Using a freshly-made alt account for this post because I can already feel r/dndcirclejerk having fun with it

So for context, I'm a god-tier DM that works at a celestial council hall. Most of my players are first-timers, which means that I've been their first DM, their introduction to D&D and the only DM they can compare to other DMs.

Side-note: I really don't mind it, I'm the coolest DM ever.

At the start of tonight's game, one of my players (M, somewhere in his 20's, super manly) told me that he joined another campaign recently with friends of his. I was really happy for him, until he told me that he hated his other DM's way of DMing. When I asked how it went, he kept pointing out everything this other DM did differently than me (stuff like calling for checks less often, narration being more railroady and player agency that felt like he was "kept on a leash", to quote him). M doesn't cry, but he shook my hand with tears in his eyes.

I totally get what he was trying to say: he tried someone else's DMing, and he vastly prefers mine. And I accept that compliment, really. But I can't help but to think that maybe I've accidentally set an unreal expectation for him: as I said, I'm litterally the best DM ever, of course I'll go the extra mile on all front for it to be god-tier. That other DM was (likely) a mere mortal, so expecting the same quality from this DM is unfair.

Now, maybe this DM was actually bad, I'll never know. But judging from what my player told me, they seemed... fine? I guess? No DM is running the same way, and this one was definitelly doing it differently than me. It really feels like I've brewed my own macro-version of the "Mercer effect", and I don't want it to ruin future games for him...how should I approach this situation? Like, obviously I'll talk to him about it, but I'm just unsure on how I'll explain it so it doesn't sound like humblebragging. Or maybe I'm overthinking it and should just accept that I've ruined M for any inferior DMs, which is all of them.

This is a completely original thought I came up with myself.

I may sound crazy, but if you read the rules, you make a mistake. "But there is a player rulebook made for it!" yes, yes, I know but you know how it is: it's more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules.

There three big reasons why:

1 - DMs cannot improvise rules if you know them

You fall into a pit. There's like 20 feet between you and the ground. The DMs tells you "acrobatics roll". Then you roll 2 and land on your feet with 0 damage. You're happy and then...

Nerd opens his mouth, with a weird expression on his face, and starts saying "Hum, akschually DM, he should take 2d6 damage because a fall inflicts 1d6 per 10 feet."

"Oh, wait I will look the rules"

3 minutes later

"You're right, you take 2d6, let me roll... 12. You're at 0 HP now."

How fun it is! Instead of going with the flow, Nerd interrupted the game, made everyone lost 3 minutes of precious time, almost killed your character and now the DM looks like an idiot not knowing his own game. You know how you may avoid it? By having no one at the table knowing the rules!

2 - Ignorance can be excused, manipulation and lies cannot

You divine smite the enemy. You throw 3d12 at level 2. You deal 31 point of damage. Then there's two scenario :

- No one notices. You're the chad, the mvp, the golden boy at this moment

- Either DM of Nerd (always this fucking guy) ask you "Uuh, I don't think it's d12 and certainly not that much". If you read the rules, you must now act with a pikachu face, which people will remark quickly, and risk getting kicked from the table. If you didn't read the rules, you can just answer "Don't know, I can't really remember there was rules for that, but surely it's fine? It does advantage us, and I wouldn't want to lose time".

This asshole of Nerd will try to argue with you. Here's the trump card: people abandons debates even when they are right if you insist long enough. Start saying that "but it's dnd, it is supposed to be a game about the feeling and the flow, not the rules", "the rules are unclear and too complicated it's not my fault", "I have a busy life me and a family (note: it's not important if it's false) contrary to you folks", "I have both a cancer and a bad case of diarrhea, be cool guys".

The point is, whine enough. They will let go. Or the DM will feel empathy for you and maybe tell you "no it's 2d8 but listen I can give you something". The big idea is being annoying enough to get something from this moment, and playing around your ignorance.

Note that if you play only with Nerd's folks, that will not work and they will kick you from the table. But no DnD is better than bad DnD and no one wants to play with ugly, moronic munchkin powergamers.

3 - No one understand the rules anyway so who cares

I mean, that's right.

How many people don't take into account spell components and don't even understand how they work?
How many people know how to add their bonuses to roll to hit then damages without exterior help?
How many people are able to understand that basic attacks are not their only option when they want to climb a wall?
How many people remember that there is in fact multiple actions besides attack and that casting a spell is a different action?
How many people are able to make basic maths to calculate their total HP without a mistake?

As much as I have fingers on one hand. So, if people are so incompetent at understanding the rules, why would you even engage with reading them?

Truely, you will get nothing from them. They are badly made, hidden, impossible to find, and elusive. There's no point of losing your time.

And yes, Nerd only pretends to know them. He selects only some, learn them by heart, and break your balls with it all day after. Fuck Nerd.

TL;DR fuck Nerd.

we use 5.5e homebrew whatever dm been playing since the 90s so he thinks maps are for ppl who cant imagine a 40ft corridor with pure willpower

BUT THIS AINT D&D

no map no minis no tokens no vtt no nothing

we just sit and talk then combat starts and “i move over there” is the whole movement system. positioning is a social construct. cover is a rumor. flanking is a myth. everyones mental map is different and nobody cares

rule of cool exists cuz skill checks are illegal. do a little voice and the universe just lets you succeed. this aint a game its collective delusion

i offered to buy the mat 3d print minis host on roll20. always the same shit: “too much work for the dm” “new players will get confused” “theater of the mind is more immersive bro”

tried leaving once. family groupchat treated it like i joined a cult. came back. now i just sit there watching air d&d every week slowly dying inside

is this just the hobby now? pure vibes where the only grid is in your head and half the time its wrong? am i the asshole for wanting the actual rules in the book??

anyway yall allow full erotic roleplay with dice-resolved climax checks or is that also “too complicated” and better left to theater of the mind 😉

EDIT: WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ALL DISGREES WITH ME. IM ABOUT TO DELETE THIS WHOLE THREAD. YOU SOUND LIKE MY PLAYERS.

Hello everyone we all know that Halloween horror oneshots season is upon us and we need to make horror games and we all know that DnD is a perfect system for horror games because there are Curse of Sthrad made for it. So there are some advice:

1. Make the prices in the shops kinda high
2. Don't tell the characters anything via npcs (not that they would listen and remember anything anyway)
3. Tell the players please please please not clown on any obstacle they see
4. Put on scary music and make scary voice
5. Use a CR15 monster against level 3 party we all know there are nothing scarier then TPK at second round
6. Tell the players again please please please stop playing as if they are cool and strong heroes in heroic fantasy system and can clown on any reasonable obstacle
7. Plot twist: the church is EVIL. No one expect this!
8. If you find yourself stuck, use False Hydra

Hi everyone, thanks for reading my post. I'm a dungeon master and I have a tough problem to deal with. My friends only want to play D&D, particularly 3rd, 4th, or 5th edition, but I'm getting well and truly bored with those systems. I'd really like to broaden their horizons though and try something different and better. Something with more balance, more challenge, freer roleplay, smoother procedures and more distinctive flavor.

Has anyone had any experience dealing with this kind of issue? I want to persuade them, but I can't be too heavy-handed about it or it will just backfire. The best approach with manipulating this group is usually to ply them with pretzels and beer and then trick them with reverse psychology into thinking my plan is their own idea, but that works better when they don't already have definite ideas and strong feelings. They are extraordinarily attached to D&D.

I need to make it clear that these are my friends, not a random game group. I don't want to abandon my friends and play with another group, so please don't comment if you're going to recommend that. That's your solution to everything, to move to another gaming group. It's not going to happen.

I desperately need some variety, a change of pace. I want to play a better game. If I can get my friends to give it a chance, I'm sure they'd all enjoy playing AD&D. It's Advanced, after all. But it's going to be an uphill battle getting them to play anything that isn't called D&D. Please, pray for me. Thanks again for reading.

Hello, I am super confused. My 10 minutes innernet research has not granted me a wisdom of how to become a D&D. I really, really, really need your help now. How do you vibe play D&D?

Sauce: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD_Beginners/comments/1xdf1uh/how_do_you_play_dnd/

Not only can they deal damage but it scales too! They aren just stealing dealing damage from the martial fantasy, they have taken the martial concept of dealing more damage as you level up for themselves.

I don’t even post on this sub for shi but this cracked me up so badly that I fell over my chair

Real specific pet peeve here. I'm a dungeon master for Dungeons and Dragons (the premier role playing game and don't come at me with any "Pathfinder fixes this" nonsense) and it irks me when a player wastes time to tell me their modifier when I tell them I don't need it.

Me: Roll to attack.

Player: I rolled a 15!

Me: That hits! Roll damage.

Player: Plusssss.....where's my modifier?

Me: Doesn’t matter. A natural 15 hits.

Player: Uh...plus 4. 15 plus 4 is...

Me: ROLL DAMAGE. I don't need the modifier.

Player: Nineteeeeeeen, right? Yes, nineteen to hit!

Me: Wow, congratulations, you hit with a 19.

Player: Wait, no, it's 20?

Me: No, 19 was correct, you hit with a 15. Roll the damage.

Player: hang on, *starts counting on fingers* 1...2...3...5...wait... 4... 3... 5... 6...

Me: The natty 15 hit you just need to roll damage now.

Player: ...18! Does an 18 hit?

Me: yes, an 18 hits. A 15 would have also hit. How much damage do you do?

Player: and my damage roll is 9.

Me: ... what's the modifier?

Player: no, that's with the modifier. d8+2.

Me: Oh, I guess based on the whole routine with the hit roll before I wasn't really, you know, expecting you to just get it in one.

Player: Well, I noticed you seemed frustrated so I just did it in my head to try to smooth things out.

Me: Huh, okay. Thanks? Hey can you throw your dice at John it's his turn and I think he's fallen asleep again.

Like please, I'm trying to keep the session timely and tensions high if it's combat. If I say your attack hits or your ability check passes, don't waste time adding a modifier unless you know it's a negative.

(The only real exception for this is if it's a brand new player who's trying to get in the habit of adding/checking modifiers).

So, I decided to change the genders of my players' characters. I’ve already updated the tokens in the VTT, as well as their names. I also adjusted the skin tones for some of them, and made others trans. Furthermore, each character now has a different sexual orientation.

I hope my players understand; being inclusive is very important.

New players joined the campaign, so I need a bigger table to accommodate all the players.

So we start a game at level three. My brother owes me, so i get two very rare items. To make the game even less enjoyable for others, im asking for stupid and annoying builds in reddit.

hiya, first off im a pretty new DM

im runnin a horror campaign which is designed to have the party look for answers but sometimes be left with nothin or deal with somethin worse, for context, the world is fraught with mystery where the answers to which could be missin or long dead and lies hide around every corner (and theres so much homebrew to make any self-respectin DM cry)

im playin with a group of mixed relationships (my partner, my partners bf, and a mix of friends ive known for less time) but the vibes at the table are always amazin and everyones always up for a good time ans a gorey (?) explanation, but recently ive said yes to a few things that i fear are gonna make my life slightly difficult

my partner is playin a paladin (ive forgotten the subclass) where they have asked specifically for a large white bull as a steed and i said of course, but now theyre askin for "find steed" to be a cantrip and buddy the bull bein able to make its own attacks while in combat and be able to be around constantly in any situation, after about 15 mins of back and forth i managed to talk them down to 4 summons per long rest, buddy can be ridden as a mount during combat but cant make its own attacks and if the rider dismounts or is forcefully dismounted (during combat) buddy discorporates

ive also got a player who i think wants to constantly be the most powerful person at the table, we recently came back after a bit of a hiatus and 2 of my players messaged me askin if they could change their characters cause they didnt feel connected to them anymore, again i said of course

the player was originally playin an artillerist artificer and i had no idea what that was and now theyre playin a gloomstalker (ranger) warforged, i really like their creativity with their characters but their last character pulled a lever action rifle out from nowhere and ive no idea how to balance for that in a campaign where the primary inspo is gritty, dark fantasy, medieval bloodborne

i love both of these characters but im nervous that im not able to grant them all the abilities they want/things they want to change while still keepin the balance of the entire settin

any help is appreciated!

(TLDR: im being held hostage by my players and if i don't let them do anything they want i'll die by tomorrow. please help. please...)

Instead of rolling a d20, the player must name a number from 1 to 20; if it matches the number I was thinking of, they succeed. And if the number I was thinking of is 20 and they guess it correctly, it’s a critical hit.

Here is my random bit of crap I want you to brutally be honest with me if I showed up to your D&D table would you play D&D with me as your DM based on what you can see in this bin

Hey can I get some feedback on my backstory thx

I don't understand why other people use DnD to play starwars, just fucking use the starwars system. Pokemon, use the creature battler system, Harry Potter, use the harry potter system

Am I playing these system, fuck no, they suck, does this affect how I play, nope, I just want everyone else to play the appropriate system.

I don't care if they are having fun, I don't care if they can make it work, the most important thing is for other people to play how I deemed is correct.

Homebrew is cancer.

So I had this idea where you run a one shot, but then next session you run a second one shot within the same setting and with the same party. Has anyone ever tried this, how did your players react? Theoretically you could run a third one shot this way or even a fourth and keep the same narrative going. Five would obviously not be possible unless you are playing Pathfinder which fixes this.

What do you think? Has any DM ever attempted this?

If I tweak my algorerhythm and tell my feeds I don't want to hear about critial role, I will at least get 6 weeks, of not months before any of it is recommended to me. I cannot, no matter how many fucking not interested/block channel/mute accounts, get this pasty white theatre kid off my fucking slop feed.

Edit: forgot to add the jerk: uh casters bad, martials gud