How do I get better tactics from my players?

[Celtavian]

Re

I have to deal with this all too often as well. My players sit and wait to be lead by the hand through encounters. The only thing they want to be able to do is attack every round a great deal of the time. It drives me crazy sometimes.

They have played with me for a while. I am constantly using tactics as a player. I am constantly looking for every advantage I can get, and I don't mean metagame advantages.

I don't expect everyone to play like I do, but I certainly don't like people who walk into traps or don't investigate anything. They just wait for me to tell them exactly what to do. If they die, they don't care.

I do screw up encounters by overpowering them at times, but sometimes I just use good tactics that my players seem unable to deal with. I find it very disheartening as a DM.

 

[Evilboy]

There's always the disheartening possibility that your players just might not be interested in using advanced tactics. Some people (me included) like the idea of challenging combats where you have to think quick and work as a team, but not everyone sees D&D that way. Some people might want to "just relax", or might enjoy focusing on different aspects (storytelling, intrigue, heroics). I'd advise that you first talk to your group and make sure that tough fights are something they're interested in.

If they are, then I think there's a few things you can do. The easiest (and probably most effective) would be to tell the players that you want to run monsters a bit smarter and harder, and recommend that they play strategically in turn. It wouldn't hurt to give a few examples (generic, not "you did X wrong").

Try running your opponents smarter without killing your players. Maybe put them in a contest with a villain, like a sort of medieval tournament. After (presumably) getting embarassed by their rivals, the players would (hopefully) start picking up a few devious tricks.

- Evilboy

 

[Corinth]

I'm of the mind to continually kick the PCs' asses until the players get a clue. Comprehension through pugilation is an ancient way that still works, so long as you have the patience to stick with it until they get it; couple the ass-kickings with "Why did your PCs gets their asses kicked?" after-action debriefings and they will come around eventually. There's no excuse for this sort of thing.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

getting them captured or humiliated in an arena would be fun.

write that in alongside having them face the OORRCCSS.

I was trying to think of nice stories to tell my players to illustrate why good tactics could be fun and important, and I remembered a tale from my own RPGing childhood.

A friend of mine has played for a long time, and he remembers playing with a neophyte DM who was puzzled by the layout of the published dungeon he had.

"Why," this DM asked, "should the demons and horrible things live on the bottom level when there are only orcs on the top level to keep them down?"

"Obviously," he concluded, "the orcs must be scary good at defending dungeon territory."

So he redesigned the top layers of the dungeon to reflect this. The players got a tip that a demon they were after was in this dungeon, as per the published plot. But they also kept getting warnings about the Orcs who lived on the top level. At first they thought it was simply people being more fearful of the danger they knew. But the warnings were getting pretty strange:

"Oh, so you're going to fight the demon... ...but how are you going to get past the OORRCCSS ?"

So they finally get there and they are looking forward to really strolling through the orc section and maybe getting some sleep and food from the orc larder. Figuring they must be fat off of the raiding they were doing to make everyone so frightened.

Three hours later they had wandered through their fourth maze of death, discovered that murder holes can be almost anywhere underground, and had finally just started averaging the damage they took from the multiples of ten arrow shots they were taking every two rounds as environmental damage. The stories my friend tells of the tactics these orcs used are beautiful and involve very little spellcasting on the orcs part. Just lots of coordinated action and clever masonry. The party survived by crawling down through the masonry into the lower levels of the dungeon.

The adventure ended with them intimidating the demon based on the fact that they had made it throught the OORRCCSS and negotiates what they want out of him by offering to take him out through the orcs and just let him leave the plane in peace.

That would be fun to try to run myself, but it would also be fun to actually have them talk to this demon. That might inspire them to pick up some polish.

 

[Fenes 2]

There's always the disheartening possibility that your players just might not be interested in using advanced tactics. Some people (me included) like the idea of challenging combats where you have to think quick and work as a team, but not everyone sees D&D that way. Some people might want to "just relax", or might enjoy focusing on different aspects (storytelling, intrigue, heroics). I'd advise that you first talk to your group and make sure that tough fights are something they're interested in.

Very good point. I am one of those players and DMs who do not think that the goal of D&D is to build a party that acts as a well-oiled killing machine that cuts and spells its way through numerous dungeons and conflicts. I have more fun playing and DMing a game where efficiency takes a backseat to cinematic antics, both action and comedy, where less-than-perfect PCs battle the villains as well as their own shortcomings and allies.

 

[kengar]

This is something I gave my players after two "near-TPKs":

This is a theory about D&D that I came up with, I call it "The Seventh Level Split." 1st level is a dangerous time for PCs. They usually don't have much magic, many HP and their bonuses and skill ranks aren't too high. Usually, though, a DM keeps things pretty much at a difficulty level where the party can make it through. In my 20-something years of gaming, I've seen relatively few 1st level PC deaths.

The fact is -in D&D- even low-level characters are pretty powerful. By the time they reach 2nd-3rd level, they are significantly stronger than the average peasant/NPC. The characters have also usually accrued a few magic items by this time as well. As a result of this "relative power level," most combat challenges the PCs face can be addressed through main force: A cry of "HOODY HOO!" and "I WASTE IT WITH MY CROSSBOW!" can be heard and -next thing you know- problem solved.

Now, I'm not saying this is broken. 3rd level PCs shouldn't be facing too many foes with "save or die" attacks, etc. Nor am I saying that DMs only throw "stand up fights" at these parties. What I am saying is that most "monsters" of an appropriate CR for these groups are usually just bigger, stronger versions of what they faced at 1st. i.e.: bugbears instead of goblins, an ogre instead of some orcs, etc.

What parties should be doing (and I'm sure many do) during this time is learn to work together. They should be developing successful group tactics and strategies, getting to know what the other characters' strengths and weaknesses are, talking to each other about better ways to meet future challenges, etc. All too often, it seems, the party adopts a "It ain't broke so don't fix it!" approach and just count on new Feats & Items & Spells & more HP to see them through; and the truth of it is, this DOES work.

Up to a point, that is.

What I have encountered -and heard stories of from other gamers- is that along about 7th level or so, a "party of individuals" just attacking for maximum damage isn't always enough. It seems that at this point (or near it) is when the "teams" keep winning and the 4 or 5 "solo adventurers traveling together" get into trouble. The cleric isn't holding back waiting to heal, he wants to get his licks in. The fighters charge into melee range right away, not giving the wizard a chance to cast a fireball in order to soften the enemy(s) up, etc. The party has reached a point where they need to fight smarter, not just stronger. Many groups don't make this connection and pay the price.

Anyway, this has gotten fairly long so I'll wrap up by saying that I think 7th level or so is fairly deadly for the reasons listed above. The truth is though, the I think these "Splits" occur at other points in the level progression and when people talk about TPKs at __th level, it is often very probably for similar reasons. The party's tactics have to adapt to new challenges; getting another d6 damage on your Sneak Attack, etc. isn't going to be enough.

That's my theory. So there!

We've just started a new campaign and hoping to see if this advice sunk in.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Wow, that's a super great theory. And it jives very readily with the some of the players comments to me.

I was DMing in order to give our normal DM a break for the holidays. But I had started the players at seventh level, required by the adventure we were doing, and they've finished the adventure and hit 11th.

A bit back we reached a good switch over point, and I told them so. The players, including the DM, replied that they would like to continue with this campaign for a while as they had never had characters who were this Bad Ass before. The other DM did point out that all of our characters in the other game are also 11th level, but that he wasn't playing in that one.

A high level high is probably exactly what I'm combating here. Well that and a pretty high degree of ignorance from having never operated at this level before.

Thanks to everyone for the great contributions to this thread.

I too enjoy the cinematic antics variety and I have inserted a means for the characters to enjoy the benefits of the d20 Feng Shui rules variants.

However, they are role-playing well oiled dungeon hacking killing machines in a world that vigorously supports this sort of profession. I'm trying to discover gentle means by which I can help them live up to their own image of themselves and the image their world community has of them. Without having to fudge my own performances too much or cause the game to switch genres into something I'm afraid they might find tiresome.

 

[Dreeble]

Evolution

Heya:

I doubt anyone actually thinks this way, but it would be extremely funny if players in some campaign somewhere _intentionally_ refused to come up with good battle tactics. Why would anyone do this? Because they might think, "Well, if we come up with better tactics, the DM is going to use smarter and harder monsters against us, which will force us to come up with even better tactics. This is a race we can't win. Let's not start." Hehe.

Take care,
Dreeble

 

[Corinth]

Re: Evolution

I doubt anyone actually thinks this way, but it would be extremely funny if players in some campaign somewhere _intentionally_ refused to come up with good battle tactics. Why would anyone do this? Because they might think, "Well, if we come up with better tactics, the DM is going to use smarter and harder monsters against us, which will force us to come up with even better tactics. This is a race we can't win. Let's not start." Hehe.

There's a reason for the rarity of such stupidity. It's commonly punished with the players witnessing the slaughter of their PCs due to the superior tactics of the villains. As Eowyn said, it takes but one foe to breed a war--not two--and those who have not swords may yet die upon them. Such it is with villains and their battle tactics.

 

[Fenes 2]

I would not exactly call it stupidity. Or do ou really think it is stupid if DM and players agree to a certain game style (where, f.e., you let the villain make his speech and don't interrupt with "Quickened magic missile! Partial Charge! Ready Action!")? A game where you do not use hasted flying improved invisible mages whenever possible?

Not everyone wants to play "most efficiently" against the DM.