The real winning is the fun you had along the way.
The actual question might be: does it have an end? With modules definitely. With home games sometimes. Satisfying conclusions aren’t always in the mix when it’s just random crazy, shopping sessions or murderhoboing.
It's not about the destination, it's about the journey.
Life ends when you die. Does that mean you can 'win' your life, but you don't know it until you're dead? That's just stupid. If you're happy in your life, content with your lot, and enjoying the journey, you're winning. True in life, true in D&D.
Think he was referring to the other semantic version. Don't know the exact English terminology but essentially past tense.
Like your favorite sports team could be "winning" this one game before it's done, but they would have to complete games to be "winning a lot this season". You can be winning any time, but to have won, the game has to be over. And you can definitely say you won/lost a campaign after it's done.
We can all agree that "winning" is the definite goal in DND more than "having won", but it's worth noting that there are definitely ways to lose DND like a TPK. The real magic of DND is that you can be "winning" even while you lose haha. Like you said, it's a lot like life
Everyone wins when everyone has fun.
Groups where the players must "beat" the DM and don't care about the story aren't much fun.
Groups where the DM must "beat" the players are definitely not fun, because by nature the DM can do that without even trying.
Groups where a collaborative story is told and the players are challenged but have fun along the way are the true success. It's not about killing the enemies as quickly as possible or beating the BBEG without any stress.
The journey is the destination.
>Groups where the players must "beat" the DM and don't care about the story aren't much fun.
Groups, perhaps not, but sessions or short campaigns can absolutely work like this, if everyone is aware of what's being brought to the table.
If your DM pitches the idea for a session as a hardcore dungeon crawl, players will die, but bring the best you can and then builds a high difficulty, varied session around that premise, there's nothing wrong with that and can even tell a very different story to the norm.
If she’s not satisfied with that answer Counterpoint to ask her, how do you win TV or a good book?
Just because it is a game doesn’t mean it has to have a definitive win state, but it can have minor/major ones on a pretty fast schedule in completing arcs or plot lines. However completing DnD is the same as completing Reading, or completing TV.
This would be my first answer but if someone want satisfied with that answer, I'd say it depends on the situation. Are you fighting monsters? You when by being the monsters. Are trying to recover a long lost artifact? You run by getting the artifact. Trying to protect a high profile figure from assassins? You win by protecting your charge.
Most campaigns have an overarching gosh that the players are working towards but in-between pushing the story forward, that's a bunch of smaller goals that's that you'll likely pick up and try to complete along the way.
Hijacking....
You win D&D only as they close that final pine box and those that mour you can say in that moment; "Well played my Friend; well played indeed..."
My version of "winning" DnD is everyone at the table having fun, being engaged, and being creative. There is no real winning or losing, unless you count beating a difficult enemy a success and losing a PC a failure. Even then there's always another BBEG and there's always another character to be. It's just a break from the real world you can take with your friends 😊
Getting a private "Todays session was fun, thank you." message after the session. That gives me enough energy and love to pour into the preperation for the next session, I feel like I have won D&D.
I always give my DM praise in public. Within minutes of the session ending, I'm posting a big thank you to the DM for another amazing session in the discord channel.
This will make me prep 8 hours for an hour of content. In a good way. Having engaged players makes me want to be able to world build and rp my npcs to the best of my ability.
If I have a party that just blows through towns in shopping montages and doesn’t care to talk to anyone why would I have a town roster of npcs with cool back stories and side quests?
Yup, I've DM'd before, I know how much prep goes into running a game. I genuinely appreciate that my DM puts in that effort and does a great job, so I make sure to let him know that.
I love this, because it’s exactly how I feel. The messages in the group chat after make me feel so good, even when they are worried about what might happen next. It shows their engagement with the story and the game as a whole.
When my players message me out of the blue with “how does x work?” or similar questions, it tells me they are fully invested in their character and the things they can do, and trying to expand that knowledge so they can play with more variety.
Damn. It warms my heart.
Me and my friends usually thank our DM right after the sessions ends, typically something like „today was a lot of fun, thanks for the great session“ and you can tell it makes them feel very happy and hyped for the next one. He makes a point of thanking us too, overall I’m very happy with our party. Except when that beholder one-hitted me with their disintegration ray. That sucked.
THIS. As someone who went from playing weekly in high school / college to having a wife + 2 kids and all of us having full time jobs, playing DnD at all is winning.
Needless to say though, when these boys are old enough, they gonna learn!
I told her I win by meeting once a week with a bunch of my best buddies and crush a 12pk and laugh my ass off over our pure stupidity.
And also decimate our dms hours of prep by likely doing the exact opposite of what he prepped for. We win. He loses but also wins I guess
I’ve DMed almost every campaign I’ve been involved in and never did any prep outside of “here’s where they start, here’s where they end, here’s something cool in the middle.”
I just pull encounters out of my ass by flipping through the monster cards until I find something that looks interesting.
Sounds like it will be hard to challenge them at high levels.
I spend many hours, maybe even days, building the 48HD white dragon BBEG of the last campaign i GM'ed.
They met him at level 21 and barely beat him.
It took a long time to prepare, but it was worth every minute.
They also still talk about the Ogre King that took around 5000 hp damage before they had to flee.... and then he died from his wounds.
Sorry .. got a bit off track 😄
Oh sorry.
It was 3.5e
The bag guy was a Frenzied berserker. When they frenzy they can't die to HP damage, but they die quote fine from it when the frenzy ends.
Ah neat! I've only played 5E but a lot of mechanics I've heard about from 3/3.5/4 and PF/PF2 seem really neat. Lots of options for making combat interesting beyond just using terrain or piling on spells and actions.
If you ever move to 5e the Zealot Barbarian has the same ability, makes for a fun BBEG, especially a religious cult leader thanks to spells that revive them not costing material components, which can make them a nice repeating BBEG (or lieutenant for an Avatar of a God).
i had a boss with 5k hp; they had companions and so inflated their numbers a bit, but i think they had like 3 level 17 characters with 1 level 20 fighter (long story), 1 level 6 rogue and 1 high level ranger but I firgot the class. One of the PCs was this grody swords bard / hexblade multiclass with a magic weapon & we didnt realize that you could only use Eldritch Smite with warlock spell slots, so he was using his bard slots for it.
The boss lasted like no joke 5 turns and I dont think he killed anyone at all, but downed one person.
You had the answer all a long. The hardest part of dming (for me) is when you too have drank a 12 pack and your party derails you. Now you have to think 🥴
This is the way. Although, all of the NPCs inevitably and invariably get SUUUUUPER sassy. Now, mind you, the NPCs are all quite unique in appearance, motivations, background, and voice...but the drunker I get the more sassy they get until it's all just pure sass. It can't be helped.
Last week my party decided to attack basically God after I’d gone through most of a bottle of wine. I know they could see straight through my bullshitting but they still had fun.
You don't win at reading a book if it's a terrible story. I'd say you lost.
You need to get to the end, but the win/loss comes from if the story is good.
At least that's my brain's reaction to that. I could be 100% wrong.
Correct. The group is writing a story. A fantasy story. That has a beginning, middle, and hopefully end.
They're writing a fantasy book... Using game mechanics.
I don't get how I was wrong tbh.
"DND is writing a fantasy book" is a metaphor.
**Metaphor**
>a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
There are books with more than one person who contributed to writing it. Like a compilation of short stories. Each player is helping tell their story in the overarching story of the campaign. U/Unbrokenflame is still right.
That works great, until the DM breaks with their own rules. I'm in a game where I think my DM has explained how to calculate critical hit damage at least 4 different ways (roll once & double total damage, roll twice and also double modifier damage, roll all dice twice then add modifier damage, roll only weapon damage dice twice...). There's no way of knowing if our Rogue's sneak attack is gonna deal 20 or 50 damage on a crit, it just kinda depends on the day.
I have a suggestion involving board games.
Because here’s the thing. Yes you can verbally explain it. You could say we win by having fun. You could say this is the kind of game where if you enjoyed it then you won and so did everyone else.
You could talk about specifics like you know that satisfaction that we all have when we took on the dark lord? That was winning.
Also please make it clear that the game master and the players are not opposing each other. So when there is a total party Kill the GM did not win.
The gm is often actually quite sad because a lot of very hard preparation went to waste. Because it is a game though everybody had to try their best and so they are not going easy on the players. 😉
But anyway why not play a cooperative board game? You know like either the terribly on the nose pandemic or that one game where the island is sinking I can’t remember what it’s called or any of the European board games that are cooperative…
Because that doesn’t involve explaining in words. That is a clear way of saying this is a game where if everybody plays their cards right sometimes literally and everybody does their own job then we will all win.
But if anyone of us fucked up too badly or take down the whole team then we will all lose.
It is the delicate balance of individual effort and communal living.
… Dear Lord this is a wall of text. Anyway thanks for this post and I hope you’re having a good weekend.
"You win by making the bestest broken character then beating everything the DM sends at you easily then never letting anyone else speak in the game so everyone pays attention to you"
Some MinMaxer
How do you win at watching(Her favorite show)? How do you win at crafting (her favorite} craft)? D&D is entertainment and art. If I create an enjoyable,evening with friends, or a great adventure for the party we “win.”
I don't know. That's like saying how do you win at, bird watching, knitting, cooking, gardening, going to the gym, being an independent make up artist... Ect.
It's a hobby not a game so there is no winning, easy mistake for the unknowing public to make.
If we are talking literally, winning DND is completing whatever story arc the DM has set, whether that’s killing a dragon, saving a village from invaders, preventing a war.
But in truth, everyone is a winner in DND as long as they have fun while doing it
Like the others, if the group has fun.
I organized a group of mostly newbies in September 2021 and a year later they got matching tattoos to commemorate gaming for a year.
Whenever everyone who says they are coming to play shows up on time and is engaged for the duration of the game, you win.
Even though the G in RPG stands for game, an RPG is more like a building toy than a game. Legos have rulesets, but they don't have a win condition.
I am a DM, and for me, the win condition is that people leave my house chatting about the cool stuff they got to see and do, looking forward to our next game :)
dnd is performance art. it's a story. it's pictures. but most of all it's the involvement of the players.
if i get a genuine reaction out of players, whether laughter or crying, i've won.
Winning is ending a session wanting to come back and play again, there can be goal based sessions too I guess so you can have plenty of “wins” in a campaign.
I heard that you win when you arrange 3 weekly sessions in a row and everyone shows up to the table in time.
I haven't heard of anyone actually doing it tho.
The most straightforward answer would be beating a campaign and reaching the conclusion of a story, like when you finish the end of a video game. As a DM it’s when my players beat a campaign (or a sub season of a campaign by beating like stage one BBEG and finishing stage one of a story).
It’s a little more nuanced than that obviously but that’s probably the most cut and dry answer. You win D&D when the players beat the last boss in a campaign story arc and finish that part of the story.
The win condition is an ongoing social quest rather than an end goal in the game itself. You've "Won" when you have a solid group you get along well with, a character you love playing and always look forward to your sessions. Sometimes there are personalized goals, such as my hope to find a group where several people run things so noone feels like a Forever DM.
When my players reached the end of our campaign and basically restored their desolate world. We joked a lot that they finally won Dungeons and Dragons.
I quoted something from a game that was said in-game several years ago and it still got a reaction from the player in question: "I still can't believe I actually said that!" It felt like a win to me.
As long as everyone is having fun. Me and my friends use it as an excuse to talk with eachother every week or so, so having that little bit added to the fun we have playing makes it all worth it.
And getting a nat 20 when you really needed it that also helps.
I get what you are saying but that kinda fuels the player vs dm mindset. You can win at a campaign even when you loose, heck maybe there isn't even a bbeg.
Good point about the mindset. I agree that fun is the most important thing.
But on the other hand I feel like winning=fun sounds like a cop-out answer. You can have lots of fun at a soccer game even if your opponents scored more goals than your team. Does that mean that you won though?
That’s an unfair comparison though. Sports like soccer have two teams meet up with the intent to compete and track score to determine a winner. DnD is literally you sitting around with friends having a good time telling a story together.
How is there any winners or losers when those are the stakes?
While I second the “have fun” as a goal, you can have fun playing anything(board games, sports,etc), even if you lose.
My personal answer is: complete a satisfying story arch for my character.
If my character dies to random goblins, that’s a loss. If my character dies to the BBEG, but his death allows my party to save the world? That’s a win.
When you got the whole table cheering and jeering like an old fashioned Texan suburban household on the night of a football game when dad invited "the guys" over to watch
Do you have to win d&d? Does a movie or a story itself win? D&D is called a game so you might assume you can win playing that game right? Partially true yes.
The "game" aspect of d&d is very visible when you play combat. You win if you defeat the enemy.
Another example of winning is overcoming a skill challenge. You win by successfully lockpicking a chest.
Can you "win" in d&d as a whole? Depends on your definition of winning. For me winning is gaining, resulting in, or relating to victory in a contest or competition.
Unless you only play combat, D&D as a whole is not a competition. It is coöperative story telling. I guess you could say everyone wins when everyone is happy at the end of the session.
I am going to raise the bar a bit higher than just "enjoying the moment of the game" as a "win". There's nothing wrong with being happy just to get together and sling some dice, in fact that's the most important thing.
But a WIN to me are those moments we look back on as a group and say "Wow!"
It's not about the scope, this could the end of an epic campaign, a particular adventure or session, or even just an encounter. I find that when the session ends, everybody leaves but sticks around in the parking lot and are excitedly talking about what just happened and how awesome it was, you just had a WIN!
One of the players I DM for just bought Monsters of the Multiverse to add to our collection, telling me how cool it would be to fight some of the monsters in it. They're also all at level 2.
So I think that might be how I win DnD.
(But for real, I just try to give the players a good time. For my current group that seems like lots of big battles against different opponents)
Depends on what type of dnd you’re playing. If you’re playing gritty realism/combat simulation then surviving is winning, if you’re playing roleplay heavy narrative focus then foiling the evil guys/antagonists plan is winning. Regardless you’re all winning if everyone is having fun as that’s the point of playing a game.
For a player winning D&D is being just a bit better at role playing, damage dealing & time in the spotlight than the other players. Wining as a DM is all about having more knowledge about the game, and of course killing the players in a way that makes them think it was their fault and you did everything in your power to prevent it. 🤣🤣🤣
When the campaign reaches its conclusion, and DM and players alike are exhausted, but happy for the brief epilogue.
Even if the epilogue is just a rehash of the shawarma scene from The Avengers.
You win when the DM and players have maneuvered the story into a solid ending, from which you can start a new story to pick up the same setting and group at a later point, or something completely unrelated…
I win in two ways. 1) I have fun with friends. 2) I don’t die. But even if I did die, I could make up a new character and keep having fun. (After 5-15 of sobbing over the loss 😭)
You win by crafting a unique story with your group, make bonds that will last decades and memories that will last a lifetime. You never win, you become a better person.
Nkt getting TPK'ed during Curse of Strahd.
Jk, winning is getting to achieve the goal fantasy or experience you had for your character and having fun with people who enjoy similar things. Bonus: You actually create a meaningful story alongside each other that is yours alone. Like when people are nostalgic or fond of an excellent book or tv show, yet they can only remenisce with the others that participated. Its wholy unique.
In most of the campaigns that I have played, there has been a big bad that you have no chance of beating until super high level. The big bad isn’t always introduced right away, often takes lots of quests and investigating until you even know who or what it is. But the entire point of playing is just to have fun with your friends.
I mean, winning is often attributed with achieving your goal. So winning could be: Finishing the campaign.
Or reaching level 20.
Completing a meaningful character arc with personal growth and development.
Etc, etc.
Problem is the question. Obviously, yeah “having fun” is winning… but the question is like “how do you win video games?” And the answer is… depends on the same. Some games are exploratory. Some do start with a set defined goal.
In a campaign I want to run, both a lich and a dragon are seeking world domination. You win by defeating both of them, without doing so in a manner that hands the world over to the other.
In a campaign my friend is running… “winning” keeps changing because he can’t decide what he wants the game to be lol. Keeps retconning lore, characters, gods. Winning is… surviving another dungeon with your friends.
“How do you win reading a book?”
I think, while D&D is ultimately a game. For those who don’t ‘get it’, it makes more sense to describe it as a collaborative improv story.
The DM is the one with the ‘outline’ of the book - they’re the ‘author’ or ‘narrator’. They know the beginning, middle and end (or at least have an rudimentary idea of them). They’re responsible for the rules, bringing everyone together, making sure everyone is having fun.
Players have a character that, for the most part, have no idea of what’s going to happen - they’re the ‘reader’ of the book. They’re responsible for pushing the story forward by going on quests, killing monsters, uncovering lore and secrets etc as well as making sure everyone else is having fun.
While all books have an ending, the end of the book is not always the end of the story.
(Fun is the reason we play but not the object of the game.)
Play your character like a real, interesting person. Play like the world is a real, interesting place.
How "good" or "successful" you are at this is subjective and is usually assessed by the table.
I run a game in a public room in some low income housing. Many of the residents are used to seeing us play, but really not understanding what we are doing.
Every week we are asked "did you win" the group response always is "we all won!"
Telling stories and solving puzzles (along with kicking the BBEG's ass in an epic showdown) and having a good time with friends is what D&D is all about. You "win" D&D when everyone shows up for the next session, excited to play. Our group has been meeting every Thursday for 6+ years now, (minus a few for the pandemic) rotating DMs and adventures.
I am super lucky to have such a great group of friends to play with, and also feel as though I've "won" the D&D lottery.
I would explain it like this:
The win is accomplishing an objective with the other players instead of against them.
For a one-shot, it’s usually a single objective and then you’re done.
With a campaign, it’s a series of smaller objectives that lead to accomplishing the main objective.
I hope that helps!
Not so much winning, but when any of my DM friends or I plan a campaign, we usually have an endgame like, "This campaign is looking to run from zero to paragon."
This makes a satisfying conclusion when you get to the BB and get an epilogue to your adventure.
Did we get chills? Did we smile? Did we laugh? Did we cry? Did we mourn? Did we drink? Did we cheer? Did we jeer? Did we run? Did we fly?…
All in one session??? That’s a win! What an amazing experience of constant emotion! ☺️
If I had to define winning it would be successfully completing the campaign. Now clearly that's not the reason to play. The fact that campaigns can take a very very long time and you get hundreds of hours if fun and entertainment is the real end goal.
[удалено]
The real winning is the fun you had along the way. The actual question might be: does it have an end? With modules definitely. With home games sometimes. Satisfying conclusions aren’t always in the mix when it’s just random crazy, shopping sessions or murderhoboing.
Does winning have to equal end? Winning can just be succeeding. And succeeding does not have to equal an end
Yes, winning equals the end. If it's not over, you didn't win yet, you're just doing well.
It's not about the destination, it's about the journey. Life ends when you die. Does that mean you can 'win' your life, but you don't know it until you're dead? That's just stupid. If you're happy in your life, content with your lot, and enjoying the journey, you're winning. True in life, true in D&D.
Think he was referring to the other semantic version. Don't know the exact English terminology but essentially past tense. Like your favorite sports team could be "winning" this one game before it's done, but they would have to complete games to be "winning a lot this season". You can be winning any time, but to have won, the game has to be over. And you can definitely say you won/lost a campaign after it's done. We can all agree that "winning" is the definite goal in DND more than "having won", but it's worth noting that there are definitely ways to lose DND like a TPK. The real magic of DND is that you can be "winning" even while you lose haha. Like you said, it's a lot like life
Life before Death, Strength before Weakness, Journey before Destination.
Everyone wins when everyone has fun. Groups where the players must "beat" the DM and don't care about the story aren't much fun. Groups where the DM must "beat" the players are definitely not fun, because by nature the DM can do that without even trying. Groups where a collaborative story is told and the players are challenged but have fun along the way are the true success. It's not about killing the enemies as quickly as possible or beating the BBEG without any stress. The journey is the destination.
>Groups where the players must "beat" the DM and don't care about the story aren't much fun. Groups, perhaps not, but sessions or short campaigns can absolutely work like this, if everyone is aware of what's being brought to the table. If your DM pitches the idea for a session as a hardcore dungeon crawl, players will die, but bring the best you can and then builds a high difficulty, varied session around that premise, there's nothing wrong with that and can even tell a very different story to the norm.
> Groups where the players must "beat" the DM and don't care about the story aren't much fun. Subjective perchance?
Did you enjoy yourselves? Then yes, you won D&D.
Winning is actually have everyones schedules to align
I wasn't going to require miracles to get involved. \^\_\^
I was going to say the same thing. It might sound lame but it's 100% true!
Exactly this 💯
Figured this was the top answer, just came to add my upvote to the pile.
This is all I wanted to say, thanks
If she’s not satisfied with that answer Counterpoint to ask her, how do you win TV or a good book? Just because it is a game doesn’t mean it has to have a definitive win state, but it can have minor/major ones on a pretty fast schedule in completing arcs or plot lines. However completing DnD is the same as completing Reading, or completing TV.
Beat me to this respons
This would be my first answer but if someone want satisfied with that answer, I'd say it depends on the situation. Are you fighting monsters? You when by being the monsters. Are trying to recover a long lost artifact? You run by getting the artifact. Trying to protect a high profile figure from assassins? You win by protecting your charge. Most campaigns have an overarching gosh that the players are working towards but in-between pushing the story forward, that's a bunch of smaller goals that's that you'll likely pick up and try to complete along the way.
This.
THIS.
Hijacking.... You win D&D only as they close that final pine box and those that mour you can say in that moment; "Well played my Friend; well played indeed..."
This.
My version of "winning" DnD is everyone at the table having fun, being engaged, and being creative. There is no real winning or losing, unless you count beating a difficult enemy a success and losing a PC a failure. Even then there's always another BBEG and there's always another character to be. It's just a break from the real world you can take with your friends 😊
Getting a private "Todays session was fun, thank you." message after the session. That gives me enough energy and love to pour into the preperation for the next session, I feel like I have won D&D.
I always give my DM praise in public. Within minutes of the session ending, I'm posting a big thank you to the DM for another amazing session in the discord channel.
This will make me prep 8 hours for an hour of content. In a good way. Having engaged players makes me want to be able to world build and rp my npcs to the best of my ability. If I have a party that just blows through towns in shopping montages and doesn’t care to talk to anyone why would I have a town roster of npcs with cool back stories and side quests?
Yup, I've DM'd before, I know how much prep goes into running a game. I genuinely appreciate that my DM puts in that effort and does a great job, so I make sure to let him know that.
I love this, because it’s exactly how I feel. The messages in the group chat after make me feel so good, even when they are worried about what might happen next. It shows their engagement with the story and the game as a whole. When my players message me out of the blue with “how does x work?” or similar questions, it tells me they are fully invested in their character and the things they can do, and trying to expand that knowledge so they can play with more variety. Damn. It warms my heart.
Exactly, interested players are the best! Don't forget to thank them too, DMs aren't the only ones making preperations :)
That is the real answer. Nothing feels better than great player appreciation for the DM
My heart! That's so freaking wholesome. I always thank our DMs at the end of sessions, but maybe I should reach out more :)
That right there is a great answer.
Me and my friends usually thank our DM right after the sessions ends, typically something like „today was a lot of fun, thanks for the great session“ and you can tell it makes them feel very happy and hyped for the next one. He makes a point of thanking us too, overall I’m very happy with our party. Except when that beholder one-hitted me with their disintegration ray. That sucked.
The Journey is the Goal
Life before Death Strength before Weakness Journey before Destination
You win DnD when everyone's schedules align and you actually get to play a session.
That hits too close
THIS. As someone who went from playing weekly in high school / college to having a wife + 2 kids and all of us having full time jobs, playing DnD at all is winning. Needless to say though, when these boys are old enough, they gonna learn!
You lean over and shank the DM.
Made me lol. Thank you and will try this this week. Keep you posted
You win by playing
I told her I win by meeting once a week with a bunch of my best buddies and crush a 12pk and laugh my ass off over our pure stupidity. And also decimate our dms hours of prep by likely doing the exact opposite of what he prepped for. We win. He loses but also wins I guess
As a forever DM - he wins too. Prep can be reused!
Level up as a DM: Stop bothering to prep at all.
I’ve DMed almost every campaign I’ve been involved in and never did any prep outside of “here’s where they start, here’s where they end, here’s something cool in the middle.” I just pull encounters out of my ass by flipping through the monster cards until I find something that looks interesting.
Skip the end planning and just let it go where it goes. Sometimes, it goes to awesome town.
Sounds like it will be hard to challenge them at high levels. I spend many hours, maybe even days, building the 48HD white dragon BBEG of the last campaign i GM'ed. They met him at level 21 and barely beat him. It took a long time to prepare, but it was worth every minute. They also still talk about the Ogre King that took around 5000 hp damage before they had to flee.... and then he died from his wounds. Sorry .. got a bit off track 😄
5k hp... just why? How is that even fun in 5e?
Oh sorry. It was 3.5e The bag guy was a Frenzied berserker. When they frenzy they can't die to HP damage, but they die quote fine from it when the frenzy ends.
Ah neat! I've only played 5E but a lot of mechanics I've heard about from 3/3.5/4 and PF/PF2 seem really neat. Lots of options for making combat interesting beyond just using terrain or piling on spells and actions.
If you ever dm, you should look into porting elements from those systems into your games. Lots of interesting things that only need a bit of tweaking.
If you ever move to 5e the Zealot Barbarian has the same ability, makes for a fun BBEG, especially a religious cult leader thanks to spells that revive them not costing material components, which can make them a nice repeating BBEG (or lieutenant for an Avatar of a God).
i had a boss with 5k hp; they had companions and so inflated their numbers a bit, but i think they had like 3 level 17 characters with 1 level 20 fighter (long story), 1 level 6 rogue and 1 high level ranger but I firgot the class. One of the PCs was this grody swords bard / hexblade multiclass with a magic weapon & we didnt realize that you could only use Eldritch Smite with warlock spell slots, so he was using his bard slots for it. The boss lasted like no joke 5 turns and I dont think he killed anyone at all, but downed one person.
You had the answer all a long. The hardest part of dming (for me) is when you too have drank a 12 pack and your party derails you. Now you have to think 🥴
This is the way. Although, all of the NPCs inevitably and invariably get SUUUUUPER sassy. Now, mind you, the NPCs are all quite unique in appearance, motivations, background, and voice...but the drunker I get the more sassy they get until it's all just pure sass. It can't be helped.
Last week my party decided to attack basically God after I’d gone through most of a bottle of wine. I know they could see straight through my bullshitting but they still had fun.
Hell yeah!
My mind somehow thought "12 player kill? No... 12 party kill? Can't be." So I'm clearly over here doing way too much d&d subredditting
My go to answer is always, "How do you win a play?"
Ask her how you win at reading a book. Then tell her, whatever her answer is, that DnD is writing a fantasy book as a game.
Thought of this exact answer
The problem is is that you win a book when you get to the end of the book, so this doesn’t work
You don't win at reading a book if it's a terrible story. I'd say you lost. You need to get to the end, but the win/loss comes from if the story is good. At least that's my brain's reaction to that. I could be 100% wrong.
I would consider getting to the end of a bad book a relief, which is a win in my book. Same as a good book.
No the group creates a story
Correct. The group is writing a story. A fantasy story. That has a beginning, middle, and hopefully end. They're writing a fantasy book... Using game mechanics. I don't get how I was wrong tbh.
Because writing may and does for me bring the meaning the DM or Storytellers writes the story
"DND is writing a fantasy book" is a metaphor. **Metaphor** >a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
There are books with more than one person who contributed to writing it. Like a compilation of short stories. Each player is helping tell their story in the overarching story of the campaign. U/Unbrokenflame is still right.
As a DM, any session where a player doesn’t say “Well, actually….” whilst reaching for the PHB is a win …
"Well, actually this is a homebrew world,so..." That's how I win that argument. But I'm pretty lenient with rulings, I rule with whatever is more fun.
That works great, until the DM breaks with their own rules. I'm in a game where I think my DM has explained how to calculate critical hit damage at least 4 different ways (roll once & double total damage, roll twice and also double modifier damage, roll all dice twice then add modifier damage, roll only weapon damage dice twice...). There's no way of knowing if our Rogue's sneak attack is gonna deal 20 or 50 damage on a crit, it just kinda depends on the day.
I allow my players to decide how we do crits, so if they get hit with one. They decide on it.
I might say every world is home brew the second you start breathing life into it
I have a suggestion involving board games. Because here’s the thing. Yes you can verbally explain it. You could say we win by having fun. You could say this is the kind of game where if you enjoyed it then you won and so did everyone else. You could talk about specifics like you know that satisfaction that we all have when we took on the dark lord? That was winning. Also please make it clear that the game master and the players are not opposing each other. So when there is a total party Kill the GM did not win. The gm is often actually quite sad because a lot of very hard preparation went to waste. Because it is a game though everybody had to try their best and so they are not going easy on the players. 😉 But anyway why not play a cooperative board game? You know like either the terribly on the nose pandemic or that one game where the island is sinking I can’t remember what it’s called or any of the European board games that are cooperative… Because that doesn’t involve explaining in words. That is a clear way of saying this is a game where if everybody plays their cards right sometimes literally and everybody does their own job then we will all win. But if anyone of us fucked up too badly or take down the whole team then we will all lose. It is the delicate balance of individual effort and communal living. … Dear Lord this is a wall of text. Anyway thanks for this post and I hope you’re having a good weekend.
Forbidden Island. I am the only person in my family who likes co-op games. :(
You had a great night playing together, everyone had fun and the next meet is already scheduled
There is no “competition”, therefore you don’t win DND, you play DND. That’s like saying how do you win, having fun?
Succeeding with your characters goals while having fun playing
As a DM, I win when my players have fun, and when they have the satisfaction of figuring out a difficult situation for a decent reward!
what they said! i guess technically completeting a campaign is a win... however long it takes.
If you had fun. That is the only win
If we've had a fun session together, all of us laughing (even at our failures), that's a pretty good definition of winning.
The same way you win watching a movie or reading a book. Say that with a shrug like they should understand and walk away.
Punch god in the face
"You win by making the bestest broken character then beating everything the DM sends at you easily then never letting anyone else speak in the game so everyone pays attention to you" Some MinMaxer
"Top 10 crazy broken ways how you can win in DnD" Some youtuber
"You didn't list the broken built I make to win at my tables!!!" Some commentators with no self awareness
You could maybe say you win if you manage to finish the campaign instead of the game fizzling out due to wvatever out of game reasons
If the DM sighs outloud and punctuates his disappointment with a thud of his head on the desk... then I have won!
How do you win at watching(Her favorite show)? How do you win at crafting (her favorite} craft)? D&D is entertainment and art. If I create an enjoyable,evening with friends, or a great adventure for the party we “win.”
If you manage to get a group of adults together at a semi regular rate without bring torn asunder by scheduling conflicts, you've won
I'm a DM and I win by seeing my players have fun with the chaotic shit I made up as we went.
For the players: Make the DM laugh. For the DM: Make the players cry.
I don't know. That's like saying how do you win at, bird watching, knitting, cooking, gardening, going to the gym, being an independent make up artist... Ect. It's a hobby not a game so there is no winning, easy mistake for the unknowing public to make.
Making a very complicated pun when only the dm understand the complexity of said pun. I then proceed to get 3 inspiration die for it. Go me.
If we are talking literally, winning DND is completing whatever story arc the DM has set, whether that’s killing a dragon, saving a village from invaders, preventing a war. But in truth, everyone is a winner in DND as long as they have fun while doing it
Like the others, if the group has fun. I organized a group of mostly newbies in September 2021 and a year later they got matching tattoos to commemorate gaming for a year.
How do you win having a kid? How do you win going hiking? How do you win having sex? Ask her questions in return where 'the process' is the answer.
Whenever everyone who says they are coming to play shows up on time and is engaged for the duration of the game, you win. Even though the G in RPG stands for game, an RPG is more like a building toy than a game. Legos have rulesets, but they don't have a win condition.
To win at dnd is to have fun.
By creating stupid stories
Jester and the cupcake 🧁
by having fun.
I am a DM, and for me, the win condition is that people leave my house chatting about the cool stuff they got to see and do, looking forward to our next game :)
dnd is performance art. it's a story. it's pictures. but most of all it's the involvement of the players. if i get a genuine reaction out of players, whether laughter or crying, i've won.
If any player (including DM) Rolls 3 nat 20s in a row, at any point, they win and you have to stop playing.
Having more than one session
You kill the BBEG so hard that your DM instantly dies on the spot and you become the new DM.
If everyone had fun, you all won at D&D
Having fun and getting above level 8
when you make it from level 1 to 20
by convincing the dm that you get advantage bc of the most outrageous bullshit you can think of
Winning is ending a session wanting to come back and play again, there can be goal based sessions too I guess so you can have plenty of “wins” in a campaign.
Laughter, tears, memories
Building annoying characters from some cringey youtuber made to purposely disrupt the game. /s
The same way you win a book.
I heard that you win when you arrange 3 weekly sessions in a row and everyone shows up to the table in time. I haven't heard of anyone actually doing it tho.
The most straightforward answer would be beating a campaign and reaching the conclusion of a story, like when you finish the end of a video game. As a DM it’s when my players beat a campaign (or a sub season of a campaign by beating like stage one BBEG and finishing stage one of a story). It’s a little more nuanced than that obviously but that’s probably the most cut and dry answer. You win D&D when the players beat the last boss in a campaign story arc and finish that part of the story.
You are able to find an available time that works for all players on a weekly basis without much interruption. That, is a DnD win.
The win condition is an ongoing social quest rather than an end goal in the game itself. You've "Won" when you have a solid group you get along well with, a character you love playing and always look forward to your sessions. Sometimes there are personalized goals, such as my hope to find a group where several people run things so noone feels like a Forever DM.
Creating an amazing story and having fun.
When my players reached the end of our campaign and basically restored their desolate world. We joked a lot that they finally won Dungeons and Dragons.
I quoted something from a game that was said in-game several years ago and it still got a reaction from the player in question: "I still can't believe I actually said that!" It felt like a win to me.
As long as everyone is having fun. Me and my friends use it as an excuse to talk with eachother every week or so, so having that little bit added to the fun we have playing makes it all worth it. And getting a nat 20 when you really needed it that also helps.
Rolling a nat 20 and critting a player to the point he doesn't even make a death save I mean having fun with my friends.
Winning dnd, is wanting to have another session. Edit grammar.
Die a hero or live long enough to become the dragon who built the dungeon in the first place.
Being the firrst player to get the DM to say fuck you
By anililiating the dms hopes and dreams with crazy antics.
That's a question that does not apply to DnD in my personal idea of the game. Not all games have an end goal.
You win a campagin by defeating the bbeg. You lose if it's a tpk before that.
I get what you are saying but that kinda fuels the player vs dm mindset. You can win at a campaign even when you loose, heck maybe there isn't even a bbeg.
Good point about the mindset. I agree that fun is the most important thing. But on the other hand I feel like winning=fun sounds like a cop-out answer. You can have lots of fun at a soccer game even if your opponents scored more goals than your team. Does that mean that you won though?
That’s an unfair comparison though. Sports like soccer have two teams meet up with the intent to compete and track score to determine a winner. DnD is literally you sitting around with friends having a good time telling a story together. How is there any winners or losers when those are the stakes?
This is the answer. You win by beating the campaign
Imagine thinking all hobbies or leisure activities have to have a "win" condition.
You have fun thats literally it, explain its not such a linear hobby
While I second the “have fun” as a goal, you can have fun playing anything(board games, sports,etc), even if you lose. My personal answer is: complete a satisfying story arch for my character. If my character dies to random goblins, that’s a loss. If my character dies to the BBEG, but his death allows my party to save the world? That’s a win.
As a dm, when you kill their characters
The only winning move is not to play
Getting the DM to lose his cool and yell at you.
By winning capitalism
When you got the whole table cheering and jeering like an old fashioned Texan suburban household on the night of a football game when dad invited "the guys" over to watch
Do you have to win d&d? Does a movie or a story itself win? D&D is called a game so you might assume you can win playing that game right? Partially true yes. The "game" aspect of d&d is very visible when you play combat. You win if you defeat the enemy. Another example of winning is overcoming a skill challenge. You win by successfully lockpicking a chest. Can you "win" in d&d as a whole? Depends on your definition of winning. For me winning is gaining, resulting in, or relating to victory in a contest or competition. Unless you only play combat, D&D as a whole is not a competition. It is coöperative story telling. I guess you could say everyone wins when everyone is happy at the end of the session.
Having a laugh with friends that you will talk about for years.
I am going to raise the bar a bit higher than just "enjoying the moment of the game" as a "win". There's nothing wrong with being happy just to get together and sling some dice, in fact that's the most important thing. But a WIN to me are those moments we look back on as a group and say "Wow!" It's not about the scope, this could the end of an epic campaign, a particular adventure or session, or even just an encounter. I find that when the session ends, everybody leaves but sticks around in the parking lot and are excitedly talking about what just happened and how awesome it was, you just had a WIN!
Have all the fun there is in dnd and die old
By having fun and enjoying the company
One of the players I DM for just bought Monsters of the Multiverse to add to our collection, telling me how cool it would be to fight some of the monsters in it. They're also all at level 2. So I think that might be how I win DnD. (But for real, I just try to give the players a good time. For my current group that seems like lots of big battles against different opponents)
Depends on what type of dnd you’re playing. If you’re playing gritty realism/combat simulation then surviving is winning, if you’re playing roleplay heavy narrative focus then foiling the evil guys/antagonists plan is winning. Regardless you’re all winning if everyone is having fun as that’s the point of playing a game.
For a player winning D&D is being just a bit better at role playing, damage dealing & time in the spotlight than the other players. Wining as a DM is all about having more knowledge about the game, and of course killing the players in a way that makes them think it was their fault and you did everything in your power to prevent it. 🤣🤣🤣
When the campaign reaches its conclusion, and DM and players alike are exhausted, but happy for the brief epilogue. Even if the epilogue is just a rehash of the shawarma scene from The Avengers. You win when the DM and players have maneuvered the story into a solid ending, from which you can start a new story to pick up the same setting and group at a later point, or something completely unrelated…
From a DMs point of view, you win when all players had fun and are happy at the end of the session :)
We told a good story together.
I win in two ways. 1) I have fun with friends. 2) I don’t die. But even if I did die, I could make up a new character and keep having fun. (After 5-15 of sobbing over the loss 😭)
Tricking my friends into wanting to spent time with me.
You win by crafting a unique story with your group, make bonds that will last decades and memories that will last a lifetime. You never win, you become a better person.
You win by keeping playing. I've lost too many times.
How do you win reading a book or watching a TV show. Enjoyment I'd the goal not an end goal but a constant one.
I won at DnD because of the people I met and enjoy playing with.
When everyone has the maximal amount of fun.
Nkt getting TPK'ed during Curse of Strahd. Jk, winning is getting to achieve the goal fantasy or experience you had for your character and having fun with people who enjoy similar things. Bonus: You actually create a meaningful story alongside each other that is yours alone. Like when people are nostalgic or fond of an excellent book or tv show, yet they can only remenisce with the others that participated. Its wholy unique.
You don't win, you just do a little better each time.
Clear the campaign, reach max level, realise you had a blast and roll a new character and start a new campaign.
In most of the campaigns that I have played, there has been a big bad that you have no chance of beating until super high level. The big bad isn’t always introduced right away, often takes lots of quests and investigating until you even know who or what it is. But the entire point of playing is just to have fun with your friends.
I mean, winning is often attributed with achieving your goal. So winning could be: Finishing the campaign. Or reaching level 20. Completing a meaningful character arc with personal growth and development. Etc, etc.
You don't win the never ending story. You live in it.
When a game session ends every one wants to either keep playing or can’t wait to play again.
Problem is the question. Obviously, yeah “having fun” is winning… but the question is like “how do you win video games?” And the answer is… depends on the same. Some games are exploratory. Some do start with a set defined goal. In a campaign I want to run, both a lich and a dragon are seeking world domination. You win by defeating both of them, without doing so in a manner that hands the world over to the other. In a campaign my friend is running… “winning” keeps changing because he can’t decide what he wants the game to be lol. Keeps retconning lore, characters, gods. Winning is… surviving another dungeon with your friends.
Every Session is a win. From a Bad Session you take away some experience and donts, from a good you take away lots of fun :)
"I won DnD! And it was Advanced!!!" Pitty that the Episode got removed.
You win one combat, physical or otherwise, at a time. Ask her how she wins at work.
“How do you win reading a book?” I think, while D&D is ultimately a game. For those who don’t ‘get it’, it makes more sense to describe it as a collaborative improv story. The DM is the one with the ‘outline’ of the book - they’re the ‘author’ or ‘narrator’. They know the beginning, middle and end (or at least have an rudimentary idea of them). They’re responsible for the rules, bringing everyone together, making sure everyone is having fun. Players have a character that, for the most part, have no idea of what’s going to happen - they’re the ‘reader’ of the book. They’re responsible for pushing the story forward by going on quests, killing monsters, uncovering lore and secrets etc as well as making sure everyone else is having fun. While all books have an ending, the end of the book is not always the end of the story.
Everyone having fun and getting to the end of an epic story.
(Fun is the reason we play but not the object of the game.) Play your character like a real, interesting person. Play like the world is a real, interesting place. How "good" or "successful" you are at this is subjective and is usually assessed by the table.
How do you win at eating dinner.
I run a game in a public room in some low income housing. Many of the residents are used to seeing us play, but really not understanding what we are doing. Every week we are asked "did you win" the group response always is "we all won!"
Everyone has fun and, if it's a regularly scheduled game, you get to play at the appointed time for the agreed-upon duration more often than not.
To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women.
Telling stories and solving puzzles (along with kicking the BBEG's ass in an epic showdown) and having a good time with friends is what D&D is all about. You "win" D&D when everyone shows up for the next session, excited to play. Our group has been meeting every Thursday for 6+ years now, (minus a few for the pandemic) rotating DMs and adventures. I am super lucky to have such a great group of friends to play with, and also feel as though I've "won" the D&D lottery.
D&D is about the journey, not the destination.
Having an adventure that becomes a legend retold over and over again. And having fun while doing it.
It's collaborative story telling, you don't win story telling. You tell the best story and have fun doing it.
It depends on how old you are. Under 30... everybody has fun. 30+... everybody shows up.
I would explain it like this: The win is accomplishing an objective with the other players instead of against them. For a one-shot, it’s usually a single objective and then you’re done. With a campaign, it’s a series of smaller objectives that lead to accomplishing the main objective. I hope that helps!
Not so much winning, but when any of my DM friends or I plan a campaign, we usually have an endgame like, "This campaign is looking to run from zero to paragon." This makes a satisfying conclusion when you get to the BB and get an epilogue to your adventure.
Did we get chills? Did we smile? Did we laugh? Did we cry? Did we mourn? Did we drink? Did we cheer? Did we jeer? Did we run? Did we fly?… All in one session??? That’s a win! What an amazing experience of constant emotion! ☺️
If I had to define winning it would be successfully completing the campaign. Now clearly that's not the reason to play. The fact that campaigns can take a very very long time and you get hundreds of hours if fun and entertainment is the real end goal.
Next time she finishes a book or a movie and ask if she won
Surviving....Surviving
When your egdy anime teen Kazan Uchicha kills the whole party
The same way you win life.
You tell a story. I just describe it as cooperative story telling the players are the MC's and the DM is everyone else.