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D&D character questionnaire

Hello folks! I’ve gotten some requests over at Twitter to share the character questionnaire I made for my party a while ago, and thought that you might find it useful as well! So, without further ado, here it is! Under a cut for length <3

(Credit for some questions goes to my dear friend @sgurrdearg, who had us do something similar on a smaller scale for her Flederburgh campaign!)

Keep reading

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DM Notes: Profiling

Do you find that your players are unhappy, constantly distracted or just not engaged as you want them to be? Well, ask yourself, are you giving them what they want? Do you know what they want? Many times you’ll say giving them what they want (especially problem players) will ruin the game! That’s because you give them: what they ask for. And there lies the crucial difference.

Whenever I introduce a new player into the game, any game, I make them a profile in my “Players Binder”. This profile is universal for every game, no matter the setting or system you play. Everyone has a page (or sometimes two) about what interests them, what captures their attention and other insights about them. Each aspect is gathered as you play with them, and requires you to take notice WHEN they engage and WHEN THEY DO NOT engage. As GMs we already do take this into some account when planning (or improving) sessions, but having it laid out so cleanly is far more useful than you can imagine.

And for players, do this to your fellow players. You can cater to their desires and in turn they’ll want to engage more with you, this fixes more problems then you at first may realize.

So here is my Formula:

——NAME——

DESIRE: What does this player want out of their game? What category of challenge or entertainment appeals to this player the most? To find this, listen to what the player Talks About and Remembers the most. Their “Desire” is the current reason that keeps them playing the game.

QUESTION(S): The game is not just for fun, there are times when the game is not fun at all but is absolutely Satisfying. That is what this section is about. I direct my games to answer a moral or life question, this doesn’t need to be overbearing but allows the player to explore something meaningful to them. For every character the player has or has had, make a question out of the main idea of the character. I prefer at least two questions, one which is the focus of their character and the other which is for even deeper meaning.

NEEDS: Your player is always complaining about this, is discourages them when it happens and they get super frustrated when they can’t overcome it. This is not the kind of frustration you want in the game, frustration within the game setting is wonderful when used correctly. Frustration with the game destroys someone’s enjoyment of the game and can cause them to leave or worse: give up. Ask yourself what the player needs to not be frustrated or left out of the game, what kind of encouragement they need so they can keep playing.

NOTICES: When your player looks away, is distracted by something or is simply lost in thought, what makes them spin their head, focus their eyes on you and go: WHAT?!. This can be one thing or many things, write each one down as they react to it and try & find the general reason they snapped back to the game. If something caused a player to be fully or mostly involved for an extended period of time, what was it? Write those things here.

FAULTS: We all have them, and when you’re playing they can come out. What are the most striking faults that your player possesses? Some aren’t very confident, some like to dominate other players, others will never engage or cooperate with the other players, Find as many of these as you can and make a list, we’ll be using these in the next section.

FIXES: There is always something you can do to help someone. It may not always be much, but every little bit you can do it helps. Write here what you can do in-game that will help the player overcome their faults, overlook or avoid unneeded frustration with the game and be fully engaged in the game. I make a section for each tabletop system that I have played with them. These can be little details to system breaks. If a player keeps rolling badly- let them automatically succeed as much as possible on little things. Is you’re player nostalgic because of their time playing AD&D as a young person? Read over some of the material and let the nostalgia wash over them. You can find ways to implement these things into your game without compromising that beautiful story you’ve written.

TWISTS: These are meta plot twists you can use to cause drama or knock a player down a titch when they get too excited and hog the spotlight. They cause the player to rethink and question everything around them, this may seem to be unhealthy at times- but it fully engages the player. ———————————————————————————————————– Remember that you’re goal is the same of that as a writer: any emotion that your listeners feel, good or bad, is a sign of your success. If something makes your players sad, amazing! Do they feel taken advantage of by NPCs, wonderful! Drama is not caused by always staying fun, there must be dips in fun for there to be highs in enjoyment. I do hope that this helps you learn to work with your players, and this creates an addictive gaming atmosphere.

ACTUAL EXAMPLES: Josiah - 5e Human Paladin

[dnd-chinchilla]

D&D character questionnaire

Hello folks! I’ve gotten some requests over at Twitter to share the character questionnaire I made for my party a while ago, and thought that you might find it useful as well! So, without further ado, here it is! Under a cut for length <3

(Credit for some questions goes to my dear friend @sgurrdearg, who had us do something similar on a smaller scale for her Flederburgh campaign!)

Keep reading

[dnd-chinchilla]

DM/GM Alignments

Lawful Wholesome

Neutral Wholesome

Chaotic Wholesome

Lawful Tired

Neutral Tired

Chaotic Tired

Lawful Threatening

Neutral Threatening

Chaotic Threatening

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D&D Gothic

- It’s still there. The only die you haven’t lost from your original set. It’s a d12. You’ve never rolled it once.

- The mini you’ve been using looks nothing like your character. You commission art of your character. The art looks exactly like you described. It looks almost exactly like the mini.

- The snack bowl arrives at your table. You reach over the DM screen to grab a chip. The bowl is empty. The session has yet to begin.

- A dice tower is constructed. The whole table goes silent. A d10 is balanced on a d4. You’re all silent. The tower sits, wobbling slightly. Silence. It crumbles for no apparent reason. You can finally breathe again.

- The DM draws a map. They’ve drawn a river on the side. It’s in red. A working blue pen is right beside them. No one mentions it again. No river is ever mentioned in game.

- A player’s character dies. Next session, they introduce their new character. Then themselves. You laugh. You know them already. Don’t you?

- You are telling someone about DnD. You want to tell them about funny stories with wacky hijinks. There are so many. You can’t remember a single one.

- This weeks session was cancelled. There is a disquiet at the time you should be there. Involuntarily, your hand shakes, then tosses a non existent object. Shake and toss. Shake. Toss. It is comforting.

- You roll for something important. The result is average. You look in the DM’s eyes pleadingly. They stare back for a moment, expressionless. They then say you pass. You feel relief, but a shiver runs down your spine.

- The DM hides behind their screen. They mutter softly. They look up, tell a player to roll for something, then look down, nodding. They don’t acknowledge the player’s result.

- You have many character concepts on hand. You love them all. You get a chance to play. You no longer have any character concepts you really want to try. At least, not until it’s too late.

- A deus ex machina occurs. Was the encounter unbalanced, or was it part of the plot? You aren’t sure. You’re the DM.

- Every time you look away, a die dissappears, and this one player’s cheeks get poofier. Eventually, their mouth seems like it’s about to burst. They do. Their mouth is empty. No one knows where the dice went.

- Someone tells an inside joke. It’s very funny. No one knows where it’s from.

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Hopefully More help for Beginners to D&D - I found it a minefield when I first started, so hopefully this will help other novices (and my new players)

EDIT: These are the house rules that we follow when I’m the DM for my group as I use critical fails and success for fun flavour: 

In 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, rolling a natural 1 or 20 doesn’t necessarily mean a critical failure or success outside of attack rolls. (It’s not the standard.) A crit fail on an attack roll isn’t 5e standard either– penalties don’t inherently occur on a 1. 

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Universal experiences that prove why D&D is both the best and worst game ever:

“Make a stealth check.” “45.” “Your character just stops existing.”

“Now he’s gonna attack you, and—aw, fuck!” “Did you roll a nat—“ “I rolled a nat 1.”

“That’s 34 points of damage.” “I’m dead.” “You’re not dead—“

“I’m gonna cast [every AoE spell ever] on that guy.” “Hey! I’m standing right next to him!” “You’ve got a lot of HP, you’ll be fine.”

“I’m not sure you can do tha—“ “Nat 20.” “…you do that, I guess.”

“Wait, can I go ask [enemy NPC] for info?” “No, you killed him. He’s super-dead! His blood is everywhere, he’s not talking.”

“Make a persuasion check.” “Well I rolled a 2, but with my modifier it’s a 25.” “Nobody is allowed to play a bard next campaign.”

“You’re not proficient in that.” “Can I still try?” “…sure.”

“Come on guys, you almost had it.” “It’s been 45 minutes. Can you just tell us the answer?” “No. I believe in you. Now solve my puzzle.”

And, of course, the greatest one of all:

“…[heavy sigh]. Roll for seduction.”

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reblog if you’re a DM and:

- don’t care about rations

- don’t care about encumbrance

- don’t care about walking speed

- rarely care about combat distance

- don’t care about sleep

- don’t care about travel time

- don’t care about spell components

i wanna know how many other lazy nerds are out there.

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Struggling to cobble together background characters on the fly and want to avoid a world full of generic stock characters? 

Fill out a stack of these simple NPC books. They print out four per A4 sheet (one sided) and fold to make a little book - general profile on the front, combat on the back and a blank middle to record notes about events which occur involving this NPC.

I invested the time to roll up over a hundred of these (using the DM guide, chapter 4) and now whenever I need a new minor character to deliver a plot hook or something, I just shuffle through the stack of ready-to-play characters and choose one that suits.

“Loyalty” scale is something I came up with, so it might not be an actual feature of the game, I don’t know. Essentially, this is a measure of how likely they are to help or hinder: +3 being devout following and -3 being deep dislike. Maybe use this as a modifier to any social interaction roles with them, to add a touch of the cantankerous.

The combat page does not have a stat block or much detail because these are intended for characters which are unlikely to see combat, except in the (not too) unlikely event that one of your PCs goes rogue.

Feel free to print these, use them and distribute them. Credit would be nice, but I won’t hold you to it as long as you have fun playing!

Check out Brom, our love-sick Dwarven artist as an example!

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i literally looked everywhere and couldnt find a single town/city info sheet template for dms so here u go

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some expanded oceanic races! featuring: mermaids, shark mermaids, octopus mermaids, and selkies. Playtesting and feedback is welcome.

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Hey!!

Hi, for my statistics project I decided to study the average stats regarding dice collections among dnd players, and if you play dnd and collect dice, could you please fill this out for me? thanks!  https://goo.gl/forms/Lxw35Tlzl2pn29Ly2

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💖💜💙🖤

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Things I am learning as a first time DM

The first 10/15 minutes are the worst. Everyone’s attention is on me and I have to talk?!!! However once the first bit of session is over the players go and do the things, and then it’s a bit easier after that

Dungeons.Make sure there’s a couple things per room minimum, like an encounter and loot, or world lore and a puzzle, or some kind of mixture of things. Keeps different player types engaged with variety.

Playing a story heavy campaign and want the players to engage the story? Fuck with their backstories. One of my players has a connection to the Bad Guy the party followed from a bar because the bar got blown up. During looting of the place they followed him to another player found photos of themselves and their siblings. Things are gonna happen.

Don’t be afraid to fudge rolls and dcs depending on rolls and things. Sometimes things need to be changed on the fly. The dice gods are fickle beings.

Improv is hard. But a necessary skill. Hopefully I will get better in time lol

Describe the places in detail, and NPCs with only a couple distinguishing features.

Oh god do prep before the day you play. Unless you can handle that type of thing.

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Gravity-Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads [updated]