Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Want to shake things up: Doorways, Scouting, Caution
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="jayoungr" data-source="post: 7599592" data-attributes="member: 6702445"><p>So there are certain things that <em>always happen</em> in my games, and for good reason: they benefit the PCs. But the sheer predictability of them is making me want to scream, and I'm just wondering if anyone here has advice on how to shake things up a bit.</p><p></p><p><strong>1. Fighting from the doorway.</strong> It never fails. There might be five monsters in a 30 x 30 room, but what will happen is that the PCs will open the door and never actually enter until all the monsters are dead. If they're high enough level, they'll chuck fireballs into the room until the monsters die. If not, they'll stand in the doorway and do other ranged attacks, forcing the monsters to come to them and try to fight while the PCs hold the strategic chokepoint. Bodies pile up in the doorway.</p><p></p><p>Of course it makes a ton of sense tactically, but I've gotten super-bored with every single combat going this way. I'd like to find a way to have any other configuration for the battle: either somehow get the PCs to actually enter the room, or ... I dunno, get the monsters into the hallway somehow?</p><p></p><p><strong>2. Scouting.</strong> Any time the PCs come to a new location, they won't venture in as a group. They'll summon a familiar or, barring that, send the stealthiest group member on ahead to scout the place out. Again, I know why they do this, but I feel like it leads to the Shadowrun "decker problem," where I'm running a longish section of the game for just one player. Yeah, the players chose to do it, but pretty often it seems like the rest of the group just checks out and makes dice stacks while the scout player does his/her thing. I'd rather have everyone engaged!</p><p></p><p>The common suggestion to deal with this problem is to have something attack the scout, but I feel like that's a tool that should be used sparingly. Does anyone know any <em>other</em> way to discourage this from happening?</p><p></p><p><strong>3. Caution.</strong> I recently ran a dungeon crawl for a group of very experienced players, and I just felt like it was their goal to interact with the dungeon as little as possible. These were high-level characters (a party of six PCs at level 13), with a ton of tools to deal with anything that happened, and I don't have PC permadeath at my table anyway unless the player wants it; but they touched nothing unless they absolutely must, and tried not to even enter rooms. Their ideal way of handling the place was never to touch anything except with <em>mage hand</em> or by having a summoned earth elemental bring it to them. They also sent the elemental first into every room and corridor to see if anything attacked it or any traps went off. Again, I understand why they do this, but I feel like it leads to a less fun experience for them as well as for me.</p><p></p><p>I <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?654552-How-do-you-encourage-players-to-interact-with-the-environment" target="_blank">asked a similar question</a> last fall about an environment that wasn't even a dangerous dungeon. There, most of the answers focused on telegraphing safety. But I think this is just a deeply engrained habit for this group, so in this specific case, I think just countering their go-to solutions will have to be enough. Can anyone suggest reasons why a character might have to do a task / retrieve an item / open a door personally instead of using <em>mage hand</em> or a summoned creature to do it?</p><p></p><p><strong>IMPORTANT: I'm not asking any of these questions because I want to screw over my players,</strong> or because I think they're too good at handling my challenges. I'm asking because I think these habits, sensible though they are, are getting in the way of fun and engagement for all of us. I am hoping to get both them and me out of a rut, so I can create better challenges and more memorable adventures.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jayoungr, post: 7599592, member: 6702445"] So there are certain things that [I]always happen[/I] in my games, and for good reason: they benefit the PCs. But the sheer predictability of them is making me want to scream, and I'm just wondering if anyone here has advice on how to shake things up a bit. [B]1. Fighting from the doorway.[/B] It never fails. There might be five monsters in a 30 x 30 room, but what will happen is that the PCs will open the door and never actually enter until all the monsters are dead. If they're high enough level, they'll chuck fireballs into the room until the monsters die. If not, they'll stand in the doorway and do other ranged attacks, forcing the monsters to come to them and try to fight while the PCs hold the strategic chokepoint. Bodies pile up in the doorway. Of course it makes a ton of sense tactically, but I've gotten super-bored with every single combat going this way. I'd like to find a way to have any other configuration for the battle: either somehow get the PCs to actually enter the room, or ... I dunno, get the monsters into the hallway somehow? [B]2. Scouting.[/B] Any time the PCs come to a new location, they won't venture in as a group. They'll summon a familiar or, barring that, send the stealthiest group member on ahead to scout the place out. Again, I know why they do this, but I feel like it leads to the Shadowrun "decker problem," where I'm running a longish section of the game for just one player. Yeah, the players chose to do it, but pretty often it seems like the rest of the group just checks out and makes dice stacks while the scout player does his/her thing. I'd rather have everyone engaged! The common suggestion to deal with this problem is to have something attack the scout, but I feel like that's a tool that should be used sparingly. Does anyone know any [I]other[/I] way to discourage this from happening? [B]3. Caution.[/B] I recently ran a dungeon crawl for a group of very experienced players, and I just felt like it was their goal to interact with the dungeon as little as possible. These were high-level characters (a party of six PCs at level 13), with a ton of tools to deal with anything that happened, and I don't have PC permadeath at my table anyway unless the player wants it; but they touched nothing unless they absolutely must, and tried not to even enter rooms. Their ideal way of handling the place was never to touch anything except with [I]mage hand[/I] or by having a summoned earth elemental bring it to them. They also sent the elemental first into every room and corridor to see if anything attacked it or any traps went off. Again, I understand why they do this, but I feel like it leads to a less fun experience for them as well as for me. I [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?654552-How-do-you-encourage-players-to-interact-with-the-environment"]asked a similar question[/URL] last fall about an environment that wasn't even a dangerous dungeon. There, most of the answers focused on telegraphing safety. But I think this is just a deeply engrained habit for this group, so in this specific case, I think just countering their go-to solutions will have to be enough. Can anyone suggest reasons why a character might have to do a task / retrieve an item / open a door personally instead of using [I]mage hand[/I] or a summoned creature to do it? [B]IMPORTANT: I'm not asking any of these questions because I want to screw over my players,[/B] or because I think they're too good at handling my challenges. I'm asking because I think these habits, sensible though they are, are getting in the way of fun and engagement for all of us. I am hoping to get both them and me out of a rut, so I can create better challenges and more memorable adventures. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Want to shake things up: Doorways, Scouting, Caution
Top