D&D Reacts: Ginny Di How To Get Players to Stop Talking and Fight

[@JhanSeverin]

"I made my bad guys act like good guys and now my players won't kill them!" -Sven, probably. Dragon gets her eggs stolen? She burns down the local town, leaves one poor sod alive to pass along the message: Another town gets torched every week until they are back. Kobolds just being kobolds? Perfect! You come upon the kobolds after they ambushed a caravan. Two kobolds are currently playing tug-of-war with a merchant's intestines. It's not hard to have evil act evil. So weird to see this problem.

[@drivinganddragons1818]

Yep. "please help! I wanted to make a sympathetic villain and now my players have too much sympathy!"

[@bigblue344]

All this "what about the bad guys point of view!" and nobody considers "what about the victims point of view?"

[@BaseDnD]

This channel should be pushing 3k subs by now 🎉

[@Hazmatt4700]

I have this problem in my 20+ year long 3.5 campaign. But my character has a 47 charisma and gets a lot of his AC from being talkie. You are 100% correct on people confusing the current world for what ever they are playing. I would argue its even somewhat worse in playing 80's themed cyberpunk games. Their worlds specifically can't function with a surveillance state like we currently have.

[@BaseDnD]

How do they balance evil enough to fight yet not evil enough to trigger 😮

[@drivinganddragons1818]

That's the million dollar question..."Why would I fight this guy, he's just a jerk, not evil?" ..."WHAT?! HOW DARE YOU include a morally objectionable bad guy that does actual bad things! Those are always wrong, even in games!"

[@CowCommando]

Lol, you'd think this would be the perfect opportunity to put the hurt on the triggers real world consequence free. "Oh, these people are racist against elves and humans. _Now you get to kill them for it!"_ "Oh, this cult is advocating against your political standpoint. _Now you get to kill them for it!"_ "Oh, this government passed laws that you oppose. _Now you get to kill them for it!"_

[@bigblue344]

There could be a lot of reasons to talk to a dragon, be it not wanting to die to as the video said, understanding its points of views. The real issue though is that in a lot of fantasy settings (D&D) there is a clear line that often tell that the dragon is evil and should be slain. Evil is an objective thing. I remember telling my players before that "You chose the combat option to fight the demon, you are not talking your way out of this." and they still tried to talk their way out of the encounter. As for the slavery ring even if you were to free them where would they go or do now? Also I hate the "but humans are evil!" when in reality we are pretty well restrained when compared to most other animals, I would hate to see what a wild cat would do if it had human intelligence and motivations. The example of "You can't talk a lich out of being evil because their life depends on it" as if you destroying monsters not only have your life on the line but hundreds of innocents as well. Her jokes are really annoying and reeks of wanting attention.

[@drivinganddragons1818]

Lol I can tell you aren't a fan of the Generic One

[@bigblue344]

@@drivinganddragons1818 I just got a lot of pent up rage over the years from dealing with bad groups. People are 100% correct when they say that having no game is better then having a bad game. Even being new to the hobby at the time I could feel that there had to be more to TTRPG's. I found a good group now thankfully.

[@drivinganddragons1818]

@@bigblue344 a good group heals all

[@CowCommando]

Her video reminds me of a D&D horror story I heard roughly a decade ago. Side note, I take all online stories with a massive grain of salt. Anyway, the story went that the setting was a traditional European medieval setting. In the first session one of the players found out that the particular country they were adventuring for and in had outlawed same gender couples. The punishment for breaking this law was death. One of the players was so aghast that they convinced the rest of the players to, reluctantly, have the whole party spend all of their time trying to change the laws of the kingdom instead of going on adventures. They even abandoned their opener quest to go on a political campaign instead. They even pulled the, "It's what my character would do," card. The rest of the players apparently found it easier to play along than to have to deal with the screeching tirades of their supposed friend. Supposedly, (again, huge grain of salt,) the DM went ahead and played all this out while continuously dropping hints of growing evil on the edges of the kingdom. These hints were of course ignored over the _more pressing issue of inequality._ On the day that the party was celebrating the changing of the law, the Lich that they would have been fighting if they were out adventuring crashed the party, slaughtered everyone in the capitol including the PCs, overthrew the kingdom, turned it into an undead monstrosity factory, and conquered a large swath of the world. The player who instigated all of this was furious and accused the DM of being a bigot and ruining things out of personal spite for the player. The DM pointed out all of the warnings and calls to adventure that went ignored. The screecher tried to rally the rest of the players to tell the DM to change what happened, and the players halfheartedly tried to convince the DM to change things to keep the peace. The DM responded with, "But it's what my villain would do when left unopposed." This finally shocked the rest of the players back to reality, and they supported the DM. When the adult toddler didn't get their way, they threw a tantrum, told everyone they were no longer friends over this personal attack, and quit in a huff. The rest of the players rolled up resistance fighters in the new undead conquered lands and got to playing. I suspect what really happened was during the first session one player found out how realistic the setting was, tried to convince the DM to change it, and then quit when things didn't go their way. The players then asked what would have happened if they had actually played out changing the law, and the story is the result.

[@drivinganddragons1818]

My guess is your assumption is closer to correct than the "horror story". People exaggerate these things to such an extreme it's basically unbelievable.

[@dm_curt]

Hearing her opinions on how to run D&D is like hearing a 15yo's opinions on politics.

[@drivinganddragons1818]

A very, very astute observation

[@BaseDnD]

Aww you used the promo cards 🤘

[@drivinganddragons1818]

They didn't get made to stit in my downloads folder

[@CowCommando]

(I jest) The way I made dragons in my homebrew setting appropriate to "modern moral relativism" is I made them all draconian _evil_ business owners, politicians, crime lords, etc. I mean, if you're all about hoarding wealth and power, then what better way then starting up an apothecary and then infecting the local water supply with something only you have the cure for? How about starting up a monopolistic trade empire, or just creating a literal political empire that seeks to conquer all of it's neighbors for the glory of their undying Dragon Lord who also happens to actually be a dragon. (joke's over) In all seriousness, I thought the idea of dragons being highly intelligent and having a huge hoard because they're greedy but never trying to actively _grow_ that wealth didn't make any sense. It led to a lot of really interesting implications with how the world works. To be clear, the dragons are all unequivocally evil because they're dragons which are inherently evil, not because they're rich and powerful. As far as getting players to fight stuff. I've never had that problem. Besides, you can't talk the bandits out of trying to kill you. If they let you go, you'll narc on them and the guard will hunt them down and kill them. They're better off killing you and taking your stuff because no matter how convincing you are, you're still essentially saying, "trust me bro," and they're gambling with their life to trust you. Orcs and goblins are religiously and culturally obligated to kill you. You're not convincing them otherwise. Sure, you might be able to use wits, skill, and magic to _escape_ a combat, but it's not going to be easy. It's that simple.

[@drivinganddragons1818]

Definitely never an issue I've had, but these modern players... They just can't keep their BS or if the game

[@JohnSmith-jv7mv]

My only disappointment here is you usually say something I dont agree with and it gives me a chance to think about why and how we dont line up.

[@drivinganddragons1818]

As far as critique goes, I'll take it as a good one 🤣

[@kristindainiak2359]

❤

[@TheOGGMsAdventures]

Remember those 5 minutes when we thought she was cool and worthy of our respect last year? Neither do I. Even the quality of her cosplays has gone down.

[@drivinganddragons1818]

I've always given credit that she's helpful, sometimes, for the most rank beginner. Unfortunately she has a lot of very, very bad advice too. Bug that's why I call her Generic Ginny, not Gaslight Ginny. I would honestly say I do think she has been phoning it in for a while now.