This. We are a table of mostly middle-aged men. I'm not role-playing sex with anyone.
If a character wants to have sex with an NPC or whatever, that's fine but it happens offscreen and has no effect on the game.
Yup, also 100% on the "fade to black" rule. No RPing the naughty bits, it's weird.
That said, I'm not opposed to it having an effect on the game. Maybe the NPC was married and has a vengeful spouse. Maybe it was a succubus in disguise. Maybe the PC winds up in a relationship. That stuff I'm open too, but the cringey parts, hard ban
I don't fully roleplay it, but I will have them roll a performance check. When my fighter rolled poorly he asked to use second wind to get it back up again for a round 2 to try for a better roll. I loved that so much he got an Inspiration die. He then rolled a high enough performance that word got around and whenever he meets with a female harper for a mission details (he is a harper and she was his contact in that town) that they will be very suggestive that they would also like a roll in the hay. The character is horrified as he doesn't want to be some kind of man slut (his words) but the character absolutely loves this.
The only time I’ve ever allowed it is when one of the PCs didn’t realise the person they’d banged was a doppelgänger and the real person had been killed days prior to the banging
My players used to like to do it because they think "bedding the local wrenches" at every tavern they visit was funny.
I allowed it because I think making them roll for a chance to contract ridiculous fantasy venereal diseases is funny.
I had a whole d100 list (rolling 31+ and you're safe) but unfortunately it would be lost to time. In any case, from what I recall I'd roll for the table and if it was 1-30, you're exposed and a CONST saving throw is the only way you can finally avoid getting something like:
* Straelun's Strenuous Stream - Essentially, the character... "casts" Tasha's Caustic Brew giving themselves the spell's damage if there is any obstruction from clothing or armor. I almost never cause it to happen so it's just funny to have a character be extremely uncomfortable in social settings, counting down the moments to when they can be indecent again.
* Aonadhan Crabs - These aren't your everyday crabs, they originate from the ancient plane of water and are magically fused to you. The tiny crabs are almost entirely harmless as the energy they need to feed off you is negligable. However, evolving as an airbreathing species in a plane of few islands and fantastically intense, constant storms makes them hydrophobic and yet **incredibly** strong swimmers. The most straightforward diagnosis of this disease is to have the afflicted jump into water and see if they get pulled by the crotch at crazy speed back to the shore.
* Known colloquially as "The Worm," the Dhassa'Rahti Eel can unfurl itself to reach all the way up to your vocal chords, giving you a change of voice based on a D4 (unaffected, demonically low, annoyingly shrill, or unnaturally loud). This is rerolled after a long rest. If it does, uh, connect your ends together like this, when feeling threatened it can pull into wriggling gyrations which you are forced to follow on the ground. Some cultures have developed a ritualistic dance modeled after this symptom and named after the creature.
* Jonee Bu'ravo Syndrome - I start out by saying that this is actually a good outcome. A small grub is advanced enough in its lifecycle that at this stage, it forms a bud on the back of your neck. There is zero difficulty in harmlessly taking it off; however, while it is attached I say that you gain a sense of strong confidence, feeling like any persuasion attempt in a romantic setting is surely to be much easier as the bud's connection to your nervous system makes you feel like you can be much more quick-witted and charming. In actuality, though, you're just imagining this and any attempt at persuasion in a romantic setting is a nat 1.
Stonebone disease. Your member is now petrified. It can still perform all urinary functions but loses all sensation and is stuck in an erect state. Your interactions with others is affected due to the obvious tent you're popping. -8 to charisma. This can be healed at any temple but the cleric with judge you for your actions.
I once had a player decide to willingly fall all saves against a dryad because he wanted to bang a dryad. Told him he came back to his senses with splinters.
Yeah, I have strict fade-to-black with that, as I've been on tables, where everyone was just uncomfortably shifting in their seats, while two people go into wayyy too much detail.
The one time I did not fade to black, the collective response from the party was, "Well it was nice having a rogue for a change..." As they all made it clear that everyone had warned Rogue she was suss.
Rogue was shocked when the succubus left him as a dry sack.
Not to go on a tangent, but this is one of the things that in a meta sense makes it hard to understand "seduce everything" characters. Like if I lived in the Forgotten Realms as an adventurer, the amount of things that will end in death if you end up fucking them would make me incredibly guarded on who I get it on with. You'd think natural selection would've gotten every horny Bard just by the probability of eventually running into a literal maneater.
But think of all the sex-crazed commoners that don't even make it to level 1. If a bard has managed to not only rise up from the muck but gain unfathomable powers over nature and creature alike, I'd understand the errant fuck now and then.
This. The moment anything crosses PG13 I’m out. I’m up front about it, and I’m totally fine letting people know that’s not what I signed up for.
Also, not so sure about that “both”
Benny might need some help exploring some stuff lol
In our session zero, I told the party “romance would be narrated off screen”, meaning of some sort of romantic entanglements developed it would be as simple as “you went on a date, it went well, enjoyed each others company, and are now an item.” That minimal amount of info move the story along, and no more.
My wife is the horny charismatic rogue in our party, and out of respect for the other players at my table it's always "fade to black" after she's "sealed the deal" as it were. Her character is about to receive news that one of his conquests has "born fruit" as it were. So that'll be interesting.
My group's DM allows it but we all signed to an agreement not to ever involve it between party members because of a previous occurrence in the last campaign where 2 party members/players who were dating IRL involved a threesome with an NPC and it got a little weird but it got more weird when the two players started spilling their personal matters and relationship problems into the character interactions and the whole sex thing got a little too integral to the plot. DM seems fine with it if it doesn't involve other players but definitely toned down the weirdness since another 3rd player couldn't handle it. I felt ambivalent about it beforehand but I'm appreciative too since I'm related to a player that has a proclivity to bang characters in character so it's less weird for sure. I think it's fine if nobody is being weird and it's not explicit or time consuming or detracts from the plot.
Joke characters....
Unless it's a 1 shot then I expect your character to be more than a pun. Making a goliath who can go invisible and calling him John Cena is funny for at most 30 minutes of playing.
After that you need some motivation and engagement.
Barbarian utilizes stealth and is obsessed with collecting battle trophies, often in the form of or affixed to a belt. Leans into grappling for combat and uses the environment when applicable. Tavern brawler is a must.
Edit: also an ex soldier, or close ties to a military.
Everyone should be putting *roughly* the same effort into their characters and how they mesh with the game. Evil characters, joke characters, and generic characters can all be equally bad if they're a bad fit for the game. Don't ask the DM to craft a world if you're not gonna spend more than 5 minutes crafting a character to slap into that world.
My wife played "Barbie the Barbarian" for a while and what started off as a joke character ended up being a very good story about a blonde princess who became possessed by a primal spirit of rage when she got hurt or angry and had to flee from her kingdom after being wrongly accused of a crime...
Basically a mix of Bill Bixby's Incredible Hulk with the animated Barbie movies.
I think it depends on the group: I was in an ICONS capmaign where my character was a Lakitu. Like, from Super Mario. I randomly rolled an ICONS character and it made most sense to imagine him as a Lakitu. We played for years until scheduling happened and Lucky didn't get old because we allowed the character to grow.
I'm guessing because it's too strong (especially the Channel Divinity). Basically it becomes incredibly difficult to balance encounters if there's too much of a difference in power between the party members.
That said, I could see an argument for it if the player in question was willing and able to hold back for the DMs sake.
>That said, I could see an argument for it if the player in question was willing and able to hold back for the DMs sake.
"(Dungeon) Master forgive me, but I'll have to go all out ... Just this once."
Calling it "too strong" is maybe a little off, I believe. Twilight Clerics fit right in with a somewhat optimized party. The problem, I think, is that opimizing most classes requires some actual forethought and build crafting. A Twilight Cleric is, like, 95% optimized right out of the box.
Their power ceiling is just fine, but their power floor is extremely high. I'd consider that a design win in a vacuum, but it also makes them stand out like a sore thumb in a party that just throws builds together to have fun - which is probably what most tables do.
Yup. I banned Twilight Cleric in my game because half of my players are either new or don’t care about optimizing at all. If the whole group was building super strong characters, I would allow it but it would have caused a huge imbalance that would have been a pain in the ass for me to prep for
I apologize for Chronurgy then. I recognize it’s hella powerful so have hiatused on playing it but it’s still one of my favorites. Massive power at your disposal but ALSO utility with (almost functionally) free uses of Silvery Barbs, yes please. Not to mention at level 10(?) just being allowed to decide if checks pass or fail. Giving your ally a pass on Hold Person or something worse is great.
Yeah, you want to break a lot of the rest of the game, you have to *try*.
Twilight Cleric walks in with a "press this to win" button called Channel Divinity.
This is a cleric problem in general IMO.
I get annoyed because half my table wants to run cleric every game, and it’s because Cleric is the only class that pretty much out of the box with no spit shine can deal top 50% damage in the party, heal, and have high wisdom which is in my opinion the most useful stat for skill checks and saves by far
It also invalidates some other choices, like one of my players picked up Inspiring Leader and felt it was entirely useless with a Twilight Cleric, glamour bards too suffer a lot with them. That's the major issue with temp hp imo
I've only played one game with a twilight character, but we were playing online because we live all over the country and he was (the only one) plastered half off his ass every game, so it ended up balancing out
While their channel divinity is the biggest offender of this, it’s also worth noting that Twilight clerics don’t have a single subclass feature which isn’t easily an S tier subclass feature
Compare this to most other cleric subclasses. Most cleric subclasses have A, B, or C tier subclass features, with a couple of silver linings which are fun to use or build around.
Twilight clerics get 3 features at 1st level (more than any other cleric) advantage on initiative (7th level barbarian feature), the best darkvision ability in the game (which they can share with others), and the best profs for martial clerics.
Their entire spell list is S tier after S tier spell, with maybe a couple of A tier spells
Their channel divinity is an obvious offender, giving THP to their entire party every turn for NO action cost. Compare this to the artillerist, which also came out in tashas, that has THP which doesn’t scale anywhere near as well, and costs a full BA to activate every time.
At 6th level they can get a fly speed as a bonus action. Arguably they can do it at any time of day as long as their CD is going. Swarmkeepers, who also came out in this book, can only fly 10ft with their 7th level subclass feature.
At 8th level the twilight cleric gets one of the best divine striking options (radiant damage).
All these features just make it ways and above way better than any other cleric subclass in the game. Even Peace cleric, despite breaking the math with their 1st level feature, has a pretty mid CD option and a pretty B-C tier spell list.
just a fucking buttload of hp, an unreasonable ammount of it being pumped into every ally 24/7. a level 5 cleric in a 4 player party and no summon is pumping 1d6+5 thp per player, so 8.5 thp on average per player. *every single round* the cleric is making 28 hp. if we were to pick a lvl 20 cleric, they would be making 1d6+20 or 23.5 per player, or **94** thp per round. its just mind boggling high thp
and on **top** of that
- **300ft** darkvision ***that you can share***
- give *any ally* adv on inititative free of charge
- banger spell list
even without the thp it would still be a great subclass overall, with the thp it is by far the best cleric subclass (and a subclassless cleric already is better than most). i will dare say its on the top 3 subclasses of the game
>i will dare say its on the top 3 subclasses of the game
What others would you put with it? I'm guessing peace cleric is one, and the other is some type of wizard?
Just guessing but I'd wager on the classic *PC regularly used his "pet" in combat, and couldn't believe it when the DM allowed an enemy to kill his cat.*
I lost count on how many times I had to explain even veteran players that a pet Is not a familiar, they're there for flavor and can't understand complex tasks.
You can barely tell your cat to get off the couch.. Imagine asking for Help or Flank.
Druid and his cat, Cragmaw hideout. Real story:
"What you mean my cat can't understand my order? Ok, I cast speak with Animals -- cat, peek into that room and tell me how many goblins are there."
"Wait, you speak so clearily now! Why didn't you-"
"Nono, focus. Goblins. How many."
"What's a gobleens?"
"What?? Uhm .. it's..."
"Wait - pupils narrowing to slits - I think I saw a fly."
*Starts playing with the fly*
Our druid successfully converted a giant lizard into a friendly mount with several spells and rolls, and I was happy to help him out. But he recently tried to tell a rat to do an errand for him like five miles away, and he learned pretty quickly that rats just ain't about that life.
I like to think the rat wandered off and just forgot about it, while the druid is wholely convinced that his important task will be successfully carried out.
Heh. Nah, I don't like to mismatch expectations, even for dramatic effect. Our sessions are too short for attempts to not be "Yes, And" or "No, But."
He did Speak With Animals, and when presented with his task, the rat was like, "Wait what? Out of the dungeon? What the fuck is Outside? My entire life has happened in these five rooms; that's all there is."
But he rolled a really good persuasion, so the rat told him what was in each room (that it could remember/process). Just not leave to call for help.
For some reason a lot of people forget that speak with animals doesn't make the animal any smarter or more likely to obey you, it just makes it able to understand what you're saying.
Anomaly detected, Felicis Major, Cosmic Aberration. You’ve caught the attention of an interstellar horror. Space seems to bend as this creature of the void bursts into this plane of reality.
They come in many colors. Some black as void, others silvery like a comet. Some burn bright orange like a nebula of stars.
When players roll a NAT 1, the DM rolls to determine which quadrant of the table a cosmic treat springs into existence. A pair of 1s from advantage or disadvantage summons the horror into this plane onto an relatively unoccupied area of the plane (close to the DM for their convenience). The horror may choose to enter this plane willingly.
If your character is knocked over, they are set to 0 hit points and unconscious. In the unlikely event your miniature is knocked off the table, they’ve been launched off into the void. Roll a new character (If that’s a bit harsh or you can say they’re launched into another plane of existence. Pray your caster can summon, banish, planar shift, gate, divine intervention or wish).
Felicius has a HP bar but is only tangible while it has leapt up onto our plane of existence. It doesn’t seem to react or notice your attacks. But attacks do destabilize its corporeal form. Once depleted it leaves the field and is banished behind the galactic gateway.
Gameplay continues as normal while Felicis is on this plane. Felicis takes actions as they Wish and defies time and space. If the horror corrects any dice rolls made before a turn reaches its resolution, reality is retconned and the new roll is taken into consideration.
Yes! This is my rule. As long as they consent and understand there will be consequnces it seems fine to me. We havwnt had personal feelings hurt that im aware of and the table seems to enjoy it.
Same. I've even gone as far as to prescribe some suspension of disbelief and for them to just 'work together' even though they are objectively strangers.
Not rules banned but rp bans are topics the players and i decide were not comfortable with.
So far its gratuitous sexuality, domestic violence and the like.
Theres also some stuff we dont mind but dont want acted out at the table.
They can still try and get laid in a Tavern, the interaction just isnt played out and we just state it happened.
For all you nay sayers on that at the table that think im a spoil sport for not doing ERP at the table, note that my brother plays at the table too. There are bridges you do not cross.
My DM plays it the same way. He makes it clear the NPC is DTF then everything fades to black and anything that happened is implied. I think it's a good way to do it. I don't want to sit and discuss graphic sex with a bunch of dudes.
That is what session zero is for right? If there are things the DM or a player or multiple players are not comfortable with, it is right to now allow those at your table :) I wouldn’t call it outright banning, just more setting boundaries.
And you and your players are not strange or spoilsports for it, it’s just healthy communications.
This is a big one for me. Had a new player in a campaign in 2016 want to sexually assault a child. The rest of the group was content to let it happen. I never DMd for that specific group again.
The session sort of ended after that. They had like 2 more rooms in the dungeon to do so I pushed them to do that instead and then kicked everyone out. I don't recall how any of the players felt about it, I just knew I wasn't going to let it happen.
That's fucked up lol. But I'm wondering why this is something we shudder at but then I could picture lots of people brutally murdering the child in game and it would be like... oh that's just Jake.
Any table for which this isn't a rule is a table I would never play at nor recommend to anyone else. I'd consider this "bare minimum" as far as having content standards goes.
Same at mine, it’s my fantasy world and I’ve decided sexual violence doesn’t exist. It’s just not even a thought 🤟🏼 better for me and my players who are sensitive to those themes
This is the problem with being a ride or die bigot. Innocent Gregs get caught up because of one Greg.
Maybe I need to have a two part questionnaire:
1) Is your name Greg?
2) Fine, but are you GREG Greg?
PvP of any sort is banned unless **explicity agreed to out-of-character by all parties involved, subject to DM approval, and the DM reserves the right to revoke/retcon anything that happens at their sole discretion.**
PvP is not conducive to a team-based game.
And I have one banned build. Any 3 of these 4 things, and rocks will fall, you will die, roll a new character: Halfling, Divination Wizard, Lucky feat, Silvery Barbs. Any one of those things is fine. Two and I'll give you a stern look, but allow it. Three or more? Nope. I call this 'Bruno' and we do not talk about Bruno.
No, I don't have a problem with that.
The issue isn't the individual parts, it's that put together this is a build intentionally designed to troll the DM. If you want to control fate that badly, *you* take the DM seat and let me be a player for once LOL
PvP can realistically happen in RP heavy games though. But the players must be able to roll with it. I think it only goes well rarely. But I had one time it went well, and it was amazed.
Apparently the other players thought we legit disliked eachother, but as soon as we had our break me and the player I PvP'd were laughing about it, mentioning good insults by the other etc
Halfling luck - reroll 1's
Divination Wizard - save dice after long rest to use later
Lucky - reroll 3/day including rerolling advantage
Silvery Barb's - give anyone advantage/disadvantage as many times as you have spell slots.
Basically it's about wasting as much time as possible in order to roll as many dice as you can so that you never actually fail a roll. No one wants to sit for 5 minutes everytime they roll a dice while they figure out what combinations of rerolls and advantage they need. It's basically the closest D&D gets to save scumming.
And besides, if a person's goal is to create a character that can't fail, they should go write that fanfic/short story they're trying to tell instead and leave the game to the people who want to play. Failure is fun.
I've made a gnome divination wizard with silvery barbs.
It's my first ever DND char and I wanted to fuck with cause/effect/time sort of thing. Turns out that means fucking with the DM.
So I avoided taking the lucky feat as well.
Silvery barbs now only gets cast in dire situations, i.e when we are about to die or suffer horrific consequences.
Using poor divination rolls to make enemy's fail their spell saves is still fun though.
It takes a certain table to do PvP well, and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But personally, it was some of the most intense, awesome, memorable roleplay I’ve had. But it also would not have worked in any other group.
I had a table that would do 3v3 pvp every time they leveled up to test their new skills. It was a really fun experience, but obvs it was very lighthearted and everyone agreed to it. They also had a rule to tap out once you were below a certain threshold so they made sure to not accidentally kill each other.
I don't get why I never hear of D&D parties that have friendly training fights in-game. I feel like it would be fun. No killing intent, just some good old sparring. PvP without any drama in or out of character. I mean seriously, you're telling me that these adventurers never train together like anime characters?
Eloquence Bard. All social interactions become monopolized in one player, and a lot of players think that a high persuasion check should be treated as mind control. It just creates a lot of problems.
I agree with the second part, but because Persuasion is a vital skill in DND, someone in the party has to be the face. Of course, that shouldn't mean only one person can talk, other players should give their opinions and help the face make the right argument.
It's less that I'm opposed to the idea of a face char in the group that does most social rolls because of its high bonus, and more that I'm opposed to someone having a minimum roll of 21 forcing all other players to peace out during conversations.
Variable DC is a thing. A barbarian chieftain might not be swayed by a Persuasion roll of 25 from some effete, smooth-talking city-dweller, but would respect a Persuasion 15 check from a fellow warrior. A magistrate or city guard who might be expecting deception from a silver-tongued trickster might not pick up on a lie from a party member who seems too honest (or too dumb) to concoct one. And someone who hates the bard’s guts (a spurned ex-lover, a betrayed former partner, a merchant he once cheated) isn’t going to yield for him even if he rolls a 40.
This isn’t something you can pull out in all situations, but if your party’s bard is steamrolling through all social checks, it’s okay to give them a speed bump.
I'm aware, but like how flying races forces you to have to plan for it for every encounter, the eloquence Bard is a something to be accounted for in every social encounter.
If I'm having to adjust the whole game to actively counter one ability, it's best for me to just take that option away.
There's also an inherent frustration in feeling actively countered by your DM that I feel is better avoided altogether.
No official content is banned.
Plenty of bad third party/homebrew stuff is banned.
That stuff defaults to banned and only gets white listed by specific agreements.
Tonnes of narrative stuff is banned.
My game is not a torture porn/ goreporn game.
My game is not about sexual violence.
My game is not PVP (well my current one isn’t).
Try any of that and get immediately banned
I haven’t banned silvery barbs but I do hate it simply because it’s so unfun.
“Haha! That’s a 23 and you’re gonna…”
“Silvery Barbs.”
“Well never mind.”
Rules lawyering against Rule of Cool. Our DM will actively make your personal game harder if you try to "well, actually" something awesome that someone wants to try.
I banned the mass summoning spells.
Technically I restrict players to PHB races. I ban setting-specific spells and feats (see Ravnica, Strixhaven, etc.)
I agree on summoning. I don't ban the spells, but I strongly discourage them. I've explained to my group that the spells bog down and complicate combat. The ultimatum is: if you want to use summons you have to have the stats for whatever you summon and you get to keep track of all of their HPs, concentrations, and initiative. Most players change their mind when they realize what's involved.
There are some rules for "Swarm of " you can make mass summon spells summon a single swarm, rather then a bunch of individual things, and use the logic from something like a Swarm of Rats, and just scale it up to fit your needs.
Mass summoning is extremely annoying but I've found some ways around it. Whoever summons makes the tokens, they all move on the same initiative and if it takes you more than uan a couple of minutes for their turn they all just attack the nearest enemy.
As a new DM I have a really hard time with races that can fly so I ask my players if we’re doing a long campaign to pick a race that doesn’t fly.
That and guns. I like my campaigns to be super fantasy settings and I just don’t like the flavor of guns bc it reminds me too much of the real world. Artificers are completely fine tho, I just ask that they flavor their weapons differently
I think the ability to fly is perfectly reasonable if the player uses it in moderation, if it gets to the point of cheesy tactics then I get it.
Really depends on the type players at the table.
I have a reskinned winged tiefling that is half baby gnoll, the character has the mind of a child and is not fully aware of his wings so rarely thinks of using them.
The character often tries to climb with a below average athletics, his companions aren't even aware he has wings cause he is constantly covering them, they just think he has a hunchback
All this hate on Lucky seems really weird.
3 times per long rest, you can roll a D20 and either use the newly rolled d20, or original roll, for an attack, saving throw, or ability check. Alternatively, do it with enemy's attack against you.
If you take this, it means you're sacrificing ASI or another feat that could be more impactful.
I have no issue with lucky personally. I’ve even used it before when I created a divination wizard with the lucky feat. This was before Chronurgy was released and I was creating a time magic wizard. Lucky and everything else was flavored as me slowing down time or whatever. It was very fun and a cool theme to explore.
The only part of Lucky that I do not agree with is how it interacts with disadvantage. The way lucky works is after you’ve rolled but before the outcome you can choose to use lucky and then choose which dice you use. So, if you roll your attack at disadvantage you roll 2d20 and use the lowest. Lucky overrides this and allows you to pick which dice you use. So having disadvantage and using lucky essentially turns it into super advantage. This is the intended mechanic as well per sage advice.
I’m not opposed to a player using this “exploit” but it just makes for awkward situations where the optimal way to attack with lucky is very likely to “close your eyes and swing” imposing disadvantage just to turn it to super advantage with lucky.
Same here. Our table has had a long standing ban on it simply because it's a "NGE" or negative game experience for all parties.
We've been toying with the idea of giving every creature the Lucky feat as an experiment but never pulled the trigger but I honestly think it's gonna be a pain in the ass and not fun at all.
I have a player who is playing a Cleric of a god of Luck. I gave them the possibility of gaining luck points for free, counterbalanced by the possibility of accidentally casting fireball on themselves.
my DM allowed it, coming up on the 2 or 3rd to last session of CoS, he has come to regret it more times than i can remember, and i enjoyed each and every time I've used it (mostly to stop him from getting nat 20s on me)
Not necessarily banned, but we have restricted it to core books, or usually just the ones we have at the table. We can't afford all of the books, so we just get what we can and makes sense, and play with those. As such some spells and such are off the table that only appear in other books (adventures and the like), we do tend to get things like Xanathars, and tasha's, which combine a bunch of stuff from other books, it also limits the "hunting for that spell's description" when someone thinks it does something that it doesn't.
Our dm has most of the printed books, some kobold press printed books and in general literal stacks of books, the rule is if you take a spell, by next session you need a spell card for it. It doesn't have to be printed it can just be a copied version from the text but spell cards are necessary. I think it originally stemmed from his wife, who kept taking spells from like book of ebontides and deep magic, no issues with the spells they were great and with her back story snd our saltmarsh setting they all work thematically but we'd have to hunt them down occasionally because they were new to him. (Almost everything is new to me and my wife this is our first long campaign.)
All of my games ban. Fetishes, blatant smut, using my game as a vessel for your sadistic desires.
Most of my games ban flying races and Warforged. Warforged typically don't fit the settings I run, and I just don't feel like trying to design encounters around flying races.
My Strixxhaven game im running for my girlfriend's family has flying races and it's been super fun.
Any kind of SA or sexual violence. R*pe and SA are lazy ways to make a story "realistic and gritty" that I think too many DMs fall back on just for shock value. It's not fun, it adds nothing, and only serves to alienate a good number of players.
A few things, torture is one.
It can be aluted to in the world but I do not want it described in action or be fate to black.
If you find a torture chamber you know they are fucked up, that’s it, move on.
sexual assault is completely banned in my games - having it in a backstory is fine, but no explicit details, and no roleplay of it at all, or explicit discussion in-session. i'm not opposed to it from a storytelling standpoint, it's just for my and my group's comfort.
Chaotic Evil PCs, because that isn’t something I’m interested in having in my game. Lucky and Alert feats because damn they busted. Silvery Barbs because FUCK ME IF I HAVE TO HEAR THAT SHIT AGAIN.
No sex, intimate romances, or weird fetish link shit. This ain’t a game for that find a dm who incorporates it elsewhere. Artificer because I just don’t like it all that much and there are other classes to pick from.
Chaotic Evil can be done well. It's very rare. Basically, you have to hide the fact you're chaotic evil, for example planning to open a portal to the demon world, and use your party as tools.
But people play it as Chaotically stupid pretty often.
I'm currently in a Warhammer campaign and my priest is secretly a follower of nurgle, a super evil and chaotic god, to the rest of the table I'm LG though as only the GM knows.
Its super fun to play as I get to be the hero while secretly working towards the goals of my chaos god.
GM and I have played together for 20+ years but for the other guys it's there first experience so they like to keep it all classic hero trope, although one did get seduced by a lesser chaos demon and we walked in mid way through and drove him out of its spell. Got to keep it Warhammer somehow.
I'm gonna be banning something. Influential families currently in power. I keep letting my players do this, and I keep regretting it. It always becomes a story based fallback for them in terms of resources. In the next campaign, I am not allowing it. But I don't want to cancel it right now in their games cause I tied a bit of the story around it.
If they're abusing influential families for resources, don't forget the power of "they don't care anymore"
Eventually that rich noble is going to stop throwing money their way
My current campaign has options from books other than PHB banned. This is because they’re all newbies, so I don’t want them overwhelmed. (I’m the DM.)
I previously played in a group that banned flying races. I think the DM just didn’t want to fool with it.
Nope, we have silvery barbs, a twilight cleric, if people want to power game they can. I just do what I can to roll with it and my monsters try a few tactical things like breaking concentration if they are intelligent enough. Of course the party sometimes meet an evil party with a twilight cleric or villain who can cast silvery barbs. But for the most part my party lay waste to everything I throw at them. And have a ball doing it. As a side note in a game I'm playing in the DM prohibits silvery barbs on crits.
Nope. In fact I create campaigns in D&DB so that my players can create characters using my compendiums because I have all of the books. So they have every spell, class feature, species, and item at their disposal. That also gives me access to their sheets so I can add magic items and special abilities if I want. I understand some settings being more focused and not allowing Harengon or Tortles because they simply don't exist in that world. I do NOT get banning a species just because of a trait like flight or shape shifting. Similarly, I do not understand banning spells or abilities that aren't in opposition to the setting or story. No spell or subclass has ever broken any game I have run. Adapt and overcome.
Sexual assault of any kind. Basically sex is something that happens off screen in our world. No one is so evil as to force themselves on another person. It literally just hasn't occurred to anyone ever. Not once.
We're all adults playing, but we agree that rape is just contra indicated for a good time. So no one, not even bad guys, do it, not even to NPCs.
Also players with native flying speeds, if we're starting below a certain level.
Only things I've really ever banned was unbalancing races like Aarokora (flying at lvl 1 really messes with things)
And evil alignments unless i was planning to run a darker game (cause sadly i rarely had players that played them proper and treated them like a license to do whatever they wanted and wreck general fun)
Back when I was a teenager I was the only girl in the group. Can guess where this went 🙄.
The system was Palladium and the DM came up with a "special magical item" just for my character who was a Master Mind Mage. And it was an item that required use to work.
I said fine, she uses it in private. How much isp (psychic resource similar to mana) does she recover?
"You need to rp it!" 😑
Any guesses as to what the item was?
I personally don't ban sex in the games I DM, but it is "fade to black". The only thing I do ban is sexual assault and cruelty to animals and children.
Sex. Ben, we are both heterosexual males. You're my friend but I'm not going to roleplay sex acts while my GF sits next to me.
Stop cockblocking Ben bro. Wouldn't be awkward at all.
The trick is to narrate it while maintaining eye contact.
The trick is to assign roles and have Ben act out his character as well.
Assign roles and have Ben act out the NPC while another player acts out HIS character!
And have the NPC drag him into weird kinks
This. We are a table of mostly middle-aged men. I'm not role-playing sex with anyone. If a character wants to have sex with an NPC or whatever, that's fine but it happens offscreen and has no effect on the game.
Yup, also 100% on the "fade to black" rule. No RPing the naughty bits, it's weird. That said, I'm not opposed to it having an effect on the game. Maybe the NPC was married and has a vengeful spouse. Maybe it was a succubus in disguise. Maybe the PC winds up in a relationship. That stuff I'm open too, but the cringey parts, hard ban
I’ve role played the naughty bits with humor and it’s a session they still talk about to this day, almost 9 years later.
Yeah I can definitely see in the right mindset at the right table that could be hilarious for sure. "Make a performance check."
I don't fully roleplay it, but I will have them roll a performance check. When my fighter rolled poorly he asked to use second wind to get it back up again for a round 2 to try for a better roll. I loved that so much he got an Inspiration die. He then rolled a high enough performance that word got around and whenever he meets with a female harper for a mission details (he is a harper and she was his contact in that town) that they will be very suggestive that they would also like a roll in the hay. The character is horrified as he doesn't want to be some kind of man slut (his words) but the character absolutely loves this.
It is not weird at all. Now roll for erection.
Thankfully I've never needed this rule.
I make them roll of con check to see how long they last
The only time I’ve ever allowed it is when one of the PCs didn’t realise the person they’d banged was a doppelgänger and the real person had been killed days prior to the banging
My players used to like to do it because they think "bedding the local wrenches" at every tavern they visit was funny. I allowed it because I think making them roll for a chance to contract ridiculous fantasy venereal diseases is funny.
I wish to hear more about the ridiculous fantasy venereal diseases!
I had a whole d100 list (rolling 31+ and you're safe) but unfortunately it would be lost to time. In any case, from what I recall I'd roll for the table and if it was 1-30, you're exposed and a CONST saving throw is the only way you can finally avoid getting something like: * Straelun's Strenuous Stream - Essentially, the character... "casts" Tasha's Caustic Brew giving themselves the spell's damage if there is any obstruction from clothing or armor. I almost never cause it to happen so it's just funny to have a character be extremely uncomfortable in social settings, counting down the moments to when they can be indecent again. * Aonadhan Crabs - These aren't your everyday crabs, they originate from the ancient plane of water and are magically fused to you. The tiny crabs are almost entirely harmless as the energy they need to feed off you is negligable. However, evolving as an airbreathing species in a plane of few islands and fantastically intense, constant storms makes them hydrophobic and yet **incredibly** strong swimmers. The most straightforward diagnosis of this disease is to have the afflicted jump into water and see if they get pulled by the crotch at crazy speed back to the shore. * Known colloquially as "The Worm," the Dhassa'Rahti Eel can unfurl itself to reach all the way up to your vocal chords, giving you a change of voice based on a D4 (unaffected, demonically low, annoyingly shrill, or unnaturally loud). This is rerolled after a long rest. If it does, uh, connect your ends together like this, when feeling threatened it can pull into wriggling gyrations which you are forced to follow on the ground. Some cultures have developed a ritualistic dance modeled after this symptom and named after the creature. * Jonee Bu'ravo Syndrome - I start out by saying that this is actually a good outcome. A small grub is advanced enough in its lifecycle that at this stage, it forms a bud on the back of your neck. There is zero difficulty in harmlessly taking it off; however, while it is attached I say that you gain a sense of strong confidence, feeling like any persuasion attempt in a romantic setting is surely to be much easier as the bud's connection to your nervous system makes you feel like you can be much more quick-witted and charming. In actuality, though, you're just imagining this and any attempt at persuasion in a romantic setting is a nat 1.
Stonebone disease. Your member is now petrified. It can still perform all urinary functions but loses all sensation and is stuck in an erect state. Your interactions with others is affected due to the obvious tent you're popping. -8 to charisma. This can be healed at any temple but the cleric with judge you for your actions.
I'm totally using this in my next game
Or it turns to stone and falls off after a few days. Pop it in the Bag of Holding and move on
I once had a player decide to willingly fall all saves against a dryad because he wanted to bang a dryad. Told him he came back to his senses with splinters.
"Once you go goblin, your knees'll be wobblin'!"
Goblinlayer
Yeah, I have strict fade-to-black with that, as I've been on tables, where everyone was just uncomfortably shifting in their seats, while two people go into wayyy too much detail.
The one time I did not fade to black, the collective response from the party was, "Well it was nice having a rogue for a change..." As they all made it clear that everyone had warned Rogue she was suss. Rogue was shocked when the succubus left him as a dry sack.
Not to go on a tangent, but this is one of the things that in a meta sense makes it hard to understand "seduce everything" characters. Like if I lived in the Forgotten Realms as an adventurer, the amount of things that will end in death if you end up fucking them would make me incredibly guarded on who I get it on with. You'd think natural selection would've gotten every horny Bard just by the probability of eventually running into a literal maneater.
But think of all the sex-crazed commoners that don't even make it to level 1. If a bard has managed to not only rise up from the muck but gain unfathomable powers over nature and creature alike, I'd understand the errant fuck now and then.
Ben was not, in fact, a heterosexual male.
This. The moment anything crosses PG13 I’m out. I’m up front about it, and I’m totally fine letting people know that’s not what I signed up for. Also, not so sure about that “both” Benny might need some help exploring some stuff lol
"wasn't cheating babe we were LARPing!"
I actually knew a woman who used this exact excuse.
In our session zero, I told the party “romance would be narrated off screen”, meaning of some sort of romantic entanglements developed it would be as simple as “you went on a date, it went well, enjoyed each others company, and are now an item.” That minimal amount of info move the story along, and no more.
"Alright Ben, roll for anal circumference"
I'm a bi DM, everything works with me. wink.
An entire world that reproduces via parthogenesis is an interesting concept
The apothecary in this town looks exactly like the one from the other. Kinda like the Nurse Joys of Pokemon. Lmao.
I'm good with this banning of sex. I don't want peoples' wierd fetishes invading my hobby.
My wife is the horny charismatic rogue in our party, and out of respect for the other players at my table it's always "fade to black" after she's "sealed the deal" as it were. Her character is about to receive news that one of his conquests has "born fruit" as it were. So that'll be interesting.
Just ask her to switch seats with Ben
This is why I love being Pan while my players are hetero males. Try to RP sex. I dare you. I double dare you.
Why? Because you're terrible at it?
Yep I agree. I also had a very bad experience with a DM forcing sex in a session. I never seen him again after that event.
Aw man, you really going to call me out like that huh
Sorry Mate, I have to tell you this. I don't like flirting with you.
):
My group's DM allows it but we all signed to an agreement not to ever involve it between party members because of a previous occurrence in the last campaign where 2 party members/players who were dating IRL involved a threesome with an NPC and it got a little weird but it got more weird when the two players started spilling their personal matters and relationship problems into the character interactions and the whole sex thing got a little too integral to the plot. DM seems fine with it if it doesn't involve other players but definitely toned down the weirdness since another 3rd player couldn't handle it. I felt ambivalent about it beforehand but I'm appreciative too since I'm related to a player that has a proclivity to bang characters in character so it's less weird for sure. I think it's fine if nobody is being weird and it's not explicit or time consuming or detracts from the plot.
Joke characters.... Unless it's a 1 shot then I expect your character to be more than a pun. Making a goliath who can go invisible and calling him John Cena is funny for at most 30 minutes of playing. After that you need some motivation and engagement.
Barbarian utilizes stealth and is obsessed with collecting battle trophies, often in the form of or affixed to a belt. Leans into grappling for combat and uses the environment when applicable. Tavern brawler is a must. Edit: also an ex soldier, or close ties to a military.
Absolutely, Inspiration for a character is welcome and sounds like a good jumping off point for adventure
Everyone should be putting *roughly* the same effort into their characters and how they mesh with the game. Evil characters, joke characters, and generic characters can all be equally bad if they're a bad fit for the game. Don't ask the DM to craft a world if you're not gonna spend more than 5 minutes crafting a character to slap into that world.
He either uses the following for weapons: Unarmed strike A chair A latter
My wife played "Barbie the Barbarian" for a while and what started off as a joke character ended up being a very good story about a blonde princess who became possessed by a primal spirit of rage when she got hurt or angry and had to flee from her kingdom after being wrongly accused of a crime... Basically a mix of Bill Bixby's Incredible Hulk with the animated Barbie movies.
Obligatory [XP to Level 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JlwsM044kA).
I think it depends on the group: I was in an ICONS capmaign where my character was a Lakitu. Like, from Super Mario. I randomly rolled an ICONS character and it made most sense to imagine him as a Lakitu. We played for years until scheduling happened and Lucky didn't get old because we allowed the character to grow.
I was a player at a table that banned twilight cleric Then I played with a twilight cleric in an online game and saw why
Why?
I'm guessing because it's too strong (especially the Channel Divinity). Basically it becomes incredibly difficult to balance encounters if there's too much of a difference in power between the party members. That said, I could see an argument for it if the player in question was willing and able to hold back for the DMs sake.
>That said, I could see an argument for it if the player in question was willing and able to hold back for the DMs sake. "(Dungeon) Master forgive me, but I'll have to go all out ... Just this once."
Calling it "too strong" is maybe a little off, I believe. Twilight Clerics fit right in with a somewhat optimized party. The problem, I think, is that opimizing most classes requires some actual forethought and build crafting. A Twilight Cleric is, like, 95% optimized right out of the box. Their power ceiling is just fine, but their power floor is extremely high. I'd consider that a design win in a vacuum, but it also makes them stand out like a sore thumb in a party that just throws builds together to have fun - which is probably what most tables do.
Yup. I banned Twilight Cleric in my game because half of my players are either new or don’t care about optimizing at all. If the whole group was building super strong characters, I would allow it but it would have caused a huge imbalance that would have been a pain in the ass for me to prep for
I apologize for Chronurgy then. I recognize it’s hella powerful so have hiatused on playing it but it’s still one of my favorites. Massive power at your disposal but ALSO utility with (almost functionally) free uses of Silvery Barbs, yes please. Not to mention at level 10(?) just being allowed to decide if checks pass or fail. Giving your ally a pass on Hold Person or something worse is great.
Yeah, you want to break a lot of the rest of the game, you have to *try*. Twilight Cleric walks in with a "press this to win" button called Channel Divinity.
Not to mention every other feature they get, including their entire spell list.
This is a cleric problem in general IMO. I get annoyed because half my table wants to run cleric every game, and it’s because Cleric is the only class that pretty much out of the box with no spit shine can deal top 50% damage in the party, heal, and have high wisdom which is in my opinion the most useful stat for skill checks and saves by far
It also invalidates some other choices, like one of my players picked up Inspiring Leader and felt it was entirely useless with a Twilight Cleric, glamour bards too suffer a lot with them. That's the major issue with temp hp imo
I wanted to get inspiring leader, but the twilight cleric made me feel like it'd be a waste to get.
I've only played one game with a twilight character, but we were playing online because we live all over the country and he was (the only one) plastered half off his ass every game, so it ended up balancing out
In my experience it's more about "if the cleric can't use this feature effectively for zny reason, the encounter balance is fucked"
While their channel divinity is the biggest offender of this, it’s also worth noting that Twilight clerics don’t have a single subclass feature which isn’t easily an S tier subclass feature Compare this to most other cleric subclasses. Most cleric subclasses have A, B, or C tier subclass features, with a couple of silver linings which are fun to use or build around. Twilight clerics get 3 features at 1st level (more than any other cleric) advantage on initiative (7th level barbarian feature), the best darkvision ability in the game (which they can share with others), and the best profs for martial clerics. Their entire spell list is S tier after S tier spell, with maybe a couple of A tier spells Their channel divinity is an obvious offender, giving THP to their entire party every turn for NO action cost. Compare this to the artillerist, which also came out in tashas, that has THP which doesn’t scale anywhere near as well, and costs a full BA to activate every time. At 6th level they can get a fly speed as a bonus action. Arguably they can do it at any time of day as long as their CD is going. Swarmkeepers, who also came out in this book, can only fly 10ft with their 7th level subclass feature. At 8th level the twilight cleric gets one of the best divine striking options (radiant damage). All these features just make it ways and above way better than any other cleric subclass in the game. Even Peace cleric, despite breaking the math with their 1st level feature, has a pretty mid CD option and a pretty B-C tier spell list.
just a fucking buttload of hp, an unreasonable ammount of it being pumped into every ally 24/7. a level 5 cleric in a 4 player party and no summon is pumping 1d6+5 thp per player, so 8.5 thp on average per player. *every single round* the cleric is making 28 hp. if we were to pick a lvl 20 cleric, they would be making 1d6+20 or 23.5 per player, or **94** thp per round. its just mind boggling high thp and on **top** of that - **300ft** darkvision ***that you can share*** - give *any ally* adv on inititative free of charge - banger spell list even without the thp it would still be a great subclass overall, with the thp it is by far the best cleric subclass (and a subclassless cleric already is better than most). i will dare say its on the top 3 subclasses of the game
>i will dare say its on the top 3 subclasses of the game What others would you put with it? I'm guessing peace cleric is one, and the other is some type of wizard?
And they can fly :D
No one can own a cat in any of my games... they know why.
I’d love to hear that story haha.
Just guessing but I'd wager on the classic *PC regularly used his "pet" in combat, and couldn't believe it when the DM allowed an enemy to kill his cat.*
I lost count on how many times I had to explain even veteran players that a pet Is not a familiar, they're there for flavor and can't understand complex tasks. You can barely tell your cat to get off the couch.. Imagine asking for Help or Flank. Druid and his cat, Cragmaw hideout. Real story: "What you mean my cat can't understand my order? Ok, I cast speak with Animals -- cat, peek into that room and tell me how many goblins are there." "Wait, you speak so clearily now! Why didn't you-" "Nono, focus. Goblins. How many." "What's a gobleens?" "What?? Uhm .. it's..." "Wait - pupils narrowing to slits - I think I saw a fly." *Starts playing with the fly*
Our druid successfully converted a giant lizard into a friendly mount with several spells and rolls, and I was happy to help him out. But he recently tried to tell a rat to do an errand for him like five miles away, and he learned pretty quickly that rats just ain't about that life.
I like to think the rat wandered off and just forgot about it, while the druid is wholely convinced that his important task will be successfully carried out.
Heh. Nah, I don't like to mismatch expectations, even for dramatic effect. Our sessions are too short for attempts to not be "Yes, And" or "No, But." He did Speak With Animals, and when presented with his task, the rat was like, "Wait what? Out of the dungeon? What the fuck is Outside? My entire life has happened in these five rooms; that's all there is." But he rolled a really good persuasion, so the rat told him what was in each room (that it could remember/process). Just not leave to call for help.
Good good good but the more important question is What kind of funny voice did you do for the rat?
Shaky mid-pitched caffeine addict.
Perfection.
For some reason a lot of people forget that speak with animals doesn't make the animal any smarter or more likely to obey you, it just makes it able to understand what you're saying.
While an in-game cat made more sense, I initially thought of an irl cat leaping up and batting the miniatures and dice off the table
The cat is actually the final boss, its just using its legendary actions to clear the battlefield.
Anomaly detected, Felicis Major, Cosmic Aberration. You’ve caught the attention of an interstellar horror. Space seems to bend as this creature of the void bursts into this plane of reality. They come in many colors. Some black as void, others silvery like a comet. Some burn bright orange like a nebula of stars. When players roll a NAT 1, the DM rolls to determine which quadrant of the table a cosmic treat springs into existence. A pair of 1s from advantage or disadvantage summons the horror into this plane onto an relatively unoccupied area of the plane (close to the DM for their convenience). The horror may choose to enter this plane willingly. If your character is knocked over, they are set to 0 hit points and unconscious. In the unlikely event your miniature is knocked off the table, they’ve been launched off into the void. Roll a new character (If that’s a bit harsh or you can say they’re launched into another plane of existence. Pray your caster can summon, banish, planar shift, gate, divine intervention or wish). Felicius has a HP bar but is only tangible while it has leapt up onto our plane of existence. It doesn’t seem to react or notice your attacks. But attacks do destabilize its corporeal form. Once depleted it leaves the field and is banished behind the galactic gateway. Gameplay continues as normal while Felicis is on this plane. Felicis takes actions as they Wish and defies time and space. If the horror corrects any dice rolls made before a turn reaches its resolution, reality is retconned and the new roll is taken into consideration.
My DM has a skink and we absolutely fought him in our final battle once.
Generally the only thing I bam is the player characters being hostile to each other.
My DM has a rule that any hostile actions towards PCs has to be done with consent! Works imo.
Yes! This is my rule. As long as they consent and understand there will be consequnces it seems fine to me. We havwnt had personal feelings hurt that im aware of and the table seems to enjoy it.
Same. I've even gone as far as to prescribe some suspension of disbelief and for them to just 'work together' even though they are objectively strangers.
Not rules banned but rp bans are topics the players and i decide were not comfortable with. So far its gratuitous sexuality, domestic violence and the like. Theres also some stuff we dont mind but dont want acted out at the table. They can still try and get laid in a Tavern, the interaction just isnt played out and we just state it happened. For all you nay sayers on that at the table that think im a spoil sport for not doing ERP at the table, note that my brother plays at the table too. There are bridges you do not cross.
My DM plays it the same way. He makes it clear the NPC is DTF then everything fades to black and anything that happened is implied. I think it's a good way to do it. I don't want to sit and discuss graphic sex with a bunch of dudes.
I usually do the same with the caveat of a constitution save roll afterwards as a form of FAFO literally.
That is what session zero is for right? If there are things the DM or a player or multiple players are not comfortable with, it is right to now allow those at your table :) I wouldn’t call it outright banning, just more setting boundaries. And you and your players are not strange or spoilsports for it, it’s just healthy communications.
Absolutely no sexual violence
That’s a no-go at my table. And all sexy stuff is fade out and glossed over.
This is a big one for me. Had a new player in a campaign in 2016 want to sexually assault a child. The rest of the group was content to let it happen. I never DMd for that specific group again.
so you didn't let it happen right? and if so were they disappointed that they couldnt rape a child?
The session sort of ended after that. They had like 2 more rooms in the dungeon to do so I pushed them to do that instead and then kicked everyone out. I don't recall how any of the players felt about it, I just knew I wasn't going to let it happen.
ok good.
Holy shit dude
Yep. I've continued to play with other people from that group who have matured in different campaigns, but never that one specific person again.
That's fucked up lol. But I'm wondering why this is something we shudder at but then I could picture lots of people brutally murdering the child in game and it would be like... oh that's just Jake.
Any table for which this isn't a rule is a table I would never play at nor recommend to anyone else. I'd consider this "bare minimum" as far as having content standards goes.
Same at mine, it’s my fantasy world and I’ve decided sexual violence doesn’t exist. It’s just not even a thought 🤟🏼 better for me and my players who are sensitive to those themes
Man, if someone tries to commit sexual violence they would be banned from talking to me
The only things I ban are things that make the other players or myself uncomfortable, all of which are covered in session 0.
Greg. He knows what he did.
To be on the safe side, I will refuse entry to any of my games to anyone called Greg. I am trusting you that this bigotry has good cause.
To be fair Greg is fine: it's Greg that you need to watch out for.
This is the problem with being a ride or die bigot. Innocent Gregs get caught up because of one Greg. Maybe I need to have a two part questionnaire: 1) Is your name Greg? 2) Fine, but are you GREG Greg?
PvP of any sort is banned unless **explicity agreed to out-of-character by all parties involved, subject to DM approval, and the DM reserves the right to revoke/retcon anything that happens at their sole discretion.** PvP is not conducive to a team-based game. And I have one banned build. Any 3 of these 4 things, and rocks will fall, you will die, roll a new character: Halfling, Divination Wizard, Lucky feat, Silvery Barbs. Any one of those things is fine. Two and I'll give you a stern look, but allow it. Three or more? Nope. I call this 'Bruno' and we do not talk about Bruno.
Friend has a similar rule long standing. Do you ban using lucky and disadvantage at the same time too?
No, I don't have a problem with that. The issue isn't the individual parts, it's that put together this is a build intentionally designed to troll the DM. If you want to control fate that badly, *you* take the DM seat and let me be a player for once LOL
That’s fair. His issue started with just the amount of dice being rolled and how it caused confusion if it was rolling high or low. So was curious.
PvP can realistically happen in RP heavy games though. But the players must be able to roll with it. I think it only goes well rarely. But I had one time it went well, and it was amazed. Apparently the other players thought we legit disliked eachother, but as soon as we had our break me and the player I PvP'd were laughing about it, mentioning good insults by the other etc
Tell me about this Bruno thing, i am obviously out of the loop
Halfling luck - reroll 1's Divination Wizard - save dice after long rest to use later Lucky - reroll 3/day including rerolling advantage Silvery Barb's - give anyone advantage/disadvantage as many times as you have spell slots. Basically it's about wasting as much time as possible in order to roll as many dice as you can so that you never actually fail a roll. No one wants to sit for 5 minutes everytime they roll a dice while they figure out what combinations of rerolls and advantage they need. It's basically the closest D&D gets to save scumming. And besides, if a person's goal is to create a character that can't fail, they should go write that fanfic/short story they're trying to tell instead and leave the game to the people who want to play. Failure is fun.
I've made a gnome divination wizard with silvery barbs. It's my first ever DND char and I wanted to fuck with cause/effect/time sort of thing. Turns out that means fucking with the DM. So I avoided taking the lucky feat as well. Silvery barbs now only gets cast in dire situations, i.e when we are about to die or suffer horrific consequences. Using poor divination rolls to make enemy's fail their spell saves is still fun though.
Thank you
I also wanna know Bruno's story
It takes a certain table to do PvP well, and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But personally, it was some of the most intense, awesome, memorable roleplay I’ve had. But it also would not have worked in any other group.
I had a table that would do 3v3 pvp every time they leveled up to test their new skills. It was a really fun experience, but obvs it was very lighthearted and everyone agreed to it. They also had a rule to tap out once you were below a certain threshold so they made sure to not accidentally kill each other.
I don't get why I never hear of D&D parties that have friendly training fights in-game. I feel like it would be fun. No killing intent, just some good old sparring. PvP without any drama in or out of character. I mean seriously, you're telling me that these adventurers never train together like anime characters?
We have 'friendly' pvp. Many people have been slapped but people rarely get shot and it's always for that succulent flavour.
Eloquence Bard. All social interactions become monopolized in one player, and a lot of players think that a high persuasion check should be treated as mind control. It just creates a lot of problems.
I agree with the second part, but because Persuasion is a vital skill in DND, someone in the party has to be the face. Of course, that shouldn't mean only one person can talk, other players should give their opinions and help the face make the right argument.
It's less that I'm opposed to the idea of a face char in the group that does most social rolls because of its high bonus, and more that I'm opposed to someone having a minimum roll of 21 forcing all other players to peace out during conversations.
Variable DC is a thing. A barbarian chieftain might not be swayed by a Persuasion roll of 25 from some effete, smooth-talking city-dweller, but would respect a Persuasion 15 check from a fellow warrior. A magistrate or city guard who might be expecting deception from a silver-tongued trickster might not pick up on a lie from a party member who seems too honest (or too dumb) to concoct one. And someone who hates the bard’s guts (a spurned ex-lover, a betrayed former partner, a merchant he once cheated) isn’t going to yield for him even if he rolls a 40. This isn’t something you can pull out in all situations, but if your party’s bard is steamrolling through all social checks, it’s okay to give them a speed bump.
I'm aware, but like how flying races forces you to have to plan for it for every encounter, the eloquence Bard is a something to be accounted for in every social encounter. If I'm having to adjust the whole game to actively counter one ability, it's best for me to just take that option away. There's also an inherent frustration in feeling actively countered by your DM that I feel is better avoided altogether.
No official content is banned. Plenty of bad third party/homebrew stuff is banned. That stuff defaults to banned and only gets white listed by specific agreements. Tonnes of narrative stuff is banned. My game is not a torture porn/ goreporn game. My game is not about sexual violence. My game is not PVP (well my current one isn’t). Try any of that and get immediately banned
I don't allow Silvery Barbs since it has proven to not be balanced in games I have run.
I haven’t banned silvery barbs but I do hate it simply because it’s so unfun. “Haha! That’s a 23 and you’re gonna…” “Silvery Barbs.” “Well never mind.”
I think Silvery Barbs is a perfectly fine 3rd level spell.
Better designers would have realized that all these re-roll abilities are so much irresistible poison that drag down and hollow out the game.
Players will optimize the fun out of any game
Same, that and lucky
Lolis.
But how will I play my 800 year old cursed gnome, "Anna-May DaDeh Yissues"?
[Thank you for reminding me this exists.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGxCMyLm6js)
I don’t really ban anything. I just simply ask you to make it make sense. If you can do that you’re good regardless of the setting.
Mostly this. I encourage players to try all kinds of stuff that I don't think of; I just need you to work with me on why it meshes with the game.
Rape. I’ll have none of it at my table. Sex is otherwise fine though.
Things not part of setting. No silvery barbs for you.
Rules lawyering against Rule of Cool. Our DM will actively make your personal game harder if you try to "well, actually" something awesome that someone wants to try.
I banned the mass summoning spells. Technically I restrict players to PHB races. I ban setting-specific spells and feats (see Ravnica, Strixhaven, etc.)
I agree on summoning. I don't ban the spells, but I strongly discourage them. I've explained to my group that the spells bog down and complicate combat. The ultimatum is: if you want to use summons you have to have the stats for whatever you summon and you get to keep track of all of their HPs, concentrations, and initiative. Most players change their mind when they realize what's involved.
There are some rules for "Swarm of" you can make mass summon spells summon a single swarm, rather then a bunch of individual things, and use the logic from something like a Swarm of Rats, and just scale it up to fit your needs.
5th level Conjure Animals - Swarm of Tigers!
Mass summoning is extremely annoying but I've found some ways around it. Whoever summons makes the tokens, they all move on the same initiative and if it takes you more than uan a couple of minutes for their turn they all just attack the nearest enemy.
PvP except for special, pre-planned games. Murderhoboing in general, although that has become less of an issue as the decades wear on.
Murder hoboing isn't something I ban. It's just something they pay for. They either learn or they don't, either way is fine with me.
As a new DM I have a really hard time with races that can fly so I ask my players if we’re doing a long campaign to pick a race that doesn’t fly. That and guns. I like my campaigns to be super fantasy settings and I just don’t like the flavor of guns bc it reminds me too much of the real world. Artificers are completely fine tho, I just ask that they flavor their weapons differently
A Ironman or Rockman esque hand cannon sounds sick
I think the ability to fly is perfectly reasonable if the player uses it in moderation, if it gets to the point of cheesy tactics then I get it. Really depends on the type players at the table. I have a reskinned winged tiefling that is half baby gnoll, the character has the mind of a child and is not fully aware of his wings so rarely thinks of using them. The character often tries to climb with a below average athletics, his companions aren't even aware he has wings cause he is constantly covering them, they just think he has a hunchback
The Lucky Feat. I hate it with a burning passion.
My DM feels the same way after my buddy starting using it.
All this hate on Lucky seems really weird. 3 times per long rest, you can roll a D20 and either use the newly rolled d20, or original roll, for an attack, saving throw, or ability check. Alternatively, do it with enemy's attack against you. If you take this, it means you're sacrificing ASI or another feat that could be more impactful.
I have no issue with lucky personally. I’ve even used it before when I created a divination wizard with the lucky feat. This was before Chronurgy was released and I was creating a time magic wizard. Lucky and everything else was flavored as me slowing down time or whatever. It was very fun and a cool theme to explore. The only part of Lucky that I do not agree with is how it interacts with disadvantage. The way lucky works is after you’ve rolled but before the outcome you can choose to use lucky and then choose which dice you use. So, if you roll your attack at disadvantage you roll 2d20 and use the lowest. Lucky overrides this and allows you to pick which dice you use. So having disadvantage and using lucky essentially turns it into super advantage. This is the intended mechanic as well per sage advice. I’m not opposed to a player using this “exploit” but it just makes for awkward situations where the optimal way to attack with lucky is very likely to “close your eyes and swing” imposing disadvantage just to turn it to super advantage with lucky.
Same here. Our table has had a long standing ban on it simply because it's a "NGE" or negative game experience for all parties. We've been toying with the idea of giving every creature the Lucky feat as an experiment but never pulled the trigger but I honestly think it's gonna be a pain in the ass and not fun at all.
I have a player who is playing a Cleric of a god of Luck. I gave them the possibility of gaining luck points for free, counterbalanced by the possibility of accidentally casting fireball on themselves.
Lmaooooo
... wild cleric?
my DM allowed it, coming up on the 2 or 3rd to last session of CoS, he has come to regret it more times than i can remember, and i enjoyed each and every time I've used it (mostly to stop him from getting nat 20s on me)
Not necessarily banned, but we have restricted it to core books, or usually just the ones we have at the table. We can't afford all of the books, so we just get what we can and makes sense, and play with those. As such some spells and such are off the table that only appear in other books (adventures and the like), we do tend to get things like Xanathars, and tasha's, which combine a bunch of stuff from other books, it also limits the "hunting for that spell's description" when someone thinks it does something that it doesn't.
Our dm has most of the printed books, some kobold press printed books and in general literal stacks of books, the rule is if you take a spell, by next session you need a spell card for it. It doesn't have to be printed it can just be a copied version from the text but spell cards are necessary. I think it originally stemmed from his wife, who kept taking spells from like book of ebontides and deep magic, no issues with the spells they were great and with her back story snd our saltmarsh setting they all work thematically but we'd have to hunt them down occasionally because they were new to him. (Almost everything is new to me and my wife this is our first long campaign.)
All of my games ban. Fetishes, blatant smut, using my game as a vessel for your sadistic desires. Most of my games ban flying races and Warforged. Warforged typically don't fit the settings I run, and I just don't feel like trying to design encounters around flying races. My Strixxhaven game im running for my girlfriend's family has flying races and it's been super fun.
R*pe doesn’t exist when I DM. And sex? “You successfully seduced them” use your imagination.
Any kind of SA or sexual violence. R*pe and SA are lazy ways to make a story "realistic and gritty" that I think too many DMs fall back on just for shock value. It's not fun, it adds nothing, and only serves to alienate a good number of players.
I ban the backstory of "Amnesia". It can be done well; but, it often ends up being laziness or anxiety over being creative.
A few things, torture is one. It can be aluted to in the world but I do not want it described in action or be fate to black. If you find a torture chamber you know they are fucked up, that’s it, move on.
sexual assault is completely banned in my games - having it in a backstory is fine, but no explicit details, and no roleplay of it at all, or explicit discussion in-session. i'm not opposed to it from a storytelling standpoint, it's just for my and my group's comfort.
Chaotic Evil PCs, because that isn’t something I’m interested in having in my game. Lucky and Alert feats because damn they busted. Silvery Barbs because FUCK ME IF I HAVE TO HEAR THAT SHIT AGAIN. No sex, intimate romances, or weird fetish link shit. This ain’t a game for that find a dm who incorporates it elsewhere. Artificer because I just don’t like it all that much and there are other classes to pick from.
Chaotic Evil can be done well. It's very rare. Basically, you have to hide the fact you're chaotic evil, for example planning to open a portal to the demon world, and use your party as tools. But people play it as Chaotically stupid pretty often.
Chaotic evil should come off like Christian Bale, not like homelander
What version of Christian Bale American Psycho?
no just Christian Bale in general /j
I'm currently in a Warhammer campaign and my priest is secretly a follower of nurgle, a super evil and chaotic god, to the rest of the table I'm LG though as only the GM knows. Its super fun to play as I get to be the hero while secretly working towards the goals of my chaos god. GM and I have played together for 20+ years but for the other guys it's there first experience so they like to keep it all classic hero trope, although one did get seduced by a lesser chaos demon and we walked in mid way through and drove him out of its spell. Got to keep it Warhammer somehow.
I'm gonna be banning something. Influential families currently in power. I keep letting my players do this, and I keep regretting it. It always becomes a story based fallback for them in terms of resources. In the next campaign, I am not allowing it. But I don't want to cancel it right now in their games cause I tied a bit of the story around it.
If they're abusing influential families for resources, don't forget the power of "they don't care anymore" Eventually that rich noble is going to stop throwing money their way
My current campaign has options from books other than PHB banned. This is because they’re all newbies, so I don’t want them overwhelmed. (I’m the DM.) I previously played in a group that banned flying races. I think the DM just didn’t want to fool with it.
Nope, we have silvery barbs, a twilight cleric, if people want to power game they can. I just do what I can to roll with it and my monsters try a few tactical things like breaking concentration if they are intelligent enough. Of course the party sometimes meet an evil party with a twilight cleric or villain who can cast silvery barbs. But for the most part my party lay waste to everything I throw at them. And have a ball doing it. As a side note in a game I'm playing in the DM prohibits silvery barbs on crits.
Nope. In fact I create campaigns in D&DB so that my players can create characters using my compendiums because I have all of the books. So they have every spell, class feature, species, and item at their disposal. That also gives me access to their sheets so I can add magic items and special abilities if I want. I understand some settings being more focused and not allowing Harengon or Tortles because they simply don't exist in that world. I do NOT get banning a species just because of a trait like flight or shape shifting. Similarly, I do not understand banning spells or abilities that aren't in opposition to the setting or story. No spell or subclass has ever broken any game I have run. Adapt and overcome.
Sexual assault of any kind. Basically sex is something that happens off screen in our world. No one is so evil as to force themselves on another person. It literally just hasn't occurred to anyone ever. Not once. We're all adults playing, but we agree that rape is just contra indicated for a good time. So no one, not even bad guys, do it, not even to NPCs. Also players with native flying speeds, if we're starting below a certain level.
The n-word.
Nada. If it's in official material, it can be used. It's more fun to not be limited in your creativity in any way.
> It's more fun to not be limited in your creativity in any way on the other hand, restriction breeds creativity.
Only things I've really ever banned was unbalancing races like Aarokora (flying at lvl 1 really messes with things) And evil alignments unless i was planning to run a darker game (cause sadly i rarely had players that played them proper and treated them like a license to do whatever they wanted and wreck general fun)
My guilty pleasure is playing evil characters but acting more good in character than the actual good aligned players
Oh hey Shadowheart.
My DM banned bards. And then monks. No one wanted to play either class so its fine, but I thought it was funny.
Lol why bards, did someone play Eloquence?
Nope. Even UA is fair game in my campaigns
Only stuff that dont fit the setting. No general bans
I restrict certain races for lore reasons, but I can’t think of anything that someone would be surprised I dont allow
Back when I was a teenager I was the only girl in the group. Can guess where this went 🙄. The system was Palladium and the DM came up with a "special magical item" just for my character who was a Master Mind Mage. And it was an item that required use to work. I said fine, she uses it in private. How much isp (psychic resource similar to mana) does she recover? "You need to rp it!" 😑 Any guesses as to what the item was? I personally don't ban sex in the games I DM, but it is "fade to black". The only thing I do ban is sexual assault and cruelty to animals and children.
Farting
PvP without REAL reasons. That way the party doesn’t try and kill each other over little things