Why DMs hate pets in D&D (and how to fix them) 

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-Give each member a pet -The party gets kidnapped -The players must rescue their characters as their pets.

When a player asks me if they can have a pet in my campaigns, I'll usually ask them what their intentions are. Some people want a trained hawk to scout ahead, and some people just want a huge cuddly cat. When I know the intention of the animal, It becomes much easier for me to make plans for the animal and the player.

I currently have a deer, and I keep forgetting that he exists and then when we’re all in a small closet/ room I get a random thought about how there’s also a full grown deer in there💀

My friend got a "cursed" black cat. It would bring bad luck to enemies that would touch it or pet it (as well as disadvantage to my friend when he carried it) and while it could die, it would instantly respawn behind us and the dead body would disappear as soon as it wasn't being observed. It was really cool too cause it was unbothered by death and we used it to test things for safety. We found out the anomalous properties when the Warlock used Eldrich blast and missed the Rogue's head but totally evaporated the cat that was sitting on his shoulder 😅 we weren't playing the good guys...

"You've probably met at least one DM who hates pets" Well of course I know him, he's me.

"Some DMs hate them." Me as a DM: *makes a new rule just for taming creatures because I started off as a Druid and know that having a pet is bloody dope*

You know it would be entertaining for the pirate's parrot to get left behind in the teleport only to swoop in and land on his shoulder exactly 5 minutes later no mater how far they teleported. We just left that thing 1000 miles behind, how did it catch up so fast? Maybe there is something more to this seemingly mundane bird than meets the eye. Its always fun to dangle weird plot hooks infront of players to see if they'll bite.

"What if a monster sees your mount and says 'lunch'?" This is why my pet was a Roc, she's the one saying 'lunch" for the monsters

"Comments Section" is such a brilliant addition to this video. Great job!

Lowest maintenance animal companion in history of D&D: Sprinkle the Weasel from Critical Role

My game's pet rule is that if the pet would take damage, the owner takes it instead (thanks to a "soul bond").

My party got a blink dog... well a blink puppy. We all instantly fell in love with him. Not wanting him to die, we decided to have a wizard friend of ours take care of him while we're having adventures. I frequently used the Sending spell to say, "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? You are."

In a campaign I’m running, one of my PCs character has a “pet” bullfrog who sits in a pouch on their person. The frog is actually their Paladin cousin who got turned into a frog and bestowed their Oath and ability to use magic onto my PC’s character. So essentially, their spell casting focus and holy symbol is the frog while they try to figure out how to turn their cousin back to a human. The frog doesn’t participate in combat, but if the frog is removed from the pouch to do whatever, during or out of combat, an Animal Handling check is made to secure the frog again. In order for the character to cast spells and whatnot, the frog must be on their person or within 5 ft of them. It sounds very different and wild, but my players and I have been in agreement over it bc of that session 0. I can’t agree with Ginny enough, that session is so important!

Here’s a fun fact: young winter wolves are beasts, adult winter wolves are monstrosities.

"...build pet shops in their towns" *writes that down* I never considered this as a DM. There could be a lot of adventurers, rangers, wizards, etc. living or traveling through an area. A good number of them could have animal companions. Businesses could have noticed that and set up animal companion services. They could potentially make a killing. People like Vex wouldn't want their animal companion out in the cold while they got to drink and eat in a tavern. And you know they would want armor for their companions too, and armor for animals was common enough with cavalry so there would be people for this, so that's another source of revenue. Rulers could also get on board with this. Their citizenry express concern about animal companions on the street, but they don't want to ruffle no feathers on adventurers, wizards, rangers, etc. they might have regular need for so they zone out areas for animal companions, businesses set up there, and everyone is happy enough.

I cried when my pet dog died in D&D, cause I had just lost my actual dog a few weeks beforehand. It wasn't the DM's fault, he didn't know, I also kinda hid my sad, so I didn't ruin the game for anyone. I summoned the dog back as a familiar (because the DM said I could)

I recently had a situation where one of my players wanted her druid to have a brown bear as a companion and asked me if that was ok since we both remembered of often Trinket got forgotten in CR campaign one. i was fine with the idea, then another player asked if they could play as a bear and if so was there an race for that. she was an experienced player and just wanted to experiment with a totally unique character. Before i could say anything the druid player suggested that the player who wanted to pay as a bear could save me a job by playing the bear companion thereby ensuring that Keepsake was a fully integrated member of the party. So now in the current campaign i have an assistant DM playing as a brown bear Barbarian (Or do i mean bar-Bear-ian) Called Keepsake who always sticks close to the druid who saved her from hunters when she was a cub.

True story from a previous campaign: Bard+rogue: "could we buy a cat here?" DM: i mean yea that makes sense "yeah, for 8 sp" they're probably not gonna matter much in game outside of being cute Bard+rogue: "we buy 8 cats each!"

The invincible rule is one I've been using for years, and players always liked it, so those pesky mages who try to make use of using spells through their familiars, are well aware that their trusty raven is going to be toast the next second something hits it. Throught the campaign, a Paladin made a deal with me to train a snow gryphon as his mount, but he specifically trained it to be like an ambulance, the gryphon would only enter the battle to pick a fallen one, or to flee.

I had a Dog as a Master, I was his Pet Half-Orc. Everything I did was for Barkley(The Dog), My Orc doesn't even understand Barkley but guesses what he wants and his reward is licks on his face. He never fought and would watch me battle for him. He was pretty fun to roleplay with.

Whenever my cat jumps on the tabletop everyone yells "Ah!! It's the Terrasque!!" Then we put her on the floor. Fumph.

I've always had such a love/hate relationship with pets in games. I played with a druid with a raptor companion, and it was fine until the group was put into a dangerous situation, and one of the party members decided to save a fellow party member during their turn rather than the dino. When the dino almost died (because the druid had ordered him to run into the middle of combat, and he got surrounded), the druid declared that if the party ever allowed anything to happen to his dino, he'd kill them. That didn't go over well with the party. But on the other hand, I played with an amnesiac wizard whose raven familiar turned out to be his daughter in disguise trying to help her dad out. It was just so wholesome and sweet, and when she got kidnapped, the entire party went into hell to save her. There's a way to do pets right, but it definitely takes some work between the DM and players to make sure it works.

One random thing: I just always make pets share their Master's initiative. It helped to remove a lot of the lag due to pets, even in cases where everyone has a pet. Simply put, either of them can take their actions in any order, on their shared turn. My players enjoy it, and so do I. And for the record, I do this with enemies as well; although they rarely have pets. But, it does make some "big bads" just a little badder, such as a Bugbear with two Worgs that share his initative.

My tiefling has a hellhound companion (a gift from her patron, Lilith, who is also her grandmother, upon entering into a warlock pact), and she's treated as a summoned creature. She can take damage in battle, but she can't permanently die -- she's discorporated and sent back to Lilith's realm when her HP hits zero. Then my tiefling can summon her again later when she has the time to perform the ritual. She can also send her away and call her back without performing the full ritual when needed. She has hellhound stats, but we ignore the evil alignment; she's terrifying, but trustworthy, and acts like a big dopey puppy around children. My tiefling has to give her commands, but the command itself can give her some agency in a battle or particular situation, so she can be useful without bogging down the action.

The look on the cat's face in the thumbnail is excellent. Also, it took the ranger on my party TWO YEARS before he started using his animal companion owl for scouting and recon. Another group befriended an Owlbear, but it was with an animal handling check facilitated by Speak with Animals, and they persuaded it that they would make it much easier to find food if it stayed with them and helped them out. I have them check in with him every so often to see how he's feeling about the arrangement, just so they remember that he's with them by choice, not by force/training/magic.

By the way, the Sidekicks UA did get an official format in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything for folks with access to the book

That Matt Mercer bear necklace thing reminds me of something similar I wrote for a friends game. I wrote a series of items for the party to collect, a dagger with a horn handle, a tooth necklace, a scale shield, and a magic staff with a jar at the tip with a small chunk of flesh in it. It seems obvious now, but in game they were given out far apart.. but each time a new one was given to a member the rest would glow a bit. It was up to them to figure it out and during the final battle that was wayyy too difficult they regrouped a bit, their items all reacted and they investigated them. They put them together and they were the horn, tooth, scales and heart of a dragon. They chose to permanently sacrifice the items to summon the dragon to help them in combat, because the big bad was the one who killed him and made his body into artifacts.. they summoned him and he evened out the fight and tipped it in their favor a bit. When the fight was done, he enjoyed his time with them so much that he inhabited the body of a little golden dragon statue permanently as a pet in the next campaign. It became a running joke that they had to constantly hide this massive chunk of gold from everyone who wanted to steal it, but it was their pet/friend. In a few dire occasions they tried shaving off some gold from his claws and horns to pay a ransom… that little gold dragon was the highlight of the whole campaign and everyone’s favorite character and it was just a fluke! The location was described to be an ancient dragon lair and had dragon gargoyles of solid gold, and when it was time for his soul to depart and move on, they all begged him to stay! Haha So yeah.. Pets can make for amazing games! Just go with it, even if they have weird limitations or cause problems. Because those problems are fun to solve! Like a solid gold dragon trying to sneak through a very poor and violent village of thieves and scum who’s would murder for a tiny piece of it.. or the fact that it can only fly in tiny bursts because it weighs a crap ton because it’s solid gold.. so I’m order to sneak, it must be carried by the strongest member who has the worst stealth… fun issues that result in silly situations because everyone refuses to leave the gold dragon behind!

We treat out pets like another player, and she got killed right in front of me, my little Willow got killed in front of me, and I joined her when I died in the hands of the Hydra, I met her in the doorsteps in The Hall of Echoes, our party genuinely cried.

If you play together at a table, having a plush or so as a stand in for your pet also helps. The "pet" is now physically there for everyone to see and won't be forgotten all the time.

"Forgotten" is a term that is pretty appropriate for 9/10 animal companions or pets. MCDM's new Beast Heart class does introduce some awesome pet mechanics, but when it comes to already established 5e material, pet mechanics are lacking. The best thing I think a DM can do is both: 1. Have consequences for pet injury or death (if that's how you run it) - This keeps your party engaged and makes certain that they remember to take care of and protect their puppers. 2. REWARD players for using their pet - Combo moves, bonus loot, items tailored to the companion. Sky is the limit Or just use MCDM's Beast Heart. That works too,

7:48 While I won't say players can't bond with a banderhobb, I will mention that, if you're going by the lore in Volo's guide, their lifespan is "several days". Have fun explaining to the players why their giant smiley frog friend has melted into disgusting black tar and shadow stuff.

I like the bit when you said, "There is no purer disappointment than someone getting their puppy taken away." I feel like that sums up the whole why-you-need-to-think-about-this FAQ.

In a game I was running the druid had 6 dogs, 2 elephants, and a staff of the python. I let them know that the elephants might not be able to follow everywhere and they would be targets. Eventually one of the elephants was hit by a random bolt of chaotic magic and was effected by a permanent awakening spell. Ellie Phant became an important party member for our group.

One of my first campaigns, the group befriended a giant owl after saving her from barbarians. She accompanied them and even used their cart as her nest, which generally meant that her first priority in combat was protecting the cart and its eggs. I've even had her grown up owlets show up in campaigns taking place later down the timeline

“Don’t make you pets unkillable” Me holding my Charlene, my floating triangular mimic of total oblivion who breathes rat poison: “No.”

My Warlock has both an imp familiar, “Gizmo,” and a pet centipede, “Kaia.” Gizmo participates in combat, and has “died” a few times. Kaia, however, slinks into my armor and hides in there, so she’s “protected,” but she just kinda has plot armor like that. She also doesn’t participate in combat.

The ‘teleport’ issue really resonates with me. To my mind, if a player asks “the spell says X but… could it do Y?” the answer should never be an immediate “no”. I can absolutely say no, but I usually have a think about it first. Can I use Prestidigitation to knock someone out with an awful smell? Fuck yeah, roll for it though. Can my mage hand attack? No, no it cannot. Can I teleport just *one* extra person? Sure, maybe it costs you a point of exhaustion, though. Giving things a cost, or a chance of failure, leads to more well-rounded and realistic spellcasting. Magic isn’t like a law of physics; its rules can bend without breaking.

My Druid has a Dire Wolf companion! My DM and I talked about how Soybean Jr does not fight, and will often be used to help NPCs find safety in a fight, or run and get help. I can ride on him or ask him to scout ahead. The DM is totally allowed to kill him if he chooses. Soybean Jr may come to protect my druid if she goes down, which can and may end up with him dying.

In the last dnd session i was in i got a pet. Me and my friends are all not native to the English language but we really like speaking it so the sessions are almost only in English (u can kinda see where this is going) the dm said i saw a porcupine, i befriended it, the dm realised they said the wrong name and they meant to say a hedgehog, i have a pet porcupine now.

2:40 Our campaign was mainly rp heavy, so my dm allowed me to conjure animals without using a spell slot. If, at any time, the owls become useful in anything other than hugging, they'd cost a spell slot. (I told my dm I'd follow that rule and I haven't missed it once so it's easier on him)

One of my greatest D&D moments was stealing my arch nemesis’ favourite pet and turning it to my own. I could literally see the pain in my DM’s eyes. Good times 🙂

My character started as level 3 in one of my campaigns and when I told my DM about my character's build, he offered to give me a pseudodragon as my starting magical item. I loved the idea, but voiced my concerns about the safety of the dragon because I knew I'd get immediately attached, so we homebrewed it that when I saved my pseudodragon and we bonded causing the pseudodragon to choose to be my familiar, it gained the benefits of the familiar spell. This meant that he would be sent to a demiplane instead of dying, and I could send him to said demiplane since the world was very prejudiced and townspeople would likely attack him. This meant that every time we went to a city, he would question me on what I wanted to do. Despite not technically being able to die, I still try as hard as I can not to let him get hit. My DM also ruled that because my pseudodragon was wild, he can still attack despite the "can't attack" rule of familiars. (I was totally willing to follow it, in fact he was the one who brought it up) I have to say though, I don't think he expected my familiar to be the one who dropped our enemy in our first combat encounter lol.

One of my favorite campaigns was a Descent into Avernus game that my friend DMed right after Xanathar's Guide to Everything came out. I was playing a fighter, so naturally I had to try out the new cavalier subclass. I actually had a brown bear named Oslo as my mount. It was written into my backstory, I had found it as a child after it had been abandoned by a circus as a cub, so we grew up together. DM was all for that. And it was amazing. From the rides across the deserts of Avernus, to Oslo thinking he's about the size of a cat, to the final battle where I had to joust with a narzugon on his nightmare. Would 10/10 recommend.

My character's "pet" is a teddy bear that is a gateway for his patron to talk to him through. He is incredably attached to the bear but my DM is the controller of it. It can't fight and can give the help action on most social interactions lol. My DM loves this because he gets a "character" in our party and can use this to lead us if needed. Its really fun

I absolutely ADORE session 0 as a DM and when I'm a player very few of my DMs have ever used it. It's a great way to share my ideas for how I would like the campaign to go, and allow the players to make informed decisions when building their characters. Too often as a player I have come with a character only to learn that the character doesn't fit into the party or story well

What?! DMs hate pets?! I'm a DM and I love pets! I created an extensive pet shop for my players to interact with various pets to purchase. My view is pets are like any aspect of the game. An extra layer or element of the game that people just have to work on. If you don't that's fine, let the players do the heavy-lifting.

I'm playing with my friends a module called "Tormenta" it's a brazilian module and instead of NPC's or pets in combat, it has the "ally system", every NPC or pet that joins the combat can have 3 levels (depending on your level, 1 for 1-7, 2 for 8-13, and 3 for 14-20). instead of fighting, the ally gives a bonus for skills, attack damage, etc.. I think it's a really good way to add NPC's on combat instead of the old way, it won't slow combat and the description for your attacks can be really fun.

"What do I do if, for some ungodly reason, they want to try to befriend the griffon rather than fight it?" Me who's first D&D character had a pet baby Griffon: >_>

“Comment Section” is pure genius! Timely video too - I’m dealing with a player with a short attention span and a wolf companion. I think I’ll keep a stuffed wolf handy for the next time the party wants to stealthily climb down a rope.

Your pet can have plot armour ... until you actively include them in your quest. When you send your pet rat in to steal that key from that sleeping guard ... you are also sending it into danger ... the guard may wake up ... a guard dog may bark and attack ... it may fail a dice roll.

I’m glad to hear more people speaking out on ways to utilize animals! I play a shifter artificer and get a companion in the form of a mechanical construct. Working within the rules laid out, I made it a medium humanoid with minimalist facial features (just eyes) and I made it the upper limit of medium height so it contrasts well with my petite character. My character is socially stunted and treats this automaton like a teddy bear and her best friend. So he doesn’t talk or do much independently, but the dm let him have some rudimentary emotional expressions. The party as a whole loves him and they sometimes refer to him as ‘steampunk baymax’.

I will never forget when my rogue's horse "Lucky" got eat by a green dragon because the bard's late night magic buttycall (rolled a nat 1 perception) during his night watch....

So… I end up accidentally giving my parties pets. I DM for 2 parties and here is what I got so far. 1: in a standard “the party didn’t bother setting up a watch order so they got surprised by some goblins with wolves” During combat all that was left alive of the enemies was a wolf, who was in solo combat with their monk. Due to not one but 2 natural ones from the monk, he lost his short sword to the wolf. Now this ended up being the story of Chickpea who during some ungodly good rolls from the same monk, and two weeks down time. Became the party mascot and monk disciple. 2: now determined to not accidentally during that again. I send my level 3 party against two parent manticores. Now due to the a well laid plan, this seemingly suicidal encounter ended up being a breeze for the party. I had planned that they would have to either let an abandoned manticore cub go or kill it…. They chose option 3: deceiving the cub and then try to adopt it. Lessons I’ve learned. If you (in my opinion) don’t want them to try to adopt everything they choose not to kill, don’t give them their option. I personally allow these shenanigans because they add fun for our parties. Chickpea (the dire wolf in training) was deemed more important to save than one of the players, even by that player. As for Chun-Chu (the manticore cub) they have become the flagship of the group’s name (they call themselves “The Mighty Manticores”) as well as they are building their base around that theme. Not sure if this helps anyone or just confuses people, as to what kind of an idiot I am. But I’d thought I’d share these stories all the same.

My party has a cat called Snowdrop in our home/inn, and considering our characters are constantly at loggerheads with each other, having our own pet and taking shared responsibility for her has really brought the party all closer together

My group recently adopted a Wolf-dog and named them Fluffy, he's been a good boy! The female teifling in the group also adopted a runt goblin named Flipatrick, and she's now basically Rosa Diaz and Arlo levels of protective of them! 😂 I can understand that some DMs hate pets and adopting creatures but so far it's been absolute entertainment watching this colorful group form the way it has! 😁 Lol I love my group, such an honor to DM for them!

I gave my party a dog a few sessions back that they saved from a group of bandits. It was a really emotional session and then I completely forgot it existed until halfway through this video. Gonna endeavour to make it way more involved from now on

Does any one else just want to see a whole D&D game with only Ginny clones? 🤣

Man, this video brings back some memories... During one of my homebrew campaigns, Party had to buy water for crossing a desert. Due to some *seriously bad* persuasion rolls, they became victims of a hoax. They bought two barrels of water, but soon found out that only one contained water and inside the other barrel was a corgi pembroke. That dog became best friends with a totem warrior barbarian and accompanied him during scouting/hunting. Another (tragicomic) incident occurred when a party tried to tame a WILD OWLBEAR (different campaign/different characters) During the attempt, a Gunslinger shot the owlbear causing it to run away. So our groups Bard chased it into the woods *and walked right into a goblin ambush* (he died, and was super pissed)

I love how much chemistry Ginny has with herself in all these videos. That ad-read b roll acting was on point haha

I remember that my first "pet" was an animal I captured with the Demiplane spell and a few good investigation checks to set up food and everything else. It was a brown bear. I had to fight it to show dominance. It was sad.

This is your best thumbnail yet, and your new intro is awesome!

I love this! I DM a campaign where a paladin has a mount that he can summon, that originally came to him as a Hippocampus named Elb(we have lots of underwater moments). One day they're out and meet a triton rancher who keeps hippocampi. He notes the beautiful tropical colors on Elb and asks if the player will stud him out to his mares. Fast-forward well over a year later irl, and he tells me "I'm gonna go check on the foals." 😊 Pets and Mounts are great imo.

My cat liked dice a lot, she figured out by observing me and my friends gaming that the dice were meant for tossing around as toys. We'd be moving miniatures on the table and if dice were left near the edge a widdle fuzzy paw would often appear to grab them so that they'd fall off and bounce around on the floor, just like when we accidentally threw them off sometimes. ☺️

My current party all has pets. It started with the Paladin having a mouse with his urchin background and the wizard casting find familiar. Then I added a falcon for the druid to be able to talk to an animal about there friend's death and she asked if he wanted to join them. Then a ranger joined the party with an animal companion and had a cart (2 horses). With all these animals the fighter literally went into town to find a pet shop to buy a kitten. They are all good about taking care of them and the falcon is used to help deliver mail when they travel.

My DM (who also loves your channel-- hi Brian!) recently basically made us get pets. He had an NPC approach us and offer a variety of small exotic animals at irresistibly low prices. It's one of the most exciting things he's included in the game and I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes with it.

This video really came with perfect timing. I've DMd a total of two sessions (technically one session and one one-shot) and that first session the bearbarian successfully charmed one of my "murder squirrel" type beasts when they attacked the party. Now she wants to try to keep it as a pet when the charm wears off, this helped me make up my mind about how to deal with that. xD

Two things that D&D DM's might want to port in from Pathfinder 2e. The Familiar Satchel prevents familiars from being targeted while they are in it. It's a mechanical reason justifying Ginny's rule that familiars who aren't in combat can't be targeted. The second is the Pet Cache spell. It's a first level spell that lasts 8 hours and puts your pet in an an extradimensional space for eight hours. One with enough food and water to sustain them for the duration. I flavor it as roaming the wild fields of Elysium. Very useful when your companion is a twelve foot long riding drake.

Love these tips! This is the kind of advice that's really impactful for DMs. I'm glad I chanced upon your content today. You're smart and thoughtful, and your hair looks great!

I mean at least for mounts, we have "The Pocket Stables" which is similar to the Pocket Spa from The Adventure Zone. Its like a spa for mounts so that the players don't forget where they left them. And they get looked after while in the stables

Luckily the closest pet my party acquired was a goose from a spell gone wrong that would randomly appear at the weirdest moments and disappear. Reddit gave me this idea and the goose would appear during downtimes at camps and inns, choosing a player to interact with and items to mess with.

The BBEG of the campaign I DM, an oathbreaker paladin, has a "pet" dracolich 🙃. Actually they found the dragon's remains in their lair, and learnt necromancy to resurrect it. Since the BBEG has the phylactery, the dracolich obeys their orders. Never fight both at the same time, tho, BBEG uses it as a distraction to leave or finish something.

Last time I experienced this my child, I say child but she was 19 at the time, had a pet. It was a bear and quite overpowered for our level. She made a character sheet for it. Got a miniature for it then painted it. The DM "took it out" accadentally with a large fire elemental. She was devastated as it was her first "loss" in the game. We took a break so she could get over it.

I'm currently in two campaigns with pets. In my first one, my little cleric girl (who is secretly a living doll) has an frail, little almiraj named Clover. Clover doesn't help at all in combat, but does help out in other ways. So far, Clover's most significant assistance to the party was while we were traveling through a dungeon and came across a priestess who was cursed to never leave. We unfortunately weren't able to free the priestess right away and the priestess was very scared to be left alone, so Clover stayed with the priestess until we came back to try and better help her. My cleric did manage to learn Remove Curse before we left the dungeon, so we were able to save the priestess as we were escaping. The priestess thanked my cleric of lifting her curse and letting her have some company in the form of Clover. Clover has been very nice for roleplay, also able to teach my cleric the importance of caring for others. It's very sweet and I just love visualizing my little cleric cuddling with her almiraj! For my other character with a form of "pet" it's my former pact of the chain warlock now cleric with her raven familiar Azrael. I know that you typically lose your familiar if you switch up your warlock to something else, but the party and DM loved Azrael so much that they decided to keep him around and he's actually played some vital roles in the campaign. He is a massive help to the party by scouting ahead for traps and being a major source of comedy in our party. The first time our party got together in a tavern, the DM decided it'd be fun to have Azrael steal some of the alcohol one of the players was drinking and got a nat 20 on his constitution save from being drunk. Everyone was instantly impressed with my raven's ability to hold his liquor which really helped ease my character more into the party more smoothly as I am actually playing the edgelord of the group. However, Azrael's heavy drinking ended up becoming a running gag throughout our game as he continued to steal party member's drinks and kept not 20ing or rolling very high on his constitution saves. Our DM even once rolled six D20s at once and all of them landed on 20 somehow, freaking us all out! And these weren't trick dice either. It was a legit roll! That night, Azrael drunk six whole barrels of strong liquor that made even our dragonborn tipsy! To this day, I think Azrael has only failed in his constitution save ONCE. I don't like drinking myself, but I absolutely love my alcoholic bird! Aside from this hilarious joke, Azrael has also been in a sort of Appa situation like you suggested it. While we were busy fighting a dragon turtle, Azrael stayed behind to help control the crowds but was abducted by an evil witch who really loves to experiment on others. We had to go on a rescue mission for him and it led to a very tense scene where we barely escaped with our lives from the cult we were trying to fight against and my character had some thing implanted into her that nearly made her fall under the witch's control. It was very tense and anxiety inducing. Azrael also has a lot of emotional value to my character and he was formed in remembrance of her father who often called her "little raven", a nickname that came from her black wings (she's a half-drow/half-aasimar). Finally, Azrael has a very loud personality. I based his personality off Daxter from the video game series Jak & Daxter, and he's also able to talk. The whole party absolutely loves interacting with him even our bard who is terrified of talking animals despite being a talking frog himself (long story).

a great quality of life discussion, this is such a common thing players want to do, and a great thing to have some thought about before situations come up.

We had a pet badger in our Gamma World campaign, called him Dim (as an accronym for Drowning In Mud). The GM loved it, and our entire table was bummed when he died. Around 3 years after his death in real-life time, the memory of Dim is still in the party and players' hearts, and the GM enabled us and thoroughly enjoyed the all to brief but entirely memorable addition to our party.

We are relatively new to playing dnd so we haven't had pets yet. The closest thing was Droop. He was my wizard's apprentice that he gained in the campaign. Droop died (we brought him back) and tears were shed

I love adding pets to the game, and my players are normally too attached to pets and followers to risk them, other than their familiars, and they feel so guilty each time, that they only do it in the most needed circumstances.

Pets are usually either an extra hassle for DMs to consider in combat (when they are combat capable), are often forgotten by players until they are deemed necessary or used for a gag. Or a liability that sometimes makes situations more work than they need to be for botht the party and DM.

I've always been okay with my players having pets. But recently we had a problem player who in addition to other problems treated every campaign we played like her own personal zoo.

"I have a pullout couch, go - we'll reconvene in 4 hours" *Core memory unlock!* Gosh did that take me back to high school days running all weekend for my friends

This has been such a helpful video! I'm running a campaign based on ARK: Survival Evolved. So taming creatures and having "pets" is a HUGE part of the game!

I love the pets may slow the campaign down comment in a hilarious way. In my current group we joke to our DM that we are the Fillibuster of parties. A pet would no more stall or slow down our campaign than my character spending hours not progressing the plot in any meaningful way. We spent 6 months on a Christmas themed one shot that at max should have lasted 2 sessions because we spent so much time lecturing about the mistreatment of evergreen trees and having snowball fights and getting drunk on cider instead of you know following the actually plot hooks. We will go off on unrelated tangents on a frequent basis. A pet might actually help speed us along, like if one of the enemies stole the pet, all of a sudden we would drop everything and rush to their rescue, much more compelling for our characters than oh I don't know, stopping the revival of an ancient evil king who is trying to kill/rule the entire world.

The last game I got to be a player in (instead of DMing) was run by a first-time DM (who did an awesome job). We used an old book of tables for creating backstory (Central Casting's "Heroes of Legend") and every character ended up with an animal companion. I had a bear who was cursed? to be a perpetual bear cub. There was also a cat or two. Later, we ended up with an elephant due to the chaos sorcerer's mishap. We tied them all into our story by having us travelling around under the guise of being a travelling show. We had no actual bard, but several of us had musical instruments (my bounty hunting hexblade warlock pretended to be a bard to be welcome in towns). It worked pretty well, and we took the time to make sure there were people to care for them when we had to go into dungeons and such. So, no extra combat, but they certainly added to the story. In the game I'm currently running, our druid has tamed a mountain lion, and they both get full action turns in combat, under the players control. Since the party is small (druid w/ cat, cleric, and rogue), I figured giving them a little more firepower wasn't a bad thing. The cat also adds in some vulnerability, as it doesn't advance as far or as fast as the PCs, so they will make tactical choices to protect it in bigger battles. Not D&D, and not really pets, but I was running a Legend of the Five Rings campaign, and our origami artist had gotten high enough level that she could turn her paper creations into the real thing for an hour or so. If they're creatures, they're under her control and friendly toward her. The party was getting into a fight where they were likely to be highly outclassed unless they figured out the trick (the Bells of the Dead adventure). Well, as they're getting into this difficult boss fight, she whipped out an activated the origami she'd prepped the night before. Fifteen bears. Now, was this "bearigami" encounter-breaking and stretching the rules? Absolutely. Was I going to punish my player for her creativity? Absolutely not. It was a campaign highlight and has been a running joke in campaigns since. Especially since my L5R campaigns with that group are generational, and at least one player (that one) has played the child of their previous character each time.

Player of mine mentioned wanting an animal companion for his character. I told him options to explore what he may want, but also gently reminded him that I had no idea how to make that work yet. For some reason this conversation disappeared from my head as we started the game. The Party had just gotten up after a day of work, become in-debt workers for the admittedly generous inn they stayed at (well, more like near due to circumstances), and decided to check the job board since the inn staff weren't sure how to fit them into any duties yet. (The inn is the best establishment in their town and the inn keeper is quite respected by nearly all the residents.) Since they had no jobs to do on site for the inn at the moment, the inn keeper allowed the Party to try the job board, which the inn also adds onto for adventurers. It would have been a real great time to remember what I had put on that list of quests I made when I decided to let them choose, because the Player who asked decided to look for missing goats. Then he got the rest of the Party, in-game and not, to be on board and also look for goats. This is the one time I am grateful that a session was cut unexpectedly short, because I forgot to get goat stats and genuinely had no idea where I was going to put these goats. At least the Druid is happy. If all goes well with my research and their playing, he might get that animal companion sooner than I thought. 😅

I'm currently playing a cleric. I have five Mastiffs that I bought at character creation. They act as a bag of holding and an alarm spell slot. They have been really useful for speeding up the game and eliminating incumbrance and ambushes.

The Chaotic Nimrod Druid in one of my games tamed a Rust Monster after 3 very successful animal handling checks, I let her use it in combat as a sidekick character because the party consisted of 2 players and they definitely needed more people. I have learned to not let her make those checks against anything that isn't a beast, although this doesn't stop her from calling the most abhorrent abberations or frightening fiends are cute. She called a *CANOLOTH* cute and then proceeded to try and tame it, which I absolutely did not let her do because it's an intelligent creature. If you don't know what a canoloth is, it's about the least cute D&D creature out there. TL;DR It's okay to say no to your players sometimes.

I really like your approach to d&d. Your videos teach people how to be better table-mates VS better players. Cheerful and cheeky too.

"I have a pull out couch. Go. We'll reconvene in four hours." I remember that as every other weekend from 1979 to 1984. Mondays were made for recuperation.

Me and my dm talked about my character owlbear pet, we worked together with her health,attacks, and more we wanted her to be balanced yet not to die instantly due to story reasons.

My party got some familiars using scrolls of find familiar and then went to Avernus with plane shift. The party immediately forgot about the familiars after arriving.

I absolutely love your channel. You have no idea how much it's helped me as a DM

In one of my games, we have a mechanical panther. Basically we found it in an ancient dungeon, my roommate’s character got all sparkly eyed and we disabled it instead of destroying it. We put it in the bag of holding and took up a side mission on how the original builder constructed, powered, and programmed the creations. After getting the instruction book and arcane programming disks, we ended up in a situation where we could revive the creature. I wrote up the stat block, making the panther able to function as their own independent character. The panther is limited by the fact that it cannot speak and it cannot gain levels however in our last session, the panther acquired a rail gun as a boon from a mission the party took on. I can imagine my character settling into her cabin in the ship on the way back home and reading the instruction manual out loud to the panther (I’m pretty sure the panther themself can actually read, but you have to do something to pass the time on the voyage).

I’ve had 3 pets across 3 games and am very grateful to my dms for letting my animal lover self have them. I’ve had a sprinklesque chipmunk that lived in my cloak, a duck with a breastplate and a dagger, and a giant centipede ranger companion. My dm always asked what Petra the giant centipede was up to and I loved that she was so included.

Encounter with a shocker lizard. 2 players: "we go to pet it" It shocks you, take 2d8 dmg. "We try to pet it again" (I had to explain it was neutral hungry and will shock and bite them if it gets too close... it took 5 minutes) Never underestimate the pet lovers dedication to "pet all the things"

I DM for a group of teenagers. They all wanted pets in their space campaign. I allowed them all to go to a pet shop and buy a pet. Two of them bought small puffs of fluff. I made sure to say "They are common on ships. Almost every ship has ONE". I emphasized the one, but one teenager never fully listens if things are not focused on her so I am not sure if she heard that. She interrupted each person to try to buy a pet and ended up buying one of them. Yeah... now I will drop hints of extra ones here and there "One of the black cheechees goes by" (the two pick a solid grey and a orange and brown strip). In the end when the party is away from the ship I am thinking of having them play as their animals trying to survive these guys taking over the ship. They were always based off of tribbles from Star Trek.

In one of the campaigns I play in, one of the PC had a blink puppy but kept forgetting about it except when the puppy blinked and stole someone's food, or when we joked about it, to the point they were actually relieved when we lost the pet in a fire (note: The puppy actually survived and was rescued by the magical shop owner), but in another campaign the same player's ranger partnered with a giant badger and it was an integral part of this character. When the badger died in battle, we asked the city we helped defend to build a statue in its honor. In the campaign with the blink puppy, another PC adopted a giant goat after we defeated her cyclop owner(/friend?) and the player had a ton of comic relief rp involving the goat, but when they had to release the goat the scene was both comical and emotional. In another campaign, my rogue found a griffin egg in a dead guy's loot and decided to take care of it as soon as she sensed something moving inside, now the griffin has finished growing up and is inseparable from my character. Pets can be great in D&D, but just like in real life you have to take care of them (by giving them room to exist in your rp) if you want them to shine.

I had a really great time with my warlocks backstory involving the traumatic loss of a pet Pseudodragon. Like, a lot of bad things happened and this was the straw that broke the camels back on top of starvation being involved, she wasn't in a good place and that's when her patron basically told her that with its power she could bring that pet back, so it was a big deal when she levelled up enough to get her familiar, fully believing it was her resurrected pet! The party learned from experiencing it that she doesn't handle it well when she sees her die again so while they initially encouraged my gullible girl to use her familiar for scouting and stuff it was an in-universe decision to stop risking her like that. Sometimes we forget to consider her a little but we've just generally accepted that if she doesn't actively participate then she's curled around my characters neck dozing, and we do come up with a lot of fun one-off ideas as well as usually incorporating her when my character has a character moment. Like, one time someone looking for info lied a little about who he was travelling with and realised too late that he couldn't substantiate those claims when he ended up booking rooms at the Inn with that guy he lied to. My Pseudodragon came in very handy for pretending we had a baby seeing as my character is a dragonborn and we were out in the middle of nowhere so the guy didn't question that a draconic little one in swaddling was my baby sister too young to talk yet 😅

Can't lie, I loved the coffee ad. Your creativity is definitely blesses.

The creature type is very important... in my second ever game of DnD my inexperienced DM let my level 2 druid cast animal friendship on a chimera guarding the treasure we were trying to steal. We rode that baby outa there and DM let me keep it. It ended up being really fun because we installed an Appa saddle and only used her for travel, and it was always good fun to roll up into a new city and try to find a place to put her, but it could have easily been abused.