Legendary actions, player issues and 1 on 1 catch up sessions.

[ReD_Exorcist]

Apologies for the long post, maybe I should put this into three separate posts? Oh well too late :smallbiggrin:

Legendary Actions

For starters this last weekend one of the groups I DM for has gone through a whole session without a fight. One of the players was obviously a little bored because he finds his fun in combat. The issue is that half of the party are all CHA characters who enjoy roleplaying. This isn't really the issue though. Since the party reached a point where they are going, to begin with, combat in this next week's session.

What I'm wondering is when is too early to throw legendary actions at players. I ask because the player who prefers combat was begging for a boss fight. Now a little context: The party is at level 2, made up of 7 players, 2 of which have only one year of experience in DnD but they are playing a Bard and Cleric. So they aren't necessarily combating characters, but more lore roleplaying ones. The rest of the party is all very much green to DnD since this is their first time playing.

I was thinking of using legendary actions, but if I'm being this would be my first using them since I have DM'ed 3.5 for the most part, and when I tried running a group on 5e it fell apart relatively early and didn't use a legendary creature. I'm all for waiting on using legendary actions if it's a level too early for them to face something on that scale. What does everybody think, too early or could I maybe custom fit legendary actions into it?

Player bored with roleplaying

This part refers to the said bored player and is gonna be more of a rant/cry for help on his absurdness. I'm not really looking for a hotfix on this issue but instead along the lines of suggestions and things I should keep in mind when playing with a player like this. This guy is playing a Blood Hunter and is the type of player who wants to be the center of attention when it comes to anything really. He is really nice but is very awkward when it comes to roleplaying, and just tends to sit there silently when discussions with NPCs are being had.

We actually hashed out a cool idea for a new type of Order for blood hunters. Basically an Order of Draconian Hunters. So I plan on working with him on that. Although what I couldn't stop giggling about to myself was that he kept asking questions on how could kill a god, how strong his character could be..... and what I now semi am not looking forward to is when can he split from the party.

While I don't railroad his character into anything he might not want to do, I also don't like the idea of him splitting from the party. Is this something I should let happen? I think I'm okay with it but I don't know if it's considered bad practice amongst DM's?

1 on 1 sessions

So last question. I am gonna have to do a 1 on 1 session with our party rogue who missed out on this last session. He had a friend's birthday party that he couldn't miss but insisted on us playing without him, stating he wants to do a 1 on 1 session to catch him up. So this kind of plays on the idea of the Blood Hunter player who is wanting to be more of a power gamer and go off on a 1 on 1 session of his at some point. Unfortunately, I do blame myself for allowing this 1 on 1 session to happen with the rogue but I also didn't want him to feel like he would miss out big time not playing with us.

I did already do a 1 on 1 with both the Bard and Cleric who were already experienced in DnD with at least a year of it. Although I did it for them because they both were the last to join and session 1 had already taken place with a level up.

I guess my question is how does everyone here handle a 1 on 1 session?

[meandean]

I'm confused by what's going on with the bored player. He wants to be the center of attention, but he doesn't talk? What is separating him from the party intended to accomplish? I'm not getting it.

Re: the rogue, the good news is that your players like your DMing, and care that they missed a session. I think your feeling that you shouldn't have agreed to this 1-on-1 session is correct. It's asking enough of you to prepare one game a week. It really should be sufficient that if someone misses a session, they get caught up on what happened (which you should be doing at the beginning of each session anyway), and that's that. You also have the inherent problem that, if it's meant to be "catching them up" on the session they missed -- i.e., interacting with the same plotline and/or characters -- you could cause ramifications that affect what happened in the main game. If you're doing 1-on-1 sessions at all, you want them to be walled off, so that the player who wasn't there isn't deciding things on behalf of the players who were.

So, basically, I would construct it as "here's what you were off doing somewhere else". Tie it together at the end, but it shouldn't be primarily about what the main session was about. It should be maybe an hour long, if even that. Perhaps it can involve the player's backstory, or characters/subplots that have come up in which this player seemed to express interest and no one else did. It should probably require stealth and other classic rogue things so the player can feel cool. It should be mostly, if not entirely, RP and skill usage. I guess I don't know how this player feels, but I personally don't think combat with only one PC involved is interesting. Anyway, after this is done, get out of this habit :smallwink:

[MoiMagnus]

I'm confused by what's going on with the bored player. He wants to be the center of attention, but he doesn't talk?

Looks to me like someone who wants to show how good he his at doing stuff (depending on the kind of personality, he might need a public or he just want to show to himself how good he is), so is only interested in things that he is already good at. And since he knows that he is bad at talking, he doesn't want to participate in talking and get bored from it.

[Unoriginal]

Apologies for the long post, maybe I should put this into three separate posts? Oh well too late :smallbiggrin:

Legendary Actions

For starters this last weekend one of the groups I DM for has gone through a whole session without a fight. One of the players was obviously a little bored because he finds his fun in combat. The issue is that half of the party are all CHA characters who enjoy roleplaying. This isn't really the issue though. Since the party reached a point where they are going, to begin with, combat in this next week's session.

What I'm wondering is when is too early to throw legendary actions at players. I ask because the player who prefers combat was begging for a boss fight. Now a little context: The party is at level 2, made up of 7 players, 2 of which have only one year of experience in DnD but they are playing a Bard and Cleric. So they aren't necessarily combating characters, but more lore roleplaying ones. The rest of the party is all very much green to DnD since this is their first time playing.

I was thinking of using legendary actions, but if I'm being this would be my first using them since I have DM'ed 3.5 for the most part, and when I tried running a group on 5e it fell apart relatively early and didn't use a legendary creature. I'm all for waiting on using legendary actions if it's a level too early for them to face something on that scale. What does everybody think, too early or could I maybe custom fit legendary actions into it?

Legendary actions would work if it's 7 PCs vs 1 boss, I'd say. But I would recommend using 1 boss with a few mooks, at that level/for the first boss.



Player bored with roleplaying

This part refers to the said bored player and is gonna be more of a rant/cry for help on his absurdness. I'm not really looking for a hotfix on this issue but instead along the lines of suggestions and things I should keep in mind when playing with a player like this. This guy is playing a Blood Hunter and is the type of player who wants to be the center of attention when it comes to anything really. He is really nice but is very awkward when it comes to roleplaying, and just tends to sit there silently when discussions with NPCs are being had.

We actually hashed out a cool idea for a new type of Order for blood hunters. Basically an Order of Draconian Hunters. So I plan on working with him on that. Although what I couldn't stop giggling about to myself was that he kept asking questions on how could kill a god, how strong his character could be..... and what I now semi am not looking forward to is when can he split from the party.

While I don't railroad his character into anything he might not want to do, I also don't like the idea of him splitting from the party. Is this something I should let happen? I think I'm okay with it but I don't know if it's considered bad practice amongst DM's?

How long does he want to split up from the party and why would his PC do that?

If a PC leave the party for a long period of time, it's time to retire the character.



1 on 1 sessions

So last question. I am gonna have to do a 1 on 1 session with our party rogue who missed out on this last session. He had a friend's birthday party that he couldn't miss but insisted on us playing without him, stating he wants to do a 1 on 1 session to catch him up.

Wait, what?

"I'm going to skip a session for a birthday, making the campaign harder for the DM to run, but I also want a 1 on 1 session to make the DM do even MORE work"?

[ReD_Exorcist]

I'm confused by what's going on with the bored player. He wants to be the center of attention, but he doesn't talk? What is separating him from the party intended to accomplish? I'm not getting it.

Re: the rogue, the good news is that your players like your DMing, and care that they missed a session. I think your feeling that you shouldn't have agreed to this 1-on-1 session is correct. It's asking enough of you to prepare one game a week. It really should be sufficient that if someone misses a session, they get caught up on what happened (which you should be doing at the beginning of each session anyway), and that's that. You also have the inherent problem that, if it's meant to be "catching them up" on the session they missed -- i.e., interacting with the same plotline and/or characters -- you could cause ramifications that affect what happened in the main game. If you're doing 1-on-1 sessions at all, you want them to be walled off, so that the player who wasn't there isn't deciding things on behalf of the players who were.

So, basically, I would construct it as "here's what you were off doing somewhere else". Tie it together at the end, but it shouldn't be primarily about what the main session was about. It should be maybe an hour long, if even that. Perhaps it can involve the player's backstory, or characters/subplots that have come up in which this player seemed to express interest and no one else did. It should probably require stealth and other classic rogue things so the player can feel cool. It should be mostly, if not entirely, RP and skill usage. I guess I don't know how this player feels, but I personally don't think combat with only one PC involved is interesting. Anyway, after this is done, get out of this habit :smallwink:

Yeah the player was showing no interest in roleplaying this last session, but I actually spoke with him about it today and his issue was that he didn't like the party spending so much time on just role-playing and making decisions. He figures he could be a lot quicker if it was just him.

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I was feeling I shouldn't have agreed to this 1 on 1, but from here on out, I will make the point of no longer doing them for catch-ups.

[ReD_Exorcist]

Legendary actions would work if it's 7 PCs vs 1 boss, I'd say. But I would recommend using 1 boss with a few mooks, at that level/for the first boss.

Okay perfect. That makes sense



How long does he want to split up from the party and why would his PC do that?

If a PC leave the party for a long period of time, it's time to retire the character.

For the rest of the campaign, his PC wants to do it to get stronger as he states but wouldn't plan on joining the group even after getting stronger. I'll have to have the discussion about the high possibility of his character retiring if he splits off. I could also discuss the possibility of doing a 1 on 1 post by post with him but will be offered as a last resort.


Wait, what?

"I'm going to skip a session for a birthday, making the campaign harder for the DM to run, but I also want a 1 on 1 session to make the DM do even MORE work"

Yeah, I'm laying down the hammer of not doing 1 on 1 session anymore with the players if they miss any more sessions. Like @MeanDean said, I need to get out of that habit asap.

[Tanarii]

Yeah the player was showing no interest in roleplaying this last session, but I actually spoke with him about it today and his issue was that he didn't like the party spending so much time on just role-playing and making decisions. He figures he could be a lot quicker if it was just him.
Important note, roleplaying is making decisions. The brunt of roleplaying occurs when the players are actually doing something, like exploring an adventuring site and fighting and making critical decisions as a result. Not just talky-time with NPCs. Especially if it's meaningless filler talky-time, not actually accomplishing anything other than talking to an NPC. Lots of players will get bored with the latter in no time, especially if it's being mistakenly touted as "roleplaying".

[meandean]

To an extent, if this guy is just in a party where everyone but him enjoys lengthy roleplaying digressions that aren't plot-critical, that's not a problem that you as DM can solve. It's ultimately on the player to find a group that suits them.

But, you can at least try your best to make it work. Needless to say, it's entirely in character for a low-Charisma, self-harming monster hunter to not be much of a Chatty Cathy. That's something that can be actively roleplayed. Encourage the player to try to portray that character, and if the other players are acting like he's not even there, encourage them to include him. Even if it's stuff along the lines of "and what does Mr. Grumpy think about this?", he may well enjoy grunting a sarcastic remark back at them, because he wants to be the Wolverine type who does that.