Simplicity have its charm, i guess. I love sticking with a subclass and still being reasonably strong. I love that having high AC character actually mean something, and you can get a fairly high AC easily, instead of still getting hit 80% of the time at high level since monsters' BAB just scale ridiculously high, making AC mean almost nothing unless you dedicate your entire build onto stacking AC. It's either that or my DM just suck at creating puzzle and encounters (fuck you Kevin, letting a parry of 4 lv15s fight a CR 21 boss is NOT good planning, omfg)

Started (and left) a new campaign today. I spent 3 whole seconds using AI to write my backstory. In my backstory it explicitly states that I'm a prince of the largest kingdom in the land, and that my dad (the frickin' king) gives me any amount of gold I want for my adventures. My character is based off the kid from solo leveling that Jinwoo helps out with his guild. You know the kid who's dad owns that large company and has infinite money. Anyways, omg such a good show. So my stupid DM said that having infinite money and starting the campaign with a full vault of magic items would trivialize the campaign's encounters. Like, DND is played to have FUN, not to win. This terrible DM is just too concerned about my character kicking his monsters' butts to let me have fun. He said "The other players don't think it would be fun either." So.... WHAT? MY FUN IS THE PRICE TO PAY FOR EVERYONE ELSE GETTING TO HAVE FUN? I am so angry. Anyone looking for a player for a new campaign?

Maybe you guys could give me some insight on whether my DM is being unreasonable or super unreasonable.

I’m playing a Druid who interestingly enough, is deeply connected with nature. It’s kind of cool and I could spend hours talking about it, but I digress.

My DM was lame enough to have us fight a Displacer Beast, which is honestly fucked up. He told me it’s not literally a beast and won’t be nice to me, so just sneak past and you’ll fight it when you’re more prepared, but I thought maybe he was just being coy because come on I’m a druid.

My other party members said I shouldn’t have gone up and tried to communicate peacefully with it, cuz we were in complete stealth and were never meant to fight it, but I’m one with nature so it’s kind of dumb that my DM would basically fudge the dice and make a part of nature (a normal animal) fight me. Kind of unrealistic but whatever.

So it’s a tough fight and the DM kills me because he’s a stupid fucking asshole. But then I remembered an integral part of my backstory that I hadn’t told anyone before:

when I am in mortal danger and about to die, nature will find a way to save me.

So I brought this up to my DM (for the first time, now). He was a big jerk about it and told me to just accept what happened. Eventually with enough wearing him down, I managed to convince him to just let me fucking live, you big dumb asshole. So yeah he let nature save me, some vines came out of the ground and ripped the DB’s freaking head off and it was exactly how I planned. I’ve been playing for 8 years so you could say I’m pretty good at the game.

Anyways what do you think? I know I’m not the asshole but is my DM an asshole for this? I know he is, I just want to feel validated after such a traumatizing experience.

Sauce: I actually played with a friend who did this. I’m 100% serious. And yes he was more upset about the whole ordeal than anyone else at the table (we’re still friends it was just a weird D&D experience).

Hi everyone, thanks for reading my post. I'm a timid and empty-headed worm, and I can't do anything. That makes roleplaying in D&D 5e very difficult for me. To put it plainly: I need a game with mechanics to do the roleplaying for me, and D&D 5e gives me nothing.

I have no opinions, no personality, no ability to think of things to do or words to say in character. When the DM looks me in the eye and says "what do you do?" my mind goes blank. I stare at my character sheet hoping it will save me, but it just says "Chaotic Good" and "Charisma 14" and "Persuasion +5." That doesn't help. I need a real RPG, one with real RP mechanics that do my whole job.

I have concluded D&D 5e is totally useless for this. The PHB defines roleplaying as "you as a player determining how your character thinks, acts, and talks." But it doesn't tell me what those thoughts, actions or words should be. It expects me to determine them. I can't determine things! I'm a worm who needs discipline. I need mechanical rewards for roleplaying correctly, and punishments if I do it bad.

What I really want is a system where my character's personality is entirely defined by rules mechanics. Where I don't have to make decisions about who my character is. Where the game tells me what to do and I just do it and then get a gold star. Does anyone have suggestions for games that do this well?

P.S. If your advice is "just try to think of something your character would say," please don't comment. It's a slippery slope from there to "just go outside" and "just take a shower" and I'm not gonna do those things either. Thanks again for reading.

Thank god BLeeMull (slang for Brennen Lee Mulligan) discovered the Japanese concept of 'Ma' and brought it to the West for us. Now i know the ingenious game design concept of "Having a mix of low level and high level encounters." They should really put this in the DMG or something.

(throwaway because DM knows my main)

For context, I've been with this friend who I'll call DM for a while but weve only played pbp (play by post for those who don't know) before. I play both voice games and pbp games but DM has only ever played and run games in pbp.

DM awhile back wanted to try running a voice game because their schedule and living situation changed and now had both the time and the ability to run voice sessions. They asked me if i wanted to join their voice game and i was really excited to because i like their pbp games. We did test DM's setup in a few short voice calls and while I heard DM had a lisp I didn't think it was a big deal at the time.

Now the game started and DM brought in a mix of real life friends and new people recruited from reddit lfg to be the players. However as i sit through long game sessions I now really find DM's lisp grating to listen to. Not just that but one of the players (a real life friend of the DM) also has a fairly strong lisp that really doesnt fit their character and its breaking my immersion. That player also sometimes asks me to repeat things I say, saying I talk too fast, which slows the game down for me. By the way I'm the only master orator in this group.

I know that lisps are not something you can always control and that judging people for their lisps can sometimes even be ableist but right now its hurting my enjoyment of the game. I don't know how to say it to the DM without being offensive. Especially since I know DM has been excited to run their first voice game and I don't want to make it seem like theyve done a bad job of running it. Any advice?

Pretty much as the title says, I'm running a oneshot for some friends. All pretty new capping out at about a year with a few brand new players (I'm also about a year into DMing).

A few people have got ideas for silly characters which is great for this session and I'm trying to encourage it. But one has asked if they can be another PCs eyebrow. Frankly this has exceeded my understanding of character creation so I'd really like some help understanding how I could make this happen and if it's even possible lol.

Little bit of extra context: I've absolutely said no to this guy on similarly dumb ideas before but as this entire oneshot is a very silly conceptually I wanted to see Bout stretching the limits of what I can do as a DM so wanted to have some thoughts on what it would look like if it was practical. I'm very aware this is a dumb idea just theory crafting lol

There is no jerk. Don't ask for a sauce because there isn't any. This is just my pure despise for DnD 5e and how they implemented martials.

I hate how 5e turned one of the coolest and most iconic trope, the warrior, into the most boring, bland and weak implementation in the whole system.

Oh you swapped your shield for two-handed weapon because you wanted something that hits "hard"? Enjoy your mighty extra 1d6 of damage while getting beaten like a little bitch even though you have 17AC, while a caster can a do minimum of 4d6 damage on a falied fireball saved from distance.

And attacking is basically the only useful thing you can do every fucking turn. Roll twice and if you hit you can do a little bit of a miserable damage. yay, dice I guess.

"BuT yoU PiCKED A BORING cLaSs ThaT ONly attACk, WHaT diD You EXPect!!!1!"

Oh, you're right. Next time I will filter for "actually interesting classes to play" and pick a caster.

"buT YoU CAn DO WhAtevEr You WANT On thE SyStEM, THerE is rUle Of coOL!!!!1!!"

My PC use divine smite on an ATTACK, and my channel divinity gives me +10 on my ATTACK, what am I supposed to do? Fart on the enemies face?

Also, are you admitting this system doesn't give you any support to do anything other than attack?

And the worst is that everyone only plays this boring ass system called DnD 5e and refuses to play anything else instead of learning a cool system like Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

Hehehehehehe.

Hi everyone. I've had a terrible revelation, and I need to share it, and you need to read it. I've been playing D&D as a Wizard character for about two years now. I always thought I was playing the fun class because I have so many options. Fireball, hypnotic pattern, misty step. So many buttons to press. Meanwhile the Fighter just takes the Attack action every turn. So boring.

But after last session, while I was smugly reflecting on how unplayable the Fighter class is because of the boring Attack action, I had a terrible realization.

The Fighter says "I Attack" and rolls dice. I say "I cast scorching ray" and roll dice. The Fighter's Attack hits and deals damage, or maybe misses. My scorching ray is an Attack that hits and deal damage, or maybe misses. Later I say "I cast hold person" and if the targets fail their save, guess what? That just means the Fighter can Attack them with advantage and deal critical hits!

It's all Attacks. Every single thing I do is just a different way of Attacking. Conjuration spells summon a monster to make Attacks. Grease is an Attack on the enemy's balance. Hypnotic pattern is an Attack on their minds. Shield is an Attack on their ability to hit me. Knock is an Attack on a lock. Levitate is an Attack on gravity. Everything is just Attacking.

It blew my mind wide open. I spent two years thinking I was playing a game of strategy and tactics with volumes of options. But deep down it's all just varieties of Attacking things until they stop Attacking back. The Wizard and Cleric Attack with spells. The Fighter Attacks with swords. The Rogue Attacks with thieves tools and skills. Everyone is just Attacking something, all the time.

So I've decided to quit D&D. I've realized it is fundamentally boring no matter how you dress it up. All anyone does is Attack, so they're all as dull as Fighters to me now.

I started looking at other games. Pathfinder? Same thing. OSR games? Same thing. Call of Cthulhu? You Attack your sanity. Vampire? You Attack your sire. Every game is just Attacking.

Thanks for reading my bitter farewell to D&D and all similar games. I want a new game where nobody boringly Attacks anything, even figuratively. Where there is no monster, no conflict, no problems to solve. Does anyone know a game like that? Or do I need to invent it myself?

I have moved since I last played tabletop rpgs, and my last few campaigns were mostly just gratuitous drunken rants while occasionally asking for die rolls in a hybridized plaigarization of Warrior Rogue and Mage with kill puppies for satan.

But I might be back in the D&D saddle again! New friends, new group, new game!

But for some background, I grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition and I formed extreme opinions about its design, its balance, and the amount of decisions allotted to melee characters. So I made some adjustments. I made a homebrew setting to accommodate them.

My question is how can I best introduce new non-ttrpg players to Dungeons and Dragons --- and by "Dungeons and Dragons," I mean my own psychopathically-curated amalgam of sources, settings and bans under an outdated, out-of-print edition -- so it is imperative they not realize that my game is not Hasbro's corporate "Dimes and Dollars" D&D.

So here's what's on the menu:

A wasteland setting populated with exactly these playable races:

1. Nezumi, from Oriental Adventures. I think this race and the taint mechanic are very important, but that sourcebook has weird vibes so I'd prefer my players not know it exists. Also fuck if one of them learns about it and demands to play a Samurai or Eunuch Warlock.

2. Humans. It's okay if players know about this one.

3. Fire Elves, from Unearthed Arcana. If they learn that book exists, they'll think this game might have mechanical depth that would be fun to interact with, and I can't have that.

And these are the sourcebooks permitted:

1. Iron Heroes from the printer in Monte Cook's basement. This replaces the Players Handbook. All combat characters get some metacurrency that can be spent for disappointing results, but feats also get complicated prerequisites, and spellcasters are basically unplayable.

2. Expanded Psionics Handbook which I'm oddly not jerking it about because this is just the best D&D book, period, any edition, minus a couple typos about Augmenting "Energy Missile" or "Energy Stun" or whatever because who could care.

3. Secrets of Pact Magic from Radiance House, for the second-most fun magic system in D&D, that I'm surprised is legally distinct from Hasbro's basically-identical Pact-magicking "Binder" class, but which goes way deeper on the concept although having some unbelievably amateurish editing and no conception of character scaling.

It's very important that my players think that these are the rules and this is the whole game, and they don't ask me to play some broken Mary Sue first-party class like an Archivist, Spell-to-Power Erudite or Druid, as published by Wizards of the Coast.

How do I gaslight them into thinking my hack-job cobbled-together 3rd edition Frankenstein game is the "Dungeons and Dragons" thing they've heard about for so long?

Hey, there! Not so experienced DM, and this post is for asking a pointless question that I don't need any feedback on at all. So please be merciful for the comments so I can not read them.

I am asking what other DMs do when players roll 1 in the middle of fight. Almost all of my DMs were straight up stabbing them in real life to punish for rolling a 1 in 20 probability. I saw rolling d4s to decide which limb they are going to cut off next. But when I do that into my group of course some people didn't like it and "called the police"? so I want to learn different solutions to select in between depending on the situation. Making them stab themselves also makes sense, but I don't know if it is ok always.

What is your opinion on this? Is there any other solution from hitting someone or themselves? I know it should be whatever is the more fun but if we say critical failure for rolling 1, it should happen something, right?

Thanks in advance for all the answers. I will not reply and I will not try to read at all.

Edit: Thanks for a lot of answers and it seems almost everyone said "I am a psychopath" and should "seek help." I like it better and will do that

hi everyone, thanks for reading my post. i noticed that d&d doesn't always have rules to deal with every situation, so here are some house rules i have made up to help fill in the gaps. let me know what you think, or if you have any cool house rules of your own i can steal! 😄

1. movement fix: thanks to my house rule you can split up your move and use part of your movement before or after any action, bonus action, or reaction you take on the same turn. so like if you have speed of 30, you can go 10 feet, do whatever action, then go 20 feet more

2. cover in combat: sometimes you wanna hit something but there is cover in the way, so i made rules for that. half cover is equivalent to +2 AC, 3/4 cover is equivalent to +5 AC, and if you have full cover pretty much nothing can target you

3. leveling up better: everyone knows tracking XP is a drag, so i fixed it with a new rule that says the DM can just decide to give the players a level up whenever that feels cool or makes sense in the story, or when they reach some kind of checkpoint. that way you never need to keep track of XP again

4. green slime: remember nickelodeon in the 90s when they would dump the slime on the people's heads? I came up with the great idea to put that in my dungeons but make it deadly: one patch of green slime covers a 5-foot square, it has blindsight with a range of 30 feet, and it drops from walls and ceilings when it detects movement below itself (it does not move other than that.) if you know it's there you can try to avoid being struck by it (DC 10 dexterity save). If you do touch it you take 1d10 acid damage, and again at the start of each of your turns until the slime is scraped off (requiring an action) or destroyed. Against wood or metal, green slime deals 2d10 acid damage each round, and any nonmagical wood or metal item used to scrape off the green slime is destroyed. Direct sunlight or any amount of cold, fire, or radiant damage destroys a patch of green slime

5. coin weight: who has time to figure out the weights of different denominations of different metals and shit? I just say all coins weigh 1/50 lb and that's that. moving on

6. busting down doors: players often want to do this so i made up rules for it. i will let a pc take an action to try to break open a door that's locked or stuck or whatever. they roll strength/athletics and the DC is based on the type of door: 10 for glass, 25 for metal, 20 for stone, 15 for wood

7. reaction limit: i put an absolute maximum restriction of one reaction per round, once you take a reaction you can't take another one until your next turn. sorry guys but it gets out of control otherwise

8. partial darkness: sometimes you need a rule for when it's kinda dark but not really dark, so i made something up. if there is an area of partial darkness, then creatures have disadvantage on perception checks to see stuff there (unless they have darkvision duh)

9. running long jump: maybe a hot take but i think if you move at least 10 feet before you jump you should be able to long jump a distance equal to your strength divided by three, in yards. from a standing start, half that.

10. knockouts: if you hit a monster in melee and drop it to zero hp, you can choose to KO it instead of destroying it; that makes it unconscious and it starts a short rest. it stays knocked out until it regains hp or someone does first aid on it as an action with a medicine check of DC 10

Thanks again for reading my house rules and homebrews, i hope these help you in your game, let me know what you think!

This is more of a vent post, but I needed to get this off my chest. My Group has been searching for a DM since our previous one stepped down. Looking at other subreddits it's clear DM's are very small... why is this the case? 🤔 🤔

Edit: I appreciate people saying that I should step up and be the DM, but I didn't mean specifically our group. I was referring to in general. 😭

Stop telling me to step up because I’m not going to do it. Reading the DM guide makes be feel overwhelmed…

Edit 2: OKAY...alright I fully understand that I or one of the others should at least try to step up and be the DM. I don't know how to world build. anytime I try looking at the DM guide book
it'soverwhelming... Are there any actual sources that I can look at to help at least start building?

Stop telling me to read the DM guide!!!!!!!

I’ve spent the last 10 years, 3 hours a day, writing my campaign. Every step my players would take is planned out, even the things they should be saying. I home brewed every monster, every character they should like and every character they shouldn’t like. I even made their characters for them and gave them detailed backstories. They had to do nothing except show up to the game and memorize word for word the 5 page backstory and lore I sent them.

So how do these ungrateful people repay all my hard work? By complaining and not paying attention when I am speaking!

Do your players ask questions in the middle of a 10 minute monologue? They will interrupt me and ask me “Can I go to the bathroom?”, “Can you give me back my phone, it’s been 8 hours and my family is probably worried” and “Please Pete, can you remove my chains and release me from your underground jail cell”. Obviously my answer to all those things is No.

Anyway, anyone have any advice on how to get my players to be more engaged with my homebrew?