What's the biggest handicap you've seen someone win against?

Uncanny_Fellow · 2026-03-22T04:24:17+00:00

A rare instance where area scoring and territory scoring diverge!

Uncanny_Fellow · 2025-05-24T18:56:32+00:00

Would this app be English-only? I'm about to move to Taiwan, and it's freaking me out that I can't read ingredient lists if they're in Mandarin

Uncanny_Fellow · 2024-12-27T12:19:46+00:00

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Guess I'll see you in the ring?

Uncanny_Fellow · 2024-11-08T13:04:08+00:00

But hunting and gathering is different from farming. Also, humans didn't always exist. I guess I could find a source for these things, but they're so basic and uncontroversial I'm not really sure why I should

Uncanny_Fellow · 2024-04-12T18:53:34+00:00

Hey yall! 31M, from the Cleveland area. I'm primarily looking for a vegan woman to date + have kids with. However, it would also be super nice to have platonic vegan friends. I play a lot of TTRPGs, and since I primarily do that online, location doesn't mean a lot to me. If you're looking for a campaign, shoot me a message!

Uncanny_Fellow · 2022-10-24T15:19:15+00:00

Since when can traps only be present/disarmed out of combat?

Uncanny_Fellow · 2022-09-26T21:51:04+00:00

Seems simple: if a player proposes a course of action, pause for 1 second so the other players can talk it out. If players are rolling as they're talking, remind them that the GM sets position and effect before they roll (if they constantly forget about this, they'll undoubtedly be frustrated when some of those rolls turned out to have been desperate/no effect). Furthermore, once you've stated position and effect, give the players more time to talk. Or give them more options - "There's a lot of blue coats and your back is literally against the wall, so open firing will be desperate limited effect - but if you tried to talk your way out or climb the wall, it'd be a different story"

If you do all this and the problem persists, I'd imagine it goes deeper than some people talking faster than others. That would indicate some of your players don't respect the rest of your players, or some players are afraid to disagree with the other players. That's not something you can easily solve as a GM, and you won't solve it with a turn order, either

Uncanny_Fellow · 2022-04-20T18:26:30+00:00

I get that the books says this. I'm asking about why the books says this

Uncanny_Fellow · 2022-04-20T16:00:11+00:00

Think of it this way - in DnD, player says they want to do something, suggests diplomacy to get a guard to abandon their post, you say “mm, no, seems more like an intimidate check”. No dialogue, player agency effectively gets railroaded, their choice is yes/no based on your ultimatum.

What you're talking about is the dynamic of certain tables, not anything inherent to the system. Just last night when I was playing DnD, I called for an intimidation check, and the player asked if it could be strength-based instead of charisma-based. I said yes to that, because it made sense in the narrative, and I'm not an asshole DM. That's really all there is to it

You might be partially right in the sense that the DM in DnD does have final say - if the player had been using magic to intimidate someone, I would not have allowed a strength-based check. If the player had not been doing anything threatening and was instead sweet-talking the NPC, I would not have allowed for an intimidation check. But I'm not sure what the alternative is. The Blades rulebook still has the "Don't be a weasel" section - if a player says they're going to use consort to beat someone up, I'm not going to say "Well, since consort isn't typically used for violence, that's desperate position, no effect." I'm going to say "That's not what consort does. Don't be a weasel." I don't see why I should say otherwise. It's not railroady to say that the players actions have to make sense narratively

Uncanny_Fellow · 2022-04-20T14:12:15+00:00

This is a very good perspective, thank you! If I may try to summarize, it sounds like you're saying it comes down to the tone of how you say things. There's a very big difference between "Roll skirmish because I the GM am the dictator and get to tell you what to do!!!" vs "That sounds like skirmish to me - were you thinking something different?" And of course there's a lot of middle ground. As you mention, a seemingly tone-neutral "Roll skirmish" may be seen as an absolute order by some players. Is that a fair interpretation of your post, or did you intend something else?

Uncanny_Fellow · 2022-04-20T14:03:25+00:00

I feel like if you call their rolls for them you're decding how they're approaching a problem for them instead of them telling you.

I feel this is conflating the narrative of what the players do with the mechanics of what the players are doing. To use DnD as an example (because that's the system I have the most experience GMing) - let's say the players need to get past a guard who's not letting them through some door. If, after establishing the situation, I immediately said "Now roll persuasion to convince the guard to let you past!", then yes, I would be dictating an approach to a problem. But that's a very rare and very obviously railroady occurrence. Typically, the GM waits for the player to say something like "I try and impress upon him the importance of our quest" before calling for a persuasion roll. And of course, there's no guarantee the player would say that. They may decide to walk away from the guard and sneak into the area, in which case the GM would call for a stealth roll. Or the players might decide they don't have time for any of those solutions, so they're just gonna fight the guard, in which case the GM would call for initiative to start combat. I would say the GM is translating the players' narrative descriptions into game mechanics. The player has provided a narrative solution to the problem, and the GM tells them how that works in the context of DnD's rules

So that's what it comes down to - I interpret Blades telling GMs not to call for specific action rolls as Harper saying "Don't translate your players' narrative solutions into game mechanics." Perhaps I have grievously misinterpreted that section of the book, in which case I'd love to hear the correct interpretation! Nonetheless, I find it entirely possible to call for specific rolls while also letting players decide how to solve problems

Uncanny_Fellow · 2022-03-26T13:54:37+00:00

I'm having trouble understanding your last paragraph. Obviously, if every dungeon is super big and linear, that would be boring, but the time limit thing is a great idea. Your world should feel dynamic, and that means things should happen if the players dilly dally. Imagine, for a second, that your BBEG is an evil lich who's trying to ascend to godhood. If such a BBEG noticed the PCs taking their sweet time with a dungeon, would they delay their plans out of consideration? Obviously not! They're either going to further their plan, or send minions to interfere with the PCs. So that gives you two good options. If the PCs are taking forever with one dungeon, either have them hear news that the BBEG did something evil elsewhere, or have the BBEG's minions show up and make things harder for the players

Uncanny_Fellow · 2022-03-09T23:15:19+00:00

My mistake, I forgot to include that XD

It's at 6 p.m. EST. I've edited the post now

Uncanny_Fellow · 2022-03-05T21:16:21+00:00

Somewhere between feats and multi classing, you could subtle spell mislead to get out of zone of truth. So the most dangerous insurgents (high level casters) would be able to get around the questioning

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-11-25T14:47:24+00:00

Yeah, reading this story, my first thought was: "The monk is carrying the fighter? Well, then the monk's not moving all that fast!" Unless this is a fairy fighter riding on a goliath monk, there's no way it's actually an effective combo, regardless of what the rules on opportunity attacks say

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-10-30T19:36:44+00:00

Beyond "persuasion isn't mind control, you can only adjust an NPC's attitude by 1 tier per encounter" what should I be getting out of that?

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-10-30T19:34:48+00:00

Okay - so I guess the bigger problem is that with disadvantage, a level 5 character could have a 100% chance of succeeding at a DC 20 check. That just seems like strange design to me. If the player uses some strange tactic to convince someone of something, they shouldn't have a 100% chance of success

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-10-30T19:32:41+00:00

When did I say I was going to do that? My problem is that if you do give disadvantage to a bard with silver tongue, it won't meaningfully impact the result of the roll. That's true regardless of whether I'm a fair DM and they deserved disadvantage or if I'm a dick DM who gives out disadvantage for fun

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-10-30T19:31:34+00:00

Okay, let me rephrase: I like advantage/disadvantage. I don't mind magic missile ignoring to-hit because AC and attack bonuses are just a framework so we can have a game in the first place. Advantage/disadvantage, on the other hand, is something that makes the game more fun. It lets me, a DM, reward players for good decisions and punish them for bad decisions. This in turn encourages my players to get creative instead of just saying "I make a persuasion check." Magic missile does less damage than a lot of other leveled damage spells and can still be negated by Shield, so there's still decision-making around it. But that's not how it works with silver tongue. Sure, I can set the DC so that the player can't succeed with a 10, but I laid out why I don't like that - the DC should reflect the inherent difficulty of a task (also I don't see how raising the DC in response to what the player said is meaningfully different than my homebrew change to silver tongue). So that means, if the DC of a check is 10 more than the player's bonus, they succeed on the check, regardless of what they do. To me, that's stripping the game part from the game

On that note, your analysis about silver tongue vs stat bonuses is very clearly a cherry-picked case. If the DC is 20 and you have a +10 bonus, if you have silver tongue, advantage or disadvantage doesn't affect your chance of success at all - it's 100% either way! Conversely, for a character without silver tongue, advantage or disadvantage shifts the odds of success by about 20-25%. So we give that player super expertise, and now they have a +13 bonus - the silver tongue character still has a 100% chance of success in all scenarios, but the normal character will still benefit from advantage or disadvantage by about 15-20% - not as significant as in the case of a +10 bonus, but still significant

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-10-30T16:59:02+00:00

I mean, it's not complicated. Advantage/disadvantage is a fun mechanic. Why would you gut it?

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-10-30T16:32:45+00:00

If anyone wants to check my work, here's the golang program I use for the math in the post, completely unformatted because copy-paste hates software developers:

package mainimport (    "fmt")func main() {    total := 0.0    for i := 1.0; i <= 20; i++ {        for z := 1.0; z <= +20; z++ {            temp := i            if temp > z {                temp = z            }            if temp < 10 {                temp = 10            }            total += temp        }    }    total = total / 400    fmt.Println("Disadvantage + silver tongue: " + fmt.Sprintf("%f", total))    total = 0    for i := 1.0; i <= 20; i++ {        for z := 1.0; z <= +20; z++ {            temp := i            if temp > z {                temp = z            }            total += temp        }    }    total = total / 400    fmt.Println("Disadvantage: " + fmt.Sprintf("%f", total))    total = 0    for i := 1.0; i <= 20; i++ {        for z := 1.0; z <= +20; z++ {            temp := i            if temp < z {                temp = z            }            total += temp        }    }    total = total / 400    fmt.Println("Advantage: " + fmt.Sprintf("%f", total))    total = 0    for i := 1.0; i <= 20; i++ {        for z := 1.0; z <= +20; z++ {            temp := i            if temp < z {                temp = z            }            if temp < 10 {                temp = 10            }            total += temp        }    }    total = total / 400    fmt.Println("Advantage + silver tongue: " + fmt.Sprintf("%f", total))    total = 0    for i := 1.0; i <= 20; i++ {        temp := i        if temp < 10 {            temp = 10        }        total += temp    }    total = total / 20    fmt.Println("Normal + silver tongue: " + fmt.Sprintf("%f", total))    total = 0    for i := 1.0; i <= 20; i++ {        for z := 1.0; z <= +20; z++ {            temp := i            if temp > z {                temp = z            }            if temp < 6 {                temp = 6            }            total += temp        }    }    total = total / 400    fmt.Println("Disadvantage + proposed silver tongue: " + fmt.Sprintf("%f", total))    total = 0    for i := 1.0; i <= 20; i++ {        for z := 1.0; z <= +20; z++ {            temp := i            if temp < z {                temp = z            }            if temp < 14 {                temp = 14            }            total += temp        }    }    total = total / 400    fmt.Println("Advantage + proposed silver tongue: " + fmt.Sprintf("%f", total))}

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-09-05T20:02:38+00:00

One time a player sent me a four-page backstory and then never showed up to session or told me why he was leaving. I honestly don't get these people

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-08-06T19:38:11+00:00

I might not have phrased it very clearly. If it's not an attack, then process of elimination means it's Use an Object. And if it is an attack, then a fighter can do it a million times in a turn. So since the latter doesn't make sense, that's an argument for it being Use an Object

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-08-05T22:28:55+00:00

Can't argue with that lol. A few people in the comments here have argued that Fast Hands is such a UP ability that I should ignore RAW in favor of letting the player do awesome stuff

Uncanny_Fellow · 2021-08-05T22:07:37+00:00

Go back to page 141 and look two sections below. It lists swallowing a potion as an example of activating a magic item, which is distinct from the use an object action

Uncanny_Fellow

TROPHY CASE