DMs of Reddit, what have you banned or restricted and felt completely justified in doing so? #3

[@Bromander601]

Had a drow battle master in my party. We played into the racism he'd experience in the world a little bit and it mostly happened when the group were exploring the great forest where most wood elves lived. He and the party managed to save them and he earned respect from a people who initially treated him with disdain. In that arc he also became the groups defacto leader having also named them 'The Outlanders'

[@nabra97]

I have played drow as just one coming from a naturally harsh habitat (planet near the dying sun; another planet/plane/time - intentionally left unexplained - she was accidentally teleported from), with a social structure kinda similar to dwarven one, but more militarism (the dying sun also make space itself unstable, which leads to having a lot of neighbors they would rather not to) and less capitalism and traditionalism. I mean, some DMs would probably ban characters from other worlds alike, and I would understand why, but it was fun.

[@jasonrustmann7535]

I played a drow bard for a one shot who's name was Claus, spoke with a German accent, and told bad jokes (vat is red and bad vor your teeth? A brick) then punctuated those jokes with a single chime from his instrument of choice, the triangle. Was apparently a lot funnier then i thought he'd be and have been asked when i play to play him again lol

[@Bromander601]

@@jasonrustmann7535 love that idea 😂

[@dizzydial8081]

Real world politics. People want to play a game separate from this reality, so inserting real world politics into the game is BANNED at every table I DM.

[@SakraIgor0qNomoko]

Wholeheartedly agree. That tore apart two gaming groups I was in, so when I started DMing, no real world politics was rule #1. Funny thing is, for the first game I DM'd with the rule, I had invited friends that I knew were really far apart politically. Four of five of them told me they'd never play with someone with different politics, but they never found out. We had fun, played and finished the campaign, had an epilogue and everything, and no one was the wiser 😊.

[@Athorment]

What do you mean real world politics?

[@travisbishop782]

Agreed.

[@SakraIgor0qNomoko]

@@Athorment Basically politics from the real world. In one of the groups, there was a European who'd watch American late night shows and bring up talking points to argue with the other American party members. i.e. What is the correct position on gun control? Did you hear that gaff from *insert politician*? That was terrible! etc. Constantly jarring us out of game immersion and disrupting group vibes. In the other group, politics came up during the course of normal after game chatter, and one guy stated he would never play with someone who didn't share his stance. I stated that the topic was political and that I would rather play the game and not talk about politics. That split the group in two, campaign over, no next session. And the thing was, this was in groups where we were having fun when we were playing the game. If real world politics never came up, I think the fun could've continued.

[@Athorment]

@@SakraIgor0qNomoko oh you mean like as out of character stuff. Ok I was really confused on how you could "insert politics into the game" when theres like tiefling/drows that basically rely on racism here and there.

[@blue-eyesdepresseddragon3753]

That final guy just sounds like he needs to play with Not Assholes And yeah, I have a phone at the table. It's my damn character sheet.

[@realKenM]

Getting bored from not having anything to do doesn't make you an asshole. Sometimes the dice have it out for you and if you know for a fact that 1) the fight might take some time and 2) you aren't gonna get pulled up any time soon, there's nothing wrong with stepping out for a few minutes or taking out your phone.

[@blue-eyesdepresseddragon3753]

based reply @@realKenM

[@brainfat1]

He sounded like the asshole or only played with teen boys. Plenty of people play backstabbing little shits without bringing Drow into it. Hell, most of the time someone wants to play a Drow they are just cosplaying Drizzt. And as for guys playing a girl character, I switch it up just about every other character I create. Life would be pretty boring if we only had dudes in the setting and the hobby still has more guys than girls in it, I might as well open up the environment and in-game interactions that might be available only with a female character in some scenarios. It's called role-playing, not self-being.

[@moustacheskeleton3808]

I got kicked out of a game for derailing a campaign. In a previous session, a party member was cursed and turned in to a Wendigo. The DM brought that now cursed member back as an NPC and had us face off. I was a wild mage and removed the curse. It was my first time playing, our fourth session, they even chose the race and class for me. It happened again with with the same group when I was a death knight, the DM gave me control undead... in his undead campaign. I rolled a nat 20 on what was supposed to be the BBEG, and he just became my servant instead, again, ruining the campaign. I haven't played since, nor have we spoken. They were really mad.

[@everythingsalright1121]

Tbh i wouldve played that as you just get advantage against him and him disadvantage against you instead of getting full control. I know thats bending the rules of the spell but id rather make a compromise than have the whole campaign get derailed but you still get something out of it

[@theepicduck6922]

@@everythingsalright1121 That or it could be something as simple as a body double (twin if you wanna get really tropey).

[@nabra97]

I mean, if it made sense in these situations, it would be fair to say that it just didn't work (if it's some ancient curse, it makes sense that it can't be removed by a simple spell, and it makes sense that a powerful lich can't be just possessed by some random guy). If it was just a seemingly random event DM refused to let go, or a skeleton number 23 in a dungeon who was supposed to become BBEG eventually (and DM refused to use a skeleton number 24 for this role instead), I will say it's a DM's problem at this point.

[@moustacheskeleton3808]

@@nabra97 That's what I always thought. Or even just have the lich just give up some information, give us the item of maguffin, or just resist the spell. I remember that his plan was to have the party be level nine, we find the BBEG, and he Metroid's us back to level one. The wendigo bit was lame as well and shouldn't have been such a focal point. (I forgot to mention that it was a couple that DM'd/played, THEY had drawn up my character sheets spells and all.)

[@wolfyblackknight8321]

The bbeg didn't have legendary resistances?

[@MefistoNH]

So basically playing a Teletubbie is banned hahaha fair!

[@koopaking6148]

Another fairness is that playing this type of character correctly would be very annoying like in this case or very funn... But I have a feeling 9 times out of 10 it's going to be annoying...

[@everythingsalright1121]

The problem isnt that he played a teletubby, problem was that he was being a nuisance and basically not benefitting the campaign with his presence at all

[@Dloin]

Yeah. Even a dumbass can get angry and fight probably if their "new friends" get attacked.

[@goomba1000]

@@everythingsalright1121 I don't think any teletubby would, to be honest.

[@goomba1000]

I was gonna say something similar!

[@ObliviousNaga]

I wonder if OP realised that gloomstalkers are invisible to dark vision and regular vision with light or blind sight or true sight would still worked

[@pelicanofpunishment6]

One of my DMs realised he made a mistake with my Gloomstalker. We arranged an ambush at night. I was in the dark and the enemy had darkvision. So I got advantage on all attacks. They couldn't see me and could only tell roughly where I was. He mitigated this by one of them getting closer and dropping a torch that was lit. Meaning I was now visible normally. Anything like blindsight, truesight or Devil's sight would have also worked. It's only darkvision that's useful to Gloomstalkers in the dark. Seems like this was not realised. Edit: That said, I plan to multi-class mine into rogue and, while my DM knows this and is scared of it, he will work on ways to work with it.

[@gildedbear5355]

First guy wouldn't have even gotten to session one with that character. My response to seeing his character description would have simply been, "no. make something else. I'm not accepting Teletubbies into my campaign world"

[@user2C47]

Same. It would be as simple as saying "this race does not exist in this world."

[@Levyathyn]

I'm playing an extremely horny wizard right now, but with reasons. I just originally made the guy as a sort of joke character, and the only reason I made him the slutty type is because I wanted someone in the game to be that kind of character without being a Bard. That said, he's involved as a character greatly over the years we've been playing, become more well-rounded, more good nature, more responsible, and a little less aggressively slutty. But I will say, for the record, even though this character has a pretty strong charm and mind control leaning, I've never once stooped to those levels in the game or thought about doing it. In fact, we recently beat a pretty major boss and with the XP we got from it, we're in pretty high level ranges right now, and defeating it--as with the rest of the major bosses in this campaign so far--gave some unique power upgrade to the person who dealt the final blow. That happened to be me this time, and the DM gave me a choice; One of them involved an overpowered once per day Dominate Monster spell, one that could bypass immunities and last for up to 24 hours. Very, very tempting, even out of character; we've also been fighting a lot of dragons, and I won't lie It would have felt good to pick it. But I had my character pick the other option, and in the end even agreed with the DM to have him suffer a nightmare where he picked the domination path, and perhaps as a result to changes in his character or treading down what could have been seen as a darker path, seemed to have become that kind of character, who would use those spells for that kind of thing. The fact that it was a nightmare for both me and the character should tell you all you need to know about him. He's Slutty Good, not Slutty Evil.

[@drakegrandx5914]

12:00 Wow, didn't think hearing so many bad takes from a DM would be possible...

[@joelhaggis5054]

My DM gave us a list of rules for the campaign - potion as a bonus action, lingering injuries, etc. The last said, verbatim, "no silvery barbs or I kill you." I never asked if she meant in game or in real life.

[@wolfyblackknight8321]

Fair. I mean isn't it possibly a cantrip? Ether thatv I r just to spamable making it very problematic.

[@bradwolf07]

One of the groups I'm apart of has a guy who usually plays Female characters. He has never been the "h*rny" type. He's always been the murder hobo, chaotic stupid type.

[@avidreader8521]

The guy who banned sea elves is just mad at his own poor planning and won't admit it.

[@Lord_Inquisitor_William7391]

One of my players wanted to make alcohol with his own body fluids. Specifically out of his characters semen and milk. He was playing some sort of race that could kinda switch genders. He was also just a problem player so he got kicked

[@theepicduck6922]

Weirdly enough think they'd love Death Stranding (you make weapons out of your waste).

[@travisbishop782]

Eww! I'm glad you kicked them.

[@vee1267]

Dude WHAT?! Like, I’d understand if it was for a one-time prank against an NPC in a joke campaign, but he sounds like he was just bringing his weird kinks to the tabletop. Gross!

[@wolfyblackknight8321]

Ok the fuck? Like I had an idea for a wsrforged with an alchemist jug in his chest and a hose/tap thing in a obvious location but the fuck. ... totally understandable ban

[@firstnamelastname7244]

😟

[@DSlyde]

The best way to play Deck of Many Things is to play it FIRST. As in before the start of the campaign. Each player takes it in turns to draw a number of cards, if it's game ending, you describe what happened to that person the party happened to be watching draw ahead of them, and they go to the back of the queue to draw again. Once everyone has drawn and survived, then they are the characters for the campaign. And conviently those are the very characters they have their sheets for, and you the DM now have a whole suite of adventure hooks to drag the party with. Why we're they at the drawing? Go Investigate that new castle they won. They made a dangerous enemy? Awesome.

[@nabra97]

I have had this idea for a while! When I will be more confident in running games (I'm getting ready for my first one-shot now), I'll definitely do it (I consider running Index Cards RPG rather than D&D, but I don't think it will be hard to convert, especially as this item isn't meant to be balanced).

[@relical_latte1223]

I banned the philler of Love after my first time putting it in the game, because a player almost used it to raped an ncp. When I explained to him what it kind of felt like he was about to do, he also had a bit of a shock as he wasn't thinking about it in that way either. He changed his actions and said, “oh... You know what I'll just talk to her.”

[@wesleythomas7125]

The whole situation with the summoner could be resolved by having the player give a 1 sentence (max 5 words and 1 gesture) order to his eidolon, and have the GM explain how it does that. "Hit the dragon!" "Use (ability) on [monster]!" (Point at monster) "Go to where I'm pointing." Etc

[@Kakatouwiham]

I restricted a magic item that I gave them by making it fragile because of the repeated use. Basically the item was a horn that when blown force everyone that hear it in 36m ray to make a save or be forced to danse. They started using earplugs and blowing the horn every time a challenged appeared. The horn got a crack, it can be used once more. They never used it again.

[@klasodeth]

Earplugs don't cause deafness, so I'd still make them roll the save. Maybe even have players who are too close to the horn roll at disadvantage. If you're feeling merciful, more distant characters wearing earplugs can roll the save at advantage. Another option might be to limit it to once per day so that it can't be used in every battle. Or to be more flexible, have the horn use charges. The number of charges used determines the maximum range. So 36 squares is 36 charges. Then have it recover perhaps 1d20 charges per day up to a maximum of 36. This would require a minimum of 2 days to charge, but more often 3-4. So on average they could only use it at maximum range once per 3-4 days. Of course, they can use it more frequently at shorter range. You can tune it by changing the recharge die. A d10 per day will halve the recharge rate, and a d4 per day will really force the party to consider how they use it. And of course, reducing the maximum number of charges reduces its maximum range as well as maximum effective uses. If the horn still gets abused, you can tune the numbers as needed and say that the horn is weakening under excessive use. Once it's down to an acceptable power level for you, the horn has effectively reached equilibrium. The occasional introduction of deaf creatures can also challenge the party, especially if the use of earplugs makes it harder for the party to notice the arrival of the creatures. Be merciless with action economy. Earplugs take time to put in, so require a full action to wear or remove them. Also, don't allow the players to talk to each other while the party is wearing earplugs unless they yell and pass a perception check. If all that noise alerts other creatures, too bad.

[@jesse3086]

Let me be a Kobold. Its not a troll, not a sabotage. I just love them.

[@GentleBreeze-72]

I think you can still have good aligned drows. Except from that, they're not op. They have sunlight sensitivity which slows them down half of the times

[@bookmasterharry4432]

I am currently DMing a very ‘post apocalyptic’ world where I greatly restricted the number of races cause the other ones either fled or died out, and Artificers because the world itself is so messed up that magic no longer works that way. I also added a lot of lore to each race and class and told it to the players before hand.

[@hollowblaze2320]

I was part of a couple of one shots, where two players played the drow. Both good aligned characters. They were fun to play with in the one shot.

[@blakethegreatone2058]

Seduction is banned at my table. Stops a lot of potentially bad interactions.

[@Sin05269]

Man literally played a tele-tubby.

[@pungoblin9377]

It’s crazy how like 80% of these bans are just the DM having awful players that they need to deal with rather than a genuine reason to ban the feature

[@mattpedia1933]

And the ones that aren't that seem to be the DM not knowing the rules enough to realize its already illegal, ex. Guy having 3 types of smites

[@MalloonTarka]

I'm playing a Drow currently. She's a cinnamon roll who just wants to help the rest of the party escape the Underdark.

[@coolhacker1025]

Re: drow, I (male) was once playing a female drow, who was mostly your typical drow, considering herself better than everyone else. One of the other players (a female playing a female half-elf, the only character that my drow really liked) started playing her character like she had a crush on my character, despite my character (Narcelia) turning her down often, especially due to the fact that Miss Half-Elf (River) was only in her 70s, while Narcelia was in her 300s. Narcelia died quite soon afterwards, due to poor playing on my part, and a very anti-drow setting. She was replaced by a regular (male) wood elf.

[@drakegrandx5914]

I'm here with the power of lore to tell you that a 300-years old drow is a very, very, very at-least-since-a-couple-of-centuries dead drow. : P

[@jkl1110]

I found the summoner one a bit odd, magus was waaaaaay more op then any summoner but we all have different experiences. Leadership is pretty OP depending on the game but I feel with kingmaker specifically that is like the only module where it would make perfect sense.

[@Groundlord]

The Summoner issue is probably more because of the original Summoner being poorly balanced... and possibly the DM not knowing how the Synthesist works. Once their eidolon's HP runs out it's supposed to be *gone* until the next time the summoner rests 8 hours, so they should've been reverted to just the Summoner themselves. I banned the Spiritualist from my Pathfinder games. Companion classes are normally not too hard to deal with, but when the player takes full advantage of the fact that their companion can _go incorporeal and walk through walls_ it gets ridiculously hard to manage dungeons.

[@Athorment]

Playing genderbends is not a problem if you see the character design and stop that then. At my table we currently have a Ranger Viking who wants a trophy from the biggest baddest monster she can find, a polite dolt of a cleric who is a little bit pampered and a nerdy bookish mage who is only in the team to have "Field experience" with her spells. Not a single mention about romance has been shared yet. It's just not in any of the 3 gals' mind at the moment. If you ban that because you can't control the hormones of your players, then what are you doing with your session 0's time?

[@marchmaps]

I've played with several character not the same gender as their player. It's never a problem.

[@kevinskinner4986]

I usually play female characters. It's been least 6-7 years since I've played a male one and none of mine are ever problems. Current characters in various systems are a tiny halfling with a giant bludgeon like Poppy from League of Legends, Alice Margatroid from Touhou as a gamer girl, and "What if Gau from FF6 was a velociraptor?", none of whom have any romantic interest. The only one that's been any amount hormonal was in Maid RPG, an extremely silly setting where everything about your character is randomly rolled, including background motivation, and when it rolled a bomb-wielding lolita shinigami with unrequited love for the master, I went "Welp. I guess I'm playing a yandere."

[@ericb3157]

oh, i just remembered a story about a "deathpocalypse". someone drew the Death card from a Deck of many things, IN A CITY, some town guards tried to help...

[@frostkitsunelive7661]

Drow are, quite literally, my favorite race in D&D, with Tieflings being a close second. I adore their twisted lore, and typically play as a follower of Eilistraee. Once, I even went all-out and made a Sword Dancer Dark Lady, which was a mix between a Twilight Domain Cleric and a Bladesinger Wizard (Cleric 8/Wizard 12). It was fun.

[@RandomDumGuy]

I only ban 2 things: -Silvery barbs for obvious fucking reasons -Not really a ban but I demand to know how and why a character (not a player) would choose a certain class, mainly because I once had a player openly trying to steamroll a campaing with a paladin/warlock/sorcerer multiclass (btw I played and enjoy playing that same multiclass) but he literally made a pact with a fiend while worshipping a l/g god and had no explainations on why his character would do that, also, I think this helps a bit with rp, for example a monk in my current game ended up not liking the class and wanted to change it, so he just asked me to beat his character half to death and he role played how he lost his connection with his ki (kinda makes sense how he was "broken" since he's playing a construct) and just switched his class to fighter

[@jaysnow701]

Banning a drow is stupid. Banning a chaotic evil drow with superior magic and weapon proficiency who would never work in the party is acceptable. I created an Elf who can scribe scrolls(but not take forever, just VERY expensive) then went the deceitful route, so i can make fake scrolls and sell them. I usually like going hard to hit tank but We had 2 fighter wizards, a fighter cleric, a dwarf warrior, and a thief(with short sword) and i hate being an arrow launching rogue. I worked out the repercussions with my DM, they can be very severe. I also plan on my character making the mistake of selling a real one and giving a wrong one to a party member.

[@damekiatailios4513]

My only character that sleeps around is my newest wizard and that’s just cause she doesn’t care about the circumstances she finds her self in with he body covered in scars shaped like necromancy runes. But that’s just me mister “guys only play whorish girls”

[@theepicduck6922]

Being somewhat fair not like the potentially inevitable to be lich is gonna be very active in that regard later on.

[@Nsanity216]

I banned the lucky feat, and Made silvery barbs a third level spell. Both were just way too good.

[@dragoninthewest1]

6:09 & 6:38 as a DM, I have very much against the reasons these DMs gave. 1) banning a subclass because a player is using its features properly sounds like an uncreative DM. Do not punish a player for your shortcomings. Change your strategies. 2) "Artificers, they don't feel right in a fantasy setting." No, they don't feel right in *YOUR* fantasy setting. Fantasy is a very broad macro-genre that covers everything from Space Operas to Weird West to Medieval fantasy to Sword and Sandal to lovecraftian Cosmic horror. You need to stop thinking so narrowly. That's publisher and book store propaganda clouding your mind. Also, I think artificers fit really well in any time period because, as long as humans have been tinkering, you had someone making machines. There was dude in Ancient Roman Egypt (you read right) that create a primitive steam engine, sounds an artificer

[@lorenzocassaro3054]

His name was Heron of Alexandria

[@dragoninthewest1]

@@lorenzocassaro3054 Thanks, I almost put Alexander of Hippo but then I remembered he's St. Augustine

[@theepicduck6922]

Hell, there's pondering someone made an early computer in the time of the Romans. kzbin.info/www/bejne/p6LPe2hmr6mam6M. Gotta admit the idea no one even during medieval times isn't tinkering a lil is even weirder a setting with even a bit of magic.

[@shadowmyst9661]

Oh wow, one of my comments actually made it into this video! I appreciate the feedback too. It was a nice little surprise for the day for me. I made the comment about restricting Sharpshooter and GWM, and the Gloomstalker and Rogue multiclassing.

[@willmcgonigle3107]

All resurection spells, not counting revivify

[@BassGosple]

D&D Wiki. Too many people tried to sneak in broken and unbalanced bullshit that they found on there. It's a lot easier to weed out the problem players this way too

[@ChryssaBL]

The Blood Fury Tattoo 10 charges that ALL come back after a long rest. 1. One charge to deal an extra 4d6 on a hit and heal all damage dealt 2. when you take damage from a creature you can see spend a charge and use your reaction to make a melee attack with advantage on that creature. My DM said take a look at the magical tattoo. My ask was "I don't want it cause, I'm scared of the monsters you would have to build to balance encounter but, I have to at least ask about the Blood Fury tat." Then we had a little check in about how happy we all are about being loaded with cool powerful stuff and still having fun challenging fights.

[@silverlight6074]

Banning "overpowered combinations" is a pretty subjective one in that last story. Ignoring that they didn't bother looking at the damage chart for size changes (they don't just linearly go up in die sizes, they have a progression that fits with the dice that can be used), nothing about a guy wielding an oversized door sounds ridiculously out of scale in Pathfinder 1e. While that one guy fighting using a door is probably happy with his 3d10 bludgeon, you have all the other martial classes capable of equivalent shenanigans. Never mind casters who will quickly outshine Doorman once the party level gets past 4. *Half of the fun* of PF1 is crunching the numbers and finding legitimate "this rule says this, and that rule says this, so if I do this very specific thing, I get really awesome benefits." I can sympathize more with the people who ban Summoner because it's hard to balance encounters around them than I can with that.

[@alsenddrake7764]

Mood. That's the joy of PF that 5e lost with its cookie cutter building. Like finding all the ways to stack bonuses as a Vigilante so when you Power Attack you get a AC bonus and take no or basically no penalty beyond losing the bonus from Take em alive, toss in Enforcer and the one that sickens shaken foes and Shatter Defences, and toss out casual 20+ flat damage, with -4 to enemy rolls and +3-4 to your ac

[@wolfyblackknight8321]

9:05 I literally had the same thought when considering how a major character in a setting I tinker with would react to something being able to do meaningful damage to him (he has a lot of hit points since because of a plot reasons he got to effectively roll the maximum for all his hit dice and has some high end gear that among other things gives him a regenerating pool of temp hp. he is meant to be a very endgame fight or to be reasonably explained as "well he has been active in a kill or be killed occupation for a few hundred years if it was easy to kill him he'd of died a long time ago" so between his high hp, the temp hp, his high ac, and other things he'd be willing to let others get in one good shot if only to just intimidate them, imagine seeing this mass of armor and magic slowly walking towards you and it just shrugged off your alpha strike without even flinching. the appropriate response tends to be to flee rather then fight. that being said if someone managed to do a good chunk of damage to him he'd ether try and alpha strike them as the biggest threat in front of him, or use an item or series of items to gtfo before he died to it. the problem isn't so much that burst damage can be a problem so much as how the world reacts to it and "focus fire on that one" is a very reasonable response to seeing something more dangerous then the rest

[@PiratePawsLive]

I'm playing DnD 5e (was my first TTRPG) now for 9 years and never had a DM ban anything other than CE alignment which is also called Chaotic Stupid. When I was DMing did Ban nothing. But I'm also playing with vets with 5-15 years of ttrpg experience. So maybe this is a big factor there. They tend to just homebrew something or adjust stuff or just talk to the player. Oh and are all anyways a bit unhinged and play a bit of a chaotic style, DMs and player embrace it. As long as we don't go overboard and are disrupting all is well :).

[@MrMustang1116]

I have 1 rule when it comes to DnD. We start session zero going over the world, we talk about the kingdoms and countries or areas, we talk about where my players would want to fit. Like your character, what do they want to be and do in life. I've had amazing responses to this. "I think Conrad would like to rise through the ranks of his paladin order to become the grand master." And "I think Ophellia would just want to find her stolen brother and just settle down somewhere safe." What you don't expect to hear during this is "I want to poison every child I come across and collect their bones." Not sure about you but I'm putting my money of even Lex Luthor, Bane, and Sinestro aren't gona touch that. Let that roll one time in an evil campaign and I payed for it. Players weren't having fun, and I wasn't having fun, as the problem player galavanted across town shoving needles into apples and placing them near orphanages. Seriously. Hearing the words "is there an orphanage in the capital city?" had me in serious debate with myself on what I had unleashed upon my fake world. Ended up making an order of high level characters constantly chase the party to keep things moving as they got tracked everywhere they went. Sooo umm. Don't go picking up random apples in the street kids, it's probably poisoned.

[@lathier]

This happened literally 2 days ago, but... chemical warfare. For context, I have a hand-made Fallout TTRPG I developed over the past 13 years or so. And generally, if players think outside the box and it's reasonable that the characters would have knowledge of something, I'll allow it. And one of the players' characters is a Vietnam-era soldier who was abducted by aliens and frozen til Fallout times. So, we started a new campaign in this and 2 days ago my players were getting into their first dungeon. Supposed to be challenging right? But one player had asked earlier for some cleaning supplies like bleach, which yeah, Abraxo or something would likely be dehydrated chlorine and be useful. Only for the Face of the group to get their Ghoul to urinate into some bottles, then put on the persona of some high rank individual of this raider group and basically tell them the big man is coming, close off the top floor and get scrubbing with these things... and dude rolled a critical success on his Speech check. So, of the 30 raiders in this dungeon, 20 are now on the 3rd floor, 10 locked up on the 4th, and they combine dehydrated chlorine with radioactive urine containing ammonia... and of the 20 on the 3rd floor, only 6 pass their checks to not be in the immediate radius of the now radioactive mustard gas, and only take a little chemical damage. Now, the last 6 died horribly, but that's because the one who had a grenade rifle scored a critical miss and basically aimed right at his feet, taking out himself and the last few raiders not locked up on the 4th floor. And because of this, I have to ban chemical warfare from my players. As a DM, though, I'm proud.

[@wolfyblackknight8321]

That's a great story atleast

[@lathier]

@wolfyblackknight8321 And it's made me have to redo some rulings I have to make going forward. It's actually earned the perpetrators one point towards earning a black Cheat token (essentially a Wish, but it's ruled as an "in-rules cheat")

[@siluda9255]

Just give then gas masks lmao rookie mistake

[@daxxmason8308]

One of my players is playing a drow, but as an escaped slave. Another party member is a paladin whos lifes goal is to save those who cant save themselves, becuase of the circumstances with him kind of rescuing and protecting her, she trusts him. And a 3rd party member is a detective that is helping them stop the slave trade. All 3 kind of work together making the drow fit into this group

[@Razumen]

Some of these are dumb, like banning the Sharpshooter feat. So you can hit far away targets more easily, so what? Just send more melee units in to charge them up close. The feat itself isn't even choose to busting broken.

[@Ishlacorrin]

1st I agree with you, however I think what they are concerned about is not the range but the +10 to damage if you are rolling with advantage, at level 1 +10 is a LOT and will kill most things, it's also not hard to get advantage if you can find a way to see the target without them seeing you. Still I would not ban it myself, I think it's fine to have someone specialised do damage like that, they went to the effort of specialising after all.

[@Razumen]

@@Ishlacorrin You don't get it from having advantage, you only get the 10 damage by sacrificing -5 to your attack roll, so it's really not much different from power attack. A -5 is a BIG risk for a level one player, they're not going to be able to pull this off reliably.

[@kuwe4652]

Since GWM is mentioned too, it's more about the damage you can do with it. Still not nearly worthy to be restricted this hard. I can understand to restrict it to lvl 4, so no vhuman/CL get's it too early (still BS with the huge disadvantage martials have but somewhat understandable) but lvl 11 as in the video is just silly. Especially if you think about the wizard, who can already transform you in a freakin giant ape at lvl 7.

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@Razumen You missed the point, I'll clear it up for you. -5 does not mean much when you ALSO have advantage. Advantage is easy to get when you have no range limitations. So a Sharpshooter will be able to get advantage rather easy in a lot of cases and thus take the -5 and not notice it at all.

[@klasodeth]

​@@Ishlacorrin That only applies if the enemies are attacking out in the open, in which case they deserve to be slaughtered. My characters routinely make themselves invulnerable to ranged attack by simply hiding around corners. If the enemies take full cover, it's going to be difficult or impossible for the sharpshooter to get a shot. If they're hidden or otherwise unseen by the sharpshooter, they can avoid being attacked. And enemies with a high AC might be too hard for the sharpshooter to hit reliably with a -5 penalty, even with advantage. Swarm the sharpshooter with melee attackers, and there goes advantage. There are also spells that interfere with projectiles.

[@Antartica1342]

Plane shift. The campain was about escaping thr 9 hells

[@nikoisland6731]

We dont claim teletubby man- wtf lmao

[@gray4449]

hearing the phrase 'that's what my character would do' reminded me of one of my friend old characters. It was a half-orc barbarian names Schmetterlinga, every chance possible he would ruin an encounter with an NPC. I remember specifically that I had the items for a side quest and really wanted to complete it, and the DM (my dad) also wanted us to do the side quest. The banshee we talked to for the quest gave us the chance to ask one single question to her, the barbarian made a joke that wasted the question and completely ruined our chances at completing the side quest. Luckily, my dad was being nice and let me have a second chance at the quest and we as players agreed not to let that guy speak when we re-encountered her later on. That's just the first of many times that this player ruined an encounter, NPC or enemy, and used the excuse 'that's what my character would do'. This player still sits at our table but now his characters are heavily looked over and he gets kind of railroaded when he pushes to far into game ruining instead of fun.

[@svartrbrisingr6141]

i banned Custom Lineage because its stupid and completely removes the aspect of natural talents.

[@Ishlacorrin]

This I 100% agree, stats are not even that powerful that the racial bonuses matter after 4th level anyway.

[@svartrbrisingr6141]

@@Ishlacorrin plus, i always enjoy taking a race that provides no bonuses to a class and then using said class. like an Orc wizard or High Elf Barbarian are some of my favorites. Azzhol the Conjuration Wizard and Bag the Berserker Barbarian are some of the best characters ive ever had the pleasure of playing.

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

PANR has tuned in.

[@Zych.Grzegorz]

I banned the one experienced player from playing artificer, because I know he would try to build a nuke or some dumb nonsense like that. While I usually don't mind shenenigans, this was the first time the other players were playing and I wanted a more typical game.

[@AshBlossomWorshiper]

Create water got banned in our campaign due to a physicist, a comp sci major, and a mason from another school

[@karlmaust6172]

I've never banned or restricted anything in a campaign I've run, my only requirement is that it has to be published somewhere and not a wiki homebrew or something they've (the players) come up with. My encounters are typically a little over the top so I assume they need all the help they can get!

[@turtrenold8532]

not dnd but in terraria i turned off the ability for 30 stack buffs being when you have 30 of one potion you would have the buff forever, well my friend decided to abuse this and use something called cactus juice, it made you completely immune to all debuffs, so i turned it off, cue argument on his side him saying its balanced because they're cheap, so i told him im keeping it off because they're cheap and he can just buy them

[@cam0t0nsm1th5]

I was a witness to one of these types. DM banned the Ring of the ram, because someone managed to nat 20 with one and crush one of the BBEG’s right hand men with their own shield. Instant death. At least it came back immediately after with a demonic transformation second phase that beat the snot out of that player-

[@Shattered_Spirit]

Did you just call a teletubbie a furry..

[@everythingsalright1121]

I think he just didnt get the joke. Cant blame him cuz OP didnt explicitly say what it was referencing

[@theepicduck6922]

Given he was playing a fuzzy lad not the biggest leap.

[@CellarSinger]

Most of the campaigns I play ban chaotic evil characters

[@aetheralmeowstic2392]

Yeah, bannint the Teletubby character was fair

[@Gamewizard13th]

I have completely banned feeble-mind. I would rather my party members and the NPC's not be remove from the encounter and the majority of a session, and be making an impossible saving throw if they fail

[@jonathanmarks3112]

I’ve only ever used that spell once. Cast it on Vecna… he passed the save.

[@Gamewizard13th]

@@jonathanmarks3112 you casted it on a legendary creature they could have passed it to begin with

[@nabra97]

I mean, it's an 8-level spell, and so late in the game both players and enemies probably can get access to the Great Restoration spell pretty easily, even if nobody in their group can cast it. But for the same reason I don't really get what this spell is even for.

[@marchmaps]

Gloomstalker came up a lot. I've played with at least one very OP gloomstalker, and he would always whine about other characters in the party using any kind of light. Had another character in the party with a flametongue sword that was always getting yelled at. Had another character without darkvision who had to use light when nobody could cast darkvision on him and he got yelled at too.

[@peterchambers2401]

I'm currently playing a Gloomstalk/Scout Rogue and the server I'm part of, it's fortunately rare for Darkness to be in any setting in one-shot assignments (plot being we're all hired adventurers of a guild). Even when I am in darkness I leaned more into the Scout Role due to my damage being 50ish per round with SA. Whilst it is annoying to have a feature be near useless at times, it also isn't too bad a deal for me.

[@nils-peterwihlney8732]

The Goodberry spell. I have either banned or reworked Goodberry to prevent it from making the concept of survival obsolete. One of the better ways of doing it I based on a video I saw made by Zee Bashew. Essentially you make the spell consume the material component. So the mistletoe gets consumed and thus they can't keep spamming it to break the survival part of the campaign.

[@klasodeth]

There's more to survival than food, which can already be easily dealt with by spending a few gold on rations. I've found that water is the bigger challenge due to its weight and bulk. Granted, there are spells for water, but that's not the end of the survival challenges. My DM imposes CON saves if we travel in extreme weather conditions or in very rough terrain, resulting in exhaustion on a failed save. In situations such as hail or extreme cold, the character might even take damage. Major obstacles can also be a challenge, such as climbing a steep cliff or crossing a wide chasm. Navigation is also a challenge. If we're not paying enough attention to directions and terrain features, we can get lost. "Cheat mode" spells can have side effects. For instance, Tiny Hut doesn't prevent dangerous creatures from surrounding the dome during the night if the party failed to take watches. Even if you don't count mosquitoes as creatures for the purposes of the nine-creature limit, any inside the dome at the time of casting will be a major nuisance in places like swamps. Speaking of swamps, finding a good surface on which to cast Tiny Hut could be a difficult challenge. The same can apply to extended mountain climbing. Jagged rocks aren't fun to sleep on. And there's the challenge if finding a safe place to camp while being actuvely hunted. Careless travel could involve getting bitten by a venomous snake, attacked by a swarm of wasps, or suffering a broken limb that impairs mobility. Toss in important NPCs who are more vulnerable to these threats, and mission failure becomes a very real concern. In fantasy worlds where the wildlife can include dragons, careless travel can be quite fatal indeed. And for more "civilized" threats, hostile tribes may try to kill the party or run the party out of their territory. I find the food/water part of survival to be the most boring aspect of survival because it doesn't provide many opportunities for creative gameplay and sets up a situation where a few bad rolls prevent the players from obtaining absolutely mandatory resources that are constantly needed, which can lead to a frustrating form of TPK. "Sorry, your bad survival rolls mean you have to die."

[@KharonDeLune_vtb]

RE: the rule of no spells outside of a book I have is that... If it were my table, I would take advantage of the fact that in this day and age, I can look it up online. If you want a spell outside of my books, you're linking me to the Wiki page *before* you bring it to a session. That gives me time to understand the spell's mechanics, and I can put my phone on the table if disputes arise about how it works. This would get harder online though, because it would need screen share or everyone opening a new tab. That's just my own thoughts on what I would be comfortable with at my own table, though - I would want a quick peek at character sheets before a game starts so I know where I need to stick my silly rainbow tags in my book so I don't forget how everything works lmao.

[@alyssavanderklift9296]

one i maintained for a long time because of just how disruptive my table could get was hefty xp-penalties. since i had so many sessions back to back where i had enough time to make a pot of coffee and drink it before some people at my table would stop their OoC banter (was usually unrelated to the session or campaign at all) that i implemented a system where, first offense, is a warning. Second offense, 100Xp penalty (on the spot) and that penalty would increase for repeat offenders. maintain 3 sessions without me handing out said penalty and everyone's xp penalty would reset to 100, but every session i would give 1 warning for the table (anyone who was disruptive enough to earn that warning immediately had the ire of the table) fortunately once one person had to level DOWN his character because of repeat offenses (i had had it because somehow this one person seemed to have taken it on themself to be the one every session to earn both the penalty AND the warning so i added the level down when i was asked about it because, wouldn't you know it, they lost so much xp that freaking session they were going to lose a level) after that i had to barely ever give the warning so that definitely got the message across and i still wholeheartedly think if i eve have a table that disruptive again, disruption penalties will make their cursed return.

[@alexkuhn5188]

That is a BRILLIANT way to punish people who don’t get the hint that they are wasting time. You could also have the BBEG escape because they didn’t act fast enough and now they need to find them again with the players getting a bad ending due to the BBEG completing their plans if they keep doing it. The bad ending idea would test your improvisation skills though.

[@wolfyblackknight8321]

Pretty reasonable I mean if they really want ooc chatter pre or post session is the time for thar not during session

[@MalloonTarka]

Artificers fit in neatly in a fantasy setting if you just flavour them as enchanters.

[@xenostar6482]

One of the DMs in my group has just outright banned silvery barbs

[@Mighty_Mr_B]

I've pulled from The Deck twice and came out fine. My DM loved adding it to her games.

[@williamsrdan]

I had DMs ban my prism d20, not because it was difficult to tell where it landed, but because it was a lucky die... I actually rolled 20 Nat20s in a single game before the DM demanded I use another. But then that DM let me play PunPun.....

[@nabra97]

I mean, maybe it was just luck, but I would think about the dice being poorly balanced at this point, which is a legitimate reason to ban it.

[@rileyhamilton5023]

My party are people who have played and we have been friends for years. Our Dm has made an entire custom world and pantheon, My original Character was going to be a pure ranger(Monster Slayer), but was cursed by one of his gods and we weaved that into specific class abilities, given how we were using it and the setting, multiclassing into warlock, but didn't have to Cha, he just ruled it that i could multi and gave me an item that lets me use Wis in place of Cha for spellcasting

[@phobiawitch835]

The moment I heard Gloom Stalker, I knew it was the “Invisible in Dim Light/Darkness to creatures rwlying on Dark Vision” and a game where Light wasn’t used, an easy counter to the ability. Rime of the Frost Maiden is a module that, save for a few scenarios and my own homebrew on occasion, is almost exclusively in Dim Light, even in the middle of the day outside, as the sun never shines save for a few times. I actually had a Gloom Stalker Duergar npc named Gramdus acting as a guide for the party around Level 3 for a short bit. I forgot about that feature, but even then, he was BROKEN cuz the moment he got advantage (usually Flanking), I was rolling Nat 20s left and right. I actually had to take pictures and share them as proof to my group as we play online, and I wanted this documented. He crit at least 1 of his 2 attacks EVERY round. A Gloom Stalker with Advantage to attsck is a MONSTER. I wont ban the aubclass myself, but I will be certain to include ways to cancel their advantages every now and again so they don’t sweep through 90% of encounters. Gramdus isn’t with the party currently (he went to help with other business shortly after the party hit level 6). I did explain away the God Luck with a magic item the party has been sharing and passing around. A coin (which is, in fsct, a Demigod, but that’s a long story)

[@ghjuyt101]

All wishes follow money paw rules, 9th level spell wish is game breaking depending on the player using it, so having this means they don't spam wish. Also have no phone at the table rule, I don't generally have issues with this rule for 3 reasons: 1) I refuse to dm unless all players are present, so my players feel like they matter at the table. 2) I do allow it for DND related things like looking up spells or rules. 3) I will fully pause the game if it happens to check if it is a DND thing or not and if it's important I will wait for the player to sort it out (generally ends up as a piss break)

[@Carlos-ux7gv]

10 or 20 years ago I got into a weird discussion with some friends (and half of my city RPG players) about an "incident" that happened in a multi-DM campaign, where PVP was allowed. It baffled me that even female DMs didn't thought about banning "certain actions" with female PC prisioners.

[@ailinfergan]

Bards. Dragonborn. Tieflings.

[@deathcap.]

Genderbending? As in not allowing a male player to play a female character? Don't agree with that one at all.

[@1Ring42]

My only hard ban is Mystic (including this because I tend to allow UA), basically I can't wrap my head around it and I won't run for anything that I can't understand on a player basis.

[@bobafett215x]

"Players have nothing to do or interact with when downed." Mechanically? No. But you can absolutely throw in a chat with their god/patron, or toss them one of the NPC's sheets, or even have them play one of the foes. There are ways to involve players who don't have an in.

[@nathanmilton3721]

As a Gloomstalker main, it's very cathartic to me for people to finally realize that Rangers can actually be a significant threat. So much so that it's mentioned twice in this video. I still believe they were good before TCoE, but after, it got even better.

[@liamzimmer5948]

Devine magic and sorcery is banned and druids are restricted. Let me explain, one of the big plots of the campaign is the gods have abandoned this world for an unknown reason and the party can choose to bring them back. Sorcerers all got purged in an accidental power surge caused by a crazed, power hungry wild magic Sorcerer. This sorcer also accidentally opened rifts TO EVERY CONCEVABLE UNIVERSE on the surface of the world. Most survivors took to the skies in floating cities but druids stayed to protect what was left of the natural world, even coming to accept what they used to consider unnatural such as zombies or owl bears as natural and things that needed to be protected. Sadly most of the druids were wiped out and any player being a druid would need to role play from the perspective of the last surviving druid.

[@travisbishop782]

Interesting concept.

[@PoldaranOfDalaran]

Summoner and Eidolon aren't overpowered. Summoner and Eidolon TOGETHER are extremely powerful due to action economy. But individually? Nah. And it's not that hard to plan an eidolon's actions. Or the summoner's. "Lillian casts haste and Belkross charges mob 4 in, moving into a flank." "Belkross full attacks, Lillian casts create pit under mobs 3-4." Etc.

[@kevinskinner4986]

I played a Spheres of Power archetype summoner in two games, the second was in an epic-level game that went far past reasonable. Spheres summoner is admittedly disgusting, as you can build your companion so it has 1/2 its HD to all stats and AC and moves at hundreds of feet per round. Was this overpowered? Oh, absolutely, the thing was a menace, but it actually worked out extremely well for the campaign we were on. When you're high enough level that the game turns into rocket tag, the eidolon's role in the party is to be the party punching bag. Sure the thing is extremely dangerous. But it's also completely expendable, so whenever the DM needs to have a god that can destroy mountains flex, it smashes the giant glowing fox because killing the eidolon is both horrifying as it has Yes stats, but also consequence free.

[@PoldaranOfDalaran]

@kevinskinner4986 That expendibility is why we once strapped a bomb to Belkross and had him suicide bomb some enemies. Best part is, thanks to clothing and humanoid shape, party didn't know he was an eidolon at the time. Also, he survived the explosion and made it out of the crumbling building just in time. So his secret reained intact for quite a while.

[@ironysteeth]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to have one person play one character.

[@alecmullaney7957]

8:24 maybe he should just try to balance things? Like... GWM and Sharpshooter are NOT busted

[@ethbeatthem4836]

Do anyone remember the name of the Legendary Shield that have Charges that let you cast Fireball or Firewall, yes this is an item, and yes it was given to the bear totem dwarf barbarian as part of the story, didn't last long, who can guess giving legendary to level 5 characters would make bigs fight boring when the 2 Fireballs get casted by the Wizard and the Barbarian turn 1. Wish spell from the DoMT reset was aloud to end that nightmare of bad choices all-round, we also are not aloud to make Nuke Soups. If you are questioning what that is well don't mix a bunch of cotton meats, bottles of breath types, a literal Lighting Bolt, 3 mysterious Magic Eggs, and some normal bread and veggie to make it look like a normal stew. Also no Pip Necromancers.

[@zelnar2553]

I banned one of my players from playing warlocks. It wasn’t anything in particular, his character just pissed me off so much lol

[@alsenddrake7764]

Note fir Gloomstalkers: RAW, unless the Gloomstalker takes a hide action, enemies will still know where they are via other senses. Usually hearing.

[@nadeshikorealnofake2237]

Not really, to find an invisible creature a creature must take the search action to locate it unless it has tremorsense and the like, they can still attack with disadvantage obvs, the skill is very clear "You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, *you are invisible* to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness." you are always in an invisible state while in the dark, its treated like any other stage of invisibility.

[@alexharris6808]

@@nadeshikorealnofake2237 I think there is a misunderstanding here, Invisible and Hidden are 2 different effects. So, while you are correct that you are heavily obscured while in darkness (since invisibility only makes you heavily obscured, the same thing that being in darkness provides), they are also correct in saying that you are not hidden unless you hide.

[@theyetirulrs]

I’ve banned the words “technically speaking”. If you have to preface your argument with “technically speaking” you lose. Stops rules lawyers right in their tracks!

[@Lumberjack_king]

4:19 more like a teletubbie

[@andrewfarmer6126]

Warforged. I banned them in 3.5 and never lifted it in 5. The reason was a warforged player wanted to play an artificer and attached a spike chain whip to his bottom as a tail. This made a character I was already iffy about getting pushed in to the never again camp and he got nuked a session after the tail was installed.

[@nabra97]

I don't say you are in the wrong for doing so, just honestly asking: why was it so much of a deal? I mean, it's weird, but I don't see how it's broken (unless you enforce some super restricting home rules about handling objects). Did it break the atmosphere or make you uncomfortable?

[@andrewfarmer6126]

@@nabra97 the place where he was found "deactivated" was the ruins of the lizard man empire, so the tail made sense at the time. Each time he described the character it got a little more xenomorph and less warforged. When he wanted caustic oil to spray from his wounds, that's what killed it for me. I was already pretty anti-forged to begin with, with all the immunities and resistances they had in 3.5e including that you couldn't kill them just shut them down.

[@nabra97]

​@@andrewfarmer6126 yeah, now I understand. Probably it's more of a player issue at this point though. I guess the main thing with warforged in 5e is that they don't suffer in survival situations. Not sure if any of their abilities are that basted in a non-survival game (perhaps unless the lack of air pops up in your games a lot). But it's OK if you aren't interested in having anything like that in your setting.

[@nickbuckman6765]

Generally speaking, the things "banned" at my table (PvP, Evil-aligned characters, joke concepts) are more of a "talk to me first and convince me" type of situation. The REAL ban is on Chaotic Stupid players who are only there to have a good time at everyone else's expense.

[@Skywarp2099]

"I don't care what your experience level is playing D&D, it's your maturity level that concerns me deeply." An actual statement I told someone after I stated I was banning edge lords and murder hobos entirely from all of my campaigns, without any exceptions. I haven't been a DM for campaign, a player in a campaign, or a reader of a story about one where the edge lord/murder hobo didn't commit some depraved act of SA or wind up getting the entire party killed. Anyone who enjoys playing this way should truly have their social privileges revoked. As for players who decide to ignore my ban...let's just say those players look really good in the Emperor's New Clothes, a curse of my own design meant to punish assholes until their characters die in the most embarrassing and frustrating way possible.

[@deoxysman9854]

I know this might not have ever been a scinero, but I just want to throw this out there. DM's if you want to have your players roll for stats please make sure that: 1) they get between 11 and 20. And 2) make sure that they are not using loaded dice because Nat 20 PER STAT. Sorry for the caps. And make sure they are only using 1 d20 for that. Just to give you an idea imagine a Dragonborn Paladin with all of it's stats being 40 each, yeah that is not going to be fun at all. So yeah a word of warning

[@Ishlacorrin]

Stats are rolled with 4D6 drop the lowest.... 3-18 is ALL that is possible, hell NOTHING in this edition of the game can go above 30! Where did you get the idea that D20s are used for stats?

[@nabra97]

Why do you use a d20 to roll for stats in the first place? O.o

[@12_slot_toaster]

Honestly a d20 method is not THE worst method I've seen yet

[@1975Maximillian]

Near the end of lockdown I started a new campaign with some restrictions that I got from a CoS game I played in. One: Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil alignments were banned. I was tired of other players using Chaotic Neutral as chaotic stupid. Chaotic Evil meant their character was now an NPC and to roll up a new character. Two: The Bladesinger class that was released in Tasha's I felt was OP because originally in AD&D 2nd edition, the Bladesinger class was restricted to only elves and half elves. Certain outsider/or planar races like genasi, aasimar, and tieflings as well as any anthropomorphic races except tabaxi were banned because they were NPCs in my D&D game for story plot reasons. I also had a list of game rules I posted on discord for the players to look at during zero session.

[@broke_af_games9661]

Banned PvP, pvp-stealing, and standard spell uses for: remove curse, lesser restoration for removing a disease or poison, counter spell and more. They are all just terrible spells that remove narrative opportunity.

[@karlriffle1883]

Perfect memory magic artifact or traits.

[@jesternario]

once banned Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Drow in a campaign, simply because they did not exist in the setting I had created, or in the case of tieflings, the players had to give me a cool story of how they escaped from the gulag in a kingdom that treated them as worse than slaves. I would’ve accepted any half-assed story that sounded cool, but no one wanted to play a tiefling. Go figure.

[@do6631]

I have played a drow and played it with no issues and had people play them with no issues. I have also played a female character without going girls gone wild. She was more of a Dudley Do Right style. I've also never had a problem with a player playing a different gender. Of course I make a rule that says I will not narrate what happens when you go into the bedroom. I have banned certain races that don't fit with the theme of my game or are too OP and for the most part I have banned most artificers because they don't fit the fantasy theme. I do ban characters from solving problems by using PVP. I generally don't allow evil characters or I like to refer to it as Chaotic Stupid characters. The one time I couldn't ban the player who was playing chaotic stupid (was for a camp that I was DMing for through where I teach) the player nearly ruined the game for the others on multiple occasions. I had to literally use a genus locii at one point to smite him so he couldn't move or talk while the others were trying to RP and get information they needed because he was trying to kill everything for no reason. Last day of the camp after they had all won, I literally described a lightning bolt coming down from the heavens and clear sky and killing his character to him and the rest of the party. I have a player in another game who is a multi classed ranger/rogue gloomstalker and yeah they are nasty in the dark, and I like attacking camps at night, but I compensate and find other ways to balance things and run other encounters where all their fun skills don't do much good.

[@juliagoodwin9510]

Why would anyone want to play a goddamned Teletubby?!

[@lorenzocassaro3054]

Joke character

[@ericsims2078]

Joke character is exactly it. He knew I'd be more focused on helping the newer players and that he wouldn't need any additional support. So he created the Teletubbie character just to do something different and primarily screw around.

[@juliagoodwin9510]

@@ericsims2078 Ah, okay then.

[@juliagoodwin9510]

I get it's a joke character... still don't know why someone would play it in an otherwise serious campaign.

[@Badartist888]

Not a ban but prefer it if most of characters come from the PHB (sub classes are somewhat excepted). Like I don't mind if there is one more out there race but when the entire party is effectively unique to the setting it stretches credulity somewhat. I also have found that, often but not always, characters who are 4 rulebooks deep are more a stat block than a character. I'm not saying you have to play a human fighter, but I want to see a person first, stat block second and when the game starts in a tavern in a farm village and someone is an ooze monster... I also hate it when someone wants to multi class from level 1 and has it all played out. Again because often, not always, these characters are just walking stat blocks. I have no problem with picking up other classes part way through because its a good character arc/ story.

[@dwaynejackson551]

I banned the conversion of points that allow the coffeelock to work. It didn't make sense to me.

[@dwaynejackson551]

Also banned using phones for character sheets. Mostly because I drop things and if I say I need to see your sheet it means something don't seem right. I have intermittent tremors in my hands and have dropped things at random and broken them.

[@klasodeth]

Yeah, that's a blatant exploit.

[@jasonrustmann7535]

God i hate the dumb/dim/socially inept characters. They're never fun, they always get old ridiculously fast, and will usually get themselves killed or jailed and have the player blaming the DM for it. I once had someone play a kobold in an elvish city, their party mate was getting conned at one of those cup and ball games, players all know what's happening, but nothing in game has lead anyone to believe anything was sketchy, the kobold player decides out of nowhere that "hey! He's cheating!" And throws a rock at the guy, guards are nearby and come to deal with the commotion, the kobold decides the best course of action after it's been made clear this was an unprovoked attack, was to cast a spell on the guards, thunder wave, a damaging spell, the kobold play is surprised that the courts have deemed them a danger to society and will not be getting out of jail. Just one example of people doing completely stupid things in towns or cities and being surprised at me when sht goes south.