I bet youd laugh at a tabaxi wild shaped into a cat too wouldnt you!! oh and I bet it would be super funny to see and owlin wild shape into an owl.

when he said “:) monky” i felt that deep down. human are monky…

@@christophercrafte and I bet you're fun at parties.

​@@christophercrafte yeah... it's funny. Why do you have to be mad?

@@writer5790 who said I was mad? I also think it's funny.

Yes. But if you're being completely honest and very clear that you are honest and they think otherwise, then it's a problem.

same

I’m running dragon heist and if my players were that in depth in the story it would be twice as long lol. Though it would be nice

Id kill to have my group that engrossed in my lore TwT

players when you make intricate lore by yourself: 💤💤 players when the premade adventure has a clear objective: ‼️‼️

Goddddd, I feel ya there. The longer it went on, the more I just went "noooooooo."

Part of the reason I never run modules.

Im actually here with the video paused becasue I had to take a break from that exact part

Yeah that one was probably the worst offense in there. I would have told the guy to leave my table within the first 3 minutes.

Kinda the reason im afraid of playing modules with my groups. They have all played them and know whats up, and some are the type not to know when to shut up sadly

good lord, i miss Shadowrun.

​@@voidwalker7774 Jacob is definitely on the list of folk I'd like to run a game for and Shadowrun is definitely one of those games.

I played shadow run and just couldn't get into it. It was so obvious that we were being set up that it made it difficult to roleplay someone stupid enough to go along with the plot. Maybe that was just that particular campaign, or I got a bad game master, but it was a horrible experience role-playing that I would fall for every trick thrown at me. I have heard other stories about how players killed characters by crashing planes into them and stuff that should have completely destroyed the bad guy's body, but the plot demanded the guy show up completely unharmed. It feels like a game where nothing the players does actually matters. In D&D it feels like the player's choices actually matter.

@@maxpowers9129 Uhhhhhhh.... story decisions and the weight of player choices don't really have anything to do with the games mechanics though. They're determined by how the module/campaign is written and played. I can't personally speak to the quality of Shadowruns modules as we always made our own scenarios and runs, but what you're describing sounds mostly like bad performance on the side of the GM to me.

I never played Shadowrun as a TTRPG, but as the game made by Harebrained Studios. But then again, I can't play a solo campaign, because that would be weird (I have no friends).

My players just cancel on me. Every. Single. Time. I can never play a session with everyone present.

Well said!

like, tons of rp going on, everyone is talking about stuff and you see that player in the webcam with his head down, just falling asleep, that when prompted really says:"I wouldn't care less for this stuff". which is fair since there may be plot hooks more interesting for everyone and it's hard to stay awake when it gets late, but it makes the dm feel bad

@@BKScience812 Who cares? Play with the ones that can play. Every session one or two cancel

​@@BKScience812 when I ran my campaign the exact same thing happened. So I just adapted. Literally one of the best sessions I ever had was when only two of them showed up. It was super personal and we got to explore so much more because we didn't have to deal with too many people.

That pun was physically painful. Though it should have been a gnome galley slave.

*Takes 1 D12 Psychic Damage*

1d4 psychic damage and disadvantage on your next attack roll

I had a player who wanted to be difficult, so when he told me about his character, all he said was that he was a carrot farmer and he just wanted to go back to his farm. Fast forward to the first session, his character was polymorphed by the BBEG to a Harengon and he is obsessed with magic carrots. Doesn't matter that I intended this to be a serious campaign, I kinda had to allow some measure of random nonsense to make my players believe their choices matter, even if it was a hard pill to swallow

i’ll do you one better. i was running strixhaven, you know, a school for magic, and not a single player created a character with spellcasting abilities

A certain amount of this is expectation setting... but a certain amount is "do your players even want to play the same game as you?" Because when the answer is no, there is no amount of expectation setting that will fix it. You can either meet them where they are, or (e.g.) go bowling instead of playing D&D.

@@BKScience812 That is a pretty hilarious idea though. I've debated on doing something akin to that (changing characters fundamentally) but haven't convinced myself if the player(s) would be down for it.

@@simplesushi9102 lol that is terrible, you may have me beat tbh.

Boo.

Nice pun.

Needs more likes

"ursanine" 😂

My husband plays one for a year now in my campaign. It's a great character. I even bought him a great mini of a bear that wears a similar necklace as his bugbear.

This sounds like a fun group.

I am laughing so hard at the name "Glassbot 3000" 😂

i love the "so it was a tie". Like an entire encounter of Barovian horror played by characters out of looneytunes and it just ends with, "yeah, it was a tie, everyone died."

Don't fireball all your problems, seduce them.

Divine smite them

I cast fireball ON MYSELF

Can I get an Amen?

@@Vassilinia The true power move.

*Gives players a free skyship* "LET'S CRASH IT INTO A HOLE TO PISS OFF THE BAD GUYS!" *Matt Mercer screams internally*

That's literally the current plan of my BBEG (Open a portal to the fire plane after the adventure party clears out the lair of a red dragon) And one of my players is a druid who's whole theme is transformation. I may need to remove the lava or add a henchmen with counter spell.

He's a druid can't use spells when in animal form

@@eeefe972 I never said they were the one transforming

Seeing players plan things out together also really shows their own character, I think it’s fun and a good form of bonding between players.

I think it's mainly just spoofing on how players try to bring joke characters in. And when a group is closely knit friends, i find the DM mostly just leaves trust in the players to make decent characters without help, with the rare exception.

There's like a 0.1% blame to Tulok the Barbarian there

Sooooo…..there’s no Tortles in Barovia?

⁠@@Hippiecult Ravenloft is an inter-dimensional hoarder that reaches into other settings’ pockets and steals their spare characters. That’s actually not even an exaggeration. The Demiplane of Dread is a pocket dimension that is coterminous with every other dimension all at once, and the Dark Powers that govern that realm reach into other realities and drag characters from them screaming into the fog-shrouded Domains of Dread. ANYTHING can be in Barovia, by the setting’s very premise. The only reason it’s not way wackier than it’s written is active and aggressive writer fiat to keep it gothic and grimdark. Some DMs think races like tortles and plasmids go against the intended feeling of the setting. They say you should bring characters that better fit into a campaign of gothic horror fantasy. I say what’s more Ravenloft than dragging a pure, kind-hearted, wacky being like that into a world that actually runs on high-octane nightmare fuel and playing some 30-odd sessions of break the cutie until the “joke character” gets shoved over the despair event horizon and suffers a permanent psychological blue screen of death? The prettiest stained glass windows are the most satisfying to throw a brick through. Ooooh, they’re a super strong paladin or barbarian or whatever? Kill their loved ones. Murder their family. Drown their pets. Hurt. Them. Etch it deep into the druid’s subconscious that this world, every natural and unnatural thing in it, hates them. This is a place of darkness; sunshine and happy thoughts come here against their will to be snuffed out. Oh but they’re a cleric so they can heal? Whatever god they prey to is out of reach, and whatever is allowing them to keep their powers is doing it so they’re a better toy; when they cast cure wounds it feels like cold grease slithering down their back, like maggots crawling inside their hand at the point of contact. They should KNOW these powers come from something evil, and attempting a communion or a divine intervention puts them in touch not with Sarenrae or Pelor or Bahamut or whatever, but with an evil, alien thing that looks at them with the most unwholesome hunger and says “I am your god now; your consent in the matter is irrelevant”.

Meanwhile our party consist of a Tiefling, Earth Genasi, Half Orc and yours truly, a Harengon lol.

ah so an Eberron party lmao

is artificer a race now? lol

I mean the set-up of Borrovia is such that you can justify literally any kind of race showing up.

I believe one of the best decisition I made for CoS campain is that I didn't make a character specifically designed for some dark fantasy campain. I was the last to make it so when I saw our line-up of edgy and moody characters(though awesomely designed) who had seemingly came from Borovia itself my first thought was "I can do the same, but judging by experience we might not enjoy the heaviness of this dynamic" so I just made a character to lighten up the mood. It was a big lizardfolk druid who had tried to accustom herself to human culture and "make friends" due to personal reasons, but the only type of affection she could compare friendship to was protecting the tribe's children and she was projecting this onto other teammates. In other words, she had basically acted like party's overprotective mom and was the only party member who had always trusted others and was there for them. Not without Lizardfolk rational brutality and sometimes morally dumb decitions though. This Campain turned out to be great and so did this character.

They must've been happy with all of the twists lol

That's genuinely awful. I don't know what I would do if someone from our group did that. The betrayal!

I took over from a DM and run my own interpretation 9o CoS. Paladin 6th lvl: I cast daylight :D Me: strahd counterspells with lvl 8th spell slot :DDD Paladin: D: Other players who know powerplayers and dont like it: :DD

Idk why anyone would spoil a game by reading the campaign like that. Bro just read a book and let someone else play then

@@gaoth88 Daylight's light isn't sunlight, its just the darkness counterpart.

Exactly! If you're playing a module 100% by the book and don't add anything else or deviate? Are you even playing dungeons& dragons? And how did you strong arm your players into only playing the content in the book ?

some times its a good idea to shift loot around. an extreme example but if you have a party of owlin a broom of flying would be kinda pointless, like the npc looks at a bunch of birds and says "ah I know what you all need. the ability to fly over great distances" now obviously you likely won't have a party of all birds but if a module's loot or rewards are meaningless to the party then NPCs probably shouldn't give it. no strength-based martials in the party? then a flame tongue great sword seems silly.

@christopher crafte it's why If a item makes no sense for the party I often remix it with another or come up with something on the fly for fun. Frankly I like remixing modules quite a bit as well already though... Ex.decent into avernus in my setting is VERY mad max meets Great War vibes...with parties navigating incredibly hazardous "hell-fire wastes" that form no man's land between trenches and other fortifications constructed in the blood war by countless factions that had laid seige to hell in the past. Hell is basically in a ww1-2 era conflict where magi-tek meets arcane weaponry on both sides...some options are almost stupidly better...was it not for limited resources that even the largest war machine in the realms cannot keep up with.

My party are garanteed to derail any plan or module... so i just don't do them and basically only have a very loose list of events that could happen and what they will find/get/talk to. I encourage the murder-hoboing and depraved behavior because its more fun... i've never ran my group in a campain where they want to be good guys

@Michael Poorman the trick I have done is use modules as a "blueprint" and then build off it and modify to a great extent. Ex. Curse of strhad rouge like (castle is almost completely randomly generated each time they enter castlevania style, they have a town on barovias edge that have to fortify and upgrade using recources they find castle delveing, as well as expeditions to numerous other locations not only in barovia but the demiplanes of dread), a tomb of annihilation game mixed with darksouls...the party able to die and comeback unlike others...but having major consequences in setting and on their chars...or honestly my favorite im running right now which is a massive expansion on decent into avernus...but putting the party right into the blood war, showing both sides as well as to why it's literally the most violent and destructive war in the lower planes...(think mad max meets the most intense parts of war the last 200 years...like imagine showing to a knight the horrors of trench warfare)

As a dm, my players constantly spend an exorbitant amount of time making plans and they NEVER WORK. They’re just not good at making plans; there’s always glaring issues that they’re completely missing. It’s times like that that I’m tempted to do the big no-no and insert my own character just to point out the things they’re overlooking.

10 minutes planning is plenty imo.

May I introduce you to our Lord and Savior Blades in the Dark?

@@woobackwednesday2299 more like our Lord of Damning, am I right?... 😈

woah dude playing the game is more fun than not playing the game? i never would have guessed

What's not fun about joke characters?

Joke characters are fun imo but you do you

Absolutely true. Most, if not all, of my DMing problems were solved when I asked my players to start paying attention and investing themselves into the game. D&D is a cooperative game where we tell a story TOGETHER. It’s not supposed to be a chore for the DM, while the players are pampered recipients. Put the work in guys, it’s worth it.

​@@blackstone7732 I do have a problem with that I m always invest in the game but my attention spam is really bad My friends in the table say I have ADHD

I like to make characters who are wacky or ridiculous, but only if they could actually exist in the setting and still allow for serious stuff to happen. Some of the best character arcs I've had have been on PCs I based off of shitposts

"Hey DM, that Star Raiser thing is pretty cool, can we have a Vestige of Divergence too?" "THAT IS FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE ENTIRELY!"

Well, yeah, there's a monster down there! 💀

@@RPanda3S shit you right

Been guilty of that before, but it comes from experience of "if I follow those tracks, I'm going to put myself into an ambush situation".

@@insertname3977 see none of them had that line of thinking. They just were not paying attention and when they asked me shit I turned into an old adventure game prompt where I kept mentioning the trail. They wanted to find it and just were confused for some reason

​@@insertname3977 Sometimes you have to ask yourself "Am I here to make an optimal decision or play the game?". And sometimes playing the games means stepping in an obvious trap to see what happens.

Plus it helps the GM figure out how to fit the story around the characters more cause they know the backstory, personality and life of the characters before they begin

I always float the idea for my character by the DM first before fully committing and make sure that they fit within the setting the DM prepared

I always incorporate character creation into my session zero and I require all players to be there. It's very fun cause it allows players to bounce ideas off of me and each other and I can help them fine-tune their backstory to fit the campaign

Oh, Tortle is fine. They're just a kind of person as far as the world is concerned. The Oogway bit is what makes it unsuitable.

@@sorendaniels754 A GM of mine (who I know is really good when the game is actually running) has made a very bad session zero recently. He explained the basic rules of the game (not D&D and nobody was familiar with this particular one) and the general lore... and that's it. No indication on what the campaign's themes will be (and he clearly has something planned). Everyone created their characters and I was just sitting there with no idea what to do. I finally made a character sheet yesterday after like 2-3 weeks, but as someone who likes to tie my character into the campaign, I was just struggling. A session zero is always better than no session zero, but a bad session zero is not that great either.

LOL, I use Obsidian for taking notes. Every campaign I'm in _starts_ with someone (me) having an evidence board.

Maps always lie. DnD 101.

They didnt even insight check the map, psh

"I just want to *axe* him a question!"

Or: We use a theatre of the mind, everything is a word!

"Violence is not the answer, its a question, and the answer is YES"

“I cast Power Word: AXE”

@@KaliFortuna that's a cool one

Tortles are just kind of based in general if you ask me

Mine was an immortal spores druid tortle who had been there since its inception needless to say i both stuck out like a sore thumb and yet fit perfectly.

Tortle Monk is what I played, in the Curse of Strahd. He died half way through and I then played an artificer. I miss my tortle monk man

@@paulbreen5089 which renaissance artist was he named after?

Tortles are cool in many ways, BUT THE LIFESPAN IS TOO SHORT!!! Only times I'd possibly consider playing a Tortle is as a Druid or Undying Warlock or if it was homebrew adjusted to at least 200 years lifespan. Same for all other races that have less then 150 years potential lifespan.

yeah until you realise that every crafted world in books when author has lot of time has a lot of plotholes and you are just some human that develops this lore and story in your spare time, have of it during sessions on a fly. It has to have plotholes. A lot of them.

I mean it'd be hard for him to be mad, he told you to leave him alone and you left him alone.

@@stormthrush37 Gotta be careful when making dark and moody characters, because the others might not have the patience for them, lol

I am so confused. Why is a *character* introducing their *NPC*? Wild.

@@RPanda3S Probably means new player introducing their character, I think.

@@CircumSamurai thatsthejoke.gif

What is it with CoS and tortle monks? I DM'd Strahd last year and one of my players was a Tortle monk named ravioli

@@ethanvelez2462gaddamn, I would have named it Tortellini.

Personally, I think bootleg characters are way funnier, so i'd totally allow that

Let me guess, Artillerist named Brasstoise

@@zoroearc2582 no, his name is Gadget

Im giving your comment a like, purely for the use of the words "Owldritch Blast"

I feel that. I just played a session last night where there was a basic word puzzle. I won't describe it in detail but basically, the solution was based on themed names that were in pairs. They got through literally 90% of the puzzle but we're hard-stuck on one word because my entire player group was interpreting the word "Tale" to mean "Tail". I wrote out all the words, to make it clear but it was like their brains stopped working. They were clearly reading the word, but somehow were still thinking "tail" in their minds. I watched them uncomfortably until they got so frustrated I gave them the answer.

I agree

And there wasnt an earthquake which started to collapse the basement starting from the back by session 5? I'm not for much railroading but admirable patience on the dms side lmao

@@alyero6341 it was a two person group and ended up finding a way to make all my enemies into npcs lol we now have Brian the brain (in a jar) , Rusty (the not so Rusty anymore animated armour) and a construct made of multiple races called Paige Turner 😅 It was super fun and we haven't played in a while due to our health issues but next time it happens I will defo do something like that haha 😆 I was like a second time dm and I enjoy the exploring and the weird stuff that happens when I let them do it so I'm fine with it as long as they are lol. Brian now has a fun fedora and a bumbag on the jar and the construct has some none ragged clothing and they basically found everything ever in the basement lol so they are set for the rest when we eventually play again ♡ I got to use my pc Argh Stickyfeet a purple grung as an npc so that was also very fun ♡ *edit* oh they also have befriended 2 blink dogs , so the companion cat is delighted 😄 lol

I mean, the DM has to be willing to let that happen. Otherwise it's just "yeah, you check the room again for 10 minutes, you find nothing new" and move on. If the DM asked for checks and whatnot every time they went back, the DM wanted to have that as session content

@@limaTheNoob each time they rechecked a room it was for a reason, like they found a prisoner and took them to the storage room to see if their possessions were salvageable or they found the key to that door that was locked etc ♡ I had mapped everything out and knew what was going to be where and I knew who was playing so it wasn't like I didn't expect it. I mean I didn't expect 9 sessions lol I didn't expect them to find the bad guys exit tunnel and use it as their entry point but here we are lol The games were fun for everyone involved and that's what matters right ♡

Not true. No game is better than bad game. Not saying that was a bad game, but... I've been in a truly awful group. Now it's been 10 years since i last got to play because there's no one else around me and I'm shit at making friends who wanna play online.

@@ChargeQM there are subreddits for just that

Make a character with an adventurous and out going personality.

Yeah, your character should probably have some flaws that drive the action a lot. Make them want something that will bring some sort of trouble. And if you're not sure whenever to engage in them: roll your dice. Maybe even everytime you encounter a trigger. Basically, GURPS' disadvantages.

Hi half of my gaming group! Say hi to the other half that has the irresistible compulsion to do the most non-sensical stuff while also ignoring every single adventure hook for me!

@@archersfriend5900 Maybe they don't like to play characters like that. Lord knows i don't.

If your character had goals you wouldn't have to rely on "hooks".

Had a moment like this with my players after an hour wasted checking the same door, table, and lack of windows for the 800th time. "There are no windows! None! Just a locked door, a table, and a desk you all refuse to investigate." Players (in unison): "Wait, there's a desk?" "Uh, did I not mention the desk? Shit... so there's also a desk in the corner..." So I'm the worst DM ever, but on the bright side my friends aren't so unforgivably stupid that I have to quit being friends with them.

Rude

@@nicolasespejo3039 i know, i apologised many times after that evening, but bloody hell, sometimes you just have to say it XD

Its a player debuff, you just temporary become very paranoid and cautious to the point that your brain doesnt work anymore. Also a lot of stuff is a lot less obvious to someone who hasn't read the module due to how everyone envisions the events in their own mind with their own perspective. People just get odd ideas in their brain from having weird first impressions when they are presented with the scenario at hand.

Luckily I learned in one of the first few sessions I ever ran how important it is to remind players what their mission is and what information they have. Players need only one poorly interpretated detail to spiral out of control while a simple "ok how did we get here" gets them back on track.

@@peschionator7873 Indeed. Plus, it's easy to forget that they've not spent as much time during the week between sessions thinking about it as you have.

Why are the players even there if any decisions they make that aren't what you want will be ignored?