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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizardOfFrobozz" data-source="post: 9387363" data-attributes="member: 7029408"><h3>TL; DR version</h3><h3>Long version</h3>Since COVID hit, I’ve probably played in and GM’d more sessions of DnD than I did in the whole decade prior. Some have been amazing, some have been meh, but one pattern that I keep seeing - across dozens of different campaigns with scores of different players and GM’s - is that without exceptional effort from the GM, combat encounters start to feel like repetitive exercises with few interesting, impactful choices to be made.The warlock casts a spell on the first round and then snipes Eldritch Blast for the rest of the battle. The Paladin opens with Shield of Faith, closes with the tank (or is the tank), makes melee attacks every round, and picks when to smite. The rogue moves to range and repeatedly takes steady aim followed by sharpshooter, switching to disengage and repositioning if he gets tangled in melee.These are just a few arbitrary examples; the specific routine depends on the build.  But the point is that players repeat the same routine with minor variations just about every time initiative is rolled.A good GM can break this up by introducing either mobs or environmental factors that disrupt those routines and encourage the party to look for different solutions. No question: this can be an effective solution, and hats off to all those GM’s out there with the time and the creativity to make the 35th encounter feel as fresh and interesting as the 3rd.But I’m often struck by the fact that many of the other games I play do a much better job of giving players more interesting tradeoffs to think about on a regular basis without requiring any additional prep work. Usually this achieved by injecting some randomness into the player’s options on any given turn. That random element is big enough to tactically impact turn-by-turn play while still letting the player feel like their overall build, strategy, and/or identity isn’t being undermined.All of which has me musing about what it might look like to cherry pick some elements of randomized gameplay - from a CCG, for example, or a puzzle game - and layer those into DnD's combat mechanics. I don’t want to completely reinvent the wheel or invalidate the build work that already goes into skill/feat/class selections, but boy would it be nice to keep things from falling into a predictable rut even when the GM doesn’t have a chance to polish each and every encounter.Has anyone tried anything like this in their games? If so, what did you use for inspiration, how do you adapt it into the DnD rule set, and most importantly, how did it work out for everyone at the table?</blockquote>

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