#i am a bad gm

[arabella-strange]

it just occurred to me that there are going to be several weeks where Brennan is onscreen GMing both Never Stop Blowing Up and EXU: Downfall.

[essektheylyss]

Candela Obscura is very fun in terms of horror, because I have never been particularly bothered by horror, but when I have been, I'm always like, is this because of how I react in particular or because of how effective the visuals or the atmosphere are? And that's kind of hard to differentiate in the genre people most often consume horror in (film) and for me, who reads books very visually, it can be hard in that format as well.

With Candela it's like, this is deeply unsettling despite there being no visuals beyond the general set and the action being dictated to me while mechanics are happening, which is something that can take absolutely you out of the atmosphere of the thing. Even if you're used to the actual play format, a mechanics heavy scene especially without notable GM guiding is going to remind you that you are watching people play a game. There's a lot to say about how this show's cast have phenomenal grasp of the genre and the atmosphere, but even then, it is a hard line to manage, and they are doing it masterfully. And that's what makes it so fun as a concept! Candela has very effective storytelling, but it's also a lot easier to see the edges of the story, because the "man behind the curtain" of the story so to speak is on full display.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that I really have confirmed I have no issue with horror, because I passed out instantly upon going to bed and then let a lab tech take my blood this morning without even thinking of making some eldritch monster joke. Which is, not gonna lie, a little bit wild to me.

[nho-jungle]

the joy of being a gm is cooking smthn absolutely nefarious and knowing ur players are gonna go insane over it.

the woe of being a dm is having no one to tell abt this and having to keep it a secret :(

[ultimateaclrecovery]

Been trying to have more conversations with the boy but it’s hard. I’m bad at it and he’s even worse. It just feels like we aren’t always very good at talking to each other both about small things and big things and it’s like if we don’t have that what we do we have?

And like sometimes the conversation is easy, but then it’s almost always about frisbee. And it’s like I do not want to either be carrying the whole conversation or talking about frisbee for the rest of my life (and yes that’s a hyperbole and I’m being dramatic but like still)

And then when I finally talk to him about how it feels like he gives me all these one word answers it’s always that he’s just tired and if he doesn’t think the answer is important he’s not gonna put his energy into it. And like he’s being apologetic but it’s not like if talking to me isn’t worth your energy what is? And like we only see each twice a week and sometimes only once a week.

And partly it’s because with the holidays I’ve been gone for two weeks and then had a Covid exposure and now he’s gone so we’ve barely seen each other. And I’m an abysmal texted so it’s hard to maintain connection when we don’t see other (and yes I really am the problem here and yes I’m working on it (although he was always says it’s fine)

I just feel sometimes like I just don’t understand him very well especially considering we’ve been dating almost a year.

And when I brought up doing something for our year, that is when he mentioned that his grandmother had died earlier this week and so he’d be leaving for her funeral. And I had asked him about various aspects of week like seven times at this point and he had yet to mention it. And I have no idea how to be there for him or if he even needs or wants that because he just never shares.

And then because he never shares I feel like I’m being over emotional and needy whenever I share. And then we just talk about anything ever.

And his family’s going to Italy in may and when I saw his family over thanksgiving she invited me but he has never even hinted if he’d like me to go with them (I probably can’t regardless but like I would like to be asked)

And even when his family was here for thanksgiving he only invited me to see for actual thanksgiving even though they were here for like a week and he did lots of other stuff with them. And I had to be the one to ask if he even wanted me to meet them when they came and to let me know what he wanted me to join them for. And turns out the answer was very little.

And it just sucks that it feels so hard to build an emotional connection because he’s so great in other ways. Like he’s so sweet and kind and thoughtful. And he remembers all the things I like and is always seeking them out or trying to do things to make me happy. And whenever I do manage to try and talk to him about the things I feel he’s always really nice about it and never makes me feel like my feelings are stupid. (He sometimes get hung up the logistics (it almost always twice a week and only rarely once a week) )but also always ask what he could do make me feel better. But like how do you tell someone to just be a more emotional human?

And like I hate that it’s always me telling him things. Like I know I can be annoying and I’m far from perfect but like he just never has any complaints, often even when asked point blank. And even when I did ask him what he would change about the relationship he one made me answer first and two just said he’d like it if I texted him back a little quicker. Which while fair I had just told you five minutes ago how was feeling disconnected probably in part to me being a terrible texter so is that really what you want or just what you think I want? It’s also annoying because when we first started dating I told him I was bad at texting and he said he actually preferred to not text that much. And like it could be that it’s a spectrum and also things evolved but it makes me worried that he’ll just tell me what I want to hear and then just deal with it even if it’s not really what he wants. And then I worry that he’ll end up resenting me for that and then just break up with me out of no where.

And this fully me just being anxious but I can’t help but feeling sometimes likes he’s just waiting for a good time to end things because he’s too nice to do it at an inconvenient time.

And I guess a lot of it just circles back to the thought I’ve been having since this summer that while he’s a really good boyfriend, he’s just doing the things that a boyfriend should do because he likes having a girlfriend and not that he likes me in particular. It’s like I check all the boxes so he’s committed to make it work and emotions are irrelevant. I like I want to have that deep emotional connection and it feels like that’s not enough. But then I go to describe what is that doesn’t feel like “enough” and it feels like I am describing a really good relationship.

And I don’t know if I’m just getting caught up in the holiwood or social media fantasy of relationships where people jump into each other everyday and talk endlessly for hours and no every last detail of the other persons psyche, because that’s not what we have.

He’s pleasant to hang out with, even if sometimes I feel like I want to shake him until more words fall out. He’s like the least annoying person I’ve ever met, he’s super easy to travel with. He’s considerate of me and my feelings. He puts effort into the relationship. He can be silly and we can have goofy moments together. He checks all the lifestyle “boxes” and my ideal life and being with him work perfectly together. He’s never dismissive of me. He’ll do things just to make me happy even if they aren’t his favorite. He feels safe.

And I don’t know how to balance all the wonderful against the intangible lackluster emotional connection. Especially when I am the other half of the emotional connection.

Like is the reason I have more deep feeling conversations with my girls friends just because THEY are good at it? And does it feel hard with Anthony because I am actually bad at it or because he is? (I mean probably both). And at the end of the day does it matter? Even if I’m the problem if I can’t figure how to make it better, it’s still not really working. And we all know the answer to every relationship question is just to talk to the other person. I just wish that didn’t feel so hard

[gristlegrinder]

aughhhhhh i hate writing character bios with a hard character limit. let me out of this prison of my own creation

[linabirb]

okay so since yesterday i had this. very weird thing with my temple. basically it's like i'm sitting and i can feel something pulsating in there?? and it's very loud and i literally can't wear my headphones bc they make the sound louder for some reason. i thought this was just gonna last for one day but nope it's here again and i got worried and was like "okay pls tell me it's not something serious" and i googled it like a fool and was prepared to hear that im about to die

and it was like "nah it just happens to people who have anxiety".

and i sat there for a moment and was like "haha yeah i do have that :D"

[inkykeiji]

i will never ever ever ever ever EVER be over dabi’s laugh <3333333333333

[tr4nsf4gs]

if i had a nickel for every time someone was so dedicated to being my hater they immediately stopped speaking to all my friends as well i'd have two nickels. which is not a lot but it's weird it happened twice

[yuukimiyas]

g’mornie!! ໒꒰ྀི⸝⸝´ ˘ `⸝⸝꒱ྀི১ sendin so so much love for you guys to have the v best thurs!! brb i’m callin your faves to take you out for a super delicious brunch ໒꒰ྀི∩˃ ᵕ ˂∩꒱ྀི১ hehee!! smoochin your cheeks more than your faves!! i swear!! mwah!!

[missmonkeymode]

Man i hope im a good gm

[onepiexe]

on god. why.

[clockworkcheetah]

finished the infinite bad

[neona]

I did not expect myself to be even momentarily more deranged about a ttrpg adaptation of a children's anime I like than I am about poe2 but here we are

[melonyfelonyfellonme]

...

[motheyes]

also my coworkers be talking about crazy drama and it makes me feel like a teenager girl kicking her feet in bed while on the phone with friends but it some of it also makes me wanna dig my eyes out with a spoon

[klysanderelias]

Speaking as someone who (I think?) agrees with the sentiment here -

I think the one defense of letting the GM fudge dice rolls even if you don't allow players to is that the GM has FAR more responsibility in the rules of the game to govern adversity, and thus has to be the person who manipulates game difficulty, often on the fly.

I'll admit at the front that I don't see much difference between fudging dice and prepwork that adjusts encounter difficulty - if you look at a monster statblock and go 'whoa that's WAY too high damage' in prep, then the only thing stopping you from having to fudge the dice in the moment is having had the opportunity to go over everything beforehand and analyze it, which is just a factor of time and attention in my mind.

But like, speaking as someone who's played a lot of DnD over the years, and DnD-adjacent games, I've had to do a LOT of adjustment to pre-written adventures because they made assumptions about party composition, encounter frequency, player choices, etc. I've also had to do on-the-fly adjustments because the fight would have been miserable otherwise, or because it would have been too easy. And I think the tendency to black-box that work is based on good faith - it's much more fun as a player to play a well-run game, instead of looking behind the curtain and seeing how many times the GM had to frantically adjust the settings in order to keep things from crashing down.

That being said, I think it's bad game design? I think that's the thing. Needing to fudge dice rolls means something has gone wrong, and I think for a lot of people, that's just a fundamental disconnect from the roots of DnD - that your characters ARE disposable and you ARE meant to allow them to die. But it's also the issue of like, there are a billion splatbooks, with a billion adventures, and at some point it's this giant mousetrap contraption that only needs a single sticking point to come crashing down. Did the author of the new splatbook read all of the other ones to make sure their new feats interacted safely and correctly? Did they read ANY of them?

And of course, as OP points out, why can't the players fudge rolls on the fly if necessary? If the party is about to get wiped and the DM isn't doing anything about it, what's wrong with a 'lucky' crit to save the day? The difference I see is again, within the ruleset, the DM is the person with the responsibility to fix that, and the players are absolved of that. There's something comforting there - to know that if the party gets wiped and all the players have a bad time, you know exactly who to blame.

But the weird thing is that there are way too many adventure paths out there where the party hitting overwhelming odds and losing is the intended progression path, which ONLY WORKS if the DM is the only one allowed to manipulate game difficulty. At that point, if the party starts getting 'lucky' crits that put them on the path to winning, it becomes the DMs JOB to fudge numbers back in order to stick to the intended path.

This is, again, bad game design.

YOU THERE, D&D PLAYER: Explain to me why it's okay for the GM to fudge dice rolls but not the players, without implying that the players are too irresponsible to be trusted to make decisions about the game.