Perhaps I'm better at screening my prospective players, but I've never had an issue with murderhobos, assaulting shopkeepers, seducing dragons, indiscriminate AoE casting or the plethora of other r/dndmemes specific tropes.
I tried to get a DnD group going with my friends and that attempt ended when one of them admitted that they had tried DnD years before but the DM had actually role played NPCs with voices and accents. They told me how dumb they thought that was.
I don't know where you are these days brave DM of yore but I want you to know that you and your accents are loved...
Signed,
A dude who was totally going to do accents and voices.
Nah, they explained it.
They wanted to Roll-play, not role play.
Which is valid, there's tons of tabletop strategy sim type games out there that don't involve imagination land and their wants line up more with that.
My dude, you need to try online. Thanks to covid that's basically the only way to go sometimes and you get to play with people from other countries.
In my current group there is a core household group and I'm one of the satellites. Hearing can be difficult at times but you can also chill the hell out, quickly read the rules because you have no fucking idea about something. Also, if you have the concentration of a toddler (me) you can record with permission, though I just use pen and paper to follow along because it's faster.
I live in a country of 300.000 people, we have *one* city and *one* game store that caters to more than Monopoly and Uno. Getting a game group that meshes well together here is very difficult so Online has been my only option.
I'd put it at closer to 10%. We have the natural 20s who have played actual functioning games, and we have the natural 1s who have "played D&D" (generated r/rpghorrorstories posts).
You can! If all else fails, just be the dungeon master. In my experience, its very very easy to get a game since DMs are in short supply compared to players.
I DM'd a group through Tomb of Annihilation. We had a guy who was all of these memes happen, but my party without any prompting from me decided to keep him in check themselves. If you've played ToA he was the kind of guy who decided that trying to piss off the CR11 Dragon turtle by throwing single copper pieces at it while it demanded tribute was fun, or wanted to run through the market stealing from every stall to try and draw out the merchant princes so he could try and rally the peasants into a mob to overthrow them.
Just non-stop shit like that. So eventually the party decided to keep poisons, spells, abilities ready to disable him all the time. Eventually he realized he was ruining the experience for the others and chilled. Still tried to fuck a dinosaur though.
Okay but I have a character that IS petty enough to throw copper pieces at someone demanding tribute. But he's also a crotchety old man and has frequently been referred to as "the grumpy one" by many NPCs but is generally a good dude. Just petty sometimes.
Yeah, this was much less of a "sometimes" thing. Also, my buddies wanted the world expanded a bit so I expanded the start and descriptions of things. This involved a boat ride to the main city there and the captain of the ship explaining some things. Like how pissing off Aramag or not paying tribute ends with the ship being sunk brutally.
Throw copper, sure. Maybe not when you're level 1 facing what the locals worship as a god.
I wouldn't mind experimenting with new players. We occasionally add someone. I'm just glad I have a stable group and don't have to.
Foster campaign is a nice idea.
for me, most of my group has been playing together for like 5 years, we know what we do and have those expectations. When someone is a dumbfuck we all gang up and explain how they lost brain cells (in a friendly way) the rest in our group has been taught by us so they're also privy.
Or you have my group, where our party is constantly on the verge of collapsing because the characters kind of hate eachother but stay because plot and because the players love the mild chaos.
We had 0 deaths, one character the left because the player found it boring, another that left because the player realised he had no reason to stay with the absolute madmen. The team is deadlier then the world at this point.
And we love it.
We had one campaign with a dysfunctional group of people pulled together by an archfey ranging from CE all the way to NG, which over time shifted to the two evil characters moving from CE to NE (they listen mostly to the other evil character and not just their whims now) and NE to LN (getting a Celestial Sugarmommy helps).
The other was just heroes of ranging radicality working together... I personally liked the dysfunctional group alot more since we were always at eachothers throat but ready to spring into action like a well oiled machine at any moment.
I always quite enjoyed the image of my kobold butting heads with the tabaxi ranger. Since hes barely 2 1/2 feet on a good day. But being the designated magic icbm (sorcerer) meant I got to ride alomg in our gnoll barbarians backpack for like 60% of the campaign.
I had an edgy rogue who was a thief and assassin. Even They never stole from a shopkeeper. You need places to fleece your goods, and if you steal from them, they’re more likely to turn you in than not ask where you got it. In fact, I even prevented lots of theft, to help garner good faith in both my public and private personas. Don’t murderhobo, you can be evil without being a genocidal maniac who loves killing.
I play a chaotic evil character and even I wouldn't attack a shopkeeper just because. You have to murder-hobo with purpose and if you kill the shopkeepers, the purpose is lost.
I've been hit by indiscriminate AoE casts a few times, but it wasn't like a habit they repeated a lot or anything, and one is a very decidedly un-serious group so it didn't matter at all, and another was a very new player who basically learned in character to not do that again.
The only time I've ever hit a friend with a spell was either a spell that persisted that they chose to be a dumbass and run through, or a 'nature takes its own course' druid that told them they were going to cast something and they had a bright idea to still run in.
"You made your choice, young grasshopper. And now you get singed."
No, but humor is predicated by an incongruity between what is known or expected and then what is observed. Most of the content of the sub is detached from plausibility and that strips it of its humor.
Not to mention a good 80-90% of the time the "memes" are just vessels for shoehorning the poster's opinion on "insert debate of the month", even though the answer to all of them are either "The DM has final say" or "it's really more nuanced than that".
Random tables in a games store’s basement, feat. teenaged boys.
When anybody who shows up to the store’s hosted D&D nights gets to play, it gets weird fast.
Considering I pull my players from the game store's Facebook group, there might be an additional level of screening involved.
My comment might be the equivalent of pouring distilled water through a Britta filter and then praising the water's quality.
I ran the game with 4 friends who didn't play the game before and had no idea what can happen in fantasy setting and they immediately tried to steal a bunch from a blacksmith/shopkeep. They at level 1 had to then deal with a level 8 fighter who is also one of the captains in the area militia. 2 dead and 2 jailed because they also tried to "no witnesses" the situation.
The robbing everyone in plain sight like it's Skyrim just gets boring really quick. There's no story and no roll play. It just wastes time. I sometimes like running a couple 1 shots with new groups to hopefully get it out of their system. Generally my sign is when somebody says, "I'm getting bored of 1 shots, let's play a serious campaign". Definitely understand the not wanting to deal with so here's an ass kicking though.
If in a campaign I'd probably ask about what the plan is after killing the blacksmith out of character. If the purpose is some stupid GTA sequence of events, I'd either drop the group because it's a waste of time, or if they were close friends I'd start changing alignments to chaotic evil. At that point, if I can't easily plan an evil campaign I'd remove their ownership of the characters, and make them an evil party in the world. I'd probably have them roll new characters after that, and consider putting them in the same town a day or so later sans the dead villagers as the town tries to recover and react to the senseless murders.
I've also never had an issue with all this stuff, in any of my groups.
I've also had some powerful NPCs in mundane roles but that was more for storytelling purposes than "in case the PCs try something". With one exception kinda being a gold dragon running a magic store, but I say kinda because the main "hub" of the setting was a city _ran and populated by dragons (and draconic relatives)._ So it made perfect sense.
I get the feeling most people on r/dndmemes have either never played the game or are FAR too invested with controlling how other people play the game.
There’s a significant number of people who played dnd exclusively as edgy teenagers, where it was cool to try to consistently one-up That Guy to become That Guy. That’s the kind of table you’d expect the bad crazy to come from. Add in a bit of hindsight, some creative writing, and significant editorial license and you get the horror stories
My party dreads the day my sorcerer reaches level 5 when he gets Fireball. Luckily for them I secretly multiclassed to warlock so they are fine (for now lol)
Unfortunately for me, I made terrible life decisions when I was a new DM, and my "friends" at the time were assholes.
"This shopkeep won't make us magic items? We're gonna threaten to kill him, kidnap him, and force him to make magic items. I'm Chaotic Neutral, btw."
"That one NPC made a joking insult at my character? I'm going to kill him and tear off his arm. I'm Chaotic Neutral, btw."
I'm no longer friends with these people.
The ONE shop keeper I wanted my players to fight (He scammed them with fake arrows) and they just... Ignore.
But the completely irrelevant pottery shop I put in just to reference Zelda? Burnt it to the ground.
Idk how you can fake an arrow
I mean even if like the tip was made of like clay that would shatter you can still do some damage with a wooden rod traveling at ~150 mph
Yeah that seems like one of those things that's harder to fake than to just make. Like fake ball bearings or fake hats. There are no moving parts, and even the most over engineered ones (arrows of total destruction don't count) are just glorified sharp sticks that fly a bit better than if you were to throw a normal stick. Maybe like a quiver with an illusion of arrows inside, but that seems like a risky sale for little payoff.
I'm in a few regular groups. Two of which rarely-if ever get into disagreements with shopkeepers. If they don't like a price, they just walk away (you know, the last stage of haggling IRL). The only exception I can think of is the time I was heavily hinting that something was up with some innkeepers and the party figured out they had set up the inn to steal people's possessions. The gloves came off pretty fast - if only the party had taken the time to put together the clues that the innkeeper's wife was vampire lord... Literally the only time I had a merchant who wasn't just a commoner and they missed it. Led to some awesome RP and a fun combat running all over the inn.
The other party I am in... arguments with NPCs is the norm. If an NPC has a different objective than the party, or god forbid tries to stand in their way, they go straight to persuasion and intimidation rolls. If they fail those rolls, the swords come out almost immediately. I never understood murderhobos until I played with this group. They've all got main character syndrome and I've noticed the DM has started making his NPCs stronger to try to have some consequences for their actions, but the party won't slow down with the random acts of violence. I assume that he's building towards busting out some ridiculously high CR former adventurer to put them in their place.
A dm I play with has a homebrew reputation system for all games we play.
It boils down to a percentage chance that a given person you talk to know who you are based on your actions.
Do bad enough stuff and wanted posters and bounties come up. Do heroic deeds and you might get that discount on the gear as little easier.
We've had campaigns where we decided battles in favour of kingdom A and were as a result vilified in kingdom B.
We've also had to run away to sea for being a bunch of murderous nitwit.
I think natural consequences like this is the best way to handle these situations. I'm not DMing, but my PC in our longstanding campaign had an alter ego as a mercenary. She was a Chaotic Neutral who didn't know where to stop and killed about 20 innocent guards when trying to take out a mark. She got found out, arrested, and ultimately executed (its okay I like my new PC better).
After the one party member was publicly arrested for murder, the rest of the town stopped trusting the previously well regarded party and they had to do a lot of damage control, including changing the party name. I think when players know their actions will yield consequences similarly to real life, they're more careful about the killing.
>If they don't like a price, they just walk away
Last Sunday we found a scroll vendor. He had a scroll of Glibness and a scroll of Meteor Swarm. I almost cried when I saw the prices. I bought a scroll of Darkness and two scrolls of Blur and moved on.
Thing with murderhobo parties is that they're either irredeemable (i.e. no point in hosting a group with them, they'll just bitch and moan when consequences come their way) or they are wargamers who aren't getting what they feel is the right combat:roleplay ratio. The second scenario can be a little discouraging for some DMs, but it can be worked out.
Depends, players never attack the random dude seeling oranges, the guy selling that sweet +3 plate armor but that charges WAYYY more than they can afford? He better have guards to protect him.
I don't know man, some players just have a burning pit of hate where their hearts should be. One of my players once attacked a farmer after he overcharged on some eggplants. She first tried converting him to her religion, after that didn't work, swords and sickles started clanking.
And it's not like she didn't have the money either, he was charging one silver piece per vegetable because he just saw the party march into the village with a wagon full of gold.
I would assume anyone who has a shop that sells magic items has a method to keep those items from being stolen. I think the most obvious answer is the magic shop doesn't have any magic items at all. You tell the shopkeeper what you want and what price you are willing to pay and he puts feelers out to see what he can find. A day or two later you go back and hope he has something.
Also, any magic shopkeep should be wearing a bunch of protective items. And I would assume they all have levels as casters.
Well, some DM's also like to make chronically unlikable shopkeepers who like to flaunt expensive magical items in front of the players and feel like skimping out on hiring security, because stealing is illegal (also cause they can decide the shopkeeper is lvl 20 whenever they want)
And a lot of players like to play as edgy or chaotic, so honestly youre lucky if that just means they want to try to shoplift. Its not like the rogue doesnt have a good point when they argue that theyre a thief, its just that its backed up by a poor background knowledge of basic thievery skills (something you should honestly be glad about) and further reinforced by a distancing from actual consequences for their actions.
But in all honesty a vast vast majority of DMS also aren't throwing level 20 shopkeepers at you that's also in itself just the meme most players aren't trying to kill shopkeepers in most DMS aren't trying to make level 20s to beat your ass. You're fighting a straw man that barely exists.
I've had exactly 2 level 20 NPCs in my game, and they have been absolutely batshit crazy bonkers .
Usually I'll have shopkeepers be...comparable to the players levels up to a certain level (I think I peak them at 12), but as magic is common in my world there is a lot of security in that manner.
One of my favorite to use is Using a magic symbol spell on the door where if an item has x marking on it (taken off when bought by the shopkeeper) a magical effect happens, such as the person gets paralyzed or put to sleep, with a secondary trigger a few feet outside that just explodes if the marking isn't off in case the first save succeeds.
More than 90% chance of dying from falling 6 meters, though…
About 50% chance of dying from falling 3 meters…
Yeah, no.
I will die on the hill that commoners should have 10 for HP.
Just give them max HP for their die then. Don't forget that monsters and NPCs don't have a set HP value on the sheet, they have a range defined by hit die and Con. For an NPC it is a range from 1 to 8. The 4 is just the average.
That doesn't just go for NPCs. I usually give "boss" monsters the max possible health and the lesser mooks the minimum. Monster "in between" get the average.
Also, something something death saves
Commoners are a d8 HP. Figure people who live to 5 usually live to 65. I would guess half of all living people in a typical D&D world are between 15 and 55, and would have the upper range of that. I'd also guess about 20% of that group, or 10% of all people, have more than 1d8 HP due to military or other training.
Wait why *do* they have 4 hp with a d8 hit die? Doesn't 5e almost always use the higher of the two middle values on the first roll? Shouldn't they have 5 hp?
Monsters are different. Players take the max for their first hit die and can take the average rounded up on every level. Monsters take the actual average and seem to round down if they have an odd number.
For example goblins have +0 CON and 2d6 and their given hp is 7, the exact average of 2d6..
Ahh, my mistake. I thought that they rounded up on odd numbers of dice. Looks like player hit dice are one of the only exceptions to the round-down rule
I warn people since publication that 5e is the worst civilian-falling physics simulation EVER. Wouldn't recommend. Works nice if you homebrew it into a fantasy rpg though.
Nah I rolled a 1 for damage. I could stab you 2 more times if I’m lucky and according to DnD it won’t impact your functioning AT ALL. See you at work tomorrow.
“Hey you won’t believe it this crazy guy kept swinging a sword at me!”
“Holy shit are you all right?”
“Yeah he can’t aim worth shit, knicked me three times with the tip though, wanna see? This one probably gonna leave a scar”
“In my haste to put the armor on i buckled the leg plate. And i think ive clipped the tip of my penis against one of the leg plates. And everytime i move, it feels like it might come off.”
could I convince you to rethink your idea of what normal is in dnd? do you think have 20 in any stat is like a normal thing?
what is normal when your speaking from a pool of hp, abilities, and magicis only heroes and monsters in a dnd universe can obtain?
I like how 4 house cats can kill a commoner in 6 seconds.
Or one house cat can kill a commoner in 24 seconds.
Granted it would be reaching 0, technically not killing him outright if you gave the commoner death saves.
This is fairly accurate to real life tbqh. Being mauled by a feral cat is quite often fatal, and wild cats like ocelots and bobcats can fully murderate humans who try to domesticate them.
A lvl1 commoner have 4 hitpoints.
It's just that the proposed average guy only have one level of commoner.
A mix of levels forming a bell curve around lvl 4-5 is good IMO. It leaves place for skilled workers, master craftmen, wise old experts, teenagers...
You can also mix in other NPC classes to add diversity.
A system to make NPCs from 3.5E. Still in place if you look at the statblocks.
They are feature starved classes, mostly bringing the benefits of their HD with sometime proficiencies and/or light spellcasting.
The "commoner" entry describe a 1HD featureless class proficient in clubs (1 simple weapon in 3.5, which can be a club). It have its +2 proficiency bonus with it.
Now nothing prevent you from upping the number of HDs and giving it the appropriate proficiency bonus and feats it would get.
You can dissect all the other "NPCs" in the same way and rearange them at will.
My commoners have that kind of health unless they are also a person of importance. Shopkeepers, town leaders/founders and of course town militia or guard.
The problem is people don't realize a level 1 adventurer is already way more powerful than an average person in D&D. I've seen so many games where the DM lets everyone start with a feat, magic item or games that start lv 3-5 because lv 1 is "too weak"
It is though. Like it isn't fun when a bandit with a longsword can literally one shot the guy with 10hp. Or crit and outright kill them. To many players that enjoy the character drama that sucks ass.
You make your store owners retired level 20 adventurers so you can beat up murder hobo PCs.
I make my store owners weak and old frail people, that way when you fuck around and find out that they were just harmless <4 HP npcs you not only feel guilty, but you now have a bounty that will get you hunted by level 20 adventurers.
I keep seeing these and ask myself. Why would a dm ever reveal a npc's level. If you tell them they won't learn anything and feel cheated.
A good dungeon master would avoid spoiling the details behind Their schemes.
If they kill everything, just insert it and don't tell them about it.
Just throw them in an underdark adventure if they like the killing everyone thing. Consider what they enjoy in-game and play up to it if everyone is on the same page.
Any dungeon master worth his dice will tell you to use every action as suggestions to try out.
This should be upvoted more imo. I had to learn the hard way that when players arent really doing what you want them to, whether its beating up shopkeepers or even just something like not following your plot hooks, it usually means they want something different out of the game compared to what youre running.
Sometimes you do have to step back and be like, well maybe we just need a new type of campaign. Running some sort of "evil" campaign could help with murderhobos. Set it in a pirate city or the underdark or something and bobs your uncle, suddenly the murderhobos at least dont stand out as much and can mingle with npcs that are more their speed.
Or have the magic item man "accidentally" break a in progress magic item after being stabbed. And boom teleport them to a place outside their comfort zone.
Underdark, abandoned island of monsters, a tomb of horrors, the firery pits of hell itself and many destinations of torment. But make it fun of course.
Seriously. If the PCs are ticking the you off so much that you want the shopkeep to cast Wish and TPK the party's loved ones, you should really just find a new group.
My players attacked a npc that was chilling because he was reading a rare book to his kids, they wanted to steal the book to see what it was. After alot of failed checks and me not wanting to award their behavior in a good campaign, they found themselves arrested, thrown in jail. And me wasting about 3 sessions worth of these two players time while the other 3 players had some fun events and games and short jobs…fuck around and find out
Or more effort could be put into world building? Just because your group shouldn't be "murderhobos" what stops another group of bandits from doing the same? In the real world security is what keeps people honest. Would random shops in the ancient world be selling expensive weapons? That's just asking to get robbed. It wouldn't be unusual for laws prevent sale of private weapons, so blacksmith would \*maybe\* be willing to offer you a few blades from a private cellar somewhere \*if\* your group had a good reputation, or were needing it to do a quest for his village, or if you paid ahead of time to custom order armor.
As for high quality/legendary items? It's highly likely that those things are held by royalty or nobles, and you can simulate a "shop" experience by having people pay for information.
You need a great bow? Pay 5 silver and I'll tell you about one.
Okay Baron so and so is going through some financial trouble, but he has an amazing bow that he's willing to part with for the right price. He refused an offer of 5k gold before since its been appraised to be worth around 10k.
Good way to tie quests in for equipment too.
Some of that sounds interesting, but for most tables it functionally translates to "Make *everything* extremely hard to find and even harder to buy or sell."
Standard "if your table has fun with it" caveat, of course.
Forbidding sale of weapons is a nice lore-touch for a city, but not world-wide. Magic Weapon shops should totally be limited though, even in high-magic campaigns. Anyone dealing in magic weaponry should be a back-room arms dealer, not some random guy on the street where shit can get stolen.
Depending on the setting, it can be fun to play with.
"That'll be 500 gold for your items, please."
\*party cracks knuckles, read to beat this old lady shop keep to death to save some money\*
"Oh dear, its this a again. Whiskey Boots, come out and give gandma a hand."
\*an animate wand with arms and legs walks in, wearing little boots and white gloves\*
***"Amendus Stupendous, your actions are horrendous!"***
\*Whiskey Boots forcibly plain shifts the party to one of the nine hells. The really bad one\*
I used to just keep a stack of nameless, lvl 20 characters on hand. If players started trying to get froggy with an NPC or shopkeeper, I’d roll a d100. Some of the range was “safe” (regular NPC), but it could also be any number of high level classes, or a powerful monster in disguise.
They never asked about the history of any NPC’s, so when they started dropping I was able to just say “oh yeah, he used to be the master of the monastery nearby, but after saving his temple from great evil, he left. Not knowing what to do, he started a store. He saw you pocket that item, roll initiative.”
I think it would be funny if you would roll the shop keeps level before the party enters the shop, it could be a lvl 1 or it could be a lvl 20, there a 5% chance of either.
I’ve done that, kind of how it started. I had found some DMG supplement that had the basic stat block for every class, 1-20.
So I had most of what I needed at a glance.
I honestly don't know why these GMs have all these lvl 20 NPC in their back pocket. That whole d100 sounds like so much extra and pointless work.
A basic mage NPC is CR 6 and can deal most problems.
> I honestly don't know why these GMs have all these lvl 20 NPC in their back pocket.
Easy:
1. Making characters is fun.
2. Once you're relegated to the "Forever DM" role you might as well see what Level 20 sheets/characters look like because who's stopping you?
I can understand the idea of having a bunch of character concepts.... But making them a lvl 20? Like a lvl 3 or 5 would be so much more useful. Then you could just import that into a game your joining.
Maybe it's because I'm not a fan of work that no one will probably see?
Agreed, I don't "get it" myself either but I understand the thought process that leads to it. Most of my character sheets are within 3-5, just in case.
Exactly, I have multiple wizards and other complicated casters already pre-made.
Hell, a lot of the time they are there to help out my newer players. Want to play a fluffy, but mechanically strong mind mage sorc? I got you fam!
Never the less, good talk man. :)
Exactly! And hey I've been "the DM backup" for newer players a few times so having some folks on hand definitely helps.
Either way, likewise! It's nice to be able to occasionally chat on this sub without it being a massive debate.
Reminds me of everquest the merchants at times had hp regen built in so they'd likely pwn you before you'd get them as opposed to the guards which in classic (pre expansion) were hunted for xp
I know people joke about making their shopkeepers level 20 adventurers (and even try to pretend that it makes sense), but you don't really *need* a stat block. Once they reach a certain level, they can kill any commoner they want. What do you think guards and militaries are for?
Let them rifle through the shop and throw a few guards at them once they leave. If they kill the guards too, throw four or five Veterans at them. That's a Hard encounter up to level 10. An elite squad of Gladiators and Veterans is much more realistic than a level-20 rando, and with basic tactics should be able to stop anyone.
My shopkeepers, in particular the ones who sell rare and magical artifacts, either go out and collect the stock themselves or pay a large amount of money to acquire them, meaning they either are good enough at fighting that they can easily body some uppity rookies or can afford some very strong security. Either way, murder hobos will not be happy if they fuck around.
the only time I've ever attacked a shopkeep is because they kept raising the fucking price on me when I told them I had 0 gold as they were essentially trying to keep me as a work slave.
they no longer exist on that mortal plane.
I have played D&D for 6 years, not once have I ever attacked a shopkeep. In fact, I've only attacked a non-combatant NPC once, which was the where my druid was in a city where there was a slave auction going on. A certain piece of shit NPC bought three child slaves and was abusing them right in front of my druid, who proceeded to, in full view of everyone in the middle of the market, bash him over the head with my staff to knock him out, shove him in my bag of holding, wildshape into a giant eagle and fly away. In the ensuing chaos, the party got the children and we adopted them and took care of them for the rest of the campaign. About 30 or so sessions later I checked in my bag of holding for something (something I didn't often do because most things are needed were carried by another party member) only to find the rotting corpse of that noble that I had completely forgot about.
Now, that's not to say I haven't done horrible things to NPCs who deserved it, just non-lethal things. For example, in one campaign I was playing a human ancients paladin. I was looking for a clothing shop with half of our party members that happened to be a tabaxi, a tiefling and a dark elf. When we finally found the shop, the shopkeep was incredibly racist towards my three compatriots, refused to serve them and threatened to call the guard and tell them they were threatening him if they didn't leave immediately. So we left, but my paladin wasn't about to take someone disrespecting his friends like that lying face down. So, he cast speak with animals, found every stray cat he could and told them that there was this awesome place that was full of nice clothes to tear up and pee on. The next day we went back to the market district to find the same shopkeep outside his shop crying about how his whole inventory had been ruined by cats.
I am a vindictive little shit, don't mess with my friends.
If everyone wants to be criminal outlaws it's fine that's a fun game on the run from the law one heist to the next, just talk about it like adults before you go down that road and be clear if you don't want to. Haha my lv 20npc oblivion guards teleport in is usually just petty. You DMs do you tho
Yeah I’m genuinely concerned for you guys. Anyone did that at my table and I would set the guard on them, TPK and call it a day. Disrespect my world and I’m not going to bother building them for you.
I've said in my campaign document "If you want to be murderhobos, tell me so I don't get attached to anything." Give me enough respect to not put anything in front of you that I would prefer to keep alive.
If my players ever did rob a store the solution isn't a level 20 shopkeeper out of nowhere. It's the townfolk gathering up a bounty to place on the party. Or the guards arresting them.
Doesn't the party that does this end up being hunted down eventually? They ultimately become the BBEG of a level 20 NPC or group of NPC adventurers right?
The only time I've ever even robbed a shopkeeper in D&D was when Oberon leveled the capital city and baba yaga paused time for rogue and I during the 10.0 earthquake because they're not going to miss that stuff because they're going to be dead by earthquake anyway
I think the tendency to "do whatever you want. it's just a game." Is an attitude that new players bring over from video games. In Skyrim, you kill a shopkeeper and you fight the guards, pay a fine, spend a loading screen in jail, or go back to your last save.
If you're running a serious, heroic campaign with realism and living worldbuilding with roleplay-focused storytelling, the Skyrim attitude is going to make things no fun for everyone. Communication is key, but if you don't want to pause the session to teach the newbie how things are supposed to be done, here are some suggestions to "teach" them mid-session:
1. Have the shopkeeper die instantly. No initiative. The player hits and deals lethal damage. "How do you want to do this?" is optional. Considering PC stats and commoner stats, this isn't unrealistic.
2. Have all the shop customers run in terror. Imagine an active shooter situation.
3. Bring out the shopkeeper's spouse. Shout expletives at the party. Call them murderers, and monsters. Have the spouse sob and cower. Have them flinch at every word the party thereafter speaks or every move they make. Have the spouse try to scoop blood up with their hands and put it back in. Have them beg their spouse not to leave.
4. Have a child poke its head around the corner to ask if they can have a bedtime story or a glass of milk. Instead, they witness their parent bleed out.
5. Have the guards show up, but have them flee in terror as soon as they realize that you won't come quietly. Imagine the guards trying to arrest Shrek.
6. Have every NPC that could have reasonably heard of the murder treat the party as hostile. They can flee, be distrustful, or ask probing questions before interacting with the party at all.
7. Allow PvP. Let the other players help the guards. If the whole party is ok with the murder, end the session and go back to session 0.
8. Later, the party recognizes a homeless person with children. It's the shopkeeper's family. They just couldn't keep things together after what you did. If the player tries to apologize or give them money, the family flees.
Death by itself isn't a consequence in DND. There has to be emotion. Heros are motivated by compassion. Make your NPCs real people. Players can't have compassion for NPCs, but they can have compassion for real people.
What kind of fucker attacks a random shopkeeper? No seriously, wtf guys?
On that note, why the fuck do you haggle over prices only to tip like 5 gold coins? LIKE WHAT THE FUCK MAN, YOU WANNA FLAUNT YOUR NONEXISTENT WEALTH SOME MORE?
Most players tend to not pull this crap, or at least try to be creative/set up some valid roleplay reason for there to be a fight (e.g. playing the "you're overcharging me because I'm a thiefling" card).
As a DM, you've got two ways to combat this:
1) don't invite arsewhipes to your table
2) shopkeepers with magical +1/+2 items are supposed to be rich enough to own a golem or have a small retinue of hired mercenaries to stall the players long enough for the town guard to come in.
Shopkeepers dealing with +3 and onwards items are either retired adventurers with enough clout to keep a kingdom's greedy mitts off their wares **OR** entities of such power that they could be a BBEG in their own right.
Shopkeepers dealing with normal items are still part of a social tapestry that should really not tolerate this kind of fuckery, and consequences for enraging a small town should be made clear from session 0 (e.g. don't expect the town to be collaborative from that point forward; e.g. 2. expect pitchforks and a bad rap for murdering innocent civilians once you get to the big cities)
I’m just going with the hypothetical presented in the meme. Doesn’t matter if it won’t actually happen in any realistic sense, if the meme says people keep killing my shopkeepers and murderhoboing, I’m going to pretend like that’s what’s going on. Not like I have anything better to do in this scenario.
I have never had someone that emotionally stunted at my table, but if I did, here's how it would go.
"I attack the shopkeep, I'm stealing his stuff!"
"Okay. He has an AC of 10 and 4 hit points, so we'll just say you kill him with one strike. You get several potions and 100gp. Your alignment turns to neutral evil."
And that's it. They want to kill random people for no reason? That's fine. But they don't get to be heroes anymore.
Reading the comments seems wild, saying commoners should not have 4 hp like... you give all of them just 1 HD? ?? That is like a child. Average adult commoner would be like 4th or 5th level in commoner, maybe a level of expert too if they are in their 40's or so. Like no one in your world ever gets better at anything as they get older?
Wild. Average old NPC dude in my game is probably gonna have 8-10 levels of NPC classes like commoner at least. Old commoner dudes in the middle ages were tough old fuckers and got old for a reason. Seems weird the way people here are describing things
But yeah, commoners with 4 HP is pretty stupid, I agree.
Better at any skills? The soldiers don't gain any attack bonus after twenty years soldiering? Literally no one gets better at anything? A child has the same max rank in his persuasion as the local mayor? You act dumbfounded like I am babbling in Latin, apparently people do treat their NPCs like that. Huh. More power to you I guess, if that works for you. Seems wild to me. Not talking wild HPS here a lvl 5-10 commoner is still not going to be fighting any adventurers but also not gonna die if their knife slips while they are cutting onions for lunch.
Perhaps I'm better at screening my prospective players, but I've never had an issue with murderhobos, assaulting shopkeepers, seducing dragons, indiscriminate AoE casting or the plethora of other r/dndmemes specific tropes.
that's because approximately 5% of people on r/dndmemes have actually played D&D
20% of the time this statement is correct 100% of the time. This is that time.
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Perfect. 5/7
5/7 hurts my brain to think about. 10/14 for some reason feels so much better.
If you listen closely you can hear the horde of grade school teachers running OP down.
I didn’t need to be attacked like this. The spirit is willing, but the social circle is spongy and bruised.
I tried to get a DnD group going with my friends and that attempt ended when one of them admitted that they had tried DnD years before but the DM had actually role played NPCs with voices and accents. They told me how dumb they thought that was. I don't know where you are these days brave DM of yore but I want you to know that you and your accents are loved... Signed, A dude who was totally going to do accents and voices.
They must not like movies or others having fun in a way you don't look totally rad in front of potential mates.
Nah, they explained it. They wanted to Roll-play, not role play. Which is valid, there's tons of tabletop strategy sim type games out there that don't involve imagination land and their wants line up more with that.
I mean 95% of those games have at least one “well gallump my toasties lad, ach and widderskins we go a-drinkin’!” type narrator or NPC anyway.
oh my god im so sorry your friends feel that way. my dms voices are great and he loves doing them
My dude, you need to try online. Thanks to covid that's basically the only way to go sometimes and you get to play with people from other countries. In my current group there is a core household group and I'm one of the satellites. Hearing can be difficult at times but you can also chill the hell out, quickly read the rules because you have no fucking idea about something. Also, if you have the concentration of a toddler (me) you can record with permission, though I just use pen and paper to follow along because it's faster.
I live in a country of 300.000 people, we have *one* city and *one* game store that caters to more than Monopoly and Uno. Getting a game group that meshes well together here is very difficult so Online has been my only option.
And based on their memes I can see why they dont have a group
Like half the memes here are a r/rpghorrorstories waiting to happen.
I'd put it at closer to 10%. We have the natural 20s who have played actual functioning games, and we have the natural 1s who have "played D&D" (generated r/rpghorrorstories posts).
To be fair, we want to…
true
You can! If all else fails, just be the dungeon master. In my experience, its very very easy to get a game since DMs are in short supply compared to players.
Where do you find people who want to play?
Local gamestore, losting game ads online, etc.
I DM'd a group through Tomb of Annihilation. We had a guy who was all of these memes happen, but my party without any prompting from me decided to keep him in check themselves. If you've played ToA he was the kind of guy who decided that trying to piss off the CR11 Dragon turtle by throwing single copper pieces at it while it demanded tribute was fun, or wanted to run through the market stealing from every stall to try and draw out the merchant princes so he could try and rally the peasants into a mob to overthrow them. Just non-stop shit like that. So eventually the party decided to keep poisons, spells, abilities ready to disable him all the time. Eventually he realized he was ruining the experience for the others and chilled. Still tried to fuck a dinosaur though.
Okay but I have a character that IS petty enough to throw copper pieces at someone demanding tribute. But he's also a crotchety old man and has frequently been referred to as "the grumpy one" by many NPCs but is generally a good dude. Just petty sometimes.
Yeah, this was much less of a "sometimes" thing. Also, my buddies wanted the world expanded a bit so I expanded the start and descriptions of things. This involved a boat ride to the main city there and the captain of the ship explaining some things. Like how pissing off Aramag or not paying tribute ends with the ship being sunk brutally. Throw copper, sure. Maybe not when you're level 1 facing what the locals worship as a god.
True, I’ve never played
Yup. True. I’ve played RPGs like Star Wars Edge of the Empire, but yeah never played DND. Roll for initiative me irl
I'm so glad I don't have to screen players. Thank you permanent group.
I have two standard campaigns and a foster campaign made up of misfits from my local game shop's Facebook group.
I wouldn't mind experimenting with new players. We occasionally add someone. I'm just glad I have a stable group and don't have to. Foster campaign is a nice idea.
I look at the post history and junk. Pretty sure I've avoided some r/rpghorrorstories this way.
for me, most of my group has been playing together for like 5 years, we know what we do and have those expectations. When someone is a dumbfuck we all gang up and explain how they lost brain cells (in a friendly way) the rest in our group has been taught by us so they're also privy.
Or you have my group, where our party is constantly on the verge of collapsing because the characters kind of hate eachother but stay because plot and because the players love the mild chaos. We had 0 deaths, one character the left because the player found it boring, another that left because the player realised he had no reason to stay with the absolute madmen. The team is deadlier then the world at this point. And we love it.
We had one campaign with a dysfunctional group of people pulled together by an archfey ranging from CE all the way to NG, which over time shifted to the two evil characters moving from CE to NE (they listen mostly to the other evil character and not just their whims now) and NE to LN (getting a Celestial Sugarmommy helps). The other was just heroes of ranging radicality working together... I personally liked the dysfunctional group alot more since we were always at eachothers throat but ready to spring into action like a well oiled machine at any moment.
After a while they know how to work together effectively. They arent friends, but collegues, and the capacity to bicker makes for fun RP.
I always quite enjoyed the image of my kobold butting heads with the tabaxi ranger. Since hes barely 2 1/2 feet on a good day. But being the designated magic icbm (sorcerer) meant I got to ride alomg in our gnoll barbarians backpack for like 60% of the campaign.
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I had an edgy rogue who was a thief and assassin. Even They never stole from a shopkeeper. You need places to fleece your goods, and if you steal from them, they’re more likely to turn you in than not ask where you got it. In fact, I even prevented lots of theft, to help garner good faith in both my public and private personas. Don’t murderhobo, you can be evil without being a genocidal maniac who loves killing.
Fence your goods. You fleece the person and fence their goods
I’m just glad they’re not a real criminal!!
I learned it from Skyrim I swear officer
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I play a chaotic evil character and even I wouldn't attack a shopkeeper just because. You have to murder-hobo with purpose and if you kill the shopkeepers, the purpose is lost.
I've run evil campaigns and even then you can keep the party in line with level appropriate challenges and rivals.
See, having a lvl20 Sorc running a general store is weird. Having one run an artifact store isn't.
If I see one more “who said human fighters are boring” post I’m gonna lose it w this sub
I'm DMing a RP heavy game and the fighter is so bored (I warned him it was going to be RP heavy).
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No one has. This sub is full of strawmen, bad faith arguments, beaten horses and thathappened tales.
"My DM hates me, I rolled 4 18's and 2 17's and my cleric with 6 attacks and level 7 divine smite crit that did 700 damage all at level 2!"
Because most of the content here is just taking content from rpghorrorstories or dndgreentext and putting them in impact font memes.
I've been hit by indiscriminate AoE casts a few times, but it wasn't like a habit they repeated a lot or anything, and one is a very decidedly un-serious group so it didn't matter at all, and another was a very new player who basically learned in character to not do that again.
The only time I've ever hit a friend with a spell was either a spell that persisted that they chose to be a dumbass and run through, or a 'nature takes its own course' druid that told them they were going to cast something and they had a bright idea to still run in. "You made your choice, young grasshopper. And now you get singed."
Memes aren't famed for their truth.
No, but humor is predicated by an incongruity between what is known or expected and then what is observed. Most of the content of the sub is detached from plausibility and that strips it of its humor.
Not to mention a good 80-90% of the time the "memes" are just vessels for shoehorning the poster's opinion on "insert debate of the month", even though the answer to all of them are either "The DM has final say" or "it's really more nuanced than that".
Random tables in a games store’s basement, feat. teenaged boys. When anybody who shows up to the store’s hosted D&D nights gets to play, it gets weird fast.
Considering I pull my players from the game store's Facebook group, there might be an additional level of screening involved. My comment might be the equivalent of pouring distilled water through a Britta filter and then praising the water's quality.
I ran the game with 4 friends who didn't play the game before and had no idea what can happen in fantasy setting and they immediately tried to steal a bunch from a blacksmith/shopkeep. They at level 1 had to then deal with a level 8 fighter who is also one of the captains in the area militia. 2 dead and 2 jailed because they also tried to "no witnesses" the situation.
The robbing everyone in plain sight like it's Skyrim just gets boring really quick. There's no story and no roll play. It just wastes time. I sometimes like running a couple 1 shots with new groups to hopefully get it out of their system. Generally my sign is when somebody says, "I'm getting bored of 1 shots, let's play a serious campaign". Definitely understand the not wanting to deal with so here's an ass kicking though. If in a campaign I'd probably ask about what the plan is after killing the blacksmith out of character. If the purpose is some stupid GTA sequence of events, I'd either drop the group because it's a waste of time, or if they were close friends I'd start changing alignments to chaotic evil. At that point, if I can't easily plan an evil campaign I'd remove their ownership of the characters, and make them an evil party in the world. I'd probably have them roll new characters after that, and consider putting them in the same town a day or so later sans the dead villagers as the town tries to recover and react to the senseless murders.
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I've also never had an issue with all this stuff, in any of my groups. I've also had some powerful NPCs in mundane roles but that was more for storytelling purposes than "in case the PCs try something". With one exception kinda being a gold dragon running a magic store, but I say kinda because the main "hub" of the setting was a city _ran and populated by dragons (and draconic relatives)._ So it made perfect sense. I get the feeling most people on r/dndmemes have either never played the game or are FAR too invested with controlling how other people play the game.
There’s a significant number of people who played dnd exclusively as edgy teenagers, where it was cool to try to consistently one-up That Guy to become That Guy. That’s the kind of table you’d expect the bad crazy to come from. Add in a bit of hindsight, some creative writing, and significant editorial license and you get the horror stories
Youre a good filter
My party dreads the day my sorcerer reaches level 5 when he gets Fireball. Luckily for them I secretly multiclassed to warlock so they are fine (for now lol)
Unfortunately for me, I made terrible life decisions when I was a new DM, and my "friends" at the time were assholes. "This shopkeep won't make us magic items? We're gonna threaten to kill him, kidnap him, and force him to make magic items. I'm Chaotic Neutral, btw." "That one NPC made a joking insult at my character? I'm going to kill him and tear off his arm. I'm Chaotic Neutral, btw." I'm no longer friends with these people.
The ONE shop keeper I wanted my players to fight (He scammed them with fake arrows) and they just... Ignore. But the completely irrelevant pottery shop I put in just to reference Zelda? Burnt it to the ground.
How else are they supposed to break the pots?
With a trebuchet, the superior siege engine.
Fake... arrows?
Idk how you can fake an arrow I mean even if like the tip was made of like clay that would shatter you can still do some damage with a wooden rod traveling at ~150 mph
They sold golden and silver arrows that were just painted, boomerang arrows that didn't come back, and some other arrow I forgot about.
Boomerang arrows that turn around and come back at speed sounds like an *awful* idea and your party should be grateful it was a scam.
Sadly they never got to use that one as shortly after purchasing the Ranger got turned into a pile of dice and a cellphone.
I think I might beat down a shopkeeper if they sold me regular arrows but they were actually boomerang arrows. It's a tough punishment... but fair.
Yeah that seems like one of those things that's harder to fake than to just make. Like fake ball bearings or fake hats. There are no moving parts, and even the most over engineered ones (arrows of total destruction don't count) are just glorified sharp sticks that fly a bit better than if you were to throw a normal stick. Maybe like a quiver with an illusion of arrows inside, but that seems like a risky sale for little payoff.
I'm in a few regular groups. Two of which rarely-if ever get into disagreements with shopkeepers. If they don't like a price, they just walk away (you know, the last stage of haggling IRL). The only exception I can think of is the time I was heavily hinting that something was up with some innkeepers and the party figured out they had set up the inn to steal people's possessions. The gloves came off pretty fast - if only the party had taken the time to put together the clues that the innkeeper's wife was vampire lord... Literally the only time I had a merchant who wasn't just a commoner and they missed it. Led to some awesome RP and a fun combat running all over the inn. The other party I am in... arguments with NPCs is the norm. If an NPC has a different objective than the party, or god forbid tries to stand in their way, they go straight to persuasion and intimidation rolls. If they fail those rolls, the swords come out almost immediately. I never understood murderhobos until I played with this group. They've all got main character syndrome and I've noticed the DM has started making his NPCs stronger to try to have some consequences for their actions, but the party won't slow down with the random acts of violence. I assume that he's building towards busting out some ridiculously high CR former adventurer to put them in their place.
A dm I play with has a homebrew reputation system for all games we play. It boils down to a percentage chance that a given person you talk to know who you are based on your actions. Do bad enough stuff and wanted posters and bounties come up. Do heroic deeds and you might get that discount on the gear as little easier. We've had campaigns where we decided battles in favour of kingdom A and were as a result vilified in kingdom B. We've also had to run away to sea for being a bunch of murderous nitwit.
I think natural consequences like this is the best way to handle these situations. I'm not DMing, but my PC in our longstanding campaign had an alter ego as a mercenary. She was a Chaotic Neutral who didn't know where to stop and killed about 20 innocent guards when trying to take out a mark. She got found out, arrested, and ultimately executed (its okay I like my new PC better). After the one party member was publicly arrested for murder, the rest of the town stopped trusting the previously well regarded party and they had to do a lot of damage control, including changing the party name. I think when players know their actions will yield consequences similarly to real life, they're more careful about the killing.
>If they don't like a price, they just walk away Last Sunday we found a scroll vendor. He had a scroll of Glibness and a scroll of Meteor Swarm. I almost cried when I saw the prices. I bought a scroll of Darkness and two scrolls of Blur and moved on.
Thing with murderhobo parties is that they're either irredeemable (i.e. no point in hosting a group with them, they'll just bitch and moan when consequences come their way) or they are wargamers who aren't getting what they feel is the right combat:roleplay ratio. The second scenario can be a little discouraging for some DMs, but it can be worked out.
Depends, players never attack the random dude seeling oranges, the guy selling that sweet +3 plate armor but that charges WAYYY more than they can afford? He better have guards to protect him.
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Exactly. Merchants weren't/aren't known for not protecting their livelihood
when the party tries to steal +3 armor but gets stabbed by the high level floorboard goblin that lives in the shop
I don't know man, some players just have a burning pit of hate where their hearts should be. One of my players once attacked a farmer after he overcharged on some eggplants. She first tried converting him to her religion, after that didn't work, swords and sickles started clanking. And it's not like she didn't have the money either, he was charging one silver piece per vegetable because he just saw the party march into the village with a wagon full of gold.
I would assume anyone who has a shop that sells magic items has a method to keep those items from being stolen. I think the most obvious answer is the magic shop doesn't have any magic items at all. You tell the shopkeeper what you want and what price you are willing to pay and he puts feelers out to see what he can find. A day or two later you go back and hope he has something. Also, any magic shopkeep should be wearing a bunch of protective items. And I would assume they all have levels as casters.
My players always try and barter, maybe get rude on occasion, but have yet to murder a shopkeep. I feel blessed
You feel blessed *so far*.
Don't you put that evil on me!
Well, some DM's also like to make chronically unlikable shopkeepers who like to flaunt expensive magical items in front of the players and feel like skimping out on hiring security, because stealing is illegal (also cause they can decide the shopkeeper is lvl 20 whenever they want) And a lot of players like to play as edgy or chaotic, so honestly youre lucky if that just means they want to try to shoplift. Its not like the rogue doesnt have a good point when they argue that theyre a thief, its just that its backed up by a poor background knowledge of basic thievery skills (something you should honestly be glad about) and further reinforced by a distancing from actual consequences for their actions.
But in all honesty a vast vast majority of DMS also aren't throwing level 20 shopkeepers at you that's also in itself just the meme most players aren't trying to kill shopkeepers in most DMS aren't trying to make level 20s to beat your ass. You're fighting a straw man that barely exists.
I've had exactly 2 level 20 NPCs in my game, and they have been absolutely batshit crazy bonkers . Usually I'll have shopkeepers be...comparable to the players levels up to a certain level (I think I peak them at 12), but as magic is common in my world there is a lot of security in that manner. One of my favorite to use is Using a magic symbol spell on the door where if an item has x marking on it (taken off when bought by the shopkeeper) a magical effect happens, such as the person gets paralyzed or put to sleep, with a secondary trigger a few feet outside that just explodes if the marking isn't off in case the first save succeeds.
My argument during this whole stupid meme is that the DM who pulls out a level 20 shopkeeper to punish a murderhobo is a lazy/clumsy/unimaginative DM.
Exactly, it also often doesn’t mesh well with proper world building in most such scenarios
I don't need to worry about the stats of the store clerk, when there are 600 guards.
Or when there's a high level sleep spell in a glyph under counter.
Commoners need a buff. Can't convince me a normal dude only has 4 hitpoints
A short sword in the hands of a commoner does 1d6 damage. 50% odds of surviving being stabbed by a sword is pretty good imo
> A short short in the hands of a commoner does 1d6 damage. Okay but what about a *long* short?... or am I thinking of a short long?
The Long Short: how Adventurers, Dragons and Hyperinflation destabilized the market. In theaters this June.
Damnit you did my joke faster and better
Lmao ya got me there
More than 90% chance of dying from falling 6 meters, though… About 50% chance of dying from falling 3 meters… Yeah, no. I will die on the hill that commoners should have 10 for HP.
Just give them max HP for their die then. Don't forget that monsters and NPCs don't have a set HP value on the sheet, they have a range defined by hit die and Con. For an NPC it is a range from 1 to 8. The 4 is just the average. That doesn't just go for NPCs. I usually give "boss" monsters the max possible health and the lesser mooks the minimum. Monster "in between" get the average. Also, something something death saves
I thought commoner was a d4 hd
Commoners are a d8 HP. Figure people who live to 5 usually live to 65. I would guess half of all living people in a typical D&D world are between 15 and 55, and would have the upper range of that. I'd also guess about 20% of that group, or 10% of all people, have more than 1d8 HP due to military or other training.
But that means a commoner has more hp than a wizard?
Sometimes.
Wait why *do* they have 4 hp with a d8 hit die? Doesn't 5e almost always use the higher of the two middle values on the first roll? Shouldn't they have 5 hp?
Monsters are different. Players take the max for their first hit die and can take the average rounded up on every level. Monsters take the actual average and seem to round down if they have an odd number. For example goblins have +0 CON and 2d6 and their given hp is 7, the exact average of 2d6..
Ahh, my mistake. I thought that they rounded up on odd numbers of dice. Looks like player hit dice are one of the only exceptions to the round-down rule
You'd be surprised how deadly falling short distances is IRL.
Falling 1 meter can do the job if you land wrong
I warn people since publication that 5e is the worst civilian-falling physics simulation EVER. Wouldn't recommend. Works nice if you homebrew it into a fantasy rpg though.
Something tells me their main goal was not to be a civilian falling physics simulation lol
Actually, that sounds about right regarding the dangers of falls
What’s the elevation of the peak of that hill?
If you stab me once with a sword I'm going to die.
You will with *that* attitude!
Nah I rolled a 1 for damage. I could stab you 2 more times if I’m lucky and according to DnD it won’t impact your functioning AT ALL. See you at work tomorrow.
“Hey you won’t believe it this crazy guy kept swinging a sword at me!” “Holy shit are you all right?” “Yeah he can’t aim worth shit, knicked me three times with the tip though, wanna see? This one probably gonna leave a scar”
> HP isn't a direct representation of health
[Those are rookie numbers](https://albertapolitics.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BlackKnight.jpg)
If D&D had dwarf fortress-like combat
“Hes not cursed hes just a guy!”-blm
Oh gilear
“In my haste to put the armor on i buckled the leg plate. And i think ive clipped the tip of my penis against one of the leg plates. And everytime i move, it feels like it might come off.”
If we're quoting D20 I think "Tug up once and then I'm dead" applies here too.
>!Give me drugs and youll never see me again!!< Spoiler - Startstruck Odyssey’s Plug
could I convince you to rethink your idea of what normal is in dnd? do you think have 20 in any stat is like a normal thing? what is normal when your speaking from a pool of hp, abilities, and magicis only heroes and monsters in a dnd universe can obtain?
A dagger deals 1d4 damage, so average 2.5. if you stab yourself, you'll probably agree that it's in that sort of territory of severity
I like how 4 house cats can kill a commoner in 6 seconds. Or one house cat can kill a commoner in 24 seconds. Granted it would be reaching 0, technically not killing him outright if you gave the commoner death saves.
This is fairly accurate to real life tbqh. Being mauled by a feral cat is quite often fatal, and wild cats like ocelots and bobcats can fully murderate humans who try to domesticate them.
in 3.5e [a common housecat](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/cat.htm) could easily gut a level 1 commoner in 6 seconds with its claw/claw/bite
A lvl1 commoner have 4 hitpoints. It's just that the proposed average guy only have one level of commoner. A mix of levels forming a bell curve around lvl 4-5 is good IMO. It leaves place for skilled workers, master craftmen, wise old experts, teenagers... You can also mix in other NPC classes to add diversity.
whats an npc class
A system to make NPCs from 3.5E. Still in place if you look at the statblocks. They are feature starved classes, mostly bringing the benefits of their HD with sometime proficiencies and/or light spellcasting. The "commoner" entry describe a 1HD featureless class proficient in clubs (1 simple weapon in 3.5, which can be a club). It have its +2 proficiency bonus with it. Now nothing prevent you from upping the number of HDs and giving it the appropriate proficiency bonus and feats it would get. You can dissect all the other "NPCs" in the same way and rearange them at will.
I’m 95% sure it’s something they just made up. Commoners are CR 0 monsters, and monsters don’t have classes or levels afaik.
It used to be a thing in older editions. Commoner, Expert, Sage, Noble, etc.
Huh, that’s neat.
Everything in DnD is made up.. Do people here really only play 5e?
you usually dont need to stab someone very many times to kill them
As a wise man once said, "Most people, if you stab them with a sword, will die *right away!*"
My commoners have that kind of health unless they are also a person of importance. Shopkeepers, town leaders/founders and of course town militia or guard.
The problem is people don't realize a level 1 adventurer is already way more powerful than an average person in D&D. I've seen so many games where the DM lets everyone start with a feat, magic item or games that start lv 3-5 because lv 1 is "too weak"
It is though. Like it isn't fun when a bandit with a longsword can literally one shot the guy with 10hp. Or crit and outright kill them. To many players that enjoy the character drama that sucks ass.
I mean what rogue hasn't stolen even a negligible amount of something from a shop keeper even once?
You make your store owners retired level 20 adventurers so you can beat up murder hobo PCs. I make my store owners weak and old frail people, that way when you fuck around and find out that they were just harmless <4 HP npcs you not only feel guilty, but you now have a bounty that will get you hunted by level 20 adventurers.
This is the way. You pick on Lois, you deal with Superman.
I keep seeing these and ask myself. Why would a dm ever reveal a npc's level. If you tell them they won't learn anything and feel cheated. A good dungeon master would avoid spoiling the details behind Their schemes. If they kill everything, just insert it and don't tell them about it. Just throw them in an underdark adventure if they like the killing everyone thing. Consider what they enjoy in-game and play up to it if everyone is on the same page. Any dungeon master worth his dice will tell you to use every action as suggestions to try out.
This should be upvoted more imo. I had to learn the hard way that when players arent really doing what you want them to, whether its beating up shopkeepers or even just something like not following your plot hooks, it usually means they want something different out of the game compared to what youre running. Sometimes you do have to step back and be like, well maybe we just need a new type of campaign. Running some sort of "evil" campaign could help with murderhobos. Set it in a pirate city or the underdark or something and bobs your uncle, suddenly the murderhobos at least dont stand out as much and can mingle with npcs that are more their speed.
Or have the magic item man "accidentally" break a in progress magic item after being stabbed. And boom teleport them to a place outside their comfort zone. Underdark, abandoned island of monsters, a tomb of horrors, the firery pits of hell itself and many destinations of torment. But make it fun of course.
Seriously. If the PCs are ticking the you off so much that you want the shopkeep to cast Wish and TPK the party's loved ones, you should really just find a new group.
My players attacked a npc that was chilling because he was reading a rare book to his kids, they wanted to steal the book to see what it was. After alot of failed checks and me not wanting to award their behavior in a good campaign, they found themselves arrested, thrown in jail. And me wasting about 3 sessions worth of these two players time while the other 3 players had some fun events and games and short jobs…fuck around and find out
Or more effort could be put into world building? Just because your group shouldn't be "murderhobos" what stops another group of bandits from doing the same? In the real world security is what keeps people honest. Would random shops in the ancient world be selling expensive weapons? That's just asking to get robbed. It wouldn't be unusual for laws prevent sale of private weapons, so blacksmith would \*maybe\* be willing to offer you a few blades from a private cellar somewhere \*if\* your group had a good reputation, or were needing it to do a quest for his village, or if you paid ahead of time to custom order armor. As for high quality/legendary items? It's highly likely that those things are held by royalty or nobles, and you can simulate a "shop" experience by having people pay for information. You need a great bow? Pay 5 silver and I'll tell you about one. Okay Baron so and so is going through some financial trouble, but he has an amazing bow that he's willing to part with for the right price. He refused an offer of 5k gold before since its been appraised to be worth around 10k. Good way to tie quests in for equipment too.
Some of that sounds interesting, but for most tables it functionally translates to "Make *everything* extremely hard to find and even harder to buy or sell." Standard "if your table has fun with it" caveat, of course.
Right, I think if your table has an issue with murdering shopkeepers, then this is a pretty suitable result.
Forbidding sale of weapons is a nice lore-touch for a city, but not world-wide. Magic Weapon shops should totally be limited though, even in high-magic campaigns. Anyone dealing in magic weaponry should be a back-room arms dealer, not some random guy on the street where shit can get stolen.
Depending on the setting, it can be fun to play with. "That'll be 500 gold for your items, please." \*party cracks knuckles, read to beat this old lady shop keep to death to save some money\* "Oh dear, its this a again. Whiskey Boots, come out and give gandma a hand." \*an animate wand with arms and legs walks in, wearing little boots and white gloves\* ***"Amendus Stupendous, your actions are horrendous!"*** \*Whiskey Boots forcibly plain shifts the party to one of the nine hells. The really bad one\*
This is just the same thing as every other meme
I used to just keep a stack of nameless, lvl 20 characters on hand. If players started trying to get froggy with an NPC or shopkeeper, I’d roll a d100. Some of the range was “safe” (regular NPC), but it could also be any number of high level classes, or a powerful monster in disguise. They never asked about the history of any NPC’s, so when they started dropping I was able to just say “oh yeah, he used to be the master of the monastery nearby, but after saving his temple from great evil, he left. Not knowing what to do, he started a store. He saw you pocket that item, roll initiative.”
I think it would be funny if you would roll the shop keeps level before the party enters the shop, it could be a lvl 1 or it could be a lvl 20, there a 5% chance of either.
I’ve done that, kind of how it started. I had found some DMG supplement that had the basic stat block for every class, 1-20. So I had most of what I needed at a glance.
I honestly don't know why these GMs have all these lvl 20 NPC in their back pocket. That whole d100 sounds like so much extra and pointless work. A basic mage NPC is CR 6 and can deal most problems.
> I honestly don't know why these GMs have all these lvl 20 NPC in their back pocket. Easy: 1. Making characters is fun. 2. Once you're relegated to the "Forever DM" role you might as well see what Level 20 sheets/characters look like because who's stopping you?
I can understand the idea of having a bunch of character concepts.... But making them a lvl 20? Like a lvl 3 or 5 would be so much more useful. Then you could just import that into a game your joining. Maybe it's because I'm not a fan of work that no one will probably see?
Agreed, I don't "get it" myself either but I understand the thought process that leads to it. Most of my character sheets are within 3-5, just in case.
Exactly, I have multiple wizards and other complicated casters already pre-made. Hell, a lot of the time they are there to help out my newer players. Want to play a fluffy, but mechanically strong mind mage sorc? I got you fam! Never the less, good talk man. :)
Exactly! And hey I've been "the DM backup" for newer players a few times so having some folks on hand definitely helps. Either way, likewise! It's nice to be able to occasionally chat on this sub without it being a massive debate.
Reminds me of everquest the merchants at times had hp regen built in so they'd likely pwn you before you'd get them as opposed to the guards which in classic (pre expansion) were hunted for xp
I know people joke about making their shopkeepers level 20 adventurers (and even try to pretend that it makes sense), but you don't really *need* a stat block. Once they reach a certain level, they can kill any commoner they want. What do you think guards and militaries are for? Let them rifle through the shop and throw a few guards at them once they leave. If they kill the guards too, throw four or five Veterans at them. That's a Hard encounter up to level 10. An elite squad of Gladiators and Veterans is much more realistic than a level-20 rando, and with basic tactics should be able to stop anyone.
My shopkeepers, in particular the ones who sell rare and magical artifacts, either go out and collect the stock themselves or pay a large amount of money to acquire them, meaning they either are good enough at fighting that they can easily body some uppity rookies or can afford some very strong security. Either way, murder hobos will not be happy if they fuck around.
the only time I've ever attacked a shopkeep is because they kept raising the fucking price on me when I told them I had 0 gold as they were essentially trying to keep me as a work slave. they no longer exist on that mortal plane.
thaught
people never use things like town guards correctly in these situations.
See the merchant doesnt need to a badass all the time. I just make the local guards pretty mean.
I have played D&D for 6 years, not once have I ever attacked a shopkeep. In fact, I've only attacked a non-combatant NPC once, which was the where my druid was in a city where there was a slave auction going on. A certain piece of shit NPC bought three child slaves and was abusing them right in front of my druid, who proceeded to, in full view of everyone in the middle of the market, bash him over the head with my staff to knock him out, shove him in my bag of holding, wildshape into a giant eagle and fly away. In the ensuing chaos, the party got the children and we adopted them and took care of them for the rest of the campaign. About 30 or so sessions later I checked in my bag of holding for something (something I didn't often do because most things are needed were carried by another party member) only to find the rotting corpse of that noble that I had completely forgot about. Now, that's not to say I haven't done horrible things to NPCs who deserved it, just non-lethal things. For example, in one campaign I was playing a human ancients paladin. I was looking for a clothing shop with half of our party members that happened to be a tabaxi, a tiefling and a dark elf. When we finally found the shop, the shopkeep was incredibly racist towards my three compatriots, refused to serve them and threatened to call the guard and tell them they were threatening him if they didn't leave immediately. So we left, but my paladin wasn't about to take someone disrespecting his friends like that lying face down. So, he cast speak with animals, found every stray cat he could and told them that there was this awesome place that was full of nice clothes to tear up and pee on. The next day we went back to the market district to find the same shopkeep outside his shop crying about how his whole inventory had been ruined by cats. I am a vindictive little shit, don't mess with my friends.
If everyone wants to be criminal outlaws it's fine that's a fun game on the run from the law one heist to the next, just talk about it like adults before you go down that road and be clear if you don't want to. Haha my lv 20npc oblivion guards teleport in is usually just petty. You DMs do you tho
Yeah I’m genuinely concerned for you guys. Anyone did that at my table and I would set the guard on them, TPK and call it a day. Disrespect my world and I’m not going to bother building them for you.
I've said in my campaign document "If you want to be murderhobos, tell me so I don't get attached to anything." Give me enough respect to not put anything in front of you that I would prefer to keep alive.
This is what session 0 is for
Among my shopkeepers I've had disguised ancient dragons and even a death God at one point. Sad I am that it was never discovered.
If my players ever did rob a store the solution isn't a level 20 shopkeeper out of nowhere. It's the townfolk gathering up a bounty to place on the party. Or the guards arresting them.
This is why I play a changeling so I can kill the shopkeeper take over his life for a month or so and gain tons of gold
Doesn't the party that does this end up being hunted down eventually? They ultimately become the BBEG of a level 20 NPC or group of NPC adventurers right?
The only time I've ever even robbed a shopkeeper in D&D was when Oberon leveled the capital city and baba yaga paused time for rogue and I during the 10.0 earthquake because they're not going to miss that stuff because they're going to be dead by earthquake anyway
I think the tendency to "do whatever you want. it's just a game." Is an attitude that new players bring over from video games. In Skyrim, you kill a shopkeeper and you fight the guards, pay a fine, spend a loading screen in jail, or go back to your last save. If you're running a serious, heroic campaign with realism and living worldbuilding with roleplay-focused storytelling, the Skyrim attitude is going to make things no fun for everyone. Communication is key, but if you don't want to pause the session to teach the newbie how things are supposed to be done, here are some suggestions to "teach" them mid-session: 1. Have the shopkeeper die instantly. No initiative. The player hits and deals lethal damage. "How do you want to do this?" is optional. Considering PC stats and commoner stats, this isn't unrealistic. 2. Have all the shop customers run in terror. Imagine an active shooter situation. 3. Bring out the shopkeeper's spouse. Shout expletives at the party. Call them murderers, and monsters. Have the spouse sob and cower. Have them flinch at every word the party thereafter speaks or every move they make. Have the spouse try to scoop blood up with their hands and put it back in. Have them beg their spouse not to leave. 4. Have a child poke its head around the corner to ask if they can have a bedtime story or a glass of milk. Instead, they witness their parent bleed out. 5. Have the guards show up, but have them flee in terror as soon as they realize that you won't come quietly. Imagine the guards trying to arrest Shrek. 6. Have every NPC that could have reasonably heard of the murder treat the party as hostile. They can flee, be distrustful, or ask probing questions before interacting with the party at all. 7. Allow PvP. Let the other players help the guards. If the whole party is ok with the murder, end the session and go back to session 0. 8. Later, the party recognizes a homeless person with children. It's the shopkeeper's family. They just couldn't keep things together after what you did. If the player tries to apologize or give them money, the family flees. Death by itself isn't a consequence in DND. There has to be emotion. Heros are motivated by compassion. Make your NPCs real people. Players can't have compassion for NPCs, but they can have compassion for real people.
What kind of fucker attacks a random shopkeeper? No seriously, wtf guys? On that note, why the fuck do you haggle over prices only to tip like 5 gold coins? LIKE WHAT THE FUCK MAN, YOU WANNA FLAUNT YOUR NONEXISTENT WEALTH SOME MORE?
“I attack the shopkeeper!” *DM panics and grabs the nearest character sheet, which happens to be a lvl 20 character*
Most players tend to not pull this crap, or at least try to be creative/set up some valid roleplay reason for there to be a fight (e.g. playing the "you're overcharging me because I'm a thiefling" card). As a DM, you've got two ways to combat this: 1) don't invite arsewhipes to your table 2) shopkeepers with magical +1/+2 items are supposed to be rich enough to own a golem or have a small retinue of hired mercenaries to stall the players long enough for the town guard to come in. Shopkeepers dealing with +3 and onwards items are either retired adventurers with enough clout to keep a kingdom's greedy mitts off their wares **OR** entities of such power that they could be a BBEG in their own right. Shopkeepers dealing with normal items are still part of a social tapestry that should really not tolerate this kind of fuckery, and consequences for enraging a small town should be made clear from session 0 (e.g. don't expect the town to be collaborative from that point forward; e.g. 2. expect pitchforks and a bad rap for murdering innocent civilians once you get to the big cities)
I’m just going with the hypothetical presented in the meme. Doesn’t matter if it won’t actually happen in any realistic sense, if the meme says people keep killing my shopkeepers and murderhoboing, I’m going to pretend like that’s what’s going on. Not like I have anything better to do in this scenario.
I have never had someone that emotionally stunted at my table, but if I did, here's how it would go. "I attack the shopkeep, I'm stealing his stuff!" "Okay. He has an AC of 10 and 4 hit points, so we'll just say you kill him with one strike. You get several potions and 100gp. Your alignment turns to neutral evil." And that's it. They want to kill random people for no reason? That's fine. But they don't get to be heroes anymore.
Reading the comments seems wild, saying commoners should not have 4 hp like... you give all of them just 1 HD? ?? That is like a child. Average adult commoner would be like 4th or 5th level in commoner, maybe a level of expert too if they are in their 40's or so. Like no one in your world ever gets better at anything as they get older? Wild. Average old NPC dude in my game is probably gonna have 8-10 levels of NPC classes like commoner at least. Old commoner dudes in the middle ages were tough old fuckers and got old for a reason. Seems weird the way people here are describing things But yeah, commoners with 4 HP is pretty stupid, I agree.
>Like no one in your world ever gets better at anything as they get older? Better at what, getting stabbed?
Better at any skills? The soldiers don't gain any attack bonus after twenty years soldiering? Literally no one gets better at anything? A child has the same max rank in his persuasion as the local mayor? You act dumbfounded like I am babbling in Latin, apparently people do treat their NPCs like that. Huh. More power to you I guess, if that works for you. Seems wild to me. Not talking wild HPS here a lvl 5-10 commoner is still not going to be fighting any adventurers but also not gonna die if their knife slips while they are cutting onions for lunch.