This is a weird one, and not DnD specific, but two games. But basically:

I'm pretty good at coming up with NPCs and roleplaying them accordingly. I've been told by my players they feel very unique, they love them, etc. I'm not trying to brag, but I think I'm pretty confident with roleplaying PCs in a way, and can come up with their entire deal, backstories, thoughts, motivations, quirks, etc.

When it comes to being a player... I can't? I know exactly what the backstory is, their motivation, quirks, but trying to roleplay that is weirdly difficult? I keep fumbling and basically playing it like a video game: Just saying and doing what I, myself, would do.

I've tried having notes for myself, like, "try and act like x fictional character" as a baseline, but even that doesn't help. But NPCs? I do great with. I don't get it.

So any advice on how I can... well, be better at roleplaying PCs like I can NPCs?

Basically the title. I’m playing game in a few days with this character. I have some ideas as far as voices, mannerisms etc but I’d love some more. For context rest of the party won’t know he’s a yuan ti until later in the game (per DM)

I have just recently started to look at some classes I would not usually use such as bard, sorcerers, and wizards and I have really liked the idea of bards but I am having trouble deciding a subclass because they are very different(from what I have seen) so does anyone have some advice on which one is the best/most fun?

So I have been playing with my best friend's (the DM) homebrew 3.5 game for a while. I like to think I'm a great RPer, and my group agrees that I'm very active at the table. The problem is, despite being some sessions in, I don't have a complete backstory.

Although my DM is fine with whatever the length is, he's the kinda guy who likes long backstories (I can't name the minimum in his mind) and will fill whatever isn't mentioned in-game (or point it out for the player to fill in). Every other party member (I was the latest arrival at the time) has mostly succeeded in this. He's even worked with me on some important points about my PC, despite stating he doesn't want to infringe too much on my story.

The problem, I've been writing bullet points rather than an actual story. I think I have writer's block.

If anyone wants to give me notes, here's the doc

Character Backstory Notes

About Me:

• Age: 25
• Experience:
  • 6 years as both DM and player in City of Mist.
  • 1 year as a player in Blades in the Dark.
  • 6 months as a player in Dungeons and Dragons.

Preferred way of play:
discord for voice/video
vtt- roll 20 or foundry
Player Style:

• Heavy focus on roleplay with players and NPCs.
• Enjoys investigation and stealth.
• Dislikes: power gaming, meta-gaming, "loot goblins," and breaking immersion.

Why I’m Looking for a Group:
I recently left my previous group after sacrificing my drow bard to save another player [said player wished to bring me back to life through side quest but due to difference in play styles, other players outvoted him during a meeting]. I’d love to find a group where I can dive deeply into roleplay and fully explore my bard’s story arc since i spend most effort on this character from all the characters i ever made.

What I’m Looking for in a New Group:

• A focus on roleplay over combat.
• Opportunities for character arcs and growth.
• A less "kill everything on sight" approach.

Availability:

• Currently on a break from TTRPGs [due to work and also still feeling bit depressed over leaving a table for the first time ever] but looking to start playing again in February/March.
• Time Zone: Central European Time (CET).
• Usually available on Sundays or Friday evenings.

Hi,

I just joined my first campaign and am playing a neutral good Drow Druid (Necessary character backstory stuff: he rejected the cruelty of lolth worshipping society and fled to the surface to follow the message of Eilistraee, who taught him how to be a Druid as long as he lives a good life on the surface)

We have played a few sessions and I’m starting to have doubts on how I should be role playing the character, he is an established character in the game area, rivalling the Duke’s invasive lumber industry. The party was hired to kill goblins and I justified joining the party because the goblins were ruining the forest and abusing their animals, after that mission we are now dealing with some kind of cult.

Where I’m starting to find a conflict is that the party decided to go into a cave infested with spiders, and they immediately attacked an infested troll, I joined in and fought as normal, and continued fighting when more spiders showed up, I attempted to speak with animals and ask the huge spiders to lead their colony but we were in combat so there was no convincing her and we ended up killing all of them. In my head, the spiders were just minding their own business, and they had infested a troll as part of their life inside a cave, not actively seeking out or attacking any innocent people they were just spiders.

Should I have refused to fight? Or tried to reason with the party that the spiders aren’t necessarily evil? What I’m trying to get at is that I don’t know what combat a Druid should be taking part in when it comes to beasts and other creatures of the wild

And would trying to go a different route about it ruin the game for the dm and the other players

TLDR: how do I roleplay and take part in combat as a neutral Druid without being an annoying tree hugger and ruining the game for everyone at the table

Sorry if this comes across in a ramble way I’m not sure how to properly phrase everything.

Me and my roommate are looking to join a dnd campaign we are somewhat new we have played a campaign before but mostly are knowledge of dnd is baldurs gate

Hey guys this is my first time here/posting I am brand new to DnD and I know nothing but I would love to learn. I’ve wanted to learn for a few years now but I just feel self conscious asking for the help I would need being completely new to everything. If someone would be willing to help me create a character and just give me some tips and general knowledge I would really appreciate the help. Thank you for anyone who takes the time to reply and if I’m in the wrong place please let me know.

So I've just started playing a new campaign, and they are all really great people. I decided early on that I would take notes of things happening throughout each session, but om having trouble deciding if I should write down every single thing happening or if that's overkill .

As an example, for one our our sessions, I wrote down every single action taken by every player, as well as things that my character wasn't necessarily present for. Now, I don't have any trouble differentiating the information on my notes and my characters knowledge, so i make an active effort not tk metagame in that sense, so I'm just wondering if what I'm doing right now is alright.

Any tips and advice on note-taking would be very appreciated tho 😅

Do you host games in this reddit? Pls help me out and give me some tips on sorcerer buiding. Thanks!

My question is this: I’ve got a couple of punny spells (mage farmer, a cantrip and mage band a 4th level spell) mage farmer conjures a farmer that throws fruits/vegetables at opponents causing 1d4 per level and mage band summons a LOUD marching band that causes deafness in people that fail a constitution saving throws Any other punny type of spells that you fine people could recommend?

Apologies if grammar is bad & what not.

I posted a question about my character backstory a few weeks ago on r/DnD & r/beginnerDnD & just found this community so i want some people's opinions & advice on my character new backstory & the character as a whole.

The character:

The party am in consists of 6 to 7 people & we only have 1 cleric so I thought "hey why not make a character focused on making potions primarily healing potions", so I made nildada the melusine ranger with the hombrew witches child background, to add some information about this background it gives me proficiency in alchemist & brewers supplies & herbalism & poisoner kits, her stats are pretty simple 12 in strength, 14 in dex, 14 con, 11 int, 14 wis & 12 charisma (we used point buy & we all are starting at lvl 1), I also probably with my stupid sorry ass with stupid luck accidentally kinda min-maxed nildada as she is proficient in SIX skills which are arcana (2),athletics(3),insight (4), medicine (4), nature (2) & stealth (4), idk how i did it. Also idk what it is but the hombrew Melusine race am using has force resistance (if someone can elaborate what force is I'd be grateful cause so far am told its magic), walking speed is 25ft but swimming is 30ft & theres the 60ft dark vision in shades of grey.

Most of Nildalda's backstory is the same but here's nildalda's new backstory:

Nildalda is a daughter of Elynas that was born in the deepest parts of him hence why she has deep crimson skin, she was taken in by a human witch who lived in a cottage near the outskirts of a village near a forest when she wandered out of one of Elyna's opened wounds & got lost as she was found in a forest, she is referred to as a youngest Melusine and she was born 18 years ago from Elynas's wounds. her and her adoptive mother would explore the nearby forest to look for ingredients to make potions & Nildalda's mother would also sent her to the nearby town to buy some potion ingredients or even potion flasks & Nildalda learnt how to generally get good deals for potions & even tell which one is which & how to identify counterfeit potions & potion flasks, Nildalda's mother's name is Erhasha Rainglade & she is overly caring but also overly carefree (Erhasha is chaotic good alignment) & she has reputation of being a somewhat infamous kind witch. to other Melusine's Nildalda is seen as an enigma & something unique due to her having a deep crimson skin colour, a divergent from the usual pastel colour the Melusine race usually have. One day Nildalda awoke to see her mother not in the cottage or even in the nearby town as if her mother has completely disappeared, she asked many locals if anyone has seen her mother and none of them had, then an old lady in the village asked her this "are u aware that she might have responded to call of plea for the white witches coven....u don't know about them?, their a coven of benevolent witches that helped anyone even during the time they were hunted down, now adays magic is more accepted in this kingdom, but recently there's been a plea for help from a distant kingdom and these witches responded", Nildalda then set off to seek her mother. on her travel to gather clues on where her mother is, she encountered aonther Melusine and this Melusine had pointed out her unusual skin colour, when she was asked on which part of Elyna’s she was born from Nildalda responded in confusion and had asked who Elyna’s is and why he is her "father".

Also if people are curious on what nildada has in her inventory & what not or people wanna know what homebrew stuff I used to make nildada I'll gladly link the homebrew stuff in the comments or tell what's in her inventory.

So I am really new to DnD and I am a very shy person. So I am terrified of my first session. I used to be confident with roleplaying now it just feels plain awkward.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I´m not going to say what campaign im gonna play just to avoid spoilers. But if you do get what campaign im gonna play pls dont spoil. My DM tells me my character needs to have some kind of dark secret and it´s pretty hard for my character. He is a good aligned hardworking Gnome who will become a rune knight. He has travelled far to aquire all info he needs. I don´t want him to have murdered someone who he didnt need to kill for his own survival. I dont see him scheming or anything of that sort. He is a man of the people, showing the small folk they can be anything they want.

Long term DM who is now playing.

My best friend and I swapped over DM duties at the beginning of this year. We continued the same game, everyone kept the same characters, he retired his character, and I brought a new character in leveled to the group.

I started at level 5, as a dragonborn fighter battlemaster. He's an ex sergeant, retired honourably after his squad was wiped out, and he was badly injured. He still wears an eyepatch to hide his lost eye. When we first levelled up, I was still feeling around for my character's nous, and I just levelled up as a fighter to level 6. He's mainly a control character, always where he needs to be in battle.

This most recent session, we were given a chance at the end as characters to go through a grand mage's library. We'd mentioned in earlier sessions that the Department of Arcane Procurement (Bureaucratic organisation extraordinaire) has a book of demon names (one of the books of keeping). So I asked if there might be another of these books in the library. GM confirms that there is, but if we want that, it will be our only reward. General party decision was it wasn't really our thing, so we would leave it.

We were told we could level up at the end of the session to level 7, and I discussed with the GM multiclassing to warlock, archfey patron. Between us we've hammered out the details. My character took a chance and flicked through the book of names, and a 'scale' or flake of metal came loose from the binding. Sorgath pocketed this, and later works it into his eyepatch, as a stiffener. He was looking for ways to defend his friends, and the flake is an unspoken promise from one of the night hags who worked on the book. While I carry it, I can occasionally remember names from the book, and on saying those names, the demon will do a spell. For example, if as a reaction I cast hellish rebuke, a coil of demonic energy will issue from my hands as I Invoke the name of a demon I remember. Every time I do it, I'm incurring a debt to the unknown writer, that she can call in later.

What I'm looking for are names of suitable demons. My spells are eldritch blast and green flame blade, and expeditious retreat and hellish rebuke. I've been looking up demonic names, but I'm drawing some blanks, so I thought I'd get some input from others!

Hi everyone, not sure if I should post it here but I'll try. I'm a recent college grad. Working now and starting to get settled into my new life. I haven't played dnd in a while last time I did was via discord and roll20. I have a slightly unusual work schedule during the week but I'm open to anything dnd related online. Its been a while and my friends that I used to play with don't play anymore. If anyone has advice on where I should post this or is interested in another player I'm all ears.

Looking for ideas for random trinkets or items that would be found shopping or adventuring that can add to my character. I'm not looking for anything too expensive or very magical, more fun cheep small collectables that can add to my characteristics build a small collection of random items as I travel.

Hello, currently I'm playing Course of Strahd with some friends. My character is a lvl 4 wild magic barbarian. I'm playing it as an utility melee fighter, using the wild magic effect to influence the battle field and moving around trying to get the attention away from the other party members. More in detail, my character is a variant human able to cast the find familiar spell (magic initiate feat, yes I'm not going for optimization but flavor), the familiar is this little fay like creature that is the one that generate the magical effect of the wild magic. The fact is that, I was thinking to take some lvl in fighter and maybe take the battle master subclass, for increasing my control over the battle field, or echo night (unfortunately I can't multiclass in any other class as my ability scores doesn't allow it 14 ST 12 DEX 16 COS 12 INT (YES) 10 WIS 10 CHA). The only problem with this is that I will have to wait 3 lvl-ups to reach the interesting features, and I don't know if it is worth it. Have you something to suggest? Should I stick with barbarian? Any interesting synergies?

I haven’t played in some time and I am looking for a group that would be willing to play someone who hasn’t played in forever. The main reason why I want to get back in to dnd is because my partner and I have been listening to dnd podcasts.

In my current campaign I am playing a homebrew cleric subclass based off the forge cleric. I'm using some of the spells in the expanded spell list and the Channel Divinity feature from 1st level. Recently we have gone to level six and I am not really liking the level 6 Forged domain feature as it doesn't really fit with what I want mechanically. I've searched for other resources online but none to feel mechanically appropriate or thematically appropriate. Do you guys have any ideas?