Hey everyone, sorry about the reupload. I decided (foolishly) to put off editing this video until late night and that resulted in me making a couple mistakes in editing. I mended them and got this video up as soon as possible. Despite that, I hope you guys enjoy!

I made a character who had a backstory at level 1 involving killing a dragon. The reason it worked: She was making it the fuck up.

For the first story, I have a bigger question - if this was supposed to be a big grand martial tournament, why would the sorceror be allowed to cast spells? That would be an instant DQ during the tournament so his showdown with the barbarian should have been martial only, resulting in a pulpy red smear that used to cast magic.

Opening Story: DM could've easily allowed the sorcerer to compete in the tournament, but in a mages' bracket. Pitting casters with obvious benefits against non-magical warriors doesn't make much sense. Alternatively, once a winner is declared, the loser is healed and restored by some magical artifact with limited usage used only for the tournament. Easy ways to not completely kill OP's character.

oh god MLMs in DnD sounds like a fuckin nightmare! I would nope tf out too and good on the players for doing so. It seemed like the money corrupted that DM. It started as a polite request, but escalated to demands and entitlement.

If I were in that game with DM playing D&D with himself, my character would have stopped forward motion and found a tavern. Or announced that I had found a place to sit to watch this "epic combat", then cheered for the monsters and heckled 'Blitz'. Or packed up my stuff and left.

First story, really ticked me off in different ways. As you already stated which covered most my thoughts. DM should've shut down spotlight hog, and OP could've probably use a large rock and hit spotlight hogger out of the air.

I was in that game in the intro story. Still play with those guys, but I'm currently DMing (was not the DM in that story, I was a bard). That party got into some really wild situations. It was kind of like a fantasy version of Always Sunny (we even owned a bar)

For the friend who just didn't want to be excluded: I've found that letting them play an important NPC is a great way to go. They don't have to commit to showing up or playing the game, and when they are included, they feel important and like the spotlight is on them. This is great for significant others who come with a players occasionally, roommates who don't want to play, but like the roleplay, etc.

Man, that "epic combat" scenario still could have been super epic with just a couple twists. 1. Actually make the "hero" actually overwhelmed. Like he's holding his own for now, but without back up it's only a matter of time before the dice turn against him. 2. Add traps and other monster ambushes to try and slow the party down so they have to make decisions on what to prioritize. Getting to the Hero's side or making sure their party members survive.

The second story guy was talking about a sea elf. That WOULD be really cool for a sea fairing campaign. Breath underwater, sea creature friendship, ability to communicate underwater, proficient with tridents. Hmm, imagine a sea elf eldritch knight with pole arm master. Could be fun…

I want a post-script to the "The DM is the Only One Playing" story. I want to know if there was any fallout or calling the DM on this BS. There's no way this whole fiasco went over well with the party spending the whole event moving or having their movement impeded.

Ideally, if I'm crying during or after D&D, it's because it was a REALLY good, really immersive session.

How to win DnD Have fun That's it just have fun

First story I was thinking why DM wouldn't have had someone in the crowd use dispell magic or hell maybe the tournament saw magic use as cheating and the arena prevented it. DM needed to handle that much better

I personally prefer rolling myself, after all it makes each and everyone unique rather than variations of each other. Standard point array does indeed make everyone equal but I personally think that whether you roll high or low you can still make a good story, and if anything you could make a rule that if you roll a stat total under some number like maybe 70 you reroll those stats.

Third Story: I mean, if that kind of thing was only limited to the first session, I don't think that's necessarily too bad. It could've been a cool leadup to the main plot hook: Not-Drizzt takes out five monsters all by himself, this amazing incredible badass hero, he's so incredible... and then a monster of the same kind he just dispatched attacks, but it's different somehow. It takes him down. It rips off one of his arms. It starts killing him. The party has finally made it there, they attack the creature. It takes all of them to defeat this single beast, with the hero laying on the ground, bleeding out and dying, shocked at the sheer power of the thing that just attacked him. Stakes are set from the start. It's only a problem if it was something happening every session.

So speaking of basing your character off something else. My favorite character I ever made was a circle of the moon Druid who was a Darfellon(killer whale man) who was named Sham Moo and I played him as a retired stage performer/exotic dancer. I know that’s not the same thing as what was described here but he’s a character I deeply loved.

Path of the Giants subclass would crush the spotlight hog sorcerer imho. It specialises in range which barbarians normally lack so.... Yeah throw a boulder at em and bam!

Story 1: The Tiefling barbarian: Solved with one simple thing... a ranged weapon... Fly doesnt negate getting shot and if the Sorcerer was that close to dying it would have only taken a shot or two. Last I checked Barbarians could use bows or javelins.

That second story sounds disturbingly like a guy I had on my table. Literally the same thing with the rolling of stats. He was an obnxious rules lawyer and would very constantly try to hog the spotlight. We had enough of him when he started stating things like they were canon to my homebrew world's lore, despite being directly contradictory to established lore, and started demanding the other characters roll persuasion to see if his own character could be bothered to be interested in keeping one of them from being wrongfully executed.

Oof, those Mary Kay huns are relentless and the products are subpar at best. And charging $30 a week and demanding what were probably expensive snacks? Sounds like she wanted her friends to be her wallet and her pantry.

The title has me running scared

I could not afford $30 a week, it's too much for me. And I certainly would never get involved with an MLM, they're just too dodgy.

Best DM pc i ever had was during a campaign back in 3.5 E. The DM had a dark loner, who would kill any monster with a single blow and kept berating us for being so weak. As we enter an old dungeon we are ambushed by a group of goblins. This guy kills almost all the enemies and then begins to lecture us on how we were so weak a simple thing like a goblin was too much for us. At this point everyone was getting upset about this DM pc. But right after finishing his lecture, he turn and steps on a trap and gets his head chopped off, leaving us all freaking out 8and almost cheering) about his death. Nice session 1

Last Story - GIMME MONEY Ooof. Poor OP had a Hunbot DM. I am surprised there aren’t more horror stories where poor DND players suddenly find themselves in a Avon/Lularoe/Cutco/MLM pander party. I have heard of MlM’ers using kids parties, reunions, bachlorette, birthday parties to hawk their overpriced garbage-so you’d think you hear more stories of some poor player having to buy amway in order tonplay as their half elf rogue or for the barbarian to hit.

Not Carla trying to rob her players and try to get them in a pyramid scheme 💀

Why would you WANT to be friends with this girl? The first chance I got to end the friendship I'd be jumping ship

When doing stats, I either go standard array, 4d6 drop one, or max point buy in Pathfinder (I like my players feeling powerful and it makes it easy for em to decide stats). When it comes to the rolls, if half of your dice or more are below 10, I usually let a free full reroll. No point in cheating rolls when I'm being that generous... though I still had one guy roll without me when I told everyone to roll in front of me. Had suspiciously high stats and threw a fit when I wanted him to roll in front of me.

"I wasnt a dick to you about your campaign, so i deserve special treatment." This is a threat. Whether someone who does this INTENDS it to be one or not, it is a threat. Theyre assuring you that if you dont give them the bonus/special shit they want, theyll start being a dick. Or whatever specific bad thing they use as leverage

It's stories like these that make me appreciate my group of people that I'm playing with so much. But it also makes me trying to be extra cautious of what kind of player I am. I'm running a half Elf warlock with multiple personalities. Everytime he has a long rest, I have to role a d4 at what personality will be out that day! It's really fun and exciting. I was worried that my friends would get impatient with me or annoyed at some of my characters attics. But so far I've got really good feed back, with just a one or two bits of advice. It's my first time as a spell caster also, which added to my nervousness. I hope that the people in these stories continue to keep looking for good groups to play with and make good memories and out weight the bad. That's what dnd is about!

I appreciate players contributing. I don't think all the cost and effort should be the DM's. I think it's actually reasonable for DMs to say "Hey this is the cost of stuff, let's all pitch in" since it is a shared and enjoyed experience. $30 a week per person is way too much. Hell that's too much for the group per month. Even if everyone prior to the sessions put in like 80-100 to purchase materials, that doesn't need to be a rolling subscription.

opening story, not to mention that casting a fly spell while in melee requires a concentration check and if i'm not mistaken an attack of opportunity if he's allowed to fly up in the same turn he cast the spell? yeah, dead caster

In regards to the rock v flying target one i had a campaign with a druid who had no ranged spells at level one and nat 1 rolled 2 or 3 javelins. The second he was told he could throw rocks he went from least lethal to second most lethal in the party like watching the first caveman discover throwing.

Been a while since we had a Drizzt Simp, I did not miss it!😒

He's flubbing his dice for SURE if the "excitement" of the character comes from something he would have never been able to control.

In regards to that third story; I never understood the appeal of a character achieving something without hardship. Sure I like it when they have to go through the deepest parts of hell and back, but why wouldn't you want to see them come out of the story a different person, (for better or worse) then when they started? If it isn't difficult for our heroes (or villains) then what's the point?

Looking at this with the power of hindsight, I think it would have been awesome if the crowd erupted due to the shit sportsmanship of the spotlight hog and booed, and jeered and started throwing produce at him. And if that wasn't enough on round two he would have been unceremoniously dispelled and plummet to the ground. I hate s*** players like that.

That full length encounter where the pcs were just running across town the whole fight, made me think of that parody movie Kung Pow: Enter the Fist.... when he's on that constant loop of running towards the damsel but keeps getting farther away!!! "'Chosen One!!!"'

I've played (for free at a comicon) under a dm who sells his services for a living. He's really cool and actually is trying to turn tt rpgs into a tool for therapy, which is just amazing. Like I said, I've never had to pay, but I've only ever seen him at the local comicon. I don't have the money to go hire him or I might try to get some people together from discord or something.

"7 foot tall tiefling barbarian named BLUUURG!" That is one amazing first character.

I would say that I need to witness his rolls, and he keeps whatever he rolls even if their lower than he'd get with standard array.

You bringing up a well placed rock reminded me of the time one of our wizards got slammed by a stone while flying.

the first story is just someone being extraordinarily salty about losing

scrolling for stuff to listen to at work and discovered your channel, only to see Thorn as part of the set! Howdy fellow D2/DnD nolifer, great content!

To me, it seemed like the woman in the final story was experiencing some mental health issues. She appeared to get overly aggressive over minor things and was also very impulsive. She could just be greedy money hungry, but the amount of aggression and lack of empathy she showed came off as extremely concerning to me. Especially when she spat in someone's face over them leaving a DnD game.

I rolled for my first character and he was so BROKEN! I thought my luck would hold out for the second one but… no dice (pun intended)

The reluctant cleric sounds like a nerd queen losing her hold.

Hey Crispy, I've been a long time fan. It was a real pleasant surprise you hear you doing my story on the into. Thanks for pronouncing "Bluuurg" correctly. (You'd be suprised how few people do). BTW I have my own channel so if you're interested come check it out ;)

I never knew the term "murder hobo" until I started watching these D&D videos

woooo great video

1:13 Yeah, this is one of those things where a DM is allowed to railroad, and actually fully should. I would’ve told that sorcerer as DM “If you do this, then you’re making a new character. This isn’t a fight, it’s a narrative device. Your character can either win their own fight, or they can lose to the character im bringing back. There are no other options” Sometimes player agency is 100% irrelevant, and this is one of those times.

That last story is the type of situation where you laxatives in food as payback

"killed a red dragon at level one" Den of the Drake would like to know your location

I know someone more or less like the person in the third story, who had a marry sue angel dragon queen and whatever the hell else OC in a my little pony OC, where, you know, angels arent really a thing... But I let it slide, except when her character, who was suuuuch a good and nice person ended up brutally murdering another charater in front of my traumatized teen™ OC and got mad out of character when my character was SCARED. And other stuff like that.

Last story adding to my long list of reasons to avoid paid DMs.

The DM is the Only One Playing - I would've straight-up asked the DM if he had finished "playing with himself" in a tone that would have made it clear that I wasn't just talking about D&D.

It's back!

"His turn in combat takes five times longer.." OK - this is how I handle that. I give people ten seconds to make their mind up what they are doing - it is combat. Fast, Furious and Dangerous. If they cannot say what they are doing I just say they are "Defending". I do this in every system I GM,. It works. People give combat the urgency it requires to stop it being a bore fest.

Last story, if she was expecting snacks, that comes out of the $10 that we would pay her. Also that was bs the entire way through. What a horrible person.

The only time I would be okay with getting mad at missing attacks is if you constantly roll low and at that point you are mad at dice not the game

I'm an old school player and DM. Running a campaign is fun for me, that being said; I would never charge for running the game. D&D is supposed to be a chance for friends to come together and enjoy each other's company... Not a charge to play resort. I only ask my players to bring their own snacks and drinks; if they want to bring extra... That's okay. Gygax never intended it to be a "play to pay" game. It makes me angry to know that this "internet" world has corrupted our society. No wonder people don't get along anymore. That being said; I have written an ongoing campaign that is broken down into 6 parts. I will be selling the module for others to enjoy. But I will never resort to making players pay for sessions.

speaking of extorting (but not a horror story), we just started a Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign and one of the girls in our group who historically has always had VERY flavorful characters, rolled up a life domain cleric...who was a health insurance rep for Asmodeus. On top of that, she voiced the character in a heavy midwestern (don'cha know) accent and even wrote up a detailed 3 tier plan that we all needed to pick from (lowest plan covered 1 heal per long rest but only if the damage was from 3 certain physical damage types, middle was 2 heals and covered some elemental damage types, third tier was unlimited heals and covered the full spectrum of physical and elemental damage) with 'monthy' rates that could/would change at any time, and also had an optional combat upcharge we could tack on if we wanted to request misc help midcombat from her. The form finished with "like a good neighbor, asmodeus is there ;)" We all lost our collective sh** when she handed out copies of the plans and our DM applauded her. Thankfully I'm a druid who will gladly help heal for the low low price of belly rubs when wild shaped into a dire wolf. Of course this immediately created conflict between our two characters and my 'socialist' ways. our DM fully supports this, but is also totally fine if we as a party decide to kill off the cleric lol. hell even the player wouldn't blame us if we did as she has plenty of more wacky characters waiting in the wings, this is Rime of the Frostmaiden so we are expecting some deaths. I love my group!

On that last story, I feel it. One of my first characters I actually based off of Artemis Entriri(?) From ra Salvatore's book series. All of the history and stories that we had of all of our past campaigns over almost the past decade kind of recently went up in flames (literally) so we all collectively decided to just do it all again. Decided to reprise my role as this assassin rogue and.. well, to put it simply, both me and him have matured quite a lot since then. Never set out to make a perfect character. You'll never get anywhere.

The Drizzt big city story reminded me of a cool AMV of various characters moving at breakneck speed before attacking. If the GM wasn't so self-centered, that what he should've done. Provided means of transportation, cool music that was progressively ramping up, then asked the PCs to describe their dramatic entrances.

honestly, DMs who restrict race/class combinations to like the phb annoy the hell out of me, even worse people who only do standard array. Like i will honestly just drop a campaign if the dm even suggests that.

I mean add more monsters and make the Not Drizzt die by the time the players get there. Then the players have to fend off the remaining horde.

Heh. Had a player like the one in the second story. He was... lucky. Got lots of high stats when rolling, hit a lot. He was also the most brazen minmaxer I've ever met - his characters made no sense, they were literally just jumbles of stats to get the most broken build in the system. He also tried to justify how his character, despite acting like the most rotten, selfish bastard around, was neutral at worst (you should have heard his tirade on how creating undead is NOT evil because, basically, "the end justifies the means") What does that have to do with the dude in the second story? Well, a year or so after the group disbanded due to internal attrition I met his brother (another player) and said brother informed me, as a matter of fact, that "Lucky"'s dice were ALL loaded. Yes, all of them. And the few that weren't were filed down so that nobody could read the numbers clearly. Nice guy, ne? And you should have seen when he actually tried to GM... Basically, he played to win. He had to be the one on top, and if he was the GM our characters had to lose, or die, or both.

the first story is another case of a DM incapable of saying the word no. No you cannot fight this character for a place in the tournament this Arc was meant for him, no you can't just fly up and spam Fireball that's not fair no you can't continue playing in this game if you're going to always hog the spotlight if you don't let him have his ark there will be consequences

My characters are definitely NOT my old fandom OC's built using whatever system and tweaked to fit the world... Ok they are but the key is that I changed them to fit, recognize I am not "the star", and can differentiate between myself and my character.

I just want to know one thing: "Where did you get that awesome gun in the background Crispy?"

That first story had me fucked up. DM should have put their foot down.

I have yet to meet the person for 5E who pushes for roll stats that is expecting to use Is 4d6 reroll ones drop lowest is any order. You have to try really really hard for that to be an interior to point By or standard array. This tends to come from the 3.5 mindset of I need an 18 or im useless

“Let me 1v1 it bro!!”

My group, for the most part, rolls stats. BUT we do it IN FRONT of the rest of the group. Keeps it honest.

If standard array "kills your excitement for the character," then that means you KNEW in advance that you were going to roll better than the standard array. Which confirms you're cheating.

Pretty generally players roll higher than standard array. Usually owing partially to house rules that most groups use for rolling stats. Something like having two 'swap in' numbers, rerolling minimum rolls or rolling two characters and picking the better, using 2d6+6 instead of 3d6 drop the lowest. I don't think wanting to roll is an indicator of cheating, just of wanting better stats.

[listens to the intro] And people wonder why I have issues with how D&D-alikes treat martial characters relative to casters. Give me any game that lets martials be cool over that kind of helplessness any day.

That DM in the intro story fucked up. If I'm that DM, I wouldn't care if the pick me guy hounded another player into agreeing. "Yeah that's gonna be a no from me, dog. Take a fuckin hike." Can't believe he allowed that to happen after specifically writing this thread for another character.

should have told the "can I roll" guy "Sure, straight 3D6 down the stat list, no reordering, and you have to roll in front of me." :p

OP admitted that Bluurg almost killed the sorcerer in the first turn. What, was the sorcerer supposed to just attack and faint on Bluurg's second attack like a pokemon?

Not a True Friend story, they should have said no.

Well the title's a *little* clickbait, but ultimately I was satisfied. I thought it was going to be about a lawyer-DM forcing her players to sign a contract at the start of the campaign, but let's face it, we've all had enough experience with devils and genies that we're not going to fall for any "didn't read the fine print" crap at the table. (We probably still get lazy in IRL situations where we don't think to be on guard against things like EULAs or workplace agreements, but that's just because we're not at liberty to spend all our lives as fully engaged with everything we do as we are with our D&D games.)

Give me money!. No, seriously give me money.

4th story is very entertaining ngl, at least to those who are not involved

I respect wanting to play a catgirl but literally the entire rest of that story is dumb. Cooperate with the party and the DM's setting; after all, you already got your catgirl (aaaand it's usually way more fun to add lore that actually meshes with the DM's world, especially when weaving in something that seems outlandish). Also, if you're so upset at the sorcerer throwing fireballs so well but still want to shoot things with a bow, you should probably switch to a Pact of the Blade warlock. (What kind of wannabe main character plays a non-Cha class anyway?)

I can conclude from your $50 for the VTT comment that, you use Foundry VTT :) Me and my DM are doing the same after I brought them a key.

This was a lot of twisted people...

Bit late to the party...but yeah. That last one is a doozy. I don't ask my party for money, and I leave it up to them if they want art for a character (as I do not have much money and cannot draw for the life of me due to a bit of palsy.), they can surprise the entire group with it. I don't expect anything of the sort though, and we have fun-they do tend to ask me for more details about characters they like, though. Heck. They're the ones that try and make me feel bad when something terrible happens that they failed to stop due to bad dice and poor decisions! I don't mind, they seem to get insanely attached to any characters I make that aren't villains so far. So...never know. I just know I won't be asking for any further payment than their-and my-enjoyment, and it helps that they want a semi-relaxed campaign that has a few horror elements. Like...exploring an (seemingly) abandoned fleet of ships for example, where very concerning things happened as they're learning, from rogue automatons tasked with cleansing the ships of their former loyal crews, conniving traitors, and a mage that specializes in portal magic to the point he uses it as a special move to call forth things from other planes. Nothing major, at least, save for a monster of his own creation that they have yet to get him to reveal...and may have developed a love/hate relationship with the guy, as while he's bad, he's...actually not out to get them. Not yet, anyway, despite the archer sniping him in the rear twice for attempting to knock out the druid (they thought he was trying to kill the druid, which didn't help when he summoned a trio of a homebrew creature called a 'Glinter' due to the crystalline material lining its body and the things promptly tore into the tank despite being a quick dispatch.) and leave with a cursed object the mage wanted to study. Good times, so far, good times.

How to *correctly* cheat your prepared spells I just take note of the spells inside my level I want to use then after a long rest I mark the ones I use (never exceed your slots) then I can only use those until it's the next day then I mark em as I use em (note do not use this method in games where the dm requires you have to *actually know* the spells to use them)

Holy crap. MLM and D&D. That's.. novel.

I watched a few of these then messaged the dms I play with to let them know I appreciate them for being good dms. I got lucky with them

The Frizzt story: DM wanted the audience for everyone to see how cool his OC is. Not players. Even then - his character isn't all that original to begin with.

i just wanna know where you got the thorn from??

Rolling bad stats is more fun than using standard array. Standard array is boring af. If I roll crap, I can at least have fun playing up how useless and terrible at everything my character is, get them killed, and then roll something else up.

I now very badly want to see a Frizzt Fro'Urden with a huge white afro.

Brizzt BoUrden. Smizzt. Lmao, chefkiss*

About the second story, it might be cheating or it might just be that what the powergamer refers to "rolling" is just 1 type of rolling that is relatively forgiving. Like, rerolling if the sum of all stats is less than 70 for example, or roll 2 sets & choose which one you use, or replacing lowest rolled score with 18. I doubt he would agree if it's "roll 6x 3d6 once, in order"

Hey crispy, wanna hear a story, short one. I was putting together a group to play with over discord, some people left and I found new ones, one of which is named “Patrick” not real name, but he had a Patrick Bateman pic so… he basically got into a fight with another about piracy, another earlier player, named yoda (same connection, accused him of pirating books. I was away and didn’t see it play out, both were very pissed and I didn’t know what to do, Patrick left and proceeded to call us out to the dnd discord, but he said he used the DnD Wiki, not sure if this was true. Did I do the right thing?

Ahhhhh I love thorn