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Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
I've been playing LMoP with a group of 5 players for a while now, and the group just entered the final dungeon. Having read the adventure and ppl's reactions online, I thought to spice up the fight with Nezznar at the end. Searching around I've found this: https://crazymyrmidon.wordpress.com/2019/05/08/the-battle-against-nezznar/ which looks to be pretty awesome, but I'm worried it'll completely wipe my party. I reckon that the party will most likely be lvl 4 by the time they fight Nezznar, I was wondering if any of you have recommendations to make the content of that link work yet lowering the challenge so they won't wipe.

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Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Government Handjob posted:

Mild spoilers for LMoP and Hoard of the Dragon Queen, I guess:

My group wrapped up Lost Mines of Phandelver in early December and have been on a hiatus since thanks to the holidays. Now that the new year is upon us I'm getting ready for the next leg of their journey, and I'm thinking of adapting Hoard of the Dragon Queen to fit into the storyline from LMoP.
There's already a few things set up that will make the transition go a bit smoother:

*As a sign of appreciation the town of Phandalin granted the party Tresendar Manor, and they're rebuilding it using the funds from the Rockseeker Bros. mining operation. I'm thinking this takes place about a year or so after the end of the last campaign so the Manor will be mostly complete when we pick things back up.
* Sildar Hallwinter replaced Harbin Wester as mayor of Phandalin with Sister Garaele acting as his advisor, so the party already has friends within the Lord's Alliance and Harpers.
* The party defeated the Red Wizard necromancer at Old Owl Well, and though what he was doing there remains a mystery they've been introduced to the fact that there are mages with tattoos on their forehead and a very lax view on the morality of wielding magic.
* The party never visited the ruins of Thundertree, which I'm thinking will be a good place to introduce them to the dragon cultists since I'll have to shuffle some locations around rather than sending them all the way to Greenest.

I'll basically be nixing Greenest and starting the adventure with an attack on Phandalin, possibly while the party is investigating Thundertree, then letting them take chase after the cultist raiding party with the aim being to get them to Castle Naerytar as soon as possible (hopefully without any hamfisted railroading). From there the adventure can go pretty much as written, with some tweaking of encounters to adjust for the fact that the PCs are level 6 after finishing LMoP until they catch up with the source books.
While I'm getting all this stuff sorted I figured I'd run a one-shot for the group, letting them play as the four goblins they rescued didn't unceremoniously slaughter and sent to work for the tax collector's office in Neverwinter :v:

Anyway, tips on sowing together the two story lines or on the Tyranny of Dragons modules in general would be appreciated since I'm still pretty new at the whole DM-schtick and I feel like I missed a lot of good opportunities for fleshing things out or making poo poo more coherent by going too much by the guidelines as written for LMoP.

Lastly I'd like to share a brief summary of the showdown with Nezznar at the end of Wave Echo Cave because of how ridiculous a turn the dungeon crawl took towards the end.

My party absolutely wiped the floor with Nezznar, he got one turn (which he completely whiffed) before eating poo poo. I would have been upset if their plan hadn't been so funny.
After defeating the Flame Skull they put it in their Bag of Holding that I gave them after rescuing Gundren from Cragmaw Castle. Once the skull reactivated the bag started vibrating and giving off small puffs of purple smoke.
The wizard peeked into it and was greeted by some mad howling before quickly closing the bag again and conferring with her party members about what to do. They decided they'd try to find a way to release the skull near the Black Spider and spared the life of one of the bugbears in the encounter outside the last room. Charging the poor bloodied mook with the simple task of "please give your master this gift, tell him you found it. We'll let you live and he'll probably reward you."

Standing in the hallway around the corner from Nezznar's chamber the party overheard the following conversation:

Bugbear: My Lord, sorry to disturb you but -

Nezznar: What is it now? I told you I wanted no interruptions, it's bad enough the racket you're making is giving me a headach- you look like poo poo! What the hells happened?

BB: I uh- There was a minor accident but we found this... bag?

Nezznar: Accident? You look like you've been fi- is that what I think it is? Give me that! Yes, yes this certainly has a powerful air of magic about it. There's a trick to these vessels that not many people know about, let's see what this bag is hiding from us.

Me narrating: You hear some fumbling as Nezznar inverts the bag. Nezznar's enthusiastic outcries at the treasures spilling out on the floor are suddenly cut short as you hear an all too familiar sound.

Flameskull: [CACKLES MADLY]

Nezznar: What the FU-

[FIREBALL]

The party then stormed the room and made short work of The Black Spider before taking out his spider minions. I thought I had tweaked Nezznar enough that he'd be challenging, but failing his save against a fireball and then rolling absolute poo poo for initiative made the encounter a walk in the park. I was holding back laughter as I let this all play out, however and the group had a blast so in the end I'm happy with the results.

Other highlights from Wave Echo Cave include:
The party initially being non-hostile to the guardian wraith, hearing him out until he revealed himself to have been a libertarian in life and holding those convictions still. His comments upon learning that the wizard worked for the Neverwinter tax collector set in motion a chain of events that lead to the party violating the NAP.
The party meeting a clearly confused Observer and convincing him that they were the next shift of guards, just arrived to watch the Forge of Spells and that he was free to go home and take some much deserved time off.

My group is also finishing up LMoP soon, but I've done some reading and decided to give Nezznar a second stage form a la video game boss battles.

My group's encounter with the flameskull was wild. They killed it and the zombos after taking some pretty hefty damage; the cleric then decided to put it in his bag and take it back to the forge of spells for a short rest. I was giddy to say the least.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Hey everyone, asking for some ideas if anyone has any.

My group is most likely going to finish LMoP on Sunday. As a segue to the next adventure, I want to have the group gather at the Stonehill Tavern as a town celebration for re-opening the mine and breathing life into the town once more, as well as a proper send off to those that died and a recap of the adventure as a whole (told to the NPCs who only know bits and pieces).

The premise is to have the PCs drink, eat, and be merry with the locals before A BIG EVENT HAPPENS THAT VERY NIGHT and they're swept off to the next adventure (and also dynamically switch DMs). Does anyone have any fun interactions / skill checks / games that the PCs could play in the tavern with others? I thought of having my PCs take shots of beer as they do these skills to add to the fun, as well as make them intoxicated (poisoned) as they enter the next adventure.

tl;dr I need in-game drinking games for NPCs and PCs to play.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Thanks for the ideas everyone, my group had a great time finishing LMoP. The adventure ended with two PCs having an arm wrestling contest over an electrum goblet found in the last room of the mine, as well as a fun drinking contest where I had all my PCs take shots of beer.

In retrospect, LMoP has a lot of issues, mainly in terms of flow and story. There are balance issues as well I feel. I think if I ever DM'ed the adventure again I would have to edit a few of the maps and maybe even move Thundtree's location entirely (it's really jarring and disruptive).

However, as a first time adventure I thought it was super fun. My players said they especially liked the feeling of becoming part of the community of Phandalin.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

MrSargent posted:

Heya! I am very interested to hear more details about the issues you had DMing LMoP and how you would have modified it to make it flow better. I am starting a first-time DND group with some friends and am going to run LMoP as the DM.

Awesome! I had a lot of fun and if you have a lot of time to prepare, I have quite a few recommendations for the adventure itself, as well as things I've found to make the game better.

Just off the top of my head, LMoP has some issues with flow and villain motivation. If you're going to start soon I'll try to keep things to the beginning:

Let the group actually meet Gundren. This lets them interact personally with him. Instead of starting them on the road, have them answer a marketboard flyer (for instance) and talk to him about work (meet him at an Inn or something). You could have there be several fliers about Neverwinter looking for carters for hire. This gives your characters all a reason to meet up in a group, but more importantly, gives them a reason to care about him beyond payment for services rendered, especially if you make him likeable. You could even add some rando NPCs that he dismisses for "looking weak."

Following that, continue the adventure as normal. Make sure you read and understand the goblin statblock so you know how to use them; especially their bonus action of disengaging / hiding. This forces players to learn to use ability checks in battle (perception to spot hidden gobs), which my party didn't really do until much later in the campaign. Lots of ppl say that low levels are pretty dangerous for PCs in 5e (which I think is true). To give them a little bit of a leg up, have them eat a hearty breakfast before setting out from Neverwinter to give them some temporary HP. You can also use that to incentivize PCs to role play and buy food at taverns / inns.

After the first battle they will, most likely, head for the Cragmaw Hideout. This is great and what you want, mostly because Gundren has been taken and you want to find him asap. One thing about the hideout: Switch rooms 8 and 6. The natural flow of the mini-dungeon leads players to what is officially room 8, where the Klarg the Bugbear leader resides. However, in room 6 there's Sildar, as well as a lot of opportunity to roleplay and gain intel on Klarg. You would need to finagle the layout a little bit, but it I think would make for a better experience. In fact, one of my PCs died because she was squishy and carelessly went into Klarg's room, only to be surprise attacked and one-shotted. Remember, at this point your players may not be experienced enough to know to be sneaky and scout ahead.

Afterwards your party will find itself in Phandalin no doubt. I drew the whole village on a big whiteboard and had them take turns telling me where they wanted to explore or do. Have the townsfolk see them with suspicion, and treat them curtly. This is good because A: They WOULD be, considering the Redbrand threat (maybe you're new recruits) and B: It's SUPER satisfying for PCs if the town grows to trust and like them, then welcome them as part of the community. Play up the Redbrand threat. My party visited some nearby shops but mainly wanted to go to the inn for rest and relaxation. If I were to do it again, I'd have an idea of who is in the Inn (the adventure tells you), whereabouts / who they're sitting with, and some very basic descriptions (tall, short, brown hair, etc). Don't feel you need to quest dump every single thing to the party. Space it out. Qellin Alderleaf and Sister Garaele's quests are pretty good for lower levels.

Ideally you want the party to go to the Redbrand's Hideout. Find a way to telegraph the blight that they are. I actually missed an EXCELLENT opportunity because of inexperience. My druid PC went to explore the Tresendar Manor ruins by herself late at night, and on her way back she noticed some Redbrands on their way back from the Sleeping Giant Tavern. She flubbed her roll but I kinda gave it a pass. Instead I should have ratcheted up the tension by making her fail forward (i.e. failed stealth roll > "You step on a stick and snap it. One of the thugs heard and is coming to investigate."). If they had found and caught her, the group would learn about attacking to subdue, as well as the danger of being outnumbered. Then you can split the group and roleplay in a different room with the captive, and the rest of the group has to find out what happened (and forces them towards the manor).

That's just the beginning, but I'm happy to go through the whole adventure with things you can tweak.


As for things to watch in your downtime, I recommend Matt Colville's "Running the Game" series on youtube. There are over 90 videos, but they are gold. One of the best is called "Action Oriented Monsters" or something. Talks about how to make enemies, particularly boss enemies, memorable.

I also recommend this: https://theangrygm.com/return-of-the-son-of-the-dd-boss-fight-now-in-5e/ That alone made the end game boss battle super memorable, and my group loved it.

Trivia fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jan 12, 2021

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

bear named tators posted:

I'm also about to run LMoP as a first time DM for 4 first time players (Session 0 is on Saturday) and I'd definitely be interested in hearing about the rest of your experience! You had a lot of good ideas (esp the boosting breakfast and swapping Yeemik and Klarg's room) and I wanna hear more!

Most of my tweaks so far have just been reskinning/reflavoring, but the main structural ones are using the doppelgangers earlier for some intrigue in Phandalin and beefing up the Sister Garaele Agatha/Hamun Kost connection and tying them to the ash zombies in Thundertree.

Tying Kost to the ash zombies is kinda cool. It makes sense he would poke around areas where magic items could be about.

Yes, ABSOLUTELY use those doppelgangers early. I never got around because by the time I read up and thought about them it was too late. However, one good option with the doppels is to have them mimic Sildar in town doing something suspicious. You could even try for a skill challenge to catch them (if the pc's initiate). Another idea is to have a doppelganger take the place of Iarno, and instead have Iarno's body be found at maybe Old Owl Well or Wyvern Tor. Iarno's motivations were always kinda meh imo, and this further cement's Nezznar as A Bad Guy, what with his henchmen running about and him pulling the strings in Phandalin. You could really have fun with it if you planned it out well. As for Nezznar himself, I can get into that some other time.


I highly recommend using a big white board for your session. It helps to ground things and aids the mind's eye. As such, think about Agatha's Lair / Wyvern Tor / Old Owl Well. They're not mapped in the adventure but it helps to be prepared. Wyvern Tor can go VERY badly if you're not careful vis a vis your PC's level (I had to seriously fudge some die rolls and HP counts). However, you could use that as a "captured to be sold as slaves" moment and see what your PCs some up with.

_____________

Cragmaw Castle is...kinda lame. At least by the time my party went, they were solid third level facing off against puny goblins. I would consider making the Grick a Paragon monster. Give it a free disengage and spider climb so it can grapple someone and climb to the ceiling. If someone hits it with a ranged attack, have it do a con save and maybe drop the pc. I'd also make the King a paragon monster as well. Otherwise he's just a slightly tougher bugbear. The goblin priest I gave a few spells to surprise my party. Also beefed up his HP a bit so he wouldn't go down in a single hit.

The abnormally lightweight quarterstaff found in the castle was a disappointment. I gave it a single charge of Featherfall that recharges at dawn (which was later used by its new owner in a totally AMAZING move). Plus, magic items are fun. Here's a cool weak magic item generator: https://www.lordbyng.net/inspiration/

If Klarg escapes Cragmaw Hideout have him be tasked by the king to find and deal with the party. I had two hobgoblins and him ride mounted direwolves and a brown bear and attack my party as they were on the overworld map. I had the hobgoblins shoot at range, while Klarg was equipped with a halberd so could attack at 10 ft without proccing an opportunity attack. It was really frustrating for my party as they were at a massive disadvantage. Wide open plains, and only one could really do any sort of ranged attack. Helped them patch a few holes in their party composition and tactics.

A good way to get the party to head to Cragmaw is to have goblins attack the village now that the Redbrands are dead. Say what you will about them, they did serve as a defacto village watch, and now that they're gone the village is vulnerable. Can capture / track the goblins / hobgoblins to their castle.

____________

Thundertree...kinda sucks but kinda doesn't. It's location absolutely sucks. It's jarring and out of the way, and it's proximity to Neverwinter is just too damned close. Surely SOMEONE would clear that place out. Instead, I'd put it upriver, deep in the forest. This has several benefits: It's isolated so would require tracking through the forest (skill challenge?), or tracking upriver. You could leave a clue to it's whereabouts in Cragmaw Castle and go from there. Hell, you could have a woodsman captured and imprisoned inside that knows the way. Mirna from Phandalin knows where it is, so there's an in (she's who you rescue in the Redbrand's jail).

The twig blights are annoying so I ended up culling a lot of them. The ash zombies were fun. The spiders are ambush predators, so if someone gets stuck in the web, have the spiders initiate surprise combat, wrap the person up as a bonus action, and grapple them and retreat inside the house. If you can knock a PC out with the spider's poison do it. They won't die, just stable and paralyzed and poisoned. This sets them up for the fight with Nezznar way down the line so they know what sort of threat spiders are.

The cultists can be interesting depending on how your party reacts and how you play them. I started vanilla but veered as I proceeded; they wanted to parley with the dragon and offer themselves as servants. However, I had them lie to my party, saying they wanted to defeat the dragon and steal her eggs (better to raise a dragon from youth than tame a wild one), all the while intending to use my party as an offering. My party bought it hook, line, and sinker, and absolutely would have wiped had I not had Reidoth transform into a bird and start singing within earshot. I had earlier emphasized how deathly quiet Thundertree was, so they took the hint and followed. You can also try to nudge your party to use any Augury spells they have. That could work too.

In the end my party never did fight the dragon. Which is good, because I was going to wipe them for being stupid. Here's an excellent write-up on how to play the dragon: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/2e682e/what_makes_the_green_dragon_work_in_lost_mines_of/cjwhmus/?st=jdjolhe8&sh=f27f881f


________________

Wave Echo Cave itself I played mostly vanilla. Do your best to telegraph dangers. Put a dead bugbear in the fungus cavern. Describe scorch marks and soot in the blast furnace room. Describe footprints in the dust and sand on the floor (or lack thereof). Make any miniboss a paragon monster, for sure. Beef up their HP as well if you have to. There's a spectator in the Forge of Spells room and I didn't even get to attack with it. I was p pissed lol

The Nezznar fight I completely overhauled, and would be happy to share what I did later. As it stands now this has gone on long enough. Also, sorry if this is all over the place. It's late and I'm tired. :words: I'd be happy to answer any other questions, or just to bounce ideas off of.

edit: Forgot to add, this is a great tool for combat: https://www.improved-initiative.com/e/ Also, I found that SumatraPDF viewer to be much better than loading the pdfs into Chrome or Edge. You can even use tabs to easily jump around pages.

Trivia fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Jan 12, 2021

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
When planning overland ràndom encounters, consider planning a non-violent encounter. Reward players for roleplay with xp.

For example, if the party has to camp out overnight on their way to wyvern tor, instead of a fight have them hear a creaky wheel from a wagon passing through. That oughta creep them out, and if they investigate they can see it's being pushed by hamuns zombies. That's it, no fight, just a weird sound. Anything that happens is up to the players.

Trivia fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Jan 13, 2021

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
I can't speak for more experience players, but if you're unsure you can start by giving players weak magical items and see how they interact with group dynamics.

For +1 items though, realize that those have a direct % change in to-hit for enemies and PCs, so a very mathematical difference. A +1 weapon for example is a 5% increase in accuracy (for a naked d20 roll). +1 armor is a bit more difficult to determine, as it depends on mob level (their to-hit bonuses range as well) but it's essentially reducing accuracy for enemies. Other items you could use could be a simple +1 to a specific skill check, or perhaps an item with charges of a spell.

It could be something super mundane and seemingly useless, until a PC figures out a clever way to use it that is. Also, magical items are fun so hand them out, adjust mobs to make them harder if things get too easy.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
It's also a good idea to give items that affect characters laterally, not necessarily synergistically. What I mean by that is, don't give a rogue a +1 to stealth item. That's kinda boring for them. Give them an item with charges of mage hand or something. This makes them think about options that were never on the table before, and you may get some really cool moments from them.

Or, give them an item that let's them specifically do something for a reaction, or bonus action, especially if they don't have many to begin with. In my LMoP session, I changed a "strangely lightweight but otherwise uninteresting" quarterstaff to a Staff of Featherfall, with only one daily charge. The character who took it wouldn't have Featherfall normally (she's a druid) and has few reactions as well, but remembered to use it in the end game bossfight. She was a Giant Spider fighting the boss, and both were on the ceiling. The boss hit her, she lost Wild Shape, and instead of falling and taking 3d6 damage, used Featherfall as her reaction and floated to the ground. I and others there were floored, mainly because we had forgotten all about the staff. I was so surprised I gave her inspiration to boot.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

find something that's neat but wouldn't normally be worth a caster's limited slots to prepare, and put it on an item.

This is also a great idea. Give someone Create Food and Water. Now if they are clever they can use that to set traps for dumber humanoids, for instance. What goblin wouldn't start eating hungrily at the sight of free food and forget its surroundings?

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
I just had a session where our DM tried a simple skill challenge and I personally felt it flopped. As often described, a skill challenge let's players come up with novel or inventive ways to use their proficient skills (or otherwise less used skills) to score X successes before Y failures in order to complete the challenge. Players are encourage to be creative and justify their use of a skill.

When this happened in my group, I was kinda irritated and I think it boiled down to implementation. It as a simple introductory SC; get from points A to B. Most of the player's weren't sure how to do an SC so the DM was pretty forgiving. I am familiar with it so I started with my skill and justified it. Something like "I use perception to locate the sun, to try to determine East" (which is where we needed to go). Another player said "I use my athletics to move a log that's blocking the path." The DM said ok and we rolled with it, but to me that was no bueno.

I think it comes down to action-reaction. The athletics check player had a solution and invented a problem. If she hadn't asked that log wouldn't have existed otherwise; she willed it into existence to justify using her skill. If instead the DM said "After locating east you proceed down the trail and encounter a large log blocking your way." I would have been totally ok with her athletics check.

I talked to him afterwards and he seemed pretty steadfast in this approach. He said it allowed players to take part in making the narrative. I can appreciate that but for me it completely destroys verisimilitude.

I had always thought that a SC was essentially a framework the DM creates with an ultimate goal in mind. Along the way things happen and ppl need to solve them. Solving them has a typical solution, though novel ones are allowed if justified. As we played it it seemed like players could just create scenarios out of whole cloth to justify whatever. I prefer the former method because, counterintuitively, people are often more creative within confines than they are completely free-form.

Anyone else have this problem? Maybe I'm just overthinking it.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
The DM took great pains to describe the current weather and time (early morning, roughly 9 am). We were given a direction to go to McGuffin and came to crossroads, so to help the DM and prompt other players about the SC I just went with the perception > sun's position check.

Ultimately it wasn't a good implementation of a SC to be honest, but it was more an introduction to the mechanic.

See, for me the devil is in the details, and why many of you think I'm overthinking it (and that's fine). For me it's verisimilitude and the feeling that it's a living world. We as a group also try to avoid being too gamey, or meta-gamey. Lots of us are video game players and know how to cheese as well as anyone. So, when a player makes up an obstacle that they already have a solution to, that comes across as gamey to me. However, if they simply ask the DM "are there any obstacles in the path along the way?" and the DM answers "yes, you come across a fallen tree" then that's not as gamey, as they're reacting to the DM's arbitration.

If we had someone who had strong Deception and wanted to use it, they'd need to be creative obviously since they're just trying to get to location B from Village A. Compare "I lie to a passerby that I'm a messenger heading to B, and ask for confirmation directions." with "Do we meet anyone along the road?" If the DM says yes he can describe who we meet, then I'd have to react to that: "I lie and claim we're messengers from A village, and need to get a letter to B location. Are you from around here? Is this the right way?"

In the end it's just trying to get the passes vs. the fails. And ultimately the destination is the same. But one of the approaches takes me right out of the game and another pulls me in. That's the real difference I'd argue. A player asking a leading question to prompt the DM AND THEN react to that is ok, but a player telling a DM that something exists sticks in my craw.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Man, I just finished DMing a game so it's not like I don't get it.

Like I explained earlier, it just sounds like it's a method of preference, and that's ok. For me it's about reaction to events or environment.

IT BEGINS posted:

On the other hand, as a DM, I often ask my players to build the world with me. Sometimes I tell my friend Chris "you remember seeing one of these creatures on your last adventure north of Mirabar", but sometimes I ask "where did you learn about this type of creature?" or "who taught you to climb icy surfaces?" or "what do you see when peering out into the swamp?"

Each and every one of those statements is you as the DM prompting the player and THEN asking for their input; they are reacting to you. If your player said "Oh I learned about this creature from some NPC that I met in the past." unprompted, wouldn't that jar you as DM? Seems so convenient that you can just post-hoc justify whatever you want.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

Right?

The most frustrating players I have ever GMed for are the ones who do the leading question poo poo instead of just saying what they want to do.

They would never go "I hide in the curtains", they'd go "Is the room especially opulent? Yes? Does it have, like, lots of furniture and ornaments and stuff? Yes? And fine carpets and things? Yes? Does it have, oh..." (attempting to sound offhanded) "...drapes? Or maybe... Curtains? Yes?" and then all triumphantly "AHA! AND I HAVE PLUS SEVEN TO HIDE IN HANGING FABRICS!" or whatever special skill they wanted to use.

Which is exactly the same result as saying "I hide in the curtains", but with seventeen extra steps so they could feel like they outsmarted someone who was just gonna say yes to them anyway.

If they asked "Are there curtains?" and you said "Yes, sure" and they said "I hide in the curtains." then cool, fine. If they said "I hide in the curtains" they're the ones that invented the curtains and now you're the one that has to react to them.

It's an issue of control I guess.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
It's the issue of it being too gamey. Inventing something to justify another things to tick off a check box sucks to me.

But if the DM says for example, "you enter low lands that eventually lead to swamps, X character (who's leading), tell me what you see" that's cool and like you said, let's the players build the world.

But if they're traveling and the DM says "tell me what you see" and the player says "snow capped mountain" where none had previously existed, oh man they've just created a ton of work for the DM.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

This is a pretty interesting take to me. Can you tell me how you feel about each of these scenarios?

The party has encountered some creatures they have never seen before. They don't know it, but they're face to face with hostile owlbears.

1:

Player: "Brian Greenstrider told me about these!" ("I'm gonna make a knowledge check") <rolls a 2>
GM: ("He said they were harmless")
Player: "He said they're harmless" <is eaten by owlbears>.


2:

Player: "(I want to make a knowledge check")
GM: ("Cool, roll it")
Player: <rolls a 2>
GM: ("Fail, you think they're harmless but they're dangerous)
Player: "Brian Greenstrider told me about these. He said they're harmless" <is eaten by owlbears>


3:

Player: ("Do I remember any NPCs that might have told me about these things")
GM: ("Brian Greenstrider told you they're harmless, but roll a knowledge check")
Player: <rolls a 2> "I guess he was right" <is eaten by owlbears>


4:

Player: ("Do I remember any NPCs that might have told me about these things")
GM: ("Brian Greenstrider, roll a knowledge check")
Player: <rolls a 2> ("I failed")
GM: ("He said they were harmless")
Player: <is eaten by owlbears>


1: If B.G. had been set up as a supporting character for Player, then I may go along with it. However, it's awfully convenient that B.G. just happened to mention something about these creatures the party doesn't know or recognize (slightly gamey but potentially hilarious results, I'd roll with it were I DM).

2: Seems perfectly fine (assuming B.G. is an established character) as the character is roleplaying and reacting to the DM's answer.

3: Were I DM, I'd not prompt for a roll because B.G. told the player outright they're harmless, and if B.G. is a trusted source, the player would have no reason to doubt their claim. Maybe have them roll insight instead (the owlbear after all does NOT look harmless).

4: Seems run of the mill and fine.


I think I see what you're getting at. 1 and 2 have the best RP and would be hilarious. 3 and 4 are very mechanical and less fun. And, even if it changed to something like:

Player: ("Do I remember any NPCs that might have told me about these things")
GM: ("Brian Greenstrider, roll a knowledge check")
Player: <rolls a 2> ("I failed")
GM: ("He said they were harmless")
Player: "Brian Greenstrider told me about these! He said they were harmless."

Then you'd have a lot of repeated information at the table which is less spontaneous and fun. Hmm, good food for thought, cheers.

Tenik posted:

I'm sorry, but even if the DM describes the weather and the time of day, you are still making assumptions when you say "I want to help us orient ourselves by finding the direction of the sun." You are assuming that the group's passive perception wouldn't be able to spot the sun shortly after it rises, you are assuming that no one in the group is carrying a compass or has a natural sense of direction, and you are assuming facts about the setting like "the sun predictably rises on a fixed point of the horizon." Unless the DM had explicitly said that you could use the sun productively in that particular circumstance, and that the main issue stopping you is that you cannot see it from your current position, you are still making assumptions about the scenario that lets you use your skill.

That isn't a bad thing. That is how collaborative storytelling works. I don't know your campaign, and I don't know the player in question, but it seems likely that they made similar assumptions that you did. Your group is traveling through the countryside on unmarked roads, so it makes sense to them that there would be some physical obstacles along the way. Their assumption about the conditions of the roads seems just as logical to me as your assumption about the movement/position of the sun. Why should that player have to jump through hoops to confirm their assumption when you were free to assume that your campaign is set on a round planet that is rotating in a predictable way near a sun?

I actually brought that point up much earlier in the adventure. But I said something to the effect of "I'm going to assume that the sun behaves the same way in this plane as it does in other planes. Maybe I'm wrong, but until then that's how I'll behave." DM nodded knowlingly and we let it go.

The crux of it is that barring some weird dimensional fuckery, there's always going to be a sun. I don't have to invent one out of whole cloth, it's always there (and was previously alluded to, as the DM said it was midmorning (also we didn't see it rise)). Based upon the DM's previous setup and our task at hand, it's entirely reasonable to use the sun's position to attempt to ascertain direction. But to invent a log out of whole cloth so you can justify using a skill to tick off a box feels bad to me.

IT BEGINS posted:

What about it is 'gamey'? I mean, the context of a skill challenge itself is already pretty 'gamey', but the part where the player invents a part of the world is exactly the same as the DM doing it.

As far as it being more work - so what? If your DM is fine with doing that work, what's the problem? (Note, I disagree that it's more work. You're expecting the unexpected if you're asking that kind of open-ended question. And it's certainly not any more work than you making up a bunch of swamp encounters and your players completely skipping the swamp because they hate swamps.)

Well, the whole thing is a game and maybe I should just relax yes. But in my first example, I found it so jarring that it pulled me right out of the experience, and I have a need to talk about it.

As for more work, yes you're right. An open ended question like that is on the DM. But if the DM is meticulous and say, crafts a true-as-possible world, then a mountain would gently caress up roads, gently caress up rainfall patterns and thus watersheds and thus rivers and thus city and town placements. Geography affects civilization in so many unforeseen ways.

kingcom posted:

God gently caress this is the most depressing topic the thread has come across.

I'm sorry this isn't more entertaining.

kingcom posted:

At any point a player can stand up and say 'no that doesn't happen to me' and there is not a single thing a GM can do to countermand that.

Then what's the point of even playing at all?

kingcom posted:

It is some really loving lovely browbeating Gygaxian pants shittery that tricks people into thinking that everyone contributing to the story is a bad thing or somehow an incorrect play experience.

Man it sounds like you've had some bad experiences before and you're projecting that on to me. When this happened in game we rolled with it and I deferred to the GM. I took my issue here to talk about it. At no point did I say "you're playing wrong" or "players shouldn't help create the world." And I absolutely wouldn't want to hang up the game for however long to hash out the minutiae of one stupid detail.

kingcom posted:

if players have a creative and cool idea, don't stop them, support them.

I agree. Within reason of course.

kingcom posted:

I would want to immediately write down and talk to that player about what they said, who is this person what experience led them to knowing about this stuff, etc.

See, this here shows me that there is a fundamental need to ground things and justify their existence. If a player said that X person from their backstory told them, that would satisfy me much more than making up an NPC to justify their knowledge. It's like Screenwriting 101. You have to introduce people, places, and things first and then use them later. If you watch a movie and the movie suddenly cuts to the protagonist piloting a helicopter to chase Bad Guy without first setting up the helicopter's existence, I can't but help think "oh that's convenient (and lazy writing)."

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

Either way, the curtains were made up on the spur of the moment because the character wanted to hide in them, so not only is the result the same, the motivation for getting to the result is too.

And what do you mean, "control"? Who has it, over what, why do they need it, and why would they feel like they were losing it in this situation?

I totally agree. The end result is the same. But, if you first prompt the DM then they have the option to say no, for X reason. Curtains are a minor point, but what if the room had no windows? Would it still have curtains? Eh, maybe. But asking first gives the DM a moment to think. So, instead of telling the player "No, you can't do that." (which sucks), they can say "This room has no windows, and thus, no curtains."

bewilderment posted:

13th Age has this as an explicit mechanic in its Organised Play adventures called montages.

GM: "PC 1, what was a problem the party faced in the course of this journey?"
PC1: [explains obstacle]
GM: "Cool. PC 2, how was your character prepared or otherwise best-suited to deal with this obstacle?"
PC2: [explains solution]
GM: "Cool. Now PC 2, what was the next obstacle the group had to deal with [which will be dealt with by PC 3]?"

And you go around the table like that.

It's a cool good way to do things when you want to have interesting things happen without dwelling on them. I can't imagine why someone would dislike it. It works for more than just overland journeys too. For example you can do it as a 'battle montage' where your group describes how they fight their way to the frontlines, or reaches an enemy general. You want to have a big epic battle without having it taking up multiple sessions and actual fight scenes.

That sounds like a fun mechanic, I agree. With that above I wouldn't have any issue whatsoever. The problem with the SC as we did it is there wasn't a good framework I feel (it was a first attempt at it). With your 13th Age example, the players have a framework of what their journey is. They can create an interesting obstacle that fits within that framework (some kind of journey). Other players then react to that and solve them in interesting ways. Cool. Fine. Players probably come up with something novel and funny, or make up cool obstacles that test the next player who has to solve them. The point here is there is a reaction to a set up. There's a difference to solving a problem, and creating a problem to your solution.

bewilderment posted:

This may be shocking to you, but when you play DnD you are playing a role-playing...
GAME!

All games are gamey. DnD is exactly as much of a game as Snakes and Ladders or World of Warcraft is. They are all games.

Just like no book is more 'booky' than another. Hop On Pop is just as much of a book as Finnegans Wake is just as much of a book as the DSM 5.

Yes I understand it's a game. Saying that isn't revelatory. I hear it all the time when anyone criticizes a video game, or show, or movie. That's the thing, there's no "right" way to do it, just as there's no "right" way to enjoy a movie. But just because you don't like talking about the nuts and bolts doesn't mean others don't. Just like how someone who doesn't give a poo poo about subtext in film doesn't mean that people who do shouldn't talk about it.

kingcom posted:

You literally invented the need to identify where the sun was, you invented the solution based on a problem that you created .

Not really. I haven't laid out everything (and that's my bad), but the NPC we talked to said to get to our destination we need to go back the way we came, then head east at a crossroads. The need to go east is prompted by him (the DM). A solution to finding east is to find the sun's position.

kingcom posted:

Every example you've given me too has been 'man that would be awesome, I'd LOVE if my players did that!'. A player saying "snow capped mountain", I sit there going 'gently caress yes hes just given me more world or adventure hooks' and if I can think of anything immediately cool, I open a follow up to the group. "What are those mountains home to, anyone's character heard any rumors about them, what are they called, are they on the map (if not then woah what are those mountains doing there??)'.

Well, it really depends on the adventure doesn't it? We're using a published adventure, which comes with a pre-made setting. Having a mountain suddenly appear where there was none before affects things. If it were a homebrew adventure where anything's possible, then hell yeah, that snow-capped mountain would be kickin' rad. That's the very definition of emergent gameplay and what makes tabletops so fun.

kingcom posted:

You literally invented the need to identify where the sun was, you invented the solution based on a problem that you created .
I guarantee it's going to feel less like work if everyone chips in a little bit.

That's all great stuff. The game you are playing is a blank canvas and the goal is everyone at the table adding to put their little touches onto it.

I totally agree with you, provided it's a blank canvas game. But if it were a module it seems like headaches could arise.

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

Just as an aside, the way I've presented travel sequence skill challenges is as a flashback where each character either boasts about or apologises for their most interesting personal moment.

Because it's not like failing a travel skill challenge means "they don't arrive", right? It means they arrive, but in a worse situation than if they'd succeeded. Because otherwise how does it end up? "Sorry guys, you're all gonna have to go home because I didn't prep "lost in the forest" as a scenario"? Because if I'd prepped that we'd be running it instead of glossing past it with a skill challenge.

I think this is a pretty cool angle at it and seems fun. My DM told us that we arrive, no question, but the manner in which you arrive was determined by the skill challenge. That made perfect sense to us and we were all on board.

Devorum posted:

Each thing they invent gives me more to workirk with. More NPCs they care about. More hooks, more interesting locations, more weird poo poo that happened long ago. Even if they just use to create cover in combat, I can use that in interesting ways.

It also lets the players feel like they matter to, and in, the world.

I agree with this. But then again, we're using a published adventure, so anything players say may not mesh with it, or at worst, outright destroy some things. Telling the players an outright no sucks. It's better to do the "yes, but" / "no, however" method.


Hot drat that's a lot to reply to. I get a sense that a lot of you have dealt with this kind of nitpicking before and are tired of it, what with the minor snipes directed towards me. Mind you, I'm new to the game as a whole so haven't been around long enough to know whether I'm retreading old ground or not.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Man I'd feel bad for blowing up a module. Our DM has done a gently caress ton of work to prepare. It's also his first time as DM and I feel that would be mean.

No, they shouldn't have to backlog every character. I think it just needs to be plausible. If someone were raised in a temperate climate, would they know what a cheetah look like? Or a giraffe? Yes it's a tabletop game and you can have temperate giraffes (that'd be p cool), but I feel that would need to be established first by the DM "this world is unlike ours, the assumptions and many rules by which we live do not apply here" would be the legwork to set the stage.

If the PC told me that they know an NPC that taught them about beasts and creatures, that's the legwork. At that point them saying "Oh! B.G. told me about them!" * rolls * is much more believable than conveniently pulling it out of their rear end. It's like the helicopter problem I mentioned earlier (looking at you, Spectre).

I mean, at the end of the day it's a game and ppl should do what they want and have fun, so I won't go so far as saying NO gently caress YOU YOU'RE WRONG. But, like screenwriting and storytelling in general, DMingis an art, and I want to get better.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
It would be fun but undermines a lot of the work the DM does to prepare. My DM is following in my wake with his own module. When I started mine I told them all it was my first time DMing and as such it may be a little railroady here and there, but if they did something that changed outcomes or some storylines or characters then all the better.

It's his turn in the hotseat now and it's much the same. He's spent weeks preparing, reading the module and getting his ducks in a row. To blow that up, while fun, would kinda waste his time which isn't cool, especially for a first-timer.

If this were a homebrew adventure then all bets are off for sure.

I mean, if you were going to play Mario Kart with someone for the first time, and wanted them to like it and get into it, you wouldn't make them eat poo poo at every turn would you?

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Ignite Memories posted:

Trivia I'm sorry but you need to unlearn whatever thing is making that rub you the wrong way because it's correct and good to provide contributions like a log that needs to be moved. If the player oversteps the DM can say 'no there's nothing like that' and it takes about 1/20th of the time it would take for a player to ask a million leading questions to leverage a skill they wanted to use.

'The DMs main job' is he works at whole foods and he's at constant risk of novel coronavirus. Anything that can be done to lessen his workload is helpful.

I get your point.

But if you can just let players make up anything to tick off boxes, what's even the point of the challenge in the first place? As I (wrongly, I guess) understood it, the DM creates a loose framework that could play out something like a cinematic.

As an example, let's say the group is in a bustling market within a town. An enemy thief sneaks through the crowd and steals the party's McGuffin. Now there's a chase scene to get thing back / stop thief / capture thief to interrogate. Choice is the players.

DM thinks, "ok, if I were the thief I'd try to get mcguffin and escape to here, where I'd be safe. Most likely route through the town is this one."

DM then creates set pieces. First one is the market square. DM tells the group "Player 1 feels a small hand in their cloak pocket, as they look down they see the thief steal mcguffin and run off into the market crowd." What do you do? DM knows there are typical skills that can be used to solve this challenge, but if a player comes up with a novel way and can justify it, then all the better. Most players may try athletics to chase, or acrobatics to dodge around shoppers. Other characters may try to use intimidate to shout and get shoppers to move and make the chase easier.

Depending on the results the challenge could continue to the next set piece: main thoroughfare of the city. group continues to give chase, using skills. maybe someone tries to persuade locals to tackle the thief, or get in their way. Or someone uses animal handling to "borrow" a horse or mule (it's plausible for those to be in the city). Hell, if the animal handling > ride a horse to chase was successful, I'd say "You attempt to grab them from horseback but only manage to grab his cloak, which he slips out of." But it slows him down enough to give others a bonus to their next checks (or something), or maybe just outright catch him.

Thief moves to the last set piece, small alleys. Maybe this time a PC uses skills to say they follow him from the rooftops. Maybe someone uses insight to find a shortcut. Depending on the success track, any one of those could be the trigger towards them capturing the thief (or not).

That to me seems interesting and exciting, with continuous ratcheting tension. But as I hear it described (or typically implemented) SCs just seem exciting only in the retelling, not in the moment.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

Why does Brian have to be a pre-established character? Does the player not even have the freedom to name an NPC as part of a narrative moment? What about if it was written down in a backstory before play started? What, if anything, is the difference?

It's basically the difference between a deus-ex-machina and Chekhov's gun. If someone fires a gun where none once existed, ppl will say "where'd that gun come from?" or "how convenient that he just happened to have one." But if you set up its existence first, none of those issues arise. For me personally, seeing that sort of thing happen takes me right out of the moment.

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

The example was using an ability to give a bonus to hide in "hanging fabrics". Curtains. Drapes. Tapestries. Flags. Whatever.

Then say that. Don't say curtains when what you really want is "something to hide behind." Or ask the DM "what's in this room? Can you describe it to us? Now all players can react to the objects in the room and also use them.

The player could also say "I overturn a table to use as cover." when there was no table before. Well, that's fine I guess, but what's to stop them from willing a table into existence in every conceivable room, or attempting to do so? Other than "Not being an rear end in a top hat." That's where it can get "gamey," and the distinction between action / reaction is important imo.

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

Because "No you can't" is the same as "No you can't because I just decided that the fiction is such that that would be impossible", except the former is being honest with yourself about saying no because you wanted to say no.

I don't think that's necessarily true. The DM may want to allow it but the environment doesn't lend itself to it. They do it all the time when they say no. That's where the "Yes, but" / "No, however" method of arbitration is useful.

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

Here's the point, reiterated because you didn't address it: Why would you want to say no? You said this is a control issue. What are you trying to control, why do you need to control it, how is control being taken from you, and what do you think the consequences will be?

I wouldn't necessarily want to say no, just the option to. Otherwise it could back a DM into a corner. If it's a homebrew free-form setting, then there's little reason to say no. If it's a module with set pieces, then there could be a reason.

I get what you're saying and in all likelihood the consequences are minor or nonexistent. In my OP the consequences were nonexistent and I've admitted this is just nitpicky bullshit. If the character used curtains where none existed before, and the DM said ok, nothing would happen except the player doing something cool and having fun. Which is the point. I get it.


All of you are clearly more experienced with the game and have way more to draw from, so forgive me for asking questions. And because I've only ever used modules and not a homebrew, all I have to go on is what I've experienced from that.

It just seems to me that the DM would explain the setting and there's a give and take to action and reaction. The PCs react to the world around them, and then act. The DM then reacts to their actions. But since the DM is the main arbiter, they have abilities that players do not. Creating objects that fill the world seems like one of them. Otherwise, if players could just create whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, why even bother having a DM? It feels like it would devolve into Calvinball at that point.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Ignite Memories posted:

So its ok for you to put a horse there but it's not ok for him to put a log there

Is it plausible to have horses and mules within a city? Sure? I'd think the player would ask if they can see any horses or mules as well. Maybe the DM has good reason not to have them there! Most DMs would just say "absolutely you do", but asking first gives them an out.

Is it necessarily plausible to have a log blocking a paved path, one that is traveled frequently, and then needing to use strength of all things to clear it (instead of walking around)?

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

The skill challenge is an attempt to slap something mechanical into an out of combat scenario - which, given that this is D&D 5e, is doomed to questionable mechanics and tears. I'm not sure official publications use the term skill challenge anywhere honestly, but those never worked very well in 4e either due to Mike Mearls' bad math skills, so I'm assuming this is some homebrew skill challenge dealie where you need either X successes in Y rounds or X successes before Z failures. Given that, it literally doesn't matter what the hell happens in the fiction because 5e's skill system is poorly defined and allows poo poo like "Batman Utility Belt proficiency". It's best used as a collaborative storytelling prompt (as the other posters have stated) and quite frankly I don't see a difference between "I use Athletics to move the log I just made up" and "my 200 page backstory is about how I was raised by a group of monks who picked locks as a mental exercise to get closer to God, so I should be able to use my Religion skill to open this lock". The latter is tacitly encouraged by 5e including randomly switching your ability scores for skill checks if you can convince the DM it's appropriate, so go nuts! It's a D&D game, not a masterpiece of writing. You're sure as hell not creating great prose as an untrained actor ad-libbing with your friends, the plot can change in 5 minutes because the PCs did something you didn't expect, characterization is ever-mutable as the DM needs surprise antagonists or whatever, and ultimately it's a collaborative story so you can't really go into it expecting a full 3 act structure with a set of recurring themes that create some kind of allegory because you have 5 people with very different ideas of where the story is going to go. Heck, the game even has characters pull new abilities out of their collective asses every time they level up, and if we're taking verisimilitude I find it less likely that a wizard would suddenly become a swordmaster than a strong dude finding a log in the road. It's all a game of ad libs to make people who focused on skills feel good about their life choices, don't sweat it too much.

This is probably the best reply to anything I've had to say.

Because yes, if I were to nitpick that stupid log, why not nitpick the rest of the game?

edit:

Saying that, because we're not actors or writers, therefore we shouldn't bother to attempt to do well I think misses the point. Nobody's comparing D&D to great works of literature (and that's an absurdly high bar), but that shouldn't mean we shouldn't try to make a cohesive or comprehensive story, yes?

It'd be like saying "I'm not a professional basketball player, so why bother with the rules when we go play a pickup game."

Trivia fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Jan 15, 2021

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

So, for example, if I was in a game you were playing, and I landed the killing blow on say an ogre or whatever, and described some cool fighting move and said "My brother taught me that trick, back home"... that you would be taken right out of the moment and would be internally going "What brother? there was no mention of a brother! He just made that up just then!"?


That's what I said. The player should say "I want to hide behind the curtains, using my curtain hiding ability".


What do you mean "when there was no table before"? You understand that there's no actual table, right? It's all made up. As soon as you mention a table, the table has always been there in the scene. It doesn't in-fiction pop into existence when you say "there's a table". This doesn't change based on who said "a table".

Now, it's starting to be pretty obvious that you don't understand "don't be an rear end in a top hat", but are you really gonna pretend that players who aren't being assholes are conjuring tables into existence in rowboats, on top of icy mountains, in forests, and so on?



This really all comes down to you wanting players to ask your permission, doesn't it?

If a player said that I'd ask them later to update their character backstory and add a brother.

Man, a lot of you like to add the "this is a made up, imaginary game" as some sort of trump card. Obviously it's made up. What I'm getting at is if you allow characters to create things whole cloth, what's to stop them from doing that all the time and just being super video gamey, trying to min-max everything all the time?

Using the table example, does it make sense for a table to be in that room? I mean, sure you can put one in at any time for any reason, but if players know they can do that then what's to stop them from running into every room, declaring there's a table, turning it over and having +2 to AC all the time?

As for the permission snipe, you're trying to paint me as this iron handed totalitarian.


What I'm saying, and coming back full circle to my original post, is that players inventing problems to solutions they already have is not inventive or clever. It's gamey, for lack of a better word. In my opinion it seems more satisfying if players are presented a problem AND THEN have to solve it; and super satisfying if they do so in a novel way.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Well obviously. But then you're telling players no all the time, which isn't fun for anyone.

But if you the DM sets the scene and the players work within that, and in moments of brilliance they think outside the box and do something amazing with a limited toolset, that can make for great memories without breaking verisimilitude.

Like I said, I think Problem > Solution as a rule is better than Solution > Problem.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Thanks for the info, I'll take a look.

My DM is a good friend and I would never "dump" on him in person or on front of the group. Hence the safety of this forum. Also keep in mind that I may come across as harsh on him but I'm very grateful he's DMing and did a dynamite job all around. Maybe that's just a weakness of using text as a medium of communication.

I also talked to him about it in private as well. We all generally tend to self police anyway, asking questions of the DM for clarification as well as help adjudicate rules via committee of sorts. He was receptive and himself said it felt weird. He's gonna mess with it and try again.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
And yeah, it seems like a big issue is that SCs are a 4e feature crammed into 5e. I think though that it can be made to work, but needs tweaking. I WANT to like them, I think they have potential.

I was hoping for a discussion on how to make them better but it kinda ran away from me and now it's insinuated that I'm some kind of control-freak who doesn't want others to have fun.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Oh absolutely. As anyone who has ever played a videogame, you eventually learn what is the "best" build is. I'd want to avoid that and encourage players to experiment, especially if it's chosen skills. Giving opportunities to use those skills is totes cool. If the player prompts the DM, that's fine. But maybe he says no. That's a far cry than letting the player claim curtains everywhere he can. It's the hammer and nail problem.

I would say that simply knowing B.G. is enough to allow a roll on a creature, and the result is either him not mentioning it, getting it wrong, saying a little, or saying a lot.

But naturally everyone can play how they want, whatever is fun.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Honestly that would be so ridiculous I'd probably allow it anyway.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Dude, I wrote it in that way so as not to get lost in the conversation. If I just :words: back then I can easily miss a point you bring up, at which point you'll accuse me of conveniently ignoring it. When you're talking to six people at once it's hard not to miss something. As someone who's read these forums for a while, it's also easier if there's a quote to refer back to what they're talking about, so I don't have to constantly scroll. If it bothers you so much I won't do it, simple.

You accuse me of being "Gygian." As someone who only knows that Gary Gygax invented the game, and as someone who's been playing for 2.5 months, I don't know what the gently caress that term means. It IS a kind of projection if you label me with a term that clearly means something to the community, or yourself. I get the feeling slapfests happen a lot with D&D in general, and now I know what people mean when they say they like D&D but hate the players. Because gently caress, I wasn't trying to start a fight. It's a discussion board after all.

Everyone keeps saying that I'm declaring that X is playing the game wrong, but poo poo, that finger comes right back to you with all the "no you're wrong" in return. Again, I've only started playing, and my only experience up to this point is as a DM (because nobody else wanted to do it so I said fuckit, let's begin with the Starter Set).

As for the "find the sun" example, no, I didn't invent the problem. The problem was that we had to get to a location, and didn't know the lay of the land. We were given directions by the NPC who used cardinal directions in his description. The problem is already there -> We don't know what direction East is. The solution is: use the sun. Barring any weird dimensional fuckery, plus the fact that it's midmorning, you can surmise that East is towards the sun. That aligns with the road. I didn't invent the problem, I invented the solution. And yes that's not a great example because any idiot can look at the sun, you wouldn't need to roll.

Now, a lot of you mention that as DM, it's hard to get players to open up. Ok cool, I've never had that problem in my ONE campaign of play. As such, you're loathe to tell players no, or shoot them down. I can totally appreciate that and it's good food for thought. Balancing the knife edge to keep them pumped about being involved, but not letting things get out of hand.

Disargeria posted:

It's more important that the players get involved and have fun than hammering out the terms and conditions.

Exactly, which is why during play I didn't press the point. I didn't want to be THAT GUY at the table. But it stuck in the back of my mind and I wanted to talk about it.

The DM really didn't do a good job of the SC, to put it bluntly. He gave us an overworld map with a path written on it, but no real descriptions from there. It's his first session as DM and aside from this small hiccup he actually did a bang up job. He saw Matt Colville's video on SCs and wanted to try, but I think he needed to do a little more work at least. Not a lot, but something to ground the experience. It could have been something like "You come to a T junction, branching left and right." Followed by "You come across a couple of travelers heading the direction you came." or "You come across a washed out section of road, it has caved and been swept away, creating a 10 foot wide by 10 feet deep chasm." Something for players to react off of. And then based upon their actions, the DM reacts to that. Around and 'round it goes.

My DM implemented it like Matt Colville described, and I guess I misunderstood it when I watched the same vid. SCs sound thrilling and intense when you recall them after the fact, but in the moment (as MC explained it) it feels like people randomly stabbing in the dark. I thought trying to make them thrilling in the moment would be more fun and wondered if there were ways to go about it.


All of the players and DM at my table are good friends and we're there to drink beer, eat junk food, and have a good time. Some of them are great at roleplay while others like to murderhobo. There's a good spread of playstyles.

From the sounds of it, a completely open-world D&D game sounds like a loving awesome time. Especially when the DM and players riff off each other. That doesn't work as well with a module though :/

edit: I think some of you need to remember that for me (and maybe others in this thread) this is babby's first TTRPG. While some of you are old hats with years of experience and have solutions to these well worn questions, some of us aren't and may be trying to figure it out without someone to teach us.

Trivia fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Jan 15, 2021

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Perry Mason Jar posted:

There's different ways to play the game and no two tables are going to play the game alike. You should talk to your table about what degree of narrative input from players is desired by the group. Nobody is wrong or right, there are different ways to play the game, different things that make the game fun for some but less fun for others. Just literally talk to the your group about what's most fun for everyone. At least if even you don't get your ideal style it'll be a concession to the group rather than a fold to the DM or whomever's decree.

We kinda had a brief talk about the game and what to expect, but since we're all new we didn't know about a Session 0 and discussing things like player input or things of that sort. Good to know.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Calm down dude. Jesus some of you nerds get so loving upset.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Ok fine. That's like, your opinion, man. Also ironically another person telling me not to say others play wrong, yet claiming I'm wrong. Ok. So really it's just down to however the group wants to play! Cool, problem solved. Easy peasey.

If you don't like the conversation then I'm sorry, put me on ignore and jog on. Nothing's keeping you here. I (think?) it's safe to assume that as a community of players you'd WANT new people to come in and share interest in the game. But boy howdy did I stir up a nest of hornets, Jesus.

Like, it's not even really about the fuckin' log or the curtains or Brian Greenstrider. It's about the basic philosophy of the game, to which there's no "right" answer.

So, with that said, I've found that SCs as they are commonly implemented are unsatisfying. Does anyone have any good ideas for them or a similar mechanic?

Splicer posted:

We're upset because it sucks hearing someone describing how they're working toward teaching a new player all the wrong lessons :(

Well, I'm gonna say, if you guys are trying to teach me to not Be Bad, you're doing a very lovely job of it. Christ I feel like I'm being shouted down, insulted, and sniped.

To everyone else that sent recommendations or were just more patient, thank you.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Ignite Memories posted:

You asked if other ppl in the thread felt the same way about something, almost everyone agreed that the thing you didn't like was Good Actually, and you spent a bunch of effort telling us that actually your way is better. Don't ask what a group of people thinks about something and then wholly reject the response. Just admit you're looking for someone to agree with you and make you feel good.

Well, I'm trying to justify my thoughts, you know, in like a discussion. Fuckin' sorry if I didn't immediately accept the standard group think.

I haven't wholly rejected responses. I listened to the less vitriolic of you and again it sounds like the reasonable answer is "do a proper session 0, and tailor it to the group / campaign. Some of us find that kind of play fun, but talk to your players first."

In this situation I wasn't the DM, and there wasn't much to the session 0.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Splicer posted:

Nono, I'm not saying people shouldn't say when other people are playing wrong. Quite the opposite. I'm saying that you are playing wrong, and you are teaching someone else to play the way you are, which is wrong.

Ok, fine. Why? I mean, if you just want to drop a snipe and then not justify it, go right ahead. But why should I then listen to Splicer, random internet person on SA's DND thread?

Like I've said many times, I'm new to DND, as are the rest of my group. It's the blind leading the blind here, and all I've had to go on is the Starter Set.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Perry Mason Jar posted:

The difference is a trade off of creative, narrative control and immersion.

I think that sums it up well and helps put into words what I'm thinking but don't know how to express. I mean, every player gravitates to what they like more right? I guess I'm the type that likes immersion and verisimilitude, while others here seem to like creative freedom. Cool.

That's some useful poo poo to address in a session 0.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Splicer posted:

A lot of it was in reply to TheAardvark so you might not have read it.

Honestly I remember some of that but not other bits. I do think it might have gotten lost in all the posts. That or all the poster's names started to jumble together.

Looking at those previous posts I can appreciate a lot of the points and believe me, they're useful. However, opening with "it's all made up" helps nothing. That's feels like it's some sort of "gotcha" statement. I mean, the ol' Runaway Trolley problem in philosophy is just made-up too, but that doesn't stop people from discussing it ya?

When you say that SCs are meant to give players a taste of player-led storytelling, that was entirely news to me. As I had understood it, it was an opportunity to give players a chance to use skills they otherwise might not, to make them feel unique in the group. Nowhere from what I learned was it a chance at world-building.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

Splicer posted:

failure is always bad

Yeah I watched some videos kinda addressing this, and a solution offered was to fail forward (depending, of course). If someone fails a stealth check, instead of being immediately found out, the DM says something like: "as you try to sneak through the forest around the goblins, you foot steps on an unseen twig, snapping it. One of the goblins hears and is now coming closer to investigate." It's a great solution because it ratchets up the tension and the drama, let's the players react to a new situation, and is fun to observe even if you're not actively playing. I mean, you could even do an ad-hoc skill challenge just for that person, and having snapped the twig puts them at a -1, down to -3 (discovery). Getting back to 0 puts them neutral but doesn't let them off the hook or something. Iono, just pulling that out of my rear end.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
We weren't told there'd be difficulties on the path. Just a "get to point B from point A, tell me how you use your skills to get there." If the DM had said something like "on the way you have 3 encounters or problems, and use your skills to overcome them. Describe to me what they are and how you overcame them.", that would have been sufficiently satisfying I think. Or at least the player-creation of problems and solutions would be ok. Maybe if he asked player 1 "give me a problem on the path" followed by prompting player 2 "how would you solve it?" it'd be less...bothersome to me, I guess. So much of this is personal opinion.

It's such a minor nitpick I know, and not everyone here will find it interesting enough to talk about, but the devil is in the details I feel.

Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.
Keep in mind as well that critical hits aren't just double damage (as I and my group erroneously believed). Instead you roll an additional damage die AND THEN add the +modifier.

Cool that you guys had a great time. I'd love to hear more of how things go, if for no other reason than to see how things differed.

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Trivia
Feb 8, 2006

I'm an obtuse man,
so I'll try to be oblique.

MrSargent posted:

This is all really helpful, especially the action economy. I was erring on the side of caution for the first encounter since we are all very new. I got a little worried when the goblins surprised the entire party AND rolled the highest initiative score and basically got two attacks each before the party could do anything. But by the end of the players first 5 actions, it was basically over.

Yeah when I ran that first encounter my guys got roughed up a bit too. Remember the rules for cover (half +2 AC, 3/4 +5 AC I think) and maybe be a bit generous with it a bit at earlier levels.

Also the action economy issue is what ended up with a lot of mini-boss and boss mobs being very anti-climactic. I was looking for a solution to that and found that Paragon monsters worked really really well, and were super fun to throw at players because it changed up the mechanics they had grown to know (and expect).

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