r/dndnext

Hi guys, Dm (M26) of seven years here! Please excuse any errors, this is my first reddit post!

I’ve been playing with my group for seven years - or some variant of the same group (not everyone is always playing and sometimes we have new members.) we’ve played two games to completion. A campaign I took over for the later half, a mini series I ran, and now our homebrew campaign of 4 years.

My group is primarily women, and feminine identifying people- and they’re wonderful! They’re also predominantly neurodiverse, which is amazing. We’ve all adapted pretty well to each others needs and accommodations, and have had overall, an epic time.

But here’s the thing, about six months ago, we were having some reoccurring issues with my members of my group feeling like they never knew what was coming, and that they often felt unprepared for the sessions. We sat down as a group and had a discussion on how to handle this. I brought up that I felt they would feel less surprised or stumped, if they took notes - or attempted to some degree to make an effort in recording information (I offered to record the sessions etc.) - the majority have trouble with their memories. I felt if we as a group that we could give this a go, and see if it improved the situation, and if it didn’t we could always revisit the other options. A pair of them said “they just couldn’t do it,” and the idea was passed over.

The conclusion we came to, was I would send them an itinerary before each session with the plot, the characters, and whatever option side quests I had planned. Which has worked okay so far, their overall happiness has improved, and we’ve had less issues.

But I feel as if this is taking away element of surprise and improv in the game; and I’ve gone from being a DM, and fellow player, to a movie director with a script and actors.

I get in trouble now, if something comes up impromptu that wasn’t in the itinerary- or if the RP takes us off course.

I’m not NOT having fun, but it doesn’t feel like the game I’ve signed up for either. Do I continue doing this? Do I mention it to the players? Or is there any alternative available to fix this problem?

Thank you in advanced.

Edit: I feel I need to add this in addition, I do provide a recap of the previous session before the beginning of each one! Which is helpful because they seem to struggle with remember what’s unfolded! But it hasn’t lessened them from feeling unprepared for the session ahead.

Hey there friends, I'm not really sure how to phrase this. The best I can say is it feels like I'm very disconnected from D&D as a hobby now. I don't mean the actual game. I still play regularly. But it feels like ever since 5.5e came out, the overall D&D community shifted. Even this subreddit which was once full of discussion is now kinda empty and everyone still here is kinda bitter and stand-offish.

I remember waiting with bated breath at every new adventure coming out back in like 2018/2019. Now I don't even know what subclasses there are for 5.5e or what the spells even do. I'm still playing original 5E because it felt like even before the edition change, the game was headed in a direction I didn't care for. I don’t think I've even bought a D&D book since like 2021 or 2022.

Even in this community, it feels like everyone dipped out during the edition change. Even the meme subreddits seem to have started to move on. Is this just the result of the hype dying down after COVID, the OGL debacle, edition change, etc.? I remember this place being big even before COVID. Now this place gives me the energy of those curmudgeony subreddits dedicated to an MMO that came out 20 years ago and you get downvoted for every single thing.

I guess I just feel sort of disillusioned and am wondering if anyone else feels the same way.

First gallery - Letter A :

Hello friends! Years ago I was the artist that 3D modeled and printed the entire 2014 Monster Manual, giving away all the STL files for free in the process. Since then I've modeled thousands of more D&D minis, but last year I started modeling the new Monster Manual per my patron requests.

I'm going to start posting galleries of the completed prints and models from here onward as I complete a letter. These are a mix of prints completed by my patrons and myself. Some creatures sadly haven't been printed yet so I will at least show you the renders.

And like all 7500+ of the minis I made over the years, these are always free. You can find the links to the free stls under each image. I hope you like what I made! This will be a fun project to continue. Stay amazing folks!