r/DnDcirclejerk

Whenever it’s time to roll initiative, I have 4 players immediately shouting numbers at me at completely different times while I’m also trying to roll initiative for 14 goblins individually, as group initiative is lazy DMing and unrealistic. I am crafting a story for my players and that story includes everyone taking their turn as the rules state.

My players are clueless, despite my best efforts of educating them, and have NO idea what modifier they should add to their die roll for initiative. I don't even know why I haven't cancelled the campaign already.

I think a good solution would be for everyone to roll initiative at the beginning of the campaign and keep that result permanently. If a character dies, the new character would inherit that initiative because death should not be used to manipulate turn order.

For monsters, I’m thinking of rolling initiative for every creature in the Monster Manual before the session and keeping them in an Excel spreadsheet sorted alphabetically.

Has anyone tried this? Or should I simply determine initiative based on how quickly each player answers my texts during the week?

EDIT: Please stop suggesting I use the initiative tracker in a VTT. I didn’t spend $800 on dice to let a computer play D&D for me.

We've been playing for about six months and are at level five, my character dual wields and often does far more damage than anyone else in the party. I have over 300 confirmed kills and the DM asks this almost every time, so it's usually multiple times per combat.

My first thought is always just "Idk, because they're trying to take my money and my character sheet has all these weapons on it?" If I had my glasses on in combat then I could see what I'm doing. And I do try to be descriptive about other parts of the combat, like what my strategy is, how I'm feeling/reacting, where I position myself, etc. But when it comes to justifying a kill, I have no idea what to say.

Do people describe separate motivations for each blacksmith, stableboy and barmaid they kill? I don't really want to do this.

Should I learn about swordfighting IRL so I can bisect the DM? This doesn't sound legal to me but I could try.

Should I just ask the DM to stop inviting me to play?

I'm starting to feel myself shut down a bit during combat and even turning to diplomacy to avoid it. Last session when the DM asked why I killed things I just gave one word answers like "encyclopedia," "pimple" or "hairball." I love my character but I'm kinda hoping they die so I can just play G.U.R.P.S., even though this seems like a silly thing to be stuck on.

We're a few months deep into a new campaign, our party is a Wizard, a Warlock, a Cleric and a Barbarian.

I'm usually one to ask for a lot of checks, because if we weren't here to roll dice then what's the point of that character sheet you made? None of my players seem to have a problem with it, and I'd say it's pretty fun to see the three Spellcasters fumbling a basic acrobatics check to climb over a fence.

But I'm currently having problems with the Warlock player, I try to make a game where everyone can have their time in the spotlight but I've noticed that his character consistently hogs it whenever any kind of social interaction comes up.

For instance, in one of our sessions the party was walking around a city to investigate an issue and negotiate some alliances, and every time the party had to talk to someone I felt like he didn't even give the other PCs a chance, he just stepped forward and started droning on and on about whatever edgy warlock stuff he had going on.

For the last two sessions I tried to integrate a few more consequences to failed social checks, focused exclusively on the person making them, after all the rest of the party can't be blamed if the Warlock rolls a nat 1 and accidentally calls someone the n-word instead of asking for directions to the nearest tavern.

But tonight the Warlock player sent me a message about how he's not having as much fun anymore, and he feels a bit targeted.

I don't think that's a problem at all, he needs to stop being so entitled and let the other players play the damn game too, AITA here?

I’m working on a book called “The Dungeon Diver’s Guide to Slurs & Insults” (title subject to change), and I’d love some help from the DnD community.

The concept is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

The idea was inspired by my current DnD campaign, where we have a pretty diverse group of characters: Drow, Humans, Dwarves, Orcs, and even a “clanker” (robot). Given the dynamic of our group, there’s been a lot of friendly name-calling and insults. We’re all good friends, and it’s very much part of the humor at our table.

That got me thinking: what if I made an actual in-universe book of fictional slurs, insults, and derogatory terms for the various races and species found in DnD?

The plan is to eventually have two editions:

Standard Edition – Focused on the races you’d typically associate with classic DnD/fantasy, such as:

Humans
Dwarves
Elves
Half-Elves
Drow
Orcs
Tieflings
Dragonborn
Gnomes
Halflings
Goliaths
And more

Expanded Edition – Basically everything else. Goblins, Gith, Fairies, the various “folk,” and all the stranger races/species that exist throughout DnD.

I haven’t completely decided which races will make it into each edition yet, but you get the idea.

Before anyone worries: I want to make it very clear that this is intended to be entirely fictional and fantasy-oriented. I’m not looking to incorporate real-world racial slurs or anything intended to attack or demean actual groups of people. The goal is to create the kind of ridiculous, creative, sometimes genuinely nasty terminology that might exist within a fantasy world between rival races.

To be clear, neither myself nor the other players use any kind of real slurs in our daily lives. We are not racist and think those words are bad. But we do enjoy roleplaying racists because c’mon we all know anytime people get together they come up with a bunch of mean things to call each other based on their differences. And that’s just good roleplaying!

And that’s where I could use your help!

I’d love to hear your ideas for fictional slurs, insults, derogatory nicknames, stereotypes, or general shit-talking terms for the various DnD races.

Ideally, I’d love to eventually have around 100 terms per race, although that’s a long-term goal and I’ll see how far I can get.

Feel free to make them serious, ridiculous, clever, lore-based, childish, overly elaborate, or just downright insulting. If it sounds like something one DnD character would yell at another in a tavern, I want to hear it.

Anyone whose contribution makes it into the final book will receive a shoutout in the credits, with your Reddit username included. We’ll also post your name across all our socials and tag it “pretend racist only”!

So, what have you got?

Give me your best fantasy insults.