It’s not easy being a D&D adventurer in-game, especially at the hands of an iffy player. Some fantasy adventures will end in total disaster.

Dungeons & Dragons stands as the world’s greatest tabletop roleplaying game, and being a regular D&D player comes with countless perks, from the sheer escapism factor in a world of fantasy to the satisfaction of defeating powerful monsters and much more. It’s great fun controlling a fantasy adventurer, but it’s not fun actually being that adventurer.

All Dungeons & Dragons characters are at the total mercy of their players, being unable to say or do anything on their own whatsoever. This means the characters often find themselves in dire or even deadly situations that no one would enjoy, but the characters have no choice. It’s easy to imagine how rough this life must be, even for battle-hardened paladins or genius wizards.

10
D&D Characters Lack Modern Conveniences & Hygiene

Dungeons & Dragons players can sit in air-conditioned rooms, get snacks from the fridge and even roleplay with their group via livestream cameras, all of which are total luxuries any D&D character would bitterly envy. These characters live in a pre-industrial world, and it shows.

Magic can make life easier sometimes, but that can’t make up for a lack of HVAC or modern hygiene. Rookie characters must spend weeks traveling by horse-drawn carriage to cross a kingdom, and they totally wish they could bathe more than once a week or get access to a proper pharmacy.

9 
D&D Characters Are Forced To Enter Scary Dungeons

As per the title, Dungeons & Dragons campaigns often involve diving right into terrifying dungeons of all sorts, from abandoned, monster-infested castles to the smelly sewer network found underneath a capital city. Entering a dungeon is like going into hell itself.

Real-life adventurers might explore abandoned buildings, but that’s safe and tame by comparison. Real urban explorers don’t have to worry about cursed traps, swarms of murderous skeleton warriors, or a beholder right around the next corner.

8
D&D Players Risk Death Constantly

D&D characters must experience all kinds of horrible things that their real-life players do not, and even if every adventure is totally different, there is one common element — the serious risk of death. These character bands are fighters and explorers who get themselves into all kinds of trouble, after all.

Perhaps some minor side quests are safe, but any worthwhile main quest will involve facing hostile soldiers and bandits, confronting terrifying monsters, or even navigating rough terrains such as a cursed swamp or a jungle crawling with predators. Characters die all the time, which is just a reality they must contend with.

7
D&D Characters Can’t Object To Bad Player Decisions

On the one hand, real-life players might use their characters to object to another player’s foolish plans and thus avoid disaster. But these players and characters won’t always stop each other in time, and a player might make their character do something ridiculous before anyone can stop them.

A reckless rogue, for example, might steal from the wrong NPC and pay the price, and the character is forced to go along with that. Likewise, a character might pick a fight that results in a TPK, even if the character would, as a reasonable person, avoid that situation entirely.

6
D&D Characters Might Fail Due To Bad Dice Rolls

This is actually a harsh reality that D&D players and their characters share. For the sake of balance and unpredictability, the game often involves rolling dice to determine outcomes, such as skills rolls, attacks, and saving throws. Sometimes, the dice seem determined to see the players fail.

Sometimes, a rogue will need a stellar roll to swipe a treasure or trick a town guard, but a natural 1 will say “not so fast.” The player will be frustrated, yes, but it’s really the character who will pay the price. The rogue might end up thrown in the local jail overnight or get their hand torn off by a trap, for example.

5
D&D Characters Are Warped By Game Balance Rules

For the sake of fairness and healthy gameplay, Wizards of the Coast and other game companies will tinker with game stats to make sure nothing is overpowered or too weak. This is generally good news for players, but characters might find themselves nerfed, and they can’t do a thing about it.

Some characters might want to perform certain actions in certain ways, and in-universe, those actions make perfect sense. Still, the real-life game rules hold them back, such as stats or spell slots, meaning the character would feel unfairly restrained if they had the right meta-knowledge.

4
D&D Characters Might Struggle With Weak Stats

This is another harsh reality that D&D players and their characters must all contend with, but once again, it’s the character whose life is getting ruined by these harsh realities. When a player rolls their new character’s stats, some numbers will probably be low, hence the concept of “dump stats.”

Wizards have low strength, barbarians have subpar intelligence stats, and monks can’t be bothered with charisma. For example, having a measly 7 in strength means that sorcerer is a total weakling even if the character shows them having a decently honed body. That sorcerer must be furious.

3
D&D Characters Might Exist Only Briefly In One-Shot Campaigns

When it comes to one-shot campaigns or scenarios, D&D players might use their existing characters, but they might also create characters from scratch and set them at the right level for the adventure. Such campaigns are like a one-night-only theater performance, and there won’t be a sequel or round two.

The characters created for such adventures exist only for the duration of one campaign, and these characters would be horrified if they knew that they were like toys that are played with once and never again. No fighter or wizard would want to be born, undertake one quest, then vanish again.

2
D&D Characters Suffer Grim Status Ailments

Not only are D&D characters exposed to dangers such as an enemy’s sword or a beast’s claws, but they might also suffer from nasty status ailments that might not even exist in the real world. Monsters might use spells or their attacks to inflict horrible conditions that only advanced magic or wish spells can cure, if it’s not too late, that is.

D&D characters might turn to stone when facing a gorgon or a beholder, for example, or their mind will be crushed by a feeblemind effect. Then there are especially nasty monsters like the sibriex, which can use the Warp Creature ability to mutate a hapless D&D adventurer into its grotesque thrall.

1
D&D Characters Can’t Choose A More Peaceful Lifestyle

Based on their backstories and character descriptions, some D&D characters actually enjoy a lifestyle of combat and danger, such as fighters who revel in bloodshed or monks who are on a mission to destroy the forces of evil with their bare fists. But other D&D characters might wonder if they really have to fight so much.

Some characters, such as druids or research-oriented wizards, might naturally prefer a more peaceful lifestyle where they don’t have to fight beholders in dank dungeons or take on dragons to save towns. However, for the sake of the game, those characters must go out there and fight, even if they, as real people, would rather do anything else.

Article plucked from:
https://www.cbr.com/dungeons-and-dragons-character-harsh-realities-downsides/