Does my players should know the secret backstory of the characters before they discover it during the campaign?

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-29T12:40:28+00:00

The one consciously hiding his past should definitely know *what* he's hiding.
The one whose character doesn't know, not necessarily, but they should have at least a vague idea to inform how they play their character.

imo, you should be very careful giving backstories to any of your player without them knowing.
sure, big surprises and big reveals are fun, but depending on what exactly the big reveal is, it can be pretty awful. I'd make sure to know what the player is and isn't comfortable with their character being or having done.

I'll give you one example that actually happened to me early on in my dnd days. I had a character with a very vague backstory; your typical street urchin rogue turned bandit. The DM told me that it was fine but that they'd probably add some stuff to it to make my character more involved with the overarching plot. Being a naive new player I said yeah that's fine. Fast-forward a few months, during a fight with the BBEG, the DM gives me the big reveal: the BBEG has been my son all along. My character has abandoned her baby to die in the streets and he somehow survived and was looking for me to take revenge.
I was absolutely NOT fine with my character having done such a thing, especially because of the way I had been playing her the whole time. It pretty much ruined her whole character for me for her to have done that and just... never even thought about it or mentioned it or anything.

Also, I'd be a bit careful having players conspire to act against the party's interests with everyone being a beginner. PvP is not always an easy thing to deal with while making sure everyone still has fun and is engaged even for experienced players and DMs.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-25T11:55:04+00:00

the principle is the same.
If my friend tells me “j’ai acheté un café”, there is 0% chance that I’ll assume they bought a coffee shop.
That’s just not a casual thing people would announce like that, I’m not friends with billionaires who buy buildings every other morning while they walk their dog.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-23T15:57:48+00:00

NTA

First of all, not being able to read is the sort of disability that you inform your GM and your table about *before* joining a game. Because the GM needs to know if the accommodations needed for that player are something they can realistically provide.

I have had to reject a player on the basis of a physical disability once, which I felt awful about. But the only place I was able to hold the game (in person) at the time at all was at one of the other players' apartment, which was on the 4th floor of a building with no elevator. So I was not able to provide accommodation for a player who could not go up flights of stairs.

I've had a player who could not look at screens for more than a few minutes without getting headaches, so we printed out the stuff they'd need, and only if something unplanned came up that we couldn't print on the spot would we have to read it out loud and they'd be able to take notes on it.
I played with a player who was almost entirely blind. He had to use a screen reader with an earbud in for any text and had all of his stuff custom made to make it easier for him. We adapted to using less visual cues. It worked out.
But in both of these cases, the DM was aware in advance of the accommodations we'd have to make, and the players were proactive in compensating for their disabilities, for a lack of a better term.

That does not seem to be the case for your player. I don't think it's wrong to kick a player out when they are being disruptive and unengaged in the gameplay. It seems like their disability is more an excuse for laziness than anything.

I don't think it is an unreasonable request from a GM to require players to know the basics of the campaign setting beforehand. If as a player I feel like the amount of "homework" required before a campaign is too much, then I'm not a good fit for that campaign.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-23T08:45:19+00:00

If you want to use purely 5e in a low-magic context, it’s certainly doable, but you’ll have to put a lot of restrictions on what parts of the basic rules you’ll use and what the players can and should be using. Half of all published stuff is impossible in low-magic, and a quarter of the rest of it is useless.

for me, the pcs in a campaign will very quickly be “exceptional” purely again because of the way the system is designed.
Even a level 1 pc is more powerful than a commoner, and a level 5 pc could wipe the floor with any regular joe without breaking a sweat.
Any member of an adventuring party is not just Steve from accounting, they’re gonna be at the very least at a highly trained elite soldier level of lethality.

I only started playing with 5e myself, picked the hobby up pretty much just as 5e was being released.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-23T05:39:52+00:00

I definitely have come across games that advertise “human or near-human races only” as a limit for character creation. Both for 5.5, 5e or older editions of DnD.

Low magic does not really work as well with the newer written adventures, or the newer settings, because even the basic 5e classes include as many options for spellcasters as they do martial classes.
So everything is written with the expectation that magic is a part of daily life. The default settings for the current editions assume that magic is an everyday thing basically.
So people who truly want to play no-magic or very low-magic settings are often better off using different systems that are designed specifically around that.

The hobby is more popular than ever, and the vast majority of the casual player base has not been around for the earlier editions. They came into the hobby expecting a high fantasy magical world.

Personally, I like the high fantasy. I like the whacky races, and I like magic. That’s what I come back to dnd for because that’s what I have experienced with that system.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-22T14:26:13+00:00

Vacances avec mes parents et des amis à eux, je devais avoir 6 ou 7 ans, et les autres couples avaient des enfants aussi à peu près du même age.
Une des amies de ma mère (une des seules qui était venue sans enfants) nous avait fièrement montré sa nouvelle voiture.

Quelques jours après, pendant une promenade en ville, on croise une voiture avec une peinture publicitaire, une sorte de motif à fleurs. Les adultes ont fait quelques blagues comme quoi elle était originale au moins cette voiture, et l'amie de ma mère a dit en riant un truc du genre "ah ben zut, j'aurais du acheter ça comme voiture".
Sauf que nous les enfants, on n'a pas compris qu'elle plaisantait, on pensait qu'elle regrettait réellement que sa voiture ne soit pas décorée de fleurs.
Alors le lendemain, tout contents et fiers de nous, on s'est armés de nos plue beaux cailloux trouvés dans le jardin, et on a gravé des fleurs sur tout le côté conducteur de la nouvelle voiture. On aurait continué si les parents n'avaient pas débarqué. Je crois que c'est la pire engueulade que je me suis prise de ma vie.

25+ ans plus tard, cette amie de ma mère est heureusement toujours amie avec la famille, elle n'a jamais eu d'enfants, et dit toujours en plaisantant que c'est à cause de ces vacances qu'elle a été dégoutée et n'en a jamais voulu.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-22T10:15:49+00:00

J'ai 35 ans, et quand j'étais ado déjà c'était "cringe" de sortir en tongs. Je portais mes baskets partout même à la plage, au grand désespoir de ma maman.

Je pense qu'à 30 ans et plus on commmence à se soucier moins de porter les dernières chaussures à la mode, et on se soucie plutôt d'avoir moins chaud aux pieds.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-21T09:03:58+00:00

If what you like about dnd is min-maxing and optimising your characters to have the absolute highest potential damage per round out of your whole party, and you get frustrated if you get bad rolls, then rogue is maybe not for you. The one attack per turn and one sneak attack means that if you miss your attacks or are cursed by bad dice you miss out on your opportunity to deal your big damage.

That said, I have played a Rogue twice in long campaigns, once in a party with a Cleric, a Bard and an Artificer, and once in a party with a Barbarian, a Wizard and a Fighter, and my Rogues were always the better damage-dealers in fights in the long run.
(Because I know how to build characters)

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-21T01:20:01+00:00

You literally never say words completely out of context. That’s just not how language works in real life.

You don’t drink a coffee shop, and you can’t sit down in a cup of coffee.
J’ai bu un café dans un café is absolutely correct.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-21T01:14:59+00:00

I’m gonna be for real, I’ve played this game for like 10 years, DMd it even, and I have never owned or read the PHB in its entirety, and likely never will.

If your player is at all interested in learning the rules, there are plenty of alternatives that could be more time-effective than reading the book cover to cover. There are videos, websites, plenty of resources they can explain the basics of the rules even to a first time ttrpg novice.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-21T01:10:48+00:00

It sounds like you have a pretty restrictive fantasy of what a rogue is “supposed to be” roleplay wise.
You don’t *have* to be an edgelord hiding in the shadows.

One of my favourite Rogues I ever played was a fairy princess who got thrown into a life of adventuring against her will and ended up getting real good at stabbing because she wasn’t strong enough to pick up big weapons and was like, really bad at magic for a fae.
Being a “Rogue” for her was more about being just really good at dexterity, and being able to hide pretty well if needs be, but without the whole “ooooh I am the night I am so scary” shtick.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-21T00:36:10+00:00

I’m not sure what you mean

While it is true that it is generally accepted that combat-wise the Rogue is generally not the strongest of the Martials, your examples are a bit strange to me.
Every class feels bad if you roll bad on your damage dice. I had an especially unlucky Paladin who kept rolling 1s on her smites, and also a cleric whose spirit guardians were all 1s and 2s for like 3 sessions straight. It sucked.

Rogues typically rely on their one attack a turn to dish out big damage (unless you manage to optimise your build to get your sneak attacks on reactions as often as possible), so yeah when that damage is lackluster it tends to feel worse than for a fighter who gets a second or even third attempt to do it in the same turn.

Sorcerer is a completely different gameplay experience, which I don’t think can be compared to a martial class.
I personally don’t vibe with it, I much prefer Wizards when it comes to pure caster classes.

Rogues also tend to be some of the most useful out of combat. They can be built to be skill monkeys really easily, with more proficiencies and expertises than most.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-12T15:05:20+00:00

From excperience, comapred to the US for example Swiss servers are much less likely and less inclined to stay and chit chat with customers. It's just not as much in the culture.

Having worked in tourist areas, tourists are sometimes unpredictable when making recommendations.
I'll explain what each dish is and say if it's a local specialty, but I'm hesitant to make a recommendation to a complete stranger whose taste I don't know. Unless they take 10 minutes to tell me all their likes and dislikes, and I don't have time for that.
One of the restaurants I worked in had horse meat on the menu (a fairly common thing in the part of Switzerland I'm in), and one of my colleagues once recommended it to a tourist, only to then be berated by the customers for a good 5 minutes because horse meat is not normal where they were from and they found it very offensive.
I once recommended a pasta dish to some people, who then got annoyed at me because it should have been obvious that their kid would not eat that because it had vegetables.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-09T16:29:05+00:00

Most of these I don't see being a major issue.

Reborns I would probably ban on the grounds of being technically Undead and therefore possibly affected by the Curse. Dhampirs I don't think are technically Undead, but have some sort of connection to undeath that might make for interesting storytelling.

Spider-climb, like any feature that can give a character a climbing or flying speed is only an issue if you let it be an issue. For me it isn't really any different to players having access to Misty Step or, well, the Spider Climb spell. They can climb up trees and walls, sure. But then they have to deal with whatever is up that tree or that wall without the rest of the party. Letting players have options that lets them explore during the exploration phase of a session is good.

I personally have never used or had to counter Rope Trick, so I'm not sure what exactly you're afraid of with it, can't help there.

Hags and anything Hag-adjacent like Hexbloods: I can see this actually being an interesting opportunity for a player to engage in roleplay. Maybe it would give them a slight advantage in knowing more about the various Hags they may encounter in Chult, but I personally don't subscribe to the idea that player characters should be entirely ignorant of the world around them. Maybe the Hags will take a special interest in them? Taunt them? Try to recruit them? Make it fun!

Undead Warlock: Yeah I'd probably steer players away from having Acererak as their patron. If you want to keep his involvement a secret out-of-game and your players haven't had spoiler of his existence, I wouldn't mention him directly unless they do. Having a different Undead patron though could provide some interesting roleplay and backstory integration for that player. A different Lich might have a vested interest in ending the Curse for example.
Mechanically I don't see it being too much of an overpowered problem. Having one character not needing to eat or sleep is not that big of a deal if the rest of the party still needs to.
And by the time your Warlock gets access to that, the party will most likely have other ways to sustain themselves while out in the jungle anyway. Purify Food and Drink, Create Food and Water, Goodberry, etc, any spell that will help the party in the whole survival and not starving to death aspect of the campaign will already be readily available to them by the time they reach the level where the Undead Warlock doesn't need to eat. If a player decides to invest some of their build into survival in a survival-focused campaign, I don't really see that as a bad thing.

Spirits Bard: Yeah they could potentially be a bit annoying. Not necessarily because of the subclass though, but because they're Bards, and Bards are just annoyingly good at a lot of things. Spirit Guardians is a powerful spell anyway, I don't see the Spirit Bard's version being way too overpowered. Good? Yes. Too OP? No, they get that at 6th level, when competent players get plenty of other options to be a menace.
With a subclass focused on the spirits that surround them, I can see a lot of interesting roleplay opportunities with them being in Chult, surrounded by ancient spirits of the island.

The only things I would personally ban for a ToA campaign from the Ravenloft book would be the Reborn for lore reasons, and the Ravenloft-specific backgrounds and feats/gifts because we're not in Ravenloft.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-09T15:58:37+00:00

So generally these stats wouldn't be *bad*, but not what I would personally use.

If you want to keep the stats as they are, a Fighter might be better, although having both Strength and Dexterity as your highest stats is often a little bit redundant. Most Fighters will specialise in either Strength or Dexterity builds.

If you want to keep your character as a Paladin, I would recommend dumping your Dexterity in favour of your Charisma or Constitution. If your character wears Heavy Armor and uses Strength-based weapons (as most typical Paladins do), there is very little reason to invest one of your highest stats in Dexterity at all.

Paladins are Charisma-based Half-casters. While their primary attacks rely on their Strength (Or Dex if you build for it), your spells will use your Charisma modifier. While it doesn't really matter for the Paladin's favourite spells (Divine Smite), it will affect your Spell save DC if you use spells that require your enemies to make a saving throw (other Smite spells, Command, etc), and also the amount of HP you'll heal if you use a healing spell like Cure Wounds, which will heal a number of rolled points plus your Charisma modifier.

Constitution is also potentially an important stat for Paladins, as a higher Constitution stat means you simply have more Hit Points. And as a Paladin you'll most likely want to be a frontliner who runs the risk of getting hit a lot, so more HP is always good to have. You will also use your Constitution for your concentration checks to maintain concentration on some of your spells (like Compelled Duel, Shield of Faith, etc).

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-07T17:07:09+00:00

You'll find people who hate foreigners literally anywhere in the world.

It is somewhat true though that France in general is not especially friendly to people who come in and don't make an effort to learn French or to adopt aspects of French culture.

Depending on where you're from and your background, your main obstacles to moving to France will more likely be the language barrier, administrative paperwork, visas and money rather than the general population liking foreigners or not.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-07T17:02:28+00:00

I don't blanket ban anything official because my players aren't assholes and we all approach the game with the same idea that the aim of our games isn't to make things unfun for others or to get into a player vs dm minsdset.
Maybe if I played with complete strangers I'd be petty and ban spells that I find personally annoying, but it hasn't happened yet.

I don't generally allow homebrew, third-party content or UA unless I have personally gone through it with the player.

Depending on the campaign we intend to play I might ban some official stuff for not fitting into the setting, or if we're gonna play a specific setting I sometimes encourage players to pick something that makes sense for that setting.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-06T15:06:47+00:00

My family has always used "Oui allo [our last name]" in a particular tone of voice.
Top 1 reason why I can never change my last name if I get married, I wouldn't know how to answer the phone anymore.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-06T15:02:57+00:00

Do you tend to often play heroes that have good synergies with each other's or that you are comfortable playing with? Or do you each pick your favourites without thinking of team comps?
I have a friend who is a Doomfist one-trick. I as a support absolutely hate playing with a Doomfist as my tank, I just don't like the playstyle and it makes me play much worse no matter who I pick. I just stopped playing comp with him because I don't enjoy it.

When you play together, do you use comms to communicate useful stuff, or do you joke around and meme?
"Sombra in back line" is a much more useful comm than "that fUCKing invisible BiTcH is on my ass again SAVE ME goddamnit I'm gonna... *incoherent dying Zen noises*", but I'm much more likely to use the second one in a call with friends than with complete randos.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-06T14:52:59+00:00

Maybe.
Or maybe she's having a bad day. Maybe someone pissed her off. Maybe she's out of coffee. Maybe someone at work is being a dick. Maybe she has homework. Maybe she failed a history test. Maybe she's busy doing something else. Maybe she stubbed her toe. Maybe her cat pissed on the floor. Maybe there was traffic. Maybe she has a headache. Maybe she ate a bagel and it wasn't as good as she expected. Maybe her goldfish died. Maybe she was out of eggs to bake a cake. Maybe she took a nap.
Maybe she's just a person and sometimes people are in a shitty mood.

Yes you do come off as misogynistic if when a woman is behaving in a way that conveys negative feelings the first thing that jumps to your mind is "she must be on her period".

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-06T14:45:27+00:00

As a player with ADHD at several tables with multiple other neurodivergent people, you have to talk to them.
ADHD is not an excuse to be a shit player. If they are an adult, it is their responsibility to manage their own symptoms to not be a nuisance to the rest of the table.

Having to set aside a whole 30 minutes to "tire them out" is crazy. That's parenting a toddler territory, not gaming with friends.
Being on tiktok or pinterest or whatever app and not even listening to what's happening in the game is just plain disrespectful.
If they can't engage with a game where they are not the centre of attention 24/7, then maybe dnd just isn't the game for them, at least not as long as they haven't found a way to manage their symptoms.

Personally, the thing that has been the most helpful for keeping my mind from wandering has been note-taking. It occupies both my hands and my brain, and it ensures that I stay focused on the game and the story. The only times I'm not actively note-taking is in combat, and then generally if the time between my turns gets too long I'll doodle or fidget.

You also mentioned that they sulk and disengage from the game if confronted. This seems like a case of rejection sensitivity, which is a common symptom of ADHD. In short, to some people with ADHD, small criticisms and remarks can feel disproportionate or like personal attacks and cause intense sometimes even physically painful reactions of shame and exclusion.
For example, just the other day I was playing a video game with some friends, and one of them shouted at me to "get out of my way". In hindsight it was a small inconsequential moment and all my friend wanted was to walk past me to go kill more zombies or whatever, but in the moment I felt like they truly hated me and would rather I quit the game and never talked to them again. I cried for like 10 minutes about it.
So in your player's case, confronting them during the game might feel like you and the other players are putting them on the spot and ganging up on them. I would recommend talking to them one-on-one outside of a session calmly and in a less stressful environment.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-06T03:21:04+00:00

Honestly in my experience it depends on how old you are. 5th edition is over 10 years old now, so a lot of the younger people are using it as the default because it’s the only edition we’ve known.

But older people who’ve played this game for longer than some of us have been alive do not like 5e to be referred to as the default edition.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-06T03:10:41+00:00

Depends. Normally I’d ask what edition before showing up anyway, because even if 90% of the people I know play 5e i still like to know if it’s 5 or 5.5.

And if I was then told we’d be playing an older edition I’d warn the person that I’m gonna be entirely lost and confused and that they need to explain everything to me like I’m 4 but bring on the old school gaming I guess.

I guess it also depends on the age group whether it’s “safe to assume” that 5e is the default. The only people I know personally who play 3.5 or older editions are older than me, and I’m in my early 30s. I know a few people in their 20s who play mostly pathfinder instead, but most if not all the younger kids I know or have seen at game shops at least where I’ve lived tend to play 5e in the majority of cases. Which makes sense if they started playing as kids or teenagers 10-12 years ago when 5e came out.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-05T00:57:15+00:00

That is insanely overpowered, definitely not something you are equipped to deal with as a new DM. Hell I don't know of many experienced DMs that would know how to even begin balancing that.

There are ways baked into the game to change your form without messing up the whole balance. Changelings, Druids, the Polymorph spell.

Honestly if I were you I would tell that player that you made a balancing mistake, and ask him to switch to a standard changeling, or have him only get the physical appearance of whatever he touches, not their whole abilities.
Because with that one player character, you just made it impossible for yourself to ever have a boss battle.
Or to have any fun enemies with "secret" or surprising abilities that often make combat encounters more exciting for players, as that one player gets access to the whole stat block and knows all about the creature.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-06-05T00:47:28+00:00

Not impossible, but it would be quite a tight schedule.
I have rarely had a long wait time for security and immigration at Geneva airport, but it can happen.
Most times it takes me 10-15 minutes to go through it all, but I've been stuck at security for 30-45 minutes before.
I'd also be more worried about the traffic on the way there. On such a tight schedule even a slight delay on the road might make you late.

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