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

[Vaalingrade]

But neither are as real as the players.

But you play a role that believes they are.

 

[Malmuria]

Rules adjudication and look up. Figuring out what the rules allow for, looking and parsing rules explanations, etc.

 

[Lanefan]

Except that I dislike swingy combat and frequent character death at least as much as I dislike overly-short rounds, so that path leads to no better results I'm afraid.

And there's a reason I spoke of flowcharts rather than predictability per se. That is, a flowchart is about determining what I (or any particular player) should do on any given turn, not a perfect map of each combat. The combats will change, but if the system is too simple, it becomes trivial to set up a decision procedure that automates combat decision-making.

This kind of assumes two things:
--- that you and each other player will consistently do what they "should" do on each turn (IME rarely if ever the case); and
--- that the GM isn't varying the terrain, enemy tactics, etc. enough from one combat to the next.

At which point, "strategy" has ceased to exist; it is mere tic-tac-toe/noughts-and-crosses writ large. My experience of both Labyrinth Lord and Dungeon World combat (as a player) was in this vein. It's why I always work to make my DW combats interesting in ways that break such SOP/flowchart stuff, set pieces or complications rather than the painfully dull drudgery of Yet Another Goddamn Kobold Fight.

Thing is, in reality after a few battles most parties would likely come up with a series of SOPs quite quickly, much like a basketball team's set plays.

The answer to this is to have chaotic players at the table playing chaotic characters who don't follow orders or scripts and who are going to do their own thing - whatever it might be, probably different every time - in any combat that arises. And if you ain't got such players, become one yourself.

I guess more simply put, I don't know how any given combat will play out in OSR-like/ultralight gameplay. But I can set up a procedure that, with a handful of yes/no questions, can pick either the optimal action, or a near-optimal action, in the vast majority of cases. It may end up that the optimal choice is to run, if a fight goes unexpectedly poorly. It may be that the optimal choice is to stab the balrog, if a scary fight goes shockingly well.

Again, you seem to be focusing only on the optimal choice. What about the fun-risky-entertaining choice that maybe isn't so optimal?

Put another way, instead of thinking "what does the flowchart tell me to do now?", think "what can I do here that nobody will expect but that also (hopefully) won't lose us this fight?" And then when something comes to you, just do it. Don't ask anyone if it's a good idea, never ask permission - just effing do it and let the chips fall where they may.

Front-liner #1: "Where'd Jocasta go?"
Front-liner #2: "Dunno - she was right behind me a minute ago as my backup."
Front-liner #3: "There she is! She must have found a way to sneak around behind them! She's got their caster down - and crap, she's about to get swarmed....."

In this instance, I'd probably be Jocasta's player.

But the actual involvement of my brain in the process of deciding what to do is damn near zero. When I don't have to use my brain as part of play, I get bored. Roleplay uses lots of my brain, because I'm having to keep in the headspace of someone who isn't me. Combat doesn't have that element, generally speaking, so it needs to provide something else to keep my brain engaged or I get bored.

That's what I'm proposing: thinking outside the flowchart is what keeps the brain engaged; and if an unexpected action doesn't present itself in this combat, it will some other time.

Another thing I've seen done, and rather hilariously, is the players keep their in-character conversations going right through the combat, even if the topic has nothing to do with anything. Yelling across the battlefield about who's going to win the village horse race next week, for example. Never mind that if the enemy can understand you they'll wonder what the hell code you're using...

 

[overgeeked]

The answer to this is to have chaotic players at the table playing chaotic characters who don't follow orders or scripts and who are going to do their own thing - whatever it might be, probably different every time - in any combat that arises. And if you ain't got such players, become one yourself.

Again, you seem to be focusing only on the optimal choice. What about the fun-risky-entertaining choice that maybe isn't so optimal?

I feel seen.

That's what I'm proposing: thinking outside the flowchart is what keeps the brain engaged; and if an unexpected action doesn't present itself in this combat, it will some other time.

Or you're not trying hard enough.

 

[Lanefan]

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?

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.

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.

Agreed in principle up to here.

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.

"Win the fight before the dice are rolled" simply moves the interesting bit from the combat itself to the planning and strategizing piece beforehand - in theory, anyway. And if face-charging those foes means you'll probably die but good strategizing means you'll very likely live, I'd call that overcoming a challenge rather than saying there wasn't a challenge in the first place.

That said, if their planning and strategizing takes half the night I might end up snoring behind my DM screen. And yet as a player this sort of thing can be fun, if it isn't overdone.

 

[Oofta]

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
...

So basically using the mob rules from the DMG that nobody reads.

 

[Rystefn]

PCs engaging in the setting and roleplaying in the world is great, you just need to bring the adventure to their business.

Hard pass. If I signed up to play Dungeons and Dragons, I have zero patience for someone trying to play Boutiques and Bookbinders. If you want to retire and start a cute little B&B, then your character is an NPC now.

People can roleplay and engage with the setting by going on adventures. Signing up for a fantasy adventure game and then trying to avoid adventures is literally the same thing as making a character who refuses to work with the rest of the party and tries to wander off alone all the time, and it should be treated the same way, not called "good roleplaying." Well, no. I take that back. the person going off solo might actually do something interesting at point.

 

[GrimCo]

To add couple of more boring bits.

Tracking mundane stuff, logistics in general. In our group we dropped tracking weight, carry capacity and mundane items like rations and ammunition and such. One of the first party investments in campaign is solid carriage. Sometimes it's painted yellow with "Troller independent trading Co" sign. We just set aside piece of loot for living expenses and call it a day. Under equipment it's usually just - adventuring pack.

Stronghold and domain management - it's just boring. Let's be honest. Once you get some land and castle, you are retired as an adventurer. Being feudal lord is full time job. Already have corporate management job IRL, don't need one in game. I like political intrigue games, but then i use system that is catered to that kind of game, like Houses of the Bloodied or VtM.

Although i generally like sandboxes, with limited game time, i find it quite frustrating sometimes since lot of time is spent on planning what to do next. Too much freedom sometimes leads to choice paralysis.

Also, lore dumps via NPC interactions. No offense to my DMs, they are great guys, but dude, i'll forget most of it by the next session. Same goes for long inter PC role play interactions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hard pass. If I signed up to play Dungeons and Dragons, I have zero patience for someone trying to play Boutiques and Bookbinders. If you want to retire and start a cute little B&B, then your character is an NPC now.

People can roleplay and engage with the setting by going on adventures. Signing up for a fantasy adventure game and then trying to avoid adventures is literally the same thing as making a character who refuses to work with the rest of the party and tries to wander off alone all the time, and it should be treated the same way, not called "good roleplaying." Well, no. I take that back. the person going off solo might actually do something interesting at point.

I hope you make your views on this clear in every game you participate in, because there are people who enjoy the parts of the game (and yes, they still are part of the game) where the PCs aren't actively "on duty in the field".

 

[Micah Sweet]

To add couple of more boring bits.

Tracking mundane stuff, logistics in general. In our group we dropped tracking weight, carry capacity and mundane items like rations and ammunition and such. One of the first party investments in campaign is solid carriage. Sometimes it's painted yellow with "Troller independent trading Co" sign. We just set aside piece of loot for living expenses and call it a day. Under equipment it's usually just - adventuring pack.

Stronghold and domain management - it's just boring. Let's be honest. Once you get some land and castle, you are retired as an adventurer. Being feudal lord is full time job. Already have corporate management job IRL, don't need one in game. I like political intrigue games, but then i use system that is catered to that kind of game, like Houses of the Bloodied or VtM.

Although i generally like sandboxes, with limited game time, i find it quite frustrating sometimes since lot of time is spent on planning what to do next. Too much freedom sometimes leads to choice paralysis.

Also, lore dumps via NPC interactions. No offense to my DMs, they are great guys, but dude, i'll forget most of it by the next session. Same goes for long inter PC role play interactions.

I thoroughly enjoy every one of the things you mentioned, and object strenuously to your subjective opinion of them. What you want doesn't sound like a fun, meaningful RPG experience in a verisimilitudinous imaginary world to me, and that's what I want.