we actually have a rule about dice stacking in my group, if the tower falls, you take damage equal to what is rolled from the toppled dice tower, basically telling the player that if you do this, you will die :P
Considering that I have built entire dice palaces of the people using somewhere around several hundred D6 (when you have a box of dice reserved for shadowrun and Orks for 40K, you have loads of material)... I am going to aim for exploding so utterly spectacularly from so much damage I will crack the planet.
Jared, you could solve two of your habits in a single character. Create a hunter/poacher character. Someone who has hunted scores of creatures in the past, and is constantly on the lookout for new beasts to fight and kill. It'd mean your RL encyclopedic knowledge of the monster manual could be justified, it's playing a character that isn't Diath for once, and as a bonus it brings a little bit of Monster Hunter into your D&D sessions.
Make Him an old character with strength and con as dump stats alongside wisdom as the best one. That way, you're justified to have a lot of knowledge of the monsters.
Sometimes those homebrews turn into something Arduin, Warlock, and it still amazed me at how much Arcanum 2nd Edition can still give D&D a run for it's money. Especially when Arcanum is just 2 books.
As a player i too often end up as the ''leader'' of the group, sometimes even by accident. It's hard not to when players in my group do things like trying to burn down a druidic forest for no other reason than ''i am a tiefling that likes fire''
That's not really a bad habit, though, if the other members of your team actively seek to do stupid shit then you _should_ take charge, especially since otherwise the dumbass pyromaniac is probably going to incite some mob of angry druids showing up and overwhelming everyone Honestly it sounds less like being a _leader_ and more like being a crossing guard.
A player that burns, or tries to burn, a druidic forest because "I'm a tiefling, I like fire" needs to be spoken to. I'm sure they think its fun, and if it gets a chuckle from someone, regardless of the meaning or tone, it only reinforces that that behaviour is ok, so they keep doing edgy things like that. I know you aren't asking for advice, but thats a fairly common thing people say, players that don't care about consequence or the actions they do because its fun or for the lolz
@@canadian__ninja What if they do it because they are roleplaying? If my character is a proud,hot headed,ruthless outlaw Then it IS a trait of his to react violently to say an Elitist Paladin who talks down to him,even if that Paladin is a quest giver or a party member To not do so because they are Quest Givers and or Party members would not only be not roleplaying properly but also be meta becuase i'm keeping my character from acting in a certain way only because it'd affect things outside of the game world
The problem isn't that they are burning a forest down, but more so the big treant teleporting to our location and instagibbing us for being rude to his cousin, if we were to try and burn the forest down. Having hour long discussions about why this isn't a favourable outcome just sort of slows down the game
I find that the "Splitting the Party" problem to actually work quite well when playing on something like Discord, so a GM can flip between channels to keep secrets and keep the game flowing
If anything that's worse, to be honest. At least in person they're just playing Smash or something, still having company in the form of the other players in your half of the party. In a discord call it's more like 'okay break time for our half' and everyone just does their own thing. Also the bigger issue is the amount of time it takes, not necessarily the actual split.
Sometimes it works really well, though. Just depends on how you handle it. This happened a few times while i was in a Black Heresy campaign in high school. My DM was amazing at throwing us into what we thought was unwinnable situations, and really stressful situations where we were split up (or not able to talk, thanks vox systems) and didn't know who was good or not. For example, there was a session later in our campaign where our group entered an Imperial vessel that had been infected with Brainleaf. Our group got split up, vox communication got jammed, and it ended up with my character and another, our Arbites, in a shuttle that had been damaged, so we had to stay in our spacesuits. The brainleaf had infected a character before, and our vox beads were down, so we couldn't talk. We were in seperate rooms by this point, so we had no information about the other person, and both of us were already suspicious. He pulled his plasma pistol, and i had my power sword with me. With the rolls we made, he blasted a chunk of my face off, and i sliced off his gun hand. We both barely survived the experience (I had to burn a fate point to not die immediately). It was one of the most memorable moments of the whole five-year campaign for me, it was stressful and awesome. I'm not saying it works for everyone, but it can be pulled off if done right. TL;DR Splitting the group or cutting off communication can work if your players are into it and you set it up correctly. The tension of that situation can be amazing.
Something I learned as a new DM: Don't try to be Super Mario Bros. - World 1-1. By that, I mean if you're throwing new optional rules at your players, don't try to lead them into it. What you're going to do is deny them agency over their action. Leave the "show-don't-tell" to plot development. But for unconventional mechanics, explain those to your players in plane terms.
Cutscenes are ok if they aren't taking place where the characters are. My DM will have cutscenes of areas we are going to or just left, as either a prologue or epilogue to our adventure
Hehe! My friends and I use to joke about "The Cutscene" where we'd joke about the game suddenly going letterbox as the DM describes the enemy that's approaching or the massive intricate room that the dragon might be in. Then though, the players were very "in on it" but with my current group the cutscene has stopped.
They are fine to set the tone, or end a chapter, even to introduce characters. They can be too much if they go long though, I mean we are there to play and write a story together, not to have the DM read us a bedtime story.
@@Kez_DXX The Courier, with the aid of Yes Man, drove both the Legion and the NCR from Hoover Dam, securing New Vegas' independence from both factions.
Our epilogues typically dealt with loose ends, like "remember that guy you let go instead of kill? Well now he is building an army to destroy you. Good luck going back to that town". Obviously stated in a more eloquent fashion but that is what it would boil down to
My most memorable character to this day is still one I somehow manage to roll 4 ones on 4d6 when choosing their stats and refusing to reroll Needlessly to say, the natural 3 went straight into Intelligence, and it was like playing Fallout 2 in idiot mode all over again
Jared my advice on breaking away from Diath is to keep the Rogue and mix up the rest. As the guy who is always the Wizard, I know exactly how that feels. But mixing it up is a fun change of pace. I went from a stock human wizard, to a human wizard-protector, to a dwarf wizard who owned a traveling tavern and used magic to keep the peace. Mixing it up even a little bit is great and makes it easier to mix it up more in the future
this is a problem I've faced as well. I almost always roll a Cleric of some sort, but I just really enjoy them. I kind of want to take a stab at a Ranger at some point, though
4d6-drop-lowest has produced some crazy powerful characters for me. I have a forge cleric who can set the fucking world on fire. That said, I have the opposite problem: I want every character to be unique, and because of that, I have too many goddamned characters.
Yup, know the feeling. I even made a hill dwarf druid because of Jared and he quickly became my favorite character, but I still have 13 other unique characters xD
@@illusion115 From my perspective. Write, and write agan. Then write some more. Then throw it all out when you hate it and start anew, taking only the things you like and restart. Rince & Repeat until happy. But that's my perspective, as an creative buffoon.
It's fine to plan, but plan wide and let the session go deep. Have the bigger things, detailed but not so much that it would feel like lost work if your players somehow circumvent it. It can be really hard if you end up having to pull half a session out of your ass though.
@@illusion115 There is no "best" way, just what works for you. I personally find that keeping things as minimalist as possible gives me more flexibility. But horses for courses.
I once had a D&D session with a guy I kinda knew from work and some of his friends. He wasn't a great DM. His motivations were really self indulgent. He was clearly more interested in playing out the scripted story he had in his head than whether or not the players were having fun. On our last session (we kind of went our separate ways after this) it was me, another player, and 2 NPC characters making up the party. That's right, the party was 50% NPC. We encountered bandits and the fight went on for a while. Eventually both players were unconscious but the DM just continued to play out the battle between his bandits and his NPCs. Every action, every roll, for at least an hour. Meanwhile his players are just twiddling their thumbs. He could have easily fudged the rules and concluded the fight sooner for the sake of entertainment, but no. This guy wanted to be the DM and the player at the same time.
Ew, gross. So I mentioned in my own comment that the cutscene can be done well, but I forgot to mention an important detail. If you want to control 100% of the story, GO WRITE A BOOK. DMing is not for you. A DM has to expect give-and-take or the game doesn't play. And the NPC battle situation sucks, that sounds so awful. In a recent game of mine, my players were attacked at sea. They were not sailors - by necessity, there were a number of combat-hardy but non-player sailors on board, and they got attacked by some sea monsters. All I did was, once a round, rolled a D6. if it was a 1 or 2, shit got worse. 3-5, stayed about the same. 6, it got a bit better. That's it. Towards the end I let a 6 have an NPC off a squid and the PCs cheered, cause they had been deadlocked for a bit and the fight was crowded so no-one could get over there. That's all you need. If it's important, make it important, otherwise don't hog the players' time.
@@trident042 I might use that d6 method. That ain't bad. That said I'm a dm and I write, so yeah the two are different things. DMing is about telling the party's story, both as individuals and as a group. Yes you can have a narrative but it needs to be kind of loosey goosey to let your players have agency. Yes it means planning things sometimes week to week or on the fly, but that just makes things feel more organic. Not everyone can do that though, and that's fine, but it is something you may want to practice a bit.
Yea.. He should probably have done a fade to black when you guys went down, and then either have it be a party wipe or more likely have you wake up in a cage or somethin.
When I run games I like to have 1 or 2 party NPCs. I keep them around so that the players can form relationships with them, and they can naturally offer exposition through dialogue when it makes sense, and potentially add some humour into scenes. But, unless they are an NPC who's allegiance is specifically unclear, and that's part of the drama, I let the players control them during combat encounters. Occasionally, if a player is going to make one of them do something completely out of character, I will let them know it breaks their character and offer a suggestion for what they will do. And in big encounters with lots of enemies, I sometimes just take off the NPCs and act as though they essentially cancel out some of the enemies. Story-wise, they are locked in combat, and if the players need to interact with them then they can become relevant again, but it's basically like changing the focus of the camera. The audience knows they're there, but the camera remains focused on the players. But my players are all very invested in character interactions and stories, so they really enjoy having one or more npcs around to add to the complexity of the party dynamic. It might not work for everyone or for every type of game. Some games are a lot more game-y and more about levelling up and beating challenges, and in those games it's not as exciting or fun to have NPCs fighting NPCs, because you typically don't care about them. Those are just some of my thoughts anyway. And to clarify... I would never spend time forcing players to watch me play two sides of a battle they were not involved in. If it was important for them to know the outcome despite not being involved, it could just be described at that point.
@@SebastianWoodland Yeah I have no real problem with NPCs being part of the party. I just feel like in the case I described, it was a symptom of the DM just wanting to indulge himself rather than actually engage the players. That DM had a bit of an ego.
I grew up on dm's splitting the table and sending players away, otherwise great dm's though. Took some time to unlearn, but I don't usually run games anyway.
I have a habit of creating characters with exceptional traits (most often flaws) that I think are funny, but annoy the other players. For example: I once created a mute monk that only communicated by sign language so I had to make perform rolls to determine whether the others could understand me or not. One other time I created a cleric that didn't want to be recognized as one, because he worshipped a not popular deity. When the other players asked I told them I was a fighter instead to uphold the mystery and withheld my turn undead and spontaneous healing abilities so I don't reveal my class. And one other time I created a pillager and hoarded as much treasure as possible without sharing it with the party - I even locked it up in a small chest... The thing is that I wanted to share, but since my character had only known the others for half a day he had no reason to trust them. I wanted the other players to earn my character's trust through roleplaying, but they were perfectly content with being best friends with complete strangers they haven't learned anything about and didn't catch the hint. I also didn't want to tell them to do so, because that would've been out of character and meta-gaming...
We once tried the "Remove Players from the room when the party splits up" and I actually liked the thrill of not knowing what the others might have found. And it removed something I really disliked about one of my fellow party members. When I decide to keep something hidden from them because I either want it for myself as a Rogue with the special class of a thief, my character has a reason for it and by having them with me in the room, they know the thing and why and that's a bit boring for me. It also gives them a reason for being mad at me for playing my character like that and that is really annoying because they should be in character! So i did not mind splitting up in RL as well
I did it once too, it's really cool if you do it rarely and plan it well, but you prolly gotta have a plan for it Ours was done with a second DM friend running what the split party did in the other room so time lost was minimal, but that's not realistic for erryone
I also have a bad habit of playing the same character but when you know a character/class is fun it’s hard try something else, unsure if that class or character will be fun. I also have the habit of not paying attention after another player is having a 30 minute RP with the DM.
I have a habit of creating characters with exceptional traits (most often flaws) that I think are funny, but annoy the other players. For example: I once created a mute monk that only communicated by sign language so I had to make perform rolls to determine whether the others could understand me or not. One other time I created a cleric that didn't want to be recognized as one, because he worshipped a not popular deity. When the other players asked I told them I was a fighter instead to uphold the mystery and withheld my turn undead and spontaneous healing abilities so I don't reveal my class. And one other time I created a pillager and hoarded as much treasure as possible without sharing it with the party - I even locked it up in a small chest... The thing is that I wanted to share, but since my character had only known the others for half a day he had no reason to trust them. I wanted the other players to earn my character's trust through roleplaying, but they were perfectly content with being best friends with complete strangers they haven't learned anything about and didn't catch the hint. I also didn't want to tell them to do so, because that would've been out of character and meta-gaming...
VisualGourmet I get the characters not being friends right away type thing. Especially if a DM doesn’t let the players know that the party has been around together for awhile. I actually like the idea of the party having to earn each other’s trust and slowly but eventually becoming like family to one another.
Take a theme and try it in a different approach. I tend to like wizards/sorcs that often act superior and use their intellect/wisdom to get their way via diplomacy. I've tried different paths with different characters, like a thief that built up a spy network and achieved similar things via subterfuge instead, a paladin of Sune that would use her 'assets' to get information and use it as blackmail, or a barbarian that would just HULK SMASH to intimidate into getting what he wanted.
As far as my bad habits go... According to my group I'm too intense with my encounters? They say that every fight feels like a boss fight, to which I respond "Well if a fight happens without anyone almost dying, was it even a fight?" I don't know if that's a bad habit inherently, just a preference with how the game is played, but I guess my seeming inability to adapt to my group's wishes in that regard is certainly a flaw. I don't know, low-stakes encounters are just kinda boring to me. If they're not difficult or at least story-relevant, what's the point? But apparently some people just like to smash some trash mobs sometimes, and as a DM I should aim to supply that. Also I'm pretty sure I might give my group TOO much autonomy sometimes. I try to maintain a hands-off approach since I'm the DM and have all the info, so when someone suggests a course of action I know is terrible and will fail, I keep my mouth shut hoping the others will talk them out of it. ...I had a completely avoidable TPK because of this due to the players actively doing the complete opposite of what they should be doing.
If I may ask as a player and DM is how long do your combat sessions tend to take? Because part of my problem with every encounter feeling deadly as a player it gets frustrating when one encounter takes like 2 or 3 hours (in somecases its our fill 4 hours)
While a low-stakes encounter isn't as exciting as a big boss encounter, a lack of contrast between high and low stakes makes everything feel kind of same-y. When your players finally face off against the Dark Lord, it's gonna feel like every fight they had in his castle until they made it to him.
As a player: I have trouble to play more serious characters. The problem with that is, that my characters all feel the same to the other players. I know that they are different, but I have trouble bringing that to the surface. I also tend to give a lot of snappy comebacks during conversations, which can be fun, but not always good or serving the situation. As a DM: Especially when having to improvise an NPC on the spot, I focus way too much on the story and information flow, then on playing a fun character. This leads to npc's being more information dispensaries than being actually fun people to interact with.
I felt for a while that I was underacting a lot with my characters, that they wouldn't ever be that serious so I tried working on that, but with time I just realized it was more or less the flow my party would normally take. I love them all and I love playing with them, but they are not the kind of players that can take in a serious character, so I always end up goofing them up a bit and indulging.
My 2 worst habits are related. 1. Getting way too engrossed in the character creation process, to the point that I take forever to make a character. 2. I get obsessed with min-maxing. Trying to squeeze the absolute most starting stats out of character as possible.
I use to be the same in character creation too. It was especially back in 3.5 and Pathfinder cause there were *so* many options and ways to play what could amount to being the same character. Me and a friend could spend easily 6 hours doing nothing but pouring over all the books we had just to make a character that we'd play for maybe 2-3 sessions before the campaign died. I'm thankful to 5E for that cause while there aren't as many options (yet) as 3.5, it's easy to tell what's good for the character you WANT to make.
@@apatheosis8841 Nothing really, but it depends on the group and the kind of play expected in said group. I don't get the stigma either, but at the same time, good stats an interesting character does not make. With what people I've played with, when they min/maxed, they grew bored of their character quickly, as they played it more like a video game and gave the character themselves no personality. So a session or two in, they want to either change their character or quit that campaign.
@@apatheosis8841 I agree that its not a terrible practice. It doesn't hurt anyone. However sometimes you limit yourself unintentionally as a result. "Oh, that weapon would be cool, but I would generally get more damage out of this weapon, so I'll use it" Also sometimes it's a nice change of pace to not worry about whats on the sheet and just play the game. Thats the kind of relaxed play that I want to do more of.
When the party splits up, one thing you could do as a DM, is giving one group secret notes. That way the other group is still there, but doesn't see what's written on that note. Also, when someone knows all the monsters as a player in a game, the DM could change a few things about the monster to make it still be a surprise to those knowledgeable people. Or just make entirely new monsters.
In our campaign, everyone (including the DM) brings laptops and are logged on to discord so the DM can send us secret messages. I have found a lot of use for this whenever I cast detect thoughts.
The attention part is really hard to administrate when you're playing online. People just go browse something else and REALLY zone out, since it's just voices on their head. I'm guilty of that :P
Or working on a hobby project. During my games, I'm drawing. Trying to ply my hand at art. It only ever takes me a moment to break away, but even as I'm primarily focused on my art, the "podcast" is in my ears. So if anything piques my interest in any regard, my focus will shift.
As a player, I feel like I try to be the “main character” too much. I’m almost always a dm, so I feel like I try to keep the same level of control of the story as I do when I’m a dm. I need to sit back and let the other players actually take charge more.
My habit, when it comes to character creation, is the opposite to Jareds: I try to play whatever I see the party as 'needing'. This means I often play different characters, but they're slightly less fleshed-out than they would be if I went in with a concrete idea.
DM a seafaring campaign just once everyone. Then you get to use all those aquatic monsters who otherwise keep gathering dust. Sahuagins, deep ones, sea serpents, giant sharks/jellyfish/squid and of course the dreaded kraken. Also, ship battles.
When it comes to dice flubbing, I always like to point people to Seth Skorkowski's video on DM secrets that players don't want to know. He puts it quite well in that.
2 campaigns set 4 years apart with the same group, I apparently started with the party getting together, going to investigate a swarm of rats in a basement, and having to fight a rat king. I had completely forgotten that I'd done that before until they all pointed it out to me.
A not-quite-good, not-quite-bad habit of mine is, I'm addicted to homebrew content, no matter how "overpowered". Fortunately, I have a good habit: I usually stay my work from the "unquantified" balance except the standard content; I admit that's another word for "truly overpowered".
My habit ended up becoming an inside joke with my group, I always end up making the same character (class, race and name) when we make a new session. We gave him a story that he appears in the different worlds we are in, but is never aware about it. Even when I don't create the character our DM puts him in either as someone to give a quest, party member or just someone we meet in a town.
Funnily I wasn't that much of a DnD player when you started 2019's DnDecember. But throughout this half a year, that changed a lot and now I''m loving, rewatching, and actually understanding most of the stuff from these vids. Can't wait for 2020's DnDecember!!
I'm on playing computer games so my worst habit is remaking the character/party and restarting from scratch, especially with Icewind Dale and NWN. I did finish NWN2 tho.
As a player: The "knowing too much" thing that Jared pointed out and I tend to min-max but at least try to justify for the character a little. As a (rare) gamemaster: Get hyped for a new game or campaign idea, start running it, and then run out of steam after three sessions as I struggle for ideas that I think are good enough.
I've only been DM a couple times, but I definitely have regrets. Kind of like the "cutscene", I thought it would be a brilliant idea to have a hero NPC, akin to having my own character in my own campaign. The idea was that I'd be able to use them to bail out the party if needed, because I was too worried about causing a wipe. In truth, it just made me look self-important and patronizing, as if the players couldn't figure out how to play and I would somehow win, even though my intentions were anything but that. You gotta have faith in your players, or else they won't have fun. As for the player side, I'm usually pretty tame, but there's one pet peeve I just need to share. Ever been in one of those groups where everyone is trying to one-up each other? Yeah, that's not fun. Let other people do their thing, and don't concern yourself with being the "best" player. Sometimes the real fun is when things go wrong, and you have to figure out how to survive!
It’s a solid approach. Old trolls too boring? These ones are armed and armored! And that one has a magic item it knows how to use. And this basilisk? It mutated, actually; it cannot turn you into stone, but it can turn ITSELF into stone in a blink of an eye, granting him parry-like +3AC reaction.
Absolutely. Especially as it pertains to Jared's point of knowing the MM too well, giving a bit more HP, adding an ability or giving something armour can really spice up encounters, keeping it fresh for new and older players.
As a DM, I've homebrewed monsters to have different stats and abilities purely because I have a hard core meta-gaming player and no matter how much I tell her to let the new people experience things organically she has to tell them the stats and abilities mid combat. (:
Zombies too boring? Here's a reaction to give them. Upon being hit they barf all over the floor in front of them. Or in game terms cast acid splash directly in front of them and it stays on the ground for 2 rounds. I like giving monsters other things to do than "I move and attack, or I cast a spell"
Something to keep in mind with the dice stacking or other forms of fidgeting. For some people it actually helps them focus more on what is being said. If I have to sit still and just listen my mind will immediately start wandering, whereas if I can do something physical (stack dice, doodle etc) I can take in a lot more info. It may look disrespectful, but it might actually be them trying to stay engaged.
The more characters I make, the further I drift from the 'optimal' stat allocation mentality. I now use the 4d6 method to roll once for each stat in sequence, pick the class I feel best suits whatever I rolled, and find a way to roleplay whatever unholy combination I may have created! My worst habit would be systematically rolling my d20s during the session to find out which has the best track record for the day. I'm sure it annoys the dm and the players...
My worst D&D habit is probably blurting out when it's not my turn, like I get overexcited about remembering something someone else can do and go "ooh, I know what could be good!" or "hey, you're proficient in that one thing, yeah?" or worse, to the DM "wait, can't that monster do this one thing, too?" when, like, maybe they've got something just as efficient or more interesting planned, or already came to that conclusion and I'm just holding up the game...or someone who would've caught a lucky break gets slapped in the mouth by a Bugbear from ten feet away. Years of JRPGs make this a hard habit to break... =x=;
I've been playing for over 31 years and I've always been the DM. In that time I've honestly never really had players split up that much. Even when they did we would just keep the group together. I'm glad to hear you say that's a good thing, though. I always thought that maybe I was doing that wrong. I'm such a chill DM. I don't even use a screen. I've always felt that if my players aren't paying attention or don't wanna be at my table that's my fault. You mentioned falling back on cookie cutter enemies. I would say that it's ok and even ideal to throw "normal" monsters at your groups during their adventure. I've found players will actually miss seeing things like lizardmen or kobolds when they're expecting to see them. But when you want monster encounters to be special it is absolutely necessary to either create your own or otherwise find creatures that are unknown. That's my two cents, anyway. Great video man. I love your D&D stuff. ^_^
my worst d&d habit is that i let myself get talked over and rather than speak up, i stop talking and just get bummed out and eventually stop playing or get removed from the party for not contributing enough even when i want to
My worst D&D habit is waiting until the last minute for prep, going "Eh, I have enough material to improvise with, surely I can manage it" and then not doing any prep whatsoever. no I couldln't manage it for the record
I do the opposite most of the time. When I'm running a module (or an adventure I made) I over-prep the whole thing at the start which usually leads to me not having anything to do for 3 weeks and so when the pcs finish that storyline and are ready to move on I don't know what I'm going to run next
If you wanna have more diverse encounters, there's an encounter generator online. You can input the number of party members and their levels, a difficulty, and the terrain and it'll pop you out an encounter that would work with the players. It goes pretty diverse with its monsters too.
The point buy system is awesome! It gets the game going faster. (I've also been work shopping a system for roleplaying your character's origin during session 0, so it kind of needs the point buy system to keep it under 3 hours.)
I will say, one time I was the only one who showed up for D&D at the store I go to (I think the weather was bad), and the DM decided to run a one-shot scrambled together from pieces of dragon heist that our characters hadn't gone through. He had me roll a character, but this character didn't have a player class; He had the standard array of stats, like two tool proficiencies, and that's *it*. He was essentially a skilled hireling NPC; In that two hour session, I wound up with a character who, if I decided to play him as a PC, I feel would have a deeper, more well-rounded backstory than anything I could have manufactured on my own. But then, that's the thing; that was like a two hour, one-on-one session.
I mean, I can roll 6 sets of stats in about a minute, and allocate them in about 25 seconds if I already know what class I want to be. Point buy isn't actually faster
A rather epic event in a campaign I had was the team was split up by a magical mirror maze trap that created evil doppelgangers of each member. Each of us in turn had to go into a room with the DM and have a secret battle against themself. That way none of us would know who won and lost. It became really important for the story, as turns out the main fighter lost, and we had to chase his doppelganger as he ran off with a magical artifact the campaign villain needed. Case in point, agreed to not do it regularly, but for special events, it makes it really intriguing.
I always roll, but my friends and I always say you have to have at least one stat under a 9. We also use the, you can always make your character worse. Personally, I'm always attracted back to monks. 5e monks are great! As a DM, I have a tendency to make "living" worlds where the party has to go through a castle so it's layed out how a castle would be layed out, but that makes problems since ease of access to upper levels is actually a feature that is normal. You want to be able to get to where you want to go, but in a game that lets the players progress too quickly, especially since keys seem gimmicky to many people. By the way, Jared, you probably know this, but your audio is a bit staticy and cut out a bit at the beginning. I was still able to watch the whole video, though, and it was very good!
This is a cool idea for a video. There's lots of videos out there about what you SHOULD do, or tips; and there's videos showing what NOT to do, but very few that actually say "I do this, and it's something I'd like to work on."
As a long time dnd player, I have since stopped caring about min/maxing stats , whether its rolling multiple sets of stats (and dropping a low roll) or the point buy system which is the epitome of boring character creation. A set of 3d6, no rerolls, no dropping the lowest, roll a set and there's the character. This is too hardcore for most people, but after playing for many years I no longer care about playing a warrior, mage, cleric, etc. I play a CHARACTER who happens to be a warrior, mage, cleric, etc. Anyone can be a murderhobo, but not many will be remembered for it.
The trick here is to just make one super complex world, only show them some of it, and then each time you go there for a new campaign, pick a new time span.
As long as you're creating all of that with the intention of being something players can engage with and possibly enjoy, I think that's not a bad habit at all. I don't know anything about you, but I've seen this a lot in games I've been in and heard about it online more. It's not always a good idea to flesh *everything* out. That can lead to it being boring for the gm to run the setting if there isn't more promise for creative fulfillment and I definitely notice that with myself. And also remember that presentation is what really makes a world for the players. I'm new to dming so I'm still feeling out how to do this, but I've played in games with (I would later learn) fleshed out settings that felt hollow, while I've also played in what turned out to be minimal settings that felt incredibly alive and immersive! I just wish I had real advice on how to do it though xD
As a DM, I found a lot of difficulty with pride. When making homebrew stuff, and especially homebrew worlds, it's really hard to not force your players to see all of the incredible stuff you've made and even harder to keep them from messing with it. The world's not in a snowglobe and if your players decide to burn that really cool statue down to the ground, let them. In fact, the more slowly and patiently you reveal things about the world, the more your players feel like they're actually discovering stuff about it, instead of you forcing it down their throats. I dunno, that was my worst habit anyway. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk
I mostly play 3.5, but we usually do 4d6s for stat rolls. Keep the ones that are good and you're allowed 1 reroll per set. Write down the total and continue for each stat, then place each total where you please. It keeps it a little more balanced and fun with that risk vs reward dice roll. Stuck with an 8 because you got greedy for 1-2 more points? Ooooh wellll
I had a bad habit to come overly prepared as a DM, mostly because a lot of the planning will go to waste or not happen due to player choice and actions. So i learned to make more guidelines and less strict preparations to adapt to the style my players wanted to run. It all worked much better when i just planed an idea and had monsters, situations and scenarios as back up to what i believe my players will do on the next session for the campaign. Specially because they were the type of party that had a warhammer fantasy setting, and they wanted to explore the world. So localized adventures seemed restrictive, and this gave them the freedom that they wanted, with the security and planning i needed to host the session.
I always do 4d6 remove 1 dice to roll my stats. It's the best way to me. There's so many intro monsters out there in the Monster manual. Skeletons, gnolls, death mantles.
Each method has its pros and cons. Mathematically, 4d6 drop lowest has a better chance of yielding high individual scores, while rolling 3d6 12 times and picking the six highest rolls results in more consistent mid-range scores. If you want a character with at least one high (16+) score at the risk of having more below average scores, 4d6 is the better method. If you're more concerned with keeping everything in the double digits at the risk of a more-or-less "average" set of scores, 3d6x12 is better.
@@jessicaslater4243 I have tried point buy once. It took half the fun out of character creation for me. Me and people I know ushually also reroll 1s as well for our character creation.
@@CosmicDuskWolf Point buy is handy if your players want to feel like they all got a fair shake. In some cases, especially if one player rolled really well and another didn't, the player with the low rolls can feel like they got screwed over by bad luck before the campaign even started. I will usually offer my players alternatives if their ability score rolls were atrociously low, but if they're still reasonable ability scores, my first instinct is to try and convince the player to just play a character with many weaknesses, as that can result in a fun character in its own right.
I don't know that I've been playing D&D long enough to have 'habits' per se... but the fiddling with dice thing... well that can be a bit flexible. Pretty much everyone in our group is neurodivergent / on the spectrum, and we all know that we can be very engaged *and* do fiddly things at the same time...? So for us, it seems to be OK. Our group is really good about talking stuff out when anything makes them uncomfortable! I would love to see Jared build and play a character completely outside his comfort zone. I have two character builds I haven't played yet, but I'm fascinated to see how they will play out: a Sorcerous Gnome (with a hereditary Draconic pact,) and a dense but unusually sensitive Orc Bard. Making the backstories for these characters was massive fun, and I'd love to see how Jared might flex his creativity with an unconventional character!
I quit dnd, my friends who I played with treated me really bad and now I only have bad memories of it. But im here to drop a like and a comment for support
12:01 while I am very new to DMing and Dungeons and Dragons as a whole, one thing I have been doing to keep player interest is that I am modifying nearly every single monster that I put into my game (which is normal considering I am running a homebrew) but playing with people who have been playing for over 20 years, it helps to switch things up for them so that they don't know what to expect. Whether it means giving monsters new abilities, adjusting their hit points and AC, or introducing completely new monsters all together. But I also do this to help fit the monsters into the world I am building, as opposed to just throwing standard Monster Manual Forgotten Realms monsters into my world. Variety is the spice of life.
Gandalf Becan Are you high....? How does your comment make any sense? He’s paying more attention than you by pointing out that the mic is a little bit fuzzy picking up his voice.
My worst habit is arguing semantics in a game that I probably shouldn't. Eg the DM was allowing us to use 50ft of rope to climb vertically 50ft. But since we were at the base I refused to accept that one of our characters could throw the rope against gravity perfectly to grip on to the top of the wall.
One that I like using as a player from time to time to mix things up and play a character class I may not otherwise consider is to roll my stats IN ORDER before selecting a class.
You do a 30 pt buy? I've been running 20 pt buys for my games, and I always have mathematically unique characters due to character concept and race bonuses.
A lot of newer DMs try to railroad a lot. They aren‘t flexible but I had a situation more often than I’m willing to admit, where I‘m the other extreme and I really hat no idea where I wanted to go with my adventure and had to say „lets take a break, I have to think about what comes next.“
I totally do the generic low level monsters with my players. Lately I've broken this habit by buying sets of monster and magic item cards, drawing 1 monster and magic item at random, and building an adventure around that. If it's way too strong for the party, make them the BBEG that theyll face down the line. If it's too weak, beef em up or really lean into the environment or allies supporting them. Super fun
I used to do that die stacking thing so much that it influenced a school project I recently did. We were making polyhedrals out of paper and then we had to use them to make a structure. So I made the shapes of the dice and them glued them into a die stack.
I'm genuinely tempted to look up dnd groups in my area to give this a go, even though my only prior experience had been about an hour of Baldurs Gate 1 and the Eye of the Beholder series. That's how engaging this series of videos is.
I'm pro anti-cell phone during games. Broke up with my ex because her needing a ride home from work interfered with my game. Sorry honey, phones off during the game and she knew it.
Currently my group are playing a BugBear, Goblin (myself), Cyborg (Human just replaced with mechanical artificer parts) and Kobold. It’s very very fun. The party composition is Artificer, Barbarian, Cleric, and Fighter
I did so many of the bad habits you discussed in this video. The cutscenes, the over using the same monsters, the telling ppl to leave the room when the party was split..... Plus one of my own I did when I was younger was get too in character (I was the DM) and shout at my players when playing as a hostile NPC Errrrrg cringe. I also hope I’m better now at playing in recent times x3
Good call on not splitting. Usually the split group (in my experiences) would just tell us what all happened as soon as we reconvened, making the split entirely useless.😪
In the example of the bishop attacking the king and the player wanting to shoot him, at the very least surprise rounds are a thing, and the bishop would get one there, so stabbing in the back happens before the players try to act. Once the bishop's turn is done, then it's initiative time!
I have an annoying one for DMs! as a player, I like my spells to have a lot of utility and use outside of combat, so a lot of times ill as if a spell can have a slightly different effect. For example; using prestidigitation to make a guys eyeballs spicey, or using mold earth to creat blocks of solid stone from rock.
About splitting groups... I always say to player that splitting in two groups will END THE CURRENT SESSION. That way, I can have fast, separated sessions in other days. Then, when both the extra sessions are done, I organize the continuation of the main story line, starting the session with both groups reuniting.
Split into player and DM worst habits: Player: I tend to take the lead too often. It usually is just for me being more outspoken, but sometimes it gets confrontational and while it hasn't ended too badly yet, I do need to reign myself in more. DM: For one I kinda feel I am a bit too lenient on the players. On the other hand I tend to ad lib too much on busier weeks, which can really slow the pace of a session down.
I deal with the monster metagame by swapping out traits and abilities with that of other creatures. Cr is harder to calculate, but it keeps the suspension up.
My worst D&D habit to watching/listening to multiple videos on the subject even though I’ve never played D&D in my life
Same
Same!
This
Play it ya dummy!
Highly recommend getting an online group to play with. The experience is still quite enjoyable and it's how I began playing dnd
we actually have a rule about dice stacking in my group, if the tower falls, you take damage equal to what is rolled from the toppled dice tower, basically telling the player that if you do this, you will die :P
I'm going to implement that with my campaign I'm DM'ing now.
gonna be hilarious since they're still level 3
OMG what a WONDERFUL idea!!! Gotta implement that in my next session!!!! THANKS for sharing!
Dice fall, everyone dies!
Considering that I have built entire dice palaces of the people using somewhere around several hundred D6 (when you have a box of dice reserved for shadowrun and Orks for 40K, you have loads of material)... I am going to aim for exploding so utterly spectacularly from so much damage I will crack the planet.
@@Khymerion Woops kneed the table...
Jared, you could solve two of your habits in a single character.
Create a hunter/poacher character. Someone who has hunted scores of creatures in the past, and is constantly on the lookout for new beasts to fight and kill.
It'd mean your RL encyclopedic knowledge of the monster manual could be justified, it's playing a character that isn't Diath for once, and as a bonus it brings a little bit of Monster Hunter into your D&D sessions.
This is a great idea and it deserves more attention.
Even better: make them a braggard! Because this level 5 ranger toooootally 1v1d a Dragon.
Tyrranis I had like this last night, and LOVE it!
I thought of a circus ring/beast tamer and handler.
Always wanted to do a lizardfolk like this. Have to have a DM willing to let you try creative things with monster parts though.
Make Him an old character with strength and con as dump stats alongside wisdom as the best one. That way, you're justified to have a lot of knowledge of the monsters.
I think it's completely reasonable to ask everyone to put their phones away during play time. It is more distracting than phones in a movie. Staaap!
Letting some of my previous players talk me into homebrew that sounds cool on paper, and becomes powergaming in practice.
Flip the tables on them
Mork Borg
It's why I'm super against home brew
Ruinations of the Rust Princess is a good game.
Sometimes those homebrews turn into something
Arduin, Warlock, and it still amazed me at how much Arcanum 2nd Edition can still give D&D a run for it's money. Especially when Arcanum is just 2 books.
That's not really homebrewings fault.
As a player i too often end up as the ''leader'' of the group, sometimes even by accident. It's hard not to when players in my group do things like trying to burn down a druidic forest for no other reason than ''i am a tiefling that likes fire''
That's not really a bad habit, though, if the other members of your team actively seek to do stupid shit then you _should_ take charge, especially since otherwise the dumbass pyromaniac is probably going to incite some mob of angry druids showing up and overwhelming everyone
Honestly it sounds less like being a _leader_ and more like being a crossing guard.
A player that burns, or tries to burn, a druidic forest because "I'm a tiefling, I like fire" needs to be spoken to. I'm sure they think its fun, and if it gets a chuckle from someone, regardless of the meaning or tone, it only reinforces that that behaviour is ok, so they keep doing edgy things like that. I know you aren't asking for advice, but thats a fairly common thing people say, players that don't care about consequence or the actions they do because its fun or for the lolz
@@canadian__ninja What if they do it because they are roleplaying?
If my character is a proud,hot headed,ruthless outlaw
Then it IS a trait of his to react violently to say an Elitist Paladin who talks down to him,even if that Paladin is a quest giver or a party member
To not do so because they are Quest Givers and or Party members would not only be not roleplaying properly but also be meta becuase i'm keeping my character from acting in a certain way only because it'd affect things outside of the game world
The problem isn't that they are burning a forest down, but more so the big treant teleporting to our location and instagibbing us for being rude to his cousin, if we were to try and burn the forest down. Having hour long discussions about why this isn't a favourable outcome just sort of slows down the game
@@nazzgorn If it would take too much away from the game, wait until some time after to talk to them about it
I find that the "Splitting the Party" problem to actually work quite well when playing on something like Discord, so a GM can flip between channels to keep secrets and keep the game flowing
If anything that's worse, to be honest. At least in person they're just playing Smash or something, still having company in the form of the other players in your half of the party. In a discord call it's more like 'okay break time for our half' and everyone just does their own thing. Also the bigger issue is the amount of time it takes, not necessarily the actual split.
Sometimes it works really well, though. Just depends on how you handle it.
This happened a few times while i was in a Black Heresy campaign in high school. My DM was amazing at throwing us into what we thought was unwinnable situations, and really stressful situations where we were split up (or not able to talk, thanks vox systems) and didn't know who was good or not.
For example, there was a session later in our campaign where our group entered an Imperial vessel that had been infected with Brainleaf. Our group got split up, vox communication got jammed, and it ended up with my character and another, our Arbites, in a shuttle that had been damaged, so we had to stay in our spacesuits.
The brainleaf had infected a character before, and our vox beads were down, so we couldn't talk. We were in seperate rooms by this point, so we had no information about the other person, and both of us were already suspicious.
He pulled his plasma pistol, and i had my power sword with me. With the rolls we made, he blasted a chunk of my face off, and i sliced off his gun hand. We both barely survived the experience (I had to burn a fate point to not die immediately).
It was one of the most memorable moments of the whole five-year campaign for me, it was stressful and awesome. I'm not saying it works for everyone, but it can be pulled off if done right.
TL;DR Splitting the group or cutting off communication can work if your players are into it and you set it up correctly. The tension of that situation can be amazing.
Something I learned as a new DM:
Don't try to be Super Mario Bros. - World 1-1.
By that, I mean if you're throwing new optional rules at your players, don't try to lead them into it. What you're going to do is deny them agency over their action. Leave the "show-don't-tell" to plot development. But for unconventional mechanics, explain those to your players in plane terms.
>"I end up playing him (Diath Woodrow) in other systems"
ProJared becomes dangerously close to admitting to trying Pathfinder, part 1
I feel like he said he has played pathfinder a couple of times.
Isn't that pfp from a furry porn?
@@shaynehughes6645 what makes you think that?
@@toceeno874 because it looks like something I saw on a numbers and letters website. So does yours.
Cutscenes are ok if they aren't taking place where the characters are. My DM will have cutscenes of areas we are going to or just left, as either a prologue or epilogue to our adventure
Hehe! My friends and I use to joke about "The Cutscene" where we'd joke about the game suddenly going letterbox as the DM describes the enemy that's approaching or the massive intricate room that the dragon might be in. Then though, the players were very "in on it" but with my current group the cutscene has stopped.
They are fine to set the tone, or end a chapter, even to introduce characters. They can be too much if they go long though, I mean we are there to play and write a story together, not to have the DM read us a bedtime story.
And so the Courier, who cheated death in the cemetary outside Goodsprings, cheated death once again, and the Mojave Wasteland was forever changed.
@@Kez_DXX The Courier, with the aid of Yes Man, drove both the Legion and the NCR from Hoover Dam, securing New Vegas' independence from both factions.
Our epilogues typically dealt with loose ends, like "remember that guy you let go instead of kill? Well now he is building an army to destroy you. Good luck going back to that town". Obviously stated in a more eloquent fashion but that is what it would boil down to
My most memorable character to this day is still one I somehow manage to roll 4 ones on 4d6 when choosing their stats and refusing to reroll
Needlessly to say, the natural 3 went straight into Intelligence, and it was like playing Fallout 2 in idiot mode all over again
I currently have a Half-Orc Barbarian with an int of 5 and a strength of 23 after buffs. Hes extremely fun to play.
@The Great Jimbini
Dob?
Is that you?
@@Her_Imperious_Condescension honestly have no idea what you mean here man.
@The Great Jimbini
It just reminds me of the Oxventure series.
Dob, the half orc bard, that has dumb ideas and powerful Orcish strength.
@@Her_Imperious_Condescension I meant barbarian, just didnt want to type it out lmao.
Jared my advice on breaking away from Diath is to keep the Rogue and mix up the rest. As the guy who is always the Wizard, I know exactly how that feels. But mixing it up is a fun change of pace. I went from a stock human wizard, to a human wizard-protector, to a dwarf wizard who owned a traveling tavern and used magic to keep the peace. Mixing it up even a little bit is great and makes it easier to mix it up more in the future
Might use that traveling tavern idea...
DM: don't take control away from your players
Wizard/dnd modules: what?
My worst d&d habit is always making the same types of characters every time, I'm too picky with what I want to play.
Same here. Lawful Good Dragonborn. Almost every time.
I don't think this is a bad thing. If you're really good with that type of character, I would like to think no one minds.
I love using random tables to expand my playing style, otherwise I tend to do the same.
Same here. Chaotic Neutral Femme Fatales. Lol. Usually Rogues. And Tieflings.
this is a problem I've faced as well. I almost always roll a Cleric of some sort, but I just really enjoy them.
I kind of want to take a stab at a Ranger at some point, though
4d6-drop-lowest has produced some crazy powerful characters for me. I have a forge cleric who can set the fucking world on fire.
That said, I have the opposite problem: I want every character to be unique, and because of that, I have too many goddamned characters.
i enjoy making character so i have like a ton of characters made in advance that im just waiting for a campaign to use them
Yup, know the feeling. I even made a hill dwarf druid because of Jared and he quickly became my favorite character, but I still have 13 other unique characters xD
My biggest mistake is in DMing- I plan my sessions too minimally! Lots of sessions go offroad fast, and not in the usually fun way!
same bro, I'm horrible at improv
@@Dynamo33
What's the best way to go about creating a homebrew world?
@@illusion115 From my perspective.
Write, and write agan. Then write some more.
Then throw it all out when you hate it and start anew, taking only the things you like and restart.
Rince & Repeat until happy.
But that's my perspective, as an creative buffoon.
It's fine to plan, but plan wide and let the session go deep. Have the bigger things, detailed but not so much that it would feel like lost work if your players somehow circumvent it.
It can be really hard if you end up having to pull half a session out of your ass though.
@@illusion115 There is no "best" way, just what works for you. I personally find that keeping things as minimalist as possible gives me more flexibility. But horses for courses.
I once had a D&D session with a guy I kinda knew from work and some of his friends.
He wasn't a great DM. His motivations were really self indulgent. He was clearly more interested in playing out the scripted story he had in his head than whether or not the players were having fun. On our last session (we kind of went our separate ways after this) it was me, another player, and 2 NPC characters making up the party. That's right, the party was 50% NPC. We encountered bandits and the fight went on for a while. Eventually both players were unconscious but the DM just continued to play out the battle between his bandits and his NPCs. Every action, every roll, for at least an hour. Meanwhile his players are just twiddling their thumbs. He could have easily fudged the rules and concluded the fight sooner for the sake of entertainment, but no. This guy wanted to be the DM and the player at the same time.
Ew, gross. So I mentioned in my own comment that the cutscene can be done well, but I forgot to mention an important detail. If you want to control 100% of the story, GO WRITE A BOOK. DMing is not for you. A DM has to expect give-and-take or the game doesn't play.
And the NPC battle situation sucks, that sounds so awful. In a recent game of mine, my players were attacked at sea. They were not sailors - by necessity, there were a number of combat-hardy but non-player sailors on board, and they got attacked by some sea monsters. All I did was, once a round, rolled a D6. if it was a 1 or 2, shit got worse. 3-5, stayed about the same. 6, it got a bit better. That's it. Towards the end I let a 6 have an NPC off a squid and the PCs cheered, cause they had been deadlocked for a bit and the fight was crowded so no-one could get over there. That's all you need. If it's important, make it important, otherwise don't hog the players' time.
@@trident042 I might use that d6 method. That ain't bad.
That said I'm a dm and I write, so yeah the two are different things. DMing is about telling the party's story, both as individuals and as a group. Yes you can have a narrative but it needs to be kind of loosey goosey to let your players have agency. Yes it means planning things sometimes week to week or on the fly, but that just makes things feel more organic. Not everyone can do that though, and that's fine, but it is something you may want to practice a bit.
Yea.. He should probably have done a fade to black when you guys went down, and then either have it be a party wipe or more likely have you wake up in a cage or somethin.
When I run games I like to have 1 or 2 party NPCs. I keep them around so that the players can form relationships with them, and they can naturally offer exposition through dialogue when it makes sense, and potentially add some humour into scenes. But, unless they are an NPC who's allegiance is specifically unclear, and that's part of the drama, I let the players control them during combat encounters. Occasionally, if a player is going to make one of them do something completely out of character, I will let them know it breaks their character and offer a suggestion for what they will do. And in big encounters with lots of enemies, I sometimes just take off the NPCs and act as though they essentially cancel out some of the enemies. Story-wise, they are locked in combat, and if the players need to interact with them then they can become relevant again, but it's basically like changing the focus of the camera. The audience knows they're there, but the camera remains focused on the players.
But my players are all very invested in character interactions and stories, so they really enjoy having one or more npcs around to add to the complexity of the party dynamic. It might not work for everyone or for every type of game. Some games are a lot more game-y and more about levelling up and beating challenges, and in those games it's not as exciting or fun to have NPCs fighting NPCs, because you typically don't care about them. Those are just some of my thoughts anyway. And to clarify... I would never spend time forcing players to watch me play two sides of a battle they were not involved in. If it was important for them to know the outcome despite not being involved, it could just be described at that point.
@@SebastianWoodland Yeah I have no real problem with NPCs being part of the party. I just feel like in the case I described, it was a symptom of the DM just wanting to indulge himself rather than actually engage the players. That DM had a bit of an ego.
I've never felt so called out as when Jared pointed out the stacking dice habit. Everyone at my table does it, we're all terrible.
My worst D&D habit is not playing enough.
same, i wish I could get the group back together or find a new one
I play twice a week, every Monday and Friday
Damn I wish I could get a D&D group
You know, you can play D&D with Discord groups. Try it out.
@@vincentsissom4180 might try
I have a habit of: splitting the party for long sections of side quests, and, inserting DM NPCs when they don’t belong.
DMPCs are, to a very narrow extent, ok to use on occasion. So long as you keep their roles minimal to the story or to the gameplay at hand.
I grew up on dm's splitting the table and sending players away, otherwise great dm's though. Took some time to unlearn, but I don't usually run games anyway.
I have a habit of creating characters with exceptional traits (most often flaws) that I think are funny, but annoy the other players. For example: I once created a mute monk that only communicated by sign language so I had to make perform rolls to determine whether the others could understand me or not. One other time I created a cleric that didn't want to be recognized as one, because he worshipped a not popular deity. When the other players asked I told them I was a fighter instead to uphold the mystery and withheld my turn undead and spontaneous healing abilities so I don't reveal my class. And one other time I created a pillager and hoarded as much treasure as possible without sharing it with the party - I even locked it up in a small chest... The thing is that I wanted to share, but since my character had only known the others for half a day he had no reason to trust them. I wanted the other players to earn my character's trust through roleplaying, but they were perfectly content with being best friends with complete strangers they haven't learned anything about and didn't catch the hint. I also didn't want to tell them to do so, because that would've been out of character and meta-gaming...
We once tried the "Remove Players from the room when the party splits up" and I actually liked the thrill of not knowing what the others might have found. And it removed something I really disliked about one of my fellow party members. When I decide to keep something hidden from them because I either want it for myself as a Rogue with the special class of a thief, my character has a reason for it and by having them with me in the room, they know the thing and why and that's a bit boring for me. It also gives them a reason for being mad at me for playing my character like that and that is really annoying because they should be in character!
So i did not mind splitting up in RL as well
I did it once too, it's really cool if you do it rarely and plan it well, but you prolly gotta have a plan for it
Ours was done with a second DM friend running what the split party did in the other room so time lost was minimal, but that's not realistic for erryone
I also have a bad habit of playing the same character but when you know a character/class is fun it’s hard try something else, unsure if that class or character will be fun.
I also have the habit of not paying attention after another player is having a 30 minute RP with the DM.
I have a habit of creating characters with exceptional traits (most often flaws) that I think are funny, but annoy the other players. For example: I once created a mute monk that only communicated by sign language so I had to make perform rolls to determine whether the others could understand me or not. One other time I created a cleric that didn't want to be recognized as one, because he worshipped a not popular deity. When the other players asked I told them I was a fighter instead to uphold the mystery and withheld my turn undead and spontaneous healing abilities so I don't reveal my class. And one other time I created a pillager and hoarded as much treasure as possible without sharing it with the party - I even locked it up in a small chest... The thing is that I wanted to share, but since my character had only known the others for half a day he had no reason to trust them. I wanted the other players to earn my character's trust through roleplaying, but they were perfectly content with being best friends with complete strangers they haven't learned anything about and didn't catch the hint. I also didn't want to tell them to do so, because that would've been out of character and meta-gaming...
VisualGourmet I get the characters not being friends right away type thing. Especially if a DM doesn’t let the players know that the party has been around together for awhile. I actually like the idea of the party having to earn each other’s trust and slowly but eventually becoming like family to one another.
Take a theme and try it in a different approach. I tend to like wizards/sorcs that often act superior and use their intellect/wisdom to get their way via diplomacy. I've tried different paths with different characters, like a thief that built up a spy network and achieved similar things via subterfuge instead, a paladin of Sune that would use her 'assets' to get information and use it as blackmail, or a barbarian that would just HULK SMASH to intimidate into getting what he wanted.
visgourmet you're the reason they removed alignnents
As far as my bad habits go... According to my group I'm too intense with my encounters? They say that every fight feels like a boss fight, to which I respond "Well if a fight happens without anyone almost dying, was it even a fight?" I don't know if that's a bad habit inherently, just a preference with how the game is played, but I guess my seeming inability to adapt to my group's wishes in that regard is certainly a flaw. I don't know, low-stakes encounters are just kinda boring to me. If they're not difficult or at least story-relevant, what's the point? But apparently some people just like to smash some trash mobs sometimes, and as a DM I should aim to supply that.
Also I'm pretty sure I might give my group TOO much autonomy sometimes. I try to maintain a hands-off approach since I'm the DM and have all the info, so when someone suggests a course of action I know is terrible and will fail, I keep my mouth shut hoping the others will talk them out of it. ...I had a completely avoidable TPK because of this due to the players actively doing the complete opposite of what they should be doing.
If I may ask as a player and DM is how long do your combat sessions tend to take? Because part of my problem with every encounter feeling deadly as a player it gets frustrating when one encounter takes like 2 or 3 hours (in somecases its our fill 4 hours)
While a low-stakes encounter isn't as exciting as a big boss encounter, a lack of contrast between high and low stakes makes everything feel kind of same-y. When your players finally face off against the Dark Lord, it's gonna feel like every fight they had in his castle until they made it to him.
I've definitely heard that expression before. Didn't think I'd find you here good sir!
@@ransselthkaen Nor did I think I'd find you here. Or that you'd recognize me for that matter. Wacky coincidence.
As a player: I have trouble to play more serious characters. The problem with that is, that my characters all feel the same to the other players. I know that they are different, but I have trouble bringing that to the surface. I also tend to give a lot of snappy comebacks during conversations, which can be fun, but not always good or serving the situation.
As a DM: Especially when having to improvise an NPC on the spot, I focus way too much on the story and information flow, then on playing a fun character. This leads to npc's being more information dispensaries than being actually fun people to interact with.
Try Crimson Cutlass by Better Games
I felt for a while that I was underacting a lot with my characters, that they wouldn't ever be that serious so I tried working on that, but with time I just realized it was more or less the flow my party would normally take. I love them all and I love playing with them, but they are not the kind of players that can take in a serious character, so I always end up goofing them up a bit and indulging.
My 2 worst habits are related.
1. Getting way too engrossed in the character creation process, to the point that I take forever to make a character.
2. I get obsessed with min-maxing. Trying to squeeze the absolute most starting stats out of character as possible.
I use to be the same in character creation too. It was especially back in 3.5 and Pathfinder cause there were *so* many options and ways to play what could amount to being the same character. Me and a friend could spend easily 6 hours doing nothing but pouring over all the books we had just to make a character that we'd play for maybe 2-3 sessions before the campaign died.
I'm thankful to 5E for that cause while there aren't as many options (yet) as 3.5, it's easy to tell what's good for the character you WANT to make.
I do not agree with the common disliking of min-maxing. What is wrong with trying to get the most out of your character?
@@apatheosis8841 Nothing really, but it depends on the group and the kind of play expected in said group. I don't get the stigma either, but at the same time, good stats an interesting character does not make.
With what people I've played with, when they min/maxed, they grew bored of their character quickly, as they played it more like a video game and gave the character themselves no personality. So a session or two in, they want to either change their character or quit that campaign.
@@apatheosis8841 I agree that its not a terrible practice. It doesn't hurt anyone. However sometimes you limit yourself unintentionally as a result.
"Oh, that weapon would be cool, but I would generally get more damage out of this weapon, so I'll use it"
Also sometimes it's a nice change of pace to not worry about whats on the sheet and just play the game.
Thats the kind of relaxed play that I want to do more of.
This is me and also other reply about spending hours to make a character that maybe gets three sessions?
When the party splits up, one thing you could do as a DM, is giving one group secret notes. That way the other group is still there, but doesn't see what's written on that note.
Also, when someone knows all the monsters as a player in a game, the DM could change a few things about the monster to make it still be a surprise to those knowledgeable people. Or just make entirely new monsters.
In our campaign, everyone (including the DM) brings laptops and are logged on to discord so the DM can send us secret messages. I have found a lot of use for this whenever I cast detect thoughts.
The attention part is really hard to administrate when you're playing online. People just go browse something else and REALLY zone out, since it's just voices on their head. I'm guilty of that :P
Roll20 helps.
Or working on a hobby project. During my games, I'm drawing. Trying to ply my hand at art. It only ever takes me a moment to break away, but even as I'm primarily focused on my art, the "podcast" is in my ears. So if anything piques my interest in any regard, my focus will shift.
As a player, I feel like I try to be the “main character” too much. I’m almost always a dm, so I feel like I try to keep the same level of control of the story as I do when I’m a dm. I need to sit back and let the other players actually take charge more.
My habit, when it comes to character creation, is the opposite to Jareds: I try to play whatever I see the party as 'needing'. This means I often play different characters, but they're slightly less fleshed-out than they would be if I went in with a concrete idea.
DM a seafaring campaign just once everyone. Then you get to use all those aquatic monsters who otherwise keep gathering dust.
Sahuagins, deep ones, sea serpents, giant sharks/jellyfish/squid and of course the dreaded kraken.
Also, ship battles.
....I've done this lol
@@projared Sweet, my group just took down a sahuagin pirate lord. (four armed sahuagin with blackguard levels)
When it comes to dice flubbing, I always like to point people to Seth Skorkowski's video on DM secrets that players don't want to know. He puts it quite well in that.
2 campaigns set 4 years apart with the same group, I apparently started with the party getting together, going to investigate a swarm of rats in a basement, and having to fight a rat king. I had completely forgotten that I'd done that before until they all pointed it out to me.
A not-quite-good, not-quite-bad habit of mine is, I'm addicted to homebrew content, no matter how "overpowered". Fortunately, I have a good habit: I usually stay my work from the "unquantified" balance except the standard content; I admit that's another word for "truly overpowered".
self-reflection? on MY interenet?!? it's more likely than you think!
I never knew I had such terrible habits both in DnD AND in real life
Ive got my eye on you i know you watch Dwane and Jazz pretty sure.
Why are you here. Why are you everywhere? I struggle to find a video without you commenting on it.
My habit ended up becoming an inside joke with my group, I always end up making the same character (class, race and name) when we make a new session. We gave him a story that he appears in the different worlds we are in, but is never aware about it. Even when I don't create the character our DM puts him in either as someone to give a quest, party member or just someone we meet in a town.
Honesty’s been Projared’s best game for awhile, this shouldn’t be hard for him!
Funnily I wasn't that much of a DnD player when you started 2019's DnDecember. But throughout this half a year, that changed a lot and now I''m loving, rewatching, and actually understanding most of the stuff from these vids.
Can't wait for 2020's DnDecember!!
I see my players stacking dice towers all the time. My solution: Throw my own dice at it to knock it down.
You're evil
I'm on playing computer games so my worst habit is remaking the character/party and restarting from scratch, especially with Icewind Dale and NWN. I did finish NWN2 tho.
I've never gotten to catch a Projared video this fresh before. Awesome!
Me neither
Same
+1
Same bro
As a player: The "knowing too much" thing that Jared pointed out and I tend to min-max but at least try to justify for the character a little.
As a (rare) gamemaster: Get hyped for a new game or campaign idea, start running it, and then run out of steam after three sessions as I struggle for ideas that I think are good enough.
Merry Christmas Projared. Thank you for all the joy you’ve bought us this year with your videos. God bless.
I've only been DM a couple times, but I definitely have regrets. Kind of like the "cutscene", I thought it would be a brilliant idea to have a hero NPC, akin to having my own character in my own campaign. The idea was that I'd be able to use them to bail out the party if needed, because I was too worried about causing a wipe. In truth, it just made me look self-important and patronizing, as if the players couldn't figure out how to play and I would somehow win, even though my intentions were anything but that. You gotta have faith in your players, or else they won't have fun.
As for the player side, I'm usually pretty tame, but there's one pet peeve I just need to share. Ever been in one of those groups where everyone is trying to one-up each other? Yeah, that's not fun. Let other people do their thing, and don't concern yourself with being the "best" player. Sometimes the real fun is when things go wrong, and you have to figure out how to survive!
I tend to always change monster's stats when I'm DM, which I don't think is a bad habit. For veteran players it can introduce some variety.
It’s a solid approach.
Old trolls too boring? These ones are armed and armored! And that one has a magic item it knows how to use.
And this basilisk? It mutated, actually; it cannot turn you into stone, but it can turn ITSELF into stone in a blink of an eye, granting him parry-like +3AC reaction.
Absolutely. Especially as it pertains to Jared's point of knowing the MM too well, giving a bit more HP, adding an ability or giving something armour can really spice up encounters, keeping it fresh for new and older players.
As a DM, I've homebrewed monsters to have different stats and abilities purely because I have a hard core meta-gaming player and no matter how much I tell her to let the new people experience things organically she has to tell them the stats and abilities mid combat. (:
Zombies too boring? Here's a reaction to give them.
Upon being hit they barf all over the floor in front of them. Or in game terms cast acid splash directly in front of them and it stays on the ground for 2 rounds.
I like giving monsters other things to do than "I move and attack, or I cast a spell"
Something to keep in mind with the dice stacking or other forms of fidgeting. For some people it actually helps them focus more on what is being said. If I have to sit still and just listen my mind will immediately start wandering, whereas if I can do something physical (stack dice, doodle etc) I can take in a lot more info.
It may look disrespectful, but it might actually be them trying to stay engaged.
The more characters I make, the further I drift from the 'optimal' stat allocation mentality. I now use the 4d6 method to roll once for each stat in sequence, pick the class I feel best suits whatever I rolled, and find a way to roleplay whatever unholy combination I may have created!
My worst habit would be systematically rolling my d20s during the session to find out which has the best track record for the day. I'm sure it annoys the dm and the players...
Going in to my first ever DnD experience next week, it is so much fun to listen to your experiences; I am so excited about getting into it!
My worst D&D habit is probably blurting out when it's not my turn, like I get overexcited about remembering something someone else can do and go "ooh, I know what could be good!" or "hey, you're proficient in that one thing, yeah?" or worse, to the DM "wait, can't that monster do this one thing, too?" when, like, maybe they've got something just as efficient or more interesting planned, or already came to that conclusion and I'm just holding up the game...or someone who would've caught a lucky break gets slapped in the mouth by a Bugbear from ten feet away. Years of JRPGs make this a hard habit to break... =x=;
I've been playing for over 31 years and I've always been the DM. In that time I've honestly never really had players split up that much. Even when they did we would just keep the group together. I'm glad to hear you say that's a good thing, though. I always thought that maybe I was doing that wrong. I'm such a chill DM. I don't even use a screen. I've always felt that if my players aren't paying attention or don't wanna be at my table that's my fault.
You mentioned falling back on cookie cutter enemies. I would say that it's ok and even ideal to throw "normal" monsters at your groups during their adventure. I've found players will actually miss seeing things like lizardmen or kobolds when they're expecting to see them. But when you want monster encounters to be special it is absolutely necessary to either create your own or otherwise find creatures that are unknown. That's my two cents, anyway. Great video man. I love your D&D stuff. ^_^
Jared's audio.
F
*F*
Two hours later, the audio sounds fine. o_O
Jared i love the DnD content its good to see another member of this community thriving. keep up the good work!
The more you talk about D&D makes me want to play D&D. With you or just in general. Urggggllll
my worst d&d habit is that i let myself get talked over and rather than speak up, i stop talking and just get bummed out and eventually stop playing or get removed from the party for not contributing enough even when i want to
My worst D&D habit is waiting until the last minute for prep, going "Eh, I have enough material to improvise with, surely I can manage it" and then not doing any prep whatsoever.
no I couldln't manage it for the record
i honestly feel improvising is a bit easier than prepping like you dont know what your players are gonna do
I do the opposite most of the time. When I'm running a module (or an adventure I made) I over-prep the whole thing at the start which usually leads to me not having anything to do for 3 weeks and so when the pcs finish that storyline and are ready to move on I don't know what I'm going to run next
If you wanna have more diverse encounters, there's an encounter generator online. You can input the number of party members and their levels, a difficulty, and the terrain and it'll pop you out an encounter that would work with the players. It goes pretty diverse with its monsters too.
The point buy system is awesome! It gets the game going faster.
(I've also been work shopping a system for roleplaying your character's origin during session 0, so it kind of needs the point buy system to keep it under 3 hours.)
I will say, one time I was the only one who showed up for D&D at the store I go to (I think the weather was bad), and the DM decided to run a one-shot scrambled together from pieces of dragon heist that our characters hadn't gone through. He had me roll a character, but this character didn't have a player class; He had the standard array of stats, like two tool proficiencies, and that's *it*. He was essentially a skilled hireling NPC; In that two hour session, I wound up with a character who, if I decided to play him as a PC, I feel would have a deeper, more well-rounded backstory than anything I could have manufactured on my own.
But then, that's the thing; that was like a two hour, one-on-one session.
how long does rolling dice take you
I mean, I can roll 6 sets of stats in about a minute, and allocate them in about 25 seconds if I already know what class I want to be. Point buy isn't actually faster
A rather epic event in a campaign I had was the team was split up by a magical mirror maze trap that created evil doppelgangers of each member. Each of us in turn had to go into a room with the DM and have a secret battle against themself. That way none of us would know who won and lost. It became really important for the story, as turns out the main fighter lost, and we had to chase his doppelganger as he ran off with a magical artifact the campaign villain needed. Case in point, agreed to not do it regularly, but for special events, it makes it really intriguing.
I always roll, but my friends and I always say you have to have at least one stat under a 9. We also use the, you can always make your character worse.
Personally, I'm always attracted back to monks. 5e monks are great!
As a DM, I have a tendency to make "living" worlds where the party has to go through a castle so it's layed out how a castle would be layed out, but that makes problems since ease of access to upper levels is actually a feature that is normal. You want to be able to get to where you want to go, but in a game that lets the players progress too quickly, especially since keys seem gimmicky to many people.
By the way, Jared, you probably know this, but your audio is a bit staticy and cut out a bit at the beginning. I was still able to watch the whole video, though, and it was very good!
Welcome back Jared, I hope the public lets you move on, and you find someone that makes you happy, and treats you well.
"what's your worst D&D habits?"
Not playing D&D
This is a cool idea for a video. There's lots of videos out there about what you SHOULD do, or tips; and there's videos showing what NOT to do, but very few that actually say "I do this, and it's something I'd like to work on."
Overhyping my own character to myself is breaking me into pieces.
"You have _your_ plans; the dice have _theirs."_
Wize words, albeit commonplace.
As a long time dnd player, I have since stopped caring about min/maxing stats , whether its rolling multiple sets of stats (and dropping a low roll) or the point buy system which is the epitome of boring character creation. A set of 3d6, no rerolls, no dropping the lowest, roll a set and there's the character. This is too hardcore for most people, but after playing for many years I no longer care about playing a warrior, mage, cleric, etc. I play a CHARACTER who happens to be a warrior, mage, cleric, etc.
Anyone can be a murderhobo, but not many will be remembered for it.
As a DM I always end up creating a super complex world with a custom pantheon and histories dating back thousands of years
That's not a bad habit, that's putting genuine care and effort into your games.
The trick here is to just make one super complex world, only show them some of it, and then each time you go there for a new campaign, pick a new time span.
Thanks for the feedback I'm still kinda new to this
As long as you're creating all of that with the intention of being something players can engage with and possibly enjoy, I think that's not a bad habit at all.
I don't know anything about you, but I've seen this a lot in games I've been in and heard about it online more. It's not always a good idea to flesh *everything* out. That can lead to it being boring for the gm to run the setting if there isn't more promise for creative fulfillment and I definitely notice that with myself.
And also remember that presentation is what really makes a world for the players. I'm new to dming so I'm still feeling out how to do this, but I've played in games with (I would later learn) fleshed out settings that felt hollow, while I've also played in what turned out to be minimal settings that felt incredibly alive and immersive! I just wish I had real advice on how to do it though xD
As a DM, I found a lot of difficulty with pride. When making homebrew stuff, and especially homebrew worlds, it's really hard to not force your players to see all of the incredible stuff you've made and even harder to keep them from messing with it. The world's not in a snowglobe and if your players decide to burn that really cool statue down to the ground, let them. In fact, the more slowly and patiently you reveal things about the world, the more your players feel like they're actually discovering stuff about it, instead of you forcing it down their throats. I dunno, that was my worst habit anyway. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk
Unique characters: exist
Jared: Hee hee Diath
I mostly play 3.5, but we usually do 4d6s for stat rolls. Keep the ones that are good and you're allowed 1 reroll per set. Write down the total and continue for each stat, then place each total where you please. It keeps it a little more balanced and fun with that risk vs reward dice roll. Stuck with an 8 because you got greedy for 1-2 more points? Ooooh wellll
Point buy killed my parents.
sparkadus
Dig the profile pic. And sorry for your loss...
Standard array massacred my aunt
Is that your backstory?
An Underdark campaign can solve the monster issue . Drows , Hill Giants and Troglodytes make for fun monsters at low levels (minus the poison)
This is such a great dndecember.
My bad habit was thst i always try to fight as a gamer not a Charakter. But that is so not cool
I had a bad habit to come overly prepared as a DM, mostly because a lot of the planning will go to waste or not happen due to player choice and actions. So i learned to make more guidelines and less strict preparations to adapt to the style my players wanted to run. It all worked much better when i just planed an idea and had monsters, situations and scenarios as back up to what i believe my players will do on the next session for the campaign. Specially because they were the type of party that had a warhammer fantasy setting, and they wanted to explore the world. So localized adventures seemed restrictive, and this gave them the freedom that they wanted, with the security and planning i needed to host the session.
I always do 4d6 remove 1 dice to roll my stats. It's the best way to me. There's so many intro monsters out there in the Monster manual. Skeletons, gnolls, death mantles.
Each method has its pros and cons.
Mathematically, 4d6 drop lowest has a better chance of yielding high individual scores, while rolling 3d6 12 times and picking the six highest rolls results in more consistent mid-range scores. If you want a character with at least one high (16+) score at the risk of having more below average scores, 4d6 is the better method. If you're more concerned with keeping everything in the double digits at the risk of a more-or-less "average" set of scores, 3d6x12 is better.
@@jessicaslater4243 I have tried point buy once. It took half the fun out of character creation for me. Me and people I know ushually also reroll 1s as well for our character creation.
@@CosmicDuskWolf Point buy is handy if your players want to feel like they all got a fair shake. In some cases, especially if one player rolled really well and another didn't, the player with the low rolls can feel like they got screwed over by bad luck before the campaign even started. I will usually offer my players alternatives if their ability score rolls were atrociously low, but if they're still reasonable ability scores, my first instinct is to try and convince the player to just play a character with many weaknesses, as that can result in a fun character in its own right.
@@jessicaslater4243 I see. One of my players got a few bad scores so I just let him reroll one of them.
I don't know that I've been playing D&D long enough to have 'habits' per se... but the fiddling with dice thing... well that can be a bit flexible. Pretty much everyone in our group is neurodivergent / on the spectrum, and we all know that we can be very engaged *and* do fiddly things at the same time...? So for us, it seems to be OK. Our group is really good about talking stuff out when anything makes them uncomfortable!
I would love to see Jared build and play a character completely outside his comfort zone. I have two character builds I haven't played yet, but I'm fascinated to see how they will play out: a Sorcerous Gnome (with a hereditary Draconic pact,) and a dense but unusually sensitive Orc Bard. Making the backstories for these characters was massive fun, and I'd love to see how Jared might flex his creativity with an unconventional character!
I quit dnd, my friends who I played with treated me really bad and now I only have bad memories of it.
But im here to drop a like and a comment for support
12:01 while I am very new to DMing and Dungeons and Dragons as a whole, one thing I have been doing to keep player interest is that I am modifying nearly every single monster that I put into my game (which is normal considering I am running a homebrew) but playing with people who have been playing for over 20 years, it helps to switch things up for them so that they don't know what to expect. Whether it means giving monsters new abilities, adjusting their hit points and AC, or introducing completely new monsters all together. But I also do this to help fit the monsters into the world I am building, as opposed to just throwing standard Monster Manual Forgotten Realms monsters into my world. Variety is the spice of life.
The mic is still a little messed up. I'm not the only one who thinks it right?
Bruh, if you didn't notice the mic getting muted at the beginning, you ain't paying attention.
Gandalf Becan Are you high....? How does your comment make any sense? He’s paying more attention than you by pointing out that the mic is a little bit fuzzy picking up his voice.
@@Bunkabusta73 trying to agree with Darien. Jared's mic is kinda scuffed, and it's been like that for a few videos now. I wanted to make a joke.
My worst habit is arguing semantics in a game that I probably shouldn't. Eg the DM was allowing us to use 50ft of rope to climb vertically 50ft. But since we were at the base I refused to accept that one of our characters could throw the rope against gravity perfectly to grip on to the top of the wall.
For the love of god, please start a new live play D&D game on your gaming channel.
One that I like using as a player from time to time to mix things up and play a character class I may not otherwise consider is to roll my stats IN ORDER before selecting a class.
Projared: *gets out of controversy*
Also projared: i UsE pOiNT bY sYStEm!!
The "leave the room" habit can be cool if you have a person that helps you run the game and DMs for them. But that's a bit of a pain to organize.
You do a 30 pt buy? I've been running 20 pt buys for my games, and I always have mathematically unique characters due to character concept and race bonuses.
A lot of newer DMs try to railroad a lot. They aren‘t flexible but I had a situation more often than I’m willing to admit, where I‘m the other extreme and I really hat no idea where I wanted to go with my adventure and had to say „lets take a break, I have to think about what comes next.“
I think you need to play Pathfinder with me DMing to break out of these habits.
I totally do the generic low level monsters with my players. Lately I've broken this habit by buying sets of monster and magic item cards, drawing 1 monster and magic item at random, and building an adventure around that. If it's way too strong for the party, make them the BBEG that theyll face down the line. If it's too weak, beef em up or really lean into the environment or allies supporting them. Super fun
"I can't unlearn knowledge."
Yoda: "a joke to you am i?"
I used to do that die stacking thing so much that it influenced a school project I recently did. We were making polyhedrals out of paper and then we had to use them to make a structure. So I made the shapes of the dice and them glued them into a die stack.
I'm genuinely tempted to look up dnd groups in my area to give this a go, even though my only prior experience had been about an hour of Baldurs Gate 1 and the Eye of the Beholder series. That's how engaging this series of videos is.
I'm pro anti-cell phone during games. Broke up with my ex because her needing a ride home from work interfered with my game. Sorry honey, phones off during the game and she knew it.
I suggest when thinking up unique encounters, you could randomize monsters, make some adjustments, and think up a story.
Bazinga
Julio Rodrigues Zimbabwe
Zoo wee mama
Toc toc toc, *PENNY!*
Currently my group are playing a BugBear, Goblin (myself), Cyborg (Human just replaced with mechanical artificer parts) and Kobold. It’s very very fun. The party composition is Artificer, Barbarian, Cleric, and Fighter
I did so many of the bad habits you discussed in this video. The cutscenes, the over using the same monsters, the telling ppl to leave the room when the party was split.....
Plus one of my own I did when I was younger was get too in character (I was the DM) and shout at my players when playing as a hostile NPC
Errrrrg cringe.
I also hope I’m better now at playing in recent times x3
Good call on not splitting. Usually the split group (in my experiences) would just tell us what all happened as soon as we reconvened, making the split entirely useless.😪
In the example of the bishop attacking the king and the player wanting to shoot him, at the very least surprise rounds are a thing, and the bishop would get one there, so stabbing in the back happens before the players try to act. Once the bishop's turn is done, then it's initiative time!
I have an annoying one for DMs! as a player, I like my spells to have a lot of utility and use outside of combat, so a lot of times ill as if a spell can have a slightly different effect. For example; using prestidigitation to make a guys eyeballs spicey, or using mold earth to creat blocks of solid stone from rock.
About splitting groups... I always say to player that splitting in two groups will END THE CURRENT SESSION.
That way, I can have fast, separated sessions in other days. Then, when both the extra sessions are done, I organize the continuation of the main story line, starting the session with both groups reuniting.
Split into player and DM worst habits:
Player: I tend to take the lead too often. It usually is just for me being more outspoken, but sometimes it gets confrontational and while it hasn't ended too badly yet, I do need to reign myself in more.
DM: For one I kinda feel I am a bit too lenient on the players. On the other hand I tend to ad lib too much on busier weeks, which can really slow the pace of a session down.
I deal with the monster metagame by swapping out traits and abilities with that of other creatures. Cr is harder to calculate, but it keeps the suspension up.
I do that too. I love the moment when they freak out when the gello cube has an acid "breath".