What are your unpopular D&D opinions? #3

[@bradypermenter8761]

“Forever DM’ should never be assigned to someone. If somebody just loves to DM and doesn’t want to be a player then that’s one thing. But I know 3 separate DMs who got burnt out because nobody in their group was willing to DM (even for one shots or short campaigns)

[@NationalDevin]

I honestly never knew anyone who had it assigned to them, they gave themselves that moniker after finding out nobody else will run and that you can't find a group that will let you be a player that works for you. But I feel this. I ran a low experience group (IRL experience playing to clarify) for about 2 years. The only person who would run was also the one who was the biggest critic because I didn't run modules, I ran homebrew, and she can't do that so how dare I. Spent a year trying to make this person happy during play, and arguing for 5-6 days inbetween every session on a weekly game. But she also ran the game like she had to hand hold us all the way through. Asking us to roll for secrets that we didn't even prompt beginning to look for, using NPCs to take on quests like a DM PC, when one player split from the party and was mauled by giant spiders like the module suggested, instead of even taking him and binding him up, the spiders who are ran on instinct just left him there unconscious. I create my homebrew game with the intent and understanding that I'm going to run it like Gygax to a degree. Your character isn't something the world revolves around. You can go find your own quests and explore, attempt to find secret passages if you think some exist, ect. I reward you for doing what you think your character would do. I don't think a D&D player needs hand holding unless they're new.

[@aegis766]

@@NationalDevin Pretty lucky that my new group is full of people who have wanted to try DMing after being the forever DM for prior groups; I led an 18 month campaign, but I got to take a break at the halfway point as I was beginning to burn out and one of my players led a different campaign for awhile. We wrapped mine a few months ago and another player has been leading a homebrew campaign since then

[@Gamer_G33k]

My friends have the opposite problem, everyone wants to DM XP

[@whosthere8658]

Where are you people at. I've been trying to be a player in DND for 10 years now but no one wants to be the dm.

[@Gamer_G33k]

@@whosthere8658 Being useless gays online lol

[@shannaneumiller2681]

My 'joke' character is a politician who is also a land druid - naturally, all of his power comes from the swamp.

[@travisbishop782]

Hahahaha! Nice!

[@oz_jones]

Black decks are the best, after Blue/Black

[@huh325]

Shrek

[@pebblethesandwing1151]

Florida joke?

[@travisbishop782]

@@pebblethesandwing1151 no, congress joke.

[@joshuasorey6031]

I used to get half-joking groans when I would remind the DM of rules that would hurt the party in some way. Then the day came when my character ate a crit at very low HP and the DM thought characters only auto-die if they take damage equal to twice their max. I dat there and explained to the DM how the rule actually worked, and how, RAW, my character was actually dead. Live by The Rules. Die by The Rules. I earned a lot of respect that night.

[@Funky-Monk-]

Hold the flag high brother! I'm also lawful neutral when it comes to the rules :p of course I don't argue the DM if they know the rule but wanna rule of cool something.

[@ss3nm0dn4r8]

what system

[@zakuraRabbit]

I made a joke character for Out of the Abyss. He was a kenku bard named Twitter who dreams of writing great music... but of course being a kenku he's completely incapable of being creative or even speaking properly without copying others. He very quickly developed depression, anxiety and severe paranoia for all the crap he was forced to endure, and adopted a myconid sprout as his "emotional support mushroom". Just because a character starts out as a joke doesn't mean they can't be serious.

[@elierickson298]

I've always wondered what a "kenku bard" character would be like. All in all, Twitter sounded like a really fun character to play.

[@burgundian]

@@elierickson298 kenku spellcasters are iffy at best. How can they cast spells they've never seen in action before?

[@WhyYouMadBoi]

So you made a normal character with a ultra quirky name and then say its a joke character? Man the bar is low

[@zakuraRabbit]

@@WhyYouMadBoi I don't think you're familiar with how kenkus work. They can't talk and have no creative thought whatsoever. And I made that a bard.

[@WhyYouMadBoi]

@@zakuraRabbit I am aware of how Kenkus work their lore is ok, but what is the joke to this joke character? Because it isn't a joke character it is basically the orc wizard, the halfling barbarian and the rogue with living parents. Taking a race that isn't associated with said class and just making them that class.

[@magenstaffarts]

I think the person who mentioned joke character vs comic relief has a point. Mind you, my cleric is meant to be a comic relief character outside of combat and emotional situations. His surname is a pun that it took a few of the players a little while to get until he had a Staff of Healing and then they realized his name is a pun on mage and staff.

[@JacobGrim]

What was his name?

[@JacobGrim]

@OHGAS he doesn't say what the character's actual name was tho Edit: I think I misinterpreted your reply XD

[@borderlinebear5509]

I hope OP answers, I'll take a guess : Magustaff because it sounds like Gustav

[@stormy_does_stuff]

You're telling me? I've seen a changeling named Alan Fake I think all of you see the pun/reference here

[@ericmurotake5180]

The other thing that people forget is that "comic relief" doesn't mean "weak". For example, one of my old party members was HEAVILY comic relief, but also racked up a huge amount of combat kills. They just happened to be the kind of Bard hybrid that was UNFAIRLY good at pithy one-liners, glorious sass, and the like. The kind who would punctate every fight with witty quips and puns, occasionally comedic tricks that WORKED, and so on

[@tylercrockett7273]

My unpopular opinion: Rangers are actually some of the best classes, you just have to know how to play them, and I don't think most people do. This is coming from someone who has played a ranger for almost two years straight and is regarded as the most lethal character in the party. And he's not a gloomstalker either, he's a hunter who specializes in bonus damage: Dual wielding with bonus attack and colossus slayer as well as steel wind strike for melee and double shot with hunters mark with a bow. He's also a walking armory. But yeah they get way more crap than they ever should. They're not all just whiny Robin Hoods.

[@valarmis]

This opinion started started unpopular, but more and more people have to come to realize this to be the truth and now it's rather common opinion in most DnD groups

[@Amrehlu]

I thought Rangers were unpopular because they have always been stupidly overpowered while also being the most boring thematically. Like, they've always just been a better version of a Fighter, Rogue, and Druid combined, without lore/fluff limitations. But that lack of "lore" around what a ranger is made them "boring."

[@rishitchithirala2977]

@@Amrehlu druids are literally the second most op class in the game, what you on-

[@talleywa5772]

Aragorn is considered a ranger IJS.

[@punishedwhispers1218]

That's not even a good, being any ranger with sharpshooter CBE or GWM PAM, and uses all his first level slots for good berry makes you one of the best healers and outdamages the fighter. And yes, goodberry is the best healing spell in the game, don't fall into the trap that is thinking cure wounds is actually viable.

[@55566789ful]

The first part, the one about enemies and giant things, was literally one of the first things I changed when I started being a DM, anything bigger than something Large (and some Huge) should do massive damage just because of its size and proportions. Yes , our ancestors hunted mammoths , but they didn't do it by standing still , they flanked it , used the terrain , etc . That's why now in my homebrew big things have area attacks, effects like sending them flying, etc.

[@ZelphTheWebmancer]

That's a rule I found odd that 5e removed. In 3.5 (I don't know if 4e had it or not) the size of a creature modified the damage, I think it increased/decreased the dice size. So like a d6 from a medium creature would be a d8 for a large creature and would be a d4 for a small creature, and so on.

[@Life_Universe_Everything]

A running gag in my group’s campaigns is there’s always a Merchant Named Gene Erik, who runs a General Store, Gene Erik’s General Store. It’s become a thing where he’s actually always the same guy who has the ability to walk between realities and timelines.

[@erikhermansen3431]

Good job spelling his name correctly :)

[@mylesmcnary3584]

7:16 my current character has something like this: since he's from another world, a lot of things either have different meanings or levels of importance. The best example is handholding. His tribe believed that all people had an invisible ribbon wrapped around their wrist and the other end of that ribbon was wrapped around the wrist of their soul mate. If you hold hands with anyone other than them, the ribbon could get tangled in another and those wrapped up by both ribbons would suffocate. Because of that, people would usually wait to hold hands with their significant other until at least 5 years in, usually only first holding hands on their wedding night, and even then the hand holding was just about if not more of a sacred ritual then the wedding itself. So, you can imagine the virtual aneurysm that he had when he found out how early into a relationship the people of this world started holding hands and how little respect they show to the act.

[@Jessie_Helms]

Temporary characters are perfectly fine. My party was heading to a cabin that had a gnome investor in it whom they were contracted to go check in on. Along the way one PC died, and he asked if he could play that character since he wanted to play an artificer anyway- an idea I loved and still stand by. But I knew we had a solid 1-2 sessions till they reached the cabin, so I wasn’t about to ask him to just listen in for 6-10 hours of gameplay without anything to do. So I worked with the player and we made Brunks, the Gnoll hating halfling who’s _at least_ 300 years old (if I recall halflings are supposed to cap out around 250-300). He gave the party some “sage advise” (utter nonsense), woke them up “with extra beauty sleep” (at 4 AM), then got teleported to the other end of Icewind Dale before actually attacking any gnolls. At the end of the session the party found the cabin and the player was able to play who he wanted, and is still playing the character 10 sessions later

[@Biezer]

Absolutely agree with the crit role/ dimension 20 one. Even had one of our new players once say "Why can't my cousin play with us? It would be 7 people. It works in Critical Role!"

[@piranhaplantX]

It's frustrating having to explain how it tends to bloat turn times and make encounter balancing exponentially harder, since the already shoddy CR system is geared towards a party size of 4/5. I know Matt specifically has to make his monsters ridiculously spongey just so the monster can survive enough rounds to be a challenge. The worst part is if you actually watch the show, this issues still pop up for Matt. But you can tell he fudges where he needs to when it matters. So it's hard to tell if people don't pay full attention, or if a lot of these people just watch highlight reels.

[@SkullQueen33]

... I had been once on a table with 9 players who also splited the party. Never again.

[@jacobtate4099]

On the stuff about letting your players know what the campaign is about. Back in high school I was invited last minute to a game of 3.5e as the 5th teammate. The friend who gave the invite says standard array, first level, no 3rd party published material, and only official materials for forgotten realms. I decide keep it simple. I show up with character in hand ready to roll. I know the DM from school and he says he's trusts me doesn't even look friends go around introducing their characters elf spellcaster, dwarf... Different type of spellcaster, gnome illusionist, and human druid. Me I'm a halfling barbarian and monkey grip a medium great axe. Everyone looks at me confused and concerned DM says you know this is a Hogwarts style game right? Let's roll with it DM gave Montey a spell book with three "spells" Punch, Bite, Axe. Axe wins wizard duels.

[@2fortsmostwanted]

Every conflict in Harry Potter could have been ended with an axe.

[@lukefranklin5]

That d&d works during any time period, not just medieval. You try to make a modern day campaign and people start shrieking about how there are better systems for modern day campaigns but I just like d&d and don’t want to read a 500+ page rule book every time I want to play. D&D works fine

[@magenstaffarts]

Fuck yeah. I've played with a group that does modern urban fantasy setting and it's fun.

[@an8strengthkobold360]

I just finished a modern day, urban fantasy campaign. Just nerf modern weaponry in some way.

[@Arcticmaster1190]

Yeah, you can work something out. Most people seem to go medieval due to the resource scarcity and trying to avoid how you take damage from things like vehicles or the like. There is also changes to the currency, background allowances, reflavoring weapons… I don’t mind doing stuff like that, but I can understand how it can be daunting for other DMs.

[@darthremy1802]

This, yes, I wanted to run a space cowboy game with 5e and instantly had a player who wanted me to use a game from the 80s or 90s that use cards not dice and I was like no I like 5e and he told me I didn’t understand

[@Nobert594]

Don't forget the 500+ pages are like $50

[@karin722]

Man, you made me cry at the end there, wasn't expecting something that hit me so hard lol. Been going through a lot of shit lately and just when things were supposed to get better I lost a family member. Working hard to get back on track and sometimes it just feels as if I'm at a standstill. Thanks for reminding me that it's ok that it takes time to heal. Hurting sucks, pain sucks, not feeling as if you're where you're supposed to be is fucking awful and makes you feel like a failure. But it'll get better, as long as you keep working at it. Thanks for making these videos, they're so much fun and gives me something not too distracting to play in the background when I go about doing my chores. Every little thing counts right now, so thanks for being one of those little things. ❤

[@BrianVaughnVA]

And thank you for holding on as long as you have. The world isn't perfect, your journey isn't linear, healing is going to take time and you're bound to fuck up during that healing process several times over. I'm sorry you lost a family member by the way Karin.. I can't imagine how hard that has to be.. I know when I lose my mother, father or even my uncle, I'll be devastated beyond hope. I lost my lil girl Cuddles (a cat that I basically loved like a daughter) in 2020, broke my heart and still hurts to this day. So you Karin, you keep at it. Don't de-value your life and remember, those you lose want you to keep going strong. Love you mate.

[@No-XIV-Xion]

@@BrianVaughnVA Brian, I always am glad to hear you add that on at the end of a video. A good word and some encouragement means the world to some people, and it always makes me smile and feel better. Thanks for always taking the time to end it on a heartwarming and encouraging note 💙

[@Jessie_Helms]

I agree about the 6-8 players is too much most of the time. I’ve run groups of 4, 3, 5, then 6, and back down to 5. 1 player left, recruited 3 new people, and had to kick 1 guy. 5 has really been the sweet spot, 4 would be pretty good imo too.

[@christopherbataluk643]

Five really is the magic number as it really fleshes out the party roles without becoming cumbersome.

[@piranhaplantX]

This is pretty much true of tabletop games in general. 4-6 is the magic range for most group games, and pushing it any higher tends to be unwieldy. Games made for 7+ players tend to be designed as party games with very simple mechanics that flow very quickly. Complex games just slow down too much or break with so many players.

[@AidanWR]

3:08 Yes, this should be common knowledge. Know what your character does and don't take 3 minutes to figure out that you just want to cast a cantrip or hit the guy in front of you

[@2fortsmostwanted]

This is why I'd encourage people who hem and haw on their turn in initiative to play a prepared spell class. It requires them to think about the upcoming combat scenarios, what techniques they usually use, and what would be most helpful if they don't know what to expect. If you're a cleric who prepared spiritual weapon for that day because you knew you'd be fighting creatures who have a lot of movement, you're more likely to already know you want to cast spiritual weapon when it's your turn than if you were a warlock who only got to pick spells once, sessions ago, and feels like they can't do anything. Or, just... play fighter.

[@timkramar9729]

Backstory isn't important. I prefer railroad. The popular consensus seems to be sandbox. I need a clearly defined objective, and to be constantly moving towards completing the objective.

[@sunstar8782]

Yea. I prefer a clearly defined story as well, with though-out plot points

[@payton.a.elliott]

The truth is that those aren't mutually exclusive ideas. You can have a clearly defined objective within a sandbox. The fun of the sandbox is that you allow the players to achieve that objective in a variety of ways despite keeping the story linear. I highly doubt your games are purely railroaded, because if they were you might as well just go read a book. There is a huge misconception that a sandbox needs to be a massive open world with Tolkien-esque levels of lore, and that the story must be 100% player driven. In reality, a sandbox campaign is just like an actual sandbox in real life. As DM, you set the borders of the sandbox and decide what is already built inside of it. It is up to you to decide what tools the players have available to modify and change your sandbox. You can give them a shovel and a bucket with tons of molds to cast their own sand-based creations, or you can only let them use their fingers to draw lines in the sand. I know it's bad practice to compare tabletop RPGs to video games, but humor me for a moment. Think of a big open-world roleplaying game, such as Fallout. You can run around and do "anything you want", but you can really only do what the developers allow you to do and the story is limited to a set of predefined endings. However, you still have a big sandbox to play in and create your own personal story. The game naturally guides you toward the main plot points, but allows you freely travel and experience the world surrounding it. Even something as linear as the official D&D adventure modules are still a sandbox, it's just that they are narrowly focused on telling their stories. They present you with a slice of a living world that you can run around in and influence, within the bounds defined by the story. It is not feasible to have a true life-simulator sandbox. There are always limitations, especially in tabletop adventures. The key is to figure out a way to fairly impose those limitations, and to allow the players to have fun while playing within them.

[@rubenbylovandersen160]

I totally agree with the first one. I do this in my games, but it is also true that at some point you have to say stop. I have a player who in our current campaign have re-classed several times on the same character, and also played another character for a short while, eventually i had to tell him no, no more...

[@D-Skotes]

My unpopular Opinion is that Ranger is a viable class to play.

[@jukesdtj656]

You're popular with me ;-;

[@Forever-GM-Dusty]

It absolutely is. That's simply a fact

[@wyattfrye8262]

3:08 that’s my issue with critical role. Like seriously just take 5 mins to read those notes to remind yourself of what your abilities do and what spells you chose and what items you and other players have in their possessions that could be detrimental to the campaign. Like when they all collectively forget that Laura’s character got a corrupting stone from a creature they should’ve killed and what the feywild shard does to the user, or marisha forgetting her character is a undead creature that rolls con saves to stay alive longer in fights was frustrating to watch.

[@brookshyde5663]

Bro, I have gotten so annoyed with Critical Role sometimes. I started with campaign 2 and they would have to ask what to roll or do so many times for basic rules. Bruh, you've been playing the game for years and get to play more consistently than most people. How do you not know what to roll?!

[@wyattfrye8262]

@@brookshyde5663 well when it comes to rolls you do need to wait on the dm to tell you what it is you need to roll. It’s the whole debate on “Deception vs Performance”, so you just need to ask your dm about it some times. However, they do it a lot when it’s the same check they roll for the 100th time so that is true

[@trebmal587]

They have years of experience, are supposed to be "professional" players, have all the time they need to check on stuffs during the others turns... and yet sometimes they still don't know basic rules or what their spells does. It's okay when it happends from time to time, everyone can slip up or forget stuffs, but I agree that it occurs way too much in CR. Some players are more guilty of it than others, and I especially hate when they try to bargain with Matt when they are clearly in the wrong. Fights last for way too long because of it. That being said, I still enjoy the show. Matt is a great DM and the cast are genius roleplayers, but I agree that they don't put enough care into making sure they understand their spells and abilities, especially for a professional D&D show.

[@ericmurotake5180]

@@trebmal587 I think part of it is the act for the benefit of the newcomers (having the DM/Player give a quick "This is what X does", so that even a total neophyte to D&D at least can get the gist of what's happening), and the bargaining is just what happens when you've got a group of tight-knit friends who've played at the same table for a long time. (Heaven knows my group of friends did it a lot with our game)

[@trebmal587]

@@ericmurotake5180 I guess it differs from table to table. My friends and I are pretty close, we don't play as much nor since as long as the CR cast does, and yet we don't argue nearly as much as they do. It's mainly because we turn DMs, so everyone of us is aware of how the game work and why the bickering can be annoying. We had a player in the past who acted like this but she kinda stopped coming to sessions because she didn't enjoy D&D as much as we do. When I was DMing, her constant bargaining based on a really loose understanding of the rules was really tiresome.

[@asheronwindspear552]

In one of my games that I play with my kids my son didn't like their character so they got swept away in a fast flowing river during a fight. We met his new character shortly after, is the original character still alive? Did they drown? Who knows, but the option is there to find out and could also have an effect on future story paths.

[@archellothewolf2083]

I agree with the flirty bard statement. there's so many other ways to play a bard. My personal favorite is the time I played a halfling playwright. He traveled around with he party for inspiration for his plays and put them on for the townsfolk when they returned to town, using illusion spells to really bring the tale to life. I'd give out inspiration with quotes like "That'll be perfect for act 2!" or "Put some passion into it! Make me *feel* something in the back row!" and vicious mockery was fun too, just looking at a bandit and jotting down notes while saying something like "alas, yet another bandit, I'm not even going to bother to name." where as the sexy bard helps spread the party's infamy, other bards excel at spreading the party's glory. Which in my personal opinion, is the entire point of a bard in the first place.

[@misspotato813]

I've played Druid almost exclusively in D&D. Despite this, I barely remember the specifics of any druid spell off the top of my head. My solution to this is hyperlinks, as I usually do digital character sheets. With a click of a button I know exactly what a spell does. If I'm doing a physical sheet I write down the page number for the spells. I also use the animal companion sheet to help with wild shape and to summon animals. Despite potentially having one of the longest turns due to the insane turn economy of summoners, most my turns last a little longer than rolling dice and describing what my character(s) do.

[@TyDreacon]

Way I look at it: D&D isn't high school. Open book and pages of notes are perfectly fine and nobody should be shamed for it. If it works, do it.

[@bye1551]

Also, if you have them, you can use flash cards as a "spell list" and make a new "deck" every time you take a long rest! I did this playing a druid cleric hybrid (druid set green, cleric yellow) and it made everything so much easier. No flicking back and forth, I just skimmed my cards till I found the right one

[@claraclenky9843]

@@bye1551 ooh and if you have a artist you can ask them for a quick draw on it or you can pay them for a better detailed drawing, remember to *pay* *up* 🙂

[@gene8447]

5e was a reflexive reaction to 4e being a mess, and being afraid to ever have any number crunching again has harmed the game

[@gonzalorosciolesi6502]

I always hear people talking bad about 4e. As a relatively new player I have a question, why is it so hated?

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@gonzalorosciolesi6502 You can look up D&D rules online by searching for the SRDs of them (D&D 3.5 SRD, D&D 4e SRD, D&D 5e SRD etc). If you go and check out the PHB for 3.5e then 4e then 5e you will see why 4e was so hated. It completely reworked the system to turn it into something more like WOW or Diablo 3 on the PC. It was very different and not in a good way.

[@helgenlane]

@@Ishlacorrin but shouldn't it be decent now with all the virtual tt?

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@helgenlane nah the 4e rule set has not changed, they abandoned it when they made 5e and while better than 4e it's still not as good as they had with 3.5e.

[@helgenlane]

@@Ishlacorrin what I mean is, since virtual tabletops like Roll 20 and Fantasy Grounds exist, which turn D&D into a kind of computer game, isn't it easier to play?

[@knutandersson4606]

12:06 I 100% agree with this. I'm DMing a campaign for first timers and past session 4 I didn't give them a lecture on anything in their power to do, I said to them "Henceforth I will assume you know what your character can do." Everyone got into their characters mechanics a lot better, people looked up the logic of their abilities and when/how they use them, even prepared their dice while I checked to see if the attacks hit. Only one in the group didn't fall into his role as well, but if he doesn't want to look up what an ancestral guardian can do then I won't either.

[@billcox8870]

I like to go over the rules myself to see if I can find an advantage. That being said I will even limit myself when I see the rules and I was doing something incorrectly. On more than one occasion I have turned to my DM and said, I hate to do this to myself but ...

[@BoojumFed]

"Rules Referee" supremacists unite!

[@ablackcatcrossesyourpath6222]

My main character for the campaign Im in now is honestly kinda a joke character. I’m not the most creative person ever so I decided to base her off of a bunch of different nursery rhymes. I don’t care how clique it is I love my little Shepard Druid and her little sheep with all my heart. That one’s honestly the most obvious.

[@erroneousfax9351]

6:44 And if you do make a joke character, give them some more depth past their funny exterior even if it’s retroactive. I remember one time I got a group together and found a GM that ended up ghosting us. At the time we were really hopeful that they would *eventually* come back so I decided to GM a side game until they. They never came back and for my “short” game one of the players made a very jokey character. As the months dragged on without a response from our original GM, we decided to just keep rolling with my game and somehow that jokey character ended up becoming a pretty pivotal piece of the now *campaign* and ended up having a bigger character arc than most of the other “serious” characters in the party.

[@antaresmaelstrom5365]

The giant monster thing has always annoyed me. Though I rarely use anything above HUGE in size so it becomes less of an issue.

[@FordPrefict42]

I like the cinematic appeal of a Gargantuan creature causing earth tremors as they walk, a la Jurassic Park T Rex water glass vibes. If a Purple Worm is surfacing, it is going to cause a huge rumble from displacing so much earth. An ancient dragon landing should be epic!

[@westenplatt179]

7:40 I am of agreement, my current character is a joke idea, it is a pirate wolfkin gunslinger-fighter/gunsmith-artificer who is by far based around 'salty Sea dog', yet in with his class I can play it at the group sniper and have +8 to hit at lv 4

[@codenamezenneko9599]

On the retraining topic, I once let a cleric change his domains but required him to retrain with a higher level cleric of his faith. He worshipped a dragon god. He retrained with a dragon who lived in the cave under a wishing well.

[@SuperLumianaire]

I hate chaotic neutral and or people playing as evil characters, or players purposely messing with other players all the time. Especially when it's because they want to use D&D as a means of exerting control over others.

[@xavierochoa6935]

That's not a hot take, that's common courtesy and common sense

[@SuperLumianaire]

@@xavierochoa6935 compared to the games I've played, it might as well be. But thank you.

[@FatedGamer]

The ones I agree with most are usually about players needing to do more work. In a game just today two seperate players tried to argue shadow blade used casting mod to hit. It doesn't. It's a simple finesse weapon you are proficient with. Our mage was very unhappy and the other player got a bit annoyed because he'd been using it for months on another character but no one called him out on it since they simply thought he was smart enough to read his spells (me included). In the same turn the caster tried to cast a level 5 spell as an action and a level 7 spell as a bonus action. Which is also very much not allowed because that would be insane for every sorc. Despite playing for months these people can't remember a rule or writting of a spell to save their lives. I've also played in games a gm waves rules just to speed up combat. "Ehhh we can let him cast two spells just to make it go faster and look it up later" and it ends up they just never go look for the rule and the player gets away with it forever.

[@romeolautarosimoni9674]

As generic as fighters can be, they also can be the most creative class when it comes to making a character

[@rafaxpg]

They are probably the CLEANEST of ALL slates (classes), so the options should be limited only by your imagination.

[@CaptainShenanigans42]

@@rafaxpg Both rogues and fighters, being basic martial classes, are pretty danged wide open. My current character is an army surgeon rogue. Been thinking about making a fighter who makes heavy use of bear traps due to originally being a hunter. It's the beauty of DnD, the wide open possibilities.

[@torgranael]

@@CaptainShenanigans42 Nonsense. Every single rogue must a deranged serial-killer kleptomaniac who burned down his village with no witnesses. JK, I once ran a campaign where on of the players was a professional locksmith. That character retired to work at the party's inn after getting fed up with the legally/morally questionable antics from the rest of the party.

[@CodaBlairLucarioEmperor]

@@torgranael Yep. They also don't have to be some form of neutral(usually chaotic) like most people tend to do. At least from what I've seen that's what most people go for.

[@MrG-zn6gh]

Plus, what counts as a fighter, is entirely up to interpretation, it doesn't matter if it's a world renowned swordsman on an epic adventure, or some random peasant, with a slightly heavy tree branch, who thought joining the party would be fun.

[@nlrexx1]

That last one hit me... I am playing a paladin and I failed to read my features very closely. I knew my divine sense and my class specific features fine, used Lay on Hands frequently... But I missed smiting. I knew you could smite, I have heard the memes, but I thought I was limited to the literal smite spells, which I thought sucked... I have since been corrected on that.

[@grubhubgenjutsu]

God Bless that you've been corrected as the paladin spell list outside of like lvl 5 destruction wave is never better than smiting lol.

[@an8strengthkobold360]

Not really a hot take because I get why people like it but I simply don't like curse of strahd. I haven't enjoyed running or playing in it.

[@alexiavya722]

‘tis a hot take, and a fair opinion to have 👍

[@Butchcavalier]

im not looking to debate you or anything (CoS isnt my favourite either) but would you mind telling me what you don't like about it?

[@punishedwhispers1218]

Sounds like a GM and Player Problem

[@rafaelcastor2089]

I haven't played it, just DM'ed it 4 times (only twice to completion) and while the campaign is fine i also don't get why people like it as much as they do.

[@an8strengthkobold360]

@@punishedwhispers1218 to an extent yes but man the beginning is really sh*t.

[@soultpp]

Reading through the video description and seeing all of the upcoming questions and one stands out at me, "Worst D&D loot stories" Sadly, my story seems to be more or less ongoing in all of our group's games, D&D and otherwise: Either too much loot all at once, or nothing. It's rare that we get an in between. We either get payed way too much for a job (then can never spend the money) or else nothing for most of the campaign. My own character in our last campaign went without anything magical for probably most of the campaign until near the end when the DM finally gave us like 3 magic items off of a list he asked for. (And I got probably the weakest three from that list, but so did most people) as well as maybe a custom item or two that were middle strength (a robe that was good armor for my wizard as well as GWF style but for magic in rerolling 1s & 2s once for example, which I was fine with and could be argued in certain context to be stronger than the Robe of the Archmage that I'd had on my list). Meanwhile the paladin and rogue have/had (or start with in the rogue's case, since it was a replacement for a death) at least a +1 sword or bow for most of the campaign (somewhere between 3-5 I think), which went from 1-20. I sound bitter I guess, but more just a tiny bit frustrated is all because the all or nothing seems to come up too frequently. As far as that last campaign went, it was mostly fun. As for the topics in the video itself (great video btw, loved every minute of it) I ended up writing out and sending the lines about rules lawyers to our DM and two players because I'm getting sick of being called that (one player likes to call me "rules whore" actually) because most of them are too lazy to read the books. And that's all it is, if they read the books, they'd probably be almost as good at remembering the crunch as I am and everything would likely go much smoother. Not that I'm perfect, occasionally I misremember too, but at least I'm trying to remember and not just twisting the rules to suit myself.

[@SunLovinSolaire]

I have a friend who, despite playing several casters, for multiple YEARS longer than I’ve been playing, can’t seem to retain any information about the game. They think spell slots are how many spells of that level you can know!

[@theminimecha5920]

I'm a rules lawyer, but I keep it to myself unless someone asks if I know how to clear up any misunderstanding on rules. I've helped the DM if they wanted, and always ready to help any new players. I'm also known for bringing snacks too.

[@darcraven01]

8:25 i want to make a hexblade/divine soul sorc hybrid (giving him access to range combat, melee combat, and healing) who has the "skilled" feat to pick up proficency in stealth, sleight of hand and thieves tools. He'd be from a mercantile city called "Al'tratce" and his name would be "Jak". You could say hes a jack of all trades.

[@Sephiroth517]

I makes that kind of jokes a lot too ^^

[@adis4320]

The thing about pcs not understanding thier character sheets gets to me. Every week, our sessions will roll around and it feels like one person out of the four will somehow forget everything that thier character can do. Ive also had problems with the partys druid spending his spell slots like there a dime a dozen.

[@fartingicecream]

I personally think DMs and parties should be open to other systems. It helps with learning new ways of doing things. My current DM believes without a shadow of a doubt no system but 5e is worth running. And any attempts to run something else even if I’m DMing, lead to a fight.and most others not wanting to play because ‘it’s not dnd’

[@ashleyfernandes3094]

i hope u find ppl to play other games with. i have ADHD and dnd is often to slow for me to have fun with and other games splash systems in dnd make it much more playable. (i feel d&d is a mess and bad to play vs other games most of the time) ps. i am a "forever GM"

[@SrLupinotuum]

you can call him for acting like one of those guys that only consider old music to be real music; a good comeback is playing anything build upon made by the apocalipse system; it really drives foward the idea of roleplay to a game, better than DnD in some aspects, for example City of mist directly links your characters skills to their identity and grasp to reality

[@ashleyfernandes3094]

@@SrLupinotuum i forgot the name of the system Apocalipse was it ya noticed a few game have that and seems good

[@fartingicecream]

@@SrLupinotuum Well, after trying to start my own game fully, and getting a 4 people in total, he tried to do a whole 'edgy rogue' who's mom was sexually assaulted by some random lord, and who watched both his parents then get murdered... and survived the slaughter of his town. Then fought me when I flat out said no to him. Apparently I was stifling his creativity by wanting to not deal with darker themes to start in my campaign, and that 'it ruined his fun'. SO now he's not much of a concern anymore. I apparently found my 'that guy'. And it's honestly better that he's gone. Everyone else had fun session 0 (even if my mind won't let me accept that), and we're prepping for the next session! Hope it all goes well.

[@SrLupinotuum]

@@fartingicecream congrats! good to hear you all had fun, I'm sure you will learn the ways to be a even greater DM over time

[@Jeagan2002]

As far as playing different characters, I base my games around an adventurer's guild specifically for that reason. Players can build new characters or bring out old ones whenever they want, at the current power level of the group. They only get special loot if that particular character has earned it (beyond like a +1 weapon or something to keep them up to par), but there's no real limit on how many characters they can have at once.

[@ducc3031]

How are these unpopular opinions?!! THESE ARE ALL COMMON SENSE

[@VentingGragory]

Yes, almost none of the unpopular opinions are unpopular, but there's no popularity poll about these random opinions, so OCs opinions might be based around what their small group of friends thinks or what meme posts relay.

[@ducc3031]

@@VentingGragory ok 👍

[@Sephiroth517]

you didn't knew common sense was a bit unpopular ^^

[@ducc3031]

@@Sephiroth517 🤓

[@BLav01]

Ok but gimmick characters can be so fun! In our 3.5e games, our DM lets us play with templates! My seafaring campaign character is a fire-souled sea elf. For those who don’t know, fire-souled template gives you a Level Adjustment of +3 (Your character is 3 class levels behind everyone else in lieu of the benefits), which gives her the fire subtype (fire immunity + weakness to cold), the leadership feat, and a +1 bonus to allies within 10ft, a +4 bonus to Charisma, as well as some other (not as interesting) abilities. The whole idea of the template is that you literally BURN with passion and ambition, there’s a fire in your heart and you gotta go go go! - Fire souled IS official + comes from a dragon magazine edition! I made the whole character because I thought a fireproof fish would be funny, and now she’s my favourite, a 29-35 Charisma bard/lyric thaumaturge who claimed the long lost crown of the king under the waves to become queen, in order to protect the sea elves from an ancient fiendish kraken who’s been terrorizing us for millenia! Backstory - her fire abilities come from her adventuring a little too far into the ocean where she gets swept away by a planestorm (pretty common, most people can avoid it) and falls into a fire well (primordial corpse) ON the plane of fire. As she burns up this thing notices her and is like, “oh you’re interesting, tell me about the outside world… okay. that’s cool…” then reforms her body out of fire, and sends her back to her ocean. Where she swims to the surface & decides that day to become a privateer. Because now she’s dummy ambitious lmao. Gimmick characters are fun. Templates are fun!!! 🥳🥳🥳

[@BoojumFed]

Our table has 8 of us (so seven players plus whoever is GMing whatever ttrp/ homebrew/ etc. we're playing) and even though that's just the size of the group of folks who want to hang out and play of Fridays and everyone is fairly universally super cool and adult about things taking time and making things easier on the GM it's still a barely-controlled mess of varying play-styles, RP-styles, and aesthetic preferences. If it weren't for the personalities of the players the whole thing would have collapsed long, long ago... Don't expect more than 4-5 players to work for more than a one-shot or two unless you've found one of these magical, unicorn tables of folks who play together well through years of introducing a newbie or two at a time...

[@MegaMrsuperawesome]

Here's one for players. Give martials magic weapons. Plus 1 is under powered almost immediately. a staff of protection or wand of magic missiles is way more powerful than a plus 1 or even plus 2. Stop helping casters be more op or no one will play martials.

[@Parodox306]

To the poster of the opinion at 12:07: as a player of the same character in the same campaign for three years straight I have to say you have every right to assume players don't understand a damn thing. I can barely get by a session without having to remind myself what Hunter's Mark does AND I'M THE RANGER.

[@piranhaplantX]

There are cool settings to be explored outside of fantasy, modern, and cyberpunk. I've been wanting to run a magical version of a Napoleonic, cold war, or WW1/WW2 setting for awhile now. But most people just want the generic fantasy, or give me the excuse that 5e isn't made for that but refuse to try other systems.

[@brookshyde5663]

Mine annoys the group I DM. I think that new players in an online campaign should use the old fashion way until they learn the rules. It always bugs me when online groups, namely using Roll20, will just be like, "Click the skill or weapon to roll. Oh, just press the weapon and it automatically rolls damage." It's just teaching new players the software but they don't even know what they are rolling or how they got their roll. It's not a good long term solution. For clarification, it's fine to use those tools but make sure the player actually knows what they are rolling.

[@helgenlane]

If you are the DM, why don't you teach your players how to play the game? Also, why does it matter if they understand what "1d20+dex+prof+1 bow+2 archery" means? If you are not trying to make combat balanced for optimisers and this player doesn't try to break the rules, I don't see a problem.

[@brookshyde5663]

@@helgenlane I have taught them. Some of my players are DMs that don't see the point in teaching the old fashioned way instead of just using Roll20's tools. Rolling and modifiers is a core mechanic of the game. Players should at least understand the fundamentals.

[@jjjayfilms]

@@brookshyde5663 Yeah, I spend a couple hours with a new player before we started the campaing going over his character sheet, manually filling it out and explaining where which stat came from, how HP is calculated and increased, what stat AC and Initiative is based on, how attack bonus works etc. Partially that is because I don't trust tools like DNDBeyond because they have messed up calculations in the past (esp. HP) and I want my players to know what they're doing and it makes stat increases easier to decide down the line if they know what each stat affects.

[@tonyb9290]

On the retirement note, I like that idea and already implemented for my kids game that they are in a position where they can retire at will, they want to wrap up one last plot before they do though which is fine. The note on changing a class or choices, I have actually played a ranger that should have been a druid from the start. Cross classes into druid then took my DM’s “reclass” feat to convert the ranger levels to druid, I like how he dies it, you have to go get training in said class and has to be similar enough to your class (like ranger-druid, fighter-barb, rogue-bard etc) and you have to spend downtime training for it. For my situation when I found out he had a feat for it, my ranger already hit all the pre requisite through gameplay and downtime decisions so I was able to just switch at that point with the feat.

[@socialistrepublicofvietnam1500]

Not unpopular, just that nobody mentions it Excessive rolling My luck is what got me into this mess in the first place, I do not want it deciding whether I fall down the staircase or not It is also just awkward when the DM just asks you to roll again because you were supposed to succeed Also somebody else mentioned this (forgot who), but it discourages players from actually trying to do stuff The example they used was if a player asks to search a room with a trapdoor under a rug, you would roll an Investigation check. However, if a player specifically asks to look under the rug, why couldn't they just see the trapdoor and why would they need an Investigation check

[@Ishlacorrin]

Good DMs will not ask for the roll in your example, I do not ask for rolls in a lot of cases. For example, if the DC is so low that players have that many levels in the skill required then they just pass no roll needed. Same for specific search check like you mentioned. If the player is vague then they roll for the chance they might see something, if they are specific and it's something that would be obvious then no roll.

[@ericmurotake5180]

One group I rolled with had it that on certain regular and ALL critical rolls, there would be a secondary "Reward/Penalty Roll", to determine how the result turned out. So if you, say, fail a roll on agility because something on the stairs came loose, the second roll would be something like deciding if you just lose your balance and recover quickly or (on a nat 1) go almost cartoonishly tumbling arse over elbow all the way down, followed shortly by a dislodged object, the rug, and anything else there.

[@Ishlacorrin]

​@@ericmurotake5180 I have used something like this before. Not on combat critical rolls, but sometimes for certain skill checks. The difference is that I myself roll that one behind the screen and only if I didn't already have an idea for what would happen on a success/failure crit. You'd be surprised just how much inspiration a simple roll can give. Just knowing if it's a minor crit fail, moderate crit fail, or a major crit fail, helps a lot.

[@ericmurotake5180]

@@Ishlacorrin Yep. My group also had it for combat encounters, with effects ranging from "You move to hit the enemy, only to trip, lose your grip on your sword as you try to catch your balance, and land on your face as your weapon wedges into your teammates buttocks" (double nat 1s), to "You loose a mighty roar, lunging forward with a great stab. The enemy attempts to bring their shield up, but to no avail. Your sword pierces through the wood as if it were paper, then through the arm, into the armor and out the other side" (Double nat20s, which our rule had as automatic double max damage)

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@ericmurotake5180 Question is: How did you find it? Was it a fun rule, or too much?

[@jjjayfilms]

Regarding prep not just being the DM's job. As someone who has both DMed and played, I always regard myself as the expert on my own character. I know my spells (since I only play spellcasters), I know my backstory (up until where I left intentional blank spots for the DM to fill at their discretion), I know my reactions in and out of combat. As a player, it's my job to interact with the world the DM presents, and to be proactive in participating. I know my characters goals when downtime happens and am ready to suggest activities if the DM opens the door for that. And, well... I play in a party right now where that makes for fluid gameplay and I love it.

[@jacobgraemoor5778]

6:10 And if you have any amount of players, leave it at that gods damn number, because bringing in new players is always risky during an active campaign, especially if your current party has somehow managed to mesh well together. Because 9/10 times, those new players won't mesh well with the current dynamic or they somehow mesh better well with just one other player and they start turning on another player. Every group I've been a part of has made this mistake and it's led to it breaking apart.

[@ericmurotake5180]

Alternatively, do a session zero with the new incoming player (a minor delve where the incoming character is something like a hired sword to help the party with a task (picking up the newcomer party member for a particular job, give the character a chance to see how they mesh with things, and, potentially, create a new character to better fit with the party)).

[@jacobgraemoor5778]

​@@ericmurotake5180 here's why I have a bias against bringing new players into an ongoing game. It was me as a spellblade with three other, players, I was multiclassing into a swordmage which gave me this magic rune to put on a hand, which could also do force attacks. Two players were helping me since I was hyping it up just for the flavor, because I got magic ink and this special knife, so there was a whole big ritual just to give me the rune. One player had to stab my hand with the magic knife when the runes were in place, and we were friends with a small rivalry going on, nothing major. When all was done, my character decided to test it out and just for fluff, I blasted the other character with the rune for having enjoyed stabbing me, just like that one scene in avengers where Hulk punches Thor. It was supposed to be comedic and ha ha. Then comes in the dumbshit. This stupid fuck was playing this talking dog with a cursed sword, I think he was a hexblade. And at that point he was owned by the other character I had just blasted, which didn't even do any damage, and because it was "WhAt My ChaRacTer WoUlD DO" He starts a full-on fight where we all got arrested by the townguard. There were other incidents too, one where he fully lost his character and had to make a new one for pulling the same shit on not knowing when to stop and let people just fluff. The other example really pissed me off, because his new character was this mage that was out to capture this ghost lady that was haunting this pirate town we were at, where his dumbass had lost his first character. It made the fight infinitely harder because we had to kill the ghost lady when she was close to new character, so even though we're fighting a ton of different ghost we can't kill them. Like this was a new person my character didn't know and I'm supposed to endanger my group of friends for them? I made the joke that I could ruin their plan by killing a random ghost nearby, because one fo them had grabbed onto one of the crew, and was met by the dm saying if you're going to intentionally do that I can kick you out of the group, and right then and there I just had my character abandon the group and walk off where I left the game. This story has a lot more to do with shitty dms and players, but ultimately it was caused by bringing in new players into a group that had already found its footing.

[@ericmurotake5180]

@@jacobgraemoor5778 Again, why a session zero for newcomers makes sense. For example, my character (Lizardfolk Monk/Artificer working as an assassin sent to keep an eye on the party) was first introduced through a setting where he had been hired by the other members of the party under a false guise, interacting with the party as a "simple monk", and then the group was in trouble and he pulled out his subclass (Kensei) and his Artificer skills. Once that was done, the group had established a dynamic with his inclusion (he was the token "cool, aloof ally" in a relatively eccentric and funny party (not that there wasn't heavy stuff, but the group was the kind who was largely light hearted), and quickly settled into the "evil straight man" role (the one who points out things like "that spell couldn't have been cast by our bard. Not smart enough to do such a feat"), and internal affairs contact (his order worked for the local king, so he had connections and internal info)). The group decided they liked it and he was in.

[@francescosacca6674]

I get this. I was the new player. It was a campaign online and to be fair, and it was a stroke of luck, as a PC died and I got a request I completely forgot about accepted. My struggle was more about meshing with the story rather than the players. They seemed good people. Also, English became a barrier somehow, even if I usually understand well. Even then, I left only because of uni schedule.

[@rainofkittens]

I did play through an entire campaign as a Grave Cleric. Nearly any time a came across a new character, npc, sentient monster, etc. I had to stop and say "Do you have a moment to talk about our lord a savior, Lord Hades! 🙏 " Made for an annoying yet at times a Hilarious character. DM genuinely tried to kill of my cleric on more then one occasion but underestimated my powers 😈

[@aidendaGod]

Unpopular opinion. All the opinions shared in the video are popular ones.

[@froob182]

The chill touch one is why I only refer to it as "lich slap"

[@btf_flotsam478]

With the "bards shouldn't be sex-addicted" thing: I remember hearing of a concept for a bard with the dad vibes: telling bed-time stories, going on about how he's proud of his team-members, and so on. Low-key, I have a decent-ish character concept: an orc/goblin bard (this is interchangeable), whose aim in life is to prove that his/her species is not evil but just misunderstood and oppressed. Instead of seducing people, he/she tries to persuade them to trust him/her and his/her kind. (There's probably some allegory for people of colour in there.)

[@jigsaw924]

I once played a halfling named Yardley Digglewick. He was a rogue who was orphaned and didn't know anything about halfling culture. Long story short, he died twice and was revived each time, and when they reached a small town full of halflings, he just... decided not to leave. He'd been through too much and he finally had a chance to learn about his people/culture. So, he was retired and I rolled up a new character. Best character ending I've ever had.

[@ZombieDish]

home brew critical miss charts dont always make the game more immersive.

[@HallowedKeeper_]

Probably my favourite Jokey character I've read about is slappy the clown. He was a thrown-weapon fighter, he also had Tavern Brawler so he had proficiency in improvised weapons

[@Forever-GM-Dusty]

My unpopular opinion is that almost every DM is too soft on their players, at least considering my own preferences. I'm not saying you should constantly murder your PCs, but I want to feel my own mortality and the desperate struggle to survive against an evil force equal to or more powerful than myself, barely getting by on my own wits.

[@xavierochoa6935]

So true man, I want that life or death struggle, props to you

[@TheBiomedZed]

Preference is the key word there bud. Some people just want to play a casual fantasy role-playing game where they feel like they are making decisions. I do agree though that, even by official D&D ruling, most balanced encounters are far too easy to navigate by even a half-competent set of players.

[@Forever-GM-Dusty]

@@TheBiomedZed I'm well aware. And I agree. I love being able to make decisions and impacting the story through rp. I was talking more from a combat perspective. I find it more immersive when I feel like the villain actually is trying to kill me, not just constantly throwing out pathetic cannon fodder

[@ZWIPPMANN]

I actually addressed the first idea about huge creatures in my game system. A creature 1 or more size category bigger than you ignores your armor when attacking you.

[@KelbPanthera]

3e specific: the superiority of casters over non-casters is grossly, dramatically, absurdly overstated by an insane degree.

[@MCinmystileESP]

Yeah, It only shows when playing with optimizers or powergamers.

[@KelbPanthera]

@@MCinmystileESP I'm a heavy optimizer. I know the system back to front and inside out. The online community for that system insists on only looking at a fraction of the whole of the system and it leads to bad conclusions.

[@suedenim]

@@KelbPanthera As a 3.5 player who started fairly recently, I've discovered a lot of weird prejudices and tendencies. Another is the superiority of (anything else, pretty much) over "mere" damage dealing. As with the caster superiority stuff, they're kinda correct, but take it too far. Sure, a spell that paralyzes a monster on a successful save is nice, and lets you finish it off at your leisure.... But a fighter type doing 58 points of damage with her greataxe ain't bad either, and can probably be repeated more reliably.

[@KelbPanthera]

@@suedenim Bingo. You wouldn't believe how many times I've had that argument.

[@The_Yukki]

It's not really 3e specific. It's also a case in 5e. Lvl 1 fighter can attack 1 time, 2 times if they have a feat like crossbow expert, 3 times if they use a resource. Lvl 1 wizard can 'kill' on average 4.5 goblin (iirc) with 1 spell.(not really kill, but they might as well be given they dont do anything while asleep)

[@ethalydon8888]

My current character touches two points mentioned in the video: 1.) Don't make fun chars for long campaigns: Well I did and he developed way more depth than I could have hoped for. The dwarf Falin Gloryhammer (we play in german, so "Ruhmhammer" is a bit less on the nose) is an artistically inclined metal guy, who even tries to get rhythms out of hitting enemies with his weapon. He also writes songs about the deeds of his fellow party members. I was surprised myself but it works quite well. 2.) Don't sexualize bards: Falin started as a Paladin (due to family expectations) and multiclassed to bard because he's far from home now and that's what he always wanted to do. And he's as sexualized as any cliché male dwarf usually gets. So I agree: bards don't need to be horny bards (but they can be). But the post was quite strange with other players expecting the bard to be seductive^^. The msg here should be more like "don't force a PC into other players expectations"? (maybe with a grain of salt because creating chars isolated from the tables expectations leads to edgelords and barbarians in intrigue campaigns^^)

[@kermanbizzlebop8895]

also another one tired of people who complain about 5e because of it's simplicity oe because of this or that when the whole point of 5e is that it's so flexible and not held down by past editions that you can make or do pretty much anything you want in 5e you want harder encounters and less healing? you can do that. want certain classes to have some easily implemented benefits or some drawbacks? you can do that. 5e is simplistic BECAUSE it's made to me bended. I will never for the life of me understand how a game about creativity has some of the least creative people on the planet.

[@Nikolai0169]

My opinion is that using the optional flanking rules sucks. In theory it may give martials more to do, but in practice it bogs down combat, makes it more unwieldy, and almost invalidates features like pack tactics. Doesnt help that in every group ive been in where flanking is used people have to throw open the rulebook whenever a large or bigger creature comes up just to reread the flanking rules. Additionally it can hinder roleplay if someone gets too focused on getting advantage instead of doing what would otherwise be a sensible thing and covering the allies back or side, or forming a wall in a corridor.

[@ala5530]

I personally feel that D&D fails horribly at what I call the '3 Es': Economy, Encumbrance, and Encounter Balance (that last being more of an issue in 5e than in some previous editions). In terms of economy- I get that they're intending to balance things inside the system, rather than reflect reality in terms of the value of gold historically, but jebus the prices get ridiculous. A suit of plate sets you back almost half its weight in gold (side note- 1 gold coin weighs 1/50th of 1lb*, meaning that your coin purse, assuming it held only gold coins, would have to have an internal volume of a little over a litre to be able to fit enough to buy that suit of plate. Good luck fitting that in your pocket). It also costs more than three times as much as a warhorse (and six times as much as a freaking ELEPHANT). Combine that with the fact that polymetallic currency systems are, at best, somewhat meta-stable (the value of each metal used will fluctuate, so in bullion value the worth of a copper coin is rarely going to be 1/10th that of a silver coin, which is rarely going to be 1/10th that of a gold etc. The exception being when first issued), and D&D features people whose job basically consists of causing trouble and dumping large amounts of currency into the economy in lump sums (quite aside from anyone who has cracked transmuting something from one material into another), and you're in for a setting which has massive stagflation for anyone who isn't an adventurer. Encumbrance takes into account only the weight of things, not the size. RAW, it's totally possible for your character to wind up carrying (into combat, no less) more weapons than most people can manage to carry without the added difficulty of fighting. Not because the D&D carry capacities are wrong (in terms of weight totals, they're fairly believable), but because there's a limit to how much space there is on a body with which to carry (and some things have an awkward weight distribution, or are just plain long enough to get in the way, or blown by the wind, or get caught on things). Encounter Balance- the effort is there, but the underlying assumptions don't match the numbers provided. The CR system (in 5e) simply isn't accurate to build an encounter that doesn't result in one side getting ROFLstomped (even without a lucky string of crits). Sure, an experienced DM should be able to tweak things, but the tools provided should be sufficient to get stuff at least in the right ballpark. *Ok, ALL coins in 5e weigh 1/50th of 1lb. This means that coins will all be different sizes. To help people visualise it- a US penny is roughly the same size as a platinum piece (and slightly smaller than a gold piece), a US quarter is about right for a silver piece, and the US dollar coin is pretty much in line for the size of a copper piece. I can't give the size of electrum, as it depends on the proportions of gold and silver in the alloy, but somewhere between a penny and a quarter. This also means that our 1500GP for plate armour (which fit into a 1litre-ish pouch) would need a pouch of roughly 20 litres if you were paying in silver, or a bit over 200 litres for copper. For reference- a large hiking rucksack is typically in the 60-85 litre range.

[@Michael-fd1gx]

Encumbrance/weight is typically ignored.

[@punishedwhispers1218]

5e is a bad system overall that values balance over everything and even fails in that regard, though I do have to say, platemail would probably cost more than a horse. Probably even an elephant if you lived in an area that elephants are native, because platemail actually *did* sat you back a fortune. And gold didn't fluctuate in value nearly as much as it did now, mainly because the understanding of gold wasn't in relation to a fiat currency, and because it was a lot harder to get information across about the fluctuations of said metals. Granted, gold is comically worthless compared to what it should be, one gold piece is like 2k us dollars now.

[@Ishlacorrin]

Encounter balance aside (Since I run living worlds and players find whatever makes logical sense and not something scaled to their levels), Economy in D&D is one of the better ones and fairly accurate, You example makes sense because a full plate armour suit would set you back a few trained horses back in the day. They were family heirlooms for a reason. Encumbrance might not be the best in the rules, but a lot of DMs will use the 'what you can explain' rule when it comes to carrying things. In short if you as a player can explain HOW you are carrying all those weapons and it makes logical sense, then it's ok.

[@novicebladesman2835]

I think the answer to this falls back to what 5e is supposed to be. It's a basic set of rules meant to give guidance to players and dms to run a fair and balanced game (especially for newbies who have never played an rpg before. It doesn't go into all of those nitty gritty details because is doesn't have to. WotC specifically stated that they didn't want dms to feel bound to the books in order to play the game. You want realistic encumbrance? Add it. You want realistic economy? You can add it and the game will function fine. DnD 5e is tool to run your own rpg with. Add rules, remove rules, change rules. Everything is flexible. You're the dm, you build your dream world. Again, DnD doesn't get specific because it doesn't have to. Not everyone enjoys playing a game where they have to rp real life, just like not everyone wants to play fantasy. The good thing about DnD is that anything in the rulebooks can be changed and it's still DnD. Take the rules and run wild.

[@talltroll7092]

That suit of plate armour is a couple of months work for a skilled armourer, it's GOING to be expensive as hell. Historically, it took the surplus output of a village to even begin to support a knight, and unless that village was unusually profitable for some reason, or the knight held other lands, rights or posts that granted additional income, he might not even be required to own metal armour at all. In 13th Century England, you needed an annual income of at least £10 pa to be required to own any metal armour beyond an iron helmet (and the requirement for the helmet only started at about £5 pa), and that was already well into the top 1% of the population

[@paulcoy9060]

Lawful Good is the only alignment for Paladins. You want to be Chaotic Good? Fine, but your title is now "Avenger". Want to be Lawful Evil? Fine, but now your title is "Hellion". All the alignments can get their new titles, but because I am really Old School, LG is the only one I think of when I write up my Paladin PC.

[@steamtasticvagabond474]

Less players = more time each player spends in the spotlight = better group dynamics

[@helgenlane]

0 players = infinite group dynamics

[@steamtasticvagabond474]

@@helgenlane not infinite dynamics, but the one ultimate dynamic

[@Apeiron242]

Less than one gallon. Twelve items or fewer.

[@petre1758]

Regarding the very first idea - massive agree, it is incredibly stupid that tarrasques do 8 attacks a turn, they should do like 3, maybe 4, but each attack is made against every creature in an 10ft square, or something. I personally would change it so as an action tarrasque makes 3 attacks - 2 claw, 1 bite/swallow, and as legendary actions it tail attacks. Except tail makes an attack against every creature in a 5 by 20 ft line behind the tarrasque, claw in a 10 by 15 ft line and shoves all affected creatures to one of the shallow edges of the area and Bite attacks everything is a 10 ft cube and can grapple multiple targets if they have been hit by the same bite, swallow works on all grappled creatures. The idea is to have the tarrasque shove a bunch of stuff in front of its mouth and eat all of that in one swoop. I think that would work better for the kaiju aspect of it.

[@helgenlane]

This sounds like such a good and obvious idea, it makes me wonder if there are some invisible issues with it

[@petre1758]

@@helgenlane oh, I'd definitely has caveats. I makes it so terrasque can't as easily burst down a single target, it increases value of AC while fighting it, and AOE *attacks* is just something that doesn't normally exists in 5e.

[@WarChallenger]

Ooh, man do I have an unpopular one. There are some things that just shouldn't even be up to chance. Sure, if you're in an unfamiliar setting, it may be notable that you slip up every once in a while. That makes perfect sense. And in long-range combat especially, having random chance misses does make it more realistic. But being in a small room and getting told to "roll investigation" just kinda irks me as someone who likes to actually play out those scenarios. Like bruh, I feel like it's basic logic to just OPEN A CABINET or LOOK UP, but no. Roll for it to see if your character forgot all logic and reason. And another, if an enemy is five feet away from me, and I MISS with a knife, I'd just drop my knife and surrender right then and there.

[@MrYac-ie8ie]

i agree in some situations for sure, when something is either so obvious that it couldn't be missed or so outlandish that nobody would believe it no matter how well you "sell it", but for combat i think the missing at 5 feet thing is more to take into account the creature dodging or parrying in some way. all flavor to make up for the miss, but it is a bit more believable to me.

[@notbob555]

5ft is significant distance though. And just because you "missed" doesn't mean you failed to make contact. If the AC is determined by armor, it just means you didn't manage to deal any damage below their armor. If the AC is determined based on Dexterity, then they are fairly acrobatic and just dodged enough to avoid a major injury. Even a pro IRL wouldn't be able to guarantee a "hit" within 5 ft every time.

[@WarChallenger]

Fair points about the combat example. I can agree with those assessments. It's mostly with the non-combat stuff that I really dislike. Like rolling raw persuasion when the DM doesn't give at least a bit of an advantage for what the player is actually going to say.

[@MrYac-ie8ie]

@@WarChallenger yeah, i once heard it explained in some frustration from a person who gave an impassioned, rational explanation of a situation only to roll low and be laughed out of the room only to have their terribly uncharismatic party member succeed with essentially a "come on" retort and a better dice outcome. DM discretion should trump pure dice in certain social situations.

[@notbob555]

@@MrYac-ie8ie That ultimately just comes down to how skilled the DM is at running the game. The DMG literally provides rules for social interaction that elevate it far above just being a single die roll

[@AstreaFugaz]

To the comic relief. My PC is a half orc barb and after some conversations and moments I settled up with being the comic relief. I shout some jokes, but mostly some of those are IRL references, like me a half orc with 10 CHA barbarian getting 18 at invoking a ghost while singing a modified theme of Ghostbusters. Or a nat20 at a DEX roll for making bread, while we encounter a NPC group, and my DM going with it and asking me to roll for CHA just to see the women's reaction to a half-orc sculpted and beefy barb making bread. Part of being the comic relief is knowing or learning when to land a joke and, obviously, having your DM complement the moment with narrative

[@kylethomas9130]

4:13 my first bard was accidentally enthralled by a friendly vampire NPC, because of her background she was nowhere near emotionally mature enough to properly process this sudden infatuation. I showed this repeatedly through her actions, and eventually she built up the courage to confess to him that she liked him. The response my character got, was an invitation to intercourse, despite me pointing out to my DM several sessions prior that she was not only a virgin, but hadn't even been anywhere close to 1st base.

[@kylethomas9130]

Still not sure how to feel about the whole thing, I do feel like she's grown as a character, and has learned a lot about herself in retrospect.

[@brookshyde5663]

That's rough especially since you should be able to trust your DM to respect what you have in mind for your character. This just made me think how adorable it would be if the vampire NPC played it up like, "Oh, you like me?" And got a bit flirty. Your character might naturally get nervous because they hadn't even gotten to 1st base and it was the vampires way of gently turning down the advances like, "See, you have no experience and you need time to mature. It wouldn't be right just yet." It feels in line with a charismatic vampire type but innocent and wholesome. It also leaves the door open to build a fun, natural romance with a bard character instead of, "I'm a bard so I have sex all the time."

[@kaiseremotion854]

@@brookshyde5663 tbf it makes better...ahem...animations. than story things. unless the campaign is more meant for 18+ things and everyone agreed to it before hand

[@kylethomas9130]

@@kaiseremotion854 oh no, only implied at most graphic, one of our players is still 17

[@kylethomas9130]

@@brookshyde5663 this would've been a more ideal character plot imho, but my character has still managed to grow in inspired ways. Just did feel like in post that as a Bard that kind of behavior was expected, and this definitely wasn't a planned point of growth for her from the outset.

[@ecivedsusagep]

Oh no, the section on joke characters was giving me non-stop flashbacks to that phase where I kept joining fandom roleplays on wings of fire roblox as red from doc671, it was really funny.

[@KamiRecca]

Balance should be secondary to Story. You can have plenty of fun playing a lv 3 character in a lv. 10 party, and honestly you realy dont need to drag the group down with you just because of the level difference. Clever play always beats high dps. Always. There is nothing wrong with negative statbonuses for different races. Give my orc -2 int, thats ok, if it fits the setting. Real World Moral questions should not be a baseline for how a setting work. Slavery is wrong, yea we can all agree on that. That doesnt mean it should automaticly be viewed as that in a rpg, unless it fits the setting. Play Conan with real world moral values, and well you're just not playing Conan anymore, you're just playing Conan Dress-Up in Happy Friendship Land. Bring back Skillpoints in 5e. Advantage and Disadvantage is a very flawed system. I like the idea of it, but its a very flawed system. Let Insiprations stack, for goodness sake. Whats the harm in it? If you play an Evil campaign, dont be picky in what evils you allow. It realy irks me when it goes something like this: Bonemangler: "Tell me Brother Souldefiler, what evil deeds have you been up to? Souldefiler: "Ah brother Bonemangler, Tonight i convinced the priest to commit suicide. What did you do?" Bonewrangler: "I poisoned the cities foodsupply. Come winter, snow is not the only thing that will cover the ground in white. So will the Bones of the starved! After i have wrangled them. Souldefiler: "Of course, of course. You are the best wrangler of bones this side of naughty deeds. How about you, Skulltosser Battlemasher?" Skulltosser Battlemasher: "I burned down the orphanage..." Bonewrangler: "Exellent!" Skulltosser Battlemasher: "And then i went for a drink in the tavern, and i slapped the tavernwenches ass." Bonewrangler and Souldefiler: "YOU DID WHAT?! You Monster! How could you?! Souldefiler: "Did you hear what he called that unfortunate madam? I do not tolerate such language around my table!" I mean that to me just reeks of sillyness and moral stupidity. Oh is it a trigger for you, bad stuff? maybe dont play in a Evil campaign then? The hint is in the name... Dont just treat horses as mopeds with manes and a tail. Keep track of how they eat, where you find them water, have the horses die on the group if basic needs are not met. You cant succeed all roles, even if its a NAT 20. Dont show Death Saving Throws as a DM. You roll them, you keep track of them, not the players. Same goes for Health in combat. You tell the players when they are Bloody (50% hp) and Broken (10% hp) Not all classes and races should be allowed in every adventure. Long and Short rests should always be the Long alternative (8h for short, 1 week for long), and you should ONLY get the benefit of a rest in safe areas. Guns should do a bit more damage, but they should also be a part of Simple Ranged Weapons. Few things are as simple as guns to learn to use. Way easier than a Sling or a Bow. Healing should give Temp HP in a way that does not exeed Max HP in total (Max HP > Current HP and Temp HP) not restore hp loss unless you do in in conjunction of a Short Rest. Summoned creatures dont disappear when they die. Summon a deer to eat it? No problem. Summon an aligator in the city? Guess it lives in the sewers now. Attunements could be a funny rule if you do something with it, but its just crap as it is. (I like that you can Attune as many items as your Proficiency without any problems, but for every attunement above that you get -2 to all saves and HD roll regains of Hit Points) If you play a cleric, paladin, warlock or druid, and you act outside of whats Propper according to your class/backstory (Diety, Patron, spirit of nature etc) there should be painfull consequences. Warlock should not be a base class, but rather something you can get in game by actually making pacts as the character. Yea its not balanced, read point nr. 1. No its not "Overpowered" because you will pay a cost for it. Double the sorcerers Spellslots/spellpoints. Armor should have Damage types that its Strong and Weak against, basicly giving you Resistance and Vulnerability in it. Give me a reason to use a Mace against a knight in full armor instead of a sword. I'll think about it a bit more if any more come to mind. Now its time to watch the video and see what all you fine people think. Some more: Killing things in Combat should not award EXP. Achieving things in combat Should. Im so tired of the classic "If we derail the adventure for a bit and kill some monsters in the woods, we will level up!" Dont level up just because you've reached the exp required. At the very least it should be done at a Long Rest, but prefferably it should be something you Work Towards. Find a teacher and spend Downtime Activity on it. Dont restore hit point to maximum on Long Rests. Only Hit Dice. You can sacrafice a Hit Dice to make a Reroll, but you can only do this once per roll. (Some DM's realy hate this idea, but i counter that players realy Realy hate when a plan goes awry due to a bad roll that they cant in any way affect) For every Size category an opponent is larger, it should get a damage reduction of 2. For every size category an opponent is smaller, it should get a damage amplifier of 2. And vice versa for its attacks (So a large opponent hitting a Normal opponent, it should add 2 to its damage, if its against a Small opponent, then its +4) Allow players to Concentrate on more than one spell, but make it harder to succeed a Concentration Check depending on how many spells you are concentrating on. When you Fail a Concentration check, roll on Wild Magic table. Remove Night Vision from most races that have it. Its a standing joke that Only Humans dont see in the dark. If you shoot into Melee and Miss, the arrow will hit whoever have the Lowest AC that would be a hit. Give a penalty to shooting at something that have moved its normal max movement in a round (For Humans, that would be 60 feet). Its hard hitting moving things. Players should suffer their own consequences. Oh so you killed some town guards? You are now hunted as criminals. They were corrupt town guards? So? Either prove it to someone that cares, or finish what you started. The players are not the only heroes/competent people in the world. They are simply the people on the spot. Some DMs argue that the player's are the only characters that should have levels and Class abilities. I say screw this, and Why? Players should not Expect magic items. If you realy want a Wand of Wandy Powers, you will most likely not be able to Buy it just like that. Getting it should be an ordeal. Feel free to tell the DM what magic items you hunger for, then the DM can incorporate that into the campaign, if he/she so wishes. Respect the setting. If i say we are running a steampunk version of Thee Kingdoms period, dont bring a Western-style Paladin of Charlemagne to my table. If i say humans only, dont bring any "He was a human that was transformed into an elf" shit. And that brings me to: Dont bring characters that you have not cleared with the DM. The DM is under no obligation to approve whatever you bring, but You have the obligation to make a character according to the DM's guidelines. Dont Batch and moan just because things dont go your way. Dont get pissy if your character dies. Especially if it's your own actions that leads to it.

[@kaiseremotion854]

I heard somewhere that night vision doesn't actually let you "see" in the dark, but rather gives you a more murky vision in a certain radius (as if you were holding a lightsource)

[@ala5530]

@@kaiseremotion854 RAW it gives you monochrome (black/white/shades of grey) vision out to a certain radius, that is treated as Dim Lighting for you (but Dark for any others without Night Vision). Personally, I think they should have kept the older Infravision (see false-colour heat sources, a la Predator)/Ultravision (greyscale UV, with potentially active and passive modes)/Supravision (both IR and UV options, with a chance to see through illusions and invisibility, if the source/caster didn't mask stuff outside the human-normal visible spectrum) model

[@KamiRecca]

@@kaiseremotion854 well darkvision 60feet lets you see 60 feet of Dim light as if it were Bright light, and 60 feet Darkness as if it were Dim Light. But still, that means you can see in Darkness as if you were holding a torch.

[@Babbleplay]

Every edition after the one I first learned and got used to is an unnecessary garbage cashgrab to make you buy new books. Sarcasm aside, I'm an old 2nd ed fart, and I genuinely believe things like the 2-3 monsters per page with bare bones info monster manual are backsliding to basic D&D. AD&D had 1 listing per page, and things like beholder got multiple pages for all the variants.

[@curts7801]

“Stop sexualizing bards” As a bard, I do not approve this message. I’ma have to roll to seduce.

[@Atma_Weapon]

good god, man. the king said slay the dragon. read the quest notes. he didnt say lay the dragon! doofus. lol.

[@loneraptor1]

mine is pay F**king attention, after 4 years of dming i can not tell you how many times my players have missed very obvious and important stuff from just simply not paying attention.

[@LucasSouza-jf1sm]

Totally agree with the "you don't need to kill the PCs to let them make a new one" makes sense to let them change archetypes within their classes too, as someone who is only used to play a honest rogue, yes that's something that can be done without being awkward, my first ever PC was a Human Rogue that was actually a Spy for the countries army's, and it worked wonderfully, but I digress, I tried to play different PCs to improve my RP and diversify what I usually play as, Tried an living armour samurai once, it was kind neath but I wasn't having the same enjoyment out of it then I had it retire to "pursue his own personal quest and switched it for a Changeling necromancer gunner, think of saber's master from Fate Apocrypha, mainly because our rogue was REEEEALLY bad at RP, like straight up walking to a guard she was supposed to convince we were allied with and turning around and asking us "what was the lie we were supposed to tell"?!

[@thartmann9284]

Barbarian + rules lawyer might be an odd combination, but here's a funny story from my first campaign ever: I was hurt pretty bad in a fight and we needed to finish it soon or we'd be done for. The creature had a ranged fear ability and teleported away from my melee range before I could land a solid blow. While making a javelin attack at maximum range (at disadvantage due to fear) the DM reminded me I could roll straight with Reckless Attack to cancel out disadvantage. I pointed out that Reckless only applies on melees. My DM probably appreciated that move more than my fellow players, one of whom had to be Revivified after getting stomped the next round by the thing! Now that I'm a DM myself, I very much appreciate when players catch themselves, even to their detriment. I'm considering awarding Inspiration for players who do. Against solid builds and larger parties, it can be hard to make encounters longer than two rounds. Knowing the system allows fights to have the appropriate weight in terms of time and difficulty that they were intended to have.

[@IAsimov]

My unpopular opinion: I am open to Isekai'd Background Player Characters in my campaigns.

[@wheatthin4191]

I know this video is almost a year old, but I really needed to hear that let’s unpopular opinion about progress. Thank yiu

[@NessaEllenesse]

1) I left 2 campaigns due to being the forever DM. One was suposed to be a rotating DM, but the other DM kept coming up with excuses. The other was an online group. 2) while 6-8 is not the norm it can be done effectively and without bogging the game down, provided the DM knows what they are doing. Also having a text chat helps a lot so people can communicate without talking over the DM and the person whose turn it is I made a whole character for a meme. The Meme that explained the difference between Rouge and Rogue. I have a Rouge/ Swashbuckler/ duelist named LaFemerouge (aka The Crimson Ghost) her ability to be effective has been up and down. Duelist from the 3.5 DMG does eventually pay off Also I am a read the bleeping manual person. I am referred to as the rules lawyer in the group I play in. The DM some times calls on me for advise about rules because I know where to find stuff and I cite my sources.

[@Jessie_Helms]

1:12 AYE A JOCAT REFERENCE!

[@kgoblin5084]

My running reactions: * being flexible about players changing characters around -> yes, agree. Another option here is the whole DCC idea of 'quest for it' * big monsters do AOE -> ... takes notes, great idea :) * "stop sexualizing bards" -> or just stop playing useless f#4%ing bards * wizard players knowing what their spells do, & prepping them before their turn -> amen, hell yes. communication is key -> yes, agree * "yes. but not always warranted" -> agree. The GM is there to make rulings. Don't like it? Run your own damn game then. 'Yes, But...' is also often just a way to be passive aggressive in my experience... & I'm talking real life. * "6-8 players at a table is fine & normal" -> that number & more WAS fine & normal in the earliest editions. This arguably speaks more about the mechanical weaknesses of 5e, to be frank. * "no joke characters" -> goes back to the communication thing. Different groups expect different things. I'm also not seeing too much of a difference between an immediate & long term joke character... either way it's going to annoy a GM who doesn't want comedic peanut butter in their serious plot chocolate * rules lawyers: this touches a bit on style of play, & it goes back to the earliest days of the hobby. I've read a certain, long running Q&A forum with Tim Kask where he had a clash with a fan of the rules cyclopedia on that point. * chill touch -> name SHOULD be fixed. Sneak attack -> making it contingent on hiding would SUCK... some GMs make stealth a complete impossible chore. I would also circumvent rule-of-cool flanking sneak attacks My unpopular opinion: Ban clerics. Overly easy access to healing magic makes the game too easy & discourages gritty play... and the implications of clerical magic are harmful to good unique world building

[@owerio]

"If you're going to be playing in a long campaign, don't make a joke/gag character." me who convinced the entire party to make the delta-rune main characters: "oops"

[@ashleyfernandes3094]

i would call that a theme team at that point. its funny but dosnt need to be seen as a joke. (as a GM i love that idea from the players)

[@jacobwilske5665]

“I don’t like that bards are typecast as sex machines” truly is the most unpopular opinion I’ve seen

[@isaakvandaalen3899]

In general I agree that you shouldn't make a joke character for a long campaign, as a DM that would be really annoying. Also in the only long-running campaign I've played in, my Ranger's name is Hobbin Rood. I like to think he has transcended the joke somewhat and I play him pretty seriously.

[@ericmurotake5180]

I've always seen it as the difference between a joke character and a JOKE. Joke characters can be good (for example, having a character that is, on the surface, a total loon, but is also very good at what they do (even if they make absolutely no sense doing it). JOKEs are the ones that are ACTIVELY a liability and just there for a cheap laugh

[@bottlecapninja1048]

Unpopular opinion: Strength based classes will always suck when compared to Dex based classes. If my DM ever makes me play as a ranger, I just play as a fighter with a bow, way better.

[@river7874]

My joke character was a Green Dragonborn Paladin(Oath of Ancients) who had the nickname of "Moose." My DM allowed me to have a Steed that was larger than normal(My character was biiiiiiig, like over 7-feet big), a Stag which I named Squirrel. This character was made to make two jokes in game, one was a Rocky and Bullwinkle joke, and the other was a Lone Ranger joke. As my character became more known for his deeds, enemies who see him would point and shout: "It's Moose and Squirrel!" And to call/summon Squirrel, my character would shout in Draconic: "Hi-HO SQUIRREL!" That character ended up being beloved in the kingdom he served, and a powerhouse that kept the party alive with his auras on more than one occasion. Never let anyone tell you that the only Pally worth playing is a Vengeance Pally. Smite hurts equally as hard, no matter the Oath.

[@oniaisu8560]

I like keeping track of carry limits, consumables, ammo etc. This was frowned upon.

[@deepseastonecore3017]

How often do l make jokes about chemistry? Periodically.

[@i.j.dragonfly3123]

100% agree with allowing players to retrain feats, spells, and subclasses. Obviously you don't want people switching their entire build around in the middle of combat every other game, but if somebody decides another style would be more fun or more suitable for their character concept, then why not? If you're a skilled enough DM, you can even turn it into a cool story hook. Maybe the paladin questions their faith after a disaster and seeks guidance from a rival order, or the druid awakens from a near-death experience with a new affinity for fungi, or the monk forms a bond with a friendly dragon, or a bard loses their favorite instrument and has to learn a new one with different magical properties. Your first priority shouldn't be, "is this within the rules?" but rather, "how can I make this fair and fun for everybody?"

[@bandaidsforbatteries]

My “joke” character was a tabaxi cleric that went around calming peoples emotions and just be there for people with ptsd and people who are just sad. Cpl Fluffers the therapy animal.

[@gabrielbaieel8073]

8:37 i have a serious char named Barney. He is a wizard and a lizard. Although he is a regular lizard in character sheet he is more like a Grump (Frog monster).

[@Techsketch]

Spell Levels could be renamed to Spell Tiers for better distinction. It becomes a non-issue for most players after settling into the game, but it's something I often have to disentangle for a new player who's already got a lot of new information to manage.

[@hedonistic_goblin7390]

That positive message was one of the best I've heard

[@dylanmiller6335]

As a dm personally will bend the rules a little to make for more fun moments yet I still allow the occasional sad/bad moments for my pcs so it’s more fun yet they still know things can go wrong to keep the risks Also personally love getting my pcs to the level of practically a god through story and trying to lightly guide them down the path (for example an ifrit born battle dancing hexblade warlock (he wanted to really emphasize his sword style and his link to his dad), but he doesn’t know at the end of his story I’m going to explain as he eventually gets bored and decides to go back in time having become the diety ifrit basically to learn he made himself in his origin he was a portion of ifrit had taken from himself and sent it out into the world to grow, essentially creating himself in a cool loop kinda idea that he had mentioned once would be cool when coming up with the character)