Dungeons and Dragons Players by Tier 

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It took me an hour to design my face in skyrim. I then wore a closed faced helm for the next 300 hours, because roleplaying.

If you just show up to the sessions consistently you're god tier to me

Good tier: Never attacks the other players God tier: Actually tries to engage with the campaign at all

"Good players accept their death" Me, died 3 times in one campaign and created different characters each time: "Not sure I'd consider myself to be a good player."

Great players also mentor other players and accept constructive criticism from others.

Good players bring snacks

My Friend Group: Everyone brings food, is on time and schedules ahead of time, 6-8 hour sessions, Actively roleplays as their character Reading Comments: ooooh no

"Why would my character do that? He'd just take the gold and retire" "Fair enough, so what's your replacement character? One that would actually play D&D with us.

Me, a cultured power gamer: -Make a character concept/background -Find the most optimal way to play the concept -????? -Profit

My favorite experience in a campaign I played in was when I was playing as a meek human Druid who was afraid of individuals significantly larger than her. This was interesting when the party boarded a boat and one of the NPCs aboard the boat was a large half orc. She had just gotten her wild shape and upon seeing that she quickly *poofed* into a wolf. Now this wasn’t my favorite part. My favorite part was something another PC did. He turned looked at my character looked back at the half orc and said “you aren’t allergic to dogs right? Cause I don’t think she’s coming back any time soon” I died laughing the other players died laughing and the DM granted inspiration for one of the best lines all night

I will say a lot of times a player simply reflects back what a DM is putting out. So a combative, argumentative, or petty DM can provoke their players to behave in a similar fashion. Actually, you should do one of these for DM'ing.

Learning H OW to play

You should have mentioned that great players don't derail the fun. In other words if everyone starts laughing about something that's outside of the game they are the first people to say all right everybody come on let's get back to the game. Obviously everyone is there to play but they're also there to have a good time and make friends not feel like they are at school and constantly have to be told when to pay attention. At the same point I understand when some people say they want the game to continue but as a DM if the drinks are flowing and the laughs are rolling then why stop. When people leave they remember that they had a wonderful time at your session and they'll be back.

Gonna be honest... my entire group and I are a bunch of tier 0's >.

30 minute for a character, damn? Had my first session as DM my friends, for all of us it was the first round of DnD and it took about 5 hours to create characters XD

In my wife's first game as a DM My character (dwarf barbarian Thorbin) became super close friends with another player's character (wood elf druid Krunn). Thorbin and Krunn were famous in the party not only for their shenanigans, but for their team tactics in battle. Having done everything from stopping a cult that was sacrificing children, to almost starting a war proving Thorbin's uncle's innocence and in turn discovering a truth about the king's advisor making a powerful friend, they had been through a lot together. My wife needed to get the game back on track at one point and we needed a reason for the party to go after the Red Wizards of Thay and the cultists they were controlling. That next session we came with a plan. Thorbin in a bit of a drunken stupor revealed his greatest fear to Krunn, dieing outside of battle, for Thorbin worshipped Kord and knew he could be of use to his god if he died a glorious death in battle, but was not sure what would happen should he die of another cause. The next morning the party is meeting up for breakfast, everyone but Thorbin is there, Krunn has a box brought before him, marked with the sigil of the Red Wizards of Thay. When he opens the box, he sees Thorbin's head. Checking Thorbin's room it becomes clear that he was drugged and killed in his sleep. Krunn also finds a box with his name on it and a note. When reading the note he finds it was written by our cleric at Thorbin's request. Inside is a magical pair of gauntlets made of stone and hand carved my Thorbin with his family crest carved into them. An arcana check reveals it gives him one free shift to the form of a primal bear per long rest. "Happy birthday Krunn! Thorbin hope these give Krunn much honor in battle and keep Thorbin's favorite wood elf safe. Your friend Thorbin." After our paladin uttered a short prayer, the party set out on a war path bringing down the Red Wizards, the cultists, and even Tiamat. TL;DR: I agree, player death can be a powerful thing, and even a tool when used properly.

Hey XP to Level 3, where you at?

To me all I ask for in a group is people that can just role with the game, work as a team, come prepared, and pay attention. This is wait I try to do and so it's only fair that others do it.

I've played with only one Tier 0 player, but boy was he a handful. For starters, he was always arguing against things that didn't go his way. Every rule supposedly had a loophole, & since he had nearly maxed-out Dexterity & Wisdom, all actions were "Acrobatics" checks & all seemingly Charisma-based checks were apparently "Slight of Hand", "Perception" or "Survival" checks. Worst of all, he would never accompany the party on a quest, but as soon as we found treasure or were about to beat a villain worth a lot of XP, he would exclaim "And then I appeared out of the shadows, for I was following the party all along!" It didn't take long for the DM to start answering that with "No you don't; you are still at the Inn!"

I liked the video but I dont think a simple one tier for all aspects really fits what i means.You touched yourself on the different categories of being a good player, i.e. roleplaying, mechanics, and social dynamics. Someone can be exceptional at one, but disruptive at another. I'd love to see you visit each of these topics in turn, rather than lumping them all into one big melting pot.

I feel like this is too narrowly directed at tables looking to maximize immersive storytelling and roleplay. Which, don't get me wrong, is a thing lots of people like, but I'd disagree that it makes someone a universally good player. Not every table wants that kind of immersion or depth, some folks just want a reason to hang out with their friends, roll dice, kick some butt, and chat with people they might only see once a week, or fortnight, or month.

I used to DM way back in the 1980s with some college buddies and loved it. Now I am retired and I want to get back in. Your video is very helpful and I intend on watching more. I want to be extremely prepared for my first game I intend to DM very shortly. I love to entertain and have a lot of imagination, creativity, and improvisation to bring to the game. for the last 15 years I have done haunted houses in my neighborhood and just love to be creative for each room and walk people thru it with stores, etc. That's why I realized this is something in my blood. I have also invested a lot into 3-D tiles, battlemats, etc to add even more realism to the game. But, I know that does not make a good game. I am just working on trying to be the best DM I can be.

-1 tier "the strory is too grim" 6" edgy anime thing taunting the DM with game being too cinderalla"

Hot take: As long as you have a story, min-maxxing is just good roleplaying. I had a player whose backstory included being a captive and used manipulation and underhandedness to escape. The story describes exactly why their character had scores where they do. They had low strength and dexterity because they were never allowed a break or training, but that same storyline described why they had extremely high constitution. They had great wisdom and charisma as well, and this was absolutely min-maxxed for their character but they had a story behind it. They also clearly acknowledged their weaknesses and had an explanation for why their scores were so extremely different. Their flaw was that they over focus on augmenting magic, and don't care about physical stats nearly as much. "Why train hard to get stronger when you can use magic to do the same thing?" This was a great player, a great character, and everyone at the table loved them. The character was a warlock-cleric and was extremely powerful, but in their own way. Their healing abilities were off the charts, but other players still had a chance to do what they were good at. They didn't take over the story, rather focusing on being who they were and letting the others fill their roles. It was one of the most memorable stories I ever ran. The shock on everyone's faces when they realized what a warlock-life cleric with goodberry can do... priceless

Like a lot of people, I'm great in some of those areas and have work to do in others. From the start, as a player I was quick to learn rules/mechanics, and I excelled in terms of roleplay, acting, engagement, and character backstory. My DMs have given me a fair bit of praise in those particular areas, especially roleplay and acting. On the other hand, I could derail sessions or ruin plot hooks, as my commitment to roleplay led to a somewhat chaotic stupid "that's what my character would do" streak at times. Now that I've been DMing for a bit myself, I've seen the other side, and I like to think those lessons have improved me as a player. I haven't had a chance to play in anyone else's game since I started running my own, though, so for now that's just hypothetical.

I was a new player as a Rogue one year ago. Now I'm playing a Paladin because the DM wanted to start a new campaign in the middle of my first ever campaign. So now I'm learning spells and it makes me look like I'm a slow disruptive player because I'm taking extra time to figure out what I'm doing because spells are still very new to me.

I don't totally agree with the accent thing being place on the back burner until everything else is addressed first. I found that practicing an accent or particular voice helps to develop the character and give consistency to it. It also helps to mentally separate player from character. So it was better for me to use voice acting as a tool of progression. Still, great video. I learned a lot about myself, lol!

Myself I became my party's face even though I chose a bard to be a flexible caster and utility character. That character has a dream of being a planeswalker (by getting my hands on teleport spells as soon as he can) but I also have intentions to make him the party's revival member but instead of taking the normal revive spell I'm planning on (with magical secrets help) grabbing reincarnate to make things interesting for the revived party member. I've already simulated my bard up to level 20 to give me a goal of this is what I want my character to be and gives me a ladder to efficiently select when to grab the spells when available and when the best time to take the war caster feat would be. Would it suck to lose that character, yes but it gives me an opportunity to try something else if my party can't revive me. Our tables house rule is if your character dies and there's not a TPK your new character is the same level as the party. So it's not a total loss on the campaign, and gives the party a chance to pull up their bootstraps "find" a new member and soldier on.

Mt first DND session, I attempted to zone out when it wasn't my turn to allow for a more authentic experience about not knowing information I wasn't present for. But after two times of realizing the DM had to redescribe a location, I understood the importance of paying attention and pretending to be ignorant. Personally, I think I'm a pretty good player, considering our group, because I go above and beyond in character prep and development, makes characters who don't feel like main characters, and do my research for a setting (specifically for us, Forgotten Realms); though we've only run three oneshots.

As a dm myself I knew that that would benefit you into top tier. It's so fun to be able to guide new players into great players even if they aren't lore masters

Not sure if it says much about my skills as a player, but I retired my homebrew greed cleric because we were having issues finding a good balance for it and the party was VERY lacking in investigation / sleight of hand. I heard our DM reminicing one day day while he was drunk that he wants to add more traps, but our investigation and perceptions are so low that he'd kill us (almost did twice from boxes by session 5). My cleric won a bet on a race that essentially gave me more money than more than half the countries in the world (he rolled a 99 on the percentile die) and I used that in an attempt to bargain with my god for the chance of god-hood. So now, my first PC is the DMs and is doing some closed door diplomacy trying to open the world bank and I now have a 10 year-old Kobold Rogue. It worked out.

I can be a great player, great role-play, great character development, team-player, but I NEVER GET TO PLAY! I always DM :(

As a dm and player I agree with most of this actually. It's a good list to go by when looking at what you can personally improve on. Only point I disagree is using the critical role cast as highest tier. Because even until the end of the Frist campaign there wasn't a session in which mat didn't have to explain their character or game mechanics to at least one person again.

I haven't played or GMd tabletop for decades save for a couple times. Like 7th thru 9th grade was the heyday for me, Rifts, Gurps, D&D..... I was even trying to make my own back then... I'm excited to get back in. Ive played maybe a few times in the last few years using either a deck of cards or very generic D20 rules for combat and on the fly made up rules while we drink beer at a campfire. We always had fun.

As a dungeon master I always love playing with learning players and usually prefer it to playing with veterans, while the sessions are usually slow for obvious reasons, I find that in general they pay more attention and are more engaged since they want to learn how to play, and seeing the excitement of the first time when their character does something cool or defeat the boss is one of the best feelings I can have as a dm.

Just a few months a go, I was a tier 0 player. I had good intentions, but I wound up ruining it for so many other people, and it most definitely wasn't worth it. I'm hoping that by the time I find a new friend group, I've grown enough to be someone they like and can rely on, instead of whatever selfish opinion I have about myself or the situation. But for the time being, I find myself as a DM for my family, and I seem to be doing much better in this role than as a player, but this isn't an excuse to slow down my improvement of the aspects of people you have discussed in this video.

I made a companion for my necromancer that was a skull and a single arm, and my dm decided to give him very low stats but allowed me to rebuild him anytime I want. Then in the first combat I almost died (to a goblin :’)) and went through the whole process of making a new PC in my mind The new character was ABSOLUTELY going to adopt Fin (Boney McFingies, my bone companion) because I didn’t have the heart to part with him so soon (I ended up surviving, but my wizard with 10ac was not having a good time)

I am getting ready to start playing in a 5e campaign. So far I have made 3 characters waiting for first session. All of them having meta studies or realizing through there gods that there are more layers to reality than any one imagines.

Based on this... I have all the qualities of a good player. The only reason I have a disruptive quality is because our DM always changes, meaning different campaigns. They create new campaigns and we rarely get a continued session. The session we do have continued, I have a prepared character for along with a backup in case of an untimely death. But mainly my disruptive quality comes from lack of a set story.

I straight up have a filing cabinet of characters. THOUSANDS of them. I’m a gm and I will literally just grab random ones sometimes for encounters, it keeps things fun and entertaining.

As someone who has started my first campaign ever, thank you so much. I got pulled in after it started so I got dropped in a little late as everyone is learning. I'm going to understand dynamics better, how to play paladin better, and how to role play better for the next week. Last thing I want to do is hold anyone back. Gonna be great

I feel like some of the players in my group are reluctant to role-play at times. We're playing Curse of Strahd, and after losing my ranger early (so one of us could re-roll a character, as we lacked a skillmonkey), I rolled a Kenku Rogue for the campaign. For those who don't know, Kenku are flightless ravenfolk who can't speak naturally; they can only mimic words, phrases, and sounds that they hear, as well as being able to perfectly replicate things based on proficiency (forging documents, knockoffs of actual artifacts, etc.). I designed this character mostly to be a source of humor, meant to respond to situations, player choices and dialogue, offer unique perspectives with wordplay, and going to the trouble of reciting previous information from various characters; and, of course, doing the rogue-like things. ... So what _actually_ ended up happening is that he started _leading_ the group in the things they did, unless they were major events that demanded a group decision. Moreover, my character (who, again, was designed to respond to the scenes instead of initiating them, and otherwise was relegated to flanking and being sneaky-sneaky) was the one who asked the NPCs questions, took down the notes, made connections based on clues we'd found. And mind you, this is a race that has to speak using other people's voices, or using unusual phrases in order to get the point across- so if I were to ask "how rich is that noble over there?" I'd have to get creative and say, in a peasant's voice "how much is that pig worth?" If I wanted to be _specific,_ or convey something more directly, I'd have to use _Minor Illusion_ to circumvent my unique dialogue just to talk to the damn party or NPCs. ... And I didn't do this out of choice! I did it because unless I was speaking and engaging the NPCs with any question I could think of, silence between the group (done online) could stretch on for nearly a minute! And I _know_ that because I would give everyone else the opportunity to say _something_ at some point! I always felt that if the DM was busy trying to recall information or taking a player aside to speak to them privately, it was a great opportunity for the rest of the players to engage in some minor roleplay (or maybe talk about real-world current events, idk); but it was hard to even get _that_ out of them. I'm just _hoping_ the game improves in coming sessions...

the weirdest and worst case of a disruptive player was a friend of mine, to start off, i spent almost 5 months of our game spending dedicated time with him each week to help him work through his struggles with 5e, he never ever paid attention when i tried to teach him the system, his turns would take 10 minutes sometimes in combat and at every turn he would ask questions about what he can and cant do, not only this but he was a huge attention hog, he would always try to talk to every npc instead of the party, always try to be the person to say some badass thing and so on. no matter how much time i dedicated to helping him work through these problems they never got better. when i asked if he was still enjoying the game in private he said he was and wanted to stay in the game too, i told him the only way to stay a part of the group would be to understand the system. (i would never say this to a new player, but he didnt even understand how his turn was structured and it has been 5 months at this point of me dedicating hours to him each week to help with understanding how basic systems in the game worked.) eventually the group died before i got a chance to boot him, but my god was it frustrating. i started a new group with the same guys except him and it went really really well. they were all new players but the other had alot of experience by then and it was an amazing time.

As a 2nd edition dungeon master for the past 20 years I can tell you the most important thing is that everyone has fun. It doesn't matter what Edition it is or how much stuff you bring to the table if no one's having a good time and looking at their watches ready to go then the group's not going to last long.

I spend so much time theory-crafting/min-maxing, I know most of most features of the martials by heart lol

I think I'm sort of between an Average and a Good player. I can make characters in my free time, I can voice act, I can think up backstories, I arrive on time for sessions, and I basically accept everything. Which is I think one of my flaws. Often, I let others do all the important talk and kind of forget about me, meaning I don't involve myself much with the social stuff. Though even in combat I wonder when's it going to be my turn when my initiative was one of the highest. So while I do believe I have qualities that make me a Good player, I know I have things to work on because my other half is Average.

Had the disruptive player already a fixture in a group I joined when they were level 4. This person supplied the figures and the whiteboard, so I guess she figured she could try to run everything. Constantly argued with DM's calls, ridiculed players when they failed rolls, complained about noises in the room and what was on the TV, and then scared off 2 subsequent new players after one session by being standoffish all night. Group split up completely not long after that.

My tabletop D&D experience was mostly as a kid playing in a group where two of the four were brothers and the game usually ended in a fistfight.

I’m new, I’ve been researching d&d since COVID started and I mostly understand it except for Dice and Character sheet stats

in my first campaign, I made friends with a T-rex, a dragon, and the DM's goddess of Nature. I also was the first to begin bottling liquid magic after the DM had two different goddesses fighting and we the players followed into the realm of magic then I drew the ruin card from the deck of many things and started streaking until I could sell my bottles of magic for a new custom tux to fit my wings(which I got in exchange for the other aasimar things I would have had). I was later asked to leave politely after some old players came back to the campaign.

My DM just brought his wife into our campaign but he had to convince her to join by basically building her character for her. Now that she's in the game, she is basically refusing to learn the system and everytime my DM asks her to do something, like keep track of her own spell slots, she insists that he has to do it for her because that was "part of the deal". Part of me wants to talk to her about it, but I almost feel like this a DM-player conversation which is difficult since they're husband and wife. And, it's only been one session so far so hopefully it'll get better.

I sometimes veer into the disrupting category. I play a goblin with 8 charisma, who is 7. He has an inappropriate “Hi!” when a new NPC introduces themselves... I thought it was a problem but my DM and fellow players always ask for him to come back 🤷‍♂️

I admit I am a Rules Lawyer, was in a group where I sacrifice massive damage so I could use a shield for my team for defense since we had no one to take hits. Not playing the character I wanted for the sake of the team, then a new person joined and claimed he was using a 2 handed great sword with a buckler in Adventuer's League 5e, because...you could use a buckler as a shield and get same bonus and a 2-hander in 4e. I did pull out my rulebook and even stated all about how I made a character to use a shield instead of who I wanted because you couldn't do that and yet the DM still let him do it. Let's just say wasn't happy about that.

Well that was highly subjective...

What I expect from players as a dm or a player 1- actively role play your character And don’t just let the dm tell you a story the whole time 2- actively talk and do stuff. Don’t play shy or untalkable characters 3- if you play chaotic evil don’t be a dick 4- don’t murder hobo and be respectful

I have a player in my games who has to comment on EVERY. SINGLE. THING. The group is split up, and there's a moment of character development for one of the players with an important NPC? Commentary. Someone has declared what they plan to do to get around the battle and outsmart the enemy? Story about something similar in a video game. One of the players has said something with no ties to anything in popular media? Story time about when he was in second grade, and his teacher said something similar, though different. Every single game, every time someone says or does anything, he HAS to butt in and disrupt the moment. He HAS to inject himself into the scene. He HAS to take the attention away like it's some sort of compulsion.

Personally, I love character death, gives me a reason to try a new character!

I had a player, disruptive (his girlfriend chimed in on his side, yes a player too) who argued about how much surface area on a enemy was affected by a spell that had no damage. he felt it would push the foe with the force of the water, then wanted damage as well! They argued about surface area and points of damage applied! they looked up and calculated the 'surface area' of the human body to make their point....argggh.

I feel like I'm a tier 2 player. I'm still newish, but I'm a quick learner and do a lot of learning outside of the game. In fact I'm starting the new ghosts of saltmarsh campaign tomorrow and I've already got my character ready to roll. Aasimar paladin serving helm the guardian, as a member of the eyes of the diety.

"brainstorm in the shower and improv at the table DM" gawd man :p never felt so seen in my life

Sometimes players do have the right to pout, I guess. We have some players who really want to RUSH our campaign forward without looking around for others if they want something more out of the location. Example: We were shopping and they wanted to go back to the inn for dinner, so they switched time to night while I was still waiting for the store clerk to get me an arcane focus out of the back. (It was afternoon!!!!!). They didn't wait for GM and me to finish our roleplay. Same next morning, as the party was out on the road again while I hadn't even finished breakfast. Me and my character were pouting of course! My character then didn't want to leave her bed at all to spite this development. Her companion had to carry her bedroll-burrito style to get her from A to B at all. It was pretty funny despite the serious problem of the rushing party players. We talked about that afterwards.

I’m in a place where I’m not a great player, I meta game, take the spot light to often. The worse part is I do it without noticing in the moment. Though I think I’m maybe getting better.

One group I was in wasn’t bad but sometimes they were on there phone and I would just stare at them to tell them it’s there Turn they either noticed or someone else told them

I'll admit I wasn't fully paying attention to the video, but I think tier 2 was skipped?

Used to think I wasn't a bad player. But I've done pretty much every single thing on the list of "Disruptive Player" things at eome point in the past. Aside from feeling a slap to the face for being called out, I guess this means I'll just have to try harder so that everyone at the table enjoys the game more.

I wanted to play myself at some point. I figure i would be a good-ish player eventually. But i realized i have no friends and all of my roll20 attempts ended up being dull murder hobo campaigns with mostly silent, awkward people who talked over each other whenever they did talk. And it was mostly about roll a d20, rather than bringing a character into it. So i just watch now, mostly. I do feel envious of these successful, narrative driven campaigns cuz i probably won't het to play that any time soon, but i enjoy them. Anyway, thanks for the tips! It might prove useful. Maybe. Eventually....

While I think there are some good lessons here, keep in mind it's a game and have fun. This seems very oriented to how the dm has fun. I have dmed and while I like to have fun also, everyone should have fun. I watched a stream other night and players didn't know rules, DM made some large mistakes, at one point the map stopped working right, they all laughed and had a good time. To me that is tier 5. You come to have fun, and you enjoy spending time with those at the table. I often think Critical Role players are overhyped, but if I had to give them a 5 it wouldn't be because they all invest in characters, it would be because they clearly all enjoy spending time with each other. Life is short, have some fun, laugh a little, roll some dice.

I once played a Viking champion type character, the whole POINT was to die heroically. I was not disappointed.

I pretty nice, helpful guideline for assessing players 'level'. The only thing I disagree with is the negative connotation giving to metagaming. Metagaming and commenting on the mechanics of the game itself and 4th wall is in a way a fun way to comment and enjoy a campaign. It all comes down to the personality of the group.

I think I was a bad player when I was playing a Dragonborn Paladin and charged in to handle a really powerful boss, while the other PC’s took on his minions. Now, I was the tank of the party, but I was still getting my ass kicked. The wizard tried to help by casting fireball, but I got caught in his blast radius and got multiattacked in that turn, so I was instantly killed. Needless to say, I got pissed, and I think I went a little too far. I feel bad, the wizard wasn’t being malicious.

I kind of disagree with his comment about character death. I fully admit I have a problem with accepting my character dying particularly if I really like them (but not to the point of blaming the DM; I mean that’s just rude) but I guess my point is that while it’s true that the Lion King basically wouldn’t have happened if Mufasa had died, the story would have either not been finished or not had a satisfying ending if Simba had died too. My issue with having a character dying-apart from the aforementioned attachment-is their story simply ending in the middle doesn’t feel good. At least if they haven’t completed their personal mission/character arc; if they have it’s a different story.

Okay I do understand and agree with this to some extent, but don't forget that some systems are just plain harder than others. I played exactly 1 session of 5e and had it (mostly) under my belt by the end. I've been playing in a Pathfinder campaign for over a year now and I STILL don't know everything, or even most things, about the game just due to how much varience there is. Not to mention our party isn't exactly consistent. Still, at least in comparison to the rest of my party, I'm probably at least a 2, likely a 3 just due to my consistency, my ability to normally pay attention even when I am on my phone, and my overall understanding of what's going on. I know what to find on my character sheet and when, but I don't inherently know most of my spells, or all of the feats in the game, and I don't normally remember what each of the Knowledge skills go after either, except religion for undead due to them being the main focus of my game.

i have around 3 to 4 disruptive players out of 6 in the campaign i DM ranging from the kind that whines when his goblin artificer dies to a random elemental to the Rules Lawyer that always questions my ruling because i like to use the rule as intended not as written.

I feel like i fit into every category at the same time except "extraordinary". My character is the problemsolver type. The kind of guy that comes up with effective strategies and often take up a lot of the spotlight. I do rely on the rest of party memebers though, and he has intentional weaknesses. I do sometimes forget about a certain rule or role or other mechanic that i should've remembered. I also like to voice act my character though about half the time i don't keep in character. I haven't really had a chance as of yet, to bring in some metagame knowledge though I'm sure it'll happen at some point. I have only played for about a month but i hope I'll change for the better

I have this one lad that is an alright, BUT. He makes the worst decisions. He once blew up an entire city, because they were stuck in a timeloop. He once tried to tried to steal a ship and thought he could argue against 12 pirates. And of course. Last but not least. He instantly drew 30 cards from the deck of many things. He got sent to Uranus. Worst decisions, but the best moments.

I had a DM who encouraged metagaming, by giving Players extra XP if they could name the creature before the reveal based solely on description. I think part of it was an ego boost though, giving him the sense that he described the creature well enough that we knew what it was as players.

Top tier is the one that volunteers to pay for snacks

I was tier 1 for a long time. I had +7 to hit and didn’t realise, for six months

got my sub, running my first campaign this weekend, thanks for the tips!

The first thing I have to complain about in this video is the log for Game Eats. How is that cartoon rabbit supposed to even use those headphones? His ears are on the TOP of his head... The rest of the video? Solid.

I think my worst quirk as a player is that i almost always comment on gameplay mechanics. For example if our rogue does an attack i almost immediately ask if he gets sneak attack or something like that. I think its my curiousity as a player and so far no one has said something but i feel that it is disruptive to the session if i think about it. Meanwhile it takes little effort for me to immerse myself in a character. Most of the time i don't even think about and just act how my character would out of intuition and i feel it works greatly with the party. Though the others at my table are impressively skilled at that part of Roleplay as well. Might be from excessive experience in MMO-Roleplay.

4:24 that space between H and OW lol, still the part at the beginning of "players who don't know their spells" made me instantly like and subscribe because one of my players knew what none of his own spells did, and he didn't have his own phb. This on top of the fact that he rolled highest on initiative and was right before the enemies in initiative order, as well as physically being in front of 3 guard drakes and him being a squishy sorcerer made me not skip him in initiative order, so we wasted 5 minutes at the beginning of combat for him to look at his spells.

I am wondering, what tier would giving the DM a way to keep a story important NPC a way out when an enemy was about to kill, not knock unconscious, kill them. It was not me as I was a warlock and had to tank damage in place of our absent tank players, but the other player took the hit and I argued he should take normal damage since the orc intended to hit the NPC, not the player Edit: The DM wanted them NPC to live, so it didn’t take much convincing

I consider myself a decent player. I havent really played since i was like... Idk 8ish maybe 10. But eather way im 19 now so its been quite awhile and since then i have matured quite a bit because im not gonna like when i first got into D&D I was a 0, i had the attention span of a fruit fly and i was really annoying. But im getting back into it my girlfriend is teaching her brother how to play and how to DM so we are both busting our asses to help not only him learn the game but all the new players in our party. She is helping him learn to DM and ive been helping some of our friends who have never played before learn how to build their characters, role their stats ect. And ive been watching a bunch of videos on RU-vid to learn as well. We have a lot of fun bouncing Ideas off each other, and we are sorting out characters before we start the campain (Waterdeep:Dragon heist) we have even built a few extra characters just in case that we can eather use as NPCs or back ups incase of a TPC.

Totally not related to the video, but this guy's eyes are so cool! I have grey eyes as well (but kinda blue-ish), but this guy's eyes are GREY

Am I bad for trying to find things for boosting my character's constitution? My character mainly just wants to survive considering how dangerous his life has been since he was an infant; so it technically goes with his personality

This is a great guide and I hope it will improve my gameplay. :)

I feel like character death situations vary from campaign to campaign. If your character dies in an epic way for the good of the party, its easy to move on and feel good about it. However, I was in a campaign where was unfairly abducted by the enemy, tortured, possessed, and forced to kill her family and other members of the party . All while she watched through her eyes unable to resist. It's reasonable for me to be upset about this, as well as my party members who were unjustly killed without a fight. This doesn't make us any worse of a player, it was just a really shitty event.

I wish I had friends to play with. I used to play and DM about 20 years ago but the last group was me, the DM and a tier 0 player who did everything mentionned in this video. What a nightmare. I stopped after 2 games. Never played since. I'm watching Critical Role and miss playing with friends. The problem is that D&D is a intimate experience and is better with closed friends. Playing with strangers is quite intimidating and it would take years before having the same connections.... I'm sad 😔

I think I may be somewhere between good and great, most likely because of my short time as a dm. So that's cool.

Metagaming is when you look into the module to know what happens. Recognising that a Beholder is coming during a session and saying that isn't metagaming. Especially since it's impossible to determine what experienced ranger or fighter or wizard who went to school knows. Also, banning "metagaming" enables backstory optimisation. "Ah yes, I know everything about beholders. One was our magic school professor"

Gosh when I tried DMing my first campaign I had a party of nearly all disruptive players in various ways, shapes, and forms. Needless to say that didn’t last long.

Hmm, I have no idea what tier I'd be in. I occasionally do stuff from Tier 0 in that I, as a gut reaction, remind a DM about a mechanic they've not addressed, even when it would give us the advantage. This might be if the DM was letting someone use the Bonus Action effect of an item several times consecutively in the same round of combat, or informing them that Artificers, unlike every other class, DO get to swap out a cantrip after every level when they attempt to tell a player they can never swap out cantrips. (I obviously wouldn't do this if these were established as house rules prior to the start of the campaign or at any time along the way). Typically I'm thanked for these efforts. In more minor rules mistakes, I simply make a note and bring it up after session to see if this was a house rule by the DM I should account for moving forward, or if it was simply an oversight that we all make. Being a DM myself since 3.0 (though I skipped 3.5 and 4.0), I'm certainly not Tier 1. Tier 2 (Average Players) is something I fit most of the traits for, showing up prepared, some backstory and personality established, taking notes, etc. I do not necessarily agree that a player who doesn't fully understand their class mechanics by 3rd session is a Tier 0. I've had people in my groups with Dyslexic Comprehension. They can read just fine, but they need to understand C to understand why A + B = C. It takes these types of players longer to get a firm grasp when reading rules written for people with standard comprehension. Aside from that, if you've played through a handful of campaigns, I agree you should understand at least most of your abilities even when playing a new class. I fit elements of Tier 3 (Good Players) as I regularly engage with other players, especially when I know the player is more an introverted type and more likely to stay silent unless addressed directly. These players love RPing and sharing their character's experiences and personality, but simply don't feel comfortable taking the first step. If my character has a high enough intelligence or wisdom, or a backstory that would be reasonable to provide such skills, I will suggest certain tactical options, but refrain from doing so if I feel my character would not possess such knowledge or skills. These skills and knowledge can of course change over the course of the campaign, as the character develops. I am also completely ready to accept my character's death at any time. If I suspect such a death is impending, I may roll up a character that ties into the story so far in one way or another so as to be ready to introduce them if needed. As for Tier 4 (Great Players), I also am able to use the "Yes and" approach without slogging down the session with wasted time that doesn't see to any progression or character development. I likewise separate my characters from me. They are different people and require different mindsets. They have different experiences, different personalities, and may react differently to the same situation. It's as easy to me as flipping a switch. Now, Idk if I'd classify myself as Tier 5 (Extraordinary Players). I've never considered it super important, but I do consider voices for my characters, and in certain circumstances changed my voice entirely; such as when my Infiltration Model Warforged Fighter, that was designed to look like a Male Elf, took on the disguise of a Female Human. By fiddling with my voice box, I restructured the pitch and tone of my voice to better suit my new appearance. Similarly, within moments, I developed a name, backstory and personality for the feigned identity. The Bard in our party disguised himself as my elderly mother, and we bounced off each other whenever I assumed that disguise. TL;DR: I probably should mention mechanic violations less in certain cases, but the line I draw is usually a point where the game balance is being horribly broken by the error, such as the Rogue instantly killing every room full of people in one round of combat due to gaining more uses of an ability than they should have. If it happens once, I tend to let it go on the grounds of "Rule of cool" but any consistency to it and it's something I bring up since other players get to do almost nothing during combat encounters, thereby dulling the experience for most of the group. Aside from that, I think I bring a lot to the table and my presence is generally appreciated in the same way I appreciate other players' contributions.

Bold of you to assume i dont just binge watch D&D content without actual playing a character

My players were average to good at best except one OUTSTANDING guy. I was doing a gritty world war style campaign and after losing his whole team in his backstory he decided to make his character depressed and if he rolled bad in the morning he'd act accordingly, being a little more distant on purpose. One day there was a particularly meaningless fight and he challenged an enemy to a 1v1 to the death to prove his faction had honor. When he was about to die another player took away the enemies honorable victory, sniping the enemy, and protected her friend. After this dishonor he walked off into the woods and they hear a single gunshot. He straight up killed his own PC because he was so devastated. That death gave every other PC a reason to truly care about the war and drive the motivation from then on. And that was my FIRST ever PC death as a new DM. He later told me his character made 3 nat 1 "depression" rolls in a row and on top of watching this enemy die in a fair fight he technically won it sent his character into a downward spiral in the span of a few moments. He had even over heard me talking about his character reaching level 20 and how I had ideas of how he could contribute end game, and even knowing I didn't want to kill his amazing character, he killed himself for the role play. Everyone loved his character including himself but he knew what he had done and stuck to it. Despite losing one of his favorite PCs he'd ever made he foresaw how his death would highlight the themes of the campaign and drive a knife into the hearts of everyone at the table. Mad fucking respect.

Tier -1: Demanding new players learn the ins and outs of the game in the first 20 minutes of their first session and getting mad when they dont immediately come out of their shell with a character voice and great roleplay.

"guys, thats disrup- *Ads starts playing* oh the irony xD

I kicked a player out of my campaign only once in my life. They were backseat DM-ING and complaining about how another character, who was far more fleshed out than theirs and had really good stats, was too OP. I would have listened to the complaints, but the other character was fully homebrew and I looked over the character creation for them. They had almost no skills and proficiencies, but were a great generalist.

*Video starts playing while I'm not looking at the screen* "Gay Meats" What kind of advertisement is this? oooh Game Eats