[Channel Teaser]
This video is sponsored by Lament of the Widow, Kickstarter.
A thrilling mystery and cosmic horror setting for DND 5E.
Live Now!
Goblins are fun.
Caves are neat.
Exploring the labyrinthine world of Moorehouse full of abominations, powerful magic items,
and ancient secrets?
That’s more like it.
One of the things that I find most appealing about this setting is that it puts the emphasis
on choosing your battles.
Most DND challenges can be solved with the end of something pointy.
In the infinite manor you will have more success carefully exploring and investigating the
many rooms and corridors.
If you’re a DM looking for a great setting, the 100 pages of maps, beautiful illustrations,
new items and unique monsters will keep your players on the edge of their seat.
And if you’re a player, treat your DM to something great!
Back Lament of the Widow now.
And now what you’re here for.
World’s Worst DM Railroads His Party & Plagiarizes Astoshan
Hi everyone.
All Things DnD is back with another story.
This story was submitted by a viewer who wanted to remain anonymous.
It’s one thing to fudge a roll here or there to save a party member from death or to keep
the story going in the right direction.
But this story is a perfect example of what not to do.
Also, don’t take people's ideas and say they are your own.
Not cool.
Around 2 and a half years ago I decided I wanted to get into D&D.
I had no idea how the game was played, never spectated anyone nor had I watched any Critical
Role episodes.
I thought I'd love it just from its description.
I was 26 at the time and had just joined a private college for coding, so naturally it
was filled with nerds (not using it as an insult, I am a huge nerd myself).
I approached a guy from my class that looked like a social kind of person, and asked if
he had ever played D&D.
He told me he had been DM'ing for years, so I asked if we could maybe arrange a oneshot
with me and some other colleagues as players.
He agrees, we gather in my apartment a few days after, and we have a fun time, nothing
special but fun nonetheless.
Soon after that, we are discussing starting a campaign.
I am stoked because I really fancy D&D.
We'd be 7 players and the previous DM, playing in a homebrew world that he had built for
us, or so he claimed at the time.
It was much later that I found out that each and every little detail of his "homebrew"
was stolen from somewhere else.
The setting of the world was that, supposedly, something happened a bunch of decades ago
and the world is in a sort of post-apocalyptic era.
Also magic was very rare.
I played a Glamour Bard, with your typical orphan backstory.
I also wanted to multiclass into Warlock at some point, so in my backstory I had typed
that the bard can frequently see nightmares with large eldritch horrors approaching him.
In my mind a pact with an Old One right in the middle of the campaign would be a very
memorable moment, and I was looking forward to it ever since I built my character.
First session starts, we are gathered in the main city of the continent, where we are railroaded
into an arena.
There we witness the boss of the continent, an absurdly powerful and mystical NPC, whoop
some pirates because they dared disobey him.
Full anime description on his movements, followed by 20+ minutes of out-of-game explanation
of this NPC: how it was an old character of the DM, how he built him into a broken behemoth
in 3.5 etc.
We were playing 5E and we were all newbies, so all this boasting and weird terms about
3,5 was like a foreign language to me, but I thought it was normal so I just waited for
him to finish.
He trash talked 5E all the time, and would always claim that 3,5 was far better.
Soon after that we gather our characters and form a pirate crew.
The DM's bestie was our captain (decided by the DM) who conveniently had a boat.
Neat.
We go on our first quest to get a flag from a distant island.
When we arrive, we see mountains of pirate bodies in front of a hut, where 3 NPCs are
standing menacingly.
We try to talk nicely to them since we understand that they killed all those people.
After a description about their appearance, 20+ minute out of game explanation for EACH
of these NPCs again.
So 1 hour later we get back in game, the NPCs are flexing on us and are mocking our combat
capabilities.
We were all LVL 3 and they were all 20+ multiclassed with artifacts and whatnot.
The other players start sucking up to them so they hand us over the flag, not before
they make sure to let us know who's boss by tossing us around and displaying their magic
abilities.
We go back to the main city with the flag, we get a small reward and go about our business.
Then, we see a huge ship that dwarfs ours, docking next to us.
Some insanely overpowered NPCs jump down and start to bully us, you guessed it, 20+ minute
explanation for each and every one of them too.
Whenever I describe an NPC that isn't fodder, assume that the above happens.
Anyway, they are like us but a 1000 times better, their rogue steals all of our important
items (my violin, the cleric's holy symbol, our rogue's daggers etc) and tosses them to
the ground, in what the DM described as "a split second".
He was pretending to roll for all these shenanigans and always had a grin on his face.
After that happened, for the first time in this campaign I started to get annoyed.
I thought I'd pull a fast one on those NPCs, so I arranged a huge gig in the arena.
I am the headliner of this event, but I also invite some fodder NPC bards to play with
me.
The DM describes to me that some very important overpowered NPCs are in the crowd.
While I am performing, I tell the DM that I cast Enthralling Performance on 5 of them.
The spell states that even if they succeed on the save, they have no idea that I tried
to charm them, so in my mind at least 2 of these NPCs will get charmed by me, I can ask
them for some valuable information and we can continue the adventure with the new info
I will have extracted.
The DM rolls, he tells me every NPC passed the 15 DC wisdom save.
Huh, I thought, unlucky.
Very small odds but whatever, at least I tried something.
Then he says: "Suddenly, those NPCs that you tried to charm get up on the stage and start
kicking you around.
They tell you that you shouldn't have tried to use your cheap magic on them and now you
will pay the price".
I instantly object and tell the DM that the spell states that whoever succeeds on the
save has no idea that I tried to charm them.
He replies with: "They have a very high level bard with them, he told them what you tried
to do".
So my bard gets publicly ridiculed and everybody laughs at me.
Awesome.
After that, the druid gets mind controlled by a house and we try to rescue him.
We failed to do so but luckily for us, yet another overpowered NPC was there to save
us and give us our next quest.
We are to go to a neighboring village to find the source of the corruption.
While there, I tried the Enthralling Performance trick once again on some locals.
Nope, all 5 NPCs succeed on their saves again.
Godly rolls by this DM I guess... if only he hadn't admitted to us that he would "sometimes"
fudge rolls for the "good of the story".
Anyway, we understand that the source of the corruption comes from an abandoned mansion.
While we approach it, we see 2 children asking for help, telling us their baby brother is
trapped in the mansion and a monster is there too.
If it sounds familiar to anyone, yeah this whole mansion was a total rip-off of the "Death
House", as I found out months later.
At this point I have to mention that all of the above happened in the span of 2-3 months.
In the meantime, I had started DM'ing myself.
I followed my DM's example, and all of my sessions were railroaded where I wanted the
players to go, and I had some OP NPCs of my own.
After all, I thought this is the way the game is played.
Back to the campaign, we clear the Death House ripoff and arrive in the final room.
There, a huge eldritch horror comes out of the water.
It demands a new host, or a sacrifice.
This was the level where I would multiclass into warlock, and I had reminded it to the
DM numerous times.
So I was sure this was the Old One I'd make a pact with.
For the first time since I started playing D&D, I am excited to the point where I am
shaking.
So I step up to the being, I tell it I have been seeing it all my life in visions yada
yada edgy warlock stuff.
Then suddenly... the door behind us bursts open, as YET ANOTHER OVERPOWERED NPC comes
to save the day!
It starts fighting the monster, and the DM tells us that we have to leave the area or
we will all die.
As I leave, I try to tell it that it still has time to use me as a new host.
I get ignored.
So the session ends soon after that, DM says we've leveled up.
I ask him "what about the pact with the Old One I've been telling you about all this time?".
He looks at me with a small look of surprise on his face and says: "Oh yeah I totally forgot.
When the others are sleeping, you go back to the mansion and grab a book from there.
Suddenly, you have 1 level in Warlock".
The end.
I am extremely bummed out, my character is in shambles and this is not the way I thought
things would go, at all.
Anyway, the campaign continues.
The person that played our captain decides that he doesn't want to play anymore, so we
need to decide who gets to be the next captain in his place.
The DM tells us that we will have a PVP tournament on our ship, whoever is the last man standing
will be the next captain.
I tell them that I have no interest in the position, but I will take part in the tournament
for the fun of it.
Rules are simple, whoever reaches 0 HP or gets tossed into the sea gets eliminated.
With clever use of spells and some luck on my side, I manage to be 1 of the 2 players
that are left standing in the end.
The other one is an insanely powerful cleric, who was given some over tuned items by the
DM shortly before the tournament.
He was the one that was sucking up to the NPCs the most, so I guess he got rewarded
for his... sucking.
Note here that none of the other players ever roleplayed, hence why I call them munchkins
on the title.
They were all about combat, so I guess that explains why none of them got annoyed by the
way the story went.
They also regularly bullied me whenever I tried to roleplay, calling me "edgy teen"
and "cringe".
Back to the final showdown, it's the powerhouse cleric with the +3 plate armor with 5 different
abilities VS my subpar bard/warlock.
He has a cocky grin on his face IRL and he tells me to get this over with and I should
just jump in the water on my own.
Joke's on him, I have Repelling Blast as my eldritch invocation and he is conveniently
standing on the edge of the ship.
I get a super lucky hit with an eldritch blast which blasts him into the water in 1 round.
He.
Gets.
Pissed.
He would not stop complaining for days.
He thinks the ruling was unfair, but even the DM that favored him tells him that the
rules were fine and he really did get tossed to the sea.
I was petty as well and taunted him regularly about his loss, hey I don't care that guy
was an ass.
In the next session, I tell the party that I will hear them out and decide who I will
make the next captain, since I had no interest in the position myself.
His cleric comes up to my bard, calls him names and DEMANDS a battle to the death.
I refuse saying I am not stupid but he won't accept it.
He tells us that he wants to leave the group, but ultimately decides to stay in the end,
not before he states that he "will have justice one day, for that we can be sure".
And they called me cringe…
To decide on our next quest, my bard goes to the boss of the continent and asks him
what we have to do for the upcoming war that is going to take place.
He tells me that we need to go around the world, find some really powerful NPCs, tell
them what's going on and they will take care of it.
I ask him what WE can do to be a factor in this war.
Word by word his reply was "you are all powerless whelps, the best you can do is warn the real
warriors".
Anyway, all of the above really bummed me out and I no longer feel like playing my character
after the Warlock multiclass event took place.
I didn't even know what my patron's name was.
So I tell them I will be walking out of the campaign.
They put it on hiatus since my apartment was our gathering place, and they had nowhere
else to go.
It was way before COVID hit so Roll20 and Discord were considered a trash alternative.
Fast forward to around a year later.
COVID hits, and Roll20 + Discord becomes the go-to way to play D&D.
They want to re-establish the campaign and ask me to join too.
In that year I had really upped my DM game, and I understood the way D&D is meant to be
played.
I also found out about all the ripping-off that took place.
So we have a group chat, I go HARD on the DM telling him all the things that were wrong
with the campaign.
The cleric munchkin cuts in and says: "if your bard wasn't such a murderhobo maybe you'd
have fun with the campaign as well".
Well I guess trying to charm NPCs is considered murderhobo'ing now.
Anyway the DM tells me he appreciates my criticism, he understands that he has done some things
wrong with the campaign, and he will try to correct them.
I decided to give it another shot, after all a year had passed and I would no longer be
clueless about any future shenanigans.
I create a Sorcerer and get introduced to the party.
We go into a dungeon and have a big boss fight.
We are escorted by yet another overpowered NPC that was a blatant rip-off of Astoshan,
a very well written necromancer.
He claimed it was his own idea though.
I am a bit annoyed but it's not like that guy is carrying the whole fight, more like
he is assisting us so I let it slide.
I did point out to the DM after the session ended that I liked the way he handled Astoshan,
it really stayed true to the original.
So in a passive-aggressive manner I let him know that I knew he was plagiarizing again.
After that though, the rulings went totally out of control.
We fought a huge tree once, it hit the rogue for 3 damage.
I joked and said "wow if you were level 1 you would be at half health".
Then the DM says that it had multiattack.
It picks up a huge boulder and throws it at me.
I cast shield but the DM then states that it's a crit.
Of course it is.
It hits me for 70+ damage, knocking me unconscious.
How it can go from 3 to 70+ damage on the same round is a mystery.
The paladin and the cleric munchkin bullies that called me cringe minutes before (I described
that I toss a fireball to the tree in a way that reminded me of a Kamehameha) are refusing
to heal me.
Combat ends and still nobody heals me.
I manage to stabilize by death saves and luckily the ranger comes to heal me back to consciousness.
Then, out of the shadows, step not 1, not 2, but a party of 6 overpowered NPCs that
our characters instantly recognise as the heroes of the continent and whatnot.
As the description for each and every one of them starts, I tell them that my sorcerer
asks them why they didn't help us in the fight that almost killed him.
I get ignored.
I've had it at that point.
My sorcerer tells them to drop their weapons or they'll get burned.
I get ignored.
I declare that I cast Wall of Fire, dexterity save for all of the NPCs.
The DM then stops talking and tries to convince me not to do it.
I'm not budging, roll dex save.
They all succeed, naturally.
Initiative gets rolled and battle starts.
My own party is attacking me and I am trying to maybe take at least 1 NPC down with me.
An NPC Monk acts way out of initiative and uses Stunning Strike on me, DC 21.
When I asked how he acted out of round, he said it's a ruling from 3,5.
Anyway the party calls me names out of game and the enemy NPCs spare my sorcerer because
the others were kind enough to suck up to them once again.
The session ends and I call the DM privately, telling him that I thought it would be different
this time and if anything it's gotten worse from last year.
He assures me that things will change and to give it one last try.
I agree because I had nothing better to do.
So the next session came.
We get into a huge combat that lasts 4 hours.
Every round of combat took 1 hour, I kid you not I went to sleep once I finished my round
and put an alarm for 50 minutes later.
It still took some time for my round to come up after I woke up.
The rogue alone took more than 10 minutes to decide on her actions.
Anyway, this is where the ruling really got out of whack.
There was an enemy in front of me, that had spent his round stabbing me with his daggers.
Then in a straight line behind him, an archer tried to hit me.
I tell the DM that I am in 1/2 cover, to which he replied with "yes, the enemy in front of
you ducks so that the archer has a clear shot".
I told him that nobody can duck out of his turn, to which he replied with "pack tactics".
What even is that?
Then an enemy wizard shows up.
He tries to cast Hold Person on me, I cast Counterspell.
Turns out he had a bunch of levels on Sorcerer since he had Subtle Spell, so I couldn't counterspell
him.
Oh well, wisdom save.
I get an 18 and think I'm safe, DM informs me the DC is 20.
20 DC on a wisdom save??
Archmages have 17!
Anyway I get paralyzed but I succeed the save the next round, so 2 hours later I can act.
I tell the enemy spellcaster that I just want to talk, I thought I'd interrogate him for
answers on who he is.
I cast a fireball as a warning shot, I get 30+ damage.
The DM informs me that the enemy is now dead.
It is way obvious that this guy is fudging rolls, making up stats and shifting them around
to suit his narrative.
That was the final straw for me, I announce that I will not be playing anymore and leave
all group chats.
I had also quit college a while back, so I never saw any of them again.
It was by far my worst experience as a player, but at least I learned what NOT to do when
I DM.
The silver lining?
This person knows exactly how NOT to DM.
It’s a shame they had to learn the hard way but you really learn a lot from bad examples.
Please let us know what you think and comment below!
Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel, All Things DnD.
Our videos are posted every Tuesday and Friday, so stay tuned for more amazing Dungeons & Dragons
content!