D&D 5E "When DMing I Avoid Making the PCs have 'pointless' combats." (a poll)

[Vaalingrade]

So...long rests, effectively infinite resources, and Leomund's Tiny Hut are perfectly fine...it's my fault for wanting a game that's more challenging than LOL easy mode. Okay. Sure.

If the players are using the hut and taking long rests all the time to avoid getting winnowed down on resources, maybe they're stating their preferences and it isn't 'more challenging'.

 

[Helldritch]

So...long rests, effectively infinite resources, and Leomund's Tiny Hut are perfectly fine...it's my fault for wanting a game that's more challenging than LOL easy mode. Okay. Sure.

Here is a little story for you.
At the beginning of 5ed. My power gamer group discovered that Tiny Hut was even better than wall of force. At level 7 they were tackling an hobgoblin stronghold and had to retreat. They did not expected the hobgoblins to have priests and other casters so they retreated and at a "safe" distance, they used: LTH. Who wouldn't?

Happens that the warlord of the stronghold sent seek & destroy parties. One of the party found the hut, and reported back to the warlord. The whole stronghold attacked the hut at the onset of a dispel magic cast by one of the priest of Maglubiyet under an invisibility spell. The zone was litteraly peppered with arrows as soon as the priest became visible. The group almost died. The only survivor being the wizard still under the armor spell, was up to stand guard and got a high enough initiative to be able to take a reaction. He used dimension door to flee and almost got killed a few times before finally be able to loose his pursuers in the forest. When he came back, his friends had been animated as zombies with a message in common written on post one of the zombies was holding: "This is what will happen to all trespassers! Be warned that attacking hobgoblins brings woe to those who defy our rule!"

After a few other event like this one, they understood that resting all the time was not necessarily a good thing. Tiny Hut is not the "ultimate" resting spell many believe it to be.

 

[overgeeked]

You can want what you want and nobody can gainsay that. But you take this tact in multiple threads and those of us who have challenging games even with normal resting rules and Leomund's tiny hut might wonder what you're doing versus what we're doing. Because clearly there's something going on there. Perhaps you're missing or not implementing certain rules or the like. I've certainly had plenty of discussions with people where you get a glimpse of how they run their game and I'm like, well, (for example) no wonder Perception is so overvalued as a skill in your game!

Then we must define challenging differently. Because the long rest RAW and Leomund's Tiny Hut prevents the game from being challenging. Which is why I house ruled both. For me, challenging is risk of character death which forces the players to actually think things through and plan and use their resources wisely rather than blindly charge into every fight and burning every resource possible to make every fight a steamroll. RAW long rests and LTH utterly remove that risk except for edge cases. My players did basically the same thing every time. Get into one fight, find a place they can secure for 11 minutes, ritual cast LTH, take a long rest in perfect safety, lather rinse repeat. Whatever timers I put in they ignored. Whatever enemies I put at the door when the LTH ends, they complained and quit. Anything I did to break that pattern, they complained and quit. House ruled long rests, players complained and quit. Banned LTH, players complained and quit. Every version of "hey, could you not" was met with "it's legally allowed as per RAW, so LOL." So I house ruled...players complained and quit.

The players I've had in 5E do not want challenge. They want LOL easy mode. I'm not interested in that. I make that known. The players seem to not grok that and agree to play anyway...then cheese everything they can. This is not my experience with one group of 4-5 players. It's my experience with literally every single 5E group I've played or run with in the last decade. I've burned through well north of 200 players in total trying to find one that doesn't want to cheese everything and just LOL win all the time. Still haven't found a single one. Statistically insignificant compared to the whole community, granted, but not insignificant to me. My recently ended West Marches game had, at its peak, 37 players. Every. Single. Player. Cheesed every single thing they could to make the game as non-challenging as possible. Anything I did to prevent cheese was met with complaints and rage quits.

Here is a little story for you.
At the beginning of 5ed. My power gamer group discovered that Tiny Hut was even better than wall of force. At level 7 they were tackling an hobgoblin stronghold and had to retreat. They did not expected the hobgoblins to have priests and other casters so they retreated and at a "safe" distance, they used: LTH. Who wouldn't?

Happens that the warlord of the stronghold sent seek & destroyed parties. One of the party found the hut, and reported back to the warlord. The whole stronghold attacked the hut at the onset of a dispel magic cast by one of the priest of Maglubiyet under an invisibility spell. The zone was litteraly peppered with arrows as soon as the priest became visible. The group almost died. The only survivor being the wizard still under the armor spell, was up to stand guard and got a high enough initiative to not be able to take a reaction. He used dimension door to flee and almost got killed a few times before finally be able to loose his pursuers in the forest. When he came back, his friends had been animated as zombies with a message in common written on post one of the zombies was holding: "This is what will happen to all trespassers! Be warned that attacking hobgoblins brings woe to those who defy our rule!"

After a few other event like this one, they understood that resting all the time was not necessarily a good thing. Tiny Hut is not the "ultimate" resting spell many believe it to be.

I did similar. A few times. I got yelled at and players quit. They didn't learn anything. I did. I learned to not run 5E.

 

[iserith]

Then we must define challenging differently. Because the long rest RAW and Leomund's Tiny Hut prevents the game from being challenging. Which is why I house ruled both. For me, challenging is risk of character death which forces the players to actually think things through and plan and use their resources wisely rather than blindly charge into every fight and burning every resource possible to make every fight a steamroll. RAW long rests and LTH utterly remove that risk except for edge cases. My players did basically the same thing every time. Get into one fight, find a place they can secure for 11 minutes, ritual cast LTH, take a long rest in perfect safety, lather rinse repeat. Whatever timers I put in they ignored. Whatever enemies I put at the door when the LTH ends, they complained and quit. Anything I did to break that pattern, they complained and quit. House ruled long rests, players complained and quit. Banned LTH, players complained and quit. Every version of "hey, could you not" was met with "it's legally allowed as per RAW, so LOL." So I house ruled...players complained and quit.

The players I've had in 5E do not want challenge. They want LOL easy mode. I'm not interested in that. I make that known. The players seem to not grok that and agree to play anyway...then cheese everything they can. This is not my experience with one group of 4-5 players. It's my experience with literally every single 5E group I've played or run with in the last decade. I've burned through well north of 200 players in total trying to find one that doesn't want to cheese everything and just LOL win all the time. Still haven't found a single one. Statistically insignificant compared to the whole community, granted, but not insignificant to me. My recently ended West Marches game had, at its peak, 37 players. Every. Single. Player. Cheesed every single thing they could to make the game as non-challenging as possible. Anything I did to prevent cheese was met with complaints and rage quits.

I did similar. A few times. I got yelled at and players quit. They didn't learn anything. I did. I learned to not run 5E.

This looks like a mismatch in play expectations to me and isn't really an issue with the game's rules itself. (I bet there's more to that tale as well, particularly if we asked some of those 200 players what was going on.) It's not clear to me by your description of your experience whether you're also using the rule that you can only long rest every 24 hours. What are these characters doing with the rest of this time? Just popping more huts and waiting it out? If so, what is the cost for doing that? What is the risk?

I would also fully expect players to try to get every legal advantage they can when playing a game of any kind. So I'm not sure what you mean by "cheese" here exactly. Making good, legal choices that work reduces the difficulty of the challenge. That's why they are good choices. If the way the game is being presented and ran means that certain choices are the best choices in that context, then I see no issue with players making that choice. In games that I run, Leomund's tiny hut is a good choice, if you have it available, but it comes with risks, trade-offs, and costs. Sometimes it'll be the best obvious choice. Other times it's more complicated than that.

 

[overgeeked]

This looks like a mismatch in play expectations to me and isn't really an issue with the game's rules itself.

A thing I've noticed with fans of something is that every criticism is met with excuses as to why the thing itself isn't a problem. The RAW of 5E prevent me from running the game the way I enjoy. So I house rule the game into something I do enjoy, i.e. a game of actual challenges and risks. None of the players I've met who want to play 5E actually enjoy being challenged in any way or taking risks of any kind.

It's not clear to me by your description of your experience whether you're also using the rule that you can only long rest every 24 hours.

Yes, I did.

What are these characters doing with the rest of this time? Just popping more huts and waiting it out? If so, what is the cost for doing that? What is the risk?

Infinite huts. Nothing short of dispel magic or similar works to prevent them just bunkering up and waiting. They'd rather optimize the fun out of the game than take the slightest risk. The costs generally were the bad guys digging in more, sending more forces against the group for when the hut finally drops, and the world marching ahead in time...so things like sacrificed NPCs, dead townsfolk, beloved NPCs being killed...none of it mattered. They didn't care. They'd rather the world burn than their characters take any risks. I had one player rage quit over taking one (1) point of damage. Their characters had to be perfectly safe and never take any risks or they'd infinitely turtle. There were no risks because they refused to take any.

I would also fully expect players to try to get every legal advantage they can when playing a game of any kind.

I expect players to be fun and engaging, not boring. I find rules lawyering and optimization to be the pinnacle of boring.

So I'm not sure what you mean by "cheese" here exactly.

Well...

Making good, legal choices that work reduces the difficulty of the challenge. That's why they are good choices. If the way the game is being presented and ran means that certain choices are the best choices in that context, then I see no issue with players making that choice.

That's one good definition of cheese. Using the letter of the rules to defeat the spirit of the rules is another good definition of cheese. It's an action-adventure fantasy game of daring adventurers risking life and limb to explore a hostile and dangerous world, delve dank and dark dungeons in search of treasure hoards, and save some people. You know be all heroic and stuff. Any version of "but the rule on page 25 says I don't have to ever take any risks at all" is cheese. Play the spirit of the genre and world, not the letter of the rules.

 

[iserith]

A thing I've noticed with fans of something is that every criticism is met with excuses as to why the thing itself isn't a problem. The RAW of 5E prevent me from running the game the way I enjoy. So I house rule the game into something I do enjoy, i.e. a game of actual challenges and risks. None of the players I've met who want to play 5E actually enjoy being challenged in any way or taking risks of any kind.

I have plenty of criticisms of D&D 5e. Long rests and Leomund's tiny hut isn't one of them. There's nothing wrong with house ruling either. I add optional rules or make house rules to suit the kind of games I want to run, too.

Infinite huts. Nothing short of dispel magic or similar works to prevent them just bunkering up and waiting. They'd rather optimize the fun out of the game than take the slightest risk. The costs generally were the bad guys digging in more, sending more forces against the group for when the hut finally drops, and the world marching ahead in time...so things like sacrificed NPCs, dead townsfolk, beloved NPCs being killed...none of it mattered. They didn't care. They'd rather the world burn than their characters take any risks. I had one player rage quit over taking one (1) point of damage. Their characters had to be perfectly safe and never take any risks or they'd infinitely turtle. There were no risks because they refused to take any.

Again it sounds like a mismatch in expectations more than anything. It also sounds to me like something else was going on, particularly if the DM is the only common element in all of these groups of 200 players. I mean, at a certain point, one has to look to themselves and ask if they are the ones who are the issue.

I expect players to be fun and engaging, not boring. I find rules lawyering and optimization to be the pinnacle of boring.

That's all in how you do it in my experience. Making good decisions in context is something to be lauded in my view. I would expect anyone interested in succeeding to make good decisions.

That's one good definition of cheese. Using the letter of the rules to defeat the spirit of the rules is another good definition of cheese. It's an action-adventure fantasy game of daring adventurers risking life and limb to explore a hostile and dangerous world, delve dank and dark dungeons in search of treasure hoards, and save some people. You know be all heroic and stuff. Any version of "but the rule on page 25 says I don't have to ever take any risks at all" is cheese. Play the spirit of the genre and world, not the letter of the rules.

I don't think PCs need necessarily be heroic, but the goals of play are for everyone to have fun and for an exciting, memorable story to be created. What that looks like exactly is going to vary by the group. For some, avoiding even a single point of damage is what is fun, exciting, and memorable. For others it will look like a boring time. Again, this is a mismatch of expectations, not a problem with the game itself.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Where does D&D make this mission statement that everything has to be maximum challenge and the other players shouldn't be able to reduce it with the tools the game gave them?

In fact, the encounter guidelines seem to paint the 'Deadly' level of encounters as not the primary expectation.

 

[overgeeked]

I have plenty of criticisms of D&D 5e. Long rests and Leomund's tiny hut isn't one of them.

It is for me. It's a simple enough house rule to ban the spell and fix long rests. But according to my players you'd think I lit their houses on fire.

There's nothing wrong with house ruling either. I add optional rules or make house rules to suit the kind of games I want to run, too.

My players disagree. They love anything that makes the game less challenging and hate anything that makes the game more challenging.

Again it sounds like a mismatch in expectations more than anything. It also sounds to me like something else was going on, particularly if the DM is the only common element in all of these groups of 200 players. I mean, at a certain point, one has to look to themselves and ask if they are the ones who are the issue.

Yes, I expect the game to be challenging, the players don't want a challenge, therefore I'm the problem.

That's all in how you do it in my experience. Making good decisions in context is something to be lauded in my view. I would expect anyone interested in succeeding to make good decisions.

Good decisions is the characters making good decisions in the game fiction, not the player cheesing the rules to drain the game of any and all risks.

I don't think PCs need necessarily be heroic, but the goals of play are for everyone to have fun and for an exciting, memorable story to be created.

Exactly. And that's not possible with cowardly PCs or players who cannot accept their characters facing risks. Memorable stories come from overcoming obstacles and persevering in the face of adversity...not hiding from obstacles, ignoring challenges, and complaining about adversity.

 

[tetrasodium]

Then we must define challenging differently. Because the long rest RAW and Leomund's Tiny Hut prevents the game from being challenging. Which is why I house ruled both. For me, challenging is risk of character death which forces the players to actually think things through and plan and use their resources wisely rather than blindly charge into every fight and burning every resource possible to make every fight a steamroll. RAW long rests and LTH utterly remove that risk except for edge cases. My players did basically the same thing every time. Get into one fight, find a place they can secure for 11 minutes, ritual cast LTH, take a long rest in perfect safety, lather rinse repeat. Whatever timers I put in they ignored. Whatever enemies I put at the door when the LTH ends, they complained and quit. Anything I did to break that pattern, they complained and quit. House ruled long rests, players complained and quit. Banned LTH, players complained and quit. Every version of "hey, could you not" was met with "it's legally allowed as per RAW, so LOL." So I house ruled...players complained and quit.

The players I've had in 5E do not want challenge. They want LOL easy mode. I'm not interested in that. I make that known. The players seem to not grok that and agree to play anyway...then cheese everything they can. This is not my experience with one group of 4-5 players. It's my experience with literally every single 5E group I've played or run with in the last decade. I've burned through well north of 200 players in total trying to find one that doesn't want to cheese everything and just LOL win all the time. Still haven't found a single one. Statistically insignificant compared to the whole community, granted, but not insignificant to me. My recently ended West Marches game had, at its peak, 37 players. Every. Single. Player. Cheesed every single thing they could to make the game as non-challenging as possible. Anything I did to prevent cheese was met with complaints and rage quits.

I did similar. A few times. I got yelled at and players quit. They didn't learn anything. I did. I learned to not run 5E.

IMO I think getting rid of the stilted slot recovery* also did a lot to ensure a successful rest. When different classes needed to rest for the night & spend a particular period recovering spells it left the group at risk of the rest being interrupted with PCs. The risk of interruption even by low CR monsters was a serious thing since one or more classes not being able to just smash or even help fight a low CR threat. The fact that the badguys the PCs were hunting could wait & deliberately target the players when they were doing that critical thing for an hour made resting in hostile territory that much more dicey.

Going further, the problem is absolutely not a "a mismatch in play expectation" I limit long rests with the 5e approved rulings not rules "it's just too dangerous" by fiat & the kind of "up your GM skillz ya n00b" consequences people have suggested in this & other threads whenever the problem of 5e's encouraged 5mwd comes up and the result is that those players take short rest classes like warlock & monk who dump all of their resources in a fight then start demanding a short rest so they can repeat it in the next fight. Even if a long rest is interrupted beyond the first hour the monk & warlock have full ki/pact slots to nova through the interruption & will have them back by the time the long rest classes have recovered.

* back in the past wizards needed a good/restful night of sleep then hour (or more) of study while clerics needed to pay for an hour at a particular time & sorcerers just needed new day (maybe paladin/ranger too & I forget druid)

 

[Helldritch]

Then we must define challenging differently. Because the long rest RAW and Leomund's Tiny Hut prevents the game from being challenging. Which is why I house ruled both. For me, challenging is risk of character death which forces the players to actually think things through and plan and use their resources wisely rather than blindly charge into every fight and burning every resource possible to make every fight a steamroll. RAW long rests and LTH utterly remove that risk except for edge cases. My players did basically the same thing every time. Get into one fight, find a place they can secure for 11 minutes, ritual cast LTH, take a long rest in perfect safety, lather rinse repeat. Whatever timers I put in they ignored. Whatever enemies I put at the door when the LTH ends, they complained and quit. Anything I did to break that pattern, they complained and quit. House ruled long rests, players complained and quit. Banned LTH, players complained and quit. Every version of "hey, could you not" was met with "it's legally allowed as per RAW, so LOL." So I house ruled...players complained and quit.

The players I've had in 5E do not want challenge. They want LOL easy mode. I'm not interested in that. I make that known. The players seem to not grok that and agree to play anyway...then cheese everything they can. This is not my experience with one group of 4-5 players. It's my experience with literally every single 5E group I've played or run with in the last decade. I've burned through well north of 200 players in total trying to find one that doesn't want to cheese everything and just LOL win all the time. Still haven't found a single one. Statistically insignificant compared to the whole community, granted, but not insignificant to me. My recently ended West Marches game had, at its peak, 37 players. Every. Single. Player. Cheesed every single thing they could to make the game as non-challenging as possible. Anything I did to prevent cheese was met with complaints and rage quits.

J
Really? Mass rage quits because they could not think things through? IMHO you are better off without them. I never had such rage quits since high school.

I did similar. A few times. I got yelled at and players quit. They didn't learn anything. I did. I learned to not run 5E.

I do not know what to say other than the above. I warned every single players that there is no perfect solutions for any problems. If a player has some experience with a DM, I ask this person a bit about how the games were run by their old DMs. Hard mode is not for everyone and for those that want to try, a DM must warn them.

It maybe because I have a very different style than many DMs out here or that players in my area love challenging and deadly adventures. I truly do not know. One thing is for sure, when we do our Friday Night Dungeons we do have a lot of question as to how my games are so roughs (even in exhibit games). I truly run games like the world is alive.

One thing I often do as a cameo outside the game like the old:"Meanwhile" in old stories and movies. Is to describe a scene about the master villain of the current story. If they know the master mind then I describe the scene (but I do not tell the location) and make the villain curse the success of the players or say how they were fools to fail such easy endeavours and so on. It kinda of give a warning of things to comes. I usually use the dream of a priest or diviner or exhalted soul to give such "insights". I find that players like these (even if they're bad clichés). It also reinforce the fact that the world is alive and moves. It also help them understand that their actions have meaning and effects.

When a character dream of shadowy figure that say:" Curse these interlopers! They have set back my plans by months if not years! Come Azrazel! We must plan our next move carefully in (fill in the blank)!" It not only gives the player a warning of what is to come, it also sets them on the hunt. This is the kind of thing that my players and those that come to look at the exhibit games like a lot.