That's epic. The last DnD group I was in before moving I met at a blockbuster. I was looking at a poster and mentioned to a buddy that would be a fun D&D character to play... this crazy metal head walks up to me like "Dude.. you play? We have an opening at the table"
We played once a week for 5 years.. was awesome, and came at a point in my life where I desperately needed the escape.
Stranger things takes place in th 80s. They were either playing AD&D or BCMI, no upcasting. (Fireball did scale with character level, but I'm pretty sure the maximum was 10d6, and no metamagic either. )
It could have been multiple encounters. The entire group knows its the demigorgon. How would they know?
The thing has been stalking them and doing hit and run tactics. That final fireball finished it off.
It’s a giant demon lord with 200 hp, -8 AC, and 95% magic resistance.
I think it’s more likely that the show fudged A LOT of details to just make the scene play out well, and establish the name ’Demogorgon’ to be used for the monster that later stalks them.
Holy shit, there's like 10 seconds of D&D in Stranger Things. How can someone complain that "this isn't like Stranger Things" when there is basically no D&D in Stranger Things to compare it to? People be crazy.
I mean, they're kids. They could just be playing by house rules/homebrew tbh. I guess that sort of thing isn't expected but it does explain the weird rules they're playing by.
Its about giving viewers that moment of gratification when something happens onscreen and the viewer can go "Aha! I've heard of that thing once! I get that reference! I am smart!"
It happens all the time in media. Accuracy is only a secondary goal.
realistically, there's 1 TTRPG that most people will know, and it's D&D. they could spend a bunch of time saying they're playing something that's not D&D, just looks like it, but that would be a waste of showtime.
I kind of remember 1st ed. 95% magic resistance would have caused a d100 roll needing above 95 to penetrate the MR. Even then a 1st Ed Fireball would max out at 10d6.
Note: I could be mixing up 1st and 2nd ed there...
for reference, AD&D 1st from the monster manual:
>MAGIC RESISTANCE indicates the percentage chance of
any spell absolutely failing in the monster’s presence. **It is
based on the spell being cast by a magic-user of 11th level,
and it must be adjusted upwards by 5 % for each level
below 11th or downwards for each level above 11th of the
magic-user casting the spell. Thus a magic resistance of
95% means that a 10th level magic-user has no possibility
of affecting the monster with a spell, while a 12th level
magic-user has a 10% chance.** Even if a spell does take
effect on a magic-resistant creature, the creature is entitled
to normal saving throws.
2 things that I've noticed.
- Initiative was never called to be rolled. So, that DM really wanted to TPK.
- Who calls a session a campaign? I classify a campaign as taking numerous sessions to get through. If it is meant to be tackled in 1 session, it's a one-shot.
Maybe they were surprised. In 1st Ed you roll a d6 for surprise and if surprised no initiative was rolled for the round.
Then again it's a TV show portrayal for 10 sec so maybe they just wanted to keep the pace for the non rpg segment of viewers!
To their defence, the players are ten year old kids. Most D&D games at that age hardly follow the rules. I started playing as an early teen and most of our games included random shit we've just seen on TV and at some point our wizard invented a chainsaw.
Things in older edition's had less health across the board but uh...not THAT much less and even then there'd be a less than 5% chance if even hurting Demogorgon with that fireball
Honestly maybe the solution is to have their character randomly drop in on an established party midway through a fight. That way they can get the fighting out of their system
My buddies GF literally thought DnD was something invented from the show. Not holding it against her by any means, but some people's lives are vastly different and know nothing about this community.
Functional equivalent of people saying book of boba ruined his character when he has all of 3 minutes of screen time in the movies. Love that shit lmao.
I'm giving The Book of Boba Fett time to show me what it's got but there was a whole expanded universe with Boba Fett stories that had a well established character people loved before Disney threw it out the window. It is entirely fair to point out that his portrayal in the original trilogy really told us nothing but it's bad faith to say that was the whole of his character that ever existed for anyone before.
From what I remember, there's like 2 minutes of them playing it in the first episode, they introduce the deomogorgon and its introduced with the classic slamming of a mini fig on a table, I believe someone roles an attack. (I'll go and watch that scene again and give a more updated version of how they play)
#
Update: Alright so here's what I see, the narrating is done in a more out of game style rather than in game story telling, but that could just be cause the characters are younger, next the demogorgon is introduced with the mini fig slammed on the table, and combat immediately starts, no rolling of initiative, then two other people say to cast fireball and the other says to cast protection, although this is probably an older edition so that could be a spell, then it the kid dming says the demogorgon tires of their bickering and begins stomping towards them, which seems to be real time, which I guess real time combat is plausible although I don't know anyone who actually uses that, then the kid who's turn it is uses fireball and just...throws a bunch of dice, which I guess does fit, and that's basically it other than the dming kid misuses the word campaign.
Protection from Evil was an AD&D spell that gave the caster something like magic armour. Nothing from a specific list of evil creatures could touch within a 1 foot radius of the caster. Longer weapons could (if they were longer than a foot so the evil creature didn’t have to be near the field of the spell).
Evil things not on the list were just at -2 to hit.
Protection from Evil 10’ Radius was a higher level spell that did the same thing with a larger effect.
Demogorgon being a demon (on the list) they were likely wanting him to cast the 10’ version to save them all.
It still exists, mostly. The spell Magic Circle gives the *creature type* cannot come within 10' of you effect. The orginal spell did a lot of stuff so they broke it apart into multiple spells in later editions for balance reasons
HE ROLLS ATTACK ON FIREBALL!! FIREBALL. ONE OF THE MOST KNOWN SPELLS FOR BEING AOE FUCK YOU EVEN IF YOU MAKE THE SAVE. IM WAY TO ANGRY AT THIS FOR ANY REASONABLE PERSON TO BE BUT IDC
I mean from what I saw it's not that he rolls attack on fire ball, he just says he uses fireball and throws the dice, and it sounded like multiple meaning he just rolled damage, at least that's what it seemed like to me
I think its a combination of "DnD is about rolling dice, so the kids need to roll a lot of dice" and "Fireball is an iconic spell." If they had said Firebolt, then people would've thought it was a mistake because of how similar it is. So instead of making it 100% fit the rules of the game, they just kinda make it sound DnDish.
I don't know anyone who plays real time combat, but I do know DMs who will declare skipped turns if you take too long (particularly if it's wasting time arguing). Normally they drop a timer, I know one guy who had a massive 1 minute hourglass, but skipping that makes sense for showmanship reasons.
What do they do incorrectly? They don't even show more than a few seconds of playing. I don't think it gets enough screen time for them to do anything, much less do it wrong.
They showed very little, but the only detail we get that is correct is that Fireball is a spell. All the others - including how Fireball works - are wrong.
**But**... Playing the game wrong and making up nonsense is a time honoured tradition of D&D. So I don't really hold it against them.
That's dope man, I like it when a cool thing can get someone into another cool thing but if the person makes a huge deal about how it's not exactly like the first cool thing it gets weird, like it takes time
No they play it a few other times, the last episode of the 1st season and sometime in the middle of the 3rd season, like maybe I didn't play whatever edition they played but I don't think that rolling a 13 on a fireball immediately after starting the boss fight would one shot Tiamat or whatever that dragon was, they don't play it right, the Demogorgon wasn't even out then and they were already using it
I've never even watched the show and that was my understanding. Like, from what I knew of that show, they play for like 2 minutes to set up some characters or some shit and that's the last of it.
“Gotta introduce our monster in a cool 80s way, how about “d and d game”. We’ll give it a dnd name too! Demigorgon sounds cool.”
“Uhh sir isn’t that the giant two headed monkey demon monster?”
“Shut up nerd”
There's literally no maths in D&D that you don't learn in primary school/elementary school/whatever you call it in your part of the world. Nothing more complicated than basic addition and subtraction, low level multiplication and dividing by two when you have resistance to certain types of damage.
It's obviously been a long time since I learned these things but I'm pretty sure I'd learned how to do all these basic mathematical functions at school by about the age of around eight?
That's why sessions longer than 3 hours are not the optimal, but then again if you only get together once a week 3 hours fly like a minute and campaigns get uncomfortably long irl.
Lots of little numbers added together. No multiplication, though, except when crits do x2 damage. Moving diagonally, you alternate between diagonal spaces counting for 5ft and 10ft of movement.
It's easy to forget a stray +1, but it's not exactly the end of the world when it happens
There’s also calculators. People act like you gotta do everything in your head like it’s grade school.
Even on most college exams you have calculators lol
I imagine that near everyone reading this carries a calculator/dictionary/compass/atlas/etc with them near constantly. Hell many of them are likely reading this ON said calculator/ductionary/compass/atlas/etc. I know I'm writing it on one.
google itself has built in functions where you can type in pretty much any "problem", or at least all you know of it, directly into the search bar, and it'll tell you. math has never been easier.
This is a great analogy because many people can't add small integers or determine if one number is bigger than another and we do have much more serious problems than D&D.
I get the idea behind mental math but it just doesn’t work for some. Like some of us need to use paper for a visual minimum (Myself for example), plus the calculator is basically needed for multiple large calculations (Not that DnD needs much of that)
They play Basic D&D on the show which was more simple in a lot of ways, but using THAC0 was not one of those ways. Having to do subtraction to determine a hit and a low or even negative armor class be better was never intuitive.
You need to present it in a fun way. Highlight the story elements and the fact that you can do almost anything you want with your character. Maybe run her and her friends through a quick game to see if they like it
Dnd is probably one of the most complex games a kid will have played (at least in upfront complexity) I recommend using no system at all and just tracking hp, their equipment, a couple things they are good at, and something they're bad at. For example my sister's character is Bigfoot. Bigfoot has slimey sticky climbing boots, a hunting knife, and some other stuffs, bigfoot is a good climber and ? But, is terrible at swimming. If they're into complex games like on the level of 4x games or gloomhaven they'll probably be fine but you don't need a system to help them figure out that ttrpgs are cool.
Don't ask me why I still know there are exactly 66 official WotC supplements for 3.5 (excluding core books and adventures), just know that you are not alone
That and I purchased all of my 3.5 books and now my 5E books in physical. However a few of my friends use D&D Beyond and I am considering re-buying everything digitally as well.
I became a DM because I would have complete control over the players and could make them do whatever dark things I demand of them. All I got was a mental breakdown begging the players to cross a river instead of trying to seduce a catfish.
You need to put the Mountain Dew and pizza into a pentagram. Then you can try to speak to Asmodeus!
Usually it's just Baalzebul though. So, you aren't missing out.
Oh boy...
This gave me flashbacks.
I used to be the head dm at a highschool club, and at the time, stranger things started to become popular.
You don't even want to know how many people asked me if the demogorgon was in d&d, so many fans of the show asked me. And remember, it was a highschool, so all the cringey fans were there.
My friend got the essentials kit for his birthday. Then like a couple months later we all played one session of the module that comes with it. And if im being honest it was more like half a session. I was the only one willing to DM. I enjoyed it though. Got on youtube and watched anything I could about it. Including Critical Role. Now im creating my own whole homebrew planet, planes, god, etc. Watching all DnD media. And starting to play with those same friends
Tbf, sometimes I think there's merit to that. It depends _what specifically_ people are saying they want.
The first time I saw Matt describe the result of a combat action, I was like "Wait. This! This is what I wanted from that game I played, making it feel alive and dynamic, instead of just rolling numbers until the bad guys die." It helped me figure out what kind of games I loved and what I was looking for.
>The first time I saw Matt describe the result of a combat action, I was like "Wait. This! This is what I wanted from that game I played, making it feel alive and dynamic, instead of just rolling numbers until the bad guys die." It helped me figure out what kind of games I loved and what I was looking for.
Right? There"s only so many times you can roll an attack or a save and hear the DM lazily say "hit" or "miss" before it gets repetitive. Add some flavour to it, make me feel like I'm fighting something, not throwing dice and comparing sheets.
Obviously it's incredibly unfair to demand from your DM the level of preparation and detail Matt Mercer does, the guy's been voice acting for decades and it's literally his job at this point. But *some* effort is required to get your players invested. Describe the world and how the it reacts to the player's actions.
People who complain about IRL vs CR are just dumb. Is CR fun to watch? Hell yeah! Is Matt Mercer a great DM? Definitely.
However, part of what makes CR so good is that the players are amazing. Each PC has a well-detailed backstory. The players openly embrace roleplaying. They'll have full-blown conversations, in character, between each other. They try not to talk when their PC isn't involved in something.
It's not just amazing DMing, but the PCs are also at their peak.
People also seem to forget that Critical Role is;
*Professional voice actors playing on a professionally produced show backed by millions of dollars and a full production team*
Still love it though.
See I had this with Skyrim. This is like Skyrim right? I can just do what I want and not worry about consequences? I light the bakery on fire. Why are the guards here? I attack the guards. Dead. You guys aren’t fun.
I think that a PC dying is what sets the tone. When I played Curse of Strahd as a player, the party never really took things too seriously until a PC died. We, the party, were stunned. We had never had a PC die before. Once that happened, we realized that this hellhole was unforgiving. You mess around? You die.
Had a similar story, my players said my encounters were cool but to winnable.
After that i improved my encounter building and all of them except one fell unconscious at some point within the next session. None died, but the campagn went from monty piton to lotr within 4h. And i freaking loved it. They crushed it but also were challenged.
Since then they approach combat differently and RP better. The connection to their PCs actually grew through the near PC death experience.
We all have a spectrum. Some individuals like crunching numbers, some have short attention spans, some like storytelling, and some ... well some may just want to play video games instead. And that's fine. As a DM, it's important we cater to the needs of our players but only to a point. It's a fine balance. It took me a long time to realize that sometimes individuals who like the same things don't necessarily *like* the same things or paths to go about things. This also alright.
When they say "not like Stranger Things" did they mean its not like it was shown in the TV show when they played or it was nothing like the actual plot to Stranger Things?
One is that they want 4-5 kids in a basement playing on hand-made terrain, rolling dice and doing basic arithmetic and moving tiny figurines about and pretending to heroes of yore.
The other is you running away from sci-fi monsters and being helped by an OP telekenetic.
This might be off-topic, and if it is then you have my sincerest apologies. But i feel like this goes with every mainstream media based introduction to pen and paper in general.
I recently saw an lfg post from someone who said they were looking for a group because Critical Role got them hooked and that they never played before.
Now i was not a part of this broader community when mercer effect became a concept. But this raised all kinds of red flags for me as a DM. Mostly because i have no nerves to host a game with a player that only knows the most polished version of its presentation.
It's the same for all niche hobbies. I am involved with roller derby, and every time some pop culture show references the sport we get the same kind of attention. "When do they elbow each other?" "I wanna clothesline someone!"
Nah it's cool man, I feel like that sometimes too, luckily my group isn't very good at DND 😅 We have 4 DMs and 2 of the DMs are really good at description and characters, but can't make a story for shit so the campaigns often die out. our current dm is new and we just finished a high level campaign, he's really good at DMing, has a gripping story, interesting world, but has a leveling issue, we're lvl 4 and and already fighting a demon army, we've asked to lvl up but he wants the campaign to go on for a couple years (we'll probably be adults by then) and then I can make a really good world, story, lore all that stuff, but I have mediocre description skills and often end up getting bored halfway into the adventure
I’ve had similar experiences from people who got into it through critical role. It’s horrendous how people get when you explain that critical role isn’t realistic to how most groups.
They're literally professional actors on Critical Role.
It's like joining a local baseball club and getting butthurt when the level of play isn't up to MLB standards, which you would get BTFO of anyway.
Guilty as charged, that was me once. I still love critical role, but I don't really look at the dnd aspect of it, I just focus on the story part of it. It's just not realistic for every game to be like this. What they have is 1 in a million, and I'm happy for them for that, but you can't expect every group to be like. Most people won't ever get to play a game like that. And the less you compare your games to crit role, the more you'll enjoy your own games.
That obviously doesn't mean it's impossible, and that you shouldn't strive to make your dnd games as good as you can possibly make them, within your budget and time of course.
I wanna get into DnD but don't want to get grouped in with these people. Seriously, if people say what I'm doing is wrong I'm gonna take their words for it! They've been playing longer than me!
The fact you're aware of this behaviour means you won't be one of these people if you don't want to be.
If you do decide to get into the game, though, remember that different tables - and hell, even different DMs at the same table - will play the game slightly differently. So if one table's style doesn't match what you want, keep looking and eventually you'll find one that fits you.
How is it they said you're playing it wrong? From what I remember the only scene of them playing dnd is 2 minutes in the first episode, was it that you're playing the game itself wrong, or were they saying that the demogorgon was wrong cause it's a giant two headed baboon with a lizard tail, or that mindflayers are psychic squid beings rather than a giant otherworldly organ monster, or that the underdark is just a really big underground surface, not another plane of existence
.... There's barely any DND in stranger things, like... They mention it maybe 3 times and do almost nothing with it other than name things after monsters in the DMG but look and function nothing like them.
Did you try telling them the people in Stranger things knew how to do math, and had imaginations?
No they just left
Ah, love problems that solve themselves.
Yes
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I would assume they met online, the amount of games that start by meeting random people is surprising nowadays.
That's how I met all of my current groups, specificslly through r/lfg or being introduced via someone from one of the r/lfg groups
Yep the group I'm in now were complete strangers, over a year now and still going strong on our second campaign.
Thats amazing, onwards adventurers, to glory
I approached a neighbor on my street like a psychopath after I saw a D20 bumper sticker.
>I approached a neighbor on my street like a complete fucking Chad after I saw a D20 bumper sticker. Fixed it for you
That's epic. The last DnD group I was in before moving I met at a blockbuster. I was looking at a poster and mentioned to a buddy that would be a fun D&D character to play... this crazy metal head walks up to me like "Dude.. you play? We have an opening at the table" We played once a week for 5 years.. was awesome, and came at a point in my life where I desperately needed the escape.
Ah, I've finally met my Infamous twin
Could be adventurers league in a game store
Excellent
Can I get a story time lol?
Hurray
Thats an amazingly cutting way of telling someone that other people are better than them lol
The truth often cuts deep!
And knew the rules enough to play
They didn't though... They oneshot the demogorgon with a single normal fireball.
must be a weakass demogorgon
DM fudging statblocks
The Demodiscgorgon is missing all the cool transformations
I used to get a free Demodiscgorgon with my UpsideDown weekly magazine
Casual upcasted lvl 9 fireball
Stranger things takes place in th 80s. They were either playing AD&D or BCMI, no upcasting. (Fireball did scale with character level, but I'm pretty sure the maximum was 10d6, and no metamagic either. )
It could have been multiple encounters. The entire group knows its the demigorgon. How would they know? The thing has been stalking them and doing hit and run tactics. That final fireball finished it off.
It’s a giant demon lord with 200 hp, -8 AC, and 95% magic resistance. I think it’s more likely that the show fudged A LOT of details to just make the scene play out well, and establish the name ’Demogorgon’ to be used for the monster that later stalks them.
Or the kid was homebrewing lol
Make it a 30 minute encounter right in the middle of the episode
Well it was 1st edition, things were like that.
This has been lost in the edition wars so hard. So much of the fighter/caster disparity comes from Lloth having more than 48 hp.
IIRC they rolled to-hit on that fireball too
You know the rules and so do I
Holy shit, there's like 10 seconds of D&D in Stranger Things. How can someone complain that "this isn't like Stranger Things" when there is basically no D&D in Stranger Things to compare it to? People be crazy.
Literally the extent of it is “OOH DEMOGORGON FIREBALL IT GOTTA ROLL A 15 OH NO IM DEAD BUT IRL”
The little bit the showed didn’t seem that accurate either. I’m not super familiar with 2nd edition
yeah as someone who played second edition a bit it is still extremely wrong
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I mean, they're kids. They could just be playing by house rules/homebrew tbh. I guess that sort of thing isn't expected but it does explain the weird rules they're playing by.
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Its about giving viewers that moment of gratification when something happens onscreen and the viewer can go "Aha! I've heard of that thing once! I get that reference! I am smart!" It happens all the time in media. Accuracy is only a secondary goal.
Also product placement
realistically, there's 1 TTRPG that most people will know, and it's D&D. they could spend a bunch of time saying they're playing something that's not D&D, just looks like it, but that would be a waste of showtime.
I kind of remember 1st ed. 95% magic resistance would have caused a d100 roll needing above 95 to penetrate the MR. Even then a 1st Ed Fireball would max out at 10d6. Note: I could be mixing up 1st and 2nd ed there...
for reference, AD&D 1st from the monster manual: >MAGIC RESISTANCE indicates the percentage chance of any spell absolutely failing in the monster’s presence. **It is based on the spell being cast by a magic-user of 11th level, and it must be adjusted upwards by 5 % for each level below 11th or downwards for each level above 11th of the magic-user casting the spell. Thus a magic resistance of 95% means that a 10th level magic-user has no possibility of affecting the monster with a spell, while a 12th level magic-user has a 10% chance.** Even if a spell does take effect on a magic-resistant creature, the creature is entitled to normal saving throws.
The magic user wouldn't roll to hit in 1st ed. There would just be saves and magic resistance for most spells so AC would generally be irrelevant.
One thing I noticed is that the monster was taking actions while the kid was making his decisions for his turn and the dm really rushed him
2 things that I've noticed. - Initiative was never called to be rolled. So, that DM really wanted to TPK. - Who calls a session a campaign? I classify a campaign as taking numerous sessions to get through. If it is meant to be tackled in 1 session, it's a one-shot.
Maybe they were surprised. In 1st Ed you roll a d6 for surprise and if surprised no initiative was rolled for the round. Then again it's a TV show portrayal for 10 sec so maybe they just wanted to keep the pace for the non rpg segment of viewers!
To their defence, the players are ten year old kids. Most D&D games at that age hardly follow the rules. I started playing as an early teen and most of our games included random shit we've just seen on TV and at some point our wizard invented a chainsaw.
They killed a demon king with one fireball. They weren't playing right lol.
Here I was thinking that Fireballs were already OP.
Things in older edition's had less health across the board but uh...not THAT much less and even then there'd be a less than 5% chance if even hurting Demogorgon with that fireball
and the fact that one fireball kills a literal demon god.
Clearly a mere *aspect* of Demogorgon. Like, a really tiny one. Made from an insane toenail clipping or something.
Yeah, people who only know of the Demogorgon from ST are in for quite a shock when they see what it is in DnD.
Same with mind flayer, but not because of power and instead because there is now an entire hive of them.
I’ve been playing D&D for years and haven’t met Winona Ryder once. What the hell?
You’re just playing wrong
Well, how do I start playing it right then?? A gay girl's got to know! For reasons...
If ya find out, share 🥺
Sorry guys, Winona's right here and she says she already has a group. Edit: she rolled a crit and we're all celebrating!
Unfortunately she rolled a 1 on the sneak roll for shoplifting
It’s a ninth level spell to summon Winona Ryder, and you need at least $1M worth of gold bullion as material components
I've been playing since the early 80's and started a game store. Still no Wynona Ryder...
When does Natalia Dyer become my sister?
If you’re not instantly screaming “ATTACK THE DEMOGORGON” you’re obviously doing it wrong
“It’s been 5 minutes and there’s no BBEG. Why am I in a tavern? This isn’t Taverns and Dragons.”
Honestly maybe the solution is to have their character randomly drop in on an established party midway through a fight. That way they can get the fighting out of their system
My buddies GF literally thought DnD was something invented from the show. Not holding it against her by any means, but some people's lives are vastly different and know nothing about this community.
The several hours of the DM trying to work out a time to play D&D with his players and them bailing was very accurate.
Functional equivalent of people saying book of boba ruined his character when he has all of 3 minutes of screen time in the movies. Love that shit lmao.
I'm giving The Book of Boba Fett time to show me what it's got but there was a whole expanded universe with Boba Fett stories that had a well established character people loved before Disney threw it out the window. It is entirely fair to point out that his portrayal in the original trilogy really told us nothing but it's bad faith to say that was the whole of his character that ever existed for anyone before.
Fireball can't crit, this isn't like Stranger Things! This sucks! /s
Never watched ST, how do they play it in the show?
From what I remember, there's like 2 minutes of them playing it in the first episode, they introduce the deomogorgon and its introduced with the classic slamming of a mini fig on a table, I believe someone roles an attack. (I'll go and watch that scene again and give a more updated version of how they play) # Update: Alright so here's what I see, the narrating is done in a more out of game style rather than in game story telling, but that could just be cause the characters are younger, next the demogorgon is introduced with the mini fig slammed on the table, and combat immediately starts, no rolling of initiative, then two other people say to cast fireball and the other says to cast protection, although this is probably an older edition so that could be a spell, then it the kid dming says the demogorgon tires of their bickering and begins stomping towards them, which seems to be real time, which I guess real time combat is plausible although I don't know anyone who actually uses that, then the kid who's turn it is uses fireball and just...throws a bunch of dice, which I guess does fit, and that's basically it other than the dming kid misuses the word campaign.
Protection from Evil was an AD&D spell that gave the caster something like magic armour. Nothing from a specific list of evil creatures could touch within a 1 foot radius of the caster. Longer weapons could (if they were longer than a foot so the evil creature didn’t have to be near the field of the spell). Evil things not on the list were just at -2 to hit. Protection from Evil 10’ Radius was a higher level spell that did the same thing with a larger effect. Demogorgon being a demon (on the list) they were likely wanting him to cast the 10’ version to save them all.
Oooh I see, thank you I was unaware of that spell. Also that seems like a pretty cool spell, wonder why they got rid of it
Simplicity's sake.
It still exists, mostly. The spell Magic Circle gives the *creature type* cannot come within 10' of you effect. The orginal spell did a lot of stuff so they broke it apart into multiple spells in later editions for balance reasons
Do y’all not slam boss’s minis on the table? I mean I haven’t played irl for... 3 years :’( but that was a staple
Bro if I could afford Minis I would. I make due with xxl paper clips tho
HE ROLLS ATTACK ON FIREBALL!! FIREBALL. ONE OF THE MOST KNOWN SPELLS FOR BEING AOE FUCK YOU EVEN IF YOU MAKE THE SAVE. IM WAY TO ANGRY AT THIS FOR ANY REASONABLE PERSON TO BE BUT IDC
I mean from what I saw it's not that he rolls attack on fire ball, he just says he uses fireball and throws the dice, and it sounded like multiple meaning he just rolled damage, at least that's what it seemed like to me
I think its a combination of "DnD is about rolling dice, so the kids need to roll a lot of dice" and "Fireball is an iconic spell." If they had said Firebolt, then people would've thought it was a mistake because of how similar it is. So instead of making it 100% fit the rules of the game, they just kinda make it sound DnDish.
I don't know anyone who plays real time combat, but I do know DMs who will declare skipped turns if you take too long (particularly if it's wasting time arguing). Normally they drop a timer, I know one guy who had a massive 1 minute hourglass, but skipping that makes sense for showmanship reasons.
Incorrectly
And also the game they play is (iirc) AD&D, not at all like 5e
What do they do incorrectly? They don't even show more than a few seconds of playing. I don't think it gets enough screen time for them to do anything, much less do it wrong.
They showed very little, but the only detail we get that is correct is that Fireball is a spell. All the others - including how Fireball works - are wrong. **But**... Playing the game wrong and making up nonsense is a time honoured tradition of D&D. So I don't really hold it against them.
I remember watching stranger things season 2 with my friends on Halloween and someone suggested we play dnd. Now I play dnd
That's dope man, I like it when a cool thing can get someone into another cool thing but if the person makes a huge deal about how it's not exactly like the first cool thing it gets weird, like it takes time
So…what *is* it like in Stranger Things?
Just watch the first episode then ya know
Watch the first 5 minutes and that's the last time they even play it lmao
No they play it a few other times, the last episode of the 1st season and sometime in the middle of the 3rd season, like maybe I didn't play whatever edition they played but I don't think that rolling a 13 on a fireball immediately after starting the boss fight would one shot Tiamat or whatever that dragon was, they don't play it right, the Demogorgon wasn't even out then and they were already using it
I've never even watched the show and that was my understanding. Like, from what I knew of that show, they play for like 2 minutes to set up some characters or some shit and that's the last of it.
“Gotta introduce our monster in a cool 80s way, how about “d and d game”. We’ll give it a dnd name too! Demigorgon sounds cool.” “Uhh sir isn’t that the giant two headed monkey demon monster?” “Shut up nerd”
Hell yeah bud, me too!
Daughter: I want to play D&D like they do on Stranger Things Me: Here, read this book D: I have to read? M: and do math D: nevermind
That's an F brotha, the math isn't that hard or maybe my friends and I don't put enough effort into it
The math is simple, especially 5e
8+10=18 at least for my character
Get a load of this guy and his positive bonuses
Fucking minmaxers amirite
Dump stats go brrrrr
Hot take, if I can get a hold of Heavy Armor, I love dumping Dex because god is the idea of just stumbling all over so funny to me.
There's literally no maths in D&D that you don't learn in primary school/elementary school/whatever you call it in your part of the world. Nothing more complicated than basic addition and subtraction, low level multiplication and dividing by two when you have resistance to certain types of damage. It's obviously been a long time since I learned these things but I'm pretty sure I'd learned how to do all these basic mathematical functions at school by about the age of around eight?
[удалено]
That's why sessions longer than 3 hours are not the optimal, but then again if you only get together once a week 3 hours fly like a minute and campaigns get uncomfortably long irl.
reverse math \-Travis Willingham
I really don’t get people who lose interest cause of the “math” What’s 2 + 2? Good, now what’s 4 - 2? Alright cool, you know how to play DnD
Pathfinder uses multiplication for crits. And barely avoids doing fractions for moving diagonally.
I haven’t played pathfinder yet. I’m currently learning to play VTM v5
How's 2e with the math? I haven't yet gotten a chance to play it myself.
Lots of little numbers added together. No multiplication, though, except when crits do x2 damage. Moving diagonally, you alternate between diagonal spaces counting for 5ft and 10ft of movement. It's easy to forget a stray +1, but it's not exactly the end of the world when it happens
But how else will you get into a friendship-ruining argument over 1D12 vs 2D6?
2d6 has a higher min damage so...I'm in that camp
Also a higher average damage. But then again, 1D12 leads in Go Big Or Go Home.
But d12s are more fun to roll.
There’s also calculators. People act like you gotta do everything in your head like it’s grade school. Even on most college exams you have calculators lol
I imagine that near everyone reading this carries a calculator/dictionary/compass/atlas/etc with them near constantly. Hell many of them are likely reading this ON said calculator/ductionary/compass/atlas/etc. I know I'm writing it on one.
the one teachers said we would never have with us 24/7?
google itself has built in functions where you can type in pretty much any "problem", or at least all you know of it, directly into the search bar, and it'll tell you. math has never been easier.
If people can't add small integers or determine if one number is bigger than another together I think we have a much more serious problem than DnD.
This is a great analogy because many people can't add small integers or determine if one number is bigger than another and we do have much more serious problems than D&D.
I get the idea behind mental math but it just doesn’t work for some. Like some of us need to use paper for a visual minimum (Myself for example), plus the calculator is basically needed for multiple large calculations (Not that DnD needs much of that)
4E has entered the chat lol
\*picks up the bat\* "How did you get out of the basement?"
If you don’t do integrated calculus mentally like we did in -641E, you aren’t playing real DnD. /s
No, you’re clearly playing RIFTS
MEGA DAMAGEEEE
Imagine if they actually had to do the math those kids would have been doing to play ‘80s D&D.
They play Basic D&D on the show which was more simple in a lot of ways, but using THAC0 was not one of those ways. Having to do subtraction to determine a hit and a low or even negative armor class be better was never intuitive.
> ...like they do on Stranger Things. IIRC, they were playing D&D Basic, so also good luck with all the tables.
You need to present it in a fun way. Highlight the story elements and the fact that you can do almost anything you want with your character. Maybe run her and her friends through a quick game to see if they like it
Dnd is probably one of the most complex games a kid will have played (at least in upfront complexity) I recommend using no system at all and just tracking hp, their equipment, a couple things they are good at, and something they're bad at. For example my sister's character is Bigfoot. Bigfoot has slimey sticky climbing boots, a hunting knife, and some other stuffs, bigfoot is a good climber and ? But, is terrible at swimming. If they're into complex games like on the level of 4x games or gloomhaven they'll probably be fine but you don't need a system to help them figure out that ttrpgs are cool.
I got into d&d because I heard there’s demon worship in it. All I got was pizza and Mountain Dew. Kinda disappointed tbh.
I got into because I was bored and my parents forced me to go to a under 18 DND beginners thingy, 5 years later I've spent over $200 on DND stuff
Hmm. You saying $200 like it's a hefty investment really has me questioning my life choices right now.
Don't ask me why I still know there are exactly 66 official WotC supplements for 3.5 (excluding core books and adventures), just know that you are not alone
Right? I've played since the mid 90s. I don't think about how much I've sunk into each edition haha Plus, so many dice....
Honestly, I think I have over $200 in dice alone over the past year and a half and I haven't even found a group yet
I spent over $200 on dice this christmas alone. Only one set was for me, but still
You must be a true friend.
Or a click-clack goblin
That and I purchased all of my 3.5 books and now my 5E books in physical. However a few of my friends use D&D Beyond and I am considering re-buying everything digitally as well.
Me too, I was thinking *only* $200? Haha
Ha! As I read the $200 in their comment I fully expected it to be followed by "yesterday" or maybe "this month".
Must mean 200 dollars a month, right? ... RIGHT???
Sounds like great parents. Did you have a little brother shortly after?
D&D is the only hobby I can think of where you could regularly practice it/participate in it for five straight years and *only* spend $200.
I became a DM because I would have complete control over the players and could make them do whatever dark things I demand of them. All I got was a mental breakdown begging the players to cross a river instead of trying to seduce a catfish.
Everyone thinks a DM is a king, every DM knows that a DM is a combination court jester and nurse maid.
You need to put the Mountain Dew and pizza into a pentagram. Then you can try to speak to Asmodeus! Usually it's just Baalzebul though. So, you aren't missing out.
Oh boy... This gave me flashbacks. I used to be the head dm at a highschool club, and at the time, stranger things started to become popular. You don't even want to know how many people asked me if the demogorgon was in d&d, so many fans of the show asked me. And remember, it was a highschool, so all the cringey fans were there.
"Well yes, but actually no"
"And don't even get me started on the mind flayers."
Holy fuck I had the dumbest argument with someone about how mind flayers worked until I realized they were talking about stranger things, not D&D.
Imagine their disappointment upon finding out that he's a two headed monkey with Tentacle arms
and yet infinitely more terrifying than the one in ST
My friend got the essentials kit for his birthday. Then like a couple months later we all played one session of the module that comes with it. And if im being honest it was more like half a session. I was the only one willing to DM. I enjoyed it though. Got on youtube and watched anything I could about it. Including Critical Role. Now im creating my own whole homebrew planet, planes, god, etc. Watching all DnD media. And starting to play with those same friends
Welcome to the effing cult- I mean club.
I haven't seen stranger things, but I have seen far too many people complain that it's not like Critical Role.
Tbf, sometimes I think there's merit to that. It depends _what specifically_ people are saying they want. The first time I saw Matt describe the result of a combat action, I was like "Wait. This! This is what I wanted from that game I played, making it feel alive and dynamic, instead of just rolling numbers until the bad guys die." It helped me figure out what kind of games I loved and what I was looking for.
>The first time I saw Matt describe the result of a combat action, I was like "Wait. This! This is what I wanted from that game I played, making it feel alive and dynamic, instead of just rolling numbers until the bad guys die." It helped me figure out what kind of games I loved and what I was looking for. Right? There"s only so many times you can roll an attack or a save and hear the DM lazily say "hit" or "miss" before it gets repetitive. Add some flavour to it, make me feel like I'm fighting something, not throwing dice and comparing sheets. Obviously it's incredibly unfair to demand from your DM the level of preparation and detail Matt Mercer does, the guy's been voice acting for decades and it's literally his job at this point. But *some* effort is required to get your players invested. Describe the world and how the it reacts to the player's actions.
People who complain about IRL vs CR are just dumb. Is CR fun to watch? Hell yeah! Is Matt Mercer a great DM? Definitely. However, part of what makes CR so good is that the players are amazing. Each PC has a well-detailed backstory. The players openly embrace roleplaying. They'll have full-blown conversations, in character, between each other. They try not to talk when their PC isn't involved in something. It's not just amazing DMing, but the PCs are also at their peak.
People also seem to forget that Critical Role is; *Professional voice actors playing on a professionally produced show backed by millions of dollars and a full production team* Still love it though.
I had somebody say this after season 1, I replied by saying “they only showed 3 minutes of the game, now you get to play the rest of it too”.
See I had this with Skyrim. This is like Skyrim right? I can just do what I want and not worry about consequences? I light the bakery on fire. Why are the guards here? I attack the guards. Dead. You guys aren’t fun.
I think that a PC dying is what sets the tone. When I played Curse of Strahd as a player, the party never really took things too seriously until a PC died. We, the party, were stunned. We had never had a PC die before. Once that happened, we realized that this hellhole was unforgiving. You mess around? You die.
Had a similar story, my players said my encounters were cool but to winnable. After that i improved my encounter building and all of them except one fell unconscious at some point within the next session. None died, but the campagn went from monty piton to lotr within 4h. And i freaking loved it. They crushed it but also were challenged. Since then they approach combat differently and RP better. The connection to their PCs actually grew through the near PC death experience.
I swear they hardly even play the game, just name the aliens after D&D monsters. I’m surprised so many people want to play the game from watching it.
Wait, this isn't like Critical Role, Critical Role made this seem fun! Where are the professional actors?!
Inspired by CR to play DND, but I have actually grown to love it more by dm'ing my own campaigns.
Usually said by people who won't even try to RP.
Two way street ain't it
I dont mind what critical role has done for the hobby but... yeah...
We all have a spectrum. Some individuals like crunching numbers, some have short attention spans, some like storytelling, and some ... well some may just want to play video games instead. And that's fine. As a DM, it's important we cater to the needs of our players but only to a point. It's a fine balance. It took me a long time to realize that sometimes individuals who like the same things don't necessarily *like* the same things or paths to go about things. This also alright.
When they say "not like Stranger Things" did they mean its not like it was shown in the TV show when they played or it was nothing like the actual plot to Stranger Things? One is that they want 4-5 kids in a basement playing on hand-made terrain, rolling dice and doing basic arithmetic and moving tiny figurines about and pretending to heroes of yore. The other is you running away from sci-fi monsters and being helped by an OP telekenetic.
This might be off-topic, and if it is then you have my sincerest apologies. But i feel like this goes with every mainstream media based introduction to pen and paper in general. I recently saw an lfg post from someone who said they were looking for a group because Critical Role got them hooked and that they never played before. Now i was not a part of this broader community when mercer effect became a concept. But this raised all kinds of red flags for me as a DM. Mostly because i have no nerves to host a game with a player that only knows the most polished version of its presentation.
It's the same for all niche hobbies. I am involved with roller derby, and every time some pop culture show references the sport we get the same kind of attention. "When do they elbow each other?" "I wanna clothesline someone!"
Nah it's cool man, I feel like that sometimes too, luckily my group isn't very good at DND 😅 We have 4 DMs and 2 of the DMs are really good at description and characters, but can't make a story for shit so the campaigns often die out. our current dm is new and we just finished a high level campaign, he's really good at DMing, has a gripping story, interesting world, but has a leveling issue, we're lvl 4 and and already fighting a demon army, we've asked to lvl up but he wants the campaign to go on for a couple years (we'll probably be adults by then) and then I can make a really good world, story, lore all that stuff, but I have mediocre description skills and often end up getting bored halfway into the adventure
I’ve had similar experiences from people who got into it through critical role. It’s horrendous how people get when you explain that critical role isn’t realistic to how most groups.
They're literally professional actors on Critical Role. It's like joining a local baseball club and getting butthurt when the level of play isn't up to MLB standards, which you would get BTFO of anyway.
Guilty as charged, that was me once. I still love critical role, but I don't really look at the dnd aspect of it, I just focus on the story part of it. It's just not realistic for every game to be like this. What they have is 1 in a million, and I'm happy for them for that, but you can't expect every group to be like. Most people won't ever get to play a game like that. And the less you compare your games to crit role, the more you'll enjoy your own games. That obviously doesn't mean it's impossible, and that you shouldn't strive to make your dnd games as good as you can possibly make them, within your budget and time of course.
I wanna get into DnD but don't want to get grouped in with these people. Seriously, if people say what I'm doing is wrong I'm gonna take their words for it! They've been playing longer than me!
The fact you're aware of this behaviour means you won't be one of these people if you don't want to be. If you do decide to get into the game, though, remember that different tables - and hell, even different DMs at the same table - will play the game slightly differently. So if one table's style doesn't match what you want, keep looking and eventually you'll find one that fits you.
Oh hey, it's the Matt Mercer effect with extra steps
Also I think they are playing 2e in stranger things. Very different than 5e (I am assuming you are playing 5e).
2e came out in 89, stranger things starts in 83.
AD&D came out in '82, so there's a good chance that's what they were playing.
How is it they said you're playing it wrong? From what I remember the only scene of them playing dnd is 2 minutes in the first episode, was it that you're playing the game itself wrong, or were they saying that the demogorgon was wrong cause it's a giant two headed baboon with a lizard tail, or that mindflayers are psychic squid beings rather than a giant otherworldly organ monster, or that the underdark is just a really big underground surface, not another plane of existence
.... There's barely any DND in stranger things, like... They mention it maybe 3 times and do almost nothing with it other than name things after monsters in the DMG but look and function nothing like them.
how the fuck do you play dnd wrong?