TTRPGs & D&D

[TheSameIdiot]

I run tables of six players plus, generally running from 7pm to 10pm with chatter at the beginning so basically 2 1/2 hour sessions, and we can get in a fight and a shit ton of story or roleplay every game, or two full fights in a single session if we're feeling spicy.

So far, I'm the only person in our stable of DMs who can do this. Even still, we're closer to 3.5 hours. If it's a big fight with a ton of enemies and lots of moving parts, it can take 2–2.5 hours. With six players, I'd have no chance.

My sessions are somewhat formulaic, at least for me. Setup, investigation/RP, fight/climax, quick resolution. I'm a more organized/routine-based person than most of my friends. I think it's why (IMO, at least), I'm the most natural DM of the group.

I think the "five hour fight" thing is either a holdover from the old days or really inefficient tables.

Personally, I think 5e is one of the slowest combat systems out there. Somehow, it still doesn't afford you that many options in combat.

DM should be able to read the room and get shit MOVING if you're taking that long.

My long-term DM was in no rush to do anything. That's part of the reason why it took 18 months to resolve his campaign.

My last DM was in a rush to do everything. No time for RP, character moments, or fights. Nobody went down in a single combat. We beat the final boss in 1.5 rounds.

Unless it's like, end of campaign, multiple weird effects, huge maps, stuff that makes it epic and overcomplicated. When I hear DMs say they had to break mid-combat I'm like, are you INSANE, nobody is going to remember where they were two weeks ago mid-fight!

My long-term DM loved combat. Once we reached a big setpiece, the fight would always take 5–6 hours. We had one fight that took three full sessions.

Combat is my least favorite element of TTRPGs. It doesn't come naturally to me at all. I'm trying to make myself love it by getting more creative with my character sheet, describing my actions more frequently (which then encourages others to do the same), and not just swinging my sword with every turn.

 

[docsilence]

It really does go to show how GM/DM dependent so many games are. And how their comfort/mastery of a game system and ability to improv on the fly makes a huge difference, too. I think I mentioned upthread that I'm in a sporadic game by a first-time GM running Wilds Beyond the Witchlight. She's SUPER enthusiastic, over prepares... and it took us 13 months to leave the carnival and get to level 2 and never had a single combat. I love my friends but I'm so desperately bored. The other players are suspicious of everything and not able to get any forward momentum.

I think I ended up building a style because most of my tables are some combination of chronically ill or ND, and you're not going to get a five hour fight going when the two players with EDS are turning into melting Gumbys on camera. I also ran two seasons of an actual play where we could not go over 90 minutes per session so everything was on a timer, but in that case the players also gotta be snappy with their actions. We cast really well for efficient players on that project, looking back.

I actually find combat relaxing, as weird as that is, because I'm not doing voices, weaving plot points, figuring out story calculus. I'd rather a game with a fun combat system and loose social / narrative system than one like Monsterhearts that tells you how your character FEELS in a moment. And my most consistent table is what I call horny for combat and needs a fight every few sessions or they get ornery, but they're also the group that found a room full of mirrors last week where they could see alternate futures of themselves and they spent an hour just asking me to keep riffing on what they saw instead of fighting the mini-boss bad guy of the night. Which we're doing tonight, finally.

My Wednesday night weekly game usually runs 18 months to two years per campaign. We're in our fourth concurrent campaign. But I usually don't have an ending in mind. I build the story around their characters and when we've achieved what they want to achieve, we're done. (And then the next campaign builds on whatever world changes that meant last time.) I do a vibe check when I feel like things are winding down to see what goals they have left and then build an endgame narrative from there.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

My Wednesday night weekly game usually runs 18 months to two years per campaign. We're in our fourth concurrent campaign. But I usually don't have an ending in mind. I build the story around their characters and when we've achieved what they want to achieve, we're done. (And then the next campaign builds on whatever world changes that meant last time.) I do a vibe check when I feel like things are winding down to see what goals they have left and then build an endgame narrative from there.

I don't know that I'd like playing the same character that long, but that's the dream. I hope my players begin to create their own short- and long-term goals.

My first campaign was a political story I'd been itching to tell. It was a point crawl, so they had some agency, but I largely railroaded them from point A to B.

My second campaign (upcoming) will give the players agency over the world's gods (I created the pantheon when I was worldbuilding the first campaign. Now I want the players to decide whether the gods stay or go and how much influence/power they have moving forward). I stumbled upon a cool way to tie this campaign to the themes of the first campaign.

I have an enemy in mind for my third campaign—it's a lich—but aside from that, I'm letting the players rip. It'll be a sandbox campaign where the baddie and his minions only pop in every once in a while.

For my sci-fi campaign (different players), I don't have any overarching narrative in place. I have a few adventure ideas inspired by my favorite sci-fi works, but that's it. I'm sure I'll add a big bad and a plot (my brain needs the structure), but it'll come organically.

 

[Damien]

Most of my D&D experience runs from 2E to 3.5 and a bit of 4. And absolutely combat was a slog. Part of it was players that never really fully understood the rules and what their options were, part of it was players that don't really pay much attention when it isn't their turn, so they need an update on what's been going on even though they were sitting right there. Part of it was people having to look up if they can do a thing and how to do the thing, or trying to figure out if they have more uses left of this or that. Then, particularly at levels 10+, your DM is running multiple creatures with different abilities and attack types and blah blah. It just gets to be a LOT to keep track of and think about before actually doing anything.

I also think a lot of DMs, especially newer ones, love the idea as you get higher level to throw like 10 goblins, 5 wolves, 2 bugbears, and a gnoll sorcerer at you without really thinking that under RAR, that's 18 different creatures taking a combat turn. I, personally, don't think a good DM should roll separate initiative for 10 different regular goblins with spears, for example. But some (many?) do and it can really slow things down. Worse, I feel like a lot of DMs like the idea of these encounters without taking the time to understand what all the creatures can do, so they're kind of reading the rules as they play.

It's hard for a DM, in my experience, to know the capabilities of all the stuff at their disposal as well as a player knows their one character, and too many DMs make things complicated for themselves. That's why I've always been a huge fan of things like mook rules, or simplified monster stat blocks that give you only what you absolutely need to know to run a monster in combat.

But also to be clear, I'm not shifting blame for slow combat onto DMs. Players are a huge cause too, as I said above. I've played with guys that had more experience than I did and somehow had only the barest grasp of what the actual game rules were and depended on the DM to tell them 'yes' or 'no' every time they asked if they could do something or use some class ability or whatever. "Can I rage?" Like... my dude.... you tell me.

 

[docsilence]

I don't know that I'd like playing the same character that long, but that's the dream. I hope my players begin to create their own short- and long-term goals.

That's why I ask players for goals up front. Those goals can change and take on more or less importance, but I don't want to run games for cipher characters. I want to drive the story to where the players WANT to go rather than where I do. I find that players who just want to come along for the ride don't stick around long, or are carried by the ones who do. (I play with a husband/wife duo and she DEFINITELY rides his story, but it makes them both happy, so it's fine.)

This group went:
Campaign 1: The Ravenfolly Institute. Started the first week of the pandemic, so I was just running monster of the week for a while, then the characters started to pursue their individual goals. Level 14 max, almost 2 years.
Campaign 2: The Streets of Arkhanos. Urban campaign, fighting a corrupt, Lovecraftian city. Lots of smaller stories ending with a fight against a fallen angel who had corrupted one of the city's crime families into a power grab. Level 14 max. 18 months or so.
Campaign 3: Pirates of Greywater. Started off as a river pirate campaign, ended up being a kingmaker campaign. 18 months to the day. Level 12 I think.
Campaign 4: The Endless Imperium. A continent has become a kingdom of the dead, and the group is embroiled in the machinations of liches, vampire clans, mummy philosophers, ghoul marauders, and weird necromancers. We're at level 6 at the moment. Don't tell anyone, but the daughter of two of the characters is the phylactery for the resident dracolich, so this campaign has a big bad, and it's going to be tragic.

But also to be clear, I'm not shifting blame for slow combat onto DMs. Players are a huge cause too, as I said above. I've played with guys that had more experience than I did and somehow had only the barest grasp of what the actual game rules were and depended on the DM to tell them 'yes' or 'no' every time they asked if they could do something or use some class ability or whatever. "Can I rage?" Like... my dude.... you tell me.

Yeah, the DMs using too many stat blocks and rolling initiative for every monster is... I'm sorry, I wouldn't be sober by the end of the session if I did that. I rarely use more than three stat blocks and even that's pushing it (I'd rather do variations on the SAME stat block so I'm only varying attacks or such), and I usually only do initiative for the boss, separate initiative for the minions. I don't want more than two inits to track for myself even if that's not super realistic.

I also think I'm spoiled cos I have a dozen players who actually pay attention to everyone else's turn, look up their abilities while they're waiting, and even pre-roll attacks and damage while they wait so nobody has to wait on them doing math. Only time that's a problem is if they change their mind about an action based on what the last guy did but even still, they know their stuff well enough to turn on a dime if they need to.

I also have a rule of good faith - if that's how you say your ability works, I believe you, and if I don't know a rule, we'll make a decision on the fly and reserve the right to change our minds when we look up the rules later for clarity rather than slowing things down. Nothing shoots combat in the foot like opening the rule book every turn.

 

[Damien]

That's why I ask players for goals up front. Those goals can change and take on more or less importance, but I don't want to run games for cipher characters. I want to drive the story to where the players WANT to go rather than where I do. I find that players who just want to come along for the ride don't stick around long, or are carried by the ones who do. (I play with a husband/wife duo and she DEFINITELY rides his story, but it makes them both happy, so it's fine.)

I find a good work-around here is also to pre-slot opportunities for people to just switch characters. If the game hasn't really run its course but someone is tired of their character or feels like their character's arc is over, it works fairly well in my experience to find a way to bring in a new character while allowing an existing one to leave, without it feeling too contrived.

Yeah, the DMs using too many stat blocks and rolling initiative for every monster is... I'm sorry, I wouldn't be sober by the end of the session if I did that. I rarely use more than three stat blocks and even that's pushing it (I'd rather do variations on the SAME stat block so I'm only varying attacks or such), and I usually only do initiative for the boss, separate initiative for the minions. I don't want more than two inits to track for myself even if that's not super realistic.

I think we're living in a time now where a good chunk of DMs still going have been going since the 3E era and have learned a lot of lessons. But back in the 3-3.5 era, I think there really were a LOT of new DMs, or DMs that were struggling with the new systems coming out of 2E, and thought it was a good idea (or that they could handle it) to run every individual creature as a unique monster with its own stats and initiative.
The example I gave before was fairly accurate to an experience I had, where we paused for a break before combat started and I tried to talk the DM out of his idea to run all these different creatures -- literally 10 or so Goblins with DIFFERENT WEAPONS AND AC, plus all the other stuff like bugbears and a gnoll with SPELLS. It was insanity watching him try to keep up with what's what. Five minutes of figuring out this particular goblin's attacks and positioning just to have it get dropped by the barbarian in the very same round. Ridiculous.

I also think I'm spoiled cos I have a dozen players who actually pay attention to everyone else's turn, look up their abilities while they're waiting, and even pre-roll attacks and damage while they wait so nobody has to wait on them doing math. Only time that's a problem is if they change their mind about an action based on what the last guy did but even still, they know their stuff well enough to turn on a dime if they need to.

I don't think I've ever pre-rolled. When combat is happening, I do try to just pay attention to what's going on and only look up something if I really need to know ("can I do this thing as soon as their turn is over"). I just find if I start rolling, calculating, looking up a specific rule, then I actually am NOT paying attention to combat and won't have any idea what's going on when it's actually my turn. Feels disrespectful to the other players to act like their part of the game isn't worth paying attention to.

Also, something about pre-rolling feels like cheating. Like playing Final Fantasy and all of your hits or misses were decided in the first ten seconds that you booted up the game.

But I'm sure I could also get used to it if that was what the group was doing. That's another problem in tabletop overall: too many people want to play their way and NO OTHER, to the detriment of group cohesion.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

That's why I ask players for goals up front.

So, how do you do this?

I watch a lot of DM YouTube. Like, hours per week.

One piece of advice I heard recently is to make players aware of their options.

The players enter a dungeon. You describe the room and say, "What do you do next?"

Or, players enter a new town and you say, "What do you do next?"

The player response (rightfully so) is, "Uh, I don't know. What can I do?"

If you minimize their options, it makes for a better game experience.

The players enter a dungeon. You describe the room. You specifically highlight three points of interest. In the corner, there's an old, cobweb-covered book written in a language they don't recognize. There's a howling sound coming from a crack in the wall. In the middle of the room, they see an armored skeleton covered in blood. "What do you do next?" You might get three different answers, but you'll get answers, not silence.

With the town, the same rules apply. The town's known for its arena of champions, where fights go on day and night. A crazed old wizard lives in the clocktower at the center of town. In the local tavern, weary adventurers gather to share tales and rumors. Again, "What do you do next?" will be more fruitful because you limited their options.

I tried the "Give me some short- and long-term goals" thing at the start of my first campaign. I never got an answer. Do I need to limit the scope in the same way?

I want to run more sandbox/meandering games, but I fear the campaign would end after session two.

Nothing shoots combat in the foot like opening the rule book every turn.

This is what killed Pathfinder for me. If I had a photographic memory, it'd be a nearly perfect system.

Feels disrespectful to the other players to act like their part of the game isn't worth paying attention to.

This is where I need to improve as a player. I feel I'm pretty disciplined for a human being living in the social media/cellphone era, but my mind always drifts during combat. It almost always feels like a formality to me. I roll, you roll, the DM rolls. Eventually, the bad guys take enough damage to where we can move on to something more interesting.

I wasn't a doodler in school, but I think I need to pick it up for combat. Doodling, posing a figure, something to keep my hands busy so I'm not tempted to misbehave.

 

[docsilence]

Yeah, Pathfinder is a beautiful system with too much crunch for most people. I actually fuckin' LOVE what Paizo has done with it and have zero desire to run it.

So, how do you do this?

I have three questions I ask before we play. I think I get lucky in that this has worked for me most of the time; if players dodge the questions I find that they tend to not be a good fit for my style. (These are modified from the questions Jerry Holkins asked his players at the start of Acquisitions Inc. the C Team, which might be the most underrated actual play kicking around out there.)

• What is your secret purpose for becoming an adventurer, in this place/setting specifically? (Ground them in the setting)
• Who is someone you have wronged? (Gives them a potential nemesis or redemption arc)
• What is the thing you would cross your most uncrossable ethical line to learn? (Allows me to put things in front of them that build dramatic decision-making, and perhaps build in quests for them)

And then I ask them for 1-3 people who MATTER to them. Not who they care about or love or whatever, let the player decide who is important and why. Could be an enemies hit list. Their kids. A lost comrade.

I'm really struggling to explain how it all works. I just LEGO together their answers. In the Endless Imperium campaign everything they touch ties back to something that matters to them. I don't even think about plots or BBEGs or whatever til they give me something to work with. If a player doesn't want to participate? Eh, that's okay, we're just not a good fit together. I'll use that spot for someone else. I also specifically say don't write me a short story. You can write your novel, that's fine, but I only need XYZ, that's all that matters for our game right now.

Actually, a different perspective - my Westmarches style campaign, first like, six sessions or so were "you have a client, they need a thing, it's out there in the scary place." So they go out, I throw some overland monsters at them. They explore a weird location, they risk life and limb, they LEARN THEIR CHARACTER SHEETS. They go home, get paid, different client approaches them, repeat. After the third one of these jobs, the players said Okay, we're vibing with the setting now, we know our characters. Can we do more RP stuff? Like X wants to build a brewery in our hideout. Y wants to start busking around the military camp. Z wants to research aberrations. And then I followed their interests to help them tell their own stories.

I will say by way of DM style, I haaaaaated learning that people were DMing for broadcast back when that became a thing, it felt like some kind of violation of our sacred brotherhood, but then I watched some Mercer/Mulligan/Holkins DMing and was like oh, shit, these guys DM like I do, I thought I was doing it wrong, this is kinda neat to see someone doing similar shenanigans.

Also, something about pre-rolling feels like cheating.

I really didn't like it at first, but for some reason they don't miss what the other players are doing - maybe it's a skill they've developed on their own, listening and rolling. I do ask they don't roll skill checks etc. before I ask for a roll, but that's cos I may not even ask for one. Don't waste that nat 20 charisma check when the barmaid was going to take you home already. I know it can feel disrespectful, but I think it's less disrespectful than like, checking your email or playing a mobile game between turns. Also for the folks who hate math, it takes pressure off in the moment. And we deal with a LOT of background distractions, people with toddlers, massive health issues, all kinds of stuff, but when the game is happening everyonen respects everyone's time. (We keep threatening to roll up a drunken monk character for one player's toddler who loves to wave at us on camera.) I think maybe I don't worry about prerolling or whatever because I have empirical proof everyone is respecting everyone else's time in game.

 

[Fletch]

There's a version of Pathfinder that's right for me, but I don't actually know if it works. In PF2e, there are a couple alternate rules I wouldn't play without.

I hate that level is added to attacks, AC, and skill rolls. It gives everything such a narrow window of validity. Using the Proficiency Without Level optional rule keeps things viable for longer and makes sandboxing a heck of a lot easier. And since higher level characters do more damage regardless, there's still a feeling of increased power.

I also don't care much for Wealth by Level. It makes rewards feel obligative. You're guaranteed to make 300gp and *only* 300gp. There's no real option to make greater profit, and you don't have to worry about missing it. To be honest, 3rd edition should have just used the old 1gp=1xp model if they were going to tie wealth to advancement that tightly. Anyways, there's an optional rule for Automatic Bonus Progression that just gives the characters the required boosts. Fighters can be badasses with any weapon, not just the one specific magic one, and you can take home whatever treasure you carry but only if you earn it. You ain't owed nuthin. And magic items still do other stuff. You can still have a flaming sword or whatever, so there's still magic to discover, it's just not mandatory.

The problem is, I've never played 2e with either of these rules, let alone both of them. I've heard mixed reviews about how they work at the table. I'm just saying that I already know I don't like the game the way it is now, so I've got no reason NOT to use them.

I've got other little nitpicks, as I'm sure everybody does, but in general I find PF2e to be a very smart game that expands character powers laterally rather than upward. Like, as you get higher in level, you can do more things, just not necessarily better things. I find that fun and helps keep the game math in check.

 

[Jolene00Negative]

I'm going to run Brindlewood Bay for Halloween this year. I'm nervous about it because I've never run PbtA. It seems like a lot of strain on the DM to improvise everything. I've looked into Masks and other superhero systems, including Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and I'll probably run one eventually. I don't know about running a long-term campaign in PbtA.

I've been in an ongoing Masks campaign for like...2+ years now. Through play by post and getting together a few times a year. It's easily my fave system so much it makes it hard to go back to more trad stuff like Marvel Heroic, or Sentinel Comics RPG. They just have a lot more prep work that isn't present in Masks and a lot of other pbta games.

 

[Jolene00Negative]

and you don't really improvise everything, the players provide a lot of the info too, and the basic moves are very leading, so that helps

 

[Damien]

There's a version of Pathfinder that's right for me, but I don't actually know if it works. In PF2e, there are a couple alternate rules I wouldn't play without.

This is how I was playing Pathfinder 1E. I think what actually makes PF work so well is that it is SO crunchy that it's actually kind of easy to change rules because a lot of the rules feel very compartmentalized. Don't get me wrong, I can't remember the last time I played a TTRPG without house rules, but D&D (every edition) always felt like you were making foundational changes to how the game works any time you fussed with the RAW.

Also.. wealth by level is a terrible rule for an adventuring game. Period.

Fighters can be badasses with any weapon, not just the one specific magic one

Oh. My. God. This is one of my biggest pet peeves across multiple systems. As a guy that really likes martial classes, I hate the fact that you always end up either having magic abilities (because people can't resist SATURATING TTRPGs in magic) or having your dick nailed to a magic weapon because your superhuman-level martial abilities don't actually matter after level like... 6.

I spent literally years experimenting with systems to create a more nuanced approach to weapons and combat (mostly using d20 rules, but also GURPS a bit), but TTRPG combat is really too abstract to make any of it work. Especially if the entire table isn't nerds for this stuff and doesn't really care if daggers are actually a super-inefficient weapon for anyone EXCEPT people in heavy armor, ironically.
But the big thing I always tried to do was create a way for it to make sense for a martial class to pick up and use different weapons for different situations without announcing to the table 'hey guys, I just decided for flavor reasons to be super ineffective for the next 3 rounds, good luck without me.'

Yeah, Pathfinder is a beautiful system with too much crunch for most people. I actually fuckin' LOVE what Paizo has done with it and have zero desire to run it.

I really enjoyed it as a player. I did not enjoy it as a DM. And I love reading the books. The .. mental image.. I have of what a PF game can look like because of how it's written is so much better than how I've ever seen it actually work at the table.

The players enter a dungeon. You describe the room. You specifically highlight three points of interest. In the corner, there's an old, cobweb-covered book written in a language they don't recognize. There's a howling sound coming from a crack in the wall. In the middle of the room, they see an armored skeleton covered in blood. "What do you do next?" You might get three different answers, but you'll get answers, not silence.

Tangential, a bit, but this actually reminds me of one of my biggest problems with D&D, or at least how it's usually run (and technically, the RAW, to be fair): It doesn't encourage roleplaying and character building because your forward mobility is mostly tied to combat. If I'm a fighter, which I often am, explain to me how to build an interesting REAL PERSON, with like a couple of skill points - most of which I NEED to put into combat-related skills to maintain usefulness on the field.

In real life, people tend to know a lot of stuff. People have different interests. Different levels of life experiences. D&D has a lot of trouble with this. Maybe my fighter REALLY likes armor and could go identify when that armor was made and how old the skeleton is based on that. But per RAW, I probably haven't put any points into something like Knowledge (History) because doing so would literally divest my character of utility in battle, which is my whole purpose.

I was in two different groups that played with a hugely expanded skill list, and actually separated out how skill points could be allocated. So you got a different amount for 'combat relevant' and 'RP relevant' skills. Obviously there's usually overlap there, but it does help create depth to characters and allow them to do things that aren't just hit stuff better, while still having RULES for doing it. Originally, the first group that I did this with, just tried to only use combat-relevant skills as rolls, and everything else was just 'just RP it.' But it got too easy at that point to make characters that knew everything, or damn near.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

Dishing out wealth/loot is my least favorite aspect of DMing. It's probably the thing I'm worst at.

My players were OP as fuck by the end of my first campaign (which was run in PF2e). I didn't want to deal with all of PF2e's stupid weapon runes, so I just gave them a ton of gold and let them buy what they wanted. At first, I gave them specific weapon runes, but I found that they didn't like what I gave them/it didn't match their vision for the character.

I think you can circumvent this by giving them a badass magic/legendary weapon instead. I did that for one player, but again, with PF2e's rune system, they have to continue modding the weapon or it won't make it to endgame.

I have three questions I ask before we play. I think I get lucky in that this has worked for me most of the time; if players dodge the questions I find that they tend to not be a good fit for my style. (These are modified from the questions Jerry Holkins asked his players at the start of Acquisitions Inc. the C Team, which might be the most underrated actual play kicking around out there.)

• What is your secret purpose for becoming an adventurer, in this place/setting specifically? (Ground them in the setting)
• Who is someone you have wronged? (Gives them a potential nemesis or redemption arc)
• What is the thing you would cross your most uncrossable ethical line to learn? (Allows me to put things in front of them that build dramatic decision-making, and perhaps build in quests for them)

And then I ask them for 1-3 people who MATTER to them. Not who they care about or love or whatever, let the player decide who is important and why. Could be an enemies hit list. Their kids. A lost comrade.

I've heard some combination of these questions before. That's helpful, thanks. Again, giving them prompts instead of "What do you want" seems to be key.

Actually, a different perspective - my Westmarches style campaign, first like, six sessions or so were "you have a client, they need a thing, it's out there in the scary place." So they go out, I throw some overland monsters at them. They explore a weird location, they risk life and limb, they LEARN THEIR CHARACTER SHEETS. They go home, get paid, different client approaches them, repeat. After the third one of these jobs, the players said Okay, we're vibing with the setting now, we know our characters. Can we do more RP stuff? Like X wants to build a brewery in our hideout. Y wants to start busking around the military camp. Z wants to research aberrations. And then I followed their interests to help them tell their own stories.

This sounds like another friend's game. He's much more freeform with his plot/adventures. The players mainly run a tavern. He somehow builds constant tension around the tavern. They need to hire a new chef, so he has them hold literal job interviews with NPCs. It turns out the chef they hired is a psychopathic doppelganger. Now they have to keep him in check until a replacement is found. It's always something.

Somehow, he still finds ways to suck them into interdimensional portals and put them in situations where they accidentally free ancient demon lords.

The players have a blast with it. I'm envious. I hope to run a game like that someday, but I worry my brain is too reliant on plot structure and a solid beginning, middle, and end.

I will say by way of DM style, I haaaaaated learning that people were DMing for broadcast back when that became a thing, it felt like some kind of violation of our sacred brotherhood, but then I watched some Mercer/Mulligan/Holkins DMing and was like oh, shit, these guys DM like I do, I thought I was doing it wrong, this is kinda neat to see someone doing similar shenanigans.

To be clear, I watch a lot of DM advice videos. I rarely watch game content.

I really didn't like it at first, but for some reason they don't miss what the other players are doing - maybe it's a skill they've developed on their own, listening and rolling. I do ask they don't roll skill checks etc. before I ask for a roll, but that's cos I may not even ask for one. Don't waste that nat 20 charisma check when the barmaid was going to take you home already. I know it can feel disrespectful, but I think it's less disrespectful than like, checking your email or playing a mobile game between turns. Also for the folks who hate math, it takes pressure off in the moment. And we deal with a LOT of background distractions, people with toddlers, massive health issues, all kinds of stuff, but when the game is happening everyonen respects everyone's time. (We keep threatening to roll up a drunken monk character for one player's toddler who loves to wave at us on camera.) I think maybe I don't worry about prerolling or whatever because I have empirical proof everyone is respecting everyone else's time in game.

I always pre-roll my death saves. I like to keep them a secret (between myself and the DM, anyway). I don't want my voice to betray anything in the moment.

Don't get me wrong, I can't remember the last time I played a TTRPG without house rules, but D&D (every edition) always felt like you were making foundational changes to how the game works any time you fussed with the RAW.

I like experimenting with new systems in part because it opens me up to new rules. New rules = new potential house rules.

Tangential, a bit, but this actually reminds me of one of my biggest problems with D&D, or at least how it's usually run (and technically, the RAW, to be fair): It doesn't encourage roleplaying and character building because your forward mobility is mostly tied to combat. If I'm a fighter, which I often am, explain to me how to build an interesting REAL PERSON, with like a couple of skill points - most of which I NEED to put into combat-related skills to maintain usefulness on the field.

In real life, people tend to know a lot of stuff. People have different interests. Different levels of life experiences. D&D has a lot of trouble with this. Maybe my fighter REALLY likes armor and could go identify when that armor was made and how old the skeleton is based on that. But per RAW, I probably haven't put any points into something like Knowledge (History) because doing so would literally divest my character of utility in battle, which is my whole purpose.

I was in two different groups that played with a hugely expanded skill list, and actually separated out how skill points could be allocated. So you got a different amount for 'combat relevant' and 'RP relevant' skills. Obviously there's usually overlap there, but it does help create depth to characters and allow them to do things that aren't just hit stuff better, while still having RULES for doing it. Originally, the first group that I did this with, just tried to only use combat-relevant skills as rolls, and everything else was just 'just RP it.' But it got too easy at that point to make characters that knew everything, or damn near.

Yep. 13th Age is the only book I've seen that balances this. 13A gives you backgrounds. They're functionally useless unless the player is clever enough to find use for them. You allocate a given number of points to your backgrounds, but they aren't skills or abilities. They're backstory. Flavor text. Character history. The game gives a list of examples, but it's not a set list. You can create your own.

For instance, maybe your bard used to be a stable hand at a tavern. You give yourself a background in Horse Wrangling, Hospitality, and Tavern Keeping. Your party happens upon a stallion in the woods. You ask the DM if you can use your background in horse wrangling to see if the horse is domesticated. If not, maybe you can roll to tame it.

The party attempts to enter a castle with notoriously hostile guards. "DM, can I put on the charm I learned as a tavern keeper?"

To your example, maybe your fighter takes a background in Armorer or Mercenary. By examining the skeleton, you can tell the approximate age and build quality of the armor.

Another piece of advice I've taken to lately is to stop relying so much on random chance.

Players build their characters deliberately. If the party wizard has a background in history, reward him for it. He thoughtfully built his character for that exact moment. Don't make him roll a history check.

Or, if you do make him roll for a history check, don't let another party member without a background in history do the same. It sucks when the guy who built his character around history rolls low and misses the check, and someone else in the party gets lucky and rolls a 20. It doesn't make narrative sense, it doesn't reward thoughtful character building, and it doesn't force the party to rely on one another.

I do the same thing in my games when I have a party without a charismatic character. I don't want you to roll, I want you to make a compelling argument.

 

[docsilence]

I also don't care much for Wealth by Level. It makes rewards feel obligative.

This reminds me of one of my biggest WTF questions about Daggerheart. You don't have money. Things cost "a handful of gold" or "a bag of gold." Like, that's the only metric. I'd like to buy a sword. that's two bagfuls of gold. Like, just eliminate money at all if you're going to create a rule that pointless.

To be clear, I watch a lot of DM advice videos. I rarely watch game content.

Y'know, I almost never watch anyone TALK about DMing. I want to see what they can actually do. Show me you can do what you're telling us you can do. I learn new games through actual plays too, instead of guides. I do listen to people shoot the shit about GMing (Eldritch Lorecast for vibes, Mastering Dungeons for two people who DEEPLY understand game mechanics and can break things down to their component parts brilliantly) but I've never been able to sit through a full Colville advice video. Closer to learning music by ear than from an instructor, I guess. But everyone's brain is different.

This thread's giving me a bit of an existential crisis cos I'm seeing like... NOBODY experiences the game like I do here and it's throwing me for a loop, and I can't explain what we're doing differently. All those issues with "what do I know" skill checks, we're able to just weave through in the moment. My fighters are engaged outside of combat and don't feel like they only have one option during it. I kind of wonder if it's just chemistry, and that if we'd never played D&D and started out with, I dunno, Night's Black Agents or something we'd just be riffing like we do now anyway.

Got a DM achievement unlock last night during a fight in which the group ambushed the (now vampire) brother of the fighter whom he wanted to stake and interrogate. Made up some rules for stakes on the spot, they set up an ambush; the wizard made an illusion of herself to look like the fighter and that made her a target early in the fight. Vampire went to town trying to finish off his "brother" first and the wizard yells, laughing, "MATTHEW STOOOOOOOP" and the group is now making that a a ringtone for my phone from our recording. (The group actually asks to record every session so they can go back and listen again later every week, our own podcast for seven people only).

Fighter dropped his sword and got a 19 on the die to stake his brother while he himself was at 7 HP right before his brother got his turn back, and now the group has a torpored vampire in the basement of their bar and next week they get to roleplay how the hell to wake him back up without him poofing into mist and escaping. Combat took four rounds, 90 minutes, only real slow-down was the wizard realizing when she set up her spell for the day she didn't do the wizard "wallet, phone, keys" check of "shield, counterspell, misty step" and couldn't get away from the vampire without help, which made for some great drama as she started to panic. She also saved her own life because she's playing a chronomancer and was able to chronal shift the bite that would have finished her off.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

This thread's giving me a bit of an existential crisis cos I'm seeing like... NOBODY experiences the game like I do here and it's throwing me for a loop, and I can't explain what we're doing differently. All those issues with "what do I know" skill checks, we're able to just weave through in the moment. My fighters are engaged outside of combat and don't feel like they only have one option during it.

I don't think there's any one "right answer." A good DM can sell anything.

I watch a lot of advice videos because I want everything I do to be well-reasoned. I'm not an instinctual DM. I meticulously plan for anything I care about doing well. For DMing, that means watching videos about how others approach it. Sometimes I learn nothing, sometimes I crib a rule or two, sometimes it changes my thinking entirely.

I'm also an extremely anxious person. The more I prep, the less I freeze or go into cold sweats in the moment. (Boy, I have some fun stories about that from my first campaign.) For some reason, that doesn't apply to RP improv. I'm pretty good on my feet in those situations. I've gotten better about changing a monster stat block mid-fight, introducing a new bad guy if things are too easy, or pivoting if my plot isn't working as designed. Part of that is experience, part of that is watching enough experts to where I feel like I know what I'm doing.