My tips for all players: Don't forget to roleplay, it is in the game's name. But how to? Say what you character is doing and where he is. Be it in first person or third. Don't ask question in a "metagaming" way, roleplay your character asking a question to another character IN game, the DM "doesnt" exist, only the characters he controls. Don't ask the DM if your character can do this or do that, just say what the character will do. Leave the "metagaming" talk to after the session has ended. Play a "session zero" to get the hang of the system and roleplaying, and also getting familiar and setting the "social contract" of the game, certain things might happen in game that you don't like.
As another prominent misconception, seeing as a lot of people start playing after watching CR or other experienced tables' streams, I feel like new players should also not worry about roleplaying every single aspect of the character, from the voice to showing the character's deep emotions etc. It's not required to have fun, and if a player can do it and feels like doing it it's ok, if not it's not a problem
Great stuff! One thing I might add is: don't talk about politics/social issues/religion. Nothing bring a chill to the room than when that kind of stuff comes up.
Uh, not really. I play with people who aren’t asshats and so when we talk about politics and make fun of homophobes it’s fine, we’re all friends anyway, we would talk about social issues outside of the game as well, but we are all hanging out around the dinner table anyways
Well said. Especially if you're not super familiar with everyone's views. On the other hand, I was in a group summer of 2020 of people I've known for 20 years, and while interrogating a dragon cultist someone conspicuously said, "I put my knee on his neck", DM responds , "well he's dead, you killed him and learn nothing". Entire group was in stitches.
In my group, we hate PC garbage. We are retired police officers and military personnel. We still love America, the 1980’s, and the old world. Part of the fun is the s**t talking that takes place lol…. God Bless
Excellent video, thanks Nate! Yeah, the kindness thing is definitely the main one. Also, bringing snacks for the DM so that your character doesn't die. Definitely. It's probably even in the DM's Guide somewhere.....
Hey Nate! Just wanted to say how much you have inspired me as a DM and player to create a amazing campaign for my players and how you improved my confidence in being a DM. I started playing DnD 2 years ago when I was 11 with my friends from school and your videos showed the way to go. I have watched every one of your videos twice and I am a big fan! Keep the level 20 content up! -Hugo
First comment! Thank you for your videos! I just wrote one of my first homebrew campaigns and your Dungeon Master series and Rules & Abilities series was a fantastic help. Keep doing what you do!
What I do is teach new players the rules but then I give them homework by taking the book home and reading about the class they chose etc. This then shows the willingness to learn and not expecting the DM to remember everything.
Recently started playing for the first time with a group. Few sessions deep. The funny thing is I wish a friend I played with a while back would have watched this exact video. My bard took the speak with animals spell. I tried to "share the spotlight" and see if my friend wanted to do some RP as his mount, a pig his gnome character rides. He was NOT kind, and actually snapped at me cause "we haven't even started playing" aka we were in the same place we started the session at and hadn't left to go fight monsters. Sadly, all the other players and the DM did not say anything and just tried to wait out and ignore the awkward rude aggressive attitude. Had to say something after session about how I don't want to play if he snaps at me like that again. The DM proceeds to tell me I'm wrong for giving an "ultimatum" to him. This has not been a great introduction into this game for me. Glad you made this video, maybe this can help others to not have a session like the crap one I had.
With out watching the videos. what i find also works is Hand Holding for X Amount of session until the said New Player is able to get the hang of it. The second thing is try not to make D&D or any other table top RPG feel Over Whelming.
Thoughts on Owlbear Rodeo switching from their: free and simple to use, with a lot of storage model. To their new 2.0 model: pay to use (free version is ONLY 200MB storage) and they made the entire thing more complex to use. I personally used Owlbear Rodeo because it was NOT like roll20. Now it basically is... And you have to pay..... If it aint broken dont fix it... But they did...
I DMed for a group of new players that ended up playing for a year every week. The rogue in the party just never learned his abilities whatsoever. I think he used his sneak attack like maybe 3 times ever (despite that being the core ability of rogues). Regardless of this, he was a driving force of the party and a lot of the things that happened in the campaign were because of his ideas and input.
Related to the point of always getting the DM's favorite soda - If it's your responsibility to order the pizza make sure that you consult the rest of the group FIRST! If you order pineapple pizza without telling anyone then you're failed as a human and deserve whatever horrible fate that befalls you. I'm not saying pineapple on pizza is bad, just that it's one of those things that everyone needs to be on the same page about. This should honestly be decided in Session 0.
This is a quick reminder that not everyone wants to be in the spotlight and if you, the new player is one of them, mention it to the group so they know, it will get real awkward otherwise :P
I've done tons of research and reading and feel like I'll be a great help to my friend as it'll be his first time DM'ing. Thing I'm most nervous about is being 'fun' and the role playing. I don't have a super active imagination and can be rather boring and rigid in real life. Also I'm building my cleric so that I'm not shining at all. I'm all about being there in the background helping everyone else shine. Keeping them alive and buffed so that they can do their awesome things.
Thank you for this, I'm going to my first session of my colleges D&D club today and I'm quite nervous. I've played D&D before two or three times, and learnt that my biggest problem is joining in. I often stay quiet and hang back, which I'm trying to do less. I'm bringing with me some spare dice, a notebook and some pens so I think I'm all set. Hopefully the DM will take it slow at the beginning for my sake 😅
The players that don't come prepared get under my skin. I spend so much time preparing for each game, and I don't think it's unfair to ask them to at least review their notes and character sheets before each game. I like to bring new players into the community, but if you haven't started being a bit more proactive after 5 or 6 sessions, that's not exactly cool. And, yes, always get the DM's favourite. Your DM (should have) put a lot into getting the game going, including the bulk of the financial cost. This is actually also a very handy video for DMs. Not just to vent about regrettable player behaviour, but for how to anticipate and proactively prepare for such, by addressing it with your players in a session 0, or beforehand.
I don't mind if you don't know all the rules but if we're playing weekly and you're always a rogue please at least know what cunning action does and preferably know that your 8 con and 23 hitpoints with no armour on is not going to survive melee so please just disengage and walk 15ft back so you're letting the tanky fighter/Barbarian tank instead and please for goodness sake stop trying to bite things instead of using your weapons (seriously at that point you're better off playing a goddamn monk and just bump your con because then you can actually use biting and no armour without quite as many issues and not using ki points wouldn't even be a bad thing considering you're not using cunning action, sneak attack or uncanny dodge anyway) sincerely, the party's jaded healer/spellcaster who does remind the nearly dead rogue that they have cunning action and has created an "I'll only heal you once for stupidity, if you do it again you can roll death saves (and maybe I'll heal/stabilise you if you get to 2 failures if I'm feeling nice and have any spells/potions to spare and/or I feel comfortable getting close enough to do so. I will however heal the person who's actually supposed to be in melee when they do down multiple times because their job is to take hits, I will also heal if it wasn't a situation that was easily preventable by simply using the core class feature you got at second level that I just reminded you of.)" rule (can you tell I'm more than a little bitter that this has happened over 3 times with the same guy in the span of 10 sessions which were not even the players first ten sessions and he'd been playing the same rogue since he started which was probably 20+ hours at the time, I'm usually the only one with healing capabilities and usually no one else even takes healing potions, so I end up having to deal with the consequences of everything, I've also yet to go down on any character over level 1 (and that was only because a party member shot my character with a gun) because I understand that it's the smart choice to keep a character with lower Con/AC and/or if they only have a d8 or d6 hit die away from the permanent frontline unless absolutely necessary because classes like monk and rogue are literally intended to be hit and run type characters, not frontlines)
Thos was an interesting and opening vid. The only exposure ive had to d&d is throughthe game life is strange, ive been intrigued init because of the game. Recently found there was a store nearish to me and been wanting to try it however my anxiety of meeting new people especially when ive never played a d&d before overwhelms me, im sure ill find it looking through your channel but how do you even go about starting d&d and such.
i watched a bunch of your videos way back in highschool, when i first played d&d. but havnt really played at all until recently. its nice to see you're still making videos like 6 years later.
my friend suggested this to me but idk if its good can someone tell me if this is an alright build Name: Ryujin Shadowthorn Race: Fallen Aasimar Class: Oathbreaker Paladin (I made the name Myself the rest of it my friend did)
Ha! Yeah, I was talking more about YOU than your character, but sometimes it can be good to check in w the group about your character too. Just to make sure that’s fun for others too. Definitely sounds like it could be. :)
