I'm Ginny Di: Singer, RU-vidr, cosplayer, tabletop gaming nerd! On this channel, you'll find advice for tabletop players and game masters, character-building tools for creatives, music videos, and more.
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@GinnyDi, would you make a "How players can help new DMs fall in love with D&D"? Because some of the experienced players can be rather intimidating to brand new DM's, especially the 'rules lawyer' type of players who love to object to every decision that the new DM might put into play.
I'd like to add to this: make sure your character suits the rest of the table. In other words, if you want to be funny, make sure other players will find it funny. Kenku are notorious for being annoying, but for shits and grins I decided to play a Kenku bard named Sickriff as his "name" was a guitar riff. Since I'm fluent in Movie Quotes, I was able to be mostly coherent and add to character interactions (especially since my party mostly shares my sense of humour). Sure, some of his lines were anachronistic (such as demanding an NPC identity themselves with "new phone, who dis?") but my GM found it funny enough to let it slide.
Mine lived a full life then got lost in the feywild and due to some magic shenanigans lost his memories and became a 6 year old who got adopted by a paladin order after a fey creature just like dropped him there. Now hes 21, wants to figure out where he came from. He's also a white dragonborn, an absolute himbo and loves pickles. AND he got a pseudo dragon as a pet after recusing it. (He accidentally blew up the room it was in and jumped out of a window to save it. Absolutely ate shit and faceplanted against the wall)
I also like collaboration for building the party. As a GM, trying to tie together several unrelated motivationa and backstories is annoying. Especially for a group of long time friends who know each other well, saying they are strangers is nearly impossible for them to role play. Group write the team into the world.
My DM's explanation is that they probably have a house rule that turning into a CR 0 creature doesn't use whild shape. I mean, we have quite a few crazy house rules too, and it works for us, why wouldn't other people do something like that?
Great points and this is exactly why I think paid DMs play a really important role in the community! Its the best way to guarantee the DM and the group are on the same page when your local player pool isn't fitting the bill.
I love creating weird items for PCs to find creative ways to use: a decanter of endless ale or a sword that screams whenever it is unsheathed can provide benefits but they aren't just flat bonuses and they also have drawbacks
Hi Ginny! it was one of your videos that convinced me to try DMing a few years back, and this video reminded me that I am doing okay and it's okay to have the needs I have in order to run a good game. All these points are fantastic! I'll be sharing this video with my group. On that last point where these tips can be used for any DM: I have found that accommodations for one actually benefit ALL. It really is magic, haha! At work, if I request visuals during a meeting so I can see a slide deck of whatever is being discussed, others will now have that resource too. At the table, if I need a break because I am feeling overwhelmed, others can now take a break to process stuff too. I try to frame accommodation requests as, 'these are the tools I need to be the best version of myself at this task/place/role."
Are you stalking my life? I litterally thinking about theses problems while the video was published! XD (took me a while to find a moment to watch it peacefully) Though, I can't help both wonder...asking what they want won't spoil some of the discovering for the players?
Having your players help choose what they're doing and how the game is going to unfold is a great idea. Unless 3/4 of your players lie to you and say they want to do something when they actually don't. Then everyone is doing something they don't want to do and everything falls apart within a month.
I have had the exact sort of problem described by this Redditor. I planned sessions, NPCs, story arcs, gear, etc., only to have my players literally 'nope' out and run off to do their own thing. When I was personally confronted with this situation, I reminded myself that this exact situation is likely WHY my players were playing D&D. Because D&D gives players agency unparalleled in other games. I found I just had to embrace it. D&D is a collaborative story and if your players are collectively interested in pursuing something, let them do it. My players abandoned all the NPCs, towns and hand-drawn maps I'd made at the start of their adventure to blaze their own path. We ended up having a great campaign. The stories, NPCs, maps and events weren't at all what I'd initially outlined, but it was still a great time. If I were to make any comments here, it'd be that 1) If the players make the choice to blaze their own path, it's better to let them do that, as opposed to forcing them into your content. The second you force them into your story, you've taken away their agency and that's not great. 2) Improvisation is a skill NECESSARY for DM'ing. You cannot plan an adventure all in advance. Players will do player-things. Just because they didn't get invested in the story you wanted to tell doesn't mean they aren't invested in YOUR game. If the players are showing up to sessions, eager to play, you're doing a good job of DM'ing, regardless if the story was you initial vision or not.
I think its important that DMs remember they’re not writing a book for your players to read. I think including the players in the world building is such a great tip for this!
Discussions like this have me continually referring to the question: what kind of fun do you and other players like? There's an idea in game design that came out many years ago, where they found 8 types of fun that people engage with, and then I read another great article by a D&D advice columnist (angry GM, Google it) that broke it down for TTRPG's. This is a useful framework for figuring out what your players like, and what they'll engage with. 1. Sensory pleasure - the knicknacks. Mood lighting, moving detailed minis around a map, great artwork in a source book, etc. 2. Fantasy - the pleasure of losing yourself in an imaginary world. Escapism, and immersion 3. Narrative - the fun of telling/experiencing a good story. There's structure in the way we tell stories, and some people have so much more fun when they can follow that framework. 4. Challenge: The players who want to be tested by difficult encounters, and win. You can't fudge rolls with these players, no matter how good of a story it could be, or they'll feel cheated. 5. Fellowship - The fun of teamwork, cooperation, and social interaction 6. Discovery - Exploring things is very fun for them. Putting treasure, lore, puzzles and traps in random places they can find is great, but it also has to be missable, or they'll feel cheated. 7. Expression - in some ways, it opposes discovery, but the fun of creating things that are unique to yourself, and character, and world. Asking players to help design their corner of the world, it can be incredibly fun to some, but can Rob discovery seekers of their fun. 8. Subjugation/Abnegation - That lazy hangout vibe where you're having fun by NOT putting in much effort. The people who like to just sit back and watch, without having to make lots of decisions. They like grinding levels in an MMO, mining tons of minerals in Minecraft, etc. So, those are the 8 types of fun, and everyone probably has their own tier list of which ones they prioritize. Most of us gravitate to 2-4 of these types of fun more than the rest.
I have an NPC in a game I’m running which is a kind of urban fantasy 1920s mafia type game, the NPC is that 12 year old daughter of there gangs bartender whose more intelligent then all of them put together k ones almost every language and can solve any math problem, but can’t read social cues at all.
Do Monks or Lovecraftian horrors belong in D&D? No, not if D&D is high Medieval fantasy. The reality of the fanbase however is that D&D has expanded its lore and themes so much that it's just unrecognizable fantasy schlock.
I need furthur advice on how to bring up such things in a campaign that's almost at 5 years full remote campaign- activity is incredibly sluggish - we use roll 20 but we cant keep people invested during game time.
Here's what I do: Have the players give me their character backstories, then write the world around them. This way, I have a way to give everybody personal stakes, and make sure their backstories fit.
I'm doing some homebrew, and I'm coming up with some really nasty tricks the BBEG can pull off. One of these would be enemies with player abilities. It's all fun and games until the beholder gets Silvery Barbs.
I DM because I have a lot of story ideas that might become interesting books, but am too undisciplined to turn them into a proper narrative. It's easier to place people with a goal in an interesting premise, and find out with them how they resolve the conflict in that premise. I am also a control freak who has trouble talking to people outside of structured contexts like a game but enjoys being the center of attention.
I'm homebrewing a dnd campaign, and I've made some adjustments to monster statblocks. That includes making the lich BBEG act like a lv 20 school of necromancy wizard, complete with spells you'd expect a wizard to bring. And his right-hand woman is a death knight who acts like a lv 20 oathbreaker paladin, with all that entails.
One of the first things I think about when creating characters is that catalyst. If I have no other backstory but a few sentences about *why* they adventure I know I have something to work with rp wise. I've also unintentionally created my own catalyst trope, and didn't even realize I was doing it until a friend pointed out that my last 4 characters all had similar issues. I call it the Missing Spouse. One character ending up in Barovia and doing all she could to get home to her husband, one character's wife left for reasons [that I never quite figured out] and he was searching the world to find her, another character was on a quest to find a new home for her tribe and ultimately settle into a peaceful life with her wife. My catalyst was always I want my spouse back. When I create a new character now, my friends ask me what's up with my spouse this time XD
I usually add a puzzle or a code that my player has to decypher so I can take a breath in my duet game. Sometimes it's a simple substitution cypher with a few symbols that are already known... another time I handed him a parchment and lit a candle. And then when he figured out to hold the Paper above the candle a message in lemon juice appeared! I'm Lucky that my player really enjoys these puzzles!
If I'm gonna do travel in a game, I make that a dedicated part of the game, personally. I either completely skip the travel, or the travel is a dedicated section of the game for RP opportunities and for encounters that play some role in the overall story I'm telling. Maybe they do run into bandits, but they're bandits that are horribly armed and clearly inexperienced at combat. The group does what they do, whatever. But then they get to the village and it turns out that the bandits were forcibly sent out to loot travelers from the roaming gang that's taken over the town.
I dmed for the first time a few weeks ago, and two people dropped. Both were first time players, one of whom is a friend who was helping me by being a player. I tried not to let it get to me, but damn did I seriously wonder if I should even try again 😅
i love what they did with tasha in 5e having her become less evil but still same character just sher maturing now mentalky and overcoming her past flaws is just fun writing for real old characters
I can't imagine how people do all this heavy lifting. When i dm, it's always half random and strongly improvised. I use some choke points, that are unavoidable and more fleshed out, but for the most part, I'm just rolling with what players do, react to their shenanigans and throw in some plot hooks to advance the story
My character's backstory was basically a dwarf from a long lineage of battle wizards who is going to travel the world in search of arcana and to gain experience so he can be the next war mage. Now i am trying to save a long lost wizard trapped in the astral sea to get his help to destroy aberrations. I love how i could easily acquire a more solid goal through sessions despite my low effort backstory. Now i wanna flesh it out even more, and i wonder how things will play out! It is a campaign with a high character death chance though so i am also on edge lol
I had an NPC "bard" (homebrew class I called orator, ditching most of the more overt magic for a couple of fighter skills) who exclusively used conversation. He was a lawyer by training, and his bardic inspiration was all well-articulated heart felt compliments to the party
