Teamwork and roleplaying.

[animorte]

If you're joining a new group, be cautious. Listen a lot and don't talk much to start with. Accept more advice than you give and thank people even if you don't follow their advice

Excellent here. +9

[Quertus]

This, on the other hand, looks to have a high chance of being forgotten and taking no action.
Previous stories make me think this character's ineffectiveness due to lack of instructions will not lead to other players reflecting on what they might have done differently.

That’s fair. I had probably pictured it differently than I expressed it, in two ways:

1. The “berserker” in the name implied not just ‘doing nothing’, but… “mindlessly shoot at closest target” or something. (Yeah, bad name is still bad) Decision Paralysis gets you to a similar but not identical spot.
2. The focus was actually on asking a single player - one that you trust to be useful. Or on the character asking for a single new master, with the hope that they give instruction, or the necessity of prompting them OOC on their turn to do so (“and you tell my character to…?”). (Which could be annoying to the wrong person, so, again, buy-in is important).

So, less intended for everyone to direct the PC; more intended for everyone to see that “PCs that work together” is a thing, and to see how that differs from what they’re used to.

Again, Remedial Teamwork. Baby steps. You’re not aiming for “Teamwork”, you’re aiming for the basic foundations of teamwork, for the building blocks that might some day be useful if the Drow ever decide to reject their culture and attempt this “Teamwork” concept.

[Talakeal]

This leads to the second point, which is IMO the real issue here. I'd like to talk about cooperative boardgames. I'll take Gloomhaven as an example, but many boardgames have similar rules.

Gloomhaven is a fully cooperative games (as far as I know). Despite that, it has "secret objectives", and it forbids by the rules to talk too much about what you're about to do during your next turn (but you can still give an approximate description of it), despite the fact that teamwork and coordinating actions is extremely effective. Note that this is not a game like Hanabi where all the fun is in finding ways to communicate informations with the limited tools at your disposal. Gloomhaven is fundamentally a tactical game, and this rule of not communicating too much has some unclear boundaries.

That's interesting.

Recently I was playing a game with some of my brothers friends that was a variant of "Pegs and Jokers" where you had team mates but were forbidden from talking to them, and I thought it was the dumbest thing ever as we were just as likely to hurt our allies as help them when we were moving in ignorance without any overarching strategy.

But yeah, implementing rules to diminish hive-mind play is a compelling counter point that I hadn't considered.

I will have to check out Gloomhaven when I next get the opportunity.

Thanks!

They're having their fun, don't BadWrongFun shame them. Instead, find ways to show that your way can be fun, too.

Who ever said that they were having fun?

They frequently struggle because of their lack of teamwork and then get mad. They usually then bitch me out for "over-tuning" the encounter (despite the fact that they still win 98% of the time) and then after the game come and bitch at me about how their teammates are bad team players; they all tell me that they want more team work, but they never see themselves as part of the problem.

And yeah, I know you will probably say that I should just under-tune everything at let them win, but I would be bored to tears running that sort of game, and I think many of the players, perhaps even the ones who get mad when they lose, would start to feel the same way before to long. That, and the fact that deliberately impossible combats ruin my ability to play test new systems, hurt immersion in the world, and still need to be convincing enough to stroke my players ego.

And, this is kind of a big tangent that just goes into generalized bitching, but I feel like the big issue is that my players have such fragile egos that I need to hit precisely the right spot in every combat where they breeze through the combat but still feel like they did so through their own awesomeness.


Edit: Although I will say, those this post doesn’t sound like it, my players have made vast improvements in these areas in the last couple of years.

[Harryhales]

Motivation plays an important role in teamwork.When Teams are motivated and know their roles they will perform well

[Leon]

Some people also just don't work well as a team or in a Team environment, not often have i encountered people like that in Roleplaying but group of people i used to plan LAN with had one person who just couldn't function in team games to the betterment of their team and a couple who had great trouble if paired with select other players.

Uh... ignoring the fact that (certain (movie?) versions of) the Fantastic Four are known for their lack of teamwork... care to give details on the difference between "what you did" and "what teamwork looked like"?

I cant recall the details, it was a long time ago and the thing that stuck was getting shown a segment of a movie ~ no idea on what the fantastic four do or not not do in which ever movies (aside from that segment i've never watched a whole one), this was what the DM chose, i suppose they could have selected any movie with Teamwork in it

[Quertus]

“Playing the game” isn’t rolling dice, it’s making meaningful decisions. It occurred to me that that might be relevant.

Who ever said that they were having fun?

I know you will probably say that I should just under-tune everything at let them win,

I have and will say that you should test doing so, to provide additional data with which to a) facilitate communication with your players, b) make informed decisions about your game.

[Vahnavoi]

@Talakeal: has it ever occurred to you that you are using the wrong metric for measuring how challenging your games are? Because victory rate does not tell you how much effort it takes from your players to play. Take a look this diagram again. There's a world of difference between a group who wins 98% of time because they're deliberately operating at the edge of their skills and 2% of time it's just not enough, versus a group who is cruising through a game and losing 2% of the time because the game is statistically set up so that they couldn't do better even if they wanted to.

[Pauly]

It depends a little on the genre. Superhero games expect a more hive mind kind of approach, WFRP expects more of an every man is an island approach.

The problems with teamwork are
1) A dominant personality imposing their plans on the rest of the table.
2) Spending minutes coming up with co-ordinated plans in 6 second turns.
3) players getting characters to do things that the character wouldn’t know (eg stopping outside of the AoE range when the caster is using subvocal casting and too far away to talk with)

In my games the problem tends to be more hive mind than unco-ordinated randos randomly mashing buttons.
My go to is to
- prohibit unsolicited suggestions from other players during a combat turn.
- impose action limits for conversation, representing the characters taking time to talk to each other, during a combat turn.
- limit pre-planning depending on how long the characters have to prepare for the encounter. I give my players 3 minutes for a regular encounter, but more time if they’ve scouted and/or researched the situation.

[Talakeal]

@Talakeal: has it ever occurred to you that you are using the wrong metric for measuring how challenging your games are? Because victory rate does not tell you how much effort it takes from your players to play. Take a look this diagram again. There's a world of difference between a group who wins 98% of time because they're deliberately operating at the edge of their skills and 2% of time it's just not enough, versus a group who is cruising through a game and losing 2% of the time because the game is statistically set up so that they couldn't do better even if they wanted to.

So basically, are you saying that players are stupid instead of lazy?

I really don't feel like that is the case, because there are times when they do actually try and formulate a plan or work as a team and just blow whatever challenge I have prepared for them out of the water, but then again it is really hard to actually gauge this.

But again, if they were actually trying as hard as they could to the point where it is stressing them out, wouldn't they really relish the opportunity to make the game easier by brushing up on their team work?

As for why they fail, we typically do 5~ encounters an adventure and their adventures have a 93% success rate. In these 7% of failures, usually its pretty obvious to me what went wrong; the players made a huge tactical blunder, the dice had a cold streak, the group comp was just really bad for the encounter in question, or I made a mistake in balancing the encounter. Of course, the players always default to assuming the latter and they sure let me know about it.

[Duff]

So, less intended for everyone to direct the PC; more intended for everyone to see that “PCs that work together” is a thing, and to see how that differs from what they’re used to.

Again, Remedial Teamwork. Baby steps. You’re not aiming for “Teamwork”, you’re aiming for the basic foundations of teamwork, for the building blocks that might some day be useful if the Drow ever decide to reject their culture and attempt this “Teamwork” concept.

That'd work nicely.

Edit - The ideal character for this "role" is one who gives a static bonus aura.
"I'll do what I'm told, anyone standing next to me gets + [enough to matter] on hit and damage rolls"
The reward is big and easy to get

Also, if there's any "sportsball" fans among them, you could point out how by training together they can call a play with just a few words to acheive a reasonable amount of coordination. It wouldn't be unreasonable to have some in character plays to call.
"Focus on the Boss" - Anyone can call it
"The zombies are resistant to cold"

This connects to another GM option - Ask the player "Does your character want to tell the party about that?"
mightbe a gentle enough reminder not to get your player's backs up

[Talakeal]

That'd work nicely.

Edit - The ideal character for this "role" is one who gives a static bonus aura.
"I'll do what I'm told, anyone standing next to me gets + [enough to matter] on hit and damage rolls"
The reward is big and easy to get

Also, if there's any "sportsball" fans among them, you could point out how by training together they can call a play with just a few words to acheive a reasonable amount of coordination. It wouldn't be unreasonable to have some in character plays to call.
"Focus on the Boss" - Anyone can call it
"The zombies are resistant to cold"

This connects to another GM option - Ask the player "Does your character want to tell the party about that?"
mightbe a gentle enough reminder not to get your player's backs up

I actually thought about trying this.

So the party does actually have a character who is analogous to the D&D warlord.

The problem is, that character's player is one of the newer ones and is probably the most distractible and least tactically minded in the group, so I could see it backfiring horribly with this composition, and when I resume being a player I really don't want to actually be encouraged to be a backseat gamer.

[Duff]

Would that player be offended if you were to play a character in a similar style but more willing to accept advice?
Could you helpfully demonstrate how those powers work with "I'll boost you, you boost me" type wording?

I know you've had issues with other players getting their backs up, so I really don't know if this would work for you

[Talakeal]

So an update from the OP:

I tried stopping for five minutes before each fight to answer player questions and allow them to plan. It didn't quite work as expected. One thing I did was allow them to precast buffs during this time as in the past we have had several situations where the players simply forgot to buff or complained that I never gave them the opportunity. The buffing tended to dominate the entire five minute period, and we constantly bumped up against meta gaming issues about how specific or how short a duration the buffs could be.


I also shared with them some recent, imo excellent, advice from the Angry DM where he says, to paraphrase, players often over analyze plans and reject them because they think of a potential way in which the plan can go wrong, and they repeat this process several times until they get bored or frustrated and then rush in with no plan at all.
Now, IMO, the takeaway is that it is best to go with a simple adaptable plan rather than a highly orchestrated plan with multiple points of failure, but my players took it as an accusation and fixated on finger pointing.
That it is realistic to come up with and reject dozens if not hundreds of plans over the course of several days before going into combat and that it is in fact always the DM who gets bored or frustrated with multi hour planning sessions that dominate the entire gaming session, and therefore entirely the DM's fault if the players ever go into a situation without a complete plan.

[Anymage]

Now, IMO, the takeaway is that it is best to go with a simple adaptable plan rather than a highly orchestrated plan with multiple points of failure, but my players took it as an accusation and fixated on finger pointing.
That it is realistic to come up with and reject dozens if not hundreds of plans over the course of several days before going into combat and that it is in fact always the DM who gets bored or frustrated with multi hour planning sessions that dominate the entire gaming session, and therefore entirely the DM's fault if the players ever go into a situation without a complete plan.

Traditional pacing IME has had one big fight as the climactic point towards the end of every night's session. But if the party really likes to do planning and prepwork before, ask them if they'd be happier ending the game right before a big set piece battle so they can plan to their heart's content over the week. They get to overthink and work through all the contingencies, and then everyone gets to do their stuff once you're all together again.

[gbaji]

Yeah. I'll often look at the clock and make decisions about delaying a big combat and cutting the session short if it's going to leave us either stopping mid-fight (sometime unavoidable, but not great) or running really long. It's also a mistake to do the opposite, and try to rush the RP/social/decision bits leading up to a fight so that you can complete it in the gaming session. Players will feel rushed and that they weren't given sufficient time/information to make good choices in the leadup (and they'd honestly be right). It's great when the session just runs well timing wise, but that doesn't always happen.

As to prep/buff time, I rarely have issues with that. Just play out the decisions/encounters/whatever leading up to the combat (assuming this isn't some kind of ambush situation or something where the PCs don't have time to do anything ahead of time). If the players are the ones making decisions about where they go, what methods they are using (sneaking, charging ahead, etc), and you simply present them with what's there and let them make choices, then the initial stages of the actual combat should just resolve themselves from there. And yeah, that's going to mean that sometimes they suddenly turn a corner they didn't check ahead of time and run right into a group of enemies and "roll initiative...".

I never set a clock or timer on player talk/prep/whatever. If they want to spend an hour of their game time discussing what to do, I let them. It's their time as much as mine. On this, I fall back to my standard concept that the characters actually live in the game world 24/7, so they don't need to spend that much time figuring out what gear they have, what the best spell is, what tactics will work best, etc. The players, not so much. So out of game time doesn't require expenditure of in-game time in that case. And if they waste a ton of time on this, well, it's less prep I need to do for the next session, right? Bonus! I will try to steer them back to discussing actual game decisions if things get too far off track, but other than that, let them do their thing.

I make a clean distinction between time spent at the table, and time passing for the characters. I don't allow the characters to do anything more than they have actual time to do in game terms (X rounds to buff, position, etc). But if the players want to spend tons of time discussing what they're doing in those X rounds? Let them. Now, if you have players who get impatient and decide to charge ahead or something, that's their choice to make. Just let me know how many rounds into X they waited, and we're still going to allow everyone else to decide what they did in the X-n rounds that they had. And no. We're not going to resolve anything the impatient player is trying to do until everyone has finished what their characters are doing in the same amount of time. So impatient player learns that this isn't going to actually help them or move things along faster, and maybe stop doing it. The real game consequences of that character jumping the gun and giving their side less in-game time to prep remains though.

[Spo]

In the last game I was a player in, I had one situation where I made a tactical suggestion to another player, and he got really mad at me OOC because he was trying to RP his character's flaws and intentionally making sub-optimal tactical choices, and felt like I was overstepping my bounds and bossing him around.

I completely understand where this player was coming from. I hate when min/maxers tell me how to achieve the most mathematically superior method of gaining the highest percentage of damage to a creature given their vulnerabilities listed in the revised stat block they know by heart. If my raging barbarian kills an enemy with his first swing, he is going to swing at his dead body because I like that visual of him being out of control. Is it a "sub-optimal tactical choice"? Yes. Was it fun to role play? Heck yeah!

[Talakeal]

I completely understand where this player was coming from. I hate when min/maxers tell me how to achieve the most mathematically superior method of gaining the highest percentage of damage to a creature given their vulnerabilities listed in the revised stat block they know by heart. If my raging barbarian kills an enemy with his first swing, he is going to swing at his dead body because I like that visual of him being out of control. Is it a "sub-optimal tactical choice"? Yes. Was it fun to role play? Heck yeah!

I think there is a huge gap between your two examples wherein reasonable play lies.

While I generally agree with you, but on the other hand this attitude can easily lead to "I was just playing my character" situations where you are actually harming the other PCs and making their players upset OOC. For example, I can't imagine someone being happy if, to build of your example, you were too busy attacking dead guys to help fight off living opponents and their character died as a result.

Personally, as the GM, I am not going to make the barbarian waste an action attacking a corpse, if that's what you want to do I am going to let you do it as a free action OR grant you inspiration for good RP to compensate you for the wasted attack.

Does it change your reaction if the advice is given in character vs. out of character?

Yeah. I'll often look at the clock and make decisions about delaying a big combat and cutting the session short if it's going to leave us either stopping mid-fight (sometime unavoidable, but not great) or running really long. It's also a mistake to do the opposite, and try to rush the RP/social/decision bits leading up to a fight so that you can complete it in the gaming session. Players will feel rushed and that they weren't given sufficient time/information to make good choices in the leadup (and they'd honestly be right). It's great when the session just runs well timing wise, but that doesn't always happen.

As to prep/buff time, I rarely have issues with that. Just play out the decisions/encounters/whatever leading up to the combat (assuming this isn't some kind of ambush situation or something where the PCs don't have time to do anything ahead of time). If the players are the ones making decisions about where they go, what methods they are using (sneaking, charging ahead, etc), and you simply present them with what's there and let them make choices, then the initial stages of the actual combat should just resolve themselves from there. And yeah, that's going to mean that sometimes they suddenly turn a corner they didn't check ahead of time and run right into a group of enemies and "roll initiative...".

I never set a clock or timer on player talk/prep/whatever. If they want to spend an hour of their game time discussing what to do, I let them. It's their time as much as mine. On this, I fall back to my standard concept that the characters actually live in the game world 24/7, so they don't need to spend that much time figuring out what gear they have, what the best spell is, what tactics will work best, etc. The players, not so much. So out of game time doesn't require expenditure of in-game time in that case. And if they waste a ton of time on this, well, it's less prep I need to do for the next session, right? Bonus! I will try to steer them back to discussing actual game decisions if things get too far off track, but other than that, let them do their thing.

I make a clean distinction between time spent at the table, and time passing for the characters. I don't allow the characters to do anything more than they have actual time to do in game terms (X rounds to buff, position, etc). But if the players want to spend tons of time discussing what they're doing in those X rounds? Let them. Now, if you have players who get impatient and decide to charge ahead or something, that's their choice to make. Just let me know how many rounds into X they waited, and we're still going to allow everyone else to decide what they did in the X-n rounds that they had. And no. We're not going to resolve anything the impatient player is trying to do until everyone has finished what their characters are doing in the same amount of time. So impatient player learns that this isn't going to actually help them or move things along faster, and maybe stop doing it. The real game consequences of that character jumping the gun and giving their side less in-game time to prep remains though.

I don't mind reasonable planning, but we only play once every two weeks and I do enjoy actually getting to play the game.

I honestly don't think anyone in the group, including the player who insisted it was "realistic" actually wants to spend hours or days coming up with a perfect plan, and I am pretty sure if they tried it 2/3 of the group would be on their phones and completely checked out after five minutes.

I just wish they would just come up with simple plans that involved other people like "I will distract them while you sneak past and backstab their leader" or "I will send my pet to help the rogue get flanking" or just being able to ask the casters for heals or buff spells.

[Thrudd]

I don't mind reasonable planning, but we only play once every two weeks and I do enjoy actually getting to play the game.

I honestly don't think anyone in the group, including the player who insisted it was "realistic" actually wants to spend hours or days coming up with a perfect plan, and I am pretty sure if they tried it 2/3 of the group would be on their phones and completely checked out after five minutes.

I just wish they would just come up with simple plans that involved other people like "I will distract them while you sneak past and backstab their leader" or "I will send my pet to help the rogue get flanking" or just being able to ask the casters for heals or buff spells.

That's really the sort of thing I intend, as well, when I suggest a short strategy session. It's supposed to be something you can reasonably do in five minutes- giving even that much time is an allowance for the game's sake, to represent the characters' extreme competence in these matters, when in the game reality they only have a matter of seconds. If you want an hour to come up with a complicated battle plan with many moving parts, then your characters would need to know at least an hour in advance about the battle to take place, and they only get access to whatever intel they have gathered at that point, with no guarantee everything will be exactly as they predict. I'm all about immersion, with reasonable allowances for the fact that it's a game and players aren't actually seeing what their characters are and aren't as competent as the characters are supposed to be.

The retroactive spellcasting/buffing issue, I think, is something that might need to be handled separate from or in addition to the pre-battle planning time. It sounds like your group might need a firm rule about how to adjudicate that. Maybe when a player says they think their character would have remembered to cast a spell earlier, they need to make an intelligence roll with a set DC (maybe easy or moderate difficulty). They need to declare exactly when their character would have cast the spell, in order to fairly track the duration- taking into account the casting time- I presume it isn't possible to simultaneously cast multiple spells in your system, so at least one combat round's worth of time would pass between each casting. They agree to abide by the result of the intelligence check, and if it fails, then their character also forgot to cast the spell and they need to use combat time. adjudicating retroactive actions should be separate from the planning time, so they actually have time to talk about battle plans in those five minutes. Make it clear the five minute strategy session isn't taking place in real-character time, any actions they want to take will happen starting in the first combat round.
Don't know if any of that will fly with your players, but maybe making a firm ruling about retroactive actions will encourage them to remember in real-time to declare long duration buffing spells in advance of danger?

[icefractal]

Having a set mechanical rule does seem like a good idea in this case.

Usually, it's considered a good thing for the GM and players to negotiate on things, but in this group it seems like their idea of "negotiate" is "complain at the GM until we get our way, or at least as much as possible". So the less that's up for discussion, the better.

However, based on prior behavior, I have little faith that they won't just initially agree to the rule, then take that back and insist on arguing the moment it's not in their favor.

[gbaji]

I don't mind reasonable planning, but we only play once every two weeks and I do enjoy actually getting to play the game.

I honestly don't think anyone in the group, including the player who insisted it was "realistic" actually wants to spend hours or days coming up with a perfect plan, and I am pretty sure if they tried it 2/3 of the group would be on their phones and completely checked out after five minutes.

I just wish they would just come up with simple plans that involved other people like "I will distract them while you sneak past and backstab their leader" or "I will send my pet to help the rogue get flanking" or just being able to ask the casters for heals or buff spells.

Honestly? It rarely takes them even 5 minutes to decide what they are doing. Usually, when a combat is coming up, they've had table time to prepare anyway, because they played out the game actions/decisions leading up to the combat already. It's not like I plop them in front of a door, tell them "there are X number of Y monsters in the room on the other side of the door", and then let them figure out how to defeat them. If they've arrived at said door, it's because they went to it, knowing/anticipating there was something they'd need to fight on the other side, explored the path to said door, spent time deciding to go there in the first place, already made whatever stealth and information gathering skills/spells they've decided to use already, etc. Because of this play up to the start of the combat, they already know what they are doing, I know what they are doing, and the only real question is how much time they have (or choose to take if the opportunity exists) to cast spells/buffs ahead of time.

Actual tactics? If they have some significant pre-knowledge of what they're facing and how they are positioned, it might take a bit of time, but honestly (and maybe I just have a very experienced table), it's usually not much more than, I'll run thisaway, you run thataway,, and we'll meet over here. So and so take out the archers up there. Spellcaster, hang back over here. Stuff like that. Heck. Usually, it's not even that. I routinely have them enter a room, with no more planning than the order they are lined up in the hallway outside, with nothing more than a vague idea of what kind of opponents are on the other side and no clue what the room looks like, and they manage to intelligently move into said room, take reasonable positions, recognize which threats they need to take out first, etc. All with me simply asking each player to say what their character is doing, in order, as they enter the room.

It's just not that hard. Primary melee runs towards melee folks. Second melee person usually goes with the first and forms a line(ish). Next person in maybe spread out the line a bit, or otherwise moves to engage, depending on how the enemies are positioned. If you are a ranged person you move off to the side to allow others to move past you. Seriously. How are people taking any significant time on this?

As to retcon spell/buff casting? I'll allow it, if it's not a big deal and it's not something the player is obviously adjusting to based on knowledge they have obtained since the combat started. In the game system I GM most, there are decisions one has to make in terms of spell stacking. So for the most common form of magic, you kinda have to choose whether you are defending against physical damage, spells, or spirits. So if someone went in with a buff against spells, then finds it's a room full of melee fighters and *then* says "Oh, I want to have cast my protection instead of my countermagic", that's a hard no. Every once in a while though, someone will enter combat, get hit and we're calculating damage and be like "Um. Don't you have a protection spell you could have cast?". And the player will be like "I do?", followed by checking their sheet, realizing that they do indeed have that spell available, and could have cast it, and didn't cast anything that blocked that spell, but just plain forgot that they had it. In that case, I'll allow the retcon, because it falls squarely into the case where it's something the character would have never ever forgotten, but the player did (cause the player is only playing the character a few hours a week).

That's a pretty rare thing though. And once we get into actual combat, I'm pretty strict about requiring that they give a statement of intent at the beginning of the round, including what spells (if any) they are casting and general actions they plan to do. Then we play out the round. I find that focuses the players on what their characters are doing and forces them to commit to a course of action for the round. Changes of statement contain a penalty (that's a game system specific rule, so YMMV), so they tend to stick with what they said they were going to do, and things progress quickly/smoothly. It's just rare that anyone's taking up a ton of time at any phase here, but if they want to stop and have a conversation, or break into a Monty Python skit in the middle of combat, I'll let them do it. Doesn't really matter as long as everyone's having a good time.

[Talakeal]

Honestly? It rarely takes them even 5 minutes to decide what they are doing. Usually, when a combat is coming up, they've had table time to prepare anyway, because they played out the game actions/decisions leading up to the combat already. It's not like I plop them in front of a door, tell them "there are X number of Y monsters in the room on the other side of the door", and then let them figure out how to defeat them. If they've arrived at said door, it's because they went to it, knowing/anticipating there was something they'd need to fight on the other side, explored the path to said door, spent time deciding to go there in the first place, already made whatever stealth and information gathering skills/spells they've decided to use already, etc. Because of this play up to the start of the combat, they already know what they are doing, I know what they are doing, and the only real question is how much time they have (or choose to take if the opportunity exists) to cast spells/buffs ahead of time.

Actual tactics? If they have some significant pre-knowledge of what they're facing and how they are positioned, it might take a bit of time, but honestly (and maybe I just have a very experienced table), it's usually not much more than, I'll run thisaway, you run thataway,, and we'll meet over here. So and so take out the archers up there. Spellcaster, hang back over here. Stuff like that. Heck. Usually, it's not even that. I routinely have them enter a room, with no more planning than the order they are lined up in the hallway outside, with nothing more than a vague idea of what kind of opponents are on the other side and no clue what the room looks like, and they manage to intelligently move into said room, take reasonable positions, recognize which threats they need to take out first, etc. All with me simply asking each player to say what their character is doing, in order, as they enter the room.

It's just not that hard. Primary melee runs towards melee folks. Second melee person usually goes with the first and forms a line(ish). Next person in maybe spread out the line a bit, or otherwise moves to engage, depending on how the enemies are positioned. If you are a ranged person you move off to the side to allow others to move past you. Seriously. How are people taking any significant time on this?


That's a pretty rare thing though. And once we get into actual combat, I'm pretty strict about requiring that they give a statement of intent at the beginning of the round, including what spells (if any) they are casting and general actions they plan to do. Then we play out the round. I find that focuses the players on what their characters are doing and forces them to commit to a course of action for the round. Changes of statement contain a penalty (that's a game system specific rule, so YMMV), so they tend to stick with what they said they were going to do, and things progress quickly/smoothly. It's just rare that anyone's taking up a ton of time at any phase here, but if they want to stop and have a conversation, or break into a Monty Python skit in the middle of combat, I'll let them do it. Doesn't really matter as long as everyone's having a good time.

So, in the short term the problem is they never actually talk to one another during combat. Most of the time they are checked out on their phone during other people's turn, and then make the decision for what they are doing on the spot when their turn comes around in isolation. This also has the knock on effect of making everyone really confused when someone has a delayed or bonus action and we all forget whose turn it is.

But for more complex plans, typically they come up with plans that have a single point of failure and then either go with and get screwed if something causes that fail state, or the see the failpoint, toss the plan entirely, repeat several times, and then get frustrated and stop coming up with plans. For example, in my last session they had a plan to sneak in, assassinate the enemy leader, and then teleport out. The problem was, someone counter spelled their single teleport, and they were then stuck in enemy territory with no backup plan of any sort and the game just kind of stalled out for two hours while they felt hopeless.

As to retcon spell/buff casting? I'll allow it, if it's not a big deal and it's not something the player is obviously adjusting to based on knowledge they have obtained since the combat started. In the game system I GM most, there are decisions one has to make in terms of spell stacking. So for the most common form of magic, you kinda have to choose whether you are defending against physical damage, spells, or spirits. So if someone went in with a buff against spells, then finds it's a room full of melee fighters and *then* says "Oh, I want to have cast my protection instead of my countermagic", that's a hard no. Every once in a while though, someone will enter combat, get hit and we're calculating damage and be like "Um. Don't you have a protection spell you could have cast?". And the player will be like "I do?", followed by checking their sheet, realizing that they do indeed have that spell available, and could have cast it, and didn't cast anything that blocked that spell, but just plain forgot that they had it. In that case, I'll allow the retcon, because it falls squarely into the case where it's something the character would have never ever forgotten, but the player did (cause the player is only playing the character a few hours a week).

The intent on my side was absolutely the latter (Um. Don't you have a protection spell you could have cast?) but the players took it as license to do the former (Oh, I want to have cast my protection instead of my countermagic) and thus every scene we have to do a negotiation about just how much foresight the players are allowed.

[gbaji]

So, in the short term the problem is they never actually talk to one another during combat. Most of the time they are checked out on their phone during other people's turn, and then make the decision for what they are doing on the spot when their turn comes around in isolation. This also has the knock on effect of making everyone really confused when someone has a delayed or bonus action and we all forget whose turn it is.

This is a problem in pretty much any game, and combat is absolutely the one part of the game where a player may be sitting there for 20-30 minutes "waiting their turn" but still need to make decisions that rationally intersect and work with other actions/decisions that occurred over that time period (unlike a longish roleplaying bit where the non-social characters can basically tune out what's going on, and just ask "what's the plan" afterwards). There are some techniques you can use as a GM to help things along though.

1. Battle pacing. In most combat situations, the real "plan" occurs in the first round or so of the battle. The PCs should at that point be seeing the layout of the battle, and deciding what they want to accomplish, and come up with an idea of how to accomplish that (you go thataway, I'll go up here, you guys hang out there and cast spells, etc). This should actively involve all of the players. Once that's out of the way, each individual should know what their part of the plan is and move/act accordingly. Once they get into the flow, it should be "Ok. It's my turn, I'm doing X, and here's this opponent I'm doing X to so... <roll dice for X>. Start out with everyone already knowing their part in the plan, and things will (should) flow easily from there.

2. Battle changes. Some combats are pretty straightforward, but some will have new threats appear during the fight that you didn't account for. This is where things can go off the rails. Again though, treat this just like the "start of battle" phase above. Get everyone's attention and let them know what new thing has happened. Have them (again) verbally decide what they're going to do in response to this. So that, once again, every player knows what their character is doing in response, and what their "new plan" is. Note, that this may be restricted in some cases, if only some of the characters are aware of the change. In that case, have them make the decisions and move forward and then allow others to react as they become aware of the change as well. This is extremely variable depending on communication abilities of the party, physical locations of the participants, sightlines, etc. And yeah, you do just have to accept that if it's said at the table, everyone knows about it, and certainly some characters who maybe should not know that 3 spell casters just popped up from a tunnel entrance on the other side of the battle, and their character doesn't know about this, but they still take actions as though they do. If they are minor things, just let it slide. That's not a hill you want to die on. On the other hand, if they just randomly decide to arbitrarily use their once per day "protect my allies from spells" item and just happen to cast it on the guys on the other side of the battle right where the new casters appeared, call them out on that by telling them they don't know that and can't use that item. If, instead, they finish off their current opponent and decide to charge through an entrance to a tunnel that runs behind the enemy position (and which reasonably might allow them to come up and attack the casters he doesn't know about from behind in a round or two), eh, might have done it anyway since it's not a bad tactical decision. Be reasonable with this, and always keep the flow of the encounter in mind. It shouldn't be too hard.

3. Battle orders: I mentioned in my previous post the concept of requiring statements of intent at the beginning of each round. This is a great idea and honestly helps keep things going IMO. It reminds each player not only of what they are doing (and allows for a brief conversation by the players to make suggestions), but also allows you the GM to keep straight what each character is actually doing (which allows you to think about how your NPCs will respond, which will speed things up). Additionally, it allows for both sides to have a better idea of how a given character will/should react to changes mentioned above. You will know what is a reasonable change in response because you know what the character was planning on doing prior to the change. How well this works is entirely game system dependent though. Even in initiative based systems, you can still use this (make folks make statements in opposite order of initiative first, then resolve in forwards order). I just find that having regular conversations and reinforcement of decisions prevents players from forgetting what they are doing. It may seem like this takes extra time, but in the long run, it will actually save time (especially if you have been having the problems you report). Note, you can sometimes skip this for some characters if nothing has really changed (they were fighting a group of bad guys last round and are still fighting them this round). But if I look across the battle mat and see a character that is unengaged (this pretty much includes all spell casters), I'll ask them each round "what are you planning to do this round?". Takes just a few seconds. Saves a ton of time/confusion later.

3. Battle direction: You are the combat traffic cop. This is where the GM earns their chops IMO. It's your job to keep all of this straight. if a player forgets what they are doing, you should know. Again, this is where the statements of intent come in. You know what each PC is doing, and you know what the NPCs are planning as well. You have a complete view of the battlefield. Use it. Direct the players as to what their character can see, are planning, and what's possible for them to do about it in each round. It's not uncommon for me to remind a player "Weren't you planning on running over and pulling that lever you think will unlock that gate after defeating this group?'. If that's why they ran over to fight them, and the lever pull is critical to opening up an obstacle holding back the rest of the party, don't feel like you need to play "gotcha" by allowing the player to forget it. Again, this is not something their character would forget. This shouldn't happen often, because the players should have had multiple reinforcement along the way, but if it does, a gentle nudge by the GM doesn't hurt.

But for more complex plans, typically they come up with plans that have a single point of failure and then either go with and get screwed if something causes that fail state, or the see the failpoint, toss the plan entirely, repeat several times, and then get frustrated and stop coming up with plans. For example, in my last session they had a plan to sneak in, assassinate the enemy leader, and then teleport out. The problem was, someone counter spelled their single teleport, and they were then stuck in enemy territory with no backup plan of any sort and the game just kind of stalled out for two hours while they felt hopeless.

Remember that as the GM, while you do play the NPCs, and are therefore running the adversaries, that does not mean that your role is to actually be adversarial to them. In your example, you knew as the GM that the NPCs had spell casters, and that they had the ability to counterspell the teleport. In fact, you presumably thought of this, and planned for it. Why not tell the players that this is a possibility? I'm assuming that if they have a caster capable of teleport, that their characters are aware of the existence of counterspell and how it could be used against them. This falls squarely into the "character should know, but player may not think of" condition. Tell them.

This is how you avoid a reputation as a "gotcha" GM. You have to choose whether you want your players success or failure to be determined by whether they forget some key (but in hindsight obvious) bit of information and "gotcha" them. Or whether it's about them using their resources well and actually defeating their enemies in a straight up conflict. The players plan should include what the NPCs will reasonably be likely to do in response and the balance of the encounter should rest on that fact. If you had raised the counterspell issue, what would have happened? The players would have to adjust their plan to account for it. Maybe include as part of their plan the requirement that they must clear enough of the room/enemies to ensure no casters are still around and *then* teleport out. It ceases to be a simple in and out operation, but requires that they at least somewhat fight their way through enemies to get to where they can escape. That's actually going to be a far far better encounter for them, and it allows you to plan and balance the encounter to account for that.

Keeping that information secret doesn't benefit anyone at all. Now, if there's something else that the party should have no reason to know, by all means, keep that secret, but plan/balance the encounter around that. So instead of it being "we can just barely succeed and now this new thing we didn't know about crushes us" you change it to "we thought this was a cakewalk, then ran into this thing we didn't know about, but we managed to keep our wits about us, came up with a new plan, and persevered". Which of those two do you think your players are going to enjoy playing? Hint: It's not the first one.

I make a point to tell my players everything possible (within reason). I don't want PCs to die on "gotcha" stuff. I will warn them if they are about to do something really stupid. I'll warn them again. I'll tell them "this will likely result in you dying". Only if they consciously make the decision to go forward anyway, will I hit them with something like that. Remember that you are not actually their adversary. Your job is to run an enjoyable game for the players. Don't lose sight of that. Don't make it a "gimme" game either. The trick is to balance things so that it's the player decisions and character actions that result in success or failure, such that when they succeed they feel pride in that success (we did good), and when they fail they know it's because they actually made a bad decision, or made a mistake (or even just had a monumentally bad string of die rolls). But they should never blame the GM for them failing. If they do, then *you* have failed.

The intent on my side was absolutely the latter (Um. Don't you have a protection spell you could have cast?) but the players took it as license to do the former (Oh, I want to have cast my protection instead of my countermagic) and thus every scene we have to do a negotiation about just how much foresight the players are allowed.

Yeah. Again. You have to set firm boundaries and rules here. Be consistent about how you do things, and your players will learn the "rules", and follow them. If they feel like you are winging it constantly, then they will do everything they can to bend you to their own benefit. If this is really a huge problem, then require that the players write down what they are casting on a piece of paper, and then enforce that (yeah, even if they forgot a spell they should have thought to cast). That's a sucky way to do things, but if they're pulling this on you, you kinda have to. On the flip side, remember the point above. You are not their adversary. Remind players to cast the spells they should be remembering to cast while the prep is going on. Ask them "did everyone cast their protection spells up who has them?". Tell that one player who keeps forgetting "Hey. Don't you have a spell that enhances your strength and damage? Are you casting that, or casting something else?".

You don't have to stay silent and wait for them to make mistakes. Proactively engage. Give them every opportunity to *not* make that fatal mistake. But yeah, if they insist on doing it, then play it straight.

[Talakeal]

Sorry for the delay, been out of town this weekend and this post is too much to respond to on a phone.

3. Battle orders: I mentioned in my previous post the concept of requiring statements of intent at the beginning of each round. This is a great idea and honestly helps keep things going IMO. It reminds each player not only of what they are doing (and allows for a brief conversation by the players to make suggestions), but also allows you the GM to keep straight what each character is actually doing (which allows you to think about how your NPCs will respond, which will speed things up). Additionally, it allows for both sides to have a better idea of how a given character will/should react to changes mentioned above. You will know what is a reasonable change in response because you know what the character was planning on doing prior to the change. How well this works is entirely game system dependent though. Even in initiative based systems, you can still use this (make folks make statements in opposite order of initiative first, then resolve in forwards order). I just find that having regular conversations and reinforcement of decisions prevents players from forgetting what they are doing. It may seem like this takes extra time, but in the long run, it will actually save time (especially if you have been having the problems you report). Note, you can sometimes skip this for some characters if nothing has really changed (they were fighting a group of bad guys last round and are still fighting them this round). But if I look across the battle mat and see a character that is unengaged (this pretty much includes all spell casters), I'll ask them each round "what are you planning to do this round?". Takes just a few seconds. Saves a ton of time/confusion later.

I am open to the suggestion, but I don't understand how this is supposed to work. It seems like this just gives a second opportunity for people to get lost or confused.

3. Battle direction: You are the combat traffic cop. This is where the GM earns their chops IMO. It's your job to keep all of this straight. if a player forgets what they are doing, you should know. Again, this is where the statements of intent come in. You know what each PC is doing, and you know what the NPCs are planning as well. You have a complete view of the battlefield. Use it. Direct the players as to what their character can see, are planning, and what's possible for them to do about it in each round. It's not uncommon for me to remind a player "Weren't you planning on running over and pulling that lever you think will unlock that gate after defeating this group?'. If that's why they ran over to fight them, and the lever pull is critical to opening up an obstacle holding back the rest of the party, don't feel like you need to play "gotcha" by allowing the player to forget it. Again, this is not something their character would forget. This shouldn't happen often, because the players should have had multiple reinforcement along the way, but if it does, a gentle nudge by the GM doesn't hurt.

Tough, but fair. I'll work on it.

Remember that as the GM, while you do play the NPCs, and are therefore running the adversaries, that does not mean that your role is to actually be adversarial to them. In your example, you knew as the GM that the NPCs had spell casters, and that they had the ability to counterspell the teleport. In fact, you presumably thought of this, and planned for it. Why not tell the players that this is a possibility? I'm assuming that if they have a caster capable of teleport, that their characters are aware of the existence of counterspell and how it could be used against them. This falls squarely into the "character should know, but player may not think of" condition. Tell them.

In this particular case, it didn't actually occur to me that they would charge in, kill the royal family, and leave their spell-caster alive and in the room when they made their escape. At the moment counter spell seemed to be the obvious choice, but it was not premeditated in any way.

My players of course said that their plan was brilliant except that they happened to come up against the one thing that could directly counter it; I tried to tell them that there were a dozen ways that their portal could have been foiled, and they really shouldn't rely on plans where a single point of failure leads them to an inevitable TPK.

Not that it would have actually been a TPK mind you, but several of my players have a bad habit of simply giving up when things start to go wrong.

(A bit of a tangent, but I was playing a board game with Brian and my brother this weekend, Brian made a very bad move, and then passively forfeited as a result and stopped trying. I gave him a pep talk and eventually convinced him to start trying again and he actually ended up not only recovering but winning the game pretty thoroughly. This sort of thing happens fairly regularly in RPG sessions with several of my players, but I am very rarely able to convince them to start trying again as it tends to just turn into DM vs Players finger pointing and shouting).

This is how you avoid a reputation as a "gotcha" GM. You have to choose whether you want your players success or failure to be determined by whether they forget some key (but in hindsight obvious) bit of information and "gotcha" them. Or whether it's about them using their resources well and actually defeating their enemies in a straight up conflict. The players plan should include what the NPCs will reasonably be likely to do in response and the balance of the encounter should rest on that fact. If you had raised the counterspell issue, what would have happened? The players would have to adjust their plan to account for it. Maybe include as part of their plan the requirement that they must clear enough of the room/enemies to ensure no casters are still around and *then* teleport out. It ceases to be a simple in and out operation, but requires that they at least somewhat fight their way through enemies to get to where they can escape. That's actually going to be a far far better encounter for them, and it allows you to plan and balance the encounter to account for that.

Keeping that information secret doesn't benefit anyone at all. Now, if there's something else that the party should have no reason to know, by all means, keep that secret, but plan/balance the encounter around that. So instead of it being "we can just barely succeed and now this new thing we didn't know about crushes us" you change it to "we thought this was a cakewalk, then ran into this thing we didn't know about, but we managed to keep our wits about us, came up with a new plan, and persevered". Which of those two do you think your players are going to enjoy playing? Hint: It's not the first one.

How obvious should it be? How often should I do this? Should it only be real things or potential things?

Like, if their plan is to poison the BBEG, should I tell them it is possible for him to be immune to poison? Should I point this out even if I as the GM know that he isn't immune to poison, but it is a possibility?

This seems like good advice, but I am really afraid it will look like railroading to the players.

The very first time I ever DMed, I was about nine at the time, I tried running my non-gamer dad through a simple dungeon. He kept getting stuck, and I kept offering suggestions about how he could get unstuck (not ridiculous puzzles, just basic stuff telling him he could try searching the room, or using rope to climb down a pit, or bashing down a locked door) and after about twenty minutes he quit, telling me that he wasn't actually making any choices, simply following my instructions.

And yeah, from a player perspective, I could easily see how a DM pointing out potential flaws in plan after plan could read like them either trying to railroad me into one specific choice, or simply rubbing my face in how bad my plans are.

Keeping that information secret doesn't benefit anyone at all. Now, if there's something else that the party should have no reason to know, by all means, keep that secret, but plan/balance the encounter around that. So instead of it being "we can just barely succeed and now this new thing we didn't know about crushes us" you change it to "we thought this was a cakewalk, then ran into this thing we didn't know about, but we managed to keep our wits about us, came up with a new plan, and persevered". Which of those two do you think your players are going to enjoy playing? Hint: It's not the first one.

I make a point to tell my players everything possible (within reason). I don't want PCs to die on "gotcha" stuff. I will warn them if they are about to do something really stupid. I'll warn them again. I'll tell them "this will likely result in you dying". Only if they consciously make the decision to go forward anyway, will I hit them with something like that. Remember that you are not actually their adversary. Your job is to run an enjoyable game for the players. Don't lose sight of that. Don't make it a "gimme" game either. The trick is to balance things so that it's the player decisions and character actions that result in success or failure, such that when they succeed they feel pride in that success (we did good), and when they fail they know it's because they actually made a bad decision, or made a mistake (or even just had a monumentally bad string of die rolls).

As a bit of a rant, my players are obsessed with me sticking to combat as sport. They insist that all encounters are mathematically balanced, and I go to a lot of effort trying to make them balanced. The problem is, the players then try and use combat as war tactics, which then unbalance the encounters again, and then they rant that it isn't fair. Like, one thing they do quite often is do something to trap a monster, walk past it, and then forget about it, only to have it come and ambush them later or cut off their escape on their way out. In this case, I prepared a series of four painstakingly balanced encounters involving them fighting their way into the palace and battling the king and his guards, but the players tried to bypass it by sneaking / bluffing their way in and then teleporting out, but when they forgot to take out the wizard first or to bring redundant escape methods, they are now trapped in a palace with 3.5 balanced encounters all laying siege to them, resulting in what could potentially be a very deadly encounter.

Keeping that information secret doesn't benefit anyone at all. Now, if there's something else that the party should have no reason to know, by all means, keep that secret, but plan/balance the encounter around that. So instead of it being "we can just barely succeed and now this new thing we didn't know about crushes us" you change it to "we thought this was a cakewalk, then ran into this thing we didn't know about, but we managed to keep our wits about us, came up with a new plan, and persevered". Which of those two do you think your players are going to enjoy playing? Hint: It's not the first one.

I make a point to tell my players everything possible (within reason). I don't want PCs to die on "gotcha" stuff. I will warn them if they are about to do something really stupid. I'll warn them again. I'll tell them "this will likely result in you dying". Only if they consciously make the decision to go forward anyway, will I hit them with something like that. Remember that you are not actually their adversary. Your job is to run an enjoyable game for the players. Don't lose sight of that. Don't make it a "gimme" game either. The trick is to balance things so that it's the player decisions and character actions that result in success or failure, such that when they succeed they feel pride in that success (we did good), and when they fail they know it's because they actually made a bad decision, or made a mistake (or even just had a monumentally bad string of die rolls).

I generally do just that.

Although there is always some measure of just how much "playing dumb" is to be expected. Like, when the players cast a protection spell that makes them immune to enemy attacks, there is always a bit of a negotiation about how many rounds the enemies have to stand their wailing on them ineffectively before taking the hint and changing tactics.

But again, its easier said than done.

Let me tell two anecdotes from my last game that I have shared on this forum before and you may have seen referenced.

Spoiler: The Sneeze Ogre

Show

A fomorian guards a bridge. His preferred tactic is to throw people off into the dungeon below. I changed him from having a single huge eye that does psychic damage into having a huge nose that pushes people back with a gust of wind, both to reinforce his tactic and to give him a more fairy tail ogre vibe. He was a tough but beatable encounter. I anticipated that the players would fight him once and get thrown off, but any damage they inflicted would carry over. They would then come back with preparations for being thrown off and kill him, which is what ended up happened. If, however, they had taken preperations to avoid being thrown off in the first place, or got really lucky with dice rolls, they could have killed him in the initial encounter and had a much easier to exploring the rest of the site from above (but that didn't happen).

All well and good and combat as sport like.

But then, when the fight actually went down, after all of the players but the sorceress had been thrown off, she cast a spell that would turn her incorporeal and tried to solo the giant. The fomorian then used his sneeze attack to blow her off the bridge. Now, this was all planned in advance, and if he had been a standard fomorian with the evil eye, he would have likely straight up killed her. But the players accused me of making up the attack on the spot in an attempt to railroad them off the bridge.

Spoiler: Shards of Apocalypse

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This was an optional encounter.

There was a site where the god of violence had been killed by a potent artifact.

The players wanted this artifact.

The god of violence essence still haunted the place, and anytime anyone entered, it would manifest a vestige to kill them. The vestige was a standard mid-level warrior who was single mindedly violent, think Michael Meyers. After an hour, he fades away.

The hitch is, the encounter was a sort of hydra. Every time a vestige is killed, two more vestiges spawn the following round. Violence begets violence. The idea was to shake things up by having an encounter which couldn't be solved by deadly force, and they would have to resort to non-lethal combat, crowd control magic, stealth, area manipulation, etc. Really anything but lethal force or trying to talk it out would have worked.

Now, singly, this guy is a trivial fight. I figured he would split 2-3 times before the players got the hint and changed tactics, and chose a power level appropriate to that. In fact, the next session the players fought five guys at once with identical stats and wiped the floor with them.

But the players just kept on fighting, because they assumed there was some sort of "kill limit" where they would eventually stop splitting. Upon facing a dozen or more enemies, the players finally realized they were whipped and ran away.

Not a great outcome, but not bad or unexpected.

So the players went back to town to rest up and did some research. I told them that their research uncovered that, as the vestige was born of violence, it cannot be destroyed by violence. Now, maybe I made a mistake of using poetic language here and I should have totally broken character and told them the mechanics of the fight, but I thought it was clear enough.

So the players come up with a pretty good plan to have one person distract it, two people go in and grab the artifact, and the sorceress then cut off the vestiges pursuit with a wall of stone. Perfect, would work great.

But then they get in there, and the sorceress starts blasting the vestige, causing it to split, saying she forgot the plan.

Then one of the people who is supposed to be getting the artifact just starts doing random stuff. Her explanation is that she thought I was trying to trick the party OOC by playing word games, and that while it couldn't be destroyed by violence there was some super secret non-violent action that would cause it to spontaneously keel over dead.

Then, the other player who get the artifact weapon didn't run away with it as planned, instead he came back and killed one of the vestiges with it to see if it could permanently kill them, again assuming I was lying to them OOC about it not being able to be destroyed by violence.

So at this point I have three vestiges against a disorganized, confused, conflicted, and beaten up party.

They then finally agree to run, but aren't really in a good position to trap all three vestiges, and one of them *exactly* makes the strength check to bust through the wall of stone and continue pursuit. The players would later tell me that they thought I said it simply turned incorporeal and phased through the wall, but I am not really sure how they got that from my description.

They then decided the situation was hopeless, and they simply lay down and let the vestiges kill them.

So, in both this cases there was a surprise ability, and I did factor it into the difficulty of the fight. But how the heck am I supposed to anticipate such wildly divergent PC tactics when doing so?

But they should never blame the GM for them failing. If they do, then *you* have failed.

That is a pretty broad statement.

At face value, it seems to be saying that players are incapable of being unreasonable; which is obviously not the case.

In my experience a good percentage of people have some combination of paranoia and weak ego that will cause them to instinctively blame any loss on someone or something else, and in an RPG the GM is an obvious target. I remember one time playing Warhammer at the GW store and seeing someone who was clearly outplayed by his opponent go on a rant about how tomb kings light cavalry, which was almost unanimously agreed on to be among the worst units in the game, was ludicrously overpowered and his opponent was a cheesy power gamer for using it.

Of course, I don't think that's what you actually meant, but I am going to need you to spell the subtext out for me because I am missing it.

Yeah. Again. You have to set firm boundaries and rules here. Be consistent about how you do things, and your players will learn the "rules", and follow them. If they feel like you are winging it constantly, then they will do everything they can to bend you to their own benefit. If this is really a huge problem, then require that the players write down what they are casting on a piece of paper, and then enforce that (yeah, even if they forgot a spell they should have thought to cast). That's a sucky way to do things, but if they're pulling this on you, you kinda have to. On the flip side, remember the point above. You are not their adversary. Remind players to cast the spells they should be remembering to cast while the prep is going on. Ask them "did everyone cast their protection spells up who has them?". Tell that one player who keeps forgetting "Hey. Don't you have a spell that enhances your strength and damage? Are you casting that, or casting something else?".

You don't have to stay silent and wait for them to make mistakes. Proactively engage. Give them every opportunity to *not* make that fatal mistake. But yeah, if they insist on doing it, then play it straight.

Easier said than done, but yeah, good advice.

[icefractal]

Some of your players behavior made me wonder - do they read Knights of the Dinner Table by any chance?

Because I read that before I got into actually playing, and it did give me a screwed up view of the GM/player relationship for a while. No hate to the comic, it's clearly for entertainment and not pretending to be a documentary or manual. But it presented this particular play-style that past-me thought was close to reality, when in fact I've never seen it in the wild and it'd probably be a bad idea for most groups.

That play style is:
* Antagonistic GM/player relationship - GMs are encouraged (by other GMs) to run a deadly game, kill plenty of PCs, trick the party into TPKs, find ways to take away levels and magic items, etc. Meanwhile players are encouraged to do anything and everything within the rules to win - making the GM throw away prep is a "high five" moment.
* But, everyone scrupulously follows the rules, and the GMs have an strict sense of what's "fair play". Constructing a situation where the party has little chance to avoid a TPK - that's fine and laudable. But fudging the HP of a monster? No GM worth their salt would ever do that.
* The rules are much more powerful and enforced than they have been for any TTRPG in history. Like the RPGA on steroids, but for every game including home ones. This includes fully embracing the "PCs can be brought from one game to another" idea, to the extent that if one GM lets the PCs get an overpowered magic item, other GMs will get mad at them and brainstorm ways to have it stolen, rather than just ... not allow a PC to enter their game with it.

And this leads to entertaining antics in a piece of single-author fiction. But shouldn't be used as a guide for how to play.

Although you could potentially do it as a "two layer" RPG, where you're roleplaying as players/GM in a setting where RPGs are more antagonistic, competitive, and universally important, and then those characters are themselves roleplaying as characters in a TTRPG. Kind of like the Yu-gi-oh cartoons, I guess.

[Spo]

Spoiler: Shards of Apocalypse

Show

This was an optional encounter.

There was a site where the god of violence had been killed by a potent artifact.

The players wanted this artifact.

The god of violence essence still haunted the place, and anytime anyone entered, it would manifest a vestige to kill them. The vestige was a standard mid-level warrior who was single mindedly violent, think Michael Meyers. After an hour, he fades away.

The hitch is, the encounter was a sort of hydra. Every time a vestige is killed, two more vestiges spawn the following round. Violence begets violence. The idea was to shake things up by having an encounter which couldn't be solved by deadly force, and they would have to resort to non-lethal combat, crowd control magic, stealth, area manipulation, etc. Really anything but lethal force or trying to talk it out would have worked.

Now, singly, this guy is a trivial fight. I figured he would split 2-3 times before the players got the hint and changed tactics, and chose a power level appropriate to that. In fact, the next session the players fought five guys at once with identical stats and wiped the floor with them.

But the players just kept on fighting, because they assumed there was some sort of "kill limit" where they would eventually stop splitting. Upon facing a dozen or more enemies, the players finally realized they were whipped and ran away.

Not a great outcome, but not bad or unexpected.

So the players went back to town to rest up and did some research. I told them that their research uncovered that, as the vestige was born of violence, it cannot be destroyed by violence. Now, maybe I made a mistake of using poetic language here and I should have totally broken character and told them the mechanics of the fight, but I thought it was clear enough.

So the players come up with a pretty good plan to have one person distract it, two people go in and grab the artifact, and the sorceress then cut off the vestiges pursuit with a wall of stone. Perfect, would work great.

But then they get in there, and the sorceress starts blasting the vestige, causing it to split, saying she forgot the plan.

Then one of the people who is supposed to be getting the artifact just starts doing random stuff. Her explanation is that she thought I was trying to trick the party OOC by playing word games, and that while it couldn't be destroyed by violence there was some super secret non-violent action that would cause it to spontaneously keel over dead.

Then, the other player who get the artifact weapon didn't run away with it as planned, instead he came back and killed one of the vestiges with it to see if it could permanently kill them, again assuming I was lying to them OOC about it not being able to be destroyed by violence.

So at this point I have three vestiges against a disorganized, confused, conflicted, and beaten up party.

They then finally agree to run, but aren't really in a good position to trap all three vestiges, and one of them *exactly* makes the strength check to bust through the wall of stone and continue pursuit. The players would later tell me that they thought I said it simply turned incorporeal and phased through the wall, but I am not really sure how they got that from my description.

They then decided the situation was hopeless, and they simply lay down and let the vestiges kill them.

Was it necessary to have the vestige break through the wall? You had to have known the frustration level of the players by this point in the game.

[Talakeal]

Was it necessary to have the vestige break through the wall? You had to have known the frustration level of the players by this point in the game.

The monster had no IC reason to forego its resistance, and I really don't like fudging dice rolls or metagaming even if it is in the player's favor.

In retrospect, I do wish that it had failed its roll because it would have saved a lot of drama, but on the other hand I am not sure if it wouldn't teach my players the wrong lesson; ignoring the plan, screaming at the other players / DM, and threatening to suicide your characters out of spite doesn't really seem like the type of behavior that should be rewarded with an easy victory.

Some of your players behavior made me wonder - do they read Knights of the Dinner Table by any chance?

Because I read that before I got into actually playing, and it did give me a screwed up view of the GM/player relationship for a while. No hate to the comic, it's clearly for entertainment and not pretending to be a documentary or manual. But it presented this particular play-style that past-me thought was close to reality, when in fact I've never seen it in the wild and it'd probably be a bad idea for most groups.

That play style is:
* Antagonistic GM/player relationship - GMs are encouraged (by other GMs) to run a deadly game, kill plenty of PCs, trick the party into TPKs, find ways to take away levels and magic items, etc. Meanwhile players are encouraged to do anything and everything within the rules to win - making the GM throw away prep is a "high five" moment.
* But, everyone scrupulously follows the rules, and the GMs have an strict sense of what's "fair play". Constructing a situation where the party has little chance to avoid a TPK - that's fine and laudable. But fudging the HP of a monster? No GM worth their salt would ever do that.
* The rules are much more powerful and enforced than they have been for any TTRPG in history. Like the RPGA on steroids, but for every game including home ones. This includes fully embracing the "PCs can be brought from one game to another" idea, to the extent that if one GM lets the PCs get an overpowered magic item, other GMs will get mad at them and brainstorm ways to have it stolen, rather than just ... not allow a PC to enter their game with it.

And this leads to entertaining antics in a piece of single-author fiction. But shouldn't be used as a guide for how to play.

Although you could potentially do it as a "two layer" RPG, where you're roleplaying as players/GM in a setting where RPGs are more antagonistic, competitive, and universally important, and then those characters are themselves roleplaying as characters in a TTRPG. Kind of like the Yu-gi-oh cartoons, I guess.

Yes, we absolutely read KoDT, hence our pseudonyms.

While yeah, our behavior does seem very KoDT like at times, we were that way long before any of us had ever seen the comic. Although in a lot of ways I actually wish my players were more like the knights.

[Telok]

. Although in a lot of ways I actually wish my players were more like the knights.

Well yeah. If they were then you could record your sessions, file off some names, and have a nice profitable webcomic.

[Mastikator]

So an update from the OP:

I tried stopping for five minutes before each fight to answer player questions and allow them to plan. It didn't quite work as expected. One thing I did was allow them to precast buffs during this time as in the past we have had several situations where the players simply forgot to buff or complained that I never gave them the opportunity. The buffing tended to dominate the entire five minute period, and we constantly bumped up against meta gaming issues about how specific or how short a duration the buffs could be.


I also shared with them some recent, imo excellent, advice from the Angry DM where he says, to paraphrase, players often over analyze plans and reject them because they think of a potential way in which the plan can go wrong, and they repeat this process several times until they get bored or frustrated and then rush in with no plan at all.
Now, IMO, the takeaway is that it is best to go with a simple adaptable plan rather than a highly orchestrated plan with multiple points of failure, but my players took it as an accusation and fixated on finger pointing.
That it is realistic to come up with and reject dozens if not hundreds of plans over the course of several days before going into combat and that it is in fact always the DM who gets bored or frustrated with multi hour planning sessions that dominate the entire gaming session, and therefore entirely the DM's fault if the players ever go into a situation without a complete plan.

Alright I'm just going to say it: your players are selfish and childish. Are they teenagers? If they are I'd give them a pass. If not I'd be tempted to ask them why they're so dead set on never taking responsibility, never cooperating and never listening.
But what I'd do instead is pick one player- whichever is most resembling a functional adult even though at this point I think none of them are, take this person aside and ask them to come over to your side and help the rest of the party start working together. Start small, baby steps, the player asks for a single small favor, and shows gratitude when that favor is performed. And then get gradually bigger from there.
If however even the smallest possible team work is shut down or the smallest amount of helping you is refused then I'd recommend you give up these fools. Ask one of the players to DM, look for new players. Don't DM for these kids anymore, they are not entitled to act like selfish little clowns in your game. You are the DM, you put more effort into the game than all of them, probably all of them combined. If they can't understand that they are the ones who have to change, and not you, then they don't belong in your game.

[Talakeal]

Alright I'm just going to say it: your players are selfish and childish. Are they teenagers? If they are I'd give them a pass. If not I'd be tempted to ask them why they're so dead set on never taking responsibility, never cooperating and never listening.
But what I'd do instead is pick one player- whichever is most resembling a functional adult even though at this point I think none of them are, take this person aside and ask them to come over to your side and help the rest of the party start working together. Start small, baby steps, the player asks for a single small favor, and shows gratitude when that favor is performed. And then get gradually bigger from there.
If however even the smallest possible team work is shut down or the smallest amount of helping you is refused then I'd recommend you give up these fools. Ask one of the players to DM, look for new players. Don't DM for these kids anymore, they are not entitled to act like selfish little clowns in your game. You are the DM, you put more effort into the game than all of them, probably all of them combined. If they can't understand that they are the ones who have to change, and not you, then they don't belong in your game.

All in their thirties unfortunately.

As I said a few posts ago, most people I have gamed with are some combination of paranoid and suffering from a weak ego, so they frame everything in the context of victim-hood and looking for somebody else to blame for their struggles. It makes it very hard to try and help them improve when that is always seen as an accusation of failure on their part.

Which I suppose isn't entirely unfair, I wouldn't be trying to help them with team work if I didn't think they were bad at teamwork to begin with; but it doesn't really help anyone when they try and re-frame every suggestion into an argument over whose fault it is.

[Mastikator]

All in their thirties unfortunately.

As I said a few posts ago, most people I have gamed with are some combination of paranoid and suffering from a weak ego, so they frame everything in the context of victim-hood and looking for somebody else to blame for their struggles. It makes it very hard to try and help them improve when that is always seen as an accusation of failure on their part.

Which I suppose isn't entirely unfair, I wouldn't be trying to help them with team work if I didn't think they were bad at teamwork to begin with; but it doesn't really help anyone when they try and re-frame every suggestion into an argument over whose fault it is.

The way I see it is that you should start looking into finding new players, now. And put down some house rules like "no screaming" and "don't interrupt people", which you enforce by kicking people out of your house. I don't mean "gently suggest these rules", declare them before the next game start. "This time we're all going to act like adults, that means no screaming, no interrupting, no whining". If (or when) someone complains about these rules I honestly think you should kick them out immediately, kick out the whole group and cancel the game if they can't act like adults.

I honestly don't think this group can be saved, nor do I believe it deserves to be saved. At some point they have to pick up their end of the couch or get lost.

The saying "no D&D is better than bad D&D" applies to the DM, and it is the DM's job to remove toxic players, even if every single player is toxic. Yes, I know "it's your job to fix them", but not everyone is worth the hassle of fixing. You have to prioritize your mental health above their lack of maturity. They're in their 30s, it's their job to be adults.