Speaking of items, I once had my players roll percentile dice to determine the loot they got off a demon they'd just killed and I used a random loot list I'd found online. One of the players rolled and the item was an egg. Just a normal egg. When pressed for details about the egg, I said it was a red chicken egg because they'd pulled it off a demon who was red. One of the players said something about how cockatrices were hatched from chicken eggs laid by a rooster and incubated by a toad. My world did not include cockatrices when I built it. Guess what questline I added for my players after that.
My favorite thing to do when I'm stuck on where to bring the story is to drop hints and listen to the players complete it.... in my head I'm like "crap that's good."
I do this too. It's funny because in my campaign I have different riddles/poems they have to figure out, so I chose the player with the highest wisdom and said they get 3 hints a day on whatever poem they want. At one point they said an answer that was basically the same I had written... but better. It was funny because I said, "no... erm actually yes." I immediately erased my answer and put theirs. When they asked what I meant I said, "your answer was way better." (everyone laughed)
It is not only easier to run a game this way, it is also better and totally legit. As RPGs are collective story-telling, it isn't even cheating. You come up with the setting, and the players fill it with action. If you have a bad guy with an evil plan, please do not come up with a way to solve it. Bad guy should think of the ways he or she might be thwarted and take measures to secure the plan, but is up to the heroes to solve the problem. It is okay to have an idea for what the heroes might do to win, but what you need to do is allow their solutions to be possible. Maybe not the first thing they try; certainly not the worst thing they try. But some idea they have will sound good to them and it probably means it is good for the story, so allow it to work... given maximum effort. This works for puzzles, too. Throw out a riddle, but you don't need to know the answer. Four people contemplating the clues are likely to come up with something better than one person can anyways. When they say something impressive, then ta-dah! That's the right answer to the riddle. I have a bad feeling that we've all been in "that game" where the DM wants you to take a specific course of action and has exactly one pre-determined method of solving some threat, like a bad escape room puzzle, and it probably won't make a lot of sense, too. Recreating what was pre-determined is an exercise in misery as every avenue you pursue fails and if you do come up with the right solution, you really don't feel like your idea worked because it was someone else's idea to begin with. This is fun for precisely no-one at the table. Even worse, as a player, you don't feel like you are contributing; you are just trying to find the track that someone else already laid and then follow it. "There's a stone-walled room, a table, a box of crackers, some string, a mouse, a chandelier suspended from the ceiling, and a key inside a force-field dome. The only other door forward is locked." "I cast Pass Through Stone and walk into the next room." "You can't. Uh, there's an anti-magic field within the wall." "Really? Someone had the resources and fore-thought to put an anti-magic barrier in the stone wall? Fine. I leave the dungeon, estimate the distance and depth of the room I was in, and teleport from the other side of the wall." "Um, there's another anti-magic barri--look, just solve my stupid puzzle!"
I have literally gone "shit, that's better than what I prepped" then just quietly scratched out my little thing and just rolled entirely with a player's instinct. No one knew until a few sessions later when I confessed this.
(18:07) that was our teifling bard in our Storm King's Thunder campaign! During one of the early encounters she got the killing blow on a troll with Vicious Mockery, and when the DM asked "What do you say as your casting it?" she said (out of character) "Um, I'm sorry I'm no good with insults..." And we all decided that that was in character and the troll died of cuteness overload. And from that point on she was just the baby of the party.
On the note of different takes on charisma, I'm loving playing a big, burly aasimar paladin who is just really softspoken and sincere with people. He's honest and apologetic and almost shy in some contexts because he's not good at interacting with people (all backstory stuff), and it's his sincerity that gets people to like him and agree with him.
I have a Paladin that charisma is conveyed by how he carries himself. He’s the kind of person that you notice when he walks into the room just because of the aura around him.
I have a very charismatic Goliath Barbarian who gives off a paternal aura, so that’s how me and my DM play it. Everyone listens to him because it’s like getting advice from your dad, or for intimidation it’s like he’s scolding you.
The first party I DMed for had a gnome rogue with high Cha, and he just tried to be adorable. Like, people thought he was a child, it was just like 'of course I'll let you into this noble's party without an invitation you little scamp, don't eat too many candy apples'.
I have a human college of spirits bard with the chef feat. He's a pudgy, very sweet guy who (thanks to his adopted mother, he can control when this happens) gets possessed by ghosts. His entire character motivation is to get more recipes and whatnot to make his adopted parents' restaurant better and more famous, that and to feed hungry people.
You know what I struggle with that I don't hear much about? Being a player again after DMing for so long. Like how do people handle THAT transition? I constantly feel like I know too much after being behind the screen and looking up so many rules and monsters. And there's this feeling of helplessness in terms of what I want my character to do in terms of roleplaying or story beats that I'm frustrated with not having opportunities I want to see. Something like I go for a deception and I get no roll (because like the Psych song, the I know that you know that I'm not telling the truth) because it's obvious I'm making it up. It's just a hard adjustment to let myself be pulled in a direction I didn't want to go.
That's actually a very common struggle! I've went through this transition and I think I can contribute with some advice. First of all, you'll have to practice seeing the world though the eyes of your character only. It doesn't matter that you know something, if they don't. As DMs, we do it all the time with NPCs, it's a hyperfocused version of it. It also can be that you're too attached to your prior knowledge during the game because you're not playing a character (or an adventure) that inspires you. About the frustration to not see those story beats and opportunities you've expected: as someone who's been running games for a long time, it's easy to fall into a egotistical trap of thinking too much about you character and creating too much expectation about the game. You can talk to your DM and the rest of the group about the tone of the story and see if ita possible to provide these opportunities. But I reccomend you, when playing a character, to try to think more about what would be cooler to the story, and less about fulfilling your individual expectations (and try to set the expectations for the whole group, which should happen on a session zero)
As far as the question of distractions at the table and keeping your party focused, I like the idea that the game world continues moving unless a time out is called. So if your players start yacking about something while waiting on a train or while shopping, have the train start to leave and declare "As you're talking amongst yourselves, the trains whistle blows shrilly and begins to slowly lurch forward..." or "suddenly, the shop keeper interrupts, aggravatedly 'are you lot gonna buy something or can I close up and go home before the sun comes up?'" This allows you to use story elements to push things back in motion and allows for interesting interactions/reactions.
The real crime is that I have subscribed to Dropout, but there's so much good content on there that I needed to listen to this at work. Good thing I have advantage on deception!
Do not be afraid to hand out magic items that can cast spells at will... within reason. In my first campaign with my own setting, one of my players and good friends made his character be a sewer druid, and he had a pet rat. This was such an important part of his character that I awarded him a magic item that let him Speak with Animals at will (as long as they were rats) and Wild Shape into a rat at will (Ring of the Rat King), and we LOVED it. It was such a crucial part of who his character was, and a rat is a rat; there's not many ways that a 1HP WildShape would be broken in combat.
The flipside of this is my DM foolishly letting me put an immovable rod in my sword on my first character. Two sessions later we have to invent an entirely new mechanic/damage table for when a chimera almost rips itself in half trying to get away from one attack
What I realised when playing DnD is I don't like the dm being too nice. In the campaign I have at the moment, my illiterate character suddenly can speak orcish after hearing a few words from a memory, and when the party fucked up at a city and we end up battling these powerful guards, the dm was visibly upset and worried about hurting our characters. A few of the players were freaking out but I was all like "hit me, don't go easy on me. Don't pity my character, do what the dice say". We did end up all surviving, I'm just hoping that the gm can have that more mean edge when it is valid
@@CreamCakes420 so I need to flub a lot because I'm running for children. I'm not flubbing to keep them alive but specifically because when they get a new ability if they use it more then twice and it doesn't work they will never use it again.
I know this is old, but it reminded me of one thing I loved about Crown of Candy (based on Game of Thrones). In a game, you have a chance to fail, like they were discussing. And you also have a chance to succeed! Unlike in GOT where if the writer decides a character is going to die that's it. Certain shows and books lose me when the protagonists are set up so obviously as having no chance of success (not because of the story itself but because the writers overuse tragedy for dramatic value), that loses the tension because I know now that nothing good is allowed to happen. So I loved Crown of Candy because the game aspect made both success and failure possible! The characters had a real chance of survival that they don't in any other medium.
I was actually using 5e stats and rolls to determine success or failure of my characters. Then, much like was pointed in this very video, I can do great concepts but not great detailed execution of said concepts.
36:17 oh absolutely, my first full campaign that we actually went to max level and had an ending for I played a dwarf fighter with a heritage artifact (homebrew) that I didn't care about nearly as much as the flying broom I stole from an enemy around 8th lvl. It really solidified my characters identity and behaviour from that point on. (Sidenote It's also an interesting. Choice of locomotion as the dwarf was constantly having his pants destroyed by enemies so gave up and went with kilts.)
There's a handy guideline in the player's handbook for at will magic items. Just look at the list of eldritch invocations for the warlock. If the spell or effect is already an invocation and it does not have a level requirement for taking it then it is in no way overpowered to give another player an at will magic item at a later level that does the same thing.
not really magical gear, but magic in general, my favourite magic in DnD is dramatic magic that isn't necessarily defined like prestidigitation or thaumaturgy, I absolutely love them and they are SO fun to use and useful surprisingly frequently!
I mean, they're the same spell. Just one is arcane and the other divine. Good utility spells, but I can't fathom how one is better than the other, unless you just like gods more (or less).
I started getting into Dungeons & Dragons as a DM and I wasn’t aware of UA and how bad base ranger was. One of my players ended up on beast master ranger and was falling so far behind the other party members that oathbow actually balanced things back out for the party. Sometimes it broke a moment in game where I wasn’t expecting but it always made for a better story and made them feel badass.
14:00 This is how I run my Mage : The Ascension games now. My PCs have so many options as Mages and are so inventive, that if I already have solutions in mind I tend to guide them towards it, but if I just leave them to figure something out, they'll find very cinematic and gratifying solutions for the problems at hand.
In regards to magic items, one of the best magic items I've ever created was some magically enchanted underwear. It's enchanted to just... always fit comfortably. It never chafes or wedgies up or anything. Always comfortable. That was it. And my players *fought like hell* over that. It was great xD
Precisely this. This is the advice I give people who say they are worried about making balanced encounters. Don't put all your baddies on the field at once. As new bads are added, the heroes tend to go "oh shit!" because they thought they knew the parameters of the fight and it just changed. Heroes are surrounded as bads enter from behind them and lines of scrimmage are redrawn. It makes sense that monsters aren't just standing around static waiting for adventurers to come across them--they'll run toward the sound of a fight to help their fellow monsters. If the fight is taxing enough, stop adding more baddies, and no-one must ever know that wasn't all of them. Then add a couple more, just so they don't think you're being soft.
Yeah I played that campaign he doesn't want to name and had the same conundrum. Ranger never got the Oathbow, however, and it is not that big of a deal. So don't be afraid to use it, just note a few things. Oathbow is great against 1 enemy but as the number of combatants increase the less effective it gets. The sworn enemy takes extra damage but once they are dead you don't get another sworn enemy until the next dawn aka it's a once per day deal. Also it doesn't even give a bonus to damage or to hit. It's a big screw you to one thing in particular and then just a run of the mill bow otherwise.
One of the favorite magic items I gave a player was a Blackjack Greatsword on our lvl5-9 homebrew campign. She loves the randomness of rolling the dice and was a playing a barbarian who liked to gamble on her own bar fights. It allowed her to roll as many d20 for damage as she wanted, but if she went over 21 the damage just fizzled. She could still choose to do regular damage on any attack, but more often would go for the ‘go big or go home’ option. She had a love/hate relationship with that sword.
i totally get it about the mean gm stuff. i ran a call of cthulhu game not so long ago and i ended up brutally killing one of the investigators and i felt real bad about it but it certainly added to the tone of the game and made it overall more interesting. But i feel like had it gone much further and theres a point when everyone becomes dissatisfied. Luckily the one player was chill about it
Plus, it's Call of Cthulhu. Unless you're running a pulp game, players should be briefed before hand that their characters will either die or be driven insane. It's one of the big charms of the game; players should almost expect a bad end.
Best case scenario, I say. Cthulhu shouldn't be easy and if your first foray into it provided a higher body count than your more heroic fantasy games, it should be the session that defines the tone of Cthulhu henceforth. Nowhere to go but up, 'eh? Well, I suppose we could lose three investigators next time....
30:00 I think that if it becomes such a campaign, you totally need one person who's not afraid to be the "sacrificial lamb" as it were to provide some levity when everything's going to shit
Very interesting conversation about topics that I also struggle with in my games, so I hope I will become better by listening to the advice given here :) Good stuff!
I think Brennan makes a fantastic point about the concept of being the mean DM versus upholding the authority of the dice. effectively what you're trying to do is find a way to allow your PC to live, sneakily. in a way that doesn't make them feel like you "allowed" them to live.
So I'm running hackmaster game and saw this video and though hay maybe this will help me run a game were I have to deal with players dying. Then you call out hackmaster I lose it lol great videos.
My favorite magic item is the decanter of endless Coffee I had in magic school campaign was so much fun to start interaction by giving people Coffee and playing her after they lost was so amazing
You gave the Oath Bow to an Arcane Archer?! My favorite character I've ever played was my Arcane Archer. The absolute havoc I could have wreaked if I had the Oath Bow... As soon as you mentioned the Oath Bow and then said Arcane Archer, I knew nothing balanced came of this.
whenever i hear people thinking they cant DM i remember that for my first year of being a DM i had access to a few 5e character sheets and then the 4e players handbook but that book only for one hour a week - the same hour that we had available to play. had no goddamn clue what i was doing but we had fun
When they're talking about players using abilities in smart & clever ways it made me think of one time where we (I was a player) were coming up on what was supposed to be a deadly encounter with this giant legendary boar and 24 orc warriors and we didn't even end up fighting them because our druid saw them from the sky (they were wildshaped as a griffin) and I thought "Whats the biggest and heaviest normal animal I can think of" and that was a blue whale. So our druid flew 500 feet up above this boar and once, wild shaped back, called us and told us not to go to the place yet, then turned into a massive blue whale and just landed on them, killing his whale form and all but 2 orcs. We came in and killed the others and his character had ptsd about frying for a time after that as in wild shape you feel the pain and everything so he felt himself die as a blue whale from falling from the sky 😂😂😂😂
3 years later but people are terrible at managing magic items especially in 5e but DMs are bad at it in general. I make all my own items for this reason. And yes Brennan is right, utility items are WAY better to give out.
On magic items: I was playing a sorcerer that got a cloak of the bat. He became the party's sneaky guy and would spy on enemies at night and fly around the city setting up the plans to catch the villains.
I’m a real munchkin, and I always go for munchkin magic items, but my favorite magic items have been the ones that aren’t number crunchers like was said. I got Kyrzoon’s ooze on one character and it tied so well into a plot he was going through and its just so fun and goofy being an ooze monster symbiote thing. Then on another character my main character my most treasured item is the band of intellect because not only is it interesting rp wise, its also just funny having this massive, intimidating orc paladin wearing a dainty tiara. And like he had 15 int before so its not even a huge change, but the flavor it provides is unmatched.
I let my players know early, this will be optimized combat meaning the monsters aren’t just dumb HP sacks they will have strategic moves and they love it so far
4:47 sometimes people aren’t ready to gm and sometimes- Brennan is right- they’re ready but they think they aren’t. Players on the other hand- they want to play but don’t realize when they’re not ready to play. I’ve tried running a campaign with my sisters and my friend and they all had very flat characters that they built simply because they liked the classes and races of the characters, there’s nothing wrong with that- but they didn’t exactly know what they were doing or what they wanted- which is understandable, but makes it very hard to run a game effectivel 😅
Group synergy and expectations are arguably more important than any aspect of actual gameplay. I used to play with a group that would routinely take a 1-2 hour break in the middle of our session to smoke a bowl, eat dinner, then smoke another bowl b4 starting back up. Meanwhile I'm the guy who comes in after just finishing a 12h work shift and driving 45 minutes to play with them. I ended up leaving that game group because I felt like I was being a buzz kill more often than not; I wanted to hang out and relax with friends during a game session while everyone else wanted to play a little during a hangout session. That particular group probably would've lasted alot longer if we collectively treated it as more of a generic game night instead of specifically meeting up to play DnD weekly
Sometimes you just have really bad luck, and it can feel genuinely unfair. 1 time i was playing a rogue, and my lv3 party was losing the encounter. I rolled really well and managed to drag our unconcious sorcerer away from an ooze over to our cleric while the paladin held the front line. We got him back up, but then he had a wild magic surge on his next turn, dropping a fireball on all 3 of us, killing 3/4 of the party
Other people, having played for years in dozens of games: am i ready to dm? Me, three years ago having played 3 one shots from a cold start about to homebrew a whole world to run a campaign in: LOOOOORREEE
I think the only thing a person needs to start DM'ING is having played at least a 3 month campaign or watching a large amount of DND campaigns on TH-cam, with a good if not great DM to give that player some reference on how a DM handles things. For me, I had sporadic play that was never consistent with DnD. I had a one shot that got me into it at school in December. Then I had three to 5 session ran by my brother for me and my coworker, then a DnD session at school DnD club that was supposed to start a campaign for me that was consistent, but after one session they switched DMs around in the club cause one quit. At the same time I tried playing with a friend from school and that lasted about 2 or 3 sessions. And then the school DnD we had a total of 4 or so sessions total. And in between the DM was not there once so I ran a session when he missed it. Then by April/May I was fed up and decided to DM for a group by myself. With not a large understanding of the rules, or a good consistent DM I had to learn things by myself and still am. I have made tons of mistakes that could have been avoided, but it's something that I realize I've had to go through. So for me, I think finding a somewhat consistent DM who can give you reference as to how that role is handled is the best way before someone starts DM'ING.
24:20 is the worst. I find it happens a lot as someone who optimizes their characters. Somehow an enemy always seems to "spawn" within 30ft of me mid combat no matter what I do.
None of my friends have ever played before, so I want to be a DM using one six sided dice, and just making our own rules. I thought we could work our way up, learning the rules as we play.
So, the great thing about that is how it encourages storytelling. The difficult thing about that is how the system does provide a lot of very helpful structure, especially for newer players who can stumble when trying to decide what to do. Having only a d6, or even playing a looser system like FATE, can force the players to have a lot of improv at the table… and not everyone is comfortable with that. It can be reassuring to have a character sheet that says, “oh right, my Armor Class is 18 so I should guard the rest of the party.” Or “hey, I get +6 to lockpicking! Let’s try that door again.” So, in short - your willingness to embrace the heavy lifting of impromptu narrative is a huge strength, but also, don’t underestimate the support that a numerical system can provide.
Best I ever heard about magic items for PCs is simple give them anything at all easily but give item like 3 charges so can test it see how mechanically works and wont be able just break game from that point on kinda thing
As someone who ran their first ever oneshot a month ago, combat was the easiest part. First I had a monster that the entire session was built around for their level. Then I found out that I only had 2 people coming in for it so I adjusted the numbers so they didn’t die turn one (this thing was basically a three headed dragon). Three fights, 1st was supposed to be a very dangerous encounter, drain health and resources but counterbalanced by supportive cannon fire. 2nd was a battle against one of the heads along with a swarm of 2 new enemy units to keep them on their toes. 3rd was the draconian serpent fully formed but with only one head so difficult but not overwhelming. Something I did was if the tempo was slowing down my monsters would start doing more actions The fountain in the second fight flooded with ‘monster pheromones’ making monsters more jittery and make attacks with adv if the players got covered by it. The 2 mistakes I feel I made were 1). Underestimating how powerful cannons are (next time they’ll be seige crossbows dealing less than a cannon… shorter range too) and 2). I had my big monster take potshots in fight 1 and 3 by hiding under the clouds in one and the water in 3. I wanted to demonstrate that while the Hewdraw could be fooled it’s not an idiot and will fight dirty to survive. I do have ideas on how to improve fights 1 and 3. RP was more difficult because I knew the base personalities of my NPC’s but haven’t lived in them yet.
Ha! One of my players swapped his warlock to intelligent based to distinguish from the charismatic sorc and palladin. Said they didn't need an extra face. This also worked extra well because he multiclassed to wizard in order to use all the magic books I created for the world.
I'm dealing with too much money in a nautical campaign and I fixed it by saying even if they never buy a ship and only steal them they still have to repair any damages sustained from combat or navigational failures.
IMO if you’re shy and don’t want to roleplay social interactions, then you shouldn’t play a high-charisma character. BUT. BUT. BUT! If you’re shy and _do_ want to roleplay social interactions, then you absolutely _should_ play a high-charisma character. You should do your best, and then the DM should take your stats into account when determining the effect. If you’ve made a fair effort then I think it’s totally fine for the DM to assume that, whatever you’ve said, your character knows how to sell it (with voice, or mannerisms, or whatever). Or, the DM can treat the stat as your character’s social insight, and provide advice on what to say or not to say. (“… Okay, you’re about to insult the guard’s mother when you suddenly realize that it _might not_ win his favor, but getting him talking about his ‘Mom’ tattoo just might. Do you want to reconsider your action?”) IMO roleplaying is about roleplaying first & foremost, and the dice are there to arbitrate & support that. Roleplaying can be a very emotionally satisfying experience, and can even help you grow as a person-but you don’t get any of that if you don’t want to put in the effort to actually roleplay.
Wish looting got more addressed. Playing D&D with a group that is heavily video game players everyone has a tendency to want to loot every body. I don't think it stems from boredom/lack of immersion/lack of focus, it's just something everyone is accustomed to doing.
11:50 Um, actually... If you go by the class, yeah, intellect is only primary to the wizard. But if you go by archetype (counting only PHB), Wisdom is primary to 9, Charisma to 7, Constitution none, and the three you mention as being most commonplace are each 8. That's pretty close for everything except Constitution, which no-one cares about first, according to the Quick Build advise. So we have a lot of people that are inherently aware of how unhealthy they are. (Side note: To be fair, I counted all the fighter archetypes as favoring Strength, while the Quick Build says to choose either that or Dexterity, but that doesn't double the number of archetypes. So we could say Dexterity wins at 9.5 and Strength drops to 6.5. But why sound more nerdy?) Edit: The follow-up commentary regards warlocks using Charisma as their casting stat. Charisma represents one's sense of self. It is the save against spells that compel you to behave differently. If the warlock does not have a strong sense of self, it's archdemon, elder god, or fey patron will enslave it. Intellect wouldn't help a warlock there. Besides, Intellect represents learning spells as wizards do, through study. Warlocks don't really learn spells; their patron knows the magic and the warlock is merely directing their patron's magic. According to their pact, the warlock lets the patron mess with their world and use the warlock as a conduit, bribing the warlock with the ability to call upon the patron's power. I mean, if anything, there's a stronger case that Wisdom should be their spellcasting stat, because it is pretty much exactly like how clerics interact with their deities, but I don't think you want even more Wisdom casters. They are already the majority of the archetypes!
Ok my problem with this is that I've heard them talking about how you can be a successful DM or GM without any playing experience but that makes absulute 0 sense and we have no examples of said person
I think it's pretty much easy baby mode to say I make a persuasive argument. CHA is overloaded already. They shouldn't win everything just because they want to. My DCs are always based off of description. Because the way you do something is much more important. But that's part in parcel to persuasion, you need to appeal to that person's sensibilities
I've had some shitty dnd groups in my time but the worst moment has to be me playing some dashing idiot swashbuckler and trying to charm a lady and succeeding and basically being insulted for what I said as a person through my character I'm no longer friends with that person and probably won't be ever again
Speaking of items, I once had my players roll percentile dice to determine the loot they got off a demon they'd just killed and I used a random loot list I'd found online. One of the players rolled and the item was an egg. Just a normal egg. When pressed for details about the egg, I said it was a red chicken egg because they'd pulled it off a demon who was red. One of the players said something about how cockatrices were hatched from chicken eggs laid by a rooster and incubated by a toad. My world did not include cockatrices when I built it. Guess what questline I added for my players after that.
My favorite thing to do when I'm stuck on where to bring the story is to drop hints and listen to the players complete it.... in my head I'm like "crap that's good."
I love doing this! And just like cheating on homework, you change it just a little bit so it doesn't look like you cheated.
I do this too. It's funny because in my campaign I have different riddles/poems they have to figure out, so I chose the player with the highest wisdom and said they get 3 hints a day on whatever poem they want. At one point they said an answer that was basically the same I had written... but better. It was funny because I said, "no... erm actually yes." I immediately erased my answer and put theirs. When they asked what I meant I said, "your answer was way better." (everyone laughed)
It is not only easier to run a game this way, it is also better and totally legit.
As RPGs are collective story-telling, it isn't even cheating. You come up with the setting, and the players fill it with action. If you have a bad guy with an evil plan, please do not come up with a way to solve it. Bad guy should think of the ways he or she might be thwarted and take measures to secure the plan, but is up to the heroes to solve the problem. It is okay to have an idea for what the heroes might do to win, but what you need to do is allow their solutions to be possible. Maybe not the first thing they try; certainly not the worst thing they try. But some idea they have will sound good to them and it probably means it is good for the story, so allow it to work... given maximum effort.
This works for puzzles, too. Throw out a riddle, but you don't need to know the answer. Four people contemplating the clues are likely to come up with something better than one person can anyways. When they say something impressive, then ta-dah! That's the right answer to the riddle.
I have a bad feeling that we've all been in "that game" where the DM wants you to take a specific course of action and has exactly one pre-determined method of solving some threat, like a bad escape room puzzle, and it probably won't make a lot of sense, too. Recreating what was pre-determined is an exercise in misery as every avenue you pursue fails and if you do come up with the right solution, you really don't feel like your idea worked because it was someone else's idea to begin with. This is fun for precisely no-one at the table. Even worse, as a player, you don't feel like you are contributing; you are just trying to find the track that someone else already laid and then follow it.
"There's a stone-walled room, a table, a box of crackers, some string, a mouse, a chandelier suspended from the ceiling, and a key inside a force-field dome. The only other door forward is locked."
"I cast Pass Through Stone and walk into the next room."
"You can't. Uh, there's an anti-magic field within the wall."
"Really? Someone had the resources and fore-thought to put an anti-magic barrier in the stone wall? Fine. I leave the dungeon, estimate the distance and depth of the room I was in, and teleport from the other side of the wall."
"Um, there's another anti-magic barri--look, just solve my stupid puzzle!"
I have literally gone "shit, that's better than what I prepped" then just quietly scratched out my little thing and just rolled entirely with a player's instinct. No one knew until a few sessions later when I confessed this.
(18:07) that was our teifling bard in our Storm King's Thunder campaign! During one of the early encounters she got the killing blow on a troll with Vicious Mockery, and when the DM asked "What do you say as your casting it?" she said (out of character) "Um, I'm sorry I'm no good with insults..." And we all decided that that was in character and the troll died of cuteness overload. And from that point on she was just the baby of the party.
On the note of different takes on charisma, I'm loving playing a big, burly aasimar paladin who is just really softspoken and sincere with people. He's honest and apologetic and almost shy in some contexts because he's not good at interacting with people (all backstory stuff), and it's his sincerity that gets people to like him and agree with him.
I have a Tiefling paladin who is pretty similar actually. Just very friendly and gives big hugs
I have a Paladin that charisma is conveyed by how he carries himself. He’s the kind of person that you notice when he walks into the room just because of the aura around him.
I have a very charismatic Goliath Barbarian who gives off a paternal aura, so that’s how me and my DM play it. Everyone listens to him because it’s like getting advice from your dad, or for intimidation it’s like he’s scolding you.
The first party I DMed for had a gnome rogue with high Cha, and he just tried to be adorable. Like, people thought he was a child, it was just like 'of course I'll let you into this noble's party without an invitation you little scamp, don't eat too many candy apples'.
I have a human college of spirits bard with the chef feat. He's a pudgy, very sweet guy who (thanks to his adopted mother, he can control when this happens) gets possessed by ghosts. His entire character motivation is to get more recipes and whatnot to make his adopted parents' restaurant better and more famous, that and to feed hungry people.
You know what I struggle with that I don't hear much about?
Being a player again after DMing for so long. Like how do people handle THAT transition? I constantly feel like I know too much after being behind the screen and looking up so many rules and monsters. And there's this feeling of helplessness in terms of what I want my character to do in terms of roleplaying or story beats that I'm frustrated with not having opportunities I want to see. Something like I go for a deception and I get no roll (because like the Psych song, the I know that you know that I'm not telling the truth) because it's obvious I'm making it up.
It's just a hard adjustment to let myself be pulled in a direction I didn't want to go.
That's actually a very common struggle! I've went through this transition and I think I can contribute with some advice.
First of all, you'll have to practice seeing the world though the eyes of your character only. It doesn't matter that you know something, if they don't. As DMs, we do it all the time with NPCs, it's a hyperfocused version of it.
It also can be that you're too attached to your prior knowledge during the game because you're not playing a character (or an adventure) that inspires you.
About the frustration to not see those story beats and opportunities you've expected: as someone who's been running games for a long time, it's easy to fall into a egotistical trap of thinking too much about you character and creating too much expectation about the game.
You can talk to your DM and the rest of the group about the tone of the story and see if ita possible to provide these opportunities. But I reccomend you, when playing a character, to try to think more about what would be cooler to the story, and less about fulfilling your individual expectations (and try to set the expectations for the whole group, which should happen on a session zero)
As far as the question of distractions at the table and keeping your party focused, I like the idea that the game world continues moving unless a time out is called. So if your players start yacking about something while waiting on a train or while shopping, have the train start to leave and declare "As you're talking amongst yourselves, the trains whistle blows shrilly and begins to slowly lurch forward..." or "suddenly, the shop keeper interrupts, aggravatedly 'are you lot gonna buy something or can I close up and go home before the sun comes up?'" This allows you to use story elements to push things back in motion and allows for interesting interactions/reactions.
24:21 "they're gonna always target that wizard in the back" just screams Shadowrun.
Geek the mage.
The real crime is that I have subscribed to Dropout, but there's so much good content on there that I needed to listen to this at work.
Good thing I have advantage on deception!
Wanted to like this comment but I could not bring myself to destroy the number.
@@TIRomeoLive same
Do not be afraid to hand out magic items that can cast spells at will... within reason. In my first campaign with my own setting, one of my players and good friends made his character be a sewer druid, and he had a pet rat. This was such an important part of his character that I awarded him a magic item that let him Speak with Animals at will (as long as they were rats) and Wild Shape into a rat at will (Ring of the Rat King), and we LOVED it. It was such a crucial part of who his character was, and a rat is a rat; there's not many ways that a 1HP WildShape would be broken in combat.
Oh I now a few ways to break it . Nyhrhehehehe
The flipside of this is my DM foolishly letting me put an immovable rod in my sword on my first character. Two sessions later we have to invent an entirely new mechanic/damage table for when a chimera almost rips itself in half trying to get away from one attack
What I realised when playing DnD is I don't like the dm being too nice. In the campaign I have at the moment, my illiterate character suddenly can speak orcish after hearing a few words from a memory, and when the party fucked up at a city and we end up battling these powerful guards, the dm was visibly upset and worried about hurting our characters. A few of the players were freaking out but I was all like "hit me, don't go easy on me. Don't pity my character, do what the dice say". We did end up all surviving, I'm just hoping that the gm can have that more mean edge when it is valid
I rarely flub my roles , only when it wouldn't be fun for the everyone.
I learned this when in my first cAmpighn I tTPK THe entire party
@@CreamCakes420 so I need to flub a lot because I'm running for children.
I'm not flubbing to keep them alive but specifically because when they get a new ability if they use it more then twice and it doesn't work they will never use it again.
@@an8strengthkobold360 yeah that makes alot of sense really just depends on the party
"Dat dog is sick!"
28:55
I know this is old, but it reminded me of one thing I loved about Crown of Candy (based on Game of Thrones). In a game, you have a chance to fail, like they were discussing. And you also have a chance to succeed! Unlike in GOT where if the writer decides a character is going to die that's it.
Certain shows and books lose me when the protagonists are set up so obviously as having no chance of success (not because of the story itself but because the writers overuse tragedy for dramatic value), that loses the tension because I know now that nothing good is allowed to happen. So I loved Crown of Candy because the game aspect made both success and failure possible! The characters had a real chance of survival that they don't in any other medium.
I was actually using 5e stats and rolls to determine success or failure of my characters. Then, much like was pointed in this very video, I can do great concepts but not great detailed execution of said concepts.
Well, well, well. If it isn't the consequences of my own actions. Nice of you to finally make it.
36:17 oh absolutely, my first full campaign that we actually went to max level and had an ending for I played a dwarf fighter with a heritage artifact (homebrew) that I didn't care about nearly as much as the flying broom I stole from an enemy around 8th lvl. It really solidified my characters identity and behaviour from that point on.
(Sidenote It's also an interesting. Choice of locomotion as the dwarf was constantly having his pants destroyed by enemies so gave up and went with kilts.)
There's a handy guideline in the player's handbook for at will magic items. Just look at the list of eldritch invocations for the warlock. If the spell or effect is already an invocation and it does not have a level requirement for taking it then it is in no way overpowered to give another player an at will magic item at a later level that does the same thing.
not really magical gear, but magic in general, my favourite magic in DnD is dramatic magic that isn't necessarily defined like prestidigitation or thaumaturgy, I absolutely love them and they are SO fun to use and useful surprisingly frequently!
Both of them (but especially the first) are as useful as you are creative.
@@an8strengthkobold360 I think that's one the things I love most about them
I mean, they're the same spell. Just one is arcane and the other divine. Good utility spells, but I can't fathom how one is better than the other, unless you just like gods more (or less).
@@FlatOnHisFace they have subtle differences mechanically which allow for different things to be done, but yes they are very similar
@@FlatOnHisFace they really aren't the same.
I started getting into Dungeons & Dragons as a DM and I wasn’t aware of UA and how bad base ranger was. One of my players ended up on beast master ranger and was falling so far behind the other party members that oathbow actually balanced things back out for the party. Sometimes it broke a moment in game where I wasn’t expecting but it always made for a better story and made them feel badass.
14:00 This is how I run my Mage : The Ascension games now. My PCs have so many options as Mages and are so inventive, that if I already have solutions in mind I tend to guide them towards it, but if I just leave them to figure something out, they'll find very cinematic and gratifying solutions for the problems at hand.
In regards to magic items, one of the best magic items I've ever created was some magically enchanted underwear. It's enchanted to just... always fit comfortably. It never chafes or wedgies up or anything. Always comfortable. That was it. And my players *fought like hell* over that. It was great xD
I suck at designing challenging encounters, so I'm always ready to throw in more grunts.
Precisely this. This is the advice I give people who say they are worried about making balanced encounters. Don't put all your baddies on the field at once. As new bads are added, the heroes tend to go "oh shit!" because they thought they knew the parameters of the fight and it just changed. Heroes are surrounded as bads enter from behind them and lines of scrimmage are redrawn. It makes sense that monsters aren't just standing around static waiting for adventurers to come across them--they'll run toward the sound of a fight to help their fellow monsters. If the fight is taxing enough, stop adding more baddies, and no-one must ever know that wasn't all of them. Then add a couple more, just so they don't think you're being soft.
Alfons, noble knight, good listener, manspreader...
Yeah I played that campaign he doesn't want to name and had the same conundrum. Ranger never got the Oathbow, however, and it is not that big of a deal. So don't be afraid to use it, just note a few things. Oathbow is great against 1 enemy but as the number of combatants increase the less effective it gets. The sworn enemy takes extra damage but once they are dead you don't get another sworn enemy until the next dawn aka it's a once per day deal. Also it doesn't even give a bonus to damage or to hit. It's a big screw you to one thing in particular and then just a run of the mill bow otherwise.
One of the favorite magic items I gave a player was a Blackjack Greatsword on our lvl5-9 homebrew campign. She loves the randomness of rolling the dice and was a playing a barbarian who liked to gamble on her own bar fights. It allowed her to roll as many d20 for damage as she wanted, but if she went over 21 the damage just fizzled. She could still choose to do regular damage on any attack, but more often would go for the ‘go big or go home’ option. She had a love/hate relationship with that sword.
18:18 is where they start talking about being a mean GM or DM
i totally get it about the mean gm stuff.
i ran a call of cthulhu game not so long ago and i ended up brutally killing one of the investigators and i felt real bad about it but it certainly added to the tone of the game and made it overall more interesting. But i feel like had it gone much further and theres a point when everyone becomes dissatisfied. Luckily the one player was chill about it
you shouldve said first
@@JohnDoe-po3ku why ruin the comments section with that
Plus, it's Call of Cthulhu. Unless you're running a pulp game, players should be briefed before hand that their characters will either die or be driven insane. It's one of the big charms of the game; players should almost expect a bad end.
@@LlamaKing9000 thats true but this was the first time we had played CoC and it was my first time GMing so it was a little harsher on us
Best case scenario, I say. Cthulhu shouldn't be easy and if your first foray into it provided a higher body count than your more heroic fantasy games, it should be the session that defines the tone of Cthulhu henceforth. Nowhere to go but up, 'eh? Well, I suppose we could lose three investigators next time....
30:00 I think that if it becomes such a campaign, you totally need one person who's not afraid to be the "sacrificial lamb" as it were to provide some levity when everything's going to shit
Very interesting conversation about topics that I also struggle with in my games, so I hope I will become better by listening to the advice given here :) Good stuff!
I think Brennan makes a fantastic point about the concept of being the mean DM versus upholding the authority of the dice. effectively what you're trying to do is find a way to allow your PC to live, sneakily. in a way that doesn't make them feel like you "allowed" them to live.
every call of cthulhu player makes an old man henderson eventually
It doesn't help that Call of Cuthulhu puts people in situations that make then release their Hendersons.
So I'm running hackmaster game and saw this video and though hay maybe this will help me run a game were I have to deal with players dying. Then you call out hackmaster I lose it lol great videos.
My favorite magic item is the decanter of endless Coffee I had in magic school campaign was so much fun to start interaction by giving people Coffee and playing her after they lost was so amazing
You gave the Oath Bow to an Arcane Archer?! My favorite character I've ever played was my Arcane Archer. The absolute havoc I could have wreaked if I had the Oath Bow... As soon as you mentioned the Oath Bow and then said Arcane Archer, I knew nothing balanced came of this.
3.5's Reserve Feats were the beginning of unlimited cantrip use :D
thanks noah :)
whenever i hear people thinking they cant DM i remember that for my first year of being a DM i had access to a few 5e character sheets and then the 4e players handbook but that book only for one hour a week - the same hour that we had available to play. had no goddamn clue what i was doing but we had fun
When they're talking about players using abilities in smart & clever ways it made me think of one time where we (I was a player) were coming up on what was supposed to be a deadly encounter with this giant legendary boar and 24 orc warriors and we didn't even end up fighting them because our druid saw them from the sky (they were wildshaped as a griffin) and I thought "Whats the biggest and heaviest normal animal I can think of" and that was a blue whale. So our druid flew 500 feet up above this boar and once, wild shaped back, called us and told us not to go to the place yet, then turned into a massive blue whale and just landed on them, killing his whale form and all but 2 orcs. We came in and killed the others and his character had ptsd about frying for a time after that as in wild shape you feel the pain and everything so he felt himself die as a blue whale from falling from the sky 😂😂😂😂
3 years later but people are terrible at managing magic items especially in 5e but DMs are bad at it in general. I make all my own items for this reason. And yes Brennan is right, utility items are WAY better to give out.
On magic items: I was playing a sorcerer that got a cloak of the bat. He became the party's sneaky guy and would spy on enemies at night and fly around the city setting up the plans to catch the villains.
I’m a real munchkin, and I always go for munchkin magic items, but my favorite magic items have been the ones that aren’t number crunchers like was said. I got Kyrzoon’s ooze on one character and it tied so well into a plot he was going through and its just so fun and goofy being an ooze monster symbiote thing.
Then on another character my main character my most treasured item is the band of intellect because not only is it interesting rp wise, its also just funny having this massive, intimidating orc paladin wearing a dainty tiara. And like he had 15 int before so its not even a huge change, but the flavor it provides is unmatched.
I let my players know early, this will be optimized combat meaning the monsters aren’t just dumb HP sacks they will have strategic moves and they love it so far
At the end of the day everyone needs to understand you can always die at any moment
4:47 sometimes people aren’t ready to gm and sometimes- Brennan is right- they’re ready but they think they aren’t. Players on the other hand- they want to play but don’t realize when they’re not ready to play. I’ve tried running a campaign with my sisters and my friend and they all had very flat characters that they built simply because they liked the classes and races of the characters, there’s nothing wrong with that- but they didn’t exactly know what they were doing or what they wanted- which is understandable, but makes it very hard to run a game effectivel 😅
Group synergy and expectations are arguably more important than any aspect of actual gameplay. I used to play with a group that would routinely take a 1-2 hour break in the middle of our session to smoke a bowl, eat dinner, then smoke another bowl b4 starting back up. Meanwhile I'm the guy who comes in after just finishing a 12h work shift and driving 45 minutes to play with them.
I ended up leaving that game group because I felt like I was being a buzz kill more often than not; I wanted to hang out and relax with friends during a game session while everyone else wanted to play a little during a hangout session. That particular group probably would've lasted alot longer if we collectively treated it as more of a generic game night instead of specifically meeting up to play DnD weekly
PC´s are always hot strong, ..and dumb! (that explains a lot :))
Sometimes you just have really bad luck, and it can feel genuinely unfair.
1 time i was playing a rogue, and my lv3 party was losing the encounter. I rolled really well and managed to drag our unconcious sorcerer away from an ooze over to our cleric while the paladin held the front line. We got him back up, but then he had a wild magic surge on his next turn, dropping a fireball on all 3 of us, killing 3/4 of the party
Other people, having played for years in dozens of games: am i ready to dm?
Me, three years ago having played 3 one shots from a cold start about to homebrew a whole world to run a campaign in: LOOOOORREEE
I think the only thing a person needs to start DM'ING is having played at least a 3 month campaign or watching a large amount of DND campaigns on TH-cam, with a good if not great DM to give that player some reference on how a DM handles things.
For me, I had sporadic play that was never consistent with DnD. I had a one shot that got me into it at school in December. Then I had three to 5 session ran by my brother for me and my coworker, then a DnD session at school DnD club that was supposed to start a campaign for me that was consistent, but after one session they switched DMs around in the club cause one quit. At the same time I tried playing with a friend from school and that lasted about 2 or 3 sessions. And then the school DnD we had a total of 4 or so sessions total. And in between the DM was not there once so I ran a session when he missed it. Then by April/May I was fed up and decided to DM for a group by myself.
With not a large understanding of the rules, or a good consistent DM I had to learn things by myself and still am. I have made tons of mistakes that could have been avoided, but it's something that I realize I've had to go through.
So for me, I think finding a somewhat consistent DM who can give you reference as to how that role is handled is the best way before someone starts DM'ING.
24:20 is the worst. I find it happens a lot as someone who optimizes their characters. Somehow an enemy always seems to "spawn" within 30ft of me mid combat no matter what I do.
None of my friends have ever played before, so I want to be a DM using one six sided dice, and just making our own rules. I thought we could work our way up, learning the rules as we play.
So, the great thing about that is how it encourages storytelling. The difficult thing about that is how the system does provide a lot of very helpful structure, especially for newer players who can stumble when trying to decide what to do.
Having only a d6, or even playing a looser system like FATE, can force the players to have a lot of improv at the table… and not everyone is comfortable with that. It can be reassuring to have a character sheet that says, “oh right, my Armor Class is 18 so I should guard the rest of the party.” Or “hey, I get +6 to lockpicking! Let’s try that door again.”
So, in short - your willingness to embrace the heavy lifting of impromptu narrative is a huge strength, but also, don’t underestimate the support that a numerical system can provide.
Best I ever heard about magic items for PCs is simple give them anything at all easily but give item like 3 charges so can test it see how mechanically works and wont be able just break game from that point on kinda thing
Have Puffin Forest on!!!
As someone who ran their first ever oneshot a month ago, combat was the easiest part.
First I had a monster that the entire session was built around for their level.
Then I found out that I only had 2 people coming in for it so I adjusted the numbers so they didn’t die turn one (this thing was basically a three headed dragon).
Three fights, 1st was supposed to be a very dangerous encounter, drain health and resources but counterbalanced by supportive cannon fire. 2nd was a battle against one of the heads along with a swarm of 2 new enemy units to keep them on their toes. 3rd was the draconian serpent fully formed but with only one head so difficult but not overwhelming.
Something I did was if the tempo was slowing down my monsters would start doing more actions
The fountain in the second fight flooded with ‘monster pheromones’ making monsters more jittery and make attacks with adv if the players got covered by it.
The 2 mistakes I feel I made were 1). Underestimating how powerful cannons are (next time they’ll be seige crossbows dealing less than a cannon… shorter range too) and 2). I had my big monster take potshots in fight 1 and 3 by hiding under the clouds in one and the water in 3. I wanted to demonstrate that while the Hewdraw could be fooled it’s not an idiot and will fight dirty to survive. I do have ideas on how to improve fights 1 and 3.
RP was more difficult because I knew the base personalities of my NPC’s but haven’t lived in them yet.
Ha! One of my players swapped his warlock to intelligent based to distinguish from the charismatic sorc and palladin. Said they didn't need an extra face. This also worked extra well because he multiclassed to wizard in order to use all the magic books I created for the world.
God I'm jealous of an office campaign.
I'm dealing with too much money in a nautical campaign and I fixed it by saying even if they never buy a ship and only steal them they still have to repair any damages sustained from combat or navigational failures.
I feel I need guide how to go to be a player after being DM ;)
That thumbnail makes it look like you got Kevin smith on the podcast
17:52 Well, there is a reason it's called Cha-rizz-ma ;) /s
Discussing that PCs can die and any death save rules in use should be talked about in Session 0.
IMO if you’re shy and don’t want to roleplay social interactions, then you shouldn’t play a high-charisma character. BUT.
BUT.
BUT! If you’re shy and _do_ want to roleplay social interactions, then you absolutely _should_ play a high-charisma character. You should do your best, and then the DM should take your stats into account when determining the effect. If you’ve made a fair effort then I think it’s totally fine for the DM to assume that, whatever you’ve said, your character knows how to sell it (with voice, or mannerisms, or whatever).
Or, the DM can treat the stat as your character’s social insight, and provide advice on what to say or not to say. (“… Okay, you’re about to insult the guard’s mother when you suddenly realize that it _might not_ win his favor, but getting him talking about his ‘Mom’ tattoo just might. Do you want to reconsider your action?”)
IMO roleplaying is about roleplaying first & foremost, and the dice are there to arbitrate & support that. Roleplaying can be a very emotionally satisfying experience, and can even help you grow as a person-but you don’t get any of that if you don’t want to put in the effort to actually roleplay.
Wish looting got more addressed. Playing D&D with a group that is heavily video game players everyone has a tendency to want to loot every body. I don't think it stems from boredom/lack of immersion/lack of focus, it's just something everyone is accustomed to doing.
Curate your magic item awards to matter to your players. This is the way.
This is a very low exposure camera lens.
5e doesn't work without magic items. There's a bunch of classes that literally can't do anything without magic weapons
Geek the mage.
11:50 Um, actually... If you go by the class, yeah, intellect is only primary to the wizard. But if you go by archetype (counting only PHB), Wisdom is primary to 9, Charisma to 7, Constitution none, and the three you mention as being most commonplace are each 8. That's pretty close for everything except Constitution, which no-one cares about first, according to the Quick Build advise.
So we have a lot of people that are inherently aware of how unhealthy they are.
(Side note: To be fair, I counted all the fighter archetypes as favoring Strength, while the Quick Build says to choose either that or Dexterity, but that doesn't double the number of archetypes. So we could say Dexterity wins at 9.5 and Strength drops to 6.5. But why sound more nerdy?)
Edit: The follow-up commentary regards warlocks using Charisma as their casting stat. Charisma represents one's sense of self. It is the save against spells that compel you to behave differently. If the warlock does not have a strong sense of self, it's archdemon, elder god, or fey patron will enslave it. Intellect wouldn't help a warlock there. Besides, Intellect represents learning spells as wizards do, through study. Warlocks don't really learn spells; their patron knows the magic and the warlock is merely directing their patron's magic. According to their pact, the warlock lets the patron mess with their world and use the warlock as a conduit, bribing the warlock with the ability to call upon the patron's power. I mean, if anything, there's a stronger case that Wisdom should be their spellcasting stat, because it is pretty much exactly like how clerics interact with their deities, but I don't think you want even more Wisdom casters. They are already the majority of the archetypes!
So many people are saying that five he is a great game for combat, but it’s super hard for GMs to run combat. 🤭
Ok my problem with this is that I've heard them talking about how you can be a successful DM or GM without any playing experience but that makes absulute 0 sense and we have no examples of said person
I just started running a module because I am very new to DMing so I'm using it to set ground work to learn how to do it myself
29:20 so basically Wally from the Unsleeping City campaign
YES
I think it's pretty much easy baby mode to say I make a persuasive argument. CHA is overloaded already. They shouldn't win everything just because they want to.
My DCs are always based off of description. Because the way you do something is much more important. But that's part in parcel to persuasion, you need to appeal to that person's sensibilities
Agreed I also think that's why you could use advantage/disadvantage
Yes, obviously adjust DC if the player tries something that obviously shouldn't work.
48:27 ... :/ Noah would benefit greatly from the 'repeat the last thing said by the person you're speaking, before starting your sentences'...
Yeah. His response there came off as pretty extreme.
I've had some shitty dnd groups in my time but the worst moment has to be me playing some dashing idiot swashbuckler and trying to charm a lady and succeeding and basically being insulted for what I said as a person through my character
I'm no longer friends with that person and probably won't be ever again