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Hello my friendly dm. Would you mind putting together a playlist for “new players guide to dnd” I know you have a lot of information for new players but I would find it beneficial to have it streamlined
Hey all!! Player in said game here. We don't think Luke did anything wrong here at all. I see a lot of folks who think this was on Luke, I think it was just between the players and the DM, there was not perfect communication. I don't think you can blame one side for that. I think Luke tried to communicate and some of us really wanted to bite, but others felt there may be traps or complications and were worried. I don't find fault here. The solution? Well that already happened, we did what good gamers do and we had a talk about it. Here is what happened, how can we make it better? That's why you watch this channel folks, because that's always one of Luke's #1 solutions. Talk to your players, it always makes for a better game!!
@brimstoner8908 People forget that the human brain learns any skill by attempting it and failing. Playing dnd as a group is a skill. It takes failure. Adults speak about it, give grace, and move forward. Luke's video and your comment do a great job of breaking this down.
I don't think anyone did anything wrong here, not the players or DM. However, the session itself wasn't up to the standard luke wanted, and thus he made the video. While I cannot speak for every comment, the vast majority of the comments are advice on what the dm could have done to improve the session (hindsight being 20/20) and ways to avoid this situation in the future. It focus on what the DM could do because, well, it's his channel and he made the video. Sorry if it came across as us blaming him or faulting him. He simply presented the situation from his perspective and the frustration he felt at what he belived was a sub-par session, so we posted ways it could have been improved or things he could do better going forward.
Sorry man. But I find fault with Luke. He should put at least 1 screaming women in this adventure. I garantee you that at least 2 or 3 men in the table would advance with -perverted thou- with heroic inspiration to the rescue. ** this is a joke.
As a GM I can understand and feel Luke's frustration. And sometimes share that need to either 'brag' about your players being cool and clever as well 'vent' when things don't exactly go as you hoped they would. I am thankful Luke did share this, as it can serve as a helpful vicarious lesson with no blame to assigned on any of parties involved. Also, my level 10+ at the time D&D 5e party said something to akin to: 'the kobold caves were the most intimidating dungeon they had faced yet'. This included: -a sunken underwater ancient temple crawling with undead and surrounded by Kaiju -Infiltrating and distracting an entire hostile pirate town while NPC allies confronted the evil blood mage (Long story, the players and NPC's 'flipped' for it and the players lost) -Dino filled jungle in search of the source of eldritch abominations -and more
I recently had a group fall apart because of the dm was a perfectionist who can’t improvise. Long story short he didn’t want players to be able to make more than 10-ish gold between sessions (with a huge homebrew system he made, very cool in theory but sucked in execution) and I was asking about ways to make more gold, so he accused me of being careless and acted like it was the players fault for not getting loot. Let me set the scene: we were teleported to a mysterious arena like location with massive walls we could see off in the distance. We walk into a dense forest and come across a giant spider web which the dm described as glowing (I don’t remember if it was blue or green) and that there was something in the web. On closer inspection it was a corpse with some stuff on it and there were potions which the dm said the webs were fabricating. I carefully poked the corpse with my quarter staff and then knocked it down, only to find a blue and gold ring. I inspected the ring for a minute and he didn’t give me any information so I put it on my finger, he said it made me feel like I have to pee so I went behind a tree and he said I couldn’t. So I took the ring off and left it behind assuming it requires atonement and carries some sort of terrible curse. He said that I should have just kept the ring if I wanted to make money. Absolutely insane, who wouldn’t think that was a cursed item
I had to learn the hard way that description wording means everything. I used to accidentally evoke tropes and stereotypes that would unintentionally scare my players off. For example, in this session, you described a green glow in the woods. That's generally symbolic for bad juju (witches, hags, fae, etc.) and would scare my players off. Adding in "warm", "friendly", "elusive", "nurturing", or something else weird has helped lol. Of course, there's always good ol' communication. I know it doesn't work for everyone, but in my games, I've found that a simple OOC, "Look, you can go that way/do that thing, but this is what I've got planned and promise it's worth your while" helps cure a session where the players avoid everything.
I agree with @timothybrodsky8299 and I think a lot of this could have been "fixed" with different or better description. I will admit I say that without knowing what you actually described. Here are a few examples I might have tired. 1- The Dino Stampede... "As you watch the Ankle-saur herd moving over the bodies you notice a glint of gold bouncing in the sunlight and watch as one of the bodies raises it's hand attempting to protect itself from the thundering hooves" ... you could even describe the gold being scattered and driven into the ground the longer they wait if you want to make it more time sensitive. 2- The Green glow... Describe this green glow as having a warm natural feeling that hums with magic and sounds like the beautiful song of long forgotten song birds. Make it enticing if you want them to be enticed. 3- The kobolds .. Since the rogue was already hidden you could have told them they over heard a conversation. " In broken common you hear the 3 kobolds talking about the next gathering to pay tribute to the Great Glowing Stick of Life and how they wish they had something better to worship and serve because the GGSL never talks back or gives them something to do." I have learned over the years that Players will almost always try to avoid danger (be it real or imagined) and that is good, because that means they are taking the world seriously. You just have to make things slightly more enticing. In the end you can see the world in your heard but that doesn't mean the players know what you know and things are always less obvious to them than they are to you. I say all of this having made this mistake MULTIPLE times myself. 😅
@@timothybrodsky8299 you should watch Viva La Dirt League where the dm does this very thing! The group is in a tavern and the dm points out a dark mysterious man in a cloak in a corner and the group talks to everyone else except the cloaked man!! It’s funny. And BACON NEEDS TO BE ITS OWN FOOD GROUP CALLED DELICIOUS AS ^|*]>
Eggs are fragile though. I suspect the players might have been less interested in *things* generally while handling such a delicate payload. Can happen with crucial (flimsy) NPCs, precious relics in danger of being stolen, etc. General willingness to explore and take risks diminishes when there's an important plate already spinning.
That was what I was thinking. Eggs can break extremely easily. It's like if I were to hand you a Christmas ornament from the 1910's made out of finely spun glass - you're not going to go, "This is the time to get into a fight and just hope this thing makes it out okay."
I'm sitting here thinking "he should have described the 'green glow' as a 'soft soothing green glow'" and "He should have had the rogue overhear the Kobolds having a conversation about the staff".... but I also know I've made these exact same sorts of mistakes all over my own game and that this is hindsight. Things work differently when the players are in front of you and you're tracking everything as a DM. The rogue is sneaking around and you're working with them, but the other players are chatting or wanting to do things at the same time... etc...
I wouldn't call it a mistake. You can always do things better, but that dosen't mean you are always doing them wrong. That kind of mindset can lead to burnouts.
No, no, the players are supposed to go, "We've done two back-to-back fights, but we'll assume the green glow, despite green being associated with bad magic in multiple cultures and multiple forms of media, is neutral or good, and not stop to rest in preparation for more combat". They're supposed to just know, somehow, that they're not in danger, that Kobolds were evil all the time under this DM before but suddenly will not be now, and that they have no need to have their characters act like rational adults who don't want to die. They should have their characters act like four year olds who reach their hand out and get burned by the fire repeatedly without learning. That's good RP - for the DM. Maybe not so enjoyable if you were hoping to play as a character who's old enough to know better than to instinctively assume the green glow means happy fun times, but hey, who cares about how much fun the players are having, this is about the DM's enjoyment. Clearly, that's what you should base character decisions on.
@@morganqorishchi8181 I assume you're replying to @python27au considering the content. I'd advise both of you that everyone's table is different. That has always been the case with TTRPGs. What works for one group may not work for another. That "spoon-feeding" players is one thing, but using an active description that communicates what the DM intends the players to experience is also a thing. We weren't at the table, we don't know exactly what was said (hell it may have been a hypothetical to get the point across), and those lines are always going to be fuzzy.
@@morganqorishchi8181 you open the door into a 10’ x 30’ room. In the centre of the room is a 10’x10’ pit. You can’t make out any other details from the doorway. What do you do? Do you investigate, or do you assume its a trap and walk away? Do i have to specifically tell you the pit is an illusion, and in the far wall is a secret door beyond which is more treasure than they can carry, before you get the courage to enter the room? I thought the game was about exploration and problem solving. You see something interesting, go in and have a look, if it turns nasty and you can’t over come it, then run away. These aren’t regular people, these are adventurers. In real life these are the mountain climbers and sky divers, the men who risked it all in a leaky wooden boat to discover new lands, etc.
My unwelcomed, unasked for, advice. You yourself said that you run challanging sessions. As such your players are likely always on alert for the next challanging threat, they fear for their lives. In this campaign you presented them with a horde of "tank-like" dinos, 2 T-rexes, a mysterious green glow, and a cave full of koblods, and, in their eyes, whatever "powerful force" they worshiped likely living in the tunnels. Yeah, i'd have skipped everything I could too, especally after the T-rex fight and when our priority was to get a rest so the caster can recover their spell slots. Ways to have avoided that: 1. The horde of dinos: How did you discribe them? Where they discribed as hostle? Friendly? Nutrual? Were they discribed as carnivores or horbaborvers? Did you have a PC with a high level of perception spot a mysterious object on one of the corpses that looked interesting, aka magical? You discribed a ton of "Risk", but what did you discribe as the "Reward" for taking that risk? 2. The T-rex fight kinda set the stage for everything that came next. Sucks that you rolled low, but you did acomplish the objective of all obsticals, you expended their resources. 3. The green glow: How did the pcs "Feel" when enounting it? Did you simply discribe what they saw? Or did you discribe a warmth? Was it discribed as a welcoming glow and left you feeling 'peaceful'? What did the PC's intuition tell them? Sure the PLAYERS were on edge, but the player's arent' the PCs, they simply play them, how the PC's feel about the glow is something you can say without removing agency. It's still their choice to trust it or not, but there's a world of diffrence in a party that is out of spell slots encounting a "mysterious green glow" vs a " Warm, welcoming, glow that radiates off the plants, simply being in it's precence provides a calming sence of relaxation and tranquility, you feel safe here." 4. The kobolds: yeah, you shot yourself in the foot here. They weren't scared of the kobolds, the were scared of whatever the kobolds worshiped. The "big theat" they're used to encounting in your challaing campaign. The one their mind says lives in the caves they couldn't see. In addtion, they were activly looking to rest, to prep and "feel safe" in your campaign so they'd be at full power against the next threat (like say more t-rexes). A better option would have been to have the cave be empty, let them set up and rest, and during the rest, one or two kolbolds appears at the entrence and initiates a conversation with whoever is on watch. This comes down to understanding and adjusting to your player's wants/goals. If they want to rest, if that's their priority, then presenting them with an encounter (of any sort) is going to be met with resistance or skipped alltogether. 5. Encounting the broken items: Ehh, this felt petty. Again, i don't know how you discribed it, but based on what I was told, you gave them an "all risk - no reward" type situation before. Showing that there was a reward they couldn't have known about but they missed out on feels like sour grapes. I'd have simply removed the items alltogether. Sure, keep the gold, but that's it. A useful skill for any DM is to put yourself in the player's shooes. Ignore the knowlage "you know" and consider what "they know" and then what the most logical course of action they would take based on that knowlage. Adjust the campaign to it and you'll have better games overall. My two cents anyway.
I have the same issues as him and my players know I don’t play that rough. It’s not the challenge that deters them, it’s just cowardice. Plus Deinonychus isn’t even that high CR, and Ankylosaurus is a herbivore.
Is it weird to both agree and disagree with this? All that you wrote is true, but they are playing adventurers. I've had this problem in the past too and I had to remind my players that their characters are monster hunting, grave robbing, scoundrels that seek gold and glory through danger. If they avoid all potential dangers they also miss out of possible rewards. Too many players want a "story" where they mitigate risks. Remind the players that risk taking is what adventurers does. Finally, I'll add that just telling your players that they need to change their behaviors is dumb and never works. Add a few games where they can feel like dungeon crawling adventurers to get them into the mood of high risk for high reward and offer them something grand to work towards using said rewards. That has always worked for me. Hope this helps.
Exactly, TTRPGs don't have re-dos. If you want your players to take risks, they need to feel like those risks are both worth it and won't kill them. Nothing is worse than taking a GM's plot point, dying, and the GM treating you like a moron because you 'lacked self-preservation' and need to realize 'your actions have consequences.'
I was running an EARLY AD&D game. (Original PHB, DMG, MM and not much else was out) The players kept ignoring rumors of undead and went doing other stuff. I kept telling them about bigger and worse issues with undead over 6 months of weekly sessions. they kept saying "Skeletons and zombies... No fun." And then the massive mob of undead destroyed their home base town. I had increased the difficulty level of the undead and increased the size of the undead hordes, then merged them under one leader as the players kept ignoring the issue. The PCs had to flee the small continent that was over-run with undead.
Sounds like this could've benefited from an OOC talk. If everyone's saying fighting undead is boring, and my notes said the campaign revolved around endless armies of undead, I would've gone "oh boy". Not "let's flood everything with undead and kill all the useful townsfolk"
Like the other poster says, if the party is uninterested in fighting undead, forcing them to fight endless hordes without an OOC warning that the campaign was intended to be about dealing with undead feels pretty rude.
Man, the very same situation you described happened at the table I'm playing on, but as a months-long pattern, and I understand your veteran player's frustration because I was on their shoes the whole time. It's painful when you can clearly identify your GM's intentions (and most of the time they're as subtle as neon lights at night) and the rest of your party is just there like "nah...".
I think context is everything. Had a Starfinder scenario recently where the party was on a planet and had decided to try and escape a pirate ship waiting for them in orbit rather than confronting it. It had been established earlier that there were sandstorms around the planet that were difficult to fly through but otherwise did no direct harm to ships, so their plan was to hop from storm to storm until they had reached the other side of the planet, then launch into orbit and activate the Drift (Warp) engine before the pirates knew what was happening. This creativity in "avoiding content" resulted in at least as fun and exciting of a situation as if the party had just entered into a standard ship combat.
Best advice for open world: lay out a bunch of threads and plot hooks that you only plan the first step for. See what your players specifically choose as their adventure to pursue despite the known dangers. Then, end that session with a cliffhanger and spend the next week or two prepping that encounter now that they're invested. They're less likely to avoid the mysterious green mist in the woods if that's tied to their reason for being in the woods in the first place.
Sounds like you're failing as a DM if your players are too scared of encounters or exploration. Seriously. You've just made them fight two back-to-back combat sessions, one of which was against two T Rexes, in which they've exhausted ALL of their spell slots. From a player psychology point of view, they aren't thinking "ooh, a green glow! How exciting! this must be the payoff!" No. They're thinking "Our DM is trying to bait us into another fight. possibly a boss fight. And we have no spells... Yeah, we need to rest up." You might have all the experience in the world as a DM, but sometimes that can actually get in the way. And this is particularly so when you find your players behaving a certain way and you blame them, without realising that maybe it was YOU that caused your players to react the way they did.
I would have had the players encounter boastful adventurers in town _laughing and talking about the incredible stuff they just found_ ... and then the players would realise from the stories they heard that their own caution had just left a bunch of valuable stuff lying around for others to trivially collect. Decisions have consequences!
I know people hate to break immersion, but sometimes it's worthwhile to just have a conversation about this above-table. "Guys, I put these encounters in here for you to explore, advance the plot, and get loot. Some may be challenging, but I promise you they are fair and winnable (or at least survivable). I'm not going to pull a 'Tomb of Horrors' and instantly kill you because you took one wrong step."
Why only place survivable encounters? Oh well if your group is into it. (Edit: due clarification--I don't mean encounters should have no way out, of course, but very high danger unwinnable scenes where you either leave or surprise the GM with some clever win tactic can be fun).
@@RafaelLVx That's literally what a survivable encounter is: one so difficult you could easily die, but that there's normally a way through or out with a little clever or tactical play. They're not so easy to plan as DM, but yeah, they're definitely worth the effort. That said, they often work better (or, at least, are often easier to run) in more narrative games than those fixated on rules... like PF2.
I disagree. The DM shouldn't say these things. The DM should adjust the way these things are presented. Like have the Kobolds appear AFTER the party has set up camp, have the lone surviving NPC amongst the ankle-saurs cry out for help, or have the Kobolds tell the players (if they befriend them) about a lost staff that glows green, etc.
Good reflection! Here's an idea for Wilderness Adventures: use more Branching Paths. Here's how I'd go about it: Assume players will skip some amount open-world content. Note which encounters may be optional in your adventure. For every one, create a short/separate encounter if your players avoid it. Let's take The Druidic Staff Encounter: If players avoid the meadow, perhaps an NPC is trying to find the staff nearby. They may look lost and could know some lore regarding the staff... Players may be inclined to lie about not seeing the staff/knowing it's whereabouts, making it an interesting social encounter. Or maybe they don't do anything. Either way, they've learned a bit about it via the NPC.
@@joeymullins5142 absolutely this. Any time I try to be mysterious or enigmatic, mh players just nope out of there. Could also try to give a bit more information on the vibes it gives off, such as describing the green light as "old", "warm" or "soft" with a "gentle humming sound somehow in tune with the bird song in the area"
Ragnar... Make a Nature check - Ragnar. OK, I rolled a 17 total - DM - OK, you think, you might be able to carefully make your way down through the grash and shrubbery to the glint in you have seen Gorndorf - Make a Diplomacy - Gorndorf I rolled a Nat 20 making it a 28. DM - OK, you think the Kobolds know something and seem willing to help The best laid plans of DM's are always ruined by players. And Sometimes, Players need a little Nudge, nudge
@@simonjay9758 Ragnar makes a nature check. The DM secretly rolls a 1 and says "ok, you think you might be able to carefully make your way down through the grass and shrubbery to the glint you have seen" Player: "Hmm, I don't know guys. I have no idea what I rolled so this could be good or not. I have no dice number to give me confidence in my action"
One thing I think you could have done to relieve some of that tension and give your players a reason to interact with the content you have, is to have those things mentioned ahead of time in a better light. Mention rumors about the ankylos and how docile they were, the green glow being inviting and reminiscent of something protective of the past, the kobolds serving something benevolent that could have in turn connected with the green glow even more. Some breadcrumbs to better inform the players would've helped so much.
There's an interesting video on yt explaining the design philosophy for Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which I think applies here. The general idea there is that the player(s) can always see 3 obvious locations of interest (LOI) in the distance, wherever they are in the open world. That way, the players are always tempted towards one of those directions and the space in between doesn't matter as much in terms of "what if the players never stumble across this quest item randomly lost in the woods?" - you just put the things that matter near those visible LOI. The players are always free to decide to go and explore one LOI, at which point a new LOI becomes visible in the distance. This gives players agency over their choices without overwhelming them, and also a way to order adventures that feels natural.
Dear all DM's who havent been a player before, and some who have, (p.s. i am also a dm and player) Players know that they are playing a game. A game that is meant to be challenging, with traps, enemies, etc. They also know that if the dm is talking about it in a way that makes it stand out, its probably significant in some way, bad or good. You may know that whatever object or area or creature you are describing is friendly or otherwise will not hurt the players. The players DO NOT KNOW THAT. If the players happen upon something that seems threatening in any way, theres a pretty good chance that they will just avoid it because they have a character that they likely dont want to die. If one door in a dungeon is trapped, every other door in every other dungeon could be trapped. And that rule follows for every unknown NPC, monster, area, or anything else you can think of. Especially if your players know that you are prone to have threats catch them by surprise (not only from a mechanics standpoint, just in general), they will begin to treat every standout entity that you describe as a threat on some level first until they have a reason not to.
That first scene was exactly like the last game I ran. I think before they leave town an NPC (ideally 3 kobolds in a trench coat) needs to tell them the legend of the staff and of the friendly kobolds who worship the staff and also mention there was a party that went out for the staff and hasn't returned.
From a purely objective perspective, you got irritated the players did exactly what you habitually advocate - agency. You got mad because they did what you allowed them to do; then, you exacted revenge by reclaiming the magic loot.
10:27 thats something I'm experimenting with. They are currently exploring a hags 'dungeon' which is just her swamp. I'm really new to Dming and have learned a lot from your videos as well as some of the other long term Dm's on youtube and reddit. This was my players first big fight dealing with a boss monster and a few other battles in between, and they REALLY don't like tactically retreating. They are terrified to take a rest but also clearly feeling the pressure of the game. I was going to give them a safe space to rest later down the line but realizing how stressed they were and that our wizard used all their slots I moved that safe space closer then intended, a little pocket dimension made by an NPC in the area they came in contact with. Balancing is a challenge, good to know everyone has stressful game days.
I've taken to running a sort of item crafting system which requires the PC's to have parts of a monster that does what they want to achieve as a part of the crafting process. For example, the druid in my current campaign has a staff that will get upgraded bit by bit, but currently has a couple of low level spells like bears endurance iirc and some other bits relating to bears. It is crafted with giant, undead dire bears spine as the basis. Meanwhile the fighter has a sort of Chinese Wuxia mixed with Cthulhu theme going on, which is based off the Far Realm, so he has a series of ring charms that he can connect to his greatsword. They're designed so that he can prepare his weapon as may be needed, like a wizard may prepare spells and on a long rest, he can secure new charms. He's currently on the hunt for something capable of psychic abilities to add psychic damage to his blade. This forces engagement, but puts it in the players court to establish 'what' they want and how they want to get it. I generally also limit it to 1 item per creature, with its skin being useable separately for scrolls and the higher the level of the scroll/rarity of the item, the higher the CR of the creature it needs.
In the "old days", when XP was awarded for GP value returned to the characters' "home base", and GP was required for training to level up (rather than just being awarded a level up at a milestone) the characters had an incentive to investigate every opportunity for potential income that they could. In an "open world" environment like that you could, fairly early on in their exploration, just have them stumble across a entrance to a tomb mini-dungeon or something that required a multi-piece key of sorts to open. Perhaps have them find a body at the entrance with one of the pieces and a clue that there were more. Have some of the other locations that you'd like them to visit contribute to that key - they might be sufficiently intrigued to following up on that and try and find them. This only works up to a point though - eventually they'll be of a sufficient level to work around any blocks you put in place at the site unless you use arbitrary DM Fiat to prevent them.
I've found that if my DM has taken the time to mention it in the game, then I should take the time to check it out. Not always a good thing, but that's half the fun
9:37 Been there. They had been through two rooms of combat, so I had a social interaction with monster thieves. They were not interested in fighting with the players, as they were enjoying their loot. My designed social interaction went up in smoke when the rouge and the wizard decided to take their gold by killing the monsters.
I avoid this problem by throwing out the model of "Combat Encounter / Exploration / Roleplay". Instead I engineer conflict scenarios that set up Action scenes. (The 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' truck scene is my #1 example.) Create a problem where something bad is clearly going to happen if the players don't react. Leave the reaction open ended to the players' creativity. It is not necessarily Combat, Exploration, or "Roleplay". This gives players just as much (or more) agency, but the agency is not "Do we engage with this?" but rather "HOW do we engage with this?" For example, instead of there just being a herd of Ankylosaurs standing there with potential treasure teased in the middle... start with a herd of stampeding ankylosaurs heading straight for the PC's with another adventuring party just barely ahead of them, getting overrun and trampled one by one. One of these NPC's will get mortally injured and be screaming for help.
I feel so sorry for these players. They got the loot they wanted, their characters avoided encounters beyond what they felt like they could handle/encounters they knew from experience you were likely to make highly difficult, they didn't do anything dangerous whilst carrying fragile dinosaur eggs, their characters got to act like rational adults instead of running into danger after two back-to-back fights, and their high crime appears to be... not acting on information they didn't have. "I had so much lore, and if they'd done this or gone there or-" They didn't know that. They know you regularly make encounters hard and they've already had several tough encounters. Multiple players have said in the comments that they enjoyed this session, but you've decided it's "an inferior session"just because not everything on your personal checklist didn't get checked off. TTRPGs are not about the DM getting everything they wanted done done within a specific time in a specific way. That's a novel. You're thinking of a novel. It must really suck for them to walk out going, "Whew! We did it! We avoided cracking the dinosaur eggs, being eaten by dinosaurs, getting murdered by Kobolds and we got to have good character interactions with each other as we decided what to do! That was fun!" and then via RUclips find out your DM is dragging you as risk-averse to 20k people (as of this comment; the final number will likely be higher). Thank God I'm not one of your players. If I saw my DM making whole RUclips videos (scripting, editing, etc.) instead of just talking to us that'd be a giant buzzkill. It'd definitely make me go into future sessions metagaming, going, "Okay, I know what would be in-character to do, but I also know what Luke's going to do if I act in-character." just to avoid the drama of having the DM complain to 20,000+ people later. I feel like I should apologize to even the worst DM I've had. Compared to this, they're doing great.
As someone who has been around many, MANY evil DMs do you have any wonder people are becoming like this? They spend a good couple of hours to make a character, only to then have the DM kill them 5 minutes in (or they are to dumb to live)...and the next, and the next out of sadistic glee lol OF COURSE people will become paranoid of doing anything, that's called conditioning :/
@@jonsturgill6508 If you are making a modern, new aged "i dont actually like DND I just wanna act like im playing skyrim!" character yes it takes 20 minutes. If you actually like doing backstory, personality etc, things with depth? No it takes a much longer time and i can see you are one of those skyrim players :). "you are in a big, extravagant room! with-" "BORING! WHAT CAN I R STEAL !? WHAT CAN I R KEEL!? BOOOORING I WANNA USE MUH MAGICS! I WANNA GOON ON SSOMETHING WHY CAN'T I ROMANCE X CHAARACTER WAAAAAAH!?!?!???!?!?!?" God this is why I quit XD
@CrashHeadroom , yeah, no, I've been playing D&D since dwarf was a class. I can't stand Skyrim stylle games that insist on trying to distract players from their own plot. Characters shouldn't take more than 20mins to make because adventures are supposed to be dangerous, and another adventurer should be ready & waiting when the surviving pcs reach the next tavern. This insistence y'all have on making "adventurers" that don't want to interact with the adventure is crazy.
@@jonsturgill6508 Well, using this video as an example and the 100s of other videos about it....ya know what? ya right, ya shouldn't spend longer than 20 minutes making a characters because A) 8/10 DMs are power hungry, useless lossers nowadays who use that time to torture you due their own ineptness in life and B) what is the point of playing a deep, new personalitity type when the DM is just gonna throw it in to the meat grinder anyways? ya right, it is pointless and so is DnD now especially when most of the time is spent cowtowing to A holes who want a purple gay mexican orc whos married to a gay artistic dwarf who likes tea parties and that is there WHOLE character....and no, the DM won't throw them in to the meat grinder because "oh well day is nice, day is muh ffweeeennnd and im too scared to incase they call me ist names :O"..... yeah, you are reminding me to much of why i stopped playing XD thank you.
@CrashHeadroom there's nothing wrong with wanting to play a character that's gay and/or Mexican. You seem to have some really deep-seated issues and should probably work on not being homophobic and racist.
Oh this is so familiar. My group had some serious internal struggles both between characters and unfortunately consequently players. I realized I had given them too much time to play out internal drama. The setting, they had to protect a village from a frost giant invasion, actually allowed them a lot of things to do. So I threw them a bone here: "The loggers' camp a few days away hasn't been heard of for a time X. Please go and check what's going on." Rather than starting, they organized the local militia in case there were giants close by and finally (after another session or two of bickering) they took half of the militia with them (in case there was trouble and to give them the chance to get some hands on experience). They didn't even reach the camp, a random encounter with two frost giants convinced them that the camp was lost anyways and they returned to the village in case the giants wanted to attack there. That's when I lost it and openly asked them wtf they were doing? How obvious do I have to be as a GM? I was seriously pissed off (because of the history leading up to that point). I decided I neeeded a pause from this campaign. One of my players took over and as a first time master lead us on an epic side quest that lasted about half a year. After that I again mastered and the group has been happy ever since then (okay one of the characters left and was replaced. But that worked out well.)
I mean, to be fair to the players, you said the whole campaign was about protecting the 1 village. So they were, from what it sounds like, doing their part of prioritizing the safety of that particular village. The issue is the set-up itself doesn't leave them much room to leave for long periods of time. If sending half the militia out didn't fix the giant problem, why would you expect leaving that half in the village to defend it while the players wander around for clues would sound like a safe idea? 😅 I'm in a campaign with a similar plot, but we're explicitly the group in charge of wandering around to find more allies to beef up defenses while also cutting down on enemy reinforcements by taking out points of interest. The bases have people who are strong in their own right but not the best people to have wandering around. For example, the local branch leader and a physically strong veteran with a war wound in his knee.
Maybe a better hook. For example, when they are skipping, have one of them notice the dying person move or grown. Saving an innocent will often entice player characters to take a chance that they otherwise wouldn’t take.
Or let the other players hear the kobolds laughing loudly so that the rogue’s story is less credible (or allow an unprompted intuition check to see if he is exaggerating
Hey @DMLair Luke: I’ll feel awful if I come off as a “well ACTually“ @$$hat here, but I work at a natural sciences museum & started my tenure there as a Paleontology volunteer, so I hope these phonetic spellings are helpful and don’t make you roll your eyes: Deinonychus = “die NAH nuh kus” Ankylosaurus = “ang kuh low SOR us” Keep up the excellent work… I’m binging it!
The group said they wanted rest, the DM didn't listened. Luke admits it mid-video. He could have adapted the scenario to the players wish. But it's very stricky to do that. Best is to start with asking the players, out of character, what is their intent. If the game is sub standard, there is a way to make it better. Saying the DM could have done better does not aim to guilt trip him! All DM does such errors. We get better and move and, that's all.
If your spellcasters are out of spell slots, then don't expect them to be taking any unnecessary risks. Zero spell slots is basically lockdown mode where you only do the bare essentials with the primary goal being to avoid combats at all costs and get to rest somewhere.
i mean, you pretty much made the combat encounters mandatory, but the rest skippable if you really feel the need to have diverse encounters in your game you need to treat them in a way that makes sense if the kobolds "ambushed" the party midrest you'd have the encounter you wanted, barraging them with questions about the green glow the party came from making the combat encounters as skippable as the rest could've helped too, if you think they get boring
D&D and Pathfinder and every system that incentivizes players to rest every two seconds always falls into this trap. Players want all their spell slots and hitpoints and resources at all times, and they will do whatever it takes to treat the world like a video game. Old school systems side-step this by just making resting not a thing. In OSE, you get like, 2 or 3 hitpoints when resting outside a town for a night and that is it. DMs have to explicitly tell the party they will be unable to rest while in this dungeon/forest/catacomb/ruin/etc. Why? It isn't safe, period. Move on. Open area with no walls? Simple answer: Put a timer on them. ALWAYS use a timer, open area or no. The ritual finishes in 10 rounds, stop it or the three kings die. The ecplise is in 12 hours, you have to stop the high priest before then. The princess will be sacrificed in two days. The ceiling will collapse in 4 rounds. The lava will fill the chamber in five minutes. It doesn't matter, just slap a timer that they cannot ignore, and most importantly, TELL THE PLAYERS. They have to know what the stakes are. When they ask, "Can we rest?", you say "Sure, but the princess will be burnt to a crisp in 20 minutes..." A countdown timer (you can have multiple going at once) sets the stakes for the players, creates tension, and keeps things moving. And it allows total freedom for the party to prioritize, plan, and figure it out. If they have 12 rounds and twiddle away five of them trying to loot the treasury, then suddenly find themselves out of time at the climax to the fight, tough luck. Bad things happen, and now they deal with the consequences. Timers can be big or small. Telling the players they have seven days to accomplish X, then let them plan and figure it out. Honestly, the game pretty much runs itself at that point. They can rest as much as they want while the timer ticks down. They can scout or lay traps or enlist help from NPCs or find a hidden pass or go boozing in the tavern or find ancient scrolls in the mage's tower. Just tick the timer down and move the world forward accordingly. A game without timers quickly degenerates into Risk Avoidance 101. With timers you have the stage for heroic efforts and sacrifices. Be as ruthless as you want, because by hook or by crook, the players will always figure something out.
resting in OSE style games IS a thing. What do you think iron spikes are for? The megadungeons were not meant to be completed in one in-game day; you would have to fortify a position, keep watch, literally nail the doors open/closed, and have a tense and fitful sleep to make it through. Honestly, i agree that it's on the dungeon master, as you said, to put the pressure on the players if they don't want them to do these things. Timers are good. The threat of the dungeon and jungle being a dangerous area where monsters move around is one i use more often, personally.
@@UrsulaMajor While it is always true that resting & recovery should be an option, game mechanics have a serious impact on how this is approached. 5e "short rest" mechanics create a video-game reset feel. In old school games, getting well rested came at a significant time cost. OD&D let you heal 1 hp/day. You also tracked resources more rigorously. But going back to town to resupply & heal up might cost days or weeks. Camping came with risks of wandering monster checks. There was a much more gritty survival mentality to it. If mechanics make resetting to full capacity quite easy, then it is natural for players to not nerf themselves by not taking advantage of it. But this can really rob an adventure of danger and drama.
As someone who has played a lot of BX, BECMI, and retroclones, the problems in my experience that you run into with the suggestion is "unwinnable situations". Not that I disagree with the short rest problems in theory, but the opposite side has its own problems. Early levels especially. If you get unlucky on the first or second room of a 5 room dungeon, or worse just get wrecked by a wandering monster, it doesn't matter if they are on a timer or the princess will die. To advance will be death. And since we have no alternative to heal to be able to proceed, we retreat, spend a week resting, and either give up or come back to try again timer be damned. Older school editions in my experience have always just led to grindier, slower crawls because of this. I actually like a timer *more* in a system with something like shortrests. It allows you to get a bit of healing in without a "full restore", while still allowing them to feel confident enough to advance. A healthy inbetween. (I will also note those unwinnable situations usually happen at lower levels in my experience. Even in OSR games at higher levels you tend to have so many spells you can typically get everyone patched up reasonably if it wasn't a super bloody fight.)
Give us a dungeon video! You can impose a "false" constraint in an outside environment. Example: to get where they need to go, the characters must traverse a narrow Canyon, and while traversing this Canyon, they must go through the grove with the emerald staff. They could get out of the canyon to not enter the groove, but that would be "tiering" ( impose some lasting condition) or take a lot of time
You can't complain about meta gamers and murder hobos and wonder why players find the easiest least violent way around an encounter. Imagine you are in each of these scenarios. Not a fictional you, but your actual mortal body. Would you, while undertaking a dangerous mission to fight actual dinosaurs, take a bunch of unnecessary risks that have nothing to do with the job? Hell no! You'd grab the eggs, run back to town, and self medicate your newfound PTSD with copious amounts of alcohol. Do you want players to immerse themselves in your world and take it seriously? Well, congratulations, cause that's what you got.
Nice video, and I'm sure it wasn't that bad for your party. I tend to move significant objects or events around if the players miss it. Maybe not the entire event but the core part, or bring it around again later. Please make a video on dungeons. Thank you
@@b0therme And modern audience players aren't bad. Had a newbie start in my current campaign and she has really shown up the 2 vets in it. Timid as all hell at first, then halfway through the first session, she's the only one picking up on the hints in my descriptions, and uses her turn in combat to end that encounter by IC berating the vets characters into submission for attacking an already injured and terrified creature that just wanted their help. Honestly, she's the MVP of my campaign; that's Modern Audiences for you.
@@b0therme facts. Old school players are generally more concerned with adventure and less with making sure their precious character doesn’t get a boo boo! But rules lawyers - outside of GMs - suck. If the GM says it works this way - then it does. Take the discussion off table and make sure it’s something that works for the character
As the designated "forever DM" of my gaming group, this kinda scenario really threw me at first but the best way I learned to roll with the punches was literally to let the characters know, in a narratively valid and satisfying fashion, what the consequences of simply ducking out and avoiding a problem would be. At the current stage of the campaign, where they're about level 10, that usually boils down to some form of: "Yeah, you can super easily run away. But that will make things extremely dangerous for your allies and even the civilians who are counting on you. But hey, I'm not saying you have to run in without using your head, do you want to try a different approach?" This works really well for my players because as _players_ they want the challenges and the stakes and all that; but at the same time, that's juxtaposed against the "characters" whom, courageous though they are "want" the easiest, safest, quickest solution possible. By establishing clear stakes and giving them the freedom in how to respond to those, it gives them a great balance between both of those aspects.
Looks to me like that would be a good time to talk outside the session about it, to see, if everyone is still on the same page. Groups evolve in some sort, or another and sometimes a bit of reflection of what you as the DM and the players need or wish to create a fun exprience for everyone at the table. :)
I heart your recognition of my favorite childhood dinosaur, and it’s Miss naming in the first real dinosaur movie made in my childhood The error you point out has stood out to me for nearly 35 years And I’m glad you let the public know their mistake An easy way to pronounce its name is “Dino Nikes”
he did call veolciraptors "chicken sized" though, which is also incorrect. Velo's are more dog sized, it's like twice the height of a chicken. compsognathus however...
Sometimes the story teller needs two inform the players that this is one of the prepared encounters the story teller invested time into and the players need to engage with it.
Weirdly, I really enjoyed this session, not because of the combat, but because I enjoyed the character interactions as we tried to decide what to do. I felt like we were able to avoid things we didn’t want to encounter and had real control over our choices.
Thank you for sharing. You're still learning, and that's o.k., and people honestly don't share enough. It's as important to see things conceptually and optimally alongside what fails or lands imperfectly. Both are equally valuable.
You were absolutely NOT WRONG to have the loot be broken. There is a double edged sword, here... Yes, they can do whatever they want, BUT, there are consequences to actions... and inaction.
"after you finish that fight against a field full of dinosaurs, you come upon a field full of even tougher dinosaurs." "Uh, we'd like to save our resources for the big fight we came out here to do" "Okay here's that big fight!" *one big fight later* "Ok gang what do you want to do?" "Well we're pretty low on resources so we'd like to rest" "Okay, here's something that looks like an encounter" "... We'd like to avoid an encounter, so we'll walk around it" "Okay here's another encounter" "Yeah we're going to just leave I guess" "Ok you find the loot you would have gotten if you went into the field with the tanky dinosaurs, but it's all mangled by the dangerous dinosaurs" "Cool I guess" Gee I wonder what the problem was
I had that happen once, but luckily one of the players spoke up after a while and said "we need to actually take one of these adventure hooks" after the third skip haha. Good topic/reminder about quest structure helping prevent that. Cheers and thanks, Luke!
This was a similar situation we encountered in our last mini campaign that truly tanked what was supposed to be a mystery/ who done it campaign. Basically clue. The short version was the party was invited by a noble as a guest later turned out we were there just for them to flex who they know. Noble guy dies in front of everyone. Find out that most of the people there had beef with the guy or had a been on the short end of the deal they had. Plays like knives out. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to interview or investigate much since a few players just did not want to invade other peoples privacy ask some detailed questions or look into investigate the scene. And it was just very frustrating each Tod bit of info we did get had the few players go back and second guess everything. And it came to a head where I needed to take a break we found a very obvious clue that one npc had a magic item that belonged to this character’s family that the noble guy had tricked into giving. Then the group of players began questioning that we shouldn’t push further that asking these questions was rude. At that point I was like okay let’s just call in the lords men because we can’t get any where. It was just very frustrating. I could tell the dm was trying to give us hooks. The two players in question their attitude was the typical I’m just doing what my character would do. Which is annoying. I understand agency but you have to press forward to advance the story.
I've had it happen a lot too. In a superhero game, the PC's were supposed to be the grand marshals of a parade. So of course they decided to scope out the townfolks, hover over the parade, check out the farmhouse that was unoccupied during the parade. Even though the hook was "You've been invited to be grand marshals of the parade for another, missing hero." We made it work, but, well, it was frustrating.
What I have found when running an outdoor campaign is that it helps to put a time constraint. either another party of adventurers is running the same quest or a volcano will erupt soon obliterating the objective or someone is in peril and needs to be rescued fast. That usually gets them moving and not counting the dangers as much.
Going over the situation from their perspective: You had a fight, found a den of monsters with nothing in it and successfully got past them, found the eggs and fought the dinos and won with the prize, then found a spooky green haze after getting roughed up when everything has been hostile so far, and finally found a cave of Kobolds who are known to to both evil and tenacious in every encounter with the DM thus far. This is an absolute win for them. They got the loot they could find, and used their scouting to avoid encounters beyond what they felt they could handle, like when you have no spells left. Just because the checklist on your side of the screen isn't checked off, doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad time. If we really wanted all the content to appear though, I think this was a case of lack of information. They did not know any loot was in room 2, they did not know if there was a magic lore staff in room 4 or if there was an ogre magi, and they did not know the Kobolds were searching for a new master in room 5, or at the very least did not know they could qualify as a new master.
Pretty standard content-skipping, very natural for players to take those routes. Reskin and use that content elsewhere. Your players won't do what you expect them to if you don't force them (and you shouldn't force them). Also note that content-skipping is eminently more attractive in D&D/Pathfinder-type games with silly daily resource pools like vancian magic. In games where the resources are more dynamic, players will be measuring challenge vs gain with a more leveled head. They could be even looking for encounters that replenish resources.
My sympathies. Long time DM and see this way too often lately "The spellcasters were mostly just out of spells" umm... that is what they do. It is like saying the melees all had misplaced their weapons. Modern players seem to go to absolutes. I have had groups too aggressive or too cautious, often vacillating between those two extremes :( Note the "Can we take them (the Kobolds) as pets" is a different kind of too aggressive. One suggestion that I have is that when you want there to be an encounter, have the encounter. Party rogue hides from the kobolds and reports them as scary? Have a kobold on patrol (completely normal behavior for them) encounter the party, watch long enough to realize they are 'powerful and non-malevolent' (and possibly even similarly cautious to the Kobolds themselves) and decides to make contact. Do not bind yourself by treating your own writing as etched in stone.
I was running a game last weekend on a VTT and the players had fallen into a labyrinth. They somehow found the easiest and most direct line to the exit and never encountered anything but a couple traps. As they were looking out the door, I was in disbelief. Hours prepping and done in 30 minutes. One player asked me point blank after I expressed my surprise they were going to leave and not loot/murder hobo the entire maze, as my players normally do. But, he asked if I wanted them to go back in and explore. So, they played their characters to continue inside. Sometimes, we DM's must be a little more obvious to our players to get them to enjoy our game. But, this channel and being a Patron on Patreon has made me a better DM. Thanks Luke and the DM Lair Team.
This behavior sometimes comes from the previous experiences where the DM adopts the theme of "everything outside the base is trying to kill you. And half the things at your base are, too." When you come up with a character, you invest at least some minimal part of your time and imagination into them (usually). This typically leads to more investment as the game goes on. Given that game mechanics can literally go: "Enemy rolls 20. Confirmed. You die.", the investment is always in the back of your mind. Even with ways to return your character to life, eventually, you are literally locked out of the game until then, or until you can reasonably bring in a new character. Risk/reward is always going to be a thing. A DM has to try to get a group of players to realize that they should be mentally and mechanically prepared (with backup characters or at least concepts) for disaster to strike if they want the reward of a game session with excitement and risk.
I had something similar happen with my group. It was a time travel adventure to the beginnings of the town in which we all live. They skipped every combat encounter I had planned except the final climactic one. Later, they all told me they absolutely were trying to do a little damage to the timeline as possible, and since they were unsure of how anything they did would affect it, they all decided yo try and defuse every tense situations. It turned out to be a great session.
That intro :-) ... like "I am so glad we finally have our own ship!" "Yeah, Starfleet sucks. All that protocol all the time. Sticks up their ****es, all of them!" .... "Strange signal coming in. Looks like something is happening in that remote desolate system!" "Ok, call Starfleet and tell them. They'll send someone to investigate. Set course for the next m-class world!" What you can do? Nothing. Really. And the worst thing is - as players get older, their ... lack of attention, willingness to engage, etc. ... grows. Too much stress on the job, memory getting worse, to many things going on in "real life", take your pick. And the younger players, they're worse - they've grown up with those 3D computer games where 95% of the interaction is slaying and looting ... . Yes, I have been playing and GMing for over 30 years, too.
Games are boring when players don't create adventurers. If they are all so timid, then nothing happens. I have been in many games where my character tried to initiate interesting actions, but other characters were so timid that basically nothing happened. When a DM throws out a clue, it is generally there to add something interesting to the session.
This is so relatable, on both sides of the table. My early D&D experiences were with an old school DM so I was a paranoid player for a long time. Ultimately it's not only a question of skillful DMing but mutual trust.
Some DM's when players charge into dangerous situations unrested or unprepared: "help, my players are making stupid choices, arent taking the game seriously, and feel invincible". Those same Dm's when players play cautiously: "help, my players are avoiding encounters and dangerous situations ". pick a lane - if you run challenging games then a smart player will assume encounters are dangerous, and react accordingly. Furthermore, never forget that what you know is different from players. The players know that kobolds are usually evil and worship powerful, evil creatures. They also know that they want to rest and are feeling drained. You know that these kobolds are friendly and have relevant lore, but as is the players have no reason to assume that these will be different.
Pretty much this. I've got a DM just like this and the past few days of watching videos like this is starting to make me think about leaving. Pretty much every quest he tries to lowball rewards. NPCs act against their own interests to be spiteful. The encounters are always endless rows of enemies or songular enemies that can just one shot you. He doesn't even humor creative/alternate solutions. Etc. I've been putting up with it because it has been my most consistent group attendance-wise but I think I just need to bite the bullet and look for another.
@@TheMightyBattleSquid Honestly I was thinking I was similar... until I read pass lowballing loot. You honestly should leave I know lowballing loot is my main issue but I also normally do christmas/birthday events where the players basically get free loot for it being around Christmas/My Birthday... granted my birthday is some NPC's Birthday just giving away things they got but didn't really want but still if I know a player's birthday I might reward them with other magical items. I will admit I might have rows of enemies but usually those are combat leaning to where not attacking or talking about things(Hi bahamut before you murder me we got a lawyer doing crimes but no proof) might pacify the enemy or they maybe more social(Hi enemy lawyer that loves to annoy my cop players for being just barely on the right side of the law despite aiding criminals and assigning other people criminal tasks). Honestly I feel like I am lucky as I might run a more easy game outside of halloween things where I say "You characters might die use at your risk and don't use at risk of losing out on loot" but my players have a great time... might not get a lot done but we mess around might have someone call a dragon god that hates them who will show up just to murder them.
@@theDMLair There is some nuance to supporting the stupid choices. I am a player much like you’re describing in your video. My DM celebrates choices that are unwise but fun and then punishes me for it later. It has taught me that I cannot relax or be casual in that game. I must always be on watch for the next trap. When I make a fun suggestion that my GM celebrates, I am instantly on the lookout for where the punishment will come from. You are a different GM with a different group, but my point is that your players may not be interpreting your enthusiasm as you mean them to.
@@TheMightyBattleSquid What you’re describing sounds like a different issue altogether. Your DM seems to be running some kind of grimdark campaign, whereas Luke is just wanting his players to engage with the adventure.
To answer why and how a game session went bad it's great to talk to your players as is sounds like you did. In addition, you could use a tool such as 5 Why or a fishbone diagram and start drilling into why the game session went bad. A 5 Why is a bit of an adventure in exploring why something didn't work, and you can make it as simple or complex as you like. The fishbone diagram will take a little prep to convert the category headings into relevant headings for running an RPG.
This video really spoke to me. I'm running a younger group (20's) that would figure out whatever the goal was, and go STRAIGHT to it, avoiding all distractions. No side quests, no mysteries or secrets revealed, no casual NPC interactions, no extra exploration. Just point A to point B and back. It was maddening. They're getting better, but it took some sessions to kind of entice them to widen their focus bit. It took a bit for my players to realize that the additional encounters contained additional risk AND additional potential reward. What worked for me was to set up a few set encounters that the players could avoid or investigate as they see fit, a few random encounters, and then one or two encounters that happen TO them that forced them players to make some sort of choice. So while most of the session would be up to the players to interact with or not as they saw fit, some things were unavoidable, be it a encounter with an NPC, a vehicle that broke down, bandits stalking the players, and so forth. This has allowed me to control the pace a bit, and provide a steady drip of things for the group to interact with.
While not an immediate solution to the stated problem, the concept of "there's no such thing as a random encounter" may be in play here. There's also the ability to re-use or re-purpose planned encounters. For example, rather than meeting the kobolds in the cave, have them encounter a kobold hunting party. Rather than initiate combat, the kobolds immediately drop weapons and surrender, offering the PCs "safe" passage to their cave where they can rest. On the way, they come across the green-glowing thing, where the kobolds all genuflect (or something) toward it. Alternatively, on the way to the cave, throw in an easy combat encounter (one that wouldn't last more than a round or two) where the kobolds and the PCs fight as allies, and the ensuing investigation reveals some additional clues.
Sounds like a couple of problems I would've solved like this: going around the herd of anklyosaurs they encounter a path full of animals the herd displaced such as smaller dinos like raptors or even other herbivores that are easily startled and liable to charge at the adventurers. The kobold cave: I would have left some kind of journal notes or something they could read that gave them a clue that the kobolds are seeking the staff or a new master to serve. Maybe even some crude drawing on the walls turning the staff into a holy symbol, and heck if you wanted to really be obvious have a worshipper bowing and praying to the icon. Even if the players decided not to talk to the kobolds it would plant the idea in their mind that staff=kobold worship.
The problem was _not_ the adventure design (though there could be improvements). The problem was failure to signal risk/reward/viable options in a way that players understood and could evaluate. They were acting on prior(if any) game experiences and being cautious, which is fine, as long as the caution is in line with the danger than their _characters_ would perceive in world, and as long as they understand what is reasonable and possible for them to do in that world. If they are not reading your hints correctly, then you might flatly state: "guys I'm not trying to trick or manipulate you or tell you what to do, but I can see that you are perceiving more risk from my descriptions than is actually present, and you a maybe boxing yourselves in to fewer options than you actually have". Or you might find ways to give better descriptions and hints that they are more likely to perceive correctly. For example the ankylosaurs. Those are herd animals, highly unlikely to be aggressive to small animals which pose no threat (unless defending eggs or young). To them, humans _might_ be perceived as small animals who pose no threat. You might explain this to your players directly. Or even better describe other small animals wandering among the herd as the huge beast placidly munch on grass. Elephants are not much bothered by, say, a bunch of monkeys running around near their feet or possibly even small predators. You can also prep some easily relocatable encounters to ensure whatever the players do, they can encounter something interesting. If they go around the Ankylosaurs, they might encounter a lone wounded survivor of the group of corpses that were in the middle of the herd. This person could given them info that motivates them to get to that group of corpses & investigate, and they might have some knowledge of dinosaur behavior and even explain about ankylosaurs being herd beast likely to ignore you if you don't do anything threatening. Finally, if players are not quite understanding what kinds of options they have, spell a few viable options out at each encounter. Is there some reasons "investigate" or "go around" were the only apparent options? Why not climbs some trees nearby, watch, and wait for the herd to move on? Or given that they are herd animals, it's quite likely that could be frightened off if the players can make sounds of something dangerous (like the rattle of a rattlesnake or something). You can even say "guys, I think you don't quite get how flexible your options are in my game, so while I don't want to tell you what to do, I want to make sure you understand what is reasonable and possible in my game world... so, here are 4 options any of which would be pretty obvious to your characters in this situation [describe them], but if those spark you thinking and you have another idea, that would be awesome. Also, if you need to, please ask for clarifying questions about the situations so you can better come up with these kinds of ideas on your own..." After a few encounters like this, they should start coming up with their own interesting ways to deals with thing without needing a list a 4 prompts.
I had a similar problem with my one and only homebrew campaign. I kept dropping hints and links to things in their backstories and they kept avoiding the plot hooks. Even ones they said they were interested in exploring! We had session 0.5's every 6-8 months which would help for a while, but eventually the issue would arise again. Part of it was most of the players were socially anxious and each were afraid that going after a plot hook would "force" everyone else at the table to do something they didn't want to do. This was especially true about backstory related hooks - even though everyone was vocally excited about each other's characters! (Anxiety is a B*!) There was also a lot of anxiety about failing and making the "wrong" choices. Eventually we transitioned to more narrative focused games where the point is the amazing story we make along the way. First with Apocalypse Keys and now we're playing Girl by Moonlight. The great thing about these games is that the mechanics themselves instigate the plot hooks so it's a lot harder for them to "ignore the glowing arrow" because it's their actions that create them - not an all-knowing-GM.
I recently experienced something similar: content skipping in an open world setting. It would be worth some research as to how to make it work better and be more fun for players to experience a dungeon outside a dungeon setting, or to run a super dungeon with massive exploration space
As a player, I have developed a tendency to skip encounters like this with one DM, because usually, they are simply fillers meant to deplete resources with neither loot nor information nor even a good RP opportunity attached, so I'd rather skip ahead to the meaningful encounters with our HP and resources intact. E.g., we are currently in a dungeon to save someone and we skipped every single possible fight because we have learned that monsters never drop loot (even if we search the body and area after the fight, all we usually get is meaningless trinkets that never become important or some silver) and as we level by milestone, there is no EXP. We were disincentivized to explore, because most rooms were simply magical traps that immediately sprung upon entering a room with nothing else but the damage taken in the room (we investigated but turned up nothing), so we tried to beeline it toward the ping we got from the locate creature spell we had cast. The only time we stopped was when it looked like there was a magical item to obtain, but even that we skipped over later in the dungeon because there was damage attached to anything we did (clear an ice barrier with magic, take damage as icy mist seeps out; investigate a magical dome, take psychic damage , dispel dome, succeed ability check, take more psychic damage as it is dispelled; explore room, get caught in magical trap and take damage; successfully disarm trap, take more damage). In the end, it's all operant conditioning (think Pavlov). If every action is linked to a punishment, players will not want to take any action except those absolutely necessary to progress. If the rewards you give are meaningless (e.g. some silver or downright nothing for a combat or investigation), then you have nothing to incentivize desired action. If the players cannot see any reward and their experience has taught them that there probably isn't anything worthwhile behind encounters, there is no way they are going to take that risk. In the end, it goes both ways. A game master needs their players to want to engage with what they present them with but players need to be able to trust their game master to make these encounters meaningful in one way or another. That last point is mostly on the DM but could warrant an out-of-game talk with players that are simply naturally apprehensive about anything. I used to love to investigate and fight and talk to whatever was in front of us but way more often than not, it wasn't worthwhile for our characters, so I stopped. Which makes my enthusiasm for the game way less and takes away from the fun, but it beats getting through a dozen encounters and having nothing to show for it other than lower HP and spell slot numbers on my character sheet.
I'd love a video reviewing why dungeons are amazing and what DM challenges they solve. I've long been hesitant of running them because they seem like a difficult or unlikely place to rest since most dungeons and enemies are functioning groups with guards, etc. that probably realize over 8 hrs that their allies are dead or whatever has changed as a consequence of the player's actions before their rest. Also balancing multiple combat options when players sometimes shoot first can be a challenge to not result in a TPK or them feeling like the dungeon is too risky to explore fully.
I was a player in a long-running Scion game that ended last year. I had built my character as primarily focused on his physical stats. I can count on my fingers the number of times we faced combat in the 2-3 year campaign. It ended up being very frustrating and less than satisfying for me to constantly have the other party members constantly making decisions that avoided combat. I often felt useless and not being able to play the character's full potential. I even brought this up to the Storyteller a few times, but it was usually met with a "Don't worry about it. You'll get to have combat."
Love your videos. Do you run your party via digital or on tabletop? I run mine on tabletop and often tell them to get their asses over here if they want to learn a thing or two LOL. Keep up the great work !
This highlights perfectly how much more challenging running overland adventures is than dungeon crawls. Without walls, it's hard to create stakes because the players can usually just "walk around it". I struggle to find ways to narrate stakes in an "open" environment like a forest, that doesnt feel like railroading.
I recently had a scenario where the players had to travel through a dangerous area to get to their objective and made a fully custom encounter table for it, it involved weather, combats, things that could he combat or even positive, purely good encounters and the like. When they would encounter something dangerous they could try to go around but the longer they were their the more they risked something scary finding them. Going around took time out of their travel, often miles to avoid something, and when you are traveling on foot do that a few times and your adding a day if not days to journeys! Its all context sensitive. A timer. A threat, a reason to rush or slow down will all determine how much players are willing to avoid the possible dangers and rewards of a place.
I’ve found a lot of players (myself included tbh) prefer to do one quest at a time. There are multiple reasons for this, but personally, I just find the potential “job within a job within a job” situation tedious. Of course, that’s not what you were doing, but maybe the players didn’t pick up on that? I finished running a “gritty” episodic campaign a while ago, and my players pretty much always did the side quests. They understood that, no matter what it was, it’s going to be resolved within the game session, and the main quest can still be completed after. Just a thought I hadn’t seen many others mention yet. Good video too👍
I will often try to plan multiple ways to get my players to the same place, manage an encounter or solve a puzzle that leads to the same end result. Using descriptions that indicate the specific tone of a situation or place can also help. Sometimes feeding them info that I had behind a less important check without making them do it can speed things up too.
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@@theDMLair looking forward to this
Hello my friendly dm. Would you mind putting together a playlist for “new players guide to dnd” I know you have a lot of information for new players but I would find it beneficial to have it streamlined
Hey all!! Player in said game here. We don't think Luke did anything wrong here at all. I see a lot of folks who think this was on Luke, I think it was just between the players and the DM, there was not perfect communication. I don't think you can blame one side for that. I think Luke tried to communicate and some of us really wanted to bite, but others felt there may be traps or complications and were worried. I don't find fault here. The solution? Well that already happened, we did what good gamers do and we had a talk about it. Here is what happened, how can we make it better? That's why you watch this channel folks, because that's always one of Luke's #1 solutions. Talk to your players, it always makes for a better game!!
@brimstoner8908 People forget that the human brain learns any skill by attempting it and failing.
Playing dnd as a group is a skill. It takes failure. Adults speak about it, give grace, and move forward. Luke's video and your comment do a great job of breaking this down.
I don't think anyone did anything wrong here, not the players or DM. However, the session itself wasn't up to the standard luke wanted, and thus he made the video.
While I cannot speak for every comment, the vast majority of the comments are advice on what the dm could have done to improve the session (hindsight being 20/20) and ways to avoid this situation in the future. It focus on what the DM could do because, well, it's his channel and he made the video.
Sorry if it came across as us blaming him or faulting him. He simply presented the situation from his perspective and the frustration he felt at what he belived was a sub-par session, so we posted ways it could have been improved or things he could do better going forward.
Sorry man. But I find fault with Luke. He should put at least 1 screaming women in this adventure. I garantee you that at least 2 or 3 men in the table would advance with -perverted thou- with heroic inspiration to the rescue.
** this is a joke.
As a GM I can understand and feel Luke's frustration. And sometimes share that need to either 'brag' about your players being cool and clever as well 'vent' when things don't exactly go as you hoped they would.
I am thankful Luke did share this, as it can serve as a helpful vicarious lesson with no blame to assigned on any of parties involved.
Also, my level 10+ at the time D&D 5e party said something to akin to: 'the kobold caves were the most intimidating dungeon they had faced yet'.
This included:
-a sunken underwater ancient temple crawling with undead and surrounded by Kaiju
-Infiltrating and distracting an entire hostile pirate town while NPC allies confronted the evil blood mage (Long story, the players and NPC's 'flipped' for it and the players lost)
-Dino filled jungle in search of the source of eldritch abominations
-and more
I recently had a group fall apart because of the dm was a perfectionist who can’t improvise. Long story short he didn’t want players to be able to make more than 10-ish gold between sessions (with a huge homebrew system he made, very cool in theory but sucked in execution) and I was asking about ways to make more gold, so he accused me of being careless and acted like it was the players fault for not getting loot. Let me set the scene: we were teleported to a mysterious arena like location with massive walls we could see off in the distance. We walk into a dense forest and come across a giant spider web which the dm described as glowing (I don’t remember if it was blue or green) and that there was something in the web. On closer inspection it was a corpse with some stuff on it and there were potions which the dm said the webs were fabricating. I carefully poked the corpse with my quarter staff and then knocked it down, only to find a blue and gold ring. I inspected the ring for a minute and he didn’t give me any information so I put it on my finger, he said it made me feel like I have to pee so I went behind a tree and he said I couldn’t. So I took the ring off and left it behind assuming it requires atonement and carries some sort of terrible curse. He said that I should have just kept the ring if I wanted to make money. Absolutely insane, who wouldn’t think that was a cursed item
I had to learn the hard way that description wording means everything. I used to accidentally evoke tropes and stereotypes that would unintentionally scare my players off. For example, in this session, you described a green glow in the woods. That's generally symbolic for bad juju (witches, hags, fae, etc.) and would scare my players off. Adding in "warm", "friendly", "elusive", "nurturing", or something else weird has helped lol.
Of course, there's always good ol' communication. I know it doesn't work for everyone, but in my games, I've found that a simple OOC, "Look, you can go that way/do that thing, but this is what I've got planned and promise it's worth your while" helps cure a session where the players avoid everything.
I agree with @timothybrodsky8299 and I think a lot of this could have been "fixed" with different or better description. I will admit I say that without knowing what you actually described. Here are a few examples I might have tired.
1- The Dino Stampede... "As you watch the Ankle-saur herd moving over the bodies you notice a glint of gold bouncing in the sunlight and watch as one of the bodies raises it's hand attempting to protect itself from the thundering hooves" ... you could even describe the gold being scattered and driven into the ground the longer they wait if you want to make it more time sensitive.
2- The Green glow... Describe this green glow as having a warm natural feeling that hums with magic and sounds like the beautiful song of long forgotten song birds. Make it enticing if you want them to be enticed.
3- The kobolds .. Since the rogue was already hidden you could have told them they over heard a conversation. " In broken common you hear the 3 kobolds talking about the next gathering to pay tribute to the Great Glowing Stick of Life and how they wish they had something better to worship and serve because the GGSL never talks back or gives them something to do."
I have learned over the years that Players will almost always try to avoid danger (be it real or imagined) and that is good, because that means they are taking the world seriously. You just have to make things slightly more enticing. In the end you can see the world in your heard but that doesn't mean the players know what you know and things are always less obvious to them than they are to you.
I say all of this having made this mistake MULTIPLE times myself. 😅
@@timothybrodsky8299 you should watch Viva La Dirt League where the dm does this very thing! The group is in a tavern and the dm points out a dark mysterious man in a cloak in a corner and the group talks to everyone else except the cloaked man!! It’s funny. And BACON NEEDS TO BE ITS OWN FOOD GROUP CALLED DELICIOUS AS ^|*]>
I have never seen players so incurious, especially ones where they're at full health
It was the exception. usually that group explores everything. that's part of why it caught me off guard.
At full health with spell slots? I'm downright suicidal
@@sinisterpuddle6655 well what if later on they got to the health dungeon and they didn't have enough health?
Checkmate, atheists!
My character is a absolute coward, he was perfectly happy to avoid dangerous strange things. 😃😎
@@alexj1989 my halfling monk is impatient. He wants to punch people. Even though he's the most squishy character in the group.
Eggs are fragile though. I suspect the players might have been less interested in *things* generally while handling such a delicate payload. Can happen with crucial (flimsy) NPCs, precious relics in danger of being stolen, etc. General willingness to explore and take risks diminishes when there's an important plate already spinning.
That was what I was thinking. Eggs can break extremely easily. It's like if I were to hand you a Christmas ornament from the 1910's made out of finely spun glass - you're not going to go, "This is the time to get into a fight and just hope this thing makes it out okay."
I'm sitting here thinking "he should have described the 'green glow' as a 'soft soothing green glow'" and "He should have had the rogue overhear the Kobolds having a conversation about the staff".... but I also know I've made these exact same sorts of mistakes all over my own game and that this is hindsight. Things work differently when the players are in front of you and you're tracking everything as a DM. The rogue is sneaking around and you're working with them, but the other players are chatting or wanting to do things at the same time... etc...
The players are supposed to ask questions and find more detailed info about the stuff they find. The DM isn’t supposed to spoon feed them everything.
I wouldn't call it a mistake. You can always do things better, but that dosen't mean you are always doing them wrong. That kind of mindset can lead to burnouts.
No, no, the players are supposed to go, "We've done two back-to-back fights, but we'll assume the green glow, despite green being associated with bad magic in multiple cultures and multiple forms of media, is neutral or good, and not stop to rest in preparation for more combat". They're supposed to just know, somehow, that they're not in danger, that Kobolds were evil all the time under this DM before but suddenly will not be now, and that they have no need to have their characters act like rational adults who don't want to die. They should have their characters act like four year olds who reach their hand out and get burned by the fire repeatedly without learning. That's good RP - for the DM. Maybe not so enjoyable if you were hoping to play as a character who's old enough to know better than to instinctively assume the green glow means happy fun times, but hey, who cares about how much fun the players are having, this is about the DM's enjoyment. Clearly, that's what you should base character decisions on.
@@morganqorishchi8181 I assume you're replying to @python27au considering the content. I'd advise both of you that everyone's table is different. That has always been the case with TTRPGs. What works for one group may not work for another. That "spoon-feeding" players is one thing, but using an active description that communicates what the DM intends the players to experience is also a thing. We weren't at the table, we don't know exactly what was said (hell it may have been a hypothetical to get the point across), and those lines are always going to be fuzzy.
@@morganqorishchi8181 you open the door into a 10’ x 30’ room. In the centre of the room is a 10’x10’ pit. You can’t make out any other details from the doorway. What do you do?
Do you investigate, or do you assume its a trap and walk away?
Do i have to specifically tell you the pit is an illusion, and in the far wall is a secret door beyond which is more treasure than they can carry, before you get the courage to enter the room?
I thought the game was about exploration and problem solving. You see something interesting, go in and have a look, if it turns nasty and you can’t over come it, then run away.
These aren’t regular people, these are adventurers. In real life these are the mountain climbers and sky divers, the men who risked it all in a leaky wooden boat to discover new lands, etc.
My unwelcomed, unasked for, advice.
You yourself said that you run challanging sessions. As such your players are likely always on alert for the next challanging threat, they fear for their lives. In this campaign you presented them with a horde of "tank-like" dinos, 2 T-rexes, a mysterious green glow, and a cave full of koblods, and, in their eyes, whatever "powerful force" they worshiped likely living in the tunnels.
Yeah, i'd have skipped everything I could too, especally after the T-rex fight and when our priority was to get a rest so the caster can recover their spell slots.
Ways to have avoided that:
1. The horde of dinos: How did you discribe them? Where they discribed as hostle? Friendly? Nutrual? Were they discribed as carnivores or horbaborvers? Did you have a PC with a high level of perception spot a mysterious object on one of the corpses that looked interesting, aka magical? You discribed a ton of "Risk", but what did you discribe as the "Reward" for taking that risk?
2. The T-rex fight kinda set the stage for everything that came next. Sucks that you rolled low, but you did acomplish the objective of all obsticals, you expended their resources.
3. The green glow: How did the pcs "Feel" when enounting it? Did you simply discribe what they saw? Or did you discribe a warmth? Was it discribed as a welcoming glow and left you feeling 'peaceful'? What did the PC's intuition tell them? Sure the PLAYERS were on edge, but the player's arent' the PCs, they simply play them, how the PC's feel about the glow is something you can say without removing agency. It's still their choice to trust it or not, but there's a world of diffrence in a party that is out of spell slots encounting a "mysterious green glow" vs a " Warm, welcoming, glow that radiates off the plants, simply being in it's precence provides a calming sence of relaxation and tranquility, you feel safe here."
4. The kobolds: yeah, you shot yourself in the foot here. They weren't scared of the kobolds, the were scared of whatever the kobolds worshiped. The "big theat" they're used to encounting in your challaing campaign. The one their mind says lives in the caves they couldn't see. In addtion, they were activly looking to rest, to prep and "feel safe" in your campaign so they'd be at full power against the next threat (like say more t-rexes). A better option would have been to have the cave be empty, let them set up and rest, and during the rest, one or two kolbolds appears at the entrence and initiates a conversation with whoever is on watch. This comes down to understanding and adjusting to your player's wants/goals. If they want to rest, if that's their priority, then presenting them with an encounter (of any sort) is going to be met with resistance or skipped alltogether.
5. Encounting the broken items: Ehh, this felt petty. Again, i don't know how you discribed it, but based on what I was told, you gave them an "all risk - no reward" type situation before. Showing that there was a reward they couldn't have known about but they missed out on feels like sour grapes. I'd have simply removed the items alltogether. Sure, keep the gold, but that's it.
A useful skill for any DM is to put yourself in the player's shooes. Ignore the knowlage "you know" and consider what "they know" and then what the most logical course of action they would take based on that knowlage. Adjust the campaign to it and you'll have better games overall.
My two cents anyway.
@MJ-jd7rs Thank you for writing everything I wanted to say, but better than I could say it. Awesome advice. I took notes on some of your details.
Yeah, I fully agree. If you run a challenging game, expect players to avoid danger.
I have the same issues as him and my players know I don’t play that rough. It’s not the challenge that deters them, it’s just cowardice.
Plus Deinonychus isn’t even that high CR, and Ankylosaurus is a herbivore.
Is it weird to both agree and disagree with this? All that you wrote is true, but they are playing adventurers. I've had this problem in the past too and I had to remind my players that their characters are monster hunting, grave robbing, scoundrels that seek gold and glory through danger. If they avoid all potential dangers they also miss out of possible rewards. Too many players want a "story" where they mitigate risks. Remind the players that risk taking is what adventurers does. Finally, I'll add that just telling your players that they need to change their behaviors is dumb and never works. Add a few games where they can feel like dungeon crawling adventurers to get them into the mood of high risk for high reward and offer them something grand to work towards using said rewards. That has always worked for me. Hope this helps.
Exactly, TTRPGs don't have re-dos. If you want your players to take risks, they need to feel like those risks are both worth it and won't kill them. Nothing is worse than taking a GM's plot point, dying, and the GM treating you like a moron because you 'lacked self-preservation' and need to realize 'your actions have consequences.'
I was running an EARLY AD&D game. (Original PHB, DMG, MM and not much else was out)
The players kept ignoring rumors of undead and went doing other stuff.
I kept telling them about bigger and worse issues with undead over 6 months of weekly sessions. they kept saying "Skeletons and zombies... No fun."
And then the massive mob of undead destroyed their home base town. I had increased the difficulty level of the undead and increased the size of the undead hordes, then merged them under one leader as the players kept ignoring the issue.
The PCs had to flee the small continent that was over-run with undead.
Sounds like this could've benefited from an OOC talk. If everyone's saying fighting undead is boring, and my notes said the campaign revolved around endless armies of undead, I would've gone "oh boy". Not "let's flood everything with undead and kill all the useful townsfolk"
Like the other poster says, if the party is uninterested in fighting undead, forcing them to fight endless hordes without an OOC warning that the campaign was intended to be about dealing with undead feels pretty rude.
"it's like there was nothing to do." Laughed until it hurt,
Love me some big brain Barbarian. :D
Man, the very same situation you described happened at the table I'm playing on, but as a months-long pattern, and I understand your veteran player's frustration because I was on their shoes the whole time. It's painful when you can clearly identify your GM's intentions (and most of the time they're as subtle as neon lights at night) and the rest of your party is just there like "nah...".
I think context is everything. Had a Starfinder scenario recently where the party was on a planet and had decided to try and escape a pirate ship waiting for them in orbit rather than confronting it. It had been established earlier that there were sandstorms around the planet that were difficult to fly through but otherwise did no direct harm to ships, so their plan was to hop from storm to storm until they had reached the other side of the planet, then launch into orbit and activate the Drift (Warp) engine before the pirates knew what was happening. This creativity in "avoiding content" resulted in at least as fun and exciting of a situation as if the party had just entered into a standard ship combat.
Best advice for open world: lay out a bunch of threads and plot hooks that you only plan the first step for. See what your players specifically choose as their adventure to pursue despite the known dangers. Then, end that session with a cliffhanger and spend the next week or two prepping that encounter now that they're invested. They're less likely to avoid the mysterious green mist in the woods if that's tied to their reason for being in the woods in the first place.
Sounds like you're failing as a DM if your players are too scared of encounters or exploration.
Seriously. You've just made them fight two back-to-back combat sessions, one of which was against two T Rexes, in which they've exhausted ALL of their spell slots. From a player psychology point of view, they aren't thinking "ooh, a green glow! How exciting! this must be the payoff!"
No. They're thinking "Our DM is trying to bait us into another fight. possibly a boss fight. And we have no spells... Yeah, we need to rest up."
You might have all the experience in the world as a DM, but sometimes that can actually get in the way. And this is particularly so when you find your players behaving a certain way and you blame them, without realising that maybe it was YOU that caused your players to react the way they did.
I'd argue kobolds breed like chickens and its actually goblins that breed like rabbits.
I would have had the players encounter boastful adventurers in town _laughing and talking about the incredible stuff they just found_ ... and then the players would realise from the stories they heard that their own caution had just left a bunch of valuable stuff lying around for others to trivially collect.
Decisions have consequences!
I know people hate to break immersion, but sometimes it's worthwhile to just have a conversation about this above-table. "Guys, I put these encounters in here for you to explore, advance the plot, and get loot. Some may be challenging, but I promise you they are fair and winnable (or at least survivable). I'm not going to pull a 'Tomb of Horrors' and instantly kill you because you took one wrong step."
Why only place survivable encounters? Oh well if your group is into it.
(Edit: due clarification--I don't mean encounters should have no way out, of course, but very high danger unwinnable scenes where you either leave or surprise the GM with some clever win tactic can be fun).
@@RafaelLVx That's literally what a survivable encounter is: one so difficult you could easily die, but that there's normally a way through or out with a little clever or tactical play. They're not so easy to plan as DM, but yeah, they're definitely worth the effort. That said, they often work better (or, at least, are often easier to run) in more narrative games than those fixated on rules... like PF2.
@@RafaelLVx Possibly, but too many of them can result in the kind of player hesitancy that Luke is complaining about.
I disagree. The DM shouldn't say these things. The DM should adjust the way these things are presented. Like have the Kobolds appear AFTER the party has set up camp, have the lone surviving NPC amongst the ankle-saurs cry out for help, or have the Kobolds tell the players (if they befriend them) about a lost staff that glows green, etc.
@@High-Tech-Geek Very good suggestions.
Good reflection! Here's an idea for Wilderness Adventures: use more Branching Paths. Here's how I'd go about it:
Assume players will skip some amount open-world content. Note which encounters may be optional in your adventure. For every one, create a short/separate encounter if your players avoid it.
Let's take The Druidic Staff Encounter: If players avoid the meadow, perhaps an NPC is trying to find the staff nearby. They may look lost and could know some lore regarding the staff...
Players may be inclined to lie about not seeing the staff/knowing it's whereabouts, making it an interesting social encounter. Or maybe they don't do anything. Either way, they've learned a bit about it via the NPC.
@@joeymullins5142 absolutely this. Any time I try to be mysterious or enigmatic, mh players just nope out of there. Could also try to give a bit more information on the vibes it gives off, such as describing the green light as "old", "warm" or "soft" with a "gentle humming sound somehow in tune with the bird song in the area"
"For every one, create a short/separate encounter if your players avoid it. "
Do double the prep is not a great solution.
Ragnar... Make a Nature check - Ragnar. OK, I rolled a 17 total - DM - OK, you think, you might be able to carefully make your way down through the grash and shrubbery to the glint in you have seen
Gorndorf - Make a Diplomacy - Gorndorf I rolled a Nat 20 making it a 28. DM - OK, you think the Kobolds know something and seem willing to help
The best laid plans of DM's are always ruined by players. And Sometimes, Players need a little Nudge, nudge
Pathfinder rolls are secret so the players would have no idea what they actually rolled.
@@alanthomasgramont What does that have to do with the above example where the GM asks for skill checks and the players tell them the result of those?
@@simonjay9758 Ragnar makes a nature check. The DM secretly rolls a 1 and says "ok, you think you might be able to carefully make your way down through the grass and shrubbery to the glint you have seen"
Player: "Hmm, I don't know guys. I have no idea what I rolled so this could be good or not. I have no dice number to give me confidence in my action"
@@alanthomasgramont Oh sorry, I didn't realise PF2 the GM made all of the rolls.
One thing I think you could have done to relieve some of that tension and give your players a reason to interact with the content you have, is to have those things mentioned ahead of time in a better light. Mention rumors about the ankylos and how docile they were, the green glow being inviting and reminiscent of something protective of the past, the kobolds serving something benevolent that could have in turn connected with the green glow even more. Some breadcrumbs to better inform the players would've helped so much.
There's an interesting video on yt explaining the design philosophy for Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which I think applies here. The general idea there is that the player(s) can always see 3 obvious locations of interest (LOI) in the distance, wherever they are in the open world. That way, the players are always tempted towards one of those directions and the space in between doesn't matter as much in terms of "what if the players never stumble across this quest item randomly lost in the woods?" - you just put the things that matter near those visible LOI. The players are always free to decide to go and explore one LOI, at which point a new LOI becomes visible in the distance. This gives players agency over their choices without overwhelming them, and also a way to order adventures that feels natural.
Dear all DM's who havent been a player before, and some who have, (p.s. i am also a dm and player)
Players know that they are playing a game. A game that is meant to be challenging, with traps, enemies, etc. They also know that if the dm is talking about it in a way that makes it stand out, its probably significant in some way, bad or good. You may know that whatever object or area or creature you are describing is friendly or otherwise will not hurt the players. The players DO NOT KNOW THAT. If the players happen upon something that seems threatening in any way, theres a pretty good chance that they will just avoid it because they have a character that they likely dont want to die. If one door in a dungeon is trapped, every other door in every other dungeon could be trapped. And that rule follows for every unknown NPC, monster, area, or anything else you can think of. Especially if your players know that you are prone to have threats catch them by surprise (not only from a mechanics standpoint, just in general), they will begin to treat every standout entity that you describe as a threat on some level first until they have a reason not to.
I think the players were trying to give YOU a hint.
That first scene was exactly like the last game I ran. I think before they leave town an NPC (ideally 3 kobolds in a trench coat) needs to tell them the legend of the staff and of the friendly kobolds who worship the staff and also mention there was a party that went out for the staff and hasn't returned.
Rumors are great for planting hints. Along with some other added chicanery. 👍
I agree. That sort of foreshadowing helps make the story feel more linear rather than a series of unrelated events.
From a purely objective perspective, you got irritated the players did exactly what you habitually advocate - agency. You got mad because they did what you allowed them to do; then, you exacted revenge by reclaiming the magic loot.
Honestly with the corpses and ankylosauruses I could see trying to scare them off with a fireball.
the hammer tails are my fav dino, always have been. OG turtles imo
10:27 thats something I'm experimenting with. They are currently exploring a hags 'dungeon' which is just her swamp. I'm really new to Dming and have learned a lot from your videos as well as some of the other long term Dm's on youtube and reddit. This was my players first big fight dealing with a boss monster and a few other battles in between, and they REALLY don't like tactically retreating. They are terrified to take a rest but also clearly feeling the pressure of the game. I was going to give them a safe space to rest later down the line but realizing how stressed they were and that our wizard used all their slots I moved that safe space closer then intended, a little pocket dimension made by an NPC in the area they came in contact with. Balancing is a challenge, good to know everyone has stressful game days.
I've taken to running a sort of item crafting system which requires the PC's to have parts of a monster that does what they want to achieve as a part of the crafting process.
For example, the druid in my current campaign has a staff that will get upgraded bit by bit, but currently has a couple of low level spells like bears endurance iirc and some other bits relating to bears. It is crafted with giant, undead dire bears spine as the basis.
Meanwhile the fighter has a sort of Chinese Wuxia mixed with Cthulhu theme going on, which is based off the Far Realm, so he has a series of ring charms that he can connect to his greatsword. They're designed so that he can prepare his weapon as may be needed, like a wizard may prepare spells and on a long rest, he can secure new charms. He's currently on the hunt for something capable of psychic abilities to add psychic damage to his blade.
This forces engagement, but puts it in the players court to establish 'what' they want and how they want to get it. I generally also limit it to 1 item per creature, with its skin being useable separately for scrolls and the higher the level of the scroll/rarity of the item, the higher the CR of the creature it needs.
In the "old days", when XP was awarded for GP value returned to the characters' "home base", and GP was required for training to level up (rather than just being awarded a level up at a milestone) the characters had an incentive to investigate every opportunity for potential income that they could.
In an "open world" environment like that you could, fairly early on in their exploration, just have them stumble across a entrance to a tomb mini-dungeon or something that required a multi-piece key of sorts to open. Perhaps have them find a body at the entrance with one of the pieces and a clue that there were more. Have some of the other locations that you'd like them to visit contribute to that key - they might be sufficiently intrigued to following up on that and try and find them. This only works up to a point though - eventually they'll be of a sufficient level to work around any blocks you put in place at the site unless you use arbitrary DM Fiat to prevent them.
I've found that if my DM has taken the time to mention it in the game, then I should take the time to check it out.
Not always a good thing, but that's half the fun
Yep. That's the game and how it's played.
I always try and roll Perception or an appropriate skill to learn more on any point of interest.
9:37 Been there. They had been through two rooms of combat, so I had a social interaction with monster thieves. They were not interested in fighting with the players, as they were enjoying their loot. My designed social interaction went up in smoke when the rouge and the wizard decided to take their gold by killing the monsters.
I avoid this problem by throwing out the model of "Combat Encounter / Exploration / Roleplay". Instead I engineer conflict scenarios that set up Action scenes. (The 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' truck scene is my #1 example.)
Create a problem where something bad is clearly going to happen if the players don't react. Leave the reaction open ended to the players' creativity. It is not necessarily Combat, Exploration, or "Roleplay".
This gives players just as much (or more) agency, but the agency is not "Do we engage with this?" but rather "HOW do we engage with this?"
For example, instead of there just being a herd of Ankylosaurs standing there with potential treasure teased in the middle... start with a herd of stampeding ankylosaurs heading straight for the PC's with another adventuring party just barely ahead of them, getting overrun and trampled one by one. One of these NPC's will get mortally injured and be screaming for help.
I feel so sorry for these players. They got the loot they wanted, their characters avoided encounters beyond what they felt like they could handle/encounters they knew from experience you were likely to make highly difficult, they didn't do anything dangerous whilst carrying fragile dinosaur eggs, their characters got to act like rational adults instead of running into danger after two back-to-back fights, and their high crime appears to be... not acting on information they didn't have. "I had so much lore, and if they'd done this or gone there or-" They didn't know that. They know you regularly make encounters hard and they've already had several tough encounters. Multiple players have said in the comments that they enjoyed this session, but you've decided it's "an inferior session"just because not everything on your personal checklist didn't get checked off.
TTRPGs are not about the DM getting everything they wanted done done within a specific time in a specific way. That's a novel. You're thinking of a novel.
It must really suck for them to walk out going, "Whew! We did it! We avoided cracking the dinosaur eggs, being eaten by dinosaurs, getting murdered by Kobolds and we got to have good character interactions with each other as we decided what to do! That was fun!" and then via RUclips find out your DM is dragging you as risk-averse to 20k people (as of this comment; the final number will likely be higher). Thank God I'm not one of your players. If I saw my DM making whole RUclips videos (scripting, editing, etc.) instead of just talking to us that'd be a giant buzzkill. It'd definitely make me go into future sessions metagaming, going, "Okay, I know what would be in-character to do, but I also know what Luke's going to do if I act in-character." just to avoid the drama of having the DM complain to 20,000+ people later.
I feel like I should apologize to even the worst DM I've had. Compared to this, they're doing great.
"Hey all!! Player in said game here. We don't think Luke did anything wrong here at all." - top comment on this video
As someone who has been around many, MANY evil DMs do you have any wonder people are becoming like this? They spend a good couple of hours to make a character, only to then have the DM kill them 5 minutes in (or they are to dumb to live)...and the next, and the next out of sadistic glee lol OF COURSE people will become paranoid of doing anything, that's called conditioning :/
Hours? You just need to pick a species, class, name, and roll some stats; twenty minutes tops.
@@jonsturgill6508 If you are making a modern, new aged "i dont actually like DND I just wanna act like im playing skyrim!" character yes it takes 20 minutes. If you actually like doing backstory, personality etc, things with depth? No it takes a much longer time and i can see you are one of those skyrim players :).
"you are in a big, extravagant room! with-"
"BORING! WHAT CAN I R STEAL !? WHAT CAN I R KEEL!? BOOOORING I WANNA USE MUH MAGICS! I WANNA GOON ON SSOMETHING WHY CAN'T I ROMANCE X CHAARACTER WAAAAAAH!?!?!???!?!?!?" God this is why I quit XD
@CrashHeadroom , yeah, no, I've been playing D&D since dwarf was a class. I can't stand Skyrim stylle games that insist on trying to distract players from their own plot. Characters shouldn't take more than 20mins to make because adventures are supposed to be dangerous, and another adventurer should be ready & waiting when the surviving pcs reach the next tavern. This insistence y'all have on making "adventurers" that don't want to interact with the adventure is crazy.
@@jonsturgill6508 Well, using this video as an example and the 100s of other videos about it....ya know what? ya right, ya shouldn't spend longer than 20 minutes making a characters because A) 8/10 DMs are power hungry, useless lossers nowadays who use that time to torture you due their own ineptness in life and B) what is the point of playing a deep, new personalitity type when the DM is just gonna throw it in to the meat grinder anyways? ya right, it is pointless and so is DnD now especially when most of the time is spent cowtowing to A holes who want a purple gay mexican orc whos married to a gay artistic dwarf who likes tea parties and that is there WHOLE character....and no, the DM won't throw them in to the meat grinder because "oh well day is nice, day is muh ffweeeennnd and im too scared to incase they call me ist names :O"..... yeah, you are reminding me to much of why i stopped playing XD thank you.
@CrashHeadroom there's nothing wrong with wanting to play a character that's gay and/or Mexican. You seem to have some really deep-seated issues and should probably work on not being homophobic and racist.
Oh this is so familiar. My group had some serious internal struggles both between characters and unfortunately consequently players. I realized I had given them too much time to play out internal drama. The setting, they had to protect a village from a frost giant invasion, actually allowed them a lot of things to do. So I threw them a bone here: "The loggers' camp a few days away hasn't been heard of for a time X. Please go and check what's going on." Rather than starting, they organized the local militia in case there were giants close by and finally (after another session or two of bickering) they took half of the militia with them (in case there was trouble and to give them the chance to get some hands on experience). They didn't even reach the camp, a random encounter with two frost giants convinced them that the camp was lost anyways and they returned to the village in case the giants wanted to attack there. That's when I lost it and openly asked them wtf they were doing? How obvious do I have to be as a GM? I was seriously pissed off (because of the history leading up to that point). I decided I neeeded a pause from this campaign. One of my players took over and as a first time master lead us on an epic side quest that lasted about half a year. After that I again mastered and the group has been happy ever since then (okay one of the characters left and was replaced. But that worked out well.)
I mean, to be fair to the players, you said the whole campaign was about protecting the 1 village. So they were, from what it sounds like, doing their part of prioritizing the safety of that particular village. The issue is the set-up itself doesn't leave them much room to leave for long periods of time. If sending half the militia out didn't fix the giant problem, why would you expect leaving that half in the village to defend it while the players wander around for clues would sound like a safe idea? 😅
I'm in a campaign with a similar plot, but we're explicitly the group in charge of wandering around to find more allies to beef up defenses while also cutting down on enemy reinforcements by taking out points of interest. The bases have people who are strong in their own right but not the best people to have wandering around. For example, the local branch leader and a physically strong veteran with a war wound in his knee.
At least they are role playing dramas between characters rather than talking in purely mechanical terms and acting like a grey, insipid hive-mind.
Maybe a better hook. For example, when they are skipping, have one of them notice the dying person move or grown. Saving an innocent will often entice player characters to take a chance that they otherwise wouldn’t take.
Or let the other players hear the kobolds laughing loudly so that the rogue’s story is less credible (or allow an unprompted intuition check to see if he is exaggerating
Hey @DMLair Luke: I’ll feel awful if I come off as a “well ACTually“ @$$hat here, but I work at a natural sciences museum & started my tenure there as a Paleontology volunteer, so I hope these phonetic spellings are helpful and don’t make you roll your eyes:
Deinonychus = “die NAH nuh kus”
Ankylosaurus = “ang kuh low SOR us”
Keep up the excellent work… I’m binging it!
"Oh man! This is the eleventeenth time we've come across that eery green fog in the woods. Maybe we should check it out?" 😂
The group said they wanted rest, the DM didn't listened. Luke admits it mid-video. He could have adapted the scenario to the players wish. But it's very stricky to do that. Best is to start with asking the players, out of character, what is their intent.
If the game is sub standard, there is a way to make it better. Saying the DM could have done better does not aim to guilt trip him!
All DM does such errors. We get better and move and, that's all.
If your spellcasters are out of spell slots, then don't expect them to be taking any unnecessary risks. Zero spell slots is basically lockdown mode where you only do the bare essentials with the primary goal being to avoid combats at all costs and get to rest somewhere.
i mean, you pretty much made the combat encounters mandatory, but the rest skippable
if you really feel the need to have diverse encounters in your game you need to treat them in a way that makes sense
if the kobolds "ambushed" the party midrest you'd have the encounter you wanted, barraging them with questions about the green glow the party came from
making the combat encounters as skippable as the rest could've helped too, if you think they get boring
D&D and Pathfinder and every system that incentivizes players to rest every two seconds always falls into this trap. Players want all their spell slots and hitpoints and resources at all times, and they will do whatever it takes to treat the world like a video game.
Old school systems side-step this by just making resting not a thing. In OSE, you get like, 2 or 3 hitpoints when resting outside a town for a night and that is it. DMs have to explicitly tell the party they will be unable to rest while in this dungeon/forest/catacomb/ruin/etc. Why? It isn't safe, period. Move on.
Open area with no walls? Simple answer: Put a timer on them. ALWAYS use a timer, open area or no.
The ritual finishes in 10 rounds, stop it or the three kings die.
The ecplise is in 12 hours, you have to stop the high priest before then.
The princess will be sacrificed in two days.
The ceiling will collapse in 4 rounds.
The lava will fill the chamber in five minutes.
It doesn't matter, just slap a timer that they cannot ignore, and most importantly, TELL THE PLAYERS. They have to know what the stakes are. When they ask, "Can we rest?", you say "Sure, but the princess will be burnt to a crisp in 20 minutes..." A countdown timer (you can have multiple going at once) sets the stakes for the players, creates tension, and keeps things moving. And it allows total freedom for the party to prioritize, plan, and figure it out. If they have 12 rounds and twiddle away five of them trying to loot the treasury, then suddenly find themselves out of time at the climax to the fight, tough luck. Bad things happen, and now they deal with the consequences.
Timers can be big or small. Telling the players they have seven days to accomplish X, then let them plan and figure it out. Honestly, the game pretty much runs itself at that point. They can rest as much as they want while the timer ticks down. They can scout or lay traps or enlist help from NPCs or find a hidden pass or go boozing in the tavern or find ancient scrolls in the mage's tower. Just tick the timer down and move the world forward accordingly.
A game without timers quickly degenerates into Risk Avoidance 101. With timers you have the stage for heroic efforts and sacrifices. Be as ruthless as you want, because by hook or by crook, the players will always figure something out.
Yeah, "short rest" rules are really bad and are a big contributor to video-game thinking. Even long rests restore too much.
resting in OSE style games IS a thing. What do you think iron spikes are for? The megadungeons were not meant to be completed in one in-game day; you would have to fortify a position, keep watch, literally nail the doors open/closed, and have a tense and fitful sleep to make it through.
Honestly, i agree that it's on the dungeon master, as you said, to put the pressure on the players if they don't want them to do these things. Timers are good. The threat of the dungeon and jungle being a dangerous area where monsters move around is one i use more often, personally.
@@UrsulaMajor While it is always true that resting & recovery should be an option, game mechanics have a serious impact on how this is approached. 5e "short rest" mechanics create a video-game reset feel. In old school games, getting well rested came at a significant time cost. OD&D let you heal 1 hp/day. You also tracked resources more rigorously. But going back to town to resupply & heal up might cost days or weeks. Camping came with risks of wandering monster checks. There was a much more gritty survival mentality to it. If mechanics make resetting to full capacity quite easy, then it is natural for players to not nerf themselves by not taking advantage of it. But this can really rob an adventure of danger and drama.
the game is written like a video game, playing it like so is hardly on the players
As someone who has played a lot of BX, BECMI, and retroclones, the problems in my experience that you run into with the suggestion is "unwinnable situations". Not that I disagree with the short rest problems in theory, but the opposite side has its own problems. Early levels especially. If you get unlucky on the first or second room of a 5 room dungeon, or worse just get wrecked by a wandering monster, it doesn't matter if they are on a timer or the princess will die. To advance will be death. And since we have no alternative to heal to be able to proceed, we retreat, spend a week resting, and either give up or come back to try again timer be damned. Older school editions in my experience have always just led to grindier, slower crawls because of this. I actually like a timer *more* in a system with something like shortrests. It allows you to get a bit of healing in without a "full restore", while still allowing them to feel confident enough to advance. A healthy inbetween. (I will also note those unwinnable situations usually happen at lower levels in my experience. Even in OSR games at higher levels you tend to have so many spells you can typically get everyone patched up reasonably if it wasn't a super bloody fight.)
Give us a dungeon video!
You can impose a "false" constraint in an outside environment.
Example: to get where they need to go, the characters must traverse a narrow Canyon, and while traversing this Canyon, they must go through the grove with the emerald staff.
They could get out of the canyon to not enter the groove, but that would be "tiering" ( impose some lasting condition) or take a lot of time
You can't complain about meta gamers and murder hobos and wonder why players find the easiest least violent way around an encounter.
Imagine you are in each of these scenarios. Not a fictional you, but your actual mortal body. Would you, while undertaking a dangerous mission to fight actual dinosaurs, take a bunch of unnecessary risks that have nothing to do with the job?
Hell no! You'd grab the eggs, run back to town, and self medicate your newfound PTSD with copious amounts of alcohol.
Do you want players to immerse themselves in your world and take it seriously? Well, congratulations, cause that's what you got.
A bit of a monkey's paw, this situation turned out to be.
Lmao
Nice video, and I'm sure it wasn't that bad for your party. I tend to move significant objects or events around if the players miss it. Maybe not the entire event but the core part, or bring it around again later. Please make a video on dungeons. Thank you
Modern audience players. Give me some grognard rule lawyers out to play the game to the limits..
Grognards play the game. Rules Lawyers just argue and argue and argue and argue...etc.
@@b0therme And modern audience players aren't bad. Had a newbie start in my current campaign and she has really shown up the 2 vets in it. Timid as all hell at first, then halfway through the first session, she's the only one picking up on the hints in my descriptions, and uses her turn in combat to end that encounter by IC berating the vets characters into submission for attacking an already injured and terrified creature that just wanted their help. Honestly, she's the MVP of my campaign; that's Modern Audiences for you.
@@b0therme facts. Old school players are generally more concerned with adventure and less with making sure their precious character doesn’t get a boo boo! But rules lawyers - outside of GMs - suck. If the GM says it works this way - then it does. Take the discussion off table and make sure it’s something that works for the character
@mtknight5141 Hoo freakin' Raa!!🎉😁
0:51 that “Indeed” by the wizard made me laugh out loud 😂
As the designated "forever DM" of my gaming group, this kinda scenario really threw me at first but the best way I learned to roll with the punches was literally to let the characters know, in a narratively valid and satisfying fashion, what the consequences of simply ducking out and avoiding a problem would be. At the current stage of the campaign, where they're about level 10, that usually boils down to some form of:
"Yeah, you can super easily run away. But that will make things extremely dangerous for your allies and even the civilians who are counting on you. But hey, I'm not saying you have to run in without using your head, do you want to try a different approach?"
This works really well for my players because as _players_ they want the challenges and the stakes and all that; but at the same time, that's juxtaposed against the "characters" whom, courageous though they are "want" the easiest, safest, quickest solution possible. By establishing clear stakes and giving them the freedom in how to respond to those, it gives them a great balance between both of those aspects.
Everything you presented screams "This is gonna be a fight" on an already risky adventure.
Looks to me like that would be a good time to talk outside the session about it, to see, if everyone is still on the same page. Groups evolve in some sort, or another and sometimes a bit of reflection of what you as the DM and the players need or wish to create a fun exprience for everyone at the table. :)
It took 30 years, but I now know velociraptors are the size of a German shepherd….
The big problem is that they had a mission other than exploration and they focused on accomplishing the mission.
For all they knew, they were dodging a lesson in not being greedy.
I heart your recognition of my favorite childhood dinosaur, and it’s Miss naming in the first real dinosaur movie made in my childhood
The error you point out has stood out to me for nearly 35 years
And I’m glad you let the public know their mistake
An easy way to pronounce its name is “Dino Nikes”
he did call veolciraptors "chicken sized" though, which is also incorrect. Velo's are more dog sized, it's like twice the height of a chicken.
compsognathus however...
@@Thenarratorofsecrets Ah, that reliable and ever-constant measurement 'dog-sized'.
Sometimes the story teller needs two inform the players that this is one of the prepared encounters the story teller invested time into and the players need to engage with it.
isnt this the paladins job?
npc: help save me
paladin: a child in danger!
party: ...god dammit!
Weirdly, I really enjoyed this session, not because of the combat, but because I enjoyed the character interactions as we tried to decide what to do. I felt like we were able to avoid things we didn’t want to encounter and had real control over our choices.
Thank you for sharing. You're still learning, and that's o.k., and people honestly don't share enough. It's as important to see things conceptually and optimally alongside what fails or lands imperfectly. Both are equally valuable.
You were absolutely NOT WRONG to have the loot be broken.
There is a double edged sword, here...
Yes, they can do whatever they want, BUT, there are consequences to actions... and inaction.
"after you finish that fight against a field full of dinosaurs, you come upon a field full of even tougher dinosaurs."
"Uh, we'd like to save our resources for the big fight we came out here to do"
"Okay here's that big fight!"
*one big fight later*
"Ok gang what do you want to do?"
"Well we're pretty low on resources so we'd like to rest"
"Okay, here's something that looks like an encounter"
"... We'd like to avoid an encounter, so we'll walk around it"
"Okay here's another encounter"
"Yeah we're going to just leave I guess"
"Ok you find the loot you would have gotten if you went into the field with the tanky dinosaurs, but it's all mangled by the dangerous dinosaurs"
"Cool I guess"
Gee I wonder what the problem was
Sometimes games don't work out like we want. Good on you to admit and share when it happens.
I love hearing you discuss and analyze your own game sessions- it provides a great example for what you discuss on your channel!
I had that happen once, but luckily one of the players spoke up after a while and said "we need to actually take one of these adventure hooks" after the third skip haha. Good topic/reminder about quest structure helping prevent that. Cheers and thanks, Luke!
This was a similar situation we encountered in our last mini campaign that truly tanked what was supposed to be a mystery/ who done it campaign. Basically clue.
The short version was the party was invited by a noble as a guest later turned out we were there just for them to flex who they know. Noble guy dies in front of everyone. Find out that most of the people there had beef with the guy or had a been on the short end of the deal they had. Plays like knives out.
Unfortunately we couldn’t get to interview or investigate much since a few players just did not want to invade other peoples privacy ask some detailed questions or look into investigate the scene. And it was just very frustrating each Tod bit of info we did get had the few players go back and second guess everything. And it came to a head where I needed to take a break we found a very obvious clue that one npc had a magic item that belonged to this character’s family that the noble guy had tricked into giving. Then the group of players began questioning that we shouldn’t push further that asking these questions was rude. At that point I was like okay let’s just call in the lords men because we can’t get any where. It was just very frustrating. I could tell the dm was trying to give us hooks. The two players in question their attitude was the typical I’m just doing what my character would do. Which is annoying. I understand agency but you have to press forward to advance the story.
I've had it happen a lot too. In a superhero game, the PC's were supposed to be the grand marshals of a parade. So of course they decided to scope out the townfolks, hover over the parade, check out the farmhouse that was unoccupied during the parade. Even though the hook was "You've been invited to be grand marshals of the parade for another, missing hero." We made it work, but, well, it was frustrating.
I love your skits. Entertaining and makes the point. Never stop
Thank you so much!!!
Simple solution to all this: make the adventure take place in a deep forest and make the deep forest the dungeon.
What I have found when running an outdoor campaign is that it helps to put a time constraint. either another party of adventurers is running the same quest or a volcano will erupt soon obliterating the objective or someone is in peril and needs to be rescued fast. That usually gets them moving and not counting the dangers as much.
Going over the situation from their perspective: You had a fight, found a den of monsters with nothing in it and successfully got past them, found the eggs and fought the dinos and won with the prize, then found a spooky green haze after getting roughed up when everything has been hostile so far, and finally found a cave of Kobolds who are known to to both evil and tenacious in every encounter with the DM thus far.
This is an absolute win for them. They got the loot they could find, and used their scouting to avoid encounters beyond what they felt they could handle, like when you have no spells left. Just because the checklist on your side of the screen isn't checked off, doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad time.
If we really wanted all the content to appear though, I think this was a case of lack of information. They did not know any loot was in room 2, they did not know if there was a magic lore staff in room 4 or if there was an ogre magi, and they did not know the Kobolds were searching for a new master in room 5, or at the very least did not know they could qualify as a new master.
Pretty standard content-skipping, very natural for players to take those routes. Reskin and use that content elsewhere.
Your players won't do what you expect them to if you don't force them (and you shouldn't force them).
Also note that content-skipping is eminently more attractive in D&D/Pathfinder-type games with silly daily resource pools like vancian magic. In games where the resources are more dynamic, players will be measuring challenge vs gain with a more leveled head. They could be even looking for encounters that replenish resources.
My sympathies. Long time DM and see this way too often lately
"The spellcasters were mostly just out of spells" umm... that is what they do. It is like saying the melees all had misplaced their weapons.
Modern players seem to go to absolutes. I have had groups too aggressive or too cautious, often vacillating between those two extremes :( Note the "Can we take them (the Kobolds) as pets" is a different kind of too aggressive.
One suggestion that I have is that when you want there to be an encounter, have the encounter. Party rogue hides from the kobolds and reports them as scary? Have a kobold on patrol (completely normal behavior for them) encounter the party, watch long enough to realize they are 'powerful and non-malevolent' (and possibly even similarly cautious to the Kobolds themselves) and decides to make contact.
Do not bind yourself by treating your own writing as etched in stone.
I was running a game last weekend on a VTT and the players had fallen into a labyrinth. They somehow found the easiest and most direct line to the exit and never encountered anything but a couple traps. As they were looking out the door, I was in disbelief. Hours prepping and done in 30 minutes. One player asked me point blank after I expressed my surprise they were going to leave and not loot/murder hobo the entire maze, as my players normally do. But, he asked if I wanted them to go back in and explore. So, they played their characters to continue inside.
Sometimes, we DM's must be a little more obvious to our players to get them to enjoy our game. But, this channel and being a Patron on Patreon has made me a better DM. Thanks Luke and the DM Lair Team.
This behavior sometimes comes from the previous experiences where the DM adopts the theme of "everything outside the base is trying to kill you. And half the things at your base are, too."
When you come up with a character, you invest at least some minimal part of your time and imagination into them (usually).
This typically leads to more investment as the game goes on.
Given that game mechanics can literally go: "Enemy rolls 20. Confirmed. You die.", the investment is always in the back of your mind.
Even with ways to return your character to life, eventually, you are literally locked out of the game until then, or until you can reasonably bring in a new character.
Risk/reward is always going to be a thing. A DM has to try to get a group of players to realize that they should be mentally and mechanically prepared (with backup characters or at least concepts) for disaster to strike if they want the reward of a game session with excitement and risk.
Thanks!
I had something similar happen with my group. It was a time travel adventure to the beginnings of the town in which we all live. They skipped every combat encounter I had planned except the final climactic one. Later, they all told me they absolutely were trying to do a little damage to the timeline as possible, and since they were unsure of how anything they did would affect it, they all decided yo try and defuse every tense situations. It turned out to be a great session.
Its pronounced like "Die-non-ih-cus"
That intro :-) ... like "I am so glad we finally have our own ship!" "Yeah, Starfleet sucks. All that protocol all the time. Sticks up their ****es, all of them!" .... "Strange signal coming in. Looks like something is happening in that remote desolate system!" "Ok, call Starfleet and tell them. They'll send someone to investigate. Set course for the next m-class world!"
What you can do? Nothing. Really. And the worst thing is - as players get older, their ... lack of attention, willingness to engage, etc. ... grows. Too much stress on the job, memory getting worse, to many things going on in "real life", take your pick. And the younger players, they're worse - they've grown up with those 3D computer games where 95% of the interaction is slaying and looting ... .
Yes, I have been playing and GMing for over 30 years, too.
Games are boring when players don't create adventurers. If they are all so timid, then nothing happens. I have been in many games where my character tried to initiate interesting actions, but other characters were so timid that basically nothing happened. When a DM throws out a clue, it is generally there to add something interesting to the session.
You broke the golden rule; Risk, Danger, Challenge, and Inconvenience are scary.
This is so relatable, on both sides of the table. My early D&D experiences were with an old school DM so I was a paranoid player for a long time. Ultimately it's not only a question of skillful DMing but mutual trust.
Some DM's when players charge into dangerous situations unrested or unprepared: "help, my players are making stupid choices, arent taking the game seriously, and feel invincible".
Those same Dm's when players play cautiously: "help, my players are avoiding encounters and dangerous situations ".
pick a lane - if you run challenging games then a smart player will assume encounters are dangerous, and react accordingly.
Furthermore, never forget that what you know is different from players. The players know that kobolds are usually evil and worship powerful, evil creatures. They also know that they want to rest and are feeling drained. You know that these kobolds are friendly and have relevant lore, but as is the players have no reason to assume that these will be different.
I always support stupid choices. Those are the most fun.
Pretty much this. I've got a DM just like this and the past few days of watching videos like this is starting to make me think about leaving. Pretty much every quest he tries to lowball rewards. NPCs act against their own interests to be spiteful. The encounters are always endless rows of enemies or songular enemies that can just one shot you. He doesn't even humor creative/alternate solutions. Etc. I've been putting up with it because it has been my most consistent group attendance-wise but I think I just need to bite the bullet and look for another.
@@TheMightyBattleSquid Honestly I was thinking I was similar... until I read pass lowballing loot. You honestly should leave I know lowballing loot is my main issue but I also normally do christmas/birthday events where the players basically get free loot for it being around Christmas/My Birthday... granted my birthday is some NPC's Birthday just giving away things they got but didn't really want but still if I know a player's birthday I might reward them with other magical items. I will admit I might have rows of enemies but usually those are combat leaning to where not attacking or talking about things(Hi bahamut before you murder me we got a lawyer doing crimes but no proof) might pacify the enemy or they maybe more social(Hi enemy lawyer that loves to annoy my cop players for being just barely on the right side of the law despite aiding criminals and assigning other people criminal tasks). Honestly I feel like I am lucky as I might run a more easy game outside of halloween things where I say "You characters might die use at your risk and don't use at risk of losing out on loot" but my players have a great time... might not get a lot done but we mess around might have someone call a dragon god that hates them who will show up just to murder them.
@@theDMLair There is some nuance to supporting the stupid choices. I am a player much like you’re describing in your video. My DM celebrates choices that are unwise but fun and then punishes me for it later. It has taught me that I cannot relax or be casual in that game. I must always be on watch for the next trap. When I make a fun suggestion that my GM celebrates, I am instantly on the lookout for where the punishment will come from. You are a different GM with a different group, but my point is that your players may not be interpreting your enthusiasm as you mean them to.
@@TheMightyBattleSquid What you’re describing sounds like a different issue altogether. Your DM seems to be running some kind of grimdark campaign, whereas Luke is just wanting his players to engage with the adventure.
To answer why and how a game session went bad it's great to talk to your players as is sounds like you did. In addition, you could use a tool such as 5 Why or a fishbone diagram and start drilling into why the game session went bad. A 5 Why is a bit of an adventure in exploring why something didn't work, and you can make it as simple or complex as you like. The fishbone diagram will take a little prep to convert the category headings into relevant headings for running an RPG.
14:54 "An unfortunate fack can be stated without assigning blame." This is such a good quote even outside of the context of D&D.
This video really spoke to me. I'm running a younger group (20's) that would figure out whatever the goal was, and go STRAIGHT to it, avoiding all distractions. No side quests, no mysteries or secrets revealed, no casual NPC interactions, no extra exploration. Just point A to point B and back. It was maddening. They're getting better, but it took some sessions to kind of entice them to widen their focus bit. It took a bit for my players to realize that the additional encounters contained additional risk AND additional potential reward. What worked for me was to set up a few set encounters that the players could avoid or investigate as they see fit, a few random encounters, and then one or two encounters that happen TO them that forced them players to make some sort of choice. So while most of the session would be up to the players to interact with or not as they saw fit, some things were unavoidable, be it a encounter with an NPC, a vehicle that broke down, bandits stalking the players, and so forth. This has allowed me to control the pace a bit, and provide a steady drip of things for the group to interact with.
Love to see our favorite dnd party back in action during these intros
While not an immediate solution to the stated problem, the concept of "there's no such thing as a random encounter" may be in play here. There's also the ability to re-use or re-purpose planned encounters. For example, rather than meeting the kobolds in the cave, have them encounter a kobold hunting party. Rather than initiate combat, the kobolds immediately drop weapons and surrender, offering the PCs "safe" passage to their cave where they can rest. On the way, they come across the green-glowing thing, where the kobolds all genuflect (or something) toward it. Alternatively, on the way to the cave, throw in an easy combat encounter (one that wouldn't last more than a round or two) where the kobolds and the PCs fight as allies, and the ensuing investigation reveals some additional clues.
Sounds like a couple of problems I would've solved like this: going around the herd of anklyosaurs they encounter a path full of animals the herd displaced such as smaller dinos like raptors or even other herbivores that are easily startled and liable to charge at the adventurers. The kobold cave: I would have left some kind of journal notes or something they could read that gave them a clue that the kobolds are seeking the staff or a new master to serve. Maybe even some crude drawing on the walls turning the staff into a holy symbol, and heck if you wanted to really be obvious have a worshipper bowing and praying to the icon. Even if the players decided not to talk to the kobolds it would plant the idea in their mind that staff=kobold worship.
The problem was _not_ the adventure design (though there could be improvements). The problem was failure to signal risk/reward/viable options in a way that players understood and could evaluate. They were acting on prior(if any) game experiences and being cautious, which is fine, as long as the caution is in line with the danger than their _characters_ would perceive in world, and as long as they understand what is reasonable and possible for them to do in that world. If they are not reading your hints correctly, then you might flatly state: "guys I'm not trying to trick or manipulate you or tell you what to do, but I can see that you are perceiving more risk from my descriptions than is actually present, and you a maybe boxing yourselves in to fewer options than you actually have".
Or you might find ways to give better descriptions and hints that they are more likely to perceive correctly. For example the ankylosaurs. Those are herd animals, highly unlikely to be aggressive to small animals which pose no threat (unless defending eggs or young). To them, humans _might_ be perceived as small animals who pose no threat. You might explain this to your players directly. Or even better describe other small animals wandering among the herd as the huge beast placidly munch on grass. Elephants are not much bothered by, say, a bunch of monkeys running around near their feet or possibly even small predators.
You can also prep some easily relocatable encounters to ensure whatever the players do, they can encounter something interesting. If they go around the Ankylosaurs, they might encounter a lone wounded survivor of the group of corpses that were in the middle of the herd. This person could given them info that motivates them to get to that group of corpses & investigate, and they might have some knowledge of dinosaur behavior and even explain about ankylosaurs being herd beast likely to ignore you if you don't do anything threatening.
Finally, if players are not quite understanding what kinds of options they have, spell a few viable options out at each encounter. Is there some reasons "investigate" or "go around" were the only apparent options? Why not climbs some trees nearby, watch, and wait for the herd to move on? Or given that they are herd animals, it's quite likely that could be frightened off if the players can make sounds of something dangerous (like the rattle of a rattlesnake or something).
You can even say "guys, I think you don't quite get how flexible your options are in my game, so while I don't want to tell you what to do, I want to make sure you understand what is reasonable and possible in my game world... so, here are 4 options any of which would be pretty obvious to your characters in this situation [describe them], but if those spark you thinking and you have another idea, that would be awesome. Also, if you need to, please ask for clarifying questions about the situations so you can better come up with these kinds of ideas on your own..." After a few encounters like this, they should start coming up with their own interesting ways to deals with thing without needing a list a 4 prompts.
I had a similar problem with my one and only homebrew campaign. I kept dropping hints and links to things in their backstories and they kept avoiding the plot hooks. Even ones they said they were interested in exploring!
We had session 0.5's every 6-8 months which would help for a while, but eventually the issue would arise again.
Part of it was most of the players were socially anxious and each were afraid that going after a plot hook would "force" everyone else at the table to do something they didn't want to do. This was especially true about backstory related hooks - even though everyone was vocally excited about each other's characters! (Anxiety is a B*!)
There was also a lot of anxiety about failing and making the "wrong" choices.
Eventually we transitioned to more narrative focused games where the point is the amazing story we make along the way. First with Apocalypse Keys and now we're playing Girl by Moonlight. The great thing about these games is that the mechanics themselves instigate the plot hooks so it's a lot harder for them to "ignore the glowing arrow" because it's their actions that create them - not an all-knowing-GM.
I recently experienced something similar: content skipping in an open world setting. It would be worth some research as to how to make it work better and be more fun for players to experience a dungeon outside a dungeon setting, or to run a super dungeon with massive exploration space
As a player, I have developed a tendency to skip encounters like this with one DM, because usually, they are simply fillers meant to deplete resources with neither loot nor information nor even a good RP opportunity attached, so I'd rather skip ahead to the meaningful encounters with our HP and resources intact. E.g., we are currently in a dungeon to save someone and we skipped every single possible fight because we have learned that monsters never drop loot (even if we search the body and area after the fight, all we usually get is meaningless trinkets that never become important or some silver) and as we level by milestone, there is no EXP. We were disincentivized to explore, because most rooms were simply magical traps that immediately sprung upon entering a room with nothing else but the damage taken in the room (we investigated but turned up nothing), so we tried to beeline it toward the ping we got from the locate creature spell we had cast. The only time we stopped was when it looked like there was a magical item to obtain, but even that we skipped over later in the dungeon because there was damage attached to anything we did (clear an ice barrier with magic, take damage as icy mist seeps out; investigate a magical dome, take psychic damage , dispel dome, succeed ability check, take more psychic damage as it is dispelled; explore room, get caught in magical trap and take damage; successfully disarm trap, take more damage).
In the end, it's all operant conditioning (think Pavlov). If every action is linked to a punishment, players will not want to take any action except those absolutely necessary to progress. If the rewards you give are meaningless (e.g. some silver or downright nothing for a combat or investigation), then you have nothing to incentivize desired action. If the players cannot see any reward and their experience has taught them that there probably isn't anything worthwhile behind encounters, there is no way they are going to take that risk.
In the end, it goes both ways. A game master needs their players to want to engage with what they present them with but players need to be able to trust their game master to make these encounters meaningful in one way or another. That last point is mostly on the DM but could warrant an out-of-game talk with players that are simply naturally apprehensive about anything. I used to love to investigate and fight and talk to whatever was in front of us but way more often than not, it wasn't worthwhile for our characters, so I stopped. Which makes my enthusiasm for the game way less and takes away from the fun, but it beats getting through a dozen encounters and having nothing to show for it other than lower HP and spell slot numbers on my character sheet.
I'd love a video reviewing why dungeons are amazing and what DM challenges they solve. I've long been hesitant of running them because they seem like a difficult or unlikely place to rest since most dungeons and enemies are functioning groups with guards, etc. that probably realize over 8 hrs that their allies are dead or whatever has changed as a consequence of the player's actions before their rest. Also balancing multiple combat options when players sometimes shoot first can be a challenge to not result in a TPK or them feeling like the dungeon is too risky to explore fully.
I was a player in a long-running Scion game that ended last year. I had built my character as primarily focused on his physical stats. I can count on my fingers the number of times we faced combat in the 2-3 year campaign. It ended up being very frustrating and less than satisfying for me to constantly have the other party members constantly making decisions that avoided combat. I often felt useless and not being able to play the character's full potential. I even brought this up to the Storyteller a few times, but it was usually met with a "Don't worry about it. You'll get to have combat."
Love your videos. Do you run your party via digital or on tabletop? I run mine on tabletop and often tell them to get their asses over here if they want to learn a thing or two LOL. Keep up the great work !
This highlights perfectly how much more challenging running overland adventures is than dungeon crawls. Without walls, it's hard to create stakes because the players can usually just "walk around it". I struggle to find ways to narrate stakes in an "open" environment like a forest, that doesnt feel like railroading.
Great video. I think you have a point. Balancing player agency vs railroading is not easy. Please do the video on dungeons
I recently had a scenario where the players had to travel through a dangerous area to get to their objective and made a fully custom encounter table for it, it involved weather, combats, things that could he combat or even positive, purely good encounters and the like. When they would encounter something dangerous they could try to go around but the longer they were their the more they risked something scary finding them. Going around took time out of their travel, often miles to avoid something, and when you are traveling on foot do that a few times and your adding a day if not days to journeys! Its all context sensitive. A timer. A threat, a reason to rush or slow down will all determine how much players are willing to avoid the possible dangers and rewards of a place.
The pain... of those dinosaur pronunciations...
I’ve found a lot of players (myself included tbh) prefer to do one quest at a time. There are multiple reasons for this, but personally, I just find the potential “job within a job within a job” situation tedious. Of course, that’s not what you were doing, but maybe the players didn’t pick up on that?
I finished running a “gritty” episodic campaign a while ago, and my players pretty much always did the side quests. They understood that, no matter what it was, it’s going to be resolved within the game session, and the main quest can still be completed after.
Just a thought I hadn’t seen many others mention yet. Good video too👍
p.s. "Die Non ih Cuss"... I only know because my kids watched a lot of Dinosaur Train. xD
I will often try to plan multiple ways to get my players to the same place, manage an encounter or solve a puzzle that leads to the same end result.
Using descriptions that indicate the specific tone of a situation or place can also help. Sometimes feeding them info that I had behind a less important check without making them do it can speed things up too.