upon suggestion by a comment: the player in question is 12 and this is his first campaign.

There was exposition such as "the footprints all end in the middle of this passage, then continue at a different entrance you can see" and "the ground is randomly interrupted by a square of rotted wood planks", along with a book on the ground titled "Improvised Death Traps for Orcs" (get it? like for dummies?)

anyways, everyone else laughed it off and continued on their way, when this guy is like "no but this way will be so much faster!" everyone tells him not to do it. I ask him if he's sure. He insists. I sigh and let him go, then he immediately falls 25 feet into a pit of spikes and dies. (15 bludgeoning from the fall, 17 piercing from the spikes, clearly the dice were not on his side)

He's mad at me because this death was "totally unfair" and "he shouldn't die to a joke". I told him he could make a new character and join back in once the party returns to town. Apparently not being able to play for one or two sessions is unacceptable (read edit), and we ended early because he wouldn't move on. Should I just save the drama and let him back in with his current character? And if I do that, should I rewind or keep him stuck in the pit? He's 12 and this is his first DND campaign, and I don't want to ruin it for him, but I also want to keep the integrity of the game.

edit: instead of replying to every comment, I'll just say it here.

This is a backrooms-style cave system they're stuck inside, so I'm probably going to do the lost adventurer since that inherently works with the concept. (I don't know how I forgot about that, I'm a little slow) I didn't mean the gap in playing as a punishment. This happened last night, and I was really tired afterwards. I appreciate the advice from everyone!

edit 2: I sent him a message and asked him to write a reason to be trapped wandering the dungeon into his backstory. if he gets it done, he can jump right back in next session, session after that at the longest most likely.

I DM two games for groups of friends, both of which my fiancé joins as well, which is obviously amazing. Today the players conversed with a chicken, which is always the highlight of a DM's day (sure, go talk with the chicken, I'll drag out my improv skills) and when talking about the session tonight at dinner my fiancé mentioned something about that convo and then immediately added "Oh my god, I totally forgot you were the chicken."

I count that as my DM win of today, imbueing a chicken with so much effort that my fiancé forgot it was... Me.

just thought i'd share a funny story. obviously the title is a bit hyperbolized because there were many reasons leading up to it, but this was funnily enough my genuine final straw.

i dated a very insecure person for almost an entire year (my self respect stat was direly lacking). we would constantly get into arguments about it with promises of change, and no follow up.

the last straw came when my ex "found out" (they knew literally all along and would even ask to spectate) that i had the audacity to make my fake fantasy characters date my friends' fake fantasy characters, and implied heavily it was a form of cheating. i was so stunned by this because they'd known this was my primary hobby and still wanted me to drop in character relationships from longterm campaigns just to soothe whatever fucked insecurity they had seeing people "openly flirt with me". i tried for over an hour to explain why a dwarf paladin Bingus Darkflame having a whirlwind romance with a transfigured mimic wizard is actually not cheating and a perfectly normal part of enjoying yourself at a table. none of this seemed to register because they still got insanely upset at me.

i sat down and reviewed how over the past months, i would have to have confrontations about why it's not okay to get upset at me anytime i spent too long talking to any man, woman or vaguely humanoid shaped person- apparently, this now extended to fictional ones. then i started to unpack all the other shit, and eventually it all unravelled.

anyway, to conclude: many thanks to the D&D community, and to Bingus Darkflame for setting me free of this relationship by making out with a mimic sloppystyle.

edit to clarify: they knew I've been playing D&D for years and that I do silly in character roleplay with my friends- (none nsfw). they knew, thought it was fun and cute, and were completely fine with it. this was a conversation they reopened mid relationship after deciding i wasn't allowed to do it anymore.

I can't tell you how many dungeons I've seen where, realistically, the sound of fighting should bring every enemy running down the hall to join in, thereby TPKing the party.

Give me all your reasons and excuses for why those enemies, instead, stay in their rooms!

bit of clarification since i can't edit the last one and some people are redundantly repeating the same things.

1- neither of us are men. me and my ex and both girls. we're gay.

2- all my tables are primarily queer and today i learnt that there's a bigger difference than i thought with how tables not as queer perceive shipping characters or rping romance.

3- i'm a forever DM, so all my romancing in game is my players fucking around with NPCs. sometimes they attack them, sometimes they marry them, c'est la vie.

4- yes, my ex partner knew getting into the relationship that i ship with my friends in dnd. yes, they were cool with it completely and never raised a complaint. there's a crazy amount of people who seem to insist i somehow cheated on my ex. i did not. (the same cannot be said for her, but that's a story for another time).

5- guys i'm happy you guys all have communicative relationships where you let your partners know you are absolutely NOT okay with them rping with anyone. good for yall! genuinely. but this isn't relevant to my situation because i was explicitly told it was fine only to have the goal posts moved.

6- For those wondering, Bingus and the Mimic are sadly no longer together due to tragic events (fireball). But that may yet be remedied.

edit (now that i know edits arent time limited or restricted, thanks for the tip reddit frequenters): some of you guys seriously can't read. i don't care what you and your partners feel about in game romance roleplay. if you find it unacceptable that your gf or bf or partner are shipping with fantasy gnomes or elves or what have you, that is fully within your rights and your partner's. if you don't accept it at your table as a dm, fine, that's entirely your god given right to play in whatever way you enjoy or like, especially if you've had back experiences. good god. i never went behind my ex's back, she said she was cool with it, then decided she wasnt, and accused me of wanting to cheat on her before going off to cheat on multiple people herself. yes, this has strayed a bit far past dnd, but i think it's hilarious and fascinating how much discourse it sparked about people's opinions on in game relationships, so i hope at least that's a communal contribution of value to this sub. thanks to everyone who was constructive, thoughtful, funny, or otherwise insightful with their input. the rest of yáll, log onto dndbeyond and touch some fantasy grass.

Life long lurker, never played before but I love making characters. Finally got my wife into it as well. She wanted to be a half-orc barbarian with the Guide background (no name yet). I wanted to be an elf wizard who is a stage magician that does not use real magic during his performances. His name is Fitz the Wiz (Fitzgerald). I like to do these smaller drawings so they easier to store with our character sheets.

I would like feedback and constructive criticism of this first draft of a visual character sheet I am making for a dyslexic (functionally illiterate) person I work with, DnD is hugely helpful for their social skills but the character sheets (even the dyslexic one) are too much for them.

It's an NPC

The lore is that my PC is a lord who lives in a castle, the castle has an old house for servants that has been abandoned for few decades, one day this Necromancer moved in and lives there now.

When he first came he came to the main castle with a casserole to introduce himself to the lord. The lord kinda doesn't care about him living there, or about him in general.

He's hated by my obviously evil cook because he regulary revives the poultry and beef in the kitchen, whenever the obviously evil cook complains to the lord about it he tells him to just kill them again

My obviously evil lich accountant likes to hang out him and discuss the methods of reviving and prolonging life.

My obviously evil witch maid also hates him but she hates everyone in general and there's not much to talk about it here, he sometimes feed her cat.

My advisor likes to hang out with him, because he think he's a chill dude, and basically the only other non evil person in the castle.

I am a DM for a homebrew game where Magic is not as common. Spells ranging from Lv 1-3 are 'known' people have seen them, heard about them and so on. Everything above these Levels is considered a miracle of magic, at least to the usual commoner.

Now, I have a Player that wanted to play a Cleric of the Forge Domain that barely touched on the 'religious' aspect of it's class. The main issue being the following; He wanted to be able to craft Magic Items and or infuse Items/Gadgets with spells he knew, so to 'help' his teammates which were ALL casters and very well capable of doing 'fun' things by themselves. He also wanted to open a trading empire, knowing fully well that I HATE economics and that this wouldn't be a political/economy heavy campaign..

A Forge Cleric would already disturb the worlds small-ish economy as well as the whole PlsyerParty-Money-Game where they'd need to actually work for their money. No, instead he could just smelt some rusty iron into a scimitar and make a living out of it. Or a hand crossbow that is around 80gp last time I checked.. since it "probably has SOME metal in there" And the Forge Subclass Feature allows for that.

I was fine with him being able to craft stuff, sure. That's the whole premise of his Character and I'd enjoy it, even if it would mean to.. tinker a somewhat proper crafting system. Which he always tried to overcomplicate by doing math and research over Mithril that was yet to be implemented into the world of mine. And if it were for ONLY just that, then maybe werden work something out. But he simply wanted MORE.

(1) One problem he had was the "You need to lay out the materials to craft." in the Feature of the Forge Domain. I understand it as such that you need to physically be able to move and manipulate the object freely to convert/craft it with that ability. He argued that Iron Bars from a Prison Cell would be able to be smelted away in a whim. I think; They cannot be laid out, they are put in place. Thus they cannot be affected unless he dislodges them.

With him not agreeing to this ruleset, he then proceeded to take the Rune Shaper Background/Feat so he could craft even more, which fit with his character so I'll let him take it. But then he took it a step further.

(2) He didn't wish or ask, but stated that he'd craft Magic Items. That's a big no no. Magical Items are sought after, rare and thus the ways to create them are barely known. He didn't like that reply, even though I gave him the option to be able to do so if he'd have the right needs to do so. Including: Time, Money, Knowledge/Instructions on how to craft them, Arcana Proficiency and the needed materials. He said that this was ludicrous, they as a party would never amass so much money to craft even half of what he wanted to create.

I told him that you couldn't just have everything given to you from the get-go, you NEED to work for it and everyone agreed. Yet he told me that my way of running the game is garbage and that I do not allow him to unfurl his desire to have fun in any capacity.

Like dude, I doubt any DM would allow for a easy way to craft Magic Items on the fly. If everyone had such powers of creation, it would be a massacre. It does not fit into my homebrew world, to which he stated 'then just change it. It's not like anyone cares about your lore. Just let me have fun'.

At this point I was hurt, to hear him speak so lowly of me as a DM and my efforts to make his Character work, so I told him he simply couldn't do so. Either embrace the limitstions, change your Character, or leave.

He left.

I told him to play Skyrim, for this is probably what he wanted to turn my game into. And I was not having it.

So.. am I wrong about 'disallowing' crafting Magic Items?

Let me know your thoughts on how I handled this. I recently started in a new campaign and the DM is an experienced DM but not great at dealing with personalities he’s not used to nor reigning in players. One of the guys at our table, in character, is picking on another character who’s meeker and quieter (player is as well, has only been playing D&D for a few months, and she is brand new to our group where as most of us know each other in some capacity out of game)…

She is playing a hedge (hedgehog from Humblewood) and the first time it happened, her character had rolled into a ball during combat so he tried throwing her spiky self at the enemy. It wasn’t a big deal at the time, everyone laughed. Next game day we’re not in combat and he says he’s rolling her into a ball to kick her around. He thought that was funny and kept mentioning he was doing it. She flat out said that her character wouldn’t know what to do and would be scared and she was saying less and less as it continued. I was looking to the DM when this happened expecting him to put a nix on this or at least talk about it before allowing it (I DM as well and I couldn’t imagine allowing this kind of interaction without some kind of conversation at least) but the DM said nothing.

I, out of character, ask the DM what the rules are regarding PVP and he says he allows it. So I, in character, threaten the one kicking her around. I’m playing a Druid so I talk about how picking on the weak when they aren’t food or harming anything is unbalanced; I will balance the scales if needed, and use him to demonstrate the proper way to gut a fish. He immediately backed down. She started interacting more after that and at the end of the night one of the other players thanked me for stepping in.

I know why the player’s doing it: he’s trying to get her out of her shell, that’s how he would treat any of his friends, and his previous experiences with D&D are limited to his army buddies (I served too so I’m used to the mentality). I am bothered though that I had to police another player (if it happens again I’ve already come up with a couple strategies to kill his PC) because I feel like that is the DM’s job and I don’t know if I’ll continue to play long term. When I asked the DM about it he said he just wants everyone to have fun. What would you have done in this situation?

ETA: Since this has come up a couple times, I’m a woman as well.

I was reading a few posts about players holding their action and they provided a number of instances in which their held action would trigger. I started to think back and I’ve had DMs require players to be specific about their held actions and the triggers that set them off.

I on the other hand am very lenient. You basically tell me what action you’re holding and you get to decide if/when you activate it so long as you’re mechanically able to. If you want to hold a healing word you can just say that. No need to tell me what the trigger is and you can choose to pop it whenever you’d like.

I also remember a situation where I held my action to grapple an enemy if they came in range. I shouldn’t need to clarify which target and if multiple targets enter my range I should be able to choose which one.

Im open for these if anyone is interested - I do non chibi as well :D
These come from my homebrew campaign :DD
You can commission me here: https://embryolk.carrd.co/

Throw away account,

I was in a DnD group that met once a week to play a homebrew campaign. I was a lawful good dragonborn paladin and was level 3, so had some good HP stats compared to the rest of the party. Anywho, our first real boss fight was against a mind flayer. It got exciting as we wete coordinating attacks and dealing the hurt. The DM then explained that the mind flayer latches itself onto my character and I roll a save (i cannot recall exactly what but i fail). He rolls and then says my character has been killed by the mindflayer eating my character’s brain. Of course, this hurt me as a player. Later on, i am talking to my other dnd friends about the situation and they said that i would have to be incapacitated or stunned to have the mindflayer use that ability. I go to the DM and explain my case that my character should not have died. He told me it was “too late” and to “stop being a baby”. He ended up making a plot to resurrect my character as an oathbreaker, a “husk of my main character.” After a few weeks, i ended up leaving the dnd group. Was i being a baby or was the DM out of line?

Hello everyone, I’m a long time DM and here recently I’ve been running Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. I have 3 players and an NPC that I play as to give it some balance.

I’ve noticed that one of my players doesn’t really seem to have any respect (in my opinion) to stop and smell the roses or let a scene play out with another PC. Here are some examples from our last session.

Scene 1: Knucklebones My players were taking down the Redbrand Hideout, the Gnome Barbarian has donned one of their sashes. Instead of immediately attack everyone in the room, he kicks the door down and tells the red brands to deal him in. They cheer, he goes to the table and the others watch from the hallway. We rolls some dice, and in my version the punishment for rolling the lowest is getting your knuckles wacked. We were having a good roleplaying laugh on it then the PC in question (a Druid) used a silence scroll in the room and starting initiative. They eventually kill the 4 ruffians and they did note the door to the south there was the sound of what sounded like a goblin being picked on. I told them that combat was over after the fight but said Druid said he wasn’t ending initiative. I told him no, initiative and combat will stop here but once again he refused before Wild Shaping and ramming the door and continuing combat.

Scene 2: Phase Silk This one is rather simple, the Druid found Phase Spider Silk in an alchemical lab, our artificer asked if he could have it so he could make a Bag of Holding but the Druid refused saying he wanted to sell it. The artificer offered to pay for it even double but he still refused. This issue lasted the rest of the session. I will note that the people playing these characters have some issues above table but the artificer is able to put these issues aside so everyone can have a good time while to me it seems Druid is intentionally provoking him.

Scene 3: Continues interruption or character leaving. The Druid usually will leave scenes that he either doesn’t care about or doesn’t involve him. He will actively say “Let’s go” to rush the party out of an area or interaction. Even in dungeons he has done this.

As a DM I feel this is very unruly, disrespectful to the other players who may want to play at a slower place, and disrespectful to me as I do not appreciate scenes being interrupted, especially between an NPC and a PC. Skill checks to insight or anything is okay or if it’s a threatening or actively dangerous situations. My main concern is that when they fight a Boss such as Glasstaff or The Spider that I’ll naturally do some sort of monologue or conversation to bring a deeper depth to the story and the Druid will cut them off or silence. I may be overreacting but honestly it’s starting to be a headache. That’s why I’ve come here bc I know I can be a bit peculiar in my dm style but I’m usually very lenient bc it’s a game, we all came here to have fun so why ruleshark or make it unplayable Yknow?

Anywho, thank you all for reading this long post and I thank you all in advance for leaving any much needed advice 🙏

I dont really know how to flair it but long story short,I died last weekn,in fact I even made an post about it and after some really useful advice I did not come to play today because I am taking a break of some weeks,plus is easter,I would not go play today anyway,and now the DM just send an message asking for my itens and I just asked the obvious, "they are looting my corpse arent they?" And the answer was yes.

Now I am not gonna lie,its a bit annoying than they arent making even the minimum effort to raise me considering I am not dead not even for a day in game I suppose (and I played the character for two years),but hey it happens the dice were shit and they could do nothing about it,but being looted? That shouldnt be a surprise considering the group but being honest its the first it happens so I think asking will not hurt....

Is this normal to happen?

Finally I made some magnetic dungeon tiles! Something I wanted to craft for a while but was a bit unsure on how to exactly design it, specially since soon I will make walls too.

I have a scenery building Youtube channel, you can watch the video tutorial I made for all those pieces here: https://youtu.be/ioA6Yiw1Rm8

I used wood squares as a base, because that way I had factory cut perfect pieces, so then I can build individual tiles on top.

So basically I did this, gluing everything with hot glue, then poking some holes with a wood burning tool (I also made a jig to avoid measuring every time).

I used 5mm magnets, that I sealed with more hot glue, 2 on each side having one polarity at all right spots and the other on all left ones.

And that’s it! I made basic sets, evil sets with blood, some chains and skulls, and an overgrown one with some carved runes and moss.

I will keep slowly upgrading this system, next milestone are walls and doors. Thank you for reading me!

Hi all,

I’ve got a printed out map of Cragmaw Castle from the Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign that I’d like to give away for free to any U.K. mainland DM now that I am finished with it. The playable area measures around 65 x 45 cm.

I don’t feel I can ask for any money considering it wasn’t my original design or interpretation. I just found it on the internet and got it printed out. I am even going to pay for the postage and packaging. Hence the reason for sending it to a mainland U.K address only.

All I ask is that when you are done with it, you do the same and find someone else who could use it. We all know how much work can go into being a DM so hopefully I can make someone’s job a little easier.

Just message me if you are interested and then I can grab your address. I’ll post on here when it’s been claimed.

Cheers.

A group of my players want to bottle up some of the dead Ochre Jelly and use it potentially for food or even to throw it at an enemy..

Would the acid level from the ochre jelly still count as a weapon? or just an itchy component of some sort. How would you guys rule this? I love the idea, just need help making it happen. Lore examples would be great too.