My name's Leo, I've been playing DBD on and off since june of last year. I don't have a lot of practical experience, but my brain sure does a lot of thinking. This guide is about how I view the game, and hopefully can help others feel the type of enjoyment I get from this game!

You see, I love playing killer. I like being the big bad guy, I like chasing people, even just running in circles around a loop is fun to me! However, there's a lot of things in the game that can make this not fun for a lot of people. Even I, a rather easygoing person, can end up a bit stressed in certain situations (It's rather disheartening playing trapper and hearing each and every gen pop before I'm even done with my setup!), but I always keep a good mood due to my killer philosophy!

The mindset I employ is essentially this: This game is funny, so just laugh!

Everything, dude. Have you seen this game? It's nothing but canned yelling, hilariously generic sfx, and whacky monsters and fellows that want to stab an endless cavalcade of weirdly dressed humans that love screaming!

What isn't funny about that?

When I first played this game, a character popped out to me: the clown! From his luscious jiggle, to his labored laugh, the character was just too silly to not try out! Then what was I hit with? Throwing bottles! Bottles I could make pop into confetti, bottles I could throw over objects to splash people with strange vapors! Hearing the bottle pop, the clown's laugh in my ears, and the meaty slap of hitting someone with his knife, what's not to love?

As I played more and more, i found the same on every killer. They're all silly in their own ways! Not only that, but survivors were goofy as well. The screaming steve's love to do? Hilarious. The sizzle of a dropped flashbang? Always a fun surprise! And don't get me started on individual survivors. Some of those stereotypes are true, and it's always a blast seeing what people do! (Picking up a sable who's only been hooked once, only to see them dc immediately.. Goodness the schadenfreude!)

Because of this, I've never really taken many of the situations that happen in the game that seriously, and I believe that it's due to that I've rolled with the punches for so long. When you choose to laugh or smile at something, it makes it easier to deal with. In fact, it can make it a lot of fun! It's a hard thing to do though, embracing something sucking or not going your way and finding amusement instead, but nothing good comes without any effort!

What about them? Other players aren't you, so you can't really control them. The best you can hope for is influencing them. The golden rule is always to treat others the way you want to be treated. So that's how I choose to play against people!

Of course, this seems hard. Especially considering that the vast majority of players don't play like this. Most killers will do whatever they can to inflict misery. Plenty of survivors fight back with the same level of toxicity (the things i have seen in endgame chats are wild!)

But that doesn't solve anything

When you ♥♥♥♥ talk a killer in the endgame chat when they played in some way you didn't like, what is that accomplishing? Do you think you're going to reach them and get them to change their ways?

As a killer, do you really think the 4-stack of Ace's with clapped out flashlights and nothing but time to kill are going to stop doing what gets reactions out of you? Do you think that face camping them will do ANYTHING other than validate their treatment of others?

If you want to get over this, you have to start simply being nice to other people. It's going to suck at first; revenge feels so much better than niceness. Being mean and shouting in the moment feels way better than repressing the emotion or deflecting to something else. And believe me, I know that feeling when the most irritating survivor taunts you right before jumping into the hatch.

But getting angry gets you nowhere! spreading hate gets you nowhere! You help in cultivating a worse and worse atmosphere around a game that just wants you to have fun!

Let's talk about what winning means. do you mean.. Escaping? Getting a 1,2,3, or 4k? Is it only a win if no one escapes? Would you call it a win if only 1-2 people in your swf made it out alive? What even does winning mean when the game has never properly cared about winning or losing?

It's about sacrifices baby, it's about getting hooks! but even then, barely!

Killing a survivor gets you what, a few thousand blood points? the endgame screen calling you some type of killer instead of reminding you the entity wants to eat?

Tell me in the comments; how the ♥♥♥♥ does any of that impact you?

How do you truly get upset about dying in a game about people dying? how do you work yourself into a rage when you get flashlight stunned? WHY do you let hate hold so tightly on your heart? There's no reason to hold onto that sorta anger, especially when it results in you inflicting it on others.

Simply stop caring about how many kills you get: Stop taking every survivor (or killer) action as some sort of instant-anger spell. Take it for what it is: teasing. Steve is teabagging you to try and work you up, or get you focusing him while his team works.

Stop running slowdown perks (as much!): I say this as the most honest advice i can give you to make you feel better about this game. Stop relying on slowdown and worrying on how many generators are left. Instead, focus on what you can be doing. All the slowdown means you're forcing the game to a crawl because YOU feel paralyzed by the amount of things you need to do. Instead, just let it happen. Focus on what you can do, and forget about what you can't.

Experiment with your builds: Don't play the same stuff every match. It's gonna rot your brain. I'm serious. Play some of the opposite role, play killers you don't normally play, try out perks you hardly use (i've been using shadowborn recently!). The more you change things up, the more you can relax; you don't have to be playing perfectly on your main with the meta perks and addons.

Just be nice! I swear this isn't coping or something. If you nod at survivors, or let them off easy, they're WAYYYY more willing to play nice with you. Just enjoy chases and playing the game, I'm serious when I say you'll be loved.

Okay, this is where I get a bit crazy. But I truly believe that you will be more relaxed, have more fun, and maybe even improve your own gameplay by following this: go for 8 hooks, not kills.

Ignore the survivor that stands still and gives up. Slug survivors at 2 hook stages. Chase and chase and chase like a bloodthirsty hound for those last hooks, and try to actually remember which stage everyone is on!

The point of this isn't really just to go easy on survivors or something, it's about reminding everyone -especially yourself- that this is a game. Do you really just want to tell someone "okay, you're not allowed to play anymore?" Is it fun to be told that when the killer knocks you down a third time in a tunneled rampage? What's even the point of that?

You want the match to end sooner? you want to play better at a game.. so that you can play less of it?

Every match I can, I maximize my time. Not just so i can get as many bloodpoints as possible, but so OTHERS can. Some people want to go on wild chases for multiple minutes, some want to work on their weird meme build (I personally will never stop trying to hide in lockers, and use locker related perks on both sides), whatever their reason, they wanted to get into the game. So now that you're together with four other people, why not have fun?

You're the killer, you're in control! so make it into a playground for yourself!

When you focus on 8 hook stages, it means you'll be actively involving everyone in the game, and that's all anyone can ask for!

Please, understand, I'm not saying to not kill survivors, but instead to just let them play the game, and play with others!

I know that, relax! This is more or less a journal for me to spout about my silly beliefs as a killer player. Maybe some of my insight will reach, maybe not! I might update this overtime, maybe even talk about the way I play some killers and stuff. But for now, leave a comment if you want, I'd love to talk about DBD more and will happily do so down below!