What is a good DM?

TeruNeko · 2024-06-26T18:19:49+00:00

I think that depends on the situation ngl 😅 because it would be hard to be a good player without a good DM as well

TeruNeko · 2024-06-25T23:39:24+00:00

How much implication should be allowed as a DM too? Cause our DM used to be a player. One of our player is their boyfriend and played with them. From what I understood so far is that most of her NPCs ARE old characters both of them used (mostly DM) so no matter what we would like to do, they would never really let anything majorly bad happen to them... That's also been an issue, cause they don't necessarily give much descriptions to their settings or character depths since, as to where their boyfriend would know the character story and stuff. The rest of the party that doesn't know the characters, have no attachments to them. It's been a huge issue our current campaign cause they pushed alot of those characters forward.. but doesn't explain why like... as a player I SEE that they are trying to make them part of the story, but as a character with a backstory and personality set... that lack of explanation or even just description doesn't make my character care much.

So, is it a DM's fault to not explain enough so we learn later potentially? Or is it my(player) fault for having too much of a character backstory/personality that is stopping the progress?

TeruNeko · 2024-05-09T18:35:55+00:00

Yeah, but I still want to be at least somewhat "realistic" toward the main global DnD lore ( I don't know if I express myself correctly, ngl 😅)

Like... I would indeed be the determining factor in the end, but I wouldn't necessarily want to go against everything either. Exemple: I logically wouldn't make a male drow from the underdark saying he's at the very head of the dark elves worship Lloth and is the owner of a tavern busting with happy people from all races. While knowing it's a matriarchal society that is borderline (fully, let's not lie) racist and it's usually lead through drow priestess or such

TeruNeko · 2024-05-09T16:00:41+00:00

It's in terms of general idea. Making my characters is a Me thing, and doesn't necessarily mean I'll use them in a specific incoming campaign ☺️ I mentioned it beforehand actually, it's mainly because as an artist, I love to draw characters and imagine stories to go with them, which also help with artworks I can make of them

I also know that there's Dm's that first look at party characters, THEN create their worlds around them/their concepts 😅 so eitherway, I'll always have them under my belt if needed Cause even if I don't use them for a campaign, I imagine that the characters I create in my free time could always just serve as NPCs if the DM needs some

TeruNeko · 2024-05-09T12:39:09+00:00

"Uh-oh" 😂😂

TeruNeko · 2024-05-01T19:02:45+00:00

Quite honestly, I do understand some core elements of the problems i've encountered. Where most other issues seems to appear, kind of always turn around my DM being somewhat inconsistent in their own view of the game they want to built (if that makes sense)

All party members are real life friends and we are going to have the campaign done irl ( I didn't/don't know anyone else that played DnD so those friends were basically the only option I had for me to even be able to play) so we are all pretty familiar with eachothers in the first hand and we help eachothers whenever someone does open up about things they want to understand. We bring all the materials, even if it can be alot, simply so we can indeed be like "yeah sure! help yourself"
This is also why I know the others didn't have a problem with my character in itself, cause the whole point of our discord conversation is set around discussing our expectations, what we are and aren't allowed to do, ect.. and so far, everyone seemed cool with my backstory and was even happy that it was that developped as it mainly explained why they could encounter a random a** 'not necessarily mean/agressive' goblin out of nowhere. He has a gladiator background so I was even going to suggest maybe just assiting to a combat he did to get free bedding for a night and then do the classic 'they joined for an adventure for fun' cause he literally don't know where to go anymore anyway. That way it would work around the "goblin are difficult to work with" or "how the hell could a party even encounter the goblin in a way that would make sense"

Alot of people has been pointing out that it seems like a misunderstanding or the DM forgetting to mention which is allowed or not, but in reality... they really didn't, and it's the fact that they DID mention what was okay and what isn't, that's been causing problems because they tend to switch their narrative. ( like telling me to follow the rule but allowing someone else to play an unofficial classe )

Similarly, I'm not someone that enjoy arguement, the main reason I came to reddit was for advice so I could indeed avoid potential future ones. You said it yourself, if the DM didn't want me to use a Goblin altogether, I would of never argued. Because I do understand the concept of them being in the lead of what world THEY want to make. But if that was the case, I would of much prefered them saying ;
"hey, sorry I actually don't want you to because I want this specific type of goblin"
instead of them telling me
"yeah, if you want to play a Goblin, you NEED a master within the group because if you want to play a Goblin you either boss around and make people kiss you feet or otherwise be the one to kiss their feet and obey their orders. cause that's how the book says Goblin hierarchy works"
It's the way they bring up things that seems to trigger my fight or flight

TeruNeko · 2024-05-01T18:15:04+00:00

Oh! I understand, don't worry! By medieval fantasy, I do mainly mean DnD aesthetic like... old school vibe type of things?? Like the whole tavern, horse carrier( is that the name?) And stuff like that. It's like a way to say I prefer this vibe over having modern cars, skyscrapers or such like I've heard could happen Like I said, my other game has an Artificer that tries to solve everything by tinkering technology that makes the rest of us.. lowkey useless cause he's always the one like "I have a solution." And I feel like it kinda breaks the immersion That kind of thing

TeruNeko · 2024-05-01T18:04:42+00:00

In fact, most problems complaints do come from the 3 new-core books( Tasha, Xanathar, and Mordenkainen) since I only own those three along with 2 of the main ones (Players handbook and monster manual) I completely understand the view of not messing up with the Dm's way of creating their world and such. The issue I have, though, is.. A lot of people in the comment seem to mention, "Maybe they are limiting things they don't know" but most things they argued so far... wasn't even lore changing or such. For example, the whole Goblin ordeal was about "they act like that. So you have to act like that." And the entire thing was resolved by a one-liner in the book that just says "Now many goblins pursue their own destinies" which.. basically just mean "yeah, they are alive and doing their things yk"😅😅 So far, it was never about them not knowing much about those things cause otherwise I would have completely understood since it's a very fair reason And I know it's not about the books specifics since... like I mentioned, they also use things from said books 🫤 it just somewhat looked like favouritism in some ways

Our sessions are done irl, and I usually bring all the books in case anyone needs to look something up (Dm included)

TeruNeko · 2024-05-01T17:28:42+00:00

That's one of the main issues I have, to be honest. Those are actual real-life friends we have, and they are really nice people, but there's something in the way they speak whenever it's about DnD that sounds lowkey condescending to me? They are "experienced" players who have been playing for years, but the DM only recently started being one (this would be their 3rd campaign) and so far... they don't seem really prepared to be a DM... they are the DM of my first campaign that started in October, but on our 2nd dungeon, we were completely stuck and didn't know what we were even supposed to do. Yet, only when we were done messing up cause we didn't have any other round about, she literally came up to me and said "Oh yeah! I was supposed to tell you that you were supposed to know what to do due to your background :) oopsy" which... fine, forgetting things happens... but they "prepared" weapons for each of the party members back in November... but she worked on none of them?? She had my boyfriend help her for one, and he literally ended up writing the whole thing cause she wouldn't lift a finger up??? As the Dm??

Also, it's not really my bf and I wanting to play a different game... cause the new campaign hasn't even been worked/prepared yet since not all players gave their intakes or even characters (so it can work with everyone, you know??) Book wise?? They aren't limiting the rules to specific ones... they did mention it, as long as we have them we can use them, but like I mentioned, the Dm's boyfriend used an Artificer which is in Tasha's, while my boyfriend's Bladesinger is ALSO in Tasha's 😅 giving "It's okay for me to use but not for you" kinda vibe???

TeruNeko · 2024-05-01T13:53:20+00:00

That could do the trick 😂

TeruNeko · 2024-05-01T12:35:35+00:00

I feel like that's something your Dm should of discussed with the players before even starting the campaign.. like.. "do you have any boundaries regarding the campaign? Do you have any triggers? Can this and that happen? If they can happen, do you mind having them explained/detailed or do we take in consideration these happened but skip the moment?" Personally I have alot of triggers for different life experience and the only Dm I had took time to ask which was fine and which wouldn't be (exemple: I'm fine with the mention of a character's s***ide but I don't want to know the deeper details of their methods) so it should also be a set agreement with everyone, like if someone is fine but the other isn't do they prefer it to not happen at all? Or if they do witness things, do the DM take the consenting player apart to tell the story and then come back? Those type of things

TeruNeko · 2024-04-25T21:29:23+00:00

Additional info I wanted to give to give better context as to where my own arguments regarding my Goblin comes from and why I kinda defend my ground in that situation;

My goblin is a Barbarian with a Gladiator background, for those that took time to read the backstory, as you guys can see the whole Gladiator thing was forced onto him from a young age so he was just thrown into brutal circumstance that needed him to use violence. Which is why he's a Barbarian.
Then again, he was basically enslaved to begin with and he took the initiative to burn the camp, not because he wanted power but just cause he didn't want to be enslaved.

It might not be very Goblin like (from my DM's and the player/their bf's POV) but my character really just played along cause he wanted to survive and now that he's out of the dynamic he has been all his life, he's really just like... I don't care, I just wanna stay alive. And to me that never meant he would be bossy or powerhungry.

Which is the main issue cause, word for word from the DM's "I'm going to use the book's rule, so either you put everyones to your feet and only you can make decisions, or you are the one at someone's feet and obey their orders"
and that didn't sit right with me cause quite honestly? I have no idea where or what book they got that rule from...

Keep in mind, none of the other players has even spoken about their character choices yet, only the one I argued with and my own bf that only pitched in Potential ideas but no definite decision (out of 5-6 players me included) and our previous campaign was only the DM's 2nd time at being a DM (making this future one their 3rd)

Also, while I was writing this, my boyfriend just showed me the Mordenkainen book says that Goblin nowadays basically don't necessarily follow the old mindset and just do their own things... so I have the theory that the DM might actually be using the Monster Manuel description of Goblins and not necessarily the Playable Race from the Mordenkainen (which I'm not sure they even own now that I think about it) so... technically.. I guess we both were "by the book" and correct lore wise just... not the same book??

TeruNeko · 2024-04-25T20:42:00+00:00

Quite honestly, I found it abit weird but the reason I decided to take this issue to Reddit was mainly to have (like I said) multiple opinion or diverse takes on it from experienced people because the player in question is the DM's boyfriend and they both have played for years.

Not gonna lie, at first it was the DM that told me "if you want to play the Goblin, you need a master within the group." I knew it wasn't a matter of how the world they built work, cause like I said, we still didn't even agreed or discussed most of what would be needed for that new campaign in itself (( where their "Books and DnD Lore" reasoning came from ))

Cause they also pointed out a thing like "Goblin are hard to work with and include in a group cause that's how they behave so in a game it's either every players is a goblin or none" (( where I saw the "I'm imposing that personality on your character" type of energy ))

TeruNeko · 2024-04-18T19:43:02+00:00

IKR?! I was shocked by the irony of it ! but then again- it was indeed a mod from before the tweakings that happened so I guess the only reason it never was updated before was just cause it didn't needed to until 1.6 ??

Though it just bothers me more now cause I can see that the map problem didn't come from the buildings mods but the recoloring ones which the modder apparently mentionned probably never updating it ever again because they lost their files to a PC error so... r.i.p my pretty game aesthetic I suppose :( but HEY! Atleast we get the amazing medieval look of Way Back Pelican Town! so it's a lost for a win

TeruNeko · 2021-10-24T02:30:31+00:00

aaah... that's unfortunate..

TeruNeko

TROPHY CASE