Solving Player Behaviors: Hobbitism 

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If your players won’t open a door, have something scary open it for them

Way I heard it: Shire Frodo is your backstory, Rivendell Frodo "I will take it" is your current character, an adventurer

I tell my players when I start a campaign "Make sure your character is an adventurer that will be able to work with others". Worked well enough this far.

I've never been a DM, but as a player, whenever I feel like my character wouldn't do something, I turn to the other players and say "convince my character" It almost always leads to good conversations in character, and I can just roleplay changing my mind without breaking my own immersion

It CAN be fun to create a Hobbit-Type character who gets dragged along the adventure, don't really want to be there, and constantly asks questions about how silly everything is. But not only everyone at the table has to be on board with having that particular character, you as a player have to work together with the dm and the party to move that character forward. Sounds risky and tiring, but in the proper hands it could be phenomenal.

One of my past games slowed down to a crawl once because we ended up settling down in the DM’s sci-fi fantasy capital part of the world because most of the people who were driving the party sorta just died. We stayed there until the end of the campaign where we ended up with a confrontation with an evil organization which essentially told us to “Split and retire or die” and because none of the characters had any attachment to the party we chose the former. It was still a pretty fun campaign but it’s a shame it had to end in such a way.

A little kobold child, pushes past you and flings the door open calling out "mommy we've got cowards". DM choice whether mommy is a goblin cupcake baker in a pinny who tuts at them or an ancient red dragon.

One of my favorite moments from my last campaign: We were tasked with climbing a mountain to slay a white dragon. We knew that there was a high priority that the BBEG, who had an Orb of Dragonkind, was on that mountain. Knowing the danger, my character did NOT want to climb the mountain, and actively tried to convince the party so. The one thing my character valued more than money was his life. So how did I work around this? My character knew if they did not get the Orb for their master, they would suffer a fate worse than death. So, begrudgingly, up the mountain they went. An in-character solution for an in-character problem!

Slight adjustment: "No one's fun is wrong (unless its purpose is to take fun from others)." People have fun stealing the spotlight. People have fun derailing game sessions. People have fun *actively* trying to frustrate the DM. People have fun being contrary. It's why they do these things. But in a social setting, fact is, these types of fun are Incorrect. Because they aren't personal fun. They are engines that require The Fun of Others as fuel. I can't have fun unless someone else isn't. I can't *gain* fun unless someone else *loses* some. Like "fun" in some finite resource for which we're all competing. Yeah, that kind of fun is wrong.

There's a 4th reason players do the 'nitpicking' thing: Strategy. Resolving ambiguousness about a universe's physics, biology, and society can open up entertainingly surprising yet still consistent solutions to encounters. The problem is a DM will have to have thought about these kinds of fundamentals or be quick on the draw to be able to provide satisfactory emergent solutions. That's a huge amount of work for a DM to potentially go unused in a campaign (though an opponent could potentially use these emergent effects against the players as a way to signal that they can think outside the box).

I'm an advocate of session zero character building. We set the expectations for characters and the degree of realism to expect. This is the kind of adventure we are having, let's build characters that work for this adventure. Works exceedingly well. I also encourage players to watch the details of the story closely. Helps me keep the facts of the story straight. Almost never have these problems with players.

Even Bilbo went out into the world he grumped the whole time but had a adventure! sometimes people need a "nudge out the door!" As Gandalf explained to Frodo

5:46 I deliberately made a character who would push the story forward, it seemed my playgroup needed it. Even when I as a player was nervous, I would say, "Um, Augustus is going to jump through the portal to another world unless someone stops him..." give the players a few seconds to think about it, try to get a reaction to see if it would make someone upset for any reason, and do it.

Something that’s worked well for me is a session zero discussion of “tell me why your character decided to be an adventurer.” I’ve found that this question often makes players realize they’ve created a Hobbit when they don’t have a good answer, and it’s an opportunity to help them tweak their character into someone more willing to go on an adventure. And when they DO have a good answer, I can better craft my adventure hooks to appeal to the individual characters. If the Rogue is in it for the money, I promise a substantial gold reward for this quest I really want them to do. Character is lawful good and powerful and believes that with great power comes great responsibility? Include a danger to innocents if they ignore the hook I really want them to bite. One player is on a revenge quest to get the guy who killed his dog? Name drop them as being associated with this quest. Get by the “my character wouldn’t go” excuse by understanding what makes your PCs click and specifically designing quests that they WOULD go on. On the flip side, I’m currently going through a campaign as a player, and my character’s entire reason for adventuring was resolved. I’d been clear with my DM that my character didn’t really care about the larger war, but there was one particular thing he was looking for, and… he found it. So, rather than bog down the campaign by becoming a Hobbit, I suggested that I could roll up a new character who’s motives were more central to the campaign and let this one just retire. I think that was better for everyone in the end

Poking holes in the logic of the world can lead to fun moments, but Idk any hard and fast rules about it. There was one instance where a bad guy we were facing was so serious about killing our group that he either got these specific creatures to possess or replace his hands, I can't remember exactly how he did it, but the jist was that his hands were sentient creatures with separate turns so he could get more attacks per round. I thought about it for a moment and asked, "what happens when he goes to the bathroom? Do they, like, draw straws to see who has to wipe?" It took a long while for us all to stop laughing. The GM was building this guy up to be a cool and dangerous threat (and he was, nearly killed us), but the poop question brought him down a bit in our regard. And in his treasure, we found one slightly smelly wand of prestidigitation with only a few charges left. This was labeled "poop wand" on the character sheet of whoever looted it.

Given the name and how you describe it, I'm imagining Mary and Pipen's scene with Aragorn when they are complaining about not stopping for breakfast and "second breakfast". When we as players choose to speak up about random things we don't like about the fantasy world, we are bringing other's down, rather than focusing on the good. Let's let our characters have time in the spotlight, rather than being the group out of immersion to put ourselves (the players) in the spotlight.

The worst players I have are the ones trying too hard to win D&D. They either role up character with the intent of breaking the game so they can control everything, or they bully players and the DM to get their way.

I think Matt Colville made a pretty elegant solution to pure hobbitism. He always compares D&D to an action movie and points out how the best action heroes are RE-active. If the character doesn't want to risk safety and comfort, put that safety and comfort at stake. Don't want to leave you cozy cottage in the countryside to rescue an elven princess you didn't even vote for? Well if the wizard sacrifices her and completes his evil spell, the very land will wither and die, blight and famine will spread across the land. Why should you care about the orcish horde about to lay waste to the human kingdom, well the words of *mon empereur* "an army marches on it's stomach" and your lands are well known for their fertile soil and bountiful harvests. Why explore the ancient dungeon filled with traps for treasure when you make a tidy living selling pastries? The entrance literally opened up in your town square, if you don't investigate it, who knows what could creep from that stygian abyss?

Hobbitism definitely is easy to fall into at times and is good to keep that in mind to resist that

Refusing to adventure is a standard step in the Joseph Campbell Hero's Journey. So you've got 2 separate pressures on player behaviors, the direct threat of adventuring being risky and bad things likely happening to their character, but also there's a cultural pressure. We were raised on stories where the hero is called to adventure, and they immediately refuse to go, and then something happens that compels the hero to move forward. So many players might subconsciously believe they're playing their part correctly by refusing to bite the plot hook, because that's how these stories are supposed to go!

Great troubleshooting video, but I'd personally confront a problem player directly than sending them a 9-ish long video that gives them a multiple choice on what beef I could have with them. Again, I like the word you made up and I hope it helps gives the TTRPG community a name to some of their issues.

Honestly if people are scared of opening the door, there's probably a bigger problem than Hobbitism going on. The DM could've sprung a very mean trap on the players that traumatised them (not necessarily the DM of the current campaign, maybe a different DM altogether). One of the job of the DM is to inspire players to WANT to open that door, to WANT to have an adventure, to WANT to take risks. But I've seen so many DMs that are just 'all punish and no reward', throwing very High CR encounters in your face and saying "No you can't buy this overpowered magic item to prepare for hard encounters" in their campaigns and you simply can't fault players for being overly cautious and refusing to take risks. If the DM has shown tendency to make the door explode with 8d6 damage whenever someone touches it, eventually people will stop touching it. Any potential opportunity to roleplay dies when the character dies, after all. I thank you Bob for trying to help others solve problems, but this probably will need a follow up video on the lines of "How to not become the reason your players chose Hobbitism", because when theres a problem at the table, its usually more than one person at fault. The donkey really shouldn't be blamed for dragging their feet when its been all stick and no carrot. On another note, the unwillingness to immerse isn't just about opening doors. It could be something as simple as not being able to act in a way that is fitting to the character, or something more troublesome like acting the opposite of how a character should be (supposedly 'lawful good' characters doing chaotic evil things because player wanted to, etc). I personally find that this is a problem regarding Willingness and Knowledge. They might either be unwilling to 'get in the act', or don't know how to get in the act. Most people in this time and age simply don't know how to act like a heroic adventurer, and sometimes the problem is really that simple. I play a lot of Charisma characters like Bard and Warlock but I as a person have no idea how to do any sort of persuasion, because you know, introvert. And thus what usually happens is that my Charisma characters only did a handful of persuasion checks throughout the entire campaign that lasted a whole year. Just last week our Curse of Strahd run ended, and after looking through the entire roll20 chat record, my Spirit Bard only did four persuasion rolls total 🤷‍♀️. Thats the impact of the lack of knowledge right there. What do you mean I need to come up with some words to try and change a suicidal NPC's mind? What am I supposed to even say to the guy that lost their family and fervently want revenge? Because saying "Sorry for your loss" and "Your family wouldn't have wanted this" or other generic platitudes (the only things that pop into mind for people who aren't good in real life social situations) clearly is not going to work. In terms of willingness, a more succinct way to describe it is that some players do not want to do cringey things. Like they're trying to play a paladin with big HAM energy but can't bring themselves to talk that way because cringe. A good starting point to solve this problem is to remind the players that this is a safe environment and this is a game and nobody will mock them for their impression/performance of a HAMmy paladin no matter how good or bad it was. (Hopefully you gathered a table full of respectful people that won't mock others for this sort of thing....... ah who am I kidding, thats nigh impossible) EDIT: Someone in the comment chain here mentioned something really great and I wanted to expand on that. Its not wrong for DMs to try and give out new challenges, but it is definitely problematic when the DM doesn't allow for players to acquire the means to deal with those challenges. Sure, a DM can have every single door explode with 8d6 fire damage when you touch it. Players can just buy a ring of fire resistance, and this will lessen their apprehension when opening doors. The Bad Kind of Thing for DMs to do then would be to increase damage to 16d6 (basically nullifying the resistance), or to change damage type to anything except fire, or straight up not allow players to buy a ring of fire resistance (either directly banning the item, or indirectly disable players from buying it by not giving them enough gold, not putting up a shop for magic items, or giving constant excuses how 'the item is out of stock').

In the first campaign I ran we had a wet erase grid table mat. I would often draw out obstacles on the mat by tracing the square grids until one session the players jokingly asked if someone in the wilderness was trimming the trees into square shapes. Mildly frustrated, I responded, "Yes, yes there is." This was how my homebrew demigod Hedge came into being, god of geometry and gardening. Later in the campaign a player gained a cohort (this was in D&D 3.5) who was a cleric to Hedge and would regain his spells everyday by attending to a portable bonsai bush.

Heh. I'm an older-gen gamer and we used to have a "No Bilbos" rule vs not having characters where "RPing in character" meant refusing to join the game proper. Everything comes back around. :)

"What do you mean i can't make a nuclear bomb? Here, take a look at my schematics, it's perfectly possible for my Artificer to make it!" "Ok, it'll be of one use only" "But in this schematic i use a thing that is abundant in this world, so i can do many" Classic.

I've probably done all of these bad behaviors. These days I play fantasy versions of my middle aged dad self. I'm gaming to spend time with my kids and I try to help them have fun and stay alive. It's the best gaming of my life 😌.

I have a legit fear of opening doors in DnD because our DM kept using exploding doorknobs as traps

"Why can't I make a syringe to inject poison? It's so simple! Just a simple plunger inside a round tube!"

It reminds me of the most basic rule of improv: don't say no, because as soon as you say no, it ends the improv.

oh no, I've just realised that I do this... One time, the DM specified that the police showed up in a wagon painted blue, and I was like "how did they get blue paint?" Because I happen to know that blue dye was really hard to come by until like, the 20th century... Maybe I have to watch out for when I do this in the future!

My personal biggest problem I struggle with: backseat gaming. I'm kind of the power gamer of our group, I find it super fun to create powerful class combos, min/max stats, and play optimally during combat. So when the rogue decides to throw a fire bolt rather than take the guard out with his dagger which would be silent and do more damage, I get a little annoyed. Or when someone damages the enormous scary target I just successfully subdued with hypnotic pattern so we could deal with the swarm of minions first. I know I need to just let other players play the way they want, and take the actions they feel like taking, but when they directly counteract my own actions...yeah, it's a problem I gotta keep more in check. also, my DM took pity on me and had the giant monster attack the person who broke the hypnotic pattern the rest of the combat.

My favorite time this happen is when i was a spectating player. My wife was running her first campaign ,Shackled City, and we were quite a few episodes in when the fighter wanted to have a pet dog. GM broke out hte rules, thought it was cool and a great way to build some backstory to the player character. During the next few sessions the players wanted the Dog, a German Shepard, to be able to do things outside of RAW that caused the animal to take up as much time in session as a player. The player argued that the German Shepard is one of the smartest breeds and should be able to exceed the RAW rules for training animals and what an animal can do. She brought a 200 page book on German Shepard, the Breed, and wanted the GM to read it. The GM, finally frustrated during a session where instead of healing a party member the player used a potion on the pet, a player was drowning on another end of the battle field and the player sent her pet to rescue him, not herself. The pet at this point had no swimming abilities, but, german shepards are natural swimmers, as cited on a page in the book. GM could have held up, but decided to follow the rules very specifically, rolls included, as the frustration of all of us players with this animal was at a fever pitch . Poor little Guyser didn't make it.

One somewhat easy solution to get a party adventuring together is to let one player character be the quest giver, and DM fund a reasonable payment for the quest based on the givers backstory. This sets up a player to be the initial core of the group who recruits the others, and sets up an initial quest that can then branch or grow as desired. This tends to work a lot better than a random group spontaneously joining together for "random bullshit go!" to get them pushed out the tavern door.

Great general advice, as always, but one caveat: like you hint at, "hobbitism" can be appropriate depending on the setting, and how much the DM is encouraged to try and get you. As long as you respect the vibe and your fellow players, what's deflating in D&D might be dynamic in another setting. Signed, a Delta Green player.

The things that got me through my hobbitism phase was experiencing enough groups falling through and the realization that no player character truly dies. They just get put on a shelf. You can play them again in other games.

From your teaser post of Bilbo smoking, I thought you were going to talk about players too stoned to play! That might have been funnier, but this is more useful.

For the kinds of people who find "flaws" in everything: The reason they don't take the eagles to Mordor is that without an army on the ground they'd get killed by air-defenses.

I've an artificer in my icewind dale game who's trying to lean into their smarts really well (he's stupendously smart irl) but they pull so much real world physics and theories to make sense of what I present as options to players. This video speaks to me so much! Haha. I'll share this to the group for shits and giggles 😂

Hello Bob, I don’t know if you’ll do more of these but here’s an annoying behaviour I could’t submit in your survey: - When one player wants to or is specifically called by the DM to roll Perception or Knowledge or Insight, but then the ENTIRE group piles down with their own rolls. I always find it supremely upsetting because a) it steals the original player’s time to shine; b) it can only ever boost the odds in the party’s favor, multiple rolls is always the optimal decision; c) it takes longer to resolve.

I have a conquest paladin in my group whose behaviour i guess could be described as hobbitism. He hides at the back of the group, even wanting the gnome enchantress to go first and flees from danger. I’ve tried rumours spreading of his cowardice and npc’s confronting him about it (one peasant literally had a crossbow and accused him of leaving her son to die). Other friendly npc’s have been sent to complete quests he has ran from and been killed or turned to darkness. i even have this this one enemy who is levelling up from multiple encounters he has fled from; the way he is going is probably going to become a major villain. Not really sure how to handle it, storywise and in older editions he would probably have an alignment change be stripped of all powers and become a fighter but that seems a bit harsh.

I feel like you're describing two different issues here: 1. Players who point out "flaws" in the game (plot holes, anachronisms, logical fallacies, whatever). 2. Players who are overly cautious with their game-play because they're worried about negative consequences. These are two very different issues and need to be addressed differently. You can't deal with the player who pulls out "well actually..." as every second sentence in the same way you would the player who's scared that opening the door will kill their character.

I think the best solution starts at session zero - make a character who wants to go on the adventure.

Obviously every group is different, and my group tends to have a good sense of humor about things, but when "unrealistic" things happen with my group it usually gets its own narrative all the sudden. Did a vendor give away a valuable item for cheap because the DM messed up the calculation? Well, later that night the guy went into the back room to look at his wife's family's prized necklace only to discover he accidentally sold it instead of the crappy model up front! Then his wife leaves him, and his kids openly mock him in the streets, and he blames those adventurers. Those rowdy, loud, obnoxious adventurers who insisted on seeing everything, and leaving with one cheap necklace, that happened to be the most expensive thing he owned. And now you have a dungeon boss.

If you, as a DM, have repeated issues with people opening doors, I'd suggest looking at how your sessions are designed to make sure you're not causing the paranoia

I was running a solo adventure for a friend of mine and he suddenly became overly cautious in a session, that his character was handling extremely well mind you, and basically forced me to give him an ally before he would progress. The session went well after I introduced a henchman for him, but I'm not sure why it got to that point.

"Just let the hobbits be hobbits" I... disagree. Being opposed to adventuring is pretty much completely antithetical to DnD at it's core. Now, you can easily play the reluctant hero ala Frodo (and Bilbo to an extent), because even though Frodo doesn't WANT to do this quest, HE STILL DOES. But my main point is about those players you mention who don't want their character to die, and have their character arcs planned out and such. To me (and this my be controversial)... they're pretty much the player equivalent of a Railroading DM. They refuse to let anything happen to their character that they don't want, like a DM who doesn't let the players solve problems except for the way the DM wants them to. Like a railroading DM, these players should really just write a book. DnD is, by its very nature, chaotic and dangerous. Hobbitism and players with pre-made arcs and all that are very much counter to that nature. Like you said, there's no wrong way to have fun (provided it doesn't hurt others), but having fun doesn't require DnD. There are other games to play, and other activities to partake in that are probably far better suited for those desires.

5:55 Oh! this is a big regret I have with an old play group. I had an opportunity to change my character a little to make the game more interesting but I didn't take it. During a fight another player asked me, "Does [your character] see [my character] as a leader?" and I decided my character didn't. But he would not only have got a leadership bonus (it was Shadowrun with house rules, not D&D), it would have lead to some good storytelling moments. I should have Yes-And'd him and changed my character a little to make the game more fun.

I think I missed the initial question, but I once had a fellow player who, when I was taking a moment to count up my rolls and modifiers (which takes me a moment, because I need a second with math, even though it is basic addition) they would quickly count it up for me and say for me what my total was. This would be nice IF I had asked for it, but I didn't, and I really like telling what my check or damage is. Another thing that would've been fine if I'd asked was that they constantly tried to tell me what spells to take and why my choices were bad. These were not the only irritating things they did, but they were the biggest, and it saddens me to say, but I had to stop playing D&D with this person altogether because I didn't enjoy the game when we played.

This makes me happy that I have great players.

This entirely sums up the one behaviour I fear to see most in any Dungeons and Dragons game. Thank you for giving me a word for it.

I had to deal with two players who had this problem with my homebrew and it was AGONIZING. Every goddamn plot point I felt like hours of work was being ripped to pieces in front of my because they were just obsessively dissecting everything in the name of realism. It was just plain stressful; I was putting all this effort into trying to make the best game I could and my efforts were just being stomped on. Like being under constant verbal attack. Took me literal years before I felt confident enough to DM again, and thankfully my new group has been playing the same campaign I ran back then and loving it. One of my other players from back then swears I was legitimately traumatized by these players, so running the campaign with a better group has been something of a healing experience for me, lol.

I had a player who had compulsion for go shopping on every town. But not shopping for magic itens, weapons, treasure maps. Just clothes, fashion. And I had to deal with an obscene amout of time spent on shops and clothes descriptions, while the entire plot for the campaign was frozen. That was the worst for me.

Oh damn I'm early. Always great addressing player behaviors though! And DM behaviors, of course. But even if it can be uncomfortable, it improves a game table when it's taken in stride.

I appreciate your example of how you’ve changed in time by remaining self aware of your actions. I think a great point Sly Flourish mentions in The Lazy Dungeon Master; ‘have players add to the description in as much as it wouldn’t effect gameplay’; It may help immerse newbies and perhaps put the ball in the Ego court and let them add to the theme as a cooperative group instead of a singular finger pointer.

I now feel so bad for DMs who suffered my nonsense when I was in my teens and early twenties.

I'm currently running a Hunter: The Reckoning + Grimm TV show campaign. I asked the players at Session 0 if it was ok to have it be a serious campaign. They agreed. Not one episode has gone by without them making fun of serious situations and crack jokes at the table excessively, completely ruining the mood. I am so discouraged from running campaign any more because they flat out disrespect the narrative. Or at least that's how I feel. I'm thinking of just running something else in which they can have all the goofy, stupid fun they want without turning a dark, pre-apocalyptic, oh-crap-monsters-are-real world into a joke.

I would bring up that hobbitism can also be a sign that the party is unable to get invested in the story the DM is making. There's no reason to do something on the behalf of characters the players don't care about after all. Doing things like getting quests from the king to save the kingdom is all well and good in a written and idealized story, but a group of players from a non-idealized world probably won't be very engaged cause real kings tend to be spoiled brats. The standard high fantasy formula used in novels doesn't work that well for that reason, it doesn't really give players a reason they actually care about to act.

I have struggled with the realism thing allot since my late teens and as of the last two years i have been trying to undo all that. I wasnt enjoying my faveroite fictions, comics, or games as much as i did as a kid and it finally dawned on me... thats cause i didnt have any expectations for anything nor did i need explinations for anything as a child. Since practicing this i am finding a renewed joy in just about anything imagination related be it film, book, game or show. (edit) ive also found doing this has helped my own creativity a ton!

Also DMs, it's perfectly okay for you to want to run a specific kind of game, so long as you're upfront about it. I only ever give my players a few restrictions on character creation, chief among them are: no evil characters unless we discuss it beforehand and you have a VERY good reason, and you must make someone who will be an adventurer and go on the adventure. If you want to start off as a reluctant hero, run it by me first and I'll make sure to have a scene in session one where you can play that out, but we have the understanding that by the end of that scene you'll come up with a reason for your character to go. I came up with these rules because of a past group where hobbitism was a constant issue in EVERY game. My players liked the reluctant hero troupe, but didn't grasp that part of the troupe is the hero DOES eventually go. I broke finally during a birthday one-shot I was running where a player played a 'pacifist who doesn't want to leave the town'. I had been upfront about what this adventure would entail, so I threw up my hands and told the player "Fine, this character doesn't go. Leave the room and don't come back until you've made a character that WILL go on the adventure, because our time tonight is limited." And what do you know, he came up with a 'greater good' kind of reason his character would go on the adventure. Lol.

Very early on, my fellow party and then myself as a dm suffered from this a lot (We had a terrible first DM). Thankfully we introduced the “there’s a reason for that” concept. If something seemed off or weird to them about how something should work, I’d either make them immediately roll perception or just tell them “there’s a reason for that”. If it’s just that I didn’t have a good understanding about something I’d say for them to ignore it as it wasn’t intentional and we’d all move on. Good way to let them voice their concerns and potentially reward their deductive reasoning. Plus it’s good for improv as you quickly retroactively try and fix it without them knowing.

This reminds me of a few situations I found myself in. Both as a player, and DM. As a DM, I once had a really annoying player. Who, while the players were exploring a haunted house, INSISTED on removing every single door of the giant megadungeon mansion they were exploring. Despite me telling him it would take him roughly 10 minutes each time, and he'd be making a lot of noise, thus I'd have to roll several random encounter checks every time. He still insisted on doing this, cause he thought the doors would randomly close behind them. Like, none of the doors in the entire mansion did anything like this, and I'm not a particular fan of that kind of trap anyway. Eventually the party made a joke about it, and constructed a fort out of all the doors he removed outside the haunted house to take long rests in. Another situation, with the same player, in the same game, was when they were in a tower in the said haunted mansion. They managed to knock down an expensive brass bell from the belfry, and were discussing how to break it up to sell it. This player insisted that because the bell was made out of brass, that his steel dagger should be able to cut through it like butter. And that he was a metal expert, so he knew what he was talking about. I'm not metal expert, but I'm positive a steel dagger can't just slice through a very thick brass bell like it's nothing. And was pretty sure it would just destroy the dagger, but had to argue with this guy way to long about it until I just let them break up the bell, cause it was really not worth all that much anyway (Ultimately like around 50 gold or so worth of raw brass) I had other instances with this guy trying to rule lawyer, but was extremely wrong but the rules he was trying to rules lawyer about, to where I had to open the player handbook, and read the rule out loud to shut him up about it. He once insisted sneak attack works with spells, and wouldn't accept my ruling that they don't until I read it out loud. Now a situation where I was a player. Once while playing on a West March style server, me and some random party members were going to explore the Underdark. We were all around level 10, playing as highly experienced Adventurers, who had actually taking several trips already into the underdark. So at the beginning of the game, while we were waiting for everyone to show up, our characters were chatting, and shooting the shit. (This was a text game, btw.) While we did, there was this NPC the Dm described. Who was all brooding, and mysterious. Wearing a hood to hide his identity. My character tried to talk to him, but he barely spoke a word to the group. When everyone showed up, my character (Who I tend to play as pretty anti hobbit, which will soon be very ironic.), took the lead, and encouraged everyone to follow him down into the tunnels. There was no objections from the other players, who were eager to start playing... But the DM got extremely pissed off at me, out of character. Telling us that we were leaving our guide behind. Which caused confusion from the entire party. The NPC, who hadn't spoken a word to us so far, apparently were suppose to be the guide. To a bunch of heavily experienced adventurers. A guide to what? Wouldn't say. We were under the impression we were just exploring for exploring sake. The main mission of the West March campaign at the moment, was actually to chart the unexplored underdark region, after all. We technically knew where we were going, just not what was at our location. But the DM made a huge stink about it, and I argued his NPC never even spoke with us, and that we technically didn't need a guide, but if he wanted to lead us somewhere, that was fine. So we went back to retrieve this guy (Why he didn't just follow us, I have no idea.), and insisted on him 'guiding' us for what ever reason. But, not really trusting this guy, for good reason, my PC began to question him. Where we were going, who he was, etc. He wouldn't say a word, except to state that my PC talked to much. Getting annoyed, my PC stopped following him, and told him if he didn't get answers, he was turning back. Both IC and OOC I was annoyed. This felt like and obvious trap, the DM wasn't even trying to hide it, and was getting pissy ooc cause I was calling it out. Asking why I was being so mean to his character. So what did the NPC do? He cast silence on my character. I honestly considered just attacking him than and there. He had cast a spell on my character, that could easily have been seen as a hostile action. But not wanting to be accused of murder hoboing, I just made my character be true to his word. He flipped the npc off, and turned around. At which point the DM said a magical hole opened up, and swallowed up my character. No save. This would apparently teleport me into the dungeon we were going to anyway, and he did the same to the other PCs soon after. But at that point I was pretty done with the game, and requested to back out officially, being pretty fed up with the DM.

Thanks for the video; I've been playing since '81 and I still found it pretty insightful. I think that much of it comes down to incentives and expectations. Old school games levelled you for acquiring gold, not for combat. So caution was actually rewarded! You didn't have to fight the dragon, you just had to get it to leave the gold unguarded so you could his lair a spring cleaning (though, it's gonna be mad so probably don't hang around too long...). It's also why wandering monsters worked as a timer... you got nothing from them (no treasure) except danger, so you needed to get in do your stuff and exfiltrate before the creatures that were just wandering around found you and complicated your life. On the part about 'modern attitudes' and such. A long time ago I encountered a maxim that has led to good characterization ever since: your character must firmly believe one thing that you (the player) know to be *wrong*. That's really the secret to realistic characters... they must all be totally convinced of at least one thing that is obviously (to you) wrong. Far more important than doing a funny accent.

I just found this channel and it is helped alleviate some of my anxiety of running my first game with some of my friends, your content is much easier to understand to a noob such as I. Thanks and keep it up

I love this channel. So easy and relaxing to watch. Thanks Bob.

Good video. I definitely like the content you create. I do get annoyed at players refusing the participate in the adventure... Although I also feel like the risk involved in the situation is also a great source of fun, no chance to get hurt equals a lesser earned reward. That being said, no ones fun is also not an option but then the DM, or other players should speak with the problem players or find a reason to integrate him/her/it. It does not have to be the DM, player pushing other player is the most natural, less intrusive way to do it. I would recommend more experience players to include more the reductants ones in the story instead of the DM having to force them to do some actions.

Honestly, our DM has a fantastic strategy for when any of us make a pithy remark about her worldbuilding - she just makes it canon. Like oh?? you've come up with something stupid to say??? that's part of the world now, you have to live with that knowledge. This is how we ended up in a Dwarven merch store called Rock Topic.

I once played a Bilbo Baggins type "No adventure for me" wizard. They loved their books their libraries and their homes. That was all they wanted. But I balanced this with the DM and a player that would act as my "Gandalf" always encouraging me on to adventure. I think the character type can be great in DnD but you as a player have to always be ready to make that character prone to pushing for sake of gameplay. Remember. Bilbo may not have saught adventure. But he still went on one when presented.

Great Video! I too was once a know-it-all and still struggle with bouts of "well actually" from time to time

As a dungeon master I find it difficult to commit to a player death. Even if it wasn’t in the cards and it is literally how the dice fell, I always find a way to lessen the impact. Do you have any advice or ways of thinking that may help circumnavigate this unease?

I'll admit that I have been a hobbit before and looking back, it was pretty annoying But like anything, I think there is a balance between being a hobbit and motivating players. I'm sure that there are parties that would go on a perilous quest where most of them could die just because a random NPC quest-giver told them too, but a DM shouldn't expect all parties to want to fight their way to the 89th layer of the abyss because the NPC wants yummy tea leaves and will pay them 3 copper to do so. Either way, a conversation is the easiest way to find the balance to enough character motivation.

Dude! Incredible video! Nice graphics and intro, good volume and cadence, great humor! Fantastic and comedic editing. 10/10 solid video. Instant sub.

"I can't believe the party's just standing here and not just opening the door!" - Party member who is also just standing here and not just opening the door

A friend of mine tried to invent the hot air balloon in-game. That got noped pretty quick.

Honestly I find characters refusing to engage with the story is 9/10 times a dm problem not a player problem. If you as a dm see a player setting up a smart and cowardly character, or a overly logical vault of information. They will ask "why are we doing this" and if you dont have a answer you cant be surprised when they say "then im not doing it". That is not refusing to get immersed in the world that is being OVERLY immersed in the world to the point they are probably going against what the irl player actually wants out of the game. They are too in character basically. So, if you say "go slay this dragon for a 1000 gold prize" and the cowardly wizard says "Im not risking my life for 1000 gold" maybe find something to motivate your characters and force them into the story (as the irl player probably wants) rather than be angry at the players for not engaging with the story. Just saying "Im the dm you should trust me to make a interesting story" is not adequate motivation for the actual in world character who has no idea your 1000 gold dragon slaying quest will lead into saving the world.

Great video Bob. I have send this to many players and found myself in many aspects of this. Learned so much!

That ad was so clean that I thought it was a legit point in the video cause I was looking away

My players: "We're going to stay in our base." Me: "Laugh Evilly." My Player: "On second thought... let's do X." My players have learned that wherever they go, adventure is going to find them. They can go to it, or they can deal with it when it comes to them.

I love the way this was broken down. Thank you!

this is a good video!!! i've definitely come up against this kind of thing before, it reminds me a lot of like a related or sub-phenomenon where the player will treat the game as some kind of chaotic loot-acquisition simulator? like, constantly assaulting absolutely any NPC they meet, including unplanned ones, in broad daylight for their loot and forcing the DM to try make the world react to this unexpected moment in a way that makes sense, completely stopping the game in it's tracks

I have a couple of hobbity players in my game who won't engage with things unless they are 100% sure of the outcome. I intend to turn that Player behaviour into a character flaw to be challenged as part of their stories - by having NPCs call them out on it or forcing their hand a bit more during the game. It kinda makes sense for new players who are learning how the game works at the same rate as their characters. And others get caught up in role play which makes them hobbity. 'Why would my PC go out of their way to engage with the random encounter?' kinda thing. I've started telling my players that their character motives are just one tool to drive the story and explore the parts of my world that they are interested in. If you want to engage with something as a player then just do it and justify your character's actions after, even if it's by accident or irrational. People behave irrationally all the time, they're not constantly thinking about why.

Being scared of opening a door usually means that the DM punishes players for being careless, harshly. Or, another dm did the same. You want your players to get immersed? Them not wanting to die is pretty immersive, because why the hell would someone want to go into a haunted house without an incentive? If you hate people being cautious, you hate immersion, because that’s exactly WHAT immersion is. If you want everyone to act like morons who just want to “get it over with” then you’re not immersed, because your life isn’t on the line.

Especially your options at the conclusion are great. Switching campaigns, systems, or allowing players to play cowardly/safe/home-y characters is a very good tip :)

We had (have?) a comedy fantasy game. We're playing with all the tropes. And the _players_ like to point out when a trope would work better, and make it funnier. For the _characters,_ it's how the world works. It's played straight for them.

Great video. I am very frustrated by the "reluctant adventurer/I'd rather stay home" characters that players sometimes make, to the point where I include a reminder in my campaign primer that players should make proactive characters who want to adventure and I veto those characters in session zero.

I think "realism" is better put as the extent someone is willing to suspend their disbelief and there aren't rules about how that works, so it's tough to know what sorts of "realism" scratches that itch for different people.

A very good video, these are important lessons to take notice of. Luckily I don't have these problems with the two campaigns run but I'm aware of them. We had the conversations that you speak of in the session 0 so everybody knew were each other person stood.

The most annoying example I have of this is one of my players in a Werewolf: The Apocalypse game from years ago has his sister disappear in game. She was prone to just doing whatever she wanted, but he had reason to be concerned since his other sister had been killed by a serial killer that had never been caught. He did some bare minimum searching, then went home and went to bed. Now, there were tons of clues to what had happened. She had left town with a group of friends. I was trying to get the players out of the small town they were in. Roleplaying in your hometown sounds fun until you do it for a few weeks. After you've had fun trashing places you know and beating up bullies, it gets old quick. So, I wanted to get them moving so the game could progress. So, a road trip up the eastern seaboard sounded like fun. To me. Apparently not this guy. She had told NPC's she was leaving, so he basically had to do a little leg work to get on her trail by questioning them. Or, being a werewolf, put those senses to good use. But, why would a player do that? I mean, werewolves are only good for turning nine feet tall and mauling anything that moves. Why use your keen wolf senses or your werewolf spirit powers? Nope. He just went to bed and announced the next morning that he would be going to work at the arcade he owned. I glowered at him a moment, gave the other player who was doing a fantastic job of roleplaying his own character the maximum experience for succeeding in his personal mission in what I thought was record time, and actually did the unthinkable and took Arcade Wolf's points down a notch and announced I was shutting the game down for the foreseeable future. Actually didn't roleplay for six months I was so annoyed. I mean, if a player is not feeling it, just say so. But if they're so out of touch they just want to go work at an arcade and hand out quarters, just....GET A DAMNED JOB IN REAL LIFE! After a decade, it STILL pisses me off!

Dude I love your videos, but "just run two games" is up there with "just kill their character" in how bad of advice it is. As a DM, my time is already so precious and I don't need more voices in the D&D sphere putting higher and higher expectations for players to put on DMs. Running a game is a huge undertaking, and running two games simultaneously is not possible for most normal groups

I think the DM shares some of the responsibility to make the adventure relevant to ALL the players at the table in some way. Obviously every group is different, so the DM has to identify and ask players why they want to be at the table. Refusal of Call is part of the Hero's Journey so DMs shouldn't see it as a bad thing if players are risk adverse. This is just another aspect of DMing and part of the game. If the DM sets it all up so that the characters have plenty of motivation to run the adventure, but the players don't want to engage ie "lets just get on a boat and go somewhere in the opposite direction instead" then I believe its totally justified for the DM to say "Ok where are you going, what are you doing, and we can play again in 2-3 weeks when I'm prepared to run that content or we can run the content I've spent my free time to prepare." Sometimes its best to be real with your players.

Not only do I genuinely appreciate this video, but I genuinely appreciate that you admitted that you actually used to be a player like this! It’s nice to just see an example of a player changing and actually has me put a bit more faith in players that have a tendency for Hobbitism. I’ll definitely use this video when a situation like this comes up, very helpful! :D

"I don't *have* to, I *GET* to" This single phrase is absolutely great

This is why session zero is super important. It puts everyone in the same page where the Dm and Players can get to a middle point of what type of campaign or one shot they want to run.

I kind of disagree with the first part. Realism in fantasy doesn't mean it should be based on our world physics. The world has magic, but it should still be part of physics, with magic. Just saying, "because magic." is a lousy excuse. D&D or other Fantasy system has their own magic rules. The realism should be based on the system.

One of the nice things about players waffling over The Unknown is that there's often a good opening for any player willing to be the Tanky Brave Boy With Big Heart and Tiny Brain. It can be very fun to play a character who boldly rushes in whenever the party spends a little too much time bickering.

Sometimes the DM has to force the players into reacting. I wont go into detail, but NPCs and enemies are great at forcing players to do SOMETHING.

To add to this: Immersion =/= realism. They are similar, not the same. Generally games should be immersive, but might not be for the sake of comedy or other reasons. Not all games need to be realistic. But realism is always in degrees, and D&D 5e can be used for a realistic game, even with magic, dragons, and unreasonably large dungeons. Some things, like detailed descriptions, can contribute to both aspects. Others, like 4th wall breaks and modern references can cause a loss in immersion without losing realism. I see hobbitism as a loss of immersion, but not necessarily a loss in realism, and it could be construed as an in-game attempt to get the players or GM to work a little harder to explain or create the plot hook. If the player was more experienced, and noticed people were upset with their character not participating, they could clarify out of game for the players, and probably address the GM directly. On the other hand, if the game was a one-shot, or otherwise not going to be an ongoing thing, they may need to swallow a change in the character to let them join the plot.

see i take issue with this, i think having obvious plot holes is a fault of the GM, going "its a fantasy, get with it" is a shortcoming and needs to be improved. a plot doesnt work if the kings brother is taking control due to some obscure and one off legal issue a plot doesnt work if, with no build up or forshadowing, that divine magic doesnt work on this type of undead a pot doesnt work if, you can magic up gold, as an economy doesnt work.

I remember back in the day, we had one of those 'my guy won't go on the adventure'. I can't remember if he was a homebody or doing the anti-social lone wolf thing, or what. The rest of the party just left him behind, so while we're out adventuring, the DM cuts to him every once in a while doing something mundane. When he complained about being bored, we all told him it was his own damn fault for not going along with the game.

Trying to encourage players to explore is always where I struggle as a dm. Players have seen a portion of the towns, they have a plot device in their back pocket and aren't looking at it. Finally had an old timer whack it with their walking stick and say what's that glowing object. Wild antics ensued. It was great. And now I need an extended wild magic table