Would this solve the "grind" issue?

[KarinsDad]

I'm amazed at how many people have their heads in the sand in this thread. Grind is not in the mind. It's a real issue. Specifically, it's one possible outcome from any given encounter. The way I see it, there's only a handful of possible outcomes for any given combat encounter.

1) The PCs win, quickly and efficiently, but are challenged. This is the ideal outcome, yielding maximum "fun".

2) The PCs win, but aren't challenged, and simply flatten the enemy opposition. This may or may not be a good thing, and may or may not be "fun".

3) The PCs win, but it takes a very long time. "Very long time" is subjective: for some people, an hour is too long, while three hours might be perfectly acceptable for somebody else. "Too long" is like porn: you know it when you see it, but it's otherwise hard to define. This is what we call "grind" and is generally an undesirable outcome.

4) TPK. Almost always a bad thing... almost always, but not always.

5) The PCs retreat, or the battle is otherwise ended prematurely due to plot reasons.

...

The very fact that we're discussing this, that Stalker0 saw fit to create his great guide to anti-grind, suggests that this is a real thing that people actually struggle with. For those of you that don't have and have never had problems with grind, great. Congratulations. I'm glad the game has gone so smoothly for you. But please, please, please stop belittling those who do have problems with grind. For some of us, it's a very real problem, one we have to learn how to avoid.

This.

 

[Benimoto]

This.

I'm sorry you feel belittled, but again, the context to the thread is that the OP wanted to preemptively take steps to reduce the possibility of grind, and so far the most common answer seems to have been to wait and see if it's actually a problem.

Just as there is evidence here that grind is a problem for some groups, there is also ample evidence that the problem is neither universal nor common for many posters here.

 

[Stalker0]

Just as there is evidence here that grind is not a problem for some groups, there is also ample evidence that the problem is neither universal nor common for many posters here.

I think this is an important point. I think grind does exist, and the system does have subsystems that increase the grind effect, but not every party is affected equally.


1) If your party has a lot of strikers, you will not feel grind as much.
2) If your party members are fast thinkers and always have their actions ready on their turn, then you will not feel grind as much.


So I guess the best the advice is "know your group". If your group likes to take their time with their decisions, and wants to play that "Holy Pilgrimage" where everyone is a cleric...then you might want to seriously think about Antigrind.

 

[Mesh Hong]

From this thread it seems to me that we are talking about two very different things when we discuss grind:

1: Poor monster/encounter design.
2: Slow turn resolution.

Poor monster/encounter design
Badly designed encounters can by definition go bad.

Over time each DM should get a feel for the rough power level and potential of their group. Until this has been achieved it is most prudent to start with relatively simple encounters and gradually increase the challenge and complexity to see how that affects play. Each group will have a different point or combination of factors that steps over the line, so there is no hard and fast rule over where a fun encounter ends and where an un-fun encounter begins.

Another issue with encounter design comes in at the transition between Heroic/Paragon and Paragon/Epic. The power increase of the PCs is massive and encounter design that previously would have been deadly can become easy or at least simple. Again each group will manifest this in different ways so only experience will inform you how to adapt.

As has been pointed out there are certain creatures and conditions that can be inappropriate for some groups. Wraiths and Dracolich’s from MM1 are poorly designed.

My general advice would be to be incredibly wary of any encounter that uses both insubstantial and weakened, or too much stun. But this really is general advice, there is nothing inherently wrong with these conditions but they are open to abuse (no matter how fair you think you are) so a little extra care is needed when placing them in an encounter or on a monsters stat block.

Slow turn resolution
If you are looking at your watch between turns then you are probably wishing that everyone would just speed up.

This is probably what most people refer to when they consider the grind, hence my continued belief that “grind is all in the mind”. It is the mental state of boredom, or a feeling of disengagement. If a turn is talking so long that you are losing track of what is going on and the excitement of the combat situation is slipping away then you will naturally consider it a grind.

Again everyones attention span and play expectations are different. It is really up to the group as a whole to determine the optimal length of a combat encounter if that is important to them. If it is important then the players and the DM must share the responsibility of working towards a self imposed combat time limit, through quicker and more organised player activity and also through simplified encounter design. Each group will find their own level of compromise.

Personally, the length of an encounter is not that important to me or my group as long as it is interesting. This is probably why we do not feel the grind, we are having fun so what does it matter if an encounter takes half an hour or five hours?

 

[Hussar]

My experience that all combats have chatting and socializing. Socializing is one of the reasons most people play the game.

No, it's one of the reasons that the people you play with play the game. Please try not to generalize from your own experience.

For example, I play over Maptools. The any socializing gets taken to whispers an pretty much never happens on a given player's turn. It's actually quite rude in our games to start jumping in with non sequitors on someone else's turn.

So, the idea that everyone plays to sit around and chat while the game goes on isn't universal.

And, I'd really, really appreaciate it if all you guys who feel the need to try to "prove" the existence of the grind or not would kindly go find your own thread to go piddle in. I asked a question. I've now had to wade through three pages of crap that had nothing to do with my question because people felt the need to start edition warring.

Let me rephrase the question then.

I want to run combats that are fast, with multiple opponents (read more than 6 usually) and lots of action. Would using lower level opponents and primarily skirmishers achieve this goal?

 

[Mesh Hong]

I want to run combats that are fast, with multiple opponents (read more than 6 usually) and lots of action. Would using lower level opponents and primarily skirmishers achieve this goal?

Possibly.

In all fairness you brought up "grind" in your first post. My most recent post is a genuine effort to try and address the concerns over grind you were talking about.

In conclusion, use your idea as a starting point and develop it as you go.

 

[blargney the second]

Yes, your players will definitely plow through lower level monsters faster because both their defenses and hit points are lower. Skirmishers also tend to go down quickly once they're pinned down.

Both of those factors together should make fast and easy fights, even if there are a couple more monsters. Especially if your party has lots of AoEs!
-blarg

 

[Jhaelen]

Grind is not in the mind.
[...]
3) The PCs win, but it takes a very long time. "Very long time" is subjective: for some people, an hour is too long, while three hours might be perfectly acceptable for somebody else. "Too long" is like porn: you know it when you see it, but it's otherwise hard to define. This is what we call "grind" and is generally an undesirable outcome.

... and that's why Grind IS in the mind! One person's grind is another person's idea of a fun combat. The actual time it takes to resolve a combat is not indicative of grind. It's how the time is spent. It's about 'quality'.

 

[Shazman]

I'm amazed at how many people have their heads in the sand in this thread. Grind is not in the mind. It's a real issue. Specifically, it's one possible outcome from any given encounter. The way I see it, there's only a handful of possible outcomes for any given combat encounter.

1) The PCs win, quickly and efficiently, but are challenged. This is the ideal outcome, yielding maximum "fun".

2) The PCs win, but aren't challenged, and simply flatten the enemy opposition. This may or may not be a good thing, and may or may not be "fun".

3) The PCs win, but it takes a very long time. "Very long time" is subjective: for some people, an hour is too long, while three hours might be perfectly acceptable for somebody else. "Too long" is like porn: you know it when you see it, but it's otherwise hard to define. This is what we call "grind" and is generally an undesirable outcome.

4) TPK. Almost always a bad thing... almost always, but not always.

5) The PCs retreat, or the battle is otherwise ended prematurely due to plot reasons.

Here's the real secret behind "grind": encounter design is a skill. Those who are naturally skilled in encounter design, or who quickly picked up the necessary skills, tend to forget this. I was not one of those people, and my earliest Dungeons and Dragons 4e experiences were chock full of grind. My first ever dungeon crawl that I DMed for my friends was a whopping seven hour marathon. We still had fun (mostly because of the novelty of it all), but there was definitely tons of grind, and I knew I needed to take countermeasures to reduce it.

The very fact that we need to take countermeasures suggests that grind does exist, that it is a very real phenomenon, and that those of us struggling with it don't just have an attitude problem. People also need to consider that, in MM1 and the original Dungeon Master's Guide, there were some very real problems with the math. For those of you that honestly believe that "grind is in the mind," I dare you to make a grindless encounter with 3+ Wraiths, with their lovely insubstantial, regeneration and weaken combo intact. Or, hell, how about an encounter with an as-written Dracolich?

Encounter design is a skill, and a very big part of that skill is knowing which monsters to avoid using. Some are so unbelievably bad and grindy (I'm looking at you, Dracolich) that they almost feel like pit-traps. Novice DMs can blunder right into them, if they're not careful. Other aspects involve knowing how to use terrain and fluff to make things more dynamic. WotC's published adventures and encounters are notoriously underwhelming, so novice DMs don't have very many good examples to go on. Therefore, they come to boards like these for advice... and I for one find it disheartening when they're greeted with a lot of: "There's no such thing as grind, it's all in your head, it's your attitude problem."

The very fact that we're discussing this, that Stalker0 saw fit to create his great guide to anti-grind, suggests that this is a real thing that people actually struggle with. For those of you that don't have and have never had problems with grind, great. Congratulations. I'm glad the game has gone so smoothly for you. But please, please, please stop belittling those who do have problems with grind. For some of us, it's a very real problem, one we have to learn how to avoid.

It's even worse when they say "You only experience grind because you are doing it wrong." Apparently either grind does not exist or you can only expereince it if you have slow players, unoptimized PC's, or poor tactics. If it's so hard for many players to process all the info for their 4E character quickly enough to make a decision and resolve their turn in a few minutes, that tells me there is something wrong with the system. If the people that publish adventures professionally and work for the company that publishes the game can't even get encounter design right, that also throws up a red flag that something is wrong with the system. Seriously, if it takes so much effort and system mastery and maybe even a computer program to make and run/play 4E combats that don't take forever or seem to grind, doesn't that scream that the whole system needs an overhaul?

 

[Pelenor]

Never? Ever? You remember all 5,000 actions that have occurred in 100 encounters? You have never had a slow player in any of your games, even from a hangover or a real life distraction bothering that person?

I never said it couldn't happen just that I haven't seen it. As for my group we've been playing together for years so when combat comes we are pretty good about it. We usually figure out what we are going to do while it's not our turn. One of the things I do that seems to help players figuring out what they are doing is use the DDI Character Builder for our characters which precalculates and prints out the cards for what powers we have and what they can do. But I'm pretty lucky I have a good group.

Having said that I'm getting to run some games for the local gaming club that I expect that we will get some people who will talk a couple of minutes on their turn. But not every single person every single turn.

So for purposes of clarification are you saying that every npc and pc takes 2 minutes on their turn every single time in every single combat?

Anyway to cut a long post short. Do I think 4e has grind in it. I'm sure it does. I don't think it has any more or any less then any other system. It's been my experience that grind is almost always a play style issue.