BEHIND THE DM SCREEN 150404 THE BAD PLAYER A. SOUR PUSS / POOR SPORT. D&D in a way mimics real life. It has it's ups and downs. Don't throw in the towel when you accidentally make an incorrect assumption about something. That's part of the fun. How can you expect to really know the intricacies of a fantasy world? It's impossible when magic is involved. Things may not always be what they appear to be. I was hosting a very popular module with a group and one player did something the wrong way (according to the module) and as a result, due to his own actions, ended up back at the beginning of the crypt, minus all of his possessions. Rather than sprint back to the group and tough it out, he literally leaves the game table, tears up his character sheet and exits the building in a huff, never to be seen from again. If he would've stuck around for an hour longer, he would've seen what the remaining players saw when they learned from his mistake, did the activity the right way, and entered into the secret antechamber beyond...because there, in a pile, in the middle of the floor, right on top, were his belongings, along with those from prior adventuring parties that had never gotten that far. And so, they did what anyone would do, they helped themselves to his stuff. The mage of course took all the magic items he'd abandoned, the warrior took all the weapons, the thief took the cash and they ended up successfully finding and destroying the boss anyways. Likewise, in this group, some folks speculated, and because they were acting on limited knowledge, ended up speculating wrong, and as a result almost caused a near disaster, but, here they are still playing. Why? Because they understand this concept that we're discussing, they had fun with the situation, they didn't take it the wrong way, they didn't allow it to 'hurt their feelings' and so on. If you go back and watch that session, you'll see that I talk in a way that it can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and that's half the fun of being a DM, seeing how players process the information, and what they choose to do with it, or even if they act upon it, right, wrong or indifferent. So, D&D is a game, treat it as such, and most importantly have fun, that's why we're here. B. LOST IN ROLL20 LAND & MISSING 50%. The biggest problem I see in hosting online is that, due to roll20 being graphical in nature, players have a tendency to get " lost in video game land ", and as a result, end up missing the majority of the D&D content. In other words, secrets/clues tend to go undiscovered, because players tend to take what they see on the screen as being complete and as a result, fail to explore the other side of the game....the parts that are not seen, or shown visually. Remember that I refer to roll20 as nothing more than a chess board, the majority of the activity happens audibly, and so having said that, do your players search for hidden floor tiles, loose bricks, footprints, dig through dung piles, look under furniture, behind things, in chests for false lids and bottoms, do they look up, do they talk to valuable NPCs and ask the right questions to get information that they can use to their advantage, do they take the clues that have been found and draw conclusions? There is so much more to D&D than just the tokens that you see, be sure to challenge your players to explore the other half of D&D, the non-visible elements of the game, and they will be richly rewarded for their efforts.