Frustrating things players do in game [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Vahnavoi

2023-03-02, 08:08 AM

Trying to spend every single penny at character creation. This is something both new and old players do, and I've taken to reminding them that they can (and probably should) just leave some cash on the side.

Hemming and hawing. Occasionally, when stakes get high, people start to throw suggestions, then immediately backpedaling, sometimes going back and forth between the same two options several times. It's normal, but wastes time, which is why I'm a proponent of actually timing player turns.

Sibling rivalry. Some siblings just can't resist taking jabs at or bullying each other, and it bleeds into how they play their characters, even when not appropriate. (I'm pretty sure I've done the same with my own siblings.)

Lover favoritism. That situation when two players have googly eyes for each other and it starts to bleed into how they play characters, in a way that makes you want to scream "get a room, you two!". There's also the one-sided version, where the recipient of the favoritism might not even have a clue, but everyone else is squirming due to awkwardness. (The classic "game master's girlfriend is a specific version of this, when it's not the next item of the list.)

Being a negative nelly. Many variations, but fundamentally rooted in assuming the worst about the game and sometimes other players. Often, the nelly was roped into playing (by their friend, their spouse, etc. - the other variation of "game master's girlfriend) against their own inclinations, and it is determined to not let anything sway them from their a priori opinion that the game an everything in it sucks.

Being a sore loser. Some people skipped kindergarden and never learned to cope with setbacks. So, rather than channeling the bitter feel of defeat towards anything useful (like playing better next time), they just blame the game, the game master and the other players.

Paranoia. Shares some qualities with the above two, but with extra insanity. A negative nelly might have some reason why they're skeptical and a sore loser is reacting to an identifiable setback. Not so with the paranoid. The paranoid chooses actions not informed by anything in the game, not letting reality get in the way of their imagination.

As a general comment, it's rare for players to act annoying in a way that's actually challenging or requires genuinely new solutions. Most common frustrating behaviours are just things people do in all kinds of games.

For contrast, unexpected bad play is typically a feature of new players who are coming to a game that they just don't have a clue about. But these rarely repeat. Like, one inexperienced group tried wandering into a dungeon without buying lightsources or any other equipment for that matter. Their characters ended up wrestling naked in the mud before I gave them a few pointers. But this was more amusing than frustrating.

Batcathat

2023-03-02, 08:18 AM

Hemming and hawing. Occasionally, when stakes get high, people start to throw suggestions, then immediately backpedaling, sometimes going back and forth between the same two options several times. It's normal, but wastes time, which is why I'm a proponent of actually timing player turns.

Yeah, this one can get annoying. I've never tried timing turns (and I suspect it could backfire in some cases, with players getting so stressed they freeze up) but I might give it a try.

As for other behaviors, I suppose I can get annoyed about too much OOC talk (especially about things not related to the game, but players talking about characters rather than as/to them can also bug me). On the GM side of things, I dislike it when their rulings feel inconsistent. Whether it's about interpreting the rules or making things up, I want two similiar situations to work in a similar fashion.

Velaryon

2023-03-02, 08:43 AM

Waiting until their turn in combat to even start thinking about what they want to do. This is especially bad if they're playing a spellcaster, and have a bunch of options they want to consider.

Trying to rob or kill every NPC they meet, even ignoring obvious hints that a particular character has nothing of value that would be worth taking.

Not even trying to learn the names of major NPCs, quest locations, etc.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-02, 09:42 AM

Waiting until their turn in combat to even start thinking about what they want to do. This is especially bad if they're playing a spellcaster, and have a bunch of options they want to consider. In spades, this is the worst.

Not even trying to learn the names of major NPCs, quest locations, etc.
That is also a bother.

Pet frustrations:
1. Not bothering to know their character and its abilities. This gets to me if I am a player or a DM. You have one job: play your character, know what it can do and how it can do it. Open the PHB. If stuff is confusing, ask the DM or another player to help you understand it.

2. Not paying attention, and in particular not paying attention to what the rest of the players are doing or saying.

3. I deal with "can't make a decision" in the current edition by saying "Make a decision, or you'll Dodge and it will be {next player]'s turn." Have not had to do that very often, but when I have it's gotten results.

4. Not already thinking about what to do before their turn. This gets even worse in on line play.

5. Not being on time. That's rude to everyone else.

Easy e

2023-03-02, 12:03 PM

One of the most frustrating things I see players do is try to hog the spotlight.

AS a GM, it is easy to throw the spotlight around and limit this. However, as a player it can be a bit more challenging dealing with this behavior. Even as a player, I like to try to throw the spotlight around to other players by interacting with their character, asking the player's advice, or simply saying "I need to think about this, can you switch to so-and-so?" to the GM.

Getting spotlight back from a spotlight hog can be tricky, but often is simply a question to the GM saying, "What is happening with the folks doing X?" A blunt yet effective technique.

Keltest

2023-03-02, 12:06 PM

My biggest peeve is players talking over each other, especially during something turn based. I get it, you have a question that will affect your turn. Please stop being rude about it. You arent the only one playing this game and I cant speak to multiple people at once.

kyoryu

2023-03-02, 12:44 PM

Waiting until their turn in combat to even start thinking about what they want to do. This is especially bad if they're playing a spellcaster, and have a bunch of options they want to consider.

Kinda depends. In a lot of games, the situation is so fluid that planning your move before your move is really tricky. Like, if it depends on exact placements of stuff on a battle map, and that changes very quickly? Planning a move is pretty hard.

Not even trying to learn the names of major NPCs, quest locations, etc.

To a certain extent I consider this a GM failure. Your players are telling you that they don't care about those NPCs, etc. Figure out what they do care about, and lean into that.

Or, if they have no real influence on that, accept that the "plot" is just window dressing for the combats.

Pauly

2023-03-02, 03:57 PM

Not thinking about your turn before your turn is my biggest.

Some others not previously mentioned.
Getting angry with bad dice. The dice are rather like the male appendage - they have no memory, no conscience and no obligations and their job is to fornicate things up [I might have been know to express this sentiment more crudely on the odd occasion]. Don’t throw the dice against the wall, don’t scream, just shrug your shoulders and say “well that sucks” and move on.

On the flip side, but a lesser annoyance, don’t gloat over really good dice either, your ability to roll a nat 20 when you really needed is not vindication of your decisions up to that point.

Giving tactical advice to other players mid combat. It’s their character and it’s their turn, let them make their choices.
As a GM I’ve had to make players lose their next turn on the basis their character has been too busy shouting orders at everyone else to do anything this turn. That normally cures the problem, but I’d rather not have to do it.

Easy e

2023-03-02, 05:03 PM

Mastikator

2023-03-02, 06:01 PM

Waiting until their turn in combat to even start thinking about what they want to do. This is especially bad if they're playing a spellcaster, and have a bunch of options they want to consider.

This is my biggest pet peeve as well.

The second one is players not learning how their characters work, it feeds into the decision making. I can forgive a new player with a new character, I do not forgive experienced players for this.

Another one is players not paying attention and then asking for a catch up. Some players do this a lot. I think the first two can also cause this, if it takes an hour to get to your turn then obviously you'll lose interest.

These three things can add up. I once sat through a 3 round combat that took 4 hours. I was not having a good time and I think the DM dropped the ball.

On the player side my two biggest pet peeves is
1) when the GM has inconsistent rulings, or uses on-the-fly houserules that override existing rules. It breaks my trust in them and the game.
2) when a GM tolerates extremely slow players, it sucks for them when their turn gets skipped because they weren't paying attention, learning how their character works. But I think it's incredibly disrespectful to everyone at the table.

On the flip side I am very forgiving to GMs that need to look things up, "Oh you're fighting this NPC? Give me a few minutes to pull up their stat block". Totally acceptable. The GM keeps track of tons of stuff, the player only needs to keep track of one character.

Pauly

2023-03-02, 09:59 PM

Jay R

2023-03-02, 10:26 PM

Waiting until their turn in combat to even start thinking about what they want to do. This is especially bad if they're playing a spellcaster, and have a bunch of options they want to consider.

I'm not a jerk about it, but as a DM, I have to keep the game running. I once had 12 players, and couldn't afford to let people maunder I have occasionally said some version of, "OK, Stronginthearm is not sure what to do. He looks around for a few seconds. Somebody bring Jon up to speed, and I'll move on to Bramblerose's turn. Jon, you can do Stronginthearm's action and the end of the round. Val, what does Bramblerose do?"

I have to admit, there is nothing I hate more as player than having a good plan that is foiled by a roll of 1, especially when it is an area that I have actual skill and should be the expert in as a character.

I once decided that a "1" on a plan that ought to work means that it works, but with consequences. The PCs were fighting gnolls who were climbing up the stairs, and Mike decided that his PC would vault over them, to attack from behind from the landing below. He rolled a 1. I decided, "OK, you have made it on the landing,, but have twisted your ankle. You cannot move until you are healed, but you can lean against the wall and fight."

DigoDragon

2023-03-03, 06:56 AM

On the flip side I am very forgiving to GMs that need to look things up, "Oh you're fighting this NPC? Give me a few minutes to pull up their stat block". Totally acceptable. The GM keeps track of tons of stuff, the player only needs to keep track of one character.

I'm more in the opposite camp with this scenario. Specifically, if an npc's got a stat block in a book, the GM at minimum should have page numbers written down in their notes (and have the book within reach) to make searching quick and easy. I've witnessed GMs take ten minutes just trying to find which book the npc stats are in.

Be prepared!

On the PC side, I get frustrated when a player agrees to a plan of action, but then doesn't follow through with their part of the plan. And it's not that something happened to make the plan not work; it's fine if the situation changes and you got to adapt. It's when the plan is actually working out and that players decides to just abandon it and do nothing.

Quertus

2023-03-03, 09:19 AM

Waste time. Which mostly means “not pay attention, then only think about the game when it’s their turn”, but also extends to “never learning their character rules and needing to look everything up”.

Cringe. This is mostly bad roleplaying, but also extends to “fade to black! Fade to black! For the love of Slaanesh, fade to black!”.

Not being better than single author fiction. If your character is so predictable that the game would play exactly the same if you skipped a month and had literally anyone else at the table play your character, then you really aren’t contributing anything to the experience. As a GM, the only joy I get out of the game is the players doing the unexpected. Don’t be replaceable with a Flowchart.

Slipjig

2023-03-03, 09:39 AM

I have to admit, there is nothing I hate more as player than having a good plan that is foiled by a roll of 1, especially when it is an area that I have actual skill and should be the expert in as a character.
That Nat 1 roll essentially destroyed my agency.

However, that is also why I normally try to avoid d20 games or really "swingy" systems, but sometimes that is what my fellow players want to play.

So, I know I have had a few times where those Nat 1 rolls have really ticked me off!

My response to that would be that if it's something you realistically should have almost zero chance of failing (e.g. climbing a sturdy ladder when there are no external stressors), why is your DM even asking you to roll for that?

Showing up to play a character not understanding the mechanics of their class is a big one.

Not figuring out what you want to do until your turn starts is also huge. It's one thing if the player before you did something that totally rearranged the battlefield, but if you are consistently looking up spells on your own turn, expect to be skipped (or at least have me strongly nudge you into casting a basic damage cantrip).

Also, one player wanting a really different playtime from everybody else. I don't love it when the whole party goes Murderhobo, but that's much better than ONE player going Murderhobo.

Keltest

2023-03-03, 09:42 AM

My response to that would be that if it's something you realistically should have almost zero chance of failing (e.g. climbing a sturdy ladder when there are no external stressors), why is your DM even asking you to roll for that?

Agreed. Having a plan rely on something like hitting an attack roll and missing is annoying, but you knew making the plan that failure was theoretically possible. If the DM just ad-hocs a die roll for something you expected to automatically work, thats starting to be an actual problem.

Nat20

2023-03-03, 09:44 AM

I'm not a jerk about it, but as a DM, I have to keep the game running. I once had 12 players, and couldn't afford to let people maunder I have occasionally said some version of, "OK, Stronginthearm is not sure what to do. He looks around for a few seconds. Somebody bring Jon up to speed, and I'll move on to Bramblerose's turn. Jon, you can do Stronginthearm's action and the end of the round. Val, what does Bramblerose do?"

In my games I make it known that if a player takes too long I'll prompt them again, if they are still uncertain, "Uncertainty overwhelms you for a moment and you hold your initiative." Then move on to the next player. They're slightly penalized but don't lose their turn, the others don't have to wait so long. Everyone continues to have fun.

One thing that gets me is when a player argues about rules that don't make sense to them because it's "not how they imagine it", insisting it should be house-ruled. DM points to the rules, player still argues.

It also kind of annoys me when they get food stains on their character sheets.

Kurt Kurageous

2023-03-03, 10:26 AM

Kinda depends. In a lot of games, the situation is so fluid that planning your move before your move is really tricky. Like, if it depends on exact placements of stuff on a battle map, and that changes very quickly? Planning a move is pretty hard.

It is pretty hard if you can't consider doing more than one move on your turn OR you will only accept the OPTIMAL move as your move. Fact is, you can't make the best decision until you know all the facts. That's never going to happen IRL combat, so don't expect it to be there in an abstract representation of combat.

I advise my players to come up with at least two if not three things they could do on their turn. If you are a caster, the third option is your cantrip.

I get that players like to make the most optimal move. But you gotta let that idea go. We don't have redos. That's not a bug, that's a feature.

The most annoying things brought up in this thread originate with a lack of respect for other players time and the game itself. I grok that people bring their own preconceptions to the table, and those preconceptions may be incorrect. When those preconceptions become misconceptions, it's up to the GM to correct it. In the case where misconceptions persist, then it is up to the GM to either remove the player who refuses to respect the game or remove themselves from running it.

No other game tolerates persistent misunderstandings. In sports, two yellows is a red, five fouls a disqualification, using the equipment to inflict bodily harm is an ejection. And it's the umpire/referee/official who throws out the player or declares the game over.

Do you think as a GM you are exempt from these duties?

kyoryu

2023-03-03, 11:09 AM

It is pretty hard if you can't consider doing more than one move on your turn OR you will only accept the OPTIMAL move as your move. Fact is, you can't make the best decision until you know all the facts. That's never going to happen IRL combat, so don't expect it to be there in an abstract representation of combat.

But there are some things that you almost can't plan, in some systems, until it's your turn. And D&D is on that list. Generally things involving areas/placement, where movement is fluid enough that any decisions you make right after your turn will be void by the time your turn comes around.

A fighter choosing which enemy to attack? Not so much, but their movement path also could change horrendously.

I mean, you're not wrong, in general, but it's also fair to recognize that some of the decision-making stuff really can't happen until your turn due to how the game functions.

The most annoying things brought up in this thread originate with a lack of respect for other players time and the game itself. I grok that people bring their own preconceptions to the table, and those preconceptions may be incorrect. When those preconceptions become misconceptions, it's up to the GM to correct it. In the case where misconceptions persist, then it is up to the GM to either remove the player who refuses to respect the game or remove themselves from running it.

No other game tolerates persistent misunderstandings. In sports, two yellows is a red, five fouls a disqualification, using the equipment to inflict bodily harm is an ejection. And it's the umpire/referee/official who throws out the player or declares the game over.

Do you think as a GM you are exempt from these duties?

You're not wrong, but I think it's a subtly different situation. In sports, the ref isn't your friend. In RPGs, they most often are. And that complicates the situation a bunch. You still have the same duties, in a lot of ways, but how they're handled often has to be different. (Note that in things like OP, that's less true, and the GM really should act more like a ref)

firelistener

2023-03-03, 11:36 AM

Many that others have mentioned, but the biggest one for me is when players try to fish for a mechanical advantage by getting the DM to change a rule or something about the game world. Examples:
"Can we say that pelicans have a swim speed? (So I can use my Sea Elf feature to talk to it).
"I think my character is really good at that skill, and it's like super part of their backstory so wouldn't I roll with advantage or something?"

Stuff like that annoys me as a player and DM because they would rather just play pretend than play a game, and it wastes everyone's time listening to this "mother-may-I" routine. When a DM allows it, the player is then encouraged to do this again, and you'll have ten or twenty minutes being wasted with someone trying to figure out how to get a ten percent better chance on a roll when another course of action might have resolved the problem far more simply.

As a DM, I try really hard to quash that behavior by making it clear that we have to stick to the rules as written so it's fair for everyone. I find that the players doing this tend to feel like I'm a bit of a stick-in-the-mud while the others appreciate it as a chance to shine. Players that have actually DMd before are tons better about all of these things though. I think running a game helps you realize how to be a better player.

Tanarii

2023-03-03, 11:44 AM

Bringing electronic devices to the table.

Waiting until their combat turn and then starting to go through their list of power cards (4e) or spell cards (5e).

Telling me the Check they want to roll instead of the activity they want their character to attempt.

Ignoring blatant hints!
(As a player, DMs giving blatant hints instead of just telling us! :smallamused: )

-----------

Possibly a little more what the OP intended:

Not having any idea what they want to try and do next. I actually consider this a failure on my part as a DM: clearly I didn't give them enough clear options, I gave them far too many options, I didn't get them immersed in he world enough they can't 'visualize' the situation, etc etc.

Trying to take prisoners instead of just killing everyone and looting in adventure-site raiding game
Killing everything and looting in an intrigue/mystery/horror game

Discovering Bahamat and his ancient gold dragon escorts sitting on a huge pile of loot in the deepest level of the dungeon (procedurally generated), one one players declaring "Meteor Swarm" before anyone else can speak.
Cleric who wasn't there the week before refusing to go find the charred and dusted bodies of the rest of the party to raise them.

Pex

2023-03-03, 01:39 PM

As a player or DM I don't mind group discussion for how to approach an upcoming encounter (combat or not), but deciding by a committee a player's action on his turn during combat is annoying. I have done it myself as a player where I say "If you do this I can do that" or "If you do this it will be cool for reason". In my own bias even that's ok. It's the 5 minute discussion going over possible outcomes. No, it's the player's turn. Do it now. I won't argue I should not be saying "If you do this I can do that" so often, but I will stand on it's ok sometimes. Players have to communicate tactics with each other. All the NPCs work together in perfect cohesion at the speed of DM thought.

I hate piggybacking of skills. A player does a skill use and now all the players want to do it, especially if the first player rolls low. As DM I don't allow that. Depending on circumstances I may allow a second PC to try it, but that's it. If the skill use is something all the players could be doing I ask for one person to roll with Advantage. That's the only roll. This goes true fo searching for traps. If a player looks for traps I call for a roll even when there is no trap. A low roll does not mean a trap was not found. Yes, it can happen a trap was missed, but that's the game. No everyone rolls until someone rolls high. Notice they don't ask for more rolls when the first person does roll high himself.

As a corollary, it also bothers me when the players want the PC with highest modifier to roll. Not when I DM. When a player mentions an idea that requires a roll, it's his character who rolls. He thought of it. He gets to do it. He gets to play. I remember games as a player I couldn't do stuff because the rest of the party insisted the PC with highest modifier do the Thing. No, I want to do the Thing. It was my idea. As above, if as DM I ask one PC to make the roll with Advantage because anyone can do it, I will allow them to let the PC with the highest modifier make the roll. Sometimes it is the fine and correct option, but every player gets to participate. Your idea; you do it.

gbaji

2023-03-03, 04:03 PM

I'm more in the opposite camp with this scenario. Specifically, if an npc's got a stat block in a book, the GM at minimum should have page numbers written down in their notes (and have the book within reach) to make searching quick and easy. I've witnessed GMs take ten minutes just trying to find which book the npc stats are in.

Be prepared!

Yeah. I'll second this one. As a GM you should always come prepared with printed out (or equivalent) sheets of stats/whatever for any NPCs the PCs may engage with. In most cases, you wrote (or are running at least) the scenario, so you should have a pretty decent idea of how things are likely to go in the very next session. You probably don't need the stats for the big bad guy in his Fortress of Doom(tm), but if the PCs just arrived in a town where there's a group of the bbeg's minions doing <something evil>, and the whole plot/reason they are here is to figure out what said minions are doing, and (hopefully) discover clues to <bigger grand evil scheme>, then it's probably a good idea to have some of these minions printed out and ready. And if they have a pet <insert monster here> maybe have that printed out as well. And if they've got connections with the local thieves or assassins and may use them against the party if they figure out who they are and why they are here, you should have some of them printed out as well.

Even for more "generic" adventuring, it's a good idea to have some random stuff ready. I usually just have "random theives" and "random bandits" printed out and tucked away somewhere at all times. If there are particular types of monsters/animals that exist in the area, I print out a sheet or two for those as well. Just so I always have "something" that I can use if the PCs find themselves stumbling into something and I need some stats for something for them to fight. I can use a "random bandit" stat sheet for "random thug who picks a bar fight" just fine, right? I can fill in the details in terms of magic, items, abilities, whatever on the fly if needed (and just scribble notes on the side of the sheet I'm using, then print that out for next week, if any of that is relevant to like PC obtained treasure or something). I *never* look at any source book, except maybe on the extremely rare case where I'm looking up some really oddball special ability and how it works in some really oddball situation.

Long ago, I created an excel spread sheet template for printing out sets of creatures in my game. I can create a new sheet, select from a dozen or so pre-programmed creatures/races and auto generate stats for up to 10 of that kind of critter at a time. Quickly fill in weapons, damage, skills, then a section for notes for special abilities/spellls/items/whatever at the bottom. If I've got some unique critter, I can manually edit the values as I wish (usually start with something "close", then edit to match what I want). And yeah, if I later need to create a set of the same non-standard critter, I have it saved on disk, so I can just bring up a sheet for "group of weird critters of type Z" and just print it out for any game I run later. I really do need to add a macro for "zombify" though (take existing creature and generate stats for if someone makes a zombie out of it, which is a thing that happens).

But yeah. As a GM, whatever method you use for running your game, if you find yourself flipping through pages while your players wait, take note of why you were doing that, then take steps to prevent needing to do that in future game sessions.

It also kind of annoys me when they get food stains on their character sheets.

Hah. This is part of a broader "players who lack situational table awareness" issue for me. And yeah, simple things like "move stuff out of the way of what you are doing" (like say, move your game materials so they aren't acting as your place mat while eating). I have a player who seems to freaking *always* knock things over, spill things, drop things, etc. Like at least once or twice a session. What's funny though is that I'll look across the table and there he is, with his glass of beer/soda sitting right next to his dice bag, and more or less right in front of him. Now, I'm thinking "maybe just move the glass waaaaay off to the side, so you don't accidentally hit it when you reach for your dice", but that's just me. And sure enough, he'll get excited, grab for his dice and "whoooosh", his drink is now spreading across the table. He also somehow manages to always have his laptop cord runnning right where he will manage to get his arm wrapped up in it, and will not notice until he's yanked it off the table. Also is constantly "searching for his dice" because he will pick up his character sheet (or any other random game materials), then set it down on said dice. Um... Really?

These aren't like things I hate, but maybe just kinda look at and shake my head a bit. Oh. Same deal with people who are constantly tossing their dice off the table. Um... Maybe don't shake them so vigorously that they fly out of your hand, backwards, across the room, hit the wall, roll around, and inevitably stop in the exact center underneath some piece of funiture. Just pick up the dice and roll them. Right onto the table in front of you. It's not really that hard. The randomness of the die does not actually change based on how hard you throw it, or whether you put some extra "spin" on it, or something. Just pick it up. Hold it in your hand. And then smoothly and gently roll it. It should not travel more than say 5 or 6 inches horizontally, and your hand should not be more than a couple inches off the table when you let it go. Maybe go home and practice this a few times to get it right.

Bringing electronic devices to the table.

Yeah. Number one rule at my table. Nothing non game related is allowed. No TV on in the background. No checking the scores of the big game. Only game related activities (and snacks of course) are allowed at the table. BTW, this does not preclude having electronic devices. Heck. I use them to send notes in the form of texts to players during game sessions sometimes (though often I will just scribble a note like the old school crazy person I am). And yeah, if it's something actually important (like a family member in the hospital, work called and monkeys got into the server room and they need help (yes, this actually happened once), and other actual emergencies) deal with it. But then it should be something serious enough to justify interrupting the game, and if it's really serious (like you need to rush off to said hospital, or work, or whatever), then that's something we may consider having to cancel the rest of the game session for. Just chatting with friends outside the game, or reacting to a funny cat video someone posted? No.

I hate piggybacking of skills. A player does a skill use and now all the players want to do it, especially if the first player rolls low. As DM I don't allow that. Depending on circumstances I may allow a second PC to try it, but that's it. If the skill use is something all the players could be doing I ask for one person to roll with Advantage. That's the only roll. This goes true fo searching for traps. If a player looks for traps I call for a roll even when there is no trap. A low roll does not mean a trap was not found. Yes, it can happen a trap was missed, but that's the game. No everyone rolls until someone rolls high. Notice they don't ask for more rolls when the first person does roll high himself.

As a corollary, it also bothers me when the players want the PC with highest modifier to roll. Not when I DM. When a player mentions an idea that requires a roll, it's his character who rolls. He thought of it. He gets to do it. He gets to play. I remember games as a player I couldn't do stuff because the rest of the party insisted the PC with highest modifier do the Thing. No, I want to do the Thing. It was my idea. As above, if as DM I ask one PC to make the roll with Advantage because anyone can do it, I will allow them to let the PC with the highest modifier make the roll. Sometimes it is the fine and correct option, but every player gets to participate. Your idea; you do it.

As a general rule, I try to break skill checks down to "something everyone can try, or are all trying as a group", and "something one person is doing". In the former case, I will then abstract the ratio of group success/failure into a general result for the group. I usually apply this to "how visible is your group when wandering around in the wilderness", or "how quiet is your group when walking up to that big door in the dungeon" sort of situations. And certainly when we're dealing with knowledge skills (does anyone notice what language is written on the parchement?), I tend to use this method. I play a skill based game, so giving all the characters opportunities to try to use skills when possible is a good thing, and allows for advancement over time. The latter case is where only one person can do something. Sometimes, it is possible for a second person to attempt it if the first fails (lockpicking perhaps, assuming you have enough time and didn't like get your picks stuck in the lock or something). Other times, I will have the party choose someone to do something (and yeah, this is often where the "highest skilled person does this" comes in). But then the entire success or failure rests on that person. So if you are tracking someone, you are picking one person to be your tracker, and choosing to follow that one person.

The reason for the latter scenario is to avoid the situation where first person fails, so we let second person try in situations where you should not know that. In some cases (like picking a lock), you know if you failed. But in others (like tracking, or following a map, or interpreting a dead language), the actual characters don't know that they failed the roll. They only know that "the tracks lead that way", or "the map says to turn left at the spire" or "It says the secret entrance will be revealed when a duck quacks thrice, I think". If someone else thinks the signs/clues/whatever means something else, only one can be correct, but you should have no way to know who. The players should pick one person to "trust" and follow that person's outcome.

I will often roll the die myself secretly in that sort of situation. Just for that reason. Although my usual player group is pretty good at just roleplaying out goofs just fine thankfully. So yeah, they'll merrily charge off in the wrong direction after the player who's character is the tracker horrifically fails their roll. They know it. Their characters do not, so off they go! That's not always the case at many tables though, and lots of players will somehow magically "come up with a reason to know that they are doing something wrong", which they somehow manage to absolutely forget about and never use to question the first roll when it's actually a success. So yeah, as a GM you have to keep an eye out for this sort of thing. There are some techniques to use to deal with this, but ideally you should not have to (they can become a bit draconian).

Several people have mentioned players not being ready for their turn (or not paying attention to what other PCs are doing, which is often related). Some of that, I suspect, derives from the earlier "distractions at the table" bit. It's why I tend to really push the idea of using a statement of intent at the beginning of the round. While most game systems give us turns that each character takes one at a time, the assumption is that this is really kinda all happening somewhat simultaneously, and the "take turns moving and acting" is just a game mechanic to abstract that. Players should really not be reconsidering their gross plans for the round because someone else's action changed things. By forcing them to make a statement ahead of time, you keep them "on target" with whatever they are trying to do. This can certainly allow for a certain amount of change, but what you actually do should be somewhat in the same "area/objective" as the original plan if specific circumstances change.

As a general rule, I'll allow changes of target/direction for actions, but not a change in the general action. If your statement was "I pull my sword and run up to those guys and attack", that can be changed to "I pull my sword and run to this other set of guys, since the wizard blasted the first set", or "I pull my sword and run past the charred remains of the guys I was going to attack and advance on the <whatever the objective is>", or "I pull my sword and stand around waiting for someone to attack" even. What I wont allow is "Um... Ok. I'll pull out a potion of <whatever> run over to this party member who got <hit with something> and hand it to them". Nope. You were planning on pulling out your weapon and engaging in melee combat if possible. That's what you are doing. Same deal with spell casting. If your statement was "I cast <spell X> on <target Y>", I'll allow you to cast it on a different target if something changes, but you are casting spell X. You can abort that spell casting if it turns out to be useless, but that's it. I do, however, always allow characters to switch to a defensive action if needed in the round, but never change what they are doing offensively in this way.

This forces the players to actually think a little bit ahead, and perhaps even coordinate what they are doing ahead of time, and also prevents the really absurd leapfrogging style of assaults that many game systems can enable, but which are not remotely realistic (even for a fantasy game). Attacking a defensive position with multiple layers and elements should take time. Allowing players to just make up their moves on the fly based on the outcomes of other actions already taken in the same round allows for some extremely ridiculous sequences of events. Yeah. This means that the PCs will advance more slowly. But that's not a bad thing. And yeah, it means that players aren't taking a ton of time considering every single action of every single round either.

IMO, it also makes combat situations actually flow better. But that's just me.

Slipjig

2023-03-03, 08:26 PM

icefractal

2023-03-03, 08:55 PM

The problem with planning your move out ahead of time is that you then become invested in being able to make that move. And so it's frustrating when situation changes and it no longer works, and doubly frustrating when the change was caused by other PCs.

However, I dislike "turn by committee" even more. Some coordination is good. But when it gets to the point that people are repeatedly saying "do this so I can do that" unsolicited, it's gone too far. And if it hits the point where the entire group is workshopping what someone's action should be? Way too far. This has caused me to somewhat dislike systems that heavily promote teamwork (4E, for example) because it leads way too easily into this situation.

So you put those two together, and the best way to be un-stressed and not pushy as a player is to stop having a plan for what anyone else besides yourself does. And when you accept that you can only control your own actions, there's a limit to how much in advance you can decide them.

Velaryon

2023-03-03, 09:31 PM

Kinda depends. In a lot of games, the situation is so fluid that planning your move before your move is really tricky. Like, if it depends on exact placements of stuff on a battle map, and that changes very quickly? Planning a move is pretty hard.

There's a world of difference between "the wolves spread out too much for me to get them with entangle like I was hoping, so l need to quickly reassess" and "Oh, is it my turn? What does this spell do again? Hmm... no, not that one. How about this? Shoot, I don't have that prepared. What about..."

That may be a bit extreme of an example, but my point is that in my experience, most of the time when people aren't thinking about their actions before their turn it's because they aren't paying attention.

To a certain extent I consider this a GM failure. Your players are telling you that they don't care about those NPCs, etc. Figure out what they do care about, and lean into that.

Or, if they have no real influence on that, accept that the "plot" is just window dressing for the combats.

There's a lot of assumption being made here - I've encountered dozens of players who don't bother to remember anything about the game world beyond what loot they've picked up. If the game world is being tailored to the players' interests and they're still not bothering to remember, then it's not the GM that's the problem.

Tanarii

2023-03-03, 10:09 PM

However, I dislike "turn by committee" even more. Some coordination is good. But when it gets to the point that people are repeatedly saying "do this so I can do that" unsolicited, it's gone too far. And if it hits the point where the entire group is workshopping what someone's action should be? Way too far. This has caused me to somewhat dislike systems that heavily promote teamwork (4E, for example) because it leads way too easily into this situation.
Every time I play a cooperative board game (e.g. Pandemic) this ends up happening.

Anyway, I usually use a rule of you say it your character says something like it, generally talking should be on your turn, and no more than 6 seconds per round. Then I can relax a bit from there to allow for table jokes :smallsmile: But I'm a firm believer that combat in TTRPGs should be tense, fast paced, and not feel like you have enough time to make a very good decision.

If you want to plan, scout first and develop a plan before you attack. And if you really want to raise your skillz, make a general plan for what you'll do if unexpectedly ambushed.

But really the "table talk can be heard by enemies" is enough to stop mid-combat planning sessions from going to far. And also has hilarious results when the peanut gallery badmouths an NPC while the face is trying to butter them up. :smallamused:

gbaji

2023-03-03, 10:35 PM

Hmm, does that "Declare Your Intent" work out okay? My concern is that if a player is at the bottom of the Initative order, there is a much higher chance that the thing she initially declared will no longer make sense when her turn comes up. And if you keep the same initiative, that's likely to keep happening to the same player every round.

Doesn't actually happen that often. And even less so "round after round". If the combat is big enough that there are multiple rounds, then there must be additional enemies to fight, actions to take, etc. So yeah, going last might occasionally mean "there's no one else to attack", but if your statement was something like "I'm going to advance and attack the enemies in melee", you still get to advance, and if there are no enemies, continue on (full move?) to wherever there may be "more enemies". If there aren't any, then the battle is likely over anyway, and you weren't going to get to do anything whether you used a statement or not.

What this does do is break up the actions a bit, and make it take more "rounds" to deal with some obstacles. Let's say that there's a group of enemies in the room, and a door leading to a hallway, with stairs, leading to a landing, where some ranged enemies are at, overlooking the battle (and maybe using archery and/or spells to attack your group below). Realistically, you'd need to stop and engage the folks in the room. Defeat them, then open up the door, run down the hall, up the stairs, then attack the folks on the landing, right (ignoring folks using other movement powers or something). What can happen (and I have seen happen) is the "leapfrog" assault. First person goes, say a high dex archer, shoots a few people. Then the next goes, runs up and chops a few more. A spell caster goes, and blasts the last few. The next guy goes and runs up, opens the door and moves into the hallway. The last person (maybe a "slow fighter type", does a full move, through the open door, down the hallway, up the stairs and ends his turn in melee with the folks on the landing. That's an insanely fast rate to do that attack, and the enemy, who should have had plenty of time to react and maybe take positions at the top of the stairs or something, is caught completely off guard, despite being in what should be a pretty good defensive position.

This breaks that up into at least two rounds, probably three. Round one, you deal with the folks in the first room. Period. You don't know what's beyond the door, where the hall goes, where the stairs are, etc. You can only make statements about what you can directly see. So either ranged attacks on the folks up on the landing, or attacks on the folks in the room. Someone *could* have a statement like "I'm going to try to get to the door and open it, if possible", but they're taking the risk that maybe the enemies will still be blocking it then, and not be able to perform that action that round. Then, once someone gets around them, they can open up the door, and see the hallway and the stairs (and perhaps figure out that this leads to the landing). On the round after that, they can make a statement like "I'll head up the stairs, and try to get on the landing, and attack the folks up there if possible".

It forces the players to take the encounter in bite sized pieces. Which is actually a more realistic representation of how such encounters would actually play out. It takes time to take in new information and react to it. Something which players in a "take turns in order" system can just kinda ignore. The sort of ballooning of actions that can occur if you allow each person to take their turn in order and act completely on the outcomes of those who have already gone in the same round can cause some really extreme silliness that should not make any sense at all. So yeah. Forcing them to make a decision as to what they are doing *before* anyone else has acted that round or they know what the outcome of those actions are, slows things down to a more "normal" pace.

That also seems like it would hit casters much harder. A martial who declares he's attacking can usually find something to attack. A caster who says they are casting Lightning Bolt is SOL if the enemies are no longer in a line by the time her turn comes up.

Yeah. In cases where spells weren't needed, maybe that's a good thing? It's also realistic (well, as realistic as we can be given we're talking about spells here). Anyone using a ranged attack in an active battle situation faces this sort of situation sometimes. And it can make the casters think a bit more about what spells to use in combat. I suppose it also depends on how spellcasting is defined in the game system you are playing. Usually, the assumption is that you start casting the spell at the beginning of the round, and when "your turn" comes around is when you finish. You have been chanting "lighting bolt" all round. If folks have moved out of position by the time you finish, you're kinda left casting an less effective spell (or can always just abort it).

You can also allow change of statement actions, with some penalty if you want. So there is that. Up to you.

The alternative is casters always using the maximumly effective spell for any situation even if the situation changed right in the middle of the round. Which leaves us in the absurd condition of assuming that it actually only takes you a split second to make your decision and cast the spell, but apparently you stand around for the entire rest of the round doing nothing? That's how the actual "initiative ordered, everyone take their full turn all at once" mechanic actually works, but it's supposed to be an abstraction of "the things you did over the course of the entire round". I mean, the melee folks aren't actually just standing still for 5.9 seconds of the round and then running X feet and attacking 3-5 times all in one instant, right?

We still resolve stuff "in order", but by requiring statements of intent, it creates a little bit of reality, and preserves the very real "confusion of battle" that actually happens in, well... battle.

An alternative to using statements at the begining of the round is to resolve movement actions first, and then combat actions. This also fixes some of the "leapfrog" problems of "in order" turns, while still allowing for a bit more flexibility in terms of "taking a more effective action when my turn to act comes". And yeah, it can still result in "I moved up to fight these guys, then the wizard zapped them all before I got to swing" situation. But... that's still a thing that could happen. And yeah, it also means that no one can just "run up to the door and open it" on round one. They have to move up to the NPCs in the way first. Then defeat them during the combat action portion. Then continue moving the next round.

Honestly though, that almost ends up being very similar to making a statement though, since you are already making a decision about where you are going (and presumably what you intend to do once you get there) at the beginning of the round. Recall that at least part of the objective to this is to prevent players from having their turn come around and only at that moment start thinking about what they are going to do. Any method that makes them start thinking about things ahead of time should help with this situation. You don't even have to be super draconian about making them "stick to the plan" if you don't want to. But this gives you a default of "well, you said you were going to do X", to maybe nudge indecisive players along if they are dawdling.

icefractal

2023-03-04, 12:42 AM

I feel like that would actually slow down combat considerably, unless the group size is rather large.

Currently, when your turn comes up, you only need to consider the current situation. Under this "advance declaration" variant, you need to consider all possible permutations which could have occurs by the time your initiative comes up. Consider the difference between:

A) Standard: "Ok, looks like all but one of the foes are down, so I'll charge that guy."

B) Advanced with Communication: "Hmm, there are three archers ... hey, anyone else going after the archers?" "Yeah, I'm going to Fireball them. They might make their saves though, so maybe you should charge them anyway?" "And possibly get caught in a fireball? No, Bob should shoot them instead." "Well I was going to shoot the Ogre" "I'll charge the Ogre, ok? You shoot the archers."

C) Advanced without Communication: "Hmm, there are three archers. But the mage will probably Fireball them. But what if he doesn't finish them off? Maybe I should move in, but then I might get Fireballed. Really, our own archer should be going after them, but what if he doesn't? He does have favored enemy: giants, so he might focus on the Ogre. So then ... should I risk getting hit by the Fireball, or risk being wasted overkill against the Ogre? Hmm, my Reflex save is ..."

B is probably longer and almost certainly not shorter, plus it encourages group-workshopping everyone's turn, so that's a hard no from me.

C is significantly longer for each individual player, but it is in parallel, so with enough players, it could be faster. But "enough" is larger than most groups, IME.

Also, if you're entering the realm of "what would realistically make sense", then you run into the problem that the GM is a hive-mind. At that point you have to allow full communication by the players, because the enemies effectively have perfect communication and cooperation, and then you just get the slowness of both worlds.

Tanarii

2023-03-04, 01:07 AM

Advanced declaration worked fine when D&D used side initiative. And also you couldn't target individuals in a melee either, so you weren't picking targets, just declaring an action.,
,
"Fine" as in it was still possible for 3 Fighters to have declared a charge into the enemy and the magic user to declare a fireball. But some level of table talk was always permitted, at least by my memory. So that wouldn't happen unless it was on purpose. Or someone was being stubborn.

Vahnavoi

2023-03-04, 02:40 AM

Not having any idea what they want to try and do next. I actually consider this a failure on my part as a DM: clearly I didn't give them enough clear options, I gave them far too many options, I didn't get them immersed in he world enough they can't 'visualize' the situation, etc etc.

It's less your fault than you'd think. The fact that the same hemming and hawing can happen with too many options just as well as too few, is the first hint.

One chief cause of not having any idea what to do is lack of internal motivation. This is not a thing that's easily fixed by you, an external entity, trying to prod the indecisive person into motion. Indeed: one reason why some players lack internal motivation is that they're too used to a game master feeding them what to do. They've learned that the "right" way to play is to suppress their own ideas in favor of the game master's, or the group's. This ties to the "play by committee" bit other have noted. Some game formats are optimal to (and even meant to be) played that way, but it tends to have the effect that less savvy players should just shut up and do what they're told, and less assertive players are just shut up regardless.

So, as a game master, when confronted with passive players, sometimes the correct choice is to do less and just sit and wait for players to figure out a thing on their own. They might get bored or anxious. That's not the problem. It's in fact necessary to distinquish between players who just take time to come up with an idea from the truly helpless. The former sort will react to the discomfort by doing things, eventually, even if only in the form of trial and error. The latter will just stay still, maybe complain for someone else to do something, but they will not do anything themselves.

---

I feel like that would actually slow down combat considerably, unless the group size is rather large.

Currently, when your turn comes up, you only need to consider the current situation. Under this "advance declaration" variant, you need to consider all possible permutations which could have occurs by the time your initiative comes up.

You'd be wrong. You're wrong for four reasons:

1) the implicit assumption that considering all permutations is even possible. Consider classic perfect information games, such as Chess or Go. It's theoretically possible to explicitly solve them from the first move. It isn't actually possible, because the number of permutations is too great to go through in a human lifetime. Anyone who plays these games knows it's only worth it to think few steps ahead at most.

2) the implicit assumption that needing to only consider the current situation means the players only consider the current situation. In truth, anyone who is any good will try to think more than one step ahead, meaning they are already making the type of considerations you attribute to "advance declaration" variant under the current variant.

3) the implicit assumptions that the realistic amount of permutations to consider gets much bigger. Again, Chess or Go make good comparison points: while the total number of permutations for the game is completely unfeasible, the number of valid moves per turn might be countable on one hand, or even zero (meaning you have to pass).

4) the implicit assumption that players have infinite time to consider their turns. It's possible to just hard cap how much time a player has for their turn, similar to clocked Chess variants. This, at the very least, means the game won't get much slower. It might make the game harder, but not slower.

Also, if you're entering the realm of "what would realistically make sense", then you run into the problem that the GM is a hive-mind. At that point you have to allow full communication by the players, because the enemies effectively have perfect communication and cooperation, and then you just get the slowness of both worlds.

A game master concerned with realism likely acknowledges it would not be realistic for enemies to act as if they have perfect communication and co-operation, and will take measures to not play enemies that way. Being able to act as if a character they control does not know everything they do is basic roleplaying skill, and even more essential to a game master.

So no, allowing full communication to players does not follow from pursuit of realism, because enemies acting as if they have a hivemind does not follow from pursuit of realism.

icefractal

2023-03-04, 03:13 AM

Being able to act as if a character they control does not know everything they do is basic roleplaying skill, and even more essential to a game master.
Hmm, so it would appear that a player who possesses "basic roleplaying skill" would be able to appropriately depict their character's level of tactical expertise without needing to declare in advance or act on reduced info. Unless you're saying only GMs can be trusted?

And while you may not need to or be able to consider *all* permutations, it's still true that in most cases declaring in advance will require more consideration, sometimes much more. And at the point you're putting a time limit on that, just put a time limit on people's turns directly!

I guess I'm not sure what advantage this is supposed to have. "I want the players to be more stressed and regret their decisions more during combat"? Is that a thing many players *want*?

And no, the fact that it could be considered realistic is not a reason to include it the group doesn't find it fun. It would be realistic for players who get injured in combat to be ... IDK, jabbed with a pin at least? Since being in pain makes it harder to think clearly. But we don't actually want that, because being in a fight generally isn't something you'd choose to do in your leisure time.

Vahnavoi

2023-03-04, 07:05 AM

Hmm, so it would appear that a player who possesses "basic roleplaying skill" would be able to appropriately depict their character's level of tactical expertise without needing to declare in advance or act on reduced info. Unless you're saying only GMs can be trusted?

You are essentially asking, can a player who can act, be asked to act? The answer is obviously yes. It's not a matter of trust, it's a matter of skill and what kind of game is being played. The easiest way to simulate not knowing something, is not knowing it, so a game can be made easier on the players by not giving them perfect information. Some types of game dynamics require it. A basic treasure hunt would be an example. The challenge for players is to find the hidden treasure, which means they cannot already know where it is. But somebody has to hide the treasure in the first place, hence a game master. Setting up that kind of a game requires two different jobs.

Same applies to realistic warfare. The game master, as scenario designer and referee, knows more than the players. But, in order for realistic actions on the players' part to work, their opponents cannot communicate and co-operate unrealistically well. So the game master ends up with a harder job of acting as if they know less than they do.

And while you may not need to or be able to consider *all* permutations, it's still true that in most cases declaring in advance will require more consideration, sometimes much more. And at the point you're putting a time limit on that, just put a time limit on people's turns directly!

I'm genuinely not convinced that there's any general rule that advance declaration requires more consideration than current format. Or, more accurately, I'm not convinced people actually consider less in the current format. Also, putting time limits on players is something I've been a proponent of all this time.

I guess I'm not sure what advantage this is supposed to have. "I want the players to be more stressed and regret their decisions more during combat"? Is that a thing many players *want*?

I'm not convinced it actually is more stressful. There's a good chance it only feels more stressful to you due to lack of familiarity.

As for regretting decisions, well, that has more to do with game difficulty than format of declaring actions. What would be good actions don't even necessarily change between formats.

And no, the fact that it could be considered realistic is not a reason to include it the group doesn't find it fun. It would be realistic for players who get injured in combat to be ... IDK, jabbed with a pin at least? Since being in pain makes it harder to think clearly. But we don't actually want that, because being in a fight generally isn't something you'd choose to do in your leisure time.

"Fun" is not a single thing. There are at least 8 different gameplay aesthetics that could be "fun" and they aren't always mutually compatible. Among those aesthetics is discovery, including discovery of how things work in real life. Concept of realistic warfare in tabletop games was pionereed by real military personnel seeking to teach other military personnel how to fight in real wars. It persisted as a hobby because people genuinely found it interesting. For another comparison, you say "we" don't want to be feel pain or get in fights on our leisure time. I must not be part of this mysterious "we", because I do full contact martial arts for a hobby. You could argue it's still not realistic, but it's a lot closer than being jabbed with a pin. :smallamused:

Tanarii

2023-03-04, 09:56 AM

I guess I'm not sure what advantage this is supposed to have. "I want the players to be more stressed and regret their decisions more during combat"? Is that a thing many players *want*?

And no, the fact that it could be considered realistic is not a reason to include it the group doesn't find it fun.
Yes and yes, and to the last sentence: being more immersed due to player experiencing what the character feels is one of two reasons. But that's kind of just a side benefit. I'd say first reason is most players find slow paced combat is BORING and find it very not fun. They love being able to play a TTRPG that doesn't feel like sitting in molasses wishing you had a cell phone to distract you from the other players taking forever.

But its not a good reason if the players are somehow forced to endure a game with fast paced combat and they find stressful not fun.

I mean, if an entire group of players that were friends came together and chose a DM, and/or had no advance warning the DM was going to run combat that way, and all/some hated feeling stressed in their game time*, and they loved playing slow speed mind chess and never found it boring ... then individual player turns probably help that style of play.

Otoh side initiative with taking as long as you like to discuss what you want as a team might also appeal to those players. I'd say it was the other 'fuzziness' that went along with side initiative that'd be the turn off, like no individual targets.

*game time can have two goals, or a mix of them: challenge/achieve and/or fun. Sometimes the they are at odds, sometimes they align. And that alignment is not going to be the same for different individuals in the same situation, such as being stressed.

LibraryOgre

2023-03-04, 11:28 AM

Pex

2023-03-04, 12:01 PM

Players who actively avoid the hook. Not "sometimes miss", but players who actively decide "We know the GM has some stuff planned out; we are going to completely avoid that." We did this somewhat in high school, where it was "**** it, we're going to Undermountain", but it is rude to the GM, who put work into creating (or, at least learning) the scenario.

Sure, let the GM know what kinds of things you want... but also don't completely trash everything because you don't want to play what the GM has available.

This can sometimes be avoided if the DM is clear he is running a Linear campaign. Some players prefer playing Sandbox exclusively. The DM still needs to prepare stuff for Sandbox, so if after preparing the players change their mind to do something other than what they told the DM last game session then the players are donkey cavities and the DM should consider strongly not playing with them. If the DM is running a Linear campaign it will help him to be upfront about it and get player buy in they will play the Plot the DM set up.

Tanarii

2023-03-04, 03:31 PM

Sandboxes don't usually include "the entire Published Campaign Setting, including the huge megadungeons which is a constrained sandbox in itself". But throw knowledgeable players familiar with a published setting into one and they'll often decide it does, unless the DM defines some parameters in advance.

I had a campaign that was supposed to be the Night Below 2e campaign. After the party captured the above ground castle in chapter 1, they decided "screw going into the under dark" and established a criminal enterprise selling pot across the realms, allying with the zhents. (It was college, so this all made perfect sense to everyone at the time.) if I hadn't placed the campaign specifically in the realms, it probably wouldn't have gone there. But they all knew the major cities and general layout of the campaign setting and in general terms the power groups, so they felt they had plenty to go on to derail the original idea.

Which didn't both me at the time, but totally could see how that would drive a DM crazy.

LibraryOgre

2023-03-04, 03:45 PM

This can sometimes be avoided if the DM is clear he is running a Linear campaign. Some players prefer playing Sandbox exclusively. The DM still needs to prepare stuff for Sandbox, so if after preparing the players change their mind to do something other than what they told the DM last game session then the players are donkey cavities and the DM should consider strongly not playing with them. If the DM is running a Linear campaign it will help him to be upfront about it and get player buy in they will play the Plot the DM set up.

It doesn't even need to be a linear campaign, though. "Ok, we WERE doing this thing last week, but I was thinking about it, and Jerry and I talked, so now we're going to do this entirely different thing. Yes, this means your entire week of preparation is useless. Let's get started gaming!"

I had a campaign that was supposed to be the Night Below 2e campaign. After the party captured the above ground castle in chapter 1, they decided "screw going into the under dark" and established a criminal enterprise selling pot across the realms, allying with the zhents.

The end of Book 1 has killed most of the Night Below games I've heard about. "Ok, so, the person we were originally supposed to go looking for has been gone for months. She's probably dead. Let's... do something for a bit."

Jay R

2023-03-04, 06:32 PM

Players who actively avoid the hook. Not "sometimes miss", but players who actively decide "We know the GM has some stuff planned out; we are going to completely avoid that." We did this somewhat in high school, where it was "**** it, we're going to Undermountain", but it is rude to the GM, who put work into creating (or, at least learning) the scenario.

Sure, let the GM know what kinds of things you want... but also don't completely trash everything because you don't want to play what the GM has available.

It's worth remembering that the approach of avoiding the hook is also tactically bad for the PCs. As I wrote in my "Rules for Players:

a. The best loot has been placed where the DM thinks you will go. Go get it.
b. This doesn’t mean only do the expected; it means do clever, unexpected things within the actual plot.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-03-04, 06:40 PM

The way I play, you can't avoid the plot. All you can do is change what the plot is. Wherever you go, there is some kind of plot there.

But yes, if you repeatedly tell me at the end of the previous session that you're going to zig and then decide to go to Albuquerque, I might get annoyed. That's more about poor communication than anything.

Slipjig

2023-03-04, 08:45 PM

IMHO, the best way to run a sandbox is to ask the PCs at the end of every session, "What are you planning to do next time?", ideally including at least the broad strokes of HOW they plan to do it. If the PCs say they are infiltrating the Duke's manor, it really helps DM planning to know whether they are planning on crawling up through the sewers or walking in the servants' entrance disguised as caterers.

For annoying player behavior: assuming that every decision will be a correct one, and then being cranky if there bad consequences to ridiculous choices.

I largely blame video games for this, as too many people have grown up playing "no amount of jackassery will break the plot" games (yeah, I'm looking at you, BioWare). I was pleasantly surprised last night when a failed pickpocket role on a guard in the Solasta expansion apparently permanently locked me out of allying with his faction. I mean, that's clearly a bad consequence, but hey, my choice ACTUALLY MATTERED!

Pauly

2023-03-05, 04:00 PM

Quertus

2023-03-05, 05:41 PM

I hate piggybacking of skills. A player does a skill use and now all the players want to do it, especially if the first player rolls low. As DM I don't allow that. Depending on circumstances I may allow a second PC to try it, but that's it. If the skill use is something all the players could be doing I ask for one person to roll with Advantage. That's the only roll. This goes true fo searching for traps. If a player looks for traps I call for a roll even when there is no trap. A low roll does not mean a trap was not found. Yes, it can happen a trap was missed, but that's the game. No everyone rolls until someone rolls high. Notice they don't ask for more rolls when the first person does roll high himself.

As a corollary, it also bothers me when the players want the PC with highest modifier to roll. Not when I DM. When a player mentions an idea that requires a roll, it's his character who rolls. He thought of it. He gets to do it. He gets to play. I remember games as a player I couldn't do stuff because the rest of the party insisted the PC with highest modifier do the Thing. No, I want to do the Thing. It was my idea. As above, if as DM I ask one PC to make the roll with Advantage because anyone can do it, I will allow them to let the PC with the highest modifier make the roll. Sometimes it is the fine and correct option, but every player gets to participate. Your idea; you do it.

Once upon a time, in Shadowrun, we got a disc (or CD or hard drive or something). Everyone took a turn, nobody could understand it. Finally, my Troll asked for it. Party hesitated, then let me take a crack at it. Turns out, I was the only one who put any skill points into tech-related skills. <roll> “Huh. It’s encrypted.” <roll> “Huh. Decrypted it.”

My Troll knew he wasn’t good with tech, so didn’t say anything until everyone else had tried and failed. It was probably my favorite moment from that game, seeing how shocked everyone was that the Troll was the “smartest” character in the party. :smalltongue::smallcool:

I guess my question is, why does it bother you that everyone wants to roll? That maybe the last person you expected actually had a chance? That, maybe just this once, the oblivious Quertus happened to notice a trap nobody else saw?

OTOH, if some random idiot butted in and tried to disarm a bomb when there’s a bomb disposal expert standing right there, I suspect it might be legal to kill them in self defense. So I think there’s a strong use case for “only the trained professional gets to touch the nuke”. But I’m with you in the general case, and, sadly, many standard deviations below “average” skill are generally allowed to do things like drive or cook or write D&D adventures/novels/movies irl IME.

If you want to plan, scout first and develop a plan before you attack.

So much this. Unless it’s 4 hours of only 1 player getting to play.

And if you really want to raise your skillz, make a general plan for what you'll do if unexpectedly ambushed.

I think a generalized version of this could be printed as a good self-help book.

But really the "table talk can be heard by enemies" is enough to stop mid-combat planning sessions from going to far. And also has hilarious results when the peanut gallery badmouths an NPC while the face is trying to butter them up. :smallamused:

Hahaha! And this is why, at many tables, no, only the player (not character, player) with the highest social skills should be talking.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-06, 08:46 AM

Poor dice management.
- not knowing what dice to use
- not knowing where your dice are
- knowing where your dice are but not being able to access them quickly (it’s in my dice bag somewhere)
- not rolling into a box or other open area
- rolling wildly such as off the table or under books.
- choosing to use hard to read dice At least our group didn't have that problem last night.

You have to know your character.
We had another case of
"I've been playing this rogue (Swashbuckler) since level 1, I am now a SB 13 / Bard 3, and I don't know how my character's features work" last night.

I am a fellow player. It takes me between 15 and 45 seconds (max) to execute my turn because (1) I know my character sheet and my character inside and out and (2) I pay attention to the rhythm of the game and know when my turn is coming up. I have the answer most of the time because I am taking in what the PCs and their opponents are doing. The character is a Fighter with Shield Master.

With that said, it takes up to a minute, and sometimes a bit more, when I play a caster since I often have to explain how a spell works or what it's doing or what it's supposed to be targeting. But you don't wait for me; I can make a decision and I do. What drives me nuts, particularly for 'known' spell casters, is agonizing over which spell to select during those rare level ups. I want to be ready for anything, but of course one can't be ...

Then there is the "I take forever to take my turn" due to not keeping up. The cleric has been with this party since about level 1. He goes into a soliloquy when his turn comes up "OK, so what shall I do?" and takes a substantial amount of time to get through their reasoning, out loud, as he finally makes a decision and complete the turn.
On the bright side, he knows his character sheet inside and out, and he handled summoning and controlling an air elemental very well in our recent 10 (11) round fight against:
An adult red dragon (who burst in on round two)
Some drow and two drow shadowblades (Who snuck in on the flanks on round 3)
Two gorgons (who had surprise because they were covered by an illusion before the rogue woke one of them up by accident.

This fight all happened more or less in the same cavern, and ended in a wide passageway heading upwards (where we finally ran the immense bag of HP known as an Adult Red Dragon down to 0. Gloom Stalkers Rock!) Oh, and we had a heck of a time making the wisdom save of 19 against Frightening Presence. The cleric made it right off, but the rest of us took a while to not be frightened of the Dragon. That did result in the Gorgon's getting smashed a bit by the barbarian and me...
The barbarian 10 (MC 4 Moon Druid) and the Ranger (half caster), and my fighter (no caster, Shield Master Sword and Board) all know our characters and waste no time getting our turns done.

Last night's battle took a while, in part due to the DM being somewhat over loaded by the size and variation of the enemies who showed up, the number of Lair and Legendary Actions, but given that I've DM'd large parties of enemies before I thought he did a very good job of keeping the action flowing.

Jay R

2023-03-06, 09:19 AM

- choosing to use hard to read dice

Several years ago, I decided to get rid of all my hard-to-read dice. So I went through my dice (quite a lot) and filled a large bowl. I brought it to the game and let people have them.

This led directly to others in my game rolling dice that I couldn’t read.

Annoyingly, I couldn't even blame them for it. It was my fault.

Easy e

2023-03-06, 09:38 AM

I am annoyed by myself being a clumsy gitz and spilling someone else's drink, because I don't bring drinks because I am a clumsy gitz.

gbaji

2023-03-06, 01:05 PM

I feel like that would actually slow down combat considerably, unless the group size is rather large.

It's something I mentioned as an option for dealing with situations where you have players who are taking an inordinate amount of time considering their options when their turn comes around. So no, this will speed things up in those situations.

Currently, when your turn comes up, you only need to consider the current situation. Under this "advance declaration" variant, you need to consider all possible permutations which could have occurs by the time your initiative comes up. Consider the difference between:

A) Standard: "Ok, looks like all but one of the foes are down, so I'll charge that guy."

B) Advanced with Communication: "Hmm, there are three archers ... hey, anyone else going after the archers?" "Yeah, I'm going to Fireball them. They might make their saves though, so maybe you should charge them anyway?" "And possibly get caught in a fireball? No, Bob should shoot them instead." "Well I was going to shoot the Ogre" "I'll charge the Ogre, ok? You shoot the archers."

C) Advanced without Communication: "Hmm, there are three archers. But the mage will probably Fireball them. But what if he doesn't finish them off? Maybe I should move in, but then I might get Fireballed. Really, our own archer should be going after them, but what if he doesn't? He does have favored enemy: giants, so he might focus on the Ogre. So then ... should I risk getting hit by the Fireball, or risk being wasted overkill against the Ogre? Hmm, my Reflex save is ..."

As someone else already pointed out, if the condition I suggested this solution for is occurring anyway (players taking too long when their turn comes around), then they are already *not* just doing a simple "what can I do this round right now" thing, and are likely already considering "How does this fit into what other PCs have yet to do this round", and "What will I want to set my self up for next round", and a host of other considerations that fall into the "advanced" scenarios as well. That same amount of indecision can occur in the middle of the round just as easily as at the begining.

The difference is that at the beginning of the round, it's a "clean slate" so to speak. You are only considering what you want to do, and perhaps what others are likely to do in the round as well. You aren't also considering what actions have already occurred, which ones are yet to occur, and how success/failure of those actions may impact your decision.

The very argument *against* start of round statements (I can take in account what's happened so far in the round) is the reason why it makes things faster. Believe it or not, having less information makes decisions *easier/faster*.

Seriously. Try it out. You might be surprised at just how well it works. It also has the huge advantage in that the players have each already thought about and committed to "what I'm trying to do this round", so when their turn comes, they already know this, and so does everyone else. So there's no confusion. No "forgetting" what they are doing. It works as a mental/memory trick to help players keep on track.

And the easiest way to work around the whole communication bit is to have players make statements for their characters in reverse initiative order. So those with the best reaction speed (or however that's rationlized in a given game) can react to other players intentions, but just not the actual outcomes. The slower guy just charges off to do whatever. Faster people notice that charge and react to it in terms of what they do. But neither knows what the actual outcome of their choice is going to be ahead of time. Which, IMO, works pretty well.

You'll also find that players don't feel the same pressure to be ultra optimized with their actions every single round. Dunno. A lot of times, I don't bother with it. Small quick stuff, it's probably not neded (as you suggested), but if the combat is at all large and/or complex (which is usually where decision paralysis can happen to players anyway), this really helps to keep things moving.

Also, if you're entering the realm of "what would realistically make sense", then you run into the problem that the GM is a hive-mind. At that point you have to allow full communication by the players, because the enemies effectively have perfect communication and cooperation, and then you just get the slowness of both worlds.

Also as mentioned previously, this is a matter of GM skill. GMs already have to do this, and play NPCs as though they don't know the details of the PCs abilities and plans. The issue here is players who are taking too much time to take their turns and how you can address that as a GM.

I guess I'm not sure what advantage this is supposed to have. "I want the players to be more stressed and regret their decisions more during combat"? Is that a thing many players *want*?

In my experience this technique decreases player stress. They are less concerned about maximizing outcomes because the GM has given them a tool to manage that. You will find cases where what you planned on doing in the round isn't super important anymore for various reasons, and instead of stressing about "OMG! What do I do now? Everyone is waiting on me to come up with something!!!", you just take your action. You already said what you were doing, and can't change it. So... done. You are then free to consider what to do next while not in the hot seat and everyone is wating on you.

By making simple and basic statements (again, these can be broad things like "I'm going to run up to the enemies and attack with my sword", or "I'm going to move behind those barrels and fire at opponents I can see", or "I'm going to start casting <whatever> and cast it at <appropriate group for the spell>", or "I'm going to follow the melee folks and heal anyone who gets seriously injured". You can usually take those kinds of statement and turn them into an at least somewhat useful action, even if the specifics have changed somewhat along the way.

It does actually make things much easier on the players.

And no, the fact that it could be considered realistic is not a reason to include it the group doesn't find it fun. It would be realistic for players who get injured in combat to be ... IDK, jabbed with a pin at least? Since being in pain makes it harder to think clearly. But we don't actually want that, because being in a fight generally isn't something you'd choose to do in your leisure time.

You're equating this to pain and stress. Have you actually ever tried this method though? I've seen many people hesitant to use statements, all making the exact same arguments you are, then, once they actually try it a few times, they discover how much easier combat works, and how much better it flows, and that it's not actually painful or stressful at all. You just have to drop the (IMO highly stressful) "I must determine and act on the absolute best choice this round I can make" mentality. Allow for a little muddledness in an encounter. Let things actually happen dynamically, without over analyzing them. Again. You'd be surprised at how much less stressful and more "fun" this can be.

When your players don't feel like it's the end of the world if they didn't make a highly tactical "perfect" move every single round, they can actually relax and enjoy themselves. And sometimes the hillarity of folks not working in perfect harmony can provide the best gaming experiences. Treat RPG encounters (even combats) as "fun things to do", not "tasks to be performed in the most efficient manner possible".

Poor dice management.
- not knowing what dice to use
- not knowing where your dice are
- knowing where your dice are but not being able to access them quickly (it’s in my dice bag somewhere)
- not rolling into a box or other open area
- rolling wildly such as off the table or under books.
- choosing to use hard to read dice

Lol. Yup. I've seen all of those. I think I've done all of them at some point in time as well. I've learned to use a dice box instead of a bag (any method to lay out the dice so they are visible and easy to get to). It doesn't matter how you lay out your play area, but you should do so, and be consistent with it.

Another one that drives me nuts is the folks who are constantly losing their pencils. Like always. Just put it back in the same place every time, and it'll always be there. Probably a good bit of life advice in general. I have a friend who is the most disorganized person in general. Papers stacked up all over the place. Random stuff put in random locations. I have, on several occasions had to call his cell because he can't find it. He just puts things down wherever happens to be convenient at the moment, then forgets he put it there, then puts other things on top of the thing he put there, also not really paying attention to where he put that stuff either. So yeah, cell phone three layers down in a stack of random gaming materials. Pencil located under his snack plate. Dice randomly located under/behind various objects scattered around him.

When I was a kid, I hated when my parents would say stuff like "A place for every thing, and everything in it's place", but that's actually not bad advice at all. I never have to go looking for my car keys either.

sithlordnergal

2023-03-06, 05:56 PM

kyoryu

2023-03-06, 07:21 PM

There's a world of difference between "the wolves spread out too much for me to get them with entangle like I was hoping, so l need to quickly reassess" and "Oh, is it my turn? What does this spell do again? Hmm... no, not that one. How about this? Shoot, I don't have that prepared. What about..."

For sure. It's just not entirely black and white.

There's a lot of assumption being made here - I've encountered dozens of players who don't bother to remember anything about the game world beyond what loot they've picked up. If the game world is being tailored to the players' interests and they're still not bothering to remember, then it's not the GM that's the problem.

Nah.

Because ultimately, what it boils down to is the GM wanting people to be interested in things they're not interested in. And that's a losing battle. Sure, you can work on your skills to make things more interesting, but that's not always gonna work.

So in that case, you basically have two choices: You either focus the game/plot on things the characters do care about, or you accept that they won't care about the plot (or that only some players will, and focus on them), and that the "plot" is just the stuff they go through to get to the things they do care about.

But you can't make people care about things they don't care about.

The other choice, of course, is "play with people that do care about the world".

Buufreak

2023-03-06, 08:58 PM

I am annoyed by myself being a clumsy gitz and spilling someone else's drink, because I don't bring drinks because I am a clumsy gitz.

Ah, someone who knows my pain, through and through. Blood brothers!

As to gripes, honestly I don't think I have too many. Since covid most all of my gaming has turned to online, and I play with a group that is respectful and there are plenty "oh I'm sorry, go ahead, finish what you were saying" going around l. Idk. Maybe I've just struck it gold in recent gaming years.

gbaji

2023-03-06, 10:39 PM

Nah.

Because ultimately, what it boils down to is the GM wanting people to be interested in things they're not interested in. And that's a losing battle. Sure, you can work on your skills to make things more interesting, but that's not always gonna work.

So in that case, you basically have two choices: You either focus the game/plot on things the characters do care about, or you accept that they won't care about the plot (or that only some players will, and focus on them), and that the "plot" is just the stuff they go through to get to the things they do care about.

But you can't make people care about things they don't care about.

The other choice, of course, is "play with people that do care about the world".

Yeah. One approach is to make sure that the things you put in your game actually matter and are relevant to the actions the PCs are taking. It's quite common for GMs to generate huge lists of NPCs, names of various businesses in town, different nobles, persons and places of interest, etc, but aside from providing these things to the players, and maybe mentioning them once, they are utterly irrelevant to any adventuring actually going on. Why do I care what the Innkeepers name is, if the only interaction I have with him is paying for my room? Do I care about the names of the local nobles? Not unless I get into an adventure where knowing who is who, and what plots are going on, and intervening in some way actually matters. So yeah, don't be surprised if you put all this detail into your town/kingdom/whatever, and the players don't remember any of that because the adventure itself just involves going off to some dunegon somewhere, exploring it, killing some people/monsters/whatever, getting loot, then coming back, so that nothing that the PCs ever do actually involves that "cast of characters" in any way.

I've found that if the plots of your adventures actually involve these NPCs, they will tend to remember their names. I tend to run fairly intricate scenarios with a lot of NPC interaction, with different factions doing different things, some helpful, some not, and the players absolutely love figuring out who is doing what, how things are tied together, etc. Heck. They often have better memories about my NPCs than I do. And I'm somewhat famous for just making up random NPC names off the top of my head when I'm winging it a little bit (or a lot bit!). The two NPC detectives in a nearby port city they ran into on one adventure years ago have become regular recurring characters almost every time they are in the area (and inevitably get involved in some kind of "trouble"). Hans and Frans may be grumpy, and generally mistrustful, and no strangers to the mean streets of their city, but they've actually helped the PCs out a number of times too. It's not my fault that I just kinda brain froze when they decided to go talk to some of the local law enforcement folks about some information they needed at the time, and now, it seems like they just always seem to need some help, or information, or someone to kinda look the other way when they're doing something that maybe is a good thing to do, but not technically "legal" (the words "We don't want to know" seems to pass their lips a lot). NPCs who are interesting and recurring and have relevance to what the PCs do, tend to be remembered. The folks they run into once, or maybe just kill in the course of a single adventure, or are just "background fluff"? Not so much. There is such a thing as over-detailing your setting.

But yeah, point absolutely taken. Sometimes, players really just don't care about that stuff. They want you to point them in a direction, tell them what to kill, and then get whatever game rewards they get from that. Trying to get those players into some more complex social adventuring, in which remembering the names of the NPCs will be important, may just fail anyway. And if that's the case, then you either need to think about getting new players, or think about running a different kind of game.

Tanarii

2023-03-06, 10:43 PM

There's a lot of assumption being made here - I've encountered dozens of players who don't bother to remember anything about the game world beyond what loot they've picked up. If the game world is being tailored to the players' interests and they're still not bothering to remember, then it's not the GM that's the problem.
Nah.

Because ultimately, what it boils down to is the GM wanting people to be interested in things they're not interested in. And that's a losing battle. Sure, you can work on your skills to make things more interesting, but that's not always gonna work.

So in that case, you basically have two choices: You either focus the game/plot on things the characters do care about, or you accept that they won't care about the plot (or that only some players will, and focus on them), and that the "plot" is just the stuff they go through to get to the things they do care about.

But you can't make people care about things they don't care about.

The other choice, of course, is "play with people that do care about the world".
The post you quoted was about doing number 1, and yet they still don't care to remember the details.

No skin in this game and haven't gone back up the quote chain, but it just jumped out at me that you responded to 'if players don't care even when it's tailored to their interests it's not the GMs fault' with 'tailor it to their interests'. :smallamused:

kyoryu

2023-03-06, 10:55 PM

Easy e

2023-03-07, 10:45 AM

Quertus

2023-03-07, 11:28 AM

Believe it or not, having less information makes decisions *easier/faster*.

Seriously. Try it out.

I have tried it. And my results do not match your hypothesized expected results. Especially for myself, but also to a lesser extent for many of my players.

My results indicate that people spend more time creating more contingencies, while said contingencies, being based on less information, are worse than their single action taken in the moment. Worst of all worlds, slower and worse play and more stress and better memory required, would not recommend.

That said, players in my groups tend to get the stink eye or be shown the door if they cannot learn to pay attention and act quickly, so we’re not exactly the target audience…

kyoryu

2023-03-07, 11:31 AM

I honestly do not expect the Players to recall names of anything, because I am a player and know that I hardly ever recall it. Instead, as a GM I try to give NPCs one distinguishing trait and the players latch onto that WAY more than any name.

Like, Captain Talbot has a huge, curled moustache with waxed tips becomes "That guy with the 'stache", to the players. Meanwhile, Lady Gwendolyn has her hair wrapped in two buns becomes, "That noble chick with the Princess Leia hair". You get the idea.

It is not that they are not interested, but there is a lot to recall when playing an RPG. As the GM I try to give them little pneumonic devices to help them. Plus, I always enjoy hearing what nicknames or descriptors they manage to come up with. They are usually good for a laugh.

In addition, even if you have a scene with multiple NPCs, never have them talk to each other and try to only have one talking at a time to the PCs. That helps a ton too.

Yeah, if you want NPCs to be remembered, it's best to have them be relevant, and to have something distinctive about them. A little personality quirk can go a long way.

A super ninja trick is to have the players, in some way, invest in the NPC. Investing in things makes people care about them, generally. That's one of the reasons Aerith's death hit so hard. You generally can't force them to do this, but creating situations where they're incentivized to pick a side and invest in one of several NPCs can encourage it.

But if the story is really linear, and the NPCs don't actually matter, then you can doubly expect the PCs to not get too invested in them.

kyoryu

2023-03-07, 11:32 AM

Easy e

2023-03-07, 01:20 PM

Yeah, if you want NPCs to be remembered, it's best to have them be relevant, and to have something distinctive about them. A little personality quirk can go a long way.

A super ninja trick is to have the players, in some way, invest in the NPC. Investing in things makes people care about them, generally. That's one of the reasons Aerith's death hit so hard. You generally can't force them to do this, but creating situations where they're incentivized to pick a side and invest in one of several NPCs can encourage it.

But if the story is really linear, and the NPCs don't actually matter, then you can doubly expect the PCs to not get too invested in them.

The double-secret probation GM mind-trick is to have the players make up the NPCs and their relevance themselves! That can even work in a relatively linear game world, especially if you can make them recurring.

Plus, then as GM you can have fun purposely messing up their NPCs names in order to subvert expectations. LOL

kyoryu

2023-03-07, 02:04 PM

The double-secret probation GM mind-trick is to have the players make up the NPCs and their relevance themselves! That can even work in a relatively linear game world, especially if you can make them recurring.

Plus, then as GM you can have fun purposely messing up their NPCs names in order to subvert expectations. LOL

That kind of player-authoring can really work well, for the right players. Some people recoil from that, hard.

gbaji

2023-03-07, 04:10 PM

I have tried it. And my results do not match your hypothesized expected results. Especially for myself, but also to a lesser extent for many of my players.

My results indicate that people spend more time creating more contingencies, while said contingencies, being based on less information, are worse than their single action taken in the moment. Worst of all worlds, slower and worse play and more stress and better memory required, would not recommend.

That said, players in my groups tend to get the stink eye or be shown the door if they cannot learn to pay attention and act quickly, so we’re not exactly the target audience…

Yeah. From your descriptions, I also suspect that your table (and dare I say... you) actually like/require the ability to "leapfrog" encounters, and are looking to maximize the outcome per action ratio. Which, yeah, by full admission, having statements tends to degrade quite a bit.

But for the stated conditions (players who can't remember what they should be doing, or are just now trying to think of something to do when their turn comes around), I think that statements of intent do work very well. It requires that they give at least a general statement ahead of time, which means that they aren't spending all that time when their turn comes around. And yeah, I suppose we could also run into the issue of folks taking too much time to think of their statement as well, but IME, it's usually easier to do that at the beginning of the round, when everyone is at a 'starting point' more or less, than in the middle when things are in motion. And I do find that if you break up decisions into "general->specific" bits, folks have an easier time making decisions. This forces them to go through that thought process by breaking them into two distinct phases.

Obviously, if you've got a table full of hard charging players, who are ultra focused on the game and maximizing effective use of their round/actions, it's probably not needed and would absolutely be a hindrance to that style of play. But then, you probably don't have players sitting there when their turns come around going "Oh. It's my turn? Um... Let me find my wallet. Did I bring coupons? Hold on, let me check... I know I have some here somewhere..." (Ok, That's my grocery store pet peeve, but whatever).

That kind of player-authoring can really work well, for the right players. Some people recoil from that, hard.

Yup. A lot of players will react to that with a kind of "Um... Shouldn't you be creating the content?". It's one thing to have the players name some random NPC (and as some have pointed out, they're going to use nicknames anyway). It's a whole different thing for them to actually decide "there's an NPC. His name is Fred. He runs the local emporium. Wears a funny hat, and speaks with a lisp. Um... He has a crush on the flower stand lady next door, and... um... is secretly a worshipper of <evil deity here> and works with a human trafficing ring where he skims sacrifices for himself". Or something similar. It's a hard line to distinquish between creating "random NPCs" to creating actual "content for the PCs to consume".

And honestly? I want to do that as the GM. Now this does not preclude the occasional player filling in some stuff that his player interacts with, including NPCs. I let them do that if they want. But I don't require it, and I always hold the right to make changes to any NPCs that exist in the game setting.

Quertus

2023-03-07, 06:51 PM

Yeah. From your descriptions, I also suspect that your table (and dare I say... you) actually like/require the ability to "leapfrog" encounters, and are looking to maximize the outcome per action ratio. Which, yeah, by full admission, having statements tends to degrade quite a bit.

But for the stated conditions (players who can't remember what they should be doing, or are just now trying to think of something to do when their turn comes around), I think that statements of intent do work very well. It requires that they give at least a general statement ahead of time, which means that they aren't spending all that time when their turn comes around. And yeah, I suppose we could also run into the issue of folks taking too much time to think of their statement as well, but IME, it's usually easier to do that at the beginning of the round, when everyone is at a 'starting point' more or less, than in the middle when things are in motion. And I do find that if you break up decisions into "general->specific" bits, folks have an easier time making decisions. This forces them to go through that thought process by breaking them into two distinct phases.

Obviously, if you've got a table full of hard charging players, who are ultra focused on the game and maximizing effective use of their round/actions, it's probably not needed and would absolutely be a hindrance to that style of play. But then, you probably don't have players sitting there when their turns come around going "Oh. It's my turn? Um... Let me find my wallet. Did I bring coupons? Hold on, let me check... I know I have some here somewhere..." (Ok, That's my grocery store pet peeve, but whatever).

Yeah, it's not a strategy that's useful for most people at my tables, so... your expected results only apply to the target group? A group that my tables typically kick to the curb? Yeah, so long as the "it's true - try it an see" isn't meant to be universal, then that parses / flies / jives / whatever.

Personally, though, I'd like to think I'm trying to optimize the most roleplaying per action, rather than maximize the outcome per action ratio, as my signature tactically inept academia mage might indicate. :smallbiggrin:

gbaji

2023-03-07, 10:01 PM

Yeah, it's not a strategy that's useful for most people at my tables, so... your expected results only apply to the target group?

Um... Yeah? What part of "if you're having problems with players taking too long to decide what to do when their turn comes around, try doing this..." made you think I was referring to anything other than that "target group"?

I also sometimes provide advice for people with pets who pee on the carpet. Dismissing that advvice by saying: "This advice is useless to me since my pet never pees on the carpet" is kinda missing the point IMO.

Yeah, so long as the "it's true - try it an see" isn't meant to be universal, then that parses / flies / jives / whatever.

Um... Ok. I'll take "Your advice is useful for the exact conditions under which you stated they were useful". I guess. :smallconfused:

Personally, though, I'd like to think I'm trying to optimize the most roleplaying per action, rather than maximize the outcome per action ratio, as my signature tactically inept academia mage might indicate. :smallbiggrin:

Hah! Tomato/Tomahto...

Velaryon

2023-03-07, 10:23 PM

The post you quoted was about doing number 1, and yet they still don't care to remember the details.

No skin in this game and haven't gone back up the quote chain, but it just jumped out at me that you responded to 'if players don't care even when it's tailored to their interests it's not the GMs fault' with 'tailor it to their interests'. :smallamused:

Thank you.

Sometimes you can do everything exactly right and people still won't care. You follow all the best advice, you can give them funny names that stick out, you can let them pick names themself, and they still won't bother.

But anyway, I was under the impression we were discussing "frustrating things players do in a game," not "whose fault is it if players don't engage?" Regardless of the reason why, when players don't even attempt to engage with the game that's presented (especially when it's specifically something they wanted), then it's frustrating.

Easy e

2023-03-08, 10:02 AM

I think we all know that the most frustrating thing that players do is......

Not show up after they agreed to be there.

kyoryu

2023-03-08, 10:42 AM

Yup. A lot of players will react to that with a kind of "Um... Shouldn't you be creating the content?". It's one thing to have the players name some random NPC (and as some have pointed out, they're going to use nicknames anyway). It's a whole different thing for them to actually decide "there's an NPC. His name is Fred. He runs the local emporium. Wears a funny hat, and speaks with a lisp. Um... He has a crush on the flower stand lady next door, and... um... is secretly a worshipper of <evil deity here> and works with a human trafficing ring where he skims sacrifices for himself". Or something similar. It's a hard line to distinquish between creating "random NPCs" to creating actual "content for the PCs to consume".

And honestly? I want to do that as the GM. Now this does not preclude the occasional player filling in some stuff that his player interacts with, including NPCs. I let them do that if they want. But I don't require it, and I always hold the right to make changes to any NPCs that exist in the game setting.

Giving the players an opening to do this can be fine. Expecting it and getting mad if they don't.... not recommended.

Pex

2023-03-08, 05:20 PM

I think we all know that the most frustrating thing that players do is......

Not show up after they agreed to be there.

wins thread

:smallbiggrin:

Tanarii

2023-03-08, 06:23 PM

Pex

2023-03-08, 11:27 PM

Yeah, hard to beat not showing up.

Maybe ... entire group deciding they want to do something else and campaign falling apart. I've had that one a few times when it's a group of friends that love to do stuff together, but frequently move from one to the other.

Worse, players not telling you they aren't liking the game and why they are not liking it. Therefore, there's no opportunity to change your style or whatever needs to change to let them have fun so they decide to play something else, maybe even tell you they'll get back to your game but want to try out someone else's D&D game, but of course they never get back to your game.

Vahnavoi

2023-03-09, 07:47 AM

On a similar note:

Players claiming to like things they don't, or claiming to not like things they do. You can replace "like" with "want" if that makes it easier to understand. Happens especially often with kids.

Why?

Because people are not machines with clearly defined utility functions. A lot of the time, when people say they (do not) like or want something, they are not stating a genuine preference. They are simply making a prediction of how the thing would feel, often based on nothing more than their current mood. So, when the time comes to actually do the thing, they don't actually act according to their earlier statements. You gave them all they said they wanted? They're showing no interest towards it and are requesting for something else to do. You went against all their loud protests and did what you wanted? Now they're suddenly happy about it and asking for more.

No easy solutions to it, sometimes you just have to figure this out by trial and error.

Morgaln

2023-03-09, 09:19 AM

Several people have mentioned players not being ready for their turn (or not paying attention to what other PCs are doing, which is often related). Some of that, I suspect, derives from the earlier "distractions at the table" bit. It's why I tend to really push the idea of using a statement of intent at the beginning of the round. While most game systems give us turns that each character takes one at a time, the assumption is that this is really kinda all happening somewhat simultaneously, and the "take turns moving and acting" is just a game mechanic to abstract that. Players should really not be reconsidering their gross plans for the round because someone else's action changed things. By forcing them to make a statement ahead of time, you keep them "on target" with whatever they are trying to do. This can certainly allow for a certain amount of change, but what you actually do should be somewhat in the same "area/objective" as the original plan if specific circumstances change.

As a general rule, I'll allow changes of target/direction for actions, but not a change in the general action. If your statement was "I pull my sword and run up to those guys and attack", that can be changed to "I pull my sword and run to this other set of guys, since the wizard blasted the first set", or "I pull my sword and run past the charred remains of the guys I was going to attack and advance on the <whatever the objective is>", or "I pull my sword and stand around waiting for someone to attack" even. What I wont allow is "Um... Ok. I'll pull out a potion of <whatever> run over to this party member who got <hit with something> and hand it to them". Nope. You were planning on pulling out your weapon and engaging in melee combat if possible. That's what you are doing. Same deal with spell casting. If your statement was "I cast <spell X> on <target Y>", I'll allow you to cast it on a different target if something changes, but you are casting spell X. You can abort that spell casting if it turns out to be useless, but that's it. I do, however, always allow characters to switch to a defensive action if needed in the round, but never change what they are doing offensively in this way.

This forces the players to actually think a little bit ahead, and perhaps even coordinate what they are doing ahead of time, and also prevents the really absurd leapfrogging style of assaults that many game systems can enable, but which are not remotely realistic (even for a fantasy game). Attacking a defensive position with multiple layers and elements should take time. Allowing players to just make up their moves on the fly based on the outcomes of other actions already taken in the same round allows for some extremely ridiculous sequences of events. Yeah. This means that the PCs will advance more slowly. But that's not a bad thing. And yeah, it means that players aren't taking a ton of time considering every single action of every single round either.

IMO, it also makes combat situations actually flow better. But that's just me.

Something like that is an actual rule in the storyteller system (i. e. World of Darkness). In that system, every combatant (players and non-players alike) have to declare what they will be doing at the start of a combat round, in reverse order of initiative. The intent behind that is that faster combatants can recognize what slower combatants do and have a chance of interrupting them. WoD is a bit harsher than you are, as it requires people to succeed at a Willpower roll to be allowed to change their action, and if I remember correctly, you can only change it into a defensive action even then.

After using the rule for quite a while, I decided to thow it out for several reasons:
It made combat much slower; I found that my players were quicker to act if they were choosing in the spur of the moment instead of having what amounted to a planning phase at the start of each combat round.
The system further penalized anyone who was late in initiative order even further. They either had to accept that they would likely not be able to defend, make their action less effective by splitting their dice pool just to have a dodge ready, or spend resources (Rage in our case) to have a dodge. However, the faster combatants could then make them waste these actions/resources by just not attacking those characters or doing something that couldn't be dodged. It lead to a lot of frustration, especially for characters whose stats meant they were likely to be low in initiative more often than not.
In W:tA there are (low-level) powers that all but ensure characters with those powers will go before anyone else. That's already a huge advantage, it doesn't need to be even better.
The system didn't make much sense. Clearly, the faster characters were able to react to what the slower characters were planning to do; so why weren't the slower characters able to react to what the faster characters had already done? It was taking options away from the players purely because they had rolled badly on initiative.
From a storytelling perspective, allowing the players to choose in the spur of the moment also made combats more dynamic. I could introduce twists in the middle of a round and players were able to immediately react to the changes. It lead to more interesting and dynamic situations, with far more opportunities for the players to get creative.

gbaji

2023-03-09, 02:34 PM

After using the rule for quite a while, I decided to thow it out for several reasons:
It made combat much slower; I found that my players were quicker to act if they were choosing in the spur of the moment instead of having what amounted to a planning phase at the start of each combat round.

Fair enough. If your players are doing fine just acting when their initiative comes around, then there's no problem to be solved here. I presented this as a potential solution to "players taking forever to decide what to do when their turn comes around". My experience is that players who have a hard time making decisions when in the middle of a dynamic situation (middle of a round), often don't have as much difficulty when it's the beginning of a round instead (usually). Obviously, players who analyze things to death are going to do that in either case, but those folks are usually paying attention to every single thing happening in the course of the round, and keeping a running tally of actions to take in response, so when their turn comes around, they are practically chomping at the bit to implement their "plan". Those aren't the players for whom this would be needed.

The system further penalized anyone who was late in initiative order even further. They either had to accept that they would likely not be able to defend, make their action less effective by splitting their dice pool just to have a dodge ready, or spend resources (Rage in our case) to have a dodge. However, the faster combatants could then make them waste these actions/resources by just not attacking those characters or doing something that couldn't be dodged. It lead to a lot of frustration, especially for characters whose stats meant they were likely to be low in initiative more often than not.

Wait? Are you using this for NPCs as well? Don't do that. The GM should mentally determine what the NPCs are doing this round before anyone declares anything. The GM should not be doing "cheesy" things like waiting until a player declares an action and decide that his NPCs will declare actions purely designed to make that PCs action null. That's not how the statement should be for the GM. The GM should have NPC objectives, and play them straight.

The PCs should not be stumbling over eachother, and if anything this should help them coordinate their actions for that round. That is the objective here, not to give the NPCs some new/special advantage. This means that "faster" PCs can make intelligent choices about their statements based on what the "slower" PCs have already declared they are doing. So you don't double up on the same opponent, don't fail to block some other opponent, no one thinks to attack the main bad guy, etc.

Statements are a game mechanic the GM can use to get the *players* to commit to what their characters are doing ahead of time (for a variety of reasons). It's not to be used for "gotcha" games between opposing sides. If you are doing PvP, you should have the players make their statements secretly, so the other side doesn't know. It's purely about allowing some degree of coordination between the PCs, while keeping them moving forward.

In W:tA there are (low-level) powers that all but ensure characters with those powers will go before anyone else. That's already a huge advantage, it doesn't need to be even better.

Yeah. Again. Don't have the NPCs do this. The GM should not be announcing NPC statements to the table either. It's not a tool for opposing sides in the conflict to know ahead of time what the other guys are planning. It's to alllow coordination among folks on the same "side". Obviously, the GM need not do this because he's runing all of the NPCs himself.

The GM should intentionally *not* act on player statements for the same reason. GMs should never have NPCs act with the knowledge of what the players are discussing, even though the GM is right there listening to it, right? Same deal here.

The system didn't make much sense. Clearly, the faster characters were able to react to what the slower characters were planning to do; so why weren't the slower characters able to react to what the faster characters had already done? It was taking options away from the players purely because they had rolled badly on initiative.

Because they are slower? And neither gets to react to the "outcome" of the action. Only the intention/plan.

If you did that, then you'd effectively be allowing the folks with the slowest reaction times to be able to react to everything that happened in the round, even though it's all technically suppossed to be happening simultaneously. So the "fast" people can only react to the "plans" of the slow people, but the slow people get to react to the outcomes of the fast people's actions? That seems backwards.

From a storytelling perspective, allowing the players to choose in the spur of the moment also made combats more dynamic. I could introduce twists in the middle of a round and players were able to immediately react to the changes. It lead to more interesting and dynamic situations, with far more opportunities for the players to get creative.

Eh. I've seen this go either way. Totally up to your table. It also leads to "no mistakes ever made" situations. And it can also lead to some "odd" situations where the folks with the slowest reactions are better able to react (quickly) to things happening mid-round than the fastest people.

Halfway through the round, a hidden door bursts open and a group of bad guys starts coming through. This should be a surprise thing the PCs weren't expecting, and they realistically should not be able to do anything except maybe defend themselves from this new set of enemies. But the "dynamic" method you are using means that if any random (and in the slowest half of the group reaction wise) PC has initiative come up right aftert the door opens, they can just run over and engage/block the NPCs. Sure. That's "heroic", and maybe some game tables really really like that sort of "react instantly to everything" method. I'm not as big of a fan. And yeah, it also makes some actions "tricky" to play out.

I used to play Star Fleet Battles back in the day. The default rules required plotting your movement out at the beginning of the round (and committing to energy spent on X, Y, Z, etc). During the round, you chose when to fire your weapons, launch drones, shuttles, activate <whatever>, and there were some minor movement adjustments you could make. But "where you go" had to be prestated and written on your sheet for the round. There was an optional rule for "free movement" (move and turn as you liked during the round). I actually hated it, but some players loved it. To me, it removed about 90% of the tactical part of the game (come up with a maneuver that would "work" most of the time and/or something "surprising" that the other player didn't expect, and gain an advantage in position as a result).

I see "dynamic" reactions like that kinda like I saw free movement in SFB. Yeah. You get to do what you want when you want to do it. But it means that you can never make a mistake, turn the wrong way, get outmaneuvered by someone else doing something you didn't expect, etc. And it also, somewhat perversely, means that the characters with the fastest reaction times have the least ability to actually react to something "new" that happens mid round (they've already gone by then). So...

Again though, obviously use whatever works at your table. If if aint broke, don't fix it. I find that in addition to the primary purpose I wrote about here (addressing issues with players taking too much time making action decisions when their turn comes around), it also helps to "keep players honest". As a GM, I roleplay out NPCs not having perfect situational awareness. My NPCs will sometimes do things that aren't the ideal action, specifically because I'm "playing honest", and acting based on what the NPCs objective was, and not allowing them to instantly react to everything. I do this to allow for clever PC actions to actually "surprise" the NPCs and give them (the players) an advantage. So yeah, I also expect the same from my players as well, but I've found that some players have a very hard time ever actually roleplaying being "surprised" and "not having a plan, so I can't really react correctly to something". They will pretend their character is surprised, but then take an action that just happens to be exactly the right/best thing to respond to something they realistically should not have known they'd need to do.

It also depends heavily on the exact game/combat mechanics in use too. Some systems lends themselves well to statements. Others, not so much.

Pauly

2023-03-09, 03:53 PM

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-09, 04:12 PM

Making a fast method of getting around IGO-UGO without creating more problems is a holy grail of game design. RTS handled it well enough. (Another shameless plug for Starcraft)

gbaji

2023-03-09, 06:23 PM

IGO-UGO is a mechanic that is implemented because simultaneous and/or plotted actions are hard. Depending on the system/situation going first or going last can be advantageous.

The absolute worst way to think about is “the rest of the world is in stasis whilst my character performs their action”. Which unfortunately is the default setting for RPGers.

Making a fast method of getting around IGO-UGO without creating more problems is a holy grail of game design.

The game system I use the most often (my regular game) is RuneQuest (ok, somewhat modified, but still). It uses a strike rank system, so you could technically just go through the round one strike rank at a time (1 SR = 1 second), and each person spends that strike rank either waiting to go (Dex determines basically how many SR you "wait" before you can start doing anything in the round), or moving (a short distance each rank), or "making an attack" (which takes SRs based on the character size and the size of the weapon), or "casting a spell" (which takes a number of SR based on how powerful the spell is). Technically... Could do...

99% of the time, I just go around the table and have players move their characters where they want to go, while kinda moving the NPCs generally in response, they meet in the middle somewhere, and then we use SRs just to determine order of combat actions from there. It's pretty easy to count out distance and just say "Ok. So you'll arrive at that location on SR 5", which lets the player know how much more time they have to do stuff in the round.

I do use statements of intent, but generally only when there's some reason to do so. Usually in the initial round of combat, since there's a lot of variability. Do you charge to the enemies? Take position and used ranged fire? Stand back and cast spells? Etc. But once the battle is going and folks are more or less "in position", I usually don't bother with it, and just run around the table. There's no such thing as initiative, since "when" an action takes place relatively speaking is already determined. And it only really matters in relation to whatever opponents you are fighting at the moment, or if you and another PC are interacting with the same NPCs.

The game already has an automatic mechanism for dealing with "new things". You suffer a 3 SR penalty and can do whatever you want. So if you haven't already attacked during the round, and something "new" pops up, you can wait an extra 3 SR (if there's enough left in the round), and do something in response. Simple. So if a bad guy breaks out of the pack and starts charging at the mcguffin, you can say "Hey. I haven't cast a spell yet this round, so I'll spend 3 SR, and then cast my lightning bolt to blast him". And maybe that makes you spend more ranks, and you don't have time to attack this round (or maybe you still can). So statements of intent are just rarely relevant in this system.

The system also allows for 2 combat actions (attack, parry, dodge; pick two), and one spell action per round. Defensive combat actions can be taken any time you want (but can't use them while casting spells). Attacks and spell casting takes ranks to do. Movement can basically be squeezed anywhere in there that you have time to do so. So it's usually a matter of "count up ranks to move to position" then "count up ranks to do combat attack" then "see if I have enough time to cast a spell". And not necessarily in that order.

It's far from perfect (no system is), but it does have the benefit of avoiding the "full action or no action available" issue. Everyone can "react" to things that happen in the middle of the round, and it's just a matter of how much time you spend doing that. I've just always found it very silly to have everyone actually "go" in specific order when realistically everything is supposed to be happening all at once. So "middle of the round" isn't actually a statement of time, but of initiative order. Which, again, results in silly things like "folks who go slower can react faster". So as a GM, you either have to just never have stuff happen "during the round" (every "new thing" occurs at the beginning of the round, allowing everyone to react based on initiative), or you have to contrive some other means to avoid said silliness. And the problem is that (IME) the players will never only do "new things", or make "new decisions" at the beginning of the round (unless required to via statement of intent). Which leads to the "leapfrog" condition I spoke of earlier. Players will gleefully take advantage of an early initiative person breaking a hole in the NPC line, then next initiative person charging through it and taking out the door switch guard, next initiative person hitting the switch to open the door on the opposite side of the room, then having the "slowest" person advance though said door, all in one round.

But they will expect, and often loudly insist, that the GM is not allowed to have "new things" happen except at the beginning of a round, so they can all react to it in initiative order. A new group of NPCs can only arrive at the beginning of the round. Doors only open at the beginning of the round. Terrain elements only move at the beginning of the round. And to be fair, they've got a point (as I mentioned above), since the fastest people *should* be the first to react to these "new things". But yeah, they absolutely don't want to be bound to the same "only make new decisions, or do new things at the beginning of the round" for themselves.

Which yeah. Is absurd. And is yet another thing that statements "fix". Unless, of course, your table just loves playing that way. I don't. I think it's incredibly unrealistic for anyone to act/react in that manner. But it can be "heroic", so there is that. I'll also point out that the players will also tend to loudly complain if you use the same sort of leapfrog tactics against them. They'll insist that "that guy shouldn't have known that <whatever> would happen, and shouldn't be able to take <some action>". And then argue about it endlessly. So this combination of things often results in a very "unequal" use of the game mechanics. Which, again, if you're going for "PCs are special snowflakes who get to do what they want" kind of game, then that's just fine. Me? Not so much. It's one of the reasons that I pretty much *always* require statements of intent when playing a game with a "full round action, taken in initiative order" kind of round resolution mechanic. If I'm restraining my NPC "new things" to the beginning of the round, then the players must do so as well. And if not... then the players had better be perfectly fine with the NPCs using the same sort of "cheesy" tactics that they use.

Dunno. I don't require or expect a game system to perfectly simulate real life (or some fascimile of it), but I do try to avoid the most ridiculous conditions that some game mechanics can allow for and try to tamp them down a bit. Some players are good at being "reasonable" with the mechanics. Others just abuse the heck out of them. And yeah, all of this is heavily dependent on the table and how the players really want to play.

Pauly

2023-03-09, 09:56 PM

The best system I remember playing for dealing with initiative/pre-planning was an old Warhammer game - can’t recall if it was an official game or someone’s homebrew.

Initiative order for each turn was done by cards, you shuffled a deck with every character/npc in it, placed it face down. Then you turned cards over 1 by 1, so you didn’t get to know who was going after you. Iirc some characters if they had an initiative bonus could return their card to the deck and have the deck reshuffled if they didn’t like where they came in the turn.

Each PC and NPC had a tactics card that they placed face down in front of their character sheet at the start of the turn before initiative. These were very general like “move left”, “move forward”, “charge”, “attack”, “defend”, “cast attack magic” etc. Again it’s been a very long time since I played, but if for some reason you couldn’t perform your declared action you could substitute another, but these were limited to defensive options such as take cover or withdraw.

I enjoyed playing it, but some other people at the table got really stressed about the fog of war and having to commit to an action that could be rendered sub optimal by the time it got to their turn.

Morgaln

2023-03-10, 03:54 AM

Wait? Are you using this for NPCs as well? Don't do that. The GM should mentally determine what the NPCs are doing this round before anyone declares anything. The GM should not be doing "cheesy" things like waiting until a player declares an action and decide that his NPCs will declare actions purely designed to make that PCs action null. That's not how the statement should be for the GM. The GM should have NPC objectives, and play them straight.

The PCs should not be stumbling over eachother, and if anything this should help them coordinate their actions for that round. That is the objective here, not to give the NPCs some new/special advantage. This means that "faster" PCs can make intelligent choices about their statements based on what the "slower" PCs have already declared they are doing. So you don't double up on the same opponent, don't fail to block some other opponent, no one thinks to attack the main bad guy, etc.

Statements are a game mechanic the GM can use to get the *players* to commit to what their characters are doing ahead of time (for a variety of reasons). It's not to be used for "gotcha" games between opposing sides. If you are doing PvP, you should have the players make their statements secretly, so the other side doesn't know. It's purely about allowing some degree of coordination between the PCs, while keeping them moving forward.

I was specifically talking about something that is part of the core rules of World of Darkness, not a homebrew thing. And yes, that rule absolutely applies to both PCs and NPCs. Note that this means the PCs can, and absolutely will, take advantage of the knowledge they have of what slower NPCs are doing. So it's not giving the NPCs a special advantage, it's giving the faster characters a special advantage; apart from being able to strike first and potentially takin someone out before they can act at all, they also know who to take out as the strategically best option. I wouldn't call that a "gotcha," I'd call that optimizing your actions on the information available.

Because they are slower? And neither gets to react to the "outcome" of the action. Only the intention/plan.

If you did that, then you'd effectively be allowing the folks with the slowest reaction times to be able to react to everything that happened in the round, even though it's all technically suppossed to be happening simultaneously. So the "fast" people can only react to the "plans" of the slow people, but the slow people get to react to the outcomes of the fast people's actions? That seems backwards.

It doesn't seem backwards to me. It makes total sense that those that are slower to act can react to whatever those who are quicker to act have already done. Whereas the other way around means the faster people can see into the future and anticipate everyone's actions.
If you want truly simultaneous actions, everyone should write down their action in secret and then reveal it when their turn comes around. But that would certanly slow things down.

Note that I'm not trying to dissuade you from your way of doing this. It works for you, and that's great. I'm just telling you about my experiences with a system where this is part of the actual rules.

gbaji

2023-03-13, 07:41 PM

I was specifically talking about something that is part of the core rules of World of Darkness, not a homebrew thing. And yes, that rule absolutely applies to both PCs and NPCs. Note that this means the PCs can, and absolutely will, take advantage of the knowledge they have of what slower NPCs are doing. So it's not giving the NPCs a special advantage, it's giving the faster characters a special advantage; apart from being able to strike first and potentially takin someone out before they can act at all, they also know who to take out as the strategically best option. I wouldn't call that a "gotcha," I'd call that optimizing your actions on the information available.

Ok. I was just responding to the issues that caused where by making statements in that system, since they were "public" it could allow for cheesy things like "Ok. I'll just ignore that guy who's just standing there defending himself to make him waste his round". And it sounded like that was your exact issue with the system.

IMO, the "solution" to that problem is to not have public declarations except among people on the same "side". If you are going to use a system like that, and are making statements, they should not be information the opponents can react to. Just my personal preference, of course.

It doesn't seem backwards to me. It makes total sense that those that are slower to act can react to whatever those who are quicker to act have already done. Whereas the other way around means the faster people can see into the future and anticipate everyone's actions.

Sure. And to be fair, a lot of this also brings into question what exactly the "beginning of a round" is, in the first place. And what we're really doing when rolling for initiative. In this case, I was responding to the case where we don't make statements of intent at all, but just have people go in initiative order. So yeah, the faster people get to move and attack first, which can be great for taking people out first. But, in the absense of a "reverse order statement of intent" system, the slower people actually get to react to what others have already done in the round, in a way that the faster people don't.

So in a "make statements in reverse initiative order, then take actions in initiative order" system, the slower people may be penalized by having to declare actions first, and potentially have them not be useful/effective actions to take by the time their turn comes around. But in a "just do your turn in initiatve order, making decisions about what to do right then" system, the slower people actually have an "advantage" in terms of being able to react "mid round" to what has already happened.

And I'll point out that the "anticipate everyone's actions" only occurs among members of the same "side" if you do what I suggested above and don't treat statements as public information. And again, only in terms of "plan", not "result". Again, not perfect, but hey...

If you want truly simultaneous actions, everyone should write down their action in secret and then reveal it when their turn comes around. But that would certanly slow things down.

I vaguely recall a system we played around with where there was no concept of "end of turn" at all. Don't know if this was a published thing, or just something we came up with and tried out at some point. The concept was that various actions took specific "action points" to do. And basically everyone had like an action track in front of them with an indicator on it. Whomever had the lowest action rank for their next action just went (and this could be a move, attack, use item, cast spell, etc, kind of thing). Everyone else just reduced their action track by the number of ranks as the person who just went. The person who went, would decide a new action, put the card/whatever next to the track, and set it to the correct value based on the action. Next person goes next, and we repeat.

I seem to recall it worked "Ok". Some people would eternally forget to set their action levels, or subtract them, or whatever. Dunno. It did seem like a pretty interesting way to do things, and part of what made it work was that no one took "full turns" of actions. Each individual thing you wanted to do was broken down. So folks who had faster attacks just got to take attacks that took fewer ranks. Casting different spells could take different amounts of ranks as well. Move rates were expressed as "moves per X ranks" (or something similar, I honestly can't recall all the details). So yeah. If you wanted to act more often, you did "faster" things. But "faster things" were often also "less powerful" things.

Note that I'm not trying to dissuade you from your way of doing this. It works for you, and that's great. I'm just telling you about my experiences with a system where this is part of the actual rules.

Yeah. There's lots of ways to approach this. And I've never yet run into a system that worked perfectly. I guess what I'm trying to do here is toss some alternatives out there. I think that many players are so caught up in the "everyone goes in a round in a specific order, then we repeat", that they either forget, or aren't aware, that there are a lot of different ways to do things.

animorte

2023-03-13, 08:34 PM

New players (typically young males) thing their character needs to stick its **** in everything.

Gelatinous cube? " Looks like that will feel nice!"

Pauly

2023-03-14, 01:08 AM

I vaguely recall a system we played around with where there was no concept of "end of turn" at all. Don't know if this was a published thing, or just something we came up with and tried out at some point. The concept was that various actions took specific "action points" to do. And basically everyone had like an action track in front of them with an indicator on it. Whomever had the lowest action rank for their next action just went (and this could be a move, attack, use item, cast spell, etc, kind of thing). Everyone else just reduced their action track by the number of ranks as the person who just went. The person who went, would decide a new action, put the card/whatever next to the track, and set it to the correct value based on the action. Next person goes next, and we repeat.

I seem to recall it worked "Ok". Some people would eternally forget to set their action levels, or subtract them, or whatever. Dunno. It did seem like a pretty interesting way to do things, and part of what made it work was that no one took "full turns" of actions. Each individual thing you wanted to do was broken down. So folks who had faster attacks just got to take attacks that took fewer ranks. Casting different spells could take different amounts of ranks as well. Move rates were expressed as "moves per X ranks" (or something similar, I honestly can't recall all the details). So yeah. If you wanted to act more often, you did "faster" things. But "faster things" were often also "less powerful" things.

Yeah. There's lots of ways to approach this. And I've never yet run into a system that worked perfectly. I guess what I'm trying to do here is toss some alternatives out there. I think that many players are so caught up in the "everyone goes in a round in a specific order, then we repeat", that they either forget, or aren't aware, that there are a lot of different ways to do things.

I have a vague memory of playing a Japanese skirmish wargame (fantasy mixed into Edo era) which used a very similar system. A buddy had translated it from the Japanese. Apart from some translation bugs it worked well, but table discipline was a big thing, and failure to keep track of action levels would cause the game to crash and burn.

gbaji

2023-03-14, 01:17 PM

I have a vague memory of playing a Japanese skirmish wargame (fantasy mixed into Edo era) which used a very similar system. A buddy had translated it from the Japanese. Apart from some translation bugs it worked well, but table discipline was a big thing, and failure to keep track of action levels would cause the game to crash and burn.

Yeah. In theory the methodology should keep all the players engaged the entire time, keeping track of their actions, and adjusting their values as other people do things, because if they don't, then they never get to actually "go". Um... In practice, and maybe this ties right back into "frustrating things players do", it does appear as though many players just really want to zone out between turns, only waking up when someone tells them it's time for them to do something. You'd think players would want to pay attention and be anxiously awaiting their turn, but oddly, that just doesn't seem to be the case sometimes.

And yeah, the unpacking when someone inevitably suddenly "wakes up" and realizes they forgot to adjust their action three people back, and "I should have gone before Bob!", followed by insistence that we rewind several other people's actions to allow them to go when they should have. Great concept, but really requires some focused players to work.

icefractal

2023-03-14, 02:23 PM

You'd think players would want to pay attention and be anxiously awaiting their turn, but oddly, that just doesn't seem to be the case sometimes.For me, this depends on how long combat runs for.

Being "anxiously awaiting" for 5-10 minutes? Sure. Being "anxiously awaiting" for most of an hour? No thanks.

Obviously YMMV, but for most groups I've played in, it's roleplaying that's high-focus OOC (because once you miss the chance to reply to something, it's awkward if even possible to circle back to it) and combat that's relaxed OOC (because IC time is slowed down and each person's chance to act is clearly delineated). And despite the irony of the most action-packed scenes IC being the more relaxed OOC, that works for us, because we don't want high-focus 100% of the time.

Pauly

2023-03-14, 03:43 PM

Yeah. In theory the methodology should keep all the players engaged the entire time, keeping track of their actions, and adjusting their values as other people do things, because if they don't, then they never get to actually "go". Um... In practice, and maybe this ties right back into "frustrating things players do", it does appear as though many players just really want to zone out between turns, only waking up when someone tells them it's time for them to do something. You'd think players would want to pay attention and be anxiously awaiting their turn, but oddly, that just doesn't seem to be the case sometimes.

And yeah, the unpacking when someone inevitably suddenly "wakes up" and realizes they forgot to adjust their action three people back, and "I should have gone before Bob!", followed by insistence that we rewind several other people's actions to allow them to go when they should have. Great concept, but really requires some focused players to work.

I’ve come to the conclusion that any system that requires pre-planning and organization by the players (eg order cards, plotting, activation counting) is going to fail. There is a subset of players who will take to this like ducks to water, another subset that will do it, then a large group of players who will find it all too hard. If you can find a group that will do it properly it’s great, but all it takes is one player who doesn’t get it to make it all crash and burn.

As much as I dislike IGO-UGO it is the system that creates the least table friction.

For me, this depends on how long combat runs for.

Being "anxiously awaiting" for 5-10 minutes? Sure. Being "anxiously awaiting" for most of an hour? No thanks.

I think it has more to do with how fast you cycle through turns rather than the length of combat. If their turn comes up every 2-3 minutes it’s easy to keep players engaged, it’s when it takes 5+ minutes between players’ turns that zoning out happens.

If I have an hour of combat but I get to have 20 turns (assuming each turn has something useful in it, not just ‘skip’ or ‘I continue running towards X’) then I’ll be awake and tuned in for all of it. If I have a half hour combat where my character gets 2 turns, then I’ll be asleep on the floor by the end of it.

gbaji

2023-03-14, 04:50 PM

I’ve come to the conclusion that any system that requires pre-planning and organization by the players (eg order cards, plotting, activation counting) is going to fail. There is a subset of players who will take to this like ducks to water, another subset that will do it, then a large group of players who will find it all too hard. If you can find a group that will do it properly it’s great, but all it takes is one player who doesn’t get it to make it all crash and burn.

As much as I dislike IGO-UGO it is the system that creates the least table friction.

Sadlly. That is my general conclusion as well. It's like the least bad option...

And to be perfectly honest, it is often easier to structure a combat encounter this way. Even in my game, which technically goes based on timed ranks in a round, I still tend to break up combat encounters into "sections", and then just resolve each section on its own. Had a combat just this last weekend where the PCs were exploring the basement area under a theatre (semi-evil carnival/theatre folks they were raiding for information). They got to a three way intersection, and the "front" got attacked by a couple of minion NPCs. A round later, a couple more powerful NPCs came down the side passage, and a couple rounds after that a couple more came charging in from behind them (they had snuck past some folks to get there, but tripped an alarm when they hit the intersection). I absolutely broke each round into "Ok, let's do these two people fighting", then "these three here", and then "this four way scrum back here".

It's just much easier to keep things straight that way, not forget anything, but still break it up so that folks who are interacting with eachother can actually interact.

I think it has more to do with how fast you cycle through turns rather than the length of combat. If their turn comes up every 2-3 minutes it’s easy to keep players engaged, it’s when it takes 5+ minutes between players’ turns that zoning out happens.

If I have an hour of combat but I get to have 20 turns (assuming each turn has something useful in it, not just ‘skip’ or ‘I continue running towards X’) then I’ll be awake and tuned in for all of it. If I have a half hour combat where my character gets 2 turns, then I’ll be asleep on the floor by the end of it.

Which leads us right back to "players taking forever to take their turn". Combat should move quicky, if everyone knows what they are doing, and just does it. Seriously. How long does it take to "move to X, and attack"? Even "cast <spell> on <target>" should not take long to actually resolve (usually two die rolls for each attack, and one or two for spells, depending on saves).

And in theory, at least some of the players should be occupied in between their own actions because they are being attacked in some way as well, making saves, taking damage, etc.

I play regularly in a game system that is notorious for having *really long* combats. We've literally had to split large combats up across 2 or 3 sessions before. But, oddly, the players seem to be fairly engaged the whole time. I actually sometimes find it difficult to find a few minutes to run to the bathroom when playing. It may have something to do with the fact that characters have defensive actions to take as well as offensive (rolling to parry or dodge, calculating damage taken, changing their actions in response to damage taken, spell hitting them, etc), so they are actually making decisions the whole time and reacting/responding to things that happen, and not just "on my turn". The game system also doesn't really have "pure spell casters" either (everyone has spells, so it's actually rare to have characters that do nothing but stand back out of combat and cast).

My suspicion is a lot of the worst offenders are folks who have their characters "in the back", never taking damage during the round, so have an excuse to not pay much attention, but then have to make the (more complex) decision of "what spell do I cast?" when their turn comes around. So that could absolutely be a factor here.

Although, I'm also fairly certain some players will just exhibit this behavior no matter what they are playing. So there's that.