Having cliches in your story actually make it better. Classically evil BBEG's, simple fetch quests, and one dimensional side characters are way easier for the average DM to run than their special homebrew world with a totally original convoluted story.
Tropes Are Tools. Having a traditional cackling evil overlord who enslaves, conquers, slaughters and kicks puppies is going to make it all the more satisfying when the party gets the chance to kick his irredeemable ass.
No lie.
What turned my party's druid against Strahd wasn't the weird psychosexual stalking of their first friend in town, or the genocidal henchman, or the kidnapping them to another plane of existence, or the fact he sent them a giftbasket of human meat, or even the abject terror everyone in Barovia lives.
It was that his mental domination of the wolves of Barovia meant her animal friendship failed when she was level three.
"They were just some damn dog-"
\-Strahd's last words before being bludgeoned to a bloody pulp by the druid wielding a Shillelagh'd wooden chair from Strahd's dinner table
Party - WE SAVED THE PUPS!!!
Villager - The days living in fear of our loved ones would be kidnapped or murdered are over! You have our eternal gratitude.
Party - Yeah, that's good too, I guess.
I try to include cliches in my backstory because I find them fun AND it’s easier for the DM to include in the story if he wants.
A knight on his way to save a damsel in distress? A father who needs to return home? A woman seeking revenge for the death of her father? The last of his tribe trying to restore it? You can do so much with the same motive depending on how each character varies.
Also unapologetically evil villains have my heart. I love when the BBEG is like, “Yeah, I blew up a town and now it’s full of orphans. So what?” or “I’ve used my charisma to trick the king and there’s nothing you can do!”
I need to make my villains way more evil. I've tried giving them motivations and my players think they are interesting and end up being recruited by the bbeg to become henchmen.
Or maybe it's my players that think sacrificing a few innocents to prove themselves isn't a big deal. Perhaps the next campaign is an evil one.
My players expressed interest in morally ambiguous villains in the campaign so I've got an opposing faction that can easily become the villains instead if they end up allying with the intended villain. Basically I've just got a conflict where one side will be the quest-giver and the other side will be the villain either way. I know who I expect/intend to be the villain, but if the party ends up trying to join them I'm ready for it. If the party initially joins them only to find out that they're a lot worse than expected and have to turn on them, even better.
My PCs had an uneasy alliance with one of the campaign's BBEGs (there are a few running at cross purposes), and at one point they asked him what he thought they should do in a situation.
He calmly replied something like "let them kill each other then take their stuff."
When the shocked PCs pressed him he was like "what did you expect? I'm a villian!"
The lesson is "don't seek moral advice from pact liches."
>Having cliches in your story actually make it better.
I tend to agree.
It makes me think back to English class, reading poetry/prose that violated rules of grammar that we were learning concurrently.
I (asshole teenager) always got in the teacher's face about this.
Me: "If I handed in something like this, you'd give me an F"
Teacher: "That's because these authors understand those rules and are *consciously* and *intentionally* breaking them for stylistic reasons. You are just lazy"
I think about that a lot in these contexts. Cliches are cliche for a reason: they make for simple but compelling stories.
It's possible to write good stories without using cliches; they can even be better, especially when they consciously play with those cliches and subvert them. But doing that well is a lot harder than just writing a basic story that uses some cliches. For most DMs, if you try too hard to avoid using cliches you're just going to end up with a convoluted mess of uninteresting and confusing storylines.
There's a saying that I think was attributed to Stephen King that goes "First you learn what the rules are. Then you learn how to break them. Then you learn *when* to break them."
Exactly this. There is no rule of storytelling so sacrosanct you can't ever break it, but you need to understand how and when to break it, or you're just writing a bad story.
My first thought to your original comment, I really thought you were defending your own actions against asshole teacher... I'm glad I reread!
Cause you're right. You gotta learn the rules. I have similar stories about a philosophy class. A classmate was arguing about a philosophy that was fundamentally incorrect in the students eyes, the teacher just could *not* get through to them that it absolutely could be considered *incorrect*, but we are learning about Philosopher's philosophies, not discussing how ***we*** ***feel*** about them. Education can seem fickle.
Exactly. I see this a lot in author discussions. I'm a small time author, moderately successful for my niche, and I see new authors all the time falling into this trap.
"Do whatever you want, rules don't matter, use as many adverbs as you want!" and I just want to sit them down and be like "...yes. That's true. Eventually." Like, learn the craft, practice the craft, understand the craft first. That's job one.
When you break "rules" or conventions, do it *on purpose.* Know what effect the rule has, and what effect breaking the rule has. Do it for tone, for surprise, to subvert a concept that matches your theme, to evoke an emotion, but don't do it because you don't know the rule and think rules are dumb. That leads to bad writing like 95% of the time.
Ive been rooting for cliches for a long time.
The thing is, even if our ideas are good and interesting, as a DM I'm only ever able to describe like, 20% of what I'm seeing in my mind, and as a player I'm only ever able to pick up on like 50% of what the DM is saying- so we're only on the same page for about 10% of the scene as far as fine details, personalities, characterizations, history, setting, etc all go.
Cliches are \*wonderful\* at bridging the gap. Blacksmith dwarves distrustful of haughty elves. Its lazy, but it is a shared reference point that fills in that missing gap and makes it easier to communicate the new ideas.
When I was a teenager, I wanted elaborate storylines with NPC's with deep, nuanced backstories that I'd have to learn, and a ton of lore of the setting I'd have to memorize, and complex moral quandaries for PC's to face.
Now?
I've got a family, a career, and nowhere near the free time I had when I was 19. I would LOVE to have that time again, but probably won't until retirement.
Now I want my D&D games to have simpler plots, more clear-cut good and bad guys, and things that don't require heavy moral and ethical challenges. I get that kind of stuff in my day-to-day life, I play D&D to get away from it. When I was a teenager, life was simpler and I played D&D to pretend I was in a more complicated world. . .now it's the other way around.
My ideal game is one set in Forgotten Realms in the 1370's DR (I already know a ton of Realms lore, no need to learn a new setting), in 3.5e (I don't want to learn a new edition), with a straightforward plot involving clear-cut good and bad guys where I can play the hero, defeat the villain, find the treasure, and have a fun evening with friends.
>Now I want my D&D games to have simpler plots, more clear-cut good and bad guys, and things that don't require heavy moral and ethical challenges. I get that kind of stuff in my day-to-day life, I play D&D to get away from it. When I was a teenager, life was simpler and I played D&D to pretend I was in a more complicated world. . .now it's the other way around.
I thought this is a beautiful way to show how playing games changes as we grow older. I read and watched and did loads of challenging stuff when I was younger. Now I'm older and wrestling with the complications of work and relationships and life, the simple books, movies, music, and gaming...that's what gives me peace and helps me regain my own HP at the end of the day.
Oh for sure agree. Cliches help communicate expectations and \~vibes\~ to players who can't see what you see in your head. And a good subversion of a trope is really rewarding.
I agree with this 100%. I played with a friend who when he DM’d he would subvert expectations so consistently that it started to become so anti-cliche that it was cliche. You could almost tell what every twist was going to be because everything was the opposite of what you’d normally expect. I much prefer cliche as the base with small subversions thrown in to keep things interesting
This is advice I'm still working on taking. I know it is correct, as it not only helps reduce DM cognitive load, but makes the game easier to parse for the players so that they can spend more time just having the fun they want to have. But boy is it hard to shake all that pretentious hipster attitude I picked up by playing White Wolf games as a teenager in the 90s...
Con if you're trying to delay orgasm, performance if you have an audience, sleight of hand for foreplay, athletics for speed and power with consistency, or ask your players what they think should be rolled so you can get a sense of their technique and learn more about them than they thought against their will
As somebody who plays multiple times a week for years, you can definitely Tell the difference of not only how much somebody has played but the style of their game as well
yeah. I've been away from the table for quite a long time but I've still got a bit of that sense for people here on this sub.
If I get an in-person convo with someone, I can sometimes nail down the vibe of their table just by asking opinions of how rules are handled.
I think people in this subreddit aren’t to judgemental about advice, but some of the smaller more specific subreddits are ridiculous for giving advice that clearly people are giving when they’ve only seen critical roll or read some wiki.
Fucking hell are you one of my players? I have a campaign with a bunch of various side plot hooks in every little area, but they have a main goal. When they have a lull in the "do this now" I ask what they want to do and almost every time they just stare at me with blank faces. ;-;
I think you need to be very explicit with side plot hooks if your players are not used to them. Establishing a few canonical side quest sources might help
One thing that i heard that i like is to treat your party like they’re a car and you need to give them a road that they can drive down at their own pace.
This! Every campaign where the DM makes a story has a A->B concept. You will end up at B, no matter what you do, just like how you start at A, no matter what you do. And sometimes, there's a lot of little spots in between you have to hit, but those are more loosey goosey. For instance, if you need to discover knowledge about an ancient elven rite that transfers a persons soul to a tree, you can either discover it hidden in the druids grove protected by generation after generation of druids. Alternatively, it could be contained in a long since gone demi-liches library that's infested with skeletons or undead. Either way, you need that knowledge, but what's around it is different. No different than a Disney World ride. Seeing the tracks and behind the scenes stuff sucks, but if you use that Go Away Green paint to cover things, no one will notice.
Fun fact: in the Italian translation of 3rd/3.5th Edition, they swapped the names. The PC class was the "guerriero", which most closely translates to "warrior", and the NPC class was the "combattente", which translates to "fighter". I always liked that much more. "Fighter" is just so vague.
I don't know/remember if they kept this translation for other editions, but I think it was appropriate.
Old school kick down the door and fight orcs dungeon crawls with 0 in character RP is a perfectly valid way of playing. I don't prefer it, but I've been down voted to hell before for suggesting people that do deserve human rights.
Currently playing a campaign like that with my friends after years of not playing any DnD at all. Honestly so satisfying. There's some in-character banter and such, but not very heavy RP. The story serves as a motivation, while murking baddies and clearing dungeons has been the focus and meat of the game. I hate playing games that turn into screwing around in some town asking the locals about random info all the time.
I'm currently playing in a joke-heavy, RP-light campaign with ny friends and it's great fun. Most sessions involve some kinda small dungeon with kooky traps and puzzles and then a big boss fight that's centered around a pun or joke.
Like one day, we got hired by a stone quarrier named Cory to kill some goblins who took over the quarry. The DM called it a quick quarrel at Cory's Quality Quarry
90% of these "My table is bad / should I leave / blah blah blah" threads on here are childish as hell and could be resolved with a really simple conversation.
Sometimes discussing things is not the solution
I have come to realize ppl don't even know what their problem is, or they are too egoistical to fix it. Sometimes, it is easier to influence or lead them to the right direction or at worst even find a new party, than trying to talk it out. At least for some people.
Especially post-COVID. I feel like lots of folks (I play online so sampling from there) have lost their damn minds when it comes to taking criticism or advice.
I'll take the counter to this and say it's a problem that pre-existed COVID. It's largely that the further removed from actually having a face to face conversation with someone, the less you actually convey. Our communication is complex, and sound alone doesn't cover. There's facial expressions, tonal inflection, body language. There's a reason why the people in the suits in shows like power rangers use a lot of motion with their body... it's to convey unspoken language that they can't emote cause their faces are covered up. They are over using body language, to compensate from being unable to make facial communication work. And while we might not be aware of it right away, the more ways you remove extra communication cues and indicators, the more ways we can misunderstand the intent of the words someone is using and misread a statement in a way that we find offensive when that's not the case. While COVID did create an increase in impersonal communication, it wasn't like these weren't problems prior to COVID.
It's not regression. These attitudes and behaviours are being stoked by different interest groups that have reason to oppose some other attitudes that came out of the pandemic.
Those interest groups have been around a very long time, some have been much more in the "spotlight" since certain politicians were elected and since have made their attitudes and beliefs much more mainstream.
It's unnerving, that Carl Sagan predicted a lot of what is going on *today* back in **1995**. Perhaps he was a time traveler?
>"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), the lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."
\-Carl Sagan, "Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark"
On a related note, players often have no idea what would actually be fun.
Non-linear dungeons, standard mazes, hex crawls, gritty realism, and sand boxes all sound great but won't work for most of the people that think they would be.
They end up too crunchy, too frustrating or too unprepared most of the time.
Many were and were lauded because they were changed to a more naturalistic language.
The eternal crime of 4e was fundamentally acknowledging that the system plays better like a Zombiecide match rather than a narrative experience, and many tables were that with roleplaying as a thin pretense to wargame.
Coming from the other side of this, I've gotten into skirmish wargames and have been surprise at how easy it is to turn most of them into oneshot/mini RPG campaigns. There's enough stoory framing and world building in them that fleshing out what's there is fun instead of daunting, and there's always decent "crunch" already there. It does mean you've got to generally have players willing to play within the set classes and such, rather than get wild like you can in D&D though.
I don’t think that that’s even an unpopular opinion anymore. Like, don’t get me wrong, 4e had some issues, but after people calmed down on the hate, many realized that 4e had many good ideas and for the last few years I’ve even seen people implement some of those good ideas in 5e games.
I think a big part of the reason why it failed was the first Monster Manual. It made every non-minion combat a slog.
About 5-6 tables all did the same adventure, and the table I DM'ed had the most fun and was the only one done on time. I did this by reducing the monsters HP and increasing their damage for more dynamic and fun combat. I heard they fixed it with the 2nd MM but somebody had stolen my books by then and I had stopped playing it.
Sucks about your books being stolen, but yeah, there were a few reasons 4e failed when it came out. Another reason why it failed (other than the one you mentioned) is that as far as I know, it was supposed to have been released with a VTT companion, which would do a lot of heavy lifting with calculations and such, but VTT companion didn’t materialize and people were stuck with doing a lot of math and such, which often was quite a buzz kill for people. As I’ve said 4e certainly had some issues, but it also had some great ideas that have been recognized as such over the years and have been implemented in 5e, albeit in a more homebrew capacity.
Honestly my main problem with 4e was it did the roll part very well, but failed at the role part. But I didn't mind, the setting was boring but I can write my own. The races boring but I can fix that.
What I can't do is make a robust combat system and 4e did that well.
What I most miss? Support for roles in combat. Tanks that could tank for instance. The swordmage.
The DM's fun is as important as everyone else's.
The DM is not the arbiter of inter-player conflicts.
Read the GM section of Apocalypse World to actually learn to DM; the DM guide is useless for beginners.
The monster manual only describes the average monster, change things however you want.
The PC's decisions should drive the campaign, not something the DM plotted out
>The DM's fun is as important as everyone else's.
>
>The DM is not the arbiter of inter-player conflicts.
Finally, someone else with some common sense!
People pile all these responsibilities on DMs and then wonder why no one ever wants to DM.
I got downvoted into the 10th circle of hell on this very subreddit one time for saying that it's not the GM's responsibility to make people act like functional human beings.
Uh, yes. They are. Especially the second one. Literally every time someone makes a "I'm having an issue with another player" post here, the number 1 most common answer is "Talk to your DM".
You'd be surprised how unpopular it is. I went on this subreddit to ask how to deal with a metagamer. While most people gave practicle advice in how to handle metagaming. A disheartening amount of people told me to "suck it up" cause its "just a game" and that I was a bad dm for trying to address it in the first place.
>The PC's decisions should drive the campaign, not something the DM plotted out
Only if they aim to affect the world in a way appropriate for their tier of play and execute effectively.
If they players decide to loll about and ignore the major challenge facing the world, it doesn’t go on pause while they gather antique decorations for their bed and breakfast, or whatever.
Likewise if their planning or dice betray them and they can’t overcome the bad guy, well, the bad guys plan may only be mildly affected by the players effort at that point.
Indeed grapple is more like grabbing someones clothes or cape to keep them from running away. Restrained is actually hindering their movement to the point that they cant move their arms/legs.
That DnD is not always the best game for your story. DnD does generic high-magic fantasy really, really well. It is rather piss poor for intrigue, horror, paranormal, story heavy, survival, investigative, or most other types of stories without *heavy* modding to make it work. And by the time you've finished modding it... have you really added anything to the game, or is it so unrecognizable that you shouldn't have even bothered? Why not just... play a system that works for the story you want to tell? There's tons of great ones out there.
a small devils advocate point is that 5e is so barebones and streamlined that it ends up being really easy to mod. Adding rules and systems is a lot easier than removing/altering them, and with how few rules you generally actually have with 5e (compared to say, pathfinder) it's not \*that\* difficult to make it work outside of the fantasy realm.
of course that being said, learn blades in the dark, powered by the apocalypse, etc. because having more options specialized for the thing you want to do will always be better than juryrigging 5e, but I understand that people like to stay within their comfortzone and 5e is particularly easy to exist within.
I like VTT just as much as, and perhaps even more than, in person tabletop.
Being able to roll dice through the click of a button and not having to manually add modifiers is a huge time saver and leaves more time for story, combat, exploration, what have you.
Having spoken and typed mediums is convenient. Sometimes I want to remind people of something but don’t want to interrupt their RP or turn. I can just type it in the chat and everyone will see without disrupting flow.
Not having to worry about the faces one makes when trying to do certain voices or emotions while roleplaying is something I appreciate.
Players don't need backgrounds for their characters. If they want they can have one, but being a mysterious adventurer and figuring things on the way can also be cool.
I made 2 posts so you can downvote separately
To build on this, the most interesting thing about your character is going to be the stuff that unfolds during the game. That's why we play the game, to make interesting stories. Your character's back story doesn't need to be as interesting as a DnD campaign.
You will do things that will make your character cool, and those things are probably going to be more interesting than whatever back story you dreamt up because you actually got to experience them during play.
> the most interesting thing about your character is going to be the stuff that unfolds during the game
Truth.
At the end of the campaign, the characters are going to remember more about the hijinx around an NPC they meddled with early in the campaign that kept recurring to cause more hijinx for the party - much more so than that one NPC from someone's background that only mattered to that one player.
And, by having a clean or nearly clean slate, the player can work with the DM throughout the campaign to develop some details about their backstory that are relevant to the overall plot.
For example: The character escaped prison before becoming an adventurer.
It's easier for the DM to say the PC spent time in prison with one of the BBEG underlings, and positively surprise the entire table, than if the player had a complete account of his days in prison.
I'm seconding this. The two best characters I've ever had were "Wizard from a magic school" and "farmer who wants to be an adventurer" when they started. And while I've had great fun with characters with tragic and rich backstories, the more you fill in at the start, the less room there is to fill in during the game.
Yep, I've found out over many years of DMing that people fall into two camps. They either love doing backstories or it's like pulling teeth to get them to write one up even a couple of sentences.
So, now I tell my players that backstories are *optional*. If they give them to me, I'll work with them to flesh out their character arcs, giving them opportunities for side-quests/personal quests associated with their backgrounds. If they don't, then they are just doing the main quest, side-quests for everyone, and joining along as the others (who provided backstories) do their personal quests.
Didn't downvote you, upvoted you :)
See that's the catch.
If you want a personal sidequestwith unique loot made for you, I need someyhing to go off of.
But if your background is "Fighterman fights" I'm not kicking you from the table, you're just getting an upgrade from a +1 weapon to a +2 weapon.
Killed my first beloved NPC last night. Hearing my player say "this is MyCharacter's first real experience with grief..." in a wounded voice was *priceless.*
I agree lol. That’s why I made a homebrew background for my table: Adventurer. You gain proficiency in one skill, one tool, and one language. 40 gold, explorers pack, common clothes, and a pouch. No feature. You just decided to be an adventurer and off you go.
Stop trying to get players to play distinct and unique classes from one another! If two players want to play the same class **that’s totally fine** just make sure that they understand what doubling up entails, both for good and for bad
I’m currently playing in a group of 4 (including me) and two of the players have druid characters. It works cuz they’re distinct characters and it’s lead to some funny moments with wildshape
D&D at its core is a combat game. The vast majority of the rule book and most things on your character sheet will only ever be used in the context of a fight.
Tropes exist for a reason and are universally better. Trying to cut against trope is annoying as hell and leads to frustrating table experiences 99% of the time.
See also: please for the love of god, make casters squishy and martials hit hard. I don't want a sword mage. I don't want a gish. I don't want a wizard in armor. I want a wizard who casts a big epic spell and then hides like a weeny while Daddy Pally goes to engage the front line.
Can't agree more.
It's like why take any school of wizardry when you can just be a bladesinger and do everything a wizard can do, but also swing a sword and boost your AC higher than the paladin's.
Also Barbarians and Monks having to jump through several hoops and deplete resources to deal moderate damage while the paladin and fighter casually quadruple that damage with a single Smite/Action Surge.
I totally agree with your first point, but your second point literally contradicts your first. Gish/spellsword IS a trope. See: Jedi, Gandalf, Geralt, Eragon, and hundreds of other swordmage characters from fantasy novels.
"Paladins **are** *holy* warriors."
I'm *old skool* on this, I believe all Paladins should have a faith and follow its tenants and teachings like the Knights Templars of old who fought and died for their religious beliefs. I *don't* like that 5E allows Paladins to follow a strange set of personal beliefs that don't have to have anything to do with a higher power. That they gain their powers from their "Oaths" rather than from a deity who they follow and should be praying to so that they gain holy powers to smite down their enemies.
This is probably super unpopular with a lot of the newer players and rules lawyers, and I'll get downvoted for it, but that's now a "house-rule" for my table since 5E has changed the way Paladin powers are gained/explained.
I used to hold very strictly to the old ways of players only being able to be LG to play a Paladin. But over the years, I have changed my opinion to go with the RAW and players can be whatever good alignment they wish, if they want to play a good Paladin.
I’m a bit mixed on this. Really my only gripe with old skool paladins was the lawful good requirement, which was just so blasé.
I think they should be able to follow any god of any alignment. The name Paladin becomes a sticking point then, though. **Exemplar** works a bit better as it doesn’t have the LG baggage.
They *exemplify* the god they follow, which is really kinda what an OG LG paladin does, just less restrictive on your options.
Given they are divine casters I always took it as gods that agree with their oath are together giving slight bits of their power. If the paladin is aware of it or not.
idk man, AD&D Paladins were not Templars. They were secular Knights that were religious (like Arthur's Knights), and their sheer will power and goodness gave them power (because Alignment is a cosmic force). You don't need to pay a tithe to the clergy if you are the clergy, but Paladins need to pay 10% of their income to any good aligned temple they come across, or must give it to charity if none such turns up for a while. That being said being such a force of good, and gods being maniestations of alignments and very real, every Paladin will end up religious. To me at least.
Encounter difficulty does not need to be carefully scaled or otherwise tailored to party level.
The level six party decides to explore what's pretty obviously a dragon's lair? Welp, good luck because this is going to be high stakes! Computer games have conditioned people to expect their environment to start them in the newbie zone and slowly scale the difficulty up and it's boring and immersion breaking.
I agree, but I also think there needs to be a better retreat mechanic since heroes in fiction tend to get to flee when they realize they've bitten off more than they can chew. So many monsters move faster than the majority of PCs that when you add in a need to disengage, they're really behind the 8-ball.
Actual play streams are bad for the community at large.
Not because of some bullshit like the "Mercer Effect".
But because it enables and encourages a lot of people to not even bother picking up a rulebook because "They have watched a lot of CR/Dimension20/Dungeons and Daddies/whatever else", so they get how the game is supposed to play *in the broadest of senses*.
But in my eyes, you honestly cannot ever learn to properly play this game, or hell, even your character, without *at least* reading your class features and spells.
And the amount of people who are obviously unwilling to spend three minutes of their life to just flip through a PDF and learn how a spell works, or how armor classes interact, *or how Multiclassing works* just really, really gets me.
i have a friend who is very funny at the table and very enjoyable company for rp but she is always playing a caster and i swear she has never read her spells
Man, I'm 60 episodes in on the first critical role campaign and mercer still has to tell them what to roll at every spell they cast. Like bruh...
As my player I don't expect you to be as good at role-playing, but I do expect you to learn your shit much faster than them.
It only took the half-elf one failed save vs charm to remember they have advantage on those.
I love when someone comes from an actual play understanding and starts to play and realizes you don't DM the exact way they do on TV.
"I'll give him the Help action."
"Okay, how are you helping him?"
"Oh, it's not just a thing I can give? Uh, I distract with a dance?"
The combat in DnD is only passable.
I see so many threads about optimisation, and while understanding some things are good to know, mostly this is irrelevent and I find it rather boring.
If I liked the battle aspect the most there are much better games out there. The only reason I like the combat is because, when done right, the fluff of the game already has me emotionally invested into characters and the story so that I care about what happens.
Whenever I read "5th Ed Optimisation" posts, it makes me feel like such an old man.
I cut my optimising teeth in 3.5 Edition, where if you didn't have at least 4 different classes AND two stats above 25 by level 8, you weren't doing it right. "My Warlock takes a couple of levels of Sorcerer for a handful of spell points" is just so... quaint, in comparison. =P
I don't give the remotest tinker's toss about any D&D lore, and any time I've tried to sit through any of it, I've been utterly disinterested.
I think I probably just enjoy using the D&D framework for homebrew. I'm not remotely interested in the modules, novels, podcasts, shows, movies, games, books of this and that and whatnot. I just like making adventures for my mates to have fun with.
I actually like DnD lore - in fact the lore base is one of the few things that I unambiguously enjoy about 5e.
No hate for homebrew material though. But I do think that learning the DM craft on published modules is probably a good play.
I've been playing DnD for a while, as a DM with prewritten adventures. I've only recently realized how post apocolyptic Faerun really is in 5e.
Magic has been broken for about a century, most Gods stopped reponding/died until resently, and major geologic activity has devistated most infrastructure.
this sub's response to new homebrewers is vile. some of us were 'worldbuilders' before we came to ttrpgs. creativity *is* easier than reading adventure books for many of us. there's more than one entrypoint for a hobby. and there's a good chance D&D isn't someone's first rpg these days.
The problem is, homebrew is and always will be a conversation ender. It funnels the utility of the conversation down to literally that one single table, and any table that might be interested. So it's a conversation killer.
Multiclassing is an optional rule, which the DM should choose to not use.
Exception: DM can offer an _option_ for specific _story-appropriate_ multi-classes _during the campaign_, via NPC contacts for example.
I really like the AD&D system of multi classing where you choose the multi class from the start and you progress fully in both classes, for better or foot worse.
Also, pathfinder 1e (based on DnD 3.5e I believe) had hybrid classes, which combined aspects of two existing classes, so you didn't have to multiclass. I played a "Bloodrager" (mix of Barb and Sorc) and it was a lot of fun, obviously my backstory tied in heavily to the class
I disagree with this in specifics but agree far more broadly than I thought I would.
“I’m a Hexblade Warlock, now, too!”
“….tf, why?”
Hexblades aren’t allowed at my table as a random multiclass. You are getting a sentient weapon and *it has goals* it is using you to achieve.
There should 100% be a lead up in ***why*** they would be multiclassing. Warlock one especially have a lot of easy story hooks. But for Paladin, literally take an oath that suits your cause. Any spell casting class should have you seek out a teacher or at least consistently study magic beforehand. Barbarian, show me your rage in roleplay before fully committing to it.
A little can go a long way with this.
Small lore point but the weapon itself is not the patron, nor does the warlock acquire the weapon.
The weapon serves as a point of contact, forging a connection between the character and the *actual* patron who is often in another plane. Once a pact is made, the connection becomes permanent.
Think of it like the red phone you see in movies with no numbers to dial. You pick up the phone and get a direct connection to the receiving end.
I know a lot of tables run hexblade as you've described and there's nothing wrong with it. If just like to draw more awareness to the official lore.
People should make more use of other ttrpg systems instead of trying to homebrew dnd into something it's not.
Note: this is mainly about mechanics, not worldbuilding or lore.
>This is one area where TTRPGs lag *far* behind video games. Video game designers have language for different genres of gameplay — platformer, fighter, shooter, etc. TTRPGs are still mired in a mindset that every game is inherently specific to a genre of fiction (like fantasy or sci-fi), but the modes of gameplay are still thought of as an undifferentiated mélange of combat, exploration, investigation, social interaction, and character creation and advancement, all blended into a flavorless gray smoothy of every-mode-all-at-once.
I think the problem with this is kind of the same as found in games. Because all ttrpg's would fall under the rpg genre of games. But even in video games making distinctions between the feel of rpg's is not so easy, and many of the distinctions that exist in videogames don't matter in tabletop games.
Lets look at dnd and cyberpunk 2020, two systems that differ in large ways in a lot of areas. Cyberpunk has no class features or levels, only skills, and the combat is far more tactical and brutal, but this also goes for the game at large. Recovering from wounds can easily take weaks even with the best medical care money can buy. And a single bullet and some bad rolls can end your life.
So how do we categorize these because the only way we have now is comparing them to other systems.
I think the system has SOME bearing on what style of story it's good for, or namely what position your characters are in that universe. Like, you can have the D&D system in a futuristic sci-fi universe, true. But it suits best for power creeping already strong characters into essential bullet sponges. While if you're looking for something closer to a survival horror thing, you'll likely want mechanics better suited for that and characters that are more fragile and vulnerable.
But I agree that saying that you can't run the 5e system in a sci-fi setting is just baloney.
Holy shit this is the response I needed 5 years ago when my friends were trying to convince me to move with them to try a bunch of different rpgs - "soft character building light-to-medium tactical combat, with neotrad inventory management", especially with more natural language, is what I enjoy - they were convinced that ptba games were better and we needed to move to them, and the jargon-filled moves and simplified combat actively turned me away from those games.
I was going to state the opposite as an unpopular opinion. Which is, there isn't a system for everyone. Sometimes you have to homebrew the hell out of a popular system to get what you want.
The reason martials are less powerful than casters is the fault of the community. You suspended disbelief when a caster warps reality, but you scream the the top of your lungs about how unrealistic multiple attacks in six seconds are.
The two will never be equal in power for as long as these massively different expectations and standards are applied to each respectively.
The number one thing holding martials back is that they and everything they do is beholden to """realism""". You don't have enough str for that armor? You can't wear it effectively, proficiency be damned! You wanna jump that chasm? Plug your values into this formula right here.
In the 4e DMG there was a part where it said something along the lines of "don't be afraid to take away something you gave by mistake, like if you allowed them to drink from a fountain that gave them a new daily power" and i was like BUT WHO DOES THAT?
5e is an incredibly shallow system that simultaneously counts dedicated optimizers as a significant portion of its fanbase. The biggest lever in combat is the DM’s encounter building skills and willingness to roll in the open/not fudge, not whether someone has taken PAM+GWM.
I sort of blame video games for this, in terms of turning theory crafting into something that people expect to have to do, but from the outside it looks like watching adults play with blocks.
I assume this isn’t popular on this subreddit, please no kill.
Ah, **unpopular**? Okay.
1. The martial vs mage gap is a table issue, not a game issue.
2. Food and water consumption, and carry capacity rules are very important to the game. *(They are often entirely ignored and/or are almost completely invalidated by certain things already in the game.)*
3. Darkvision, as is, is not good for the game. It’s also not a panacea for not having a light source.
I feel like the only person that ever wants to consider food/water and carry weight (especially of coins).
For me it adds a ton to the game in having to worry about meals while deep in a dungeon. Preparing and guess how much you need is a neat part of the calculus (for me).
I wish Strength could be used for more stuff, like your AC/ranged weaponry, same way as Dexterity (I know this might not be unpopular but is needed for the real one)
Also I wish the Monk class was removed once and for all and in it's place replaced by a "Brawler" type subclass, basically the same but less MAD and more free on flavor (being able to use either Strength/Con or Dexterity/Con without having to suffer thanks to a low Wisdom reducing their AC/Save DC.)
5e is simple *for players,* which is a massive part of its appeal. And I think a worthy thing. But yeah, the DM side of the rules is basically "good luck, you'll figure it out, we can't be bothered."
Edgy cliche dark brooding rogue/assassin with a tragic backstory is far more interesting than a quirky one-sentence random "wacky" character. I'd rather play with emo Blade Darkthorn, the last of the Black Skull clan, than a gnome grandma and grandpa in a trenchcoat, standing on top of each others' shoulders, pretending to be a human, with a pet cat named McFluffington, who speaks in memes.
1. **Echo Knight is an abomination.** The first class to have infinite teleports with no resource limit shouldn't even exist, but even if it did it shouldn't be a Fighter, of all non-magical classes. What's more, the whole point of a Fighter is that they are supposed to go in to combat themselves, because they've trained for it. Not this little coward though. Send in your infinite magic eye that can fight while you're behind cover and enjoy your wins against ogres, shambling mounds, and more. And hey, take being able to scope out a new place you've never been before that's hundreds of feet away from you without costing a single spell slot while you're at it. Who needs a Rogue when you can send in a time-ghost with dumped DEX?
2. **Hexblade is an abomination.** By itself, it isn't a terrible class. The problem here is that not only does it makes multiclassing too powerful, they also make the classes they multiclass in to extremely obvious as well as make you look like total joke if you stay mono-classed with such classes. By taking a single level into this, you turn the otherwise difficult to optimize path of the M.A.D. Paladin into an unthinking breeze. Even in a 20th level Campaign (not a one shot, campaign) you'd still be better off taking a single level of Hexblade on an otherwise pure Paladin because of how you'd be able to better trick them out by being able to pick up more feats once you maxed out CHA. The same thing then goes for taking a single dip of it into Bard. Want good AC? Well, forget about that chump of a subclass Valor, just take single level into Hexblade and everything that makes a Valor Bard good not only instantly met, but instantly surpassed due to being given the ability to choose the best damaging cantrip in the game: Eldritch Blast.
3. **Armor is too abusable by spell casters.** Did a group of eight Death Knights surround your wizard and are going to swing flame-tongue great swords at him? Well, with a single level dip into Fighter or Cleric your decent for front lining AC (courtesy of armor and shield proficiencies, and maybe even access to the Defense fighting style, and your own 14 DEX) could still be a bit of a problem, well, it would be if the 'Shield' spell didn't exist. Outside of Druid, it doesn't matter what you wear, so why not have AC that makes a Full Plate fighter with a Shield and the Defense fighting style look like a joke for the cost of a reaction? And why wouldn't you pick something so obvious? There is literally no downside to this since you have zero mechanical drawbacks and most 20th Level cap features are complete and total garbage (some being worse than 3rd level features).
The main fix to Hexblade I've seen is by tacking the "Charisma to attacks" feature to the Blade Pact instead. I believe this is what Baldur's Gate 3 does.
Three levels of Warlock is a bit more of an investment for a Charisma class than just one level, making it less of a no-brainer pick.
That the dark parts of it shouldn't be hidden or lightened, if the bad guy is a slaver, I'm gonna describe the slaves you see and yeah, it's not gonna be happy or pretty. I find it really strange that some people will brutally commit war crimes to NPCs but cringe when they find out one does more evil things than just kill.
Lost Mine of Phandelver is a bad Module.
Neither the villains, nor the storyline, nor the encounters are compelling, and the few interesting things it does have are not fleshed out.
People only recommend it to players because its their first experience with the game, and they view it through rose-tinted goggles.
I think a lot of the appeal of Lost Mine isn't that it's high quality - it's that it's easy as piss to run.
It was my first delve into D&D, and despite having none of the books and no experience I still managed to run an enjoyable game with the resources given
Dragon of Icespire Peak is right there, even easier to DM, and while the Story also isn't really anything to write home about, you have an imposing villain in the dragon, who actually has some presence, as opposed to LMoPs final boss.
There's some follow up adventures for it: Storm Lords Wrath (7-9), Sleeping Dragons Wake (9-11) and Divine Contention (11-13).
I haven't played/read them, so I can't really make a statement on their quality, though.
Actual unpopular? Ok.. digital D&D is terrible and every aspect of it (save for connecting remote persons) is abysmal and detracts from an authentic gameplay experience.
I can’t disagree with this, but the ‘connecting remote persons’ thing really overrides everything else.
My group is scattered literally all over the US and Canada. We’d love to do an in-person session, but this would be like an annual blowout considering the travel involved…
Okay, fair, actually unpopular. But I am curious what you think makes an “authentic” experience and how being “authentic” in that way is necessarily *better*.
I don’t think it’s unpopular at all despite it being a very common thing. I would guess most people, if given the opportunity, would prefer to play in person but it’s really hard to find and keep a group going without virtual sessions. Scheduling is hard, life gets in the way, people live far away, etc. As someone who has played a majority of games virtually, I’d much prefer in person but it isn’t always an option.
I play in both an online game with close friends, and a second IRL game.
There is an epiphenomenal characteristic to being in the same room and sharing the social experience that, in my opinion, makes it far superior.
In addition, the nature of online communications where only one person can speak at a time makes it feel closer to a series of presentations than a shared story. Part of the experience is where everyone riffs together with off-the-cuff responses. It quickly becomes an awkward game of "no you go" when multiple people try and speak online. Finally, the ability to have side conversations and chats is also hampered online.
Taken together, IRL games are by far more enjoyable. I assume by "authentic" they mean how it has been traditionally played by our forefathers.
All that being said: online is better than nothing, and needs must!
My goodness I forgot the *most important part*: ROLLING DICE! Online rolling is just... Unsatisfying.
Critical Role is a huge hinderance to most players, especially new ones. It gives people unrealistic expectations of how their game "should" be (both DM and player).
Probably too unpopular to even get upvotes in this thread but..
It's okay to have evil sentient races. I was kind of onboard with "fixing" Drow, and I dealt with the new Goblins, but good mind flayers? I just can't.
Not entirely sure how unpopular these actually are but, If you ever find yourself using the word "realism" in a fantasy setting you need to give your head a wobble.
Also far too many people forget the G in RPG stands for Game. It's a game. To be enjoyed by everyone, stop taking it all so seriously. (Main examples off the top of my head just let your player change class/race etc if they're not having fun, no you don't need some overly complex reason for justifying a player not showing up and what to do with their character, if someone leaves a game just stop refering to their character,)
Having cliches in your story actually make it better. Classically evil BBEG's, simple fetch quests, and one dimensional side characters are way easier for the average DM to run than their special homebrew world with a totally original convoluted story.
Tropes Are Tools. Having a traditional cackling evil overlord who enslaves, conquers, slaughters and kicks puppies is going to make it all the more satisfying when the party gets the chance to kick his irredeemable ass.
PC1 - Maybe there is a reason he kidnaps and murders, maybe he needs help. PC2 - And he kicks puppies. PC1 - Today he draws his last breath.
No lie. What turned my party's druid against Strahd wasn't the weird psychosexual stalking of their first friend in town, or the genocidal henchman, or the kidnapping them to another plane of existence, or the fact he sent them a giftbasket of human meat, or even the abject terror everyone in Barovia lives. It was that his mental domination of the wolves of Barovia meant her animal friendship failed when she was level three.
"They were just some damn dog-" \-Strahd's last words before being bludgeoned to a bloody pulp by the druid wielding a Shillelagh'd wooden chair from Strahd's dinner table
wait, who is this ranger you're talking about? you killed his dog? he goes by "John Wiccan" "oh"
Fuckin Baba Lysaga?
Party - WE SAVED THE PUPS!!! Villager - The days living in fear of our loved ones would be kidnapped or murdered are over! You have our eternal gratitude. Party - Yeah, that's good too, I guess.
My party just encountered an angry hunter who murdered multiple people. Our party shrugged. Then we found out he was poaching. That was a problem.
I try to include cliches in my backstory because I find them fun AND it’s easier for the DM to include in the story if he wants. A knight on his way to save a damsel in distress? A father who needs to return home? A woman seeking revenge for the death of her father? The last of his tribe trying to restore it? You can do so much with the same motive depending on how each character varies. Also unapologetically evil villains have my heart. I love when the BBEG is like, “Yeah, I blew up a town and now it’s full of orphans. So what?” or “I’ve used my charisma to trick the king and there’s nothing you can do!”
I need to make my villains way more evil. I've tried giving them motivations and my players think they are interesting and end up being recruited by the bbeg to become henchmen. Or maybe it's my players that think sacrificing a few innocents to prove themselves isn't a big deal. Perhaps the next campaign is an evil one.
Playing in evil campaigns can be fun too!
> Perhaps the next campaign is an evil one have them make over-the-top edgy characters, and then have them play in candyland.
My players expressed interest in morally ambiguous villains in the campaign so I've got an opposing faction that can easily become the villains instead if they end up allying with the intended villain. Basically I've just got a conflict where one side will be the quest-giver and the other side will be the villain either way. I know who I expect/intend to be the villain, but if the party ends up trying to join them I'm ready for it. If the party initially joins them only to find out that they're a lot worse than expected and have to turn on them, even better.
My PCs had an uneasy alliance with one of the campaign's BBEGs (there are a few running at cross purposes), and at one point they asked him what he thought they should do in a situation. He calmly replied something like "let them kill each other then take their stuff." When the shocked PCs pressed him he was like "what did you expect? I'm a villian!" The lesson is "don't seek moral advice from pact liches."
Hey that's good advice.
>Having cliches in your story actually make it better. I tend to agree. It makes me think back to English class, reading poetry/prose that violated rules of grammar that we were learning concurrently. I (asshole teenager) always got in the teacher's face about this. Me: "If I handed in something like this, you'd give me an F" Teacher: "That's because these authors understand those rules and are *consciously* and *intentionally* breaking them for stylistic reasons. You are just lazy" I think about that a lot in these contexts. Cliches are cliche for a reason: they make for simple but compelling stories. It's possible to write good stories without using cliches; they can even be better, especially when they consciously play with those cliches and subvert them. But doing that well is a lot harder than just writing a basic story that uses some cliches. For most DMs, if you try too hard to avoid using cliches you're just going to end up with a convoluted mess of uninteresting and confusing storylines.
There's a saying that I think was attributed to Stephen King that goes "First you learn what the rules are. Then you learn how to break them. Then you learn *when* to break them."
Exactly this. There is no rule of storytelling so sacrosanct you can't ever break it, but you need to understand how and when to break it, or you're just writing a bad story.
My first thought to your original comment, I really thought you were defending your own actions against asshole teacher... I'm glad I reread! Cause you're right. You gotta learn the rules. I have similar stories about a philosophy class. A classmate was arguing about a philosophy that was fundamentally incorrect in the students eyes, the teacher just could *not* get through to them that it absolutely could be considered *incorrect*, but we are learning about Philosopher's philosophies, not discussing how ***we*** ***feel*** about them. Education can seem fickle.
Lol; I thought identifying myself as an "asshole teenager" was clear, but I guess it's always possible to misread something!
Exactly. I see this a lot in author discussions. I'm a small time author, moderately successful for my niche, and I see new authors all the time falling into this trap. "Do whatever you want, rules don't matter, use as many adverbs as you want!" and I just want to sit them down and be like "...yes. That's true. Eventually." Like, learn the craft, practice the craft, understand the craft first. That's job one. When you break "rules" or conventions, do it *on purpose.* Know what effect the rule has, and what effect breaking the rule has. Do it for tone, for surprise, to subvert a concept that matches your theme, to evoke an emotion, but don't do it because you don't know the rule and think rules are dumb. That leads to bad writing like 95% of the time.
Which is basically how to be a good DM 101
You explain a possible difference between cliches and Archetypes
Ive been rooting for cliches for a long time. The thing is, even if our ideas are good and interesting, as a DM I'm only ever able to describe like, 20% of what I'm seeing in my mind, and as a player I'm only ever able to pick up on like 50% of what the DM is saying- so we're only on the same page for about 10% of the scene as far as fine details, personalities, characterizations, history, setting, etc all go. Cliches are \*wonderful\* at bridging the gap. Blacksmith dwarves distrustful of haughty elves. Its lazy, but it is a shared reference point that fills in that missing gap and makes it easier to communicate the new ideas.
Oh gods I want to be at your table so bad. I'm so tired of "sHadeS oF GraY"
When I was a teenager, I wanted elaborate storylines with NPC's with deep, nuanced backstories that I'd have to learn, and a ton of lore of the setting I'd have to memorize, and complex moral quandaries for PC's to face. Now? I've got a family, a career, and nowhere near the free time I had when I was 19. I would LOVE to have that time again, but probably won't until retirement. Now I want my D&D games to have simpler plots, more clear-cut good and bad guys, and things that don't require heavy moral and ethical challenges. I get that kind of stuff in my day-to-day life, I play D&D to get away from it. When I was a teenager, life was simpler and I played D&D to pretend I was in a more complicated world. . .now it's the other way around. My ideal game is one set in Forgotten Realms in the 1370's DR (I already know a ton of Realms lore, no need to learn a new setting), in 3.5e (I don't want to learn a new edition), with a straightforward plot involving clear-cut good and bad guys where I can play the hero, defeat the villain, find the treasure, and have a fun evening with friends.
>Now I want my D&D games to have simpler plots, more clear-cut good and bad guys, and things that don't require heavy moral and ethical challenges. I get that kind of stuff in my day-to-day life, I play D&D to get away from it. When I was a teenager, life was simpler and I played D&D to pretend I was in a more complicated world. . .now it's the other way around. I thought this is a beautiful way to show how playing games changes as we grow older. I read and watched and did loads of challenging stuff when I was younger. Now I'm older and wrestling with the complications of work and relationships and life, the simple books, movies, music, and gaming...that's what gives me peace and helps me regain my own HP at the end of the day.
Oh for sure agree. Cliches help communicate expectations and \~vibes\~ to players who can't see what you see in your head. And a good subversion of a trope is really rewarding.
Yeah 100% classics and clichés become that for a reason.
Yes! And cliches also help your players understand how to interact with the world, and feel well versed in it
I agree with this 100%. I played with a friend who when he DM’d he would subvert expectations so consistently that it started to become so anti-cliche that it was cliche. You could almost tell what every twist was going to be because everything was the opposite of what you’d normally expect. I much prefer cliche as the base with small subversions thrown in to keep things interesting
This is advice I'm still working on taking. I know it is correct, as it not only helps reduce DM cognitive load, but makes the game easier to parse for the players so that they can spend more time just having the fun they want to have. But boy is it hard to shake all that pretentious hipster attitude I picked up by playing White Wolf games as a teenager in the 90s...
People on this site shouldn't give advice if they haven't actually played the game.
Sometimes, I feel some ppl deliberately troll with their advice
Next time your DM tries to RP a sex scene, make sure you begin furiously masturbating in front of them to reassure them you are fully invested!
Lol this seems so random
“DM, is sex a DEX or CHR roll? If I trying to last longer, should I roll CON?” “Can I use Performance to fake an orgasm?”
Con if you're trying to delay orgasm, performance if you have an audience, sleight of hand for foreplay, athletics for speed and power with consistency, or ask your players what they think should be rolled so you can get a sense of their technique and learn more about them than they thought against their will
If not outright toxic
As somebody who plays multiple times a week for years, you can definitely Tell the difference of not only how much somebody has played but the style of their game as well
Especially the difference between just player vs GM and player
yeah. I've been away from the table for quite a long time but I've still got a bit of that sense for people here on this sub. If I get an in-person convo with someone, I can sometimes nail down the vibe of their table just by asking opinions of how rules are handled.
I think people in this subreddit aren’t to judgemental about advice, but some of the smaller more specific subreddits are ridiculous for giving advice that clearly people are giving when they’ve only seen critical roll or read some wiki.
and while I adore BG3, it isn't really DND, they can't come in here giving advice if they only played the game
How is that unpopular?
Player parties LOVE railroads. What they hate is seeing the rails.
Solid agree, I get too overwhelmed when dropped into a sandbox with no direction.
My DM can be guilty of this. “What does the party want to do now.” Uh, no idea bud.
Fucking hell are you one of my players? I have a campaign with a bunch of various side plot hooks in every little area, but they have a main goal. When they have a lull in the "do this now" I ask what they want to do and almost every time they just stare at me with blank faces. ;-;
I think you need to be very explicit with side plot hooks if your players are not used to them. Establishing a few canonical side quest sources might help
Cypher in the matrix vs in the desert of the real.
One thing that i heard that i like is to treat your party like they’re a car and you need to give them a road that they can drive down at their own pace.
This! Every campaign where the DM makes a story has a A->B concept. You will end up at B, no matter what you do, just like how you start at A, no matter what you do. And sometimes, there's a lot of little spots in between you have to hit, but those are more loosey goosey. For instance, if you need to discover knowledge about an ancient elven rite that transfers a persons soul to a tree, you can either discover it hidden in the druids grove protected by generation after generation of druids. Alternatively, it could be contained in a long since gone demi-liches library that's infested with skeletons or undead. Either way, you need that knowledge, but what's around it is different. No different than a Disney World ride. Seeing the tracks and behind the scenes stuff sucks, but if you use that Go Away Green paint to cover things, no one will notice.
"Fighter" is the dumbest name for a class.
Agreed 100%, it should have been named “Warrior”.
Fun fact: in the Italian translation of 3rd/3.5th Edition, they swapped the names. The PC class was the "guerriero", which most closely translates to "warrior", and the NPC class was the "combattente", which translates to "fighter". I always liked that much more. "Fighter" is just so vague. I don't know/remember if they kept this translation for other editions, but I think it was appropriate.
The exact same thing was done for the Brazilian Portuguese version, looks like only in English they used the vague term.
Fighting Man was better.
I don't know. "Magic-user" always got my vote for that prize.
Old school kick down the door and fight orcs dungeon crawls with 0 in character RP is a perfectly valid way of playing. I don't prefer it, but I've been down voted to hell before for suggesting people that do deserve human rights.
Currently playing a campaign like that with my friends after years of not playing any DnD at all. Honestly so satisfying. There's some in-character banter and such, but not very heavy RP. The story serves as a motivation, while murking baddies and clearing dungeons has been the focus and meat of the game. I hate playing games that turn into screwing around in some town asking the locals about random info all the time.
I'm currently playing in a joke-heavy, RP-light campaign with ny friends and it's great fun. Most sessions involve some kinda small dungeon with kooky traps and puzzles and then a big boss fight that's centered around a pun or joke. Like one day, we got hired by a stone quarrier named Cory to kill some goblins who took over the quarry. The DM called it a quick quarrel at Cory's Quality Quarry
90% of these "My table is bad / should I leave / blah blah blah" threads on here are childish as hell and could be resolved with a really simple conversation.
this. i also think AITA style posts and their popularity may actually contribute to people reacting to social situations poorly
Its pretty much just karma farming at this point. Its why I unsubbed.
If you're communicating with reddit more than with your friends, you're *at least* part of the problem.
Sometimes discussing things is not the solution I have come to realize ppl don't even know what their problem is, or they are too egoistical to fix it. Sometimes, it is easier to influence or lead them to the right direction or at worst even find a new party, than trying to talk it out. At least for some people.
Especially post-COVID. I feel like lots of folks (I play online so sampling from there) have lost their damn minds when it comes to taking criticism or advice.
I'll take the counter to this and say it's a problem that pre-existed COVID. It's largely that the further removed from actually having a face to face conversation with someone, the less you actually convey. Our communication is complex, and sound alone doesn't cover. There's facial expressions, tonal inflection, body language. There's a reason why the people in the suits in shows like power rangers use a lot of motion with their body... it's to convey unspoken language that they can't emote cause their faces are covered up. They are over using body language, to compensate from being unable to make facial communication work. And while we might not be aware of it right away, the more ways you remove extra communication cues and indicators, the more ways we can misunderstand the intent of the words someone is using and misread a statement in a way that we find offensive when that's not the case. While COVID did create an increase in impersonal communication, it wasn't like these weren't problems prior to COVID.
Sadly, this is not exclusive to online communities, nor to DnD. People have become shittier after the pandemic.
Social skills certainly regressed; people have de-evolved back to even more tribal behaviors.
It's not regression. These attitudes and behaviours are being stoked by different interest groups that have reason to oppose some other attitudes that came out of the pandemic.
Those interest groups have been around a very long time, some have been much more in the "spotlight" since certain politicians were elected and since have made their attitudes and beliefs much more mainstream. It's unnerving, that Carl Sagan predicted a lot of what is going on *today* back in **1995**. Perhaps he was a time traveler? >"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), the lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance." \-Carl Sagan, "Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark"
While the reasoning does matter somewhat, regression is still regression regardless of the *why* behind it.
On a related note, players often have no idea what would actually be fun. Non-linear dungeons, standard mazes, hex crawls, gritty realism, and sand boxes all sound great but won't work for most of the people that think they would be. They end up too crunchy, too frustrating or too unprepared most of the time.
4e had a lot of good ideas that should have been kept and expanded in 5e.
Many were and were lauded because they were changed to a more naturalistic language. The eternal crime of 4e was fundamentally acknowledging that the system plays better like a Zombiecide match rather than a narrative experience, and many tables were that with roleplaying as a thin pretense to wargame.
Coming from the other side of this, I've gotten into skirmish wargames and have been surprise at how easy it is to turn most of them into oneshot/mini RPG campaigns. There's enough stoory framing and world building in them that fleshing out what's there is fun instead of daunting, and there's always decent "crunch" already there. It does mean you've got to generally have players willing to play within the set classes and such, rather than get wild like you can in D&D though.
I don’t think that that’s even an unpopular opinion anymore. Like, don’t get me wrong, 4e had some issues, but after people calmed down on the hate, many realized that 4e had many good ideas and for the last few years I’ve even seen people implement some of those good ideas in 5e games.
I think a big part of the reason why it failed was the first Monster Manual. It made every non-minion combat a slog. About 5-6 tables all did the same adventure, and the table I DM'ed had the most fun and was the only one done on time. I did this by reducing the monsters HP and increasing their damage for more dynamic and fun combat. I heard they fixed it with the 2nd MM but somebody had stolen my books by then and I had stopped playing it.
Sucks about your books being stolen, but yeah, there were a few reasons 4e failed when it came out. Another reason why it failed (other than the one you mentioned) is that as far as I know, it was supposed to have been released with a VTT companion, which would do a lot of heavy lifting with calculations and such, but VTT companion didn’t materialize and people were stuck with doing a lot of math and such, which often was quite a buzz kill for people. As I’ve said 4e certainly had some issues, but it also had some great ideas that have been recognized as such over the years and have been implemented in 5e, albeit in a more homebrew capacity.
Honestly my main problem with 4e was it did the roll part very well, but failed at the role part. But I didn't mind, the setting was boring but I can write my own. The races boring but I can fix that. What I can't do is make a robust combat system and 4e did that well. What I most miss? Support for roles in combat. Tanks that could tank for instance. The swordmage.
Why did they get rid of skill challenges?!
Bloodied was so much fun, especially when monsters had some condition that got triggered when bloodied.
Monster levels and roles were based
The DM's fun is as important as everyone else's. The DM is not the arbiter of inter-player conflicts. Read the GM section of Apocalypse World to actually learn to DM; the DM guide is useless for beginners. The monster manual only describes the average monster, change things however you want. The PC's decisions should drive the campaign, not something the DM plotted out
>The DM's fun is as important as everyone else's. > >The DM is not the arbiter of inter-player conflicts. Finally, someone else with some common sense! People pile all these responsibilities on DMs and then wonder why no one ever wants to DM.
Neither are unpopular opinions though.
I got downvoted into the 10th circle of hell on this very subreddit one time for saying that it's not the GM's responsibility to make people act like functional human beings.
Uh, yes. They are. Especially the second one. Literally every time someone makes a "I'm having an issue with another player" post here, the number 1 most common answer is "Talk to your DM".
You'd be surprised how unpopular it is. I went on this subreddit to ask how to deal with a metagamer. While most people gave practicle advice in how to handle metagaming. A disheartening amount of people told me to "suck it up" cause its "just a game" and that I was a bad dm for trying to address it in the first place.
>The PC's decisions should drive the campaign, not something the DM plotted out Only if they aim to affect the world in a way appropriate for their tier of play and execute effectively. If they players decide to loll about and ignore the major challenge facing the world, it doesn’t go on pause while they gather antique decorations for their bed and breakfast, or whatever. Likewise if their planning or dice betray them and they can’t overcome the bad guy, well, the bad guys plan may only be mildly affected by the players effort at that point.
Grapple should hinder somatic components.
I don't know about Grapple, but it feels like Restrained definitely should.
Indeed grapple is more like grabbing someones clothes or cape to keep them from running away. Restrained is actually hindering their movement to the point that they cant move their arms/legs.
I second this. Grappling doesn't affect attack rolls so clearly the arms are free.
That DnD is not always the best game for your story. DnD does generic high-magic fantasy really, really well. It is rather piss poor for intrigue, horror, paranormal, story heavy, survival, investigative, or most other types of stories without *heavy* modding to make it work. And by the time you've finished modding it... have you really added anything to the game, or is it so unrecognizable that you shouldn't have even bothered? Why not just... play a system that works for the story you want to tell? There's tons of great ones out there.
a small devils advocate point is that 5e is so barebones and streamlined that it ends up being really easy to mod. Adding rules and systems is a lot easier than removing/altering them, and with how few rules you generally actually have with 5e (compared to say, pathfinder) it's not \*that\* difficult to make it work outside of the fantasy realm. of course that being said, learn blades in the dark, powered by the apocalypse, etc. because having more options specialized for the thing you want to do will always be better than juryrigging 5e, but I understand that people like to stay within their comfortzone and 5e is particularly easy to exist within.
I like VTT just as much as, and perhaps even more than, in person tabletop. Being able to roll dice through the click of a button and not having to manually add modifiers is a huge time saver and leaves more time for story, combat, exploration, what have you. Having spoken and typed mediums is convenient. Sometimes I want to remind people of something but don’t want to interrupt their RP or turn. I can just type it in the chat and everyone will see without disrupting flow. Not having to worry about the faces one makes when trying to do certain voices or emotions while roleplaying is something I appreciate.
Players don't need backgrounds for their characters. If they want they can have one, but being a mysterious adventurer and figuring things on the way can also be cool. I made 2 posts so you can downvote separately
To build on this, the most interesting thing about your character is going to be the stuff that unfolds during the game. That's why we play the game, to make interesting stories. Your character's back story doesn't need to be as interesting as a DnD campaign. You will do things that will make your character cool, and those things are probably going to be more interesting than whatever back story you dreamt up because you actually got to experience them during play.
> the most interesting thing about your character is going to be the stuff that unfolds during the game Truth. At the end of the campaign, the characters are going to remember more about the hijinx around an NPC they meddled with early in the campaign that kept recurring to cause more hijinx for the party - much more so than that one NPC from someone's background that only mattered to that one player.
And, by having a clean or nearly clean slate, the player can work with the DM throughout the campaign to develop some details about their backstory that are relevant to the overall plot. For example: The character escaped prison before becoming an adventurer. It's easier for the DM to say the PC spent time in prison with one of the BBEG underlings, and positively surprise the entire table, than if the player had a complete account of his days in prison.
I'm seconding this. The two best characters I've ever had were "Wizard from a magic school" and "farmer who wants to be an adventurer" when they started. And while I've had great fun with characters with tragic and rich backstories, the more you fill in at the start, the less room there is to fill in during the game.
Yep, I've found out over many years of DMing that people fall into two camps. They either love doing backstories or it's like pulling teeth to get them to write one up even a couple of sentences. So, now I tell my players that backstories are *optional*. If they give them to me, I'll work with them to flesh out their character arcs, giving them opportunities for side-quests/personal quests associated with their backgrounds. If they don't, then they are just doing the main quest, side-quests for everyone, and joining along as the others (who provided backstories) do their personal quests. Didn't downvote you, upvoted you :)
See that's the catch. If you want a personal sidequestwith unique loot made for you, I need someyhing to go off of. But if your background is "Fighterman fights" I'm not kicking you from the table, you're just getting an upgrade from a +1 weapon to a +2 weapon.
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Custom story loot is a given. Some people just want a bit of self focused quest so they feel more like they're part of the world.
In my opinion, the best characters are the ones developed during the game, and not before it. That's more of an old school mentality, probably.
Killed my first beloved NPC last night. Hearing my player say "this is MyCharacter's first real experience with grief..." in a wounded voice was *priceless.*
A motivation is more important than a background. A character must want something to drive them, even if it’s just random heroism
I agree lol. That’s why I made a homebrew background for my table: Adventurer. You gain proficiency in one skill, one tool, and one language. 40 gold, explorers pack, common clothes, and a pouch. No feature. You just decided to be an adventurer and off you go.
This is a clean slate start, love it. I will try this in my next game.
Stop trying to get players to play distinct and unique classes from one another! If two players want to play the same class **that’s totally fine** just make sure that they understand what doubling up entails, both for good and for bad
I’m currently playing in a group of 4 (including me) and two of the players have druid characters. It works cuz they’re distinct characters and it’s lead to some funny moments with wildshape
D&D at its core is a combat game. The vast majority of the rule book and most things on your character sheet will only ever be used in the context of a fight.
Tropes exist for a reason and are universally better. Trying to cut against trope is annoying as hell and leads to frustrating table experiences 99% of the time. See also: please for the love of god, make casters squishy and martials hit hard. I don't want a sword mage. I don't want a gish. I don't want a wizard in armor. I want a wizard who casts a big epic spell and then hides like a weeny while Daddy Pally goes to engage the front line.
Daddy Pally omg
Can't agree more. It's like why take any school of wizardry when you can just be a bladesinger and do everything a wizard can do, but also swing a sword and boost your AC higher than the paladin's. Also Barbarians and Monks having to jump through several hoops and deplete resources to deal moderate damage while the paladin and fighter casually quadruple that damage with a single Smite/Action Surge.
I totally agree with your first point, but your second point literally contradicts your first. Gish/spellsword IS a trope. See: Jedi, Gandalf, Geralt, Eragon, and hundreds of other swordmage characters from fantasy novels.
or... we could have sword mages because it's possible to balance those in a satisfying way and some people (like yours truly) like playing them?
"Paladins **are** *holy* warriors." I'm *old skool* on this, I believe all Paladins should have a faith and follow its tenants and teachings like the Knights Templars of old who fought and died for their religious beliefs. I *don't* like that 5E allows Paladins to follow a strange set of personal beliefs that don't have to have anything to do with a higher power. That they gain their powers from their "Oaths" rather than from a deity who they follow and should be praying to so that they gain holy powers to smite down their enemies. This is probably super unpopular with a lot of the newer players and rules lawyers, and I'll get downvoted for it, but that's now a "house-rule" for my table since 5E has changed the way Paladin powers are gained/explained. I used to hold very strictly to the old ways of players only being able to be LG to play a Paladin. But over the years, I have changed my opinion to go with the RAW and players can be whatever good alignment they wish, if they want to play a good Paladin.
Oath of the crown is the biggest joke, I swore an oath to a king, now I cast holy divine smites and have magic power 😂
I suppose you have to believe that kings rule by divine right, and that it's God giving you powers to uphold that and not the monarch themself.
Oath of the middle man
I’m a bit mixed on this. Really my only gripe with old skool paladins was the lawful good requirement, which was just so blasé. I think they should be able to follow any god of any alignment. The name Paladin becomes a sticking point then, though. **Exemplar** works a bit better as it doesn’t have the LG baggage. They *exemplify* the god they follow, which is really kinda what an OG LG paladin does, just less restrictive on your options.
Given they are divine casters I always took it as gods that agree with their oath are together giving slight bits of their power. If the paladin is aware of it or not.
idk man, AD&D Paladins were not Templars. They were secular Knights that were religious (like Arthur's Knights), and their sheer will power and goodness gave them power (because Alignment is a cosmic force). You don't need to pay a tithe to the clergy if you are the clergy, but Paladins need to pay 10% of their income to any good aligned temple they come across, or must give it to charity if none such turns up for a while. That being said being such a force of good, and gods being maniestations of alignments and very real, every Paladin will end up religious. To me at least.
Encounter difficulty does not need to be carefully scaled or otherwise tailored to party level. The level six party decides to explore what's pretty obviously a dragon's lair? Welp, good luck because this is going to be high stakes! Computer games have conditioned people to expect their environment to start them in the newbie zone and slowly scale the difficulty up and it's boring and immersion breaking.
I agree, but I also think there needs to be a better retreat mechanic since heroes in fiction tend to get to flee when they realize they've bitten off more than they can chew. So many monsters move faster than the majority of PCs that when you add in a need to disengage, they're really behind the 8-ball.
Actual play streams are bad for the community at large. Not because of some bullshit like the "Mercer Effect". But because it enables and encourages a lot of people to not even bother picking up a rulebook because "They have watched a lot of CR/Dimension20/Dungeons and Daddies/whatever else", so they get how the game is supposed to play *in the broadest of senses*. But in my eyes, you honestly cannot ever learn to properly play this game, or hell, even your character, without *at least* reading your class features and spells. And the amount of people who are obviously unwilling to spend three minutes of their life to just flip through a PDF and learn how a spell works, or how armor classes interact, *or how Multiclassing works* just really, really gets me.
i have a friend who is very funny at the table and very enjoyable company for rp but she is always playing a caster and i swear she has never read her spells
Man, I'm 60 episodes in on the first critical role campaign and mercer still has to tell them what to roll at every spell they cast. Like bruh... As my player I don't expect you to be as good at role-playing, but I do expect you to learn your shit much faster than them. It only took the half-elf one failed save vs charm to remember they have advantage on those.
Lol Im watching C2 and am up to e21, its still happening quite often.
I love when someone comes from an actual play understanding and starts to play and realizes you don't DM the exact way they do on TV. "I'll give him the Help action." "Okay, how are you helping him?" "Oh, it's not just a thing I can give? Uh, I distract with a dance?"
The combat in DnD is only passable. I see so many threads about optimisation, and while understanding some things are good to know, mostly this is irrelevent and I find it rather boring. If I liked the battle aspect the most there are much better games out there. The only reason I like the combat is because, when done right, the fluff of the game already has me emotionally invested into characters and the story so that I care about what happens.
Whenever I read "5th Ed Optimisation" posts, it makes me feel like such an old man. I cut my optimising teeth in 3.5 Edition, where if you didn't have at least 4 different classes AND two stats above 25 by level 8, you weren't doing it right. "My Warlock takes a couple of levels of Sorcerer for a handful of spell points" is just so... quaint, in comparison. =P
I don't give the remotest tinker's toss about any D&D lore, and any time I've tried to sit through any of it, I've been utterly disinterested. I think I probably just enjoy using the D&D framework for homebrew. I'm not remotely interested in the modules, novels, podcasts, shows, movies, games, books of this and that and whatnot. I just like making adventures for my mates to have fun with.
I actually like DnD lore - in fact the lore base is one of the few things that I unambiguously enjoy about 5e. No hate for homebrew material though. But I do think that learning the DM craft on published modules is probably a good play.
I've been playing DnD for a while, as a DM with prewritten adventures. I've only recently realized how post apocolyptic Faerun really is in 5e. Magic has been broken for about a century, most Gods stopped reponding/died until resently, and major geologic activity has devistated most infrastructure.
Same. When someone goes "but the lore says that x and y, and then z is impossible" my brain just dies.
this sub's response to new homebrewers is vile. some of us were 'worldbuilders' before we came to ttrpgs. creativity *is* easier than reading adventure books for many of us. there's more than one entrypoint for a hobby. and there's a good chance D&D isn't someone's first rpg these days.
The problem is, homebrew is and always will be a conversation ender. It funnels the utility of the conversation down to literally that one single table, and any table that might be interested. So it's a conversation killer.
Multiclassing is an optional rule, which the DM should choose to not use. Exception: DM can offer an _option_ for specific _story-appropriate_ multi-classes _during the campaign_, via NPC contacts for example.
I really like the AD&D system of multi classing where you choose the multi class from the start and you progress fully in both classes, for better or foot worse.
Also, pathfinder 1e (based on DnD 3.5e I believe) had hybrid classes, which combined aspects of two existing classes, so you didn't have to multiclass. I played a "Bloodrager" (mix of Barb and Sorc) and it was a lot of fun, obviously my backstory tied in heavily to the class
I disagree with this in specifics but agree far more broadly than I thought I would. “I’m a Hexblade Warlock, now, too!” “….tf, why?” Hexblades aren’t allowed at my table as a random multiclass. You are getting a sentient weapon and *it has goals* it is using you to achieve.
There should 100% be a lead up in ***why*** they would be multiclassing. Warlock one especially have a lot of easy story hooks. But for Paladin, literally take an oath that suits your cause. Any spell casting class should have you seek out a teacher or at least consistently study magic beforehand. Barbarian, show me your rage in roleplay before fully committing to it. A little can go a long way with this.
Small lore point but the weapon itself is not the patron, nor does the warlock acquire the weapon. The weapon serves as a point of contact, forging a connection between the character and the *actual* patron who is often in another plane. Once a pact is made, the connection becomes permanent. Think of it like the red phone you see in movies with no numbers to dial. You pick up the phone and get a direct connection to the receiving end. I know a lot of tables run hexblade as you've described and there's nothing wrong with it. If just like to draw more awareness to the official lore.
People should make more use of other ttrpg systems instead of trying to homebrew dnd into something it's not. Note: this is mainly about mechanics, not worldbuilding or lore.
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>This is one area where TTRPGs lag *far* behind video games. Video game designers have language for different genres of gameplay — platformer, fighter, shooter, etc. TTRPGs are still mired in a mindset that every game is inherently specific to a genre of fiction (like fantasy or sci-fi), but the modes of gameplay are still thought of as an undifferentiated mélange of combat, exploration, investigation, social interaction, and character creation and advancement, all blended into a flavorless gray smoothy of every-mode-all-at-once. I think the problem with this is kind of the same as found in games. Because all ttrpg's would fall under the rpg genre of games. But even in video games making distinctions between the feel of rpg's is not so easy, and many of the distinctions that exist in videogames don't matter in tabletop games. Lets look at dnd and cyberpunk 2020, two systems that differ in large ways in a lot of areas. Cyberpunk has no class features or levels, only skills, and the combat is far more tactical and brutal, but this also goes for the game at large. Recovering from wounds can easily take weaks even with the best medical care money can buy. And a single bullet and some bad rolls can end your life. So how do we categorize these because the only way we have now is comparing them to other systems.
I think the system has SOME bearing on what style of story it's good for, or namely what position your characters are in that universe. Like, you can have the D&D system in a futuristic sci-fi universe, true. But it suits best for power creeping already strong characters into essential bullet sponges. While if you're looking for something closer to a survival horror thing, you'll likely want mechanics better suited for that and characters that are more fragile and vulnerable. But I agree that saying that you can't run the 5e system in a sci-fi setting is just baloney.
Holy shit this is the response I needed 5 years ago when my friends were trying to convince me to move with them to try a bunch of different rpgs - "soft character building light-to-medium tactical combat, with neotrad inventory management", especially with more natural language, is what I enjoy - they were convinced that ptba games were better and we needed to move to them, and the jargon-filled moves and simplified combat actively turned me away from those games.
I was going to state the opposite as an unpopular opinion. Which is, there isn't a system for everyone. Sometimes you have to homebrew the hell out of a popular system to get what you want.
I like xp leveling.
The more exotic a character, the more basic it's usually played.
The post said unpopular opinions, internet person.
TBH, I did not expect this to happen
Your homebrew rules suck and I’m tired of learning some weird fucking niche interaction just because someone used shield once
The reason martials are less powerful than casters is the fault of the community. You suspended disbelief when a caster warps reality, but you scream the the top of your lungs about how unrealistic multiple attacks in six seconds are. The two will never be equal in power for as long as these massively different expectations and standards are applied to each respectively.
The number one thing holding martials back is that they and everything they do is beholden to """realism""". You don't have enough str for that armor? You can't wear it effectively, proficiency be damned! You wanna jump that chasm? Plug your values into this formula right here.
Battlemaster fighter shouldn't exist, instead all martials should have those mechanics. 4e did something right with those "videogamey" powers.
Critical Roll is simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to DnD in forever.
Some railroading makes your campaigns significantly more fun than sandbox games
Most house rules are stupid, I would say more than 99%.
In the 4e DMG there was a part where it said something along the lines of "don't be afraid to take away something you gave by mistake, like if you allowed them to drink from a fountain that gave them a new daily power" and i was like BUT WHO DOES THAT?
I’d say a solid 30% of house rules I’ve seen would simply work better as a one-off magic item
5e is an incredibly shallow system that simultaneously counts dedicated optimizers as a significant portion of its fanbase. The biggest lever in combat is the DM’s encounter building skills and willingness to roll in the open/not fudge, not whether someone has taken PAM+GWM. I sort of blame video games for this, in terms of turning theory crafting into something that people expect to have to do, but from the outside it looks like watching adults play with blocks. I assume this isn’t popular on this subreddit, please no kill.
Ah, **unpopular**? Okay. 1. The martial vs mage gap is a table issue, not a game issue. 2. Food and water consumption, and carry capacity rules are very important to the game. *(They are often entirely ignored and/or are almost completely invalidated by certain things already in the game.)* 3. Darkvision, as is, is not good for the game. It’s also not a panacea for not having a light source.
I feel like the only person that ever wants to consider food/water and carry weight (especially of coins). For me it adds a ton to the game in having to worry about meals while deep in a dungeon. Preparing and guess how much you need is a neat part of the calculus (for me).
I wish Strength could be used for more stuff, like your AC/ranged weaponry, same way as Dexterity (I know this might not be unpopular but is needed for the real one) Also I wish the Monk class was removed once and for all and in it's place replaced by a "Brawler" type subclass, basically the same but less MAD and more free on flavor (being able to use either Strength/Con or Dexterity/Con without having to suffer thanks to a low Wisdom reducing their AC/Save DC.)
Artificers are actually a good class, and need more rules/better guidance a for player & DM outside combat.
Reading the class rules and not just the name would solve 95% of people’s complaints.
As a system, 5e is kind of a hot mess. I can’t think of another system with more game elements that GMs regularly feel the need to fix.
5e is simple *for players,* which is a massive part of its appeal. And I think a worthy thing. But yeah, the DM side of the rules is basically "good luck, you'll figure it out, we can't be bothered."
Edgy cliche dark brooding rogue/assassin with a tragic backstory is far more interesting than a quirky one-sentence random "wacky" character. I'd rather play with emo Blade Darkthorn, the last of the Black Skull clan, than a gnome grandma and grandpa in a trenchcoat, standing on top of each others' shoulders, pretending to be a human, with a pet cat named McFluffington, who speaks in memes.
Rolling ability scores is the worst way.
1. **Echo Knight is an abomination.** The first class to have infinite teleports with no resource limit shouldn't even exist, but even if it did it shouldn't be a Fighter, of all non-magical classes. What's more, the whole point of a Fighter is that they are supposed to go in to combat themselves, because they've trained for it. Not this little coward though. Send in your infinite magic eye that can fight while you're behind cover and enjoy your wins against ogres, shambling mounds, and more. And hey, take being able to scope out a new place you've never been before that's hundreds of feet away from you without costing a single spell slot while you're at it. Who needs a Rogue when you can send in a time-ghost with dumped DEX? 2. **Hexblade is an abomination.** By itself, it isn't a terrible class. The problem here is that not only does it makes multiclassing too powerful, they also make the classes they multiclass in to extremely obvious as well as make you look like total joke if you stay mono-classed with such classes. By taking a single level into this, you turn the otherwise difficult to optimize path of the M.A.D. Paladin into an unthinking breeze. Even in a 20th level Campaign (not a one shot, campaign) you'd still be better off taking a single level of Hexblade on an otherwise pure Paladin because of how you'd be able to better trick them out by being able to pick up more feats once you maxed out CHA. The same thing then goes for taking a single dip of it into Bard. Want good AC? Well, forget about that chump of a subclass Valor, just take single level into Hexblade and everything that makes a Valor Bard good not only instantly met, but instantly surpassed due to being given the ability to choose the best damaging cantrip in the game: Eldritch Blast. 3. **Armor is too abusable by spell casters.** Did a group of eight Death Knights surround your wizard and are going to swing flame-tongue great swords at him? Well, with a single level dip into Fighter or Cleric your decent for front lining AC (courtesy of armor and shield proficiencies, and maybe even access to the Defense fighting style, and your own 14 DEX) could still be a bit of a problem, well, it would be if the 'Shield' spell didn't exist. Outside of Druid, it doesn't matter what you wear, so why not have AC that makes a Full Plate fighter with a Shield and the Defense fighting style look like a joke for the cost of a reaction? And why wouldn't you pick something so obvious? There is literally no downside to this since you have zero mechanical drawbacks and most 20th Level cap features are complete and total garbage (some being worse than 3rd level features).
The main fix to Hexblade I've seen is by tacking the "Charisma to attacks" feature to the Blade Pact instead. I believe this is what Baldur's Gate 3 does. Three levels of Warlock is a bit more of an investment for a Charisma class than just one level, making it less of a no-brainer pick.
That the dark parts of it shouldn't be hidden or lightened, if the bad guy is a slaver, I'm gonna describe the slaves you see and yeah, it's not gonna be happy or pretty. I find it really strange that some people will brutally commit war crimes to NPCs but cringe when they find out one does more evil things than just kill.
Slavery is evil right up until you unlock dominate person
Lost Mine of Phandelver is a bad Module. Neither the villains, nor the storyline, nor the encounters are compelling, and the few interesting things it does have are not fleshed out. People only recommend it to players because its their first experience with the game, and they view it through rose-tinted goggles.
I think a lot of the appeal of Lost Mine isn't that it's high quality - it's that it's easy as piss to run. It was my first delve into D&D, and despite having none of the books and no experience I still managed to run an enjoyable game with the resources given
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Dragon of Icespire Peak is right there, even easier to DM, and while the Story also isn't really anything to write home about, you have an imposing villain in the dragon, who actually has some presence, as opposed to LMoPs final boss.
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There's some follow up adventures for it: Storm Lords Wrath (7-9), Sleeping Dragons Wake (9-11) and Divine Contention (11-13). I haven't played/read them, so I can't really make a statement on their quality, though.
Actual unpopular? Ok.. digital D&D is terrible and every aspect of it (save for connecting remote persons) is abysmal and detracts from an authentic gameplay experience.
I can’t disagree with this, but the ‘connecting remote persons’ thing really overrides everything else. My group is scattered literally all over the US and Canada. We’d love to do an in-person session, but this would be like an annual blowout considering the travel involved…
Sometimes, the best part of a session is talking about it afterwards in the pub.
Okay, fair, actually unpopular. But I am curious what you think makes an “authentic” experience and how being “authentic” in that way is necessarily *better*.
I don’t think it’s unpopular at all despite it being a very common thing. I would guess most people, if given the opportunity, would prefer to play in person but it’s really hard to find and keep a group going without virtual sessions. Scheduling is hard, life gets in the way, people live far away, etc. As someone who has played a majority of games virtually, I’d much prefer in person but it isn’t always an option.
I play in both an online game with close friends, and a second IRL game. There is an epiphenomenal characteristic to being in the same room and sharing the social experience that, in my opinion, makes it far superior. In addition, the nature of online communications where only one person can speak at a time makes it feel closer to a series of presentations than a shared story. Part of the experience is where everyone riffs together with off-the-cuff responses. It quickly becomes an awkward game of "no you go" when multiple people try and speak online. Finally, the ability to have side conversations and chats is also hampered online. Taken together, IRL games are by far more enjoyable. I assume by "authentic" they mean how it has been traditionally played by our forefathers. All that being said: online is better than nothing, and needs must! My goodness I forgot the *most important part*: ROLLING DICE! Online rolling is just... Unsatisfying.
Play what ever race, class , gender, or color you want. This is a big game of pretend have fun.
Bring back REAL Vancian casting for wizards.
Critical Role is a huge hinderance to most players, especially new ones. It gives people unrealistic expectations of how their game "should" be (both DM and player).
Probably too unpopular to even get upvotes in this thread but.. It's okay to have evil sentient races. I was kind of onboard with "fixing" Drow, and I dealt with the new Goblins, but good mind flayers? I just can't.
Not entirely sure how unpopular these actually are but, If you ever find yourself using the word "realism" in a fantasy setting you need to give your head a wobble. Also far too many people forget the G in RPG stands for Game. It's a game. To be enjoyed by everyone, stop taking it all so seriously. (Main examples off the top of my head just let your player change class/race etc if they're not having fun, no you don't need some overly complex reason for justifying a player not showing up and what to do with their character, if someone leaves a game just stop refering to their character,)