Your group of five was falling for 30 minutes because they couldn't get through initiative
My group of five was falling for 30 minutes because they kept trying to rush up a greased ladder
We are not the same.
Jokes on you my character was a former sex worker, a greasy series of poles isn't an obstacle at that point.
The group I play with is only 5 people but 3 of them are 11 so.... yea
I feel this. My group is 3 players, and 2 are 11. There may as well be 30 of them
I used to have a group I'd play DnD with, it was fun. We don't talk anymore though because they are right-wing assholes and would never accept me as a trans girl, since they openly made fun of transgender people. There was an NPC character in one of our campaigns which was a "man dressed as a woman" who would always get mocked for it.
It's absolutely mental to create a character to just act as a punching bag for your beliefs. Even if the roles were reversed, I doubt I'd enjoy playing with people like that.
I think the problem is that it's something not actually bad. Making a BBEG that's just a punching bag for your believe that murder is wrong is perfectly okay.
Having the BBEG be a bigot and having their bigotry be integrated into the plot is fine. I'm talking about having an irrelevant NPC just exist as the butt of jokes for the players. I feel like I would just get tired of hearing those interactions repeated for hours.
Wasn't even a BBEG, was just a random NPC in the party that party members would make fun of for being "a man pretending to be a woman". The character remained in the party through the whole campaign and only served the purpose of being the butt of transphobic humor. I don't even think they had good stats or abilities.
Everyone thinks their takes are right or they wouldn't have them
It always felt uncomfortable when they'd do it. I felt unsafe when they would do it. I bet if they saw me now they'd make those same jokes about me directly. Probably also mock me for pronouns. They weren't good people, I don't know why I hung out with them as much as I did. I guess I just wanted to feel like I fit in with others. Well I'm glad I never came out to them even when I found out, that would've been really bad for me, instead we just quietly went our separate ways.
Sounds like the DM needs to put their damn foot down
I'm awkward and quite bad at that normally but if my players have gone off topic for more than a minute I'll soft remind them to get back on track, another minute or so and I'll bring it up again, and if we've wasted 5 minutes I activate my autist mode and just straight up mention were way off topic once a spot opens, and refocus the game
That's part of the damn job, I can run a table with up to 10 people without too much of an issue as long as everyone actually comes with their GODDAMN CHARACTERS FINISHED, DAVE
I admit I've only played D&D once. We spent half an hour working out how to go through a hole in the ceiling when there was an unlocked door in front of us. I thought that was just part of the fun.
Long discussion about the game: fine, acceptable, fun!
Long discussion about the meaning of a French word from hundreds of years ago after your bard said the wrong thing in a talking puzzle: might be fun, but is unrelated to the actual game and should be cut short before it drags on
The DMs job is to control the narrative, if you're talking about the game at all then it's part of the narrative and you should really only push them if they start going in circles or something at that point
I often do "I am starting a timer. When it goes off, something interesting will happen"
If the players are still fucking around, then the fire bears show up (or whatever).
Unless you're willing to do a TPK, this feels like an ultimately hollow threat.
There's a wide range between tpk and something interesting happening.
Like, the players are dicking around and can't decide how to ask the bartender if they can have access to the secret occult library in the basement. Just really spinning their wheels and being total PCs. Fine. Timer runs out. Their rival shows up, doesn't acknowledge them, says something quietly to the bartender and is being lead to the basement.
Sorry, my mind was adding an implicit idea that this was about 'during combat'. Yeah, during RP you have more wiggle room.
Ah, yeah. During combat there's the related "if you can't decide what you're doing in a minute, you dodge and we go to the next person" rule you can bring out.
Literally our last session
5 (including the DM) are sufficient. Sometimes even 4.
It can be used to fix some plot holes created by too much improvisation too though.
I have one group I play in where there are 7-10 Players. It's pure chaos, though since we play very infrequently and a lot of the players don't take the game too seriously it somehow works out.
Still would not recommend unless you like roleplaying with your fellow players until you get to your turn of GM attention.
We had 8 people in our last game. It really wasn't something I'd advise.
8 at my last game (7 players + a very inexperienced dm). I will limit myself to a table of 5 players at most in the future. It was horrible.
I think you could do 8 if everyone is experienced and it's a combat only module. Everyone pre rolls, announces their turn, and quickly moves their mini. Even one person not being experienced in their role screws it all up.
Roberts rules for DND.
There was a fair deal of "rules of order" style rules in early D&D.
Ever hear of a "caller"? That was the special player in early D&D rules who got the privilege of telling the DM what the party would do. It did kind of help with big groups, actually.
Better that than being stuck as the "mapper."
Cool. I'm mostly ignorant to D&D other than listening to podcasts. Why is a mapper bad? Maps are super cool, imo.
Mappers had to look listen to the description of the DM and try to draw a "good enough" map. Very easy to get things mixed up or one square off, and have to erase and redraw. "A doorway to the left" can be confusing when you're are heading south and it on the right of your map. Or maybe the DM means the left of the map?
Bear in mind, there was often treasure hidden in secret rooms, so knowing where the unexplored space was could be pretty important.
Once in a blue moon there was a player who got a thrill from that, but most folks hated the hassle.
This would be my thing.
Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
