What was the best way you saw a DM shut down "That Player"? #5

[@Jay_Playz2019]

That first story is genuinely awesome, I love stories of “those guys” flipping back on their mistakes.

[@xXMordSchlagXx]

Tbh it feels fake

[@ErisEntropy]

yeah, really awesome when people acknowledge their mistakes and change their ways

[@lolbittheglitchqueen6871]

​@@xXMordSchlagXx Until I have prove it is fake I will accept as true because I like to believe that people can be better if they try.

[@liamvernon2703]

the fourth story just seems... weird? So a player, I assume is trying to roleplay getting an ability besides just randomly getting it without any mention of it happening, and they over roleplay it, so their party essentially kicks them out by selling them into slavery and insulting them. Like, how do you even do anything besides leave the table due to your emotions, or just try to roleplay being in slavery with like nothing and trying to work and get out. I think that the dwarf was prob not in the outside group of players IRL as friends as much, because people def wouldn't do this to their friends by essentially kicking them out, for just roleplaying. I agree with MrRipper, when they say just ask people to stop doing stuff. Don't over bully them. Fourth story reeks of bias and not even the DM shutting down the player, just the other players doing it and the DM letting it happen.

[@Ozgand]

I had “that guy” a few years ago. He was in his 40s or 50s and had started with 1e and had played every edition since. He had a bad habit of rules lawyering at the wrong time, like when it didn’t matter or when I was leaning into the rule of cool. What bothered though was that he was often wrong. It was really bothering me and also confusing for several sessions. But then I found out how long he had been playing. The next time I ran I was ready for him. He corrected me or one of my players on something that I knew was not right. So I asked him, “what edition is that rule from?” He got quiet for a few seconds thinking about it and having an epiphany. “Oooh… that’s probably from 4e or 3.5. Sorry.” After that we didn’t have any problems.

[@viscen]

As a DM who has played since 2nd edition. Sadly I sometimes make a mistake on my rulings too. Usually my players will catch it and I’ll fix it so it doesn’t stop the game, but let me tell you after DMing for 33 years that many different editions I get the rules mixed up sometimes too.

[@MrBearyMcBearface]

I don't blame him honestly.

[@Ozgand]

@@MrBearyMcBearface me neither. There are ways of politely correcting people and and adjusting behavior just by helping them realizing something they may not be aware that they are doing.

[@J05TI]

He doesn't seem like a bad guy, though. He just tried to be helpful. Upon realizing that 1. he makes mistakes and 2. you're well-versed enough in the rules, he stopped.

[@aeryngoodspeed]

to be fair to story #2 it is possible to get that many nat 20s in a row without fudging. i know from experience because we just started a campaign with a new player who has ZERO dice so i offered my massive collection as a communal pool of dice, and he rolled them openly in front of everyone. i think we counted 6 or 7 in a row. and he used a different die every time. crap was NUTS lol

[@Grim_Bud]

The dice whisperer finally appeared and will challenge fate as an equal.

[@Wertercat]

It certainly sounds like she wasn't rolling openly though

[@aeryngoodspeed]

@@Wertercat the person in the story, yeah XD I'm just saying it's a possibility lol

[@potatolord9715]

Or when I play 40k with my brother. His average roll is 5+ and mine are 3 and below. We use the same dice.

[@jplayzow]

​@@aeryngoodspeedSome people get all the figgy pudding

[@Jessie_Helms]

“That Guy” outted himself before we even had Session 0. I was prepping Naturverden, my homebrew 5e campaign, with the hook being an all Druid party with different circles being sent to investigate why the goblin raids to the north stopped suddenly. People start discussing character ideas in my discord server and one person says they’re playing a “purely support” character. I’d already discussed Terry, the Hospitality Halfling Life Cleric, with his player and approved it for a bit of spell diversity (plus I kinda owed him cause I nearly ruined his character’s ending at the end of our previous campaign). Well, That Guy asks about Terry and immediately DMs me as soon as he sees there’s a cleric, wanting to play a Paladin. I explained the situation, and that I felt 1 PC breaking the mold was already bending the hook, and that 2 non-Druids would probably break the hook. He responded with a long tirade about how the hook was “already broken” and “if I can be convinced by an essay then maybe the concept is bad.” I simply blocked him and put in the channel, “That Guy (his name) will not be joining us for the campaign.” Funnily enough, we did end up with a second non-Druid. But the player had a connected backstory with one of the Druid PCs and had a great pitch (beyond “I wanna play a Paladin”). I straight up told them, “Yeah, that’s how you convince a DM to bend the hook, go for it!”

[@Starfloofle]

Man, an Ancients paladin could have slotted right into that scenario and the fella blew it anyway lol. Glad you found a better replacement.

[@Jessie_Helms]

@@Starfloofle yeah like the problem was 1) His energy right out of the gate 2) He gave no compelling reason The non-Druids ended up being Terry and then a Ranger who’s whole deal is that they _aren’t_ a Druid unlike most of their family (including their cousin who’s also in the party). When I got that pitch I was like “Well I can’t _not_ do that! Approved

[@Starfloofle]

@@Jessie_Helms Rangers fit right in too, they're basically to druids what a pally is to a cleric after all.

[@Jessie_Helms]

@@Starfloofle we’re gonna learn into that too

[@calebbridges4748]

I love flexibility like this. Being willing to work with the players on the hook, and the players helping the DM hook them. That stuff's great.

[@maskedgaming2798]

On dad things: in my campaign my dad, in the second session, rocks up in a tavern and immediately takes an axe to another customer and attacks another. He is going to stand trial next session

[@terrafirma5327]

I was a player in this scenario. I made a pretty neat "The Undead" Warlock who had a lot of roleplay features and traits. I was joining a grimdark campaign on discord with some people that were new to me. The DM seemed alright so I gave session zero a try. We decided to have a little arena fight for fun because we were all starting at level 6 and wanted to get used to our characters before session one. So, we enter the arena and I am aware that we have a rogue and a druid for the other two characters. Battle begins, and while I can't say exactly the order of the events... the female player decided to play kingmaker and help the druid win (despite the druid being the bigger threat, as you will see). I go in attacking *both* of them fairly and being reasonable, then when my battle begins with the druid after the rogue retreated... I find out the DM gave him plate armor, for free, with profiency, and a greataxe with proficiency. Not only that, he had no negative traits from being a druid at all for spellcasting or even lore reasons. Mind you I was wearing the starting equipment in the PHB, as I should have been. Normal armor for a Warlock, normal weapon, nothing special. After the druid "won" the fight, he spent four minutes yelling and screaming into the discord about how "he was the man" and "oh, you got so pwned", while the DM who was in the voice call did nothing. He said nothing, did nothing. I left after his voice was killing my last rational brain cells and told the DM I have no desire to play with man children and a DM who doesn't even try to keep things fair or civil.

[@MitchellTF]

I once had a player in a game my friend was running have sex with a LITERAL corpse... He got Mummy Rot.

[@Leafilio]

hahahahaha

[@WeFightForKarl]

The player's barely hidden fetish. 🤦‍♂️

[@Nova_Ghost_Gamer]

Typical bard, right?

[@TheRusty]

The third story illustrates why so many DMs are unwilling to allow firearms into their D&D game. Not because "guns don't belong in fantasy!" so much as "There's always that one dude who fetishizes guns and wishes he were hardcore special forces who will demand a specific weapon that can blow a dragons' head off at two miles"

[@danielcrafter9349]

Must be an American thing...

[@communisticus191]

Ive never experienced anything like that. Granted, when I play a d&d esq ttrpg, I mostly play pathfinder (1e, haven't spent the time to get into 2e yet) which allows you to do all kinds of ridiculously powerful builds RAW. So no need for your special specific weapon, just nuke the dragon from hundreds of feet away on horseback with a rifle or musket as an order of the land luring musketeer cavalier, you just better hope you don't need to fight another since you burned all your resources on the first dragon. The main issue I see with guns in D&D is that they have a lot more simple rules, with most of it not really being defined and left to DM discretion, which is ripe ground for "that guy" to start being "that guy" if you decide to include firearms at all (reading the gunslinger subclass gunsmithing feature fills me with dread). In pathfinder you have the gunslinger class, not to mention damn near 90% of martials have a firearm archetype (which are basically subclasses that replace or change some class features and you can mix as many as you want so long as they dont overlap in replaced features, for the D&D players) with a different niche, so you can usually find something with written out rules for what you want to do.

[@shoelessbandit1581]

I just want to give 20 goblins muskets and create firing lines lmao. But yeah there's also the problem of proper rulesets that set them apart from bows and crossbows without either being overpowered or underpowered

[@arcticwolf2742]

Just want to thank you for featuring my "OSTENTATIOUS" story in your Running Jokes video. I showed it to my table at our session on Saturday, the day after you posted it, and everyone was super excited to see our table's story be told. Our DM's mouth was hanging open for the entire segment. It really made our days, so thank you!

[@Madashell1200]

The story where that guy actually learned from his mistakes and the dm forgave him was my favorite in this one. You don't see or hear about that very often.

[@blakeetter280]

I’ve never been unlucky enough to have a ‘that guy’ (and notice it, I was new and missed the one) but whenever my players are doing something I consider unsportsmanlike (cheating, pvp, arguing too much, etc) I have a very simple solution. Their character takes 1d8 lighting damage. Works every time

[@CityXV]

The good ol' shock collar approach.

[@karisasani7006]

Assuming they dont have a character with lightning immunity

[@blakeetter280]

@@karisasani7006 then they get hit with a magical flying brick

[@karisasani7006]

@@blakeetter280 Was there ever that one player that continued in your campaigns to do this even if you did this to them implying they were more stubborn?

[@blakeetter280]

@@karisasani7006 nope it’s never taken more than three zaps

[@michaelplatte2002]

That dad I'm guessing might have been trying to be difficult so that the DM either has to try to work it out or confront him about it. It might seem a little convoluted and if he communicated his intent afterwards it might have made a good life lesson of enforcing his boundaries.

[@jk013x]

This. Dad was having a teaching moment...

[@scottwoods9071]

The family one, no, I am a dad and had played D&D when I was younger (no one i knew later played). My son got interested in playing D&D and I bought the new books and was the DM for him. After one session, he invited two of his friends to play and after a few sessions, they all wanted to try DMing one shot games. Unfortunately, they went off to college about a year later.

[@zacharybigger4144]

I had to do a similar thing to one of my players as a new DM. He was powergaming, misrepresenting rules, and homebrewing without letting me know what he was doing. We had a talk, and now he satisfies his powergaming itch by helping new players understand how to make the most of the features. He's actually really cool about it too

[@ben5676755]

I just learned that my sis has been playing 5e one shots for a year now and hasn't told anyone (always a bard). I want to play with her sooo bad now.

[@Jessie_Helms]

I disagree about playing 3 campaigns before DMing. I DM’d Rime of the Frostmaiden without playing a single game. Now, my ad for players specifically requested experienced DM’s. My players were patient with me and I learned very fast. Frostmaiden ended super well, Curse of Strahd after that was my best campaign so far, and now I’m running a homebrew campaign.

[@Subangelis]

That's one way to do it. Get 3-4 teachers to play

[@Jessie_Helms]

@@Subangelis yeah my core player group for 2 years was 3 forever DM’s. 3 forever DM’s either joined in or left, 4 exclusively players came or went. Now I have 1 of my original, 2 years long players still in my campaign, 1 from my previous group, one from a campaign my original player is running, and 2 brand new folks. Some left, some have had to step away while college seniors or prepping for their wedding, I had to kick one out, 1 of them was a German who got the timezones wrong and left after 3 sessions cause we ended at like 5 AM German time lol. But yeah, that core group taught me most of what I know about D&D, along with several KZbin channels (Brennen Lee Mulligan, Matt Coleville, Matt Mercer, and the like).

[@offathered2101]

i had played 1 adventure before i started DMing, and the adventure i ran was the one i played, having seen it as a player really helped me understand what the book was telling me

[@heyitsjustaz]

When my friends and I started with D&D (3.5), we didn't know anybody to teach us or anybody with any experience whatsoever. I had the most experience with D&D just from playing games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. I bought the books so I was the de facto DM for at least the first year we played, before anybody else stepped up. We all learned and struggled together. We made a lot of dumb mistakes and played the game wrong for a long time. It was fun, and I wouldn't undo it to follow some arbitrary "you need this much experience to DM" rule in a thousand years.

[@TachyonKing]

Great homebrewing advice - Id love to try and GM one day but I get too excited by the idea of homebrewing but actually getting the system first is so much more important

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

This. Homebrew is meant to tweak the set rules. So you should know what's being tweaked to begin with. It's like trying to ro a specific painting style but not known what paints do what. You aren't going to make a masterpiece, just a mess.

[@RayneGrimm1]

I think the best one I've handled personally was someone trying to revive the old peasent railgun in a siege event oneshot I was handling. He argued that he'd get all the people in town together so they could launch rocks at the invading orcs. I laughed a hollow laugh and looked him in the eyes and then said the following "do you want to handle this mechanically or realistically? Because mechanically you sure can move that rock at that speed but since it is an improvised weapon it still deals 1d4 with a short range 20 feet or long of 60. Or if you want to handle this realistically then you'd know there is no physical way to move things that quickly via people. Now do you want to enjoy a game with friends or not?" He sat down and begrudgingly kept playing though didn't come back next session. I dont think anyone felt to torn up about that. I've had to field so many of these "the internet says you can do this game breaking thing" things that I've learned how to refute the most inane ideas

[@J05TI]

Sounds like you were "that guy". Why have a railgun in your campaign if you refuse your players to have fun with it?

[@RayneGrimm1]

@@J05TI I'm unsure if your misreading this but there is no rail gun. Peasent rail gun is a misunderstanding of the rules and does not work in any facet. If they wanted to toss Rocks they could have done that

[@J05TI]

@@RayneGrimm1 I looked up what a peasant railgun was. I misunderstood you. I thought you meant you were playing in some kind of science fiction setting with railguns and that you refused to let your players use one right after presenting one to them.

[@owlking195]

2:48 redemption

[@RayneGrimm1]

Posted this one before but figured it'd be worth another shot TL/DR edgelord angel fricks around and finds out I work as a dm for a local comic shop and run a game for the college kids as an outreach thing. One day a guy comes into the shop for dnd books and says hes just starting at the college as a transfer. I should have waited but the friendly part of me shot down reason and i invited him to the game and gave him my discord to help get him set up since the campaign was already midway through. When i start a game i try to at least have a digital session zero if not an in person one so i can set expectations, give the build limits and offer my help in making pcs or general advice. So i message the guy the general build limits (all printed races and classes, standard array stats and told him since he was coming in a started game he could have an rare item and gave a list of three (i know one was a barrier tattoo). what was to follow was one of the most arduous teeth pulling weeks of my life. Initially he was pleasant as i had explained the campaign thus far and explained that there was an extra-planar invasion happening whilst a large rift in the sky that seemed to not exist tangibly was slowly fracturing in the sky whilst demons appeared at points of fracture. He asked what the party consisted of already and decided he wanted to be a divine soul sorcerer. He then stated he wanted to be an angel and sent me homebrew. Not just any homebrew, no this was the most broken unfair homebrew the likes of which i had ever seen. Permanent flight speed of 120 feet, radiant and necrotic immunity, innate spell casting of i believe 3rd level spells with no slots needed. (re reading this I also remeber that it had multiple sub races for each school of magic depending on which God/diety it served) At first i thought i was seeing things but i politely told him i was not allowing homebrew and to follow the build. Finally he relents after I suggested Aasimar since he was keen on being an angel stating "im gonna have it be like the angels in supernatural". He then argued that he liked the barrier tattoo but wanted the rare version "since hes being such a nice guy and playing healer". At the time not even the fighter had an ac of 18 unless they had their shield equipped but by this point i had spent 6 days trying to get his pc and background built and i just let it go which i still regret to this day. The day of the first session begins and i mention how I had plans for his introduction to the group when he drops this bomb. "I want the players to go to the mountain Celestia and pray for help, because they are too weak to fight this evil, and then my angels will fly down and say we have brought you our most glorious champion who will save your plane". I was aghast , this guy and the rest of the party are level 5 and i was not going to have him become the main character and definitely not going to have him insult the rest of the party with this weeb mentality. I told him that i see he wants a dramatic entrance and ill make something work but there is no mount Celestia in this area and i wasn't going to side trek the party that's already on a time sensitive quest to do this. I ended up having him being guided by his aasimar guide and he came in to rescue the party with a well timed spell as they were being pincered by two separate groups. The rest of this occurred over three sessions so i will do the cliff notes version. As the next session began he became increasingly agitated that he had no innate flight and wanted to know when he'd get to fly all the time. I told him that while there are races with permanent flight aasimars only last a minute. This did not please him and led to an event ill soon explain. As session 2 goes along he announced that he is "the leader" because he is the gods chosen one which got expected reactions from the party. They went to their next mission at a bordello town which i had described as a dusty run down place of drugs and debauchery. The next session he and the others begin exploring the town and split up to ask questions. I describe in one place a person walking by with a tray of various drinks and substances to which he says "i snort it". I hadn't planned on giving anything effects but i quickly came up with "purple worm powder" which i believe gave an advantage to perception but had a reduced movement speed and a dc save for exhaustion as i was trying to let them have fun. He, upon seeing it gave a mechanical benefit, asked the tray carrier for anything that made magic stronger and could make him fly to which i had to pause play and tell him that wasn't going to happen. When he came down and failed his save they got close to a rift and everyone had to roll a wisdom save and he declared that he intentionally fails the save. Everyone else passes so i describe to him as he hears layered voices speaking to him in a hushed whisper offering him power to betray his friends. I barely got to finish saying "I will give you power" before he says "you've got a deal, if i can fly ill do whatever you ask" This was near the end of the session so i called it there and sat down with the guy and asked what was up because this was against everything he described he wanted his pc to be as he described them as "A righteous paragon of Justice against evil" He said he just wanted to fly and what did it matter, he'd just betray whatever gave him power in the end anyways. At this point i posted in the group discord that he was in but never looked at about his actions and how the other players felt and they all mentioned to various degrees that he kept interfering in any of their subplots, meta gamed to always be places even if he was elsewhere (a player was having a hard time in a privy cause of a thing they did and he decided "randomly" to go search him out) and they felt that he kept bossing them around. I said that i would try one more session to see if he'd course correct and if they had any issue next session to just give me a signal and I'd handle it. The final session they had fought some abominations that were pulling emotions out of guests at an upscale bordello and after their defeat pulled out what looked like crystal balls with a spike. I described that it looked like these items were implanted in these creatures and held an ominous energy and was likely how emotions were being pulled. At this time an npc had come up to ask about the noise from the fight and deliver a diamond the players had purchased to use revivify with. This is the moment and final strike. The aasimar thanked the npc , took the diamond and announced "i stab the crystal into the guys face. i want to see how it works and if he dies i can just revive him" The whole table went quiet. I had made it clear that i wasn't abiding evil pcs at this table during creation as all the players wanted a fun good saves the world game. I regret to say i wasn't the first to speak but the ranger said "what the frick! whats wrong with you dude. Are you insane!". I snapped back to the moment and told him to collect his things that was not happening and he'd been spoken to about this before. I asked him to leave my table. He was welcome to play in other games but he was banned from anything i ran (the group was a dnd club so had other dms) He picked up his things and walked away saying we were a bunch of P&%sies that cant handle real life and that was the last i ever heard from him. the campaign continued on without him and The players vanquished the demon in a very tense and climatic final fight. One of the minions appeared to be a very familair face , and aasimar with wings so big that they dragged behind him on the ground like a dress train but to heavy to take flight

[@JacobL228]

You really hammed it up with this one. Dave never audibly sobbed when reading about someone being mildly upset.

[@elainegoates9792]

I actually started DMing with a homebrew campaign to save a leprechaun, since I only had the basic rules and no modules. It was a fun one shot, so it's not impossible to start that way. It takes research, though. It took me a few weeks to prepare a few hours of game time, and I ended up improvising the biggest encounter since I had miscalculated the dragons difficulty. The cleric's god and warlock's patron ended up fighting each other, killing the dragon in the process, while the party booked it with the leprechaun. Fun game, but I would recommend starting with a module. Edit:it was also my second DND game.

[@grumpypurplesloth7950]

I was "that player" once for a DM, who was also being a bit weird. :/ Back story - A baptist minister DM basically made our characters for us aside from a few choices we could have. So everyone happened to be lawful good and worship the God of Light and Justice...and I was a Drow Warlock with a Demonic Pact who was a paranoid fugitive (we had no clue what everyone else was when we chose, btw). So I really wasn't a good fit, character wise. We were adventuring through our first big dungeon together and I kept noticing that the DM was giving everyone else bonus experience and magical items except me, even when I was doing the same thing as them. One player had four items by the time I got one. Then I kept noticing that no matter what was happening in the battles, I was being *completely ignored* by enemies. I literally walked in the path of undead firing volleys at our party at one point to test this and, sure enough, nothing. Then I noticed he was avoiding interacting with me as much as he could in game. Little things like that kept happening for (out of game) months. So once we finally got out the dungeon and survived the surprise encounter with the BBEG hunting us down after we thought we killed him, we moved to the next town. That's when I decided I needed a new character and to progress his story line, figuring it was probably that my character was too out-of-whack for what the DM was okay with. In short, my guy was going to die and soul trap his body to a vessel (a warforged) until he could quest for a way to break the bonds with his demonic masters. I spoke to the Dragonborn Paladin out of game and asked for his consent to kill me in a surprise sequence and told him why and how. He agreed. Cue the climactic moment when I woke him from sleep and talked to him in game before blasting him in the face with a basic attack. Worst freaking time to roll my only Nat 20. Unfortunately, Dragonborn got the wrong idea and thought I was genuinely trying to kill him because of the amount of damage I did and proceeded to cremate my body/gear and ruin the story arc I had going out of spite (we talked about it afterwards and apologised). DM tells me to make a new character at the end of the session and leaves. I make up a half-elf rogue/assassin hybrid duelist who was all about flashy combat and had ZERO rogue skills. Days later, he emails me to say he is going to retcon the whole thing as he is not okay with what I did, and that we have a traditional rogue so I can't also be one. At this point, I became the asshole and emailed him back saying "no". I hear nothing from him until game night when he tells me he needs me to play my old character again. I tell him firmly that I appreciate his concerns, but I would be playing the character I made. Somehow, he took that as me agreeing to play my old character and allowed the game to continue for an hour, ignoring the fact I was getting MUCH higher athletics skill checks than I could have before and frequently talking about how my different alignment felt more comfortable. He STILL didn't accept I was playing a new character until three griffons attacked us and I unleashed a flanking daily Handspring Assault on the nearest griffin for enough damage to OHKO it (we were level 3, btw...and I found a way to power game. Yeah, I screwed the pooch). His face set like thunder and cue five minutes of us arguing before he took my character sheet from me and prevented me playing for the night with a snarky comment. Now to his credit, in the days that followed and despite his own opinions, he called the rest of the group to a meeting to discuss whether or not it was fair and if my character should be banned from playing in this campaign and took a vote from them. I'm pretty sure I couldn't be there that night, but he did at least let me know it was happening. Everyone said they didn't mind my character apart from one guy, so he was banned, but I was told I could make anything else and have two low level magical items of my choice to compensate. I have to give him some credit for that, at least. He was a lot fairer than he could have been. Unfortunately the next game he continued to do all the things he had been doing before and even meta-game banned me from having one magic item (boots that would let me fly 120 feet once per day, which turned out would have been a massive help two rooms into our next dungeon) so at that point I bowed out. But I respect how he handled it.

[@jibantik00]

First time DM, haven't played since 3.5, first campaign is homebrew, but I'm a huge gamer nerd. My new and veteran players are enjoying the hell out of my first campaign. I understand the concept of balance and while I have made some mistakes, I've quickly learned from them and everything has worked out so far. In fact, I'd say the campaign has only gotten more interesting and fun as it goes on. The biggest mistake DMs make is trying to win. That's not the goal as a DM. Tell a great story, allow for flexibility, challenge your players, utilize their skills, and find their hook by knowing your players. When you find someone dominating the party, find ways to get everyone involved. DMing is not hard, it's just not for everyone.

[@noahl6562]

Reared to the last story and commentary. I was introduced to dnd by my friends who were already in the middle of a campaign with no easy way to add me in, so I got my first experience with one shots when not all members of their group could get together. I never got a chance to play a full campaign before forming my own group with nobody having DMing experience, so I filled in and tried my best with a home brew story. It started off a bit rocky and there were some things I wish I had done differently (like having an actual organized session 0), but by the end I actually got my hands on and read the DMG and PHB in depth and the last few sessions went very well because of it. Ultimately everyone ended up having fun and I feel confident to be able to DM again with what I’ve learned. DMing without a full campaign experience can be done so long as you use the resources available to you and keep the home brewing somewhat limited. A custom story was fine for me, but I regret some of my other home brew decisions.

[@madamastersgaming]

Reminder: the DM doesn't owe ANYBODY ANYTHING. If a DM doesn't like a player then as long as it's a reason apart from race or gender, they can kick or kill off that player. If nobody gets along then it's up to the DM to keep the integrity and cooperation of the game. It's usually just one player that will ruin the fun

[@QuadalupeThe3rd]

English is not my strong suit, so please make this more dnd like if you dont mind re-wording this text. My friend was playing for the first time and wanted to be a rouge because cool ninja. I was the DM. I was shocked when the rouge never rolled above 15 and most often 1-9, so he never got anything done. His party was not happy because I gave him a revival artifact. One time, when we were in a dungeon, everyone was in low health, and if everyone died, his artifact didn't work. I was sure they would end the dnd here when the rouge said: "im gonna put my hood on like a bad ass to ascend my bad ass level and kill the orc with my knifes." We all laughed at the thought of a bad ass level. We were all in shock when he rolled a nat 20 in the first try. Me: "You lounged forward, slashing your swinging your knife, cutting the orc in half." Rouge: "I run along the wall, throwing knifes at 3 of the goblins." *Nat 20* me: "You run along the wall, throwing all the knives perfectly, killing the goblins. The battle was over, and he shouted: "The bad as level! The bad as level is real!!! Now, I have an immortal rouge that can simply put on a hood and destroy every challenge I throw at them.

[@danielcrafter9349]

Damn Your makeup is terrifying (and also literally ignoring the rules of D&D; I don't believe you, random 13 year old)

[@LarvalGhoul]

As you mentioned running beginner modules for the first time playing, I would strongly recommend avoiding the Starfinder Beginner Box. It makes learning the actual full game much harder.

[@DrEgonCholakian]

The elf shaving off the dwarf's beard before selling them into slavery was kind of funny.

[@wesleythomas7125]

Oh hey, the guy in story 1 actually did some self-reflection and bettered himself.

[@theactorsdungeon3898]

These are great! Makes me very happy the only issues I've faced with players is scheduling.

[@lilmanjoshplayz7478]

During my first campaign, we were in the midst of attacking a cultist base when an extremely powerful construct appeared that the players were supposed to run from. Instead, the bard used an Unearthed Arcana feature that he never asked me about and that wouldn't have worked on constructs, but since I was new I allowed it to work. He then tried using Mage Hand to mess with its programming. I said there was an explosion of sparks as the hand was flung away, and the constructs turned towards them, its eyes glowing red. They didn't say anyhing until the constructs turn, when I started describing its attacks. The bard and one other party member started arguing that a Mage Hand cannot cause damage, but in this case that would be like saying a bomb wouldn't deal damage if a Mage Hand lit the fuse. We continued arguing about it for a while, and I ended up ending the campaign shortly after.

[@Xokoy]

I started out by homebrewing my game after playing mostly homebrew. The thing about homebrew is that it is much trickier to run and pull off, but it also allows for things like backstory arcs, which are great for helping to make sure that the players stay engaged. It also makes it easier to tweak the direction that the story and gameplay is going. If your players love combat, then you can dial down the RP and storytelling content, if your players want to explore a fantasy world, you can tone down the frequency of combat. You can also allow your players to move more freely through the world, and it gives them the freedom to be able to say "Yeah, this arc isn't very interesting to us, but this other place on the map here looks interesting", rather than sticking them on a railroad to kill Strahd or whatever, even if they're not really into the vibe of Borovia. It takes some level of skill though, and I admit that I do seem to have a talent for this stuff, especially coming up with stories on the spot, but I don't think that a blanket "avoid doing this" is all that great advice. It can be done, you can pull it off, but I strongly suggest that you dip your toes into the whole thing with a one-shot or a campaign that is meant to last no more than 5 sessions until you find your footing. You can always expand or even go back to a campaign or setting you and your players enjoyed, and for the most part, you can throw things at the wall to see what sticks with shorter term campaigns without worrying too much about long term consequences.

[@redacted606]

For people who are just murderhoboing through games give them a warning from an npc or have an npc talk about "it" or "them" in the distance. Creating an unknown force. Then tell them you have a karma system in place and that if it goes too low into the negatives something will come or meet them. (Something not even the gods of the setting know exists except for the most ancient and primordial beings who have lived to see it in the eternity since its first arrival.) If they accept and continue murderhoboing have a seemingly miniscule monster show up with the sum of all the characters/creatures they have killed stats and abilities/actions. And when they complain remind them of what they agreed to. Also... Maybe record them agreeing before hand so they have no excuse. Be like the fea. Edit: in case you haven't read the replies. Disclaimer: this comment isn't about taking the aggressive route first because the set up is clearly a warning, if the player doesn't listen it will be followed up on and must therefore be carried out. The smart choice is to communicate yes, but sometimes players don't listen and maybe a chastisement is required.

[@SendarSlayer]

Or just tell them you aren't interested in running that sort of game and have a discussion? Everyone should be adults, or capable of behaving like one.

[@redacted606]

@@SendarSlayer well sometimes commication doesn't work. Also some dms would rather play a long con, I like the long con games because I'm a fan of more brutal revenge. I think communication is good but even when it happens I doesn't solve all their problems because they might trick the dm into thinking that they won't have their game murderhobo'd through, if the players are sensible communication works a treat.

[@crusader8102]

@@redacted606 sooooo, let me get this straight, you'd rather go through several sessions of having to deal with people murderhoboing just to kill their characters and piss them off rather than, I don't know, having a chat after a session telling them you are not interested in running a campaign where pcs are murdering everyone and that if they continue to do so you will just ask them to leave the table or end the campaign?

[@redacted606]

@@crusader8102 didn't we establish that sometimes commication doesn't work? I'd like to talk it out but sometimes players don't listen.

[@Contevent]

I must be exceptionnal :D I always played homebrew campaigns, never touched a module, but my players are happy. I cannot guarentee my encounters are fair, or balanced, or mathematically adequate, but the world is vibrant, evolving, and the players have a hand in crafting it too. So far, the only complain I had was that my 3 year campaign ended shoetly before the final battle because of combination of schedule conflict and burn out.

[@Nyghtking]

The best I might try to argue with stone cunning is that it allows you to find ore easier. Hell in lore Kobolds have the ability to literally sense ore when mining, but you don't see that in the stat block or the player race, nor does it come up vary often.

[@13thMaiden]

I mean, it makes you able to notice unusual stonework and "fake rocks" for traps. So I _guess_ you could reason you can identify ore more easily??

[@Nyghtking]

@@13thMaiden Yeah I guess, also what I said about kobolds, they get nothing to do with stone, at least in 5e, I remember in 3.5 they had trap making skills though, so even though in lore they can literally sense ore they have nothing representing that in game.

[@wulfila99]

I would like to offer a counter-point to the advice that new DMs avoid homebrew as their first campaigns: My flatmate has played a total of three sessions as a player, but is running two different (but interwoven) homebrew campaigns, and successfully so (I can confidently say that, since I'm a player in both, and we talk about them a lot). Pretty impressive for a first-time DM. Sure, he tends to make his bosses a little too strong at times, but we've always survived so far. I think the most important bit is to have experienced players you know won't pull any BS, and ideally, some of them have some DM experience (in each of my flatmate's campaigns there are two players who have a lot of DM experience), so the whole table works together.

[@scorpioperk1137]

WARNING MAJOR SPOILER ALERT FOR RIME OF THE FROSTMAIDEN So, me, my brother, and best friend have been playing DnD for years, and while we may not have every stat of every monster memorized, its gotten to the point were we can tell what a hidden monster is by its first or second action, or what a monsters abilities are by its appearance. So, my brother and best friend who do most of the dming for our group of 5 (two other friends who barely have a year of dnd under their belt) came up with a solution during big encounters (everyone knows a goblins capabilities, an ankheg or bullett though?). Lore-friendly personal abilities. Take one of the bosses from Rime of the Frostmaiden. It was shit. We all knew it was shit. One or two of our 6th level characters could 1v1 this thing. It was a Chardalyn Dragon. Magical black ice that acts as a metal when forged properly. A mad duegar made a dragon out of it. It is suppose to be this epic "Oh can you even stop this creature?" Yes. Any of us could. And the three of us knew it (none of us said it aloud, of course. the other two are sweet summer children). So imagine our surprise when my warlock wasn't in fact, able to deal noticeable damage. When it took 100+ points of damage with only a small hole to show for it, I knew the DM (my friend) had pulled something. We were all for it. In the end, he had given the CD two new abilities based on its creators spitefulness and generally mad nature. Twice a day it could reflect the damage done to it onto the damager. No save. and when it was down to 5% of its hp, it would release a nova effect that only reached 15 ft but would instantly kill anyone who failed the save. He also centupled the bosses health. He only told us this after the session ended and we had seen the abilities in use. Both of the reflects had been used on me (warlock chonker spells) and the paladin was rolling poorly on his attack rolls. The only one to die to the nova was an npc whom we thankfully could res. All in all, satisfying boss fight with some great surprises thrown in

[@hamstsorkxxor]

I am running a mostly homebrew campaign that has been running for 5 years now (lvl1-18 thus far). It worked out great, but it was a lot of work, especially in the beginning. Starting out, it was very difficult and running a module would definitely have been easier! I'd absolutely recommend doing that, it's fun and a great way to learn quickly! That way, when you do eventually make a hombrew campaign, you'll be able to realize your ideas much better! If you do start out with a homebrew campaign, make sure to follow the advice in the DMG with regards to bounded accuracy and balancing! Be careful with anything that increases chance to hit, AC, spell DC and saving throws. Screwing it up can and will break your game if you add to much. A +3 item is legendary for a reason, and will absolutely destroy the balance of a low level campaign. Sidenote: for the love of everything that's holy, DO NOT start at a high level for your first campaign. High level DnD is great fun, but I can't begin to describe how broken it is. I'd say don't even try high levels untill you have quite a bit of experience as a DM. Anything above circa lvl11 is whack; players teleporting everywhere, the economy is destroyed and the CR (Challange Rating) in the MM become borderline useless. Also, I'd say to run at least 10 or 20 combats using appropriate level monsters from the MM before attempting to make homebrew monsters! It is way easy to accidentally make a overwhelming or underwhelming encounter if you freestyle without knowing what you're doing. However, hombrew can be awesome if done well! It allows for infinite customisation in a way only possible in a TTRPG, and to truly create a world together with your players.

[@scorch2155]

Honeslty I'm going to try and run my first game in a homebrew world of PF2 as it's the first rule set I can fully understand myself reading them without needing to habe some one explain what it means. I have 2 modules as well but....I cannot for the life of me figure out what I am supposed to do or how to run them no matter how many times I read them. I can't figure out what is supposed to happen which is why I'm going with a home brew world so I can better grasp....well...everything from locations, to character to the story progress and plot points.

[@RocRolWriter]

"...So the whole campaign was a trainwreck" sounds like every campaign I've been in; we've never had That Player (that I could recognize), but all our campaigns were completely homebrewed and nobody took very good notes, so we've never finished a campaign ever. They were all very entertaining trainwrecks, but trainwrecks nonetheless. First campaign ever had a dragonborn use lightning breath in an enclosed space, knocking everyone into Death Saves (except for me, I passed the Dex save), and every campaign after that had the other players bring up the catchphrase "NO LIGHTNING BREATH!" at least once. I wouldn't call that guy That Player though, at least not in the derogatory sense - his gaffs were consistent enough to be expected but inconsistent enough to be funny rather than annoying.

[@sideways_chip_eater6420]

Not really a DND session since it was a roleplay in a server rather than on a board but there was this guy named Ult who tried to make his two characters the "ULTIMATE HERO!!!" or something like that and would literally try to kill every villain he saw, not even pure evil villains were safe from him you can have a mother stealing to help her children and he'd try to kill her. This causes the public of NPCS to actively hate him and make the players who barely fought the heroes cause they tried to solve everything normally without slaughtering. Ult threw a hissy fit especially about my character since she actively befriended the villains on multiple occasions

[@nekospaw]

When I took over as our 5e DM, 2 of my players decided to go full munchkin, with one also deciding he was going to be a murder hobo (our former GM no less). Decide they're gonna fight an npc instead of lying to them as another npc told them to. Cue next week facing a mini boss (centaur with battlemaster and pugilist) built directly to counter their BS - tripping, disarming, pushing, grappling - he could do it all :D just a shame the whole party rolled like crap the entire fight.

[@nathanielweber7843]

That dad taught him a valuable lesson early: there will probably be a game someday with a character at least as bad, if not worse than he was. How you handle it as a dm will determine how the game goes for everyone else.

[@flameblade3]

Something for DMs who will say to the script writer’s note “oh but that won’t happen to ME”. Don’t count on it. The first campaign I ran, and the second, and the current third one, were all 90% homebrew. The ONLY reasons why this worked out for me in any capacity were that my players were also new and learning with me, my players were close friends and ok with my mistakes, and I had many years of time spent in story writing and improvisation as hobbies. My DMing skills have vastly improved over time though, but taking an already hard challenge at a high bar level right off the bat should only be attempted with a supportive and understanding group of players as well as substantial experience in the general field

[@nobilisvaga5267]

Had a roll fudger and I beat him by putting him up against a homebrew mob called the mirror mimic. Essentially the player will inspect the mirror and the higher the roll they make the more difficult the encounter will be. As a copy of them will exit the mirror to kill them. So if you roll a nat 20.....so will they. The only way to beat the encounter is to walk into the mirror, as soon as you do you swap places with the reflection. So the encounter can game end "that player" easily if they fudge rolls.

[@michaelbraun9999]

I once DMed a party of three in a homebrew campaign (custom world with the better well known races from DnD) with primitive firearms being available. It was my first time DM ing, with two of the three players also being beginners, this session was the first one for one of them. The experienced player got pissed because we smoked some before the session and decided to annoy everyone with his mechadog companion overpowered through the "use as written" method. At some point I had enough and he just happened to get cocky and get his companion under an opportunity attack. The enemy soldier managed to pierce the creature with the bayonet. At this point I made the soldier lift it up while skewered and pull the trigger for the dramatic effect. The musket was loaded. And the guy´s companion was all over the map. He later ressed it, of course, but stopped with the annoying shenanigans for good :)

[@QuadalupeThe3rd]

Im the DM. There was a player in my group that was a soul demon (a custom class i made for him) fighter that was always complaining how he was so weak prepared to the enemies and he demanded a buff and when i declined he tried to buff himself saying that soul demons had blood that could burn titanium. I was so pissed at him because he was actually really strong, he had a scythe that he could make longer, a lantern that can absorb souls and then cast an explosion made of souls, nearly max stats and a helmet that regenerates. So i taught him a lesson and made a monster that copies his stats and made him fight it. As always he complained it was to powerful and told me that i was being unreasonable he nerly died when i told him that the monsters was a copy of him he released that i had played him. It was the final staw when he taxed every member of his party 5 sp every session for being in his team. I shut him down by making a dragon turn him to stone and then goblins eat him up

[@mugenokami2201]

Poor goblins

[@QuadalupeThe3rd]

@mugenokami2201 Yeah, I didn't rly think about the goblins' health

[@wolfnx336]

That advice on homebrew is great and I wish I had it when I started my DM career. It’s been a 6 year slug of bad and unbalanced game, and last one shot I ran I got the perfect balance where the party just barely won against my homebrew monster, sadly losing one party member because one of my players had a harder time with combat than I thought, making a party of 2.5 instead of 3. Don’t be like me spending 6 years to learn what you could 1

[@danielcrafter9349]

Losing a character is bad? Also, you did it for 6 YEARS and didn't stop to question in that time???

[@OmniGman]

Its definitely a Dad thing. My father still does the same crap to this day. No one knows why he can go from being a perfectionist and professional workaholic, to suddenly acting like Beavis and Butthead did the Fusion Dance.

[@JmonsterNEO]

I think your dad is just an asshole.

[@christopherbravo1813]

Honestly, that medallion is one of the most balanced DND items I have ever heard of

[@andreacallegari7137]

Sure, Wizards of the Coast are masters of encounter balance. That's why you fight 3 CR 5 Night Hags at level 4 in Curse of Strahd, or the CR 3 monstruosity at level 1 in Rime of the Frostmaiden, or the entire prologue of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Also, many people don't have the luxury of playing in 3 campaigns before DMing theirs. And many good DMs start mastering very early in their career. You're going to make mistakes, and you're going to learn. If your party stomps your encounters, or if you TPK your party, who gives a shit? It's a game, next time it'll be better.

[@gray4449]

not the dm, but a player. Myself and my friends wanted to play a campaign, so I asked my dad, who at the time was playing Curse of Strahd with his buddies, if he'd be willing to dm for us. He said sure and ended up setting up the starter campaign for us to play through as we were all pretty new to dnd and some of us had never played before whereas others had played once or twice previously. That Guy was a brand new player, never played before and was the type of guy who needed to do everything. Every chest we found or corpse we looted he shouted over everyone to get to it first and steal all the winnings for himself. Myself and some of the other players were getting pretty fed up. It came to a climax when we were trying to talk to the banshee Agatha about a map (i don't remember the exact questions but we needed information that only she knew). A different player wasted our only question for her by making a joke, completely ruining the side quest and forcing us to leave. That Guy then decides to try and sneak back in and steal something (he was playing a rogue). Of course, it doesn't go well, he stole a single gold coin. Unbeknownst to us until later, my dad had homebrewed the item he stole. It was a cursed coin that every few minutes, our rogue had to roll a d100 and something random would happen, good or bad. It was my dad's way to basically say 'this is what you get for screwing over the rest of the table'. That coin has now made it's way into our new campaign and will probably continue to make appearances in future ones too. Everyone at the table finds the coin hilarious and loves the way it can either help or harm the party. We also constantly forget about it until one of us brings it up and causes an immediate roll of the dice. i have a story about another player who was somehow worse than this guy if anyone is interested.

[@ireneshelton3661]

I’m interested, if it’s not too late to ask

[@KanetheSpaceWolf]

I would like to point out that Dwarves get Tremorsense in the One DnD version. But it has limited uses and only works when they are standing on Stone. If that’s what was going on, the player should have brought it up, but at the same time, players should NOT try sneaking in Beta Content without the DM knowing it’s Beta Content.

[@KrytonTechnologies]

Actually home brewing now for my first campaign as a dm, but I have another group I get tips from and I soak up a lot of external resources to build on. Lastly, this campaign is much more role play and heavy up till now, with classes and everything being custom. I fudge rolls all the time in favor of my players to keep things fun and exciting when I find something unbalanced, sometimes simply telling my players "no. I'm not allowing tha to be your roll, roll again". Sometimes I do let them fail, so they don't always know it's coming, but then have relief and excitement when they get to roll again. They don't mind any of these growing pains and are loving the story. I've refined and rebalanced things as we went and so far it's going very well. That said, I have the perfect group to do this with, so I can kinda get away with it.

[@LocalMaple]

11:25 I’m a first time DM, third campaign overall. I started with a homebrew world based on a game every player was familiar with. So I made myself a goal: every encounter tells a story or has a puzzle. Trial of the Pantheon: three downgraded Clockwork Dragons, each with different breath attacks that recharge on the same die (1/2, 3/4, and 5/6), they come back at full health the second round after all 3 are downed, and a marker on their hands to show when a subset of gods approved of their actions. It took them 3 rounds to realize the goal: everyone gets 10 points towards any deity. After the trial, everyone got a magical item based on their class and which deity they appeased. Wolf Pack: there were two Dire Wolves, over a dozen regular wolves, and a Lair Action each round. They took 4 rounds to figure out my narration: the Lair Actions were commands from the Dire Wolves, and taking out the leaders would turn off the lair.

[@dracone4370]

This could make for a fun discussion, and possibly lead some members with a better head for that sort of thing to try writing some things up; the subject is "What are some Creatures and/or Monsters from mythology, lore, and legend you would like to see make an appearance in games like D&D? Please explain your reasoning as much as you are comfortable so everyone else can better understand your arguments that creature should have a stat block. I tried over on the subreddit a while back, but that post didn't seem to get much traction, so I'm putting it here in the comments of a video to see if it gets better traction. I mentioned a few different creatures in that post over on the subreddit, so to avoid retreading the same thing again, I will not be naming those monsters in the comments and focus on something a bit newer. I'll start things off here with my own answer to the question; last year, I became aware of a creature called the Araleze; in Armenian mythology, the Aralez is a winged dog-like creature that descends from the heavens to revive fallen heroes by licking their wounds. They are basically the polar opposite of Hellhounds, which immediately makes them a little more interesting than they might seem at first glance. Now, you'll notice I mentioned that the Aralez licks the wounds of the fallen to revive them; this means their saliva has healing and resurrection properties, which also means you can make their saliva into a much sought-after component for being a superior substitute for the diamonds players usually have to use for resurrection spells, but since the Aralez is a celestial creature that usually spends a very limited amount of time in the mortal realm, that could also mean the saliva of an Aralez has a much higher market price than diamonds that are typically used for resurrections, this also means you can turn the search for Aralez saliva into a quest for the players.

[@Schniedragon88]

Sent me down a rabbit hole of Armenian mythology, thanks

[@dracone4370]

@@Schniedragon88 Happy to help.

[@Official_Nog]

7:23 "God, save this man!" 🌟 "Good. Now get up stupid!" *kills player* "Oh, shit. God, again!"

[@vikrambal6247]

PANR isn’t here and I’m scared

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

PANR has tuned in....late.

[@billcox8870]

The Sole survivor found a cannibal in a lumber mill near the settlement called Far Harbour.

[@MrRipper]

Phew

[@billcox8870]

@@MrRipper I had to take him out💀. He was licking his lips and drooling

[@someonestolebigboi-imbigboi]

i think the dad had a similar moment and needed to vent... after a few decades

[@sketchyfox7368]

What’s funny is that dwarves actually do get tremorsense in the 2024 rules

[@HeavyMetalMouse]

Homebrew is all well and good - I personally love third party published material, and even find some of it to be more well balanced than some first party stuff - but there is a very important caveat: if you're going to change something, try to first understand what you're actually changing, and why it was like that originally. Which isn't to say 'don't change stuff', just... know what you're changing, and what you want to achieve by changing it. Doing so 'just because' is usually not a great plan. Sometimes 'Chesterfield's Fence' was put up for a very good reason, and knocking it down will let in all manner of trouble you weren't expecting. Sometimes it's just an old fence.

[@spiritfox6066]

Surprisingly some people are just extremely lucky. One way to tell is make them roll both physical and digital dice. I've seen it happen with a family member before.

[@BoyKagome]

I prefer the redemption arcs over the "and they left and never came back, fist bumps were had"

[@vortega472]

Okay kids - at 10:44 - this is probably the best - one mo' time for the cheap seats so you guys in the back can hear - this is probably the BEST ADVICE EVER given on what you need to do before you start DMing. Play first know the game, know the rules, and then branch out. First time cooks follow instructions to the letter and then experiment. So listen to the nice man who runs this page.

[@marshallhutzler5940]

So, I am new dm about to start session 1. I am also a extremly paranoid individual. So ive come up with plans to counter forseeable "that guy" scenerios. And i have plans to counter the "horny sleep with everything" trope. Untested but wanted to share it. The Plan: Phase 1 - its fantasy midevil times. Not everything is clean. If the mate too many npcs.... they might contract somthing.... somthing with lots of debuffs. Somthing that is going to be hard and expensive to get healed. Phase 2 - is, they can try to sleep with whatever they want, but some creatures that can be slept with, are promised to/ married to/ dating very powerful figures who may want revenge. Phase 3 - I already planned to have a public opinion system in the campaign (how the populace remenbers and views the party will effect how they are treated when they enter towns) if one is a horndog, the populace will begin to resent them. Thus making every attemp to horndog a combat encounter.

[@Bigal3031]

We had a guy who "rolled " better than average crits in combat. And only rolled mid range for none combat. DM made him roll openly gues what. His rolls got much more even .

[@ShadowEclipex]

I started my DMing career with Homebrew Zelda stuff and I am glad my Players were cool with that and my mistakes and the campaign only fizzled due to scheduling. Since then I have DMed 4 more camaigns, 1 redo of the Zelda Campaign and 3 set in a homebrew world. That said I probably would suggest people use official materials to start their DMing too.

[@ethanb6647]

Tremor sense is actual a cool idea for a magic medallion

[@mreboric8406]

If your players are getting out of hand just have one of their enemys hire a band of mercenaries that specialize in sundering weapons and armor.

[@DekrosnaArcana]

I'm doing my own little homebrew campaign... new to being a DM and still kinda new to D&D in general (have not taken part in many proper campaigns and sessions... mainly cause the people running them wound up not having the time to set aside for such things.) anyways I'm running a homebrew campaign and so far the other people involved are enjoying it. What's more is the fact that I do have at least 1 person in the player group who's been DM for a number of campaigns in the past so if I have any questions I can ask them about it. Over all I'm gonna be using mostly standard D&D items and the like across the board... same for races and monsters.

[@theinsanegamer1024]

I have been DMing a game, homebrew, not a ton of experience. But, I don't think I've met with a ton of issues. I have some good lore the players like, try to keep them engaged, and there's been some hiccups, it's not been going poorly. Biggest issue is players not always being available and their characters don't play off one another as well. Biggest issue from me that they have said is how it feels a bit unfocused at points. But ultimately, they have said it's fine. Some things I want to note: I cannot balance combat for the life of me. 3 level 1 characters VS a wizard with 75 HP. He was using the cantrip Firebolt, and had +5 to hit. They were a fighter with 17 AC, Ranger with 15 or 16 AC, and a Sorcerer with 14 AC (They're a dragonborn). The wizard, who could have one hit killed 2 of the party members if he had rolled a 10 on either dice, only hit them 1 single time, and it was only the Sorcerer, and just barely at that. And rolled a 2 for damage. Second fight was at level 2, 3 creatures, 30 HP 15 AC each. Didn't get a single hit. Admittingly, though, this was due to the players getting a surprise round because the Ranger had set an Alarm at the entrance of the cave so were able to prepare and the creatures rolled very low on perception (Literally like a 4 total or something). That one felt less stupid and was actually pretty fun, especially as we introduced a player character at the end of the fight by having them destroy the last creature (who was already about to die, given they were already badly wounded and had just had their turn and thus there were 3 attacks heading its way). Everyone seemed to enjoy that introduction. Another player rarely rolls below a 15. With online dice. Where everyone can see. And the others rarely roll above a 5, except when in combat. Some issues for sure are from me and lack of experience. Others are because things are tending toward the extreme because the dice find it funny.

[@theinsanegamer1024]

Don't get me wrong though, it's really funny at times, just, makes balancing story and combat and things horrible when literally the only player who notices anything is an almost literal gremlin of a Goblin Ranger who is only going with the others because the alternative is being alone. Though the Dragonborn rolling a nat 1 for perception is quite hilarious, given he dumped wisdom for the memes, and boy did it not disappoint when he swallowed a fly due to a total of 0 for his perception.

[@dakinademino977]

Nice video, no cringe, you get my seal of approval.

[@shadowhawkrine1947]

I sincerely appreciate Script Guy’s input

[@SpitfiretheCat16]

as for the "Writer's Notes" section... the trouble is that I either want to run games in the settings of my favorite IPs and need to homebrew to sort out the lore and fine mechanics, or in the case of original content I can't feel satisfied that I've done a good job if I'm not using my own work, because if there's an official way of doing things, that means there's a possibility of my doing it _wrong._

[@Fl0wchart]

My best way to shut down "That player" has always been the fully confident, unflinching, zero hesitation "Alright, make an attack roll." Not in combat, they know what to do on their turns, I'm talking outside of combat, on a random NPC that may or may not be able to properly defend themselves. For some reason our "That Player" always gets intimidated by it, and then decides against it.

[@TheGeocacheHunter]

As for me, I've played several one shots (military backed D&D group. Hard to do a campaign with players popping in and out due to job needs) and am currently playing a homebrew with 2 friends. I wanted to learn to DM so my friend set me up with Tomb of Annihilation. I'm definitely learning and they are patient, but so far, everyone is having a fun time (even me). Popped my cherry in killing a player character just 2 weeks ago due to 3 zombie girallons. The last one was down to 4hp.

[@DomyTheMad420]

4:00 funfact about throwing dice: you may be correct that she was fudging her rolls, but i'd like to remind every player & DM out there that "having good luck" exists. it's (very) unlikely that she'd get that many good rolls and low amounts of bad ones. but it IS possible. so maybe next time try to get some more concrete evidence before deciding to pull sh*t like this.

[@FondlesHandles]

I was the "that guy" once. made a tabaxi monk, we were going through his character arc, and it was basically my character was in the limelight, for several real life months, as we were figuring out what was going wrong with his homeland, ended up getting into a massive argument with the dm about the fate of a maguffin that i was charged with protecting, and completely forgot rule 0. after the session ended, i realized what a shithead i was being, and, a couple days later, talked with the dm and worked it out. thankfully, we were at a point in the story where my character could leave the party and retire from adventuring, and i rolled up a new character, who also left the party for story reasons a few months later, again, because story beats allowed it (the second character got his face, head, and much of his upper torso essentially belt sanded off. one true res later, he leaves the party and goes back home, realizing that perhaps adventuring wasnt for him. kid was a bit of a stuck up noble, got the shock of a lifetime, and wisened up.) im now on my third character after my monk, and am planning on sticking with him for as long as possible, and am much happier.

[@MartialNico]

I'd actually appreciate the drunken Dwarf if he skipped turns in combat just to roleplay.

[@arinfrankhouse1147]

Stoned Dwarf: DMs need to do their research about lies regarding character abilities, but once again the lulz kick in once they actually get their game together. At least the dwarf got over the mania and actually became a badass. Redemption stories are cool. Not So Lucky: What a way to play a player who kept fudging her rolls. Can't say she didn't have this coming, and the lulz were epic once again. Congrats, DM! Gun Slut: Yes, the DM's job is to make it fun for the players, but when one player tries to warp the story around him before it's even started, it only makes sense not to accommodate him. Hope he did well with the homebrew; I know it couldn't have been easy. Drunkard: I honestly think this would be a good lesson on why getting drunk IRL is always bad. Still, Warhammer can be pretty grimdark, so I'm not surprised they'd choose to sell their dwarf to make up for all the losses his alcoholism brought them. Kinda makes me wonder if the dwarf's player was warned IRL first... Mute: Oof. Way to get the warlock to learn his lesson, but still, that couldn't have been pretty. Jackie Chud: This is why you never leave your weapons at a tavern. Sorry the dad had to weigh everything down, rookie DM. At least the others were more dignified. The Fornicator: Sorry to hear the rookie DM overburdened himself with homebrew content, but the fuck machine wanted to have sex with a frozen corpse with freezing-capable equipment? I just hope both players and DM learned from this.

[@Andulvar]

We never had any form of "that player" as my group has been smart and gatekeeped our group for the past 35 years.

[@arielshligman2146]

12:24 its probably better to buy a homebrew module thats actually goos for an introduction

[@theactorsdungeon3898]

Erm, one addendum to my comment, in our teenage years we had 1 player who was determined to betray the party with each character he made, but he kept dying before he had a chance to play his master stroke 😂

[@Nyghtking]

For the guy who wanted to be a sniper, the closest I would get to that would be asking if I could use the rifle from the DMG and re-flavor the arcane archer to use guns and bullets instead of arrows and bows.

[@svartrbrisingr6141]

in a way i started dming using a lot of homebrew. but it was all based around a world i knew well(the world from Dragon Age) and all the homebrew i used was stuff i grabbed off the internet so none of it was my own homebrew outside small items and feats. like my Hero Worship feat i gave a player when they made their character. it just gave them advantage on history checks to remember legendary heroes. since then ive learned how to properly homebrew stuff and keep things roughly balanced for the party and now run campaigns in a fully homebrew world where id say about 90% of my encounters are homebrewed enemies or at least include a homebrew enemy. homebrew items i use less often but still use. my way of balancing monsters especially. is literally to just run the encounters in my free time. get my players stat sheets and just spend an hour or so testing the fights im worried about or unsure of. plus changing of hp mid combat to either buff or debuff it as needed.

[@AM-yk5yd]

First story: DM is (also) that guy. You know, it doesn't look like "i am not pickin up on that guy" if DM told everyone else what he is doing and they laugh at that guy. As critcrab says, don't solve out of the game problems in-game.

[@TheSkookat]

I was "that guy". It was first time playing, I played as a 7ft, 500 lbs orb like thing with 3 legs and 1 arm level 1 barbarian called Orb. The campaign we were playing was in an abandoned house for a guys daughter who was sick and he would give us like 50 or so gold pieces if we did it. So we get to the house and orb is just banging on the exterior walls being useless and even damaging to our goal. After a while this other character, Wilbert the weak comes up to me and we decided to throw Wilbert at the wall and also breaks a window for no reason, and then the wall falls after 3 attempts. Then Orb walks into the house takes one looks, get out all his tinder, spreads it out, and the sets the whole f**king house on fire while everyone is in the basement dealing with a giant black spider guarding the cure. When it's my turn Orb breaks through the floor and then sets the basement and spider on fire as Orb wants to fight it, Orb is then pinned down at 2 hp znd trys to shove a torch down It's throat, and rolls a nat 1, and Orb dies, faling all 3 death saves. I have never heard people chear so load before, and I was so happy that Orb caused as much damage as possible. I also laughed to hard as well and got a cramp in my lungs. And I will never do that again, except for our next campaign Orb 2 dies of a crack overdose after nearly causing a TPK. Tl;dr Giant orb terrorizing group and breaking walls sets house on fire and rolls a nat 1 while trying to kill a gaint spider dies, comes back almost causes a TPK and dies permanently due to a cocaine overdose. Also yes, the spider live just several injured and starving.

[@shadowhawkrine1947]

Okay for the first story, I understand that you’re a new dm, but you should know that you are the final arbiter. Your players cannot argue with you. If he thinks it works otherwise, then you just tell him that it doesn’t matter what he thinks, that’s how the ability will work.

[@spartanhawk7637]

Uh...Does it count if That Guy was the DM? I was playing a Dark Heresy game and in the last session I ever joined (as well as the last time I ever touched Warhammer 40k as the DM totally ruined it for me) he kept trying to pull Rocks Fall moments on my character because he wasn't happy with the fact I was successfully defeating a chaos cult using military tactics. Thing is he isn't good at tactics beyond what looks cool. This led to him having infantry with no shields attack my Arbites...who were in full armor in a shield wall. He had these guys using lasguns with a penetration rating of a whopping ZERO. In layman's terms, this would be roughly as effective as throwing a teddy bear at a stone wall. No grenades, no melee weapons, just lasguns against a wall of steel and shotguns. Yeah his "doomsday cult" died within three rounds of combat because this guy thought he was some kinda Napoleon level genius when in reality he had the tactical knowhow of General Custer. Gave him a real reality check on how NOT to treat players considering my victory completely derailed his campaign. P.S. since then we've talked about it and are on good terms. He just had a ramrod up his rear for that game. He's also actually started to study military tactics and its made playing with him in war campaigns much more enjoyable.

[@GrayHarrison834]

The stonecunning tremor sense guy read the future

[@M3G4T3RR4]

I’m going to assume the dad is trying to get his child ready for “that guy” players and actually knew exactly what he was doing

[@pendotxl822]

THiS. like, its so obvious. And the only solution he could come up with was random teleportation? Even considering its his first try session, thats quite sad

[@justindomer2966]

Had a player get 3 wishes through deck of many things lucky draw as well as a quest reward. Player: I wish for an anti-material rifle that always hits, never misses, never harms me, can hit anyone anywhere at anytime with unlimited ammo. Me: no. *Player argues for 5minutes about why they should get it, while i argue why it's a no* Me: fine, takes ten years of constant unbroken concentration to attune then use. Player: I wish it was attuned Me: it was, no longer is Player: well I'm adding it anyways Me: then you can leave my game. This was the final straw with this particular person who frequently tried to metagame, power game, cheated his rolls, cheated his stats, and was incredibly disruptive during sessions. I had never had to kick a player out of my games before, so I was nervous about doing so and made excuses as to why I shouldn't and why his bad behavior could be talked through or worked through. In this moment I finally realized it wasn't gonna end, and just told him he's not welcome back.

[@Txupport]

4:39 Wendingo? Austrailian-Canadian deerdog? I mean, it's a homebrew D&D so I suppose anything is possible lol.

[@animefanboy201]

The alcoholic dwarf played the addiction correctly, alcoholism is a bane on those around them, a hard character flaw to have and get rid of, the party were douches probably power gamers. The father helping with a one shot was giving his son an opportunity to experience a shitty player as dms usually run into. Good parenting

[@tim18wheels76]

I had a that guy player, that wasn't with our group that long. He wanted to argue on several occasions. Up until this point batboy got to playhis dream character, an anthropomorphic bad. Batboy was unhealthy obsessed with bats. He insisted on an animal companion, using the riding dog stats, the dog be an oversized chihuahua, and that we use his token art of a chihuahua in a bad toupee. He had argued with a player to get the boots of striding and spring to boost his land speed to 20 ft. Then, he wanted to ditch the riding chihuahua in a bad toupee for a giant falcon ASAP. Finally, he flipped out one game session at the start. Rather than saying or messaging me between sessions that my game wasn't for him and why, batboy had a full on yelling temper tantrum. He must of thought I would tolerate him yelling out everything he didn't like about my game, me, and other players. Mostly it was targeted at me. I said, "Here! Let me make one little adjustment." I kicked and blocked him on Roll20. Batboy, "Wait! What? You're kicking me from the game?" I calmly continued working in the background. Other players in the background, "Oh, he's gone from Roll20. Ya, but he's still in chat for some reason. Oh wait; he's gone!" While Batboy was ranting, I calmly blocked and kicked him from Roll20 and Discord. It may have killed the mood for the night, but we picked things up next week. 🍻

[@TrevTheMan00]

I feel sorry for that dwarf player he could of toned down the dunk dwarf but those players and DM were assholes.

[@jacobp.2024]

6:50 that one was just mean-spirited.

[@TheNightmareAngelYT]

Why did he say that Strixhaven was stupid. I've never played DnD, so I just wanna know why (if he did say that).

[@EaizePeazy]

hey Kudos to first dude actually not that guy hes the other guys, Ilike sam and the rock. He may have jumped but he dealt with the consequences.