D&D General worst (real) advice for DMs

[Lanefan]

This sentence is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Traditionally games have done a crap job of providing useful retreat options that would work with any reliability, and as such, even if a given version does, people have been trained that trying to retreat is even less likely to work out that fighting and overpowered opponent.

So I think assuming a given incarnation of the game and the GM will handle this in a way that doesn't make it an at least partial death sentence is just as problematic as overly fixating on balanced encounters if not more.

It's called cutting your losses as a party.

If you retreat and thus only lose two characters out of six, that's a vastly better outcome over standing in and losing six out of six.

If, however, you're suggesting that parties should never be put (or be able to put themselves!) into positions where choices like this have to be made, then I have no sympathy.

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Apropos to the 2nd-level party vs a Hill Giant example upthread: at the start of my current campaign (modified 1e, in case it matters) a seven-character party - all of them 1st level - were hidden in the woods running surveillance on a passing road. Along said road came a Hill Giant, travelling alone. Chances are extremely high it would never have noticed the party had it been left alone; but we'll never know because in their infinite wisdom two of the PCs looked at each other, high-fived, and face-charged the thing! The rest of the party followed, only slightly more cautiously.

What's truly amazing is that, on the loss of three characters and with no fudging from me, they somehow managed to kill it. Dice can be fickle things...

 

[jmartkdr2]

It's called cutting your losses as a party.

If you retreat and thus only lose two characters out of six, that's a vastly better outcome over standing in and losing six out of six.

Most players I know would consider that just as bad as a tpk.

If, however, you're suggesting that parties should never be put (or be able to put themselves!) into positions where choices like this have to be made, then I have no sympathy.

=============

Apropos to the 2nd-level party vs a Hill Giant example upthread: at the start of my current campaign (modified 1e, in case it matters) a seven-character party - all of them 1st level - were hidden in the woods running surveillance on a passing road. Along said road came a Hill Giant, travelling alone. Chances are extremely high it would never have noticed the party had it been left alone; but we'll never know because in their infinite wisdom two of the PCs looked at each other, high-fived, and face-charged the thing! The rest of the party followed, only slightly more cautiously.

What's truly amazing is that, on the loss of three characters and with no fudging from me, they somehow managed to kill it. Dice can be fickle things...

Here's the thing: that was a fair and balanced encounter. If they had played halfway smart, then no one would have gotten hurt. An unbalanced version of this would be a dragon flying by, sensing the party with truesight, and deciding to kill them. There's nothing the party could do in that case.

Fair fights and fair encounters are not he same thing.

 

[Blue]

I think it's perfectly possible to create adventures tailored to the PCs without having an encyclopedic knowledge of what the PCs' abilities are. Some of that is knowing (or learning) the types of adventure elements that work well for a certain group, some of that is knowing what a given group of PCs want, some of that is knowing what a given group of PCs can do.

I don't know absolutely everything all the PCs in the parties I'm GMing can do (five or six characters, mid-high levels) but I am absolutely creating adventures tailored to those PCs' interests and desires, and tailored to what works for each group of players.

If by "encyclopedic" you mean the full details, that is not at all what I was claiming.

Think of it more like a table of contents. I know what the charater's abilities are. I don't the "encyclopedia entry" for them.

For example, if a ranger in my group has picked desert for their favored terrain, it's important I know that so I can have desert show up occasionally and not make it a wasted feature. That's not the "encyclopedia entry" of how favored terrain works. Or if the paladin is immune to disease make it show up. Have a poison gas terrain feature that the dwarf can show off their advantage and resistance. It is knowing what features all of your characters have.

You bring up what the group wants - of course, that's adventure design 101. I'm not also claiming anywhere this replaces that. What I am saying is that if you know what your characters can do, you can show some love and spotlight time on the ones getting neglected. That if your rogue spent there expertise options on skills to deal with traps, make sure there are traps occasionally. If another character is a folk hero, work that in occasionally, even if it's just the hook with commoners seeking them out.

It's a trivial thing each level to jot down what new abilities the characters get, and when you are planning your session it's a great source of inspiration for challenges. It makes your job easier, and makes the players feel even cooler.

 

[Blue]

It is to much for some DM's to handle. If this statement is true, it implies DMs that cannot handle knowing everything 6 or 7 different 15th level PCs can do is a bad DM. I don't believe that is the case. I think a DM needs to know generally what the PCs can do, but it is not necessary to know everything.

It's trivial to jot down what new features characters get every month or two when they level up. Remember, the reason I liked it was as a session creation tool, not something they need to keep in their head. And it's just the "Favored Terrain: Coastal", no need to delve into the details.

But "know generally" doesn't fit the bill, since the idea is to notice what abilities aren't getting used often. "Know generally" would much more likely pinpoint the ones that are frequently used.

It's a wonderful aid when designing your next session of inspiration for challenges because you can pick little-used character features. "Oh yeah, the dwarf has advantage against poison and resistance to poison damage and that hasn't come up in a long time. So why don't I make one of these encounters with something that uses poison. Hmm, a wyvern works well here."

It's inspiration for the DM, which makes their job easier, and it makes the players feel cooler as they have the right special ability to deal with something.

 

[prabe]

If by "encyclopedic" you mean the full details, that is not at all what I was claiming.

Think of it more like a table of contents. I know what the charater's abilities are. I don't the "encyclopedia entry" for them.

For example, if a ranger in my group has picked desert for their favored terrain, it's important I know that so I can have desert show up occasionally and not make it a wasted feature. That's not the "encyclopedia entry" of how favored terrain works. Or if the paladin is immune to disease make it show up. Have a poison gas terrain feature that the dwarf can show off their advantage and resistance. It is knowing what features all of your characters have.

You bring up what the group wants - of course, that's adventure design 101. I'm not also claiming anywhere this replaces that. What I am saying is that if you know what your characters can do, you can show some love and spotlight time on the ones getting neglected. That if your rogue spent there expertise options on skills to deal with traps, make sure there are traps occasionally. If another character is a folk hero, work that in occasionally, even if it's just the hook with commoners seeking them out.

It's a trivial thing each level to jot down what new abilities the characters get, and when you are planning your session it's a great source of inspiration for challenges. It makes your job easier, and makes the players feel even cooler.

Yeah, having an idea of what the PCs can do is helpful, but I think it's probably more important to know what the PCs want. If you're paying attention it leads to similar places--as @hawkeyefan said, the build choices are implicit (sometimes explicit) messages to the GM about the types of adventures (or adventure elements) the players want to see.

 

[Blue]

Yeah, having an idea of what the PCs can do is helpful, but I think it's probably more important to know what the PCs want. If you're paying attention it leads to similar places--as @hawkeyefan said, the build choices are implicit (sometimes explicit) messages to the GM about the types of adventures (or adventure elements) the players want to see.

Knowing what they can do is a simple and not-time-consuming tool. It in no way reduces or interfere with knowing what the PCs want. It is not an either-or. Having a d20 does not mean we can not also have a d8. So discussion about additional ways to plan session doesn't counter that is another tool in the DM's box.

 

[Hussar]

It's called cutting your losses as a party.

If you retreat and thus only lose two characters out of six, that's a vastly better outcome over standing in and losing six out of six.

If, however, you're suggesting that parties should never be put (or be able to put themselves!) into positions where choices like this have to be made, then I have no sympathy.

=============

Apropos to the 2nd-level party vs a Hill Giant example upthread: at the start of my current campaign (modified 1e, in case it matters) a seven-character party - all of them 1st level - were hidden in the woods running surveillance on a passing road. Along said road came a Hill Giant, travelling alone. Chances are extremely high it would never have noticed the party had it been left alone; but we'll never know because in their infinite wisdom two of the PCs looked at each other, high-fived, and face-charged the thing! The rest of the party followed, only slightly more cautiously.

What's truly amazing is that, on the loss of three characters and with no fudging from me, they somehow managed to kill it. Dice can be fickle things...

And, there's another point to be made here. 7 PC's, with surprise, can pretty easily do 42 points of damage (which is average for a hill giant). Potentially getting 1-3 rounds of actions before the hill giant? That's probably something like 18 longbow attacks, spells, and multiple melee weapon attacks. I'm actually surprised they lost a single PC. That must have been very, very bad luck on their part.

 

[Hussar]

It's trivial to jot down what new features characters get every month or two when they level up. /snip

Month or two? How slowly do you play. We level up in 5e about every other session. Three sessions at the outside. IOW, as a DM, I'm dealing with probably 5 level ups in two months.

Heh. One of my players, busted out an ability last session that grants major bonuses on a save (I forget the name) that she can do 4 times per long rest, that not only did I not know about, but, she had forgotten she had for a couple of levels.

 

[prabe]

Knowing what they can do is a simple and not-time-consuming tool. It in no way reduces or interfere with knowing what the PCs want. It is not an either-or. Having a d20 does not mean we can not also have a d8. So discussion about additional ways to plan session doesn't counter that is another tool in the DM's box.

True. Considering what the characters can do is good design, just as considering what they want is. The ability to consider the characters you're running for is one of the primary advantages of running homebrew adventures over published ones.

On the other hand, I care far, far more about what the PCs want than what they can do. Keeping track of their characters is the players' job, and I am happy to be surprised if they pull some ability out that I've forgotten about. In my experience, building a situation around something the character/s can do is a surefire way to ensure they'll either go in a different direction or forget they can do that thing you're expecting them to do.

I'm not saying I ignore the characters' abilities. I'm just saying I don't much bother to track them, and I build situations and adventures from other directions.

 

[Blue]

Month or two? How slowly do you play. We level up in 5e about every other session. Three sessions at the outside. IOW, as a DM, I'm dealing with probably 5 level ups in two months.

Heh. One of my players, busted out an ability last session that grants major bonuses on a save (I forget the name) that she can do 4 times per long rest, that not only did I not know about, but, she had forgotten she had for a couple of levels.

In my current campaign we just hit 8th level after session 33. We play every other week, but often will miss a bunch of sessions around the holidays and also in the summer when people are traveling. (Running for multiple couples means that you're usually down two if you are down any, and down 2 of 5 is too few to run.) So it's been 7 level-ups over a year and a half, or about 1 level every 7 weeks real time.