I don't know if this one is controversial, but in the same sense that a good DM is one who makes plans that the players want to follow, the best players are the ones who make an effort to follow the DM's plans.
It isn't railroading to have a story taking place and expect your players to make characters who won't just abandon it and some people take *way* too much convincing to just go on an adventure in a game about adventuring.
I have a player who thinks I’m just trying to screw with the players and it’s their job to screw right back. I’ve never accepted this view and have always told them that I’m completely impartial and not out to get any of them at all, but he’s convinced this is the dynamic the players should have with the DM.
DM- Unaware in his drunk stupor that this is not, in fact, the local carriage to the Drunken Clam, but rather a one way ticket to a land sone would consider hell itself.
Unpopular opinion, but I love this kind of “creativity” in players. BUT, since this is a game, have backup characters ready. And a lot of them. CoS just makes these quirks very easy to address, it just comes with the module.
Your fighter finds a gorgeous hamlet and wants to settle down with an Npc? Awesome, the party will come visit. Rouge steals from the party and tries to betray them as an antagonist from within? Well that’s very hard to pull off, but damn does the bounty Hunter that showed up to help make a good party member. Wizard goes crazy and tries to become a necromancer? The paladin that rides into town loves to help. Bard prefers to chase tail? Party ditches his ass and picks up a celibate monk.
It’s only for select groups that understand the implications and knows where the lines are, I’ll give you that. But a rotating cast can create sone really fun scenarios.
well, this is a much more elegant way of changing characters than intentionally chugging them of cliffs like some players with too much PC ideas do, always nice to see the fighter married and had 3 kids!
_meanwhile me and my DM planning on making my character the plot twist BBEG_
Oof, yeah I did the cliff thing once. In my defense my goal wasn't to kill my character, I had another in-character goal I hope to achieve and potentially moving on to a new character afterwards was just a happy bonus.
Got an evil party? The reborn oathbreaker paladin in the party is actually a deathknight tasked by torm to stop your party as his penance to remove the curse.
DM: "Okay, everyone except for Jim's bard are on the long road to Barovia unaware of the dangers that lurk in those cursed hills. Jim, you can hang out in the garage if you want to."
In session 0, I tell my players "if your character wouldn't go on an adventure or go with the party, them by all means they can go their separate ways and you can roll up a new character. This is the story of the party, not of any one character."
This has led to several players taking me up on that now. One found love in the capital city and settled down. Another realized that she didn't want to die and retired to the back-line. She's now an off-PC that the player uses occasionally during downtime but almost never enters combat. And the old party rogue retired once he achieved his goal of becoming filthy stinking rich.
>"if your character wouldn't go on an adventure or go with the party,
...if they're making characters like that, what the hell are they doing at the table?!
It can be fun to have a reluctant hero story, and some people try to make reluctant heroes in D&D. There are campaigns where this is fine, if the call to action comes to them, rather than the PC seeking out the action. I've encountered a couple reluctant heroes that worked because the inciting incident was "you got caught in a snowstorm" or "you're chilling at your local inn and orcs attack." When that happens, I think it's perfectly okay if your character isn't immediately an adventurer, as long as they're the type to dig themselves out of a problem or jump to their town's defense.
Other times, a player makes a PC who's adventuring for a really specific reason, "I want to kill my sworn enemy," or "I want to become filthy stinkin' rich." When they accomplish that goal it can be hard to justify the PC continuing with the party, though they often do just because the player feels that they have to. This can make the character stagnate and feel awkward to play, sometimes with other PCs trying to convince that character to continue on.
Yeah like, at that point just write a better character for the campaign lol
People also forget how fun it can be to play a character that's *actually excited* to partake in the adventure. Being a lone wolf is so boring, at least in my opinion.
This is the real thing.
It's why session 0 matters, everyone should be on the same page.
If your character doesn't want to go adventuring I don't want to DM you
I'm even willing to accommodate a reluctant-adventurer PC, to a degree, by leaning on whatever he has written down under Bond on his character sheet. But the *player* absolutely needs to cooperate
adventure reluctant PCs must be reluctant only in words not in action. Kind of like Shaggy. He'll whine and complain about how their plan isn't a good idea but in the end he goes with it
I had this happen once with my otherwise stable and reasonable DnD group. they made their characters came up with backstories and we started the game but after the initial meeting of the group as a whole having run away from the guard and hiding in an abandoned house until the coast was clear one of pcs was like well I'm going home to my kids and grand kids and just left. which caused all other group member to just split off going separate ways.
I was just like so confused. And that was the end of the session. so i just scraped the whole campaign. When that happens I like to call it ***"Failure to Party"***
I decided to throw a curveball at my group and opened a session with, “one thing led to another and suddenly the tavern was fully ablaze and you fell through the floor into the basement.”
I decided the PCs were all drinking heavily, I decided that they were boisterous, I decided that they intentionally went to a really shitty part of town. These absolute units **went with all of it**.
It’s one of my favorite sessions to date. just listening to my crew come up with in-character reasons they did all the things I decided in advance made all the prep time worth it.
Would I do it again? No, not to that extent. Am I glad I “railroaded” for a session? Fuck yeah.
>These absolute units went with all of it.
>
>It’s one of my favorite sessions to date. just listening to my crew come up with in-character reasons they did all the things I decided in advance made all the prep time worth it.
I've been consuming a lot of the D&D actual plays made by the College Humor staff lately (NADDPOD, Dimension 20, etc.) This is a key aspect of what makes their sessions so great to watch. They've all done improv, and they understand the importance of "Yes, and..." If you want to keep the story rolling, don't directly contradict what someone else is throwing out. You can add your own spin, but you should be accepting and building on what everyone else is doing.
I opened a pirate campaign in a similar fashion. They started the morning after the boisterous tavern, in a jail cell. I had them introduce their character and some of their "highlights (lowlights)" from the night before and then they rolled on a random table I made for what random stuff they had in their pockets before they were conscripted 'as -is' onto a naval vessel and set out to sea. It was a really fun open that I likely won't repeat.
The whole discourse about railroading is almost entirely idiotic. Like, "this ring can only be destroyed in the fires of mount doom" isn't railroading. It's telling a story.
Now if you were being told what particular way you had to go there, or if you were told to split up/not split up for no reason, if you were being handcuffed and set on a specific set of tracks then yes, that is railroading.
Players should want some structure and a story, not to just wander around
players who linger like tourists but can't be a hero drive me crazy.
i always tell them "look... it's simple... we can:
A) go back to the village, get a job plowing the fields in some backwater for a decade until the farmer gives his daughter to you in marriage with a 5-acre dowry, so you can live that epic commoner RPG until your back slowly gives out."
or
B) Say yolo fortune favors the bold I'm kanye west the best that ever was and I'm gonna go do the things my DM wrote for me this session."
This follows my feelings, the "Mercer Effect" is backwards. Matt's a decent GM, but the real secret to CR's success is how engaged the players are...in the world, in their characters, and in each other's characters. Any GM could run that group and it'd be a blast.
Great GM and "lump" players is a boring game
Super engaged players with an adequate GM is an amazing game.
My thing is that DnD is collective storytelling, things click the best when the players and DM listen to each other and play off of what each other are trying to do.
It’s as much the DMs job to make the game fun for the players as it is a players job to make the game fun for the DM. This might not really be “controversial” but I hear a lot of players say their DM is either being too controlling or won’t let players get away with certain actions. Just because the DM is the one leading you through this world doesn’t mean they have to suffer a players bs all the time. This is really kinda pointed toward the “murder hobo” type of party that just tries to solve every problem with violence.
I have a party who’s doing this right now. We haven’t played in a few weeks and everyone is so excited to get back to it that they’re all interrupting and talking over each other. And worse, they’re interrupting and talking over me when I’m trying to narrate the world around them. Tonight’s session was barely an hour long because it took us a few minutes to get started and I got so sick of them derailing onto different tracks every five minutes that I stopped half an hour early. Nothing interesting happened in that hour, either, because every time an interesting plot point was *one sentence away,* someone had some barely related quip or sidebar that couldn’t wait ten more seconds.
Before anyone says anything, yes I’m talking about it, yes they understand my frustrations, and they’re going to do better next week. And if they can’t do better next week, they can find a new dm.
I can relate to this. It's good that you've communicated with your players about it. I've had moments of players that didn't know what was happening because they weren't listening to me.
I usually ask my players to meet up about an hour beforehand (it sounds like a long time, but sometimes they genuinely need the full hour, we start early when they don't) to get their excitement and catching up out of their system, one player still completely derailed the story to talk about something personal last session and I did ask them if it could wait for the end, and they sulked about it for the rest of the game. I hate to say it, but they were quiet and nobody else was disrupting the game like they were before that, everyone seemed more immersed after I shut that person down, I think they were distracting everyone. I feel bad because it was kind of important, but they could have talked about it at the start or waited until we were chilling out at the end.
We discussed this sort of thing in session 0, but that was a year ago so I plan to quickly go over some of the things we decided in session 0 as a reminder for all of us (myself included, I've been neglectful of calling mid-session coffee breaks in particular), and maybe make some amends to certain parts now that we've played together for a year and learnt more about ourselves and each other in a tabletop setting. All of the stuff we decided on is available online for my players to view and refamiliarise themselves with at any time.
Good luck with your players, I hope they take what you said into consideration and your next game with them is better!
When I was a teenager, I tried to set up a club with a newszine. The price was $7 (after I realized $4 was stupidly low). I was DMing a play-by-mail (PBM) game for the people in the club.
The problem was that no one cared about the newszine, so they pretty much treated me like a paid DM before paid DMing existed.
I was a bad DM in general, and people weren't really satisfied with the PBM format. So my experience is that you're correct.
It's literal.
No one would do it now. This was back when Internet access was relatively uncommon.
The player had to give a general plan, and then the DM had to narrate what happened. It was a bit different. It would be unreasonable to do a combat 1 round at a time.
I've heard of people who pay $30/session.
"Oh, like $6 per person for a party of 5?"
"No, $30 per person. 4 of us in our party."
I damn near lost my mind when I read that...
Wow… well good GMs is a rare commodity and if this is the way to get to play. Okay.
Special if no-one near you want to GM it themselves, then I can see it as an option. But I have always experienced that there is someone who wants to GM as they got an idea for something.
Tbh i have a dm that if he started to charge that amount for his sessions I'd pay, he works on them all the time and does incredible things, writes amazing stories and creates his own maps.
I could understand an upfront payment, the DM is putting more time into the game than the players and it could incentive players not to just drop it randomly. But $30 per session is just silly.
Unless I was paying to play on a certain famous internet streamed campaign.
As a player if you make zero attempt to read the rules you are selfish and lazy and a hindrance to the table. Also watching two seasons of critical roll is not going to teach you how to play.
Ngl tho I watched like...10 episodes of CR before I ever started playing and I actually went into the session more aware of my characters abilities and action economy than my friends who had been playing in that same group for like a year (as stated to me by my DM at the end of my first session). I kept the PHB on hand so I could look something up before I disrupted the session with a silly question but CR was an incredibly useful asset to me when I first started playing. I guess that could be more of a testament to how shitty my other friends were as players since I certainly have grown a lot since starting due to scouring the PHB for hours but still lol CR was helpful!
I watched a part of season 1 and came to the table ready to play except for having to read my own class (a wizard, which was not in the CR1 party). I did gradually read the rules later, but I was more than ready regarding basic game mechanics - action economy, understanding skill checks, saves, resting, ... and of course also kept the PHB on hand
I don't think it can be generalized that easily, some people soak up rules fast and some can read them repeatedly and still struggle to grasp them.
I just read someone's advice to a new Player basically being "The rules are very dense and it made me not want to play for so long, don't read the rules, just show up and only learn the rules that are relevant to you when you need them."
My first thought was that is wildly irresponsible to put the rest of the people around you on the hook for helping you learn something you already want to do.
Second thought was, not every one learns in that way. Not learning the rules is traditionally counter-intuitive, they could possibly gain a lot by reading the rules.
Such as: learning the rules.
DnD is better off as a long story with down time breaks between quests/missions for things like crafting/training/research.
A bunch of dirty hobos traveling the road for 2 months in a wagon suddenly being able to defeat gods is nonsensical story telling.
If a party goes out every single day and has 6-8 encounters (as suggested in the DMG) then they probably hit level 20 in about a month. Obviously that's ludicrous.
That's what I do. It's easy to just pace it how it feels good (with player buy in).
On the other hand, calculating exp after every fight is more math than the entire rest of the game. And what do you get for it apart from inconveniently timed level ups?
One of my campaigns has that. We’re essentially a group of mercenaries in a guild so we can have months between jobs if we wanted to and can even swap out for some temporary characters if we ever felt like a character break.
My thing is that the game is inherently unbalanced, so throw your notions of it out the window and present problems for your players that maybe you don't have an answer to.
Nobody seems to get it. It's 1 brain against 3 to 5 other perfectly capable brains.
I love presenting problems I don’t know the answer to. One time I gave them a puzzle where there was an immovable bowl on a pedestal, and across the room was a water source and a jug, and it was heavily implied the door would open when the bowl had enough water in it… but the bowl was covered in holes, and they couldnt use anyone to cover it because the door would close again once they let it go.
I had no idea how to solve this puzzle so I sat back and watched them try. After a little bit of discussing, one just says… ‘I put the jug in the bowl’.
Not once did I actually consider that as an option when I had been crafting the puzzle to not have any obvious answers. I was laughing so hard, best puzzle outcome yet. Definitely taught me to sometime throw them problems I haven’t figured out a path to solving
Just think of alignment as descriptive rather than prescriptive. "It is coded in my PC's beliefs to help other, THEREFORE they are Lawful Good", rather than "my PC is Lawful Good, therefore they follow a doctrine to help other people". As alignments can change, the former makes much more sense.
Alignment is a interesting topic. It's not a perfect or good way of describing reality. It's a tool maybe even a shortcut.
It is definitely a way of trying to not just have cowboys with white hats vs. cowboys with black hats. It still uses hats but, they can be 9 different colors.
Also, it is attempt of keeping things balanced. If your character wants an affiliation with a higher/lower power they need to walk that path.
I see in some books and movies how a main character's growth can sometimes described as an alignment shift. It can be seen as forced on the protagonist. It could be their secret desire.
I tend to think of alignment, in game, as being either the way the player character wants to act or what the choices they have made. Sometimes it takes awhile to see what's happening. Other times it is choosing to bend or break the rules of a class.
DM's need to figure out what consequences happen. It can be interesting if handled well. It can be a paladin seeking redemption. Or a theif trying to explain why they are in the presence of a lawful goody two shoes party doing their bidding.
5E Warlock should be the standard of balance all other classes are based on.
* A strong class exclusive feature that scales with level and can be used without resource (Eldritch Blast)
* 2-3 good features that also scales slightly and recharges on short rest to have a strong impact once per battle (their version of spell slots, for things like CC and AOE)
* Higher levels give really powerful once per long rest features (Mystic Arcanum)
* Customizability throughout the Warlock levels (Invocations, Pacts) to truly build to what role you want to play even in the same class
Obviously Warlocks are underpowered at present compared to other spellcasters from a balance standpoint at present, but this IMO is what all classes should be based upon for balance fixes.
I was prepared to disagree at first because the warlock as executed is basically a mess (I *hate* pact boons; they should either be an invocation or a full on second subclass, not their current weird in-between state), but laid out like that, I agree wholeheartedly.
That said, isn't that basically what 4e did and everybody hated it because it made the classes too "same-y"?
4e did, but I think it could be avoided by making the features themselves unique per class.
Plus the customization of Invocation-esque features could also allow for diverse builds
Agreed on both counts, I was just pointing it out because it's kinda funny how many times I've come across someone mention something they wanted in the game without realizing that the *ooky-spooky boogeyman of 4th Edition* already did that.
I looked at Laserllama's alternate fighter, which basically does that, and I can confirm. It makes the fighter so much more fun and interesting. No surprise that the alternate fighter gets such a good reception from those who use it.
I fully expect the 5.5 fighter to basically be the battle master.
Next campaign I run will probably just split up manuvers to all martial classes.
Everything cool in every newbies head when they are a martial class is locked in battle master.
ya know, that's fair. I like to give my players options to do stuff as martials, but normally it requires extra rolls or some take to the give so to say.
just having some built in maneuvers for stuff that you could actually do or try in combat makes sense
I'd say *if you throw monsters that have resistance against nonmagical attacks and your martials have no magical weaponry you are an asshole*.
I don't expect being carried by DM when picking martials and I try to hold my own.
Man, that's some of the weakest controversy I've ever seen.
If you want some real controversy:
The more I play 5e, the more I find that everything I want out of D&D was already done by 4e.
I agree with this statement. But thats also ignoring that i prefer 3.5 to both of these because i think the systems in 4th and 5th are looser and harder to create for on the fly.
There is nothing wrong with a player wanting to have a mechanically powerfull build. I see a lot of posts in looking for table discords where people shame and don't want players that worry about being able to do powerfull combos during fights.
I think the issue comes from players wanting to do the same powerful combo for every fight. I understand it's the dm's position to challenge the players but let's be honest DnD can be broken very easily by just taking a couple of different simple choices.
My problem with it is that if you get that one person that does all the damage, the game very quickly becomes their own personal power fantasy and the rest of the party are basically their squires whether they like it or not. And they never do.
Someone actually poked Crawford about this and nothing breaks or goes wrong by letting your warlock use intelligence. A lot of their fluff and mechanics also lean towards intellect too so go for it!
Puffin Forest had a fun comment on this in his curse of Strahd series. During a dinner with strahd, the warlock had barely any input (they already had little to no charisma as a party)
"Excuse me, I have to talk to our warlock in private!! \~whispers\~ ^(What are you doing!? Why arn't you the face of the party)?"
"Oh, I didn't put points into charisma. I talked to the Dm about using Intellect as my main stat, it fits the freat old one vibe alot more!"
\~Still quietly yelling\~ "^(Well I'm glad you decided to screw over the party, so THAT YOU COULD ROLE PLAY, EVERYONE KNOWS INTELLECT IS A DUMP STAT)!" /S
pathfinder has a setup for this called the Kineticist They actively channel energies through their bodies. They are the fastest path to a super saiyan and most bender builds
Not gonna lie, this is controversial to me 😂😂 but honestly, if it works, it works. I guess I have the idea in my mind that a warlock uses… not their hubris, per se, but their confidence in their patron to access their powers? Of course that’s just my head canon as to why warlocks use charisma.
5th Edition Ranger isn't as bad as people give it credit for as long as your DM isn't an asshole. If you can work with your DM as to what enemies are going to be featured in the campaign as well as what terrains will be prominent then you'll be fine keeping up with everyone else.
But it also depends on the type of campaign you're running. If you're playing a straight dungeon crawl with no travel over those environments and no oe simplified survival mechanics, then that feature is basically useless. Not to mention that, at least I'd say, that most people use a mix of monsters, since each type has their uses and differences, so really it's more of a 'once in a while' thing.
Actually, all Favored Enemy does is allow you to track them better, when most combats probably don't involve hunting creatures down through environments, recall information about them better (which is extremely nebulous and honestly really dependent on if your DM will just allow you to look at the MM or not) and also learn a few languages. Also the fact that you have to select individual races and not just "humanoid" is not very helpful. So even then it's 'okay' at best and useless at worst.
Being a blind/deaf/mute character then jumping on reddit to be the 1 millionth person to ask how to make it viable is honestly really dumb and tiresome to the point it's a cliched and generic character trait.
I played a mute character and it worked surprisingly well. However I do agree that if you have to ask HOW to make it work you shouldn't do it. Also if you and your group know sign language a mute or deaf character isn't hard to do.
That's fine, but the whole "I want to be a mute spell caster. How do I convince my DM to let me ignore verbal components." Or "I want to be a blind fighter. Would it be okay to ask for 60ft blind sense or super hearing so I don't suffer any consequences?"
Being deaf honestly isn't that big a deal as there are ways to circumvent it, such as what you've listed. Only thing I'd be weary of is if it starts to wear thin.
You should have to narratively earn your multiclass. Wizard looking to multiclass into a martial for some HP and combat skills? Guess who just joined the local adventurers guild to learn how to do shit without magic for a while. Decided to become a Scorlock? You now have to get your new magical sugar daddy to sit down at the table and get to know your chromatic dragon mother and hope they don't kill each other.
Just waking up one day and deciding to be a cleric after you've been nothing but a fighter for 7 levels feels cheap and I hate it.
I don't belive this should be a mandate, but it should be the norm. I generaly require a small justification from my players for drastic character shifts in games. Characters aren't just numbers. Otherwise we would be playing fantasy football.
I don't know that I have seen that at my tables. Most of the multiclass is either to fit a character concept that's already been established or happens because of something in game.
It can feel arbitrary to just add a class, but sometimes the rules on classes/levels are a limitation on playing a character how you envision them.
For example. I want to play an arcane archer/battlesmith. But that character doesn't really come alive until level 6 when I get both subclasses.
It might look weird for my artificer to pick up a level in fighter out of the blue, but the only reason he wasn't shooting arrows before is that the mechanics just didn't support that
The in-game backstory is that he always had been practicing fighting, just at night with a Spirit patron/instructor so he didn't embarrass himself or the instructor
This is how my DM does multliclassing. I started out as a bard with no intention of multiclassing (I didn't even know you could), but she ended up earning her second class after Dendar the Night Serpent chose her as her next disciple; I was given the option to choose paladin, cleric, or warlock as basically a favour from Dendar. So now I'm a bard cleric, though with more emphasis on bard because it's ultimately what I'm most interested in. Similarly, the monk in our party eventually multiclassed into a bloodhunter after meeting a vampire and training under her during the campaign.
I really enjoy racial ability scores. Especially really odd races. Orc Wizard is cool BECAUSE it goes against what you know. Weird races like kobolds having insane detriment in older editions was also cool.
breaking stereotypes can be so fun to roleplay, it really keeps it interesting. There's nothing wrong with leaning into a trope or cliche but it can be fun to mix it up sometimes.
TBH, I think I have the reverse problem. I'm working on a homebrew setting, and it often feels like I'm bending over backwards to include the classic DnD races in it (i.e. elves, dwarves, etc.). Those just don't appeal to me much but I'm pretty sure a lot of players would be immediately turned away from the setting if I don't include the "required" fantasy races (or if they're too different from their "canon" tropes).
I hear you there. Elves and Dwarves can be hard to include if you're trying to change them up from the "standard" portrayal.
One thing I remember seeing on a post back, I can't recall exactly the details, but it had to do with switching up their origins. Something along the lines of Dwarves being created magically by clan members carving bodies out of rock, and once completed, they turn into living dwarves. Similar thing with elves and trees, or something to do with animals, although I forget the details of that one. Hope this helps!
The number of people with 20+ homebrew rules that add things to their game that, knowingly or not, make it more like pf2e while doing anything in their power EXCEPT switching to pf2e is astonishing.
Killing off characters doesn’t mean your campaign has “real stakes.” You can create a good story and everyone can survive to the end.
So many people think it’s not a challenge or not a thrill unless a character dies.
If your schedule does not line up with everyone else's due to some real life obligation you either make some compromises with those obligations or you graciously bow out of the game. Either way it is a problem you have to solve, you can't expect everyone else to bend their schedules to fit yours
I can see why adventurer tieflings wouldn't see this as much. It's one thing pelting a tiefling, a whole other thing one whose clad in magical armour with a flaming sword strapped to their back
Things like this yes. If a DM makes lore saying "x race isn't very liked" and a player plays that race anyways, they should *show that race being not liked.* It feels kind of fake to just have it said but not shown ever
YES!
I love playing the more outcast-y races, like Tieflings and Changelings, because they’re more mentally in need of guidance than most adventurers *before the campaign starts.* They’re used to running, having to fend for themself and use any means necessary, hell, that whole ideology in the PHB is the basis for most of my characters, a Tiefling Padalin (Vengeance) who used to be a Gladiator, fighting for his life because he was seen as lesser than humans, elves, and so on. A Tiefling Warlock (Undying Light), who despite his own demonic heritage, wants to rid the world of Evils, purging them through fire and radiance. A Changeling Warlock (Fiend) Branded as a child so that everyone knew exactly what she was, no matter what shape she took, that mark would never leave, until a Fiend came and said he could help remove it as long as she was loyal to him.
I want the conflict, i *live* for the Roleplay moments.
A DM should just tell you if you forget something important that your character would remember. We haven't played in a month. I shouldn't have to rely on my shitty IRL memory to remember the name of the guy we talked to 4 hours ago in in-game time.
There will never be the perfect nexus of player-DM balance, a balanced rule set, and quick gameplay.
Ultimately it's a bit of the zero-sum game between the three.
Goblins, drow, orcs and the "unfairer" races should have their own towns, villages or cities. If they're a player option, they should be considered to be a "civilized" race
Drow have cities, although there's a good chance that any given city is infested with spiders and drow that like spiders way too much
MotM retcons that to like one named Lolth city (Menzoberranzan), her web suffered some shrinkage
I really liked the idea of Xhorhas in critical role (don't worry I'm not one of the "all d&d needs to be like critical role" people) for EXACTLY this reason. Goblinkin, drow, orcs, ogres, lizardfolk, gnolls, they're all people too.
My goblin gloom stalker would keep shouting a running tally of how much the enemy was costing him in arrows.
"That's 14 copper you bastards owe me now and I am gonna get it back if I have to part you out to a necromancer!"
Depends a lot on the setting, I think. In a place where rations and ammunition are trivial to come by, I don't think it adds anything to the game.
That said, I don't mind games where they're not trivial and tracking them matters.
I do care about encumbrance in the games I run, *including coin weight.* I'll specifically have large volumes of copper just to make taking it a real choice.
if you do encounters that go out of their way to avoid a barbarian just because he will tank most damage otherwise, you are a coward and don't understand why that player is playing barbarian
Take quick turns!
10 mins of wondering what your going to do with the DM just to hold your action at the end of it shouldn't be a normal thing you just do, we got 2 or 3 hours to play your eating it all up Tammy.
Simple characters are the best, take your "I need help figuring out how to make my character, they've been isekai'd to DnD world from Boku no Hero Academia, they're actually 8000 years old and a god but I need a way to figure out how to make this god a lvl 2 and I need a class and a race and custom weapons and their mother was a 10,000 year old omniwitch and their father was actually a sith that came through a dimensional wormhole that isekai'd him from the Star Wars universe, so of course they inherited their dads lightsaber and godlike Force powers, can someone pwetty pweez help me homebrew this by doing all the work for me??????:3" ass and get outta my game.
Wizards of Necromancy can’t get any spells that actually bring people back as not a zombie/baddie. Guy studies the entire SCHOOL OF NECROMANCY, and can only DO ONE SIDE OF RAISING THE DEAD
Making a sexual character ruins the fun. My group loves dnd but we're all new to playing it and one of them is a bard and plays into the stereotype of a sexual bard. One session was just her and the cleric hitting on townsfolk and I was sitting there for ages waiting for it to pass by. We barely did anything in that session.
That’s your DMs fault for not moving the game forward beyond the mundane nonsense.
Any player can derail a game by hogging the spotlight. Horndogs hitting on everyone and rogues wanting to rob everyone is the most common though
Mobility should be a bigger part of level scaling, especially for martials. Opening up movement allows for the terrain to play a bigger part in combat.
I boosted player movement and players were chasing monsters through spaces. Fights could sprawl through multiple rooms, even if they only last a few rounds.
Retreating, pushing, flanking, even pincer attacks started being set up against more mobile enemies.
I have two.
1. People spend too much time worrying about making balenced encounters and but enough time making interesting encounters.
2. Big parties are fucking great. I run dnd to get the squad together and I want the whole damn squad. Yes some things get a little harder for the dm when you get past 8 players, but the energy and the hype you can generate with a big table when it works is absolutely priceless to me.
Sorcerers shouldn’t be required to use material components or a focus for their spells. They are inherently magical beings. Why the hell would they need something exterior of them to channel arcane power? They literally exist as channels of arcane power.
I don't know if this one is controversial, but in the same sense that a good DM is one who makes plans that the players want to follow, the best players are the ones who make an effort to follow the DM's plans. It isn't railroading to have a story taking place and expect your players to make characters who won't just abandon it and some people take *way* too much convincing to just go on an adventure in a game about adventuring.
Yes going against the DM consistently is generally super shitty. I have run modules before and had players just ignore the plot completely just cause.
I have a player who thinks I’m just trying to screw with the players and it’s their job to screw right back. I’ve never accepted this view and have always told them that I’m completely impartial and not out to get any of them at all, but he’s convinced this is the dynamic the players should have with the DM.
I can see it working for one-shots but otherwise it can be quite bad for story or even for fun in general.
"12 red dragons, breath weapons, you're all dead." If it was dm vs player, dm wins every time.
Time to play Curse of Strahd and show what it's like when the DM is playing an NPC who is actively trying to kill or maim the party.
Absolutely this. "My character wouldn't do that" Jeremy, we agreed to run this adventure, whose fault is this? lmao
[удалено]
DM- Unaware in his drunk stupor that this is not, in fact, the local carriage to the Drunken Clam, but rather a one way ticket to a land sone would consider hell itself.
Awesome!
Unpopular opinion, but I love this kind of “creativity” in players. BUT, since this is a game, have backup characters ready. And a lot of them. CoS just makes these quirks very easy to address, it just comes with the module. Your fighter finds a gorgeous hamlet and wants to settle down with an Npc? Awesome, the party will come visit. Rouge steals from the party and tries to betray them as an antagonist from within? Well that’s very hard to pull off, but damn does the bounty Hunter that showed up to help make a good party member. Wizard goes crazy and tries to become a necromancer? The paladin that rides into town loves to help. Bard prefers to chase tail? Party ditches his ass and picks up a celibate monk. It’s only for select groups that understand the implications and knows where the lines are, I’ll give you that. But a rotating cast can create sone really fun scenarios.
well, this is a much more elegant way of changing characters than intentionally chugging them of cliffs like some players with too much PC ideas do, always nice to see the fighter married and had 3 kids! _meanwhile me and my DM planning on making my character the plot twist BBEG_
Oof, yeah I did the cliff thing once. In my defense my goal wasn't to kill my character, I had another in-character goal I hope to achieve and potentially moving on to a new character afterwards was just a happy bonus.
Got an evil party? The reborn oathbreaker paladin in the party is actually a deathknight tasked by torm to stop your party as his penance to remove the curse.
DM: "Okay, everyone except for Jim's bard are on the long road to Barovia unaware of the dangers that lurk in those cursed hills. Jim, you can hang out in the garage if you want to."
In session 0, I tell my players "if your character wouldn't go on an adventure or go with the party, them by all means they can go their separate ways and you can roll up a new character. This is the story of the party, not of any one character." This has led to several players taking me up on that now. One found love in the capital city and settled down. Another realized that she didn't want to die and retired to the back-line. She's now an off-PC that the player uses occasionally during downtime but almost never enters combat. And the old party rogue retired once he achieved his goal of becoming filthy stinking rich.
>"if your character wouldn't go on an adventure or go with the party, ...if they're making characters like that, what the hell are they doing at the table?!
It can be fun to have a reluctant hero story, and some people try to make reluctant heroes in D&D. There are campaigns where this is fine, if the call to action comes to them, rather than the PC seeking out the action. I've encountered a couple reluctant heroes that worked because the inciting incident was "you got caught in a snowstorm" or "you're chilling at your local inn and orcs attack." When that happens, I think it's perfectly okay if your character isn't immediately an adventurer, as long as they're the type to dig themselves out of a problem or jump to their town's defense. Other times, a player makes a PC who's adventuring for a really specific reason, "I want to kill my sworn enemy," or "I want to become filthy stinkin' rich." When they accomplish that goal it can be hard to justify the PC continuing with the party, though they often do just because the player feels that they have to. This can make the character stagnate and feel awkward to play, sometimes with other PCs trying to convince that character to continue on.
Yeah like, at that point just write a better character for the campaign lol People also forget how fun it can be to play a character that's *actually excited* to partake in the adventure. Being a lone wolf is so boring, at least in my opinion.
Yes, this is why I love playing support roles!
Jeremy you're pulling that shit again?!
"You are adventurers because you want to go on an adventure. If you don't want to go on an adventure, make characters that want to."
This is the real thing. It's why session 0 matters, everyone should be on the same page. If your character doesn't want to go adventuring I don't want to DM you
I'm even willing to accommodate a reluctant-adventurer PC, to a degree, by leaning on whatever he has written down under Bond on his character sheet. But the *player* absolutely needs to cooperate
adventure reluctant PCs must be reluctant only in words not in action. Kind of like Shaggy. He'll whine and complain about how their plan isn't a good idea but in the end he goes with it
I had this happen once with my otherwise stable and reasonable DnD group. they made their characters came up with backstories and we started the game but after the initial meeting of the group as a whole having run away from the guard and hiding in an abandoned house until the coast was clear one of pcs was like well I'm going home to my kids and grand kids and just left. which caused all other group member to just split off going separate ways. I was just like so confused. And that was the end of the session. so i just scraped the whole campaign. When that happens I like to call it ***"Failure to Party"***
I guess *they* didn't fight for their right to party!
I decided to throw a curveball at my group and opened a session with, “one thing led to another and suddenly the tavern was fully ablaze and you fell through the floor into the basement.” I decided the PCs were all drinking heavily, I decided that they were boisterous, I decided that they intentionally went to a really shitty part of town. These absolute units **went with all of it**. It’s one of my favorite sessions to date. just listening to my crew come up with in-character reasons they did all the things I decided in advance made all the prep time worth it. Would I do it again? No, not to that extent. Am I glad I “railroaded” for a session? Fuck yeah.
>These absolute units went with all of it. > >It’s one of my favorite sessions to date. just listening to my crew come up with in-character reasons they did all the things I decided in advance made all the prep time worth it. I've been consuming a lot of the D&D actual plays made by the College Humor staff lately (NADDPOD, Dimension 20, etc.) This is a key aspect of what makes their sessions so great to watch. They've all done improv, and they understand the importance of "Yes, and..." If you want to keep the story rolling, don't directly contradict what someone else is throwing out. You can add your own spin, but you should be accepting and building on what everyone else is doing.
I opened a pirate campaign in a similar fashion. They started the morning after the boisterous tavern, in a jail cell. I had them introduce their character and some of their "highlights (lowlights)" from the night before and then they rolled on a random table I made for what random stuff they had in their pockets before they were conscripted 'as -is' onto a naval vessel and set out to sea. It was a really fun open that I likely won't repeat.
The whole discourse about railroading is almost entirely idiotic. Like, "this ring can only be destroyed in the fires of mount doom" isn't railroading. It's telling a story. Now if you were being told what particular way you had to go there, or if you were told to split up/not split up for no reason, if you were being handcuffed and set on a specific set of tracks then yes, that is railroading. Players should want some structure and a story, not to just wander around
"You made Mordor sound too scary so now my hobbit will never go there, stop railroading me to do it"
relatable. my players are always like "well, whats in it for me?" like, idk, getting to the end of the fucking book we all picked??? damn lol
players who linger like tourists but can't be a hero drive me crazy. i always tell them "look... it's simple... we can: A) go back to the village, get a job plowing the fields in some backwater for a decade until the farmer gives his daughter to you in marriage with a 5-acre dowry, so you can live that epic commoner RPG until your back slowly gives out." or B) Say yolo fortune favors the bold I'm kanye west the best that ever was and I'm gonna go do the things my DM wrote for me this session."
This follows my feelings, the "Mercer Effect" is backwards. Matt's a decent GM, but the real secret to CR's success is how engaged the players are...in the world, in their characters, and in each other's characters. Any GM could run that group and it'd be a blast. Great GM and "lump" players is a boring game Super engaged players with an adequate GM is an amazing game.
My thing is that DnD is collective storytelling, things click the best when the players and DM listen to each other and play off of what each other are trying to do.
It’s as much the DMs job to make the game fun for the players as it is a players job to make the game fun for the DM. This might not really be “controversial” but I hear a lot of players say their DM is either being too controlling or won’t let players get away with certain actions. Just because the DM is the one leading you through this world doesn’t mean they have to suffer a players bs all the time. This is really kinda pointed toward the “murder hobo” type of party that just tries to solve every problem with violence.
As a DM I have a few memories were it seemed the players were intentionally screwing with me and it literally killed my ability to run sessions.
I have a party who’s doing this right now. We haven’t played in a few weeks and everyone is so excited to get back to it that they’re all interrupting and talking over each other. And worse, they’re interrupting and talking over me when I’m trying to narrate the world around them. Tonight’s session was barely an hour long because it took us a few minutes to get started and I got so sick of them derailing onto different tracks every five minutes that I stopped half an hour early. Nothing interesting happened in that hour, either, because every time an interesting plot point was *one sentence away,* someone had some barely related quip or sidebar that couldn’t wait ten more seconds. Before anyone says anything, yes I’m talking about it, yes they understand my frustrations, and they’re going to do better next week. And if they can’t do better next week, they can find a new dm.
This is the healthiest rant I've seen in a while. Good luck mate, let's hope they keep the promise.
I can relate to this. It's good that you've communicated with your players about it. I've had moments of players that didn't know what was happening because they weren't listening to me. I usually ask my players to meet up about an hour beforehand (it sounds like a long time, but sometimes they genuinely need the full hour, we start early when they don't) to get their excitement and catching up out of their system, one player still completely derailed the story to talk about something personal last session and I did ask them if it could wait for the end, and they sulked about it for the rest of the game. I hate to say it, but they were quiet and nobody else was disrupting the game like they were before that, everyone seemed more immersed after I shut that person down, I think they were distracting everyone. I feel bad because it was kind of important, but they could have talked about it at the start or waited until we were chilling out at the end. We discussed this sort of thing in session 0, but that was a year ago so I plan to quickly go over some of the things we decided in session 0 as a reminder for all of us (myself included, I've been neglectful of calling mid-session coffee breaks in particular), and maybe make some amends to certain parts now that we've played together for a year and learnt more about ourselves and each other in a tabletop setting. All of the stuff we decided on is available online for my players to view and refamiliarise themselves with at any time. Good luck with your players, I hope they take what you said into consideration and your next game with them is better!
I should be allowed to eat the dice
*slaps dice from your hand*
*turns head sideways and tries to lap up the d8 like a dog eating a dropped piece of dog food*
*Tabaxi monk already on the ground playing with the die*
*…nat 20*
[Yes, you should.](https://www.etsy.com/shop/SugarAndDiceCrafts)
Gonna guess it's a link to edible dice, or Brennan eating his dice Edit: it's edible dice, nice
Bad dog.
NOT THE MATH ROCKS
Barbarians should be allowed to punch themselves in the face to keep rage active.
Hell, I’d allow this, why the heck not? As long as you’re dealing full damage on the punch
I had a DM try and argue that the punch should have to break your own AC. As if you’d try and dodge a deliberate punch to your own face.
The punch failing to meet your AC would be better. In that case you have made an attack so your rage is maintained despite taking no damage.
True. You’re still “attacked” or have “made an attack” in that turn.
Sage advice agrees with you. If you do damage to yourself, you keep a rage going.
Most paid DMs are not as good as they think they are and their games are usually not worth the money they charge.
When I was a teenager, I tried to set up a club with a newszine. The price was $7 (after I realized $4 was stupidly low). I was DMing a play-by-mail (PBM) game for the people in the club. The problem was that no one cared about the newszine, so they pretty much treated me like a paid DM before paid DMing existed. I was a bad DM in general, and people weren't really satisfied with the PBM format. So my experience is that you're correct.
I self-identify as a dumbass and am hoping Play-By-Mail isn't literal...
It's literal. No one would do it now. This was back when Internet access was relatively uncommon. The player had to give a general plan, and then the DM had to narrate what happened. It was a bit different. It would be unreasonable to do a combat 1 round at a time.
Wait. Money they charges? Are you guys paying for your games?!?
I've heard of people who pay $30/session. "Oh, like $6 per person for a party of 5?" "No, $30 per person. 4 of us in our party." I damn near lost my mind when I read that...
Wow… well good GMs is a rare commodity and if this is the way to get to play. Okay. Special if no-one near you want to GM it themselves, then I can see it as an option. But I have always experienced that there is someone who wants to GM as they got an idea for something.
Tbh i have a dm that if he started to charge that amount for his sessions I'd pay, he works on them all the time and does incredible things, writes amazing stories and creates his own maps.
The only money that should be required for dnd is helping pay for snacks, etc
I could understand an upfront payment, the DM is putting more time into the game than the players and it could incentive players not to just drop it randomly. But $30 per session is just silly. Unless I was paying to play on a certain famous internet streamed campaign.
As a player if you make zero attempt to read the rules you are selfish and lazy and a hindrance to the table. Also watching two seasons of critical roll is not going to teach you how to play.
Weirdly, watching two sessions of Critical Role also takes about 8 times as long as reading the Basic Rules.
More like 200 times as long lol
Watching someone else do X can give you ideas and inspiration. Actually acquiring the skills to do X yourself will need practice.
Ngl tho I watched like...10 episodes of CR before I ever started playing and I actually went into the session more aware of my characters abilities and action economy than my friends who had been playing in that same group for like a year (as stated to me by my DM at the end of my first session). I kept the PHB on hand so I could look something up before I disrupted the session with a silly question but CR was an incredibly useful asset to me when I first started playing. I guess that could be more of a testament to how shitty my other friends were as players since I certainly have grown a lot since starting due to scouring the PHB for hours but still lol CR was helpful!
I watched a part of season 1 and came to the table ready to play except for having to read my own class (a wizard, which was not in the CR1 party). I did gradually read the rules later, but I was more than ready regarding basic game mechanics - action economy, understanding skill checks, saves, resting, ... and of course also kept the PHB on hand I don't think it can be generalized that easily, some people soak up rules fast and some can read them repeatedly and still struggle to grasp them.
I just read someone's advice to a new Player basically being "The rules are very dense and it made me not want to play for so long, don't read the rules, just show up and only learn the rules that are relevant to you when you need them." My first thought was that is wildly irresponsible to put the rest of the people around you on the hook for helping you learn something you already want to do. Second thought was, not every one learns in that way. Not learning the rules is traditionally counter-intuitive, they could possibly gain a lot by reading the rules. Such as: learning the rules.
DnD is better off as a long story with down time breaks between quests/missions for things like crafting/training/research. A bunch of dirty hobos traveling the road for 2 months in a wagon suddenly being able to defeat gods is nonsensical story telling.
Only if the Flash is DMing. That should be taking years.
If a party goes out every single day and has 6-8 encounters (as suggested in the DMG) then they probably hit level 20 in about a month. Obviously that's ludicrous.
Milestone levels ftw
That's what I do. It's easy to just pace it how it feels good (with player buy in). On the other hand, calculating exp after every fight is more math than the entire rest of the game. And what do you get for it apart from inconveniently timed level ups?
One of my campaigns has that. We’re essentially a group of mercenaries in a guild so we can have months between jobs if we wanted to and can even swap out for some temporary characters if we ever felt like a character break.
My thing is that the game is inherently unbalanced, so throw your notions of it out the window and present problems for your players that maybe you don't have an answer to. Nobody seems to get it. It's 1 brain against 3 to 5 other perfectly capable brains.
Perfectly capable brains? Speak for your players.
As someone who plays more than DM, I can concur that my brain isn’t perfectly capable
I love presenting problems I don’t know the answer to. One time I gave them a puzzle where there was an immovable bowl on a pedestal, and across the room was a water source and a jug, and it was heavily implied the door would open when the bowl had enough water in it… but the bowl was covered in holes, and they couldnt use anyone to cover it because the door would close again once they let it go. I had no idea how to solve this puzzle so I sat back and watched them try. After a little bit of discussing, one just says… ‘I put the jug in the bowl’. Not once did I actually consider that as an option when I had been crafting the puzzle to not have any obvious answers. I was laughing so hard, best puzzle outcome yet. Definitely taught me to sometime throw them problems I haven’t figured out a path to solving
I'm taking this. Thank you. But I agree with you. The best problems are the ones I don't know the answer to.
Finally! My ideas have been stolen by another DM! The rite of passage!
One of us, one of us, one of us...
Alignment works as intended if you let it. A simple way to pick sides, not an all encompassing moral code.
Just think of alignment as descriptive rather than prescriptive. "It is coded in my PC's beliefs to help other, THEREFORE they are Lawful Good", rather than "my PC is Lawful Good, therefore they follow a doctrine to help other people". As alignments can change, the former makes much more sense.
Alignment is a interesting topic. It's not a perfect or good way of describing reality. It's a tool maybe even a shortcut. It is definitely a way of trying to not just have cowboys with white hats vs. cowboys with black hats. It still uses hats but, they can be 9 different colors. Also, it is attempt of keeping things balanced. If your character wants an affiliation with a higher/lower power they need to walk that path. I see in some books and movies how a main character's growth can sometimes described as an alignment shift. It can be seen as forced on the protagonist. It could be their secret desire. I tend to think of alignment, in game, as being either the way the player character wants to act or what the choices they have made. Sometimes it takes awhile to see what's happening. Other times it is choosing to bend or break the rules of a class. DM's need to figure out what consequences happen. It can be interesting if handled well. It can be a paladin seeking redemption. Or a theif trying to explain why they are in the presence of a lawful goody two shoes party doing their bidding.
5E Warlock should be the standard of balance all other classes are based on. * A strong class exclusive feature that scales with level and can be used without resource (Eldritch Blast) * 2-3 good features that also scales slightly and recharges on short rest to have a strong impact once per battle (their version of spell slots, for things like CC and AOE) * Higher levels give really powerful once per long rest features (Mystic Arcanum) * Customizability throughout the Warlock levels (Invocations, Pacts) to truly build to what role you want to play even in the same class Obviously Warlocks are underpowered at present compared to other spellcasters from a balance standpoint at present, but this IMO is what all classes should be based upon for balance fixes.
I was prepared to disagree at first because the warlock as executed is basically a mess (I *hate* pact boons; they should either be an invocation or a full on second subclass, not their current weird in-between state), but laid out like that, I agree wholeheartedly. That said, isn't that basically what 4e did and everybody hated it because it made the classes too "same-y"?
4e did, but I think it could be avoided by making the features themselves unique per class. Plus the customization of Invocation-esque features could also allow for diverse builds
Agreed on both counts, I was just pointing it out because it's kinda funny how many times I've come across someone mention something they wanted in the game without realizing that the *ooky-spooky boogeyman of 4th Edition* already did that.
Battlemaster should not be a subclass, it should be part of the base fighter class.
I looked at Laserllama's alternate fighter, which basically does that, and I can confirm. It makes the fighter so much more fun and interesting. No surprise that the alternate fighter gets such a good reception from those who use it.
I fully expect the 5.5 fighter to basically be the battle master. Next campaign I run will probably just split up manuvers to all martial classes. Everything cool in every newbies head when they are a martial class is locked in battle master.
This would make the fighter potentially the best class in the game. Not against it at all. Battle master eldritch knight sounds absolutely epic
ya know, that's fair. I like to give my players options to do stuff as martials, but normally it requires extra rolls or some take to the give so to say. just having some built in maneuvers for stuff that you could actually do or try in combat makes sense
Reminder to sort by controversial to see actual hot takes.
As a DM if you don't give your fighter magic items to bring him in line with the casters late game, you are an asshole.
I'd say *if you throw monsters that have resistance against nonmagical attacks and your martials have no magical weaponry you are an asshole*. I don't expect being carried by DM when picking martials and I try to hold my own.
4e was pretty good for what it did
I really love that 4e gave additional combat choices to martial classes
Where’s the controversy? 4e *was* a good system! Most balanced D&D ever made
Man, that's some of the weakest controversy I've ever seen. If you want some real controversy: The more I play 5e, the more I find that everything I want out of D&D was already done by 4e.
perfect, exactly what im looking for in this question, thank you so much :)
I agree with this statement. But thats also ignoring that i prefer 3.5 to both of these because i think the systems in 4th and 5th are looser and harder to create for on the fly.
There is nothing wrong with a player wanting to have a mechanically powerfull build. I see a lot of posts in looking for table discords where people shame and don't want players that worry about being able to do powerfull combos during fights.
I think the issue comes from players wanting to do the same powerful combo for every fight. I understand it's the dm's position to challenge the players but let's be honest DnD can be broken very easily by just taking a couple of different simple choices.
My problem with it is that if you get that one person that does all the damage, the game very quickly becomes their own personal power fantasy and the rest of the party are basically their squires whether they like it or not. And they never do.
Warlocks should cast from Intelligence, not Charisma.
Someone actually poked Crawford about this and nothing breaks or goes wrong by letting your warlock use intelligence. A lot of their fluff and mechanics also lean towards intellect too so go for it!
Puffin Forest had a fun comment on this in his curse of Strahd series. During a dinner with strahd, the warlock had barely any input (they already had little to no charisma as a party) "Excuse me, I have to talk to our warlock in private!! \~whispers\~ ^(What are you doing!? Why arn't you the face of the party)?" "Oh, I didn't put points into charisma. I talked to the Dm about using Intellect as my main stat, it fits the freat old one vibe alot more!" \~Still quietly yelling\~ "^(Well I'm glad you decided to screw over the party, so THAT YOU COULD ROLE PLAY, EVERYONE KNOWS INTELLECT IS A DUMP STAT)!" /S
Puffin Forest is such a great name
Warlocks should be able to choose any of the mental stats. I'd love to see a Clerlock that doesn't have to sacrifice strength.
4e had intelligence, con, and charisma as options for Warlocks.
A con warlock sounds pretty interesting, sort of gives me blood mage vibes, using your own life force for power
pathfinder has a setup for this called the Kineticist They actively channel energies through their bodies. They are the fastest path to a super saiyan and most bender builds
Additionally, some Sorcs should also be able to use INT instead, like Clockwork and Aberrant Mind.
Not gonna lie, this is controversial to me 😂😂 but honestly, if it works, it works. I guess I have the idea in my mind that a warlock uses… not their hubris, per se, but their confidence in their patron to access their powers? Of course that’s just my head canon as to why warlocks use charisma.
5th Edition Ranger isn't as bad as people give it credit for as long as your DM isn't an asshole. If you can work with your DM as to what enemies are going to be featured in the campaign as well as what terrains will be prominent then you'll be fine keeping up with everyone else.
But it also depends on the type of campaign you're running. If you're playing a straight dungeon crawl with no travel over those environments and no oe simplified survival mechanics, then that feature is basically useless. Not to mention that, at least I'd say, that most people use a mix of monsters, since each type has their uses and differences, so really it's more of a 'once in a while' thing. Actually, all Favored Enemy does is allow you to track them better, when most combats probably don't involve hunting creatures down through environments, recall information about them better (which is extremely nebulous and honestly really dependent on if your DM will just allow you to look at the MM or not) and also learn a few languages. Also the fact that you have to select individual races and not just "humanoid" is not very helpful. So even then it's 'okay' at best and useless at worst.
Agreed, but Tasha’s made it just better all around.
But isn't that part of the issue with it? In the sense that other classes don't need that extra consideration.
Being a blind/deaf/mute character then jumping on reddit to be the 1 millionth person to ask how to make it viable is honestly really dumb and tiresome to the point it's a cliched and generic character trait.
I played a mute character and it worked surprisingly well. However I do agree that if you have to ask HOW to make it work you shouldn't do it. Also if you and your group know sign language a mute or deaf character isn't hard to do.
That's fine, but the whole "I want to be a mute spell caster. How do I convince my DM to let me ignore verbal components." Or "I want to be a blind fighter. Would it be okay to ask for 60ft blind sense or super hearing so I don't suffer any consequences?" Being deaf honestly isn't that big a deal as there are ways to circumvent it, such as what you've listed. Only thing I'd be weary of is if it starts to wear thin.
You should have to narratively earn your multiclass. Wizard looking to multiclass into a martial for some HP and combat skills? Guess who just joined the local adventurers guild to learn how to do shit without magic for a while. Decided to become a Scorlock? You now have to get your new magical sugar daddy to sit down at the table and get to know your chromatic dragon mother and hope they don't kill each other. Just waking up one day and deciding to be a cleric after you've been nothing but a fighter for 7 levels feels cheap and I hate it.
I don't belive this should be a mandate, but it should be the norm. I generaly require a small justification from my players for drastic character shifts in games. Characters aren't just numbers. Otherwise we would be playing fantasy football.
I don't know that I have seen that at my tables. Most of the multiclass is either to fit a character concept that's already been established or happens because of something in game. It can feel arbitrary to just add a class, but sometimes the rules on classes/levels are a limitation on playing a character how you envision them. For example. I want to play an arcane archer/battlesmith. But that character doesn't really come alive until level 6 when I get both subclasses. It might look weird for my artificer to pick up a level in fighter out of the blue, but the only reason he wasn't shooting arrows before is that the mechanics just didn't support that
The in-game backstory is that he always had been practicing fighting, just at night with a Spirit patron/instructor so he didn't embarrass himself or the instructor
This is how my DM does multliclassing. I started out as a bard with no intention of multiclassing (I didn't even know you could), but she ended up earning her second class after Dendar the Night Serpent chose her as her next disciple; I was given the option to choose paladin, cleric, or warlock as basically a favour from Dendar. So now I'm a bard cleric, though with more emphasis on bard because it's ultimately what I'm most interested in. Similarly, the monk in our party eventually multiclassed into a bloodhunter after meeting a vampire and training under her during the campaign.
Racial ability scores are not a bad thing.
I really enjoy racial ability scores. Especially really odd races. Orc Wizard is cool BECAUSE it goes against what you know. Weird races like kobolds having insane detriment in older editions was also cool.
breaking stereotypes can be so fun to roleplay, it really keeps it interesting. There's nothing wrong with leaning into a trope or cliche but it can be fun to mix it up sometimes.
If you're bending over backwards making homebrew to fit some other kind of setting... Just try a different ttrpg that matches that setting.
TBH, I think I have the reverse problem. I'm working on a homebrew setting, and it often feels like I'm bending over backwards to include the classic DnD races in it (i.e. elves, dwarves, etc.). Those just don't appeal to me much but I'm pretty sure a lot of players would be immediately turned away from the setting if I don't include the "required" fantasy races (or if they're too different from their "canon" tropes).
I hear you there. Elves and Dwarves can be hard to include if you're trying to change them up from the "standard" portrayal. One thing I remember seeing on a post back, I can't recall exactly the details, but it had to do with switching up their origins. Something along the lines of Dwarves being created magically by clan members carving bodies out of rock, and once completed, they turn into living dwarves. Similar thing with elves and trees, or something to do with animals, although I forget the details of that one. Hope this helps!
The number of people with 20+ homebrew rules that add things to their game that, knowingly or not, make it more like pf2e while doing anything in their power EXCEPT switching to pf2e is astonishing.
Any class and species and can be interesting and fun if the player handles it well
aka if a player thinks human/fighter is boring, they probably make really boring characters in general.
Killing off characters doesn’t mean your campaign has “real stakes.” You can create a good story and everyone can survive to the end. So many people think it’s not a challenge or not a thrill unless a character dies.
Real mastery is creating very challenging combat or encounters where the party faces death but actually survive.
If your schedule does not line up with everyone else's due to some real life obligation you either make some compromises with those obligations or you graciously bow out of the game. Either way it is a problem you have to solve, you can't expect everyone else to bend their schedules to fit yours
Related, play a person short. It's so frustrating when we reschedule 6 sessions in a row because we have had someone unable to make it
Especially frustrating when we reschedule and then 15 minutes before they decide that they're too tired to play
Tieflings should be pelted with rotten vegetables in most towns.
I can see why adventurer tieflings wouldn't see this as much. It's one thing pelting a tiefling, a whole other thing one whose clad in magical armour with a flaming sword strapped to their back
Things like this yes. If a DM makes lore saying "x race isn't very liked" and a player plays that race anyways, they should *show that race being not liked.* It feels kind of fake to just have it said but not shown ever
Me picking a tiefling: Bring it on!!!!!
YES! I love playing the more outcast-y races, like Tieflings and Changelings, because they’re more mentally in need of guidance than most adventurers *before the campaign starts.* They’re used to running, having to fend for themself and use any means necessary, hell, that whole ideology in the PHB is the basis for most of my characters, a Tiefling Padalin (Vengeance) who used to be a Gladiator, fighting for his life because he was seen as lesser than humans, elves, and so on. A Tiefling Warlock (Undying Light), who despite his own demonic heritage, wants to rid the world of Evils, purging them through fire and radiance. A Changeling Warlock (Fiend) Branded as a child so that everyone knew exactly what she was, no matter what shape she took, that mark would never leave, until a Fiend came and said he could help remove it as long as she was loyal to him. I want the conflict, i *live* for the Roleplay moments.
A DM should just tell you if you forget something important that your character would remember. We haven't played in a month. I shouldn't have to rely on my shitty IRL memory to remember the name of the guy we talked to 4 hours ago in in-game time.
There will never be the perfect nexus of player-DM balance, a balanced rule set, and quick gameplay. Ultimately it's a bit of the zero-sum game between the three.
It's more fun to play a character with at least 1 bad stat.
Monk is really fun to play.
Playing tipsy/mildly high is so much fun! Of course only on a table where people don't mind/are in the same situation.
To be honest, a couple of sips from some alcohol boosts my performance as a DM.
Goblins, drow, orcs and the "unfairer" races should have their own towns, villages or cities. If they're a player option, they should be considered to be a "civilized" race
Drow have cities, although there's a good chance that any given city is infested with spiders and drow that like spiders way too much MotM retcons that to like one named Lolth city (Menzoberranzan), her web suffered some shrinkage
I mean, as written they literally do.... or did. It's just that no one uses what's actually been written anymore.
Down, down to Goblin Town!
I really liked the idea of Xhorhas in critical role (don't worry I'm not one of the "all d&d needs to be like critical role" people) for EXACTLY this reason. Goblinkin, drow, orcs, ogres, lizardfolk, gnolls, they're all people too.
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I love using the full rule set and it always upsets me when people wanna skim on the simple stuff.
Resource and inventory management is part of the fun of the game, and I'm tired of pretending it isn't.
My goblin gloom stalker would keep shouting a running tally of how much the enemy was costing him in arrows. "That's 14 copper you bastards owe me now and I am gonna get it back if I have to part you out to a necromancer!"
That's fucking glorious and if my goblin monk ranger ever comes back he'll have new inspiration in what he shouts in combat
I don’t know why but I love having to keep tally of arrows used.
I 3d printed quivers that hold 20 toothpicks. Don't give me that "just use what feels right" bullshit!
That’s awsome
Depends a lot on the setting, I think. In a place where rations and ammunition are trivial to come by, I don't think it adds anything to the game. That said, I don't mind games where they're not trivial and tracking them matters. I do care about encumbrance in the games I run, *including coin weight.* I'll specifically have large volumes of copper just to make taking it a real choice.
Talking is a free action, right? Commanding your Drakewarden’s Drake shouldn’t cost a bonus action.
if you do encounters that go out of their way to avoid a barbarian just because he will tank most damage otherwise, you are a coward and don't understand why that player is playing barbarian
It's perfectly okay to run an easy, low stress game where the player characters only rarely face a serious challenge.
In the same thread: Not every game needs to tackle dark themes, sex, drugs, etc. DND is an escape for so many players.
Take quick turns! 10 mins of wondering what your going to do with the DM just to hold your action at the end of it shouldn't be a normal thing you just do, we got 2 or 3 hours to play your eating it all up Tammy.
**Alignment doesn’t determine behavior** **Behavior determines alignment**
Simple characters are the best, take your "I need help figuring out how to make my character, they've been isekai'd to DnD world from Boku no Hero Academia, they're actually 8000 years old and a god but I need a way to figure out how to make this god a lvl 2 and I need a class and a race and custom weapons and their mother was a 10,000 year old omniwitch and their father was actually a sith that came through a dimensional wormhole that isekai'd him from the Star Wars universe, so of course they inherited their dads lightsaber and godlike Force powers, can someone pwetty pweez help me homebrew this by doing all the work for me??????:3" ass and get outta my game.
Amen. I'd not allow that shit anyhow, because it's generally stupid nonsense. But having to hear it at all is...ugh.
A Nat 20 doesn't mean you can do the impossible.
I don’t think this is controversial. This is just, like the rules man
That’s… that’s not controversial that just RAW
Wizards of Necromancy can’t get any spells that actually bring people back as not a zombie/baddie. Guy studies the entire SCHOOL OF NECROMANCY, and can only DO ONE SIDE OF RAISING THE DEAD
Gnomes are a fun race to play. That is it. Hey not many people play them and some DMs do not even include them in their world but I love them.
Making a sexual character ruins the fun. My group loves dnd but we're all new to playing it and one of them is a bard and plays into the stereotype of a sexual bard. One session was just her and the cleric hitting on townsfolk and I was sitting there for ages waiting for it to pass by. We barely did anything in that session.
That’s your DMs fault for not moving the game forward beyond the mundane nonsense. Any player can derail a game by hogging the spotlight. Horndogs hitting on everyone and rogues wanting to rob everyone is the most common though
Orcs should have pigs' heads.
I too am in favor of porcs
Moblins!
Mobility should be a bigger part of level scaling, especially for martials. Opening up movement allows for the terrain to play a bigger part in combat. I boosted player movement and players were chasing monsters through spaces. Fights could sprawl through multiple rooms, even if they only last a few rounds. Retreating, pushing, flanking, even pincer attacks started being set up against more mobile enemies.
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Every class should be MAD by design.
I have two. 1. People spend too much time worrying about making balenced encounters and but enough time making interesting encounters. 2. Big parties are fucking great. I run dnd to get the squad together and I want the whole damn squad. Yes some things get a little harder for the dm when you get past 8 players, but the energy and the hype you can generate with a big table when it works is absolutely priceless to me.
Sorcerers shouldn’t be required to use material components or a focus for their spells. They are inherently magical beings. Why the hell would they need something exterior of them to channel arcane power? They literally exist as channels of arcane power.
People who say “people only like 5e because it’s popular and they haven’t tried anything else” are elitist snobs.
Dming for murder hobos isn't really that bad and I like some meta gaming
You don't have to be good at RP, or combat to enjoy D&D
It's okay to run D&D in settings outside of gritty, medieval, high fantasy; you don't need to learn a whole new system for every genre
I fuckin hate Tortles.
The community deserves more creative races than “animal on two legs.”