D&D General worst (real) advice for DMs

[prabe]

Perhaps it comes down to how strictly one defines “adversarial”, but I think a DM can take an adversarial approach and still be a fan of the player characters. The DM, at least in 5e, is not really trying to “win” every combat after all. They are trying to present varied challenges that, like you are saying, make for a game experience that is fun for the table. At the end of the day, if proper expectations are set up front, then concerns about an “adversarial” DM can be minimized.

There is a difference between "running the opposition as though it wants to win" and "setting out to beat the players," at least, I think, in attitude. I would describe the latter as "adversarial," but not the former.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So you never put challenges or enemies in front of your parties that are above their pay grade?

Not ones that are enough so they still can't handle them, or avoid them in the first place. Again, there's a difference between the first clause in the sentence I quoted and the second; the second is a (hardnosed) acknowledgment that PCs can get themselves into things that may require rough choices to get out of, the second is a gotcha.

Even 5e, for all its other faults, recommends that a certain percentage of encounters be (I forget the exact term they use) very difficult; which I take to mean difficult enough (on paper, anyway) that a party cannot go in expecting to win and could, if unlucky or unwise, lose outright. And at "lose outright" you're into flee or die territory, at which point individual survival becomes paramount.

And even with this, your expectation on the latter is, as I've noted, unreasonable without reference to the players involved. As I said before, its one thing to take this tact when everyone is onboard (say, people playing DCC where an old-school disposable PC view is taken as given all the way back to the funnel at the start), another to expect it for everyone.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There is a difference between "running the opposition as though it wants to win" and "setting out to beat the players," at least, I think, in attitude. I would describe the latter as "adversarial," but not the former.

Though the line can be pretty fine. Fine enough its almost indiscernible from the outside, given the GM makes his own assessment of what information the NPCs have and how they're designed.

(This is actually one of those areas where a large dependence on table-rolling can produce some genuine improved fairness, though you have to be very careful when setting up said tables).

 

[hawkeyefan]

There is a difference between "running the opposition as though it wants to win" and "setting out to beat the players," at least, I think, in attitude. I would describe the latter as "adversarial," but not the former.

Yeah, I agree.

Given that the GM essentially has unlimited resources to throw at the players, if they were always actually trying to win, then I’d say the average GM’s stats are quite disappointing.

 

[HammerMan]

So you never put challenges or enemies in front of your parties that are above their pay grade?

Even 5e, for all its other faults, recommends that a certain percentage of encounters be (I forget the exact term they use) very difficult; which I take to mean difficult enough (on paper, anyway) that a party cannot go in expecting to win and could, if unlucky or unwise, lose outright. And at "lose outright" you're into flee or die territory, at which point individual survival becomes paramount.

I know this wasn't directed at me... but all the time...

like by the book I think my 'low' encounters are close to deadly. I find that my parties often hit WAY over there pay grade... but I also know that there are limits.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I agree.

Given that the GM essentially has unlimited resources to throw at the players, if they were always actually trying to win, then I’d say the average GM’s stats are quite disappointing.

Well, at least in the old days, some of the people with this attitude felt like they wanted to beat them "fairly"; i.e. set up a situation where they understood what they were getting into generally, and then just use the resources at hand to do it. As I noted before that can be a fine line at best, though.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I know this wasn't directed at me... but all the time...

like by the book I think my 'low' encounters are close to deadly. I find that my parties often hit WAY over there pay grade... but I also know that there are limits.

The 5e challenge rating system has a reputation for being, if anything, less useful than the 3e one.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well, at least in the old days, some of the people with this attitude felt like they wanted to beat them "fairly"; i.e. set up a situation where they understood what they were getting into generally, and then just use the resources at hand to do it. As I noted before that can be a fine line at best, though.

Sure, the line can be fine or it can even vanish entirely at times.

Either way, the stats don’t support the stated goal. I mean, imagine playing in a campaign where the PCs lose roughly half their combat encounters. I can’t imagine players being okay with that. Not unless there was a severe focus on avoiding combat. But, as D&D has progressed the classes have become more combat focused, not less…so I don’t know how relevant such an approach is.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, the line can be fine or it can even vanish entirely at times.

Either way, the stats don’t support the stated goal. I mean, imagine playing in a campaign where the PCs lose roughly half their combat encounters. I can’t imagine players being okay with that. Not unless there was a severe focus on avoiding combat. But, as D&D has progressed the classes have become more combat focused, not less…so I don’t know how relevant such an approach is.

Well, there's a solution to that: have it set up that the PCs are more powerful than most of their opponents. At that point you've got a GM who's playing like I do with a fair bit of computer games; I find that I'm actually more likely to enjoy the ones where the challenge is a bit above my head. At that point he still loses most all fights, but he's playing to win.

 

[Lanefan]

The biggest issue if you're not going to know what the PCs can do, you need to make sure to provide enough different challenges that whatever they picked is liable to be useful at least some of the time.

I would assume this variance of challenges to be the default long-term outcome as the campaign goes on. If it isn't, the DM might want to shake up the adventure selection a bit.

That said...

As an (admittedly extreme) example, if you have a thief or rogue (to be relatively system agnostic) in the group with a lot of things that are trap-focused and start ignoring using traps, their investment is completely wasted.

...sometimes the character you bring to the party just isn't going to be the right tool for this particular job, either by bad luck or bad management. Most of the time, one of two situations is in play:

--- the party have enough info to give them a vague idea what they're up against, and can tweak their resources (including their lineup!) to suit
--- the party have little or no advance info and thus cannot tweak their resources to suit, instead they have to try to be ready for anything.

In the first instance, if the party learn they're up against a trap-laden adventure and have a bunch of tanks but no Thief or Rogue in their lineup, maybe someone might want to swap out their tank and bring in a sneak? Failing that, at the very least the party might want to recruit an NPC for the job?

More broadly, I see it as very much - perhaps entirely - on the players/PCs to adapt to what the setting throws at them, rather than on the DM to adapt the setting to suit the PCs. The setting is, neutrally and without prejudice, exactly what it is; without regard for who/what the players decide to play in it.