Noticed a chatter say "so he's cheating" when Brennan mentioned he didn't follow the rules as written regarding Nat 20s on skill checks and that's a really unfortunate fundamental misunderstanding of the game that I feel a lot of people make when thinking about the ruleset of TTRPGs. The important thing to remember is that almost all TTRPGs are made with homebrew rules and customization in mind first and foremost. It is not cheating to adjust rulings or decide one scenario is more fun than the rules as they're presented and in fact it's almost always heavily encouraged by the creators of these games to use the rules as a guideline to create the game you and your friends want to play as opposed to just following it word for word. It's not "cheating" to say a character achieves a critical success on a Nat 20 skill check, and in fact it's easily the most popular "homebrew" ruling probably ever used. I have never played with a group who doesn't interpret the rule that way for example. You can't really "cheat" at D&D in general so long as what rules you decide to follow or ignore are agreed on by everyone at the table (another point for having session zeros.) Really, the only way you can cheat is trying to do something you know is wildly outside the scope of what your character can do based on the rules you've all agreed to or straight up lying about what numbers you actually rolled, which I would hope everybody could understand is not the same thing at all.

Honestly, you don't need THAT much dedication to play D&D. And this is coming from a guy that writes 5+ pages of story for his characters' backgrounds for fun.
It's not supposed to be a stressful thing. We are there to have fun. DnD groups are not like WoW raid groups. Each group finds how better to do it.
Some just run one-shots. Some only run 3-5 session adventures. I'd say about 90% of full length campaigns never end, which is fine. As long as we had fun while it lasted, it served it's purpose. The rest is just having basic respect for your friends' time. Try to make time for them, and if you can't, tell them rather than make excuses.

Chelzor character concept: Does not want to be there but is receiving the Jonah treatment from a powerful entity/god, so any attempt to leave brings her closer to the goal instead. She hates this.

I will literally watch anything this man does.

I think the "you all meet in a tavern" trope may actually go back to the Canterbury tales.

55:16 "Alright, thus ends the story of this character who avoids the adventure and flees the region that is beset by danger.  They live uncomfortably ever after.  Let us now introduce your new character whose backstory and ambitions support them playing the game with us."

As someone who plays dnd, and have for a long time, here’s a note on the “disappointing people if I need a week off” thing.

Most players understand how big a time commitment having sessions is, if something comes up players should be understanding, especially considering those players are usually good friends. I’ve had many session with 1 less player because someone couldn’t make it that day, we send that character on a “side quest” and scale back the encounters for that day, no big deal.

At the end of the day we’re all there to have fun, and that’ll happen regardless of how many off weeks you have

7:17 I think doing a one shot with some of your more experienced friends to help you understand some basic things first could help you.  Also communicate with your fellow players and the DM if you’re feeling stressed.  Communication is incredibly important for the game to be fun.

7:38 that's literally just a normal 9-5 lol

Using MtG for explanation: Hit Dice (Or HD for short), is how much Toughness you gain randomly per level (D4 roll a four-sided die, D6 roll a six-sided die, etc.). In the 3rd Edition of D&D and earlier, Wizards D4 per level... Barbarians got a psychotic D12. Think of it someone hitting Michael Cera as hard as they can, versus some hitting The Mountain from GoT as hard as they can. In 3rd edition and later, you get max hit dice at 1st level, so a Wizard starts with a base of 4+Consitution Bonus(adds passive amount of Toughness per level), while Barbarians get 12+Consitution Bonus to start with.

So how does that work in game? Well, when you take a hit, you roll for damage. So, Goblin stabs you with a dogslicer (Short sword), so he's gonna do 1d4+Strength Bonus (In this case, 0. Would be 1d6, but goblin weapons are smaller due to their size.). So 1-4 Power against your Wizards Toughness... yeah, it's not great. You're about to go from full health to the edge of death in a single swing. And say Boblin the Goblin hits a Nat 20, well that's now 2-8 damage on the hit, with an average of 5 damage. Wizards are INCREDIBLY crunchy at low-level. Even if Boblin does a max crit on the Barbarian, Barbie Girl is still gonna be standing even at base, and more than likely is in Rage, further cutting that damage in half.

Unlike MtG, wounds don't just heal themselves at the end of the round. You have to get some sort of healing.

There's a style of campaign called a "West Marches" campaign where many, many, MANY people (generally more than a dozen, but there's theoretically no real upper limit) agree to be adventurers and one or two people are GMs, and each adventure is self-contained, and adventuring groups come together based on whose available. It's usually expected that half or more of the gaming group won't be available every week. But those who are available (up to however many the GM or GMs is/are comfortable with, with any excess as alternates if there IS a sudden cancellation). Every adventure begins at the adventuring hub, usually a town, and has a formulaic format so that all the surviving adventurers end the session back at the hub. If there IS a continuing story, it's shared among the adventures of the whole group. Minimal immersion breaking, but the trade-off is sameyness of each sessions (though a talented or experienced GM can certainly come up with ways to break the repetition).

9:50 Depends on the table. In my groups, people have to miss days sometimes. The only asshole thing is to not give forewarning when you could have. Including if you know you will be inconsistent with showing up.

There are also styles of play online that can help, like play by post, or west marches (or whatever it's called) where it's all just one shots, but with continuous characters and setting (really captures that adventuring guild in an area thing).

Damn chelzor's mention reminded me of getting a wired magazine subscription as a birthday gift as a kid. Crazy.

Clerics are Magic Sugar Babies, Warlocks are Magic Interns, and Paladins are Magic... Really Devoted Platonic Friends...?

btw, to add to the whole "What do you need to play DnD", if you have a phone you're pretty much settled, there are apps for your character sheet, throw dices, monster stats, roll20 for the grids and tokens, it's just the basic stuff clearly, but if you'd like to try it out without spending a single cent it's a nice alternative

Gonna go on a nerd-rant. Feel free to skip this comment.😅

I co-ran a dnd campaign for a bit (sadly had to put on an indefinite hiatus due to scheduling conflicts), and it was honestly fun to help create the main world, missions, and other stuff with my friend (basically, he was the game-mechanics guy and I was mostly just giving story ideas and playing as some npcs). It was a post-apocalyptic themed campaign as well!
We also use a different system (called FATE System) that allowed for some more freedom in character creation (no classes or races with specific abilities), and we also used the player characters’ backstories to help shape the world more. Basically, we created a lot of the stories for the characters, rather than create characters for the stories.
Example: One of our player’s character had a heavily Norse-themed upbringing (believing in Valhalla and all that), so we actually implemented Norse runes being a bit more prevalent than we expected before creating the world.😁
We’ll hopefully get to play again sometime after we figure something out, because we were getting to a really cool mission that I’m proud to have made.

for gridboards/maps, i've bought cheap vinyl shower curtains from dollar stores and laid down square and hex grids with thin line sharpies for perm lines, wet-erase for semi-perm, and dry erase for temp. bonus feature is it rolls up LIKE A MAP!

Hey, she says she couldn’t even play it, but the way she analyses things and break them down makes me think she would make a great DM.

D&D is as good as the people you are playing with. You can do just about whatever as long as the group is chill and getting along. If you’re constantly stressed that someone else or even you are ruining the game for the others AND NO ONE IS COMMUNICATING THAT TO EACH OTHER, than yeah your group isn’t good for D&D.

2:57  “other people are just like: ‘I’m going to be chaos.’”

Me: ah yes: the perfect way to describe my current character.