Dungeon Master and Dimension 20 host Brennan Lee Mulligan visits WIRED to answer the internet’s burning questions about Dungeons & Dragons. What are Brennan’s tips for first time DMs? How do you make compelling characters? What does someone need to get started playing Dungeons & Dragons? What’s the most accurate representation of DnD in pop culture? Answers to these questions and many more await on Dungeons & Dragons Support.
SPECIAL THANKS TO BEX SCHWARTZ and The Montauk CLUB D&D Club
0:00 DnD Support
0:15 Most iconic monster
1:04 A great DnD character design tip
1:54 Friendship
2:54 Getting started with DnD
5:03 The best representation of DnD in pop culture?
6:23 Practicing your girl voice
7:20 How DnD alignments work
8:36 Paladins, Warlocks, and Sugar Daddies
9:21 Squish squish
9:51 I think he has dice but he’s afraid to show them to anyone
12:49 Fudging
14:04 The DnD golden rule
14:37 Favorite DnD character race and class combo
15:46 How do you handle a tpk?
17:05 But first, the tavern.
17:40 First time dungeon master tips
19:09 Critical roll vs Nat 20
20:05 When the dice won’t commit to the bit
21:02 Favorite spell
21:27 Can I play with you guys
22:34 Visiting another person’s campaign
24:30 Favorite magical item
25:09 You know what grinds my gears
26:11 Niche lore
26:59 If anything it’s the opposite
27:40 How much prep?
28:51 How many different editions
29:51 New rules?
30:42 Yee…haw?
31:32 Dungeons and Drag Queens? I’m in.
32:18 What does a Mimic look like when it’s not mimicking?
Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey
Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia
Editor: Richard Trammell
Expert: Brennan Lee Mulligan
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas; Brandon White
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark
Talent Booker: Mica Medoff
Camera Operator: Christopher Eustache
Sound Mixer: Sean Paulsen
Production Assistant: Ryan Coppola
Groomer: Denise Renee Valentine
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Rachel Kim
Supervising Editor: Rob Lombardi
Additional Editor: Jason Malizia
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
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About the newbie DM doing his/her first session 0: I always like a session 0 where the characters get to meet each other. It kind of gets around the ‘we always meet in a tavern’ issue, doesn’t automatically assume everybody knows each other, and gives you the opportunity for some flavor text when the players describe their characters’ appearances.
For players looking into non-fantasy TTRPGs, I can highly recommend the science fiction game Traveller. It is amazing. You do need to generate your character in advance –There’s a lot of development that happens during character creation and it IS possible for the character to die before their first adventure. Once the character is made, however, game play is simple, and it only required D6 dice.
I’m going to disagree hard and say that the best fell in d&d is power word: kill. But that’s just my play style 😅
I have over 70 sets of dice
You need Dice Anonymous!
alignment is easy:
good – evil ; whether the character puts others or himself first, the more you think of other and sacrifice yourself for them the more you are good. the more you put yourself first at the detriment of other the more evil you are. (most people are neutral to a bit good IRL)
Lawful – Chaotic ; this is where most people mess up, lawful has NOTHING to do with if you follow the law. If you believe in a hierarchical structure, organization of a society then you are lawful. If you believe that one person shouldn’t be the boss or employee of another, or that organizing people in a structure is stupid then you lean more chaotic. (most people are lawful IRL – except for hippies)
“Why would you mix a bear and an owl, a bear is more dangerous than an owl” Would a bear have the ability to turn his head 180 while you’re walking behind it? Because now it might.
He didn’t answer the race question
THACO!!!!!
Second edition NOOB! Real men use attack tables.
Not mentioning Community’s DnD episodes is a crime.
So on the roll fudging…I recently critted the Wizard/Sorcerer. Brand new player, very low HP. Would have killed them in their first session. So no, I just hit. I kept the crit though and just put it to a beefier and unhurt PC.
That is the prerogative of the DM, and a good reason for the DM to roll secretly. Dumb / senseless deaths are never fun and the whole point of a game is to have fun.
a d4 does 1d4 damage to you when you step on it
THAC0 was the stuff! 😀
THAC0 was 2nd edition stuff. 1st edition used attack tables, and even broke it down to weapon vs armor type (if the DM wanted to go that far).
at 2:34 I think on a surface level i agree with you completely. However: consider the idea of a powerfull but inexperienced sorcerer that manages channel inner powers far greater than they were able to use before, because of their desire to protect those they love.
tavern is homage to lotr? then should there be a combat scene there? 😀
The toilet mimic is the most terrifying.
I still have all my miniatures I bought in the late 70’s and esrly 80’s.
I would also say when creating characters give them some flaws. Make your Barbarian afraid of the dark. It makes for a good time.😂
Fun fact I do not have a problem picking up D4’s I can even pick up multiples at a time lol
I think it’s because I have very little hands
To help out with the Character Design question, my favorite character to play was literally based on a smudged autograph in a ruined text book.
Dear ~squiggles~,
You Are ~squiggles~ Best
Thus: Best, the pact of the tome warlock kobold was born.
Technically Mimics were made by Netherese Arcanists, at least I’m pretty sure; might have been made by a god.
Wizards are squishy? I guess that is a relative thing. Compared to magic users in 1st and 2nd editions, 5th edition wizards are super buffed! Magic users had a d4 for HP, didn’t start out with maximum HP (1 HP 1st level magic users were a real thing – at least until they died), rarely got a high enough constitution for bonus HP, had no cantrips* at all, had to pick their exact spells memorized each day (if you memorized 1 sleep and 1 magic missile that is exactly what you could cast that day), and didn’t automatically learn new spells when you gained a level (you had to find or buy them, then hope that you understood them well enough to copy them in to your own spell book). *Cantrips were first introduced in Dragon Magazine as apprentice training tools. Like regular leveled spells there were cantrip slots and you could only cast one per slot available, and they never did more than 1 HP of damage. For 2nd edition they changed it so you could “sacrifice” 1st level spell slot top gain a few more cantrip slots if you wanted, but they were still a limited item. By 3rd edition cantrips gained more power and could do 1-3 HP of damage, but the caster was still limited to a few each day. Never played 4th edition so can’t speak on that.