The D&D Iceberg Explained

okay so before we even begin do you see the length of this video yeah i'm not even gonna try to pretend that this is gonna be fully animated the script is just as quirky as all my other types of content so if you're here for some classic blane simple shenanigans you still came to the right place dungeons dragons is an incredibly popular tabletop role-playing game with a seriously deep history and thriving community for anyone new to the scene it's a game where a player who wants to run an adventure reads up on a rulebook designs a world and prepares a quest for a group of players to go on each player gets to create a character with a unique set of skills while the host of the game usually nicknamed the dungeon master runs them through the game they prepared it's not surprising at all that an iceberg video on dnd could be inevitable and considering i dabble in nearly any content formats that could be even slightly interesting i figured this was down my alley to work on at some point today we'll be looking at the d in the iceberg written up by me and a group of incredibly impressive nerds you can see on the screen now no iceberg existed for this game up until now so we put our knowledge to the test and drummed up around 70 different topics to add to the list these topics were then distributed based on least obscure to most obscure being the top and bottom of this beautiful iceberg picture respectfully there's five tiers to it so whenever i finish one the next group will begin and be even more obscure continuing until we reach the end now a few quick things to touch on although we tried our best to supply this massive chunk of ice with all the content we could find our group was small and the project was quick this video is definitely going to cover a wide scope but we didn't catch everything and veteran players should be able to find relevant topics to add to the list unless i forgot a link to the full iceberg should be found in the description below anyone's welcome to add subtract or move things around at their discretion and maybe in the end we can share it around the community and marvel in light of our own massively concerning hunk of ice touching a bit more on that the placements of topics were categorized by general obscurity age and availability of information all in no particular quantity and finally the extent for much of the research in this video comes from direct sources straight from official dnd materials various wikipedia articles and for some of the deeper topics wherever i could find people unanimously agreeing on the internet more credible sources could definitely be used to sharpen the edges but this video is already massive so i'll ask you bear with me while i try to summarize it all the indie content is my prime focus on this channel so if you end up enjoying this iceberg and want more videos like this showing up on your homepage and early like and subscribe would fix that right up thanks for tuning in prepare for a wild ride and hope you'll enjoy the other editions since i'm positive the future of d d has a majority of the community playing the newest edition 1d knowing about the other additions that came before is crucial for diving down this iceberg d has had quite a few new additions released that hope to correct update and overhaul the game the current publisher of dnd wizards of the coast produces new materials only for the most current edition of the game even in light of this many fans still regularly play older versions of d d and some third party companies continue to publish materials compatible with these older editions after the original edition of dnd was introduced the game was split into two branches the rules light system of dungeons and dragons and the more complex rules heavy system of advanced dungeons and dragons the normal versus advanced game release continued until third edition where a single version of an addition would come to be the norm to help ensure that people won't stick to d5e like hungry leeches wizard of the coast is slowly attaching their newest edition 1 dnd to 5v's life support in the hopes that they can continue to update the game while profiting off the last edition's player base critical role and there's a good chance that the reason you even know about dungeons and dragons is because of this show critical role is a group of professional voice actors that got together to host live dnd games back in march of 2015. matt mercer is the charismatic face of the show serving as its host for the expansive campaigns played by the other members of the cast the group originally started with a short single session game usually nicknamed a one shot using the fourth edition rule set for d and d they enjoyed the game so much that afterwards the group just kept playing together the campaign became much more expansive and the group switched systems from the more controversially unpopular fourth edition of d d to pathfinder a fix em up style patch for the older 3.5 version of the game eventually the group got picked up by the youtube and twitch channel geek and sundry which hosted the show until early 2019. the show was immensely popular and after leaving geek and sundry would continue to grow all while its original partner would end up wilting away critical role continues to dominate the live dnd show genre and during that funny twitch revenue leak that happened a while ago was shown to be the most profitable channel on the platform at the time of writing this video they're on episode 30 of their third campaign the matt mercer effect this effect describes the unrealistic expectations of new dungeons and dragons players who believe their games will be similar to critical role this fascination for the show regularly pulled fans to d d who'd grow interested in the game and wanted to play the matt mercer effect occurs when new players that are completely unaware of their own experience and how that impacts the game begin to complain about how their own dungeon master doesn't run the game like how matt mercer does matt commented on the situation to help cement his viewpoints on the whole thing basically saying that his table style of play in everyone else's should be different and how people who just want to copy what he does aren't being very creative or making the game magical for themselves the man mercer effect continues to put pressure on dms who may love the game but don't want to act or perform in their campaigns and matt mercer and the cast of critical role continue to receive backlash about the expectations they've set class tropes both back in the day and now the stereotypes of the horny bard incompetent edgy rogue and squishy wizard continue to be prevalent all of them have some surprisingly unique origin stories though before d d third edition bards were originally a mixture of multiple classes later on they were completely redesigned becoming a charisma based class with access to charm magic memes about these overly persuasive characters began cropping up on message boards and forums and a web comic artist named frederick anderson saw these posts and began drawing a bunch of images of a new character simply called the bard a lot of recurring themes in these images revolved around the bards sleeping with monsters which would wind up causing lots of half-breed children to be born the memes stuck around and with the bard class having no major overhaul since won't be going anywhere anytime soon the incompetent martial story is a lot simpler in advanced first edition if a player rolled poorly for intelligence the game would bar them from being anything short of a fighter fighters were considered the default class so being one coupled with having a low intelligence went hand in hand nowadays 5th edition's barbarian class gets the stigma the most due to its flavor being rough wild and full of rage aspects you wouldn't regularly associate with intellect for edgy rogues these characters are usually made by newer players trying too hard to be cool to the point where it's cringe-worthy these players latch onto the rogue for its loner style of gameplay having abilities around being unseen and using quick weapons to encourage writing dark brooding character backstories around being an orphan thief for instance being the shady mysterious deeply traumatized and complex individual of the party is what these players hope to achieve and using the rogue as a vessel for that goal creates the edgy rogue trope as a result and finally the squishy wizard there's two variations of this trope the first being a wizard who's spent so long mastering their magic to the point where they've become physically frail and the more common dnd wizard that comedically receives the lowest hit dice in the game which calculates everything from how many hit points your character has to how much health you can heal during a rest in some older editions characters who fell to zero hit points were immediately killed coupled with more powerful magic requiring additional levels to learn and the advanced 1e rules forcing players to drop back down to level 1 whenever they died made relying on the small health pools of spellcasters really dangerous even though newer versions of the game encourage concepts like asexual bards intelligence based barbarians happy rogue backstories and protection magic wizards all of these tropes continue to be prevalent in d d meme culture to this day alignment charts the concept of character alignment as it's typically viewed comes directly from d d a linemen categorizes the ethics and morals of players and npcs and is often criticized as being arbitrary and unreal back in the day there were two options to pick from good or evil eventually alignment came to include chaotic lawful and neutral as the system began operating on a long scale with tons of varying notches to slide into 5th edition's conception gave more eyes to alignment and the charts as a whole and became a meme format where people would take non-dnd characters and theorize what d and the alignment they'd be continuing until a character for every type on the chart was found most of the time these characters would stick to the ones present in a specific video game or tv show but sometimes the criteria only needed to be a profession such as world leader or fast food restaurants if you could believe it human fighter in the first and second editions of ad humans were closely connected with fighters the point of rolling for your stats first back then was to determine your compatibility with a class or race if you managed to roll really well you could choose some of the slower leveling races with slightly stronger talents but if you wound up rolling poorly you'd wind up with a human fighter with that in mind human fighter was already a common character build back in the day now for 5e the class and race combo would continue to be common but not for the same reason as before dungeon masters normally encourage players to try out playing a human fighter just because of how simple the abilities are to understand additionally in the first 5e starter set of dnd the lost mine of fendelver two of the pre-generated characters in that game were human fighters enforcing the chances that a newer player to the game would wind up playing as one stranger things in the first episode of the netflix television show stranger things many of the main protagonists are seen enjoying a classic game of d as the series progresses nameless supernatural monsters begin to appear that get affectionately nicknamed by the cast after d d monsters the popularity of stranger things got traction going d's way and the stranger things dnd's starter set was released that came with a cool miniature designed around the show's iconic demogorgon content creators d d has a sizeable creator community that for profit or passion churn out content for the rest of the community to enjoy many specialized in regaling others with stories from the games they're in others took to discussing the rule books d meme and green text readings could be funny at times horror story creators cringed at stories of some of the worst people to ever play the game and tons of other formats like character building lore world design speed panes animations skits and live shows filled nearly every other niche for the game you could imagine products continuing where we left off many content creators have gone above and beyond creating tangible dnd goods for their fans to buy to my knowledge seven of youtube's largest d d creators have begun teaming up with companies to sell books for the game with the most successful kickstarter campaign fool's gold into the bellowing wild raking in more than two million dollars besides that dice miniature figurines and some of the game's countless official books are all regular purchases for players of the hobby if you know where to look patreon creators are also always churning out content like new rules and maps to play with i'll talk more about how all of this is legal later on but the popularity of 5th edition is definitely to thank for all of these creative professions being possible true strike true strike is a notoriously bad spell in d5v in theory casting the spell is meant to help you guarantee a successful hit on an enemy the only problem here is that by doing so you need to spend an entire turn to set up the magic which at that point could have been better spent just attacking twice in the first place true strike is a cantrip trap for players unaware of just how bad it is and experienced dms regularly warn players about its flaws before allowing them to learn it are you sure about that this is a phrase commonly said by dungeon masters concerned about whatever absurd impractical or downright suicidal activities a player is trying to accomplish although technically fourth wall breaking as a perceptive player could realistically pick up on the hint and decide to refrain from their character's madness dms who bring up their concern do it for the player's sake and because they'd rather not unfairly bully someone who didn't notice the obvious flaws beforehand dnd isn't balanced i've said this before and i'll say it again because this quote works perfectly to describe this topic d character creation options aren't all equal they all vary in power usage and effectiveness to the point where the best way to choose what to play is by asking the dungeon master what their campaign's world is like and how combat focused the game will be and then go from there but even pushing that aside newer official character creation content is stronger than older materials coupled with variant rules for randomizing monster health character stats and the uncertainty of having a sadistic dm people play d d not for a balanced game but because of the wild uncertainty every session brings homebrew homebrew is fan terminology for game materials made by players of a game rather than by an official or third party publisher in the d d context this often includes new spells character classes campaign settings or variant rules the word homebrew originally referred to private individuals who brewed their own homemade beer or other alcoholic drinks as a hobby the d d community has been using the term homebrew as far back as 2003 where it was used to refer to a homemade d d campaign setting in contrast to an official published world in an article dated july 2006 designer mike murals used the word homebrew in a broader sense to refer to monster design a year later the fan made dnd wiki updated its front page to use the term homebrew in reference to all fan made dnd content including classes feats and deities no dungeons or dragons although d d's and famous name would have you believe otherwise not every campaign has a party running through dungeons or fighting dragons dungeon masters get to design their games any way they want and with many community members desire to host unique games sometimes go out of their way to avoid cliches like this the snack tax when attending the indie games of any variety in person it's customary to bring snack foods that you and the rest of the attending players can enjoy if you don't do so and everyone else does it'll be pretty awkward if you decide to treat yourself to everyone else's munchies and even if you don't then you'll get into the uncomfortable situation of friends encouraging you to enjoy the snacks which you'll politely decline and then they'll insist and yeah it's just a huge mess just save yourself the trouble and bring some food to the game and with that we've wrapped up the tip of the iceberg and can finally move down to tier 2. the concepts down here are the kind of stuff people regularly around the d d community would know maybe you browse a few of the games subreddits have a friend that's way too passionate about the game constantly spitting lore at you or maybe just maybe you actually read the official books but before we continue this video is a huge risk to the channel so i gotta thank hellofresh for tagging along to sponsor the video people who only play d5e crave simplicity whether that's for the games you play or the food you prepare hellofresh sends you the perfect amount of ingredients you need to whip up dishes in 30 minutes or less so if making a delicious meal right before your campaign session sounds great this should be right down your alley ditch the usual boring table snacks and whip up some delicious dishes that'll keep your table full and focused during the game i'm a fan of surprising my party with cheese stuffed burgers grilled salmon or my personal favorite this season garden spinach ricotta ravioli not only that but the pre-portioned ingredients you'll receive makes prepping meals and reducing food waste a non-issue you get the perfect amount of ingredients to cook a dish that'll fill you up and clean your plate and finally it's a d player's dream to have food wherever they plan to host easily update your address for a super flexible delivery to any location you wind up playing at use my link or go to hellofresh.com and use the code on screen for 16 free meals across seven boxes and three surprise gifts once you click the video's description should also live update to count up the purchases thanks again to hellofresh for sponsoring this video and let's get right back into the d d iceberg ernest gary geigex big g was an american game designer and author best known for co-creating d d with dave arnson and was a huge influence on tabletop rpgs as a whole gary began his love for military simulation games in the 1960s by founding the gen con gaming convention gen com would end up becoming one of the biggest north american hobby game conventions ever conceived because gary's midas touch turned anything he would join to gold but at the time the first event only had around 20 attendees hanging out in a gardener conference hall three years later he would lose his job at an insurance company and tried to use his enthusiasm for games to make a living on designing some of his own him and his buddy jeff perrin would later design chainmail a miniatures war game that simulated medieval era tactical combat the first edition of chainmail included a fantasy supplement to the rules so players could add warriors wizards and various monsters to the game he co-founded a company and began working on d expanding on chainmail and including elements of the fantasy stories he loved as a child gygax designed numerous manuals for the game system several modules and eventually the dnd cartoon series which we'll get to later on however his continual frustrations at work with the management of his company and all the money laying around brought a number of changes to his personal life as an active member of the jehovah's witnesses others in the congregation felt uneasy about gygax's smoking and drinking additionally his connection to the supposedly satanic game of d d at the time caused enough friction for him to disassociate from the group mary jo gygax's wife also resented the amount of time her husband would spend playing games and the two would argue frequently geigax started to use cocaine and had a number of extra martial affairs these two factors would all later lead to their bitter divorce later on gigax would steer his company out of the brink of collapse and pulled d'andy out of the grave it was almost buried in however believing his company position was like a throne made of sand and was bound to collapse gary would leave the company to create role-playing games independently in 2004 gygax suffered two strokes and narrowly avoided a subsequent heart attack he was then diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm and died in march 2008 satanic panic at various times in its history the india has received negative publicity for alleged promotion of satanism witchcraft committing not alive anymore that word that starts with p and murder especially during the 1980s certain religious groups accused the game of encouraging sorcery and the veneration of demons as the role-playing game hobby began to grow books news outlets advocacy groups and religious circles kept trying to connect horrible tragedies back to dnd regardless of all of this the controversy led to a more than six million dollar boost in sales for d d in just a year but the moral panic in the 1980s still led tsr dnd's company to remove references to demons devils and other potentially controversial supernatural monsters from the second edition of ad on a 16 minutes interview with dr thomas radicky president of the natural coalition on tv violence gary gygax had to defend his game from the claim that it was a cause for 28 deaths to respond he said this game is make-believe no one is martyred there is no evidence there to use an analogy with another game who's bankrupt by a game of monopoly nobody is the money isn't real there is no link except perhaps in the mind of those people who are looking desperately for any other cause than their own failures as a parent besides the thousands of dnd players being labeled as cultists and communists for associating with the game sales kept soaring and the game would eventually reincorporate its fiendish references once the press would move on to the more clickbait topic of video game violence pathfinder in 2002 the tabletop publishing company paizo had a contract with d d that lasted until 2007. with the new fourth edition of the game coming out and paisle's concern that the game system's license was too restrictive they instead chose to publish pathfinder using the much more flexible open game license of dnd 3.5 informally nicknamed dnd 3.75 the first edition of pathfinder is a modification to 3.5 dnd and it was intended to be compatible with the older game lead designer of the system jason bolman felt like the basic classes were lackluster and didn't provide any incentive to stay with a single class for 20 levels of play pathfinder's express purpose was to add more options to classes and boost their abilities in their core roles later on pathfinder second edition would be released in an attempt to polish even more rules and to stand in the face of dnd 5th edition for players who wanted a more complex and customizable game devils and demons are different when talking to an avid d d player about fiends you'll notice they get particularly antsy about people using the words devil and demon interchangeably that's because in the game the two creatures are both categorized as fiends but are lore wise completely different entities demons are spawned from the incomprehensible chaos of the abyss and grow in strength the longer they survive devils on the other hand are formed from souls of people bound to contracts or beings who were so evil in life that they're given an offer to join their ever-growing legions to further complicate matters a fiend can only truly be killed on its home plane a demon killed in a vernis will dissipate and reform back in the abyss fully restored likewise any devil who dies in the abyss will awaken to find themselves right back in line with their soldier buddies since the seemingly endless blood war between devils and demons takes place in the nine hells avern is to be precise it may seem like a bad deal for the devils but they don't actually mind at all devils are always seeking out souls to corrupt as long as there's life they can always ensure a steady supply of new troops demons typically seen as mindless monsters are more cunning than they're given credit for it may seem like insanity to attack the same realm again and again to no avail and demons could easily just leave and invade somewhere else like the plane of angels because nobody's picked on them in a while but doing so would play right into the devil's hands the demon lords know that if they invade another realm even with the plan to bully angels the devils would join in for some fun backstabbing allying themselves with the angels just to make sure the demons lose devils take their role in the war with pride believing that the denizens of other realms owe them their gratitude demons would destroy everything if given the chance and it's only by their unwavering discipline that the planes continue to exist in peace of course any safety they provide tends to be overlooked because if given the chance the devils would just descend upon the planes and beat everyone and everything into subservience history aside that's the reason the devil is more likely to be deceptively friendly to a humanoid while a demon will usually just kill you on sight deck of many things a deck of many things also known as a deck of hazards was an assortment of magical cards or metallic plates that were arranged in a set deck they were enchanted with powerful magic that was never meant to be used lightly an individual declared how many cards they intended to draw and had an hour to do so if they failed to draw all the cards declared then all the remaining ones would fly up from the deck and take effect once a card was successfully drawn its magic immediately took effect and then it faded into oblivion but instantly reappeared as part of the deck this made it entirely possible that the same card could be drawn more than once the original decks of many things were created by the empire of netheril the pinnacle of human civilization in the contents of faerun back then the cards were only given slight enchantments so that they could be used in a casual deck building game after the fall of netheril the magic contained in surviving decks steeped and swelled into the potent cards known across the realms for their risks and rewards rangers are bad rangers in d d are the punching bags of this game although the idea of badly designed unfun content is very subjective a vocal portion of the community regularly bashes on how bad this class is due to the specific conditions that need to be present for some of its features to work favorite enemy only works on certain types of creatures and natural explorer only activates in your favorite terrain it's thematically appropriate while being mechanically underwhelming also the classic image of a ranger having a hunting animal companion is ruined when you realize your five hit point doggo the beastmaster subclass offers just dies to one hit by everything in the game the tasha's cauldron of everything book published in 2020 included an updated version of the class that a lot more people find appealing but base ranger continues to be the butt of every joke for the d d community adventures league adventures league is an ongoing official campaign for dnd 5e set in the forgotten realms it's basically just d but with more rules put in place for character creation and what campaigns can be played for starters only certain official dnd books can be used and new characters need to start at either level 1 or 5. since many people who play adventures league jump between tons of games with the same character loot found during sessions gets evenly distributed or flat out duplicated to keep things fair overall it's a pretty cool way to play d d and ensures that no matter how friendless you are someone at the event will be forced to hang out with you just fireball fireballs in dnd are funny little spheres of flaming death that deal massive damage to anything caught in the area it's an incredibly versatile powerful and meta spell that a spellcaster who can learn it can't go wrong picking up just fireball is in reference to the crazy people out there who attempt to solve every problem they have just by casting the spell from opening doors to getting good grades all the way to committing tax fraud there is technically merit to be had because you can open the door by burning it down get good grades by threatening to burn your teachers alive and commit tax fraud by burning documents or assaulting a tax office or something i don't know although the spell isn't as god-tier as the memes claim it to be nobody can deny the superior utility and power a 20-foot radius ball of exploding fire brings to the table and anyone who claims it's overrated are just tired of seeing it in people's spell lists so often digital dnd with the internet existing and all that it would make sense for people who play dnd to want to try playing it online online tabletops and special programs try to recreate the feeling of being in person while enhancing the user experience with special online exclusive ways to use your hundreds of dollars worth of digital books some groups even use a mix of online tabletops with in-person play to make bookkeeping and character sheet management clean and tidy all while keeping the human touch aspect of the game intact honor among thieves the dungeons and dragons honor among thieves movie is an upcoming american fantasy action adventure comedy film it's got writers and directors who've also worked on other great movies like cloudy with a chance of meatballs 2 and the lego batman movie a thief and a group of adventurers going to heist to snag a relic but things quickly sour after the party messes with the wrong people the movie hopes to bring the rich world and playful spirit of d to the big screen in a hilarious and action-packed adventure iconic d monsters like dragons mimics and owl bears were teased in the trailer and the youtube video itself is on record for having more views than any other d d related video on the platform dice personality the third edition of dnd gave rise to the d20 system we have today and with that came high numbers on a single dice that would permanently impact your character the immense pressure built up on these 20-sided pieces of plastic gave way for superstitions to arise some people as a joke or not began to assume that dice have unique personalities that change the way they roll apparently not all dice are made equal and no i don't mean obviously rig dice made to roll in certain numbers more than others before buying dice you could do a thing called scouting where you roll them a few times just to get a good read on what personality they might have certain personalities are associated with certain role outcomes and although it's a fun way to imagine and humanize your dice we all know it's just an excuse to buy more of them one level in every class there's 13 official classes in d d and if you make a character that has enough ability score points in every stat you could realistically multi-class a character to have a level in every class this joke became a thing when youtuber puffin forest made a video about his d d character named absurd who crafted his character and story around this entire joke much to his party's dismay even though multicasting and d d is usually a bad idea strength wise unless you have a really well thought out concept in mind people still make characters like this just for the meme regardless i now have friends who ask if they can make an absurd character in all of my campaigns and i have puffin to thank for that references into d d not everyone who plays d d wants to be completely original sometimes you just want to play as your favorite anime character or design a battle encounter around some epic movie you watched on occasion someone could also grab some art off google images to represent their character and it'll turn out to be sans the skeleton or some child from gentian impact d4s are caltrops the shape of the d4 dies as a pyramid the shape of a cow drop is like a d4 similar to how people hate stepping on legos the dnd community and any other tabletop community that uses d4s knows just how bad it can be to step on one of these things spellcasters are better throughout the indie's lifetime spellcasters have always been stronger than marshalls if you remember the human fighter story rolling low and being a normal person was inherently worse than rolling high and getting the privilege to use magic this continues to be prevalent in 5e as spellcasters get hundreds of spells to choose from while fighters are stuck with a handful of inflexible class features this also doesn't bode well with the newest edition's lack of mechanically interesting weapons to choose from it mostly stemmed from 5v's new simplistic mindset which shaved down things that deemed too complex additionally with magical attacks scaling exponentially faster than a marshall's ability to do anything late game spellcasters gain access to teleportation meteor swarms and wishes while marshals get to make a few extra attacks every round the risk of death and restarting at level 1 in first edition existed to put serious risk on spellcasters and their small health pools but since newer generations focus on storytelling and character growth these magic classes got a shadow buff that keeps them superior to their martial counterparts the legend of vox machina show critical role's original storyline centered on a group of heroes known as fox machina with their campaign ending on november 2017 after 115 episodes and 373 hours of gameplay two years later a kickstarter was made to help fund a potential animated series for the campaign starring the characters of the game being voiced by their respective players within the allocated time 88 887 backers pledged more than 11 million dollars to help bring the project to life the first 12 episodes are available exclusively through amazon prime with more presumably on the way also another cool tidbit to know the kickstarter had some pretty huge tears with five people having backed the 25 000 tier which included a bunch of special critical role themed merch a signed pilot script studio tour and a delicious lunch with a live streaming cast and with that we're out of tier 2. maybe you've heard a few topics in the next year by name but the lore behind them may still completely surprise you the peasant railgun when he makes real world physics in the rules of dnd weird things tend to happen the theory behind the peasant railgun is pretty straightforward you start by lining up a bunch of peasants and then have them take the ready action when a peasant is handed an item they should immediately pass it to the next peasant down the line with the last one throwing the item at something in the end by handing the item to the first peasant in the lion you start the domino effect of peasants passing the item down the line and towards the final one who throws it because a single round in d5e is six seconds long regardless of how many reactions happen it would only take six seconds for the item to be passed down the entire line and destroy whatever the final peasant aims at the idea behind the peasant rail gun is that the item would be accelerating to an incredible rate and deal a colossal amount of damage simply because of the force behind it let's say you round up one thousand peasants each occupying a five foot square and give them the instructions in theory the item being passed down the line traveled five thousand feet in six seconds even without the exact math you can already imagine how anything traveling that fast will deal some serious damage to whatever it collides with and all it costs were the first couple hundred peasants having their arms ripped off while trying to pass this item at mach speed yeah so the problem the peasant railgun has is the strange amalgamation of combining real world physics to the unrealistic game rules of d regardless the concept is fun to imagine even if it's not realistic in the slightest everything's a mimic mimics are shape-shifting predators able to take on the form of inanimate objects to lure creatures to their doom in dungeons mimics most often take the forms of doors and chests having learned that such forms attract a steady stream of prey with that description you can already start to think of all the possible forms the mimic can take since these monsters come in all shapes and sizes it wouldn't be odd to imagine how an entire dungeon or structure could be composed entirely out of these things that oven is a mimic that brick is a mimic that entire house is a mimic a popular youtuber named blaine simple also hosted a live stream at one point giving his fans creative freedom to build an entire dungeon and half of everything inside wound up being mimics rocks fall everyone dies and this is the trope of game masters who get utterly fed up with their players killing them all instantly without any remorse a trigger for this disaster of a scenario could be a multitude of things from players being way too mentally taxing to host for to the dm just being a sadistic monster who's determined to see them fail at any cost regardless of the cause if the dm goes as far as rocks fall everyone dies the campaign just outright failed a lesser form of this trope can target just one particularly annoying player often with a bolt of lightning the first edition add dungeon master guide even suggested using blue bolts from the heavens and ethereal mummies on player characters to keep them in line basements there's many reasons someone who plays d d would prefer playing in their basement than anywhere else back in the day d d had some serious stigmas associated with it people who played were seen as devil worshipers or the like with the often unused space of a basement coupled with the privacy it offers basements were no-brainers for areas to host games this wouldn't mesh well with the basement dweller stereotype though and would give school bullies even more ammo to use against these dice rolling nerds thako that go is an acronym standing for to hit armor class zero it refers to the role required for a character to score a hit on an opponent with an armor class of zero which in turn is used to calculate other attack rolls the before third edition dungeons and dragons used a descending armor class scale where a lower armor class meant that the character was harder to hit cat on the mat cats love being in the center of things for some reason and when a group of people are all sitting around a table covered with miniatures and battle mats they can't help plopping themselves right in the middle when this happens a lot of people can't help but imagine the cat as a giant figurine representing an unstoppable monster especially when it starts pawing at all the player character minis at the table d d plus magic the gathering magic the gathering is a card game whose publishing rights are owned by wizards of the coast considering they also have d and d in their midst a few collaborations between the two have occurred for fans of both to enjoy for d d the academy of strix haven was offered as an adventure setting from magic the gathering and for magic the d d themed expansion adventures in the forgotten realms was released including well-known characters and references from dnds playable cards bloodied fourth edition brought the concept of bloodied to the table when a creature with bloodied has less than half their maximum hit points remaining it acts as a type of turning point in the battle usually allowing a new powerful effect to be used by the creature and giving the players a sense of where they're at in the fight and the majority of the time dms whether they're playing 4th edition or otherwise use the bloody term to help describe that the monster the players are fighting is getting pretty close to dying d versus rick and morty the popular adult swim television show rick and morty has always played around with d d references in the past and the comic series rick and morty vs dungeons and dragons would begin with morty overhearing that people who play d d have a higher chance of woohooing to get into the game he buys a first edition book and joins rick in a campaign played by one e veterans after getting his character killed and doing nothing for the rest of the game morty hypes him up for second edition and the two get isekai to the greyhawk fantasy campaign setting the creators of the comic doubted that wizard of the coast would ever greenlight the collaboration considering the wild uncensored natures of their show's characters so it came to a huge surprise when the publishing company was excited about the project and wanted to pursue it with the success of the first four comics came another bunch a year later alongside a dnd adventure box set baldur's gate video games baldur's gate is a series of role playing games set in the forgotten realms the baldur's gate series is notable for bringing technical advancements over role-playing video games of the past the games are based on a real-time modification of the second edition ad and d rule set dark alliance was released for consoles and was critically and commercially successful while the ball spawn saga was critically acclaimed for using possible real-time gameplay which is credited with revitalizing the computer role-playing game genre currently the newest game baldur's gate 3 is in the works by larian studios and an ambitious deadline for 2022 hopes to be achieved a tomb of horrors tomb of horrors is an adventure module written by gary geigex it was originally written for and used at the 1975 origins one convention gygax designed the adventure both to challenge the skill of expert players in his own campaign and to test players who boasted having mighty player characters able to best any challenge the module's plot revolves around the tomb of the demilitaric the player characters need to battle their way past a variety of monsters and traps with the ultimate goal of destroying the undead at the end tomb of horrors was considered the third greatest dungeons and dragons adventure of all time by the staff of dungeon magazine in 2004. mclaren explains that tomb of horrors is a classic not because of its difficulty but because it was the first module that didn't involve killing large numbers of monsters it was a collection of puzzles and maps its focus on traps rather than monsters was a surprise to gamers at the time the dungeon wouldn't age well with d5e's new identity as a game focused on character growth first and needless death seconds jacob buds would later call out the dungeon for being designed like a middle finger to his players as a way to mess with people and make them hate d d if you want to punish someone play the tomb of horrors bag of holding a bag of holding was a small sack that acted like an opening to an extra dimensional space the space inside the bag could hold a huge amount of materials without increasing the weight of it additionally if a bag of holding was placed in an extra dimensional space like a portable hole both would be lost forever but a rift to the astral plane would be opened the common action of opening this portal to push a creature in and trap them forever became a regular combo bags of holding are commonly awarded magic items in d for the invaluable utility they offer and plenty of tv shows and games promote a similar concept with items and weapons appearing out of thin air in a character's nearly infinite item storage munchkins the munchkin is the tabletop rpg player who plays the game to win at any cost even if that isn't the point of the game perhaps the most ridiculed player archetype of all time this player is rarely interested in the story behind the game the munchkin's characters are usually either little more than extensions of their own personality or a completely blank slate of sentience death known among role players as murder hobos the munchkin's motivation often stems from a mistaken belief that beating your enemies is the top priority and learning to exploit the most subtle nuances of the game's mechanics for a competitive advantage is considered skillful while this might be true for games that are all about winning this attitude is fundamentally opposed to the spirit of most tabletop rpgs where winning is usually secondary to just enjoying the experience of playing magic above 9th level magic of this caliber were super powerful spells that were banned by the goddess mystra before this ban there was no practical limit to the ways magic could be used and no limit on the amount of magical power that could be channeled into a spell the first effect of the ban was to limit spellcasting to spells of a maximum of 9th level the second effect was that all spellcasters had to spend time memorizing spells and were limited to holding a certain number of magical spells in their head at any one time many epic level spells weren't banned but were lost to time after the collapse of the netherese empire filler episodes a common type of filler episode for long-running tv shows and game dlc would be for main characters to play through a dnd session although the characters would be at the table playing they'd also be controlling altered versions of themselves within the game these changes would mostly be in the form of classes with each character being assigned a role in the party based on their usual characteristics most of the time the focus would be on the fantasy setting of the game but some forms would have out of character discussions on game rules or the dungeon master narrating from the heavens wizard spell names many of d's spells include the names of the wizard who created them morton kanan is the wizard responsible for the most spells with others like snillock tenser bigby and tasha having made some as well breaking the game it's become a popular pastime for d d players to find crazy ways to bend and twist the rules of d d to cause some crazy effects to occur just on my channel alone we figured out how to become immortal immediately jump to level 20 after a quick montage and kill ancient dragons in a single punch most of the people theory crafting stuff like this or who enjoy hearing out the methods have no intentions to try this stuff out in game but it remains to be a unique point of interest for members of the community pay to play who would have thought that all these books minis and online memberships would cost so much money all these products and the time that's spent designing the game can cost a ton if you're looking to host dnd professionally and some dms who think they can host a truly great campaign opt into charging players to play in their games on average these prices teeter at around 10 bucks per session per player and although not everyone in the community takes kindly to some people monetizing their campaigns many people looking to join online games can at least bank on dungeon masters with the gall to charge to host fun ones alright with tier 3 complete we can move another layer down basic fantasy rpg the basic fantasy role-playing game is a rules light game system modeled on the classic rpg rules of the early 1980s though based loosely on dnd 3.5 basic fantasy rpg has been written largely from scratch to replicate the look feel and mechanics of early rpg game systems it's definitely great for people who are fans of old school game mechanics the system is completely free to pick up and receives most of its support directly through the community if older editions of dandel was interested to you but the outdated writing style and needless limitations worried you basic fantasy rpg may be down your alley 1983 cartoon dungeons and dragons is an american animated television series based on everyone's favorite role-playing game the show ran through two years for three seasons on cbs totaling 27 episodes with the japanese company toei animations doing the animation for the series the show focused on a group of six friends who were transported into the titular realm the show followed their adventures as they tried to find a way home with the help of their guide the dungeon master while combating an evil wizard the opening of the show has tiamat the ancient dragon goddess rampaging toward a group of players who just appeared in the world which catches newer players to dnd off guard every time eric and the dread gazebo this tale features a player who misunderstands the gamemaster's description of a gazebo on a small hill mistakenly assuming it to be some kind of monster after asking the game master its color and size and distance from the group the player attempts to call out to the gazebo when it fails to respond he fires an arrow at it to no effect there is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it by the end of the encounter the player lacking the means to harm the gazebo ops to flee in desperation the frustrated game master retaliates by humoring the player's misconception and announcing that the gazebo has awoken to capture and consume the player according to ed whitchurch the real gay master of the story the original incident on which the anecdote is based was actually less than a minute long ending rather unceremoniously with wit church asking don't you know what a gazebo is 5th edition disclaimers in most of the 5th edition books i've checked a disclaimer is on one of the first few pages that describes a bit of background for the book and warns readers about the potential dangers held within for example tasha's cauldron of everything mentions that powerful wars have been placed on the book with the first one having been broken after opening it up it mentions how more words could break if you continue reading through and that if a portal opens up that spawns in the witch baba yaga to either praise her daughter tasha or bribe her with muffins to get out of there alive d d inspired anime d d inspired a few incredibly popular anime over the years with names such as goblin slayer and konosuba making waves in the community goblin slayer opens up with the gods crafting the world with a roll of the dice and kona super starts by telling the main character he can't play as any of the cool classes because his stats are too low whether other fantasy anime intended or not homage to dnd can usually be tributed in some capacity the neverending game robert wardhoff has been the dungeon master for a d d campaign that's been going on for over 40 years almost every major decision in robert's life is designed to keep the game going for instance making sure whatever house he ended up buying had the space and storage areas needed to comfortably host sessions robert tracks the adventures of more than 50 players with story arcs that often span decades since the beginning there's been around 500 characters that have been made and played within the game coupled with literally thousands of subplots and sub campaigns going on if a character dies and that player has no other characters to use they're removed from the game forever it's a tough cut for people who've been playing for years but robert believes the stakes are needed to help keep the emotions palpable at the table in terms of his collection robert has a minifigure and terrain piece for nearly any fantasy concept you could imagine nobody's allowed to touch any of these except for him which is a bit odd but i guess with the record comes to right i did a bit of digging and unless i missed the obvious mention of the system he was playing i do believe it's advanced second edition mystic wizard of the coast released the mystic class as public play testing material unfortunately for the mystic it was quickly deemed too complicated and overpowered and was scrapped the intention was to introduce an intelligence based class that wasn't a spellcaster with so many psionic abilities imitating but replacing spells the mystic's playtesting document was monstrous in size the indy 5e was designed to be simple and approachable for new players and the mystic went against that design philosophy blood hunter and gunslinger matt mercer is responsible for creating these unofficial dnd supplements to start bloodhunter was the first homebrew class he ever made back in 2015. matt explained that his first iteration was originally just a handful of variant abilities he designed for vin diesel who planned to be a guest star for the diesel one shot all to promote his film the last witch hunter matt was given no context whatsoever for diesel's character beside the movie trailer and the internet was loudly requesting that he released diesel's character class initially really messy and reactionary matt rebuilt the class from the ground up and released it in 2020. the prime focus for the blood hunter was on the use of blood magic curses and impressive martial prowess with some spooky magic undertones in gunslinger was a different story matt created this unofficial subclass for the 5th edition fighter when the group converted from pathfinder the first gunslinger ever made would be played in campaign 1 of critical role by thales and jaffe as the character percy although the subclass did a lot of revolutionary gun-based shenanigans for 5e later official materials would be released coupled with more rules for firearms which sort of pushed it to the side these two creations would be important milestones for matt mercer while working with wizards of the coast and designing content for them in the future horror stories the rpg horror story subreddit created in 2016 popped up so people could talk about their terrible experiences playing tabletop role-playing games with d d being a hugely popular tabletop rpg a good chunk of these stories would be about the game and all the creepy and disturbing things weirdos would try to do during sessions dnd specifically is a game that's good at showing the mentalities and hearts of people playing and perceptive players can perceive patterns that can be particularly problematic nothing was off the table for these stories and delving too deep into this rabbit hole could give you a warped pessimistic view on the tabletop gaming community as a whole ignoring that some people me included have a strange curiosity for reading these stories just to see what the one percent of the worst players are up to making money off homebrew the open game license for d d allows people to take materials from the system reference document or srd for short and copy modify and redistribute it with some extra legality spices mixed in to make sure another pathfinder doesn't try to usurp them in a nutshell you can publish unofficial content for dnd and make money so long as you follow the ogl's guidelines since the beginning gary gygax always saw unofficial expansions and fan content as healthy for the game and d d continues to be a system that allows for stuff like that to exist alright now that wasn't too bad now was it moving to tier 5 you'll only know about this stuff if you've either been a veteran of this game for multiple editions are pretty deep into multiple communities to get your hands on all the most obscure inside jokes or you're one of my friends who i'm convinced spawned into this world like an npc with all of d d's information injected into their minds regardless although we're this deep down i think the final topics are incredibly interesting nothing too complicated and just the right amount of intrigue arcadem jeremy black known online as arcadem began his career on twitch creating d d content 21 streamers and colleagues who worked or collaborated with arcadum released twitlonger statements detailing their experiences with him they voiced that arcadem used his position to pressure woman into emotionally and sexually gratifying him he would also make his way over to harass them through discord or the video game vr chat most of the women arcade engaged with were v-tubers who use virtual avatars controlled with face and body tracking technology during this whole event voice recordings were revealed that shed a lot more light on the situation as well as color arcade as some sort of deeply complex analytical and emotionless super villain in his own words approximately 17.8 percent of people he plays d and d with will stay his friend after the game a percentage people will most likely use to haunt him for the remainder of his foreseeable career first edition art and gygax needed to find people who could draw art for the first edition of d d with many artists receiving around two to three dollars per drawing a teenager from rockford illinois named greg bell was up to the task his style was like a blocky rendering of strong shapes and lines which translated surprisingly well to the crude printing process gary's company could afford consistency wasn't a factor for one-e artwork and although sometimes an art piece was like a diamond in the rough lots of other images were creepy or downright disturbing large luigi large luigi was a beholder who ascended a thousand foot tall mountain called the spindle on the planet hakata and obtained the ultimate knowledge of the universe with that knowledge he settled down to become the proprietor bartender and bouncer of his tavern the happy beholder in the city of brawl after his ascent one of luigi's eye stocks had the detect lie spell instead of the death ray spell that most beholders had his other iras were still intact and he used them to good effect in keeping his tavern customers well-behaved namely the charmed person charm monster and sleep spells so trouble in the tavern was stopped almost as soon as it would start he would use his telekinesis iras to mix his drinks and to deliver them through the air directly to his patrons the multiverse the worlds of d d exists within a vast cosmos called the multiverse connected in weird ways to one another and to other planes of existence such as the elemental plane of fire and the infinite depths of the abyss within the multiverse are an endless variety of worlds it includes every official dnd campaign setting and every unofficial homebrew world it may also be used in a more limited context to refer to the contents of a single campaign setting or planar cosmology tsr's shipwreck dredge gary geigex's company tactical studies rules incorporated hemorrhaged 1.5 million dollars worth of debt which prompted him to do some investigating of the company finances apparently the company president kevin bloom was messing with the finances by spending money on exitus inventory overstaffing a bunch of company cars and some questionable and expensive projects such as dredging up a 19th century shipwreck the shipwreck in particular continues to be the highlight of this deeply confusing set of horrible business decisions and remains to be one of kevin bloom's most defining pieces of lore to people learning about the history of dnd orion akaba although critical roles show normally kept up with eight cast members playing at the table one by the name of orion acaba left for undisclosed reasons in episode 27 of the live show the critter community as critical roles fandom is passionately nicknamed put a large amount of energy into the speculation of his departure which caused the scene to become negative and toxic for anyone delving deeper into the conversation after leaving critical role orion would no longer be welcome in community spaces after he began harassing people displaying dangerous behavior publicly against fans and colleagues and doxing one of his supporters other accusations levied against him include fraud or misappropriation of fan provided funds involving the kickstarter money for his audio series draconian knights a fake fundraiser for one of his twitch moderators that lost her father in a car crash following a blood clot and pocketing the money he raised for the 826 la organization which offered to help young students with their creative writing skills regardless of the original reason for critical roles severing their connection with orion knowing what the guy would end up doing in the time after just reassures that the show made a safe choice the singular tarasque the tarasque was the most terrible creature known to inhabit the prime material plane it resembled a massive t-rex with a magical reflective carapace and two large horns on its head supposedly there was only one tarasque which slumbered within the world's core and nobody would be able to predict when it would next awaken the history of the turresque was pretty controversial most people had no idea about the tarrasque's existence in the first place and people who did were unsure about its origins one theory was that the turask was a specimen of an entire population of creatures living on the alien planet falks fox had several hundred creatures that were either the same species as the terrasque or some example of convergent evolution according to this view the turresque has simply just been transported or summoned to the planetarium from phallics in the ancient past for any of you who are thinking oh it's on a different planet everyone vibing in faerun will be perfectly fine well sorry to say kiddos but faerun is on the planetarium so i hope you have a plan for the next time this thing wakes up the book of vile darkness this book is an artifact that was used as a reference work by evil people there were a total of six copies and at least 18 fakes and botched copies of it the original from vecna a deity from earth was a book with a cover made from flesh from a human face and bones from a demon upon many of the book's evil magics were the ability to corrupt the user with evil kill plants unfortunate enough to exist nearby teach its reader powerful spells and allowed people to add and remove pages to let owners update it with new philosophies although the book was a magic item that could be found in the game the book of vile darkness was also an accessory book for third edition which introduced several new mechanics relating to evil including rules for drug use demonic possession torture and ritual sacrifice two e arc druids in second edition at 12th level a druid character acquires the official title of druid before then they were just known as an initiate and there can only be nine twelfth level druids in any geographic region basically both your character and every druid npc is barred from reaching level 12 unless there's a vacancy in the number of druids in the region if you can defeat one of the druids in magical or hand-to-hand combat you're given the position as the victory condition and if it isn't to the death then the loser actually drops experience to become 11th level moving up the ladder only three 13th level arc druids can operate in an entire geographical region to become an arc druid a 12th level druid has to defeat one of the reigning arc druids or advance into a vacant position finally a 15th level great druid is unique in their region they too won their position from the previous great druid the ascendance of a new great druid usually sets off shockwaves of turmoil and chaos through the juridical hierarchy creating a highly contested opening in every tier that came before it to finish this nonsense the highest ranking druid in the world is the 15th level grand druid unlike great druids having multiple slots available only one person in the entire world can ever hold this title at one time consequently only one druid can be level 15 at any time the position is demanding thankless and generally unexciting for anyone except a politician after a grand druid retires they can finally move on with their life and won't be restricted every level by any more ceremonial barriers they become hierophant druids and gain a bunch of cool abilities like immunity to poison perfect bodily health the ability to alter your appearance at will to hibernate for some reason and through multiple levels the ability to enter and survive in different elemental planes unworthy player preface in the first edition a d and d book the preface of the first few pages talks about players who try to cheat or lessen the experience of the game for themselves by reading the dungeon masters guide just to give you an idea for how dm's were told to handle situations like this i'll quote the section here as this book is the exclusive precedent of the dm you must view any non-dm player possessing it as something less than worthy of honorable death peeping players there will undoubtedly be but they are simply lessening their own enjoyment of the game by taking away some of the sense of wonder that otherwise arises from a game which has rules hidden from participants it is in your interests and theirs to discourage possession of this book by players if any of your participants do read herein it is suggested that you assess them a heavy fee for consulting sages and other sources of information not normally attainable by the inhabitants of your milieu if they express knowledge which could only be garnered by consulting these pages a magic item or two can be taken as payment insufficient but perhaps it will tend to discourage such actions honor among thieves and one e either a funny little coincidence or a beautiful homage page 24 of the first edition dmg has an image of what i can only assume to be a group of thieves having been violently struck by a trapped chest below the image is text that reads there is no honor among thieves it's a cool connection to the new d d movie similarly named honor among thieves two e cantrips can't trip is in the 2e player's handbook as a first level spell that lasts for one hour per level once cast the kantrip spell enables the caster to create minor magical effects for the duration common tricks include tinklings of ethereal music brightening faded flowers glowing balls that float over the caster's head puffs of wind to flicker candles spicing up aromas in flavors of bland food and little whirlwinds to sweep dust under rugs players used to fit edition may notice that this singular cantrip spell is basically just press the digitization thaumaturgy and light all mixed into one vechna is an anagram dnd and the literature associated with it use the magic system inspired in part by jack vance's dying earth series notably the fact that magic users in the game forget spells they've learned immediately after casting them and need to restudy them in order to cast them again the dying earth and the eyes of the overworld are featured in the first edition dm's guide for inspirational and educational reading and in the fifth edition of the player's handbook one of the prominent villains of the game vecna is named after vance his name being an anagram of the author's surname a wizard didn't the standard all-encompassing explanation for any continuity errors noticed by hardcore fans of any given fantasy show if it doesn't make sense a wizard probably did it move on nothing to see here it's used primarily to hand way of nitpicks and contrived coincidences that should really be covered by suspension of disbelief however less start-out creations may use the saying as an excuse to film major plot holes of stories many bizarre inexplicable or just plain silly monsters from the early days of dnd were said to be the product of wizards playing evolutionary biologists in their spare time the classic example is the owl bear most of the more bizarre content and spell jammers explained by a wizard did it sometimes literally one source book actually explains the sheer weirdness of the setting with its magic and it knows its magic dungeons and dragons computer fantasy game the d d computer fantasy game is a handheld electronic game released by mattel in 1981 and was the first ever d d video game to exist the gameplay has the player moving through a maze while trying to avoid pits with the goal of locating an arrow to shoot at a dragon considering the basic design of the game sound effects were used sparingly with moving and falling into pits being the main two noises of the game the whole thing takes place on a 10 by 10 grid with each square representing a different room the positioning of all these pits the magic arrow additional rope and dragon are all determined at random in each game when the player wins they're given a score based on how long it took to complete the game with one point being stacked up every 5 seconds with its silly offset lcd screen and weird graphic of white outlined cobblestones the entire game was approximately the size of an inch stick or so credit card and finally obscure campaign references now here's the thing everyone who's played or heard about d d has at some point been exposed to one of these but nobody can possibly know about every reference ever made which is why i decided to drop this topic down to the bottom tier of the list campaign references are made when individual dnd parties have unique experiences in their games based on their decisions even though a group may be playing through one of the dozens of dnd modules available dm's may make changes and players may have creative solutions to the ways encounters are solved with stories of these adventures being told through casual conversation out of game to online forums and subreddits it's quite easy for people to be overwhelmed and confused by these groups conversations memes or other out of context videos it all just seems so real and magical complex yet beautiful it's a reason people that hear these stories get so interested in playing the game themselves and how the roleplay focused mindset and simplistic nature of the new additions helps to nurture these stories this video was a love letter for dungeons and dragons it's wild history and a community that grew as a result if it inspired you to check out the game yourself taught a veteran a thing or two or you can just appreciate the time and commitment it took to patch this video together i'd greatly appreciate that like and subscribe now or comment on your thoughts a huge thank you to everyone who watched until now i've been blaine simple and i'll see you all in the next video [Music] you

Channel: Blaine Simple

Views: 417,644

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Id: u5NUgutKay8

Length: 59min 48sec (3588 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 10 2022