DM's, What are your Red Flags? #1

[@Scorpious187]

Like the video or your Divine Tool will contract Divine Syphilis.

[@TheGraveKnight]

What about Divine Gonorrhea or Divine Chlamydia?

[@Sundershard]

Does that count as poison, radiant or necrotic damage?

[@hazbinhotelsuperfan3383]

@@Sundershard All 3 types at the same time. Have fun😁

[@Doublemonk0506]

Or it'll eat some of this paladin *SMITE!*

[@TheGraveKnight]

@@lichguard Who the hell is the Steve Gods?

[@nelm3269]

When I first started playing, my ADHD wasnt that apparent at first, but I would draw the campaign characters anytime I wasn’t actively doing something important. Sometimes I worry people don’t think I’m not invested, listening does help when I have something to do with my hands. But it’s always a constant fear in the back of my head that It look like I’m not paying attention. I’m also not great with numbers…

[@rachdarastrix5251]

Ikr! Good thing all the games I play use text so it can look like I am capable of remembering what someone said 5 seconds after they said it even after working very hard to pay attention.

[@speelingmistake]

I do this too! if I'm not drawing I'm dice stacking which can cause problems, so out comes the pen and paper.

[@ApothecaryCrow]

Yeah, having ADHD is really stressful sometimes (I’m a dungeon master for a campaign)

[@rachdarastrix5251]

Right now I have a cup of coffee made. That means that if anyone ever decides they are brave and reasonable enough to admit to me what I did to hurt their feelings I can try to comprehend why what I did offended them without getting a massive migraine.

[@Allantitan]

@@rachdarastrix5251 so basically don’t complain to you before the first cup of coffee is in your hands

[@fiascothe63rd]

The only good example I’ve seen of a “I used to be high level but now I’m not because reasons” was a close friend of mine in one of the first serious games I played. His was “I was a level 5 fighter but then I retired. Now I’m back to teach a new generation, but I’m a bit out of practice.” Super fun character to play with.

[@InquisitorThomas]

I’ve heard a suggestion for Elf PCs who are really old but somehow only level one is to simply say they’re out of practice. “Yes I used to cast fireball all the time… **fumbles the verbal and somatic components** did you young people change how Fireball works?”

[@RuBoo001]

Level 5 to level 1 would probably be easy to explain as being out of practice. Level 20 to level 1 would be more like… Honestly, I don’t even know a plausible way to explain something like that. Unless they took, like, one or two levels in _every_ Class, or something, but even then, like… How do you get _that_ rusty?

[@steellegion7054]

@@RuBoo001 Mind wipe?

[@RuBoo001]

@@steellegion7054 Pretty much.

[@funnyvideoguy3216]

I feel like you can create a character kinda like obi wan in the new show

[@TheDarkdoomful]

So I will say, the whole "They were a level 20 character, had to take a break for some reason and are just now getting back in at level 1, but knows all this about magic and monsters." is usually a red flag; however, one group I'm playing with found a strangely successful way of doing it for one particular character. I am friends with a large group of DnD players (most of whom are DMs), but because of scheduling mismatches, I hadn't been able to play a game with the group, having only played with two of them years ago. After playing in another group, my necromancer had gotten to level 13, turned himself into a lich, and had taken over an uninhabited region of the continent.....And then the DM vanished. Having just lost a long running game, I lamented to the DM server that the game was over and they offered to let me bring the Necromancer into their game, since they all thoroughly enjoyed hearing about his Saturday Morning Cartoonesque Villainy. Issue was....their campaign was at level 4 at the moment and was quite the different setting from the first campaign. We ended up agreeing that the Necromancer's old word had been collapsed into nothingness because of things he couldn't stop, and that he had forced a incomplete Dream of the Blue Veil spell as a method of escaping the destruction. The imperfect transition severely injured him, forcing him to recreate his mortal body in the new world, and was the explanation for why he suddenly lost 9 levels worth of HP, (He actually ended up with higher base stats because of some good rolls), lost his items and spellbook, and was no longer a Lich. In addition to the fact that because magic worked differently in this new world, nearly all of his magic would have to be adapted to work with this unfamiliar Weave, explaining why he didn't have any higher level slots or powerful spells. So far, the other players are loving him and we've finally gotten a chance to game together again. He's been adopted into the party as their head schemer, trusting that his centuries of experience dealing with foes in and out of combat will give them a leg up even with meager resources. Most of his RP so far has been his solemn sense of loss at everything he worked for being erased, him trying to 'fit in' with this new world, and the baffling fish out of water instances when something normal in this new world is so alien to him or when he says/does something that no one else understands. So far, the only way his origin has impacted the events so far was with a marquess who had hired us to escort him back home to his mother's city. When we got there, the duchess was not exactly pleased about a bunch of dirty lowlife mercenaries being in her city, all the more so when a few of us flubbed our performance rolls for court etiquette. She was especially pissed that my character, a member of a proud race who bow to no one and a former conquering lich, stared directly at her without a shred of deference. She was obviously about to reprimand us, stiff us on the bill, and kick us out until her young advisor, a reliable oracle, smacked her in the face stunning her. When the duchess looked at her, the oracle was pale as a sheet of paper, trembling, and had...soiled herself, and simply told the duchess "Just pay them, I beg you." We later learned that while we had been speaking to the duchess, her oracles did her normal thing of looking into the pasts of each of us and the most likely futures based on the present. She saw a former soldier turned mercenary who would free a nation, she saw a cleric receive a mission to kill a particular demon from her god who would slay the demon, etc etc, until she saw the Necromancer's past....all the horror of it and who he had been....and then she saw his future (about two weeks into the future according to her, the Necromancer would be raising the duchess's corpse amid the burning remains of their city being devoured by undead and demons with him saying "You really should have just payed us.") a moment before the duchess was going to throw us out without paying us. The DM apparently based it on a conversation the marquess had had with us when boasting about the city and the Necromancer made an unimpressed offhand comment that "Truly impressive, I'd say it would last a whole two weeks." a few sessions earlier. The duchess has since been our biggest benefactor, hiring us for several jobs in the region, with the understanding that when we do eventually make it big, something the oracle has advised is most likely to happen, that she wants an alliance with us.

[@kardoxfabricanus7590]

That is really cool. I was thinking of a half-dragon Dragonwrought Kobold that ends up losing his memory Jason Bourne style and has severely nerfed stats and crippled wings and severely scarred. Idea is to have a very weak character that ends up recovering and becoming incredibly powerful later on in the game. So having a crippled character that becomes increasingly more powerful as the party discovers their real identity and learns what its purpose etc.

[@Zorant0Zero]

I have a celestial warlock who's patron was my level 20 character who got trapped in a prison after attempting to over throw his godly parent. He found out he still could hear the prayers of his followers, who weren't wiped out by the proper church, and answer them if they believed enough. So he offered power to one of them on thetwist that his body would be possessed by that character. So he was essentially possessing this poor guy to grow stronger again to free himself from the prison. The party didn't know this until some paladins from the church came across them and tried to arrest him. Also some minor angels attacked the party on a different occasion.

[@christianreinard8285]

Dude I’m not gonna lie, I’m with your buddies wanting to hear a more about this guys escapades. One of the best DnD stories I ever heard

[@BranHawk775]

Why do all of these sound badass? I want to hear to, same as the above poster.

[@dragula131]

Dude you gotta keep regaling us with the tale of said parry and Necromancer. That was just too awesome to not wanna hear more

[@caseywillett5539]

"I was a professional DM for Wizards of the Coast and have a lot of experience DMing for celebrities." As a forever DM of 15 years, this immediately raises a red flag for me. Now, I'm not saying that people can't have run sanctioned games for "The Gawds of the d20 System", but if you're attempt to get players interested is based upon your personal accolades and lacks the general hook of a good story or intriguing plot, I'm going to question your skill as a DM. It doesn't help that the DM I sat under who taught me this red flag was overall a terrible DM who brought personal life into the game and railroaded us to the point of telling our characters' stories to us. It was less like DnD and more like story time with Reading Rainbow.

[@streamjumper2442]

8:26 I've heard Brian break at a lot of crazy things on this channel, but I think this is the first time he broke with something he said himself there.

[@Scorpious187]

To be fair, I wrote that in the commentary for that particular bit of the script. lol.

[@dawnofhavoc11235]

@@Scorpious187 awesome

[@GoldieMethrans]

@@Scorpious187 Best. Script commentary. Ever.

[@DanCoutoS]

6:45 I had one of those players on a D&D5e adventure, created an Edge lord character ( Pact of the Lich bloodhunter ) and even with A LOT of warnings that this table was not fit for antagonistic behavior between players, he still go with his character concept, clamming "I'll not interfere with other player" So i fit him right before the characters would enter a dungeon, since it was a beginners table, they roll with it, welcoming the new party member, besides they trusted me to maintain order. After a lot of encounters, and a lot of edge moments of the edge lord... One of the party members had a bad luck moment, failing his 3 death saving throws, dying, in a heroic way, saving the other party members. Since it was a beginners table, i saw the players morn this death... And the edge lord stand up and said "I'm gonna rip the paladin's hearth and offer to my Lich!" The whole table stand up and defend the fallen paladin's corpse I ended de session there, because i was afraid that the players would get physical. For some reason, for more than a year we forgot to call him for the game. Hum. Funny

[@leekonze7441]

A few red flags, as a DM on my end. A player who says that their character is "Unplayable" unless they have at least three 18s in their character's ability scores. I had a player, regardless of who in our group was DMing, would routinely throw away his character sheets and discretely try to roll up a new character if he didn't have those three 18s. And when he was caught, he would argue that it's not fun for him unless his character is super powerful and would threaten to quit if he didn't get his way. In the end, he would relent and accept the DM'S ruling, because he knew he wouldn't get to play otherwise. Another one for me is the player who purposefully designs their character to take away the agency of the other players. I have had a few players like this over the years. They have felt that, to be an effective party leader, that you have to fully control what the other players can and cannot do.

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

I know someone like that, in theory. It's a friend of mine, who only played once and he got that lucky on his rolls. Then, he was put in a game with an inexperienced DM who did crazy stuff like rule that only the person who got the final hit gets exp, so as the game went on my friend basically became one punch man while everyone else was stuck level 1. He got bored and left that game but he always talks about how, if he every plays again, his new DM is going to need to let him port his character over, let him be the secret big bad, and all kinds of other main character syndrome BS that leads me to tell him my table is full whenever he asks. 😂

[@The-0ni]

My red flags all come from several people who were in my campaign and are now gone (Thank God) 1. Player X is definite maybe to join campaign but then definite yes when she hears Player Y and Z are playing. “I heard you got complaints about Player Y hogging the spotlight for role play and I’m letting you know Im leaving the game if Player Y and Z leave because they are the best players at this game” 2. Player X and Y are playing a Half-Elf Rogue and a Goblin Monk. They proceed to sneak in absolute darkness while looking for traps. I am pretty by the rules and explain before they walk into my trap how they have -5 to Perception checks while in darkness. For literally 30 minutes I had to breakdown Darkvision does not mean Flashlight vision. I got so much push back in the middle of the game I had to talk to Player Y and Z offline. Z: Hey man did you- DM: No I didnt pull the -5 out of thin air. Its right here on DnD Beyond. Z: Man see this is why I hate it when they print new books with new rules DM: Dude its in the base PHB/free rules WoTc puts out Z: See but that doesnt make any sense! If Im playing a race with darkvision and Ive had darkvision my whole life, those penalties shouldnt apply to me. And your nerfing Player X and Y who are the parties scouts. DM: The scouts that are not trained in Perception and have abysmal Wisdom are your “scouts”

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

lol I've met someone JUST LIKE that last bit about wotc "changing the rules." 😅

[@scareBro]

I had a group that had a hard time paying attention but one was an outlier: never paid attention unless it was his turn, othetwise was on a portable gaming device. For a session zero, i made a 4 room dungeon, The Unseen Temple. Each room had different parts of it invisible and had a only a handful of monsters, pitfalls were the big danger. Room 1: maze-like, ceiling was invisible (sunshine, suspended birds, etc.) Party banged their heads trying to nerf it. Room 2: invisi- maze, some kobolds. Room 3: invisible floor, no walls, no guardrails. Room 4: combo. Anyway, Red Flag person was playing video games all this dungeon till room 3. Room 3 had a flr pattern of an upside down T, leading to a leaver, drop off and wall, everything else was a bottomless pit. Red Flag heads straight for the dead end, another player activates the leaver allowing a safe way to proceed to final room. All other players proceed to the door they came from and north to the final door, except Red Flag; he looks up from his game, says, "I go to the last door," and right back to videogame. "How?" I ask. "What is your path?" He sighs in disgust and quickly points to his figure on the map and straight lines a diagonal path to the northern door. Back to videogames. I describe what happens. "With a smile of accomplishment, Red Flagg starts to jog to his party, only for his first step to not land, nor his second or third. He sees his friends getting further and further away from him vertically as they watch Flagg fall into a black eternity." Red Flag was pissed i had "singled him out" and was "picking on him". He didn't even comprehend that the dungeon was designed to make the players pay attention, even though i specifically told them that i designed it just for that before they agreed to play

[@adamxei9073]

Response to the Red flag of having a character that used to be a great adventure but took time off. Have some respect to the veteran and soldier background. Ain't nothing wrong with coming into the game with a little bit of know-how both in and out of character.

[@sixolddereks]

I think the problem was more about a level 1 (supposedly entirely inexperienced level) character having the knowledge of a level 20 (supposedly mythic character that is told about in fairy tales and world legends).

[@phonetheory7056]

@@sixolddereks If I were to use the sort of "retired adventurer" backstory, I'd have my character formerly retire at level 3.

[@sixolddereks]

@@phonetheory7056 Same, but I also wouldn't claim they were a level 20 prior to that. It would even take a lot of suspended belief to say level 12. I think the main problem is that people don't tend to realize the scale that leveling implies. It's quite a steep curve compared to what we typically see in video games and such. I actually have a character I made (ready to play if I ever get the time irl to join a campaign) that is level 3 retired old man who lost an arm. His backstory only had him as a level 8 in his prime though. This character might never be played though, because I made it specifically for if I join a party of newer players. So, he can control the battles on the front lines (effectively giving time for the others to learn) and act as an Uncle Iroh figure to help guide newer players with advice and suggestiong without feeling like I'm trying to be nosey.

[@INTCUWUSIUA]

I think an interesting take on this could be to play a character that used to be a level 20 Barbarian or Fighter but who was permanently disabled by some adventure gone horribly wrong, and now they're starting over as a level 1 Wizard or Warlock who is using their magic to compensate for their disability. Basically Dr. Strange as a character.

[@axinhedgelion8417]

I’ve had one DM that did this, but he never overshadowed anyone else

[@storba3860]

I've never run into this problem in game but my dad said his biggest red flag was always DMs who try to add their own self insert to the party and constantly overshadow the other players.

[@ianviviTV]

This is my DM right now. To be fair, he is a new learning teen DM but it is causing people to leave the campaign and im struggling to find a reason to keep playing. Hes always talking over us.

[@patathatapon]

The times where I've added DM PC's to a party I've always made a few specific rules: 1: They need to fill a role that no one in the party fills (Such as a cleric in a party of mostly non-magic users and are new players) 2: They cannot get important kills (Killing random bandit is fine, but if they would have gotten the killing blow on the Big Bandit leader, the leader ends up with 1 hp instead, regardless of the consequences) 3: They cannot solve puzzles for the party (They can provide hints, that may or may not help depending on the situation) 4: If I can, do my best to have them die first if the party is getting into a rough position. (Again, this is mostly for new players. If the players decide that they can handle this encounter, when they most certainly can't, having the DM PC act as red shirt can be a wake up call for them to get the hell out of there.) With at least one or two experienced players in a group, a DM PC isn't really necessary in my eyes. If you have a party of a lot of people who are very new to the game, having someone who can help them with specific things can be a valuable asset. Honestly though, a DM PC is just too much work when I've gotta balance out the rest of the world.

[@tenchraven]

Yeah, DMPC is usually a warning sign. They should be the McGuffin NPC if the GM is trying to influence the party.

[@brandimik]

I have to admit, I was the red flag. I joined an already running D&D group. I was in my 30s and haven't played since my teens. I was way behind. Join a play day to see how it went and started flirting hard with the DM. His opening line was "Do you want a panda service?" I looked at him confused and he said "I eat bush and leave." That got me. I came over to work on my charter sheet the next day and didn't get anywhere, but the bedroom. I then started showing up and not having a charter, I was just a fairy being a pest. I think my overbearing personality and the fact this group was already having issues, broke to group up. Just a note, don't go to any roleplaying game looking for a boyfriend, go there to play.

[@Marxon1134]

Applaud your honesty and humility, very few people have the integrity to do that.

[@INTCUWUSIUA]

Trying to stick to a single theme can be pretty hard with how eclectic the rules for DnD are. For instance if you want to play a magical girl you just roll up a half elf warlock and pick a fey as your patron. Want to play as a Kamen Rider? Armorer Artificer and use your loot to buy an infernal engine. John Wick? Kensei monk with a gun. JoJo's bizarre adventure character? Astral self monk. Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star? Open hand monk. Etc.

[@Kartoffelkamm]

Yeah, but not all magical girls are created equal. For example (might not be entirely accurate, but whatever): Hibiki Tachibana would most likely be an Oath of Devotion Paladin with Monk multiclass. Just punch all the bad stuff and draw her powers from believing in the good in others. Literally. Chris Yukine, meanwhile, would most likely be more of an Oath of Redemption Paladin. With a gun. Actually, a lot of guns. Like, holy cow, that's a lot of guns.

[@trueblade39]

Another player got a little to comfortable with being "the main character" and started passive-aggressively shutting down any plan I had that took away from her control of the narrative. Also, my DM made me watch as a lynch mob killed a man for colluding with corrupt police without even giving the man a chance to explain himself and in spite of my attempt to put a stop to the mob.

[@depecher6s311]

That second part doesn’t sound too bad there isn’t much you could do to stop a large angry mob

[@shyfrog3731]

@@depecher6s311 Eldritch blast the lynch, fireball the mob [if you're cool with casualites], Greater Image as a distraction, even a fighter, rogue, or monk could figure something out - that DM was kind of a piece of shit for not even giving the players a chance to do something, if I'm understanding OP correctly.

[@dr.health1688]

Eh, second part doesn’t seem bad. A large angry mob wouldn’t have done much unless you did something major. But even then something like that would only get you arrested or the subject of their ire.

[@depecher6s311]

@@shyfrog3731 I suppose you COULD do something but I assume this guy isn’t playing a mass murderer/terrorist character. I assumed he meant his attempts at protest towards the mob fell on deaf ears rather than the scene playing out like a movie

[@DESERTP1]

I love when someone wants to be passive aggressive. It allows me to respond with active aggressive. Gotta call people out when they wanna be jerks.

[@Daredhnu]

Any player that refers to themselves as a "critter", had a lot of bad experiences with critters being elitist assholes, badmouthing the other players roleplaying etc. so when a player lets me know they're a critter i'm on guard for any shitty behavior.

[@BoojumFed]

It's a damn good show, but unfortunately it's reached the point of popularity where it's the *_only_* TTRPG experience they have for a lot of folks. And a lot of those folks would otherwise, for one reason or another, not really enjoy a TTRPG in person. My response is much like Ripper's; I may not be Matt Mercer, but _you_ , young padewan, are no Liam O'Brian! The activities of enjoying watching a show and enjoying playing a game are not a lot more similar in RPGs than they are in MMA. Posers get themselves punished.

[@galdramann2478]

@@BoojumFed I really enjoy the difference between CR and the Dungeons Dudes' Drakkenheim games. Fantastic (pun intended) storytelling in both games, but major differences in how the players embody their characters.

[@nuru666]

I've seen that behaviour too, @Daredhnu, but we can also be a very nice asset at a table, I'm a huge critter and I love to RP, but I know a few things damn well: ONLY MATTHEW MERCER IS MATTHEW MERCER. Your DM is not Matt and never will be, so get over it and enjoy the game I am not Sam. I am not Ashley. I am not Liam. I am not Laura. I am not Taliesin. I am not Marisha. I am not Travis. I am not Bobby. Neither are you. Drawing inspiration from them is one things, but trying to emulate them is stupid and just slows the table down and ruins the game for everyone. What it really boils down to is player maturity.

[@_qwerty_3545]

I’m slow. I thought critter was some type of furry thing until I read the replies 😂

[@vukkulvar9769]

I would have expected a nazi to be all about high elves as they're often depicted as beautiful white people with higher intellect, longevity, exquisite culture, etc.

[@JaelinBezel]

I actually made my high elf character black. Was still high and mighty, just not from a cultural or genetic standpoint, more of a standard spoiled brat

[@RuBoo001]

But, see, all real-life Nazis were humans, not elves. You might have had a point if this were Nirn, though, stinking Thalmor…

[@vukkulvar9769]

@@RuBoo001 I don't think you can assume real-life nazis to be rational people, otherwise they wouldn't be nazis.

[@Aaa-bi8ly]

Higher intellect doesn’t necessarily mean having above 10 in WIS.

[@juliusnebulus7303]

​@@vukkulvar9769depends. Nazis today: yes. Nazis back then though were mostly brainwashed people. But i think the fact they were far ahead in terms of technology and science and managed to almost solo multible superpowers at once with their tactis speaks for itself that even they can be hella intelligent. Just nowadays it seems that their positive aspects attrack mainly dumb people, who completely ignote all the horrible things and war crimes the generals and soliders did.

[@johnhansen4794]

"Hey can I take Torture as a performance skill?" "How many XXXXs do elves have?" "What do I roll for XXXX size?" "Which ability score controls rule34-stuff?" "Does this world have prophylactics?"

[@nvfury13]

So they just wanted a Drow…

[@johnhansen4794]

@@nvfury13 Well drizzle my shizzle them durn grey fey do tick all those boxes. Oh poxes!

[@timothyclark803]

I was in a group during a deployment that had all agreed to allow sex in world so long as we kept it respectful and it made sense to the character or story. I do agree that sexual things should be discussed with and agreed upon by the group. So, we never went into graphic details of each encounter. Rolled for performance to determine how well we did. There was one time the sex was described in detail and that is because we were in active combat with a pair of bandits and got them horny to distract them. We did kill them, but, we did let them finish first. My female elf character was a lesbian. But, would have sex with men if needed.

[@johnhansen4794]

@@timothyclark803 Not quite the "Lizards and Latex" add-on home brew a friend wrote up when I was in High school. But if folks are having fun, that is what matters.

[@voodoodummie]

performance can become torture if you roll low enough.

[@willd.4808]

I have a friend who bragged to me about how she purposefully attempts to mess with her DM's campaigns and push them to their extreme limits so they have to completely abandon their campaign to accommodate what she wants to do. I am definitely not inviting her to play the campaign I have in the drafts. There's a difference between "playing in an unexpected way and forcing your DM to improvise, which is a necessary ability for any DM" and "intentionally attempting to cause your DM as much frustration and stress as possible and completely disrespect the campaign they've put a lot of effort and love into because you believe you're the main character of the campaign."

[@thatpatrickguy3446]

42 years as a DM and I've had to deal with a variety of troublesome players. I've found workarounds for most, but some have been game or even campaign enders. Now I'll admit that for some of them I was equally responsible for some of the issues we had. For instance, running a very dark campaign based on the very strict Moorish culture in the era of caliphate rule over the Iberian Peninsula for a group of wacky players who were there for fun and goofing off. That was a poor campaign choice for the group, which was on me, and it made the somewhat problematic choices of players more so. Some of the somewhat goofy character concepts weren't unreasonable, so we went with those. But I vetoed the character concept of a human whose mouth, for no given reason, was in the palm of his left hand, though that the player wanted such an odd character was a red flag. But he, and therefore the campaign, just got a bit more erratic and not workable from there, so after a few sessions of increasing frustration I simply ended the campaign by asking to be given a work shift on that night and telling the players it had been assigned to me, so the campaign died. Thirty years later I recognize that that player was very likely on the autism spectrum and possibly had been watching Vampire Hunter D too much, but I still think it was the right thing to do. The biggest and most obvious red flag was from early in my current long running campaign group when the college age dude is blatantly hitting on the thirteen year old girl at the table. He was told to find another group. Immediately. Or sooner. Another red flag is when two players think it'll be great to split off from the rest of the party to go get the good stuff for themselves. They barricade or bar doors behind them so the rest of the group can't steal their spoils by catching up with them, and off they go. Long story short, after several misadventures where they ran into and ran from encounters too much for them, most of which were trap or trick related so they took damage but there was no pursuit, they didn't take the hint and go find the rest of the party. They ended up finding the lair of a waterborne monster that was out hunting and not in its lair, a 30' deep and roughly 100' across water-filled cave. After finding a corpse on the edge of the pool, along with a few coins, they surmised the monster lair and decided to dive for the "obvious" treasure at the bottom of the pool. While wearing chain mail in the fighter's case. They did tie rope to a stalagmite for safety. The only remotely wise thing that they did. I allowed them to narrowly escape drowning, with the magic-user pulling the unconscious form of the fighter up the last bit to the surface twice, hoping they'd take the hint. They didn't, and the third time they drowned. The guy playing the fighter then had the gall to complain that I was an unfair, killer DM, and the two of them left and never returned. Don't get stuck on the doorknob when the door slams, dude. Another is the person who has only ever played in online chat. The party returns from an adventure and splits up in town to go level, tithe, sell some found items at the pawn shop, whatever. Then their character decides that they need money and they go to the moderately crowded village open air market and say that they are going to cast sleep on the wealthiest looking person there so they can rob them. When I ask if they've read the spell and they know how it works they say yes. I encourage them to read it again and they glance at it and insist that this is what they want to do. I sigh, allow them to do so, then comment on how all the commoners around their target collapse while the target, a third level fighter and son of the village mayor, looks around startled and decides (correctly) that the only other person not collapsed and standing behind him is responsible. Said character resists arrest, is knocked unconscious, tried, and imprisoned. Said player complains that I did it wrong, that I don't understand how the spell works, and that I acted unfairly. He was voted off the campaign island. There are many more stories, but I've already written a book. 😀

[@thatpatrickguy3446]

Also: I cannot stand when players play bards like skanks with no morals or standards. Ugh.

[@eggroll_5663]

I will read your book and more sir. I play dnd for story after all.

[@laxmastiffgaming6351]

When you are very upfront about your DMing style, and six sessions in they still don't seem to get it. Example: "Alright, I'm going to cast Shatter." "Are you sure? You are in a cave." "Yeah?... Why is that a problem?" "It's an enclosed space... And it's a cave." "Alright, I cast it anyway." Queue me rolling to see if there is a cave-in and everyone in the combat being deafened temporarily.

[@VectornautIsLive]

I'm a combatophile. Combat is definitely my favorite part of D&D. I'll flesh out a character enough to be a people, but my heart belongs on the battlefield.

[@Atlas-pn6jv]

I DM for a group that is 3 out 4 brand new D&D players, and I have had to FIGHT to make them not be cagey. I am NOT an adversarial DM. I give them advice probably more often than I should. I can only imagine that they picked it up from people who do play with an adversarial DM, because the one experienced player says I am doing great.

[@funnyvideoguy3216]

Ok the "divine tool" one. I thought he was just trying to find excuses to use a magic item unnecessarily, but OH MY GOD!

[@waffleworshiper]

PvP is possible to do in a way that contributes to the enjoyment of the whole table. There are a lot particulars that have to work out for it to go well though. The most important part is that all the players involved have to be down with it, and are engaging in it in good fun. It can’t be one-sided or an expression of player-player enmity.

[@Kartoffelkamm]

Yep. One party my brother is in, they play The Dark Eye, had a mercenary-style character who valued strength above all else. He also was a player character that the group hired. One group member had an idea: Insult the character's strength so he agrees to a sparring match, and if the group's chosen fighter wins, the mercenary helps them for free. They picked a "first blood" kind of rule, meaning the first character to deal more than 5 points of damage wins. Anyway, the dice gods were not in the party's favor, so the mercenary beat the whole party, but he ended up joining them for free anyway because he liked their devotion to combat.

[@idigamstudios7463]

We had a moment like that orc war-cleric in my game. Fellow PC response: "I cast bestow curse *Withering Impotence* One time our DM allowed a player to cast a hostile spell on another.

[@rael1hp]

I also currently have a "Help the DM" character like you described towards the end. Curse of Strahd is my comfort module and I've run it 7 times. I have the book basically memorized back to front. A friend of mine is trying his hand at DMing for the first time and wanted to run Curse of Strahd. I offered to play a 300 year old native Barovian who had lived through Strahd's reign, and thus had plausible reason to know a lot (but not all) of the in-universe lore, so that I could help the DM from scrambling to find information by simply offering it. DM and I sat down before the start of the module where I broke it down area by area with what I thought was plausible to know and what wasn't and got it all approved, and have that list with me when I play so I don't overstep. i.e. She knows about the revenants in Argynvostholt, but not the fact that they're being kept there because their leader refuses to let them move on. If you're being metagamey on purpose, you gotta do it in a non-disruptive way. Spoilers here, there's a lich who has gone senile and forgotten all of his spells. I decided to make an undead warlock with him as her patron, and she lost all her character levels because her patron LITERALLY FORGOT ABOUT HER, which is why she's level 1 again.

[@Green24152]

turning something usually called metagaming into a helpful DM Assist good stuff

[@rael1hp]

@@Green24152 Now a year later, I've even actively fed the party misinformation, because the information had changed since she last knew it :) I take metagaming very seriously.

[@MitchellTF]

Players who are concerned with crunch over fluff, and who get angry when they aren't the center of attention. Also, players who constantly test the limits of what's not broken. Another is a plaeyr who gets mad whenever they miss/get hit.

[@VectornautIsLive]

Oddly enough, I prefer players who prefer crunch, they're generally more goal-oriented.

[@MitchellTF]

@@VectornautIsLive Fair. In my case there's a very specific type I'm thinking of. One thing I remembered, is a character who tries to 'force' PVP, by claiming her character would only stop if PVPed, and purposely trolled others. IC and OOC.

[@notjohnbruno1522]

I actually had a “used to be lv20 but is now lv1” type character. My character was an old dragonborn sorcerer who was also a history professor. He hadn’t adventured in so long that he had become out of touch with his own magic, his character arc throughout the campaign was coming to terms with that and getting back in touch with his magic in the “modern” age. I made sure that the kind kf character was cool by my DM, and since he was so old he knew almost nothing about modern adventuring and thus left no room for metagaming with the excuse of “he has all the knowledge of monsters and magic that a lv20 character would have.” He was a lot of fun to play, a hardass but always wanting to do right by his students, who comprised most of the rest of the party.

[@joeshanklin2791]

I was so worried about getting into dnd after hearing hearing/reading stories like this specifically because I am a gamer who exclusively plays single players rpg's. I was convinced it d ruin other people's fun with my gaming habits and lack of experience in proper rp. My friend who was a dm helped me with my nerves by pointing out that "At least I was aware." So now generally I play characters who are meant to be one the sidelines unless the dm/friend gets the idea in his head to make us expand our horizons and do a short session where he gives us team roles that go against our norms. I was given the role of team leader and can't help but be nervous that I'll develop main character syndrome.

[@sixolddereks]

I fell into that trap a while ago. I now try to play a secondary role at most on everything I do. I find it more fun to just be the wingman to everyone else's success. This can be done no matter the class or role you play as well. Front liners can stall for the mages to use AOE or battlefield control spells to end the combat. Mages can use control or grouping spells to make the dps job easier. Bards and artificers can give great support to others outside of battle. Just remind yourself that being a leader doesn't mean you have to lead everything. It just means that you are always there to provide guidance when someone asks for it.

[@Shantaq]

I got a player in a campaign that I'm playing in, and he avoids roleplay a lot and is trying to basically make a powerful, utility spellcaster. (Legacy Yuan-Ti Pureblood sorcerer with one level of Paladin) so far at level 6. If you were made the defacto leader, just roll with it. The fact you are worried about developing main character syndrome should help you keep from hogging the spotlight. You can use the leadership role to pull others into the spotlight, and give them a chance to showcase their chosen skillsets and problem solving prowess.

[@JaelinBezel]

My current character is the quiet, socially awkward type but she’s also huge with a resting bitch face, so strangers tend to leave her alone.

[@lordbiscuitthetossable5352]

I once played as a leader character who was basically a charming gunslinger, Edge of the Empire system. The way I got around it was by delegating tasks and regularly asking other people for their opinion or expertise. So when consulting about the Arcaine, ask them. E.g. I see the leader character as the facilitator of individual talents rather then a micro managing mastermind, though when the situation requires it they will make a rapid decision *and* take responsibility for it. That's the key thing about leaders; unless they are the leader of an army or a CEO it is more like a council with a deciding vote. Star Trek actually has good examples on how those archtypes generally work well together.

[@Kartoffelkamm]

On one hand, it's good that you're aware of the possibility that you could develop Main Character Syndrome. But on the other, if done right, it sounds like it would make for a good team leader. For example, both Tsubasa Kazanari and Maria Cadenzavna Eve from Senki Zesshou Symphogear have a bit of MCS, with justification: They were, at one point, the leader of a team. The actual main character is Hibiki Tachibana, but she's not much of a leader, so Tsubasa has to do that part. Tsubasa acting like the main character actually makes her a nice leader, because in most anime like that, the main character's arc is usually about them learning to be a good leader. So, yeah. Maybe allow a bit of MCS, as a treat, to help you become a better leader. Learn how to motivate your friends and keep them on track, and connect with them. Also watch Symphogear, it's awesome.

[@sugarcaffeine4blood]

As a player (that shaped me into the dm I am today) the biggest red flags from fellow party members have been the phrases, "not my problem." or "What?! I didn't know being rude would get me killed." or "What?! Redo! I didn't know that was a quest important npc!" Last and least favourite, "don't bring your trauma into my fantasy game!" Said after drugging the whole party and tried to redrug my Goliath woman cleric in the same session... I guess the red flags culminate into, "lack of accountability." Those games were nightmarish to play, glad I'm in/running better games.

[@silvertheelf]

my red flags are 1. Not knowing that drowning people is strictly evil when you have a battleaxe that can instantly kill them and saying you play a good aligned character/not playing your alignment because I assure you it’s actually super easy if you think hard and long about alignment. 2. Thinking alignment is subjective (ask any questions about what is good or evil), it can be messy where 2 sides can be innocent but against each other but ultimately there is an objective good and evil and if you really think about it, you can probably figure it out quite well with the simple idea that - 1: if it helps people who are not trying to hurt others it’s good. - 2: if it is selfish but isn’t intended to hurt others it’s neutral - 3: if it’s intended to hurt others who are not trying to hurt you it’s evil Aka: Killing a goblin because it’s a goblin is evil, killing a goblin because it attacked you or you know it will attack you is neutral, killing a goblin because that goblin has been raiding and killing villagers is good. Killing a goblin can still be a complex matter if the goblin has been oppressed by the villagers and is raiding them because he wants revenge and so sometimes siding with the goblin isn’t a strictly evil thing. Revenge is neutral leaning towards evil in my opinion because “2 wrongs don’t make a right” as you are well aware. I have a pretty straight forward view of morality but I do understand it can be complicated, I’m not saying it isn’t, but there are places where morality is very objective and you can’t say it’s not objectively wrong to drown a person who just wanted some money to feed their family. 3. Asking me for nudes (this actually happened) 4. Being outwordly against LGBTQ, I have no issues with you being you, I even have a person who is a self proclaimed christian white straight male at my table, do I care? No, they don’t call me a “sinner because your a bisexual femboy” they are respectful towards me and my other players and are more concerned with engaging in the world than giving a shit about all the NPCs being diverse, they also have engaged a little with the side of romance in my games which is sometimes super fun. Mainly it’s not knowing obviously evil acts are evil and being anti-lgbtq (I am Bi, so you would be against me by default)

[@callumarnold2454]

Biggest red flag turned out to be a red flag in real life as well. Friend was DMing a Call of Cthulu game set in a zombie apocalypse, where we were actually playing our own identities in our hometown. Got to use maps of our actual hometown, rely on our respurces available in our houses, and be the badasses we all imagined we'd be in The Walking Dead. Session one the problem player gets his car full of military equipment stolen. He was the only one in our party who added substantial skills and tools he didn't actually possess to his character. We let it slide but when he left the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition, got distracted by a pack of walkers, he couldn't keep an eye on his car and somebody stole it. Next session we found his car, and somebody was nearby, apparently unarmed, and not seemingly hostile. Without any opportunity to do anything else, the problem player pulled out his crossbow and murdered the dude on sight (rolled a crit). My character was justifiably angry that this player had murdered a non-zombie NPC in cold blood without even knowing why he had stolen the car. His response? "He stole my property so he deserved to die." After a couple more minutes of in-character arguing we moved on, but he later messaged our DM to complain that my roleplayed outrage at his murder was bullying and asked the DM to tell me to stop criticizing his actions. Several sessions later, this extremely sane player ended up charging a hoard of zombies and dying. What was especially chilling later though was that that player ended up doing some stuff in real life that made his decision to choose violence seem a lot less like roleplay and a lot more his actual personality, which might explain why he got so defensive when I questioned his actions.

[@pLanetstarBerry]

14:33 this one! Had one problem player that did arguing and begging ALL THE TIME. It ended up bogging down the pacing of the games, made me doubt if I was DMing things right (I was the newest DM at the time) and he couldn't compliment other DMs without putting my DMing down. He never pulled this shit with the other DMs in our group, just me. He also constantly complained that "women don't like my nerdy hobbies" then get huffy when the rest of the group pointed me out (the only female player) as the example that it wasn't true. The first time he couldn't make it to a session I felt relief. I ended up losing my temper at him during a game he was running and he seemed genuinely surprised when everyone took my side. This was literally the week before the pandemic started so it was the last time I saw him in person. Maybe someday I'll get the old group together (excluding the problem player) and finish the campaign I DMed for them. Because everyone else was great.

[@randomperson9164]

One of the biggest red flags I encountered was in the second game with mostly the same players. When another player tries to outdo either your current or previous character concept.

[@pedrooginio]

Had a similar experience, but with a DM who tried to outdo the campaing of another DM he was playing in. The fun is, that 'campaing' flopped after the first session. No one wanted to keep playing what was, essencially, a bootleg version of another game.

[@totallynotamindflayer7296]

One of my biggest red flags as a DM is whenever a PC starts asking me to homebrew things from anime. No Timothy, you can't just SUMMON a frigging NINE-TAILED FOX with a KI POINT!

[@kjj26k]

That's gotta coast at least 2 Ki Points.

[@alexkuhn5188]

See for 1 Ki Point you summon a baby nine tailed fox and to summon it as an adult you need to spend A LOT MORE.

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

Well duh, it obviously requires 9 🙄😏

[@leechesg]

The one about not paying attentions really gets me going. Like, I go on my phone or other devices specifically when I'm not there in-character and want to limit my metagame knowledge without leaving the room. I have players that do it while it isnt their turn in combat, and then take ages to take their own turn because they weren't planning.

[@Menno_3]

6:11 I have a character with main character syndrome. She fully believes that she will save the world and acts like she's incredibly improtant and basically invincible. I try to minimize my own MCS traits (as a player) though I could do better

[@maxiwarhammer]

My first character was a high level one going back to level 1, but in his case he was about to die and make a deal with the devilish minor deity, losing all his knowledge due to losing part of his soul and becoming a warlock working for that devil, looking for, in secret, to recover his soul that was broken in shards by himself and scattered through the world, talked with DM and he consider it a good idea as long as the devil doesn't realize that he hasn't the full soul and I need to deceive him, died fast because I was too noob, but learned a lot in the process

[@a_angry_bunny]

In regards to "using player knowledge instead of character knowledge" I honestly use player knowledge instead of character knowledge unintentionally like it's a reflex. For example, the DM was explaining how the king and the surrounding guard were becoming alarmed because an eclipse was happening. Without skipping a beat I said, "Oh you don't need to worry about that, it is just the moon blocking out the sun." and I felt like an idiot as soon as the words left my mouth which was further compounded by the reaction from the table and the DM asking me to make a knowledge check.

[@MalWave]

6:39 a Rules lawyer who also mentions the rule in question, but still lets the DM make the call is the best. I have a player who knows a ton more about Eberron lore than I do, so he chimes in with anecdotes that help everyone become more invested :) (not a red flag, just wanted to share)

[@ajgunter8932]

Players that dont take the time to learn their character's abilities and expect the DM to tell them every turn what they can do.

[@corruptofficial8638]

When the player starts pulling out the red flags and trying to take over your living room through territorial aggression.

[@agustinintile6039]

With my first 3.5 party we had a situation really similar to the Nazi guy one. One player left and another brought his teen nephew, he was a trouble player buy nothing out of the ordinary. One day, so the DM could play as a character we started bringing experimental one shots, I did a few and this kid (17 y/o) came one day saying he was writing a book about a medival world and wanted to test it out, we agreed happily. And then this happened: CONTEXT: We are from Argentina, in the 70's we had a pretty brutal dictatorship led by a military guy named General Videla where 30000 people disappeared in the hands of paramilitary guys famously driving Green Ford Falcons... Keep this in mind. We started, it was a generic city in a medival context, we were having fun dicking around and meeting each other and because story reasons the king sends us out to a special mission, we say ok and he says: You'll be escorted by a miitary Phalanx led by General Vi-Dela... I blurted a big NOPE and the rest of the table just cringed while the kid was wating with a grin expecting other response as if it was just a joke... SO HE REPEATED THIS AND ADDED: HE WILL BE RIDING HIS GREEN HORSE NAMED FALCON After that we stopped playing altogether cause we didn't know how to kick him out being the youngest

[@OldKnightSai]

I've had this happen more times than I can count: When a player is -overly invested- in their extremely specific character/class/race/build combination. I realize they have zero intention of playing the game. They simply exist only to facilitate their own power fantasy.

[@SanguinaryGuard]

Regarding 10:53, This happened to me. I joined an ongoing campaign but was still early in the campaign (level 3 on the verge of level 4.) This is nearly my worst nightmare as a player, the party is semi-established (already got some inside jokes), and I show up. I usually play a grey man who comes out of their shell as they trust the party more and more. This time I decided to lean into it and play a changeling (due to the campaign not being planarly viable); it was now a type of fae creature from the Unseelie courts. He turned traitor and divulged secret plans to King Titania and is now in a sort of Witness protection on the mortal world.) He's moving around with the party so the fae chasing him can't find him and hoping a group of solid allies can protect him if they catch up. So far, they don't know he's a changeling and find him a helpful infiltrator as he poses as a simple travelling monk with an odd set of skills. Once I figured out the party, I finally started giving him a personality... It's based on Gerak, the Cardassian Tailor in Star Trek DS9

[@faldororlaridon2691]

The mecha one tangentially reminds me of the Gurps 3rd edition game I'm playing in, in a homebrewed fantasy/sci-fi setting, merging magic and space in really creative ways. In *this* sort of setting a mecha character can make sense, especially when the mecha is 7 ft tall, and your character is a 7 inch tall faerie(ellyllon) who struggles when put in a situation outside of the suit. A great moment in that game was when we were ambushed at a 'safe' location, and my ellyllon had to get to his suit and fight off a skull spirit before it could wipe him out...good times. But yeah, make sure your characters fit the setting. There are plenty of things a game master may not want to deal with, and you want to make sure everyone can have fun at the table.

[@StevenJQuinlan]

My main red flag is players who spend the session pushing back against the DM's calls in game. Its one thing to disagree with a DM call, but arguing with the DM over any little thing is immensely frustrating. We had one player who spent a good ten minutes arguing that the trading post three days into the desert didn't have some trivial bit of gear in stock.

[@depecher6s311]

One of my groups recently introduced a new player to replace our paladin who left for irl career reasons. On the first session they started pvp with one of the other party members and lost badly. They had the nerve to complain about us being murderhobos because we didn’t want to spare the random new person who came in and attacked a party member. He didn’t make it for the next sessions needless to say hahaha

[@ViirinSoftworks]

I made a homebrew game where all the player characters are NPCs. That's rule 1, and the primary part of character creation. One new player we had decided that he could kill my own character and it wouldn't affect the story, and had to do so because my "three laws safe" robot was "bloodthirsty". He later proceeded to teleport behind a raider boss in Mad Max and decapitate him, then do the same thing when we went to Zombieland. (We isekai every campaign to another franchise, keeping our abilities, freaking out whoever we meet for the most part. We do count as eldritch abominations in other realities, but no-interest NPCs in our home realities.)

[@Eddiember]

DM who plays thru Roll20 here. Here is my unique Red Flag. When you get a Steam notification that one of your players, who is currently at your "table" has started playing "Dead by Daylight" or a similar game that relies heavily on Multiplayer Interactions. I don't mind players playing games like Vampire Survivors or Peglin (heck, I do that too in games when because ADHD brain go brrrr), but when you start playing with other people in the middle of my session, I'm glad your already in another game when I kick your butt out of the call.

[@zambonie50]

I was running a game and a player had a really fun idea for their family, they were a noble draconic bloodline sorcerer so they wanted to have a sort of mafia like family and the world to have a lot of draconic families based on colors and such. I was still buidling the world so i was down, and it sounded fun, we went through their backstory and how it would work and moved on. later I was running the campaign and after a couple of sessions they dmed me and asked me why i was running their backstory wrong, i asked what the matter was and they started going through how they wanted their backstory to have worked. . . It was so different then what they wanted earlier, and i asked them why they were changing out of nowhere, they then proceeded to try and gaslight me into believing thats how it allways was, and when i screenshotted the previous conversation where they said their backstory they got mad. I'm fine with wanting a different character or changing some backstory (might get a bit annoyed because they asked for a lot with the original), but they seriously wanted to gaslight me into thinking they never wanted that in the first place? what is that all about?

[@Malkuth-Gaming]

The warningbells go off when someone wants to roleplay as a prepubescent child.. in a game where we kill monsters and deal with moral dilemma. My first DM allowed that.. it did NOT go well.

[@amberpenelopevd]

I have adhd and it really makes it harder to listen so when I play I doodle and write a lot but I always let the DM know beforehand that I do this to help me pay attention and hear what they say, in that way I don’t have to feel bad and they don’t think I’m not invested :))

[@1Ring42]

I try to win at DnD but my definition of win is "everyone is excited for the next session".

[@francoisdumont4105]

I had a fellow player who always played psychopaths, no matter what the game was. Sometimes he would write his alignment as "Lawful Good with Chaotic Evil tendencies" or "Lawful Good to the party; Chaotic Evil to everyone else".

[@DavidAllanLaursen]

This is why back stories should be required. Setting aside all the important stuff like roleplay material and letting the DM know how best to influence your character, back stories force players to show their work. Not only should it explain the abilities and personality of your character, but it should be relevant to the campaign setting.

[@danielhale1]

Had a player's teenage kids join our campaign and regretted it; turns out one of the kids was overtly misogynistic (in real life) and played it out in the game. As the GM I was not happy about this, nor were other players. The dad was totally happy with this. This was one of many things wrong with that dad, it turned out.

[@maxtaylor3341]

I actually am currently playing a main character. But how I rule it isn't that I try to take the spotlight, but I just make him a character that is incredibly the most generic anime protagonist ever! He's a human fighter with a huge sword and his parents where killed mysteriously. He's very strong but also very stupid, instead of taking the spotlight or making it about himself, before finding whoever killed his parents, he wants to just make friends with the party and make sure their dreams come to fruition too. May I add that he also is an eldritch knight and possesses a sword with a demonic entity trapped inside given to me by my generous DM for future plot reasons. We like to make jokes of hisnaivety so while he does have brain cells, I just have him trust whatever any of the others say, because "They're my friends and I trust them! They would never betray me!"

[@AnxietyArchfeyPwincess]

Some red flags I have: 1. Players who don’t write a backstory. I need to know how to write the character into the world. I need to know something about them! 2. Players who use Homebrew without permission. 3. Unwilling to roll up a new character instead of use one they played in another game. Usually because the transplant character won’t fit my setting. 4. Players who take it personally if you criticize or get mad at their character in character. It’s a role playing game, I can be mad at or criticize a character without actually being mad at the player. 5. Players who don’t respect the boundaries of NPCs. I had an asexual NPC and for some reason a player chose that NPC to try to ask out. Not that they would have been against a date, but was very insistent after they rolled a bad persuasion check.

[@Doublemonk0506]

Wait. For story 5, did you specify that the character was aromantic asexual? If yes, then the player's a creep. If no, I could see why they tried to ask out the NPC, but the act of justifying the roll puts him a point closer to the creepy valley of creeps

[@TheLevantin]

My red flags are: -Players who are not paying attention. Who are only here because they have nothing better to do. And who don't really care about anything. -Players who don't play their characters. Example: The little nervous and scared girl is always brave and never scared. The stupid one is always smart. -Players who sit down to play and want to be entertained. The game master is only and only there to entertain the players and the players do not have to do anything. The game master must also do everything else, for example, find dates and other things that a player could also do. I need players to support me and not take advantage of me. -Players who refuse to read the smallest PDF. I usually have rulebooks and such as PDFs that I pass around for players to read, what species are playable, what classes, etc. How does the dice roll work? -Players who refuse to read handouts. -Players who refuse to take notes. -Players who have a new excuse every week why they can't play today. And that for months. -Minmaxer -Powergamer -People who hate other people because of origin, religion, sexuality, etc. -Couples. This sounds strange but I don't play with couples. In my experience, they always bring their problems to the table, dragging me and other players into it and demanding that you take a stand yourself. "Are you on my side or his?". I also don't play with players who might come together. I have a nose for who might come together.

[@arcanegenius4697]

i once was in a campaign organized by a close friend, who was a veteran to dnd and i had asked him to teach me and some of our friends how to play, then play a campaign first of all, turns out he only did minor worldbuilding (basically none) and i also had to learn the game all alone, teach every single player how to play, and make every single persons character sheet. and then when the campaign rolls around, my friend the dm says “oh btw guys i brought my brother to play”. said brother was a level 3 ghost bard (we were all level 1 and he said “oh but he has a lot of experience”) named saul goodman, who completely ruined the session. all in all my red flags are this: An extremely lazy dm A joke character in a non joke campaign others not bothering to learn the game and leaning on others to basically do everything for the

[@lastrabbit6139]

I didn't start playing dnd until much later than I could have because there wasn't a way to "win". Took me a while to understand it's glories.

[@adriel8498]

Mecha: armorer artificer. Fulfill your ironman fantasy.

[@jesternario]

When they mentioned PVPing to force another action, yeah. That's an immediate "I don't want to play with this person."

[@graylilplum1947]

I don't have a problem with "bard antics," and all that. It's a critical role stereotype, I've done it myself. But one of my players wanted to use Charm Person or Suggestion to seduce...which made me realize the spells were essentially a magical roofie.

[@danielgorodetzki9297]

I had 2 people with characters backstory of lvl20, the first one (he wanted to be the actual God of nature but I convinced him to play someone that it makes sense for him to start at lvl1 and he agreed to have just be mentored by the God of nature) was absolutely that guy, he claimed he can't go out to clear a kobold cave because they're a part of nature (essentially blocking one questline, no biggy since I try to make the world as open as possible so it was just one option out of many) and then he found a ring made out of the darkest black material they've seen, and decided to put it on, surprisingly it was cursed, he then agreed to kill the kobolds his character so fiercely defended because the quest giver was a powerful mage that could remove the ring, he didn't even consider other options, he just panicked because his character might die. he's a good guy, he just didn't understand the concept of DND not being only about his character. The other one is in my current campaign, he used to be an emperor in another universe, and he used to be immortal (until someone killed him, he doesn't remember who), I was iffy about him but a friend vouched for him, and his character is hilarious, the character thinks he knows everything but he knows everything in a very different universe, so he comes off as weird or awkward because he doesn't understand etiquette, or just a BSer, he's also often overconfident since he was a demigod so he tries to raise money by arena fighting higher level characters, and loses some, wins some when the character is his level or he gets lucky.

[@dwall0059]

As a new DM I needed this video

[@fafniragiota2613]

"Divine Syph-" dies from laughter.

[@keelanbrown7747]

"Can I roll to lay the dragon?" "Well it's gonna be a long battle with a tonn of attac- hold up did you say lay?"

[@braxmiss889]

All my shopkeeps have magical theft tags/trackers on some items that is rare or higher. Not on all but you have to do more/ expect more than just pocket and leave. This can be used to lure that npc and things like that 😄 fun and keeps just "steal steal steal" in check. Be creative or something

[@ranger4544]

About forgetting my character's abilities... So, I sometimes (quite a few times) forget adding the extra damage my barbarian does when raging. Yeah, I am not proud about that.

[@patrickmooney2673]

Started a game with some friends I played online games with on VTT. One friend asked if a friend of his who played D&D could join. His friend proceeded to pull out a copy of the adventure book we were playing while on camera. Kept finding all the secrets and hidden things in the game and acting like he was so clever. I still regret not calling him out immediately. I just wanted to play with my friends and not start a bunch of drama.

[@windowssonic5953]

First time I've heard the narrator completely lose it like that, and I'm all for it.

[@atashgallagher5139]

I played a chaotic neutral/good character who was a fey lost warlock with an arch fey patron. My character made a camp for elves, kidnapped all of the elves he could manage to, and forcibly made them take breaks and relax because he thought they were overly stuck up holier than though lawful stick up the arse dill weeds. Basically just thought that elves weren't all that bad and really were just overworked and too focused on their bureaucratic shit and would be perfectly amenable if they took more breaks and got a bit of space to chill out.

[@genseven4616]

That last story about keeping things a secret from the dm is relatable. I've had dms that use dm knowledge to counter everything the players have. I once flew high into the sky as a fairy druid and then wild shaped into a whale once I was over the bbeg. The dm literally stopped the session. When we came back he rolled for the bbeg to dodge, failed. Then said "the bbeg uses a legendary resistance to pass the saving throw" Mind you, we've been hitting this thing and it never once used a legendary action or resistance and it didn't use any after that one. Some DM's be tripping yo.

[@daveshif2514]

ya in my favorite campaign, the players all kept their plans secret from me. it was very fun to see them squirm, and fear my evil gm plans mwahahaha. but i thought it was so cool how invested they were in the game, and it was super fun when they got to the table ready to pit their plans against mine. this was a high level long long running campaign and they really were sweating it out. i actually loved this because i would often mislead the players, lying to them or tricking them with misinformation which would in turn make them go back to their secret meetings and come up with ideas, which they would then try to use against me… only for me to reveal that their information was wrong all along! then, they started really checking their info, and doubling their efforts to outsmart me. i will say it wasnt exactly ez to run, and i did have to give them some free wins from time to time because lets be honest, the gm can easily just make a game impossibly hard to “win” but it was a great game and so much fun to have that extremely tense dynamic. we were all friends/ family so there were never hard feelings, it was like a super lengthy chess match with fireballs

[@kjj26k]

Gee, if they disliked that (awesome) move so much they could've just said it would kill you and have you make the hard choice. But I guess they weren't to big on choice.

[@lazyspade1559]

14:15 I had a player that didn’t have that backstory but still wanted to know everything about the monsters from level one. At level 5 when He decided to change his backstory so that he deliberately knew everything about monsters and my world he was in. Still not level twenty in his backstory but felt a bit disrespectful. When I asked about it he said. It’s only natural to want to know about every single thing in a world of magic. I asked him if that was a character flaw or just how he thought as a player he said it wasn’t a flaw and it was how both him and his character thought. I ended up letting him go.

[@amarellaharte574]

My personal pet peeve is people who confuse a red flag with a deal breaker. I'll give a red flag a chance. A deal breaker gets told we're not really the group for them. A few of these 'red flags' were deal breakers for me. And apparently for the person posting them as red flags as well.

[@EllpaFox47]

2:54 that’s not fucking subtle at all “I was trying to build a fucking farm here. AND YOU BUILT AUSCHWITZ!” -Anamoly

[@lorenzocassaro6188]

This video gave me an idea: I'm going to make myself an "STD Table" to bring out whenever one of my players tries to "snuggle-struggle" somebody Thankfully, I've never had players like that, but it's good to be prepared. Just in case.

[@War-Jac]

My biggest red flag is the "Can't make it" person. Unfortunately this person is my best friend and he doesn't seem to realize it's what he is. For context things started swell save for one tiny detail, he didn't like the climate of the setting, he thought it was a bland and overused thing. But being the odd man out he was a good sport, especially given that we got together as a play group with me as the DM because he wanted to play and not be a DM like he was previously. After a few sessions we had a good schedule going, we agreed to play only when everyone could make it. This was a failsafe as my intention was to play every other week at the worst and every week at the best of scenarios. My players aren't aware of this and that's because I had my suspicions from the poor excuses he'd give, the one excuse that started this suspicion was that he suddenly couldn't make it on our usual day so we'd "probably be best to play without him." With what seemed like tooth pulling effort we all managed to change our usual day to better fit HIS schedule but after a few good sessions that issue popped up again. "Guys I think you all should play without me for a bit, something popped up." It wasn't a big deal, we waited on him to remain inclusive for just a FEW WEEKS (6) then started playing again... until the THIRD time. "Guys I can't make it I have a date." Was that week's excuse, now that alone wasn't a big deal, life is more important than the game, it just so happened that this date was planned A WEEK IN ADVANCE and he only mentioned it to us that day about AN HOUR before we were going to start.... for some reason. He continued "it was the only day I don't have anything important to do this week" Now again, he's a busy guy, we are all adults and each of us makes sacrifices to ensure we can have fun and sometimes things don't match up. Since then a few of us have all had a reason or two not to play that week but we all made sure EVERYONE KNEW A DAY AHEAD OF TIME AT LEAST. It was really upsetting at the time when it happend to be only one person always shutting things down and it's always last second and THEY ARE THE ONLY REASON THE GROUP STARTED PLAYING IN THE FIRST PLACE. We all agreed to play without him if we could find a new person to join with the intent being that as long as 3 of 4 players showed we could continue smoothly and have a reason for their absent character to 'hang back.' That leads us to where we are now. "I think now that we have a forth player you guys should just not worry about me showing up. I've got a lot of stuff going on and I can't play on our usual day." (The new usual day that worked best for him suddenly didn't) The worst part is that the nail in the coffin was knocked in by his own hand and as much as I want to invite him back to our virtual table he left the Discord server we setup. Then told me to tell the group that his character 'went off on his quest alone'. I love this guy to death but man... I hate that we can't play together. I wish he'd be honest about why he called it off so much.

[@OMsRandomWriter]

When my LFP (Looking for Players) posting specifically says no Murder Hobos, no gore, and to ask me about homebrew/provide links before using it. A person applied with a dragonborn urchin rogue who's cloak and armor are made from the skin of his enemies and forever crusted in blood, and that his behavior began just before he left the orphanage. Yep, you read that right. Man killed children in DND games for fun. Not following that one recruitment requirement tells me that they are either a troll trying to destroy my game, they're That Player, or just didn't read the description and wouldn't pay attention while playing the game. He also wanted to do a homebrew class, and a homebrew variant of dragonborn (he refused to give me the class link, but the dragonborn variant has since become an actual option). He lived almost a full 24 hours ahead of everyone else, so when we'd say what days we could play, he refused to put the days we were saying (we'd say tuesday for us, wednesday for him, and he's just go berserk saying we were trying to exclude him from the game) and it just got to the point where I kicked and banned him. And as much as I wished I could say this was the only time I had to deal with this type of rogue, unfortunately, it was not. Not even 6 months later, for my Thursday group who is going almost 2 years strong now, enter Bruce Brightwater, a Monk-Rogue gestalt who admittedly was very well written in theory. He got kidnapped from the marterial plane and returned 5 years before the campaign started, where a group of monks saved him and train him in their ways. Sound familiar? Man made Bruce Wayne, but unlike the Batman, he wasn't opposed to killing. And killing he did. He only joined for the first 4 or 5 sessions before he ghosted everyone, but he stayed in the discord, and by the time we got close to 3 months (10 or so sessions at that point), I just kicked him after getting everyone else's agreement to do so.

[@Xarestrill]

So... I had a conversation with someone I know a couple of days ago, and he wants me to run a D&D game for him (probably 3.5e since it's the version I'm most familiar with). Most of the conversation was a red flag. It started out fine, spitballing a bit about character types and stuff. He decides he wants to make a character based on his favorite fighter in the game For Honor. Again, that's fine and it gives me an idea what he wants (a fighter in full plate and a polearm). Then he starts going on about all the things his character can do... Like moving really fast (despite being in full plate), having unblockable attacks, able to shove/knock the enemies around, a supply of bombs that regenerate over time, something about stamina, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm trying to explain that D&D isn't like that and has it's own set of rules, that half the stuff he's talking about has no equivalent in the game, and he mostly ignores me and keeps going on about the different moves and stuff I need to make sure he can do, sending me links to the wiki for reference, etc. I keep trying to get him to understand that D&D isn't a tabletop version of For Honor, and he finally ends with something like; "Well, it's going to be my first time playing D&D, so it'd be really great if you could make it like something I'm really interested in."

[@daveshif2514]

check out pathfinder 1e third party system called Path of War. its exactly like what youre describing

[@MrGunsnrosesfan100]

13:10 Baradun from NPC DnD is almost exactly this, and pretty great. Session 1 even starts with Baradun losing most of his powers.

[@thesuperrancher9684]

I used to be an absolute control freak + MinMaxer. I was really new at the game but I had read all the rules. In my defense the game we were playing was filled with a lot of way to difficult enemies and we would have been TPK'd if I had not MinMaxed, still not one of my proudest games.

[@ktoma36]

I tried my hand at running a pathfinder game for a few acquaintances and friends from discord a few years back. The premise was that each player had for one reason or another contracted with a group of dwarves whom were striking out to set up a new holding deep in the wilderness (Was using dwarf fortress as inspiration for this). The first mission of the campaign was to do a sweep of an old stone stone for that the dwarves were going to repurpose for their own use. This was the first time I DM'd in a major capacity and looking back at it the redflags and mistakes I made were clear as daylight. It started out well enough with me running the game once a week. It started going downhill though when a few of the players started bugging me non stop to run it more and pretty soon I was doing small sessions every day. The first mission dragged on as a few of the players in the party werent really engaging in what was going on. The one player who was actually engaging with the situation was doing most of the legwork and putting all the pieces together (essentially there were two factions of monsters in the fort that were trying to kill eachother, leshies and kobolds, and whichever one the party decided to help would provide different benefits to the settlement after the dwarves moved in). It came to a head when the player who was actually engaging with the factions was trying to tell the party information they'd gotten from the leshies when out of nowhere the one of the players that wasnt paying attention declared they were going to attack the first player because they thought 'they were betraying us and siding with the leshies' (the party had decided they wanted to support the kobolds). He'd already started rolling dice and such, somehow doing around 30 damage with an ice spell at level 2 (Which after looking at his character sheet later I realized he'd taken some 'liberties' with feats and such). At that point I stepped in slapped the damage down (since it would of insta killed the first player) and gave the wounded character a chance to get away from the party (as the rest of the party followed suit to try to kill the player). Stupidly I kept going and by the time the party got to the big fight the five player party was down to three (The one player who'd been attacked by the party had gone back to the dissenting leshy to help them get ready to attack the main leshy force from the back. The other player who was missing left the game after the unplanned PVP). I had told them it was going to be a challenging fight and to *not* run in without a plan as the difficulty wouldnt be lowered on account of the missing players. Guess what happened. They ran in and ate several prepared actions from some pumpkin leshies again and again. The pumpkin leshies had a 1d6 sneak attack but their regular attacks did 1d2-1 damage. They also only had about 4 hp and were CR 1 enemies. After the combat encounter the party was battered but successful in charging head first into an ambush. That's when the final straw dropped. The players who'd not payed attention to really anything up until the combat happened had looked up the CR of the enemies I had them fighting, added all the CR up and then started telling me I did a horrible job because the total CR of encounter was 11. They demanded extra experience and loot from the encounter because of how bad I did and at that point my motivation to DM was crushed. Ended up just killing the campaign after wrapping up a scene for the one player who'd been trying their best. Unfortunately the experience really drove me away from DM'ing for a long time and even now I've just started getting back into it with only two players. Oh and did I mention that one player who'd initiated PVP and had been complaining about the CR of the enemies had also been dming me about how they wanted to with one of the male kobold npc's I'd made in great detail? TLDR Red Flags I had in my first attempt to DM >Players only interested in combat >Player initiating PVP unannounced and the rest of the party joining in to try and kill a player >Player DM'ing me about their lust for an NPC >Players demanding more loot and XP after an encounter >Players fudging their skills on their character sheets >Players demanding for the game to be run off schedule

[@adamn615]

Honestly as someome with ADHD i was always so worried about my spacey-ness would be considered rude and would make it unenjoyable for the other players

[@damienwylaz1738]

I play on my phone during other players turn because my ADHD not only keeps me from staying still, i talk CONSTANTLY if given the chance I will accidentally get the entire party into an hour long convo about squirrel nuts I stg.

[@bread2878]

For some reason this is a common thing: People like to sexually assault and or kill other PC's. I have experienced this a multitude a time.

[@brunch1572]

After reading these comments, I think the best thing to ever happen to DnD is the invention of the transistor.

[@robotdude2206]

Video idea: DMs, what are your green flags? Or types of players you love to have at the table.

[@daveshif2514]

players who know that what theyre doing isnt the “optimal “ or “mechanically best” actions but they do what is the most correct for their character at the time. esp if they say it as a mistake, and when the entire table shouts “ no no you need to use xyz power it deals 1.5 more average damage omg youre ruining the fight!!!” then that player says “no, its ok, my character doesnt know all that meta info stuff, i do what i said, i already said it”. i give these ppl full kudos to not just reading the game manual and selecting the “winning” options

[@rustyshackle8000]

I actually have massive social anxiety so it's an effort for me to bring forth my ideas because I sort of have trauma about people completely dismissing my ideas and I'm always afraid of that. Thankfully, I have three amazing DMs right now that are all very receptive to ideas and understand what I'd like. Occasionally I sort of fall into Main Character Syndrome, and that's actually another reason I'm scared about presenting ideas because I'm afraid I'll seem like I only care about my character

[@korelockmir1566]

A war domain cleric who wants to "spread his seed"? Sounds like a life cleric tbh.

[@shaingustin3032]

That song at the end was beautiful

[@somecactus5083]

A few red flags from my experience are the communist Chinese flag, USSR, Vietnam, like half of Poland and Greenland and a few other I probably missed.

[@disableddragonborn]

My characters have all had the opposite of Main Character Syndrome. They just want to live normal lives and maybe scam a few scumbags that deserve it, but otherwise want nothing to do with the pressure of saving the world, or even saving one person. Hell, my only evil-aligned character who was part of an evil-aligned group was only doing it for potential payment and the opportunity to try out the golden dragonborn's breath ability. Also, I think that if the character defied the entity that tells the party what to do, the character would likely die. I know that that would be the case with the parallel campaign.

[@TheOptimalmax]

Played my first campaign (at age 44) with an experienced player who played as a druid and would always summon the max number of small animals (instead of the most powerful or beneficial to the situation). So essentially he got 9 character actions to control each round, while I am waiting for my turn to perform my 1 action....it became more tedious than fun.

[@JavierEscuella_Real]

you are by far the best dnd commentator

[@rektdedrip]

The first actual D&D game I ever played. I had been playing simplistic TTRPGs with some friends and a few other people, but my more experienced friend wanted to introduce us to D&D. So we get everything set up and meet up one day. This was literally within 5 minutes of starting. DM friend: "You enter a tavern to [ask about something plot related to get things moving]. You see a female ranger staring your group down, and she starts weaving through the other tavern patrons making her way towards you." Weirdo 1: "I want to [have my way with her]" Weirdo 2: "I want to help him." Everyone including the DM: ".......The fuck is wrong with you????" After some thought the DM tells the weirdos: "*SIIIIGGGGHHHHH* ...I guess you can try....Roll initiative. What are the rest of you doing?" Everyone else in the group: "Helping the ranger fight these two" The 2 weirdos were shocked and pissed that we weren't helping with and participating in their sex crime. Needless to say, we didn't continue that game, and those 2 were never invited to our TTRPGs again.

[@xMaugrex]

My biggest red flag is when someone's biggest red flag is "people who only play video games, like Skyrim". I've pumped thousands of hours into multiple different games, including Skyrim, and upon my first time playing D&D I was under no illusions that it wouldn't just be "video game, but on paper", and neither were any of my many MMO friends that comprised the ENTIRE party when I eventually took up the mantle of DM myself. Your red flag isn't people who play video games, your red flag is idiots.