When players focus on the wrong NPC 

Ah. Yes. Mine neither. Not once have I ever been asked a random NPC's name, blurted out Susan, and then had someone point out that there are an absurd amount of Susans in the world and begin to question if a plot was involved behind that name...

I felt every bit of Rob's pain in the dialogue in this script, for how many episodes the boys did this to him and he would have to either think something up on the fly. Or spend time preparing for the questions in his lead up work

They didn't even ask what her favourite fear is XD

So nice😅 Was the outtake improvised @VivaLaDirtLeagueDnD?

"well I thought your insistence on talking about the other guy was a distraction tactic! Why were you being so obvious about it if it wasn't?!?!"

Either strategy may or may not work. Once I did an entire island before talking to the quest giver... and the result was crap. On the next island I spoke directly to the quest giver... and got teleported to a boat on top of a mountain. It was a long time coming back to this island just for secondary characters

"Shinu!"

@@michael_pilot I hate when that happens. Bro I did not ask to be teleported. Can I do this part later plz? lmao

Yeah. To see if the background NPCs have hidden quests or not😂

Yes

X"DD

Punchline: "Why do you ask, 'Two Dogs F*cking'?" Tell me the setup...

​@@MrRezRising It goes something like this. One day a Native American man is talking with the chieften the man asks: "I know that you named everyone in our tribe, how did you come up with such wonderful names". The chief replied: "Well at the time of their birth I looked around and the first thing I saw animals doing, that was the new baby's name".

Kitty Shmerple should become their companion and turn from an extraordinary character into the best fictional character that reveals itself in the course of events, the best character they came up with, and then often joke with friends with memes, because she is famous in their circle of friends.

@@MrRezRising I don't know without Googling and that would be cheating 😂

"So she's refusing to speak to us? How mysterious...we should stalk her all night to see where she goes!"

I cast hold person!

I roll charisma

Her interaction reminded me of the barkeep in 'Monkey Island'. 😂

I cast "read mind"/"charm" on the waitress!

instead of forcing the players in directions they don't want to go, just roll with it...that way some of the best and memorable stories evolved in my own games..good work!

@@Zaveron "roll with it" HA!!! Good pun!!!

dont think it was intended@@jasonwestermeyer645

My players once restored an entire bell tower that was just there for ambience.

This is generally terrible advice for people running a campaign that very much does have plot points set up. The key is to expressly NOT bullshit your players and just flat-out tell them as an aside "This npc you are talking to? Yeah I have not given them a name, they have no backstory, and anything a have them tell you I am just making up on the spot. You can keep talking to them if you are enjoying it, but if you are looking for the plot look elsewhere."@@Zaveron

"... as he writes down..."

You do realise it is a DM, it stands for dungeon master.

Sorry, correction, just did some research, I guess GM is acceptable too.

@@MOGmanpronouncedEmojiman We all make mistakes, no biggie.

@@MOGmanpronouncedEmojiman GM is the more broad name, used in video games too.

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Oooozing with mystery!

Too funny. Thank you.

"I'm Rowan. I'm a model."

It’s such a nice touch. I’m laughing too hard at his mysteriousness.🤣🤣🤣

With subtitles on, it describes it as "mystery-gasm" ;-D

that's what you call it? xD the subtitles are more accurate xDDD

The amount of times I want to just have a mic recording in the middle of the table for transcription is a lot. The only thing is, I like the idea of no technology at the table other than maybe the occasional text on your phone or the DM having a website to help with ambiguity on an item/spell/etc... behind the DM screen.

That's Brynley Stent, she was on NZ Taskmaster season 1

@@iambicpentakill And on Shorty as Damo's sister.

1:43 the perfect smirk

Sha is great!

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And that's why I always watch VLDL videos a second time with subtitles turned on

@@Ganedikt That's how you know Lorquin was part of it, I guess !

​@@MLacrymaFlattered but nope! I stay in my VLDL D&D channel box. Best guess these were their editor, Tasman.

@@Lorqu1n Well, another great addition to the post prod team ! Sassy transcriptor like you !

Haha, I always subtitle VLDL's videos - the constant jokes they write into them are awesome. 😆

It's not a format. It's just a sketch idea.

So your setting is just a series of cardboard props? Why?

My Cleric ended up with a mini-dragon pet, that way. But the DM was quite happy with that. Everything which happens is just a new invitation for other things to happen.

​@@Cathie2209dunno man...depending on the system pets are a real pain in the a**... The mage of my group has a dragon too.. she wipes away all small enemies with a spell and then her dragon kills at least one stronger one. This takes away my action-economy... sometimes some players cant even attack because she kills everything in her round. Since we play Savage Worlds I also can't just add more enemies to solve the problem, because Damage can get infinitely high in this system, drastically increasing the chance of a TPK when adding too many enemies... I'd like to get advice how your GM handles such things. Seems to be a good, experienced & creative one.

@@vesanus5600 Honestly, at that point you should find some ways to get rid of the dragon without making it look *too* targeted. Like, you know, since she's going around with a fucking dragon murdering things left and right, place dragon hunters hired/on a quest to kill that beast. And even if the dragon survives, that may make your player think twice about using it too much, since actions have consequences. Or perhaps a group is sent to capture the dragon, and they do it while the PCs are sleeping or in a trap or whatever, and once captured it could be a quest to retrieve the dragon, but when they get to it the dragon was experimented on by a mad scientist/wizard and now it's smaller/weaker, so it could still be used in combat but much less deadly. There are MANY possibilities to deal with an overpowered pet or item that you gave to the players or let them have it, either by removing it (harsh but sometimes necessary) or nerfing it in-game. Throwing stronger or more enemies at a group to deal with *one* problematic PC is not the right way to do it, the other PCs are very likely to actually die or be punished instead of the problematic one... You must find a way to target the problem while making sense in-game as to why that happens.

@@raznaak I thank you for your advice. But before I start nerfing abilities my players absolutely are allowed to have (by the rule system) I think I will just let her be overpowered. Combats are fast and easy for them, but none of my players complained about that yet. Nerfing is a bad thing in my mind. I like the idea with the dragon-hunters though :)

I loved the old assassin that was killed on his birthday at the start of the current DnD campaign in Honeywood...😂

Bring back Dude!!

I learned after a while to have some generic name and backstory that I could grab in case they went for some random NPC I had not planed for. Helped keep the flow of the game going and some of those random NPC became recurring characters :)

I died laughing when Jessica, the receptionist to Grinn's love interest, mayor Kali was mute, no fingers so she couldn't sign or write, also suffered an aneurysm and died. BoB STILL used his recently acquired skill to telegraph into her head to learn more about her!

I hope we see Jessica again. You remember, the Mute, Fingerless Receptionist from Brimming. The was the best! (Way better than that one who had an annurism and died on the spot.) Also, Grgrlistsnest the delivery boy needs a come back!

Or the devs were really lazy and didn't care about background history.

Because the DM had the whole story ready for the mysterious Rowan in the corner. Obviously, many people h ere never played DnD.

It's meant to be a D&D session, there aren't any devs, this isn't Npc man

​@@BrawndoQC Man, it's a joke.

​@@BrawndoQConöy a fool falls for such a obvious trap. Schmurpl allways referenced him just to sneak away! :D

I can sense some "Tim The Enchanter" vibes. 😂

The horns are so cute! In every video, I can't with them! 😭

**Britt break**

No one is single with a bard around.

Single or not, here I come!! -Brad the Bard, probably

“I don’t know. This man in the corner is so mysterious he might even be my boyfriend! You should ask him.”

She looks pregnant though :P congrats on the actress though.

Nope, sorry, Antrius is with a different D&D comedy skit group!

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It was actually "Rowa", He's French and was just waiting for his flight back to Paris

As a DM, this is actually pretty fun if you've got a good group who can roll with you rolling with them. All of you are literally making up a story as you go, and if you're pretty good at it it ends up being a good story. (Also, a good DM should have a list of pre-generated names so you can quickly pick one out at random.)

A well prepared DM has lists with names.

Ah, the Verbal Kint school of DMing... 👌😁

Lol, that DM sounds like me. I would go so far as to make players roll dice … while I took notes. The rolls were unimportant. But remembering the name and where they met them was. I also had this bad habit of writing typos. I had studied Russian and picked up a bad habit of writing g instead of d. So among some loot were some boots of Elvenking. The group thought it was funny, so I ran with it. Later when they visited a tavern, one of them was arrested for stealing the elven king’s shoes.

@solandri69 we were good with spitballing story's on the fly, but all ways got brain lock when coming up with random names. And yes list of names would be great but my friends were full time college students and I was working 70 plus hours and going to school for tool and die apprenticeship, so we did not always have time for indepth prep.

Did not notice at all. In fact, I didn't even notice how Schmurple died... I'm gonna have to re-watch. 😂

wasn't he in Avatar?

yeah she vibes well with the gang

@@EliteGoosePlusOne she is HILARIOUS lol

One of rowans first decisions in the dnd campaign. Killed a guy and carried his corpse into Greg's shop.

into the back pack with her, to sit with all the other potentially-quest-items

Definitely need to re-animate her and join her to the party. Her story is going to take awhile to play out.

@@nadennight *A Weekend at Schmerple's intensifies*

I'll roll a 1d8 to cast reanimate on smerple.

Speak with the dead failed, because... *dramatic drumroll* They are not dead! The image of the waitress shimmers and fades away, revealing a wooden serving cart and a pixie sitting on it. The pixie looks decidedly enraged.

Sometimes even the players can get payback for the what the DM has put them through. ~grin~

Ah, but they didn't notice how Schmerple clearly used magic to manipulate that poor average tavern patron into "murdering" herself. That was an obvious ploy to avoid inquiry. And to do such a thing to a poor common commoner man of commoning, who was just trying to enjoy a common book after a common hard day of common work was truly nefarious from *Schmerple... **_of Smaugenrock._* There, I said it even if it's a spoiler to some who didn't realize. She has to be from Smaugenrock to be so evil.

Spoiler, the mysterious man is actually Shrumple's familiar wearing a ring of spell storing which she cast polymorph into allowing the familiar to take the form of a mysterious man at will to distract the adventurers. When Shrumple realized the adventurers were on to her, she had her familiar pretend to stab her as she subtle spell cast feign death on herself. A very clever ruse.

As an experienced DM, i have to say: I love you and hate you at the same time ))

You can always recycle an NPC if the players ignore them. Didn't talk to Robert, that clearly-important guy in the corner who was supposed to be your connection to the Chancellor of the Bardic College? No worries, in the next town there will be a woman named Roberta who can connect you.

And she's very mysterious.

Kitty Shmerple should become their companion and turn from an extraordinary character into the best fictional character that reveals itself in the course of events, the best character they came up with, and then often joke with friends with memes, because she is famous in their circle of friends.

I would like a back story about Jeremy and how his adventure of finding Meredith worked out.

Quickly! We must start an investigation of how and why she died, starting with ever patron in the tavern. “First of all, tell us everything you know about Shmurple and why you think someone would have her killed?!”

Gotta know what's going on. She got murdered during casual conversation, definitely needs investigating.

Ikr, leave the poor woman alone! 😂

Killed you? Then I cast speak with the dead on Anthonyshutpot7890

I bursted! 😂

The chorus of agreement -- "good idea / yes / good idea" was what did it for me. Clearly a party of uncommonly unified vision.

This is amazing hah

Not-audrey 🤣

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sometimes the best adventures come from humoring the party.

The best stories are the ones that come from DMs able to make plots out of the party's antis

I love his colour tagged binder

@@Raida7 It looks a lot like the one I had, and I would also calmy panic and find my npc sheet to write down the new important character I just created xD

Yup ... It is the only true way to capture "D&D Logic" for skits.

Desperately seeking to capture their attention. 😆

It's the perfect role for him!

"No Schnerples were harmed in the making of this skit."

episode/link?

Dude. The names caused a rift between him and his parents. One of the best funny moments in the early campaign.

@@sonalita_ Dating a Dragonborn - NPC D&D - Episode 52 and Sad Bodger - NPC D&D - Episode 56, the guys were fascinated by the receptionist to the mayor and Rob threatened to kill them all for it.

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Whaaaaaat… we wouldn’t do that 😅

But Schmerple is dead. 😕

@@user-lf3kr1nq2d The druid or paladin could use revivify if they're a high enough level

@@CruciferWarden Or maybe a Scroll of Raise Dead could be procured. Zombie Schmerple anyone?

I would take two...no, let's make it three, thanks@@Arbaaltheundefeated

SchMOREple please!

Came here looking for this. :)

Rowan? Oh YEA, that WAS Rowan. No wonder that the players did not recognize him. Clothing makes him so ... inconspicuous.

this is something i hate in modern games, they use obvious lighting to show you where is the path, and people still get lost. like. HOW. or my most offensive issue, wich they seem to have toned down or forgotten, getting into a new area and the camera pan where the obvious enemies are going to pop up before you get into the fight. why ?

He could have thrown shit at them and they still would not care to approach or speak with him

🤣

Kitty Shmerple should become their companion and turn from an extraordinary character into the best fictional character that reveals itself in the course of events, the best character they came up with, and then often joke with friends with memes, because she is famous in their circle of friends.

No such spell in D&D. Get your games straight. This isn't final fantasy

Of course there are ressurction spells (or miracles) in DnD, unless this game has changed a lot in the last couple of years. I can even remember a text from the rulebook, where it basically states that after a certain characterlevel (paragon upwards) death becomes more and more meaningless, as ressurection options become more and more available. Btw., the first hit on a quick google search is titled "Dungeons & Dragons: The 6 Best Resurrection Spells" :p @@Talion1011

@@Talion1011 Revivify, 3 Necromancy Casting Time: 1 action You touch a creature that has died within the last minute. That creature returns to life with 1 hit point. This spell can't return to life a creature that has died of old age, nor can it restore any missing body parts.

I don't know about you,but it feels like they were really excited about their first session together and just wanted to pull out all the stops. And I think that's great and something a DM can adjust to the following session. It's not like they ignored your hook. It just that they swallowed it so hard, they pulled you into the lake with them. It's better than players ignoring the obvious start of the adventure and start stealimg chickens to make a chicken farm (true story that happened to one of my players' first ever game.)

@@yarion4774 - It did turn out that the ants were caused to be giant by the influence of dark elves working beneath the town they lived in. It was as good as I could come up with on the fly. Still, I had written up maps and encounters. People to interrogate and dialogue for every question I could predict they may ask. Backgrounds for the NPCs so I could more readily ad lib their interactions. Hours of work, so many pages of events and information that sit on my shelf as a reminder to railroad these players into the story I wrote! ;-)

​@@RictusHolloweye Ready to use in a future adventure, not wasted at all 🙂

There shouldn't be an "actual" game and there shouldn't be a wrong way for the players to interact with the world. Improve your DMing.

I made a grand campaign that covered level 1 to beyond level 20. The party was supposed to make their way north to the capital city, where they would encounter the Blood King and decide whether to support or oppose his global conquest and unification efforts. Along the way, they would see the pros and cons each action would have on the kingdom, so they weren't just getting thrown into that decision blind. ...aaaand they ended up hunting down a necromancer cult for a random orc NPC they took in, literally changing the focus of the campaign to wiping out the shadowy leaders of said cult, never even coming close to the city they were supposed to reach within the first 5 sessions after years of playing that game. It was an absolute blast, and it actually freed me up to add a lot more of my random world-building encounters and oddities than if I had railroaded them to the original story.

What I often do is always have a "backup characters". Completely ordinary characters but with names description a little background and other stuff. I sometimes mix information of different ones into one if it's necessary but mostly it solves the issue of coming up with that stuff on the spot. Highly recommend, 10 out of 9. Yes I did rate my own tip.

Bob. Every NPC is named Bob.

@@JDLambright I'm Bob and so's my wife!

@@613harbinger316 Yes, and have you met my 3 kids? Bob, Bob and Rob. The last one was adopted.

One of the best tips I ever saw was to just have list of random names written down handy, cause this exact scene is a certainty in every campaign.

i doubt it, from what I remember Dude Dalia grew up on Alderkeep. Unim and Notim grew up on the Dead Frost.

Why doesn't he just write a book if he doesn't want his players to make any decisions or interact with anything?

@@mrosskne Sigh, man, it was just something players do during a session that they mischievously ask DM to do an improv about an NPC that was supposed to do one thing only, like sending a message or activating a portal. You might be ignorant, but oftentimes DMs prepare NPCs with questlines and story that could be unfolded through the play, but then the players unknowingly made decisions that led to them abandon these NPCs. My comment was not meant to be a serious one. It was most possibly a running joke between VLDL and Rob since they still tried to make Rob to do the same and Rob had grown proficient in denying them 😂 Also, playing with guys like VLDL is hard, Rob always does his best to keep everything moving because of time constraint and other reasons. If the players insist on something like this, the story can't move forward. I don't know why you were so prickly about me reminiscing a funny moment during their D&D campaign, but I hope you can understand that you misunderstood me completely.

If you created a setting instead of a railroad, this wouldn't be a problem

What? If someone bursts in screaming about a problem, and they proceed not to ask that person, it’s not railroading for them to not learn more until they get slammed with what the problem *actually* is

​@@mrosskne That advice really doesn't apply in their case. First of all, "setting" and "railroad" are not and should not be antonyms. All D&D games can use some of each. Second, their players aren't exploring, they're sitting around trying to figure out the next part of a particular story. Knowing that there's also plenty of other interesting parts of the setting available to explore isn't going to help them pursue the mystery they're focused on

If they think it's the ogres... why should it not be the ogres? They would feel smart and you would feel less ignored. If you REALLY want it to be someone else, let them walk to the ogres. And then the ogres scream "Ah, humans are back to kidnap our children!" Aaand attack. Because they have the same problem.

I understand the joke here, but for my campaign: if they so aggressively think the waitress is the mage in disguise... give her the backstory and let her be the mage in disguise. Players feel smart and the story can go on.

It’s not the fault of the players if you can’t make a waitress with an interesting backstory and a hidden quest where she would ask to have a contact with his father that she didn’t see since his adolescence because she never wanted to have a arranged mariage with some old noble. Of course, the waitress and the noble are, after that, now allied to the adventurers and the dad could use his influence to help the group in his future quests !

@@sirpaillasson2671 A waitress promised to a nobleman...?

@@scol5868 a waitress of noble origin, with a noble father who want to marry her daughter.

Ugh, I hate waiting a week to see what happens next! Can't wait for Thursday every week, it's maddening!

@@catvamp100 Oh totally! Same here. It's so good. I've always got to set the mood before I watch because I know it's just a fleeting moment.

wasnt her name Hurple?

It was obvious. She's the red spy! Watch, she'll turn red any second now...

Obviously the mastermind behind the Magic Plague Drought. *Proceeds to do an Austin Powers maneuver and rip her face mask off to reveal the imposter.*

Clearly trying to direct the attention away from herself, how mysterious.

That sounds like amazing fun!

@@Veelasiren Oh it was. We're lucky that our DM is also a really good Storyteller for our Vampire the Masquerade game so he's talented at making mysteries and intrigue out of thin air

That's the way you do it. It might be "realistic" for a person to just not really have anything interesting going on if you've got the wrong guy, but it's important as a GM to also make failure interesting - and that does include failure to pick up on the plot hook.

Why don't you write a book if you don't want players to make decisions?

@@mrosskne Oh you were just a troll. Sorry I took you seriously 😂

She was clearly working undercover.

@@onecoolboy98 excatly, it was very suspecious how she tried to divert attention from herself. All alehouse maids I know of, LOVE to talk to the patrons. They does it for two reasons. 1 they get a bigger tip, and they mostly works for tips and 2 they are born curious. And travellers always have some delicious gossip

Why did you create an NPC that the players are supposed to talk to instead of an actual setting?

He don't. The players chooses to interact with NPC thus forcing the DM to come up with stupid names and random jibberish. Which is fun for the players, nightmare for the DM.

Lol, another Taskmaster contestant. Is David Correos coming back at any time? I love that guy.

Same lmao

How dare you! It was Dude (I think)!

Not one of my scripts but I certainly added to it!

Short for dudalia!

Yeah, the best characters in D&D

it's just too bad the campaign vids are utterly unwatchable because of everyone constantly talking over each other and ignoring the DM, it would be pretty entertaining otherwise

@@mrosskne You kidding? I find it very hilarious. They're having fun, which makes watching it fun.

​@@deimudda2130Bob (Ben's character) has telepathy.

@@deimudda2130 Rob was trying his best to have them avoid the mayor's receptionist, so he was countering every interaction with her. But, Ben's Character "B.O.B." had just recently unlocked Telepathy. When he used it on her, Rob screamed "DAMN IT!" and he let them talk to her.