TTRPGs & D&D

[altcunningham]

Oh that would be a cool house rule. I like that. Still give a penalty and a lesson.

 

[docsilence]

So funny timing with the whole "never put a party in a situation they can't win" thing - I really, actively work to make sure I don't this. I'm spinning nobs and dials during a fight to make it scary and tactical but the characters kind of have to work to get fully wiped out. (I love the drama of trying to keep your allies alive while fighting the enemy, too). But we just ALMOST had our FIRST FIGHT in that Wilds Beyond the Witchlight game I play in (two-hour games maybe once a month... level two 15 months into the game... Have not rolled an attack once). And the DM, this is their first campaign and even over a year in I still think that's the learning phase, put us up against some brigands shaking us down and when I went to defend my friends was told there's no way to win the fight, you are being given an offer you can't refuse. And then the brigands actually broke the rules set forth in this particular campaign for bargains in the feywild, and my character would know it.

I think I'm slightly irked by it just because I live and die by the rules of don't put your players in a situation where they have no choice but to comply with one outcome, and don't put a fight in front of the players you don't want them to engage in. It's that golden rule - don't ask for a roll if you don't want them to succeed. We rolled for initiative, our first initiative in the campaign ever! I went first and held and attack until someone hurt a friend and that was when we were told combat wasn't an option. So another rule I live by - you don't roll for initiative if it means nothing. I mean I roll silly initiative all the time, who finishes peeing in the woods first, who gets to wake up and talk about their dreams first etc., not always about combat but it's such a trigger to action you really shouldn't call on it unless you mean it.

Anyway. I turned it into a character moment - the character is a himbo with a very strong sense of right and wrong; he grew up in this place and knows when the rules aren't being followed and feels scammed; and the character who told him "it's just the way it is" is someone he admired and now sees as a coward. So I guess it was a net positive, but definitely falls into that discussion point of " if you put your players in an unwinnable situation, you need to make it obvious." A couple of bandits on the side of the road shaking your party of medieval superheroes doesn't feel something you can't fight your way out of.

(I've also had the very real realization that I have been running D&D my whole life and I will never actually be a player in the kind of game I like to run. )

 

[Damien]

(I've also had the very real realization that I have been running D&D my whole life and I will never actually be a player in the kind of game I like to run. )

That is definitely a bummer that will have to be rectified at some point.

And yeah, man. I try to be pretty aware of what the DM is trying to do so that I'm an actor in the play rather than an obstacle for the DM to deal with. But there's basically no universe where a DM says 'the brigands are shaking you down' that wouldn't result in me being like 'I have quick draw so I can initiate a surprise round and attack the brigand closest to me as long as they're within five feet, and also I've already rolled my attack and my damage and I'm pretty sure the brigand is dead because it was a crit with a greatsword.' The DM wouldn't even have time to be like 'oh actually...'

 

[TheSameIdiot]

I think I'm slightly irked by it just because I live and die by the rules of don't put your players in a situation where they have no choice but to comply with one outcome, and don't put a fight in front of the players you don't want them to engage in.

Absolutely. It's trite to say, but at that point, you're writing a novel. It's collaborative storytelling, not a scripted scene.

When I prep, I anticipate how I want my players to react and how I expect them to react, but I don't box them in. Another highlight from my last campaign was finally throwing a dragon at my players. I wanted them to fight and expected them to flee. Instead, they talked their way out of the situation and got a ride from the dragon to the nearest city. As a result, I wound up improving a sexual relationship between the dragon and one of my PC's ancestors. That wouldn't have happened if I had said, "Your attempts to coerce the dragon fail. Roll for initiative." That's not a bad option, but it is a bad option if you always force them to do what you want.

(I've also had the very real realization that I have been running D&D my whole life and I will never actually be a player in the kind of game I like to run. )

Man, what a heartbreaking thing to read.

If you guys are enjoying the AT group as much as I am, we'll have to try to remedy that. I'm up to DM, and it sounds like Jake is, too. I wouldn't say I run a game identical to yours, but I hope it's close enough that you could have fun.

But there's basically no universe where a DM says 'the brigands are shaking you down' that wouldn't result in me being like 'I have quick draw so I can initiate a surprise round and attack the brigand closest to me as long as they're within five feet, and also I've already rolled my attack and my damage and I'm pretty sure the brigand is dead because it was a crit with a greatsword.'

You and half of my players. BioWare taught me to try and talk my way out of everything, even encounters with aberrations or monstrosities.

 

[docsilence]

That is definitely a bummer that will have to be rectified at some point.

And yeah, man. I try to be pretty aware of what the DM is trying to do so that I'm an actor in the play rather than an obstacle for the DM to deal with. But there's basically no universe where a DM says 'the brigands are shaking you down' that wouldn't result in me being like 'I have quick draw so I can initiate a surprise round and attack the brigand closest to me as long as they're within five feet, and also I've already rolled my attack and my damage and I'm pretty sure the brigand is dead because it was a crit with a greatsword.' The DM wouldn't even have time to be like 'oh actually...'

Yeah, I think I was mostly frustrated because I got highest initiative and I set my other party members up to decide on violence or not - I walked up to the first brigand, prepped a smite, and held an action that said if they try to hurt any one of us I drop the hammer on this brigand's skull, and that was when the DM backpedaled and said "you know there's no way to win this." It's six mooks with clubs and crossbows. That screams "random encounter," not "TPK." I was actually setting it up to end the fight early, too. "See your spokesman? Want to also be pizza? No? Okay go away little brigands." Totally removed all agency not just from me but from the rest of the party to decide if they wanted to resolve through violence or not.

Absolutely. It's trite to say, but at that point, you're writing a novel. It's collaborative storytelling, not a scripted scene.

When I prep, I anticipate how I want my players to react and how I expect them to react, but I don't box them in. Another highlight from my last campaign was finally throwing a dragon at my players. I wanted them to fight and expected them to flee. Instead, they talked their way out of the situation and got a ride from the dragon to the nearest city. As a result, I wound up improving a sexual relationship between the dragon and one of my PC's ancestors. That wouldn't have happened if I had said, "Your attempts to coerce the dragon fail. Roll for initiative." That's not a bad option, but it is a bad option if you always force them to do what you want.

Man, what a heartbreaking thing to read.

If you guys are enjoying the AT group as much as I am, we'll have to try to remedy that. I'm up to DM, and it sounds like Jake is, too. I wouldn't say I run a game identical to yours, but I hope it's close enough that you could have fun.

You and half of my players. BioWare taught me to try and talk my way out of everything, even encounters with aberrations or monstrosities.

I find the less I prep the more ready I am for the party to anything they want, and so I don't feel beholden to a script. I usually start each session with a goal and a problem, and you might get to both, or might not, and that's okay.

You guys have gotten a little taste of what I run - I try to do multi-year campaigns that lean heavily on PC backstories but with a throughline "for me" so to speak, a balance of story and battle and horror and improv, and I try to make sure every little thing matters in some way. I get invited to one shots and stuff fairly often but I find I've never been able to join a group that has staying power so we can see a story to the end. I was thinking about it the other day looking at my 101 characters in D&D Beyond I've been saving for a long-form campaign and thinking by the time I do sit down 5e will be a distant memory. (I know with my other groups people aspire to DM but don't have the energy or stubbornness to push through more than 3-4 sessions before they crash out as GMs, but if someone else is running it they have incredible skill and enthusiasm and show up 100% ready, which I love to see.)

 

[Damien]

, I wound up improving a sexual relationship between the dragon and one of my PC's ancestors

How did you improve it? More foreplay or just aftercare?

You and half of my players. BioWare taught me to try and talk my way out of everything, even encounters with aberrations or monstrosities.

I've tried to learn that. While I prefer that style of game, I also have deep ingrained behaviours from years of 'regular D&D,' where it's all about just killing anything in front of you that's opposed to your alignment. While the more thematic/cinematic play-more-than-roll games were always my favorites, those experiences are dwarfed by the amount of 'go in the dungeon, re-kill the skeletons' games.

Yeah, I think I was mostly frustrated because I got highest initiative and I set my other party members up to decide on violence or not - I walked up to the first brigand, prepped a smite, and held an action that said if they try to hurt any one of us I drop the hammer on this brigand's skull, and that was when the DM backpedaled and said "you know there's no way to win this." It's six mooks with clubs and crossbows. That screams "random encounter," not "TPK." I was actually setting it up to end the fight early, too. "See your spokesman? Want to also be pizza? No? Okay go away little brigands." Totally removed all agency not just from me but from the rest of the party to decide if they wanted to resolve through violence or not.

That seems like such a bizarre situation, too. Like, absolutely no insult to your DM at all, but what DM makes the 'you better capitulate for plot reasons' guys a few poorly-armed brigands. Even at level 1 I don't think I'd really take that seriously as a threat. If you wanted to railroad the players, there's just way more effective ways to do it that are better-telegraphed and even more fun. The most casual but important DM trick is often 'get the players to do the thing, without telling them they have to do the thing.' This was not that.

I find the less I prep the more ready I am for the party to anything they want, and so I don't feel beholden to a script. I usually start each session with a goal and a problem, and you might get to both, or might not, and that's okay.

I am so the opposite. I ran games a fair bit when my work/life/hobby balance was very different. I actually am not a natural when it comes to improvising worlds and multiple characters. I can improv a single character I created, right down to affectations and vernacular. But ask me to come up with a town description on the fly or create a character I hadn't planned right in front of you and my anxiety kicks in and I lock up.
Thus, I am a meticulous planner as a DM. I don't plan a single path and force the characters on it. I plan for the main idea, the possible side stories, the NPC backstory possible side stories, half the kingdom you're currently in and at least some of the neighboring kingdoms and maybe even kingdoms neighboring those kingdoms, every type of monster that lives in every area of any part of the world you're likely to have any access to, etc etc. It's... kind of gross. Like, if I know I'm going to be DMing a game, that game needed to be about 3 months away and I'd spend at least one full day and some evenings, ever week, building the game.

BUT, it made me look like a master of improv because I didn't improv almost anything. Your characters basically couldn't do anything I didn't have some type of answer for already written down somewhere. That's the only way I could run a game without anxiety or decision paralysis.

Which also means I basically had to retire as a DM once I got into my current occupation and had kids. It literally became impossible for me to do what I need to do to sit behind the screen and not be freaking the fuck out the entire time. And that makes me a bit sad because I actually did enjoy it.

However, I also got a VERY fleshed out fantasy world to write in one day, if I ever have time for things like that again.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

but if someone else is running it they have incredible skill and enthusiasm and show up 100% ready, which I love to see.)

Hey, I never said I had any skill.

Yeah, I think I was mostly frustrated because I got highest initiative and I set my other party members up to decide on violence or not - I walked up to the first brigand, prepped a smite, and held an action that said if they try to hurt any one of us I drop the hammer on this brigand's skull, and that was when the DM backpedaled and said "you know there's no way to win this." It's six mooks with clubs and crossbows. That screams "random encounter," not "TPK." I was actually setting it up to end the fight early, too. "See your spokesman? Want to also be pizza? No? Okay go away little brigands." Totally removed all agency not just from me but from the rest of the party to decide if they wanted to resolve through violence or not.

So weird that A) they're running a published adventure, and B) they're running D&D. As Damien said, more often than not, D&D games are about combat. Combat is the focal point that everything else is built around.

How did you improve it? More foreplay or just aftercare?

Foreplay always improves things.

It didn't even occur to me that the word "improving" was a separate word with a different meaning.

Thus, I am a meticulous planner as a DM. I don't plan a single path and force the characters on it. I plan for the main idea, the possible side stories, the NPC backstory possible side stories, half the kingdom you're currently in and at least some of the neighboring kingdoms and maybe even kingdoms neighboring those kingdoms, every type of monster that lives in every area of any part of the world you're likely to have any access to, etc etc. It's... kind of gross. Like, if I know I'm going to be DMing a game, that game needed to be about 3 months away and I'd spend at least one full day and some evenings, ever week, building the game.

This is much closer to who I am as a DM. I'm not as fastidious, but I like to have things ready. Town history, religion, and economy; possible NPC names; big story beats, etc.

I'm confident that I could run a game off the cuff, but generally speaking, that's not what I've done. Of all the campaigns I have in mind, only my Traveller/sci-fi game is sandboxy. The rest have a set beginning, middle, and end.

 

[JakeEkiss]

You and half of my players. BioWare taught me to try and talk my way out of everything, even encounters with aberrations or monstrosities.

This one can cut both ways sadly. One of the problems I've had to work around with my more recent players is video-game-conversation-tree thinking. I try to think of my NPCs (especially ones who are neutral to the party, neither allies nor villains) as pretty 3 dimensional. So like, if you want their help and approval, you can often get it, but you're not going to be able to do it by just picking the nice option and making a charisma roll with a high bonus. And if you try to convince them with a shit argument, you might actually sabotage your own chances (this is a reason I'm excited to try out the negotiation system in Draw Steel).

Like, the duke on the borderlands has his own problems and he doesn't inherently want to commit troops and resources to your little campaign to end the life of some elder dragon he doesn't currently have issues with. You're going to have to talk him into that, and talking him into it might take more than one 5 minute discussion that consists of "but we're the good guys, we're trying to HELP you!" said with cute puppy eyes. The duke doesn't know you're the main characters, folks.

I find the less I prep the more ready I am for the party to anything they want, and so I don't feel beholden to a script. I usually start each session with a goal and a problem, and you might get to both, or might not, and that's okay.

For me it's entirely the style of prep, not so much quantity. I don't really prep plot points or highly specific scenes in advance that often (the Alien game I'm running being an exception as it's a horror movie in a confined location, more on rails than most games I run). My prep is almost all figuring out what my baddies want, what resources they have to get it, and how they respond to problems when their plans go wrong. With that solidly worked out, I can be really flexible with action on the ground.

With that prep I know what the baddy is doing, and they will continue to do it until stopped. The players choose to intervene or not, and when they do I simply respond as the baddy. And sometimes that means players confound the bad guys for a while. During a war plotline in my last game the bad guys started scrying on the party to find them. Problem was the party was in the middle of a long wilderness trek, and the baddies were not native to that country. So it took a while of them doing this before a landmark big enough for one of them to know it was nearby to be seen when scryed.

I usually plan fairly specifically for the session in front of me (because I *do* like to have fun with planning combat encounters when I know they are highly likely, and I do like doing extra stuff like building maps or things of that nature) then I plan vaguely for the one after that, and beyond it's veeeery sketchy outlines. I don't want to fall in love with and idea that requires pulling tons of levers to manipulate people into replicating. If we're one session out from the idea, I can get you there. If we're ten sessions out? Man, whatever, we might be having a whole different plotline by then if you do something clever.

How did you improve it? More foreplay or just aftercare?

*snort* ok that got me.

 

[docsilence]

I used to prep meticulously, but now I find if I know the WORLD I can improv forever. I do pull monster stats and maps for fights ahead of time, but I also am lucky to have groups of players who just know how to exist in a space and explore it together. I mentioned a few weeks back one group dug insanely deep into time magic and it was mostly all riffing on my part, except of course do I have BIG THOUGHTS on time travel and magic? Yeah. Like at the end one player said I was "throwing bars" with the pseudo-science and I'm like brother, you just happened to ask me about something I've been thinking about my whole life and I just hot-glued onto an archmage.

So weird that A) they're running a published adventure, and B) they're running D&D. As Damien said, more often than not, D&D games are about combat. Combat is the focal point that everything else is built around.

I had the same thought, though in her defense 1) she KNOWS D&D and has very few "spoons" to teach herself a new game so it was easier as her first GMing expeirence and B) Wilds Beyond the Witchlight is specifically written so every scenario has a non-combat option - it is supposed to be the only published adventure you can go from level 1-10 without ever getting into combat. Which feels crazy to me because I love a good D&D fight, but I do acknowledge there's a breed of players who are super conflict averse. I actually sunset a campaign last year because I found that two players were horny for combat all the time and three would do anything to avoid combat and it just wasn't working out (all five were great storytellers, they just didn't fit at the same table).

This current DM probably should be running any number of other systems, but she went with what she knows, which I get. I run into the same thing myself sometimes. Brennan Lee Mulligan called it the katana problem - if you're really good with a katana you start using it to open a bottle of Coke when there's a normal bottle opener right there. Wrong tool for the job even if you CAN make it work.

 

[Jolene00Negative]

I've got one more reveal coming, and those of you who are genre savvy can probably guess it, but I think this game has maybe two more sessions in it before I put it to bed and move on to my Generation-X game using the Masks system.

Masks is my favoritest game ever, so excited for you.

 

[Fletch]

Just me personally, but I've never had great success, or had much fun, trying to force a dramatic narrative in an RPG. I just believe that players need to know that their choices matter.

I was always a "dice land where they will" type DM and made almost all rolls in the open. I swear by the idea that the stories that evolve over player choice, and honest success and failure, are better than any story that was crafted to be one.

That's why, despite being a huge superhero snob and having multiple favorite systems, I can't see myself actually playing a supers campaign. The genre is too tied to the tropes, and I can neither trust the dice or players to meet them, nor bring myself to force them on the players.

 

[Jolene00Negative]

yeah, i mean, if the players aren't going to play to the tropes of the game's setting, it can be real hard to make a supers game work. Luckily, Masks moves really direct players to play to the tropes of that game, namely messy young adult super lives of people coming into their own

 

[altcunningham]

So funny timing with the whole "never put a party in a situation they can't win" thing - I really, actively work to make sure I don't this. I'm spinning nobs and dials during a fight to make it scary and tactical but the characters kind of have to work to get fully wiped out. (I love the drama of trying to keep your allies alive while fighting the enemy, too). But we just ALMOST had our FIRST FIGHT in that Wilds Beyond the Witchlight game I play in (two-hour games maybe once a month... level two 15 months into the game... Have not rolled an attack once). And the DM, this is their first campaign and even over a year in I still think that's the learning phase, put us up against some brigands shaking us down and when I went to defend my friends was told there's no way to win the fight, you are being given an offer you can't refuse. And then the brigands actually broke the rules set forth in this particular campaign for bargains in the feywild, and my character would know it.

I don't know what it is about Witchlight, but every time I play it, it goes to s***.

My first time the DM was taking some leeways. Work friend of another friend who had DMed Tomb for menti completion. We thought we were in good hands. So the DM kept taking these leeways and like your situation bending some of the rules while also being a real stickler about how we were supposed to obey everything.

And there's some encounter where you meet goblins and they're nice. But at that point we had been backstabbed and tricked so many times when we clued in their were goblins off of perception, the party went into stealth mode to at least scout it out. So just emerging from foliage once we determined these goblins were just merchants by spying on them, she had them go into full defensive. Oh my God your murderers mode.

So we fought back. Made a truce. I even bought something cool off them for my character.

And then an hour later got the Discord message that she was killing the entire campaign and unfriended all of us. I had to hear later through the other friend that she was really mad that we chose not to just be Care Bear friends with the goblins from the outset and she had no desire to play with people with violent tendencies.

We didn't even roll initiative on the until. She said that they were attacking us. Literally just sneaking up to make sure it was safe.

Okay.

And then the second time there was another deal with some sort of bargain being made, and we were also railroaded. We played it out. Then that DM moved back across the country for personal reasons, and I never felt compelled about that campaign since.

I've never looked at the actual book. Is that just the campaign? I've heard it so torturous as far as pacing and combat opportunities, even go if that's what you want, which my understanding is it's supposed to be like a nice entry level into the hobby, but everyone knows about roll for initiative. Hell, people still talk about THAC0. People credit Stranger Things with introducing D&D to the main world, and even that opened up with combat.

 

[docsilence]

I don't know what it is about Witchlight, but every time I play it, it goes to s***.

My first time the DM was taking some leeways. Work friend of another friend who had DMed Tomb for menti completion. We thought we were in good hands. So the DM kept taking these leeways and like your situation bending some of the rules while also being a real stickler about how we were supposed to obey everything.

And there's some encounter where you meet goblins and they're nice. But at that point we had been backstabbed and tricked so many times when we clued in their were goblins off of perception, the party went into stealth mode to at least scout it out. So just emerging from foliage once we determined these goblins were just merchants by spying on them, she had them go into full defensive. Oh my God your murderers mode.

So we fought back. Made a truce. I even bought something cool off them for my character.

And then an hour later got the Discord message that she was killing the entire campaign and unfriended all of us. I had to hear later through the other friend that she was really mad that we chose not to just be Care Bear friends with the goblins from the outset and she had no desire to play with people with violent tendencies.

We didn't even roll initiative on the until. She said that they were attacking us. Literally just sneaking up to make sure it was safe.

Okay.

And then the second time there was another deal with some sort of bargain being made, and we were also railroaded. We played it out. Then that DM moved back across the country for personal reasons, and I never felt compelled about that campaign since.

I've never looked at the actual book. Is that just the campaign? I've heard it so torturous as far as pacing and combat opportunities, even go if that's what you want, which my understanding is it's supposed to be like a nice entry level into the hobby, but everyone knows about roll for initiative. Hell, people still talk about THAC0. People credit Stranger Things with introducing D&D to the main world, and even that opened up with combat.

I've actually DMed it start to finish so I feel like I can speak to what it does right and wrong. Craft-wise, it's a beautiful book. It gives you some WONDERFUL set pieces to work with. Layout and design-wise to make it useable for a DM, it's one of their best books. But it is so full of pitfalls that can send you into the weeds and slow things down. As a player it took us twelve sessions to get out of the carnival in the starting zone. (I was able to get us out in... four? I think it was four two hour sessions, which is still too long.)

It is super imaginative and has a ton of flavor which I think attracts a lot of new DMs, but it's bizarrely short on actual conflict. It says you can get through the whole thing without combat, but it doesn't say that it kind of makes you feel like an asshole if you WANT combat. I fixed that by adding some dark fey, the kind of horrible shit you really don't mind putting a sword through, as encounters to get the horny for combat juice out of the way. (Who doesn't love stabbing a redcap?)

I think the DM I was with this weekend is actively uncomfortable with combat, and as we've all pointed out, there are far better games if you don't like fighting. I think Witchlight really needs to get that conversation out up front. It's the only campaign book that seems to actively dissuade conflict.

I actually think it's a good book but bad at what they sell it as. Hell, it's a TERRIBLE first time player book because you can get to level four or five and never have entered combat, and how do you know what your character can do at that point? I'd sell it to experienced players as "looking for a vacation from grimdark violence? Visit the feywild and engage in ridiculous fey bullshit." After I ran it the two campaigns I pitched next were the Endless Imperium (city of the dead) and the Blighted Badlands (westmarches in a magical post-apocalyptic frontier) just as a palate cleanser.

 

[altcunningham]

12 sessions at the carnival. Holy dooley. We were out in one at least. But then we ended up in some sort of garden maze and that was where the first DM really wanted to milk it with lots of Alice in Wonderland tricks. Eat me, drink me, etc

The multi year campaign I'm in, that DM mixes bits of all that content around his own plan. We started with the carnival, but it didn't lead to the Fey. Now we're in "Strahd", but heavily reskinned. Total conversion, as we'd say in PC gaming.