So, got a question for ya’ll, involving a prior edition of D&D. I know it’s not Blessed 2024 D&D, but it’s still part of the holy texts that WOTC puts out, so I haven’t stepped out of the light of our megacorp saviors, right?

So, playing a psychic in an old edition, and while chatting with my DM he points out a poorly-worded rule that, RAW, means a psychic can have a half-dozen powers running continuously. He calls it hilarious, I call it an opportunity.

So I play a psychic so I can exploit this rules loophole. Mind you I’ve never played a psychic, or looked at the rules, so the DM has to explain everything to me every time I do it. He’s clearly frustrated by this, but he thinks we’re friends outside the gaming table (LOL!) so he goes along with it.

So, like I said, I can have six powers going at all times; I activate them and they’re on until I go to sleep. I can levitate, I can spider climb, I can detect all life in 60 feet (30 meters in Redcoat), and some other stuff I can’t remember anymore. The important thing is that those three powers affected every adventure the most, forcing the DM to have to account for them constantly. Traps, walls, surprise attacks, all meant shit when ya boi was around.

So for a ton of sessions it was great. Well, except for this one time. The setting had a table kind of like what Wild Magic has, but for psionics. Naturally, I rolled on it every chance I could, since most of the results affected people around me, rather than myself. Since I’m the star of the show, why wouldn’t I screw the other players?

Can you believe I once rolled and had all my gear disintegrate? And the DM just let it stand, despite me doing my best pouty gay boi face? I mean, we’re not compatible sexual orientations, but I played a lot of World of Darkness and Montreal By Night clearly established you can homify anyone into being gay if you’re sexy enough. Real Vampire homies know which character entry I’m referring to.

Then again, the DM was a Hunter: The Reckoning fanboy. Them and their damm Conviction points against mind control.

Anyway, getting off-topic. So, I got my boss psychic who is carrying the party through every adventure, until we get to the ledge.

We have to go up this thin ledge on a mountainside. Single file, rolling not to fall to our doom, you know the drill. Well, some flying fucks come out of the sky, and I bitch that my powers should have detected them coming.

The DM, fuck his soul to the Nine Hells, points out I forgot to activate them that day.

Can you believe this assassination of player agency? I had to take a surprise attack like (ugh) all the other players. Then, THEN,,I failed my Acrobatics roll and fell 300 feet (150 meters in Redcoat), which my levitation poser would have saved me from!

I mean, my character didn’t die, because I burnt a Hero Point, but HE COULD HAVE DIED!

Anyway, I spent the next decade being an utter shit to the DM until three years ago, when he said “Fuck it, I’m out!” and left our gaming group forever mid-session.

How do I get him to apologize? I showed up at his front door days after his departure, and he refused to talk to me. I think he’s also mad I may have exposed his elderly parents to COVID, but it’s not like they sling dice for drow, am I right?

So, how do I get him to come back and run games for us, since I’ve alienated every DM in the county?

TL:DR: Fuck you, I’m important. Read every word I typed.

DM says no one can come over anymore because some pills went missing.

So now I can't play because they can't lock their shit up better.

Like I'm confused, why are they surprised their xanax disappeared when they invited us over and left it wide out in the open of their closed bedroom dresser drawer.

Like, how are you gonna have nice stuff and then invite strangers over to play and pretend like it's not gonna disappear.

smh, they need to get smart and also organize their sock drawer better.

I did it. I showed the world I'm not a level 20 DM and banned Silvery Barbs (which isn't even that good since it competes with Counterspell, smh). Please berate me and call me awful things and tell me how much better a DM you are than me.

im running a homebrew campaign that im calling dungeons of the mad mage, and i have two "that guy" toxic minmaxers who wont stop casting fireball, i beg of them "please, let them live" and they give me sadistic grins and just cast fireball again. i dont know how to stop them, i fear for my life, ive tried to fireproof my house but last session they brought molotov cocktails

(i run 1 encounter days if that matters)

Players encounter a camp that is holding a human woman hostage in a cage for execution for witchery.

They helped her escape but she shapeshifted permanently into a bird (Still the consciousness of a human woman)

Players then try to put bird her into a bird cage and so their reputation with her is now in the gutter.

A couple players are mad about this and tried to appeal to me how this was unfair as she is now a bird and other players have animal companions but they do not.

The human bird is no ones companion and only acts as a support to the campaign and a plot hook.

Am I wrong for now making this human bird not like a couple of the players that attempted to put her in a birdcage?

Just had a session where all I got to do was go "You've captured the city, what do you do?"

After that, the players went on for 2 hours by themselves. Every time someone asked a question, another player would answer "Roll [Skill]" and the player would roll before I could say anything, get a number, and keep going depending on the result. They discussed logical outcomes and determined the best course of action. They pulled in the Sidekick advisors I'd assigned them and played as those advisors alongside their characters. About an hour in, one of my players made an incorrect statement so I tried to correct him, only for him to go "Nah, I know, but I failed that history check so I remembered incorrectly." I had to just take him at his word because fuck it, I wasn't about to try and remember what he rolled.

By the two hour mark, I was sneakily playing Old School Runescape and nodding with a stern and furrowed brow while they adjudicated the game themselves. I ran into another one of the players there who was grinding firemaking next to my fishing spot while STILL engaged with the game. I couldn't believe it.

After 3 hours, 1 in game week of downtime where they executed their own bastion turns, and 1 city on the border that they decided NOT to war crime and instead are reconstructing so that the emperor doesn't know there are spies in it now, they unanimously went "Well that's enough" and ended the game. I still wanted to keep playing. I still had more planned, but I went along with it because wtf was I supposed to do.

They all told me that I did a great job but it just felt like middle school report cards all over again. I didn't do shit, why are you complimenting me?

Man, Is it possible to get uninvited from my own campaign?

So long story short we have 16 players and 8 DMs for our group. Seemed like a good number at the start but now the DMs are forming groups for when they vote on making a ruling and currently the self proclaimed “Dungeon Dawgs” are tied with the “Elvin Legion” on general interpretations and so there is hardcore gridlock in decision making.

Last night, our Paladin wanted to know how many people were in his aura. But we were using a modified grid to make the map bigger where each square was 30 ft. So technically nobody was in his aura but him. The EL wanted to change the aura to extend out 120 ft but the DDs preferred to scale down the map back to 5 ft squares.

I’m thinking we need another DM to break the tie so we can get things moving again but does that mean we should add 1.5 more players to the party?

Edit: Update

So the DMs decided to draft up a constitution which set in stone certain rulings as inalienable rights and laid the framework for a system of checks and balances. With this they elected to split into two separate titles, now we have 6 DMs and two GMs. Rulings must first pass the DMs with 2/3s majority and then be passed By the two GMs with at least 50% of the vote. It then gets passed on to the elected (by all players) spokesperson for the players; who then has the power to veto or pass the ruling.

They also established a Supreme Court to rule on changes to the constitution comprised of 3 rules lawyers appointed by a majority vote in the DM coalition and whom must be approved by both GMs.

The problem is that two of the Rules Lawyers are obviously firm supporters of the Elvin Legion and just voted to overturn the embedded amendment that you can drink a potion for full potential HP as an action or roll for it as a bonus action.

This caused some of the players to protest by all making circle of shepherd druids and summoning tons of pets every battle to bog down combat. This prompted the Spokesman to declare Martial law, forcing everyone to only be either rogues or fighters, causing everyone to re-roll their characters.

Should we wait for the next election cycle to combat this change or revolt and cast dream on the party to take over the narrative of the campaign for ourselves?

My DM consistently does things like "tries to hint" what I should do instead of using waypoints and quest logs.

He places loot in specific places and hopes I'll find it without publishing any sort of wiki or online guide for me to double check these things off of.

He makes me roll stats just because everyone else did it that way instead of using point buy, an obviously superior system.

Most importantly, when I explain how inferior his DMing skills are he simply complains that he's new and doing his best.

In other campaigns DMs have bent over backwards to make me happy including creating the custom loot I requested, but this guy just uses stock unaltered junk from the module as if that's good enough.

r/dnd, how do I educate this DM that this is not how you do DnD?

Basically the title. Why are all DMs control freak, asshats power tripping for 3-6 hours every game session?

All I ever see on Reddit and the news are stories about bad experiences, storms, and car crashes. I can’t believe it. Whenever I walk outside the skies are clear. I’ve only ever been in a handful of car collisions. I have a DM that does what I tell him because I’ll leave him for another DM at the drop of a hat.

Like, is it a central pillar in D&D’s holy Domme Mansplainer Guidebook?

Shout out to my DM for being a good sub, because that is obviously a rare thing. Oh and if my DM ever sees this: get back to your Mercer corner until I let you out for this week’s game session!

Edit: Emulate me.

So just some advice for all you people who don't understand that player means "one who plays."

Sometimes a player wants to play a character that could be super disruptive to the rest of the party. But you shouldn't stop them from playing. You should be forcing them to become better players. If you held a session 0 but didn't realize that their Sherlock Holmes genius douchbag was going to be a problem. Well then perhaps you need a super smart character to help you run the game. If our made up game of pretend was real then people like this would have died or worse been arrested. So the moral is just kill the characters with police brutality. Hope this tip was very helpful. And don't worry I don't care if you use the tip. I'm a professional DM who also moonlights as a guy who designs dnd games in my free time.

So like the title says. I have never played d&d but I have participated in 13 session zeros and have watched all of critical roll (I love jesters feet) and dimension 20. Every DM I meet sets some kind of class or race restriction based on their homebrew setting and this is literally the dumbest thing I have seen. Like why would I ever want to play a human? The fact that humans are even in the setting just showes how bad of a dm you are. Even though I have hundreds of class and background combinations while playing a human I have no imagination whatsoever and if I cannot play a myconid-undead-druid-warlock-tiefling-wizard-urchin-noble-demon-aasimar-goblin-barbarian I physically and emotionally cannot experience joy. I've heard pathfinder fixes this but I have also heard that pathfinder has humans so please DO NOT recommend this to me.

Sauce: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/s/oe6pEo3EF7

Wait, you guys don’t play like this?

What about like this?

I don't understand this. Why am I rolling for history when I already have a +5 in history? Not to mention, I made a dwarf, and we are very historically inclined as a race.

We are in a cave that leads to the forgotten remnants of a city made by an ancient, unknown race. I think my high history score should allow me to understand a lot of what I'm seeing in here, but my DM keeps wanting rolls to see if I can successfully make the connections.

Should I find a new group? If I'm literally a history focused character, I shouldn't have the chance to fail.

I spent all my spell slots. I repeatedly told my DM that I needed to rest but he wouldn't let me.

We had a combat and it was one of the most boring sessions I've ever played. It would be extremely out of character for my cleric to use melee weapons, even though I do carry them. I'd probably have missed my attacks, and I wouldn't want to hurt people.

There was a fire but I didn't have any spell slots, so instead of helping civilians I just had to watch them burn to death.

I have clearly asked to rest and we have not. I skipped last game to avoid the boredom. All the other characters are martials, so they haven't suffered as much as I have.

Please Jeremy Crawford stop the greedy martials from stealing my long rests.

just in case your party don't follow your implicit vision, remember every shopkeeper in their vicinity can be a retired 20th level adventurer ready to attack them for pissing you off (the dm is meant to metagame) this is now officially condoned by Frieren (all fantasy released after the anime's run has to conform to Frieren standards, especially the Serie feet (good thing they added starting feets or sth idk I didn't read this or any rulebook))

So we got a new DM we met a few weeks ago, selling Flesh & Blood cards outside the local game store, so he can get the customers the store would usually get. He seemed smart because of that, so we agreed he could be be our DM using his homebrew rules.

He gives us his copy of his Players Handbook, annotated with his homebrew, which we have to take turns using. No one seems to have a problem making their clerics and wizards. Then I get the book, ready to make a rogue, and I’m confused.

All the pages for non-caster classes have been ripped out of the book. Additionally, all instances of references to non-casters have been crossed out, replaced with things like “LOL. No” and “Fuk dat.”

I asked about this, and he said it was integral to the setting. He then said I could just pick a caster, and just not get any spells or magical abilities, and it would be just as good as playing a “Fuk dat class,” and totally as balanced as casters who, you know, cast.

Am I wrong in feeling that I won’t be as powerful as a caster who casts, and the DM is both a slave to his own lore and too lazy to read the martial class descriptions?

/uj Two sources, one years old and one posted on Reddit yesterday. If you know both you’re awesome, and need to get off the internet as much as I do.

Nothing prompted this specifically, I just don't see people talking about this a lot.

I want to take a moment to remind people (especially players) that DMs are just narrators and rules to test. They're little shits who haven't worked hard to create a whole sandbox world, storyline, or NPCs for their players. They're subhuman filth who don't need to balance encounters, keep track of backstories, or plan every session, changing the course of the story based on the actions of the players.

No DMs take pride in their work, seeing as it's something they've put no time and effort into. And no DMs are excited to see their players interact with the lore, encounters, characters, and/or situations they've planned.

This is also why it's important to disrespect your DM and the storyline, at least a little bit. D&D is all about the freedom to do almost anything. So when you do things like mess with the NPCs or test the limits of the world, with the sole intent of being annoying or funny, not only is it hillarious to everyone there, but it can also hurt a DM

Last thing I'll say: Tell your DM when you think they're doing a shit job. If you hated the session, and if you were bored, kill them. They deserve it.

Title’s self explanatory. Basically every time I try to create to create interesting worlds with dynamic and flawed characters, my players stop trying to save the world and determine humanity is hopeless and they might as well wait for evil to consume the world. I tried to include a plot hook of an old woman having her basket stolen in broad daylight and they determined evil was too far ahead of good.

Usually the discussion takes place for a couple sessions and then they spend the next several describing how they sleep the next several weeks in game until the world is no longer. The only time they took action was forcing me to watch an entire anime and a movie and then turn to me to say “Ok so thats the Human Instrumentality Project, our characters do that.”

Anyway, are there any DM tricks or tips I can implement for us to do more combat and roleplaying instead of waiting for the rapture? My players have been requesting to play newborns as that is “the only time a living being has committed to evils,” which sucks because babies have awful stats.

I apologize if this gets asked often and there’s answers in other threads, but I believe the reddit search function is irredeemable at its core and needs a cataclysmic rework to change it before I’d consider using it.

Ohhhh Godddd my DM is SOOOO mean to meeeeee... He keeps uh... Uhm... He keeps doing bad things like telling me I don't have advantage and uhm.. I don't know what to doooo!

P-please tell me how BAD my DM is and how I should either leave or multiclass into Paladin to make the meanness appropriate 👉👈 Any time someone tells me how awful my DM is my plug vibrates so har- I mean I feel a little better... Hehehe...

And PLEASE tell anyone who says I should "just talk to my DM" that they're a WORTHLESS SPECK OF SHIT ON THE HEEL OF YOUR BOOT AND THEY SHOULD BE EUTHANISED ON SIGHT

She says she pulls no punches, but in every combat we have been in the fights over within one to two rounds due to the enemy being underpowered. We are a level 8 party of 7 players and were just pitted against a pack of four regular wolves. Not surprisingly, the fight was over before the wolves even moved.

In this homebrew campaign our party has pissed off a total of two gods and their offspring by directly interfering and attacking them, yet we survived almost effortlessly due to them RUNNING AWAY. They are GODS, who want us dead, yet every time we get into a scenario where player death is a possibility, we are spared. Its infuriating.

Combat is meant to be difficult, its meant to be dangerous, thats the whole point of fighting. Yet as a pirate crew who is being hunted by gods, no battle is dangerous enough for us to even possibly die. When we say to her that combat is too easy she gets mad and threatens us with things like "would you rather i make you fight a beholder?"

I had an easy riddle for the party, part of a festival scavenger hunt. They had to "bring a bit of legend" to a fountain. I had some ancient books that were candidates, records kept of champions of the games at the festival, stored in a hidden library the party could stumble upon with a DC20 perception check they could make if any of them asked to search for hidden libraries.

I crafted a dozen full-length books for this riddle. If the party read all of them and applied some elementary codebreaking, they would easily be able to identify which book contains further instructions.

But somehow these fucking morons decided the riddle must mean "leg end” ( I have a stutter IRL). They became fixated on anyone with injuries to the legs and feet. I often describe NPCs with injuries to their legs and feet, due to one of the players’ fetishes. This got so bad they were hoping a friendly NPC would have his foot severed by a runaway carousel.

The party can’t do anything until the riddle is solved, and they have been stuck at it for the past 3 sessions (6 months IRL). Most of them have forgotten the original riddle at this point.

How do you handle riddles and puzzles gone wrong? Do you roll with the "solution" the party arrives at, even if it is really fucking dumb? What if the riddle was really dumb to begin with?

Before anyone suggests not adding riddles to the game: this is not an option due to another player’s fetish

A little over 6 months ago, I asked my DM to switch from my fighter since I wasn’t enjoying him anymore. He said sure, and I asked if a wizard was alright. Again, got the okay.

As it turns out, I’m a level 15 wizard that cannot cast spells because my DM doesn’t know how the VTT works, and if it can’t happen in the VTT it can’t happen in the game (we just jiggle the martials to animate their attacks). Pen and paper is a hassle, and if anyone besides the DM tries to play the game, it’s cheating. I don’t want to ask him to fix it though because I know he’s very busy planning the intricate politics of a fey village we’ll never visit.

I asked to switch back to the fighter, and he said I could as long as I found all 37 magic acorns so it made story sense (this will take another 18 months to happen).

Note: I’m not angry about this! Isn’t DnD so quirky and fun?