So please don't take this as anything but positive. It was nice to have someone with my body type modeling clothing. You never see it. Please never change... I mean you as a person, you'll want to change your undies daily.
agree it's nice to see someone who isn't an airbrushed model selling briefs, rock on...also like...sunless citadel and nickers? Such a missed opportunity for a "where the sun doesn't shine" pun....just saying.
One of the best D&D campaigns I ever ran started with my best friend and I made Tinder accounts as characters from the world looking for adventurers lmao
I think he used his talk-2-text feature on his phone ranting about how this crazy guy that just wants to play an overly powered version of the Nameless One. That’s probably why it’s typed out as “double you tee eff” or he’s just as nuts as Mr Mattoos. I think they’re both need to get a room. 🔔🦇🔩⚾️
13:51 i love this paragraph. “As much as it might have been fun to stoop to his level. […], but that since he was now throwing insults, [proceeds to insult him]” The lack of self awareness is wonderful.
To be perfectly honest, a couple months ago i was explaining why you are my favorite DnD youtuber and a big reason was that you dont participate in the Horror Story party of the community. However, now that you do cover horror stories, i am pleased to see you cover them from the perspective of "everyone here sounds like an annoying dork. You people need to be better adults" which is what the community desperately needs yo hear.
Agreed, a lot of clips I see of RPG horror stories are people like sensationalizing or clowning but this dudes take on them is a lot more like 'just talk to eachother' type stuff
It feels like so many DnD horror stories posts are like this one where it's an extended AITA. Like the encounter with the "cringe" player lasted way longer than it should have and all the unnecessary details OP looked up about the dude's personal life makes it feel really petty like they're fishing for moral superiority in this dumb encounter. Sometimes OP is themselves the horror story.
Listening this and reading it on-screen gave me bad vibes as well. DM was polite and in the right to say "no", but I honestly wouldn't want to play with him either. The cringe player identified that "Ego-Problem" correctly i think. There is a certain level of arrogance OP gives off for sure.
I will say that for a GM or a player it's not weird to check profiles of people you're going to be playing with. You probably should make sure you're not playing with creeps etc. I agree that this specific GM was being petty about a few things.
The redditors in the comment were talking about "red flags" regarding the player but I had plenty of them regarding the writer. Basically stalking his player via social media, the low magic setting, *three hundred pages* of background info for his world, the insistance that he was super polite and courteous the whole time even though he repeatedly insulted the player in his post... it doesn't sound good We have this person's version of the events, meaning there's a high chance he might omit or add something to make himself look better, and still he managed to make himself look bad. The entire post screams that there is more to the story than the writer lets on and there might be some DnD horror stories his players have to tell
Two smug jackasses, one calling the other a smug jackass to his face, the other pretending he doesnt think hes a smug jackass but then makes a whole reddit post about how much of a smug jackass he is
I think my problem is that guy had 300 pages worth of world building but doesn't have all levels of spells mapped for each deity. If they are spells i cannot use if i worship the wrong person than i want to know before you arbitrarily decide when im the right level.
Yeah that's definitely weird. Surely AD&D has a base section where it lays out which types of gods get which spells. From there, it wouldn't be hard to compare them to your homebrew gods and go 'Well since Thor in the books gets XYZ powers, my storm god can get those. and Aphrodite is most like this other goddess, so those spells work for her.' you know? I'm making a homebrew world right now with homebrew gods, and each of them will have different classes/subclasses associated with them (though you won't HAVE to play as those to worship specific gods per se). It's really not hard.
The other issue is that he hated the magic tattoos and called them "convenient" as if the player was homebrewing them, and even added a snipe about how the player didn't "know" an AD&D rule about ASIs and said AD&D doesn't do those. AD&D *does* have ASIs, you get them through Magic Books or Wish, or the DM can reward them. And magic tattoos aren't a homebrew, they're straight up just a *thing* in AD&D, and Wizards can even get spells to make them, including Tattoos of Power which are just Spell-Storing tattoos that precast the contained spell and releases them later to bypass component and casting needs. Funnily enough, magic tattoos fit better into low magic settings than full blown clerics casually throwing around *miracles* multiple times a day, because scribing tattoos is very prohibitive in availability if you don't have a pocket Wizard (and even then it's time consuming and expensive). Dude really just wanted a reason to hate the player because the player was your bog standard ex-military bro-guy who dared to ask for a spell list, probably because it made him realize he wrote 300 pages and a website of world building but forgot to include actually relevant information for the players to use.
In 2ed deities allowed spells to their adherents according to groups called "spheres". Each spell has an indicated sphere so it's easy to cross reference which spheres your chosen deity allows access to
@KaleidosXXI not to be that guy, but while magical tattoos may be a thing in 2ed, I don't recall them, but might have been a Dark Sun thing or whatever, sounds like he was ripping the magic system right out of Margaret Weiss' Death Gate cycle, but I could be wrong. But my initial take with the 1st lvl fighter/3rd lvl cleric of Thor build sounded very munchkin-y, a self healing tank... A big weakness of 2ed is that it did lend itself to rules lawyers and munchkin murder hobo builds.
My DM loves low magic settings not because it's convenient but because the idea of "magic is scarce and thus special or feared" is something he loves, and the stories work too.
That's a hook for me too. Thematically you can do some really deep shi with it and mechanically it prevents players from throwing fireballs at every problem. ...Even though I do very much love throwing fireballs at every problem
The "cleric spell list is based on the deity's spheres of influence" thing is a basic 2E rule. Cleric spells were assigned to "spheres" like Healing, Combat, Divination, Elemental, Plant, Weather, etc. Deities granted access to a limited number of spheres, usually with 1-3 spheres as "major access" (all spells) and 3-5 as "minor access" (only up to 3rd level). Deities that grant extra special abilities or good combat (like better armor or weapons) typically had less spell access. 2E clerics were UNIQUE. You could entirely have a cleric who was a smiting beast but couldn't cast a single healing spell.
My only question is why the DM couldn’t assign pre-existing 2e spheres to their homebrew gods? Even as a guideline for the sort of spells the player could expect to have access to
@eviem5658 Yeah, that was standard practice for 2E. They had a splatbook just for priest characters that included dozens of sample faiths with spell spheres and abilities already figured out.
13:56 I love the voice transition when listening to people read 'subjective' Reddit stories, there's a clear moment when you hear they begin to lose faith with the OP
I'm always wary of AITA-type posts, as it's always from one person's perspective and they could either be intentionally making themselves look better or just actually not understand their own fault
@@friedtoads13 possible but in my opinion unlikely, sure some people want the reddit attention, but being validated about a situation where you're at least partially if not fully at fault is probably a bigger factor
@donb7519 Probably. I could write a RPGHorrorStory about someone who said they'd join, then continually flaked when it came to the actual sessions, but I don't care enough to. And that's the thing, people who had relatively straightforward conflicts don't care to share it that publically.
Nah. that guy may have been cringe but so was the DM. 300 pages IS a good excuse, especially when the guy asks you "what kinda magic does each one have" and your response is (paraphrased) "i didn't bother to think about that part" You wrote. 300 pages of lore. and gave no proper detail to how to make it, didn't you. Didn't you. We all know that's what you did. DM is just as cringe in that story for completely other reasons than the player, but both are cringe AF.
So you think that a person who has been DM'ing for 34 years is going to be bad at creating lore? It's 300 pages of info total. You don't have to read the whole thing, because most of it probably won't apply to every player. HOWEVER, he did tell that player which parts to glance at, to build their character. The player then asked for MORE info, which completely *obliterates* this argument. I mean, seriously, most D&D reference books are longer than that. Do you read every page? No. You look through the index to find what you need and just read that.
@@voxorox and when asked for the info he needed to know, he was refused that info, becuse the guy with 34 years of DMing didn't have an answer, despite writing out a BOOK. that's how i know he's bad at it. He's had 34 years to learn, and was caught off guard by someone asking him for more info and tried to make the person who asked for more info look like the bad guy for ASKING for more info.
@@voxorox it's precisely the 300 pages of homebrew that shows his incompetence, since the time taken to write all that could be used to learn a game system that better accomodates his setting 😂
@@voxorox I've been playing Pokemon since before I could read, doesn't make me an expert, or even generally good. Dude couldn't be bothered to come up with spell lists because he'd rather write a book of lore.
As long as the dm indicated which spheres each deity allowed major and minor access to, they wouldn't need to create specific lists for each deity. The player should have the wherewithal to cross reference the deity's spheres with what spells are which spheres, at least every time I played a 2ed cleric that was the case. Especially since it's as easy as "which spheres does my diety allow? Okay, it's these spells then." When the player dropped the fighter/cleric of Thor build immediately, guy sounds like a min/maxing murder hobo munchkin. That's clearly a self-healing tank build. The thing that gives it away is the dual class. 2ed clerics aren't bad fighters on their own, but he just wanted enough cleric levels to carry around a few cure light wounds spells and I bet he piled on as many Complete Fighter's Handbook specializations as possible and would just level as a fighter Edit: thought about it a little more, and yeah, total combat munchkin. I bet he specialized his fighter to have 3/2 attacks per round at level 1 as well as a comparable starting THAC0 as a 3rd or 4th level cleric, and as one of Thor, pretty sure spiritual hammer is allowed, so after casting that 1st round, he could be +1 attack every round. A little OP for level 4 if you ask me, letter of the law, sure, but not the spirit.
The thing is i actually agree with asking for a full spell list. My character concepts absolutely intertwine with the class. I have an archfey warlock that i decided to go all in on enchantment, illusions and necromancy for. Spells add to the flavour of my character. Getting told "nah just pick something" would be a turnoff for me
but aren't there lots of spells? Like, isn't it easier to draw a line at something like "no homebrew, everything else is fine" and then look for spells that will go well with this exact character and\or their god, show them to GM if they said they were fine with homebrew or other non-official sources?
@@what4521 sure, i was just basing off the fact this was already supposed to be in a low magic setting, so i too, as a player, would have assumed asking for what the spell list specifically is would be a totally reasonable request
And, taking all other aspects of the situation out of it, if you were denied that information, you walk away. That's called understanding that that game, is not the game you want to have.
I think the biggest reason why low-magic setting suck, is because they are playing a high magic game. They should just play a game that supports a low-magic setting.
D&D literally started as a Lord of the Rings game, and the default setting was low-magic Greyhawk. Dark Sun was infamously low-magic originally, to the point of being basically the Conan setting. That said, all editions after 2e are definitely not designed for that, and the game has become more high-magic (which I prefer).
@@Nomadik it wasnt low magic per say, magic could still do some wild shit and it was still way more present than LOTR. It's just that magic had more limitations to it, I'd say.
I'm cool with DnD horror stories, but I think they're best when you have someone like Spencer with you because it lets you bounce off each other. I like your new haircut.
He said in the intro he made this video because he was late with the video he planned for Sunday so he had to improvise, that means he couldn't have gotten someone else
@yaakovborovoi5905 sure, I'm not saying anything bad about this video I get that he was up against a deadline. I was speaking more generally that I think these videos work best with a co-host because he asked if we like them or not.
What was cringe for me is the OP's immediate first reaction to being asked for SPELL LISTS in your homebrew setting that you specifically changed is to get annoyed and go "I don't think you're a good fit" That's insanely passive aggressive. You can make a 300 page homebrew but can't make your own deity's spell lists??? Spells are features! This is the same as saying "there are no subclasses, actually I pick that for you based on what your backstory is" then getting mad over people asking what the subclasses are That's insane to me
Same. Bro made up a whole website of fluff and then acted entitled about it, but didn't actually bother designing mechanics. Maybe this could work out with friends, but randos? They don't owe you interest in your fantasy novel until you've proven you can run a damn game.
You know what makes this worse? 2e spell lists for Clerics are defined by spheres of influence. He literally just needed to give his Gods major and minor spheres of influence and say "Basically this", even if he wanted to make changes later, it gives the player an *idea* when they are thinking about which one they want to pick. 300 pages of lore, but apparently the Gods don't have, in 5e terms, Domains?
A few points: 1) OP seems a bit like a guy who sees himself as the hero, but the "300 page" part does make me feel like he really thinks he wrote some great book but the reality is that it's badly written, incredibly convoluted fanfic. 2) Both of them love to hear of the sound of their own voice. The fact this kept being an argument long after it had been shut down kinda reinforces that point. 3) Nomadic Baron Elric Savage is a great name. It's like a medieval wrestler.
I dont have major evidence to support this, but: from what it seemed to me, the DM's "300 page" lore doc was an organized World Anvil-style wiki thing. Youve got summaries, you've got one page apiece for each city/nation/race/legend/person. It didn't seem like the DM even wanted anyone to read the entire thing, just to locate and read the pieces they were interested in.
@@brookejon3695 Sure, expecting a new player to engage with that at all is honestly a huge red flag though. A short handout with some bullet-points is one thing, guiding someone on how to make their character fit is one thing. But the DMs job is to build the world during play, not have 300 page readings assignments. If I'm like "do you have a god of trickery" and you link me the page with the details I need, fine. And I'll happily engage with some of those pages AFTER I'm more invested in the story/characters. Asking me to read it AS THE INTRODCTION to your world is far too high an expectation. Sounds like a case of problematic player meets problematic DM.
@@Eshajori It really doesn't sound like they wanted the players to read the entire thing immediately, just enough to figure out what sort of character they wanted to make
When I first saw Mattoo Artist I just imagined a guy that makes tattoos that moves. And Im stealing that for my next campaign, where the whole plot twist reveal will be the fact, that the whole world is just some guy's Mattoo of a world, where small ink people actually evolved and he is just showing it to some random friends at a party somewhere, and they are betting on what the silly magic tattoo people will do next... Like the whole plot will be about preventing the coming of the eternal night, and it will just be this guy putting his shirt back on... that might work actually
Being upset at mattoos (either the name or the concept) is like forgetting what game you’re playing. It’s DnD. It’s full of dumb silly magical fun. God forbid someone make up their own dumb silly magical fun idea.
@@panampace They didn't even make up the magic tattoos. Those are an actual thing in AD&D, with several variety ranging from passive buffs to spell-storing, and Wizards even get spells to make them themselves. For that matter, ASIs are *also* a thing in AD&D, the DM was wrong about that ruling.
"Mattoos" reminds me of an old comic book villain called "the tattooed man", who could bring his tattoos to life. he was one of Green Lantern's worst enemies, because his tattoos were YELLOW.
Now I'm imagining Green Lantern against an army of LEGO people. Maybe even a LEGO version of himself, but it's old so it still has the yellow face. I'm also extremely curious as to where his powers determine the line between yellow and other colors.
So following on from the rant about low magic settings. I've ran a game where I went to the players and said "Alright, I wanna run a game where you can only play Human fighters, who's in?", got 4 players, of course the setting was low magic, but it wasn't for long. I designed it so that the game world used to be high magic, but something happened like 500 years ago and now it's low magic, and the plot line was essentially making the world high magic again, and the main plot thread involved the players getting magical weapons to fight magical threats. it was super fun, went from levels 1 to 11, and then we wrapped it up with a big final boss fight. Low magic can work, it just has to be done in certain ways, and introducing a player halfway through tends to cause issues in terms of balancing the magic.
I want to do something like that to where the characters research and create all the crazy the ancients couldnt dream of. But i hate low fanasty because frankly.. it a restriction.. it handcuffs to your creavitity. Often for bad reasons by a bad dm.
@@Subject_Keter Like 90% of low magic campaigns that I've ever seen don't actually ban caster PCs. It is generally just a flavour thing. With that being said, it's only really a restriction if you go into it expecting it to be like a high fantasy setting. The reason people enjoy it is because it makes you problem solve instead of just having a spell to resolve any situation you might encounter. If you've ever DMd for high level DND you know how impossible it is to make interesting obstacles other than combat for a party of casters that can just wind walk, etherealness, etc. their problems away. I would never run mechanically low magic DND because there are systems explicitly designed for that kind of game, but I understand why people do it (it's unreasonably difficult to find people willing to play anything other than DND). I think DND generally sucks for mechanically low magic because it is a nightmare to balance. Martials ironically suffer most in that kind of campaign as they are incredibly dependent on magic items to function properly.
I ran a campaign where my players were very confident in their intelligence. So, I decided to run a low magic campaign. It was me and three others. This was really helpful, too, as this was only the second campaign I've ever DM'd. It's not like magic didn't exist, though. I kept in spells that weren't traditional used for battling. Like walk on water. I even had one of the players come to me before a session started and asked if I could make to where thorn whip grabbed things instead of damaged them. This led to insane and fun escapes and encounters. This idea helped me a lot, and my players loved it.
@@Subject_KeterMy advice is: play it with a different game. Every RPG has restrictions and excluding magic from the toolkit doesn't exactly mean that you don't have many options left. All of human history proves that one can do many things without magic. The problem with low magic D&D is that you end up with an extremely clunky, unbalanced system that doesn't offer much more than the "roll 1d20+x" style of resolving challenges. As for handcuffing creativity ... people use creativity to achieve something they couldn't normally achieve. One of the things I dislike about D&D magic is that there are spells for some problems that completely negate them, so they do not leave room for creativity.
So the OP: - Is the one complaining on Reddit. - Went to check the other guy's FB at the _first sign_ of disagreement. - Put all that pointless info into his already rambling rant post. In a mocking tone too. - Kept arguing with the other guy while claiming to have taken the "high road." - Complained about the ego-thing _in particular._ Yeah, it's like 75% about OP's ego, lol.
Yeah. The big red flag for me the DM was expecting a player to read a 300 page document about the world. I would have noped so fast. I've been on and off dming for about 6 years and I don't even have 300 pages of notes for multiple campaigns combined.
It becames 100% if you put your first point at the last position. Doing all that and post complains on reddit without even noticing single issue described is 100% ego thing.
@@Floraclaw I've been DMing for 3 years, and i have 500+ pages of campaign notes alone. This guy had been DMing for 34. 300 pages of lore is 100% beliveable for someone who is actually engaged in the hobby. And it's not like it was expected to read ALL of it.
The DM went out of his way to keep this problem going. The solution was as easy as saying, "This isn't going to work. Good luck at another table." and leaving it there. The extra 10 minutes were just drama farming.
I think low magic is better used when it's like, you use magic and let your players use it, but it's viewed as unusual by larger society. Like people have weird superstions about it and don't see it often enought to really trust magic
I'm not the biggest fan of D&D horror stories, because I am pretty sure that most of them are fabricated. "Wow so this guy that no one in your group liked was ultra cringe and then your character kicked his behind and everyone clapped afterwards and then your crush fell in love with you? I can't believe it."
Yeah I get red flags from that dm too. I mean dude never even points out how it is actually pretty unreasonable to expect anyone to read 300 pages... He can write 300 pages, but not come up with spell lists for his gods? He just wants a generic backstory which seems like something he probably won't do anything with. Like no character arc. Also him replying to a comment where the commenter points out a really cool adaptation, but the dm just shuts it down like nope, no characters from other dimensions allowed! it would be cool in spelljammer he says, not his campaign though. Why? It reminds me of when I started dming and would be unreasonable strict on characters because I was worried it would interfere with the story- its actually good when it does and the player had a point about how its cool for players to give you things you can integrate into the story. also also he checked his facebook profile? Thats weird... And then he rants about it, like that has no relevance at all lol, he just wanted to insult the player.
@@SecureBirch410It is unreasonable to expect anyone to read all 300 pages however the OP mentioned there was a blurb for a rundown of how that gods magic worked. Not to mention the "find in page" function still exists and is entirely reasonable to expect someone to use it. Both the player and DM suck but using find in page to look for info is perhaps one of the lowest conceivable bars to set.
I love how Jacob in the span of a few seconds went 'Man, can you believe these guys used to just use old Norse gods in DND? Pfft, that's so... Man, that sounds great' Just so ready to roast old players just to 180 on the spot.
To be fair, Tyr is canonically a Forgotten Realms deity. Also, The Egyptian God Anubis watches over the dead gods in the astral plane IIRC I'd allow it depending on the setting
My last campaign, I flat out stole gods from a handful of video games, renamed them and reskinned them a little. - My next one I think I may draw from Native American mythology and blend it with the elven gods in Dragon Age (not all that different, from initial investigation).
@@AkyJave I'm in a campaign now where one of the players is a Paladin of Hestia, who I believe is also in the DMG so I think most of the Greek and Norse gods are considered canon to most DnD worlds.
19:32 Eberron really feels like they looked at what magic does in D&D and built the setting around that. Other D&D settings feel like they built a setting and decided to use D&D for the system as an after thought
16:42 I actually pulled this move in my most recent campaign. The DM forgot to send me the docs/info of the world until the day of Session 1 (and I forgot to ask for them), so my character thus became the Willful Idiot bard. He knows nothing and does not feel the innate desire to know anything. He’s simply vibing and being kinda pathetic. Why is this little goat man in a walled-in, heavily armed citadel that he’s not a citizen of? He stowed away in a shipping crate on a merchant boat for two weeks until it happened to park here. Why did he do that? He just failed in rescuing his long-term boyfriend from the underworld and he’s going through a lot right now emotionally. He doesn’t know why he’s here either. The DM and all the other PCs love him. He’s a sort of _tabula rasa_ that will develop alongside the story. And he knows little techniques and tricks that none of the other PCs know, since no one else has been outside of the (aggressively controlled) citadel. Most importantly, he’s not in the citizen record, so he’s effectively invisible - but also in significant danger if discovered. Basically, there’s a way to balance characters like this and make it enjoyable for everyone at the table.
6:20 Ok but if you put a restriction on what spells you can use and you told the player to ask you any questions, you can't then be frustrated when the player wants to know what spells they will be able to use
Ya i think the guy was frustrated because the player wanted him to make a spreadsheet with every single spell list for every deity. That would be hours of arduous work
@@KaineVillante except he has a 300 page website for the setting. how do you put that much labor into organizing your lore and you never made a spell list for the spheres of magic? especially when its a low magic setting? seems like the kind of thing you'd want to define
Sometimes, the OP is the horror story, as much as the person they're ranting about. Not siding with either, but the OP does come off a little up his own butt. Not sure why asking for a deity spell list was controversial, seems like relevant information for picking one.
Three hundred pages of background story for his world is a gigantic ask for a player to read. Saying "just give me a list to pick from" is not unreasonable I had red flags about the OP despite him trying to cast himself in a favorable light. Something tells me that he is not fun to play with
@@exantiuse497 Yeah, when you have an insanely detailed homebrew world AND are playing 2E... that's the warning sign also lol I'm guessing he's been building this world for 30 some odd years with that much detail.
...now I wanna play a wizard who accidentally planeshifted themself with a failed experiment from their low magic home world where they were one of the most powerful spellcasters who had gone through decades of study and practice and experimenting... Only to now be effectively like a level 2 wizard in the forgotten realms or something and just aghast and bitter at how 'easy' magic is for everybody.
14:04 If you have to say "I've been nothing but respectful" after someone calls you out on being egotistical: they are correct, you are egotistical and are now boasting like a self righteous jerk about how "respectful" you think you are, which fyi, isn't respectful.
@voxorox So, in summation, your entire gripe with my irrefutably apt observation of the OPs attitude is, "nuh uh u rong and I am offended at u". Got it.
I mean, both parties are wrong honestly. It should have all ended with DM:"That character isn't going to work, either come back with a different concept or bounce." Other Guy:Nuhu-uh I gave you a character." DM: "It doesn't fit, we aren't the game for you. We can work something out or this conversation can end." If other guy keeps responding, don't respond back. But go on about someone being called out for being egotistical. Seems like that is exactly what you are doing right now.
@@SlayingSinYou’re egotistical for calling your statement irrefutably apt when it is not. I could go up to anyone and say that they’re egotistical. If they say no, that’s egoistical? Doesn’t make sense. In this situation, both are in the wrong, but your reasoning isn’t right.
Jacobs back and forth watpad fanfic skit is what we were all thinking in the end. If I ever want to bring in a pre-made character, I always ask the DM prior about my concept and if certain homebrew is allowed within reason (I have a character who is a werewolf that has pretty balance werewolf 5e based powers). I then try and modify my character to best suit the world so we are all happy. If it doesn't work, I just make a new one.
TL;DR/DW: GM is crazy about his game, has a massive ego. Player joins that's a cringy powerplayer. Both argue, neither is correct. They argue until one probably blocked the other.
@@dngn4774 It's like a venn diagram on rpghorrorstories. Either it's a player, the dm or the audience (the reddit people) who are wrong. Sometimes, like here, two.
Tyr is still one of the main gods in the Forgotten Realms and afaik he is canonically just venturing over from our world to play god in a couple different worlds at once.
i think the ancient Egyptian gods are still there afaik were also still in pathfinder but they recently threw them all out as part of the 2e make all the lore utterly incomprehensible project (except, for some bizarre reason, Bes)
My new personal character idea: "Manly Man" Sandy Ravage, the Human Rune Knight fighter who uses "Mattoos" (the runes are used as tattoos on items) who starts with the grappler feat and later takes tavern brawler
@@MonkeyJedi99 Only if he regularly says "Did I stutter?!?" (after introducing himself and giving some command that gets ignored). Rage: "Detective Detective Savage "Savage Rage" Rage. Since this has just become a crime scene I am afraid I have to hold you here." Some random dude: "You can't do that!" Rage: "DID I STUTTER?!?"
12:40 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 If you read a DM's brief and go "oh this person's ego is enormous", why would you even TRY to get into their campaign? Like if you perceive them as self-absorbed in the stage of play where you aren't even interacting with them, why would you not expect it to get worse the moment they start actually running their game?? this man's tripping
I really like the idea of low magic settings (tho I haven't done it myself yet, so...) bc magic can be op as hell. It can be as simple as making a horrid rainstorm turn the land to mud or make mudslides, stopping an approaching army, or shooting the snake arrows from Conan, to how only so many people can use the force in Star wars. Mages might not have much use in combat, but they can be diviners, accepting gold to tell farmers how the harvest will be and how to prepare. It's more a shifty and roleplay heavy role, but I think it can work; maybe make them cheats and charlatans, able to do magic when it really counts, but most of the time, since magic is so rare, they sell a lot of snake oil, or rely on tricks like the wizard of Oz.
I like the approach in Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy (GoT with sentient food) in that it was low-magic in a sense that magic was *suppressed* instead of non-existent. There were consequences to not having subtlety in casting spells.
I mean, 3 / 3.5 had an official book that detailed deities from several irl pantheons (Greek, Norse, and Egyptian iirc). Even some of the DND official deities are pulled from irl pantheons, like Tyr in DND is pretty much pulled straight from the Norse pantheon.
Warrior who gets sent to other distant lands to fight and then comes back to get tattoos and celebrate their deeds... He just made a member of the US military didn't he
I have a low-magic setting I want to run where it doesn't limit what the players can choose, but will absolutely affect reactions to public magic use and limit how many magic users and magic items they encounter. For a truly full low-magic setting you probably want to play a different tabletop game designed with that in mind.
Yeah, the magic level of a D&D setting should really define more about how the world reacts to PCs doing magical stuff and what they might encounter, not restricting the class they can play. Maybe also restricting race/species selection but I think most settings should be doing that (or going crazy and giving every race/species a place but that's a *lot* of work)
I played in a game setting where magic was variations of frowned upon to illegal, but there was still magic and some magic items and even a few dragons. Worked quite well, I felt.
You can experiment by doing a short campaign in a world where you get a lot of cantrips but need to complete a quest (eg. get to Level 5) to unlock leveled spells.
A channel called Desks and Dorks made a fantastic low magic video recently that uses and explains it in a manner that is not burdened by the recent years of what low magic should not be. A lot of it is in fact just bad DMs but this was very uncommon pre-lockdown where it is now almost expected. It has guides for both limiting the size and scope of magic while making it still very obviously a setting with magic. A lot of times it means making a setting with no tangible at all and I really hope that ends.
The only thing worse than arbitrarily limiting player characters is not communicating what is arbitrarily limited, so players never know what they are allowed to use.
I had a player who, when I introduced him to Pathfinder 2E, asked how he could make "A character like Rimuru from Slime Diaries." And I was like, "That guy's basically a god by the end of episode 2. The adventure goes levels 1-10. You can't." To his credit he accepted that. I try to give him cool "spooky fox spirit" moments when he uses his Kitsune ancestry feats for stuff like kitsune-bi attacks or wordless intimidate checks, and that's mostly mollified him.
That wasn't their actual name, they were "magical tattoos" and "tattoos of X". But players did call them "mattoos" to differentiate between other kinds of tattoos.
You missed the perfect sponsor line opportunity. "Everyone probably would have had a better time in the Sunless Citadel if they just had some MeUndies, so they'd be comfortable where the sun don't shine."
The tattoo guy clearly didnt want to play by the op rules. You can say Khrone from 40k sucks but not make up a sexy war god who noms up Khrone followers. 😂
The idea of just ignoring part of the game as a benefit isn't really all that interesting, its just a flat buff. Aa a reward or something the players could strive for, absolutely, but just walking in and saying you have it is incredibly lame.
The player ignored the setting AND the rules. The DM shouldn’t have engaged further after that character submission though and left it at “We are not going to be a fit for you”
It's worth nothing that old D&D *was* a low magic game. Level 1 clerics, depending on the system, had either no spells at all or a single spell per day (though you might quality for a bonus spell if you have high wisdom). There's no cantrips, and Wizards need to scour the world to recover lost magic and have a high chance of failing to learn any individual spell they find - you can't just "learn fireball." So a low magic 2e world is much better suited to that version of D&D than a high magic world would be.
[That' cringe.] I don't know -- I like "mattos" as a _concept,_ but it makes very little sense in practice. Either your character spends the campaign not really having anything to do with the one activity that's supposed to define them, or your entire party basically have to be yakuza.
There's a few good ways to do it, Passive Buffs, A Tattoo that Grants you Cantrips, A method of storing your Familiar, Wizard who uses the Tattoos as Spellslots and magically inscribes them during their preperations.
@@cheesusabidas77 Just made a Thaumaturge Kaiju Hunter with an Eyeslash Tattoo. Being able to see Blood in colour while using Darkvision is super cool.
bro, that guy typed like he only DM'd 2e. I like this video enough in that I feel like both people in this post were terrible. The DM wanted to get some echo-chamber-acknowledgement, and the player wanted to force-fit his concept into a world not compatible with it. What bothers me about the DM is that the way he describes the source for magic is that he can, at any time, go "Yea, your spell doesn't go off and you don't know why. Anyway, my turn again". The player just sounded lazy and wanted a quick prior character insert into the new game and wanted the spotlight for his introduction because of how unique he was. These videos are funny because making fun of people or situations is always a good time; it helps us laugh or cringe at a bad situation and then theorize as to why that situation is happening and/or what we can do to avoid it in our own games. Keep them coming, I say.
The player himself is cringe because he is not willing to communicate and refuses to be a team player. But I refuse to agree that magic tattoos are cringe. A wizard whose spell book is just his skin? That’s fun!
Granted DM is mostly in the right ... still very much written like a true redditor. Regarding the low magic setting ... why dont you just play a different TTRPG without magic instead of taking D&D and removing half of it.
I've played in some campaigns with low magic settings and they were always set up in a way to make the magic feel more special when it did show up. One campaign I was in, there was almost no magic at all on this island we lived on, we were all fighting this massive war between the nations on the island. At the very end after we defeated the big bad we found out that magic was being suppressed/absorbed on the island by the big bad. He had used that power to keep the island secluded from the rest of the world, so when he was defeated we were suddenly unleashed into a high fantasy setting with a whole new world to explore in the next campaign. Many of us then went on the play casters after that if we didn't want to stick to our old characters. Point is, it can be done well in DnD. Also, spell casters in older editions tended to be way more mechanically complicated so this helped all of us learn the system before we jumped into spell casting in the next campaign. That's not really an issue in 5e anymore.
I should note that 2e supports the low magic stuff a lot more strongly than later editions. a high-level wizard can do incredible things with magic, yes, but early levels typically entail having like 3 spells a day and no other applicable skills, alongside comically bad health pools (full casters being a d6 is new, they used to be d4). you paid for your magic powers in *blood* in 2e
@@PlusOneGamer I mean sure it can be done and I understand if people have their preferences or simply dont like to run different system but if you already have a custom world and gods there isnt really much tying you to D&D and you might just look at a different system that does low or no magic better with additional systems to maybe supplement that. All I am saying is if you are already trying to bend a system into something it wasnt really made to do you can also take a look outside of the box to see if there is something that fits already out there.
@@chidori0117learning a new system is no small task, not to mention the fact that you are cutting your potential player base by a huge amount running anything but D&D. The number of players that will choose a “D&D” game - no matter how much it has been warped out of true with the “intended” setting - over any of the other systems that might do what that game is setting out to do ten thousand times better can’t be overstated.
@@chidori0117 I don't think it's necessary to go out and look for another system. Like you said, you can tune the system to the way you want to play it. As long as everyone is on the same page and is having fun that's all that's really important. You have to also remember, DnD is very accessible. Now a days new systems are a dime a dozen, but this guy is playing a system he is comfortable with that he has already learned and feels confident he can manage. 34 years ago when he started dming how many other ttrpgs were out there? I don't know myself, but I can't imagine they were easy to find. For my group back when I was in highschool, all we had were dnd books. That's all we could find, so we played 3.5. Every campaign we did was in 3.5 and if we wanted to do something we just tried to make it work within the rules. I think it comes down to the comfort of the system, the familiarity, and the accessibility.
Tbh there's like a 0.001% chance that this DM finds somebody for his campaign which lore is basically a book you have to read before trying to fit into it
I played a 5e homebrew where all of our characters were tied to the Greek pantheon in some way. My half-elf bard was a forgotten son of Dionysius. We were all estranged from the deity we chose, and not necessarily blood related to them, so none of our characters knew that the others had this shared history when they first met. Some of them were not even aware of their own connection at all. We ended up being recruited to the same adventuring party because all of us seemed to exhibit special gifts noticed by others, given our secret links to the Olympians. Over time, our characters would reveal more about their relationships and their powers, and discover the hidden threads that tied them all together. It was super fun, I recommend it to anyone looking to bring some earth-based mythology into their games
When I run low magic settings, it has no bearing on what the players can and can't do or what classes they can use, just on how the world reacts to the magic they have, and how rare or valuable the magic they possess is. In other words, in low magic settings, the main characters are just more special.
“It’s a low magic game, so you can’t play a caster” - Limiting - Boring - A cowards attempt to not have to deal with a good wizard player “It’s a low magic game, so you very well may be the only person alive who can cast fireball” - Leaves room for all classes - Gives players expectations to base their characters around and societal expectations that they can play with - Makes the Wizard player feel cool as sh%t
@@walliam5506 "it's a low magic game so there are no casters" - a challenge to make something interesting within the limitations - it's only boring if you lack the imagination to make something interesting aka YOU THE PLAYER are what's boring - is a bold, potentially-interesting creative choice in world-building "it's a low-magic world, but you players can be reborn tiefling paladin/sorceror super-special boys in it!" - eliminates freedom to make settings that aren't cotton candy TikTok spellcasting carnivals - gives players free reign to do whatever they want without regard for DM's hard work and interesting ideas in world-building - 42 out of 48 D&D 2024 subclasses are spellcasters, so no, the wizard player doesn't "feel cool as sh%t" because he has spells
@@pintspeasants3231 Its DnD Low magic is boring because of the whole system is made for magic. Quite literally what you point out in your second comment.
@@pintspeasants3231 I mean, different strokes for different folks I suppose. If you enjoy low magic games then more power to you, but I personally just don’t like being told I’m not allowed to use like 3/4ths of the game at the start (more if you start limiting lineages). I think saying that I’m the boring one for that is kinda unnecessary lmao.
@@erens208 It's not the D&D that it used to be. That's MY point. The system used to be able to be low, high, mid, or even non-fantasy. Now there is one mode, unless you want to erase 7/8's of the classes, and all of those classes cast pretty much exactly the same. Why did they make it like this? So that everyone is a special boy.
the irony that the player didnt want to create something that fit in in the DM's world. ive had so many character ideas for 5e I can easily flush out to fit into a specific setting. the irony for me is that it seems whenever I ask my DMs for information on the setting they are hesitant to give me information, like telling me world somehow ruin the surprised of the campaign. though I can also understand if its that it was too early to ask and they were still working out the details of the world and dont have anything concrete
From my experience that kind of thing does come from a place of not wanting to spoil the 'surprise' of discovering things in-game. The issue with this line of thought is that if the players don't know anything at all about the setting, it's hard for them to find their place in it. IMO the best thing to do is give a short rundown of all the different parts, only go into detail that the average person would know for the parts the players are interested in potentially linking to, and let the players organically discover the rest. There's no real reason to try and hide basic details about the setting from the players, it won't really spoil much in-game when everything comes to life.
Ooh, yeah. A DM doesn't want to share ANY info, and then tells you your character idea won't work without telling you why. Getting into a campaign should not be a session of Deal or No Deal, hoping to get the right briefcase, I mean character, by blind luck.
I would absolutely allow a player to have a character that's from another world, and I would absolutely NOT allow them the ability to return TO that other world in the early levels. You wanna go back home? Earn the ability to cast Plane Shift then. A character that's stranded in another world is a really cool concept to me.
@theuncalledfor honestly it's kinda funny, I feel like the "from another world" part of the character could have been removed and it would still be the same character Flavor the mattoos as how they cast magic. Whether it be runes, or just have them be tattoos that fade/disappear as you run out of spell slots. Heck you could even keep the part of wanting to celebrate every victory by having said character send letters home to their village/family/clan detailing their adventures Yeah I get the campaign was a low magic/no magic campaign. But idk say they still have to use materials/say the spell vocally, and flavor the tattoos as miracles from their god, with each one being a feat the god/pc did on their journey.
As unreasonable as the player is. The DM is just as horrible. You cannot expect anyone to read 300 pages of information about your world. Ever. Your game is not a standard game. Your game is a HIGHLY modified game that shares basically nothing with a standard DnD ruleset. I hate both of them and I wouldn't want to play with either.
Setting up a wildemount campaign... Player: i want to make a cleric who uses int instead of wis. Me, DM: Ok thats great. Player: And their from a different dimension. Me: ok... in the dynasty that sorta makes you jesus, which is interesting, we can work it out... Player: And all their spells are instead technology granted to them by a council from their original universe. Me: Could it stay spells and be from a council of super wizards? There is a war going on in the setting, and if anyone finds out you have a hoard of super tech on the level of spellcasting they are going to hunt you down for it. Player: No, that ruins the character, i will make something else. Me: *pain*
Had a fun campaign where playing casters was fine and encouraged, but magic was illegal in the setting, and getting caught had consequences. All depends on what the group likes and how it's implemented.
I also played in a game like that, though unfortunately only very briefly because I was an immature 14-year-old who was more interested in playing a specific character than playing the DM's game, much like the person in this post coincidentally. Difference is I was 14 and they seem to be a fully grown adult.
@@theuncalledfor Oh, yeah, they were the bad guys for sure. Many hijinks ensued, allying with the "evil" neighboring nation to topple the corrupt rulers. A classic.
personally I love the stories and hearing your perspective. Its mature and you actually try to consider where the person might be coming from on both ends without knowing both stories, which is hard. Also you toss in a laugh or two and that is much needed right now. Bottom line if you're having fun I think we will all love it! :)
So as a DM I prefer low magic settings personally. I also don't run them in DnD where a low magic setting invalidates half the system, and I need to try to duct type an excuse as to how the Wizard works now. Pick a system that works with the story your trying to tell, don't try to hotfix a system that dosen't run on your rules to run on them.
@@stargateproductions That does make sense. Though I still do reccomend to broaden ones horizon on ttrpg. Like, if dnd was burgers, then ye, burgers are great, tasty, all that, but you gotta taste something else at some point. There is a whole culinary world out there.
300 pages of lore is WAY TOO MUCH! I've been running the same homebrew world for my D&D games for almost 10 years. I don't give a detailed lore and what not about my world to my players when we get together for session 0. I give them a brief run down of the adventure, a paragraph at most. Then they make characters. After that, I give them the world map, with countries and cities, and places of interest. Depending on the backstory my players wrote for their PC we work TOGETHER on where their PC would have been originally from. I'll ask them for 2-3 NPCs that their PC knows, and I'll give them 2 NPCs of my own and a short backstory to work with my players and expand their PCs backstory. If they want their NPC to be this person of power, BAM the NPC mayor for this town I created is now replaced with the player's NPC. Then we talk about the important places and the history and culture of the place where they would like their PC to hail from, making sure they are fine with how this nation of their birth would act in this world. Again, depending on the PC's backstory, I'll give them more info about lore and history of the world. But everyone gets the basic lore. Some nations have their own history to tell, twisting the actual lore of the world. So each PC would have a different world view. It's up to them to learn more about the world as they adventure. I don't share my 300 pages of lore. I give little bits of it to my players if they are interested or wants inspiration. The rests unfolds in game, through their adventures. Shoving a 300 page lore in the face of your players is a sure fire way to push them away, or ignore your rich lore cause no one is reading 300 pages of anything, and make their own character idea. Ease them in, make sure they are part of this world and can contribute to the world. Nothing is set in stone. This DM feels like he just want his story his way, and to me. That's boring. He should write a book instead.
If I tried to join a table and was sent 300 pages of lore I would nope out immediately. It's fine to have a lot of background material in stash but sending it to players in one piece like a one novel is just going to intimidate them
Tbf, he never said he expected or all to be read, just that it was avaliable to read. He could've picked a race, nation, and class, and read the lore on those while reading the blurb that OP said was at the start of it all. He mentioned the blurb like twice making me think he would've been fine with just that.
Like even if the guy had read all of it... he just flatly rejected it all with a character for a different table 😂 But the guy was like "read the intro and whatever you think is interesting."
@StuffSayoSays bro your comment is almost 300 pages... you ever read an old campaign setting book from basically any edition before this one? Or read any long running fantasy series? If you get only medium depth into world-building, 300 pages is nothing.
My experience with ppl who say they want to play a low magic game is that they are playing 5e when they really want to be playing something like B/X. They can't convince the players to play that game so instead try to "low magic" and restrict 5e. This runs into a culture clash between those who cut their teeth on 5e and its more superhero-type characters and those who love old-school gaming where your equipment and your problem-solving skills as a player are more important to the likelihood that the character lives or not. Can 5e work in a low magic setting - yes it's D&D and it's like clay you can push and form it however you like - however the expectations of the player base are going to push back.
1. The idea of a character who's tasked with plundering different worlds and planes could actually be kind of cool. Like maybe he starts to grow attached to the world he's supposed to be plundering and gets in trouble with his own people for perceived insubordination and defection. Or maybe he gets exiled or for some reason gets stuck in this new world and now has to survive and cope with the prospect of potentially never going home. There's a cool story to be had here...I don't think it's appropriate for joining someone else's table with. Especially not people you've never played with. If you've already played with these people and are familiar with their setting, then you could potentially have a really good time with the concept. 2. "As much as it might have been fun to stoop to his level, I stayed high road." My dude: you have stalked his facebook, conducted ad hominem attacks about his personal life and posts that have nothing to with your game or DnD in general, and are now flogging and berating him on Reddit. You have not taken the high road in the slightest.
Currently setting up everything for my next year's Eberron game, and you're 100% right on High Fantasy getting ignored for constant Low Fantasy games. Eberron's high fantasy is because most world level magic plateaus at about Lv3 spells, but they're accessible to most rich countries. The downside? Higher level magic takes more people to cast. Even in that setting, a level 1 player is leagues above, just because they don't have to ritual cast everything they do like Magewrights for 3 hours. DMs explaining how strong a lv1 player normally starts as is a good way to have great integrated players/stories, without em resorting to the "I was a badass Lv17 super laser lord, but a mattoo artist lich sapped me back to lv1."
Lower magic settings can be fun if done well. Most people don't do it well, however. If you can run it well it's fine, but I agree that most people just don't want to deal with magic bullshit that derails their campaign and "screw you for doing the very thing your character was made for." It's just weird. I'm currently running a spell-point based game with lessened magic, which is to mean that spell points come back slower, but all spells are available, and there are ways to mitigate using spell points, such as burning extra material components. Players have to be more careful with what magic spells they cast, but are otherwise unlimited in what they cast, and I enjoy creative uses of the spell. And we all enjoy when a player goes "this is a hail mary, I cast fireball!"
Not really a cringe story, but something that sort of ruined the artificer class for me personally, My long time group and I played a campaign of ghosts of saltmarsh, but in all honestly, we... made a terrible mistake in not doing a session 0. Our party consisted of a Bard, a sorcerer, a wizard, my artificer, and a barbarian. the sorcerer was a divine soul sorcerer, I was playing alchemist artificer, and the wizard was going abjuration, so we had 4 support characters, and 1 tank. But what ruined it for me is that, my character was the artificer, so they were really good at doing intelligence stuff and crafting, when the wizard wanted to do some enchanting, but because I had the stroke of inspiration ability... I ended up outshining and outperforming the wizard in almost every possible way. this led to the wizard having a really crappy time while I was just doing everything they wanted to be able to do. I have aspergur's syndrome, so did not realize this was the case until very late in the game. after our campaign there ended, I just had a bad taste in my mouth ever since, even nowadays having a personal paranoia of the same thing happening again, where my tendancy to try and become as optimal as possible ends up making another player feel obsolete. I still play with them, They are a fantastic group and I love our adventures together, but ever since saltmarsh, I've been stuck in this sort of limbo of "Am I overshadowing another player? am I doing things too well? Are the others having fun through my actions?" It's not a fun mentality to have, but I've started to sort of break the mold with our more recent curse of strahd campaign.
To be honest with you, this is as much everyone's fault as it was yours. Not having a session 0 will mean that there are a few overlaps in niche/purpose and I mean... go figure the crafting class excels at that. Luckily I've only been in campaigns where people share what they're up to and we can build around each other instead of against each other, maybe in part because I always yap too much about how I'm building my characters. Don't beat yourself up too much, it happens, and maybe wasn't as big of a deal as you might think since you guys are still going strong.
If I was the Wizard, I would have approached you to work together on crafting magic items. The Wizard can provide magic theory expertise and access to higher level spells. The Artificer aids with implementing the higher level magic into items. A good DM would cooperate and allow us to work together. What is the point of saying this? The point is that it's on them for failing to grasp the opportunity presented to them.
Oh, we did work together, it's just... Well, as the wizard's player put it, It really ended up feeling like I was doing all the work, and his character was given a "Draw in the lines page" This was only a personal issue, as Saltmarsh... had a multitude of problems with the campaign we ran. Seriously, a major plot point we had was that the wizard's father was kidnapped by the sea princes, which was mentioned in the module... and never got brought up again, Even MORE rediculous is that we found out half a year into the campaign, that the sea prince's domain was landlocked. overall, it was a multitude of problems in that campain that ruined it for most of us, but We have learned our lesson, and have done session 0s since. but even then, it's still a paranoia of mine of having that happen again, so i've been trying to be careful." Our dm did what little he could, but honestly, with how much the module book clashed with the story we were trying to make with it, I don't blame him for being mentally exhausted by the end. We all were. But, that's behind us now, and we've started having fun in curse of strahd... Granted, none of us are using official material, instead opting for 3rd party content to make it more enjoyable.
For all who wish to make an edgelord or over the top character with serious intentions, I am here to let you know that making goofy and silly and totally unserious characters is waaaaay more fun. And if you do make a cringe and edgy character, try your best to make it as funny as possible without ruining the vision. “Dark Shadowblaster puts up his hood and decides to lean against the wall away from the group… but he trips and falls with his ass in the air, revealing he has a tramp stamp mattoo. He quickly stands up and leans against the wall properly and hopes nobody saw, trying to act cool and mysterious again… but everyone saw.” In other words, you play the character unseriously but the character thinks they are totally serious and mysterious and cool.
I 100% agree with this. I like having a gag associated with my characters, and even the "Serious" ones are still played unseriously. My current character is a Goliath Fighter with the Dead background from WorldBuilderBlog who only communicates in groans, moans and grunts (Think Zombie Brand from League Of Legends). 2 of his party members are Paladins. A few years back I ran a wizard who sustained a brain injury during battle and became a hermit. If he rolled a Natural 1/20, a wild magic surge would occur resulting in a giant fire elemental being released from its magic shackles. Or the time I accidentally turned my party member invisible
I view these videos like how many indie horror mascot games release ARGS or how games give you dlc. Its extra content to tide me over till the next big thing. And good background video not requiring my eyes always for work or cooking. Keep it up, hunk!
I recently was running Sunless Citadel with my friends but was proactive knowing the dangers, and MeUndies hooked me and my party up. Everyone was able to quickly change their underpants after an unexpected situation transpired.
Gorthag the Gunslinger, worshiper of Jesus Christ would be an awesome Sorlock concept. Since Sorlock can get 6-Eldritch blasts at lvl 11 and Jesus Christ can just be your patron.
16:00 I found that you can do this, but under two very important circumstances. One, the character has to be intrinsically motivated to follow an adventuring party no matter what shenanigans they get into which usually involves being chaotic or just worryingly carefree. And two, you CANNOT do this in a world like this one where the DM has a very clear cut idea of what the world should be like, and that idea varies quite a lot from a standard DnD world.
Level 1 fighter, level 3 cleric? So this is a human dual-class character who either did three levels of cleric before switching to fighter or one level of fighter before switching to cleric, it's not clear from how it's presented here. Either way they're going to have it rough. For those not in the know, once you dual-class there's no going back. In the case of a 1st-level fighter (former 3rd-level cleric), what we have here is a 1st-level fighter with some extra hit points who can't use their clerical abilities before reaching level 3 as a fighter (which doesn't take as long as you'd think because you use a separate experience table for each class). In the case of a 3rd-level cleric (former 1st-level fighter) we have a 3rd-level cleric with even less extra hit points but the full ability to use all their fightery powers of… nothing that a 3rd-level cleric doesn't also have. Maybe weapon specialization?
Fighter 1 into cleric 3 is flat out illegal combination, you must have at least 2 levels in a class before dual-classing. Usually you say the class you duelled from first but in this case the combination is illegal which an experienced 2e DM should have recognised Cleric 3 into fighter 1 is a nonsensical choice. You do not gain but lose HP from having 3 cleric levels instead of just having 4 levels of fighter because clerics roll d8 for HP instead of d10 for fighters. Not only that, you gain cleric's weapon restrictions (no slashing or piercing weapons). All that in exchange for... 2 1st level spells and 1 2nd level spell. And you don't even get those before activating the cleric class at fighter 4. That character is basically dead weight until at least 3 levels have been obtained and after that it's barely better than a regular fighter, but at least it's a legal combination
@@exantiuse497 I did wonder if there was some restriction on dual-classing at 1st level but was too lazy to check. And by extra hit points I mean in comparison to a 1st-level fighter, which is what the character is in all other respects. So yeah I don't buy for a second that this guy has ever played AD&D, especially after asking if he gets an ability score increase.
@@mikkosimonen Agreed; Fighter1/Anything3 is basically a 3.5 staple, taking fighter for extra hp and an extra starting feat to add to the other class. I'm guessing he basically went "it's D&D, how different could it be?!?"
When I started playing with my most recent group, we had a few different campaigns running and would swap between them during each week, cycling through each setting and back to another, to give our DMs a break to play PCs. During one of these settings, I was told during character creation that my warlock I had created would be entering a brief period where the city we were in would have little to no access to magic, as it was outlawed in the city we were in. This didn't feel like a problem at first- the intrigue of hiding magic was fun, and casting while concealing myself was neat. Unfortunately, we were soon placed under 24/7 surveillance via personal security cameras (flavored for the setting) and I spent roughly 6 months absolutely unable to play my character. I was devastated. Everything interesting about the concept of 'a mage hiding their identity' had been stripped away, leaving me almost completely unable to play my character I had created.
Big oof, I relate a lot. I once rolled up to a game with two ideas, a wizard and a cleric. The DM encouraged me to play wizard, because "we'd need a mage on deck", then revealed in session 5 that arcane magic is illegal. Everything I did was an issue somehow from that point on: even buying spell components was hard and wasted loads of time and energy, so I took a bone from a fallen foe to carve into a wand. Flavour! Once I was done, the DM said that because it was a demon's bone, the wand was cursed. It wasn't even magical! There were no benefits! But it needed a drawback, because I was no longer wasting huge chunks of playtime going from shop to shop asking for individual components and wasting everyone's time 🙃
Ive had one of those character creation dudes before. I had a dude show up for a homebrew game using only books I own. Even stated the ones. Dude was expecting Tal'Dorei content was on the table (its not) and whined like a baby about how "if I can't cast two spells a turn I'm gonna be useless as a caster." (Spelldriver feat from Tal'Dorei let's you cast a spell as an action and bonus action.)
After taking a look at the feat, it does at least restrict when you can take it to Level 11 and also limits you to third level or lower spells for the second spell, but I'm still not a fan of that lol
@expikah yeah, you combo it with Moon Domain Cleric (Tal'Dorei) that can concentrate on two spells from their expanded spell list you can cast Greater Invis and Hypnotic Pattern to just end an encounter. But Tal'Dorei stuff aside, the main thing was he was too lazy to read the post and the fact he whined that he needed two spells to be useful as a caster tells me I didn't want that player in my game.
was he tryna play a sorcerer? because from what i can find all spell driver does is lighten up the the limitation on your ability to use your action to cast a leveled spell after using your bonus action to cast a spell. it doesn't actually grant you the ability to cast spells as a bonus action.
I had the same thing happen to me but the DM and other players refused to tell me anything useful to understanding the campaign and would get upset when I ‘derailed’ the game with what limited information I could get. I got kicked out by the DM for ‘not following the lore.’ Imagine getting kicked out of a game for not knowing things or playing the game in a ‘problematic’ way when everyone deliberately refused to share anything that could’ve helped. I even reached out the DM looking for clarity and reaching something amicable to everyone; they refused.
So right here 2:26 right after he said “You should also watch this at 3am”, the YT app crashed on my phone and I took it as a sign that I was watching this video at the wrong time.
personally I don't enjoy ttrpg horror stories that much. I much rather hear about cool and funny things that happen in D&D with people having fun than cringe and irl drama but thats just me and understand some people enjoy it.
I like the goofy player plans that work and the feel good stories of campaigns wrapping up, also not too big a fan of AITA: dnd version. Not much can really be said about them other than "you're both wrong" or "seems like op might be leaving out details, But..."
Agree however if there is a really good horror story I wouldnt mind hearing it once in a while. Most of them though, like this one, are not really "good" so could do without.
@@jacobellis2313 yea, there can be occasional horror stories that are fun. This channel is great with variety with a bunch of different storu types can content.
It can be both sometimes. I admit to having done an exact thing that Jacob mentioned where I basically tried to bring back an old character of mine into a new system; The basic framework of my idea was always "character with max possible move speed, combined with some sort of pounce attack and/or wild-shape or were-form thing". I did end up working with my dm to try to homebrew some way to get more movespeed, due to... I think it was 5E? Not having half as many ways to boost it. Granted, this was with someone I knew a bit more personally, and I was trying to still fit the game and setting. But yeah, I just love playing that old hyper character with ridiculous movespeed, and the fact that the last version of them I made (barbarian1/druid8) ended up rather powerful was a nice bonus. That version never did manage the 80+ jump bonus though... alas.
8:08 my UA-cam played an ironic ad immediately after this so I heard... "Mattoo artist aka magical tattoos!-Hand crafted by artistans..." and I thought you were doing a skit about him being a magical tattoo artist. 😂
Kick off lounge season with MeUndies and get 20% off your first order, plus free shipping, at MeUndies.com/fireball, enter promo code: fireball.
So please don't take this as anything but positive. It was nice to have someone with my body type modeling clothing. You never see it. Please never change... I mean you as a person, you'll want to change your undies daily.
agree it's nice to see someone who isn't an airbrushed model selling briefs, rock on...also like...sunless citadel and nickers? Such a missed opportunity for a "where the sun doesn't shine" pun....just saying.
3:40 the gods of real world mythology are an available option for 5E, they're listed in the players handbook
As a person who grew up and even played AD&D your better off not knowing anything about it or playing it trust me
@@DarthKilaj85I don't think it would even work these days. The ten foot pole is seen as wasting time these days, and I don't disagree.
"So i sent out a DND ad on facebook" Your first mistake.
Still better than reddit
Actually facebook has a ton of good, hobby related groups. No matter what your hobby. Minis, dnd, costuming, model making, movie prop making, etc.
I guess, but where the hell are you going to find 2e players?
@@GrimGearheart Yeah, agreed, there's some p decent fb groups
One of the best D&D campaigns I ever ran started with my best friend and I made Tinder accounts as characters from the world looking for adventurers lmao
I feel like someone who chooses to type out "double you tee eff" has no business being upset about the word mattoos.
Honestly that upset me way more than anything the player did
And why 'you'? It's such a strange mix of onomatopoeia and actual words.
I think he used his talk-2-text feature on his phone ranting about how this crazy guy that just wants to play an overly powered version of the Nameless One. That’s probably why it’s typed out as “double you tee eff” or he’s just as nuts as Mr Mattoos. I think they’re both need to get a room. 🔔🦇🔩⚾️
@@KanchidoShinokyoufu i get screwball, but bell bat?
@@DucksAndCatnip dingbat i used my last brain cell to solve that
I kept thinking “and then they kissed” whilst reading this telenovela-level drama so I’m glad Jacob had that same thought. 🤣
And comes in through the front door, a guy wearing a huge sombrero riding a donkey while playing his guitar & singing a wonderful ballad.
And then Careless Whisper plays
"Telenovella-level"
Nice alliteration!
13:51 i love this paragraph. “As much as it might have been fun to stoop to his level. […], but that since he was now throwing insults, [proceeds to insult him]”
The lack of self awareness is wonderful.
To be perfectly honest, a couple months ago i was explaining why you are my favorite DnD youtuber and a big reason was that you dont participate in the Horror Story party of the community. However, now that you do cover horror stories, i am pleased to see you cover them from the perspective of "everyone here sounds like an annoying dork. You people need to be better adults" which is what the community desperately needs yo hear.
Underrated comment
Agreed, a lot of clips I see of RPG horror stories are people like sensationalizing or clowning but this dudes take on them is a lot more like 'just talk to eachother' type stuff
AKA I didn’t like a thing until someone I liked did it and no you guys it’s totally fine and okay when they do it!
OH god, exactly. Yes, you nailed it.
@@kev_whatev he's doing it differently. he's being neutral and fair to both sides
It feels like so many DnD horror stories posts are like this one where it's an extended AITA. Like the encounter with the "cringe" player lasted way longer than it should have and all the unnecessary details OP looked up about the dude's personal life makes it feel really petty like they're fishing for moral superiority in this dumb encounter. Sometimes OP is themselves the horror story.
Listening this and reading it on-screen gave me bad vibes as well. DM was polite and in the right to say "no", but I honestly wouldn't want to play with him either. The cringe player identified that "Ego-Problem" correctly i think.
There is a certain level of arrogance OP gives off for sure.
Alot of DnD players have zero social ability or awareness. And many DMs are egotists. Everyone in this situation was wrong.
I will say that for a GM or a player it's not weird to check profiles of people you're going to be playing with. You probably should make sure you're not playing with creeps etc. I agree that this specific GM was being petty about a few things.
The redditors in the comment were talking about "red flags" regarding the player but I had plenty of them regarding the writer. Basically stalking his player via social media, the low magic setting, *three hundred pages* of background info for his world, the insistance that he was super polite and courteous the whole time even though he repeatedly insulted the player in his post... it doesn't sound good
We have this person's version of the events, meaning there's a high chance he might omit or add something to make himself look better, and still he managed to make himself look bad. The entire post screams that there is more to the story than the writer lets on and there might be some DnD horror stories his players have to tell
@@exantiuse497even just refusing to give the player spell lists for each pantheon was a red flag for the DM
In the red corner: Neckbeard
In the blue corner: Neckbeard
Two smug jackasses, one calling the other a smug jackass to his face, the other pretending he doesnt think hes a smug jackass but then makes a whole reddit post about how much of a smug jackass he is
LEEEEEEEEEETS GET READY TO UM ACKSHUALLLLLLYYYYYYYY!
*Bell rings*
@@graveyardoperations7407 UM ACKSHUALLY YOU SHOULDN'T USE A BELL IN THIS 21st CENTURY, YOU SHOULD USE A VOICE THAT SAYS GO.
Grognard vs Anime Fan, Fight!
This. This right here.
Listen all I’m saying is that Gorthag a half orc gunslinger who worships Jesus is an amazingly badass character
Agreed. It’s the kinda stupidity that would fit in well with Hellsing, which I’m down for
@@kaimcdragonfist4803was literally about to say it sounds like a hellsing character
If he doesn't have the _HEAVIEST_ Texan accent, I would be immeasurably disappointed.
@ if you can understand a SINGLE string of words, then you’re not doing the accent right.
Also, his full name has to be "Gorthag, a half orc gunslinger who worships Jesus", not just "Gorthag".
I think my problem is that guy had 300 pages worth of world building but doesn't have all levels of spells mapped for each deity. If they are spells i cannot use if i worship the wrong person than i want to know before you arbitrarily decide when im the right level.
Yeah that's definitely weird. Surely AD&D has a base section where it lays out which types of gods get which spells. From there, it wouldn't be hard to compare them to your homebrew gods and go 'Well since Thor in the books gets XYZ powers, my storm god can get those. and Aphrodite is most like this other goddess, so those spells work for her.' you know? I'm making a homebrew world right now with homebrew gods, and each of them will have different classes/subclasses associated with them (though you won't HAVE to play as those to worship specific gods per se). It's really not hard.
The other issue is that he hated the magic tattoos and called them "convenient" as if the player was homebrewing them, and even added a snipe about how the player didn't "know" an AD&D rule about ASIs and said AD&D doesn't do those. AD&D *does* have ASIs, you get them through Magic Books or Wish, or the DM can reward them. And magic tattoos aren't a homebrew, they're straight up just a *thing* in AD&D, and Wizards can even get spells to make them, including Tattoos of Power which are just Spell-Storing tattoos that precast the contained spell and releases them later to bypass component and casting needs. Funnily enough, magic tattoos fit better into low magic settings than full blown clerics casually throwing around *miracles* multiple times a day, because scribing tattoos is very prohibitive in availability if you don't have a pocket Wizard (and even then it's time consuming and expensive).
Dude really just wanted a reason to hate the player because the player was your bog standard ex-military bro-guy who dared to ask for a spell list, probably because it made him realize he wrote 300 pages and a website of world building but forgot to include actually relevant information for the players to use.
In 2ed deities allowed spells to their adherents according to groups called "spheres". Each spell has an indicated sphere so it's easy to cross reference which spheres your chosen deity allows access to
@KaleidosXXI not to be that guy, but while magical tattoos may be a thing in 2ed, I don't recall them, but might have been a Dark Sun thing or whatever, sounds like he was ripping the magic system right out of Margaret Weiss' Death Gate cycle, but I could be wrong.
But my initial take with the 1st lvl fighter/3rd lvl cleric of Thor build sounded very munchkin-y, a self healing tank...
A big weakness of 2ed is that it did lend itself to rules lawyers and munchkin murder hobo builds.
if you can't adapt to what you don't know yet and want the safety of lists, you should stick to video games
My DM loves low magic settings not because it's convenient but because the idea of "magic is scarce and thus special or feared" is something he loves, and the stories work too.
That's a hook for me too. Thematically you can do some really deep shi with it and mechanically it prevents players from throwing fireballs at every problem.
...Even though I do very much love throwing fireballs at every problem
Literally every story trope that people write to be edgy. But in reality it is overdone especially after ASOIAF.
@@BladeValant546 so are you agreeing or disagreeing.... or are you just lost
@@topasu9454they’re pointing out that it’s a lazy trope.
Eh. Usually used so. Oh my bad guy has magic but you dont
The "cleric spell list is based on the deity's spheres of influence" thing is a basic 2E rule. Cleric spells were assigned to "spheres" like Healing, Combat, Divination, Elemental, Plant, Weather, etc. Deities granted access to a limited number of spheres, usually with 1-3 spheres as "major access" (all spells) and 3-5 as "minor access" (only up to 3rd level). Deities that grant extra special abilities or good combat (like better armor or weapons) typically had less spell access.
2E clerics were UNIQUE. You could entirely have a cleric who was a smiting beast but couldn't cast a single healing spell.
Thank you, I was looking to see if anyone mentioned this.
2e clerics could be ultimate badasses, much moreso than in 5e ime
My only question is why the DM couldn’t assign pre-existing 2e spheres to their homebrew gods? Even as a guideline for the sort of spells the player could expect to have access to
@eviem5658 Yeah, that was standard practice for 2E. They had a splatbook just for priest characters that included dozens of sample faiths with spell spheres and abilities already figured out.
@@eviem5658 I assumed the DM did that, but the player asked for a list of all the spells that entailed for each deity, instead.
13:56 I love the voice transition when listening to people read 'subjective' Reddit stories, there's a clear moment when you hear they begin to lose faith with the OP
I'm always wary of AITA-type posts, as it's always from one person's perspective and they could either be intentionally making themselves look better or just actually not understand their own fault
@@stevbe1723or the more likely option, they made that whole shit up
@@friedtoads13 possible but in my opinion unlikely, sure some people want the reddit attention, but being validated about a situation where you're at least partially if not fully at fault is probably a bigger factor
@@stevbe1723i'd agree if this really was an aita post. But in rpghorror stories the idea is that you already see yourself as the "victim"
@donb7519 Probably. I could write a RPGHorrorStory about someone who said they'd join, then continually flaked when it came to the actual sessions, but I don't care enough to. And that's the thing, people who had relatively straightforward conflicts don't care to share it that publically.
Nah. that guy may have been cringe but so was the DM. 300 pages IS a good excuse, especially when the guy asks you "what kinda magic does each one have" and your response is (paraphrased) "i didn't bother to think about that part"
You wrote. 300 pages of lore. and gave no proper detail to how to make it, didn't you. Didn't you. We all know that's what you did.
DM is just as cringe in that story for completely other reasons than the player, but both are cringe AF.
So you think that a person who has been DM'ing for 34 years is going to be bad at creating lore?
It's 300 pages of info total. You don't have to read the whole thing, because most of it probably won't apply to every player. HOWEVER, he did tell that player which parts to glance at, to build their character. The player then asked for MORE info, which completely *obliterates* this argument.
I mean, seriously, most D&D reference books are longer than that. Do you read every page? No. You look through the index to find what you need and just read that.
@@voxorox and when asked for the info he needed to know, he was refused that info, becuse the guy with 34 years of DMing didn't have an answer, despite writing out a BOOK.
that's how i know he's bad at it. He's had 34 years to learn, and was caught off guard by someone asking him for more info and tried to make the person who asked for more info look like the bad guy for ASKING for more info.
@@voxorox it's precisely the 300 pages of homebrew that shows his incompetence, since the time taken to write all that could be used to learn a game system that better accomodates his setting 😂
@@voxorox I've been playing Pokemon since before I could read, doesn't make me an expert, or even generally good. Dude couldn't be bothered to come up with spell lists because he'd rather write a book of lore.
As long as the dm indicated which spheres each deity allowed major and minor access to, they wouldn't need to create specific lists for each deity. The player should have the wherewithal to cross reference the deity's spheres with what spells are which spheres, at least every time I played a 2ed cleric that was the case. Especially since it's as easy as "which spheres does my diety allow? Okay, it's these spells then."
When the player dropped the fighter/cleric of Thor build immediately, guy sounds like a min/maxing murder hobo munchkin. That's clearly a self-healing tank build. The thing that gives it away is the dual class. 2ed clerics aren't bad fighters on their own, but he just wanted enough cleric levels to carry around a few cure light wounds spells and I bet he piled on as many Complete Fighter's Handbook specializations as possible and would just level as a fighter
Edit: thought about it a little more, and yeah, total combat munchkin. I bet he specialized his fighter to have 3/2 attacks per round at level 1 as well as a comparable starting THAC0 as a 3rd or 4th level cleric, and as one of Thor, pretty sure spiritual hammer is allowed, so after casting that 1st round, he could be +1 attack every round. A little OP for level 4 if you ask me, letter of the law, sure, but not the spirit.
The thing is i actually agree with asking for a full spell list. My character concepts absolutely intertwine with the class. I have an archfey warlock that i decided to go all in on enchantment, illusions and necromancy for. Spells add to the flavour of my character. Getting told "nah just pick something" would be a turnoff for me
but aren't there lots of spells? Like, isn't it easier to draw a line at something like "no homebrew, everything else is fine" and then look for spells that will go well with this exact character and\or their god, show them to GM if they said they were fine with homebrew or other non-official sources?
@@what4521 sure, i was just basing off the fact this was already supposed to be in a low magic setting, so i too, as a player, would have assumed asking for what the spell list specifically is would be a totally reasonable request
And, taking all other aspects of the situation out of it, if you were denied that information, you walk away. That's called understanding that that game, is not the game you want to have.
I think the biggest reason why low-magic setting suck, is because they are playing a high magic game. They should just play a game that supports a low-magic setting.
Yeah low magic is really hard to do in DnD. Cool idea in another DnDesc game
Honestly at this point play Mythras or something.
D&D literally started as a Lord of the Rings game, and the default setting was low-magic Greyhawk. Dark Sun was infamously low-magic originally, to the point of being basically the Conan setting.
That said, all editions after 2e are definitely not designed for that, and the game has become more high-magic (which I prefer).
@@Nomadik it wasnt low magic per say, magic could still do some wild shit and it was still way more present than LOTR. It's just that magic had more limitations to it, I'd say.
Based take
I'm cool with DnD horror stories, but I think they're best when you have someone like Spencer with you because it lets you bounce off each other. I like your new haircut.
Your name, is a MOOD
@dragonslayerornstein387 what mood is that?
He said in the intro he made this video because he was late with the video he planned for Sunday so he had to improvise, that means he couldn't have gotten someone else
@yaakovborovoi5905 sure, I'm not saying anything bad about this video I get that he was up against a deadline. I was speaking more generally that I think these videos work best with a co-host because he asked if we like them or not.
@@MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD Late 90's IRC
What was cringe for me is the OP's immediate first reaction to being asked for SPELL LISTS in your homebrew setting that you specifically changed is to get annoyed and go "I don't think you're a good fit"
That's insanely passive aggressive.
You can make a 300 page homebrew but can't make your own deity's spell lists???
Spells are features! This is the same as saying "there are no subclasses, actually I pick that for you based on what your backstory is" then getting mad over people asking what the subclasses are
That's insane to me
Same. Bro made up a whole website of fluff and then acted entitled about it, but didn't actually bother designing mechanics. Maybe this could work out with friends, but randos? They don't owe you interest in your fantasy novel until you've proven you can run a damn game.
Agreed
You know what makes this worse? 2e spell lists for Clerics are defined by spheres of influence. He literally just needed to give his Gods major and minor spheres of influence and say "Basically this", even if he wanted to make changes later, it gives the player an *idea* when they are thinking about which one they want to pick. 300 pages of lore, but apparently the Gods don't have, in 5e terms, Domains?
A few points:
1) OP seems a bit like a guy who sees himself as the hero, but the "300 page" part does make me feel like he really thinks he wrote some great book but the reality is that it's badly written, incredibly convoluted fanfic.
2) Both of them love to hear of the sound of their own voice. The fact this kept being an argument long after it had been shut down kinda reinforces that point.
3) Nomadic Baron Elric Savage is a great name. It's like a medieval wrestler.
I dont have major evidence to support this, but: from what it seemed to me, the DM's "300 page" lore doc was an organized World Anvil-style wiki thing. Youve got summaries, you've got one page apiece for each city/nation/race/legend/person. It didn't seem like the DM even wanted anyone to read the entire thing, just to locate and read the pieces they were interested in.
@@brookejon3695 Sure, expecting a new player to engage with that at all is honestly a huge red flag though. A short handout with some bullet-points is one thing, guiding someone on how to make their character fit is one thing. But the DMs job is to build the world during play, not have 300 page readings assignments. If I'm like "do you have a god of trickery" and you link me the page with the details I need, fine. And I'll happily engage with some of those pages AFTER I'm more invested in the story/characters. Asking me to read it AS THE INTRODCTION to your world is far too high an expectation.
Sounds like a case of problematic player meets problematic DM.
@@cablecablecable Precisely.
@@brookejon3695OP said that it would have taken 20 minutes to readthe lore and make a character. Personally, I can't read 300 pages in 20 minutes
@@Eshajori It really doesn't sound like they wanted the players to read the entire thing immediately, just enough to figure out what sort of character they wanted to make
When I first saw Mattoo Artist I just imagined a guy that makes tattoos that moves. And Im stealing that for my next campaign, where the whole plot twist reveal will be the fact, that the whole world is just some guy's Mattoo of a world, where small ink people actually evolved and he is just showing it to some random friends at a party somewhere, and they are betting on what the silly magic tattoo people will do next...
Like the whole plot will be about preventing the coming of the eternal night, and it will just be this guy putting his shirt back on... that might work actually
Being upset at mattoos (either the name or the concept) is like forgetting what game you’re playing. It’s DnD. It’s full of dumb silly magical fun. God forbid someone make up their own dumb silly magical fun idea.
Maybe I’m just immune to cringe but I don’t see a problem with mattoo
@@panampace They didn't even make up the magic tattoos. Those are an actual thing in AD&D, with several variety ranging from passive buffs to spell-storing, and Wizards even get spells to make them themselves. For that matter, ASIs are *also* a thing in AD&D, the DM was wrong about that ruling.
"Mattoos" reminds me of an old comic book villain called "the tattooed man", who could bring his tattoos to life.
he was one of Green Lantern's worst enemies, because his tattoos were YELLOW.
Now I'm imagining Green Lantern against an army of LEGO people. Maybe even a LEGO version of himself, but it's old so it still has the yellow face. I'm also extremely curious as to where his powers determine the line between yellow and other colors.
So following on from the rant about low magic settings.
I've ran a game where I went to the players and said "Alright, I wanna run a game where you can only play Human fighters, who's in?", got 4 players, of course the setting was low magic, but it wasn't for long.
I designed it so that the game world used to be high magic, but something happened like 500 years ago and now it's low magic, and the plot line was essentially making the world high magic again, and the main plot thread involved the players getting magical weapons to fight magical threats.
it was super fun, went from levels 1 to 11, and then we wrapped it up with a big final boss fight.
Low magic can work, it just has to be done in certain ways, and introducing a player halfway through tends to cause issues in terms of balancing the magic.
I want to do something like that to where the characters research and create all the crazy the ancients couldnt dream of.
But i hate low fanasty because frankly.. it a restriction.. it handcuffs to your creavitity.
Often for bad reasons by a bad dm.
@@Subject_Keter
Like 90% of low magic campaigns that I've ever seen don't actually ban caster PCs. It is generally just a flavour thing. With that being said, it's only really a restriction if you go into it expecting it to be like a high fantasy setting. The reason people enjoy it is because it makes you problem solve instead of just having a spell to resolve any situation you might encounter. If you've ever DMd for high level DND you know how impossible it is to make interesting obstacles other than combat for a party of casters that can just wind walk, etherealness, etc. their problems away.
I would never run mechanically low magic DND because there are systems explicitly designed for that kind of game, but I understand why people do it (it's unreasonably difficult to find people willing to play anything other than DND). I think DND generally sucks for mechanically low magic because it is a nightmare to balance. Martials ironically suffer most in that kind of campaign as they are incredibly dependent on magic items to function properly.
I ran a campaign where my players were very confident in their intelligence. So, I decided to run a low magic campaign. It was me and three others. This was really helpful, too, as this was only the second campaign I've ever DM'd. It's not like magic didn't exist, though. I kept in spells that weren't traditional used for battling. Like walk on water. I even had one of the players come to me before a session started and asked if I could make to where thorn whip grabbed things instead of damaged them. This led to insane and fun escapes and encounters. This idea helped me a lot, and my players loved it.
Sounds loosely like Final Fantasy 6
@@Subject_KeterMy advice is: play it with a different game. Every RPG has restrictions and excluding magic from the toolkit doesn't exactly mean that you don't have many options left. All of human history proves that one can do many things without magic. The problem with low magic D&D is that you end up with an extremely clunky, unbalanced system that doesn't offer much more than the "roll 1d20+x" style of resolving challenges.
As for handcuffing creativity ... people use creativity to achieve something they couldn't normally achieve. One of the things I dislike about D&D magic is that there are spells for some problems that completely negate them, so they do not leave room for creativity.
So the OP:
- Is the one complaining on Reddit.
- Went to check the other guy's FB at the _first sign_ of disagreement.
- Put all that pointless info into his already rambling rant post. In a mocking tone too.
- Kept arguing with the other guy while claiming to have taken the "high road."
- Complained about the ego-thing _in particular._
Yeah, it's like 75% about OP's ego, lol.
Yeah. The big red flag for me the DM was expecting a player to read a 300 page document about the world. I would have noped so fast.
I've been on and off dming for about 6 years and I don't even have 300 pages of notes for multiple campaigns combined.
It becames 100% if you put your first point at the last position. Doing all that and post complains on reddit without even noticing single issue described is 100% ego thing.
I think with this specific scenario it’s 50/50.
@@Floraclaw I've been DMing for 3 years, and i have 500+ pages of campaign notes alone. This guy had been DMing for 34. 300 pages of lore is 100% beliveable for someone who is actually engaged in the hobby. And it's not like it was expected to read ALL of it.
This and every other Reddit post lol. They're all just seeking validation.
The DM went out of his way to keep this problem going. The solution was as easy as saying, "This isn't going to work. Good luck at another table." and leaving it there. The extra 10 minutes were just drama farming.
I mean OP doesn't come out smelling like roses here, but he DID try this twice.
Most average Redditor
If the rejected problem player _keeps_ e-mailing/texting/phoning the GM to "explain" his weirdo character, I can see the GM getting annoyed.
It’s just two assholes farting into each other until the end of time
I respectfully disagree. Some people still want to try and diplomatically resolve a disagreement. This felt like one of those times.
I think low magic is better used when it's like, you use magic and let your players use it, but it's viewed as unusual by larger society. Like people have weird superstions about it and don't see it often enought to really trust magic
I'm not the biggest fan of D&D horror stories, because I am pretty sure that most of them are fabricated.
"Wow so this guy that no one in your group liked was ultra cringe and then your character kicked his behind and everyone clapped afterwards and then your crush fell in love with you? I can't believe it."
he kept talking to him because the post is a thinly disguised humble brag about how great his game is
Yeah I get red flags from that dm too. I mean dude never even points out how it is actually pretty unreasonable to expect anyone to read 300 pages... He can write 300 pages, but not come up with spell lists for his gods? He just wants a generic backstory which seems like something he probably won't do anything with. Like no character arc.
Also him replying to a comment where the commenter points out a really cool adaptation, but the dm just shuts it down like nope, no characters from other dimensions allowed! it would be cool in spelljammer he says, not his campaign though. Why? It reminds me of when I started dming and would be unreasonable strict on characters because I was worried it would interfere with the story- its actually good when it does and the player had a point about how its cool for players to give you things you can integrate into the story.
also also he checked his facebook profile? Thats weird... And then he rants about it, like that has no relevance at all lol, he just wanted to insult the player.
Everything is a humble brag nowadays
@@SecureBirch410It is unreasonable to expect anyone to read all 300 pages however the OP mentioned there was a blurb for a rundown of how that gods magic worked. Not to mention the "find in page" function still exists and is entirely reasonable to expect someone to use it. Both the player and DM suck but using find in page to look for info is perhaps one of the lowest conceivable bars to set.
"thinly disguised" a loxodon casting disguise self to turn into a tabaxi is more subtle than this post
@@SecureBirch410I mean, I once shat out 5000 words about one giant hut and managed 3 words on my biggest city. "Is the capitol" 😂😂
I love how Jacob in the span of a few seconds went 'Man, can you believe these guys used to just use old Norse gods in DND? Pfft, that's so... Man, that sounds great' Just so ready to roast old players just to 180 on the spot.
To be fair, Tyr is canonically a Forgotten Realms deity.
Also, The Egyptian God Anubis watches over the dead gods in the astral plane IIRC
I'd allow it depending on the setting
My last campaign, I flat out stole gods from a handful of video games, renamed them and reskinned them a little.
-
My next one I think I may draw from Native American mythology and blend it with the elven gods in Dragon Age (not all that different, from initial investigation).
Funny thing is that Thor is in the 2014 PHB (or DMG/Xanathars, I forget but I know it's there somewhere)
@@AkyJave I'm in a campaign now where one of the players is a Paladin of Hestia, who I believe is also in the DMG so I think most of the Greek and Norse gods are considered canon to most DnD worlds.
@@AkyJave Yeah. It's one of the alternate pantheons in the appendix.
19:32 Eberron really feels like they looked at what magic does in D&D and built the setting around that. Other D&D settings feel like they built a setting and decided to use D&D for the system as an after thought
That's exactly what happened with Eberron. I playtested it during the 3.5 days.
12:27 sudden Pacman jumpscare
Waka waka
Lmaooo
16:42 I actually pulled this move in my most recent campaign. The DM forgot to send me the docs/info of the world until the day of Session 1 (and I forgot to ask for them), so my character thus became the Willful Idiot bard. He knows nothing and does not feel the innate desire to know anything. He’s simply vibing and being kinda pathetic.
Why is this little goat man in a walled-in, heavily armed citadel that he’s not a citizen of? He stowed away in a shipping crate on a merchant boat for two weeks until it happened to park here. Why did he do that? He just failed in rescuing his long-term boyfriend from the underworld and he’s going through a lot right now emotionally. He doesn’t know why he’s here either.
The DM and all the other PCs love him. He’s a sort of _tabula rasa_ that will develop alongside the story. And he knows little techniques and tricks that none of the other PCs know, since no one else has been outside of the (aggressively controlled) citadel. Most importantly, he’s not in the citizen record, so he’s effectively invisible - but also in significant danger if discovered. Basically, there’s a way to balance characters like this and make it enjoyable for everyone at the table.
6:20 Ok but if you put a restriction on what spells you can use and you told the player to ask you any questions, you can't then be frustrated when the player wants to know what spells they will be able to use
Ya i think the guy was frustrated because the player wanted him to make a spreadsheet with every single spell list for every deity. That would be hours of arduous work
@@KaineVillante except he has a 300 page website for the setting. how do you put that much labor into organizing your lore and you never made a spell list for the spheres of magic? especially when its a low magic setting? seems like the kind of thing you'd want to define
@@ValStinks exactly, both parties in this discussion seem awful
@@KaineVillante I understand that, but then he can't expect the player to do that work for him, and also read a bunch of his lore lol
I'm more surprised that In his 300 page lore document he doesn't have domain spells on like, a table
Sometimes, the OP is the horror story, as much as the person they're ranting about. Not siding with either, but the OP does come off a little up his own butt. Not sure why asking for a deity spell list was controversial, seems like relevant information for picking one.
The facebook digging section was so corny. “He seems to be REALLY proud of being a veteran” like stfu bro get back to the story.
Some old school DMs are like that. They get stuck in their ways and don't budge.
Three hundred pages of background story for his world is a gigantic ask for a player to read. Saying "just give me a list to pick from" is not unreasonable
I had red flags about the OP despite him trying to cast himself in a favorable light. Something tells me that he is not fun to play with
@@exantiuse497 Yeah, when you have an insanely detailed homebrew world AND are playing 2E... that's the warning sign also lol I'm guessing he's been building this world for 30 some odd years with that much detail.
@@exantiuse497i have to assume (hope) the website is more of a wiki than just a longass textbook
...now I wanna play a wizard who accidentally planeshifted themself with a failed experiment from their low magic home world where they were one of the most powerful spellcasters who had gone through decades of study and practice and experimenting... Only to now be effectively like a level 2 wizard in the forgotten realms or something and just aghast and bitter at how 'easy' magic is for everybody.
I think that is a great concept!
That poor wizard would be so traumatized lmao
This is legit an isekai lmao I respect it.
Nope don't mind me. I'm not steak this concept or anything...
14:04 If you have to say "I've been nothing but respectful" after someone calls you out on being egotistical: they are correct, you are egotistical and are now boasting like a self righteous jerk about how "respectful" you think you are, which fyi, isn't respectful.
Literally wrong, bro. That only works if the person who "calls them out" is right. Spoiler alert: NO.
@voxorox So, in summation, your entire gripe with my irrefutably apt observation of the OPs attitude is, "nuh uh u rong and I am offended at u". Got it.
I mean, both parties are wrong honestly. It should have all ended with DM:"That character isn't going to work, either come back with a different concept or bounce." Other Guy:Nuhu-uh I gave you a character." DM: "It doesn't fit, we aren't the game for you. We can work something out or this conversation can end." If other guy keeps responding, don't respond back. But go on about someone being called out for being egotistical. Seems like that is exactly what you are doing right now.
@@SlayingSin " my irrefutably apt observation" ...yeah, you're definitely the expert on being egotistical.
@@SlayingSinYou’re egotistical for calling your statement irrefutably apt when it is not. I could go up to anyone and say that they’re egotistical. If they say no, that’s egoistical? Doesn’t make sense. In this situation, both are in the wrong, but your reasoning isn’t right.
Jacobs back and forth watpad fanfic skit is what we were all thinking in the end.
If I ever want to bring in a pre-made character, I always ask the DM prior about my concept and if certain homebrew is allowed within reason (I have a character who is a werewolf that has pretty balance werewolf 5e based powers). I then try and modify my character to best suit the world so we are all happy. If it doesn't work, I just make a new one.
TL;DR/DW: GM is crazy about his game, has a massive ego. Player joins that's a cringy powerplayer. Both argue, neither is correct. They argue until one probably blocked the other.
Legend says they still argue til this day.
I’m just glad I don’t have to play with either of them.
@@dngn4774 It's like a venn diagram on rpghorrorstories. Either it's a player, the dm or the audience (the reddit people) who are wrong. Sometimes, like here, two.
What is the /DW after the TL;DR?
@chimchar87 "didn't watch"
4:10 you say that, but Christianity was canon in Forgotten Realms up until 4e.
And St. Cuthbert was heavily implied to be the IRL one.
Was it? I definitely don't remember that in 3.t, but maybe because Mystra & Mielikki were cooler.
@@Nomadik Idk about 3.5, but I know 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition had Yahweh/ God as a listed deity.
Tyr is still one of the main gods in the Forgotten Realms and afaik he is canonically just venturing over from our world to play god in a couple different worlds at once.
i think the ancient Egyptian gods are still there afaik
were also still in pathfinder but they recently threw them all out as part of the 2e make all the lore utterly incomprehensible project (except, for some bizarre reason, Bes)
My new personal character idea: "Manly Man" Sandy Ravage, the Human Rune Knight fighter who uses "Mattoos" (the runes are used as tattoos on items) who starts with the grappler feat and later takes tavern brawler
Detective Detective Savage "Savage Rage" Rage is top tier naming.
From ua-cam.com/video/n1jAfNUOaT4/v-deo.html
@@MonkeyJedi99 Only if he regularly says "Did I stutter?!?" (after introducing himself and giving some command that gets ignored).
Rage: "Detective Detective Savage "Savage Rage" Rage. Since this has just become a crime scene I am afraid I have to hold you here."
Some random dude: "You can't do that!"
Rage: "DID I STUTTER?!?"
Uses special potions in the form of "meat snacks" you don't drink the potion, you snap into it!
@@KaiHouston-m6j CRACK IT LIKE A SKINNY LINNY YEAHHHHH
12:40 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
If you read a DM's brief and go "oh this person's ego is enormous", why would you even TRY to get into their campaign? Like if you perceive them as self-absorbed in the stage of play where you aren't even interacting with them, why would you not expect it to get worse the moment they start actually running their game?? this man's tripping
I really like the idea of low magic settings (tho I haven't done it myself yet, so...) bc magic can be op as hell. It can be as simple as making a horrid rainstorm turn the land to mud or make mudslides, stopping an approaching army, or shooting the snake arrows from Conan, to how only so many people can use the force in Star wars. Mages might not have much use in combat, but they can be diviners, accepting gold to tell farmers how the harvest will be and how to prepare. It's more a shifty and roleplay heavy role, but I think it can work; maybe make them cheats and charlatans, able to do magic when it really counts, but most of the time, since magic is so rare, they sell a lot of snake oil, or rely on tricks like the wizard of Oz.
I like the approach in Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy (GoT with sentient food) in that it was low-magic in a sense that magic was *suppressed* instead of non-existent. There were consequences to not having subtlety in casting spells.
I mean, he is an AD&D player. Of course is funnier to argue than to play the game.
AYYYYYYYY
Very true, very true. 😂
Jacob: "I have deadlines and am very busy."
Also Jacob: "I was bored and scrolling Reddit."
tbf that is also me, so I can't really judge
So there's this thing called ADHD... (/j)
yknow that being busy doesn't mean u work 24/7 right
Are you just learning about the concept of a break?
@@stevendemayo3631 ALL GAS. NO BREAKS (brakes either)
3:34 fun fact, there are gods from different real world mythologies, including Thor, in the list of gods at the end of the (2014) Player's Handbook
I mean, 3 / 3.5 had an official book that detailed deities from several irl pantheons (Greek, Norse, and Egyptian iirc).
Even some of the DND official deities are pulled from irl pantheons, like Tyr in DND is pretty much pulled straight from the Norse pantheon.
Even better, I have heard that Ragnarok is actually canon to D&D cosmology.
I mean, Tyr is one of the biggest gods in FR.
Warrior who gets sent to other distant lands to fight and then comes back to get tattoos and celebrate their deeds... He just made a member of the US military didn't he
Nah story 1 if you make a website about your gods you gotta have full spell list
I have a low-magic setting I want to run where it doesn't limit what the players can choose, but will absolutely affect reactions to public magic use and limit how many magic users and magic items they encounter. For a truly full low-magic setting you probably want to play a different tabletop game designed with that in mind.
Yeah, the magic level of a D&D setting should really define more about how the world reacts to PCs doing magical stuff and what they might encounter, not restricting the class they can play. Maybe also restricting race/species selection but I think most settings should be doing that (or going crazy and giving every race/species a place but that's a *lot* of work)
I played in a game setting where magic was variations of frowned upon to illegal, but there was still magic and some magic items and even a few dragons. Worked quite well, I felt.
You can experiment by doing a short campaign in a world where you get a lot of cantrips but need to complete a quest (eg. get to Level 5) to unlock leveled spells.
A channel called Desks and Dorks made a fantastic low magic video recently that uses and explains it in a manner that is not burdened by the recent years of what low magic should not be. A lot of it is in fact just bad DMs but this was very uncommon pre-lockdown where it is now almost expected.
It has guides for both limiting the size and scope of magic while making it still very obviously a setting with magic. A lot of times it means making a setting with no tangible at all and I really hope that ends.
The only thing worse than arbitrarily limiting player characters is not communicating what is arbitrarily limited, so players never know what they are allowed to use.
Mattoos instead of calling it Skin Script is cringe
It's a totally new original thing, that gives you powers to do spells from other worlds.
Oh good name. My first thought was “ink weaver “
@@kagelobo7444The Ink Weaver is the Wizard subclass. "Skin Script" is the spellcasting form.
That "SINK!" Book has a wizard class that all that.
Fell? From planescape?
I had a player who, when I introduced him to Pathfinder 2E, asked how he could make "A character like Rimuru from Slime Diaries." And I was like, "That guy's basically a god by the end of episode 2. The adventure goes levels 1-10. You can't." To his credit he accepted that.
I try to give him cool "spooky fox spirit" moments when he uses his Kitsune ancestry feats for stuff like kitsune-bi attacks or wordless intimidate checks, and that's mostly mollified him.
Slime Diaries? I thought it had that really long name, "That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime"?
@@ctdaniels7049 Different names in different countries, I'm sure.
@@cyte112 Nah, Slime Diaries is the spinoff. OP just got mixed up.
1:10 sorry bruv, don't wear none
This is such a nothing burger. Most of these “horror stories” are just misunderstandings that get out of hand because of a lack of social awareness
Short hair jump scare
He's had it a while though
I thought I traveled 40 years in the future when I saw that short hair, I thought that was his on or some shit 💀
@@envytee9659it still surprises me though
@@envytee9659 oh.
Oh no. How is he gonna play Gigachad player now? :(
in all fairness in 2e magical tattoos were called Mattoos. yeah its goofy there was alot of goofy stuff in 2e
Yeah people are like “the name is cringe” and I’m like did you forget what game we’re playing??
@@panampaceto be fair, he did say that he's never played 2e
That wasn't their actual name, they were "magical tattoos" and "tattoos of X". But players did call them "mattoos" to differentiate between other kinds of tattoos.
You missed the perfect sponsor line opportunity.
"Everyone probably would have had a better time in the Sunless Citadel if they just had some MeUndies, so they'd be comfortable where the sun don't shine."
12:09 pretty clear to me that despite the player not reading, this DM has a god complex
8:57 This is actually a good character idea, shame the context he made it in.
Magical tattoos are sick. DM in the wrong, should have just told him the table was not for him sooner. Also bad vibes from both of them.
mattoos lol
The tattoo guy clearly didnt want to play by the op rules.
You can say Khrone from 40k sucks but not make up a sexy war god who noms up Khrone followers. 😂
The idea of just ignoring part of the game as a benefit isn't really all that interesting, its just a flat buff.
Aa a reward or something the players could strive for, absolutely, but just walking in and saying you have it is incredibly lame.
magical tattoos are cool. the word “mattoos” is not
The player ignored the setting AND the rules. The DM shouldn’t have engaged further after that character submission though and left it at “We are not going to be a fit for you”
It's worth nothing that old D&D *was* a low magic game. Level 1 clerics, depending on the system, had either no spells at all or a single spell per day (though you might quality for a bonus spell if you have high wisdom). There's no cantrips, and Wizards need to scour the world to recover lost magic and have a high chance of failing to learn any individual spell they find - you can't just "learn fireball." So a low magic 2e world is much better suited to that version of D&D than a high magic world would be.
Is it worth nothing? Or worth noting? It's a small typo that makes a very big difference in the point you're trying to get across.
Low level ADnD was lowish magic maybe, but higher levels definitely weren't.
@@grammarmaid you know what they meant, stop it
@@CommanderLexaa I genuinely do not. That's why I asked.
@@CommanderLexaa Their name is Grammarmaid OF COURSE they'd be like that lol
[That' cringe.]
I don't know -- I like "mattos" as a _concept,_ but it makes very little sense in practice. Either your character spends the campaign not really having anything to do with the one activity that's supposed to define them, or your entire party basically have to be yakuza.
There's a few good ways to do it, Passive Buffs, A Tattoo that Grants you Cantrips, A method of storing your Familiar, Wizard who uses the Tattoos as Spellslots and magically inscribes them during their preperations.
magical tattoos in pathfinder are quite useful
He said magical tattoos are fine, whats cringe is calling them mattoos
I personally like the DC guy who has infernal monsters in his tattoos.
@@cheesusabidas77 Just made a Thaumaturge Kaiju Hunter with an Eyeslash Tattoo. Being able to see Blood in colour while using Darkvision is super cool.
bro, that guy typed like he only DM'd 2e.
I like this video enough in that I feel like both people in this post were terrible. The DM wanted to get some echo-chamber-acknowledgement, and the player wanted to force-fit his concept into a world not compatible with it.
What bothers me about the DM is that the way he describes the source for magic is that he can, at any time, go "Yea, your spell doesn't go off and you don't know why. Anyway, my turn again".
The player just sounded lazy and wanted a quick prior character insert into the new game and wanted the spotlight for his introduction because of how unique he was.
These videos are funny because making fun of people or situations is always a good time; it helps us laugh or cringe at a bad situation and then theorize as to why that situation is happening and/or what we can do to avoid it in our own games. Keep them coming, I say.
The player himself is cringe because he is not willing to communicate and refuses to be a team player.
But I refuse to agree that magic tattoos are cringe. A wizard whose spell book is just his skin? That’s fun!
Granted DM is mostly in the right ... still very much written like a true redditor. Regarding the low magic setting ... why dont you just play a different TTRPG without magic instead of taking D&D and removing half of it.
I've played in some campaigns with low magic settings and they were always set up in a way to make the magic feel more special when it did show up. One campaign I was in, there was almost no magic at all on this island we lived on, we were all fighting this massive war between the nations on the island. At the very end after we defeated the big bad we found out that magic was being suppressed/absorbed on the island by the big bad. He had used that power to keep the island secluded from the rest of the world, so when he was defeated we were suddenly unleashed into a high fantasy setting with a whole new world to explore in the next campaign. Many of us then went on the play casters after that if we didn't want to stick to our old characters. Point is, it can be done well in DnD.
Also, spell casters in older editions tended to be way more mechanically complicated so this helped all of us learn the system before we jumped into spell casting in the next campaign. That's not really an issue in 5e anymore.
I should note that 2e supports the low magic stuff a lot more strongly than later editions. a high-level wizard can do incredible things with magic, yes, but early levels typically entail having like 3 spells a day and no other applicable skills, alongside comically bad health pools (full casters being a d6 is new, they used to be d4). you paid for your magic powers in *blood* in 2e
@@PlusOneGamer I mean sure it can be done and I understand if people have their preferences or simply dont like to run different system but if you already have a custom world and gods there isnt really much tying you to D&D and you might just look at a different system that does low or no magic better with additional systems to maybe supplement that.
All I am saying is if you are already trying to bend a system into something it wasnt really made to do you can also take a look outside of the box to see if there is something that fits already out there.
@@chidori0117learning a new system is no small task, not to mention the fact that you are cutting your potential player base by a huge amount running anything but D&D. The number of players that will choose a “D&D” game - no matter how much it has been warped out of true with the “intended” setting - over any of the other systems that might do what that game is setting out to do ten thousand times better can’t be overstated.
@@chidori0117 I don't think it's necessary to go out and look for another system. Like you said, you can tune the system to the way you want to play it. As long as everyone is on the same page and is having fun that's all that's really important. You have to also remember, DnD is very accessible. Now a days new systems are a dime a dozen, but this guy is playing a system he is comfortable with that he has already learned and feels confident he can manage. 34 years ago when he started dming how many other ttrpgs were out there? I don't know myself, but I can't imagine they were easy to find.
For my group back when I was in highschool, all we had were dnd books. That's all we could find, so we played 3.5. Every campaign we did was in 3.5 and if we wanted to do something we just tried to make it work within the rules. I think it comes down to the comfort of the system, the familiarity, and the accessibility.
13:05 someone please clip this noise Jacob made, and make it into a discord soundboard. Its on par with Gura "A"
Tbh there's like a 0.001% chance that this DM finds somebody for his campaign which lore is basically a book you have to read before trying to fit into it
I played a 5e homebrew where all of our characters were tied to the Greek pantheon in some way. My half-elf bard was a forgotten son of Dionysius. We were all estranged from the deity we chose, and not necessarily blood related to them, so none of our characters knew that the others had this shared history when they first met. Some of them were not even aware of their own connection at all. We ended up being recruited to the same adventuring party because all of us seemed to exhibit special gifts noticed by others, given our secret links to the Olympians. Over time, our characters would reveal more about their relationships and their powers, and discover the hidden threads that tied them all together. It was super fun, I recommend it to anyone looking to bring some earth-based mythology into their games
Having made a high magic setting that my players love, I felt extremely validated by that ending rant, thank you
When I run low magic settings, it has no bearing on what the players can and can't do or what classes they can use, just on how the world reacts to the magic they have, and how rare or valuable the magic they possess is. In other words, in low magic settings, the main characters are just more special.
“It’s a low magic game, so you can’t play a caster”
- Limiting
- Boring
- A cowards attempt to not have to deal with a good wizard player
“It’s a low magic game, so you very well may be the only person alive who can cast fireball”
- Leaves room for all classes
- Gives players expectations to base their characters around and societal expectations that they can play with
- Makes the Wizard player feel cool as sh%t
@@walliam5506 "it's a low magic game so there are no casters"
- a challenge to make something interesting within the limitations
- it's only boring if you lack the imagination to make something interesting aka YOU THE PLAYER are what's boring
- is a bold, potentially-interesting creative choice in world-building
"it's a low-magic world, but you players can be reborn tiefling paladin/sorceror super-special boys in it!"
- eliminates freedom to make settings that aren't cotton candy TikTok spellcasting carnivals
- gives players free reign to do whatever they want without regard for DM's hard work and interesting ideas in world-building
- 42 out of 48 D&D 2024 subclasses are spellcasters, so no, the wizard player doesn't "feel cool as sh%t" because he has spells
@@pintspeasants3231 Its DnD
Low magic is boring because of the whole system is made for magic. Quite literally what you point out in your second comment.
@@pintspeasants3231 I mean, different strokes for different folks I suppose. If you enjoy low magic games then more power to you, but I personally just don’t like being told I’m not allowed to use like 3/4ths of the game at the start (more if you start limiting lineages). I think saying that I’m the boring one for that is kinda unnecessary lmao.
@@erens208 It's not the D&D that it used to be. That's MY point. The system used to be able to be low, high, mid, or even non-fantasy. Now there is one mode, unless you want to erase 7/8's of the classes, and all of those classes cast pretty much exactly the same. Why did they make it like this? So that everyone is a special boy.
the irony that the player didnt want to create something that fit in in the DM's world.
ive had so many character ideas for 5e I can easily flush out to fit into a specific setting.
the irony for me is that it seems whenever I ask my DMs for information on the setting they are hesitant to give me information, like telling me world somehow ruin the surprised of the campaign. though I can also understand if its that it was too early to ask and they were still working out the details of the world and dont have anything concrete
From my experience that kind of thing does come from a place of not wanting to spoil the 'surprise' of discovering things in-game. The issue with this line of thought is that if the players don't know anything at all about the setting, it's hard for them to find their place in it. IMO the best thing to do is give a short rundown of all the different parts, only go into detail that the average person would know for the parts the players are interested in potentially linking to, and let the players organically discover the rest. There's no real reason to try and hide basic details about the setting from the players, it won't really spoil much in-game when everything comes to life.
Ooh, yeah.
A DM doesn't want to share ANY info, and then tells you your character idea won't work without telling you why.
Getting into a campaign should not be a session of Deal or No Deal, hoping to get the right briefcase, I mean character, by blind luck.
I would absolutely allow a player to have a character that's from another world, and I would absolutely NOT allow them the ability to return TO that other world in the early levels. You wanna go back home? Earn the ability to cast Plane Shift then.
A character that's stranded in another world is a really cool concept to me.
@@theuncalledfor There is a wide selection of anime with just that thing. They call it Isekai.
@theuncalledfor honestly it's kinda funny, I feel like the "from another world" part of the character could have been removed and it would still be the same character
Flavor the mattoos as how they cast magic. Whether it be runes, or just have them be tattoos that fade/disappear as you run out of spell slots.
Heck you could even keep the part of wanting to celebrate every victory by having said character send letters home to their village/family/clan detailing their adventures
Yeah I get the campaign was a low magic/no magic campaign. But idk say they still have to use materials/say the spell vocally, and flavor the tattoos as miracles from their god, with each one being a feat the god/pc did on their journey.
2:20 can't watch at 3:00 AM but I did shotgun a bottle of mixed berry children's Nyquil, hopefully it provides the same effect
You're everywhere...
@@prosamis I got struck by lightning while uploading a vid and now my consciousness is scattered across TTRPG UA-cam
Sounds like a awesome night, care to let me know how it went?
How'd that go?
As unreasonable as the player is.
The DM is just as horrible. You cannot expect anyone to read 300 pages of information about your world. Ever. Your game is not a standard game. Your game is a HIGHLY modified game that shares basically nothing with a standard DnD ruleset.
I hate both of them and I wouldn't want to play with either.
This reads like making up scenarios in your head where you beat the bad guy and everyone claps.
Setting up a wildemount campaign...
Player: i want to make a cleric who uses int instead of wis.
Me, DM: Ok thats great.
Player: And their from a different dimension.
Me: ok... in the dynasty that sorta makes you jesus, which is interesting, we can work it out...
Player: And all their spells are instead technology granted to them by a council from their original universe.
Me: Could it stay spells and be from a council of super wizards? There is a war going on in the setting, and if anyone finds out you have a hoard of super tech on the level of spellcasting they are going to hunt you down for it.
Player: No, that ruins the character, i will make something else.
Me: *pain*
Had a fun campaign where playing casters was fine and encouraged, but magic was illegal in the setting, and getting caught had consequences. All depends on what the group likes and how it's implemented.
I also played in a game like that, though unfortunately only very briefly because I was an immature 14-year-old who was more interested in playing a specific character than playing the DM's game, much like the person in this post coincidentally. Difference is I was 14 and they seem to be a fully grown adult.
I would only even consider playing a game like that if the goal was to overthrow the government that declared magic illegal in the first place.
5e subtle spell sorcerer go burr
@@theuncalledfor Oh, yeah, they were the bad guys for sure. Many hijinks ensued, allying with the "evil" neighboring nation to topple the corrupt rulers. A classic.
Nomatic Baron Elric Savage is honestly a badass name lol
Agreed.
personally I love the stories and hearing your perspective. Its mature and you actually try to consider where the person might be coming from on both ends without knowing both stories, which is hard. Also you toss in a laugh or two and that is much needed right now. Bottom line if you're having fun I think we will all love it! :)
Started reading a reddit story at 3am.
Ended up acting out a kissing scene.
It’s 7am now.
There are no deadlines anymore.
So as a DM I prefer low magic settings personally. I also don't run them in DnD where a low magic setting invalidates half the system, and I need to try to duct type an excuse as to how the Wizard works now. Pick a system that works with the story your trying to tell, don't try to hotfix a system that dosen't run on your rules to run on them.
I don't want to learn a whole new system to run a game.
@@stargateproductions Most of the other systems arent even that hard to learn. It is dnd that is a real hell of rulings to run.
@manjoumethunder6282 i learn by playing, and I'm lazy. This would work for other people but not me lol
@@stargateproductionsthen watch people playing it? Most systems will have people who upload videos of their games and walk you through the rules
@@stargateproductions That does make sense.
Though I still do reccomend to broaden ones horizon on ttrpg. Like, if dnd was burgers, then ye, burgers are great, tasty, all that, but you gotta taste something else at some point. There is a whole culinary world out there.
300 pages of lore is WAY TOO MUCH!
I've been running the same homebrew world for my D&D games for almost 10 years.
I don't give a detailed lore and what not about my world to my players when we get together for session 0. I give them a brief run down of the adventure, a paragraph at most.
Then they make characters.
After that, I give them the world map, with countries and cities, and places of interest. Depending on the backstory my players wrote for their PC we work TOGETHER on where their PC would have been originally from. I'll ask them for 2-3 NPCs that their PC knows, and I'll give them 2 NPCs of my own and a short backstory to work with my players and expand their PCs backstory.
If they want their NPC to be this person of power, BAM the NPC mayor for this town I created is now replaced with the player's NPC.
Then we talk about the important places and the history and culture of the place where they would like their PC to hail from, making sure they are fine with how this nation of their birth would act in this world.
Again, depending on the PC's backstory, I'll give them more info about lore and history of the world. But everyone gets the basic lore. Some nations have their own history to tell, twisting the actual lore of the world. So each PC would have a different world view. It's up to them to learn more about the world as they adventure.
I don't share my 300 pages of lore. I give little bits of it to my players if they are interested or wants inspiration. The rests unfolds in game, through their adventures.
Shoving a 300 page lore in the face of your players is a sure fire way to push them away, or ignore your rich lore cause no one is reading 300 pages of anything, and make their own character idea.
Ease them in, make sure they are part of this world and can contribute to the world. Nothing is set in stone.
This DM feels like he just want his story his way, and to me. That's boring. He should write a book instead.
If I tried to join a table and was sent 300 pages of lore I would nope out immediately. It's fine to have a lot of background material in stash but sending it to players in one piece like a one novel is just going to intimidate them
Tbf if I was sent 300 pages I would lose my mind in a good way
It's preference, chat.
Tbf, he never said he expected or all to be read, just that it was avaliable to read. He could've picked a race, nation, and class, and read the lore on those while reading the blurb that OP said was at the start of it all. He mentioned the blurb like twice making me think he would've been fine with just that.
Like even if the guy had read all of it... he just flatly rejected it all with a character for a different table 😂
But the guy was like "read the intro and whatever you think is interesting."
@StuffSayoSays bro your comment is almost 300 pages... you ever read an old campaign setting book from basically any edition before this one? Or read any long running fantasy series? If you get only medium depth into world-building, 300 pages is nothing.
My experience with ppl who say they want to play a low magic game is that they are playing 5e when they really want to be playing something like B/X. They can't convince the players to play that game so instead try to "low magic" and restrict 5e. This runs into a culture clash between those who cut their teeth on 5e and its more superhero-type characters and those who love old-school gaming where your equipment and your problem-solving skills as a player are more important to the likelihood that the character lives or not.
Can 5e work in a low magic setting - yes it's D&D and it's like clay you can push and form it however you like - however the expectations of the player base are going to push back.
1. The idea of a character who's tasked with plundering different worlds and planes could actually be kind of cool. Like maybe he starts to grow attached to the world he's supposed to be plundering and gets in trouble with his own people for perceived insubordination and defection. Or maybe he gets exiled or for some reason gets stuck in this new world and now has to survive and cope with the prospect of potentially never going home. There's a cool story to be had here...I don't think it's appropriate for joining someone else's table with. Especially not people you've never played with. If you've already played with these people and are familiar with their setting, then you could potentially have a really good time with the concept.
2. "As much as it might have been fun to stoop to his level, I stayed high road." My dude: you have stalked his facebook, conducted ad hominem attacks about his personal life and posts that have nothing to with your game or DnD in general, and are now flogging and berating him on Reddit. You have not taken the high road in the slightest.
glad you're enjoying making your content and that's what matters, but I wouldn't miss you getting back to the older skit content
Currently setting up everything for my next year's Eberron game, and you're 100% right on High Fantasy getting ignored for constant Low Fantasy games.
Eberron's high fantasy is because most world level magic plateaus at about Lv3 spells, but they're accessible to most rich countries. The downside? Higher level magic takes more people to cast. Even in that setting, a level 1 player is leagues above, just because they don't have to ritual cast everything they do like Magewrights for 3 hours.
DMs explaining how strong a lv1 player normally starts as is a good way to have great integrated players/stories, without em resorting to the "I was a badass Lv17 super laser lord, but a mattoo artist lich sapped me back to lv1."
Lower magic settings can be fun if done well. Most people don't do it well, however. If you can run it well it's fine, but I agree that most people just don't want to deal with magic bullshit that derails their campaign and "screw you for doing the very thing your character was made for." It's just weird.
I'm currently running a spell-point based game with lessened magic, which is to mean that spell points come back slower, but all spells are available, and there are ways to mitigate using spell points, such as burning extra material components. Players have to be more careful with what magic spells they cast, but are otherwise unlimited in what they cast, and I enjoy creative uses of the spell. And we all enjoy when a player goes "this is a hail mary, I cast fireball!"
Not really a cringe story, but something that sort of ruined the artificer class for me personally, My long time group and I played a campaign of ghosts of saltmarsh, but in all honestly, we... made a terrible mistake in not doing a session 0. Our party consisted of a Bard, a sorcerer, a wizard, my artificer, and a barbarian. the sorcerer was a divine soul sorcerer, I was playing alchemist artificer, and the wizard was going abjuration, so we had 4 support characters, and 1 tank. But what ruined it for me is that, my character was the artificer, so they were really good at doing intelligence stuff and crafting, when the wizard wanted to do some enchanting, but because I had the stroke of inspiration ability... I ended up outshining and outperforming the wizard in almost every possible way. this led to the wizard having a really crappy time while I was just doing everything they wanted to be able to do.
I have aspergur's syndrome, so did not realize this was the case until very late in the game. after our campaign there ended, I just had a bad taste in my mouth ever since, even nowadays having a personal paranoia of the same thing happening again, where my tendancy to try and become as optimal as possible ends up making another player feel obsolete. I still play with them, They are a fantastic group and I love our adventures together, but ever since saltmarsh, I've been stuck in this sort of limbo of "Am I overshadowing another player? am I doing things too well? Are the others having fun through my actions?" It's not a fun mentality to have, but I've started to sort of break the mold with our more recent curse of strahd campaign.
To be honest with you, this is as much everyone's fault as it was yours. Not having a session 0 will mean that there are a few overlaps in niche/purpose and I mean... go figure the crafting class excels at that. Luckily I've only been in campaigns where people share what they're up to and we can build around each other instead of against each other, maybe in part because I always yap too much about how I'm building my characters. Don't beat yourself up too much, it happens, and maybe wasn't as big of a deal as you might think since you guys are still going strong.
If I was the Wizard, I would have approached you to work together on crafting magic items.
The Wizard can provide magic theory expertise and access to higher level spells. The Artificer aids with implementing the higher level magic into items. A good DM would cooperate and allow us to work together.
What is the point of saying this? The point is that it's on them for failing to grasp the opportunity presented to them.
Oh, we did work together, it's just... Well, as the wizard's player put it, It really ended up feeling like I was doing all the work, and his character was given a "Draw in the lines page" This was only a personal issue, as Saltmarsh... had a multitude of problems with the campaign we ran. Seriously, a major plot point we had was that the wizard's father was kidnapped by the sea princes, which was mentioned in the module... and never got brought up again, Even MORE rediculous is that we found out half a year into the campaign, that the sea prince's domain was landlocked. overall, it was a multitude of problems in that campain that ruined it for most of us, but We have learned our lesson, and have done session 0s since. but even then, it's still a paranoia of mine of having that happen again, so i've been trying to be careful."
Our dm did what little he could, but honestly, with how much the module book clashed with the story we were trying to make with it, I don't blame him for being mentally exhausted by the end. We all were. But, that's behind us now, and we've started having fun in curse of strahd... Granted, none of us are using official material, instead opting for 3rd party content to make it more enjoyable.
Yeah session zero helps a lot with that.
For all who wish to make an edgelord or over the top character with serious intentions, I am here to let you know that making goofy and silly and totally unserious characters is waaaaay more fun. And if you do make a cringe and edgy character, try your best to make it as funny as possible without ruining the vision.
“Dark Shadowblaster puts up his hood and decides to lean against the wall away from the group… but he trips and falls with his ass in the air, revealing he has a tramp stamp mattoo. He quickly stands up and leans against the wall properly and hopes nobody saw, trying to act cool and mysterious again… but everyone saw.”
In other words, you play the character unseriously but the character thinks they are totally serious and mysterious and cool.
I 100% agree with this. I like having a gag associated with my characters, and even the "Serious" ones are still played unseriously. My current character is a Goliath Fighter with the Dead background from WorldBuilderBlog who only communicates in groans, moans and grunts (Think Zombie Brand from League Of Legends). 2 of his party members are Paladins.
A few years back I ran a wizard who sustained a brain injury during battle and became a hermit. If he rolled a Natural 1/20, a wild magic surge would occur resulting in a giant fire elemental being released from its magic shackles. Or the time I accidentally turned my party member invisible
Taking DnD too seriously in general just ruins it
New player won’t read my 300 page amateur novel 😡😡😡
that's entirely worldbuilding and has no story or characters, because that's their job!
I view these videos like how many indie horror mascot games release ARGS or how games give you dlc. Its extra content to tide me over till the next big thing. And good background video not requiring my eyes always for work or cooking. Keep it up, hunk!
I'm far from tired of these kinds of videos but i also greatly enjoy this channel for its variety and the fact you try new things as well
Just don't watch the episode.
@@Turbulance16 He literally said he WASN'T tired of the video type???
@@Turbulance16
when i’m in a ‘being awful at reading comprehension’ contest and my opponent is a youtube commenter:
I recently was running Sunless Citadel with my friends but was proactive knowing the dangers, and MeUndies hooked me and my party up. Everyone was able to quickly change their underpants after an unexpected situation transpired.
Gorthag the Gunslinger, worshiper of Jesus Christ would be an awesome Sorlock concept. Since Sorlock can get 6-Eldritch blasts at lvl 11 and Jesus Christ can just be your patron.
16:00 I found that you can do this, but under two very important circumstances. One, the character has to be intrinsically motivated to follow an adventuring party no matter what shenanigans they get into which usually involves being chaotic or just worryingly carefree. And two, you CANNOT do this in a world like this one where the DM has a very clear cut idea of what the world should be like, and that idea varies quite a lot from a standard DnD world.
Level 1 fighter, level 3 cleric? So this is a human dual-class character who either did three levels of cleric before switching to fighter or one level of fighter before switching to cleric, it's not clear from how it's presented here. Either way they're going to have it rough. For those not in the know, once you dual-class there's no going back. In the case of a 1st-level fighter (former 3rd-level cleric), what we have here is a 1st-level fighter with some extra hit points who can't use their clerical abilities before reaching level 3 as a fighter (which doesn't take as long as you'd think because you use a separate experience table for each class). In the case of a 3rd-level cleric (former 1st-level fighter) we have a 3rd-level cleric with even less extra hit points but the full ability to use all their fightery powers of… nothing that a 3rd-level cleric doesn't also have. Maybe weapon specialization?
Fighter 1 into cleric 3 is flat out illegal combination, you must have at least 2 levels in a class before dual-classing. Usually you say the class you duelled from first but in this case the combination is illegal which an experienced 2e DM should have recognised
Cleric 3 into fighter 1 is a nonsensical choice. You do not gain but lose HP from having 3 cleric levels instead of just having 4 levels of fighter because clerics roll d8 for HP instead of d10 for fighters. Not only that, you gain cleric's weapon restrictions (no slashing or piercing weapons). All that in exchange for... 2 1st level spells and 1 2nd level spell. And you don't even get those before activating the cleric class at fighter 4. That character is basically dead weight until at least 3 levels have been obtained and after that it's barely better than a regular fighter, but at least it's a legal combination
Yeah you normally want to be Non-human to multi-class, and the Multis are severely limited. That is what Presteige classes were meant to mitigate.
@@exantiuse497 I did wonder if there was some restriction on dual-classing at 1st level but was too lazy to check. And by extra hit points I mean in comparison to a 1st-level fighter, which is what the character is in all other respects.
So yeah I don't buy for a second that this guy has ever played AD&D, especially after asking if he gets an ability score increase.
@@mikkosimonen Agreed; Fighter1/Anything3 is basically a 3.5 staple, taking fighter for extra hp and an extra starting feat to add to the other class. I'm guessing he basically went "it's D&D, how different could it be?!?"
When I started playing with my most recent group, we had a few different campaigns running and would swap between them during each week, cycling through each setting and back to another, to give our DMs a break to play PCs. During one of these settings, I was told during character creation that my warlock I had created would be entering a brief period where the city we were in would have little to no access to magic, as it was outlawed in the city we were in. This didn't feel like a problem at first- the intrigue of hiding magic was fun, and casting while concealing myself was neat. Unfortunately, we were soon placed under 24/7 surveillance via personal security cameras (flavored for the setting) and I spent roughly 6 months absolutely unable to play my character. I was devastated. Everything interesting about the concept of 'a mage hiding their identity' had been stripped away, leaving me almost completely unable to play my character I had created.
Big oof, I relate a lot. I once rolled up to a game with two ideas, a wizard and a cleric. The DM encouraged me to play wizard, because "we'd need a mage on deck", then revealed in session 5 that arcane magic is illegal. Everything I did was an issue somehow from that point on: even buying spell components was hard and wasted loads of time and energy, so I took a bone from a fallen foe to carve into a wand. Flavour! Once I was done, the DM said that because it was a demon's bone, the wand was cursed. It wasn't even magical! There were no benefits! But it needed a drawback, because I was no longer wasting huge chunks of playtime going from shop to shop asking for individual components and wasting everyone's time 🙃
Ive had one of those character creation dudes before. I had a dude show up for a homebrew game using only books I own. Even stated the ones. Dude was expecting Tal'Dorei content was on the table (its not) and whined like a baby about how "if I can't cast two spells a turn I'm gonna be useless as a caster." (Spelldriver feat from Tal'Dorei let's you cast a spell as an action and bonus action.)
After taking a look at the feat, it does at least restrict when you can take it to Level 11 and also limits you to third level or lower spells for the second spell, but I'm still not a fan of that lol
@expikah yeah, you combo it with Moon Domain Cleric (Tal'Dorei) that can concentrate on two spells from their expanded spell list you can cast Greater Invis and Hypnotic Pattern to just end an encounter.
But Tal'Dorei stuff aside, the main thing was he was too lazy to read the post and the fact he whined that he needed two spells to be useful as a caster tells me I didn't want that player in my game.
@@SoraPierce Oh yeah no entirely fair, I was just expanding on the feat cause I was curious about it.
@@expikah yeah it's an interesting feat. Can do some cool stuff with it.
was he tryna play a sorcerer? because from what i can find all spell driver does is lighten up the the limitation on your ability to use your action to cast a leveled spell after using your bonus action to cast a spell. it doesn't actually grant you the ability to cast spells as a bonus action.
I had the same thing happen to me but the DM and other players refused to tell me anything useful to understanding the campaign and would get upset when I ‘derailed’ the game with what limited information I could get. I got kicked out by the DM for ‘not following the lore.’ Imagine getting kicked out of a game for not knowing things or playing the game in a ‘problematic’ way when everyone deliberately refused to share anything that could’ve helped. I even reached out the DM looking for clarity and reaching something amicable to everyone; they refused.
So right here 2:26 right after he said “You should also watch this at 3am”, the YT app crashed on my phone and I took it as a sign that I was watching this video at the wrong time.
personally I don't enjoy ttrpg horror stories that much. I much rather hear about cool and funny things that happen in D&D with people having fun than cringe and irl drama
but thats just me and understand some people enjoy it.
I like the goofy player plans that work and the feel good stories of campaigns wrapping up, also not too big a fan of AITA: dnd version. Not much can really be said about them other than "you're both wrong" or "seems like op might be leaving out details, But..."
Agree however if there is a really good horror story I wouldnt mind hearing it once in a while. Most of them though, like this one, are not really "good" so could do without.
@@jacobellis2313 yea, there can be occasional horror stories that are fun.
This channel is great with variety with a bunch of different storu types can content.
Them reddit horror stories got that "ai 5g" touch where they usually go too far and just ruin what was fun.
I rather hear personal stories of fuckups
As a DM i actually like DnD horror stories simply because it makes me learn things but most importantly the importance of proper communication.
"I don't know anything about your world"
"What do you mean, I sent you the novel right?"
It’s so much better playing a character that’s thematically interesting than it is for some kind of power fantasy.
It can be both sometimes. I admit to having done an exact thing that Jacob mentioned where I basically tried to bring back an old character of mine into a new system; The basic framework of my idea was always "character with max possible move speed, combined with some sort of pounce attack and/or wild-shape or were-form thing". I did end up working with my dm to try to homebrew some way to get more movespeed, due to... I think it was 5E? Not having half as many ways to boost it.
Granted, this was with someone I knew a bit more personally, and I was trying to still fit the game and setting. But yeah, I just love playing that old hyper character with ridiculous movespeed, and the fact that the last version of them I made (barbarian1/druid8) ended up rather powerful was a nice bonus. That version never did manage the 80+ jump bonus though... alas.
8:08 my UA-cam played an ironic ad immediately after this so I heard... "Mattoo artist aka magical tattoos!-Hand crafted by artistans..." and I thought you were doing a skit about him being a magical tattoo artist. 😂