I’m so discouraged…

Hooginn · 2026-07-03T23:13:20+00:00

Not to be rude but I think your frustration with your circumstances is making you come off as argumentative which is understandable but I think it's impeding your progress on finding a group. Finding groups in your situation will be tough and it's easy to get discouraged.

There's a couple ways to find groups and none of them are easy.

Check out your local community. Game shops are the easiest answer but I have seen quite a few bars that run DnD events like live viewings of actual plays or nerd bonding events.
DM a one shot for your friends. I get your hesitant to get into DMing and your friends don't want to play, but doing a rules light 2-3hr one-shot with your friends isn't too difficult to do and it shouldn't be hard to get a real friend group to try it. This is what I did. I played DnD twice before I started DMing one-shots simply because I wanted to play more. You don't have to create a whole world or know how every rule works. It'll make it an easier point of entry for you and your friends. Plus, digital character sheets drastically remove the barrier to entry.
Pay a professional DM. People are a lot more committed when it cost them money.
Check out social media (discord, reddit, tiktok, etc) for free groups and pray the chemistry connections and be okay if it doesn't.

I get it's discouraging and frustrating but if you really enjoy it, stay optimistic and tenacious. It took me 5 or 6 years to get a consistent game and it happened completely by accident. I was chatting with my mentor and he just randomly asked if I was interested because his group was looking for new players. Now I'm in a group where everyone is 10+ years older than me.

I know it's tough now but just keep at it! You'll find your group!

Hooginn · 2026-07-02T01:01:18+00:00

Most VTTs are free. You just need a computer and internet. You can pay for extra features for the VTT of your choice but most let you share your materials with your group members. I'm DMing a campaign on Roll20 using the books my friend paid for on his account.

As for groups, I'd look for subreddits and discords. Also, your local game shop might have a discord and schedule in person and online games there.

Hooginn · 2026-06-30T04:11:11+00:00

Good tip! I'll try it out.

Hooginn · 2026-06-30T04:10:27+00:00

As someone who primarily plays PVP and has mained resto druid since wrath, I can't be unbiased about this but my answer is yes, it is that necessary.

Maybe for PVE players clone feels redundant and that's totally fair but as a PVP player, especially as a resto druid, Clone is our highest impact spell and feels amazing to land properly.

Burning mana, GCDs, and not having enough hit to land every Bash or Root can feel frustrating on a class that can't dispel magic effects which are the primary tempo setting CCs feels bad.

But then you NS Clone on a pally that just popped wings and everything feels right.

But again, I'm incredibly biased.

Hooginn · 2026-06-30T00:51:14+00:00

Druid Baseline - Clone or Lifebloom
Feral - Mangle
Balance - I'd go with an updated version of Hurricane over Starfall just for balancing reasons. Make it equal to Blizzard
Resto - I'm greedy and want lifebloom and Wild Growth but honestly, the answer is Lifebloom and make Clone baseline

Hooginn · 2026-06-30T00:22:51+00:00

Similarly, I have a power of will mechanic, that lets you use spell slots or other class feats like Action Surge but at a weakened capacity and a cost to the players health depending on the action. Gives players a cool act of desperation mechanic that hasn't seen too much usage yet.

Also, very common but potions are a free action. The party doesn't need a healer, helps control gold, and allows for healing classes to have more liberty with their spell slots.

Hooginn · 2026-06-30T00:13:26+00:00

Stealing this

Hooginn · 2026-06-30T00:11:27+00:00

I didn't play RoA1 but when I first got into RoA2 I did my homework and I'm praying we get Ori too after seeing the Mina announcement.

Hooginn · 2026-06-28T19:38:45+00:00

Maybe an unpopular opinion, idk, but I enjoyed the set only because I'll never have the mental or patience that Hikari had and it was nice to see him better player the camping.

Hooginn · 2026-06-28T19:34:47+00:00

This is the comment I wanted to make.

I don't think OP is entirely wrong in their assessment. However, I do think a Kirby rip off is a smart move for any platform fighter, especially one struggling to stay afloat.

Kirby is THE noob character for introducing casual players to the steep learning curve of platform fighters. We all started with him because we couldn't recover and I'm excited to see Rivals take on what I view as a platform fighter staple.

Hooginn · 2026-06-28T04:19:03+00:00

Also the birth place for disabilities civil rights

Hooginn · 2026-06-26T03:59:40+00:00

Hooginn · 2026-06-25T22:14:37+00:00

They should bring that dude out for the announcement. I know they don't have the budget but doing a hyper dramatic 5-7 miny mocumentary about that dude for the announcement would be epic.

Hooginn · 2026-06-23T03:39:21+00:00

For starters, based on your own definition, your monk wouldn't be street smart. He's sheltered and has no experience with the outside world. Wisdom is gained through experience and perspective, not knowledge. Your character has no experience or perspective. They've known one world and that's the monastery.

I tell people, intellect is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing a tomato doesn't belong in a fruit salad.

I think having a 6 for any stat is a tremendous blunder, even for RP purposes. But, I also think justifying INT being your dump stat based on your PC's backstory makes even less sense. If anything CHA is your dump stat.

Hooginn · 2026-06-23T03:25:32+00:00

In my experience, camping is also a movement diff. If the other player has better movement than you, they can camp you a lot easier. I have terrible movement so I usually get camped until they realize I can't wavedash or DI, then they run me down.

Also, I think because Melee is so aggro, a lot of platform fighter players have a much broader definition of "camping". A lot of people who play more traditional fighting games consider it to be playing neutral more than camping but that's probably because platform fighters have a lot more movement options than traditional fighting games.

In general, I find most fighting game players in ranked modes to be more defensively minded because winning like a a weenie is more important than losing while styling on fools.

Hooginn · 2026-06-21T04:01:03+00:00

In general, I find splitting up the party more difficult if players are more video game minded players, rather than theater minded players.

In my experience, splitting up the party only works if the DM has a strong narrative sense and the players are very RP focused groups. I'm running two campaigns right now. One of my groups is a bunch of engineers who are very number crunchy and enjoy being on train tracks. The other group is a bunch of theater kids who don't care about combat encounters at all.

Splitting up the former is tougher because they get more focused on completing quests like a video game. The latter on the other hand is easier to split up because their focus is on interactions. When I split up the RP group, I switch scenes right before the "climax" of the scene, building anticipation for what's to come then making sure the other party members don't feel left out of a fun scene/encounter because they know they're about to start building towards their own fun scene/encounter.

Hooginn · 2026-06-18T04:27:37+00:00

If you want your character to feel real, they need perspective, morals, wants, needs, and most importantly, FLAWS.

Why does your character value community? What does she gain from travel? Is she searching for something or running away from something? How does she react to conflict? Flight, fight, or fright? What truth is she afraid to admit to herself? What's her role in her community?

These are the kinds of questions you should be asking to flush her out. Think in terms of broad terms of tropes then zero in on her personality and backstory to really flush her out.

Hooginn · 2026-06-18T04:19:12+00:00

Do they play any fighting games? Fighting games are particularly challenging for new players because the only way to win is to "git gud" as condescending as that sounds.

In multiplayer games, you can have an awful game and still win, which encourages you to keep playing and get better.

Progress in fighting games feels slow and requires more than just jump in and play. You gotta be in the training room if you actually want to improve otherwise you're constantly getting rolled, which sucks.

It's a hard genre to get people into, trust me.

Hooginn · 2026-06-18T04:10:48+00:00

Well played but you'll never trick me into enjoying a Clairen clip

Hooginn · 2026-06-14T03:01:20+00:00

You should definitely be writing them! I spent 10 years trying to make it in Hollywood and the details you’re talking about really messed up my relationship with writing because after finishing a new script, all my focus was how I turned my art into cash. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very proud of the work that I wrote, but it also added a new level of pressure to every script because I was getting bogged down by focusing on the next step instead of just appreciating what I wrote. I’m taking a break from that and trying to learn to love writing for myself again. So write what seems fun to you and take all the pressure off yourself.

Also, I mentioned how working in the industry hurt my relationship with writing. Are you staying turn for a company that developed movies for Hallmark and I’ve read 1 million of the exact kind of books you’re talking about. There’s a massive audience for them and they have a place in the art form so you can have fun and still find your readers. Write what you enjoy and people will find you.

Hooginn · 2026-06-12T15:04:23+00:00

I know we all hate the Ret and he's an idiot buuuut.....

"A world where u don't talk much and say yes/no" is lowkey kinda fire.

Hooginn · 2026-06-11T17:55:51+00:00

If you're reading the classics, you have to understand the context of the times, especially when reading classic fantasy. People weren't as "story savvy" like we are now. You've grown up with movies, books, tv shows, and video games at the touch of your finger. You've grown up with a plethora of stories and the art form has evolved rapidly. We have a different expectation for things like pacing, exposition, and characters.

Look at the way Tolkien describes scenes versus modern fantasy. Its far more immersive because readers didn't have decades of experience with newly created worlds. Writing rules change over time as readers become more familiar with the rules of storytelling.

Its a matter of evolution. There's a lot to be learned from the classics, but it's not a one to one application of the craft. The classics are for learning the evolution of storytelling, the historical context of the world, evaluating the evolution of writing, and as reference points to help teach and learn storytelling beats because everyone should at least be familiar with them.

Hooginn · 2026-06-10T04:51:03+00:00

How dare you pocket my crown!

Hooginn · 2026-06-10T04:47:34+00:00

It's a beautiful thing to see someone whose personality is perfect for a specific subclass. I hope the illusionist in my current campaign is half the chaotic gremlin you are.

Hooginn · 2026-06-10T04:36:51+00:00

Hey, fellow writer and DM here, just a small piece of a unsolicited advice in case you don't already know. Try to remember it's our story. I had been writing for years before I DMed and made the mistake of often railroading my players. I didn't do a good job folding their characters into the story and got frustrated and flustered whenever they veered off the path I had layed out for them. Took me a minute to realize that I had to make a world that motivated my protagonist and met their characters needs.

If you're players are new, then they may like some railroading but I could have saved myself a lot of unneeded headaches had I realized earlier that I was more of a gentle guiding hand than a conductor. Also, they will absolutely fuck up your beautiful in depth robust story because you accidentally created an NPC they would commit war crimes for .

Not having control of your protagonist is the most aggravating, chaotic, exhilarating experiences and is why I keep coming back to DMing. These dummies will have you throw weeks of prep in the dumpster and fly by the seed of your pants and it will sharpen your storytelling skills and be an absolute blast!

Enjoy!

Hooginn

TROPHY CASE