I'm currently one of three druids in my party. Yup, THREE druids. Each of us plays *completely* different than the others, and we're all having a Wild time.
I want my next character in a long term campaign to be a druid and I would honestly love that scenario. I've played Fighter and Warlock in long campaigns and Bard, ranger and paladin for one shots. I did play a druid in a one shot and had a blast can't wait to truly develop a druid character through a campaign
I could see three of my players using wild magic druids and having the random wild chart just sitting on the table cause someone is gonna roll every turn add a wild magic sorcerer lol that would get crazy
My wife and I played Khenra twins that were both Totem Barbarians. She went wolf for offense, I went bear for defense, and it was one of the overall best campaign experiences I've ever had
I love this idea! sounds like a lot of fun, great use of 2 players working together to make fun characters that complement each other. You can do this with friends too, it is just a fantasy game so go wild. I have one of my best friend playing as my brother in a noble family. I still don;t know how his story is going to affect mine and I am very interested in what is going to happen. As the (imaginary) older brother I am to inhered my fathers rule of Leilon but what will his story tell? I love the idea of people having a common story together in game.
@@EEEGotomtom what's really cool about the Khenra is that as long as your twin is alive you reroll 1s, so it is unbelievably helpful for attacks and saves. Having another player be your character's sibling can definitely be tricky, but as long as the two of you work well together and are close outside the game it should work out well in game ☺️
My daughter wanted to DM a short game (3sessions). All the players made characters up separately and did Barbarians. It was a blast. 4 barbarians can really make a chaotic group.
Your last point in particular is spot on. I've had gaming groups like that, where I've felt attacked, uncomfortable or bullied at the table, but have sucked it up because I wanted to play and didn't have anyone else to play with. In hindsight, the emotional harm it caused me was absolutely not worth it, and I wish I'd left that table long before I did. I've since left that group and found a group that I feel much more comfortable with. I trust them and since joining them I've had some of the best times I've ever had at a table. The advice in this video is hugely important. Thanks guys.
I've been on the receiving end of some pretty terrible DMs and groups. I've seen everything you guys talked about... and I'm actually thankful for it. Allow me to explain. There was no internet available to me when I started. UA-cam didn't exist. I had only the people around me and I suffered under their ugly, nasty playstyle and personalities until I said I'd had enough. All those bad habits, all that nasty behavior, all those red flags, they taught me how to NOT be like that. I was forged better in their crucible of "ick". I love to let characters be heroic because I wasn't allowed to be. I love to work with players on story and, really, anything because nobody did for me. I love to let things slide on a spell or power now and then because "that's so cool!" (with the caviat that it's a one time thing). I want my players to have fun, because I did not. So, thank you, all you awful, terrible DMs and groups. You made me the better, proud Forever DM that I am today.
1st and 2nd edition just had a different feel than modern DnD. From the way rules worked, to the fairly common save or die abilities of monsters, even to the design of the adventures, many of even very beloved and classic adventures like Tomb of Horrors, Temple of Elemental Evil, Rod of Seven Parts... they all had systems designed to be horrible to the players. The game felt more adversarial between GMs and players back then.
Glad to know I'm not alone on that! We had a lot of toxic behavior when I first played D&D, but the best of us have a lot more fun having learned what NOT to do first hand.
I was gonna say something similar, I'm a forever DM and have none of the "red flags" but they have a few of mine sprung. People don't realize the incredible amount of pressure we have as DMs, and the amount of work some of us put into our campaigns, or world even. Like the fact that you have that many red flags for a DM, I'm surprised you get to play at all. I've seen both bad DMs, and bad players. DMs can usually be reasoned with, bad players are harder. I do appreciate that they've outlined some key things of NOT to do as a DM. That would've been a better title.
Ahhhh, nothing make a better Forever DM than dissatisfaction. Same here, I was in 3 different groups and left all of them dissatisfied before I started running my own games. One was too chaotic and "beer and pretzels," one was too strict on rules, and the last one was a step in the right direction, but still lacked depth in story and the DM lacked experience
For the deal with using Entangle to stop something from falling through a grate, I find the best way to do it is say "It actually works, but you get the sense that it was a stroke of luck and shouldn't rely on it happening again."
Sometimes I'll make a spell like this enable the caster to make an arcana check to actually see if it succeeds. The DC will vary with the difficulty of the task.
Was playing a rune knight fighter gem dragonborn and we were being chased by a pirate ship. Flew into the air, grew to large then got enlarge reduced by our parties sorcerer. Next turn I let myself fall directly through the ship, took some damage, and sank it. DM basically said the same thing. It was so epic for him to let it happen once though 😁
A friend of mine lost a player in their DND campaign (going on a year) they were at 10th level, and asked if I wanted to join. The DM (not my friend) was very helpful- and we both found it was very important that my character fit into the setting. We had a "session zero" where we as a group discussed how things work, house rules and stuff. When the first session started it took no more than the "recap" (maybe 3 minutes) before my character was introduced- now I've been playing with the same group for over a year, and I'm loving it- have a great time with them :D
@@gorgit Haha, there is no but- I am absolutely consumed by the fever, and currently I'm working on getting more of my friends involved in D&D- in whatever way I can. I've played a few sessions with one of my oldest friends, and my wife now- and I think it's honestly (as long as you are in a healthy group with people you can trust ofc) an extremely healthy passtime mentally.
On surprise house rules, many years ago my wife and I joined a game some of her co-workers were in. This was back in D&D 3.0/3.5 days, and the DM was deeply enamored with third-party content that exploded with the original OGL. First session, joining a few sessions after the campaign start, we were all around level 3-4. The DM had us encounter a group of third-party-content goblins that were naturally invisible except under moonlight! (Naturally, the encounter happened at mid-day in game.) I was playing a fighter so I stated I would make a perception check to try and determine where one of the goblins was so I could attack with the major disadvantages that come from fighting against an invisible opponent. The DM said a perception check couldn't be used that way, and when presented with the RAW on perception checks he claimed it was a house rule. So I stated I would blindly attack into one of the spaces around me in an attempt to get lucky and hit one. Denied, because I didn't have the blind fighting feat which, according to him, made it impossible to fight an invisible foe. Again, when presented with the RAW about fighting invisible opponents and how the blind fighting feat just reduced the penalties for doing so, he declared it a house rule. The party ended up barricading themselves in a room and waiting for nightfall, dragging the adventure to a complete halt because we felt we had no options to move forward. We didn't return for a second session.
"Re-zero" is a fun phrase. In marksmanship it sometimes refers to making adjustments to your rifle's sights to account for any changes to the way you hold and fire it. A good analogy for the purpose of a "re-zero" session.
The main important reason for a Session Zero: YOU ALL AGREED TO MEET UP AT THIS TIME, LET'S SEE IF YOU'RE ACTUALLY CAPABLE OF DOING SO. Sometimes, you might need to pull back the start time by 15 or 30 minutes if it's a little hard for one or two players to make it on time. Having a "will this start time work" game-day is good to have before the game fully starts.
Or, you keep the start time but just know the first 15 minutes will be filler (chatting, reviewing the previous sessions, etc.) while you wait for that one guy to show up and "find his character sheet."
@@Vuntermonkey Sometimes if people can't make it early, having 10 minutes to say Hi & decompress is nice. One time I was a player in a game where I *barely* was able to make it in time after work. not having that brief period of time to decompress made the first 30 minutes in-game a bit hard to get in the groove with and focus. So if people are constantly 15 minutes late, keep the original start time, but just know that you as a DM have those 15 minutes for player catchup/review.
Peoples can miscalculate their needed time to arrive properly - if your train late or your car get in a traffic jam are things,m what you cannot control. Or you just cannot wake up in time... The best way to avoid that, is to try arrive before the scheduled time - about a half an hour can be enough. The "empty" time you can fill with remembering, what happened during the previous session (as the Dungeon Dudes called it: session re-zero), set up your character sheet, create the place, where you are gonna play - make it faster to jump into the game, when the time of beginning arrives. Or, if you get into an accident, you still should be around in time, when YOU arrives. (Also, it's proper mannerism, if you can give a call to your group, if you notice, that you will be late!)
Ugh this is a massive problem with my friends. Two never schedule time ahead for us or will cancel for other plans. And it’s like ffs just say you’re not interested in reserving the time to play online. It’d be a whole other thing if we were playing irl (sadly one, and one of the two bad schedulers at that has moved away) but online it’s super embarrassing. Like it’s fine to not want to play but leaving us in the lurch until like the day before absolutely sucks, especially for the poor DM.
My golden rule for tabletop RPGs: Everyone at the table should strive to make the game as fun as possible for everyone, including the dm. Also communication is key, talking about issues as they come up and having the other people listen and discuss it in a constructive manner can overcome a lot of problems. I played for years in a group where everyone had a diagnosis of some kind, and had different problems that might have put others off, but since we all worked together to accommodate each other, it made it even better. One player got tired very early, so we had to game mid day. I'm terrible with keeping times, especially early, so one of the other players picked me up before the game. Another player was very picky about food, so we ate the same food every Saturday for over a year before we could branch out to three acceptable meals, and so on. These could have been red flags, but because everyone was working together to help each other, it strengthened our bond as a group and as friends.
That is such a beautiful Story. Im about to try dnd for the first time soon, and if been Healing so many Horror stories on the Internet. But good stuff line this makes me want to try regardless.
I have many times told people to play a certain type of character. If the scenario is a story about some knights escorting a bishop to the Pope, then if the bishop has already been cast, then the character has to be a knight, Within the category 'knight' there is so much room for variation that this should never be a problem.
@@Joker-yw9hl Me and two friends had several sessions where we played 3 Gestalt Rogues. (One was a Gestalt Wizard, another was a Fighter, and the last, I think was a Cleric.) We actually raided a group of slavers, and took all the children to train as our future guild.
Try making stories that don’t have such rigid party comps. Remember it’s the players story not just yours. I can think of plot devices to have a non knight end up in their party. Imagination
Specific scenarios for one-shots or short campaigns have a lot more leeway for constraints (as oxymoronic as that sounds) than long campaigns that last for months or years. The longer you play, the more important it is that you're playing exactly what you want. One reason to play one-shots is to try out character types you might not have chosen otherwise. (Of course it can also be the opposite, to try something you really want but don't think will suit a long campaign.)
I remember a story where I felt isolated as a DM since I felt that no one in the table wanted to thang out with me and only do when it's related to the campaign. I just soldier through because it was my responsibility as a DM to run the game for them. But man, I felt really bummed out when I see them having conversations and suddenly stopped when I join in. It took me a while but I left the group. Moral of the story, never play, less run for a table that only wants to use you for there own satisfaction at the game.
oh man, that sucks. Once I had a DM that gave me similar vibes. I get it that we don't have to be best friends with other players or the DM, but I felt like they didn't see their players as people but rather tools they used to have fun.
As GM you do All the work (ok, 99% of the work), you very often invite these people into your home and treat them as guests. If you don't like the players, just cut them loose. Their loss.
That happened to me, too. I was invited to DM for a established group that ended up being married couple at their house … and no one else. I felt like I was their entertainment for the evening. Took a few sessions before I just said “no” and left.
I think finding a group is similar to dating. Sometimes you know right away it won't work. Sometimes it takes a few sessions. And sometimes it lasts a lifetime.
What is this "dating" you speak of? We're D&D players; we don't know what that word means. I'm kidding! I'm kidding! You can put away those torches and pitchforks.
That makes perfect sense; you're interacting with people when playing D&D, so many things that apply to any activity involving interpersonal interactions are going to apply to D&D as well.
i currently run one shots at my local youth group for 10-15 year olds, many who have never played before so i usually bring pre generated simplified character sheets of varying classes and let the players pick and name their characters from the options for them, this is great for getting them into the game and i find that running games this way allows me to teach them more about the game by letting me choose when to add more complex aspects, one group i have been running for are now starting a call of cthulu campaign and are even starting to DM for each other.
As someone currently playing a Warlock who very deliberately didn't take Eldritch Blast, I'm glad you said "If you're having fun, you're doing it right" bc I am definitely having fun with my Neutral Evil Warlock who's passing as a regular spellcaster (pact of the Tome) and totally about to betray the party at the last battle (DM: Hey you wanna be an evil cultist in my Zelda Homebrew who befriends the party and then betrays them in the end? Me: uh hell yeah???)
That sounds like an incredibly fun character! Have you made it to the moment of truth yet? Also I’m curious how you managed to hide the lack of spell slots during gameplay
@@Lucas-ns9hd oh yes, this campaign ended fairly soon after. It was a combination of her roleplay heavy, combat light campaign, and a surprising lack of meta gaming on their part, I believe. They all knew I was playing a warlock, of course, but it didn't come up in roleplay so it wasn't addressed. It uh. Didn't end how I wanted it to, but it was that dms first time dm-ing and they did something that was honestly really cool from my character's perspective, but left me as a player unable to do anything, so the end battle was a little anticlimactic. Pro-tip: don't have your warlock's patron take their soul into their own body bc that leaves their body on the ground along with all of their stuff and they can't cast any of the cool spells they just learned.
@@LtSarai Oh no! Well I'm sorry to hear that it wasn't as satisfying as you'd hoped. I hope the rest of the campaign was as fun as it sounded, at least. I've had roleplay-heavy homebrews get soured right at the end as well so I can definitely relate. Thanks for sharing!
Looking back now. One player heavily favoured by DM, was also murder hobo and stole player magic items. Major downer..... especially if someone else had a hot session on the dice...... player sulked like a 2yr old not allowed chocolate........
Many of these red flags happened on accident in our group of brand new players for the first year or so. If you are anxious, ignorant and without guidance, things can tense up really quickly. I think the reason we still play together is that we had already been close friends before we started playing and agreed to be super transparent and patient with each other. We definitely stumbled along the way and had to have some frank discussions, but we all trust each other to try to learn, be kind and listen. It strengthened our friendship to work through those issues and I am super happy with our group today. 💚
I think with a lot of these the reason why they are red flags and not deal breakers is because they can speak to some underlying issues. Being open, honest, and communicating early and often eliminates the root of the concern. If the DM is trying to host a game players have fun in and the players want to have fun along with the rest of the table, most things can work themselves out.
That's fantastic! So long as you focus on the people you're playing with and not just the game itself, you can overcome just about any problem at the table! You just can't take any mistake too seriously, especially when everyone's new to the game.
Exactly. It's a red flag (warning) not a stop or evacuation sign. A red flag is a sign that might point to something more troubling or a one off instance of bad. You don't know. That's why you observe.
Thank you! I joined a well established table a few years ago with no re-zero. First session I felt attacked by the other players interrogating me and my character choices, belittling my attempts to RP, and telling me I was playing my character wrong. I always felt it was my fault but you've made me think differently
love the video guys. great info on all the red flags. I have been playing with a group of people for the past 5-6 years, and we all work really well together. In order to give everyone the best experience, we change up the DM between "modules/adventures" so that everyone gets a chance to sit back and play, and one person isn't the "forever DM". About a year ago I started a campaign as the DM with the group, and it is going to end up being in 4 "acts". We recently concluded the first act which went from levels 1-5. At our session Zero I stated that each act I would be adding a bit of "difficulty". So act 1 was pretty lax in a lot of ways, but I proposed a challenge to each of my players. I asked them to challenge themselves by playing something outside of their norm. One example was that one player loved playing the mage type character, and she is very good at it. I would not have told her that she could not play a mage, I just wanted to see if she would be willing to challenge herself to play something different, and she surprised all of us by creating a monk. The thing is she now thinks of the monk as one of her favorite characters to play. So yeah, never tell someone that they HAVE TO play a specific character class, but challenge them to try something new if they feel up to it. I don't have anything banned in my games. not a single thing. and I encourage my players to be as creative as they want with their decisions and actions in the game, but the one house rule about this aspect of gameplay is that "If you as a player come up with something that doesn't exactly fit in the rules of a certain spell or action and I allow it as the DM, then just be aware that your enemies may use that same exact tactic against you in the future." Character optimization is NEVER a problem in my games. Meta-gaming is an issue though. I don't mean something like "trolls are vulnerable to fire". What I am talking about is if a player has already played through an adventure like CoS, and uses their knowledge of the adventure to essentially circumvent potential encounters in a new playthrough. THIS is Meta-Gaming in my opinion, and it has absolutely no place at my tables. If I figure out that someone is metagaming in this manner, then yes, I will "punish" them, but not in an overt manner, I will essentially take my session prep in a different direction, and relocate key milestone items/encounters to different locations, and set up traps in the original locations that will cause them issues in the long run. One player once ignored everything in a room that ONLY had a secret compartment under an altar, and went directly to that altar to search for the hidden compartment. There were dozens of other things that would have been more obvious places to search, but instead of searching the wardrobe or the drawers of a side table, he went to a solid stone altar and searched SPECIFICALLY at the base of if (which is where the actual adventure had the only hidden compartment in the room AND it was the only location in the room with anything of any value). THIS is players using their knowledge specifically to benefit their character when there is absolutely NO WAY their character would have acted in such a manner in that situation.
Interesting points, I agree with you. HOWEVER, that Altar thing THEORETICALLY could be an obvious choice IF they have any sort of background/backstory that included Religion Knowledge or Arcana Knowledge they could understand that Altars are the heart of a Religious site.
As a first time DM I am so glad I spent sooooo much time working with my players on their characters, who they are, where they fit into the setting etc. Great video, great relief I didn't end up unintentionally producing these red flags.
Being told what class to play is the MOST frustrating thing ever. I was DMing a game where one player was trying to make a "balanced party" and I had to really advocate for the other players to play what they want. As a DM I can work with any party, and all I want is for everyone to have a good time and not play something they don't want
Everyone wants to play fighters and barbarians I feel obliged to play a caster of some kind, mostly a healer type to keep people alive. Let people play what they want but their choice restricts mine.
Yes! I'm currently running a game with all martials and it's a blast. Sure I have to do some tweaking to balance things, but at the same time it's such fun to have things like a tower wall actually be a challenge the party has to overcome.
The "no information about the setting" thing really came up for me in my first campaign. I'm like Kelly in that I like to have a history to my character that meshes with the world of the setting. I drove my GM nuts asking semi-detailed questions about various parts of the map that had little to nothing to do with where the party was currently (on the side, NOT during a session). I figured out later on, he wasn't avoiding answering to be obtuse rather he was a very improvisational GM and literally hadn't decided on those areas beyond the broad strokes of "X" race is the dominant species in that area.
As the DM, I think at that point, I'd say "You know what, your character is from that place. That's your city now. Do what you want with it, and I'll make it work with the rest of the world. And if it doesn't fit perfectly, then that's fine, because that's what different cultures are."
Man, I love my group but I wish they gave a crap about my setting. It's not even like they're mean about it. They always say, "your worlds are always so cool." but they don't participate at all when I ask them if they have any input, lol.
As a DM if I haven't flushed something out and a player is interested about that part of the world for their character creation I just tell them I haven't decided on that, pitch your ideas and we'll collaborate on it. Makes them more invested being able to create part of the world.
your PC may be fully new to the setting i once introduced an non native PC through a magical gate into the stat adventure, for logistical and practical(convention) reasons he did new nothing about the setting Was a fun game The same may go if the PCs really change the world, knowing nothing of the other world
@lyntonfleming I do the same thing. I usually like to base like 3-4 cultures on actual cultures from human history and let players make the rest up or I improvise cultures that are encountered later.
In my 20+ years of playing, the DM always had characters in the party. The players would determine what the DM's characters did and it worked out really well. It was nice for the DM too because it allowed him to develop characters and feel like they were also playing the game. But, I can see how that could be abused.
That sounds more like a party PC, rather than a DMPC. And with the rest of the players being in on it, it removes most of the railroading aspect that's usually the worst part of DMPCs.
I did the same for my first campaign as the DM because there was only 3 players. When the players were stuck on what to do, I would use the DMPC for tips
@@LinkinVoider I understand that. Just asking why normal npcs that were placed in towns and such couldn’t act as guides or give tips. From experience it feels bad to have someone follow the party around as a hint box.
I actually joined a home brew session that has been going on for 3 years as a level 11 twilight cleric… they made me feel super welcomed, integrated my character seamlessly and have really helped me grow and obsession for dnd
The question of whether it's metagaming to know how trolls work for me is resolved by the question "what does my character know about trolls?", which gives the DM scope to allow for their weaknesses to be common knowledge or basically unknown as appropriate.
You literally can’t avoid metagaming because your character by coincidence could use fire against a troll. By avoiding that you are metagaming. Also, Whether you ask your DM or not whether your character knows a monsters trait, your subconscious knowledge of the fact is influencing you whether you know it or not.
@@floofzykitty5072 That's...not the case here? He's circumventing the metagaming by actively asking "what does my character know?" which meta gaming by definition is making a decision as your character using knowledge your character would not reasonably have. As a DM, I'd ask them to either make a history or general intelligence check and let that determine what they know. It's a fun way to incorporate that kind of stuff.
This is the most important question at all the tables i've played at! And the most asked. nothing wrong with doing an insight, history, etc., check to see what they know. and it gives the dm a reason to refresh into their backstory to help decide what they would and wouldn't know.
I mean, if a character has Fireball on their character sheet, it's metagaming anytime they don't take a chance to cast it when trying to do damage to multiple targets. Depending on the level of play, sometimes even single targets. Actually, just always use Fireball. Just use Fireball. Just Fireball. JUST FIREBALL. Now, not learning/preparing Fireball in the first place, that's a totally valid reason not to cast it on the trolls. Another valid reason would be if you're a Light Cleric comboing Spirit Shroud and Scorching Ray, but that's still fire damage so the end result is the same. It's kinda hard not to have a generous use of fire in a 5E D&D party, you've got to go out of your way to avoid it more often than not. Even if you're in a super low magic campaign, that type of party probably always has lit touches on hand.
Well,, it's depending on the PC's core personality as well. I have a fallen Aasimar Undying warlock, who doesn't really use fire based spells (the only exception is the Create Bonefire cantrip, but that's for making camps), so if it would run into a troll, it wouldn't use fireball, even if his patron would be a Fiend. His favorite cantrip is the Chill Touch though, which also stops regenerating abilities, so he would be able to put a considerable contribute to it's death, even if the most likely to kill it would be our Tiefling barbarian.
I heard a guy talking about the group he's with the other day and there were MASSIVE red flags. The DM secretly had different players use different methods for setting ability scores (they figured it out later). That right there would have gotten me to walk, but the DM also awarded experience purely on the amount of damage the characters did. That's even worse.
That's why I use point buy, or the 27 point premade array. Rolled scores are for one-shots where you don't expect all the characters to live, let alone continue on to a campaign. Back in 2004, I played with a DM who said we'd roll stats under supervision, but when two friends came back in they claimed to have supervised each other when they rolled their demigod stats, and the DM accepred it. I've hated the rolling method ever since.
@@Keovar Agreed. I've only ever used Point Buy or Standard Array, and I feel like they are far superior to rolling. I have considered a method where the group as a whole rolls for stats (take turns rolling), and use this to make your own array, and then have everyone use the same array, placing each number on the ability score you want, and combining it with your ASIs to get the character you want. I might try that some day, but I don't think I'll ever do a regular Rolling method.
One of the red flags I've experienced is excessive drinking at the table. My players used to drink a little bit during the session, but nothing too bad. Then, one time, a players downed over half a bottle of wine in under an hour. She was disruptive, loud and made decisions that affected the whole party. Example, they were in a mine with zombies and she had her character walk right up to the zombie and try to say hi.
Alcohol at the table is one of my red flags. I get that it's fun for you, but if it's not fun for the table, I don't need it. Either I can leave or they can, and since my group often saddles me with GM responsibility, I'll take the game with me and y'all can start over. That individual needs to decide if gaming or drinking is more important, because it's never not been a problem or disruptive. If that makes me not fun, so be it. I don't ask for much, but maybe that the work I put into running sessions on my little bit of free time be respected. Run your own game, or have your binge after, but I don't have to be okay with your idea of fun if it spoils mine and everyone else's at the table.
So my story, was actually in highschool, close to 20 years ago. I'd wanted to play DnD, I found a group that played during lunch, and interestingly, it was a group of people I knew and at the time thought I was friends with. When I asked if I could join, I was told I could, though they effectively said "Yeah you play this goat, and it's now a dead goat." That extended out to when I went to various game and hobby shops as well; I could never find a group that was willing to let me join, even ones just starting. Only now that I decided that I might as well just be a Dungeon Master that I've been able to play a bit more often.
Making someone play a class is only ok if they dont know what to play. Friend of mine just got into dnd and has no preference after we went through all classes. I just said "lets just have you play this one to fill a group role, but feel free to change later if you make up your mind". We made his character and backstory yesterday and hes very happy with the result
I agree with this sentiment. However, when people talk about "making" someone play a particular class or fill a particular role, I think they mean force/pressure. In your example you were helping, not only your friend, but everyone else as well (way to kill two birds with one stone there, nice). Not only that, but you gave them a choice to opt out of their class/role if they disliked it. You weren't really "making" them, but rather you were guiding an undecided newcomer. By giving them the opportunity to change, it doesn't feel like they are forced to stick with it for the sake of the squad.
I take a different approach and ask what kind of playstyles they generally prefer and go through options with them that point in that direction. My roommate really wanted to be a Bardbarian and El Kabong the health back into people. Told her there wasn't really a great way for me to help her eith that, but Mercy Monk is literally all about punching hp into friends or poison into enemies, which she liked enough
My group is pretty big, but we've had a few filler games where whoever was GMing laid out class and/or background restrictions for the party. In a V:tM game, we had one game where everyone was playing Clan Gangrel. We had D&D games where everyone was limited to Fighters or Barbarians. I think limiting certain aspects of character creation is fine, so long as it supports the story being told.
One that sticks out to me is the new guy to our table with a character named "Simon the Pie Man" and his motivation to adventure was to find the best pie ingredients throughout the land. The GM immediately responded "Are you serious?! That is a stupid name, fix it or I'll kill your character." We thought he was joking at first... he was not. I was genuinely invested in the 30 seconds I knew of Simon... but it didn't matter because we had a series of unfortunate combat rolls which resulted in a party wipe and total reroll. Disclaimer: the rolls werent stacked against us, a party of 7 rolled at least 20 sub 5s which caused the TPK.
As the only experienced player in a large group, I played a human fighter doing market research to open a shop someday. Really fun to let new players figure out the game and only step in when (or just after)it’s going horribly wrong.
@@kylesimone6140 I hear ya, but it was with workmates and a beer and pretzels level of game. Also, it was my first game, so I just chalked it up to not knowing better.
My first D&D group was a lot of these things. My friend (Blake), when he joined the group, was told what class to play. Luckily, he liked the class of Bard. I wanted to play and was denied multiple times by the same group. I finally got in, and most of the group pressured me toward Homebrew, so my first character was built entirely from Scratch. In the first session, I didn't get to play; I had to sit and watch. Finally, I played the next week, and one of the players, whom I shall refer to as “Tony,” told me that his character was just mine but better and more optimized. I clapped back and was immediately shut down with a “Is he wrong.” After the initial hurdles, Tony was very close with our DM and would often not participate or play, sometimes even lay on the ground, and often argue with me about my character's decisions. Now, we also had another player in our group. We shall refer to him as Bob. Bob never brought snacks or anything and would often raid my fridge whenever I hosted and ask for snacks. Bob was playing our cleric for the party, and not only did he not roleplay, bring any food, or heal us until we begged him for healing. Now, Tony would often clap back against me and my friend Blake whenever we made creative decisions but would sway our DM to support his creative choices. Now we finally get to the last battle, and I have my character's death all written out with our DM, and I'm going to have my character sacrifice himself. I was so into the storytelling that I orchestrated my musical piece for the sacrificial moment, and after all of that, nobody paid any attention. When Tony realized my character had died, he gave me an L and called me a loser. After all the planning, perseverance, Hard work, and gut-wrenching garbage I put up with in that group, I still had fun because I could put the trash behind me, ignore the other players, and try my hand at D&D. I highly suggest listening to this red flag list because I've been through it, man, never again. I am now a new DM doing a homebrew campaign, and I'm having a blast, but my players aren't showing up. Maybe I should take some of the advice from here as well.
My players pick absolutely anything that they want. I'm happy to offer suggestions or cautions, but they build the party that they want, and then I build the campaign around them. I ask them to leave a little room in their backstory so I can help integrate them, but for me, D&D is about the players having fun, and I think that happens best when they're a real part of the world.
I feel like it's important to point out that sometimes restrictions within a group are important and even fun at times, I once had a group I played with in which magic was outlawed but it was still subtly used by many people on the sly which added a bit of tension but also a rush to the game play as well. It made me as a druid player carefully think about my choices of spells in a public setting
That's not a restriction, by game viewpoint. It's an in-game restriction, which by i means, that it will have logical consequences. But your DM didn't say, you CANNOT play any spellcasting class! That's only world building element, which makes those types of characters more targeted, and harder to play - but it also means, that among your enemies might be less people, who are proficient in magic as well, therefor your character essentially would be a stronger opponent, that others would think after notice it.
The important distinction here is that there was no actual restriction against using magic; it's just illegal, and that, at it's root, is just (potentially) great world detail. Much like playing a Jedi during the timeframe of the original Star Wars films. As long as a GM isn't specifically and unfairly punishing YOU, just for playing the character, it's just dramatic tension.
I held a Session 0 with the group I’ve been playing with for several years for a campaign I started running, even though everybody (myself included) was unsure if we really needed one - and I’m SO GLAD we did; we’ve had some of the most fun RP and the most fantastic and cohesive party dynamic out of any campaign we’ve done thus far, and it’s made for tremendously easier and more directed session planning between meetups. Session Zero is always the way to go!
There was a group recently where I was saying that a certain enemy monster doesnt look smart and we can maybe this and that and this other player, who has been super quiet throughout the session, just interrupts and says "yeah, they are smarter than you". I never returned to that group. Its not about being soft or tough but being personal.
I’ve been looking for a group for months, now. In my old group, there was a DM (of course) and five of us players. Four of them were a few years older, and had known, or been playing together for years before my friend and I joined. We knew most of them in real life, and my friend is even the brother to one of the players. It was both of our very first campaign. I wish I had this knowledge going into it, because no matter what we did, we were overly questioned, called stupid, or shut down by every other player/DM in the group. I remember every single time that they would pick out something that I wanted my rogue to do, and say things like “that’s stupid, your character wouldn’t want to steal, because we are the good guys.” Even though what I was stealing was from the “bad guys”. There was another time, where I was told that my character “wouldn’t get angry here” because I’ve played him in such a calm manner. Before that, I had a ranger (that died, RIP) that arrived in a city that was being burned down by this cult, and saw a cultist all alone. So I shot the cultist, with the intent of pinning him to the wall, and interrogate him on the whereabouts of their leader. As soon as I did that, the other players laughed at me, and killed the guy before I could even start the role play saying “we can see the entire map, so we know where to go.” without any reason to know that, outside of meta gaming. It was frustrating. Once I started to realize just how often it was happening, and how it was effecting my wanting to play, I finally quit. I couldn’t stand the fact that I wasn’t allowed to play my own character the way that I wanted to play my character, within the set parameters or our rulings. If you read my comment, thank you. It turns out that I was holding a lot of this in, because when I left, I didn’t even explain why I was leaving to the group. I just said my work schedule had changed. It caused a lot of inner turmoil for about two years of my life, because even when I was just trying to unwind in what I thought was a safe space, I was receiving abuse from people that I kept surrounding myself with.
Some time ago I tried to enter in an existing online campaign. Prior to join, I listened to an hour or two of a couple of sessions - I didn't have the best feelings but I was starving for D&D so I went along, joining as soon as there was chance to do it. After a couple of sessions I confirmed my fears - the group had a one man show person that was eating hours of sessions just to role everything was happening to him to the point that we were practically being silent just to be able to go ahead in the campaign. Not only that, he was doing metagaming A LOT, showing off how many things he knew on monsters and so on, correcting the master in game when he was saying something not by the rules/monster book. After my second or third session, he requested a "follow up meeting", in which he complained that I was not playing my Dwarven Cleric "right", somehow backed up by the DM and one of the other players. Right after that meeting, we had my final session with that group: he wasted almost 2 hours out of 4 chatting by himself with PNG just to "clarify" to me how it was the correct way of playing in that group, describing himself what he was doing and why and so on. When the session was finished a different player wrote an huge rant in the game chat on avoiding to waste time in the sessions since "we" were going too slow. I kind of gave up, I wrote down my point of view and I told them that I was going to leave the campaign. I must say, it was probably one if not my worst experience in D&D.
I have encountered more grief from DMs over the 1st level spell Goodberry than I ever expected. Even in a lv17 campaign, being told that casting Goodberry before going to sleep is meta-gaming is like a slap in the face.
You're level 17 with 20 Intelligence/Wisdom but your character could not POSSIBLY have figured out that sleeping causes all their spell slots to regenerate and that Goodberries last 24 hours. :P No feasible way a person could solve such a challenge. It is beyond even immortal minds.
@@RaethFennec Exactly. It's just the fantasy equivalent to a life hack. Not much different than setting a timer on a slow cooker. There are obviously limits to how far one can reasonably push magic, but this is not that.
I'll out myself here but I hate that spell by default in it's 5e form and revert it in a heartbeat to it's earlier (needs fresh berries to be cast on) form. So I would definitely have a gut reaction to shut that down because of my hate for that spell, but upon giving it a moment (like I had while typing my original reply) I realize it's not that big a deal.
@@OnlineSarcasmFails I do like the berry requirement for flavor. On my caster I used a branch of mistletoe as my spell focus, so I RPed that the berries enlarged and fell into my hand or whatever. However with a spell focus, that removes the non-gold material component. That makes it simpler for the players, but does remove some of the flavor. (Edit) lol at the idea of "Bland"berries
My stance on "banned options" is that as a DM becomes more experienced this list should get shorter and not longer. The whole reason I had a list like this when i started DMing was that I found DMing intimidating and a little overwhelming. Saying "I'm only working from these books" or "please, please don't hit me with a [insert complicated class build or uncommon race here]" helped me keep my footing and not get thrown for too many loops when a character threw out a spell I didn't understand or created a build that broke an encounter or session. When that happens as a new DM, it's just so much harder to deal with. But as I've gained experience, gained knowledge, gotten more comfortable, etc. I've started introducing some of those "banned" (I don't like calling it that) items to my table, because I feel ready for the challenge DMing them presents. In the same way player characters options and abilities expand as they level up, so does the table and the DM haha. Obviously I'm describing a more collaborative scenario than the one you are describing, but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents.
Agreed. When I started DMing 2 years ago I made a hard ban on all UA and Homebrew because I didn't feel confident in anything not playtested. Since I have gained more experience I allow a lot of those things after reviewing it. It is now pretty much anything official and you are golden, anything unofficial consult me, if it's not broken it's most likely okay and if it is let's work together to bring it to scale
For my experience in the past, our "session zero"s usually happen naturally, casually over the course of the week/time period leading up to the first scheduled session. So that by the time the first session comes up everything is already laid out in expectations. We're prepared to jump right in right from the get go ish
Same here. I find it pretty hard to get people to do a session zero, but very easy to let the conversations and ideas flow for a couple weeks before hand, then do a quick recap to begin session 1.
Our group has a built in method to accommodate this because of life. It's a good way to remove a PC or add one when players show up late or can't make it. We have a creature of some kind that acts like an extradimentional space. It eats and spits out characters as needed and it adds trauma to our PCs the first time it happens and sometimes the lore behind what's happening is so disturbing PC's flat out refuse to talk about it or block it from their minds. This none gets interesting when someone new or and NPC witnesses it and tries to talk about it. - Doc
I've had success with mixing my session 0 with the 1st session. Where I can talk about the beginning adventure and see where players would like the game to go after that first adventure. It also makes a nice fluid transition into playing. Even if it is a shorter play time.
Yeah, I usually mix the two together. Everybody group chats and collaborates on the discord to figure out who they want to play, I always make a document that goes over the setting and the tone, and for the first session I'll usually have a low stakes high roleplay thing going on where everybody gets the opportunity to introduce their characters, we might take a pause to let them make changes to their characters. It usually works out pretty well.
I've seen a lot of those flags. I'm in a large group that's been around since the 1980s, and I can promise you every single one of those has appeared at some time or another, though rarely enough to be a major problem. Except that last one. As you stated, that's a major problem in and of itself. I was the victim of it for quite some time. Because I have issues dealing with people socially, and the group was my one reliable social outlet, I shrugged it off for a long time until I finally just hit my wall and left. Years later, after spelling it out to some in individual conversations after I left, and being specifically invited back, I returned. The group has much the same people, but one or two are gone, the negative attitude has disappeared in those who remained, and it's maintained itself that way since before the pandemic so I'm reasonably certain things are positive now. Just the same, I understand fully that last red flag, and the consequences it brings. I also confirmed through this experience how people can change for the better, and their groups with them.
My favorite line of the whole video " It doesn't suck if you have fun playing it". I play an inquisitive rogue with 17 wisdom and 12 dex, that is a police inspector for Baldur's gate watch. And the party barbarian goes on stealth missions and scouting, with his 16 dex and stealth proficiency, We have a really awesome time playing our characters. The whole resume of the game is to have fun. It is really unfortunate that not everyone gets that.
I think the best way to resolve spell disputes is to read out the spell description out loud. I've had players who thought they could use a spell in a way they couldn't, instead of engaging in their argument I just ask them "please read out what the spell does from the description". If they ask "can I use it differently" then I might say no, or ask for an arcana check, or ask them to spend more resources. I'm perfectly fine with letting players bend the rules, but we need to first be clear on what the rules are so we can proceed on how they can be bent and what the _cost_ of that bending is.
Using more resources. Hmmm.... That's interesting. Now I want to make a table of material components that alter spells and how. Dude, I'm getting a floodgate of inspiration! Thanks for sharing!
My fav moment so far in our campaign? Our DM let us, for the cool moment, use poison spray to coat my fighter's sword for a one use strike after being teleported to the enemy. The whole party loved the fight. (I'm the only fighter as I am the most experienced player and thus play the tank to help the new players. I take most of the attacks so they can explore the mechanics etcs and yes. I said straight up I will be the damage sponge.)
One thing that we always do to address metagaming is by simply asking if our characters would know the information the players know. For instance, when we fought a banshee and everyone but me went down from the wail, once I got everyone back up I asked if my character would know if that danger was no longer present, and by passing a history check, we knew we didn't have to fear that happening again if we went back to fight it right away.
I always felt this sort of thing could be easily addressed with either a knowledge roll, or having a minimum knowledge skill value. One character, a barbarian, once stated at creation that his tribe would often tell stories and draw pictures of monstrous threats that he believes are just stories to scare children into staying close to the tribe, and that during encounters, he would try things from the stories and be willing to spend points when levelling into knowledge as a sign that it is now fact rather than fable.
One of my favorite games that I played was a very dark very dangerous game and the four players had each made a character and laid it out we had a rogue a paladin a ranger and a monk. Needless to say there's a lack of healing, so we immediately cultivated a contact that could create potions of healing and made him a very rich man. We also developed tactics that absolutely enhance the initial burst DPS of the team so that we could end fights before they started. Overall it was one of our favorite games because of how fast it moved.
The way to approach "telling players what class to play" is to directly inform them of the already existing characters. It happened to me twice in one year where a character came to the table with the same race, class, and subclass as another one of my players. And there was some disappointment that came out of it because it's fun as a player to feel like you have a niche and are needed. If both players playing the same subclass are fine with it, great! But make sure they're both aware before you have a spiderman meme at your table. Plus if they know, they might even come up with joint backstory!
This. I think that solidly banning duplication among classes or subclasses is rarely the best option, but not everyone wants to double up in that way because it can take away from their own character fulfillment or fun of the gameplay. As long as all parties- not just the joining party- are okay with it, almost anything can work, but often time those kinds of discussions about what players feel okay with will fall to the wayside and the decision will fall completely on DM preference. I know for myself, I want to have utility in the group and feel special and useful, so I'd never willingly choose to play the same subclass or maybe even class of someone else at the table, even if it meant I needed to go back to the drawing board with my character.
I use the "jam band analogy"-- a party is like a jam band, everyone should get time to step up and solo to show their chops, and everyone is going to have times they need to sit back and play rhythm for a while. If you're duplicating someone to the extent I can't put them in the spotlight on their own, that's a problem. If you're building your character so I can give you both your fair shot in the limelight then it doesn't matter mechanically how you're built.
Thats what two of my players are doing now. One is elf ranger other is half elf ranger. So one decided they were the mentor to the other and thats how they know each other in their backstory.
I will say that when I started playing DnD, I was really glad that my DM (also my boyfriend) helped me pick something that I find fun but not too hard to learn, and it's a build that's gotten more complicated as I learn (Paladin, Grave Cleric, Fighter)
I don't personally as a DM have any issue with two or more players playing the same class. But it is important that each of the involved players are ok with it. I don't want a player to feel diminished by another player potentially overshadowing them in there class. I'm not going to assume this means s the case. But there will be a conversation to make sure it's cool across the board.
That's a good way to approach things. No classes are necessary but too much overlap can make you feel redundant. I think it's best if you have potential overlap to have those players discuss with each other how they're going with their character. Sometimes they can link their backstories or come up with interesting tactics not commonly used otherwise.
I had a group with two frontliners, two mages and one gunslinger. Two sessions later I only had two mages and a gunslinger because one of the players moved to another country (like he didn't know that would happen when he joined...) and another player had some personal issue. So when looking for new players I had to make clear that the party has a big weakness and they should probably fill it. The new player picked fighter, but even so, the other players felt kinda inadequate because they chose their classes when they knew what everyone else was going to play and they expected to have a specific play style in the group. It's also very difficult to balance an encounter when the party itself is not balanced.
Ironically enough I had this exact thing happen to me. I was playing an eldritch knight with a greatsword themed after Zack Fair. I was the only Frontline, and I went a high CHR build, in tandem with the inspiring leader feat. This made me a semi tank, semi melee dps, and a slight support role during downtime. It wasn't perfect but it led to some amazing fights. Then, when we had to replace one of the players due to RL issues, and this player is a minmaxxer.. and there's nothing inherently wrong with that but not only did they have almost 10 AC higher than me on average(and i had 16 AC), they also had many other things that simply made their character statistically *better* than mine in every way. Needless to say, all combat after that went very smoothly. But no longer did we have combat where we might die to some of the stronger encounters because this new guy never got hit, and rarely missed. Turned combat into a bore since we no longer had to worry about anyone dying. And it made my character completely irrelevant in basically all scenarios. What had previously been an intense game, where every decision mattered became a foregone conclusion even against boss enemies. Everyone else found the game had gotten boring even during social encounters since the new guys character seemed to have bonuses to everything by level 3 that only some of the RP was still interesting. Needless to say I retired my character at a sensible point, but not long after, everyone, including the dm decided the game had gotten stale so we all decided to go our separate ways.
Not only is putting your class's critical stat as high as possible not power gaming, it is EXACTLY what the game designers expect you to do. The d20 bounded accuracy system makes assumptions around most characters having a roughly 65% chance of hitting an enemy at all levels of play. This means a d20 roll of an 8 being the benchmark of difficulty that cr and stat blocks are calculated off of. That assumption is based on a player's proficiency bonus increasing as level rises, and default assumes that you use point buy or standard array, get your main class stat to 16, then your first two ASI's are put into that core stat. Remember people: FEATS ARE OPTIONAL RULES. The game is balanced around bounded accuracy, no rolled stats, and feats not being factored in, and assuming the party receives zero magic items that give blanket bonuses to hit like +1 weapons. Maxing your main stat is literally how the core mathematics of game are calibrated to be playable. Any DM claiming otherwise doesn't understand the most core design mechanics the entire game is balanced around.
Yep, I have a Monk with the healer feat (soldier background, so a combat medic) and we're fine at level 10. Never needed the healing word or cure wounds spells.
You're helping me realize the specifics of what has gone wrong in the past. Hopefully this can help me to avoid or improve those situations in the future. 🤞
I find so many videos on youtube that make me realize where I've gone wrong with various aspects of my life. I wish I'd had a session zero around the age of 8. 😄
I'm glad I found this channel! I'm about to start my first campaign tomorrow and this seems like the video for me as well with many other beginner friendly videos you guys have. THANK YOU GUYS! :D
I recently had a GM make me roll to know that a shrine to Abadar was a shrine to Abadar. We were literally a stone's throw from Absalom at the time and he is LITERALLY one of the major gods of that world. It is metagaming to know that an (obvious) shrine to Abadar is what it is, but it's metagaming at a level that makes sense because your character lives in this world and has OBVIOUSLY seen a shrine/church to Abadar unless they legit just showed up in that civilization yesterday or something.
Yeah, on Sunday I apparently failed a history check for my male elf character to remember the only female elf he'd ever met in this world, who was also 7 foot tall and didn't speak elvish. Half an hour later his (PC) partner was suffering a miscarriage following a tough battle and I really started asking myself why we were playing with this guy DMing.
@@ConfusedGeriatric yeah, after mulling it over for a few days, I left. Playing some homebrewed two-shots with a couple fresh-faced players and DM now and I gotta say, it's a breath of fresh air.
Reminds me of a time where a DM had a cleric make a religion check to see If they recognized a statue of a god inside an abandoned temple. They failed that check but it turned out a bit later that it was literally a statue of the god they were a cleric to... But they somehow failed to recognize their own god that they actively worship.
I once DM'ed a one-shot adventure in which the players agreed to all play clerics from different domains. The team was called "The A-men". Next up is a traveling troupe consisting only of different subclasses of Bards. The "figher" will be the Valor bard, the "rogue" will be the Whispers bard, the "wizard" will be the Lore bard, and so on.
I'm really glad that my first and only DM is a badass. He loves the creativity we come up with as a group. We finished up our last story battling through the nine circles of hell and about to start a new adventure in the 40K universe as Orks. Yes, the entire playgroup. I'm so excited.
I've got to ask. Your game in 40k. Is it some D&D sorta thing using that environment, the models game or going old school for Rogue Trader? Or is there another defined RPG based in the grimdark future? Because THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! My gaming group has done a few sessions of Rogue Trader, but we're looking for more ways to use that system for role playing.
If you have a DM who loves creativity, you have at the worst the basis for a good DM. That can end up as a questionable DM, but you probably have a straight up great DM you shouldn't let go.
Regarding "Told what to play" : When i was stationed in South Korea, we had a gaming convention we put together where one of the games was a blind one-shot. There was a table with prepared character sheets face-down, and wherever we sat was the character we played. Balance-wise, the party was just fine. I understand the examples you give are MUCH different, but in the case of our blind one-shot it turned out to be really fun.
Time for my horror stories. I once had a DM with a cast of ultra-powerful NPCs who outnumbered the cast of PCs. They would constantly solve problems and railroad us into doing certain things to the degree that we had absolutely no agency. I actually thought this was normal because I was extremely new to D&D, but now I realize how messed up that was. He was basically just telling his own story and dragging us along for the ride. Another time, I was forced to play with someone who was an absolute jerk. He regularly straight up told me to shut up when I was trying to roleplay and sexually harassed me and my character at every turn. He also tried to derail our plans at every opportunity. He regularly criticized my wizard for not knowing fireball every chance he got as well. It was traumatizing, but everyone else thought he was being sarcastic, so he got to stay until he got kicked out for admitting to sexual misconduct toward a child. I also had another DM who would come up with stuff on the fly to thwart my ideas and counter my spells (I played a wizard) with made-up abilities or other circumstances. I was the only one he did that to. It was extremely frustrating, but when I tried to talk to him about it, he’d gaslight me. These days, I just don’t play anymore. Too many terrible experiences. I still love the game and would love to find a nice DM, but my hopes have kind of been dashed at this point.
I'm trying meetup to find a new group. My last one the bad habits and being cut off or countered by other players. Looking forward to trying so other groups
@@sparksmcgee6641 Same here. My last DM (the one who gaslit me) recently kicked me out and blocked me on everything he could think of for being a mild rules lawyer. He could have talked to me about it, I would have been happy to change my behavior because I didn't realize how annoying it was at the time, but nope, I got blocked. I genuinely hope you're able to find a better group, being cut off when you're trying to speak during a session is one of the most infuriating things to have happen during a session.
@@sparksmcgee6641 By the way, if you're open to doing sessions online, D&D Beyond has a whole forum dedicated to finding groups. You could easily set your own boundaries beforehand and have a plethora of groups to choose from that sound interesting. I plan on trying it at some point, but I'm still nervous about getting a bad DM again.
You nailed it when you mentioned trust. The group I'm in right now has been playing for over a year, and we've developed enough trust that we're comfortable with romances between PCs, with mild PVP (it's still a game for a team, but there are sometimes conflicts) without being upset with anyone out of character, with character's lying and scheming. We do a lot of things together that i would not be comfortable doing with a group I hadn't built this trust with. It's really great. Trust is key.
the lousy thing is that the worse the group is, the more they burn through players and therefore the more people get subjected to bad behavior. Kinda like dating in a way.
I think your first point on session zero is really the most important, because for me TTRPGs come down to two directions in general. The roleplaying part and the game part. If you want to have more of a game part, then meta gaming, powergaming, optimisation etc are maybe the tools you actually want to use and the DMs job is to throw more and more difficult tasks at you where you have to really use all your options and witts to overcome them. And then on the other hand you might be solely interested in the roleplaying part and rules are just there to give it all a bit of structure. You might enjoy meeting different species and visiting places way more and are willing to have the rules bent in order to have a very cinematic moment. Neither of those is "better" than the other. But it is important for players to know what they will get.
You guys provide a lot of helpful information. I both play and DM. Many of the tips you give are helpful on both sides of the table. I enjoy viewing you player based videos because they often help me DM and visa versa.
In my current campaign, not only am I one of two draconic sorcerers, but we both picked blue dragons. The other character is a blue dragonborn, while I just wanted to play with lightning more than I've ever been able to before. It worked out pretty well, especially when we were able to position ourselves to fire Lightning Bolt down the same line. He wound up multiclassing into tempest cleric, and we still make a good team.
In my Tuesday game, I'm one of two Rogues with Elven blood (I'm a full-blooded Eladrin, he's a High half-elf). We've been bouncing off eachother since session one with him being a motor mouth who doesn't think things through and be being the more serious one who tries to keep him out of trouble. Come level 3 I subclassed as assassin while he took swashbuckler, and we just got past the "will they won't they?" phase of our romance subplot. Which may have involved both of us making deals with our Warlock's demon patron behind the other's back to protect each other. 😅
95% of the game is are you having fun and get along with everyone. Like any other hobby it's the people you are with. My group had a 4 session quest to retrieve baked goods. They loved it. Just have fun.
@Nickachuuuuu in order to recreat the bag of colding it had to be recreated at the same stellar location to connect with the same Astral dimension. Some research and a well done role the goodies were retrieved.
I spent a long time in a semi-toxic dnd group with an egomaniacal DM. He would literally quit whole modules if it wasn't going to his plan, and he would punish players for doing things that interfered with the approved storyline. Unfortunately, he was also my boyfriend, and would be verbally abusive in game to me in front of others. Both to me as a person, and as a character. I stayed for ten years because I'm an idiot, but I also loved dnd, and those other players. They were my closest friends. Now, years later, I feel like I can't trust any of them. Because not a one of them ever spoke up for me. A part of me still has great memories, but the rest is disappointed in them as human beings. I'm currently studying 5e and after a ten year break from dnd, am ready to try again. That's how I found your video. Thank you for helping players find healthy environments! 😊
My first ever game of D&D was with a brand new DM (who had also never even played D&D as a PC) who had homebrewed a whole campaign she invited me and a few other people to join. IT. WAS. GREAT!!! She crushed it! There was a session Zero. I got to build my character however I wanted! The worldbuilding was rich. She never stumbled in decisions about the rules. She had made us standees and weathered scrolls. etc. Just stunning looking back now how great she did with zero experience. Conversely, at that same time I also had my barber invite me to his D&D group... it was bad. It was in his best friend's garage in the middle of winter, so it was cold despite the space heaters. They had apparently played D&D a lot, but the experience was so much worse. We did 1 shot sessions with pre-generated character that we didn't get to see or choose ahead of time. The worst part was the DM who was usually the DMed the games decided that he wanted to play a game and in the middle of a battle with the big boss in a small cave he THUNDERSTEPPED while I was standing next to him and killed me, not once, but TWICE. HE kept just grinning and saying, "Self-defense! Self-defense!". Awful!
Yeah, a DM should introduce a new character pretty quickly. Group I’m with now lost a member so it was easy for my character to “meet” the remaining characters as they were hiding the bodies of a bad guy and opted to join in, so it all worked. Dropped in the first ten minutes of the game, everyone at the same level, etc. So far, so good!
A few red flags for me is side talking by the other players when the DM is talking about the setting, as well as blocking view of dice rolls. Same goes for interrupting the players when it isn't their turn. This is happened as a DM and as a player. Thankfully the player blocking dice rolls and interrupted left the group before I brought it up. I am on the verge on leaving the group with the sidetalking. I plan on mentioning it to our DM about this and will leave if it continues.
This is something that I now mention in session zero. If someone else is having their turn, in or out of combat, it's their turn in the spotlight. If you have something to say in character, that's part of the game. Have a reaction to declare, part of the game, go ahead. The one liner that's too good to pass up, once in a while, OK. If I'm making a riles mistake and it's important to address now and not after the encounter, if the toaster oven's on fire, speak up or course, but if your thought can wait a moment, then please hold wait until your own turn.
16:16 this happened to me on the first round of the first combat with my first character in my first campaign. Rolled a 1, then a 20, and the DM said I broke my heirloom dwarven battleaxe while chopping my shield arm off with it. I was planning to take dwarven defender as a prestige class...
very well presented i DM every week for two groups staggering thursdays and fridays i have used your channel to become a better DM wanted to say thank you red flags are a difficult subject we geeks can be sensetive.
I love this video, and all the videos you guys put out about social dynamics outside of actual gameplay. I was the dungeon master of a group for two years; we had agreed to meet once a month, but (through no fault of their own, we were all in highschool) most of them did not make it for most sessions. We ended up playing only twice a year, if we were lucky. Then, when the players did show up, they were inattentive and generally not engaged. I think this group was looking for something different with their campaign, which I don't hold against, them, but I became very frustrated that my work in this homebrew campaign was essentially being wasted. I also played as a player in another group with a hardcore murder hobo. It's an extremely difficult thing to stand up to someone who is so belligerent and disrespectful, but finally I had to say that he wasn't welcome in my house if he continued to act like this (I was hosting). He tried very hard to make himself the victim, but no one in our group fell for it. Finally he said, "I'm not going to join your next campaign, since you say I'll ruin it." Later he asked if he could join, and it was my delight and pleasure to tell him no. The moral is: do not put up with this. Make clear in your session zero that you have a zero tolerance policy for murder hoboism. If someone acts this way, give them one warning and then kick them out. Do not wait and put up with this any longer than you have to.
I'm a DM and I personally recommend my brand new players to not play some of the more complex spell casters because of how hard they are. But I don't ban it out right to them because if they really want to play said class, they can. I offer some of the easier full casters and some of the half casters. Sometimes they are like, "yeah cool I'll do that class you suggested" or they are "na, I want to try this class that is harder to learn" and I am cool with it. If they later on want to change their character or class, I'm willing to work with them on it.
I'm some what similar when I get new players I split classes up into lvl of complexity, usually from simplest to most martial to half caster to caster. I do this not to convince them not to play a class but so they know what they're getting into or so that they can go to the type of play they know they enjoy with less trouble.
I feel like in D&D every class is a medium difficulty, with the subclass options making the class really hard or easy. Like a fighter and/or rogue should be among the easiest choice, but man my fighter has like 200 options for reactions.
I thought I was going to be joining a game yesterday at level 7 but I didn't know anything about the campaign or other characters, so I threw together an easy character with a very brief backstory. A barbarian rock gnome with the outlander background who got fired from being a tour guide because of his anger management issues. I intended on more or less going to the session to just sit in and figure out what the setting was, who the other characters were, and what additional rules the table would have. While most people might not enjoy sitting in with no active roll, I didn't feel prepared at all, and it is still fun to sit in and watch a session I'm not part of to get the vibe of the group before joining in myself. Plus I would have a better idea of where to properly insert my character and could ask the DM info about the world to figure out what city my gnome used to work at. Turns out the DM that was running that campaign had complained enough about having to build a session every week that he basically quit and one of the other players had volunteered to DM starting an entirely new campaign, so things actually worked out quite well. All I had to do with my character was bump him down to level 1. Because I didn't really have a massive backstory for that other campaign, I didn't even have to make any changes to his backstory. The DM however, decided my gnome didn't get fired, he rage quit. We also decided that his quarterstaff is actually a bent park sign from the park that he took when he rage quit.
Yeah, I frequently call for an "odds or evens" roll, anytime we're not 100% sure how things should work. Then after the event we can make a ruling to avoid unfairness.
An important thing that I had to learn the hard way is that there's such a thing as "too many people". I'm not just referring to someone who might be more introverted, or scheduling, though those are problems with larger groups. But, it becomes a lot for the GM to keep track of to the point that balancing kinda goes out the window. Especially with action economy. But, an unfortunate side effect of a large party is that, in an effort to make sure everyone gets a chance in the spotlight, there's large portions of time where no one is in the spotlight. 4-6 people & a GM is a solid amount. If you're comfortable as a GM, you can push it to 8, but don't go over that.
Regarding action economy balancing, it's a particularly tough issue to fix because the only real solution is to even out the actions on each side by adding more monsters or giving them more actions, but that means there's more time between each player's turn (which is already an issue with larger groups). Then the issue compounds upon itself even further, because people zone out when they haven't taken a turn in a while, so you get the "umm, what happened since my last turn?" thing on every players turn which makes all the turns take even longer and makes the problem even worse.
I’ve run games with up to 30 people, which would definitely stress some, but I started playing D&D in a huge group of like 20+ people, so I never found DM’ing for big groups to be an issue. The secret is to make eye contact with each person at the table, make sure each person gets to do the thing they are there to do, and be ready to skip people that aren’t ready when it’s their turn. Those that like what you are doing will return, and those that don’t won’t be missed.
5 is pretty much the limit, unless all the players are fine with not doing anything for the whole session, watching other players do something instead. Thought, if you are doing only combat, then the amount of players doesn't really matter, they just have to think fast.
I'm a DM for other DMs and when I run a module for them, I customize the monsters and slightly modify the encounters to keep them on their toes, cuz generally they might have already run them for their own groups. There are great 3rd party sources out there for new monsters, etc. to maintain the fun-factor for them.
This reminds me of Gary Gygax saying he liked to play at Dave Arneson's game *because* Dave would change the monsters so he wouldn't know their stats 😂
My partner is currently struggling really hard with one of their long-running campaigns that I think stems from that "trust is vital" thing you were talking about. It's was going on for a long time with a solid party and was something they really loved and had a lot of fun but along the way one of the other players asked if their friend could join in the DM said yes and kind of nothing has been the same since. It turns out the new guy is a very strong personality with very strong opinions about being "in character" which basically combine to create a force within the campaign that is pretty stubbornly into doing anything he wants to do, not particularly interested in what the rest of the party around him wants or what would be best for the story, and has a pretty consistent shield of plausible deniability whenever he does something actively antagonist or detrimental to the rest of the party of "it's just what my character would do." He has started multiple pretty intense conflicts between the party members that have never really been in a fun, exciting, story-driving way, but on the contrary have been genuinely frustrating affairs of "well I want to do this thing but the party wants something else." In addition he is a really experienced player, which my partner and the DM are too, but everyone else in the party is relatively new, and there's been a very noticeable drop in participation from those inexperienced players since he's joined because there just isn't really the breathing room anymore for them to think things over and buck up their confidence to do things the way they used to, it's a lot easier to just sit back for the ride if it doesn't seem like anyone else is particularly interested in your participation anyway. Basically, short story long, may partner is grappling with the fact right now that something they used to really look forward to has become something they actually dread because they have no idea what this guy is going to do next and also know that if they don't actively try and help balance him out, he will just sort of bulldoze over the other players, and it gets a little frustrating sometimes when you spend 90% of the session time either engaged in an fictional antagonist relationship with a fictional coworker, or bracing for the next time that's gonna come up.
Chances are they are not the only one feeling this way. A private meeting should be held without the antagonist to come to a consensus. Don’t let one bad Apple ruin it for everyone else. After the meeting of the group decides that the individual needs to change their game play and the DM should also be balancing players involvement. A more equal contribution from all allows players to have some satisfaction during game play. If the player doesn’t change his/her ways they should be asked to leave the group. It’s been 6 months since you wrote the comment. You am curious if there has been a resolution?
@trevorclapham5571 There has been improvement! When I posted this comment I had just spectated one of their sessions that was so bad that I had to go for a walk 2 hours in to cool down because I knew it wasn't my campaign and not my place to start yelling but it was basically the beginning of the end. This player had found an item that basically their character long for power above all else and he decided that that made him the new bbeg of the campaign (while they are playing through Curse of Staud....) and proceeded to basically turn the next 2 and a half sessions into non-stop PVP which could have gone over well except that he designed his character for maximum combat abilities.... and everyone else made their characters around their stories.... so it pretty much had the tone of a room full of people playing with delicate, hand-made-with-love figurines, and one guy who really wanted to smash action figured together. Plus some new habbits reared their heads like fudging dice rolls, rolling for things whenever he wanted and just TELLING the DM "hey, I got a 17, so I'm doing this", and costantly asking the DM to go into private group chats with him so he could do secret healing or charming bullshit without the party knowing. So by the end the party had enough and DID have a provate meeting like you said and you were right, they all felt this wasn't fun anymore so they gave him a choice of either "make a new character and please stop doing all this" or "leave." And he chose to make a new character which has admittedly been a lot better. His only current issue is that he's decided a new "character quirk" of his is that he picks a random party member every session to be "leader" for that day which we think is him trying to make a point about giving other people the spotlight but actually does more harm than good because he's still kind of forcing other people to do stuff with their characters instead of letting them make their own choices or letting things happen organically and he's still veey obviously filling some kind of desperate need to be in control which like, isn't a big enough issue to complain about yet and is a hell of an improvement on before so like... it's progress! There has been progress! And sorry for this being a novel, I have very strong feelings about this and my partner who's actually in the party is very conflict averse so I've kept em tamped down to a minimum for a long time
I lost a player in my group and we are adding a new player. I am glad that you mentioned a re-session zero because I had not thought of that. Now I need to go back and watch your video on session zero again. Great job guys, a great video on what not to do for me as a DM.
Excellent video as always, dear Dudes! I'd like to stress the importance of trust in a gaming group as well. It's not something everyone considers immediately necessary to having a great group but I've found that the more I play, the more I have come to value it at the gaming table. Having run with the same players for more than a decade, it's hard to describe the level of comfort we had working together as a party and the really wonderful RP and wild strategies that developed as a result.
Re: "no setting information", I once had a prospective GM tell me that he wasn't giving setting information because "if you can't come up with something in the framework of generic fantasy you're creatively bankrupt and aren't worth having at the table".
As a dm I definitely have done some of these things and not noticed, so it's nice to be able to figure out what went wrong on one of my short lived campaigns. Since it was a homebrew there was a lot of worldbuilding but as such there were also rules that were put in place socially. At the time I wanted to make sure my players followed these rules bc it made sense in game but now I realize maybe I should have worked with them a bit more to compromise on what rules could be broken and which ones couldn't be.
A good thing to add with your last point about the abusive behavior is to not let the person get away with "hey, I'm just roleplaying". If a character is playing a jerk, fine, but if they can't turn it off out of character, you can't let them hide behind it.
also there has too be trust in the party if a player wants too be a jerk thats fine be a jerk too the NPC's but when you feel you need too be a jerk too the other players well don't expect a heal when your unconcious.
@@crepe1346 I got an example. My group play in the grim hollow setting and were playing HUGE assholes. Like we once pretended that an innocent grandma was a witch to snitch her to the inquisition to get a reward But we were NEVER evil to each others except a few in game insults that were not targeted at the players but at the characters. Alternatively I've also been in a game where I have been backstabbed within the first five minutes of the game and the other player said to me "I killed your character because a human mage is boring"
This is exactly why i watch you guys. You are so cognazent of people and how they feel. Even if we are just talking about a game, this kind if thing really should be a conversation. Thanks guys
The stories. I was once in a game where minutes before the group was to assemble in Discord for the game, the GM deleted the Discord server without explanation, leaving most of us without a way to even talk to each other, let alone the GM. I recently left a campaign where the GM had at one point announced he wasn't having fun because we were too successful in the fights in the published adventure. He admitted to adding enemies to fights to making things more challenging. Then he started adding extra rules that limited what my spellcaster would have been able to do, and I don't know if he game the other players similar limitations. I left in the middle of the session when his NPC metagaming resulted in the NPCs changing their motivations in the first rounds of the fight, and cancelled their ambush because of our counter-ambush and tried to wait it out with their own counter-counter-ambush. In another game, we were in the character-introduction scene of a session 1 (of an online game with no Session Zero), when the GM allowed a male player to have his female character go on this long sexually explicit monolog at the expense of the rest of the group of characters. After I left without saying anything except to tell the GM I couldn't be around that kind of player, I was the one accused of disrupting the game. In my recent
I just joined my First D&D group and we didn't have a session 0, instead the DM assisted in the creation of characters because not knowing our teammates is actually a big part of our campaign. he did give each person a lore rundown of their world and allowed us to build our character from the world which is great because it allowed me to really feel like my other players were highly built into the world at a deep level
Hey guys I just want to thank you for the staff of healing suggestion. I'm a rookie DM and the group is made up of all first timers and we ended up with not one healer. So I've been tossing them extra healing potions but having them constantly finding potions just didn't feel natural. We just reach level 2 last session and our wizard was going to take a class in cleric to gain some healing. But now I can offer the staff as an alternative so he can build his character as he wants. On a side note he still ended taking the level in cleric because it tied in really well with his backstory
A wizard with a single level dip in Cleric for armor and shield proficiency and bless/guidance/healing word package is also the best path for optimization! Especially for Peace domain or if they have access to Goodberry, Life. Good on them! But do be mindful if they're optimizing a wizard, you may need some good practices and wisdom about encounter design. Either way, I hope you cheer them on as a player!
My last session zero was a discord call where i helped people build their character. I asked what they wanted, and told them what would work in our campaign. Also asked what they wanted from the game. We also had a first timer who wanted to play wizard, and i normally dont tell people what to play, but i did tell him: hey wizards are very versatile and supportive, and if you are looking to just blast spells with big damage, sorcerer might be better and it is easier to play"
The part about DMPCs surprised because I honestly love them. Maybe I just never had a DM that used them in a bad way but to me the most fun part of DnD isnt to have a story thats only about you but to take part in a world that feels vast and nuanced. I alwaye love it when a DM has us tag along with DMPC that gets to show off some cool abilites, especially since most of my games end before getting to a very high level. It gives you smth to feel forward to and makes the world feel more alive. Obviously not everything should be solved for you but I dont mind playing alongside or working for more powerful forces than oneself. My most memorable campaign I ever played ended with our party taking part in a huge war. We were fending off endless waves off monsters alongside our numerous allies all while in the background two max level spellcasters DMPCs, one of which was the BBEG and the other one being basically an avatar of a god that our cleric worshipped and had conscripted our party (long story), and they were exchanging powerful spells that shook and influenced the whole battlefield. It felt like something out of a movie. Ultimately we all perished while trying to stall for time to help a city evacuate, and while we all knew we were by far not the most impactful forces in that battle, it was still very emotional and felt really epic.
THANK YOU for saying, so clearly, that players can create well-designed, effective characters that are ALSO good roleplaying material. I absolutely hate the false dichotomy that you can EITHER have a well-made character OR be good at roleplaying. I've always done both. It shouldn't be a crime to want your character to be, you know, GOOD AT WHAT THEY DO, and I hate that so much of the community thinks that it is. Also, ironically, the situation in which I played with other players who deliberately made "bad" choices while building their characters (which, btw, I said nothing about to them because how they build their characters and have fun has nothing to do with me), at least one player said how excited he was to "finally play a game with roleplayers instead of optimizers". He then proceeded to basically never roleplay at all, and his character was entirely useless in combat and couldn't hit anything because his bonuses were so poor. At least he seemed to be having a good time, but I found it funny that he was very RP vs Optimizing and completely failed to do either.
A tip for session zero: have the DM pose a hypothetical scenario and ask "how would YOUR character react?" if everyone reacts the same way, that group will be boring. In my last campaign the answers to the same scenario were "Id fight him", "I'd ask if he needed help", "id try to steal from him", "id walk away. not my problem." Best group Ive ever played in. There was this ninja turtles dynamic going on and it ruled.
If you are having a session RE-Zero, would be fine to have the DM, the new player, and optionally any existing players come? (i.e. that it is not mandatory for existing players if they wanted to skip it.)
In my first D&D table and session, more than a decade ago, I got ganged up by two players who would keep calling me a coward chicken because my caster character was acting defensive (staying out of the heat of battle, sneaking, etc). They were laughing and making fun, but it got so constant that it got really uncomfortable and annoying - when I started talking in character, they would start making clucking sounds. They were both childhood friends of the DM, so I was really out of place. Thankfully, one of the other players spoke out and said it was really rude of them to act like that. They gave up on the table, we got two new players, and we played that campaign for 9 years! The player who spoke out is today one of my best friends.
On the topic of shutting down optimization, I think it's important for dungeon masters to outright define what they consider power gaming or metagaming since different dungeon masters will have their own idea of what metagaming and power gaming is. It's especially the case when you bring optimization into it which some will argue falls under the umbrella of power gaming.
Yeah I think it comes down to internal balance within the group. We've got one player who, without fail, will build the most powerful thing that can possibly be built. The rest of the group aren't that good with breaking the system so we end up with one player who's monstrously more powerful than the rest. That player then shows up all the rest and the DM has a nightmare trying to balance encounters
Part of the issue is that most DMs are often ill-equipped to evaluate the actual strength of builds but quick to decide what they think is strong based largely on their own anecdotes and emotional reactions. I think for most, "power gaming" is more of a bogeyman or a label for "stuff I don't like" rather than a proper concept. The really-optimized stuff can only work if the DM explicitly allows it because 5e is so heavily-bounded. A good example is tech like rest casting or conjure airstrike. The relative power difference between a character built with the slightest effort and a hyper-optimized build if the DM doesn't allow shenanigans is about 40-50% at most, as there are few multiplicative synergies and you're still limited by action economy and concentration. Some of the best-optimized builds at their peak disparity do double the DPR of just a plain old Rogue hidin' and hittin' with no subclass factored in. Most of the real difference comes from playing smart, piloting the character effectively and building for more than just combat numbers. But hey, some people want Clueless Kevin's tavern brawler barbarian monk as a baseline and think Susy Sharparrow is OP because she put her stats in Dex and uses a bow.
@@RaethFennec Yeah, I just think all builds have different strengths in 5e. I've seen some super cool optimized builds surrounding out of combat utility too. It's silly to restrict players on what they can play IMO. I had so many moments in my first campaign where I wanted to take something that would bolster my character within base rules and my DM refused to tolerate that. Ended up having less fun because my DM would ban fun build options for the sake of "balance". Not like conjure woodland animals gamebreaking type stuff, just things they didn't consider "balanced" or stuff like Death Cleric which they considered "evil". Like I'm a game design major and they're telling me what's balanced or not. Plus the lack of nuance to say a class is "meant for a DM because it's evil" is funny considering most builds I'd want to play with a necromancer or death cleric would likely subvert that trope. They even seemed a little offput when I wanted to build partially around action economy. Like I enjoy building around mechanics and RP, so it's frustrating when someone restricts that creativity when most of what I picked was in the base game. I'm not trying to break damage thresholds or some shit, I just know it's way more fun to play a character that's mechanically optimized. Whether it's optimized for the flavor I want, outside of combat, or the actual combat. Like it's so silly to try and micromanage party roles outside of keeping the same Ability Scores/levels and stuff. Just turns into a situation where players are comparing themselves to others when in reality, most good play in DnD surrounds game skill and not builds. And really, it's about having fun at the end of the day. If a player has a problem, communication obviously needs to happen. But like as a DM I will never restrict something WOTC releases for the edition I'm playing in, as that player bought the subclass, wants to use it, and it wouldn't be fair to them to restrict that. Rules as intended is a much better solution than straight up shutting down a combo or creative choice. I'll just adapt my campaign to their needs as a player, or buff other characters to make things more interesting for them and the way they want to play the game. DnD is such an individual experience that it ends up not really mattering anyways because most people are too focused on their own turn/game to care whether timmy in the corner is doing 20 or 25 damage on average. And if they do care, why so? Like what's the point of getting jealous of another player's successes? Hate to say it, but some people need to observe and learn instead of complaining about their DPR being lower. Newer players might have issues like this, but ultimately it can be solved via items or boons given by the DM if it becomes a huge deal.
@@greyscaleadaven Haha, I think we are two of one mind! I wrote a comment earlier that mentioned a few of the exact things you said here and I agree with you wholeheartedly. I even specifically suggested to someone if a player wanted to optimize in a group with players who didn't, that as a DM I'd talk with them privately and say absolutely go for it, but if other players fall too far behind, I might grant them extra boons or magic items while you get normal loot on schedule and will you be okay with that on the understanding that they'll need the help keeping up with you? That way the player has a wink wink nudge nudge nudge with the DM so they don't feel left out when Newbie Ned's melee monk gets Bracers of Defense and an Eldritch Claw tattoo by level 5 with a Staff of Striking on the horizon and Optimizer Oscar's Paladin 4 Warlock 1 PAM who's jumping ship to Sorcerer in a few levels only has a +1 quarterstaff and maybe a thermal cube or something fun for roleplay.
I think it's pretty fair for a GM to set a target power level for a campaign, but that's only tangentially related to optimisation. There's lots of ways you can approach this (whether you want to limit DPR, burst damage, general utility, whatever), but I think it can help focus a campaign and let people get to higher levels before the balance completely breaks. As a GM I can know that in a high-power game, pure martials aren't going to keep up and someone who picks one is going to have a bad time. Similarly, something like a Twilight Cleric (bad with specific 5e examples, I GM PF1e) will completely throw off the the balance of a low-power game. But, if a player approaches me asking to play one of these classes and I get the idea that they know what they're doing and will play up/down to the group then I'd let them. For Pathfinder examples, I'd probably use Swashbuckler and Summoner as the examples. Swashbuckler has very few decision points so they fit well into low-mid power games but don't really have any way to play up to high power levels (pre-rework Rogue and Monk were also bad but in more mundane, less interesting ways). Pre-rework Summoner on the other hand just had a really high power floor, a well-played full-caster would be stronger obviously, but as a Summoner you could randomly pick options and still end up with a pet that was stronger than a moderately optimised martial all while also being able to toss around the best Wizard combat spells (and basically only the best Wizard spells, their list was limited to just the good stuff). Then there were also the issues with their spell list that let an optimiser break apart Wealth By Level and make incredibly cheap wands, but that's more technical. Point is, there are classes/options that don't really fit into certain game power levels, a skilled or cooperative player can work around this to some degree. As a sweaty optimiser, I think it's good manners to pick a low-power character concept and push it to its limits. I know I could break the game with a full caster or any of the established power-gamey builds, I think it's more fun for everyone to play to the party's power level with a sub-optimal type of character. I get to spend hours reading up character options to squeeze every last drop of power from a build; the other players get to see a weird, wacky build they've never seen before and the GM gets to run a normal mid-power game without everything falling apart and fights being anticlimactic.
As a dm I would never punish a player for picking the optimal option as long as it fits within their character. But seeing people who exclusively play stuff like kalashtar totem barbarians or half elf sorcerers make my eyes glaze over
I feel like ppl optimising by doing stuff like making half-elf sorcerers is more an issue with the game than players. I don't think theres any blameworthiness in players making their main stat their best stat etc., I think the issue is more with tying things with significant roleplay significance, like race, to mechanics in a fairly inflexible way makes ppl have to balance being mechanically helpful to the party and being more inventive with more fluffy roleplay
Yeah some dms absolutely go over the line with that stuff but like. Especially when you’re the only one doing it in a party that isn’t even about that, I just wonder why that’s ‘all’ you want to play
@@Odoclick you can be both mechanically useful and a character, it’s called ‘making a character’. That’s literally what you described with the half elf sorcerer; as long as you actually care enough to give them character traits, you’ve done it. But if all you care about is being the absolute most powerful (not just making a half elf sorcerer, although you know stats aren’t tied to race anymore right?), and that is all you do with every character…I mean, fine but join a game where that’s the point then? Because it really makes it hard for the rest of the party to keep up.
I have seen a few videos like this and this one is the best. You are really good at explaining the points you are making and instead of anxiousness you build confidence :) Thank you!
Question: I'm currently making my own campaign setting with a bunch of homebrew, including 4 classes and 2 subclasses. I currently have two players that will be playing my campaign, but by the time I start the campaign I'm thinking I'll have 4 players total. Is it reasonable for me to ask them to play my custom classes for the campaign? Should I have more options? Should I let them play any class?
Putting your highest score in your most important ability not only isn't power gaming. It's also realistic. Someone with a naturally high strength score deciding to become a fighter, or with a naturally high intelligence deciding to become a wizard, just makes sense. People often lean into their strengths.
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I'm currently one of three druids in my party. Yup, THREE druids. Each of us plays *completely* different than the others, and we're all having a Wild time.
Please tell me Wild Time is also the party name...
@@kereymckenna4611 Alas, no. Should be though!
I want my next character in a long term campaign to be a druid and I would honestly love that scenario. I've played Fighter and Warlock in long campaigns and Bard, ranger and paladin for one shots. I did play a druid in a one shot and had a blast can't wait to truly develop a druid character through a campaign
I could see three of my players using wild magic druids and having the random wild chart just sitting on the table cause someone is gonna roll every turn add a wild magic sorcerer lol that would get crazy
Goodberries galore!
My wife and I played Khenra twins that were both Totem Barbarians. She went wolf for offense, I went bear for defense, and it was one of the overall best campaign experiences I've ever had
I love this idea! sounds like a lot of fun, great use of 2 players working together to make fun characters that complement each other. You can do this with friends too, it is just a fantasy game so go wild. I have one of my best friend playing as my brother in a noble family. I still don;t know how his story is going to affect mine and I am very interested in what is going to happen. As the (imaginary) older brother I am to inhered my fathers rule of Leilon but what will his story tell? I love the idea of people having a common story together in game.
@@EEEGotomtom what's really cool about the Khenra is that as long as your twin is alive you reroll 1s, so it is unbelievably helpful for attacks and saves. Having another player be your character's sibling can definitely be tricky, but as long as the two of you work well together and are close outside the game it should work out well in game ☺️
That’s awesome
@@tylerrees85 Such a great idea. I am totally doing something like this if I ever die along side someone else in my ongoing campaign.
My daughter wanted to DM a short game (3sessions). All the players made characters up separately and did Barbarians. It was a blast. 4 barbarians can really make a chaotic group.
Your last point in particular is spot on.
I've had gaming groups like that, where I've felt attacked, uncomfortable or bullied at the table, but have sucked it up because I wanted to play and didn't have anyone else to play with. In hindsight, the emotional harm it caused me was absolutely not worth it, and I wish I'd left that table long before I did.
I've since left that group and found a group that I feel much more comfortable with. I trust them and since joining them I've had some of the best times I've ever had at a table.
The advice in this video is hugely important. Thanks guys.
I was in a second edition group (or first?) where we were all multi classed thieves.
I've been on the receiving end of some pretty terrible DMs and groups. I've seen everything you guys talked about... and I'm actually thankful for it. Allow me to explain.
There was no internet available to me when I started. UA-cam didn't exist. I had only the people around me and I suffered under their ugly, nasty playstyle and personalities until I said I'd had enough.
All those bad habits, all that nasty behavior, all those red flags, they taught me how to NOT be like that. I was forged better in their crucible of "ick".
I love to let characters be heroic because I wasn't allowed to be. I love to work with players on story and, really, anything because nobody did for me. I love to let things slide on a spell or power now and then because "that's so cool!" (with the caviat that it's a one time thing). I want my players to have fun, because I did not.
So, thank you, all you awful, terrible DMs and groups. You made me the better, proud Forever DM that I am today.
1st and 2nd edition just had a different feel than modern DnD. From the way rules worked, to the fairly common save or die abilities of monsters, even to the design of the adventures, many of even very beloved and classic adventures like Tomb of Horrors, Temple of Elemental Evil, Rod of Seven Parts... they all had systems designed to be horrible to the players. The game felt more adversarial between GMs and players back then.
@@briane75 Absolutely. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was just as big as an offender.
Glad to know I'm not alone on that! We had a lot of toxic behavior when I first played D&D, but the best of us have a lot more fun having learned what NOT to do first hand.
I was gonna say something similar, I'm a forever DM and have none of the "red flags" but they have a few of mine sprung. People don't realize the incredible amount of pressure we have as DMs, and the amount of work some of us put into our campaigns, or world even. Like the fact that you have that many red flags for a DM, I'm surprised you get to play at all. I've seen both bad DMs, and bad players. DMs can usually be reasoned with, bad players are harder. I do appreciate that they've outlined some key things of NOT to do as a DM. That would've been a better title.
Ahhhh, nothing make a better Forever DM than dissatisfaction. Same here, I was in 3 different groups and left all of them dissatisfied before I started running my own games.
One was too chaotic and "beer and pretzels," one was too strict on rules, and the last one was a step in the right direction, but still lacked depth in story and the DM lacked experience
For the deal with using Entangle to stop something from falling through a grate, I find the best way to do it is say "It actually works, but you get the sense that it was a stroke of luck and shouldn't rely on it happening again."
Great way of handling that.
A lot of things can get solved with this great compromise
Sometimes I'll make a spell like this enable the caster to make an arcana check to actually see if it succeeds. The DC will vary with the difficulty of the task.
Love this!
Was playing a rune knight fighter gem dragonborn and we were being chased by a pirate ship. Flew into the air, grew to large then got enlarge reduced by our parties sorcerer. Next turn I let myself fall directly through the ship, took some damage, and sank it. DM basically said the same thing. It was so epic for him to let it happen once though 😁
A friend of mine lost a player in their DND campaign (going on a year) they were at 10th level, and asked if I wanted to join. The DM (not my friend) was very helpful- and we both found it was very important that my character fit into the setting. We had a "session zero" where we as a group discussed how things work, house rules and stuff. When the first session started it took no more than the "recap" (maybe 3 minutes) before my character was introduced- now I've been playing with the same group for over a year, and I'm loving it- have a great time with them :D
The entire thing I was just waiting for the 'But then...' and Im glad there didnt come one ':D Have fun!
@@gorgit is it sad that I was expecting the same thing and am glad I was wrong?
@@Allantitan if it is sad that youre happy a person you dont know of has awesome fun eith friends? No, not to my recollection
@@gorgit Haha, there is no but- I am absolutely consumed by the fever, and currently I'm working on getting more of my friends involved in D&D- in whatever way I can. I've played a few sessions with one of my oldest friends, and my wife now- and I think it's honestly (as long as you are in a healthy group with people you can trust ofc) an extremely healthy passtime mentally.
This is the ideal situation
On surprise house rules, many years ago my wife and I joined a game some of her co-workers were in. This was back in D&D 3.0/3.5 days, and the DM was deeply enamored with third-party content that exploded with the original OGL. First session, joining a few sessions after the campaign start, we were all around level 3-4. The DM had us encounter a group of third-party-content goblins that were naturally invisible except under moonlight! (Naturally, the encounter happened at mid-day in game.) I was playing a fighter so I stated I would make a perception check to try and determine where one of the goblins was so I could attack with the major disadvantages that come from fighting against an invisible opponent. The DM said a perception check couldn't be used that way, and when presented with the RAW on perception checks he claimed it was a house rule. So I stated I would blindly attack into one of the spaces around me in an attempt to get lucky and hit one. Denied, because I didn't have the blind fighting feat which, according to him, made it impossible to fight an invisible foe. Again, when presented with the RAW about fighting invisible opponents and how the blind fighting feat just reduced the penalties for doing so, he declared it a house rule. The party ended up barricading themselves in a room and waiting for nightfall, dragging the adventure to a complete halt because we felt we had no options to move forward.
We didn't return for a second session.
"Re-zero" is a fun phrase. In marksmanship it sometimes refers to making adjustments to your rifle's sights to account for any changes to the way you hold and fire it. A good analogy for the purpose of a "re-zero" session.
Also works if the same player keeps dying and coming back as a clone of his previous character
"That's not D&D, that's some kind of weird absurdist hell" is definitely one of the more humorously savage Dungeon Dudes quotes
Dungeons and Meetings and Confusing Regulations and Expenses Reporting, by Franz Kafka
I went to like the comment, and you were at 420 likes, so I hesitated but had to like that comment.
The main important reason for a Session Zero: YOU ALL AGREED TO MEET UP AT THIS TIME, LET'S SEE IF YOU'RE ACTUALLY CAPABLE OF DOING SO.
Sometimes, you might need to pull back the start time by 15 or 30 minutes if it's a little hard for one or two players to make it on time. Having a "will this start time work" game-day is good to have before the game fully starts.
Or, you keep the start time but just know the first 15 minutes will be filler (chatting, reviewing the previous sessions, etc.) while you wait for that one guy to show up and "find his character sheet."
@@Vuntermonkey Sometimes if people can't make it early, having 10 minutes to say Hi & decompress is nice. One time I was a player in a game where I *barely* was able to make it in time after work. not having that brief period of time to decompress made the first 30 minutes in-game a bit hard to get in the groove with and focus.
So if people are constantly 15 minutes late, keep the original start time, but just know that you as a DM have those 15 minutes for player catchup/review.
@@MindOfGenius That is legitimate. My comment is more reflective of someone like my brother. I swear he does it on purpose >.
Peoples can miscalculate their needed time to arrive properly - if your train late or your car get in a traffic jam are things,m what you cannot control. Or you just cannot wake up in time... The best way to avoid that, is to try arrive before the scheduled time - about a half an hour can be enough. The "empty" time you can fill with remembering, what happened during the previous session (as the Dungeon Dudes called it: session re-zero), set up your character sheet, create the place, where you are gonna play - make it faster to jump into the game, when the time of beginning arrives. Or, if you get into an accident, you still should be around in time, when YOU arrives. (Also, it's proper mannerism, if you can give a call to your group, if you notice, that you will be late!)
Ugh this is a massive problem with my friends. Two never schedule time ahead for us or will cancel for other plans. And it’s like ffs just say you’re not interested in reserving the time to play online. It’d be a whole other thing if we were playing irl (sadly one, and one of the two bad schedulers at that has moved away) but online it’s super embarrassing. Like it’s fine to not want to play but leaving us in the lurch until like the day before absolutely sucks, especially for the poor DM.
My golden rule for tabletop RPGs: Everyone at the table should strive to make the game as fun as possible for everyone, including the dm. Also communication is key, talking about issues as they come up and having the other people listen and discuss it in a constructive manner can overcome a lot of problems.
I played for years in a group where everyone had a diagnosis of some kind, and had different problems that might have put others off, but since we all worked together to accommodate each other, it made it even better.
One player got tired very early, so we had to game mid day. I'm terrible with keeping times, especially early, so one of the other players picked me up before the game. Another player was very picky about food, so we ate the same food every Saturday for over a year before we could branch out to three acceptable meals, and so on.
These could have been red flags, but because everyone was working together to help each other, it strengthened our bond as a group and as friends.
That is such a beautiful Story. Im about to try dnd for the first time soon, and if been Healing so many Horror stories on the Internet. But good stuff line this makes me want to try regardless.
@@azncisg Hope you had a good time!
I have many times told people to play a certain type of character. If the scenario is a story about some knights escorting a bishop to the Pope, then if the bishop has already been cast, then the character has to be a knight, Within the category 'knight' there is so much room for variation that this should never be a problem.
I still romanticise the idea of an all-bard party travelling as a troupe
@@Joker-yw9hl Me and two friends had several sessions where we played 3 Gestalt Rogues. (One was a Gestalt Wizard, another was a Fighter, and the last, I think was a Cleric.) We actually raided a group of slavers, and took all the children to train as our future guild.
Try making stories that don’t have such rigid party comps. Remember it’s the players story not just yours. I can think of plot devices to have a non knight end up in their party. Imagination
There's the old joke of an all-Cleric team called the A-Men.
Specific scenarios for one-shots or short campaigns have a lot more leeway for constraints (as oxymoronic as that sounds) than long campaigns that last for months or years. The longer you play, the more important it is that you're playing exactly what you want. One reason to play one-shots is to try out character types you might not have chosen otherwise. (Of course it can also be the opposite, to try something you really want but don't think will suit a long campaign.)
I remember a story where I felt isolated as a DM since I felt that no one in the table wanted to thang out with me and only do when it's related to the campaign. I just soldier through because it was my responsibility as a DM to run the game for them. But man, I felt really bummed out when I see them having conversations and suddenly stopped when I join in. It took me a while but I left the group.
Moral of the story, never play, less run for a table that only wants to use you for there own satisfaction at the game.
Yup
oh man, that sucks. Once I had a DM that gave me similar vibes. I get it that we don't have to be best friends with other players or the DM, but I felt like they didn't see their players as people but rather tools they used to have fun.
As GM you do All the work (ok, 99% of the work), you very often invite these people into your home and treat them as guests. If you don't like the players, just cut them loose. Their loss.
If you are being treated as no more than an entertainment provider, charge for your services.
That happened to me, too. I was invited to DM for a established group that ended up being married couple at their house … and no one else. I felt like I was their entertainment for the evening. Took a few sessions before I just said “no” and left.
I think finding a group is similar to dating. Sometimes you know right away it won't work. Sometimes it takes a few sessions. And sometimes it lasts a lifetime.
What is this "dating" you speak of? We're D&D players; we don't know what that word means.
I'm kidding! I'm kidding! You can put away those torches and pitchforks.
I completely agree, t
UA-cam can make all kinds of videos but if the pieces don't fit, there is not much you can do.
@@toddhadley9002 Do you also tell little jokes?
That makes perfect sense; you're interacting with people when playing D&D, so many things that apply to any activity involving interpersonal interactions are going to apply to D&D as well.
This is so right and also totally Zen ❤
i currently run one shots at my local youth group for 10-15 year olds, many who have never played before so i usually bring pre generated simplified character sheets of varying classes and let the players pick and name their characters from the options for them, this is great for getting them into the game and i find that running games this way allows me to teach them more about the game by letting me choose when to add more complex aspects, one group i have been running for are now starting a call of cthulu campaign and are even starting to DM for each other.
As someone currently playing a Warlock who very deliberately didn't take Eldritch Blast, I'm glad you said "If you're having fun, you're doing it right" bc I am definitely having fun with my Neutral Evil Warlock who's passing as a regular spellcaster (pact of the Tome) and totally about to betray the party at the last battle (DM: Hey you wanna be an evil cultist in my Zelda Homebrew who befriends the party and then betrays them in the end? Me: uh hell yeah???)
That sounds like an incredibly fun character! Have you made it to the moment of truth yet? Also I’m curious how you managed to hide the lack of spell slots during gameplay
@@Lucas-ns9hd oh yes, this campaign ended fairly soon after. It was a combination of her roleplay heavy, combat light campaign, and a surprising lack of meta gaming on their part, I believe. They all knew I was playing a warlock, of course, but it didn't come up in roleplay so it wasn't addressed.
It uh. Didn't end how I wanted it to, but it was that dms first time dm-ing and they did something that was honestly really cool from my character's perspective, but left me as a player unable to do anything, so the end battle was a little anticlimactic.
Pro-tip: don't have your warlock's patron take their soul into their own body bc that leaves their body on the ground along with all of their stuff and they can't cast any of the cool spells they just learned.
@@LtSarai Oh no! Well I'm sorry to hear that it wasn't as satisfying as you'd hoped. I hope the rest of the campaign was as fun as it sounded, at least. I've had roleplay-heavy homebrews get soured right at the end as well so I can definitely relate. Thanks for sharing!
Looking back now. One player heavily favoured by DM, was also murder hobo and stole player magic items. Major downer..... especially if someone else had a hot session on the dice...... player sulked like a 2yr old not allowed chocolate........
Many of these red flags happened on accident in our group of brand new players for the first year or so. If you are anxious, ignorant and without guidance, things can tense up really quickly. I think the reason we still play together is that we had already been close friends before we started playing and agreed to be super transparent and patient with each other. We definitely stumbled along the way and had to have some frank discussions, but we all trust each other to try to learn, be kind and listen. It strengthened our friendship to work through those issues and I am super happy with our group today. 💚
I need to find a group like that xd
I think with a lot of these the reason why they are red flags and not deal breakers is because they can speak to some underlying issues. Being open, honest, and communicating early and often eliminates the root of the concern.
If the DM is trying to host a game players have fun in and the players want to have fun along with the rest of the table, most things can work themselves out.
That's fantastic! So long as you focus on the people you're playing with and not just the game itself, you can overcome just about any problem at the table!
You just can't take any mistake too seriously, especially when everyone's new to the game.
Exactly. It's a red flag (warning) not a stop or evacuation sign.
A red flag is a sign that might point to something more troubling or a one off instance of bad. You don't know. That's why you observe.
the situation triggers some vague memories
Thank you! I joined a well established table a few years ago with no re-zero. First session I felt attacked by the other players interrogating me and my character choices, belittling my attempts to RP, and telling me I was playing my character wrong. I always felt it was my fault but you've made me think differently
Lack of "re-zero" and players being dicks are completely unrelated. The red flag dor players being dicks is that you feel like they are being dicks.
i hope you left that sucks
@@helgenlane moral of the story: DON'T BE A DICK
It definitely wasn't your fault
love the video guys. great info on all the red flags. I have been playing with a group of people for the past 5-6 years, and we all work really well together. In order to give everyone the best experience, we change up the DM between "modules/adventures" so that everyone gets a chance to sit back and play, and one person isn't the "forever DM".
About a year ago I started a campaign as the DM with the group, and it is going to end up being in 4 "acts". We recently concluded the first act which went from levels 1-5. At our session Zero I stated that each act I would be adding a bit of "difficulty". So act 1 was pretty lax in a lot of ways, but I proposed a challenge to each of my players. I asked them to challenge themselves by playing something outside of their norm. One example was that one player loved playing the mage type character, and she is very good at it. I would not have told her that she could not play a mage, I just wanted to see if she would be willing to challenge herself to play something different, and she surprised all of us by creating a monk. The thing is she now thinks of the monk as one of her favorite characters to play. So yeah, never tell someone that they HAVE TO play a specific character class, but challenge them to try something new if they feel up to it.
I don't have anything banned in my games. not a single thing. and I encourage my players to be as creative as they want with their decisions and actions in the game, but the one house rule about this aspect of gameplay is that "If you as a player come up with something that doesn't exactly fit in the rules of a certain spell or action and I allow it as the DM, then just be aware that your enemies may use that same exact tactic against you in the future."
Character optimization is NEVER a problem in my games. Meta-gaming is an issue though. I don't mean something like "trolls are vulnerable to fire". What I am talking about is if a player has already played through an adventure like CoS, and uses their knowledge of the adventure to essentially circumvent potential encounters in a new playthrough. THIS is Meta-Gaming in my opinion, and it has absolutely no place at my tables. If I figure out that someone is metagaming in this manner, then yes, I will "punish" them, but not in an overt manner, I will essentially take my session prep in a different direction, and relocate key milestone items/encounters to different locations, and set up traps in the original locations that will cause them issues in the long run.
One player once ignored everything in a room that ONLY had a secret compartment under an altar, and went directly to that altar to search for the hidden compartment. There were dozens of other things that would have been more obvious places to search, but instead of searching the wardrobe or the drawers of a side table, he went to a solid stone altar and searched SPECIFICALLY at the base of if (which is where the actual adventure had the only hidden compartment in the room AND it was the only location in the room with anything of any value). THIS is players using their knowledge specifically to benefit their character when there is absolutely NO WAY their character would have acted in such a manner in that situation.
Interesting points, I agree with you. HOWEVER, that Altar thing THEORETICALLY could be an obvious choice IF they have any sort of background/backstory that included Religion Knowledge or Arcana Knowledge they could understand that Altars are the heart of a Religious site.
As a first time DM I am so glad I spent sooooo much time working with my players on their characters, who they are, where they fit into the setting etc. Great video, great relief I didn't end up unintentionally producing these red flags.
Being told what class to play is the MOST frustrating thing ever. I was DMing a game where one player was trying to make a "balanced party" and I had to really advocate for the other players to play what they want. As a DM I can work with any party, and all I want is for everyone to have a good time and not play something they don't want
Being forced into a role in a role-playing game is a str8 up no for me. I 100% agree
Everyone wants to play fighters and barbarians I feel obliged to play a caster of some kind, mostly a healer type to keep people alive. Let people play what they want but their choice restricts mine.
@Gordan Moran While I understand that feeling, but the pressure to play a caster/healer is internal. You are making the choice.
Yes! I'm currently running a game with all martials and it's a blast. Sure I have to do some tweaking to balance things, but at the same time it's such fun to have things like a tower wall actually be a challenge the party has to overcome.
@@gordanmoran4549 as someone who also usually plays support, it's a luxury not a necessity, you can get along just fine with no support.
The "no information about the setting" thing really came up for me in my first campaign. I'm like Kelly in that I like to have a history to my character that meshes with the world of the setting. I drove my GM nuts asking semi-detailed questions about various parts of the map that had little to nothing to do with where the party was currently (on the side, NOT during a session). I figured out later on, he wasn't avoiding answering to be obtuse rather he was a very improvisational GM and literally hadn't decided on those areas beyond the broad strokes of "X" race is the dominant species in that area.
As the DM, I think at that point, I'd say "You know what, your character is from that place. That's your city now. Do what you want with it, and I'll make it work with the rest of the world. And if it doesn't fit perfectly, then that's fine, because that's what different cultures are."
Man, I love my group but I wish they gave a crap about my setting. It's not even like they're mean about it. They always say, "your worlds are always so cool." but they don't participate at all when I ask them if they have any input, lol.
As a DM if I haven't flushed something out and a player is interested about that part of the world for their character creation I just tell them I haven't decided on that, pitch your ideas and we'll collaborate on it.
Makes them more invested being able to create part of the world.
your PC may be fully new to the setting
i once introduced an non native PC through a magical gate into the stat adventure, for logistical and practical(convention) reasons he did new nothing about the setting
Was a fun game
The same may go if the PCs really change the world, knowing nothing of the other world
@lyntonfleming I do the same thing. I usually like to base like 3-4 cultures on actual cultures from human history and let players make the rest up or I improvise cultures that are encountered later.
In my 20+ years of playing, the DM always had characters in the party. The players would determine what the DM's characters did and it worked out really well. It was nice for the DM too because it allowed him to develop characters and feel like they were also playing the game. But, I can see how that could be abused.
That sounds more like a party PC, rather than a DMPC. And with the rest of the players being in on it, it removes most of the railroading aspect that's usually the worst part of DMPCs.
I did the same for my first campaign as the DM because there was only 3 players. When the players were stuck on what to do, I would use the DMPC for tips
@@LinkinVoiderwhy couldn’t you use an NPC for that?
@@joshahyu this was more than an npc because it followed the characters on their entire journey
@@LinkinVoider I understand that. Just asking why normal npcs that were placed in towns and such couldn’t act as guides or give tips. From experience it feels bad to have someone follow the party around as a hint box.
I actually joined a home brew session that has been going on for 3 years as a level 11 twilight cleric… they made me feel super welcomed, integrated my character seamlessly and have really helped me grow and obsession for dnd
The question of whether it's metagaming to know how trolls work for me is resolved by the question "what does my character know about trolls?", which gives the DM scope to allow for their weaknesses to be common knowledge or basically unknown as appropriate.
You literally can’t avoid metagaming because your character by coincidence could use fire against a troll. By avoiding that you are metagaming. Also, Whether you ask your DM or not whether your character knows a monsters trait, your subconscious knowledge of the fact is influencing you whether you know it or not.
@@floofzykitty5072 That's...not the case here? He's circumventing the metagaming by actively asking "what does my character know?" which meta gaming by definition is making a decision as your character using knowledge your character would not reasonably have. As a DM, I'd ask them to either make a history or general intelligence check and let that determine what they know. It's a fun way to incorporate that kind of stuff.
This is the most important question at all the tables i've played at! And the most asked. nothing wrong with doing an insight, history, etc., check to see what they know. and it gives the dm a reason to refresh into their backstory to help decide what they would and wouldn't know.
I mean, if a character has Fireball on their character sheet, it's metagaming anytime they don't take a chance to cast it when trying to do damage to multiple targets. Depending on the level of play, sometimes even single targets. Actually, just always use Fireball. Just use Fireball. Just Fireball. JUST FIREBALL.
Now, not learning/preparing Fireball in the first place, that's a totally valid reason not to cast it on the trolls. Another valid reason would be if you're a Light Cleric comboing Spirit Shroud and Scorching Ray, but that's still fire damage so the end result is the same. It's kinda hard not to have a generous use of fire in a 5E D&D party, you've got to go out of your way to avoid it more often than not. Even if you're in a super low magic campaign, that type of party probably always has lit touches on hand.
Well,, it's depending on the PC's core personality as well.
I have a fallen Aasimar Undying warlock, who doesn't really use fire based spells (the only exception is the Create Bonefire cantrip, but that's for making camps), so if it would run into a troll, it wouldn't use fireball, even if his patron would be a Fiend. His favorite cantrip is the Chill Touch though, which also stops regenerating abilities, so he would be able to put a considerable contribute to it's death, even if the most likely to kill it would be our Tiefling barbarian.
I heard a guy talking about the group he's with the other day and there were MASSIVE red flags. The DM secretly had different players use different methods for setting ability scores (they figured it out later). That right there would have gotten me to walk, but the DM also awarded experience purely on the amount of damage the characters did. That's even worse.
Those are actual red flags, as opposed to merely not adopting the relative recent practice of holding a session zero.
Does that mean healers levelled down if they healed more damage than they caused?
@@Halinspark Probably not, but that’s hilarious
That's why I use point buy, or the 27 point premade array. Rolled scores are for one-shots where you don't expect all the characters to live, let alone continue on to a campaign.
Back in 2004, I played with a DM who said we'd roll stats under supervision, but when two friends came back in they claimed to have supervised each other when they rolled their demigod stats, and the DM accepred it. I've hated the rolling method ever since.
@@Keovar Agreed. I've only ever used Point Buy or Standard Array, and I feel like they are far superior to rolling.
I have considered a method where the group as a whole rolls for stats (take turns rolling), and use this to make your own array, and then have everyone use the same array, placing each number on the ability score you want, and combining it with your ASIs to get the character you want. I might try that some day, but I don't think I'll ever do a regular Rolling method.
One of the red flags I've experienced is excessive drinking at the table. My players used to drink a little bit during the session, but nothing too bad. Then, one time, a players downed over half a bottle of wine in under an hour. She was disruptive, loud and made decisions that affected the whole party. Example, they were in a mine with zombies and she had her character walk right up to the zombie and try to say hi.
Oh wow… that sucks.. Put a cap on it
@@igayparisjr nah fuck that, it adds flavour. Stop being so serious.
@@dww34 it’s serious enough for him to post here so I offered him a suggestion. I personally don’t have a cap lol so yeah..
Sounds like fun, don't be so elitist.
Alcohol at the table is one of my red flags. I get that it's fun for you, but if it's not fun for the table, I don't need it. Either I can leave or they can, and since my group often saddles me with GM responsibility, I'll take the game with me and y'all can start over. That individual needs to decide if gaming or drinking is more important, because it's never not been a problem or disruptive.
If that makes me not fun, so be it. I don't ask for much, but maybe that the work I put into running sessions on my little bit of free time be respected. Run your own game, or have your binge after, but I don't have to be okay with your idea of fun if it spoils mine and everyone else's at the table.
So my story, was actually in highschool, close to 20 years ago. I'd wanted to play DnD, I found a group that played during lunch, and interestingly, it was a group of people I knew and at the time thought I was friends with. When I asked if I could join, I was told I could, though they effectively said "Yeah you play this goat, and it's now a dead goat." That extended out to when I went to various game and hobby shops as well; I could never find a group that was willing to let me join, even ones just starting. Only now that I decided that I might as well just be a Dungeon Master that I've been able to play a bit more often.
Making someone play a class is only ok if they dont know what to play. Friend of mine just got into dnd and has no preference after we went through all classes. I just said "lets just have you play this one to fill a group role, but feel free to change later if you make up your mind". We made his character and backstory yesterday and hes very happy with the result
I agree with this sentiment. However, when people talk about "making" someone play a particular class or fill a particular role, I think they mean force/pressure.
In your example you were helping, not only your friend, but everyone else as well (way to kill two birds with one stone there, nice). Not only that, but you gave them a choice to opt out of their class/role if they disliked it. You weren't really "making" them, but rather you were guiding an undecided newcomer. By giving them the opportunity to change, it doesn't feel like they are forced to stick with it for the sake of the squad.
I take a different approach and ask what kind of playstyles they generally prefer and go through options with them that point in that direction. My roommate really wanted to be a Bardbarian and El Kabong the health back into people. Told her there wasn't really a great way for me to help her eith that, but Mercy Monk is literally all about punching hp into friends or poison into enemies, which she liked enough
My group is pretty big, but we've had a few filler games where whoever was GMing laid out class and/or background restrictions for the party.
In a V:tM game, we had one game where everyone was playing Clan Gangrel. We had D&D games where everyone was limited to Fighters or Barbarians.
I think limiting certain aspects of character creation is fine, so long as it supports the story being told.
One that sticks out to me is the new guy to our table with a character named "Simon the Pie Man" and his motivation to adventure was to find the best pie ingredients throughout the land. The GM immediately responded "Are you serious?! That is a stupid name, fix it or I'll kill your character." We thought he was joking at first... he was not. I was genuinely invested in the 30 seconds I knew of Simon... but it didn't matter because we had a series of unfortunate combat rolls which resulted in a party wipe and total reroll. Disclaimer: the rolls werent stacked against us, a party of 7 rolled at least 20 sub 5s which caused the TPK.
Simon the Pie Man reminds me of the Tale of Slap-Happy Jack, the Firbolg Barbarian raised by clowns (look him up).
This sounds amazing, I wish Simon well in his next campaign XD
As the only experienced player in a large group, I played a human fighter doing market research to open a shop someday. Really fun to let new players figure out the game and only step in when (or just after)it’s going horribly wrong.
thats so horrible poor simon :(
i would've left tbh
@@kylesimone6140 I hear ya, but it was with workmates and a beer and pretzels level of game. Also, it was my first game, so I just chalked it up to not knowing better.
My first D&D group was a lot of these things. My friend (Blake), when he joined the group, was told what class to play. Luckily, he liked the class of Bard. I wanted to play and was denied multiple times by the same group. I finally got in, and most of the group pressured me toward Homebrew, so my first character was built entirely from Scratch.
In the first session, I didn't get to play; I had to sit and watch. Finally, I played the next week, and one of the players, whom I shall refer to as “Tony,” told me that his character was just mine but better and more optimized. I clapped back and was immediately shut down with a “Is he wrong.”
After the initial hurdles, Tony was very close with our DM and would often not participate or play, sometimes even lay on the ground, and often argue with me about my character's decisions. Now, we also had another player in our group.
We shall refer to him as Bob. Bob never brought snacks or anything and would often raid my fridge whenever I hosted and ask for snacks. Bob was playing our cleric for the party, and not only did he not roleplay, bring any food, or heal us until we begged him for healing.
Now, Tony would often clap back against me and my friend Blake whenever we made creative decisions but would sway our DM to support his creative choices.
Now we finally get to the last battle, and I have my character's death all written out with our DM, and I'm going to have my character sacrifice himself. I was so into the storytelling that I orchestrated my musical piece for the sacrificial moment, and after all of that, nobody paid any attention.
When Tony realized my character had died, he gave me an L and called me a loser. After all the planning, perseverance, Hard work, and gut-wrenching garbage I put up with in that group, I still had fun because I could put the trash behind me, ignore the other players, and try my hand at D&D.
I highly suggest listening to this red flag list because I've been through it, man, never again. I am now a new DM doing a homebrew campaign, and I'm having a blast, but my players aren't showing up. Maybe I should take some of the advice from here as well.
My players pick absolutely anything that they want. I'm happy to offer suggestions or cautions, but they build the party that they want, and then I build the campaign around them. I ask them to leave a little room in their backstory so I can help integrate them, but for me, D&D is about the players having fun, and I think that happens best when they're a real part of the world.
I feel like it's important to point out that sometimes restrictions within a group are important and even fun at times, I once had a group I played with in which magic was outlawed but it was still subtly used by many people on the sly which added a bit of tension but also a rush to the game play as well. It made me as a druid player carefully think about my choices of spells in a public setting
That's not a restriction, by game viewpoint. It's an in-game restriction, which by i means, that it will have logical consequences. But your DM didn't say, you CANNOT play any spellcasting class! That's only world building element, which makes those types of characters more targeted, and harder to play - but it also means, that among your enemies might be less people, who are proficient in magic as well, therefor your character essentially would be a stronger opponent, that others would think after notice it.
The important distinction here is that there was no actual restriction against using magic; it's just illegal, and that, at it's root, is just (potentially) great world detail. Much like playing a Jedi during the timeframe of the original Star Wars films. As long as a GM isn't specifically and unfairly punishing YOU, just for playing the character, it's just dramatic tension.
Like things a GM can or does not want to handle like time powers
yup. my DM thinks the underdark is stupid so we don't have drow or gnomes. lol
@@lulzywizard7576
gnomes?
I held a Session 0 with the group I’ve been playing with for several years for a campaign I started running, even though everybody (myself included) was unsure if we really needed one - and I’m SO GLAD we did; we’ve had some of the most fun RP and the most fantastic and cohesive party dynamic out of any campaign we’ve done thus far, and it’s made for tremendously easier and more directed session planning between meetups. Session Zero is always the way to go!
There was a group recently where I was saying that a certain enemy monster doesnt look smart and we can maybe this and that and this other player, who has been super quiet throughout the session, just interrupts and says "yeah, they are smarter than you". I never returned to that group. Its not about being soft or tough but being personal.
I’ve been looking for a group for months, now. In my old group, there was a DM (of course) and five of us players. Four of them were a few years older, and had known, or been playing together for years before my friend and I joined. We knew most of them in real life, and my friend is even the brother to one of the players. It was both of our very first campaign.
I wish I had this knowledge going into it, because no matter what we did, we were overly questioned, called stupid, or shut down by every other player/DM in the group. I remember every single time that they would pick out something that I wanted my rogue to do, and say things like “that’s stupid, your character wouldn’t want to steal, because we are the good guys.” Even though what I was stealing was from the “bad guys”. There was another time, where I was told that my character “wouldn’t get angry here” because I’ve played him in such a calm manner. Before that, I had a ranger (that died, RIP) that arrived in a city that was being burned down by this cult, and saw a cultist all alone. So I shot the cultist, with the intent of pinning him to the wall, and interrogate him on the whereabouts of their leader. As soon as I did that, the other players laughed at me, and killed the guy before I could even start the role play saying “we can see the entire map, so we know where to go.” without any reason to know that, outside of meta gaming.
It was frustrating. Once I started to realize just how often it was happening, and how it was effecting my wanting to play, I finally quit. I couldn’t stand the fact that I wasn’t allowed to play my own character the way that I wanted to play my character, within the set parameters or our rulings.
If you read my comment, thank you. It turns out that I was holding a lot of this in, because when I left, I didn’t even explain why I was leaving to the group. I just said my work schedule had changed. It caused a lot of inner turmoil for about two years of my life, because even when I was just trying to unwind in what I thought was a safe space, I was receiving abuse from people that I kept surrounding myself with.
Some time ago I tried to enter in an existing online campaign. Prior to join, I listened to an hour or two of a couple of sessions - I didn't have the best feelings but I was starving for D&D so I went along, joining as soon as there was chance to do it. After a couple of sessions I confirmed my fears - the group had a one man show person that was eating hours of sessions just to role everything was happening to him to the point that we were practically being silent just to be able to go ahead in the campaign. Not only that, he was doing metagaming A LOT, showing off how many things he knew on monsters and so on, correcting the master in game when he was saying something not by the rules/monster book.
After my second or third session, he requested a "follow up meeting", in which he complained that I was not playing my Dwarven Cleric "right", somehow backed up by the DM and one of the other players. Right after that meeting, we had my final session with that group: he wasted almost 2 hours out of 4 chatting by himself with PNG just to "clarify" to me how it was the correct way of playing in that group, describing himself what he was doing and why and so on.
When the session was finished a different player wrote an huge rant in the game chat on avoiding to waste time in the sessions since "we" were going too slow. I kind of gave up, I wrote down my point of view and I told them that I was going to leave the campaign. I must say, it was probably one if not my worst experience in D&D.
I have encountered more grief from DMs over the 1st level spell Goodberry than I ever expected. Even in a lv17 campaign, being told that casting Goodberry before going to sleep is meta-gaming is like a slap in the face.
You're level 17 with 20 Intelligence/Wisdom but your character could not POSSIBLY have figured out that sleeping causes all their spell slots to regenerate and that Goodberries last 24 hours. :P No feasible way a person could solve such a challenge. It is beyond even immortal minds.
@@RaethFennec Exactly. It's just the fantasy equivalent to a life hack. Not much different than setting a timer on a slow cooker. There are obviously limits to how far one can reasonably push magic, but this is not that.
I'll out myself here but I hate that spell by default in it's 5e form and revert it in a heartbeat to it's earlier (needs fresh berries to be cast on) form. So I would definitely have a gut reaction to shut that down because of my hate for that spell, but upon giving it a moment (like I had while typing my original reply) I realize it's not that big a deal.
@@OnlineSarcasmFails I do like the berry requirement for flavor. On my caster I used a branch of mistletoe as my spell focus, so I RPed that the berries enlarged and fell into my hand or whatever.
However with a spell focus, that removes the non-gold material component. That makes it simpler for the players, but does remove some of the flavor.
(Edit) lol at the idea of "Bland"berries
Welcome to Goodberry, home of the Goodberry.
Can I take ya ordah?
That Dino hoodie is the most aggressively 90's thing I've ever seen and I want one, haha
My stance on "banned options" is that as a DM becomes more experienced this list should get shorter and not longer.
The whole reason I had a list like this when i started DMing was that I found DMing intimidating and a little overwhelming. Saying "I'm only working from these books" or "please, please don't hit me with a [insert complicated class build or uncommon race here]" helped me keep my footing and not get thrown for too many loops when a character threw out a spell I didn't understand or created a build that broke an encounter or session. When that happens as a new DM, it's just so much harder to deal with.
But as I've gained experience, gained knowledge, gotten more comfortable, etc. I've started introducing some of those "banned" (I don't like calling it that) items to my table, because I feel ready for the challenge DMing them presents.
In the same way player characters options and abilities expand as they level up, so does the table and the DM haha.
Obviously I'm describing a more collaborative scenario than the one you are describing, but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents.
Agreed. When I started DMing 2 years ago I made a hard ban on all UA and Homebrew because I didn't feel confident in anything not playtested. Since I have gained more experience I allow a lot of those things after reviewing it. It is now pretty much anything official and you are golden, anything unofficial consult me, if it's not broken it's most likely okay and if it is let's work together to bring it to scale
For my experience in the past, our "session zero"s usually happen naturally, casually over the course of the week/time period leading up to the first scheduled session. So that by the time the first session comes up everything is already laid out in expectations. We're prepared to jump right in right from the get go ish
Same here. I find it pretty hard to get people to do a session zero, but very easy to let the conversations and ideas flow for a couple weeks before hand, then do a quick recap to begin session 1.
Yes my experience, a conversation on Whatapp that discusses the setting, any restrictions, what people are thinking of playing. .etc ...
As long as you do the session zero tasks, which is preparing everyone for session one and forward, you fulfill the same function.
@@slavesforging5361 Just have them show up for Session 1 and say "before we begin......"
One of my house rules is around how long we wait for a no-show, no-call before just starting without them
Makes perfect sense. Been doing that for decades and it's just common courtesy to everyone in the group. Well done.
Our group has a built in method to accommodate this because of life. It's a good way to remove a PC or add one when players show up late or can't make it. We have a creature of some kind that acts like an extradimentional space. It eats and spits out characters as needed and it adds trauma to our PCs the first time it happens and sometimes the lore behind what's happening is so disturbing PC's flat out refuse to talk about it or block it from their minds. This none gets interesting when someone new or and NPC witnesses it and tries to talk about it. - Doc
I've had success with mixing my session 0 with the 1st session. Where I can talk about the beginning adventure and see where players would like the game to go after that first adventure. It also makes a nice fluid transition into playing. Even if it is a shorter play time.
Yeah, I usually mix the two together. Everybody group chats and collaborates on the discord to figure out who they want to play, I always make a document that goes over the setting and the tone, and for the first session I'll usually have a low stakes high roleplay thing going on where everybody gets the opportunity to introduce their characters, we might take a pause to let them make changes to their characters. It usually works out pretty well.
I've seen a lot of those flags. I'm in a large group that's been around since the 1980s, and I can promise you every single one of those has appeared at some time or another, though rarely enough to be a major problem. Except that last one. As you stated, that's a major problem in and of itself. I was the victim of it for quite some time. Because I have issues dealing with people socially, and the group was my one reliable social outlet, I shrugged it off for a long time until I finally just hit my wall and left. Years later, after spelling it out to some in individual conversations after I left, and being specifically invited back, I returned. The group has much the same people, but one or two are gone, the negative attitude has disappeared in those who remained, and it's maintained itself that way since before the pandemic so I'm reasonably certain things are positive now. Just the same, I understand fully that last red flag, and the consequences it brings. I also confirmed through this experience how people can change for the better, and their groups with them.
My favorite line of the whole video " It doesn't suck if you have fun playing it". I play an inquisitive rogue with 17 wisdom and 12 dex, that is a police inspector for Baldur's gate watch. And the party barbarian goes on stealth missions and scouting, with his 16 dex and stealth proficiency, We have a really awesome time playing our characters. The whole resume of the game is to have fun. It is really unfortunate that not everyone gets that.
That sounds like a lot of fun actually
Baldur like you mean the norse god?
@@Acefdiamonds Probably Baldur like Baldur's Gate the city in the Forgotten Realms D&D world. It's been host to several adventures and video games.
@@ParanormalEncyclopedia oh ok I just heard Baldur
@@Acefdiamonds In the forgotten Realms campaign setting, there is a city called Baldur's gate. It is the center of many events in the setting.
I think the best way to resolve spell disputes is to read out the spell description out loud. I've had players who thought they could use a spell in a way they couldn't, instead of engaging in their argument I just ask them "please read out what the spell does from the description".
If they ask "can I use it differently" then I might say no, or ask for an arcana check, or ask them to spend more resources. I'm perfectly fine with letting players bend the rules, but we need to first be clear on what the rules are so we can proceed on how they can be bent and what the _cost_ of that bending is.
Using more resources. Hmmm.... That's interesting. Now I want to make a table of material components that alter spells and how. Dude, I'm getting a floodgate of inspiration! Thanks for sharing!
usiing a arcana check is BRILLIANT i love that
Ah the old Magic: The Gathering approach, "Reading the card, explains the card".
My fav moment so far in our campaign? Our DM let us, for the cool moment, use poison spray to coat my fighter's sword for a one use strike after being teleported to the enemy.
The whole party loved the fight.
(I'm the only fighter as I am the most experienced player and thus play the tank to help the new players. I take most of the attacks so they can explore the mechanics etcs and yes. I said straight up I will be the damage sponge.)
One thing that we always do to address metagaming is by simply asking if our characters would know the information the players know. For instance, when we fought a banshee and everyone but me went down from the wail, once I got everyone back up I asked if my character would know if that danger was no longer present, and by passing a history check, we knew we didn't have to fear that happening again if we went back to fight it right away.
I always felt this sort of thing could be easily addressed with either a knowledge roll, or having a minimum knowledge skill value. One character, a barbarian, once stated at creation that his tribe would often tell stories and draw pictures of monstrous threats that he believes are just stories to scare children into staying close to the tribe, and that during encounters, he would try things from the stories and be willing to spend points when levelling into knowledge as a sign that it is now fact rather than fable.
One of my favorite games that I played was a very dark very dangerous game and the four players had each made a character and laid it out we had a rogue a paladin a ranger and a monk. Needless to say there's a lack of healing, so we immediately cultivated a contact that could create potions of healing and made him a very rich man. We also developed tactics that absolutely enhance the initial burst DPS of the team so that we could end fights before they started. Overall it was one of our favorite games because of how fast it moved.
The way to approach "telling players what class to play" is to directly inform them of the already existing characters. It happened to me twice in one year where a character came to the table with the same race, class, and subclass as another one of my players. And there was some disappointment that came out of it because it's fun as a player to feel like you have a niche and are needed.
If both players playing the same subclass are fine with it, great! But make sure they're both aware before you have a spiderman meme at your table. Plus if they know, they might even come up with joint backstory!
This. I think that solidly banning duplication among classes or subclasses is rarely the best option, but not everyone wants to double up in that way because it can take away from their own character fulfillment or fun of the gameplay. As long as all parties- not just the joining party- are okay with it, almost anything can work, but often time those kinds of discussions about what players feel okay with will fall to the wayside and the decision will fall completely on DM preference. I know for myself, I want to have utility in the group and feel special and useful, so I'd never willingly choose to play the same subclass or maybe even class of someone else at the table, even if it meant I needed to go back to the drawing board with my character.
It may also be the theme or troupe play
every PC is from that class
I use the "jam band analogy"-- a party is like a jam band, everyone should get time to step up and solo to show their chops, and everyone is going to have times they need to sit back and play rhythm for a while. If you're duplicating someone to the extent I can't put them in the spotlight on their own, that's a problem. If you're building your character so I can give you both your fair shot in the limelight then it doesn't matter mechanically how you're built.
Thats what two of my players are doing now. One is elf ranger other is half elf ranger. So one decided they were the mentor to the other and thats how they know each other in their backstory.
I will say that when I started playing DnD, I was really glad that my DM (also my boyfriend) helped me pick something that I find fun but not too hard to learn, and it's a build that's gotten more complicated as I learn (Paladin, Grave Cleric, Fighter)
I don't personally as a DM have any issue with two or more players playing the same class. But it is important that each of the involved players are ok with it. I don't want a player to feel diminished by another player potentially overshadowing them in there class. I'm not going to assume this means s the case. But there will be a conversation to make sure it's cool across the board.
I ran a game where they all had to be artificers, lol.
@@paximilian4037 cool, again no problem with running it myself. Just need to ensure my players are down when there is overlap
That's a good way to approach things. No classes are necessary but too much overlap can make you feel redundant. I think it's best if you have potential overlap to have those players discuss with each other how they're going with their character. Sometimes they can link their backstories or come up with interesting tactics not commonly used otherwise.
I had a group with two frontliners, two mages and one gunslinger. Two sessions later I only had two mages and a gunslinger because one of the players moved to another country (like he didn't know that would happen when he joined...) and another player had some personal issue. So when looking for new players I had to make clear that the party has a big weakness and they should probably fill it. The new player picked fighter, but even so, the other players felt kinda inadequate because they chose their classes when they knew what everyone else was going to play and they expected to have a specific play style in the group.
It's also very difficult to balance an encounter when the party itself is not balanced.
Ironically enough I had this exact thing happen to me.
I was playing an eldritch knight with a greatsword themed after Zack Fair.
I was the only Frontline, and I went a high CHR build, in tandem with the inspiring leader feat.
This made me a semi tank, semi melee dps, and a slight support role during downtime.
It wasn't perfect but it led to some amazing fights.
Then, when we had to replace one of the players due to RL issues, and this player is a minmaxxer.. and there's nothing inherently wrong with that but not only did they have almost 10 AC higher than me on average(and i had 16 AC), they also had many other things that simply made their character statistically *better* than mine in every way.
Needless to say, all combat after that went very smoothly. But no longer did we have combat where we might die to some of the stronger encounters because this new guy never got hit, and rarely missed.
Turned combat into a bore since we no longer had to worry about anyone dying.
And it made my character completely irrelevant in basically all scenarios.
What had previously been an intense game, where every decision mattered became a foregone conclusion even against boss enemies.
Everyone else found the game had gotten boring even during social encounters since the new guys character seemed to have bonuses to everything by level 3 that only some of the RP was still interesting.
Needless to say I retired my character at a sensible point, but not long after, everyone, including the dm decided the game had gotten stale so we all decided to go our separate ways.
Being a DM isn't a licence to be obnoxious.
Not only is putting your class's critical stat as high as possible not power gaming, it is EXACTLY what the game designers expect you to do. The d20 bounded accuracy system makes assumptions around most characters having a roughly 65% chance of hitting an enemy at all levels of play. This means a d20 roll of an 8 being the benchmark of difficulty that cr and stat blocks are calculated off of. That assumption is based on a player's proficiency bonus increasing as level rises, and default assumes that you use point buy or standard array, get your main class stat to 16, then your first two ASI's are put into that core stat.
Remember people: FEATS ARE OPTIONAL RULES.
The game is balanced around bounded accuracy, no rolled stats, and feats not being factored in, and assuming the party receives zero magic items that give blanket bonuses to hit like +1 weapons. Maxing your main stat is literally how the core mathematics of game are calibrated to be playable. Any DM claiming otherwise doesn't understand the most core design mechanics the entire game is balanced around.
The party Ranger was the healer for the first 6 levels of the campaign I'm running. Not with spells, just a healer's kit and the healing feat!
Truly a medic.
Yep, I have a Monk with the healer feat (soldier background, so a combat medic) and we're fine at level 10. Never needed the healing word or cure wounds spells.
@@jbirkins Fully down to how the DM balances really.
Highly underrated feat. Makes potions irrelevant because it's so efficient.
You're helping me realize the specifics of what has gone wrong in the past. Hopefully this can help me to avoid or improve those situations in the future. 🤞
I find so many videos on youtube that make me realize where I've gone wrong with various aspects of my life. I wish I'd had a session zero around the age of 8. 😄
I'm glad I found this channel! I'm about to start my first campaign tomorrow and this seems like the video for me as well with many other beginner friendly videos you guys have. THANK YOU GUYS! :D
I recently had a GM make me roll to know that a shrine to Abadar was a shrine to Abadar. We were literally a stone's throw from Absalom at the time and he is LITERALLY one of the major gods of that world. It is metagaming to know that an (obvious) shrine to Abadar is what it is, but it's metagaming at a level that makes sense because your character lives in this world and has OBVIOUSLY seen a shrine/church to Abadar unless they legit just showed up in that civilization yesterday or something.
Yeah, on Sunday I apparently failed a history check for my male elf character to remember the only female elf he'd ever met in this world, who was also 7 foot tall and didn't speak elvish. Half an hour later his (PC) partner was suffering a miscarriage following a tough battle and I really started asking myself why we were playing with this guy DMing.
@@natebernasconiholy shit that is a depressing vibe for everyone to sit through
@@ConfusedGeriatric yeah, after mulling it over for a few days, I left. Playing some homebrewed two-shots with a couple fresh-faced players and DM now and I gotta say, it's a breath of fresh air.
Reminds me of a time where a DM had a cleric make a religion check to see If they recognized a statue of a god inside an abandoned temple.
They failed that check but it turned out a bit later that it was literally a statue of the god they were a cleric to...
But they somehow failed to recognize their own god that they actively worship.
I once DM'ed a one-shot adventure in which the players agreed to all play clerics from different domains. The team was called "The A-men". Next up is a traveling troupe consisting only of different subclasses of Bards. The "figher" will be the Valor bard, the "rogue" will be the Whispers bard, the "wizard" will be the Lore bard, and so on.
Did they happen to get the idea from watching Jocat? If not then great minds think alike, he made that joke in his D&D series
@@JohnHaloWarrior95
ever heard of ars magica
the complete fighter had also a few examples
I'm really glad that my first and only DM is a badass. He loves the creativity we come up with as a group. We finished up our last story battling through the nine circles of hell and about to start a new adventure in the 40K universe as Orks. Yes, the entire playgroup. I'm so excited.
I've got to ask. Your game in 40k. Is it some D&D sorta thing using that environment, the models game or going old school for Rogue Trader? Or is there another defined RPG based in the grimdark future? Because THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!
My gaming group has done a few sessions of Rogue Trader, but we're looking for more ways to use that system for role playing.
If you have a DM who loves creativity, you have at the worst the basis for a good DM. That can end up as a questionable DM, but you probably have a straight up great DM you shouldn't let go.
Regarding "Told what to play" : When i was stationed in South Korea, we had a gaming convention we put together where one of the games was a blind one-shot. There was a table with prepared character sheets face-down, and wherever we sat was the character we played. Balance-wise, the party was just fine. I understand the examples you give are MUCH different, but in the case of our blind one-shot it turned out to be really fun.
Time for my horror stories.
I once had a DM with a cast of ultra-powerful NPCs who outnumbered the cast of PCs. They would constantly solve problems and railroad us into doing certain things to the degree that we had absolutely no agency. I actually thought this was normal because I was extremely new to D&D, but now I realize how messed up that was. He was basically just telling his own story and dragging us along for the ride.
Another time, I was forced to play with someone who was an absolute jerk. He regularly straight up told me to shut up when I was trying to roleplay and sexually harassed me and my character at every turn. He also tried to derail our plans at every opportunity. He regularly criticized my wizard for not knowing fireball every chance he got as well. It was traumatizing, but everyone else thought he was being sarcastic, so he got to stay until he got kicked out for admitting to sexual misconduct toward a child.
I also had another DM who would come up with stuff on the fly to thwart my ideas and counter my spells (I played a wizard) with made-up abilities or other circumstances. I was the only one he did that to. It was extremely frustrating, but when I tried to talk to him about it, he’d gaslight me.
These days, I just don’t play anymore. Too many terrible experiences. I still love the game and would love to find a nice DM, but my hopes have kind of been dashed at this point.
I'm trying meetup to find a new group. My last one the bad habits and being cut off or countered by other players. Looking forward to trying so other groups
@@sparksmcgee6641 Same here. My last DM (the one who gaslit me) recently kicked me out and blocked me on everything he could think of for being a mild rules lawyer. He could have talked to me about it, I would have been happy to change my behavior because I didn't realize how annoying it was at the time, but nope, I got blocked. I genuinely hope you're able to find a better group, being cut off when you're trying to speak during a session is one of the most infuriating things to have happen during a session.
@@sparksmcgee6641 By the way, if you're open to doing sessions online, D&D Beyond has a whole forum dedicated to finding groups. You could easily set your own boundaries beforehand and have a plethora of groups to choose from that sound interesting. I plan on trying it at some point, but I'm still nervous about getting a bad DM again.
You nailed it when you mentioned trust. The group I'm in right now has been playing for over a year, and we've developed enough trust that we're comfortable with romances between PCs, with mild PVP (it's still a game for a team, but there are sometimes conflicts) without being upset with anyone out of character, with character's lying and scheming. We do a lot of things together that i would not be comfortable doing with a group I hadn't built this trust with. It's really great. Trust is key.
the lousy thing is that the worse the group is, the more they burn through players and therefore the more people get subjected to bad behavior. Kinda like dating in a way.
I think your first point on session zero is really the most important, because for me TTRPGs come down to two directions in general. The roleplaying part and the game part. If you want to have more of a game part, then meta gaming, powergaming, optimisation etc are maybe the tools you actually want to use and the DMs job is to throw more and more difficult tasks at you where you have to really use all your options and witts to overcome them. And then on the other hand you might be solely interested in the roleplaying part and rules are just there to give it all a bit of structure. You might enjoy meeting different species and visiting places way more and are willing to have the rules bent in order to have a very cinematic moment.
Neither of those is "better" than the other. But it is important for players to know what they will get.
You guys provide a lot of helpful information. I both play and DM. Many of the tips you give are helpful on both sides of the table.
I enjoy viewing you player based videos because they often help me DM and visa versa.
In my current campaign, not only am I one of two draconic sorcerers, but we both picked blue dragons. The other character is a blue dragonborn, while I just wanted to play with lightning more than I've ever been able to before. It worked out pretty well, especially when we were able to position ourselves to fire Lightning Bolt down the same line. He wound up multiclassing into tempest cleric, and we still make a good team.
In my Tuesday game, I'm one of two Rogues with Elven blood (I'm a full-blooded Eladrin, he's a High half-elf). We've been bouncing off eachother since session one with him being a motor mouth who doesn't think things through and be being the more serious one who tries to keep him out of trouble. Come level 3 I subclassed as assassin while he took swashbuckler, and we just got past the "will they won't they?" phase of our romance subplot. Which may have involved both of us making deals with our Warlock's demon patron behind the other's back to protect each other. 😅
95% of the game is are you having fun and get along with everyone. Like any other hobby it's the people you are with. My group had a 4 session quest to retrieve baked goods. They loved it. Just have fun.
100% agree. We had a beach episode where we chased crabs and tried different ice cream flavors. With a barbecue at night. We had a blast
we bar hopped and did Karaoke, so much fun
Well? Don't leave us in the dark! Did they bring back the baked goods?
DID THE CHILDREN GET TO ENJOY THEIR PASTRIES!?
ANSWER MEEEEEEE
@Nickachuuuuu in order to recreat the bag of colding it had to be recreated at the same stellar location to connect with the same Astral dimension. Some research and a well done role the goodies were retrieved.
@@PankuHunter \o/
That is quite the galaxy brain solution to bring back some pies xD
I spent a long time in a semi-toxic dnd group with an egomaniacal DM. He would literally quit whole modules if it wasn't going to his plan, and he would punish players for doing things that interfered with the approved storyline. Unfortunately, he was also my boyfriend, and would be verbally abusive in game to me in front of others. Both to me as a person, and as a character. I stayed for ten years because I'm an idiot, but I also loved dnd, and those other players. They were my closest friends. Now, years later, I feel like I can't trust any of them. Because not a one of them ever spoke up for me. A part of me still has great memories, but the rest is disappointed in them as human beings. I'm currently studying 5e and after a ten year break from dnd, am ready to try again. That's how I found your video. Thank you for helping players find healthy environments! 😊
My first ever game of D&D was with a brand new DM (who had also never even played D&D as a PC) who had homebrewed a whole campaign she invited me and a few other people to join. IT. WAS. GREAT!!! She crushed it! There was a session Zero. I got to build my character however I wanted! The worldbuilding was rich. She never stumbled in decisions about the rules. She had made us standees and weathered scrolls. etc. Just stunning looking back now how great she did with zero experience.
Conversely, at that same time I also had my barber invite me to his D&D group... it was bad. It was in his best friend's garage in the middle of winter, so it was cold despite the space heaters. They had apparently played D&D a lot, but the experience was so much worse. We did 1 shot sessions with pre-generated character that we didn't get to see or choose ahead of time. The worst part was the DM who was usually the DMed the games decided that he wanted to play a game and in the middle of a battle with the big boss in a small cave he THUNDERSTEPPED while I was standing next to him and killed me, not once, but TWICE. HE kept just grinning and saying, "Self-defense! Self-defense!". Awful!
Yeah, a DM should introduce a new character pretty quickly. Group I’m with now lost a member so it was easy for my character to “meet” the remaining characters as they were hiding the bodies of a bad guy and opted to join in, so it all worked. Dropped in the first ten minutes of the game, everyone at the same level, etc. So far, so good!
absolutly as fast as possible, everything else be damned
But Wellmeaning people may believe it needs to do different
A few red flags for me is side talking by the other players when the DM is talking about the setting, as well as blocking view of dice rolls. Same goes for interrupting the players when it isn't their turn. This is happened as a DM and as a player. Thankfully the player blocking dice rolls and interrupted left the group before I brought it up. I am on the verge on leaving the group with the sidetalking. I plan on mentioning it to our DM about this and will leave if it continues.
This is something that I now mention in session zero. If someone else is having their turn, in or out of combat, it's their turn in the spotlight. If you have something to say in character, that's part of the game. Have a reaction to declare, part of the game, go ahead. The one liner that's too good to pass up, once in a while, OK. If I'm making a riles mistake and it's important to address now and not after the encounter, if the toaster oven's on fire, speak up or course, but if your thought can wait a moment, then please hold wait until your own turn.
16:16 this happened to me on the first round of the first combat with my first character in my first campaign. Rolled a 1, then a 20, and the DM said I broke my heirloom dwarven battleaxe while chopping my shield arm off with it. I was planning to take dwarven defender as a prestige class...
very well presented i DM every week for two groups staggering thursdays and fridays i have used your channel to become a better DM wanted to say thank you red flags are a difficult subject we geeks can be sensetive.
I love this video, and all the videos you guys put out about social dynamics outside of actual gameplay. I was the dungeon master of a group for two years; we had agreed to meet once a month, but (through no fault of their own, we were all in highschool) most of them did not make it for most sessions. We ended up playing only twice a year, if we were lucky.
Then, when the players did show up, they were inattentive and generally not engaged. I think this group was looking for something different with their campaign, which I don't hold against, them, but I became very frustrated that my work in this homebrew campaign was essentially being wasted.
I also played as a player in another group with a hardcore murder hobo. It's an extremely difficult thing to stand up to someone who is so belligerent and disrespectful, but finally I had to say that he wasn't welcome in my house if he continued to act like this (I was hosting). He tried very hard to make himself the victim, but no one in our group fell for it. Finally he said, "I'm not going to join your next campaign, since you say I'll ruin it." Later he asked if he could join, and it was my delight and pleasure to tell him no.
The moral is: do not put up with this. Make clear in your session zero that you have a zero tolerance policy for murder hoboism. If someone acts this way, give them one warning and then kick them out. Do not wait and put up with this any longer than you have to.
I'm a DM and I personally recommend my brand new players to not play some of the more complex spell casters because of how hard they are. But I don't ban it out right to them because if they really want to play said class, they can. I offer some of the easier full casters and some of the half casters. Sometimes they are like, "yeah cool I'll do that class you suggested" or they are "na, I want to try this class that is harder to learn" and I am cool with it. If they later on want to change their character or class, I'm willing to work with them on it.
I'm some what similar when I get new players I split classes up into lvl of complexity, usually from simplest to most martial to half caster to caster. I do this not to convince them not to play a class but so they know what they're getting into or so that they can go to the type of play they know they enjoy with less trouble.
I feel like in D&D every class is a medium difficulty, with the subclass options making the class really hard or easy. Like a fighter and/or rogue should be among the easiest choice, but man my fighter has like 200 options for reactions.
I thought I was going to be joining a game yesterday at level 7 but I didn't know anything about the campaign or other characters, so I threw together an easy character with a very brief backstory. A barbarian rock gnome with the outlander background who got fired from being a tour guide because of his anger management issues. I intended on more or less going to the session to just sit in and figure out what the setting was, who the other characters were, and what additional rules the table would have. While most people might not enjoy sitting in with no active roll, I didn't feel prepared at all, and it is still fun to sit in and watch a session I'm not part of to get the vibe of the group before joining in myself. Plus I would have a better idea of where to properly insert my character and could ask the DM info about the world to figure out what city my gnome used to work at.
Turns out the DM that was running that campaign had complained enough about having to build a session every week that he basically quit and one of the other players had volunteered to DM starting an entirely new campaign, so things actually worked out quite well. All I had to do with my character was bump him down to level 1. Because I didn't really have a massive backstory for that other campaign, I didn't even have to make any changes to his backstory. The DM however, decided my gnome didn't get fired, he rage quit. We also decided that his quarterstaff is actually a bent park sign from the park that he took when he rage quit.
Yeah, I frequently call for an "odds or evens" roll, anytime we're not 100% sure how things should work. Then after the event we can make a ruling to avoid unfairness.
An important thing that I had to learn the hard way is that there's such a thing as "too many people".
I'm not just referring to someone who might be more introverted, or scheduling, though those are problems with larger groups. But, it becomes a lot for the GM to keep track of to the point that balancing kinda goes out the window. Especially with action economy.
But, an unfortunate side effect of a large party is that, in an effort to make sure everyone gets a chance in the spotlight, there's large portions of time where no one is in the spotlight.
4-6 people & a GM is a solid amount. If you're comfortable as a GM, you can push it to 8, but don't go over that.
Regarding action economy balancing, it's a particularly tough issue to fix because the only real solution is to even out the actions on each side by adding more monsters or giving them more actions, but that means there's more time between each player's turn (which is already an issue with larger groups). Then the issue compounds upon itself even further, because people zone out when they haven't taken a turn in a while, so you get the "umm, what happened since my last turn?" thing on every players turn which makes all the turns take even longer and makes the problem even worse.
I’ve run games with up to 30 people, which would definitely stress some, but I started playing D&D in a huge group of like 20+ people, so I never found DM’ing for big groups to be an issue. The secret is to make eye contact with each person at the table, make sure each person gets to do the thing they are there to do, and be ready to skip people that aren’t ready when it’s their turn. Those that like what you are doing will return, and those that don’t won’t be missed.
5 is pretty much the limit, unless all the players are fine with not doing anything for the whole session, watching other players do something instead. Thought, if you are doing only combat, then the amount of players doesn't really matter, they just have to think fast.
3 to 4 is the sweet spot IMHO.
I'm a DM for other DMs and when I run a module for them, I customize the monsters and slightly modify the encounters to keep them on their toes, cuz generally they might have already run them for their own groups. There are great 3rd party sources out there for new monsters, etc. to maintain the fun-factor for them.
This reminds me of Gary Gygax saying he liked to play at Dave Arneson's game *because* Dave would change the monsters so he wouldn't know their stats 😂
Same here.
My partner is currently struggling really hard with one of their long-running campaigns that I think stems from that "trust is vital" thing you were talking about. It's was going on for a long time with a solid party and was something they really loved and had a lot of fun but along the way one of the other players asked if their friend could join in the DM said yes and kind of nothing has been the same since. It turns out the new guy is a very strong personality with very strong opinions about being "in character" which basically combine to create a force within the campaign that is pretty stubbornly into doing anything he wants to do, not particularly interested in what the rest of the party around him wants or what would be best for the story, and has a pretty consistent shield of plausible deniability whenever he does something actively antagonist or detrimental to the rest of the party of "it's just what my character would do." He has started multiple pretty intense conflicts between the party members that have never really been in a fun, exciting, story-driving way, but on the contrary have been genuinely frustrating affairs of "well I want to do this thing but the party wants something else." In addition he is a really experienced player, which my partner and the DM are too, but everyone else in the party is relatively new, and there's been a very noticeable drop in participation from those inexperienced players since he's joined because there just isn't really the breathing room anymore for them to think things over and buck up their confidence to do things the way they used to, it's a lot easier to just sit back for the ride if it doesn't seem like anyone else is particularly interested in your participation anyway. Basically, short story long, may partner is grappling with the fact right now that something they used to really look forward to has become something they actually dread because they have no idea what this guy is going to do next and also know that if they don't actively try and help balance him out, he will just sort of bulldoze over the other players, and it gets a little frustrating sometimes when you spend 90% of the session time either engaged in an fictional antagonist relationship with a fictional coworker, or bracing for the next time that's gonna come up.
Chances are they are not the only one feeling this way. A private meeting should be held without the antagonist to come to a consensus.
Don’t let one bad Apple ruin it for everyone else.
After the meeting of the group decides that the individual needs to change their game play and the DM should also be balancing players involvement. A more equal contribution from all allows players to have some satisfaction during game play. If the player doesn’t change his/her ways they should be asked to leave the group.
It’s been 6 months since you wrote the comment. You am curious if there has been a resolution?
@trevorclapham5571 There has been improvement!
When I posted this comment I had just spectated one of their sessions that was so bad that I had to go for a walk 2 hours in to cool down because I knew it wasn't my campaign and not my place to start yelling but it was basically the beginning of the end. This player had found an item that basically their character long for power above all else and he decided that that made him the new bbeg of the campaign (while they are playing through Curse of Staud....) and proceeded to basically turn the next 2 and a half sessions into non-stop PVP which could have gone over well except that he designed his character for maximum combat abilities.... and everyone else made their characters around their stories.... so it pretty much had the tone of a room full of people playing with delicate, hand-made-with-love figurines, and one guy who really wanted to smash action figured together. Plus some new habbits reared their heads like fudging dice rolls, rolling for things whenever he wanted and just TELLING the DM "hey, I got a 17, so I'm doing this", and costantly asking the DM to go into private group chats with him so he could do secret healing or charming bullshit without the party knowing.
So by the end the party had enough and DID have a provate meeting like you said and you were right, they all felt this wasn't fun anymore so they gave him a choice of either "make a new character and please stop doing all this" or "leave." And he chose to make a new character which has admittedly been a lot better. His only current issue is that he's decided a new "character quirk" of his is that he picks a random party member every session to be "leader" for that day which we think is him trying to make a point about giving other people the spotlight but actually does more harm than good because he's still kind of forcing other people to do stuff with their characters instead of letting them make their own choices or letting things happen organically and he's still veey obviously filling some kind of desperate need to be in control which like, isn't a big enough issue to complain about yet and is a hell of an improvement on before so like... it's progress! There has been progress!
And sorry for this being a novel, I have very strong feelings about this and my partner who's actually in the party is very conflict averse so I've kept em tamped down to a minimum for a long time
I love that you always include time stamps by description. Very helpful and useful and professional
I lost a player in my group and we are adding a new player. I am glad that you mentioned a re-session zero because I had not thought of that. Now I need to go back and watch your video on session zero again. Great job guys, a great video on what not to do for me as a DM.
Absolutely, it helps them feel included and re-acclimates the group (and can bring up potential pitfalls)
Excellent video as always, dear Dudes!
I'd like to stress the importance of trust in a gaming group as well. It's not something everyone considers immediately necessary to having a great group but I've found that the more I play, the more I have come to value it at the gaming table. Having run with the same players for more than a decade, it's hard to describe the level of comfort we had working together as a party and the really wonderful RP and wild strategies that developed as a result.
Re: "no setting information", I once had a prospective GM tell me that he wasn't giving setting information because "if you can't come up with something in the framework of generic fantasy you're creatively bankrupt and aren't worth having at the table".
As a dm I definitely have done some of these things and not noticed, so it's nice to be able to figure out what went wrong on one of my short lived campaigns. Since it was a homebrew there was a lot of worldbuilding but as such there were also rules that were put in place socially. At the time I wanted to make sure my players followed these rules bc it made sense in game but now I realize maybe I should have worked with them a bit more to compromise on what rules could be broken and which ones couldn't be.
A good thing to add with your last point about the abusive behavior is to not let the person get away with "hey, I'm just roleplaying". If a character is playing a jerk, fine, but if they can't turn it off out of character, you can't let them hide behind it.
also there has too be trust in the party if a player wants too be a jerk thats fine be a jerk too the NPC's but when you feel you need too be a jerk too the other players well don't expect a heal when your unconcious.
@@crepe1346 I got an example. My group play in the grim hollow setting and were playing HUGE assholes. Like we once pretended that an innocent grandma was a witch to snitch her to the inquisition to get a reward But we were NEVER evil to each others except a few in game insults that were not targeted at the players but at the characters.
Alternatively I've also been in a game where I have been backstabbed within the first five minutes of the game and the other player said to me "I killed your character because a human mage is boring"
This is exactly why i watch you guys. You are so cognazent of people and how they feel. Even if we are just talking about a game, this kind if thing really should be a conversation. Thanks guys
The stories.
I was once in a game where minutes before the group was to assemble in Discord for the game, the GM deleted the Discord server without explanation, leaving most of us without a way to even talk to each other, let alone the GM.
I recently left a campaign where the GM had at one point announced he wasn't having fun because we were too successful in the fights in the published adventure. He admitted to adding enemies to fights to making things more challenging. Then he started adding extra rules that limited what my spellcaster would have been able to do, and I don't know if he game the other players similar limitations. I left in the middle of the session when his NPC metagaming resulted in the NPCs changing their motivations in the first rounds of the fight, and cancelled their ambush because of our counter-ambush and tried to wait it out with their own counter-counter-ambush.
In another game, we were in the character-introduction scene of a session 1 (of an online game with no Session Zero), when the GM allowed a male player to have his female character go on this long sexually explicit monolog at the expense of the rest of the group of characters. After I left without saying anything except to tell the GM I couldn't be around that kind of player, I was the one accused of disrupting the game.
In my recent
I just joined my First D&D group and we didn't have a session 0, instead the DM assisted in the creation of characters because not knowing our teammates is actually a big part of our campaign. he did give each person a lore rundown of their world and allowed us to build our character from the world which is great because it allowed me to really feel like my other players were highly built into the world at a deep level
Hey guys I just want to thank you for the staff of healing suggestion. I'm a rookie DM and the group is made up of all first timers and we ended up with not one healer. So I've been tossing them extra healing potions but having them constantly finding potions just didn't feel natural. We just reach level 2 last session and our wizard was going to take a class in cleric to gain some healing. But now I can offer the staff as an alternative so he can build his character as he wants. On a side note he still ended taking the level in cleric because it tied in really well with his backstory
A wizard with a single level dip in Cleric for armor and shield proficiency and bless/guidance/healing word package is also the best path for optimization! Especially for Peace domain or if they have access to Goodberry, Life. Good on them! But do be mindful if they're optimizing a wizard, you may need some good practices and wisdom about encounter design. Either way, I hope you cheer them on as a player!
My last session zero was a discord call where i helped people build their character. I asked what they wanted, and told them what would work in our campaign. Also asked what they wanted from the game.
We also had a first timer who wanted to play wizard, and i normally dont tell people what to play, but i did tell him: hey wizards are very versatile and supportive, and if you are looking to just blast spells with big damage, sorcerer might be better and it is easier to play"
The part about DMPCs surprised because I honestly love them.
Maybe I just never had a DM that used them in a bad way but to me the most fun part of DnD isnt to have a story thats only about you but to take part in a world that feels vast and nuanced.
I alwaye love it when a DM has us tag along with DMPC that gets to show off some cool abilites, especially since most of my games end before getting to a very high level. It gives you smth to feel forward to and makes the world feel more alive. Obviously not everything should be solved for you but I dont mind playing alongside or working for more powerful forces than oneself.
My most memorable campaign I ever played ended with our party taking part in a huge war. We were fending off endless waves off monsters alongside our numerous allies all while in the background two max level spellcasters DMPCs, one of which was the BBEG and the other one being basically an avatar of a god that our cleric worshipped and had conscripted our party (long story), and they were exchanging powerful spells that shook and influenced the whole battlefield.
It felt like something out of a movie.
Ultimately we all perished while trying to stall for time to help a city evacuate, and while we all knew we were by far not the most impactful forces in that battle, it was still very emotional and felt really epic.
THANK YOU for saying, so clearly, that players can create well-designed, effective characters that are ALSO good roleplaying material. I absolutely hate the false dichotomy that you can EITHER have a well-made character OR be good at roleplaying. I've always done both. It shouldn't be a crime to want your character to be, you know, GOOD AT WHAT THEY DO, and I hate that so much of the community thinks that it is.
Also, ironically, the situation in which I played with other players who deliberately made "bad" choices while building their characters (which, btw, I said nothing about to them because how they build their characters and have fun has nothing to do with me), at least one player said how excited he was to "finally play a game with roleplayers instead of optimizers". He then proceeded to basically never roleplay at all, and his character was entirely useless in combat and couldn't hit anything because his bonuses were so poor. At least he seemed to be having a good time, but I found it funny that he was very RP vs Optimizing and completely failed to do either.
A tip for session zero: have the DM pose a hypothetical scenario and ask "how would YOUR character react?" if everyone reacts the same way, that group will be boring. In my last campaign the answers to the same scenario were "Id fight him", "I'd ask if he needed help", "id try to steal from him", "id walk away. not my problem."
Best group Ive ever played in. There was this ninja turtles dynamic going on and it ruled.
If you are having a session RE-Zero, would be fine to have the DM, the new player, and optionally any existing players come? (i.e. that it is not mandatory for existing players if they wanted to skip it.)
In my first D&D table and session, more than a decade ago, I got ganged up by two players who would keep calling me a coward chicken because my caster character was acting defensive (staying out of the heat of battle, sneaking, etc). They were laughing and making fun, but it got so constant that it got really uncomfortable and annoying - when I started talking in character, they would start making clucking sounds.
They were both childhood friends of the DM, so I was really out of place. Thankfully, one of the other players spoke out and said it was really rude of them to act like that. They gave up on the table, we got two new players, and we played that campaign for 9 years! The player who spoke out is today one of my best friends.
On the topic of shutting down optimization, I think it's important for dungeon masters to outright define what they consider power gaming or metagaming since different dungeon masters will have their own idea of what metagaming and power gaming is. It's especially the case when you bring optimization into it which some will argue falls under the umbrella of power gaming.
Yeah I think it comes down to internal balance within the group. We've got one player who, without fail, will build the most powerful thing that can possibly be built. The rest of the group aren't that good with breaking the system so we end up with one player who's monstrously more powerful than the rest. That player then shows up all the rest and the DM has a nightmare trying to balance encounters
Part of the issue is that most DMs are often ill-equipped to evaluate the actual strength of builds but quick to decide what they think is strong based largely on their own anecdotes and emotional reactions. I think for most, "power gaming" is more of a bogeyman or a label for "stuff I don't like" rather than a proper concept. The really-optimized stuff can only work if the DM explicitly allows it because 5e is so heavily-bounded. A good example is tech like rest casting or conjure airstrike. The relative power difference between a character built with the slightest effort and a hyper-optimized build if the DM doesn't allow shenanigans is about 40-50% at most, as there are few multiplicative synergies and you're still limited by action economy and concentration. Some of the best-optimized builds at their peak disparity do double the DPR of just a plain old Rogue hidin' and hittin' with no subclass factored in. Most of the real difference comes from playing smart, piloting the character effectively and building for more than just combat numbers. But hey, some people want Clueless Kevin's tavern brawler barbarian monk as a baseline and think Susy Sharparrow is OP because she put her stats in Dex and uses a bow.
@@RaethFennec Yeah, I just think all builds have different strengths in 5e. I've seen some super cool optimized builds surrounding out of combat utility too. It's silly to restrict players on what they can play IMO. I had so many moments in my first campaign where I wanted to take something that would bolster my character within base rules and my DM refused to tolerate that. Ended up having less fun because my DM would ban fun build options for the sake of "balance". Not like conjure woodland animals gamebreaking type stuff, just things they didn't consider "balanced" or stuff like Death Cleric which they considered "evil". Like I'm a game design major and they're telling me what's balanced or not. Plus the lack of nuance to say a class is "meant for a DM because it's evil" is funny considering most builds I'd want to play with a necromancer or death cleric would likely subvert that trope. They even seemed a little offput when I wanted to build partially around action economy. Like I enjoy building around mechanics and RP, so it's frustrating when someone restricts that creativity when most of what I picked was in the base game. I'm not trying to break damage thresholds or some shit, I just know it's way more fun to play a character that's mechanically optimized. Whether it's optimized for the flavor I want, outside of combat, or the actual combat. Like it's so silly to try and micromanage party roles outside of keeping the same Ability Scores/levels and stuff. Just turns into a situation where players are comparing themselves to others when in reality, most good play in DnD surrounds game skill and not builds. And really, it's about having fun at the end of the day. If a player has a problem, communication obviously needs to happen. But like as a DM I will never restrict something WOTC releases for the edition I'm playing in, as that player bought the subclass, wants to use it, and it wouldn't be fair to them to restrict that. Rules as intended is a much better solution than straight up shutting down a combo or creative choice. I'll just adapt my campaign to their needs as a player, or buff other characters to make things more interesting for them and the way they want to play the game. DnD is such an individual experience that it ends up not really mattering anyways because most people are too focused on their own turn/game to care whether timmy in the corner is doing 20 or 25 damage on average. And if they do care, why so? Like what's the point of getting jealous of another player's successes? Hate to say it, but some people need to observe and learn instead of complaining about their DPR being lower. Newer players might have issues like this, but ultimately it can be solved via items or boons given by the DM if it becomes a huge deal.
@@greyscaleadaven Haha, I think we are two of one mind! I wrote a comment earlier that mentioned a few of the exact things you said here and I agree with you wholeheartedly. I even specifically suggested to someone if a player wanted to optimize in a group with players who didn't, that as a DM I'd talk with them privately and say absolutely go for it, but if other players fall too far behind, I might grant them extra boons or magic items while you get normal loot on schedule and will you be okay with that on the understanding that they'll need the help keeping up with you? That way the player has a wink wink nudge nudge nudge with the DM so they don't feel left out when Newbie Ned's melee monk gets Bracers of Defense and an Eldritch Claw tattoo by level 5 with a Staff of Striking on the horizon and Optimizer Oscar's Paladin 4 Warlock 1 PAM who's jumping ship to Sorcerer in a few levels only has a +1 quarterstaff and maybe a thermal cube or something fun for roleplay.
I think it's pretty fair for a GM to set a target power level for a campaign, but that's only tangentially related to optimisation. There's lots of ways you can approach this (whether you want to limit DPR, burst damage, general utility, whatever), but I think it can help focus a campaign and let people get to higher levels before the balance completely breaks.
As a GM I can know that in a high-power game, pure martials aren't going to keep up and someone who picks one is going to have a bad time. Similarly, something like a Twilight Cleric (bad with specific 5e examples, I GM PF1e) will completely throw off the the balance of a low-power game. But, if a player approaches me asking to play one of these classes and I get the idea that they know what they're doing and will play up/down to the group then I'd let them.
For Pathfinder examples, I'd probably use Swashbuckler and Summoner as the examples. Swashbuckler has very few decision points so they fit well into low-mid power games but don't really have any way to play up to high power levels (pre-rework Rogue and Monk were also bad but in more mundane, less interesting ways). Pre-rework Summoner on the other hand just had a really high power floor, a well-played full-caster would be stronger obviously, but as a Summoner you could randomly pick options and still end up with a pet that was stronger than a moderately optimised martial all while also being able to toss around the best Wizard combat spells (and basically only the best Wizard spells, their list was limited to just the good stuff). Then there were also the issues with their spell list that let an optimiser break apart Wealth By Level and make incredibly cheap wands, but that's more technical. Point is, there are classes/options that don't really fit into certain game power levels, a skilled or cooperative player can work around this to some degree.
As a sweaty optimiser, I think it's good manners to pick a low-power character concept and push it to its limits. I know I could break the game with a full caster or any of the established power-gamey builds, I think it's more fun for everyone to play to the party's power level with a sub-optimal type of character. I get to spend hours reading up character options to squeeze every last drop of power from a build; the other players get to see a weird, wacky build they've never seen before and the GM gets to run a normal mid-power game without everything falling apart and fights being anticlimactic.
As a dm I would never punish a player for picking the optimal option as long as it fits within their character. But seeing people who exclusively play stuff like kalashtar totem barbarians or half elf sorcerers make my eyes glaze over
I feel like ppl optimising by doing stuff like making half-elf sorcerers is more an issue with the game than players. I don't think theres any blameworthiness in players making their main stat their best stat etc., I think the issue is more with tying things with significant roleplay significance, like race, to mechanics in a fairly inflexible way makes ppl have to balance being mechanically helpful to the party and being more inventive with more fluffy roleplay
Yeah some dms absolutely go over the line with that stuff but like. Especially when you’re the only one doing it in a party that isn’t even about that, I just wonder why that’s ‘all’ you want to play
@@Odoclick you can be both mechanically useful and a character, it’s called ‘making a character’. That’s literally what you described with the half elf sorcerer; as long as you actually care enough to give them character traits, you’ve done it. But if all you care about is being the absolute most powerful (not just making a half elf sorcerer, although you know stats aren’t tied to race anymore right?), and that is all you do with every character…I mean, fine but join a game where that’s the point then? Because it really makes it hard for the rest of the party to keep up.
I have seen a few videos like this and this one is the best. You are really good at explaining the points you are making and instead of anxiousness you build confidence :) Thank you!
Question: I'm currently making my own campaign setting with a bunch of homebrew, including 4 classes and 2 subclasses. I currently have two players that will be playing my campaign, but by the time I start the campaign I'm thinking I'll have 4 players total. Is it reasonable for me to ask them to play my custom classes for the campaign? Should I have more options? Should I let them play any class?
Putting your highest score in your most important ability not only isn't power gaming. It's also realistic. Someone with a naturally high strength score deciding to become a fighter, or with a naturally high intelligence deciding to become a wizard, just makes sense. People often lean into their strengths.
So many people seem to just blank on this point.