Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 22, 2023, 04:57:01 PM
I'm sure D&D6e will be a huge success among certain types of players/DMs

From Peril in Pinebrook, the new official starting adventure:



Disclaimer, my sources in the twatter tell me this is so, if it's not then please provide evidence so I can correct them.

https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/peril-in-pinebrook-free-dnd-adventure/

That DM Tip, is hot garbage.  It makes every encounter meaningless.  Nothing will truly ever be a threat.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 22, 2023, 05:23:24 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 22, 2023, 05:13:00 PM
I do agree to a point on the attack thing.
I once used alpha strike, focus fire tactics on the characters in a D&D game, and wiped the party. I tend not to do that anymore. I will have the opponents target on a semi-random fashion.

The rest is narrative trash. A GM should not fudge things unless absolutley necessary, because fudging things skews the ability for the players to assess threat.
This leads to the inevitable "Adult red dragon? The GM will save us. Yawn."
The "odds" should change because the players made a choice that affected the situation, not because the GM is holding their hand when they're losing.

For some monsters it makes sense to have them switch their target, for others it doesn't, it can't be a hard rule on one way or the other, also sometimes the circumnstances might make it make sense or stop making sense.

I simulate all that with semi-randomness. I'll say "These giant ants will attack whoever's closest randomly between the closest-ests" or "These goblins will throw flaming pitch at the casters or ranged if they can, or anybody if they can't" that kind of thing. And any focus fire is due to the dice picking among available targets.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 09:03:26 PM
When it comes to the wizard, I'm of two minds. Maybe this is a generational thing. I play with a slightly younger crowd, and a lot of them are big videogamers, so I've never had to teach anyone basic game tactics like focusing down the enemy's chief damage dealer. If anything I experience the opposite problem. I might be alone in this, but there's a nebulous point where too much tactical efficiency starts to feel like metagaming to me. Flip your scenario on its head a little: Imagine a character has three goblins trying to murder them with spears, and they ignore the proximate threat to get more damage on the big bad one of their allies is fighting. Tactically correct, but I have difficulty believing it's what the character would do in the situation.

Yep. I don't mind player metagaming, because that's their "hero's edge". The opponents may make decisions that are not tactically perfect because in the heat of an encounter, things happen. Some Dwarf gets in your face and that wizard can wait a turn or two.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 24, 2023, 04:12:09 PMSome Dwarf gets in your face and that wizard can wait a turn or two.

I felt this was appropriate for this thread.  This is an excerpt from a book I'm reviewing right now under guidance for the GM.

Quote€ € You need to deal out pain. Hurt the protagonists every chance you get.
They're built to take it and get stronger for it. Make sure that happens.
€ € You play to challenge your players. Put your antagonists in the way of
what they want. See how the protagonists overcome those challenges
and see where the story goes from there.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 09:03:26 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 23, 2023, 06:59:38 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
A few things to unpack there....
------------------------------------------------------
Where it says that "they don't want the excitement to lead to certain character death", I actually kind of agree. I highlight the word "certain", because that's key to the issue. For character death to be certain, the encounter must not reasonably be survivable, escapable or avoidable. Probably sounds like a low bar, but I've seen GMs fail to meet it. I call this out, because periodically I see people talking tough about how fairness doesn't matter in an RPG, and I always have the same thought: If your GM locked your level one character in a room with an ancient dragon and then proceeded to burn you to death in the first turn, I bet you'd be annoyed.

That's obviously an extreme example, but it makes the point. You don't need to --and shouldn't-- carefully balance every encounter to give the players a 76% chance of victory, but it's also a really dumb idea to railroad them into defeat....

I find negative reinforcement tends to get players to learn targeting.  Like allowing a wizard to get off that second lightning bolt off because everyone decided to take out the 10 hp guards because it was epic, rather than stopping the guy doing AE 35hp a shot.  I'm expecting a potential TPK now due to that decision by players who damn well know better and decided fuck it, they are fighting push overs.  Open the wrong secret door, say hello to the huge dragon.  Oh, you are opening giant doors in what appears to be an obvious dragon's lair and you just killed a sub-boss that was behind a red dragon illusion and you are pikachu surprised a huge red dragon is there and you have 6 level 11's but you have players a few players with 20 hps because you weren't thinking?  Sucks to be you guys.  And then when the red dragon puts up a faustian bargain where you give one of your magic items and he'll let you live and one player decides fuck that, you aren't getting his bow +1, well good luck players.

If more DM's played the game as it is and kept the rolls the way it is, we'd all have better games and not seeing complete and utter fuck ups like what I just DM'd today.  50/50 chance of a TPK by a CR Easy with six level 11's due to poor play and poor role playing experience.  When given a chance of life and come back later when healed but to reach for defeat for most of the party, that is called stupidity.

As far as the dragon goes, it seems like you gave them a more than fair shot. Under the three-fold test I put forward above, the encounter was both avoidable and escapable, and might even be survivable with 6 level 11s, so it'd definitely be kosher by me.

When it comes to the wizard, I'm of two minds. Maybe this is a generational thing. I play with a slightly younger crowd, and a lot of them are big videogamers, so I've never had to teach anyone basic game tactics like focusing down the enemy's chief damage dealer. If anything I experience the opposite problem. I might be alone in this, but there's a nebulous point where too much tactical efficiency starts to feel like metagaming to me. Flip your scenario on its head a little: Imagine a character has three goblins trying to murder them with spears, and they ignore the proximate threat to get more damage on the big bad one of their allies is fighting. Tactically correct, but I have difficulty believing it's what the character would do in the situation.

For now they are playing with 5E by the book drow, can't wait for them to go into the Descent into the Depths that I'm setting up.  My favorite so far is Ridodre a fighter/wizard who dual wields his poisoned short swords as an Echo Knight / Graviturgist, who will echo into the players and then green flame blade them and then gravity well them over the cliff using no resources as an opener will be very fun.  and then push  It's going to be a fun time in the old town tonight as they run into the drow as written by the module with updated classes for 5E. 

If you take Descent into the Depths + Vault of the Drow and then the Drow of the Underdark for 3E, you get a much better defined drow city, albeit at a later state than Gary's modules but you can retcon them and use a lot of its content to really flesh out the city.    Having Thazirdun "driders" with squid tentacles than spiders, and high level fight/cleric or fighter/mages the old 1E ran is fun.  It gives them casters that are tank mages and hard to kill and able to cast spells between 1st-4th so you aren't going to game breaking spells for most of the leaders of the houses.

I have looked through the encounters in the adventure.  I don't know why they are talking about the PCs facing certain death but it's not specific advice for this adventure.  The first fight is very easy.  The second one is a little harder but the adventure gives the players a surprise round right off the bat.  The characters will not be in dire peril here.  They won't be in much peril at all.  The chances of a character actually dying are pretty much zero.   

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 24, 2023, 08:28:02 PM
I have looked through the encounters in the adventure.  I don't know why they are talking about the PCs facing certain death but it's not specific advice for this adventure.  The first fight is very easy.  The second one is a little harder but the adventure gives the players a surprise round right off the bat.  The characters will not be in dire peril here.  They won't be in much peril at all.  The chances of a character actually dying are pretty much zero.   

Perhaps you're underestimating the retardation of the new crop of players?

No holding a sword, that's phallic rape-culture. No magic missile, your caster uses Wiccan essential-oils magic. No Clerics, too much Christian baggage. These things really pull down your combat potential.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 25, 2023, 10:30:10 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 24, 2023, 08:28:02 PM
I have looked through the encounters in the adventure.  I don't know why they are talking about the PCs facing certain death but it's not specific advice for this adventure.  The first fight is very easy.  The second one is a little harder but the adventure gives the players a surprise round right off the bat.  The characters will not be in dire peril here.  They won't be in much peril at all.  The chances of a character actually dying are pretty much zero.   

Perhaps you're underestimating the retardation of the new crop of players?

No holding a sword, that's phallic rape-culture. No magic missile, your caster uses Wiccan essential-oils magic. No Clerics, too much Christian baggage. These things really pull down your combat potential.

The only want I can see a character dying is if they insist on attacking the good aligned, not hostile dragon for some reason.  I don't know why they would escort the baby there, fight to protect the dragon's eggs and then suddenly decide to attack the adult dragon.  That would be certain death all right.  The players would have to go out of their way to be dumb though.

Funnily enough, I've found players can tell when you're "holding back". This was an issue I ran into back when I ran 3.5e in high school. The guys could tell the enemies were cycling attacks to  take the pressure off them. When I stopped doing that, I found (unsurprisingly) it made combat much more interesting. Years later and with much more experience I don't give the players an inch. If they wanna rush into a room with 10 orcs, they're taking that risk. Even the 5e players I've gamed with enjoyed the risk and rewards much more. Hell, when I first introduced the idea of rolling for ability scores it blew some of their minds, and it isn't like it's some revolutionary idea. You just work with what you get and gauge your moves from there.

One thing I've learned pouring over the AD&D DM's guide: if you're gonna reward creativity, you've gotta punish stupidity.

Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on December 25, 2023, 12:34:23 PM
Funnily enough, I've found players can tell when you're "holding back". This was an issue I ran into back when I ran 3.5e in high school. The guys could tell the enemies were cycling attacks to  take the pressure off them. When I stopped doing that, I found (unsurprisingly) it made combat much more interesting. Years later and with much more experience I don't give the players an inch. If they wanna rush into a room with 10 orcs, they're taking that risk. Even the 5e players I've gamed with enjoyed the risk and rewards much more. Hell, when I first introduced the idea of rolling for ability scores it blew some of their minds, and it isn't like it's some revolutionary idea. You just work with what you get and gauge your moves from there.

One thing I've learned pouring over the AD&D DM's guide: if you're gonna reward creativity, you've gotta punish stupidity.

I'm well known among my circle of friends as being a rather harsh GM.  Sometimes I overhear convos about how hard a game or a session was that I ran.  It's almost like a point of pride that they survived.  (As far as I know, I'm just running things as they should be but maybe I'm not fudging things enough?)  To my face, they tell me they loved the game.

I never have an issue getting players, my biggest problem is getting schedules to line up.  Often this means I'm running with 2-3 players and this tends to lead into a buddy cop feel and lots of hirelings and retainers.  Sometimes I run two different games at the same time.

Imagine wanting to win a Olympic gold medal in weightlifting, but skipping leg day because it sucks. That's what that advice is. Oh, you still expect the gold, though. Just because.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 23, 2023, 08:45:23 AM
Whether for 5E or 6E, this adventure certainly showcases the same WOTC quality that we have all come to know well.

I see you're willing to take responsibility for your sloppy and lazy mistakes as usual. At least you got some clicks though, right?

Quote from: Mistwell on December 27, 2023, 10:51:39 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 23, 2023, 08:45:23 AM
Whether for 5E or 6E, this adventure certainly showcases the same WOTC quality that we have all come to know well.

I see you're willing to take responsibility for your sloppy and lazy mistakes as usual. At least you got some clicks though, right?

When are you going to take responsibility for Communism?

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
A few things to unpack there.

To start with, I'm with everyone else here in being very against illusionist gm-ing. I think this forum tends to trend towards the simulationist end of the GSN paradigm. Personally I'm unapologetically much more gamist in my approach, in that I'll generally prioritize a functionally playing game over one that accurately simulates reality. Even then, one of the basics of a functioning game is that the rules apply consistently and evenly, and that no one gets to cheat. To use a videogame analogy, having the DM change the rolls/stats behind the screen is akin to a videogame where the hit-detection malfunctions and it becomes unpredictable whether a weapon model colliding with a character model will cause damage, or a boss monster reads your inputs to attack you at the exact instant you start healing. It's the game itself cheating. I GM by a strict rule that once the "pieces are on the board", i.e., once I've described the scenario or written it down in my adventure notes, I take my hands off. No changing stats, no spawning monsters, etc. The rolls are the rolls.

Most video games DO cheat. When tested against the non-cheating version, players always report worse enjoyment compared to the cheat. Stuff like subtle auto aim to help the player shoot in FPS, or making the AI catch up faster in racing games, or fudging the RNG for item drops.