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Talakeal
2021-05-09, 05:02 PM
Now that my gaming group has been vaccinated, I am preparing to get back behind the screen again in the coming months. The other night I was discussing potential character concepts when one of the players said that they were going to go without armor because "armor does nothing"*.

This made me face palm, because it brought up one of my longest recurring frustrations as a GM, and the root of many of my horror stories.

To put it bluntly, players don't think about defense when making their characters, but then blame me when something bad happens to them.


Unless they are actually going for a tank / defender build, most players will optimize their offensive potential, without a second thought toward defense. Although some players and games suffer worse than others, this is a problem that transcends systems or groups.

Like, last time I ran 3.5 D&D, I literally had a player spend 64k gold buying a +4 sword (when they already had a +3) without spending the 1k gold to get +1 armor. And I constantly see people asking me permission to drop their constitution score below eight. Oh, and I had a mage with a four strength who would constantly rant and rave about how cheap grappling was because it always worked on them.

And, I mean, it would be fine, its their decision, but the problem is they refuse to learn from it, because they instead have to place blame. Sometimes they blame the rules, or the module, or their fellow PCs, but usually they blame me. Anytime their fragile little glass cannon gets hurt, let alone taken out of action or even killed, its because I am a killer DM who doesn't know how to balance the game. And anytime an enemy exploits one of their glaring weaknesses, its because I have a grudge against them and am "picking on them" for some imagined slight.

It has driven me nuts in the past, and I really want to cut it off at the pass in the future.

So, any advice on getting players to make the connection between their choice to neglect their defenses and bad things happening to their characters?


TLDR: How do I got players to acknowledge the correlations between choices when building /equipping a character and their survival in play?




*: My system uses degrees of success and bounded accuracy, so armor is always going to have, at absolute minimum, a ten percent chance to turn a hit into a miss or a critical hit into a regular hit, and the odds are probably closer to fifty percent.

Mastikator
2021-05-09, 05:20 PM
The next time they get hit you straight up tell them it would've been a miss if they had chosen to wear armor.

Talwar
2021-05-09, 05:22 PM
In Session Zero, perhaps open with, "Folks, just a reminder - if you build a character with distinct and obvious vulnerabilities, I'm not going to hold back on letting your enemies exploit them. It's up to you, but you're forewarned."

MrStabby
2021-05-09, 05:33 PM
Now that my gaming group has been vaccinated, I am preparing to get back behind the screen again in the coming months. The other night I was discussing potential character concepts when one of the players said that they were going to go without armor because "armor does nothing"*.

This made me face palm, because it brought up one of my longest recurring frustrations as a GM, and the root of many of my horror stories.

To put it bluntly, players don't think about defense when making their characters, but then blame me when something bad happens to them.


Unless they are actually going for a tank / defender build, most players will optimize their offensive potential, without a second thought toward defense. Although some players and games suffer worse than others, this is a problem that transcends systems or groups.

Like, last time I ran 3.5 D&D, I literally had a player spend 64k gold buying a +4 sword (when they already had a +3) without spending the 1k gold to get +1 armor. And I constantly see people asking me permission to drop their constitution score below eight. Oh, and I had a mage with a four strength who would constantly rant and rave about how cheap grappling was because it always worked on them.

And, I mean, it would be fine, its their decision, but the problem is they refuse to learn from it, because they instead have to place blame. Sometimes they blame the rules, or the module, or their fellow PCs, but usually they blame me. Anytime their fragile little glass cannon gets hurt, let alone taken out of action or even killed, its because I am a killer DM who doesn't know how to balance the game. And anytime an enemy exploits one of their glaring weaknesses, its because I have a grudge against them and am "picking on them" for some imagined slight.

It has driven me nuts in the past, and I really want to cut it off at the pass in the future.

So, any advice on getting players to make the connection between their choice to neglect their defenses and bad things happening to their characters?


TLDR: How do I got players to acknowledge the correlations between choices when building /equipping a character and their survival in play?




*: My system uses degrees of success and bounded accuracy, so armor is always going to have, at absolute minimum, a ten percent chance to turn a hit into a miss or a critical hit into a regular hit, and the odds are probably closer to fifty percent.



I don't think I have had it quite this bad... but have seen a few things trending in that direction before.

I wouldn't say I see players optimising offence over defence (though that happens a bit as well), but rather that it is the active over the passive which often feels pretty similar. I am not sure there is much to be done other than to keep going and to ensure death has some penalties (time until being raised/time till a new character can join the group).


My personal bugbear is people trying to game the system - mostly 5e. Logic seeming to be "Wisdom save failure results in me not having fun in an encounter. In fact I will really not have a good time at all. Now if I make my wisdom score low enough I will be almost assured to fail any wisdom save so my DM won't throw wisdom saves at the party! To avoid failing wisdom saves, I must dump wisdom!"

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-09, 05:48 PM
I've played characters without armour in systems where one hit can take you out of the fight. I've also been the only character in the past actually wearing armour, but they're were religious reasons for that one.

I'm going to agree with making sure the players know that there's always a consequence to making a choice, and that dropping CON or ignoring armour will lead to increased fragility. I partially blame this on 3.X making AC scaling much rarer while granting to hit scaling at least at every other level, which made me question the value of investing in armour. Comparatively a decent way to be wearing armour is my first port of call in games like GURPS or the 40k RPGs, because with a bit of luck armour lets you shrug off lighter weapons. In general I think DR is preferred over hit reduction, even if it isn't better or realistic (it's how my homebrew games treat it, with one exception).

I think that what it comes down to is that what many players want in the moment it's an easy fight with no risk of death, and a tendency to take 'dead opponents can't attack' to extremes and try to make all the enemies dead.

But be upfront, and don't just limit weakness exploitation to combat. Throw the -2 Charisma Barbarian into a situation where she must negotiate with the guards. Have the players have to hack the factory's mainframe whether the Tech Priest is active or a mixture of hamburger and scrap. Try to do it to everybody to make it seem fair, and if they decide the game's too deadly a few sessions in be generous and let them rebuild their characters for more survivability. But yeah, not everybody's response to death is 'I'll roll up an upper class policeman as my next character, some kind of Swot Officer'.

Then my character has the nerve to survive until we picked up the antidote. Never got to play that rich policeman.

icefractal
2021-05-09, 07:47 PM
It sounds like your players have a skewed conception of how your game works, but how much of that is unreasonableness vs lack of information, it's hard to say.

1) It sounds like you don't auto-scale the opposition level to the PCs, but do they know this? (If you do scale it, they're kind of right)
2) Are they aware when lack of armor makes the difference? It may be worth mentioning when an attack barely hits and armor would have prevented it.

Since it sounds like you're using a homebrew system, you do have an additional option. If players always trade away too much defense, and this causes whining, why not just limit/remove that trade? Make the minimum defense a generally survivable amount. Of course they'll probably whine about that change as well, but at least it would be done up front.


More tangentially - from what I've heard of your players, it sounds like what they really want is a game where they steamroll most opposition with very little risk. You don't have to run it that way, but I'm not sure they're ever going to switch to enjoying more challenge / worse odds.

Composer99
2021-05-09, 08:52 PM
I'ma concur with icefractal's final paragraph - it looks like there might be a discrepancy between the kind of game you want to run and the kind of game your players want to play.

It sounds as if they want to play a game where they need not attend to their defences. Meanwhile, you want to run a game where character builds with such vulnerabilities are unwise.

There's nothing wrong with either their or your preferences, but they do seem to present a significant compatibility problem.

Quertus
2021-05-09, 09:35 PM
Once upon a time, I advised you to create the adventure as a module, and keep it in sealed, time-stamped envelopes (or my implementation of encrypted files, each encounter with its own password), created *before the party exists* (or has even been discussed), so that they cannot claim that you are "picking on them" or otherwise cheating.

I continue to maintain that this is a good idea. To this, I will add that having a sample party and running them through your module, and/or having 2 groups going through the module simultaneously, and trying to goad your players into thinking by asking them to try to do better than the other / sample group *may* help encourage their optimizer / min-maxing brains to awaken.

ecarden
2021-05-09, 10:28 PM
Lots of good advice. One thing a DM I like a lot does is pre-justify the NPC's action:

Looking around, the massive man see's you standing there, Mage. He's twice your size and can see your robe and wand. He smiles, believing he has a good chance of grappling you and moves to do so.

This also acts as a nice check on if the NPC's action is reasonable based on what they know/see.

Jason
2021-05-09, 10:47 PM
Put them up against an NPC or group of them that have effective defenses. Have the NPCs tell them at length why the party is having a hard time beating them. Then stick a discount armor shop in their path.

AdAstra
2021-05-09, 10:57 PM
I can definitely see the possibility that your players prefer buttons they can actively press over passive stuff that merely prevents things from happening. After all, for all their value in games, Armor Class and Damage Reduction are exceptionally uninteresting mechanics to actually play out. "You make a thing happen in the world with x" does have serious appeal over "A thing in the world does nothing/less because of x".

Alternatively, your players just don't want a challenge at all, they want to roll big numbers and stomp on things. Or maybe something else more charitable like the above.

Game design-wise it might be good to have some sort of active defense system? Not just a saving throw or anything like that, but a system where you can actively take defensive actions/reactions and said actions open up opportunities to do your own thing. The basic parry/riposte, take cover behind a table then throw the table at the attacker, that sorta thing. The reverse as well, though most systems tend to be much better about that part. Suppressive fire, the usual slew of debuffs

Let em beat the enemy over the head with their defense, or protect themselves behind a wall of blades. Won't necessarily work for all kinds of reasons, sadly, and it's a whole lot of work in all likelihood, but might be a start?

King of Nowhere
2021-05-10, 03:02 AM
My players are nothing like that. They are aware of their weaknesses, they try to cover them when reasonably possible, they expect a smart opponent to try to exploit them.
Everyone in-world knows the guy with the big sword is generally weak-willed, after all.

Then i read the name of the op, and everything clicked into place. Talekeal, you opened dozens of threads about how to handle your toxic players. You seem to be a magnet for player toxicity. I would not know how to fix that


I can definitely see the possibility that your players prefer buttons they can actively press over passive stuff that merely prevents things from happening. After all, for all their value in games, Armor Class and Damage Reduction are exceptionally uninteresting mechanics to actually play out. "You make a thing happen in the world with x" does have serious appeal over "A thing in the world does nothing/less because of x".

Actually, defence can be interesting. My monk had a whole play style - jumping in the middle of the enemies, running over a trapped area, trying to bait enemies - that relied specifically on those defences

At some point i took a routine of walking around with a big sign saying "attention to all [big bad] minions: [charname] is here, alone. Come & get me"
I even had the wizard cast light on it to make it more visible.
That's how you do fun things with your passive defences

Satinavian
2021-05-10, 03:34 AM
As always with your problems : Get better players.

In a normal group this problem never shows up. Because normal players, even when building suboptimally either want to have those weaknesses or would be willing to correct them when they are obvious. And even if such a problem were to show up, people could just talke about it like the mature adults they suppesedly are and find a solutions.

Your groups however ... I have no clue what could work there. It is difficult to judge them correctly from your comments over the internt. They seem to be a dysfunctional mess.



Personally i would not indulge people building extremely one-sided and expecting that only their strengths and never their weaknesses become relevant. While i might prepare adventures that are of interest to the PCs specifically and might fit their niches, NPCs will always act to the best of their abilities and knowledge and that means always targeting any glaring weakness they become aware of and repeating stuff that works.

Telwar
2021-05-10, 08:02 AM
...how? How can they not learn to invest in defense? I learned not to dump Com (Body etc) after not being able to make a Fort save in 3e for like ten tries.

Are they assuming the defender type is going to eat all the attacks, without a mechanic to encourage that?

Willie the Duck
2021-05-10, 08:06 AM
Agree that I can't fix Talakeal's continuing nightmare players. However, pertinent to the discussion at large --


Both AdAstra and King of Nowhere are right -- defense can be boring, or it can be incredibly intricate (often to the point of being on of the more system-mastery-heavy options). If I am Random Player #34792, being told by my GM something along the lines of 'yes you are supposed to play defensive and yes it can be interesting' probably sounds pretty hollow unless you trive on the builds&strat type of game.
Anonymouswizard is also fairly right that D&D, 3e in particular, often makes (the obvious forms of) defense incredibly inefficient -- there are usually multiple ways around it (attacks keying off saves instead of AC; ghost-touch, touch or flat-footed attacks); many opponents to-hits scaling up faster than you can reasonably scale up your AC; hit points being the double-edged sword of needing to both have them and keep them full; there being six other, incredibly hard to defend alternate hit point systems (ability drain/damage) as well. It's frankly unsurprising that the forumite narrative being that the best offense is to destroy your opposition before they get the chance to target you (however, I've found that never works as cleanly IRL as it does in optimization threads).
There's a perennial issue in TRPGs that, if your character fails hard enough, you simply end up back at character creation. There are ways around that (starting again back at__th level, you don't die but instead have a persistent wound, not to want to lose character-arc milestones), but it's a continuing issue.
icefractal might be onto a playstyle preference issue. I will state that it would be a good idea to sit down with the group and inquire into this. It may well be that the players 'prefer' this playstyle because they see it as the only one viable (given their perceptions of the ruleset being used, or the DM in question, etc.).

Lacco
2021-05-10, 08:33 AM
My standard procedure would be:
1. Experiment out of game.
This happened before as few of my players were determined that going all in on offence was the best way to defeat any foe; the game is Riddle of Steel and while the tactic is viable in certain cases, most of the time a skilled foe will trash you if you go for this approach. So what I usually do is take this out of game, prepare a combat arena - a single session of pure combat in arena, you can test tactics, play with any type of opponent/character or test your mettle. Hand them few pregens and let them try what works for the system.

2. Talk to the players.
OOC issue = OOC solution. I ask them what kind of game they expect, explain the system, its limitations and strong sides (e.g. melee is where the action and fun is, archery is fun too, but don't try magic; non-combatants can assist but be careful lest the opponents focus on you). I go over extreme cases and show them rock-paper-scissors (tough & armored foes fall prey to agile, endurance based builds; these are usually kept at bay by fast, light hitters; these are destroyed by armored opponents...) and even discuss what genre/aesthetics/approach do they want (heroic fantasy, epic power fantasy, grim heroism, conanesque larger than life broken heroes or even relatively mundane stuff). We discuss, we find a common understanding.

3. Play the game you all want to play.
They want to go on a power trip and you prefer the rags-to-riches, humble we-may-fail-today-but-at-least-we-keep-our-honor style heroes? Well, that one won't work. Decide on a game together. Provide a set of table rules - clear and understood by all.

4. Try the direct approach.
"You would not like a dagger to your gut, so your character will not like it either. Invest in armor, get a bodyguard or die often."

4. IC encouragement
A player once told me he disliked certain defensive maneuver (counter) because it has a activation cost. So I used it on him, successfully. He learned quickly to use them in right time and place. Another player thought only axes were the way to go. A quick jab of rapier into his character's neck showed him otherwise. A backstab explained the necessity of not letting your guard down even if you are the well armored, tough and nigh invincible party tank. It's a learning curve - there were no hard feelings.

Why there were no hard feelings? Because I explained the player his options, they took an action and understood the consequence. When you're hunting a master assassin in his own lair, full of traps, you don't stand in well-lit doorway, your back to a dark hallway. The player took it well and enjoyed playing a severely wounded barbarian warrior for two sessions.

...

Wait, this is Talakeal's bizarro universe?

Disregard all of the above. Put a pink neon sign saying "Armor Saves Lives" above your GM screen. Give them enemies that stand politely in a row and never attack two at the same time - even better, they politely ask if they may use their abilities. Don't roll any dice, just tell them they won! Hand them a handful of dice to "add a bit of damage" because you feel like you wronged them by even attempting to attack them.

Use the "The enemies are blinded by your sheer awesome!" condition at least once per round.

Also, acknowledge there are people who will grumble even if you hand them flawless victory. Don't budge. Say "I'm sorry, but it's not your turn now. If it's OOC, please save it for the end of the session or write me an e-mail - I don't want to stop the game mid combat." If they persist, just wreck the game. Be the killer GM they want :smallbiggrin: Go nuts! And then tell them they woke up from this strange nightmare... :smallbiggrin:

Or - if you want to really solve it - discuss the issue with them. Not the one about armor - the one about the obvious discrepancy between your preferred playstyle and theirs. Or not :smallwink:

The Glyphstone
2021-05-10, 09:52 AM
I think other people have said anything I could offer better, but ultimately it boils down to the fact that our advice will assume the baseline that the players are rational people who act in sane ways. The inhabitants of Bizarro Gaming World do not meet these criteria, as shown by how many times you have posted these threads and how no matter what suggestions you get from us, nothing ever seems to change.

Unless you're willing to do as lacco36 suggests and get very passive aggressive in your 'okay, you want to win everything effortlessly, I'll show you just how unsatisfying that actually is'. Abandon rationality and fight bizarro with bizarro.

Lacco
2021-05-10, 10:14 AM
I think other people have said anything I could offer better, but ultimately it boils down to the fact that our advice will assume the baseline that the players are rational people who act in sane ways. The inhabitants of Bizarro Gaming World do not meet these criteria, as shown by how many times you have posted these threads and how no matter what suggestions you get from us, nothing ever seems to change.

Unless you're willing to do as lacco36 suggests and get very passive aggressive in your 'okay, you want to win everything effortlessly, I'll show you just how unsatisfying that actually is'. Abandon rationality and fight bizarro with bizarro.

A disclaimer: I normally try to avoid passive aggressive tactics and "scorched earth" tactics. I advise GMs to really sit and have a constructive, calm and polite talk with the players, to get on a common ground, to ensure nobody feels slighted and to make sure that even if you use some of my above advice, you first think it through and consider your gaming group. The game should provide enjoyment to all parties - including the GM (I purposefully avoid stating "fun", because some things are not fun but might be enjoyable). Most players react well to questions, so ask them. Dig deep, probe their headspace and find the answer that will lead to a better game for all.

However, for the situation at hand - in TBGW - scorched earth it is.

Also: I'd really like to see Talakeal's GMing style in practice. I know there were some games planned on this forum, but it was somewhere around my unplanned hiatus. I'm not saying they are to blame - but if there is something that forces the players to react (even if it's the "recurring frustration") in a certain way, maybe there is a way out.

Xervous
2021-05-10, 10:38 AM
Ask them straight up what they expected to be getting into with their character. Ask them what they think the strengths and weaknesses of their build are. To dismantle their flawed understanding you need to get it out into the light where you can address the expectations rather than the emotions that result from their mismatch with reality.

kyoryu
2021-05-10, 11:28 AM
Given it's Talakeal's Bizzaro World, it's kind of hard to really diagnose.

I actually agree with Quertus in this case. I think the best scenario is to take the GM out of the equation as much as possible. Run against some known baseline if possible - published adventures, etc.

That's probably not possible for a custom system, but even then you can set some kind of baseline for expectations - monster tables, etc.

If the opponents are a result of the system, they can't say that it's a matter of you picking on them. They can adjust to what is, or not.

Also look at tactics on both sides - are you playing as hyper-deterministic and optimized tactics on the opponent side? Knowing their weaknesses, nova/focus-firing on the weaker members/etc? Maybe don't do that. Also see if the tankier characters are defending the back line, and ensure that the system allows for that.

I do think that looking at the statements with some empathy (note: not necessarily sympathy) would be helpful. Why are they saying what they're saying? What leads to that? Given their imperfect knowledge, what is reasonable and what isn't? What's the core of the issue? Is it a playstyle or culture mismatch? Not understanding the rules? Are you playing the monsters as highly effective, or giving them knowledge they shouldn't have? If you can view the situation from their PoV, vs. "oh, they're terrible players and people", it can help - even if you fundamentally disagree with them.

Talakeal
2021-05-10, 12:16 PM
Just a reminder, this is a problem that I have had in numerous game systems with numerous gaming groups in the past. It is not something that is currently an issue, or a problem unique to my current players or rules, but I am trying to prevent it before it comes up.


On a related note, a couple weeks ago on Running the Game, Matt Colville brought up another situation that has been a frequent issue of mine. Players try something, it doesn't work for whatever reason, so they get frustrated and give up and then yell at the Game Master for creating a "railroad". He explains that a rational person would, instead of getting upset and giving up, keep trying different solutions until they found something that worked, but people are rarely rational. And to make them understand the source of their own problems, he suggests that, instead of getting defensive (which will only cause them to dig their heels in deeper and get more adversarial) you ask leading questions until they understand that the only thing stopping their progress was their own mental blocks.

I have no idea if something similar would work here, but I hope so.


The next time they get hit you straight up tell them it would've been a miss if they had chosen to wear armor.

That might work. Or it might backfire.

On a related tangent, I was playing Mordheim this weekend, and one of my units had an ability that doubled their critical range. The other players were bitching about how OP it was, so I started actually pointing out every time it actually came up or didn't make a difference. The other players got really mad, insisting I was only doing it for the sake of starting fights, but after a few games I had incontrovertible evidence that it only came up about once a game, and that everyone else was indeed overreacting.

I could try something similar with my gaming group, but I am pretty sure the interim period would not be pretty.


In Session Zero, perhaps open with, "Folks, just a reminder - if you build a character with distinct and obvious vulnerabilities, I'm not going to hold back on letting your enemies exploit them. It's up to you, but you're forewarned."

Good idea. Will do.


My personal bugbear is people trying to game the system - mostly 5e. Logic seeming to be "Wisdom save failure results in me not having fun in an encounter. In fact I will really not have a good time at all. Now if I make my wisdom score low enough I will be almost assured to fail any wisdom save so my DM won't throw wisdom saves at the party! To avoid failing wisdom saves, I must dump wisdom!"

Never seen that. I have seen the opposite, how enemies just ignore the really well defended guy and go after softer targets, and then the tanky player complains that they don't get to show off how tough they are.


1) It sounds like you don't auto-scale the opposition level to the PCs, but do they know this? (If you do scale it, they're kind of right)
2) Are they aware when lack of armor makes the difference? It may be worth mentioning when an attack barely hits and armor would have prevented it.

More tangentially - from what I've heard of your players, it sounds like what they really want is a game where they steamroll most opposition with very little risk. You don't have to run it that way, but I'm not sure they're ever going to switch to enjoying more challenge / worse odds.



1) It sounds like you don't auto-scale the opposition level to the PCs, but do they know this? (If you do scale it, they're kind of right)

I don't scale it as such, no.

I follow the general CR guidelines for whatever game I am running, although I do err on the side of too easy for new groups and too hard for veteran groups.

Likewise, I play the monsters a little smarter if the PCs are having an easy time and a little dumber if the PCs are struggling.


It sounds like your players have a skewed conception of how your game works, but how much of that is unreasonableness vs lack of information, it's hard to say.

2) Are they aware when lack of armor makes the difference? It may be worth mentioning when an attack barely hits and armor would have prevented it.


The idea, afaict, is in the case the player normally plays "squishy" characters to begin with, and just assumes that because they are hit more often than not, that armor "does nothing" as times when armor saves them from a hit or pressence of armor saves them from a crit are the outliers and thus not factored into their thinking. I think.

But yeah, they understand how the system works, atleast on an intellectual level.


More tangentially - from what I've heard of your players, it sounds like what they really want is a game where they steamroll most opposition with very little risk. You don't have to run it that way, but I'm not sure they're ever going to switch to enjoying more challenge / worse odds.

It does appear that way, yeah.

I often heard it said that players want an easy win today, but the struggle of a lifetime yesterday, or that they want to be John Mclaine from Die Hard; always winning but also beat to hell. This has never been my experience, as they whine about challenge today, and then tell stories about how I screwed them over in the past.

I really would just be happy for them to start to take responsibility for their own decisions.


Once upon a time, I advised you to create the adventure as a module, and keep it in sealed, time-stamped envelopes (or my implementation of encrypted files, each encounter with its own password), created *before the party exists* (or has even been discussed), so that they cannot claim that you are "picking on them" or otherwise cheating.

Its not feasible for me to create an entire campaign world before the game even begins. I don't have that kind of time or motivation, and it would have to come across as pretty rail-roady. I can create a module in advance, but the players can still blame me for targeting their weakness, whatever it is. Likewise, even if they have no weakness, they can still whine that I am attacking them more or whatnot.


I continue to maintain that this is a good idea. To this, I will add that having a sample party and running them through your module, and/or having 2 groups going through the module simultaneously, and trying to goad your players into thinking by asking them to try to do better than the other / sample group *may* help encourage their optimizer / min-maxing brains to awaken.

Do you mean actually running the game for multiple groups? If so, I wish I had that many players. If not, what do you mean?

Also, do you remember back before covid when you suggested I run a campaign diagnostic?


I can definitely see the possibility that your players prefer buttons they can actively press over passive stuff that merely prevents things from happening. After all, for all their value in games, Armor Class and Damage Reduction are exceptionally uninteresting mechanics to actually play out. "You make a thing happen in the world with x" does have serious appeal over "A thing in the world does nothing/less because of x".

Alternatively, your players just don't want a challenge at all, they want to roll big numbers and stomp on things. Or maybe something else more charitable like the above.

Game design-wise it might be good to have some sort of active defense system? Not just a saving throw or anything like that, but a system where you can actively take defensive actions/reactions and said actions open up opportunities to do your own thing. The basic parry/riposte, take cover behind a table then throw the table at the attacker, that sorta thing. The reverse as well, though most systems tend to be much better about that part. Suppressive fire, the usual slew of debuffs

Let em beat the enemy over the head with their defense, or protect themselves behind a wall of blades. Won't necessarily work for all kinds of reasons, sadly, and it's a whole lot of work in all likelihood, but might be a start?

I do have such actions. Of course, players rarely take them.


Then i read the name of the op, and everything clicked into place. Talekeal, you opened dozens of threads about how to handle your toxic players. You seem to be a magnet for player toxicity. I would not know how to fix that.

Yeah. As I said in the OP, this isn't currently a problem, but has been a major component of many of my gaming horror stories in the past.


Also: I'd really like to see Talakeal's GMing style in practice. I know there were some games planned on this forum, but it was somewhere around my unplanned hiatus. I'm not saying they are to blame - but if there is something that forces the players to react (even if it's the "recurring frustration") in a certain way, maybe there is a way out.

I have thought about streaming a game, but I have no idea how to make it work from either a social or technical perspective.

kyoryu
2021-05-10, 01:30 PM
I have thought about streaming a game, but I have no idea how to make it work from either a social or technical perspective.

Zoom + OBS or XSplit. Make windows in OBS that just capture from the Zoom window, assuming a purely online game.

In-person is even easier.

BRC
2021-05-10, 01:41 PM
In D&D, where Armor makes you harder to hit, there's a bit of a psychological thing going on. You don't remember when then enemy misses, just when they hit. A miss is over in a second, easily forgotten.
(this doesn't really help the constitution question, but).

This won't solve every problem, and especially won't help if none of your players are building survivable tanks, but when narrating combat, don't just brush past every miss. Describe the enemy weapons clashing against shields, or the characters twisting so the spearpoint slides off their armor. Not every time, obviously, but remind the player that they're playing tanky characters, which in turn reminds the rest of the table whose characters are designed to take a hit.

Question. Outside character creation, do the players in question tend to play their characters with caution? Do they take steps to take cover or keep themselves out of the range of hard-hitting melee enemies?


You say you've seen this across multiple systems. Are these players who have played with you before, or players from other GMs. Do they seem aware that they are building a character with a weakness, or do they act like Con is a free dump stat?

(I don't think I've ever encountered ANYBODY who treated Con as a dump stat. The closest was one player who did it for RP reasons, fully aware that she was building a weakness into her character).



But a little bit is that if somebody goes really hard into being a glass cannon, there's no real way to encounter design around it.

Lacco
2021-05-10, 02:31 PM
I do think that looking at the statements with some empathy (note: not necessarily sympathy) would be helpful. Why are they saying what they're saying? What leads to that? Given their imperfect knowledge, what is reasonable and what isn't? What's the core of the issue? Is it a playstyle or culture mismatch? Not understanding the rules? Are you playing the monsters as highly effective, or giving them knowledge they shouldn't have? If you can view the situation from their PoV, vs. "oh, they're terrible players and people", it can help - even if you fundamentally disagree with them.

*insert sound of clapping*

I'll have to print this on a sign and put it inside my GM screen. But I'll have to get a GM screen first.


Just a reminder, this is a problem that I have had in numerous game systems with numerous gaming groups in the past. It is not something that is currently an issue, or a problem unique to my current players or rules, but I am trying to prevent it before it comes up.

Multiple game systems.
Multiple gaming groups.

What is the common denominator?



On a related note, a couple weeks ago on Running the Game, Matt Colville brought up another situation that has been a frequent issue of mine. Players try something, it doesn't work for whatever reason, so they get frustrated and give up and then yell at the Game Master for creating a "railroad". He explains that a rational person would, instead of getting upset and giving up, keep trying different solutions until they found something that worked, but people are rarely rational. And to make them understand the source of their own problems, he suggests that, instead of getting defensive (which will only cause them to dig their heels in deeper and get more adversarial) you ask leading questions until they understand that the only thing stopping their progress was their own mental blocks.

I have no idea if something similar would work here, but I hope so.

This is basically the coaching principle - if the coach explained it well. You ask questions to help them solve their issue, but for that to succeed you have to a) find out if they want to solve it b) get them to formulate the final destination (what solution would they be fine with) c) ask questions without knowing the answer.

The last one is really hard to do when you are invested and *know* the answer already.


On a related tangent, I was playing Mordheim this weekend, and one of my units had an ability that doubled their critical range. The other players were bitching about how OP it was, so I started actually pointing out every time it actually came up or didn't make a difference. The other players got really mad, insisting I was only doing it for the sake of starting fights, but after a few games I had incontrovertible evidence that it only came up about once a game, and that everyone else was indeed overreacting.

Sometimes people just need to vent their frustration. And yeah, seems like you chose - unintentionally - a really irritating way to prove your point. What other ways could you show them it came up so little?


Likewise, I play the monsters a little smarter if the PCs are having an easy time and a little dumber if the PCs are struggling.

Why?


I really would just be happy for them to start to take responsibility for their own decisions.

How?


I have thought about streaming a game, but I have no idea how to make it work from either a social or technical perspective.

No need to stream. As kyoryu stated, a small online group would suit. Even pbp or play by chat would be sufficient to see if there are any points on your side that you can work on.


In D&D, where Armor makes you harder to hit, there's a bit of a psychological thing going on. You don't remember when then enemy misses, just when they hit. A miss is over in a second, easily forgotten.
(this doesn't really help the constitution question, but).

But it's a valid point. And something one should keep in mind.

There are systems where armor saves your hide and it's calculated after you get hit - so you can definitely feel the impact.


(I don't think I've ever encountered ANYBODY who treated Con as a dump stat. The closest was one player who did it for RP reasons, fully aware that she was building a weakness into her character).

Yeah, I do that often. But I have Con as dump stat in RL too, so I know what I am getting into, and I tend to play systems where you can avoid getting hit - which makes a lot of difference. It's the active vs. passive defence.

Talakeal
2021-05-11, 11:27 AM
Question. Outside character creation, do the players in question tend to play their characters with caution? Do they take steps to take cover or keep themselves out of the range of hard-hitting melee enemies?

You say you've seen this across multiple systems. Are these players who have played with you before, or players from other GMs. Do they seem aware that they are building a character with a weakness, or do they act like Con is a free dump stat?

(I don't think I've ever encountered ANYBODY who treated Con as a dump stat. The closest was one player who did it for RP reasons, fully aware that she was building a weakness into her character).

Sometimes. I have noticed players have a tendency to clump into a ball and not move like a herd of buffalo, and that annoys me sometimes, but overall I would say their tactics are all right. Teamwork is always lacking, but that's a separate issue.

I typically GM for my group, but most of my players are not RPG newbies. Note, however, that this isn't only a problem when I GM. Heck, I have even been guilty of it myself as a player on occasion. I remember one game where I played a monk and dumped con because my AC and saves were great, monks are really MAD, and because the HP as meat style breaks my immersion. It went ok, but then a new player joined the group, and the first fight he announced out presence to the enemies, who dropped a fireball on the group, and when I rolled a 1 on the save it killed me outright. It was my fault for tanking my con, but you better believe I blamed the new player for getting my character killed at the time.


Zoom + OBS or XSplit. Make windows in OBS that just capture from the Zoom window, assuming a purely online game.

In-person is even easier.

I would never run an online game. Just playing in one is a miserable experience, I can't imagine ever running one.

I can't imagine it is easier in person, but I would legitimately love to hear how you suggest doing it, as I really would like to try streaming a game at some point.

The problems are also social, I don't have a home of my own right now, so I game in other people's houses or public spaces, and I would need to get their permission to record anything, as well as dealing with random people or children in the background.




Multiple game systems.
Multiple gaming groups.

What is the common denominator?

Got me. Lot's of stuff. Something specific you are getting at?

There is of course the old de motivational poster answer "You are the common factor in all your failed relationships," which is really a non-answer in an advice thread as people wouldn't be asking a question if they didn't think they could modify their behavior to change it. Unless that's the point?



This is basically the coaching principle - if the coach explained it well. You ask questions to help them solve their issue, but for that to succeed you have to a) find out if they want to solve it b) get them to formulate the final destination (what solution would they be fine with) c) ask questions without knowing the answer.

The last one is really hard to do when you are invested and *know* the answer already.

Sometimes people just need to vent their frustration. And yeah, seems like you chose - unintentionally - a really irritating way to prove your point. What other ways could you show them it came up so little?

Oh I think I was intentionally being irritating. I was more than a little frustrated myself after having spent the entire morning being raked over the coals for how overpowered my warband was.

But I can't think of a better way to illustrate my point as white room discussions of probability just get dismissed. Any advice?



No need to stream. As kyoryu stated, a small online group would suit. Even pbp or play by chat would be sufficient to see if there are any points on your side that you can work on.

Those formats are totally different though. I can't imagine getting much useful data from them.




Why?

Mostly laziness and soft-hardheartedness.

Playing a monster "hard" all the time is mentally exhausting, and it seems mean to stomp someone into the ground when they are already losing. I don't think this is just a GM thing either, as a player I also try harder when things are going hard, even in single player video games.

On the other hand, playing "soft" all the time makes the game a farce, both from a mechanical level and from a setting level; its hard to take a world seriously when its monsters and villains are complete idiots who can be taken out by a group of wandering adventurers without any effort.


Now, we can look into deeper game philosophy here and say its an important psychological mechanic. Its pretty well agreed upon that most people want a challenge, or at least the illusion of it; most sport's fans agree that close games are the best and many video games give you damage resistance when your life is low or damage boosts when your ammunition is low to give the illusion of a close call. I personally don't really know how much I agree with this though, it seems good in principal, but my players pretty universally throw tantrums at anything that isn't a cake walk, hold grudges for years over close calls, and I don't really trust myself to have that tight a grasp on game balance or on player psychology anyway.




How?

Realizing the correlation between their own build choices and their failures is to fold:

1: It reduces the amount of fighting and hostility at the table as people don't need to look for someone to blame and attack every time something bad happens to their character.
2: They can learn from their mistakes and make better decisions in the future.

kyoryu
2021-05-11, 01:39 PM
There is of course the old de motivational poster answer "You are the common factor in all your failed relationships," which is really a non-answer in an advice thread as people wouldn't be asking a question if they didn't think they could modify their behavior to change it. Unless that's the point?

I think there's an option - there's something you can do to alleviate these issues that you may be unaware of.

You are noted as having uniquely horrible experiences. An impartial observer would conclude that one of two things is likely:

1) There is something you are doing that is contributing to these problems.
2) There is something you are doing that is both drawing these problematic people to you and driving away less problematic people.



Mostly laziness and soft-hardheartedness.

Playing a monster "hard" all the time is mentally exhausting, and it seems mean to stomp someone into the ground when they are already losing. I don't think this is just a GM thing either, as a player I also try harder when things are going hard, even in single player video games.

On the other hand, playing "soft" all the time makes the game a farce, both from a mechanical level and from a setting level; its hard to take a world seriously when its monsters and villains are complete idiots who can be taken out by a group of wandering adventurers without any effort.


Now, we can look into deeper game philosophy here and say its an important psychological mechanic. Its pretty well agreed upon that most people want a challenge, or at least the illusion of it; most sport's fans agree that close games are the best and many video games give you damage resistance when your life is low or damage boosts when your ammunition is low to give the illusion of a close call. I personally don't really know how much I agree with this though, it seems good in principal, but my players pretty universally throw tantrums at anything that isn't a cake walk, hold grudges for years over close calls, and I don't really trust myself to have that tight a grasp on game balance or on player psychology anyway.

But one of the other things that's important is that players see the results of their actions. You've complained before that the players say it doesn't matter what they do, the results will be the same... but that's kind of what you're saying.

If you've decided that the PCs will lose 90% of their HP, and then play the enemies easier/harder to guarantee that, then from the player POV it looks like what they do doesn't matter. If they play "well", they lose 90% of their HP. If they play "poorly", they lose 90% of their HP. They can't even tell what is good or bad play at that point.

And this leads to a feeling that their actions don't matter. Which leads to a lot of the type of complaints you get.

Note that a similar "it doesn't matter" issue comes about if you don't give players sufficient information to make decisions - "gotchas" and things like that just exacerbate it, especially if you make them super-aware of the consequences. And when doing stuff like that, try to think of what the players do actually know about the situation at hand - not what they "should" be able to guess or infer from clues you've given them.

Calthropstu
2021-05-11, 01:47 PM
Past a certain point, armor really does nothing unless you heavily invest in it. I made a sorcerer in pfs that proved this.

His ac was 8. His Con, however, was base 16 with a +4 belt. With massive hp and an 8 ac, I was basically blocking attacks with my face.

I concentrated my abilities towards not being able to be attacked at all. Between dimension door, invisibility, fog cloud, mirror image and major image, I could pretty much attack with impunity without ever being attacked myself.

It frustrated many gms. When they finally would catch me off guard, they couldn't do enough damage to drop me. Meanwhile, the party members who had spent tens of thousands on their ac would get mauled.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-11, 03:07 PM
To be fair to Talakeal, I believe he's basically only played with two groups (maybe three?) not counting the online game from this forum. Talakeal's gaming experience seems to be in two phases, one as a player with a problem group, and then as a GM with a different problem group. At that level 'just plain bad luck' is actually a reasonable explanation, if he could find another few groups I'm sure he'd land in one he's more happy with.

That's not to say he's faultless, but it does make this not being his direct fault more likely.

As a side note, I tend to like systems that tend towards rocket tag because it makes playing enemies optimally less necessary. If death is only a hit or two away then an enemy that can semi-reliably land hits is still a threat. But then again I'll happily run a railroad/all roads lead to Rome style adventure which throws an Unbound Daemonhost at a part of Rank 1 Dark Heresy characters (who never got the idea that maybe they shouldn't run in guns blazing except for the one assassin who'd invested in lots of Stealth*).


* The intended solution to that encounter was 'retreat, find a way to get bigger guns or demolish the building the monster is in'. To their credit they got good enough rolls to kill it before they started taking Critical Damage.

Talakeal
2021-05-11, 04:52 PM
To be fair to Talakeal, I believe he's basically only played with two groups (maybe three?) not counting the online game from this forum. Talakeal's gaming experience seems to be in two phases, one as a player with a problem group, and then as a GM with a different problem group. At that level 'just plain bad luck' is actually a reasonable explanation, if he could find another few groups I'm sure he'd land in one he's more happy with.

That's not to say he's faultless, but it does make this not being his direct fault more likely.

A bit more complicated than that.

Con games, one shots, and online games aside, I have been in close to half a dozen gaming groups.

I was taught the game in middle school by a teacher. He was pretty good (although he did a few things that I look back on and cringe), but the group, myself included, was a bunch of immature kids who didn't know how to play well with others.

My high school group was all problem players, some worse than others. We rotated GMs, but I did it most.

My junior college group was a group of immature jackasses like my middle school group, but the GM was an immature jackass like the rest of us, and we were playing the new and completely broken 3E.

My university group was made up of a few players from my highschool group, and a few new problem players. I was the exclusive GM. This is the first group I talked about on this forum.

When I moved to New Mexico I found a new gaming group. It was pretty good, but we alternated GMs every week, with one being by far the best GM I have ever played under and the other being by far the worst.

Now I live in Colorado, as do most of my old friends who couldn't afford California anymore, and I am GMing again (when we aren't in quarantine) from a group that is made up of some of the same high-school friends as I have had in previous groups, as well as some new players. Overall, it has been the most drama free group, but still far from perfect, the new players have issues, and while the old players have grown up a lot, they still fall back into their old ways on occasion.


Past a certain point, armor really does nothing unless you heavily invest in it. I made a sorcerer in pfs that proved this.

His ac was 8. His Con, however, was base 16 with a +4 belt. With massive hp and an 8 ac, I was basically blocking attacks with my face.

I concentrated my abilities towards not being able to be attacked at all. Between dimension door, invisibility, fog cloud, mirror image and major image, I could pretty much attack with impunity without ever being attacked myself.

It frustrated many gms. When they finally would catch me off guard, they couldn't do enough damage to drop me. Meanwhile, the party members who had spent tens of thousands on their ac would get mauled.

That works, until you get into a situation where a strong enemy who can see through illusions.

I don't disagree that playing smarter is usually better than playing harder, but you should probably have numbers to fall back on in case you make a mistake or come into a situation where your tricks don't work. Likewise, not all builds are able to pull that off.

And yeah, miss chance is often more cost effective than AC, but I prefer to have both. Likewise, with the exponential costs of bonuses, I find a little of everything is often the best strategy.

At higher levels d20 often gets to the point where the dice roll doesn't matter. At that point, yeah, armor is meaningless. But through a combination of degrees of success and bounded accuracy that is never the case in my system, each level of armor is guaranteed to reduce damage by at least 10%, unless you are actually fighting one of the few things that outright ignores armor.


I think there's an option - there's something you can do to alleviate these issues that you may be unaware of.

You are noted as having uniquely horrible experiences. An impartial observer would conclude that one of two things is likely:

1) There is something you are doing that is contributing to these problems.
2) There is something you are doing that is both drawing these problematic people to you and driving away less problematic people.

I agree, 1 is the most likely; although contribution is not necessarily direct cause or "fault". It may also be something that I am not doing. However, there are other likely explanations, players in my group teaching bad behaviors to new comers, me being more accepting of players that other groups would (or have) kicked out, or just an emergent tactic when they learn that they can save their characters by bitching.




But one of the other things that's important is that players see the results of their actions. You've complained before that the players say it doesn't matter what they do, the results will be the same... but that's kind of what you're saying.

If you've decided that the PCs will lose 90% of their HP, and then play the enemies easier/harder to guarantee that, then from the player POV it looks like what they do doesn't matter. If they play "well", they lose 90% of their HP. If they play "poorly", they lose 90% of their HP. They can't even tell what is good or bad play at that point.

And this leads to a feeling that their actions don't matter. Which leads to a lot of the type of complaints you get.

Note that a similar "it doesn't matter" issue comes about if you don't give players sufficient information to make decisions - "gotchas" and things like that just exacerbate it, especially if you make them super-aware of the consequences. And when doing stuff like that, try to think of what the players do actually know about the situation at hand - not what they "should" be able to guess or infer from clues you've given them.

I agree with you in principle.

I think you are way overstating the effect though, its typically a very small thing, with a relatively minor effect on the outcome, a few points here and there. The actual difficulty of any one encounter, let alone session, swings wildly.

I honestly think I am a very "dice fall where they may" sort of DM; and I often care about player choice and setting verisimilitude to a fault. I honestly think I would have a lot less problems if I were more willing to fudge the numbers and "let the players win".

Also note that "gotchas" are another consequence of player behavior, the type I think we both agree not to rob the players of. By choosing not to scout, or prepare divination spells, or put points into lore skills they are choosing to go in blind, and just telling them everything up front robs characters who do put resources into information gathering.

King of Nowhere
2021-05-11, 05:50 PM
re: AC, that depends. against some big monsters, yes. but AC matters when the opponent has power attack, as well as to stop iteratives. i've never found it useless

i also tend to avoid most sources of miss chance, because i find it a disfunctional mechanic. AC is good; you buff it, your opponent buff his to-hit, there is interaction. but flat miss chance? no interaction there. and some pretty ridiculous results if you stack it.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-11, 06:13 PM
To be honest, most sources of miss chance could be modelled as +AC, the main issue is things like invisibility where a realistically massive AC boost could send you to 'basically unhittable'.

Of course, in 3.X I believe you could stack miss chance to 'literally unhittable' levels.

Really, the most mechanics you need for defence in an RPG are a plus to passive defence, a plus to damage reduction, and maybe some kind of active defence option. Outside D&D it's not uncommon for passive defences to be zero by default, but also not uncommon to see them be more variable. But even in systems where attack rolls are all effectively against DC10 unless you sirens actions to defend there's normally some way of getting a passive defence, it might just be a really rare item or hard to get Talent.

One of the more interesting defence ideas I've seen recently was in Jackals, where you had to spend Clash Points in order to get a defence, which in melee combat allows you to land a hit if you win. It's hard not to want to invest in, as for melee defending runs off the same skill as attacking, a successful defence in melee harms your opponent, and your average PC probably has the Clash Points to defend against a few attacks and they refresh every round. It also feeds into how spellcasters work, each spell has a Clash Point cost as well as a Devotion Point (MP) cost, which doesn't matter outside of combat but means that casting in a battle takes away your ability to react to danger. A simple and believable way to weaken magic a bit, of course messing with the spirit world takes at least some of your concentration (coupled with only a handful of spells per tradition).

Thrudd
2021-05-11, 07:12 PM
One option for making players feel less like you're trying to do a "gotcha" in combat is to sometimes let the dice decide who gets targeted by an opponent.

Only when it makes sense, of course, either assign equal odds to each potential target and/or make an intelligence or wisdom roll of some kind to see if the enemy discerns (as you do) the most effective action. Of course, a creature isn't going to leave a melee with one character to go after another, and will prioritize someone that has actually attacked it or threatened it over someone that has not (unless it is very intelligent and perceptive). Things that are obvious to you might not be obvious to every NPC or creatures they encounter.
Let the players know you are rolling to determine the target and let them see the roll, saying something like "1-3 it goes for you, 4-6 it goes for him".

I agree that if the game has rules and abilities for information gathering, social reactions, etc., those things need to have consequences. Especially if the players need to choose between combat abilities and non-combat abilities, someone investing in the non-combat abilities should help make combats easier in some detectable way (through having more allies/fewer enemies, having foreknowledge of situations, identifying creature's strengths and weaknesses, etc.) It might help players to understand the effects of their choices by "gaming" this process more than people typically do, especially if they clearly don't understand the utility or possibility of those abilities.

Develop rules that lay out exactly what sort of effect each type of knowledge/social skill can have on an upcoming expedition or adventure. For instance, one character may make a social roll that can result in finding one or more allies to help them fight in their next battle, once per session or defined period of time. One hostile creature or group can be turned neutral (provided the players haven't already attacked). Make sure every skill and ability the players have the option of choosing has a defined game effect in addition to the generic description (rather than just "knowledge:topic means you know about topic"). If you don't see how some abilities can be "gamified" in this way, or it is so niche that it will rarely come up, consider allowing these abilities to be purchased from a different pool of character build points than the abilities that have concrete and almost always applicable effects. Don't limit the effects of these abilities because "role playing" or "verisimilitude", or else the players will be correct in identifying them as poor replacements for combat abilities that always work. Rather, come up with verisimilitudinous descriptions for how and why they achieve the pre-defined results of their rolls.

As for the glass-cannon thing, I really don't understand everyone wanting to do that. It seems like a profound misunderstanding of the game math to eschew all defenses, but I would think that a number of character deaths or characters dropping in every combat would teach them the value of some level of protection.

Calthropstu
2021-05-11, 08:22 PM
That works, until you get into a situation where a strong enemy who can see through illusions.

I don't disagree that playing smarter is usually better than playing harder, but you should probably have numbers to fall back on in case you make a mistake or come into a situation where your tricks don't work. Likewise, not all builds are able to pull that off.

And yeah, miss chance is often more cost effective than AC, but I prefer to have both. Likewise, with the exponential costs of bonuses, I find a little of everything is often the best strategy.

At higher levels d20 often gets to the point where the dice roll doesn't matter. At that point, yeah, armor is meaningless. But through a combination of degrees of success and bounded accuracy that is never the case in my system, each level of armor is guaranteed to reduce damage by at least 10%, unless you are actually fighting one of the few things that outright ignores armor.

That's why I had 2 non illusion options in there. Dimension door and fog cloud. 3.5/pf it's a VERY solid defense, especially if you use summons from inside the cloud.

I've worked absurd levels of defense with those 5 spells. And true sight? Most people forget that only extends to 120 feet. Stay high up in the sky protected by cloud illusions? Even the most powerful outsiders won't spot you. Good way to summon tons of air elementals and wreck someone's day.

Duff
2021-05-11, 10:40 PM
Its not feasible for me to create an entire campaign world before the game even begins. I don't have that kind of time or motivation, and it would have to come across as pretty rail-roady. I can create a module in advance, but the players can still blame me for targeting their weakness, whatever it is. Likewise, even if they have no weakness, they can still whine that I am attacking them more or whatnot.

Party advances to 6th level. Responds to a hook.
Talakeal opens the envelope marked "Early 6th level"
"OK, this is an adventure built for early 6th. We all know this was written to be interesting for any reasonable party, so you can be sure there's nothing here that was designed to target your specific characters."

Also note, having the reasonably clever, muscular bugbear grapple the squishy wizard would be fine at any reasonable table (Though the wizard's player might whinge at the fighter for letting the bugbear get that close...)
OTOH, the owlbear should probably attack whoever's closest and if there's a whole dudgeon of ropers (or other grapple specialists) the wizard has a point if they whinge

Calthropstu
2021-05-11, 10:51 PM
Party advances to 6th level. Responds to a hook.
Talakeal opens the envelope marked "Early 6th level"
"OK, this is an adventure built for early 6th. We all know this was written to be interesting for any reasonable party, so you can be sure there's nothing here that was designed to target your specific characters."

Also note, having the reasonably clever, muscular bugbear grapple the squishy wizard would be fine at any reasonable table (Though the wizard's player might whinge at the fighter for letting the bugbear get that close...)
OTOH, the owlbear should probably attack whoever's closest and if there's a whole dudgeon of ropers (or other grapple specialists) the wizard has a point if they whinge

To be faie, a reasonavle wizard would say "hey guys, this dungeon is full of ropers. Let's nuke every room before going in. We'll scout for anything important using the rogue beforehand and then blast with fireballs."

kyoryu
2021-05-12, 09:50 AM
I agree, 1 is the most likely; although contribution is not necessarily direct cause or "fault".

Don't shy away from the word fault. We all do things that lead to suboptimal outcomes. There's no shame in that - just observe the results, try different things, and see if that gets the results you want.


It may also be something that I am not doing.

Those are for all practical purposes the same thing.


However, there are other likely explanations, players in my group teaching bad behaviors to new comers, me being more accepting of players that other groups would (or have) kicked out, or just an emergent tactic when they learn that they can save their characters by bitching.

Most of that is point #2. Some of it is still point #1.


I agree with you in principle.

I think you are way overstating the effect though, its typically a very small thing, with a relatively minor effect on the outcome, a few points here and there. The actual difficulty of any one encounter, let alone session, swings wildly.

So, here's the thing. If a player gets through a combat with 10% health remaining, they might say "I should bring a potion next time". Their expectation would be that next fight they would get through with higher resources, due to expending the potion. If that's not enough, they'd bring more. Either way, they're learning the strategy that "bringing healing potions" is a good way to ensure that they come out of combat with more hit points.

Now... if you do the "adjust encounter difficulty based on how they're doing" thing to an extreme (which I'm not saying you are, to be clear, this is a hypothetical situation), they would see that no matter how many healing potions they brought (mostly within reason, there's action economy and stuff too), they ended up with the same health. They would then conclude that it didn't matter how many potions they brought, and would stop bringing potions. I mean, that's reasonable, right? They'd probably, at that point, only worry about getting gear that was permanent bonuses...

Of course, while I say this is hypothetical, can I point out that you have complained of these exact statements and behaviors from your players?

Which gets me to the other thing.... in the game industry there's a piece of general advice - "when the players say there's a problem, they're probably right. When they say how to fix it, they're probably wrong." IOW, players know when they're unhappy, even if they're often wrong about what, exactly, is causing the unhappiness. And it's always useful to figure that out. OTOH, most of your posts about players have framed them as about one inch shy of completely irrational, and has framed each of their complaints as completely irrational and baseless.

That's probably not the case.

In a lot of cases, you have pointed out situations where it was all very logical to you, based on hints that you put down (when of course you knew what they were hinting at). I think you'd do very well to presume that your players are more rational than perhaps you're giving them credit for, and to try to find a reason for what they're saying beyond "they're whiners and crazy and...". And remember it's not about right and wrong, it's about getting together and having a good time. It's about trying things, and seeing if people have fun with them, and if not adjusting them so people do have fun.


I honestly think I am a very "dice fall where they may" sort of DM; and I often care about player choice and setting verisimilitude to a fault. I honestly think I would have a lot less problems if I were more willing to fudge the numbers and "let the players win".

See? Here you're framing this as the players just wanting to always win. Not really looking very deeply at what the cause is.

Keep in mind that player agency (which is not choice) is dependent on people having not only a choice, but enough information to make an informed choice. And ideally, there should be multiple viable choices, not just one correct choice. Seriously, the more you push the emphasis of choices to "both of these have advantages and disadvantages, but both are viable, which do you want?" rather than "figure out the right choice or SUFFER" the less players will complain about that.

(Which is, to be clear, not the same as "all choices are correct and there are no wrong ones", which is just another form of choices not mattering).


Also note that "gotchas" are another consequence of player behavior, the type I think we both agree not to rob the players of. By choosing not to scout, or prepare divination spells, or put points into lore skills they are choosing to go in blind, and just telling them everything up front robs characters who do put resources into information gathering.

Honestly, depends. Some of that is game play preference - how much prep/action is everyone willing to tolerate? Some of that is based on how much advantage you get from scouting. Some is how much you telegraph that it's useful to scout in this case. Some of it's based on how "out of the blue" stuff is. Some of it is based on how much you penalize people for going off on their own.

Constantly scouting every stinking room and path becomes boring quickly, especially if the scout is hit for his vulnerability every time.

Again, talk to the players about this. Why aren't they doing it? And take their complaints seriously - even if you disagree, and even if you think they're wrong, there's a reason they say what they do, and that can help you figure out how to make it better.

It's actually a good skill to practice, even outside of games. When people do things, ask yourself "why would they do this?" and leave the option of "they're irrational" off of the table. Ask yourself what information, or values, or pressures they might have that would cause them to make that particular decision, or say that particular thing, or give you that particular information. It's a super useful skill to have, both in RPGs and life as a whole. It's practically a super power.


Party advances to 6th level. Responds to a hook.
Talakeal opens the envelope marked "Early 6th level"
"OK, this is an adventure built for early 6th. We all know this was written to be interesting for any reasonable party, so you can be sure there's nothing here that was designed to target your specific characters."

Also note, having the reasonably clever, muscular bugbear grapple the squishy wizard would be fine at any reasonable table (Though the wizard's player might whinge at the fighter for letting the bugbear get that close...)
OTOH, the owlbear should probably attack whoever's closest and if there's a whole dudgeon of ropers (or other grapple specialists) the wizard has a point if they whinge

All of this. Though I'd probably just make a list of 6th level encounters by 'theme' and go from there (easy, medium, hard), rather than have the entire adventure statted out.

Segev
2021-05-12, 11:47 AM
Perhaps you hand each player a pre-gen to play alongside their PC. Use the same chargen rules you permit them, but build the pregen to be survivable. I doubt they'll complain about having a "sidekick" character. Don't tell them you're doing this to teach them a lesson or anything. Just hand them out as a thing.

Let the dice fall where they may, and let them see which are more survivable. If they whine that you're targeting their characters specifically in some "grudge" sort of way, suggest that they can have the same defenses that their pregens have and not be so vulnerable.


Though another way to make them have to face that you're not doing it to them would be to have a game where they fight in an arena match. Make them fight each other.

Alternatively, do the mirror-match where you literally clone their characters and pit "evil" versions of them against the PCs. Same mechanics. See what they do to exploit their own weaknesses.

icefractal
2021-05-12, 01:42 PM
Also note that "gotchas" are another consequence of player behavior, the type I think we both agree not to rob the players of. By choosing not to scout, or prepare divination spells, or put points into lore skills they are choosing to go in blind, and just telling them everything up front robs characters who do put resources into information gathering.Coming back to this, scouting / preparation is one area where meta-game factors tend to discourage people from doing it. Namely, that while it might be realistic and effective, spending half the session watching one PC scout, or playing twenty questions with divination, is boring to the majority of players.

For example, the "divination heavy" style sometimes advocated here as how a Wizard should be played? Where you spend at least one day divining for every day of adventuring, so you can prepare the ideal spells and contingencies each day? I have never been in a group who did that for anything except the few most important situations, or would even have accepted someone doing it on a regular basis.

Now lore skills - yeah, there's no reason not to take those. Automatic information gathering like that doesn't cause any issues. But I could see a group deliberately avoiding Shadowrun-level preparation because they don't find it interesting, regardless of how effective it is.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-05-12, 08:16 PM
Coming back to this, scouting / preparation is one area where meta-game factors tend to discourage people from doing it. Namely, that while it might be realistic and effective, spending half the session watching one PC scout, or playing twenty questions with divination, is boring to the majority of players.

For example, the "divination heavy" style sometimes advocated here as how a Wizard should be played? Where you spend at least one day divining for every day of adventuring, so you can prepare the ideal spells and contingencies each day? I have never been in a group who did that for anything except the few most important situations, or would even have accepted someone doing it on a regular basis.

Now lore skills - yeah, there's no reason not to take those. Automatic information gathering like that doesn't cause any issues. But I could see a group deliberately avoiding Shadowrun-level preparation because they don't find it interesting, regardless of how effective it is.

Count me into that set. Some prep? Sure. Multiple days of in game, DM-interactive prep (ie can't just handwave/fast forward the time)? No thanks.

Duff
2021-05-12, 09:30 PM
To be faie, a reasonavle wizard would say "hey guys, this dungeon is full of ropers. Let's nuke every room before going in. We'll scout for anything important using the rogue beforehand and then blast with fireballs."

Lol. Also true. Though the point stands; Enemies targeting weaknesses is fine, Encounters targeting weaknesses should happen rarely enough that they feel incidental (unless there's an enemy deliberately running things) and whole adventures or arcs targeting weaknesses is strictly for games where there's a high level of trust between player and GM or an explicit agreement at session 0 that this will be a thing.

Thrudd
2021-05-12, 11:43 PM
Count me into that set. Some prep? Sure. Multiple days of in game, DM-interactive prep (ie can't just handwave/fast forward the time)? No thanks.

I agree. Let alone entire game sessions of players just talking and discussing what to do next (Critical Role, I'm looking at you). That's why I like a game that has some way to make down time and prep (if it's needed at all) an activity that all the players can mechanically interact with. Spend X amount of in-game time, roll some dice, get some results. There should be "downtime turns" the same way there are combat turns and travel/exploration/dungeon turns.

Ex.:Want to find a merc to help you? Roll your charisma, or whatever, DC based on the location. You spend 1 week downtime spreading word around merc hangouts, and if your roll succeeded someone responds to your offer.
Player 2 wants to scry the next adventure destination. Spend 1 week, make a roll or two, based on the result the GM gives you a little or a lot of information. Etc.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-05-13, 12:03 AM
I agree. Let alone entire game sessions of players just talking and discussing what to do next (Critical Role, I'm looking at you). That's why I like a game that has some way to make down time and prep (if it's needed at all) an activity that all the players can mechanically interact with. Spend X amount of in-game time, roll some dice, get some results. There should be "downtime turns" the same way there are combat turns and travel/exploration/dungeon turns.

Ex.:Want to find a merc to help you? Roll your charisma, or whatever, DC based on the location. You spend 1 week downtime spreading word around merc hangouts, and if your roll succeeded someone responds to your offer.
Player 2 wants to scry the next adventure destination. Spend 1 week, make a roll or two, based on the result the GM gives you a little or a lot of information. Etc.

My current game has most of the prep happening via Discord text chat between sessions. A mix of in character and out. That's worked really well so far. Especially since it gives me a window into what they want to do next and what's important. And lets me drop lore, backstory, and portents, dreams, and other omens asynchronously.

That leaves sessions for moving the narrative onward. Where onward is usually in some direction I didn't have entirely planned, but can roll with. I don't plan plots, but the narrative has a mind of its own, and insists on things I never thought of.

Thrudd
2021-05-13, 02:10 AM
My current game has most of the prep happening via Discord text chat between sessions. A mix of in character and out. That's worked really well so far. Especially since it gives me a window into what they want to do next and what's important. And lets me drop lore, backstory, and portents, dreams, and other omens asynchronously.

That leaves sessions for moving the narrative onward. Where onward is usually in some direction I didn't have entirely planned, but can roll with. I don't plan plots, but the narrative has a mind of its own, and insists on things I never thought of.

Yeah, that's actually a great idea, to take advantage of today's reality. Get everyone prepped ahead of time so you can get right to the adventure with your precious gaming time. I'm still thinking like it's 1995, before everyone had 4 forms of real time communication in their pocket at all times, lol. I don't get out much.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-13, 02:33 AM
Count me into that set. Some prep? Sure. Multiple days of in game, DM-interactive prep (ie can't just handwave/fast forward the time)? No thanks.

On the other hand the most prep work I tend to see is 'let's go back to the hideout and pick up our guns'. That's if I'm lucky, and I now spend a lot of time enforcing weapon regulations. But just once I'd like for the players to take time out to see if they can get the floor plan or all their contacts for information. It doesn't have to be a whole season, but I'd like for important locations to have actual security without the PCs dying and blaming it on me.

Telok
2021-05-13, 10:15 AM
On the other hand the most prep work I tend to see is 'let's go back to the hideout and pick up our guns'. That's if I'm lucky, and I now spend a lot of time enforcing weapon regulations. But just once I'd like for the players to take time out to see if they can get the floor plan or all their contacts for information. It doesn't have to be a whole season, but I'd like for important locations to have actual security without the PCs dying and blaming it on me.

So much this. I've had parties start interstellar wars and fail simple anti-piracy missions at the same time just by not talking to anyone and not asking for any more information. Even my directly asking in game "Are you sure about this? Do you want to do anything like calling contacts or research?", twice... Twice. It's the old, "you can make it available but you can't effectively force them to use it" thing.

One thing I've seen, mostly limited to specific players, is a tendency to find "power builds" on the internet and try to play them without understanding their tactics or limits. Since most theoretical optimization character builds tend to be hyper focused on a single aspect, trying to play one without understanding both it's role and limits generally goes badly. I mean things like a player taking a ranged blaster mage build and then self buffing for three rounds in combat before starting to make melee spell attacks. That could be an issue that's happening too.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-13, 10:53 AM
So much this. I've had parties start interstellar wars and fail simple anti-piracy missions at the same time just by not talking to anyone and not asking for any more information. Even my directly asking in game "Are you sure about this? Do you want to do anything like calling contacts or research?", twice... Twice. It's the old, "you can make it available but you can't effectively force them to use it" thing.

Yeah, I managed to run a Shadowrun campaign that should have ended Inc a three way fight between two corporations after the local ghouls used the PCs to raid a lab they'd already raided once for a Mega (I think AAA, it might have been a AA). That group refused to do legwork, and I just didn't want to deal with the consequences.

To be fair to my last group, the raid they did before the campaign all fell apart they realised that as they were robbing a museum exhibit they could spend most of the day going around and mapping everything out in their heads. Didn't think to do any research to see if [real person] actually owned any steins, but that's me deciding to mess with the Dipsomancer. But they did shell out for a high quality forgery, so I wish that group had lasted more than two sessions.

They also left their weapons at home, partially because most of them didn't own any and partially to minimise legal trouble. Sadly they didn't think to cover their faces despite one of the players facing a contact in the Met (who they hadn't assigned a unit to, and so just happened to be in the right one to be investigating such thefts).


One thing I've seen, mostly limited to specific players, is a tendency to find "power builds" on the internet and try to play them without understanding their tactics or limits. Since most theoretical optimization character builds tend to be hyper focused on a single aspect, trying to play one without understanding both it's role and limits generally goes badly. I mean things like a player taking a ranged blaster mage build and then self buffing for three rounds in combat before starting to make melee spell attacks. That could be an issue that's happening too.

Yeah, that's likely, alongside trying to apply principles from one system into another (in this case I think D&D principles into s homebrew system). But I've seen it occasionally, even done it once or twice myself. If there isn't a gaming law for 'a good build played poorly is worse than a bad build played adequately' then there should be

Talakeal
2021-05-13, 12:19 PM
That's why I had 2 non illusion options in there. Dimension door and fog cloud. 3.5/pf it's a VERY solid defense, especially if you use summons from inside the cloud.

I've worked absurd levels of defense with those 5 spells. And true sight? Most people forget that only extends to 120 feet. Stay high up in the sky protected by cloud illusions? Even the most powerful outsiders won't spot you. Good way to summon tons of air elementals and wreck someone's day.

I am absolutely not saying that these tactics don't work or that it is better to play smarter rather than play harder.

I am saying that these are all highly situational, require a good deal of prep, and do have counters, so it is a good idea to also have something else to fall back on.


To use a personal example, one of my players had a sorcerer who used various teleportation spells to escape combat, and so he invested nothing in other defenses. This works fine until he came up against an enemy who was better at teleportation than he was and was able to keep pace with him, and took him out in a single round. To this day the player still holds a grudge against me for the "unfair encounter".



Party advances to 6th level. Responds to a hook.
Talakeal opens the envelope marked "Early 6th level"
"OK, this is an adventure built for early 6th. We all know this was written to be interesting for any reasonable party, so you can be sure there's nothing here that was designed to target your specific characters."

That's actually what I did for the last campaign, but because I did it without the sealed envelope every sessions still came across as a "gotcha".

I currently don't have the time or inclination to prep the entire campaign in advance, and I already know what characters my PCs are going to be playing in the next one, but I suppose that might work for some hypothetical future game.



...if there's a whole dudgeon of ropers (or other grapple specialists) the wizard has a point if they whinge...

Here's the thing though, sometimes you will get themed dungeons just because it makes sense, and sometimes those themes will happen to overlap with a character's weakness. Roper nests do exist in the world, and the party is as likely to encounter them as any other monster with a similar population.


Those are for all practical purposes the same thing.

Most of that is point #2. Some of it is still point #1.

If you define it so broadly though, it is basically a non statement. Its basically answering "What should I do?" "You should something!"




Coming back to this, scouting / preparation is one area where meta-game factors tend to discourage people from doing it. Namely, that while it might be realistic and effective, spending half the session watching one PC scout, or playing twenty questions with divination, is boring to the majority of players.

For example, the "divination heavy" style sometimes advocated here as how a Wizard should be played? Where you spend at least one day divining for every day of adventuring, so you can prepare the ideal spells and contingencies each day? I have never been in a group who did that for anything except the few most important situations, or would even have accepted someone doing it on a regular basis.

Now lore skills - yeah, there's no reason not to take those. Automatic information gathering like that doesn't cause any issues. But I could see a group deliberately avoiding Shadowrun-level preparation because they don't find it interesting, regardless of how effective it is.

Obviously there is a happy midpoint.


Lol. Also true. Though the point stands; Enemies targeting weaknesses is fine, Encounters targeting weaknesses should happen rarely enough that they feel incidental (unless there's an enemy deliberately running things) and whole adventures or arcs targeting weaknesses is strictly for games where there's a high level of trust between player and GM or an explicit agreement at session 0 that this will be a thing.

How do you actually handle that though?

Like, if one character has really bad will-saves, and the DM want's to run a campaign arc with illithids as the main villains, does the DM need to come to the player and ask his or her player's permission first?

This seems limiting, patronizing, and also likely to spoil the plot in advance.

Or is the DM just limited to only using villains which don't target any of the PCs weaknesses? Which are pretty few and far between given most groups I have seen.


So much this. I've had parties start interstellar wars and fail simple anti-piracy missions at the same time just by not talking to anyone and not asking for any more information. Even my directly asking in game "Are you sure about this? Do you want to do anything like calling contacts or research?", twice... Twice. It's the old, "you can make it available but you can't effectively force them to use it" thing.

One thing I've seen, mostly limited to specific players, is a tendency to find "power builds" on the internet and try to play them without understanding their tactics or limits. Since most theoretical optimization character builds tend to be hyper focused on a single aspect, trying to play one without understanding both it's role and limits generally goes badly. I mean things like a player taking a ranged blaster mage build and then self buffing for three rounds in combat before starting to make melee spell attacks. That could be an issue that's happening too.

I frequently have similar issues when the players are too paranoid to talk to friendly NPCs out of fear of betrayal, and thus walk into a situation lacking vital context.



So, here's the thing. If a player gets through a combat with 10% health remaining, they might say "I should bring a potion next time". Their expectation would be that next fight they would get through with higher resources, due to expending the potion. If that's not enough, they'd bring more. Either way, they're learning the strategy that "bringing healing potions" is a good way to ensure that they come out of combat with more hit points.

Now... if you do the "adjust encounter difficulty based on how they're doing" thing to an extreme (which I'm not saying you are, to be clear, this is a hypothetical situation), they would see that no matter how many healing potions they brought (mostly within reason, there's action economy and stuff too), they ended up with the same health. They would then conclude that it didn't matter how many potions they brought, and would stop bringing potions. I mean, that's reasonable, right? They'd probably, at that point, only worry about getting gear that was permanent bonuses...

Totally agree here.

I am not talking about anything like that though, I am just talking about putting slightly more effort into the NPCs tactics when they are the underdogs, and giving the players a bit of a break when they are losing.

I am not talking about ignoring rules, fudging dice, or breaking immersion / verisimilitude, or metagaming, I am merely saying that when I am RPing an NPC, adhering to the expected difficulty of the encounter is one of the many factors that goes into my decision.

Honestly I don't think it makes much of a difference, and would be fine just having the monster roll an intelligence check in such situations if it becomes an issue.


Of course, while I say this is hypothetical, can I point out that you have complained of these exact statements and behaviors from your players?

Could you please give an example? I would love to discuss the actual issues rather than vague hypotheticals, and I think some specifics would really help me out here.


See? Here you're framing this as the players just wanting to always win. Not really looking very deeply at what the cause is.

That statement has nothing to do with players or their preferences; I am talking about DMs who fudge dice or monster HP to ensure that combats are exactly as challenging as they feel they should be; although I suppose a jackass GM could also do this to railroad the players into defeat instead of "letting them win".

To respond to this point, I don't think anyone would ever say they want you to "let them win," but on the other hand people have a tendency to get really mad and blame other people whenever they lose, and I do have a few players who are pretty bad at this.

Again, this isn't exclusive to gaming, I think everyone does this at time, including myself. Heck, my nobody will play golf with my dad because every time he misses a shot he finds some excuse to berate someone for "distracting him" in some way or another.

Honestly its kind of a conundrum.


Keep in mind that player agency (which is not choice) is dependent on people having not only a choice, but enough information to make an informed choice. And ideally, there should be multiple viable choices, not just one correct choice. Seriously, the more you push the emphasis of choices to "both of these have advantages and disadvantages, but both are viable, which do you want?" rather than "figure out the right choice or SUFFER" the less players will complain about that.

(Which is, to be clear, not the same as "all choices are correct and there are no wrong ones", which is just another form of choices not mattering).

I wholly agree.

I don't think I have ever had a problem with this though. If you could recall a specific instance I would love to discuss it, but in my memory all I can think of are situations where players tried one tactic that didn't work for one reason or another and then panicked / got frustrated and assumed it was impossible.

The closest I can recall is when the players couldn't win a fight on their own, I gave them a choice of three allies, and the players rejected them all for one reason or another and spent a long time looking for a fourth option that didn't exist.


Honestly, depends. Some of that is game play preference - how much prep/action is everyone willing to tolerate? Some of that is based on how much advantage you get from scouting. Some is how much you telegraph that it's useful to scout in this case. Some of it's based on how "out of the blue" stuff is. Some of it is based on how much you penalize people for going off on their own.

Constantly scouting every stinking room and path becomes boring quickly, especially if the scout is hit for his vulnerability every time.


I don't really see how scouting is boring, its basically just changing up the order you get the descriptive text in. I can't see it taking more than a couple more sessions per minute; unless the scout is taking a lot of actions solo, in which case it might be boring for the rest of the group, but gives the scout some great spotlight time.

In my experience the odds of a scout actually getting caught are close to negligible; most "rogue" type PCs are optimized enough that they can't fail a stealth roll without doing something exceptionally risky.

icefractal
2021-05-13, 12:41 PM
Like, if one character has really bad will-saves, and the DM want's to run a campaign arc with illithids as the main villains, does the DM need to come to the player and ask his or her player's permission first?

This seems limiting, patronizing, and also likely to spoil the plot in advance.
Ask permission? No.
Warn the player at char-gen? Yes.

If the Illithids are a twist, luckily there are *many* things that cause Will saves in D&D. All you need to say is:
"In this campaign, Will saves that low will be a *big* weakness that comes up frequently. Are you ok with that, or do you want to adjust your build?"

Jay R
2021-05-13, 01:13 PM
There are DMs who think their job involves preventing the party from dying. There are players who think that PC death should never happen (or should always be the players' choice).

If this player comes from that tradition, then he is right -- armor does nothing.

If he believes that the DM is supposed to keep his player alive, then when the PC dies, he will blame the DM, not the lack of armor.

You must make sure in advance that your players know that their characters can die. If all their PCs were kept alive in previous games, then they can be forgiven for believing that their PC will be kept alive in this one.

The only answer is to communicate. And it is sometimes very difficult for DM to communicate with their PCs.


“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”

-- George Bernard Shaw

Talakeal
2021-05-13, 01:40 PM
Ask permission? No.
Warn the player at char-gen? Yes.

If the Illithids are a twist, luckily there are *many* things that cause Will saves in D&D. All you need to say is:
"In this campaign, Will saves that low will be a *big* weakness that comes up frequently. Are you ok with that, or do you want to adjust your build?"

Note I said arc, not the entire campaign.

Its easy enough during session zero, a little less so if I decide to have a long illithid based storyline six months in when the PCs are already mid level.

Telok
2021-05-13, 01:43 PM
The only answer is to communicate. And it is sometimes very difficult for DM to communicate with their PCs.

Oh communicating with a PC is easy, the DM just says that the sky opens up and a booming voice says something like "without armor you will experience butt-hurt". Getting it through to the player now, that's the challenge.

Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-13, 02:15 PM
There are DMs who think their job involves preventing the party from dying. There are players who think that PC death should never happen (or should always be the players' choice).

If this player comes from that tradition, then he is right -- armor does nothing.

I honestly think that anybody who wants a game should read Fate's Taken Out and Conceding rules, or something like First Fable (which is admittedly aimed at kids) where the player is allowed to decide what level of risk they want. There's ways to run games where PCs don't die without making armour useless, you just either have to use a system that makes taking a substantial hit bad.

One system I've designed doesn't actually have rules for character death but instead has each hit on a PC give Wounds that apply penalties to all rolls, and as you reduce all Wounds by 1 at the end of a session with an optional rename getting a bunch of small hits is better in the long run then one big hit. Sadly it doesn't work with the dice system, even a -1 is a big deal, but I'm saving it for another project where a couple of minor wounds isn't a big deal (and getting decent armour is much harder). Character death is instead considered a way to retire a character and is discussed alongside them becoming an established NPC or falling to villainy.

Maat Mons
2021-05-13, 04:01 PM
Okay, I've skipped reading large portions of the responses because I plan to go eat soon. So if what I say duplicates a response already given, I apologize.



In a way, armor does do nothing. What I mean is, a character's AC doesn't actually change based on what armor they wear. Okay, that still probably sounds weird. It's just that, the sum of max Dex bonus and armor bonus is more-or-less constant across armor categories. A high-Dex, light-armor character will have about the same AC as a low-Dex, heavy-armor character. Padded armor is +1 and +8, so +9 total. And full plate is +8 and +1, so +9 total.

There's no dichotomy where light armor characters take fewer hits, and heavy armor characters take less damage per hit. There's just a "defense goodness" number that doesn't care how you go about your defense. So you pick your armor to match your Dex. Or you pick your Dex to match your armor. And there's no game mechanic that makes the different character types feel different in play. It makes defense an abstract number that doesn't reflect anything about how your character's style of combat.



My advice is to never, ever tailor encounters to the players. As a player, I find it incredibly disheartening to imagine that my choices in character creation don't do anything. It doesn't matter if it takes the form of the DM deliberately building enemies to be immune to my best attacks. Or if it takes the form of the DM making sure I never face enemies that exploit my glaring weaknesses. It doesn't matter if it takes the form of the DM making sure to never pick monsters that require spellcasting, because we're all playin mundanes, and he wants us to have a chance. Or if the DM decides to "punish" our group of mundanes by setting us up against enemies that only magic can defeat, to "teach us a lesson."

If a DM tells he adjusts challenges to the group, he's basically telling me that all the pages of the book dedicated to character options are so much waste paper. It doesn't make any difference what I play. If the DM's plot requires me to succeed, I will find myself in a situation where my capabilities, whatever they are, are sufficient to pull off a victory. And if the DM's plot requires me to fail, I will find myself in a situation where my capabilities, whatever they are, just aren't enough. At that point, we could just throw out the dice and numbers and just straight up play pretend.

I remember a comment on these boards a while back, along the lines of "Why would you learn the Plane Shift spell? If the adventure requires going to another plane, and you don't have it, the DM will just add a convenient NPC who can take you there." I didn't say it then, by I immediately thought something like "Why build a party that can win fights? If you play a party of venerable Commoners, the DM will only give you challenges that venerable Commoners can deal with."


There is a saying, "The best defense is a good offense." This can be very true. Dead enemies aren't going to be landing any attacks on you. In fact, making enemies dead is the only way to prevent all forms of attack. AC can prevent physical attacks. Mind Blank can prevent mental attacks. But only enemy death prevents every single possible thing that enemy could ever do to you.

There is one major caveat though. This completely falls apart if the DM tailors encounters to the players. The offensively-focused playstyle is all about achieving a fast victory. Because if you don't win fast, you lose. But if your DM's response to you winning fast is to make your future fights harder, you will very quickly find all your offensive power canceled out by bigger-defense-number-having enemies. If the DM won't rest until he sees you bleed, you will bleed. The fact that you invested all your build resources in making enemies too dead to hurt you wont avail you anything in the face of the DM's mighty powers of fiat.

Against the encounter-tailoring DM, the only thing you can do that will actually influence you success or failure chances long-term is a bizarre kind of metagaming. You need to make sure you struggle. Even if you have awesome abilities and you're fighting easy opponents, find a way to struggle. Maybe just never use any of your good abilities. Finish every day with wasted, unused resources. Say you're saving them "just in case." Make deliberately bad strategic decisions. The DM will try to compensate by giving you easier battles. But just keep screwing up. No matter how hard you have to work to very nearly lose, do it. That way, whenever you find yourself in actual danger, you can just momentarily display competence. The DM gets drawn-out encounters, with everyone taking a little damage, just like he wants. But you're never actually in danger of dying, because you're basically an Olympic swimmer in a kiddie pool, pretending you only know how to dog paddle.



So I recommend using pre-published modules, and making absolutely no adjustments. Anything else, at best, creates the illusion of meaningful character creation. At worst, you can get either a DM-vs-player mentality, or a hand-holding story time campaign.

Darth Credence
2021-05-13, 04:24 PM
Okay, I've skipped reading large portions of the responses because I plan to go eat soon. So if what I say duplicates a response already given, I apologize.

In a way, armor does do nothing. What I mean is, a character's AC doesn't actually change based on what armor they wear. Okay, that still probably sounds weird. It's just that, the sum of max Dex bonus and armor bonus is more-or-less constant across armor categories. A high-Dex, light-armor character will have about the same AC as a low-Dex, heavy-armor character. Padded armor is +1 and +8, so +9 total. And full plate is +8 and +1, so +9 total.

Wait, what? A 20 Dex character wearing padded has an AC of 16. An 8 Dex character with plate has an AC of 18. What are you meaning by this +1 and +8 statement? (serious question, I want to know if I'm missing a rule.)


There is a saying, "The best defense is a good offense." This can be very true. Dead enemies aren't going to be landing any attacks on you. In fact, making enemies dead is the only way to prevent all forms of attack. AC can prevent physical attacks. Mind Blank can prevent mental attacks. But only enemy death prevents every single possible thing that enemy could ever do to you.

This is funny in light of a game that features a wide variety of dead creatures that can stand up, brush off the grave dirt, and eat your face.

Maat Mons
2021-05-13, 06:20 PM
What I mean is, If your Dex is 22, you'll wear leather armor and have an AC of 18. If your Dex is 20, you'll wear studded leather armor and have an AC of 18. If your Dex is 18, you'll wear a chain shirt and have an AC of 18. You just look at your Dex, pick the armor that matches, and you wind up with an AC of 18.

Or if you're a building a Fighter, and your first draft has Dex 12, you'll equip him with full plate, for an AC of 19. Then if you say to yourself, "No, I want to be harder to hit than that. I'll pump my Dex," rearrange your build decisions, and come back with a Dex 36 Fighter... you'll notice that your AC is the same. "But of course," you may say to yourself, "I forgot to change his armor. I'll give him something that allows him to take advantage of his massive Dex." Then you switch him to padded armor... and the AC you wind up with is 19.

Alternately, maybe you're playing a Barbarian with 16 Dex who wears a breastplate. And you decide "Man, I'm getting hit too much. I'll take a dip in Fighter for heavy armor proficiency. Then I can wear full plate and get better protection!" You take your dip, and buy your armor, only to wind up with the same 19 AC as you had before.

Wizards built the armor system with the deliberate intention of keeping everyone's AC within certain bounds. You can get outside of these bounds by having so little Dex that you can't even hit the max Dex bonus of the heaviest armor available to you. Or you can have have so much Dex that you transcend armor completely. Or you can make objectively bad decisions and wear armor that isn't a good match for your Dex score. But in practice, outside of the lowest levels, where the cost of mundane armor is relevant, or classes that are deliberately designed to have restricted armor choices, you'll wind up with about the same AC whether you build high-Dex light armor or low-Dex heavy armor.

So Wizards succeeded in their goals. But I'd have much rather seen a system where light-armored characters dodged out of the way of attack, and heavy-armored characters negated some of the damage of each hit, and this was reflected in the mechanics. As it stands, you've just got an AC, and whether attacks glance off your armor or you dodge out of the way doesn't enter into the mechanics.

Cluedrew
2021-05-13, 07:22 PM
My advice is to never, ever tailor encounters to the players. As a player, I find it incredibly disheartening to imagine that my choices in character creation don't do anything. [...] So I recommend using pre-published modules, and making absolutely no adjustments. Anything else, at best, creates the illusion of meaningful character creation. At worst, you can get either a DM-vs-player mentality, or a hand-holding story time campaign."A mercenary, a naive mystic and a reality TV show host (with camera crew) walk into a bar." That isn't the set up to a joke that is actually how one of the best campaigns I ever played in. The other two PCs were a well equipped yet underprepared wildlife photographer and a local hunter with a plane.

I challenge you to dig up a pre-made module that can handle that group of PCs, getting them all hooked in and giving them all a chance to contribute. And there is the whole expression aspect, there are plenty of decisions you make during character creation that don't have to do with picking tactical options.

Also I believe Talakeal is using a homebrew system.

Thrudd
2021-05-13, 09:54 PM
You know, after all this, has anyone suggested just rolling the dice in front of the players, especially in combat?
You can't really be blamed when they can see the numbers for themselves. It should then be obvious how their choice to invest in defense would make a difference.

If the problem is really that they think you are only using enemies that specifically can avoid their special abilities...are you? I mean, being good at physical combat isn't something they should be surprised to see in almost every enemy they encounter, right? So going lightly armored would be something they know will have an effect in every combat, and seeing heavily armored enemies likewise should be no surprise. It seems that they are investing in special offensive capabilities and are frustrated by how often they don't work. Were they unaware of the actual success chances of these abilities when they chose them? If a majority of enemies have defenses against these abilities, is the character creation cost of choosing them unjustified? If you feel the creation process is balanced, perhaps again more communication prior to character creation is required. Warn that the reason ability x is as cheap as it is, is due to the fact that it often won't succeed.

If characters are choosing abilities that they can reasonably assume will work a majority of the time (based on a straight reading of the rules), but allowing this to happen would unbalanced or disrupt the way you think the game should proceed, then maybe the problem is with the mechanics of the ability itself. There would need to be rules adjustments, whether it is for always or for just one campaign. Communicate these changes and the reasons for them prior to character creation, or else you will get the players trying to take advantage of what they see as exploits or at least disproportionately effective character builds, and will be surprised and upset when they find things aren't the way they assumed.

Lacco
2021-05-14, 02:46 AM
Got me. Lot's of stuff. Something specific you are getting at?

Mostly I was trying to ask if you have some idea for the common denominators - after all, you are the only source of information we have. So: are there any commonalities?


There is of course the old de motivational poster answer "You are the common factor in all your failed relationships," which is really a non-answer in an advice thread as people wouldn't be asking a question if they didn't think they could modify their behavior to change it. Unless that's the point?

You are definitely one of the factors, not necessarily the only one. And it's always good to take into account yourself first, because you can modify your behaviour directly - and we can provide you with inputs/suggestions/advice to do so. We can also try to analyse what causes the behaviour of your players, but we can not modify it directly - so I will focus mostly on you if you do not mind (basically my intent is: I can't talk to your players to tell them how to change their behaviour, I can only talk to you).

Also, some people ask questions with the intention of getting sympathy/praise/understanding, not to modify their behaviour. And it is something that can be done in good faith - especially when you are frustrated and need someone to confirm it's not just you. But when asking for sympathy, you should state it directly - otherwise you'll get a lot of advice and no sympathy most of the time. And please, bear in mind that while we can assume why you do what you do, I'd like to ask before assuming: would you like advice or sympathy? (and this is in no ill will, just to be sure we provide what you actually want)

This is mainly from my experience where people wish for sympathy, state they want advice, and then get frustrated by the answers. Would like to avoid that one.


Oh I think I was intentionally being irritating. I was more than a little frustrated myself after having spent the entire morning being raked over the coals for how overpowered my warband was.

How do you respond at game table when players frustrate you? Ideally, do you have a specific example?


But I can't think of a better way to illustrate my point as white room discussions of probability just get dismissed. Any advice?

I'll not dismiss white room discussions of probability. There are some things that are discussed easier this way.

Also, I noticed you have very strong assumptions about some issues. I know each of us has some knowledge/experience (also about discussing here), but I'd like to ask you to approach this with open mind.

And if there are some assumptions we should take into account for the discussion (e.g. you are playing homebrew system but your players are very familiar with it), please state those - it will help a lot.


Those formats are totally different though. I can't imagine getting much useful data from them.

Au contraire!

The small online group - ideally if you recorded the whole thing - would provide lots of data and would provide us with possibility to see how you act/react, consider the unwritten parts of social contract you follow, see your body language, hear your voice and be able to see how you provide information to the players. That's a lot of information. Also: stress points and reaction to discomfort.

If people from this forum were involved, we'd also get direct feedback.

PbP and play by chat would not give us so much info, but still - the communication style usually remains very similar, especially with chat.

You can get data even from the discussions here.

Yes, you are correct - these formats are wildly different, which means they can provide each its own, useful data. Question is: which one'd you prefer?


Playing a monster "hard" all the time is mentally exhausting, and it seems mean to stomp someone into the ground when they are already losing. I don't think this is just a GM thing either, as a player I also try harder when things are going hard, even in single player video games.

On the other hand, playing "soft" all the time makes the game a farce, both from a mechanical level and from a setting level; its hard to take a world seriously when its monsters and villains are complete idiots who can be taken out by a group of wandering adventurers without any effort.

Okay, so: your preference - even as a player - would be is playing a monster "hard", but going softer when it seems to be an issue? Or did I misunderstand?

Also, how do you manage the game difficulty at the table?


Now, we can look into deeper game philosophy here and say its an important psychological mechanic. Its pretty well agreed upon that most people want a challenge, or at least the illusion of it; most sport's fans agree that close games are the best and many video games give you damage resistance when your life is low or damage boosts when your ammunition is low to give the illusion of a close call. I personally don't really know how much I agree with this though, it seems good in principal, but my players pretty universally throw tantrums at anything that isn't a cake walk, hold grudges for years over close calls, and I don't really trust myself to have that tight a grasp on game balance or on player psychology anyway.

There are different players and different mentalities. Assuming your players are not members of the bizarro world (let's go into the white room discussion), the tantrums and grudges should usually come from a feeling of being mistreated/played unfairly/cheated - not from "the game is too hard".

Now with this in mind: can you construct a cake walk encounter? No stats, just basic info, tactics - just for me to get an overall feeling of how you construct these. Since I do not know your homebrew system and am not too familiar with D&D, there will be others that will take a look at that, but I'd prefer low-level D&D (I am a bit familiar with that).

Also, whiterooming a hard encounter as an example would help.


You know, after all this, has anyone suggested just rolling the dice in front of the players, especially in combat?
You can't really be blamed when they can see the numbers for themselves. It should then be obvious how their choice to invest in defense would make a difference.

I think this was more about tactics than dice - when the mindless monster attacks the physically weak spellcaster first just because he has no defences, it can be seen as unfair even if your roll dice in front of the player. Not so much when a genius-level enemy does the same - but I still know players that would grumble.

Of course, building monsters specifically to overcome strengths of a PC can cause grief - but having monsters that will have certain aspects that make them dangerous is normal. Still, players do not know - by default - which one of these is happening.

Still, I think the only moment when I roll dice in secret is when I go for horror. It works great for the tension.

MoiMagnus
2021-05-14, 04:01 AM
Something quitte important to note is that this mindset feed itself.

When you have no defense, your play style is "if things go wrong I m dead". Having slightly more defense won't change this play style, it will just make the case where things go wrong slightly less deadly, but still deadly.

This is why you only see peoples care about defense when they focus on it because it actually change their play style, and they can now afford to frontline as a main strategy.

They see defense as a "lose less" mechanism, and expect to never lose with good enough decision making. But that's wrong. Taking damage should also be part of the winning plan.

Have you tried to make a one-shot where between-fight healing is cheap (if not automatic full heal) and increase the enemy number accordingly? This might help to teach your players that HP is a resource to use.
EDIT: Also, give them ONE amulet of health (the item to put Constitution to 19), and watch them realise that Constitution is OP.

Xervous
2021-05-14, 07:21 AM
EDIT: Also, give them ONE amulet of health (the item to put Constitution to 19), and watch them realise that Constitution is OP.


If the party is dysfunctional this will only lead to arguments over who gets it. It’s not like they can all realize the stat is useful and rebuild on the spot. Then there’s the matter of stat fixing items being terrible for the game IMO, and the likelihood that Talakeal is running a custom system.

Darth Credence
2021-05-14, 08:58 AM
What I mean is, If your Dex is 22, you'll wear leather armor and have an AC of 18. If your Dex is 20, you'll wear studded leather armor and have an AC of 18. If your Dex is 18, you'll wear a chain shirt and have an AC of 18. You just look at your Dex, pick the armor that matches, and you wind up with an AC of 18.

Or if you're a building a Fighter, and your first draft has Dex 12, you'll equip him with full plate, for an AC of 19. Then if you say to yourself, "No, I want to be harder to hit than that. I'll pump my Dex," rearrange your build decisions, and come back with a Dex 36 Fighter... you'll notice that your AC is the same. "But of course," you may say to yourself, "I forgot to change his armor. I'll give him something that allows him to take advantage of his massive Dex." Then you switch him to padded armor... and the AC you wind up with is 19.

Alternately, maybe you're playing a Barbarian with 16 Dex who wears a breastplate. And you decide "Man, I'm getting hit too much. I'll take a dip in Fighter for heavy armor proficiency. Then I can wear full plate and get better protection!" You take your dip, and buy your armor, only to wind up with the same 19 AC as you had before.

Wizards built the armor system with the deliberate intention of keeping everyone's AC within certain bounds. You can get outside of these bounds by having so little Dex that you can't even hit the max Dex bonus of the heaviest armor available to you. Or you can have have so much Dex that you transcend armor completely. Or you can make objectively bad decisions and wear armor that isn't a good match for your Dex score. But in practice, outside of the lowest levels, where the cost of mundane armor is relevant, or classes that are deliberately designed to have restricted armor choices, you'll wind up with about the same AC whether you build high-Dex light armor or low-Dex heavy armor.

So Wizards succeeded in their goals. But I'd have much rather seen a system where light-armored characters dodged out of the way of attack, and heavy-armored characters negated some of the damage of each hit, and this was reflected in the mechanics. As it stands, you've just got an AC, and whether attacks glance off your armor or you dodge out of the way doesn't enter into the mechanics.

Except this isn't true. For one thing, you really shouldn't have a dexterity score of 36 - I guess there could be some home brew magic items out there, but I hardly think it's worth discussing. And if you are wearing plate armor, your AC is 18. Not 19, unless it's +1 armor, because you get no modifier for dexterity in heavy armor. If you're wearing chain mail, because your strength isn't high enough for plate, then your AC is 16, again no dex modifiers. Or splint mail, to put you at 17. And why would you wear leather if you have access to studded leather? They both are light armor so get full dex bonuses, so the same character with studded instead of plain leather will have AC one higher. There are tactical reasons - cost, if weight matters, or so that heat metal doesn't affect the player if the studs are considered metal, for example - but if you have a higher dex getting the same AC as if you had a lower dex doesn't seem to be one of them. And if you did have a 30 dex, from enough magic goosing the score, then padded armor would give an AC of 21, not 19. Let's see, what else. A character wearing a breastplate will have a maximum AC of 16 - anything beyond +2 from dex stops adding. Now, that barbarian may be better off with no armor at all to get his con bonus added in, but he would definitely have a higher AC if he made the weird choice to get heavy armor for a barbarian. Pure wizards, with no armor proficiency, are unlikely to be in the same armor range, as they would need a 20 dex plus mage armor on to get to 18.

Again, maybe there are some rules that I am missing. But as far as I can see, you are misreading the rules on armor pretty severely.

JNAProductions
2021-05-14, 09:08 AM
Except this isn't true. For one thing, you really shouldn't have a dexterity score of 36 - I guess there could be some home brew magic items out there, but I hardly think it's worth discussing. And if you are wearing plate armor, your AC is 18. Not 19, unless it's +1 armor, because you get no modifier for dexterity in heavy armor. If you're wearing chain mail, because your strength isn't high enough for plate, then your AC is 16, again no dex modifiers. Or splint mail, to put you at 17. And why would you wear leather if you have access to studded leather? They both are light armor so get full dex bonuses, so the same character with studded instead of plain leather will have AC one higher. There are tactical reasons - cost, if weight matters, or so that heat metal doesn't affect the player if the studs are considered metal, for example - but if you have a higher dex getting the same AC as if you had a lower dex doesn't seem to be one of them. And if you did have a 30 dex, from enough magic goosing the score, then padded armor would give an AC of 21, not 19. Let's see, what else. A character wearing a breastplate will have a maximum AC of 16 - anything beyond +2 from dex stops adding. Now, that barbarian may be better off with no armor at all to get his con bonus added in, but he would definitely have a higher AC if he made the weird choice to get heavy armor for a barbarian. Pure wizards, with no armor proficiency, are unlikely to be in the same armor range, as they would need a 20 dex plus mage armor on to get to 18.

Again, maybe there are some rules that I am missing. But as far as I can see, you are misreading the rules on armor pretty severely.

They're talking about 3.P.

You're talking about 5E.

And Talakeal isn't running either of those, as far as I know.

Satinavian
2021-05-14, 09:10 AM
Again, maybe there are some rules that I am missing. But as far as I can see, you are misreading the rules on armor pretty severely.
We are in the general roleplaying section.

Is it possible that one of you is talking 3.5, the other 5E ?

Calthropstu
2021-05-14, 09:31 AM
We are in the general roleplaying section.

Is it possible that one of you is talking 3.5, the other 5E ?

Lol, to be fair I made that mistake at first too. Not all systems HAVE glass cannons or devolve into rocket tag. Of those that do, 3.5 pops into mind first and formost.

Darth Credence
2021-05-14, 10:03 AM
Thank you, everyone, for clearing up the system difference. I figured there had to be something that I was missing, but since I completely skipped 3rd edition, I had no idea what. I assumed when he started talking about WotC and trying to bound things to a certain range that he was talking about 5e.
Thanks again.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-14, 10:32 AM
Lol, to be fair I made that mistake at first too. Not all systems HAVE glass cannons or devolve into rocket tag. Of those that do, 3.5 pops into mind first and formost.

Others slip into rocket tag by default, GURPS springs to mind. So do the various WH40k games, but in those games armour is massively useful because it drops damage from a lasgun from about 7 Wounds to about 3 (and does even better once you move on from flak armour to the real stuff). In fact looking back on the pre-W&G games I'd say your Toughness at higher levels mattered less than what armour you'd managed to swindle out of whoever's financing you.

Actually most systems that tend towards Rocket Tag will make armour really valuable, as it means you can take that one vital extra hit.meanwhile only one edition of D&D gave any kind of AC-scaling on par with Attack scaling, meaning that by mid levels a Fighter can comfortably hit their own AC. I suspect then that people raised on D&D will disregard armour as inefficient, while players who's first experience was GURPS or Dark Heresy will have seen somebody with armour soak three or four hits while their character left the fight after one or two. I've seen it happen, in a GURPS game if I believe that I have an IC reason to shell out for a breastplate/armoured vest I will because that 5DR means a lot, while in D&D I'm suspicious of full plate being worth the cost and won't nab any unless it appears in loot (although on the other hand I also tend not to play warriors in D&D, but I'm also so used to 3.5 I just don't see upgrading from +4AC to +8AC as worth it in the long run).

But yeah, it's the classic Playgrounder's Assumption: if no system is specified then assume D&D 3.5.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-05-14, 10:59 AM
Others slip into rocket tag by default, GURPS springs to mind. So do the various WH40k games, but in those games armour is massively useful because it drops damage from a lasgun from about 7 Wounds to about 3 (and does even better once you move on from flak armour to the real stuff). In fact looking back on the pre-W&G games I'd say your Toughness at higher levels mattered less than what armour you'd managed to swindle out of whoever's financing you.

Actually most systems that tend towards Rocket Tag will make armour really valuable, as it means you can take that one vital extra hit.meanwhile only one edition of D&D gave any kind of AC-scaling on par with Attack scaling, meaning that by mid levels a Fighter can comfortably hit their own AC. I suspect then that people raised on D&D will disregard armour as inefficient, while players who's first experience was GURPS or Dark Heresy will have seen somebody with armour soak three or four hits while their character left the fight after one or two. I've seen it happen, in a GURPS game if I believe that I have an IC reason to shell out for a breastplate/armoured vest I will because that 5DR means a lot, while in D&D I'm suspicious of full plate being worth the cost and won't nab any unless it appears in loot (although on the other hand I also tend not to play warriors in D&D, but I'm also so used to 3.5 I just don't see upgrading from +4AC to +8AC as worth it in the long run).

But yeah, it's the classic Playgrounder's Assumption: if no system is specified then assume D&D 3.5.

Whereas I, who have only played (at the tabletop) 4e and 5e D&D, with about 3 sessions of PF, absolutely don't disregard armor and CON. As a DM, I see my low armor monsters and players getting smacked around, whereas the people who actually build for it take way less damage than "expected" (quotes because that's a naive, non-mathematical expectation). And I'm not playing at the pinnacles of optimization either. Just average monsters and average player characters.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-14, 11:19 AM
Whereas I, who have only played (at the tabletop) 4e and 5e D&D, with about 3 sessions of PF, absolutely don't disregard armor and CON. As a DM, I see my low armor monsters and players getting smacked around, whereas the people who actually build for it take way less damage than "expected" (quotes because that's a naive, non-mathematical expectation). And I'm not playing at the pinnacles of optimization either. Just average monsters and average player characters.

Oh you don't disregard CON, that's used for FORTITUDE SAVES. You also don't neglect defences, but in 3.X AC tends to be the worst way to so it. Also outside of D&D I'm familiar with enough systems to either get armour or stay far, far away from monsters. Ideally both, rifle+scope+armour was insane in GURPS.

As I've said, I've been in the position of being the only person armoured and it mattering, I've also been in the position of being unarmoured and it not mattering because resources are better spent elsewhere. In 3.5 I'll generally just stick with whatever armour I begin with unless a better suit arrives as loot.

Although in D&D these days I'm most likely to play a Cleric or Monk.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-05-14, 11:38 AM
Oh you don't disregard CON, that's used for FORTITUDE SAVES. You also don't neglect defences, but in 3.X AC tends to be the worst way to so it. Also outside of D&D I'm familiar with enough systems to either get armour or stay far, far away from monsters. Ideally both, rifle+scope+armour was insane in GURPS.

As I've said, I've been in the position of being the only person armoured and it mattering, I've also been in the position of being unarmoured and it not mattering because resources are better spent elsewhere. In 3.5 I'll generally just stick with whatever armour I begin with unless a better suit arrives as loot.

Although in D&D these days I'm most likely to play a Cleric or Monk.

Right. My point was that "D&D" is not a uniquely-specified thing. Experience/instinct in one edition transfers poorly, if at all, to other editions.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-14, 12:22 PM
Right. My point was that "D&D" is not a uniquely-specified thing. Experience/instinct in one edition transfers poorly, if at all, to other editions.

True, but my initial point was about a relative lack of AC scaling, which is true in every edition I have experience with bar 4e. In favct I specified that I'm used to 3.5, which while rather late in the post at least put my biases n show.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-05-14, 12:46 PM
True, but my initial point was about a relative lack of AC scaling, which is true in every edition I have experience with bar 4e. In favct I specified that I'm used to 3.5, which while rather late in the post at least put my biases n show.

In 5e, AC scales one of three ways (compared to attack bonuses):

1) about evenly--PCs hit "level appropriate"[1] monsters roughly 60% of the time and monsters hit PCs either ~30% (high armor) 50% (mid armor) or ~70% of the time. This happens when DMs and players aren't playing silly games with stacking AC on either side or stacking attack bonuses (usually from things like easy forms of advantage or heavy magic items). This is the baseline.
2) way faster than attack bonuses--this happens when PCs play the "how high can AC go" game with magic items and special builds. Monster attack bonuses just don't scale that much in the normal range of things.
3) way slower than attack bonuses--this happens when PCs play the "how many bonuses to hit can I wrangle" game with spells, magic items, and features. And generally only happens to monsters.

So player character defenses and monster attack bonuses are relatively on par unless one side or the other decides to heavily specialize or you're playing considerably outside the "as designed" range (ie constantly fighting CR ~ Level + 4 monsters as a daily diet instead of generally fighting groups of CR < level monsters, or playing Oprah with +X magic items).

Although as I said, I'm mostly low-medium optimization. I'm sure the optimization-specialists here would have a different take on the matter.

Maat Mons
2021-05-14, 02:15 PM
Sorry, I almost exclusively hang out in the 3.P subforum. This is one of the rare occasions when I decided to check out the broader subforums. So I've definitely got a mental bias towards assuming people are talking about 3.5.

Add to that the fact that any discussion of armor being useless also immediately puts my mind on 3e, and that's a recipe for me doing some conclusion-jumping.

Tvtyrant
2021-05-14, 03:05 PM
Sorry, I almost exclusively hang out in the 3.P subforum. This is one of the rare occasions when I decided to check out the broader subforums. So I've definitely got a mental bias towards assuming people are talking about 3.5.

Add to that the fact that any discussion of armor being useless also immediately puts my mind on 3e, and that's a recipe for me doing some conclusion-jumping.

3.0's truly silly DR was the best form of defense. "50DR except against +4 weapons" beats having an armor class any day (except if they have +4 weapons I guess.)

icefractal
2021-05-14, 05:22 PM
I've found that at higher levels it is very possible to have good AC in 3.P, though you need plenty of buff spells/items. Last couple high-level characters I played had AC high enough just from low-cost buffs that most foes needed a high roll to hit - and if I'd invested more in it I could have been entirely off the RNG.

Of course doing that (being entirely unhittable) might annoy the GM and/or make them switch to other methods of offense. So it's something you may not want to max out.

Calthropstu
2021-05-14, 07:34 PM
Right. My point was that "D&D" is not a uniquely-specified thing. Experience/instinct in one edition transfers poorly, if at all, to other editions.

Am I the only one who wants to shout EAT MY -10 THAC0?

Kane0
2021-05-15, 01:24 AM
Generally speaking D&D tends towards rewarding offense over defense and diminishing returns for investment into either one, but that said if you completely dump one of them to minmax the other all I can say to you is ‘I pity the fool’

Mind you, i’ve done exactly that at least once. My last PF mage had exactly one layer of defense and if that was breached I fully expected to be killed and require a rez.

OldTrees1
2021-05-15, 08:30 AM
Armor might do nothing.

In 3E enemy attack bonus could scale much faster than ally AC.
In 5E enemy attack bonus technically can reach +19, but +11 is more common, and you will still face some +5s.

Time to talk about THAC, or "To Hit AC".


If the enemy only needs to roll a 4 to hit a full armored ally, then they hit 85% of the time. If that ally had no armor then the enemy would only need to roll a 2 (assuming 1s auto miss) which is 95% of the time. That is only +12% more hits.
On the other hand if the enemy needs to roll a 16 to hit a fully armored ally, and an 8 to hit a minimally armored ally. Then that is a chance of 25% to 65% or a whopping +160% damage.


If the cost to be fully armored is rather high, and gives minimal returns, then you are better off investing in other defenses.

If you are controlling a system and dislike this reaction, then you know the 4 places you could make changes:

You can decrease the cost to be fully armored
You can decrease the accuracy of the enemy
You can increase the fully armored AC and thus decrease the accuracy of the enemy vs fully armored
You can increase the punishment for being hit. +12% is still a multiplier, it will scale.


So if your system is anything like 3E, yeah armor does not do much for its price at higher levels. There are other forms of defense / protection that become worthwhile.

False God
2021-05-15, 12:17 PM
IMO: with the exception of 4E, I have typically found that offense produces superior results to defense.

Higher to-hit means more of your damage lands.
Higher straight damage means your enemy's health drops faster.
More attacks means more hits means more damage.

The 3.X/PF character is initially a low-health one. It doesn't matter if your AC is 10 or 16, if you get hit you have 12 HP and the enemy is dealing 1d8+3. You're two hits, and not even good hits, just average hits, from death at any moment.

Into the higher levels, damage often drops off, but you're faced with SoD and other character control effects. Now that 24AC is worthless because your NADs are still only +3-5.

But your damage isn't similarly affected. Yes, their AC rises, that's a simple arms race between your single to-hit number and their single defense number. Yes, they gain DR, but that's just an arms race between your single damage number and their DR number (which, with a few exceptions, is rarely very high). If they get mundane damage resistance, you can get a magic weapon. You don't have to suddenly start pouring stats into a skill you're not using in order to shore up your Will saves.

4E was, IMO, the only edition that really rewarded defense because it had mechanics that allowed defenders to be effective zone-controllers.

Both 3.5 and 5E subscribe to the idea that if you're not a wizard, in order to control a zone you need to spend a bunch of feats, often through annoying and wasteful feat chains. And 5E outright dumped 4E's ability for defenders to zone control by limiting AoOs.

So if you want AC to matter, you need to reward investment in it. IMO: D&D doesn't do that.

KineticDiplomat
2021-05-15, 09:03 PM
As usual, my standing recommendation of not playing D&D holds. Besides it’s manifold mechanical issues, it really does in my experience attract a far higher proportion of man-children where this sort of thing is an issue. Certainly not every player or a majority, but it seems to me that at all the tables I’ve sat at in life, ones with D&D running are the most likely to have one or more nightmare players.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-05-15, 11:59 PM
As usual, my standing recommendation of not playing D&D holds. Besides it’s manifold mechanical issues, it really does in my experience attract a far higher proportion of man-children where this sort of thing is an issue. Certainly not every player or a majority, but it seems to me that at all the tables I’ve sat at in life, ones with D&D running are the most likely to have one or more nightmare players.

Note: The OP is not playing D&D already. They're playing a homebrew system.

King of Nowhere
2021-05-16, 03:10 AM
As usual, my standing recommendation of not playing D&D holds. Besides it’s manifold mechanical issues, it really does in my experience attract a far higher proportion of man-children where this sort of thing is an issue. Certainly not every player or a majority, but it seems to me that at all the tables I’ve sat at in life, ones with D&D running are the most likely to have one or more nightmare players.

i believe this to be a case of selection of the sample:
people start by playing d&d, as the rpg more common. it is easier to find players and groups. other rpg are more niche, so you don't approach total strangers with it. you either propose something different to your regular group (which, as a regular group, is generally healty) or you propose it to players who care enough to try new stuff.
toxic players generally start a game and the game disbands soon after. as d&d is the main gate into rpg, it is more likely they stick to d&d and never get a chance to move on.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-16, 04:46 AM
Note: The OP is not playing D&D already. They're playing a homebrew system.

The one in his signature I believe.

Which I tried to look through to better understand the OP's situation, but I'm between eye tests and it didn't really ready like my kind of thing (although I might enjoy it if I ever played it, who knows). If anybody can summarise the damage and armour rules I'll be grateful.

OldTrees1
2021-05-16, 06:15 AM
The one in his signature I believe.

Which I tried to look through to better understand the OP's situation, but I'm between eye tests and it didn't really ready like my kind of thing (although I might enjoy it if I ever played it, who knows). If anybody can summarise the damage and armour rules I'll be grateful.

Ability scores are 1-10
Dodging AC(unless "stationary") = Agility(an ability score) + 5
Armor AC = Resilience = Endurance (an ability score) + armor
Attack = Ability Score + 5 (assuming it is a primary skill, it could be +0 or +3)
Attacking is an opposed roll.

HP = Vitality = Endurance(an ability score) + 0
Damage (see chapter 4)
Damage check is a Strength(an ability score) check modified by weapon modifier. DC not found in same place.

Fumble ranges from costing an action to destroying the weapon
Fail the damage check and deal 0 wounds
Pass the damage check and deal 1 wound (wounds are 2 damage until treated, then they are 1 damage)
Crit the damage check and deal 2 wounds (wounds are 2 damage until treated, then they are 1 damage)

It appears the weapon based damage check modifiers are substantial and I am struggling to find the damage check table. So I will assume the damage check generally passes and ignore the crit/fail/fumble possibilities.

Some weapons get +1 vs light armor and others get +1 vs heavy armor. This is called "penetration" and is derived from the weapon getting an accuracy modifier and modifying the armor's Armored AC. -2 Atk but Heavy Armor gets -3 AC or +2 Attack but Light Armor gets +1 AC.

Light/Medium/Heavy/Shield is generally +2, +4, +6, +2 Armored AC. Compared to Dodge AC's static +5, this means armor is a +1 to +3 AC compared to Dodge AC. However weapons that get +1 Atk vs Light armor get +2 Atk vs Dodge AC. On the other hand the weapons that get +1 Atk vs Heavy armor get -2 Atk vs Dodge AC.
Summary:
Ability Scores range from terrible 1 to amazing 10 with 5 as neutral

HP is equal to one of the ability scores. That means you probably have 7hp.
Damage is usually 1 wound which means 2 damage (until treated and then it is 1 damage)

Attack is roughly based on an opposed check
Attacker: Ability Score + 5 + modifier
Dodge: Ability Score + 5 + modifier
Armor: Ability Score + armor + modifier

Some weapons have a +2 or -2 to attack vs Dodge AC which results in a +1, +0, or -1 against Armored AC depending on armor type.
A weapon with -2 attack vs Dodge AC has a -1 vs Light armor and a +1 vs Heavy armor.
A weapon with +2 attack vs Dodge AC has a +1 vs Light armor and a -1 vs Heavy armor.

A Shield is +2 Armored AC. However a Parrying Dagger is +2 Dodge AC.

Light/Medium/Heavy armor is +2/+4/+6 Armored AC. Remember that Dodge AC has a static +5.

Dodge vs Light: Dodge AC wins by +4 to +2 AC depending on the weapon
Dodge vs Medium: Dodge AC wins by +3 or loses by -1 depending on the weapon
Dodge vs Heavy: Dodge AC wins by +2 or loses by -4 depending on the weapon

Conclusion:
Um, honestly, if I read this right, I would either use Dodge or Heavy armor. The damage is quite high (4 hit KO at the start of the day) and the accuracy starts around 50% without much wiggle room. Am I missing something? Or is the choice between armor / unarmored mostly fashion? Or can you benefit from either and thus Heavy armor is a free +4 AC vs certain weapons? Or maybe the damage check table has more details (I failed to find it).

Satinavian
2021-05-16, 01:35 PM
Additionally armor and endurance seem to synergize. As OP complained about people skipping armor and endurance, that might be partly the result of the rules. You either use both or none. The system seems to actively discourage the more squishy characters to counter that with armor which then gets extra useful on the sturdy tanky characters

Talakeal
2021-05-16, 01:38 PM
Sorry I have let the responses pile up, been away from my computer all weekend.


Okay, I've skipped reading large portions of the responses because I plan to go eat soon. So if what I say duplicates a response already given, I apologize.
In a way, armor does do nothing. What I mean is, a character's AC doesn't actually change based on what armor they wear. Okay, that still probably sounds weird. It's just that, the sum of max Dex bonus and armor bonus is more-or-less constant across armor categories. A high-Dex, light-armor character will have about the same AC as a low-Dex, heavy-armor character. Padded armor is +1 and +8, so +9 total. And full plate is +8 and +1, so +9 total.

There's no dichotomy where light armor characters take fewer hits, and heavy armor characters take less damage per hit. There's just a "defense goodness" number that doesn't care how you go about your defense. So you pick your armor to match your Dex. Or you pick your Dex to match your armor. And there's no game mechanic that makes the different character types feel different in play. It makes defense an abstract number that doesn't reflect anything about how your character's style of combat.


As has been stated, I am not playing D&D. But even in D&D, this depends on the edition, and assumes that the PC in question has unlimited dexterity. It also fails to take into account the myriad magical ways to improve AC; but all in all, yeah, the D&D system is well designed to keep everyone with near the same AC value while at the same time "keeping people in their lanes" by having the people wear armor appropriate to their archetype.


My advice is to never, ever tailor encounters to the players. As a player, I find it incredibly disheartening to imagine that my choices in character creation don't do anything. It doesn't matter if it takes the form of the DM deliberately building enemies to be immune to my best attacks. Or if it takes the form of the DM making sure I never face enemies that exploit my glaring weaknesses. It doesn't matter if it takes the form of the DM making sure to never pick monsters that require spellcasting, because we're all playin mundanes, and he wants us to have a chance. Or if the DM decides to "punish" our group of mundanes by setting us up against enemies that only magic can defeat, to "teach us a lesson."

If a DM tells he adjusts challenges to the group, he's basically telling me that all the pages of the book dedicated to character options are so much waste paper. It doesn't make any difference what I play. If the DM's plot requires me to succeed, I will find myself in a situation where my capabilities, whatever they are, are sufficient to pull off a victory. And if the DM's plot requires me to fail, I will find myself in a situation where my capabilities, whatever they are, just aren't enough. At that point, we could just throw out the dice and numbers and just straight up play pretend.

I remember a comment on these boards a while back, along the lines of "Why would you learn the Plane Shift spell? If the adventure requires going to another plane, and you don't have it, the DM will just add a convenient NPC who can take you there." I didn't say it then, by I immediately thought something like "Why build a party that can win fights? If you play a party of venerable Commoners, the DM will only give you challenges that venerable Commoners can deal with."


There is a saying, "The best defense is a good offense." This can be very true. Dead enemies aren't going to be landing any attacks on you. In fact, making enemies dead is the only way to prevent all forms of attack. AC can prevent physical attacks. Mind Blank can prevent mental attacks. But only enemy death prevents every single possible thing that enemy could ever do to you.

There is one major caveat though. This completely falls apart if the DM tailors encounters to the players. The offensively-focused playstyle is all about achieving a fast victory. Because if you don't win fast, you lose. But if your DM's response to you winning fast is to make your future fights harder, you will very quickly find all your offensive power canceled out by bigger-defense-number-having enemies. If the DM won't rest until he sees you bleed, you will bleed. The fact that you invested all your build resources in making enemies too dead to hurt you wont avail you anything in the face of the DM's mighty powers of fiat.

Against the encounter-tailoring DM, the only thing you can do that will actually influence you success or failure chances long-term is a bizarre kind of metagaming. You need to make sure you struggle. Even if you have awesome abilities and you're fighting easy opponents, find a way to struggle. Maybe just never use any of your good abilities. Finish every day with wasted, unused resources. Say you're saving them "just in case." Make deliberately bad strategic decisions. The DM will try to compensate by giving you easier battles. But just keep screwing up. No matter how hard you have to work to very nearly lose, do it. That way, whenever you find yourself in actual danger, you can just momentarily display competence. The DM gets drawn-out encounters, with everyone taking a little damage, just like he wants. But you're never actually in danger of dying, because you're basically an Olympic swimmer in a kiddie pool, pretending you only know how to dog paddle.



So I recommend using pre-published modules, and making absolutely no adjustments. Anything else, at best, creates the illusion of meaningful character creation. At worst, you can get either a DM-vs-player mentality, or a hand-holding story time campaign.

Mostly agree here. Although I do adjust the difficulty slightly based on player experience; its frustrating to go full out on new players, and its boring for experienced players to just stomp the same old challenges they have had dozens of times before.

You also need to keep in mind the nature of the party and what kind of trouble such characters would get into if they aren't playing your standard group of 3-6 psychopaths... I mean adventurers.


You know, after all this, has anyone suggested just rolling the dice in front of the players, especially in combat?
You can't really be blamed when they can see the numbers for themselves. It should then be obvious how their choice to invest in defense would make a difference.

If the problem is really that they think you are only using enemies that specifically can avoid their special abilities...are you? I mean, being good at physical combat isn't something they should be surprised to see in almost every enemy they encounter, right? So going lightly armored would be something they know will have an effect in every combat, and seeing heavily armored enemies likewise should be no surprise. It seems that they are investing in special offensive capabilities and are frustrated by how often they don't work. Were they unaware of the actual success chances of these abilities when they chose them? If a majority of enemies have defenses against these abilities, is the character creation cost of choosing them unjustified? If you feel the creation process is balanced, perhaps again more communication prior to character creation is required. Warn that the reason ability x is as cheap as it is, is due to the fact that it often won't succeed.

I do roll all dice in the open.

I don't build encounters made to specifically target PC's weaknesses, except on the rare occasions when in universe someone is specifically hunting them and has the resources to identify and exploit said weaknesses.

More often though, I just use solid tactics for monsters, and use custom builds for my monsters, especially for "boss battles"; which means they will have some sort of strategy or defense for dealing with most common tactics.

For example, one encounter in my last campaign that caused huge problems:

A fomorian was guarding a haunted bridge which once led into the fairy realm. Anyone who tried to cross the bridge in the ethereal plane would be attacked by the ghosts. The fomorian would, if outnumbered or surrounded, toss his enemies off the bridge into the swampy chasm below. Now, any big monster is going to need to be able to deal with flying enemies or being kited by mobile enemies with a ranged attack; the easiest solution is to give them a ranged attack of their own. Rather than giving him the "evil eye" attack like king Balor, I wanted a more whimsical fairy tale tone to the encounter, so I give him a sneeze attack that replicated gust of wind, and instead of describing him as a cyclops I described him as having a comically oversized nose.

Now, this encounter was created before the PCs were, as was most of the campaign. But when they encountered him the mage assumes a gaseous form, thinking it would render him invulnerable. Then, when hit with the sneeze attack, he got mad and assumed that I made up an attack on the spot just to screw him over.

That's an extreme example; more common is simply having monsters attack and / or grapple the unarmored mage (who foregoes even magical protections like mage armor and who has dumped statted her strength score rather than bashing the heavily armored fighter.


Mostly I was trying to ask if you have some idea for the common denominators - after all, you are the only source of information we have. So: are there any commonalities?

Ok, glad to see this was a legit question.
Tons of them, but unfortunately none that I can actually apply cause and effect to.




Also, some people ask questions with the intention of getting sympathy/praise/understanding, not to modify their behaviour. And it is something that can be done in good faith - especially when you are frustrated and need someone to confirm it's not just you. But when asking for sympathy, you should state it directly - otherwise you'll get a lot of advice and no sympathy most of the time. And please, bear in mind that while we can assume why you do what you do, I'd like to ask before assuming: would you like advice or sympathy? (and this is in no ill will, just to be sure we provide what you actually want)

This is mainly from my experience where people wish for sympathy, state they want advice, and then get frustrated by the answers. Would like to avoid that one.



I have made bitching / sympathy posts in the past; but no, this isn't one of them. This is about looking forward to the future.


How do you respond at game table when players frustrate you? Ideally, do you have a specific example?

Typically bottle it up and then make a sarcastic comment later when they do the same thing they were bitching about me doing or when their prediction doesn't pan out.

In more severe cases I just go, fine, we do it your way, but the kid gloves are off, and if your character dies then so be it.

There have been a few extreme cases when I swore at a player or threatened to call off the session or bring in a grudge monster.

I don't think I have ever thrown dice / a model (as occasionally happens in war-gaming), kicked a player out, or gone through with my threats. I used to dock XP, and I had a player walk out as a result once, but I don't do that anymore. I have never actually assaulted a player, although to my shame I did slap a fellow player once when I was an overemotional teenager.


Note that this is how I act when I am frustrated; not how I respond to players being frustrated or to other issues, I normally talk those over, usually to death. And after I get frustrated, it is usually one of my players who then throws a temper tantrum and starts screaming / swearing / threatening / throwing stuff.



I'll not dismiss white room discussions of probability. There are some things that are discussed easier this way.


Oh, no. I mean my players won't listen to white room discussions, not people on the forums.


And if there are some assumptions we should take into account for the discussion (e.g. you are playing home-brew system but your players are very familiar with it), please state those - it will help a lot.

Ok. I will try.

That is correct btw, we are playing a home-brew system my players are very familiar with.


Au contraire!

The small online group - ideally if you recorded the whole thing - would provide lots of data and would provide us with possibility to see how you act/react, consider the unwritten parts of social contract you follow, see your body language, hear your voice and be able to see how you provide information to the players. That's a lot of information. Also: stress points and reaction to discomfort.

If people from this forum were involved, we'd also get direct feedback.

PbP and play by chat would not give us so much info, but still - the communication style usually remains very similar, especially with chat.

You can get data even from the discussions here.

Yes, you are correct - these formats are wildly different, which means they can provide each its own, useful data. Question is: which one'd you prefer?

I don't like online gaming. On occasion, I tolerate it as a player, but I don't really enjoy it. I can't imagine trying to actually run an online game.

If I tried, I am not really sure how representative of actual gaming with me it would be,as I would likely behave very differently. Also, people analyzing something under a microscope are, imo, pretty unlikely to actually get to issues, as they will likely be focused on finding fault rather than actually playing naturally and observing fault as it comes up.

Still... I am curious about what sort of experiment you would suggest.



Okay, so: your preference - even as a player - would be is playing a monster "hard", but going softer when it seems to be an issue? Or did I misunderstand?



As a player, I prefer the DM play the world logically and consistently, with the NPCs acting in accordance with their own tactical capabilities and assessment of the situation. This is, of course, far easier said than done.

As a player though, I will try a lot harder when I am having a tough time and think defeat is a real possibility, and won't put nearly as much effort into tactics when I expect a cakewalk.


Also, how do you manage the game difficulty at the table?

I am not sure I follow. In what way?


There are different players and different mentalities. Assuming your players are not members of the bizarro world (let's go into the white room discussion), the tantrums and grudges should usually come from a feeling of being mistreated/played unfairly/cheated - not from "the game is too hard".

Now with this in mind: can you construct a cake walk encounter? No stats, just basic info, tactics - just for me to get an overall feeling of how you construct these. Since I do not know your homebrew system and am not too familiar with D&D, there will be others that will take a look at that, but I'd prefer low-level D&D (I am a bit familiar with that).

Also, whiterooming a hard encounter as an example would help.

Ok.

So, I cut my teeth on 3.5, and I inferred from it that the average adventuring day should use up 80% of the party's resources.

And I average out to this pretty much precisely, although individual sessions fluctuate wildly.

I have done the math in the past, and found that 1/3 of my sessions involve a close call where victory is uncertain and / or the players have to use consumables to win.

My players have a 93% overall success rate; the remaining 7% of adventures involve players being forced to retreat or surrender, or otherwise failing to achieve their goal (bad guy gets away with the Mcguffin, hostages die, demon lord gets summoned, etc., or one PC dies (and is not rezzed on the spot).

The players absolutely do complain that this is too hard; not because they think they are going to lose (although they sure don't like losing!) but because they have it in their heads that they are entitled to an every expanding pool of consumables which they won't need to dip into until the last session of the campaign, and feel they are losing unless they are more above the "Wealth by level curve" after each session (as a percentage I mean. So if the expected WBL for a level 5 is 1000gold, and they have 1100, (10% above the curve) then they better be 20% above the curve at level six (eg. the expected wealth is 2000gp then they will feel like failures if they don't have at least 2400gp). I have tried to explain to them that this isn't realistic or sustainable, but to little avail...

(Also, the D&D analogy breaks down a little here, because D&D doesn't really regulate downtime like my system does.)

I have never had an actual TPK, although I have had players commit suicide by NPC to take out their frustrations on me, for example attacking a much more powerful quest giver because they found him or her to be "uppity".

I try and use a variety of encounters, and generally make them as varied and as close to the PCs in power as I can reasonably justify in the setting while still having a coherent theme and narrative structure.

So, for D&D, assuming a fairly standard optimization and party composition:

D&D is mostly about attrition, so I would, using the CR guidelines in the DMG, decide on what percentage of the parties resources they should expend in this fight and follow the guidelines. Any easy fight will be about CR-2, while a singular tough fight might be CR +4. I will generally adjust the CR of monsters that are known to be out of whack, like that darned crab or anything in the MM2.

If I want the fight to be memorable, I will change out the monsters feats / skills, give it a template, or give it class levels. If these synergise well with its natural abilities, or negate its weaknesses, I will bump up the CR by 1 or 2.

When it comes to rounding CR, usually by monster numbers or modifications that aren't worth a full CR, I generally round up for inexperienced parties and down for veterans.

In combat, the monsters will generally attack the nearest PC they can reach who hasn't already been targeted, while additional monsters will engage the largest and most obvious threats. Wizards will usually pre buff (depending on duration and how much warning they had) while monsters with stealth abilities or those who have unusual movement will likely take advantage of terrain. Monsters who are known to be industrious (like kobolds) and had prep time will usually set up a few simple barricades and boobie traps.

And when it comes to judgement calls, I usually try and get in the monsters head, but again, I will generally be a little more ruthless if the party is stomping and a little more merciful if they are struggling. Examples of this are focusing fire on one PC, using maneuvers like tripping / grappling / defending, ignoring the fighters to go after the back row, targeting or not targeting someone who is protected by a non-obvious defense, moving into a position where they can be easily flanked, or deciding to close into melee vs. staying at range or using hit and run tactics.

I know this is all pretty vague, but its already becoming a wall of text. Please follow up with some specific questions or requests for examples and I will get you some more detailed examples!



I think this was more about tactics than dice - when the mindless monster attacks the physically weak spellcaster first just because he has no defences, it can be seen as unfair even if your roll dice in front of the player. Not so much when a genius-level enemy does the same - but I still know players that would grumble.

Of course, building monsters specifically to overcome strengths of a PC can cause grief - but having monsters that will have certain aspects that make them dangerous is normal. Still, players do not know - by default - which one of these is happening.

Still, I think the only moment when I roll dice in secret is when I go for horror. It works great for the tension.

Agreed. Although the mindless monster is just as likely to attack the mage as not, its really fifty / fifty there.

But yeah, I don't tailor my encounters for the PCs, but I do "idiot proof" them; if something is supposed to be feared, it should be able to back that up, and should have some form of defense against common tactics to explain why another band of adventurers, or even the local militia, haven't already put a stop to it.


Ability scores are 1-10
Dodging AC(unless "stationary") = Agility(an ability score) + 5
Armor AC = Resilience = Endurance (an ability score) + armor
Attack = Ability Score + 5 (assuming it is a primary skill, it could be +0 or +3)
Attacking is an opposed roll.

HP = Vitality = Endurance(an ability score) + 0
Damage (see chapter 4)
Damage check is a Strength(an ability score) check modified by weapon modifier. DC not found in same place.

Fumble ranges from costing an action to destroying the weapon
Fail the damage check and deal 0 wounds
Pass the damage check and deal 1 wound (wounds are 2 damage until treated, then they are 1 damage)
Crit the damage check and deal 2 wounds (wounds are 2 damage until treated, then they are 1 damage)

It appears the weapon based damage check modifiers are substantial and I am struggling to find the damage check table. So I will assume the damage check generally passes and ignore the crit/fail/fumble possibilities.

Some weapons get +1 vs light armor and others get +1 vs heavy armor. This is called "penetration" and is derived from the weapon getting an accuracy modifier and modifying the armor's Armored AC. -2 Atk but Heavy Armor gets -3 AC or +2 Attack but Light Armor gets +1 AC.

Light/Medium/Heavy/Shield is generally +2, +4, +6, +2 Armored AC. Compared to Dodge AC's static +5, this means armor is a +1 to +3 AC compared to Dodge AC. However weapons that get +1 Atk vs Light armor get +2 Atk vs Dodge AC. On the other hand the weapons that get +1 Atk vs Heavy armor get -2 Atk vs Dodge AC.
Summary:
Ability Scores range from terrible 1 to amazing 10 with 5 as neutral

HP is equal to one of the ability scores. That means you probably have 7hp.
Damage is usually 1 wound which means 2 damage (until treated and then it is 1 damage)

Attack is roughly based on an opposed check
Attacker: Ability Score + 5 + modifier
Dodge: Ability Score + 5 + modifier
Armor: Ability Score + armor + modifier

Some weapons have a +2 or -2 to attack vs Dodge AC which results in a +1, +0, or -1 against Armored AC depending on armor type.
A weapon with -2 attack vs Dodge AC has a -1 vs Light armor and a +1 vs Heavy armor.
A weapon with +2 attack vs Dodge AC has a +1 vs Light armor and a -1 vs Heavy armor.

A Shield is +2 Armored AC. However a Parrying Dagger is +2 Dodge AC.

Light/Medium/Heavy armor is +2/+4/+6 Armored AC. Remember that Dodge AC has a static +5.

Dodge vs Light: Dodge AC wins by +4 to +2 AC depending on the weapon
Dodge vs Medium: Dodge AC wins by +3 or loses by -1 depending on the weapon
Dodge vs Heavy: Dodge AC wins by +2 or loses by -4 depending on the weapon

Conclusion:
Um, honestly, if I read this right, I would either use Dodge or Heavy armor. The damage is quite high (4 hit KO at the start of the day) and the accuracy starts around 50% without much wiggle room. Am I missing something? Or is the choice between armor / unarmored mostly fashion? Or can you benefit from either and thus Heavy armor is a free +4 AC vs certain weapons? Or maybe the damage check table has more details (I failed to find it).

Wow, thanks for taking the time to do that!!!

This looks about right, the only corrections I would make are that weapon penetration scales with each level of armor, and the average starting PC should have a six in each attribute, so a three hit KO is more likely for a non tankie PC.

The weapon table is on page 201 and the damage modifiers scale from +1 for a punch to +10 for a high caliber rifle.

The system is set up so that, assuming roughly equal skill and equipment, you will have about a 50% chance to hit and then a 50% chance to wound on any given attack, which means you will take / deal a wound every four rounds or so in a one on one fight. Of course, there are lot's and lot's of modifiers.

Also note that you can treat your wounds after a fight to, effectively, heal half the damage you took, so the three wound KO is per fight, not per adventure.


Generally, defensive characters do indeed fall into one of two categories, dodge-based monks types and resilience based knight types; both have advantages and disadvantages compared to the other.

This works pretty well, unless the player goes so deep into defense that they can no longer actually contribute anything except standing there taking hits.


As for why everyone doesn't wear heavy armor, well; its expensive, heavy, and limits mobility, and not everyone can make that sacrifice.

The problem is that people tend to view it as a binary; if they can't afford the downsides of heavy armor and a shield, they forego armor entirely and never even consider light or medium armor, let alone a shield, even if they have the cash and encumbrance to burn.

Talakeal
2021-05-16, 01:43 PM
Additionally armor and endurance seem to synergize. As OP complained about people skipping armor and endurance, that might be partly the result of the rules. You either use both or none. The system seems to actively discourage the more squishy characters to counter that with armor which then gets extra useful on the sturdy tanky characters

The thing is, the system has degrees of success. If you are able to push your resilience off the charts, that means enemies risk fumbling when they attack you, but likewise an enemy who pushes damage off the charts is more likely to critically wound you.

Thus, a point of resilience, which comes from both endurance and armor, WILL do something 5% of the time when you are hit, regardless of what you or your attacker's actual values are.

So yeah, while I probably wouldn't play a soak tank without a high endurance and heavy armor, that doesn't mean that one or the other isn't still useful for anyone who plans on being attacked.

Satinavian
2021-05-16, 01:46 PM
Generally, defensive characters do indeed fall into one of two categories, dodge-based monks types and resilience based knight types; both have advantages and disadvantages compared to the other.

This works pretty well, unless the player goes so deep into defense that they can no longer actually contribute anything except standing there taking hits.


As for why everyone doesn't wear heavy armor, well; its expensive, heavy, and limits mobility, and not everyone can make that sacrifice.

The problem is that people tend to view it as a binary; if they can't afford the downsides of heavy armor and a shield, they forego armor entirely and never even consider light or medium armor, let alone a shield, even if they have the cash and encumbrance to burn.
If your system provides the agile monk type and the heavy armored knight type and you limit heavy armor availability, it would be natural that everyone relies on the agility based dodge defense instead. If your system really works as above, then light and medium armor are utterly useless unless you dumped agility way beyond your endurance.


The thing is, the system has degrees of success. If you are able to push your resilience off the charts, that means enemies risk fumbling when they attack you, but likewise an enemy who pushes damage off the charts is more likely to critically wound you.

Thus, a point of resilience, which comes from both endurance and armor, WILL do something 5% of the time when you are hit, regardless of what you or your attacker's actual values are.

So yeah, while I probably wouldn't play a soak tank without a high endurance and heavy armor, that doesn't mean that one or the other isn't still useful for anyone who plans on being attacked.
Can't you just dodge everytime instead ?

Edit :

Oh, looking at the actual rules instead of the short escerpt, it seems that you can dodge and soak, they are not alternatives. Then yes, arnor is better than no armor.

But wait, it gives penalty to dodge equal to the armor bonus. That is bad. That basically means armor just moves points from dodging to soaking.

Is that ever useful ?

Answer :

heavy armor : useful if your agility is not higher than your endurance
medium armor : useful if your agility at least 2 points lower than your endurance
light armor : useful if your agility at least 4 points lower than your endurance

Using shields move all of that 2 points in favor of armor, using a buckler does not shift anything, using a parrying dagger moves it 2 points against armor.


So yes, math says most PCs probably should not bother with light or medium armor. Especially considering it gives not only penalty to dodge.

Talakeal
2021-05-16, 02:22 PM
Snip.

Thanks for taking the time to look at this so closely!

Armor penalizes agility skills, (ie acrobatics, athletics, and stealth).

Dodge is not a skill and is not hindered by armor, unless you are actually over encumbered by it.

OldTrees1
2021-05-16, 06:39 PM
Wow, thanks for taking the time to do that!!!

This looks about right, the only corrections I would make are that weapon penetration scales with each level of armor, and the average starting PC should have a six in each attribute, so a three hit KO is more likely for a non tankie PC.
Each level of armor? As in a +2 Medium Armor has an even bigger AC swing between Axe and Curved Blade than a +0 Medium Armor does? What page talks about magic weapon / magic armor?

Or by each level, do you mean light/medium/heavy? I accounted for pg 196 showing Medium Armor is +2/+4/+6 vs Poor/Normal/Good Penetration. I did this based on Good Penetration usually having a general -2 Atk and Poor Penetration usually having a genreal +2 Atk (before accounting for the penetration modifier to Resilience).

I was translating a D&D 5E 14 Con into the Heart of Darkness. Having it be an odd number is especially valuable since damage comes in 2s (which is reduced to 1 after out of combat treatment)



The weapon table is on page 201 and the damage modifiers scale from +1 for a punch to +10 for a high caliber rifle.

The system is set up so that, assuming roughly equal skill and equipment, you will have about a 50% chance to hit and then a 50% chance to wound on any given attack, which means you will take / deal a wound every four rounds or so in a one on one fight. Of course, there are lot's and lot's of modifiers.


I found that, but did not find the DC for the damage check. I know it is a Strength check with a hefty modifier, but I don't know what it is checked against. Which page has those rules?

That said you estimate of 50% of hits deal a wound (2 damage) should be enough to work with.



Also note that you can treat your wounds after a fight to, effectively, heal half the damage you took, so the three wound KO is per fight, not per adventure.

Indeed.



Generally, defensive characters do indeed fall into one of two categories, dodge-based monks types and resilience based knight types; both have advantages and disadvantages compared to the other.

This works pretty well, unless the player goes so deep into defense that they can no longer actually contribute anything except standing there taking hits.

As for why everyone doesn't wear heavy armor, well; its expensive, heavy, and limits mobility, and not everyone can make that sacrifice.

The problem is that people tend to view it as a binary; if they can't afford the downsides of heavy armor and a shield, they forego armor entirely and never even consider light or medium armor, let alone a shield, even if they have the cash and encumbrance to burn.

I need to understand magic weapons / armor to be sure, but it seems like the math might reveal the binary to be true. It might be better to buy a Parrying Dagger than a Shield unless you also buy Heavy Armor.

Talakeal
2021-05-16, 07:14 PM
Each level of armor? As in a +2 Medium Armor has an even bigger AC swing between Axe and Curved Blade than a +0 Medium Armor does? What page talks about magic weapon / magic armor?

Or by each level, do you mean light/medium/heavy? I accounted for pg 196 showing Medium Armor is +2/+4/+6 vs Poor/Normal/Good Penetration. I did this based on Good Penetration usually having a general -2 Atk and Poor Penetration usually having a genreal +2 Atk (before accounting for the penetration modifier to Resilience).

I seem to have misread your summary. This appears correct.

Quality does not affect penetration.


I found that, but did not find the DC for the damage check. I know it is a Strength check with a hefty modifier, but I don't know what it is checked against. Which page has those rules?

Page 173.

In short:

To hit, you roll a d20 and add your skill value, with modifiers for the weapon, maneuver, and battlefield conditions. It is opposed by the enemy's dodge, which means the difficulty is equal to ten plus their dodge score.

If you hit, you then roll for damage. Roll 1d20, and add your strength score and the weapon modifier. This is opposed by the enemy's resilience, which means the difficulty is equal to ten plus their resilience score.


I need to understand magic weapons / armor to be sure, but it seems like the math might reveal the binary to be true. It might be better to buy a Parrying Dagger than a Shield unless you also buy Heavy Armor.

Magic items work a bit differently than in D&D. The basic +1-5 stuff is instead based on the mundane quality of your gear; actual magic items are much rarer and tend to have more exotic effects than simple numbers. The second half of Chapter Five talks about artifacts, but most are kind of unique; page 229 deals with magic armor in the form of aegises, but each one has unique properties replicating a different protective spell.

The most "basic" magic weapon is an elemental shank, which provides a +2 bonus to weapon damage and changes its damage type to an energy associated with the school used to create it. Likewise the most basic magical armor would be an aegis of reinforcement, which causes the armor's bonus to increase by +1-3 depending on penetration.

I agree that most of the time stacking a shield with heavy armor or a parrying dagger with high agility is the optimal move, but it really depends on the opponents scores to begin with; and in either case neither ever provides less than 10% protection (or 5 /15 % in the case of a weapon with differing penetration).

Duff
2021-05-16, 10:02 PM
How do you actually handle that though?

Like, if one character has really bad will-saves, and the DM want's to run a campaign arc with illithids as the main villains, does the DM need to come to the player and ask his or her player's permission first?

This seems limiting, patronizing, and also likely to spoil the plot in advance.

Or is the DM just limited to only using villains which don't target any of the PCs weaknesses? Which are pretty few and far between given most groups I have seen.


That one's fairly easy.
"This campaign is going to include a lot of important Will saves. You should consider that in your build"
Or if you don't want 4 Clerics and 2 paladins "This campaign will have so many important Will saves, If you play a class with a weak will save I'm going to give you a +1 on it. If I'm doing that you probably want to also drop a feat into it"

OldTrees1
2021-05-17, 08:41 AM
The one in his signature I believe.

Which I tried to look through to better understand the OP's situation, but I'm between eye tests and it didn't really ready like my kind of thing (although I might enjoy it if I ever played it, who knows). If anybody can summarise the damage and armour rules I'll be grateful.

I was wrong. Here is a corrected summary


I seem to have misread your summary. This appears correct.

Quality does not affect penetration.



Page 173.

In short:

To hit, you roll a d20 and add your skill value, with modifiers for the weapon, maneuver, and battlefield conditions. It is opposed by the enemy's dodge, which means the difficulty is equal to ten plus their dodge score.

If you hit, you then roll for damage. Roll 1d20, and add your strength score and the weapon modifier. This is opposed by the enemy's resilience, which means the difficulty is equal to ten plus their resilience score.

I agree that most of the time stacking a shield with heavy armor or a parrying dagger with high agility is the optimal move, but it really depends on the opponents scores to begin with; and in either case neither ever provides less than 10% protection (or 5 /15 % in the case of a weapon with differing penetration).

Bolded for emphasis

Oh I misunderstood. I thought each attack was blocked by either Dodge or Resilience. I did not realize it was Atk vs Dodge => Damage vs Resilience => 1 wound (2 damage vs roughly 6-7 hp).

That changes the math "a bit".


There are a few different classes of melees weapons. I was ignoring some previously due to misunderstanding the damage check. Here is more detail.
Standard weapon is +0 Accuracy Check, +5 Damage Check
Reminder: the damage check determines IF a wound happens. It is not +5 damage.
2 Handed? +2 Damage Check
+2 to either Accuracy Check or Damage Check? => Weapon gets Poor Penetration which means +1/+2/+3/+1 to Resilience for Light/Medium/Heavy/Shield.
-2 to either Accuracy Check or Damage Check? => Weapon gets Good Penetration which means -1/-2/-3/-1 to Resilience for Light/Medium/Heavy/Shield.

Pentation breaks even at Medium Armor (or Light + Shield).
Shield vs Parrying Dagger. Both give +2 to different steps but Shield is affected by Penetration.


Hm. There are smaller choices that could change the meta, but overall it looks like
Check 1: 1d20+Ability+5 vs 10+Ability+5
Check 2: 1d20+Ability+5 vs 10+Ability+Armor
So there is no reason not to wear armor. The only question is how much benefit does it give.

You start at a -5 disadvantage on an opposed d20 check. Depending on the attacker's choices that could be a -9 disadvantage on an opposed d20 check (2 handed weapon with -2 penalty on check 1).
+5 advantage (and attacker wins ties) = 73.75%
+3 advantage = 66%
+1 advantage = 57.25%
No Armor takes roughly 11.7% more damage than Light Armor.
No Armor takes roughly 28.8% more damage than Medium Armor.
Light Armor takes roughly 15.2% more damage than Medium Armor.

Okay, your frustration makes more sense now. I see no reason not to equip some armor. The only downside I see is the -2/-4/-6/-0 penalty to skills. Sure the wound system makes me not as worried about an 11.7% because damage is so binary, but Medium Armor -> No Armor is getting hurt every 3 rounds instead of every 4.

Talakeal
2021-05-17, 10:21 AM
So I talked to the player who said armor is worthless again. This time he better explained himself and said that since he is playing a rogue type character, he doesn't think the stealth penalty for light armor is worth it. Which is much more reasonable, and honestly it is weird to me that the rogue archetype in modern fantasy wears leather armor to begin with. But I am still a bit concerned, as this is the same guy who refused to ever upgrade his armor's quality in the last game even at the point where it would have only cost a pittance, and then bitched every time his character took damage.


I was wrong. Here is a corrected summary



Bolded for emphasis

Oh I misunderstood. I thought each attack was blocked by either Dodge or Resilience. I did not realize it was Atk vs Dodge => Damage vs Resilience => 1 wound (2 damage vs roughly 6-7 hp).

That changes the math "a bit".


There are a few different classes of melees weapons. I was ignoring some previously due to misunderstanding the damage check. Here is more detail.
Standard weapon is +0 Accuracy Check, +5 Damage Check
Reminder: the damage check determines IF a wound happens. It is not +5 damage.
2 Handed? +2 Damage Check
+2 to either Accuracy Check or Damage Check? => Weapon gets Poor Penetration which means +1/+2/+3/+1 to Resilience for Light/Medium/Heavy/Shield.
-2 to either Accuracy Check or Damage Check? => Weapon gets Good Penetration which means -1/-2/-3/-1 to Resilience for Light/Medium/Heavy/Shield.

Pentation breaks even at Medium Armor (or Light + Shield).
Shield vs Parrying Dagger. Both give +2 to different steps but Shield is affected by Penetration.


Hm. There are smaller choices that could change the meta, but overall it looks like
Check 1: 1d20+Ability+5 vs 10+Ability+5
Check 2: 1d20+Ability+5 vs 10+Ability+Armor
So there is no reason not to wear armor. The only question is how much benefit does it give.

You start at a -5 disadvantage on an opposed d20 check. Depending on the attacker's choices that could be a -9 disadvantage on an opposed d20 check (2 handed weapon with -2 penalty on check 1).
+5 advantage (and attacker wins ties) = 73.75%
+3 advantage = 66%
+1 advantage = 57.25%
No Armor takes roughly 11.7% more damage than Light Armor.
No Armor takes roughly 28.8% more damage than Medium Armor.
Light Armor takes roughly 15.2% more damage than Medium Armor.

Okay, your frustration makes more sense now. I see no reason not to equip some armor. The only downside I see is the -2/-4/-6/-0 penalty to skills. Sure the wound system makes me not as worried about an 11.7% because damage is so binary, but Medium Armor -> No Armor is getting hurt every 3 rounds instead of every 4.

Well, armor does limit stealth and mobility, and it does weigh and cost a fair bit, so there isn't "no reason" not to wear light or medium armor, but I agree it is generally worth the tradeof for most builds. Personally I think the final decision should come down to image and archetype rather than optimization, but that's a pretty pie in the sky design goal.

Personally the one archetype I think the system struggles with is the "barbarian" who has lots of strength but foregoes armor.

Thanks again for looking at the math!


That one's fairly easy.
"This campaign is going to include a lot of important Will saves. You should consider that in your build"
Or if you don't want 4 Clerics and 2 paladins "This campaign will have so many important Will saves, If you play a class with a weak will save I'm going to give you a +1 on it. If I'm doing that you probably want to also drop a feat into it"

I think I already answered this, but the problem isn't so much about a campaign as a story arc which I decide to run at a later point for an existing group.

OldTrees1
2021-05-17, 11:25 AM
So I talked to the player who said armor is worthless again. This time he better explained himself and said that since he is playing a rogue type character, he doesn't think the stealth penalty for light armor is worth it. Which is much more reasonable, and honestly it is weird to me that the rogue archetype in modern fantasy wears leather armor to begin with. But I am still a bit concerned, as this is the same guy who refused to ever upgrade his armor's quality in the last game even at the point where it would have only cost a pittance, and then bitched every time his character took damage.

Well, armor does limit stealth and mobility, and it does weigh and cost a fair bit, so there isn't "no reason" not to wear light or medium armor, but I agree it is generally worth the tradeof for most builds. Personally I think the final decision should come down to image and archetype rather than optimization, but that's a pretty pie in the sky design goal.

Personally the one archetype I think the system struggles with is the "barbarian" who has lots of strength but foregoes armor.

Thanks again for looking at the math!


Yeah I could see the -2/-4/-6 penalty to Stealth as an issue. It is good you talked to the player and got a deeper explanation. I hope stealth is rewarded enough. Is the +4 to Stealth worth a 28.8% increase in damage? That is up to how the GM runs the campaign and how much the player likes the out of combat stealth vs the in combat being hit.

Is upgrading the armor quality just increasing resilience by +1 for a small cost? What did they buy instead? I find +2 armor rather boring and only really like the +1 magic armor because +0 magic armor is rarely a thing. (I find qualitative upgrades more interesting than quantitative ones.) The increased quality might not be worth the price to them despite it costing a "pittance".

However I think you are right to be concerned. Based on the limited context I have, I would have many concerns about your group. You should expect them to be hit even more often and bitch even more than in the previous campaign. In a more typical group with more typical "bitching", that would be readily addressed. However, from our limited context, your group skews towards more toxic than typical. So concern is expected.

MoiMagnus
2021-05-17, 11:49 AM
Which is much more reasonable, and honestly it is weird to me that the rogue archetype in modern fantasy wears leather armor to begin with.

Given the almost absence of leather armour in history, I would not be surprised if the rogue was pretty much the only reason why the leather armour exists in D&D in the first place.

Most classes are expected to yield heavier armours. Notable exceptions are wizard/sorcerer who are supposed to have magical defences and/or magical robes, and monk/barbarians who are supposed to fight half-naked (and still survive for some reason).

Design wise, the rogue is a martial character, so needed some sort of mundane defensive option more effective than civilian's clothings (remember that Dex bonus to AC didn't exists in 1e). And medium/heavy armours went against the idea of a stealth character, so I assume they introduced a penalty-less armour, made of leather because that looks cool enough.

kyoryu
2021-05-17, 12:03 PM
Given the almost absence of leather armour in history, I would not be surprised if the rogue was pretty much the only reason why the leather armour exists in D&D in the first place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiled_leather

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-17, 01:26 PM
My personal fantasy heartbreaker (still not to the point where I can post on the forum) actually gets rid of most leather armour, you can get a boiled leather breastplace to put over a gambeson (or chain as the rules currently stand) but that's it. It does exist in my post-apocalyptic RPG, but it's not a standard item (boiled leather counts as light armour but is noted as rare, unboiled leather doesn't give a bonus).

Leather armour is a historical thing, although I believe relatively rare compared to cloth armour (which I believe was fairly effective). Studded leather wasn't and is actually weird as better than leather when you think about it (yes the metal studs will rob a hit of energy, but also deflect it into the explicitly unboiled leather). Leather helmets were also a thing, as I discovered when I researched helmets for am A-level science project, but they weren't really common.

kyoryu
2021-05-17, 01:32 PM
My personal fantasy heartbreaker (still not to the point where I can post on the forum) actually gets rid of most leather armour, you can get a boiled leather breastplace to put over a gambeson (or chain as the rules currently stand) but that's it. It does exist in my post-apocalyptic RPG, but it's not a standard item (boiled leather counts as light armour but is noted as rare, unboiled leather doesn't give a bonus).

Leather armour is a historical thing, although I believe relatively rare compared to cloth armour (which I believe was fairly effective). Studded leather wasn't and is actually weird as better than leather when you think about it (yes the metal studs will rob a hit of energy, but also deflect it into the explicitly unboiled leather). Leather helmets were also a thing, as I discovered when I researched helmets for am A-level science project, but they weren't really common.

Unboiled leather wasn't really a thing for sure, while boiled leather was. I'd probably argue to include soft leather armor as effectively the same thing as cloth armor (which is more effective than people think)

KineticDiplomat
2021-05-17, 09:55 PM
Re: gateway game and hence higher player disaster rates. That is probably a high R value bit for sure. I do think that the emphasis on gaining elaborate “cool” powers with an intricate player knowledge that you can possess is a potential contributor. It’s a bit like how other bits of fundamentally useless knowledge are used to confer social status and create a sense of belonging. I don’t think you get that in simpler systems, so you don’t get the false sense that you the player are somehow special/cool and can stay a bit more detached...but alas, not exactly an RCT-able question.

Re: he’s playing home brew. True, but it’s baseline D&D that’s being modded up from what I can see. Reasonably comprehensive edits for values in the files so to speak - and that’s no easy job - but in terms of player dynamics, it’s still d&d.

OldTrees1
2021-05-18, 12:23 AM
Re: he’s playing home brew. True, but it’s baseline D&D that’s being modded up from what I can see. Reasonably comprehensive edits for values in the files so to speak - and that’s no easy job - but in terms of player dynamics, it’s still d&d.

A potentially relevant difference is every attack is "Accuracy vs Dodge" followed by "Strength vs Armor" to determine if a hit was scored. It is like 3E if every attack was rolled against Touch AC to touch and then rolled against Flatfooted AC to penetrate. Suddenly the dexterous monk starts regretting their lack of armor.

Outside of that nuance, you have a good point.

Quertus
2021-05-18, 08:47 AM
the problem isn't so much about a campaign as a story arc which I decide to run at a later point for an existing group.

So… don't do that?

If *you* choose for the existing low will party to run through the Illithid slaver story arc, that's on you, and they have every right to complain.

OTOH, if

A) this was always the plan

A1) as demonstrated by the published module / sealed documents / encrypted files;

A2) and you warned them that

A2a) low will saves is a bad idea

A2b) or that you're going to run things honest, including not telling them *what* is a bad idea

B) or you are running a sandbox

B1) where *they* chose the Illithid slaver path, and

B2) not all paths punished Will

Then it's on them.

Kardwill
2021-05-18, 10:05 AM
I think I already answered this, but the problem isn't so much about a campaign as a story arc which I decide to run at a later point for an existing group.

The important thing is, don't surprise them with the Mind Flayers. Telegraph the problem ahead of time. Have them encounter a lone Illithid, or very clear proof of its presence, and clear indications of what it can do. Then, your players will have the opportunity to either avoid your "Illithid campaign arc", try to find alternative solutions, or find a way to compensate for their weakness.
And I think we had this conversation earlier, but when you hint for something, you have to lay it thick, otherwise most players won't pick up the clues. Stuff that is obvious for the GM is never obvious for the players, who don't see the entire module and don't have the advantage of hindsight.

If there is clear foreshadowing, then players can see it as a "problem to solve", and not a grudge-monster.

Also, allowing for character respec in the middle of the campaign is a good way to avoid the frustration a player can feel when they understand they built their character "wrong"

Talakeal
2021-05-18, 10:33 AM
The important thing is, don't surprise them with the Mind Flayers. Telegraph the problem ahead of time. Have them encounter a lone Illithid, or very clear proof of its presence, and clear indications of what it can do. Then, your players will have the opportunity to either avoid your "Illithid campaign arc", try to find alternative solutions, or find a way to compensate for their weakness.
And I think we had this conversation earlier, but when you hint for something, you have to lay it thick, otherwise most players won't pick up the clues. Stuff that is obvious for the GM is never obvious for the players, who don't see the entire module and don't have the advantage of hindsight.

If there is clear foreshadowing, then players can see it as a "problem to solve", and not a grudge-monster.

Also, allowing for character respec in the middle of the campaign is a good way to avoid the frustration a player can feel when they understand they built their character "wrong"

That's normally how I try and do things; but in my experience players just beat their head against the problem rather than adjusting their tactics, let alone their build.

There is a video game design principle that when you introduce a new mechanic there are four phases; once in a safe environment where the players can experiment, once in a standard environment, once when combined with previous mechanics, and then finally in a way that allows players to show off and be rewarded by their mastery of the mechanic. I generally try and stick to this principle, but my players don't make it easy.


So… don't do that?

If *you* choose for the existing low will party to run through the Illithid slaver story arc, that's on you, and they have every right to complain.

OTOH, if

A) this was always the plan

A1) as demonstrated by the published module / sealed documents / encrypted files;

A2) and you warned them that

A2a) low will saves is a bad idea

A2b) or that you're going to run things honest, including not telling them *what* is a bad idea

B) or you are running a sandbox

B1) where *they* chose the Illithid slaver path, and

B2) not all paths punished Will

Then it's on them.

First, I know you like to play in sandbox games, but please understand that most people don't.

To me, this is unnecessarily restrictive to both the players and the GM. As a GM, I feel like I should be allowed to use anything in the monster manual, and as a player I feel that my build choices should matter.

Now, this can be abused in either direction; a GM actually pick on one player intentionally or get to the point where the PC isn't really a good fit for the game, and likewise a player can intentionally build weaknesses into their character as a way of trying the GMs hands on the other extreme.

You also get into problems where, across the entire party, someone will be weak to almost everything, and if the DM has to avoid it,suddenly the list of antagonists grows pretty small. And this gets worse when you look at weaknesses in relation to the other PCs rather than against some absolute standard.


Also, I am still curious and wanting to talk about your ideas for campaign diagnostics when you get a chance.


Re: he’s playing home brew. True, but it’s baseline D&D that’s being modded up from what I can see. Reasonably comprehensive edits for values in the files so to speak - and that’s no easy job - but in terms of player dynamics, it’s still d&d.

I kind of resent that :p

But yes, it is a traditional RPG in terms of a group of allied player characters working together to overcome obstacles with minimal and one GM who has nearly total narrative control if that is what you mean.

Segev
2021-05-18, 10:36 AM
Sandboxes are deceptively hard to run well. However, run well, a player looking for a more story-oriented experience will find one as long as he is looking for hooks. Which is necessary no matter what kind of game you're playing.

KaussH
2021-05-18, 04:22 PM
Design wise, the rogue is a martial character, so needed some sort of mundane defensive option more effective than civilian's clothings (remember that Dex bonus to AC didn't exists in 1e). And medium/heavy armours went against the idea of a stealth character, so I assume they introduced a penalty-less armour, made of leather because that looks cool enough.

As a side note, 1st ed AD&D did have defensive adjustment that applied to ac based on dex.

KaussH
2021-05-18, 04:35 PM
On a wider note. Charicter design is often not a matter of a weak base. It is a trade off between stuff your good at and stuff your bad at. So you might have a weak will save,and hit like a train. You might have low hit points, but be able to make lots of attacks, ect. If you are going to only use the stuff that everyone is resistant to, good against, good at all the time, then you might as well just take the abilities off the table and make everyone flat everything.

Flaws and weaknesses are a way to be good at x and bad at y. And while x might be what your great at, from time to time y must happen.

This is, in my view, one of the reasons why in a lot of dnd, and in some other games, magic wildly outpaces martial. Since magic is often viewed a powerful a lot of games have flaws.. hard to cast, restrictive components, easy to interpret, might explode you instead, ect. And you also get, world shattering magic...
Remove the balances (oh, I never require components, why do I need to make a success roll, it should just work, ect) and suddenly spell casters are op.
(Not that you couldn't do the same with fighter types, but then people jump on the reality bus.. )

Chauncymancer
2021-05-18, 06:36 PM
By the way, I've spoken to a few SCA players who claim that the idea for soft leather armor has its genesis in a set of brigandine that had been scavenged of it's metal plates, leaving behind a leather jacket with little rivets stuck in it. Somebody looked at that, and instead of thinking that something was missing, tried to figure out how leather and rivets could constitute armor.

Talakeal
2021-05-18, 06:54 PM
By the way, I've spoken to a few SCA players who claim that the idea for soft leather armor has its genesis in a set of brigandine that had been scavenged of it's metal plates, leaving behind a leather jacket with little rivets stuck in it. Somebody looked at that, and instead of thinking that something was missing, tried to figure out how leather and rivets could constitute armor.

That’s likely for studded, but I am pretty sure buff coats were a real thing.

Xervous
2021-05-19, 07:00 AM
This is, in my view, one of the reasons why in a lot of dnd, and in some other games, magic wildly outpaces martial. Since magic is often viewed a powerful a lot of games have flaws.. hard to cast, restrictive components, easy to interpret, might explode you instead, ect. And you also get, world shattering magic...
Remove the balances (oh, I never require components, why do I need to make a success roll, it should just work, ect) and suddenly spell casters are op.
(Not that you couldn't do the same with fighter types, but then people jump on the reality bus.. )

If one character type progresses in scope and the other doesn’t, being isolated to a ‘What Do I Do?’ rather than a ‘How Do I Do?’, I think we’ve got the obvious source of the imbalance. It’s clearly part of the design intent. If people want balance and simulation pick something that isn’t inherently imbalanced to simulate...

Willie the Duck
2021-05-19, 08:15 AM
Given the almost absence of leather armour in history, I would not be surprised if the rogue was pretty much the only reason why the leather armour exists in D&D in the first place.
Most classes are expected to yield heavier armours. Notable exceptions are wizard/sorcerer who are supposed to have magical defences and/or magical robes, and monk/barbarians who are supposed to fight half-naked (and still survive for some reason).
Design wise, the rogue is a martial character, so needed some sort of mundane defensive option more effective than civilian's clothings (remember that Dex bonus to AC didn't exists in 1e). And medium/heavy armours went against the idea of a stealth character, so I assume they introduced a penalty-less armour, made of leather because that looks cool enough.
Leather armor was introduced in Chainmail, and included in oD&D, meaning they pre-date the conception of the Thief (later Rogue) class. The original (Chainmail) reason for 3 categories of armor (it had leather, chain, and plate; plus with or without shields) was to facilitate light/medium/heavy troop types, as well as allowing for different weapon-vs-armor comparisons. In the switch to D&D, it retained the weapon-vs-armor bit*, and picked up the added value of the lesser protective armor being lighter**, and thus those who wore less armor could carry more loot*** out of the dungeon-- facilitating the difficult weighing of choices that Gary believed was key to a good game.
*that apparently saw very little use in D&D, even at Gary and Dave's tables
**this being a bit of a misnomer, as people in the same combat roles tended to wear the same rough poundage of armor, regardless of material
***and thus XP

By the way, I've spoken to a few SCA players who claim that the idea for soft leather armor has its genesis in a set of brigandine that had been scavenged of it's metal plates, leaving behind a leather jacket with little rivets stuck in it. Somebody looked at that, and instead of thinking that something was missing, tried to figure out how leather and rivets could constitute armor.

That’s likely for studded, but I am pretty sure buff coats were a real thing.
Ring mail and Studded leather already have an explanation – misinterpretation of medieval artwork. There is plenty of art showing people on battlefields with what looks like studded leather, or with metal-colored circles all over them. That was just the artist’s way of conveying someone in brigandine or mail. Regular leather could also be that scenario – there seems to be some evidence that cuir bouilli was sometimes worn over mail and aketon/gambeson, making armor just that much more protective than chain and padding; this like studded could have been misinterpreted as just the outer shell being an armor type. Or it could have been buff coats. Or Gary just got it wrong, and thought that the relatively rare leather jack was more prevalent and the more common fiber cloth jack less so*.
* although, it should be mentioned that once AD&D came about, leather and padded armor were both included, and had the same protective value.

Leather armour is a historical thing, although I believe relatively rare compared to cloth armour (which I believe was fairly effective). Studded leather wasn't and is actually weird as better than leather when you think about it (yes the metal studs will rob a hit of energy, but also deflect it into the explicitly unboiled leather). Leather helmets were also a thing, as I discovered when I researched helmets for am A-level science project, but they weren't really common.
Gambesons or Aketons were a huge part of medieval armor, and were indeed significant protection. They also weren’t ‘light’ (by which I think people usually mean ‘are less bulky, look like clothes/can be worn under clothes, inhibit acrobatic endeavors less than metal armor, etc.’ more than an actual weight value). As has ben pointed out by others, it depends on what you mean by leather (something distinct from buff coats or cuir bouilli over mail, or not), but yes regular just leather doesn’t have a lot of evidence as a common source of armor by itself (although since leather and cloth don’t often last 1000 years, we’re mostly trying to interpret from art). I’ve seen speculation that it’s more a supply chain (there was a lot more flax for linen than spare leather not already needed for other uses), and repair (you can re-sew cloth and it is most as good as new. Leather you have to patch, and it won’t be as strong afterwards) concerns than it not being suitable for armor. One thing I can safely say just from having worn a leather jacket before – it sure wouldn’t be more stealthy than cloth armor.

Quertus
2021-05-19, 06:45 PM
Sandboxes are deceptively hard to run well. However, run well, a player looking for a more story-oriented experience will find one as long as he is looking for hooks. Which is necessary no matter what kind of game you're playing.


First, I know you like to play in sandbox games, but please understand that most people don't.

Well, even ignoring sandboxes,



So… don't do that?

If *you* choose for the existing low will party to run through the Illithid slaver story arc, that's on you, and they have every right to complain.

OTOH, if

A) this was always the plan

A1) as demonstrated by the published module / sealed documents / encrypted files;

A2) and you warned them that

A2a) low will saves is a bad idea

A2b) or that you're going to run things honest, including not telling them *what* is a bad idea

B) or you are running a sandbox

B1) where *they* chose the Illithid slaver path, and

B2) not all paths punished Will

Then it's on them.

Most of my analysis still applies.

I'm not sure that there's data to support that *most* people don't like to play sandboxes. And I'd be quite surprised were this to be true. But it also doesn't matter - what matters is *your* players. Who sure seem to complain a lot. Do we have any evidence for *their* preferences in this matter?

I'd love to run a good sandbox for them, and see how they respond.

@Segev, why do you say that doing so is "deceptively hard"?


To me, this is unnecessarily restrictive to both the players and the GM. As a GM, I feel like I should be allowed to use anything in the monster manual, and as a player I feel that my build choices should matter.

"I should be allowed to stick my hand in any box."

"I should be allowed to store anything in boxes - even acid or lava."

Me: "sure, but… maybe *warn* them before they stick their hand in a box of acid? Especially since they keep complaining about losing hands?"

Also… people who complain about losing hands when they stick them in boxes of acid should *not* be used for testing your system. Testers should simply *explain* that they are losing their hands to unlabeled boxes of acid, and ask whether or not that was the intended result.

Drop those players, drop your system, or drop all pretences of keeping your sanity. :smallwink:


Now, this can be abused in either direction; a GM actually pick on one player intentionally or get to the point where the PC isn't really a good fit for the game, and likewise a player can intentionally build weaknesses into their character as a way of trying the GMs hands on the other extreme.

You also get into problems where, across the entire party, someone will be weak to almost everything, and if the DM has to avoid it,suddenly the list of antagonists grows pretty small. And this gets worse when you look at weaknesses in relation to the other PCs rather than against some absolute standard.

System testers should be willing to play Sentient Potted Plants next to Not!Thor.

So, which are you doing?

Are you testing your system, and fixing the imbalances (like no defence and no armor) that they point out?

Or are you running a system, where they have a right to complain about false claims (does your system claim any level of balance / lack of trap options (and note that spending money to reduce the ability to carry money might be considered a trap, if not a trap option)?)?

With what mindset are your players approaching your game?

(Answer: a totally broken one, where, if they finished one level X% ahead of "WBL" (does your system actually *have* WBL tables?), they expect to finish the next level at least X+Y% ahead of WBL, or else they complain and feel that they have failed. Possibly exacerbated by the (correct) belief that the GM micro-balances, even changing the tactics of the encounter based on how the characters are doing, making any build or tactical choices irrelevant.)

Different styles train players to approach the game different ways. How do you want them to approach the game, and what are you *actually* encouraging? Afaict, just going by your descriptions, your style is… schizophrenic (EDIT: wrong word. Multiple personality, maybe? Is there an art word… like multimedia, but for styles?), and that doesn't help your players to choose a mindset with which to approach the game.


Also, I am still curious and wanting to talk about your ideas for campaign diagnostics when you get a chance.

Yeah, I'm too senile to remember anything about that. :smallfrown: (other than that you mentioned it once before in this thread, iirc)

Talakeal
2021-05-20, 01:17 PM
Well, even ignoring sandboxes,




Most of my analysis still applies.

I'm not sure that there's data to support that *most* people don't like to play sandboxes. And I'd be quite surprised were this to be true. But it also doesn't matter - what matters is *your* players. Who sure seem to complain a lot. Do we have any evidence for *their* preferences in this matter?

I'd love to run a good sandbox for them, and see how they respond.


"Like" was the wrong word, I meant "Prefer".

I don't have any hard data to back that up, but I know from my experience, both as a GM and as a PC, that sandboxes are always less fun for the players and more frustrating to run for the DM than a linear adventure.

Likewise, if you look at the market, the vast majority of adventures that are published these days are not sandboxes.

Please note that I don't mean sandboxes aren't fun, just less fun than linear adventures, and that may simply be because they are so hard to do "right."


Yeah, I'm too senile to remember anything about that. :smallfrown: (other than that you mentioned it once before in this thread, iirc)

That's a shame. Now that quarantine is over I might actually have time to try it.

I can't remember exactly which one of my threads you posted it in, but it was sometime in mid-late 2019.



"I should be allowed to stick my hand in any box."

"I should be allowed to store anything in boxes - even acid or lava."

Me: "sure, but… maybe *warn* them before they stick their hand in a box of acid? Especially since they keep complaining about losing hands?"

Again, what does this warning actually look like at the table?

Like, hypothetically, let's say I am running a 20 level campaign. From levels 1-3, the primary villain will target AC, from 4-6 it will target will, from 7-9 it will target reflex, from 10-12 it will target for, from 13-15 it will deal fire damage, from 16-19 it will do energy drains, and at level 20 it will deal sonic damage.

What does my warning look like? And when is it delivered? And how does it change if I don't decide on what each arc will focus on until I have already finished the last one, as is more or less normal for me?

Like, in my current campaign, I have a general idea of the themes, I have a few adventures outlines, a few scenes planned out, and know who most of the major NPCs and players that are going to be involved are, but I haven't statted out anything, and I don't even know who the villains are except for the first two missions; and I can't know until the game is well underway because the players are free to make or break allegiances over time.


System testers should be willing to play Sentient Potted Plants next to Not!Thor.

I disagree.

The game is not about playing sentient potted plants, it is about playing people, there aren't even rules for such, and would have to be home-brewed.

On a less literal level, yeah, people can make an intentionally bad character. I don't see why you should test around that possibility.

There is a difference between trap options and sabotaging your own character.


Are you testing your system, and fixing the imbalances (like no defence and no armor) that they point out?

Or are you running a system, where they have a right to complain about false claims (does your system claim any level of balance / lack of trap options (and note that spending money to reduce the ability to carry money might be considered a trap, if not a trap option)?)?

With what mindset are your players approaching your game?

The game is more or less finished at this point.

I mean, I am sure it contains traps, dysfunctions, and exploits, every RPG does, and I will remove them when I find them, but at this point we are mostly just playing for fun.


Or are you running a system, where they have a right to complain about false claims (does your system claim any level of balance / lack of trap options (and note that spending money to reduce the ability to carry money might be considered a trap, if not a trap option)?)?

That's a very hard question to answer.

To me, a trap option is a choice which is flat out inferior; for example if you have two feats, one that gives +1 to hit with melee weapons and the other a +2 to hit with melee weapons, all other things being equal the former is a trap option. My system does not intentionally contain trap options, but I am sure it contains unintentional ones which I correct when I find and appreciate when players point out.

Balance is a more or less meaningless term though, and the vast majority of things are incomparable. In a vacuum, one could say that crafting skills or less valuable than combat skills, for example, and that would be true if everyone took the same crafting skill, but if the group has a variety of skills they are stronger as a whole. Likewise, even amongst crafting skills, wood-working and stone-working are probably less useful than metal-working or alchemy, but a group with 1 of each is better off than 2 metal workers and 2 alchemists.

To take this further, a jack of all trades character tends to suck in most parties, but in a solo adventure or in a very large group with 7+ players, they will likely outshine a specialist. Likewise, going overboard on offense or defense is a bad move in a vacuum, but if you have two people to compliment one another they can make for an excellent hammer and anvil strategy.

A guy who spends a bunch of character points to be totally immune to mind control might be a detriment to the group when fighting orcs, or overpowered when fighting illithids; a dedicated pyromancer might be a liability when fighting efreets, but a tremendous boon when exploring the yeti's icy lair.


Now, what exactly do you mean by falls claims? Like rules dysfunctions?


Possibly exacerbated by the (correct) belief that the GM micro-balances, even changing the tactics of the encounter based on how the characters are doing, making any build or tactical choices irrelevant.)

You GREATLY overestimate my tactical acumen if you think I can make the player's build or tactical choices irrelevant. It just doesn't matter than much. I would say the individual variance of dice rolls over an encounter probably has ten times the impact of playing a little softer when the PCs are struggling.

Also, I would imagine it is just plain human nature to do this, and that most DMs (and players) get lazy and overconfident while whining and buckle down and focus when losing. And honestly, characters in the game world might do the same, so its probably good RP; after all a wounded or cornered animal is especially dangerous, while a well-fed animal facing inferior prey will likely play with its food. Likewise, villains who are in a position of strength might toy with their enemies or bully them around, while those who find themselves taking heavy and unexpected casualties will likely dive for cover and reevaluate their tactics.

That being said, I do agree that buckling down when losing can feel like "punishing success"; but on the other hand refusing to show mercy can also feel like "kicking people when they are down," I am just not sure which is worse.


(Answer: a totally broken one, where, if they finished one level X% ahead of "WBL" (does your system actually *have* WBL tables?), they expect to finish the next level at least X+Y% ahead of WBL, or else they complain and feel that they have failed.

It doesn't have WBL as such; but it does have a expected levels of wealth gain. Basically, an average adventure increases the character's wealth score by about five; completing optional objectives might increase this number, while taking on debts might decrease it.

Basically, in my last game they would get most or all of the bonus objectives and avoid taking on more than minimal debt, 2 out of three missions.

The third mission, they would struggle a bit on, either being too beat up to complete the bonus objectives, or needing to take on significant debt (usually in the form of mercenaries or consumables), or god forbid both.

Then they would bitch endlessly about how my game was too hard (despite the fact that they had an easy time the previous two adventures) and would tell me that they just wasted their evening by making barely any profit, to which I would have to explain that the experience points are the real reward, and matter way more to character power than money.

They would still complain, and I would show them the behind the scenes; that the adventure is designed to increase wealth by five each mission; so a "standard" party would get 5 + 5 +5 for a total of +15; while they got +8, +9, +2, for a total of +19. Then they would say that it FEELS like a huge loss, because they went from being 70% ahead of the curve to only 22% ahead of the curve, and that they would have had to be at least 75% ahead of the curve to actually feel like it was a worthwhile endeavor.


Different styles train players to approach the game different ways. How do you want them to approach the game, and what are you *actually* encouraging? Afaict, just going by your descriptions, your style is… schizophrenic (EDIT: wrong word. Multiple personality, maybe? Is there an art word… like multimedia, but for styles?), and that doesn't help your players to choose a mindset with which to approach the game.


Schizophrenic is the right word; it has a different meaning when used figuratively than when used literally.

Yeah, I can kind of see how not taking things to ludicrous levels is a bit schizophrenic. That is a legitimately good point.

In my mind, the ideal player character would:

Work with the rest of the group to make characters that compliment one another and be stronger as a whole than the sum of their parts.
Create a character that is specialized, but not so specialized that they are bored / frustrated / a liability when their specialty isn't applicable.
Be brave, but also smart, rationing out their resources to get as far as they can before giving up.
Has a personality and some flaws rather than simply being a perfectly efficient robot; but not so much that they are ever a liability to the group.

kyoryu
2021-05-20, 02:43 PM
At a minimum, sandboxes are harder to effectively productize than linear games.

Segev
2021-05-20, 02:51 PM
At a minimum, sandboxes are harder to effectively productize than linear games.

I thought Tomb of Annihilate did a decent job. It could be done better, but it didn't do it poorly.

The big thing a productized sandbox needs is current plans, resources the planners have, and some comments on how each faction acts if each faction's plans advance.

Cluedrew
2021-05-20, 07:37 PM
I on the other hand feel sandboxes are inherently more fun than linear adventures because they offer you more meaningful choices. I accept that not everyone agrees with that - I don't really understand why - but I will shoot down the statement that anyone "knows" that players "always" have more fun in a linear campaign. Similarly with them always being more frustrating to run but even if I think that one is wrong I think I see where it is coming from.

Satinavian
2021-05-21, 03:20 AM
I would also say that sandboxes are moe fun, but also harder to write.

Lacco
2021-05-21, 03:38 AM
I would also say that sandboxes are moe fun, but also harder to write.

It's the difference between a street and a city. Not necessarily harder to write, just more streets, more buildings, more people... if you do not "cheat" by using some illusions of freedom (copying streets, quantum ogres/schroedinger railroads), your best bet is randomization with modifications. Emergent plots/narratives/stories...

So it's more effort to write and the results may vary. It's rather easier to sell ticket for a train ride, or even tickets to amusement park than to sell a "make your own trip" to a city you have no information about.

However, the city will allow for multiple visits and if you are the right person... you'll find the exploration and discovery much more rewarding than just riding the same railway.

Anonymouswizard
2021-05-21, 05:35 AM
I find that the main issue with ruining sandboxes is tracking developments and working out of the PCs actions need to agree any planned or emergent storylines (does collapsing the mine affect the election in the local town? If that election would be effected dies that mean that the bandit king the PCs helped get established will get more out less bold?).

I generally find the the two easiest ways to run a game are having the players that All Roads Lead To Rome or get the PCs in an organisation so that I can have missions to them in character. Sandboxes are, once you've set up the initial area, easier for me to run then railroads because I have a whole will to plot out aftereffects rather than two seconds to work out how to deal with the players who have jumped the tracks (either a way to get them back on track or a way to at least mess about productively).

Calthropstu
2021-05-21, 08:22 AM
I would also say that sandboxes are moe fun, but also harder to write.

Actually, Sandboxes require very little writing. You set some locations, build an overall far reaching plot, draw up some maps, and viola. You have a sandbox. Add some generic quests that can happen anywhere and you have a realistic feel with very little writing.

Satinavian
2021-05-21, 09:24 AM
Actually, Sandboxes require very little writing. You set some locations, build an overall far reaching plot, draw up some maps, and viola. You have a sandbox. Add some generic quests that can happen anywhere and you have a realistic feel with very little writing.
You need locations. And factions. And motivations for those factions. And relationships between them. And things that are in motion so that your sandbox is not just stale and static when the players don't do anything or are active in some other part. And possible hooks for all of that so that the PCs have it easy to engage with stuff whenever they want to.

It is not impossible, but it is certainly a lot more than you would prepare for a linear adventure.

Calthropstu
2021-05-21, 10:11 AM
You need locations. And factions. And motivations for those factions. And relationships between them. And things that are in motion so that your sandbox is not just stale and static when the players don't do anything or are active in some other part. And possible hooks for all of that so that the PCs have it easy to engage with stuff whenever they want to.

It is not impossible, but it is certainly a lot more than you would prepare for a linear adventure.

I come up with that stuff on the spot as needed. Yes, there is basic stuff, but writing up a ton of stuff for places the party never goes to?

Yeah, basically, if the party does something I haven't written up, I make it right there. Takes less than a 30 seconds to do so. In that 30 seconds I have assigned a local power structure, applied build templates, assigned appropriate quest givers and generated a half a dozen intesting npcs.

Flexibility and instant adaption is far more necessary in a sandbox. The only real problem I have is remembering all the damn names.

Talakeal
2021-05-21, 11:29 AM
I on the other hand feel sandboxes are inherently more fun than linear adventures because they offer you more meaningful choices. I accept that not everyone agrees with that - I don't really understand why - but I will shoot down the statement that anyone "knows" that players "always" have more fun in a linear campaign. Similarly with them always being more frustrating to run but even if I think that one is wrong I think I see where it is coming from.

Please note that I am just talking from my experience, not some kind of universal absolute.

Although I really am struggling to think what kind of “meaningful choice” is easier to do in a sandbox. Can you give some examples?



I come up with that stuff on the spot as needed. Yes, there is basic stuff, but writing up a ton of stuff for places the party never goes to?

Yeah, basically, if the party does something I haven't written up, I make it right there. Takes less than a 30 seconds to do so. In that 30 seconds I have assigned a local power structure, applied build templates, assigned appropriate quest givers and generated a half a dozen intesting npcs.

Flexibility and instant adaption is far more necessary in a sandbox. The only real problem I have is remembering all the damn names.

I don't think being an improv GM is necessarily the same thing as running a sandbox. Also, many of the people I have gamed with feel that it is flat out cheating.

Quertus
2021-05-21, 11:32 AM
I on the other hand feel sandboxes are inherently more fun than linear adventures because they offer you more meaningful choices. I accept that not everyone agrees with that - I don't really understand why - but I will shoot down the statement that anyone "knows" that players "always" have more fun in a linear campaign. Similarly with them always being more frustrating to run but even if I think that one is wrong I think I see where it is coming from.

Spot on.

And, for emphasis, playing the game isn't rolling dice - playing the game is making meaningful choices.


"Like" was the wrong word, I meant "Prefer".

I don't have any hard data to back that up, but I know from my experience, both as a GM and as a PC, that sandboxes are always less fun for the players and more frustrating to run for the DM than a linear adventure.

Definitely false. Look at the stories of adventure paths, where parties have to lose all their progress to match the next chapter of the adventure path.

I'm currently running Halls of the High King. Many times, I've had to tell the players that the NPCs are only scripted to follow a linear storyline, and watch them face palm.

"everyone always prefers linear to sandbox" is provably false. In fact, on the Playground, I've seen far more expansions of why people prefer sandbox play to linear than the other way around.


Please note that I don't mean sandboxes aren't fun, just less fun than linear adventures, and that may simply be because they are so hard to do "right.".

It may be hard to do them right (still looking for why that might be), but, done right, IME & IMO, sandboxy play is more fun for both players and GM.


Again, what does this warning actually look like at the table?

Like, hypothetically, let's say I am running a 20 level campaign. From levels 1-3, the primary villain will target AC, from 4-6 it will target will, from 7-9 it will target reflex, from 10-12 it will target for, from 13-15 it will deal fire damage, from 16-19 it will do energy drains, and at level 20 it will deal sonic damage.

What does my warning look like? And when is it delivered? And how does it change if I don't decide on what each arc will focus on until I have already finished the last one, as is more or less normal for me?

Um… I mean, I probably wouldn't do that in the first place, but… "I'm planning on running something 'thematic', by which I mean running a bunch of really samey sections, back to back, like if I ran 'Necrophilia on Bone Hill' and 'Illithid Slavers' back to back. Any character who isn't a generalist appropriate to such huge samey swaths might easily have to sit out, mechanically if not literally, for multiple sessions at a time. Plan accordingly."

I prefer to run things that *don't* look like that, personally.


Like, in my current campaign, I have a general idea of the themes, I have a few adventures outlines, a few scenes planned out, and know who most of the major NPCs and players that are going to be involved are, but I haven't statted out anything, and I don't even know who the villains are except for the first two missions; and I can't know until the game is well underway because the players are free to make or break allegiances over time.

And this differs from a sandbox how?


I disagree.

The game is not about playing sentient potted plants, it is about playing people, there aren't even rules for such, and would have to be home-brewed.

On a less literal level, yeah, people can make an intentionally bad character. I don't see why you should test around that possibility.

There is a difference between trap options and sabotaging your own character.

There's a difference between making a good adventure and sabotaging your game.

But, just as some GMs will create very samey, repetitive, predictable, and, often, unfun content because it is "thematic", so, too, will players create highly suboptimal characters because it is thematic.

A good programmer will test to see how his code handles such behavior.

[]


Also, I would imagine it is just plain human nature to do this, and that most DMs (and players) get lazy and overconfident while whining and buckle down and focus when losing. And honestly, characters in the game world might do the same, so its probably good RP; after all a wounded or cornered animal is especially dangerous, while a well-fed animal facing inferior prey will likely play with its food. Likewise, villains who are in a position of strength might toy with their enemies or bully them around, while those who find themselves taking heavy and unexpected casualties will likely dive for cover and reevaluate their tactics.

Player <> Character, GM <> NPC.

I agree that *some* NPCs should be roleplayed behaving differently in accordance with their perception of how well they're doing. OTOH,

(N)PC: "Never play an ace when a deuce will do."

My Character: "Never play a deuce when you have an unlimited supply of aces."

I expect that, in a fight to the death (especially against infamous, home-invading murderhobos), *most* people won't be playing around.

But the *GM*? They aren't the NPCs, and shouldn't get caught in the trap of that mindset.


That being said, I do agree that buckling down when losing can feel like "punishing success"; but on the other hand refusing to show mercy can also feel like "kicking people when they are down," I am just not sure which is worse.

Shrug. If you're gonna put value judgements on them that way, the obvious answer would be to *neither* punish success, nor kick them when they're down.


It doesn't have WBL as such; but it does have a expected levels of wealth gain. Basically, an average adventure increases the character's wealth score by about five; completing optional objectives might increase this number, while taking on debts might decrease it.

Basically, in my last game they would get most or all of the bonus objectives and avoid taking on more than minimal debt, 2 out of three missions.

The third mission, they would struggle a bit on, either being too beat up to complete the bonus objectives, or needing to take on significant debt (usually in the form of mercenaries or consumables), or god forbid both.

Then they would bitch endlessly about how my game was too hard (despite the fact that they had an easy time the previous two adventures) and would tell me that they just wasted their evening by making barely any profit, to which I would have to explain that the experience points are the real reward, and matter way more to character power than money.

They would still complain, and I would show them the behind the scenes; that the adventure is designed to increase wealth by five each mission; so a "standard" party would get 5 + 5 +5 for a total of +15; while they got +8, +9, +2, for a total of +19. Then they would say that it FEELS like a huge loss, because they went from being 70% ahead of the curve to only 22% ahead of the curve, and that they would have had to be at least 75% ahead of the curve to actually feel like it was a worthwhile endeavor.

I'm… *maybe* playing devil's advocate, but I'm gonna take your players' side here.

If you're adjusting the difficulty of the encounters… and the encounters aren't pre-written… and the game has an "expected" wealth curve… and, after "successful" missions where they her ahead of the curve, you give them missions that push them back towards the curve… why shouldn't they feel like they're being forced to lose?

If getting ahead doesn't make things easier / if it looks like you were going to force them on an otherwise impossible mission, that they only survive because of how spectacularly well they performed previously, why shouldn't they complain that your system / game is too hard?

Calthropstu
2021-05-21, 12:58 PM
Please note that I am just talking from my experience, not some kind of universal absolute.

Although I really am struggling to think what kind of “meaningful choice” is easier to do in a sandbox. Can you give some examples?




I don't think being an improv GM is necessarily the same thing as running a sandbox. Also, many of the people I have gamed with feel that it is flat out cheating.

Cheating? How the hell is it cheating? It's coming from my head. Whether it comes from my head an hour before game, a month before game or during the game what's the difference?

It's not like I don't have a system in place, I do have "people stats." I just use templates to generate town fast and on the fly. I make personalities on the spot.

I actually get a lot of compliments on my stories and the believability of my npc's.

Plus, the fact that the end game is mutable makes it complete player agency. "Hey, guy is trying to destroy a city? Meh, I doubt we're the only ones who can stop him. And there's this big bad dragon we keep hearing about. And that ancient vampire lord who was killed sounds really interesting. Let's kill the dragon then head out to see the ancient vampire's castle. We'll stop at some towns along the way."

"Ok, Let's add some towns along the way. *adds a town* This would definitely be a place where someone has seen the dragon so *add npc* there's a legend of someone who fought the dragon. Let's make him from this town *places relevant info* Add a town leadership, an innkeeper, a cool traveler, a bard in the tavern, let's add an interesting kid and... done."

Ok, you enter the town of Yoridin. Seems fairly standard for a modest size town. It seems 6 merchant stalls dominate the town square with a few wandering people chatting. A child around 11 takes notice of you and wanders over, not bothering to hide his obvious wonder. "Are you guys adventurers?" he asks eyes wide and eager...

That is all my players hear. A bit of furious typing, some notes being jotted and poof. As they talk, I add a couple potential quests make a few snap decisions and it's done.

OldTrees1
2021-05-21, 12:59 PM
It may be hard to do them right (still looking for why that might be), but, done right, IME & IMO, sandboxy play is more fun for both players and GM.

1) As was previously established, preferences and enjoyment go in both directions on this topic. As a Sandbox GM I have met players of both preferences.

2) Sandboxes are bigger, more complicated, less predictable, and less controllable than a linear campaign. It is harder to create that effect, and it is harder to manage that consequence.

However Sandbox GMs usually adapt techniques to help manage the task. For example I store linear campaigns in notebooks but sandbox campaigns need to be stored in my head. A notebook is just not big enough nor interconnected enough.

Although I would say "harder", not "hard" despite difficulty being subjective.

MoiMagnus
2021-05-21, 01:15 PM
2) Sandboxes are bigger, more complicated, less predictable, and less controllable than a linear campaign. It is harder to create that effect, and it is harder to manage that consequence.

There is one thing that can make sandbox "easier", it is that it is much easier to rely on your players to generate content (and just bounce back on their ideas) in a sandbox games than in a linear one.

IMO sandboxes are both the kind of campaign that take the least amount of prep (literally just thinking of a theme and few NPCs and improvising on-the-fly from it) and the most amount of prep (literally building an entire world in details just for a campaign), depending on how exigent you are with yourself.

While linear campaigns (assuming you're not making a branching one), you can reasonably say that your prep is "done" at some point and you have nothing relevant to add before trying it with actual players to see how it goes.

kyoryu
2021-05-21, 01:27 PM
Please note that I am just talking from my experience, not some kind of universal absolute.

Although I really am struggling to think what kind of “meaningful choice” is easier to do in a sandbox. Can you give some examples?

...

I don't think being an improv GM is necessarily the same thing as running a sandbox. Also, many of the people I have gamed with feel that it is flat out cheating.

I think we need some definitions here. I'm also confused as to how improvisation is cheating. I'd love to hear that conversation and understand the context.


Spot on.

And, for emphasis, playing the game isn't rolling dice - playing the game is making meaningful choices.

This.



A good programmer will test to see how his code handles such behavior.

Eh. A good programmer also delineates what scenarios he is and is not supporting. If I'm working on code that's just going to run on servers, and I know that, I'm not going to worry about how it runs in an embedded device. While I might avoid things to prevent it, I'm not going to spend time worrying about it.

Not-Thor and the potted plant is similar. Is that a scenario my game cares about? If not, then running test sessions that support it is getting me data and pushing the design away from the things that I actually care about.


I'm… *maybe* playing devil's advocate, but I'm gonna take your players' side here.

If you're adjusting the difficulty of the encounters… and the encounters aren't pre-written… and the game has an "expected" wealth curve… and, after "successful" missions where they her ahead of the curve, you give them missions that push them back towards the curve… why shouldn't they feel like they're being forced to lose?

If getting ahead doesn't make things easier / if it looks like you were going to force them on an otherwise impossible mission, that they only survive because of how spectacularly well they performed previously, why shouldn't they complain that your system / game is too hard?

There is clearly both the perception on the player side that there is a good amount of rubber-banding, as well as an admission that there is some amount of rubber-banding actually occurring. And people hate rubber-banding.

In the 8-9-2 scneario vs 5-5-5, I think you don't make it "2" in the last one, because then people are getting 1/4-1/5 of the reward that they did, which feels bad. Taper it down over time to get back on track in 4 sessions or so, not one.


"Like" was the wrong word, I meant "Prefer".

I don't have any hard data to back that up, but I know from my experience, both as a GM and as a PC, that sandboxes are always less fun for the players and more frustrating to run for the DM than a linear adventure.

You run a sandbox different than a linear adventure. The skills are not the same. Some people do enjoy one or the other, but if you try to run one as you'd run the other, you'll end up in a bad place.


Likewise, if you look at the market, the vast majority of adventures that are published these days are not sandboxes.

Please note that I don't mean sandboxes aren't fun, just less fun than linear adventures, and that may simply be because they are so hard to do "right."

Sandboxes are hard to productize. Not impossible, but hard. They're doubly hard to productize as a "series" of modules, since the state is unknown at the end of each.


Again, what does this warning actually look like at the table?

Like, hypothetically, let's say I am running a 20 level campaign. From levels 1-3, the primary villain will target AC, from 4-6 it will target will, from 7-9 it will target reflex, from 10-12 it will target for, from 13-15 it will deal fire damage, from 16-19 it will do energy drains, and at level 20 it will deal sonic damage.

What does my warning look like? And when is it delivered? And how does it change if I don't decide on what each arc will focus on until I have already finished the last one, as is more or less normal for me?

I'd just say "you have a really low will save. That's probably okay at the low levels of the game, but in higher levels, mind control and other things that target will will likely become more prominent, and you're going to run the danger of being able to resist that only a small percentage of the time."



The game is not about playing sentient potted plants, it is about playing people, there aren't even rules for such, and would have to be home-brewed.

On a less literal level, yeah, people can make an intentionally bad character. I don't see why you should test around that possibility.

There is a difference between trap options and sabotaging your own character.

I actually agree with all of this. Self-sabotage is a thing, and no system can prevent it. When I look at balance, I look at a few things:

1) Someone that doesn't know how the system works, making common-sense choices
2) Someone that does know the system, making more-or-less incremental choices but sticking to fairly "obvious" things
3) Someone that knows the system well, making long-term plans and doing counter-intuitive things.

And specifically, I try to look at the delta between those points. There will almost always be some, the question is how much? And there's actually no right answer to this, just answers that are the target you're going for.


That's a very hard question to answer.

To me, a trap option is a choice which is flat out inferior; for example if you have two feats, one that gives +1 to hit with melee weapons and the other a +2 to hit with melee weapons, all other things being equal the former is a trap option. My system does not intentionally contain trap options, but I am sure it contains unintentional ones which I correct when I find and appreciate when players point out.

In game theory that'd be called a dominated strategy.


Balance is a more or less meaningless term though, and the vast majority of things are incomparable. In a vacuum, one could say that crafting skills or less valuable than combat skills, for example, and that would be true if everyone took the same crafting skill, but if the group has a variety of skills they are stronger as a whole. Likewise, even amongst crafting skills, wood-working and stone-working are probably less useful than metal-working or alchemy, but a group with 1 of each is better off than 2 metal workers and 2 alchemists.

To take this further, a jack of all trades character tends to suck in most parties, but in a solo adventure or in a very large group with 7+ players, they will likely outshine a specialist. Likewise, going overboard on offense or defense is a bad move in a vacuum, but if you have two people to compliment one another they can make for an excellent hammer and anvil strategy.

I look at it in a couple of phases:

1) Broad balance. If you say "x is supposed to be better at a than y is" is that a true statement? Are classes/etc. doing roughly what they say they should do? If you're saying the Fighter is the king of melee, is that true? Or is a shape-shifted druid better? In a class-based system usually two classes should be comparable by a set of statements like that. "Sorcerors get to do more, but have flexibility, while Wizards gain flexibility at hte cost of being able to cast fewer spells and being more subject to being improperly prepared". That's a set of better than/worse than statements around broad areas of competency.

2) Medium-grained baselining. How much better/worse you're actually getting. In the example above, if the sorceror only gets one more spell a day, and has to do almost all of the planning a wizard does, just with fewer spells? Probably a bad call, even though technically the super-broad constraints are still met

3) Super fine tuning, getting into fine-grained DPS, etc.

Broad based, and some medium-grained is useful. Beyond that is pointless. Another good question is "in how many of the typical scenes/encounters games go through in a typical night will the character have some ability to engage?" Ideally, that should be most of them, for all classes.


A guy who spends a bunch of character points to be totally immune to mind control might be a detriment to the group when fighting orcs, or overpowered when fighting illithids; a dedicated pyromancer might be a liability when fighting efreets, but a tremendous boon when exploring the yeti's icy lair.

Right, this is broad-based balance. And it's okay mostly, I'd just prefer systems that dont' require such hyper-specialization, and force/promote a broad base of competency to build the specializations on.


You GREATLY overestimate my tactical acumen if you think I can make the player's build or tactical choices irrelevant. It just doesn't matter than much. I would say the individual variance of dice rolls over an encounter probably has ten times the impact of playing a little softer when the PCs are struggling.

I'd say the opposite.

Targeted focus on the weakest, vulnerable, high-DPS target to take them out and systematically exterminating the party like that while using terrain to minimize exposure, combined with the fact that the GM is always in perfect sync with himself can lead to a massive advantage, especially cmpared to tactics like having the bruisers go after the fighters first, splitting attacks, unnecessarily going one on one (especially if you're not targeting weaknesses), etc.

That can absolutely be a bigger difference over hte course of a fight than normal random variance.


That being said, I do agree that buckling down when losing can feel like "punishing success"; but on the other hand refusing to show mercy can also feel like "kicking people when they are down," I am just not sure which is worse.

I'd do neither. Let them win or lose. Play encounters at a fairly even level so that the players can see the results of their decisions.


They would still complain, and I would show them the behind the scenes; that the adventure is designed to increase wealth by five each mission; so a "standard" party would get 5 + 5 +5 for a total of +15; while they got +8, +9, +2, for a total of +19. Then they would say that it FEELS like a huge loss, because they went from being 70% ahead of the curve to only 22% ahead of the curve, and that they would have had to be at least 75% ahead of the curve to actually feel like it was a worthwhile endeavor.

This looks a lot like rubber-banding.


I thought Tomb of Annihilate did a decent job. It could be done better, but it didn't do it poorly.

The big thing a productized sandbox needs is current plans, resources the planners have, and some comments on how each faction acts if each faction's plans advance.

Yeah, and you can do it as a single release, as a series of modules is harder. I didn't say it's impossible, just harder to productize.


I would also say that sandboxes are moe fun, but also harder to write.

Generally agreed. Though mostly sandboxes just require a different set of skills to write.


It's the difference between a street and a city. Not necessarily harder to write, just more streets, more buildings, more people... if you do not "cheat" by using some illusions of freedom (copying streets, quantum ogres/schroedinger railroads), your best bet is randomization with modifications. Emergent plots/narratives/stories...

So it's more effort to write and the results may vary. It's rather easier to sell ticket for a train ride, or even tickets to amusement park than to sell a "make your own trip" to a city you have no information about.

However, the city will allow for multiple visits and if you are the right person... you'll find the exploration and discovery much more rewarding than just riding the same railway.

Terrain is the least important thing for a sandbox. Randomization is great for the unimportant bits.


I find that the main issue with ruining sandboxes is tracking developments and working out of the PCs actions need to agree any planned or emergent storylines (does collapsing the mine affect the election in the local town? If that election would be effected dies that mean that the bandit king the PCs helped get established will get more out less bold?).

I generally find the the two easiest ways to run a game are having the players that All Roads Lead To Rome or get the PCs in an organisation so that I can have missions to them in character. Sandboxes are, once you've set up the initial area, easier for me to run then railroads because I have a whole will to plot out aftereffects rather than two seconds to work out how to deal with the players who have jumped the tracks (either a way to get them back on track or a way to at least mess about productively).

Mostly yeah. Since you don't care where they go, it's fine where they go. You don't have to coerce them back somewhere, you just have to extrapolate from the known situation. And most of the responses to their actions can be far enough out that you can deal with them between sessions.


You need locations. And factions. And motivations for those factions. And relationships between them. And things that are in motion so that your sandbox is not just stale and static when the players don't do anything or are active in some other part. And possible hooks for all of that so that the PCs have it easy to engage with stuff whenever they want to.

It is not impossible, but it is certainly a lot more than you would prepare for a linear adventure.

I don't know if it's more or not. It's just different. I also tend to run more strongly-themed "sandboxes" where it's really about a problem, but how the players deal with it (and deal with the outcome) is up to them.

I generally find that for a sandbox, prep before the first game is a bit (a lot?) higher, but after that prep is pretty minimal. I think it's lower overall, just a bit front-loaded (and you can even get around some of that).

OldTrees1
2021-05-21, 02:53 PM
There is one thing that can make sandbox "easier", it is that it is much easier to rely on your players to generate content (and just bounce back on their ideas) in a sandbox games than in a linear one.

IMO sandboxes are both the kind of campaign that take the least amount of prep (literally just thinking of a theme and few NPCs and improvising on-the-fly from it) and the most amount of prep (literally building an entire world in details just for a campaign), depending on how exigent you are with yourself.

While linear campaigns (assuming you're not making a branching one), you can reasonably say that your prep is "done" at some point and you have nothing relevant to add before trying it with actual players to see how it goes.

Yes, that is another example of the techniques sandbox GMs use to help manage the task. (which I mentioned in the next paragraph)

Personally I have found letting a sandbox live rent free in my head has reduced the amount of prep time I need despite increasing the volume of prep I obtain.

Likewise I love when it PCs drive the story because that helps generate content. This can be harder on the players. However a GM can help by making sure there are interesting outcomes for the choices stemming from the questions the PCs start to ask. Of course that is more prep and makes it harder on the GM again.

And so on and so on, there are many ways to do more prep, and many techniques to reduce the effort needed to produce that prep.

Telok
2021-05-21, 03:33 PM
Although I really am struggling to think what kind of “meaningful choice” is easier to do in a sandbox. Can you give some examples

The PCs are complete strangers in this d&d style world. They started a major fire & disaster in the city, but also handed a military spanking to the ruler of an opposing city and have been flying around in a surface-to-orbit assault shuttle. They have ended up attending a gladiatorial games in a 70000 person arena. Once they stopped failing perception checks they become aware that there are about 30 templars, sword-mage enforcers of the sorcerer-king, in the nearby seats surrounding them and that the guy six rows ahead of them wearing the fancy hat must be the sorcerer-king.

What do they do? Charm? Persuade? Intimidate? Cut a deal? Fight? Submit? Flee? Anything could have worked. If I ran a pre-planned plot or adventure path this is where the wheels come off. The sorcerer-king is magically capable of blowing their shuttle out of the sky and can organize squads of scry-teleport soldiers. They could ally with him, make a deadly enemy, potentially kill him & learn how to turn into dragons, run off and ally with a rival sorcerer-king. What they did was fear effect on the entire arena, fight a delaying action until the teleporter warmed up to beam them out, then nuke the city from orbit.

How does a non-sandbox handle that sort of thing? Just throw out the adventure when the PCs exercise free will?

KaussH
2021-05-21, 05:04 PM
I don't think being an improv GM is necessarily the same thing as running a sandbox. Also, many of the people I have gamed with feel that it is flat out cheating.

Not sure how that is cheating. As gm i make and balance a lot of the world. Weather, roads, color of goods on sale, ect. If the pcs do something outside the basics, then i go to the bullet points and extrapolate " oh, bob is dead, well then that shop will be closed next time"

If they do something way outside the path " you shove the ancient artifact in tbe bag, then toss 2 bags of holding and a cask of oil and an itemed bonefire in after it.... um ok. Give me a min, coffee break " once the explosions clear, i now have to update some game stuff on the fly. I will follow the sandbox's rules, but its improv mosty.

Heck its not even cheating if i make up stuff bad for the pcs for no reason, its just hostile gaming. I can do that without improv. :)

Cluedrew
2021-05-21, 07:19 PM
You need locations. And factions. And motivations for those factions. And relationships between them. And things that are in motion[...]I think the only things you need are locations and things to do at those locations. Those other things can help though, I will not disagree. You could even argue they are necessary for a good sandbox but unless you are defining them really broadly I would disagree.


Although I really am struggling to think what kind of “meaningful choice” is easier to do in a sandbox. Can you give some examples?All meaningful choices available in sandboxes. Unless you are using linear adventure differently than I am there aren't any meaningful choices in one. Structurally of course, individual scenes can have the same amount. The reason is simple: its a line. And going back usually isn't an option.

You can add bits of non-linearity to a linear adventure, but that takes more work than just making sure people have a rough idea where the roads lead and that the roads lead different places in a sandbox. Where to go is a meaningful choice and you can start building a lot more off it too.

Fiery Diamond
2021-05-22, 01:41 AM
What annoys me most about discussions on linear vs sandbox is the tendency of people to treat it as a binary. I would be willing to wager that most actually-played campaigns are neither of those things, especially if we are talking about games that aren't running published adventures, which if we're focusing so much on prep work we probably aren't focusing on published adventure paths.

Back when I DMed (over a decade ago, as I don't have anyone to game with these days), I tended to prep materials a session or two in advance, and then rely on improv to fill gaps and account for players doing things outside my expectations. The actions of the players (and therefore, the characters) were ABSOLUTELY meaningful decisions, despite the lack of predefined details about things, because they drove the game. The game would unfold completely differently based on their decisions, but I often didn't have any plans for HOW that would be the case until they made those decisions. I would not say I ran a sandbox campaign, but it definitely wasn't on rails or All Roads Lead to Rome.

OldTrees1
2021-05-22, 08:11 AM
What annoys me most about discussions on linear vs sandbox is the tendency of people to treat it as a binary. I would be willing to wager that most actually-played campaigns are neither of those things, especially if we are talking about games that aren't running published adventures, which if we're focusing so much on prep work we probably aren't focusing on published adventure paths.

I think everyone here knows it is a continuum. Many of these forum members were in a thread explicitly talking about the continuum. Even Cluedrew knows it is a contiuum, but their replies to Talakeal are based on additional context. I admit some of the sentences being used (including some of my own) are sloppy and rely on everyone knowing that everyone knows it is a continuum.

While we are using the terms to describe extreme regions (but still played by members talking in this thread) on the continuum, the conversation is about what change happens as you traverse that continuum. My summary was the prep becomes more complex but GM react to increased prep complexity by finding techniques that reduce the effort it takes to create that prep.

I cannot speak for the "most actually-played campaigns" but I do know there are a couple forum members in this thread that have run sandboxes rather that something in-between. Based on the root of this derailing tangent, I think we only needed Quertus as a counter example to Talakeal's overly broad assertion about all player preferences.


PS: Your description of your previous campaign is a bit vague. Although it still demonstrates part of the continuum with some of the possible meanings.

Talakeal
2021-05-22, 02:03 PM
I'm… *maybe* playing devil's advocate, but I'm gonna take your players' side here.

If you're adjusting the difficulty of the encounters… and the encounters aren't pre-written… and the game has an "expected" wealth curve… and, after "successful" missions where they her ahead of the curve, you give them missions that push them back towards the curve… why shouldn't they feel like they're being forced to lose?

If getting ahead doesn't make things easier / if it looks like you were going to force them on an otherwise impossible mission, that they only survive because of how spectacularly well they performed previously, why shouldn't they complain that your system / game is too hard?


There is clearly both the perception on the player side that there is a good amount of rubber-banding, as well as an admission that there is some amount of rubber-banding actually occurring. And people hate rubber-banding.

In the 8-9-2 scneario vs 5-5-5, I think you don't make it "2" in the last one, because then people are getting 1/4-1/5 of the reward that they did, which feels bad. Taper it down over time to get back on track in 4 sessions or so, not one.


Ok, I may not be explaining myself well enough.

ALL of my adventures are designed around objective levels of difficulty and reward. I do not tailor encounters to the players except in the following ways:

If it is narratively important, for example the big villain of the campaign or a legendary dragon, challenge and reward will be slightly higher.
If the players have actively made enemies who are coming to them, they will often take the players tactics and abilities into account in character.
I will round fractional CRs down for new players and up for veteran players.
I will occasionally play softer on players who are struggling to avoid character death / TPK.
I have, in the past, taken expected difficulty into account when making a decision for an NPC that they are making blind; for example one time I had a monster backing into a cave with two forks, one was a dead end and the other had an escape path. Because the monster was already losing badly, so I decided to have it choose the path which wouldn't trap it. If I did that again today, I would have an intelligence check make that decision for me.

Likewise, all of my encounters had an average reward of five and a maximum of ten (except for a couple where it made narrative in universe sense such as a dragon's hoard.)

The difficulties and rewards were pre-planned before the campaign started. I did NOT adjust the difficulty or the reward based on how powerful the party was or how successful they were in the past.

The game was balanced around rewards of five. Two out of three missions they came out ahead. But, on that third mission, they would complain that the game was too hard, and use proportional progress as "proof"; i.e. that they weren't as far above the baseline as a percentage as they were previously.

Also note that it wasn't every third session, it was more or less random and it just so happened to be about 1 out of 3 sessions that they struggled, and every time it happened I would have to hear a rant about how my game was too hard.

Now, why were some easy and some hard? Several reasons; players build vs. monsters (for example the above mentioned salamanders vs the pyromancer), luck of the dice, poor tactics on the players part (for example, one other very hard encounter that was a near TPK involved them getting the drop on a very dangerous group of enemies who could have been ambushed or negotiated with, but instead the players just walked up to them, announced their presence, and then attacked), exceptional tactics on the part of the players, and of course me under or over estimating the CR of certain monsters.

I mean, it is at its heart a dice game, fluctuations are to be expected. If I was really putting my finger on the scale, it wouldn't be 9, 9, 2, it would be 8,8,3 or even 7, 7, 4 as I am actively trying to get back to the mean.


The PCs are complete strangers in this D&D style world. They started a major fire & disaster in the city, but also handed a military spanking to the ruler of an opposing city and have been flying around in a surface-to-orbit assault shuttle. They have ended up attending a gladiatorial games in a 70000 person arena. Once they stopped failing perception checks they become aware that there are about 30 templars, sword-mage enforcers of the sorcerer-king, in the nearby seats surrounding them and that the guy six rows ahead of them wearing the fancy hat must be the sorcerer-king.

What do they do? Charm? Persuade? Intimidate? Cut a deal? Fight? Submit? Flee? Anything could have worked. If I ran a pre-planned plot or adventure path this is where the wheels come off. The sorcerer-king is magically capable of blowing their shuttle out of the sky and can organize squads of scry-teleport soldiers. They could ally with him, make a deadly enemy, potentially kill him & learn how to turn into dragons, run off and ally with a rival sorcerer-king. What they did was fear effect on the entire arena, fight a delaying action until the teleporter warmed up to beam them out, then nuke the city from orbit.

How does a non-sandbox handle that sort of thing? Just throw out the adventure when the PCs exercise free will?

Nothing here actually says sandbox to me.

What is this "free-will" you are talking about that they exercised that they couldn't have exercised in a linear game?


All meaningful choices available in sandboxes. Unless you are using linear adventure differently than I am there aren't any meaningful choices in one. Structurally of course, individual scenes can have the same amount. The reason is simple: its a line. And going back usually isn't an option.

You can add bits of non-linearity to a linear adventure, but that takes more work than just making sure people have a rough idea where the roads lead and that the roads lead different places in a sandbox. Where to go is a meaningful choice and you can start building a lot more off it too.

The big difference is coincidence or opportunity.

In a linear game, adventure hooks come to the PCs, putting them in incredible and unlikely scenarios where they have the opportunity to shape the world.

In a dramatic story, coincidence usually drives the plot. Protagonists are in the right place at the right time. Frodo's uncle just so happened to find the one ring. The droids carrying the Death Star plans just happened to come into the possession of Darth Vader's hidden son.

These coincidences put you into a position to change the world and do great things.

In a sandbox, you are just some guy with better than average stats and are expected to find your own fun. That's hard work.

And most player characters aren't really that motivated to find adventure, let alone work together. You need coincidence and authority as the boot to get them out the door, and the glue to hold them together.

That's of course, the big problem with all RPGs. Players have to want to engage with the games premise; but they don't really do that. They want to make their own cool PC, and not the PC that is needed to work with the story or the rest of the group. This is a problem in all game types, but in a sand box it means that there is no story and no group.


I find that the main issue with ruining sandboxes is tracking developments and working out of the PCs actions need to agree any planned or emergent storylines (does collapsing the mine affect the election in the local town? If that election would be effected dies that mean that the bandit king the PCs helped get established will get more out less bold?).

I generally find the the two easiest ways to run a game are having the players that All Roads Lead To Rome or get the PCs in an organization so that I can have missions to them in character. Sandboxes are, once you've set up the initial area, easier for me to run then railroads because I have a whole will to plot out aftereffects rather than two seconds to work out how to deal with the players who have jumped the tracks (either a way to get them back on track or a way to at least mess about productively).

Just for the record, a linear adventure is not a railroad.

Railroads are usually defined as the DM finding excuses for shooting down reasonable player ideas, usually be improv GMing.

I don't see why a linear adventure would be more prone to railroading than a sandbox, unless the DM is trying to find in character reasons to get the players to interact with the scenario rather than handling it with an OOC discussion. And while in the short term the limits of the campaign are more apparent (you have to run the Temple of Elemental Evil tonight because that is what I prepped!) long run it is much easier to handle large scale changes of direction (I just spend six months meticulously detailing 1870s Arizona, and now you want to relocate the game to China!").


Definitely false. Look at the stories of adventure paths, where parties have to lose all their progress to match the next chapter of the adventure path.

I'm currently running Halls of the High King. Many times, I've had to tell the players that the NPCs are only scripted to follow a linear storyline, and watch them face palm.

"everyone always prefers linear to sandbox" is provably false. In fact, on the Playground, I've seen far more expansions of why people prefer sandbox play to linear than the other way around.

Yes, adventure paths which are overly limited is a bad thing. But that has nothing to do with the fact that they publish a lot more linear adventures than sandboxes.

And no, your anecdotal evidence being contrary to my anecdotal evidence doesn't "prove" anything; unless you are literally saying "everyone always prefers linear to sandbox" which is a ridiculous statement which I never argued, merely that in my personal experience there has never been a time when I had more fun playing / running a sandbox, and I have had players ask for a more structured game but never a less structured game.


Um… I mean, I probably wouldn't do that in the first place, but… "I'm planning on running something 'thematic', by which I mean running a bunch of really samey sections, back to back, like if I ran 'Necrophilia on Bone Hill' and 'Illithid Slavers' back to back. Any character who isn't a generalist appropriate to such huge samey swaths might easily have to sit out, mechanically if not literally, for multiple sessions at a time. Plan accordingly."

I prefer to run things that *don't* look like that, personally.

Obviously that was just an example, but you don't have recurring villainous factions or sections of the world which are home to large populations of certain monster types?

Like I said though, I try and have as much variety as is reasonable while still sticking to a theme. For example, in my last campaign these were the encounters in my most challenging adventure (translated into D&D terms):

A group of desert giants
A rakshasah
A manticore
4 Salamanders riding fire lizards
A salamander and four hell hounds
A fire drake sorcerer
Six salamanders and an advanced frost salamander

It was thematic in that they were exploring geothermal caves in the desert which were rules by a band of salamanders, but there is still a lot of variety. And it was tough because the parties main damage dealer was specialized in fire spells.


Player <> Character, GM <> NPC.

I agree that *some* NPCs should be roleplayed behaving differently in accordance with their perception of how well they're doing. OTOH,

(N)PC: "Never play an ace when a deuce will do."

My Character: "Never play a deuce when you have an unlimited supply of aces."

I expect that, in a fight to the death (especially against infamous, home-invading murderhobos), *most* people won't be playing around.

But the *GM*? They aren't the NPCs, and shouldn't get caught in the trap of that mindset.

Ok, but I still say that it is human nature to try harder when you are losing, and that most DMs do so, even if not intentionally, and that the players do the same, so it probably doesn't actually affect balance.

I would be kind of surprised if most DM's didn't influence NPC behavior based on how the fight was going, for example having clearly defeated enemies retreat or surrender rather than fighting to the death, even though a lucky critical hit in last few rounds before the stragglers go down could have a theoretically huge impact on the overall difficulty of the adventure.

Serious question though, do you really think my game would be significantly more fun OR more mathematically fair if I made a conscious effort not to occasionally throw the players a bone and have a monster due some dumb / overconfident when they are getting their butts kicked?


Cheating? How the hell is it cheating? It's coming from my head. Whether it comes from my head an hour before game, a month before game or during the game what's the difference?

It's not like I don't have a system in place, I do have "people stats." I just use templates to generate town fast and on the fly. I make personalities on the spot.

I actually get a lot of compliments on my stories and the believability of my npc's.

Plus, the fact that the end game is mutable makes it complete player agency. "Hey, guy is trying to destroy a city? Meh, I doubt we're the only ones who can stop him. And there's this big bad dragon we keep hearing about. And that ancient vampire lord who was killed sounds really interesting. Let's kill the dragon then head out to see the ancient vampire's castle. We'll stop at some towns along the way."

"Ok, Let's add some towns along the way. *adds a town* This would definitely be a place where someone has seen the dragon so *add npc* there's a legend of someone who fought the dragon. Let's make him from this town *places relevant info* Add a town leadership, an innkeeper, a cool traveler, a bard in the tavern, let's add an interesting kid and... done."

Ok, you enter the town of Yoridin. Seems fairly standard for a modest size town. It seems 6 merchant stalls dominate the town square with a few wandering people chatting. A child around 11 takes notice of you and wanders over, not bothering to hide his obvious wonder. "Are you guys adventurers?" he asks eyes wide and eager...

That is all my players hear. A bit of furious typing, some notes being jotted and poof. As they talk, I add a couple potential quests make a few snap decisions and it's done.

And that's a good philosophical question.

The HackSlashMaster blog has a lot of articles on "quantum ogres" that explore that very subject; where the line is between sandbox, linear, railroad, improv, planned, and random.

All I can say is that most of my players have trust issues, and constantly accuse DMs of retconning the world to screw them over (and, to be fair, a lot of DMs do, although its mostly int he form of fudging dice or enemy HP).

Heck, the one time I did try and run a sandbox, the players missed all of the hooks which pointed toward "the villain" of the game (as players are want to do), and so when their plans finally intersected with his and he made an appearance, the players rage quit the game and accused me of "pulling a giant ****-you NPC out of my ass to screw them over!".

Heck, just going by this thread, where you have multiple people accusing me of fixing the game by occasionally playing a monster a little smarter or a little dumber, and you wonder why people might have a problem with making up the encounter whole cloth on the spot?



I'd just say "you have a really low will save. That's probably okay at the low levels of the game, but in higher levels, mind control and other things that target will will likely become more prominent, and you're going to run the danger of being able to resist that only a small percentage of the time."

And that's more or less what I do.

It still doesn't stop the players of accusing me of picking on them anytime their weakness comes up.


I'd do neither. Let them win or lose. Play encounters at a fairly even level so that the players can see the results of their decisions.

Which will result in them feeling like I am kicking them while they are down and followed by a lot of anger and bitching.

The complaint from my players, and often this forum, is that I am a "killer DM" who runs things too hard. Now it seems like you are telling me I am not going hard enough?

Edit: Also, what does rubber banding mean in this context?

Telok
2021-05-22, 03:18 PM
Ok, I may not be explaining myself well enough....

...Nothing here actually says sandbox to me.

What is this "free-will" you are talking about that they exercised that they couldn't have exercised in a linear game?

The big difference is coincidence or opportunity.

In a linear game, adventure hooks come to the PCs, putting them in incredible and unlikely scenarios where they have the opportunity to shape the world.

In a dramatic story, coincidence usually drives the plot. Protagonists are in the right place at the right time. Frodo's uncle just so happened to find the one ring. The droids carrying the Death Star plans just happened to come into the possession of Darth Vader's hidden son.

These coincidences put you into a position to change the world and do great things.

In a sandbox, you are just some guy with better than average stats and are expected to find your own fun. That's hard work.

And most player characters aren't really that motivated to find adventure, let alone work together. You need coincidence and authority as the boot to get them out the door, and the glue to hold them together.

Ah, I think I understand now. You and I have slightly different concepts or usage of "sandbox" and "linear".

To me a sandbox is a game where the DM runs the setting and npcs without a predefined plot or scripted adventure. It doesn't mean there aren't adventure hooks or coincidences, just that there isn't a preplanned path or artificial limits on how the pcs engage with the setting. I think of the linear games as ones where there are meta-game restrictions on pcs in order to attain a certain series of events or a specific outcome.

Think of a traditional Paranoia game (the structure, not the jokes). It's pretty linear at the core: call to action, briefing, get supplies, visit R&D, investigate something, go somewhere, have a fight, possible investigate-go-fight loops, get a debriefing, end. What differentiates, to me, a sandbox from a script is letting the players decide if they want to deviate from the obvious path. Can they skip getting gear, sell the R&D stuff on the black market, assassinate the briefing officer, and leave Alpha Complex for the outside world? Yes -> sandbox, no -> scripted. It doesn't matter if you're using an official purchased mission or one you made up, because it's about how the DM uses the available resources and what the pcs are allowed to do.

So my previous example? The pcs had followed a series of adventure hooks to not-Athas. I had no idea they were going there until they pointed at a map with about 50 crystal spheres on it and asked if they could get a broken down & bioweapon infested spelljammer there. Since there was no in-setting reason they couldn't I said yes. I was running a sandbox and that was something the pcs could logically try to do, they were free to make that decision. Compare it to the last d&d 5e game I was in: the pcs considered ambushing the enemies chasing them, taking & torturing prisoners for information, and skipping slogging around a multi-city info gathering trip. The look on the DMs face informed us that this would blow up the scripted plot and waste 90% of the expensive adventure book he'd bought. There was no in-game reason our characters couldn't do it, just the meta that we were in a linear scripted adventure and lacked free will in certain things.

Now I'm not saying that either way is inherently better than another. I think that the different styles take different DMing skills to pull off well, and that different groups will enjoy one style or the other more/less. But it's more like preferring spicy or sweet foods, a combination of well prepared & presented plus personal preferences. You asked for an example of sandbox free will, and that's what I tried to respond with.

Segev
2021-05-22, 04:01 PM
Maybe try playing Gloomhaven together? It can't be you being a killer GM when you're all against the AI.

Fiery Diamond
2021-05-22, 04:09 PM
Talakeal: I suspect that not everyone in this thread is using "linear game" the same way that you are, and it might be helpful of you to define what you are using it to mean. Let's take several potential campaign scenarios of non-improv DMs:

Scenario A) DM plans everything ahead of time according to how he wants the adventure to go, thusly: He creates the starting situation, the various NPCs and locations, the encounters he expects the PCs to face, some cool interactive scenes, some important plot points, the stats for the grand climax of the arc... All of this is ready by the time he starts the campaign. Whatever the players decide to have their characters do, things will mostly be constrained by the general plot that was intended. Sure, some encounters might change a bit based on which path the PCs take or who they decide to fight vs who they ally with or negotiate with, so the SPECIFICS aren't set in stone, but the general plot is pretty set.

Scenario B) As above, but the DM even planned for several branching plotlines based on the PCs decisions, so that depending on what they do, they might get to take over the world at the Big Bad's side, heroically go down in a great last stand, sabotage the BBEG's plans with guile, or create a grand coalition of factions to beat the BBEG with brute force. But all those potential outcomes were thought of by the DM in advance, so it's a matter of which path the PCs end of taking, not a matter of them forging their own path. Again, the SPECIFICS might change, but the general shape is constrained by what was planned.

Linear? A, I think all would agree. B, I suspect some would say yes and some would say no. Railroad? Depends entirely on what steps are taken by the DM to keep things constrained and how narrowly things are constrained. A lot of people, though, would consider A to be a railroad regardless of how the DM kept things constrained, and insist that A has no meaningful choices.

Scenario C) DM plans a bunch of stuff. Starting situation, various NPCs and locations, encounters, a bunch of details that could be used to make interactive scenes, some big events that could occur, a BBEG and his plans... All of this is ready by the time he starts the campaign. However, the decisions of the PCs can dramatically alter what actually happens, causing him to need to throw out large parts of his preparations, cannibalize others to repurpose them, and write out new things to account for changes on the course of events that he didn't expect. There is no "constrained by these possible choices," though he very well may have tried to account for what he expected were the likely decisions of his players; he's perfectly willing to go back to the drawing board because players did things that he didn't account for in his preparations, which may even result in an emergent story completely orthogonal to what he originally planned for. It isn't just SPECIFICS that change, but the entire shape of the game.

This is NOT linear. It may not be fully sandbox, depending on how the DM handles things, but it is definitely not linear. If you are including this as linear, no wonder there are such big disagreements about linear games between you and the other posters.

Of course, add in improv DMing and things get ever so much more complicated.

Someone commented that they thought my description of my old campaign (I actually ran two campaigns, but I ran them similarly) was a bit vague. Let's see if I can clarify a bit.

Things I did not do:
-Plan an entire arc
-Make things "thematic" beyond a specific location like a city or dungeon
-Create all the important NPCs/factions and their motives significantly before I expected the PCs to encounter them
-Force the players to pick their actions from a multiple choice list (DMs doing "linear" adventures with "meaningful choices" kind of have to do this, though whether it's obvious to the players of not depends a lot on how good the DM is at presentation)
-Keep the not-yet-encountered parts of the world completely fixed and immutable

Things I did do:
-Stat out encounters and create major NPCs/factions and their motives before the players actually run into them (but often only JUST before)
-Throw out preparations that ended up being invalidated by the player choices
-Create things on the spot as needed to flesh out the world or make the player decisions result in interactive material (PC wants to do something that involves the local thieves' guild in a place I hadn't prepped a thieves' guild but would be reasonable to find one, for example)
-Create material relevant to the game at varying degrees of "before it sees play," all the way from "pre-game" (the world map, for example) to "the night before the session" (hm, there's a city here that they're going to stop at. This would be a good time to have some cool stuff happen. Let's write out the city's details, stat a few potential encounters, and see what the players end up doing with what they run into).

I relied heavily on improv, but interestingly enough, most of my players weren't aware of that. They thought I planned for a lot more than I did, because I didn't come across as being caught off guard or unable to give a fleshed-out response to any of the zany things they decided to do. My players drove the plot. Yes, they usually chose to engage with what I had prepared, but the method of engagement was often completely different than what I expected, and what "happened next" was entirely dependent on what the players decided to do. Now, not EVERYTHING I prepped was reliant on their previous decisions, and might instead be a location-based hook. It wasn't especially linear in that regard. But I certainly didn't front-load the preparation for the more sandboxy elements, instead creating them immediately prior to collision with PCs. But once a hook was interacted with, most of what I did was reactive, allowing the players and PCs to shape the narrative.

My favorite session was the one where a player told me his plans after the previous session, I prepped based on that, and then let the actions of the PCs and the reactions of the NPCs (which were based on character traits that had been telegraphed in advance, so the PCs weren't going in blind) unfold in a wild mess of things. I had NO idea how things were going to turn out when the session started, just how the NPCs were inclined to react to certain kinds of actions and what the basic plan the one player had for his PC to execute was. Things went all kinds of crazy during that session, which included accidentally wrecking a noble's mini-castle, robbing him, and one PC pretending to murder another PC who was actually still hiding in a talking bag of holding. Oh, and there was also some negotiating, intimidation, subterfuge, and creative use of Feather Token, Tree (see: accidentally wrecking a noble's mini-castle). It was a lot of fun.

Talakeal
2021-05-22, 04:45 PM
Talakeal: I suspect that not everyone in this thread is using "linear game" the same way that you are, and it might be helpful of you to define what you are using it to mean. Let's take several potential campaign scenarios of non-improv DMs:

I am using "linear" to mean "not a sandbox".

I would not say any of those three options qualify as a sandbox, and would say my games typically fall someplace between B and C.

In my mind sandboxes are more location based while linear games are more event based. Basically, adventure hooks come to the players over time, rather than waiting for the players to come to them at their own place.

OldTrees1
2021-05-22, 06:00 PM
Someone commented that they thought my description of my old campaign (I actually ran two campaigns, but I ran them similarly) was a bit vague. Let's see if I can clarify a bit.

Things I did not do:
-Plan an entire arc
-Make things "thematic" beyond a specific location like a city or dungeon
-Create all the important NPCs/factions and their motives significantly before I expected the PCs to encounter them
-Force the players to pick their actions from a multiple choice list (DMs doing "linear" adventures with "meaningful choices" kind of have to do this, though whether it's obvious to the players of not depends a lot on how good the DM is at presentation)
-Keep the not-yet-encountered parts of the world completely fixed and immutable

Things I did do:
-Stat out encounters and create major NPCs/factions and their motives before the players actually run into them (but often only JUST before)
-Throw out preparations that ended up being invalidated by the player choices
-Create things on the spot as needed to flesh out the world or make the player decisions result in interactive material (PC wants to do something that involves the local thieves' guild in a place I hadn't prepped a thieves' guild but would be reasonable to find one, for example)
-Create material relevant to the game at varying degrees of "before it sees play," all the way from "pre-game" (the world map, for example) to "the night before the session" (hm, there's a city here that they're going to stop at. This would be a good time to have some cool stuff happen. Let's write out the city's details, stat a few potential encounters, and see what the players end up doing with what they run into).

I relied heavily on improv, but interestingly enough, most of my players weren't aware of that. They thought I planned for a lot more than I did, because I didn't come across as being caught off guard or unable to give a fleshed-out response to any of the zany things they decided to do. My players drove the plot. Yes, they usually chose to engage with what I had prepared, but the method of engagement was often completely different than what I expected, and what "happened next" was entirely dependent on what the players decided to do. Now, not EVERYTHING I prepped was reliant on their previous decisions, and might instead be a location-based hook. It wasn't especially linear in that regard. But I certainly didn't front-load the preparation for the more sandboxy elements, instead creating them immediately prior to collision with PCs. But once a hook was interacted with, most of what I did was reactive, allowing the players and PCs to shape the narrative.

My favorite session was the one where a player told me his plans after the previous session, I prepped based on that, and then let the actions of the PCs and the reactions of the NPCs (which were based on character traits that had been telegraphed in advance, so the PCs weren't going in blind) unfold in a wild mess of things. I had NO idea how things were going to turn out when the session started, just how the NPCs were inclined to react to certain kinds of actions and what the basic plan the one player had for his PC to execute was. Things went all kinds of crazy during that session, which included accidentally wrecking a noble's mini-castle, robbing him, and one PC pretending to murder another PC who was actually still hiding in a talking bag of holding. Oh, and there was also some negotiating, intimidation, subterfuge, and creative use of Feather Token, Tree (see: accidentally wrecking a noble's mini-castle). It was a lot of fun.

This sounds like a sandbox although the details about the plot structure are still vague enough that it could be at the sandboxy end of linear branching. The main reason I second guess my reading is because you do not consider it a sandbox.


My players drove the plot. Yes, they usually chose to engage with what I had prepared, but the method of engagement was often completely different than what I expected, and what "happened next" was entirely dependent on what the players decided to do. Now, not EVERYTHING I prepped was reliant on their previous decisions, and might instead be a location-based hook.

What limitations constrained where they could drive? Why do you not consider it a sandbox?

Were they limited to just the hooks you created? Or could they create their own (PC A wants to build a tavern)?
Was there an overarching plot you chose that they could not ignore?

Fiery Diamond
2021-05-22, 06:11 PM
Great, we've got things defined a bit more clearly now, which will help people avoid talking past one another going forward (hopefully)! I often find that much of the disagreement that happens on these forums (I'm generally a lurker, so I'm around more than my posting history would indicate) happens because people define their terms differently and don't make those definitions clear (often because both sides think the definition is obvious and well-agreed-upon or easy to determine from context). There are plenty of actual disagreements, of course, but there's a whole bunch that really just stem from definition issues.

Edited to respond to the Above post:

Mostly I don't consider it a sandbox because of the limited and proximal nature of my prep. I suspect someone used to having several major factions all doing their thing available to either interact with or ignore, which will continue doing their thing regardless of PC interaction (though their thing might be disrupted or change if the PCs interfere), or used to having a whole bunch of predetermined and already developed locations that they can pick from to go seek out and interact with (as opposed to just a few names on a map and a brief description) , or used to having at least a half-dozen available hooks at any given time, or really anything else that reinforces the idea that the world keeps on turning outside of the PCs and their points of contact (or branches going out from their points of contact) with the setting, would take issue with classifying the way I run things as a sandbox. I have a very "It doesn't exist unless either the PCs have, will, or could decide to interact with it, or it has direct influence on things the PCs have/will interact with (or vice versa)" attitude toward my worldbuilding, apart from the basic stuff I do pre-campaign (drawing out the world map, deciding on cosmology, etc.).

In terms of constraints on PC decisions, though, I'm very definitely on the sandbox side of things. The tavern thing, for example: yeah, if my PCs decided they wanted to ignore the hooks and start building a tavern, I would absolutely improv some stuff on the fly in the session they went off in that completely unexpected direction and then prep for the next session based on this new direction, probably completely discarding the material related to the ignored hooks (except where one or more of the hooks might have consequences for being ignored that would still be relevant to the new situation).

Thrudd
2021-05-22, 07:31 PM
Regarding players creating characters that are not suited to an open world/sandbox game: this is very simple to solve. Inform them during character creation what the premise of the game will be and what sort of character motives will be appropriate. You need to tell them ahead of time that the game will be about treasure hunting in a fantasy world, for example, and that their characters all need to desire to hunt for treasure in monster infested ruins for one reason or another. If it is a game about an elite squad of hunters that protect the realm from monsters, that's what every character needs to be. Give them enough information about the setting so they can come up with decent reasons for such. Don't allow anyone to bring a character that is not appropriate.

It may be necessary to have the players collaborate on their characters. You can give them a choice of what sort of setting-appropriate activities they want to pursue, but they all need to agree. It is often helpful to have the characters know each other prior to the start of the game: ask the players decide how they met and what their relationships are. What you don't want is a bunch of random characters that have no reason to be together, or to stay together after some initial crisis event. Your work as a GM is hard enough without constantly contriving flimsy justifications for why the character who just wants to go home to their family business can't do so.
If the characters are self-motivated and are already teamed up, you don't need to use the contrived happenstance story events that more linear games rely on. They will seek information about where to find the treasure they want, they will go to the dungeon where it is hidden, and when they're done with that they'll look for another one. And along the way, they can stumble into different plot and story threads that indicate things are happening in the setting that they might or might not want to get involved in.

In general, a sandbox game does need some boundaries, either in the form of expected character activities or a specific and fairly limited setting or both. Maybe some people would not call it a sandbox if there are limits- but really a game's quality tends to increase the more a GM is able to prepare the locations and/or have in-depth knowledge of the setting. No matter how great you are at improvising, it will be much harder/worse when the game goes somewhere completely unexpected and unplanned for. So if you are running an American old west setting that you have researched (either for real or from film), you cant have the players take off to China or Europe instead. In the American west, they can do pretty much anything and go anywhere, so it is still an open-world sandbox, but the characters need a reason to want to stay in the west, and to stay together pursuing the same activities.

If the players think their characters don't want to follow the premise or stay in the setting anymore, you have two options.
1. Retire the characters as they ride off into the sunset, and have everyone make new characters designed for the setting.
2. Tell the players that you'll need to research and/or design the new setting the characters will be going to, and take your time to do it right. So maybe you spend a month or two with someone else running a different game until you're ready to go.

Calthropstu
2021-05-22, 07:39 PM
And that's a good philosophical question.

The HackSlashMaster blog has a lot of articles on "quantum ogres" that explore that very subject; where the line is between sandbox, linear, railroad, improv, planned, and random.

All I can say is that most of my players have trust issues, and constantly accuse DMs of retconning the world to screw them over (and, to be fair, a lot of DMs do, although its mostly int he form of fudging dice or enemy HP).

Heck, the one time I did try and run a sandbox, the players missed all of the hooks which pointed toward "the villain" of the game (as players are want to do), and so when their plans finally intersected with his and he made an appearance, the players rage quit the game and accused me of "pulling a giant ****-you NPC out of my ass to screw them over!".

Heck, just going by this thread, where you have multiple people accusing me of fixing the game by occasionally playing a monster a little smarter or a little dumber, and you wonder why people might have a problem with making up the encounter whole cloth on the spot?




And that's more or less what I do.

It still doesn't stop the players of accusing me of picking on them anytime their weakness comes up.



Which will result in them feeling like I am kicking them while they are down and followed by a lot of anger and bitching.

The complaint from my players, and often this forum, is that I am a "killer DM" who runs things too hard. Now it seems like you are telling me I am not going hard enough?

Edit: Also, what does rubber banding mean in this context?

I don't have just one bbeg though. The vampire lord who's supposed to be dead? Yeah, he's not. That dragon? A scout for a dragon army from another continent. The guy trying to destroy the town? Setting up a base of operations for conquest. The players go around doing quests and hey look, bbeg. I have enough going on that they'll stumble into one of 6 bbeg on the continent. One time, they forced two bbeg into fighting each other without meaning to.

And seeing as how I do not get complaints of this nature, I think I will continue doing what works for me.

Cluedrew
2021-05-22, 09:17 PM
I think everyone here knows it is a continuum.I would describe it as a component. And you can mix and match them, have a campaign that starts linear than becomes a sandbox, have mini-sandboxes in a line or linear adventures at the locations in a sandbox. So continuum isn't a bad way to start organizing them.

Also I don't think sandbox and linear are the only components to work with either, but they tend to work best at the campaign level. I've managed to pure improv. some one-shots but that is exhausting and I would not try to stretch it out to a full campaign.


And most player characters aren't really that motivated to find adventure, let alone work together.We are going on an adventure, non-adventurers need not apply.

OK I read this statement and I feel like it gets at something. But I can't quite figure out what. Like low expectations and people never rising beyond them. Sure people have there own ideas, but its not a single player game and everyone has to play with the group in mind.

Anymage
2021-05-23, 03:55 AM
We are going on an adventure, non-adventurers need not apply.

OK I read this statement and I feel like it gets at something. But I can't quite figure out what. Like low expectations and people never rising beyond them. Sure people have there own ideas, but its not a single player game and everyone has to play with the group in mind.

If the PCs only go on adventures when the DM creates the adventure site and then provides the lead to draw them there, the adventure is much closer to rails than a sandbox. The players may want to break the adventure locale (usually to achieve the win condition and/or grab all the loot early), but that's very different from players who actively ask the DM to prep material because their characters want to proactively get involved in something.

Many DMs do put up de facto invisible walls around certain parts of their locales to keep them from getting too easily broken, and many players will complain about this and call it railroady. And to be fair, there are times when the invisible walls are applied very obviously and heavy handedly. Still, personally speaking, I've met far more players who wait for a plot to be presented than ones who actively try to help create new plot threads.

KineticDiplomat
2021-05-23, 01:19 PM
As a thought, since it’s your home brew after all, bring it down to low linear. Bad faith arguments aside (we’ve seen some on the forum) , it really is much easier to pace and less vulnerable to progression traps and correction. Rip out that d&d assumption that you need to follow a geometric curve along 20 levels ending in nigh on godhood. If it’s supposed to be a game of Gothic high adventure, figure out what power dynamic that means to you (it’s your game after all) and then bound the system around that.

Talakeal
2021-05-23, 04:42 PM
As a thought, since it’s your home brew after all, bring it down to low linear. Bad faith arguments aside (we’ve seen some on the forum) , it really is much easier to pace and less vulnerable to progression traps and correction. Rip out that d&d assumption that you need to follow a geometric curve along 20 levels ending in nigh on godhood. If it’s supposed to be a game of Gothic high adventure, figure out what power dynamic that means to you (it’s your game after all) and then bound the system around that.

Progression is already pretty flat, certainly compared to D&D, to the point where the slow progression is one of the most common complaints.

Honestly I would like to go even further, but there is a certain group of players who simply won’t play RpGs without advancement curves, I have several of them my group.

I am really curious though, which problems do you see this fixing? I am not quote grasping the connection.

KineticDiplomat
2021-05-23, 06:04 PM
When there’s the expectation of advancement to keep up with the monster joneses, then if you believe the monster “level” (literal or otherwise) has been set to deliberately disadvantage you, complaints of killer GM arise. At the risk of using an analogy, if one orc is always a reasonable fight and one wyvern is always a heroic endeavor, then when a wyvern is on the table they aren’t going in with the idea they’re supposed to be equal now. The converse is if you’re supposed to fight orcs today so you can punch wyverns tomorrow, and the GM drops in trolls “ahead of time” (relative measurement of course) now you’ve got the frame of reference issue causing this.

icefractal
2021-05-23, 07:09 PM
Something that occurs to me, which I'm not sure is the case with your players but seems plausible -

In many systems, including for the most part D&D, it's possible to get "ahead" of the opposition and then have a pretty easy time, sometimes the whole rest of the campaign, but at least for a while. Sometimes you can do this purely through build choices, but even when that isn't possible it can often be done by grinding (not as much a thing in TTRPGs, but still possible to an extent, especially in a mission-based structure like you describe).

In your homebrew, I'm guessing the balance is tighter so it's not possible to achieve this by build choices, and the more systemized downtime and missions may make it impossible to do by grinding either. Which would fit your players complaints - "We are making the best mechanical choices available* and doing everything we can IC to build up our power - why are things not getting easier?"

Of course if that is the case you're just back to the "wanting different things out of a game" issue, to which there's no perfect answer.

* It also sounds like they aren't making the best mechanical choices. But they probably think they are. Not everyone who wants to play a powerful character is actually good at optimization. With the wealth of information out there, it's very possible to "net deck" ... but not in a homebrew system.

Talakeal
2021-05-24, 03:03 PM
Something that occurs to me, which I'm not sure is the case with your players but seems plausible -

In many systems, including for the most part D&D, it's possible to get "ahead" of the opposition and then have a pretty easy time, sometimes the whole rest of the campaign, but at least for a while. Sometimes you can do this purely through build choices, but even when that isn't possible it can often be done by grinding (not as much a thing in TTRPGs, but still possible to an extent, especially in a mission-based structure like you describe).

In your homebrew, I'm guessing the balance is tighter so it's not possible to achieve this by build choices, and the more systemized downtime and missions may make it impossible to do by grinding either. Which would fit your players complaints - "We are making the best mechanical choices available* and doing everything we can IC to build up our power - why are things not getting easier?".


Of course if that is the case you're just back to the "wanting different things out of a game" issue, to which there's no perfect answer.

* It also sounds like they aren't making the best mechanical choices. But they probably think they are. Not everyone who wants to play a powerful character is actually good at optimization. With the wealth of information out there, it's very possible to "net deck" ... but not in a homebrew system.


Agreed. Several of my players are big video game RPG players, and the idea that they can’t grind out weaker enemies that don’t threaten them so they can be over leveled when fighting stronger stuff is a common complaint.


They are pretty good at power gaming, although admittedly the best form of power faming in my system is teamwork and group synergy, and sometimes I have to give them a shove in the right direction when they want to play a team that is three wolverines and three raistlins.

Now, admittedly nobody has tried to make a TO build in my game. I suspect it could be done, probably by creating a minionmancer who exists as a disembodied consciousness of some sort, but usually people are atleast somewhat reasonable and we dont get shenanigans like spending your entire life shape-changed into a dire tortoise


When there’s the expectation of advancement to keep up with the monster joneses, then if you believe the monster “level” (literal or otherwise) has been set to deliberately disadvantage you, complaints of killer GM arise. At the risk of using an analogy, if one orc is always a reasonable fight and one wyvern is always a heroic endeavor, then when a wyvern is on the table they aren’t going in with the idea they’re supposed to be equal now. The converse is if you’re supposed to fight orcs today so you can punch wyverns tomorrow, and the GM drops in trolls “ahead of time” (relative measurement of course) now you’ve got the frame of reference issue causing this.

The adventuring day as a whole is set to use up 80% of the players resources in the vast majority of my adventures. This is the benchmark I have been using since I cut my teeth on 3.0 D&D, and can hit it pretty well.

Of course, my system is a lot flatter than D&D, so the same players who can reliably fight trolls can also be threatened by orcs and hold their own against wyvernsas well. Not sure if that makes the problem better or worse.


I don't have just one bbeg though. The vampire lord who's supposed to be dead? Yeah, he's not. That dragon? A scout for a dragon army from another continent. The guy trying to destroy the town? Setting up a base of operations for conquest. The players go around doing quests and hey look, bbeg. I have enough going on that they'll stumble into one of 6 bbeg on the continent. One time, they forced two bbeg into fighting each other without meaning to.

And seeing as how I do not get complaints of this nature, I think I will continue doing what works for me.

Of course, do what you want to do if it works for you.

Like I said, lack of trust in the DM has turned “improv” into a dirty word in several of the groups I have been in.

I personally don’t like it as I am a very analytical person who loves to see al the little connections and cameos and easter eggs and mysteries in the world, and that sort of exploration can’t really happen if its being generated as we go. Sort of like JJ Abrams mystery boxes make for good stories in the moment, but kind of kill enjoyment in retrospect once you discover there is nothing inside. But again, that’s just how my brain works, if you and your players arent just like me, and I hope they aren't, more power to you!

kyoryu
2021-05-24, 03:42 PM
And that's more or less what I do.

It still doesn't stop the players of accusing me of picking on them anytime their weakness comes up.

Also, often times players complain when they feel that they didn't have a chance or choice, and that they were screwed over.

Good ways to avoid this:

1) Prefer soft control to hard control.

Hard control: "I now control your character."
Soft control: "You control your character, but here are penalties/consequences/etc. if you don't do what the controller wants".

So, for instance, with hard control you can say "the controller decides your actions, save ends." Now the only thing the player gets to do is roll a die to see if they get to get out of it, and if they have a bad save, that's unlikely anyway. Yawn. A soft control equivalent could be something like "you feel a compulsion to do <command>. If you complete that, the compulsion will go away. Until then, the controller can give you a penalty to a roll or inflict damage five times. If they use all of their inflictions, then the compulsion will have been fought off." So now the player has an incentive to go along with the command, but they're still, you know, playing the game.

2) Make things decision-based rather than mechanics-based.

There should always be a decision. Just being randomly told "roll the dice or you'll be dead/controlled/kicked out of the area/etc." is sucky. Instead make something happen first - the player has to go to a sketchy area, etc. Ideally, there should always be a way to avoid the mechanical roll in the first place.

3) Show the mechanics ahead of time.

You can do this in any number of ways, from showing them in a way that's less "deadly" to the player (doesn't result in death, save or suck, total hard control, being ejected from the area, etc.), to giving them LOTS AND LOTS of hints about what it is (the less explicit, the more hints you need), showing it on an NPC, or just telling them flat out.

The goal of all of this is to make sure the players feel that their failures are the result of their decisions and if they had chosen better, they could have avoided them.

The more "save or die" the ability is, the more this is important. Someone pulling out a ranged weapon isn't a big deal - getting hit by a surprise ability that was poorly foreshadowed that removes them from the combat is.


Which will result in them feeling like I am kicking them while they are down and followed by a lot of anger and bitching.

You need to listen with an open mind and understand that complaints usually come from somewhere, even if people are bad about recognizing the actual problem.


The complaint from my players, and often this forum, is that I am a "killer DM" who runs things too hard. Now it seems like you are telling me I am not going hard enough?

I'm saying you should divest yourself of an idea of how things "should" go, in any way.

That and you need to make sure that people have an opportunity to make decisions at the moment-to-moment level, not just the build level.

IOW, players should be able to run, even if they didn't scout. If hit by abilities that remove them from the combat, they should be telegraphed sufficiently that the players have the capability to make smart choices about them.

Like the Sneeze Ogre? Great example. The only foreshadowing (according to you) was a big nose. All of a sudden a player moves somewhere, gets hit with a high DC save, and if they fail, they get knocked off and out of the fight.

They had no real way to know what would happen, or means to avoid it. (If you disagree with my presentation of this, just go with it for the sake of example). Players will likely feel cheated.

OTOH, show them the ability before the players get there, let the Snogre (Sneegre?) knock off some bear or something attacking it. Make a point that things not in line of sight didn't get moved. Make sure there's enough cover that they can move from cover to cover as they approach it to avoid the sneeze attack. Now you've made it an interesting challenge to them, not just something that they initially have no idea about, get hit with by surprise, and have no real choices or decisions to make to avoid it. If they choose to go somewhere that they'd be vulnerable, then tehy can trust the dice.... but that's their choice.

Decisions, not dice.


Edit: Also, what does rubber banding mean in this context?

It's a term from video games, specifically racing games. Imagine that the center of the "pack" of racers has a stake around them, and everyone is connected to that stake by a rubber band. If you're close to the stake, you ahve slack and nothing happens. The further you get from the pack, the more the rubber band pulls you back. The further you get behind, the more the rubber band pulls you forward.

Talakeal
2021-05-24, 07:14 PM
Also, often times players complain when they feel that they didn't have a chance or choice, and that they were screwed over.

Good ways to avoid this:

1) Prefer soft control to hard control.

Hard control: "I now control your character."
Soft control: "You control your character, but here are penalties/consequences/etc. if you don't do what the controller wants".

So, for instance, with hard control you can say "the controller decides your actions, save ends." Now the only thing the player gets to do is roll a die to see if they get to get out of it, and if they have a bad save, that's unlikely anyway. Yawn. A soft control equivalent could be something like "you feel a compulsion to do <command>. If you complete that, the compulsion will go away. Until then, the controller can give you a penalty to a roll or inflict damage five times. If they use all of their inflictions, then the compulsion will have been fought off." So now the player has an incentive to go along with the command, but they're still, you know, playing the game.

2) Make things decision-based rather than mechanics-based.

There should always be a decision. Just being randomly told "roll the dice or you'll be dead/controlled/kicked out of the area/etc." is sucky. Instead make something happen first - the player has to go to a sketchy area, etc. Ideally, there should always be a way to avoid the mechanical roll in the first place.

3) Show the mechanics ahead of time.

You can do this in any number of ways, from showing them in a way that's less "deadly" to the player (doesn't result in death, save or suck, total hard control, being ejected from the area, etc.), to giving them LOTS AND LOTS of hints about what it is (the less explicit, the more hints you need), showing it on an NPC, or just telling them flat out.

The goal of all of this is to make sure the players feel that their failures are the result of their decisions and if they had chosen better, they could have avoided them.

This is good advice from a game design perspective.

Two things though:

First, combat is dangerous. A lucky crit can always take someone out of the fight. The idea that you have to make a bad decision, in combat, to face any consequences is kind of silly. Combat is where bad things happen. BUT its also very rare that said bad things actually take you out of the fight, normally you or an ally can undo it pretty easily; get injured drink a potion or have an ally cast heal, get thrown down a hole and climb back up or have an ally throw down a rope, get put to sleep have an ally slap you awake, get entangled make an escape artist check or have an ally cut the rope, get mind controlled have an ally cast dispel magic or (in my system) spend some willpower to get a new save.

Bad things are temporary setbacks, not save or lose.

Second, by saying I need to telegraph everything, aren't I doing exactly what you are warning me against by rubber-banding or punishing success? If the players make the decision to utterly flub their reconnaissance, and so I throw them a freebie?


You need to listen with an open mind and understand that complaints usually come from somewhere, even if people are bad about recognizing the actual problem.

Ok... but none of my players have ever complained about me going to easy on them, quite the opposite. That is a forum complaint.

I mean, yeah, its possible they mean the opposite of what they say, but assuming that is the case could lead to some really rough places...



That and you need to make sure that people have an opportunity to make decisions at the moment-to-moment level, not just the build level.


True. But that cuts both ways, builds should matter, long term prep should matter, and short term prep should also matter.

I really don't see how blatantly foreshadowing everything doesn't punish players who invested resources in information gathering at any point.


Decisions, not dice.

I don't know man, I agree with you in principle, but the sheer number of times I have had a player want it to be entirely on the dice is maddening.

It is a frequent problem at my table (and many others) where the players simply want to "roll diplomacy" rather than being able to telling me what the want to ask an NPC for or how they want to ask for it. (Note I don't mean act it out, I mean like, they won't even say what they are asking for, they just say "I diplomacy the king, what does he tell / give me!")



I'm saying you should divest yourself of an idea of how things "should" go, in any way.



It would be nice, but its hard to just turn off my brain. And if I did, I imagine I would be even more prone to complaints of making a no win situation.


It's a term from video games, specifically racing games. Imagine that the center of the "pack" of racers has a stake around them, and everyone is connected to that stake by a rubber band. If you're close to the stake, you ahve slack and nothing happens. The further you get from the pack, the more the rubber band pulls you back. The further you get behind, the more the rubber band pulls you forward.

Gotcha. That makes sense.

I mean, I suppose you could say that I balance encounters to the table a little bit and give struggling PCs a bit of a break, which could be rubber banding a bit, but I absolutely do not give less treasure or throw harder encounters are players because they are above WBL or winning too often.

Aside from an occasional low threat low reward mission or high threat high reward mission, everything is by the book baseline reward and difficulty.




IOW, players should be able to run, even if they didn't scout.

The players always have the option to run, although varying speeds might make it difficult.

My players rarely choose to run from a fight though; instead they prefer to bang their heads against the wall and give up when it is over.

So remember how I said a few posts back that I want players who are brave and cunning and use their resources wisely to get as far as they can?

Well, my last game was a hex-crawl.

The players would return to town to rest up after every single encounter. They said this was playing smart.

I said that it was boring, and they would never even get to the dungeon at this rate.

I considered implementing costs for supplies to encourage them to keep going, but this could hurt verisimilitude or lead to a death spiral that wouldn't be fun for anyone.

I asked them why they were being so cautious, they said it was because if they entered a fight at less than 100% they might die and end the campaign.

So I implemented a new house rule; HP represent pain / morale / and exhaustion rather than actually indicating health or closeness to death, and once you hit zero HP you simply had the fight knocked out of you, and if the whole party had zero HP you could decide to make a tactical retreat with no penalties.

Of course, the result was the players started playing less tactically, and started instead simply running past the monsters, grabbing the treasure, and then letting the monsters beat them up until they "respawned back in town" with the loot (their words not mine).

That's the type of "degenerate gameplay" I am trying to avoid.


Like the Sneeze Ogre? Great example. The only foreshadowing (according to you) was a big nose. All of a sudden a player moves somewhere, gets hit with a high DC save, and if they fail, they get knocked off and out of the fight.

They had no real way to know what would happen, or means to avoid it. (If you disagree with my presentation of this, just go with it for the sake of example). Players will likely feel cheated.

OTOH, show them the ability before the players get there, let the Snogre (Sneegre?) knock off some bear or something attacking it. Make a point that things not in line of sight didn't get moved. Make sure there's enough cover that they can move from cover to cover as they approach it to avoid the sneeze attack. Now you've made it an interesting challenge to them, not just something that they initially have no idea about, get hit with by surprise, and have no real choices or decisions to make to avoid it.

Now, in this case, this was supposed to be a learning fight.

I admit this was a bit video gamey, but this was my thinking:

The dungeon is at the bottom of the gorge below the bridge. The fomorian guards the bridge and has treasure. The first time the PCs try and cross the bridge, he will attempt to throw them off and let the monsters below deal with them. They take no falling damage due to the swampy ground, and indeed land near the treasure they were coming for.

This is a learning encounter, he inflicts no damage here, and any damage the PCs do to him will still be there for when they fight their way out and try again. If the PCs kill him, unlikely but possible, that's great! They can lower a rope and hoist up any companions who already fell, take the fomorian's treasure, and leisurely explore the chasm at their own pace from the top down.

But, that didn't happen. They fought their way out, and then when they fought the fomorian for real, he was out to kill them as he knew they were too strong for the monsters in the gorge to take care of his problems for him; but the PCs also knew his tricks and were prepared to counter them, which they did, and everyone went home happy.

The problem occurred when the player who got hit with the sneeze attack accused me of making it up on the spot to screw him. Personally, I felt the big nose clue should not have telegraphed this, but should have made it seem apparent in retrospect (as they say, the perfect riddle seems impossible when you only know the question but obvious once you know the answer). Also note that if I had used a standard D&D style fomorian, with the single eye that inflicts psychic damage, this whole situation would have been significantly worse for the player; not only would they have DIED rather than being knocked down with the melee, but I could have also opened up a Monster Manual when they accused me of making it up on the spot.

Satinavian
2021-05-25, 02:25 AM
The players always have the option to run, although varying speeds might make it difficult.

My players rarely choose to run from a fight though; instead they prefer to bang their heads against the wall and give up when it is over.

So remember how I said a few posts back that I want players who are brave and cunning and use their resources wisely to get as far as they can?

Well, my last game was a hex-crawl.

The players would return to town to rest up after every single encounter. They said this was playing smart.

I said that it was boring, and they would never even get to the dungeon at this rate.

I considered implementing costs for supplies to encourage them to keep going, but this could hurt verisimilitude or lead to a death spiral that wouldn't be fun for anyone.

I asked them why they were being so cautious, they said it was because if they entered a fight at less than 100% they might die and end the campaign.

So I implemented a new house rule; HP represent pain / morale / and exhaustion rather than actually indicating health or closeness to death, and once you hit zero HP you simply had the fight knocked out of you, and if the whole party had zero HP you could decide to make a tactical retreat with no penalties.

Of course, the result was the players started playing less tactically, and started instead simply running past the monsters, grabbing the treasure, and then letting the monsters beat them up until they "respawned back in town" with the loot (their words not mine).

That's the type of "degenerate gameplay" I am trying to avoid.
Yes, that is something that comes up several times in your stories.

You make rules to encourage certain behavior. Your players use those rules as they think yould be most effective. This is not the behavior you want. There is some argueing, you then change the rules again so that the player behavior is more as you would expect, they exploit the new rules again and do something else and so on.

That is not healthy. In a normal group with lots of houserules/a custom system, the whole table agrees first about what the encouraged behavior should be and how the game should be played. Only after that the rules are built to faciliate that.

If you can't agree with your players about the kind of game you want, any rules tinkering won't solve that. Trying to force a direction via rules change is also often a good way to seriously annoy people.

MoiMagnus
2021-05-25, 02:44 AM
That is not healthy. In a normal group with lots of houserules/a custom system, the whole table agrees first about what the encouraged behavior should be and how the game should be played. Only after that the rules are built to faciliate that.

This.
Once the players agree with the encourage behaviours, they also become much more receptive to on-the-fly rulings, or can even give feedback of the kind "well, the thing is currently, my optimal choice would be X, but that's not something we would want to be optimal".

kyoryu
2021-05-25, 10:41 AM
This is good advice from a game design perspective.

Two things though:

First, combat is dangerous. A lucky crit can always take someone out of the fight. The idea that you have to make a bad decision, in combat, to face any consequences is kind of silly.

Well, it depends on how strong a crit is. If there's a 1% chance of someone dying any time someone attacks them, that's bad. That will eventually come up for everyone, and the only way to avoid it is to not be in combat, which is ostensibly the behavior you're trying to avoid.


Combat is where bad things happen. BUT its also very rare that said bad things actually take you out of the fight, normally you or an ally can undo it pretty easily; get injured drink a potion or have an ally cast heal, get thrown down a hole and climb back up or have an ally throw down a rope, get put to sleep have an ally slap you awake, get entangled make an escape artist check or have an ally cut the rope, get mind controlled have an ally cast dispel magic or (in my system) spend some willpower to get a new save.

And if those things cost a turn of inaction each, and they're things that are unavoidable, it quickly gets frustrating for players.

So, Sid Meier (of Civilization fame) once apparently said that there are three types of games - games where the game is having all of the fun, games where the designer (GM as well for tabletop) is having all of the fun, and games where the player is having all of the fun.

When you go through and list out the system interactions, that sounds very "system having fun/designer having fun" to me. You're seeing your system work just as you designed it. From a player perspective, it's not nearly as much fun.

Player: "I got hit with a sleep spell, so missed a turn. Then when I got woken up, I got thrown down a hole and had to wait for a rope. Then my friend got entangled so I really had no choice but to cut him out. It was so frustrating, I couldn't do anything!"

Extreme? Yeah. But it's to point out the perspective. Losing turns is not fun.


Bad things are temporary setbacks, not save or lose.

Losing turns is still not fun. That's save or suck until somebody else rescues you.


Second, by saying I need to telegraph everything, aren't I doing exactly what you are warning me against by rubber-banding or punishing success? If the players make the decision to utterly flub their reconnaissance, and so I throw them a freebie?

You seem to have a strong desire of "you must recon, or suffer." You also seem to have a pretty strongly guided philosophy in terms of encounter setup, expected degree of difficulty, etc. Those two are counter to each other - if you adjust the difficulty to the "expected" level of opposition, then people won't scout, as they'll figure out it doesn't matter much.

Also, no, the two are very different. Giving information about specific abilities is not the same at all. It's not about scouting overall force composition or anything else. It's just saying "okay, you're fighting this critter, here's the things it can do." And that is more important the closer to "save or die" said abillity is - it's not necessary to foreshadow something throwing rocks, but it is useful to let them know of an ability that can take them out of the fight.

Let's make this super simple - if the first a player hears about an ability that can take them out of the fight is "save to avoid it", that's an un-fun experience, and makes them feel like they have no power in the situation. Avoid that.


Ok... but none of my players have ever complained about me going to easy on them, quite the opposite. That is a forum complaint.

How is that relevant? Yeah, most players won't bitch about mild rubberbanding to help, but that wasn't hte point. The point you responded to was "if players complain, you should try to figure out what they're actually complaining about, and why."

It's that simple. And, see, this is the kind of thing (responding to that point with something almost completely unrelated) that makes me think you're not taking their input seriously. With any advice except for "your players suck!" you seem to find a reason why everything people say to you is invalid. Now, we're not there, and so some of it may not apply, but pretty much all of the advice I've seen is good advice. Some of it has got to apply.


I mean, yeah, its possible they mean the opposite of what they say, but assuming that is the case could lead to some really rough places...

sigh. No, they won't mean the opposite. They'll say what they think is the problem. It's your job to take that complaint, look at the situation, and figure out how/if to best address it.

I mean, you want your players happy, right?


True. But that cuts both ways, builds should matter, long term prep should matter, and short term prep should also matter.

That's somewhat debatable. If a player is permanently screwed by their build, why would they keep playing?


I really don't see how blatantly foreshadowing everything doesn't punish players who invested resources in information gathering at any point.

ABILITIES. And specifically, it's more important to foreshadow abilities that lead to save or suck. Remove the "gotcha" factor from the game. Resource gathering is still useful in so so so so many other ways. I mean, seriously, why does the idea of telling your players what the critters can do bother you so much?


I don't know man, I agree with you in principle, but the sheer number of times I have had a player want it to be entirely on the dice is maddening.

It is a frequent problem at my table (and many others) where the players simply want to "roll diplomacy" rather than being able to telling me what the want to ask an NPC for or how they want to ask for it. (Note I don't mean act it out, I mean like, they won't even say what they are asking for, they just say "I diplomacy the king, what does he tell / give me!")

Again, you're misinterpreting what I said to an extent it almost feels willful.

If they're "using Diplomacy", they're still making a decision. That's the point. It's not just "okay, you will now roll this save, oh, you failed, you're out of combat." That's what I'm arguing against. I'm not making a point that players need to narrate their rolls better.


It would be nice, but its hard to just turn off my brain. And if I did, I imagine I would be even more prone to complaints of making a no win situation.

Then make sure they have a way to get out of it. And if necessary, adjust baseline difficulty. And if they refuse to flee, then they lose.


Gotcha. That makes sense.

I mean, I suppose you could say that I balance encounters to the table a little bit and give struggling PCs a bit of a break, which could be rubber banding a bit, but I absolutely do not give less treasure or throw harder encounters are players because they are above WBL or winning too often.

Aside from an occasional low threat low reward mission or high threat high reward mission, everything is by the book baseline reward and difficulty.

As I said, tactics can be more of an impact than encounter composition. Really, I'd just say go equally hard all the time, wherever you set that setting.

And if players are complaining about the "by the book" baseline? Consider changing it, since you wrote the book.


The players always have the option to run, although varying speeds might make it difficult.

My players rarely choose to run from a fight though; instead they prefer to bang their heads against the wall and give up when it is over.

"Have an option" "might make it difficult". If they feel they can't run (because of difficulty), and they feel that they have at least a chance to survive, of course they'll stand and fight. Consider adding some mechanics to enable them to escape more easily - AD&D had dropping treasure/food to distract monsters for that reason.


So remember how I said a few posts back that I want players who are brave and cunning and use their resources wisely to get as far as they can?

Well, my last game was a hex-crawl.

The players would return to town to rest up after every single encounter. They said this was playing smart.

I said that it was boring, and they would never even get to the dungeon at this rate.

I considered implementing costs for supplies to encourage them to keep going, but this could hurt verisimilitude or lead to a death spiral that wouldn't be fun for anyone.

I asked them why they were being so cautious, they said it was because if they entered a fight at less than 100% they might die and end the campaign.

Well, again, what they say and the right fix are often different.

Keep in mind that originally hexcrawls were in a "gold for xp" type system, and wandering monsters typically had no treasure. So just going and fighting a wandering monster was not really useful.

Also, it sounds like going back to town is "safe" vs camping out at night? Consider having sufficient wandering monster-ness heading back to town that it's a reasonable question as to whether or not you should go back. If there's a 1 in 6 chance of an encounter camping, and a 1 in 6 chance of an encounter heading back, then it's reasonable to do either.

Also, how difficult are your encounters? In old school D&D, encounters were primarily resource drain, the majority of the time. If a typical encounter is potential death, then going into one with low resources is close to certain death.


So I implemented a new house rule; HP represent pain / morale / and exhaustion rather than actually indicating health or closeness to death, and once you hit zero HP you simply had the fight knocked out of you, and if the whole party had zero HP you could decide to make a tactical retreat with no penalties.

Of course, the result was the players started playing less tactically, and started instead simply running past the monsters, grabbing the treasure, and then letting the monsters beat them up until they "respawned back in town" with the loot (their words not mine).

That's the type of "degenerate gameplay" I am trying to avoid.

I mean, yeah, first get with your characters, but that's just a bad rule, frankly. Even if you go with "not death" (which was standard in high level D&D, just with more work), there needs to be some level of penalty. Or at least, a level of "not reward". D&D had stuff like requiring GP for resurrection, etc.

Even Fate, which has a "Concession" mechanic allowing you to pretty much always Not Die, stipulates that whatever the fight was "about", you don't get. In this case, if the fight is about "getting the treasure", you don't get to escape and get the treasure.


Now, in this case, this was supposed to be a learning fight.

I admit this was a bit video gamey, but this was my thinking:

The dungeon is at the bottom of the gorge below the bridge. The fomorian guards the bridge and has treasure. The first time the PCs try and cross the bridge, he will attempt to throw them off and let the monsters below deal with them. They take no falling damage due to the swampy ground, and indeed land near the treasure they were coming for.

This is a learning encounter, he inflicts no damage here, and any damage the PCs do to him will still be there for when they fight their way out and try again. If the PCs kill him, unlikely but possible, that's great! They can lower a rope and hoist up any companions who already fell, take the fomorian's treasure, and leisurely explore the chasm at their own pace from the top down.

But, that didn't happen. They fought their way out, and then when they fought the fomorian for real, he was out to kill them as he knew they were too strong for the monsters in the gorge to take care of his problems for him; but the PCs also knew his tricks and were prepared to counter them, which they did, and everyone went home happy.

The problem occurred when the player who got hit with the sneeze attack accused me of making it up on the spot to screw him. Personally, I felt the big nose clue should not have telegraphed this, but should have made it seem apparent in retrospect (as they say, the perfect riddle seems impossible when you only know the question but obvious once you know the answer). Also note that if I had used a standard D&D style fomorian, with the single eye that inflicts psychic damage, this whole situation would have been significantly worse for the player; not only would they have DIED rather than being knocked down with the melee, but I could have also opened up a Monster Manual when they accused me of making it up on the spot.

Yeah, I was part of that thread. Again, the point is that if you throw stuff like that at them, telegraphing it is a good idea. And no, I wouldn't consider "he has a comically large nose" to be an indicator that he has a sneeze attack that can blow you off a ledge.

As I recall, the whole thing with that was that the players felt railroaded, and here you're basically saying you planned for that to happen. While railroading probably isn't the right word, I think there's a legitimate complaint that they felt a lack of agency, based again on a lack of information. This seems to be a recurring theme?

At a minimum, if a scene is a "cut scene", then don't play it out.



If you can't agree with your players about the kind of game you want, any rules tinkering won't solve that. Trying to force a direction via rules change is also often a good way to seriously annoy people.

Yes, this.

Of course, you could also look at other games that were similar and learn from them... AD&D has a lot of rules around resurrection and stuff that dealt with exploration...

Segev
2021-05-25, 11:12 AM
Yes, that is something that comes up several times in your stories.

You make rules to encourage certain behavior. Your players use those rules as they think yould be most effective. This is not the behavior you want. There is some argueing, you then change the rules again so that the player behavior is more as you would expect, they exploit the new rules again and do something else and so on.

That is not healthy. In a normal group with lots of houserules/a custom system, the whole table agrees first about what the encouraged behavior should be and how the game should be played. Only after that the rules are built to faciliate that.

If you can't agree with your players about the kind of game you want, any rules tinkering won't solve that. Trying to force a direction via rules change is also often a good way to seriously annoy people.


This.
Once the players agree with the encourage behaviours, they also become much more receptive to on-the-fly rulings, or can even give feedback of the kind "well, the thing is currently, my optimal choice would be X, but that's not something we would want to be optimal".

Yeah. I am 100% for having game rules that are designed to make desired player character behaviors optimal/encouraged, so that players feel like they're playing the game well when they play the game "the right way." It frustrates me to have a game's flavor tell you to play one way, and the game's mechanics punish you for doing so (or reward you more vigorously for playing against that style). Old World of Darkness was very guilty of this, practically scolding players if they do the optimal thing of buying their high stats with the flat-cost chargen resources and reserved XP purchases - where costs scale with how high the stats being bought were - for shoring up low-end stuff.

However, when working with a system built for the group you're playing with (or just with playtesters), you want to make clear what the desired behaviors you want are, and then get their input on how to design rules to encourage those behaviors. If they are behaving other than how you want, ask them what in the rules is encouraging that, and then get their input on what rules could do to discourage behaviors they're engaging in that you find undesirable, while seeing if there's anything that would encourage them to behave the way you want.

Satinavian
2021-05-25, 11:24 AM
Well, again, what they say and the right fix are often different.

Keep in mind that originally hexcrawls were in a "gold for xp" type system, and wandering monsters typically had no treasure. So just going and fighting a wandering monster was not really useful.

Also, it sounds like going back to town is "safe" vs camping out at night? Consider having sufficient wandering monster-ness heading back to town that it's a reasonable question as to whether or not you should go back. If there's a 1 in 6 chance of an encounter camping, and a 1 in 6 chance of an encounter heading back, then it's reasonable to do either.

Also, how difficult are your encounters? In old school D&D, encounters were primarily resource drain, the majority of the time. If a typical encounter is potential death, then going into one with low resources is close to certain death.
Oh, that reminds me of something else.

You, Talakeal, seem to really like to offer your players "risk vs reward" decisions. But you repeatedly have complained about your players choosing the boring and safe stuff and never pushing themself to their boundaries. And you have occasionally introduced mechanics that push them towards the hard encounters you find fun.
And your players repeadedly have complained about your GMing as "too hard"

It really does not need a genius to see what is wrong here. If you really want your players to do risk management, you have to be ready to really roll with their decision. Even if it is not the one you would take.
Of course people complain when you give them a sanbox but when they choose the encounters they want to do, difficulties mount up and point them to the stuff they considered their characters not ready for.

Segev
2021-05-25, 11:41 AM
Oh, that reminds me of something else.

You, Talakeal, seem to really like to offer your players "risk vs reward" decisions. But you repeatedly have complained about your players choosing the boring and safe stuff and never pushing themself to their boundaries. And you have occasionally introduced mechanics that push them towards the hard encounters you find fun.
And your players repeadedly have complained about your GMing as "too hard"

It really does not need a genius to see what is wrong here. If you really want your players to do risk management, you have to be ready to really roll with their decision. Even if it is not the one you would take.
Of course people complain when you give them a sanbox but when they choose the encounters they want to do, difficulties mount up and point them to the stuff they considered their characters not ready for.

This is actually something 5e D&D does well, I think: it creates an illusion of challenge and difficulty and danger that is not really present in most encounters. In my experience, players express fear and trepidation over things that, from behind the DM screen, they mopped the floor with. So they feel bold and daring.

If you want them taking "bold" action, make it actually not all that dangerous.

Though, here, for Talakeal's table, that may not work if their perception of danger guides them to "play it safe."

Instead, you could make the encounters you want to run appear to be the safe ones. Of course, that may lead to feelings of bait-and-switch from the players if they perceive the encounters to be "hard/dangerous" when they are amidst them.

Are your players entirely risk-averse?

kyoryu
2021-05-25, 11:50 AM
This is actually something 5e D&D does well, I think: it creates an illusion of challenge and difficulty and danger that is not really present in most encounters. In my experience, players express fear and trepidation over things that, from behind the DM screen, they mopped the floor with. So they feel bold and daring.

If you want them taking "bold" action, make it actually not all that dangerous.

Though, here, for Talakeal's table, that may not work if their perception of danger guides them to "play it safe."

Instead, you could make the encounters you want to run appear to be the safe ones. Of course, that may lead to feelings of bait-and-switch from the players if they perceive the encounters to be "hard/dangerous" when they are amidst them.

Are your players entirely risk-averse?

To go a step further, it's worth noting that player behavior is a pretty good guide to how they perceive things. If they act incredibly risk-averse, it's because they think that the risk is very high.

If you want an attrition model (multiple encounters per day), then the "risk" in most encounters should be more along the lines of "using more resources than intended" rather than "will die". If every encounter has a perceived high risk of death, then of course players will be loathe to enter into an encounter with less than full resources.

MoiMagnus
2021-05-25, 12:34 PM
To go a step further, it's worth noting that player behavior is a pretty good guide to how they perceive things. If they act incredibly risk-averse, it's because they think that the risk is very high.


I'd like to put the emphases on "perceive".

You might enjoy having encounters where the player feel in danger where in practice they're not, but if your players are not just suspending their disbelief to pretend there is a danger, and instead are fully convinced that the encounters had a high chance of character death, they might "irrationally" avoid those technically easy encounters.

And this is just an example of an illusion that backfired, but was initially intended by the GM. The players will often perceive illusions the GM didn't even intend (aka miscommunications).

kyoryu
2021-05-25, 01:23 PM
I'd like to put the emphases on "perceive".

You might enjoy having encounters where the player feel in danger where in practice they're not, but if your players are not just suspending their disbelief to pretend there is a danger, and instead are fully convinced that the encounters had a high chance of character death, they might "irrationally" avoid those technically easy encounters.

And this is just an example of an illusion that backfired, but was initially intended by the GM. The players will often perceive illusions the GM didn't even intend (aka miscommunications).

Exactly. It's all about perception, because people work on the information they have, the beliefs that that generates, and the experience they get from that.

If you're not getting the perception you want, change what you're doing. What's "objectively true" is important, but it doesn't outweigh that.

Also, perception is usually based on something. There's a reason players have these beliefs.

Lacco
2021-05-25, 02:04 PM
Exactly. It's all about perception, because people work on the information they have, the beliefs that that generates, and the experience they get from that.

If you're not getting the perception you want, change what you're doing. What's "objectively true" is important, but it doesn't outweigh that.

Also, perception is usually based on something. There's a reason players have these beliefs.

I agree.

As a GM, you are their eyes. Ears. Skin. Taste buds. Nose.

You may also act as their gut, their sixth sense, their memory, their sense of time...

You do not make decisions for them, but you provide them with information so they can make informed decisions.

And if they get a wrong perception, there is something you did not communicate or communicated in such way they misunderstood. It matters little whether it's your or their fault, what matters is that you want to change - and this is one area that can be improved.

icefractal
2021-05-25, 02:19 PM
Well, it depends on how strong a crit is. If there's a 1% chance of someone dying any time someone attacks them, that's bad. That will eventually come up for everyone, and the only way to avoid it is to not be in combat, which is ostensibly the behavior you're trying to avoid.

And if those things cost a turn of inaction each, and they're things that are unavoidable, it quickly gets frustrating for players.

...

"Have an option" "might make it difficult". If they feel they can't run (because of difficulty), and they feel that they have at least a chance to survive, of course they'll stand and fight. Consider adding some mechanics to enable them to escape more easily - AD&D had dropping treasure/food to distract monsters for that reason.

...

I mean, yeah, first get with your characters, but that's just a bad rule, frankly. Even if you go with "not death" (which was standard in high level D&D, just with more work), there needs to be some level of penalty. Or at least, a level of "not reward". D&D had stuff like requiring GP for resurrection, etc.I feel like there's somewhat of a contradiction here.

Combat shouldn't risk death without advance notice, and it shouldn't involve any kind of action-denial either. So the only threat is being gradually ablated to death. But escape should also be easy, so really there's almost no risk to combat.

But, just letting people lose with no penalties is a bad thing? How is what you proposed different than that?

kyoryu
2021-05-25, 02:45 PM
I feel like there's somewhat of a contradiction here.

Combat shouldn't risk death without advance notice, and it shouldn't involve any kind of action-denial either. So the only threat is being gradually ablated to death. But escape should also be easy, so really there's almost no risk to combat.

But, just letting people lose with no penalties is a bad thing? How is what you proposed different than that?

Uh, that's really not accurate.

1) Action denial isn't fun, and should generally be minimized. The more complete the action denial is, the more sparingly it should be used. I wouldn't say it's a hard rule. Just something that should be used sparingly due to how UnFun it is.
2) Sudden death without notice isn't much fun. Especially if it's unavoidable. There's a difference between "1% chance of death every combat round" and "if you stick around in a pile of enemies as your HP go down, bad things will happen." The first is unavoidable, except by avoiding combat. The second can be avoided by smart positioining, etc., and even if you do decide to expose yourself to that you're making a choice for some chance.
3) If you're going to have Save or Die/Save or Suck/Save or be Stuck type effects, they should be avoidable, and it should be known what triggers them. This is more important the stronger they are. IOW, getting surprised with "save against sneeze or be knocked out of the fight" isn't good. Knowing that there's a sneeze attack that can attack by LoS, and that will knock back, and the type of save required is reasonable - the players know how to avoid it, if they want to expose themselves to it, etc. If you make a bad call and get stuck where you can get hit with it? That's on you. If you knowingly risk putting yourself where you can get hit with it? That's also on you.
4) Threats and risk can be more than just "death". Loss of treasure, loss of whatever is at stake, having to retreat and expend resources for no value, etc. "Grab the treasure and get killed for a free teleport to town" is a bit much. If you lose, it should cost in some way. Even if that's just hp that have to be healed costing daily hp resources.

Talakeal
2021-05-25, 04:20 PM
snip.


Its getting to the point where formatting is taking longer than writing; I am going to avoid the line by line quotes.

Players actually dying is a pretty remote occurrence. The odds of being KOd or the like by a single lucky crit are pretty good though, probably a lot higher than 1% depending on the character and attack in question and how beat up they were coming into the fight.

Losing a turn is not fun, but its not the end of the world either.

Its not about recon or suffer; its that recon abilities exist and players should be rewarded for sinking resources into them. If you hate surprises, you should probably spend those resources to mitigate surprises, if you are ok with surprises spend those resources on something you do care about.

Learning a monster's abilities before the fight is what lore skills are all about. You wouldn't feel cheated if you invested a bunch of points into lore skills, and then found out that the GM just told everyone (or blatantly telegraphed) what monsters can do?

I still kind of feel like this whole "gotcha" thing (which is entirely a forum complaint rather than something that any of my players have actually said), is particularly unfair to GMs like my self who make a lot of their own content. I don't think anyone would expect someone playing D&D by the book to telegraph the dozens of special abilities every high level outsider has or reveal the contents of an enemy wizards spell-book before the fight. If someone can onto the 3E forums complaining that they got hit be a hold person spell cast by an enemy wizard and the DM didn't telegraph it, I can't believe anyone would actually take their complaints seriously.


Its not about builds being good or bad, its about them mattering. Guys with good fortitude saves resist poison, guys with good reflex saves resist AOE, guys with good Armor class resist being hit in combat, guys with good will saves resist mind control, etc. This all evens out in the long run; but IMO the idea that you can simply decide to avoid every attack is not parsimonious with a heroic action / adventure game, and that falling victim to something you intentionally built yourself as weak to should be, if not fun, at least immersive.

Each encounter is primarily a resource drain, and players got barely any gold or XP for random encounters; it was just wasting everybody's time. I tried numerous fixes; random mishap chart instead of death, lost money on a retreat, no random encounters on the way back to town, etc. All it did was make the players even more cautious. So eventually I just said no penalty for dying, which made them less cautious, but also much more stupid.


If you genuinely think going hard all the time will improve the game, I can sure give it a try, but it sounds mentally exhausting and I have a feeling it will lead to more frustrated players in the long run.


I am aware you were part of the original thread, but it was two years ago now. Honestly, the forum has made 1000x a bigger deal than it was, it was basically just a light-hearted gimmicky encounter and a novel way to start a dungeon. It mattered because the player's damage still applied to the final fight and it let them learn about its tactics in a safe environment, and they theoretically could have beaten it. It has turned into this giant thing, but none of the players minded the encounter, except one player (who was the last person to go down and therefore didn't even miss a turn) said the encounter was a railroad because I had decided they were going in the hole and was therefore making up abilities on the fly to get them down there, which wasn't true, but the lack of trust behind the allegation really hurt my feelings.



Ok, talk about player complains and challenge in my game is going to be a bit longer; so buckle in:


Every player has a few eccentricities; things that they do that frustrate me or their fellow players, and things that they get frustrated by. These aren't normally issues, but occasionally we will have a player actually have a tantrum as a result, screaming, swearing, threatening, name calling, throwing models, or storming out. Typically these more or less come out of nowhere, and are usually we find out that the person recently changed medication.

There are two universal things that I have found that are recurring problems, not just at my table but at other tables I have sat at, other DMs I have talked to, and even in non RPG games such as golfing with my dad, playing Warhammer at the game store, or even monopoly during family get-togethers.

1: People don't like to lose. When they do, they get frustrated, and then find someone or something to blame; you tricked me; you distracted me; these dice are weighted; you are ganging up on me; this game is terribly balanced; the DM is out to get me; etc. One classic example is "Light Cavalry is Cheap!", which is a story one of the employees at the game store used to tell about how when he beat someone in Warhammer that guy went on a rant about how tomb kings light cavalry should be banned, when it was almost universally recognized that Tomb Kings were a bottom tier army and that their cavalry was one of the worst in the game, but that day that guy lost to it, so in his mind it MUST be unfair.

2: Players come up with a plan. It doesn't work for some reason. They get frustrated and give up. They accuse the DM of putting them in a no win situation. The DM tells them one or more possible solutions, then they accuse the DM of railroading them or requiring them to read his mind; essentially coming to the conclusion that because there first solution didn't work, all other solutions save the one the DM came up with would have. It normally devolves from there.


Now, I have one player who is the cause of a plurality of the issues over the years. And though he has improved a lot recently, I honestly feel like he is tainting the well a bit, because he holds grudges for ever and is constantly telling new players stories about all the times I have "screwed him over" in the past and always the first one to declare that a session is too hard.

His issues primarily come down to two categories, both of which are probably interlinked.

1: He is a submission gamer who enjoys being overpowered. In video games, he grinds and grinds until he is significantly above the required power level for the encounter, and then likes to go in and stomp it. Because my game is more tightly balanced, and there isn't really any reward from grinding random encounters, he is frustrated that this isn't possible. Again, its not that the game is "too hard" in that he can't win any given encounter, its that he is never able to break the power curve and stomp over important encounters, especially by his proffered method of endlessly farming trivial encounters.

2: He is a miser. He hates spending money in game. He never contributes to party expenses, and indeed despises his party for being "wasteful". He never upgrades his gear unless it is central to his one "thing" (for example, if a defender he upgrades armor but not weapons, if a striker he upgrades his weapon but not armor), he will never use a consumable if he can help it (which makes him very bitter), and gets incredibly bitter is his stockpile of scrolls doesn't grow every mission or he earns less treasure than he did the in the previous session.

This leads to a constant cycle of trying to find various ways to break the power curve, and then complaining about the difficulty if he fails. In the past, he has even asked me if he really has to adventure; why can't I just let him stay in town and give him XP for studying and gold for selling spell-casting services, and when given access to a time machine that could allow him to adventure at any point in time or space, his only idea was to use it to set up a groundhog day loop in the world's biggest library until he had memorized every book in there.

As I said, one of the above four is almost always the root of and complaints about the game's difficulty.

Also, the problem is also there is no objective standard for difficulty; for me a difficult campaign is one like those OSR meathgrinders are PC deaths are common and succsesfully completing your objective is a crap shoot. For a lot of people, its having to put effort into thinking about tactics or strategy.

Ok, now on to how wealth and difficulty work in my system:

I already explained some of this; but I will be a bit more complete:

The average mission is designed to be beatable at a cost of most of your resources. Completing the mission generally rewards five units of treasure.

If you struggle a bit for whatever reason (a bad decision, bad dice rolls, GM error, the specific mission playing into your weaknesses), you can usually take on debt to succeed, often in the form of mercenaries or consumables, which will cost a few units of treasure.

There are also usually 1-5 bonus units of treasure available. Most are accomplished by skill checks; some by optional fights; occasionally by solving puzzles or going above and beyond the call of duty.

Left over resources (usually the inverse of the above) can help acquire these optional treasures or be used to assist with crafting and other downtime activities, and uncast spells can be made into runes (scrolls) and saved for later.

In my particular game, the players complete their main objective 93% of the time, walk away with more than five treasure 2 out of three times, and usually have about 80% resources left at the end of the mission. Player deaths are VERY rare, and TPKs all but unheard of.

To me this doesn't seem very hard; but again there is no real objective standard to compare it to.



Oh, that reminds me of something else.

You, Talakeal, seem to really like to offer your players "risk vs reward" decisions. But you repeatedly have complained about your players choosing the boring and safe stuff and never pushing themself to their boundaries. And you have occasionally introduced mechanics that push them towards the hard encounters you find fun.
And your players repeadedly have complained about your GMing as "too hard"

It really does not need a genius to see what is wrong here. If you really want your players to do risk management, you have to be ready to really roll with their decision. Even if it is not the one you would take.
Of course people complain when you give them a sanbox but when they choose the encounters they want to do, difficulties mount up and point them to the stuff they considered their characters not ready for.


Yeah. I am 100% for having game rules that are designed to make desired player character behaviors optimal/encouraged, so that players feel like they're playing the game well when they play the game "the right way." It frustrates me to have a game's flavor tell you to play one way, and the game's mechanics punish you for doing so (or reward you more vigorously for playing against that style). Old World of Darkness was very guilty of this, practically scolding players if they do the optimal thing of buying their high stats with the flat-cost chargen resources and reserved XP purchases - where costs scale with how high the stats being bought were - for shoring up low-end stuff.

However, when working with a system built for the group you're playing with (or just with playtesters), you want to make clear what the desired behaviors you want are, and then get their input on how to design rules to encourage those behaviors. If they are behaving other than how you want, ask them what in the rules is encouraging that, and then get their input on what rules could do to discourage behaviors they're engaging in that you find undesirable, while seeing if there's anything that would encourage them to behave the way you want.

Ok, so like I said earlier, the ideal PC is brave yet cunning.

The behavior I would like to see is the players going as far as they can, and using tactics and strategic use of resources to extend how far their resources will carry them.

Players being overly cautious is frustrating because the game takes forever and I am prepping for all sorts of content that never actually gets used.

This is easy enough in linear adventures with time limits or active enemies, but when I try and run a hex-crawl it seems like everything I do leads to going nova followed by fifteen minute workday.

KaussH
2021-05-25, 04:52 PM
As a side note, if loosing a round or two of combat is game breaking to you, then the combat rounds are to long. Everyone doesn't have to have a chance to do everything in every combat. Being taken out for a whole long combat, or multiple combats is another matter. Also take down moves means the gm does not need to have the villains kill the charicters to keep them down. If given a meta choice in most games down for 5 rounds is better than dead for the session.

Now yes, we have games where it is super hard to die, gms who wont kill the charicters even if they should, and gms who wont kill charicters even, no matter what. That's a slightly different conversation


That said, also not all games are "charicter death is bad" in some cases it allows for more play, advantages to a new charicter, ect.

Segev
2021-05-25, 06:49 PM
Ok, so like I said earlier, the ideal PC is brave yet cunning.

The behavior I would like to see is the players going as far as they can, and using tactics and strategic use of resources to extend how far their resources will carry them.

Players being overly cautious is frustrating because the game takes forever and I am prepping for all sorts of content that never actually gets used.

This is easy enough in linear adventures with time limits or active enemies, but when I try and run a hex-crawl it seems like everything I do leads to going nova followed by fifteen minute workday.

Have you discussed this desired behavior with them?

Having rival parties in the world who they're competing with might encourage more efforts to get the most out of their resources.

Cluedrew
2021-05-25, 07:25 PM
I'm going to second "How much of this have you told your players?" You can't trick people into playing a game they don't want to play (and expect them enjoy it), making the intended mode of play more rewarding doesn't actually trick or convince people. There might be some exception but usually it is about making the core loop of the game more fun.

Talakeal
2021-05-25, 07:45 PM
I'm going to second "How much of this have you told your players?" You can't trick people into playing a game they don't want to play (and expect them enjoy it), making the intended mode of play more rewarding doesn't actually trick or convince people. There might be some exception but usually it is about making the core loop of the game more fun.

All of it.

Players will play the game in the most optimal way, even if it isn't fun. That’s what the term “degenerate” gameplay means; and from a design perspective the best solution is to make sure that fun and optimal align as closely as is reasonable.

The 15MWD is not a problem that I invented; it has been plaguing the hobby since the earliest days of D&D; barring external pressure, rest based recovery mechanics and attrition based challenges incentive resting at every opportunity.

Cluedrew
2021-05-25, 09:22 PM
And what did they say when you told them that?

Talakeal
2021-05-25, 11:50 PM
And what did they say when you told them that?

I don't know, it was two years ago and it wasn't one conversation.

Honestly, in retrospect the whole thing was a farce.

The players complained anytime something bad happened to them and started playing more cautiously, so I made the game less dangerous.

Complaining never stopped, but eventually they replaced being cautious with being stupid because after they realized they were now bumper bowling and nothing really mattered.

By the last session they were so far ahead of the curve they were stomping everything, but still accusing me of lying / cheating because I wasn't precise enough in my language.



I am not going to try attempting a sandbox again in the foreseeable future.

I am, however, going to have to figure out a way to explain to the players, in no uncertain terms, what the expected difficulty curve of the game is and how we need to start reacting to adversity with maturity.

Duff
2021-05-26, 12:11 AM
Again, what does this warning actually look like at the table?

Like, hypothetically, let's say I am running a 20 level campaign. From levels 1-3, the primary villain will target AC, from 4-6 it will target will, from 7-9 it will target reflex, from 10-12 it will target for, from 13-15 it will deal fire damage, from 16-19 it will do energy drains, and at level 20 it will deal sonic damage.

What does my warning look like? And when is it delivered? And how does it change if I don't decide on what each arc will focus on until I have already finished the last one, as is more or less normal for me?



If I was running a game for players I knew could be a bit touchy after the level 3 story wraps up I'd be thinking about:
1 - If only some of the party have squishy Will, pull that player(s) aside or talk to them out of session. "Hi Frank, your character has squishy Will. The next story is going to hit that pretty hard. Do you want to accept that, do you want to tweak your build a bit to improve that or do you want to play this NPC I prepared and introduced the party to 3 sessions ago in case it's needed?"
Or maybe you just ask the fist part and if the answer is "no" then you offer the solutions
2 - Maybe I should warn the whole party. This can be done in game, as suggested by others. Rumours of mind flayers. An encounter with a single one under advantageous conditions- This encounter isn't about an interesting fight, this is foreshadowing so you can make it an easy win. Or have the party arrive just as a much more powerful party as on it's last legs. Have them just manage to tip the scales by putting a full extra round in on the last 'flayer and the last "Great Hero" is down to his last spell
3 - If the whole party is bad at Will, maybe I should run this story later, when they're higher level

At my own table, I wouldn't necessarily feel the need to do this (and didn't).
But maybe I wasn't such a good DM in those days, and maybe the fact we'd played together for years meant there was some trust built up.
And maybe the party shouldn't have taken a mindflayer's head and then set up camp before they left the tunnel entrance to their lair...

Satinavian
2021-05-26, 02:11 AM
Now, I have one player who is the cause of a plurality of the issues over the years. And though he has improved a lot recently, I honestly feel like he is tainting the well a bit, because he holds grudges for ever and is constantly telling new players stories about all the times I have "screwed him over" in the past and always the first one to declare that a session is too hard.If you always have issues with one particular player, don't play with that player.

1: He is a submission gamer who enjoys being overpowered. In video games, he grinds and grinds until he is significantly above the required power level for the encounter, and then likes to go in and stomp it. Because my game is more tightly balanced, and there isn't really any reward from grinding random encounters, he is frustrated that this isn't possible. Again, its not that the game is "too hard" in that he can't win any given encounter, its that he is never able to break the power curve and stomp over important encounters, especially by his proffered method of endlessly farming trivial encounters.

2: He is a miser. He hates spending money in game. He never contributes to party expenses, and indeed despises his party for being "wasteful". He never upgrades his gear unless it is central to his one "thing" (for example, if a defender he upgrades armor but not weapons, if a striker he upgrades his weapon but not armor), he will never use a consumable if he can help it (which makes him very bitter), and gets incredibly bitter is his stockpile of scrolls doesn't grow every mission or he earns less treasure than he did the in the previous session.So you are fully aware what kind of game he would enjoy. That he likes grinding to be powerful and overcoming obstacles that way. That he hates using consumables because using them always comes at a permanent cost.

Are you willing to give him an experience he enjoys ? No. You specifically designed your system about ressource management and use of consumables. And you try to make grinding hard/impossible.

-> predictable result : He doesn't have fun and tries to break your system to get to the (for him) fun part. Or whines endlessly. Now a more mature person would probably instead talk to you about expectations and fun and how to find a compromise but either he is not mature or you consider that whining.


Ok, so like I said earlier, the ideal PC is brave yet cunning.

The behavior I would like to see is the players going as far as they can, and using tactics and strategic use of resources to extend how far their resources will carry them.I know. That is what you think is the ideal PC. But is is obviously not the kind of PC your players actually enjoy playing. Or would ever play if not forced. So stop writing your system and your adventures with a specific kind of PC in mind that no one on your table ever plays.


Players being overly cautious is frustrating because the game takes forever and I am prepping for all sorts of content that never actually gets used.Don't prepare stuff you would like to experience. Prepare stuff your players would like to experience. And suddenly it will see play.

If you can't think of anything your players would readily undertake without being pushed that you don't find utterly boring to run, your group is doomed anyway and should dissolve.

OldTrees1
2021-05-26, 06:53 AM
I might have solved why the player is so miserly:

Imagine you want to be good at something but you are on a treadmill. That means you need to constantly invest in your specialty or else your character's characterization changes. Since they don't want their character to become average or even bad at their specialty, the PC will invest slight more than the speed of the treadmill OR invest everything if the treadmill is too fast. Also this is based on their character concept's degree of competency, not their initial stats as they try to grow to match the expectations of the concept.


Summary: You can calibrate the treadmill to provoke miserly behavior. You can even provoke a player to save all their wealth/assets for just their chosen specialty.

Segev
2021-05-26, 07:51 AM
If one player causes the plurality of problems and poisons the well with every new player, you should talk to him about that. Especially the second one. If he can't or won't stop it, you should politely but firmly agree that you cannot run a game for him, and uninvite him from them. I know that can be hard with a person you consider a friend. But if he's a real friend, he'll either actually stop poisoning the well with new players and disrupting the game, or he'll agree with you that the game isn't what he wants and agree that dropping out is his best bet, and remain a friend outside of it.

kyoryu
2021-05-26, 09:37 AM
The players complained anytime something bad happened to them and started playing more cautiously, so I made the game less dangerous.

Complaining never stopped, but eventually they replaced being cautious with being stupid because after they realized they were now bumper bowling and nothing really mattered.

Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, it being too hard wasn't the real complaint?

KaussH
2021-05-26, 10:01 AM
I know. That is what you think is the ideal PC. But is is obviously not the kind of PC your players actually enjoy playing. Or would ever play if not forced. So stop writing your system and your adventures with a specific kind of PC in mind that no one on your table ever plays.

Don't prepare stuff you would like to experience. Prepare stuff your players would like to experience. And suddenly it will see play.

If you can't think of anything your players would readily undertake without being pushed that you don't find utterly boring to run, your group is doomed anyway and should dissolve.

As a note. While one needs players to play a game, this is not the gms job. The gm also deserves to have fun and run games they like. Be they systems they like or just set ups they like. If the choice is run a game they dont like, or get new players.. sounds like its time to get new players.

I have run a Lot of games over the years, and if it's a slog for me, I am going to either fix that, or end the game.

Or in short, gms get to have fun too.

Satinavian
2021-05-26, 10:17 AM
Well, that is what my last sentence implies. If you don't have players that would like to play anything you would like to run, the group is doomed. There is no point in running stuff you yre not interested in. There is also no point in running stuff your players are not interested in.

Talakeal
2021-05-26, 12:16 PM
Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, it being too hard wasn't the real complaint?

Yes, but I don't really see any other common threads.

Again though, the older I get the more it looks like people just don't like to lose and look for something, anything, to blame their loss on.


If one player causes the plurality of problems and poisons the well with every new player, you should talk to him about that. Especially the second one. If he can't or won't stop it, you should politely but firmly agree that you cannot run a game for him, and uninvite him from them. I know that can be hard with a person you consider a friend. But if he's a real friend, he'll either actually stop poisoning the well with new players and disrupting the game, or he'll agree with you that the game isn't what he wants and agree that dropping out is his best bet, and remain a friend outside of it.

As I said, he has matured a lot over the years. He doesn't actually act out and disrupt the game like the other players do, just give occasional sarcastic comments that get under my skin. But yeah,

But yeah, I am really afraid that, as a veteran gamer, the newer players are taking his comments as serious nuggets of life advice rather than just a grumpy old man blowing off steam.


I might have solved why the player is so miserly:

Imagine you want to be good at something but you are on a treadmill. That means you need to constantly invest in your specialty or else your character's characterization changes. Since they don't want their character to become average or even bad at their specialty, the PC will invest slight more than the speed of the treadmill OR invest everything if the treadmill is too fast. Also this is based on their character concept's degree of competency, not their initial stats as they try to grow to match the expectations of the concept.

Summary: You can calibrate the treadmill to provoke miserly behavior. You can even provoke a player to save all their wealth/assets for just their chosen specialty.

The thing is, the treadmill doesn't keep pace with him. The problem is he wants to accelerate relative to the treadmill; if the treadmill is going 5mph he wants to go 10, if it goes 10 he wants to go 25, if it goes 25 he wants to go 100, if it goes 100 he wants to go 500.

It is perfectly possible for him to be ahead of the curve, the problem is he is constantly trying to get further ahead of the curve, but due to exponential costs he has to make more and more sacrifices to do it, and gets less out of it.

And that would be OK to, except that whenever those sacrifices put him at a disadvantage, he says that is a problem with me not properly balancing my adventures or picking on him.


Are you willing to give him an experience he enjoys ? No. You specifically designed your system about resource management and use of consumables. And you try to make grinding hard/impossible.

Out of curiosity, are there any fantasy adventure games (D&D, Pathfinder, Exalted, Warhammer RP, Deadlands, Rolemaster, Runequest, One Ring, etc.) or published adventures thereof where there isn't some measure of resource management or where it is expected that you can fully replenish resources after every encounter?

OldTrees1
2021-05-26, 01:19 PM
The thing is, the treadmill doesn't keep pace with him. The problem is he wants to accelerate relative to the treadmill; if the treadmill is going 5mph he wants to go 10, if it goes 10 he wants to go 25, if it goes 25 he wants to go 100, if it goes 100 he wants to go 500.

It is perfectly possible for him to be ahead of the curve, the problem is he is constantly trying to get further ahead of the curve, but due to exponential costs he has to make more and more sacrifices to do it, and gets less out of it.

And that would be OK to, except that whenever those sacrifices put him at a disadvantage, he says that is a problem with me not properly balancing my adventures or picking on him.

Growing faster than the treadmill is expected for a specialist. As time went on they have sunk more resources into being a specialist.
In D&D 5E someone with Expertise has a +2 advantage at 1st level and a +6 advantage at 20th level. They grew faster than the treadmill.

Now if the character concept requires that growth, then the player is likely to spend whatever is necessary to unlock "getting to play their character concept". If their spending is still in this phase, then the exponential costs are not a deterrent. All the exponential costs do during that spending phase is cause mandatory sacrifices elsewhere. Once they have satiated this spending phase, then they can have a balanced purchasing portfolio.



Now experience has taught me I shouldn't assume perfect rationality from this group in particular. So I should not assume the player has reasonable expectations about growth curves. Nor should I assume your RPG has reasonable growth curves. From reading the system I believe I can assume a specialist should accelerate relative to the treadmill (but I don't know how much).

Satinavian
2021-05-26, 02:42 PM
Out of curiosity, are there any fantasy adventure games (D&D, Pathfinder, Exalted, Warhammer RP, Deadlands, Rolemaster, Runequest, One Ring, etc.) or published adventures thereof where there isn't some measure of resource management or where it is expected that you can fully replenish resources after every encounter?Sure. There are dozens, maybe hundreads of adventures that do that. Even discounting those where you can't reasonably spent any resources because they are e.g. about riddles or politics and limiting yourself to the more classical games that work somewhat similar to D&D, you will find more than enough modules that only ever have one fight in them and others that assume so long downtime between encounters that everything should always be replenished (and don't consider and don't give out any stuff that can't)

Talakeal
2021-05-26, 03:34 PM
Sure. There are dozens, maybe hundreads of adventures that do that. Even discounting those where you can't reasonably spent any resources because they are e.g. about riddles or politics and limiting yourself to the more classical games that work somewhat similar to D&D, you will find more than enough modules that only ever have one fight in them and others that assume so long downtime between encounters that everything should always be replenished (and don't consider and don't give out any stuff that can't)

That was probably a dumb question on my part.

A better one; how do said modules maintain any stakes or tension without time pressure or attrition?


Growing faster than the treadmill is expected for a specialist. As time went on they have sunk more resources into being a specialist.
In D&D 5E someone with Expertise has a +2 advantage at 1st level and a +6 advantage at 20th level. They grew faster than the treadmill.

Now if the character concept requires that growth, then the player is likely to spend whatever is necessary to unlock "getting to play their character concept". If their spending is still in this phase, then the exponential costs are not a deterrent. All the exponential costs do during that spending phase is cause mandatory sacrifices elsewhere. Once they have satiated this spending phase, then they can have a balanced purchasing portfolio.

Now experience has taught me I shouldn't assume perfect rationality from this group in particular. So I should not assume the player has reasonable expectations about growth curves. Nor should I assume your RPG has reasonable growth curves. From reading the system I believe I can assume a specialist should accelerate relative to the treadmill (but I don't know how much).

Yeah, I wouldn't really use 5Es proficiency scaling as an example of functional game design. It works well enough in combat due to HP and damage scaling, but for anything else its pretty cuckoo. Like there is currently a thread on RPG net talking about how crazy it is that it gets harder and harder to make saves as you go up in level.

But surely you see how you can't sustain constant relative acceleration with anything like game balance or dice curves, right?

Furthermore, how is it fair to the DM (or the other players) that the player sinks all of their points into one thing knowing that they are getting less and less bang for their buck due to diminishing returns, and then that player bitching that they are useless / being picked anytime their own solution isn't the answer to their problem?



To use a D&D 3.5 comparison, my last game would be like if a party got 50k gold, the other players used it to buy +2 weapons, +2 armor, a +5 cloak of resistance, a +2 ring of protection, a +2 amulet of natural armor, a luckstone and an ioun stone of insight. But then one player just bought a +5 sword, noticed he was taking way more damage than everyone else, and came to the conclusion that the DM must be picking on him because the DM is afraid of how much damage he can dish out.

OldTrees1
2021-05-26, 06:25 PM
Yeah, I wouldn't really use 5Es proficiency scaling as an example of functional game design. It works well enough in combat due to HP and damage scaling, but for anything else its pretty cuckoo. Like there is currently a thread on RPG net talking about how crazy it is that it gets harder and harder to make saves as you go up in level.

But surely you see how you can't sustain constant relative acceleration with anything like game balance or dice curves, right?

Furthermore, how is it fair to the DM (or the other players) that the player sinks all of their points into one thing knowing that they are getting less and less bang for their buck due to diminishing returns, and then that player bitching that they are useless / being picked anytime their own solution isn't the answer to their problem?



To use a D&D 3.5 comparison, my last game would be like if a party got 50k gold, the other players used it to buy +2 weapons, +2 armor, a +5 cloak of resistance, a +2 ring of protection, a +2 amulet of natural armor, a luckstone and an ioun stone of insight. But then one player just bought a +5 sword, noticed he was taking way more damage than everyone else, and came to the conclusion that the DM must be picking on him because the DM is afraid of how much damage he can dish out.

I used D&D 5E's Expertise vs Proficiency because it is the cleanest example, however you will find the same pattern all over the place. A 1st level expert is just a bit better at the task than other 1st level characters. A 20th level expert is a lot better at the task than other 20th level characters because they continued to invest in it every level.

Now usually there are more than enough character building points to sustain this growth while also leveling up some other areas. It is rarely a case where every point is required. Imagine in the 3E example if the Player could buy a +3 Weapon and a +4 Belt of Str so they had funds left over. However the game developer or the GM can make it cost every point. Just like a player could ask for something the game won't provide.



In this particular case? I have no idea how much each of the 3 people (The Developer, The GM, The Player) contributed to this spending habit. I am suspicious that the Developer and GM were stingy and the Player is toxic. However only the Developer and GM can hear me and I can't hear from both people involved.

Telok
2021-05-26, 06:29 PM
...how do said modules maintain any stakes or tension without time pressure or attrition?

...he was taking way more damage than everyone else, and came to the conclusion that the DM must be picking on him because the DM is afraid of how much damage he can dish out.

On the first point you're looking at making every point of real conflict (so not the mook squashing feel-good fights) involve serious stakes that are external to the PCs and that the players care about. Assuming you're dealing with classic murder hobos this usually means that all the loot got blown up, the "quest giver" character is dead and hates them, the bad guy escaped, and the "love intrest" npc is turned into a hideous monster with magic STDs.

Second point... you have a player who sees a single aspect of a character and thinks optimizing that one thing will make the character somehow invincible or super powerful. Unfortunately in most systems that's impossible. Modern D&D spellcasters are the closrst thing I can really think of to try to fit the bill.

I've had that kind of player, sacrificing near every aspect of their character in exchange for a super punch or something. Then they get a situation they can't punch (talking, stealth, thinking) or punching isn't safe & easy (flying enemies, confusion auras), and they have to sit out or just fail a lot. Which leads to sulk & snark time. Luckily I've missed out on the temper tantrum ones.

Characters have six aspects that can get engaged in most games; offense, defense, survivability, recovery, social abilities, and technical abilities (abilities that can change a situation without combat or social interactions). Some games don't bother with certain categories or don't give character options for them (e.g. Paranoia, which doesn't really do recovery beyond the replacement clones). Tanking one or two is OK, but any more (or certain combinations like defense & survival) and the character is likely to perform poorly in a number of situations.

Had a player in a game who made that sort of overspecialized one-hit wonder character. Big character with power armor and a power fist, OK hit points, but nothing else. The PC's defense, the number to roll to hit him, was literally zero from non-proficiency in their own armor. Party got in a fight with four dragonborn weilding armor peircing plasma weapons, scenery got shot up, grenades were thrown, people wounded, standard stuff. Then the one-hit wonder ran out into the open and one-shot an npc with that big fist. Check the blurb in the book where these standard npcs were from, see combat veterans with average intelligence, good teamwork, and high morale... The next two both shot him with armor piercing plasma & breathed fire on him, removing all hit points and doing a leg crit. Third npc dropped called shot armor piercing plasma into the wounded leg and sent the PC into "not participating in the rest of this fight" status.

Talakeal
2021-05-26, 07:25 PM
On the first point you're looking at making every point of real conflict (so not the mook squashing feel-good fights) involve serious stakes that are external to the PCs and that the players care about. Assuming you're dealing with classic murder hobos this usually means that all the loot got blown up, the "quest giver" character is dead and hates them, the bad guy escaped, and the "love intrest" npc is turned into a hideous monster with magic STDs.

Agreed, but those don't look like they would be at all likely to come up in a sandbox game without any form of time constraints.


I used D&D 5E's Expertise vs Proficiency because it is the cleanest example, however you will find the same pattern all over the place. A 1st level expert is just a bit better at the task than other 1st level characters. A 20th level expert is a lot better at the task than other 20th level characters because they continued to invest in it every level.

Isn't expertise in 5E just flat double proficiency?

That's not really my experience. Most games I have played have diminishing returns which tend to flatten out power curves over time, although most of my experience comes from World of Darkness or D&D 2/3E.

Mind giving me an example of the type of growth you are talking about?



Now usually there are more than enough character building points to sustain this growth while also leveling up some other areas. It is rarely a case where every point is required. Imagine in the 3E example if the Player could buy a +3 Weapon and a +4 Belt of Str so they had funds left over. However the game developer or the GM can make it cost every point. Just like a player could ask for something the game won't provide.

The thing is, there is never going to be enough for this guy. If he had enough for his plus five sword, he would immediately start saving for his plus six sword. He never got to the point where he said "good enough".

I don't know if you saw the thread about this when it happened, but one time in my game he completed a project and then missed the next session, and I had his character perform a quick 1 session project to help out another PC. It turns out he actually wanted to upgrade his previous project again, even though at this point it was effectively "maxxed out" for the length of the campaign and would take longer than the game would last to make any more project. When he found out, he went absolutely ballistic, claimed we had "robbed and enslaved him" and proceeded to have one of the biggest gaming tantrums of all time involving screaming, swearing, name calling, threatening to murder other people's character IC and leave the group OOC. All over a single session not spend working towards a project that could not be completed over the course of the game.



In this particular case? I have no idea how much each of the 3 people (The Developer, The GM, The Player) contributed to this spending habit. I am suspicious that the Developer and GM were stingy and the Player is toxic. However only the Developer and GM can hear me and I can't hear from both people involved.

I don't think I am stingy as a GM.

Any game I have ever played, I have given out more than the recommended WBL. Heck, I used to be ridiculously Monte Haul.

Back in my first 3.5 game, my players were upset that the game was too hard because monsters would make use of the terrain, and those with spell-casting abilities would buff themselves. One of my players posted on the old WotC forum asking for advice, and all they got was people ridiculing them (and be extension me) for having 5x recommended WBL and saying that I must be the biggest pushover GM in history.

I may have since over corrected, but I still give out significantly more treasure than the books recommend, of course not that it matters when players only notice proportional changes rather than absolutes.


Out of curiosity, how can a game developer be too stingy? That's kind of a fascinating topic I don't think I have ever heard discussed before. Do you measure it by advancement rate? Comparison to other PCs? Average NPCs? As I said, my game does have a much flatter progression curve than D&D, so that might be it. For the record, a min-maxxed character typically has about half again modifiers of an average character in their field before they start getting into areas where it really bites back.

icefractal
2021-05-26, 09:02 PM
I don't know if you saw the thread about this when it happened, but one time in my game he completed a project and then missed the next session, and I had his character perform a quick 1 session project to help out another PC. It turns out he actually wanted to upgrade his previous project again, even though at this point it was effectively "maxxed out" for the length of the campaign and would take longer than the game would last to make any more project. When he found out, he went absolutely ballistic, claimed we had "robbed and enslaved him" and proceeded to have one of the biggest gaming tantrums of all time involving screaming, swearing, name calling, threatening to murder other people's character IC and leave the group OOC. All over a single session not spend working towards a project that could not be completed over the course of the game.
Wait, this is that same player?!

I don't know why you consider him a remotely acceptable player, because from everything you've said about him he isn't. If he's a friend, see if he'll get some anger management therapy/training as a requirement to continue playing, or at least set firm standards - at the point where he's screaming and swearing like that, he's a problem for everyone, and needs to be at least temporarily removed from the game if even you're personally willing to take the abuse.

If he's not a friend, kick him the hell out, permanently.

NichG
2021-05-26, 09:03 PM
Examples of game developer stinginess:

This is an epic, legendary item! Compared to baseline items of this type appropriate to characters of this level, which give an +18% bonus to damage, this item is so cool it gives a +20% bonus to damage!

This ability lets you fly, but only 30ft, and only once a week.

Characters get 2-5xp per session, but it costs 9xp to upgrade a skill and 24xp to upgrade a core ability or trait.

Cluedrew
2021-05-26, 09:18 PM
To Talakeal: Have you ever kicked a player or so much as not re-invited one?

Talakeal
2021-05-26, 09:20 PM
Examples of game developer stinginess:

This is an epic, legendary item! Compared to baseline items of this type appropriate to characters of this level, which give an +18% bonus to damage, this item is so cool it gives a +20% bonus to damage!

This ability lets you fly, but only 30ft, and only once a week.

Characters get 2-5xp per session, but it costs 9xp to upgrade a skill and 24xp to upgrade a core ability or trait.

So, in this example, wouldn't a stingy game designer discourage such single minded focus? If the legendary sword is only a 2% upgrade, wouldn’t rational players be less likely to fixate on it at the cost of all else?



Wait, this is that same player?!

I don't know why you consider him a remotely acceptable player, because from everything you've said about him he isn't. If he's a friend, see if he'll get some anger management therapy/training as a requirement to continue playing, or at least set firm standards - at the point where he's screaming and swearing like that, he's a problem for everyone, and needs to be at least temporarily removed from the game if even you're personally willing to take the abuse.

If he's not a friend, kick him the hell out, permanently.

That incident was two hears ago, and he hasn’t had any problems like that since, I only brought it up as an example of just how much he hates spending resources on anything that isn’t his one bug thing.

I wish I could say that player tantrums like that were unusual, but I have a lot of friends and family members who have fits over games.

Talakeal
2021-05-26, 09:21 PM
To Talakeal: Have you ever kicked a player or so much as not re-invited one?

Yes.

Heck, I actually called the cops on one last month. Although that was over a board game, not an RPG.

The Glyphstone
2021-05-26, 09:24 PM
Wait, this is that same player?!

I don't know why you consider him a remotely acceptable player, because from everything you've said about him he isn't. If he's a friend, see if he'll get some anger management therapy/training as a requirement to continue playing, or at least set firm standards - at the point where he's screaming and swearing like that, he's a problem for everyone, and needs to be at least temporarily removed from the game if even you're personally willing to take the abuse.

If he's not a friend, kick him the hell out, permanently.

There is a very good reason we say Talakeal is from the Bizarro Gaming Universe. This player is only slightly below average in the various horror stories we've gotten over the years.


Yes.

Heck, I actually called the cops on one last month. Although that was over a board game, not an RPG.

Case in point.

NichG
2021-05-26, 09:44 PM
So, in this example, wouldn't a stingy game designer discourage such single minded focus? If the legendary sword is only a 2% upgrade, wouldn’t rational players be less likely to fixate on it at the cost of all else?


Playing in that sort of game where everything is anemic is basically dispiriting. Contrasts are exciting, not keeping up with treadmills. If the game makes it ridiculously difficult to obtain contrast, that doesn't make giving up on obtaining that contrast any more appealing.

Telok
2021-05-26, 10:25 PM
Yes.

Heck, I actually called the cops on one last month. Although that was over a board game, not an RPG.

Dude... you live in like... loony-psycho-player-land. Change continents and get into a witness protection program.

OldTrees1
2021-05-26, 11:35 PM
Isn't expertise in 5E just flat double proficiency?
Yes ... , that is why it is so easy and clean to compare the treadmill (ability + prof) vs the expert (ability + 2x prof).


That's not really my experience. Most games I have played have diminishing returns which tend to flatten out power curves over time, although most of my experience comes from World of Darkness or D&D 2/3E.

Mind giving me an example of the type of growth you are talking about?

D&D, Exalted, GURPS, etc.

Assume you get some X amount of build points per level.
Assume there is some way to specialize in "Being convincing".
Assume higher level social encounters are harder than lower level social encounters.
Assume a diplomat character spends enough build points per level to keep up with the diplomacy treadmill.
Then assume they spend more build point on diplomacy per level. Obviously this means less build point elsewhere.

Now you have an expert that grows faster than the treadmill. This is a common design pattern in many RPGs.

Sure there can be diminishing returns (although features are generally increasing returns and magic items are usually diminishing returns) however they are investing more than enough to keep up with the treadmill in that area, so they will continue to improve in that area.



The thing is, there is never going to be enough for this guy. If he had enough for his plus five sword, he would immediately start saving for his plus six sword. He never got to the point where he said "good enough".

I do not have enough evidence to draw that conclusion.

PS: The project story has some other explanations. However it is evidence that I should not assume perfect rationality from the player either.



I don't think I am stingy as a GM.

<snip>

I may have since over corrected, but I still give out significantly more treasure than the books recommend, of course not that it matters when players only notice proportional changes rather than absolutes.

Out of curiosity, how can a game developer be too stingy?

Easy question first: A game that claims to let you play character concept X but does not provide enough build points to play character concept X is being too stingy with its mechanics for it to meet the thematic claim it made.

Scanning through your homebrew system: I got the impression that it had lots of extra taxes (it was very MAD) which tends to result in the actual characters not living up to the potential the game claims. I did not fully math it out, but that was the impression I got.


WBL is not a firm guideline. It partially depends on what character concepts you greenlight and how much wealth is needed to have the characters realize those character concepts. 5x 3E WBL sounds excessive, but 3E WBL was not written with your group in mind.


Hard question last: I get an impression you are a stingy GM based on the evidence of communication issues in your group. Those issues are usually caused by both sides (with unequal fault). So if you tell me this player is absurdly greedy, that is evidence that they are absurdly greedy AND that you are a bit stingy.

Xervous
2021-05-27, 07:17 AM
Playing in that sort of game where everything is anemic is basically dispiriting. Contrasts are exciting, not keeping up with treadmills. If the game makes it ridiculously difficult to obtain contrast, that doesn't make giving up on obtaining that contrast any more appealing.

Sounds like PF2e

Cluedrew
2021-05-27, 07:39 AM
So, in this example, wouldn't a stingy game designer discourage such single minded focus? If the legendary sword is only a 2% upgrade, wouldn’t rational players be less likely to fixate on it at the cost of all else?In my experience, not really. At least not on the first pass. I had (still have I suppose, although its paused indefinitely) an homebrew system that was designed for generalists but people kept building specialists who struggled to succeed long enough to apply their specialty. Then someone built the "flattest" character possible and just tore through everything by way of being able to succeed at every low or medium level challenge thrown at them.

And the thing is, that is roughly what I was going for. Rewarding dabbling in a lot of fields. But you couldn't actually figure that out just by looking at it. Unfortunately I never solved the problem of "showing" the correct way to build a character but I think it is one that any system is going to have to solve eventually. And in the extreme cases you might have to introduce some caps to absolutely forbid people from building terrible characters (or at least ones that might seem like a good idea at the time).

On Kicking Players: OK, I hate to say good but given your track record I figured the sanity check was worthwhile. Maybe "sanity check" isn't the right situation, but I would encourage you of all people to keep guidelines on when a player is not worth the trouble firmly in mind. In the end its your call. There are times I wonder what a thread with you talking about the good times would look like.

MoiMagnus
2021-05-27, 08:31 AM
So, in this example, wouldn't a stingy game designer discourage such single minded focus? If the legendary sword is only a 2% upgrade, wouldn’t rational players be less likely to fixate on it at the cost of all else?

Peoples are not rational. Are you familiar with the commitment bias and related concepts (like escalation of commitment, or sunk cost fallacy)? The more you pay for something, the more you perceive as valuable the thing you paid for.

This is a legendary sword, by definition it must be great. It is difficult and costly to obtain, which probably mean it is awesome. And the GM keep making those offensive magic items more expensive, which probably mean they're so great they are OP.

Additionally, there are some kinds of players which just love maximising a single number. That's they goal when they're building a character. It doesn't really matter to them if maximising this number is actually optimal, as long as it make them feel good.
You seems to have some players that love increasing attacks. My friends tend to be more on the "maximum AC available at all cost" side.

Segev
2021-05-27, 10:43 AM
The thing is, the treadmill doesn't keep pace with him. The problem is he wants to accelerate relative to the treadmill; if the treadmill is going 5mph he wants to go 10, if it goes 10 he wants to go 25, if it goes 25 he wants to go 100, if it goes 100 he wants to go 500.

It is perfectly possible for him to be ahead of the curve, the problem is he is constantly trying to get further ahead of the curve, but due to exponential costs he has to make more and more sacrifices to do it, and gets less out of it.

And that would be OK to, except that whenever those sacrifices put him at a disadvantage, he says that is a problem with me not properly balancing my adventures or picking on him.

He wants to feel competent. To you, that looks like being a munchkin who trivializes all encounters. To him, having to struggle against every encounter means he feels like he's never able to be "cool."

I suspect he'd hate 4e D&D, and probably be more interested in 5e D&D. 5e's bounded accuracy concept would likely appeal greatly to him: every numeric bonus is a big step forward, because the primary way that things get stronger isn't bigger to hit or armor class numbers, but rather more attacks and more hp.

Talakeal, are you familiar with 5e D&D at all? Maybe you should try running Sunless Citadel or even every dungeon in Tales From the Yawning Portal in series for your players to see how they like the scaling as you level up in 5e.

Xervous
2021-05-27, 11:41 AM
He wants to feel competent. To you, that looks like being a munchkin who trivializes all encounters. To him, having to struggle against every encounter means he feels like he's never able to be "cool."

I suspect he'd hate 4e D&D, and probably be more interested in 5e D&D. 5e's bounded accuracy concept would likely appeal greatly to him: every numeric bonus is a big step forward, because the primary way that things get stronger isn't bigger to hit or armor class numbers, but rather more attacks and more hp.

Talakeal, are you familiar with 5e D&D at all? Maybe you should try running Sunless Citadel or even every dungeon in Tales From the Yawning Portal in series for your players to see how they like the scaling as you level up in 5e.

Knowing the player type he’d likely be miserable since 5e offers next to nothing in terms of progression options. You grab the sparse good stuff immediately and otherwise change very little. A level where neither his damage or to hit roll went up is probably going to feel like a dead level.

Telok
2021-05-27, 12:21 PM
I suspect he'd hate 4e D&D, and probably be more interested in 5e D&D. 5e's bounded accuracy concept would likely appeal greatly to him: every numeric bonus is a big step forward, because the primary way that things get stronger isn't bigger to hit or armor class numbers, but rather more attacks and more hp.

I'd consider d&d 5e to be a miserly system given how difficult it is to increase numbers after character creation and the way everyone says getting a +1 every 4 levels is so important. And those vaunted +1s are still just being 5% better than before, an amount you have to use statistics to prove exists because it so rarely metters in actual play. In addition, unless the dm restrains themselves to the 9-14 dc range for a quite high percentage of rolls then the only way for a character to feel "competent" (50%+ success rate) is to have both a 18-20 stat and be in one of the two classes that grant expertise. 4e was better in that regard as you actually made meaningful choices every other level, your numbers went up faster, and there were more options to add minor stacking bonuses.

But I don't think 5e will help here. 5e wants you to be +5 vs dc15 at first level and +11 vs dc20 at 20th level. You can do a +7 to +17 progression in a few skills/proficiencies & tools if you choose specific classes. The player wants something like 5e expertise is attacking or ac, something they can get a lot of use from, not just a couple rolls once in a while. The player also can't sink resources into getting better at things, after 3rd level about the closest you get is fighting styles (can't usefully stack) and stat increases (capped at 20). Even the "improve by getting more attacks and hp" isn't useful because there's no real choices or increases available after choosing the figter class and getting a bonus action attack. You just don't really have options to add anything more to them after str20, con20, & ba attack.

I know that the forum likes to assume multiclassing, getting the exact magic item you want, feats are in play, and characters are level 12+ with 20s in stats (or don't need the stat boosts). But here it would also be assuming that the game starts at 10th+ level or that they can play half a 3 to 20 campaign without problems before they start taking feats.

Segev
2021-05-27, 01:01 PM
But I don't think 5e will help here. 5e wants you to be +5 vs dc15 at first level and +11 vs dc20 at 20th level.

This is incorrect. The whole idea behind 5e is that DC 15 and DC 20 are level agnostic.

I could be mistaken, but I suspect the player in question would be fine with relatively front-loaded boosts for his specialty; it would let him feel special and competent in it from the get-go. Because the numbers don't scale up much as you level, his skill remains superlative.

Telok
2021-05-27, 02:11 PM
This is incorrect. The whole idea behind 5e is that DC 15 and DC 20 are level agnostic.

I know thats the professed ideal but I never saw it reflected in the adventures. What I always saw was overall dcs going up as levels went up. Saves, opposed checks, ac, perception checks, they increase. Not as fast or obviously as say, the 4e treadmill, but numbers go up.

What I'm mostly thinking is that 5e has very limited character advancement or improvement beyond the automatic class & level bits that are decided by level 3. I'm not sure that waiting four levels for an automatic +1 that everybody gets is going to feel like significant advancement or a significant choice to the player.

Segev
2021-05-27, 02:52 PM
I know thats the professed ideal but I never saw it reflected in the adventures. What I always saw was overall dcs going up as levels went up. Saves, opposed checks, ac, perception checks, they increase. Not as fast or obviously as say, the 4e treadmill, but numbers go up.

What I'm mostly thinking is that 5e has very limited character advancement or improvement beyond the automatic class & level bits that are decided by level 3. I'm not sure that waiting four levels for an automatic +1 that everybody gets is going to feel like significant advancement or a significant choice to the player.

All I can say is that I apparently play and run very different 5e games than you do. Leveling up may have the ASIs be the least exciting thing to gain, but the class features are usually pretty nifty. Not always, but usually. And a well-run game will have tougher enemies, yes, but they're also playing in bounded accuracy, and the ability check DCs should be independent of level.

In fact, most 5e adventure modules I've read may have guidance for levels people should be at various points, but don't assume they'll be those levels for anything but, perhaps, the fights.

NichG
2021-05-27, 03:01 PM
I can't speak to 5e since I've never played it, but I think somewhat of the opposite of miserly game design is to make a game where everyone feels like they're getting away with something broken or OP even if everyone makes different choices. The art of it is in providing that 'I can't believe you're letting me get away with this' feeling while at the same time making things that potent actually be important or instrumental to success. That often means letting some things which were serious challenges, risks, or threats become utterly irrelevant at some point, but still having reminders that those things were once hard.

icefractal
2021-05-27, 03:12 PM
Yeah, it's a tricky line to walk. Any kind of counter-scaling or escalation to different challenges has the potential to make the progress feel illusory. On the other hand, this is a game about a party, not a solo protagonist - I note that most (all?) fiction with really exponential power growth that 'exceeds' the rest of the setting don't even try to have parity between the protagonist and their allies - the former is in a whole other league.

Talakeal
2021-05-27, 03:49 PM
Dude... you live in like... loony-psycho-player-land. Change continents and get into a witness protection program.

Honestly, I kind of think this is true. I am an a-neurotypical person (I have an unspecified visual processing disorder that mimics many of the symptoms of autism, ADHD, and OCD) tends to bring out the worst in people and leaves me a magnet for weirdos. My sister in law was just telling me last weekend that she thinks everyone in my family is an expert at unintentional hitting other people's rawest nerves.

Not only do all of my friends and family throw fits when they lose games (myself included), but so do many strangers I have met in gaming stores or online. Heck, when I was a kid I had multiple grown men physically attack or threaten to kill me. And every gaming group I join has people with serious issues.

I have had better luck with online games, but I really do not enjoy that format.

I guess I have just kind of accepted it as normal behavior.


Yes ... , that is why it is so easy and clean to compare the treadmill (ability + prof) vs the expert (ability + 2x prof).

Yeah, I see what you are saying. In that case my game does have a similar trait, the Legendary Skill Merit, which said player takes, but doesn't really factor into advancement as once you have it it scales on its own over time rather than being something you continually invest resources in.


D&D, Exalted, GURPS, etc.

Assume you get some X amount of build points per level.
Assume there is some way to specialize in "Being convincing".
Assume higher level social encounters are harder than lower level social encounters.
Assume a diplomat character spends enough build points per level to keep up with the diplomacy treadmill.
Then assume they spend more build point on diplomacy per level. Obviously this means less build point elsewhere.

Now you have an expert that grows faster than the treadmill. This is a common design pattern in many RPGs.

Sure there can be diminishing returns (although features are generally increasing returns and magic items are usually diminishing returns) however they are investing more than enough to keep up with the treadmill in that area, so they will continue to improve in that area.

That's not my experience with any of those systems, although I am hardly an expert.

Generally, they have caps and / or exponential costs. A min-max player starts out with the maximum possible trait in what they want to focus on, and then starts out way ahead of the curve, but as there is no real way to put more into it, they slowly become less OP as difficulties rise.

For example, in World of Darkness, the game I am most familiar with that uses the same core system as exalted, if a player wanted to be the best at a skill, they would start with five dots in it, five dots in the relevant attributes, and whatever merits or backgrounds assisted in it. After that, they were essentially done, with no real way to improve the ability any further that wasn't gated behind higher level play that most groups never reached.



Easy question first: A game that claims to let you play character concept X but does not provide enough build points to play character concept X is being too stingy with its mechanics for it to meet the thematic claim it made.

Scanning through your homebrew system: I got the impression that it had lots of extra taxes (it was very MAD) which tends to result in the actual characters not living up to the potential the game claims. I did not fully math it out, but that was the impression I got.

That hasn't really been a problem with my system; honestly in my experience I think I am overly generous (and have received feedback as such), but I would rather err on that side. I don't have any problem creating NPCs who do what they want to do, and the only time players do is when they want to create what would be a T1 character in D&D; essentially someone with maximum power AND versatility, like one guy wanted to be a priest, a crafter, a marksman, and a technomancer as master levels so had no points left over for defense, or a guy who wanted to be a martial artist, an air-bender, a mundane and magical healer, and a priest of priest on the same character and ended up not being great at any of them.

Heck, one of the player we are discussing's common complaints is that when he plays a generalist wizard he isn't as powerful as a specialist wizard, and when he players a specialist wizard he isn't as versatile as a generalist wizard, so he is always in a grass is greener situation.


Scanning through your homebrew system: I got the impression that it had lots of extra taxes (it was very MAD) which tends to result in the actual characters not living up to the potential the game claims. I did not fully math it out, but that was the impression I got.

The game is intentionally very MAD to allow characters who are individuals rather than archetypes. Players have more than enough points to be extremely competent in several fields, they just can't be the absolute best at more than two or three without seriously sacrificing in something else (usually defense, which usually leads to complains about killer DMing.)


Hard question last: I get an impression you are a stingy GM based on the evidence of communication issues in your group. Those issues are usually caused by both sides (with unequal fault). So if you tell me this player is absurdly greedy, that is evidence that they are absurdly greedy AND that you are a bit stingy.

That's certainly an interesting way of looking at things.

To clarify though, I did not mean to say he was greedy. I don't think he is. What I said was that he is a miser; he hates spending money on anything he doesn't consider an absolute necessity, and gets very bitter if circumstances or his fellow players ask him to spend money to contribute to group's success.


Peoples are not rational. Are you familiar with the commitment bias and related concepts (like escalation of commitment, or sunk cost fallacy)? The more you pay for something, the more you perceive as valuable the thing you paid for.

This is a legendary sword, by definition it must be great. It is difficult and costly to obtain, which probably mean it is awesome. And the GM keep making those offensive magic items more expensive, which probably mean they're so great they are OP.

Additionally, there are some kinds of players which just love maximising a single number. That's they goal when they're building a character. It doesn't really matter to them if maximising this number is actually optimal, as long as it make them feel good.
You seems to have some players that love increasing attacks. My friends tend to be more on the "maximum AC available at all cost" side.

Totally agreed.

What I don't agree with is that a system where linear upgrades only had a small effect relative to their cost would make a player MORE likely to devote themselves to a single goal.


This is incorrect. The whole idea behind 5e is that DC 15 and DC 20 are level agnostic.

I could be mistaken, but I suspect the player in question would be fine with relatively front-loaded boosts for his specialty; it would let him feel special and competent in it from the get-go. Because the numbers don't scale up much as you level, his skill remains superlative.

He already IS incredibly front loaded.

Basically, in my system you can get up to +30 in any score.

Up to ten with your base attribute (said player usually starts with a 10, system math assumes a 7), +5 for proficiency (which most people start with in their area of expertise), and +1-5 for legendary skill (which scales with your level, and said player usually buys earlier than anyone else).

Now, equipment gives you another +10, 1-5 for mundane quality and 1-5 for magical enhancements.

And this is where the problem is.

Basically, costs scale exponentially, and it is standard to get bonuses equal to your level, trivial to get them below, difficulty to get them one above, and nearly impossible to get them two or more above.

So, if he is level two, he will be working towards +4 gear in his specialty, while he still doesn't even have +1 gear in any other areas.


He wants to feel competent. To you, that looks like being a munchkin who trivializes all encounters. To him, having to struggle against every encounter means he feels like he's never able to be "cool."

Why not both?

He has flat out told me that he doesn't like the strategic element of games; he prefers to simply overpower his enemies rather than outsmart them. He ideal character is essentially Xykon; defeating other casters with overwhelming force while giving them a lecture about how knowledge isn't power, power is power.

He has time and again told me that he only plays games for the grinding aspect of them, and his fondest memories of video games are of grinding to level 99 before doing the plot and then one shotting the final boss.


Playing in that sort of game where everything is anemic is basically dispiriting. Contrasts are exciting, not keeping up with treadmills. If the game makes it ridiculously difficult to obtain contrast, that doesn't make giving up on obtaining that contrast any more appealing.

That just seems so very boring and anti-climactic to me.

The purpose of leveling up should be to do great things, not to be the big fish in the small pond. People put in effort to be the best so they can win championships, not so they can flex on amateurs.

Media; be it video games, books, movies, typically scales up the stakes and the challenge over time. I mean sure, occasionally you will have a scene where Peter Parker makes Flash Thompson look like an idiot, but that is never the climax of the film.

Segev
2021-05-27, 04:30 PM
He has flat out told me that he doesn't like the strategic element of games; he prefers to simply overpower his enemies rather than outsmart them. He ideal character is essentially Xykon; defeating other casters with overwhelming force while giving them a lecture about how knowledge isn't power, power is power.

He has time and again told me that he only plays games for the grinding aspect of them, and his fondest memories of video games are of grinding to level 99 before doing the plot and then one shotting the final boss.

It doesn't sound like you want to run the games he wants to play, and he doesn't want to play the games you want to run. I recommend not asking him to play in your games anymore. If you think this will engender hurt feelings, you should have a conversation about what you want to run and what you perceive he wants to play, and that you're not kicking him out out of anger, but just because you don't think the games you want to run will ever be fun for him. And he has better uses for his time than being miserable for a few hours a week, and you have better uses for your development time than trying to figure out a way to make a game where both the people who want peanut butter and the people who want mint will enjoy the same dish.

NichG
2021-05-27, 04:41 PM
That just seems so very boring and anti-climactic to me.

The purpose of leveling up should be to do great things, not to be the big fish in the small pond. People put in effort to be the best so they can win championships, not so they can flex on amateurs.

Media; be it video games, books, movies, typically scales up the stakes and the challenge over time. I mean sure, occasionally you will have a scene where Peter Parker makes Flash Thompson look like an idiot, but that is never the climax of the film.

It might be boring to you, but that doesn't mean that it's boring to your players - or even has anything at all to do with the way that they experience the game. You're thinking of things in a narrative sense, but they may be thinking of things in an embodied sense - it's awesome to feel able to do things that you couldn't do before, and challenges are more about having enough resistance to feel your abilities and growth rather than to actually thwart you.

A lot of the time, exciting moments are built from the fantasy of comparing what a character would do with one's personal limits, rather than comparing with the character's limits. So there are things where if the characters failed it would actually make the story nonsensical, but a normal person would 100% fail to do, and that makes it impressive. When e.g.a character in a space opera pilots a spaceship through an asteroid field at high speed, you don't really think there's a chance that they crash and everyone dies leaving the rest of the plot unresolved. But you can feel that its something you couldn't do if your life depended on it, so it's impressive - someone watching might want to be that person, be able to do that thing, or just be imagining the experience of actually having that kind of skill at their fingertips and as a result be able to take a half step closer to knowing what it would be like. When someone in a Cirque du Soleil performance juggles twelve objects or balances on a stack of 6 chairs or whatever, its not 'wow, this is awesome because there's a 50% chance they're going to fall', but rather 'wow, this is awesome because if I did it, I would certainly break my neck, but somehow they can do this twice a day without failing ever - they have captured something I lack, but that now I can see and so I can permit myself to imagine being like that'.

A player may want nothing more than to figure out if its literally possible to get 100 attacks per round in a system, whether attaining that particular goal makes them competitive or not. Finding that they're consistently facing situations that prevent them from pulling off that trick or which prevent the trick from mattering may be realistic, but it will thwart what that player actually wants from the game. Someone might want to experience being the kind of person who can utterly shut down a foe that others take seriously - so they have the freedom to toy with their enemy or taunt them, without fear that things are so closely matched that an inefficiency will be punished. That experience may be more valuable to them than any number of evenly matched fights or nail biters.

That motivation may not be something you experience, but if you don't acknowledge that it can be a strong motivation for others, you won't be able to understand them.

OldTrees1
2021-05-27, 05:09 PM
Yeah, I see what you are saying. In that case my game does have a similar trait, the Legendary Skill Merit, which said player takes, but doesn't really factor into advancement as once you have it it scales on its own over time rather than being something you continually invest resources in.

Summary: They get to pick a skill and they get +1 per 20 sessions (min 1) to that skill.

Yeah that sounds like something I would take on every expert character. I would still continue to invest slightly more than the treadmill, but that would sate most of my appetite.

Maybe I misread them. Maybe they are a maximizer rather than trying to play an expert.

If they are a maximizer, you will not succeed in getting them to diversify their investments unless there are spending caps. In 3E the number of skill points you can spend on a skill is capped by level. However magic items rarely have a cap because you can save for later.

Talakeal
2021-05-27, 05:16 PM
It might be boring to you, but that doesn't mean that it's boring to your players - or even has anything at all to do with the way that they experience the game. You're thinking of things in a narrative sense, but they may be thinking of things in an embodied sense - it's awesome to feel able to do things that you couldn't do before, and challenges are more about having enough resistance to feel your abilities and growth rather than to actually thwart you.

A lot of the time, exciting moments are built from the fantasy of comparing what a character would do with one's personal limits, rather than comparing with the character's limits. So there are things where if the characters failed it would actually make the story nonsensical, but a normal person would 100% fail to do, and that makes it impressive. When e.g.a character in a space opera pilots a spaceship through an asteroid field at high speed, you don't really think there's a chance that they crash and everyone dies leaving the rest of the plot unresolved. But you can feel that its something you couldn't do if your life depended on it, so it's impressive - someone watching might want to be that person, be able to do that thing, or just be imagining the experience of actually having that kind of skill at their fingertips and as a result be able to take a half step closer to knowing what it would be like. When someone in a Cirque du Soleil performance juggles twelve objects or balances on a stack of 6 chairs or whatever, its not 'wow, this is awesome because there's a 50% chance they're going to fall', but rather 'wow, this is awesome because if I did it, I would certainly break my neck, but somehow they can do this twice a day without failing ever - they have captured something I lack, but that now I can see and so I can permit myself to imagine being like that'.

A player may want nothing more than to figure out if its literally possible to get 100 attacks per round in a system, whether attaining that particular goal makes them competitive or not. Finding that they're consistently facing situations that prevent them from pulling off that trick or which prevent the trick from mattering may be realistic, but it will thwart what that player actually wants from the game. Someone might want to experience being the kind of person who can utterly shut down a foe that others take seriously - so they have the freedom to toy with their enemy or taunt them, without fear that things are so closely matched that an inefficiency will be punished. That experience may be more valuable to them than any number of evenly matched fights or nail biters.

That motivation may not be something you experience, but if you don't acknowledge that it can be a strong motivation for others, you won't be able to understand them.

Totally agree.

One of said players favorite activities is to prank random townsfolk with their supernatural powers, and he has said that I am not a fun GM because I am not good at RPing their shock and humiliation when he, for example, polymorphs their wife into a pig during a fancy dinner.

Of course, when the shoe is on the other foot... well I have been told by Quertus and Kyoru in this very thread never to have an NPC toy with the PCs because it punishes them for winning, and the one time I had a villain taunt the PC resulted in his biggest tantrum of all time, and to this day 10 years later he still rants to other players about the time I killed his character and then laughed in his face about it.


But yeah, I am here to play a game, not stroke your ego. Just like I wouldn't play chess against the grandmaster who hung around the after school chess club because he enjoyed humiliating his opponent, bullying helpless NPCs is not something I will ever enjoy.

NichG
2021-05-27, 05:50 PM
Totally agree.

One of said players favorite activities is to prank random townsfolk with their supernatural powers, and he has said that I am not a fun GM because I am not good at RPing their shock and humiliation when he, for example, polymorphs their wife into a pig during a fancy dinner.

Of course, when the shoe is on the other foot... well I have been told by Quertus and Kyoru in this very thread never to have an NPC toy with the PCs because it punishes them for winning, and the one time I had a villain taunt the PC resulted in his biggest tantrum of all time, and to this day 10 years later he still rants to other players about the time I killed his character and then laughed in his face about it.

But yeah, I am here to play a game, not stroke your ego. Just like I wouldn't play chess against the grandmaster who hung around the after school chess club because he enjoyed humiliating his opponent, bullying helpless NPCs is not something I will ever enjoy.

Bullying NPCs is it's own kind of thing, and it is also something that some players may be looking to get out of the game. It may be something you're willing to provide, but it also may not be. As with all of these threads, the problem is a mismatch in expectations rather than some expectations being inherently good or bad. If you can't provide what a particular player needs to enjoy the game, then that player should not be in your game but also you shouldn't try to get them to be in your game.

'I'm going to convince this player to enjoy challenges and stop bullying NPCs', 'I'm going to use the rules to find ways to bully NPCs even if the GM is really sensitive about that', etc are recipes for disaster.

icefractal
2021-05-27, 07:05 PM
While of course tastes vary, and almost anything can be right for the right group, I'd consider gratuitous bullying of NPCs in the same category as bullying of PCs - not usually a good move, use with caution.

There's a tendency to think "because the GM has unlimited NPCs to use, it's totally fine if they always have their abilities negated and get no respect". But that's only true to an extent, because while there are many NPCs they're not infinite (limits of actual play time apply), and important ones even less so. If the players are just non-stop dunking on any and all NPCs, most GMs are going to be annoyed, and they're not wrong for being annoyed.

TL;DR - if you never let an NPC be cool, don't expect the GM to facilitate your PC being cool. And vice versa, TBF.

NichG
2021-05-27, 07:45 PM
Well it's like anything else: if the players are open about what they need, and the GM is open about what they need, see if they're compatible and if so run a game. If not, compromise, or don't run a game.

If a player really and truly just wants a game where they punch down against a world of cardboard cutouts, I'd rather know that outright than have them hide that because it's shameful to come out and say it. If I know that that's what they're really looking for, I can decide whether I'm willing to run it. If they hide it but try to get there anyways, then its potentially a much bigger problem.

Thrudd
2021-05-27, 08:33 PM
Is it possible to run two games? One is the game the GM wants to run, where they put much thought into balanced scenarios and expects the players to work at overcoming challenges without throwing tantrums. The other, which requires less thought and work for the GM, is the power fantasy game where the PCs get to be overpowered badasses who stomp every fight. Nothing is taken seriously, somewhere between a video game and a comedy where the NPCs can be abused or ignored and you know to laugh off whatever the players do.

Maybe you run the normal game three out of every four sessions, and if tantrum player doesnt want to play the serious challenge game, he doesnt need to. If he wants to, he needs to agree not to get upset with it, on the understanding that he will get the sort of thing he wants in the once-a-month comedy game.

Cluedrew
2021-05-27, 08:36 PM
He wants to feel competent. To you, that looks like being a munchkin who trivializes all encounters. To him, having to struggle against every encounter means he feels like he's never able to be "cool."This is why I like systems that give characters multiple areas to be excellent in. I once made a combat character that was the only combat character in the party and often soloed whole combat encounters (with some non-combat support). Out side of that they could look around, see what was going, talk to people (in multiple languages) and that's about it. Since there were many types of encounters in the game only a fraction of them were trivialized by having an insane combat specialist*, the others need social, navigational or even medical skills.

* Well actually almost none of them were because of the nature of the campaign/system. You face pretty overwhelming odds.

To Talakeal: I think this all comes down to, the game you want to run and the game they want to play aren't the same.

kyoryu
2021-05-28, 10:54 AM
I have been told by Quertus and Kyoru in this very thread never to have an NPC toy with the PCs because it punishes them for winning

Citation?

I just searched this thread for that because it doesn't sound like something I'd say. And as far as I can tell, I didn't.

What I did say, when talking about adjusting tactics based on how the players were doing (aka rubberbanding) was:


I'd do neither. Let them win or lose. Play encounters at a fairly even level so that the players can see the results of their decisions.

... that's about the only thing I can find in relationship to "kicking them when they're down" or anything similar. If I said something else, please let me know. Quertus' statement was pretty much the same thing.

So.... like, this is why I don't necessarily believe that what you're saying is the entire story, and am asking you to look more deeply. Even in this conversation, you're taking things that were said and either horribly misinterpreting them or twisting them into a different context, or some combination thereof.

(And having NPCs gloat, to reasonable levels, in character, is fine, with a decent helping of "read the room" and "don't overdo it").

Talakeal
2021-05-28, 11:37 AM
Is it possible to run two games? One is the game the GM wants to run, where they put much thought into balanced scenarios and expects the players to work at overcoming challenges without throwing tantrums. The other, which requires less thought and work for the GM, is the power fantasy game where the PCs get to be overpowered badasses who stomp every fight. Nothing is taken seriously, somewhere between a video game and a comedy where the NPCs can be abused or ignored and you know to laugh off whatever the players do.

Maybe you run the normal game three out of every four sessions, and if tantrum player doesnt want to play the serious challenge game, he doesnt need to. If he wants to, he needs to agree not to get upset with it, on the understanding that he will get the sort of thing he wants in the once-a-month comedy game.

Gaming time is really precious right now. I don't think I have the skills or the inclination to run a comedy game, as it is a ton of work and not really my forte, but if someone else in my group wants to run one I will be happy to play. I will bring it up to them when we have some time.


To Talakeal: I think this all comes down to, the game you want to run and the game they want to play aren't the same.

Mostly, yeah. But the games are an 80-90% match, we agree on far more than we disagree on.


Citation?

I just searched this thread for that because it doesn't sound like something I'd say. And as far as I can tell, I didn't.

What I did say, when talking about adjusting tactics based on how the players were doing (aka rubberbanding) was:



... that's about the only thing I can find in relationship to "kicking them when they're down" or anything similar. If I said something else, please let me know. Quertus' statement was pretty much the same thing.

So.... like, this is why I don't necessarily believe that what you're saying is the entire story, and am asking you to look more deeply. Even in this conversation, you're taking things that were said and either horribly misinterpreting them or twisting them into a different context, or some combination thereof.

(And having NPCs gloat, to reasonable levels, in character, is fine, with a decent helping of "read the room" and "don't overdo it").

I apologize if I misunderstood.

You and Quertus, and a few others iirc, have told me to put a constant level of effort into their tactics and desire to win to avoid rubber-banding.

I was the one who suggested toying with the PCs would be a perfectly rationale explanation for this back and page four, and I got the impression you guys disagreed with that, but you are correct that you never directly addressed it.

kyoryu
2021-05-28, 11:53 AM
I was the one who suggested toying with the PCs would be a perfectly rationale explanation for this back and page four, and I got the impression you guys disagreed with that, but you are correct that you never directly addressed it.

It's an excuse to rubber band. I'm suggesting not rubber banding so players see the results of their decisions, especially when they try different strategies. Doing something that isn't going to have an effect you want isn't going to be suddenly good just because you come up with a rationalization for it. Anything can be rationalized.

And that's really a different thing entirely than playing pranks on NPCs.

Telok
2021-05-28, 12:06 PM
All I can say is that I apparently play and run very different 5e games than you do. Leveling up may have the ASIs be the least exciting thing to gain, but the class features are usually pretty nifty. Not always, but usually. And a well-run game will have tougher enemies, yes, but they're also playing in bounded accuracy, and the ability check DCs should be independent of level.

In fact, most 5e adventure modules I've read may have guidance for levels people should be at various points, but don't assume they'll be those levels for anything but, perhaps, the fights.

I've been thinking it over, and you're probably right in a way. The people in my area who have DMed 5e are relatively inexperienced, often having played only a couple years and usually nothing but 5e. They don't do forums, advice blogs, or other online stuff beyond maybe watching stuff like Critical Roll. They rely heavily on offical hardback adventures to minimize prep work, and believe that the game works without them needing to change or house rule things. They don't have math heavy backgrounds or jobs where statistics are relevant.

The results are generally lots of extra checks because if something has a DC in the book then you're obviously supposed to roll. Trying things that don't have DCs in the books usually requires DC 15 at low levels because that's the average DC in the DMG, and you're rolling because the DM doesn't know if you should succeed. Fights are to the death unless the adventure book says the opponent runs away. The concept of "it only does what it says in the book" applies not only to spells but also to proficiency and class abilities. Character bond-ideal-etc. isn't used because there aren't hard rules attached and the DM already feels overwhelmed and can't keep track of inspiration.

The result is frequently multiple bards or bard multiclasses, at least one person spamming guidance, often a sorlock or palock, and one good melee brute who also happens to cast spells or have a rogue level. Parties that even an experienced DM might have a hard time challenging. All this in response to having to makes lots of DC 15 rolls for things you might think wouldn't need a roll. Then a few levels in everyone's bonuses go up and suddenly we're much better at all these checks and the DM thinks they have to up the DCs to keep "challenging' us.

Don't tell me how to run these games, because I'm not running them. I read the advice blogs, discuss game design goals, run statistical simulations, and actively try to learn to be a better DM. Any advice you want to give needs to get to people who don't do online advice & forums, read the DMG once but haven't done any deep thinking on what it said, and certainly don't remember every bit of it or want to stop the game to search through anything that isn't the adventure book.

Yeah, I have a very different 5e experience than you do. Mine reminds me of when we were kids, learning to play and DM thirty years ago from the AD&D DMG and a module.

Segev
2021-05-28, 12:54 PM
I've been thinking it over, and you're probably right in a way. The people in my area who have DMed 5e are relatively inexperienced, often having played only a couple years and usually nothing but 5e. They don't do forums, advice blogs, or other online stuff beyond maybe watching stuff like Critical Roll. They rely heavily on offical hardback adventures to minimize prep work, and believe that the game works without them needing to change or house rule things. They don't have math heavy backgrounds or jobs where statistics are relevant.

The results are generally lots of extra checks because if something has a DC in the book then you're obviously supposed to roll. Trying things that don't have DCs in the books usually requires DC 15 at low levels because that's the average DC in the DMG, and you're rolling because the DM doesn't know if you should succeed. Fights are to the death unless the adventure book says the opponent runs away. The concept of "it only does what it says in the book" applies not only to spells but also to proficiency and class abilities. Character bond-ideal-etc. isn't used because there aren't hard rules attached and the DM already feels overwhelmed and can't keep track of inspiration.

The result is frequently multiple bards or bard multiclasses, at least one person spamming guidance, often a sorlock or palock, and one good melee brute who also happens to cast spells or have a rogue level. Parties that even an experienced DM might have a hard time challenging. All this in response to having to makes lots of DC 15 rolls for things you might think wouldn't need a roll. Then a few levels in everyone's bonuses go up and suddenly we're much better at all these checks and the DM thinks they have to up the DCs to keep "challenging' us.

Don't tell me how to run these games, because I'm not running them. I read the advice blogs, discuss game design goals, run statistical simulations, and actively try to learn to be a better DM. Any advice you want to give needs to get to people who don't do online advice & forums, read the DMG once but haven't done any deep thinking on what it said, and certainly don't remember every bit of it or want to stop the game to search through anything that isn't the adventure book.

Yeah, I have a very different 5e experience than you do. Mine reminds me of when we were kids, learning to play and DM thirty years ago from the AD&D DMG and a module.

From this, it sounds like the two chief issues I would differ on - and I say this for discussion and commiseration, not as advice to you - is the base setting of DC 15 for far too many checks, and the desire to "keep challenging" the PCs.

The modules I've read don't set the DCs based on expected PC level, except insofar as traps are built by increasingly-competent villains and monsters have higher stats at higher CR. Actual ability checks tend to be pretty flat, which is as it should be. So the mistake I think your friends make here is seeking to raise the DCs to "keep challenging" the PCs.

If you ever have the chance to give advice to your friends, the two things I would suggest that are pretty simple are: call for checks less often by assuming higher basic competence (i.e., if it would be "funny" for the PCs to fail at something because it's just typical adventuring stuff, just let them do it without a check), and recalibrate the "basic" DC to be 10, not 15. DC 10 is actually pretty hard for anybody without proficiency to make consistently.

Talakeal
2021-05-28, 11:10 PM
So I had a further conversation with the player today.


The first part, which I think is equal parts very insightful and completely unreasonable, is that monsters using intelligent tactics is picking on players. That defenses do far more than they would seem to if monsters intentionally target the most vulnerable members of the party, and thus defensive abilities are under costed. So, for example, if you invest in 50% damage reduction, in a fair game you would take half the damage of a player without such reduction, but in practice intelligently played enemies will go out of their way to avoid attacking the resistant character, and thus it is worth far far more, and thus DMs using tactics is unfair to the players of "striker" type characters.


Next, we followed up with the idea that monsters targeting him first is "metagaming" as they have no way of knowing he is more vulnerable, despite every other member of the party visibly wearing armor and being twice her size.


Then, he said that grappling and other combat maneuvers are "cheat codes for the DM" because I have "completely unrealistically" decided to give large creatures a bonus to their strength scores, and no PC can ever be as big as a monster.


And then finally he said that D&D was a much better balanced game because fighters are much stickier and better equipped to tank, which baffled me as fighters in D&D are notoriously bad at getting enemy's attention. When I asked for an example, he backpedaled and said it was because D&D assumes fighting in a dungeon, where a fighter can much more easily hold a chokepoint. Which is a weird argument, made even weirder by the fact that he has often complained in the past that fighting in dungeons unfairly advantages melee because you start the fight at much closer range.


Urk.

icefractal
2021-05-28, 11:21 PM
Hmm, interesting position. "Defense is too good! That's why I, who specifically want a very powerful character, am not putting any resources in defense." :smallconfused:

Does your system have illusion abilities? Like, Disguise Self (as a larger, more armored person)? And if so can the character in question learn one?

Of course if the player is that adamant in not wanting to spend anything outside his specialty, he might begrudge even a spell slot. But worth a try.

Btw, I think what's he's referring to is the "GM pity aggro-field" that sword-n-board fighters sometimes get in D&D. As in, GMs focusing fire on the all-defense no-offense meatshield, even when it makes little sense IC, because otherwise that player would feel really useless. But I'm guessing he doesn't want to play that kind of character, he wants someone else to play it so he can skip defense.

Telok
2021-05-29, 12:02 AM
So I had a further conversation with the player today...

...Urk.

Shadowrun: "Geek the mage first." It's been a thing for nigh on 30 years now.

Actually I think it sounds like the player wants to be a modern long range sniper. In a sword & sorcery game.

OldTrees1
2021-05-29, 12:12 AM
So I had a further conversation with the player today.
I apologize in advance, I don't mean this as schadenfreude, but their response was funny to read.


Their estimation of Defense is incorrect. Enemies targeting the most vulnerable PC means all the defensive upgrades of the other PCs have been nerfed a bit. A PC getting a 50% defense does not cut the damage in half, it redirects the damage towards a more vulnerable ally. Maybe that ally had a 20% defense, in which case the damage was cut to 80% rather than 50%.

Yes, this means enemies fighting intelligently nerfs characters that specialize in either offense XOR defense and rewards parties with more balanced characters. To avoid this outcome players of guardian PCs, game developers, and DM often seek or create reasons why enemies attack the guardian PC (although rarely exclusively). Some reasons work better than others. For example a PC that passively buffs their allies defenses until they are taken down.


Enemies that wear armor know that armor provides protection. They might focus on the unarmored enemy. Some enemies might not understand what armor is / does. Those might focus on whoever is doing the most offense.


The player has 2 points of grappling:
1) If a character specializes in grappling, can they grapple level appropriate enemies? Can the 20th level Barbarian grapple a Dragon? If no, then grappling is sometimes something the monsters can do uncontested.
2) You do choose the enemies. If your cooking challenged party goes up against Gorgon Rameses in a cook off, you chose how fair that challenge would be.
Now, I don't know if either of these applies to your system / campaign. So the point they meant to make may or may not be true. But these underlying points are true.

D&D Fighter abilities vary based on the edition. In 3E a Fighter could stun, send enemies flying 30+ ft back as a reaction, and/or keep the enemy prone. This meant they could lockdown a small area around them. That was more than enough in a dungeon and did something outside on rounds 2+. Other editions like 2E relied on the GM choosing to have the monsters target the Fighter when the PC did something like insult the monsters.

Telok
2021-05-29, 03:26 AM
Other editions like 2E relied on the GM choosing to have the monsters target the Fighter when the PC did something like insult the monsters.

Good old AD&D gave the fighter a full attack routine against the ushielded/rear ac on anyone ignoring them and pushing past the melee. I don't recall any specific limits to the number of time they could do that. And there was a rule I recall about the longer pole weapons getting the first attack when someone closed to melee, regardless of initative. Modern D&D has accustomed people to only taking a basic attack, but in AD&D nothing prevented the player from asking if they could try tripping or blocking instead of taking the free attacks.

Goblins didn't conga past the fighters with impunity. Two fighters holding a choke point? Death blender for a batch of 1 hd foes trying to pass.

Quertus
2021-05-29, 09:52 AM
So I had a further conversation with the player today.


The first part, which I think is equal parts very insightful and completely unreasonable, is that monsters using intelligent tactics is picking on players. That defenses do far more than they would seem to if monsters intentionally target the most vulnerable members of the party, and thus defensive abilities are under costed. So, for example, if you invest in 50% damage reduction, in a fair game you would take half the damage of a player without such reduction, but in practice intelligently played enemies will go out of their way to avoid attacking the resistant character, and thus it is worth far far more, and thus DMs using tactics is unfair to the players of "striker" type characters.


Next, we followed up with the idea that monsters targeting him first is "metagaming" as they have no way of knowing he is more vulnerable, despite every other member of the party visibly wearing armor and being twice her size.


Then, he said that grappling and other combat maneuvers are "cheat codes for the DM" because I have "completely unrealistically" decided to give large creatures a bonus to their strength scores, and no PC can ever be as big as a monster.


And then finally he said that D&D was a much better balanced game because fighters are much stickier and better equipped to tank, which baffled me as fighters in D&D are notoriously bad at getting enemy's attention. When I asked for an example, he backpedaled and said it was because D&D assumes fighting in a dungeon, where a fighter can much more easily hold a chokepoint. Which is a weird argument, made even weirder by the fact that he has often complained in the past that fighting in dungeons unfairly advantages melee because you start the fight at much closer range.


Urk.

Makes perfect sense.

IIRC, you said that this player doesn't really want to use tactics, right? You using greater tactics than him feels like cheating, feels like "5d Wizard chess", feels like "arms race between the players and the GM".

So, obviously, the "correct" answer is to use dungeons filled with unintelligent monsters, whose tactics are simple, and defined in their monster entries and obvious from lore: attack at random, attack closest foe, eat tasty elves first, snatch maiden and run, etc.

-----

Unless you have ways (spells, items (*not* consumables), etc) for the PCs to literally be the *biggest* "fish in the pond", grappling is cheat codes for the GM; ie, it's that whole "arms race between the players and the GM", except without the players being able to participate.

So, obviously, the "correct" answer is to hand cheat codes to the PCs. Give them (or, at least, one of them) items, skills, etc, to allow them to out-grapple anything in the game. See what it feels like from the other side. (Note: a player made this character in 3e. It was the only PC build I didn't like, because it made the fights samey and boring. You should feel my (and this player's) pain. Misery loves company, and it'll help you to see other PoVs.)

----

An alternate plan to unintelligent monsters - the one I would use¹, were I a player in your game - is to engage the GM in their arms race (and test accusations of metagaming), and make a super tanky character, with an *illusion* that they are the most vulnerable. "Force" the smart foes to target the tank.

¹ or try to, if your system allowed, or you could be talked into homebrewed solutions

-----

I am quite curious why your player thinks that it is "completely unrealistic" for larger creatures to get a bonus to grappling.

Although… if I were to grapple with "miniature Supergirl", who could lift exactly as much weight as I could, I am uncertain which of us would have the advantage in the grapple…

-----

The effect otherwise of uneven defenses… is… it depends on what layer of 5d chess you're playing, but… at the base level, it encourages Battletech-approved "focus fire", and means that the player of the "weakest" PC will be sitting out more often than their peers.

-----

Speaking of "no tactics", this player sounds like they learned the tactics of one particular system, liked them, and cannot be bothered to evaluate what tactics would be appropriate for a new system (insisting that it's the system that's wrong). So, basically, they're Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, or the people I based him on, or the entirety of the Forgotten Realms NPCs (no, I'm not done picking on Ed Greenwood's Halls of the High King, or the rest of his pants on head world).

I'm not sure what to tell you here. This isn't easily solved - and almost certainly shouldn't be solved by *you*, as system designer and GM.

-----

"D&D" is several different games (some of which aren't even RPGs). I'll agree that some of those games are doubtless more balanced than your system.

But that's probably not their *actual* complaint, the *actual* source of their issues.

-----

Oldschool Fighters *could* hold choke points. 3e "Fighters" have numerous methods of achieving BFC. What have your system's tanks got?

-----

So, I really liked, "Harry Potter and the Natural 20".

Among other things, I tried to stat it out, and try to run characters through it, as though it were a solo module.

They died. In droves. Some things - including the opening encounter - were simply to difficult for a character of Milo's level.

Enter Ñarmo. A Wizard. A Trollblooded, quasi-lycanthrope Wizard. Who is accustomed to tanking for his party.

He draws fire by using disguise and illusions to intentionally appear weak & sickly. And while that works for those who hunt by predatory instinct, he needed subtle marks of power for those whose target selection is more… refined. So he wears a spell component pouch openly, and acquired a single Dread Blossom "slave" from a relative (which he "wears" as a flower behind his ear).

None of which helped him with the Death Eaters. (My changes to the module, and the "larger than Nagini" serpentine mount he was riding, OTOH, had some impact.)

What is my point? If I had one, it might be that thinking through things is highly advantageous… *if* your thought process is applicable to the system and "world mindset" of the setting in which your conclusions will be utilized.

-----

I have a much larger post, from the past week, that I *was* working on. I guess I'll see if any of it is still relevant after this.

Talakeal
2021-05-29, 11:29 AM
Does your system have illusion abilities? Like, Disguise Self (as a larger, more armored person)? And if so can the character in question learn one?

Of course if the player is that adamant in not wanting to spend anything outside his specialty, he might begrudge even a spell slot. But worth a try.


Oh, right. That was also brought up during the conversation. Yes, he said he resents having to waste spell slots in his own defense.


Those might focus on whoever is doing the most offense.

Which would also be him. They don't call 'em glass cannons for nothing!


The player has 2 points of grappling:
1) If a character specializes in grappling, can they grapple level appropriate enemies? Can the 20th level Barbarian grapple a Dragon? If no, then grappling is sometimes something the monsters can do uncontested.

Sure they can grapple level appropriate enemies.

Dragons specifically? It depends, is the dragon in question a challenge for the barbarian, or a challenge for the whole party? In the former case probably, in the latter case possible but not reliably. But then again, the consequences of grappling a single foe when they are fighting a whole party are a lot more severe.


Good old AD&D gave the fighter a full attack routine against the ushielded/rear ac on anyone ignoring them and pushing past the melee. I don't recall any specific limits to the number of time they could do that. Modern D&D has accustomed people to only taking a basic attack, but in AD&D nothing prevented the player from asking if they could try tripping or blocking instead of taking the free attacks.

Goblins didn't conga past the fighters with impunity. Two fighters holding a choke point? Death blender for a batch of 1 hd foes trying to pass.

Are you sure this was AD&D and not basic? I do not remember this rule at all, and I played AD&D (2E) for a number of years.


Unless you have ways (spells, items (*not* consumables), etc) for the PCs to literally be the *biggest* "fish in the pond", grappling is cheat codes for the GM; ie, it's that whole "arms race between the players and the GM", except without the players being able to participate.

So, obviously, the "correct" answer is to hand cheat codes to the PCs. Give them (or, at least, one of them) items, skills, etc, to allow them to out-grapple anything in the game. See what it feels like from the other side. (Note: a player made this character in 3e. It was the only PC build I didn't like, because it made the fights samey and boring. You should feel my (and this player's) pain. Misery loves company, and it'll help you to see other PoVs.)

The idea that PCs have to be able to do everything monsters can do is a strange one to me. Different characters having different rules does not imply cheating to me, although to my players it clearly does.

The player in question actually played a grappler in the campaign before last, and it was fine. Its not like grappling is an auto-win button or anything. He could easily grapple 90+% of enemies, but when he ran against something that he couldn't reliably grapple, either because it was amorphous, incorporeal, colossal, or had too many limbs, the waterworks and accusations of cheating would come on.


Speaking of "no tactics", this player sounds like they learned the tactics of one particular system, liked them, and cannot be bothered to evaluate what tactics would be appropriate for a new system (insisting that it's the system that's wrong).


Not totally off base. Although in this case the "system" in question is computer RPGs.


Oldschool Fighters *could* hold choke points. 3e "Fighters" have numerous methods of achieving BFC. What have your system's tanks got?

Let's see here:

Make a free attack against anyone who moves while engaged with them.
Ability to shove, trip, grapple, stun, or disarm enemies.
Can use charisma to draw an enemy's attention.
Can guard an ally, giving that ally an AC bonus and providing a bonus attack against anyone who attacks them.
Can perform attacks that force enemy's to attack them until they succeed on an intelligence save.

All of the above are open to all characters, but they can invest character points in improving their efficiency.

Those are all the non-magical direct tanking abilities I can think of, but nearly anything can be used to tank in the right situations.

With magic items they can do more, like reflect spells or provide cover to allies.



I have a much larger post, from the past week, that I *was* working on. I guess I'll see if any of it is still relevant after this.

Post it anyway, I would love to see it. I'll keep in mind some of it might be out of date.


Does your system have illusion abilities? Like, Disguise Self (as a larger, more armored person)? And if so can the character in question learn one?

Yes, but nobody ever uses them.

That would probably work, but it does sound kind of annoying to constantly have to "play dumb" to avoid metagaming and RP every encounter as figuring out what is real and what is an illusion.


I am quite curious why your player thinks that it is "completely unrealistic" for larger creatures to get a bonus to grappling.

Because small animals are hard to catch and the smaller you are the easier you can slip out of someone's grasp.

The Glyphstone
2021-05-29, 12:12 PM
So, is this player's ideal campaign a line of motionless, defenseless straw dummies that explode into showers of loot and XP when attacked?

Talakeal
2021-05-29, 12:26 PM
So, is this player's ideal campaign a line of motionless, defenseless straw dummies that explode into showers of loot and XP when attacked?

He enjoys grinding on trash mobs in video games; lower level enemies with basic predictable AI, and AFAICT wants to replicate that experience at the tabletop.


It's an excuse to rubber band. I'm suggesting not rubber banding so players see the results of their decisions, especially when they try different strategies. Doing something that isn't going to have an effect you want isn't going to be suddenly good just because you come up with a rationalization for it. Anything can be rationalized.

And that's really a different thing entirely than playing pranks on NPCs.

It is, yes.

But the notion that "some players just want to show off their power" and pranking NPCs are both forms of bullying, which is something I don't really want to focus on at my table.

Its like if the players wanted to play out violent sexual assault fantasies at the table; its unfortunate they have those urges, but it isn't their fault and it is a good thing they found a safe way to explore them, and while they are free to imagine whatever they want, I don't enjoy being a part of it. Now, please don't get me wrong, I am in now way saying bullying is as bad as rape, but as someone who has been bullied but not sexually assaulted I have more of an adverse reaction to it.

I personally don't really enjoy Superman, or Jedi, or Space Marines, because to me they feel more like bullies than heroes; they were born better than you, nobody can ever match them, and they decide what is right or wrong and enforce it with violence. Heck, when I was a kid I didn't really even enjoy face wrestlers like The Rock or Stone Cold because they win matches by standing there and punching harder and then belittling their opponent.

To me, a hero is an underdog who defeats a superior opponent through hard work, determination, and cleverness rather than overwhelming power.

The Glyphstone
2021-05-29, 12:31 PM
He enjoys grinding on trash mobs in video games; lower level enemies with basic predictable AI, and AFAICT wants to replicate that experience at the tabletop.



So effortless victories against enemies incapable of threatening him in return. Basically straw dummies, but ones with swords painted into their hands that wave back and forth on strings.

NichG
2021-05-29, 02:00 PM
But the notion that "some players just want to show off their power" and pranking NPCs are both forms of bullying, which is something I don't really want to focus on at my table.

Its like if the players wanted to play out violent sexual assault fantasies at the table; its unfortunate they have those urges, but it isn't their fault and it is a good thing they found a safe way to explore them, and while they are free to imagine whatever they want, I don't enjoy being a part of it. Now, please don't get me wrong, I am in now way saying bullying is as bad as rape, but as someone who has been bullied but not sexually assaulted I have more of an adverse reaction to it.

I personally don't really enjoy Superman, or Jedi, or Space Marines, because to me they feel more like bullies than heroes; they were born better than you, nobody can ever match them, and they decide what is right or wrong and enforce it with violence. Heck, when I was a kid I didn't really even enjoy face wrestlers like The Rock or Stone Cold because they win matches by standing there and punching harder and then belittling their opponent.

To me, a hero is an underdog who defeats a superior opponent through hard work, determination, and cleverness rather than overwhelming power.

Then I don't see why you continue to run for that particular player whose main form of enjoyment seems to be exactly the kinds of things you don't want to have at your table. Or why you're surprised that they seem to hate the stuff you put into your system in order to create that kind of underdog gameplay. It's bad for them to force their particular tastes on you when that's not the kind of game you want to run, but it's also bad if you keep trying to push your concept of heroism on them when they've outright said they have no interest in that.

Telok
2021-05-29, 02:30 PM
Are you sure this was AD&D and not basic? I do not remember this rule at all, and I played AD&D (2E) for a number of years.

Might have been AD&D 1e, things were pretty mix & match back then.

Ya know... There's a Diablo d20 knockoff of D&D 3e. It's pretty terrible, along with the adventure published for it. You could offer to run that straight & strict by the book if he scrounges up a copy (zero prep for you since you won't add anything, just ride along and let him die a bunch). He might could learn that there's worse than your homebrew and the occasional grapple.

Rpg.net lets read link: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/lets-read-diablo-ii-diablerie.835587/

Cluedrew
2021-05-29, 02:48 PM
To Talakeal: I think this all comes down to, the game you want to run and the game they want to play aren't the same.Mostly, yeah. But the games are an 80-90% match, we agree on far more than we disagree on.Are you sure? Because reading this I could believe that of some of your players want to play a game that matches yours but not the example one right now. Unless we are counting things like "fantasy game" or "is an RPG" as being most of that, one since we have a challenge based game where we treat the setting and characters with respect and on the other we had a grinding power fantasy where everything is set-dressing to a display of awesomeness. The overlap between that is not zero but its not 80% by my counting. 30% maybe for the combat focus and that's it. What are the things you agree on with your players?

Satinavian
2021-05-29, 03:11 PM
Mostly, yeah. But the games are an 80-90% match, we agree on far more than we disagree on.If that were true, you would get 80-90% praise as well. And certainly not enough whining and blaming to open several threads about it.

Thane of Fife
2021-05-29, 03:47 PM
Might have been AD&D 1e, things were pretty mix & match back then.

Both editions of AD&D (1e and 2e) say that when a creature flees from melee, its opponent gets to make a full set of attacks against its rear side.

MoiMagnus
2021-05-29, 03:58 PM
But the notion that "some players just want to show off their power" and pranking NPCs are both forms of bullying, which is something I don't really want to focus on at my table.
[...]
To me, a hero is an underdog who defeats a superior opponent through hard work, determination, and cleverness rather than overwhelming power.

You can still bully others with "overwhelming" hard work, determination, cleverness, etc.
[Bullying is rarely just about raw strength, and psychological warfare is its core]

I don't see much difference between a character that "show off" it's overwhelming power to enforce his will on others from a character that "show off" it's overwhelming willpower and intelligence to enforce his will on others.

If the underdog wins with almost certainty, he was just an underdog "in appearance", but was really the more powerful one all along, just in more sneaky / discrete ways so the others were not aware of it before he wins (in particular because part of his true power was hidden in his mental capacities, which is not something you "see" easily).

Admittedly, in the case of a RPG, there is a difference between overwhelming an opponent using your character's power (his physical an mental abilities) and using your own power as a player (only your mental abilities, otherwise it's probably cheating).

NichG
2021-05-29, 06:00 PM
If that were true, you would get 80-90% praise as well. And certainly not enough whining and blaming to open several threads about it.

Not to mention the feeling that this player needs to beat the GM rather than just the fictional characters... With stuff like demanding NPCs not just be weaker but also that they emote a defeated mentality, it seems that this player doesn't just need to have a strong character who shows off, they actually feel like they need to see Talakeal suffer in order for them to enjoy the game. The various gaslighting about 'no, it's because you made defenses too cheap so I didn't take them' isn't a great sign either. That's the 'I will say whatever lets me say that you are bad and I am good, whether I believe it or not, whether it makes sense or not' kind of argument dynamic.

Quertus
2021-05-29, 07:19 PM
If that were true, you would get 80-90% praise as well. And certainly not enough whining and blaming to open several threads about it.

To be fair, it's the problems one usually hears about. I struggle to balance posting "I agree" comments among my dissenting opinions.


He enjoys grinding on trash mobs in video games; lower level enemies with basic predictable AI, and AFAICT wants to replicate that experience at the tabletop.



It is, yes.

But the notion that "some players just want to show off their power" and pranking NPCs are both forms of bullying, which is something I don't really want to focus on at my table.

Its like if the players wanted to play out violent sexual assault fantasies at the table; its unfortunate they have those urges, but it isn't their fault and it is a good thing they found a safe way to explore them, and while they are free to imagine whatever they want, I don't enjoy being a part of it. Now, please don't get me wrong, I am in now way saying bullying is as bad as rape, but as someone who has been bullied but not sexually assaulted I have more of an adverse reaction to it.

I personally don't really enjoy Superman, or Jedi, or Space Marines, because to me they feel more like bullies than heroes; they were born better than you, nobody can ever match them, and they decide what is right or wrong and enforce it with violence. Heck, when I was a kid I didn't really even enjoy face wrestlers like The Rock or Stone Cold because they win matches by standing there and punching harder and then belittling their opponent.

To me, a hero is an underdog who defeats a superior opponent through hard work, determination, and cleverness rather than overwhelming power.

That is the hallmark of a hero… to you. But not to everyone.

But to enforce your view of a hero, you build your own system, and run the game, to use overwhelming power to enforce your PoV, and then belittling your opponent's PoV, rather than use hard work and cleverness to see their PoV, and help them to see how close one can come to bridging the difference?


He enjoys grinding on trash mobs in video games; lower level enemies with basic predictable AI, and AFAICT wants to replicate that experience at the tabletop.

So… give him that?


It is, yes.

But the notion that "some players just want to show off their power" and pranking NPCs are both forms of bullying, which is something I don't really want to focus on at my table.

Bullying? Really?

I don't think "bullying" is the first word to come to most people's minds when they see a character getting to demonstrate their competence, when Superman tanks a tank shot or catches a falling car, when Sherlock notices a clue, when Bond seduces the girl, when Quertus understands magic, when your medic character heals someone.

Tell me stories of how the PCs got to feel similarly competent in the games you've run.


I personally don't really enjoy Superman, or Jedi, or Space Marines, because to me they feel more like bullies than heroes; they were born better than you, nobody can ever match them, and they decide what is right or wrong and enforce it with violence. Heck, when I was a kid I didn't really even enjoy face wrestlers like The Rock or Stone Cold because they win matches by standing there and punching harder and then belittling their opponent.

I may make a related thread soon. But I fear that you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater here, because it is not inherent to the defeat of vastly inferior foes to cop a toxic attitude.

In fact, I would argue that it is the hallmark of a hero to not do so, and that any who abide by Queens' "we are the champions" is not a hero.


To me, a hero is an underdog who defeats a superior opponent through hard work, determination, and cleverness rather than overwhelming power.

I prefer the "everyday heroes" who work to empower even those whose misguided efforts they struggle against, personality.

Cluedrew
2021-05-29, 09:02 PM
To be fair, it's the problems one usually hears about. I struggle to balance posting "I agree" comments among my dissenting opinions.On the forum I think I have a lot of posts that are building off of what someone else posted, I couldn't give you the exact ratio of those to those that are primarily about that vs. primarily about a disagreement. And then there are ones like this one where I seem to be holding the opposite position you do but I don't actually disagree with the two particular examples you gave. A post that agrees and nothing else doesn't add anything to the conversation, so unless I can think of some (even small) contribution for the post I'm not going to make it.

Oh even if I pick apart one call the GM made that confused me, I always make sure to say thanks. After a session the bit about "I agree" not contributing to the conversation does not apply. It just seems polite to mention it even if you don't go into a lot of detail.

icefractal
2021-05-30, 12:21 AM
So… give him that?Seems like it'd be boring for the other players. I'd play a power-fantasy game, but I wouldn't play through grinding hundreds of slimes, much less watching someone else do so.

Even in the realm of "things that are fun thought experiments, but maybe not suitable for a game with other players", such as using high-op tricks to take over a (stock) setting at low level, grinding isn't very interesting, IMO.

Talakeal
2021-05-30, 09:08 AM
Both editions of AD&D (1e and 2e) say that when a creature flees from melee, its opponent gets to make a full set of attacks against its rear side.

Oh, right, the retreat rules.

I never thought about using them to block an enemies advance, although I suppose by the letter of the rules that would work.

That being said, its pretty easy to get around; if you move at 1/2 speed or leave on guy in melee they don't get those attacks, and you have to already be fighting so you can't merely block off a choke-point.


You can still bully others with "overwhelming" hard work, determination, cleverness, etc.
[Bullying is rarely just about raw strength, and psychological warfare is its core]

I don't see much difference between a character that "show off" it's overwhelming power to enforce his will on others from a character that "show off" it's overwhelming willpower and intelligence to enforce his will on others.

If the underdog wins with almost certainty, he was just an underdog "in appearance", but was really the more powerful one all along, just in more sneaky / discrete ways so the others were not aware of it before he wins (in particular because part of his true power was hidden in his mental capacities, which is not something you "see" easily).

Admittedly, in the case of a RPG, there is a difference between overwhelming an opponent using your character's power (his physical an mental abilities) and using your own power as a player (only your mental abilities, otherwise it's probably cheating).

This kind of touches on philosophy, psychology, and the nature of free will that is a bit deeper than the discussion calls for.

But I will say, does working hard to achieve something not feel more heroic than simply being born with it?

I agree, the idea that an underdog who is certain to win isn't, which is kind of my whole point about how the game needs risk, or at least the illusion of risk, to make the PCs look heroic. Now, the game is fixed in the PCs favor, but it doesn't look that way in-universe. How do I explain that the PCs overcome long odds time and again? Well, that's just survivor bias, we only tell stories about the heroes who succeeded, boot hill is full of would-be heroes who didn't.


If that were true, you would get 80-90% praise as well. And certainly not enough whining and blaming to open several threads about it.

People don't normally say anything when everything is fine; and even if they did I wouldn't start a thread about it.

That being said, I suppose 80-90% agreement is hard to measure; let's say that he only gives me grief every 5-10 sessions. Of course, when you have 4-8 players that ratio does mean that I have to endure something just about every session, so...



I may make a related thread soon. But I fear that you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater here, because it is not inherent to the defeat of vastly inferior foes to cop a toxic attitude.

In fact, I would argue that it is the hallmark of a hero to not do so, and that any who abide by Queens' "we are the champions" is not a hero.

I agree?

Not sure what you are saying here.


I prefer the "everyday heroes" who work to empower even those whose misguided efforts they struggle against, personality.

As do I, but that's rather harder to portray in an action / adventure game.


Not to mention the feeling that this player needs to beat the GM rather than just the fictional characters... With stuff like demanding NPCs not just be weaker but also that they emote a defeated mentality, it seems that this player doesn't just need to have a strong character who shows off, they actually feel like they need to see Talakeal suffer in order for them to enjoy the game. The various gaslighting about 'no, it's because you made defenses too cheap so I didn't take them' isn't a great sign either. That's the 'I will say whatever lets me say that you are bad and I am good, whether I believe it or not, whether it makes sense or not' kind of argument dynamic.

As I said earlier; as I get older I honestly believe that gamers, myself included, just like to make excuses for their failures whether or not they actually have any basis in reality. Some people are just more strident about it than others.


But to enforce your view of a hero, you build your own system, and run the game, to use overwhelming power to enforce your PoV, and then belittling your opponent's PoV, rather than use hard work and cleverness to see their PoV, and help them to see how close one can come to bridging the difference?

Creating my own system has nothing to do with challenge or enforcing narratives; I can do that in pretty much any system and the guidelines in mine are a lot looser about those things than most.

That being said, I would say that if the tens of thousands of hours I have put into writing, design, and editing, not to mention all the play-testing and money I have spent on it don't qualify as hard work, I don't know what does.



So… give him that?

Unfortunately, that's not really a game that I, or any of the other players, would get much enjoyment out of. Indeed, even as a player I think I would be bored to tears.

Heck, I can't even claim that it would give me valuable play-testing data.


Bullying? Really?

I don't think "bullying" is the first word to come to most people's minds when they see a character getting to demonstrate their competence, when Superman tanks a tank shot or catches a falling car, when Sherlock notices a clue, when Bond seduces the girl, when Quertus understands magic, when your medic character heals someone.

Its not about being competent or succeeding, its about wanting to fight weaker opponents who cannot threaten you solely for the sake of being able to show off your power.


But I am thinking maybe you are getting the wrong impression about my games; that because I have a couple of exceptionally vocal players, that I am running the game on hard mode or something, and I just don't think that's true.

While the adventure as a whole uses up most of the party's resources and each individual fight poses some risk to them, its relatively rare for them to be individually outclassed by any given foe save for a "boss monster", and typically things that actually pose a challenge to the party as a whole are big deal, legendary monsters or military leaders, and by late game that list is pretty much just gods and ancient dragons.

Players are generally the most competent people in their fields in the area (local / regional / national / global / cosmic based on the tier of the game), and are acknowledged as such by the vast majority of NPCs. Occasionally they will encounter a rival, mentor, or villain who exceeds them or gets uppity and talks down to them, but these are important NPCs who will inevitably be surpassed over the course of the game as a benchmark of growth.

Skill challenges are surpassed far more than the 2/3 ratio that most games suggest, and the players frequently do some incredible things; although the game is a bit more grounded than epic level D&D so you don't get stuff like walking on clouds, or moving mountains, or crafting full plate in seconds that you would in a more mythic setting.

Over the course of the game the players have done incredible things, pretty much any impressive thing you can think of in the scope of the setting; slain gods, arch demons, and dragons, toppled and founded empires, cast spells that rewrote the nature of reality, redeemed ancient evils, brought back the dead, turned back time, saved the human race from extinction, ascended to godhood, wielded the strongest artifacts in existence and even crafted some of their own. And most of it was by their own merits, rather than by GM fiat.

As I said, they have a ~93% win ratio for adventures, which is better than most anyone in real life, and even most comic book superheroes. And again, that is adventures as a whole, each made up of half a dozen or so encounters. And of that 7% losses, most are still partial victories; either they could have won but decided to turn back because the cost / risk was too high, or they completed the adventure but failed in some objective like rescuing a hostage or preventing the villain's escape. Actual TPKs are all but unheard of at my table.

But, do my players feel competent?

Honestly, probably not.

If I could posit a reason why, it would probably be some combination of the following:

1: There is no objective measure of difficulty. They don't compare my table to one of the OSR meat-grinders, but they probably do compare it to the (much more common) GM who fudges things to make sure the players always miraculously come out ahead. I mean, a truly fair scenario, one with a 50/50 chance of win loss would probably put most players into conniptions, and rightfully so, I know I would be nervous wreck playing in a game like that if my long term character was on the line.

2: Players remember limits more than capabilities. To go back to the grappling analogy, his last character could out-wrestle a giant or a dinosaur, let alone any human he met, which is pretty amazing by any objectives standard. But he doesn't see that, instead he sees that he can't out grapple a kracken or an air elemental, and feels like he is being cheated.

3: Players (not just my current group, and again myself included) tend to bumble around like idiots when confronted with a mystery or a puzzle, get super frustrated and give up if their first solution doesn't work, and are really reckless with other people's safety. This makes their careers often look like a comedy of errors, with lots of major fiascos that could have been avoided by someone with a lick of common sense.

Satinavian
2021-05-30, 09:33 AM
People don't normally say anything when everything is fine; and even if they did I wouldn't start a thread about it.

That being said, I suppose 80-90% agreement is hard to measure; let's say that he only gives me grief every 5-10 sessions. Of course, when you have 4-8 players that ratio does mean that I have to endure something just about every session, so...Do you have one player complaining every 5-10 sessions or 4-8 players complaining on average evey 5-10 sessions each ? And do players complain about the same things or not ? Your description always switch between one problem player and players in general.

Also, just for the record, i get probably one complaint per 50 sessions on average from all players taken together. If i would get one every 5-10 sessions i wouldn't describe my players as generally agreeing with the way i run things.

Talakeal
2021-05-30, 10:31 AM
Do you have one player complaining every 5-10 sessions or 4-8 players complaining on average evey 5-10 sessions each ? And do players complain about the same things or not ? Your description always switch between one problem player and players in general.

Also, just for the record, i get probably one complaint per 50 sessions on average from all players taken together. If i would get one every 5-10 sessions i wouldn't describe my players as generally agreeing with the way i run things.

Any given player complains once every 5-10 sessions, some a little more some a little less.

This seems fairly consistent across all the games and players I have played with though; heck I don't think I could go fifty games of Candy Land without someone losing their ****.


The players rarely agree upon complains, and specific triggers vary from person to person, but generally it boils down to one of the following (I may be repeating myself):

1: Something bad happens to their character and they look for something or someone to blame and lash out at.
2: Their first try doesn't work, so they assume I have put them in a railroad / no win situation rather than trying plan B.
3: An enemy is immune to their character's strength or attacks their character's vulnerability.

Segev
2021-05-30, 12:05 PM
Have you tried making a "common sense" trait, feat, merit, or stat? If you players are never following common sense, it may be at what you view as common sense doesn't make sense to them. In no small part because they don't know everyoyou do, but also possibly because they don't have the same world understanding do.

Let them buy and/or roll on a "common sense" stat when you think they are overlooking something obvious, and point it out to them as something their characters would know.

The Glyphstone
2021-05-30, 12:08 PM
I don't think that would help. The problem is not a lack of common sense, it's that they take personal offense to the concept of anything preventing them from indulging in their power fantasies. Their characters don't forget that an incorporeal enemy can't be hit by swords, they hate the fact that incorporeal enemies exist who could potentially not die to their swords.

FrogInATopHat
2021-05-30, 12:31 PM
So… give him that?

Or... quite literally any other DM can give him that, if they want to.

And he can take a hike from this particular game so that Talakeal can run the game he wants, if he can find enough other players.

Desirable playstyle is a two-way street and Mystery Player is free to run or play in whatever other games he wants if this one doesn't scratch his itch.

Even in Talakeal's Bizarro Gaming Universe (tm), I'm still not aware of anything that forces Chuckles to keep turning up if he's having that bad a time.

Quertus
2021-05-30, 02:26 PM
On the forum I think I have a lot of posts that are building off of what someone else posted, I couldn't give you the exact ratio of those to those that are primarily about that vs. primarily about a disagreement. And then there are ones like this one where I seem to be holding the opposite position you do but I don't actually disagree with the two particular examples you gave. A post that agrees and nothing else doesn't add anything to the conversation, so unless I can think of some (even small) contribution for the post I'm not going to make it.

That is, indeed, another reason why positive feedback is rarer than it should be. But, for me, if you say 10 things, and I agree with 9 of them, I have to put forth effort to remember to say, "I agree with the rest of what you wrote, but…" before disagreeing with the 10th.


Seems like it'd be boring for the other players. I'd play a power-fantasy game, but I wouldn't play through grinding hundreds of slimes, much less watching someone else do so.

Even in the realm of "things that are fun thought experiments, but maybe not suitable for a game with other players", such as using high-op tricks to take over a (stock) setting at low level, grinding isn't very interesting, IMO.

Shrug. I'm mainly here for the roleplay - I can do that regardless of the level of challenge of the combat. So this difference impacts my fun not one iota (or makes it easier, because it reduces the chances that my character will die, and I'll be forced to play a new one).

So "grinding" (or, more generally, playing a seemingly suboptimal style / one not explicitly designed and intended for your specific purposes) need not *necessarily* reduce others' fun.


This kind of touches on philosophy, psychology, and the nature of free will that is a bit deeper than the discussion calls for.

But I will say, does working hard to achieve something not feel more heroic than simply being born with it?

"It's what you do with what you've got that counts"


That being said, I suppose 80-90% agreement is hard to measure; let's say that he only gives me grief every 5-10 sessions. Of course, when you have 4-8 players that ratio does mean that I have to endure something just about every session, so...

Endure? How about "learn from" and "improve thanks to"?


I agree?

Not sure what you are saying here.

Superman doesn't have to be a bully, enforcing his ideas with violence.

Of course, most any PC - including your idea of heroes - often does just that, enforcing "right" with violence.

I'm saying many things, including that you are drawing your lines very poorly, seemingly attacking your own stances while making other, rickety ones.

It also feels like, if a character had a "10" (your system only goes to 10, right?) in Intelligence, and the player said "they were born a genius, never had to work or study to be smart, everything always came easily to them", you would judge them as unheroic, regardless of their actions.


That being said, I would say that if the tens of thousands of hours I have put into writing, design, and editing, not to mention all the play-testing and money I have spent on it don't qualify as hard work, I don't know what does.

Touché.

But there are different kinds of work, and… iirc, you've said you cannot read a room, so, extrapolating, I am left wondering whether you have blind spots, or are not psychologically capable of certain classes of solution, or what, to know what advice to give.


Unfortunately, that's not really a game that I, or any of the other players, would get much enjoyment out of. Indeed, even as a player I think I would be bored to tears.

Heck, I can't even claim that it would give me valuable play-testing data.

Ah. Good to see your objectives put into words.


Its not about being competent or succeeding, its about wanting to fight weaker opponents who cannot threaten you solely for the sake of being able to show off your power.

Those needn't be so dissimilar.


Over the course of the game the players have done incredible things, pretty much any impressive thing you can think of in the scope of the setting; slain gods, arch demons, and dragons, toppled and founded empires, cast spells that rewrote the nature of reality, redeemed ancient evils, brought back the dead, turned back time, saved the human race from extinction, ascended to godhood, wielded the strongest artifacts in existence and even crafted some of their own. And most of it was by their own merits, rather than by GM fiat.

That feels like the game was cool. I'm asking what makes the character seem cool & competent.


But, do my players feel competent?

Honestly, probably not.

If I could posit a reason why, it would probably be some combination of the following:

1: There is no objective measure of difficulty. They don't compare my table to one of the OSR meat-grinders, but they probably do compare it to the (much more common) GM who fudges things to make sure the players always miraculously come out ahead. I mean, a truly fair scenario, one with a 50/50 chance of win loss would probably put most players into conniptions, and rightfully so, I know I would be nervous wreck playing in a game like that if my long term character was on the line.

2: Players remember limits more than capabilities. To go back to the grappling analogy, his last character could out-wrestle a giant or a dinosaur, let alone any human he met, which is pretty amazing by any objectives standard. But he doesn't see that, instead he sees that he can't out grapple a kracken or an air elemental, and feels like he is being cheated.

3: Players (not just my current group, and again myself included) tend to bumble around like idiots when confronted with a mystery or a puzzle, get super frustrated and give up if their first solution doesn't work, and are really reckless with other people's safety. This makes their careers often look like a comedy of errors, with lots of major fiascos that could have been avoided by someone with a lick of common sense.

So how do we change that, to make the PCs feel competent?


Or... quite literally any other DM can give him that, if they want to.

And he can take a hike from this particular game so that Talakeal can run the game he wants, if he can find enough other players.

Desirable playstyle is a two-way street and Mystery Player is free to run or play in whatever other games he wants if this one doesn't scratch his itch.

Even in Talakeal's Bizarro Gaming Universe (tm), I'm still not aware of anything that forces Chuckles to keep turning up if he's having that bad a time.

I'm trying to help Talakeal bridge the gap. The idea is to look at "why not run what you know he wants" and "why does he want this", to see how much fun Talakeal *can* provide for the existing players.

Why *shouldn't* one evaluate ways to optimize the existing situation?

NichG
2021-05-30, 03:10 PM
Or... quite literally any other DM can give him that, if they want to.

And he can take a hike from this particular game so that Talakeal can run the game he wants, if he can find enough other players.

Desirable playstyle is a two-way street and Mystery Player is free to run or play in whatever other games he wants if this one doesn't scratch his itch.

Even in Talakeal's Bizarro Gaming Universe (tm), I'm still not aware of anything that forces Chuckles to keep turning up if he's having that bad a time.

That would be the easiest solution. But these two keep playing with each other despite what seems to be over a decade of mutual frustration and abuse by now. I'm not sure either knows how to step away from this mess, and by now Chuckles may be getting enough of what he wants by making Talakeal feel bad in real life that it doesn't really matter to him if he's prevented from getting that by making imaginary characters feel bad, so he keeps coming back.

The Glyphstone
2021-05-30, 04:54 PM
My guess is that Talakeal is the only DM around who will put up with Chuckles' behavior, so he has no incentive to change. That, or the real life conflict is what he enjoys.

Morgaln
2021-05-31, 07:51 AM
Superman doesn't have to be a bully, enforcing his ideas with violence.



I'd go even further and claim that it is an intrinsic part of superman's character that he specifically doesn't use violence to enforce his ideas.

GeoffWatson
2021-05-31, 08:14 AM
My guess is that Talakeal is the only DM around who will put up with Chuckles' behavior, so he has no incentive to change. That, or the real life conflict is what he enjoys.

Who knows? We only have Talakeal's side of the story.