Your WORST Regrets as D&D Players & GMs

Do you have an RPG regret that didn't come up in this video? 💥 Tomb Of Gyzaengaxx: gooeycube.com/bwb

I regret spending so much time trying to convert one single friend to playing TTRPGs instead of just playing with the many people I know that already play. That player caused so many campaigns to fizzle out because he never actually wanted to play. Just played because I wanted him to.

I learned the "don't hold back good ideas" one recently. Really improved my games when I just started using the cool ideas I had rather than waiting for a perfect moment that never came.

I regret not getting my shit together fast enough to start a campaign my friend requested before he died. To be clear, I didn't know he was in that much trouble, and I don't think he did either. But it I'm learning the best time is always NOW, because tomorrow might not happen.

Looking forward to Bob's second channel "Bob Skate Boarder"

I almost made a similar mistake. My daughter wanted to play a cleric that was blind. I told her she could but it would heavily impact things. Almost talked her out of it. I eventually thought of a rule of cool way around some of the rules while letting her live her RP She’s a twilight cleric. Her god sehanine granted her a sort of “daredevil” vision. This also gave her the backstory of why she became a cleric. I reflavored the twilight cleric features. She has good perception and has vision of sorts out to the twilight cleric darkvision range, but still can’t read things in 2d like texts in a tomb etc. but can perceive shapes of creatures and objects around her.

The ' Scripted TPK ' - I remember reading in an old GURPS Sourcebook of an idea where you had players create characters before the first session... then when they would sit down to play... hand out pre-gens... which would involve themselves in some sort of situation... where they would be subjected to a lightly scripted TPK, perhaps as an intro to more of a horror style of a game. Then the actual characters people would make would be brought in to find out what happened, to investigate the incident. Could be very detective noir in any sort of setting (fantasy, modern, historical) but would present an interesting opportunity to do a TPK and actually get a good start to an interesting campaign.

I had a regular DnD group that did the Dragon of Icespire Peak together for a whole year. People were pretty good about showing up, but one time 2 out of 4 players canceled last minute. The 2 players who did show up spent the entire session boobytrapping the farmhouse the party was in for when the 2 no-shows would come back the next week. When they came back, a ton of Jackass-style shenanigans ensued and it was one of my favorite sessions of the campaign.

The key thing to remember is that when we think of Critical Role, we're remembering episodes where they have been playing their characters for a year. We don't remember episodes one through ten. Their careers are focused on bringing characters to life as voice actors, so naturally they can role play more easily than "normal" players.

The secret of a regular game time is to never cancel and never compromise. Even if it means creating a B game to play instead of your usual A game. If you are always there, others will make it too. You will still have lonely sessions, but they will be less.

Not a regret, just a shout out to my DM and fellow players. We all played in a campaign that ran for 6 years!!! Level 3-20! Thank you Jinker!!!🎉🎉

Biggest regret (found recently) was turning away players that wanted to play, just because we could not reach an arbitrary player count. I thought you had to have at least 4 players to player D&D or any game, so when only 2 people confirmed, we decided to “reschedule” (cancel). Picked up Vaesen and learnt that you dont NEED 4 or even 3 player sto play a TTRPG, theres games out there that are best at tiny player counts. In fact Vaesen ran alot more smoothly with 2 players than the 3 player version. And I was able to run 1 on 1 DND games as sort of “prologues” to my main campaign for each character I missed out on alot of opportunities to play RPGs because not everyone’s schedules lined up 100%.

I regret not talking much when given the opportunity. Granted, one other player in the group basically always took the initiative to speak up, but I still had some moments to interact a bit with the world and didn't really take full advantage out of them because I kept overthinking it

Newish DM here, introduced a DM PC in round of a lvl 1 fight because the first PC was brought to 1 hp in one round. Said DM Pc ended up missing all his rolls and not being super useful in the situation. Talked about it to my players afterwards who said they did not really like that and I did not bring the character back for the next session

12:50 this is why I powerlevel my characters, typically a level up every session or two. I've never had enough of a consistent group to play a years long level 20 campaign.

I have had the same group, minus 1 player for over 5 years now. It's so amazing having a core group that makes it work every 3-4 weeks for us to meet. The key is to be flexible on scheduling and find people that LOVE dnd or (in some cases) love to hang out and dnd is a bonus.. Another great video as always! TY

I have written entire campaign story arcs that intended to run characters all the way from level 1-20. Since the PHB had rules to get you to 20, that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. I have entire stories themed around the PCs being pirates, one about them all being members of a demon-slaying religious order, one themed around everyone being a dwarf, the list goes on… Most of these lasted a dozen sessions tops. It was a hard lesson to learn that hours and hours of my creative work, long villain monologues, custom magic items, puzzles, maps and NPCs are just sitting on my shelf collecting dust. It was fun to do that work, but knowing we’ll never actually get to those higher level set pieces I planned out is very discouraging. If there is anything I can say to future DMs out there. Plan for the next 2-3 sessions. That epic NPC betrayal you’re planning will likely never come to fruition, or have the dramatic impact you think it will. Roll with what the players are doing and driving towards, practice your improv; and just give them the deck of many things in the first session.

My first time DMing, I took XP away from a character who "did something outside of their alignment". Ew...

My wife just jumped right into the deep end of DMing. No "Nice simple module" to get her feet wet. She's running us through Curse of Strahd! She had never DMd before, but I wanted to take a break, and she had been talking about DMing for a while, so she said she would DM so I could take a breather. And she chose COS! It's been about 6 or 7 sessions now, and she is doing really good!! She asks me for feedback after sessions now and then but I usually don't have much to add to what she has already done.

I regret pushing forward on a campaign that I had burnt out. The stakes were high cause the amount of prep I'd put it was immense and I fell into this mode where admitting there was an issue was a big nono. And you could see how it impacted the table too.