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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 1559105" data-attributes="member: 7737">Heh, I'm usually disappointed because the party doesn't surprise me often enough! I'm pretty good at winging it, so I wouldn't mind being surprised a bit more often. But my players are pretty predictable.   I'm really, really, really bad at coming up with NPC names on the spot. To address this problem, I keep a massive list of names with my DM'ing supplies. Then when I need one, I just look at the list and pick one, crossing it off. The only problem is remembering who got which name after the fact. In order to build up my stable of NPCs, I ruthlessly steal them from other sources: published settings, computer games, books, movies, Eric Noah's campaign logs... you get the idea. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  There could be an entire thread devoted just to this issue, but suffice it to say that there are a multitude of possible solutions, ranging from initiative cards to computer aids. Sometimes I wish my players would take combat slower, and think about how to use the environment or their feats to their advantage -- rather than just attacking.  A huge frustration. I use a carrot and stick approach: the carrot is that I have told the players they will get more XP for non-violent solutions than the standard CR rewards. The stick is that if they do resort to violence when it's not necessary or appropriate, it often has nasty repercussions -- e.g., one of my players has a PC who is banned from the capitol city... which can be quite awkward for him. Everyone has an off night sometimes. If it gets really bad, I tell the players, "Look, I'm not really on my game tonight. Do you mind if we stop and do something else?" Then we can play cards or the minis game or whatever.</blockquote>

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