Things your table should do, but doesn't do- The Fun v. Efficiency Thread

[77IM]

Retreat! Many monsters will route when things start looking bad for them. "Looking bad" is a subjective call by the DM based on the situation and the monster's psychology, but as a baseline, intelligent foes retreat when they are at half strength, unless the party is also down to half strength. Sometimes if things look really, really bad, the monsters will even surrender. Of course, the party gets full XP for monsters that retreat or surrender, and some monsters (such as undead and constructs and creatures guarding their young) will fight to the death.

This serves several purposes:
1. We skip the last few "mop-up" rounds of combat, which are usually pretty boring, tedious, and without suspense.
2. It presents a world in which intelligent creatures actually make decisions and are not mindless video-game enemies.
3. It subtly encourages the PCs to retreat or surrender when they face an overwhelming force.

 

[KarinsDad]

We have a mix of "gotcha" because our GM got on a "if you didn't detail it, it didn't happen" kick so for a while I would ask "I check the room for things for note, rolled 25 investigation" GM, "you find nothing". After the game, knocking down the door to the boss room with picks and axes the GM said "well if you had searched the dresser in the bedroom you would not have take 5 attempts and alerted every enemy in the castle"... Us: "we did you said nothing was there!!?" GM, "no you searched the room not the dresser in the room. The key wasn't just sitting on the floor". We had multiple long arguments about us not knowing there was a dresser because we were not in the room our character was and that was not mentioned. Then multiple arguments about our character was searching the room not us" Finally, he stopped being silly, we search, he sets DC, we roll, we fail or pass, he narrates the results. If the key is hidden in the dresser we might not find the key but we find the dresser drawer is locked and we know, ok their is a dresser, its locked, so we likely want to unlock it and see what's inside. Hay look a key. Or we just find the key.

Because "gotcha's" are not fun or productive. That's when a hand wave or GM "notification" needs to happen.

DMs are a dime a dozen. Shoot your DM. Get a new one.

 

[ClaytonCross]

DMs are a dime a dozen. Shoot your DM. Get a new one.

Maybe but my GM is a friend and is trying to change after the group raised it in a debate after a game when it got silly. We get a "gotcha" moment every now and then, but its more an "old habit die hard" than a "My way or the highway" thing. I am not a perfect player or GM in my side game and would prefer the GM and players I play with give me a chance to improve instead of just not invite me or show up anymore. I will give him the same respect and chance to grow. After all its not easy being GM there is quite a bit more work than what players need to do.

If your playing AL, sure don't go back to that table, but even if DMs are everywhere that doesn't mean I would be welcome in their house and at their table. I might be very luck to find a second GM as a 37 year old man playing D&D in English in Japan where the majority of English speaking gamers are teens or early 20s. The majority of the gamers mostly stick to video games or play everyday with no family here. My wife would not be cool with me playing that much and would result in me being "not dedicated enough to the group" and that's assuming we had compatible personalities. So I generally don't walkout in true home games without bad continual problems. Easer to renovate then rebuild a burnt bridge.

 

[KarinsDad]

Maybe but my GM is a friend and is trying to change after the group raised it in a debate after a game when it got silly. We get a "gotcha" moment every now and then, but its more an "old habit die hard" than a "My way or the highway" thing. I am not a perfect player or GM in my side game and would prefer the GM and players I play with give me a chance to improve instead of just not invite me or show up anymore. I will give him the same respect and chance to grow. After all its not easy being GM there is quite a bit more work than what players need to do.

If your playing AL, sure don't go back to that table, but even if DMs are everywhere that doesn't mean I would be welcome in their house and at their table. I might be very luck to find a second GM as a 37 year old man playing D&D in English in Japan where the majority of English speaking gamers are teens or early 20s. The majority of the gamers mostly stick to video games or play everyday with no family here. My wife would not be cool with me playing that much and would result in me being "not dedicated enough to the group" and that's assuming we had compatible personalities. So I generally don't walkout in true home games without bad continual problems. Easer to renovate then rebuild a burnt bridge.

The word "shoot" implied sarcasm.

 

[ClaytonCross]

The word "shoot" implied sarcasm.

Sure, but I don't really know you so it could also be a figure of speech. Also my GM could be on these forums and defending him is just sound protection from falling safes since I like my current character. -

 

[Seramus]

I dismember my monsters. When my players roll well on damage, I have them hack off fingers, stab eyes, chop off entire arms, etc. And it’s not just fluff. I give the monster penalties and have it react to these hideous injuries accordingly. I also have monsters argue, freeze up and hesitate, or just run away in terror. Depends on the Monster. Most of them don’t want to die.

Of course, there are always more monsters.

 

[ClaytonCross]

I dismember my monsters. When my players roll well on damage, I have them hack off fingers, stab eyes, chop off entire arms, etc. And it’s not just fluff. I give the monster penalties and have it react to these hideous injuries accordingly. I also have monsters argue, freeze up and hesitate, or just run away in terror. Depends on the Monster. Most of them don’t want to die.

Of course, there are always more monsters.

I would like to do that but I am bit green and must admit in actual play I don't yet have the presence of mind and skill to pull that off. It does sound awesome though so It gives me something else to aspire to.

 

[Oofta]

DMs are a dime a dozen. Shoot your DM. Get a new one.

That is why I implemented the "nerf gun only" policy in my house.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I constantly see 2 things.

1. People ignore/handwave inventory management, encumbrance, and athletics test for play efficiency because they don't want to wait for players to organize notes or they are too lazy to track weights. The results are bags of holding with 26,000+ gp and all their extra gear in a single bag of holding etc. Also, thief attempts on gear are negotiations and time consuming but rare so its not huge deal. The biggest result of this is that no matter your strength score your essentially super strong able to carry mountains as long as you say "I put it my backpack" because their are no limits. They make a strength check to open the door but then they just say well between the 5 of you, you are able to force the door open or it takes some time but as one of you gets up you pass the rope around and are able to help each other scale the wall. It makes the loot process faster, dealing with gear easier, and speeds through physical bearers for the sake of getting to more involved narrative conversations or combat but it devalues strength resulting in higher numbers of dex based characters because strength has no out of combat function. Then you get "fighters need more out of combat option threads" and "All I see are dex based melee fighter threads" not because strength is not useful, but because the hand wave everything that makes it so out of combat. The dex character trying to steal some one's wallet or sneak past a guard they keep because they are interactions the deem "narratively valuable" meaning if you drop a merchants keg and it breaks no one cares but if you steal his coin purse the guards are called even though both represent a cost to the merchant. I am not a fan when I GM, but my GM is. No interest in strength based tasks, however he does us variant encumbrance so we still value strength.

2. Scouting and traps. GMs tend to hand wave traps until it gets serious but then make traps lethal to build tension. The problem is there is no indication of the switch until the first trap. The party watching the rogue check every door can slow things down but not have the rogue do so results in PC death. So its a catch 22. The end result is it gets hand waved until unless players insist and while it does bog down the game while the rogue or scout basically leads the group through the dungeon players tend to except it because they don't want there character to dies randomly to an enemy they can't fight. My attempt to resolve this is instead of hand waving traps I have a random trap macro with alternate ways of spotting and disarming that means perhaps the rogue with a high perception skill doesn't see a trap but the passive investigation of the wizard might spot it and the rogue might disarm it but it turns out when he goes to open the door its not locked its just stuck and he is going to need the much stronger fighter/barbarian to get it open with an athletics test. Just like encumbrance this slows down "mundane tasks". My GM hand waves but I consider the mundane journey as much a part of the game as the destination role play/combat. When we play his games though he can't stand it when we push to check for traps because he finds in REALLY boring form the GM side really being a narrative GM. That has never stopped him from putting a random trap or hidden door in each dungeon though so we still ask because we don't want to die to death machines. Its a bit of a back and forth.

Most D&D backpacks are an extra dimensional space staffed by a gnome who hands you the exact item you need.

 

[KarinsDad]

That is why I implemented the "nerf gun only" policy in my house.

Boring. Bring D&D to real life at your table. Guns, knives, whatever it takes. Although if you want to be "in character", limit it to swords, shields, staves, etc. This is the real solution to problem players.