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The Focus Fire Problem
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8723042" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Many DMs simply refuse to recognize that their choices, and the underlying design of the game they choose to play, is what directly creates the incentives for player behavior. There <em>are</em> rare circumstances (like that thread a long while back where players misinterpreted "DM took out a map" for "DM is forcing us into a fight") where the perverse incentives are accidental. But the vast majority of the time, DMs and the games they run teach players which behaviors are effective very quickly, and then DMs complain that their players misbehave or the like.</p><p></p><p>For example:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Can't count the number of DMs I've seen over the years who complain bitterly about their players being ruthless murder-hobos, and then when you dig in deeper, you find out that, <em>surprise surprise</em>, the DM runs a "realistic" world. By which they mean a <em>crapsack</em> world where heroism is suicide, idealism is for losers, and mercy is a fool's errand. When the players are taught that it's a dog-eat-dog world, guess what? They'll learn to shoot dogs on sight!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The so-called problem of "whack-a-mole" healing directly derives from the rules design of 5e. It is intentional, and as Ruin Explorer noted, it's one of the few tactics PCs can exploit if NPCs actually play tactically. Same with focus fire and the other bits. The rules people asked for, like "bounded accuracy" (which forced almost all scaling to be in HP), movement throughout one's turn, Advantage, minimal in-combat healing, etc. all combine to encourage players to play this way.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players disengaging. This one is less common but it still happens. Have seen more than a few DMs who clearly did not understand that when you shut down the things players get enthusiastic about, they will stop showing enthusiasm. All the gleeful talk of banning things or running so-called "realistic" racism (usually nothing of the sort, it's extreme xenophobia that was never so common even in the Medieval Period), for example: slap the players often enough for their genuine, heartfelt joy in things and they'll stop showing their joy to you. (This one is especially bad because Gygax himself advocated for it in IIRC the 1e DMG. He did not actually practice this at his own table, worth noting, but the fact it got printed at all is a travesty.)</li> </ul><p>I'm sure there are other examples too. Point being, if your players <em>consistently</em> use tactics or evince behaviors you don't like, you should be asking yourself how much either you as DM are teaching your players to play that way, or how much your chosen game system is rewarding people who do.</p><p></p><p>There may not be simple fixes. I don't personally think there are simple fixes for this problem in 5e. It's just too biased toward focus fire, and most fixes that will be easy to implement will just feel annoying to play against or clash badly with other aspects of the rules. Like that "focus" rule above which guarantees much more difficult combats whenever the party is outnumbered...which they usually will be. The fundamental idea isn't bad, but contextually I don't think it will perform well.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8723042, member: 6790260"] Many DMs simply refuse to recognize that their choices, and the underlying design of the game they choose to play, is what directly creates the incentives for player behavior. There [I]are[/I] rare circumstances (like that thread a long while back where players misinterpreted "DM took out a map" for "DM is forcing us into a fight") where the perverse incentives are accidental. But the vast majority of the time, DMs and the games they run teach players which behaviors are effective very quickly, and then DMs complain that their players misbehave or the like. For example: [LIST] [*]Can't count the number of DMs I've seen over the years who complain bitterly about their players being ruthless murder-hobos, and then when you dig in deeper, you find out that, [I]surprise surprise[/I], the DM runs a "realistic" world. By which they mean a [I]crapsack[/I] world where heroism is suicide, idealism is for losers, and mercy is a fool's errand. When the players are taught that it's a dog-eat-dog world, guess what? They'll learn to shoot dogs on sight! [*]The so-called problem of "whack-a-mole" healing directly derives from the rules design of 5e. It is intentional, and as Ruin Explorer noted, it's one of the few tactics PCs can exploit if NPCs actually play tactically. Same with focus fire and the other bits. The rules people asked for, like "bounded accuracy" (which forced almost all scaling to be in HP), movement throughout one's turn, Advantage, minimal in-combat healing, etc. all combine to encourage players to play this way. [*]Players disengaging. This one is less common but it still happens. Have seen more than a few DMs who clearly did not understand that when you shut down the things players get enthusiastic about, they will stop showing enthusiasm. All the gleeful talk of banning things or running so-called "realistic" racism (usually nothing of the sort, it's extreme xenophobia that was never so common even in the Medieval Period), for example: slap the players often enough for their genuine, heartfelt joy in things and they'll stop showing their joy to you. (This one is especially bad because Gygax himself advocated for it in IIRC the 1e DMG. He did not actually practice this at his own table, worth noting, but the fact it got printed at all is a travesty.) [/LIST] I'm sure there are other examples too. Point being, if your players [I]consistently[/I] use tactics or evince behaviors you don't like, you should be asking yourself how much either you as DM are teaching your players to play that way, or how much your chosen game system is rewarding people who do. There may not be simple fixes. I don't personally think there are simple fixes for this problem in 5e. It's just too biased toward focus fire, and most fixes that will be easy to implement will just feel annoying to play against or clash badly with other aspects of the rules. Like that "focus" rule above which guarantees much more difficult combats whenever the party is outnumbered...which they usually will be. The fundamental idea isn't bad, but contextually I don't think it will perform well. [/QUOTE]
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