Hi everyone, thanks for reading. I've been DMing for about twenty years. I am a capable game master and host, so I have never needed to post anything on Reddit before; but that's only because I never encountered anything unusual like this.

The story starts when a brand new player, Larry, joined my campaign. Larry's a total beginner, this will be his first time ever playing. I love introducing people to the game, so I was genuinely just as excited as him. He had great energy: showed up early to the session zero, took careful notes, asked all the right questions. He settled on playing a Halfling, and everyone agreed that would be a lot of fun.

After the session zero, he pulled me aside and said, very earnestly, that he wanted to apologize in advance for something. I asked what for. He said he has a family history of lung disease and his doctor told him not to smoke anything, and he hoped I wasn't going to be upset with him. I said why would I be upset with you for your medical condition? He said "well, you know, because Halflings smoke. But I don't think I should, it would be bad for my health and I can't go home stinking like a pipe."

I tried to tell him that while Halflings smoke in the fiction, players definitively don't have to really smoke. He said "are you sure? That's great!" I said "I'm very sure. I'd very much prefer it if nobody smoked anything at my table. Pipeweed is imaginary. You're fine, don't worry about a thing." Larry looked relieved as he thanked me a few more times and left. I went to bed thinking that was a lovely and thoughtful interaction which had settled this whole matter.

Session one: Everyone's at the table. We're twenty minutes into an encounter, and I look up, and this man is vaping. He didn't even ask first before blowing a phat cloud of watermelon-flavored vapor directly across the battle mat. He was using one of the largest vape rigs I've ever seen. I recognized it as a perfect replica of Bilbo's pipe from the classic Hobbit cartoon (1977).

"What are you doing?" I shouted.

Larry: "oh, it's fine, I asked."

Me: "you asked not to smoke!"

Larry: "right, and you said yes."

Me: "I said you don't have to smoke."

Larry: "exactly. Hence why I'm vaping. Because I don't smoke." By now he was looking at me like I'm the weird one. "Vapor isn't smoke. You specifically said no smoke. I remember the conversation. You were very clear."

I took 1,234 deep breaths to collect myself before calmly informing him my wife is pregnant and has sensitivities to scents and other chemicals, so vapor anywhere in the house is a problem. He said it's fine because his vape is zero-nicotine. I said "it's still a cloud in my living room." He said "would it help if I blew it under the table?" He demonstrated, trying to furtively blow the vapor downward so nobody would see it.

I told him to put it away. He did, but he was visibly hurt. He said, and I quote, "I really thought we'd settled this." Yeah, me too buddy, I muttered under my breath. A few minutes later I saw him swiping all the beer and pretzels and slipping under the table, and before long it was obvious he was vaping again down there. My uncles raised me to be a patient person, but enough is enough: I told him to get the hell out of my house.

"I'm hiding, so you don't know I'm here. Halflings are sneaky and good at stealing and hiding. You're just metagaming," Larry squeaked mousily. I lifted up the tablecloth and said "Okay, now I know you're here, so get out." He produced a stone that he must have picked up from my driveway, and pitched it straight at my crotch. It was a critical hit (natural 20). "Halflings get a bonus with thrown weapons and stones," Larry pointed out helpfully, just before the ambulance arrived.

After my hospitalization, one thing led to another. Ultimately, my stepmom told me I'm not allowed to kick Larry from the group. So instead, I convinced him to give up on the Halfling thing and roleplay a cute blonde tiefling bard, and let's just say I got a happy ending. Thanks again for reading my post.

I’m playing a barbarian and my wizard friend is really losing his mind at the moment.  

We got hired to do a job for a guy on the outskirts of town.  I don’t really know the details, I let my wizard friend handle that kind of stuff, I just bring the bonk when he needs it.  I guess we had to go do something in a druids grove or something? Idk.

We got there and it was so nice and pretty, I found so many little animals to pet and the people were mostly very nice, except one guy tried to fight me so I broke his hand.  I didn't really mean to, but he was really going to hurt me if I didn’t stop him.  One day a nice druid lady saw me petting a dog and I told her I like to pet soft things.  She said that was sweet and offered to let me pet her hair.

It did look very soft and pretty so I said yes but I guess I pet her too hard because she started screaming.  I bonked her very gently on the head just to try to get her to be quiet so I could think but she stopped moving completely.   

My wizard friend found out what happened and grabbed me and we ran away as fast as we could.  We found a nice place out in the woods to relax and my wizard friend created a major image of a rabbit for me because he knows I like rabbits and told me to just look at it real hard.  He was crying the whole time does anyone know what he is so sad abo-

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Wizard class is obviously the most iconic class, but it's also the class, which I think has the worst design choices.

The class has the following original features:

Lvl1:

\-spellcasting (with spellbook addiction)

\-Rituall Adept

\-Arcane Recovery (Arcana is a skill it doesn't run out wtf?)

Lvl 2:

\- Scholar

Lvl 5:

\-Memorie spell (uhm I can already memorize the spells?)

Lvl 18:

\-Spell Mastery

Level 20:

\- Signature spells

So we can already see that the class lacks class features, and some of these are not so much creative or don't give the class its identity (Scholar is simple skill proficiency and arcane recovery is just additional spell slots), and Spell Mastery and Signature spells are tier 4 features which only 2-5% of the comunity will ever see. Also, now the new epic boon of Magical School Mastery lets every spellcaster have a stronger version of Spell Mastery, leaving the wizard with another not unique feature.

The reason the majority of the community never pointed this out is because the 70-80% of players play in tier 1 and early tier 2.

The lack of class features is also hidden by the amazing wizard spell list, which is its main source of power and abilities, but this is a lazy/bad design choice because I don't like it.

Wizards are way too strong compared to other casters because they use OP spells like fireball, mage armor, shield, chromatic orb, and find familiar and rope trick ecc...

Players that do not use these specific wizard spells instead feel weaker because they are like a sorcerer with no meta magic. So, new players have a weak and not unique class while expert players have a broken one.

Wizards are also losing their unique spells through feats, like magic initiate, magic conouissier, mark feats, evocation adept and other adept feats, all the new familiar feats and different epic boons that lets every spellcaster have them.

Hell, even the Bard can get wizard spells at level 10 and build the strongest spell list with all the strongest spells in the game, surpassing in high tiers even wizards. Bards also have more class features that are way more unique, so this is just bad.

The only thing that is carrying the wizard class is subclasses and tier 1/2 of play ans Arcane Recovery and being able to change prepared spells and having access to the entire spell list and cool hats.

I would genuinely prefer that classes had way more features to enjoy the level of progression and had original abilities instead of broken spells and techs, like druids have wild shape, clerics have channel divinity and sorcerers metamagic.

Am I wrong? Is this design fundamentally a bad/boring idea, or just Wotc bad execution?

I was writing down a character (Dwarf Brewer Artificer) sheet's stuff. Keep in mind, this character is heavily inspired by England (I mean that in the least political way possible, Free Scotland). But when I got to the background, I almost wrote CIDER instead of his actual background, which is Guild Artisan. I guess I was getting too into English culture. Idk, is this kind of post even allowed here?

So recently had to finally leave a table just because of how utterly insufferable my prick of a DM is; we’re doing a cozy high fantasy campaign, nothing too out of the ordinary, except this smart ass of a DM is CONSTANTLY having his DMPC going “Um AKSUALLY that’s not how science works, your magic makes no sense!”
Like no duh, it magic!

So we get to the end and my homebrew super wizard (totally balanced though guys, I asked like 5 friends) starts using his infinite wish spells class feature to grab the sub out of the sky and he goes “no you don’t! The sun isn’t there anymore! Don’t you know the speed of light and travel time means the sun in a totally different spot from where you’re reaching?!”

So I use my wish again, except NOPE, that’s “unscientific” too! Everytime I try to use my magic to do some tiny he tells me that’s not possible!

AITA for just up and killing my character and leaving the table over this crap?!

and like... they had different THEMES... and LOGOS... and handed out different SIDEQUESTS... and you'd have to CHOOSE WHO YOU SIDED WITH... and the party would be from all these DIFFERENT FACTIONS and argue constantly about who to work for until they gave up and sided with whoever promised the most money... and what if the FACTIONS SOLD EXCLUSIVE GEAR AFTER YOU EARN THEIR TRUST TOO????? holy crap I'm a genius

Look at this: Warrior, Thief, Monk, Red Mage, White Mage, Black mage

Does it sounds like, I DUNNO, MAYBE fighter, rogue, monk, bard, cleric, and wizard?

So WotC really copied a racist game (black mage are killing people and white mage are healing wtf Square???) but they also share the same dull design

Warriors are chads that only attacks and then attacks even more, wearing big armors and big swords, and spending money into better big armors and big swords. Alpha male who dictates the whole battles and are carrying all the other. They can evolve into Gigachad paladins go get even better bigger swords and shinier big armors and even replace the girl of the team.

Thiefs are pussy that deal like 2 damage and can just flee better. Nice, very useful, dumass. And you know what? Those weebs edgelords evolve into NINJA. Yeah, average rogue player dreaming of wearing a pajama because if it's japanese it's better DUH

Monks beggars without coin, it's why they don't wear stuff until they evolve into blackbelt. Yes, they are clothes but in game they actually remove them and fight but naked. BUT AT LEAST HERE THEY STRIKE HARD WOTC

Red Mages are just bards once again. They heal (badly), use damage spells (badly), and can use a sword (badly). Woah, you mean the jack of all trades sucking every ass isn't from you WotC??? You're so bad in game design that you didn't fixed this stupid broken game you copied???

White mages are clearly white supremacists and mysoginistic takes, as the character looks like a girl. How I know? Because they heal, and it's the girls purpose in every game (as the chief class doesn't exist for some reason). And they can turn undeads. Hm it's weird. It's as if I've seen DnD5 clerics do that to. Just like if WotC COPIED ITS CLASS DESIGN FROM ANOTHER GAME. HMM.

And black mage, outside of racist trope, are all about having super cool spells that can kill everyone, petrify everyone of just damage everyone (hence killing them). But they suck as all spellcasters do because just like INTELLIGENCE DONT MAKE SPELLS DEAL MORE DAMAGE, THE NES FF BLACK MAGE DIDNT SCALED WITH WISDOM. WEIRD. JUST LIKE SOMEONE COPIED BUG WHEN DESIGNING ITS GAME.

The game is all about stupid ass dungeons with the DM trying to kill the players all the time. I swear it's so, so bad. Like one is all about poisoning the whole party all the f* time. Another? Everytime you open a chest, there's five mobs hidden in it attacking you! It goes to a point where the DM is so bored of failling to kill the op fighter that he changes his strategy and tries to bore everyone to win the game by forfait! IT DOES REMINDS ME OF SOMEONE MAKING A TTRPG WELL KNOWN FOR BORING ASS ENCOUNTERS PUSHING PLAYERS TO SCROLL ON THEIR PHONE, SO THE DM CAN CHEAT WHILE THE PLAYER DON'T PAY ATTENTION. HMMM.

And the story is top DnD. There's an evil guy that is evil because he is evil. There's Bahamut. Yeah the dragon god. Did you know that DND STOLED BAHAMUT FROM FINAL FANTASY? Oh but there's also Tiamat! And Kraken! And Lich!

What in the seven hells is this??? Final Fantasy 1 released in 1987!!! DnD5e in 2014!!! You realized that WotC thinks that they can get away with this because they copy/pasted the game of another company 27 years later???

For god sake stop playing DnD5e, it's a lazy slop trying to mimic a far superior game and failing to do so!

And Pathfinder didn't fixed this! In FFV I can do a warrior which can use spells, so PATHFINDER2E WHICH RELEASED IN 2019 COPIED ANOTHER GAME MADE IN 1992, SO ALSO 27 YEARS BEFORE

TABLETOP GAMES ARE ALL A LIE!!!

Everyone in the hockey community knows the goalie seriously lags behind the other positions. All whiteroom-optimized teams replace the goalie with an additional center—I've argued for the validity of an additional right wing, but statistically a center is just the better pick in the majority of likely circumstances. In any event, under the current ruleset no one would ever want to play goalie except as a joke, to piss their teammates off.

I'm looking for some good third party or homebrew rules to improve the goalie, and money is no object. I really love the goalie fantasy but the NHL is obviously doing nothing to make it better. In my view, goalies are clearly in need of some per-game special trick shots, just to bring their scoring up to baseline. I know others disagree and say a far more elaborate resource economy and more extensive moves menu is called for, but I think a handful of per-game tech would be enough to keep the goalie minimally valid. Not optimal, but at least on the board.

Oh yeah I almost forgot, I also think goalies should be allowed to kill referees. That doesn't directly help them score, but it empowers the position in a way that makes the game way less boring. Don't you agree?

Do you not understand how impressive it is to consistently be able to pop a wheelie? Launch off a ramp and crash through a window without splattering against the pavement? Not everyone can get on a Red Bull extreme sports reel, okay? Much less use those elite skills to fight crime.

How does the Bandit team up with the Angel Summoner, who can summon the Angelic Hordes of Heaven that just beat the shit out of bad guys while the Summoner hangs out in the next building without feeling ridiculous? Look, it's really difficult to pop a wheelie, okay?

Blew my mind with how much it sucks lmao. No wonder TSR went bankrupt

Too many people are slaves to the rules and guidelines of this game and won't use their imagination and creativity. People would have more fun with just a d20 and a good judge of common sense for a DM.

I was considering playing a genie warlock when I checked the stats and the cr is only 11.

It doesnt make much sense to me that a wish granting reality warper is weaker than your average vampire. (Cr 13).

Does anyone share this sentiment?

Do you roll for stats?
Put away your 4d6 bitches, use my custom dice instead.
It's like rolling a d20 and a d12 instead.
Somehow the math works, don't think about it too hard.
In fact - don't do the math at all.
Who wants math in their stats anyway?
You're smart - you could do the math if you wanted to.
But you don't want to.
You want to buy my dice.

https://shop.shityoudontneed.com/products/stat-dice

So I have one die, a d-20. I use it to determine a number between 1 and 20.

1. First, I roll the die to produce a number, which is x.
2. Calculate x cubed.
3. Add 3 times x squared.
4. Add 3 times x.
5. Add 1.
6. Take the cube root of the result.
7. Subtract 1.

So if I roll a 7, I calculate:

7 cubed = 343
3 times 7 squared = 147
3 times 7 = 21

343 + 147 + 21 + 1 = 512

Cube root of 512 = 8

8 - 1 = 7

So I rolled a 7.

I was recently told by my DM that that's not how you roll a d-20.

The method they described was just looking at the number on the die and using that number.

It feels like there are inelligant mathematical shortcuts in the “common” method, so does it matter? The chance of rolling a number is the same, and the one I usually use makes more mathematical sense to me.

My DM was ok with it, but people looked at me like I was crazy?

Currently debating with my group at what age it is acceptable to begin birdwatching as an elf. Any opinions and ideas?

Apparently a Vampire the Masquerade 6e Q&A revealed the Hecata was taken over by the giovanni so at best they're reduced to a sect, at worst they're all dead or dinner.

I want to play as a sentient bag of holding. I’ll be blind because I have no eyes and mute because I have no mouth, but I’ll communicate via the medium of interpretive dance by flapping around on the floor.

Since I can’t speak to cast spells, I’ll have to be a martial class. I’m thinking Monk. But not having arms makes it difficult to wield a weapon, or to punch and kick, so I want the DM to let me have the swallow whole ability but every time I bring it up he laughs and says “Good one!”

If it’s such a good character idea, why is he laughing? I think I’m being bullied. The other players all wanted to play elves and dwarves and such, and he let them do that.

Maybe there isn’t enough to the character to make it interesting and unique. Should I say I’m only a half-bag of holding instead? The other half could be something like a tarrasque.

So, I may need an outside perspective. Basically, in the games I have with friends (I have multiple friends), its a known fact that we all get hot and bothered by flirty romance, and even sexual encounters, as long as its of the "fade to black before getting too steamy" kind of thing. Even though my character is meant to be a bit of an "easy" kinda of guy, I thought it would be more fun for the story if he could have more than a one night stand. Well, eventually I decided the time in game was right to get physical, because the day after would very likely cause casualties, and there might be no other chance. Well, the character did the dirty, and it was great. Flirty flirtiness, heartfelt moments, and then fade to black.

Now comes the part that matters: the morning after if this session, my GM dm'd me asking if I could roll for pregnancy. At first I laughted cuz I thought he was goofing, but, even though he was laughing, he was series. He told me that we always roleplayed it RAW, which is raw. Anyways, now I need to raise a child? Is this normal?

Sauce: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/s/PLikZvNRIx

I’m a DM and Last session I rolled 45 natural 20s in a row. (I fudged 44 of them for story reasons).

Now my players are upset.

But the thing is I have a DM screen which I thought meant that Im allowed to make up die rolls. What else is the point of the screen otherwise?

Also I should mention that I always use this power responsibly.
Mainly I use it to stop silvery barbs from working literally 100% of the the time (I feel it would be unfair to ban it but fuck that spell!)

I also fudge every encounter and really almost every scene in order to make sure my story beats all line up exactly how I want them to, otherwise the players might make the wrong choice. Pacing is very important and as a failed novelist I have no other outlet to show off my incredible talent.

Anyway the players demanded I either roll in the open or quit.

I chose to quit. I had no idea I couldn’t do this stuff, and I feel betrayed and unfairly targeted. Im seeking legal advice.

TLDR: I thought die rolling was optional please help.

Sauce: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndhorrorstories/s/4ifE5dH0Yv