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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7829263" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Depending on what you mean by “pressure,” I would say yes, absolutely. I think it is perfectly reasonable for the DM to set the expectation for the players to understand their own characters and abilities well enough to run them without slowing down play. After all, the expectation is on the DM to know literally everything else about the game world and rules well enough to run the game at a reasonable pace, so I’d say it’s a relatively small ask. Obviously some affordance should be made for new players who are still learning the rules, but if you’ve been playing with these people for over a year? I think you are fully justified in expecting them to know what they’re doing by now.I wouldn’t “apply pressure” to them in terms of in-game punishment though. Holding back their level until they know their characters well enough seems like asking for drama to me. Instead, I would recommend talking to these players, expressing that their lack of familiarity with their characters is harming the experience for the group. Set the expectation that they learn their characters well enough to run them quickly, and offer to help them. Ask them what they’re finding difficult and what kind of aid might be able to compensate. Maybe the character sheet layout is hard for them to navigate, maybe cheat sheets with only the most pertinent info about their spells and abilities might be useful, maybe they need someone to walk them through the character building process without the digital tools, maybe they need some extra practice outside the usual sessions. See what’s slowing them down and what you can do to help, and then hold them to the same standard you expect of your other players.</blockquote>

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