In all sincerity, that Sentinel call could DEFINITELY have been handled better by me (and shortly after the moment I noted three different, better ways I could have). The stress of it all likely didn’t help either, hehe. Even so, there was no weirdness or butt hurt feelings after, and I made sure to check! :) Part of why I have even been doing this for nearly 10 years is to show some good things to do in your games, if you like, and show the mistakes I make as well. LEARN from my MISTAKES.

"You dont SEE any traps" is what my DM always says when I roll a check for traps.. so even if there aren't any it still makes me worry

"How does Sentinel stops this creature?" "You ever stubbed your toe or stepped on a lego? that's the kinda pain I'm inflicting right now."

to be fair to aabria, robbie was literally looking at the invisibility spell card and forgot that line lmao

one of my favorite made-up rules Brennan did was when Zac Oyama and Emily Axford as Gorgug Thistlespring and Fig Faeth respectively tried to save their friend Fabian Aramais Seacaster (Lou Wilson) from his own RP blunder (he was fully in character and made a really bad choice) Zac and Fig decided to do something beyond stupid and when they tried to make complex rolls in the moment of going like, 80 mph flying through the air while hanging on to a rope (this was all live streamed btw), Brennan decided to make them roll "Quadruple Disadvantage".

A thing I appreciate about Aabria from watching her as a player is that while she's as likely as any other player to make an ask of the DM (maybe even more likely because she does know the rules very well) she's often happy to accept a 'no' as the answer. It's very fun to watch her encourage the DM to say no if that's what makes sense in the moment because it models how to take that no gracefully.

I think punishment is a bit of a strong word to use for the EXU example. It wasn't "you don't know your spells, so im going to make this suck for you." (I have seen DMs that act like this.) It was, "You did what you did, here's what happens." She wasn't punishing him. She just didn't save him from himself. It was a really funny moment and everyone was laughing- including Robbie. I think its exactly the kind of mixup a real adventurer might have when they're still new to magic. To me it was completely believable and matched the tone of EXU perfectly. If it had been a level 15 boss fight where the tone is serious, the stakes are high, everyones thinking about a million different things, and the *characters* know better, I probably would have given Robbie a chance to change his mind. But for that particular moment? It worked great.

One time I got a nat 20 for a stealth check and now canonically dragons are colorblind within our campaign they have to actively use magic to see colors

If a player often misses sessions and has a hectic schedule, they could always appear occasionally as an reoccuring character that happens to be played by someone other than the dm

Something I appreciate about Brennan is how rarely he actually says no. Instead he'll just impose disadvantage or a higher DC-sometimes to a ridiculous level matching the ridiculousness of the request. I think saying No outright makes sense with roleplaying heavy campaigns or simpler systems (like the kids on broomsticks system Aabria uses in Misfits and magic) but in battle-heavy campaigns with big complex storylines like the ones Brennan tends to run, I think replacing saying No with instead imposing disadvantages or higher dcs matched to the level of insanity of pcs requests, is a really cool, fun and successful way to navigate pcs more illogical requests/improbable attempted actions.

Was once in a campaign where a player tried to use call lightning deep within a cavern system (ie no path to the sky for said lightning to come from), DM said ok, roll damage etc - and obviously nothing visible happened - the player asked why nothing took damage, and the DM said the lightning bolt struck the ground about 300 feet above you. Player was annoyed - both because they lost their spell slot AND because they'd actually meant to cast Lightning Bolt. On the very next turn, the, still annoyed, player cast Call Lightning again, the DM even checked it was what they wanted to cast, they said yes - and the DM ruled it exactly the same, zero backing down for the player not knowing how their own spells work xD (the player then tried to cast it a third time in the same combat with much anger when it still wasn't working xD)

Matt tried to punish Tiberius for trying to cast fly while he had fly on some guys already. It was right before he 'left' the game. You gotta learn your character.

Tbf, not knowing ≠ player did not read. Especially new players have so much to worry about they forget stuff all the time.

I try to "no but" if i cant "yes and" with my players, giving them a route to achieve what they want or something close without letting them do something super game breaking

While I love CR, and while Matt Mercer is one of my idol DMs, I actually don’t like the Sentinel example! Beau is a 20th-level super-monk! Matt should’ve asked Marisha how Beau stopped the huge monster *in earnest* and then accepted if she could think of a cool and sensible description of how Sentinel stopped the monster after all. Would’ve been fun and felt less patronizing. I don’t think the moment was that serious, of course. Just think it’s an extremely rare instance where Matt could’ve handled something better. Also, I think it’s important to note that Brennan Lee Mulligan doesn’t apply his home-rules to every game, far from it. The insta-death rule, for example, is specifically from Neverafter, D20’s most lethal campaign BY FAR.

Mind you, could probably explain sentinel as cutting a ligament in their leg or tripping them as they go by, or just knocking them off balance for 6 seconds

The funny thing is: Sam exposed himself and ended his invisibility as Scanlan doing the same thing

Taking a beat to look up the rules is such a good note. I run Pathfinder 2e online and it is such a blessing to be able to have access to all of those rules online free. I ran a 5e campaign and found it a bit more invasive to pause the game to crack open the book and try to find the rule I needed to refer to. I would still do it because getting it right was important, but it would always take that much longer with 5e.

There's a lot of emphasis in this on ignoring the rules when it suits the situation. But I feel like it's a bit mischaracterized. It's not ignoring the rules for the DM to make a ruling that sometimes no roll is necessary. That's literally how the game works. The DM makes rulings all the time and is the official arbiter of which mechanics to use, as well as how and when to use them to resolve any given situation. Most of the examples in the video of DM's ignoring the rules is actually just a DM making a ruling, and that's 100% within the rules. I'm also not a particular fan of the wording in the advice that a DM can simply not allow something if it's something they don't "want" to happen. I don't think what the DM alone wants or doesn't want is particularly good criteria to judge by. I think it's better to consider the desires of the entire group and the effect on the game as a whole. There could be tons of things you don't really want to happen in your game, but you should take agency away from your players only sparingly and as a last resort. That's not to say you have to make sure your players can always succeed. They can attempt impossible tasks and fail. In the example about whether or not the room is trapped, I don't think you need to go directly to asking for a roll. If they player asks if there are any traps you can perfectly easily reply, "You don't see any out in the open, do want to search for traps?". This makes it clear that when they ask the DM directly for information without stating they are taking any action, they are only privy to the information directly available to their character. It doesn't give away whether there are traps or not, merely puts it back on them whether they want to actually search or not. You might not want to do that all the time. It's okay to talk through things in shorthand sometimes and sort of speed through stuff, especially if your party is tediously searching through 20 different rooms or something. But it is definitely worth reminding players how the game loop actually works sometimes.

3:22 How does Beauregard stop a monster with sentinel? What do you mean? 😂the same way she punches ghost, moves at superhuman speed, stuns enemies with a single blow, runs up walls and across bodies water as if it were solid ground, survive 100ft drops, catches bullets, dodge dragon fire unscathed and PUNCHES GHOST! Marisha could have easily said, “…do to my long time spent as an agent of the cobalt soul gathering knowledge, livid experience of fighting monsters and as a trained monk capable using my own martial prowess and mastery of the natural flow of energy in the body, I’m able to temporarily disrupt his flow of energy interrupting his movement. Almost like a lesser version of stunning strike.” The narrative of the game world is incredibly fluid. It can shape itself around any rule to make sense, especially in a world with magic, ghost, ki, gods and devils.

One of my favorite moments from Brennan is during Calamity and when he just let Sam go into this grand speech.

Lol. "You are responsible for that information, my dude." Was almost exactly my response when after dozens of times reminding my sorcerer player that they had to spend a sorcery point and say they were doing careful spell to not also hit their allies with fireball, i just didn't remind them and asked the party to make their dex saves.

The CR example is terrible. I have seen this several times with DM's. Specifically with the sentinel feat. In a world where everyone says that martial characters are "under powered" compared to spellcasters, this is a prime example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are talking about an imaginary world where people can turn invisible, raise the dead, and cons of the elements out of thin air. There is no reason why a character that put the thought, effort, options, and resources on a feat shouldn't be allowed to do that, even if it doesn't make sense in the "real world".

I once had a scene where the players were flying down from the city of Eltruel in Descent into Avernus and while flying to land a group of Devils and Demons got into a fight in their path. I mentioned the fiends hadn't spotted them yet, but they would soon if the players didn't take any action. One of the players said he was gonna hide and I pointed out that he was floating in the middle of the air, not really a place to hide in sight. My goal was for the players to think of some way to create a distraction. Like casting light on one of the Ranger's arrows and the Ranger shooting it to distract the devils, or something like that. And the player that wanted to hide got very annoyed and so I had to pull him away from the table and have a discussion with him and eventually we came to an understanding.

that sentinel ruling is really weird imo... I don't think you should ever be looking to strip away player's abilities with homebrew. Creatively justifying something for the sake of realism is a lot more impressive than stopping a very basic ability from doing what it's meant to for the sake of realism :///

"please tell me how sentinel stops this creature" "BECAUSE THE RULES SAY SO LOL"

Going from the preface, all the way back from the 2nd Ed. DM's Guide, it tells the reader that it's a GUIDE! Not a rulesbook, per se, but options that the DM can use to play the game. However, the best option is to be consistent with your rules, so that you don't make something unbalanced, unfair, or make it so the players don't understand how something is supposed to work, because that leads to confusion, and often high temper flares...

Sentinel is in practice a pike stopping a horse. A skilled user of a polearm can absolutely stop a much larger than player creature that is charging toward you. In a world of fantasy, I see no reason to assume an extremely skilled combatant couldn't have studied the weakpoints of mythical creatures in hopes of being able to defeat them.

This was a great video! Thank you! Will for sure be using the DM/player contracts in future games!:)

I love watching the timer in the corner of the video and thus missing the entire actual video. But, I guess it keeps me engaged, so it’s fulfilling it’s purpose

I’m blessed with players who accept my rulings. I’ve found it helpful to explain why I rule certain ways, to reduce frustration, but they never argue with me, which is huge, honestly.

In a game when characters can turn into ancient dragons and call their god for backup, it's not so strange to stop a titanic creature dead in its tracks with a punch

fantastic video! Really enjoyed the easy way you explain things. My players will appreciate this advice for sure!

Personally, I think that the way that Matt dealt with the scenario at 2:34 was pretty bad because it felt like he was patronizing and taking away something that the play had invested into without linking it to the story. I think a better way of handling it would be, "As you strike at this massive creature, dealing damage to them, you perform your battle maneuvers to hold them in place. However, as you do, the creature's immeasurable momentum and power still push forwards as it looks down at you like a bug. It seems as though this creature is immune to the effects of the Sentinel feat."

I strongly disagree with the sentinel take. It kinda runs into the issue of whether or not rules matter relative to the dm. I argue 100% rules as written is best, with dm fiat in the margins where there is nothing. Otherwise you end up w/ rules that only matter sometimes, which sucks particularly for the players. How would you stop a gargantuan creature from moving? Same way you would stun it, or paralyze it, or move it back 10 ft. There are very few creatures that polymorph doesnt screw over. 5e doesnt factor in the laws of physics when you do anything. While this prevents the peasant railgun fron working, it also allows a ghost to be beaten with a stick, or a titan to be tripped with the same stick.

Legit brennens is what i aspire to "maybe but ill remember and it will bring chaos"

i think a good example to follow is critical roles early years where decisions here made in the moment but if it turned out to be wrong or if they home booed a "better" rule they would just implement that next time it came up

I personally love Aabrias often role-playing heavy dm style and I think that her tendency to playfully put players in their place makes a lot of sense for the kinda games she runs, particularly in regards to her campaigns using non 5e systems (like in Misfits and magic) or modified 5e systems (like a court of Faye and flowers). Role playing necessarily is dictated by fewer on the book rules than battles and similarity systems like kids on bikes or broomsticks just don't have as many rules in place as something like 5E or pathfinder. Thus they can lend themselves to more audacious and outrageous moves being attempted by the pcs and Imo Aabria provides a really successful model for how to balance the fun of a game like that with actually maintaining some level of structure and consequences that keep the game entertaining and rewarding.

I appreciate the timers a lot

I know you focus on D&D dungeon masters, but I want to suggest you to check out Jason Carl from World of Darkness (in particolar I liked New York By Night). I think he is a great storyteller and I think that he can teach some interesting tricks. Also if I can ask for a topic, I am curios about horror ttrpgs so if there are some tricks or methods that you have notice in many actual plays.

The Matt Mercer ruling on Sentinel was actually awful. Why would he try to bring realism/real world logic up in a game like 5th edition? The whole game is supposed to be an abstraction for storytelling. We're not asking the players how they can cast spells or how to explain the multitude of features they have access to. Asking a player to justify Sentinel on a whim is ridiculous. I have no issue with Sentinel stopping a monster, it doesn't hurt verisimilitude at all imo. Even if you don't agree with that, this is something you'd have needed to discuss with your player ahead of time, or at least when they decided to take the feat. You could have at least just told them "hey, this feature doesn't work against creatures of x or y size/category". The one caveat I'll put here is if there was a specific feature on the creature's stat block or something like that where the creature had a passive ability that prevented its movement from being reduced unless prone. Idk, something like that could be fine. I probably would have narrated that though, explaining how the player attempts with all their might to stop the creature but was unable to as the creature barrels through, barely even registering the damage it had taken.

I think 'tell me how sentinel stops this creature' is fair enough if it was a genuine request. Matt himself said he was being patronising though. I can understand why Matt didn't want his kaiju to be stopped in place, but also, it felt poorly handled to be honest. At least give the player the narration of their heroic effort achieving 'something' with their feats and skills. Maybe describe how the Kaiju steps past them, originally not even paying them any mind until suddenly, its leg just stops moving and it turns back in confusion for a moment. Then, it let's out a deafening scream of anger and hauls itself away, even with one leg that refuses to move (maybe give it 50% movement speed or something)

Ruling that Sentinel not work in that situation is already bad enough, the cost of a feat is already a steep one and a huge commitment, and with one like that's it's already defining your entire play style for your character for the rest of the campaign, plus its effect only lasts the rest of the turn I feel like ruleing that it's staggered for a few seconds is a plenty reasonable thing to happen even IRL.

Sentinel answer: I hit the creature in a way that causes them to wince in pain; momentarily disorienting them from moving.

Nerfing a character mid fight is in my oppinion what aggrevates me the most, if this was an ongoing campaign and you knew as a dm you wont let Sentinel work on somrthing that big you should have said do already, or say " it works this time" but it wont work the next time. But that is just me and i know stuff like this makes my blood boil, so much stuff in dmd only makes through suspension of disbelief why didnt this? My general rule for any snap rules change is, does it make it more fun to experience? If no i dont do it.

I would definitely ask if I get my feat back for sentinel. Edit: Or if I was being a better player, talk to the dm after the session about how its not okay to change how my abilities work without any forewarning. Its one thing for a creature to have immunity to stun when I am playing a monk, its another to give it immunity to my ability specifically.

Matt saying sentinel doesn’t work would be fine if he had ever ruled it like that before, but seeing as he hasn’t it just feels bad

Oh, you included my advice of "dont be afraid to say no to players", i feel weirdly seen

"How does sentinel stop this creature?" "Because I'm a fucking badass. I hit him when he opened himself up to move and knocked the wind out of him. He. STOPS." Why even take a feature if the DM is going to just arbitrarily decide it doesn't work?

Experienced GM advice. Elect a Rules Lawyer. When their is a debate about rules, the Rules Lawyer looks it up while the game goes on.

The most important thing is 'don't be a arse'. You can't pull off a hard rule without first building up a lot of trust with your players. Eg in my Ravenloft Game I gave the Players free reign to make level 20 PC's only to suprise them with the twist that levelling was tied to how much fear/territory they owned - meaning they levelled DOWN when they failed. This worked because I give out lots of inspiration with no limit on how many they can have, and work to enable players to challange their PCs in interesting/fun ways. The players figured out that Ravenloft in my campaign ran like a game of Risk where they could gain or lose power by defeating other Dreadlords.

I once had a player insist that eldritch blast worked like magic missile, *even if the target is invisible or behind cover*. I was a newbie dm at the time (still am frankly) and i had trouble 'defending' my ruling that it didnt.

Brennan does his through improve, looking to build on and twist player actions with knock on effects. Take a look at agent carter in response to fig, in the latest series

This list is fantastic!

To be fair, this was Robbie's first time playing Dnd. Amd while the player made a mistake because of that lack of experience the character would know that casting the spell would drop concentration on the first cast. I would have handled it by explaining that. I totally agree that knowing how your character works is important but punishing a player for a lack of knowledge that their character does know feels wrong.

3:20 On the flip side, I think another great example is how Matt eventually gave up on explaining how a water elemental could catch fire, and just said "it's not on fire, that doesn't make any sense". Rules are there to serve you.

It's very important to have the dm be in this referee place because playing characters easily makes people very invested and questioning someone's authority weakens it, while we need someone to be able to decide quickly and move on without issue when an argument drags on When i'm a dm, i ask of my players to invest themselves enough in making the game work smoothly, when i'm a player i often say "i think that [...] , but you are the dm"

I’m not aware of this mm moment outside of that tiny clip; “this monster” is what? Was it gargantuan? Was it huge? Can I maybe get a link and a timestamp to watch the situation? Thank you for your service.

3:00 mercer was pretty wrong here in my opinion. She didn't do something questionable; she tried to use a feature on her character sheet. She shoulda said "I stub its toe"

Im a bit torn up about the different stances for the Sentinel incident. I am both a player and a DM. I do see both perspectives. If I were a player with limited ability selections, I'd want to rely on my choices to prevent beat downs and tell the stories I envision. If I were in Marisha's place I'd have felt the low-blow. But in response to comments saying that would have had people walk out from the table, isn't that a bit of an extreme conclusion knowing how long the campaign had been going prior? If the ONE time you were denied use of your ability for any reason leads to you walking away with a bitter aftertaste, doesn't that sound like a destructive life path? In a GM's perspective, I absolutely see the fine print in the ruling. This monster should NOT be laughed at. If any monster I throw at you can be stopped by a pixie with Sentinel, that's an ABSOLUTE disrespect to any hard work I'd have done for storytelling because one person wanted it for shoots and giggles. That's not my fun. In retrospect, it definitely would have been something to ease into earlier. Not just plop at the table because "teehee, hard mode". If anything, talk to the player before the encounter and open the discussion that sentinel has limits that may come up. Ideally at the game table, this will motivate the player to ask first in assessment rather than just jump in thinking everything is fine.

I agree with most people here. MM not allowing sentinel to work at most tables would have the player leaving. That is something that should be established Session 0, not halfway though a session and certainly not after the player has just used it.

I must have rolled a natural 1 on spoting the subscribe button because I had the video in full screen

My chaotic neutral wild magic sorcerer has messing up as part of his character. And as a chaotic neutral player, i like watching him get in trouble. Marissa brought the "no but" energy by countering the "explain how" bringing on the crushing nope from Matt. She probably could have narrated something cool and had it allowed

Personally in any sort of RPG I don't think you should punish people for not knowing something their character would know, especially if you haven't moved that far past the point yet, as long as they aren't making a habit of it as an undo button.

I still recommend on of those out-of-job former soviet commissars. They are absolutely smashing in keeping people in line, have incredible work ethics (I mean it's been decades they last could live their dream) are pretty affordable and even bring their own gun.

Using the contents page quickly? That’s a struggle-, grappled, see restrained, restrained, see incapacitated. I’m exaggerating but it does feel like a long journey at times.

Aabriyas line of "I know what I'm doing and I do what I want," which was by far the most boss ass DM move ever. Love her

The invisibility thing didn't come across as harsh to me at all. It was laughed off, but made sense. It wasn't so much a punishment, but more a case of "your actions have consequences".

why does a count down keep appearing on the corner? it's making me so anxious wtf

what is the timer in the corner? its making me nervous

7:10 "you are responsible for thar my dude" Yes!

When someone asks about traps I always have them roll. If there are none, and the player has a low roll I say "you don't see any of the traps" to use metagaming against the player.

In all seriousness, I paused the video at 6:14 to make the perception check, and rolled a Nat 20, so I have subscribed.

Just quickly wanna shout out Mark Hulmes, phenomenal DM

5:45 I have NEVER seen the subscribe button light up when a youtuber told me to click it before, that was cool!

For Aabria's example on not reading your character sheet and spells carefully, I'd do this with an experienced group more than an inexperienced group, to an extent. If it's early on in the campaign and it's a group of new players, I'll let them have a mulligan. After that, it is what it is.

Just a heads up, not all ttrpg systems let the GM have final say. The most common alternative is majority table vote which also works in D&D. It's a good idea to it very clear which method you are using and get your players to agree to it in session zero.

5:46 Did the subscribe button just fucking glowed ?

But if the rules state that you don't have to always follow the rules does that mean we are following by the rule therefore being ruled by the rules?

My super nice and supportive character found someone stalking our party and decided to show them how to stealth directly in front of them. This ended up everyone in the party stealthing in front of them and breaking them mentally.

In my groups we usually handle rules collaboratively. If we don't know or are uncertain on how things should be ruled, we try and find the official ruling and if there is none or we are unhappy with it, we take a quick vote on how to do it instead. Of course this only works in groups that are focused on fair and balanced play and not living their personal power fantasy.

Matt asking only for perception checks when something changes is because he is good enough to EXPLAIN that something has changed. That is key!

That first one is kind of a bad example imo...sure it was cool, but it just sounds like Matt could have given the creature the Sentinel feat or an ability that does the same. There are ways he could have handled that without outright denying the character a completely valid combat feature. It "makes sense" because thats what the feat does...if he doesn't like Sentinel he should have made that clear at character creation, not just...stopped it dead in its tracks? Live? Her ability would have worked in literally every other situation. I cannot fathom why he would do this other than to say he wanted the monster to be able to move. There were so many better ways...Freedom of Movement...like cmon... Edit: To be clear, with the same logic you could say "Ah right...so how do you cast that spell? Faith? Well, I haven't seen proof of any gods tonight so I suppose your spell fails. Wanna try something more realistic?"

sentinel doesnt make logical sense, however from game logic view, its very similar to any form of "stagger" effect present in a lot of fantasy games and such, you could with a bit of creativity perhaps flavour it so it makes sense, but stagger is a stagger and since its in the game it should work, unless the foe has immunity to this effect or you clearly state that it wont work on collosal things it should work, the person taking this feat goes into the game thinking it will work unless you tell him otherwise at the very beggining it ruins the fun for the player if you put an end to this just because you didnt plan ahead and very few people can take such a shutdown like weve seen in the video. Ive had my own experience with the same exact thing, DM did it to me, I felt about it like shit (wasnt that big of a deal since it was a oneshot, but considering it being a oneshot and me picking the ability only to be unable to use it single time the entire oneshot because some bullshit rules also ruined the feeling) so you can definitely say no, but if ur experienced DM and you know you have problem with the whole sentinel shenanigan make sure to tell your party before hand. I for one embrace the rule for what it is and dont change it, if the person with sentinel wants to play a guardian and enabler, why take that away from them?

5:44 I actually rolled my mini d20 for shits and giggles and rolled a nat 1

Literally rolled a nearby die to catch that DC 2 perception check for the subscribe button. I got a 7, -1 for my self-calculated IRL wisdom. Success! Subscribed. :)

5:51 so with that information i got advantage and i rolled 2 nat 1s

I rolled a nat one on my "subscribe button" perception check and accidentally clicked on the comments box.

There's one problem I have with the "rules serve you, don't let the rules tell you what to do" sentiment. Why? Well, imagine you have a character which took a specific feat, or subclass, or a maneuver even, which let them to something specific. You invested "resources" to be able to do that. Then there's that other player, who has a great idea and wants to do something like the player above, and you go "rule of cool" and allow it, only that the first player now wonders why they took the subclasses/feats, when they could have just say "I'd like to do X". This problem doesn't only exist in DnD, but also in Pathfinder, though I can only speak for 2e, in which you think "hey, I'd like to do that" - and then you'll find out, there's actually a class-/general feat for that... So, in general, it's a great thing to think like that, sure, but I'm just saying, sometimes, it makes specific class-/race features and feats "wasted resources".

4:50 perception should be limited to hidden and secret things. If there's nothing hidden in the room, you can see it.

I'll be honest, wouldn’t exactly call a player using an ability and then questioning why said ability doesn’t work "rules-lawyering". Kinda leans into a toxic dm'ing mindset.

There a lot going on in DND and a lot of Rules. Unless its habitual it is a bit harsh to expect a player to not mess up even with thier own characters wethere they have the spell in front of them or not.

I'll mention it's still important not to say "No" too often. It's easy to get to that when you care, but it's all right if things aren't perfectly balanced or throw what you anticipated as possible throught he window. In fact, it's often beneficial. You can also say "No, but..." and give something positive to your player so they feel good when you think it's all right

have attention spans gotten so short we need count-down timers between topics in a 15 min video?

5:48 dang i rolled mental Nat 1

I thought that making perception/investigation type roll even when there's nothing there was the norm and standard for how that is done and that basically everyone knows this.

Nat 1, I would like to use my reroll

Since when does the subscribe button glow when they mention to subscribe?

About punishing your players: It is VERY IMPORTANT to do it at the right time. The point isn't to make it hurt not to know your stuff, but to nudge the player and let them know they should. I never do it to new players, and some players seriously struggle with the rules and get a pass, because I know they're doing their best. As for those who should know their stuff, I still don't let it impact the game in a serious or lasting way. I allow it to make a moment that sucks, but not to have lasting consequences. Wasting a resource such as a spell slot, having rage run out, or a turn go to waste, sure, I use penalties like that to teach players, but I'd never let someone die over it, though I will tell a player when their lack of knowledge could have done that if I wasn't being nice. And I don't ever stack them! If a player has received "punishment" in the form of a stingy ruling, they gain immunity to such rulings for a bit, and I will instead correct them and refer back to the punished incident to let them know they need to learn their shit by next session. People need the opportunity to actually amend their errors if punishment is going to work. Punishment isn't an incentive, it's a powerful reminder that makes it easier for the punished to keep their mistake in mind.

*rolls a 1* ... What buttons?