D&D 5E DMs: How do you handle purely combat-focused groups?

[Celebrim]

To the contrary there are video games out there that weave an amazing tale much better than 99% of any DM I have known, seen, or heard of. I find it much easier to get fully immersed in a video game than sitting around a table, or at my computer, talking to Dan and Fred.

I think this is probably the key to your different perspective.

I could count on one hand the number of video games that have had a story as good as what I commonly experience from a PnP game.

It would start with Grim Fandango, Mass Effect 1, and then I don't know where I'd go from there... Planescape: Torment...maybe. Most video game stories leave me absolutely flat and I have a hard time even paying attention to them. Games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights are such lame jokes from a story perspective compared to what a decent DM can offer. I play video games more for the tactical, simulation, and resource management elements which in a PnP game carry such a burden of book keeping as to make them difficult to impossible to pull off at a table.

 

[Celebrim]

Any ideas?

The answer is you give them what they want and hope they diversify their play before you get utterly bored with it.

If a party insists on being uninvolved except through combat, give them mentors that point them in the right directions and a steady diet of combat challenges. Let them try to solve all problems by hitting it with a big stick. For certain definitions of 'works' that strategy sometimes even works, though in the long run you are likely to end up with an evil aligned party just because the party has brute forced its way through all moral dilemmas. In general, parties like this do poorly with adventure path play unless there is an NPC over their shoulder telling them what to do at all times. They can't follow even a linear roadmap, so don't expect them to. Let them start carving a random swath of blood across the world with no more goal than acquiring XP and treasure. Accept that someone else is probably the hero in your world. Your PC's are probably earning a different sort of reputation. The game design you are going for here looks a lot like Diablo III on paper - with big dumb bumbling villains, quest givers that practically have flashing signs over their heads, linear or semi-linear dungeons filled with random hazards, and no story worth talking about.

The real hard part for me isn't feeding the party what it wants, it's maintaining my interest as a GM in the game. At some level the game devolves for me down to opening a page in the monster manual and running a combat, and then rolling up some random treasure. You get the feeling pretty quickly that the entire aspect of being a GM could be handled procedurally by a decent computer program. Since as a GM you aren't really trying to win, because winning means ending the game, there isn't a lot of reward for a GM in this style of game. With some luck you can hook your players into a sandbox and at least get them to care about something, like at least being outlaws on the run from the law.

Play around with the personalities you use for NPC's in the ally or mentor role to see whether their is a personality conflict. You may find you need to swap around your villains and foils and your intended allies and mentors. Ideally you eventually hit upon some characterizations that are emotionally evocative to your players, and this gives you some hooks. However, keep in mind, some players will actively rebel against any hook you throw them, so you have to let them hook themselves.

In short, read 'Knights of the Dinner Table'. You've got one of those parties. Attempts to railroad them into mature play is not going to work. What they want to do is roam around the jungle having nothing but random encounters and collecting loot. Trying to force this to have a cool story is probably going to end up in frustration for everyone. Nonetheless, though BA is always trying to railroad his players, he does over time successfully integrate them into some sort of coherent world by letting them turn their own actions against them and creating their own foils and nemesis.

 

[DaveDash]

I think this is probably the key to your different perspective.

I could count on one hand the number of video games that have had a story as good as what I commonly experience from a PnP game.

It would start with Grim Fandango, Mass Effect 1, and then I don't know where I'd go from there... Planescape: Torment...maybe. Most video game stories leave me absolutely flat and I have a hard time even paying attention to them. Games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights are such lame jokes from a story perspective compared to what a decent DM can offer. I play video games more for the tactical, simulation, and resource management elements which in a PnP game carry such a burden of book keeping as to make them difficult to impossible to pull off at a table.

It's not just the story, it's the immersion factor. I personally find hard to get immersed in a game with Bob sitting across from you snacking on nachos, and I feel stupid role playing in such a scenario. I'd rather play D&D like a exploration sandbox game combined with a tactical war game in that type of scenario.

It's also funny, because our group is pretty anal about resource management in D&D. I've got some pretty serious spreadsheets created up for D&D that track *everything*. Different tastes.

My main point is anyway, that I strongly oppose any in game manipulation to try and get your players to play the way you [generalised] enjoy. Different strokes for different people. Just have a mature out of game chat about it. There isn't any right or wrong way to play D&D. You need to consider that some people just don't enjoy role playing. No amount of spicing up NPCs or forcing their characters to talk will ever change that.

 

[Celebrim]

Different tastes.

Possibly, though all you've convinced me of so far is that Bob isn't very entertaining when he role plays and you still feel embarrassed when you do it.

My main point is anyway, that I strongly oppose any in game manipulation to try and get your players to play the way you [generalised] enjoy.

I oppose any strong armed in game manipulation, but I'm not sure that's the same thing. You have to cozen and seduce people in to playing your game by making it so fun for them that they don't remember they don't like to play this way. But if they aren't having fun, you can't make them have fun and you should shift your tactics.

No amount of spicing up NPCs or forcing their characters to talk will ever change that.

Maybe. Maybe not. But my main point is this; if I'm not having fun, in a couple of sessions I'm going to say, "I hate to say this, because it's been great to have a chance to play,but I've decided to shut down the campaign. I've got a lot of things going at work, and keeping up with this campaign takes a lot of time and I don't think I can keep doing it.", and what I'll be thinking is, "Go find some other poor schlob to abuse." If you staring at Bob eating nachos is boring, chances are its absolutely brutal for the DM. And at some point the tons of spreadsheets tracking income from taverns the rogue owns, trading income from your 30 sailing vessels, and taxes collected from the Paladin's fief gets likewise uninteresting sandbox or not. I mean, I enjoy creating 100 page random encounter tables as much as the next DM, but if I don't get something out of running the game I'm not going to run the game. There is only so long that killer death dungeons without interesting narratives and NPC interaction stays an interesting staple of play, and I got to tell you, that length of time is somewhat less than 30 years.

My feeling is that if you've played more than 20 or 30 sessions of D&D, as a simple point of pride in your skill as a player, you should be able to perform in and enjoy exploration play, tactical skirmish play, role play, mass combat play, investigative play, low drama soap opera stuff, high drama political intrigue, player centric problem solving, character centric problem solving, and so forth. Maybe one you enjoy more than another, and maybe you'd rather the focus of the game be on some and not others, but you ought to be trying to cultivate a taste for and skill at all of them. Beyond simply pride in being a 'good' player, you never know who you are going to start gaming with. The OP seems to have a problem where the game she wants to have is not one that her player's have the skill for. If you are the sort of person who only likes pepperoni pizza, and that's it - never mushrooms, onions, or anchovies - then you can only share a meal with other people who only like pepperoni pizza. If you are someone who sets out to cultivate a taste for every sort of topping, then regardless of what is being served you are going to enjoy it a least a little.

So sure, you don't have to enjoy green peppers as much as me, but if me having green peppers on the pizza makes it inedible for you, I'm not sure I would take pride in that.

 

[DaveDash]

My feeling is that if you've played more than 20 or 30 sessions of D&D, as a simple point of pride in your skill as a player, you should be able to perform in and enjoy exploration play, tactical skirmish play, role play, mass combat play, investigative play, low drama soap opera stuff, high drama political intrigue, player centric problem solving, character centric problem solving, and so forth. Maybe one you enjoy more than another, and maybe you'd rather the focus of the game be on some and not others, but you ought to be trying to cultivate a taste for and skill at all of them. Beyond simply pride in being a 'good' player, you never know who you are going to start gaming with. The OP seems to have a problem where the game she wants to have is not one that her player's have the skill for. If you are the sort of person who only likes pepperoni pizza, and that's it - never mushrooms, onions, or anchovies - then you can only share a meal with other people who only like pepperoni pizza. If you are someone who sets out to cultivate a taste for every sort of topping, then regardless of what is being served you are going to enjoy it a least a little.

So sure, you don't have to enjoy green peppers as much as me, but if me having green peppers on the pizza makes it inedible for you, I'm not sure I would take pride in that.

I've spent most of my D&D time (since the early 90's) doing exactly what you've said. I'm older now and I find role playing uncomfortable and silly. I recently tried to join a role play focused game over Skype/Roll20, and didn't find it enjoyable. .

You just can't argue by saying 'maybe'. No amount of tinkering with the game will make me enjoy role playing. Fact. Just like I will never enjoy anchovies on my pizza no matter what, and no amount of fiddling around with the pizza is going to change that. That's not a matter of skill. It's a matter of taste. There is a good chance these players are the same.

Should players who love hack and slash be banned from playing D&D and regulated to playing Diablo? Absolutely not, but that's the wrong undertone that I've detected in a few posts here.

You need to separate your own frame of reference of what you find enjoyable and be completely neutral about it. And in the OP's case, only an up front discussion with the gaming group will achieve that.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

My main point is anyway, that I strongly oppose any in game manipulation to try and get your players to play the way you [generalised] enjoy. Different strokes for different people. Just have a mature out of game chat about it. There isn't any right or wrong way to play D&D. You need to consider that some people just don't enjoy role playing. No amount of spicing up NPCs or forcing their characters to talk will ever change that.

You're ignoring the point that many folks new to RPGs haven't even tried roleplaying. The in game tactics I and others have mentioned in this thread have the goal of getting them to try them out. If they try them and like them, great. If not, then you're right about not trying to force them to enjoy it. That's the time to kick them to the curb.

 

[Joddy37]

I understand DaveDash to a point. Years of roleplaying made him bored of the same stuff that was being served for him. If you experience similar tavern scenes, similar npc-pc dialogues, similar villains and their dull plots over many campaigns, you also will be bored and look for new stuff.

But what DaveDash tends to miss is this to be not being derived from the roleplaying concept itself, but the DMs and players that he gamed with were not creative enough to try different things or the lack of new and exciting moments on the table. If you are playing your character between a dungeon and tavern and to another dungeon and back to tavern again, yeah it is boring as hell and you will eventually end up ignoring every single npc in town since you are used to them and already know everything about them. But DMs should always strive to create new scenes, new settings, new situations along the way. The world is living and npcs are alive too. Time will change them, they will have different aims, goals, bonds etc. They may be rich and move to a quality place, or go bankrupt and begin to beg on the streets, or even become criminals.

Too many times I have seen DMs that play npcs like static toys, always wearing the same thing, always doing the same job, no change in their lives although years of game time passes by. Yes, these kind of campaigns are boring and there is not much reason to role play in every single session.

In my situation that I described with my posts here, the players were not running away from actual roleplaying. They were ignoring the whole story I was building around the main plot. They thought that when they would find and defeat the bad guys they would have solved the story and win the game. They ignored the town npcs' advices, they ignored the weather conditions, they ignored the danger level of the wilderness, they ignored the power level of the encounters, they even ignored if they had adequate supplies and resources to overcome the obstacles along the way. Ie. careless gaming ignoring every detail and hint which eventually led to a party wipe. Now we are rebuilding a new group, with the same people less the careless guy, and will start a new campaign with new characters that are created by the players themselves with my suggestions and guiding about creating backgrounds, tying themto the setting.

 

[wedgeski]

I understand DaveDash to a point. Years of roleplaying made him bored of the same stuff that was being served for him. If you experience similar tavern scenes, similar npc-pc dialogues, similar villains and their dull plots over many campaigns, you also will be bored and look for new stuff.

But what DaveDash tends to miss is this to be not being derived from the roleplaying concept itself, but the DMs and players that he gamed with were not creative enough to try different things or the lack of new and exciting moments on the table.

[MENTION=6786202]DaveDash[/MENTION] has told you exactly what he likes and doesn't like, and why. Saying, "If only he experienced proper role-playing, he'd change his mind" is not going to change that.

People like different things. The beauty (and curse) of D&D is that it supports all these different styles of play. I say "curse" because it's our habit of projecting what we like and dislike onto other gamers that leads to most of the strife in our community.

 

[Joddy37]

@DaveDash has told you exactly what he likes and doesn't like, and why. Saying, "If only he experienced proper role-playing, he'd change his mind" is not going to change that.

People like different things. The beauty (and curse) of D&D is that it supports all these different styles of play. I say "curse" because it's our habit of projecting what we like and dislike onto other gamers that leads to most of the strife in our community.

Yeah, he told us that he doesn't like to roleplay because he finds it "hard work", and nobody here judged him for thinking that way. Instead I tried to reason with his thinking and wanted other friends here to understand why this may be the case. If a person is finding storytelling and narrating and playing a role "hard work" and playing D&D as a video game, there is very little for us to get any positive contribution from him in this very topic, no?

 

[Sadrik]

I recently begin to experience the dillemma of a DM that ended up with a lot of adventure material and role playing hooks, interesting scenes and colorful NPCs due to a group who are totally ignoring all this stuff and trying to find and kill the bad guys (that means those whoever is evil by race stereotype) and hurry the adventure towards the final goal. Too many times they just blundered into enemies, ran them through, killing nearly all those they captured, hiding behind the dull concept of ''we are good, they are evil, so we kill them''. Until now, because some of them are new to role playing games and coming from MMORPGs, I let them do whatever they like, but changed the development of the scenario according to the results of their actions. These results mostly include the bad guys changing tactics, relocating, scheming different plots, NPCs acting differently and following new agendas etc.. But although I worked hard to steer the PCs to a more exploration-interaction oriented play, they just dismmised my hints and advices, continuing the same stuff of doing things with the blade. Until now they were very lucky in the combat scenes, noone died because of their carelessness, they have abundant healing abilities (which I find way too much in this edition). But they were very slow to progress through the adventure (it is the Starter Set), since they were unable to get enough information from any source. Now I wonder, what can be done to make them see that there is a whole different part of the game, to make them think combat is not the only way to solve issues? Any ideas?

Did not read the thread but, for me this gets into the railroad vs. sandbox dichotomy. They want to be railroaded into a long line of villains to beat. Provide some baddies for them to go after. At the same time, get them to bite off more than they can chew. Give them some hard decisions, go after the dragon hoard or go after the castle of cultists.

To me it sounds like you want a little more sandbox play than this group is able to handle. Another possibility for you is to provide no immediate threats but only threats that they have to work towards. There are no bad guys in town. They have to do a little exploring to get there and fight.