What is it exactly that we're rushing towards?

[Schwann145]

In many threads covering many topics, the idea of, "X is bad for the game because it takes up valuable time that could be better spent doing other things," occurs a lot.

Well... what exactly are these "other things?" What is it that we're trying to rush towards that is "good gaming" that we need to hurry X along because it is "bad gaming?"

I get the sneaking suspicion that what we're trying to hurry up towards is "more combat," but I'd very much like to be wrong on that. If that's the case, it cheapens the whole TTRPG experience, IMO at least.

[Mastikator]

Killing monsters and taking their loot of course.

[Skrum]

I dunno that I've quite heard this particular thing expressed before. Is this coming from a specific thread?

That said - I'm gonna stick up for the concept of "more combat." Combat is fun! Rolling dice is fun. Using my character sheet is fun. Getting cool magic items is fun. And I dislike pretending otherwise. Like I should feel guilty that I'm looking forward to rolling initiative, or that a "sophisticated" player should be more satisfied with session after session of intrigue with little to no rolls at all.

If yah want to do improv theater, fine. But the majority of DND rules are about combat. I want to play DND. I.e., I want to fight stuff.

[Millstone85]

I'm gonna stick up for the concept of "more combat." Combat is fun! Rolling dice is fun. Using my character sheet is fun. Getting cool magic items is fun. And I dislike pretending otherwise. Like I should feel guilty that I'm looking forward to rolling initiative, or that a "sophisticated" player should be more satisfied with session after session of intrigue with little to no rolls at all.

If yah want to do improv theater, fine. But the majority of DND rules are about combat. I want to play DND. I.e., I want to fight stuff.This. So much this.

[Elenian]

I enjoy tactical combats against credible opposition. I enjoy a good planning session where we scheme to conquer all of France. I enjoy a quiet interpersonal scene.

I do not enjoy trying to figure out what 'interacting with an illusion' means, or helping Dyscalculic Jo to use pf1s Sacred Geometry feat.

I would like to spend more time doing the former and less doing the latter.

[Kane0]

For me its the next 'point', or item of interest. Whether that be the next combat, interaction or exploration event, even the next batch of downtime. Just anything to get past that-guys turn saying or doing something that invariably takes twice as long as anyone else and as it needs to.

[KorvinStarmast]

I enjoy tactical combats against credible opposition. I enjoy a good planning session where we scheme to conquer all of France. I enjoy a quiet interpersonal scene. Yes, I also enjoy meeting NPCs and digging information out of them.


I do not enjoy trying to figure out what 'interacting with an illusion' means, or helping Dyscalculic Jo to use pf1s Sacred Geometry feat.
Heh.

I would like to spend more time doing the former and less doing the latter. Yes. Pacing and rhythm is what is desired.


For me its the next 'point', or item of interest. Whether that be the next combat, interaction or exploration event, even the next batch of downtime. Just anything to get past that-guys turn saying or doing something that invariably takes twice as long as anyone else and as it needs to. I feel your pain. It needs to be painted in blood: "Be ready for your turn when it comes, up, and for Pete's sake, make a decision!"

[Unoriginal]

In many threads covering many topics, the idea of, "X is bad for the game because it takes up valuable time that could be better spent doing other things," occurs a lot.

Well... what exactly are these "other things?" What is it that we're trying to rush towards that is "good gaming" that we need to hurry X along because it is "bad gaming?"

I get the sneaking suspicion that what we're trying to hurry up towards is "more combat," but I'd very much like to be wrong on that. If that's the case, it cheapens the whole TTRPG experience, IMO at least.

The only times I've ever seen "X is bad for the game because it takes up valuable time" was when X was not playing the game.

Like in games where you need to spend half a session every two sessions figuring out how to modify your character sheet because the character progression system is just not smoothly set up.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I dunno that I've quite heard this particular thing expressed before. Is this coming from a specific thread?

That said - I'm gonna stick up for the concept of "more combat." Combat is fun! Rolling dice is fun. Using my character sheet is fun. Getting cool magic items is fun. And I dislike pretending otherwise. Like I should feel guilty that I'm looking forward to rolling initiative, or that a "sophisticated" player should be more satisfied with session after session of intrigue with little to no rolls at all.

If yah want to do improv theater, fine. But the majority of DND rules are about combat. I want to play DND. I.e., I want to fight stuff.

I want to fight stuff if the fight is interesting. 5E's published random encounters are almost entirely not. Walking around the North in Storm King's Thunder as a player bored me to tears. Running Tomb of Annihilation's hexcrawl had me pulling my hair out as a DM. That's what immediately comes to mind as 'takes up valuable time' -- unchallenging random encounters disconnected from any larger objective. Random encounters are tedious and a waste of everyone's valuable time. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0145.html)

As a player, what I want to do is have an objective -> come up with a plan to accomplish the objective -> execute the plan -> see if it's successful. That is the loop that I want happening at the table. If that's combat, fine. If it's not, also fine.

[Skrum]

I want to fight stuff if the fight is interesting. 5E's published random encounters are almost entirely not. Walking around the North in Storm King's Thunder as a player bored me to tears. Running Tomb of Annihilation's hexcrawl had me pulling my hair out as a DM. That's what immediately comes to mind as 'takes up valuable time' -- unchallenging random encounters disconnected from any larger objective. Random encounters are tedious and a waste of everyone's valuable time. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0145.html)

As a player, what I want to do is have an objective -> come up with a plan to accomplish the objective -> execute the plan -> see if it's successful. That is the loop that I want happening at the table. If that's combat, fine. If it's not, also fine.

I agree about the worst version of random encounters - something that pops up without warning, is relatively easily beaten, has no connection to anything whatsoever, and disappears from our minds the second it ends. That's not a good encounter.

But just last night, I was part of a group searching an ancient cursed dungeon looking for a particular item. Lotta time spent getting from place to place, lotta time spent figuring out riddles and puzzles and traps. When we get into an encounter? Yeah it's satisfying. The foes are just monsters; ghosts or bones animated by cursed energy. The don't mean anything in a larger story. But it's deadly, and the sense of accomplishment from knowing we're that much closer to "beating" the dungeon is high. I look forward to getting into these encounters the most of anything, and would enjoy it if there were more of 'em.

[stoutstien]

IMO the balance of focus is table/group dependent so it can't be pinned down as a worth/waste regarding time.

Now the one thing that I entirely think that universally seen as a waste of time is anything that is about the game that isn't the game when you are using game time. For example here is a off the cuff waste list:

- taking the time to draw a map while everybody sitting around.

-fiddling with one digital tool or another to try to get it to work. (Biggest peeve for me)

-flipping to more than one place to verify how it's supposed to work.

-unnecessary bookkeeping for for things that never have an impact.

-game stoppages to hash out how something should be ruled.

-the gap between action declaration and resolution.

- dead air when the players feel like they don't have any direction nor options

- unnecessary descriptive text that may or may not be needed to move forward.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I agree about the worst version of random encounters - something that pops up without warning, is relatively easily beaten, has no connection to anything whatsoever, and disappears from our minds the second it ends. That's not a good encounter.

But just last night, I was part of a group searching an ancient cursed dungeon looking for a particular item. Lotta time spent getting from place to place, lotta time spent figuring out riddles and puzzles and traps. When we get into an encounter? Yeah it's satisfying. The foes are just monsters; ghosts or bones animated by cursed energy. The don't mean anything in a larger story. But it's deadly, and the sense of accomplishment from knowing we're that much closer to "beating" the dungeon is high. I look forward to getting into these encounters the most of anything, and would enjoy it if there were more of 'em.

I see a couple differences (as I'm sure you do too!). First, resting in an ancient cursed dungeon -- probably trickier than on the path from Nolton to Kingsford. So attrition, even from just monsters, is a more pressing concern, so there's more of a sense of jeopardy. Second, a nice straightforward combat encounter is a good reset from puzzles and traps and riddles. It's a palate cleanser and mental reset at a time when you need it. I'm not against combat encounters, even easy ones. I'm not even against random encounters! I just think they're used too often as filler, and filler stinks.

[Ionathus]

Yes. Pacing and rhythm is what is desired.

Well said. I'd like to echo this point.

My D&D time is incredibly valuable -- on a perfect week we only manage 3 hours of it (usually less), but it's almost always my 3 favorite hours of the week. I don't want to spend a second of that on something that's not fun for anyone present. If we spend most of those three hours on pointless lighthearted bull**** so be it, but that would not be time wasted, in my book. As long as we gather with the intention to play D&D and we stick to that goal and we have a good time, it's time well spent.

Time wasted, to me, is time spent on anything that the majority of the table has no desire to do. At our table, that includes rules pedantry, spending 20 minutes figuring out a rules interaction, hexcrawl/random encounters, beating your head against one-solution puzzle rooms, and tapping every 5-foot section of floor with a pole to check for traps. At other tables, maybe those activities are rewarding -- but we've learned from years of experience that we all collectively find those activities a chore.

There are activities that, IMO, nearly every table will dislike and should avoid - or should at least treat with significant caution by default. The problem is, that some of these activities are misunderstood as necessary by beginning DMs, who think that in order to be a "good DM," they NEED to do XYZ activity that's only interesting to a specific subset of the hobby. I'd hazard a guess that these are the topics OP was seeing elsewhere (though specific examples would help).


Walking around the North in Storm King's Thunder as a player bored me to tears.

As a player, what I want to do is have an objective -> come up with a plan to accomplish the objective -> execute the plan -> see if it's successful. That is the loop that I want happening at the table. If that's combat, fine. If it's not, also fine.

Real talk: the worst experience I've ever had in D&D was Storm King's Thunder. It was a first-time DM and he was doing his best, but he was clearly lost and didn't know how to provide motivation or guidance. After an opening section that was pretty well-contained and well-paced, he just turned us loose in the world with no direction and not even a hint of guidance. That was bad enough on its own, but he also didn't have the world give us any in-world feedback: we would do things and nothing would change as a result, nobody would indicate whether we'd helped or hurt, and no bigger clues came together. We were all actively trying to find the main plot and we never managed it.

We just...wandered around, trying random actions like rats pulling unmarked levers in a maze, for at least six sessions in a row. Nothing ever happened.

By the end, I was begging every NPC we met to give us a clear goal. I was practically shaking them down for a quest or a plot hook. Nothing. I know for a fact he was trying his best, but he was clearly hampered by the idea that we needed to get to the "right" NPC to get the clues we needed. And he had no skillset for steering us towards whatever magic clue we needed to find. It's the only time I've left a campaign midway through. Amicably, but it was still a sad reason to go.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Real talk: the worst experience I've ever had in D&D was Storm King's Thunder. It was a first-time DM and he was doing his best, but he was clearly lost and didn't know how to provide motivation or guidance. After an opening section that was pretty well-contained and well-paced, he just turned us loose in the world with no direction and not even a hint of guidance. That was bad enough on its own, but he also didn't have the world give us any in-world feedback: we would do things and nothing would change as a result, nobody would indicate whether we'd helped or hurt, and no bigger clues came together. We were all actively trying to find the main plot and we never managed it.

We just...wandered around, trying random actions like rats pulling unmarked levers in a maze, for at least six sessions in a row. Nothing ever happened.

By the end, I was begging every NPC we met to give us a clear goal. I was practically shaking them down for a quest or a plot hook. Nothing. I know for a fact he was trying his best, but he was clearly hampered by the idea that we needed to get to the "right" NPC to get the clues we needed. And he had no skillset for steering us towards whatever magic clue we needed to find. It's the only time I've left a campaign midway through. Amicably, but it was still a sad reason to go.

I endorse the first half of your post -- just wanted to zero in on this.

It's not his fault as a first-time DM. I also had SKT run by a first-time DM, and very early in the campaign he pulled me aside to ask what in the world he was supposed to do to get us going towards our objective. I gave him some general advice, but I didn't realize how bad it was until I started looking at other modules, and eventually SKT itself, sorta through new-DM eyes. There is no guidance for a new DM. Clues only work in linear sequences. They point to specific places, and if any part of the chain is missed, the chain breaks until the players go back to uncover the previous step. For a big open-world sandbox, it's incredibly railroaded. And it relies, like most 5E modules, on the cargo cult adventure design of players giving passwords to NPCs, who tell them where to go next.

The DM wants the players to have agency and decide what to do, but the adventure is written such that only the appearance of a DMPC can move the ball down the field. So DMs, who don't want to get in the way of the players and don't know any better, let the players roam around doing essentially nothing because the alternative is Giant DMPC appears, tells the players exactly what to do, eventually solves the problem in a cutscene. Storm King's Thunder is sold as an adventure but it's main use, IMO, is as a background to things that are occurring in that area of the Realms that your campaign can occasionally interact with but not focus on.

[Rynjin]

The next thing that actually matters and is interesting to experience.

Bookkeeping isn't especially interesting. It's part of why people hate Encumbrance rules. Which is why that phrase often comes up in regards to that mechanic.

Just about anything else at the table is interesting. Plot exposition. Character interaction. Combat. Skill challenges. Something I can engage with in a meaningful fashion beyond "Yep. Those sure are numbers.".

Travel time is another good one. If there ain't nothing happening while we're walking, we don't need to play this **** out round by round and hour by hour.

[clash]

For me the answer is group engagement. Anything that engages only one or two player should be expedited in favor of things that engage all the players. Sometimes that's a characters turn in combat taking too long. Sometimes it's a scouting mission. Sometimes it's general shenanigans. If it's not engaging to the majority of the players then let's move on to something that is.

Generally the thing that engages most players at my table funny enough is shenanigans that make no progress in the story or progress it in a very unorthodox way. As I built my campaign now I make sure to add elements that can be engaged for shenanigans.

Generally the thing that takes too long it's combat and we have taken several measures to speed that along including displaying enemy stats so players don't have to ask if they hit or not.

Bear in mind all of this is taking place in a campaign that has advanced into epic levels (level 23 equivalent right now)and there is a lot characters can do in a single turn. So the past might be biased in that sense but the campaign did begin at level 1 so it was a natural evolution.

[JellyPooga]

I dunno that I've quite heard this particular thing expressed before. Is this coming from a specific thread?

That said - I'm gonna stick up for the concept of "more combat." Combat is fun! Rolling dice is fun. Using my character sheet is fun. Getting cool magic items is fun. And I dislike pretending otherwise. Like I should feel guilty that I'm looking forward to rolling initiative, or that a "sophisticated" player should be more satisfied with session after session of intrigue with little to no rolls at all.

If yah want to do improv theater, fine. But the majority of DND rules are about combat. I want to play DND. I.e., I want to fight stuff.

Oh no. No no no. Not for me.

- Rolling dice isn't what's fun; the action performed and the outcome of the roll is fun. It's not that I get to roll Strength (Athletics) or that I have a +7 bonus with advantage that I enjoy, it's that I'm grappling an Ogre and whether or not I succeed or fail.
- Using the character sheet isn't what's fun; knowing what your character is good at or is able to achieve is what's fun. It doesn't matter that I have three uses of 2nd level slots, it's the specific three spells I cast using them and the ends I achieve as a result.
- Cool magic items are fun because of the goals they allow you to score, not because of what they do. Who cares that I have a wand that turns into a snake, it's that my wand-snake managed to steal the guards keys without waking him so we can escape the gaol.

The storytelling comes first every single time and most combat, as presented in most published modules or that I hear about in the majority of games...it's just boring filler. If it's there just to deplete the party resources, or be the second combat encounter of the day, or just for the sake of pushing the buttons on the PC's character sheet because "rolling dice is fun" (it's really not...if it was, you wouldn't need an RPG to give you an excuse to do it; you'd be playing Craps or Yahtzee, which even then the dice rolling is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself), then that combat is as much a waste of time as watching paint dry on a wall scheduled for demolition.

I do not play D&D, or any RPG for that matter, just to "fight stuff". It's often a prominent feature of games I play and have played, but it's by far the least interesting part of any game I've ever played by a significant margin.

Maybe that's just me.

[Millstone85]

- Rolling dice isn't what's fun; the action performed and the outcome of the roll is fun. It's not that I get to roll Strength (Athletics) or that I have a +7 bonus with advantage that I enjoy, it's that I'm grappling an Ogre and whether or not I succeed or fail.
- Using the character sheet isn't what's fun; knowing what your character is good at or is able to achieve is what's fun. It doesn't matter that I have three uses of 2nd level slots, it's the specific three spells I cast using them and the ends I achieve as a result.
- Cool magic items are fun because of the goals they allow you to score, not because of what they do. Who cares that I have a wand that turns into a snake, it's that my wand-snake managed to steal the guards keys without waking him so we can escape the gaol.Okay but aren't these a package deal? A session where I don't get to roll dice, add modifiers, spend spell slots, or use magic items, is also a session where I don't get to grapple orcs or be creative with magic. Instead I make lot of story choices like who to talk to first in the city, and then bring what we learned to who, and what will we have for dinner which is apparently core to setting the ambiance, and so on. :smallsigh:

[JellyPooga]

Okay but aren't these a package deal? A session where I don't get to roll dice, add modifiers, spend spell slots, or use magic items, is also a session where I don't get to grapple orcs or be creative with magic. Instead I make lot of story choices like who to talk to first in the city, and then bring what we learned to who, and what will we have for dinner which is apparently core to setting the ambiance, and so on. :smallsigh:

I'm quite happy to play a session where I don't roll even a single die, yes, but I can very easily spend a highly unsatisfying session rolling lots of dice and activating options on my character sheet. That's why I play roleplaying games. If I want the satisfaction of a detailed combat simulator, I'll play a game specifically designed just for that, such as a tabletop skirmish game or a fighting or FPS game on my PC. Yes, D&D has a high focus on combat as a primary focus of character options, but I don't play it to be a combat simulator; I play it to be an RPG.

[Skrum]

Oh no. No no no. Not for me.

- Rolling dice isn't what's fun; the action performed and the outcome of the roll is fun. It's not that I get to roll Strength (Athletics) or that I have a +7 bonus with advantage that I enjoy, it's that I'm grappling an Ogre and whether or not I succeed or fail.
- Using the character sheet isn't what's fun; knowing what your character is good at or is able to achieve is what's fun. It doesn't matter that I have three uses of 2nd level slots, it's the specific three spells I cast using them and the ends I achieve as a result.
- Cool magic items are fun because of the goals they allow you to score, not because of what they do. Who cares that I have a wand that turns into a snake, it's that my wand-snake managed to steal the guards keys without waking him so we can escape the gaol.

The storytelling comes first every single time and most combat, as presented in most published modules or that I hear about in the majority of games...it's just boring filler. If it's there just to deplete the party resources, or be the second combat encounter of the day, or just for the sake of pushing the buttons on the PC's character sheet because "rolling dice is fun" (it's really not...if it was, you wouldn't need an RPG to give you an excuse to do it; you'd be playing Craps or Yahtzee, which even then the dice rolling is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself), then that combat is as much a waste of time as watching paint dry on a wall scheduled for demolition.

I do not play D&D, or any RPG for that matter, just to "fight stuff". It's often a prominent feature of games I play and have played, but it's by far the least interesting part of any game I've ever played by a significant margin.

Maybe that's just me.

Ok I want to be clear about something: I like smashing stat blocks together and seeing what's left standing. No story, no rp, just make the most insane killer I can possibly make under X Y Z build restraints, throw them in an arena or whatever contrived scenario where everything is trying to kill me, and see how well I do. I will have fun doing that.

I will also have fun making a complex character and acting as that character within a story and world. Ideally, there's lots of story where I get to express that character through roleplay, and within that story a ton of fights break out.

I think we're talking about the same thing. With some margin of error where I perhaps want 3 combats per 5 hours of game play and you would be satisfied with 2. Or something. There can be cruddy games where the bad story ruins the combats, and vice versa. But my point is if I'm playing DND, I want dice rolls, my character sheet, and the mechanics of the game to be quite central to outcomes. Like I said, I'm here to roleplay - but if I'm *only* roleplaying, that's not DND. That's collaborative storytelling. A DM being able to give the players opportunities to use the mechanics of their character is equally important to telling a good story. While a single session of all roleplaying and not a single dice rolled can be fun, I will very quickly lose interest if the game as a whole is bent too far in that direction. What's too far? Idk. I know it when I see it.

[rel]

For me, base 5e is a good fit for the following:

A game heavy in GM rulings on specific situations; If the PC's come up to a wall and I as the GM can't say 'The thief climbs the wall with no roll needed, the knight must roll a strength ability check (applying the athletics proficiency) vs DC 15, the knights horse fails to climb the wall with no roll needed' without violating the games social contract then I should be using a different system.

A game in which the world is not simulated from first principles using the mechanics. If I as a GM feel the need to stop and calculate whether the draft animals can actually pull the cart given the weight of the cargo, their strength, the rules for encumbrance and a special table for terrain or whether the village being beset by orcs actually needs the PC's help or should have fallen long ago the once again, I need a different system.

A game with little focus on the character building minigame. If the players all want to spend hours carefully constructing the stat blocks for their characters by cross referencing all the various splat books trying to find the most powerful combination before the game starts then I should be using a different system

A game where the tactical combat minigame can be circumvented by player creativity and quick thinking. If a PC dropping a chandelier on the enemies head or pushing a bookcase over onto them is never a substantially better option than casting sleep or swinging a big sword or what have you, then you guessed it; I need a different system.

A game where the specific tone and theme is supported by extensive modifications to the games rules via the judicious application of optional rules and the addition of a healthy 3 ring binder of house rules. If at any point I'm feeling like the rules aren't going to help the game and I can't change them, see above. Different system.

[Blatant Beast]

I think we're talking about the same thing..

I really do not think you are.

There is a difference between roll-play, and role-play.

I’m not saying one style is better than the other, and most games have a mixture of both, but a roleplayer wants different things than a rollplayer out of the game.

(Please forgive the gross generalization, most people of course are not just a roleplayer or a rollplayer, but want both; but often have a clear preference between the two styles).

[JellyPooga]

I think we're talking about the same thing. With some margin of error where I perhaps want 3 combats per 5 hours of game play and you would be satisfied with 2. Or something.Blatant Beast about has the right of it; I don't think we're playing the same game at all. No disparagement. You do you, but I'd be satisfied with zero combats for multiple sessions in a row. In many respects, my ideal game avoids combat altogether. That's not to say I want to avoid conflict; that's another thing altogether and a great source of tension and excitement, but even when I'm playing heavily combat focused characters or games, actual combat is a fail-state for me.


Like I said, I'm here to roleplay - but if I'm *only* roleplaying, that's not DND. That's collaborative storytelling.I disagree. D&D is more than collaborative storytelling just as much as it's more than it's just rolling dice or vancian-ish spellcasting. Even, perhaps especially, when dice aren't being rolled. It's guided by the rules, assumptions about playstyle, campaign settings and mindsets familiar to the game, just as CyberPunk 2020 or Traveller have their own assumptions and styles based on their rules and settings that will shine through regardless of whether the rules are actually being engaged through dice, combats or character abilities.

True collab storytelling is not bound by such things and why would or should it be? Conflict, or more accurately combat, is much harder to adjudicate in CS and as such, games or exercises in it often avoid such direct confrontation in favour of slice-of-life, romance or indirect conflict such as political or intrigue scenarios and stories. At least in my experience.

[Skrum]

I disagree. D&D is more than collaborative storytelling just as much as it's more than it's just rolling dice or vancian-ish spellcasting. Even, perhaps especially, when dice aren't being rolled. It's guided by the rules, assumptions about playstyle, campaign settings and mindsets familiar to the game, just as CyberPunk 2020 or Traveller have their own assumptions and styles based on their rules and settings that will shine through regardless of whether the rules are actually being engaged through dice, combats or character abilities.

True collab storytelling is not bound by such things and why would or should it be? Conflict, or more accurately combat, is much harder to adjudicate in CS and as such, games or exercises in it often avoid such direct confrontation in favour of slice-of-life, romance or indirect conflict such as political or intrigue scenarios and stories. At least in my experience.

Ok maybe I don't know what you're talking about. You like conflict but not combat and you adjudicate the conflicts without rolls but in the style of DND. Idk what that is, but I'm glad you're having fun lol.

[Ionathus]

I endorse the first half of your post -- just wanted to zero in on this.

It's not his fault as a first-time DM. I also had SKT run by a first-time DM, and very early in the campaign he pulled me aside to ask what in the world he was supposed to do to get us going towards our objective. I gave him some general advice, but I didn't realize how bad it was until I started looking at other modules, and eventually SKT itself, sorta through new-DM eyes. There is no guidance for a new DM. Clues only work in linear sequences. They point to specific places, and if any part of the chain is missed, the chain breaks until the players go back to uncover the previous step. For a big open-world sandbox, it's incredibly railroaded. And it relies, like most 5E modules, on the cargo cult adventure design of players giving passwords to NPCs, who tell them where to go next.

The DM wants the players to have agency and decide what to do, but the adventure is written such that only the appearance of a DMPC can move the ball down the field. So DMs, who don't want to get in the way of the players and don't know any better, let the players roam around doing essentially nothing because the alternative is Giant DMPC appears, tells the players exactly what to do, eventually solves the problem in a cutscene. Storm King's Thunder is sold as an adventure but it's main use, IMO, is as a background to things that are occurring in that area of the Realms that your campaign can occasionally interact with but not focus on.

Dang, that's awful. Poor guy was basically doomed to fail by the module he was running.

I had a sneaking suspicion this was the case, and as a first-time DM he was terrified of intervening and "breaking" the module in case it ruined the plot somehow. Good to have confirmation that he was, indeed, practically being held hostage by the material.

[JellyPooga]

Ok maybe I don't know what you're talking about. You like conflict but not combat and you adjudicate the conflicts without rolls but in the style of DND. Idk what that is, but I'm glad you're having fun lol.

Heh. I'm sure you have a blast doing your thing too and all power to you :smallwink:

To explain, let me put it this way. D&D has orcs. Warhammer 40k also has orks. Lord of the Rings has orcs. Cyberpunk 2020 has orcs too, in its own fashion (in the form of people with cybernetics or other mods to make them "orcish"). None of these orcs are the same, though they might share some similarities. If I'm playing D&D, the only orc that matters is D&D orcs and there's assumptions I can make about who and what they are, their culture, so on and so forth. The same goes for spellcasting and magic, how multicultural D&D assumes things to be, etc. etc. If I'm playing D&D, even when I'm not looking at my character sheet or rolling dice, all those assumptions are still in play because those are the things that make the game D&D, way more than rolling the ol' math rocks, because while the d20 dice rolling system isn't unique to D&D, D&D style orcs are.

[Pex]

The idyllic image of playing the game, not just the combat part. Social interaction, exploration, combat, the physical and mental moments of play. Anything that stops the play is thus bad for existing. The irony is idolizing this image makes you forget it is just a game. The moments that happen that aren't directly playing are also important. Not everything and things that are need proper proportion, but they matter. Don't talk about the latest movie for 30 minutes, but do talk about it while setting up because you're friends having a social interaction in real life. Don't spend 30 minutes arguing over the rules, but do take the 30 seconds to look it up so that everyone understands how it works. Rules are necessary to play the game. Also, the DM has a lot to think about. He doesn't have to memorize every minutiae of detail, so take the 30 seconds to look up a statistic when it matters for the game, like the DC of something on a table.

[Theodoxus]

I hate running combat with a passion, and my players know it - so they don't expect amazing depth when it comes to monsters I run. I'm far more tactical running one character than a mob, so I enjoy playing in other people's combat reindeer games...

I'd love to co-DM sometime, where I can create campaigns and deep histories and get a plot going, and then let my buddy run the combat. I could play the BBEG or something... and then when I'm running the social and environmental parts, he could be setting up the next combat encounter (keeps that 'drawing out a map while everyone waits' problem from popping up).

About the only thing that really bugs me at the table though, is having to repeat myself because someone was reading something on their phone (or during our virtual games, playing Diablo or something in the background and not paying attention). It got to the point where I was just having them auto fail perception checks. If the human driver isn't paying attention, the elven character wasn't either. I don't have any issues with folks who can multitask though. Killing zombies online while still knowing what's going on in game? Perfectly fine.

[tokek]

I think my answer is that I don't want to get hung up on just one thing.

I don't want a single combat to last the whole session

I don't want to get stuck on some puzzle forever

etc.

For me D&D is relatively light entertainment - if its a book its a page-turner not the the sort of literature where you sit and admire the wonderful prose of a passage.

I want to be able to progress and I want the freedom to progress in interesting and surprising ways to exist.

[Schwann145]

A game with little focus on the character building minigame. If the players all want to spend hours carefully constructing the stat blocks for their characters by cross referencing all the various splat books trying to find the most powerful combination before the game starts then I should be using a different system
To be fair, this is already true for D&D. If you're a full spellcaster, there are hundreds of spells across various different books that all require consideration. If you're a Cleric or Druid it's even worse, as all your spells are always available to be prepared; at least Bard, Sorcerer, and Wizard are limited.


A game where the tactical combat minigame can be circumvented by player creativity and quick thinking. If a PC dropping a chandelier on the enemies head or pushing a bookcase over onto them is never a substantially better option than casting sleep or swinging a big sword or what have you, then you guessed it; I need a different system.
Another one where D&D has failed. The falling chandelier will do 1-2d6 falling damage, probably fail to make much of an impact at all outside of levels 1-3, and the casting sleep and/or swinging a big sword will need to commence.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'd love to co-DM sometime, where I can create campaigns and deep histories and get a plot going, and then let my buddy run the combat. I did that in AD&D 1e for a bit. I was the Co DM who helped running combat (and as a sounding board for ideas). We handled 8/9 player tables EASILY. Lasted about a year and a half and then folks got assigned to other Naval bases and the group was broken up.

[Schwann145]

I'd love to be a "guy in the chair" for a D&D game. Just be off-screen to look up rules, provide monster stats on the fly, whisper suggestions in the DMs ear, etc.

[rel]

A game with little focus on the character building minigame. If the players all want to spend hours carefully constructing the stat blocks for their characters by cross referencing all the various splat books trying to find the most powerful combination before the game starts then I should be using a different system



To be fair, this is already true for D&D. If you're a full spellcaster, there are hundreds of spells across various different books that all require consideration. If you're a Cleric or Druid it's even worse, as all your spells are always available to be prepared; at least Bard, Sorcerer, and Wizard are limited.

It's certainly true for 3rd or 4th edition, and if we want to play character building minigames without leaving D&D entirely, we have the books and experience and can use those.
5e may have eventually eventually gone in that direction, but it didn't start there. In fact, if you play the game as it was on release like I do; Limiting PC build options to the PHB and not using the Optional rules for multiclassing and feats, it's possible to make new characters in minutes.
And that's before the addition of house rules that might simplify things further.



A game where the tactical combat minigame can be circumvented by player creativity and quick thinking. If a PC dropping a chandelier on the enemies head or pushing a bookcase over onto them is never a substantially better option than casting sleep or swinging a big sword or what have you, then you guessed it; I need a different system.




Another one where D&D has failed. The falling chandelier will do 1-2d6 falling damage, probably fail to make much of an impact at all outside of levels 1-3, and the casting sleep and/or swinging a big sword will need to commence.

You might rule things that way, I certainly don't. In my games an environmental hazard will inflict powerful debuffs and conditions along with the damage, which will usually be more substantial than that done by a spell or weapon attack.
I've heard a similar complaint leveled against consumables like poison - only true if you stick with the stock examples instead of home brewing your own.

[Skrum]

You might rule things that way, I certainly don't. In my games an environmental hazard will inflict powerful debuffs and conditions along with the damage, which will usually be more substantial than that done by a spell or weapon attack.
I've heard a similar complaint leveled against consumables like poison - only true if you stick with the stock examples instead of home brewing your own.

The chandeliers in your world scale with level? :smallbiggrin:

I agree with Schwann. This kind of swashbuckler-y stuff is fun, in the right low level game. But when the enemies go from zombies to necromancers, or bandits to demons...eh. I don't want to beat a Chain Devil or Mind Flayer by knocking over a bookcase on it. That's a tonal clash to me.

[kingcheesepants]

The chandeliers in your world scale with level? :smallbiggrin:

I agree with Schwann. This kind of swashbuckler-y stuff is fun, in the right low level game. But when the enemies go from zombies to necromancers, or bandits to demons...eh. I don't want to beat a Chain Devil or Mind Flayer by knocking over a bookcase on it. That's a tonal clash to me.

You enter the library and finally find the mind flayer the group has been pursuing, roll initiative. Alright Thack you're up first, yes the mind flayer is standing near a bookcase which is not affixed to the floor. Okay that's an athletics check of 18 to knock the bookcase onto him, and he'll get a dex save to avoid being pinned under it.
Thack with his keen danger sense manages to move before the mind flayer, rushes in and using his prodigious strength heaves an entire bookcase filled with heavy tomes onto the aberration knocking him prone and restraining him until he can use an action to attempt to escape.

This is how I would imagine using a bookcase in a fight against a mind flayer to go, you use an action and athletics to knock prone and restrain them and make them waste actions escaping if they don't want to be pinned like that. In what manner is this not fitting the tone of a tier 2 adventure? I guess because you don't want to fight a mind flayer in a library? That seems a little pedantic, but terrain that could be used to similar effect could be found anywhere. The idea that using terrain is somehow less heroic or cool than just bopping someone with your great sword a couple times seems a bit off to me.

[Psyren]

Another one where D&D has failed. The falling chandelier will do 1-2d6 falling damage, probably fail to make much of an impact at all outside of levels 1-3, and the casting sleep and/or swinging a big sword will need to commence.


The chandeliers in your world scale with level? :smallbiggrin:

I agree with Schwann. This kind of swashbuckler-y stuff is fun, in the right low level game. But when the enemies go from zombies to necromancers, or bandits to demons...eh. I don't want to beat a Chain Devil or Mind Flayer by knocking over a bookcase on it. That's a tonal clash to me.

So design better environments. Look at Baldur's Gate 3 - the mindflayer areas have all kinds of exotic features like pools of caustic brine, volatile canisters, fragile conduits, pods with annihilating consoles, long elevator shafts, grenade-like bulbs and so on. If you can't figure out how a swashbuckling type of character might make use of that stuff, you're not trying hard enough - and likely need to watch more movies, read more books, or both.

You have all the rules you need to figure out the levels of damage those types of hazards should inflict - it's right there on DMG 249. Pick an impactful value and radius for your hazard, throw a bunch of monsters in there, then have at it.

[tokek]

The chandeliers in your world scale with level? :smallbiggrin:

I agree with Schwann. This kind of swashbuckler-y stuff is fun, in the right low level game. But when the enemies go from zombies to necromancers, or bandits to demons...eh. I don't want to beat a Chain Devil or Mind Flayer by knocking over a bookcase on it. That's a tonal clash to me.

Quite right. You drop a house on a hag and then move on up for tougher monsters. I’d recommend a nice stone built watchtower for a necromancer :smallsmile:

[rel]

You might rule things that way, I certainly don't. In my games an environmental hazard will inflict powerful debuffs and conditions along with the damage, which will usually be more substantial than that done by a spell or weapon attack.
I've heard a similar complaint leveled against consumables like poison - only true if you stick with the stock examples instead of home brewing your own.


The chandeliers in your world scale with level? :smallbiggrin:

I agree with Schwann. This kind of swashbuckler-y stuff is fun, in the right low level game. But when the enemies go from zombies to necromancers, or bandits to demons...eh. I don't want to beat a Chain Devil or Mind Flayer by knocking over a bookcase on it. That's a tonal clash to me.

Different hazards (and consumables) exist for each tier. A more dangerous hazard might inflict a more serious debuff, deal additional damage, cover a larger area, be harder to avoid or escape from, etc.

As to your personal preference, there's not much to be done there beyond accepting that different people like different things.
I've never thought of Mind Flayers as especially strong or agile, a cunning player noting this weakness and defeating one by trapping it under a tapestry or something seems highly appropriate to me.

[Kane0]

I'd love to be a "guy in the chair" for a D&D game. Just be off-screen to look up rules, provide monster stats on the fly, whisper suggestions in the DMs ear, etc.

The benefit of having a group where most of us are also DMs and rotate semi-regularly, at least half the table is capable of doing that backup-DM stuff. Although really it defaults to me when it comes to referencing stuff.

[stoutstien]

The chandeliers in your world scale with level? :smallbiggrin:

I agree with Schwann. This kind of swashbuckler-y stuff is fun, in the right low level game. But when the enemies go from zombies to necromancers, or bandits to demons...eh. I don't want to beat a Chain Devil or Mind Flayer by knocking over a bookcase on it. That's a tonal clash to me.

That's a hp bloat issue not a problem with this type of play. Sort of like falling becomes less dangerous just because you have more blood points even if nothing else has changed.

Tough foes shouldn't be as easy to take out with this because they have tools and methods to avoid it rather than just more number armor.

[Blatant Beast]

I agree with Schwann. This kind of swashbuckler-y stuff is fun, in the right low level game. But when the enemies go from zombies to necromancers, or bandits to demons...eh. I don't want to beat a Chain Devil or Mind Flayer by knocking over a bookcase on it. That's a tonal clash to me.

Watching a Psi Warrior use Telekinesis to levitate a rusty iron bedframe to act as a barrier and makeshift cover through multiple encounters on a floor of a multi-leveled dungeon was great fun to me.

Vader does not need to use his lightsaber, he can defeat you with boxes, (sorry Luke).
People who like Conan Style fighters just believe in getting the job done.

[Theodoxus]

Watching a Psi Warrior use Telekinesis to levitate a rusty iron bedframe to act as a barrier and makeshift cover through multiple encounters on a floor of a multi-leveled dungeon was great fun to me.

Vader does not need to use his lightsaber, he can defeat you with boxes, (sorry Luke).
People who like Conan Style fighters just believe in getting the job done.

I made a Dominator named Darth Phreeze in City of Heroes that uses Gravity Control to "force lift", "Force Choke", and "Toss boxes" at my foes. Then her secondary power is Ice Melee, granting Ice Sword and Circle Ice Sword, that creates red tinged, well, ice swords. It's not as perfect as if Katana was available as a secondary power, but they're still really evocative.

It's really quite fun locking down mooks with gravity strangleholds and then slicing them open with a sword strike.

My next D&D character will definitely be psionic in nature, both Warrior and Knife look quite fun.

[Ionathus]

Tough foes shouldn't be as easy to take out with this because they have tools and methods to avoid it rather than just more number armor.

This was my thought. Successfully dropping a heavy bookcase on a mindflayer should hurt it: mindflayers are squishy. They have an octopus for a head. :smallbiggrin:

The difference between doing it to a "boss monster" like a mindflayer or a powerful necromancer, vs. doing it to a human cultist minion, is that the boss monster should have mitigations available to either make that action harder or mitigate its effects. Mindflayers in some editions can teleport. Necromancers should also be able to teleport or (even cooler) lift the bookcase off them with a dozen skeletal arms. Or maybe they have a reaction ability to halve the damage. Maybe you give them a save to reduce damage and not be trapped. Maybe they can burn a resource to interrupt this attack -- sure the bookcase trick didn't "work" but now the boss monster is in a worse position, so you did accomplish something.

But then, that's also my personal design philosophy talking: I'm a big believer that no boss monster should be taken straight from a published statblock. I always add in a few extra quirks and abilities, a la Matt Colville's "Action Oriented Monsters" video, to make bosses feel truly unique. They should always have 1) a way to mitigate damage, 2) an extra movement option, and 3) a way to gum up the PCs' plans. Ideally each of these can be countered by the PCs: an example is the goblin boss who can redirect any attack to a nearby allied goblin. That's a simple fix: either get him away from his soldiers, or keep attacking until he runs out of scapegoblins :smallcool:

When I give my bosses more tools like this, I'm not as afraid to let the PCs get creative. Is it "unbalanced" to deal 3d6 bludgeoning damage and knock the target prone with a falling bookcase, just because you succeeded on a single Athletics check? Maybe. But it's also un-reproducible, and the boss monster has plenty of ways to deal with it.

[Psyren]

That's a hp bloat issue not a problem with this type of play. Sort of like falling becomes less dangerous just because you have more blood points even if nothing else has changed.

This is why for extreme falls I swap from the falling damage rules to the Deadly Improvised Damage rules.


This was my thought. Successfully dropping a heavy bookcase on a mindflayer should hurt it: mindflayers are squishy. They have an octopus for a head. :smallbiggrin:

I'll add too that you can build in scaling even for mundane things like this. At Tier 1, the bookcase your players might come across might be a typical wooden rack of shelves with tomes on them, but at Tier 3, the "bookcase" might be a steel matrix of jagged Githyanki tir'su slates on a spelljamming vessel, bumping you up a few notches on the Improvising Damage table when you upend that onto a tight cluster of mindflayers.

[KorvinStarmast]

You enter the library and finally find the mind flayer the group has been pursuing, roll initiative. Alright Thack you're up first, yes the mind flayer is standing near a bookcase which is not affixed to the floor. Okay that's an athletics check of 18 to knock the bookcase onto him, and he'll get a dex save to avoid being pinned under it.
Thack with his keen danger sense manages to move before the mind flayer, rushes in and using his prodigious strength heaves an entire bookcase filled with heavy tomes onto the aberration knocking him prone and restraining him until he can use an action to attempt to escape.

This is how I would imagine using a bookcase in a fight against a mind flayer to go, you use an action and athletics to knock prone and restrain them and make them waste actions escaping if they don't want to be pinned like that. In what manner is this not fitting the tone of a tier 2 adventure? I guess because you don't want to fight a mind flayer in a library? That seems a little pedantic, but terrain that could be used to similar effect could be found anywhere. The idea that using terrain is somehow less heroic or cool than just bopping someone with your great sword a couple times seems a bit off to me. *applause*

[stoutstien]

This is why for extreme falls I swap from the falling damage rules to the Deadly Improvised Damage rules.



I'll add too that you can build in scaling even for mundane things like this. At Tier 1, the bookcase your players might come across might be a typical wooden rack of shelves with tomes on them, but at Tier 3, the "bookcase" might be a steel matrix of jagged Githyanki tir'su slates on a spelljamming vessel, bumping you up a few notches on the Improvising Damage table when you upend that onto a tight cluster of mindflayers.

This is one place where I really think that having multiple pools representing your health and well-being works better than just a singular linear one. It's not very d&d but it's not a New concept by any means.

[Dr.Samurai]

My group doesn't really rush toward anything. Some sessions are giant melee-fests. Others there's no combat, or we finally start an encounter towards the end of the session because we've been scouting or speaking with NPCs the whole time.

We're pretty go-with-the-flow as far as the game goes.

[Theodoxus]

This is one place where I really think that having multiple pools representing your health and well-being works better than just a singular linear one. It's not very d&d but it's not a New concept by any means.

I'm toying with an idea cribbed from Wounds/Vitality, calling it 'Health and Hit Points'. Hit Points stay the same as bog standard D&D 5E. Heath is a combination of your Strength and Constitution modifiers. I'm also creating a blanket damage reduction stat based on the combination of your Constitution and Dexterity modifiers. Damage reduction only works on HP damage, but it covers ALL HP damage, as it's a measure of how well you can absorb (Con) and deflect (Dex) attacks. Unlike Wounds/Vitality, nothing bypasses Hit Points (crits, magic, special attacks - nothing), but once your HP are gone, you have a very small pool of Health. I'm still working through what additional effects going into your Health pool might generate. Making Death Saves, or permanent wounds, a point of exhaustion for each point of damage (If I go that route, I might make it so that Health more like DaggerHeart, and damage won't reduce your Health by more than a couple of points (off the top of my head, maybe any attack that hits Health calls for an immediate Death Save, and on a 20, you take no additional damage, a save, you take 1 Health point, a fail, you take 2 Health points, and on a 1, you take 3 Health points, and the requisite number of 2024 style Exhaustion levels.) Since most PCs through most of their careers won't have more than 10 Health (20 Con and Dex would be rare outside of 20th level Barbarians), it tracks perfectly with the Exhaustion path. On the one hand, PCs with smaller Health pools won't rack up as much Exhaustion, otoh, PCs with smaller Health pools can't withstand as much damage before they're dead...

[Slipjig]

I feel your pain. It needs to be painted in blood: "Be ready for your turn when it comes, up, and for Pete's sake, make a decision!"

Easy fix house rule: "If you spend more than six seconds considering what to do (or looking anything up), you take the Dodge action this round."
Time pauses if the player is asking clarifying questions (e.g. "How tightly packed are the mooks?" or "Are there any shadowed areas?").

[Skrum]

I'm toying with an idea cribbed from Wounds/Vitality, calling it 'Health and Hit Points'. Hit Points stay the same as bog standard D&D 5E. Heath is a combination of your Strength and Constitution modifiers. I'm also creating a blanket damage reduction stat based on the combination of your Constitution and Dexterity modifiers. Damage reduction only works on HP damage, but it covers ALL HP damage, as it's a measure of how well you can absorb (Con) and deflect (Dex) attacks. Unlike Wounds/Vitality, nothing bypasses Hit Points (crits, magic, special attacks - nothing), but once your HP are gone, you have a very small pool of Health. I'm still working through what additional effects going into your Health pool might generate. Making Death Saves, or permanent wounds, a point of exhaustion for each point of damage (If I go that route, I might make it so that Health more like DaggerHeart, and damage won't reduce your Health by more than a couple of points (off the top of my head, maybe any attack that hits Health calls for an immediate Death Save, and on a 20, you take no additional damage, a save, you take 1 Health point, a fail, you take 2 Health points, and on a 1, you take 3 Health points, and the requisite number of 2024 style Exhaustion levels.) Since most PCs through most of their careers won't have more than 10 Health (20 Con and Dex would be rare outside of 20th level Barbarians), it tracks perfectly with the Exhaustion path. On the one hand, PCs with smaller Health pools won't rack up as much Exhaustion, otoh, PCs with smaller Health pools can't withstand as much damage before they're dead...

I was thinking about how to rethink health the other day, mostly out of dissatisfaction with death saving throws and yo yo healing, etc.

Leave hit points the same but maybe change the name to Stamina. Lean into the abstract version of hit points; it's some combination of toughness, resiliency, luck, reflexes, divine power, latent energy, ki, etc. Getting "hit" isn't literally be chopped by a battle axe.

When a character hits zero, they're now bloodied - staggered, hurt, and in a position of weakness. Any further hits will seriously imperil the character. They may continue to act, but may only take a bonus action or move action. They make Recovery Rolls at the beginning of their turn (death saving throws). Melee hits are automatic crits and inflict 2 failed Recoveries.

On one hand this is effectively a buff to the players, as they would maintain some amount of functionality even when at 0. But narratively I like this *way* more than imagining the character literally falling to the ground every time they hit zero, and then getting back up 6 seconds later as they get healing word'd (repeat as necessary! Yo yo's everywhere!!).

[JellyPooga]

This was my thought. Successfully dropping a heavy bookcase on a mindflayer should hurt it: mindflayers are squishy. They have an octopus for a head. :smallbiggrin:

If nothing else, pushing over someone's bookshelf, even if it doesn't land on them, should probably draw their ire.

"No! Now you've done it! Do you even know how long it took me to curate those! Some of those are older even than me. And they call me the monster! Look! This is an original X'kparth the Dread, treatise on Ch'uul migratory habits and how to summon Baalors and look at it's second spine! Ruined! You can never really fix the chitin and the incantations will all be out of whack. *sigh* It's going to take me years to clear up this mess."

It's important to remember that most bad guys are just innocent nerds, often scholars, that turned to evil because the jocks at wizard school or the spawning pool drove them to it by their incessant bullying. Adventurers are those jocks (or their progeny) come back to rub it in. #teamevil

[Psyren]

This is one place where I really think that having multiple pools representing your health and well-being works better than just a singular linear one. It's not very d&d but it's not a New concept by any means.

There are certainly advantages to that approach but I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze honestly. Trying to split those out (+Armor as DR etc) is one of Daggerheart's biggest headaches right now, for example.

[stoutstien]

There are certainly advantages to that approach but I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze honestly. Trying to split those out (+Armor as DR etc) is one of Daggerheart's biggest headaches right now, for example.

Aye it's not worth it in most system due to headspace restraints and the habit that a lot of games with adding complexity for the sake of it rather than as it's needed.

For example 5e has three pools, outside of very specific circumstances like the abjuration wizard or clockwork sorcerer, with THP, HP, and death saves. It works relatively well for what it does because they don't interact with each other and they always flow from top to bottom.

You could just fudge what each of these pools actually represent a little bit and get a lot of play variance without much overhead. For example imagine that if you get attacked and that damage is completely soaked up by your temporary HP then you are unaffected by on hit effects like poison or grapples.

The only thing you have to do is avoid the death spiral which is easy when you just make sure that as they go down in HP/vitality their defensive don't also tank which is the only real issue with death saves as written. You have this great concept that is kind of hard to interact with besides using it solely as a mitigation sink as long as you can bounce back.

[Theodoxus]

I was thinking about how to rethink health the other day, mostly out of dissatisfaction with death saving throws and yo yo healing, etc.

Leave hit points the same but maybe change the name to Stamina. Lean into the abstract version of hit points; it's some combination of toughness, resiliency, luck, reflexes, divine power, latent energy, ki, etc. Getting "hit" isn't literally be chopped by a battle axe.

When a character hits zero, they're now bloodied - staggered, hurt, and in a position of weakness. Any further hits will seriously imperil the character. They may continue to act, but may only take a bonus action or move action. They make Recovery Rolls at the beginning of their turn (death saving throws). Melee hits are automatic crits and inflict 2 failed Recoveries.

On one hand this is effectively a buff to the players, as they would maintain some amount of functionality even when at 0. But narratively I like this *way* more than imagining the character literally falling to the ground every time they hit zero, and then getting back up 6 seconds later as they get healing word'd (repeat as necessary! Yo yo's everywhere!!).

An interesting take I'll ruminate on. I still prefer a 'meat' bar though, of some measurement. You run out of HP, sure, you're bloodied, you're making Death Saves (in this version, 10+ is no additional damage, 20 is 1 HP, 2-9 is -1 point of 'meat', a 1 is -2 points of meat. 0 meat is braindead. But you can still moderately act. Getting hit more while bloodied... I like the failed Death Save route instead of just obliterating your remaining meat. It should take a bit to actually hack off bits of a person before they just die. Less Con means it doesn't take as many swings of the axe, so to speak, but a big healthy body builder of a Barbarian should probably be able to take a bit of a punishment even when bloodied.


Aye it's not worth it in most system due to headspace restraints and the habit that a lot of games with adding complexity for the sake of it rather than as it's needed.

For example 5e has three pools, outside of very specific circumstances like the abjuration wizard or clockwork sorcerer, with THP, HP, and death saves. It works relatively well for what it does because they don't interact with each other and they always flow from top to bottom.

You could just fudge what each of these pools actually represent a little bit and get a lot of play variance without much overhead. For example imagine that if you get attacked and that damage is completely soaked up by your temporary HP then you are unaffected by on hit effects like poison or grapples.

The only thing you have to do is avoid the death spiral which is easy when you just make sure that as they go down in HP/vitality their defensive don't also tank which is the only real issue with death saves as written. You have this great concept that is kind of hard to interact with besides using it solely as a mitigation sink as long as you can bounce back.

I agree with the weirdness that poison on a 'luck' based HP measure can be. I don't think there's an overly simplistic solution though. At best, I like your THP - if you have a stack of THP from something, and you're bit by a giant spider, if the 1d8 bit doesn't reduce your THP to zero, then the 3d6 poison damage just doesn't apply.

You could conceivably do something similar to your HP pool. Bringing back the 4th Ed version of Bloodied (instead of the Bloodied that Skrum and I used above) - if that same spider didn't drop you to below half your HP, the poison again doesn't apply. At this point, there'd be actual mechanical differences between ingesting, injecting, and contacting poisons. Ingesting I'd hazard would affect your HP regardless of any THP or other wards you might have. It deals damage even if you're not bloodied. Injecting doesn't work against THP or outside of Bloodied unless the delivery mechanism penetrates both. Contact, I'd say bypasses THP, but not Bloodied, though that's a purely gamist idea of symmetry. Without that, I'd say it would work exactly like ingested.

My personal take is I think people in general are pretty lucky. There are lots of things that we encounter every day that should wound us, but don't. But once something bypasses that, it's a relatively small amount of meat damage we can take before being rendered inoperable, if not outright dead. YMMV.

[rel]

Another way to run HP as normal, and have it explicitly not be meat points without running into confusion with riders is to have the riders not apply consistently.

Have riders like poisoned, grabbed, etc only apply to some attacks by tying them to the natural attack roll; The condition only applies on a natural even hit, or a natural roll of 15+ or what have you.

Then you can describe attacks that land without a rider as near misses, being forced into a worse position, etc. and describe attacks that do deliver their rider as minor injuries hits that are mostly turned by armour and so forth.

[Schwann145]

Archers who use poisoned arrows.

Abstract defeated. :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

I don't see what's wrong with the way 5e represents poisoned attacks. The vast majority of them deal extra damage and maybe apply the poisoned condition; some truly exotic ones might trigger unconsciousness if you bomb the save or fail a separate one or something too. But either way, the more (T)HP you have (whether they represent luck, grit, meat etc to you) then the less effective the poison is, and you can represent that in the fiction however you like ;the Drow House Captain's bolt merely grazing you, or it delivering its payload but you power through it etc. It's not like 5e poisons do ability damage, cause instant death, or otherwise bypass the HP system entirely after all, so there's pretty much no wrong answer.

[Kane0]

It's not like 5e poisons do ability damage, cause instant death, or otherwise bypass the HP system entirely after all, so there's pretty much no wrong answer.

Maybe yours don't :smallamused:
Its easy to tack on exhaustion, max HP reduction and other conditions when you're making custom poisons. My personal favourite is also inducing confusion or enfeeblement (as per the spells)

[Schwann145]

Poisons work fine. They're just a defeater to the argument of abstraction of damage. You can't be poisoned by a dart that "luckily missed," for example. If you do go that route, fine, but you've abstracted your way entirely out of the game at that point.

(I tack on archery as a defeater to the argument of abstraction of attacks, just for fun. While ammo is tracked, you can't say you shoot a bunch of times until you hit with a single "attack roll" - the quiver knows better.)

[rel]

Another way to run HP as normal, and have it explicitly not be meat points without running into confusion with riders is to have the riders not apply consistently.

Have riders like poisoned, grabbed, etc only apply to some attacks by tying them to the natural attack roll; The condition only applies on a natural even hit, or a natural roll of 15+ or what have you.

Then you can describe attacks that land without a rider as near misses, being forced into a worse position, etc. and describe attacks that do deliver their rider as minor injuries hits that are mostly turned by armour and so forth.


Archers who use poisoned arrows.

Abstract defeated. :smalltongue:

No, this type of system works quite well for abstracting poisoned arrows;. Here's a simple example:
Let's say HP is explicitly luck, panache, fate, etc and all riders including poison apply on hits where the roll was even.
4 poisoned arrow attacks with a +3 to hit bonus are made against a defender with 15 AC. The rolls 9, 10, 14, and 17.

With a +3 bonus, the rolls of 9 and 10 are both misses (12 & 13). Lucky too, if that roll of 10 had been a hit poison would apply. These two attacks can be narrated as misses by a large margin, bouncing harmlessly off armour, or otherwise being completely ineffective.

The roll of 17 is a hit (20), damage is dealt as normal, but since the natural roll was odd, poison doesn't apply.
This hit can be narrated as a near miss, that forces the defender off balance, puts a hole in their clothing or otherwise degrades their HP without actually doing physical damage. Hence they lose HP, but do not suffer poison.
Given the high roll, perhaps the attack could be narrated as the shot hiting the defender right in the forehead - good thing they were wearing a solid helmet. They are rattled, but unharmed.

The roll of 14 is also a hit (17) so HP damage is dealt, and since the natural roll of 14 was even, poison applies. This hit will have to be narrated as dealing actual damage.
The defenders armour stopped most of the arrows force, but a minor wound was still inflicted by the point, the arrow almost missed but managed to inflict a minor wound, etc.

It generally helps to resolve the entire attack mechanically, then go and narrate what happened.

[JellyPooga]

No, this type of system works quite well for abstracting poisoned arrows;. Here's a simple example:
[snip]
The roll of 14 is also a hit (17) so HP damage is dealt, and since the natural roll of 14 was even, poison applies. This hit will have to be narrated as dealing actual damage.
The defenders armour stopped most of the arrows force, but a minor wound was still inflicted by the point, the arrow almost missed but managed to inflict a minor wound, etc.

I don't even think you need to narrate the hit as a "minor hit" or "graze"...the mere threat of a poison that does nothing until it knocks you out or kills you should be sufficient to deplete your narrativium, luck, fate or whatever plot armour HP represents more than a non-poisoned one should and the more deadly the poison, the greater the impact to your ability to continue adding to the narrative should be, just as a giant's maul or a fall from greater height represents a larger threat that, though avoided, still impacts your HP to that greater degree.

"The hydra's fangs drip smoking venom as one head chews on naught but your shield, this time, as you raise it in the nick of time. You struggle to hold on to your aegis as the sinuous neck rears back for another strike." is an attack that hits dealing more damage than if we were to remove the smoking venom, even though the poison never actually makes contact with you because if it did, it would surely mean a grisly end for our plucky hero.

Now imagine the same scenario, except the poison damage is what tips our hero to 0hp when the bite damage did not. We might add something like "With your concentration on the next strike to come, you didn't notice the acrid venom coating your shield, sliding inexorably toward the top. As you raise it once more to defend yourself as it has so many times before, your faithful defender betrays you; a single drop of the beasts poison falls precariously from the corner of your kite and straight into your eye. Your vision blurs and agony rips through you as the insidious poison wreaks its havoc on the flimsy, unprotected membranes there. You fall to the ground and unconsciousness takes you."

[stoutstien]

I don't even think you need to narrate the hit as a "minor hit" or "graze"...the mere threat of a poison that does nothing until it knocks you out or kills you should be sufficient to deplete your narrativium, luck, fate or whatever plot armour HP represents more than a non-poisoned one should and the more deadly the poison, the greater the impact to your ability to continue adding to the narrative should be, just as a giant's maul or a fall from greater height represents a larger threat that, though avoided, still impacts your HP to that greater degree.

"The hydra's fangs drip smoking venom as one head chews on naught but your shield, this time, as you raise it in the nick of time. You struggle to hold on to your aegis as the sinuous neck rears back for another strike." is an attack that hits dealing more damage than if we were to remove the smoking venom, even though the poison never actually makes contact with you because if it did, it would surely mean a grisly end for our plucky hero.

Now imagine the same scenario, except the poison damage is what tips our hero to 0hp when the bite damage did not. We might add something like "With your concentration on the next strike to come, you didn't notice the acrid venom coating your shield, sliding inexorably toward the top. As you raise it once more to defend yourself as it has so many times before, your faithful defender betrays you; a single drop of the beasts poison falls precariously from the corner of your kite and straight into your eye. Your vision blurs and agony rips through you as the insidious poison wreaks its havoc on the flimsy, unprotected membranes there. You fall to the ground and unconsciousness takes you."

So the poison condition is not you actually being poisoned but merely the threat of being poisoned? That seems odd to me because you have different options that can remove the condition which you wouldn't be able to remove the threat of a condition or it gets really funky.

[Psyren]

Maybe yours don't :smallamused:
Its easy to tack on exhaustion, max HP reduction and other conditions when you're making custom poisons. My personal favourite is also inducing confusion or enfeeblement (as per the spells)

Well sure, I'm not saying that wouldn't be fun but if you're going to homebrew outside the lines then you need to be the one to figure out how to square the effects of your custom poison with the game's assumed health abstraction, not the designers.


Poisons work fine. They're just a defeater to the argument of abstraction of damage. You can't be poisoned by a dart that "luckily missed," for example.

No, but that luck can cause it to have grazed/scratched you rather than hitting a blood vessel or vital organ - which would be the difference between taking poison damage at high HP vs taking it at low HP.



(I tack on archery as a defeater to the argument of abstraction of attacks, just for fun. While ammo is tracked, you can't say you shoot a bunch of times until you hit with a single "attack roll" - the quiver knows better.)

As above, the abstraction is not between "arrow hits" vs "arrow shoots wide." The abstraction is between "hit at high HP" (arrow grazes/nicks/character wrenches something while marginally dodging) and "hit at low HP" (arrow is square-on.)

[Theodoxus]

So, if I have this right, Psyren, it sounds like you're saying Luck and Meat are essentially intermixed. That even if you're at 100% HP, a poisoned arrow that hits higher than your AC is finding a bit of meat, dealing poison HP damage to that meat, but you still have Luck HP hanging out ready to "avoid" a sword swing (provided said poison doesn't drop you to 0 HP).

I can get behind that interpretation for a 5E game.

If I misconstrued your point, I apologize.

[stoutstien]

So, if I have this right, Psyren, it sounds like you're saying Luck and Meat are essentially intermixed. That even if you're at 100% HP, a poisoned arrow that hits higher than your AC is finding a bit of meat, dealing poison HP damage to that meat, but you still have Luck HP hanging out ready to "avoid" a sword swing (provided said poison doesn't drop you to 0 HP).

I can get behind that interpretation for a 5E game.

If I misconstrued your point, I apologize.

I think this is about the only way single pool HP can works regardless of the system. IMO for DND it's probably the best idea because HP is practically an unavoidable degrees of progress to prevent instan-splat both ways.

I think it works better if you can't just easily fill up between or in fights but that's a personal taste thing.

[Psyren]

So, if I have this right, Psyren, it sounds like you're saying Luck and Meat are essentially intermixed. That even if you're at 100% HP, a poisoned arrow that hits higher than your AC is finding a bit of meat, dealing poison HP damage to that meat, but you still have Luck HP hanging out ready to "avoid" a sword swing (provided said poison doesn't drop you to 0 HP).

I can get behind that interpretation for a 5E game.

If I misconstrued your point, I apologize.

You're pretty much there. The key is that meat != meat, even in our world - a stingray stabbing your ankle and one stabbing your heart are both hitting "meat" but one is a lot more likely to kill you, and in the HP abstraction the one that got to your heart either got you while you were already worn down (low avoidance/luck) from something else, or you got supremely unlucky (critical hit, which bypassed a lot of your "luck" entirely.) Or even both. Either way, 5e would represent the latter scenario by the blow doing enough damage to take you to zero.


I think this is about the only way single pool HP can works regardless of the system. IMO for DND it's probably the best idea because HP is practically an unavoidable degrees of progress to prevent instan-splat both ways.

I think it works better if you can't just easily fill up between or in fights but that's a personal taste thing.

To me, the far easier way to address this (if it even needs addressing) is by implementing one of the grittier rest variants, rather than by trying to overhaul/bifurcate HP entirely.

[stoutstien]

To me, the far easier way to address this (if it even needs addressing) is by implementing one of the grittier rest variants, rather than by trying to overhaul/bifurcate HP entirely.

I've found that changing the rest recovery cycle doesn't do much because you're just changing the time scale but not the ratio.

Although I wouldn't really worry about changing HP in DND at all. It works fine for it's job.

If you were designing something from the ground up then yeah I'd look at alternatives because why not.

[Theodoxus]

I've found that changing the rest recovery cycle doesn't do much because you're just changing the time scale but not the ratio.

There's a few more knobs you can turn to get a better feeling for what works for your campaign, like 3 day LR, 1 day SR, or even week long LR, 5 minute SR - for your Warlock players - lol.

I also like using the slower healing time too, especially with some kind of cap on magical healing (I was just reading about a system that uses a mechanic called Strain that builds up as you receive magical healing and drops down a point a day. If you go with the AD&D natural healing of 1 point per day (long rest) or 3 for bed rest, and use something akin to Strain to cap off your magical healing, it'll force downtime when your PCs have to either burn off Strain, or rest up naturally (or both, in the worst case scenario!).


Although I wouldn't really worry about changing HP in DND at all. It works fine for it's job.

If you were designing something from the ground up then yeah I'd look at alternatives because why not.

Honestly, that's what I'm doing; between reading different systems and getting ideas for forums like this, I'm trying to eek out the best (meaning more realistic, yet still usable) system for HP representation (be it a single HP pool like D&D or a tiered damage system like Daggerheart, or Wounds/Vitality like Star Wars SAGA... I'm trying to settle on a system where linger wounds are a thing, but not overly crippling except as a sacrifice for staying alive. A 5E equivalent would be getting dropped to zero and failing your death saves. You'd have to option to auto-stabilize instead of die, but you're going to garner a permanent Wound - a sacrifice to some stat(s). Off the top of my head, maybe reducing a total of (6 - Con mod) from any stats you choose, which a description by the player as to what it looks like. So, your beefy barbarian gets reduced to zero HP and subsequently dies, the player can sacrifice attribute points to stabilize instead of dying. If his Con is 17, then he'd have to sacrifice 3 attribute points, chosen however he'd like. Say he takes 2 points to Int and 1 point to Cha, he could describe it as a massive scar down the side of face and a small divot gouged out of his skull. Obviously, there will be some in-game way to restore the lost points via quest or Wish or whatever - but it keeps players from losing a beloved character on a bad roll and all the problems of bringing a new character into an established party/story - and it discourages reckless behavior, because you know you're going to have some pretty gnarly consequences for dying. (Or it'll make everyone want to play a Zealot - lol.

I also like the idea of more realistic to life damage. And as a corollary, a bit more deadly game all around. I hate HP bloat with a passion. But I don't relish keeping my players stuck in tier 1 either - I'd like them to play with the toys, but I don't want to have to run 50 dragons to have a chance at knocking them out.

It's an interesting rope to walk, that's for sure.

[stoutstien]

There's a few more knobs you can turn to get a better feeling for what works for your campaign, like 3 day LR, 1 day SR, or even week long LR, 5 minute SR - for your Warlock players - lol.

I also like using the slower healing time too, especially with some kind of cap on magical healing (I was just reading about a system that uses a mechanic called Strain that builds up as you receive magical healing and drops down a point a day. If you go with the AD&D natural healing of 1 point per day (long rest) or 3 for bed rest, and use something akin to Strain to cap off your magical healing, it'll force downtime when your PCs have to either burn off Strain, or rest up naturally (or both, in the worst case scenario!).



Honestly, that's what I'm doing; between reading different systems and getting ideas for forums like this, I'm trying to eek out the best (meaning more realistic, yet still usable) system for HP representation (be it a single HP pool like D&D or a tiered damage system like Daggerheart, or Wounds/Vitality like Star Wars SAGA... I'm trying to settle on a system where linger wounds are a thing, but not overly crippling except as a sacrifice for staying alive. A 5E equivalent would be getting dropped to zero and failing your death saves. You'd have to option to auto-stabilize instead of die, but you're going to garner a permanent Wound - a sacrifice to some stat(s). Off the top of my head, maybe reducing a total of (6 - Con mod) from any stats you choose, which a description by the player as to what it looks like. So, your beefy barbarian gets reduced to zero HP and subsequently dies, the player can sacrifice attribute points to stabilize instead of dying. If his Con is 17, then he'd have to sacrifice 3 attribute points, chosen however he'd like. Say he takes 2 points to Int and 1 point to Cha, he could describe it as a massive scar down the side of face and a small divot gouged out of his skull. Obviously, there will be some in-game way to restore the lost points via quest or Wish or whatever - but it keeps players from losing a beloved character on a bad roll and all the problems of bringing a new character into an established party/story - and it discourages reckless behavior, because you know you're going to have some pretty gnarly consequences for dying. (Or it'll make everyone want to play a Zealot - lol.

I also like the idea of more realistic to life damage. And as a corollary, a bit more deadly game all around. I hate HP bloat with a passion. But I don't relish keeping my players stuck in tier 1 either - I'd like them to play with the toys, but I don't want to have to run 50 dragons to have a chance at knocking them out.

It's an interesting rope to walk, that's for sure.

Oh looks like you found worlds without number.
Probably the best d&d derivative out there. I'm not crazy about the 2d6 for skill checks but he did take the time to hammer out the math so it does work.

[JellyPooga]

So the poison condition is not you actually being poisoned but merely the threat of being poisoned? That seems odd to me because you have different options that can remove the condition which you wouldn't be able to remove the threat of a condition or it gets really funky.

The poisoned condition is a bit different to poison damage, yes. The same would apply to other conditions inflicted by other poisons too, but in terms of HP damage abstraction alone, I didn't think those relevant to the discussion.