I’ve literally only ever played one D&D session and it was over a year ago with my Dad, who had also never played D&D before, serving as the DM, but I watched this whole video. I guess if I ever do suddenly get really into D&D one day, this will be helpful.

You mean classic adventure gaming with open world sandbox play? Huh. Imagine that.

I had a Cha 4 Druid with an atrocious self esteem problem. I loved that character.

Personally, if I’m playing a lvl 1 character, then he doesn’t have a backstory. As far as I’m concerned, he’s playing the backstory right now.

My favorite PC was a halfling who was an awful little shit growing up, despite his supportive family. He sucked at every job he ever tried to take up, and after he was fired from his latest job he decided to try adventuring instead. He lied to the first group he saw, duping them into believing him to be a field medic. Fun times. Healy McFeely is a legend.

I actually had a recent game where the shop the players ended up at was by design. They were there to because seemingly everyone they talked to in town pushed them that way, and there they had the opportunity to buy plenty kf camping and survival gear (tents, ropes flashlights climbing gear, field rations backpacks anything like that) and I had the shop owner be this sweet but very business oriented woman. One of the players immediately took a liking to her and of course was looking at romance stuff with her. Well the shop owner being a shop owner decided to use that to her advantage and squeezed money out of her. No real chance to romance as everytime it was brought up the shop owner blushed and said oh you're you're much and pointed to yet another Shiney object on the wall. Boom instant fun shopping. 😊

im looking for a group to play with, i have a group that gets together on Fridays but would enjoy a Tuesday or wens day game group

Thank you that was fun and a great lesson for me as I’m never sure how to roll play my characters. I don’t have much role playing experience.

I spent the first five minutes distracted by the awesome shirt. I'm going to have to find out where it came from. Beyond that, I think one of the biggest obstacles in having players create goals is knowledge of the setting and/or rules. Without that, it can be difficult to pin down what is achievable; you have to know what's possible. Having a Session 0 will help with that, but even in a game where anything is possible it can be difficult to answer such an open-ended question, and asking a player to define a goal - much less multiple goals - could end up frustrating them.

Great content as usual. Just wondering where you got your really cute shirt =)

Is it just me or is it giving Percy Jackson at the end of book one

not long after 3.0 came out, I gave up D&D, moving to indie games (which are now generally called story games) because they usually tried to address a lot of different problems that D&D failed to address. Tried going back to D&D a few years ago and it was astounding to me how much worse it'd gotten compared to the AD&D 2nd ed. days of my childhood, and most of it coming from the players rather than the system itself (incentivized I think by campaign settings now being synonymous with adventure arcs rather than providing GMs with mere sandboxes, as campaign settings used to be). I really really hope players adopt these tips because it can feel so fresh to have games about the characters rather than about the villains

Iiiiiiiiiiiii, LOVE IT!!!!😎

So I played an Alchemist, surely no shenanigans could go on there... I ended up building 5 cannons, knocking down the castle wall, And causing a city to set fire to itself. Unfortunately they have banned me from playing Artificer Not for building cannons or rocket propelled glide bombs, or any of that. But rather my uses for magical tinkering. "Whenever tapped by a creature, the object emits a recorded message that can be heard up to 10 feet away. You utter the message when you bestow this property on the object, and the recording can be no more than 6 seconds long." We used this record the Bard's Vicious Mockery across several magic objects, tied them to rats, and launched them into the city and repeat the mocking on loop causing a psychohazard on an unparalleled scale. And the one time I built a nuke... or during a campaign where I would consistently shove bosses into a portable hole and then drown them in a lake... or the time I built a railgun...

Gotta get them legendary actions

I found the opposite. Too free and intention-based game just leads to nowhere. As mentioned, there is a nice middle way that, unfortunately, the GM needs to thread. A campaign should have the 100% FEEL of total freedom while simultaneously have goals and intentions. You can't really create that feelign without some problem to solve. If this is made in session 0 with the problem being one or more PCs want to pursue one of their goals ("building a castle", "make my parents proud", ...) or an outward event that conflicts with PC goals doesn't really matter. There needs to be some level of external motivation to create the feeling of importance. Otherwise it's just imaginary mutual masturbation. To be fair there are arguments it's that anyway, but it's just way more explicit without the feel of an external need. I feel, especially for new DMs, encourage linear module play and insight into how to build the rest will follow. (Says a guy who did it the "wrong" way with a way too open-ended world with no PC goals or overt motivations at all.)

Holy Spirit guides you, Jesus saves you, God loves you; they all love you💝💟✝

Me: I’m gonna listen to some D&D videos while cleaning.☺️ Also me: *gets distracted from cleaning while listening to the description of the male blacksmith cause I’m a Biromantic guy* 😳

That last tip is so good, finding unique ways to roleplay high or low stats that still fit with what those stats means is a lot of fun. I remember making a high intelligence character that was illiterate, since there are a lot of ways of transmitting knowledge and plenty of ways to be logical without having the specific skills of reading and writing. He was a wizard from a society that transmitted magical knowledge through oral traditions instead of through classic spellbooks.

Back in the day we just played the game. No session zero. No social.contract. Just good ole fashion fun with friends.

I wish #1 didn't have to be true. I don't like that some options in D&D are just traps we're not supposed to pick.

My characters name is Crystal. Full name Crystal Meth. I don’t wanna talk about how it happened

I love that at the end she says "not usually" implying that sometimes she does😂

I love the Gamer Master's book series, and I'm excited for the next books

Hey, look! Someone made a book describing the virtues of old-school DnD play, cool.

cant find where to get this from the UK

Nilbog, from Troll 2 fame.

You are a great presenter - you come across very confident and your voice is clear and pleasant to listen to. One of the better how-tos I've ever watched. Just wanted to pass that on!

Thank you, another insightful video on creation.

As a man, it's really nice to see someone covering this issue from both sides!

As someone who's main PC is a Blacksmith and Healer for the party I had no idea I was subverting gender roles so much till now. Thanks Ginny

anyone do full on improv sessions? No prep. No planning. Just make it all up on the fly? Bc that's the kind of DM I want to be XD

Some systems call for a D3 which is a D6/2. (1-2=1,=etc.) So that D3 could be more accurate. Flamers in 40k are D3 auto hits, and cyberpunk has some effects that are D3.

Two ideas I've had: 1: Someone just trying to make a name for themselves but everywhere they go they're over shadowed by their cousin (a seventh son of a seventh son). 2: They grew up in a cult but fled after feeling more at home in the woods than in the cult. Their parents are loving and just want them to come home (to the cult).

I love the idea that your lich was a wizard, but not school of necromancy. like they majored in illusion but just have a minor in necromancy.

This so cool I really want that separate gambler video ! actually I want a deep dive into each subclass because omg YES

WFRP has short and long-term goals in its system and adds an extra chance for xp for PCs and once you complete a long-term goal, you can retire that character, giving control to the gm and you can start a new one with bonus XP at creation.

Im really crap at rollplay... i play a female goblin artificer and just use an app to move my voice up an octave lol shes making a gundam fighting arena lifegoals ❤

I've never thought about it before but I'd love to see a female healer character who is heavy handed. And yeah, she'll patch you up, but she's so scary you wouldn't want to ask her too XD Either stern scary or makes-dark-jokes scary

If you want to make the game interesting, call for weird rolls. Like in the case of climbing a ladder, call for an intelligents or charming roll (I am new to d and d, sorry if that isn’t worded right)

I take notes during session 0 as to what the players are responding to. Typically I’ll have 3-5 plots that I’ll toss out as ideas. 1. How do you guys feel about adventuring in the jungles while looking for treasure? 2. Pirates? 3. Who wants to steal their way to the top? Then based on the feedback, I build out the adventure. Sometimes nobody hops on the plots I throw and so I end up just asking, “What kinds of adventures are you guys hoping for?” Then, I listen.

Me, a trans woman, watching this video knowing full well playing another male character would cause me to internally combust.

most recent game 2 of us decided to be sisters, the 3rd is a captain from another island who wrecked against the shore here, but in the first game got fully wrangled into the group by her chosing to off screen consensual encounter my character.

Fast forward a few years, "I envoke duplicity..." Laura and Ginny together in their Twitch sub ad bit were just brilliant!!

This breakdown of wisdom has honestly helped me so much in how I'm playing my latest character who is in a way a nice little inclusion of my autistic tendencies. He's an inquisitive rogue and is constantly taking notes and observing patterns and routines of others and his surroundings as a more tangible example to the party of how wisdom can work. He's caught a handful of deceptions simply by noticing when people break their typical behavior patterns, something I do all the time IRL to tell when someone is distracted or trying to hide something. He also will make meticulous notes of the camp site they stay in for long rests and during his watch meticulously check the perimeter for any alterations in his observations, which the DM has rewarded me with little tidbits like the location and direction of traveling game, following antagonists that for one reason or another did not approach during the night, and sometimes gives me advantage on my survival checks for my watch

Advertising a book without advertising a book whilst advertising a book. Like there isn’t a contract under here somewhere! Just advertise it! Oh wait….

Have yet to watch but not making a good case off the bat with that title ma'am. How ever I'll reserve my opinions until the end of the video. I misjudged heavily I apologize this opened my creative mind to so many new thoughts