As a player, the biggest red flags in a DM are refusing to let players talk about their character concepts with the other party members prior to the first session, and changing the rules without warning because the players were too competent. As a DM, the biggest red flag is a character concept that doesn't try to fit the setting. If the player is trying to play in a different genre than the game at the table, they'll clash with everyone regularly.

Once, I was in a group where one player played the exact same character in every game, regardless of changes to setting. To anonymise it in case he's around here, at one point with a homebrew setting, he went as far you would, if you tried to play Bilbo Baggins in a Dark Sun campaign with no explanation as to why this particular Halfling was a homebody who decided to go on an adventure instead of a rampaging cannibal.

I met This Guy™ at a local game store. They were trying to set up a monthly one shot evening, where multiple DM's would prepare a game and you could either sign up beforehand or just roll up and build a character at the table before the game started. It was a very fun idea for both new players who struggled to find a group or veteran players who wanted to try something new (they also played different systems like Star Wars RPGs and stuff like that). I entered a lot of these games because I was between groups at the moment and every night the same guy was there. No matter the setting, no matter the system, he would always play a "neutral evil" (read: dickhead) rogue or something as similar as possible. He would avoid the entire party except when to steal from them, derail the whole session and promptly PvP other characters if they called out this behaviour. I remember one Star Wars game where this guy joined and he played a totally evil, edge Lord Jedi. Whenever my character, a Twi'Lek, Han Solo type scoundrel would try to talk his way in or out certain situations he would shout to the NPC's that I was lying and shouldn't be trusted, initiating combat when it was totally unnecessary and every combat encounter he would stay away from the battlefield and meditate by himself. When I called him out on it he promptly killed my character with his badass Jedi powers. After that I had a smoke with him and asked him about his RPG experience. He proudly told me he always plays the same archetype (the edge Lord, evil Rogue) but that all the home games he joined would quickly fizzle out because other players lost interest. Was absolutely clueless that maybe his behaviour was the reason nobody wanted to play with him and couldn't be convinced it might be him. I gave up trying to convince him, but for some reason in his twisted mind he really liked me so he would try to join every game I was in after that. Eventually I stopped going because I didn't want to waste my time with this guy. After a while I heard more complaints of other people that went there regularly and I believe eventually he was banned from joining. Damn that was a longer story than I expected, guess I had to get it off my chest! Long story short, unfortunately those people are everywhere and unfortunately they often times don't see how problematic they are.

Yeowch. Your guy was definitely worse than my guy.

That guy never got positive attention. Socially malformed, which happens with people drawn to dnd more often than not. He took a liking to you because you showed him positive interaction (constructive criticism), and despite it being positive criticism... it's likely the best he had gotten from anyone for a minute. It's a shame, because dude likely could have been an alright guy if he just had a shred more social awareness. But hey, neurodivergency is a bitch.

I found that these type of people grativate towards me and I've learned really well to interact with them in a positive, constructive way. Even made it my job, I'm a social worker/life coach (don't know the correct term because I'm not English). I don't mind helping these kind of people but I've also learned to recognize my own boundaries. As mean as it may sound, I came there for my own relaxation and I didn't have the patience to deal with that in my 'me' time. Now if the guy would pay me to play D&D with him..

Doesn't sound mean to me. Other's social problems are not your responsibility, especially when you're nit paid to help them deal with them.

Slight nitpick: This Guy is good, That Guy is bad. We should all try to be more like This Guy, and less like That Guy.

As a thought experiment, let’s just accept the preference for that character concept. How could that guy ever end up in a healthy situation where others are enjoying themselves too? Maybe a gladiator themed westmarches where all sessions are arena fights and bullshitting in the barracks and local tavern?

Crush his bones and steal his mate, that's what Bilbo Baggins hates.

Yikes. I mean, I get having a niche that you like to fill, but that really shows a lack of engagement. I do have one player at my table that's a bit like that. They make characters that are cosmetically different from one another and which allegedly have different alignments, but they always end up having the exact same personality and acting the exact same way.

I think a lot of tables have that. We most definitely do as well

Some people may just find it harder to roleplay, and default to what makes sense to them, rather than what would make sense to the character they made.

I currently have a similar player. He more or less isn't into roleplaying and usually just plays himself with his character's skillset. And it works. Its not brilliant but it works. We invite him because we like him, so him playing him is fine. Its not brilliant but also not a red flag. Just a player playing what they like.

Someone playing themselves is, as weird as this sounds, fine compared to the same tired character wedged into every campaign.

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As long as they respect that the DM has final say, homebrew is usually fine.

> As a DM, the biggest red flag is a character concept that doesn't try to fit the setting. If the player is trying to play in a different genre than the game at the table, they'll clash with everyone regularly. As a player this is something that bugs the shit out of me. I get we all have character concepts in mind, but why do some people consistently feel the need to make a character that doesn't fit the story or has absolutely no reason to be accepted by the group because they don't help. Some games it is fun to have a rag tag group with a bunch of really unique ideas. But, for the most part I want my group to feel like an actual team and that is hard when Timmy is always trying to shoehorn their sentient koala barbarian that enjoys eating children into the setting.

My second campaign overall we were all evil but we should have thought about why we were wotking together Yeah a group of paranoid loners is a terrible idea. Well i was inexperienced. Now all character need to have two reasons to work as a group either a connection to two characters same intrests, friendship or rivalry or one connection to one and a concept that can work with a group.

This happened when my husband and I tried to play a game with an old friend of his. He wanted to play the richest person in town, some Lord who didn't actually want to get involved with the plot, just to pay people to do stuff for him. I was playing a spy/gem dealer with connections and a long family history of transporting valuables. This character he created was utterly naïve and his only way of getting out of anything was throwing money at the situation. It was so pointless. We were supposed to be going on a sneaky adventure being pursued and stuff. I had created my character and backstory accordingly and I spent the first two sessions trying to stop his character being murdered. Session 3 didn't happen. :(

Honestly, I feel like it's more of an issue of... mentality (?), than silly ancestry options. Like, I don't particularly care if Jimmy wants to be a raging koala barbarian, but his character needs to be something that the party can work with. Like Jimmy the raging koala that eats children in a party of people trying to do good = big nono, Jimmy the raging koala that -used to- eat children and now he's trying to do better despite sometimes not being able to control himself in a bout of rage and chomping a kid's leg, but wanting to better themselves and stop eating children as a whole= alright now we're talking since it can fit in the party lol.

This is something that's inevitable with the way D&D is designed. The class system means that players are encouraged to theorycraft, which leads to folk putting together character concepts they like and then dropping them into a game. It's why I like games such as WFRP, which eschews optimisation and contains a great deal of randomness in character creation, while also making it easy (and encouraged!) to switch classes mid-campaign. In D&D you kind of have to plan your character out from early on if you are playing to high levels and want to keep up in power level.

>This is something that's inevitable with the way D&D is designed. Big disagree here. I find that this problem is a two way street. And has nothing to do with the structure of the game mechanics. When I DM. I give my players a World Doc. Basically my custom campaign setting manuel that contains everything pertinent to their starting area. Nations religion's, factions, customs, cosmology, history, etc. I even give a section defining what a class is i.e. what does it mean to be a wizard, cleric, warlock, monk, etc in this world or region of the world. Ever since I've done this, my players have had enormous focus in character creation. They get inspired when the hear about this new religious cult, or this mage college, this gang-run city etc. and they pump out character ideas like crazy. However, if you have a shit head, who after reading the world doc, still isnt inspired, has no sense of genre savvy, and wants to play their flying superman hero-wizard who looks like Daniel Radcliff with Goku's body, then the player isn't a fit for the campaign. Hell, they probably should look for a different game system all together if they're going away outside the bounds if Medieval Tolkien Fantasy. So all that being said, a lot of the problems I see online about players not building characters that fit the world makes me wonder if players aren't getting enough info in the world/campaign setting to create characters that fit in. And that has far less to do with how D&D mechanically works.

>refusing to let players talk about their character concepts What? I'd kill to have a party that wants to actually coordinate like this. Yea, if anyone finds a gm like that, do not walk away, *run* away

I've not DMed a campaign yet. But I'm planning to. Can I ask, why is this a red flag? My group usually coordinates beforehand, and as a result we always know a lot about the other characters' background and abilities. Not really any surprises and we never really RP talking about our backstories. They come out more by us talking or someone referencing theirs to the DM during gameplay. (Exception is one player, who switches PCs a lot, sometimes without us knowing.) Because of that, I would really like them not to know much about the other PCs, I want them to RP finding out. So I asked my group, if I were to run a campaign, if there were alright with that and I'd let them know if someone else is already playing the class they want to pick and let them know enough to have a well balanced party. They seemed alright with it. Sorry for the long text.

What you're describing is different than what we're saying is a red flag. Secrecy and character building are fine, but you should at least let players talk about the type of character they want to play "Melee cleric" "vengeance pally" that sort of thing. Build and backstop are definately separate and you can keep things in the dark while still allowing players to coordinate.

I would also like to know their reason(s). My assumption is that keeping players in the dark about each other's PCs until they meet in game is a red flag for an overly controlling "I'm the star of the game" person. Usually good communication can remove (or at least send to half-mast) the red flags. So if the DM is up front with the players with "I want to run a game where the PCs don't know each other and they'll have to heavily role play getting to know each other" and the DM is open to the players' concerns, such as "what if I make an X kind of character and Paula makes a character that must kill all X's?", then it can all work out fine. Which you have done, at least with classes. But make sure to really get in there, find character motivations, make sure no character hates another PC's species, class, background, etc. This is part of where the controlling issues come in as some DMs will then go to a player, "I need you to change X." No reason given because of "the surprise meeting everyone for the first time." For other players it might all feel like a "wasting my time" red flag. For some, the acting aspect of ttrpg is their least favorite part and the idea of one or more sessions just focused around a "should we trust each other meet n greet" makes them unhappy. So communicating the reasons to the players will at least let these kinds of players know it will have a lot of acting RP. And then as others have pointed out, it risks PCs with themes that are at odds with each other and the setting. So best to be very clear with the players about what the themes, tones, genres, motifs, aesthetics, morality and ethics, etc., you want the campaign to have. In my experience a grimdark PC in a fluffy-bunny comedy campaign can work (that PC ends up being the party's foil or even "straightman") but a fluffy-bunny comedic PC can, and likely will, just derail a grimdark campaign as the setting need to be taken serious for it to stay grimdark. Anyeay, those are my guesses as to why it's a red flag.

This is why I'm uncomfortable allowing planewalker PC's as a DM. If a player isn't willing to buy in to the most basic premise of your campaign - the setting - I can guarantee they won't buy in to anything else.

Oh, gods. We have a mis-genered character in one campaign I'm in. I describe it as, "they want to play Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and the rest of us are playing Robin Hood: Men In Tights." It's hard to keep a vibe going when you have a druid with a spider phobia, a Kobold with spoon scale mail, a literal cat paladin (not tabaxi. Homebrew cat), and...a rogue who wants to murder hobo their way through life.

Excuse me... did you just assume my genre?

I'm pretty new ttrpg's, I've done like 2 one shots. Now I'm about to start 2 campaigns simultaneously, and I'm desperately trying to fit the setting so I can try to flesh out a character. It bothers me as a brand new player when we have an established setting, but nobody wants to forge their backstory around a setting, even though it could be any part of the continent. Idk maybe I'm thinking of this too hard from a role play perspective, I just want everything to flow well together

I find setting characters very important. I do get some appreciation for playing a local (or almost local) character. Always strive to fit my concept close to home or starting area. DM gets to sneak stuff like “you know (detail) because you’re from around here.” I’m playing a campaign where all the characters are from the surrounding cities and towns. It makes play very convenient. We also had a “we’re not in Kansas anymore” moment.

To your first point i did that once when running curse of strahd. I thought itd be a fun way to change up how we normally play and for the difficulty of the campaign to be increased because of it. Thought it bring an interestinf element of how to figure out how to fill gaps in what they were capable of with maybe different spells than theyd normally take. Worked out prettt well but of course i confirmed with everyone before hand tht itd be okay

There has been a surge of people who want to play isekai characters and it saddens me, but at least it's getting people into the game.

I've thought of walking up to my players and telling them they're going to play themselves isekai'd to the campaign world for a fun change of pace.

This 100%. This is why establishing teamwork as the foundation of the pillars of play is so important in session zero. The amount of people still not doing session zero's is astounding.

Ahh yeah, the player that is an aggressively unicorn. Needing to be so different as to be the default main character because everything needs to be accommodated to their character, even other player characters.

World is in 1300s medieval Europe setting *That* player: "I want to be a gunslinger from Texas!"

My only surefire "red flag" is if a player doesn't want to engage with the campaign they've signed up for, and won't at least hear out criticism or requests to change things. That's a sure sign they won't work out as a player; I'm very open to communication and compromise, but that works two ways and does need the player, not just the GM, to sometimes take a step back.

Some of my favorite players have been forever DM/GMs. They have 1000 PC ideas and tend to be more than happy to just be able to sit on the other side of the table.

Probably when a player creates a character that's not interested in being an adventurer or traveling with a group of other people

I made a grumpy loner who didn't like people. It was a horrible decision. Trying to role-play a reluctant person sucked. I did one session before creating a new character.

My first few sessions had this interpretation of a character. I eventually decided to twist that into paranoia which, when combined with truly abysmal skills for the problems she was paranoid about, resulted in her being a right twice a day (at best) conspiracy theorist which was considerably more fun.

See I played a reluctant wizard, but one of the other characters in our party was his life long friend. While he would always gripe, "do we HAVE to wade into the chest high sewage?" he would be the first one to jump into action if his friends we in danger. He was the foil to the generic "let's jump right in!" style of character. Made for some fun RP.

That is such a common thing, everyone loves playing the edge lord who doesn't get along with others. My first group if friends who started playing dnd and other TTRPGs were all about this, I was the only player who wanted to be a part of the team and everyone else just tried to do their own thing. I hate lone wolf characters, unless they include a way to keep themselves motivated to stay with the group.

See, that's some of the core rules I set out for my players: * Your character has to have a reason to want to be with the party * Your character has to want to be an adventurer. * No "But that's what my character would do" to excuse antisocial behaviour If that's not your character concept? Tough cookies. Make one that does want these things. "But that's not what my character would do!" "You made him, his personality is under your full control, and if it isn't, maybe seek out help." ​ I never want for players, as no one wants to DM, and I don't have to put up with bad players. You behave like a functioning adult, or you don't play.

I have essentially the same take as a dm. I.dpnt care if you want to edgy McEdgerson. As long as you do it WITH the party. Extreme pacifist characters or risk averse fall into this. If you never will engage in a way that might be hurtful or hostile you just don't work in most games (conflict is kind of a major element, not necessarily combat but conflict), or if you refuse to do anything because it might be dangerous. Why the heck are you adventuring? Stay on the farm.

I like to point to Wolverine as a good example of a "loner" that isn't a loner. Like, he wants to sit back and drink beer, but.... "this kid needs a mentor", "some asshat needs to stop attacking my friends", "this organization is really pissing me off," etc. You can have the arctype and fit well with the group. You find ways of being with the party instead of the opposite

On our first game together, the only time we ever met up, and my only time DMing ever, I had a friend who was a Firbolg druid. He proceeded not be interested in joining the party, talked very slowly, and I had to make one of the Tree Blights from the beginning of The Sunless Citadel to attack him just to spur him into action.

I play a lot online with randoms, the biggest red flag or annoyance for me is when one of the players starts making up random bullshit to write into their sheet. Like I click into a sheet and it says 'warrior' for the class and 'dimensional slash: slashes through dimensions to cut the enemy's soul' for their level 1 class feature. I'll help a new player if they ask, but some just put that in and say their sheet is done

Session 0 solves (almost) all problems.

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this. Lack of respect for other people's time is the biggest red flag I know in DND, and its usually very easy to parse from the get-go because it manifests in tons of different ways: \- when a player doesnt take the time to learn the rules and relies on the DM to learn it for them and interrupt the game to explain it to them \- when a player constantly has stuff "come up" preventing them from participating or asking to reschedule \- when a player monopolizes the table and makes the entire game about them while the other PCs are relegated to accessories in their story It's an absolute dealbreaker for me. I've never seen anyone who has this issue improve their conduct

I've had players who have had really cool ideas and character concepts that would get really upset when I try to work with them so the characters flavor fits the world. Another big red flag for me is last minute cancelation without explanation. I understand life is important and gets busy. A little more than "Hey, I'm not going to make it to the session tonight" after we've been waiting 20 minutes for you to show. Criticism of dice results is another big thing for me, " oh I rolled a nat 20 so you should change reality so it fits my idea of what's happening" Also just making the reluctant PC, don't get me wrong, a pc that is forced into adventure is great, but the player needs to figure out why they are staying. It's not my job to bend over backwards to find a reason for you to stay with the party. Also players that come with super hombrew session 0 without even asking or running it by me prior. Had that happen way to many times for it not to be a red flag at this point. I love giving players what they want but you gotta communicate with me or else we're both just going to be upset.

Biggest red flag and pet peeve is someone who uses their backstory to come up with reasons why they should be better at stuff than they are. "In my backstory everyone really likes me and they're super friendly because my character is cute and nice! I have 4 charisma but it doesn't matter cause people just like me." "I didn't take survival but in my backstory I went camping with my parents sometimes, shouldn't I have advantage or just be able to find food in the wilderness really well?" "In my back story I spent a lot of time at a bookstore, what do I know about these ruins? No I don't have history as a skill, but can I roll with advantage cause my character probably would have read about this before?" Your backstory and your character sheet should mechanically match. If you want your character to be this well read person who has a lot of knowledge, you should have a history proficiency. Same with athletics, you can't just tell me in your backstory you made a crazy jump once so now in the future you can jump 30 feet because you wrote it in your backstory. If you dumped strength for your rogue, adding feats of strength to your backstory gives you no mechanical benefit. You can't use your backstory to get rid of any flaws your character would have from creation.

Yeah this is why I don’t write my backstory until I’ve already rolled my character. It’s much easier to base everything off of the sheet.

I have this fellow player who say attributes are stupid they should not reflect my character at all. He has a str of 8, but he googled a muscle worship hunk of guy and act like mr. Musclesolveproblems. Meanwhile my dragonborn mage has a high con and str because healthy body healthy mind. When enemy get to close they catch some fists. It made some funny moments because i hit my targets. Hehe

i have 4 charisma and everyone likes me feels like it could work to some extent if everyone in fact did not like them, but they are too uncharismatic to realize that

I just hate fun. I'll say it. Any "whacky" or "subversive" characters, shit like "Oh i'm a wizard with 8 int haha look at me isn't this funny?" or "I'm a rogue that just intimidates people into not seeing me, I'm not stealthy at all!" I just hate it so much for some irrational reason.

You don't like being mocked. You don't like your game being mocked, or someone making a mockery out of your time and the setting. I feel like calling these tropes "anti-characters" is a better descriptor, as they're not REALLY characters showing up to play the game, they are a meta-wink-wink-satire that only belong in the silliest of beer and pretzels campaigns. They invalidate any effort or buy in from everyone else at the table, which is fine only where there was already no effort or buy in.

Couldn't agree more. I like to make whacky characters too, but they work with the system, not against it. There has to be a purpose to the madness, I have to actually do something worthwhile and advance the game with my antiques. Otherwise I'd be violating one of the unspoken rules of the game: we all play the same game with each other, not different games or against each other. It's still not for everyone, but it's manageable :P

Definitely! I’ve had players start with “meme” characters (a sentient bear bear totem barbarian named Bear) that made it clear they like to have a humerus start, but we’re invested in character growth and finding out who created them (Mindflayers). It was a joke on paper, and they, at comic times were comedic but they’ve also been heavily invested in the lore, supporting fellow players and having a competent character. We’re all here to have fun! Just not at someone else’s expense.

I get what you mean. A lot of the times too, it's not even an original or close to unique idea. It's "my character is suppose to excel at this, but they don't haha." Maybe it would be fine if they started out with theirr whacky or subversive idea but used it as a catalyst for growth down the line, but it feels like a lot of people have a "this is my character and how they act" mentality without any room for character development and growth.

Yah if you’re creating a character that is mechanically going to perform bad for giggle’s that’s a problem because you’re going to effect the effectiveness of the party as a whole. There are ways to RP incompetence or ineptitude w/o kneecapping your actual PC so that he’s about as useful as monkey wrench is for screwing.

I remember coming across a discussion on the Pathfinder 2e where a guy was complaining that the game required min-maxing because it assumed you would have topped up your class' primary stat in the internal math. My dude, that's not mim-maxing, that's just the bare minimum. D&D isn't as tightly balanced, but your mates are still going to be annoyed with you if you roll up to the table with an 8 INT wizard. You're not coming up with a clever and subversive character concept, you're sabotaging everyone else's fun.

Or when they're an oversaturated Stereotype, theme or cliché. Had a player who once played a goblin with their focus being an ancient bell, but going "BING BONG BING BONG" was the characters entire personality. On the positive side of that coin there's "characters you'd think are silly but are quite serious/ characters who excel at Something that their class/race usually doesn't". Those are the best characters in my eyes

A concept that seems to work great is "race with class they normally wouldn't be appropriate for", like Loxodon rogue, Warforged druid or Kenku eloquence bard. Since the game doesn't mechanically punish weird racial choices (especially with the new rules for choosing ability boosts), the contradiction is only RP/flavor and leads to a surprisingly unique character who automatically stands out while undergoing a developmental arc as they level up

This has to be done well and with thought, though. I lived through the Cloned Drizzt Wars. I still have nightmares.

Those characters are more fun in one shots. Actual campaigns, yeah I prefer people actually using proper builds. They can have wacky things for RPing, add in certain flavors to their characters personality, but yes for those examples you posted that would annoy the hell out of me too for an actual campaign too.

It’s not irrational. Not only do builds like this fail as builds, they also fail to do what they’re intended to do- make people laugh. They’re as funny as Facebook boomer memes with minions in em.

To expand on this, i hate terminally contrarian characters. "My guy HAS to be a tall hobbit/short giant/druid who hates nature/etc/etc" You're not clever, just annoying.

Characters who eschew effectiveness in the name of comedy belong to *very particular* kinds of games. I have run such games with players who enjoy them, and if you lean into it it can be a good time. But it's definitely not my preferred style, and having a character suited to that game show up in another is a definite problem. I'm current in a long-running 5e game that's serious most of the time. My character is close to being the comic relief, but that's mostly because he's a fish out of water so we get some comedy out of him not understanding stuff. Also he's a Druid with random spells (and a *lot* of homebrew abilities) so I often solve problems that looked impossible by pulling out some bullshit ability. (Everyone has tons of homebrew abilities, the GM has super-charged our characters with awesome shit). One character who got a hard no at character creation was the halfling Samwise Gangrene. It was a new player who had only played in one campaign before (my rendition of Dungeon of the Mad Mage, which was kept pretty zany throughout) so he just needed a bit of redirect to understand the tone shift going into the new game.

Those aren't whacky or subversive, those are just objectively bad characters made so a bad role player has a crutch Subversive would be something like A fighter that is actually a pacifist and tries to talk his way out of things even though he's a competent warrior, or a rogue that tries to be open and honest about everything because they're trying to move past their old life of crime and subterfuge

We've a pseudo PC in our game - a sort of henchman - in the form of a goblin who thinks he's a wizard. When he casts spells he's actually throwing painted rocks, and when he's preparing spells, he's literally using artisan tools to paint rocks he's collected. At level 7, he'd be a legitimate enough threat to a small party of first level adventurers, but he absolutely *cannot* pull his weight otherwise. He's *fine* as a pseudo NPC because he's only *almost* useless and is sometimes a source of quite a lot of fun. But if he were the player's *actual* PC, it'd be obnoxious beyond belief. Yes, it is a funny concept, but the character *doesn't really work*. I cannot imagine a world where any of my PCs would tolerate a being so inept and dangerous to himself and others would be allowed to keep coming along on adventurers and "helping" in situations where lives are on the line.

You hate characters and players whose only purpose is to entertain themselves. Not to participate and make sure everyone has fun. Just for them to have fun. As you should, because those players are assholes

Totally not irrational. I get that.

DMs who don't do a Session 0, to cover rules, crucial lore, etc. Does it have to be a huge, talk only session instead of playing? Of course not, but it pays for everyone to be on the same page.

Yeah my current DM kind of did this for our current campaign. He wanted to surprise us so he didn't tell us anything about the plot until our first session. The issue was that we didn't know what we were getting into so like none of our backgrounds ended up being relevant and one person's character skill-set was kind of useless at first due to the setting. That being said it's been a super fun campaign. I just think there needs to be a bit of transparency so we know at least a bit of what we're getting into. He's also only been DMing for like a year and most of us have only been playing for like a year or so we're all pretty new at this.

I agree. This being said... I'm that DM. I didn't do a session 0 with family and I regret it. We are doing it this weekend, since we are adding two new people.

Minmaxing just to be the "best" player at the table or to give the DM a hard time (yes i actually had someone who just wanted to play to make my life harder) and then think this way the won dnd. And also people with main character syndrome.

I was once accused of min maxing for taking expertise in stealth and deception. As a rogue. With the assassin Subclass. Like, those are my two things

Oh god, that's just dumb. That's not even min maxing, it just makes sense for the character!

Yeah. The accusation came after I managed to roll over a 40 on a stealth check. We were level 9, I had a +11 already. Someone cast "pass without trace" so an additional +10, and I rolled a natural 20. It was coming from the player with a homebrew wild magic Subclass that could actually force wild magic on *other* people once per day.

Ngl i would be hyped af if another player got that roll on a check! But it's always the people complaining who have some strange build themselves. That players subclass sounds extremely wild.

Everyone else was hype lol. I don't play with that group anymore but in a different campaign with that player, they created a paladin who was apparently a god (as in, a recently born one created by the belief of a small village). They were mad no one talked to them (in character they refused to speak anything that wasn't Celestial) and was mad that my fighter ended up being the face of the party, but their paladin *refused* to speak common.

Nothing wrong with having a character that works well mechanically so long as they are a team player.

100% agree! It's a very big difference between: "Hey i saw this build and it seemed really cool and actually fits my character and the party well even tho it seems a bit op!" And "Hey i just googled strongest dnd builds to stand out in combat and during rp and i made up that backstory where i already saved the world twice, became a god, ride a ancient gold dragen and so on. Oh and i don't really care about the other party members at all!"

Making no effort to justify things about their character. I generally want to have an idea of what they are thinking for a build a few levels ahead of time so I can make items/quests/etc that tie in. When someone comes in with a planned Hexadin/Cleric dip for HA/shields/ etc and doesn't want to bother to think up a reason (it doesn't even need to be particularly good) as to why that combination of classes fits with the character I get a little nervous. IME (and this is certainly not always true) they found some build posted and just want to munchkin everything while not actually diving into RP or story for story's sake. That isn't the kind of game I want to run or play.

We were playing with a player all of us were just barely tolerating. One level up, he told the DM at the end of the session when we leveled up that he was taking another rank in fighter. We start the next session, and he just describes himself how this figure came to him in a dream and now he is his warlock patron who gave him these neat things. The DM had no idea about anything, the player just introduced this mysterious figure with no communication to anyone.

I don't understand the logic. Unless you have some really antagonistic DM or something that just shuts everything down why would you not want to work with them on something like that?

When i create a communist character. Those are some pretty big red flags.

OUR character, comrade.

>Those are some pretty big red flags. Shouldn't your flags be more modest and economical than those bourgeoisie capitalist flags?

Your lack of pride in our glorious symbol of unity has been noted. Expect a visit soon, comrade. For the motherland.

I laught so hard that I hit my floor. Jut leaving it here

When a Player is clearly trying to make the “Red Ranger” of the group (basically the “I wanna be the leader” build) such as: - high stats above everyone else’s - broken builds - big backstory that has the PC doing things far outside their level (ex. Slaying Kazarax the Ancient Red Dragon and absorbing their powers at LV2 or having a personal war w/ Orcus) - stating the PC is an inspiring leader, demigod amongst men-type at low levels w/ loads of experience (such as a high ranking general in a war).

Any zealously strict stances that "define the character". Last campaign I played in had a vengeance paladin who acted as the party face and leader, but lied and manipulated people including the party to kill a red dragon that had 0 impact on the campaign. My character's hometown was pretty much destroyed because of his "vengeance" and if it wasn't for not wanting to cause table conflicts I would have put him down. It made for an interesting story I guess, but he sucked to play with and the DM pulled him aside a few times to let him know what he did was fucked up.

Playing a negative attitude Paladin properly is hard. I'm playing a conquest Paladin, and the oath pretty much tells you to dominate everything everywhere all the time. I've been choosing to depict this as suggesting violence and having a short temper, but he gets upset and gets quiet and begrudgingly follows the party if outvoted. The other players and I love the dynamic of the party, but the characters struggle to get along. (My character is also slowly becoming calmer, and will eventually become an oath of redemption paladin) but it definitely takes a lot of communication out of session with the DM and players

when they say they rolled for stats. when they say they inherited their grandfathers plate mail. i strictly adhere to the AL character creation rules...and then set those rules aside after we start.

Rolling for stats is one of my favorite parts as player and DM. Rolling for stats unobserved by the DM is simply forbidden. I do enjoy that dndbeyond now tracks the stat rolls so it is easy to monitor without needing to do in person.

Likewise - dice bot with timestamps.

DND Beyond is okay, but can still be manipulated. You can theoretically re-roll an infinite number of times to get something strong, and then delete all the other roll groups to make it look like you only rolled the once.

I don’t get how rolling for stats in private is even a red flag. That should just be a hard no-go at any table. If somebody rolled up to my game and said “I rolled for stats in private!” I would say “no you didn’t, that’s not how this works buddy.”

It works if you're all friends (actual friends, not the pieces of shit that wind up in stories here). My group all rolled for stats privately bc we are busy and only can play online late Wednesday nights bc of work and some people are in a different time zone. We all reported relatively normal scores so it's unlikely anyone was cheating, I had one really high roll so I volunteered to reduce that so my primary stat was more in line with the rest of the party. At the end of the day, it's just a game and if someone in the group doesn't understand that fundamentally then they don't belong at the table. Trust between the DM and players is paramount.

It’s why standard array exists. Everyone is on equal footing.

Not being willing to at least discuss things or offering options when something doesn't work would be my biggest warning. DnD is all about communication, so saying something like "no, you can't do that" while creating characters and discussing other session 0 stuff, without any follow up, would be a red flag for me. Saying "that wouldn't really work at my table, but let's sit down and see how we can work something out that makes both of us happy"? Completely different vibe, and one I'd immediately feel good with.

This is a red flag when it's about a reasonable change or reflavoring, but a green flag when the player asks to play their homebrew super saiyan class.

When a player says "... so I found this homebrew online and...."

I've only once ever had a player ask me if they could use a class from dndwiki. Maybe a complete coincidence, but he was by far the worst player that I've ever had in a group

I had one ask once. I started to say No and he just busted up laughing and was like “I’m fucking with you, I’m making a Vengeance Paladin”

As the dm, I read through the entire Mystic class because one of my players wanted to be one. I saw that the explanation was like 30 pages long and almost had a stroke reading it. Needless to say, he did not end up playing a mystic

Alot of homebrew classes from there are OP, redundant, anime/game character, or could be achieved with multiclassing existing classes. That said there are a few gems on there if you're willing to scroll through all the bs

I have a blanket ban at my table on content from dndwiki. All of my players know that if it's on that site and can't be verified in a book, it is 125% not happening in my game. There IS some palatable stuff on there, but it's just not worth sifting the chaff to find.

Yeah, I once played with somebody that came with a homebrew dragon-elf class, which was clearly OP and not setting aligned. The player in question was adamant to play that race in spite of not being a thing in the world we played(another red flag). The DM was kind enough to reflavour an existing race, addressing the mechanical aspect, and basically moved on with it since the player was a newbie. The player did not engage with most of the camping and slowly left the table by simply not showing up, we moved on with the game, nobody was surprised.

So I found this home brew online that gives other Sorcerer subclasses the Extended spell lists, Not just Tashas new classes. Would you consider that?

I had a buddy do this for Curse of Strahd. The class wasn't insanely OP, just a new paladin subclass. The annoying thing was that he and the DM had to keep reading the class features and abilities every other session because they were written so poorly.

* "Quirky" builds. Something fun and different is not just fine, it's encouraged. Something that contributes nothing to the party and game in general but headaches and facepalms like a deliberately gimped build is making it about you and your character in an even worse way than making a ridiculously OP character. * When a brand new player arrives with a character concept that's just their favourite character from another genre of fiction. And it's not that they're going to be a bad player or bad character. I love the enthusiasm. What I hate about it is that D&D and its descendents, in particular, will often break that player's heart with the limitations of the system. * The Same Joke GM or Player. Someone whose entire character is a one-note (as opposed to one-dimensional - I've played alongside some amazing one-dimensional characters) joke or pun. It gets less funny each time it's re-told, and it loses fidelity until the entire concept, once a distinct food item, has become another turd indistinguishable from every other cringe-inducing joke at the table.

Characters that are overly special. I struggle to put words on my thoughts but like, he's an aasimar, but he's not just any aasimar, he's half aasimar half drow, he's been cursed by a demon and now there's an entire cult tracking him, but turns out he's the hidden child of a king, and he has a brother that somehow is half orc half tieffling. Also he's a wizard but because of the curse he can't cast spells so he trained as a warrior and disguise himself as a hunter to evade the cult. etc etc ... it just gets on my nerves so fast. Had a friend that couldn't stop making these kind of characters and it was a pain in the ass.

Two words: “lone wolf”

As a player: Severely limiting choices for no good reason. I had a DM once tell me I couldn't play a half elf. No in-world reason, they just didn't like them. They let me play an aasimar, but only the scourge subrace, not the one I wanted. I'd understand if it was, "Hey we're playing in a certain setting where this race wouldn't make sense" that's fine, but give me that reason. As a DM: I always say if it's in an official book, you can play it. Still I have people bringing me weird ass homebrews. They just need to learn the art of reflavoring.

I once tried a game where everyone took turns dming. We were supposed to bring pb+1. Everyone agreed. Than one guy shows up with a MLP Unicorn not what he promised to play. The game didn't last beyond session 1.

Wanting to copy paste a character. If you want to draw heavy inspiration from whatever anime/webcomic/TV show that's fine. But if you want to name them Robb Stark who is called King in the North and have a pet direwolf, I have a problem as a DM.

How about Bobb Starf, King in the Northeast, with his pet dog?

Ah, the Basic stuff: lone wolf, edgy backstory, impulsiveness to fight anyone without considering the party opinion, "I don't trust anyone and I'll attack any NPC that looks to be slightly on my way", refusing to help/fighting the fellow party members (that is the biggest one). Basically all the "Chaotic Neutral on paper but actually Chaotic asshole ok gameplay" things

A character being abrasive all the time “because that’s their personality”. Just sounds like a character no one wants to adventure with, and sounds like an excuse for you to be a dickhead.

A player pushing for a Strixhaven background in a non-Strixhaven campaign without even attempting to provide a narrative justification for it…

When people come up with an edgy backstory or angle for their character and show that they have no understanding of said experiences. Reformed rapists are cool, bruh. I read it in a book, burh.

I played with a guy who insisted on making his character a hard drug user with addictions to a variety of substances. But it wouldn't be a problem in play, he said, because if he went into withdrawal he'd just keep adventuring and it would be ok. All the edge, none of the consequences.

From the dm: changes without reasons, or reasons that don’t make any sense. Like banning a race because one person played it poorly. For players: anything that suggests they don’t realize this is a team game. Lone wolf, main character syndrome, etc.

I'm a bit weary of hyper mixtures of characters. Things like, my mother was an Elf, but my grandfather was a Dragonborn, while my grandmother was a tiefling and my great-great-grandfather was an Orc married with a Centaur etc... It "can" work but I'm looking at you side-eyed.

I would always say that if someone is more than two "races," they're either a human or one of the parent races. "My mum was a half-elf and my dad was a half-orc so I'm a-" "Human." "My mum was a half-yuan-ti/half-dragonborn, my dad was half-kobold/half-lizard man." "Gotcha, Dragonborn is from the PHB." "My dad was a centaur and my mum was a minotaur, so I'm a-" "Human. Or a cow."

But like imagine being the last guy and the rest of the party is non the wiser, and then his brother shows up who got the other halves

"Oh look how special of a character you are! Btw, you only get one set of stats from one of those 4 races, so...make them count."

Players with a distinct lack of knowledge/understanding about the game trying to create the craziest PC ideas. Once had a player who wanted to be a Timelord/Weeping Angel homebrew race. He thought DnD was a game where you can do literally whatever you want. No DnD has rules and settings and this idea will be horribly broken and not fit anywhere

I personally don't like players who start talking about multiclassing before they even know what their character is going to be. DnD has a shitton of amazing classes and subclasses, I don't get why you can't just enjoy those without having to bend over backwards for some weird shit that probably won't even work the way you want it to. And as a dedicated STR based martial player, I really hate DMs who needlessly nerf or argue about martial abilities. I had one DM who insisted that there was no way to do non-lethal damage with weapons that are not blunt. Like, what?

Obviously all non-blunt martial weapons have sharp edges in every direction. I thought that was how marital classes held their weapons, by impaling their hands on their weapon. /s On the other hand, I love multiclassing at times and I love playing pure classes sometimes. All depends on the campaign and how I feel.

I 100% agree with needlessly nerfing martial abilities being a huge frustration. I have a character that I rolled really high on STR for, but very low on CON for, so I went Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master to keep myself more out of harm's way. The response was complaints about being able to use GWM on the halberd's bonus action attack. My man I have a negative CON mod, I do not need more nerfing.

Yeah it's like,,, casters are efficient in and out of fight. Martials are only efficient in fights. Just let us be goddamn good at the one thing we can actually do well.

When they create a character based on a pop culture character that they've seen from a book or TV show. Especially an anime. As an anime lover myself, not only do they completely miss the point of the character (misuse of context that made the character who they are. They just want their power and ability for violence) but it often so badly conflicts with the story the DM put together and other players it's not fun or cool at all.

Here's a red flag, though not really just an annoyance of mine. A DM that hates the Forgotten Realms or other established campaign settings because "they have Elminster and other super powerful high level adventurers there, why don't they take care of the problem that I'd be sending you guys out to deal with?" I dunno Jeremy, maybe it's the same reason why Superman doesn't go over and clean up Gotham? Cause he's got his own shit to do. Also, he then plunked us into his own setting that was populated with SHOCK OF ALL SHOCKS! a bunch of high level wizards warriors and the like who were in positions of authority and power just like in the realms and like how real life would be like! Just say you don't want to run an established setting cause you've been making your setting for years dude, I was literally the only one at the table who remotely cares about what setting we're in and I'd have been just as cool with the truth then as I am now, though now I've had to deal with the (very occasional, I legit don't think about it much but it pops into my head every now and then when I'm reading up on the Forgotten Realms to see how it's progressed since AD&D and 3.5) confusion in hating a setting for the exact same shit your setting has. (Sidenote: Dark Sun is best setting but rules wise doesn't work outside of AD&D. I've tried the 3.5 conversion, it's great yea but PCs are just too hardy in 3.5 for Dark Sun to have the same lethality it had in 2nd Edition. It kinda loses its charm when it hasn't killed everyone's first character and some peoples 2nd.)

A character name/concept that's just a parroting copy of a worn internet meme.

(Before a oneshot or mini-series)(As a DM) After following up time and time again before the first session to see if anyone needs help with character creation and emphasizing that we don't have time for that in the first session, the player tells me day of (sometimes an hour beforehand) that they have done no prep and only have the vaguest idea of what they want to play. They don't have a character sheet. They haven't picked anything. All they have is a class. This is fine if the DM wanted you to come to a session 0 and make the whole character there, but not okay if the DM told you to make it beforehand because the oneshot session would have very limited time. I have started 30-45 minutes behind once (in a 3.5 hour oneshot) because a player showed up with nothing. I whipped them up character stats, a shortlist of spells, and only needed them to choose a few minor things and it still took that long because they had so little experience. I should have just dropped him tbh.

My biggest red flag in characters are when the person immediately says "they're basically *anime character*"

Not exactly character creation, but it bugs me when the player(s) don't give me, the DM, any kind of "buy in". I almost want to make my own post about this. In order to play DND, you have to provide some kind of willingness to want to be adventuring, or want to get along with your teammates, or want to be interested in the world and its issues. Or more generally, just trying to do your best to provide some kind of harmony or unity to the playing experience, however you can accomplish that. I'm not saying you can't RP the opposite of any of these points and still be a great player. It's a little difficult for me to explain. But I've had groups where folks aren't necessarily murder hobos, but like, ...they want to see how much of the game they can break, or how many NPCs they can upset, or act like every NPC is weak or an idiot. Forcing me to exert my maximum levels of improv and general effort for *every* interaction or encounter that happens. Maybe... chaos hobos, or meta hobos. I don't know how to say it best! But it feels like the players are trying to put me through the gauntlet at every turn. Not directly, but putting the game itself through the gauntlet indirectly puts *me* through it. I know that player interest lies heavily on the shoulders of the DM, reacting to the players' evolving proclivities and interests and stuff; my gripe isn't about that. And I LOVE hijinks, comedy, and shenanigans. Most of my DM inspiration comes from media like NADDPOD and Dim20, etc. But there's a specific feeling I've had in a few campaigns like, I dunno, the entire *game* in a meta-sense was a joke. That's really irksome and makes it so hard to write and continue through a campaign and world, when players won't yield at least a little bit of "buy in". Like, "okay, my character may be this or that way, but I'm still invested in the game as an ultimately legit experience with a serious world and mechanics". **Edited** for grammar.

My only beef ever is with players who refuse to feel the room in terms of setting and mood. It’s fine to make a quirky character but if everyone else makes a fighter, a rogue, and a wizard, and you make Eric Cartman the weed dealer, I don’t think you’re going to be that fun to play with.

The only thing for me is anyone's (player or dm) inflexibility. Don't be so attached to your creations. The second play starts, everything will change. That's ok.

My biggest red flag is when someone's making a character and I privately ask around at the table to find out who invited this person and nobody knows who they are and it turns out to be someone I didn't invite. Because the people I invite never do any of this ridiculousness y'all are describing. Edit: it's a joke you goobers. I'm saying I don't have these problems cuz I don't invite tools to table

I was so confused for a minute because I forgot online play exists and thought someone had randomly wandered into your house to play D&D.

I just realized that's not what they meant 💀

Nope that's what I meant.

i worry a lot that i am a walking red flag. i love to interact with the DnD world and talk with my companions(other player). i consult my dm when i feel unhappy with something. i also want to make sure everyone is engaged so i try to throw "balls" to other player like "my character say something and then look at player x, y etc." that person that interacted the least depending on the session. i know i interact a lot, but only because i enjoy dnd so much. the rp, the fights everything. so far no DM said something critical to me, but i get sometimes these "vibes" from other players. one person once said "sometimes you have to stay silence to give other people a chance to talk" but how long do i have to stay silent when the DM NPC asked a question and after 10 seconds nobody answered? i told her why she not play a silent character then if she has so much trouble to talk by herself. and when the DM often said "ehh guys still there?" it feels just bad because it ruins the flow. ​ wow now it become a confession, sorry everyone. i needed to write that with my bad english knowledge. if you have honest opions, feel free to share them with me

I don't think you are red flag. It looks more like you are player that every DM want

Telling me they wont read or consider x and y because It is a shit book for Idiots. And I am not saying homebrew but official stuff.

Characters that are edge lords that are either such lone wolf's that trying to get them to join a group is almost impossible. The other one is with OP characters and the player want's their character to always be the best and gets annoyed/grumpy etc. anytime his character is bested by anyone including high level NPC's regardless of if they are only level 3.

I haven't played in many groups so I haven't met any "bad" players. Generally I believe players should be able to do whatever they want but equally thar means me and the Dm will act accordingly. If you try to cheese the game the Dm will cheese the game back at you. Make your character over powered then don't be surprised when the Dm starts to have the mobs focus on the most obvious threat. Il just sit back and watch you enjoy your own little power fantasy while we are over here playing our game. The only thing that I think makes a bad character still just makes me laugh. If you try to make a lvl1 character with a mile long backstory full of fame and glory then guess what bud. You just made a delusional nut case of a character that is guna get a serious reality check when they meet their 1st goblin. Ya sure thing Mr Fagrim the great, just and whatever els you call yourself. You go ahead and 1v1 the boss and all his freinds that don't give a toss about 1, v or 1. My warlock will just sit back and enjoy the show. True story. Our fighter actually thought they could handle the hob goblin herself. I called her Don Quixote as I got in a better position to sleep everyone and eldrich blast the boss when they was done kicking her.

As a player, I have found I'm very picky and it's more about finding the specific sort of game I'll find fulfilling is a challenge. As a DM, I have a multi-stage vetting process of applying, chatting, and going through character creation together. I ask people to have a concept of what they want to play, but be flexible on the details so that I can make sure it will fit with the setting, other players, and the obvious, un-fun conflicts can be avoided. The red flags I'm looking for with the character creation side are showing an interest in tropes unsuitable for the group or table, or an unwillingness to tell a collaborative story. Having a strong vetting process (both ways), and being willing to say "I don't think this is a good match" can lead to MUCH better D&D.

as a DM i always cringe when players propose characters that are obviously too edgy, too "special snowflake OG donut steel", characters who are obviously more the caricature of a race rather than characters and horny characters.

When you ask everyone to roll for stats and he says he did it himself at home. To be fair, this particular person didn't give himself insane stats, so I allowed it. But in the long run, it was still a red flag because we butted heads a lot. When the players wants a reskinned weapon to have unique new abilities. Personally, I'm totally fine with players reskinning weapons, items, and abilities in fun ways so long as it doesn't change them mechanically; that's what the rulebooks are for. So same player wants his barbarian to use claw weapons; fine, reskin short swords into claws. Easy. But a few sessions dude wants to use his claws to get Advantage on climbing walls. No, dude; it's reskin; I'm not going to come up with unique rules just for that.

Not always, but often times it's when they say they want to make a character like (Insert Shonen Anime Protagonist). There's usually a thematic disconnect when this happens, but the bigger problem is that they expect to be able to do very overpowered things right off the bat and also suffer from main character syndrome. That all said I do have a player who often pulls inspiration from various anime/mange characters and he's one of our favorite players. Fully understands how to ground his ideas in the setting and alongside party members.

DM's limiting races, classes or subclasses for arbitrary reasons unrelated to the setting or campaign. Especially when they say it's because they just don't like, or understand, them. Players making their dump-stat their class's main ability (it's happened to me more than once) because it's edgy. Players who want to use homebrews that are identical to things that already exist. Like they can't reflavor things in their mind

Generally purposefully edgy characters are a bit of a red flag. Not a big one, but it’s hard to do right without being aggravating to the rest of the group

1. Hexadin. 2. Excessive critical roll 3. Body odor 4. Bigotry.

A level 1 character that was the general of an army at one point.

Personally I’m not a huge fan of “I’ve got a secret” type characters, they often end up disappointing everyone involved

As a DM. Players who bring characters to the table that are too interested in telling their own stories vs working with the party to tell the collective story. Players who try to use the character creation, specifically background, rules to get more than they should. The “I inherited my fathers magic sword”,or “I grew up in the church so I can use divine smite even though they are playing a barbarian.” As a player: DMs that are actively player vs DM. Bragging about how many TPKs they’ve had or how many PCs they’ve killed. DMs that warn the players against power gaming or min maxing to the point that any character that is effective is considered “power gaming”. DM’s that emphasize “rule of cool” over RAW. Rule of cool can be a great thing to reward legitimate creativity. But I’ve often seen it used as an excuse to not learn the rules. DMPCs. DMPCs are never good. Ever. They always step on the parties toes and make it feel like our choices don’t matter because either the DMPC is going to Deus ex machina his way through whatever is in front of us.

"Chaotic Neutral"

I’ve had mixed results. You’re either CN because you’re playing an interesting character with his own best interests or you just wanna have an excuse to be obnoxious and justify it by pointing to your alignment

"Chaotic Neutral" or "Chaotic Asshole/Stupid" ? I had a CN player that was super chill

CN is so rarely done correctly. I have a PC who actually does chaotic good fairly well, but I’m pretty sure my entire party is labeled as “chaotic” and almost all of them tend to *actually* play as lawful good.

(insert popular anime character) Enough said, you can figure out the rest

"I found this new race/class/subclass online that I want to try! It's really balanced!"

Anyone who makes a character intended to see party members as "meat shields" they don't care about. Two players in my group do it every time but both will deny that every single character they make shares that personality trait even if the rest of their character is different

As a DM: reluctant Heroes. I've already tried throwing hook after hook after "Direct character backstory hook" at some players, and they just do not bite. It has gotten to the point where I have to actually sit down and tell the players, "If your character does not want to go on _any_ adventures, I'll ask you to either make a new character or find a new table."

No written backstory, at least in important campaigns. We're very roleplay heavy, so not having a written backstory for the dm to interpret and incorporate is very important.

I'd say immediately homebrewing a gun for a character without talking it with the DM. Which I was unfortunate to do that from a recent oneshot

Mine is when a player shows up with a premade sheet with pre-rolled stats and just assumes i'll be okay with it. I always make all players meet on the first session to either roll for stats or do point buy in front of everyone so everyone knows its fair

YouTube builds. Not to say the builds themselves are bad, but the lack of creativity or self trust in making a character is a good sign the player isn't as engaged as they should be. For example; my buddy hinged his entire Paladin build on a jedi YouTube build and was trying to convince our DM to let him acquire the Sun Blade in game (if not just start with it).

When a players starts talking about his family ties and thry all happen to be extremely powerful people like rulers of a city or kingdom

Tbh as a DM I really don’t like when someone’s ’character concept’ is just a statblock. I get that that’s just how some people play the game and that’s fine if that’s how they have their fun but I’ve never vibed with it as a DM or player. Your character should be competent, but they should also be an actual *person*.

My god. Reading these comments makes me love my group.

When players feel the need to warn you that they will be "roleplaying" an asshole character. 9 times out of 10, they're just an asshole person.

Relationships. Every single time I've tried to create a character that explicitly is in a relationship it fails and comes off kitchy or forced. To all the new creators, highly suggest you let relationships develop situationally, not planned.

Any player who starts of with their character as some kind of alcoholic or who favors booze to some super high degree. A drunk who's only obsession is getting smashed has derailed and ruined every they've been in. (in my experience) No matter the player (I've delt with 6 different players across groups) every town becomes a tavern booze fest where they end up going murder hobo or going always sunny style anger typically causing us to fight our way out of the town and never be allowed back. My other big red flag is the character who always wants to fight all the time no matter what. There are ways to do this without ruining the fun for everyone, but challenging every NPC to a fight or just attacking on sight has also ruined many a campaign for me.

Been playing for years now and seen both great and horrible players Dm side Letting a player reroll their character each session because it wasn't as badass as he pictured (rolled a ranger based on diablos demon hunter and would complain the ranger was missing attacks at lvl 1 and be like oh but that's not what would happen and but i didnt even kill anything this turn) Forcing players to do specific things against their character Showing any kind of obvious favouritism being so avoidant to conflict they are a doormat and let players do anything Players having extremely experienced backgrounds at lvl 1 and wondering why they arent killing shit in 1 hit Players that think charisma abilities are mind control Players that throw tantrums (of any kind) Players that boss others around Metagamers (just kills the point of the game) Players that make creepers or go into too much detail (eg doing sexual things in detail like I'm cool if your character finds a sex worker to blow off steam in town but that's where that part ends ) Players that make characters and are warned they may not fit well in the setting eg a triton who is a pirate captain in a landlocked nation that wants to build a fleet..... Players that try and be things their stats dont reflect (unless they are meant to eg a deluded character thinking they are a paladin but are just a fighter etc just dont go trying to sneak in platemail every time and complain and wonder why you more often get seen)

In my case, as a DM I had to deny a former friend entry to my first D&D 5e campaign because his character concept was that of a blindfolded elf or half-elf who could still see around completely normal, whose demonic blood gave him powers worthy of the tadpoles of Baldur's Gate 3 and he wanted to be accompanied all the time by a pixie that he had saved in a magical forest some time ago in his life (basically he wanted to play Evil Link with extra steps ) and the truth is it felt bad to have to do it, but on top of that he hadn't even read the Player's Handbook and was discussing the rules in session 0 as if he knew them. Sad but necesary.

Them coming with an entirely made character but refusing to have any backstory besides "hehe he elf bard and he lyke saiksssss" Another is ironically exactly what shadowheart in bg3 at first glance would be, evil god cleric with a name that isn't a name using the trickster cleric subclass and having them be forcefully rude to everyone but be surprised no one likes her "cool original character". FUCK YOU OLGA, "MOON" ISN'T A NAME AND IT'S NOT NORMAL TO BE THIS OBSESSED WITH THE GOD LOKi, ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN YOU CLAIM TO WORSHIP HIM FOR REAL DESPITE NOT KNOWING ANY OF THE MYTHS THAT AREN'T MENTIONED IN THE MARVEL MOVIES (I love shadowheart btw she grows on you like a nice warm beard, not like mold on cottage cheese)

Every time I visit this sub I appreciate my DM more and more. Where do people encounter these freaks?

The main red flag I follow is if someone just doesn't want to play in the campaign that was proposed. As long as the *player* wants to be there, then any character-- even the brooding edgelord can work in a group as long as all the players synergize with each other. The second one is when Dms refuse to help or work with players to make a useable character, but will reject anything for "not fitting".

When the dm lies about the setting so you make characters for a high seas adventure just so the campagn ends up being lovecraftian horror. Turns out the dm wanted characters that were "out of their element". I am not the type of player that needs to have the perfect badass character that counters every idea the dm has. Far from it. But I want to decide how my character contributes to the group and I want both my strenghts and my weaknesses come into play. A dm tricking me into investing a lot of my character creation resources in things that will never be needed so I feel the horror aspect more is just gonna makr me feel bored and frustrated.

If they pick a bard and a name that screams "I'm gonna try to sex all the things" I'm your DM not your phone sex operator.

When a character has more edge than their swords.

I mostly play online, but one thing I've noticed is with aggressive people. In general, aggressive people are also stupid people who try to force you into thinking they're smart. They don't get respected irl so they think by screaming at everyone online, they'll command respect and attention. I've had not one but several who would freak when they didn't get their way. They'd also say they had "PTSD" from certain stat blocks, not even deadly ones, just something like an elk or a berserker. This communicates no trust in the DM, nor cooperation, and in a groups game, that kills the fun for all. Also, players who don't match the world. I get it, it's fun to be that one meme character, or to be a cutesy pie, or to be a literal pet, but not when my world is serious or when I'm trying to tell a different story. D&D should have freedom and player agency, yes, but not matching the world in any way is just disrespecting my efforts as a DM, and ruins immersion. My example of this was when I was running a standard dnd game and someone insisted on bringing their protogen radeologist, saying that D&D was about diversity and that if I wanted something to match my world, I should go play some other system. Hell naw Also, edgelords. A good roleplayer can make an edgelord fun, but otherwise they're often cringy min maxers who often times don't really play as a group, striving to be the anime main character instead. My experience as a DM was with one who insisted on playing with a bunch of powers on top of their base stuff, including infinite undead and life steal. My experience as a player was with one who wanted to ignore the entire plot of the game so he could instead overthrow the regional ruler and become king of the world. We were level 2...

I’d say it’s when you notice a player leaning too heavily on the stereotypes of a class instead of trying to think about their own take or flavor of it. I’m thinking the lawful good Paladin who absolutely cannot permit anything the rogue tries to do. Or the rogue who steals everything, even from his own party members.

When a player decides before their session 0 to make an NPC, who is on the players side and helping them survive, their goal to murder once they meet them in person for absolutely no sensical or valid reason. Had a player last year that I had to kick for separate reasons, but he decided he wanted to kill the only NPC who isn't out to fuck them over/exploit them/steal their stuff or murder them. Just a guy wanting as many people as possible to survive in horrible times for everyone's sakes. Reason? NPC is foul-mouthed and not attracted to his PC since the NPC is Asexual.

“Main character” type people who try to basically just make their OC themselves but stronger and more powerful; which is a vibe and valid but it’s bad when they try to act like they’re better than everyone even though we’re all in the same boat. Had to kick someone from our current party, for a lot of other reasons lol, but this was a major problem. At one point, bc my PC was the in-universe guide, I was getting snacks and drinks for the other PCs, and his character snapped his fingers at me to get my attention (WHICH I HATE BC I USED TO BE A SERVER) and then called my PC a bitch.

Any mention of chaotic neutral. Worst I heard was "I hear chaotic neutral is good for new players because it lets you do what you want."

>I once want to play monk who using chain with small balls at ends. Weapon like that don't exist RAW That's a flail.

People who bring pre-existing OCs to play in the campaign. I am down to finally give you a chance to play the character concept you’ve had in the back pocket, as long as it fits in the world and is reasonably flexible. But I’ve had friends be like “so I want to play so-and-so,” and so-and-so is a precious OC they made up years ago who has established lore and setting links and a ton of expectations about their character development and *no room to integrate with new plots or settings*… I don’t want to be responsible for killing this OC if they’re in danger. I also don’t want you to get salty when they have no meaningful backstory links because you already made up an entire cult for them, so I can’t tie them to the one that’s *in the plot*. plus, when I’m a player and another player brings one of these, I can tell and it often makes the vibes *weird*. it’s hard to bond with these characters because they have not enough room to improvise. and the types of players who bring these characters tend to be very fixated on their own lore and don’t really reciprocate interest in other players’ lore, which really bites. had a bad experience with one of these recently. DM ran hoard of the dragon queen, fellow player brought a very old and loved OC. fellow player then got really sad and dumped the character like 1 chapter into the story because he felt like he had no connection to the plot or the party. like… yeah, of course you don’t, i made my druid specifically to fit into this game developed on top of a premade book backstory hook, and the third party member did the same. you don’t have any lore hooks except “i live in greenest and care about it” because your guy has some weird thing going on with shar that has nothing to do with anything the rest of us are doing, and he won’t talk about anything except his own backstory, so *yeah you aren’t as bonded to the plot, no shit dude* my character by sheer coincidence had her own link to shar (weird aasimar shit, very angsty) and i tried to have her bond with this player’s OC about their shared religion. but the other player had no idea what to do with that, because shar was DM’s attempt to substitute for a homebrew god in the player’s own campaign setting that the OC *originally* followed, shar was just the closest analog, and he had *no idea* how his shar cleric would talk about his faith *at all*. couldn’t even answer “how did you end up following shar anyway?” (and this was before bg3 introduced potential “shar took the memory” excuses too). i’m still sad about that missed opportunity, we could’ve had it all….

"So I'm chaotic evil"

I find evil characters to be ok when done well. I pitched a lawful evil wizard to my DM in a campaign that never started. Basically they were about gathering power, vain, and looked down on the lower masses. But if they were to ever get anywhere then they needed to play nice with others and you could get more ties to power and influence by not being a monster. So on the outward he could be seen as maybe lawful neutral, but inside he was lawful evil.