D&D General What are the “boring bits” to you?

[cranberry]

"Nobody important? Blimey, that's amazing. You know that in nine hundred years of time and space and I've never met anybody who wasn't important." - The Doctor

You realize that we're talking about NPCs, not real people, right?

 

[Lanefan]

Long combats with lots of enemies are boring. I’m not throwing 50 zombies at a 5th level party. I’m throwing a more powerful undead

Once in a while I'll throw a horde of mooks at a powerful party just so they can get in a bit of good old-fashioned curb-stompin'.

And of course, whenever I do this something goes horribly wrong either due to back player-side luck or dumb player-side decisions, thus turning a cakewalk into a serious headache for them...

 

[Vaalingrade]

Oh god, non-tactical combat.

"I swing my sword. I swing my sword again. Done."

Ugh.

 

[overgeeked]

Largely agreed, other than at very low level where every copper piece matters, as long as players remember to knock off those few g.p. when in town. My own trick is whenever a treasury share gets finalized I round it down a bit* for my character(s), with the rounded-off bit going to minor supplies, inn fees, beer and ale, and so forth.

* - for example, if my share comes to 5235 g.p. I'll write 5200 on my character's finances page. with the leftover 35 assumed to be burned up in resupplying myself with trivialities like bowstrings, rations, arrows, etc.

The key point to remember, for both DMs and players, is that even though many if not all of those seemingly minor interactions with shopkeepers, tavern staff, and so on get hand-waved, every one of them is an opportunity for either PC-side info gathering or DM-side info dissemination.

Exactly. I think we agreed as a table to cut 5-10% off the top of all incoming treasure so we could collectively handwave all the upkeep, rations, ammo, etc.

If the outcome is predictable even before the combat starts, it's likely to be dull no matter what amount of time the battle takes.

Absolutely. That's why I vastly prefer old-school combat. It's something dangerous that could go either way unless you drastically put things in your favor, and once you do...there's no point actually rolling. Win the fight before the dice are rolled. Mindlessly charging in and always winning is the epitome of boring to me.

 

[Lanefan]

You realize that we're talking about NPCs, not real people, right?

NPCs should IMO be every bit as "real" as the PCs.

 

[overgeeked]

And IMHO, anyone who GM's a pure sandbox campaign like you're suggesting, has a lot more time on their hands than I do...

Or they know how to improv really well.

 

[cranberry]

NPCs should IMO be every bit as "real" as the PCs.

But neither are as real as the players.

 

[wicked cool]

Once in a while I'll throw a horde of mooks at a powerful party just so they can get in a bit of good old-fashioned curb-stompin'.

And of course, whenever I do this something goes horribly wrong either due to back player-side luck or dumb player-side decisions, thus turning a cakewalk into a serious headache for them...

I wish hordes were treated as 1 enemy like smaller swarms

A horde of zombies could be walking dead dangerous
Instead of each zombie rolling +2 if there’s 5 zombies for every 1 party member than they roll +4 etc and damage is 3-6 instead

I ran 8 ash zombies recently and was expecting more


I want to add coin currency exchange rates as boring. Simplify currency or add more banks lol

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Spending 10 minutes talking to the NPC you're buying boots from is one thing, spending two hours talking to that NPC is something else...

If the players love their cobbler that much, then clearly I have underestimated how well I played him or her, and should be thinking about what else I can do with this NPC. That's straight up free player investment for zero effort on my part. Why would I turn down the opportunity to draw my players in with something they already love?

Ahem, no, I don't railroad. But are you seriously OK with the PCs going off and doing whatever? Really?...

Yes. I have told my players as much. If they wanted to straight up leave behind the whole world their characters have known and go to some other continent, they have the freedom to go so. If I have prepared a slate of various things, and my players genuinely look at all of it and say, "Meh, that's not very interesting, we want to do this instead," that's not a fault on their part, but on mine. It means I failed them as a DM, and I need to work to fix that failure.

Fortunately, my players actually do enjoy what things I have prepared and how those things evolve as a result of play, or how new things enter into play without any prior intent. I have no need to go back to the drawing board and wonder how I got things so wrong.

And IMHO, anyone who GM's a pure sandbox campaign like you're suggesting, has a lot more time on their hands than I do...

I don't run a pure sandbox. I just respect my players' autonomy. That is a check on me as DM. It makes sure that I actually put out content worthy of my players' attention and investment.

Absolutely. That's why I vastly prefer old-school combat. It's something dangerous that could go either way unless you drastically put things in your favor, and once you do...there's no point actually rolling. Win the fight before the dice are rolled. Mindlessly charging in and always winning is the epitome of boring to me.

How odd. My experience of old-school combat has been precisely the opposite. Well, almost. Either you mindlessly charge in and win, or you mindlessly charge in and lots of PCs die. And that very thing you speak of, "win the fight before the dice are rolled," is incredibly boring. Because it means there was never any challenge in the first place. There was never actually a threat at all, just a bookkeeping effort, no different from the logistics you mentioned in the part I snipped out.

It is only in an actually tactical environment, where the choice you make this round, this turn, affects the state of play considerably, that there is actually a possibility of gameplay worthy of paying attention. "You rolled poorly, congrats you're dead" is just as boring as "you win because of course you win." Moreso, really, since at least with the latter there's the possibility you could still run into things you can't beat. There's no possibility of running into anything once a character is dead. They have ended, and everything that matters about them has ended as well.

Mega lethality jumps the guaranteed results from one to an astounding...two. Not really my idea of depth. Doubly so when 90% of the time your actions in combat boil down to "hit thing," "run away," or "do painfully obvious environmental thing (that you'll probably fail at anyway)."

 

[overgeeked]

I wish hordes were treated as 1 enemy like smaller swarms

A horde of zombies could be walking dead dangerous

Instead of each zombie rolling +2 if there’s 5 zombies for every 1 party member than they roll +4 etc and damage is 3-6 instead

I ran 8 ash zombies recently and was expecting more

You can easily do that. Build or find a bigger monster stat block and modify it to taste. Doctors & Daleks has a great system for doing just that. Check out 5E MM on a Business Card or Forge of Foes for a generic starting point for a stat block and go from there.

I want to add coin currency exchange rates as boring. Simplify currency or add more banks lol

Just before I quit running 5E, I switched to gems. Everything was gems. I just gave them a coin value and they added it to their tally. They were free to say it was any kind of gem, any denomination, whatever they wanted, except not as spell components. They had to specifically track those down.