"There's nothing I can do."

[Catullus64]

I think a really important part of good encounter design is throwing wrenches in the PCs' usual tactics and abilities. Generally, if in every fight every PC gets to do what their character is designed to do without serious friction, I find that boring. I want the characters and players both to have to occasionally fight outside their comfort zone. For instance:


Play around with spacing and terrain to seriously disadvantage melee characters in some fights, ranged characters in others.
Creatures immune to heavily relied-upon damage types.
Magic resistant enemies (Advantage on magic saves, resistance to spell damage, immunity to common spell-inflicted conditions, or special abilities that can really mess with casters).
Fights where PCs are deprived of equipment, including spellcasting foci.
Encounters with non-violent objectives (disable an active magical effect, protect innocents, bail out a sinking ship, succeed at a skill challenge) interspersed with the enemies.


Unfortunately, it seems that nearly every time I do this, some players refuse to rise to the challenge. Typically, once it becomes clear that their usual tactics and abilities will be ineffective in this fight, they'll sulkily say something like "There's nothing I can do here." or "Guess I don't get to play in this fight." They might just keep doing the ineffective thing (keep attacking the slashing-immune creature with an axe, for instance) on autopilot, or they'll stand around doing nothing. If they're a mechanically sophisticated player they might take the Dodge action. No attempt to search their environment for clues as to how to win, improvise new actions using items or utility spells, do more niche but still standardized actions like Grapple or Help, or even suggest a tactical retreat. Just disengagement and complaints.

I really do believe that I'm in the right for wanting to make encounters that force players to think outside the box, but clearly communicating these kinds of encounters is a tricky business when there seems to be a class of players who either don't pick up on it, or don't like the idea of being challenged in that way. How to help this sort of player see that this isn't about shutting them down, but about giving chances to be creative and roleplay? I'm keen to know if anybody else has found a good way of reaching this sort of player.

[KorvinStarmast]

Encounters with non-violent sobjectives (disable an active magical effect, protect innocents, bail out a sinking ship, succeed at a skill challenge) interspersed with the enemies.
Some of may favorite encounters do this.

Your other examples are to be used sparingly. Why would any spell caster not have their spell casting focus on them? It's their bread and butter.
"I am taking your toys away" is not always received with good grace, as you've noticed.
I suggest that you
(1) get to know your players better in terms of how they have fun (there's a nice little treatment of that in the DMG, which is IIRC related to Robin Laws' well presented article on the same) and
(2) do a better job of selling how it improves play to work outside of their comfort zone.

In a "what can I do?" case, we stumbled over how to beat a werewolf at level 2 (immune to mundane weapons). Two martials grappled (help and proficiency) it and the sorcerer cast witch bolt, which kept doing damage.
Yeah, it takes a few rounds, but it's one way to peel the onion.

So too is (if terrain permits) shoving it off of a cliff. It takes falling damage (if one is to accept Crawford's ruling on that).

The other thing you need to do is show or explain all of the non standard items 'in the environment' so that players will perhaps explore using things in non standard ways.

[RSP]

I think a really important part of good encounter design is throwing wrenches in the PCs' usual tactics and abilities.

Agree, however…



I really do believe that I'm in the right for wanting to make encounters that force players to think outside the box, but clearly communicating these kinds of encounters is a tricky business when there seems to be a class of players who either don't pick up on it, or don't like the idea of being challenged in that way.

…it isn’t “wrong” to want to play a different way.

Rather than viewing this way, I’d suggest viewing it as “different people like different things.”

I do agree discussing it with your group is the answer, I’d just stay away from “right” and “wrong” playing. “Hey, as DM, it isn’t really fun for me to just tee-up encounters that play to your character’s strengths all the time, however, this seems to go against what some of you are looking for in this game…” might be a good start to the discussion.

[Xervous]

It looks like you’ve got some unlisted assumptions about what makes a good encounter.

[CapnWildefyr]

Some players only want to do certain things. It's how they have fun.

However, in the past I've done things like:

Have someone make an Int or Wis check to notice something potentially useful
Have an int or wis check to notice other conditions or vulnerabilities
be sure to mention, in the intro speech, conditions and items that could be useful
foreshadowing so they can plan ahead


Sometimes a player just won't go out of the box for a good reason. For example, when playing a one-trick pony who is not bright enough to notice things. You'd be "cheating" if your Int 8 barb outthinks everyone. So, then you have to encourage the other players to advise the one-trick pony.

Usually I try not to be too blunt with hints and descriptions, but pointing out opponent's proximity to a cliff edge, or "it looks like that cart can move easily" or "the cart looks stable and you'd get advantage on your attacks" can help. Also making sure they have access to something useful beforehand -- like vials of acid when a fire-based spellcaster meets fire-immune opponents. And an Int check to remember you're carrying them.

EDIT: So yeah I'm not trying to discuss what makes a good encounter, just trying to offer some suggestions about how to make them work in your case, and assuming you're not always disallowing player strengths. Just sometimes, for fun.

[Dame_Mechanus]

The thing is that I agree with your first priority here - fights should be memorable in and of themselves, and there is no point in having every encounter functionally be "we fought X in a clear space with no obstructions and no other problems." However, much of what it sounds like you're doing to make these fights more interesting is immediately taking away player abilities, frequently the ones that they consider defining attributes of how their characters work, and the trick is that as much as that feels like it's a way to make things more interesting ("you guys rely on magic a lot, so what happens when you don't have any?") it winds up mostly being annoying. Not because they're trying to fall back on tried-and-true tactics instead of thinking outside of the box, but because they showed up to do something and you're telling them no.

Let's use Haley as an example and assume that Haley is actually a player character in a game. Haley's player wants to play a rogue with a bow. If she keeps getting stuck in combat encounters wherein being a rogue with a bow is useless or she has to completely change tactics, the player isn't going to be having fun, because her player wants to be a rogue with a bow.

So how do you make combat more interesting and diverse? Oddly, it's not by making the usual options ineffective, it's by making other options available and drawing attention to them.

Let's use an example. Say you've decided that the players are going to have a big fight with bandits in an open city street, and they're coming from multiple angles. You might think that this is a really boring fight in which everyone is just going to use the most basic tactics. But if you put a lot of straw in the otherwise empty stables as well as some hanging lamps a decent archer could shoot down, suddenly the archer or a caster has an option to start a fire, disable several bandits, and create a number of environmental challenges. And let's make the city street not completely empty, so there are innocent people there, meaning that everyone doesn't want to use their most damaging wide-area attacks and wants to be smarter. You've also got a barbarian in the group, so let's give the bandits one or two real bruisers, the sort of people that an enraged berserker would want to tear into. And hey, let's work in some elevation changes to consider as well, and maybe some of the bandits are specifically taking hostages...

The trick when removing player options is always to make it feel like the player made the decision, not the GM. If you tell an archer that their bow just doesn't work in this fight based on the terrain, they're going to feel cheated. But if the archer chooses to rush into melee range to save a child and then has to struggle to get back into a ranged position and snipe, they feel like this is on them, even if you put the child there to encourage them to rush into melee range and make a bad decision.

[Sorinth]

There's definitely a large portion of players who think of the game as needing to have a button that they can push to do anything. So when you take away their standard button they look around for other buttons and can't find any and so there's nothing they can do. As an example if their axe doesn't work one strategy might be to become a distraction and goad the enemy into attack them to buy time for the rest of the party, but if they don't have the goading attack maneuver then they don't think they can even try to goad an enemy into focusing on them even if you as the DM would allow an attempt.

I think it's somewhat of a learned behaviour to playing games, so to break that habit you probably need to start with prompting them with possible actions to take that their character would know as effective tactics when they can't just attack. But keep in mind there's no right/wrong way to play and no doubt some don't want a free for all game where anyone can attempt anything because it devalues the character build aspect where they plan out how to acquire/use buttons.

One other suggestion I have is to not make scenarios where one character is useless and has to find something creative but instead make it so everybody is useless until they solve the puzzle. So don't make the creature immune to BSP damage unless they break the totem granting the creature invulnerability, make the invulnerability apply to everything, and make it clear where the source is coming from so that they have a direction.

[Keravath]

I think throwing wrenches into player actions requires significant insight and good communications skills.

Not every player is as imaginative as another or as the DM. In addition, not every DM or player thinks about the environment of an encounter the same way.

-----

As an example, a DM I was playing with decided to run Invisible Stalkers as automatically hidden except at the moment they made an attack - it was a snowy/windy environment so it wasn't unreasonable. The stalker would attack someone from nowhere and then was effectively impossible to track when it moved away.

Did it prevent the players from using their usual tactics? Absolutely. Was it fun? Absolutely not.

The best response most of the players came up with was either dodging or readying an action to make one attack when the stalker attacked someone. It was still invisible so attacks were at disadvantage for the players, advantage for the stalkers.

Being invisible already prevented a lot of spell casting since many spells required a target you can see. I ended up casting a fireball into an area where I thought the stalkers might be - I hit one. Other players were standing around mostly twiddling their thumbs. The bard tried faerie fire but it didn't get anything either due to saves or because they weren't there.

Eventually, the DM let us know that we could throw snow into the air to try to reveal the location of the stalkers. Personally, I didn't think of this option because as far as I was concerned that isn't how invisibility works in 5e (I'm not a fan of carrying a bag of flour to throw in the air to reveal invisible creatures - but it was a tactic like that the DM expected the characters to come up with - none of the 5 players thought of it - different people - different ways of imagining how things work). We still had disadvantage on the attacks but at least we knew where the targets were.

-----

So unless the differences in the terrain/tools available/creature abilities are seamlessly integrated into the story without the DM expecting one specific solution to the problem - I find this kind of thing doesn't work that well.

If a DM creates a situation where specific characters really can't do anything effective against the opponents except look around and hope for inspiration then the DM hasn't communicated the situation very well (assuming there IS something they could do) or the DM just decided that a specific character or group of characters won't be able to contribute much to the encounter. Some players just don't consider variety in spells. For example, a cool fire sorcerer concept using the red or gold dragon draconic sorcerer, with elemental affinity fire and firebolt, scorching ray and fireball ... sounds great until they face fiends immune to fire damage. If the player didn't consider this then there may really be nothing much they can do depending on what other spells they might have selected.

The same goes for a GWM fighter using a non-magical great sword. A creature immune to BPS damage is an obstacle they can't do much about (lycanthropes are a good example). So if a DM is going to put in challenges to character's usual tactics they need to be well communicated and not so powerful as to shut down everything a character can do (and looking around the environment for a tree to knock over really isn't a decent alternative).

I've found that even just advantage on saves or effects that give disadvantage to be hit can be sufficient to provide a decent challenge. As an example, a monk in a game I run uses stun very effectively and since ki is restored on a short rest, they use it a lot. I put in some enemies with advantage on saves vs stun ... it was just enough of a challenge to spice up the combat without leaving the monk feeling ineffective.

[lall]

Fights where PCs are deprived of equipment, including spellcasting foci.
My bard only has his clothes, currency, and a pouch for the currency. Rarely casts M spells, particularly in combat, but when he needs to, will cast Prestidigitation first for a whistle. For M spells with longer casting times, will first cast Fabricate (terrain dependent of course so may need to Word of Recall first to get to the right spot) to make a whistle.

Having said all of that, I can relate to your players that just give up. If/when my bard runs into a puzzle of any sort, he’ll first let the other party members have at it. If that didn’t work I’ll say something like “he tries to figure it out.” If the DM asks me to roll some sort of check, great. Otherwise, I guess that puzzle won’t be solved. I, the player, will attempt to solve the puzzle just as soon as I the player will bust out a weapon and show off my martial skills.

[solidork]

We've spent the last three sessions trying to pin down this undead witch that has invsibility and teleportation abilities. She's not that dangerous in a stand up fight, but she's very good at avoiding that - we've drawn her into multiple ambushes and all we've managed to do is keep her on the back foot while we wait for back up that can seal her away again.

They've been some of the most engaging and interesting sessions of D&D I've ever played.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

For the most part you are correct in that players do need to be tripped up for fights and forced to think smart. While I personally would be in your camp and as a player welcome such things to force me to think, not all players share that mentality. Some just want a simple, "I attack" and call it a day. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing is a debate for another day.

For your situation, did you discuss this with your players of how you will be running encounters prior to starting? If so and if they agreed to it then the complaints are invalid as they were told upfront what to expect. If you didn't, then you need to have that discussion on what the party expects of your encounters, what you want to do and come to some form of agreement.

[Pex]

It's not a question of whether it's ok to have an encounter where a PC is not in his element. It is ok. The question is how often you do it. Doing it every combat where one PC "doesn't get to play" is wrong. Even doing it only during BBEG combats but every BBEG combat a player "doesn't get to play" is wrong.

I definitely know how the player feels. The details aren't important but in one particular encounter, the DM through improvising a combat by Honest True complete accident neutered my character. There was literally nothing for me to do. I did nothing that combat. I was upset. The DM was upset. We weren't upset with each other. It really was an accident. To do it on purpose is way worse.

Never completely shut down a PC. It's fine for one combat they have to think outside the box of their normal modus operandi. Do not do it every combat nor only in the important ones.

[Sorinth]

It's not a question of whether it's ok to have an encounter where a PC is not in his element. It is ok. The question is how often you do it. Doing it every combat where one PC "doesn't get to play" is wrong. Even doing it only during BBEG combats but every BBEG combat a player "doesn't get to play" is wrong.

I definitely know how the player feels. The details aren't important but in one particular encounter, the DM through improvising a combat by Honest True complete accident neutered my character. There was literally nothing for me to do. I did nothing that combat. I was upset. The DM was upset. We weren't upset with each other. It really was an accident. To do it on purpose is way worse.

Never completely shut down a PC. It's fine for one combat they have to think outside the box of their normal modus operandi. Do not do it every combat nor only in the important ones.

I would even say never shut down specific players for the important boss fights, if your going to go with encounters that block a players standard tactics those encounters should be the lesser encounters that are there to drain resources so the "cost" of them doing nothing vs thinking of something creative is just a matter of resource expenditure.

[da newt]

I also like more interesting challenges both in and out of combat, (something more interesting than I attack with my weapon, then you attack with your's, and repeat until one of us runs out of HP) but not everyone enjoys that sort of thing. For some folks constraints are like a straight jacket - to be avoided at all costs, for others constraints provide a comfort like a swaddled kid. To each their own, there is no right or wrong preference.

This sounds like a good session zero discussion point and you ought to be prepared to move towards your player's desires if they don't match yours ...

[Catullus64]

It's not a question of whether it's ok to have an encounter where a PC is not in his element. It is ok. The question is how often you do it. Doing it every combat where one PC "doesn't get to play" is wrong. Even doing it only during BBEG combats but every BBEG combat a player "doesn't get to play" is wrong.

I definitely know how the player feels. The details aren't important but in one particular encounter, the DM through improvising a combat by Honest True complete accident neutered my character. There was literally nothing for me to do. I did nothing that combat. I was upset. The DM was upset. We weren't upset with each other. It really was an accident. To do it on purpose is way worse.

Never completely shut down a PC. It's fine for one combat they have to think outside the box of their normal modus operandi. Do not do it every combat nor only in the important ones.

But see, that's just the attitude I find so frustrating: that not getting to do your usual thing equates to "shutting down" or "neutering" a PC. To me it says that that player thinks of their character primarily as a set of buttons to press, and that when none of the buttons work, you can't play. I don't find it fun to play with people who think like that, and I at least want to try to help people see it that way before writing them off as irreconcilable to the kind of game I want to run.

As for the question of frequency, I usually try to have roughly every other encounter involve such a curveball, while the other half are generally resource management tests or the occasional opportunity to blow off steam demolishing minimally threatening opponents. When you consider that not every curveball will affect every PC, it' very unlikely for a PC to have their usual gimmick or tactics shut down more than once per session.

[Dame_Mechanus]

But see, that's just the attitude I find so frustrating: that not getting to do your usual thing equates to "shutting down" or "neutering" a PC. To me it says that that player thinks of their character primarily as a set of buttons to press, and that when none of the buttons work, you can't play. I don't find it fun to play with people who think like that, and I at least want to try to help people see it that way before writing them off as irreconcilable to the kind of game I want to run.

As for the question of frequency, I usually try to have roughly every other encounter involve such a curveball, while the other half are generally resource management tests or the occasional opportunity to blow off steam demolishing minimally threatening opponents. When you consider that not every curveball will affect every PC, it' very unlikely for a PC to have their usual gimmick or tactics shut down more than once per session.

I don't know, if I had made my character to be a Paladin with a greatsword who fights with righteous, divine fury against those who would do evil, I would be pretty upset if once per session I was told not to do that. (Not super upset because that's an archetype that I've played hundreds of times, but that's a me problem.) Especially because that's not actually throwing me a curveball or giving me an interesting problem, it's just shutting down a character I made to do X and basically having my X be rendered useless.

Level also plays a factor here. If my Paladin is level 10 and is, for whatever reason, honor-bound not to draw her weapon in this fight, I can probably manage to do something through creative use of spellcasting and other techniques. If she's level 2, odds are good that she's not actually able to do much other than draw her sword and smack things in half.

It seems to me, at least, like you're treating this like it's a problem with the players when your description doesn't really back that up. The player who made that Paladin made her because they wanted to play her a specific way, and while it's good to have diverse and memorable combat encounters, that shouldn't come at the cost of doing what the player came here to do in the first place. That's not failing to think of diverse or inventive solutions, that's like paying money for a roller coaster and being told "I want you to try riding something else, go over to the ferris wheel for a bit." Even if you like the wheel, that's not what you came here for right now.

[x3n0n]

But see, that's just the attitude I find so frustrating: that not getting to do your usual thing equates to "shutting down" or "neutering" a PC. To me it says that that player thinks of their character primarily as a set of buttons to press, and that when none of the buttons work, you can't play. I don't find it fun to play with people who think like that, and I at least want to try to help people see it that way before writing them off as irreconcilable to the kind of game I want to run.

As for the question of frequency, I usually try to have roughly every other encounter involve such a curveball, while the other half are generally resource management tests or the occasional opportunity to blow off steam demolishing minimally threatening opponents. When you consider that not every curveball will affect every PC, it' very unlikely for a PC to have their usual gimmick or tactics shut down more than once per session.

There are players whose favorite parts of the game system (that is, the parts that are embedded in the rules and the mechanics) are the sub-game of creating PCs that have particularly interesting tools ("buttons to press") and then discovering while playing the game whether those particular tools are fun and/or powerful.
If the answer is "you don't get to play with that tool" pretty frequently (once per session sounds like a lot, depending on your session length), that certainly sounds like it would be frustrating for those players. ("If EVERY character can do this (e.g., attempt to grapple, pick up nearby item and use it, trigger particular environmental effect), then why did I bother building THIS character instead of running a pre-gen?")

Even more so if the challenge is intended to be a highlight of the campaign. ("Remember that time that the boss kited us and I had no way to interact except throw javelins at disadvantage? That was awesome!")

Such players hopefully also enjoy being at the table and hanging out with people, and they may enjoy exploring other parts of the rules that aren't tied to their particular characters' mechanical abilities, but those aspects can definitely be secondary or tertiary.

I'll echo what others have said--some above-table discussion outside combat could help you determine what people want from the game, and whether that's a game that you're willing to run.

[Abracadangit]

I think there's a couple of things happening, here.

I know there are a lot of players who get their roleplaying fix from their character's personality, their dialogue with NPCs, the goofy one-liners, etc., but I think there's just as large a contingent of players who roleplay primarily through the Things They Can Do, as opposed to the character's personal identity. There's like a million threads on this forum of people yelling at each other about how to fix the Monk, how to make the Wizard's theming fun outside of spells, and so on, because people want the Things They Can Do to reflect the fantasy they have of playing that particular class.

Taking away the Things Someone Can Do feels like merely a reshuffling of strategy -- "Well if you can't melee the monster, you gotta figure something else out, time to get creative" -- but for the player playing that character, a part of their character's identity has effectively just been grayed out. It'd be like if someone showed up to a superhero RPG to play as an imitation Spider-Man, and every so many encounters got their web-shooters taken away. Does it force them to get more creative? Maybe, but remember, they showed up to this game being told they could be Spider-Man, and were planning on expressing that "Spider-Man-ness" through the Things They Can Do.

I'm not saying you necessarily need to recalibrate your encounter design -- you're the DM, you should be running the game you want to run -- but I think we should at least try to understand the players' frustration instead of writing them off as button-pushers.

Secondly, if you want your players to think outside of their boxes, you gotta telegraph the ever-loving heck out of these environmental/puzzley/creative other options you want them to take. I mean it. Because if you don't, everyone's mental model is gonna be the default actions that they have available. Have an NPC standing there yelling that the Environmental Thing is over here. And if you want it to stick, I'd recommend making the environmental/creative options punchy, or flashy, or they set something off really cool. They need to not just be something mildly helpful or convenient, they need to be FUN. Because the idea is you want to reward them for doing these things, for thinking outside of the box.

Once you've blown open their mental models, you can take away the Screaming NPC because now they're just gonna start looking for cool things to do, rather than always resorting to actions they have available.

[Xervous]

If you’re shutting players down mechanically that’s a good way to get them biting back mechanically.

This is the same GM mindset that yields orphan loner characters who have no backstory strings to pluck because of GM negative reinforcement.

[Psyren]

Some players only want to do certain things. It's how they have fun.

However, in the past I've done things like:

Have someone make an Int or Wis check to notice something potentially useful
Have an int or wis check to notice other conditions or vulnerabilities
be sure to mention, in the intro speech, conditions and items that could be useful
foreshadowing so they can plan ahead




All of these! Just because the PLAYER might not notice alternative tactics or useful things in the environment, doesn't mean the CHARACTER won't.

Furthermore OP - make sure that these outside-the-box encounters are not happening too frequently. What the characters chose to play should be what they get to play most of the time, and just because a tactic is default or routine for them doesn't mean they aren't having fun doing it. By all means mix things up, but make sure they get to shine in the way they want to shine most of the time.

[Catullus64]

There are players whose favorite parts of the game system (that is, the parts that are embedded in the rules and the mechanics) are the sub-game of creating PCs that have particularly interesting tools ("buttons to press") and then discovering while playing the game whether those particular tools are fun and/or powerful.
If the answer is "you don't get to play with that tool" pretty frequently (once per session sounds like a lot, depending on your session length), that certainly sounds like it would be frustrating for those players. ("If EVERY character can do this (e.g., attempt to grapple, pick up nearby item and use it, trigger particular environmental effect), then why did I bother building THIS character instead of running a pre-gen?")

Even more so if the challenge is intended to be a highlight of the campaign. ("Remember that time that the boss kited us and I had no way to interact except throw javelins at disadvantage? That was awesome!")

Such players hopefully also enjoy being at the table and hanging out with people, and they may enjoy exploring other parts of the rules that aren't tied to their particular characters' mechanical abilities, but those aspects can definitely be secondary or tertiary.

I'll echo what others have said--some above-table discussion outside combat could help you determine what people want from the game, and whether that's a game that you're willing to run.

This is probably the most helpful framing of the problem I've seen so far, and actually helps clarify the difference in values.

When I'm a player rather than a DM, I'm generally much more interested in getting to do cool stuff as a player than as a character. Making a powerful and effective character in this edition is very easy, so the real fun and challenge for me is getting to do stuff that depends on my own creativity and problem-solving skills, and is emergent from the fantastical scenarios in which the characters find themselves. That's what distinguishes my character from the dozens of others with the same abilities that I've seen before. I don't have a ton of attachment to most of my mechanical features. The ones I am attached to are generally the ones that are highly adaptable to different situations. (Stuff like Natural Explorer, Cunning Action, Fast Hands, Misty Visions, Eye for Detail, Minor Alchemy, Mask of Many Faces, certain tool proficiencies, a few of the Battlemaster maneuvers, many utility cantrips.)

I also want to run games that give that experience to other players, which require them to be adventurous, creative, quick-thinking, or charismatic as players. If someone comes to my table only really interested in the fantasy represented by their character sheet, then the mismatch of expectations is certain to cause trouble. What I really need to work on now is how to pitch games such that people understand better what I expect of them; it seems like a rather difficult subject to cover without in some way disparaging the individual character fantasy that someone brings to the table.

[Xervous]

This is probably the most helpful framing of the problem I've seen so far, and actually helps clarify the difference in values.

When I'm a player rather than a DM, I'm generally much more interested in getting to do cool stuff as a player than as a character. Making a powerful and effective character in this edition is very easy, so the real fun and challenge for me is getting to do stuff that depends on my own creativity and problem-solving skills, and is emergent from the fantastical scenarios in which the characters find themselves. That's what distinguishes my character from the dozens of others with the same abilities that I've seen before. I don't have a ton of attachment to most of my mechanical features. The ones I am attached to are generally the ones that are highly adaptable to different situations. (Stuff like Natural Explorer, Cunning Action, Fast Hands, Misty Visions, Eye for Detail, Minor Alchemy, Mask of Many Faces, certain tool proficiencies, a few of the Battlemaster maneuvers, many utility cantrips.)

I also want to run games that give that experience to other players, which require them to be adventurous, creative, quick-thinking, or charismatic as players. If someone comes to my table only really interested in the fantasy represented by their character sheet, then the mismatch of expectations is certain to cause trouble. What I really need to work on now is how to pitch games such that people understand better what I expect of them; it seems like a rather difficult subject to cover without in some way disparaging the individual character fantasy that someone brings to the table.

This is infinitely better framing and you’re arriving at the real struggle, communication. Rather than puzzling over how many dots to tell the players in session 0, start by asking them what their expectations are. Hit them with examples to check what wavelength they are on.

“How would you feel about a scene where the monsters were all flying and you were melee?”

“I would shrug and let the wizard solve it.”

“Why? What makes you think there wouldn’t be other options?”

<player explains the disconnect between their expectations and the face value of their scene.>

If they are willing to play along, it’s about finding how to show them there is a way. They won’t reach into the mist if they don’t expect anything to be there.

Be mindful that sometimes the answer is the player just doesn’t want what you’re selling. You gotta do the work to rule out the other avenues to get to that knowledge.

[MrStabby]

It always gets a bit concerning when the game moves away from a PC doing what the player wants them to do and moves instead to the PC doing what the DM wants them to do. I mean this a a bit of a continuum, not a binary thing and sometimes a bit of movement is justified but as a basic starting point, be more and more alarmed the mor say a DM takes upon themselves here.

Sometimes a DM has to do this to make space for another character to shine or to reflect some part of the world, but it should be done sparingly.

There really is a question about when, if at all, to do this. Certainly not significant fights, either in terms of being the most deadly or in terms of plot significance. Imagine the frustration of a TPK or near TPK that you didn't get to do your cool things in. Just the knowledge that you could have contributed and stopped your party getting stomped if your enemies hadn't been immune to fire/prone/poisoned or whatever.

On the other hand I don't mind basically sitting out the occasional encounter to let other people shine if it's it's place where that makes sense. In fact it's more likely I will sit something out than adjust tactics sometimes. If I am playing an enchanter wizard and come accross charm immune enemies, thats the DM's right. They get to describe the world and if that contains enemies I can't fight that's within their purview. However, it's not for the DM to decided that my character casts fireballs. No matter how many scrolls of fireball my character "finds", if my vision for the character is of someone who looks down on crude blasting magics, then they won't be casting the spell. Trying to force me to not play my character but instead to play my character as the DM envisages it is not really going to work put well.

Thankfully, there is an easy solution. Speak to your players. Find out what the important part of their character is, what is negotiable and what isn't. Then you can challenge them in a way that makes them do something new but also that still let's them play the character they chose.

[Dr.Samurai]

I think a really important part of good encounter design is throwing wrenches in the PCs' usual tactics and abilities. Generally, if in every fight every PC gets to do what their character is designed to do without serious friction, I find that boring. I want the characters and players both to have to occasionally fight outside their comfort zone. For instance:


Play around with spacing and terrain to seriously disadvantage melee characters in some fights, ranged characters in others.
Creatures immune to heavily relied-upon damage types.
Magic resistant enemies (Advantage on magic saves, resistance to spell damage, immunity to common spell-inflicted conditions, or special abilities that can really mess with casters).
Fights where PCs are deprived of equipment, including spellcasting foci.
Encounters with non-violent objectives (disable an active magical effect, protect innocents, bail out a sinking ship, succeed at a skill challenge) interspersed with the enemies.


Unfortunately, it seems that nearly every time I do this, some players refuse to rise to the challenge. Typically, once it becomes clear that their usual tactics and abilities will be ineffective in this fight, they'll sulkily say something like "There's nothing I can do here." or "Guess I don't get to play in this fight." They might just keep doing the ineffective thing (keep attacking the slashing-immune creature with an axe, for instance) on autopilot, or they'll stand around doing nothing. If they're a mechanically sophisticated player they might take the Dodge action. No attempt to search their environment for clues as to how to win, improvise new actions using items or utility spells, do more niche but still standardized actions like Grapple or Help, or even suggest a tactical retreat. Just disengagement and complaints.

I really do believe that I'm in the right for wanting to make encounters that force players to think outside the box, but clearly communicating these kinds of encounters is a tricky business when there seems to be a class of players who either don't pick up on it, or don't like the idea of being challenged in that way. How to help this sort of player see that this isn't about shutting them down, but about giving chances to be creative and roleplay? I'm keen to know if anybody else has found a good way of reaching this sort of player.
So much of a character's abilities are tied up in combat stuff. The assumption is that you will use those things in combat.

Much of the rest of the game is not defined very well. Improv/Ask the DM/Set a DC, so it's not like players are really encouraged to lean into that part of the game. Players don't really spend a lot of time thinking about it because there's nothing to think about. Whereas your class features, racial traits, feats/skills are there and hard coded. You know what they do and you expect to use them.

You pick your race/class/features because you want to do those things. Players aren't vested in improvising so it doesn't come as naturally.

I'd speak to them, as others have suggested, and I'd hesitate to do these types of challenges too often.

[meandean]

I think it at least helps to err on the side of telegraphing it well in advance. If you telegraph to the Red Dragon Sorcerer that they're going to face a bunch of fire-immune enemies next session, that feels more like an interesting puzzle for them to figure out. ("Telegraphing" can very well be up to the point of literally reminding them "And your character would know that..." etc. etc.) On the other hand, if the boss battle starts and the gimmick of the battle turns out to be that their standard loadout is useless... well, that may sound to the DM like a fun challenge to their creativity. But compared to the situation where they're prepared for it, there's a much higher chance that the player will feel helpless, or targeted, or that the DM is increasing the challenge level by metagaming, or otherwise rebellious.

[Waterdeep Merch]

In video games, a common tactic is to slowly introduce enemies in a stage or locale; first with things that can be dispatched easily, then mixed with more difficult types that are better fought with a specific strategy, then capping with foes that all but must be dispatched in particular ways to succeed. The boss then builds on these strategies in some way.

I like to design dungeons like this, and it allows for everything you're looking for. Say it's a low level goblin cave. Your first few encounters are with simple spear-wielding goblins, nothing special. But then you run into their offense-oriented bugbear friends that prefer ambushes, then their tanky hobgoblin commanders that try to use cover and small hallways, and maybe cap things with worg riding archers and healing shamans. All culminating with a fight against a mounted hobgoblin cleric.

The idea is to slowly introduce the more challenging aspects of the dungeon, sprinkled in with those basic types who are partly there to act like living bubble wrap. Let a few encounters, and enemies within larger encounters, be embarrassingly easy to dispatch. It lets players feel good about themselves, enough to help them stomach the added difficulty. Even if it added virtually nothing else.

[MrStabby]

I think it at least helps to err on the side of telegraphing it well in advance. If you telegraph to the Red Dragon Sorcerer that they're going to face a bunch of fire-immune enemies next session, that feels more like an interesting puzzle for them to figure out. ("Telegraphing" can very well be up to the point of literally saying to them "And your character would know that..." etc. etc.) On the other hand, if the boss battle starts and the gimmick of the battle turns out to be that their standard loadout is useless... well, that may sound to the DM like a fun challenge to their creativity. But compared to the situation where they're prepared for it, there's a much higher chance that the player will feel helpless, or targeted, or that the DM is increasing the challenge level by metagaming, or otherwise rebellious.

I think it helps the telegraph this before the start of the campaign at a time when people can still chose their character. Pushing the players to have more diverse, optimised builds rather than thematic specialist builds is fine, but do it in time to allow the players to design characters that will be well characterised by that build.

[Mastikator]

But see, that's just the attitude I find so frustrating: that not getting to do your usual thing equates to "shutting down" or "neutering" a PC. To me it says that that player thinks of their character primarily as a set of buttons to press, and that when none of the buttons work, you can't play. I don't find it fun to play with people who think like that, and I at least want to try to help people see it that way before writing them off as irreconcilable to the kind of game I want to run.

As for the question of frequency, I usually try to have roughly every other encounter involve such a curveball, while the other half are generally resource management tests or the occasional opportunity to blow off steam demolishing minimally threatening opponents. When you consider that not every curveball will affect every PC, it' very unlikely for a PC to have their usual gimmick or tactics shut down more than once per session.

Yeah but some characters actually are like this. They have a very specific set of skills and if you render those skills unavailable then my PC is a commoner with more HP.

I've been in situations where I say "skip my turn" on my turn, turn after turn, battle after battle. And boy does it suck. It sucks when you fail a wisdom save and now you're shut down for the entire battle. Then next one you're the only one without darkvision so all your attacks against MR super high AC monster come with disadvantage and you wonder why you're wasting arrows. THEN you actually run out of arrows and all the monsters have resistance to what little damage you can do. "Oh but uhhhhh grapple them" sorry I didn't make a high strength barbarian. "oohh but throw sand in his face", DM says there's no sand.

A lot of stuff that goes beyond "buttons to press" are extremely dependent on the DM. They say "no" and now you have literally no useful actions.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Yeah but some characters actually are like this. They have a very specific set of skills and if you render those skills unavailable then my PC is a commoner with more HP.

I've been in situations where I say "skip my turn" on my turn, turn after turn, battle after battle. And boy does it suck. It sucks when you fail a wisdom save and now you're shut down for the entire battle. Then next one you're the only one without darkvision so all your attacks against MR super high AC monster come with disadvantage and you wonder why you're wasting arrows. THEN you actually run out of arrows and all the monsters have resistance to what little damage you can do. "Oh but uhhhhh grapple them" sorry I didn't make a high strength barbarian. "oohh but throw sand in his face", DM says there's no sand.

A lot of stuff that goes beyond "buttons to press" are extremely dependent on the DM. They say "no" and now you have literally no useful actions.

This is another good reason to keep cheap, easily killed mooks around in every fight. Consider it a consolation prize for players that would otherwise have to sit around bored, waiting for the relevant players to finish their fight.

Or, borrowing an idea from Eden Studios: if you know you're going to be singling out a player for whatever reason, offer them something for being a good sport about it. Inspiration might be enough in most cases. "I know you're kitted for melee and really can't compete in a ranged duel, so this is my apology. You'll get your's soon enough." That sort of thing.

Or-or, be sure to smartly include weapons or powers that bridge the gap for anyone that would otherwise be left out cold. Not enough to outshine the specialists, that's unfair for different reasons. But enough to feel like they can contribute meaningfully.

[Dame_Mechanus]

This is another good reason to keep cheap, easily killed mooks around in every fight. Consider it a consolation prize for players that would otherwise have to sit around bored, waiting for the relevant players to finish their fight.

Or, borrowing an idea from Eden Studios: if you know you're going to be singling out a player for whatever reason, offer them something for being a good sport about it. Inspiration might be enough in most cases. "I know you're kitted for melee and really can't compete in a ranged duel, so this is my apology. You'll get your's soon enough." That sort of thing.

Or-or, be sure to smartly include weapons or powers that bridge the gap for anyone that would otherwise be left out cold. Not enough to outshine the specialists, that's unfair for different reasons. But enough to feel like they can contribute meaningfully.

Or-or-or, to continue this suggestion, sometimes it's enough to give the players who can't participate in combat something that they can participate in elsewhere. A prime example from the comic is the giant ambush in Utterly Dwarfed; Elan doesn't have anything to fight because he can't fly or slowfall, he can't match a giant for strength, and he doesn't have a whole party to buff. But he does have repairing and healing to do along the way, so he's still important and useful. Give a player situations that they can solve with their skills, and they might not even notice that the fight takes them out of the action.

"No, there's no use for me in there as a sword fighter, and I need to calm the horses and lead them out of the stable before they trample everyone and hurt you and themselves! I'll be back as soon as I can, leave me some!"

[Waterdeep Merch]

Or-or-or, to continue this suggestion, sometimes it's enough to give the players who can't participate in combat something that they can participate in elsewhere. A prime example from the comic is the giant ambush in Utterly Dwarfed; Elan doesn't have anything to fight because he can't fly or slowfall, he can't match a giant for strength, and he doesn't have a whole party to buff. But he does have repairing and healing to do along the way, so he's still important and useful. Give a player situations that they can solve with their skills, and they might not even notice that the fight takes them out of the action.

"No, there's no use for me in there as a sword fighter, and I need to calm the horses and lead them out of the stable before they trample everyone and hurt you and themselves! I'll be back as soon as I can, leave me some!"

That's a really good one! More applicable in non-dungeon crawling scenarios, which seems to be much more common for most people.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Consider also what you may have inadvertently already taught the players about your playstyle. There are some DMs for whom I know not to build a subtle character; it won't go well.

[MrStabby]

Or-or-or, to continue this suggestion, sometimes it's enough to give the players who can't participate in combat something that they can participate in elsewhere. A prime example from the comic is the giant ambush in Utterly Dwarfed; Elan doesn't have anything to fight because he can't fly or slowfall, he can't match a giant for strength, and he doesn't have a whole party to buff. But he does have repairing and healing to do along the way, so he's still important and useful. Give a player situations that they can solve with their skills, and they might not even notice that the fight takes them out of the action.


One reason I think this is a good example is that this is something that Elan specifically chose to be capable of doing. It isn't a DM deciding that this is what he can do or a mandatory, non-optional class feature lumped in with other things the player values.

This is a good example of the imaginary DM letting the player do something their character chose to be good at, letting them have the say in which abilities get to be awesome.

[Dame_Mechanus]

One reason I think this is a good example is that this is something that Elan specifically chose to be capable of doing. It isn't a DM deciding that this is what he can do or a mandatory, non-optional class feature lumped in with other things the player values.

This is a good example of the imaginary DM letting the player do something their character chose to be good at, letting them have the say in which abilities get to be awesome.

One of the things I try to do when the group is first creating characters is have everyone come up with a list of things their character is awesome at. It should be at least three items long and should not feature more than one point about combat. It's not a hard-and-fast rule, of course, but I find it helps do two things: Encourage me to think of situations wherein my players can look and feel awesome without having to kill things, and encourage players to think of their characters doing things other than battling monsters.

Accomplished players will often do this without having to be told or encouraged. I remember one campaign I was playing an agendered golem who was part of a mechanical race that had been made to serve noble bloodlines and now wound up usually stuck in that role generations after they were supposed to be a thing, with my particular character not even actually having a name at the start of the game. I decided during play that it was going to be an expert tailor, resulting in it repeatedly crafting disguises for the party, and it also became the head of a golem freedom movement. Which didn't take away from the fact that when combat started up it was a big metal golem that was quite good at punching people into bloody gibs as necessary, but it meant that everyone thought of it as something other than "the huge golem who punches everything."

Just like I mentioned above that players will be more inclined to be okay with being weakened if it feels like their own choice, players will be ecstatic if they get to look cool and do something challenging even if they're not able to fight everybody.

[Keravath]

This is probably the most helpful framing of the problem I've seen so far, and actually helps clarify the difference in values.

When I'm a player rather than a DM, I'm generally much more interested in getting to do cool stuff as a player than as a character. Making a powerful and effective character in this edition is very easy, so the real fun and challenge for me is getting to do stuff that depends on my own creativity and problem-solving skills, and is emergent from the fantastical scenarios in which the characters find themselves. That's what distinguishes my character from the dozens of others with the same abilities that I've seen before. I don't have a ton of attachment to most of my mechanical features. The ones I am attached to are generally the ones that are highly adaptable to different situations. (Stuff like Natural Explorer, Cunning Action, Fast Hands, Misty Visions, Eye for Detail, Minor Alchemy, Mask of Many Faces, certain tool proficiencies, a few of the Battlemaster maneuvers, many utility cantrips.)

I also want to run games that give that experience to other players, which require them to be adventurous, creative, quick-thinking, or charismatic as players. If someone comes to my table only really interested in the fantasy represented by their character sheet, then the mismatch of expectations is certain to cause trouble. What I really need to work on now is how to pitch games such that people understand better what I expect of them; it seems like a rather difficult subject to cover without in some way disparaging the individual character fantasy that someone brings to the table.

I think you are framing the issue much better here.

"the real fun and challenge for me is getting to do stuff that depends on my own creativity and problem-solving skills"
"I also want to run games that give that experience to other players, which require them to be adventurous, creative, quick-thinking, or charismatic as players."

You want PLAYERS who are SMART, who are CREATIVE, who think LOGICALLY, who have PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS, who are CHARISMATIC, who are QUICK-THINKING - you want the PLAYERS to have all these characteristics and use them to solve in game problems.

However, the honest truth is that the vast majority of folks are NOT geniuses who can solve logic problems, speak charismatically in character, quickly come up with a solution on the spur of the moment, look around, read the DMs mind and find solutions even when their character provides them with no options. That describes a very small fraction of the players who play D&D. No matter how you try to run a session zero, or how you describe what you want to your players - if this is what you are looking for then it will fail for most groups of people.

I have groups with some players who love solving problems and others who hate trying to resolve a logic problem. I have introverts and extroverts. People who think carefully and come up with cool answers but take a while, others who leap in and do whatever even if it isn't a great answer. People who are social but not logical and vice versa. D&D fits a vast number of different folks.

In addition, D&D is a role playing game - the player is PLAYING their character - while you want them to play themselves using the player's abilities rather than the character's abilities to resolve in game challenges. What is the point of an introvert playing a charismatic bard with expertise in persuasion when the DM requires the PLAYER to be charismatic to succeed? How do your smart players play a character with 8 int or do they always have to give themselves a high int character so that they can role play using the player abilities?

Yes. It can be fun to resolve challenges using the player's abilities - I've had an immense amount of fun with one of my characters who has Nolzurs Marvelous Pigments for example - so many creative uses for that item, but this is only for the right kind of player - I know folks who would have the Pigments sit in their backpack and almost never think to pull them out.

For many people, in game challenges requiring the PLAYER to use their skills rather than the character's skills to solve in game problems a significant fraction of the time leads to a less than satisfactory play experience.

[Segev]

I will back up the voices talking about telegraphing and broadcasting. Hint and even outright state ahead of time what they're likely to face, if it's going to be something they need to prepare for. And, during the encounter itself, try to broadcast some of your ideas on how they can approach it. At my tables, my DMs tend more to become frustrated with the players in our group coming up with so many unusual ways to use our powers and abilities that what they thought were overwhelming encounters are bypassed or made into basic, standard ones...once the cool stuff we do to negate the crippling disadvantage we were facing is done. Some of this could be written off as the DM being permissive - one DM let the firbolg in the party throw the barbarian a size category smaller than her as if he were a weapon, getting a lot of distance to get him up onto a wall, after she rolled a magnificent Strength (Athletics) check to accomplish the deed (and then treated him like an improvised weapon, essentially, to determine range) - but I think permissive DMing is not a bad thing, as long as it's not so ridiculous that it's just looney toons.

[Pex]

But see, that's just the attitude I find so frustrating: that not getting to do your usual thing equates to "shutting down" or "neutering" a PC. To me it says that that player thinks of their character primarily as a set of buttons to press, and that when none of the buttons work, you can't play. I don't find it fun to play with people who think like that, and I at least want to try to help people see it that way before writing them off as irreconcilable to the kind of game I want to run.

As for the question of frequency, I usually try to have roughly every other encounter involve such a curveball, while the other half are generally resource management tests or the occasional opportunity to blow off steam demolishing minimally threatening opponents. When you consider that not every curveball will affect every PC, it' very unlikely for a PC to have their usual gimmick or tactics shut down more than once per session.

Every other combat is too much. That's half the game someone doesn't get to do their thing. That's half the game you tell someone, no, you don't get to play the way you want. Doesn't matter it's not the same player each time. Someone at that table is being told they can't do their Thing, so half the game someone is miserable. You don't like the attitude, but that's what you're creating. You are purposely creating encounters tailored against a player. You are being adversarial.

[greenstone]

…players who roleplay primarily through the Things They Can Do,

I have a couple of players who seem to roleplay through the "Thing They Can Do" (singular).

For example, an archer who when there is no possibility of shooting things, just does nothing. No moving, no melee (they are a fighter, so melee is not limited), no grappling, no shoving, no using of items (sheesh, none of the players use any items that aren't magical weapons, but that's a rant for another time).

[MrStabby]

One of the things I try to do when the group is first creating characters is have everyone come up with a list of things their character is awesome at. It should be at least three items long and should not feature more than one point about combat. It's not a hard-and-fast rule, of course, but I find it helps do two things: Encourage me to think of situations wherein my players can look and feel awesome without having to kill things, and encourage players to think of their characters doing things other than battling monsters.

Accomplished players will often do this without having to be told or encouraged. I remember one campaign I was playing an agendered golem who was part of a mechanical race that had been made to serve noble bloodlines and now wound up usually stuck in that role generations after they were supposed to be a thing, with my particular character not even actually having a name at the start of the game. I decided during play that it was going to be an expert tailor, resulting in it repeatedly crafting disguises for the party, and it also became the head of a golem freedom movement. Which didn't take away from the fact that when combat started up it was a big metal golem that was quite good at punching people into bloody gibs as necessary, but it meant that everyone thought of it as something other than "the huge golem who punches everything."

Just like I mentioned above that players will be more inclined to be okay with being weakened if it feels like their own choice, players will be ecstatic if they get to look cool and do something challenging even if they're not able to fight everybody.

I do something pretty close to this as well - though possibly a bit more extensive. I usually use two questions "who are you" and "mechanically, what do you do well". It helps me avoid inadvertently adding things to the game to let others step on their toes and gives me great ideas for plots and encounters.





I think at the end of the day the DMing style I prefer is not adversarial. Its about helping people have fun at the table, to build a world and to let players realise a character in that world - a character of their chosing. Supporting players choices by a) ensuring they can do their thing and b) stopping any player from overshadoing any other is a good enough start for me.

[Abracadangit]

I have a couple of players who seem to roleplay through the "Thing They Can Do" (singular).

For example, an archer who when there is no possibility of shooting things, just does nothing. No moving, no melee (they are a fighter, so melee is not limited), no grappling, no shoving, no using of items (sheesh, none of the players use any items that aren't magical weapons, but that's a rant for another time).

Ha ha! "I'm the archer, okay. I shoot arrows well. I shoot arrows really, really well." But to each player their own brand of fun, right. As long as people are having a good time.


One of the things I try to do when the group is first creating characters is have everyone come up with a list of things their character is awesome at.

*snip*

This is a really cool idea! Plus it helps people brainstorm how their character fits into exploration/social pillars, which isn't always spelled out in the mechanics, depending on the class.

[Amechra]

Another part of the issue is that there's usually a massive gulf in effectiveness between the stuff that a character is designed to do and the kinds of stuff that they can improvise.

Like, if I'm playing Jenny Fightgood the Barbarian and I'm focused on my greataxe, it's entirely possible that "hack at the slashing-resistant enemy with my axe" is going to be about as effective as "smack the slashing-resistant enemy with a table leg".

[MrStabby]

Another part of the issue is that there's usually a massive gulf in effectiveness between the stuff that a character is designed to do and the kinds of stuff that they can improvise.

Like, if I'm playing Jenny Fightgood the Barbarian and I'm focused on my greataxe, it's entirely possible that "hack at the slashing-resistant enemy with my axe" is going to be about as effective as "smack the slashing-resistant enemy with a table leg".

Possibly a personal preference thing, but if, for whatever reason I were to be playing a barebarian the couldn't axe things I think I would prefer to hit things with a table leg than to be using magic items or shooting a bow or whatever, even if the other things were more powerful. Getting to use high strength, getting to use rage, getting to use reckless attack - all the reasons I chose the class would sill be in play. Of course that would go for grappling as well which might be more of a different plan.

I guess that having to go with Plan B is fne, if plan B is something your charcter has some special advantages at, so you don't regret not playing something else.

[Alcore]

Yah know... in video games when the going gets tough I grind to a halt. It's not worth the energy to master the combat mechanics. I am there to unwind and destress from the day; I am not there to add more stress trying to kill this boss. Arkham City was the kind of game where I breathed a sigh of relief that it was finally done. The story was great but it was almost too weak to keep me invested in the face of the difficulty (which was on easy, started again on normal and noticed nothing harder)


And I bring this up because...


Much like video games when I play tabletop I only optimize just so much. What I shoot for is competent enough to haul my weight. What often happens is I become the OP of a group of beginners or the lode stone for the optimizers; who never appreciate me failing to fit into their well oiled war machine of death. While I have met others that occupy the middle ground I have yet to be in a party.


I have no advice to reach your players (other than to repeat "just talk to them") as it sounds like you want to wargame and they don't. Mismatched expectations.

[Kane0]

As soon as someone says 'theres nothing I can do' have them roll insight or perception or arcana or something. It doesnt matter what the result is, give them some things that you would do in their place.

[Dame_Mechanus]

This is a really cool idea! Plus it helps people brainstorm how their character fits into exploration/social pillars, which isn't always spelled out in the mechanics, depending on the class.

I also find it helps when building characters because it tends to encourage players to diversify what they can do in terms of spells, skills, and so forth to boot. And it even extends to personality.

"What other cool things could this character do... hey, she could be really good at negotiating with people. You'd expect that to be a Bard, but she's a Ranger... but maybe that's her whole thing. Maybe she talks to animals just like they're people. But it'd be funny if she's not actually good with animals, even though she's talking to them all the time..."


I think at the end of the day the DMing style I prefer is not adversarial. Its about helping people have fun at the table, to build a world and to let players realise a character in that world - a character of their chosing. Supporting players choices by a) ensuring they can do their thing and b) stopping any player from overshadoing any other is a good enough start for me.

My goal when I'm running a game is for everyone to feel like they're getting to be the stars of a cool story in which each of them plays a protagonist. That doesn't mean they always get what they want, obviously, but it should mean that them not getting what they want at least theoretically serves to show how well they deal with situations where they're somehow deprived of what they normally have access to.

[Theoboldi]

I'll throw in my hat and add on to the people that say you should give the players some extra hints as to what they could do in those situations.

As an addition to that, I would always try make it multiple options. In my experience, giving just one option will result in the players just waiting to do what the GM tells them to do if their main stick does not work.

Also, try and tie in those offers to something else the character is good at, or something that they know. Avoid making them feel like their character's skills do not matter. For example, rather than pointing out they could flee from the slashing immune monster, tell them their character remembers that one merchant they met was selling vials of acid and alchemist's fire.

For what it's worth, I also want to give OP some words of sympathy. It does feel pretty disappointing to have a player that just shuts down if their character can't resolve a situation straightforwardly with their main mechanical ability. It's not even a matter of wanting them to be particularely skillful or improvising something highly creative. Mostly, it just feels like they're not invested enough to try anything beyond what they built their character for, even if that feeling is not a correct assessment of the situation by the GM.

[Telok]

One thing thats happened over the last couple editions is an increase in the value of standard action economy and a devaluation of non-class abilities. For example, setting stuff on fire does 1d6 damage. 30 years ago in AD&D it was doing 1d4 or 1d6 damage. However over the editions monster & PC hp & attack damage have been going up at a rather faster rate. So while things like setting stuff on fire and tossing foes off cliffs keep coming up they've also been devalued as PC options by becoming often less effective than standard at will attack options. In order for a player to want to do something different they must perceive that as being at least as good of an option as their standard attack sequence. Preception is important. Players having information is important.

Another thing that's been happening is that as more and more character abilities get set in stone on character sheets, those things not explicitly on the sheets become more difficult to justify and use. I've seen situations where a player was looking at an action to make a intelligence knowledge check, then another action to dash and make a strength pushing something check, then an action for a... wisdom check?... to do something mystical or puzzly that might turn out to be useful. They just cast fireball and disintegrate then the fight ended at the start of turn five anyways. In general anything a player tries should take the same number of rolls/resources, at a similar chance of success, for at least as much of an effect as their standard attack routine. And the player has to know that.

You need to be honest too, if the best and fastest obvious way to end something is hit point damage then that's the metric all your outside-the-box actions are going to be measured against. Thats why my games semi-regularly feature Star Wars style bottomless pits without railings or saves to stop people from going over. In the D&D game I'm in a 200' fall gets a dex save dc 10 to catch yourself going over, does about 70 damage, and puts the target out of reach for a couple rounds at best. Or I can just blast away at about 35 damage a round and the rest of the team can also whomp on them. 90% of the time if I even have a 200' foot cliff (like twice in six months) its not worth trying to shove anything but a half dead mook (since they may have 80-120 hp anyways even being mooks) off because it just ends up wasting time, gives them a chance to escape or go for reinforcements, they might regenerate or buff, abilities may recharge... its just a bother so its better to regular auto attack them.

Non-standard actions need the same relevance (effect × chance of landing ÷ resource/action economy cost) as standard on-character-sheet actions, and the players have to know that.

[Kvess]

Honestly, if I encountered that attitude from my players I would be tempted to walk away and find a different group to DM. There are a lot of people on this forum who talk about 'verisimilitude' of magic, abilities and lore, but the thing that breaks immersion for me is when players inhabiting characters in the world stand around sulking, doing nothing, while literal demons are attacking their friends. Combats have consequences. Their beloved companions could die while they stand there doing nothing.

The only mitigating factor here is players aren't their characters. As the DM, you do have tools to bring character knowledge to their attention or nudge them. If you want to draw attention to the terrain: "Okay, you're not attacking. Roll a Perception check for me." If there's a fact about the creature that could be helpful: "Your spell didn't seem to have any effect. Roll an Arcana check please." If there's a goal the player could accomplish besides attacking: "The villagers are screaming for help. What's your character's alignment again?"

You can also just give them more detail and information than is on a battle map. You can describe elements of the scene, such as terrain and hazards, for the players before asking them what they would like to do on their turns. Be clear that the battle map is an abstraction — your characters live in a world that can't be fully represented on any map.


Having said all of that, I can relate to your players that just give up. If/when my bard runs into a puzzle of any sort, he’ll first let the other party members have at it. If that didn’t work I’ll say something like “he tries to figure it out.” If the DM asks me to roll some sort of check, great. Otherwise, I guess that puzzle won’t be solved. I, the player, will attempt to solve the puzzle just as soon as I the player will bust out a weapon and show off my martial skills.

I'll say this: At least, "he tries to figure it out," is the start of a conversation about how your character approaches the puzzle. It, at the very least, is similar to seeing a combat that you can't win by swinging an axe and asking, "do I notice anything about the terrain?"

[Keravath]

Honestly, if I encountered that attitude from my players I would be tempted to walk away and find a different group to DM. There are a lot of people on this forum who talk about 'verisimilitude' of magic, abilities and lore, but the thing that breaks immersion for me is when players inhabiting characters in the world stand around sulking, doing nothing, while literal demons are attacking their friends. Combats have consequences. Their beloved companions could die while they stand there doing nothing.

The only mitigating factor here is players aren't their characters. As the DM, you do have tools to bring character knowledge to their attention or nudge them. If you want to draw attention to the terrain: "Okay, you're not attacking. Roll a Perception check for me." If there's a fact about the creature that could be helpful: "Your spell didn't seem to have any effect. Roll an Arcana check please." If there's a goal the player could accomplish besides attacking: "The villagers are screaming for help. What's your character's alignment again?"

You can also just give them more detail and information than is on a battle map. You can describe elements of the scene, such as terrain and hazards, for the players before asking them what they would like to do on their turns. Be clear that the battle map is an abstraction — your characters live in a world that can't be fully represented on any map.



I'll say this: At least, "he tries to figure it out," is the start of a conversation about how your character approaches the puzzle. It, at the very least, is similar to seeing a combat that you can't win by swinging an axe and asking, "do I notice anything about the terrain?"

A couple of quick comments.

It is possible for a DM to create situations where a particular character actually doesn't have anything useful to contribute. A wizard in a fight against creatures that are immune to fire (the damage type they have specialized in) and who are also immune to non-magical BPS damage and the wizard is the last one to get magic weapons looted by the party since they are never in melee. Do you expect the wizard to run in and try to tackle the demon? How often is the environment around the character going to have anything useful to contribute to the fight? Maybe the character gets to yell insults? How is that any different from just taking the dodge action and going to the next player's turn. In this type of situation, if the DM actually thought to include something the character could do then the DM needs to supply input when they describe the scene so that it is possible for the player to figure out there is something they could do.

In addition, why does the player need to say "do I notice anything about the terrain?" .. the character is THERE .. it is the responsibility of the DM to describe the scene including everything that the character might recognize as useful. Spending 6 seconds looking around really isn't going to give you much more information if there is any out there to be found than what you would get just by looking as part of a normal turn.

Anyway, I've been in situations where the DM severely limited player choices by imposing onerous conditions on the encounter .. generally, these situations haven't been much fun to play from a player perspective even when the DM seemed to be chortling about it. :)

[LudicSavant]

It is possible for a DM to create situations where a particular character actually doesn't have anything useful to contribute. A wizard in a fight against creatures that are immune to fire (the damage type they have specialized in) and who are also immune to non-magical BPS damage and the wizard is the last one to get magic weapons looted by the party since they are never in melee. Do you expect the wizard to run in and try to tackle the demon?

If the player made their Wizard's sole meaningful tool "dealing fire damage" then that is absolutely on the player, not the DM.

[Duff]

I really do believe that I'm in the right for wanting to make encounters that force players to... (snip)

Be aware that mindset could be an issue.
The game works best when the people are pulling in the same direction.

It's great to "Challenge the players to think outside the box". But if they aren't, you and them need to have a chat.

Are they not good at it? That means you need to make the hints about what to do way more obvious
Is that not something they want to do? You need to decide whether it's worth the hassle. You probably need to drop this from this game. If that means you walk away, so be it. This is not a good outcome, but if that's the best it gets, your players are who they are. Again, dialing it way back but still keeping some of it might help.
Has it not occurred to them that there's always* something they can do? Assure them that you try hard to make sure this is so. Talk to them about other things they can do. Maybe they don't know they can always throw rock, punch someone with blunt damage, search for the hidden trapdoor or aid an attack (ruleset may vary on the last)





* That does of course require you to have made sure there is, in fact, always something they can do

[Kvess]

Maybe this says more about my disposition than it says about the game, but I’ve honestly never been in a situation where I did nothing. You tell me I’m playing a wizard who only has fire spells prepared, for some reason(?), and I’m facing fire immune enemies? Fire bolt a tree to fall on them. They’re immune to bludgeoning damage too? Fire bolt a tree so it falls and creates an obstacle. Throw your familiar at the monster so your rogue has advantage.

Failing that, make an intimidation check to scare them away. Make an insight check to figure out what the enemies want. If you’re indoors you could make a mason’s tool check to determine how to cause a collapse. Make a history check to see if you’ve heard of the creatures attacking anyone else. Make an insight check to figure out why you constantly encounter creatures that seem hand-picked to negate your abilities. Try ANYTHING. This isn’t a video game where you can only press pre-programmed buttons: DMs have discretion to reward players who make an effort.


In addition, why does the player need to say "do I notice anything about the terrain?" .. the character is THERE .. it is the responsibility of the DM to describe the scene including everything that the character might recognize as useful. Spending 6 seconds looking around really isn't going to give you much more information if there is any out there to be found than what you would get just by looking as part of a normal turn.

In my experience as a DM, players should ALWAYS ask because those details might not exist until a player asks if there is a sconce on the wall, a chandelier on the ceiling, or a rug running down the stairs. So many maps are littered with 20 foot by 20 foot stone rooms that are nonsensically bare and empty, but just because a detail wasn’t important to the DM or the module’s writer doesn’t mean it can’t be helpful to you.

And hey, your DM is human. The books include details about dungeons that aren’t in individual room descriptions. Sometimes your DM will miss a detail that could be helpful.

[SpikeFightwicky]

Even more so if the challenge is intended to be a highlight of the campaign. ("Remember that time that the boss kited us and I had no way to interact except throw javelins at disadvantage? That was awesome!")

I haven't run any encounters with him, but isn't that how the new Vecna was designed? Counter spells and teleport around to kite the party?

[MrStabby]

I haven't run any encounters with him, but isn't that how the new Vecna was designed? Counter spells and teleport around to kite the party?

I can see a couple of different angles to this.

If oyu are something like a paladin and you are chasing round an enemy for most of the battle and have to use javalins, then that is a bit crap - climacic batle and you use zero of your active class abilities. On the other hand I could see a fun encounter where the PC needs tactical positioning, resiliance, some supporting spells to be in just the right place such that they can corner the bad guy and kick the stuffing out of them. Failure leading to the kind of success that leans heavily upon what that character wants to do is probably going to be OK. Failure,partially mitigated by something the character doesn't want to do and something the player doesn't really enjoy is just crappy design.

[GloatingSwine]

Possibly a personal preference thing, but if, for whatever reason I were to be playing a barebarian the couldn't axe things I think I would prefer to hit things with a table leg than to be using magic items or shooting a bow or whatever, even if the other things were more powerful. Getting to use high strength, getting to use rage, getting to use reckless attack - all the reasons I chose the class would sill be in play. Of course that would go for grappling as well which might be more of a different plan.

I guess that having to go with Plan B is fne, if plan B is something your charcter has some special advantages at, so you don't regret not playing something else.

I think the point is that mechanically the output gap between what your character is optimised for and what you are not optimised for is so wide (and gets wider the higher the level) that doing the thing you are optimised for *even if it is adversely affected by the situation* is still more effective than an improvised alternative.

Things like improvised weapon attacks tend to be so much worse than real ones that they are disfavoured by default. Like a barbarian who drops their greataxe and uses a table leg instead is still dropping from 1D12 to 1D4 even before they lose any feats or proficiencies that don't apply now, so unless the target is going to resist 2/3 of the damage they're still better with the axe *and they feel bad either way* because their desired goal is "do big swingy hits with a big axe" and they either aren't allowed or they don't feel like it works right.

[da newt]

"Even more so if the challenge is intended to be a highlight of the campaign. ("Remember that time that the boss kited us and I had no way to interact except throw javelins at disadvantage? That was awesome!")

I haven't run any encounters with him, but isn't that how the new Vecna was designed? Counter spells and teleport around to kite the party?"

- Yup. My party of 3 was ill-equipped to deal with what Vecna brought to the table, and while I was busily trying anything that might be beneficial, it quickly became clear that we were outmatched and the outcome was inevitable - and it was very frustrating, especially in the moment. Afterwards, it was interesting - to try to figure out why we were so inept, and if we could have tried anything else, but at the time it was infuriating.

[Psyren]

I haven't run any encounters with him, but isn't that how the new Vecna was designed? Counter spells and teleport around to kite the party?

By CR 26 you should have options to deal with being kited though, even if those options include buffs from other party members or magic items rather than stuff intrinsic to your class kit.

[Segev]

I think the point is that mechanically the output gap between what your character is optimised for and what you are not optimised for is so wide (and gets wider the higher the level) that doing the thing you are optimised for *even if it is adversely affected by the situation* is still more effective than an improvised alternative.

Things like improvised weapon attacks tend to be so much worse than real ones that they are disfavoured by default. Like a barbarian who drops their greataxe and uses a table leg instead is still dropping from 1D12 to 1D4 even before they lose any feats or proficiencies that don't apply now, so unless the target is going to resist 2/3 of the damage they're still better with the axe *and they feel bad either way* because their desired goal is "do big swingy hits with a big axe" and they either aren't allowed or they don't feel like it works right.

Yep. Sometimes, it's okay to give them that sense of discomfort, like their Big Thing is not what they can contribute. Ideally, their Secondary Thing(s) are still viable in some way, though. And either way, these should be somewhat rare occurrences.

That said, it often helps if you can identify whether this barbarian, for example, has "swing huge axe for big damage" as THE "thing," or if that's just the primary expression of a broader "thing" (e.g. "be the strong guy who plows through enemies like a lawnmower through grass"). It is often the case that a single best optimal talent/tactic is just the primary expression of a broader trait or a combination of traits, and if you've left other ways for those traits to be expressed, that does encourage creative use of them. Be aware of what those traits are and try to be permissive when the player is creative with them, particularly if it's something that is rather bespoke to this scenario.

The firbolg hexadin may have eldritch blast, but without even Agonizing Blast, her "thing" is more about her zealous devotion to her goddess and her being big and strong, so it's more fun for her to throw the smaller barbarian up to the top of a barricade so he can attack in melee than for her to snipe from down below. Throwing other PCs great distances is not well-supported by the rules, but can be seen if you squint at treating a smaller PC like an improvised thrown weapon. It made the fight more fun and, while it did make it a lot less dangerous to the party by letting two characters do more than they could have if they'd both been plinking with backup ranged attacks, I don't think that's a problem when it results from using the party's composition and the characters' "unique things" in creative ways.

[tiornys]

As an example, a DM I was playing with decided to run Invisible Stalkers as automatically hidden except at the moment they made an attack - it was a snowy/windy environment so it wasn't unreasonable. The stalker would attack someone from nowhere and then was effectively impossible to track when it moved away.

--snip--

Eventually, the DM let us know that we could throw snow into the air to try to reveal the location of the stalkers. Personally, I didn't think of this option because as far as I was concerned that isn't how invisibility works in 5e (I'm not a fan of carrying a bag of flour to throw in the air to reveal invisible creatures - but it was a tactic like that the DM expected the characters to come up with - none of the 5 players thought of it - different people - different ways of imagining how things work). We still had disadvantage on the attacks but at least we knew where the targets were.

-----

So unless the differences in the terrain/tools available/creature abilities are seamlessly integrated into the story without the DM expecting one specific solution to the problem - I find this kind of thing doesn't work that well.
Building on this a little, if the DM does expect a specific solution then it's on the DM to telegraph that solution better. In this case, if throwing snow into the air can reveal the location of the creatures, and it's a snowy + windy environment, then the environment should be revealing the location of the creatures at least some of the time! By not having this happen, the DM actively discouraged the solution he was expecting--why should me throwing snow into the air act any differently than the wind throwing snow into the air (or if the wind isn't that strong, why aren't footprints lasting long enough to be useful)?

[MrStabby]

I think the point is that mechanically the output gap between what your character is optimised for and what you are not optimised for is so wide (and gets wider the higher the level) that doing the thing you are optimised for *even if it is adversely affected by the situation* is still more effective than an improvised alternative.

Things like improvised weapon attacks tend to be so much worse than real ones that they are disfavoured by default. Like a barbarian who drops their greataxe and uses a table leg instead is still dropping from 1D12 to 1D4 even before they lose any feats or proficiencies that don't apply now, so unless the target is going to resist 2/3 of the damage they're still better with the axe *and they feel bad either way* because their desired goal is "do big swingy hits with a big axe" and they either aren't allowed or they don't feel like it works right.

I think for me it is a thematic gap that hurts as well. I get that different PCs will have differnt things they value but if I were playing a barbarian it would be because a) I want to be really tough and b) I want to hit things really hard. If I am doing that, then things might not be perfect but I will probably be OK. Now if all the enemies have damage types that bypass my rage resistance, then I will probably be grumpy. I will be more grumpy than if they basically id twice as much damage. HP loss is the same but I feel I am using the class abilities I wanted. I want to play a character that can shrug off a hit. If I am not shruging off hits, hen I am not playing the character I wanted. Likewise with hitting things really hard - I don't care (within reason) how many HP an enemy has as long as I am better at taking it away than others less invested in that activity. I want to play a character that charges towards the enemy - if that doesn't work, say because they fly, then I am not getting to play the character I want.

If the DM understands what you want to represent and supports you doing that, then that is a good DM. A DM who understands what you want to do and who you want to represents and deliberatly obstructs that is an adversarial DM. A DM can also just not know, not care or not remember and be an indeferant DM.

[Thrudd]

I am generally on the "player skill" end of the spectrum of challenge design, but it is possible to make the game too hard for your players.
If I'm crafting challenges and my players are always stumped and frustrated about what to do, then I either need to tone down the challenges or start giving them hints and hand-holding to gradually teach them how to approach my game and think about the scenarios.
Start them with easier challenges, and slowly ramp things up as they get comfortable with the style of play and thinking my game requires.

[Telok]

"Even more so if the challenge is intended to be a highlight of the campaign. ("Remember that time that the boss kited us and I had no way to interact except throw javelins at disadvantage? That was awesome!")
.....
and it was very frustrating, especially in the moment. Afterwards, it was interesting - to try to figure out why we were so inept, and if we could have tried anything else, but at the time it was infuriating.

Had something like that happen in a WHFRP game in the late late 90s. Rolled a character bad at melee combat and the game situations pushed them into a charming rogue + expert archer skill set. Then the end of the game was against some solo melee-master demon immune to ranged attacks & nonmagic everything, and it happened on a barren hill top. It was though a genuine mistake on the DM's part, he was really sorry about it, kept apologizing, and by then I was mature enough to be a good sport about it.

However it did teach me that the big & important end game combats should never involve a gimmick boss that I haven't explicitly informed the players of and offered the required stuff to defeat. Mini bosses & mid-campaign stuff can have gimmick fights that shut down a single category. But no shutting off a whole set of characters for the really big boss fights. That includes avoiding making someone cast a buff/terrain zone then go sit in a corner for the rest of the fight, or just spam help actions and "if i roll 18+ & enemy rolls 3- then a minor 1 turn grapple might have an effect maybe".

[Keravath]

If the player made their Wizard's sole meaningful tool "dealing fire damage" then that is absolutely on the player, not the DM.

Agreed. Hopefully, when faced with such a situation, the player would learn to diversify their spell choices.

However, it is a bit of a philosophical question. Is the DM trying to create fun situations for the players or "realistic" situations for the characters. Ideally, they are both the same.

In this case, though, the DM creates a realistic character situation that becomes a frustrating player situation. The player doesn't have fun because the DM creates a situation where the player has limited or no choices on what to do. Again, ideally, the DM would have headed this off by suggesting to the player with the fire wizard/sorcerer concept (not really an uncommon idea) that it would be good to have access to some other damage types in their prepared spell list.

[MrStabby]

Agreed. Hopefully, when faced with such a situation, the player would learn to diversify their spell choices.

However, it is a bit of a philosophical question. Is the DM trying to create fun situations for the players or "realistic" situations for the characters. Ideally, they are both the same.

In this case, though, the DM creates a realistic character situation that becomes a frustrating player situation. The player doesn't have fun because the DM creates a situation where the player has limited or no choices on what to do. Again, ideally, the DM would have headed this off by suggesting to the player with the fire wizard/sorcerer concept (not really an uncommon idea) that it would be good to have access to some other damage types in their prepared spell list.

Yeah, I agree with this. If the DM lets a player play a character that will be rendered useless at key times by some of the situations that they are planning in the campaign and doesn't say anything before the start of the campaign, that's on the DM. If the DM says something and the player decides to build that character anyway, then that's the player's choice.

Shutting down options in fine, but do it early and do it clearly. Dont wait for someone to have a character that is ALL ABOUT FIRE and then suggest that they have other damage types later (or even worse try giving them magic items that do other damage types).

Just say their concept wont work well with your plans in a session zero and let both them and you move on.

[meandean]

I honestly don't see how that's useful. At character creation, the DM tells me "try to make a versatile character." I mean... okay? If I'm e.g. a Barbarian, I don't even know how I do that. If I'm a class that's more capable of versatility, I still have no idea how I'm supposed to act upon that information. Versatile towards what? IMHO, all you get out of this is that the DM has covered his butt by presenting a one-sided, Terms of Service-like "agreement" that gave the players nothing.

What's actually actionable is to forewarn them about the specific challenge they'll be facing. No, if you tell the party it's going down tomorrow, the Red Dragon Sorcerer can't respond by learning five new cold spells. But, he can think of things he can do other than use his fire spells, and he'll no longer be surprised or annoyed when that's what he has to do. Guess what, he wasn't going to learn a bunch of cold spells even if you advised him to "be versatile" 10 levels ago.

[Easy e]

I have played role-playing games for years, and have never run into a situation where I could do nothing. The only exceptions being petrified, paralyzed, etc. I can always run away, try to hide, dodge, interact with something, talk, interpretive dance, observe the foe, search, etc.

In my experience, newbies are much more creative with their actions and avoid button pushing rather than veteran players. Somehow as players "mature" they lose their ability to innovate. This feels like it is a learned behavior or something that develops organically based on game systems being used.

Have others experienced that?

[Segev]

I have played role-playing games for years, and have never run into a situation where I could do nothing. The only exceptions being petrified, paralyzed, etc.

In my experience, newbies are much more creative with their actions and avoid button pushing rather than veteran players. Somehow as players "mature" they lose their ability to innovate. This feels like it is a learned behavior or something that develops organically based on game systems being used.

Have others experienced that?
I have, and it stems from the tendency of DMs to forbid things that are "too effective" for "too little."

"I sneak up behind the guy, with my stealth score, and then, on my next turn, I slit his throat." Well, no, you don't. You might make an attack roll and do some damage, even a lot of it if you're a rogue with sneak attack and him not knowing you were there gave you advantage on the attack, but you didn't "slit his throat" unless you actually killed him by the rules and that's how you narrate it.

While that's not going to be iconic to every time a player tries something, there's a natural trade-off to learning what the rules explicitly allow vs. what is not. Learn what is on the "white list," and you will default to those things more and more, because being told "no" is disappointing, at best.

There is also a tendency for players who decide they want to be dramatic to face DMs who think that they must call for additional checks to pull off the flourishes. "I swing down on the chandelier rope and cut him!" "Okay, make me a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check not to fall and take 3d6 damage and land prone." "...okay, fine, I just take a move action down the steps and attack him."

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I think some of this attitude stems from trends around going online, finding 'optimized' 'builds' that are often really good at doing only one thing, and expecting to be able to do that thing at every turn. Perhaps contributing is some mechanics of 5e that allow players to lean into this idea; I find XBE a particular example of this, as martial type characters are now under the impression they don't even need to try a different weapon... ever.

What the OP describes is a player problem, period. The DMs job is to creatively challenge players in as many ways as possible, and players should be prepared to respond to these challenges. If I had a player that sulked every time they couldn't do their favorite thing they can either build a bridge and get over it, or find another table. Cause I'm not just going to line up foes in their preferred method every time.

[Telok]

Have others experienced that?

Same boat, answer is yes. But only with exception based rule sets that have restrictive explicit abilities and weak rules for non abilities. Generally needs bad math or badly explained math too.

So, lots of DMs seem (to me) to get two messages from the rules; roll if you can't decide & don't let players go beyond what the book says. 4e & 5e have an issue where calling for too many skill/ability rolls screws with the game because of flat math and pure binary succes/fail states in the base rules. The books don't teach about iterative probability and that combat, with its huge amount of rules & tons of rolls, is really a "graduated degrees of success" system because of hit points. Leads to DMs treating non combat a lot like combat with a bunch of rolls, except there's no degrees of success so you get lots of failure. Lots of failure pushes the players towards sure things, and those are things with strong rules & usually on the character sheet. So players become habituated to look at the sheet for a rule that lets them do something and high fail rates for stuff with weak/no rules reinforces that.

Reason total newbies seem better is they aren't habituated to "not on the sheet = will need some rolls = will probably fail". With a good experienced dm that groks implicit game design limits or knows iterative probability decently won't throw lots of binary success/fail rolls at players. If the dm got the "don't let players try to do stuff outside the rules" message inherent in exception based design then any bit of game without rules looks suspect and increases uncertainty in the dms estimates. Since things like "knock over a tree with firebolt" or "pole vault for more jump" aren't explicitly ruled then lots of dms either see them as power grabs to break the game & must be denied or they just don't know and fall back on rolling more dice to see what happens.

[MrStabby]

I think some of this attitude stems from trends around going online, finding 'optimized' 'builds' that are often really good at doing only one thing, and expecting to be able to do that thing at every turn. Perhaps contributing is some mechanics of 5e that allow players to lean into this idea; I find XBE a particular example of this, as martial type characters are now under the impression they don't even need to try a different weapon... ever.

What the OP describes is a player problem, period. The DMs job is to creatively challenge players in as many ways as possible, and players should be prepared to respond to these challenges. If I had a player that sulked every time they couldn't do their favorite thing they can either build a bridge and get over it, or find another table. Cause I'm not just going to line up foes in their preferred method every time.

Not doing somehing "every time" is unlikely to be a problem. Not doing what your character fantasy is:

a) frequently
b) on challenging, cinematic or significant fights
c) on fights important to your character

Probably is an issue.

I don't think its about never ever challenging players no matter what, it about letting them do their thing enough to have their character be well represented. Once every few sessions having to be suboptimal is totally fine (again as long as it isn't the big bad, a character plot development or a really really hard fight).

[GloatingSwine]

I think for me it is a thematic gap that hurts as well. I get that different PCs will have differnt things they value but if I were playing a barbarian it would be because a) I want to be really tough and b) I want to hit things really hard. If I am doing that, then things might not be perfect but I will probably be OK. Now if all the enemies have damage types that bypass my rage resistance, then I will probably be grumpy. I will be more grumpy than if they basically id twice as much damage. HP loss is the same but I feel I am using the class abilities I wanted. I want to play a character that can shrug off a hit. If I am not shruging off hits, hen I am not playing the character I wanted. Likewise with hitting things really hard - I don't care (within reason) how many HP an enemy has as long as I am better at taking it away than others less invested in that activity. I want to play a character that charges towards the enemy - if that doesn't work, say because they fly, then I am not getting to play the character I want.

If the DM understands what you want to represent and supports you doing that, then that is a good DM. A DM who understands what you want to do and who you want to represents and deliberatly obstructs that is an adversarial DM. A DM can also just not know, not care or not remember and be an indeferant DM.

Yeah. The DM should try in the main part to "yes and" the players' ideas about their characters and how they do things.

Like in the case of the wizard who really invested everything to setting things on fire the DM should try and find variations where setting *everything* on fire is ill-advised so that they have to find specific and interesting things to set on fire. (eg. there are hostages in your fireball blast zone, which targets are priority for your scorching ray/burning arrow?)

[MrStabby]

Yeah. The DM should try in the main part to "yes and" the players' ideas about their characters and how they do things.

Like in the case of the wizard who really invested everything to setting things on fire the DM should try and find variations where setting *everything* on fire is ill-advised so that they have to find specific and interesting things to set on fire. (eg. there are hostages in your fireball blast zone, which targets are priority for your scorching ray/burning arrow?)

Yeah, I would be down with that bing a cool encounter. Your thing if fire and the fact that yu have fire spells other than fireball then becomes a feature rather than a bug.

[KorvinStarmast]

As soon as someone says 'theres nothing I can do' have them roll insight or perception or arcana or something. It doesnt matter what the result is, give them some things that you would do in their place. Hinting/coaching is IME a necessary DM role.

I am generally on the "player skill" end of the spectrum of challenge design, but it is possible to make the game too hard for your players. Whole post is good, I've fallen into that as well, DM side.

In my experience, newbies are much more creative with their actions and avoid button pushing rather than veteran players. {snip}
Have others experienced that? In bucket loads. :smallsmile:

[LudicSavant]

I think some of this attitude stems from trends around going online, finding 'optimized' 'builds' that are often really good at doing only one thing, and expecting to be able to do that thing at every turn.

Builds with overly narrow application aren't optimized.

[Segev]

Builds with overly narrow application aren't optimized.

In principle, I agree with you, in that typically what you're optimizing for is "being good at the game."

I will quibble just a little that builds narrowly focused on one thing are optimized...to be good at that one thing. But they're theorycraft because unless that "one thing" has, itself, super-broad applicability, or the rest of the build is at least average at most of the rest of the game, it's not a very effective or fun thing to play in real games.

This is me being pedantic.

[GloatingSwine]

Builds with overly narrow application aren't optimized.

Maybe not. And in a game where the DM is adapting to the players at the table and making sure they have fun, that doesn't matter.

If a player has made a character with a really narrow application then the exceptional encounter is ideally "how can I make that player push their one trick to the limit", not "what do they do when their one trick doesn't work?"

Like I mentioned a super invested fire wizard having to not use fireball, but you can also push that character by planning out enemy locations so that there's always a really good fireball target, and a couple of slightly less good ones. Do they spot and exploit the really good fireball? do they miss it and make everything ever so slightly more inconvenient? How much have they really committed to setting things on fire?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Builds with overly narrow application aren't optimized.

Agreed, but there's a perception out there contrary to that point of view. Whether it's movement, DPR, AC or whatever I see a lot of references that indicate being extremely good at one of these (in a narrow set of circumstances) is the way to succeed at 5e.

[MrStabby]

Maybe not. And in a game where the DM is adapting to the players at the table and making sure they have fun, that doesn't matter.

If a player has made a character with a really narrow application then the exceptional encounter is ideally "how can I make that player push their one trick to the limit", not "what do they do when their one trick doesn't work?"

Like I mentioned a super invested fire wizard having to not use fireball, but you can also push that character by planning out enemy locations so that there's always a really good fireball target, and a couple of slightly less good ones. Do they spot and exploit the really good fireball? do they miss it and make everything ever so slightly more inconvenient? How much have they really committed to setting things on fire?

I would also question what qualifies as a "really narrow application" - is "enemies that are not fire immune" a broad application or a narrow application? Is a sorcerer that focuses on fire damage spells but also proficient in social skills having a narrow application of only two pillars of the game?

Part of he problem is that themes are strong;I think its a good thing for the game but thinking this doesn't stop us from recognising a problem. Take fiends for example - generally magic resistant and making a lot of spells bad. Indeed making most spells bad. Now if you are playing an Enchanter wizard and following an enchantment theme rather than just optimising the character you are probably pretty screwed if you are in a campaign rich in fiends. This is fine if people want to generally play optimised characters, but does kind of shut out themed characters (again, not a problem,but the DM needs to articulate in session zero that they expect optimised characters).

I do wonder what is getting sufficiently specific that its fair to say"its too niche, you will only do this occasionally". Only using one weapon type? Only using one specific weapon? Only taking the attack action? Only dealing piercing damage? Only casting magic missile?

I think its OK to shut down some abilities, but not OK to shut down all abilities. Shutting down a hexblade with a greatsword using shadows of moil by providing enemies with blindsight is OK - shutting down their weapon attacks, hexblade's curse and everyting else they get by using flying enemies or enemies their character generally cant reach is going to quickly suck pretty hard.

I guess a good DM's players have fun. A bad DM's players don't have fun. A really bad DM doesn't give their players a fun experience then blames the players for not enjoying themselves. In this case "bad" may not be intrinsicly bad, just a bad DM for that group or player.

[Pex]

I have played role-playing games for years, and have never run into a situation where I could do nothing. The only exceptions being petrified, paralyzed, etc. I can always run away, try to hide, dodge, interact with something, talk, interpretive dance, observe the foe, search, etc.

In my experience, newbies are much more creative with their actions and avoid button pushing rather than veteran players. Somehow as players "mature" they lose their ability to innovate. This feels like it is a learned behavior or something that develops organically based on game systems being used.

Have others experienced that?

Yep.

High level game. Traveling by boat on the River Styx. On a rocky outcropping fiends are shooting fire arrows. From the shore other fiends are trying to make ice bridges over the river to board our ship. Ranger fires his arrows at the fiends in the outcropping. Rogue does the same with a ballista also occasionally firing on shore. Monk has Cloak of the Bat so flies over to deal with the fiends on shore. Moon druid wildshapes into a fire elemental to destroy the ice bridges. Sorcerer casts her range spells to deal with the fiends on shore and help destroy the ice bridges. The fiends never complete a bridge, never reach our boat. Me? Playing a barbarian stuck on the boat. Can't reach the shore nor rocky outcropping because of the River Styx. My fault not having a bow, but in my defense I never needed one. Almost always took at most one round to reach an enemy. Other party members had range attacks covered. My job kept the melee brutes away from them. If any fiend did reach our boat he was dead my turn, but none ever did.

DM did not do this on purpose. It was an improvised encounter. It was a fair and level appropriate encounter that was the perfect storm of me with nothing to do. DM was upset. I was upset. Not of each other, of the situation. It was an Honest Mistake. The scenario, from an out of character perspective, was Cool. The DM and I both learned our lesson. With fiat and roleplay we fixed the issue so it couldn't happen again.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I would also question what qualifies as a "really narrow application" - is "enemies that are not fire immune" a broad application or a narrow application? Is a sorcerer that focuses on fire damage spells but also proficient in social skills having a narrow application of only two pillars of the game?

Part of he problem is that themes are strong;I think its a good thing for the game but thinking this doesn't stop us from recognising a problem. Take fiends for example - generally magic resistant and making a lot of spells bad. Indeed making most spells bad. Now if you are playing an Enchanter wizard and following an enchantment theme rather than just optimising the character you are probably pretty screwed if you are in a campaign rich in fiends. This is fine if people want to generally play optimised characters, but does kind of shut out themed characters (again, not a problem,but the DM needs to articulate in session zero that they expect optimised characters).

I do wonder what is getting sufficiently specific that its fair to say"its too niche, you will only do this occasionally". Only using one weapon type? Only using one specific weapon? Only taking the attack action? Only dealing piercing damage? Only casting magic missile?

I think its OK to shut down some abilities, but not OK to shut down all abilities. Shutting down a hexblade with a greatsword using shadows of moil by providing enemies with blindsight is OK - shutting down their weapon attacks, hexblade's curse and everyting else they get by using flying enemies or enemies their character generally cant reach is going to quickly suck pretty hard.

I guess a good DM's players have fun. A bad DM's players don't have fun. A really bad DM doesn't give their players a fun experience then blames the players for not enjoying themselves. In this case "bad" may not be intrinsicly bad, just a bad DM for that group or player.

I do find myself agreeing with much of what you write. But I can't entirely agree with your last point. My players have fun, and 2 of us DM regularly. It's not entirely up to me whether or not they have fun when I'm DMing. It's largely up to them in terms of what they bring to the table, both in terms of attitude and a character that has at least thought about being prepared to participate in various pillars (or whether they want to) and, specific to the post, how they might contribute to the combat pillar if their option A isn't working.

The other guy was DMing recently and despite my best preparation, we had a significant battle where my character had difficulty contributing. I did my best in a supporting role and the next time I leveled up I kept that situation in mind when swapping out and picking a new spell. I even started a thread on this forum for advice. As opposed to the OP's player(s) who sulk, I found the experience memorable and a good learning one for me as a player and my character. It was an opportunity for me to think creatively in order to help the group.

I think we're all in agreement that a DM who deliberately hamstrings the same character regularly (particularly one that may not have a lot of options to change things) isn't doing their job well. But if you're simply offering a variety of combat situations in terms of terrain, light conditions, range, monster abilities and immunities, etc, and a character isn't built to do much or a player is only happy when they can do option A, that's not the DM's fault. Frankly, tailoring encounters to a player like this isn't good DMing; it's likely boring for the DM and the rest of the players and won't help the player in question grow or learn.

[MrStabby]

I do find myself agreeing with much of what you write. But I can't entirely agree with your last point. My players have fun, and 2 of us DM regularly. It's not entirely up to me whether or not they have fun when I'm DMing. It's largely up to them in terms of what they bring to the table, both in terms of attitude and a character that has at least thought about being prepared to participate in various pillars (or whether they want to) and, specific to the post, how they might contribute to the combat pillar if their option A isn't working.

The other guy was DMing recently and despite my best preparation, we had a significant battle where my character had difficulty contributing. I did my best in a supporting role and the next time I leveled up I kept that situation in mind when swapping out and picking a new spell. I even started a thread on this forum for advice. As opposed to the OP's player(s) who sulk, I found the experience memorable and a good learning one for me as a player and my character. It was an opportunity for me to think creatively in order to help the group.

I think we're all in agreement that a DM who deliberately hamstrings the same character regularly (particularly one that may not have a lot of options to change things) isn't doing their job well. But if you're simply offering a variety of combat situations in terms of terrain, light conditions, range, monster abilities and immunities, etc, and a character isn't built to do much or a player is only happy when they can do option A, that's not the DM's fault. Frankly, tailoring encounters to a player like this isn't good DMing; it's likely boring for the DM and the rest of the players and won't help the player in question grow or learn.

I suspect our differences in perspective are actually pretty small. All these things are matters of degree. "Don't do this too often or in encounters that are too important" is probably something that eveyone can get behind - just with different thresholds for "too often" and "too important". I think we would also agree that a matching style, not only be tween the DM and a player but also between players is important - this is why I qualified "bad" as bad for the player.

As for the players that sulk - well sulking isnt ever good, but sometimes its easy to empathise with. Sometimes some encounters just, even without planning, screw with a player. I have seen encounters start at a distance and the melle character takes three turns of the dash action to watch the last enemy get shot down at their feet. I have seen grapplers face off against file elementals. These things happen and they can be an organic, if briefly frusrating part of the world.

Sometimes it can look malicious (though knowing the people involved I am certain this last one isn't) - one player playing a Witch type characer using mostly enchantment spells but deliberately diversifying to avoid trouble with high wisdom enemies, meets a whole stretch of enemies that can teleport (obviating things like plant growth an entangle), were immune to the blind condition and, had sky high wisdom saves and magic resistance. Not even a hyperspecialised character - indeed one that had deliberately diversified but was still left achieving nothing over several sessions. Setting up encounters where none of her spells had a hope of being effective wasn't maicious but it still resulted in a bad time being had by that player.

I would also stress that a player having a less good time doesn't mean a wrong decision was made. Sometimes you need to clear some space for other characters to shine from time to time. I would say that if on average you are haveing your players enjoy the game less for the sake of a particular DM policy you have, then its worth revisiting.

It isn't like forcing players to play in a style they don't enjoy is the only way of challenging them either - adding more enemies, more HP, smarter enemies etc. still lets them shine - indeed even more so by giving them more epic fights. Adding more fights in a day can still force some players to sit out some encounters but they get the agency o chose which ones.