Ten Terrible Player Habits in D&D Games

greetings my name is Monty Martin and I'm Kelly mlin and we are the dungeon dudes and today we're talking about 10 terrible traits that we've seen players in our past D and D campaigns manifest and these are definitely the ones that you want to avoid yes 10 terrible traits that Kelly himself has done at Monty's table uh no no I haven't done only a few only a few only some time I I only a few for me too the 10 traits that we want to talk about today are things that when they happen routinely at the table really bring down the fun vibe of the game they work against the dungeon master and the players enjoying the experience of shared storytelling and the enjoyment of the roleplaying game experience and even though these are things that are worth checking ourselves and being like have I done this before I think that there are more than a few things on this list that I have to say I've been guilty of doing as me too and I think that's one disclaimer before we jump into the episode is that yes these are the 10 terrible DND player traits but most of us are guilty of a few of these and most of them can be forgiven if they're not happening all the time or if we are learning from our mistakes and that's part of the Journey of playing D and D is you often jump into the game and you're probably going to do a few of these but over time you're hopefully going to learn to counter those although you might fall into some other habits as well as you go so just a reminder to watch for these things as you're playing your games of d and d and if you are having a problem with a player at your table who is constantly and often exhibiting one of one or more of these traits the best solution to that problem is to have an honest and open Frank discussion with them about it none of these are problems that you can solve with any sort of house rule or ingame sort of construct or narrative thing they are all things that can only be solved by talking to one another like adults that's really hard to do and sometimes people don't change in which case you have to decide whether or not you want to continue playing with those people anymore in light of that there's a lot to discuss so let's get rolling so kicking off our list with the first terrible player trait and that is metagaming metagaming is when players use out of game knowledge which their characters would not reasonably have access to and they use it to determine their course of action in the game metagaming or using out of character knowledge can undermine the roleplaying experience and the game's narrative one of my favorite examples of metagaming that is a more nuanced example comes from the Third Edition dungeon Masters Guide where a player encountering a door that the party can't open declares there must be a lever or a key somewhere to open it because the dungeon master wouldn't put an obstacle in front of us that we couldn't open and that's where the metagaming comes into play here of course it's a reasonable assumption to assume that if there's a door there's some way of opening it but not because the dungeon master would always make sure that every obstacle can be bypassed in some way for example I've put doors and obstacles in front of my players that the only way to get past them is by casting disintegrate on them or teleporting past them metagaming often becomes a problem when these out of game assumptions or this out of game knowledge is then used to try to direct the the the course of action in ways that might be against the character or what the character would reasonably know other examples of metagaming could be where the players go well we're in the city of water deep and I know that this NPC lives in the city of waterdeep so we're going to go get them even if that player character would have no way of actually knowing that but that's knowledge that the player has about the setting more broadly and the and the way that the world works this comes up a lot more often I think with published settings than everything else and I think I've seen a lot of metagaming in the context of unfortunately adventurers league and living for Realms where they are games that are set within popular published worlds and players then use that meta knowledge of the setting to inform the decisions they make in the adventure like we're not going to fight them they're a red wizard let's just go grab man Sho and he'll yeah exact exactly now it's important to note that there's a distinct difference between metagaming or realizing that you're in a game that has mechanics discussion on mechanics is for the most part okay it's okay to say oh I have 20 hit points left that's not metagaming it's also okay for example if you roll to hit against the monster and you get an 18 and you hit and the next turn you get a 16 and you miss and you might say out loud oh man I think this Monster's AC is 17 that might feel a little meta metagame but really we are playing a game with numbers and mechanics built into it and so conversations like that kind of ride the line where I think that they are acceptable because you're not actually breaking the game you're discussing the mechanics in a way that is actually happening live at the table yeah or another thing example of metagaming where the mechanics go a little bit too far is if maybe your characters are interacting with an NPC who seems like they might be a cleric and so you start making assumptions about what spells they can cast and what they might be able to do for them and start asking them hey raise dead for us hey why don't you have the diamonds to help my friend out and that might not be an appropriate set of assumptions to assume that just because this NPC you're interacting with might have cast cure wounds and seems to worship a deity that they're just going to cast raised dead for anyone that walks in with a bunch of gold and diamonds also don't assume that the dungeon master is running everything by the book one of the biggest ways to catch somebody metagaming is when you're running a specific monster let's say you're running a goblin boss and the character does a certain amount of damage and goes well that would have killed the goblin boss I know how many hit points they have and the dungeon master says well it's not a normal Goblin boss I home brewed this one suddenly you've caught the player metagaming because they're calling out exactly how many hit points they think it should have and that they think the combat encounter should be over this also goes into isn't that monster resistant to this damage or shouldn't I be able to uh hit it with radiant damage to do double damage because it's vulnerable to that dunge fasters can kind of alter monsters as they see fit and can run home brew monsters all the time and just because you think you know what a troll looks like doesn't mean that you're fighting the exact troll from the monster manual many players especially those who have spent a lot of time as dungeon Masters have a pretty good knowledge of monster stat blocks and it can be sometimes really difficult I I experience this very much so often times when I'm playing a game I know what monster I'm fighting very quickly and I can figure out oh yes that is um a blue slot and I know what it's saving throws are and I know that it has resistance to fire damage because I've used that monster before in my own game sometimes you have to kind of step outside that knowledge and but to a certain extent you also there is a level of overp policing this I think the most common example is your players wouldn't know that trolls are vulnerable to fire damage everyone knows that trolls are vulnerable to fire damage everyone knows that vampires are stake to the heart and everyone knows that Undead are hurt by radiant damage there's certain very famous examples that I think are so famous that it's a little unfair to consider the metagaming uh when players use that knowledge um whereas on the other side of things when the players are like I know that that Monster's lowest saving throw is charisma saving throw and it only has a minus one to that save so I'm going to Target it with banishment that's pretty metagame I want to talk about my logic behind why it's actually okay to be forgiving in some of these instances of metagaming in our world as far as we know vampires don't actually exist but a lot of people know how to kill a vampire you can ask an average person on the street do you know how to kill a vampire and they're going to have answers for you and that's in a world where vampires don't exist in a world where vampires and trolls do exist there's probably a lot of stories that have been passed down talked about seen in books and plays and all of that it's it's easy to imagine that as a young child your fighter went to a local play where a bunch of Heroes were fighting a troll and they announced we must kill it with fire and he remembered that and then as an adult he's like yeah you kill trolls with fire it's actually pretty likely that a lot of the common ways to kill monsters like trolls and vampires are well known to people just through tales and stories on the other hand a little bit of metagaming can go a long way it is metagaming for player characters to work together and to recognize when a plot Hook is happening but that's not often considered metagaming even though oh yeah you're recognizing that the DM is dangling the plot hook in front of you you're metagaming but that's a good use of metagaming just like it's a good use for us to int intentionally have a session zero where all the characters know each other so that we're greasing the wheels using our out of game knowledge of how our characters are going to inter interrelate to one another where metagaming starts to push the limits is when we get into our next trait which is cheaters it's really important to note that many cheaters are also metagamers but not every metag gamer is a cheater and there's certain types of metagaming that aren't NE necessarily cheating is it cheating because you have an encyclopedic knowledge of the stat blocks no is it cheating when you are playing the game and you pull up the stats of a monster on D and D Beyond while you're fighting it yeah that's cheating um is it cheat is it metagaming to have a general sense of like oh we're in the city of water deep and I know that probably we can go to the yawning portal and we'll be able to find some information about where Volo is hanging out yeah that's kind of metagame is it cheating to crack open a copy of Water Deep Dragon Heist while your dungeon master is running it and follow along line by line with the dungeon you betcha that's cheating and so there's this weird blurry area this gray zone of like is it cheating is it metagaming is it both generally speaking even if I've read an adventure I won't read it if it's being run for me I might remember elements but I like to pride myself in the fact that I can have vast knowledge about a setting and a narrative and still play a character in that world and have fun doing it because I get more joy out of experiencing The Narrative than spoiling it for myself so in general don't read what's coming next the stat blocks of all the villains that you've met how where they're hiding and where their secret layers are just don't do that there's a number of ways in which players cheat we actually did a separate video on a bunch of ways that players can cheat which you can check out up over there but don't lie about your dice rolls because remember failure can be just as fun as success you don't beat the game of D and D by always rolling 18 19 and 20 it's actually less fun if you do this take your failures take your successes don't read all the books while you are playing The Campaign and don't bring up monster stat blocks either cracking open the monster manual or bringing up D and D Beyond while you're fighting those monsters part of the fun of it is finding out a lot of forms of cheating that are really hard to detect and can go unnoticed for a long time are when players just don't Mo bother marking down when they took damage don't bother tracking how many spell slots they've actually used on the Fly make alterations to their prepared spells or even the equipment that they have in their inventory lie about what they're stats are there's a lot of ways to cheat that aren't metagaming at all and those ones are really really hard to detect I've played with people for years who would do things like not mark off of they us spell slots and not mark off that they'd taken damage and not realized that they were doing it and that is actually a case I have not marked off using a spell slot a few times or how about that time you took two reactions in one turn I'm a cheater no accidents happen accidents it's it's it is something don't don't condemn your player because you what about that time that you uh you thunder stepped to a square that was out a line of sight H H there's a lot of rules there's a lot and that's the other and that's the other thing to to remember is that it's not cheating if you just mess up the rules yeah if you forget to mark off a spell slot if you accidentally took two reactions if you forgot to read that you need line of sight for thunderstep that's fine uh these things happen and probably will happen in every single game that you play you'll mess up one of the rules you'll forget something but the point is that if you are intentionally and consistently bending the game in your favor uh by purposely getting the rules wrong or saying oh yeah I have a plus uh 12 to my uh acrobatic check when you only had a plus eight but you wanted to pass the like don't do that y don't do it y next up on the list is not playing collaboratively obviously if you're cheating and metagaming you're probably already not playing collaboratively but this goes even further than that some people will start their DND game and imagine it as a solo experience or even worse a competitive experience where they need to prove that their character is the best and most powerful and way better than all the other characters at the table rather than Cooperative storytelling which is what Dungeons and Dragons is we're all working together to tell an amazing story help each other out share the spotlight and weave beauti beautiful narratives instead one player is bossing around other people telling them what to do making their character way more powerful than the others shutting down their turns talking over everybody and just ruining the experience for everyone one of the most Insidious forms of not playing collaboratively is when another player takes it upon themselves to boss the other players around and tell them what to do on their turn and try to play their characters for them sometimes this is done with the Positive intent of one player trying to help out another player and they might view themselves as coaching them but I've routinely encountered this time and time again I've even encountered this recently as KY and I have been trying a lot of other games that aren't Dungeons and Dragons recently and had other players telling us what to do on our turns and I've had to reply to this and say I'm trying to learn this system let me make my own decisions for myself and so it it happens a lot and and it's a really careful thing because I know for a lot of people out there there is a genuine want to help instruct other players and help them with their turns I've been that person before myself but in in my experience if someone isn't asking for help with what to do on their turn it's not appropriate to tell them what to do unless you're the dungeon master I have walked away from a table one of the only DND d games that I ended up walking away from I was playing a Bard it was my first time playing a B I was very excited at every time that I suggested a course of action that felt like it fed into my fantasy of playing a Bard or even as far as suggesting a spell that I was going to cast on my turn another player at the table would tell me that that was a bad idea and that instead we were going to do X Y or Zed after four or five sessions of this happening I ended up just saying sorry I can't make it to this game anymore and politely stepped away I remember a session where there were a few goblins they had spotted us yet and I wanted to use the Sleep spell to try to undo the encounter and put them to sleep and the other player said no we can take them if uh if it was my turn I rolled highest on initiative and I was like I'm going to cast The Sleep spell and he basically told me no don't do that we're going to take them my turn's next I'm going to run in and kill them and I felt too awkward to be like no I'm gonna carry on so I ended up saying Okay um I shoot it with my crossbow instead which did like four damage and I felt like I didn't get to do my cool thing so that actually ruined that experience for me of having another player constantly every turn every action I was taking every time I suggested wanting to be the party face who persuaded his way into something it was shut down and I eventually for a while I didn't play a Bard again I do think that conversations can happen at the table that are benef official yeah you're you don't want to take away from the other players sometimes you might be the leader of your group and some people might look to you for ideas on what to do next yeah that's that's a pretty normal thing in our group I actually remember one time telling Joe and Jill that I thought that they should take a front seat on some of the narratives and they do from time to time but I do remember them both saying we kind of like having you as our as our leader and we like listening to your ideas and then bouncing other ideas around I find very similarly as well often times in a in a group I might be someone who likes to lead the discussions and talk about the different ideas and the different possibilities I often have to remind people that I am brainstorming not making decisions I think within any group there will be people that naturally fall into that leader role but part of leadership is listening to others so as long as you're presenting that leadership role and saying here's my plan what do you guys think and then listening to the other people I think you're doing okay but the moment you start saying no your ideas are terrible I'm not even listening to them no you're taking your turn wrong no we're not doing your cool idea that's when you start getting into problems a leader lifts up their teammates they don't boss them around related to playing collaboratively but a very distinct issue from saying bossing around the other players is refusing to buy into the campaign or the Venture as a whole there's a lot of different ways that this can manifest from Lone Wolf players who try to go off on their own or to the the type of character that says why would my character go on this Quest I have no reason to do that and all of these are disruptive forms of play I've heard stories of groups of players that have completely derailed a DM's of Adventure hook because the DM presents something like you in town and a bunch of people are being bitten by something who knows what it is oh it might be a vampire and there's a creepy Castle on the hill that is loomed over it for centuries and nobody goes up there and then the players go all right well we're going to go look in the woods and uh we're going to spend the next five sessions there and the DM's like oh um okay it felt pretty obvious that the DM wanted you to talk to the people in town eventually go up to the castle and fight the V vampire and instead you've gone a complete completely other direction mind you a lot of experienced DMS can navigate this and kind of twist it back around but generally speaking I think one of the things that all players should expect in a d and campaign is to buy in to the narrative that's being presented we talked about this as being a little metagame but in a good way yeah if I am the DM and I've prepared the town and the castle and I present the town and the castle to you as a group of players the best thing that you can do is say well let's figure out if anybody knows anything about that creepy Castle on the hill you've just bought into the adventure if you go in the opposite direction or worst of all say I don't like this town let's go look somewhere else let's find a new town then you're actually derailing the entire narrative that's being presented to you and that's not a good thing to do as a player it is your responsibility to bite down on the plot Hook when the bait is dangled in front of you take it my response when a player decides to go off and be a lone wolf and say nah I'm not going to go to the dungeon with the rest of the party I'm going to stay in town and try and talk to the theves guild my response is usually okay your character goes off and does that give me your character sheet all righty here's a blank one roll up a new character that wants to go to the dungeon um and that is part of your responsibility as a player is creating a character that is willing to go on the adventure and work with the rest of the party uh in a collaborative manner there's another more extreme form of this refusal to buy in and that's when the dungeon master presents in session zero a broad campaign concept and starts laying out kind of the parameters for the theme and the tone of the campaign maybe they say we're going to be playing curse of strad we're going to go really dark fantasy you know here's the Raven LOF campaign setting I'd really love it if you all make characters that really fit this theme and then a player shows up with a time traveling plasmoid pirate who is always wise cracking jokes and making fart noises that is a character that maybe in the right group and in the right setting it could you could find a way of making that work but I believe that in that situation the dungeon master is perfectly within their rights to say to the player uh this really doesn't fit the theme and tone that I had in mind please roll up something different if genuinely the dungeon master is asking the players to buy into the concept of the campaign and the and a player responds by refusing to do so that that that makes the player the jerk that also might just not be the right campaign for that person and I think this is why session zeros are important if the player says I have this idea for this time-traveling plasmoid character and I really really want to play them and the DM says I've prepared a curse of strad campaign that I really want to buy in on the gothic horror tropes then you you two have to agree one thing that I would do is a DM and say listen I love the idea of your character I want to do the gothic horror campaign what if the next campaign I do is a wacky spell Jammer campaign where your time traveling plasmoid would fit right in and you you negotiate these things there is also a chance that during session zero the DM says I want to do curse of strad and the player says I want to play a time traveling plasmoid and the DM says love it let's go depends on your table depends on your group so I think that a session zero is really important to to kind of smooth out this this one um cuz I do think that players should be allowed to play whatever they want to play but also the DM is presenting a narrative and a story and so having that discussion where everybody agrees on sort of the tone that you're going for is going to be really important and just because you have a great character idea doesn't mean you'll never get to play it it just needs to find the right place to fit in yeah and I think to be perfectly honest if you have a great cool character idea don't you want to play that character in The Campaign that speaks to that character as well this is why I think that it's a really good idea when you are coming into a new campaign as a player it can be a good idea to come in with two or three different characters that you might be interested in playing so that that way you can pick the character that is going to really resonate not only with the tone of the campaign but the other characters that the party is is creating oftentimes players come in with this very singular idea of like I must play this character next and in my experience the more open-minded you are about exploring a couple different interesting ideas the more satisfying you will find the experience is because your character very strongly matches and feels like they fit in with the world and the party sort of carrying on with the collaborative play uh another issue that we've seen at the table is stealing the spotlight this is when a player has main character syndrome and is always trying to be at the center of every scene or decision without giving others the opportunity to shine or contribute sharing the spotlight is a really incredible thing and I think one of the most important elements of DnD is having fun with other people's heroics I love when ve lands her hit for aund and some odd damage and pulls off a great stunt I love it when Pluto charges in and smash es a monster and then almost dies and then makes it out by the skin of his teeth I love watching the roleplay moments that happen at our table when we have a full discussion the zany quirky quips that Joe throws in or that Jill brings up with her food puns having these moments and watching the other players at the table shine is actually one of the great Delights of DnD D and although I know that I like being a main character I also know that a main character is nothing without the other characters a lot of movies and shows have more than one main character and your D and D table is one of those you get your moments where the episode is about you and you get your time to shine but then you want the other characters to have their episodes their Spotlight time and their moments where the narrative gets to dive further into them as well we all get the chance to explore a characters and bring them to light at the table and making sure you're sharing that Spotlight is important it's worth noting that there's a lot of different ways that you can steal the spotlight stealing the spotlight is not just something that role-playing heavy characters do when they make the entire story about them and make it that they're the only ones that get to talk in the NPC interactions power gaming Min maxers can also steal the Spotlight by making their characters so powerful that they solo the entire combat encounter and no one else gets to contribute to combat so a spot like hog can manifest on both sides of like the role playing versus role playing Spectrum which is really interesting and I've been at a table with two Spotlight Hogs one who was the combat Spotlight hog and one who was the RP Spotlight hog and it was miserable for everyone else and they were constantly butting heads with one another as well because they always wanted it to be about their style of play and their way of running the the experience and it was yeah it was it I I I I didn't realize until that moment cuz like I think very traditionally many people go into it thinking that like the Min maxer is individually the problem or that the the the main character syndrome player is the pro the problem but what that made me realize is that both of them have the same fundamental issue they're both Spotlight Hogs it is interesting that you can steal the spotlight and there's kind of a gray area where you're actually buying into the game and playing your role but you don't want to push it too far I know that Joe in our game is kind of the combat hero like he is he when when a combat encounter is going down Pluto Jackson is going to excel and the spotlight is going to be on him when he's dealing his massive damage I know in a lot of the social encounters my sorcerer who is the face of the party is going to do a lot of talking that's knowing your party role and as long as everybody at the table is kind of agreed upon the fact that these are the roles that you're filling you still can be the party face and do a lot of the talking but then also let your other companions join in on the conversation it's about sharing the Spotlight because the the thing to remember and this this is where like if if you are an an anxious overly self-reflective person you can sometimes go the opposite way and feel like you are never allowed to be in the spotlight because anytime you are in the spotlight that means that you're being a spotlight hog and I'm here to tell you that's not necessarily the case the spotlight exists it is part of the way the medium of the role-playing game works and learning how to share the spotlight enjoy the time that you have in the spotlight and then give that over to another player is a skill um it's it's literally like sharing the spotlight passing the ball holding the CCH with Spotlight Hogs it might be beneficial to have like some kind of physical representation and be like I am holding the ball right now I am the one like it is okay for me to be in control of the scene right now as long as I pass it off to somebody else I also think think a great simple tool that you can use at your table is if you do feel like maybe you are being a spotlight hog if you are having that moment where the spotlight is on you you're doing a social scene where you're doing a lot of the role play and you the other players haven't interjected perhaps they're a little more shy a little less likely to jump in simply in the middle of it saying what do you guys think and then that's literally passing the spotlight yeah just by saying what do you guys think you can physically imagine the spotlight moves over to them and even if they're a little more shy they can they can add as much as they want sometimes it's also a good test to see how much they want to add sometimes you might pass the spotlight and they go oh I'm I'm actually okay with uh with you handling the discussion we've seen times where Monty you do a great job passing the spotlight where one or two of us will be doing one thing and then you'll say Joe or Jill or Kelly what are you up to right now and we'll say I'm just making sure everything's okay at the back door keeping watch for enemies that's that's you saying don't worry about me I'm in the scene doing exactly what I want to do and the spotlight can move back and this is where that sharing the spotlight thing is a skill that both players and the dungeon master can work on as a DM you can absolutely grab the spotlight basically any any time and point it at somebody else and so if you do have a spotlight hog in your group it's possible for you to go just a moment I want to know what this player is doing or what this player is doing and so the stealing the spotlight is one of the few problem player behaviors that a dungeon master who can keep up with the personality of the spotlight hog can mediate to some extent than to the fact that they are like they're the dungeon master and they can throw the spotlight on another player just just to check in um and it's also something that a player who is in there can go I want to hear what Kelly thinks I want to hear what Jill has to say so it's a skill now on top of all of these other elements comes another major issue that we've seen at tables and that is not respecting other players boundaries this one is probably probably one of the most important rules not to break and if you want to have a good and fun game of DnD you need to make sure that everybody at the table understands everybody else's boundaries ignoring or making light of topics that might be sensitive or triggering for other players can create an uncomfortable or unsafe environment one thing that I want to say about this is that every table is going to be different and so it's very important once again a session zero can really help out with this for everybody at the table to agree what they're comfortable with one table might be comfortable with Game of Thrones level Shenanigans or another table might be okay with Lord of the Rings level Shenanigans and another table might want to play My Little Ponies the D and D Adventure all of those are okay if everybody at the table knows what they're getting into and if some of the table wants to play at at a certain level and includes certain things in their game but a few people at the table are not okay with that then you need to figure out where the lines are and make sure that it's a safe environment for everybody who's playing if certain people shouldn't be at the table or need to leave or might need to find a new group that should be figured out at session zero rather than creating a scenario where those people have to deal with something that they didn't want to deal with I'll just say for myself in 20 years plus of playing Dungeons and Dragons I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a player who was uncomfortable with the content that was happening at the game table almost every instance I have seen in my play experience where someone's boundaries are crossed is not in the fictive realm of what is happening in the game but in the social dimension of the players at the table we all talk about those instances of the player being frightened by gor or gross content in the game or by something shocking in the world of the narrative but in my experience and I'm only speaking for my experience I can't speak for everyone's experience here that's rare and what more often is the boundary Crossing is somebody making an unwanted Advance on another player somebody behaving in a aggressive or mean way to another player or the dungeon master or somebody pulling out substances that other people at the table are uncomfortable with with being around or using these boundaries um of aggressive unwanted sexual attention and unwanted substances material or other wise being brought to the table is much more about the social Dynamic than anything that occurs in the narrative or the fiction of the world most DND D players work totally cool with Gore and violence but it's really uncomfortable when someone starts making an unsolicited pass or acting flirtatiously to another player who is not here for that or when someone starts being mean and aggressive and taking out their anger on other people at the table it's one thing to boss people around at the table it's a whole other matter entirely once name calling and aggressive yelling start starts as well I think that a lot of the discussion around boundaries in role playing games is often overly fixated on things like content warnings and um and like making sure that everyone is okay with the content of of the game and that's super super important you should absolutely make discuss and make use of safety tools in your games we we recommend using things like the deck of player safety and otherwise to help discuss your lines and veils if you're playing a game at a convention using things like X cards are really good ideas as well um there's a huge range of safety tools and and that you can use some are more involved than others some are much simpler and in our groups we just have conversations around what everyone's boundaries and what everyone is okay with but by and large the boundary crossing the by by and large when you read the DND D horror stories when you hear about the negative experiences that people have with this this type of thing it's so rarely related to what what's happening in the story and it's so often people just being jerks to each other if you're not going to use safety tools and we do highly recommend that you do but if you're not going to use them the least you can do and this is for your own good as well is before you start your campaign make sure everybody at the tables cool with not using safety tools if somebody at the table would rather use them then maybe you need to discuss switching up your group that might not be the right group for them you can find the right group of players for you and for the game that you want to play but just make sure that you're doing that the rule that we live by at our table is quite simple if you wouldn't see it in a Marvel movie then it isn't welcome at our table generally speaking that's our Baseline if we're going to any sort of convention or anything like that I would say that the rule of thumb is if it's anything above what you would see in a Marvel movie it's worth discussing with the table to make sure people are okay with it yeah and at the same time my other just general suggestion for anybody there especially if you're joining a new D and group is don't make a pass or flirt with other people at the table especially in public play or convention play it's just it's basically never welcome yelling physically threatening and name calling and insulting other players or the dungeon master is utterly unacceptable in any context unless you are unless you are like really really close friends and that is the context of your relationship with with with one another and you should absolutely discuss with the group what your tolerance level is around any sort whether it is alcohol or other substances which are illegal in Canada but not necessarily other countries um you should discuss whether those things are welcome at your table or not not bring them and do that whole it's better to beg forgiveness then ask for permission thing ask for permission Don't Be a Jerk next up we have arguing with the DM this includes especially rules lawyering constantly challenging the dungeon Master's decisions or rules is going to be a problem at the table the dungeon master gets the final say on all of the rules debates this also comes in with a bit of metagaming just because you might know the rules of the game doesn't mean that you as a player get to decide how they are going to fall at the table in Dungeons and Dragons the rules are always a little wibbly wobbly and every dungeon master gets to interpret and use the rules as they see fit to tell their narrative when the dungeon master states that a rule is going to work a certain way it's not okay to be like well I understand that the rule is this so it should work that way just because it works that way at your table doesn't mean it works this way at the dungeon master's table again a session zero helps with this but if the dungeon master says yeah you can drink a potion as a bonus action you don't get to say I don't like that that on my table we use the actual rules of drinking it as an action well at this table it's a bonus action and that's the way it's going to be because that's how the dungeon master Wants to Rule it one of the worst things I've ever had a player say to me was well if I was running the game I wouldn't have ruled it that way and I'm just like you know what it's fine for you to disagree we can talk about it after the game but in the middle of the game in the moment that's just not appropriate that it's disrespectful um it's okay to check the rule books it's okay to ask a quick question for clarification but constantly challenging every single ruling the dungeon master makes if you feel like you need to do that it might be a sign that you're not in the playing with the like you're you and the dungeon master are just not the right match for one another and you should probably not play together um this is a thing where it does require a little bit of matching between players players and DMS some players want a really really tight rules-based experience and that's again session zero helps with that I have as a DM asked for help from my players if I'm trying to remember a rule that's okay but if the dungeon master doesn't ask for help don't give your opinion on the rules I have had Monty at my table and I might say something like what are the rules for Darkness again in this situation to which Monty tells me what the rule is and I go cool thanks let's run it that way I know I know for myself I have definitely been guilty of saying to somebody at a game well you can rule it however you want but I would have ruled it differently and I feel I'm confessing that I I'm guilty is charged I've definitely said that before you know that's why mostly you said it to me yeah and and you know what that's why I mostly Run games of D and D because I I just know about myself in in general I um I like things run in a particular way and to a certain point if you like things being done one way then maybe you should get on the other side of the damn screen so I did the worst form of this really is rules lawyering and being very specific here my definition of rules lauring is not when you are advocating for the rules to be o to be followed properly to me rules lawyering is kind of in that same vein as the goal of rules lowering is to get your way and to make it look like the rules are supporting your argument even when they aren't so rules Ling has an inherent level of in in my opinion dishonesty behind it because it it to me the metaphor is about the lawyer who's just trying to get their client off no matter what argument they have to do rather than someone that is actually trying to pursue what is what is true and what is best so um I'm not a fan of attempts to rehabilitate the term rules lawyer I I used to say I was a rules lawyer myself but but I think the term really is much more about trying to abuse the rules than defend them next up we come to being unprepared for playing DND now perhaps you're just getting started and you don't know what you need to bring to the table but if you are not bringing the necessary materials that you need to play like dice character sheets or even understanding the basic rules again if you're brand new this is understandable but once you've gotten a few games in you should be coming with a character sheet knowing what your character is capable of having a set of dice and being ready to play if you're coming straight from work and oh no you forgot your dice that's fine but if every single time you show up and you're like hey guys I didn't bring my dice whose dice can I borrow today and they're like this is the eighth week in a row that you didn't bring dice do you have your character sheet uh no but if I could borrow your laptop I can bring it up on D and D Beyond well you're not really showing that you care enough about the game to consider what you need to play attached to this is the player who never learns what their character abilities do and never actually learns how to play their character this is very frustrating be and I've been frustrated by this because I've introduced DD to a lot of players over the years and some of my best friends that I love playing D and D with have steadfastly refused to learn how their characters work present company accepted uh um but I sometimes know but you but you you know who I'm referring to yes yeah uh um and and it's lovely playing with them uh I'll always jump jump of the chance but you know when you take 10 minutes just to announce that you're casting Firebolt something's up yeah you know and Barbarian rage isn't that complex right you know it's okay but I I will say that definitely players should put in a little bit of effort to learn the rules I know it can be hard we made this channel basically because it's hard to learn the rules I I think that it it's one of those things that a couple videos and a little bit of reading the book and the reference tools that exist now really really help um but and that way you know when your turn is coming up you're going to be able to decide what to do in in relatively short order I I do want to say that there's a distinct difference between not being prepared to play your character and forgetting stuff at the table I forget stuff all the time you can watch a lot of hours of me forgetting stuff I had lucky what do you even talking about oh uncanny Dodge who knew uh there are so many abilities that I forget at the table but if I'm forgetting them after the game I'm going to be like oh man I forgot those what's more important is if my turn's coming up and I sit there and then they say Kelly it's your turn and I'm like oh um uh what do I do what can I do again what am I playing a fighter like if you're if you're doing that and you don't remember what spells you have prepared you don't even remember what they can do you don't remember what your main abilities are you have no idea what you're even capable of on your turn and when it gets to your turn everybody the game comes to a halt because everybody has to wait 10 minutes for you to read over your whole character sheet just to decide that you're going to take oh you know what I'm a fighter I I'll I'll attack and everybody's like why why did we wait 10 minutes for you to say that that's the kind of thing that we want to avoid know what your character can do bring your dice bring your character sheet have read over the basics of it before you got there and when it's other people's turns and you know that you're coming up just glance at your spell list or glance at your abilities and try to say oh yeah I could uh I could use a Battle Master maneuver here that might really help just knowing a few ideas of what you might be capable of can really really go a long way one thing that kind of goes hand inand though with that that forgetting your character's abilities is the next trait which is just lack of Engagement this is another one that I am often guilty of fully fully confessed and this is being distracted Often by your phone or your laptop when it's not your turn or side conversations and slowing down the game because you don't realize it's your turn coming up because if you are like me you were too busy browsing Reddit to pay attention to the other players turns in combat if you are spending the entire time that you're playing on your phone it it it looks bad for everybody else and especially the dungeon master is going to feel like you're just not engaged with their narrative and unfortunately you can do this pretty discreetly if you just have your laptop that has your character sheet and you are scrolling Reddit um there's a lot of narrative details that you might miss and you know you might think that you're paying attention but it is possible that you think you're listening and then realize afterwards that you missed that NPC's name what their whole deal was and now the other players at the table are about to roll initiative against this person and you don't even know what's going on I do want to do a call out though about this this one can be tough for those of us with ADHD I generally don't have too much of a problem focusing that's not necessarily part of my ADHD but I do find that if a scene is dragging on or a conversation is dragging on or I haven't had any input or gotten to do anything in a while my mind starts to wander just automatically happens I actually find that I focus better when I'm doing something with my hands this is why in my dice in my dice rolling tray I actually have either a coin or a smooth rock that I sometimes will pick up and Fiddle with because if I'm fiddling with something I actually pay attention better and I don't start wanting to scroll my phone or look at other things or read something my focus is a lot better this goes for all aspects of my life when I'm watching a movie at home I have a little fidget Gadget thing that I keep in my hands because it keeps me focused same with digital meetings you I always have something in my hands during a digital meeting otherwise I wander so if you are a person that has ADHD and you struggle with engagement not because you don't want to be part of it but because your brain just doesn't let you then try to figure out what your tools are that help you maintain focus and ask your dungeon master if it's okay that you implement those at the table maybe it's something you can work on together or if you're like me maybe it's just something you can bring along and have in your hands that helps you maintain Focus the other form that really signals the a strong lack of Engagement with the game as a whole and really can come across as disrespectful is routinely flaking out on the scheduling of the game canceling at the last minute or just not showing up or constantly being late for the game itself life happens sometimes your dog gets sick sometimes you get called into work last minute sometimes you forgot that you double booked yourself with a hot date or a doctor's appointment that's okay but when someone routinely is showing up late not showing up at all or routinely cancelling the game session same day in some cases hours before that's not cool um and over time I found that the number more so than any other form of problem be player Behavior I've gracefully removed players from my group who are prone to this type of behavior um and I just think it's a matter of respect P personally um again life happens but if it's happening over and over over and over again then that's where it becomes a problem at the end of the day in the modern world everybody struggles with focus and everybody struggles with their schedule we're all human and so I have a lot of patience for both of these things in in in general but the thing about them is that they're all things that as a group you can discuss them and find a way to work through it and and discover something that works for for everybody but as a group you can talk through them and find a schedule and a way of focusing that works for everybody the last one that we're going to talk about today is one that you may have heard around the internet we're calling it unrealistic expectations you may have heard it as the Matt Mercer effect but one thing that I want to point out Matt Mercer is a wonderful DM and also a highly skilled voice actor and actor uh but also the whole cast is highly skilled voice actors and actors so the Mad Mercer effect is actually in part the entire group their production and the level and quality that they put into their show which some people think that they need to be able to match or meet I'll even say that we are guilty of this to an effect where a lot of people look to our show and say well these are just a group of friends playing d and d and I can aspire to do this you can but also we put a lot of work production value behind the scenes meetings if you aren't having a session zero every single time you get together to play D and D And discussing plot points narratives character expectations and all of that that is actually something that we are doing that you don't see so don't put those expectations on yourself or on your DM yeah the thing is is is for Matt Mercer and the cast of critical role but also for myself and Kelly playing Dungeons and Dragons is literally our full fulltime job I get to spend two full work days preparing for my game I spent entire afternoons picking out Miniatures and building my Dwarven Forge setups and don't get me wrong I feel insanely fortunate and privileged to be able to do that it's an amazing feeling knowing that I can spend a lot of hours on my game prep because one day I might be able to put that into a book or that I can share that on YouTube and share it with with everyone else and you know we can get some sponsors and that can help us pay pay our bills the the amount of time that actual play performers they're D the dungeon Masters who run them and the cast that play in them can put into their characters their campaigns their Adventures is an order of magnitude more than what most players in Dungeon Masters who have full-time jobs of their own can accomplish I remember the Peri period of time when we when both you and I still had our Joe jobs and were trying to do this whole whole thing and that was a lot of work it was and and and you know even even before we started dungeon dudes and all this stuff like I put a lot of time into my Camp campaigns but the amount of time I'm able to put now in into things nowadays is unreal by comp comparison when a player watches critical role or Dimension 20 or even our show and then comes into a gameplay experience at their local game shop expecting something on that level that's just completely unrealistic and it's worse if they are upset at the other players or the dungeon master for not reaching that level they call out narrative inconsistencies or the lack of good character development or the fact that their backstory wasn't brought in as much as they've seen in other shows or or that or that the NPC voice changed these are things that you need to be forgiving on you're all just people playing a game you are not writers unless you are there are exceptions here you're not writers you're not actors you're not professional Oscar winning performers so don't put that weight on your actual play um or or the games that you're playing at home just have fun playing DN D yeah I I mean it blows my mind now um having shared our campaign and our and our game with the world the level of scrutiny that we have under it like it's it's I'm thankful for it it's it's amazing but like when I was running my own games at home that weren't being recorded and shared on the internet it didn't occur to me how many plot holes were actually in my campaign and now I know oh yeah now now we told it's the right and and you know yeah it's okay to have plot holes in your home game it's okay to reccon stuff it's okay to make rules mistakes it's totally okay and like we have those things too um and and so going into um going into a DN experience expecting it to be like an improv class with a bunch of professional actors is just not realistic like maybe you are lucky and you are playing D and D with a bunch of improv actors I know a bunch of actors who do great improv who like playing d and d and even their home games aren't anywhere near the level of of a produced actual play because I I'll just just say like the camera does something when it's on um it it activates everything and it almost puts this this even in the actual play shows that are unedited um it the whole dimension of performing for a camera just changes absolutely everything I think one of the most interesting things that I've noticed from our own play is that we what you what isn't seen on our show is the hour we spend socializing with each other before and after the camera starts rolling whereas in our normal home games we'll intersperse our combat encounters our gameplay with fart jokes complaining about work talking about the latest movie that we show that that we saw making fun of each other and 900% more swearing and dirty jokes whereas the camera just acts as an automatic filter to all of that in in our actual play experience it puts a level of focus on the entire thing that that doesn't exist and and really should does not need to exist in a home game the main point of this problem that we're talking about now as well as the entire list of problems that we've gone over in this video is that we all want to have fun playing Dungeons and Dragons DN is a collaborative storytelling game that you are playing with your friends around a table perhaps they're friends you've known for a long time or friends you've just made at a convention and you're sitting down for the first time with either way it's all about fun and not just your own fun but the fun that is shared amongst everybody and sharing the space with the other people at the table putting reasonable expectations on it and trying to have as good of a time as possible sharing the spotlight encouraging each other and driving the narrative forward is what's going to make your games memorable fun and exciting for everybody involved if you want to share some of your DND horror stories with us about problematic player behavior that you've had to deal with share those in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters if you enjoy the work that we do here on YouTube and would like to join our community get on our Patron only Discord server to where you can chat with us and other fans of the show follow the links right down below and if you want to see us making a few of these mistakes from time to time and forgiving each other for them you can watch our actual play in the worlds of draim which chairs Tuesday evenings on our YouTube channel you can check out all the previous episodes right up over here and we've got plenty more advice for players and game Masters Alik and our videos right up over here please subscribe to our Channel like this video and ring that Bell so that you never miss an episode thanks so much for watching we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 181,249

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: OYyepgHpbOs

Length: 62min 23sec (3743 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024