Encounter ideas

[Glomb175]

Maybe the goblins are even yelling insults with high pitched voices, and keeping score every time they manage to hit somebody. This can inject a bit of humor into this encounter. The goblins might be cheering each other on, and rejoicing each succesful hit. Maybe they have individual names, and an obvious leader. Killing the leader could dramatically affect their morale, allowing the players to drive them off with an intimidate check.

All great tips I'll research the hide action as I'm not 100% on the mechanics.

Just for reference: the party were woken up during a long rest in the wilderness in the middle of the night by (what appeared to be) their ally from the nearby town warning them of imminent danger and demanding them to follow him (tbh I really expected them to do an insight check here but not one of them thought it was at all odd) they followed him through the forest but eventually lost him as they entered the cleaning, then the goblins came out from all around as the "ally" reappeared and shape shifted into they recurring enemy, a female drow (actually a doppelganger).

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[Sacrosanct]

All great tips I'll research the hide action as I'm not 100% on the mechanics.

Just for reference: the party were woken up during a long rest in the wilderness in the middle of the night by (what appeared to be) their ally from the nearby town warning them of imminent danger and demanding them to follow him (tbh I really expected them to do an insight check here but not one of them thought it was at all odd) they followed him through the forest but eventually lost him as they entered the cleaning, then the goblins came out from all around as the "ally" reappeared and shape shifted into they recurring enemy, a female drow (actually a doppelganger).

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Ah. Keep in mind not all checks have to be declared by the players. Especially something like insight, which inherently relies on intuition rather than something you decide to do. I would have had all PCs made an insight check. And to not tip the players off something is going on, what I do is make every player make about 5 d20 rolls when the sessions starts. Pre-rolls if you will. That way, when I need them to make a check without them knowing they are making it, I go down the preroll list and see if it is a success or failure.

 

[Glomb175]

Ah. Keep in mind not all checks have to be declared by the players. Especially something like insight, which inherently relies on intuition rather than something you decide to do. I would have had all PCs made an insight check. And to not tip the players off something is going on, what I do is make every player make about 5 d20 rolls when the sessions starts. Pre-rolls if you will. That way, when I need them to make a check without them knowing they are making it, I go down the preroll list and see if it is a success or failure.

Yeh I was thinking about doing prerolls, mainly for initiative though, but this sounds good because as you say: it would tip them off otherwise

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[guachi]

Maybe the goblins are even yelling insults with high pitched voices, and keeping score every time they manage to hit somebody. This can inject a bit of humor into this encounter. The goblins might be cheering each other on, and rejoicing each succesful hit. Maybe they have individual names, and an obvious leader. Killing the leader could dramatically affect their morale, allowing the players to drive them off with an intimidate check.

I was going to post something similar because goblins are fun low-level monsters.

Goblins, because they have disengage and hide (but, sadly, no dash) as a bonus action should be constantly on the move. Missile troops should shoot 'n' scoot and move to a different location and hide. Because they can disengage they can more easily flee. Describing how, exactly, a goblin boss switches places with an underling can be funny! I had my goblins dance and mock the players if I got a critical or dropped one of them to zero. I'd stand up, dance horribly (because I can't dance) and hurl ridiculous insults at the players. When your players are only level one and two you have to modulate the danger of the enemies. All Goblins were named Bob - Bob, Bob Squared, Bobby Three Sticks, Quad Bob, Bobby Hatchback (because hatchbacks have five doors...)

 

[iserith]

All great tips I'll research the hide action as I'm not 100% on the mechanics.

Just for reference: the party were woken up during a long rest in the wilderness in the middle of the night by (what appeared to be) their ally from the nearby town warning them of imminent danger and demanding them to follow him (tbh I really expected them to do an insight check here but not one of them thought it was at all odd) they followed him through the forest but eventually lost him as they entered the cleaning, then the goblins came out from all around as the "ally" reappeared and shape shifted into they recurring enemy, a female drow (actually a doppelganger).

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Some thoughts to consider:

First, players don't "do Insight checks." They take actions and those actions must be described per Step 2 of the basic conversation of the game. If part of your concern with your game is that they aren't very imaginative in their descriptions, players calling for rolls (if that's a thing in your game) instead of describing what they want to do naturally contributes to the issue. An ability check is not an action. A check is a mechanic the DM may or may not call for after a player has described what he or she wants to do. "I do an Insight check" doesn't tell you anything about what the character is actually doing.

Second, what about the ally approaching them for help was out of the ordinary from the perspective of the PCs such that you'd think the characters would be suspicious of the NPC's truthfulness? If you telegraphed nothing out of the ordinary (outside of this ally from town turning up the wilderness), then it's normal for the players to just go along with that. If your description was somehow "off" though or otherwise inconsistent with what they normally expect, then you might see a player say something like, "I'm suspicious. I'm examining NPC's body language and mannerisms here to see if something is amiss." At that point you could ask for a Wisdom (Insight) check if you're not sure whether the character would detect something is not quite right about this NPC. A success might mean you reveal the NPC isn't exactly who he seems to be. A failure might mean that the character is unable to notice anything about the NPC's behavior to verify or allay his or her suspicions.

That said, you may telegraph something being "off" about this NPC during the initial setup to the scene and the players don't pick up on it or don't care and go along with the NPC anyway only to be ambushed later. But at least they can look back and say "You know what - it did seem strange that..." followed by whatever oddity you described and kick themselves for not examining the situation further. This way, the players view the ambush as fair and trust in the DM is maintained. It also reminds them how important it is to pay attention and act on what the DM describes rather than trying to go to the mechanics every time an NPC opens its gob because the DM's description is lacking.

Finally, doing everything as I mention above means you don't have to mess about with "secret rolls" before the game or whatever. You can be completely transparent and still get good, fair results. All combined, you should start to see more description out of your players (which seems to be what you want) and it will be easier for you to adjudicate, too.

 

[Hillsy7]

All great tips I'll research the hide action as I'm not 100% on the mechanics.

Just for reference: the party were woken up during a long rest in the wilderness in the middle of the night by (what appeared to be) their ally from the nearby town warning them of imminent danger and demanding them to follow him (tbh I really expected them to do an insight check here but not one of them thought it was at all odd) they followed him through the forest but eventually lost him as they entered the cleaning, then the goblins came out from all around as the "ally" reappeared and shape shifted into they recurring enemy, a female drow (actually a doppelganger).

Lots of great advice so far. Especially consider the use of language and implicit narrative (The boss of the Goblins, the Doppelganger, issues all the orders for actions and the Goblins all shout back and forth trying to impress her/asking for direction). This increases immersion, which will help your players visualise what their characters are physically doing, not some abstract mixture of commands to be issued.

You can also nudge and incentivise with "How?" and "What does that look like?"....One of the best things I saw was Chris Perkins running a game and he kinda got the wizard to describe his spell - and the player sort of panicked and said hummingbirds appeared and zapped the enemy (magic missile)....Chris Perkins then said "Oh. Do all your spells take the shape of birds? That's cool!"....from then on, almost unprompted, the player was describing spells using birds (Ray of frost as waddling penguin bombs of cold was particularly hilarious). A prompt "Describe the spell" and reward "That's so cool", et voila! Description.

Now it might not be as simple as that. As someone said GM-ing can be exhausting, especially with lots of little encounters....throw into that you're taking a bold step GM-ing - much kudos - and with leading inexperienced players....and it is a bit front loaded with effort. But once you get them going, they will take some of the strain off narratively, and they'll start making fights more exciting and dynamic....

There's a natural flow to cooperative narratives where adding in details gives the other person something to react off of. Simply putting a goblin on a tree branch means the player, to attack the Goblin, has to ask if he can reach. Now mechanically, the goblin is just on the floor and the player can reach them easily - but the player doesn't know that. Either straight off the bat they'll ask about reach, or you can prompt them, at which point you can offer suggestions and make them pick one.....so something like this.....

"I'd like to attack that Goblin Archer."
"This one, here, up in the tree."
"Yeah, I'll attack him."
"Melee or ranged? He's up in a tree after all."
"Err....can I reach him with my sword."
"Hmm....well you could try and jump and stab him, or climb the tree...."
[At this point you can chose if there's any mechanical skill check involved - to begin with I'd say not]
"OK. I'll try and climb the tree."
"Good plan - How are you doing that?"
"......?"
"Your holding a sword after all. You going to jump off something, hold your sword in your teeth like a pirate....?"
"There a rock or something I can jump off?"
"Sure."
"Ok I'll run and jump off the rock and swing up onto the branch."
"Like gymnastics style?"
"Yeah."
"Cool! And then?"
"Then I'll attack."
"How?"
"Well....with my sword, obviously"
"Ok...anywhere in particular?"
"Err....ooh the knees!"
"Nice! So you dash across the forest floor, arrows whizzing by. Using flat rock as a step you jump through the air, over another goblin who's running underneath, grab the branch and do a full 360 around the branch. You land on it and sweep low at the legs. Roll an attack....."

Now in their head at least they're up in a tree - so their next move and attack must almost automatically involve jumping out of a tree.....and having been prompted by you to construct a cool action, there's a good chance they'll try it themselves next time.

Like it's been said, it can be hard work to begin with, but you are basically training your players to have this sort of back-and-forth in their own head without having to bounce it off of you first. This might take a bit of time and prompting, you are after all basically training someone to use their imagination, but sooner or later they'll relish the freedom that provides. Once that happens, then you can start to build mechanical obstacles and variations to better make the dice match their actions.

 

[Tony Vargas]

New to d&d, new to DMing. All our encounters are the same and very boring.

This may seem perfunctory, but I feel it'd really help, if it's an option:

Play more.

Play with a variety of other DMs. Look up AL events and meetups, go to conventions - if there are any in your area - get a variety of experiences. You'll find some DMs doing things that you enjoy as a player, you'll see players using different styles, you'll get an idea of what works for others that'll help you figure out what'll work for you and your group.

DMing is more art than science, some people just have an innate talent for it, others it up best by playing first, possibly for a long time. Some can certainly be 'taught,' ideally by playing or co-GMing with the more experienced DM, watching play or reading discussion on-line being not so ideal...

Last encounter was 6 players in the middle of a 120ft diameter clearing in the middle of a forest surrounded by a circle of 12 goblins. My issue is more with my players being unimaginative, "move, swing, retreat" ...

You're ahead of the game by 'retreat,' you usually see move, swing, repeat.
But, seriously, the standard rules do not support that retreat bit, there is an AoO for running away, and disengaging is an action.

 

[ccs]

You're ahead of the game by 'retreat,' you usually see move, swing, repeat.
But, seriously, the standard rules do not support that retreat bit, there is an AoO for running away, and disengaging is an action.

That there is. But as the DM you don't have to take it. At least not always. Because that's a quick way to train the players into the move, swing, repeat sequence.

 

[Imaculata]

You can also nudge and incentivise with "How?" and "What does that look like?"....One of the best things I saw was Chris Perkins running a game and he kinda got the wizard to describe his spell - and the player sort of panicked and said hummingbirds appeared and zapped the enemy (magic missile)....Chris Perkins then said "Oh. Do all your spells take the shape of birds? That's cool!"....from then on, almost unprompted, the player was describing spells using birds (Ray of frost as waddling penguin bombs of cold was particularly hilarious). A prompt "Describe the spell" and reward "That's so cool", et voila! Description.

Indeed. I had the same thing come up at the start of my current campaign. One of the players used a Many Jaws spell, and I asked him what it looked like. The player thought about it for a moment, and then said that they looked like watery piranhas. I asked him, "Are you conjuring them up from the nearby river?", and he said "Yes, that is exactly what I do." So the player continued to describe this furious cloud of watery piranhas rising up from the river and biting at their foes furiously. He loved giving his own flavor to the spell.

It is okay to help your players a little with filling in the details, but leave most of it to them. It is so much more enjoyable for everyone at a table when they have an idea what the spell looks like, rather than just saying: I cast the Many Jaws spell. And depending on how good the description is, you might even have the enemies react appropriately. Maybe they panic at the sight of a bunch of watery piranhas flying at them?

 

[Tony Vargas]

That there is. But as the DM you don't have to take it. At least not always. Because that's a quick way to train the players into the move, swing, repeat sequence.

Nod, there's really not a whole lot to melee in 5e, but blocking by taking up space and holding the threat of you one AoO over 1 enemy to keep him off your buddies is one worthwhile melee function. Ignoring AoOs tosses tgat, as well. Might be ok for TotM, everybody just attacks whoever they want without worrying about details of positioning, but the OP's complaint isn't that it's too complicated, but too boring. He's not seeing the automatic rush of creative improvisation that normally happens when you avoid overwhelming players with the burden of two or more choices when attacking. An inexplicable aberration.

Maybe his players should roll up some casters?