How to Be a Good D&D Player - 8 Tips from Your Dungeon Master

My players got into the habit of- ‘I roll deception to sneak behind and kill the king, 15 to succeed, welp, I got a 16 the king is dead now’. LIKE SERIOUSLY YOU DONT DECIDE YOUR OWN DCS PLEASE SEND HELP

So fun story about making a failed dice roll work. We had captured a goblin whose clan was ambushing people on the road and kidnapping them and since people in that situation usually have a bad end, we of course decided to find out where the goblin camp was. Problem was, all of our social skill dice rolls had failed due to bad rolls so it was time to get on with the physical interrogation techniques. Thing was, I was in no mood to sit through a bunch of messed up torture stuff so I say "I get up close to the goblin until my face is about 2 inches from his and stare deeply into his eyes. I then tickle the goblin."

My table immediately bursts into laughter and through his guffaws my DM tells me to roll a sleight of hand check. I failed the roll so the DM tells me "You just kind of awkwardly touch his feet." My response? "I keep doing it." No matter what the DM said my response was "I keep touching his feet weirdly while staring into his eyes."

I know it's because the DM wants to get the game going but damn if it didn't work. The goblin screams "STOP! THIS IS SO WEIRD! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! FINE! I'LL TELL YOU!" and then spills the beans. We were laughing so hard a few people had to take bathroom breaks.

ADHD Tip: Dont assume attention, lateness and interrupting are always intentional.

All these tips are brilliant and I know it's only a short video so you can't consider every nuisance but particularly players who struggle with adhd, these things might not always be done intentionally for example I have adhd and my dm tries to keep me engaged and on time, but sometimes there are slip ups. I sometimes interrupt so other players politely go you might have interrupted. I always profusely apologise. And why recaps, I'd say polite recaps are fine as long as you ask for them. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Attention isn't something we have control over. Our brain just goes to the dopamine. I try to leave my phone somewhere else as to not get distracted.

I play dnd online and it makes me really sad when my players, especially one of them, first never has time to play the game and when he does have time he is always late, one time i waited for three hours, and he does not respect that i have taken time to carefully pick what music i want in my andventure, instead he listens to his own music and when I tell him that i have picked music to fit the vibe of this encounter he just says that "nah its okay, i have my own music". What should i do?

I don't think the term "Thats what my character would do" is bad. I think it's bad you made a character that would willingly screw over the party.

God i hate when videos don’t actually start until you’re 2 minutes into the video

My biggest problem personally is I always interrupt, I realize I do it and apologize but it’s a problem I got to work on

Do you have a video on being a bad DM and how to spot one at your table?

He's sitting there, imagining that the camera is his problem players and then just hard hitting them with everything they did over the years.

I appreciate this video. I realize I've made some of these mistakes that my DM was too nice to call me out on.

I am trying to watch this... but the over the top acting and the annoying voices ... 3 mins in can't see me finishing it.

I’m new to DND and you have helped me see my flaws. Thank you so much.

I only ignore plot hooks that are obvious traps

I’m a new player my dm let me go non evil oathbreaker Paladin. The party and dm are awesome can’t wait for my next session

Even as a player I hate when someone starts talking while the DM describes a place or scene. Please respect their time invested into the game and listen to them. If you wanna make jokes about whats happening do it after the DM finished.

My sister has a stuffed cat that looks exactly like the one in the first skit only black, ALSO called Fat Cat. Fun little coincidence

this was required readig for myself from my DM. and while its alll valid, the condescending tone ... i doubt ill be watching another video, and i dont think ill be iin that campaign for long.

I love this video, but I’m having a problem as a player. I try to roleplay and I’ve had to bend over backwards to find reasons for my ‘good’ aligned character to travel with a loner, extortionist con-man (that’s thrown her into danger, shot her, and tells her regularly that he doesn’t need her help) and a condescending, snobbish noblewoman (that has also physically harmed her and tells her not to be friendly towards her as it’s ‘condescending’). I wait and listen when they are having dramatic moments, but when it’s my turn, they constantly disrupt my dialogue with jokes at the situation and at my expense. The DM is onboard with this behavior and encouraged the conman character to cause actually d4 damage to my character as a joke during an important in game crisis with multiply bosses. The DM has been specifically targeting my character by taking all the NPCs she’s befriended and either kidnapped, tortured or killed them off. When I try to act out my characters normal human sorrowful response to this…..the players make fun of my character and me by proxy, but joking my character needs antidepressants. I don’t want to be thin skinned and cause problems for the table, but I feel like I’ve been singled out for the amusement of the other players. Has anyone else dealt with a situation like this?

I was told by somebody about this game

Every point is excellent and happens to remind me of one.single.player.

I am a problem player I had to try to and juggle addulting with 4 different dnd games and it was affecting my mental health that and my life is filled with constant drama cuz of taxes and well family needing to help provide cuz it's impossible to live by yourself in my state. And one just has to have drama every day and from what my dm told me that I was arguing with another player which in my defense I didn't know he had that skill in the game. Because I don't look through others character sheets cuz roll 20 doesn't let you and my memory is shit so I fail to ask a lot. But tl;dr real life issues is pouring into the game and it's not making everyone happy.

Well at least for a Saturday game

Who else got sent this video by their dm

But my character totally would cast magical tinkering on pebbles to make sewer smells and then place the pebbles in their pouches:(

I am about to play d&d again soon after a long break. This video was a nice freshener!

This wasn't as much "tips" as "things players do that annoy me"

One thing I do with my back story where I make a novel of stuff and give it to my dm but for game purposes I give him a 1 page maximum highlight of my back story

My dm does this thing where depending on the lie on very rare occasions characters have earned advantage on deception and intimidation checks. One time I had this morbid intimidation tactic and my dm said he didn't know how the goblins wouldn't be scared so I get advantage.

Some people are not comfortable acting their character's feelings. I agree it makes for a better immersive experience, but some people can't do that for whatever reason. They could be shy in real life, socially awkward, bullied in school so have learned not to bring attention to themselves, general low real life charisma. Narrating their character's feelings is the best they can do. It's ok to encourage and teach acting it out, but I wouldn't push too hard. It's weak roleplaying, but it is roleplaying.

Ohhh thats why i quit being a dm

Thank you this video helps out a lot. 😉

I play in a game with four players including myself. Two of the players don't have the slightest clue what to do with their characters unless I tell them what to do. Worse, they don't have a tactical bone in their bodies. One of them is playing the absolute least effective character build possible for the campaign they are in. Her choices in a fight boil down to use her wand of fireballs (bent over backwards to get that for her) or shoot her shortbow (Forest druid in a city/dungeon game). The other clueless player at least let me create their character for them (with of course a degree of consultation). They play a life cleric who upcasts spirit guardians and then casts spiritual weapon.

Thanks that helped a-lot.

Omg my players have done literally all of these things 😂 these are great

I play by your rules of timing the players turns they get 1 minute each, pausing when math is doing done.

nat 20 for loving your videos.

showing this to my players, they would get offended xD
(some people dont got time to read out 9 trait and ability and spell cards that i make for them)

i have always had an awesome character idea in mind, a warlock with a twisted mind, adventuring to fulfill the desire of killing, working as a "good guy" and convincing everybody that he's adventuring for some noble purpose, like "making the world a better place" or something. Make his evil tendencies flow out slowly out of him, let have the party members face his corruption, maybe give him a redemption arc too.

Too bad i don't have anybody to play d&d with.

Fun fact I (DM) can roleplay a lof of NPCs and have a campaign for over a year now but the moment I am the player I am kinda lost.

Meh... not everyone likes to roleplay like that.

In a new group, I couldn't do that. You've really gotta step out of your comfort zone to do that.

I'd like too... but EVERYONE else needs to be doing it too lol...

Kinda like swimming in the ocean..

Won't do it alone, but when I see dozens... hundreds of people doing it, I can do it.

I need to know something my friend and I playing Dungeon and Dragon but naruto version. It just me as a player and him as a DM, this happen twice recently in the story I'm on a mission it's 4 characters in a team and have to pick one to be the 4th member. It's 7 option characters and gotta pick 1 but here the catch if I don't choose a specific character out of the 7 one of my teammate will die. I have many choices during the mission but that character I pick determined the Sensai die. It make me so frustrated because it's not determined my other decisions though out in that mission, it that one decision decide the character die. It wouldn't be frustrated if I have 3 or 4 out of 7 characters to choose decide my whole team will make it out alive or not but it's 1 out of 7 chance that one of my team member will die. I want to know from a DM perspective what's your thoughts about this and should not trip over about it?

I'm new to dnd and the only one of these I think I'm at fault for is not always paying attention and asking for recaps not because I am looking at my phone but I have a hard time focusing and I'm hard hearing so sometimes I do pay attention but I didn't hear everything so still need a recap

Finally about to play my first campaign with my friends from the local community theater, so the role-playing aspect should be a blast!

Also if you can't make a session PLEASE INFORM THE DM! It really is the least thing you can do and if helps the situation a lot because if you don't everybody else might be spending the first hour of gametime waiting for you to arrive, trying to get you on the phone to find out if / when you'll arrive and maybe they are genuinly worried about what might have happened. So please don't just not sho up (not only to D&D).

What? It wasn't the rogue who screwed over the party. Inconceivable!

Comment for the algorithm, thanks for the video

Thank you for making such an informative video it really helped me understand how to play

Thank you, I'm new to DND and wanted to be a better player, now i can.

But sometimes that genuinely IS what you feel your character would do. I'm not talking about working against the groups clear intent to sneak by walking up to the orcs.

I mean like the time my monk retired from adventuring to take over his family Dojo after his father was killed. I'm sure the DM wanted me to seek vengeance. But it was IN the backstory that the only reason he was adventuring, was to prove his martial skills to others, so that when he took over the Dojo, students knew he was worth learning from, that he was proven in battle. The family Dojo had always been run by heroes, that was how they maintained their reputation. And my character was already a proven hero at this point. The Dojo needed a master and the surviving little sister needed a guardian, now that their father was gone. The DM looked pretty stunned when I (in character) told the group I was staying. I had a Dojo to run and a grieving child sister to look after. The DM was clearly expecting me to want vengeance. But as a character I had been leaning into the zen side of being a monk. Vengeance over his duty to the Dojo and sister. Just wasn't who that character was supposed to be...


After that I just played a big dumb Goliath Barbarian (no I wasn't copying Grog, I barely even knew who Critical Role was back then). I just wanted to make a more... "simple" character.
Someone who would bite the vengeance hook that the DM kept baiting (it was pretty much his only trick). I had a lot of fun RP-ing the big dumb oaf though. I leant into it any and every time. Like the time I intentionally fell down a flight of stairs because he was to dumb to believe that the floor that he was just TOLD is an illusion by a party member, was actually an illusion. Declaring "whot you talkin bout, dats clearly a floor. You needs ta get yer eyes check'd mate" as I stepped forward confidently, positive I would walk on the solid floor I could clearly see... The DM thankfully clicked on to what I was doing and had me roll a check. Luckily, the dice played along too. Nat 1. Doooooown I go, all the way to the bottom of the stairs.... Anyway, not really relevant. It just happened to be with that Goliath Barbarian character in the same campaign. One of my fave Dnd stories.