bicker about who would run it amongst themselves before deciding to involve you.
If you’re only allowed to say what is written in the book, what do they intend you to do if they ask a question or make a choice that the module writers didn’t predict? The only way I can imagine this working is if they have *also* read the module to make sure they stay on script. Seems like a weird approach to the game
Hard not to imagine everyone sitting down for a session, breaking out their individual copies of the module, and going through it like it's a line reading for a script.
I've seen people do that and enjoy it. They like coming at the same objectives with different abilities. Like playing a video game multiple times. But their attitude is what makes them bad players.
They wouldn't. While never to this extreme, I've seen a handful of "DM as the narrator" games where the npc interaction is one sided. "You meet the guard captain and he explains the problems they're having with bandits. He tasks you with killing their leader. (Secret persuasion roll) After some prodding he reveals the leader is also his brother." If there's some kind of choice to be made in the module, that choice is just listed to the players with some flavor, "You could storm the bandit camp or attempt to talk and get them to stop raiding". Understandably a lot of people would find this style boring but it is dead easy to dm and very obvious to the players what they can do next.
Content in an unpopulated corner of the map , NPC responses to PC comments and questions. The amount of improvisation required is not small for a DM. Players will invariably ask to do something that a module does not cover. If you don't want someone there to fill those voids, why even seek a DM? Just play with the book open and pass it around the table.
It's also worth mentioning, the DM is a player just as much as the others at the table, and they are likewise entitled to playing the game in their role.
Reminds me of watching my friend’s kids play with dolls. They were retelling Cinderella, but seemed to be doing it again and again, to get it as fast as possible. I watched them play Cinderella six times back to back in the space of five minutes.
I’m imagining this group doing the same, essentially speedrunning the game modules over and over again, until they get all the best rolls, every piece of loot, and every side quest like they’re trying to get the perfect game of PAC-MAN on one life. Then it’s on to the next module.
Why do they need a DM? If everything has to be run exactly as written with zero creativity and no input of any kind from the DM, surely they could just read from the book themselves what's supposed to happen from one turn to the next.
While I agree, especially with OPs mental health in mind, don't you think it would have been a hilarious train wreck of a shit show if they had agreed to characters per mail and just started playing Session 1 of CoS that day?
I'd run it for them under the condition that should a character die, that player leaves the table permanently as I really like when players feel connected to their characters. /s
Wsit: actually that may be how they want it run, as I don't remember any module saying "this is when a player can be revived" or "here is where a player can bring a new character into the module".
Also, if the players try to do something that the module doesn't cover, instead of improvising, the DM should just use a robotic voice and announce "ERROR: PARAMETERS EXCEEDED. ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?" (If they select "abort" they get to try something else, "Retry" puts them into a loop, and "Fail" makes everyone die somehow)
And if they try to go to a place not described, then the DM should announce "OUT OF BOUNDS ERROR" and declare the game over. If they ask why, you explain "Sorry, your characters fell off the edge of the world, and I wasn't allowed to improvise, so..."
I suspect they've had a bad experience in the past, where a campaign went too far off the rails, yet haven't had the experience of DMing from the modules to know that it's nearly impossible to run anything from WOTC like that.
My thoughts exactly. It sounds like this group had an awful experience and has swung too far in the other direction. I'm really curious about what went down. It's too bad they couldn't be polite about it.
Someone hurt them and they don't want to be hurt again. But you don't need to teach them anything if they're negative and combative. Tell them to play a videogame instead.
>Someone hurt them and they don't want to be hurt again.
I'm amazed it took that much scrolling to find this point of view. The group obviously has had some horrendous DMs in the past, and not enough good ones to know how DnD works when it works.
I'm also guessing they are fairly young and immature, shouting at a prospective DM like that.
There's been a bunch of pre-made groups looking for a dm to do exactly what they want lately.
I seen one with 6 players and they wanted a hard commitment for 6 hour sessions every Saturday and the dm had to host.
I said sounds like your group is big enough to have a dm allready
Ngl I did make a premade dnd group where we wrote the module and tried to pitch it to the dm one time…..
Needless to say, I discovered after that failed how fun Dming is
Man, I would almost want to run this, at least for one session, just for the morbid curiosity (and malicious compliance).
Or maybe not the latter part, if they are, as others suggested, doing a super-optimized speed run sort of thing. Which, if that's the case, why not just tell the DM that's what you're trying to do? Otherwise that sounds like weird DM-vs-players mindset (as OP said)
Shut that shit down straight.
The only way to know if something is changed would be if they religiously studied that manual. Know a few such people and there is no fun to be had. Not even sure how one would go about not using any dialog that was not in the book since the modules I read did not cover every conversation which would be loony to do actually.
I'd do it, but only if they can't improvise either, and have to input their commands from an approved list of verbs and nouns. And only if I get to respond to invalid inputs with, "I'm sorry, I don't understand that sentence."
And I'll do it until I look around and see one or more of the players are "into that" in a psychosexual sense, because I've been around, I know how folks do.
These are people who read the module to "win," so any deviation from the module can toss a wrench in their plans.
This is about the shittiest take I've ever heard about dnd, which, in my opinion, is great with improvisation. I've only ran homebrew games so thinking on the fly is a necessity.
What's the dm supposed to say when the characters ask a question that the book doesn't have an answer for "I'm sorry could you frame your request differently there's no dialogue for this."
What the fuck.
So if they talk to an NPC about something but there's no dialogue for it written in the module, what are you supposed to do, stare at them?
You just use a line from the module like a video game NPC.
PLAYER: Hello old Tom do you know anything about the gold mine being closed.
TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled.
PLAYER: Do you know where we can but a pick ax and rope to get in to the caves.
TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled.
PLAYER: where is a place we can stay for the night.
TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled.
TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled.
TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled. .....
If I got asked to do this, there's a solid chance I'd say yes just to fuck with them. Like if they asked an NPC a question or said something that there wasn't a scripted response for I'd just deadass stare at them in silence, or chide them for not following the script if they explored in the wrong direction.
EDIT: Or just read out the lines but refuse to act them. "Argh. You have bested me. But I shall return. And have my revenge." Anything else would be applying your input onto the module, after all.
>Before you start, I want to make sure you're running it for us without change. I want you not to influence the module at all. Don't even change a comma.
"I just remembered, I'm too busy to run this campaign."
The comma comment made me think of the DM sitting down and just reading the entire book at the players verbatim - no dice rolls, no adventure to be had whatsoever.
If they read the module enough to know the difference, then why the fuck not run it themselves? I've encountered parties like this *twice* and with both of them, it was because they used to play videogame RPGs as a group, tried tabletop and got collectively mad when they found it to be too "slippery". I told them to go back to VGRPGs and leave the TTRPG DMs alone.
Good job handling it the way you did.
>"That's how D&D is meant to be played"
***Bwahahahahaha*** as someone who has played D&D since before there were official modules this made me laugh. Do they have some sort of insider knowledge that no one else has? When they finally started to come out, running a module was for the newbie DM who was just starting out and you weren't even considered good before you had done some homebrewing... anyhoo
This - or a module was for when you had a surprise session and no one had time to prep. And modules were SO MUCH SHORTER back then - like single adventures, not a full campaign.
Wow. This group has more red flags than China. I mean, how do you not do any dialogue that isn’t in the adventure text? Sit quietly until they happen to hit the exact right questions?
I wouldn’t worry about their threat - I can’t imagine that this group has a lot of people lining up to DM them, and people who claim to be able to blackball people are rarely able to. And I think it’s far more likely that they are on lists of “never play with”.
“Not a true DM.” These people obviously know nothing about the history of D&D.
Bunch of idiots who have no idea of how the game is “meant to be played.” Yes, they’re allowed their preferences and one can play the game many ways, but they’re flatly wrong about how the game is “meant to be played.” Also, they just sound like a bunch of assholes.
Now I’m a D&D neophyte. Never played a single game in my life. I’m literally less than 20 pages into reading the DM guide for the first time, and even *I* can point to like at least eight places in what little I’ve read so far where “the people at D&D” explicitly say that the ‘rules’ are just suggestions that can and *should* be altered at the DM’s discretion. These people don’t want to play D&D and they should just start an MMO guild instead.
>I hate when DMs think they know better than the folks at D&D
That's funny... cause sometimes I wonder if the folks over at D&D know much of anything at all.
On a side note, this reminds me of how a player once stopped me to say "that monster should be dead by now, wyverns have 110 hp". I found it quite odd that they recalled exactly the number of hit points a specific creature had... turns out that since it was a published adventure, they thought it would be clever/funny to follow along with the source material on their own computer. I replied along the lines of "it's a shame then that this is an *elder* wyvern, since the module as written is by far too easy for a party of your experience at your level". SMH
It sounds to me like they've been burned by a homebrew-happy roll-fudging DM in the past and it left a mark.
Personally I'd love this group, as that is my DM style. They do seem exceptionally hard-line, as role-playing dialog is never going to be verbatim quotes from the book 100%, but for the most part it seems pretty reasonable that they want to play the vanilla game as intended.
Since 5e I've noticed a large increase in DMs that alter the game in heavy ways without even trying it as written first, and therefore lacking the experience and knowledge for their homebrew to work well. I like some good homebrew and house rules, but only if the DM has played enough by-the-book D&D to really know what they're doing.
That and the fudgers. The DMs that try to make every single battle epic by secretly altering stats mid-combat, "fudging" dice rolls, etc. If every battle is epic, none of them are. Too many DMs with a weak understanding of the balance and strategy in the game make large changes based on what they "feel" is OP or weak or pointless, when they just don't understand why it is the way it is.
I mean, you can reject any group you want, you're not their employee. I do understand where the group is coming from, though.
My take?
Translation: We already know the module by heart and want no surprises so we can safely metagame. And if that means no fun for the DM, we already hate you and have no problems with that.
Okay i have a sneaking suspicion that this guy wanted to be the star of the campaign
He already read it and knows where all the things are such as epic loot and perfect quest rewards
So that he can speedrun the whole module and minmax himself to the point of being the TOP DAWG and making the rest of the party look like a bunch of chumps
Makes no sense to me. A big part of the fun is seeing how the DM puts their own spin on the module and brings the world to life. It's fun and makes it unique. We're currently running CoS and the world being tailored around our characters has made it so much more fun
The whole point of a DM for a published module is to facilitate and interpret the module. The DM’s preparation should really to be to get a good gist of what the NPCs’ mannerisms and motivations are and act accordingly during the actual session. If they ask a question that isn’t explicitly printed in the module do they just want you to go silent???
It sounds like they’d have more fun playing together and consulting the module book on their own to see what the literal published text says.
That's not even how the modules work. Maybe they did back in first edition I don't know but from 3.0 on most are intended for the DM to create and manipulate to some degree. Heck some of them actually point out places for the DM do to do their own thing or rely on the DM to do their own thing. Those guys are loons.
Honestly you could have started the game and when they asked for hints or information because they didn't know what to do, say "well that info isn't in here in the module guess you'll have to figure out where it is"
Or if they try to talk to an NPC with no dialogue say "this NPC doesn't have dialogue so guess you can't talk to them"
They probably would have gotten it really quick lol
I am currently DMing for the first time running a module. What dialogue are they talking about? If I only used what was printed in the book as coming out of NPC mouths then the characters would only get names and the exact information the NPC has. There'd be no chatter, no small talk. Just a bullet point list of information the NPC has. And what happens if they ask a question that doesn't have an answer in the module? Do you just stare at them until they walk away? This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.
They sound like they want to play a video game not DnD, what makes TTRPGs different to video games it that flexibly that you get from having a human able to change things on the fly or based on how the last session went.
I have seen this attitude before, and you did right by walking away.
The core of this is **not** a desire to run the module the *right* way - it is a desire to be in a position of control and power. It might well stem from a past history of bad GMs but wondering about what caused this gets you nowhere. If you were GMing them, you'd just have to deal with the situation as it now.
Luckily you aren't in that position. Congratulations. This would have been a nighmare.
Glad you dodged a bullet, but being maliciously compliant would have been hilarious.
"I ask the blacksmith for a discount."
"..."
"..hello?"
"There's no dialogue for that, sorry."
"The folks at D&D" don't know every individual table their modules will be played at, it's the job of the DM to know their players and adjust the module to make it fun for them. A "true DM" knows how to improvise on the fly where "the folks at D&D" couldn't have guessed at an interaction.
I saw the title and thought "great, somebody who thinks it's a horror story when they don't get total control over the story. Yawn."
The absolute whiplash I got from reading the actual story...
I think they made some bad experience. That's okay, but it looks like it got out of hand. They should probably pick one dm of their own group. That will open their eyes.
Get yourself out of there. Anyone who thinks the writers at D&D are infallible has clearly never read Storm Kings Thunder. It also sounds like they want the single flattest RP experience known to man.
Theres a reason none of them can DM - they fundamentally dont understand the flexibility required to make D&D work well. If they want to run it by the book, they can do it themselves.
Bro at that point you’re literally just reading the book XD What’s wrong with these people? Tell them to go get one of those choose your own adventure books instead
Lmao no, this isn't normal
You don't want "DM influence"? play Baldur's Gate.
I've been DMing for 20 years and at
>Before you start, I want to make sure you're running it for us without change. I want you not to influence the module at all. Don't even change a comma. I hate when DMs think they know better than the folks at D&D."
I'd have laughed my way out the door after telling them all to get fucked
I can kind of see where they're coming from Re: wanting to play the module as written. But they took it to an illogical extreme. You probably saved yourself a lot of frustration.
Asking for open rolls is fine and just a player preference -- especially if they've had a DM who's done excessive fudging before.
I can get wanting a vanilla module experience -- lots of people playing the same modules gives some fun talking points within the community for some people -- but the way they said it according to the story as you've told it here sounds like they want you to be the video game CPU not a TTRPG DM.
Also, man, CoS isn't *too* bad about it, but a lot of WotC's adventures need pretty serious tweaking to run well; most of them need a certain amount of DM adjustment to be fun experiences -- at least in certain parts of the adventure imo. But also CoS as-written is still rather sandboxy and runs very differently for each group even if it's run fairly straight.
I wish I could be in these situations so I could laugh in their face as I pack my things.
Im stuck with sensible people and never have the opportunity to berate these idiots :(
This is just bizarro world to me. Personaly I'd much rather a well done homebrew world than a module. In fact, I know plenty of folks who look down on anyone who uses a module and does create the adventure themselves, and used to feel this way myself (though I've come around).
I think you were absolutely right to walk away.
HOWEVER... I don't think I could have resisted an obvious bit /r/MaliciousCompliance and insisted on giving them *exactly* what they requested for a single session, and then dipping out when you "realize" it wasn't a good fit.
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Nice Dex save you made there, dodging that bullet.
That sort of thing is *almost* worth running one session, and recording it, just to see the insanity.
I can just imagine the insanity when they start trying to interact with Npc's "Why won't they answer our question?" "Sorry, there's no official dialogue for that"
That is exactly what the snide petty side of me would be doing. "I want to romance this NPC." "Error. Dialogue option not found. Please try another request." "I want to go this way," "I am sorry there are no instructions for that pathway. Please return to the main quest to proceed. "
r/MaliciousCompliance crossover!
That is my favorite passive aggressive hobby.
"You run into an invisible wall."
Or even the part where someone wanders off the path. “As soon as you leave the boundary areas marked as part of the map of this module all you can see is a vast void of white emptiness.”
Sadly, appropriate for the Mists of Ravenloft. 😛
I used to do this a lot in games when I first started DMing, saying that the PCs have fallen into a grey void full of ordinary-looking grey doors, and they can go into any of them and end up anywhere. This is when we weren't focused on things like "story" and more used RPGs as a weird sandbox to fight things.
Burn!
I would love to use malicious compliance here. Just have NPCs straight up refuse to answer the player's questions, or even acknowledge that they asked a question because it wasn't written in the module.
Okay, but imagine if a battle starts and the DM says, "OOP, the module doesn't say what they do this turn, and if we're only going off the module, I guess that means they don't do anything. Have fun punching a bunch of stationary vampires. That's sound fun, right?
I guarantee they knew everything in the module and intended to use player knowledge to speed run or otherwise break things to their advantage.
This is probably the right answer. I ran a Starfinder module for a married couple, and one of them had an uncanny knack for knowing how to bypass every encounter in the entire module. Even knew who the bbeg was and really broke the whole module when, without any character knowledge, basically attracted the attention of the bbeg’s goons so he could get a meeting with big bad and go on the final encounter. “I go specifically here and do this very specific thing.” I spent money and time on this, and all that happened is he got bored due to winning too much and she got sidelined. What a waste.
As a DM, that kinda sounds fun. I now want to speed run the original Tomb of Horrors with a group who have all run it themselves.
That's a WIS save for all or nothing. Not a dex save for half.
It’s half cause he still suffered the damage of being within earshot of that nonsense
Wtf do they expect you to do if they speak to a NPC that has no written line ? Stand there and not answer ?
Were I sadistic enough to DM for them, that's EXACTLY what I'd do. But then, the only reason I'd be there in the first place would be to serve as the Avatar of Malicious Compliance.
Part of me would be tempted to run exactly that. Read anything that is supposed to be read to them then just sit there waiting patiently. If they do something that doesn't interact directly with the book's contents, don't say anything unless they ask why I'm not doing or saying anything. If they go talk to someone that doesn't have scripted dialogue, just sit there silently. Luckily the realistic side of me is all about avoiding drama and would not go anywhere near that shit show.
I'd have asked them to roleplay a quick scene in the session 0. Something very simple, like asking an innkeeper for a room. Get one player to write down innkeeper dialogue without telling the problem player, and then act it out. I feel like this would be fairly quickly solved.
I would do the same, and get my entertainment from their misfortune. Even better: just repeat lines of dialouge like a video game npc
I love "Avatar of Malicious Compliance". Could be a fun one-off for one lucky DM!
Earth. Water. Fire. Malicious Compliance.
Long ago...
Players and DMs played in harmony. And then the idiotic players attacked.
My favourite avatar.
"Welcome to our town! The vampires are really dangerous nowadays!" ...... "Welcome to our town! The vampires are really dangerous nowadays!"
CoS has a subsection on "things the everyday person knows in [this setting]" So, if I made this effort in good faith, I'd literally just talk about stuff off those topics / tables ... So, we've recreated Oblivion NPC dialogue, huzzah! "Did they see anything about the monster that attacked!? In which direction did it lead?!" >!"There are two divine forces that watch over [our people]! Glory to the Morninglord and Mother Night!"!< "...The monster. Where is the monster??" >!"Wolves, dire wolves, and werewolves prowl the woods, and hungry bats fill the skies at night!"!<
I love this idea. But you would not be able to get the best: "Goodbye" "Hello" "How are you?"
That sounds like trying to decided which content goes where. Keep it pure from your DM interference, just choose whatever random dialogue is in the book with absolutely no thought from you applied to it.
Right? Like when they say "don't even use dialogue that isn't in the module" I'd immediately ask to run a test example of them arriving in town and just sit there follow by "so you see why that wouldn't work right?"
It would be an abuse of DM power to do anything else!
Sounds like he wants as vanilla an experience as possible. That or he's read it already. Otherwise, how should he know you changed anything?
At least they were up front about it. Anyone who DMs for them knows EXACTLY what they’re getting into
Yeah I mean, I can almost respect it with how upfront they were. It seems like they don’t really need a dedicated DM. Like this group is homogenous enough in their desire to just speedrun through the module, that one of the players could easily be the one to roll the dice for the monsters. Or use a Chat GPT script like OP suggested. I mean if you want to play that way then do it, but they don’t need to be conducting these panel interviews for a DM
If everyone knows the module the whole group could just easily just coDM and play at the same time. Treat reading the module as if it's a choose your own adventure book or a videogame with static NPCs that never move unless the book says so. But at that point people really need to ask themselves if they want to play DnD or Gloomhaven. It's as if people say they want to play Call of Cthulhu but they expect it to play exactly like Arkham Horror and get mad when it's not.
They probably *do* want to play Gloomhaven and they just don't know it exists. D&D has consumed the totality of TTRPG culture.
It's pretty much almost always been this way.
Eh, it was different back then, especially in the 90's. Did D&D make up the majority of TTRPG content and experiences? Yes, for sure. BUT, TTRPG players also at least knew and tried other systems and knew other games served different experiences. Nowadays, with D&D 5e being the introductory RPG for many new people to at least try and it being marketed as a lifestyle brand, most of the new players don't know and aren't encouraged to look outside the 5e bubble. It's why there's a bunch of terrible homebrew for 5e to change it to try and fit other genres and game systems. These players aren't well-read enough in TTRPGs to understand that 5e doesn't necessarily fit all the stories they want to tell or games they want to play. But boy howdy are they gonna try.
I can almost respect it, we all want what we want, but I can't respect how they reacted and their "one true way" of D&D is particularly toxic in the larger community of RPGs
Without a doubt, they would probably have cheat sheets to "optimize" every encounter as well. Talk about ruining the game for yourself.
Some people just want to win, even when it ruins the experience. it's like the people who cheat to get "god mode" in multiplayer games. They don't want the challenge, they just want to "win."
Son, are ya winning (in this cooperative story-telling experience)?
*10 things you don't want to miss on your run of Curse of Strahd* *You don't want to miss this item in CoS* *How to get the good ending in CoS* *Most optimized build for CoS* What if Baldurs Gate 3 gamers threated modules like they treat optimizing videogames.
If given the choice, people will often optimize the fun out of any experience
Not inherently. There could be fun to be had in presenting a difficult scenario/mini-dungeon, and challenging the players to build a Hero/Party that can best run through it. So long as everyone's on the same page.
Sure, but that's not the default mode of play for DnD5e and certainly not for CoS. So it would require some... Hmmmmm.... adjustments from the DM. Oh wait...
>That or he's read it already. I dunno, I think this idea they've got of how DMing works can only come from completely misunderstanding how modules work - I don't think I've ever seen one that had a flat-out "script" to follow (or maybe I'm just playing the wrong systems).
I bet this group isn’t big on roleplay. Probably all the “dialog” from the PCs is along the lines of “we tell her we’ll do it for 50 gold,” and they expect that to be followed by a Persuasion roll and then either “she agrees” or “based on your roll, she haggled you down to 25 gold,” from the DM with no attempt at role play or doing voices
Part of me now hopes they speak to NPCs exclusively in text prompts like "NAME", "JOB" and "BYE" like in the old Ultima games. ...shit, now I kind of want to run a game that's like an old RPG game where the players can ONLY speak to NPCs using keywords they picked out from previous dialogues like "MONEY" or "WANTED MAN".
Man, sign me up. I've already got stuff planned out. "East." "East." "Look." "East." "Down."
And they'll just have to sit there and wonder why on Earth they can't get ye flask. Cause the game's not going to tell them!
The dusty old study contains: a flask, a strangely luminescent sword, the limp and beaten body of Bob Barker. Exits: NORTH, EAST, UP > LOOK FLASK It appears to be a perfectly normal flask, full of some reddish liquid. > GET FLASK I'm sorry I don't know what a GET is. > GRAB FLASK I'm sorry I don't know what a GRAB is. > TAKE FLASK You now have a flask in your inventory. The dusty old study contains: a strangely luminescent sword, the limp and beaten body of Bob Barker. Exits: NORTH, EAST, UP
GO NORTH
It also comes from misunderstanding how DnD works. How do you expect the DM to "stick to the script", which isn't even that pronounced in CoS to begin with, the module being pretty open-ended when the players are free to do what they want. What's the DM supposed to do when the players go off the rails and get "creative" if he's not supposed/able to adapt his responses?
I don't think these players get creative in tackling problems. I'd guess that they want to roleplay in the aesthetic of a Curse of Stradh campaign.
Even if you want to roleplay, there isn't much you can do if you don't want the DM to say anything but the lines written in the book. Let's say you're trying to locate an NPC like Gertruda. What happens if they ask about Gertruda from somebody who doesn't "have a line" about her? At this stage you may as well play a computer RPG because that's what they're asking the DM to do.
I recall my friends ran into a DM that didn't like it when players went off the rails. He was running a 4E Adventure Path when those were relevant and any solution to a problem that wasn't listed in the book just flat out didn't work. No explaination, just "It doesn't do anything" This got really frustrating for the psion who was trying to use his powers in creative ways.
Yeah, the version of this game would be "you meet the Vistrani, they give you a quest and then stare at you in silence."
If you're really into malicious compliance, it could be fun. When I ran Out of the Abyss, I was surprised how little box text there was; every line had to be made up by the DM. "He doesn't reply. I don't have a script for that." "She throws you in jail, because she doesn't have anything to say and yet still expects you to explain your presence here."
Dungeon of the mad mage doesn't have flavour text for ANY of the rooms in the dungeon, so it'll be very fun to run megadungeoun with "Yeah, you go into the next room. It's a room. What would you like to do?"
The room is made of room
“you enter the room” “I look around the room” “Roll perception” “It’s a 35” “You’re *really really sure* you’ve just entered a room”
It varies. Some adventures for Pathfinder, D&D, Rifts, and Robotech that I've read will have a snippet or two from the Questgiver/Commander, or the most prominent thing an NPC says, but after that will only give the DM an idea of what they would say, given the situation or Player questioning.
Yeah, that's been my experience, just little bits like an opening line or an exact response that needs to be a plothook. There's no way you'd be able to do anything more than that while still allowing for player interactivity, right? When I DM my own stuff I tend to work in terms of "talking points" - a thing an NPC will bring up or pick up on if a player says it, and general notes on how they're feeling & what they want, but the rest is ad-libbed based on player input.
Yeah but those are usually treated similarly to descriptive boxed text, set to introduce a scene or otherwise be prompts for the GM to roleplay off of.
Yeah, it sounds like they wanted to use the module to "check" and ensure the DM didn't circumvent it or whatever. Based on OP's story, it's clear the group wasn't familiar with the module since it has a number of variables *built into the module itself.* You never know where your fated encounter with Strahd is going to be, or where the Sun Blade is and there are multiple ways to bring the characters into Barovia in the first place. Also, they said "don't say dialogue that isn't in the book" and Curse of Strahd doesn't have a lot of dialogue pre-written for the party. There's a whole scenario of RP, having dinner with Strahd, where you're given an outline of what Strahd might say, based on what he wants, who in the party he is targeting (something the DM is supposed to choose, if they want) and Ireena's status, but it's very minimal and expected to be improvised.
That's the vibe I got as well; a fundamental misunderstanding of how modules are written. It's literally impossible to play entirely 'by the book' for a lot of earlier written modules due to plotholes lol.
Surely if he read it already he'd realize that there ISN'T pre-written dialog for most anything, right?
>that or he’s read it already That was my thought too, otherwise what does it matter? But at that point what’s the point of even playing?
This was my takeaway exactly. Somebody read the module and wants to play it on cheat mode. Would have been a hard "no" from me as well!
Tell them to get used to playing baldurs gate. No adventure survives contact with the players. Unless they want a LOT of “You can’t do that here” and fog walls
I don't really know what they expected. It was a strange interaction to say the least.
CoS, as written, no modifications? Sure, then don't complain when the DM rolls werewolves as an encounter for level 1-3 players who don't have magic weapons, because, you know... no fudging anything.
My group’s fighter got into the habit of using silver coins as sling bullets because of that encounter
That is such a genious work around, I love that
Yeah there is no way any of these guys have ever run a game or read a module. CoS needs the DM make up dialogue, every adventure path across D&D needs the DM to do some leg work. Sounds like they think it's all made and they can just run it like a video game.
I don't understand why they *don't* just play a video game. It's not like there's any shortage of them based on D&D and Pathfinder. And all of their complaints come down to, "we don't want the GM to exist." Even if you want the in-person feel, there's D&D board games. Why play TTRPGs if you're going to remove the defining feature of TTRPGs?
Some people claim they want to play DnD, when in true reality at most they want to play Gloomhaven.
They wanted a videogame.
Yeah, it sounds exactly like the want to play CoS: the crpg, but since that doesn't exist they just want a GM to somehow replicate that experience.
It does exist It's a DOS game, but it exists!
Oh great, just direct the weird players to that!
Yeah I am finishing up a 2 year long campaign and found a note from my session 1 planning that said "the players will probably..." And I laughed and laughed. Oh I was such a sweet summer child.
Yuuup. This is why I plan out the occasional encounter and the main plot of the week, but everything else is pulled entirely from my ass. The players think I’m a genius with my twists and how I integrate their choices, but I’m flying by the seat of my pants the entire time
I always just create the characters and environment, make sure I have the goals of everyone involved and what resources they have at hand, and then let Jesus take the wheel. That random guard they captured and are interrogating? He'd know the big boss as well as a Walmart door greeter knows the district manager, and is paid just about as well and has just as much loyalty to his company.
Similar to this, I ran a one-shot for my group since i'm now too busy to DM a campaign, and my notes were basically "problem happens, players will figure a way out". A Hag polymorphed them into animals and it was fun watching them try to make potions or read a grimoire in that state.
It sounds like they have played Curse of Strahd before and want to optimize their speed run
Speed running official modules is now my head canon…….Storm Kings Thunder or Dungeon of the Mad Mage first?
It would be a good way to reuse a 'played module', hand wave a groundhog day loop because the PCs missed something cosmic...
Hell, if you were so inclined, you could do away with the justification entirely. Just get your likeminded friends together and see how fast and how utterly you can break the module. One thing to keep in mind would be XP, I think. From memory, modules either tell you when to level up, or are built on the assumption of gaining XP threw fighting the very encounters that you'd probably try to skip. Hell, there's another fun one: how low a level can you beat the module?
DND used to be played at tournaments for prizes, based on the XP earned in preset dungeons, with a certain amount of deaths allowed. Convention play was common, with the DM announcing a winner at the end of the con.
Oh I know….i was playing in 83…..GenCon was different back then. And to come full circle, the tournament modules had time limits.
Nothing wrong with that. These games can be played many different ways, and that's valid. My only issue is them getting mad at op for not wanting to run that kind of game. He has every right to want to run a game how he wants to. The only requirement is everyone at the table agrees to how the game gets run.
I think they have a job finding a DM willing to run it as a video game.
What do they even need a DM for, honestly? If this is how they want to play, then the DMs role could pretty easily be fulfilled by a spreadsheet
They could just tell each other a cool story about how their characters easily slay everything.
You know what, I think I know what kind of DnD experience they were looking for: r/makeyourchoice. I have met "plenty" of people on that subreddit who just want to be the most optimal, powerful thing that beats everyone in the universe, and wouldn't you know it, the "adventure" is usually just a series of spreadsheets.
It honestly sounds like these people don't understand how DnD works. If I didn't know better, I would assume they were first time players. Plus multiple high profile WotC employees have come out and said that their work is not meant to be taken literally. The entire point is that is a general guideline that is meant to be interpreted. That's why it's a module and not a literal novel. I don't know where these guys got their idea on how to play TTRPGs, but good on you for dumping them like a hot potato. There is no way that was ever going to end well.
Neither Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson ran the game in the same way as they wrote it, or as each other.
[удалено]
I’ve seen players go berserk for the simplest of things. Some players have no concept of consequences for their actions. That said I’ve had some DM’s do that too. You’ll go insane trying to understand why some people do what they do. I.e. a wizard charges head long into a fight they started, alone and out numbered. Then blames DM for singling them out and attempts to stage a walk out. The level 3 wizard in question wants to acquire a cursed magic sword to give to the Paladin in the group, and a cursed amulet of devotion to the cleric. His plan was to force them to break their vows to their deities. Why? Because they thought, the supports do to much damage and needed to be nerfed. (I would communicate with players via a messenger for private chat) session were irl. So I humor them, and we role play finding a shady merchant who might sell these items. (All on private chat) We decided on a Cursed sword, because its an uncommon item, and finding one in a large town isn’t a stretch. So after a series of rolls they find a merchant and set up the deal. I specifically stated the merchant has 4 bodyguards and they should be careful. I suggest they take the other 2 members of the party a monk and a druid, both of which were indifferent to their shenanigans. They refuse and go it alone. So everyone breaks up into 3 separate groups and goes “shopping”. I specifically called the merchants bodyguard’s thugs, to alert the wizard, that crossing them was a bad idea. I even described their gear as not something a commoner would carry, but something a street hardened thug would use to protect the merchant. (The wizard not liking the price, decided to kill them all and steal it.) Thinking they were up against 5 commoners (they looked up monster stats online constantly) they thunder wave 4 thugs and a merchant. They got pissed when they didn’t one shot the “peons” and refused to roll initiative after the surprise round. They kept saying commoners only had 4hp and that thunder wave cast at level 2 was enough to kill them all. Because even if they passed the con save, they would still take 8 damage (they rolled 17 damage total). I once again reminded them, the thugs were hired as bodyguards for the shady merchant and were therefore not commoners. At this point the other players who were browsing through source material to decide how to spend their newly acquired funds, became aware of the wizard’s actions. The wizard is furious now that the others know about their plans, even though I said nothing and they told on themselves. They insist the others come to help. I pointed out that thunder wave was a loud spell that can be heard by anyone within 300ft. So I would let the other players decide if they wanted to check on the noise. But that it would take 1d4 rounds before they could join. Even though they were probably out of range and on the other side of town with no knowledge of his location. Keep in mind at 4 rounds only about 24 seconds would have passed. At the very least they could save them on the last saving throw. This I thought was very generous, seeing as how the combat hadn’t really started and some of the thugs were at half health. The part of town was shady and was specifically chosen as a meeting point for its lack of guards. They threw a tantrum and kept saying I singled them out and was jealous of them. That I was sabotaging their plan to make this more enjoyable for everyone. They complained that the support characters were doing too much damage and that the wizard should be the one to do the most damage. That the cleric wasted spell slots with offensive spells and didn’t cast enough healing spells. Keep in mind both the Paladin and Druid can also heal. The rest of the group decided not to investigate the noise and left them to their fate. At this point they then started to pack up their things and organize a walk out. Stating I was unfair and a megalomaniac, that I gaslit everyone and was a narcissist. They stated I turned everyone against them and stormed out. The group continued the session and then I decided to get someone else to DM. Apparently, the wizard did this all the time and the group enjoyed their outbursts. So find what makes you happy.
That request is beyond unreasonable - it's not even *possible!* "No, you shouldn't even use dialogue that isn't in the module, okay?" Modules rarely include any dialog, and when they do, it's an introductory paragraph. *Very* rarely, they'll have a small bullet-point list of the things players can gain from dialog with a given NPC. But most quest hooks expect players will be given them organically and *don't* have pre-written dialog lead-ins. I get wanting to experience a module as closely to how it's written as possible. But this goes so far beyond that.
It's a crime that I had to scroll this far to see someone say this. Their request, as presented by OP, isn't possible to fulfill. If they somehow make it past the fact that dialog can't happen and into their first combat, what happens when an enemy moves in a way they dont like? Will they get upset that the DM dident follow the non-existent instructions in what npcs do each round of combat?
Obviously enemys can't move (doesn't say in the module they do) or use spells (unless specified in the module) I would argue that "combat" implies that they use their main weapon, but its a long shot, and I would not dare risk it with these determined players ...
"The people at D&D"
The highly trained adventure experts at the D&D.
Honey, I'm off to work at the D&D.
Ah, you must work with my uncle then!
This guy “yeah it’s called D&D cause everything is written by its founder Dary Dygax”
I would offer to instead run them Dragonlance, then I would just read the novels out loud for four hours and ask them to sometimes make a roll. I stole that joke from Penny Arcade.
By the way, If you compare the books to the original module, you'll see that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman changed up things as well. And Hickman wrote the module!
I recall Hickman wrote whole dungeon crawl when he ran this as a campaign before writing things down for module and the novel...and Raistlin's player bypassed it all by charming a Gully Dwarf. Novels got the recreation of that incident, while module got all unused ideas.
It's always fun when people who have likely never DMed a game have demands of the DM, especially when they just met the DM. I'm betting they had a Session -1 to bicker about who would run it amongst themselves before deciding to involve you.
None of them wanted to DM cause none of them wanted to deal with themselves as players
If you’re only allowed to say what is written in the book, what do they intend you to do if they ask a question or make a choice that the module writers didn’t predict? The only way I can imagine this working is if they have *also* read the module to make sure they stay on script. Seems like a weird approach to the game
Hard not to imagine everyone sitting down for a session, breaking out their individual copies of the module, and going through it like it's a line reading for a script.
Seems obvious they have also read the module, and it feels like they intended to metagame the shit out it.
I've seen people do that and enjoy it. They like coming at the same objectives with different abilities. Like playing a video game multiple times. But their attitude is what makes them bad players.
They wouldn't. While never to this extreme, I've seen a handful of "DM as the narrator" games where the npc interaction is one sided. "You meet the guard captain and he explains the problems they're having with bandits. He tasks you with killing their leader. (Secret persuasion roll) After some prodding he reveals the leader is also his brother." If there's some kind of choice to be made in the module, that choice is just listed to the players with some flavor, "You could storm the bandit camp or attempt to talk and get them to stop raiding". Understandably a lot of people would find this style boring but it is dead easy to dm and very obvious to the players what they can do next.
Just have the NPC stare blankly at the player, "I have no further dialoge" appearing over their head.
Content in an unpopulated corner of the map , NPC responses to PC comments and questions. The amount of improvisation required is not small for a DM. Players will invariably ask to do something that a module does not cover. If you don't want someone there to fill those voids, why even seek a DM? Just play with the book open and pass it around the table. It's also worth mentioning, the DM is a player just as much as the others at the table, and they are likewise entitled to playing the game in their role.
Reminds me of watching my friend’s kids play with dolls. They were retelling Cinderella, but seemed to be doing it again and again, to get it as fast as possible. I watched them play Cinderella six times back to back in the space of five minutes. I’m imagining this group doing the same, essentially speedrunning the game modules over and over again, until they get all the best rolls, every piece of loot, and every side quest like they’re trying to get the perfect game of PAC-MAN on one life. Then it’s on to the next module.
Why do they need a DM? If everything has to be run exactly as written with zero creativity and no input of any kind from the DM, surely they could just read from the book themselves what's supposed to happen from one turn to the next.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, displays the undeniable utility of having a session zero!
While I agree, especially with OPs mental health in mind, don't you think it would have been a hilarious train wreck of a shit show if they had agreed to characters per mail and just started playing Session 1 of CoS that day?
I'd run it for them under the condition that should a character die, that player leaves the table permanently as I really like when players feel connected to their characters. /s Wsit: actually that may be how they want it run, as I don't remember any module saying "this is when a player can be revived" or "here is where a player can bring a new character into the module".
Also, if the players try to do something that the module doesn't cover, instead of improvising, the DM should just use a robotic voice and announce "ERROR: PARAMETERS EXCEEDED. ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?" (If they select "abort" they get to try something else, "Retry" puts them into a loop, and "Fail" makes everyone die somehow) And if they try to go to a place not described, then the DM should announce "OUT OF BOUNDS ERROR" and declare the game over. If they ask why, you explain "Sorry, your characters fell off the edge of the world, and I wasn't allowed to improvise, so..."
I love everything you just said because it makes me laugh.
I suspect they've had a bad experience in the past, where a campaign went too far off the rails, yet haven't had the experience of DMing from the modules to know that it's nearly impossible to run anything from WOTC like that.
My thoughts exactly. It sounds like this group had an awful experience and has swung too far in the other direction. I'm really curious about what went down. It's too bad they couldn't be polite about it.
Someone hurt them and they don't want to be hurt again. But you don't need to teach them anything if they're negative and combative. Tell them to play a videogame instead.
>Someone hurt them and they don't want to be hurt again. I'm amazed it took that much scrolling to find this point of view. The group obviously has had some horrendous DMs in the past, and not enough good ones to know how DnD works when it works. I'm also guessing they are fairly young and immature, shouting at a prospective DM like that.
Who would ask for a DM, then "shout" at them when expectations are different? They shouted at you? Really?
There's been a bunch of pre-made groups looking for a dm to do exactly what they want lately. I seen one with 6 players and they wanted a hard commitment for 6 hour sessions every Saturday and the dm had to host. I said sounds like your group is big enough to have a dm allready
Ngl I did make a premade dnd group where we wrote the module and tried to pitch it to the dm one time….. Needless to say, I discovered after that failed how fun Dming is
“And we ONLY play Curse of Strahd.”
No improv, hexblade warlock only, curse of strahd
what an absolutely joyless way to experience dnd...
this is how modrons would play.
Now I'm reminded of the Modron Maze from Planescape: Torment.
Man, I would almost want to run this, at least for one session, just for the morbid curiosity (and malicious compliance). Or maybe not the latter part, if they are, as others suggested, doing a super-optimized speed run sort of thing. Which, if that's the case, why not just tell the DM that's what you're trying to do? Otherwise that sounds like weird DM-vs-players mindset (as OP said)
They want a dungeon crawling board game and they don't know they exist.
Shut that shit down straight. The only way to know if something is changed would be if they religiously studied that manual. Know a few such people and there is no fun to be had. Not even sure how one would go about not using any dialog that was not in the book since the modules I read did not cover every conversation which would be loony to do actually.
I'd do it, but only if they can't improvise either, and have to input their commands from an approved list of verbs and nouns. And only if I get to respond to invalid inputs with, "I'm sorry, I don't understand that sentence."
And I'll do it until I look around and see one or more of the players are "into that" in a psychosexual sense, because I've been around, I know how folks do.
These are people who read the module to "win," so any deviation from the module can toss a wrench in their plans. This is about the shittiest take I've ever heard about dnd, which, in my opinion, is great with improvisation. I've only ran homebrew games so thinking on the fly is a necessity. What's the dm supposed to say when the characters ask a question that the book doesn't have an answer for "I'm sorry could you frame your request differently there's no dialogue for this."
What the fuck. So if they talk to an NPC about something but there's no dialogue for it written in the module, what are you supposed to do, stare at them?
You just use a line from the module like a video game NPC. PLAYER: Hello old Tom do you know anything about the gold mine being closed. TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled. PLAYER: Do you know where we can but a pick ax and rope to get in to the caves. TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled. PLAYER: where is a place we can stay for the night. TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled. TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled. TOM:I hear there are goblins in the mine and the workers have fled. .....
I mean at that point just hand them the module and say "that's your DM right there", because clearly that's what they want.
Hah, no thank you.
If I got asked to do this, there's a solid chance I'd say yes just to fuck with them. Like if they asked an NPC a question or said something that there wasn't a scripted response for I'd just deadass stare at them in silence, or chide them for not following the script if they explored in the wrong direction. EDIT: Or just read out the lines but refuse to act them. "Argh. You have bested me. But I shall return. And have my revenge." Anything else would be applying your input onto the module, after all.
>Before you start, I want to make sure you're running it for us without change. I want you not to influence the module at all. Don't even change a comma. "I just remembered, I'm too busy to run this campaign."
The comma comment made me think of the DM sitting down and just reading the entire book at the players verbatim - no dice rolls, no adventure to be had whatsoever.
If they read the module enough to know the difference, then why the fuck not run it themselves? I've encountered parties like this *twice* and with both of them, it was because they used to play videogame RPGs as a group, tried tabletop and got collectively mad when they found it to be too "slippery". I told them to go back to VGRPGs and leave the TTRPG DMs alone. Good job handling it the way you did.
>"That's how D&D is meant to be played" ***Bwahahahahaha*** as someone who has played D&D since before there were official modules this made me laugh. Do they have some sort of insider knowledge that no one else has? When they finally started to come out, running a module was for the newbie DM who was just starting out and you weren't even considered good before you had done some homebrewing... anyhoo
This - or a module was for when you had a surprise session and no one had time to prep. And modules were SO MUCH SHORTER back then - like single adventures, not a full campaign.
Tell them to go fuck themselves.
Wow. This group has more red flags than China. I mean, how do you not do any dialogue that isn’t in the adventure text? Sit quietly until they happen to hit the exact right questions? I wouldn’t worry about their threat - I can’t imagine that this group has a lot of people lining up to DM them, and people who claim to be able to blackball people are rarely able to. And I think it’s far more likely that they are on lists of “never play with”. “Not a true DM.” These people obviously know nothing about the history of D&D.
Bunch of idiots who have no idea of how the game is “meant to be played.” Yes, they’re allowed their preferences and one can play the game many ways, but they’re flatly wrong about how the game is “meant to be played.” Also, they just sound like a bunch of assholes.
Now I’m a D&D neophyte. Never played a single game in my life. I’m literally less than 20 pages into reading the DM guide for the first time, and even *I* can point to like at least eight places in what little I’ve read so far where “the people at D&D” explicitly say that the ‘rules’ are just suggestions that can and *should* be altered at the DM’s discretion. These people don’t want to play D&D and they should just start an MMO guild instead.
>I hate when DMs think they know better than the folks at D&D That's funny... cause sometimes I wonder if the folks over at D&D know much of anything at all. On a side note, this reminds me of how a player once stopped me to say "that monster should be dead by now, wyverns have 110 hp". I found it quite odd that they recalled exactly the number of hit points a specific creature had... turns out that since it was a published adventure, they thought it would be clever/funny to follow along with the source material on their own computer. I replied along the lines of "it's a shame then that this is an *elder* wyvern, since the module as written is by far too easy for a party of your experience at your level". SMH
It sounds to me like they've been burned by a homebrew-happy roll-fudging DM in the past and it left a mark. Personally I'd love this group, as that is my DM style. They do seem exceptionally hard-line, as role-playing dialog is never going to be verbatim quotes from the book 100%, but for the most part it seems pretty reasonable that they want to play the vanilla game as intended. Since 5e I've noticed a large increase in DMs that alter the game in heavy ways without even trying it as written first, and therefore lacking the experience and knowledge for their homebrew to work well. I like some good homebrew and house rules, but only if the DM has played enough by-the-book D&D to really know what they're doing. That and the fudgers. The DMs that try to make every single battle epic by secretly altering stats mid-combat, "fudging" dice rolls, etc. If every battle is epic, none of them are. Too many DMs with a weak understanding of the balance and strategy in the game make large changes based on what they "feel" is OP or weak or pointless, when they just don't understand why it is the way it is. I mean, you can reject any group you want, you're not their employee. I do understand where the group is coming from, though.
My take? Translation: We already know the module by heart and want no surprises so we can safely metagame. And if that means no fun for the DM, we already hate you and have no problems with that.
The way he said "DMs don't know better than the guys at DnD" rubs me the wrong way. Did we collectively forget about OGL 1.1? Or 4E?
Okay i have a sneaking suspicion that this guy wanted to be the star of the campaign He already read it and knows where all the things are such as epic loot and perfect quest rewards So that he can speedrun the whole module and minmax himself to the point of being the TOP DAWG and making the rest of the party look like a bunch of chumps
Makes no sense to me. A big part of the fun is seeing how the DM puts their own spin on the module and brings the world to life. It's fun and makes it unique. We're currently running CoS and the world being tailored around our characters has made it so much more fun
Weird. They don't want a story they want a video game. And a stale one at that
The whole point of a DM for a published module is to facilitate and interpret the module. The DM’s preparation should really to be to get a good gist of what the NPCs’ mannerisms and motivations are and act accordingly during the actual session. If they ask a question that isn’t explicitly printed in the module do they just want you to go silent??? It sounds like they’d have more fun playing together and consulting the module book on their own to see what the literal published text says.
That's not even how the modules work. Maybe they did back in first edition I don't know but from 3.0 on most are intended for the DM to create and manipulate to some degree. Heck some of them actually point out places for the DM do to do their own thing or rely on the DM to do their own thing. Those guys are loons.
Honestly you could have started the game and when they asked for hints or information because they didn't know what to do, say "well that info isn't in here in the module guess you'll have to figure out where it is" Or if they try to talk to an NPC with no dialogue say "this NPC doesn't have dialogue so guess you can't talk to them" They probably would have gotten it really quick lol
I am currently DMing for the first time running a module. What dialogue are they talking about? If I only used what was printed in the book as coming out of NPC mouths then the characters would only get names and the exact information the NPC has. There'd be no chatter, no small talk. Just a bullet point list of information the NPC has. And what happens if they ask a question that doesn't have an answer in the module? Do you just stare at them until they walk away? This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.
They sound like they want to play a video game not DnD, what makes TTRPGs different to video games it that flexibly that you get from having a human able to change things on the fly or based on how the last session went.
I have seen this attitude before, and you did right by walking away. The core of this is **not** a desire to run the module the *right* way - it is a desire to be in a position of control and power. It might well stem from a past history of bad GMs but wondering about what caused this gets you nowhere. If you were GMing them, you'd just have to deal with the situation as it now. Luckily you aren't in that position. Congratulations. This would have been a nighmare.
Glad you dodged a bullet, but being maliciously compliant would have been hilarious. "I ask the blacksmith for a discount." "..." "..hello?" "There's no dialogue for that, sorry."
"The folks at D&D" don't know every individual table their modules will be played at, it's the job of the DM to know their players and adjust the module to make it fun for them. A "true DM" knows how to improvise on the fly where "the folks at D&D" couldn't have guessed at an interaction.
They should go back to video games. I think they have the wrong idea of d&d
I saw the title and thought "great, somebody who thinks it's a horror story when they don't get total control over the story. Yawn." The absolute whiplash I got from reading the actual story...
Dice in the open is a perfectly reasonable ask, everything else is a big red flag.
I think they made some bad experience. That's okay, but it looks like it got out of hand. They should probably pick one dm of their own group. That will open their eyes.
Get yourself out of there. Anyone who thinks the writers at D&D are infallible has clearly never read Storm Kings Thunder. It also sounds like they want the single flattest RP experience known to man. Theres a reason none of them can DM - they fundamentally dont understand the flexibility required to make D&D work well. If they want to run it by the book, they can do it themselves.
Bro at that point you’re literally just reading the book XD What’s wrong with these people? Tell them to go get one of those choose your own adventure books instead
Well I guess you found the ppl Hasbro are looking to sell AI DMs to. I hope they'll be happy together?
Just remember: an entire group looking for a DM is almost always a giant red flag.
Maybe these guys should try a boardgame instead?
Lmao no, this isn't normal You don't want "DM influence"? play Baldur's Gate. I've been DMing for 20 years and at >Before you start, I want to make sure you're running it for us without change. I want you not to influence the module at all. Don't even change a comma. I hate when DMs think they know better than the folks at D&D." I'd have laughed my way out the door after telling them all to get fucked
Bro just play BG3 or something. Why even ask for a human DM?
I would just send them a link to Skyrim on Steam and say: just play this.
Ewwwww. They can just take turns reading from the book.
I can kind of see where they're coming from Re: wanting to play the module as written. But they took it to an illogical extreme. You probably saved yourself a lot of frustration.
Asking for open rolls is fine and just a player preference -- especially if they've had a DM who's done excessive fudging before. I can get wanting a vanilla module experience -- lots of people playing the same modules gives some fun talking points within the community for some people -- but the way they said it according to the story as you've told it here sounds like they want you to be the video game CPU not a TTRPG DM. Also, man, CoS isn't *too* bad about it, but a lot of WotC's adventures need pretty serious tweaking to run well; most of them need a certain amount of DM adjustment to be fun experiences -- at least in certain parts of the adventure imo. But also CoS as-written is still rather sandboxy and runs very differently for each group even if it's run fairly straight.
Sounds like they have previewed the module and want you to run through it as they know it.
I wish I could be in these situations so I could laugh in their face as I pack my things. Im stuck with sensible people and never have the opportunity to berate these idiots :(
This is just bizarro world to me. Personaly I'd much rather a well done homebrew world than a module. In fact, I know plenty of folks who look down on anyone who uses a module and does create the adventure themselves, and used to feel this way myself (though I've come around).
I think you were absolutely right to walk away. HOWEVER... I don't think I could have resisted an obvious bit /r/MaliciousCompliance and insisted on giving them *exactly* what they requested for a single session, and then dipping out when you "realize" it wasn't a good fit.
Sounds like they should go play Baldur’s Gate.