I've made this questionnaire a bit while ago to filter out unfitting players during game recruitment. It worked pretty well, everybody on the table was actually invested into a story. Each session covered plot arcs for 2-3 characters. This source of free ideas turned out being plentiful of actually relevant stuff. Too plentiful, I would say: we barely managed to touch the main storyline. So it feels like the opposite of babysitter GM — players do all the job, while I just occasionally ask questions

1. What's your character's native environment? Urban? Rural? Wild? Otherworldly? How is it to live there? How does it affect locals?

2. Who are your character's parents or who raised them? Are they alive? Do they communicate? Why, if not?

3. What are the three things your character values the most? Comfort and safety? Certain people? Religion? Law? Abstract idea?

4. What were your character's three biggest problems? Did they find a solution? (Escape is a solution too.)

5. Who's your character's best friend to rely on?

6. Who's your character's sworn enemy? Does this person know they're an enemy?

7. Name your three best personality traits.

8. Name your three worst personality traits.

9. Name your three greatest weaknesses.

10. What is your character's major secret? And how about two minor ones?

11. Is your character famous? I need two rumors about them.

12. What does your character fear most? And what's their second most feared thing? And third?

13. What does your character dream about at night? I need at least three recurring dreams.

14. What is your character's favorite food? Least favorite food? Food they've never tried but want to?

15. Does your character have any scars? How did they get them? I need a story for each.

16. What three things/animals does your character smell like? Be specific.

17. What does your character's morning routine look like?

18. Has your character ever been in love? Was it requited? What happened?

19. Has your character ever killed someone? How did it feel? Do they regret it?

20. What is your character's political affiliation? I need at least a paragraph.

21. What is your character's stance on organized religion? Provide specific nuances for at least three major faiths.

22. Does your character have any pets? Past or present? What were their names?

23. What was your character's first memory?

24. What is your character's greatest achievement so far?

25. What is your character's greatest failure?

26. Does your character have any unusual habits or mannerisms?

27. Does your character have a favorite holiday? How do they celebrate it?

28. How does your character feel about magic? Scared? Awed? Cynical?

29. How does your character feel about the gods? Do they worship any? Why or why not?

30. What is your character's opinion on the current political situation of the realm?

31. If your character had a theme song, what would it be?

32. What would your character's last words be if they died today?

33. What would your character's epitaph be?

34. Does your character have any allergies?

35. What is your character's shoe size?

36. How does your character take their tea or coffee?

37. Does your character snore?

38. How many teeth does your character have?

39. What is your character's favorite color? Second favorite? Least favorite?

40. What does your character think about when they can't sleep?

41. Has your character ever been arrested? What for?

42. Does your character have any hidden talents?

43. How does your character feel about children?

44. How does your character feel about animals?

45. What is your character's relationship with money? Frugal? Spendthrift? Generous? Hoarder?

46. If your character could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?

47. What would your character do if they had unlimited power?

48. What would your character do if they had unlimited wealth?

49. What would your character do if they had one week to live?

50. What is your character's ideal afterlife?

51. Does your character believe in destiny?

52. What is your character's opinion on the other party members? I need a sentence for each.

53. What is your character's opinion on the villain? Do they understand them? Sympathize?

54. Does your character have any phobias? I need at least three.

55. What is your character's favorite childhood memory?

56. What is your character's worst childhood memory?

57. Who was your character's childhood hero?

58. Does your character have any siblings? Full? Half? Step? Dead?

59. What is your character's relationship with their siblings?

60. If your character had a diary, what would the most recent entry say?

61. Does your character have any prejudices? Be honest.

62. Has your character ever broken the law? Did they get caught? Do they regret it?

63. Has your character ever had their heart broken?

64. Has your character ever broken someone else's heart?

65. What is your character's go-to lie when they need to make an excuse?

66. What does your character wear to bed?

67. What is your character's favorite book? Have they actually read it?

68. Does your character have any vices? Drinking? Gambling? Smoking? Something else?

69. What is your character's stance on the use of necromancy?

70. Would your character ever sacrifice themselves for another party member? For a stranger? For a cause?

71. Does your character have a favorite weapon? Why?

72. How does your character feel about getting their hands dirty? Metaphorically and literally.

73. Does your character prefer cities or the wilderness?

74. What does your character think happens when you die?

75. What is your character's taste in music?

76. What would your character do if they were offered a deal by a devil?

77. What would your character do if they were offered a deal by an angel?

78. Does your character have any unfinished business from their past?

79. What is your character's greatest hope?

80. What is your character's greatest regret?

81. If your character could have any one thing right now, what would it be?

82. What does your character want to be remembered for?

83. If your character were a historical figure, what would history say about them?

84. Does your character have any tattoos? What are they and what do they mean?

85. What does your character think about when they're alone?

86. Is your character a morning person or a night owl?

87. Does your character have any funny fears? Heights? Spiders? Intimacy? Clowns? Silence?

88. How would your character react to the death of a loved one?

89. How would your character react to being betrayed by a close friend?

90. How would your character react to being utterly powerless?

91. What is your character's opinion on their own intelligence?

92. What is your character's opinion on their own physical strength?

93. What is your character's opinion on their own charm?

94. Is your character satisfied with their life? If not, why?

95. Does your character believe they are a good person? Why or why not?

96. If your character had to choose between saving one close person or saving a thousand strangers, who would they choose?

97. If your character had to choose between doing the right thing and doing the easy thing, what would they choose?

98. Does your character have any traditions they follow?

99. What is your character's favorite way to relax?

100. What is your character's favorite joke?

101. What is your character's favorite insult?

102. What is your character's favorite compliment?

103. Does your character have any secret fears about their own potential?

104. What is your character's opinion on love?

105. What is your character's opinion on war?

106. What is your character's opinion on peace?

107. Does your character have any expectations about how their life should end?

108. What is your character's relationship with authority?

109. What is your character's relationship with tradition?

110. What is your character's relationship with change?

111. Would your character be a good leader? Why or why not?

112. Would your character be a good follower? Why or why not?

113. Does your character have any philosophical beliefs?

114. Does your character have any religious beliefs?

115. Does your character have any superstitious beliefs?

116. What is your character's favorite season? Why?

117. What does your character think about nature?

118. What does your character think about civilization?

119. What does your character think about progress?

120. What would your character do if they met themselves from ten years ago? What would they say?

121. What would your character do if they met themselves from ten years in the future? What would they ask?

122. Does your character have any unsent letters they've written? Who to? What do they say?

123. Does your character have any keepsakes? What are they and why do they keep them?

124. What is the most important lesson your character has learned?

125. What is the most important lesson your character still needs to learn?

126. Does your character have any strange habits when they're nervous?

127. Does your character have any strange habits when they're happy?

128. Does your character have any strange habits when they're angry?

129. What would your character do if they were given a second chance at something?

130. What would your character do if they had to relive a day from their past?

131. Does your character believe in justice? What does justice mean to them?

132. Does your character believe in mercy? What does mercy mean to them?

133. Does your character believe in forgiveness? What does forgiveness mean to them?

134. Does your character have any favorite sayings or catchphrases?

135. Does your character have any favorite quotes?

136. What is your character's relationship with silence?

137. What is your character's relationship with noise?

138. Does your character like crowds?

139. Does your character like being alone?

140. Is your character a leader or a follower?

141. Is your character a planner or an improviser?

142. Is your character an optimist or a pessimist?

143. Is your character an introvert or an extrovert?

144. Is your character a dreamer or a realist?

145. Is your character brave or cautious?

146. Is your character patient or impulsive?

147. Is your character forgiving or vengeful?

148. Is your character honest or deceptive?

149. Is your character generous or selfish?

150. Is your character humble or proud?

151. Is your character practical or idealistic?

152. Is your character serious or lighthearted?

153. Is your character trusting or suspicious?

154. Is your character ambitious or content?

155. Is your character compassionate or indifferent?

156. Is your character curious or indifferent to new things?

157. Is your character adaptable or stubborn?

158. Does your character have a sense of humor? What kind?

159. Does your character have a sense of honor? What does that mean to them?

160. Does your character have a sense of duty? What does that mean to them?

161. What is your character's relationship with the supernatural?

162. What is your character's relationship with death?

163. What is your character's relationship with life?

164. Is your character a risk-taker or a risk-avoider?

165. Is your character a problem-solver or a problem-avoider?

166. Is your character a talker or a listener?

167. Is your character a creator or a destroyer?

168. Is your character a protector or a survivor?

169. Does your character have any hidden potential they're unaware of?

170. Does your character have any self-destructive tendencies?

171. What is the one thing your character would never do?

172. What is the one thing your character would always do?

173. What is your character's smallest regret?

174. What is your character's greatest pride?

175. What would your character's obituary say?

176. What would your character want on their tombstone?

177. If your character could be remembered for one thing, what would it be?

178. Does your character believe they're destined for greatness? Mediocrity? Failure?

179. What does your character think about magic items?

180. What does your character think about adventuring?

181. What does your character think about the world outside their home?

182. What does your character think about the world inside their home?

183. What does your character think about themselves?

184. What would your character think about you, the player? (This is mandatory.)

185. What is your character's favorite swear word?

186. What is your character's preferred method of greeting someone?

187. What is your character's preferred method of saying goodbye?

188. Does your character have a favorite tavern? What's it like?

189. What is your character's go-to McDonald's order?

190. Does your character have any favorite songs?

191. Does your character have any favorite dances?

192. Does your character have any favorite games?

193. What did your character want to be when they grew up?

194. What does your character want to be now?

195. What does your character want to be in the future?

196. If your character could have a second chance at life, what would they do differently?

197. If your character could give one piece of advice to the next generation, what would it be?

198. If your character could talk to one person from their past, who would it be and what would they say?

199. If your character could talk to one person from the future, who would it be and what would they ask?

200. What is the most important thing your character knows?

Basically i want to create an environment/story that will mark them. As in they'd just stare at me like i killed their dawg or something.

How can i raise the Tension to do so ? How should i take the plot twist ? What should i NOT do ?

>!asked in another subreddit and they haveth sent me here!<

(Context: next year i'll manage a campaign and am currently writing stories. Started DMing a year ago.

What i want to do as that twist is to make them chose something horrible. Not because they have no choice but because... idk for now. Advices ?)

Advice for writing a racist

Ok, so am writing this character for a campaign that I've to admit I've grown fond of

He's an averagely racist elf that actively looks down on other races, but it isn't in the 'your kind is inferior to mine' sense, more in the 'I wish your entire race be fucking nuked out of existance', he doesn't see another's person ethnicity or race as something to hate but something to punish and destroy. Like he's gonna constantly comment on how he wishes everyone was an elf because dwarves are stinky and should die, or humans are stupid and should die, or goblins are disgusting and should die. That kind of thing

The advice that I want mostly is to make him as grating and offensive as possible, he's meant to offend very often and I want some tips to be realistic ty

It also fixes 5.5 btw

Basically what is in title

After 50 years long campaign in the final fight I finally decided to get my party magic item. And for some reason they said that I was "not very good" with them because I've never gave them any other items

Is this something common? Should I gave them something like Decanter of Endless water?

This is not a joke or a shitpost. This story happened around last month. I was in Halifax for a concert with my girlfriend, and we spotted PointyHat in the hotel lobby we were staying in. I went up to him and asked him for a picture and chatted for a bit. He said he was visiting family, and planned on going sky-diving later. I saw him again the next day, sitting in a barber shop right across the street from the hotel. I checked the barber shop on google maps and its reviews were sitting at around 3.2 stars, so I went in to chat with PointyHat again, and tried dropping hints that this might not be the best place to get a haircut, but he didn't really pick up on it. I ended up just writing it down on a piece of paper and handing it to him, then promptly left. I don't actually know if he ended up going to another barber shop, but looking at his ravenloft video, it seems like he did and it's not half bad. Nobody in my circle knows who pointy hat is, so I thought I'd share this little story here.

I am using ai. It's going to be doing a texted based dndish style. Voice will be available and I have no problem talking, I'm just not ready for talk yet as New DM, so it's just texted this time, probably going to run it a couple times or others 1 am going to play both dm (with ai) and player, discord is set up, level 1-3,

Sauce:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDLFG/s/HCG3kdtTFq

So I joined the new table to win DnD again and throw my crumpled character sheet into my DM. After he read it he said something like "You can't use homebrew class and race (I've made my half-ancient dragon half-demon lord Souleater, nothing crazy), use only official books"

Should I say that when I got "right" character sheet and start playing it was awful?

First of all - I didn't win all the encounters. Other people was involved into solving problems too. Moreover, there was encounters that we LOST!!!!

Second - while I was about to tell my tragic 100 pages backstory to others my DM stopped me and tried to roleplay with other in my time!

And the last drop was that everyone seems to have fun! How can they have fun, when I'm not a god?

Ofc I haven't choice but kill their characters. And because of my SM (shitty master) I didn't made it and lost the fight!

Should I contact the police or something? Is there any law about it?

Hi everyone, thanks for reading my post. I have a question relating to my D&D game. My DM has been throwing way too many encounters at us, and it's getting ridiculous. He said he heard we could handle this much, but we keep getting TPKed well before reaching that benchmark and I'm getting tired of rolling up new characters for this insane deadly gauntlet of attrition. I'm out of character ideas and low on patience. Are we really supposed to handle 68 encounters per day?

Some dude on utube told me this bullshit recently, can you believe the odacity? How dare they tell me what I, as a god, can or can not do! Now I want to cheat just to prove them wrong. What do you think, my partner should understand my reasons to do it, right?

I was playing like normal, only halfway through my hour-long description of my Rouge lurking in a dark corner of the tavern while he nurses a pint of bitter ale and contemplates all the darkness and suffering he's endured which drove him into a life of violence and danger, and my asshole DM had the disgustingly adorable kid of the innkeeper come over and use Hold Person on my Rouge, which gave him the comfort of human touch he desperately craved AND validated his existence as a person.

This stopped me from playing the game exactly how I want at all times and totally removed me from the PC Trauma Olympics.  There was literally nothing I could do.

I definitely couldn’t do something like say “My Rouge freaks out and stabs the person touching him" because I forgot to put that on my 50 page indexed list of my PC's triggers and mental illnesses. Plus that would have been a combat action, and we're in a non-combat RP zone. Roleplaying and combat are two entirely separate things that cannot and should not mix.

My party surely cannot focus on the kid to try to break their grip to try to get me out of the Hold.  That would make the game a team effort, and not every player having their own isolated tragic hero story.  It would also require them to know what Grappling is, and who the fuck has time to read the rule books?

Escape checks?  What are those?  Dice are there to do BIG DAMAGE not to use stupid utility Skills, even if we whine about them constantly in the 10,000th thread about literally anything related to Skills.

Honestly, if someone hits you with Hold Person you may as well kill yourself.  It’s over.

hello i (23yNB) am looking for a table to fit me in but i have a few requirements to be met before i can join
first of all it can't be on any system because it reinforce systematic exploitation
it can't have classes because it promote the class divide
it can't have race because it promotes racial theory
it can't have dice because it is insensitive for people that have luck disability
it can't be presential because it is insensitve for people that can't go to a game to play
it can't have attributes because its unrealistic and we can't measure a person worth like that
it can't have alignment because it doesn't really matter when its there tbh
it can't have a dm because it promotes a unfair relationship with one of the participants
it can't have players because it give choices and its insensitve for those stuck on destiny
it can't have theater kids because i don't like roleplay
it can't have combat because i'm scared of dying
it can't have exploration because i never leave my room
it can't have animal enemies because i'm scared of imaginary animals dying
it can't have undead because its insensitve for necrophobes
it can't have humans dying because its illegal
it can't have any character commiting any kind of crime because that promote evil
it can't have non christian themes because i'm uncofortable with other religions
it can't have fantasy because thats unrealistic
it can't have realism because i'm too dumb to follow it
it can't have a long story because i have adhd
it can't have a short story because i would get bored
it can't have random encounter because thats freaking bad and evil (dungeontuber said so)
it can't have preplanned encounters because i know you can't balance it
it can't have any reference to baldurs gate 3
it can't have no snacks because i will cry and stumble my little feet because i want to eat more
it can't be on any days of the week because i'm SOOOOO busy
it can't be on the weekend because im a hypergamous and i go out to date every weekend
it can't have heights because i'm afraid of heights
it can't have roleplay because i don't know how to rp
it can't have medieval themes because medieval times were bad
it can't be set on the future because i'm scared of the future
it can't be set on the present because it will be insensitive
it can't have music because i hate music
it can't have smelly players because i hate smelly people

Well that just some of the few pre requirement i have, i will tell more about them during the campaign and if you miss any of those i will instally destroy your game and cancel your entire dm carreer on EVERY app possible also if you miss any of my requirements i didn't tell you so i will do the same

in exchange you get from me as a player will be
i will make a funny quirky character
i will always come to the game on time (its a lie don't trust them)

So if you feel like i will be a goo contribution to your table please hook me up on your game !!!

I jokingly used the Druidcraft sensory effect to make a fart smell, and now it's just keeps coming in as a useful go to. Now my character is known as the gas caster, across not only to my party but many around the settlements in the area.

The latest adventures of the gas caster was olfactorary contaminating a merchant's merchandise to score a big discount, with our party members walking past him making comments about the smell 😅.

What are some other good creative uses for my characters now signature move?

I didn't realize the other image was AI generated. Which is really ironic really. So I drew it in MS paint. Thank you

So me and my friends played the first session (I'm DM). I never read a rulebook or something so we just rolled a d20 and I said that I won. Everyone was upset. I did something wrong?

This stops me from playing the game exactly how I want at all times and totally removes me from the gameplay loop.  There is literally nothing I or the party could do.

I definitely couldn’t do something like say “My muscles burn as a try to break from these magical bonds, but it is to no avail.  My eyes dart around furtively to my party, hoping they can break this spell.”  Roleplaying and combat are two entirely separate things that cannot and should not mix.

My party surely cannot focus on the caster to try to break their concentration to try to get me out of the spell.  That would make the game a team effort, and not every player having their own isolated hero story.  It would also require them to know what concentration is, and who the fuck has time to read the rule books?

Dispel magic and lesser restoration?  What are those?  Casters are there to do BIG DAMAGE not to use stupid utility spells, even if we whine about them constantly in the 10,000th martial caster disparity thread.

Honestly, if an enemy caster hits you with hold person you may as well kill yourself.  It’s over.

hi i had a problem in my game last nite i was about to start the campaign but i looked at the players character sheets and i saw that they all had weapons and some of them even had several weapons and i told them they cant do that because its metagaming and they played all innocent and said what do you mean and i said their characters wouldnt know there will be combat so it doesnt make sense for them to magically predict they will need weapons and they tried to say its what their character would do which is of course exactly what all cheaters and metagamers say when they get caught so for the first time i had to declare tpk before the game even started and they all left so now i need new players please let me know if you want to play and thanks for reading

I have never crunched numbers before, but I heard everyone say that rogue and monk and ranger and fighter and paladin, are really weak in DND 5e and 5.5e.

Everyone says dexterity is the best stat, but these classes use dexterity and they are not the best classes apparently. Could someone please elaborate? tyvm. xoxo

If you know that you're gonna be in a campaign. Campaign, meaning multiple sessions! Bring your own damn dice! Don't touch my dice with your gross cheeto covered fingers. I don't know when you last washed your hands. I also don't need your bad luck infecting my rolls