I’m the Dungeon Master for a mostly new DND campaign, and while everyone knows the rules, one newer player, my best friend, kept rolling the die for herself and making her own outcomes–things the DM is supposed to do. At first, I let it slide; she was new, excited, and didn’t want to have a bad thing happen to her character. I told her to stop about 8 times, but when we got to the final boss’s lair, I described writing on the wall,l and she rolled without letting me finish. She rolled a d16 and declared that the writing was in Syrian, the language Feys understood. I explained to her that it was a mix of languages and they were to decipher it together, which was a bummer because they were supposed to figure it out themselves, so something inside me snapped. In the next fight with the final boss’s henchman(they’re little cave monster things if anyone was wondering), she rolled again without letting me finish and rolled a d7, so she said that she still struck the monster, just not hard. Frustrated, I said that my ruling was that the monster dodged, and she fell to the ground because she couldn’t stop the pounce she was trying to do. In that fall, she lost 2 health points and took critical damage to her arms, leaving her out for the rest of the session. I wouldn’t have broken her character’s arm if I knew our cleric was out of gold, but since I didn’t know that, I didn’t go back on my motion, I feel bad and guilty that she couldn’t be apart of the boss battle, I honestly just don’t know what else I could’ve done to keep her in control.
ESH.
Talk to her instead of doing stupid in-game punishment nonsense. If necessary, let the session finish while you try to patchwork fix the nonsense she does, and then afterwards have a serious talk with her.
Soft ESH, but mostly her. You probably should’ve paused the game and had a firm out-of-game talk instead of snapping with an in-game punishment, especially since she’s your best friend. That said, her behavior would drive any DM nuts. Rolling without permission and declaring results breaks the game for everyone else. She wasn’t “playing creatively,” she was powergaming the narrative. A quick table reset and clear boundaries would’ve saved the session.
Yeah OP is acting like the player’s dice rolls are magical and immediately cause irrevocable changes in the game world. They don’t, you’re the dm and the game world is not real. Take charge, don’t play mindgames.
NTA.
You explained rules time and again, at this point she just chose to ignore them. Friend was messing up the fun for you and others.
ESH, you should have stopped that behavior the first time it happened. She was railroading and that’s never okay in DnD. The second time she did it, inform her she will be kicked from the campaign. Third time, permanent ban.
INFO : what are d16 and d7? have played d&d for a long time and have never heard of those before
It was probably that she rolled a 16 and a 7 on a d20
Yeah there is a lot of things that dont sound right here so im not sure if OP is telling a real story or if they are a reasonable DM.
There is no game system i know abiut that has d7 or d16, maybe its not D&D but another system, but i would bet there os no system with a d7 at all, there is no physical d7.
And then the player takes 2HP and critical damage? What kind of rule os that supposed to be?
And OP seems ro be realy bad at explaining, if thats how they DM the game im sorry for the players.
I’m also reasonably sure that Fey don’t speak Syrian, lol.
(Yes, I know it’s probably a typo/autocorrect situation for Sylvan.)
This literally isn’t how D&D works in the slightest, players don’t just get to \~declare\~ what happens, you very easily could have told her no. She didn’t “discover” that the writing was in *Sylvan*, she simply decided it was, so as the DM it’s your job to tell her that isn’t accurate (even if it was a lucky guess).
Rolling out of turn in an encounter means nothing, she doesn’t still get to take the turn, she simply rolled for no reason, she doesn’t get to decide that a SEVEN hits a final bosses’ henchman.
How far did she fall? A 10ft fall will cause a D6 of damage, was the pounce from a height of 10ft? Like I can see deciding that a character takes damage because they’re being annoying, but in what version or homebrew of D&D does a character take “critical damage” on a body part and lose use of it? Especially for 2 damage.
As a DM it’s your job to keep control of your players, you tell them no, you tell them that they’re not following the rules, you’re not bound to every single roll of the dice if YOU didn’t request it or it isn’t their turn. It’s extremely simple, either she follows the rules or she faces consequences, in this case the consequences were that she couldn’t partake in the final fight, in the future it could be that she simply isn’t allowed to play anymore.
EDIT: ESH mostly because I think you all need to take another look at the rule book.
I can’t upvote this enough as someone who has done various TTRPG’s over the past 15+ years, primarily as the GM. This is written very much like how mainstream media has portrayed D&D rather than how it’s actually played at the table.
So much is off.
Players declaring what’s happening. Random BS effects like “oh? You’re paralysed and out of this fight”.
And the d before every number is annoying. d7 isn’t the same as rolled a 7. d7 means a seven sided dice.
This feels worse than when I started D&D 25+ years ago, and I was twelve (or was I d12?). OP needs to learn that a) you don’t solve out of game problems with game menchanics, and b) no is a complete sentence.
ESH
I play DnD weekly and DM my own campaign – you should have nipped that the very first time and said “Hey, I get that you are excited but the DM determines what happens based on your dice rolls, you don’t roll dice then tell everyone what is going to happen without my input” and kick her if she continues the behavior after 2 warnings after, you should have dealt with it long ago and your solution after all this time should not have been crippling her character, it should have been to stop the session and finally give her the warning you should have at the start “You are not the DM, you do not decide the outcomes of dice rolls just because you want to, either play the game properly or leave the table”. She is also TA for basically trying to overrule you as the DM.
ESH
You guys weren’t playing DnD, both of you were just making up random bullshit. Whenever she made roll or declaration you didn’t ask for, you should have said “I didn’t ask for that” and moved on, but instead you humoured her in the moment