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I think we are actually in agreement. I believe that the DM should never have the outcome of a conflict pre-ordained. However, if the DM is deadset on ignoring this advice, please don't make me play through the script. Just tell me the outcome and we can start playing at a point where my...

This is excellent advice. Several of my players would much rather be dead than captured. For them being defeated but not killed is far more insulting than being defeated and killed. Second point: I think you should make it thoroughly clear that you did not plan on their capture. Further, talk...

Whacking things on the head is often the most obvious solution when you are just starting out. This is particularly true when almost everything on you character sheet is related to combat. However, once the players get fully invested in the story you are telling together, I suspect you will...

This is a hard lesson to learn, particularly if you are a writer. The DM should present situations but not solutions. Have a good idea what will happen storywise if the characters don't intervene, but be fully expect the characters to intervene and wreck the villains plans in ways you can't...

This is great advice. I had a long post prepared, but Hussar said it better. So, I will just post my main point. While I do not know the players that are described in the original post, it sounds to me that the primary problem is the hogging of screen time by the warlock (leading to boredom in...

As long as we are getting all sciency . . . As long as both the dwarves and basalisks maintain their heads at a vertical angle all would be well. The first bloke who tips his head to the side will become a large load of rock. True, but clear lenses that still block 50% of the incoming...

While I fully recognize that this is a common viewpoint that it often goes along with the race to the ability cap (spend every ASI on the primary stat until 20 is reached), I have never understood the thinking. If my fighter has a 16 STR and yours has a 20 STR, there is a "measly" +2 difference...

Considering the length of this thread, I apologize if someone has already mentioned this. If you truly want no one to be able to predict the upcoming turn order, I suggest ditching the dice. Make up a deck of cards with one card for each combatant. After a combatant has finished a turn, the DM...

I suspect I wasn't very clear. When we play with a grid, combat comes to a grinding halt because the players spend so much time figuring out exactly how they move. When we play without a grid, everybody just eyeballs it and combat proceeds much more quickly. My point was that this is an...

I think this depends a lot on the players at the table. My table runs far faster without a grid. For simple combats, we go full theater of the mind. However, for large or complicated conflicts, I use a big white board to provide a rough sketch or map. We use magnets to give a general indication...

Our group has a gab session before we start playing for this very reason. Everyone wants to chat since they haven't seen each other for two weeks. I only start the game once the initial flurry of conversation has started to wane.

There is no villain players hate more than the one that got away. I once had a recurring foe whose modus operandi was to run like hell once the PCs showed up. After the third time he managed to "flee vengeance", the players so thoroughly hated him that they all conveniently forgot that he had...

Usually, there is a point in any combat where it becomes apparent (to me at least) that even if the enemy wins, the victory will be pyrrhic. At that point, I will either just have the enemy run for it or if I am uncertain if the enemy would realize the state they are in, I have the enemy make an...

This is exactly how I approach the issue. The table decides the character's fate, with of course the player and the DM (me) having a bit more say. This has led to far more satisfying outcomes than just death. Often the players decide that death is appropriate but then add an interesting twist...

If the "whack-a-mole" syndrome is truly the dominate reason you are considering lingering injuries, a simpler solution is to not allow low-level healing magic to return players to consciousness. Perhaps, a short or long rest is required to regain consciousness once a character has healed above...

Yes. All human PCs. In fact, I have also turned all the nonhuman NPCs into humans. The dusk elves are a human clan that has been cursed (by Strahd) with sterility and the inability to age and die.

I did something similar and it worked well. In my case, I used the Death House to link Barovia to the real world. The characters were from the historical mid 1800s. They all separately received a letter from a barrister in Brasov Transylvania claiming that they had inherited the Durst estate...

Normally, I use milestone leveling. But, as this was the first campaign that I ran using the 5th edition ruleset, I awarded XP per encounter to get a feel for the new rules. As you suggested in the quoted text, I gave full XP for encounters avoided or circumvented. I also gave goal completion...

Yup. Succinctly put.

When I ran this adventure for my group (5 players), I found that the XP rewards were generally insufficient to advance the level of the PCs at the rate the adventure assumes. In the early parts of the adventure this wasn't too much of an issue, but by the middle to end portions I had to start...