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Two newbie DM question here as I try to figure out how I want to run my first game. 1) The published modules tend to have nicely drawn maps with lots of little details on them... but how do you actually make any use of them for non-digital games? Do you just wind up redrawing them onto a battlemat or graph paper? That seems like a waste but it's what I'm leaning toward doing, I guess. 2) For those of you who go "theater of the mind" and don't use a gridded map... how well does that work in 5e? I've always used a grid, whether it was f2f games, play-by-post forum stuff, or roll20 digital maps. It seems like it'd be incredibly hard to be able to keep everyone's locations straight and figure out if stuff is in range without the grid.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:11
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Aranan posted:Two newbie DM question here as I try to figure out how I want to run my first game. 1: I haven't bought a published module in a while but I recall older ones I bought included big foldout maps. 2: It doesn't. I mean you can technically do it but you shouldn't. The game is designed around grid based stuff for combat, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:14
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Aranan posted:2) For those of you who go "theater of the mind" and don't use a gridded map... how well does that work in 5e? I've always used a grid, whether it was f2f games, play-by-post forum stuff, or roll20 digital maps. It seems like it'd be incredibly hard to be able to keep everyone's locations straight and figure out if stuff is in range without the grid. if you have to ask how to run theater of the mind, dont run theater of the mind. thats just about the most honest advice i can give you about this style of play. it requires a lot of finesse and specific dm skill with the ability to keep track of things in great detail ... not worthwhile.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:17
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It honestly doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy because I love the tactical aspect of D&D. I was mostly just curious because there are some die-hard fans of that method and I just can't wrap my head around it.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:22
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Most groups I’ve played in use grids for combat and “theatre of the mind” for everything else and that seems to work the best.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:26
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Aranan posted:It honestly doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy because I love the tactical aspect of D&D. I was mostly just curious because there are some die-hard fans of that method and I just can't wrap my head around it. its quite good if you know how to do it, but it requires much more dm skill than anything else for marginal use and makes combat more narrative than tactical. some systems are much better for it, dnd 5e is not a very good fit but if you are the type of DM that has ran theater of the mind for a decade and know how to describe every possible scene you were probably going to use theater of the mind anyway History Comes Inside! posted:Most groups I’ve played in use grids for combat and “theatre of the mind” for everything else and that seems to work the best. if you make people walk around a weapon shop in a gridded battle map and there isnt an ambush scene i am going to be 100% convinced you are a serial killer with a body buried under your shed
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Oct 20, 2020 22:29
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I find theatre of the mind tends to make players feel like they're allowed to utilise more things in the area to interact with than what's specifically on the map, but that requires a certain DM permissiveness that not everyone is ok with. I love describing a location, and then having a player ask if something is present (like a chandelier to swing off, a box to hide in, etc) rather than them not seeing one on the map and then assuming that it can't be there. As a DM I'm far more willing than most to just role with the rule of cool than most though, I think. It does also take quite a lot of mental effort to keep track of abilities that have specific ranges, like auras etc, when you're playing theatre of the mind.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:35
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That's actually a plus for a minimal map, I think. Instead of the fully illustrated ones like in the starter set (I'm running Lost Mines) with their rubble piles and sleeping bags and campfires. I can just mention those things, but maybe the blank canvas will help be a, uh, blank canvas.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:41
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Declan MacManus posted:dang all they would have to set them apart is built in ritual casting for almost any ritual spell in the game, the biggest spell list, i think nine archetypes, and at will spellcasting at high levels Yeah this is how I’m playing my star druid right now; used to be a hedge wizard who fled the underdark and now studies the natural world. Even though he has high int and is good at arcana, history, etc, I still think wisdom is the better fit considering you’re technically bending the elemental forces to your whims rather than doing arcane magic
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Oct 20, 2020 22:48
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pog boyfriend posted:if you have to ask how to run theater of the mind, dont run theater of the mind. thats just about the most honest advice i can give you about this style of play. it requires a lot of finesse and specific dm skill with the ability to keep track of things in great detail ... not worthwhile.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:49
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Splicer posted:It's really easy in a system that's built for it. Yes. 5e likes to think it can be everything but it is very tied down to grid combat in places that makes it annoying to TotM. Podcasts have done a good job showing people how it can be done but something like most PbtA games are designed from the ground up for it.
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Oct 20, 2020 23:03
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Aranan posted:Two newbie DM question here as I try to figure out how I want to run my first game. For in-person games I print out maps and handouts to show to players when appropriate. Generally I just have a single copy available for reference to anyone that wants it. For battles I typically used a mix of printed maps, free sketching on white board / blank paper, and pure theater of mind. Prints are great for gridded set-pieces, blank sheets are good for ungridded random encounters, and theater of mind is useful for chase scenes and other abnormal events. I've never had a problem doing theater of mind in 5e, but I grew up doing only that and it's old hat for me. You just get descriptive for battle the same way you would for a social encounter, and use relative distances I.e. "Three kobold archers leer at you from behind a crude wall 100 ft away. The orcs pursuing you are now 40 ft behind. You see a wizard's familiar circling 200 ft above the battlefield." If it gets complicated I'll keep some basic notes, but for the most part I just let the group do cool things. Kaal fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Oct 20, 2020 |
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Oct 20, 2020 23:22
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MonsterEnvy posted:This is really cool. But a question, who's Telbor Zazrek. I don't recall Luskan having a High Lord or anything like that. Talbor Zazrek is a Zhent drone who takes the De Jure leadership of Luskan. He gets to live in the fancy house and use the fancy seals all as part of the thin veneer of legitimacy that Luskan portrays. He's the man whose laundering makes Pirates into "Privateers" and Smugglers into "Merchants". Obviously the De Facto leaders of Luskan are the five High Captains. Talbor just kicks back and lets them do whatever so long as they understand that if someone draws too much heat and blows the extraordinarily thin veil over Luskan's dealings he may, once in a while, have to make an example of someone just to say "see, we're hanging pirates, we're not a pirate port, honest." Exactly who gets hanged is up to the Captains and whatever intrigue they have going on. Because Luskan portrays this wafer thin layer of plausible deniability, I have it that certain nobles and high society figures are so far detached from reality that they actually buy into the idea that there's this High Lord of Luskan who is cleaning up the streets and doing his best to thwart piracy while creating a burgeoning merchant empire and a growing legitimate navy. Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Oct 20, 2020 |
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Oct 20, 2020 23:39
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Aranan posted:Two newbie DM question here as I try to figure out how I want to run my first game. My first game I ever DM'd was Hoard of the Dragon Queen and drew a few simplified maps for battle, but otherwise relied on theater of the mind. It actually wasn't a terrible way to do it because I was new at combat and didn't over complicate my encounters. pog boyfriend posted:its quite good if you know how to do it, but it requires much more dm skill than anything else for marginal use and makes combat more narrative than tactical. A lot also depends on your players as well. Those coming from older/other systems might really need that grid, while others don't. In the current game I'm running, I started off with some really detailed maps on roll20 and as I got a better feel for the group, simplified them or cut them out of encounters where I knew they wouldn't be needed or were going to interrupt the flow.
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Oct 21, 2020 00:00
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Here's a weird question I haven't been able to google up an answer to: Eberron beat out two other campaigns in a contest to become an official D&D setting. What were those other campaigns and are they out there somewhere? I'm having a devil of a time finding it and I'm curious.
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Oct 21, 2020 00:55
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Saxophone posted:Here's a weird question I haven't been able to google up an answer to: Eberron beat out two other campaigns in a contest to become an official D&D setting. What were those other campaigns and are they out there somewhere? I'm having a devil of a time finding it and I'm curious. If I'm not mistaken: The two runner-ups are sealed by an NDA with Wizards. I know one of the two was made by the OotS guy, but details on what it was like are still confidential.
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Oct 21, 2020 01:21
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The only two things on my d&d 5e wishlist are Dark Sun and Planescape campaign setting books. I literally dont care about anything else.
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Oct 21, 2020 01:25
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pog boyfriend posted:its quite good if you know how to do it, but it requires much more dm skill than anything else for marginal use and makes combat more narrative than tactical. Making combat more narrative than tactical is a fantastic way to put it, and I think is a reason I prefer theater of the mind combat to gridded, because I prefer to play D&D as a narrative game with a tactical framework rather than as a proper tactical war game. I don't agree that it needs more DM skill, but it does need very different DM skills than tactical combat. I find it much much easier to do theater of the mind, because I'm not very good at tactical wargaming, but I am pretty good at describing things and saying 'yes and'.
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Oct 21, 2020 01:30
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Making combat more narrative is not necessarily a bad thing and can be an excellent way to compensate for the pick up group of players who aren't great at tactics.
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Oct 21, 2020 01:31
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Bogan Krkic posted:Making combat more narrative than tactical is a fantastic way to put it, and I think is a reason I prefer theater of the mind combat to gridded, because I prefer to play D&D as a narrative game with a tactical framework rather than as a proper tactical war game. I don't agree that it needs more DM skill, but it does need very different DM skills than tactical combat. I find it much much easier to do theater of the mind, because I'm not very good at tactical wargaming, but I am pretty good at describing things and saying 'yes and'. okay yes, this is fair - it isnt necessarily harder for everyone, but it was something that i found harder to be able to just get a good combat going in. my first DM i played with in 1st edition dnd used entirely theater of the mind combat and for like the first 3 years i was learning dming i thought it was some impossible thing to make a scene that flowed well in theater of the mind combat. its really about abstracting the combat and creating cool things the players can interact with, as opposed to the grid based wargaming, and i love it for pbta systems... just not 5e per se. (by the way, i play 5e with gridless combat)
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Oct 21, 2020 02:06
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i’m currently doing the theater of the mind for a few reasons (don’t feel like futzing with roll20 with new to dnd people and my whiteboard won’t show up on my camera because of lighting reasons) so i’ve split the difference and have a grid i draw up for my own personal use to keep everyone’s locations relative to each other and to the enemies clear it’s been working fine and it gives me a lot more room to do narrative stuff so it feels a lot more cinematic than the grid based stuff i’ve done in the past (closer to 13a tbh)
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Oct 21, 2020 03:21
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Theatre of the Mind in D&D is one of those things that's always been technically possible, it's just not directly supported by the game. It requires a lot of DM fiat and discarding a bunch of game mechanics. That's not to say I'm opposed to TotM combat, I'd honestly like to see a future release actually try to tackle even a baseline system for TotM. I mean, they could pretty much just use the one 13th Age has.
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Oct 21, 2020 03:29
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KingKalamari posted:Theatre of the Mind in D&D is one of those things that's always been technically possible, it's just not directly supported by the game. It requires a lot of DM fiat and discarding a bunch of game mechanics. WFRP 3e had this thing where rather than occupying spaces you occupied a series concentric of rings around an enemy starting with 'close range' and ending with 'long range', I don't remember how it handled multiple enemies but I imagine something like that could be adapted for TotM D&D stuff
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Oct 21, 2020 03:34
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Saxophone posted:Here's a weird question I haven't been able to google up an answer to: Eberron beat out two other campaigns in a contest to become an official D&D setting. What were those other campaigns and are they out there somewhere? I'm having a devil of a time finding it and I'm curious. Rich Burlew of Order of the Stick from memory wrote one. It's under an NDA so can't be published and apparently most of the ideas in it went into fleshing out Eberron
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Oct 21, 2020 03:59
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Saxophone posted:Here's a weird question I haven't been able to google up an answer to: Eberron beat out two other campaigns in a contest to become an official D&D setting. What were those other campaigns and are they out there somewhere? I'm having a devil of a time finding it and I'm curious. As other posters mentioned, those settings are burried deep in the WotC vaults and will never see the light of day
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Oct 21, 2020 04:54
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:As other posters mentioned, those settings are burried deep in the WotC vaults and will never see the light of day I had figured by NOW someone, somewhere would have leaked/gotten ahold of/etc them. Seems pretty weird to just vault 'em and peace out. I'm curious what of Eberron is frankensteined from the other two, then, because the way Keith Baker talks about Eberron I haven't heard any blank spots or obvious places where he doesn't know the Lord backward and forward.
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Oct 21, 2020 05:40
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I'm hopefully starting up a game in a couple weeks after having not played since 3.5. I'm kind of disoriented by how much simpler the combat is, I was thinking of doing a tripping cheese build like I had a lot of fun with in 3.5 but it seems like that got pretty solidly nerfed. It also seems like attacks of opportunity only trigger when someone moves out of your range, so if you have a halberd or something and someone runs up to you, you don't get an attack of opportunity for them moving from your 10' range square to your 5' range, is that accurate? That seems like it takes a lot of the benefit out of reach weapons, punishing someone for approaching.
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Oct 21, 2020 06:56
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I'm hopefully starting up a game in a couple weeks after having not played since 3.5. I'm kind of disoriented by how much simpler the combat is, I was thinking of doing a tripping cheese build like I had a lot of fun with in 3.5 but it seems like that got pretty solidly nerfed. It also seems like attacks of opportunity only trigger when someone moves out of your range, so if you have a halberd or something and someone runs up to you, you don't get an attack of opportunity for them moving from your 10' range square to your 5' range, is that accurate? That seems like it takes a lot of the benefit out of reach weapons, punishing someone for approaching. The polearm master feat lets you do something similar to this, you get an opportunity attack when enemies enter your reach (along with a couple of other juicy benefits). Because of this polearms are pretty solidly one of the best weapon types in 5e.
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Oct 21, 2020 07:29
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I'm imagining a twisted cousin of the intellect devourer: the ego devourer. Where its smarter cousin takes the form of a brain, the ego devourer takes the form of a pouting chiseled face with one eyebrow raised. It obviously consumes charisma.
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Oct 21, 2020 08:38
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Azza Bamboo posted:I'm imagining a twisted cousin of the intellect devourer: the ego devourer. Where its smarter cousin takes the form of a brain, the ego devourer takes the form of a pouting chiseled face with one eyebrow raised. It obviously consumes charisma. A devourer for every ability score, except Strength; the last muscle devourers starved to death an edition ago
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Oct 21, 2020 09:13
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Bogan Krkic posted:Making combat more narrative than tactical is a fantastic way to put it, and I think is a reason I prefer theater of the mind combat to gridded, because I prefer to play D&D as a narrative game with a tactical framework rather than as a proper tactical war game. I don't agree that it needs more DM skill, but it does need very different DM skills than tactical combat. I find it much much easier to do theater of the mind, because I'm not very good at tactical wargaming, but I am pretty good at describing things and saying 'yes and'. Personally I hate TotM because it requires you to have good spatial reasoning, which I just don't. Giving atmospheric descriptions of a location is one skill, but precise descriptions that provide information on range, positioning etc. is another. To me, the latter takes up way too much mental energy if I don't offload it onto a map, and it's asking for mistakes or inconsistencies. With PbtA games and such it's different because they run on GM fiat anyway so the goblin is as far away as he needs to be and that's it. Ymmv of course, but I think you can have a system that's built for tactical combat or one that's built for narrative combat, you can't really have one that does both well.
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Oct 21, 2020 12:02
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What is PbtA? I'm not familiar with that acronym and the Google hits I get don't seem to be the right ones.
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Oct 21, 2020 12:06
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Aranan posted:What is PbtA? I'm not familiar with that acronym and the Google hits I get don't seem to be the right ones. It's narrative-focused system called Powered by the Apocalypse I believe - used for games like Apocalypse World and Dungeon World
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Oct 21, 2020 12:13
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I'm hopefully starting up a game in a couple weeks after having not played since 3.5. I'm kind of disoriented by how much simpler the combat is, I was thinking of doing a tripping cheese build like I had a lot of fun with in 3.5 but it seems like that got pretty solidly nerfed. It also seems like attacks of opportunity only trigger when someone moves out of your range, so if you have a halberd or something and someone runs up to you, you don't get an attack of opportunity for them moving from your 10' range square to your 5' range, is that accurate? That seems like it takes a lot of the benefit out of reach weapons, punishing someone for approaching. look into polearm master, but also keep in mind that reach by itself no longer penalizes you for being in the 5 foot range. you can also ready an action to attack anyone who enters your range, but this only works on the first person to enter your range, so you cant pick and choose who you let through. E: the grapple trip builds are also good because you can replace attacks with trips and keep attacking, if you have an extra attack and action surge you can trip with the first attack, then get 3 juicy hits with advantage because they are prone. Very Nice(borat)
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Oct 21, 2020 13:38
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AnEdgelord posted:WFRP 3e had this thing where rather than occupying spaces you occupied a series concentric of rings around an enemy starting with 'close range' and ending with 'long range', I don't remember how it handled multiple enemies but I imagine something like that could be adapted for TotM D&D stuff It works really well and makes it very easy to keep track of things enough to know roughly where everyone is, but means you don't gave to get hung up on whether someone is 25 feet away or a full 30. e: you move by spending maneuvers. You get one free maneuver a turn and can take a strain to get a second. Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Oct 21, 2020 |
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Oct 21, 2020 15:28
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leaping into D&D5e gunchat for a second - how grossly under/overpowered will they be if they a) ignore non-magical armour, b) have Loading/Reload 1 and c) never allow you to add proficiency to your attacks? the idea is that i want a group of armed peasants using this newly developed technology to be dangerous to e.g. local knights and their men-at-arms, but to still have significant issues with dragons, monsters, dextrous PCs etc. they will also be unappealing for PCs to use as main weapons because small number and heavy action/bonus action requirements, but may have niches in certain encounters (like mugging a dwarf).
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Oct 21, 2020 16:11
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Inexplicable Humblebrag posted:leaping into D&D5e gunchat for a second - how grossly under/overpowered will they be if they a) ignore non-magical armour, b) have Loading/Reload 1 and c) never allow you to add proficiency to your attacks? B) ignoring non-magical armor isn't really something that works in the rules of 5E, only PCs even have armor that could be ignored. C) thematically these rules evoke something more like an extremely inaccurate and powerful weapon like an artillery cannon than a musket. For something like that, you're probably better off making it do X damage with a Dex save to avoid rather than going off AC or attack rolls at all. Crossbows already fit the role of "low/no training weapon with high damage and low rate of fire", but if you wanted to make guns even further along that axis, you could give them a flat +7 (or something similar) to hit regardless of proficiency or ability scores, so they're far and away easier to land shots with for crappy peasants but are really pretty similar to the options PCs already have. You also probably don't want to do something too crazy with damage like making them do 2d10 or 3d10 every X rounds, because even though that makes the guns pack a dangerous punch, it also makes them very swingy - when they hit a PC, they'll easily jump from healthy to down instantly with no in-between, and when they miss, the PC knows they have a lot of time to do whatever they want without consequence. Basically, do you want the PCs to become gunslingers? Or do you want them to see the stats on guns and decline to use them because their levels and abilities are better? And would you be okay with martials still using weapons while wizards and sorcerors use a gun instead of a crossbow?
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Oct 21, 2020 16:44
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Inexplicable Humblebrag posted:leaping into D&D5e gunchat for a second - how grossly under/overpowered will they be if they a) ignore non-magical armour, b) have Loading/Reload 1 and c) never allow you to add proficiency to your attacks? If you just want peasants to use them en masse why stat them out at all? Just give your peasant mob a ranged attack with the qualities you want and if the players dig into it, tell them it only worked because mob/DM fiat. No need to put in a bunch of time to properly craft a weapon that is unappealing.
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Oct 21, 2020 17:03
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theironjef posted:If you just want peasants to use them en masse why stat them out at all? Just give your peasant mob a ranged attack with the qualities you want and if the players dig into it, tell them it only worked because mob/DM fiat. No need to put in a bunch of time to properly craft a weapon that is unappealing. "Why can't my guns do that?" "Because you aren't two dozen peasants."
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Oct 21, 2020 17:20
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I think if you wanted to have even semi-realistic gun combat that works and is fun you would have to redesign the combat from the ground up with a greater emphasis on cover and suppressing fire or massed fire to make up for the inherent inaccuracy of firearms depending on the specific era of gunpowder combat you are looking to emulate.
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Oct 21, 2020 17:24
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