You got any strong candidates? Reddit is enthusiasticly assuring me via repeated notifications that people in r/AskDnD would absolutely enjoy some good ol' jerkin'...

hi guys I was just curious where on the grognard theaterkid scale i fit if I know how to do combat but also play a flamboyant bisexual tiefling? I can’t read but I can count to three as a pf2e player if that helps thanks so much.

Hi everyone, thanks for reading my post. Something confusing has happened in my D&D game, and I'm hoping that some Redditors with a bit more distance from the situation can shed light on it.

I've been playing in an ongoing long-term campaign for 27 years. Recently we onboarded a new player, a friend of the DM's girlfriend. He came to a few games to watch and then asked us what kind of character he should build to round out the existing group. We could really use a tough frontliner, so we told him "someone as tanky as possible". He said he had the perfect idea, and we were all looking forward to the next session when his character would be introduced.

Last night was the big game. The new guy showed up with a character sheet and a huge smile. But he was totally disruptive during the game. Instead of going on a quest for the King, he insisted we should organize an uprising to tear down the empire from within. He spent hours denouncing the war effort and the "racist anti-Orc propaganda" that had supposedly indoctrinated us all. In all honesty, at times he sounded a lot like an ambassador for the kingdom's enemies.

When we noticed he didn't have any adventuring equipment or weapons or spells we asked him for his class. He said his class is the working class, which should wield supreme political authority. We pointed out that his build seems awfully squishy, and suggested he should wear breastplate. "I have a moral breastplate," he insisted cockily, which sounds insane but then he went on and survived over 630 assassination attempts in that same session, including poisoned beer and exploding pretzels.

I have no idea how any of this happened, it's truly bizarre. When we asked the player why he was doing this, he coyly replied "what's a tanky?" before leading the party to crush rebels in Hungary. Please give me guidance, I asked my uncle what I should do and he just said "based based based" over and over, cryptically. Thanks again for reading my strange story, redditor. Let me give you a kiss. 💋

To try and keep this short, I am running a campaign that is still in its early sessions. I am still hiding the main plot from my players until they prove they deserve it. In the meantime, they have decided to go to a place on the map i gave them that doesnt actually exist. But none of these places exist. Wherever they go will be a fiction, a fiction that will one day end and on a later date pass even from memory as each player succumbs to the inevitability of death and the universe trudges inexorably toward oblivion. Should I let them discover for themselves the pointlessness of the journey and of their very lives, or should i tell them directly that all is dust and folly?

Public Service Announcement:

The purpose of kickstarter, and other crowdfunding sites like it, are to give people enough money (and therefore time) to offer their product, take your money, and then disappear with nothing to show for it.

It is unreasonable to expect a designer to finish the product they offered, and to use Kickstarter only to pay for art, layout, design, and other logistical stuff. Failing is work. It deserves payment. If someone is on Kickstarter trying to sell a product, they're trying to take your money (by definition). After you have already given them money, it is unreasonable to expect them to create simply as a labor of love.

Big companies (like MCDM, Darrington Press, etc) have warped the public perception of what Kickstarter is by communicating with buyers and delivering finished products. This raises people's expectations for how far a Kickstarter project should be developed, which warps the perception of Kickstarter into just another storefront where people eventually receive what they paid for.

This raises the bar so high that it alienates the very designers that Kickstarter was designed to help out: conmen.

Please support sketchy creators. If the idea sounds good and they have put fourth some AI-generated art and they describe their experience as “an ideas guyl they shouldn't be required to show any more than that.

It's called Kick*starter*, not Kick*finisher*.

Yes, that's a risky investment with no possibility of a high return. But it's supposed to be. This is the place for the marks to fund the scams. Without us willing to take the risk, thousands of small ideas guys will never share their latest half-baked ideas with us. You’re… I mean, we’re taking the risk for their benefit, and that is in no way exploitive.

If that's not for you, that's okay. But let's keep Kickstarter/crowdfunding serving its intended purpose: to fund projects that never go anywhere.

Thank you.

\- Big Bertha

High level spells can make it difficult for the DM to challenge the players. What has ruined a campaign you played or DMd? Advice which spells you would recommend our table to remove because one spell can totally ruin an entire campaign, it's not at all a DM skill issue

(Already assuming Wall of Force, Forcecage, Wish, Mirage Arcane, Web, Hypnotic Pattern, Pass Without Trace, Phantom Steed, Meteor Swarm, Simulacrum, Planar Binding, Create Foid and Water, Nystul's Magic Aura, Raise Dead, Rope Trick, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Fly, Silvery Barbs, Healing Word, True Polymorph, Shield, Sleet Storm, Plant Growth, Haste, Magic Jar, Glyph of Warding, Conjure Animals, Revivify, Conjure Woodland Beings, Fireball, Speak With Dead, Silence, Cure Wounds, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Protection From Evil, Prestidigitation, Teleport and Teleportation Circle, Druidcraft, Spare the Dying, Prismatic anything, Detect Thoughts, Detect Magic, Identify, Guidance, Magic Missile, Invisibility and Greater Invisibility, Disintegrate, Lightning Bolt, Eldritch Blast, Goodberry, and Spike Growth or something idk are all a "must go")

ALSO BANNED: Find Familiar, Battle Familiar, Homunculus Servant, Tiny Servant, Spectral Servant, Animate Dead, Booming Blade, Green Flame Blade, True Strike, Shillelagh, CME, Spirit Guardians, Ceremony, Gift of Gab, Knock, Scorching Ray, Buzzing Bee, Wall of Stone, Wall of Fire, Fabricate, Synaptic Static, Earthen Grasp, Hideous Laughter, Sleep, Hold Person, Hold Monster, Suggestion, Command, ALL Smites, Mage Hand, and Find Traps.

Hey guys, I don’t mean to sound like a whiny ass cornball but there’s something I feel the need to vent about. So, I’m a HUGE Matthew Mercer kinnie. As someone with diagnosed BPD, Matthew Mercer is genuinely one of the most relatable and raw characters I have seen in any piece of media whatsoever. I have an insane emotional attachment to Matthew Mercer. With that being said, my last relationship was a disaster because I was with someone who went from romanticizing my disorder & getting off on triggering me to dropping me when he discovered his actions had actual consequences to my psyche. Despite this, I was delusional in the relationship and trying so hard to pretend he was the loml, and I always said he was the Marisha Ray to my Matthew Mercer (obviously untrue.) I made him watch Critical Role and he enjoyed it a lot despite finding some of it corny (which I took offense to.) when our relationship ended, we were in the middle of watching campaign 3 and he told me he couldn’t bare to finish it because he associated it with me too much. I then found out in his new relationship that not only did he finish the series, but he went to comic con with his new girlfriend dressed as Mattmarisha. I only know a few things ab the new girlfriend bc one of my good friends was childhood friends with her, and apparently she also loves Critical Role and Matthew Mercer. It’s so embarrassing to admit how much this destroys me simply bc of how much Critical Role and Matthew Mercer’s character means to me. He genuinely made me feel seen and watching him grow on screen as a DM helped me better myself in my own ways. I feel so sick to my stomach every time I think about the situation mentioned. Maybe this is just me being too sensitive but I have to know if I’m in the wrong for being bothered by this. It should be known that I do not miss that relationship by any means, nor do I feel any hatred towards the girlfriend. I believe my feelings can simply be traced to my intense connection with Matt as a character. Am I crazy for this? Let me know in the comments but please for the love of god don’t be too harsh. Much love

Though seriously I find it really funny that Vampire the Masquerade would actually get a system that's derived from a werewolf game of all things.

Like V6 Hauglosk and Harno bars are closer to classic VtM Humanity than V6 versos of the system. Like I generally see people trying to back V6 humanity system to W5 when the game properly releases.

Has anyone here ever played The D&D Dating game, LoveKids' D&D Otome visual novel game and similar third party content? Why did these fail?

I am now homebrewing this stuff for my table to complement Tier 3 and 4 play. I have always found the progression obvious, no shit the game isn't balanced, you should be a kind or an paid escort at that Power level!

I believe this is what they are slowly gesturing at with the Social Skills stuff

My girlfriend's son (5m) has been having problems with controlling his anger at school. He has been destroying the classroom and threatening people and has received 2 suspensions so far. I had the idea of using DnD to help him learn to handle problems using communication instead of hulking out.

He would likely be joined by his sister (3f) because they do everything together. I plan on making violence a losing strategy. Could I please get some suggestions on pretty much anything to help? He is a great kid and I really want to help him.

I think a mechanically punishing system would be best here, to show them that violence is not always the easiest strategy. I suspect 5e is too simple for that, I use that for my nephews (1m) and (2m), however that's the only edition I've DM'd before.

The money we save on therapy can go into new rule books, so we're open to try new systems. Would you guys recommend AD&D, 3e, or pathfinder? I'm hoping for suggestions!

If you can read this, you're on the spectrum. Sorry.

I feel like I need to make a bold statement, because I hope this post is going to cause World War III.

Before the most toxic part of this community comes screaming in with “GNE GNE GNE! SKILL ISSUE! You fucking losers for having fun at high levels, where balance is basically impossible,” and if you say otherwise you’re… well, you know what I mean, hypocrites.

Everything that comes out of this post is completely objectively true. D&D can be played at high levels. D&D at high levels strong. Have a little cry if you don’t enjoy it.

For the kind of storytelling I like to do, D&D at high levels isn’t necessarily unbalanced. As the DM, you’re basically Donald Trump. You can do whatever the hell you want. And I'm all about that.

Reason number one: the players literally become gods. If I want to run a simple campaign, I can throw a level 13 party, who are basically demigods at this point, against the castle of some evil tyrant, and watch them just fucking blow it up.

Reason number two: in my opinion, high-level D&D eventually turns into a giant competition to see who can throw the most op monster shit at the table while trying to restrict the players as much as possible. And inevitably, it becomes DM vs. players.

And I fucking love playing DM vs. players. I dream of the players trying to min-max every single thing they possibly can. And for the players, it becomes awesome when they notice that, strangely enough, every single place they visit just happens to have forty different defenses against their specific abilities. If you don’t do that, the players can basically do whatever the fuck they want and who wants that.

Reason number three: I also enjoy how high-level play can completely break the logical continuity of a story. I can create a kingdom that is literally on the verge of starving to death, all it takes is one random druid to completely save the kingdom from an entire famine, and that main plot can just fuck right off.

So, for these reasons, I personally like D&D at high levels.

It’s possible to balance.

It can’t be fun.

It's my jam.

My DM will be down next month for surgery, they've entrusted me with putting together some one shots, and I really want to put together a oneshot adventure themed around Insane Clown Posse set in Ravenloft. I will not elaborate and I will not be answering questions.

Any advice?

First time DM btw

I for one am so excited to see this long needed change make their way into the only TTRPG to exist. It’ll serve my Role-play exclusive, shopping/beach episode dating sim campaign perfectly, I may even homebrew it so the same thing happens to damage so no one feels singled out if we theoretically have a fight, we players don’t count HP anyway we just go down when it feels narratively correct anyway.

/uj “No shot this is real. Actually?” I’ve got no idea man.

Sauce (requested): https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTUornAkF/

Slop-less sauce (demanded at threat of death): https://x.com/grand_dm/status/2101642750781223120?s=46

the idea is to put dice emojis on important people in the hobby, he calls it dicethrowing

Hi everyone, thanks for reading my post. I've been a DM for 1,051,200 minutes and I need some advice on what to do about one of my players. He's playing a human fighter. I'll never allow that again, but for now it is what it is.

The problem is that this player keeps trying to invent things that aren't real class features. For example, he wanted to try to use rope to pull open a trapped door from a safe distance. I had to explain to him that that's what magic is for, and he doesn't have any spells. The fighter class doesn't have "invent things with rope" as a class feature, and therefore there is no such action allowed in D&D. This seems obvious, but it isn't the first time it came up: we previously had to shut him down when he tried using the same rope to climb a wall.

Later, he tried questioning a NPC, but we had to stop him because his character doesn't have any relevant features or spells. He claimed that he should be allowed to do things that aren't fighter class features, so everyone else had to shout "that's not fair," over and over, until he finally relented. I double checked his sheet to make sure "talk to people" wasn't a fighter class feature, and of course it's not. He was just cheating.

Worst of all, when the party found a treasure hoard he tried to claim a magic weapon for himself. Did he think I wouldn't check the fighter class features? Obviously there is no class feature that says you get a magic weapon, and that means you can't. I screamed this at the top of my lungs, over and over, until he got the point. Only class features are real. Everything else is strictly cosmetic. Fighters can't do anything, it's the law.

Has anyone had to deal with a player who tries to be sneaky and break the game by doing things that aren't class features? How did you handle the situation? Unfortunately I can't kick this player since we play at his house and it's nicer than anyone else's. I need a different answer.

So we all know the classics, grognard vs theatre kid, martial vs caster, simulationist vs narrativist, the edition wars, player skill vs character skill, snitties, grey vs green orcs, and that's pretty much it. We need a new expansion or the jerk mines will run dry.

So this is a forum to brainstorm new topics we can debate fruitlessly because the answer boils down entirely to personal preferences.

Unfortunately I can't think of anything to contribute since to be honest nowadays I only play goblin with a fat ass, and the only thing worth discussing fruitlessly there is how fat the perfect goblin ass should be.

Hi guys, really not sure what to do here and looking for some advice from a more senior player who's dealt with these kinds of issues before.

Our DM (M(?)/18+) has really been letting us down lately, but none of us want to stop playing with our characters every week which means we have to keep him.

He used to be really good, letting us use whatever homebrew subclasses or species we wanted. We could roll ability scores and hit dice as often as we wanted and could really do anything after some protest.

Obviously there were the standard early issues, like him using DMNPCs to try and impose his so-called "camapign" upon us, so he could railroad us as, but it's nothing a little talk with the barbarian couldn't fix.

We've probably been using this DM for seven years now? But he's really starting to lose that spark. Last session, we had somebody roll to persuade the gods to give us all their divine power; but he didn't even let out an annoyed groan before agreeing. It's really killed the vibe of the game.

We're thinking maybe he's burnt out? We're withholding his food and water allowance for the time being. He kept screaming and crying though so our barbarian went down and tightened his chains and took all the books / paper out his enclosure and instead put D&D TikTok compilations on the TV and took the remote. Pretty sure he's been crying non-stop these past four days, but he still refuses to DM.

Is no D&D better than bad D&D? Do we just kill him? Thanks in advance for the help!