YES! I'm in a game where two of the players I swear take a nap until it's their turn. In the campaign I'm DMing, the players have about 10 seconds in real time to decide what they're going to do. If they need something clarified, of course, I allow time for that, but if they're shuffling spell cards or looking up what damage a weapon does, they have ten seconds. If they don't make it, they hold until the end of the round. It may sound kinda dickish, but I have eight players, and even simple combats take forever otherwise.
@@scottplumer3668 We have had a player fall asleep mid dungeon, mid combat, mid interaction. So I understand that completely. It is also pretty frustrating when your combat turn comes around, you declare and complete all your actions in maybe a minute, and are then stuck waiting on 10 minute turns because someone hasn't thought about their turn at all
I try to do this but it seems like every time I get something planned out another character does something or moves into the way of what I'm doing and messes up my plan so I have to go off the cuff anyway haha
If you have a fellow player who's always in the spotlight, you can always come at them with something similar to: "Could you help me get more involved in the roleplay? I wanna be in the story like you are, but I'm new/shy and trying to figure out how best to get my character involved." That way it doesn't come off as "You're roleplaying too much". Sometimes when we get someone to simmer down it's actually taking the wind out of their sails. But the best games are when EVERYONE is excited to have their character do stuff, and everyone is boosting each other up. Have that excited player with accents pat you on the back and shove you into the spotlight. It'll be fun.
As a DM I love giving one player at the table an opportunity to have a 'spotlight' moment. It's so important and creates so many fun memories. The challenge is sometimes making sure the other players recognise that need to let it happen and see where it goes. It can be really hard to control that within the game without breaking immersion.
My table has a mix of people who enjoy that and those who don't. It's taken quite some time but those who don't like their stand out moment have gotten good at learning when to step back and let someone else have their moment.
I have played with the same group for a while, we play well together. But we are different. I am so glad that I can share this amazing game with my life long friends. If you are looking for a great game, find good people first. ❤️
Absolutely! I got together with my boys when I was at university, some people came and went, but two of them stayed and one brought his little brother when he started going to our uni. They're both still working on their degrees, but one of us and myself (as we were oldest) soon moved and got jobs. We're all miles apart now, but we still play any given Sunday. Just on Discord. But I'll be damned if it isn't if we're all still at the same table and no time had ever passed in our lives. I wouldn't give up those guys for no money in the world, with all those crazy adventures behind us and yet to come, on or off the table.
Sadly my original group crumbled as we grew older, but I've found great random nerds who enjoy this hobby. Glad I picked this hobby back in '04 when I was in Highschool. So many fun stories shared through the years.
As someone who *loves* method acting and improv, it's good to hear these things - it's way too easy to get so completely lost in character and experience that you push others aside. This is a great reminder to me (and hopefully to others) to try and really create a great group experience where everyone feel they can be comfortable and join in on as equal terms as possible. Matt is such a humble soul, and it makes it so much easier to heed his advice, wisdom, experience and concern.
Biggest tip he said, as a player, is to share the spotlight. Of course there are moments that are specifically designed for a single player in mind, but dragging others with you into a scenario or letting someone else do a roll, even though they might be clearly less optimal for the situation, is what creates fantastic stories, bonds and sometimes even lifetime friendships. D&D is about sharing a story, not hogging it all to yourself. I am always as excited for someone else's story (if not more) as I am for my own story to progress or be talked about.
im a new DM and i have two groups i DM for. some of my friends are part of the LGBT community and some are ptsd effected veterans and there have been many times as a DM i by mistake triggered something in terms of ptsd or not so friendly memories and situations some of my party members have actually gone through so thank you matt mercer i always turn to your videos to better myself as a DM and videos like this are helpful. D&D has helped me and many of my friends in terms of a therapy tool. escape the real world and make a world where none of our past problems or experiences control us. this video is a good reminder to be aware of what some players might not like or have prob experienced in their life that they dont really want to experiance in the game as well. thank you for the tips!
4:08 Something I've taken to doing is to ask players Hard Nos and Triggers in Sessions Zero and to let them know that during gameplay if they ever feel uncomfortable they can call a stop at anytime. But something I always like to clarify is that it's important for them to draw a line between _them as a person_ and _their character._ Because a lot of my games often will have very mature and scary themes and in some scenarios I want _their characters_ to be uncomfortable or scared, but not them as _people._ Like if one of the PC's NPC friends have been captured and they find out they've been tortured in some brutal way I _want_ their characters to be upset/scared/angry about it but I never want _them as people_ to be. And I think for healthy roleplay its important for players to maintain the line between reality and fiction otherwise you can't be roleplaying in a safe, sane, and consensual way. And if a player can't separate themselves from their character then I don't believe it is possible for them to be roleplaying in a healthy way.
I've been trying to apply this being the very comfortable veteran at our new group (my wife also veteran, but not as comfortable). This really helped to clarify more for me in remembering not to take over too much and how I can incorporate everyone else more.
On the part about unknown phobias, my first every game had ghostly spirit (who was supposed to be beneficial with their intent) that would possess a player character and grant them bonuses while they were in their person. The party nominated my character since I was arguably the weakest at the time. This was done when I went to the bathroom so when I came back and suddenly the DM was explaining how we met a spirit and it jumped at my character to possess them, the DM had me roll to see if I could resist it for roleplay purposes. I immediately stopped them and stated how uncomfortable I was with that idea, as the rest of the players could see how visibly shaken I was from it. They understood and reworked it to have the spirit possess a trinket on my person instead, so now I summon the spirit like a companion instead of invoke it from myself. They were very understanding about how unsettled I was and were making sure I was okay before continuing. I felt very involved that they would take the time to ensure we all could get along.
@@TrainingFanatic It's an irrational fear of having no control and feeling helpless over your own actions. They did explain that the spirit would not do that, but I was still perturbed by the idea of the entity being within me.
@@MrTailson1 No offense dude, but if a spirit possessing your imaginary character “visibly shakes you”, you probably need to be getting professional help.
I have had difficulty in understanding legendary actions. I had thought them to be over the course of the battle instead of for each round of combat. Now that I know it is sad how under realized two of my boss fights were.
@@quirk8841 that happened to me so many times, sometimes it's probably for the better though, one time they were split up and 2 of them encountered a Grick, they were fighting him and he even crit once even though he had disadvantage because he was restrained, at that point they didn't realise yet running away is a valid option as well, they murdered the thing only because I actually didn't notice he had resistance to nonmagical weapon attacks Another time I wondered why it was so easy for my players to take out this Iron Golem, after the fight I realised he should have had immunity to their nonmagical weapon attacks (which was 75% of their damage to him)
The idea behind those actions were to give the “big bad” a fighting chance against multiple equal level player characters that could literally “nuke” them within two rounds of combat without them.
Yeah. The whole point is that even though an enemy has a higher CR than the party can take the party’s action economy could melt through that enemy. Legendary actions try to balance out the number of actions both sides have
"Respect for everyone at the table." It's one of the reasons that my biggest training for being a player and a DM was watching Whose Line. They're all funny, but -they all share the spotlight.- Often, they do it by knowing when it is someone else's turn to shine. When it's okay to be the support actor, to be the straight man in the gig. And learning how to elevate someone else helped me understand that I don't need to be the star at the table, even if I am the group leader. And that makes the game more fun for everyone. So, yeah, Critical Role and Whose Line. A peanut-butter-and-chocolate combo, but it helped me understand why CR works so well. They all take time to elevate each other, and they graciously receive the spotlight when it is given to them.
This seems quite essential to draft a questionnaire for a potential new gaming group. I personally prefer a balance of storytelling and action, but I don't like to sit there for hours on end role-playing in first-person. I have DM'd to the best of my ability since 3rd edition was brand new, and even now I'm amazed at how new of a perspective one can find with this timeless game!
As far as boundaries go playing through some of those uncomfortable scenes have worked as therapy to help me deal with what was making me feel how I felt . It's not always good to avoid uncomfortable situations and RPGs are a safe place to confront a hard emotional or psychological issue .
Absolutely. But I think it should still be up to the player in question. But, yes, think about facing an uncomfortable situation. You may learn something from it and a D&D game is probably the safest way to do that.
Indeed, but as anything in psychological aid and growth is something that cannot be forced or done in someone's behalf. If they say a hard no then it's a hard no.
I usually try to have a distinction between green, yellow and red. Green is for things that someone may assume are a boundary but you're okay with, yellow is for things that you're okay with confronting but the DM should know it does make you a bit uncomfortable or could lead into a red. And a red boundary is hard stop no, just don't mess with it.
That's awesome. Although I 100% lean towards talking about all that first. The last thing I personally want is situations that are uncomfortable or serious in my game. I have enough in my life that I don't need my limited free time to also be rough.
99% of this only works if player's/dms speak up. No one can read your mind and assuming you're not a kid, then its on YOU to determine your fun, your boundaries, and your interests. The dm isn't a psychologist and there to pull information out of you and the other players are there to have fun as well.
I wonder if communication is something that's just lacking these days. If I'm having people come over to watch TV, play games, or any other social activity, I'm going to ask what they want to eat, drink, watch, or play. None of us are going to purposefully try and ruin each other's fun, and if we do something to upset each other, we're going to apologize and make things right. D&D is a game about talking, so talk and listen. Communicate with each other, and remember to have fun. Don't just throw a party for yourself, throw it for everyone else as well.
A lot of people play with folks they don't necessarily know well, either someone they met at a game store or online or so on. That's a wonderful opportunity for those of us who don't have IRL friends who are interested in this stuff, but it also means we have to be more careful about making sure everyone's comfortable, given possibly very different backgrounds, cultures, old traumas, gaming preferences etc. etc. etc.
Players have not been communicating WELL since I began in 1E. It just something some of us nerds have a problem with. Talk up front with your other players, or back channel or email.
Hey Matthew, 100% of what you said here was excellent tips! I have been an active roleplayer for 27 years now, and some of these things you were talking about took more than 20 years to figure out. Keep being such an open-minded and empathic person and have fun roleplaying. Good job, man. ^_^
I joined my first ever campaign about 2 years ago and my lore was that I needed to bring back a dragon head to my monk temple. I joined late and our DM was super cool and let me join at the same level as everyone. It just so happened they were gonna fight a dragon that day and I managed to get the last hit. Couldn't have asked for a better intro to such a fun game.
All I can say is I had a really good DM when I did this campaign. I recommend that if there are a lot of NPCs that are going to be hanging around (we had six group members and all of Ayo's crew for a while), don't be afraid to distribute them amongst your players! We all ended up playing our characters and an NPC (I had joint custody of Maggie lol) In terms of Maggie, be happy to know she ended up getting married to a monk and retired to a cabin in the forest where they wrote poetry together.
If you realice that a situation calls for a different character's strengths don't hesitate to call for their help. It is always a good start for a conversation between the characters and it allows for the other player to show off his character's strong sides instead of making it so you try to do stuff your character is not very good at and fail.
DM’s are leader and need to recognize and be cognizant of group dynamic. Highly recommend reading or watching anything with jocko Wilkins or David Goggins about team and leadership. Then require the group to do homework about team and leadership. Super helpful
As a player who loves to role play I love helping my friend get more into the role play side of things but sometimes I do in fact take the spotlight to much and I've been personally working on it
Always play to entertain, no matter if you're a player or a game master, always play to entertain your fellow participants. If you can't or won't then don't and instead take your leave and find other participants with which you can and will.
I remember finishing like a campaign and then finding out later on the DM didn’t want to play with us anymore because me and my SO didn’t like that people were saying slurs and we had expressed that. According to him we weren’t letting the other players “be in character” . Keep in mind the slurs were like irl ones. So now it’s hard to find a group that wants to play.
My group recently had a major falling out, one of the players became extremely domineering and belittling of other players ideas, insisting they were right about everything while basically demanding we copy and paste any information we received into a group Google doc so he could 'tell who was right or wrong'. Eventually they was asked to leave because every session melted down into the party vs them. With accusations of us working behind the scenes to belittle their character and withholding information to make them look dumb.
@@logansullins4545 It's not even that they were taking it more seriously than anyone else, it was that they refused to accept that any other outcome beyond what they concluded was possible. There were discussions behind the scenes that came to light with them and other players where they accused the other players of 'moon logic', or flat decrying them as stupid and foolish, with no backing evidence. While at the same time in public made similar leaps of logic themselves, and then grew angry when their own lack of evidence was put forward. The sad thing is, I enjoyed playing with them initially, in combat encounters we meshed well, we strategized well, in social things they were awkward but tried their best... but anytime a tiny bit of mystery entered the story it went from a team game to 'Sherlock and his misunderstanding misfit tagalongs'. It all finally came to a head when they started demanding copies of Private Messages from the DM as proof to anything presented that countered his conclusions, and there was a rather public meltdown between numerous players and him.
@@florianb2856 Well, since they were asked to leave and a new player has come in to fill the void, we've progressed things at nearly three times the speed we had been, because we weren't arguing half the game sessions over what to do. So it feels like it was the one player who was causing issues above all else, we've had 4 sessions since, and just feels like we're getting more accomplished.
I literally made a video about sharing the spotlight recently - absolutely the best tip you could give to any player! It's so important to always make sure we're making tabletop roleplaying a *collaborative* storytelling experience.
Agreed but a bit vague. I think a good tip to hold close for entering someone's games is a no "player bullying or scheming against other players" Sure there may be rare groups that can pull it off, but 99% of the time it leads to heavy toxicity within the group. Same could be said for "evil campaigns" without some really hard rules in place, most of the players just try to "out evil" the other players and ending up murdering each other before they reach lvl 6.
1. no metagaming 2. approved homebrew(if any) 3. throw script out 4. keep criminal on leash incase of hungry dragons 5. always have extra coin for red light sessions(drunk clerics firing revivify can lead to unpaid 'sessions', which often leads to dirty work)
I would say one thing to be wary of is people who try to take advantage of your good will. I once played a game where one of the players private messages everyone tell them to back off and let them spotlight more or bring them more to the forefront of roleplay. I say I was offended, and this was because they had half the session, before I got this message, roleplaying with the dm a interview scene with an animal we needed clues from. However! However despite the nonsensical nature of this request in the face of the context, I did actually try to pull them into more scenes by saying things in character like “what do you think?” “what are your thoughts?” and so one. I would continuously try to find opportunities to bring them into the roleplay of the scene. I noticed the other players do the same. And yet? I still got those messages basically telling me to back off and shut up. At one point they actually ended up complaining to the dm, who is left confused. He gets to the bottom of the matter, asking each of us what is going on. I admit to the message I was getting and screenshot them to send over. To say the dm was furious is putting it lightly. It wasn’t until after this player was kicked that we find out they had been harassing the entire party with these messages trying to dominate the table for themselves. The dm had noticed the table trying to include this player more and yet that they still were harassing all of us. So yes, this was a case of someone using everyone’s kind nature to bully all of us. We actually had more fun after they left and I hadn’t realized how much the harassment was weighing me down during the game. Oh! And for added context, this player was usually late by an hour or more, never informed us ahead of time, and sometimes didn’t even show up so the dm had to go ahead and play their character (as was the rule if you didn’t inform ahead of time and you were the only one gone). I also was a new player and that campaign was my first ever I got to play in (we just wrapped up the epilogue for it a few weeks ago after I post this). I was honestly baffled by the whole experience with this problem player. I’m so glad I had the other players at the table that I did and the dm. They were all amazing teachers and I became a more confident roleplayer from their examples and teaching. They were amazing at trying to pull me in and allow me a place and space to roleplay but also respect when I didn’t feel up to it. They also helped walk me through my mechanics and how to use them correctly, even repeating themselves very patiently if I forgot something. They would ask me things like “did you use your bonus action already?” or “do you have a reaction you can use for that?” stuff like that. All helpful stuff and advice on applying stuff. So yeah, I am glad that problem player experience didn’t sour my experience with dnd. If anything, it taught me how to properly respond when shady tactics like that are used.
In all fairness i feel Real life Phobias translating in game is a nice world building tool as well (im scared of the things, yet i honestly love the edition of them in dnd(especially the big ones)
I've had a group where I had fun for awhile but another player was overplaying the Asshole Rouge trope. To the point he killed my character and when I rolled up a new character he started to treat him like shit too. And their is a point of where it goes to far. I lashed out at him at one session and we had to end it. I chose to leave that group because when I explained my actions they told me "I was playing My character wrong" and since you had a new character you should have kissed his ass until you gained their trust. Wich you with the same player who killed my last character, desecrated his Body, and threw his body off an airship. Some groups just don't work out and but it never ruined my love for dnd. I've been taking an extended break from it due to work but would love to play again in the future.
Also just realize some people are insane not because of the game but just because they have a major malfunction going on in there head. I'm 42 now, the first experience I had with D&D was when I was like 14ish and this guy played the game with friends of his and was telling me about it. Sounded like a lot of fun. I stopped by his place one day to ask more about how to join and as I was talking with him there was a rotten smell coming from a medium size cabinet. I asked about it and he said "oh that's my shrine for my character to his god". I found it odd but asked "oh so this is for when you go and play the game?" NOPE This guy was giving REAL LIFE sacrifices [fruits and such as far as I could tell] to his characters god. I would have let it slide but he went OFF on how important it was for him to do this and ya I never looked into Table Top RPGs again until I was like almost 30.
I dmed a horror campaign with some new players, it didn't last long since the new players decided that dnd wasn't for them. (I tried my best to make it as th as possible for them. I did make sure to discuss limits and phobias with them so that they wouldn't get super spooked.)
Not trying to be offensive, but I think the horror genre is probably not the best path to introduce people to D&D. Horror is a very divisive taste. Some people love it, some people hate it. And while I don't have any hard numbers, I'd guess that not that many people are really into horror that much. Better do some standard fantasy stuff; hardly anyone hates Lord of the Rings style fantasy.
If one of your players has a deep fear of spiders, don't assume they don't want spiders in the game. Ask them first. I have a deep fear of spiders, and have always told my DM's, put as many spiders in the game as you can - use mini's, pop-ups, I don't care. I get to fight these things? What a great way to overcome a fear.
When you dedicate your entire life running from being uncomfortable then you create a bad life skill of not being able to deal with real life uncomfortable situations you cant avoid. Part of growth and development is the ability to face uncomfortable situations and overcoming them. Killing someone is uncomfortable for the majority of people but killing someone in the game is easy..... its the same as facing your fears, like drowning or flying. we need to learn to step up and not protect everyone in bubble wrap otherwise they have no coping skills in life
I had a bad experience recently. My character got put into a situation with no escape from and a party member's character's mother tarred me with chicken feathers, put a chicken mask on me, strung me up to be laughed at in the middle of my hometown, then had someone disguise themselves as my character and damaged his reputation. It was way too much of a punishment for something I didn't have a chance of escaping. I made it clear that I was upset about it and that my character was on the warpath of revenge. But apparently the DM didn't plan out the situation too well because she didn't expect me to start a fight with the character when we found her. And then we beat her she had her keep provoking my character so I attempted to cut her head off. I rolled a 26 but still failed. Then everyone got mad at me. It really felt like the DM was playing against me the whole game.
@@RottenRogerDM I talked to them afterwards and they told me that she was unintentionally doing it. Regardless I didn't like the way that the others reacted and I left the group.
I'm all about the idea of making your game about the other players, the moment you see your character as the main character, you're in trouble. Find ways for your character to be involved in other people's archs.
Honestly. "Don't make people uncomfortable." and "Make sure you all want to play the same game." are just common sense things. I didn't need anyone to make it explicit to me that those are important in TT-RPGs because I had been raised to consider those things in all social interactions - the second thing is only a specific version of "Make sure you all want to do the same thing." which is applying to all group activities. How far have we fallen, to think of those things as 'New tools'.
Player Tip: Make an honest effort to learn how your character works rules wise. There is a learning curve for everyone especially new players but the is nothing more maddening as a DM or even as a player watching another DM have to explain or point out the same thing over and over. Example: Burning Hands is an AOE spell not a touch attack spell....
Don't try to be Critical Role. Chances are you are not a trained voice actor with incredible storytelling skills. You are probably a regular person with average story telling skills. Keep your characters simple. Focus on two things. What does your character want to achieve? What kind of experience do you want to have as a player? Communicate with both the game master and fellow players. Don't hog a the spotlight, but also make sure that you get at least one thing to do each session. Celebrate the moments of other players. Also include at least one very much alive NPC in your background. It might never come up (which is okay) but it could actually help your game master if they like to include your character as a living breathing person who is part of the setting. Finally, make sure what your character can do is relevant. Being the party face is fun, but if you are dungeon delving, chances are it is never coming up. If you are a wilderness explorer who is trained to kill goblins and the campaign is in a city with no goblins, have fun feeling redundant.
I have a spider phobia and i told my DM i still wanted them in the game. I wanna feel cool finaly crushing them because im too scared to do that irl. of corse im stressing you handle that with tact
I'm definitely wishy washy in spotlight spurts, but the best is having that friend that you are introducing to dnd for the first time and roping them right into your RP with an NPC lol.
Cutting spiders and spider-like creatures out of your campaign is a LOT of creatures. WotC really hit that phobia hard. Phase Spiders, Giant Wolf Spiders, Driders, Neogi, Steeders, Cave Fishers, Chitine, even Lolth the Spider Queen. Not to mention one of the best scout for find familiar.
Sounds like a lot if you just count the creature types. I don't think I've run into any of those in like 5 campaigns. Definately not hard to change one creature to a different one if you need to.
DM Tip: respect your DM’s and party’s time. Don’t be texting on your phone, don’t carry on conversations not related to the game, and don’t ditch a game or show up later/leave early without advanced notice.
This is random, and not related to the video, but I just considered: what if you just removed magical weapon damage? D&d is balanced to have very few magic weapons. However, literally everyone wants cool magic weapons. So the problem becomes, after a few levels, literally everyone has SOME form of magic weapon. This makes SO many monsters underwhelming, as their resistance to conventional, non-magic weapons disappears. But what if you have a magic +2 sword that did NOT do magic damage? Suddenly, Iron golems become terrifying, indestructible juggernauts, rather than big, dumb sacks of HP. Martial players are forced to become creative, utilizing their higher physical abilities to think outside the box combat wize. Suddenly class abilities and spells that give you magical damage are actually relevant, not redundant. Even better, weapon material matters again. Silver weapons can be CRUCIAL in defeating demons or werewolves. Adamantine weapons aren't just flavor, they can allow you actually to destroy an Iron Golem. Everyone is incentives to diversify weaponry and damage types, rather than using your most powerful magic weapon... This and adding more monster vulnerability
Literally false lmao. Dnd is balanced around everyone having magic weapons, that's why martials are so much weaker than spell users. A lot of monsters have straight up non-magic weapon immunity, and some at early levels too. Please, don't nerf martials, they are already the worst classes
but what do you do as a player when the thing that some of your other players cant deal with is confrontation and being called out, and they act in ways that make confrontation the only solution?
Obviously there are multiple ways to "confront" someone, and in theory one of the things that a group could discuss is how people would like issues like that handled: By email? Private talk outside the game? Jointly with the players involved and the DM? ...But at the end of the way, we're talking about a cooperative group game. At some point the "good of the group" has to win out. Players who can't or won't adjust their behavior to the majority's preferences/styles/comfort levels may not be a good fit for that table. Doesn't make them a bad person - they just need to find other people to play with. And/or other ways to hang out with the group, if they're friends outside of the game. I've heard the analogue used of telling a friend why you can't be roommates: "I really like you, dude, and I don't want to end up hating you, and I can tell that's gonna end up happening if we keep sharing a place, so one of us needs to move." It's that specific situation that's not working out, not necessarily the interpersonal relationship/friendship as a whole.
ask the DM for help in talking to them. If they're not going to change, remove yourself from the situation and find a new table with good people. It's not your job to make anyone a well-rounded and decent person. It is your job to look after yourself.
Know how to use D&D Beyond and/or where you pertinent character details are identified and how your skills/special attacks/spells work... Player: "I do a thing... how does it work?" DM: [glaring look as the PHB or other pertinent reference goes untouched]
I love Matt Mercer and the rest of the Critical Role cast but I'm fairly sure Travis would call BS on the don't use monsters (or castmates) that trip your phobias.
Don't force interactions that make people uncomfortable. Don't hog the game aka Main Character Syndrome. Don't keep social brownie point score and constantly throw them at the other players to remind then how amazing you are. Don't stay in character for too long. Basically do none of the things .......... at Critical Role does ;). Actual tip. If you get something wrong with rules but the story have progressed for several minutes, just incorporate it as a badass/failure moment and move on.
Yeah honestly the CR players are pretty guilty of all these things, I would get totally annoyed if I was playing with them. But they don't seem to mind it coming from each other, so... I guess whatever works for them?
"I don't like ghosts, I don't like body horror, I don't like air, I don't like grass, I don't like..." 😂 I kid. We all know Travis is okay being teased for his general fear of anything remotely supernatural, besides werewolves 😁
My last table as a character said they were okay with chaotic character. I built mine as a more rp person and not combat. These ppl had my character knocked out or muffled 80% and still got mad at me as a player. My dm gave my character gave my character a moment to shine and I did, noting that demons were controlling the spider who were controlling the goblins. Use my diplomatic skill set I managed to get the spider away from my party and rode off to see what I could discover and see really what was happening behind the curtain. I was promptly told by player to leave, don't come back, we have an issue with you as a player. Causing tension at the table and causing me to leave. This is in all groups I've tried to play with, regardless if I'm a wild mage, were tiger dwarf fighter, pathfinder, or what have you. In the end I decided to make my own group and provide everyone a safe place to play whatever they want.
I find that picking one or two ultra simple character traits makes playing fun, versus having an overly-deep backstory. On the flipside, if you just play "Nerdy guy" for 3+ sessions it's gonna get stale and you need to expand it as you go. But other players aren't gonna be interested in you giving a speech about "my FATHER died" blah blah blah. Just be simple first.
Stop. Writing. Orphans. Seriously, player's are killing more parents than Disney. I've had 10 players at a table, with ONE living parent among them, and THAT GUY was the BBEG. Seriously, have parents, it gives you story options, and deeper characters than just, "X killed my parent/parents".
I like to have NPC'S from my background that the game master can use. Even if the NPC'S are never used, at least they are there as an option. So dead parents are the opposite of this. I might consider playing a child/teenager with parents who understandably disapprove of the adventurer. Perhaps one or both of the parents are heroes and the player character wants to follow their footsteps. Perhaps the player character has entered this life too soon and the parents are searching for the player character.
Fun story: I recently decided to try and get my niece and nephew into D&D, by helping them create characters and play a one-shot to see if they like it. (The game hasn't happened yet because we're still waiting on my nephew to finish making his character. Hopefully this weekend. Anyway...) Neither have ever played before, and they don't know *anything* about it. I don't even think they know anything about TTRPGs in general. So my niece, who is 12, was excited about creating a character, and we get to the part where I ask for her backstory. She, again knowing nothing about RPGs or D&D, goes, "Hm... Ooh! A saber-tooth tiger killed my family, but I got revenge by finding and killing him!" I was like, "Hm. Okay... so he's dead. What about enemies? Does your character have any?" She goes, "Um... is there a water god for elves?" I looked it up and found the D&D elven god of oceans, then said, "Why do you want to know about a water god?" She goes, "Because Lilac [her character] is angry with that god, since he didn't protect her family, and now she wants revenge against him." So, without knowing anything about D&D, my 12-year-old niece came up with the backstory of "my whole family was killed and now I want to fight a god out of vengeance." Apparently, some stories just come naturally in D&D 😂
My first char-Rogue, both parents alive-of course, backstory party is dead. Of course, that was the same for any idea I had for this first game. Current char is a barb, parents are dead, but they died of old age.
"I will never put a spider in the campaign if someone has a phobia of spiders"
Cut to Travis screaming at every spider in campaign 2 XD
He's ok'd having them in game, they just scare him still lol
see but it's not ARACHNAphobia if he's just afraid of everything in general lol
@@aceofspade2120 plus Travis likes to get teased on his fear reactions, hes a big guy and has those squeaky screams when scared.
And cats and ghost XD
Travis isn't afraid of spiders.
Travis is just afraid.
My best tip: be considerate when your turn in combat is next and plan it out ahead of time
YES! I'm in a game where two of the players I swear take a nap until it's their turn. In the campaign I'm DMing, the players have about 10 seconds in real time to decide what they're going to do. If they need something clarified, of course, I allow time for that, but if they're shuffling spell cards or looking up what damage a weapon does, they have ten seconds. If they don't make it, they hold until the end of the round. It may sound kinda dickish, but I have eight players, and even simple combats take forever otherwise.
@@scottplumer3668 We have had a player fall asleep mid dungeon, mid combat, mid interaction. So I understand that completely. It is also pretty frustrating when your combat turn comes around, you declare and complete all your actions in maybe a minute, and are then stuck waiting on 10 minute turns because someone hasn't thought about their turn at all
@@scottplumer3668 Seems totally fair, and obviously the players agree or they wouldn't be there.
I try to do this but it seems like every time I get something planned out another character does something or moves into the way of what I'm doing and messes up my plan so I have to go off the cuff anyway haha
@@Staticclism Happens to me, too, but I usually have a backup plan. It's not so bad with fighters and stuff, it's mainly an issue with spellcasters.
"Chief Creative Officer" is a damned professional way of saying "Dungeon Master"
Well there's obviously more to it than that
Does a lot more for their company than just DM my guy.
@@theglitchexplorer3488 Thanks cheef queef
@@fenrizsharp3938 Obviously...
I know right. It should've been DM-in-Chief.
Matt is always so wise and wholesome, you can't not love him.
If you have a fellow player who's always in the spotlight, you can always come at them with something similar to: "Could you help me get more involved in the roleplay? I wanna be in the story like you are, but I'm new/shy and trying to figure out how best to get my character involved."
That way it doesn't come off as "You're roleplaying too much". Sometimes when we get someone to simmer down it's actually taking the wind out of their sails. But the best games are when EVERYONE is excited to have their character do stuff, and everyone is boosting each other up.
Have that excited player with accents pat you on the back and shove you into the spotlight. It'll be fun.
In my games every character gets a small arc at some point during the main questline.
As a DM I love giving one player at the table an opportunity to have a 'spotlight' moment. It's so important and creates so many fun memories. The challenge is sometimes making sure the other players recognise that need to let it happen and see where it goes. It can be really hard to control that within the game without breaking immersion.
My table has a mix of people who enjoy that and those who don't. It's taken quite some time but those who don't like their stand out moment have gotten good at learning when to step back and let someone else have their moment.
I have played with the same group for a while, we play well together. But we are different. I am so glad that I can share this amazing game with my life long friends. If you are looking for a great game, find good people first. ❤️
Absolutely! I got together with my boys when I was at university, some people came and went, but two of them stayed and one brought his little brother when he started going to our uni. They're both still working on their degrees, but one of us and myself (as we were oldest) soon moved and got jobs. We're all miles apart now, but we still play any given Sunday. Just on Discord. But I'll be damned if it isn't if we're all still at the same table and no time had ever passed in our lives. I wouldn't give up those guys for no money in the world, with all those crazy adventures behind us and yet to come, on or off the table.
@@necasperaterent29386 SAME, my friends and I use discord too. All my friends are from Uni in NY.
Sadly my original group crumbled as we grew older, but I've found great random nerds who enjoy this hobby. Glad I picked this hobby back in '04 when I was in Highschool. So many fun stories shared through the years.
Honestly? This is the hardest part of the game.
Becareful who you let in at your table. Not having good players are the main problem at a table.
I'm not the biggest Critical Role fan, but I am a big fan of THE MERCER.
As someone who *loves* method acting and improv, it's good to hear these things - it's way too easy to get so completely lost in character and experience that you push others aside. This is a great reminder to me (and hopefully to others) to try and really create a great group experience where everyone feel they can be comfortable and join in on as equal terms as possible.
Matt is such a humble soul, and it makes it so much easier to heed his advice, wisdom, experience and concern.
Biggest tip he said, as a player, is to share the spotlight.
Of course there are moments that are specifically designed for a single player in mind, but dragging others with you into a scenario or letting someone else do a roll, even though they might be clearly less optimal for the situation, is what creates fantastic stories, bonds and sometimes even lifetime friendships.
D&D is about sharing a story, not hogging it all to yourself. I am always as excited for someone else's story (if not more) as I am for my own story to progress or be talked about.
Some subtle wisdom here that applies to leadership and communication in many different domains as well.
im a new DM and i have two groups i DM for. some of my friends are part of the LGBT community and some are ptsd effected veterans and there have been many times as a DM i by mistake triggered something in terms of ptsd or not so friendly memories and situations some of my party members have actually gone through so thank you matt mercer i always turn to your videos to better myself as a DM and videos like this are helpful. D&D has helped me and many of my friends in terms of a therapy tool. escape the real world and make a world where none of our past problems or experiences control us. this video is a good reminder to be aware of what some players might not like or have prob experienced in their life that they dont really want to experiance in the game as well. thank you for the tips!
4:08
Something I've taken to doing is to ask players Hard Nos and Triggers in Sessions Zero and to let them know that during gameplay if they ever feel uncomfortable they can call a stop at anytime. But something I always like to clarify is that it's important for them to draw a line between _them as a person_ and _their character._ Because a lot of my games often will have very mature and scary themes and in some scenarios I want _their characters_ to be uncomfortable or scared, but not them as _people._ Like if one of the PC's NPC friends have been captured and they find out they've been tortured in some brutal way I _want_ their characters to be upset/scared/angry about it but I never want _them as people_ to be. And I think for healthy roleplay its important for players to maintain the line between reality and fiction otherwise you can't be roleplaying in a safe, sane, and consensual way. And if a player can't separate themselves from their character then I don't believe it is possible for them to be roleplaying in a healthy way.
In summary: *_Treat other players the way you would want to be treated._*
Unless you're a masochist.
Unless they're also masochists
So a DM?
Platinum rule > Golden rule
Great reminder to those who believe the golden rule is a good idea. ^^
Tomb of Horrors
I've been trying to apply this being the very comfortable veteran at our new group (my wife also veteran, but not as comfortable). This really helped to clarify more for me in remembering not to take over too much and how I can incorporate everyone else more.
On the part about unknown phobias, my first every game had ghostly spirit (who was supposed to be beneficial with their intent) that would possess a player character and grant them bonuses while they were in their person. The party nominated my character since I was arguably the weakest at the time. This was done when I went to the bathroom so when I came back and suddenly the DM was explaining how we met a spirit and it jumped at my character to possess them, the DM had me roll to see if I could resist it for roleplay purposes. I immediately stopped them and stated how uncomfortable I was with that idea, as the rest of the players could see how visibly shaken I was from it. They understood and reworked it to have the spirit possess a trinket on my person instead, so now I summon the spirit like a companion instead of invoke it from myself. They were very understanding about how unsettled I was and were making sure I was okay before continuing. I felt very involved that they would take the time to ensure we all could get along.
For further understanding, why were you so uncomfortable with the idea of having a ghost possess you?
@@TrainingFanatic It's an irrational fear of having no control and feeling helpless over your own actions. They did explain that the spirit would not do that, but I was still perturbed by the idea of the entity being within me.
@@MrTailson1 "Is my make believe character being...possessed? AIIIEEEEE IM EXPERIENCING A LOSS OF CONTROL IN FANTASYLAND! SAVE ME DUNGEON MASTER!"
@@MrTailson1 No offense dude, but if a spirit possessing your imaginary character “visibly shakes you”, you probably need to be getting professional help.
@@Krispe I know I do, but never have the opportunities. Maybe some day.
I love that there's a drum set in what appears to be a living room. Life goals for sure
I got the wife started and now the kids we love our Thursday night D&D games so much fun
I still thank Matt for inspiring me to start DMing, like so many others I'll assume :)
Just delightful and well put. You can hear the same things but when they are put differently they finally click.
I have had difficulty in understanding legendary actions. I had thought them to be over the course of the battle instead of for each round of combat. Now that I know it is sad how under realized two of my boss fights were.
It's almost as sad as realizing the enemy NPC had resistance to the players' damage only after the battle is over.
@@quirk8841 that happened to me so many times, sometimes it's probably for the better though, one time they were split up and 2 of them encountered a Grick, they were fighting him and he even crit once even though he had disadvantage because he was restrained, at that point they didn't realise yet running away is a valid option as well, they murdered the thing only because I actually didn't notice he had resistance to nonmagical weapon attacks
Another time I wondered why it was so easy for my players to take out this Iron Golem, after the fight I realised he should have had immunity to their nonmagical weapon attacks (which was 75% of their damage to him)
The idea behind those actions were to give the “big bad” a fighting chance against multiple equal level player characters that could literally “nuke” them within two rounds of combat without them.
@@clivevii2231 Yikes, that must have hurt.
Yeah. The whole point is that even though an enemy has a higher CR than the party can take the party’s action economy could melt through that enemy. Legendary actions try to balance out the number of actions both sides have
"Respect for everyone at the table."
It's one of the reasons that my biggest training for being a player and a DM was watching Whose Line. They're all funny, but -they all share the spotlight.-
Often, they do it by knowing when it is someone else's turn to shine. When it's okay to be the support actor, to be the straight man in the gig. And learning how to elevate someone else helped me understand that I don't need to be the star at the table, even if I am the group leader. And that makes the game more fun for everyone.
So, yeah, Critical Role and Whose Line. A peanut-butter-and-chocolate combo, but it helped me understand why CR works so well. They all take time to elevate each other, and they graciously receive the spotlight when it is given to them.
This seems quite essential to draft a questionnaire for a potential new gaming group. I personally prefer a balance of storytelling and action, but I don't like to sit there for hours on end role-playing in first-person. I have DM'd to the best of my ability since 3rd edition was brand new, and even now I'm amazed at how new of a perspective one can find with this timeless game!
As far as boundaries go playing through some of those uncomfortable scenes have worked as therapy to help me deal with what was making me feel how I felt . It's not always good to avoid uncomfortable situations and RPGs are a safe place to confront a hard emotional or psychological issue .
Absolutely. But I think it should still be up to the player in question. But, yes, think about facing an uncomfortable situation. You may learn something from it and a D&D game is probably the safest way to do that.
Indeed, but as anything in psychological aid and growth is something that cannot be forced or done in someone's behalf. If they say a hard no then it's a hard no.
I usually try to have a distinction between green, yellow and red. Green is for things that someone may assume are a boundary but you're okay with, yellow is for things that you're okay with confronting but the DM should know it does make you a bit uncomfortable or could lead into a red. And a red boundary is hard stop no, just don't mess with it.
That's awesome.
Although I 100% lean towards talking about all that first.
The last thing I personally want is situations that are uncomfortable or serious in my game.
I have enough in my life that I don't need my limited free time to also be rough.
Session 0 is always super important. Find what is working or being looked for and work with that.
99% of this only works if player's/dms speak up. No one can read your mind and assuming you're not a kid, then its on YOU to determine your fun, your boundaries, and your interests. The dm isn't a psychologist and there to pull information out of you and the other players are there to have fun as well.
I wonder if communication is something that's just lacking these days. If I'm having people come over to watch TV, play games, or any other social activity, I'm going to ask what they want to eat, drink, watch, or play. None of us are going to purposefully try and ruin each other's fun, and if we do something to upset each other, we're going to apologize and make things right. D&D is a game about talking, so talk and listen. Communicate with each other, and remember to have fun. Don't just throw a party for yourself, throw it for everyone else as well.
A lot of people play with folks they don't necessarily know well, either someone they met at a game store or online or so on. That's a wonderful opportunity for those of us who don't have IRL friends who are interested in this stuff, but it also means we have to be more careful about making sure everyone's comfortable, given possibly very different backgrounds, cultures, old traumas, gaming preferences etc. etc. etc.
Players have not been communicating WELL since I began in 1E. It just something some of us nerds have a problem with. Talk up front with your other players, or back channel or email.
Hey Matthew, 100% of what you said here was excellent tips! I have been an active roleplayer for 27 years now, and some of these things you were talking about took more than 20 years to figure out. Keep being such an open-minded and empathic person and have fun roleplaying. Good job, man. ^_^
This video should be a common resource for every RPG session from here forward.
Interestingly enough (for me) even tho I do not enjoy Crit role, I LOVE listening to Matt Mercers tips and tricks and advices.
I joined my first ever campaign about 2 years ago and my lore was that I needed to bring back a dragon head to my monk temple. I joined late and our DM was super cool and let me join at the same level as everyone. It just so happened they were gonna fight a dragon that day and I managed to get the last hit. Couldn't have asked for a better intro to such a fun game.
All I can say is I had a really good DM when I did this campaign. I recommend that if there are a lot of NPCs that are going to be hanging around (we had six group members and all of Ayo's crew for a while), don't be afraid to distribute them amongst your players! We all ended up playing our characters and an NPC (I had joint custody of Maggie lol)
In terms of Maggie, be happy to know she ended up getting married to a monk and retired to a cabin in the forest where they wrote poetry together.
I am 99% sure Matt is wearing a Mr. Bungle shirt. More specifically, a Mr. Bungle shirt with the Disco Volante album cover.
Possibly, but he’s definitely also wearing the CR Vax’Ildan hooded cloak.
If you realice that a situation calls for a different character's strengths don't hesitate to call for their help. It is always a good start for a conversation between the characters and it allows for the other player to show off his character's strong sides instead of making it so you try to do stuff your character is not very good at and fail.
DM’s are leader and need to recognize and be cognizant of group dynamic. Highly recommend reading or watching anything with jocko Wilkins or David Goggins about team and leadership. Then require the group to do homework about team and leadership. Super helpful
As a player who loves to role play I love helping my friend get more into the role play side of things but sometimes I do in fact take the spotlight to much and I've been personally working on it
Always play to entertain, no matter if you're a player or a game master, always play to entertain your fellow participants. If you can't or won't then don't and instead take your leave and find other participants with which you can and will.
I remember finishing like a campaign and then finding out later on the DM didn’t want to play with us anymore because me and my SO didn’t like that people were saying slurs and we had expressed that. According to him we weren’t letting the other players “be in character” . Keep in mind the slurs were like irl ones. So now it’s hard to find a group that wants to play.
A CLASSIC D&D interview question.
DnD is all about respect and trust ♥️
My group recently had a major falling out, one of the players became extremely domineering and belittling of other players ideas, insisting they were right about everything while basically demanding we copy and paste any information we received into a group Google doc so he could 'tell who was right or wrong'.
Eventually they was asked to leave because every session melted down into the party vs them. With accusations of us working behind the scenes to belittle their character and withholding information to make them look dumb.
@@logansullins4545 It's not even that they were taking it more seriously than anyone else, it was that they refused to accept that any other outcome beyond what they concluded was possible. There were discussions behind the scenes that came to light with them and other players where they accused the other players of 'moon logic', or flat decrying them as stupid and foolish, with no backing evidence. While at the same time in public made similar leaps of logic themselves, and then grew angry when their own lack of evidence was put forward.
The sad thing is, I enjoyed playing with them initially, in combat encounters we meshed well, we strategized well, in social things they were awkward but tried their best... but anytime a tiny bit of mystery entered the story it went from a team game to 'Sherlock and his misunderstanding misfit tagalongs'.
It all finally came to a head when they started demanding copies of Private Messages from the DM as proof to anything presented that countered his conclusions, and there was a rather public meltdown between numerous players and him.
I dont really understand this. Is it one player or are it more, that were problematic?
@@florianb2856 Well, since they were asked to leave and a new player has come in to fill the void, we've progressed things at nearly three times the speed we had been, because we weren't arguing half the game sessions over what to do. So it feels like it was the one player who was causing issues above all else, we've had 4 sessions since, and just feels like we're getting more accomplished.
I literally made a video about sharing the spotlight recently - absolutely the best tip you could give to any player!
It's so important to always make sure we're making tabletop roleplaying a *collaborative* storytelling experience.
Nice self promotion there
@@PepicWalrus Yeah -self-promo always feels cringe.
But if my content helps anyone out then it's worth it to me. =)
Agreed but a bit vague. I think a good tip to hold close for entering someone's games is a no "player bullying or scheming against other players" Sure there may be rare groups that can pull it off, but 99% of the time it leads to heavy toxicity within the group. Same could be said for "evil campaigns" without some really hard rules in place, most of the players just try to "out evil" the other players and ending up murdering each other before they reach lvl 6.
That's something that should be discussed in a session zero.
1. no metagaming
2. approved homebrew(if any)
3. throw script out
4. keep criminal on leash incase of hungry dragons
5. always have extra coin for red light sessions(drunk clerics firing revivify can lead to unpaid 'sessions', which often leads to dirty work)
I would say one thing to be wary of is people who try to take advantage of your good will. I once played a game where one of the players private messages everyone tell them to back off and let them spotlight more or bring them more to the forefront of roleplay. I say I was offended, and this was because they had half the session, before I got this message, roleplaying with the dm a interview scene with an animal we needed clues from. However! However despite the nonsensical nature of this request in the face of the context, I did actually try to pull them into more scenes by saying things in character like “what do you think?” “what are your thoughts?” and so one. I would continuously try to find opportunities to bring them into the roleplay of the scene. I noticed the other players do the same. And yet? I still got those messages basically telling me to back off and shut up. At one point they actually ended up complaining to the dm, who is left confused. He gets to the bottom of the matter, asking each of us what is going on. I admit to the message I was getting and screenshot them to send over. To say the dm was furious is putting it lightly. It wasn’t until after this player was kicked that we find out they had been harassing the entire party with these messages trying to dominate the table for themselves. The dm had noticed the table trying to include this player more and yet that they still were harassing all of us. So yes, this was a case of someone using everyone’s kind nature to bully all of us. We actually had more fun after they left and I hadn’t realized how much the harassment was weighing me down during the game.
Oh! And for added context, this player was usually late by an hour or more, never informed us ahead of time, and sometimes didn’t even show up so the dm had to go ahead and play their character (as was the rule if you didn’t inform ahead of time and you were the only one gone). I also was a new player and that campaign was my first ever I got to play in (we just wrapped up the epilogue for it a few weeks ago after I post this). I was honestly baffled by the whole experience with this problem player. I’m so glad I had the other players at the table that I did and the dm. They were all amazing teachers and I became a more confident roleplayer from their examples and teaching. They were amazing at trying to pull me in and allow me a place and space to roleplay but also respect when I didn’t feel up to it. They also helped walk me through my mechanics and how to use them correctly, even repeating themselves very patiently if I forgot something. They would ask me things like “did you use your bonus action already?” or “do you have a reaction you can use for that?” stuff like that. All helpful stuff and advice on applying stuff. So yeah, I am glad that problem player experience didn’t sour my experience with dnd. If anything, it taught me how to properly respond when shady tactics like that are used.
In all fairness i feel Real life Phobias translating in game is a nice world building tool as well (im scared of the things, yet i honestly love the edition of them in dnd(especially the big ones)
1. Be nice and talk to the DM.
2. Share.
I'll sum this whole video up with 5 words: "Talk to your other players".
I'm not only distracted by Matt's good looks, but the Darkglass bass amp behind him. Somebody in this office has good knowledge of good bass tone. lol
I wish they would just upload the entire interviews when these books are coming out
The gods of the Algorithm must be sated.
Travis does not seem to be playing up his fear of everything, as much, since campaign 3 started.
Matt Colville's playlist about running the game is good, it's a long list but browse it and pick out the videos you think have interesting topics
I've had a group where I had fun for awhile but another player was overplaying the Asshole Rouge trope. To the point he killed my character and when I rolled up a new character he started to treat him like shit too. And their is a point of where it goes to far. I lashed out at him at one session and we had to end it. I chose to leave that group because when I explained my actions they told me "I was playing My character wrong" and since you had a new character you should have kissed his ass until you gained their trust. Wich you with the same player who killed my last character, desecrated his Body, and threw his body off an airship. Some groups just don't work out and but it never ruined my love for dnd. I've been taking an extended break from it due to work but would love to play again in the future.
Also just realize some people are insane not because of the game but just because they have a major malfunction going on in there head. I'm 42 now, the first experience I had with D&D was when I was like 14ish and this guy played the game with friends of his and was telling me about it. Sounded like a lot of fun. I stopped by his place one day to ask more about how to join and as I was talking with him there was a rotten smell coming from a medium size cabinet. I asked about it and he said "oh that's my shrine for my character to his god". I found it odd but asked "oh so this is for when you go and play the game?" NOPE This guy was giving REAL LIFE sacrifices [fruits and such as far as I could tell] to his characters god. I would have let it slide but he went OFF on how important it was for him to do this and ya I never looked into Table Top RPGs again until I was like almost 30.
I dmed a horror campaign with some new players, it didn't last long since the new players decided that dnd wasn't for them. (I tried my best to make it as th as possible for them. I did make sure to discuss limits and phobias with them so that they wouldn't get super spooked.)
Not trying to be offensive, but I think the horror genre is probably not the best path to introduce people to D&D. Horror is a very divisive taste. Some people love it, some people hate it. And while I don't have any hard numbers, I'd guess that not that many people are really into horror that much.
Better do some standard fantasy stuff; hardly anyone hates Lord of the Rings style fantasy.
@@harmless6813 I started off as a fantasy esque setting, the horror was supposed to happen later.
I'm a simple man. I see Matt, I like the video.
Helps that I can't remember a single instance where Matt said something stupid, unreasonable or even mildly offensive.
Always a great reminder for your table. =]
Thanks.
If one of your players has a deep fear of spiders, don't assume they don't want spiders in the game. Ask them first. I have a deep fear of spiders, and have always told my DM's, put as many spiders in the game as you can - use mini's, pop-ups, I don't care. I get to fight these things? What a great way to overcome a fear.
"become a better D&D player the Matthew Mercer way": or "how to be a better more empathetic human being", nearly as decent as MM is himself
When you dedicate your entire life running from being uncomfortable then you create a bad life skill of not being able to deal with real life uncomfortable situations you cant avoid. Part of growth and development is the ability to face uncomfortable situations and overcoming them. Killing someone is uncomfortable for the majority of people but killing someone in the game is easy..... its the same as facing your fears, like drowning or flying. we need to learn to step up and not protect everyone in bubble wrap otherwise they have no coping skills in life
great info! thanks
Gonna tee other players up tonight in our game!!
I had a bad experience recently. My character got put into a situation with no escape from and a party member's character's mother tarred me with chicken feathers, put a chicken mask on me, strung me up to be laughed at in the middle of my hometown, then had someone disguise themselves as my character and damaged his reputation. It was way too much of a punishment for something I didn't have a chance of escaping. I made it clear that I was upset about it and that my character was on the warpath of revenge. But apparently the DM didn't plan out the situation too well because she didn't expect me to start a fight with the character when we found her. And then we beat her she had her keep provoking my character so I attempted to cut her head off. I rolled a 26 but still failed. Then everyone got mad at me. It really felt like the DM was playing against me the whole game.
Sounds like they were and you need to find a new table.
@@RottenRogerDM I talked to them afterwards and they told me that she was unintentionally doing it. Regardless I didn't like the way that the others reacted and I left the group.
Welcome to the railroad friend...
Is that a Darkglass Microtubes 500 on top of that ampeg cab?
EXu was a bane of mine. Man did I enjoy it.. but man did I hate all the spiders xD
life advice with Matthew Mercer
Awesome video
I'm all about the idea of making your game about the other players, the moment you see your character as the main character, you're in trouble. Find ways for your character to be involved in other people's archs.
I see a drum kit and an Ampeg amp behind Matt... Matt, tell me about those!
Please make these videos longer
Who's sweet ampeg?
Honestly. "Don't make people uncomfortable." and "Make sure you all want to play the same game." are just common sense things. I didn't need anyone to make it explicit to me that those are important in TT-RPGs because I had been raised to consider those things in all social interactions - the second thing is only a specific version of "Make sure you all want to do the same thing." which is applying to all group activities.
How far have we fallen, to think of those things as 'New tools'.
Player Tip: Make an honest effort to learn how your character works rules wise. There is a learning curve for everyone especially new players but the is nothing more maddening as a DM or even as a player watching another DM have to explain or point out the same thing over and over. Example: Burning Hands is an AOE spell not a touch attack spell....
Don't try to be Critical Role. Chances are you are not a trained voice actor with incredible storytelling skills.
You are probably a regular person with average story telling skills. Keep your characters simple. Focus on two things.
What does your character want to achieve?
What kind of experience do you want to have as a player?
Communicate with both the game master and fellow players.
Don't hog a the spotlight, but also make sure that you get at least one thing to do each session. Celebrate the moments of other players.
Also include at least one very much alive NPC in your background. It might never come up (which is okay) but it could actually help your game master if they like to include your character as a living breathing person who is part of the setting.
Finally, make sure what your character can do is relevant. Being the party face is fun, but if you are dungeon delving, chances are it is never coming up. If you are a wilderness explorer who is trained to kill goblins and the campaign is in a city with no goblins, have fun feeling redundant.
I have a spider phobia and i told my DM i still wanted them in the game. I wanna feel cool finaly crushing them because im too scared to do that irl.
of corse im stressing you handle that with tact
Tldr: don't be Tiberius
As a spotlight player in a shy non rp group, after almost every encounter or situation I ask what do you guys think about this.
I'm definitely wishy washy in spotlight spurts, but the best is having that friend that you are introducing to dnd for the first time and roping them right into your RP with an NPC lol.
pro player tip: think action first, then rule instead of rule first, then action
I just wanna know whose living room this is and who owns that drum kit?
Cutting spiders and spider-like creatures out of your campaign is a LOT of creatures. WotC really hit that phobia hard. Phase Spiders, Giant Wolf Spiders, Driders, Neogi, Steeders, Cave Fishers, Chitine, even Lolth the Spider Queen. Not to mention one of the best scout for find familiar.
Sounds like a lot if you just count the creature types. I don't think I've run into any of those in like 5 campaigns. Definately not hard to change one creature to a different one if you need to.
Searches UA-cam for player tips
Finds this video
“There’s plenty of resources online! Check UA-cam!”
Searches UA-cam for player tips
Finds this video…
DM Tip: respect your DM’s and party’s time. Don’t be texting on your phone, don’t carry on conversations not related to the game, and don’t ditch a game or show up later/leave early without advanced notice.
Man, filmed at a time when people could sit opposite each other face to face
This is random, and not related to the video, but I just considered: what if you just removed magical weapon damage?
D&d is balanced to have very few magic weapons. However, literally everyone wants cool magic weapons. So the problem becomes, after a few levels, literally everyone has SOME form of magic weapon.
This makes SO many monsters underwhelming, as their resistance to conventional, non-magic weapons disappears. But what if you have a magic +2 sword that did NOT do magic damage?
Suddenly, Iron golems become terrifying, indestructible juggernauts, rather than big, dumb sacks of HP.
Martial players are forced to become creative, utilizing their higher physical abilities to think outside the box combat wize. Suddenly class abilities and spells that give you magical damage are actually relevant, not redundant.
Even better, weapon material matters again. Silver weapons can be CRUCIAL in defeating demons or werewolves. Adamantine weapons aren't just flavor, they can allow you actually to destroy an Iron Golem. Everyone is incentives to diversify weaponry and damage types, rather than using your most powerful magic weapon...
This and adding more monster vulnerability
Literally false lmao. Dnd is balanced around everyone having magic weapons, that's why martials are so much weaker than spell users. A lot of monsters have straight up non-magic weapon immunity, and some at early levels too.
Please, don't nerf martials, they are already the worst classes
but what do you do as a player when the thing that some of your other players cant deal with is confrontation and being called out, and they act in ways that make confrontation the only solution?
If they don't want to be confronted, they shouldn't behave in ways that warrants confrontation.
@@XenBass thats the conundrum
Obviously there are multiple ways to "confront" someone, and in theory one of the things that a group could discuss is how people would like issues like that handled: By email? Private talk outside the game? Jointly with the players involved and the DM?
...But at the end of the way, we're talking about a cooperative group game. At some point the "good of the group" has to win out. Players who can't or won't adjust their behavior to the majority's preferences/styles/comfort levels may not be a good fit for that table. Doesn't make them a bad person - they just need to find other people to play with. And/or other ways to hang out with the group, if they're friends outside of the game.
I've heard the analogue used of telling a friend why you can't be roommates: "I really like you, dude, and I don't want to end up hating you, and I can tell that's gonna end up happening if we keep sharing a place, so one of us needs to move." It's that specific situation that's not working out, not necessarily the interpersonal relationship/friendship as a whole.
ask the DM for help in talking to them. If they're not going to change, remove yourself from the situation and find a new table with good people. It's not your job to make anyone a well-rounded and decent person. It is your job to look after yourself.
Know how to use D&D Beyond and/or where you pertinent character details are identified and how your skills/special attacks/spells work...
Player: "I do a thing... how does it work?"
DM: [glaring look as the PHB or other pertinent reference goes untouched]
I love Matt Mercer and the rest of the Critical Role cast but I'm fairly sure Travis would call BS on the don't use monsters (or castmates) that trip your phobias.
There are different levels of phobia. It should be up to the affected player.
I'm sure if Matt thought Travis actually wasn't okay with something, then there's no way it'd ever end up in the game.
I guarantee you it's something they've discussed, and Travis has agreed that he's okay being teased about his fears.
Interview videos are way to short
Wait, is Todd working for D&D again? I thought he split to do his own thing?
He used to work for DnD Beyond, which isn't D&D.
I thought Yusuke only cared about art.
This fuxing angel
His right arm is eating his left and his leg is way crossed... Hes uncomfortable
Make ur leg do that naturally
Don't force interactions that make people uncomfortable. Don't hog the game aka Main Character Syndrome. Don't keep social brownie point score and constantly throw them at the other players to remind then how amazing you are. Don't stay in character for too long. Basically do none of the things .......... at Critical Role does ;).
Actual tip. If you get something wrong with rules but the story have progressed for several minutes, just incorporate it as a badass/failure moment and move on.
Yeah honestly the CR players are pretty guilty of all these things, I would get totally annoyed if I was playing with them. But they don't seem to mind it coming from each other, so... I guess whatever works for them?
Am I the only one wondering what drum kit was in the background?
*Matt* "If you don't like spiders I won't put one in the game!"
*Travis* I don't like spiders!"
*Matt puts spiders in the games*
*Travis cries*
"I don't like ghosts, I don't like body horror, I don't like air, I don't like grass, I don't like..." 😂 I kid. We all know Travis is okay being teased for his general fear of anything remotely supernatural, besides werewolves 😁
👍🏻
My last table as a character said they were okay with chaotic character. I built mine as a more rp person and not combat. These ppl had my character knocked out or muffled 80% and still got mad at me as a player. My dm gave my character gave my character a moment to shine and I did, noting that demons were controlling the spider who were controlling the goblins. Use my diplomatic skill set I managed to get the spider away from my party and rode off to see what I could discover and see really what was happening behind the curtain. I was promptly told by player to leave, don't come back, we have an issue with you as a player. Causing tension at the table and causing me to leave. This is in all groups I've tried to play with, regardless if I'm a wild mage, were tiger dwarf fighter, pathfinder, or what have you. In the end I decided to make my own group and provide everyone a safe place to play whatever they want.
Did they tell you what exactly they had a problem with? Because from your description I can't tell.
@@harmless6813 nope.
No one ever has said
Are those moonboots
I find that picking one or two ultra simple character traits makes playing fun, versus having an overly-deep backstory. On the flipside, if you just play "Nerdy guy" for 3+ sessions it's gonna get stale and you need to expand it as you go.
But other players aren't gonna be interested in you giving a speech about "my FATHER died" blah blah blah. Just be simple first.
Stop. Writing. Orphans. Seriously, player's are killing more parents than Disney. I've had 10 players at a table, with ONE living parent among them, and THAT GUY was the BBEG. Seriously, have parents, it gives you story options, and deeper characters than just, "X killed my parent/parents".
I like to have NPC'S from my background that the game master can use. Even if the NPC'S are never used, at least they are there as an option. So dead parents are the opposite of this. I might consider playing a child/teenager with parents who understandably disapprove of the adventurer.
Perhaps one or both of the parents are heroes and the player character wants to follow their footsteps. Perhaps the player character has entered this life too soon and the parents are searching for the player character.
Fun story: I recently decided to try and get my niece and nephew into D&D, by helping them create characters and play a one-shot to see if they like it. (The game hasn't happened yet because we're still waiting on my nephew to finish making his character. Hopefully this weekend. Anyway...) Neither have ever played before, and they don't know *anything* about it. I don't even think they know anything about TTRPGs in general.
So my niece, who is 12, was excited about creating a character, and we get to the part where I ask for her backstory. She, again knowing nothing about RPGs or D&D, goes, "Hm... Ooh! A saber-tooth tiger killed my family, but I got revenge by finding and killing him!" I was like, "Hm. Okay... so he's dead. What about enemies? Does your character have any?" She goes, "Um... is there a water god for elves?" I looked it up and found the D&D elven god of oceans, then said, "Why do you want to know about a water god?" She goes, "Because Lilac [her character] is angry with that god, since he didn't protect her family, and now she wants revenge against him."
So, without knowing anything about D&D, my 12-year-old niece came up with the backstory of "my whole family was killed and now I want to fight a god out of vengeance." Apparently, some stories just come naturally in D&D 😂
My first char-Rogue, both parents alive-of course, backstory party is dead. Of course, that was the same for any idea I had for this first game. Current char is a barb, parents are dead, but they died of old age.