As someone who has never made a tank but have been voluntold to be a tank, giving your character a hittable personality is a great way to become a tank

My preference as a DM is to let players experience their fantasy. Shoot the monks and spank the tanks.  if I know a player wants that role, I tend to make it more likely to happen.  It doesn't hurt that the last two players who wanted to tank in my games were a Rune Knight and a Giant Barbarian.  Growing a size gives you more reach and alters the movement of enemies who wish to avoid you, often leaving them with the choice of taking an attack of opportunity or fighting the big guy.  Also means ranged attackers are more likely to shoot them because, realistically, they are in the way of the other targets.

Came for the subject, stayed for the cat

I’m glad you mentioned Archfey Warlocks. The full taunting-tank setup is a triple threat (if you’re willing to expend the resources) - damage, taunt, and barrier. The first part is to set up a barrier like Hunger of Hadar adjacent but not on top of the enemy. Second is to bonus action Dreadful Step into melee with the enemy, causing them damage, then attack as normal. You want them to hit you, so that you can use your reaction to Taunting Step away near the far side of the Hunger of Hadar, but still within sight of the enemy. If you get the positioning right, the only way they can reach you for the rest of their attack is to pass through the Hunger.

In older 5e I found Grappling to be basically the only form of true tanking. It prevents movement and can cause prone disadvantaging attacks and if built for it is more often successful than Save based control options.

I ran an eldritch Knight that used one of its extra feat to get expertise in athletics and the enlarge spell to gain advantage on strength checks, with bound accuracy they almost never failed and even if they did they had two (later three) attempts.

Longstrider spell (later haste) and grappling as an attack of opportunity made them very proficient at stopping kiting enemies. Using enlarge let them control huge enemies including bosses, legendary resistances often specify Saves not ability checks. Shield spell and absorb elements provided damage mitigation buying precious rounds for the damagers.

The most fun for me personally was dragging enemies to environmental hazards and spell AoE and pushing them in.

Preach! Drawing threat is surprisingly rare in 5.5 mechanics! That's why most of the tanks I play are foul-mouthed trash-talkers. For support roles, I'm also trying to find the spells that teleport your allies; because Strahd is all too often within grappling range of Ireena. So far I've found Vortex Warp (Strixhaven), Negative Image (Deep Magic Vol. 1), and Switcheroo (Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting).

I played a 5.0 DEXbarian that was an awesome tank. Halfling Ancestral Guardian barbarian, when the allies are always being attacked with DISAdvantage & then if they attack anyone other than the barbarian that target has resistance to their damage. Once I got to 8th level I could see the build wasn't going to do enough damage to help the party, do started picking up levels in rogue (swashbuckler) to gain sneak attack damage.  That character was so much fun & one of the other players said that's a good tank, even though it is a crazy build.

Very insightful. I recently reworked my fighter in Pathfinder for this exact reason : while EXTREMELTY hard to kill, he posed no threat watsoever and could just be ignored. I switched to a polearm and feats that let me reposition ennemies, making me far more of an annoyance, and a better tank, depite being more vulnerable...

Will say you forgot positioning. Putting yourself in melee range gives them disadvantage on ranged attacks increasing the chance they just hit you. You also put them in range of Opp Attack if they try to leave to go attack someone else, which either sinks their action for disengage (basically a stunned round) or puts the fear in them not to move. Being ABLE to get into that perfect choke point to hold the line or position to pull fire is part of the battle, some movement abilities and positioning capabilities are huge. Also abilities like World Tree or Vortex Warp to pull the enemy to your Attack of Opp range and make them attack at disadvantage otherwise. Getting Winged Boots on my Artificer tank was a game changer for being able to always be where my DM really didn't want them to be so he'd get attacked. Vortex Warp with proper positioning can move someone 90 ft in one direction to the opposite 90ft of the caster, possibly taking them out of attack actions to move for a round maybe even 2.

Best tank I've made was a Battlesmith Artificer (2024), high AC, shield spell, Web, Vortex warp, and Pipes of Haunting reducing overall chance for enemies to hit or pulling their desire to deal with an issue to be solved by attacking me. The reality was, early on it was fine but not super great. The DM shot the monk a few times but when an encounter was real tough they'd just somehow always crit him down (luck or fudging so anything would happen to the guy) OR not even attack him. What really got him to get targeted was the fact IF he stayed up...there was little chance we would lose. Healing to bring people up, defensive ways to mitigate the enemies chance to hit, etc. This element of "if this guy is up the other players aren't going to be scared" eventually pushed the DM to feel less bad about attempting to attack him which boosted survivability of the party up because targeting him USUALLY cost more resources to do the same amount of damage vs the other characters. These things meant IF the party wanted to feel challenged the DM probably needed to take my guy off the board or it would feel assured that we'd win. So then he became a more effective tank simply because he was always looking like the most high value target.

As things progressed I started to figure out more mid to late game ways to push the DM. Especially for late game when you can get things like Cube of Force to start splitting up the enemy and fully cutting off their ability to attack you or breaking up enemy packs as a controller you can skip the psychological game entirely by simply controlling the field SO hard that the DM basically has to meta-game prior to the fight to include things that can get around it or the disintegrate spell somehow being in every fight (which is just so ludicrous). Even when late game you go down faster (seemingly no matter what) I had so many minions and summons that going down didn't even really feel like losing my turn and then even found ways through the class to bring myself up (giving a healing item to your Defender or pet and have them use their action to bring you up, especially the Defender which is on the same turn so you don't lose your turn at all.)

In DND tanking is a constant psychological battle of getting the DM to look at you, think you are vulnerable, or putting your character quickly in a position to be hit so the enemy doesn't move to try to hit someone else, which for many can feel like stealing the spotlight but if you can get them to attack you and pull damage off the board it could mean the difference between just you going down that round OR all 3 of your other party members going down in that round.

Roleplay tanking is also super good, walk into that room and just start yelling insults. Had that happen with our Barbarian Rogue, they just walked into the room and said "hey what did your mum fuck to look like that?" to a bunch of Kuo-toa and they just all attempted to shoot him that round instead of anyone else because their attention logically was drawn to him as some dude just walked into the room and started yelling. Be the mother fucker the enemy hates the most. Did he go down? Sure but he also soaked a bazillion attacks that spread out would have taken out more than just him.

One key moment of tanking bliss I had as my Battlesmith was netting a BUTTLOAD of minions in my Web spell...it fit atop literally EVERY single minion enemy that were packed together on boats in a river just long enough to fit the spell. It got them and their boats all stuck, and since the boats were stuck the ones that passed the saves had to leave the boat or make the check again next round because they were in the AoE. I then used pipes of haunting on my minion to make them flee towards me which then let me Opp Attack them if they could move which my DM was afraid to proc because he could Booming Blade which would one-shot them (I wasn't going to Opp Attack anyway because I knew I needed the Shield spell). They then ALL attacked him on that turn with disadvantage against his high AC, cast shield once, and then soaked upwards of 20+ hits in a single round with no damage. He felt like a GOD.

My battlemaster has actually been doing a great job of tanking in recent sessions.

Between Sentinel, Shieldmaster, and a few choice Maneuvers, he's got a lot of tools to control the general flow of the field and disrupt enemies. It's certainly not a simple threat toggle, but dictating options very effectively curates outcomes.

i found it interesting how much of this video is really about your DM. It sounds a lot like your DM is being rather meta about who they attack.

Any Tank homebrew I make follows the inspiration of 4e and the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, giving special, unique Marks that do various things. A mark that lets you attack, a Mark that does passive damage, a Mark that doubles your damage on the next turn, a Mark lets you cast Command for free on the target for three specific words (Grovel, Flee, Approach - Tyranny Paladin). But I've also done some defense based aggro control. A Monk that can use deflect attack on allies within 30ft, a different monk that can get multiple reactions and shift 5ft whenever they use one, but each one has to be a unique action. Then it gets things like Interception, Protection, Deflect Attack, and a minor raising. A paladin that can bond with allies and take damage for them.

Then, finally, there are just the 'sentinel butt' builds, where its Sentinel Feat + some extra stuff. Sentinel but you're also an AG Barb, so its a new turn and you can cause an enemies attack to do half damage if you hit before they hit. Sentinel but if they are in your moon beam, you can move 15ft as a reaction to make this AoO attack/qualify for it (more to it, its a Lunar Warden subclass), Sentinel but you're a druid with that one animal form that has extra reactions and shred enemies like butter.

There's sadly not many good options in 5e so I make a lot of extra ones for my players.

I'm playing an Orc Warlock (Great Old One) so I can choose to make my Armor of Agathys deal Psychic damage, meaning it's harder for enemies to mitigate. I'm taking Sentinel at 8th to encourage creatures to attack me. I'd have taken it sooner, but I wanted to try Weapon Master (Rapier) at 4th now that it's a better feat and see how good it is on a full Warlock.

In DOTA2, tanks are usually initiators. They stand at the front giving vision and the opponents have to wail on them conservatively and play this weird tango where they must commit the BARE minimum resources to whittle them down while playing a positioning game.

Overcommit and the rest of the team suddenly pops out and throws down as the fragile support and dps classes can go to town knowing the opponents burst and crowd control was expended and they are now out of position.

Undercommit resources and the tank usually also has whittling wide AOE dps that is nowhere the actual damage dealers but its enough that it will deal enough damage to drop opponent's down to burstable levels eventually when left unchecked.

This is what I loved about 4E, the defenders all had different way of enforcing threat that were written into the mechanics.  It made for a fun fight between me, trying to hit the less heavily armoured and more damaging members, and the tanks trying to force my hand.  Aside from that, my own experience is focusing a lot of positioning and when you have them, chokepoints.

My main go-to for generating threat in encounters is clever positioning. I make sure im in ranged archers/spellcasters faces forcing disadvantage, or that an enemy cant reach my party without having to disengage through me. I also like bringing concentration spells to tempt the DM to hit me. (I play a lot of ranger, warlock, paladin, and artificer)

My Swords Bard/Hexblade Warlock leans into the Low AC lure. Armor of Agathys for survivability and punishment, the Shield spell and Defensive Flourish to amp those AC numbers into the stratosphere for a turn, and Sentinel to make sure they don't get past. On top of that, I will cast Vicious Mockery, not simply for the effect, but to needle my target mentally, to keep them focused on me.

This is one of the things I like most about Daggerheart, there are mechanical abilities that really encourage and support active tanking!

Light cleric with a fighter dip either of the protection fighting styles, a shield, healing magic and warding flare works a treat for getting dms attention

That why I took the 2024 grappler feat. "you are stuck here with me". And with Astra self monk I can just grab multiple people and either use patience defense or parry attacks to reduce the damage.

Fun build I didn't expect to become the main tank of the party.