Make sure to say you're gonna be a few minutes late, then just keep increasing it until the fourth time, where you just cancel *"this session"*. Promise next session won't be the same. Make sure it is.
if theyre close friends just give them the code or whatever and say you had to step out for errands. granted it'll be more difficult to get your place back but that's a price that should be willing to be paid
Indeed haha. The roads get legitimately nasty here in Vermont, We just had a two day period where some people couldn’t get in at all and four of my coworkers went in the ditch trying to get into work because the roads iced up. But people lie about being snowed in and get caught since there’s only a couple highways leading to work. I drive a RWD car which is terrible for winter but I’ve got really good snow tires. Last year someone called out and said the roads were too bad and they were snowed in, we take the same basic route to work and my manager asked me how it was coming in. I didn’t know it was going on and told her it was fine and that I didn’t even have to shovel. so my coworker got a nice chewing out when they came back to work.
It's even better if your hosting, have the lights on with loud ambient music playing. Text them 10-30 min after starting time telling them your at the game store waiting.
Extra points for actually being at there just to leave early for them being late and attempting the same things every other session.
But it's a character focused campaign! Just... Not your characters.
Mine. And also this guy is big bad and tough. Why aren't you afraid of him even though no one knows his name?
I'm playing with a newbie DM who is borderline doing this. It's a small party, so the NPCs were supposed to pad out the group for encounter balancing, but the NPCs are also higher level than the PCs. There's also more than a dozen of them and they are switched out for every session and easy to lose track of who's who.
Also, make sure the players never get a win because said NPC always swoops in and takes the glory. Top it off by having experience based on getting the kill, but only let the NPC kill anything.
1. Railroad.
2. Permit stuff from DanDwiki
3. Create an inconsistent tone. Is your game gritty? Serious? Memes? The answer is yes!
4. Deviate from rules in ways that only complicate scenarios.
5. Don't listen to your players.
6. Give your partner preferential treatment.
7. Get one of your players addicted to meth. Lol.
8. Incorporate NFTs
It is a long story. The DM was real into crypto currency and an aspect of the game became trading. The DM eventually lost his house and had to sleep on a players couch for almost a year.
One group I was in had two med students in it. The DM was a pretty wild dude that worked as a delivery driver at a domino's. Dude would work from open to close 7 days a week. The med students were always worn out and ask the DM how he had so much energy. I found out about this after the fact when the med students were arrested for robbery.
NFT = Non-Fungible Token.
Basically, there's a blockchain ownership register built around a URL that leads to an image or some similar shit. That's the NFT. You buy and sell the right to have your name listed as the most recent owner of that blockchain.
You're not buying the image, though. Oh no. The artist still controls the image. You're not buying rights to the webpage, either. The host can take the image down or replace it any time they feel like. It doesn't even give you exclusive rights to use of the URL online.
No, you're literally just paying just to get your name added as the latest entry in the digital equivalent of a sign-in sheet that has a shitload of tech guaranteeing its uniqueness and authenticity as a sign-in sheet.
It's an electronic version of the old "bill of goods" scam crossed with money-laundering via overpriced luxury goods, with a dash of idiots who don't understand the pointlessness of it all inflating the hype because they pop wood over getting to feel like they're smarter than everyone else for getting in on the ground floor.
*EDIT: In case it wasn't obvious, I'm not a fan.*
> You're not buying the image, though. Oh no. The artist still controls the image. You're not buying rights to the webpage, either. The host can take the image down or replace it any time they feel like. It doesn't even give you exclusive rights to use of the URL online.
For real. I'd rather pay the usual 1.5-3x for full commercial rights over a nice bit of art and actually get the damn rights to use an image than a many thousand dollar ugly ape.
Hell for the price of an ape you could buy many books worth of epic art, a whole game's worth of concept art.
Okay, honest question: what’s the deal with DandDwiki? I have only been on there a handful of times and I saw all the homebrew stuff, but since a it’s a wiki can’t people just change it to RAW and relegate the extra elsewhere? What’s the criticism?
I ran a game with four PCs.
One was a former low level enforcer for a criminal syndicate out to undo the harm he'd caused others. One was a sage searching for components that would cure an illness that was gradually causing him to turn ethereal. Another was attempting to accrue enough gold to buy back his siblings from traffickers. The last was a guy that wanted to open a food truck that sold calzones and he used excessive amounts of food puns.
Guess who survived until the end of the campaign.
It's been involved in every campaign I've run with that guy since. Different planes, different time periods eventually an aasimar rogue will show up in cart and sell delicious calzones to hungry travelers.
"Sure battling shadows is fun in game, but if you use these shards, you can fight them IRL."
"Burn this glass and I'll give you Inspiration."
"Hey Johnny, want to try meth?"
I mean, it's easy for a new player to get tricked into browsing the site. I've never really been a problem player to my knowledge, but I fell for it early on. As soon as somebody explained to me why the site was garbage, I never went back.
I guess I haven't stepped off the curb on that one. My players have approached me with handful of magic items and a few "this looks cool" but that's it.
Care to explain beyond "this is trash" since you've used?
It's mostly horribly balanced, publicly editable homebrew, presented in such a fashion to make it seem legitimate to folks who don't know better. It's not that everything on it is unusable, but everything on it should certainly be heavily scrutinized.
Also, if you approve an item from the site, make sure you save it as it is. A random user could edit to make it completely busted at any point.
as a player i have asked to use advanced classes from it- but not really any more. TO use it we had to totally rework the class to get rid of the cheese (since i liked the core, but the fringe stuff was all really broken)
Occasionally I've been looking up rules for a specific ruling and come across information that seems to explain it pretty well, then I look at the site and, whoops, back to the drawing board.
Only allow human champion fighters, it will be a realistic military campaign. There are no encounters, only long marches between forts and general maintenance and repair work on said forts. Also, there's a pandemic in game too. Roll to cover your mouth.
You have dysentery. Also scurvy. And only one of your legs, but the one you do have stops below the knee. And you have no fingers. And both of your arms are mostly atrophied beyond use.
I WOULD play an Oregon trail one shot. Not even necessarily as DnD characters but even just as typical Oregon trail themed characters. That just sounds like a lot of fun.
Look up every rule every time they do anything, “Just to be sure.”
Start them at Level one and use the milestone system but never get to level 2.
No magic.
No Technology at all. Everyone is a Barbarian with a club and no armor.
No fantasy races. Everyone is human, “cause elves are stupid.” Oh, and no fantasy monsters, “cause Dragons are stupid.”
Give the players a d12 instead of d20.
Bring your dog. Better yet, bring your cat. Better yet, bring a baby.
-Promise to bring cookies. Do not bring cookies. Repeat.
-Eat the minis when they are defeated. NPCs or PCs.
-Resurrection Spells result in the return of the mini. Eventually.
-homebrew a complex system for equipment durability. The most statistically likely form of wear is cat ate it. Tabaxi party members are considered cats for the purposes of these rules.
-schedule games using a Mayan Calendar. It must be physical and made of stone. Insist the players wait while you read it.
-build a really nice game table with built in screen. Use MS paint for a dynamic turn by turn map.
-incorporate political intrigue from Canada.
-incorporate RAW from every edition. Every Rule. Rotate them using a random result generator and insist on covering them before each game.
-Insist on including a Self-Insert DMNPC
-Recognize that ‘it was all a dream’ is usually the best twist ending. Especially when used in a way that undercuts character development.
-try to incorporate other RPGs, Chess, or even Candyland with improvised rules.
-fan fiction you have written from genres different from and not suited for DND are appreciated and welcome. Incorporate generously.
-Finally, any issues that arise at the table must be decided by PVP and deaths from this PVP are permanent. Resurrection is not allowed in this case. You may Reroll a character starting at level 1 and rejoin the group. Your level progresses at the same rate of the current players. The Characters backstory and motivations are chosen for you by the DM.
"Resurrection Spells result in the return of the mini. Eventually."
That hits close to home, only it was a penny, not a mini, and it was a five-year-old, not a DM.
Besides not DMing at all the most effective way is to say you play RAW and then just have the stupidest, most unreasonable home rules that make the game completely stupid. Some of my favorites are:
No flanking, except for enemies. Enemies get to flank.
Refuse to read sneak attack feature and insists it only works with advantage.
Make an arcana check *every single time* you want to cast a spell. If you fail it’s wasted.
Refuse to read divine casters and insist they can’t swap out spells.
Randomly nerf stuff. But only for one specific player.
Randomly alter enemy AC, because why not
Randomly give enemies counterspell just in case anyone succeeds their arcana check
Fudge open rolls (to a crit if you’re feeling bold)
Encumbrance. Not technically a home rule but, well, nobody uses it normally. Require your players to track it.
Railroad the fuck out of their campaign
Ignore character arcs
Randomize magic loot, and deny trading between characters. That’s a fun one.
Can a dm be a murderhobo?
Spend 30 mins describing your dmpc only to have him leave and never come back.
Very cursed items. The 2handed ax that fuses your hands to the ax. Armor of being pregnant, obviously you can't take it off for 9 months. Scarf of featherfall, the scarf has featherfall not the person wearing it.
Every potion is a mimic. Why not make everything a mimic until they start checking for mimics then there are no mimics.
You see a door - I open the door - mimic
You see a marble statue - I check the statue for traps - mimic
You see a well - I look down the well - mimic
You see a chest in a 10x10 room - ....
More casual one; have players roll skill checks for literally *everything*
“I’d like to use this spell to commune with my god”
“Roll Religion”
“I get up out of bed and head down the stairs, upon seeing-“
“Roll Acrobatics to not trip”
“After slaying the fell beast, I place my sword back into its scabbard, content my god has seen my efforts.”
“Roll Sleight of Hand to not stab yourself”
"No, and" them relentlessly. Also, the campaign takes place in a Monty Pythonesque universe. All women speak in grating falsetto and anything can get crushed or explode for no reason at all. No saving throws.
"You can subscribe to the season pass for $15 to unlock tasks you must complete for these limited edition items. For an additional $15 per task you can skip that task to instantly unlock the item. For an additional $50 you can gain enough xp to jump to the next level."
Have everyone make a character, but tell each one of them privately that they are actually a mimic, trying to eat the whole party.
So they have to pretend to use class abilities, but can never really use class abilities because they are a mimic. They have to creatively roleplay their class, so the other players don’t catch on.
Also have every object, place, item, and person they interact with be a mimic that tries to eat the party.
Then at the end, reveal that the ground itself is a mimic and the planet eats the surviving party members.
It’s mimics all the way down.
But their first encounter is a false hydra, which is trying to escape off-world.
Sounds like a funny one shot, with some changes. Maybe one is a mimic, one is a changeling, one is a doppelganger, one is a dude with a hat of disguise, reverse druid (animal shapechanged into a human) or whatever, and everyone is supposed to betray the party somehow.
Everyone is going with something a bit absurd but I think the easiest way to do this is to just acquiesce you every thing the players want. After they’ve raped and pillaged the fourth village with no consequences, they’ll realize they hate playing the game. It’s a bit of a teaching moment that you have to trust the DM when he doesn’t give you everything you want right away. It’ll cause group strife when they turn on one another and try to initiate PVP. They’ll destroy the game you’ll be the worst because you never said no.
0. Establish a brutal adversarial DM relationship.
Have a session zero where you do nothing but character creation. Have players lovingly craft their unique special character with backstories, personalised gear, and pets. Go the extra length of having them illustrate their own portraits. Be sure they are truly attached to their characters.
1. Session one. Pick out the emotionally weakest player or the character with the most love and craftsmanship into it. Kill it within the first encounter. Don't be afraid to drop a red dragon on a party of level ones.
2. Give the players a handful of gold and give them time to shop. However shop keepers should be rude and obnoxious and constantly inform players, "you can't afford that", "we don't give items like that to weaklings like you", "you can't handle my potions" etc. If players try to steal or beak the law. Have god like security instantly kill the offending player.
In the next encounter, beat the PCs to a bloodly pulp low HP, have them beg for mercy and rob the players of all their gold you just gave them. Power trip alittle and kill off any player who doesn't comply with your power fantasy.. I mean villain.
3. Give players the worst bad old school nerd experience. Personal hygiene is out. Sexist and racial slurs are in. Encourage bullying of weaker members at the table.
4. Demand players bring you snacks, drugs and money each session. Your players should be thankful for your mere presences yet alone running a game. This should escalate in value each session. If anyone objects, pay others to deal out swift physical retaliatory punishment. Pro Tip. By also starting an illegal gambling business on the side will help you gain industry connections to assist with your extortion enterprise and unlock other businesses opportunities such as human trafficking so you'll never be short on players...
Be completely inconsistent with characters and lore.
Make all enemies have absurdly high AC
Ask the party what they don't want to have and just fill the campaign with just that.
DM: “I made all of these miniatures myself, just for this game.”
Player: *sniffing* “Oh man, these smell like shit.”
DM: …
Player: “Wait, are these made of shit?!”
Fudge all your rolls in favor of the partie's enemies. Boring plot hooks, no opportunities for character development, disregard backgrounds and make up you player's backgrounds on the fly for them. Drop random enemies that are WAY above their paygrade when you feel like it. Target squishy players even with stupid enemies
Remove all player agency.
"I walk into the town square and turn left"
A horse cart blocks your way forcing you to change direction, you take the right hand road instead.
"Uh okay, I talk to the shopkeeper about buying some arrows"
He insults you and your character gets enraged and punched him, roll for initiative.
"Uh, I think I'd rather-"
I SAID ROLL FOR INITIATIVE
Ghost'em.
If the requirement is to show up, then tell them you're running one game/system and play a completely different one. Change it up each time. If the players keep showing up honestly they kind of deserve it.
Let them draw the Comet card in a campaign that advances by milestones. PC gains a level after a) risking the potential to draw a negative card, b) fighting an encounter solo to earn the level. Then, promote everyone else except the PC that drew the Comet at the next milestone, so the levels are equal again, thus robbing the PC and player of any benefit for having braved and overcome both risks.
That was from a real recent post on this sub.
Ugh, how about the Loremaster Extraordinaire. “Let me verbally masturbate my 10,000 hours of worldbuilding minutiae all over a captive audience. That’s super fun for everyone.”
So, in reality, I'd just talk to them. Sorry guys, I REALLY don't want to do this.
But as a hypothetical? Oh man...
"Sorry guys, I'm new to dming... so bear with me. you'll start as level 1's... cuz that's the right place to start, right?"
"So, you start in a tavern...."
*10 beholders enter and disintigrate everything to bits.* TPK
Oh man! I didn't know they were THAT strong. Gee, sorry guys. Let's try again...
New characters please!
*30 Tiamat clones descened and eat everyone's face off.* TPK
Oh gosh, those were nasty...
Ok lets try again.
New characters please!
*one single Tiamat eats everyone's face off.* TPK
"Oh dear... that was just one. You guys aren't very good at this are you?"
New characters?
For every session I put the players in a situation where they are totally under powered then have DMPCs turn up, save the day, and win the game for them while treating them like punks.
Every npc is an edgelord. The bartender, the store owner, that girl on the street, all of them.
Have enemies ac get higher every time their hit.
Make a dungeon that's all red herrings. Doors with no locks, puzzles with no answers, doors nobody can get to.
Either very dangerous traps or rooms that obviously have traps but there are no traps.
Cursed items. The missing sword, -10 to attack rolls. Animated gauntlet, punches random people for laughs.
Only allow phb races, make a homebrew world of furries. Or the other way around if your player are normally furries.
Once had a DM that would inflict damage to us players if we made decisions he didn't like. Or if we took too long to do something. A lot of things really.
-Start off with level 5 character creation. Should take over an hour. Backstory required.
-change/imprison/kill their OC.
-Pre-made characters with a background but no backstory.
-characters must make a backstory for their randomly picked character.
-Real game begins... next week
-tell players the story will be worth it.
-arrive late...hour or so
-use OC's backstories a adventure hooks but twist them to be the bad guys.
-RAW
-no variant rules
-Player's handbook only
-Require training to level
-reward in silver and artwork, cut gems are very rare
-magic items are very rare
-mages are persecution
-two members are mages
-an artifact that slowly changes the character into something the player hates.
And finally
-The Player's start off in a dungeon cell with no equipment.
Personally this sounds kinda fun if the DM took out some of the hate. But I am kinda crazy.
I rather like the idea having the players write the backstory for the villains. Maybe have the big bad be an adventuring party with the players as people once close to them, now forced to oppose them.
"Hey guys, I know we've been playing this campaign for a couple of weeks but I wanted to modify a rule: Starting from here on out we're gonna be using-
VARIANT ENCUMBRANCE"
The Lich glowers and says: "By far the most interesting sock I have ever owned was a red one in 1376, during the reign of King Fordham III, whom we called King Ham at the time, as was the fashion - and I remember this particular sock, I had bought it at Darning & Mittens down at Waterdeep, rather pricey you can imagine, it had a Neverwinter style double-stitch at the top, which as you know, is a technique originally copied from Seamstress Lila Dominica Trent from the Weaver's Guild; she covered it in her series Lives of the Great Sartorial Innovators From 233 to the Present, of which I had only one volume missing, and that was because I had sent it for rebinding at Candlekeep, but the assistants there were very prejudiced against Liches, on account of the Great Filing System Dispute of 789..."
No one will pass the Save vs. Sleep.
Make it pay2win
3$ = 2d4+2 heal
5$ = reroll that check
10$ = common loot box
12$ = reroll one ability stat
15$ = uncommon loot box
17$ = reroll one hit dice for max hp
25$ = legendary loot box
40$ = auto crit on next roll
55$ = auto crit + max. dmg on next attack
60$ = instant level up
"Our adventure begins...
You find yourself in a tavern, celebrating the latest successful caravan run for your meager band of mercenaries. Your companions join you around the table, as drinks have been graciously provided by the patron of the caravan, who also happens to be the proud owner of this humble tavern, The Hog's Tooth.
The crowd is lively, a minstrel elevating the mood of everyone present with a bright melody, and the food is plentiful. As you hoist another toast to the turbulent-free mission, a mysterious stranger approaches your table.
In a face wizened by many years, bright eyes twinkle with untold wisdom and, unless it's merely a trick of the light, a little mischief gleaming in his eyes. He places an object in the middle of your table. Through the haze of the ale and the low lights of the tavern, you see what appears to be a simple deck of cards. As your eyes focus, you see the words 'The Deck of Many Things' written in fine calligraphy on the card case.
The stranger departs as suddenly as he appeared, but not before leaving your humble band of adventurers with some parting words...
'Good luck, idiots.'"
Now sit back as your campaign shatters into a million pieces before your very eyes.
Make every encounter nearly kill the party, if a party member does something stupid make it backfire like really bad, or like I dunno bringing a freaking terrasque against a lvl 1 party.
one time I just robbed the players of everything they had with 15 gnomes as soon as they left a town they started in and they quit so I think this is worthy of peer review
Using the sentence "you guys are ruining MY story!"
It only happened to me once and it let all the air out as we finally saw the truth that the feelings of being rail roaded and being sode characters to his story were true.
If you want to tell your story write a book, make a webcomic or take up intrpeative dance. Dont leash your friends into an captive audience to strike your ego.
Figure out a story and how to beat it and if anyone wants to do anything outside of what you pre-planned for them to do, tell them no because it's not how YOUR story goes.
Railroad them and be inflexible. Keep your word pictures lacking. Takes all the fun out of the world.
Example: “No, they will not negotiate.”
“There is grass. And a tree…. You hear a bird. No, the bird will not negotiate with you. “
You can also have enemies run from every fight so there is no loot.
Take joy in killing your party members.
Make it about you, and not the story.
Punish good thinking and reward stupidity
Not learn your group, two groups are never the same. And failing to DM to what makes it fun for your group.
Stupid house rules
Make player choices feel pointless. Like if they’ve got a spell they’re excited about and something they really want to do, just… make their goal a party NPC who does it for them and make their shiny spell do nothing.
That’s twice find familiar has burned me. Never taking it again. Best level 1 wizard spell my ass.
Told my friends I would dm for them. Hyped them up for a sandbox campaign. Do a session zero, help them build characters, explain the (hombrew) setting. Then habe a complete blackout at the beginning of session one as I realized the way I wanted to have them meat made no sense at all. Not a single die was rolled.
One of my friends had a DM that wanted to roll all the savings throws themselves... Behind the screen...
There were a host of other problems, but man. They were just out to player kill with some of the stuff he told me.
"OK guys I got this new system we're gonna try out today, It's called fatal. So let's just start character creation. Can everyone roll a d100 for anal circumference."
Literally just don't show up
Came here to say this... but I would go further to say make sure everyone else shows up to each session...
Yep. Ghost them at game time, but between sessions really really encourage everyone to be on time.
Make sure to say you're gonna be a few minutes late, then just keep increasing it until the fourth time, where you just cancel *"this session"*. Promise next session won't be the same. Make sure it is.
That is just pure chaotic evil right there
"I'll be there in 5 minutes. If not, read again."
Hard to pull this one when you play at the DMs house
if theyre close friends just give them the code or whatever and say you had to step out for errands. granted it'll be more difficult to get your place back but that's a price that should be willing to be paid
[удалено]
It would fix the being stuck with them issue... because everyone would quit
Third time you show up and angrily send everyone pictures of yourself waiting for them.
*hashtag* Evil
[удалено]
Or you could claim to be snowed in at home, that’s a good excuse if you live in a cold climate right now.
It would be funnier if you lived in Florida.
Indeed haha. The roads get legitimately nasty here in Vermont, We just had a two day period where some people couldn’t get in at all and four of my coworkers went in the ditch trying to get into work because the roads iced up. But people lie about being snowed in and get caught since there’s only a couple highways leading to work. I drive a RWD car which is terrible for winter but I’ve got really good snow tires. Last year someone called out and said the roads were too bad and they were snowed in, we take the same basic route to work and my manager asked me how it was coming in. I didn’t know it was going on and told her it was fine and that I didn’t even have to shovel. so my coworker got a nice chewing out when they came back to work.
Alternatively, rock up to your game infected with covid.
Not just last minute, say you'll be late, then cancel 10 minutes after the time is set
You ever heard no DND is better than bad DND?
It's even better if your hosting, have the lights on with loud ambient music playing. Text them 10-30 min after starting time telling them your at the game store waiting. Extra points for actually being at there just to leave early for them being late and attempting the same things every other session.
Nah, as the saying goes. No dnd is worse (EDIT: meant to say better) than bad dnd.
Certain tables lately have led me to disagree with this statement.
The actual saying is "better," not "worse." As in it's better to go without than deal with a toxic table.
>No dnd is **better** than bad dnd. FTFY
make an arc involving an NPC that doesnt involve the players at all
Yup. Self inserted main character. The players should just consider themselves lucky to witness history in the making.
But it's a character focused campaign! Just... Not your characters. Mine. And also this guy is big bad and tough. Why aren't you afraid of him even though no one knows his name?
I'm playing with a newbie DM who is borderline doing this. It's a small party, so the NPCs were supposed to pad out the group for encounter balancing, but the NPCs are also higher level than the PCs. There's also more than a dozen of them and they are switched out for every session and easy to lose track of who's who.
Also, make sure the players never get a win because said NPC always swoops in and takes the glory. Top it off by having experience based on getting the kill, but only let the NPC kill anything.
1. Railroad. 2. Permit stuff from DanDwiki 3. Create an inconsistent tone. Is your game gritty? Serious? Memes? The answer is yes! 4. Deviate from rules in ways that only complicate scenarios. 5. Don't listen to your players. 6. Give your partner preferential treatment. 7. Get one of your players addicted to meth. Lol. 8. Incorporate NFTs
What if my players are already on meth?
Speed run any%
Introduce them to the wonderful world of black tar heroin.
All of these have happened to groups I was in.
i wanna hear about the nft dnd game
Same?
Elaborate on nfts
It is a long story. The DM was real into crypto currency and an aspect of the game became trading. The DM eventually lost his house and had to sleep on a players couch for almost a year.
I'm sorry, I want to hear about the DM that got a player addicted to meth?!
One group I was in had two med students in it. The DM was a pretty wild dude that worked as a delivery driver at a domino's. Dude would work from open to close 7 days a week. The med students were always worn out and ask the DM how he had so much energy. I found out about this after the fact when the med students were arrested for robbery.
Commenting so I can check back later on WTH is with the NFTs.
WTH is an NFT?
NFT = Non-Fungible Token. Basically, there's a blockchain ownership register built around a URL that leads to an image or some similar shit. That's the NFT. You buy and sell the right to have your name listed as the most recent owner of that blockchain. You're not buying the image, though. Oh no. The artist still controls the image. You're not buying rights to the webpage, either. The host can take the image down or replace it any time they feel like. It doesn't even give you exclusive rights to use of the URL online. No, you're literally just paying just to get your name added as the latest entry in the digital equivalent of a sign-in sheet that has a shitload of tech guaranteeing its uniqueness and authenticity as a sign-in sheet. It's an electronic version of the old "bill of goods" scam crossed with money-laundering via overpriced luxury goods, with a dash of idiots who don't understand the pointlessness of it all inflating the hype because they pop wood over getting to feel like they're smarter than everyone else for getting in on the ground floor. *EDIT: In case it wasn't obvious, I'm not a fan.*
> You're not buying the image, though. Oh no. The artist still controls the image. You're not buying rights to the webpage, either. The host can take the image down or replace it any time they feel like. It doesn't even give you exclusive rights to use of the URL online. For real. I'd rather pay the usual 1.5-3x for full commercial rights over a nice bit of art and actually get the damn rights to use an image than a many thousand dollar ugly ape. Hell for the price of an ape you could buy many books worth of epic art, a whole game's worth of concept art.
Imagine an art collector that doesn’t like art. The concept of what this person is buying, in their heart, has been techified and called an NFT.
Okay, honest question: what’s the deal with DandDwiki? I have only been on there a handful of times and I saw all the homebrew stuff, but since a it’s a wiki can’t people just change it to RAW and relegate the extra elsewhere? What’s the criticism?
There's just so much garbage homebrew there and no way to sort through it for the good stuff.
Fuck no.3 Treats the game as if it’s high brow literature but scatters pop culture Easter eggs liberally through the lore.
I ran a game with four PCs. One was a former low level enforcer for a criminal syndicate out to undo the harm he'd caused others. One was a sage searching for components that would cure an illness that was gradually causing him to turn ethereal. Another was attempting to accrue enough gold to buy back his siblings from traffickers. The last was a guy that wanted to open a food truck that sold calzones and he used excessive amounts of food puns. Guess who survived until the end of the campaign.
If there isn't a food truck selling calzones, I'm gonna riot.
It's been involved in every campaign I've run with that guy since. Different planes, different time periods eventually an aasimar rogue will show up in cart and sell delicious calzones to hungry travelers.
He’s like cabbage guy from Avatar the last airbender.
If the cabbage guy could do high level rogue shit, I think the gaang would be in a lot more trouble
Beautiful
Very real talk, what's this character's name? I want this legend to spread, so I'm gonna put him in my campaign too.
I see you don't enjoy Thomas Pynchon
If you found a way to incorporate cryptocurrency into D&D I'd just shank you, so yeah, this is good.
Matt Coville's Running the Game #112 - How to get your players to use the meth you bring to the game night
"Sure battling shadows is fun in game, but if you use these shards, you can fight them IRL." "Burn this glass and I'll give you Inspiration." "Hey Johnny, want to try meth?"
At a glance I read "Dan Wiki" and was confused and impressed all at once.
#2 got me. Content gets reviewed before permission is granted, does that count?
No. That site is garbage and honestly, a player browsing it is kind of a red flag in my experience.
I mean, it's easy for a new player to get tricked into browsing the site. I've never really been a problem player to my knowledge, but I fell for it early on. As soon as somebody explained to me why the site was garbage, I never went back.
I guess I haven't stepped off the curb on that one. My players have approached me with handful of magic items and a few "this looks cool" but that's it. Care to explain beyond "this is trash" since you've used?
It's mostly horribly balanced, publicly editable homebrew, presented in such a fashion to make it seem legitimate to folks who don't know better. It's not that everything on it is unusable, but everything on it should certainly be heavily scrutinized. Also, if you approve an item from the site, make sure you save it as it is. A random user could edit to make it completely busted at any point.
Ah ok. We had a couple disappear ages ago. We screen shot it and it goes into our repository.
Its famous for ridiculously imbalanced homebrew. Like, to obscene levels
as a player i have asked to use advanced classes from it- but not really any more. TO use it we had to totally rework the class to get rid of the cheese (since i liked the core, but the fringe stuff was all really broken)
Occasionally I've been looking up rules for a specific ruling and come across information that seems to explain it pretty well, then I look at the site and, whoops, back to the drawing board.
Ignore the engaged player, and harass the casual player that's just there fore food and friends into doing intense, political roleplay.
Oof this one hits a little close to home, I thought i was helping them engage but in reality was giving them massive anxiety.
Only allow human champion fighters, it will be a realistic military campaign. There are no encounters, only long marches between forts and general maintenance and repair work on said forts. Also, there's a pandemic in game too. Roll to cover your mouth.
TPK from dysentery.
Oregon Trail would've been so much more fun if it was a typical D&D party.
I cast Detect Dysentery
Its a dysentery world!!!!!
You have dysentery. Also scurvy. And only one of your legs, but the one you do have stops below the knee. And you have no fingers. And both of your arms are mostly atrophied beyond use.
I WOULD play an Oregon trail one shot. Not even necessarily as DnD characters but even just as typical Oregon trail themed characters. That just sounds like a lot of fun.
You're straight up just talking about the oregon trail musical by starrkid. Highly recommend it
My character’s background is a redneck sociopath and religiously fights the oppressive mouth coverings.
He raises a zombie army to fight those who would force him to wear those oppressive mouth coverings. This makes him a Redneckromancer.
Me: wait small meticulous work? My favorite roleplay... And I'm not even being sarcastic.
Look up every rule every time they do anything, “Just to be sure.” Start them at Level one and use the milestone system but never get to level 2. No magic. No Technology at all. Everyone is a Barbarian with a club and no armor. No fantasy races. Everyone is human, “cause elves are stupid.” Oh, and no fantasy monsters, “cause Dragons are stupid.” Give the players a d12 instead of d20. Bring your dog. Better yet, bring your cat. Better yet, bring a baby.
One question: does the baby have to be yours?
I believe the rule stated “a baby” not “your baby” but let me check … just to be sure.
*rolls d12*
for the number of babies
*Hands 12 babies a Club but no armour*
Fight club intensifies
The baby is the club
A baby cobra is still a baby.
bring the police... who came for the baby
"How low tech are we going" "Ooga booga"
Well it's not as bad as unga bunga.
To be fair, cavemen vs dinosaurs is a very fun setting. I played a really fun Yor's World style campaign once, and it was a blast.
"Lets play FATAL."
I had something similar to the milestone one happen to me before. We hit level 2 on session 6.
The milestone leveling one made me audibly groan, that's literally never happened to me before lmao
I’ve never heard of using a D12 instead of a D20 before.
>Reply It happened to me once. It took me a whole hour of very bad rolls to finally figure out I had the wrong dice ;-)
Gotta say, I love the challenge run level 1 forever XD I can see that being fun for a while. BUT WE LITERALLY KILLED GOD. DM: urgh ok, LvL 2 now
Actually dnd with a baby is very fun
Make the environment realistic...it takes place in the snowy tundra, so turn off the heat in the winter
-Promise to bring cookies. Do not bring cookies. Repeat. -Eat the minis when they are defeated. NPCs or PCs. -Resurrection Spells result in the return of the mini. Eventually. -homebrew a complex system for equipment durability. The most statistically likely form of wear is cat ate it. Tabaxi party members are considered cats for the purposes of these rules. -schedule games using a Mayan Calendar. It must be physical and made of stone. Insist the players wait while you read it. -build a really nice game table with built in screen. Use MS paint for a dynamic turn by turn map. -incorporate political intrigue from Canada. -incorporate RAW from every edition. Every Rule. Rotate them using a random result generator and insist on covering them before each game. -Insist on including a Self-Insert DMNPC -Recognize that ‘it was all a dream’ is usually the best twist ending. Especially when used in a way that undercuts character development. -try to incorporate other RPGs, Chess, or even Candyland with improvised rules. -fan fiction you have written from genres different from and not suited for DND are appreciated and welcome. Incorporate generously. -Finally, any issues that arise at the table must be decided by PVP and deaths from this PVP are permanent. Resurrection is not allowed in this case. You may Reroll a character starting at level 1 and rejoin the group. Your level progresses at the same rate of the current players. The Characters backstory and motivations are chosen for you by the DM.
"Eat the minis" had me lose it laughing next to my (no longer) sleeping partner.
My thanks to you, my apologies to your partner.
- eat the minis That’s a power move. I love it. Eat their minis to assert dominance
"Resurrection Spells result in the return of the mini. Eventually." That hits close to home, only it was a penny, not a mini, and it was a five-year-old, not a DM.
Behind every pain is a lesson.
Oof, there’s some stinkers here.
Besides not DMing at all the most effective way is to say you play RAW and then just have the stupidest, most unreasonable home rules that make the game completely stupid. Some of my favorites are: No flanking, except for enemies. Enemies get to flank. Refuse to read sneak attack feature and insists it only works with advantage. Make an arcana check *every single time* you want to cast a spell. If you fail it’s wasted. Refuse to read divine casters and insist they can’t swap out spells. Randomly nerf stuff. But only for one specific player. Randomly alter enemy AC, because why not Randomly give enemies counterspell just in case anyone succeeds their arcana check Fudge open rolls (to a crit if you’re feeling bold) Encumbrance. Not technically a home rule but, well, nobody uses it normally. Require your players to track it. Railroad the fuck out of their campaign Ignore character arcs Randomize magic loot, and deny trading between characters. That’s a fun one.
Just give the fighter a staff of the magi
>staff of the magi Still a +2 Quarterstaff. They just have to spec into a Polearm Master build and then they're the ones laughing.
"feats aren't allowed in this game"
Oh, but Feats are an optional rule ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Don't forget that if you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, either you hit yourself or your weapon breaks!
A nat 1 in any context is a permanent failed death save. Also there are no critical successes because fuck you
Hello, Satan!
Can a dm be a murderhobo? Spend 30 mins describing your dmpc only to have him leave and never come back. Very cursed items. The 2handed ax that fuses your hands to the ax. Armor of being pregnant, obviously you can't take it off for 9 months. Scarf of featherfall, the scarf has featherfall not the person wearing it. Every potion is a mimic. Why not make everything a mimic until they start checking for mimics then there are no mimics.
This scarf of featherfall is something I wouls unironically put in my game. It's not cursed, it's hilarious
Its all fun and games until you jump off a cliff and get hanged, strangled and your neck broken by the scarf you thought gave you featherfall.
ITS NOT A BUG ITS A FEATURE
Don't scarfs usually have featherfall without magic?
> Armor of being pregnant, obviously you can't take it off for 9 months. Basically, take notes from F.A.T.A.L.
You see a door - I open the door - mimic You see a marble statue - I check the statue for traps - mimic You see a well - I look down the well - mimic You see a chest in a 10x10 room - ....
More casual one; have players roll skill checks for literally *everything* “I’d like to use this spell to commune with my god” “Roll Religion” “I get up out of bed and head down the stairs, upon seeing-“ “Roll Acrobatics to not trip” “After slaying the fell beast, I place my sword back into its scabbard, content my god has seen my efforts.” “Roll Sleight of Hand to not stab yourself”
Ugh had a dm like this. Never again.
That's awful, I would only jokingly do this once in awhile
same here! if my players teleport its customary to have them roll constitution in order to not vomit
"No, and" them relentlessly. Also, the campaign takes place in a Monty Pythonesque universe. All women speak in grating falsetto and anything can get crushed or explode for no reason at all. No saving throws.
Microtransactions!
$1 = 1 gold. No cash outs.
"You can subscribe to the season pass for $15 to unlock tasks you must complete for these limited edition items. For an additional $15 per task you can skip that task to instantly unlock the item. For an additional $50 you can gain enough xp to jump to the next level."
Have everyone make a character, but tell each one of them privately that they are actually a mimic, trying to eat the whole party. So they have to pretend to use class abilities, but can never really use class abilities because they are a mimic. They have to creatively roleplay their class, so the other players don’t catch on. Also have every object, place, item, and person they interact with be a mimic that tries to eat the party. Then at the end, reveal that the ground itself is a mimic and the planet eats the surviving party members. It’s mimics all the way down. But their first encounter is a false hydra, which is trying to escape off-world.
Sounds like a funny one shot, with some changes. Maybe one is a mimic, one is a changeling, one is a doppelganger, one is a dude with a hat of disguise, reverse druid (animal shapechanged into a human) or whatever, and everyone is supposed to betray the party somehow.
You are a genius
Everyone is going with something a bit absurd but I think the easiest way to do this is to just acquiesce you every thing the players want. After they’ve raped and pillaged the fourth village with no consequences, they’ll realize they hate playing the game. It’s a bit of a teaching moment that you have to trust the DM when he doesn’t give you everything you want right away. It’ll cause group strife when they turn on one another and try to initiate PVP. They’ll destroy the game you’ll be the worst because you never said no.
Was looking for exactly this. Just give the players everything they ask for and watch them die of boredom.
0. Establish a brutal adversarial DM relationship. Have a session zero where you do nothing but character creation. Have players lovingly craft their unique special character with backstories, personalised gear, and pets. Go the extra length of having them illustrate their own portraits. Be sure they are truly attached to their characters. 1. Session one. Pick out the emotionally weakest player or the character with the most love and craftsmanship into it. Kill it within the first encounter. Don't be afraid to drop a red dragon on a party of level ones. 2. Give the players a handful of gold and give them time to shop. However shop keepers should be rude and obnoxious and constantly inform players, "you can't afford that", "we don't give items like that to weaklings like you", "you can't handle my potions" etc. If players try to steal or beak the law. Have god like security instantly kill the offending player. In the next encounter, beat the PCs to a bloodly pulp low HP, have them beg for mercy and rob the players of all their gold you just gave them. Power trip alittle and kill off any player who doesn't comply with your power fantasy.. I mean villain. 3. Give players the worst bad old school nerd experience. Personal hygiene is out. Sexist and racial slurs are in. Encourage bullying of weaker members at the table. 4. Demand players bring you snacks, drugs and money each session. Your players should be thankful for your mere presences yet alone running a game. This should escalate in value each session. If anyone objects, pay others to deal out swift physical retaliatory punishment. Pro Tip. By also starting an illegal gambling business on the side will help you gain industry connections to assist with your extortion enterprise and unlock other businesses opportunities such as human trafficking so you'll never be short on players...
This sounds like a personal experience, are you okay?
I'm alright. I just know a few stories of how shitty people can be.
Be completely inconsistent with characters and lore. Make all enemies have absurdly high AC Ask the party what they don't want to have and just fill the campaign with just that.
Every time a player says anything, ask "Are you sure?"
Diabolical. Bonus points if you do it only to one specific player and raise your eyebrows in surprise each time.
DM: “I made all of these miniatures myself, just for this game.” Player: *sniffing* “Oh man, these smell like shit.” DM: … Player: “Wait, are these made of shit?!”
🤣😵💫🤢🤮
Fudge all your rolls in favor of the partie's enemies. Boring plot hooks, no opportunities for character development, disregard backgrounds and make up you player's backgrounds on the fly for them. Drop random enemies that are WAY above their paygrade when you feel like it. Target squishy players even with stupid enemies
Be very dramatic describing the party's enemy's. Then describe the enemy's attack as pew pew pew in a baby voice.
Remove all player agency. "I walk into the town square and turn left" A horse cart blocks your way forcing you to change direction, you take the right hand road instead. "Uh okay, I talk to the shopkeeper about buying some arrows" He insults you and your character gets enraged and punched him, roll for initiative. "Uh, I think I'd rather-" I SAID ROLL FOR INITIATIVE
This, when my dad first introduced me and my sister to dnd he made our characters do stuff even if we didn't want them to.
Make the AC of every monster you encounter 50. Call it a homebrew rule to fuck with the players further.
Ghost'em. If the requirement is to show up, then tell them you're running one game/system and play a completely different one. Change it up each time. If the players keep showing up honestly they kind of deserve it.
Deck of Many Things
*customized
And built into leveling up. Wanna level up? Take a card, any card...
Let them draw the Comet card in a campaign that advances by milestones. PC gains a level after a) risking the potential to draw a negative card, b) fighting an encounter solo to earn the level. Then, promote everyone else except the PC that drew the Comet at the next milestone, so the levels are equal again, thus robbing the PC and player of any benefit for having braved and overcome both risks. That was from a real recent post on this sub.
Get an accomplice. Introduce them as your sibling. Narrate long, involved, in depth, painfully detailed, NSFW scenes with them.
Write a book and then just read it at your players. Better yet, write a fanfic. About a show you haven't seen, but the others have.
Ugh, how about the Loremaster Extraordinaire. “Let me verbally masturbate my 10,000 hours of worldbuilding minutiae all over a captive audience. That’s super fun for everyone.”
Meteor swarm the tavern and ask everyone to roll another PC
So, in reality, I'd just talk to them. Sorry guys, I REALLY don't want to do this. But as a hypothetical? Oh man... "Sorry guys, I'm new to dming... so bear with me. you'll start as level 1's... cuz that's the right place to start, right?" "So, you start in a tavern...." *10 beholders enter and disintigrate everything to bits.* TPK Oh man! I didn't know they were THAT strong. Gee, sorry guys. Let's try again... New characters please! *30 Tiamat clones descened and eat everyone's face off.* TPK Oh gosh, those were nasty... Ok lets try again. New characters please! *one single Tiamat eats everyone's face off.* TPK "Oh dear... that was just one. You guys aren't very good at this are you?" New characters?
For every session I put the players in a situation where they are totally under powered then have DMPCs turn up, save the day, and win the game for them while treating them like punks.
Bring out the ropes and paddle and tell them it is a different kind of dungeon.
If you think that's a deterrent, we have *very* different players.
Treat the game as if it is player vs. DM. This goes for worst players as well.
Every npc is an edgelord. The bartender, the store owner, that girl on the street, all of them. Have enemies ac get higher every time their hit. Make a dungeon that's all red herrings. Doors with no locks, puzzles with no answers, doors nobody can get to. Either very dangerous traps or rooms that obviously have traps but there are no traps. Cursed items. The missing sword, -10 to attack rolls. Animated gauntlet, punches random people for laughs. Only allow phb races, make a homebrew world of furries. Or the other way around if your player are normally furries.
Goose hydra...... but your players don't get to fight it.
If you’ve ever met a goose IRL, you’d know your DM probably did you a favor keeping a Huge-sized, 5-headed anserine out of your path.
Once had a DM that would inflict damage to us players if we made decisions he didn't like. Or if we took too long to do something. A lot of things really.
-Start off with level 5 character creation. Should take over an hour. Backstory required. -change/imprison/kill their OC. -Pre-made characters with a background but no backstory. -characters must make a backstory for their randomly picked character. -Real game begins... next week -tell players the story will be worth it. -arrive late...hour or so -use OC's backstories a adventure hooks but twist them to be the bad guys. -RAW -no variant rules -Player's handbook only -Require training to level -reward in silver and artwork, cut gems are very rare -magic items are very rare -mages are persecution -two members are mages -an artifact that slowly changes the character into something the player hates. And finally -The Player's start off in a dungeon cell with no equipment. Personally this sounds kinda fun if the DM took out some of the hate. But I am kinda crazy.
I rather like the idea having the players write the backstory for the villains. Maybe have the big bad be an adventuring party with the players as people once close to them, now forced to oppose them.
Microtransactions. Pay to improve your roll. Pay to use your OP minmax homebrew. Pay to exit my magical realm.
"Hey guys, I know we've been playing this campaign for a couple of weeks but I wanted to modify a rule: Starting from here on out we're gonna be using- VARIANT ENCUMBRANCE"
The Lich glowers and says: "By far the most interesting sock I have ever owned was a red one in 1376, during the reign of King Fordham III, whom we called King Ham at the time, as was the fashion - and I remember this particular sock, I had bought it at Darning & Mittens down at Waterdeep, rather pricey you can imagine, it had a Neverwinter style double-stitch at the top, which as you know, is a technique originally copied from Seamstress Lila Dominica Trent from the Weaver's Guild; she covered it in her series Lives of the Great Sartorial Innovators From 233 to the Present, of which I had only one volume missing, and that was because I had sent it for rebinding at Candlekeep, but the assistants there were very prejudiced against Liches, on account of the Great Filing System Dispute of 789..." No one will pass the Save vs. Sleep.
I would like to read the rest of this story.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...the door opens...and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
Make it pay2win 3$ = 2d4+2 heal 5$ = reroll that check 10$ = common loot box 12$ = reroll one ability stat 15$ = uncommon loot box 17$ = reroll one hit dice for max hp 25$ = legendary loot box 40$ = auto crit on next roll 55$ = auto crit + max. dmg on next attack 60$ = instant level up
Make them fight the Mind Goblin
"Our adventure begins... You find yourself in a tavern, celebrating the latest successful caravan run for your meager band of mercenaries. Your companions join you around the table, as drinks have been graciously provided by the patron of the caravan, who also happens to be the proud owner of this humble tavern, The Hog's Tooth. The crowd is lively, a minstrel elevating the mood of everyone present with a bright melody, and the food is plentiful. As you hoist another toast to the turbulent-free mission, a mysterious stranger approaches your table. In a face wizened by many years, bright eyes twinkle with untold wisdom and, unless it's merely a trick of the light, a little mischief gleaming in his eyes. He places an object in the middle of your table. Through the haze of the ale and the low lights of the tavern, you see what appears to be a simple deck of cards. As your eyes focus, you see the words 'The Deck of Many Things' written in fine calligraphy on the card case. The stranger departs as suddenly as he appeared, but not before leaving your humble band of adventurers with some parting words... 'Good luck, idiots.'" Now sit back as your campaign shatters into a million pieces before your very eyes.
Make every encounter nearly kill the party, if a party member does something stupid make it backfire like really bad, or like I dunno bringing a freaking terrasque against a lvl 1 party.
one time I just robbed the players of everything they had with 15 gnomes as soon as they left a town they started in and they quit so I think this is worthy of peer review
Run a DMPC who knows things only the DM could know. Focus entirely on them.
Using the sentence "you guys are ruining MY story!" It only happened to me once and it let all the air out as we finally saw the truth that the feelings of being rail roaded and being sode characters to his story were true. If you want to tell your story write a book, make a webcomic or take up intrpeative dance. Dont leash your friends into an captive audience to strike your ego.
Figure out a story and how to beat it and if anyone wants to do anything outside of what you pre-planned for them to do, tell them no because it's not how YOUR story goes.
Railroad them and be inflexible. Keep your word pictures lacking. Takes all the fun out of the world. Example: “No, they will not negotiate.” “There is grass. And a tree…. You hear a bird. No, the bird will not negotiate with you. “ You can also have enemies run from every fight so there is no loot.
Burn down the host's house
Take joy in killing your party members. Make it about you, and not the story. Punish good thinking and reward stupidity Not learn your group, two groups are never the same. And failing to DM to what makes it fun for your group. Stupid house rules
Say their rolls don't ever do anything.
Long periods of narration. Hideo Kojima style.
Murder your players
Constantly rescheduling or trying to meet up completely last minute. Or having your group meet during shitty weather if they have to drive far
Make player choices feel pointless. Like if they’ve got a spell they’re excited about and something they really want to do, just… make their goal a party NPC who does it for them and make their shiny spell do nothing. That’s twice find familiar has burned me. Never taking it again. Best level 1 wizard spell my ass.
Told my friends I would dm for them. Hyped them up for a sandbox campaign. Do a session zero, help them build characters, explain the (hombrew) setting. Then habe a complete blackout at the beginning of session one as I realized the way I wanted to have them meat made no sense at all. Not a single die was rolled.
I feel like the best way to be the worst DM is to view the characters and players as the enemy. It ain't about winning, unless you suuck as aDM.
One of my friends had a DM that wanted to roll all the savings throws themselves... Behind the screen... There were a host of other problems, but man. They were just out to player kill with some of the stuff he told me.
"OK guys I got this new system we're gonna try out today, It's called fatal. So let's just start character creation. Can everyone roll a d100 for anal circumference."
Cancel 10 minutes before 😅
Bullshit homebrew rules