Player Affordances

[sithlordnergal]

So, before I start my post I want to preface it with this: I am not against enemies fighting strategically. If an orc has cover, they will make full use of it. If a wolf can understand the basics of an ambush, so can goblins, kobolds, trolls, and orcs. Adding strategic elements can make combat much more enjoyable and interesting then having the enemies line up and charge in. I am also not against TPKs if the party does something stupid or doesn't flee from an encounter that can obviously kill them.

That said, there is a fine balance between enemy strategy and player affordance. For those who don't know, player affordance is basically when a game or DM does something strategically foolish to give the players an upper hand. It won't be game breaking, or make the fight a breeze, but it either gives the players a chance to regroup and bounce back if they are rolling horribly or it gives them a slight edge that they can capitalize on if they try.

Allow me to give an example of a DM not giving players such an affordance:

I recently helped Co-DM a game where I set up an encounter and a second DM ran it. Long story short, there was a wizard that had been given several fun spells to play with that could have made the fight challenging but survivable. The wizard had up to 5th level spells since this was a premade NPC enemy wizard, but we had agreed to only use 3rd level spells because the party is only level 5 and could not survive 4th or 5th level spells.

When the DM ran it, he chose to use nothing but fireball during the entire encounter, nearly causing a TPK. The entire fight boiled down to nothing but the wizard casting Fireball using 3rd and 4th level slots, and a player desperately trying to counterspell it to survive.

Unsurprisingly, the players were not happy with the fight because there was nothing they could do to counter it. And how could they? They were level 5, and the DM in question did nothing but spam 3rd and 4th level fireballs.

When the players complained, the DM defended himself with these arguments:

1) The wizard was out to kill the players, had a 17 Intelligence, and was lawful evil. Therefore he would use the most efficent method to kill the players as quickly as possible, and abuse any apparent weaknesses the party had. In this case the weakness was the inability to stop a fireball more then twice.

2) He blamed me, saying that if the players felt it was an unfair fight then they should blame me for putting fireball on the spell list. To quote him "If I didn't want the spell to be used, I should not have put it on the spell list." Now, it should be noted that I also put things like Mind Spike and other spells from Xanathar's on the wizard's spell list. Fireball was his highest damaging spell that he could use, but it was not his only option. So it's not like he had nothing to use as the wizard.

Which brings me to my point: What are your opinions on player affordance? Where does the line between strategic play in combat cross the line from "fun and interesting" to "DM just wants a tpk"?

The DM in question was technically correct that fireball was the most efficent way to kill the party. The undead the wizard had as backup manages to trap the party in a small space where fireball could hit everyone, it was his most damaging spell, and the party could only stop it a total of 2 times, 3 when the sorcerer burned almost all of their spell points. So strategically, it was the most logical choice.

But he can't seem to wrap his head around the fact that this is a game meant to be fun for the players. Doing nothing but spam fireball when the party can't actually do anything to prevent it is not fun for the players, it just feels cheap and they feel like the dm is out to get them.

[War_lord]

He's not wrong, you're not wrong, the players are not wrong. What's wrong here is that that DM wants to run a different style of play then what you want to run and the players want to play. Combat as war vs combat as sport.

[sithlordnergal]

He's not wrong, you're not wrong, the players are not wrong. What's wrong here is that that DM wants to run a different style of play then what you want to run and the players want to play. Combat as war vs combat as sport.

You know, I had never considered that. I've always seen combat as a way to challenge the players in a fun and, hopefully, interesting way. As you said, combat for sport.

Where as he goes for a more "if the enemy can kill the entire party in one round, then they would do it to end the fight quickly". And that is exactly what you would do if you were actualy fighting like that

[Armored Walrus]

... nearly causing a TPK. ..

So they won?

I agree with War-Lord, the only thing wrong here was there were three different sets of expectations at the table, and no one merged them into one.

A lot of tables would look at a fight like that, having barely survived, but won, and said "Wow! That fight was amazing!"

My suggestion for the future is that if you're going to design an encounter for another DM to run, and want to have input as to *how* it's run, put that in the encounter notes. This is a good object lesson into what game designers have to account for. Sure, the system's balanced if you play my encounter this way, but if you play it this way, it will wreck the player's day.

Edit: That being said, I like the phrase "Player Affordance." I hadn't seen that before. It's one of the most subtle encounter-building tools a DM has at their disposal, if they decide to use it.

[Greywander]

I think there's a couple things to consider here.

First, enemies have other things to do besides fight the players. It's not unreasonable for an enemy spellcaster to consider whether they might need a spell slot for later in the day. Likewise, unless the spellcaster was expecting an attack they'll probably be more likely to have utility spells prepared, like Unseen Servant or Create Food and Drink.

Second, enemies are not omniscient. They won't necessarily know the PC's abilities, or even how many of them there are (if some of them are out of sight). It's reasonable for an enemy to under- or overestimate the players' abilities and do something tactically unsound from an omniscient perspective but that makes sense with their limited knowledge. Have them use a damage type that your PCs are immune or resistant to, then switch to something else after they see that it has little or no effect.

Thirdly, some characters are stupid. Or foolish. Which is not quite the same thing. Just because a wizard has a high INT doesn't mean they'll have a high WIS. Thus, they might be better aware of the players' abilities but grossly misjudge the correct way to deal with them. Likewise, a high WIS, low INT creature might be cunning with its tactics but have a hard time grasping what your PCs are actually capable of.

Finally, people make mistakes, and that can include enemies. They might be tricked into lowering their guard. Or they might get cocky and careless when they believe they have the upper hand. Or they might just panic and try to run, even when they're on the cusp of victory. I remember reading a guide somewhere about how to play out a fight against a mage, and I believe by the third-ish turn, the mage turns invisible and Dimension Doors out, as he's clearly in over his head if the fight isn't over at that point.

[War_lord]

My advice would be to have a talk as a group about combat expectations. If the players all want combat as sport, and DM can/will only do combat as war, there might be an issue. But if either the players or the DM are flexible there's no problem. The important thing is that everyone knows what their in for before the game starts and it stays consistent.

[sithlordnergal]

So they won?

I agree with War-Lord, the only thing wrong here was there were three different sets of expectations at the table, and no one merged them into one.

A lot of tables would look at a fight like that, having barely survived, but won, and said "Wow! That fight was amazing!"

My suggestion for the future is that if you're going to design an encounter for another DM to run, and want to have input as to *how* it's run, put that in the encounter notes. This is a good object lesson into what game designers have to account for. Sure, the system's balanced if you play my encounter this way, but if you play it this way, it will wreck the player's day.

Edit: That being said, I like the phrase "Player Affordance." I hadn't seen that before. It's one of the most subtle encounter-building tools a DM has at their disposal, if they decide to use it.

Ehh, I'm not sure many tables would consider the fight amazing. They became trapped in a 15 foot bottle neck by two ogre zombies, which is what let the wizard fireball them every turn for about 4 turns in a row. Most parties I have played with wouldn't have found it fun.

That said, I will talk more with the DM from now on. I will say that I had talked to him about the encounter a bit. Though it was mostly to warn him about Vitrollic Sphere, and how it's average damage could instantly drop every single PC in the party with a single cast. He was pretty resistent to the idea of not using it despite me telling him it would cause an instant TPK on the first round if it was used, but he eventually agreed that it wouldn't be fair to the party if he instantly killed them.

EDIT: Also, we are running AL Tomb of Annihilation, so the party can't be revived with spells, and if they die they either have to take a surrogate or start at level 1. Hence why death in this game is a bit of a big deal

[War_lord]

You didn't say it was AL, that makes things a bit more complex, are you assisting him or is he assisting you?

[Spellbreaker26]

Is this encounter something the players could avoid? Was this the temple of Fireball Jim "Fireball" McFireballs with a big "KEEP OUT, TRESPASSERS WILL BE FIREBALLED" sign outside? Or was this somebody they had to fight for the plot?

That's pretty important.

It should also be noted that single powerful Wizards are insanely difficult because they can nova and the party can't, unless it's the last fight in a day, in which case some of their resources are probably gone.

Perhaps if you want a strategic fight you could have a less powerful wizard but with more mooks, or perhaps a room with traps the party have to avoid, or maybe they're carrying the mystic Scroll of Tesanswars that a fireball will destroy and the Wizard won't risk burning it up to kill them, and so will open up with a locate object spell to find the holder, then try to kill the rest of the party or charm the holder to get it back and then go all out.

Just food for thought.

[MrStabby]

As you noted, the at table DM was trying to play a smart hostile wizard as a smart hostile wizard.

Your failing was not egregious, just part of the learning process. Next time you could just give a scroll of fireball to help guide the at table DM.

[LeonBH]

Considering there was a Sorcerer in the party, and there was only one enemy Wizard with a bunch of undead as the enemies, I would say the party should have won that without player affordance (aka, cutting the players some slack, correct?).

I'm going to guess that the Wizard did not have Counterspell on his list. Because otherwise, considering this was a rather aggressive DM, he would have Counterspelled the two Counterspells of the Sorcerer. Thus, he was wide open to a Maximilian's Earthen Grasp, or even a Sleep or Color Spray spell (once the ranged attacks hit the Wizard).

It's a Wizard. Very squishy. Assuming level 9 with Con 12, that's only 47 HP to knock him out. Color Spray hits at 33 HP on average cast at level 1, which is just a 14 HP difference. At level 5, your martials have Extra Attack. And with two Counterspells ready, your party has three rounds to knock him out. That's practically an eternity.

It's not like he used his DM position to bend the rules unfairly in his favor, right? In fact, he played the NPC as a straight blaster, which you can take out quickly.

But that said, I agree with the rest of the people who chimed in. This party doesn't seem to want to play tactics optimally, but just have some casual fun. There's three ways this can go:

* The DM adjusts to scale challenges the party can always overcome

* The party adjusts to think creatively when the DM presents them with an overwhelming challenge

* Both sides strike a compromise and meet in the middle, with the DM toning it down a little, but the party stepping it up a little as well

I'd say go with the third option. It's give and take.

[Armored Walrus]

warn him about Vitrollic Sphere, and how it's average damage could instantly drop every single PC in the party with a single cast. ... it would cause an instant TPK on the first round if it was used...

I don't know. The more you reply the more I side with the DM at the table. If you had concerns that the spell was unbalancing, why was it on the list? Would you put in a paladin with a great sword and a short sword and then try to convince the at-table DM to use the short sword? To me it sounds like you were very unclear with what your goals were in designing this encounter, and the at-table DM already used as much "Player Affordance" as he was willing based on the fact that he didn't use the "I win" button you gave him.

[Sigreid]

Sounds to me like if you are creating encounters for another DM you need to evaluate it from the basis of "if I get as brutal as possible with this encounter, what does it look like". Some DMs will hold back for various reasons, including having the opponents thinking they need to have some gas in the tank at the end of the fight in case there's more trouble. Other DMs will reason that the bad guy is facing a team of experienced professional killers and do everything in their power to survive.

[tieren]

I do think it is a good thing for a DM to make less than optimized choices sometimes. either to represent an NPC who isn't a brilliant tactician or as has been stated the natural tendency to sometime make mistakes.

It seems to me some DM's get too into what the perfect moves and countermoves would be that they cease to be role players themselves acting the part of the NPCs.

It doesn't have to be in the nature of "the party is going to wipe I better throw in a goof now", but rather a natural mistake someone might make n the moment and see how the party uses or misses the opportunity.

[Sigreid]

I do think it is a good thing for a DM to make less than optimized choices sometimes. either to represent an NPC who isn't a brilliant tactician or as has been stated the natural tendency to sometime make mistakes.

It seems to me some DM's get too into what the perfect moves and countermoves would be that they cease to be role players themselves acting the part of the NPCs.

It doesn't have to be in the nature of "the party is going to wipe I better throw in a goof now", but rather a natural mistake someone might make n the moment and see how the party uses or misses the opportunity.

There's also building in a learning curve. First go around the opposition doesn't know any more about the party than the party does about them. After a few go arounds the party and the opposition have a better idea what they are facing. No reason to let the party learn but the bad guys stay dumb.

[Marcloure]

Very recently I made a similar post on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/mattcolville/comments/7xeqs7/wargamming_enemy_tactics_and_winning_against_the/) about winning combat against the players. The post reads as follow.


So, I'm doing this thread because of something that happened in my last game session, but is also something I'm thinking about for quite some time.

Last session, at some point during a combat, things kind of split into dueling groups. This orc was fighting the paladin, and losing. So, the orc shoved the paladin 5 feet away and moved with his Agressive trait towards the zombies of the party's necromancer. The point is, the zombies were in the backline of the enemies, the orc used his Agressive trait to retreat. The paladin player complained that wasn't the intent of the trait, but I didn't bother to redo his movement at that time. And now I think he was probably right. Still, looking through a wargamer eye, what the orc did was probably the most tactical decision, to survive and defend the backline.

What I'm talking about is playing smart, tactical combat as DM. I'm quite a wargamer myself, and often I just outplay my players with things like positioning and environment advantage. Neither the necromancer or the paladin thought the orc would use the zombies as mean of movement, so that was a tactical "victory" for me. And a lot of times the players don't expect the foes all to turn against the caster when they cast a concentration spell, and they kind of expect their enemies to just target the fighter, instead of running for the backline.

Well, this style of play made me dismantle and "win" a lot of fights. But should I be doing that? I mean, "winning" combat against the players? As mentioned above, I know very well the system (not only the rules, but what is worth doing and the math), and I know that taking one or two OA is worth to take down the spell caster or break their concentration. Also, how much tactical should the monsters be? Should they try to break concentration? Should they target the right targets? I mean, a zombie usually won't even try to flank. But wolves and kobolds and ogres and bandits, will they focus the guy in full plate or the damage dealing rogue?

Should I try to play dumber enemies?

Well, people kind of missed the point of the post, and I think I wrote it in a very bad way, giving an example that didn't suit my question very well. They talked about RPing the monsters and such, but my question was about "how good should I play against my players".
And at the end of the day, I think I will keep playing foes at their best, limiting myself only by "what would this creture do?" And the anwser to that is almost always "try at its best to win". Again, taking in account the personality and intelligence of that creature.

[Armored Walrus]

Very recently I made a similar post on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/mattcolville/comments/7xeqs7/wargamming_enemy_tactics_and_winning_against_the/) about winning combat against the players. The post reads as follow.



Well, people kind of missed the point of the post, and I think I wrote it in a very bad way, giving an example that didn't suit my question very well. They talked about RPing the monsters and such, but my question was about "how good should I play against my players".
And at the end of the day, I think I will keep playing foes at their best, limiting myself only by "what would this creture do?" And the anwser to that is almost always "try at its best to win". Again, taking in account the personality and intelligence of that creature.

The thing is that it's a style question, so there's not a "right" answer. It's also not a black and white situation - it's a dial you can turn up or down. Where you peg the dial is going to be different than where another DM would, and neither is "wrong." There's only what's right for your table - which depends on only two things; the DM at your table, and the players at your table. You all either agree on what the right setting is for that dial, or you have tension but live with it, or either the DM leaves or a player or two leaves. Even at that point, there's still not a "right" answer. There's a decision made by the DM about where he wants the dial, and a decision by the players as to how they'll react to it.

In the OP, obviously, the players, and even the two DMs disagreed on what setting works for them. But, IMO, that doesn't change the fact that there isn't a right answer. Just the answer that works for you and your table.

Personally, I prefer to play smart enemies that make good tactical decisions. That's a part of the game that I enjoy, and being a fellow player (the DM is a player, BTW), that's the game I like to play. On the other hand, these are my friends outside of the table as well, and sometimes that's not the game they're playing. I'm happy to pull some punches if that happens. So that's what the "right" answer is for me and my table.

[MrStabby]

Very recently I made a similar post on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/mattcolville/comments/7xeqs7/wargamming_enemy_tactics_and_winning_against_the/) about winning combat against the players. The post reads as follow.



Well, people kind of missed the point of the post, and I think I wrote it in a very bad way, giving an example that didn't suit my question very well. They talked about RPing the monsters and such, but my question was about "how good should I play against my players".
And at the end of the day, I think I will keep playing foes at their best, limiting myself only by "what would this creture do?" And the anwser to that is almost always "try at its best to win". Again, taking in account the personality and intelligence of that creature.

This one is more interesting. Orcs are pretty martial so should have a decent grasp of tactics so it doesn't seem unreasonable. Does it go against the feel of the ability? Yes - I think so. I would suggest treating it as a homebrewed monster as a test. Imagine it isn't in the MM, the other players can check if you are playing it "right". All that there is is your plan for the monster, the description you gave the players and the way you want to represent it. I would say in that position (depending on how you see orcs) you might play it differently by how it feels rather than reasoning that the ability allows something therefore it should be used.

This is a wierd grey area for me - i am of the opinion that RPing a combat means using every last ability and trick the enemies can to survive - my contention is that the orc can't actually make that choice to use it to retreat - they are not choosing to behave sub-optimally.

[Unoriginal]

Personally, while making sub-optimal decisions due to not knowing all the factors is more than ok for NPCs, I don't think they should do dumb things to give the players more chances to win, unless they're dumb/prone to make bad decisions.

Last session I DMed, the (low level)party and a bunch of NPCs fought a Giant Snapping Turtle. The Turtle, being very aggressive, focused on attacking the triceratops the group was using as transportation, because it thought the big beast was a bigger threat and it didn't want to be gored while it attacked the humanoids that walked around. Now they're about to face a Troll, who is much more likely to try to hit and kill the humanoids, so that they'll have something to snatch and eat in case they are forced to retreat, rather than beat up a tough dinosaur and let themselves be at the mercy of the party.


In the case of the orc: orcs encountered outside of a defensive position are generally rubbish at strategy, and they attack recklessly to show off how strong they are. Avoiding a tough foe to go to a weaker one isn't what most orc attackers would do, but who know, maybe this one was chief material.

[Darth Ultron]

He's not wrong, you're not wrong, the players are not wrong. What's wrong here is that that DM wants to run a different style of play then what you want to run and the players want to play. Combat as war vs combat as sport.

I agree with the above.

Though I'll also add: Reality Based Simulation vs. Fictional Story. In a Reality Based Simulation type game, things are a lot like they are in reality. For example many bad guys will kill a good guy on sight. All important doors are locked. Importing places and things have guards. And so on. In a Fictional Story...well, things are like any movie or TV show ever made: The bad guys don't even ''try'' to kill the heroes. When the bad guys catch the good guys they lock them up in the tool shed. The bad guys tie the good guy to a table, turn on a saw or laser, and be like ''haha this will kill you in like an hour'''..and then they leave them alone so they can escape. Every place has HUGE air ducts big enough for anyone to climb through. And so on.