Ever since I saw your first video I was enticed and surprisingly learned quickly compared to my brother. I then shared your videos to my classmates and they too were enticed, and just like that we started a D&D club for the school. The club now consists of more than 30 players and we are running multiple different summer campaigns. The whole club know watches your videos and each one has grown to love the game. Each member of the club thanks you for your content as do I.
@@TheJamarShow Yeah, all the original members have since graduated and gone our separate ways. We still keep in touch and some of us play via voice call every now and then, though not as much as we once did. Last I checked in, the club is still going hard and is still running more than one campaign. Thanks for asking, it really brought back some good memories!
I can definitely share that sentiment about not having anybody to play with in my area. I've probably played a D&D game at an actual table like... once? Ever? All of my games I have to play online, because I simply know nobody in my area to play with. I kinda live out in the sticks. But it's fine, because it's still just as fun, and also works for shy people who might not be so eager to sit at a table with a group. Creating new rules and balancing things is fun, too, so long as everybody is on board with the change (which my players usually are). I'd like to see some more of your homebrew rules and other content if you have any to share sometime.
8:44 ah yes, the dabarian. truly the most powerful of subclasses. but yeah, grappling barbarians are amazing. one of my players has a lizard folk barbarian and was able to completely shutdown a leucrotta i threw at him so the rest of the group could focus on the orc that found them hiding out in their base. this was at level 3.
My DM usually just changes rules to be more convenient to us as players. For example, i play a level 3 Druid and I really like the concept of Goodberry as a spell but RAW states that it takes an action to consume berries, but my DM allows me to toss as many goodberries as i want to my comrades as long as they can make an athletics check to catch them and they can consume them as a reaction in battle.
One homebew recommendation: if its on the list Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG, then using it will probably make the story derail quickly, even if in very amusing ways.
Y'know, comparing your earliest videos to the newer ones, I notice your voice is a lot clearer and more confident. Keep up the good work! EDIT: By the way, what's Winny's surname again? I remember seeing it in a video but I can't find it again.
In fact Skinner (behavioral psychologist) discovered that people in general are pleasure driven beings, so if you reward players actions, it's more likely that they repeat that same action. On the other side, if you punish your players, it's more likely that they will repeat that action because the punish it's not aversive enough to actually stop them to do it again. The best you can do it's ignore that action and do your best to flip over the situation and reward the behavior you want to be repeated. A behavior that is not reinforced, extinguishes. I hope my english it's good enough to understand what im trying to say hahaha. Amazing video!
Allan Vargas Tomas Nicely said, dude! Small correction though, punishment absolutely is effective, but it needs to be applied every time a given behavior occurs, and it can lead to negative side effects, such as resentment. You are correct in spirit though, it is absolutely possible for a punishment to not be sufficient to change a behavior, in which case is a behaviorist would not actually even call that a punishment. You are also correct the ignoring the negative behaviors and reinforcing positive ones is much more effective! Not sure what you do for a living, but you should try your hand at ABA.
Intermittent reinforcement (a combination of both at changing intervals) has the strongest result.... just like that sweetheart that was always hot and cold can make you do anything. LoL
The last one is the one I'm looking forward to the most. I'm going to try to make a presentation showing what D&D is to a bunch of newbs and hope that they'll get want to get into it. I have a powerpoint prepared and everything. I'm so nervous. I'm glad I have your series to help me
Another great video! I wish I had this one during my first session, lol, but it all came out alright in the end! Following up from last video, I commented about how I was finally able to get a group together in which none of us had ever played D&D, and this series made it possible for me to Dungeon Master! Well, it's after the first session, and everything went great! I was fortunate (or not) to get 3 different player types at my table: one who loved killing everything, one who loved the story, and one who I could barely read at all. Balancing this was a great learning experience! Though it was a bit slow at times and went down avenues I wasn't expecting, everyone was pleased with the story I constructed for them, and it fit together nicely! Next session we'll be adding back magic, gold, and side effects! Again, thanks for helping me get through this without a hitch! I look forward to the next video!
Man I feel you on the whole part with spending years not knowing how to play D&D, even though you want to, just because you’re in a small dinky town. Also I appreciate you showing me, and everyone else how to play D&D, because it’s a lot to grasp for me, and you explained it in a amazing and easy way to understand. Big love 💗
Want to see a game that relies on homebrewing? Look up a game called through the breach, there is a mechanic called “manifested powers” that players get through plot reasons, and the rules literally state that the player is supposed to make up the rules on their own depending on the plot reason for gaining said powers, the example in the core rule book goes like this: You accidentally sold your soul to a demon who now holds your soul in a contract, your party members burn this contract and your soul gets a bit burned before the contract is damaged enough to release it, now because of the fire in your soul you now light anything you touch on fire
Our DM for Pathfinder and 3.5 doesn't make us count the weight of items unless it is unrealistic for us to have (I.e. you are not stuffing a life size golden statue in the treasure bag. NO). We have a group loot sheet too, which is assumed to be like a free bag of holding. My DM for 5E though has stated we will be counting weight. The former tends to also prefer a graduated scale for an unconscious/dying party member allowing us more opportunity to stabilize. I'm enjoying both though, Jimmy in particular makes a fun DM, if only to see what his expressions are when we pass/fail something. Somehow, in one campaign, he was the only one doing critical rolls (in combat) so when he would make a face we'd be like "How hard did it hit?" "... How many HP do you have?" "20..." "Take 14 damage" of course, the dice gods were with us for the exploration part of the journey, just... my intimidation checks and diplomacy didn't work out well lol XD
Hey CJ, I always wanted to play D&D and watching your videos really gave me the information and confidence to start playing with friends. Thank you for making videos and keep up the great work!
That point about positive and negative reinforcement is important. Remember, negative reinforcement feels a lot worse than positive reinforcement feels good.
i have been watching all of your videos all day, and they are fantastic. I quite enjoy how you explain everything. I have been trying to get into a dnd group for a very long time, years, but no one wants to take on a player that is new and has no idea how to play. So I constantly have to make do by just watching videos and listening to stories.
As a relative beginner to Dungeons and Dragons, I gotta commend these videos for providing in depth, simple to grasp information. I'm currently running a warlock now, and these videos have been useful to help ensure I don't miss useful bits of information on level. Two things I would like to know, though - how does multiclasding work with caster spell lists, and would you consider explaining other systems in the future?
Thanks Ran. When multiclassing, You keep separate spell lists but use the same spell slot pool. Warlock, however, work differently. I have discussed how warlock multiclassing work in the Warlock Classguide video. As for future games, I may consider doing Cyberpunk or Call of Cthulhu, or both. Dunno yet.
Don't Stop Thinking Could you please look at Mage The Awakening 2ed ? Its such an amazing game, I think you would like it. What about Nobilis ? It also looks fun. Thanks for another awesome video.
@@KaiserAfini "what about nobilis" That name sounds familiar. Is that the rpg with all the deviant art anime pictures alongside authentic greek art in its... well i couldn't tell if it was a PHB or DMG.
You’re the reason I’m getting me and 4 of my friends to try it for the first time I thank you. You’re affecting the community in a positive way and spreading the word of D & D so thanks for that
Negative reinforcement reinforces the behavior by taking away something "bad". What you meant is called "positive punishment" which punishes the behavior by adding something bad.
Oh yes, we have Homebrew characters in each of the games I'm currently playing. For our first adventure, everyone (except Drew) had to use basic Core characters - because they wanted us to learn without being bogged down with too many options. For other campaigns we discussed our races, traits and features and if they would work with what they were going for. One of us wanted to be a literate barbarian and she is currently a half-Ifrit who can burn things once a day with her hands. Some fun stuff can come from homebrew. In the 5E campaign I'm in, since we had to do a lot of fiddling to make a 2 ft tall frog barbarian work, our DM allowed us all to pick up an extra racial bonus (We all rolled very high stats too, which is another reason he's allowing this. He's also adjusted the campaign to reflect our above average stats and made allowances for us to be murder hobos or silk tongues) The goal is fun, and our 5E campaign promises to be insane, while in Pathfinder, we're doing Curse of the Crimson Throne ^_^
I just wanted to thank you for all these awesome videos. They have been helping me immensely as I start my own dnd campaign! They are super easy to follow and listen too and I can't wait to see what other things I can learn from you. Thank you!
Here's what I noticed in terms of balance: The system assumes that a feat and an ability score improvement (ASI) are equal. And there are feats that give half an ASI + a proficiency or a new talent. So you can break down racial stat blocks in equivalent feats / ASI s. So you could conclude that an ASI, in this case +2 to your statblock is equal to two proficiency or two talents The Skilled Feat breaks this convention somewhat but it has a purpose. Skilled gives the character three proficiencies The idea being that forgoing an ASI entirely is a non trivial sacrifice. The third skill acts as a ribbon. So you could conclude that +2 to the stat block is equal to 2.5 profiencies.
In the game I'm running, two people picked half elf and someone picked human. Knowing how much more powerful half elves are, I let the human pick a test on top of plus 1 to all stats.
Hey CJ Thank you on the tutorial on how to DM, D&D Peaked my interest a while back when I was trying to create something totally different on an app called Discord After installing the bot to my server I started to tweak my character and I was liking how it was going until... I wasn't once I realized the game was dice based I abandoned the game after not figuring out how to use it. I still don't know how to use it and would like a little more instruct on which dice are you supposed to use and such
Thank you so much for your videos all of them help me and my friends did our first session last week almost all of use are first timers but we all had fun and we will be doing it every week all summer
Home brew tends to be made up on the spot and i don't like that.... Whenever i'm DM i make a quest or campaign before hand so the i can reference notes to shape the story the way i had wanted to usually using a notebook but the last video you did really helped with that and now i have a better grasp for world building thank you C.J.
I've changed my mind I just made a custom race (Skyfolk sort of like the opposite of a Tiefling with angelic ancestry, wings, and anti-necromancy powers), It was great.
Hello CJ, thank you again for you work with this DM Series! I am really looking forward to the next video. I really want to start playing, I have already prepared sessions based on Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Storm King's Thunder and the Lost Mine of Phandelver to give my players the feeling of an open world choose whatever quest you want. I also have created my own setting and started working on some threads of homebrew stories. The only issue is......... no players, I have only two friends willing and a third on "maybe" and then there are the time limitations with job and so on u.u
Hi there! Behaviorist here. Just wanted to point out that what you called negative reinforcement is actually negative punishment. I know it sounds confusing, but think of the positive and negative as mathematical, rather than as good or bad. Positive reinforcement and punishment both add something, while negative reinforcement and punishment both remove something. Meanwhile, reinforcement is usually something desirable, and increases future occurrence of a behavior, while punishment is usually something undesirable and leads to a reduction of a behavior. It is also worthwhile to know that if a reinforcement is not increasing to behavior, it is not actually a reinforcement. The same applies for punishment. This is worth remembering for home brewing rules. If you add that rule to discourage killing of innocent NPCs, for example, but your players continues to do it, your intervention has not worked and was not technically a punishment. Additionally, punishment procedures in general are highly problematic. They have a number of negative side effects, most notably for our purposes, creating a resentment. They also tend to only be effective if applied 100% of the times a given behavior occurs. The research shows that positive reinforcement is the most effective strategy, and can be applied intermittently (not every time) and still be highly effective (in fact, intermittent reinforcement tends to be more effective than reinforcing every time). If there is a particular problem behavior, instead of punishing that behavior, try to reinforce an incompatible behavior (one that cannot be done at the same time as the problem behavior). For example reinforcing players for saving and protecting innocent NPCs would be more effective than punishing them for killing or endangering innocent NPCs.
Minor terminology nitpick: Negative reinforcement is not the same thing as punishment. Positive reinforcement means adding something good; negative reinforcement means removing something bad; punishment means adding something bad or removing something good.
Generally, I use the term "house rules" for rules/mechanics and "home brew" for content (such as spell and monsters). I suppose settings and dungeons/adventures fit too, but since I come from the era when making your own dungeons was the norm and expected, I don't generally label that as anything special and so don't specifically label it.
noti squad Also Hey CJ I was making a sorcerer and I wanted for him to be an amputee, but using an extended mage hand to replace his missing limbs. This had the problem of not long enough spell time and too weak arms so I created a custom background ability that forwent any extra proficiencies and languages but gave an extra ability. I was wondering if you could give me any advice for balancing it so it's not over or underpowered and so i think leg replacement is slightly underwhelming so any advice there would be aprciated too. Mystical Amputee Any limbs you are missing have been replaced by magic versions of them. Every 24 hours you must spend one hour per limb meditating or praying the magic limbs shall disappear until you do. During this time you are unconscious and cannot be woken except by dropping to 1% HP. These limbs are solid and cannot squeeze through holes smaller than a normal limb could, such as phasing through ropes. If replacing arms or hands are functionally similar to regular limbs but are detected by Detect Magic. For use in unarmed strikes, counts as magical weapons for the purpose of overcoming resistance. Once per limb per long rest, replaced arms can be used as Mage Hands and can deliver touch spells or act as the point of origin for casting spells at range. With every ability point score increase receive one extra use of this effect per rest. If replacing legs or feet, ground speed is +5ft per limb to a max of 35ft before bonuses. Vertical leaps increase by 1ft per limb and horizontal leaps increase by 2ft per limb.
Since i tried to dm and am not a fan of really limited per long rest resources I made it so that any light activity for me count as a short rest so some features can be reused again in a next possible fight or obstacle to overcome And also, spell points I used that instead of spell slots And also have a sort of spell point regen that is equal to half character level rounded down if one takes my special bonus action i call "accumulate", which i based off of Dante in DMC5 where you hold down the Devil Trigger button to use up his DT gauge to fill up the Sin DT bar It however cant be used each turn since i learned the hard way how hectic it can be to accumulate while avoiding getti g hit So i made it once per 1d4 turns instead to act as a CD Another thing i implemented so 9th spells cant be spammed each and every turn if we reach that point Using any spell of 6th level or above initiates a CD to prevent further casting of more 6th or higher leveled spells Which said CD is a number of turns equal to the spell's level Upcasted spells of lower original spell level are fine though
9:15 You should of mentioned that D&D isn't a level 1 to level 20 game. You can start and finish a campaign at a single level, or only level up once or twice after starting at level 10 etc. A lot of people read the PHB and see that characters progress across 20 levels, so they just assume that is how they should play the game.
Hey, what do you use to animate these videos? Also Thank you so much! I had known about D&D for a while and wanted to get into it but all my friends didn't wanna teach me and I couldn't get any of the books so I found these videos. I started a group and now im here watching the DM series. Thank You!
I'm very interested in homebrewing a class but I don't know where to start and a new class seems daunting. And I don't know if I'll do it right. I wish there was a simple skeleton or basic guide line to look at to get a feel for how it should be set up.
Hey CJ, what campagin would you recommend for a fairly new dm and players? We already played something like a introduction adventure and want to start with a campaign. Do you think I should start with a campaign book like Tomb of Annhiliation or should I try to create something myself? Great videos btw! Greetings from Germany!
Hi, ShyBen. If you have done the starter set adventure, "Lost Mine of Phandelver". They you might want to try "Hoard of the Dragon Queen". It's a pretty linear adventure that's quite easy to manage. But if you want to try sandbox gameplay, I highly recommend "Curse of Strahd". It is hard, but it's a great campaign.
I sincerely hope you do not actually in this video series. There's always something to talk about with D&D, and your videos are such a pleasure to watch. You could also branch out into other games like call of Cthulhu. :-)
thank you for teaching me how to play d&d
Ever since I saw your first video I was enticed and surprisingly learned quickly compared to my brother. I then shared your videos to my classmates and they too were enticed, and just like that we started a D&D club for the school. The club now consists of more than 30 players and we are running multiple different summer campaigns. The whole club know watches your videos and each one has grown to love the game. Each member of the club thanks you for your content as do I.
Real curious how this group ended, I assume you all graduated. Do some of you guys still play?
@@TheJamarShow Yeah, all the original members have since graduated and gone our separate ways. We still keep in touch and some of us play via voice call every now and then, though not as much as we once did. Last I checked in, the club is still going hard and is still running more than one campaign. Thanks for asking, it really brought back some good memories!
I can definitely share that sentiment about not having anybody to play with in my area. I've probably played a D&D game at an actual table like... once? Ever? All of my games I have to play online, because I simply know nobody in my area to play with. I kinda live out in the sticks.
But it's fine, because it's still just as fun, and also works for shy people who might not be so eager to sit at a table with a group.
Creating new rules and balancing things is fun, too, so long as everybody is on board with the change (which my players usually are). I'd like to see some more of your homebrew rules and other content if you have any to share sometime.
Yeah, I'd like to show some of my homebrew to you guys in the future.
Try getting new people into the game and DMing.
8:44 ah yes, the dabarian. truly the most powerful of subclasses. but yeah, grappling barbarians are amazing. one of my players has a lizard folk barbarian and was able to completely shutdown a leucrotta i threw at him so the rest of the group could focus on the orc that found them hiding out in their base. this was at level 3.
My DM usually just changes rules to be more convenient to us as players. For example, i play a level 3 Druid and I really like the concept of Goodberry as a spell but RAW states that it takes an action to consume berries, but my DM allows me to toss as many goodberries as i want to my comrades as long as they can make an athletics check to catch them and they can consume them as a reaction in battle.
One homebew recommendation: if its on the list Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG, then using it will probably make the story derail quickly, even if in very amusing ways.
lol that list is awesome. I lost it at several moments while reading it.
the11382 I also suggest the Evil Overlord List, its really helpful for creating truly dangerous villains.
SCP niche joke
Y'know, comparing your earliest videos to the newer ones, I notice your voice is a lot clearer and more confident. Keep up the good work!
EDIT: By the way, what's Winny's surname again? I remember seeing it in a video but I can't find it again.
Her name is Winnie Pebblebrook.
Thank you! My guess was Stonebrook which was close.
--Wood Elf Ranger still best girl--
GuardianTempest
Yes, Morning Wood was a memorable character...
He adressed us as as his fellow nerds and now that I see how many notes I've taken, 4 years after he posted this video, I really am a nerd.
In fact Skinner (behavioral psychologist) discovered that people in general are pleasure driven beings, so if you reward players actions, it's more likely that they repeat that same action. On the other side, if you punish your players, it's more likely that they will repeat that action because the punish it's not aversive enough to actually stop them to do it again. The best you can do it's ignore that action and do your best to flip over the situation and reward the behavior you want to be repeated. A behavior that is not reinforced, extinguishes. I hope my english it's good enough to understand what im trying to say hahaha. Amazing video!
Allan Vargas Tomas Nicely said, dude! Small correction though, punishment absolutely is effective, but it needs to be applied every time a given behavior occurs, and it can lead to negative side effects, such as resentment. You are correct in spirit though, it is absolutely possible for a punishment to not be sufficient to change a behavior, in which case is a behaviorist would not actually even call that a punishment. You are also correct the ignoring the negative behaviors and reinforcing positive ones is much more effective! Not sure what you do for a living, but you should try your hand at ABA.
Intermittent reinforcement (a combination of both at changing intervals) has the strongest result.... just like that sweetheart that was always hot and cold can make you do anything. LoL
Perfect timing. Just finished Matt Mercer’s how to home brew dnd
When you say "My Fellow Nerds" me in my head "Wait you took my intro lol.
3:32 OHH MY WOWZERS I LOVE THIS SO MUCH
The last one is the one I'm looking forward to the most. I'm going to try to make a presentation showing what D&D is to a bunch of newbs and hope that they'll get want to get into it. I have a powerpoint prepared and everything. I'm so nervous. I'm glad I have your series to help me
No worries, Jacob. Hope you roll 20 on your performance roll that day.
roll for persuasion...
20
all the noob's rush to stores after the presentation to buy starter set.
Another great video! I wish I had this one during my first session, lol, but it all came out alright in the end!
Following up from last video, I commented about how I was finally able to get a group together in which none of us had ever played D&D, and this series made it possible for me to Dungeon Master! Well, it's after the first session, and everything went great! I was fortunate (or not) to get 3 different player types at my table: one who loved killing everything, one who loved the story, and one who I could barely read at all. Balancing this was a great learning experience! Though it was a bit slow at times and went down avenues I wasn't expecting, everyone was pleased with the story I constructed for them, and it fit together nicely! Next session we'll be adding back magic, gold, and side effects!
Again, thanks for helping me get through this without a hitch! I look forward to the next video!
Man I feel you on the whole part with spending years not knowing how to play D&D, even though you want to, just because you’re in a small dinky town.
Also I appreciate you showing me, and everyone else how to play D&D, because it’s a lot to grasp for me, and you explained it in a amazing and easy way to understand. Big love 💗
Want to see a game that relies on homebrewing? Look up a game called through the breach, there is a mechanic called “manifested powers” that players get through plot reasons, and the rules literally state that the player is supposed to make up the rules on their own depending on the plot reason for gaining said powers, the example in the core rule book goes like this:
You accidentally sold your soul to a demon who now holds your soul in a contract, your party members burn this contract and your soul gets a bit burned before the contract is damaged enough to release it, now because of the fire in your soul you now light anything you touch on fire
I'll admit I'm going to miss this series after it's gone.
YAAAYY FINALLY HOMEBREW!!!! CREATIVITY!!!!! THIS IS THE EPISODE I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!
Our DM for Pathfinder and 3.5 doesn't make us count the weight of items unless it is unrealistic for us to have (I.e. you are not stuffing a life size golden statue in the treasure bag. NO). We have a group loot sheet too, which is assumed to be like a free bag of holding. My DM for 5E though has stated we will be counting weight. The former tends to also prefer a graduated scale for an unconscious/dying party member allowing us more opportunity to stabilize.
I'm enjoying both though, Jimmy in particular makes a fun DM, if only to see what his expressions are when we pass/fail something. Somehow, in one campaign, he was the only one doing critical rolls (in combat) so when he would make a face we'd be like "How hard did it hit?" "... How many HP do you have?" "20..." "Take 14 damage" of course, the dice gods were with us for the exploration part of the journey, just... my intimidation checks and diplomacy didn't work out well lol XD
Hey CJ, I always wanted to play D&D and watching your videos really gave me the information and confidence to start playing with friends. Thank you for making videos and keep up the great work!
Your video style is just so pleasing
That point about positive and negative reinforcement is important. Remember, negative reinforcement feels a lot worse than positive reinforcement feels good.
i have been watching all of your videos all day, and they are fantastic. I quite enjoy how you explain everything. I have been trying to get into a dnd group for a very long time, years, but no one wants to take on a player that is new and has no idea how to play. So I constantly have to make do by just watching videos and listening to stories.
As a relative beginner to Dungeons and Dragons, I gotta commend these videos for providing in depth, simple to grasp information. I'm currently running a warlock now, and these videos have been useful to help ensure I don't miss useful bits of information on level.
Two things I would like to know, though - how does multiclasding work with caster spell lists, and would you consider explaining other systems in the future?
Thanks Ran. When multiclassing, You keep separate spell lists but use the same spell slot pool. Warlock, however, work differently. I have discussed how warlock multiclassing work in the Warlock Classguide video.
As for future games, I may consider doing Cyberpunk or Call of Cthulhu, or both. Dunno yet.
Don't Stop Thinking Could you please look at Mage The Awakening 2ed ? Its such an amazing game, I think you would like it. What about Nobilis ? It also looks fun. Thanks for another awesome video.
@@KaiserAfini
"what about nobilis"
That name sounds familiar. Is that the rpg with all the deviant art anime pictures alongside authentic greek art in its... well i couldn't tell if it was a PHB or DMG.
@@killertrip10 That is the one, its very well made. Jenna Moran also has a blog called Hitherby Dragons with all sorts of fascinating tales.
@@KaiserAfini Mc Chris and Chickeze tourin dis summah...
You’re the reason I’m getting me and 4 of my friends to try it for the first time I thank you. You’re affecting the community in a positive way and spreading the word of D & D so thanks for that
Negative reinforcement reinforces the behavior by taking away something "bad". What you meant is called "positive punishment" which punishes the behavior by adding something bad.
Thanks for the video! It makes the (steep) learning curve of becoming a DM much easier!
I just realized how great the animation is! Love the art, and the mouth moves almost exactly with your voice-over too, it's seriously impressive XD
Started DMing with my friends few months ago, none of us have ever played your videos are really helpful
i recommend everyone that wants to learn how to play and dont want to watch a 30min video your videos are super helpfull :D
Oh yes, we have Homebrew characters in each of the games I'm currently playing. For our first adventure, everyone (except Drew) had to use basic Core characters - because they wanted us to learn without being bogged down with too many options. For other campaigns we discussed our races, traits and features and if they would work with what they were going for. One of us wanted to be a literate barbarian and she is currently a half-Ifrit who can burn things once a day with her hands. Some fun stuff can come from homebrew. In the 5E campaign I'm in, since we had to do a lot of fiddling to make a 2 ft tall frog barbarian work, our DM allowed us all to pick up an extra racial bonus (We all rolled very high stats too, which is another reason he's allowing this. He's also adjusted the campaign to reflect our above average stats and made allowances for us to be murder hobos or silk tongues) The goal is fun, and our 5E campaign promises to be insane, while in Pathfinder, we're doing Curse of the Crimson Throne ^_^
Thank you for your hard work
I really like your videos because I am a young d&der and dmer and they thought me a lot
Thank you
You're videos are very helpful. I finally am able to understand the game of d&d so I can enjoy it with friends
Your videos are the best! Thanks for teaching me how to play. Can't wait to see more from this channel. Keep it up!
I don't even DM. Your videos are just too good to pass up.
Awesome to see you go from under a thousand subscribers to 34k. Keep up the great content
I just wanted to thank you for all these awesome videos. They have been helping me immensely as I start my own dnd campaign! They are super easy to follow and listen too and I can't wait to see what other things I can learn from you. Thank you!
Awesome! Keep up the great work 👌
I actually just started DMing for a group of three so, this really helps.
Here's what I noticed in terms of balance: The system assumes that a feat and an ability score improvement (ASI) are equal. And there are feats that give half an ASI + a proficiency or a new talent. So you can break down racial stat blocks in equivalent feats / ASI s. So you could conclude that an ASI, in this case +2 to your statblock is equal to two proficiency or two talents
The Skilled Feat breaks this convention somewhat but it has a purpose. Skilled gives the character three proficiencies The idea being that forgoing an ASI entirely is a non trivial sacrifice. The third skill acts as a ribbon. So you could conclude that +2 to the stat block is equal to 2.5 profiencies.
In the game I'm running, two people picked half elf and someone picked human. Knowing how much more powerful half elves are, I let the human pick a test on top of plus 1 to all stats.
Ethan Griffin what do you mean by "pick a test?" Was that a typo?
*Feat autocorrect got me again
The diabolical monster that is autocorrect has struck again. I meant to say feat.
I'm playing a human and I don't care if I'm not as good as everyone else, CAUSE I GOT A GUN!
*insert is that a jojos reference meme here*
You are way ahead of time my friend.
nobody likes that anime
You are the absolute best. Cheers!
Hey CJ Thank you on the tutorial on how to DM, D&D Peaked my interest a while back when I was trying to create something totally different on an app called Discord After installing the bot to my server I started to tweak my character and I was liking how it was going until... I wasn't once I realized the game was dice based I abandoned the game after not figuring out how to use it. I still don't know how to use it and would like a little more instruct on which dice are you supposed to use and such
You can watch the How to play D&D intro episode for that.
Speaking of stealing things from other games, I've been thinking of implementing the best friend/rival mechanic from the Maid RPG.
The mumbling about "healers" OUR PARTY DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A HEALER LMAO XD, still a great video tho, thanks :)
Thank you so much for your videos all of them help me and my friends did our first session last week almost all of use are first timers but we all had fun and we will be doing it every week all summer
Home brew tends to be made up on the spot and i don't like that....
Whenever i'm DM i make a quest or campaign before hand so the i can reference notes to shape the story the way i had wanted to usually using a notebook but the last video you did really helped with that and now i have a better grasp for world building thank you C.J.
I've changed my mind I just made a custom race (Skyfolk sort of like the opposite of a Tiefling with angelic ancestry, wings, and anti-necromancy powers), It was great.
I used the Madness tables in a dungeon for insane effects
Hello CJ, thank you again for you work with this DM Series! I am really looking forward to the next video.
I really want to start playing, I have already prepared sessions based on Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Storm King's Thunder and the Lost Mine of Phandelver to give my players the feeling of an open world choose whatever quest you want. I also have created my own setting and started working on some threads of homebrew stories. The only issue is......... no players, I have only two friends willing and a third on "maybe" and then there are the time limitations with job and so on u.u
Another great video! Thanks for helping run a better game!
Hi there! Behaviorist here. Just wanted to point out that what you called negative reinforcement is actually negative punishment. I know it sounds confusing, but think of the positive and negative as mathematical, rather than as good or bad. Positive reinforcement and punishment both add something, while negative reinforcement and punishment both remove something. Meanwhile, reinforcement is usually something desirable, and increases future occurrence of a behavior, while punishment is usually something undesirable and leads to a reduction of a behavior. It is also worthwhile to know that if a reinforcement is not increasing to behavior, it is not actually a reinforcement. The same applies for punishment. This is worth remembering for home brewing rules. If you add that rule to discourage killing of innocent NPCs, for example, but your players continues to do it, your intervention has not worked and was not technically a punishment. Additionally, punishment procedures in general are highly problematic. They have a number of negative side effects, most notably for our purposes, creating a resentment. They also tend to only be effective if applied 100% of the times a given behavior occurs. The research shows that positive reinforcement is the most effective strategy, and can be applied intermittently (not every time) and still be highly effective (in fact, intermittent reinforcement tends to be more effective than reinforcing every time). If there is a particular problem behavior, instead of punishing that behavior, try to reinforce an incompatible behavior (one that cannot be done at the same time as the problem behavior). For example reinforcing players for saving and protecting innocent NPCs would be more effective than punishing them for killing or endangering innocent NPCs.
Minor terminology nitpick: Negative reinforcement is not the same thing as punishment. Positive reinforcement means adding something good; negative reinforcement means removing something bad; punishment means adding something bad or removing something good.
Good animations and explanation
Generally, I use the term "house rules" for rules/mechanics and "home brew" for content (such as spell and monsters). I suppose settings and dungeons/adventures fit too, but since I come from the era when making your own dungeons was the norm and expected, I don't generally label that as anything special and so don't specifically label it.
knock knock knockin on heavens door
I just love your stuff!
noti squad
Also Hey CJ I was making a sorcerer and I wanted for him to be an amputee, but using an extended mage hand to replace his missing limbs. This had the problem of not long enough spell time and too weak arms so I created a custom background ability that forwent any extra proficiencies and languages but gave an extra ability. I was wondering if you could give me any advice for balancing it so it's not over or underpowered and so i think leg replacement is slightly underwhelming so any advice there would be aprciated too.
Mystical Amputee
Any limbs you are missing have been replaced by magic versions of them. Every 24 hours you must spend one hour per limb meditating or praying the magic limbs shall disappear until you do. During this time you are unconscious and cannot be woken except by dropping to 1% HP. These limbs are solid and cannot squeeze through holes smaller than a normal limb could, such as phasing through ropes. If replacing arms or hands are functionally similar to regular limbs but are detected by Detect Magic. For use in unarmed strikes, counts as magical weapons for the purpose of overcoming resistance. Once per limb per long rest, replaced arms can be used as Mage Hands and can deliver touch spells or act as the point of origin for casting spells at range. With every ability point score increase receive one extra use of this effect per rest. If replacing legs or feet, ground speed is +5ft per limb to a max of 35ft before bonuses. Vertical leaps increase by 1ft per limb and horizontal leaps increase by 2ft per limb.
Since i tried to dm and am not a fan of really limited per long rest resources
I made it so that any light activity for me count as a short rest so some features can be reused again in a next possible fight or obstacle to overcome
And also, spell points
I used that instead of spell slots
And also have a sort of spell point regen that is equal to half character level rounded down if one takes my special bonus action i call "accumulate", which i based off of Dante in DMC5 where you hold down the Devil Trigger button to use up his DT gauge to fill up the Sin DT bar
It however cant be used each turn since i learned the hard way how hectic it can be to accumulate while avoiding getti g hit
So i made it once per 1d4 turns instead to act as a CD
Another thing i implemented so 9th spells cant be spammed each and every turn if we reach that point
Using any spell of 6th level or above initiates a CD to prevent further casting of more 6th or higher leveled spells
Which said CD is a number of turns equal to the spell's level
Upcasted spells of lower original spell level are fine though
Your videos are great! Thanks for the info
It took me a while to get use to your accent lol 👍🏼
Variant human is so fucking OP
wait can you also make a video about Exp
9:15
You should of mentioned that D&D isn't a level 1 to level 20 game. You can start and finish a campaign at a single level, or only level up once or twice after starting at level 10 etc. A lot of people read the PHB and see that characters progress across 20 levels, so they just assume that is how they should play the game.
1:38 He's got a gun!
Hey, what do you use to animate these videos? Also Thank you so much! I had known about D&D for a while and wanted to get into it but all my friends didn't wanna teach me and I couldn't get any of the books so I found these videos. I started a group and now im here watching the DM series. Thank You!
I use After Effects. Glad to hear you started your group, Cole. GL.
can you make a video about visual aid&props/handouts in D&D? thanks
I don't have a D and D starter thing, but i would take out the rule that races have different skills, because i'm more of a story person...
Paper Games, Bartlesville Oklahoma USA has a good local game shop with website too.
So... Is the homebrew sub/class video out yet?
Will there be a dnd Homebrewing series. If so when will it be posted.
I'm very interested in homebrewing a class but I don't know where to start and a new class seems daunting. And I don't know if I'll do it right. I wish there was a simple skeleton or basic guide line to look at to get a feel for how it should be set up.
OOOHHH THE ACCENT !!
Dude! I am taking this accent into NPCs.
Awesome.
NOICE
Good to see that your patreon is getting more dough, hopefully you can have 500$ per vid soon
Hey CJ, what campagin would you recommend for a fairly new dm and players? We already played something like a introduction adventure and want to start with a campaign. Do you think I should start with a campaign book like Tomb of Annhiliation or should I try to create something myself? Great videos btw! Greetings from Germany!
Hi, ShyBen. If you have done the starter set adventure, "Lost Mine of Phandelver". They you might want to try "Hoard of the Dragon Queen". It's a pretty linear adventure that's quite easy to manage. But if you want to try sandbox gameplay, I highly recommend "Curse of Strahd". It is hard, but it's a great campaign.
please do other games like mutants and masterminds or call of Cthulu
YAY!
It looks like you forgot to add this video to the playlist.
Doing it now.
Well i love to see Blood hunter Video
Was that a motherfucking Jojo reference?! I'm subscribing right now.
Sounds like a DM with sad backstory.
I sincerely hope you do not actually in this video series. There's always something to talk about with D&D, and your videos are such a pleasure to watch. You could also branch out into other games like call of Cthulhu. :-)
Pro wrestler seems like a monk to me
Barbarian monk?
Why is the elf wizard sad!?!?
Hey curtis.
great video as always, but one thing i gotta say...
IS THAT A JOJO REFERENCE!
ok im sorry its obligatory.
The balancing is kinda iffy lately as spells seem to be thee most go to problem solver
IS THAT A JOJO REFERENCE????
I stole the ability from king crimson, now I can skip your intros. Ty for teaching me stealing from jojos.
Wait just a damn minute here....
Is this a JoJo reference?
Necromancers are really just unethical pokemon trainers
I think you just spoiled Jojo for me...
"My fellow nerds".
Oh come on.