The 4 Mistakes D&D Players Make (From Experience)

[@ForestFairy]

The only thing I occasionally do is backseat DMing but I don't argue; something like telling a DM that the acrobatics skill is used for general balance would be an example. I tend to keep actual feedback ,which is welcome in my circles , to the end of the game\breaks. The thing I do know most of the rules from the top of my head, even the weird ones so DMs tend to find it more useful than annoying.

[@SunWukongSonGoku]

Same. I had a DM that used Option Rules for his kid to Intimidate with his Athletics, and he kept forgetting it wasn't the standard method, so I had to keep saying "I'm not Muscles, I'm the Bard - I'm supposed to roll Intimidation. I'll roll it, but like.." and then he'd say "No, no - I forgot; roll *intimidation*, please"

[@maecenus778]

In regard to fudging dice rolls, I think this is a very interesting indicator of the type of player you are dealing with. I was playing the B/X version of DnD with my nephew some months back, he is 10, and I was running him through a fairly tame adventure called Winter’s Daughter. During one of the combat encounters, he had to roll the d20 to hit and initially rolled low, but I watched him as he tried to sneakily change the die to a 20 thinking I wouldn’t notice. At that point I realized that there is a concept that people can “win” at dnd, which I think is flawed. The best way to play this game is to let the dice fall where they may and have an emergent story arise from the events that happen. I had a talk with my nephew about this just to let him know that what we are doing here is not trying to win the game, or have his character succeed at all costs, otherwise why should we be rolling dice?

[@SunWukongSonGoku]

A very good lesson to learn! Now it's been said though - since he's 10, and he fudged : that's a good indicator he want's to win, yes, but what is "winning" in D&D? If we assume the "definition" in the purest way, it is "to succeed" I'm not condoning cheating, but I Do condone encouraging children to try and role-play well enough to excuse "frequently" giving them Inspiration *cough cough*

[@nickischilling]

In most games getting better at them means succeeding more, but that’s not necessarily the case with D&D. So when a player fails more checks or misses more attacks, they feel like they’re playing the game worse, so they try to make themselves win more. Which is ironic because by cheating they are proving that their ability to succeed has nothing to do with skill and all to do with luck.

[@SomniiLinn]

Great video! Love that you're so open about your own "failures" and shortcomings here, and I fel like the section on cheating could be expanded upon, to really drive home why having bad roles and failing actions, doesn't make for a bad game or character!

[@HeraldofHelios]

Great advice mate. I like the raw honesty and heart you put into describing your history as a gamer and DM

[@hqueso]

I'm a terrible note taker, too. I have gotten around this by playing a character with memory issues. Goulash the half-orc fighter rolled a low Int. A really low Int. His backstory included a brain trauma and sometimes he just didn't think very good. Khalin Bronzebeard, the oldest dwarf you've ever seen, was post-stroke and was entering the early stages of dementia. Blobert the plasmoid barbarian was literally a pseudopod from a different campaign's villain (a sentient aberrant arcane ooze from the Far Re4alm) that got cut off - by chance, it just doesn't have a lot of the thinking-bits from the "parent" in him. I'm not forgetful! I'm just playing my character!

[@mhammond4849]

Back in the 90s, I was a member of a group where I played several different characters over a few years. My first character was a gnome who was kind of whiny and would deliberately mispronounce other character's names--- I thought it was funny, but was apparently disliked by the rest of group. My second character, was much more well-liked-- a singing cleric--devoted to helping the party, while I kept the singing to a minimum. It seemed every odd (1,3,5, etc) character I would make the group would hate, but every even character (2,4,6) would be well liked. I don't even remember all the characters, but I used to dread when my even numbered character would die and or need to leave for some reason, and wondering if the next character would just wind up being hated, because the personality I chose for him/it was just not compatible for the group. On cheating--- when I was a teenager, all those "terrible" things you did, I did myself, because I saw lots of people doing the same thing. It was pretty common event, and seen less often as people grew and matured.

[@colinsands1366]

That Pokemon Mystery Dungeon soundtrack 👌🏻

[@jancatperson8329]

We've all been bad players in one way or another. Nobody's perfect, everyone learns and gets better with time. On cheating, when I first got back into the game early in the pandemic (online campaign, obviously), I was lost. It had been years since I played and I couldn't remember much of anything. I'd roll an attack not realizing that I was supposed to add a modifier into that roll. So while all the other people in the game were making great hits on a reasonably regular basis, I was missing on most of my attacks because I wasn't adding my modifiers into my rolls. And I wondered, How come everyone else is make such great rolls all the time while mine usually suck? I assumed they were all cheating. Had to be, right? Nobody gets 15+ as often as these people did. So yeah, sometimes I cheated. (Online campaign, again, so nobody knew.) With time, though, I read the manuals and realized all the ways I was cheating myself by not knowing the details of the game. And now, I don't cheat anymore. I make my fair share of hits honestly and have fun with the ones I miss. On game notes, it's so hard to catch everything. Now, I record game audio and combine my in-game notes with transcriptions of game audio after the session is over. When I first got back into the game, I mostly stayed in the background and followed everyone else's lead since they obviously knew so much more than I did. Once I started reading the rule books and watching KZbin videos on the game, I got passionate about it, and then I'd get a little ticked off when others in our game weren't as serious as I was. I'm sure I was incredibly annoying for a time. Now, I try to remember that first of all, it's the DM's game to run as he sees fit, and second, every player should get to play the game they want to play, even if they just want to coast along having fun with friends and not taking the game as seriously as other players are.

[@SunWukongSonGoku]

" every player should get to play the game they want to play, even if they just want to coast along having fun with friends and not taking the game as seriously as other players are." I agree with that to a great extent; obviously, if a player or players are de-railing everyone else's fun (not the campaign) I can't agree with it. However, I've seen a lot of complaints on other videos comment sections about, players that will "be on their phone unless it's their turn", or "playing a video game on a hand-held" and I'm like : "Okay? They're there. They help. They love you. If it's (a small part of the group) leave them be - if it's (most of the group) you might need a new campaign? idk about that one" I get that it's rude to some people, but they just want to *be* with friends. Some people hang out by doing completely different things in the same room. It's Normal. Normalize it for the homies T-T

[@SunWukongSonGoku]

"You're going to be bad at it" *likes* *subscribes*

[@hawluchag7305]

This is a good video, but i do take some issue with the prescription of "never play jerk characters." I am *very* anti-saying things like "never do __ in d&d," because I feel like it discourages people from playing concepts or ideas that could be really fun! The party I DM for is has many characters that act like jerks often. One of the character's names is even Malizia Scaltro, which translates to "shrewd malice" in Italian. I think your issue in the scenario you brought up is that you simply didn't communicate with the players. It's good to check in before the game and ask for boundaries, during the game to make sure everything's fine, and between games as well. Jerk characters just take a lot of understanding and communication to pull off.

[@hawluchag7305]

Also I know I've commented on a few of your other videos with nothing but criticism, but I don't want to discourage you. I feel like anyone who has been a DM for any significant length of time has *something* valuable to say about the hobby, and you clearly are able to give quite a bit of good, helpful advice! So keep up the good work, I only try to give criticisms to be helpful and maybe persuade people to my understanding of the hobby

[@nickischilling]

Every time I’ve read your comments I’ve though “man, I wish I thought of that so I could’ve brought that up in the video” so it’s all love here. When I say “never do this” I mean in the same way you might say “never juggle knifes”. People CAN do it, and when it goes well it can be amazing! But if you aren’t ready and don’t know what you’re doing (even if you think you know) things can go REALLY badly.

[@dragonstryk7280]

Not playing other systems! So many players are sort of landlocked to D&D, but imagine if you ONLY ever played FPS games because Doom was the first game you ever played? Doom is a wonderful game, I'm not knocking it, but in TTRPGs, far too many players refuse to play *anything* but D&D, or maybe Pathfinder if they're felling "adventurous", but that's about it. Especially when you're first getting into TTRPGs, you should be trying out other RPG systems. Check out Savage Worlds, Warhammer Fantasy, World of Darkness, BESM, or 7th Sea. They're all solid systems that promote different aspects of play, and that is the point, and learning about them can help you learn better what kind of RPer you really are.

[@Sickolas7]

if the other players could not discern whether or not it was your character or you saying something in game, that seems like an indictment on them. any amount of communication would have clarified that. it’s not realistic for there to be no characters with less than ideal characteristics. of course high elves are pompous and think theyre better than everyone!