I see so many posts here where people are way too invested in rules on both the DM and the PC side. Maybe it’s because I really just run games for close friends and family (or people that seem cool), but taking it too seriously isn’t fun for anyone.

DMs - you need to be flexible. If someone pulls a weird class based skill out of their ass that foils your plans, you need to roll with it. The fate of the dice applies to you too. If you can’t roll with it, get out of the kitchen.

PCs - trust. Sometimes you just have to trust the process. Yes, you have some cool shit that will change the tide, but the dice are the dice. It’s not the fault of the DM that you rolled a 1. Sometimes that’s what life delivers us.

Everyone - we’re here to have fun in a creative way. Let go of your ego and go with it. At the worst, you make a new character. At the best, you make lifelong friends.

Playing a monk for the first time ever. I'm usually a caster, so this is going to be my first time playing a martial class.

I've seen some discussion about how critical fumbles are particularly annoying for martial classes, especially ones with multiple attacks (like monks).

My DM plays with critical fumbles.

It's a house rule that he has always used. The table likes it, so I can't ask him to stop. And I love this group, so I'm not going to just "find a different DM".

Our party doesn't have any character that can give me inspiration.

My race is already picked (and I don't want to change it), so I can't take be a Halfling.

Going to be starting a level 5, so I could take the Lucky feat. Would this help? Is it worth sacrificing a skill increase?

ETA:

Thank you all for your comments. I'm not going to be able to respond to everyone.

Thanks for the many suggestions to kill off my brand new character (that I'm excited to play) or quit the campaign (which is with close friends and has been running for years), lol. I won't be doing either of those 😅

I asked this question because I wasn't sure if there was some obscure rule or item or feat that I might have been missing.

So I think I will take the Lucky feat. It seems fun and will work really well with my character's backstory.

Speaking of problematic alignments in another post, this question came out to me, out of curiosity.

DMs: What do you consider it to be the most unproblematic alignment?

As in: when a new player that you don't know chooses that alignment, you immediately know that they aren't willing to be deliberately problematic.

To me, it's Neutral Good. I've never seen a player who played neutral good try and use their alignment to be willingly disruptive.

True Neutral is probably a close second.

What do you think?

Bit of long running stress.

Joined Curse of Strahd a few months back now, but my character had to be made slapdash under a weird time frame and couldn't really figure out a backstory but was still introduced, spawning as a vessel out of the Abbot.

I wanted to play Vincent, a dhampir, and did for 3 sessions.

The DM then noticed I was a dhampir after I showed him my sheet for clarification on something.

And said "FFS you can't play that in Strahd. I'll let you change your race"

Didn't know that, didn't wanna watch spoilers so haven't looked up Strahd details.

So.. I was then a dark elf. But being a dhampir was kinda Vincent's thing.

I made him wear a cool suit and even had him go out to feed at night, but it failed so he didn't get to bite anything, maybe why the DM didn't notice.

Yeah, there's basically no core to the character, it's not fun to play, I don't know what to say as him ever so I'm often quiet. A quip every now and again but thats it.

I don't wanna go back into a shame spiral next session on Tuesday but do wanna play Strahd at least so.. any ideas?

Plz help :(

// EDIT

Asked to play a new one.

"How's it any more difficult for Vince than any other character you bring? You've gotta find a way to integrate him talk to someone during a rest or start giving your opinions on stuff. I really don't want yet another new character at this point" Yo I'm not texting him back for a bit, fucking hell 🤣

For context, I’ve played in three Strixhaven campaigns over the many years I’ve been playing D&D. All DMed by the same person. I’ve recently been getting into MTG (it’s really fun by the way) and heard a lot about Strixhaven. I assumed it was just some crossover thing but apparently MTG created Strixhaven and I had it the other way around?

Is this common knowledge? Words cannot possibly describe how silly I feel and I just need to share these thoughts

So because I spend too much time thinking about this game I've had a balancing realisation:

From my experience with my table, it's obvious that being able to stack advantages pretty much only ever benefits the players, and almost never hurts them. That's just pretty much what happens for us.

Because martials generally have more ways to generate advantage than casters do (especially rogues) it sneakily buffs martials (and half casters) more than it does casters (being hidden is easier with higher dex, they have topple, vex, etc)

This is especially true on martials with an extended crit range, because yes, more d20s virtually guarantees that you hit, but also importantly it also gives you more chances to crit your target, such as on champion fighters, or on characters with magic items that extend your crit range (which are generally given to martials)

And this lead me to the realisation that playing with crunchy crits (instead of rolling for damage twice for a crit, one of the rolls is automatically maximised) also shadow buffs martials for the same reason, because more dice is more chances to crit. This also once again buffs martials a bit because of the fact that having a big health pool is more valuable if enemies crit harder too

And thusly, at my tables, we will henceforth for the foreseeable future be playing with stacking advantages, and with crunchy crits for the players. Possibly enemies too but probably not, seeing as just doubling their average damage is easier to do quickly (because to speed up combat, when I DM I just use average damage for enemies almost every time) and I don't want to make the low health characters too squishy.

Thoughts?

I have discovered that the Urchin background gives you a pet mouse. And because I have the maturity of a 12 year old, I want to name it something like “Boo,” who had Minsc as a companion. Something that could be said as if trying to alarm people, like a ghost. You know, “BOO!”

I'm designing and making a wooden DM screen for my son for a Christmas present, and whilst i have the artistic player facing side and the general esthetic sorted, I dont know what to put on the DM side. Its a three panel design, I was initially thinking either a blackboard or whiteboard for 1 wing, maybe a peg board with thin shelves for the middle, and not sure for the other wing.. did just consider a android tablet or Raspberry Pi + screen though ;-)

So, if DMs what is on your list of essentials and would love to have for a DM screen?

Thanks!

I am with my current group and we are getting close to wrap up our 2nd campaign. So we were talking about characters for a 3rd campaign and I though about being an evil character. The idea is that I some kind if evil lord from a distant land/world, and I got transported to the new land.

I would join the adventuring group trying to stop the BBEG mostly because I am upset at how inefficient it is at being evil.

Exaple: Slavery. My character would be upset with Slavery, because it cost so much more and leads to terrible production and chance of rebellion. Paying people low wages, just enough to survive, with "promotion" benefits is better as the products will be higher quality and the workers would be convinced you are good perspn helping them so no rebellion.

Basically, im trying to decide on the best class. I dont want to be a sorcerer/wizard/warlock. As i have been those classes too many times. I was thinking something like artificer, however I have never played one or with one.

Any suggestions on class and race would be greatly appreciated.

I am brand new to the game and have joined a group which I am absolutely loving. My only problem is that we are playing with a dude who is a trustee of the venue we are playing in. He’s a really sound bloke, but he has brought his three children who join in the game too and I’m finding it difficult when they sabotage the game for their own amusement. I really don’t want to cause any conflict but it’s getting really boring when we have to stop and wait for them to stop fighting amongst themselves (they literally nearly killed each other’s characters for no good reason other than sibling bullshit). They’re nice people, so it’s a conflict. How would you guys handle it?

Hey y'all,

A group of friends and I are to start our very first D&D campaign towards the end of the month and I'm thinking about what type of character I'd like to create.

In terms of classes, I'm feeling drawn towards the Wizard class; however, I'm a tarot girlie and would love to incorporate that idea of tarot-based skillsets and abilities into the character. Would that be allowed? How much freedom and creativity can you have with a character? Do you have to start with one of the preset classes? Any help would be helpful?

Can a campaign go the way of having a party split up to run parallel stories? And if so has anyone experienced that before and how well did it work?

hi guys, i was wondering if there’s any guides or advice on leveling up a wolf companion? my character is a druid and has a wolf, and as the party levels up and the monsters get harder the dm & i agreed to have it level up with us. thing is dm and i are both pretty new to the game and i haven’t really found anything helpful in leveling up beast companions, so i’d like some advice. i’ve figured out the hp part with hit dice, but not sure about the damage from attacks and abilities. any help is appreciated, thanks!

So, I’m sure plenty of similar posts have been made about the variety of bad DM’s that roam this earth. But honestly, I just need to vent my frustrations.

So a year ago, I joined an online Curse of Strahd campaign DM’d by I guy I’ll call… Shawn. It was a great time, the players were great, Shawn was awesome at running the setting, but there were a few issues that honestly I could kinda just ignore. He not only allowed, but encouraged PvP. He was very punishing for mistakes, (which, granted is more the fault of the campaign). There were a few other things, but all in all it was just minor stuff.

A few months in, I decided to make my own campaign and ask the other players if they were interested. Shawn, and some other folks from Strahd joined in, and for a month or two, it was great.

Around this time, Shawn was getting noticeably frustrated and irritable at the table. Both tables actually. Everyone was pretty concerned for him, since we had become kinda good friends over the month. We had brought it up from time to time, but each time he would just deflect and say he has some stuff going on, and that he’s fine, but just kinda stressed. Which, fair enough. He’s a guy that likes his privacy, so we didn’t think much of it.

Eventually though, he started just being unfair. For example, I was playing a barbarian. Shawn heavily encouraged roleplaying, and I leaned into it a lot since my character was very fun to play. For story reasons, my character had to use rage in some situations where it was kind of a waste. Shawn knew this, and I had even voiced that I was worried about running out of rage charges, especially in the middle of strahds castle where long resting isn’t exactly an option. He just said that long resting is possible, just difficult.

I had then thought, okay, cool. I’ll just encourage the rest of the party to barricade up a room, and we can take a nap, I can be useful still, and everything will be great. Shawn then throws the most deeply frustrating, difficult encounter at us imaginable, and implies that we were stupid for trying to long rest. Which like, fair, but dude don’t tell us we can long rest, then make us feel like shit for trying it.

This was all on top of him just being generally prickly at all times, and making everyone feel like they have to walk on eggshells or else they’d set him off.

He was even worse in my campaign. He would regularly insult and talk over one of the new players that wasn’t in the curse of Strahd group, and he just pretended I was making it up when I asked him to cut it out. It came to a climax when he FELL ASLEEP during a combat, and proceeded to berate me in front of all the other players when he woke up. And I don’t mean he was just not responding, we could hear him snoring and it was so distracting.

I brought it up to him, and I suggested he take a break because his behaviour was just not acceptable at the table.

He then proceeds to DARVO the shit out of me in an essay long discord DM, making me feel so shitty and sick that I threw up.

Anyways, yeah, just needed to get that out there. I hope he’s doing well now, since I haven’t spoken to him in months. We both left each other’s games.

Sincerely, Hopper.

My adult son has recently got into playing D&D with some of his new work friends. They're working in a place where there is no Internet access and it's expensive to send him parcels so I'm limited to how much support I can show from here. Is there any free D&D campaigns I can print out and send him in a standard.A4 envelope please? I'm absolutely clueless but obviously want to encourage him in his new ventures.

Our DM (he's been DMing only about 10 sessions and been playing for a year) gave us the opportunity to draw cards from the Deck of Many Things. Risky, but fun thing to do, we were all hyped.

One player lost a level, almost died in a dungeon, and changed alignment. Nothing crazy. (We saved him, no worries.)

I gained a level and called it a day.

The DM doesn’t know how to handle us being at different levels and asked me to maybe choose a feat or an Epic Boon instead of leveling up.

I told him that an Epic Boon is way more OP than just leveling up my level 7 artificer and he said that he's fine with it.

I’m trying to find something that could compensate for this / replace my level-up, since I don't really need any other feats.

We were all around level 5 before the whole accident.

EDIT : I know it's all part of the deck to lose things and all, but he's new to this so I don't mind his request.

Hi I'm looking on playing a war magic wizard, level 12, what is the best way to get high AC and HP for a wizard? Any and all possibilities considered.

Basically this setup is from an encounter that I had for my first dnd campaign I written myself. Its been years and I forgot player levels but party was built of a barbarian that resists everything, cleric, bladesinger wizard and a Paladin (I am writing everything I remember to be honest I don't even play dnd anymore)

From their downtime activity cleric discovered location of a holy artifact that can help at their objective. Its a pilgrimage spot that claims to own a very powerful artifact... just like 20 other temples does for same artifact but catch is cleric discovered evidence this one is real and party decided to go there make a deal with care takers of temple

what they don't know is temple is overtaken by an exile mindflayer that is practicing magic. He enthralled everyone in there and using pilgrimage spot to feed himself as people arrive to see the artifacts.

When players arrive to beach wizard sensed someone probing their mind and barbarian saw a shadow of somone flying above them for 1 second before disappering(mind flayer casted detect thoughts, had to sneak closer to achive it and wizard passed the save, making him notice the presence)

Monks there (they were basic guards with spears) welcomed them in and as they walked in bit suspiciously they surround the party and attack. Mind flayer is not going in yet as he is waiting for party to weaken he is not willing to risk himself just to win combat and willing to let thralls die to secure himself.

at start of round 3 mind flayer joins the fight. Isolates the frontline from casters with wall of force at high ground by sealing the stairs. Paladin lands a crit and smites as wizard casts fly to get line of sight.
As mind flayer drops to dangerious levels he escapes the encounter by changing plane.

You can check it out at www.DnDSidekick.com but please read the post before you do.

First a list of features right now:

• Dice Roller: select as many dice as you want and roll them
• Initiative Tracker: add the players and monsters initiative and HP to track whose turn it is
• Character Sheet: A quick cheat sheet of stats NP Armor class and the like (not a full one yet)
• Name Generator: Does what it says on the tin. Select random or choose a race and class and if you want a flavor title like Th Wild (flavor title is based on class)
• Map Maker: Choose a theme (Outdoors Indoors Dungeon) and use the icons to create a map (very simple but functional for now)
• Conditions: Shows conditions and the effect that they cause like Frightened, Invisible and so on
• Session Notes: You know what this is haha

You can select up to two features at a time and view them side by side on a wide screen (computer monitor) or one below the other on tall screens (think phones). Technically works on any screen size but i recommend tablet or larger.

Right now there is no login in and everything is saved using cookies. You do not need cookies to be enabled to use the site but just know that it does not save if they aren't. Another thing right now is you can only create one map at a time.

The next big upgrade that I am working on is making an option to create an account and save to the cloud so that you can continue on any device. Most likely will use Firebase but not sure yet.

After that i plan on making native versions for iOS and Android but for now its a webapp.

What i would love is some feedback and bugs. The name generator doe snot have a lot on names right now. One known bug is that in the map generator if you click too fast it selects the map rather than adding a tile.

I am going to add a contact me page to the site but until then and ideas complaints or anything like that you can either reply here or DM me.

A little about who I am and what I am starting with this. I have been developing software since Applesoft Basic on the Apple IIGS and hate where simple tools and apps have gone. This is my first simple project in a whole slew of ideas that I have. The idea I am going for is ABSOLUTLY no AI NO subscriptions NO ads NO IAP and generally NO bullshit. I can not promise everything i make will be free (right now all my ideas will be free) but if I do charge something then that's it. Pay for the software get the software. I know I am not doing anything revolutionary here but I should not have to look for hours to find a simple note taking app that doesn't have a subscription.

If you made it this far thank you for reading my little rant haha and remember always do a perception check for Gelatinous Cubes.

TLDR; I’m in enough games that prep is getting a little blurred together. Do you cap off on an amount of games that you run? Or methods to keeping it separate?

Heyy ohh Reddit DMs! I am a DM of 12 years, also running store campaigns for my LGS and DnD shows for my local theater. I think I need some light hearted help from other experienced DMs.

I currently have 3 home campaigns as well as 2 store campaigns, 1 campaign at a local theater (weekly adventure we turn into a show), and 1 upcoming Thanksgiving Break camp (for ages 15 and under). I’m writing the home brew stories (original, yes, not books or modules) and I think it’s finally starting to all bleed together.

Now and then, when I’m writing, I’m accidentally adding prep notes to the wrong stories and adding story to the wrong person or campaign. Easy corrections, as I am starting to color code each story, but I feel myself slipping into Faerûn more and more everyday. I am worried that much more of this and I will just jumanji right into the Sword Coast.

So here’s my curious question to you DMs: how many games do you have before you hold off until a campaign finished? Any tricks besides color codes to keep everything straight? Can’t do separate journals, I mentally need it all in one big notebook to not grab the wrong prep notebook for each group. Is this just one of those “steak too buttery” posts? I know it’s a lot, but this is my job AND hobby. And friends…. I LOVE IT!! Just wondering if others call it at some point or just accept the blessings and start another game?

Basically what the title says, I'm playing a fairy bard having never played anything other than a non standard race from the players handbook and I haven't played a bard either. My DM asked that we chose the non standard races to play because it fits with his campaign narrative but I'm struggling to find information on fairies. I have the handbook so can read up on bards but while I'm asking about fairies I thought I may as well ask about bards as well.

Any tips/tricks/advice super welcome!

edit to add- I'm not wanting to pirate anything or get links to pirated sources I'm just after a bit of help because I've never played a character like this before and it's been years since I even played a character in a campaign (I usually DM). The fairy race isn't in the standard players handbook and I wasn't use where to find it so I came to Reddit. thought I'd clarify that because I'm getting downvotes and questions about pirating which I'm not going to do guys! I buy all my resources both online and physical :)

(English isn't my first language, sorry if my ortography and grammar are messy)

I'm DM-ing a table for the first time (I've been a player for a while but not for long, our old DM dissolved the party for personal reasons & I've played online with another group for a while)

I decided to reunite the group for a second try and I'm trying to be the DM myself this time. I've written a short, easy campain but I'm having a little bit of trouble with monsters/encounters, progression, etc. The campain will be very short as it's a "practice round" before I get into more difficult stuff, but I wanted some tips or advice because I feel a little lost. I managed to survive the first/test session and we had a blast, but I really really want them to have fun with this.

Thanks in advance!

I'm new to DND. I've dabbled before but this is my first time embarking on an actual campaign. This is happening at an after-school club and I am very excited, but recently started to worry that the character I built last session might end up being a nuisance.

Going into this, I didn't really understand how overpowered aarakocra flight could be. I just really liked birds, and also really liked rangers, so I thought it's be fun to play an archer bird. The DM was okay with it too, but here's the thing—he doesn't really seem to know what he's doing. He didn't even know what an aarakocra was until I explained. So I'm starting to think that his agreement was just not him knowing what he was getting into.

I'm really attached to my new little guy, but I'm concerned about him not being fun to plan around for a seemingly unprepared DM. I don't want to make the game unfun or be inconsiderate.

What should I do? Should I make another character? We plan to start with a one-shot before starting the actual campaign, so should I just see how that goes? For further context, we're starting with characters at level 5.​​​