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Minor note, I'm pretty sure the audio clip was cut off at 0:58 seconds in, it's missing the last word. ANYWAYS: Great video, it covered all of the points that I have been plagued by every time I play combat in Dungeons and Dragons across 3rd 4th 5th edition and both pathfinders. To a certain extent I think I just am not the target audience for this pace of combat, but that's entirely due to reasons you laid out. I really liked your suggestions for fixes, and while I love my Fabula Ultima campaign I I'm curious to try these in a one shot sometime in order to broaden my horizons.

With everyone having various adult commitments, the 7 hour sessions of yore are off the table, so something's gotta give. I've really enjoyed Fabula Ultima, which kinda does the opposite of side based initiative - one character goes for one side and then it's the opposition, snaking back and forth. The fact that the party picks who goes means everyone's engaged and oriented at all times. A good mix of tactical fidelity and pace.

I tried to do a paid subscription on SubStack to support you. But that app acts so whacky at times I can’t confirm it worked or not. ❤

Thank you for a great channel. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Love and blessings to you and yours. ❤🙏🇺🇸

Randall. I love your Channel. I often go back - like this one - and listen to many of your videos over and over again. ❤

I returned to playing D&D with 5e after a 32 year hiatus. At first it seemed fun. It was much different than the AD&D and B/X I grew up playing, but I was happy to play again. After about 20 sessions I became aware of how little our party actually accomplished by the end of a 3 hour session, and in some cases a single combat took almost 2 sessions to complete. I was accustomed to playing 3 to 4 hour sessions and do multiple things and had multiple combats in my childhood games. While I still periodically play 5e with some people I have returned to more OSR or OSR inspired games like B/X, BECMI, and Shadowdark. I feel both a faster pace and characters don't feel so complex that you forget what you can do. I get why lots of people like the options and the builds and the tactical aspects of 5e but overall simpler games go faster and we often try stuff we would dare try.

Engaging for the algorithm, this stuff should be boosted! Echoing comments ive seen on your other videos: you're getting into real on-the-ground stuff that is useful for just about anyone playing games. With real examples and suggestions! I've been playing and running tabletops for close to a decade and have already found some tools I've never seen in your sandbox tools video, and will absolutely be making a d100 rep table for my current sandbox game. Excited to see your channel grow, have a happy holiday

@Earthmote How do you do this with a big table, plus enemies? I played a good bit of 2e as well as 1e for years prior in the 90s. We played at the FLGS, but also later on at one player's big farmhouse dining room table that sat their whole family of 12; our group of 10 was easily doable. Fast forward to my current table, and we've got 8 players plus the DM. Sure, that many is still doable, but once you hit higher levels, the action economy across eight players and however many NPC/monsters in opposition to them could be a steam roll on either side. I've had nights when the party as wiped out the mind flayer even when appropriately balanced...but only because he was two away from the bottom of the stack. I don't even think the last player in initiative got to do anything. This of course would be feasible 3-5 typical parties, but those three people make a difference (not to mention summons, hunter pets, etc.). Would love to try this, but I'm not sure how.

This has been my main complaint about 5e and the previous two editions --combat takes way too long, with players overwhelmed with all the things they can do (skills, feats, special actions, etc.) and the rigid positioning system (attacks of opportunity, etc.).

I couldn’t disagree with your points more.

You are just making points to play warhammer instead xd

This is such an awesome idea to help increase player’s immersion and feeling that they are influencing the game world. I can’t wait to trial it in my game of Dragonbane. I shared it with my DoD group too. Love the videos, keep up the great work!

To each their own but I feel almost completely the opposite about almost all these points. Hp pools at high levels are to high I agree there but it's also to account for high dmg possibility. The complexity is a good thing as combat isn't very interesting when it's your turn and the only to do is "I attack, ok I'm done" the options for tactics and strategies and whacky spells makes turns rememberable. Alot of tables like the all one side initiative but I think takes alot away from gameplay, it's gets easy for one side to gain a huge advantage from all going first and running away with the fight. Just my opinion of course, do what works for you

The simplest option is combat rounds (and urgent social situations) become REAL TIME player = character. Players have to state actions fast or miss their actions as their character gets confused and starts drooling, if players are arguing and discussing tactics that means their characters are, XP penalties if they have no way to speak in game. Use a timer if you must at first but players adapt and get exited pretty fast. Long combats killed Paizo funny that critical role or DEi get credit it was as simple as the promise of "trad dnd", pre-4th ed, with less creep and busyness.

I really love the idea!! D100 seems a bit much. Maybe keeping it simole with only 10 major deeds at a time. I like the idea of favorable or less favorable npcs liking them or not and why. That seems more real. (Not everyone is gunna love your heroes)

you could aslo start the party at 50% (d100), and every bad deed drop their percentage a point (or 5) , while every good deed raises the percentage. Then roll to see how NPC's react to the party, and have it affect the enconter reaction table depending on the alignment of the foe

A post apocalyptic era makes the most sense in the classic fantasy setting.

I appreciate what you're going for, but this just sounds like too much randomness and too much cognitive load to me. GMing a TTRPG is already enough mental load. It's maybe giving me ideas, though. Comment posted in large part to boost your video in the algorithm.

I started worldbuilding based on a magic system that works for D&D. The method I settled on uses soul energy of the dead, so the first of my BBEG options becomes opposed to this when his wife dies (most likely killed by PCs). The country which the PCs are from threw off their dragon overlords several centuries ago, but the threat still remains outside The Dome. Sort of a nation vs nature conflict, since the magic system this wildlander BBEG wants to abolish is protecting the entire population.

Keep in mind that even though the party is doing the deeds if they (or anyone else) aren't spreading the news of those deeds then their reputation won't grow. I usually insert curious folks who ask the party to tell their story of the adventure they just completed ~ especially if the party doesn't have their own bard or other "official storyteller". Then you can plausibly say that the tales of their deeds get spread around, for better or for worse. Another thing to keep in mind is that NPCs / other groups of adventurers might also build up a reputation and that the PCs may hear those tales! For example, a different adventuring group in the area that takes on the missions / adventures / leads that the PCs decline to follow. Who does those jobs? Why, the mysterious NPC adventuring group! And when the PCs hear the tales of their heroism and bravery a rivalry may result >:-]

While not officially a rule in Gurps, it has suggestions to break up combat turns into two parts. First, everyone declares what they intend to do. Ideally this would be done in secret as the players have no real way of knowing what is going to happen in a 1 second turn before it happens. Once decided the action sticks. Easy way to do this is to use cards with a description of what they intend and turn these in to the GM. Second, the players take said actions in the order of initiative which generally doesn't change. If they decide not to do what they had intended then they end up forfeiting their turn and do nothing. This has a practical upshot in that those with high initiative will almost always be able to perform their actions as intended. Whereas slow initiative players will often have their actions foiled by everyone else. An example of how this initiative difference works is to have two people attacking the same target in a single second. The first person attacks, kills it, and the second person, who is slower, now attacks a dead body. They cannot change targets or action this turn. They will have to wait until next turn by doing nothing on this turn. Conversely, if the second slower person kills it then that is the end of the turn. At the beginning of the next turn the faster person will know the target is dead and can choose a new target. They have a higher initiative and this reinforces that. The slow characters might end up doing nothing significant a few times. This means that they need to spread out and attack different targets. The high initiative has got the fight handled and doesn't need help from the low initiative. Splitting turns up this way keeps players engaged. They have to choose what they want to do and then they have to act it out. The actions take a very short time to resolve. If a player is missing when the decision is made then they stand there unsure of what to do. If the player is missing when it comes time to act then they're distracted.

Problem with D&D combat is its complexity. Each creature and character has pre-made skills/powers/effects that are super complicated and do multiple things all at once or do one thing in a very odd way from the rest of the game. While this brings a lot of flavor to the combat unless the players/DM knows exactly what each does this can bog the combat down when things have to be referenced both when deciding what to do and then when doing it. A better way is to go simple and make the players themselves perform the super nifty combat combo. This means that the footstomp/headstrike/uppercut is no longer 1 complicated action but is instead just 3 normal attacks against 3 different hit locations. The basic effect can be the same but the players are dealing with building blocks to design their own and have much more flexibility instead of using full castle pieces that may or may not fit. It might take 3 turns to get the full maneuver completed but each turn is super simple and takes almost no additional effort deciding what the character is able to do. In short, play Gurps with its 1 second turns, a handful of actionable maneuvers, and 3 options for active defenses. Using just that, you can play any sort of melee or ranged combat and still have it be exciting and engaging.

This got me thinking, I might try a d100 table too, where, once the initial list is full, I'm just gonna add a new column to the right and start at the top. Then on each roll I can see if the person is likely to know of that event and maybe even choose between two options. Thnx for the vid.

Spitballing: What about having three reaction tables and a percentile deed table. If no deed is recognized then you use the standard reaction, even means a different one that's more often favorable, odd is one that's less often favorable. Or to eliminate the deed table, just have a list of deeds, then roll an extra die when rolling for reactions (or a single die if you already have a reaction in mind) that says whether they'd heard of the party. The odds for this goes up over time generally speaking unless the party elects to lay low for a long time. If the roll suggests they've heard of the party, the reaction roll table is an alternative one to the standard, and includes stuff like being aligned with the faction that the party had defeated, or other reasons for the reactions, increasing the intensity of everything, basically. The GM can just pick a deed or deeds that might have inspired this reaction, or come up with a false rumor that has attached to the party. I do like bigger deeds having a larger chance on the table of causing a reaction, though

You get this in video games, like Darklands where you get more rewarding missions and get to talk to fancier people, and Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, where it's sort of like a party level that affects reactions with aligned NPCs and somewhat neutrals, and makes things worse with opposite alignments and factions. Into this sort of thing, especially if it can't be obviously gamed to make things weird

This is an incredible idea

I like the idea of building the d100 table. Great way to keep it immersive

It's considerably less obvious as an influence, but the Empire of the East trilogy (it's the "Changeling Earth et al" in Appendix N) by Fred Saberhagen might be worth a look. In the books, there are two sides, given as the East and the West. Exactly where the East lies is never specified. Mostly, they're just the bad guys and in one of the later books in the series, Saberhagen even spells out that the East is a concept rather than a place. Essentially, East and West are roughly the same as Chaos and Law in Three Hearts and Three Lions. But are they really anything other than more dramatic names for what are normally called good guys and bad guys? Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books had the concept of Equilibrium, which seems like an essential source for one of the ways Neutrality is used. This is especially so regarding the druid as it appeared in first edition AD&D; in terms of both attitude and abilities, Ged seems to better match the druid than the magic-user.

If you are already tracking in-game time in your game, you could use that to build in some kind of "decay", to make table space, I think! I haven't tried this myself, but I can think of two ways to do it: 1) Keep careful records (etc.): Assign each deed a "lifespan" on the table, reduce it as time passes, and when it hits 0, remove the deed from the table. (e.g. Defeated the bandits / 6 months, reduce value by 1 each month). 2) Assign each deed an "impact" score, or derive it from the % you assigned it. (i.e. 2% = Impact 1, 50% = Impact 25, if using your d% table) At whatever interval works for your game, throw dice to determine if the deed's Impact score changes, and adjust % band / remove from table accordingly. (No idea what die would work best. d6, no change on 1-4, reduce by 1 on a 5-6?)

I was also dissatisfied with the speed. I heavily tweaked the rules. It made combat swingy (within reason and not rocket tag) and fast. Here is a rough list. Side initiative. Players took turns rolling and applied their initiative bonus to the whole party. No bonus HP for constitution For monsters. HP bonus for players only at first level. (No HP bloat) No attacks of opportunity or reactions. (More freedom to move and try things) Surprise= auto win of initiative. Both parties unaware=players win initiative. Damage bonus from high ability scores was removed. (Less math and the nerfed HP is less of a liability) Natural HP recovery was slowed. It could be accelerated by skills and bed rest.(Making healing magic more important.) Dying: track negative HP die at the negative value of Constitution. Roll d20 every round *10 stay the same. 9 or lower lose another HP. 11 or higher regain one. You become stable and unconscious at 0.

No BBEG? Sandbox games can have them. There's always a lich.

This shows what is wrong with D&D. Anything not previously covered ends up as some ad hoc houserule. And really the only reason that most of the rules are considered canon is because they had been published. Make up something totally stupid but get it published and instantly it is Rules As Written. Just play Gurps where reputation is already a thing. If players do something amazing reward then with a Reputation advantage. Figure out what, in simple terms, the player is known for, the rough number of people who might know, and of course what degree of influence that reputation would have. Typically this last part is anywhere between -5 and +5. This is very similar to attractiveness, charm, or a pleasant voice in that the player uses it to influence the outcome of the meeting. If the reputation doesn't apply because the NPC is from a different locality, religion, organization, etc then this would be the same as trying to flash a blind man, or verbally seduce the deaf. In Gurps all things cost character points and these points can be awarded upon completion of a mission. Instead of an amount of money based on the player's wealth and social standing, they might be given a reputation instead once they return home with a story to tell. As a side, the social status itself is also an advantage that can be awarded in the same way with very similar effects. Just have lordships handed out to whomever slay the beast. So when an encounter is made, total up all the bonuses the player has from whatever applicable source and add it to a 3d6 roll. The player could be +3 attractive but have a -3 reputation and end up with a net +0 modifier. The higher this result the better the NPC reacts to the player with 10 being totally indifferent or apathetic. Below 3 would get a hostile reaction while above 18 would totally fangirl.

Boring combat is cured by 5 simple steps... 4 things to always do to capture the attention of players who dont like combat... Always have 1 RP moment like an NPC kid hidden among the choas who needs saving or someone drowning or w.e to hook people just there to RP. Second thing, Have a treasure held by an enemy or on display for the min maxer player to seek out. 3 for the dude whose there to do fun stuff or see choas unleashed have at least one enviromental thing to engage with like water to kick a guy into or something to swing from or explode. Fourth thing is to ask what they wanna do and have them answer in 30 seconds or less. So it focuses them and you can prep the next player to be ready for his or her turn. And the 5th thing... like a book or film, end combat after the climax. When the coolest possible thing happens. Combats done. Monsters can flee or die the next hit, doesnt matter..end it. I like to ask players what they want to do again and it just happens in the coolest way to clean up the enemies.

D&D Reputation Mechanics= 3.5e "Unearthed Arcana" page 180. It works well enough, & can be applied to any edition.

Really good stuff, I never thought of doing it that way.

For my own game, I've been experimenting with turning reputation into an abstract currency that players can spend on social benefits. I think having these things spelled out in mechanical terms encourages players to consider them more often.

In almost 40 years of gaming, reputation seems to be a forgotten tool to enhance a game. The way you described it seems fairly easy. Adjusting the percentages could be a good use of a chat bot where you cut and paste the table in and tell it to weight different deeds higher than others and have it create a table for you each time the group adds a new deed worthy of it.

When the list fills up, you could also add a second column, and put more deeds in. So 01-08 is "Defeated the Bluehand Bandits", 09-24 is "defeated Blurg" but then 01-16 is ALSO "Found the lost Amulet of Fire" That way if you were to roll a 06, they know about the Bandits and the amulet. If you roll a 14, they know about Blurg and the Amulet If you roll a 20, they only know about Blurg

If you are using factions, what a great way to see if a faction has heard of the party. Then, based on the faction, you can decide or roll for its member's reactions. This higher the party's reputation, the more likely they will be recognized (for better or worse).

My contribution to build your reputation…YOU ARE AWESOME!! No kidding, amazing material that you are releasing!

Great information here! I will incorporate this idea into my campaigns.

Excellent!

You can earn titles and bounties based on your deeds. If you do bad things people will hear. You live in a world where little birds can actually tell secrets, so it's up to you whether you want to act honourably. Just know Arsonist Jim might not be treated as well as Brave Champion Jim.

I had been conceptualizing levels not so much as pure experience but also renown, or here reputation, giving it the plus or minus character one sees insinuated in the early advice to DMs and rules. I think the level up might be how I can expand the % ranges for each benchmark achieved adventure to adventure (as older modules move one up in levels), thus destroying the brigand band gives XP towards level and a thing to be known for, or reputation, but as one levels up that means more people know you did that so it increases friction (or improves alliances) with the NPCs, especially allies or bosses of those bandits! A way to track and bond players to the campaign arc or trails and have progress have meaning and impact.

Amazing video! Very valuable stuff. Thanks for adding the link to the blogs.

This is such an amazing concept. Immediately rolling with an adaptation of it. Thanks

Now that's a topic I didn't know I would be interested in.

it says “sand box same” and not “game” at 7 min in

I was just trying to come up with something for reputation and social status. I like what you have better. Well done.

...but I don't give a damn about my bad reputation :/