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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9597802" data-attributes="member: 18">I think part of it is just what's reasonable within the story. One thing I've found can help is to play monsters as dumb tactically as some players play. Like, many players often overextend or make basic tactical errors in my experience (even if their character is smarter than that). If they're rolling decent/balanced, you can punish that or whatever, but if the PCs are rolling poorly or terribly etc., you can have the monsters do similar dumb stuff, and frankly, I've read so much military history, and listened to so many military history podcasts, I cannot possibly see that as much of a &quot;thumb on the scale&quot;. People/armies who should know better constantly make vast and sometimes hard to explain tactical errors (particularly where arrogance or overconfidence gets involved, or just really dumb doctrine).So if the monsters are winning a fight I think it's quite reasonable to have them make choices which are... less than tactically ideal and easy to punish, particularly overextending backliners, getting easily flanked, or the like.In fact, if I always play the monsters as as tactically reasonable as I am, that would be a huge thumb on the scale in favour of the monsters, because one thing I've come to realize is that, if a certain player is missing from my main group, oh boy the group is not good at tactics without her. She really is the only one in the group who has a strong, instinctive grasp on tactics (perhaps from having played tactics videogames since she was like 8). We've played some skirmish wargames between sessions when not enough people could turn up, and I still haven't lost at all, which is helping illustrate the gulf of tactical acumen (and I don't consider myself &quot;good&quot; at tactics).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 9597802, member: 18"] I think part of it is just what's reasonable within the story. One thing I've found can help is to play monsters as dumb tactically as some players play. Like, many players often overextend or make basic tactical errors in my experience (even if their character is smarter than that). If they're rolling decent/balanced, you can punish that or whatever, but if the PCs are rolling poorly or terribly etc., you can have the monsters do similar dumb stuff, and frankly, I've read so much military history, and listened to so many military history podcasts, I cannot possibly see that as much of a "thumb on the scale". People/armies who should know better constantly make vast and sometimes hard to explain tactical errors (particularly where arrogance or overconfidence gets involved, or just really dumb doctrine). So if the monsters are winning a fight I think it's quite reasonable to have them make choices which are... less than tactically ideal and easy to punish, particularly overextending backliners, getting easily flanked, or the like. In fact, if I always play the monsters as as tactically reasonable as I am, that would be a huge thumb on the scale in favour of the monsters, because one thing I've come to realize is that, if a certain player is missing from my main group, oh boy the group is not good at tactics without her. She really is the only one in the group who has a strong, instinctive grasp on tactics (perhaps from having played tactics videogames since she was like 8). We've played some skirmish wargames between sessions when not enough people could turn up, and I still haven't lost at all, which is helping illustrate the gulf of tactical acumen (and I don't consider myself "good" at tactics). [/QUOTE]

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