D&D 5E (2024) Unfreezing the Narrative

[Reynard]

Imagine if each time you get the ball, you flip a coin.

On heads, you stand around for 5 minutes, then the other team gets possession.

That is what rolling 2 times and missing both times while staying still (because moving is clearly worse) is like in 5e D&D. You roll 2d20, both are low, nothing happens, next turn.

And I'm not granting that american football is a great game (or saying the opposite, as stating heresy is unwise), but even in a nothingburger play people got tired, hurt, learned stuff about their opponents, tactics where used and set expectations for the future, etc. There is at least some meat and potatoes there. And even failing that, stuff actually happened.

The only information produced in 5e D&D that is novel in the 2d20, both low, everything missed is at most a hint at the enemy AC. Nothing else happened. You can write a story about what didn't happen, but there aren't any mechanics attached to it.

That is just not true. People may have moved. Someone else may have used a spell. Another spell may have reduced its number of available rounds. Conditions may have expired. It is extremely rare for the state of play to exactly the same at the end of a round as it was at the start, even if everyone involved whiffed.

 

[Piperken]

I'm thinking about mechanics to unfreeze the narrative in D&D. Ie, some creature's turn comes. The creature tries to do something, but rolls poorly or the enemies roll well. Nothing happens. The next creature goes.

That is a frozen narrative - the turn could have been skipped. Sometimes some resources get spent (so bookkeeping) but the state of the battle doesn't really move.

This happens when a pure save-or-suck spell is cast and the target passes the saving throw (or uses legendary resists with no expectation they'll run out), every attack is missed, or similar.

...

For spells, many spells deal half damage on a successful save, or are multiple target (reducing the probability of no-narrative-progress). Spells with a duration who don't have immediate impact have implied future impact (we hope) so they don't leave the situation utterly unchanged. Concentration spells that have zone effects usually have an effect when first cast, so even if concentration is broken they do something.

Weapon attacks seem to rely on swinging more than once to ensure they impact the narrative.

In my campaign, this was resolved by switching to a variation of side initiative. My table doesn't play a lot with the weapon tags.

 

[Tonguez]

its seems to me you need to make your battle fields more dynamic

1. Make your Battlefields dynamic so that the PCs have to be mobile - stairwells, balconies, chandeliers, tilting floors, collapsing ruins, lightning discharges, spreading fires, floodwater, healing shrines, raised dias, short range portals.

2. Then reward PCs with advantage on higher ground, defensive cover, bonus knockdowns and interactive environments etc

3 Make your monsters mobile - charging, burrowing, climbing, grapple and drag attacks, shoves and throws. Also give the monsters objectives other than combat - getting to the alarm gong, getting to higher ground, grabbing an NPC, smashing a support pillar, poking a beehive or even just running for cover. Also bring in new waves of monsters from different angles so the PCs must reposition to intercept and let morale take effect so monsters also run away.

ie Force the PCs to move to engage because monsters arent just suicidal meat bags that stand still so PCs can hit them. Give monsters things to do that are not just hitting PCs.