Strahd IS the ultimate Incel. I'm running him like Carl from ATHF, and it's going wonderfully.

@SuperBatSpider

4 ай бұрын

ATHF?

@deadpool1454

4 ай бұрын

​@@SuperBatSpiderAqua Teen Hunger Force

@JoeRyuKen

4 ай бұрын

Do you do his voice with the Jersey accent?

@SuperBatSpider

4 ай бұрын

@@deadpool1454Got it

@LucyBean42

4 ай бұрын

I do, I interject quotes here and there where it fits and changed the character model to Carl Face. As long as you play it straight, it works.

Venus isn't just love and sex. She was a goddess of war too, primarily victory by luck, and she was particularly promoted by Julius Caeser. She was a lot more proper in Roman values than the Greek Aphrodite too. Mainly because the whole connecting Rome to Troy mythology needed it.

@prettyevil6662000

4 ай бұрын

She would be a fun goddess for a paladin. But you couldn't really be shocked or offended when people approach you about favors either. You'd have a perfectly good reason to say no, but people still gonna ask and eye you down.

@gorvarhadgarson5227

4 ай бұрын

Well yeah, Caesar claimed all of House Julii came from the boats of Troy. Of course he was gonna promote Grandma Venus

@shanerasmussen5225

4 ай бұрын

I prefer Hathor, godess of Love, Medicine, and Music, or in the words of Jack O'Niell Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll.

@gorvarhadgarson5227

4 ай бұрын

@@shanerasmussen5225 Stargate SG1 was so rad...

@clarehidalgo

4 ай бұрын

@@shanerasmussen5225 Both Aphrodite and Hathor evolved from Astarte who evolved from Inanna and Ishtar

I mean, Strahd is a massive incel, he's just an incel with power...which makes him ten times more scary

@jrytacct

4 ай бұрын

Only in 5th Edition, in which he's now an In Name Only version of his previously canon character. P.N. Elrod's depiction of him in the two "I, Strahd" novels should be considered the definitive biography of the Lord of Barovia. This "new and improved" version of Strahd is both ridiculous and insulting to the character.

@changingname_goaway

4 ай бұрын

That's part of the catharsis of fighting Strahd right? take the biggest incel in the multiverse and allow the players to beat him sensless.

@damien678

3 ай бұрын

Strahd literally has 3 wives, 1 husband, and a fiance.

@ivanalukic1612

Ай бұрын

​@@jrytacctCould you elaborate how different is the character of Strahd in these novels, I am curious.

I had to pause the video to laugh at "Dude got left on read, and sent the Grim Reaper!" 😂

@AMStryx

4 ай бұрын

I had to make a clip of that! That was just too gold! 🤣

The last story made me so mad. I felt so bad for the OP and I hope they have an opportunity to play with a good group.

The RA of the dorm is a Room Advisor, so they are often the ones who are making sure the place is kept clean, repairs get sent in when needed, resupply what's low, and in general make sure no one is being an ass to each other. Outside of that, its jsut a case of "How well do you work with your 'boss'?" to gauge how much you like them. I had an RA who actually hosted his own dorm floor FGC mini tourneys.

Fun fact! Firearms predate Rapiers

@lordjor96

4 ай бұрын

Fun fact, firearms existed in the bronce age (in china but still)

Strahd is indeed the ultimate incel. And given how the Dark Powers revel in the eternal suffering of the dreadlords, they would absolutely make sure that anyone he is attracted to either ghosts him or dies right when he thinks he's going to score.

@damien678

3 ай бұрын

Strahd literally has 3 wives, 1 husband, and a fiance.

@shagohad3

3 ай бұрын

@@damien678 Lol, no he doesn't. Strahd only wants Tatyanna, his brothers fiance. The brother he murdered to get to her. The Dark Powers take great joy in reincarnating her and dangling her in front of him. It amuses them to see the vampire incel lust after a woman they never let him have.

@damien678

3 ай бұрын

@@shagohad3 He literally does have multiple partners. Look it up. That doesn't mean you're wrong about him being obsessed with Tatyanna, though. He somehow has incel energy while having multiple partners.

RA stands for Resident Advisor, and they’re basically the dorm judge/mediator

Story 5: I’m so sorry OP. I don’t know what was up with your friends not having your back, but I will say as an enby bisexual that behavior would never fly at my table. Not only was that person just wrong, enbies DO exist, but zero tolerance on explaining anyone’s sexuality to them. I, myself, used a ttrpg to try out being called they/them for the first time, and it was huge in me feeling euphoric and knowing I truly wasn’t the she/her I had always assumed I was. As Crispy said, these games can be great for that. I’d like to believe if you ever tried again you could find a table that accepts you for who you are, or if you’re still not out, at least lets you play the character you want. In one of the games I DM, during our collaborative character creation, my only straight cis male player decided since he is playing an animal race Druid, it made sense for them to be non-binary and asexual, looking for connection with people but not romance. They can wildshape into human aspects as well as animals. 😂 At first he was worried playing at a pretty queer table (he’s an awesome ally) that it might be offensive, him playing someone who wasn’t straight. And I’m like, nah, as an actor I play characters all the time that I don’t personally identify with. And who am I to deny someone the experience of playing someone else? I don’t know their life, they might be like I was once and trying something out. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Or they might be straight/cis and just doing what makes the most sense for their character. In any case, just wanted to give you perspective of how accepting tables operate, and sending you hope that you’ll find one when you’re ready.

@exist4046

3 ай бұрын

I managed to learn that I was both extremely gay and also trans (nb specifically) from slowly becoming alright with one of my very early on characters being a guy and dating guys. Note I came from a Christian family that very much tried to keep me from knowing much of this stuff (though in some ways I think me becoming open ended up helping my dad outta the closet. Parents split up due to incompatibility, dad now has a husband. It's almost insane to think that he once was trying to keep me from looking up gay ships lmao). Shit continued, I had a huge fascination with femboy characters and designs, then as it turned out wow! That's because I actually wish I had that androgyny!! Went from being mildly frightened by trans people (middle school was terrible for me and a lotta the people who ended up causing me legit trauma were trans, so I was dumb and associated that with toxic traits) to being one of the most genderfuckery people in the local area.

I enjoy how my DM introduced guns into our setting. Pretty much there are maybe a dozen or two in the world, and they were created by some gnomes in the giant evil dinosaur jungle land because you know… gnomes need a way to not get eaten by the giant evil dinosaurs. Our party met up with a group of pirates who managed to steal one, and my warlock who was proficient in tinkers tools rolled like a 28 to be able to tell how they were made, and I made two more off that. I made them so they are more utility then weapons because no one is proficient in them, so the longer ranged rifle can put silence on the user for our rogue to get some snipes in but it casts knock on a misfire. The second one I made is more of a flare gun that turns the user invisible once per long rest so our bard can get out of trouble but on a misfire it turns everything around them invisible… I was very proud of coming up with that one. He actually got really clever with it once and broke it on purpose to turn the party invisible when we almost got TPKed.

@Your_Highlord

4 ай бұрын

If and/or when I wanna try making/playing D&D with guns, I'm gonna lean more into the Azeroth/Bloodborne type of firearms. Where the variety isn't high, and most of the special effects come from some form of ammo, magic or attachable gadgets

@shanerasmussen5225

4 ай бұрын

I just had Spelljammers smuggling black powder guns into the world.

As a fellow nb its wild to have a irl person make the "shapeshifting is transphobic!!" Twitter argument that also happened to Nate Stevenson and he IS nb as well. Just goes to show how surface level a lot of cishet activism is

@LordSvzklx

4 ай бұрын

See given how in the story here the “shapeshifting is transphobic” line is immediately followed up with “and nonbinary isn’t a thing!” I’m suspecting the real problem is that J is just straight up transphobic themselves but knows it’s harder to argue with them if they’re the ones throwing the accusation around. Like the sort of people who seem to believe they’re the ones being oppressed when you ask them to stop throwing slurs at minorities

@solosynapse

4 ай бұрын

​@@LordSvzklxYea, that definitely seems to be the case.

@Koseishi

4 ай бұрын

Yeah, that was a bizarre connection to make. I'm ashamed to say I used to have a very transmedicalist worldview as a binary trans man, and that included not believing nonbinary people about their experiences. However, even with that mentality I'm struggling to see what would have been considered transphobic about op's character. Of course shapeshifting is a common theme for trans people, but trying to synonymize the two would create a host of problems I don't think anyone wants.

@crystallovingfairy1

4 ай бұрын

​@@LordSvzklxagreed

@LeapThroughTheSky

4 ай бұрын

It happens a lot in topics about race too from White activists and it's exhausting. These type of people are really just obnoxious and impossible to be around because they're more concerned with feeling and looking righteous than they are about the people they claim to be advocating for.

I’d reject strahd too TBH

@Denkono

4 ай бұрын

I'd arrange Strahd to become smoochy with Rasputin. Their personalities were made for each other.

@0Rikkitikki0

4 ай бұрын

Has anyone ever said yes to him? I mean, eew

@kaylawoodbury2308

4 ай бұрын

I would have a character date him but only if my party was cool with it and it would probably be some double agent type shenanigans. I feel like that could be fun.

@tsifirakiehl4250

4 ай бұрын

@0Rikkitikki0 I don’t understand it either, but there are people out there who find Strahd attractive. My Curse of Strahd group and I all question those people’s taste.

@unluckyone1655

4 ай бұрын

I mean, Strahd is kindof attractive. But sadly, that is his only positive trait. I'd probably have a one night stand if and only if I would never see nor hear from him again

Intro story: I get not wanting to be bogged down with meaningless side quests and filler arcs, but it’s also boring to be stuck with only one thing to do. There’s a happy medium here somewhere. First story: I gotta say, the DM was definitely playing Strahd accurately. This is exactly what he would do. The paladin player definitely made some questionable decisions, but everything worked out in the end, so I wouldn’t call this a horror story at all! Second story: NTA. The point of a game is to have fun. The way your DM DMs may not be compatible with the way you want to play, and that’s totally fine. I think you should talk to him about the disconnect between your playstyles, and if you can’t come to a compromise, it might be time to leave the game. If you end up leaving, I promise there’s a table out there that will fit your playstyle better. Third story: As an answer to your gun question, Crispy, the 5e DMG has stats for firearms, and the damage output of a musket is the same as a lance or a greataxe. An automatic pistol does the same amount of damage as a maul. They’re just slightly more powerful martial ranged weapons. About the rest of the story, that was a pretty glorious way for a PC to go out. I give Cotter a salute. 🫡 Fourth story: I understand freezing up and shutting down in the moment, but if Mitchell and the DM didn’t do anything after the fact, then they were just enabling Jasmine. I’m not nonbinary myself, but two of my players are, and if someone tried to give them or their characters shit for it, that someone would be thrown out of my game on their ass. Heck, even if I didn’t have nonbinary players, I’d kick anyone who tried to hate on nonbinary people out on their ass. There’s a group out there for you, OP. Hang in there.

Hey Crispy, thanks for reading my entry! I'm the DM for the Incel Strahd story. Appreciate the feed back, watched this with the Tiefling Bard (my mrs) and we both had a good laugh! Cheers!

IDK if anyone else has mentioned this, but starting the players at different levels is how it worked..... in 2nd edition. Because character level scaled differently between classes. Some people do this still anyway even though ti's a bad idea, but usually give some kind of catchup mechanic to make it more fair.

@Stephen-Fox

4 ай бұрын

Yeah. It sounds like the DM in that story is trying to run 5e with the default play culture of 1/2e while (at least some of) the players are expecting the default play culture of 5e and it's... Not going well. Communication is needed to get expectations into alignment.

@naldormight6420

4 ай бұрын

IDK I think fighters could do with a headstart to Paladins, sorcerers etc.

That last story reminds me of how when I first started questioning my gender at 14, I ended up repressing my feelings "for the good of others" because it was 2013 and I kept seeing stamps on DeviantArt that claimed that nonbinary existence was harmful to binary trans people, and I didn't want to hurt anyone.

As someone dming a warhammer fantasy game, the average gun in that setting is a flintlock or musket. Stronger than the average crossbow, but not reliable when the orc is within ten feet from you Or its raining

Cotter here, thanks for reading my story! It was less of a horror story and more of a "memorable character death" story, since i don't really have any horror stories to tell. Dying horribly is pretty much par for the course in Shadow of the Demon Lord- especially when you deal with dark magic like the "Forbidden Magic" school, which is essentially inflicting body horror on your enemies. I made Cotter a sort of "glass cannon" type character, as I rolled up the smallest and weakest body type for him, and I usually go for the heavy-hitting weapons in RPGs anyway. I kind of figured he'd go out this way, and while I was somewhat disappointed i took it in stride. Yeah, guns in Shadow of the Demon Lord are actually decently balanced; they're essentially smoothbore, single shot black powder guns (there are six shooters and even gatling guns available, but they require specialty levels). They have their pros and cons, doing a lot of damage at range but being slow to reload and expensive to maintain.

Oooo! Not the elbow to the doorknob! I hate that. The flamethrower explosion wasn’t really a horror story… it actually sounded like one of those memorable rpg moments.

I once played an Artificer who used a gun. It didn't function like a regular gun with bullets. It's basically how I flavored him using Firebolt.

Sidequests are awesome. Nuff said.

"I miss Ketheric." I DIED. Perfect.

9:35 Crispy unleashes his inner Loot Goblin. 🤣 *Edit:* As for guns in fantasy settings - there was a fairly long period (roughly between the 15th to 18th century) where swords and pistols co-existed. Note that the guns in Exandria for example are mostly flintlocks (with the occasional historically accurate pepperbox weapon) or the likes, which isn't that weird.

@naldormight6420

4 ай бұрын

2e already had arcebuses - DM on the evening I found out just outright baned them. 😂 Somehow how firearms really step on some peoples romantic notions - and it does not make a livk of sense to me.

I'm glad the first story has a happy ending but honestly it seems like for a lot of the story the player was just uncomfortable with the romance/sexuality angle and there probably should have been a conversation about that instead of it kinda escalating because that's what would logically happen in the fiction. I'm a big advocate of being honest to the story generally but that's a case where real-life comfort takes precedent. It feels like the reason they got more comfortable with rp after is maybe just because the rp stopped moving in that direction. Either way it seems to have worked out so good for them.

@CrispysTavern

4 ай бұрын

Agree with you on that one. I centered my commentary on a different angle, my bad.

@catinacafe7105

4 ай бұрын

My thoughts exactly I was hoping I wasn't the only one who thought that.

@prettyevil6662000

4 ай бұрын

She kept stepping into sexual stuff though. She only has herself to blame for doing that. Chose a goddess of sex to be paladin for - and DM let her change it when she revealed she didn't know who Venus was. Chose to go on a date with Strahd in which it sounds like the DM was pretty clear what Strahd expected. Can't blame a DM for playing through it realistically and being confused when you keep volunteering for those things. I think Crispy focused on the correct angle. She was stepping into things she wasn't comfortable with despite having options. The DM was providing consequences that were workable for the group and reasonable for the benefit they received without just letting her flake without any consequences months later. TLDR: Dont volunteer for a romantic encounter if you don't want one. The DM can't know you're uncomfy if you don't say so and keep volunteering.

@NotPigeonV2

4 ай бұрын

@@prettyevil6662000 people do need to take a certain amount of responsibility for their own comfort and if my read is correct and she was uncomfortable with the situations that were coming up then ideally yes she should have communicated that more clearly to the dm. But being ignorant about Greek gods doesn't mean she deserves to be made uncomfortable (and they did correct that for the next session which was good) and it wasn't her choice to have Strahd take a romantic interest in her, that was the DM's decision. I don't think the DM was being malicious for that choice or that it was morally wrong for them to think that would be an interesting arc for the character, but that's why I say there should have been a conversation about it because it may have cleared things up and resolved the situation sooner. Regardless, though, I don't think "if she was uncomfortable that was her fault for being dumb" is the take, man. That ain't it.

@prettyevil6662000

4 ай бұрын

@@NotPigeonV2 I didn't say 'it was her fault for being dumb' nor that she 'deserved' it. I said the DM cannot know she's uncomfortable if she keeps walking into those situations on her own - DMs are not mind readers. It was her decision to agree to Strahd's offer. She could have said no from the beginning but didn't. The DM had no reason to think she was uncomfortable with something she agreed to. You sure you're actually in favor of people taking any responsibility for their own comfort when that's basically what my whole post is about and you decided to reframe it as me somehow saying she deserved it?

Firearms existed as far back as the 14th century, so its honestly not that hard to do. Just make guns high damage, but unwieldy and there you go.

My character flat-out called Strahd an incel when I played through Curse of Strahd. (Also, I decided my character developed feelings for Ireena as well, as I enjoyed exploring the idea of unrequited yet *selfless* love in contrast with Strahd's obsession.) I know a lot of people have had some massive horror stories regarding that game. But when done well, it's a great exploration of philosophy (moral, religious, and existential) and overcoming abuse.

@tsifirakiehl4250

4 ай бұрын

For a second there, I thought you might have been one of my players, but then I realized your username was different. When I ran Curse of Strahd, my whole party called Strahd an incel, and one of the PCs developed feelings for Ireena.

I love to mix firearms and swords: magic swords, badass Jedi like bullets deflecting, knights in legendary armor standing mid hail of bullets - plenty of fun stuff to have

The last story is about the worst kind of activists; the one that is going to protect a vulnerable minority against itself.

Every now and then I think of a yugioh abridged quote and put it to strahd and it goes too well. “Don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here whimpering to myself” “Sure would be a shame if someone took pity on me” “Why is no one telling me I’m special?!”

I just want to know how the centaur was going to fit inside Strahd's carriage....

@gorvarhadgarson5227

4 ай бұрын

Very carefully

Shadow of the Demon Lord is more early renaiscence than medieval. Trains and stuff already exist

@ArcCaravan

4 ай бұрын

Sounds like a fun setting. Medieval gets boring after so much use and modern doesn't always work out.

@lordjor96

4 ай бұрын

Trains are from the 2nd industrial revolution (mid to late 1800s)

"All I know is everyone hates them." Well I can't speak for everyone but mine let her friends use my room for a party one weekend my roommate and I were out of town; they trashed the place, ate most of our food, and stole around $200 cash along with some electronics and trading cards

That first campaign... Gauls with magic potion and an undead centurion? Got a little Asterix and a little Eternal Darkness in there, huh?

@gorvarhadgarson5227

3 ай бұрын

I legit used Eternal Darkness as touching stone

The idea that Strahd has been rejected so many times that Myrkul just knows instantly when it's happened again is priceless EDIT: Every bullet needs to be individually enchanted in order to have a gun be viable against enemies with resistances. And also some enemies are just too large and have hides too thick for guns to work, unless said gun is more akin to a cannon. Zombies/Skeletons/etc obviously don't care if you shoot them with a gun. Fantasy blacksmithing and materials(like adamantine) would very likely make for completely bulletproof weapons And lastly... why bother going through all the trouble of making bullets when you can just pick up a cantrip from your local magic shop? I'll take a Ray of Frost that doesn't need reloading, won't blow up my hand on a misfire, can be used for purposes other than combat, etc.

@ArcCaravan

4 ай бұрын

While I appreciate your answer to guns in magical settings, it makes me wonder how non-firearms would be viable against enemies immune to guns. As for the cantrip logic, I just think of all the non-magic users who can't just easily get spells. I've heard similar question/ruling in a certain streamed campaign in a modern fantasy setting.

@somedudewithakeyboard5388

4 ай бұрын

@@ArcCaravan In the modern day, crossbows can penetrate into bulletproof targets. Therefore, considering the fact that even normal people in fantasy settings can usually perform things that would at the very least require a very in shape and athletic IRL human to replicate, the draw strength for bows and crossbows in a fantasy setting would likely far outpace what we have IRL. Another point I failed to mention is ease and availability of ammo acquirement/creation. A functional bullet + gun will be much more difficult to construct than something like a compound or arbalest, especially considering the prior point about penetration power

@solosynapse

4 ай бұрын

Why would each bullet need to be enchanted when ranged weapons convey damage enchantments to their ammo?

@naldormight6420

4 ай бұрын

Yeah, no. None of this makes any sense. - Unless you really wanna pigeonhole people into playing casters.

@damien678

3 ай бұрын

That is actually really funny 😂

Listening to these stories and hearing people are wishing to find a good dm makes me want to just-- scoop them up and run a campaign for them

Okay the moment I heard the Asterix the Gaul reference, I was so very giddy. OP has good taste in French/Belgian comics.

Also I just finished the video. The pirate changeling sounded pretty cool. Also be a fun mind game to run out on the bar tab.

I loved my RA. He brought us homemade cookies and succulents and always checked in on us. He let me stay in the office with him at 2 AM when I was having an anxiety attack.

On the guns issue I vary it a little from setting to setting but my general rules are a few limitations on availability of both the weapons and parts/ammo compared to bows. The extra working parts also make enchanting them a bit harder. I've ran a post-apoc d&d where guns used to be fairly common but didn't get quite the same level of development due to magic alternatives being available. The party had acquired a single-shot shotgun, a .38 service revolver and a magic .22 pistol, and none of them seemed game-breaking. Also I very much agree that Strahd has massive incel vibes.

18:50 The system in my campaign is Pathfinder, which already has a gun system set up, but the set up is that this is during the time that guns are up an coming. The player in question's family are gun specialists and he is constantly working on how to improve things and incorporate magic into the attack. I've even had throw away lines about specialized roles such as hunters having more simplistic guns as they find a place in civilization

Characters in 2e leveled up at different rates but also had different max levels based on how strong the class is from the beginning. Like you could be a Paladin but only have a max level of 10 and level up once every 5 sessions because.... Being a paladin is already strong. While on the other hand you can be a wizard and level up once every 2-3 sessions because you're weak and squishy at first and need a few levels to even out. 3rd edition was the one that unified the '20 level' standard that we see today, but 2e wasn't bad (the first 2 Baldur's Gate games are based on it

Some class act from the table in the last story. I'd leave too and I'd probably avoid contact with those individuals from there on.

I recently gave one of my players a pistol but I've consistently described it as a flintlock so it's single shot and takes time to reload. I've also placed a restriction on ammo availability. There's also the matter that it can't be used if it gets wet

Pretty sure apotheosis for Caesar and victory for the Gauls at Alessia are mutually exclusive, if Vercingetorix and the Gauls had defeated Caesar and his army, Pompey and the other conservative Senators would've taken the immediate opportunity to send Caesar out in disgrace to some far-flung province, not give him the prestigious assignment of Cisalpine Gaul that allowed him to march on Rome and start the civil war in the first place, and without that he wouldn't have anywhere near as much influence as he eventually did, meaning his dictatorships and eventual assassination wouldn't have happened. And that's if he survived in the first place, the Romans at Alessia were notoriously trapped between two separate Gallic armies, retreat was essentially impossible and defeat would likely mean Caesar's head on a spike. Just a little thing that jumped out at me. Also, Strahd summoning avatars of death because women wouldn't send him feet pics of the best idea and I would love to see more people make that kind of joke at his expense.

@LucyBean42

4 ай бұрын

If Caesar somehow survived a failed Alessia, he wouldn't have had a legion to march upon Rome with to oppose the senate voting his imperium away. He would've died in prison.

@gorvarhadgarson5227

4 ай бұрын

Hello DM from the Incel Strahd story! You're absolutely right and I did a ton of research on Roman History before and during the campaign. However I didn't take Roman history whole sale, the capital was actually called Reme, and I just wanted an excuse to annoy my players with Asterix and Obelix. I succeeded 😊

@moritzlinden7169

4 ай бұрын

@@gorvarhadgarson5227 Note that, in Asterix, Caesar still won at Alessia. It is part of the backstory.

In the fantasy games I've played that included guns, they were always "low-tech" guns such as flintlocks and pistols. Additionally, they weren't mass produced yet. Usually the player made it themselves or a skilled Artificer/blacksmith made it and it was difficult and delicate work so they can't just churn them out quickly. Heck maybe even they're protective of their patent, so even though they've sold "hundreds" a couple hundred isn't enough to be widespread in the world. As for moments like in your skit, where you have the sword user against a gunman, I'm a big fan of "close the gap" tropes. In fantasy, Magic also usually exists. So we give the swordsman something like Shield or Mage armor to function almost like a bullet proof vest, flavor it however you like, and once he gets within melee range he's got the upper hand and can disarm the gunman.. maybe even literally.

@solosynapse

4 ай бұрын

I mean, there was an historical samurai who occasionally took on riflemen _and won._

As far as I know, while Venus was the goddess of love and sexuality (among other things) that does not mean that anyone worhipping her in a professional position was priscuous or anything. In fact, there was one aspect of Venus, Venus Vericordia, that was all about woman being chaste (or faithful to their partner, if they had one). So that portrayal was not totally wrong. On the flipside, the portrayal of Mars as a brute sounds more like athenian portayals of Ares. In Rome, Mars was more about strategy and protection. For horrible war they had Bellona, though Bellona was also the goddess of diplomacy. In short, gods are complicated.

@moritzlinden7169

4 ай бұрын

"priscuous" is supposed to be "promiscuous", somehow I lost two letters.

I'm running a quasi-open world campaign, and I try to make a large number of my side quests tie into major quests and central story without explicitly telling my party. It can be a piece of information that will be of importance later, an NPC that might be inclined to aid them in the future, or a nation-shaking revelation that will change the entire direction of the narrative. And the party has no reason to suspect any such things until they're actually doing the side quest because nothing of the sort is explicitly stated. It rewards the party beyond simple gold or trinkets in a way that still feels narratively satisfying for the players, and it helps me as a GM continue to flesh out the people of the world and their relationships with one another in a way that feels natural and organic.

I mean he is. As long as the DM is playing that as the villainous keystone its perfect

I mean, Strahd is sort of D&D's ultimate incel isn't he? He gets spurned by a woman so he does all the horrible things he ends up doing, dies, and lives in an endless hell where he makes everyone miserable while getting perpetually spurned by reincarnations of the same woman he refuses to get over.

“Idk if this counts as a horror story but *insert most vile disgusting experience known to man*”

I feel bad for the state of media literacy when you dont get that Strahd IS a huge incel.

@damien678

3 ай бұрын

Look, I get that he has huge incel energy, but he does also have 3 wives, a husband, and a fiance.

25:34 100% if there was conflict and everyone else is avoidant, help in the moment is rare. But i am flabbergast that the DM didn't check on OP or dismiss J from the group

Guns could be the classic blunderbusses that require manual reloading of both gunpowder and ammo. Smoothbore also ensures they’re less accurate than a bow. However, they’ll definitely hit harder than an arrow when the shot lands.

Wow, I wonder who the poster of the intro story is because I had a player/DM EXACTLY like this. It is incredibly frustrating. I planed an organic hook with an NPC that was actually a major part of the main story....the guy wanted NOTHING to do with it despite the fact that I spent minutes describing the situation....pretty blatant lampshading in my opinion. In another game where I am a player, the DM described mysterious lights and smoke that we could see from our airship and he wanted to JUST KEEP GOING. This is when the DM pulled him aside and asked him if he is an adventurer or not. As a DM, he is equally frustrating. We had a mini campaign where we were chosen by the Elves of the Moonshaes to investigate attacks in both the Shadowfell and the Feywild, a plot I was honestly excited about. Turns out we spent the majority of our time investigating crime scenes that were weeks old. There was a scene in the Feywild where we were present at one of these assassinations and we could do NOTHING to stop it. At one point we literally spent two weeks waiting near a rock for our guide when he went into a city we were not allowed to go to under pain of death. We were bored, so we went to hang out with some of the locals. Said locals were latter murdered off scene WITHIN earshot and we could do nothing. Finally we got evidence that this was linked to a Drow house. I was excited as my character was a renegade Drow. You know what we got to do? We got told off by some NPCs for following the driders as we were much too weak to deal with the actual threat. The great climax was some under CR chaff lead by the daughter of the actual threat who didn't even wake up to fight us. That's right. She slept while we dealt with her low CR minions and we later snuck into her room and stole her holy symbol. Talk about a shaggy dog story, sheesh. He is currently DMing a Star Wars game. It is better than the D&D game, but it is the epitome of slow burn. It is all about diplomacy and politics as an outside element is bringing dangerous drugs into an isolated star cluster. There are hints at a threat, but it has mostly been talking to officials and doing grass roots research. We have had exactly two combats in half a dozen sessions. One was against low level street punks that couldn't really hurt us. The second was just a disguised invitation from the local pirate faction looking for help going legit because piracy is more dangerous than profitable due to some sort of hidden threat. This is Clone Wars era Star Wars Is it too much to ask that we get to slash some clankers, or at least fight some criminal enforcers? Yes, we have talked about his tendencies both in front of the screen and behind it. I just don't get his thinking sometimes.

I was afraid before listening that the titular story was about me cause I'm running Curse of Strahd and one of my players called him that! 😅😅

@tsifirakiehl4250

4 ай бұрын

I ran Curse of Strahd a while ago, and my whole party called Strahd an incel. Playing Strahd as an incel is just playing him accurately.

Hello! Just came across your video by chance today via the sidebar recommendations here on YT. I will admit I did so cause I saw it was referencing Strahd, which the campaign he's from is the one I'm currently playing in (Curse of Strahd). It's not the 1st dnd campaign I've played, but thankfully it's been the most positive experience I've had in years. Anyways, I'm happy to have come across your content. I like how you read aloud about the situations and then gave some really helpful insight and advice on how to handle the situations. It's great! I look forward to seeing more of your content. :)

That last story touches upon something that annoys me with some of these horror stories. The ones where the players are “friends” with the OP but treat them terribly. I get DnD is still a game and you shouldn’t end friendships with a in game issues. But there are stories where it’s made clear that some personal arcs are brought into a game, people know about it, and then disrespect that. Personally I have very few friends but each one is worth keeping because I know that they would respect me in and out of a game.

For the guns and swords thing i look. At the Renaissance period guns existed but they required specialized craftsmanship thus making them rarer and expensive so few people could afford to carry them leaving swords the primary method of combat until the industrial revolution

For guns go with history. How in Japan maji (I think that's right) era knew guns existed but there still new and experimental. And only in the West were they semi common. To incorporate gun in fantasy setting look at history and how guns were starting to evolve there. Gun powder was even created because someone was trying to make immortality. That can even be used

It's been a month, but I want to say, with as much context as we have for the first story at 2:08, Paladin acted mostly reasonably: -Picking a god because they have a cool name and making a mistake, that's fine, just remember to read a bit more about the god next time! -Picking Mars the god of war for epic fights and ruthlesness, cool, go for it! -You're stuck somewhere and there's only Strahd to help with a deal, well, if it's the only way to help your party, accept the deal -Now that your party is safer, you have an option to not accept that deal that you really didn't want to have to follow (given that Venus was already not the right goddess), refuse to comply and deal with the fights that you are much suited to handle that would result -It somehow gets so bad that you're god is intervening and the solution is a one-on-one fight with Strahd, with no other information, you'd wager you're gonna loose and war is all about tactics, war is about knowing who to fight and who not to fight, so you refuse again, better equipped (you suppose) to deal with the consequences -But your god prefered merciless war and fights and doesn't have the same vision of war as you, fine, you become an oathbreaker then and will continue to follow your vision. I think she handled well a lack of in-character options. Glad to see the roleplaying improved, but I hope the DMing did too! Overall there was just an equilibrium between the playstyle of Paladin and the DMing style of the GM needed, which they reached by the end

Strahd! Also, on the subject of guns in medieval fantasy settings, it is entirely possible to include them & be far more historically accurate than one might think: The first primitive firearms in the form or crude cannons & "Fire Lances" were known to have existed in the 11th century in East/Southeast asia (there is an 11th century fresco depicting a Buddha being beset by demons who are either trying to tempt him with earthly pleasures or threaten him with various weapons, including a very early grenade & fire lance), with more recognizable firearms emerging in Europe in the 13th century (cannons know as Pots de Fer) and 14th century (oldest European musket was unearthed at the ruins of Tannenberg castle that was sacked & never rebuilt in the early 1300s), with the Medieval period not ending until the end of the 15th century (i.e. around 1500). That gives about 500 years of Medieval history in which firearms actually existed alongside longbows, swords & such like that. Even in the Renaissance & Early Modern eras (1500-1700), Pikes & other relatively Medieval weapons continued to serve alongside muskets... Hell, there were even lancers (as in cavalry whose primary armament was a lance) serving in many militaries up to the mid 1800's (US soldiers armed with cap-lock muskets & early Colt revolvers actually fought Mexican lancers during the Mexican-American war in 1848). One way to include guns in a medieval fantasy setting would be to make them like those early firearms (maybe 18th century style flintlocks at best): They do high damage per shot, but require multiple combat actions to reload after each shot, meaning that effectively the player can only get off one shot per full round: I'm not entirely familiar with how combat works in D&D, but in Palladium, each combat round lasts 15 seconds, with the number of actions a player gets per round based on things like their hand to hand combat skills, racial bonuses, agility bonuses, etc, so for example under the Palladium system, theoretically such primitive firearms could be made so that unless you're playing someone with superhuman agility who is also a martial artist, you would only be able to actually attack once per 15 second round.... Which is fairly realistic, since a trained musketeer could fire 3 aimed shots per minute on average, and was expected to be able to maintain that rate of fire as a bare minimum over the course of an entire battle. So, TL:DR version is that guns did actually exist in the Middle Ages, and if included in Medieval Fantasy settings should be treated as period appropriate to keep them balanced with the other weapons of the time period.

So they were just running Strahd?

J is on what I've seen get called the "horseshoe of allyship". People who call themselves trans allies, but miss the top of the arc of being an ally and fall back down so far they end up just as transphobic as an active bigot. Someone on the bottom of the horseshoe can get back to the top with work and listening to actual trans people, but that requires THEY put in the work. Policing how people explore their gender and putting "transphobia" on a concept as neutral as someone "cis" playing a shapeshifter (you don't know if they are cis, and even if they are, it doesn't matter because mind your business) is NOT it. That was brow beating and bullying, and they actively made a non-binary person's life worse emotionally by scaring them out of wanting to interact socially with them again. That's active bigotry. It's tough out there. OP may go through this again, but it's worth it to keep trying to find a welcoming and/or queer space where they can be themselves without having to deal with bullshit like this. I hope the best for them.

Guns work in a setting if you have the time period effectively being around the 1400's or so. It's a good time period in general. Early firearms existed, as did cannons, but in poorer areas that couldn't afford gunpowder, or just for more traditional people or peasants, you could have them using older siege engines like catapults, trebuchets, ballistae, etc, or older ranged weaponry, like bows and crossbows. This is also around the peak of plate armor, when mail was not worn in full under armor and instead there was a thinner gambeson with a few sections with mail sewn in to reinforce the few gaps in the armor. Armor of this time was, well, basically impenetrable to somebody with a melee weapon, so you had to go for the gaps. Overall, it's a good time period if you want to have that amazing plate armor, guns, and just the greatest hits of the medieval period all in one last sendoff before the renaissance

@solosynapse

4 ай бұрын

Anywhere from the 1400s through 1800s (samurai & cowboys existed at the same time for a while). Earlier, if it's an Asian-themed setting.

@demonphyre6186

4 ай бұрын

@@solosynapse After the 1500's, you didn't really see plate armor as much. If you specifically want the best plate armor, the European 1400's and 1500's have the pinnacle of plate armor, weaponry intended to be used against it, and early firearms, namely matchlock guns. After that period, armor became less covering, but thicker, and eventually disappeared. Classic fantasy tends to have something close to that pinnacle of plate armor, but not the early firearms that accompany them historically. If you want firearms and less technology other than them, Asia is good for that as gunpowder and firearms were first used there, and they didn't really have the extraordinarily protective European plate armor

Ha! So it *is* Amity's staff! Ive seen it in a few episodes now and I was always wondering. the amity cosplay is super cute btw :)

17:52 it's easy to explain it because guns bows and swords existed at the same time in the early development of the gun. It was very common for both guns and swords to be used during combat, even in World War I. I remember some indigenous soldiers used bows and arrows during wartime as a quieter way of killing people especially during infiltration but it has to check up to make sure my facts are right. Regardless, this could be explained as the early case development of a gun. Not just the early Flintlock but the chambered revolver as well.

Oh wow, I can't *stand* people like "Jasmine" here. Shutting up is much more productive than speaking for entire groups of people. The skit of all the players reading the DMG was absolute gold, though. 😆 Amazing video, Crispy!

Strahd is a giant incel. His whole story is "The girl I like doesn't like me back and I'm angry."

I have similar feelings of side quests in video games, but i just don't play very many games that require those side quests for the grind. My favorite game since I was six was LOZ Twilight Princess. For context, i liked it from watching an older cousin play it and I was enthralled. I loved it when I eventually played it myself. Still love it.

Guns existed in europe way before full plate armor so...

That happened to me. They killed me off when I was unable to make it to the last minute game. They told me to roll up a lv1 character. They were lv 4 or 5

That chaotic nonbinary druid pirate sounds FRICKEN AWESOME!! (Honestly 100% the sort of character I would make, in fact I have a nonbinary/genderfluid changeling sorlock (sorcerer/warlock) who recently lost all of their powers (I wanted them to both for story reasons and because I wasn't having fun with the build and wanted to start over) and they just retired to being a pirate. So they are now a nonbinary, shapshifting pirate and I love them so much 🥰) I also typically main druids, so this character already has my whole heart and if the person who created this character ever wanted to join my table I would be stoked!!

re:guns: IRL Guns and Swords existed alongside each other for a quite a long time, from ~1450 to ~1850. Guns were inaccurate and took a long time to reload (realistically it should take like 5 rounds to reload a musket), which gave opportunity for swordsmen (generally only cavalry in the later stages) to rush in and cut them down. However, for the sake of fun, you can't really say that it takes 5 rounds to load a musket, but you can say that guns are relatively new, like Percy I believe literally invented handguns in the Exandria setting, so they're only a couple years old, not everyone can get one. Also Magic is the great equalizer. You might have gun, but I have wish

lol great outtake at the end. I feel that so much

Yeah 1v1s can be daunting. Only time I did one against a doppelganger my go to act was to unload a Wand of Lightning Bolts in the thing's face to win.

For the whole "Guns in fantasy" I do three (3) things: 1. It's an emerging technology, with all the issues that implies, so development in piecemeal, and while we are skipping past matchlock to go to flintlock, it's still not something that's fully been embraced by others. 2. It's hella expensive to have a gun. Ammunition costs a bit and it's ammo that I actually make the Player track, rather than arrows and bolts, where I assume that the PC has it. 3. This is on a lore level, not only is the development been piecemeal, but it's extremely isolated. So there's not like this big gunsmith's guild, it's like joe and bob from down the street.

The topic of guns in medieval fantasy settings has interested me when it isn't just fodder to make magical creatures look good. I like the "each bullet needs enchantment" route so long as arrows and crossbow bolts follow the same rules, maybe with some "enchanting items aren't good enough for quickly adapting to guns" excuse if bows/crossbows are enchanted to boost ammunition. Probably have them as the creation of a single inventor, copies of another weapon, or a signature tool of another group. I personally like them as a non-magic answer to magic when not every species is automatically proficient in magic. Otherwise why would martial skill matter when firebolts and eldritch blasts are common? As for why guns wouldn't instantly beat non-magic martial characters, I'd just say they're that good at combat compared to average civilians who'd need luck to survive.

The last story makes me so fucking sad and angry. I'm a nonbinary DM with multiple queer characters in my current homebrew campaign and would love to somehow have the person telling the story at my table. I'm glad they're beginning to see that D&D does have spaces for queer and neurodivergent people

To reply about guns in D&D: In my setting there is a location that has deep valleys, floating islands, and thick jungles. Think... More extreme Chult. Firearms are common there (As well as airships because the valleys and islands and jungle make regular land vehicles pointless and ground travel hyper dangerous) because of the dinosaurs and other jungle beasts that are dangerous up close making melee a poor choice. Thus, firearms are common because they work the best. Plus in my setting firearms were invented their specifically for that purpose and the ammunition and expertise are too rare/expensive for anyone outside if that location to use or afford. Making blades, crossbows, and other more magical means of fighting far cheaper and less resource consuming. They are balanced though as firearms in my setting are adjusted to be only slightly stronger and their real power comes from special ammunition like piercing rounds that allow line attacks, pellet ammo that allows cones, and other more wild ones like elemental, explosive and ricochet.

For the gun and blades thing, there is a tad bit of rule of cool, but you'd be surprised how this went on historically ... Because flame throwers and grenades where in use during the crusades ! ^^ It wasn't the modern stuff either, rather burning oil jets and potery filled with gunpowder that you had to light up with a flame, but they did exist. I'd say the way to balance it out is to give a proper protection/damages/scarceness ratio. If a gun can't pierce wright trough an armor, then it's just a noisy, and expensive variant to a bow with rounds you can't pick up and reuse, you'll just need to balance it ou so the artificer may not feel like a loser for paying so much for their rounds, so maybe give them a bit more damages ? And if magic can have the same effect without breaking the game (distance hit, flames, explosions ...) then replacing it with a crafterd device won't do any harm to your game !

re: Guns, I just go with superhero handwave. Nobody questions even a relative normal like Batman (Action Heroes are not normal) going about in a world over-saturated by automatic weapons. D&D PCs by level 5 are a cut above normal person limits and by level 10 they're practically demigods. So, for my mind it's just another deal. Heck, in my brother's current campaign, pistols and grenades are far more common than crossbows and longbows. Our morningstar wielding battlemaster even has a pistol.

For the record: 2nd edition D&D could be fairly brutal by the standards of modern day D&D, and forcing players to start at lower level is one of those things that was fairly common back then. This is because D&D still operated from a very old school perspective where characters were mostly intended to be disposable and starting over from lower level was the penalty for not being able to keep your character alive. And even when the book itself didn't have those rules, the sort of people who tend to prefer those older rules often maintain that more adversarial approach to DMing.

Oh, and with Shadow of the Demon Lord: clockworks don't just die, they also explode. Basically what's happened is the gun exploded, killing the clockwork, who then explodes destroying the golems' guns, which then explode killing the golems. But thankfully not any of the party members (my clockwork player was on the verge of death and another player was trying to repair them and failed really badly, and died in the following explosion. As for "modern" weaponry: guns have existed since the 13th century, but were slow to reload, and had poor range. It wasn't until the middle of the 1700s that they started getting strong enough to pierce armour, and small enough to be more easily carried (as opposed to the arquebus and musket), but they were still fairly slow to reload (but now quicker than a crossbow). Guns only began to fully replace bows near the end of the 1800s when repeating firearms became more widely spread and easier to make. During the 1700-1800s is when the rapier got developed, mostly because people wore less armour due to it being fairly obsolete against guns, so swords became smaller and thinner to make it easier to carry the rapier with a flintlock pistol while not being encumbered by armour. Swords only stopped being used in warfare in the 1920s (so really late comparatively). As for grenades, the first mention of them comes from the early 1500s, and consisted of pots and jars consisting of explosive materials (like certain grains, which is where the origin of the name likely came from). These were usually lit and then thrown (kinda like molotovs now), and the French used them a lot in the mid 1500s. Shadow of the Demon Lord's tech levels are closer to the real world's levels of tech (but magic-infused) than the stereotypical fantasy idea. (Warhammer's too, which is where SotDL draws a lot of influence from). It's only really hard to incorporate such weapons in D&D-style fantasy, but quite easy when they're tuned to the same-ish sort of technological equivalent by the system itself.

First story, that guy took the adage "When the story grinds to a halt, have a guy jump through the window with a gun" A bit too seriously!

To give an answer about how guns and swords can fit in a setting together there's actually a lot of real world historical examples of people using both. I believe that guns started to be used in Europe as early as the 1300s right up to a handful of people during world war 1. Guns are loud, smokey and slow to reload. Swords aren't

I dislike the whole Oathbreaker but zero character restrictions when the Oathbreaker's flavour text is less Darth Vader throwing off his oath to his dark master and becoming good again and more Darth Vader telling Emperor Palpatine "age has made you weak and feeble, I'm going to show you how a REAL Sith crushes the galaxy underfoot."

18:50 The easiest way to add guns to a fantasy setting is to model a little after real life. Until the 19th century, guns were slow firing, unwieldy, and could be blocked by armor. Even once guns were the standard for full armies, battle could be reduced to melee with bayonets and cavalry. For a long time, even, crossbows and guns were used side by side, and guns were supported by pikemen. And this is when guns were so inaccurate that the best tactic was to stand in a line and fire all at once. Now imagine a lone adventurer trying their hand against a swarm of bandits with a gun. They're probably losing. And even if their gun is accurate, say like squirrel gun was, it still takes forever to reload, and is unwieldy. Close quarters, two against one, swords are winning. Best way to include guns in your fantasy is to imagine guns as they were up to maybe the 1860s.

canonically, Strahd IS the ultimate incel dude sold his soul to a devil (well, a fiend, cant remember what type inajira was) cause whatshername loved his brother instead of him

In 2e characters level up at different XP amount. 2e is a different game, but honestly I'm excited to play it again :)

To be fair, Incel Strahd is just vanilla, lore accurate Strahd. The ratio is 1:1

Regarding your question on how to balance modern weaponry with swords and others, my answer to it is relatively simple: magic. When I do that kind of setting, I usually make it so armors can be enchanted to be bulletproof and swords magic in ways that make them as efficient. And guns are harder to enchant because you need to individually do it on each munition, which is wasteful and take more time. ... Also I don't get the last story, how is shapeshifting and switching gender offensive to trans people?--'

@ArcCaravan

4 ай бұрын

Best I can assume is it could be considered trivializing transitioning or treating it like choice. Granted the person saying nonbinary is transphobic would probably say the same about gender fluid.

So like last Demon Lord story I'll jump in. Normally you get access to flintlock muskets, which take a minute to reload which is offset by big damage if you do hit. Technomancer like the OPs character mixes magic with technology, technology being primarily gunpowder, clockwork and steam. Creating flamethrowers grenades is treated as spells not abilities as tiu create magically infused inventions. I'm preparing to run a Bronze age campaign in Demon Lord revamoed system, Shadow of the Weirs Wizard (check it out when it comes out) so i was having the discussion of how to fit in technology into an otherwise Antiquity setting, and I'm keeping firearms in. Dont erase the weird or not clearly fittings parts of your game, include them and ride the weird factor towards success

11:50 second edition was amazing!

It's okay Crispy I saw that door jump out at you what a jerk. 😅

Shadow of the demon lord is a grimdark setting and death is very expected yeah.

Depending on story (and upcoming plans), I could see starting a new character at a couple of levels behind the rest of the party...but with some sort of accelerated advancement (probably easier with milestone than XP; I rarely use XP these days) until they catch up. Maybe by the end of a side story devoted to linking the new character to the story (and if possible the existing characters' stories).

I remember when I made a dumb decision in a campaign due to being a creepypasta fan... I got shunned and ignored out of the campaign. High school. We were doing one on one till we met the group and stuff. I didn't get a chance to meet the group. I know now the murder hobo stuff was kinda not great... but i wasn't even talked to, just... I don't know. I wasn't great, and it was my first campaign. Yes, every mention of DND reminds me of this embarrassing moment.

~19:00 I've never actually got to play a ttrpg, but maybe look up real world time periods where firearms existed but wars were still fought with swords and armour? Things like muskets have a lot of stopping power, but take forever to reload. The Jacobite uprising in Scotland wasn't successful, but the English guns also weren't very successful against their claymores. I wouldn't have a clue how to balance the damage vs time reloading for a game system, but I'm sure clever people who know what they're talking about could do it.

My dm handles the existence of guns with multiverse rules. Basically our game takes place in a multiverse and different worlds will have differing levels of technology. So someone can get a gun from a futuristic world and bring it into s medieval one. The downside to this is your on your own for ammo and repairs unless you can get off world to someone who can do so.