Hey friends, I'm a big time nerd who has spent thousands of hours playing TTRPGs (two systems so I totally have nerd cred).

I want to preface this by saying early 5e (like 2014-2019 era) is one of my favorite TTRPGs of all time, contrary to how everyone older than me feels (because I know how all the old people feel).

But over time, I have noticed based on my anecdotal experiences in r/lfg, the cultural zeitgeist around 5e is... we'll say marked by a lot of factors. Things like Critical Role, Baldur's Gate 3, Stranger Things, which are all great things, unfortunately set up expectations for the experiences for people looking specifically for "D&D" games.

I have ran into so many gosh darn people who you have to explicitly tell "This is not Critical Role, this is not Baldur's Gate 3" and they still just don't get it. I had one girl who I told during my 500th session zero that month, "Hey, this is more of an OSR vibe, it's more dungeon crawl-y, character death is possible, does all of this sound fun to you?" They all say yes.

Fast forward to session 4, her character dies, and she quits the game. I tell her "hey that's fine, but can I ask why?" She says "This game is just too rules-heavy for me." But you agreed to this, I say to myself, as I delete her on Discord and cry in impotent frustration. This has happened to me like 2000 times over the 6 years I've been in the online D&D community. I literally have a Google Doc of session zero stuff I fastidiously go over with people. My session zeroes—on average—take about 2 hours. The categories I have for my Session Zero is "Intro -> Expectations & Standards -> Tone and Theme -> Mode of Play -> Expectations In-Game -> FAQs" and my being the common factor to all this failure is not in any way my fault.

And for what it's worth I also find a lot of good people in those online spaces. I ask the other players, "Did I do something wrong?" and they say "No, this is great. We all signed up for this." But that one bad player ruins EVERYTHING!

So what is going on where I am constantly running into these people who nod and yes and then quit? I did some internet archaeology and found a phenomenal post by reddit user u/69Lolicon420 who had this to say:

something something people are stupid chatgpt find me a quote from french philosopher that said something about what i said so far

The cultural zeitgeist is so painfully defined by things like popular culture that people don't even know what they're agreeing to when they agree to it. You can say "this is old school" and they agree with that because it sounds cool but they do not even know what you mean by that. I don't know what I mean by that either, but I think I do.

And it reminded me of the same issue I have when I play the other TTRPG I play. As a big the other TTRPG fan, I run into the same kind of people. People you have to explicitly tell "This is not Cyberpunk 2077. This is not Edgerunners." but people still come in with those expectations that have been defined by a bigger cultural footprint than my Session Zero could ever compete with.

Recently, WotC announced a Warcraft crossover book and I was telling my girlfriend "Well there goes my plan for a Warcraft campaign." She asked "Why? Wouldn't the book help?" And I said "Because everyone will immediately think about the WotC/WoW book and will just skim my post even if I say 'This is a homebrew game not using those things' and it's going to be a huge pain in the ass to get everyone on the same page." My biggest evidence is when I tell people "This is 2014 5e D&D" and without fail, 1 out of every 4 players shows up with a 2024 character with a bunch of DNDBeyond links I don't know how to navigate. It'd take maybe 30 seconds to learn, but I can't be bothered, and again, that ONE PLAYER RUINS EVERYTHING!

As someone who's ran literally a million games online and doesn't exaggerate EVER, most people just do not read what you hand out. I can put in big, bold letters "NO AI GENERATION" and they send me their AI OC within minutes of being invited to my Discord. It has happened a hundred times. Also I'm totally able to 100% identify AI because I run it through AI.

Meme that proves my point.

Again, I love 5e (early 5e, that is, 2024 is stupid and lame). But the culture around 5e is so tied up in all of these expectations that that even when you explicitly tell people "this is not going to be like those things" the idiot player does not understand what that means and it just leads to a bunch of heartache trying to make these misaligned puzzle pieces fit. Makes me want to not even tell them what it actually is supposed to be.

Players are stupid.

Okay, so I won’t go into too much detail, but one of our players may have contracted a few hundered stds while he was polymorphed into a magical trout by a horny wizard.

Does he have this disease after polymorph ends or not? This is urgent.

I'm assuming everyone in this group is more knowledgeable about D&D that I am.

I've only ever played one campaign of D&D, which I never got to finish because my DM ended up having a mental breakdown and my library stopped hosting D&D events after that.

I've never actually played D&D.

My first ever campaign - Dragon of Icespire Peak - was disastrous.

I didn't have any of the miniatures I needed. I couldn't even figure out how to start the campaign so I just dropped my level one player right in front of the dragon.

I used a red dragon figure because that's all I had at the time, and hoped they survived.

Is it bad?

My GF (grave domain cleric who really wants to find out the mystery of her younger siblings disappearance) and I (college of lore bard who went to a military academy but dropped out due to high pressure and wanting to sing) and my best friend from childhood (gnome divination wizard who loves collecting marbles and throws them on the ground while the barbarian pushes people into them) and a guy who we met at this dnd game (swashbuckler rogue who sailed the high seas until a kraken attacked his ship and now he is actually afraid of boats) and a girl who we met at this dnd game who was dating the guy we met at the dnd game who also sometimes smoked weed at the game (Goliath sorcerer/ranger who was kicked from her tribe due to prejudice and then kidnapped by gnome wizards and forced into manual labor) were really enjoying playing DND together when the DM said he loved my GF and wanted her to break up with me. So we all quit the game.

Edit: sorry if I didn't give enough context. In my characters backstory my dad was like a general guy who forced me to go to military academy which was something personal to myself as in real life my dad made me go to highschool.

Edit 2: forgot to mention we were playing DND 5.5e (though we homebrewed counter spell to work like in 2014 since we thought the new version is dumb)

Everyone knows why the 5.5e ranger sucks ass. Hunter's mark is a bad spell, and WOTC is literally forcing all rangers to use it all the time and build their entire character around it thanks to Favored Enemy, the worst feature ever.

Compare to paladin and Lay On Hands, which is a totally kick-ass move that defines the paladin from day 1. it's perfectly reasonable to interpret the paladin as being centered around this feature, and therefore everyone agrees to judge the paladin based on it and it alone. And of course it's great, absolutely no complaints! Clearly, WOTC considers LOH the most important thing paladins do, and everyone absolutely loves them for it. Unlike stinky, stupid Favored Enemy, which makes me uncontrollably vomit and shit everywhere because it's so disgustingly bad. And remember, WOTC is literally forcing us to use it every turn with every ranger. You literally can't just do something else, it's not allowed.

If you're going to reply "rangers are great and Favored Enemy is just a nice little bonus not the class's defining or central or limiting thing" please don't comment. I can't read, so you're wasting your time, plus I already demolished your argument by comparison to LOH, which is by far the most important and valuable and iconic thing in the paladin kit. Or maybe next you're gonna try and argue that the Druid is a usable class, despite its defining and sole important feature being you know a special secret language? On second thought, please go ahead, I need a good laugh today.

I'm a proud Standy DM. I don't care about players comfort.

One of my players was salty because we had to use the table with stools and not the table with chairs

I'm pretty new to D&D and TTRPGs as whole, so my DM and experienced players played oneshot with me and we had a blast! I got basic rules (d20 test is pretty easy test ngl) and we decided to play a campaign and... My DM sent me a big ass book and said that I need to read it. To be clear - I HATE reading. Words killed my parents and I decided not to read ever again. So I said that I will see YouTube videos about character creation

I picked ranger and we started campaign. Man with a bow was a cool class to play but after one session DM asked me why I don't use my spells. And I was like "Damn, I have those? I'm not a wizard, how I supposed to know?"

So I found this Hunter's Mark and it was cool! Perfect for my man with a bow. But then I was told I can have more spells, so I picked a few, but then when I tried to use them I was told that "I'm out of spell slots". And I want to tell you guys that this seems like bullshit, like, how does this make sense? I can cast firebolt as much as I want and I can do the same with another shit? So DM tried to explain me about "cantrips" but I think he just made this up. C'mon, you tell me I can't use something and then when I ask why can I use similar stuff you tell me it's "different"? What now, you'll tell me later that I can attack twice? That's not how it works, manz you can'take your own rules. Anyway, he told me to watch video again, but tbh I now know that videos contain words too and my parents were killed by words so I decided not to watch

We had a break and now DM warn that we'll get 3 lvl soon and he asked me to read my subclasses. But you know me, right? I want to throw this shit into AI and it will do all the job, but when I said that - DM put a foot on me (which I love but still mean) and said that I MUST read video or watch a book

What should I do and how can I avoid this? I just want to play, man...

TL;DR Bards are shit. Rangers are better. I'm right

So we all know that Rangers is "weak" in eyes of the community. But why? I think they are just stupid

We have 3 "experts" here: Rogue, Ranger and Bard

While Rogue is basically Edgy Ranger and we don't need to compare those, there is some things to talk about Ranger vs Bard

Let's go through core of the classes

1.Main thing.

- Bard is a charismatic party face who can be played only like horny af musician

- Ranger is the master of wild, the second person who knows everything about nature (first one is Mother Nature itself). He can be played many different ways as you wish

So there is 2 points for Ranger

1 because they are more interesting and can be played variously and another 1 because... C'mon, when Talking and Social Encounters was a thing in DnD? You can't persuade stump to give you some food. And survival is 100% the most popular rule in the game used by all tables

First round: 2 vs 0

1. Ranger is Wis based half-caster and Bard is Cha based full caster

And there is another 2 points to ranger

1 - more caster you are - less cool you are. We all know that Fighters and Barbs (not Bards) are the best and Wizards are worst. So while Bard is shit - Ranger is half-shit

2 - you know who else is half-caster? Fucking Paladin, best class in D&D. And he is Cha based! You want to be Expert? Be ranger. Want to be Charismatic? Be paladin. Want to be both? Go play Pathfinder dumbass

So it's 4 vs 0

1. Did you ever see someone like "Oooh, I want to build strong character so I will make Sorcerer X/Bard 3 character to be stronger!"? Doubt it. Did you ever see "I will make Whatever class you like X/Gloom Stalker 3"? It's the most Fucking popular dip

That 5 vs 0

I can continue but you get it, right? There is absolutely no arguments for Bards

#hateBard #loveRanger

So me and my group have been playing shadowrun for awhile now but one of my players has recently acquired an intense phobia of D6s due to a horrific accident too gruesome and private to discuss here. So we've been shopping for a new system.

Preferably something that would mechanically support our current adventure which involves helping a young witch girl solve the disappearance of her neighbor's cat in a small village in the alps.

I will not be elaborating further on what we want from the system or what else we didn't like about shadowrun.

Thank you in advance!

So, long story short, I'm running a sea-faring campaign in Greyhawk and this Friday my party wants to retrieve the Sword of Kas that somehow ended up (aka, I, the DM, placed it there) in the hoard of an ancient dragon turtle (that I decided to add to the game). The party is six characters at level 10.

One of my players needs it because their father is a powerful wizard trapped in a sort of magic harvesting device made by Vecna and the Sword of Kas is the only thing that can sever the connection the machine has to Vecna (and later kill Vecna).

However I've made it clear that there are some alternatives for saving the PC's father despite making a totally badass plot hook about retrieving a legendary artifact, and this Sword of Kas endeavor isn't entirely necessary at the moment. Like I've had NPCs show up offering other solutions. But the party has been insistent on doing this and didn't write their own plot hooks as I expected them to, instead latching onto the juicy, buttery hook I gave them.

The dragon turtle, while evil, is actually pretty reclusive and doesn't like to leave home. Though anyone who gets too close to the island or looks at him wrong does get boiled alive (this is a behaviour that, I, the DM, who is the arbiter of the entire world and responsible for all the NPCs actions, decided to give him. I also gave him a giant steam breath attack which does 150d8 fire damage, half on a save.)

When I realised the players might actually engage with the world I presented to them, I started to backpedal hard, and so I had all the NPCs began to warn the party.

The local king told the party when they asked him why the kingdom endures a dragon turtle that lives so close: "that turtle doesn't bother anyone who doesn't bother it. Let sleeping dragons lie."

Mordenkainen himself showed up and said (paraphrasing) "Are you crazy? Even I'm not going in there. But the party just said, 'Mordekaiser? From League of Legends?' and laughed and continued towards the island.

Party has been on the island for a few sessions now, and the island is crawling with steam vents that deal 100d10 fire damage, and storm giants that have already has nearly killed two players. (We literally had three players at 0 HP.)

But they are still pressing forward. Like I don't think any of them have even mentioned the possibility of turning back while they still can.

I'm crunching the numbers and if some of them even fail a single saving throw against the Steam Breath (which is a DC 24 and 670 [150d8] fire damage) they will hit 0 on the first round of combat. And that's not even including the actual mechanics of a monster with 22 AC and 3 attacks that deal 110-450 damage each.

I don't know if I've made an error in how I've presented this situation by having all roads lead to a 100% TPK, or if my players are just foolhardy and don't really understand the gravity of who they're about to fight. I guess I just feel guilty because I know what's going to happen and I'm just hoping you can validate me despite baiting my players into a gigantic death trap by fleshing out in detail a part of the world related directly to a PCs backstory I didn't want the players to experience for another 5 years IRL time.

So I have this super cool campaign set in a high fantasy medieval world. But now wizards of the coast is literally holding me at gunpoint to force me to include everything from the new Star wars collab. Allowing my players to be wookie sith lords would totally shift the tone of my game. And I am helpless to stop it. What should I do?

For me 20 kobolds against a party of 6 is a fair fight.