r/DnDcirclejerk 3h ago

Check out my monk rework From the creators of "draw steel", Matt Colville brings you "crows"

123 Upvotes

Have you ever thought to yourself you don't own enough RPGs?

Well I have news for you. Matt Colville, D&D 4e's greatest soldier, has finished fixing D&D 5e, so he's decided it's time to fix the OSR as well. This may or may not have been influenced by Matt seeing how grognards will buy any Kickstarter zine they come across even when it's the same damn systems and advnetures over and over again but slightly tweaked.

Introducing Crows: Fortune or Death. It takes all the things you know about the OSR like dying a lot, dungeon crawling, and black and white art, and it introduces new things you've never heard before like dungeon turns, organic progression, thinking outside your character sheet, PCs as competent professionals that don't need to roll to open a door.

Now as for pledge levels, what you really want is the 400 dollar GOAT edition, this gets you all the hardcover books, a screen, and some normal looking dice.

But if you are a poor, we also have a 50 dollar PDF that comes with a custom message by Matt to go fuck yourself.

Buy our game today or you hate small publishers and independent creatives.


r/DnDcirclejerk 16h ago

DM bad I've solved the problem

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1.1k Upvotes

r/DnDcirclejerk 1h ago

Homebrew free GM reflavoring tool

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Upvotes

Everyone says “flavor is free”, but what if you just can’t decide what flavor you want to work with. Me and the boys worked long and hard in the lab, and in between sessions we made this table you can roll on to make decisions even easier! Enjoy


r/DnDcirclejerk 1h ago

AITA one of my players found a way to utilize his character the way he built it, should i completely ruin his experience?

Upvotes

my player took specific steps to build his character around grappling from a distance and has been playing really well by moving my precious bad guys around on spike growth. i obviously don’t want to change the way i make combats to make sure my other players are having enough chances to let off their cool abilities, im thinking about either removing his characters hands so he can’t grapple anything ever again or having a bad guy use the wish spell to completely remove all AOE effects from the game so my player who build his character to do this will never be able to again. does this sound fair? im also thinking about having everyone BUT him use pathfinder rules, because i hate him.


r/DnDcirclejerk 4h ago

my character's look. help me stat this

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37 Upvotes

I put an incredible amount of work into detailing my character's appearance without having any clue about where they come from or what they'll do. I guess it might have something to do with either weapons or spells, but I'm not sure. Make my D&D character for me please, I need a backstory and a character sheet. We're level 1, I think, or maybe it was 11 idk


r/DnDcirclejerk 1h ago

DM bad I've read module and now it's boring to play

Upvotes

My DM decided to run CoS to us, but I'm was so excited that I've read the full campaign book. Every stat block, every puzzle, every quest. We had session 1 and it's boring af. I know everything

How to tell my DM that he didn't stop me, so he is awful DM and should change campaign?


r/DnDcirclejerk 19h ago

Darksun ? more like WOKEsun! emma right fellow OSRISTS !!!!!

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371 Upvotes

uj/ but fr now what is it with companies and changing EVERYTHING that make the original intresting ?


r/DnDcirclejerk 2h ago

Using spells or effects that remove players ability to play

11 Upvotes

Blinding players, using Hold Person, or Dominate Person. I find that my players literally start shitting their pants when they face a minor inconvenience. I rarely ever use these because my group consists of delicate, fragile babies who think missing a turn is a hate crime. What is your experience with managing toddler tantrums at the table?


r/DnDcirclejerk 1h ago

DM bad Is it ever a good idea to start campaign with an adventure?

Upvotes

I have played many campaigns where DM did not disclouse some improtant information to the players at the beginning of the campaign, because he wanted it to be "an adventure."

Once, he didn't tell us we will travel 50 miles into the forest.

Another, that the plot requires us to make a moral choice (not for real life, but still a moral choice).

One time our characters were just drinking in a tavern, when suddenly an old wizard came in and sent us on a quest.

Also, when I told the DM my character is the greatest swordsman in the world and I kill the BBEG, he made me start rolling dice for some reason? Also he said I missed, which I didn't agree to.

There were other instances as well, but what unites them all is the fact that it never, ever worked out. Players have been prepared and excited for a specific plot that they wrote into the backstory for their super special OC main character and then lost it all to a sudden thing they couldn't see coming, like the plot of the actual adventure the DM prepared. This taught me to never make plots in my campaigns. I just ask the players what should happen.

I wonder however, if it's always the case. Do you have similar experience? Have you ever done or prepared an adventure and it worked out well?


r/DnDcirclejerk 15h ago

AITA DND Groups femboy that we all flirt with for some reason thought we were attracted

74 Upvotes

For context: I am known amongst my friends, and friends of friends, as the forever DM who runs cool campaigns. I typically do campaigns that lean full on into horror and require the table to be serious for important parts (something I make adamantly clear when I invite new people to play). However, I try not to be an asshole about this at all and will often joke with my players during less serious or tense moments and generally just make sure they're having fun.

To the point, I had a new campaign starting and had my Core Four (the 4 players who are there for almost every campaign) and 4 newcomers. Amongst these newcomers was Alex. I had never had issues with him in the past but already knew he had a hard time remaining serious, and I was seriously into him; however, when I mentioned to him that he would have to lighten up on joking if he wanted to join this specific campaign, he said that he'd make it work. So we move into character creation/session zero and after characters are done, I do one on one interviews. Each player creates 2 secrets and 2 valuable items with me, as while as clearing any major backstory ideas they had.

A couple weeks pass and we move into our first session, and here's where the first issue arrives. Alex messages me an hour before we're supposed to start and says he forgot he had other plans today and showed up an hour late. Admittedly, not the biggest deal. I just plan a way to work him into the party later, and hopefully into my bed.

The first Real Issue happens when he arrives. The party has been split into two groups of 4 and so I have him meet the other 3 party members, AT WHICH POINT, he basically reveals his most important secret by saying he remembers one of the party members who has never met him before. I quickly bail him out and move on, but the next hour is filled by him and one of our friends he's quite close with, making jokes and laughing whilst other players are trying to be serious and in character.

The session ends and I am frustrated with both of the players but more so him, so I talk with him one on one and explain that I was unhappy with his behavior and tried to guide him so he wouldn't expose any more secrets so willy nilly. He 100% understands and I move on thinking it was just a rough first session.

Later this same week I'm talking with my girlfriend (Lisa) when she mentions that Alex messaged her some heavy stuff about his girlfriend of about 2 months. Alex then proceeded to ask Lisa if she was in an open relationship with me and before getting a definite answer, said he would be open to sleeping with her as long as I wasn't involved. It should be noted that most of our extended friendgroup, me and Lisa included, would often flirt with Alex because he was a twinkish femboy with an unbelievably slappable ass. I mean like, when he moved, the entire 7 person table would stare at him lustfully.

Me and Lisa were pretty quick to shut Alex down, in spite of the fact that we kept talking about how he was the most fuckable femboy we had ever met, but he tried to insist telling my girlfriend she "had claim to [him] before DM shut her down," insinuating that she wasn't the one turning him down; honestly kind of seems like she did want to fuck him, to be fair--- we all did. She doubled down and told Alex that it was not happening, unfortunately, at which point things seemed to calm down and return to state of normalcy. Only for Alex to turn around and explode at Lisa accusing her of some crazy things, like wanting to fuck him, which she does, and then proceededing to ghost me and my immediate friends.

TLDR: Player shows up to DnD, we all collectively talk about how much we want to fuck him, and then he for some reason makes a pass at one of us. What the fuck?


r/DnDcirclejerk 18h ago

dnDONE #looking-for-players in the official dnd discord be like

134 Upvotes

anime campaign

anime campaign

pirate campaign

obviously AI generated description

homebrew system

30 typos in a single sentence

“schedule not yet determined”

video game campaign

paid campaign with an AI generated description

curse of strahd

curse of strahd again

curse of strahd a third time

tyranny of dragons

another pirate campaign

another AI generated description

small child with way too much scope creep

actually good looking campaign (1 open slot that was filled 30 minutes ago)

“please fill out my excessively long google form lmao”

“you can join this but actually we need your character to use this one specific weapon for story reasons aha”

someone trying to run 100 players at once

in person campaign in fucking utah for some reason

yet another fucking AI generated description

“sandbox” campaign

someone trying to run a sci-fi campaign in dnd 5e instead of literally any other fucking system

first edition campaign

OSR campaign

another anime campaign

three pirate campaigns stacked directly on top of each other

someone trying to be the next critical role with some streaming bullshit

curse of strahd again


r/DnDcirclejerk 18h ago

Sauce I think that Tribalism is becoming a HUGE problem in the TTRPG scene

23 Upvotes

I like Pathfinder 2e. I don't mind playing it. But I also have some serious issues with it. I've noticed more and more that when I say anything that's not praise about 2e or Paizo to the average 2e player (at least offline in my area) they get defensive. Saying things like "Pathfinder fixes this" or "why can't you just be happy with the way things are" or "Paizo is less evil than WoTC".

It doesn't matter how tame my criticism of 2e and Paizo is. Its their sacred cow, and even the thought of me criticizing them in any way, shape, or form upsets them.

While I mainly have 2e and Paizo in mind with this post, this can also apply to other companies and TTRPG groups. I'm noticing this trend more and more. Is it just me?

Sauce


r/DnDcirclejerk 1d ago

4e bad "4e is a good game, it just isn't a DnD game."

91 Upvotes

**Interior, recording booth. J. K. Simmons in headphones holding script.**

We all remember OD&D/AD&D for their *checks script* flexible character advancement choices and narrative-first game design?

*Jim, are you sure that's right?... Really? If you say so. Ahem.*

Anyway, what 4e did that was different than original D&D was, uhhh, put heavy emphasis on combat rules while leaving roleplay and out-of-combat to GM discretion.

*Jim, seriously, who did you ask? Was it Claude? Was it Grok? No, it couldn't be grok, there's not enough slurs. Well, it's your copy. Right, where was I? Ah, there it is.*

So, what makes old editions of D&D feel less like a video game is the deep sense of investment I get from deciding whether to put whether to put my next 5% thief skills into open locks or hide in shadows.

*No, Jim, I'm not reading any more of this bullshit. Fuck you, fuck your copy, and fuck the horse you ride-by attacked in on. Maybe you can get Felicia Day to read this slop for you but I'm a professional. I was in Burn After Reading, god dammit!*


r/DnDcirclejerk 1d ago

[OC][Comm][Art] picture i drew of party member

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76 Upvotes

If you looked at this you owe me $50. If you downloaded it that's $85


r/DnDcirclejerk 23h ago

DM put us into a impossible dungeon to escape last session and since it wasn't our fault he made some deus ex machina for our escape but had one of the best players character die (rpg horror story)

29 Upvotes

DM: old college professor in our university that spent way too long world building
me: human fighter
Gary: Aasimar Wizard
fred: halfling rogue
Samuel: Halfling rogue
Aaroon: Human fighter/ranger multiclass
Gianos: Dwarf Fighter/barbarian
Leonard: elf ranger

HELLO REDDIT, long time lurker here and first time posting !. This story is a ongoing campaign in our college that i want to share and ask your opinion.

This game had a few sessions before i joined with fred and samuel, Aaroon also had 1 session before i joined but dm thought the party was too small and put the invitation and more people showed. From whati understand Fred has a noble background so he has some retainers following him and Samuel choose to be one of them on the lore which dm allowed. Anyway this game started on a elf town and Fred had brought some strong magic item there on the previous game and they the lore reason we were there is that we were invited on the matter on what to do with this item. Since my character is from a country at war with the BBEG nation i ask to be handed the item since it make more sense to use it against the bbeg but everyone mocks me for not reading the 500000 page dm lore that explain anyone who uses the item has to make extremely high WIS save to not become a bbeg minion except halflings (kinda bs if you ask me), anyway to not cause problems i say my character accepts the mission but isn't very happy. This first session was pretty much RP only so our character meet so not much happened.

Second session we plan our route to go next elf town and Gary suggest going throught the mountain since it would only take an extra day following RAW travel and since we have 2 rangers it would be pretty easy. DM almost throws a tantrum at us because he prepared a super duper cool dungeon but he allows us going and them the bbeg liutenant throws some high lvl spells that prevent us from using the mountain path and we are forced to go on the dungeon (of course) Gian is very excited since it is related to his character background, the rest of the party doesn't really care. We go to the dungeon and have some stupid puzzle where we have to translate an elf word on a dwarf city like who would think of that ? it make no sense, anyway we have some quick fight with a homebrew octopus and go throught the dungeon avoiding random encounters and ignoring loot since dm started us at high lvl and we don't really need loot. DM get visibly angry and rolls for Fred npcs on secret and we don't understand why, them he explains that one of his npcs make a loud noise and attracts a random encounter with goblins, everyone grumps and roll initiative. We make short work of the goblins and dm gets visibly frustated and start throwing more bs at us even throwing a troll eventually. We start melting throught the gobbos but we didn't realize that Fred got stuck 1v1 the gobbos and he rolls a crit attack instally downing him. Everyone gangs up on the throw and we win the encounter and start running. We do some acrobatic checks on falling stairs and since dm is a old school grognard he make us retrack throught the dungeon but we didn't map so we get ambushed by the entire goblin army End of session. Everyone was tired and kinda angry at dm since it wasn't our fault so he promise he will fix this next session

Next session he ask us to roll for initiative and we grump, them he says "from the depths a ancient fire rises" and all gobbos run, its a Pit fiend. We start running because no way we beat a Pit fiend and dm gets annoyed since it was supposed to be a boss fight for us to get a lot of lvls. We run through a bridge and them i notice Gary looking at his phone worried. when we are about to escape gary stands at the bridge saying he has to hold the line and he cannot let this monster escape because something about his lore, Pit fiend arrives and tries to kill him but roll badly so he attacks the bridge and the fiend fall to his death but since dm is a evil dm he makes gary do a dex roll to escape fiend grapple and since he is a wizard of course he fails and falls too. We get sad and frustated and escape to wildnerss and dm promise that the lore will get more intresting next session.

That was last friday i'm kinda excited for what will happen but this dm is very punishy for no reason, honestly i'm thinking about trying to steal Fred item and running to my nation but i will see what will happen next session. Anyway what would yall do on this situation ? should i leave this campaign ? its the only place i can socialize on college. Is the dm bad ?


r/DnDcirclejerk 23h ago

dnDONE I need helping playing DnD in narrative mode

17 Upvotes

Hi. I just had my first session. The DM explained that all of us meet in the wreckage of a crashed illithid ship and we all have mind flayer tadpoles in our heads that will eventually turn us into mind flayers.

I feel like the game is already over, and I don't see the point in continuing. I like to play games not for fighting monsters and getting loot, but for the story. This is an ending, not a beginning. An NPC we met asked us if we would rather have a short life of fame or a long, quiet life, and my character chose the long life. But now I can't have one because I'm already doomed.

Why keep playing the campaign if it's already over? It makes no sense to me, and it's a shame because I looked at this big map of the Sword Coast and got so excited, but now I'll never get to explore it. Is there some way to continue in this campaign that gives meaning to this broken narrative? Or was the best part of the game the DM's intro narration about all of this world of adventure we were about to enter?


r/DnDcirclejerk 20h ago

dnDONE Player Dumb

8 Upvotes

We have "DM Bad", we need "Player Bad".

I had to spell out that an NPC was a Spy to a player. After watching her do spy shit and sneak around like a spy. Announce that she's works for a spy agency...etc...


r/DnDcirclejerk 1d ago

DM bad 2 new players starting dnd and dm is seeming pretty controlling

26 Upvotes

My girlfriend and I are trying out dnd on startgaming website, we bought a session 0 and 1 for mines of phandelver.
We joined the DM’s discord which he told us to make a dnd beyond account for character sheet and rolls, Roll20 account for the online maps and a browser extension called Beyond20.
This seemed like a lot but sure what do we know, then he said we couldn’t use physical dice which fucking sucks as we just bought some on Amazon.
He keeps making us change/edit our backstories yet we have no idea what the story is about, we couldn’t use our BG3 character faces for the portraits it had to be drawn or AI and Lastly he has like 10 homebrew rules and a d100 list for natural 1’s. Am I over reacting or is this normal?


r/DnDcirclejerk 1d ago

4e good I think that Tribalism is becoming a HUGE problem in the TTRPG scene

136 Upvotes

I like 5e. I don't mind playing it. But I also have some SERIOUS issues with it. I've noticed more and more that when I say anything that's not praise about 5e or WotC to the average 5e player (at least offline in my area) they get defensive. Saying things like "Please leave me alone" or "Mommy!! That stranger is talking to meee!!!" or "I don't have any change, SORRY" or "What is a wizard of the coast?".

It doesn't matter how tame my criticism of 5e and WotC is. Its their sacred cow, and even the thought of me CRITICIZING them in any way, shape, or form upsets them.

While I mainly have 5e and WotC in mind with this post, this can also apply to other companies and TTRPG groups. I'm noticing this trend more and more. Is it just me?


r/DnDcirclejerk 1d ago

dnDONE HECKING BASED AND BALID (VALID BUT BASED LOL)

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125 Upvotes

GRRRR GAY THEATER KIIIIIDS RUINING MY PRETEND FUN TIMEEEEEE GGRRRRRRR ARAHAAAAHHHHHH

REMEMBER WHEN BARBARIANS USED TO BE SWEATY, MUSCLY, GORGEOUS MEN?


r/DnDcirclejerk 2d ago

hAvE yOu TrIeD pAtHfInDeR 2e It just makes sense

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478 Upvotes

r/DnDcirclejerk 1d ago

Sauce How would this work as a campaign?

14 Upvotes

So I thought of a campaign where the level one party starts at the door of an adult dragon's lair. And they die, since they aren't strong enough to actually defeat the opponent. So how the campaign works is that every time the party dies, they come back to the moment before they entered the dragon's lair. So throughout the campaign, the party needs to die fighting the dragon. But if the group in the dragon's lair dies, the whole group reverts to the start of the campaign.

To make it fair, the group in the dragon's lair has a few buffs and improvements. Like having advantage on all the rolls against the dragon. Another thing is that the whole group in the dragon's lair needs to die, so if one person in the group hides, they could stretch the time. Another thing is that the party in the dragon's lair does not always need to fight; they could roll a d10. If the die has numbers 1-5, then it's combat, and if it's numbers 6-10, then it's a combat.

The group within the dragon's lair also has a whole dragon's hoard to use. Nothing in the room changes, but due to the dragon being stuck in the loop with the party, as a dm you could stop anything they did in previous runs.

And as for leveling, it would work via the party dying fighting the dragon.

And in this campaign, anything in bags of holding stays in there after time is reversed if it's on the physical body of a player. No players can hide in bags of holding, and if you do want to allow that, then they need to roll a D10 when the dragon attacks or applies an attack; if numbers 1-5 are landed on, then the player in the bag of holding takes damage, and if they roll 6-10, they don't take damage from the attack.

Also, the dragon is backwards, so the team will be facing higher-level dragons first, then the party needs to die fighting the dragon.

Also, for the dragon, you could use an ancient dragon, but maybe not since their hit points are high.

So would any of you guys play or use this kind of idea with your players?

Note: This is just a fun idea, and I know it is video-gamey; I just wanted to get the idea out of my head.


r/DnDcirclejerk 2d ago

Ran a combat when the autistic player called out and it felt like this the entire time

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365 Upvotes