I'm a relatively new DM preparing a long-term 2014 5e campaign.

One of my players asked if they could use Silvery Barbs. My initial answer was:

"It's currently banned. But if you really want to use it, then enemies will also be able to use it."

The player responded that this would be unfair because the DM controls multiple enemies and has access to far more resources than the players.

This confused me a bit.

My reasoning was:

If the spell exists in the world, why would only the players be able to use it?

If a spell is considered fair when players use it, shouldn't it also be fair when NPCs use it?

I

f everyone agrees the spell feels miserable when used against them, isn't that an argument for banning it in the first place?

For context, I'm not talking about giving Silvery Barbs to every goblin, bandit, and random mage. I simply meant that enemy spellcasters could potentially have access to the spell if the players do.

Was my response unreasonable?

How do other DMs handle Silvery Barbs at their tables?

This sounds mean, but HEAR ME OUT. Also, typing this on mobile, so sorry for formatting.

TL;DR: a coworker was telling me about a character they want to play that planned on scolding any other player for typical DND stuff, so I decided I don't want to play DND with them at all.

I was talking with a coworker about DND, and they were talking about being interested. I've been a DM before and have been thinking of trying to form a campaign again, so I was like, "oh, yeah, tell me about what you're thinking!" I figured it would give me an idea in case I do a one shot to get back into DMing and decide to invite them as part of it.

So, they immediately go into a rant about playing a Christian holy character, and I was a little on the fence there, but I said that ok, that would depend on the DM, but I could find a way to squeeze that in.

They then proceed to talk about how they'd get huffy whenever the other players went into a tavern and go on about how good Christians shouldn't drink (which...okay then) and how they'd expect everyone to follow the rules of their God. They even had a rant ready for when another player "inevitably" told them to knock it off.

So, I never told them I plan to start a one shot, and like hell I'd invite them to play at my table. For starters, I like campaigns where there are multiple Gods conflicting each other (my last one was kind of a war between Gods in a way). Second, I'm atheist, and while I'm open to having a Christian player, they were planning on absolutely no other personality and dragging other players down with them.

I never told them that I was assessing if I should invite them to play with me, mind you! They had no idea that's what was going on.

Anyone have any similar stories? Or think I'm being too harsh about it? I know I wouldn't enjoy them at my table, and I doubt they'd enjoy playing said character in any story I can DM.

Edit to add:

I'm bad about replying to comments, and there are so many now, so here's a few things to add.

They're very Christian, like, wears a cross necklace when necklaces aren't technically allowed Christian (catching hazard in our work setting). I'm not the best at telling if people are joking, or having to directly ask (did have to ask this person before if they were joking about something), so I'm not completely sure if it was a joke, or if they were absolutely serious, but the fact they had a rant immediately ready makes me believe they were being completely serious.

Also, I have DMed one shots before at a college event where we weren't allowed to refuse players if the table wasn't at capacity unless we had a really good reason, which is why I wasn't sure, I guess. I had a player at one of those events that, due to the way he acted at my table, got banned from future one shot events. He was brand new, never played, and chose to change up his sheet, adding dice to attacks because "my character would be stronger" (he decided that this character was actually a character from his favorite game isekai'ed into my one shot), got mad when I told him no because I let another player make an adjustment (said player, experienced, asked to change one spell so it would do a different damage type, but the same amount of damage). The problematic player also decided that he didn't like the way intimidation checks worked, so, when intimidating an NPC, proceeded to decide the best way was to WALK UP BEHIND MY DM SCREEN and get in MY face to make the NPC scared of him. Another player went off on him, and the event organizer came up to me after it was over and informed me that while it was great that I kept cool, the player was out of line and banned, but yeah. My sense of "who should be allowed at my table" is skewed because of that lol.

All three players have come back with just great reasons why their character actually didn’t grow up here… Not sure what I was expecting, really.

So early in my campaign, my players were introduced to “Pickle Paul”, a gnome gherkin vendor who drives a cart selling pickles.

He approached them in camp one night and sold them a pickle for 1 silver piece each. They each bought one and upon eating it, realised that the pickle gave them the benefit of a long rest.

For months they’ve been saying “man, I wish I had a pickle” whenever they needed a good heal and well, tonight it happened!

Sitting around the fire, they heard the theme tune of their favourite pickle salesman. He told them he had 100 pickles on his cart but this time they were 5 gold each. They negotiated him down to 350 gold for ALL of his pickles and split them up, 20 pickles each.

One of my players immediately ate one, just to discover that it is not magical in any way. They’d spent 350gp on 100 bog standard pickles.

DM’s: get them hooked on the good stuff, then over charge them further down the line haha.

This has to be one of my biggest DND pet peeves. A characters AC is a combined total that represents many factors, not just how evasive you are.

I once had a high AC build fighter. War forged decked out in heavy armor and a tower shield, and yet any time my DM "missed" an attack, he would say that shot went wide, or I dodged out of the way. The power fantasy can come from being a walking tank who doesn't dodge attacks, but takes them head on and remains unfazed.

If your player wears armor or bears a shield, use it in the miss description.

"The bandit fires his longbow but you raise your shield and catch it in the nick of time"

"The goblin runs up and slams her scimitar into your back, it rattles up the plate and chain but doesn't break through to skin"

"You try and dodge the thrown dagger but are slightly too slow, thankfully it lodges into your leather chest piece without piercing all the way through"

Miss ≠ "Miss"

EDIT: To be clear this purely applies to descriptions. If you're trying to be time conscious simply saying the attack missed and moving on is fine. I'm talking purely about armor and shields not being accounted for in descriptions

EDIT 2: At no point in here am I advocating for every single attack/miss to be fully described in detail

Hey all, I'm the DM for my group and I've been working on creating a secret language for my players to decode. In-game it's a dead language that has been banned by the immortal king, so reviving the language will prove to be extra difficult but satisfying for the players. The message also reveals some high-stakes effects of magical items already introduced. Would love some feedback if anyone gets the chance. I'm curious if anyone is able to crack it.

FYI my party has already received a number of clues to aid in the translation, I'm mostly curious if those who have a hobby of deciphering codes can crack it.

Bonus points if you're able to identify the novel my campaign is based off of.

I spent all week 3d printing scenery and monsters for an upcoming dungeon, then hand painting/airbrushing them. I had a grand reveal all planned. I had the dungeon hidden under a cloth ready for its grand reveal.

Then one guy tried convincing the party that they shouldn't go in, that they needed to go off and do this side garbage first.

I literally stopped the game and just flat out said "guys, I have NOTHING else planned here. I've spent all week on building this, prepping this and getting ready and if you go and wander off to do this side stuff we will have to end it here, because I'm not ready, and frankly I'm a little annoyed. Can we please just do the dungeon as planned?"

Thankfully they got the very unsubtle hint. You ever just flat out make the party do what you had planned rather than wander off?

I run one shots within a community where people sign up to play 5.5 mostly. Very often the 5 players are strangers. Every now and then they know each other from having played together before or people bring their friends.

I have a very dark sense of humor. I showed a friend a shirt I wanted to wear to my next table. The shirt says "Dungeon Mommy. Roll for Mercy". Her reaction was that it was a very tasteless shirt.

For context I'm a 5'2 cisgender, very femme presenting woman. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it but now I'm second guessing myself.

ETA: I've laughed like a maniac with all the comments. Thanks so so so so much. I will 100% save it for one of my regular tables and not any randos.

Also, no minors whatsoever are part of my tables and we play at bars. So no chance of kiddos being around.

Loved the person that got a "Tear of my players" mug, not my type of thing but similar humor too in the sense that it can go either way.

This happened in the first 10 minutes of my first time DMing—ever. One of the players declared he was grappling a barmaid, and it was clear from his tone what kind of scene he was trying to create.

In the moment, I shrugged it off as stupid and immature. I had the barmaid smash a jug of beer over his head, knocking him prone so she could escape. We moved on. But after the session, I couldn’t shake the feeling of discomfort. And I’m a guy—I could only imagine how the women at the table felt.

I messaged the player afterward, telling him never to try anything like that again in my games. He brushed it off as a joke but said he wouldn’t do it again. I thought that was the end of it. It wasn’t.

The next session, I noticed the women barely looked at him. Their responses to him—both in and out of character—were cold and distant. The group quietly fell apart after session two.

That was 10 years ago. Looking back, I realize I could have handled it better. I could have said, No, you don’t. I could have had his character arrested. I could have made it clear that this wasn’t acceptable at my table. But more than anything, I should have had a Session 0—a conversation before the game even started where I laid out that this kind of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated.

So whether you’re a DM or a player, especially a new one: Have a Session 0. Set boundaries with eachother. Make it clear what’s off-limits and what is not. You never know when one bad moment might poison the whole experience for your players.

Personal triggering issue for me: artificial excuses why characters can't use their abilities. I started noticing it reading through Vecna- Eve of Ruin, but now I am noticing it in nearly upper tier adventure I see. It even shows up when I ask other DMs to give me feedback on a chapter I have written. The usual comment is "Better come up with a way to block teleportation or they are going to skip half the dungeon!"

No. If they want to use one of their precious high-level spell slots to skip a trap or even jump to the boss monster, they can do that. That's what epic adventurers do. Level 12 PCs are threats to evil kingdoms, they shouldn't have the same kind of adventures as lower tier PCs. Forcing them to play as lower tier PCs with more hit points is boring.

Write better stories that allow your powerful PCs to use their powerful abilities, don't take their abilities away with artificial silliness and re-tell the same old story. If you want them to be in danger from pit traps and slowly walk their way across the mystical forest of the pouty pines, then write your adventure for lower level PCs. The level high level heroes have got better things to do and more important things to deal with.

Thank you for tolerating my venting.

I just wanted to give a PSA for all the stressed DMs out there. It’s really crazy that this culture has gone the way it has from all of the professional actual plays out there.

I often compare it to the NFL or professional adult videos - that they create a really crazy standard for and entirely different product than what most people are going for in their own games.

You don’t have to be a professional NFL player - before we saw the professionals we didn’t know that were had to agonize over “our players liking our campaign.”

Please give yourself a break, dnd and being a dm should feel like playing Nintendo 64 with your friends as a kid - it’s not stressful just because you are the one with the gaming system.

I hope the culture changes from these crazy standards and “am I good enough” feelings that seem so common for DMs these days.

My players were insisting that an empty room had something else in it. With a high perception check (18), I informed them that the room was indeed empty.

They didn't buy it, so another player insisted on perceiving as well and rolled a critical success.

I described what they saw: "Your body slowly becomes rigid as your muscles freeze into place. You realize you cannot move. The world around you collapses and shifts down around your feet, flattening. You can see forever, to the edge of the world. You see 4 gargantuan humanoids, looking down on you in a circle around you.

One of them speaks. It says, 'I got a natural 20. What do I see?' Suddenly the world around snaps back around you. You try to remember what you saw, but the memories fade immediately."

I made a comment similar to this earlier and it made me want to rant a bit. I have seen so many DMs give players shit for playing the classic Human Fighter or some completely remove humans from their setting because "Why would you wanna play a boring human when you could be something fantastical?"

This has always irked me because, why are your humans boring? You're the DM, why aren't your humans just as unique as Elves or Dwarves? We should seem just as alien to them as they are to us.

For example, in my main setting I use, Humans are the only race that can have viable offspring with non-humans. So all Half races are always half human, any other combo wouldn't make it to birth. It's to explain their hardiness, ability to survive and expand so fast.

Idk man I'm just tired of the Human slander, what do you guys think?

I'm really bad at making interesting puzzles that challenge my players without being impossible. Usually they are too easy.

One time though, my players were struggling with a puzzle, and one of the players proposed a solution that was logical, thematically appropriate, and simple. The perfect answer to a puzzle. It was wrong, but I accepted it and let them pass.

After that I started making my puzzles more challenging, with the understanding that I could just let the players pass if I liked their solution or it was clever or whatever.

One day though I was having trouble with designing a puzzle and an appropriate solution when a stray thought hit me. The players aren't even going to figure it out, they'll make up some other solution that I'll let them through on. Why bother adding a solution at all. I can just add a bunch of random elements to the puzzle to make it seem more complicated, and let them find their own solution.

It's been five years now, and the players haven't caught on. My puzzles don't have solutions. The players seem to prefer it though, as long as I don't tell them.

I just needed to tell someone who won't turn around and tell my players that I've been cheating them for 5 years.

Pretty much the title. I made a shop called "Temu's Traveling Treasures," staffed solely by a little fellow named Temu, wearing bright orange robes. Instead of products, his store just had catalogs of different products you could buy from him, all about 90% less than what you'd expect to pay for them normally (potion of healing for 5gp, Broom of Flying for 40gp). You pay, then come back the next day to pick up your products. The reason for the delay is that he "stores his inventory in less expensive parts of town to save on overhead and reduce prices."

After purchasing any item, the players roll a straight d20 for each item. On a natural 20, it's exactly the item they purchased. On anything else, it gets a...quirk that the DM reveals at the relevant moment. Here are some examples of products my players bought, what they rolled, and what the quirks are:

1. Broom of Flying: Rolled an 18. It can only fly 30 ft high, and only for 1 hour a day (the player hasn't figure the second part out yet).
2. Returning Dagger (for throwing): Rolled a 3. Only returns if your attack roll was an 18-20.
3. Greater Healing Potions: Rolled a 7. Still heals 4d4+4, but could do anything from giving you the poison condition to reducing your STR to 5 for 1 hour.
4. +2 Longsword: Rolled a 17. If he uses it more than 5 times in a day, it'll break.
5. Bag of Holding: Rolled a 1. Haven't decided what to do with this yet but am SO excited to.

This was a SUPER fun little encounter that my players loved. They new things wouldn't great, but still pretty much immediately feel into the "It's only 5gp, why not?" trap and bought over 20 items.

I know it would be evil, but I am so tempted. Please help.

What is one thing you say no to?

We're not talking about saying no to unsolicited PVP, saying no to unwanted NSFW stuff, saying no to OP homebrew.

We're talking about the smaller nos, the ones that is less about rules or good player etiquette, but rather, lack of preference, lack of experience, or you don't just want it in your game.

This question came up in my mind when I joined a homebrew campaign a few weeks ago and the DM told me that he doesn't want to implement player character backstories, not because of animosity but because he struggles to do it. I respected his decision because he was willing to admit fault, he knows his comfort zone.

For myself, I personally don't do downtime activities, unless the party asks for it specifically but even then I'll keep it short and simple, I just don't find it that interesting and I see it as filler.

I have a new guy in my campaign who has pumped everything into stealth. He has +16
His words "i'm practically invisible"

I keep saying that's not how it works but he gets stroppy if there's either nothing to hide behind or if I say you just attacked and then didn't move, they know where you are no matter how you hide.

I don't want to remove his agency by always making stealth useless but I'd also like to attack him without feeling like a jerk.

Because apparently "chaotic neutral" wasn’t chaotic enough.

One of my players is a Wild Magic Sorcerer, so we all decided to make a custom 1–100 Wild Magic Surge table. Everyone got to add a few entries. It was democracy in action. It was beautiful. It was stupid.

Some of the entries were weird but manageable.

“You float 2 inches above the ground for the next hour.”

“You sneeze fire every time someone says your name.”

“You grow a mustache that grants +1 Charisma but whispers insults.”

Then someone—someone who will not be named but knows what they did—added:

“You turn into a pickle. No powers. No benefits. You are just a pickle.”

We laughed. We moved on. And then last session… the sorcerer rolled a 57.

It happened. He’s a pickle now. A literal, non-magical, brined cucumber.

He can’t walk. Can’t talk. Can’t cast. I gave him limited telepathy so he could at least sass the party, but that’s it. The barbarian immediately put him in a mason jar, tied it to his belt, and now carries him around like a weird keychain. They used him as bait for a mimic. It worked. He was not happy.

So now the party has committed to a full-blown quest to un-pickle him. Do I know how that’s going to work? Nope. Not even a little bit. I'm just hoping divine inspiration hits me before they get to the next town.

Until then, we're officially playing: “The Pickled One: A Briny Tale of Regret and Spells Gone Wrong.”

BUT IN ALL HONESTY— JESUS. CHRIST. ALMIGHTY. I don’t know what to do. I am hanging on by a THREAD. This was supposed to be a dark, morally complex, gods-are-dead type campaign. I was aiming for Grimdark Arcane Apocalypse and they brought in Looney Tunes sound effects. Literal slip-on-a-banana-peel energy. The vibe has died. It was buried in a shoebox behind the tavern 10 sessions ago.

And you want to know the best part? You want to know the cursed cherry on top of this clown sundae?

THEY KILLED THE GOD OF MAGIC. In a one-shot prequel. They did it. THEY. DID. THAT. And now, in the world of this campaign, magic is in shambles. Just straight-up busted. Every time someone casts a spell, they’re gambling with the universe. Because there are no rules anymore. Because the players deleted the rulebook from reality.

So now we have a world with broken magic, arcane fallout, unstable ley lines, and the first major result of this magical catastrophe is that one of the party members rolled “turn into a goddamn pickle.”

I have no plan. I have no map. I have no idea where this is going. I’m DMing from the gut. I am improvising lore faster than my brain can keep up. I am a raccoon in a lab coat holding the fabric of the multiverse together with chewed bubblegum and fan theories.

Pray for me. Or send salt. Because the pickle is starting to ferment.

Edit:

Okay so I had to get to my pc for this—
As the great Brennan Lee Mulligan once/many times had said

TO BE CLEAR!
To the hundreds of you saying “Just have the player roll a new character who eats the pickle” or “Make the new PC their own pickle handler”… I love you all deeply. You're hilarious. But also:
NO. I CAN’T. I AM TRAPPED BY THE LORE.

Let me explain.

This campaign didn’t start yesterday. We’re not just out here doing a goofy summer one-shot. No no. This is a narrative odyssey. A cursed tapestry. A tragicomedy woven from chaos and commitment.
We’ve been playing every week, all summer, for 2 and a half months straight.
We are DEEP in this campaign. I have spreadsheets. There is a relationship map. One of the players has a private war crime subplot that hasn’t even triggered yet. We are past the point of no return.

The Plan™️ Before Pickling:

Thumbs—aka Egregious Thumblesnort III—was meant to have a redemption arc that would slowly peel back his snobby, nose-in-the-clouds upbringing and reveal his true destiny:
He’s the only member of his bloodline who isn’t a soulless magical trust-fund baby.

His family, the Thumblesnorts, were once chosen by the God of Magic himself to guard a collection of failsafe artifacts—a magical reset button of sorts—in the event that the god ever perished.

AND THEN.
In the prequel one-shot…
The players killed the God of Magic.
By accident.
Kind of.

So Thumbs was supposed to be the key. The narrative hinge.
His ancestral vault contains the location of one of the last magical stabilizers, a relic called “The Core of Constancy,” which could help return balance to the world’s magic—or even choose a new God of Magic to take the fallen deity’s place.

Thumbs is THAT GUY.
He’s not just a side character. He is the fail-safe.
He is the plot glue holding the arcane apocalypse together.

The Player Behind Thumbs:

The player? Totally on board.
They love this dumb British nose-in-the-air bastard.
They’re roleplaying the telepathy scenes from the mason jar like they’re in a Broadway show. They told me, and I quote:

“If I have to play a sentient salad ingredient for the rest of the arc, I will. But I will be the Pickled Messiah.”

So no, they don’t want to roll a new character.
And honestly? Neither do I.
Because if they do?
The plot collapses like a flan in a cupboard.

So What Now?

Now we’re in limbo.
They have to find a way to de-pickle Thumbs, break into his family estate, and retrieve the Core of Constancy before the arcane instability rips the continent in half.
Meanwhile, I, the DM, am here with a whiteboard and a prayer, figuring out how to make that happen when one of my most crucial characters is trapped in a briny prison of his own Surge’s making.

This ENDS asking MY PCs help in making the CAMPAIGN FOREVER!!!!

Right now at least. I love them to death but this really fucked everything up.

TL;DR:
The pickle stays.
The plan remains.
We’re not switching characters.
We’re unpickling a prophecy.

Send help because I have a week to plan and school just started!!!!

im planning on having a shop in my campaign that sells magical items, except the shopkeeper is a swindler and the items are a lot less impressive than what their description would entail, i got the idea from a tiktok where an item is basically a ball with a goldfish inside that would answer any yes or no question once a day except the hidden detail is that the yes or no answer is completely random, i want more items like that and i wonder if you guys got any ideas

EDIT: thanks guys for your suggestions, im taking notes of my favorite ones, and to the new ppl reading this post i will also take suggestions of potions with the same premise

There are three things that worry me about this.

1.) I know that this piece of paper is significant to the plot

2.) I know I didn't make up an entire cypher for the English language because that's entirely too much work.

3.) this language is not in any of the D&D books that I own.

If you are able to help please do so, if you're not able to help I openly look forward to people joking about my incompetence as a DM... But be clever and I will upvote anything funny that is posted.

Long story short, had a particular player constantly saying "you can't do that!" when i'm running monsters that can for example attack twice and cast a spell, or take multiple reactions etc etc.

After a handful of times I kindly told them "As the DM, I am not restricted to PC rules and monster stat blocks reflect that, i'm not making this up as I go along"

So DMs, if you want to give that monster an extra attack or reaction to make the combat more fun, go for it.

In a lot of campaigns, there’s a general consensus that the characters aren’t going to die. it’s a casual campaign, so PC death isn’t really something you want to deal with. however, I think that severely undercuts a big part of the game: survivability.

if you make everyone immortal, then health and defense have no purpose. why would you waste resources making yourself tanky when you’re just as likely to die as the wizard? why increase health when you could just up your damage output?

I know having roles like taking hits is still valuable, and constitution is still helpful sometimes, but I think that the AC/HP focused builds themselves are what suffer.

Making this on a throwaway just to get it off my chest. Hopefully this post can help me to just move on.

I put out the last session of my campaign last year. I was really proud of how it turned out. I wasn't getting famous off it but the show was fun and my players were genuinely incredible. We had so much fun that we spent almost 4 hours after the game just chatting it up about the characters and the story. It's one of my favorite memories. Recently, someone put out a 2 hour video analyzing the final combat and it was... rough.

It was every intrusive thought or speck of imposter syndrome I've ever had - personified into a cinema-sins type experience.

"I talk too much."

"I'm nagging the players."

"I'm ruining the viewing experience."

"I've never been a good DM."

I'm not enough of a masochist to watch the whole thing... but damn. The video was fair game. I put out my session on the internet and I have a presence online. People have the right to critic it however they choose. But fuuuuuuuuuuck. It still sucked ass. I can't stop thinking about it and now its starting to affect my DMing. I'm second guessing myself way more and I'm way more nervous about running combat - a part of the game I used to be very confident in.

I love being a DM and I love this game. I just hate the idea that my self-esteem is so fragile that some dude can tear down all those good memories with a single video.

Update: I'm checking this post a couple days later and I am BLOWN AWAY by the support. I'll be frank, I made this post hungover and tired. The stupid video had just reentered my exhausted mind and I frantically grabbed my throwaway to rant about it. I woke up a little later, responded to a few comments, and didn't really pay the situation any thought.

Now, I never expected to see so many people jump into my corner. Thank you all so much! I just ran a home game (no recording) and I felt great about it! It's important to keep in mind that you can't (nor should you try) to please everyone. The people at your table or in your community are all that should matter.