Most of you already understand this, but just for clarification the alignment system at the end grades Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil based on conformity to the rules structure of D&D. I'm not literally calling you "evil" for not playing D&D. I personally grade myself as Chaotic Evil. 🤘😈 Again, most of you already understood that and rolled with it, just leaving this here for the people who don't. 🦀‼️ 10 Stages of a DM next?

@elliotisken6807

7 ай бұрын

🦀

@BerserkerDwarf

7 ай бұрын

crab emoji

@ryanbarnes8181

7 ай бұрын

🦀

@StardustCruzadr

7 ай бұрын

🦀

@UnluckyLilly

7 ай бұрын

🦞

And now the progression of a DM: Step 1: Tell your friends you are interested in DnD and you're going to make a session for them. Step 2: You're now the DM. Forever. There is no further steps.

@A2forty

7 ай бұрын

My friend literally started a group at the library and people kept coming so he started teaching dm and now we have a stable if competent DMs and players to draw from

@velbutvel

7 ай бұрын

its been 5 years help Ive played one lost mines of phandelver because a friend wanted to try DMing. oh how I long to play

@satratic127

6 ай бұрын

​@@velbutvel im sorry dude but we're stuck

@cubescihist6737

6 ай бұрын

Then I must be incredibly lucky. In my friend's group, we take turns being DM and making our adventure!

@velbutvel

6 ай бұрын

@@cubescihist6737 we said we'd take turns but 3 years later we're still in the same campaign, maybe in another 2 I'll be freed

"New players are the most fun to play with because they haven't been influenced yet by rule structure and optimization." I have been soooo afraid of embarrassing myself too much to ever try to seek a DND group to play with for the first time but if everyone else thinks the way you do I would love to try it one day after all!

@velbutvel

7 ай бұрын

as someone who DMs new players often, please just take a look at a video or two on the basics. Just knowing what a skill check is or what your class actions are goes a longggg way. This is not me saying you have to know all the rules, or even most of them, but having an idea of the very basics will help both you and your group go smoothly. Critical Role's handbooker helper is great for this and there are plenty of 10-15min videos on it

@Curarkaig

6 ай бұрын

As a GM who runs multiple TTRPGs I can confirm, new players are the best! Just come to the table with an interest in playing and understanding the rules and you’ll do great. Also, taking lots of notes, not just about your character but also what the other PCs do, will earn you big points with everyone at the table. The one who takes notes is the true hero of the party.

@coronal2207

6 ай бұрын

If you carry on playing the dnd system, the beginning part might also be the most fun you'll ever have. So enjoy it the best you can!

@SirNightmareFuel

6 ай бұрын

Try going to Adventurers' League D&D events at your local board game store. Even better, go with a friend who also has some level of interest. Most people there haven't met each other before, and are very friendly. Also, doing a silly character voice will make it feel less seriousness and overwhelming for you, highly recommend. 😂

@idreamofjeanielynn

6 ай бұрын

Most DM's do think this way. It's usually players that get optimization crazy. They forget it's primarily a ROLEplaying game, not a ROLLplaying game.

You forgot Stage 0 : Never played or tried playing D&D but still watches parts of D&D content

@koolmudkips8452

3 ай бұрын

you forgot stage 0.5

@Placidusax-101

3 ай бұрын

If anyone is in this stage I would suggest the twilight realms to get a nice easy intro to DND without the threat of social anxiety

@ricefarmer-kr4yv

3 ай бұрын

And yet i see people who just go from stage 0 straight to chaotic evil ending within 10 second bc they think what if i made my own

@scottyk1763

2 ай бұрын

Literally me.

@ChRW123

4 күн бұрын

Even though I like the idea, I don't know a single person to play with.

Fun story of confidence, loss and understanding without death: I was DMing a 3.5 long campaign, we'd been at it about four years at this point. The Monk was slammed by a vampire and lost two levels. Considering it took him almost a year to get those two levels, he started to tear up (we were about 25 at the time). We actually stopped the session and comforted him. It became part of his characters arc, something his character didn't really have. He had an arch nemesis, his own quest that helped drive the story. And when he finally beat the vampire lord, in addition to all the levels he had gotten to get to that point, As the vampires essence fades for all time, the held energy from so long ago, returns from wence it came, you get your two levels back.

@landonward3837

5 ай бұрын

Oh that gave me chills

@mal2ksc

5 ай бұрын

That's not entirely bad, either. In the end, he earned LESS experience to get to that final level than otherwise, because getting drained made the XP required small again, but he's still participating in higher difficulty encounters. As long as the party can carry him until he catches back up, he actually benefits.

@yootoobecansoogmiballs8735

4 ай бұрын

losing a level?! my players would kill me! But how you sold it to them?! Was it like "the vampire drained so much out of him that he got weaker = level loss" or how do you handled this or explained it to your players?!

@MARKZ137

2 ай бұрын

@@yootoobecansoogmiballs8735 This is official feature of vampires in older DnD editions. I think in 1e, all undead had some permanent effect (that were at that level hard or impossible to remove), which was the reason people really hated undead. In 3e and 3.5e, vampires can force saving throw on you and if you fail, they drain your level(s). I have lost my character once in a fight with vampires. He survived, but lost 10 levels in the fight. In 3.5e, I think there is actually the option to remove the drain with some higher level cleric spell, but we had no cleric and no option to get help in time. He also got ill (because he was really weak without the levels) and after that, he just asked his team mate for final mercy... In 5e, stuff got a lot more kids friendly, but a lot of that pressure also got lost. Most debuffs gets lost just after a long rest and rest needs just greater restoration (and gemstones!). I'm DMing CoS campaign in 5e; the beginning was really cool, but it gets really boring after some levels, because even if I make encounters harder and try to play the situation aginst players, it's just so hard to lose something in 5e.

@DucksAndCatnip

Ай бұрын

@@mal2ksc the fact it took him a year to level up twice despite fighting vampire lords means they probably aren't using XP

Stage 5-7 explain really well the Dunning-Krueger effect. Going from overconfidence to humbleness due to experience being gained.

The alignments people wind up at the end really hits home. The amount of people I've seen become jaded to the game, homebrew patches, or just don't care at all and vibe really goes to show how opinionated the ways they enjoy the game are. Knowing the stage you're at and coming to terms with your feelings about the game can help you start looking for that next big TTRPG system, or help you find likeminded people to join more campaigns with!

@KameronTV

7 ай бұрын

yes! this blained my simple all over again. 😱

@CrowePerch

7 ай бұрын

God I’m so Blainepilled right now

@CritCrab

7 ай бұрын

We're all blainepilled on this blessed day 💊

@BlackMoonHowls

7 ай бұрын

is that a red pill or a yellow pill? Asking cause politics or cyanide governmental poisoning of its people.@@CritCrab

@Namewriter

6 ай бұрын

It is weird that lawful evil is the best case scenario, considering the fact that D&D is the white bread of TTRPGs and the rest of the games out there are the rest of the banquet

The rules are guidelines, the DM is the rulebook

@ubernerrd

6 ай бұрын

I kind of like how other games call them the "story teller", because that's what it really is. The DM is there to keep the story moving forward and to act as a referee.

@realdragon

6 ай бұрын

Yeah, often when I DM players want to do some shit and since rules of system I run fit on 1 and combat is very basic I have to make shit up

@notbloodylikely4817

6 ай бұрын

But sometimes the DM is good and sometimes bad and sometimes terrible. The rules sit somewhere between good and bad, consistently. So use the rules. Let the DM create the fluff.

@milansvancara

4 ай бұрын

Yeah, moreover the DM creates a campaign they like, let them enjoy it for all the effort they put into it:) Let him create the adventure he wants you to experience

My group has always held funerals for dead player characters where we would burn the character sheet and say a few words.

@Hobbydude785

12 күн бұрын

How it should go👍👍👍

Chaotic Evil here. Ended up creating an entirely new system and now I'm cursed to never be a player until I deem it "complete". At least my players are having fun! I'm running my third campaign now. The first one lasted a year, the second a year and a half, and now we just passed the 1 year mark (as of last week!) for the third campaign. It's so much fun to run!

@kaemonbonet4931

7 ай бұрын

Sounds complete to me

@CritCrab

7 ай бұрын

I am also a chaotic evil hahahah. We cannot be contained.🤘😈

@jayf6206

7 ай бұрын

"Welcome to my madness" is the line I use at the start of each session. I built a rules-lite abomination, and it is precious.

@BlackMoonHowls

7 ай бұрын

Sounds just like just writing a story and world building to me. Making an adventure piece where it takes place from an already made MC character as a legendarium of a basis story telling thing and "from legends". Use the world it is set in once that is "Complete" to maybe make into a D&D world. (which I don't know if it will ever be whole or complete, so many GD setbacks it makes me more furious to write, so many holes in things and concepts you'd think it actual Swiss Cheese.) It's a mess now but eventually it won't be and it will be good or it will kill me to make, otherwise I just need it to make coherent sense in a cohesive manner but still kinda be loose with rules, though things can be negotiated. I.E Devil's Bargen or spend re-roll tokens, and even some kind of old school Warhammer structure to things and dice of the DM side and player rolls. Go watch Magistratum Mundanus over on the BPL channel on here on YT, Tex will explain all in what I mean by "rules lite" and "old school" and "RP". That is what I want, a Hodgepodge and a mishmash of this and that and it still makes a very good robot, PC or D&D game module/rules and World Setting. If you can make a PC that way then why not Tabletop RPG's built from a story already written in a world that's got everything and with little help from an AI Dungeon a very long time ago.

@Mastikator

7 ай бұрын

I'm chaotic evil DM who DMs as a lawful good DM, I de-poisoned myself by making an entire system and setting (even creating an interactive website for my setting), played that a bit and also DM a by-the-book D&D campaign. D&D is good at being D&D so I don't use it for anything else.

I watch crit crab, critical role, dnd movie, play baldurs gate 3 but still won’t touch dnd.

@Kingpin1880

7 ай бұрын

Fair enough.

@j.o.s.h.

7 ай бұрын

Well son your mom and i were talking and we both think it's time for you to get out there and play some DND

@cortsilver2564

7 ай бұрын

Why

@extremempsilvamps5851

7 ай бұрын

I watch crit crab but I don't play DND because I just play alternative systems for certain scenarios

@user-oe3kz8ww7d

7 ай бұрын

Well… just… do?

I became a DM while I was in the later stages of stage 2 and it fast tracked me through all the rest of the steps to (I think) stage 6. Definitely recommend everyone tries their hand at DMing cuz nothing really helps to deepen game knowledge and learn to be receptive to the energy, wants and needs of the table and the campaign as well as your own. Thanks for coming to my TED talk about DM advocacy 🎉

@JRook-00

6 ай бұрын

That's how it went for me too, back in the 3.5 Days. Nothing humbles you faster than the group's Power Gamer getting into a fight with a boss you worked on for Six Hours, only to One Shot him on the first turn.

There is the Grognard/Greybeard stage , someone who has been around since the 70s or 80s who knows multiple versions of the game backwards and has played pretty much every major TTRPG and GMed most of them. They are unlikely to fully quit D&D by now and are pretty much a fixture in the hobby till they die . Most of them went through all the 'endings' in this video and survived with their love of the game intact, the downside is they are set in their ways and they have strong opinions.

@Goshin65

6 ай бұрын

Yup that would be me

@ubernerrd

6 ай бұрын

Been playing for 30 years now. My original group still plays 2nd Edition and they have no plans to change.

@MarkoSeldo

6 ай бұрын

Oh... damn. That's me. More or less. Wouldn't say I'm set in my ways though. I love flex, testing homebrew, tweaking it, discarding it, new systems, new ideas, I love DMing, I love playing (only just a little more than DMing, I think)... And my strongest TTRPG opinion is "if we're not all enjoying the game, we should stop and talk about what's causing that".

@mal2ksc

5 ай бұрын

@@ubernerrd I don't get this love for 2e. I was there. It was a marginal improvement over AD&D. 3e suffered from paralysis by analysis. 4e tried to be a video game. 5e is the best _game_ of the bunch, but some of the mechanics would be awful hard to spin into a coherent narrative for a spectator who doesn't play the game. It's the _worst_ iteration of the game for those who think it should be a realistic simulation, but I'd rather just play than worry about choosing the correct weapon for a certain type of armor, or having to memorize spells to cast exactly ONCE. Spell slots are a much better idea. I actually bought Baldur's Gate 2 on GOG when it was on sale. Then I saw that it used 2e rules and closed it. Time has not been kind to that rule set as far as I'm concerned. Maybe I'll play it someday. I paid for it, but I wish I hadn't.

@ubernerrd

5 ай бұрын

We've changed a lot of things so it's not strictly 2e any way but I did just start a new campaign using 5e. Everybody enjoyed it.@@mal2ksc

For any person hesitating to take the DM chair : I'm the forever DM of my group. I started DnD as a DM and never, ever, played it on the other side of the board. I started with a rudimentary understanding of the rules (mostly stemming from video games and my own curiosity) and experience in a single medium-sized campaign in an Arthurian setting in which my character failed his mission in the end. Being a DM, even while being a newbie, taught me so much and brought me so much enjoyment I regret not having done it before. I created my setting and ended up becoming somewhat of a Chaotic Neutral DM. If your friend group needs a DM, try it. It might look intimidating at first, but it's well worth a shot. You don't need to be a walking encyclopedia for it to work.

@crusader8102

6 ай бұрын

Agreed, dming can be super fun even if it looks intimidating at first. I started out as a player and enjoyed it a lot, tried running a one shot for a way too large of a group (8 people) and gave up on dming for a good amount of time cause I assumed I'm just a bad dm. A few months ago decided to step up and try dming for a group of online friends cause the one man that was trying to dm had the slight issue of burning out of every single project after like 3 sessions tops, and man, this shit is so much fun. The reaction of my players when they stepped into the first boss room and I started playing the boss music is absolutely priceless. Our campaign has been going nice and stable for like 3-4 months now and while I hope to be a player again at some point I also love being the dm.

@eclipsegst9419

3 ай бұрын

My group we rotate weekly at least 2 different campaigns so nobody is the forever DM, though there are some who do it more and some who never do, everyone gets to play an amount they feel satisfied by.

I had two characters die within the first 7 levels of my second ever campaign. It hit me super hard, since I hadn't yet reached the stage where I could get inspiration from random things. Each character was so special to me. Since then, I've been lucky to have no deaths, but at the same time, I have like 15 character concepts I want to try and not many games to play.

@StarDragonJP

7 ай бұрын

If you're getting tired of playing the same character, you could always see if your DM will let you sideline the character to play something new.

@SirNightmareFuel

6 ай бұрын

​@@StarDragonJPbuilding a roster of characters to swap between, is a traditional style of playing and is super fun ❤

@_wheeler8601

6 ай бұрын

​@StarDragonJP Agreed, plus by saving your most special characters for one-shots where long-term consequences have no effect, you never have to suffer a permanent character death. I never fully delete a character sheet as one-shot characters are sometimes hard to come up with on the fly.

@realdragon

6 ай бұрын

Those are rookie numbers

@mal2ksc

5 ай бұрын

@@_wheeler8601 There's always True Resurrection. Unless you're at my table, where nobody has 8th or 9th level spells and True Resurrection cannot be obtained at any price because I cap everything at 15th level and spellcasters get that 8th level slot but they have to upcast with it or power a class feature -- except Warlocks, who for their 8th level Mystic Arcanum can take any spell from any class of 7th level or lower, and cast it with an 8th level spell slot. I've left some wiggle room in there though. Maybe an item can carry a True Resurrection. Also, groups of multiple high level casters _can_ assemble to cast 9th level spells... but they're not going to sell you a True Resurrection because the 9th level casting process PERMAKILLS one of the casters. Pretty much the only 9th level spell ever cast is Wish.

The lawful Evil is the best ending. The TTRPGverse is so vast past dnd it’s incredible

@mothmanprophet11

6 ай бұрын

This

@shattensoldat9111

6 ай бұрын

This

@BushBumperBaker

6 ай бұрын

I hate how he played evil music over two completely reasonable responses as if they were "bad" D&D 5e is one of the weakest RPG systems I've ever DM'd. WOTC doing their OGL shit and shoving political pandering into every little thing they can is horrid on its own. Not to mention any of their official stuff is overpriced to ever living fuck. 5 poorly painted, poorly molded minis for 50 bucks? Yeah, okay. Lmao. I'll just buy better versions for cheaper on Etsy ffs.

@jamesmerkel1932

6 ай бұрын

And yet, at each games core, is DnD. Without it, there wouldn't be any of the other systems. Pathfinder is a direct rip-off using common homebrew to fill the gaps. FATE is a step back to war gaming and only using D6s. Every single system, is just an altered version of DnD. So run all you like, you're just playing another homebrew campaign in the end 😂

@jamesmerkel1932

6 ай бұрын

​@BushBumperBaker then don't use the political rhetoric. That was hard... Don't want to buy their minis? Then don't buy them. That was hard too... At the end of the day, you're still playing DnD, it's just someone else's homebrew they made based off their favorite edition of DnD 😂

I enjoy this content vs your stories. I hope the stories don’t go anywhere but it’s a nice change of pace.

When I saw name of Stage 4, only one phrase pierced my mind: "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and incidious killer"

2:39, yep calls me out - watching the minmaxing vids too. Thought I'd be heavy into the roleplay but I just honestly want to constantly be in combat.

firstly, what a great editing, it is painfully visible how much work has been put into this video. secondly.. it was scary how accurate this got. ive god a chaotic evil ending, and i have been playing my own thing with my people for over 10 years. combining this with me being a overly nice DM, turned players into "main characters" and now thats all we know, putting us all in a hostage situation without any possibility of ever playing normal DnD again.. its a cozy and safe purgatory of my own creation.

I hate that I feel so called out in this video, but I'm extremely impressed how accurate this is!

For me the beginning of my jpurney has my most core memories of D&D, it showed the story of a rising hero who went from being an irrelevant wanderer to the a hero with as much sway as monarchs. He reached level 20 and will always be my favorite character I've made.

@realdragon

6 ай бұрын

One of my first characters was con artist

i got the chaotic neutral ending after a few years

This is so accurate. I just started dmimg for my little siblings after getting out of a couple of long term campaigns.

Seeing Kazuma Kiryu definitely was peak of this video) Awesome easter egg! For the wondering souls: 8:10

@CritCrab

7 ай бұрын

This video got delayed by about 2-3 weeks because I discovered the Yakuza games during script writing. No regrets tho 🤘

@dekothewhat2233

7 ай бұрын

@@CritCrab Yooooo, wholeheartedly welcome you to the fandom, Kyodai)

@Majickss

6 ай бұрын

@@CritCrabdnd to yakuza nerd pipeline is real

As someone who skipped the stages 3 through 7 and became a DM soon after learning how to play, this honestly encapsulates the player journey pretty well. I myself have become somewhat of a Lawful Evil / Chaotic Neutral DM, somewhere between True Neutral and Neutral evil, I try to run PF1e whenever I can, and if I can't, I inject the better rules from PF1e to D&D5e. Good video overall King Crab, been a while since I last visited your channel, this video made me look forward to my next session :)

Love the concept, the energy, and the content! Great job man!

Thanks for a fun video CritCrab! It's different from your usual fare and I appreciated it! I'm not sure which "alignment" I fall under but its probably neutral good, but I have GM'd more than a few times haha

I honestly have no actual idea which of these stages I am in. I started playing with a group of friends from high school shortly before the pandemic and even though we couldn't play regularly, over the course of my first long running game, I zealously absorbed the entire 5e Ruleset, watched a ton of DnD content from various creators and when we finally, though somewhat anticlimactically, finished that first campaign I already volunteered to run the next one. I was so fascinated by the concept of creating your own world and having other people interact with it that I wanted to prove to myself that I could come up with a world and story everyone would be enamoured by. However at this point I already felt like I was the only person in the group still actually enthusiastic about the game, two of our players having already left and the remaining two often times giving me the impression they mainly attended our sessions out of politeness. Even though I managed to run about 8-10 sessions with longer and longer pauses in between, it's been over a year since our last session now and contact between us has dwindled to basically zero. I really have no real idea what to do. I still love the game wholeheartedly, but I feel like I don't know how I could pick this hobby back up. I am too anxious to approach experienced groups but at the same time if I try to introduce new people I will probably be stuck in the forever-dm-box for a long time. And as someone who, as previously stated, has only sat at the table as the player for a single campaign I would much prefer to go back to that place where I could just have silly adventures with like-minded people. My condolences to anyone who bothered to read my venting, I just had to get it off my chest somewhere.

@jtchabs728

7 ай бұрын

As a forever DM I just wanna say that practicing your story and how it is told is of great importance; it's not always easy to hook your players in from session one. But if you communicated with your players I think you'd be surprised at how critical you were of your DMing, when they quite honestly were having a good time. Always remember that the biggest problem you'll face as a DM is actually wrangling the players together without a schedule conflict. It can feel like they aren't interested, but in my own experience that's how you end up coming back from a 6 mo hiatus with several new players joining in from your group inviting them 😅. Have you tried any VTTs?

I took a characters arm once. We were using the fallout pnp system and the player had made a speech build, the player had it in mind that the actual thing they said didnt matter as much as the actual roll. I made it clear on more than one occasion that this was not the case, it wasnt sinking in. So the party encounters a cult and he immediately, clumsily... tells them their god isn't real, I gave opportunities to backpeddle but none where taken. The cultists proceded to chop the characters arm off with machetes(its a bit more complecated than that there was a pip boy involved). This player is a good friend of mine and this character grew into one of my favorite characters in any game I've run yet. Sorry when you got to the death part I thought of this.

@Eye_Of_Odin978

7 ай бұрын

Awful generous of ya to let him have a Pip Boy at the start lmao I have a small party playing currently and the location is based on my real-world state in the US but after the apocalypse, using various landmarks, state history, and some homebrewed/fanon lore along with the limited canon material on it. They had the option to pick "Vault Dweller" as a backstory but would take a huge hit to some stats, would start with the least money of all besides the "Waste Vagrant" backstory in exchange for a Pip-Boy to give them maps, a clock, a geiger counter, holtope player/recorder, and the ability to access VATS periodically for better attack rolls. Y'know, basic Pip-Boy functions. Nobody took "Vault Dweller" as their backstory template though. One was a former hooker ("Wastland Charmer" backstory)and the other's a Follower of the Apocalypse (Follower backstory) (Yeah, I did ban any other backstory template from getting access to a Pip-Boy solely because it's supposed to be an exclusive item. They could still FIND one in-game but it would be severely challenging)

@sideofhashbrowns660

7 ай бұрын

@@Eye_Of_Odin978 yeah the character was a vault dwellet but she was mostly blind from the experiment, I didnt considder the pip boy a huge advantage for our game. This players was a 3000 and another player had a 2000 found over the course of the game.

The Kingdom Hearts music at Stage 6 was a great touch

The part about character death is especially true. I was part of a group where I adored my character so much, it was the first time I got an art commission. However, another player was a problem player and constantly harassed me and even threatened me with violence repeatedly as a "joke," despite the DM asking him to refrain from such behavior. After like 4 months of this, the DM kicked me out instead of the problem player. It's been over a year now, and I still grieve and mourn the character pretty much daily, and despite constant searching on roll20 and discord, still havn't found a group to play them again. R.I.P. Aurora. You were a great character dealt a bad hand by even worse people.

@mal2ksc

5 ай бұрын

If your character is Adventurers League compliant, you might want to try using it there.

Brian gang, rise up and remember your TTRPG journey!

As a DM who falls under the Chaotic Neutral ending, I definitely agree that drawbacks come down to game design/DM skill. I think I'm halfway decent with my homebrew considering my players have yet to throw tantrums over my rulings, but hey, what matters is that everyone has fun :)

@clockwork7daemon

7 ай бұрын

As another CN DM, I agree

@byoung4028

6 ай бұрын

I completely agree! And I think another huge thing was realizing that I'm not a professional game designer and being willing to throw out and change my own rules whenever they become frustrating. Because even if I design bad rules, worst case scenario, I can just throw them out and start over

@mal2ksc

5 ай бұрын

@@byoung4028 While not a professional, I _have_ designed games. Here's my take: ALL rules are subject to revision until the moment it becomes a commercial product. Then you'd better have your ducks in a row and only make small changes after that.

CritCrab, your videos have helped me get through a lot lately. I have a job I don’t really like right now and I listen to your videos in the morning before work. They honestly help me get through the day. Thank you for what you do.

Beautifully done, CC - definitely recognise myself and some of my DMs, for better and worse, in all this, and it gives me a better perspective of each of us!

Very great video. As a chaotic neutral dm, the game is very fun but not perfect. I always try to focus on maling the game fun for my players so I dont always follow the rules super strictly. Its also fun to homebrew and make new experiences for my players that wouldnt get from normal d&d. I think the beauty of d&d is that ability to change things as needed. This is a game played primarily in the mind and a simple rulebook can never cover all the situations that people can imagine. Going with the flow and embracing these wild ideas is what truly makes d&d so magical.

I'm currently between stages 4 and 5. Nearly lost my character in last session's boss fight. Came like 4 damage away from getting instantly killed. I did buy enough time for my party to formulate a plan though.

CritCrab, I just wanted to say you're content is amazing and I appreciate your work here on KZread. Keep going strong brother.

@CritCrab

7 ай бұрын

Shell yeah ‼️

As somebody that is a couple years into this hobby, you nailed it with this video... I can't tell quite where I am but I'm not DM'ing yet, and I feel like I need a more experienced DM to watch this and tell me where I'm at. And I think that plays into your video as well... the veil that covers what you don't know yet or how much you don't realize you know that shadows where you are in your journey. I also enjoyed all the work you put into making this video. Nice editing as always.

stage 1: I remember the first action I ever did in DND. There was a DND group I joined in and I was given a rogue halfling character and when I started the party was in a combat situation. First thing I did was take out some chain and weave around the nearest bad guy, tying him up and holding him hostage. stage 2: Later when my sister wanted to join I convinced the DM to make a group for younger kids so my sister could play too. Me and my sister have been in this new group since the beginning. So many people have joined and left and I have recently learned that my sister is wanting to leave the group which admittingly makes me pretty sad since that would mean that I and my cousin would be the only original members besides my DM. stage 3: I had originally wanted to simply be a player. Turns out I have a lot of fun being a DM. I came up with a campaign that has each party member leading an army against enemies double what they are leading forcing them to have to strategize instead of just going in guns blazing. I even found a way to keep the realism while still being a nice DM by offering 3 do-overs. Which they needed when my cousin decided to try and rob a nearby store lol! stage 4 and 5: When it was my cousins turn to DM (All of the party members were getting a chance to try it out) I was playing a character named Juan Caviara, an amnesiac cyborg who was actually a dark warlord before being defeated in battle and losing his memory. Anyway in his campaign I had teamed up with another party member to take out my sister who had a bounty on her head (I did this because my former allies were hunting me hoping to restore my memory when I had mistaken them for wanting to sacrifice me) anyway the party member had wanted to take out the rest of the party as well so I attempted to warn the party members much to the dismay of the traitor. Anyway short version he confronted me attempting to stop me from warning the party and I learned that negative consequences happen when you cast fireball in close quarters. And that was my first character death. Funny enough I used that character in other 1 shot campaigns and he also dies again from throwing a fireball too close lol! I have not achieved enlightenment yet.

Lawful Evil ending here. At this point most of the campaigns in our group(s) barely resemble D&D5E anymore, it is the base for sure, but so much homebrew had to be added to make the system more interesting. Many of us are actively trying/moving to other systems, mainly Pathfinder 2E. It actually has rules for most situations, so the DM doesn't have to make up a rule for everything, like in D&D. Every class also just has more interesting stuff and they actually feel different.

Your videos inspired me to actually try to find a DnD campaign to join. Me and my friend ended up joining this one campaign where Im playing as a Paladin Rock Gnome. Its been super fun do far and the DM is super chill and has been helping us get into the game very well. We did a small oneshot for me and my friends backstory and Im super excited to meet the rest of the cast next week.

It's interesting that I got the ending that matches the alignment I usually already play; Neutral Good. Great video! Very entertaining. Made me think back to when I was first trying out D&D

Chaotic Good Ending: DM does little prep, usually relies on improvisation and runs campaigns in homebrew settings, all prioritizing fun and epic moments!

Where's the Chaotic Good Ending? Where you create your own TTRPG polygon entirely just for your friends?

Been a while since I seen a CritCrab video! Love this new format!

Incredible breakdown! Well done! I’m relieved to say I’m mostly a chaotic neutral DM leaning towards neutral good (I like to vibe). Liked. Subbed.

What if you start as a DM?

@GamingEngine-qh3tj

Ай бұрын

I wanna know as well

@knuckles_fails

Ай бұрын

Right. I live in a small town so no network for it I had to start by being a DM and talked my friend into giving it a try

@skarlaxion7524

Ай бұрын

Idk, but im going to give it a try 👍

@KandA-studios

17 күн бұрын

As someone who did start as a dm , you mess up and since I was 12… my campaigns sucked, railroading, unfunny characters that I thought were hilarious, terrible combat encounters. But with enough practice, good influences, and time, you can learn how to be a good dm/player

My first DND character was an androgynous tiefling warlock. His strong suit was deception. On numerous occasions, he was able to talk himself out of any pickle, even if it meant whoring himself out. He had naturally white hair and an almost pink skin, but his sweat had trace amounts of soot in it, so his hair and skin was always dirty and you couldn't exactly tell if the white and nearly-pink parts of him were his actual colors. He also had a niche for gambling, and on one occasion, he gambled with a mountain troll. His name was Amnon. Edit: he smelled like fire exclusively, you wouldn't be able to tell if he pissed himself yesterday

@ratronald

Ай бұрын

this is just a fetish

this is a wonderful video! I really like the approach you have on D&D videos about the roleplaying community, I really hope we will se more similar videos in the future, not necessarly about the same topic but still. Great job as always!

This video was awesome! I loved it and I hope it takes off for you. Here's hoping the best for you in the new year.

I am chaotic good stage 7. I am also willing to write an essay about paladin subclasses just to prove the superiority of Conquest. Man, I miss stage 1 and 2 so much. I enjoyed DnD then more than I have in the past 2 years. Also, I never experienced really tragic character death, because during learning phase, I tried to play a new character every time I learned something awesome. I intentionally murdered my character so many times, that I enjoyed it, and got bored when I stuck with any one character for too long.

@arena_sniper7869

6 ай бұрын

Try a watcher Paladin / chronomancy Sorcerer multi class if you can with a Hex Warlock Dip.

I'd like to think I got the chaotic nuetral ending 😅

Wow I really like the effort you put into this one!

Very different from your usual stuff. I like it!

I'm a little sad to see the only ending leading to trying other games is the narrow "lawful evil" minority. Having experimented with a bunch of other games/systems early on in my gamer life, DnD now appears to me as just one very specific type of ttrpg experience among a immense diversity of other genre/styles that exist outside of it. Like, i know its the most popular, and its definitely the gateway game, but i just wish it wasn't the "default" way to play for so many people.

@Wesley_Youre_a_Rabbit

7 ай бұрын

I feel this. But the popular thing is always going to be seen as the default thing, regardless of how HUGE and diverse the genre/hobby is. Lawful Evil Enders, like myself, just have to kindly and enthusiastically encourage players to try other systems. Especially new players. Break them in with something else so that when they finally try DnD, it isn’t the end all be all in their minds.

@aceupinasleeve5031

7 ай бұрын

@@Wesley_Youre_a_Rabbit Yes patience and passion. People need to be gently reminded that "trying something new is giving yourself the opportunity to fall in love". So much good stuff made by passionate people out there, in need of discovery.

I’ve recently been put on a beginner table and it’s amazing watching how they react. It’s also changed my feelings on the game too as I’m playing a supporting role for the first time, I’m glad I was given this opportunity to not only show others how to play but also how to play something outside of my comfort zone.

Crabs, I've been playing/DMing D&D for over 30 years. Played/DMed 3 different editions. (AD&D 2e, 3.5, 5e)(no 4e for obvious reasons). Your video is pretty accurate and I can't quite place myself on the spectrum. If I'd guess I would say somewhere between Chaotic Neutral and Neutral Good. My players have a blast and I constantly try to learn and improve my skills. As someone who grew up before the internet we just had to wing it. Now that I have access to some of the best DMs on the planet. I've taught and played with my children and now my grandchildren. With my bragging out of the way, I really enjoy your videos and learn something new with every one. Keep up the good work crabby boi.

Awesome video!! 😄 The issue of character death was different at my table, but added a ton of value to the experience. As DM, I introduced an NPC from our Blood Hunter's (called Witch Hunter back then) background, Drea. She would join the party as something of an apprentice to the PC. In an adventure against a lizardfolk cult, a lizardfolk warrior and their crocodile companion joined together to knock Drea out of the fight. The party waited to heal her, wanting to neutralize the encounter as quickly as they could. Unfortunately, Drea rolled a 1 on her second death save and didn't make it out of the encounter. This created a beautifully emotional moment with a PC! The party had a humble memorial for Drea, and the campaign moved on with a now very fired up Witch Hunter. Unfortunately the campaign was short lived due to irl logistical problems, but this moment was still talked about for years. 💜

I appreciate the use of the dearly beloved bgm during the transition out of the death section

Ive been spending hundreds of dollars on Dnd books and accessories over almost a year and JUST finally started mine and my friends first campaign. Has been so much fun.

more videos like this please it's different from what you usually do but it's great!

@CritCrab

7 ай бұрын

I had so much fun making this video, so I'll definitely make more. 😎🔥

love this new kind of video you are doing. Great job.

Love the new content, keep it up!

bro you didnt just play dearly beloved in your video, i didnt need to cry

As a new-ish dnd player i always found the roleplay element really cool like, that was one of the reasons i started

yo crit when i saw the thumbnail and title of this video, it took me back to those old HamajiNeo videos from TF2; i really enjoyed this video, thank you for sharing

I had the chaotic neutral ending and I'm blessed to have a group that enjoys the homebrew content. I'm currently preparing my most intensive campaign yet which we'll play in about a month!

Love this, always wanted a video like this after those "stages of X TF2 main" and this was well done, hoping for a DM one at some point after this

As an old D&D player since the late 70's, I can honestly say I've been through these stages. I would add an 8th, giving the DM reigns to a younger player you've had in games for years. So fun to be able to "just play'" again.

Great editing!

Great content 👍. Myself and a group of friends are stage 1 players and are having a blast.

Chaotic Neutral here. Loved that video, thank you so much, it entertained me A LOT

the ending was a little abrupt, but the video was great! Very cool to see you innovate with forms of content! Hope to see more soon.:D

Quite a good video. I played D&D for something like 4 years, and then I became lawful evil and switched to The Dark Eye. Luckily my whole group was on for the ride, even though the others were intimidated by the rules at first. Now we enjoy it a lot. The fighting system might be more complicated, but it feels faster than D&D, and more exciting. The world is very alive, the lore is interesting, and the story of the beginner campaign is very well written. The foreshadowing is great!

i started my introduction to dnd with minmaxing content, then made homebrew for a while, and finally, actually played. i'm still pretty new to dnd, but i think my homebrew has improved a lot.

My DM did a good thing to prepare me for my first character death: once we levelled to a place in our campaign where the encounters were getting mortally perilous, he instructed us all to create backup characters. Once I created a new character from scratch-this time with a familiarity to all the rules and a sense of what would be most useful on campaigns-I was looking forward to playing it. There was talk of finding a necromancer to revive the first character, but I like to refer to him as my pancake character. He was the first one I made and he didn’t come out quite right

Your videos always both scare and encourage me to try D&D. For now, I’m content with creating characters after buying the Player’s handbook.

mic sounds a lot better this vid, keep up the good work!

Hey, your video with Jocat from a few years ago just got recommended to me. I have watched you for a while but that was the first duo video I saw. Please make more. I know Jocat is leaving youtube, but I hope there are more people you could duo with. It was really cool seeing the exchange of ideas!

probably my most favorite D&D session was a star wars d20 (Revised edition). The gaming group was large and it was drop in drop out, but on average we had 9 to eleven people including our dm. Quite a few characters wound up close to death but it was incredibly fun. We didn't win every encounter and often ended up creating even more trouble. However it helped create a lot of my love and understanding for the group once our campaign ended. I was a soldier/scout/sharpshooter. The team's jack of all trades. We often got into trouble, we had a case where two chracters wound up prone in the same square because we performed an ambush. My own character would end up needing cybernetics for both her left lung and right eye. I love introducing newer players to D&D and its variations. I see it as a communal experience. I started out learning D&D as a child and I remember my first ever character died at level 1 in the snow while trying to fight goblins. I started out 'lawful good' in terms of a dm/player but now I'm more alignment shifted to a more neutral stance. Thank you for the wonderful video, it was nice watching the explanations :D.

I literally laughed out loud multiple times. Great video. I walked on as a fourth wheel in a session recently and chose to play Khelgar but as a Monk from lvl 1 in 5E. Medium armor Prof from the jump. My DM was cool but I had some first timers (or so, some required more explanation than others, but all really green). And I even had to give the DM a pass when he cut my Dex saving throws down to only a +2 despite me having a 16 Dex stat even though that only applies to AC but whatever. It was ultimately a really enjoyable experience. And a word of advice I'd give to seasoned players is cut your DM a break sometimes. They've earned it.

Nice touch playing Morphogenetic Sorrow from 999 in the Lawful Evil ending section.

Playing as a beginner was the best with my friends cause we all didnt know how the rules worked and it was so fun just winging it

I'd say I'm about stage two. my friend introduced me to DND when he was really early in like stage 1. its been an insane journey.

You may have convinced me to try this out… I wouldn’t even know where to get started though

Amazing, I hope you make more videos like this

This is different, but a nice one, well done Crab.

Love the video, geeking out over all the music choices =)

@ariagrumpy8254

4 ай бұрын

What’s the song in the “enlightenment” section? I really really like the sound of it but idk the name 🙏

This video kinda perfectly describes every player I've ever run across, including myself. I've been playing for a bit over a decade now and have been running the games I've been in for the majority of that time. Learning how to both let players do stupid funny shit and not let them walk all over my attempts at creating story was truly one of the most difficult things I've had to learn in really any type of social situation. What's so interesting is that fundementally, D&D is simultaneously a game of numbers- damage, skill checks and the like, which are very concrete concepts that when boiled down can literally just be seen as math on a page; while also being a mode of cooperative storytelling and worldbuilding, which takes each player's own life and thoughts and worldview and creates an ultimately incredibly creative and powerful narrative. This most interesting point is also the most contentious- and really puts a spotlight on the fact that D&D is just a system, not the game itself. Its the individuals in any given group that make a game around the system. I realized as I got more acquainted with my DM-ship that knowing this doesn't just help the game, it also provides a very real way of understanding the real people and world around me. By designing an imperial nation and its rulers one also learns how the greater systems around us use the banner of imperialism, and why. Anyhow, long story short, D&D is an incredibly valuable lense through which to learn about the world!

I started out my dnd experience with a chaotic evil dm. He had the best world building I’d ever seen and we always added new thing. He had playable races from Zelda, Pokémon trainer as a class, and many many more and it all fit together so perfectly. I think sticking to the rules like it’s the law does nothing but limit people’s creativity

Definitely a "Just Vibing" person. I enjoy certain settings and open to try different systems. Once I have grasp on rules I'd try running a game. Just at the table for a good adventure with fantastic nerds/friends

One of my favourite things to do is let them get away with messed up stuff in the beginning while noting that it’s not liked and them several sessions later have the consequences all hit and then it’s a new type of fun when they start thinking about what happens

A colleague of mine invited me into a DnD group for a 4 session campaign for new players, but we enjoyed it so much that we've kept it going for about a year now. A few sessions ago we had this little side story for some other new players to try. We didn't have enough players so my sister and I joined with our secondary characters (we've only ever used them once before for a oneshot). And man, I did not expect this rollercoaster of emotions. He told the other players that our characters were evil, and they had to betray us. We did not see this betrayal coming at all, even though there were hints. We played the 2 most goodie two shoes characters ever, and helped them beat the boss and get the artifact, only for them to beat us up and leave us for dead. I was so shocked, angry, and sad. I just sat there, stunned at the complete and utter betrayal. 10/10 would recommend, never felt more alive.

This is accurate as heck for me! I went from "I'm an invincible barbarian and all* damage is halved for me!" to "wait. shit. I... died?" I also took the character death harder than I expected; they really become a part of you *That character death also made me comprehend that not ALL damage is halved; it's just that up until that point, most of our enemies had been dealing piercing, bludgeoning, etc. damage, and my party members would be like, "your HP is basically double what's on your sheet" lol. We learned after that.

Love the dearly beloved track ❤. KH FTW!!! Awesome video

i believe im at the start of my long haul, im lucky to have been a part of the TTRPG community since mid high school, and i have plenty of fun stories to look back on! but im also in a weird spot, as ive never had the chance to play in person, in fact just yesterday i finally joined my first in person game! so while my game knowledge may be there, and ive got plenty of experience i know I still have so much to learn

I'm happy to say I got my first taste of playing DnD from playing Baldur's Gate 3. I know it's not quite the same as TTDND, but I just started my first proper tabletop campaign about a week ago, and already knowing the basic rules and mechanics made getting things up and running a whole lot easier and more fun for both me and the rest of my party.

@mal2ksc

5 ай бұрын

BG3 has me worried. It's going to bring in a lot of new players, but a whole lot of them are going to expect a lot more than a TTRPG can deliver. As for the rest, even if the _game_ can deliver, can the DM? I have a feeling we're headed into a new era of abuse of DMs by n00bs who don't understand, who expect commercial-quality content FOR FREE.

Dearly beloved being in the background in the background really hits hard