D&D General Ending the Slog

[MNblockhead]

2. DMs are not employing the full play loop which would otherwise makes things more engaging.

What do you mean by "the full play loop" in regards to combat?

 

[Ovinomancer]

What do you mean by "the full play loop" in regards to combat?

The play loop is on page 4 of the PHB. Simple, it's (1) GM describes the scene, (2) players describe their actions, (3) GM adjudicates (chooses success, failure, or uncertain, using mechanics to resolve uncertain), (4) GM narrates outcomes, goto (1). What @iserith is saying is that GMs may be short circuiting the process by either constraining step (3) to only use combat mechanics or by not adequately completing (1) so players can engage with (2).

 

[MNblockhead]

When I fi

The play loop is on page 4 of the PHB. Simple, it's (1) GM describes the scene, (2) players describe their actions, (3) GM adjudicates (chooses success, failure, or uncertain, using mechanics to resolve uncertain), (4) GM narrates outcomes, goto (1). What @iserith is saying is that GMs may be short circuiting the process by either constraining step (3) to only use combat mechanics or by not adequately completing (1) so players can engage with (2).

Okay, got it. I can admit to weakness on step 1. I've let combat become mechanical, where all discussion is on AC, HP, etc.

 

[iserith]

What do you mean by "the full play loop" in regards to combat?

The play loop, in short, goes DM describes, Player describes, DM narrates, repeat.

Many groups in a combat situation get into almost like a deli counter: DM describes, player describes, DM narrates, NEXT, player describes, DM narrates, NEXT and so on. It's very procedural and it's leaving out the DM-describes bit which is, essentially, a summary of anything that has changed in the environment since the last DM description. I find to be very helpful in terms of keeping things focused and moving, which leads to engagement. If people are engaged, then it's not really a slog.

Also what @Ovinomancer said.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Okay, got it. I can admit to weakness on step 1. I've let combat become mechanical, where all discussion is on AC, HP, etc.

It's not really a matter of being descriptive, so much as making sure you present the basic options the scene encompasses. Things like entrances, obstacles, etc. You can be descriptive of this or use game terminology, but if you don't do a good job of presenting the scene so that they players understand the available options, the players will be unable to fully engage (2) describing PC actions.

 

[Quickleaf]

My rule of thumb is to keep things fresh, so every 2-3 rounds (depending on group, flow of that session, length of rounds) I try to have something change about the combat. Maybe a new feature of the environment becomes exploitable, maybe reinforcements arrive, maybe it's revealed one of the bad guys has a personal tie to a PC, maybe that thunderwave causes the mine to begin collapsing, etc.

I've noticed this has prevented "the slog" for 2/3 to 3/4 of the combats I run. So it's definitely not foolproof, but it has dramatically mitigated how often "the slog" comes up in my games.

 

[Asisreo]

It's not really a matter of being descriptive, so much as making sure you present the basic options the scene encompasses. Things like entrances, obstacles, etc. You can be descriptive of this or use game terminology, but if you don't do a good job of presenting the scene so that they players understand the available options, the players will be unable to fully engage (2) describing PC actions.

This is very much a key. Often, describing the environment will also result in a quicker combat experience. A player immediately gets a summary of important information if they missed or blanked out on what happened prior.

It also gives them time to think while you're re-establishing the scenario rather than have a useless "uh...hold on" take up 2 minutes and everyone is bored again.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

This thread is very helpful.

 

[JohnSnow]

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition has built-in rules for for Quick Encounters. So if it just wasn't working for some reason, I could always fall back on that. But even a long SW combat is pretty unlikely to turn into the sort of slogs that I've had some D&D combats turn into. The ones where it's just "thank god it's over."

I've legit fudged a result or three to make those just f-ing end.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Slightly topic-adjacent, but this just occurred to me somewhere else, and I thought it might be relevant.

One of the issues with combats that drag on too long is that, if a fight is interesting and balanced when everyone is active, then it becomes unbalanced as soon as someone drops. In order to prevent that tipping point from happening in the first round, monsters are designed to withstand multiple rounds of focused fire before dropping; but since they have so many HP, it takes just as long to go through each one of them as it does to go through the first one, except the exciting part of the fight is already over.

One way to prevent tedious combat is to ensure that enemies die in quick succession, by preventing focus fire. If the whole party isn't attacking the same enemy at the same time, then the enemies don't need enough HP to withstand that assault for multiple rounds, and all of the enemies should die in rather quick succession since you're whittling them all down at a constant(ish) rate. At least in theory, that means the whole fight should stay interesting, because the fight is over shortly after the enemies lose action advantage.

The hard part is figuring out how to encourage spreading out, when focusing fire is so obviously the way to win. I figure you could probably do it by assigning penalties to every attack in the round, past the first, against the same target. It would probably take a bit of testing in order to get it right, though.