I'm currently one of three druids in my party. Yup, THREE druids. Each of us plays *completely* different than the others, and we're all having a Wild time.

For the deal with using Entangle to stop something from falling through a grate, I find the best way to do it is say "It actually works, but you get the sense that it was a stroke of luck and shouldn't rely on it happening again."

Your last point in particular is spot on. I've had gaming groups like that, where I've felt attacked, uncomfortable or bullied at the table, but have sucked it up because I wanted to play and didn't have anyone else to play with. In hindsight, the emotional harm it caused me was absolutely not worth it, and I wish I'd left that table long before I did. I've since left that group and found a group that I feel much more comfortable with. I trust them and since joining them I've had some of the best times I've ever had at a table. The advice in this video is hugely important. Thanks guys.

On surprise house rules, many years ago my wife and I joined a game some of her co-workers were in. This was back in D&D 3.0/3.5 days, and the DM was deeply enamored with third-party content that exploded with the original OGL. First session, joining a few sessions after the campaign start, we were all around level 3-4. The DM had us encounter a group of third-party-content goblins that were naturally invisible except under moonlight! (Naturally, the encounter happened at mid-day in game.) I was playing a fighter so I stated I would make a perception check to try and determine where one of the goblins was so I could attack with the major disadvantages that come from fighting against an invisible opponent. The DM said a perception check couldn't be used that way, and when presented with the RAW on perception checks he claimed it was a house rule. So I stated I would blindly attack into one of the spaces around me in an attempt to get lucky and hit one. Denied, because I didn't have the blind fighting feat which, according to him, made it impossible to fight an invisible foe. Again, when presented with the RAW about fighting invisible opponents and how the blind fighting feat just reduced the penalties for doing so, he declared it a house rule. The party ended up barricading themselves in a room and waiting for nightfall, dragging the adventure to a complete halt because we felt we had no options to move forward. We didn't return for a second session.

My wife and I played Khenra twins that were both Totem Barbarians. She went wolf for offense, I went bear for defense, and it was one of the overall best campaign experiences I've ever had

"That's not D&D, that's some kind of weird absurdist hell" is definitely one of the more humorously savage Dungeon Dudes quotes

"Re-zero" is a fun phrase. In marksmanship it sometimes refers to making adjustments to your rifle's sights to account for any changes to the way you hold and fire it. A good analogy for the purpose of a "re-zero" session.

I've been on the receiving end of some pretty terrible DMs and groups. I've seen everything you guys talked about... and I'm actually thankful for it. Allow me to explain. There was no internet available to me when I started. KZfaq didn't exist. I had only the people around me and I suffered under their ugly, nasty playstyle and personalities until I said I'd had enough. All those bad habits, all that nasty behavior, all those red flags, they taught me how to NOT be like that. I was forged better in their crucible of "ick". I love to let characters be heroic because I wasn't allowed to be. I love to work with players on story and, really, anything because nobody did for me. I love to let things slide on a spell or power now and then because "that's so cool!" (with the caviat that it's a one time thing). I want my players to have fun, because I did not. So, thank you, all you awful, terrible DMs and groups. You made me the better, proud Forever DM that I am today.

A friend of mine lost a player in their DND campaign (going on a year) they were at 10th level, and asked if I wanted to join. The DM (not my friend) was very helpful- and we both found it was very important that my character fit into the setting. We had a "session zero" where we as a group discussed how things work, house rules and stuff. When the first session started it took no more than the "recap" (maybe 3 minutes) before my character was introduced- now I've been playing with the same group for over a year, and I'm loving it- have a great time with them :D

The main important reason for a Session Zero: YOU ALL AGREED TO MEET UP AT THIS TIME, LET'S SEE IF YOU'RE ACTUALLY CAPABLE OF DOING SO. Sometimes, you might need to pull back the start time by 15 or 30 minutes if it's a little hard for one or two players to make it on time. Having a "will this start time work" game-day is good to have before the game fully starts.

My golden rule for tabletop RPGs: Everyone at the table should strive to make the game as fun as possible for everyone, including the dm. Also communication is key, talking about issues as they come up and having the other people listen and discuss it in a constructive manner can overcome a lot of problems. I played for years in a group where everyone had a diagnosis of some kind, and had different problems that might have put others off, but since we all worked together to accommodate each other, it made it even better. One player got tired very early, so we had to game mid day. I'm terrible with keeping times, especially early, so one of the other players picked me up before the game. Another player was very picky about food, so we ate the same food every Saturday for over a year before we could branch out to three acceptable meals, and so on. These could have been red flags, but because everyone was working together to help each other, it strengthened our bond as a group and as friends.

i currently run one shots at my local youth group for 10-15 year olds, many who have never played before so i usually bring pre generated simplified character sheets of varying classes and let the players pick and name their characters from the options for them, this is great for getting them into the game and i find that running games this way allows me to teach them more about the game by letting me choose when to add more complex aspects, one group i have been running for are now starting a call of cthulu campaign and are even starting to DM for each other.

I remember a story where I felt isolated as a DM since I felt that no one in the table wanted to thang out with me and only do when it's related to the campaign. I just soldier through because it was my responsibility as a DM to run the game for them. But man, I felt really bummed out when I see them having conversations and suddenly stopped when I join in. It took me a while but I left the group. Moral of the story, never play, less run for a table that only wants to use you for there own satisfaction at the game.

I think finding a group is similar to dating. Sometimes you know right away it won't work. Sometimes it takes a few sessions. And sometimes it lasts a lifetime.

I have many times told people to play a certain type of character. If the scenario is a story about some knights escorting a bishop to the Pope, then if the bishop has already been cast, then the character has to be a knight, Within the category 'knight' there is so much room for variation that this should never be a problem.

As someone currently playing a Warlock who very deliberately didn't take Eldritch Blast, I'm glad you said "If you're having fun, you're doing it right" bc I am definitely having fun with my Neutral Evil Warlock who's passing as a regular spellcaster (pact of the Tome) and totally about to betray the party at the last battle (DM: Hey you wanna be an evil cultist in my Zelda Homebrew who befriends the party and then betrays them in the end? Me: uh hell yeah???)

Being told what class to play is the MOST frustrating thing ever. I was DMing a game where one player was trying to make a "balanced party" and I had to really advocate for the other players to play what they want. As a DM I can work with any party, and all I want is for everyone to have a good time and not play something they don't want

Many of these red flags happened on accident in our group of brand new players for the first year or so. If you are anxious, ignorant and without guidance, things can tense up really quickly. I think the reason we still play together is that we had already been close friends before we started playing and agreed to be super transparent and patient with each other. We definitely stumbled along the way and had to have some frank discussions, but we all trust each other to try to learn, be kind and listen. It strengthened our friendship to work through those issues and I am super happy with our group today. 💚

I actually joined a home brew session that has been going on for 3 years as a level 11 twilight cleric… they made me feel super welcomed, integrated my character seamlessly and have really helped me grow and obsession for dnd

As a first time DM I am so glad I spent sooooo much time working with my players on their characters, who they are, where they fit into the setting etc. Great video, great relief I didn't end up unintentionally producing these red flags.

Thank you! I joined a well established table a few years ago with no re-zero. First session I felt attacked by the other players interrogating me and my character choices, belittling my attempts to RP, and telling me I was playing my character wrong. I always felt it was my fault but you've made me think differently

The question of whether it's metagaming to know how trolls work for me is resolved by the question "what does my character know about trolls?", which gives the DM scope to allow for their weaknesses to be common knowledge or basically unknown as appropriate.

love the video guys. great info on all the red flags. I have been playing with a group of people for the past 5-6 years, and we all work really well together. In order to give everyone the best experience, we change up the DM between "modules/adventures" so that everyone gets a chance to sit back and play, and one person isn't the "forever DM". About a year ago I started a campaign as the DM with the group, and it is going to end up being in 4 "acts". We recently concluded the first act which went from levels 1-5. At our session Zero I stated that each act I would be adding a bit of "difficulty". So act 1 was pretty lax in a lot of ways, but I proposed a challenge to each of my players. I asked them to challenge themselves by playing something outside of their norm. One example was that one player loved playing the mage type character, and she is very good at it. I would not have told her that she could not play a mage, I just wanted to see if she would be willing to challenge herself to play something different, and she surprised all of us by creating a monk. The thing is she now thinks of the monk as one of her favorite characters to play. So yeah, never tell someone that they HAVE TO play a specific character class, but challenge them to try something new if they feel up to it. I don't have anything banned in my games. not a single thing. and I encourage my players to be as creative as they want with their decisions and actions in the game, but the one house rule about this aspect of gameplay is that "If you as a player come up with something that doesn't exactly fit in the rules of a certain spell or action and I allow it as the DM, then just be aware that your enemies may use that same exact tactic against you in the future." Character optimization is NEVER a problem in my games. Meta-gaming is an issue though. I don't mean something like "trolls are vulnerable to fire". What I am talking about is if a player has already played through an adventure like CoS, and uses their knowledge of the adventure to essentially circumvent potential encounters in a new playthrough. THIS is Meta-Gaming in my opinion, and it has absolutely no place at my tables. If I figure out that someone is metagaming in this manner, then yes, I will "punish" them, but not in an overt manner, I will essentially take my session prep in a different direction, and relocate key milestone items/encounters to different locations, and set up traps in the original locations that will cause them issues in the long run. One player once ignored everything in a room that ONLY had a secret compartment under an altar, and went directly to that altar to search for the hidden compartment. There were dozens of other things that would have been more obvious places to search, but instead of searching the wardrobe or the drawers of a side table, he went to a solid stone altar and searched SPECIFICALLY at the base of if (which is where the actual adventure had the only hidden compartment in the room AND it was the only location in the room with anything of any value). THIS is players using their knowledge specifically to benefit their character when there is absolutely NO WAY their character would have acted in such a manner in that situation.

So my story, was actually in highschool, close to 20 years ago. I'd wanted to play DnD, I found a group that played during lunch, and interestingly, it was a group of people I knew and at the time thought I was friends with. When I asked if I could join, I was told I could, though they effectively said "Yeah you play this goat, and it's now a dead goat." That extended out to when I went to various game and hobby shops as well; I could never find a group that was willing to let me join, even ones just starting. Only now that I decided that I might as well just be a Dungeon Master that I've been able to play a bit more often.

The "no information about the setting" thing really came up for me in my first campaign. I'm like Kelly in that I like to have a history to my character that meshes with the world of the setting. I drove my GM nuts asking semi-detailed questions about various parts of the map that had little to nothing to do with where the party was currently (on the side, NOT during a session). I figured out later on, he wasn't avoiding answering to be obtuse rather he was a very improvisational GM and literally hadn't decided on those areas beyond the broad strokes of "X" race is the dominant species in that area.

I heard a guy talking about the group he's with the other day and there were MASSIVE red flags. The DM secretly had different players use different methods for setting ability scores (they figured it out later). That right there would have gotten me to walk, but the DM also awarded experience purely on the amount of damage the characters did. That's even worse.

I'm glad I found this channel! I'm about to start my first campaign tomorrow and this seems like the video for me as well with many other beginner friendly videos you guys have. THANK YOU GUYS! :D

There was a group recently where I was saying that a certain enemy monster doesnt look smart and we can maybe this and that and this other player, who has been super quiet throughout the session, just interrupts and says "yeah, they are smarter than you". I never returned to that group. Its not about being soft or tough but being personal.

Making someone play a class is only ok if they dont know what to play. Friend of mine just got into dnd and has no preference after we went through all classes. I just said "lets just have you play this one to fill a group role, but feel free to change later if you make up your mind". We made his character and backstory yesterday and hes very happy with the result

One that sticks out to me is the new guy to our table with a character named "Simon the Pie Man" and his motivation to adventure was to find the best pie ingredients throughout the land. The GM immediately responded "Are you serious?! That is a stupid name, fix it or I'll kill your character." We thought he was joking at first... he was not. I was genuinely invested in the 30 seconds I knew of Simon... but it didn't matter because we had a series of unfortunate combat rolls which resulted in a party wipe and total reroll. Disclaimer: the rolls werent stacked against us, a party of 7 rolled at least 20 sub 5s which caused the TPK.

In my 20+ years of playing, the DM always had characters in the party. The players would determine what the DM's characters did and it worked out really well. It was nice for the DM too because it allowed him to develop characters and feel like they were also playing the game. But, I can see how that could be abused.

One of the red flags I've experienced is excessive drinking at the table. My players used to drink a little bit during the session, but nothing too bad. Then, one time, a players downed over half a bottle of wine in under an hour. She was disruptive, loud and made decisions that affected the whole party. Example, they were in a mine with zombies and she had her character walk right up to the zombie and try to say hi.

I have encountered more grief from DMs over the 1st level spell Goodberry than I ever expected. Even in a lv17 campaign, being told that casting Goodberry before going to sleep is meta-gaming is like a slap in the face.

I think the best way to resolve spell disputes is to read out the spell description out loud. I've had players who thought they could use a spell in a way they couldn't, instead of engaging in their argument I just ask them "please read out what the spell does from the description". If they ask "can I use it differently" then I might say no, or ask for an arcana check, or ask them to spend more resources. I'm perfectly fine with letting players bend the rules, but we need to first be clear on what the rules are so we can proceed on how they can be bent and what the _cost_ of that bending is.

You guys provide a lot of helpful information. I both play and DM. Many of the tips you give are helpful on both sides of the table. I enjoy viewing you player based videos because they often help me DM and visa versa.

My players pick absolutely anything that they want. I'm happy to offer suggestions or cautions, but they build the party that they want, and then I build the campaign around them. I ask them to leave a little room in their backstory so I can help integrate them, but for me, D&D is about the players having fun, and I think that happens best when they're a real part of the world.

One of my house rules is around how long we wait for a no-show, no-call before just starting without them

I feel like it's important to point out that sometimes restrictions within a group are important and even fun at times, I once had a group I played with in which magic was outlawed but it was still subtly used by many people on the sly which added a bit of tension but also a rush to the game play as well. It made me as a druid player carefully think about my choices of spells in a public setting

I love that you always include time stamps by description. Very helpful and useful and professional

My first D&D group was a lot of these things. My friend (Blake), when he joined the group, was told what class to play. Luckily, he liked the class of Bard. I wanted to play and was denied multiple times by the same group. I finally got in, and most of the group pressured me toward Homebrew, so my first character was built entirely from Scratch. In the first session, I didn't get to play; I had to sit and watch. Finally, I played the next week, and one of the players, whom I shall refer to as “Tony,” told me that his character was just mine but better and more optimized. I clapped back and was immediately shut down with a “Is he wrong.” After the initial hurdles, Tony was very close with our DM and would often not participate or play, sometimes even lay on the ground, and often argue with me about my character's decisions. Now, we also had another player in our group. We shall refer to him as Bob. Bob never brought snacks or anything and would often raid my fridge whenever I hosted and ask for snacks. Bob was playing our cleric for the party, and not only did he not roleplay, bring any food, or heal us until we begged him for healing. Now, Tony would often clap back against me and my friend Blake whenever we made creative decisions but would sway our DM to support his creative choices. Now we finally get to the last battle, and I have my character's death all written out with our DM, and I'm going to have my character sacrifice himself. I was so into the storytelling that I orchestrated my musical piece for the sacrificial moment, and after all of that, nobody paid any attention. When Tony realized my character had died, he gave me an L and called me a loser. After all the planning, perseverance, Hard work, and gut-wrenching garbage I put up with in that group, I still had fun because I could put the trash behind me, ignore the other players, and try my hand at D&D. I highly suggest listening to this red flag list because I've been through it, man, never again. I am now a new DM doing a homebrew campaign, and I'm having a blast, but my players aren't showing up. Maybe I should take some of the advice from here as well.

Some time ago I tried to enter in an existing online campaign. Prior to join, I listened to an hour or two of a couple of sessions - I didn't have the best feelings but I was starving for D&D so I went along, joining as soon as there was chance to do it. After a couple of sessions I confirmed my fears - the group had a one man show person that was eating hours of sessions just to role everything was happening to him to the point that we were practically being silent just to be able to go ahead in the campaign. Not only that, he was doing metagaming A LOT, showing off how many things he knew on monsters and so on, correcting the master in game when he was saying something not by the rules/monster book. After my second or third session, he requested a "follow up meeting", in which he complained that I was not playing my Dwarven Cleric "right", somehow backed up by the DM and one of the other players. Right after that meeting, we had my final session with that group: he wasted almost 2 hours out of 4 chatting by himself with PNG just to "clarify" to me how it was the correct way of playing in that group, describing himself what he was doing and why and so on. When the session was finished a different player wrote an huge rant in the game chat on avoiding to waste time in the sessions since "we" were going too slow. I kind of gave up, I wrote down my point of view and I told them that I was going to leave the campaign. I must say, it was probably one if not my worst experience in D&D.

The way to approach "telling players what class to play" is to directly inform them of the already existing characters. It happened to me twice in one year where a character came to the table with the same race, class, and subclass as another one of my players. And there was some disappointment that came out of it because it's fun as a player to feel like you have a niche and are needed. If both players playing the same subclass are fine with it, great! But make sure they're both aware before you have a spiderman meme at your table. Plus if they know, they might even come up with joint backstory!

I've had success with mixing my session 0 with the 1st session. Where I can talk about the beginning adventure and see where players would like the game to go after that first adventure. It also makes a nice fluid transition into playing. Even if it is a shorter play time.

I've seen a lot of those flags. I'm in a large group that's been around since the 1980s, and I can promise you every single one of those has appeared at some time or another, though rarely enough to be a major problem. Except that last one. As you stated, that's a major problem in and of itself. I was the victim of it for quite some time. Because I have issues dealing with people socially, and the group was my one reliable social outlet, I shrugged it off for a long time until I finally just hit my wall and left. Years later, after spelling it out to some in individual conversations after I left, and being specifically invited back, I returned. The group has much the same people, but one or two are gone, the negative attitude has disappeared in those who remained, and it's maintained itself that way since before the pandemic so I'm reasonably certain things are positive now. Just the same, I understand fully that last red flag, and the consequences it brings. I also confirmed through this experience how people can change for the better, and their groups with them.

The party Ranger was the healer for the first 6 levels of the campaign I'm running. Not with spells, just a healer's kit and the healing feat!

My favorite line of the whole video " It doesn't suck if you have fun playing it". I play an inquisitive rogue with 17 wisdom and 12 dex, that is a police inspector for Baldur's gate watch. And the party barbarian goes on stealth missions and scouting, with his 16 dex and stealth proficiency, We have a really awesome time playing our characters. The whole resume of the game is to have fun. It is really unfortunate that not everyone gets that.

A really opening eye and humbling video you've made. Some red flags I want to avoid an also I realized that I myself may be in a degree do some of that bad behavior too, so thank you for doing this video and making me analyze myself in the process, I want to be a better player in my table

I have seen a few videos like this and this one is the best. You are really good at explaining the points you are making and instead of anxiousness you build confidence :) Thank you!

I don't personally as a DM have any issue with two or more players playing the same class. But it is important that each of the involved players are ok with it. I don't want a player to feel diminished by another player potentially overshadowing them in there class. I'm not going to assume this means s the case. But there will be a conversation to make sure it's cool across the board.

I held a Session 0 with the group I’ve been playing with for several years for a campaign I started running, even though everybody (myself included) was unsure if we really needed one - and I’m SO GLAD we did; we’ve had some of the most fun RP and the most fantastic and cohesive party dynamic out of any campaign we’ve done thus far, and it’s made for tremendously easier and more directed session planning between meetups. Session Zero is always the way to go!

very well presented i DM every week for two groups staggering thursdays and fridays i have used your channel to become a better DM wanted to say thank you red flags are a difficult subject we geeks can be sensetive.

Thanks alot for that great summary of red flags I agree with the main punchline. I think this is very helpful, especially for newbies. My main remark here: Put a little more grey in there than you did. We had some of those red flags to some extent and made them work quite ok. Often it is a question if those are handled in more or less appropriate ways. Finding the right balance to make it work. I just experienced a few groups, mainly one group for 10 years, now closing down, as family, job & parent time takes over. We became great friends and it has been a fantastic experience with German DSA. Very open DMing and very friendly atmosphere, all of us had a lot a fun. Actually we had a few of your red flags to a limited extent: - Cancelling on short notice. Always just the one same person, one of the downsides. We always counted him optional at some point. - DM-PC: That one worked great on our side. Our DM could have some fun as well and the Dwarven fighter just lightened up the atmosphere or was giving a little hint when we were stuck. DM-PCs can work, if handled appropriately. - Fire Damage to Trolls aka Player Knowledge. Some common knowledge is fine, if you get on the edge, make an Insight Check or similar. Worked fine for us. Would not weigh this red flag to heavily. - Which class to play when you join a group. You should not be forced, but you should also check which flavor can suit you and the group as well. Have your session zero and discuss where the group is lacking and where there is abundance. Do not force the new one, neither force the group. Maybe you can make up for healing spells with potions. Maybe the group is painfully missing their full mage on too many occasions already. Find a good balance that all can enjoy. - Power Gaming: We had a few smaller situations with this one in our group but not spoiling too much. For me it would be a red flag if I sense a too strong tendency for power gaming with 1-2 players. Here I had 2 or 3 bad experiences in other groups. Some may just be good roleplaying with your character. But some claim to do just good roleplaying, which they are not really doing. But actually it can just be the excuse for power gaming. Neither should you be punished for applying rules properly. But when something allowed by the rules became too powerful our DM would just put some fair balancing mechanism to it, to avoid exploiting rules. Guess here again the right balance matters.

For my experience in the past, our "session zero"s usually happen naturally, casually over the course of the week/time period leading up to the first scheduled session. So that by the time the first session comes up everything is already laid out in expectations. We're prepared to jump right in right from the get go ish

I once DM'ed a one-shot adventure in which the players agreed to all play clerics from different domains. The team was called "The A-men". Next up is a traveling troupe consisting only of different subclasses of Bards. The "figher" will be the Valor bard, the "rogue" will be the Whispers bard, the "wizard" will be the Lore bard, and so on.

That Dino hoodie is the most aggressively 90's thing I've ever seen and I want one, haha

One of my favorite games that I played was a very dark very dangerous game and the four players had each made a character and laid it out we had a rogue a paladin a ranger and a monk. Needless to say there's a lack of healing, so we immediately cultivated a contact that could create potions of healing and made him a very rich man. We also developed tactics that absolutely enhance the initial burst DPS of the team so that we could end fights before they started. Overall it was one of our favorite games because of how fast it moved.

I'm really glad that my first and only DM is a badass. He loves the creativity we come up with as a group. We finished up our last story battling through the nine circles of hell and about to start a new adventure in the 40K universe as Orks. Yes, the entire playgroup. I'm so excited.

You're helping me realize the specifics of what has gone wrong in the past. Hopefully this can help me to avoid or improve those situations in the future. 🤞

Thanks for this video. I'm relieved that my game doesn't seem to have any of these, and my players don't either. That said... I think that I've been letting myself get a little meanspirited in a game that I play. It's roleplay, but I've probably carried it too far and carried it into above-table convo. I'm going to apologize to the group in our next session. Thanks for calling me out on it, albeit indirectly. Dungeon Dudes, you're a class act. Thanks as always.

One thing that we always do to address metagaming is by simply asking if our characters would know the information the players know. For instance, when we fought a banshee and everyone but me went down from the wail, once I got everyone back up I asked if my character would know if that danger was no longer present, and by passing a history check, we knew we didn't have to fear that happening again if we went back to fight it right away.

the lousy thing is that the worse the group is, the more they burn through players and therefore the more people get subjected to bad behavior. Kinda like dating in a way.

In my current campaign, not only am I one of two draconic sorcerers, but we both picked blue dragons. The other character is a blue dragonborn, while I just wanted to play with lightning more than I've ever been able to before. It worked out pretty well, especially when we were able to position ourselves to fire Lightning Bolt down the same line. He wound up multiclassing into tempest cleric, and we still make a good team.

I’ve been looking for a group for months, now. In my old group, there was a DM (of course) and five of us players. Four of them were a few years older, and had known, or been playing together for years before my friend and I joined. We knew most of them in real life, and my friend is even the brother to one of the players. It was both of our very first campaign. I wish I had this knowledge going into it, because no matter what we did, we were overly questioned, called stupid, or shut down by every other player/DM in the group. I remember every single time that they would pick out something that I wanted my rogue to do, and say things like “that’s stupid, your character wouldn’t want to steal, because we are the good guys.” Even though what I was stealing was from the “bad guys”. There was another time, where I was told that my character “wouldn’t get angry here” because I’ve played him in such a calm manner. Before that, I had a ranger (that died, RIP) that arrived in a city that was being burned down by this cult, and saw a cultist all alone. So I shot the cultist, with the intent of pinning him to the wall, and interrogate him on the whereabouts of their leader. As soon as I did that, the other players laughed at me, and killed the guy before I could even start the role play saying “we can see the entire map, so we know where to go.” without any reason to know that, outside of meta gaming. It was frustrating. Once I started to realize just how often it was happening, and how it was effecting my wanting to play, I finally quit. I couldn’t stand the fact that I wasn’t allowed to play my own character the way that I wanted to play my character, within the set parameters or our rulings. If you read my comment, thank you. It turns out that I was holding a lot of this in, because when I left, I didn’t even explain why I was leaving to the group. I just said my work schedule had changed. It caused a lot of inner turmoil for about two years of my life, because even when I was just trying to unwind in what I thought was a safe space, I was receiving abuse from people that I kept surrounding myself with.

I appreciate this video a lot. I'm a slightly seasoned dm and it's helped me realize some of the things I'm doing and how to prevent these situations from coming up. So thank you

A few red flags for me is side talking by the other players when the DM is talking about the setting, as well as blocking view of dice rolls. Same goes for interrupting the players when it isn't their turn. This is happened as a DM and as a player. Thankfully the player blocking dice rolls and interrupted left the group before I brought it up. I am on the verge on leaving the group with the sidetalking. I plan on mentioning it to our DM about this and will leave if it continues.

95% of the game is are you having fun and get along with everyone. Like any other hobby it's the people you are with. My group had a 4 session quest to retrieve baked goods. They loved it. Just have fun.

16:16 this happened to me on the first round of the first combat with my first character in my first campaign. Rolled a 1, then a 20, and the DM said I broke my heirloom dwarven battleaxe while chopping my shield arm off with it. I was planning to take dwarven defender as a prestige class...

As a dm I definitely have done some of these things and not noticed, so it's nice to be able to figure out what went wrong on one of my short lived campaigns. Since it was a homebrew there was a lot of worldbuilding but as such there were also rules that were put in place socially. At the time I wanted to make sure my players followed these rules bc it made sense in game but now I realize maybe I should have worked with them a bit more to compromise on what rules could be broken and which ones couldn't be.

Yeah, a DM should introduce a new character pretty quickly. Group I’m with now lost a member so it was easy for my character to “meet” the remaining characters as they were hiding the bodies of a bad guy and opted to join in, so it all worked. Dropped in the first ten minutes of the game, everyone at the same level, etc. So far, so good!

You nailed it when you mentioned trust. The group I'm in right now has been playing for over a year, and we've developed enough trust that we're comfortable with romances between PCs, with mild PVP (it's still a game for a team, but there are sometimes conflicts) without being upset with anyone out of character, with character's lying and scheming. We do a lot of things together that i would not be comfortable doing with a group I hadn't built this trust with. It's really great. Trust is key.

About what is discussed starting at 14:15, I feel like D&D5 is missing a set of precise rules to determine what the characters know about the creatures they meet according to their skills in Arcana, Religion, Nature and History, about their weaknesses, behavior and powers. The bloodhunter has a bonus for this kind of knowledge, but it doesn't say which exact information he/she can gather about monsters. Does anyone know if this kind of rules have been proposed somewhere ?

My stance on "banned options" is that as a DM becomes more experienced this list should get shorter and not longer. The whole reason I had a list like this when i started DMing was that I found DMing intimidating and a little overwhelming. Saying "I'm only working from these books" or "please, please don't hit me with a [insert complicated class build or uncommon race here]" helped me keep my footing and not get thrown for too many loops when a character threw out a spell I didn't understand or created a build that broke an encounter or session. When that happens as a new DM, it's just so much harder to deal with. But as I've gained experience, gained knowledge, gotten more comfortable, etc. I've started introducing some of those "banned" (I don't like calling it that) items to my table, because I feel ready for the challenge DMing them presents. In the same way player characters options and abilities expand as they level up, so does the table and the DM haha. Obviously I'm describing a more collaborative scenario than the one you are describing, but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents.

I'm a DM and I personally recommend my brand new players to not play some of the more complex spell casters because of how hard they are. But I don't ban it out right to them because if they really want to play said class, they can. I offer some of the easier full casters and some of the half casters. Sometimes they are like, "yeah cool I'll do that class you suggested" or they are "na, I want to try this class that is harder to learn" and I am cool with it. If they later on want to change their character or class, I'm willing to work with them on it.

An important thing that I had to learn the hard way is that there's such a thing as "too many people". I'm not just referring to someone who might be more introverted, or scheduling, though those are problems with larger groups. But, it becomes a lot for the GM to keep track of to the point that balancing kinda goes out the window. Especially with action economy. But, an unfortunate side effect of a large party is that, in an effort to make sure everyone gets a chance in the spotlight, there's large portions of time where no one is in the spotlight. 4-6 people & a GM is a solid amount. If you're comfortable as a GM, you can push it to 8, but don't go over that.

Regarding "Told what to play" : When i was stationed in South Korea, we had a gaming convention we put together where one of the games was a blind one-shot. There was a table with prepared character sheets face-down, and wherever we sat was the character we played. Balance-wise, the party was just fine. I understand the examples you give are MUCH different, but in the case of our blind one-shot it turned out to be really fun.

If you are having a session RE-Zero, would be fine to have the DM, the new player, and optionally any existing players come? (i.e. that it is not mandatory for existing players if they wanted to skip it.)

I'm a DM for other DMs and when I run a module for them, I customize the monsters and slightly modify the encounters to keep them on their toes, cuz generally they might have already run them for their own groups. There are great 3rd party sources out there for new monsters, etc. to maintain the fun-factor for them.

My last session zero was a discord call where i helped people build their character. I asked what they wanted, and told them what would work in our campaign. Also asked what they wanted from the game. We also had a first timer who wanted to play wizard, and i normally dont tell people what to play, but i did tell him: hey wizards are very versatile and supportive, and if you are looking to just blast spells with big damage, sorcerer might be better and it is easier to play"

Question: I'm currently making my own campaign setting with a bunch of homebrew, including 4 classes and 2 subclasses. I currently have two players that will be playing my campaign, but by the time I start the campaign I'm thinking I'll have 4 players total. Is it reasonable for me to ask them to play my custom classes for the campaign? Should I have more options? Should I let them play any class?

Good video. Some stuff seemed a little nit-picky, but I think you brought to light a lot of things people feel/think but don't say anything.

A good thing to add with your last point about the abusive behavior is to not let the person get away with "hey, I'm just roleplaying". If a character is playing a jerk, fine, but if they can't turn it off out of character, you can't let them hide behind it.

Hey guys I just want to thank you for the staff of healing suggestion. I'm a rookie DM and the group is made up of all first timers and we ended up with not one healer. So I've been tossing them extra healing potions but having them constantly finding potions just didn't feel natural. We just reach level 2 last session and our wizard was going to take a class in cleric to gain some healing. But now I can offer the staff as an alternative so he can build his character as he wants. On a side note he still ended taking the level in cleric because it tied in really well with his backstory

Awesome video again, love the insights you guys give.

Clarifying question: Is having a group-chat/text document/email sent out in addition to Session Zero (Perhaps one prior to the session zero to get some of what you want on the table ahead of time as the DM, and/or one after the session zero as a "This is what we agreed on as per our Session Zero, an established list of rules/things we want to and don't want to see, etc") okay? Or, could this be considered a red flag? It's not something that I've really ever done since I've ran with pretty well the same group for most of the time I've played d&d, but it's a train of thought that came up while you were explaining and I'm wondering if having, as I said in the example, some kind of "Here's some things for the players to consider before Session Zero if they need time to understand/clarify/form questions" before the Session Zero. TL;DR: Can a pre/post-Session Zero document/group chat be okay if it is done in addition to a proper Session Zero to give players extra time to think about/mull over the DM's thoughts about the game prior to meeting up?

Almost joined a campaign where I wasn't allowed to choose the race, class and subclass of the character. The backstory was also pretty much set. I had to bow out. As a result I did get inspired into making a character which I currently play in a campaign.

I think the only thing we have house ruled at our table is that creatures don't immediately realize they were charmed when the spell ends. It depends on what you do with it. If you force them to do something they would never do then they would realize it. If you talk to a guard in a pub while drinking and use it to get them to reveal just a little more information than they normally would then they probably won't realize it.

I recently had a GM make me roll to know that a shrine to Abadar was a shrine to Abadar. We were literally a stone's throw from Absalom at the time and he is LITERALLY one of the major gods of that world. It is metagaming to know that an (obvious) shrine to Abadar is what it is, but it's metagaming at a level that makes sense because your character lives in this world and has OBVIOUSLY seen a shrine/church to Abadar unless they legit just showed up in that civilization yesterday or something.

Genuine question. Do you count 'No splatbooks' as part of a long list of banned options? As, some people have said that the only way to play 3.5 without breaking it is to have "NO splatbooks" or something similar.

Whenever I want to introduce a new house rule after session zero, I poll my players either during the next session or over our group chat. Definitely helps if you see or think of something that you still want to include but didn't during that initial session. I also go by the rule of "if you get to do it, so can I." I will do my best to avoid specific interpretations of the rules or applications of spells/abilities until the players do it, at which time I'll make sure they're okay with the notion that I'll use it at a future date.

On the topic of shutting down optimization, I think it's important for dungeon masters to outright define what they consider power gaming or metagaming since different dungeon masters will have their own idea of what metagaming and power gaming is. It's especially the case when you bring optimization into it which some will argue falls under the umbrella of power gaming.

I joined the group that I’m playing with right now at level 17 and it was my first game 😂 I had a hard time finding groups online because of time differences and I just really wanted to try and play. I don’t think I’ve ever made a better decision in my life! I’m now in 2 other online campaigns that have 1 or 2 of the other people from the original in them, and we’re about to finish the original campaign and continue on to another one as a group. It felt really daunting joining an established group like that for my first campaign but I got EXTREMELY lucky, we have an amazing DM, and I get along super well with everyone in the group. That being said, I am really happy that this campaign is almost finished and we get to start a new one, because as much as I get along with everyone and have a really good time each session, I’m not as into the story because I missed so much of it 😅

My partner is currently struggling really hard with one of their long-running campaigns that I think stems from that "trust is vital" thing you were talking about. It's was going on for a long time with a solid party and was something they really loved and had a lot of fun but along the way one of the other players asked if their friend could join in the DM said yes and kind of nothing has been the same since. It turns out the new guy is a very strong personality with very strong opinions about being "in character" which basically combine to create a force within the campaign that is pretty stubbornly into doing anything he wants to do, not particularly interested in what the rest of the party around him wants or what would be best for the story, and has a pretty consistent shield of plausible deniability whenever he does something actively antagonist or detrimental to the rest of the party of "it's just what my character would do." He has started multiple pretty intense conflicts between the party members that have never really been in a fun, exciting, story-driving way, but on the contrary have been genuinely frustrating affairs of "well I want to do this thing but the party wants something else." In addition he is a really experienced player, which my partner and the DM are too, but everyone else in the party is relatively new, and there's been a very noticeable drop in participation from those inexperienced players since he's joined because there just isn't really the breathing room anymore for them to think things over and buck up their confidence to do things the way they used to, it's a lot easier to just sit back for the ride if it doesn't seem like anyone else is particularly interested in your participation anyway. Basically, short story long, may partner is grappling with the fact right now that something they used to really look forward to has become something they actually dread because they have no idea what this guy is going to do next and also know that if they don't actively try and help balance him out, he will just sort of bulldoze over the other players, and it gets a little frustrating sometimes when you spend 90% of the session time either engaged in an fictional antagonist relationship with a fictional coworker, or bracing for the next time that's gonna come up.

As a dm I would never punish a player for picking the optimal option as long as it fits within their character. But seeing people who exclusively play stuff like kalashtar totem barbarians or half elf sorcerers make my eyes glaze over

Wow, very good video. I agree with everything here. I always liked DnD but had no friends that were also interested in it. So like 8 years ago I tried to join some group. They had existing ongoing campaign and one of their players left. They were playing 3.5 and I read whole phb to prepare. They said that it would be good to have a rogue specialized in traps disarming. So I created such a character. They were 10lvl. I joined the game and almost whole session did nothing as other players, especially one of them kept talking and I didn't even know what I could do there as I was new to their campaign. I felt awful and did not want to join their next session. And recently (about 6 months ago) I started actively playing DnD with a lot of ppl and I am really enjoying these games.

One of the best campaings i've ever played, on one of the best HB settings i've seen, had a problem with last minute drop outs. The DM is great, but there was a period of half a year where we played like 20 times and all those times there was at least one missing player. If we hadn't a quorum and just played with everyone present, well, we would be on the first arc of the campaing for years.

To the banlist flag, my dm goes "you can do that, just know that if you do, the enemies will be able to as well" to summoning a cow as far up as I could to cause damage to enemies... ended up not doing that

I have been playing with the same group for years, when I met my wife she got interested in D&D and wanted to learn how to play, it was kind of weird having to step back coach someone how to play after having played for so long but i think we did a good job. No one ever told her what she HAD to play but we explained what wpuld be easier to learn and what would be harder to learn. We basically had a session zero half way through the game, we were already high level, and we just walked her through character creation and the rules and what had happened and we didnt even play that day. She made a barbarian, because you know, easiest class to learn, and she had a great time. I have heard that bringing a new player in at high level is a bad idea but she had a blast with her level 8 totem barbarian with a +2 greatsword. She also rolled really well for her stats. But when we ended the campaign and started a new one, she was a bit deflated at having a level 1 character after her initial power trip lol

I thought I was going to be joining a game yesterday at level 7 but I didn't know anything about the campaign or other characters, so I threw together an easy character with a very brief backstory. A barbarian rock gnome with the outlander background who got fired from being a tour guide because of his anger management issues. I intended on more or less going to the session to just sit in and figure out what the setting was, who the other characters were, and what additional rules the table would have. While most people might not enjoy sitting in with no active roll, I didn't feel prepared at all, and it is still fun to sit in and watch a session I'm not part of to get the vibe of the group before joining in myself. Plus I would have a better idea of where to properly insert my character and could ask the DM info about the world to figure out what city my gnome used to work at. Turns out the DM that was running that campaign had complained enough about having to build a session every week that he basically quit and one of the other players had volunteered to DM starting an entirely new campaign, so things actually worked out quite well. All I had to do with my character was bump him down to level 1. Because I didn't really have a massive backstory for that other campaign, I didn't even have to make any changes to his backstory. The DM however, decided my gnome didn't get fired, he rage quit. We also decided that his quarterstaff is actually a bent park sign from the park that he took when he rage quit.

I’ve been with a group for a bit, and I’m not entirely sure if this is a good group for me, or if I’m not being a good party member myself, so I wanted to ask for some advice from people more knowledgeable and experienced than I am. A difficulty that I’ve often encountered within this group is that I’m not able to play sub-optimal characters. I often find that the other, much more experienced players build characters that are extremely specialized and useful in a specific way. When I’m building my characters, I often find that I present an idea for a character that I want to play, only for it to be altered and optimized beyond recognition by the other players helping me build. For some context, I’ve been trying to learn the game for a long time, but still feel that I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m autistic, which makes learning some aspects of the game really difficult for me. I also feel that the other players tend to take the reigns from me and just play for me, from dictating what kind of character I play to orchestrating my turns for me in combat. While this can be frustrating, I can’t say I blame them because of how long it’s taking me to learn. In a similar vein, they have also prohibited me from playing the classes that I want a lot of the time, determining that they would be too complicated for me to pilot effectively. Again, I really can’t say I blame them, but being dragged along and backseated at every turn isn’t fun at all. There seems to be a kind of disconnect where they assume that I will have more fun if I’m playing a powerful character, where I personally would much rather play a weaker one that I feel is really my own. But whenever I try to express this, they often respond by telling me to figure things out for myself if I don’t like the way they build my characters. I really would like to learn the game and feel as though I were truly the one in playing the game, but again, my disability makes it pretty impossible to just pick up a rule book and teach myself on my own. Even if I managed to teach myself based on experience, this would require me to be the one actually in control while I play, which would inevitably slow things down for everyone else as I fumble through my turn trying to figure out what my options even are. The difficulty for me is that my disability has often been interpreted as stubbornness or laziness, even all throughout school, so I really can’t blame my current group for thinking the same thing. I also tend to wonder if trying a different group would even make any difference, or if I’m just expecting too much in the first place. Sorry this comment is long and rambling, but for anyone who read through it all and have some advice that I may benefit from, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I love this video, and all the videos you guys put out about social dynamics outside of actual gameplay. I was the dungeon master of a group for two years; we had agreed to meet once a month, but (through no fault of their own, we were all in highschool) most of them did not make it for most sessions. We ended up playing only twice a year, if we were lucky. Then, when the players did show up, they were inattentive and generally not engaged. I think this group was looking for something different with their campaign, which I don't hold against, them, but I became very frustrated that my work in this homebrew campaign was essentially being wasted. I also played as a player in another group with a hardcore murder hobo. It's an extremely difficult thing to stand up to someone who is so belligerent and disrespectful, but finally I had to say that he wasn't welcome in my house if he continued to act like this (I was hosting). He tried very hard to make himself the victim, but no one in our group fell for it. Finally he said, "I'm not going to join your next campaign, since you say I'll ruin it." Later he asked if he could join, and it was my delight and pleasure to tell him no. The moral is: do not put up with this. Make clear in your session zero that you have a zero tolerance policy for murder hoboism. If someone acts this way, give them one warning and then kick them out. Do not wait and put up with this any longer than you have to.