So, little bit of context for this one. We have a player currently running a cleric/ranger multiclass who wasn’t feeling it. Talks were had about him starting off with a new character, but nothing had been explicitly stated to the party.

So we’re in a crypt, and this cleric goes down to a couple of ghouls, pretty quickly once the paralysis + crit combos get started.

I, as a paladin, probably should’ve been playing in a way that didn’t let the cleric go down to begin with, so I use my movement on my turn to try and smite my way through the ghouls.

Now what I DIDN’T know is that this cleric and the DM talked about his character dying in this dungeon. So as I go to use my lay on hands on the cleric, the DM grips my chin delicately between his thumb and finger.

He guides my face to his, his cool, pale eyes staring deep into mine. “Hey.” He says. “We’re not gonna do that, okay?”

He draws me in to a deep kiss, his lips warm, and inviting, and eager. I run my hands through his hair, hungry for this in way I never dreamt of. The kiss breaks for a moment, the DM pulling away to catch his breath, but I move in again, still needing him against me.

As we break away for the second time, he runs his hand down my cheek. We stay there for a while. Foreheads pressed together, hands locked with one another. We don’t say anything. We’re just there. Happy. Drinking each other in. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so elated in my life.

Apparently, according to a homebrew rule, making out with the DM is considered a full action, and my turn was used up. The cleric died, and now the player is having a lot more fun as Flabbergast, the foot fetishist “Path of the Ancestral Sole” dwarf barbarian.

I know the cleric got what he wanted, but I feel like the DM limited my agency as a player and instilled deep homoerotic feelings in me to achieve that end? Also, he isn’t returning my calls. AITA?

Bit of an odd one here. My DM told us that there is a "big twist" in our campaign and we have it almost figured out.

Session 1 he handed us all character sheets and said that our characters were 'fused together' so we have to do everything together. Our characters are pretty sure that we are body parts of a larger creature.

We have lots of "special abilities," one PC absorbs things and uses it to power the others (we think they are the mouth), another PC is the leader and tells the rest of us what to do (we think they are the brain). My character literally does NOTHING except leaves behind items and things we don't need anymore. AITA?

So you see, for the years I have run 5e I keep running into issues with player abilities not working together properly. Meaning that someone has to decide what the table's "official" stance on it is.

If only there was some sort of person whose job it is to decide on such things and help bring clarity to a chaotic and unpredictable world.

Anyway, I've decided to create a new rule that certainly doesn't exist on literally page 6 of the PHB that says:

"you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play if the game. Ultimately, the dungeon master is the authority on the campaign and it's setting."

Or the DMG, page 4 that says:

"the d&d rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren't in charge. your the DM, and you are in charge of the game."

Or page 4 of TCoE that says:

"ten rules to remember. 1. The DM adjudicates the rules."

I have created my own thing called "DM has final say, I will be making a ruling and moving on," And make my players agree to this before we start a game now.

How this works is mid game I can make a decision about how some weirdly written rules work and that is the final word. If it's decided that my decision is weird and not right then maybe I will look at it again later. After the session is over.

Am I the asshole for insisting my players don't stop a session for 30 minutes to argue some pointlessly worded rule about how see invisibility doesn't ever actually say it cancels the disadvantage you get for attacking an invisible target?

So i know the rules state that the command cannot be self harming, but what if it could? I mean I really really wanna do it and abuse a 1st level spell to one shot the bbeg (who is secretly my dad and cleric god) so please please please let me use it however I want. Can i do that?

So I just started a new campaign and I told my group we were going to be using alternative rules for ability score generation. I’ve been watching a lot of old Matt Colville videos and he said that 4d6-drop the lowest-straight down the line was the best way to generate characters.

The party generates their characters and immediately one player asks if there is a cliff nearby. I don’t want to limit player agency so I say yes. The player then says that his character doesn’t want to live anymore and throws himself off the cliff!

As he starts rolling new stats, the rest of the party follows his lead! Long story short, there is now a sizable mound of corpses stacking up at the bottom of this cliff.

AITA for making my players roll ability scores this way?

And what do I do with all these bodies?!

I like to play female characters, but my DM doesn't like that I do that, so he makes my character wear a homebrew item he made called the Backdoor Princess Sloppy-Topper, which is just a piece of string that covers literally nothing and a tramp stamp of an arrow pointing to my butthole. AITA for not liking that? I'm thinking of finding a new group, but I'm just not sure, because while that "armor" is degrading and sexist, it does give me 15+ charisma, so I feel like my character needs that in order to keep up with the party. What should I do?

Please help, I cannot read the rules to a spell

https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1bfapfr/what_to_do_if_a_player_overuse_charm_person/

2 (second)- comes after OneDND?

I was at a local game shop that, some guy, runs an "Adventurer's League" that might as well be camp. I had just finished my Critical Role and listening to best of Adventure Zone clips and wanted to make my character a variant tiefling that was secretly a twin sister of Jester Lavorre.

If you somehow seriously don't know here she is https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Jester_Lavorre

I also cosplay as her on the side. https://imgur.com/a/oCEPgda (guess which one's me lol)

I went to a lot of trouble of using Copilot on Bing to generate my perfect AVI, it took a lot of suggestions to get the proportions right (won't post OC don't steal). Basically, my backstory was that I had been taken from my sister and family as ransom, but my mother fell in love with protecting my sister Jester. So, I wanted a hook where I would hunt down my sister, and maybe get to meet some of the other Mighty Nein.

However, when I tried to slip the dm my HANDWRITTEN letter on lined-note paper he said he'd have to look it over before he could modify the story beats of the adventure. I was fine with this, then handed over my character sheet, and started to introduce my character to the other players while the DM reviewed. However, NOWHERE, in the rules was it posted we had to use standard array, and that my wings were technically not player legal. My character, rolled on the heart of my mother, had three 18s, a 14, 17, and a 15. Thrown out in an instant, as the group, get this, started without me!

I had to use the Player's handbook because my phone was dead. And when I finally got to play in the adventure the party was already in a dungeon, where was the roleplay, it was only thirty minutes and we didn't even ask the villagers of the town questions about our player hooks, or you know, anything to do with MY HOOK. My PC showed up as the party was fighting some skeletons, so I played on my lute and ofc sang a song as loud as I could to attempt to scare them away with my music.

Some asshole with a bald ponytail tried to tell me to quiet down so he could play Warhammer, but honestly, everyone should be allowed to play DnD. This is an open space and statement on the toxicity of the game. And when I tried to roll intimidation the DM said the skeletons are unfazed, and I wouldn't be allowed to roll for this? Where is the agency, like seriously, every door was unlocked by the rogue, every big threat cornered by the fighter, the monk did nothing, and for some reason, the Bard is being silenced!

I got into a few more arguments, apparently, I can't use a longbow with a Shield, I couldn't torture our enemies for information, and worst of all my spells were only useable once per day so I was stuck doing nothing, but kicking rocks. I complained to the DM we should be allowed to take a long rest so I could change my spells, but apparently you can't do that as a BARD.

As I was on the brink of tears we completed the quest and saved a kid or something. But to make things interesting, for the first time, I grabbed the kid and held my dagger to him to extort information about my sister's whereabouts. Everyone at the table and even the dude with the bald ponytail had something to say.

"Don't torture people in DDAL," "Don't attack children in the game... please" "Did you roll a grapple check?"

What the hell is a grapple check!?

The DM, who wasted my Thursday evening, asked me why I would do this, and I blew a gasket. I wrote I was lawful evil in my backstory and he didn't read about how hard it was growing up as an independent tiefling. I was discriminated against, and when I asked in game about where Jester was in Wildemount, he said we were in the Forgotten Realms, or something like that I forgot.

Gonna probably never return to that place, the toilet was clogged.

I didn't mention the fact they written their own vows for their characters, I don't know I was out of line.

I will be starting a new 5e campaign in a few weeks with a group that I have run a lvl 1 to lvl 17 campaign with these players over the course of 2 years. We get along great, I trust my players, no concerns on anything broken. One of my players said "5E fucking sucks, can we play a different system?" and wants to play as a Call of Cthulhu character. The example he has used as the inspiration for this play style is being so obnoxious that his friends wrap him in a bedroll and throw him off a bridge.

I had made some suggestions to this player, such as a bard, but he thought that the bard would be too strong. I next said that it looks like we might be more on the artificer train. Unfortunately he said any spells are unrealistic and would lower his sanity score.

Since I'm an absolute pushover, I want to give him ample resources in order for him to succeed in this playstyle. I would love to have your thoughts on how to help him with this, ideas for tools and items he can buy. Ways to alter the entire 5E system to accommodate this etc...

So I run a campaign where other than me, all of the players are hot women. And most of them are unable to pay the 900$ a game fee, they all have cheated on their husbands before, so I was thinking, would giving them the option to have sex with me so they could play, is this a good idea?

So we have someone refusing to meta game at our table as a monk wizard and they are doing stuff with their character sheet that Im pretty sure sucks ass. First of all we level 8 and he only has ac 15 and a 14 in int. I said his character wasn’t optimised and the dm said “that’s metagaming. When was the last time you meta woman” and everyone laughed and took turns pickpocketing my hexbladadinlock sorcerer

(edit) bear in mind they are all in middle school (including the dm)(except me Im 41)

So there's a barbarian ranger multiclassed player at my table, and I don't mean to accuse anyone but I think he might be meta gaming (or power gaming). We're level 3 and he has an AC of 20 and a constitution of 22. His strength is 30, and he makes three attacks per turn. I'm honestly impressed with his build (even though he refuses to show his character sheet) but it feels like he might be meta gaming a little bit by using this build. AITA for thinking he might be meta gaming?

So before anyone says that "you shouldnt punish players" yada yada here's the context.

My players had a mission to infiltrate a keep, on the way there they had an encounter with a black dragon on a swamp, Blah blah blah blah… Of course nobody reads this shit. Most of you reply when you’re halfway through the title.

Anyway, they get back and the king is maaaaaaad! He has a whip, and a leather outfit, and he wants to show those adventurers just how naughty they are. What should he do to them?

I think jail is boring and having them staight up killed makes no sense, so Im kindda stuck.

Also this is a LARP and I get to be the king. Also we play in a public park so nothing too weird.

i just discovered one of my past DND players is still alive.

He used to play as a half elf bard. He and the party went into a dungeon and to sum things up, we murdered him and dumped his body at the old dam outside of town. it was brutal, it was the first time i realized how gruesome this game gets. that night i went home and moved on, the party fell apart soon after and i never returned to the dam. I've gone on to find joy in being a dungeon master and its been at least a year.

Today i logged on to DND beyond in order to check on my character sheets and saw his sheet was still there. i checked it for some nostalgia and saw something. HE HAD 10 WHOLE HIT POINTS and had been sending messages in the chat such as "HELP" and "YOU SICK BASTARDS" and "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID!" He didn't die and was still alive somehow. i don't know how to process this information.

UPDATE: Last night after posting this I had a dream I was being chased by a dark figure through the forests near the dam. When the figure caught me I realised it was the bard, but his head was caved in and blood covered his whole body. When I awoke someone had carved the words "YOU WILL PAY" on my ceiling.

UPDATE 2: so after posting the update I went to work for the day. On my way home, one of my other players from the old days, Carl (genasi druid), phoned me. He was sobbing and told me that Greg (dwarf barbarian) had been murdered last night, his head caved in. Carl said he'd been dreaming about the bard lately and that he was scared. I told him about the Roll20 messages and this post and we agreed to tell the rest of the gang.

UPDATE 3: Ok so basically, almost all of our former party is now dead. It's just me and Carl left. The rest had been murdered over the past few months. The dreams are getting worse and sometimes I swear I see the bard from the corner of my eye while awake. Carl is going insane and says that he is being watched. He is getting strange calls throughout the night of someone making a horrible gurgling noise and moaning "MURDERER". I am guessing the bard is now some kind of restless spirit or possibly a revenent (CR5), but that might be metagaming.

UPDATE 4: me and Carl made new characters in the old roll20 we used to play in. He will be an arrakoa wizard and I will be a homebrew DMPC with levels in exorcist. I am designing an encounter where we will have a chance to kill the bard once and for all. If anyone has any ideas let me know

My player wanted his PC to have a romantic partner. With my permission, he made up a childhood friend, had his character invite her to come live in town, and started a romance.

He's been complaining for the past few months that the love interest isn't in every scene he's in. On one hand I feel bad because he spent a lot of time developing her personality, especially her double D tits and ass to match.

On the other hand, I'm not really sure what to do with this character. I feel out of my depth when it comes to anything romance related because I've never felt the deep embrace of a woman. I'm obviously straight but interested in continuing role-playing a relationship with my obviously straight friend, I just don't know how.

What do I do with this love interest? How do you run a love interest NPC? How do you run any NPC? How do women?

If it matters, we're running D&D 5E, does Pathfinder fix this?

ETA: I'm pretty sure he's explicitly asking for anything explicit or erotic, I'm going for super spicy and we are both straight

“My character is a fledgling god, but none of you know that yet.”

So Gamers I (32 DogKin/M), was in discord enjoying my crisp chips, late nite chocolate, and a bit if bate on the second monitor during the sess. I created a Divination 19/Monk 1 (lel) character and I decided to finally becum a Red Dragon using True Polymorph/Clone. I set myself up Time Ravage and used two days of Wish to create an ancient dragon body. After watching a Bald man, with a terrible beard and beanie tell me how to become a Dragon permanently.

MY DM (Dumbass Meanie) said I lost my ability to cast wish when I made my character immortal with instant regeneration and an adamantine skeleton for 22 natural armour and no crits (yeh I'm wolverine). I informed him I had a portent of a Nat 20 from our 3rd session I never got to use. I asked politely, but this piece of shit said I shouldn't be ALLOWED to use a Portent from another day.

He challenged my intelligence and, ofc, I dropped out of the game. Messaged his discord girlfriend about how he threatened to kill me. And created this post because I'm in crisis after all. Now I have Anxiety and depression so I drank a white monster at 10PM even though I have to be at work at 4am. What is even wrong with people?

AITA?

I mean, I'm going to inherit a large pile of those things so they have to worth something, so it translates into game that the Pink dragon's collection is worth something, just like their Bobby's world VHS tapes.

Right?

RIGHT?

It’s a proven fact: people play rpgs to tell stories. It is an exercise in improvisational acting with storytelling elements. That is why we play d&d.

I have found nirvana in this realization. True enlightenment is to be found within this practice. The only way to achieve satisfaction in the hobby is to do so purely to tell a story.

I have begun to apply this philosophy to all parts of my life. Almost everything I do, I do for the sake of telling a story.

Why do I go fishing? To tell a story. Why do I wipe standing up? To tell a story. Why do I let my wife’s boyfriend stay at the house on the weekends? To tell a story.

Until all gamers fully grasp the true purpose of rpgs, they are condemned to the inevitable punishment of having to wait until the session is OVER to tell their stories. I don’t know about you, but that is hell.

I have to go now, my carriage-drawn horse is here. Tally ho.

So, I was angry because all of these false gods and satanic references keep appearing in my game! So I made a class dedicated spreading the word of the one true god!

Hp:d8

Ac: 10+dex+wis+cha+int+str+con.

Damage immunities: all but piercing

How’s this so far? I hope it’s good enough to represent the lord.

So my party is made up of me (divine soul sorcerer 1/twilight cleric 7), my buddy Eric (hexblade warlock 2/graviturgy wizard 6), and Tim (shepherd druid 8). Oh yeah there's a monk too but he's irrelevant in and out of character.

So anyway normally our group is pretty good at getting default kills; normally between my spirit guardians and dodging and Eric's force lancing most enemies die before they can hurt us. Well, us, not the monk, who's just a liability when he goes into melee. We've started making him pay for his revivify diamonds out of his own loot, but that's irrelevant because he's irrelevant.

Anyway, back to the story. In our last fight, we were getting arrested after killing a merchant (as usual) and prepared to make our getaway on our phantom steeds when two knights appeared in our path and stopped us! I smirked and declared that "I cast Spirit Guardians!" only for the DM to say "ok, since you're within 60 feet of him he uses counterspell." That's right, he countered. My. Spell. What the fuck? What about my player agency? He was totally invalidating my build!

I was so shocked, so flabbergasted, that I forgot to cast my own counterspell. No worries though, Tim was right behind me and his turn was next. (Thank goodness we remembered to rest cast Gift of Alacrity today!) He cast Web on the two knights, ready to trap them in place unless they fucked their own action economy - but, get this. The other one ALSO cast counterspell! What. The. Fuck!

I started screeching in rage and terror. The rest of the night was a blur; all I can remember was sobbing as I attacked the knights with my quarterstaff. The monk also did something but idc. Thank god Tim remembered he could walk down an alley out of sight of them and cast rope trick, allowing us to retreat into the space and take turns poking our heads out to attack them with crossbows while they couldn't get back in, giving us our default kill.

At that point I threw the bag of nachos at the DMs face, tried to flip the table, and yelled at him about what a shit DM he was. He tried saying something stupid like "you could cast higher level spells or retreat farther away first" but I wasn't having any of it. He was FORCING ME TO CHANGE MY PLAY STYLE. FUCK THAT.

Fortunately no DnD is better than bad DnD so I left the table. IHAITA?

This is a complete waste of time because we have no idea what’s going to be in the book and a lot of people are talking about something called Unearthed Arcloople or something but it’s not ONEDnD so stop wasting everybody’s time and just wait until August and only then we will know the official rules, you idiots.

Usually, when players encounter new creatures, I usually either speak first, indicating it's a social encounter, or say "roll for initiative", indicating it's combat. I think it's fair, because checking each time would be tedious, but I want my to players choose themselves with those Orcs, while not telling them they need to choose themselves. Any ideas?

So I had a player join mid campaign. Seeing as how the rest of the party was already at level 3 I figured I'd be a generous DM and let the new person start at the same level as everyone else.

Well, this is where the first red flag popped up. They took all three levels in the SAME class. 3 levels of scribe wizard, if you can believe it.

But being the incredibly generous DM that I am I let it slide. Maybe they're just new and don't know how things work yet.

But now, two levels later, I just can't let it slide anymore. You guessed it, two MORE levels of wizard. I've asked them multiple times, sure you don't want to take a dip in fighter or rogue? Nope, just wizard.

It just makes no sense to me. My other players all get it. I mean, I've got an Arakroka wizard1/sorcerer1/paladin2/rogue1 (don't worry, they had a really good reason for taking two levels of pally), a Harengon rogue1/ranger1/barbarian1/fighter1/bard1 and a Tiefling warlock1/cleric1/druid1/artificer1/sorcerer1, and they're all knocking it out of the park, but the wizard5 just casts spells and makes Arcana checks.

And I just can't deal with it anymore. Besides the fact that they're obviously playing an unoptimized character and dragging the rest of the party down, it's just getting too hard to balance encounters when most of the party can only cast level 1 spells (like the gods intended) and the problem player is throwing around fireballs like it's going out of style.

Inspiration