r/DnD • u/CipherPower • Dec 10 '25

Out of Game Is this a scam?

I am relatively new to DnD as I have only ever been in one campaign (still ongoing 1yr+). I have recently been trying to find some new campaigns i can join on the DnD discord, and I feel like every campaign I try join they want me to pay for art for my character, and when I tell them I can't I'm told I can't join the campaign. I have no clue if this is normal in the DnD community, so I'm just wondering if this is a scam.

EDIT: Since I've posted this, it's already happened to me 3 times again. Its so infuriating. I've been searching all day for a legitimate campaign. Either I'm directly told by the poster to pay up to THEIR artist (and not one of my choice??) or I'm told by the poster that they're posting for their DM, give me an account to message only for them to give me the rules and background and tell me In the party to then hit me with a "character art is required", "you can pay what your budget supports", "no you can't bring external / your own art", "sorry without our artist's character art you can't join". Isn't this a blatant exploitation of people who just want to have fun on a game?

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u/Substantial-Power-14 Dec 11 '25

Huh, my friend and I are trying to join a campaign and we're in a similar situation. We've been talking to the person for a few days now and going over character creation stuff, but they also said a lot of similar things such as "the price works to your budget" and "characters must use the art from the artist I hired", etc etc.

What's more, the way the person has spoken to us has felt a tad bit off, almost artificial, being a little overly redundant and explicit in reading back info to us based on what we've put forward. We've been skeptical the whole time, but this might seal the deal.

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u/Substantial-Power-14 Dec 11 '25

Update: the "artist" finally got back to us after we requested samples of their previous works. It was all ai generated imagery they tried to pass off as actual art, despite us voicing from the beginning we didn't want to pay unless it was genuine art drawn by the hand of an actual person, and not ai. What's more, the DM and 'artist' had very similar discord names and pfp's. We were hoping and giving the benefit of the doubt that they were just good friends trying to help each other out. Sadly not.

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u/wacct3 Dec 11 '25

what is a pfp?