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<blockquote data-quote="Swarmkeeper" data-source="post: 9615522" data-attributes="member: 6921763">Lots of good stuff in your post but wanted to springboard off of these particular contributions.Yeah, just because Combat is happening doesn't mean Social Interaction (and/or Exploration, for that matter) stops. As a DM, I try to infuse some of the personality of the monsters/NPCs into the Combat having them taunt/speak with/emote at the PCs at some points throughout the combat. I find this encourages the players to inject Social Interaction into the scene as well - both with the enemy and among the party.&nbsp; It is fun to let the PCs' personalities shine through during conflict with the baddies.&nbsp; Give the monsters motivations and tactics, too - something to think about during prep for sure.&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet but t<a href="https://www.themonstersknow.com/" target="_blank">he blog and books from </a>@Keith Ammann can help quite a bit with that prep, too.Remind players of other actions that their PCs can take during Combat, as suggested in the 2014 DMG (huh... these seem to be missing from the 2024 DMG...) like Climb onto a Bigger Creature, Disarm, or Tumble. Additionally, perhaps better yet, encourage improvised actions by considering <a href="https://slyflourish.com/cinematic_advantage.html" target="_blank">Cinematic Advantage</a> as espoused by [USER=54840]@SlyFlourish[/USER].Anyway, just some thoughts that have kept our combats from being &quot;tedious&quot; the vast majority of the time.To address the VTT portion of the OP:&nbsp; I find that many of the automations of VTTs - especially when linked to DDB - can actual be a source of combat tedium.&nbsp; Some players focus on the buttons they can literally click rather than thinking from their character's perspective.&nbsp; And nothing drives me more batty than when the technology gets wonky, which it inevitably does, and it becomes time wasted with &quot;let's get this working right&quot; rather than &quot;let's just revert, for now, to the simpler solution of a dice roller and character sheets and math - like we do in person - and just play&quot;.Fun topic - thanks [USER=4534]@MGibster[/USER]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Swarmkeeper, post: 9615522, member: 6921763"] Lots of good stuff in your post but wanted to springboard off of these particular contributions. Yeah, just because Combat is happening doesn't mean Social Interaction (and/or Exploration, for that matter) stops. As a DM, I try to infuse some of the personality of the monsters/NPCs into the Combat having them taunt/speak with/emote at the PCs at some points throughout the combat. I find this encourages the players to inject Social Interaction into the scene as well - both with the enemy and among the party. It is fun to let the PCs' personalities shine through during conflict with the baddies. Give the monsters motivations and tactics, too - something to think about during prep for sure. I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet but t[URL='https://www.themonstersknow.com/']he blog and books from [/URL]@Keith Ammann can help quite a bit with that prep, too. Remind players of other actions that their PCs can take during Combat, as suggested in the 2014 DMG (huh... these seem to be missing from the 2024 DMG...) like Climb onto a Bigger Creature, Disarm, or Tumble. Additionally, perhaps better yet, encourage improvised actions by considering [URL='https://slyflourish.com/cinematic_advantage.html']Cinematic Advantage[/URL] as espoused by [USER=54840]@SlyFlourish[/USER]. Anyway, just some thoughts that have kept our combats from being "tedious" the vast majority of the time. To address the VTT portion of the OP: I find that many of the automations of VTTs - especially when linked to DDB - can actual be a source of combat tedium. Some players focus on the buttons they can literally click rather than thinking from their character's perspective. And nothing drives me more batty than when the technology gets wonky, which it inevitably does, and it becomes time wasted with "let's get this working right" rather than "let's just revert, for now, to the simpler solution of a dice roller and character sheets and math - like we do in person - and just play". Fun topic - thanks [USER=4534]@MGibster[/USER] [/QUOTE]

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