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<blockquote data-quote="timbannock" data-source="post: 4600147" data-attributes="member: 17913">If you think there are issues with combats being too often and not being deadly enough, stop building &quot;balanced&quot; encounters.&nbsp; Give them some ridiculously easy stuff to trounce, and then put them up against the unstoppable.Most of all, roll your dice out in the open.&nbsp; If they see that you're not cheating to kill them, then they know it's their fault...they should have run away from the Tarrasque.But it sounds more and more like DM burnout.One remedy that'll keep you playing: run some premade stuff.I ran my own custom-built everything in every game all the time for damn near 20 years.&nbsp; It was growing stale near the end, even though I'd perfected my organization and my &quot;play-style.&quot;&nbsp; Worse, it didn't matter what game we played, it was just as stale and hard for me to be excited about, even if the stories and setting and rules were excellent.Anyway, I finally said &quot;$#@@ this, I'm running Lost City of Barakus (levels 1-5) and Red Hand of Doom (5-12ish).&quot;&nbsp; So far it's been the most consistently fun campaign I've ever run.&nbsp; By leaps and bounds, even.&nbsp; And I'd only half-heartedly tried premade stuff before.It's nice having 90% of the work done for me.&nbsp; I just work the player's background into the story, restat a creature here or there if I feel like it, and I'm off.&nbsp; Way more time to think about NPC personalities and histories for the unique magic items, etc.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="timbannock, post: 4600147, member: 17913"] If you think there are issues with combats being too often and not being deadly enough, stop building "balanced" encounters. Give them some ridiculously easy stuff to trounce, and then put them up against the unstoppable. Most of all, roll your dice out in the open. If they see that you're not cheating to kill them, then they know it's their fault...they should have run away from the Tarrasque. But it sounds more and more like DM burnout. One remedy that'll keep you playing: run some premade stuff. I ran my own custom-built everything in every game all the time for damn near 20 years. It was growing stale near the end, even though I'd perfected my organization and my "play-style." Worse, it didn't matter what game we played, it was just as stale and hard for me to be excited about, even if the stories and setting and rules were excellent. Anyway, I finally said "$#@@ this, I'm running Lost City of Barakus (levels 1-5) and Red Hand of Doom (5-12ish)." So far it's been the most consistently fun campaign I've ever run. By leaps and bounds, even. And I'd only half-heartedly tried premade stuff before. It's nice having 90% of the work done for me. I just work the player's background into the story, restat a creature here or there if I feel like it, and I'm off. Way more time to think about NPC personalities and histories for the unique magic items, etc. [/QUOTE]

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