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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6630770" data-attributes="member: 5834">I enjoy combat and social as a DM and player.Combat because I enjoy figuring out how to win a battle against tough foes. Combat can become monotonous if continuous and against weak foes. That's why I prefer a smaller number of large, difficult combats rather than a continuous stream of weak combats. I start to tune out when it feels like we're playing a "whack-a-mole" when combat occurs. I like combat to feel dangerous and the monster to feel like the type of monster it is. If someone is pulling owlbears out of the MM and tossing them in for an easy kill for some xp, that is boring. If I fight a powerful owlbear, I want it to feel like a powerful, brutish, dangerous creature capable of hurting the party. I spend a bit of time designing combats that will give such a feel to my players. I hope DMs do the same for me when I play. Social because developing character requires social interaction. Even a taciturn individual can't show he is taciturn if he isn't interacting in an environment where it would be noticed. If the players don't develop relationships with each other and the world they live, then it feels like I'm playing a piece of paper. You don't develop a character's personality without social interaction. If I wanted to play a piece of paper with some stats and such written on it, I'd play a video game. Without the social pillar, D&D would be like a board or video game. I love developing odd personalities whether as a player or a DM. Nothing is more fun than getting a player to show some emotion during interaction whether hate, lust, or rage. Nothing gets a player to invest more in their character and makes it feel more real than when relationships form in the game. I find players respond best to villains or romance. Responses from friends outside of the core group or family don't usually evoke much of a response. But give a gamer a beautiful damsel in distress or a ruthless villain trying to kill or humiliate them, you'll get a response. Sometimes a child works as well when I have some random wench they've bedded or a married character have a child that is threatened. Though you have to be careful not to overdo it or act too ruthlessly or the player tunes out not wanting to walk down the path of despair and sorrow. There's nothing more fun for me than really getting players to invest in a romance, nuclear family, or a rivalry. That's when the game really starts to feel like it's no longer a game, but a fantasy life.At the moment I'm playing an insane (at least by surface world societal standards) female drow cleric with a slave husband monk that she berates every time he fails in battle, which has been far too often. She ran up to an assassin that nearly killed the monk and started slapping the assassin to show how weak he was screaming at the monk, "How can you let an orc-blooded thug challenge you? Get up and kill it." She tends to view the other party members as fighting in her service considering only the female high elf wizard as an equal. She keeps wondering why the high elf eldritch knight doesn't serve her. I find it amusing developing a strange personality from a different culture.</blockquote>

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