DM Style and the Importance of Balance

[Xetheral]

This thread resulted from an exchange between Eslin and me in the Belt of Giant Strength thread, where it occurred to me that profoundly different DMing styles might partially explain the wildly different importance posters ascribe to interparty balance concerns when evaluating the 5e ruleset. For any who are curious, the original exchange can be found in this spoiler:



The DM should not be creating challenges that let all characters shine, the DM should be creating a game world full of problems and letting the characters try to figure out solutions...


Wait, isn't the DM's ability to tailor challenges (and indeed, the entire campaign) to the players and their characters one of the key strengths of the tabletop RPG medium?

True, one doesn't want to be heavy-handed about it, because it isn't good for the players' sense of immersion if the world obviously revolves around them. But, in actually, the game itself does revolve around the players, and designing plots and encounters and challenges for the specific party at hand (including paying attention to time in the spotlight) is a very potent tool for making sure everyone has as much fun as possible.


What? No. The DM's ability to have the world react to players and give them the ability to do anything, as opposed to staying on the rails in a video game. Tailoring things to specific party member's strengths to make them feel like they aren't use-impaired for picking a ranger is going to break their immersion faster than the villain having a convenient underwater passage in his lair for Aquaman to feel like he contributes. I'm not going to pay attention to time in the spotlight - if someone has been consistently performing better then everyone else then the rest need to step up their game, 5e made everyone a lot closer in ability than 3.5 did.

The game world doesn't revolve around the players, merely specific goings on do. At any one point there will be many goings on, and unless the party is exceptionally mobile they're unlikely to participate in more than a small amount of the overall effort unless they're very high level or manage to be in the right place at the right time - which they sometimes do, what with it being their choice of where they go and what they do. Sometimes they get smart and save a kingdom that I was expecting to be overrun by the undead, sometimes they screw up and they all get killed by mind flayers who go on to steal town after town, the only way the world is tailored to them is I make sure I create a story that can be participated in.



What? No. The DM's ability to have the world react to players and give them the ability to do anything, as opposed to staying on the rails in a video game... I'm not going to pay attention to time in the spotlight - if someone has been consistently performing better then everyone else then the rest need to step up their game, 5e made everyone a lot closer in ability than 3.5 did.Fascinating. We have a fundamentally different approach to DMing, and it goes a long way towards explaining our differences in opinion on balance matters. If the DM isn't working to ensure that everyone gets a chance in the spotlight, then of course class balance becomes a much greater concern. Whereas from my perspective, I only need the classes to be close enough that the players don't notice my deliberate effort to let everyone shine. Very, very interesting, and possibly worth discussing in its own thread.


...Tailoring things to specific party member's strengths to make them feel like they aren't use-impaired for picking a ranger is going to break their immersion faster than the villain having a convenient underwater passage in his lair for Aquaman to feel like he contributes...
Only if you're observed doing so in a heavy-handed fashion (such as the Aquaman example). Little things are almost impossible for the players to spot, but go a long way towards compensating for individual character's strengths and weaknesses. For example: selecting number of encounters per day, choosing the prevalence of enemy flight capability, slightly changing the ratio of enemy AC to HP, fiddling with knowledge skill DCs, or picking enemies who are more or less likely to use poisons or traps are all almost invisible, but each has a considerable effect on the players' sense of their characters' utility.

I feel I have a deeper insight into where you're coming from now. It had never even occurred to me that some DMs wouldn't tailor the challenges to the characters. I'm very curious how much this difference in style underlies some of the other recurring debates that crop up.


Happy to create a thread discussing it, DMing styles are always an interesting discussion and they have the upside of no-one ever really being wrong, but your examples are all things I definitely wouldn't do. I'm running a game where they're level four, and they're approaching a spot with a manticore at present. The party has no flight and very limited ranged capability (only a warlock who didn't take agonising blast, he wanted other things instead and is waiting 'til 5), but I'm not going to change how I set things up just because they oriented their party a certain way - they'll need to figure out a way to deal with it when the comparative capabilities means it has the upper hand, and whichever player figures out how will be the one in the spotlight.

Similarly, the players have almost no AoE capabilities except for the druid using spike growth, but I attacked them with an army anyway last session. Their setup (druid, monk, warlock, paladin) means they can tear through brutes but have trouble with large groups, and the amount of brutes and large groups is going to remain consistent (being hunted through a jungle by an army of humans) regardless, and they'd be well advised to either get more AoE abilities or try to pick off single foes.

I'm curious to learn people's opinions on three points:

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

To me it makes a great deal of intuitive sense that a DM who would answer 'No' to questions 1 and 2 would be far more concerned with the level of mechanical balance, spotlight-hogging, and role-replacing potential of the various classes than would a DM who would answer 'Yes' to those questions. And unless someone can find evidence or make an extremely persuasive argument as to Question 3, I would argue that we should assume both approaches are supported by the system. If so, it might make future balance discussions more productive if they're held in the context of a particular DMing style.

[pwykersotz]

1) Not generally. I design an adventure for a level range. Obstacles are all based in what makes sense based on who was involved, what their resources were, etc. It's entirely possible that the party would come up against a powerful trap without a Rogue. That said, I make sure that everything has a solution other than one that depends on party composition or lucky rolls. Usually this is a more difficult method, but it is possible.

2) Usually this is unnecessary. My players are excellent at balancing their own spotlight time. If one player looks bored I'll usually subtly emphasize their role, but I don't actually need to change anything in general. That said, this harkens back to point one. I usually design without the party in mind, and so the possible goals are many and varied. If a party member isn't shining, it's usually because he is purposefully declining a certain opportunity.

One thing I do focus on is the characters themselves. I try to zero in on who they are and what they want. So it's not focusing so much on their classes, but how they think of themselves and what they want to do. I had one player who really wanted to build an airship once, so I made sure that the adventure path supported it. It was still up to him to pursue it.

3) I believe that the writers of 5e did their best to address some common concerns without sacrificing what they believed to be key elements of their system. I do not believe they designed with the levels of optimization that GiantITP frequently sees in mind. I think that they enjoy players being able to do high optimization in theory, but their focus went toward having a solid baseline from which people could play. As such, I believe that anything which dramatically breaks the norm should probably be curtailed as opposed to raising the bar for everything else.

[Jlooney]

Elsin and myself have had our disagreements but I really side with him on this one. Equal spotlight isn't important to me because fight club. You choose your own level of involvement. If you're a fighter don't be mad there are flying monsters when you as a party decide to go to the Flying Fortress.

On the same note If a party all decided to be a themed group ( I've had a party of pure wizards with diff school specialities just so they could in game argue with why a school can solve a problem better even though they can all solve it ) u wouldn't punish them with the game being about a counter measure entirely.

So basically I support the "I create the world and challenges and I'm not going to railroad you. Here is what's going on. Do you want to participate? Ok you don't like that then help me help you and give me some ideas of stuff your characters want because I required you to have goals dreams and fears like a real person."

[JFahy]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?
No. Unless the party fights an organization multiple times and leaves witnesses, or get spied on/scryed, there's no justification for it. It happens sometimes just by chance that a fight aligns with a weakness/strength of the party, and that I don't mind - the occasional rout, in either direction, keeps people from getting complacent.



Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

I try. I'm not great at it, but my group includes a spotlight hog so if I don't try to give the others some time, they'll hardly get any.

For this, I would point out that not everybody wants spotlight. Give them opportunities on a regular basis, but some players will show up for years on end, play second fiddle, pass up various opportunities to do other stuff, and at the end say it was a great campaign. All you can do is keep the opportunities coming (in various forms, in case your first try just sucked), and hope that they're genuinely happy instead of pathologically polite.



Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

The game designers would have to either homogenize the classes, or know a fair bit of detail about your players and campaign, to 'balance the classes'. If you anticipate balance problems in a campaign, or if you have players who are afraid their genitals will shrivel up and fall off if they aren't #1 on the damage meter, you as the DM need to be engaged during the character creation process and have players who are willing to cooperate. If you don't have that, good luck with your game - it sounds to me like you have serious problems ahead but I hope it somehow works out for you. :smalleek:

[Baptor]

1. Yes, but occasionally I like to throw a wrench into the cogs. For example, I had one party that was all melee based. They were so focused on this they didn't even bother to buy ranged weapons. I let it go for awhile, but eventually I hit them with some harpies just to challenge them. Even though they were far higher level than said harpies, they actually had to flee the battle due to their poor planning. Needless to say they bought bows and crossbows later that day. That is a rare occurrence, however, usually I tailor the game to the players. If they bring along no rogues, then there are less traps and the traps that exist have other means to overcome them. Funnily enough, the players rarely catch on to this one.

2. Yes. Usually the players notice this one, and appreciate it. They way this kind of thing typically plays out looks like this:
- The party must defeat a bbeg.
- The bbeg is too powerful to directly confront.
- A series of steps/quests must be undertaken to prepare for the final battle.
- Each step/quest highlights one of the character's shticks.
- By the end, each player can say he was indispensable to foiling said bbeg.

3. Not really. Personally I think the devs did this with 4e, but the vocal community railed against it, and presto we have 5e. 5e is much better about it than previous editions like 2e or 3e, but it still wasn't their main goal methinks. As a DM, I have to work hard to keep the delicate balance and interplay going, the game doesn't do it for me. Any DM who runs 5e and pays no attention to this will see the scales tip heavily to one player or another.

In conclusion, I agree with your basic premise. I think DM's who build adventures blind to their party's makeup are setting the stage for certain characters to steal the spotlight because the game isn't as balanced as, say, 4e was with its roles, skill challenges, and so forth.

Edit: This all being said, some things, like a Belt of Giant Strength, can so skew the game that the DM's balancing act becomes quite hard.

[Gwendol]

I don't pretend to know how my players will react to the world I make around them. Sometimes things go the way I planned, but usually not. They keep me on my toes and I try to get by through using level appropriate encounters. Depending on the group I then turn up or tone down the difficulty.

Yes, I do try to fit in more tailored challenges from time to time. I try not making those obvious.

The classes are fine, but D&D is a game where magic-users eventually will grow to beings with powers that rival the gods. It's just one of those things to accept.

[Jakinbandw]

1&2) Of course. I don't mess around too much with things once I have them set up, but I tend to look at characters before a game and try to balance everything out so that each will be able to contribute somewhat. Sometimes it's ties to the story, other times it things they excel at. To me, my job as a GM is to try to give the players situations where they can have fun. I can't imagine making an adventure that considers the players as unimportant.

I'm actually kinda surprised to see so many people who don't care what characters go in to an adventure at all. If I was in such a campaign I'd probably stop worrying about roleplaying so much and focus on getting as strong as possible using as much cheese as possible because I wouldn't want to fail at rescuing the npc's in the game.

I think this is something that needs to be talked over between each group. I'm glad you brought it up.

Donno about question 3.

[Pex]

It's the DM's gameworld, but it's everyone's game.

A player has his own obligations of creating a character that fits the theme, so no Pirate Ninja Assassin or Animating Undead Skeleton Minion Necromancer no matter how optimal when the campaign is supposed to be The Humble Good Guys of Do Good. The character cannot be a Spawn of Pun Pun nor Useless McIncompetent who won an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony.

The DM is not writing a novel for the players to witness. The gameworld actually does revolve around the party because with no party there is no game. The DM provides challenges for the party to overcome. It's ok for once in a while a party being out of its element to be the challenge. The Witch player in my game who likes to use the Deep Slumber Hex was quite annoyed when the party had to face elves. He got to enjoy using other tactics for a change of pace. He would be justifiably p'd off if every foe was an elf, undead, elemental or construct for several adventures in a row no matter how logical I as the DM think it would fit in the game world.

If the warrior player likes to trip and disarm, it's ok for once in a while the party faces some combination of large flying four-legged creatures with natural attacks. If every foe is like that the DM is being totally unfair even if the party is in the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures. No monster exists in the game world without the DM's permission. It is irrelevant how many large flying four-legged creatures with natural attacks exist in every monster manual ever published or will be published. The party will not face one unless the DM decides to put one in the game world.

This is not to say there should never be anything the party can't handle. Such a thing is gameworld flavor text, perhaps something to be overcome at a later level when the party can handle it. If the party absolutely needs to enter the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures, it would behoove the trip and disarm warrior player to prepare for the adventure and have other tactics to use. The DM should not stand in his way of doing that. The party will eventually leave that Land, and the warrior can trip and disarm to his heart's content in later adventures. If the entire campaign is really supposed to be about the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures, then it is the DM's job and responsibility to tell the warrior player his warrior shouldn't focus on tripping and disarming at character creation. It is a Jerk thing to do to let the player create his tripping and disarming warrior but then feel useless about it because "Tough, it's my world, the party is just in it and have to deal with it."

[Baptor]

It's the DM's gameworld, but it's everyone's game.

A player has his own obligations of creating a character that fits the theme, so no Pirate Ninja Assassin or Animating Undead Skeleton Minion Necromancer no matter how optimal when the campaign is supposed to be The Humble Good Guys of Do Good. The character cannot be a Spawn of Pun Pun nor Useless McIncompetent who won an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony.

The DM is not writing a novel for the players to witness. The gameworld actually does revolve around the party because with no party there is no game. The DM provides challenges for the party to overcome. It's ok for once in a while a party being out of its element to be the challenge. The Witch player in my game who likes to use the Deep Slumber Hex was quite annoyed when the party had to face elves. He got to enjoy using other tactics for a change of pace. He would be justifiably p'd off if every foe was an elf, undead, elemental or construct for several adventures in a row no matter how logical I as the DM think it would fit in the game world.

If the warrior player likes to trip and disarm, it's ok for once in a while the party faces some combination of large flying four-legged creatures with natural attacks. If every foe is like that the DM is being totally unfair even if the party is in the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures. No monster exists in the game world without the DM's permission. It is irrelevant how many large flying four-legged creatures with natural attacks exist in every monster manual ever published or will be published. The party will not face one unless the DM decides to put one in the game world.

This is not to say there should never be anything the party can't handle. Such a thing is gameworld flavor text, perhaps something to be overcome at a later level when the party can handle it. If the party absolutely needs to enter the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures, it would behoove the trip and disarm warrior player to prepare for the adventure and have other tactics to use. The DM should not stand in his way of doing that. The party will eventually leave that Land, and the warrior can trip and disarm to his heart's content in later adventures. If the entire campaign is really supposed to be about the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures, then it is the DM's job and responsibility to tell the warrior player his warrior shouldn't focus on tripping and disarming at character creation. It is a Jerk thing to do to let the player create his tripping and disarming warrior but then feel useless about it because "Tough, it's my world, the party is just in it and have to deal with it."

I like this response, count this as my response.

[Jakinbandw]

And if you did so using "cheese" I would ask you to stop or to leave the campaign.

I have no objection to players with weak or powerful characters (I have a player who took perfectly-balanced stats for his PC, all 12s and 13s, and that's fine by me) but "cheese" is defined primarily by its obnoxiousness in the metagame and not by its power level. Warlock invocation cheese[1], for example, is not overpowered compared to other options but is still obnoxiously cheesey in its willful and self-interested misinterpretation of the rules--it's an offense against the other game players (including the DM), not against the game world.

I have no objection to someone wanting to be as strong and effective as possible, because there are real-life people who train very hard to be effective in dangerous situations... but for some reason, not all players are interested in that kind of thing. Some people are less interested in DPR and more interested in beating goblins to death using unconscious wolves and then attempting to domesticate the wolf as a pet afterward.

[1] E.g. level 2 warlock claiming he can take level 12 invocations by virtue of having 10 levels in fighter beforehand.

I was talking more about if this was 3.5 taking things that are completely rules legal on my cleric, such as Divine Metamagic paired with Irresistible Spell. Costs a single feat, and means that as a cleric I can use 4 uses of turn undead to remove saves from any spell I cast making it auto-hit. Completely rules legal, and not based on bad reading of the rules. That's all I meant when I said cheese. Maybe I should have been more clear.

[Seerus]

Interesting thread considering what I am planning right now.

I'm used to playing in Living Campaigns and thus, premade adventures. They can be fun and easy to play and prepare, but I always felt they lacked a personal touch and that they are always built on the assumption of a standard party build. I know I had one player constantly ticked off because many adventures in the campaign ended with "and everyone gets a weapon of their choice" but there was no monk equivalent so he kept getting things of no use to him.

For my first venture into 5th edition, I am starting a personal campaign. My plan is to have everyone build whatever character they want and create a background for that character full of goals and enemies. I will then take their backstory, goals, and enemies and use them to create my campaign around the characters. I'm hoping for the first adventure to even involve one party member going after a low level goal of theirs that they would seek out a team of adventurers to help them with.

I can see the merit in both sides, but I personally am on the side of giving the players freedom and fun. Of course, you have to punish a party occasionally if there is something they should have but don't. Just don't go overboard.

The way I see it, you play to have fun, so the DM's job is to create fun for the players. Yes, the DM should have fun too, but if the DM's idea of fun does not match the players', then the DM should do what the players want, not force the players into what they want.

[JAL_1138]

snip


I like this response, count this as my response.

Seconded. It's a balancing act.

[Jlooney]

I can see what you guys are saying but my reasoning is slightly different. I am the DM because if I don't rhen there is no group. I hate dming. I am more of a problem solver not a problem creator. I haven't had the chance to be a pic in 6 years. I'm honestly tired of catering to people who refuse to let me have fun.

[pwykersotz]

I can see what you guys are saying but my reasoning is slightly different. I am the DM because if I don't rhen there is no group. I hate dming. I am more of a problem solver not a problem creator. I haven't had the chance to be a pic in 6 years. I'm honestly tired of catering to people who refuse to let me have fun.

Too bad your across the US. I'd invite you to my table.

[silveralen]

1.) To a degree. I typically have a handful of "planned" solutions to the problem. These are ways I anticipate the party might overcome an obstacle. If I can't think of any solution for them at all... then no. Doing so would make me as bad a DM as if I tossed all CR 20 encounters at lvl 1 PCs.

Of course over half the time they have an idea I didn't, sometimes dramatically worse and less feasible than the obvious solution that I thought they'd use, so I might be overly cautious in this regard, but it seems like basic DM design work. I don't toss ancient dragons at lvl 3 parties and expect them to find a way to win, and I don't arbitrarily toss obstacles into their path without thought to their chance of success.

2.) I tailor the game to player enjoyment. If one player is clearly not having fun, I am going to work towards having him enjoy the next leg. That's what the DM does.

3.) Yes, I think they assumed DMs who want to have an enjoyable campaign for the whole table. I think that is pretty reasonable myself.

[Eslin]

I can see what you guys are saying but my reasoning is slightly different. I am the DM because if I don't rhen there is no group. I hate dming. I am more of a problem solver not a problem creator. I haven't had the chance to be a pic in 6 years. I'm honestly tired of catering to people who refuse to let me have fun.

Seconded. I don't exactly hate DMing like Jlooney does, but it's more a case of forcing myself to enjoy it and find ways in which it can be fun, I'd much prefer to be able to play.

That said, I have found ways to make things more enjoyable for myself. Rules arbitration isn't hard, I memorise the rulebooks anyway, but it's not fun. My favourite trick is making NPCs a fair bit weaker than the party and trying to beat them in a fight like I would if I were playing - making two level five characters and sending them against a party of level eight PCs, for instance, and genuinely trying to kill them. It never really works because I always make those types of characters weak enough that the best they can do is get very close to winning, but trying to win a fight stacked against you is my favourite type of challenge anyway.

I also amuse myself by optimising NPCs - character creation's very enjoyable, and this way I get to create hundreds. Many never see use, since I place them in certain roles and areas and the PCs aren't guaranteed to actually go there, but creating them is fun and it adds to the verisimilitude when there are unique NPCs with interesting setups everywhere they go and every town with a different culture has a different type of guard.


It's the DM's gameworld, but it's everyone's game.

A player has his own obligations of creating a character that fits the theme, so no Pirate Ninja Assassin or Animating Undead Skeleton Minion Necromancer no matter how optimal when the campaign is supposed to be The Humble Good Guys of Do Good. The character cannot be a Spawn of Pun Pun nor Useless McIncompetent who won an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony.

The DM is not writing a novel for the players to witness. The gameworld actually does revolve around the party because with no party there is no game. The DM provides challenges for the party to overcome. It's ok for once in a while a party being out of its element to be the challenge. The Witch player in my game who likes to use the Deep Slumber Hex was quite annoyed when the party had to face elves. He got to enjoy using other tactics for a change of pace. He would be justifiably p'd off if every foe was an elf, undead, elemental or construct for several adventures in a row no matter how logical I as the DM think it would fit in the game world.

If the warrior player likes to trip and disarm, it's ok for once in a while the party faces some combination of large flying four-legged creatures with natural attacks. If every foe is like that the DM is being totally unfair even if the party is in the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures. No monster exists in the game world without the DM's permission. It is irrelevant how many large flying four-legged creatures with natural attacks exist in every monster manual ever published or will be published. The party will not face one unless the DM decides to put one in the game world.

This is not to say there should never be anything the party can't handle. Such a thing is gameworld flavor text, perhaps something to be overcome at a later level when the party can handle it. If the party absolutely needs to enter the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures, it would behoove the trip and disarm warrior player to prepare for the adventure and have other tactics to use. The DM should not stand in his way of doing that. The party will eventually leave that Land, and the warrior can trip and disarm to his heart's content in later adventures. If the entire campaign is really supposed to be about the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures, then it is the DM's job and responsibility to tell the warrior player his warrior shouldn't focus on tripping and disarming at character creation. It is a Jerk thing to do to let the player create his tripping and disarming warrior but then feel useless about it because "Tough, it's my world, the party is just in it and have to deal with it."
Definitely not how I'd do things. I let my players know what to expect in a given world, and if you tell them it's happening in the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures and someone creates a tripping fighter anyway, that's their own fault.

It's the gameworld revolving around the party that I most disagree with. The gameworld doesn't revolve around the party unless they force it to, they're four to six people in a large world and the hardest part of DMing is making it seem like a living, breathing world - if you revolve it around the players, that perception will be broken immediately. Things happen, but in the end the players create their own story with their actions and are aware that the world doesn't treat them as anything special unless they manage to make it do so - if one of them dies there won't be a cleric who can bring them back in the church in the next town over unless I'd already put one there. I don't exactly provide challenges for the party to overcome - I provide characters, locations and events, and the players choose how to react to what happens (and pretty quickly start trying to act rather than react). Given the nature of the game, that often results in fighting, but for the most part there's no such thing as an NPC that I'm certain the players will respond to a certain way - it's why DMPCs seem like such a weird idea, the only out of game information about character creation the players get is they have to have a reason to work together, past that point the game's running and what they do is their choice.

[Pex]

Definitely not how I'd do things. I let my players know what to expect in a given world, and if you tell them it's happening in the Land of Large Flying Four-Legged Creatures and someone creates a tripping fighter anyway, that's their own fault.



Yes, as DM you tell the player before the game starts a tripping disarming warrior just will not work. The player should not make such a character in an analogous reason of not playing a Pirate Ninja Assassin for a Humble Good Guys of Do Good campaign. We are in agreement here. What should not happen is the player makes his tripping and disarming warrior and then once play begins learns it's all about the Land of Large Four-Legged Flying creatures and the DM (not you specifically :smallsmile:) tells him too bad the world just is, deal with it.

[Eslin]

Yes, as DM you tell the player before the game starts a tripping disarming warrior just will not work. The player should not make such a character in an analogous reason of not playing a Pirate Ninja Assassin for a Humble Good Guys of Do Good campaign. We are in agreement here. What should not happen is the player makes his tripping and disarming warrior and then once play begins learns it's all about the Land of Large Four-Legged Flying creatures and the DM (not you specifically :smallsmile:) tells him too bad the world just is, deal with it.

Except I didn't say once play begins, I said I'd tell them about the game before they made characters. If they then make a character that doesn't work, that's kind of their own fault.

[Jlooney]

Too bad your across the US. I'd invite you to my table.

Thanks that actually means a lot to me. I'm always the one having to beg people to play and teach them. I'm never asked to join. It would be refreshing to get invited to be a pc.

[Tzi]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Actually, one of my weakest points as a DM is combat encounters. Personally I design the quest and the monsters often without even considering the party or its players at all. I only do so in revision or during my prep up before game. I start thinking about who likes to charge and who likes to do this or that. Either to make it more difficult or to make it more theatrical of an encounter.

Sometimes I wing it on the fly and just change things up depending on the players tastes. So the players are fighting Aliens that summon demons..... and my paladin is sworn against the undead. Well now theres a faction planet side that serves the aliens as undead and demon possessed corpses. Bada boom bada bing.


Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

No, mostly because that never goes as planned. Some players are really energetic one day and then the next session they are kinda less active. Sometimes we've had rough days, outside stuff has drained them but we continue on. For me its a battle just to make sure combat junkies get what they need. My horribleness with combat or lack of confidence forces me to work hard on it. So I give the player a rifle and march him with an army and have informal rules for masses fighting an ancient great wyrm dragon while another player builds a school house in the village and takes care of the woman his paladin impregnated.


Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

Kind of. As my friend put it, "5e seems like they took 3.5e or pathfinder and than homebrewed the **** out of it." To an extent it relatively seamlessly IMHO fixes some of these problems. Combat is MUCH easier to run for me and the mechanical backstories kind of help characters remember that they aren't just swords and boards slashing there way to loot.

[JAL_1138]

I don't see Eslin's and Pex's positions being that far apart, just leaning slightly to one side or the other. "It's everyone's game" includes the DM in "everyone"--but doesn't mean to spoonfeed the characters either or build every encounter completely around their exact abilities and level. I do think some adjustments need to be done on the DM's part, but at the same time, if nobody's got darkvision and you don't take torches with you to go to the catacombs of the abandoned temple, I'm not leaving a stack of sun rods on the front door.

Edit: example adjustment, if the characters who depend on short rests are getting shafted consistently over several sessions, I might ease up on the random encounter rolls, or if nobody in the party has a way to fast travel, the eclipse for the grand ritual they'll need to interrupt might turn out to be in a month instead of tomorrow as originally planned but not yet known to them...or I might let them fail, especially if they passed on a chance to learn a spell that would help or buy a mount while knowing they were on a deadline; it depends on how it's played out thus far. But at the same time, I'm not going to leave the aboleth out of the underground lake just because they've stumbled onto it while underleveled if I had already put it there. I might give them more clues to its presence before they get there if they're headed in its direction so as not to spring a TPK on them with no warning at all--or I might not, depending on the players--but if I do and they ignore those, it's on them.

[Knaight]

I'm curious to learn people's opinions on three points:

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

To me it makes a great deal of intuitive sense that a DM who would answer 'No' to questions 1 and 2 would be far more concerned with the level of mechanical balance, spotlight-hogging, and role-replacing potential of the various classes than would a DM who would answer 'Yes' to those questions. And unless someone can find evidence or make an extremely persuasive argument as to Question 3, I would argue that we should assume both approaches are supported by the system. If so, it might make future balance discussions more productive if they're held in the context of a particular DMing style.

1. Minimally. For the most part I don't, but there are a few obvious exceptions. One of these is if an NPC is trying to get someone to do something. If the PCs tend to be very effective at being violent and leave swaths of destruction everywhere, nobody is going to be attempting to bring them in on espionage unless they want them to fail or the PCs somehow have a reputation that has been heavily distorted somehow. If the PCs actually are able to be subtle and aren't necessarily extremely capable combatants, they're generally more likely to have people trying to involve them in investigative work. Another example is things like assassinations or other direct actions against the PCs. If a PC is seen as an unruly pest, someone might try to get rid of them via cheap and not particularly powerful means. If they're seen as a very real threat that is hard to get rid of, the high resource attempts start coming out.

Plus, even on the encounter level there's a pretty good chance that the PCs picked the fight in the first place. There's no need to tailor it if they're the ones picking the fights. At the adventure level, I generally GM in a fashion that leads to very player led campaigns, though I don't just react to things.

2. I do generally attempt some level of spotlight balance. If a player favors being on the periphery, I'm not going to try and push them off it, but otherwise it is a metagame concern that gets incorporated to some degree. There's a lot of latitude as for how setting elements react to PC actions, and there's a wide range of viable entries in my GM-Setting roster that can be introduced when introduction is appropriate. Which of these sees use is partially based on directing things to achieve spotlight balance.

Note that spotlight balance and mechanical balance are very different things. They converge a bit in D&D in particular (combat heavy games tend to do that, and that's what D&D is made for), but even there there can be cases where a character would tend to get more spotlight time because of their ineptitude than because of competence, which is still spotlight time and still often enjoyed by players.

3. There's the legacy of previous D&D editions. The 3.5 DMG II had a paragraph endorsing short story arcs because it made it easier to railroad as a DM, that sort of attitude could easily still be around, and at least suggests that tailoring to compensate for lack of player input could be a thing. There's the entire concept of CR appropriate encounters, encounter frequency, etc. that also suggests that tailoring was expected.

[Beleriphon]

Except I didn't say once play begins, I said I'd tell them about the game before they made characters. If they then make a character that doesn't work, that's kind of their own fault.

The difference is that a good many DMS don't do that. They don't set expectations, and then just let the players screw themselves because the character is totally ineffective. That's just a jerk move.

[Eslin]

The difference is that a good many DMS don't do that. They don't set expectations, and then just let the players screw themselves because the character is totally ineffective. That's just a jerk move.

Well that'd be kind of pointless.

[JAL_1138]

The difference is that a good many DMS don't do that. They don't set expectations, and then just let the players screw themselves because the character is totally ineffective. That's just a jerk move.

Does happen quite a bit. It can also get frustrating as a player when you're not falling behind anyone else, but where you still don't get to use an entire side of the build or playstyle--I've been on the receiving end of that--hence why I see it as a little bit of a balancing act. As in, the DM probably shouldn't fast-forward through all the wilderness travel after approving a woodsy ranger in a setting that has a lot of it. I also tend to wing it more than I think Eslin does, so I'm more likely to DM myself into a corner and have to tweak things on the fly to keep things fun.*

*Per the "Fun" heading on page 85 of the DMG, "frayed rope bridges and pools of green slime" and "whirling blade traps" are officially fun

[Eslin]

Does happen quite a bit. It can also get frustrating as a player when you're not falling behind anyone else, but where you still don't get to use an entire side of the build or playstyle--I've been on the receiving end of that--hence why I see it as a little bit of a balancing act. As in, the DM probably shouldn't fast-forward through all the wilderness travel after approving a woodsy ranger in a setting that has a lot of it. I also tend to wing it more than I think Eslin does, so I'm more likely to DM myself into a corner and have to tweak things on the fly to keep things fun.*

*Per the "Fun" heading on page 85 of the DMG, "frayed rope bridges and pools of green slime" and "whirling blade traps" are officially fun

I wing what's happening - I can't create every moving detail in the world, I'll dot the place with specific NPCs but for the most part I don't know the barman's name or stats until players go to that bar, the only things that don't tend to be created on an as-need basis are events on a macro scale. I just create the area the players are in in my head as they go, branch out a few kilometres mentally placing buildings, npcs and environmental features. For the most part whether a certain thing - criminal contact, priest who can raise dead, apothecary, peddler exists in a certain place is based on a dice roll.

[JAL_1138]

I wing what's happening - I can't create every moving detail in the world, I'll dot the place with specific NPCs but for the most part I don't know the barman's name or stats until players go to that bar, the only things that don't tend to be created on an as-need basis are events on a macro scale. I just create the area the players are in in my head as they go, branch out a few kilometres mentally placing buildings, npcs and environmental features. For the most part whether a certain thing - criminal contact, priest who can raise dead, apothecary, peddler exists in a certain place is based on a dice roll.

Good way to do it. Keeps things interesting--they can't count on what they'll find and have to do some exploring, and still keeps the prepwork from driving you bonkers in the fiddly details.

[Palegreenpants]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party?
Nope. Not even a little. There may be an opportune method of fighting a monster, but I never tailor encounters to player strength, unless it is to exploit their weaknesses. :]

Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight?
Nope. If a player wants spotlight time, they take it themselves.

Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?
Honestly, I think the 5e devs had sandboxing and realism in mind when they made this edition. So, I think they left balance fairly much up to the DM.

[Beleriphon]

Well that'd be kind of pointless.

Some people think that's the fun part. Those people are also jerks.

[silveralen]

So am I the only one who typically gets player feedback when I start out designing an adventure?

I rarely go "we are doing X, so be aware" but check with them and get ideas and things they might like. Not saying it all gets in there, but a fair amount does.

Then again I enjoy DMing more than a lot of people in this thread do I think.

[mr_odd]

Thanks that actually means a lot to me. I'm always the one having to beg people to play and teach them. I'm never asked to join. It would be refreshing to get invited to be a pc.

I can kind of relate. We actually have a group of 12-15 players. All semester I've been the only DM, running two groups. The first half of the semester, I had to cut down to only one group since I'm on a collegiate soccer team. I was under the impression one of the other members of the group would DM for the players who weren't currently playing, but that did not happen.

Long story short, I broke my finger and then season ended, so I had time to DM more, so I started running two groups. One problem is that despite having so many people who want to play, it can be difficult to get people to actually want to play. Another problem as of recently is that I've been getting rather frustrated by players complaining/not appreciating the work it takes to DM, especially when I'm juggling two groups, school, church, and a girlfriend.

Luckily next semester two of my friends are taking up dm-ing, so we can split the large player base into three adequately sized groups and I have a chance to DM and play. I actually love dm-ing (if I had to choose one to do forever and never the other, I would choose to DM), but it can be a lot of work, and when felt unappreciated, it can be immensely frustrating.

[Pex]

Except I didn't say once play begins, I said I'd tell them about the game before they made characters. If they then make a character that doesn't work, that's kind of their own fault.

I didn't say you did. I'm reemphasizing that a DM should tell the player beforehand not to make the useless character in the first place.

[mr_odd]

Or let him make a new character later.

Just look at the XP chart. You could start out 5 levels behind the other guys and you'd still catch up pretty quickly.

Also, character trees rock.

What are these character trees you speak of?

[pwykersotz]

So am I the only one who typically gets player feedback when I start out designing an adventure?

I rarely go "we are doing X, so be aware" but check with them and get ideas and things they might like. Not saying it all gets in there, but a fair amount does.

Then again I enjoy DMing more than a lot of people in this thread do I think.

Well, yeah, player feedback is important. I usually gather feedback during a campaign and then make the next campaign with that feedback in mind.

And I love GM'ing. Okay, that's partially untrue. I love making adventures and I love that my friends seem to enjoy them enough to come back week after week for 5 years now. But I always wish I could play in one of my own adventures. Fortunately my friends will rotate in enough that I get SOME playtime.

[JAL_1138]

What are these character trees you speak of?

It was a thing from Dark Sun in 2e because of how frequently you died. Dark Sun being more lethal than most settings, and 2e wizards already needing to be deathly afraid of housecats and farm animals at low level in the vanilla version. You kept some spare characters and leveled them up as your current one advanced.

[mr_odd]

It was a thing from Dark Sun in 2e because of how frequently you died. Dark Sun being more lethal than most settings, and 2e wizards already needing to be deathly afraid of housecats and farm animals at low level in the vanilla version. You kept some spare characters and leveled them up as your current one advanced.

I need to read up more on dark sun, I think it might help with the particular vibe I want for next semester.

[bulbaquil]

1. Yes, blatantly, and if immersion suffers then so be it. No rogue in the party? Then there are no traps in the dungeon, or they're easier to disable, or a recruitable NPC rogue is around. No cleric in the party? Then back-to-back-to-back encounters will be reduced, or a curative wand dropped in the loot that otherwise wouldn't have been.

2. To a certain extent. It's a delicate balance to keep, though.

3. I think they made it such that it feels like 3.5e/Pathfinder with some of the more egregious imbalances and abuses corrected.

[azoetia]

1: No. If it's my own homebrew world it will be a sandbox with all levels and natures of encounters within, and the players will have to use their smarts to know when to run away or use outside-the-box thinking to handle a situation for which they are not equipped. If it's an adventure module intended for more characters than we have, then everyone has to just be creative, which is never a problem. I used to dial back the difficulty of encounters until I realized that I didn't have to.

2: Never. Most of the times that my players shine have to do with their decisions, not their stats or abilities. To some degree this is because they avoid direct combat as much as possible, preferring to sneak, ambush, schmooze, or MacGyver their way through almost every situation. When they do get into legitimate combat they fight dirty, focusing on cheap shots and using their environment to get the upper hand. A lot of their actions are not directly addressed by the rules, so even if I wanted to I couldn't really make encounters based on what's on their character sheets, beyond "this person hits things hard, this one has spells, this one is sneaky..." And they frequently even use those basic qualities in ways I didn't foresee. Though even if it were possible to plan for a shared spotlight I still wouldn't do it, as not everyone equates "spotlight" with "fun."

Recently a player at my table DMed a one-off game in a world in which my wizard's magic severely physically hurt him to use and the cleric's magic simply didn't work at all. We didn't know what we were in for until after rolling up our characters. It was great, gonzo fun, and we were all sad that it was over so quickly. The cleric and I were heavily involved in all of the action despite being deprived of our mechanical strengths. Running a 20-level campaign like that would probably get stale, but we could have happily gone for a few months with it.

3: I think the designers of 5th edition were well aware at the wide variety of different DM styles that are applied to D&D and did their best to build a system that would make all of them feasible. So I think they assumed nothing but prepared for as much as they could.


To me it makes a great deal of intuitive sense that a DM who would answer 'No' to questions 1 and 2 would be far more concerned with the level of mechanical balance, spotlight-hogging, and role-replacing potential of the various classes than would a DM who would answer 'Yes' to those questions.

I answer "no" to questions 1 and 2, but have absolutely zero interest in balance, spotlight issues, or role replacing potential. Balance is something I consider to be a noble goal, but utterly irrelevant at my table.

[JFahy]

So am I the only one who typically gets player feedback when I start out designing an adventure?

I rarely go "we are doing X, so be aware" but check with them and get ideas and things they might like. Not saying it all gets in there, but a fair amount does.

Then again I enjoy DMing more than a lot of people in this thread do I think.

My ideal situation would have me and a few other prospective DMs pitching ideas we have ready,
we talk about the various aspects of campaign flavor, the group picks one and then we talk our
way through character creation.

My current campaign started with a couple players grabbing my PH, rolling up characters and
then staring expectantly at me, so none of that happened. :smallsigh:

[Kane0]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?


To an extent. If the party is predominantly one type of character type (sneaky, casters, warriors, etc) i will ensure that the mojority of encounters are suitable or that type. If the party is balanced, the encounters are more diverse.
For example if my party is stealth focused I will provide more skirmish, assassination, traps or other shifty options over the course of encounters. There will still be a fair share of dumb brutes and paranoid casters to throw a spanner in the works though.
I find that it helps to have a reason to do this though. Thief types fighting thief types makes more sense in the context of a gang war or assassination attempts than random encounters. If you have a strong campaign plot or character drives and a willingness to tweak numbers or ad-hoc events then focus on little details becomes that little bit less important.
Some of the most fun things that parties i've been in have come across are things set in the gameworld that the DM has trusted us to come up with a solution to, not something he has sat down and thought about in terms of balancing against our party personally (though this might be because our party composition changes often).



Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?


Again, to an extent. If i notice that one or more players aren't getting any time to be awesome I will provide them some plot hooks and other opportunities, and not worry about doing the same to those already going well. I will of course reward good playing but I like to make sure everyone is having fun and feeling like a credit to team.
I will always make this visible, talking to a player OOC that might be having trouble standing up to everyone elses example. Conversely, if someone is stepping on others' shoes too much I'll pull them up on it. Its a group game, sharing and compromise are a big part of that, as is communication. In game I try to make fewer, smaller adjustments but enjoy providing a chance for everyone to tell their story and show off the character they have developed. It feels good to have your effort recognised.



Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?


When it comes to designing a tabletop game one has to take into account a great many variables, not even including those that the consumers are given the power to change upon release. You would have to think of wargaming types that require mechanical balance in order to enjoy themselves, as well as freeform roleplay types who could care less about numbers. D&D is a system that tries to take on as many different gamer types as possible, and thus needs to be flexible to accomodate all the playstyles out there.
I know that sounds like a bit of a cop-out, but what i'm trying to say is mechanical balance is important, but look at 4e. By allowing the players of the game options from day 1 they ensure that the balance enthusiasts can tweak to their hearts content with no guilt and the ones that just want a fun roleplaying experience can take the books and get started right off the bat. They intentionally compromised so that everyone can play. Those that want to spend time making minute balance tweaks are free to and often encouraged to do so, and as always the aim of the game is an enjoyable experience.

[Ramshack]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Yes absolutely. I will not include invisible monsters if no one can cast see invisibility etc. Traps will be much less relevant without a rogue. While I still include some traps they will be more puzzles than disable devices etc. I feel the encounters you create for your party should be designed to be able to be dealt with by the tools of the party. Now sometimes you can create clues as to what the party will need and let them buy supplies if they don't naturally possess class skills but creating an adventure that can't be dealt with disrupts gameplay and ultimately is leading the group to fail.



Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

This depends on the adventure and is not a part of the regular thought process in my campaigns. While I do consider the tools of the entire party when creating the world, puzzles, dungeons etc I don't try to balance in in terms of "time in light" sometimes they'll have their moment and sometimes they wont.

Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

I think 5e was designed with a simple Mantra. DM's choice. I feel that most of the decisions were made with the caveat that the DM can pick and choose what they want in their campaigns and how they work. My friend and I regularly DM campaigns with the same group of players. My friend prefers very high powered, high magic feel to his games, he wants characters to be awesome, strong and in return he throws crazy encounters at us. He is very much about the battle grid and combat.

While I like a more toned down and grittier game. I like several moderate challenges used to leach resources from the party until the big conclusion at the end. I like my magic rare so that getting something magical really feels special.

These two styles shine through in the way we interpret rules, items, spells and even though I may play a character in his campaign, the same character may not work in my campaign.

[PracticalM]

Question 1: When designing adventures or when pick which adventures I might drop into my world, I definitely think about how the players might be able to overcome the challenge. I attempt to build a consistent world and the players and their foe's actions so that when the players attempt a solution I have already thought of how the foes for the session will react to it. I've added a new player recently who is much better at coming up with tactics that I did not predict so it's been more fun coming up with enemy reactions on the fly.

I mostly try to pick challenges that the players could face if they use their abilities wisely or creatively. I also try to work with the players on world building so if they need something to be in their environment, it's usually there unless they are asking for something unlikely.

I draw the line at helping them figure out the solution. The party can easily get in over their head if they are not careful. Fortunately they have some good ways to let them retreat and regroup. Naturally their enemies learn from what the party tried to do.

Question 2: I certainly pick foes for the party that players could use to highlight their abilities. Right now the Ranger is using Spike Growth a lot when there are choke points to help control the battlefield. Today the druid brought out Sleet Storm and 3 enemies eventually slipped and fell off the environment. I play with a lot of new players so I try to help them explore what their characters can do besides just attack.

Basically I see my job as world builder to help them learn to use their abilities in clever ways to defeat their enemies. Some times they don't do so well but lately they have been improving their teamwork. It's good to see.

But I don't force my players to follow any one adventure, but I let their actions create game world consequences. Have they been carrying around an evil sword they've been meaning to destroy? Well eventually people who want that sword tried to ambush them and another group tried a political approach to get the sword away from them. This made them decide to actually destroy the sword instead of having to face more danger.

The party also has had a terrible time catching and killing the main boss of the schemes they defeat. Occasionally these guys make an appearance to get revenge.

Question 3: I think 5th edition was designed without the requirement for DMs to carefully balance their encounters and adventures. I think it is just good Gamemastering to help players have fun. Players having fun makes it fun for me to game master. This is why try to make sure players have the potential to take the spotlight. It is frustrating when I set them up to take the spot light and they do not. I have a lot of younger players so I keep trying to teach them how to help each other shine.

[Knaight]

So am I the only one who typically gets player feedback when I start out designing an adventure?

No. I generally don't design adventures per se - as I said earlier, my games tend to be pretty player directed. With that said, my standard method of starting a new campaign involves the group hashing out what genre and what system is being played. If it's already at the point where D&D 5e is in use then it's down to fantasy sub-genre and more specific setting elements. After that point, the characters chosen indicate fairly well where in the world they should be placed to start with.

This doesn't require tailoring encounters though. Once the game is set up, subsequent tailoring is restricted to selecting between equally viable elements of the setting roster, and that's done largely from a spotlight balance, narrative interest, etc. perspective and not an encounter balance perspective.

[Celcey]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

To an extent, yes. In my limited experience, I've so far had the players design their characters before I designed the world (it helped that I didn't have my DMG until last week). My first three players in a game were all dex-based and very sneaky, so I decided that it would be a very low magic, high magic item intrigue style world. One the other hand, two players joined after I had created the world, and one of them is a paladin. He's not going to be able to use his magic until much later because of how low magic the world is. Before the paladin joined, however, their first quest would have been to retrieve rings of healing, because they had no way of healing themselves.

In the other game I'm running, until a ranger joined, I was going to DMPC a baby dragon to give them some brute strength, since their party was made up of two druids, a bard, and rouge. I'm still going to play the baby dragon, because they decided to keep it, but it probably won't be so involved in battle anymore.

Actual encounters, I taylor less so, but to a degree, I still will. For my party that's made up of almost all magic users, I'm not going to just throw something that's immune to magic at them without a lot of careful planning on my part. For my party with no magic, I'm not going to throw some monster that's immune to all non-magical damage at them (unless they have the items to deal with it, which they very well may, considering how high in magic items the game is). And even if I planned for a certain area of the world to have an ancient blue dragon in it, in my group of level 4 characters stumble upon it's lair, the dragon is not home. (That, or I move its lair 30 miles west.)

Another example: The paladin's lay on hands can only do so much. I may not be giving them rings of healing anymore, but I'm probably not going to throw a million encounters at the no-magic party. If they have a big encounter in the morning, they may have one small encounter at the end of the day, but that'd be it.

Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Again, to an extent, absolutely. In combat, I won't throw something the part can't handle at them (a la non-magical resistance against a non-magical party), but I don't primarily design the combat with the players specific abilities in mind. I might do so on occasion, but not usually.

Outside of combat, however, is a different story. Non-combat encounters will definitely vary based on player strengths, but how useful they are in combat will make no difference in that. For example, in my low magic party, one of the characters' background is a charlatan. Therefore tricking and deceiving people will definitely be a thing that will come up often.

In the other party, I have one player who's pretty shy. Even though the group is made out of people she's comfortable talking with, she probably won't speak up too much, even if she has something to say. I'm definitely going to nudge her into speaking and participating, so she can have the best experience possible. If she didn't want to participate in the roleplaying for whatever reason, that would be different. But I definitely try and let each and every player shine.

Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

Absolutely not. I think the designers were 100% trying to make a game that you could play with any style and anyone, no matter who your DM is.

[mr_odd]

I feel that it must be noted in regard to question two that often the dice have a funny way of letting different characters shine. Often times, I don't need to actively build situations/encounters for one particular character because the dice make characters do awesome stuff on their own.

[Xetheral]

I'm finding the diversity of the replies to be quite enlightening--thanks to everyone for taking the time to answer in depth. So far the replies to questions 1 and 2 completely run the gamut from "always yes" to "always no", with plenty of people in the middle. Question 3 people have interpreted slightly differently from each other, which makes comparisons hard, but so far I've seen no suggestions that the game mechanics fall apart either way.

I find particularly fascinating the hint that DMing style (as it relates to the questions in my OP) might correlate with how much one enjoys DMing as opposed to playing a PC. Obviously, small amounts of anecdotal evidence aren't enough to even suggest an actual correlation, but it's still intriguing.

[azoetia]

I find particularly fascinating the hint that DMing style (as it relates to the questions in my OP) might correlate with how much one enjoys DMing as opposed to playing a PC. Obviously, small amounts of anecdotal evidence aren't enough to even suggest an actual correlation, but it's still intriguing.

That would be a very interesting topic to address directly in a separate thread. I'd love to see how that went. Obviously there are other factors that go into DMing style besides how much one enjoys it, but it would still be cool to see the responses.

[LuthielValkire]

So am I the only one who typically gets player feedback when I start out designing an adventure?

I rarely go "we are doing X, so be aware" but check with them and get ideas and things they might like. Not saying it all gets in there, but a fair amount does.

Then again I enjoy DMing more than a lot of people in this thread do I think.

Usually what I do is design a situation and a general conflict. I'll tell the players the basic gist and setting, providing details for character creation aids.

For example -- you'll be starting in the Outland city of Quarth near the Safaran Waste. Something fell blazing from the sky into the waste near the only trade road leading through it just a fortnight ago. Since that time, no-one has been able to make the passage through the waste. Caravans and scouts have been lost and the failure of trade threatens to strangle Quarth as the dry season approaches. As supplies grow short, crime, civil unrest and conflict break out in the city. To make matters worse, strange bandits have begun raiding Quarth's outliers...

At this point, I'd give characters some of the backgrounds I want for the game -- one character whose fortune is under threat by the current situation, one character of noble lineage who has had a family member go missing on the road, one character attempting to profit from the chaos in the streets, one character who saw the thing fall from the sky but is now rendered mute from fear. I would also give class preferences. For example -- one fighter, barbarian, or paladin; one wizard or sorcerer; one cleric or Druid; and one rogue or ranger.

As I design the campaign I will provide hooks, challenges, and character development options for each. I will design encounters accordingly. I'll also write out a few expansions so other players may join in later. My view is that boundaries help to focus a campaign, make it more fun, and makes sure players aren't left out.

Character involvement is important. Once I give the basic outline, what the players return with in the way of character design and back story feeds the final product. Each following session grows based on character action, failure to act, and decisions. Success, failure, character development, individual and group goals all feed into story arc progression.

Due to this focus, I like to limit my groups to 4-5 players. The more energetic and engaged the players, the better things work out -- so I'm always taking feedback. Story is most important, but I do like throwing very challenging situations and generally enjoy it when I pull off something unexpected...

[VincentTakeda]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?
Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?
Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

1: Adamantly. A good campaign session should include
'something that demands the characters at their best, so as to show they made good decisions with their build.'
'things that each individual party member are incapable of handling alone', so as to reinforce the importance of having allies.
having those things, by definition, is tailoring the encounters to the party.
How transparent is it? I actually spell it out directly to my players... It gives them an opportunity to step away from minmaxing if they know I'm capable of tailor making the challenge such that it isnt a bad decision if they all wanted to play barbarians or all wanted to play rogues or all wanted to play wizards...
The game is at its most fun when you know you're free to play what you actually want to play instead of 'building to an imagined or narrow/tightly controlled powerband'... IMHO.

2: see question 1. Its very important for me that each character gets a chance to prove that the thing they want to do is awesome and necessary. Doesnt always work out, but its imperative to constantly strive for. Thats maybe not tacitly the same thing as 'equal time'... I dont think the 'time' is necessarily the important element. Its the presentation of their character build choices as not just relevant but very important each and every session.

None of this is to say that I won't throw stuff at the party that the whole party can't handle... A party full of backstabbin rogues can almost guarantee they will have an encounter with oozes and gelatinous cubes... They will instantly recognize that moment as the 'vulnerable part of their build' moment. They will also be able to expect many more moments where playing a band of backstabbin thieves is an amazingly effective and good solution to the problem they face.

The better you are at this the more agency your players can have in character design and the more versatility your campaigns will have. Using palladiums rifts as an example, a gm thats good at building the events around the party can have a great campaign in the exact same setting no matter if he's got a party full of vagabonds or a party full of mutant godlings. The only trouble is that sometimes you have a group where someone wants to play a vagabond AND someone wants to play a godling... the narrower a party's powerband can be, the better. Takes a lot of work and a lot of good players to make a wide party powerband game satisfying for everyone. This may be what you're referencing with how 5e has been developed. Building narrow powerbands makes for an easier game to manage for the gm and to enjoy as a player.

3. If there's anything I've learned about gaming in 30 years, its 'just because your stuff is published doesnt mean you're a good game designer' and 'considering yourself a game designer in no way reflects your actual skills at it'. Thus I don't have a reason to expect anything in particular from any given game designer. Even with big established game companies, you cant even rationally expect 'they tried their best' except possibly under the context umbrella of 'tried their best given the time constraints of their release schedule' which can be both fantastically specific and fantastically arbitrary.

[Blacky the Blackball]

I tend to tailor the adventures towards the characters within reason, but not to the point where it's obvious and unrealistic.

However, it's nothing to do with balance.

Something that seems to be largely missing in this thread is player preference. People have been talking about DMing for a melee fighter in the land of flying creatures and so forth as if the problem is primarily one of party balance. But it isn't. The player who has created a melee fighter has done so because fighting in melee is what they want their character to do.

So, as a DM, if a player has created a melee fighter and enjoys fighting in melee I'll tailor things to make sure there are plenty of melee fights to be had. This isn't anything to do with how powerful or balanced the fighter is compared to the other PCs; and it isn't anything to do with sharing spotlight time. It's because I want my players to have fun, and the player who decided to play a melee fighter is - by playing that sort of character - informing me that melee fights are what they find fun.

Similarly, in my 5e game one of the players is playing a combat-light fey chain pact warlock. He likes nothing better than to have his invisible flying familiar scout the area and give an overhead view on combat and the like. Is this overpowered in some situations? Is his character underpowered in situations where his familiar is of no use? Who cares! He's playing that character because he wants to have fun with an invisible scouting familiar, so I tailor the adventures/encounters so that he can have that fun.

[MunkeeGamer]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

I can honestly say that in ~14 years of DMing I've only given this special assistance to new players. But for new players, I also help them craft characters and the whole party to show what balance looks like and what advantages balance brings. In this way, I don't feel obligated to custom tailor anything. If the party leaves a role out or everyone focuses damage, it's no surprise when they get stuck/killed/sent to the shadow realm for eternity. But my players are usually prepared enough to avoid this completely.

That said, you could say I DO custom tailor things in a way because I consistently throw a mix of everything at them. This all inclusive style is pretty visible. It's intended to keep things from getting stale and everyone pretty much enjoys it.


Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

People's personal definition of spotlight tend to be different. To some, it's when they had the biggest crit. To some, it's highest average DPR. To one of my guys, it's to intentionally underdog and come out of nowhere with something amazing. To another, it's RPing as someone too cool to be interested and occasionally helping. It's too hard for me to define "spotlight" objectively to answer properly. I let everyone have a turn and equal opportunity to talk and take action. The spotlight really goes to whomever wants it.


Question 3[/B]: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

I think the 5e designers took on the difficult challange of trying to be somewhat simulationist and gamist at the same time. They truly reached out in an attempt to appeal to as many players as possible. I think they were incredibly successful in this endeavor.

The only D&Der-type I've seen be left out by this edition is players who like to try to fight with the DM and use the books as backup to validate their disruptive behavior. This edition explicitly says and frequently implies (depending on the how the DM wants to approach this rule--). And I don't mind that player type being left out of consideration. They usually cause group collapse so I say good riddance.

The negative flip side is that people who play with strangers at events might feel wishy washy on quite a few house ruled items. But I just don't think the majority of D&Ds player base uses the game in this way. So it seems like the lesser of two evils.

[AmbientRaven]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

I don't. I create the campaign setting well before i have players there, along with about 8 levels of content. When i need to generate more, I don't take into account player classes.


Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Yes and no. As mentioned i don't tailor encounters to a party, but i do tailor weekly missions to styles of play. Some weeks there is no fighting ad it's all RP/Knowledge. Some weeks it's all about the typical dungeon dive, other weeks its about the stealth ect.
Every party member so far has enjoyed this as each week a different person gets to shine, and they feel it is all balanced (party is Rogue, Ranger, Warlock whom is the face/bad at combat and a Cleric)


Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?


I don't think so. Each class can shine in or out of combat, it is all on the player

[JoeJ]

1) Definitely. The world might not revolve around the PCs but the story certainly does, and the characters the players create is a good indication of the kinds of stories they want to play out. It shouldn't usually be very visible to the players because there's no "normal" baseline of number/types of encounters that adventurers have in my world to compare their experiences against.

2) I'll make a little effort to keep the spotlight balanced, but usually I don't need to put a lot of work into it. I've found that most players are pretty good at finding ways to use their character's strengths. When I DM, the first session is devoted to creating characters, so right from the beginning they can work out among themselves who will be good at what, and how much they want their characters' abilities to overlap.

3) I think the designers were trying to accommodate a wide range of play styles. (I've just started reading the DMG, though, so that opinion is subject to revision based on what all is in there.)

[themaque]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

To me it makes a great deal of intuitive sense that a DM who would answer 'No' to questions 1 and 2 would be far more concerned with the level of mechanical balance, spotlight-hogging, and role-replacing potential of the various classes than would a DM who would answer 'Yes' to those questions. And unless someone can find evidence or make an extremely persuasive argument as to Question 3, I would argue that we should assume both approaches are supported by the system. If so, it might make future balance discussions more productive if they're held in the context of a particular DMing style.

1) Yes and No. I will have a rough idea what I want to do ahead of time, and plan things out. But If I have to keep the party in mind as well. Why throw in a monster immune to non-magic weapons if the party has no magic weapons? If I want to just scare them away, then I know to set it up that way. It is interesting to see people work around problems, but no fun for anyone if i'm just making life impossible. If I'm doing my job right, It won't be obvious at all and they will just feel the victory. I can't say it's worked every time, but I think I've come out ahead far more than I've let them see behind the curtain.

2) Mostly No, but sometimes I make exceptions. It helps to try and bring some people out of their shells. Not everyone is an A type personality or feels comfortable putting themselves out there. a little limelight now and again might encourage them to do a little more themselves. It takes a light hand, but YES, I think that almost everyone does it a little bit. Either for or against your players as a couple posters here have already mentioned. Sometimes both.

3) Isn't there a big section in the DMG about just this sort of thing? Balancing adventures, bringing players out of their shells, tailoring campaigns? I think they made the game with this in mind, but made a game that can work without it.



I find it interesting that Eslin say's he really didn't want to GM but has found ways to make it interesting for him. One of his posts read very old school, where the GM was almost antagonistic towards the players. But if everyone is having fun, he's running HIS game just the way he should.

[Rowan Wolf]

Elsin and myself have had our disagreements but I really side with him on this one. Equal spotlight isn't important to me because fight club. You choose your own level of involvement. If you're a fighter don't be mad there are flying monsters when you as a party decide to go to the Flying Fortress. =

Did the party really decide to go to the flying fortress or is that the adventure/location the DM is wanting to run? That in itself matter, and the players probably deserve a campaign booklet before they generate characters to prevent a clash of play-style/focus.

[AstralFire]

I prefer tailoring the rules to make it easy for people to shine when they put the effort in and want to do so. I have yet to DM 5E, but I feel like I won't need to put in much effort to have this accomplished with this edition. That said, if I feel someone is particularly lagging or pulling far ahead, I will resort to either OoC solutions (having a talk with my players) or IC solutions (enemy has been studying you and knows how to deal with the encounter-winning dude but isn't as prepared for the guy that usually isn't the star) depending on which feels like it causes the least fuss.

[Freelance GM]

I'm curious to learn people's opinions on three points:

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?


First, for all our disagreements in my thread, Elsin's games actually sound like they'd be a blast to play in. I'm one of those freaks who enjoys DM'ing better than playing, and I'd love to be able to give my players a living world as detailed as Elsin's makes his sound.

As for the questions:

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party?
I discovered very early in my DM'ing "career" that players will find a solution. So, I create my encounters and adventures based on the stories I want to tell, and the scenarios I believe would be fun. I don't tailor them to the PC's abilities, but I plan multiple solutions that cater to a variety of styles. Some paths are harder than others, but if one route through the adventure is closed to them because they don't have a particular skill, there is another (more difficult) way for them to succeed.

Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight?
Not exactly. I make sure my adventures use as many skills as possible- since I'm typically running for groups of 6 or more, chances are someone in the party has the skill the party needs. In combat, encounters use a mix of powerful enemies and swarms. Players have to work together to win. For example, in one particularly memorable fight at Level 7, the party's Druid bottlenecked the invading Lizardfolk and Kobolds with AOE magic. The Monk, Cleric, Fighter, and Barbarian escorted civilians to safety and dealt with the attackers who escaped the Druid's bottleneck, and the Rogue, Ranger and Sorcerer tried to hold off the Adult Black Dragon commanding the invading force.
Everyone had a job to do, and felt relevant to the battle, but no-one hogged the spotlight.

Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?
I believe they expected DM's to tailor games to their player's skills- making every player feel relevant is important in order for those players to have fun. However, too much tailoring breaks immersion, as Elsin pointed out. However, tailoring the game to class features isn't the only options have at their disposal- an adventure can also be tailored to a character's Background, since everyone has one now. Even if their mechanical abilities may not be relevant to the current encounters, their character and the character's past may still be.

[Malifice]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Mostly yes. I make a point of throwing in encounters that let certain classes shine, and also throwing in certain enounters to take advantage of the parties weaknesses as well.

As invisible as it can be. There is always a level of suspension of belief in DnD (why doesnt one encounter Pit Fiends and Dragons until higher level, and where do all those goblins and kobolds go exactly once you get there?).


Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Almost always yes. If not I generally try and ensure a mcguffin to account for the lack of a particular skill set in the party. For example in a planar adventure in a party without a primary caster, ill generally try and include an NPC or a Portal that the party stumble on to make the adventure possible.

Sometimes its the location of that portal or NPC capable of casting the spell that forms part of the adventure though.


Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

To me it makes a great deal of intuitive sense that a DM who would answer 'No' to questions 1 and 2 would be far more concerned with the level of mechanical balance, spotlight-hogging, and role-replacing potential of the various classes than would a DM who would answer 'Yes' to those questions. And unless someone can find evidence or make an extremely persuasive argument as to Question 3, I would argue that we should assume both approaches are supported by the system. If so, it might make future balance discussions more productive if they're held in the context of a particular DMing style.

Its really the pacing of rests in 5th that requires the most DM artistry. Not all the classes recover resources equally on rests (Fighters, Monks, Warlocks favor short rests heavily, Wizards, Clerics, Paladins, Sorcerers and Druids favor long rests). Getting your rest intervals right is key to the right balance in 5th edition, and it can be a juggling act till you find the 'sweet spot'.

[Demonic Spoon]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?


Nope. I won't shy away from using traps because no one has good Perception, and I won't shy away from using curses if no one has access to Remove Curse. Though, I wont design traps that can instakill someone if they fail their check (though I wouldn't do that anyway) and I would make some story-based option for removing the curse available.

I think that letting different characters shine means not treating them with kid gloves and letting them feel their strengths and their weaknesses. This gives them an opportunity to be innovative in overcoming their weaknesses.


Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?


Character balance is quite important, but I'd try to help the player, not change the game to tailor it to them. I'd be more likely to drop some cool magic loot to bolster someone who was having a hard time, or make some OOC suggestions to that player.


Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

To me it makes a great deal of intuitive sense that a DM who would answer 'No' to questions 1 and 2 would be far more concerned with the level of mechanical balance, spotlight-hogging, and role-replacing potential of the various classes than would a DM who would answer 'Yes' to those questions. And unless someone can find evidence or make an extremely persuasive argument as to Question 3, I would argue that we should assume both approaches are supported by the system. If so, it might make future balance discussions more productive if they're held in the context of a particular DMing style.


I doubt the designers are assuming anything like this one way or the other - they were quite plainly concerned with niche protection and mechanical balance, however. I don't think D&D only supports one.

If you can run a game successfully with the answers being "No", then your game won't break just because the DM tailors the challenges a little bit. The ideal state for both types of play is that each character is roughly as useful as every other character.

[Louro]

1) Normally no. Most of the times I don't even ask what feats or spells do they pick when level up. This bring some surprises to the table.
Of course there will be also evil strategists who will try to gather Intel about the players to exploit their weakness, there will be also encounters mean to be avoided, easy ones...
I plan most of them around what would be "expected". The kobold nest won't have magical traps but the ogree fortress may have.

2) Yes and No. I won't tailor battle encounters to make everyone feel usefull, cause I focus much more on the RP usefulness, trying to give everyone a relevant point on the story.

EDIT: oh yes, I agree with whoever said that the art of mastering is heavily tied with the rest management in this edition.

[Tyndmyr]

Question 1: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to the strengths and weaknesses of your party? For example, does the prevalence in your game of flying monsters, traps, sequential encounters, or poisons depend on the ability of the party to deal with such threats? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Oh, god no. If all of you skipped trapchecking skills, the world isn't going to magically be free of traps. You best get creative to figure out how to overcome them.

This is extremely visible. I use no DM screen, I don't fudge rolls, I often run the same adventure numerous times for different chars, so people can compare runs(which can create a fun shared experience as they swap tales of how they handled things differently).


Question 2: As a DM, do you tailor your encounters and adventures to try to ensure that every character in the party has roughly equal time in the spotlight? For example, will you emphasize the importance of the knowledge skills and other out-of-combat abilities possessed by characters who find themselves overshadowed in combat, while tailoring fights to the strengths of those characters who have less out-of-combat utility? If so, how visible is this process to your players?

Not specifically. I will, however, include a very wide variety of challenges regardless. Variety is the spice of life, and an adventure that only repeats one thing can become tedious instead of enjoyable. I'll also use various stylistic DMing tricks to attempt to pull in all players. Someone just sorta watching instead of participating can happen for other reasons than class balance, and I want all participants to feel engaged in the session regardless. Or at least, have the opportunities to feel engaged. If they choose to be more passive, that's fine.


Question 3: Is there any reason to believe that the designers of 5e assumed particular answers to questions 1 and 2 when balancing the 5e classes?

Probably not. Speaking bluntly, I don't believe they tested/planned that much, and never took such questions into consideration. 5e is a fine system, but there are *many* elements that speak to a lack of polish and deeper systemic understanding.



Also...

3) I believe that the writers of 5e did their best to address some common concerns without sacrificing what they believed to be key elements of their system. I do not believe they designed with the levels of optimization that GiantITP frequently sees in mind. I think that they enjoy players being able to do high optimization in theory, but their focus went toward having a solid baseline from which people could play. As such, I believe that anything which dramatically breaks the norm should probably be curtailed as opposed to raising the bar for everything else.

They *definitely* did not take that into consideration, lol.

[Xetheral]

I often run the same adventure numerous times for different chars, so people can compare runs(which can create a fun shared experience as they swap tales of how they handled things differently).


Fascinating. :) I never could do that... I don't keep good enough notes.

[themaque]

Here is an example of me helping out my players, although this happened in a Deadlands game.

I knew that the party was going to be fighting Prairie Ticks. (Ticks the size of gophers) and they like to jump down your gullet. If they do, the only thing to do is swallow some Castor Oil to make them come out.

I know my party, and they don't have anything like that. Maybe they could jury rig something, but I'm not sure it would come in time. So I laid the groundwork for them to have the stuff on hand.

There was a Shaman who's spirit animal was the Turtle. While the gunfighter was shopping in the general store, I listed some general products they had for sale. White Hill Salt, Pappy O'Daniel's Flour, Beeswax Soap, and Happy Turtle Castor Oil. The player who was the shaman overheard this and bought some himself.

During the fight, The Mad Scientist made a lore roll to try and figure out a way to save the gunfighter from the tick he had swallowed. He got the idea to make the gunfighter drink something to flush out the vermin.

How well did this work? The player who was the Gunfighter was pretty new to the game, so he was happy we had purchased it. It seemed like divine favor and they felt clever for having it on hand in the party. The player who was the shaman is an old hand at gaming, and was quick to assume I had put it there as a safety net. But the Gunfighter player is also more narrative driven while the Shaman tends to see things more as a "Game". Strategy and how to win kind of player.

Was I to lenient? I roughed up the party and scared them pretty good. They where nervous about encountering that monster again. But I didn't l punish them for not having something they couldn't have possibly known they needed. I have no qualms about killing players, but I don't want this to become a Sierra Adventure game either. If I was the kind of GM to plan ahead a little more than I normally allocate time for, I would have included the Castor oil weeks in advance.

Players need to come up with their own solutions, but I know my players as well. I should be challenging not just trying to kill them.

[JoeJ]

It seems to me that not designing opponents around the PCs works best for a mostly sandbox game because having the entire world seemingly tailored to one group of adventurers strains suspension of disbelief. A DM that is more active in creating specific "missions" to send the party on needs to give more thought to what the party is really capable of. To pick an example from a slightly different genre, you wouldn't throw an invasion from Apocalypse at Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, and you wouldn't have the Justice League taking on a corrupt but mundane police lieutenant. Neither scenario would be the least bit interesting.

[Louro]

you wouldn't have the Justice League taking on a corrupt but mundane police lieutenant.

That's the adventure bro!
After 4 neutralized mutant terrorist cells, you realise they must have some sort of help from the police, so you need to find out who is the corrupt policeman who is passing them intel. And suddenly all your super incredible speed, fire farts, ludricous strength and batarangs are absolutely worthless.

Challenge their minds, not their stats.

[JoeJ]

That's the adventure bro!
After 4 neutralized mutant terrorist cells, you realise they must have some sort of help from the police, so you need to find out who is the corrupt policeman who is passing them intel. And suddenly all your super incredible speed, fire farts, ludricous strength and batarangs are absolutely worthless.

Challenge their minds, not their stats.

For the team that includes the world's greatest detective?

Batman: "I've got this. The rest of you can go on back to headquarters. I'll be there in about three minutes."

[Louro]

Wow, I wasn't aware that batman could cast greater communion in just 3 minutes.

[Justin Sane]

Wow, I wasn't aware that batman could cast greater communion in just 3 minutes.

Of course he can. He's Batman.

[silveralen]

Wow, I wasn't aware that batman could cast greater communion in just 3 minutes.

He just hacks into the bank and phone records to see who has been getting unknown amounts of cash, or who has been making contact with them. Or just "intimidates" one thug into telling them. Or uses his weird crime analyzing super computer to anlayze a random piece of evidence he found which tells him exactly what he needs to know. Or one of a hundred fairly implausible things he can do to find that information because he is batman.

Seriously, making the justice league actually work to find that information would be against everything established about batman's character. 24 hours tops.

The fact many DMs wouldn't allow him to find such information easily because he'd use an investigation/intimidation check to do so is one of the things that really stymies portraying a character like batman.

[AstralFire]

On the tangent: would also point out that even if Batman were occupied, the Justice League in multiple incarnations has multiple heroes who are well-versed in investigation, not least of which are Superman and Martian Manhunter.

Justice League mysteries almost never work, the team is too bloody well-rounded.

[Louro]

Not a fan of the justice league, but I was expecting some smart evil mind would not use computers, or would use them to mislead batman into a trap or dead end to waste his time, which can be perfectly done with just an investigation check.

I mean, D&D is very much about kicking a door and smash the evil beings behind it, but you need a plot. The plot is what makes the bashing exciting. Otherwise you should be playing a tactical game such as battletech.

[archaeo]

I mean, D&D is very much about kicking a door and smash the evil beings behind it, but you need a plot. The plot is what makes the bashing exciting.

I think it's enormously clear based on this message board alone that there's a sizable contingent of people who find D&D "fun" without even actually playing the game, much less finding a plot to hang said game on.

There are iconic adventures (Tomb of Horrors comes to mind) with only the thinnest veil of a plot hanging over what amounts to a crunchy dungeon crawl. It's a playstyle that isn't often explicitly named in 5e, which very much expects a plot-driven adventure rather than a plotless smash-and-loot game, but it's still extraordinarily valid.

[JoeJ]

Not a fan of the justice league, but I was expecting some smart evil mind would not use computers, or would use them to mislead batman into a trap or dead end to waste his time, which can be perfectly done with just an investigation check.

I mean, D&D is very much about kicking a door and smash the evil beings behind it, but you need a plot. The plot is what makes the bashing exciting. Otherwise you should be playing a tactical game such as battletech.

I picked the Justice League as an example of something that is very far from sandbox play: one of the basic assumptions of the four-color superhero genre is the heroes are fundamentally reactive, acting only to foil the villain's plan and restore the status quo.

But that kind of structure is not inherently better or worse than sandbox style, where the PCs wander around and find their own adventure. Some of the earliest D&D published modules were primarily sandbox (Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread come immediately to mind).

[Louro]

I think it's enormously clear based on this message board alone that there's a sizable contingent of people who find D&D "fun" without even actually playing the game, much less finding a plot to hang said game on.
Sorry, I don't get this. I could enjoy a mad dungeon crawling for 1 or 2 sessions, but... I don't see this going too far, actually I think this playstyle is boring as hell. I'd rather play the PvP battletech game because you need to squeeze your brain to win.

The fun of a RPG comes from the mix of story and action. It's like a movie, if the action is good but there are no characters, story or... mmmm... This was a bad example, most Hollywood movies are exactly like this nowadays, but with bad action instead.
Anyways, I have tons of fun with the weird situations that pop up at the table during RPing, dialogues, players planning, paranoia and so on.

[TheSethGrey]

Question 1: Mostly no, but I do take it into account. I create adventures and encounters that I think will be fun to play, but I keep the party make-up in mind as to not leave important areas unreachable due to the party not having X skill. That being said I will toss things like magic items in places players don't have skills to get to, such as a locked door while they don't have a person who can pick locks. Why? Because they'll try anything to get in there and it really brings out the creative side of my players, though it is something I do rarely. In the end my adventures are a story, a story that the players are a part of, so I won't put an obstacle in their way that too heavily plays to their weakness, and if I do there are always other ways around the obstacle.

Question 2: Yes, and no. I don't immediately create adventures with that in mind, but I will go, "Oh man, Frank would get a kick out of this info he could learn with his sweet Arcana check." But it's never in the forefront of my mind, except when at the table. If I see a player who is being quiet or not really actively taking part I'll make sure to single them out and ask them questions like, "Well, what do you do?" Because going through an entire session not really contributing to the game sucks, and often it's not the players fault. This only really happens with new players or if we have a player who's loud personality dominates.

Question 3: They may have, but there's no evidence I can see to support such a claim.