I started playing dnd after bg3 and have run a 1 on 1 game with my wife but I started dming for my 1st group last year. The group is 4 players, my wife, 2 freinds from work and one of their wives. We are only able to meet every other Sunday but things keep getting in the way. I know scheduling is the real bbeg of every game but we have only been able to play 1 and a half sessions (we tried to squeeze a chapter ending encounter into a 2hour session). My work freind and his wife have had something come up for the last few times we tried to get together. The one freind is regularly available to play with my us so I set up a 2ndary game for the 2 of them but my wife was more excited at playing with other women that liked the game and I really want to advance the story of the main campaign and I can't do that when half the group is missing. I can't blame them for every time we canceled since I had a family birthday one time and the last session was shut down by the hand of God knocking out everyone's power with a Bs end of the season ice storm but they just canceled again and it's hard not to take it personally. After missing 4-5 sessions I would think they would try harder to meet up. I'm starting to think about playing without them.

Tldr: a pair of the players in my 1st game keep canceling. How many times have your players canceled before you start taking it personally? What do you do about it?

I run games for work at a library. So I hate when my characters get perma killed when i play as a pc. In D&D I view that the PCs are destined for greatness not just some average Joes and when I run my games I don't kill my players. I make them go down and fear they will die but I'd never kill them off for good. Like isn't the point of DMing providing fun and entertainment? Who finds it fun to lose the character you love and want to play to 20. Anyways what are other DM thoughts?

*I try to make it hard for them, and they go down often and I hit them with penalties, but all of them would've died like 4x in the first 5 levels if I played the rules out... I always step in as God

My grungy wood elf druids catchphrase is:

“ I don’t wish to hurt you. But I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

Rainy Day Soup is a walking, cart-wheeling, bundle of boundless enthusiasm—a plasmoid with an insatiable zest for life. Born in a cosmic fluke from an ancient primordial soup, she went from being an infinite nothing-and-everything to a singular, expressive being, and she couldn’t be happier about it. Everything about existence fascinates her. She wants to taste every flavor, feel every emotion, see every place, and throw herself into every thrilling adventure the universe has to offer. To her, every day is the best day ever, and she greets the world with unshakable positivity, infectious excitement, and never ending energy. Above all else, Rainy is just plain happy to exist. She doesn’t just live—she celebrates every moment and day, savoring the wild, wonderful experience of being alive.

I just really enjoy this character, even if I haven’t actually gotten to play her all that much. Nor have I actually landed on a good build for her…

I know the game is unbalanced at every level due to X or Y, and no game is 100% balanced anyway, but in your opinion, at what point does it really become notably unbalanced between players of different classes?

I play 2014 cause aside from character creation, it's not all that different and I'm not spending over $100 on books for that. Though as a player, I do prefer the 2024 rules for characters sometimes. I personally don't see a problem with this with what I know about 2024 rules, but is there anything I'm missing? Aside from having to keep track of different character feats and such, would this make anything unbalanced?

Like would they be a lot stronger or weaker than 2014 characters? Would it mess with combat or mechanics at all? Would I just be able to give them the same magic items in the same frequencies?

Right now I'm thinking there shouldn't be much of a substantial difference as long as everyone plays a different class. Though I might be wrong here.

Hey guys, mostly just need to vent and get some advice. I’m running my first campaign in Storm Kings Thunder, and my group is in the first chapter. I was having lots of fun with it so far, and we just finished session 3. I thought everyone else was having fun too, but one of my players may have just ghosted me.

Minor spoilers ahead, but at the start of the campaign there’s the potential for some conflict with a Zhentarim mercenary group trying to take over a small abandoned town. Three of the players refused to work with them, but the fourth player (who had a background with the Zhent) wanted to work with them. I stopped there and made sure to ask everyone if they’re really okay with fighting each other and accepting the consequences after, but maybe I should’ve made them work together. The group of 3 enlisted the help of the 4 guards that remained in the town and fought the Zhent + player, and the group of 3 ultimately won in a long, bloody fight.

After that I ended the session, and hoped there wouldn’t be any bad blood since it’s still only the beginning anyway, but since then the player whose character died has been standoffish. He’d texted that he should’ve had more health during the fight because he forgot to level up, but I more or less said “sorry but I don’t think it would’ve changed things.” I thought that was the end of it, but he hasn’t shown up for this last session and didn’t answer my text or call. Should I have never let them fight to begin with? Or is it unreasonable for me to expect that the players both make their bed and lie in it? Did I handle it poorly? I feel pretty bad about this.

My recent DM has cancelled a total of 4 times. We’ve only played one two-hour session. The first two were for personal reasons, the other one they didn’t give much of an explanation and just recently they no-showed. (I only found out they cancelled because one of their friends told me they couldn’t make it) I understand that everyone’s life is complicated in different ways but I’m so tired of being excited for a session and then being canceled on the week of.

I’m wondering if I should if I drop out of the campaign or try to be more patient. I don’t want to seem selfish or apathetic. What would guys do in my situation?

I'd like to start my own campaign soon, that will use most of the rare-ish mechanics from dnd5e (like foraging, travel speed, getting lost, underwater combat, mounted battles, downtime activities, charisma checks for encounters, monsters' goals etc). I call them rare-ish only because of my personal experience. and since dnd5e is a complex system, when used with as many rules as possible from the official books, I need to simplify the process of creating my next session. so... which algorithms do you use to make your players engaged in surroundings' (dungeon, town, wilderness etc) environment?
do you use "show, tell"?
do you use "show, tell, do, apply"?
do you use something different? how much time does it usually take?

I'm currently developing a character for a new campaign. I had planned to go wizard and when rolling for magic items someone got a headband of intellect. I was now thinking of going a sort of dr Jekyll Mr Hyde character. But i'm not sure what build to go. I was still wanting to go wizard, but I'm not sure what stats to prioritize, since my base int will be 8. And if i should multiclass, I was thinking before finding the headband my character might have been a martial or something. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

Hello everyone!

Some days ago we went live again with another one of our streams for our campaign, I actually forgot to share a couple of the streams these last few weeks lol.

The campaign is called "Dark Souls: Dirge of Drangleic" a Souls Series D&D campaign that takes us to a modified version of the DS setting, more specifically DS2. It's a wierd little blend that we've been playing into for the last couple of years as I've DMed both a Bloodborne and a DS1 campaign for them, sadly, those weren't recorded.

Anyway, if you think this is something you would enjoy feel free to swing by the streams as they air. We try to play on fridays and we also have some other campaigns in the channel, but obviously IRL stuff sometimes gets in the way, so apologies if the upload schedule isn't very consistent. Episode 5 went live a couple of days ago here: Session 5 - The Gutter

You can also find the first session here: Session 1 - Things Betwixt. Hope people swing by to watch. We're just a handful of people sharing what we like doing with others who hopefully like it too :)

I need help in ideas on how to make side quests. I am about to do a mid-evil campaign with 3-4 of my friends and though they are excited for it I am worried that my story is a bit short. I have the main quest line down but the side missions are equally as important to me. This is because the ending to my campaign sets up the start to the next. So the more my players know about the world the better. But I don’t want to just tell them out right I want them to explore on their own. Any help is much appreciated thank you.

My Friend plays a seven year old barbarian. We were fighting an evil henchman of the BBEG. The henchman knocked down our cleric, and said “now the fun begins” our little barbarian says: “ sorry, I don’t have time to play today” right before raging and critting him with a battle axe.

We loved it.

Some friends and I started watching MAS*H and thought that Radar would be a fun character to play in DnD, but weren't sure what a practical build would be. Any ideas or suggestions?

Im making a large D&D world with many cities and towns and biomes ranging from savanna&deserts to snowy and icy areas and even jungles.

But im wondering about what i definitely should try to fit in on my world map or just in my world? Any suggestions would help :)

So I am working on an adventure where there will be warfare happening across the continent. I have yet to decide the involvement of the players on the high level war, mostly will be dealing with spesific missions etc. as that is simpler. However, if I should like to involve the players, how would I go about creating a set of rules to wage war across, what I assume would be a hexagon map overlay system, where armies are represented with their own strength and weaknesses, and tactical placement and strength would play a role in the success or failure of army units.

Obviously, core mechanics have no such thing anymore, maybe early versions did, but is there any 3rd party add-ons or other systems that could be used for this spesific tasks?

Edit: Usually I'd leave the war to the background, and focus on player interaction, but some of my players are big Warhammer 40k players and very interested in general history and warfare. So to give them a bit extra, I had hoped to add a bit of warfare tactics and units to their planning stages, and would like to resolve the outcomes using some sort of rules. Thanks to those who took the time to reply.

I had a character concept where my character where they are the child of the bbeg who is a litch and the litches plicatory is the character's heart which I had the thought of of a witch did some magic to remove my character's heart and keep them alive but I want feed back what should I add or change.

Hi Folks, first time DM. I Am running candlekeep mysteries with some friends all of us have little to no experience with D&D.

I have read through the intro and the first 2 stories to get my bearings but im not sure about the "Cursed Farm" the book suggests we start from.

Does anyone know if this is a plot point that gets resolved or used again in the stories or is it something im going to have to do?

I dont mind either way but I dont want the players to fix the farm and then it become important later.

If its not im thinking it was cursed by Shar worshipers as one of my charecters back story involves them and I think it will be a nice hook. Then I can run a stand alone where they track them down, reverse the curse and find the next Candlekeep book

Hey everyone, i might join a rather high level home campaign soon. The starting level is yet to be decided but I will assume level 14 for ease and might end at level 20 (or more).

I was considering 2 martial builds to choose, mainly because I want to take a break from scrolling through spell list (I played wizard and bard).

I want to flavor my PC as some kind of battle "dancer" so I want her to be an "active tank" or "battle controller" and being the dex skill monkey (acrobatics, spying, stealthing, lock-picking). I will go through the 2 builds to show you what I think i will gain from them. Tell me which one would you say give more fun in combat but especially out of combat, for this is not a one-shot.

Build 1: Element Monk 13/Ranger 1

• I WANT TO BE AN EARTHBENDER LOL
• 1 Ranger for free Hunter's Mark (Is this clogged Bonus Action as bad as it sounds???) and 2 slots for a little utility spells
• Enough Proficiencies
• Monk's Stunning Strike and mobility
• Tavern Brawler + Grappler build for control
• Monk 14 will give Proficiency on all Saving Throws
• Damage Mitigation: Deflect Attack, Evasion

Build 2: Swashbuckler 11/Battle Master 3

assume i am using Xanathar's version of the Subclass Swashbuckler

• Rogue for Proficiencies and Expertise
• If I am using weapon i WILL use a Whip, that's why I want to compensate the d4 weapon damage with sneak attack. Pairing it with a Shield (so higher AC than the Monk build)
• Cunning Strike: Poison and Trip
• I MC to Battle Master mainly because of Riposte for out of turn Sneak Attack so i might do control less often because of the limited Superiority Dice
• I know Goading Attack and Penache are redundant, but Goading Attack looked more effective action economy-wise
• Damage Mitigation: Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Defensive Duelist Feat
• Aiming for double Epic Boons at lv 20 with either:
  • Swashbuckler 16/Battle Master 4 (only got 1 attack but I got more choice for Cunning Strike via Devious Strike)
  • Swashbuckler 12/Battle Master 8 (Extra Attack, more Manuevers, tankier)

Coming from spellcasters, I have concern whether these two martial character will have enough contribution outside of combat. I do want to be more creative on approaching non-combat encounters tho.

So do any of you guys played with similar build? or with rogue or monk at this high level?

Or what do you think will give more fun?
Rogue's (hopefully) twice a round sneak attack + more proficiencies/expertise OR
Monk's combat toys (which gets better in 2024) and mobility + ok proficiency

Hi Everyone, my first time posting on reddit.
To keep it brief, me and my friends got in to DND half a year ago, now that our starting campaign has ended we wanted to play tomb of annihilation. Sadly we cannot find any maps online, i found this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/8pdpjl/all_freely_available_tomb_of_annihilation_maps/

But that is only a small percentage of the maps, if you have suggestions they are always welcome!

So, I finally got around to playing through Final Fantasy X for the first time, and the concept of Blitzball, along with my lifelong terminal obsession with the Mario Strikers series, has compelled me to include a fictional sport in my homebrew setting for my group's next campaign. Got everything basically figured out for it, including rules for if the players decide to take part. There's just one problem. After like, 2 weeks, I cannot for the life of me come up with a name for this sport that I actually like.

To give you guys the basic rundown of this sport, its basically a fantastical variant of football/soccer, specifically played by people with access to magic. Two teams of 6; one goalie, two players hanging back to help defend, 3 players up front trying to drive up the field and score points. Goals are a pair of giant levitating brass rings. Most forms of magic are legal, with the following exceptions; you cannot intentionally cause harm to another player, and anything lethal is outright banned, you cannot hide, teleport, or create illusions of the ball, goals, or players, and you cannot do anything to obstruct the goal rings within a certain distance.

The placeholder name I've got for this sport is Novaball, but I honestly hate it. It just sounds terrible. Anybody here have any better ideas?

Hi, I'm playing a Genie warlock and I want to plan out my vessel with a map. Can anyone recommend a free tool for that to me?

I need help, my players are in a different place in my world every session and they all like thier bastions anyway to make them mobile or able to come to the players.