I read those terrible '44 rules' for D&D

Welcome back Gary Gygax. - Spencer after watching this video.

[wastelanderone]

"Don't get up every 10 minutes to satisfy your drug habit" is so specific I really really wanna be a fly in the wall for some of the sessions that led to this

[JakubWojciechowski]

To be honest, if one of players were making fun of a guard's name and then 15 guards would appear out of nowhere and start making fun of our names, I'd love this moment

[-Mushroom_Kid-]

“You have to act out your intimidation checks”
*waterboards the dm*

[EEOE]

You should make a followup on this, because it has come to light that the players were just bullying the DM to this breaking point. These rules exist because of abusive players who were proud to be abusive.

[Nota-Skaven]

Rule 9: When the DM hits you with exhaustion and you respond by invoking your right to a duel

[JohnvanCapel]

Of note, the post was deleted for a reason - someone actually dug up the poster's comment history and he was literally *bragging* about making the DM's life hell.

This list? Yeah, if you take it at face value, it makes the DM out to be a bad person. If you take it with that bit of context and ask yourself why the DM would have to specify a lot of them? That paints a *bad* picture of the entire table. This was a DM at the end of their rope.

Given that little tidbit of "OP bragged about giving the DM a hard time", I also expect that some of these rules were added or had the wording changed by the player that posted them, in order to make the DM come off as worse than they were.

[evilbeardedman]

The reason the original post was removed from reddit and now only exists as screenshots is because when people started to ask OP questions, it quickly became clear that players are complete assholes and OP deleted it. So they all deserve each other.

[IMRifley]

So, after a bit of digging, I was able to find out a few things.

TL;DR, everything here was absolutely the players fault because almost every bad player behavior listed here was intentional. This set of rules was a response from the DM to the players trying to get the DM back so they could bully him some more after their hiatus.

When this post originally came out, a lot of people noticed that this sounded like a very angry, but very HURT DM. A few people were curious to see if there were any other stories like this from the OP.

Turns out, OP had previously posted many times about gameplay behavior and the DM. However, it was the player bragging in other subreddits that they and their group had been bullying the DM intentionally for some time. Begging for or demanding more and more powerful magical items, smoking often, cheating, complaining, arguing, gaslighting, and the works. They continued to go out of their way to give the DM a bad time. This claim is also supported when you look at the number of rules that SPECIFICALLY mention Reddit.

People started calling OP out on this, and that is why they not only deleted the post, but they deleted their account.

Getting into speculation now.

This looks like the DM took a hiatus/break with every intention of trying to just break up the party. However, the party was likely trying to get the DM back into playing with the group, hoping to be able to abuse them some more. So in response the DM decided he'd lay down a law for everything they'd done to wrong him as something of an ultimatum. "If we're going to be playing together, these are my terms. I'm tired of all of this. You will either fix your behavior, or I will stop playing with you and you will hate playing with me."

A lot of people also mention the language and how aggressive this DM Seems to be given the profanity shown. I have a few theories on this.

Firstly, is that given that this isn't the DM, but the OP who posted this, it's possible that they just punched up the language to be worse than it actually was. This is supported by the OPs previous language and posts on Reddit as well.

Secondly, given some of the specific language used, we can assume that this group is either in the UK, or Austrailia. If they're in the UK, particularly on the northern side(Scotland and the like), they have quite liberal use of various swear words, so there might not even be the same amount of spite we here in Northern America might attribute to it. Often times, we in the US/Canadia make the bad assumption that UK = Polite and posh British. But don't forget, the UK includes Britain, Wales, N Ireland, and Scotland.

Even further, if this was in Australia, then this would be a polite response to this group, given the lack of the use of the C Word. There's also a small chance he's military as well, (Former military myself, ) and really, swear words just become interrogatives and common adjectives at that point, though prior service is much less likely. With that in mind, It's entirely possible then that this DM isn't actually as rude as we give him credit for.

With all of this in mind, this was a DM that was tired of the bullshit, and likely wanted nothing to do with this group given their behavior. With everything here, the players were obviously the bad guys here, and OP at the very least knew it. It seems like the DM caught on as well and was basically saying: "Okay then. If you want me back to try and play your fuck-fuck games, I can play back." So OP Used that to try and get some extra Reddit Karma, but instead got some real and proper karma in return.

[reaperdeathgod]

"Dm, where should we go?" "Sucks to suck" "Ok, guess i'm buying an inn and we're playing inn simulator for the next 3 sessions."

[Howler]

In regards to the 'aCt OuT yOuR cHaRiSmA cHeCkS', I find a good middle ground that still encourages roleplay is asking the player "How do you intimidate them?" Even if their answer is just "Idk, growl at him I guess" I say "Alright, roll intimidation" and boom, done. It's especially helpful for new players in my experience and avoids the whole 'acting' mentality.

Edit: Why the hell does this have over 3000 likes?

[dragonicdoom]

"Idk I think my character would say something inspiring to get these kobolds to jump in a volcano" There's a story behind that and I need to hear it

[angryghost]

No DM Starts like this, I can only imagine what the players have been inflicting on this GM to turn him into this.

[hideshiseyes]

I do always ask players to explain their approach when they make a charisma check, as with any other check. Ie “I appeal to his sense of fair play” is good, “I’m not so subtly attempting to bribe him” is good, “I persuade” is bad. That’s because I literally can’t resolve a check if I don’t know anything about their approach, since I need to set the DC and the stakes.

But “acting out” the checks is completely optional. Requiring it adds nothing to the game.

[khw]

"if I gave you a ride there, find your own way home" Make sure to carry a compass, fire starting stuff, 3 days rations, a knife, and a space blanket before you play DnD...consider a survival rifle or snare traps...no not for your character...I mean for you. Like your physical self.

[insertjokehere]

As someone in the reddit comments put:

"Around 3-4 is when it's time to leave cuz your DM's an asshole.

12-16 is when you realize they don't want to DM for your group anyways.

Further down, you realize your group is full of shitty players anyways, and you'd better figure out if you're one of them before trying to find a new group."

[noisemaker]

In my head, the way this worked out was the players were constantly smoking and drinking, showed up like a half hour late with the excuses of "Oh, I don't know" or "I woke up late, " constantly asked for redos whenever something went wrong ("I walk here" "You activate a pressure plate-" "Oh nooo, I actually step here."), basically demanded their skill checks without asking, and made rolls intentionally out of sight of the DM so they could lie about the roll and from the sound of it got caught a lot doing this. After what seems like many sessions of this, the DM got fed up and took an extended break from DMing this group, coming back with this list of intentionally terrible rules to call out players' annoying actions.
See also:
Players ignoring or forgetting plothooks for quests and deciding they'd rather free roam to the next city, then getting upset when the DM didn't prepare a massive globe trotting game, often deciding to just walk through multiple nights without consequences and complaining when the DM tries to impose them. It sounds like the hooks for these quests are there, and the players just decided to disregard them and do whatever they wanted, then complain they never get quests.
Players entering dungeons or caves, completing them in a session or two, then getting upset they're not longer when that makes no functional sense.
Players totally uninterested in RP at all, and the DM attempting to force some in. Both parties are partially in the wrong here, forcing RP isn't fun, but having players who only interact through the world by stabbing it isn't very fun either, especially if you put time and effort into NPCs are are excited to use them.
This list makes a lot more sense when you consider most of the players were drunk and/or high for a lot of the games, and proceeded to leave the table to refill their drug dependency, probably often without asking, just getting up and leaving. It wouldn't surprise me if OP was either when posting this, as well. No, the DM does not want to manage these players, they seem terrible, and when OP realized they were the problem and got called out on all the social media, they deleted the post.

[mordecai]

My first DM had some things in common with this guy. Session zero he's very specific about the rules of what he allows for stat rolls. He made us go one at a time and watched saying "even if you roll all 1's you have to keep it". I rolled three near perfect stats and he tried to tell me to reroll because they were too good. Whole group agreed it was unfair to have to keep bad rolls, but can't keep good ones. He allows it. Session 1, level 1, we start off in a dungeon. Every monster targets my character, but we make it through the first room. Go to check loot. Rogue finds no traps with a 15 or so roll. I open a chest and a trap door opens and I drop 150ft. No save, and he says "you all don't have rope, can't be resurrected, you just have to roll a new character for next session" I didn't go back, and by the third session no one else did either.

[GruulAnarch]

I do kind of understand the whole thing about "NPCs will remember/ notice insults". It's annoying when a character tries to derail an important conversation, but what you have to do is make it so it only impacts that character. For example, I had some elves interrogating the party at the edge of the elves' territory, and this one player kept saying that he "wasn't with these guys" and joking about burning down the forest because he thought it's be funny to completely ruin what was honestly a pretty important conversation (he tried this with many other roleplay moments). So, the elves believed him on both accounts and tossed him in jail while they kept talking to the other characters. It took them less than a session to negotiate him out of the dungeon, and he stopped trying to do this sort of stuff, or at least decreased the frequency of it.

[Hanashibi]

I have a fun rule I like to play with, I call it the Avante-Garde Fail.

Imagine you have a bard, immune to failing in every way, even a 2 will roll up to above a 15. He's trying to perform for an audience, and he rolls a 1. Instead of saying he chokes, instead of saying he somehow did something sleep easy to him and failed to keep tone, or whatever, I say something else.
Ex: Your performance was advanced, complex, nuanced beyond degree. Your audience doesn't get it. The parts they understood they found insulting, they found the plight of the character in the performance unrelatable. The younger audience members where bored during the drama. You feel in your gut if you'd delivered this play in front of a court of nobles, it would have been an easy smash hit. But as it stands the audience can't stand it.

Failing spectacularly doesn't always have to be a problem with just charisma either. You could have the Barbarian wreck and jam the mechanisms too a door because he literally ripped it apart. You could have a rogue OVERLEAP his intended destination. Or a ranger who failed a tracking check thinking of way too many creatures and beasts that these tracks could belong to and literally have the right answer be one of several possible animals it could be.

I love this because it allows players to often fail with spectacle. It turns a nat-1 from a "Oh, I guess my Barbarian's suddenly too weak." to, "Oh my God, I can't believe we can't pass because I literally ripped off the counterweight."

[Seraphim_]

Since the video is incomplete and lacks the full picture, here's a quick rundown from all the comments I've read for others who're interested.


The post was made by a PLAYER, not the DM himself. When people on Reddit dug into the players previous posts, he was found to be actively bragging about making the DM's life hell. It's possible that the player might have twisted the DM's rules to be even more unfair than they seemed.

Building off of that, the DM had to deal with his players constantly being late / not showing up, metagaming and always expecting every session to be a huge scale dungeon / area, complaining about things being too easy and then complaining when things got too difficult, smoking weed or cigs or vaping 24/7, being drug or high all the time, ordering full on meals and making a mess during the sessions, and destroying the DM's personal belongings (accidentally or on purpose, unclear.)

The DM decided to leave because he was tired of running for the group, and the group (presumably unable or unwilling to DM themselves) effectively harrassed the DM into coming back. In response, the DM made the "44 Rules of D&D" for his players, either in an attempt to bring some order to the group and actually have fun for once, or in an attempt to make all the players leave so he doesn't have to DM for them anymore.

TL:DR: DM is not unhinged - his players are assholes and he made the rules in an attempt to make his players leave after they harrassed him to continue DMing when he left them the first time.