u/dudeoverderr

I plan on talking to him of course — just want some outside opinions so I can come up with what to say this weekend! Otherwise, I'd also love any ideas to make it work to my advantage or to learn to appreciate it, even.

Basically, my DM prefers clockwise/counter-clockwise order instead of rolling initiative. If there's even one enemy, he also has the enemy attack after every player gets a turn. I was thinking maybe certain enemies have more than one reaction per round, but lately it's been imbalanced. I already plan to tell him it feels pointless to have high Dex (besides AC) with this method, but I can't figure out how to navigate the topic of his enemy turns.

Anyone have similar experiences? How did you solve this issue with your parties?

For context, I'm still new to DnD this year and you guys have been VERY helpful with giving me different perspectives of other campaigns on this Subreddit as I find my footing. So thank you!

In summary, my 100+ employee marketing agency just let go of several leaders on our creative team — our creative director, two design directors, and brand manager. But they kept the "Performance Creative" team — separate from ours, who are 99% production design for performance marketing who use AI to do quick, average-quality work.

So our main creative team who used to deliver quality, award-winning work to show off and flex and win more clients has been hit HARD, and most of us don't feel valued anymore. But I'm optimistic.

Leadership (CEO, EVPs) is going with the market, so I get it. I disagree, but I get it. They don't think we're a huge selling point because they see market data, and they don't know how to measure quality. They also don't seem to know how to sell creative because it's risky or whatever.

So my question is this: Once another manager takes over for the creative team soon, how might we give ourselves a voice in the company that our quality is going downhill? How can we convince them that creative is MORE than just production, but that quality, concepting, differentiating, etc. are so important?

I just feel discouraged right now. Thanks for any advice!

Still a DnD newbie, so curious about things that are normal vs. not normal.

After pulling one of my current DMs aside about this, he explained to us that it's normal for a lot of DMs to do this because it "helps players learn what's going on in the world," and tbh I can see that being beneficial if a plot is complex. No big complaints there. But we told him it sometimes spoils things and maybe he could dial it down OR do it differently.

Here's an example:

• We enter a castle to fight a vampire lord as the big bad.
• DM says that the vampire lord has plans to turn the entire continent into vampires, and that he's also secretly the mayor of [insert town here].
• My friend/another player asks him "How...do we know all of that?"
• My DM says, "You don't yet, not your characters anyway."
• Bruh.
• OR in similar moments, my DM might say, "Oh, just pretend you guys know this."

He also occasionally tells us what to expect next session, which I feel like is normal. Sort of a "Find out next time on Dragonball Z" vibe.

Any insight from seasoned/experienced players here? I'd also love to give our DM some ideas to do it differently that maybe we can bring up if he's open to it.

Thanks!

This is about my DM specifically, hence "him" lol. He'll often go, "Let's say this thing happened instead" whenever 1) Someone reminds him what actually happened to a plot/character from last session that he forgot, OR 2) Someone is absent from the group that week.

Our DM is running West Marches style between 2–3 groups each week, so some people show up and some don't. I understand and empathize with how difficult this can be, but surely there are other ways for him to handle absences and forgetfulness besides retconning? (Note: I know the solution is to chat with him — but I'd love any ideas in the responses here!)

For example, two sessions ago, me and two characters got trapped in a magical maze dungeon. It was a GREAT cliffhanger and got me excited for this past Saturday. But since one of us was too busy to attend, our DM said, "I'm gonna say you didn't get trapped there but instead avoided the maze entirely so you're actually safe and outside with the others still."

WTF? I spent the whole week thinking about ways my character would escape, etc. Why not just do a magical plot twist? Oh, the maze suddenly encases [missing player] and it transports him elsewhere — you don't know if he's safe, but you know you need to escape this maze.

Apologies for the venting, but any ideas would be appreciated!

I have 18 Charisma, and with my total stats, Inspiring Leader should give 6 players +10HP.

But my DM keeps judging whether or not my speech or dance in character is good enough, and he's only given me half or a little amount.

That feels a bit unfair, and when I spoke to him about it, he said it makes it more fun. But my character is naturally weak af with low health so no, it's not that fun.

EDIT: Thanks for *immediate* input here y'all lmao. Don't worry, he's not a bad DM overall and often gives inspiration when players are funny. I'll pull him aside before next sesh this Saturday and ask what his fucking deal is. Just kidding, I'll maturely tell him what's up. Thanks Reddit fam.

Production emulation is fine to me personally, but mimicking his singing style is what instantly turns me off.

It feels disingenuous. Like, what are the chances that you as an artist not only lean to his production tastes, but you also mumble, poorly enunciate, and scream at the end of every measure? Cherry on top if their IG or Spotify visuals are portraits of them in a dark room with hair covering their eyes holding a strat that they modded with a Sega Genesis strapped to the body.

I'm a fan of MkGee's production (I'm gonna refrain from my Dijon opinions specifically lol), and I'm also aware of HIS OWN inspo/emulations dating back as far as the 80s — so I personally say "MkGee clone" to exclusively refer to recent artists who decided to make albums after hearing Two Star and started washing away their vocals behind distorted reverb thresholds on their guitar playing.

edit: Just reread my post, omg I sound like such a hater lmao I am so sorry.

I mean...technically, she got herself fired? But I still feel bad.

I work in marketing as an Art Director at a tech and branding company. 50+ employees, fully remote. We recently hired a college graduate whose degree I still don't know what is, but she was our Associate Social Media Manager and I rarely spoke to her.

Just this past Monday, she took it upon herself to send one of our highest paying clients an AI-generated design to "inspire ideas" for a social media campaign. She didn't consult with any members of the Creative Team beforehand.

Obviously, the generated designs were very impractical, off-brand, and unrealistic to achieve, but the client loved the photo-realistic illustration style so much that they wanted us to now illustrate a campaign for them. In summary — it's going to take...maybe 60+ hours and cause several other clients of ours to be deprioritized to achieve this.

Initially, I assumed she meant well, but I spoke to her privately about why she can't do that. Instead of a mature response, she sent me several links about how "AI is the future" and said, "I think you should read these, I'm surprised someone at your level hasn't. Hope this helps!"

I crashed out.

I immediately spoke to her manager, whom I've known for 8 years, and she agreed that she's not fit for the role, too impulsive, and disrespectful.

I was like...wait, we aren't firing her are we? I just thought she was out of line. Nope, she got fired by 4PM.

Whoops. If you're reading this, sorry Kayleigh.

EDIT: Since some of y'all seemed curious, she's 25 and I'm 34. Like I'm literally not a boomer so it's not an age thing and our company actually utilizes AI internally lol. Appreciate all the discourse though! Didn't expect all of these comments. And I'm sorry but we're not hiring. Gonna outsource for social deliverables for now. :(

EDIT #2: To give context to how risky this client is to displease, they have us on a $150k/month retainer.

I live in NYC, so it's all about wrong place wrong time.

This morning I was on the J train — handful of others around — and this dude with a knife started yelling at nothing. Then bruh he walked up to me. I was sitting down with headphones.

The first part is still blurry tbh but I remember taking off my headphones to talk to him because he was saying shit to my face like, "Want me to cut you?"

My instinct was to COMPLETELY LIE so I told him real calm, "I just tried to kill myself last night man, I'm tryna change my life. We can talk though, what's your story bro? I'm chillin." or something like that.

I think it was five seconds of him just looking at me and he literally just, "Man you good bro." and walked away.

I'm still kinda numb y'all. Sorry if this isn't the right place to share this, but appreciate any support or if I should post this somewhere else. Thanks.

EDIT: Just wanted to thank y'all and say I appreciate a lot of these comments. I'm okay today! I've got a pretty dark sense of humor so this is officially part of my arsenal. I still believe it's better not to confront/respond to crazy, but if there's ever no way out, I hope this post allowed some of you guys to consider how you might tap into empathy, even if it's artificial.

UPDATE: I left, and so did some of my friends. I texted our DM a few min ago, and he straight up told me that the other player is the main character — I'm not kidding. I asked him if it was like a chapter-by-chapter thing where main characters switch, and he explained that since me and my other friends are newer to DnD that it's better for us to learn as supporting characters first. Hard no. (And by the way, this player was a Wizard. Not a Sorcerer. I didn't wanna say Wizard because he probably goes on Reddit, but fuck this group lol. Wizard with 18 Charisma + 18 Intelligence + 18 Dex at Level 1? Yeah okay). Thanks for the replies, everyone! <3

Original Post:

I understand this is largely the DM's responsibility, but some friends and I joined strangers to start a new campaign last week, and someone (he's otherwise a cool dude) is a Sorcerer who's got high Dex, Intelligence, and Charisma.

Meanwhile, my character's whole identity as a Bard relies on him having Charisma with terrible attributes on purpose (he's weak and talks his way out of conflict, and I plan on developing him over the campaign).

The thing is, our Sorcerer always tries to be the one to save the day — whether it's with a powerful spell, negotiating/intimidating, or scouting with his Familiar.

This leaves the other four players feeling like bystanders. For example, I offered to do a Performance skill check to distract some guards with song. And our Sorcerer — who has high Charisma and Performance +3 — said he had a better idea and summoned his Familiar to dance in front of the guards instead.

Bro???

Sorry for venting. It's my very, very first DnD campaign and I'm annoyed. Thanks.

EDIT: To clarify, when I say "terrible stats," I mean his Charisma is extremely high but his physical attributes are abysmal. As in he's not a fighter, he's a smooth-talker.

Hey all, I've read about mods that fix this issue on other platforms but it seems that my companions are lifeless on my ship. Any troubleshooting?

• It's last on my load order
• I initially had Sarah's + Andreja's Dialogue Enhanced mods, but now they're disabled
• I turned ON and OFF "Enable Conversations" setting in the mod because this wasn't even working anyway
• I've dismissed everyone and restarted my game

Is this mod just broken? Any other common conflicts? I love having all main companions with me, but this feels like Skyrim and not in a good way lol.

Thanks!