Ok, how about dragon in an open field; Whether the players are trying to shoot it down or it's decided to close for melee it's not going to make much difference between grid or not grid.
My counterpoint there would basically be 'why are you having players just fight a couple orcs in an open field?'
Uninteresting combats, in my opinion, are mostly a waste of everyone's time. I tend to avoid using stuff like random encounter tables for this reason - if there's no reason for the fight, no greater consequences or implications other than 'try not to die', and nothing special about the terrain, circumstances, or tactical situation then all I'm really doing with a random encounter is making the table spend half an hour going through the motions of a foregone conclusion before they're allowed to continue with the interesting, consequential part of the game.
Basically almost any situation that falls beneath the threshold of 'this encounter is not interesting/important enough to justify a grid' is likely to also fall beneath my threshold of 'this encounter is not interesting/important enough to have'.
You could spin it as the DM wanting to sap HP/Spell Slots before a more important encounter that you want to make more difficult through the more limited resources the PC's have available as opposed to them dropping all their spell slots on fireballs and smites and just pop whatever you put in front of them
Yeah, but there's no reason not to do that with an interesting encounter instead - it's not like fun is a finite resource you need to ration. And if you take a stock 'random' encounter and start adding elements that actually make it tactically interesting, you very quickly hit the point where it starts to justify a grid and become clunky to track without one.
I was only giving an example....
I know. I'm not attacking the example.
My point is that while I get the idea of theater-of-the-mind being a timesaver for simple combats without much going on tactically, I also feel like simple combats without much going on tactically are rarely worth having, so that's a pretty narrow usage case for me.
Even without funky terrain or any other tactical complications built into the encounter it's pretty common for player abilities to create scenarios you're likely to want a grid for - if a warlock casts Black Tentacles (and ignoring the persistent fact that the rule for what he can and can't hit with that is literally 'there is no rule, pick something') and starts using Repelling Blast to try and push enemies who leave the area back in you're either gonna need to start tracking movement distances and locations or the DM is gonna have to make a lot of pretty blatant judgment calls about whether the Warlock's spells should work or not. It's pretty easy for players who have chosen powers that depend on location and movement tracking (the described scenario, Knights, anybody with Polearm Mastery, anybody with forced movement abilities, etc) to feel like those choices are being invalidated if you're not doing any of the tracking for them and just deciding unilaterally whether their thing works or not.
If the combat is going to be filled with tons of finesse and abilitys (pole arm extention as an example), then I would easily say go ahead and use a grid. I am down for using grid mainly because I own one, but it doesnt mind to use theatre for certain things. Just last sunday we more or less used a mix of it. When our party was in a castle courtyard with a tower in the centre, we didnt draw it out on the grid or anything, but when it came to combat, we only used the grid to get a sense of where things were in relation to one another.
Oh, please. There's been plenty analysis and critiquing of 5e in here. But you so consistently respond to those topics with, "I think 13th Age handles it perfectly, in that system..." I legit went to check your profile to make sure you weren't shilling and actually had posts on other topics.
I'm not sure why that would be surprising, considering in the last few pages alone we've discussed how the DMG contains barely any advice on actually DMing the game. For a flasgship game it's stunningly shallow.
I use random encounters because my table likes traveling through the wilderness to feel dangerous. They are usually pretty tough fights though, and the entire table collaborates to come up with stuff like interesting terrain, etc though.
Oh, please. There's been plenty analysis and critiquing of 5e in here. But you so consistently respond to those topics with, "I think 13th Age handles it perfectly, in that system..." I legit went to check your profile to make sure you weren't shilling and actually had posts on other topics.
I'm not sure why that would be surprising, considering in the last few pages alone we've discussed how the DMG contains barely any advice on actually DMing the game. For a flasgship game it's stunningly shallow.
If you could add anything into the DMG, what would you add? I would say more for the social interaction aspect rather than more stuff for dungeons.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited March 2017
I think a great thing to have in a DM guide would be a fully walked through 2 level abbreviated adventure, say 3/4 main combats a level with pre-generated characters, but with a walk through on how to create them from the rules in the player handbook. walk through the encounters, discuss good examples of what to do when a PC goes off script, or wants to something unique, How to modify monsters, things like that. Have a boss battle and discuss and show how to use interesting terrain to challenge the players, and how to structure boss battles to be interesting, not just an HP sponge. Also have a couple social encounters, with examples of how all the characters can participate if they want, including the STR based characters.
Oh, please. There's been plenty analysis and critiquing of 5e in here. But you so consistently respond to those topics with, "I think 13th Age handles it perfectly, in that system..." I legit went to check your profile to make sure you weren't shilling and actually had posts on other topics.
I'm not sure why that would be surprising, considering in the last few pages alone we've discussed how the DMG contains barely any advice on actually DMing the game. For a flasgship game it's stunningly shallow.
If you could add anything into the DMG, what would you add? I would say more for the social interaction aspect rather than more stuff for dungeons.
Sure, some guidelines for social interaction would be a great thing to put in a DMG.
But the things I find most useful for people just starting out running games is what seems like common sense stuff:
Have 3-4 prepared combat encounters you can throw at the group if things to start to drag. (Unless your group is into talking and intrigue, in which case you'll want non-combat encounters prepared. The traveling merchant, the wandering monk, the cackling witch, the royal courier, etc.)
How to segue between scenes. I know this seems like it handles itself but honestly it's the biggest error new game runners tend to make. Jerky or jarring scene switches can really dampen enthusiasm and stretch suspension of disbelief.
Prepare a half dozen NPCs that fit common roles (guard, bartender, fence, wannabe adventurer, etc.) who have names, motivations, statistics, and can recur. Be prepared for your players to kill some. Recycle them if you can. (Honestly the DMG could just have a half dozen examples and that would do.)
The kinds of players; whether you believe there to be 7 or 8, laying out what they are and how you should interact with them would be excellent.
An explanation of what to do when a campaign falls off the rails; again, mishandling this is a common new game runner mistake.
My counterpoint there would basically be 'why are you having players just fight a couple orcs in an open field?'
Uninteresting combats, in my opinion, are mostly a waste of everyone's time. I tend to avoid using stuff like random encounter tables for this reason - if there's no reason for the fight, no greater consequences or implications other than 'try not to die', and nothing special about the terrain, circumstances, or tactical situation then all I'm really doing with a random encounter is making the table spend half an hour going through the motions of a foregone conclusion before they're allowed to continue with the interesting, consequential part of the game.
Basically almost any situation that falls beneath the threshold of 'this encounter is not interesting/important enough to justify a grid' is likely to also fall beneath my threshold of 'this encounter is not interesting/important enough to have'.
1 Resource attrition
2 the story necessitates the combat's occurance, as in something is happening and having combat is unavoidable.
Such as Nothics and Gauths are attacking the town, and your level 13 players need to clean them up real quick, because the characters know the big problem will be here before long, or they have some objective to reach within the city and there's no way to avoid nothics along the way.
They will be able to mop the floor Nothics and Gauths, they may spend some higher level slots, or baridic inspiration, or superiority dice, or rage and incur some fatigue, or use limited use items like potions or necklace of fireball usages to deal through that.
in that instance I want to do a lot of combats really quick, I want to build the effect and idea that no the whole city is under attack, you have to slog through this. If my players and I have hit our groove turns take about a minute each.
I describe the region and the general placement of the enemies, what options they have available in the space. For example if they can make it to some form of cover, or not. They may ask something such as hey "how many nothics can I get while still aiming for the gauth with lightning bolt?" I let them know that with their movement they can get 2 nothics and the Gauth.
Now you might say, but that's an arbitrary choice, and yeah it is a little bit, but if I really wanted to I could have designed the encounter space, and moved everything around for that result. I know my wizard's go to move is lightening bolt. I have full control over the design of the space, I have full control of enemy movement. We could have drawn out the entire space slowly stepped through setting that up, burned like half an hour or more on that 1 combat. Or I can quickly answer with what the end result of all that time would be and make the combat take maybe 5 to 15 minutes (depending on how distracted we get).
The big set piece later in the session gets a map because it's supposed to have some time to it.
I think that's an excellent example of when TotM is a good tool. As I'm reading that, it places the emphasis on suspense and speed, creating a good impression of the PCs rapidly cutting a path through a besieged city.
I am excited for running my campaign soon. My party is an interesting mix of character consisting of:
A half-drow (half elf with drow elf parent) wizard with an urchin background.
A lizardfolk barbarian with a folk hero background.
A lizardfolk druid who is an entertainer and is the Siamese twin brother of the barbarian (I decided to let them do that, but I am having it run way after they were seperated. I am in no way going to run this sort of thing. If I did allow that, I would toss so many things JUST to seperate them).
A Yuan-ti sorcerer with an entertainer background and;
A Kenku Rogue with an urchin background.
For me, the best GM books have agendas and principles that explain to the GM how they should be running the game. Beyond that, a plus is actual rules for GM prep for the game. Stuff like faction turns, threat maps, whatever works for that game.
Then advice and explanations about scene framing and transitioning from scene to scene. That was one of the hardest lessons for me to learn as a GM, and it pretty much had to be self taught. And it's the one that makes the pacing of your games so much better.
I can honestly say that I have not "read" a DMG since maybe 2nd edition. And that is not to say that I'm an uber DM. Absolutely not!
But I will say I learned more about DM'ing by reading modules in my youth...wrapping my head around the world I was playing in...and trial and error. So much error.
DMG's to me now are just reference books for when I need to look up something specific.
I am excited for running my campaign soon. My party is an interesting mix of character consisting of:
A half-drow (half elf with drow elf parent) wizard with an urchin background.
A lizardfolk barbarian with a folk hero background.
A lizardfolk druid who is an entertainer and is the Siamese twin brother of the barbarian (I decided to let them do that, but I am having it run way after they were seperated. I am in no way going to run this sort of thing. If I did allow that, I would toss so many things JUST to seperate them).
A Yuan-ti sorcerer with an entertainer background and;
A Kenku Rogue with an urchin background.
I am excited for running my campaign soon. My party is an interesting mix of character consisting of:
A half-drow (half elf with drow elf parent) wizard with an urchin background.
A lizardfolk barbarian with a folk hero background.
A lizardfolk druid who is an entertainer and is the Siamese twin brother of the barbarian (I decided to let them do that, but I am having it run way after they were seperated. I am in no way going to run this sort of thing. If I did allow that, I would toss so many things JUST to seperate them).
A Yuan-ti sorcerer with an entertainer background and;
A Kenku Rogue with an urchin background.
...this is gonna be so interesting to DM for...
So, like, it's an evils game right?
Would you want to play a boring old gnome if you could be a snake person instead?
I am excited for running my campaign soon. My party is an interesting mix of character consisting of:
A half-drow (half elf with drow elf parent) wizard with an urchin background.
A lizardfolk barbarian with a folk hero background.
A lizardfolk druid who is an entertainer and is the Siamese twin brother of the barbarian (I decided to let them do that, but I am having it run way after they were seperated. I am in no way going to run this sort of thing. If I did allow that, I would toss so many things JUST to seperate them).
A Yuan-ti sorcerer with an entertainer background and;
A Kenku Rogue with an urchin background.
...this is gonna be so interesting to DM for...
So, like, it's an evils game right?
Not even close!....well, I am at least praying they don't turn around and make it an evil campaign. If they do, I will be the one to throw THEM under the bus.
*reads thread and notes all the queries about party alignment and suspicion there of*
Further investigation required.
On a more serious note, I'd actually considered the possibility of the party being a band of circus entertainers :P
Must construct additional pylons.
But regarding the circus entertainer group, the problem then becomes that one party member wants to be that "charismatic troupe leader and handles all the talking" while everyone else is more or less cast aside. I have seen too much of that.
For our next campaign (the one that makes 5e versions of a bunch of old adventures) we are doing something similar.
Back in elemental evil campaign, our party wizard got one of the items from the elemental lieutenants that turned him evil. So our backstory is that he then went and collected a menagerie of monsters he experimented on, then disappeared. We are those monsters. the DM said we are only to use races and class options from Volos and Unearthed Arcana.
Oh, please. There's been plenty analysis and critiquing of 5e in here. But you so consistently respond to those topics with, "I think 13th Age handles it perfectly, in that system..." I legit went to check your profile to make sure you weren't shilling and actually had posts on other topics.
I'm not sure why that would be surprising, considering in the last few pages alone we've discussed how the DMG contains barely any advice on actually DMing the game. For a flasgship game it's stunningly shallow.
If you could add anything into the DMG, what would you add? I would say more for the social interaction aspect rather than more stuff for dungeons.
One thing I kind of wish 5e had done differently (I kinda opened your question up a bit, though, sorry) is better separation of 'RP' and numbers, particularly with regard to spells. A lot of people I talked to complained about 4e because they felt it made it into just a tactical game and removed any RP/story from it, but I actually really loved that about 4e. I always felt the books should exist for giving hard/fast numbers and specific rulings for combat, and let the DM and players determine if spell X can be used out of combat to do Y. When you try to make rules surrounding creativity, it kind of falls apart and gets messy, so don't try.
Let the players be as creative as you'd like outside of combat, but combat needs strong and clear rules.
That's what I wish 5e had done.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at how large the monster inside me has become. Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
*reads thread and notes all the queries about party alignment and suspicion there of*
Further investigation required.
On a more serious note, I'd actually considered the possibility of the party being a band of circus entertainers :P
Must construct additional pylons.
But regarding the circus entertainer group, the problem then becomes that one party member wants to be that "charismatic troupe leader and handles all the talking" while everyone else is more or less cast aside. I have seen too much of that.
Make that an NPC. Adventuring happens between cities and between shows, or at the behest of the Troup leader.
I'm pretty sure that only happens when the Gnome prestige classes into the Gnome MC, and then they get the ability to spit fire.
Completely different elements at play here.
I like to visit the D&D subreddit mostly to answer questions and help people out in the weekly question thread, but once in a while you just see a topic mixed in with all the character art and session stories and what not that just makes you do a double take.
Hilariously people were actually trying to answer helpfully, talking about how potions work instantly so you wouldn't gain any benefit from it getting into the bloodstream faster, or talking about whether magic potions really work by entering the bloodstream at all, etc. Made me laugh.
I guess potions are magic so technically you could pour them in any old hole and they'd work, on the assumption that they activate upon entering the body. Now, alchemical substances is where it gets interesting.
DM announced we'll be doing a one-off adventure with level 8 characters working as some sort of church special forces/ inquisition squad. Cue an ex- Chaotic Evil Conquest Paladin turned good Treachery Pally/ Lore Bard. He's trying for Lawful Good, but usually lands closer to NG or N in his attempts to be a better person. It also turned out that class combo as a variant human gets 9 skill proficiencies and expertise, so this will be special. Also meant I got to make a custum background aptly named Evil Overlord, based off the Noble.
I guess potions are magic so technically you could pour them in any old hole and they'd work, on the assumption that they activate upon entering the body. Now, alchemical substances is where it gets interesting.
DM announced we'll be doing a one-off adventure with level 8 characters working as some sort of church special forces/ inquisition squad. Cue an ex- Chaotic Evil Conquest Paladin turned good Treachery Pally/ Lore Bard. He's trying for Lawful Good, but usually lands closer to NG or N in his attempts to be a better person. It also turned out that class combo as a variant human gets 9 skill proficiencies and expertise, so this will be special. Also meant I got to make a custum background aptly named Evil Overlord, based off the Noble.
My wife is playing a Treachery Pally, and it's a really fun class. I don't know why, but weird paladin subclasses always intrigue me. I blame growing up with paladins being only one thing in basically every game I played and book I read.
Posts
I know. I'm not attacking the example.
My point is that while I get the idea of theater-of-the-mind being a timesaver for simple combats without much going on tactically, I also feel like simple combats without much going on tactically are rarely worth having, so that's a pretty narrow usage case for me.
Even without funky terrain or any other tactical complications built into the encounter it's pretty common for player abilities to create scenarios you're likely to want a grid for - if a warlock casts Black Tentacles (and ignoring the persistent fact that the rule for what he can and can't hit with that is literally 'there is no rule, pick something') and starts using Repelling Blast to try and push enemies who leave the area back in you're either gonna need to start tracking movement distances and locations or the DM is gonna have to make a lot of pretty blatant judgment calls about whether the Warlock's spells should work or not. It's pretty easy for players who have chosen powers that depend on location and movement tracking (the described scenario, Knights, anybody with Polearm Mastery, anybody with forced movement abilities, etc) to feel like those choices are being invalidated if you're not doing any of the tracking for them and just deciding unilaterally whether their thing works or not.
If the combat is going to be filled with tons of finesse and abilitys (pole arm extention as an example), then I would easily say go ahead and use a grid. I am down for using grid mainly because I own one, but it doesnt mind to use theatre for certain things. Just last sunday we more or less used a mix of it. When our party was in a castle courtyard with a tower in the centre, we didnt draw it out on the grid or anything, but when it came to combat, we only used the grid to get a sense of where things were in relation to one another.
If you could add anything into the DMG, what would you add? I would say more for the social interaction aspect rather than more stuff for dungeons.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
But the things I find most useful for people just starting out running games is what seems like common sense stuff:
Have 3-4 prepared combat encounters you can throw at the group if things to start to drag. (Unless your group is into talking and intrigue, in which case you'll want non-combat encounters prepared. The traveling merchant, the wandering monk, the cackling witch, the royal courier, etc.)
How to segue between scenes. I know this seems like it handles itself but honestly it's the biggest error new game runners tend to make. Jerky or jarring scene switches can really dampen enthusiasm and stretch suspension of disbelief.
Prepare a half dozen NPCs that fit common roles (guard, bartender, fence, wannabe adventurer, etc.) who have names, motivations, statistics, and can recur. Be prepared for your players to kill some. Recycle them if you can. (Honestly the DMG could just have a half dozen examples and that would do.)
The kinds of players; whether you believe there to be 7 or 8, laying out what they are and how you should interact with them would be excellent.
An explanation of what to do when a campaign falls off the rails; again, mishandling this is a common new game runner mistake.
1 Resource attrition
2 the story necessitates the combat's occurance, as in something is happening and having combat is unavoidable.
Such as Nothics and Gauths are attacking the town, and your level 13 players need to clean them up real quick, because the characters know the big problem will be here before long, or they have some objective to reach within the city and there's no way to avoid nothics along the way.
They will be able to mop the floor Nothics and Gauths, they may spend some higher level slots, or baridic inspiration, or superiority dice, or rage and incur some fatigue, or use limited use items like potions or necklace of fireball usages to deal through that.
in that instance I want to do a lot of combats really quick, I want to build the effect and idea that no the whole city is under attack, you have to slog through this. If my players and I have hit our groove turns take about a minute each.
I describe the region and the general placement of the enemies, what options they have available in the space. For example if they can make it to some form of cover, or not. They may ask something such as hey "how many nothics can I get while still aiming for the gauth with lightning bolt?" I let them know that with their movement they can get 2 nothics and the Gauth.
Now you might say, but that's an arbitrary choice, and yeah it is a little bit, but if I really wanted to I could have designed the encounter space, and moved everything around for that result. I know my wizard's go to move is lightening bolt. I have full control over the design of the space, I have full control of enemy movement. We could have drawn out the entire space slowly stepped through setting that up, burned like half an hour or more on that 1 combat. Or I can quickly answer with what the end result of all that time would be and make the combat take maybe 5 to 15 minutes (depending on how distracted we get).
The big set piece later in the session gets a map because it's supposed to have some time to it.
A half-drow (half elf with drow elf parent) wizard with an urchin background.
A lizardfolk barbarian with a folk hero background.
A lizardfolk druid who is an entertainer and is the Siamese twin brother of the barbarian (I decided to let them do that, but I am having it run way after they were seperated. I am in no way going to run this sort of thing. If I did allow that, I would toss so many things JUST to seperate them).
A Yuan-ti sorcerer with an entertainer background and;
A Kenku Rogue with an urchin background.
...this is gonna be so interesting to DM for...
Then advice and explanations about scene framing and transitioning from scene to scene. That was one of the hardest lessons for me to learn as a GM, and it pretty much had to be self taught. And it's the one that makes the pacing of your games so much better.
But I will say I learned more about DM'ing by reading modules in my youth...wrapping my head around the world I was playing in...and trial and error. So much error.
DMG's to me now are just reference books for when I need to look up something specific.
So, like, it's an evils game right?
Would you want to play a boring old gnome if you could be a snake person instead?
All gnomes are dope on the mic, so yes.
The full text of Robin's Laws.
Not even close!....well, I am at least praying they don't turn around and make it an evil campaign. If they do, I will be the one to throw THEM under the bus.
And that is NOT an evil party? Huh...
It's only a half drow.
Just saying...
Look there isn't anything in their nature that makes them evil killers. It's not biological. God haven't you ever watched Zootopia?
Further investigation required.
On a more serious note, I'd actually considered the possibility of the party being a band of circus entertainers :P
Hah!
What can I say? I'm prejudiced against man-eating reptiles with lots of giant teeth..
Must construct additional pylons.
But regarding the circus entertainer group, the problem then becomes that one party member wants to be that "charismatic troupe leader and handles all the talking" while everyone else is more or less cast aside. I have seen too much of that.
Back in elemental evil campaign, our party wizard got one of the items from the elemental lieutenants that turned him evil. So our backstory is that he then went and collected a menagerie of monsters he experimented on, then disappeared. We are those monsters. the DM said we are only to use races and class options from Volos and Unearthed Arcana.
Our party plan so far:
Hobgoblin Artificer Wizard
Kenku Monk ?
Yuan-Ti Pureblood Awakened Mystic (me)
Bugbear Primeval Guardian Ranger
Firbolg Druid ?
Warforged ?
One thing I kind of wish 5e had done differently (I kinda opened your question up a bit, though, sorry) is better separation of 'RP' and numbers, particularly with regard to spells. A lot of people I talked to complained about 4e because they felt it made it into just a tactical game and removed any RP/story from it, but I actually really loved that about 4e. I always felt the books should exist for giving hard/fast numbers and specific rulings for combat, and let the DM and players determine if spell X can be used out of combat to do Y. When you try to make rules surrounding creativity, it kind of falls apart and gets messy, so don't try.
Let the players be as creative as you'd like outside of combat, but combat needs strong and clear rules.
That's what I wish 5e had done.
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
Make that an NPC. Adventuring happens between cities and between shows, or at the behest of the Troup leader.
I'm pretty sure that only happens when the Gnome prestige classes into the Gnome MC, and then they get the ability to spit fire.
Completely different elements at play here.
Wouldn't they be more like those vibrating eggs?
Huh.
I thought they were slotless.
DM announced we'll be doing a one-off adventure with level 8 characters working as some sort of church special forces/ inquisition squad. Cue an ex- Chaotic Evil Conquest Paladin turned good Treachery Pally/ Lore Bard. He's trying for Lawful Good, but usually lands closer to NG or N in his attempts to be a better person. It also turned out that class combo as a variant human gets 9 skill proficiencies and expertise, so this will be special. Also meant I got to make a custum background aptly named Evil Overlord, based off the Noble.
My wife is playing a Treachery Pally, and it's a really fun class. I don't know why, but weird paladin subclasses always intrigue me. I blame growing up with paladins being only one thing in basically every game I played and book I read.