I have spoken to a couple of my GMs lately about why the ended campaigns abruptly or early before end of the story arch. The common thread I got in their answers was basically "it got to be a grind as the party got higher levels." Then I asked, "the players didn't mind, what why was it so boring for you?" their answer was basically "too much to tracking and waiting for NPCs to die before we could get back to the story".
This was months ago and I have been thinking about it a lot. Then I thought about other GM I didn't talk to but played under. I thought about when I GM'd, Eventually two things became clear to me.
#1 Many GMs only see combat a necessary wall between plot points. GMs often don't truly engage themselves in to combat and so are indifferent to it other than waiting to get past it so they can get back to telling the story they want to tell and roleplay they enjoy. This is especially true with story GMs but could in party be what drives many GMs to become story GMs after years of play no longer caring about fights and only the story which is often the GMs story and not group story including players and the GM. This leads to games on rails etc. Players on the other hand invest in their characters so PC death is huge for them and any fight pushing them even remotely close to death get them engages immediately.
#2 Lack of engagement breads lack of investment which leads to less engagement. I haven't GM'd a lot, but when I GM'd I always enjoyed the battle and I think most GMs do. The reason for this is simple. You don't have a formula. CRs and encounter calculators are not accurate at all and you don't have the experience to fix it all on the fly. As a result your engaged because your half afraid you made the encounter too easy and the players will get board and your half afraid your party wipe the group and be blamed for it. More experienced GM's start working out "their formula" then they adjust here or there to make it fit the story. They know how to read the party and they know how to fix things on the fly that are not working. The problem is they tend to stick with formula. They want to stay there and avoid any fear of the unknown or losing control. This leads to simple fixes like picking monster they party could easily beat and just adding enough hit points to make it a challenge, or discreetly take some extra hp away from an enemy who is has pushed players to the ropes and things are starting to look dice.
The worse offender however is the ready to die through away encounters. Usually these are some
mob out numbering the party of low maintenance 5ft melee enemies. 20 goblins with swords, 10 thugs with bats, or 8 dire wolves. Something simple so the GM can use as little effort as possible tracking little more than HP. Very little strategy will be employed large number of dumb enemies and the only important part the GM is that they out numbered the party enough to be considered a threat, as the GM fully expects the party to wipe them out or escape. The second big offender is the
HP bag boss (or mini boss) who similarly doesn't have much to track but HP usually fights in melee range and has almost no way to actually use a tactic but has some massive damage attack he can use regularly or every time he roles a 6 on a 1d6. GMs will often turn interesting boss into these unintentionally to avoid the hassle of actually playing something interesting. An intelligent dragon is apparently so blind in their rage that they decide to fight on the ground in a cave instead of flying, while it waits for its fire breath.
I don't think these are slights to GMs. I think its just the nature of building something for other, finding your comfort zone, and responding to the stress and effort of being a GM. I think anyone who GMs enough is likely to end up doning some level of this. But then who suffers? Not the players, they are still invested in their characters and still afraid of losing them. The horde of goblins or the HP packed dragon works for them. It doesn't work for the GM who gets board with the encounters they create for their players. So I have been determined to make prevent this in future games I run. I made rules to that effect and if other people see similar problems at table and ether have see other GMs solutions to it or have some suggestions of there own please feel free to help me out.
Here are my rules.
1. You might need to do a specific encounter one way or another to include the 5ft melee mobs and HP stuff bosses, but you should never have to have more than once encounter in any standard game day with multiple encounters, in a single gaming session. There is no need for the GM to bear that.
2. To
prevent entirely 5ft melee mobs encounters should work from a base plan up front that enemy groups should never be more than 3 times the size of the party. 4 party members will mean not have to plan more than 12 enemies.
No more than 1/3 of any group of enemies of 3 or greater can be 5ft melee fighters. Likewise,
no more than 1/3 for a group of enemies can be simple ranged attackers only. The other 1/3 can be made of polearm melee with 10ft reach (for opportunity lines, triangles, and squares), hit and melee (like rogues with bonus action disengage or monks with the mobile feat), healers, buffing units, de-buffing units, summoning units (summons will not count against the 1/3 of 5ft melee or simple ranged but should be limited to small numbers of re-summonings instead of mass numbers at once), I illusionist, Adjuration wizards or other protection casters, Area of effect caster, crowd control casters, and creatures with interesting mid range abilities like Nilbog who could go into any position but when placed in a group of goblin turn order in to chaos. ... This should ensure a level of options and differences that make encounters interesting to run and more engaging for the GM.
3. Bosses or mini boss fights should include lair
actions,
legendary actions,
minions, and
2-3 bosses instead of one inflated HP boss when ever possible. Lair actions stir up the battle ground making it more everything more unexpected which makes it harder to predict and in turn makes keeps the GM in question as to if a chain of bad luck could accidentally put a relative easy fight in range of a party wipe. Legendary Actions through off the action economy of having more party members than enemies, minions don't have to be 5ft melee fighters they could be imps flying out with the dread lords loot to ensure he is gone before you get inforcements (and also to steel all the magic item loot you might have gotten from the fight had you killed them instead of letting the escape since they were not hurting you, or maybe they are going to get that patrol you stealthy passed on the way in and your going to have to deal with that in 2-3 turns if you don't stop them). A 2-3 boss fight can be dramatically more interesting that fighting one enemy for a GM by putting initiative at different times to hold focus but also by allowing for multiple tactics at the same time like a stealthy assassin who always hunts the healers and casters while the fight the other boss which might be boring if you just had one stealthy boss and players are having trouble finding it.
4. It can be fun to
deliberately play a severely under powered group of enemies that should be an easy encounter because that can give you license to have a plan to actively try to TPK them expecting to lose. Its like a mini game for the GM, "ok they are likely going to clean my clock since they beat this same encouter when they were a few levels lower, but I am going to see if I get get high score damage done before they do!" Your chances are not good but things like Polearm opportunity triangles with guards can do better than their CR would expect. Its interesting for players to have to fight brains instad of HP and large pulls of week enemies sometimes. See what happens. Players don't generally do things like Polearm opportunity triangles because it generally means everyone is in the same class so strategies like this are also good because its something the GM can do which show tatics but player aren't easily able to replicate or ignore and they are even spread out enough and in a way that AoE spells have difficulty catching them without hitting allies. Small AoEs only catch one or two and large AoEs can get more than that without hitting ally targeted by the triangle.
So These are the 4 rules I came up with for myself. I am sure some one out there has thought up some encounter rules of their own to keep encounter interesting for the GM. I love to hear them. Possibly some improvements to the ones I have.
Thanks for reading and any on topic replies.
Edits:
5.
Add something environmental to every fight like
Terrain,
structures,
cover (full and partial) from crates and trade carts etc,
weather! Fog spell as a natural effect, rain and mud for hindering terrain, a mid day thunderstorm for darkness and shadows that move, random earth quake, rain or snow or bushes and shrubs for
obscured but not blocked lines of sight. (Credit Edit:
tommybahama) Also
water and
dividing the terrain,
choke points (on the monsters side or the players side),
small rooms and large rooms.
No room should ever be an empty chamber because one that is boring and two every change in the battlefield design will effect movements and strategies brining variation to combat even if the enemies are the same. (credit:
Puddles) Adding door, pit falls, and other means of separating the party so that they now have one party member in an individual beat down and need to figure out how to get the party member back.
6.
Assign motives to your NPCs in encounters. Even "Team Monster" has motives and knowing them will absolutely make running them more interesting and engaging. When you have to ask yourself "is this cockatrice attacking the part because...?" you get answers like territory and protecting their nest, so if the party runs out of the area the cockatrice would not follow but they would be willing to fight to the death if they don't leave. ...or... They want to eat the party and they would chase you along time if you ran but when you start killing them and its apparent you are not the next meal scatter and flee unable to reach their goal. Their is no reason the enemies need to trying to kill the party as well. Thieves might just want your gold and leave you unconscious and broke if the party loses. Its also possible that multiple members of the encounter have different goals. Some cultist your fighting have hired some muscle, the cultist might fight to the death but the muscle is in it for money they can't spend if they are dead. How awesome of your able to bribe them to change sides or get them to abandon the cultist when they realize this is losing fight? I live the Idea that enemies goals might not have anything to do with dropping the parties HP. If they can kidnap the head of the caravan your escorting or they are actually your enemy but they are trying to escape for reinforcements instead of fighting you... or its your job to put an end to them but they don't want risk their evil plans by adventurers they are not sure they can beat and only want to escape... for now. (credit:
Ovinomancer) Having motives and goals
instead of planned out comes means you can unleash player and open the door for more surprising out comes because roleplay might happen instead of combat maybe this become stealth encounter instead of the combat encounter you expected. (credit:
Charlaquin)
7.
Don't forget shared actions that all NPCs and player have that are not listed on character sheets. Thugs can
shove melee party members to the sides to divide and conquer or make a hole for an NPC to make run though without risk of an opportunity attack to get to the parties squishy healer, caster, archer. Shoving someone down so all melee NPCs can circle them and attack with advantage or force them to loose half their movement while they all be line for the party wizard or the door.
Grapple melee fighters so the can't move to aid allied or grapple one player characeter and drag them into separate room dn close the door. NPCs can
disengage to run, regroup, and change targets. NPC tanks taking the
dodge action while standing in door way or weaker taking it and calling for help. Ranged NPCs
voluntarily dropping prone to give the party disadvantage for ranged vs ranged combat. Also, having enemies who fly or have stealth
wait to attack until the party is engaged with other enemies. (creddit:
Helldritch).
8. As the GM root for the monsters. You may know "Team Monster" is likely to lose but do it anyway. Its fun to root for the under dog and it adds adversarial tension like with any sport. This should make both players and the GM more excited about the match. Just like sports, though congratulate them if they beat your team in a show of good sportsmanship. (Credit:
Lanefan)
