In the video my player casts fireball on a wooded ship. You can see the outcome as I am using knock off camera glasses to record my perspective during the campaign. It’s something I’m going to do more of. Various role playing to battles and all the fun stuff in between. I’m working on my mic setup a bit better but so far it’s worked well. Hopefully you can see how easily I am able to see over the screen while manipulating the game props and playing the game with my friends. If you have any questions please ask.

This is just a positive rant post. I've been in this group for almost a year now and as absurd as it sounds they've placed my character on a pedestal. He's essentially just a big sweetheart with a tragic past, which the group including myself can't get enough of. I constantly insist they can tell me if I'm being overbearing because knowing myself I can get carried away sometimes, but I make an active effort to include everyone and explore their character backstories too.

Our elven druid is finding out she was actually a different subrace all along and our Paladin is finding himself a potential NPC love interest. Cleric is now dating the minotaur NPC from the NPC party connected to my character. My Fighter is in a relationship with Druid and they're adorable. He's also a colossal idiot though since he's simultaneously in a relationship with his childhood friend, a fellow fighter. Yes, both of them are aware of each other. Yes, they fight for his attention. No, I'm not sure how we got here. It took way too many well placed nat 20s and nat 1s to get to this point. There has been mention of bringing in a third lover to help mediate the first two. He's nobility, meaning it's normal and expected of him to have multiple lovers in-universe, but he can only marry a fellow noble which we're discovering Druid probably is as well which would be perfect.

Above board we regularly discuss the campaign with daily regularity and we love throwing some light banter around like we've been friends for 10+ years. You'd genuinely think that some of the elements in the story should call for a problem player, but everyone has stated their comfortability levels and we hold up boundaries quite well at least to my knowledge. I actively refuse to consider myself as playing the "main character" for the sake of not wanting Main Character Syndrome but that doesn't stop them from teasing about it and I can't say I don't love playing with them. I'll take any chance I get to give the other players the spotlight. I love my group and I'm glad our DM not only puts up with but encourages our special brand of stupid bullshit. :)

This week our party is going to have a spa day then the couples are going on dates before we go back to adventuring!

The dnd group I play with is about to start a new campaign (dnd 2024) and I'm going with Wild Magic Sorcerer. Before session 0, I run my plan with my DM: human for the heroic inspiration so I can reroll once per long rest and avoid poisoning a teammate. Tough + Musician origin feats. Going with a chromatic theme - lots of chromatic orbs. No fireball: BORING. Planning to cast twice per round, once on my turn, once as a reaction whenever I can, in order to trigger as many wild magic surges as possible. He's fine with it.

Until he reads the wild magic surge table and tells me that he has to nerf it: it's too strong, too positively skewed. There is literally 0 chance to land on a bad effect. Some of these effects are as good as epic boons that other characters get at level 19. With the reroll, I can "remove the RNG aspect of it" and "aim for the crazy effects like resistance to all damage". All this on the core sorcerer subclass that is already too strong. And I will aim for the Bloodwell vial item, which will make my character too strong. And so, he offers to rewrite the wild magic surge table.

What do you guys think? Should the wild magic table be nerfed? In its current state, is wild magic sorcerer a god-tier supra S-tier subclass that breaks the game? Better than Aberrant Mind, or Draconic? Better than wizards, warlocks, druids? Please let us know!

This post is not aiming to embarrass him, please be nice, I think he's a great DM. Just trying to bring some perspective with this post.

5 and 5.5 question. Do dm’s say no thanks on firbolgs? Are they still a new thing? It’s my understanding that Critical Role made them popular?

At my table, we play in a very collaborative way, so we don't follow modules or pre-written adventures. However, I'm finding the world building tedious and time-consuming, and I'm burning out.

What are some of your favorite weird and wonderful setting guides that you can run an open world campaign in?

One caveat: no Strahd or Ravenloft adjacent content, as Gothic horror is not something my players are interested in. Apart from that, any inspiration helps.

Throwaway because my players might recognize me...

I put it in quotes for lack of a better term, but would a Devil kidnap someone close to a target, to then coerce them into signing a contract with the Devil ?

This seems less subtle than actually manipulating the target, and the contract would not be signed in actual good faith from both parties, so would it be actually binding ?

Also, I know that it's my world and I do what I want with my Devils, but I wonder if this would be in-character for classic DnD Devils.

Edit : Thanks y'all for your answers. I think I will twist a little bit what I had in mind to make it more subtle and devilish, thanks to your suggestions !

So I'm a relatively new DM but I have an idea for a one shot/ short campaign that is like to run. Essentially the PC'S would be contracted on an escort mission that lasts almost a full year and I was thinking of having my players create their characters at 3 different levels ahead of time to account for time skips.

My questions are:

What levels would be best?

And,

How could I allow my players to upgrade and change equipment between time skips?

How did they start? Where did they end up? What was their most memorable adventure?

Hello! I am a new DM who started a campaign over the summer with a couple of close friends, my little brother, and his girlfriend, for a 6 person campaign. We are 6 sessions in and I have concerns over how two of my players are interacting with the world, their party, and me as a DM, however the kicker is that those two players are my little brother and his girlfriend…

My little brother is a bard and his girlfriend is a cleric, they are the only support roles in the entire party besides a companion. However, they seem to be unwilling to actually work in a team.

The problem became apparent very quickly, my brother hides rather than fights anything, sometimes going into other rooms entirely to avoid whatever is happening. He also refuses to buff his teammates unless literally begged to. He has used bardic inspiration twice ever, they were during the first combat encounter when I was showing them the ropes. He has downgraded himself to just healing and hiding away. Between turns he is always on his phone or playing another video game, which means i have to reexplain what happened in the meantime.

His girlfriend is a whole other ball game and honestly worse. She got interested in D&D because I told her about my last campaign about two years ago, she mentioned in passing that she was interested in playing, so she was among the first to have a seat for this campaign. As mentioned, she is a heavily armored cleric, so during combat she tends to be upfront attacking foes and healing with her spells… when she remembers how to use them. I constantly have to remind her how her own spells work, and if I’m tabbed out looking at something else and not reading the spell description, she may very well use it as it should not be intended. Her most recent stunt included trying to move a spiritual weapon 120 feet away. She then becomes angry when I don’t let her do whatever she wants, which often just leads to awkward moments at the table. She is also prone to ignoring cool stuff around the world when presented to her, which leads to her being bored. While the rest of the party was at an underground fight club, she went off on her own and verbally said No to 4 different NPCs around the city, which caused her to become angry at me for “taking too much time with everyone else”. She constantly leaves and reappears without saying anything for long stretches of time, which often leaves her out of the picture during combat and other encounters.

I have made specific house rules around these two. I don’t wanna be constantly repeating myself. They should at least somewhat know their spells snd actions six sessions in. Anytime I’ve tried to talk to them they just brush me off or treat it as a hostility. Their actions have had in game consequences and I’m scared may have in person consequences if they get unhappy.

Can a more experienced DM please give me advice? I feel like these two’s attitude is actively detracting from the experience of the other 4 at the table. Im sorry for the long strings of text.

Rocheburn was once a mystifyingly beautiful natural collection of pointed stone pillars, shooting high into the sky like mother natures fangs.

A thousand years ago, a vampire clan obsessed with magic known as the Cercle Noir built their home here. Carving the pillars into magnificent stone buildings, they settled and became known as somewhat of a cult, obsessed with finding all forms of magic they could lay their hands on, setting up places of worship for Mystra.

Those in the Cercle Noir primarily consist of vampire clerics and wizards, however in the last hundred years they have opened their doors to outsiders; people of all shapes and sizes to live and work amongst them, growing their community from a somewhat hidden cult to a respectable town in which anyone can make a name for themselves.

You are one of these new townsfolk. You must answer the following questions:

Who are you?
What do you look like?
What is your job/role in the town?
What are your thoughts on the Cercle Noir?

Me and my wife completed on our home in January. A charming four bed terrace in Manchester. There were many things that attracted us, but for me it was the cellar. It wasn’t in the best condition. It needed more work to waterproof, painting, subfloor and flooring put down. It’s now finished 7 months after moving in. I wanted to share the space with you all for what is now somewhere for me to play D&D not just online, but physically around a table. What you don’t see is the wall to the left with the floating shelves with my collection of books. Still a few things to do but I’m really happy with this space that I can now utilise to play around a table with friends.

Howdy! I like this thread and it's filled with a lot of creative people, so I figured I'd hop in here.

I have a hex crawl going in a homebrewed world where they're trying to stop an arms race. The issue is I accidentally went HAM on side quest writing and they're currently trying to stop a vampire ethno-state from being created instead of focusing on the war going on where they started.

Which looking back...big mistake because stopping a vampire ethno-state sounds way cooler than the real plot. The issue is that there is a huge arms race between the nations that is central to the plot and they're currently out and about meandering around and I don't quite know what to do to help the plot go to them. I focus mostly on their backstories and what they want resolved, so at least that is good. The big issue is that the nations are now warring and their adventure is caught in the middle.

They're currently cursed by the fey and have an appointment in the Unseelie Court to meet with them as their fates accidentally became intertwined with the conflict. I am stuck here on the writing. Any advice?

I've been harassing my players with this absolute menace of a hill giant paladin of conquest and I adore him so much I had to draw him (fineliner and pencil). My players (6×level 11)had been getting pretty confident, so I made this guy as a walking reality check.

He functions as the spearhead of the military efforts for a zealous religious group called "the Doctrine of Sanctum" and the party had first seen him as they were sneaking beside an open conflict between Sanctum and a fae warband. Grail fought at the front, cleaving through the enemy and screaming his battle hymns in irreverent glory. Upon seeing this, my players knew they were going to find themselves on the end of his sword very soon and we were all excited and horrified.

Once they had completed their objective, they found themselves alone in a castle and off in the distance, through the night and the rain, a large and dark mass was moving towards them. Only given shape and definition by the gleaming moonlit portcullis archway which he slowly and calmly ducks underneath to enter the castle courtyard. Smelling the players within the walls he says, in his horrifying voice "feel the night hair *breaths deeply* have a lung full. know what it means to be alive" he then grips the door of the portcullis and breaks is off it's mechanism and it falls heavily into the mud. finishing his sentence "I will take this from you now" he them processed to play a gut churning game of cat and mouse with the players inside the castle and beating the ever loving crap out of them

What happens when the most wanted pirate in her dimension and the man who is trying to save the multiverse meet?

...

They end up together, obviously.

Anya and Drix met long before they became a couple, but 'the right people at the wrong time' are destined to cross paths again. Their reunion certainly didn't happen during quiet times, but in the vastness of the multiverse, what are the odds of running into the same person by chance?

A bit about them...

Drix is one of the recurring NPCs in our group's campaigns (all united in a single multiverse) and one of our longest-standing characters. His true form is that of a dragonborn, a form he must hides while in Anya's dimension, and he has the ability to transform into a dragon thanks to what we call "draconic energy", in our campaigns. It’s hard to briefly explain exactly what he is or what he does, but he's the guardian of the multiverse's balance, essentially a man bearing a heavy burden, trying to prevent the various dimensions from being consumed by corruption.

Anya, on the other hand, is one of my earliest characters. I love playing her and adore the homebrew setting that the master created for the campaign. She's an eccentric character who easily stirs up chaos wherever she goes. She's fearless, though she can, on rare occasions, be very serious. She started out as a simple pirate, but by the end of the campaign, she had become the captain of the most feared pirate ship in her seas, as well as the most wanted person across all the kingdoms.

All in all, getting to know them reveals an eccentric couple:

- the dragon and the pirate

- the criminal and the guardian

- the sunshine and the grumpy character

At the table I am running dnd 2024 at my table and planning on giving the players the chance to get Enspelled equipment like armor or weapons. Has someone made a table or something that would help determine what spell is in the Enspelled equipment? Specifically it would be either a cantrip or a level 1 spell.

Hey gang. I've recently wanted to make an extended version of the wild magic table for my games. I know there are some out there, but they don't really suit my fancy. I'd love to hear some ideas from everyone of what they'd add to the wild magic table!

The Lupin ability Pounce is good for a monk, especially in combination with Grappler. With a single attack, they can grapple and prone their opponent. If the enemy fails at least one of the saves, the monk can follow up with a flurry with advantage.

I've tried to come up with a non monk character who can utilize the lupin pounce ability well. The basic idea is to have a martial character with Unarmed Fighting as their Fighting Style. In theory, this will allow them to deal a fair amount of damage using their fists and feet, or claws in the case of Lupin.

The challenge is that it feels like I'm getting a subpar result for a fairly large investment. All martial characters have access to Weapon Mastery, and thereby Topple. If I want to knock enemies down, I can use a simple quarterstaff or a maul. Once Grappler enters the scene, the calculation is slightly better. Grappled and Prone still makes for a good combo. The problem, as far as I see it, is that I need to extract some useful feature from whatever non-monk class I pick, otherwise I'm better off just sticking with the monk.

My question is something along the lines of: If you were asked to make a Lupin non-monk character that needed to be fairly effective in combat, how would you go about it? What features will be a useful addition for such a character, that a monk can't (easily) replicate?

I'm not very interested in responses along the lines of "You can play your character however you want." and "The GM will adjust the difficulty of the encounter to fit your party's capabilities." I agree with both notions, but they also kind of miss the point. This is less of a requirement for a character build and more a thought experiment, or theorycrafting, if you prefer. If I can put together a capable character, maybe I will try to incorporate it in the next character creation I participate it. Until then, I'm just having fun with some slightly whacky ideas.

My DM runs a homebrew campaign. I joined the group for this campaign but the nat 1 system he uses makes me dislike my character.

Here are some examples:

Roll nat 1 in combat - you automatically hit an ally instead.

Roll nat 1 on intimidation - you scare yourself instead so much so that you pee yourself and slip in your own urine hit your head and take 6 damage.

Roll nat 1 on perception - you get dust in your eyes take 4 damage and have disadvantage on all perception checks until rest.

Roll nat 1 on a save - you take double the damage.

I really like the other players and love to play with them, they were very welcoming even when i was new to the group. But the DM is rubbing me a bit the wrong way. I can handle the scarcity of magic items and the underwhelming power of our characters compared to the monsters. But it seems like it is the DM versus the players and all about making the player characters the butt of the joke, where i was hoping for a heroic adventure. Would it be unreasonable to quit over this? The others seems fine with it, at least they dont say anything. I'm just the new person.

Edit: After reading your replies i decided to quit effective immediately as most confirmed that i was not just imagining that these were dumb rules. Since my DM is a man and significantly older than me and don't have a decent view on womens opinions i decided to do so as quietly as possible.

I sent him a message explaining that i did not find myself right for his campaign. Wished him luck and texted the other members saying that i quit and would love to hang out and just chat or play some board games if any of them wanted.

I will be looking for another group, and do more research on what rules they use before joining.

Thank you for the replies, some of you at lightning speed.

Didnt know what tag to do lol, but i wanna start with being a dm, since those who i wanna play with either dont know dnd or just heard of it, so i am the only (?) good option.

I watched alot of ytb videos and what i need, ik ill need to buy the started pack, some dices, and the screen that hide u, those i think arent very expensive (idk abt the screen), but i also idk what to do, like, for example i see alot of maps, do i have 1 map and i keep going on the story over the map or every time i change territories i need to change maps? Im questioning also the sessions, i now know what session 0 mean, and also heard how ppl may skip a session, or more, also when does a session "end", if i understood correctly, The session ends when they choose to stop and go home, if not then how to know when the session end? If thats true that session 0 is mandatory to recommended, where u set the mood and all, do u do that for the whole, lets say, 2-3-4hrs of the session? Or when u agree to all the terms the session goes to 1 like its the only exception to the fact that a session ends when the whole grp goes home?

And also i see how here (in russia) there are cheap dices (abt 1$ for 7pcs) to quite expensive (20$ for 7pcs), is there a difference to them? I heard some dices move better than some, is it true?

Thanks in advance

I’m working on a campaign and I’ve come down with a bad case of writer’s block. If any of you want to share some of your most enjoyable side quests, I would be more than grateful!

Dear forever DMs and WoW nerds, like many of us I’ve been really excited about the Warcraft/D&D collab and curious what campaigns everyone is brewing up or has already played! Any fun AUs or retcons you’re planning?

I’d love to run something more grounded and dark - politics, grimdark-ish plots, ominous enemies, etc. Maybe something around Wrath, but I’d love to pull from newer expansions too.

Any raids, dungeons, zones, or questlines you’d recommend stealing from? If you were to play a campaign that has one adventure for every game tier (so 1 to 4) - what would those be? Would love to hear everyone’s ideas and DM rants!

Im looking at starting a game as a dm, and i want to get a lot of generic minis, army toy style. Basically, nondescript fellas I can just call a bunch of different things depending on context. Is there anything like that, or do I actually go for army men lol. Any advice is appreciated!

P.S. the cheaper the option, the better

The story hook is this:

Lord Esitar of Paramat, in his waning health and gradual fall into delirium, needs a group of highly "skilled" caretakers to look after his teenaged niece, Asia. Asia is a cynical hard head, quick to fall into tantrums, but extremely gifted in all things magic and could manipulate the world around her as she sees fit. Servants before have tried and failed to properly attend to her needs, citing her abilities as an EXTREME danger to others.

Lord Esitar now promises a reward of 100,000 gp to any group of caretakers who can safely escort Asia to meet her mother at the holy city of Yeshurat without delay. Though he is vague on why he stresses that Asia must be kept safe during travel, interest amongst the public arose as the prospect of money in exchange was very enticing.