## Thread Rules

​

* New to Reddit? Check the Reddit 101 guide.

​

* If your account is less than 5 hours old, the /r/DnD spam dragon will eat your comment.

​

* If you are new to the subreddit, **please check the Subreddit Wiki**, especially the Resource Guides section, the FAQ, and the Glossary of Terms. Many newcomers to the game and to r/DnD can find answers there. Note that these links may not work on mobile apps, so you may need to briefly browse the subreddit directly through Reddit.com.

​

* **Specify an edition for ALL questions**. Editions must be specified in square brackets ([5e], [Any], [meta], etc.). If you don't know what edition you are playing, use [?] and people will do their best to help out. AutoModerator will automatically remind you if you forget.

​

* **If you have multiple questions unrelated to each other, post multiple comments** so that the discussions are easier to follow, and so that you will get better answers.

We at /r/DnD are excited to host Mike Shea of SlyFlourish.com! He'll be discussing his upcoming Kickstarter, his vast history as a freelancer in the TTRPG space, and anything else! Save all your questions and join us on Tuesday, July 7!

From Mike:

Hello!

I'm Mike Shea, writer for SlyFlourish.com and author of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and other books. A few years back I also released the Lazy GM's Resource Document into the Creative Commons to share what I've learned and gathered from other GMs into the world.

I've been playing RPGs since the mid-80s and writing about RPGs since 2008. I've been freelancing for various RPG companies for the past 15 years or so including Wizards of the Coast, Kobold Press, MCDM, Arcane Library, Pelgrane Press, and many others.

The Kickstarter for my latest book, Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster, is going on now! This is the latest of the Lazy GM books, expanding each of the eight steps of Lazy GM prep and taking a new focus on campaign planning, adventure types, and an expansive lazy GM toolkit. I hope you'll check it out.

I'm excited to be here to talk to you all about RPGs!

My player is a dragonborn wild magic sorcerer. For context, he LOVES wild magic. He rolls it a lot and I let him because it's funny, even if sometimes it's not RAW. Sometimes it causes trouble — we had a chase fight on magical minecarts, and he got teleported into the abyss from the minecart he was riding. But most of the time it's just harmless fun.

Today my players were fighting a major boss. He was tough so the sorcerer used a lot of re-rolls and rolled a lot of wild magic. First, he rolled that Reincarnate will apply to him automatically if he dies within 1 minute. It was the 3rd round of the fight, me and my players kinda joked about it but I didn't think he would actually die.

On his last turn he rolls a 1. He has to roll for wild magic at the start of his every turn for the next minute. Other players shuddered in horror. Thankfully, the fight was over. But it meant that my sorcerer got to roll for wild magic 10 times.

He rolls for the first time. Fireball. He magically lives and leaves one other player with 1 HP. That player runs away into the other corner of the room. Others' characters watch in shock as the sorcerer's wild magic continues.

Second roll. Nothing interesting. Third roll. Fireball. At this point the sorcerer falls unconscious. We stop the rolls to argue if we should continue. My warlock rightfully points out that, since the sorcerer is down, he can't cast wild magic and that after he is reincarnated or healed he shouldn't roll for it anymore. And he's right, of course. But my sorcerer looks at me with those puppy eyes and asks if maybe he can roll the rest of his wild magic before he goes unconscious. This man just exploded 2 times and he wants to continue to roll, who am I to say no? We decided that it'll be funny and all watched as he rolled wild magic and death saves.

At the start his death saves were okay. Then he rolls another Fireball. He exploded AGAIN. Of course, with that he fails his death saves. The warlock pulled out an extended table for Reincarnate and they rolled for his new race. So, from the ashes as a phoenix he rose, as a kenku. And we continued rolling for wild magic.

At this point, all the other characters, the antagonist included, are huddled in the opposite corner of the room. It turns into a straight-up religious experience — they watch as the now kenku sorcerer starts floating, turns into a plant, dies as a plant (so he is kenku again), casts Mirror Image, turns into a plant AGAIN, floats AGAIN, casts Mirror Image once again and, in the end, embraces sobriety. We end the session with me describing how the walls of the dungeon begin to collapse, which I decided is a natural consequence of bombardment of that scale.

Moral of the story — don't let your sorcerer roll for wild magic 10 times. Or let them IDK it was pretty funny.

So I’m dming a campaign, and one of my players seemed upset at the result of a Nat 20

For context, they entered a dungeon, which then after they exited it became a regular wine cellar. That’s what it was at the moment. Player rolled investigation and got Nat 20. Told him he found a gamblers coin he can exchange for a large sum of money (400+ gold, and was even thinking I could lead it into some kind of subplot or side quest.)

Now said player seemed bummed out. Saying “I’ve seen a campaign where someone rolled a Nat 20 to breed w a dragon!” (I think they’re referring to critical role or some kinda dnd show) and was basically implying how the Nat 20 was underwhelming.

I don’t know what I could’ve realistically put or improvised in that Win cellar (which I kinda meta gamed and told them straight up it’s a regular wine cellar now that the dungeon is completed) than woulda satisfied him.

I do wanna mention that this player has had similar reactions in the past to passing checks not going as expected, for example he tried to intimidate guards but I told him that intimidating them isn’t automatically gonna make them run away, rather just hold a defensive stance

idk what to do cuz I did talk to him briefly and told him that whatever his expectations of passed checks or Nat 20s might be kinda high and unrealistic but like he kinda starts comparing to the aforementioned campaign shows and what Nat 20s can do

Help🙏

This character is basically one of the lower royalty holy children of sin (contradicting name I know); got idea cambions (children of human and demon) in a universe I’m building. They basically found a way to madly overpopulate quickly using the candle wax made from organic life in that things she’s carrying but as fast as she grows new life the likely hood for them to be deformed or “unholy foot shoulder” is more likely. The holy children basically raise higher in the ranks because of their heritage and shes the 2nd daughter of the origin point of cambions. The religion grown around them is called the conduits worshipped by humans much like Aztec religions with their sacrifices for the “gods”; this is where they get lots of their organic wax for production;
What do you think about the concept how can I make it stronger and would you use in your campaigns?

If a character is ahead of the rest of the party, and I have melee combat enemies, that character is getting swarmed and possibly brought down because I keep enemies on an adversary once they've attacked it unless another character has proven they're more of a threat.

On one hand, I think that's what they should do. Concentrate attacks until the adversary is down.

On the other hand , I'm discouraging heroism.

if you’re my DM i’m so sorry, i just want to get this out

so the group i’m in plays DND regularly on saturdays, usually at a local gaming store. my DM runs the beginner table there, so he takes in all kinds of beginners or people new to DND in general. his table was how i learned to play, and i’m having a lot of fun with the group

however, since he does take all beginners, the group has been increasing in number slowly. i think at the beginning it was 6? now, at the last session, there was 10 people. it was so overwhelming that i left mid-session and four other people weren’t able to play much

we have a discord group, and i messaged our DM about it. i asked him if he could maybe think about splitting it into two tables or finding another DM for another beginners’ table. but he told me he wants to try out a new system where (hopefully) a 10 person party will work out. it’s a hex exploration / westmarches type system where we’ll have quests posted on the discord and we’ll all vote for what to do next session. so in a way, we’ll already know what we’ll be doing and there won’t be so much discussion about next steps at the session

i’m still wary about it though, i feel like it’s still going to be overwhelming. i have autism and i don’t work well in such big groups, small groups like we had before were perfect for me. i’m going to try out the new system, but i’m just nervous

this morning, someone new posted in our discord server, asking if there was room for another player at the beginners’ table. our DM said “yeah there should be room”

there was 10 people at the last session?? what do you mean there should be room??? i know there’s a chance not everyone’s going to show up. but still

am i overreacting? am i just not good enough socially? there are other tables i can join, i’m not stuck to this group. but i’m just disappointed (maybe) with how it is now

I have been looking at older version of DnD as a reference for my own TTRPG combat system, and turn out is that Paladin and Ranger were Fighter subclass in the older version of DnD all along?

Well, I can see that now to be honest. They have the same hit point and have the ability to wear any armor and weapons. But Paladin is just Fighter who decided to get baptized and Ranger is just Fighter who decided to become a hippie.

And Wizard main subclass is an illusionist and not evocation? Why did they change that? I always thought that damaging mage is more fitting for sorcerer than wizard to be honest.

And how Bard is a combination of Fighting man, magic user, and cleric!? I can see the other two, but I how about the fighter? (Unless it's dex fighter)

What do you think? Any older DnD feature that I miss?

Most recent session my players made their way to a military camp, there they met with a commander who I set up by having her yell at a soldier over something stupid he did and through a history check I told a player this is a princess of a foreign land.

2 out of the 4 party members have signed up to be part of that military and those 2 were the only ones at that specific location, after giving the commander their report she proceeded to curtly give them their orders which both were unhappy with, however one player took offense in how she was speaking to him and decided to talk back and talk down to said commander princess.

In character I explained to said player that she outranks him and is a noble, trying to ease tially tell him if he continues down this path he will be thrown in prison, or worse executed as he is not only displaying orders but also disrespecting a noble.

He seemed to have backed off until a third player egged him on, told him not to take that kind of disrespect, to which the instigator returns to the commander to try and talk down to her again. At this point I had her call in guards and arrested him on the spot, throwing him into a cell.

Later, out of game I mentioned to my players that they should have backup characters as this is a brutal campaign setting (something I told them in session 0 and have sent them all word documents describing said world) and he asked me "what if there is only a single character I want to play." To which I replied that if that is so this is not the campaign for you, as a character can just as easily fail death saves and die in battle.

What can I do in this situation, just cut my losses and boot him from the game? I don't want to save his character as that would make absolutely no sense in the world and setting why he gets pardoned for this behavior and I do not want to enable that kind of behaviour from the player himself.

Edit: Just to clarify a few things I've seen people commenting down.

This was Session 4 (5 if we include 0), all other players seemed to understand that this kind of behaviour towards an important NPC is a bad idea, one egged him on in character as a devil in your ear kind of moment, the problem player in question then continued to belittle, demean and finally threaten the NPC by saying something along the lines of "I have a Warhammer I am trying not to use" or something of that sort.

I have the player ample opportunity to back down, something even the other players commented on someone of the importance of an NPC is quite rare as even upon his return she did not order an arrest and imprisonment until he threatened her.

A few people were surprised that a character mouthing off and displaying orders to both their commanding officer and princess would be executed, that's quite normal for any kind of fantasy especially dark fantasy? I don't see how both in real life and fiction this course of action wouldn't result in imprisonment and being court-martialed?

Finally I saw people being surprised a "brutal" campaign will lead to character death. What else does the word brutal imply when it comes to a d&d or any fantasy setting? It means death is more than likely to occur.

I am DM'ing a Pirate campaign, , exploring a large cursed part of the trackless sea; where only gold, cunning, and a knife to the throat counts for anything!

And of course; A pirate legend, Captain Blackfire, has hidden his treasure; said to be an island of pure gold, somewhere among the forgotten isles. Anyway, thats the big scary guy in the back.

It's been a lot of fun! the piece is almost finished; just a few edges to clean up (and i am sure the party is gonna have some changes). still! very happy with how it came out, and wanted to share it!