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Want to shake things up: Doorways, Scouting, Caution
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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7599615" data-attributes="member: 97077"><p>Door/choke point battles are classic D&D. A good solid door in a dungeon is really valuable tactically when you think about it. If you're a monster faction in a dungeon, you want control over those doors. </p><p></p><p>One way to deal with this is to make it so the door isn't the only way into or out of an area. If there's another door or a hallway that allows the monsters to move around to the other side of the PCs, it takes away the tactical value of the door. Secret doors are good for this too.</p><p></p><p>Another option is to create a big incentive to go into the room while the battle is raging. That could mean beneficial terrain that helps the PCs or terrain that greatly empowers the enemies' ranged attacks or defenses. A disincentive might also work, such as a trap or other effect around the door that makes staying there costly.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I've seen this happen once or twice. Luckily I use Roll20 for both in-person and online games so I can actually set the familiar's or scout's vision to "all players" so that everyone can see what's going on. That makes it a bit more engaging even if it's just the one PC that is actually in the spotlight. But really I just talk to the players about this and say that this isn't a good way of managing spotlight and that they should consider doing this sparingly for the sake of everyone's play experience.</p><p></p><p>But also, kill that scout, man, when it makes sense to.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You're probably correct that this is a deeply ingrained habit. That is often my experience with certain players. Building up trust is really the only way forward in my view and that includes telegraphing threats to show you're not putting "gotchas" in front of them. It's also okay in my view to challenge their standard operating procedure from time to time: Objects of interest are too heavy for mage hand. Anti-magic fields or whatever prevent the summoned creature from getting close to the object of interest. And so on. </p><p></p><p>This is worth a conversation with the players to find out the root cause before implementing any specific change in the game in my opinion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7599615, member: 97077"] Door/choke point battles are classic D&D. A good solid door in a dungeon is really valuable tactically when you think about it. If you're a monster faction in a dungeon, you want control over those doors. One way to deal with this is to make it so the door isn't the only way into or out of an area. If there's another door or a hallway that allows the monsters to move around to the other side of the PCs, it takes away the tactical value of the door. Secret doors are good for this too. Another option is to create a big incentive to go into the room while the battle is raging. That could mean beneficial terrain that helps the PCs or terrain that greatly empowers the enemies' ranged attacks or defenses. A disincentive might also work, such as a trap or other effect around the door that makes staying there costly. I've seen this happen once or twice. Luckily I use Roll20 for both in-person and online games so I can actually set the familiar's or scout's vision to "all players" so that everyone can see what's going on. That makes it a bit more engaging even if it's just the one PC that is actually in the spotlight. But really I just talk to the players about this and say that this isn't a good way of managing spotlight and that they should consider doing this sparingly for the sake of everyone's play experience. But also, kill that scout, man, when it makes sense to. You're probably correct that this is a deeply ingrained habit. That is often my experience with certain players. Building up trust is really the only way forward in my view and that includes telegraphing threats to show you're not putting "gotchas" in front of them. It's also okay in my view to challenge their standard operating procedure from time to time: Objects of interest are too heavy for mage hand. Anti-magic fields or whatever prevent the summoned creature from getting close to the object of interest. And so on. This is worth a conversation with the players to find out the root cause before implementing any specific change in the game in my opinion. [/QUOTE]
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