>>25404002

>Incantatar
>Planar Shephard
>Beholder Mage

Holy shit. I haven't let my players touch any of those classes for years.

>>25404002
>>25404030

What's an Incantatar?

>>25404040

A male Incantatrix.

It's just like having someone be a Dreadlady or something, for those players who actually care about having the technically correct term.

>>First time DM'ing
>>Playing a high level D&D game

Playing high level D&D is bad enough when you know what the fuck you're doing. Dear god.

That said

>> First time DMing
>> Standard wizard tower type adventure.
>> First thing the party does is topple the wizard tower onto it's side.

>>25404040
he means incantrix. don't let anyone play incantrix please. especially dont let them play an incantrix beholder mage. PLEASE. that's almost Pun-Pun level.

>>25404002
>First time DM'ing
>Playing a high level D&D game
There's your first mistake right there.

>>25404085

Eh. The guidebook said that a male Incantatrix is called an Incantatar, so that's what went on the sheet.

Of course, what should have gone on the sheet is Wizard and Wizard alone, because fuck having to deal with that shit again.

The same player tried to sneak being a Halruuan Elder by me in the next game.

Look at the bright side, he didn't get thought bottle shenanigans/infinite pain loops.

>>25404123
>>25404075

I tried. I really did. I went through the Monster Manual and pulled out everything that looked brutal. But the Incantatar had defences that practically never went down, the Planar Shepherd made a home for then on that plane in which time flows ten times faster and the Beholder Mage... was a Beholder Mage.

Without using my DM fiat to the most retarded extent, I had no idea what to do to actually challenge them at the time.

> First time DM
> Run an evil campaign
> Every session is a perverted debauchery tale told by the players of how the exquisitely rape and torture the townsfolk
> Guise, we haven't even left the first town yet
> Take a random high level paladin to kill them
> Fuck the paladins dead
> Send an even higher level character at them and kill the party
> "aw, we were just having fun!"
>I wasn't

I panicked.

>We've all just come off one of the worst and most constricting campaigns in existence
>Decide to try GMing since our last GM was a flaming asshole and even quit his own campaign
>I'm inexperienced, but enjoy world-building
>Give the players a lot of freedom with a vague plot
>I'm literally the polar opposite of our last GM we all hated, despite my inexperience
>Players revel in being allowed to make their own choices for once
>Start asking to do stupid things
>One actually wants me roll to see if they were getting drunk
>Another constantly trying to murder a new player with 'accidents'
>Can't even get mad, because after the last guy this is probably a breath of fresh air for them
>They'll actually listen to me when I tell them to stop, because they don't hate me
>Don't even need to force them to do things like the last guy
>We all end up having fun with it

I haven't GMed since, but apparently the easiest way to run a good game is to run it right after an absolutely awful one.

>>25404198

Was the beholder mage an actual beholder, or was he an elan that exploited polymorph rules to permanently become one?

>>25404207
Good for you. Evil campains with those types are a nono.

Incantatar stories?

>Player facing a nigh immortal demon
>Incantater creates a portal to the realm of the dead
>zombies start spilling out
>Slaps teleport circles all around it, with the circles focused at just above the centre of the portal
>infinite zombie bomb
>manage to teleport him into the centre as well
>he takes impact damage from infinite zombies colliding with him simultaneously
>instantly slammed to -Infinite HP.
>Mission accomplished. Incantatar goes off to marry Elf waifu.

It was a nightmare. I killed the Elf out of spite.

>>25404241

An actual one.

They actually had pretty decent backstories and regularly tried to backstab each other because of those stories.

I make them out to be nightmares, but I learned a lot from them and once I learnt how to restrict them for their own good, it all turned out well.

>>25404278

>infinite zombie bomb

Genius.

>One of my first times DMing
>Deadlands game
>Early games had problems with party not forming, PCs all going in different directions
>Have novel idea to get the party together: they're a chain gang! They'll have to cooperate to escape and survive!
>My god they're killing each other I should have known this would happen

>>25404002
>Beholder Mage

Your players are assholes

>>25404278
>I killed the Elf out of spite.
my sides

>>25404207

Second time DM'ing, inspired a bit by the Tyranid-esque monsters from Book of Evil Somethings

> Put party on a pontoon-cruise ship
> Had one half of the ship be mysteriously infested with these creatures
> Original plan was to have the creatures eventually evolve and take over the ship and sink it while the players got everyone into lifeboats and doing missions between the boats.
> Player asks 'What kind of passengers are on this boat?'
> Me: Upper middle class and above, this is a pleasure cruise ship with casino and restaurants and shops
> Players: Excellent. We move from room to room looting everything
> Me: Not as planned
> Throw a level 20 boss monster to deter them from stealing and focus on safety.

I panicked again.

>Played 3.x with the group forever
>Normally the quiet guy that hangs back and rolls with what the party wants
>New adventuring party has to be rolled because of reasons
>Tired of being reactive, decide to get proactive
>Conspire with the numbercruncher
>Churn out an elven warblade/ranger, kitted to the teeth with for all kinds of crazy shit
>Break out of my shell in the first session
>Elven Teddy Roosevelt, adventurer among the foreign lands of the humans, is born

BULLY

>Running an Oriental Adventures campaign, intended for party to be HONORABRR SAMURAI.
>Older member of group, to whom I deferred as he was more rules-y than I, somehow convinces me that each party member should start with a "minor magical item"
>Thus was he able to sneak a device that would essentially turn him into a vampiric monstrosity into my game of HONORABRR SAMURAI.
>Long story short, the party ends up besieged by the forces of a forest kami and the daimyo's army. And somehow end up holding them off until I ragequit.

To be fair, this was back in Highschool and the group consisted entirely of edgetards who craved dark power. I should have just tailored the campaign to that, instead of trying to shoehorn them into the role of heroes.

>>25404433
See what would have happened with me (as someone with very little GMing experience) is that the game would have then become a game about a band of roaming thieves before petering out because I couldn't figure out where to take it or ending up almost completely player-driven.

>>25404002
>First time DM'ing
>Desperately want the players to have a good time, so have no restrictions on what they can make

Noblebright Fun DM here.

People find fun through facing challenging Adversity, rules, and structure in an otherwise interesting and colourful world.

A healthy amount of restriction is important.
Don't go Crazy with it, but it should be kept around to keep things on track and difficult. No one likes easy games.

>>25404457

>Elven Teddy Roosevelt

Be still my beating dick.

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>Be not long out of college
>always wanted to try gaming, didn't know anyone who played
>roommate hears about D&D through friends online, says "we should try that"
>fuck yes
>3rd edition just released that very season, jump on board
>roomie makes a ranger, I make a bard DMPC
>figure we can take on a pack on gnolls
>nope
>MFW my first game I tpk'd myself

>>25405564
laughed

>>25404433
>Players have a bunch of loot
>Boat time
>"You can't bring all that junk! It won't fit! It'll sink the boats!"
>PC's have to choose between the loot or people.
>People *will* fight for those spots on the boats. They'd die if they stayed on the ship.
Seems like a good way to handle it.

>PC's would kill them all anyway.

>>25404516
meh, my players all power game alot better than and enjoy the process of crunchy character building. I do not.
I just try to let them self regulate. It is their game too and if they want to ruin it by shifting into MAXIMUM POWERGAMING, that's their prerogative.

>First time DMing a consistent game
>Start with a friend of mine (his idea, he's never played before) and a few friends of his I've never met.
>Urge him to think of a backstory and personality for his character.
>After third session, He tells his backstory about how he he was an angel whose wings had been ripped of by his god because he married a mortal
>I am happy that he came up with such a creative backstory and I decided to make it the main plot
>He starts inviting more people to the game without asking me until he's promised them a spot
>He tells them all his backstory, causing them to make backstories where they want to kill gods as well
>It's a pathfinder game starting at level one
>I have to mangle their backstories so that they hate the same god
>They would get bitchy if I made the god's levels any less than twenty
>Have to find ways to level them up quickly so that they don't get bored and want tho start a new campaign (this has happened too much to me)

They're nice players, they really are. I charged into this DMing thing too quickly and wasn't able to say "No".

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>Group asks me to read up on 4e and run a campaign
>KNOW NONE OF THIS BULLSHIT. ALL NEW TO ME.
>Party is a elven mage, shardmind psionic, fat ass human rogue, some other thing.
>party goes to an underground city.
>save city from some flaming salamander things.
>Leader of town gives them a place to stay.
>The group is also informed, after going into town, that the leader of the town lives in a huge mansion cut out of the rock underground
>Why? Thought it up on the spot.
>Psionic: "Does he have any daughters?"
>Me: "Yeah. 2 actually."
>I can see the thought forming.
>Psionic and rogue sneak into the mansion easily.
>Psionic begins mind fucking the daughters, sending them images of fucking his giant crystal cock.
>They wake up.
>Both proceed to rape them relentlessly.
>Mage is outside distracting the guards with magic tricks while all this happens.
FUCK. It was to funny to not happen. I was just glad they were having fun.

>>25408893
Both of who proceed to rape who? Bit unclearthere

>>25409396
In all cases, assume the PC's rape the NPC's. If an NPC rapes a PC, it's called reverse rape. As in I, The GM, hope this rape reverses all the harm you Players have done to me over the campaign',

>>25405700
As you come along the railing to escape via a life boat, you find only one remaining. It is filled with
small young girls from Miss Pennys Academy for abandon young ladies, but miss penny is currently preoccupied floating face
down, leaving her children stranded, destined to die. There is barely enough room for your party to sit among the children, anything beyond that would surely capsize the narrow wooden boat
Upon seeing you the young girls burst out cries for help, many of them in tears, their words slurred by fear. You are the father and mother figures they
never had, the angels come to save them from the darkness. The hopes of bringing the antique grandfather clock along with you suddenly are crushed by the greater good.

>kick girls out from boat.

>>25409996
All the girls have broken legs, so no, they can't swim.

>>25410041
They're also around the age of 7-9, and you're 50 miles from any land except child rape island.

>>25410089
Well, at least if you get them to the nearest island, you know they'll be loved,
>PC logic.

>>25410089
Don't worry, it's just a name. it's really a penis-ula

>>25410150
>12 years later the PC's are murdered by a bunch of salty sea wenches looking for revenge

>>25410193

Hell yeah they're salty and I think we all know why...

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Pic related seemed rules-light, so I got it and invited a couple of forever-DMs I know. I thought "oh hey, they get to be players for one and they can give me tips as we go".
Here's a tip for newbie DMs: former DMs make terrible players!

A few choice quotes:
>"I want my mech to look like a bear, but with nine articulated heads that breathe fire"
>"I hump the nuclear missile"
>"The beam instantly incinerates both your king and your commander"

It was an interesting first (and last) session of DM-ing for me

>First time DM'ing
>have only played about 10 sessions of RPGS before this
>DH
>party takes 5 steps into a hall way, throw a grenade, it bounces off the wall and blows a players hand off
>Player starts to act incredulous.
>say it was nothing and just some shrapnel to tear off a pinky
>Other player sucks air through his teeth and mentions how i shouldn't DM fiat everything
>don't know what to do.

I continued that game for a couple more sessions but i haven't DM'd anything since. I don't think i'm cut out for it.

>>25410296
heh
eheheheheheheheeheh

Biggest mistake I made starting out:

"Hey can I play a Psion?" "Why sure!"

Second biggest mistake:

"The gypsy woman spreads the Tarot in front of you. 'Choose wisely little lambs, for the Deck of Many Things holds great power for good AND ill.'"

5 minutes later: 2 of them are wealthy beyond reason and 8 levels higher, 2 are dead, and the last is a confused looking wraith.

>>25414334
>"Hey can I play a Psion?" "Why sure!"
What the fuck is wrong with you?

>>25414334
Hah!
We had a campaign once where we got our hands on not one, but TWO DoMT.
One of our players was forced to fight Death or be erased from history, the sorcerer got a ring of wishes with one wish left, and my rogue gained a shitton of levels, incredible wealth, his own castle... And the ire of a fucking huge homebrew fire demon.
Best part was when I somehow managed to defeat the demon (rogue/shadow dancer after like 60-80K extra exp), standard action to attack once, move action to hide in plain sight in the demons own shadow, improved evasion so all his fireballs did more damage to himself than to me, despite his fire resistance), but then it turns out that the demon was basically Lucius the Eternal and I got "infectected" during the battle.
I was at the gates to a city where I could get help when the sorcerer suddenly Wished me away to the middle of nowhere.
After a few moments of confusion, I remembered the card "One of your allies will betray you".
After a "well played" I started trecking back home again and my character succumbed to the infection with a nat 1 fort save just as he reached civilization again, and laughs were had all around. (Except for the poor villagers in that fishing village, of course.)
We now have our own bogeyman to joke about in our group called "Mr. Crispy" who is a high level rogue/shadowdancer/fire-demon-thing.

Generally we were just fucking around with no clear plot or goal, but it was fun anyway. I think it was in that campaign that we also had a character whose player forgot that his character's race didn't speak common without getting it as a bonus language, so he could only speak his own language.
Lucky for him, I had picked up his language just because I had an extra bonus language to pick, so I interpreted everything for him.

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>>25404002
>First time DM'ing
>Playing a high level D&D game
Jesus christ son, that was not a good idea at all. You should have at least started with low level DnD so you'd get a feel for things before it got out of control.

>>25415767
I had a guy tell me he wanted to do a high level campaign. I cautioned him on the high complexity, and suggested he start with something lower.

So we started at level 5, and after every mini-arc we shot up a few levels. In three months and 8 sessions we had gotten to level 15.

He didn't learn much. That was not, at all, what I had recommended.

>Dark Heresy campaign
>Get each player on their own to do a little "This is how the inquisition noticed you" bit
>Guardsmen
>Starts off with him sitting in a chimera, with his squad
>First thing the player says "Can I kill everyone here?"
>Heart sinks

Turns out he was just testing for rails, and has turned out to be a very good player managing to both drive the party toward their goals and thrust the spotlight on others.

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>>25414334
>>25415362
The mistake wasn't playing Psion, it was letting them play with character options the DM didn't understand. The same could be said of playing the core classes when you don't know the game at all, or ToB classes if you don't know the stance/maneuver system, or incarnum, and so on.

Adding in the random chances and habits of the Deck of Many Things was also not wise.

>First time campaign

>it quickly spirals into full on ERP

>>25404072
Shouldn't it be incantator then?

My first time dming was pretty ballin actually. We played Shadowrun. Much fun was had.

Although one of the players kept bitching about how he never did anything in the game. Even though he never tried to do anything in the game, and sat around in his charcters appartment waiting for something interesting to happen.

>>25416289
Happy ending? Good end.

>>25404278
Let me guess, he raged when you killed the elf.

Like, really raged so hard that his jimmies were so rustled that they just stopped existing all together.

Yeah i know that, it's both golden and completely made out of shit

>>25415741
lol, That is EXACTLY what the DoMT does. I've used it twice in eight years and have dubbed it the Campaign Ender.

>>25416264
Honestly, it was the player. He had fifteen years of RP experience and brought the most broken, insanely overpowered PC I've ever DMed for into a campaign that was largely supposed to be RP driven (started with a 26 Int.). For all the other players it was their first time. I had DMed a little before and wanted to give them a fun experience. And they had a LOT of fun. Then one player had to drop and my friend stepped in to fill the empty slot. And he taught these young un's how to Powergame. e.g. The wild gunslinger became a soul infesting adimantium armor that dual-wielded handcannons that shot adaptive ammunition. He got to the point where a Pit Fiend could last 2 rounds before getting gibbed by his ridiculous number of attacks. All within the rules as well. But the player's had fun, and that's what's important.

Actually, when the Deck of Many Things showed up in this campaign everything went better than expected. The Psion got gender swapped and earned the enmity of an entity that was basically Nyarlathotep, while the other players got lots of XP and goodies to level the playing field.

DMing first time in a few weeks, guise. What do?

Should I just lurk in this thread, or can you give me any pointers?

>>25404002
My first time DM-ing, I think I was like 11. The only people I could get to play were the various neighbor kids who were even younger, and the campaign was that old basic game introductory kit.

Despite the extremely softball manner of play--I was not aiming for this at all, and both mine and the players' rolls were about average--they all died. Twice. The first time I played the "when suddenly a healer comes from nowhere and restores you all to full HP", because I was 11.

I didn't DM for a few years after that.

First time DMing I killed my usual DM's character through an NPC's ineptitude

The party kender was actually the most level headed that time.

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>First game is CoC
>Try to find a day to fit everyone's schedule for weeks
>Finally manage to do it
>The game day one guy calls and says he'll be late, start without him
>Other three guys gather, we roll up their characters, I explain the game mechanics
>We start. I was confident in my abilities to make something up on the fly, but I freeze. Everyone notices and laughs over all the spaghetti I'm spraying all over them
>We decide to run that Walter Corbitt's house premade adventure from the book
>The guy who was late comes at exactly right time for his character to join in and fit perfectly
>I go a bit soft and cut them some slack, everyone survives the session

Since everyone had a good time, myself included, I'd say it was great as far as first sessions go

Pic related, the guy who was late made this of his character later

>>25404457
dear lord
i want to make this now
you are both awesome/bad man

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>>25404002
>Beholder Mage

OP that's the most broken class in 3.5 DnD. Either your player is a cunt, or he was just trying to fuck with you, but from the rest of that story, he's just a massive cunt.

>>25421278
>The most broken class

You mean Beholder Mages are a known thing? I thought OP's player was pulling bullshit out of the air.

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>>25421443
>You mean Beholder Mages are a known thing

Look up Lords of Madness.

It's a Beholder only PrC that lets them cast all the spells from the Wizard/Sorcerer list.

It knows the spells and casts spontaneously like a sorcerer, but can learn new spells from scrolls and books like a wizard.

Did I mention it gets free spell resistance at level 10 that it can use to heal itself with?

Oh, and that it can cast up to 10 spells a round at level 10?

As free actions?

>>25421489
>Beholder Only Prestige Class

.... Why would they design something like that?
Is it meant as a fun toy for the DM to fuck his players up with?

3.5, why your splats get so crazy?

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>>25404002
>no restrictions, high level dnd

Welp. Stopped reading there before posting

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>first time dming
>letting players create parts of the setting on the fly
>ask a girlfriend of a regular gamer bro what her deity is so i can add it to the pantheon
>she starts crying

>>25421742
.... Wut?

>>25421742
>>25421763
You probably just confirmed her suspicions that he boyfriend was a cultist.

>>25421742
There's a joke or pun to be had there SOMEPLACE...

>>25421742
Zuh-wha?

More information!

>>25421662
>.... Why would they design something like that?
>Is it meant as a fun toy for the DM to fuck his players up with?


Yes. Less 'fun toy' and more 'BBEG from hell' or 'Floating TPK.'

I'm DM'ing and using one of these. He is a Pirate.

>>25421811
>>25421804
>>25421780
>>25421763
i dunno, terrible self esteem probably. she tried to explain to me that her character doesn't have a deity because she was one of those races from the shadow plane or some shit. so i said ok, well make something up and ill add it, you don't have to worship it. (trying to expand our own personal campaign world as i go) and she just broke down in tears. fucking terrible. years later after being a player again i wrote up a ravenloft like session with narration music ambience scripted events based on character 20 question stuff etc and everyone had a blast. but the final boss took hours to kill because 4e, that was the only bad part. some veteran gamers hailed me as a god that day (unemployed at the time and game dev student/writer when i was younger)

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>>25421869
This might make a fun boss battle actually. Just make it completely batshit nuts and cast tons of random spells all over the place while it screams constantly.

>>25422052
I can imagine some high level beholder mage under a rock concert stage shooting off color sprays and audible glamours and prestidigitations in random directions and generally being the effects guy

>>25422679
Requesting the picture of the beholder testicles post now.

>>25404134
Wizard alone can still break the world, core only. Be warned.

>>25418330
>First game is CoC
You know, this makes me giggle every time.

>>25404433
it would be more fun to see them forced to leave all the loot to be able to fit the life boats

>be around 13
>2 friends are quite into it and think it is something I would be into
>decide to give this a shot and get really into creating my character and playing it for the first time.
>All is well and then the other friend becomes the DM and the story is even better. Game goes into the late hours and I sleep over.
>Next day.
>Both of them pretty much force me to be the DM when I have no idea what I'm suppose to do and slightly unclear on rules for certain things just from a playing POV
>Rush a 5-10 minute thought up plan since they're also impatient as fuck
>Wasn't the worst story ever made but nowhere near as fun, slightly awkward and I picked a final boss they had no hope to defeat.

Really sucked the fun out of the experience, never really played it again with them...

>new as GM
>they will meet their informant
>they see some weird dude calling out for them
>he tells them meet in some alley
>as soon as he turns his back a PC smacks his head from behind

>so informant was dead
>try to get story moving
>they see suspicious character
>THEY THROW SHIT AT HIM
>critical hit. maximum damage

>they went to the whore house

at least they had fun

>meet with some of players in person, crack open fresh pack of d6
>one player rolls 18 18 18 18 17 15 or something from freshly opened package

>run over internet
>they all stow away on the ship in e.g. barrels
>discover en route that the entire cargo consists of 'stowaways'
>A wizard did it, and keeps them suspended in the hall as they wake up, and explains that he will experiment on them
>somehow run four individual sessions at once without ever having to put someone on hold (preparation and pre-writing descriptions helps immensely, but still, how the fuck)
>they join up after running various gauntlets the mad-scientist wizard who had captured them set up
>get strange, inconvenient powers
>near exit, find "potions of reversal" or something similarly "cure" sounding.
>they detect magic, like good little ones
>strong transmutation

>bottles' labels were, in fact, transmuted, hidden by the much, much greater aura of the potion, and much worse things happen to them over the next day as they leg it over the island they'd come to

>they abuse Tenser's Floating Disk, one of their breath weapons, and another's planar shifting ability to completely trivialize the "come get this when you're more powerful" army of skeletons, actually-somewhat-coterminous-plane-trapped vault of treasure

Good times.

>>25416289
>>it quickly spirals into full on ERP

>Joins a first time ERP
>Awesome campaign with no RPed sex in sight

My first campaign, I was like ten and it was that oldschool Christian RPG. I think I was also a player. I played with both my parents. That's all I can remember, and I'm sure that's enough to know how horrific it was.

My second time DMing, I ran Exalted 2e with my father and sister. We did the introductory Tomb adventure. My father derailed the campaign because he kept doing the 'walk like an egyptian' dance and making weird snake sounds whenever someone mentioned snake style. Which was one of his things.

It's a miracle I still run games (not for either of them).

>>25404002
My first time DMing went really really well. I had the first bit planned out, but then there was a thunderstorm and everyone was stranded at my place and I had to improvise to keep shit going. We lost power, and wound up lighting candles to see by. Between the candlelight and the lighting/thunder, the mood was fucking epic. We played for hours.

Most unexpected: a throwaway encounter with a wererat accidentally turned into a rather lovable NPC when the players decided to use diplomacy, offering sweets (magically re-flavored trail rations) to the wererat in exchange for guidance out of the dungeon.

Sessions since haven't been as good. I don;t know, I feel like maybe I plan too much.

>>25432059
Okay, that walk like an Egyptian thing is hilarious. Sort of thing my players would talk about for ages.

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I ran pic related for newcomers to our local roleplaying club. Letting somebody play a Mon Calamari on a desert world was a mistake, albeit a humourous one.

>>25431844
>Join ERP game
>Lewdest thing that happens is cuddles

My first time DMing was a DiTS game. Kinda sucked because I didn't have much experience playing RPGs, least said about it the better but since it was a year and a half ago, I feel confident that I could run another campaign, though unfortunately some of my players don't seem to believe that I can.

Bump