So don't let the rules and the dice suck the fun out of the game. Fun should be the focus of the game. The rules & dice should only be treated as guidelines, not rigid laws.
Personal experience is an excellent teacher! Could be that GUY has faced these issues in person when playing a PC. You can learn a lot, even from "BAD GM's".
I've definitely done rolling for every NPC and learned that beyond one or two NPCs it's really not worth it. If you don't have a planned outcome for this situation it's easier to just flip a coin to see which side has the upper hand and narrate it at the end of the initiative order.
I subverted expectations in the final battle. Had 6 allies role... Only to do 0 damage due to immunity on the bosses side. It was a last "your the only ones who can kill this" moment
@@chiepah2 mine was a scripted battle. The winning side had 5 epic tier heroes, and 6 level 15 adventurers. This is one top of expert soldiers. The battle was gonna be won, it was more to get the players a happy ending and for their prebattle planning to have felt worth it whilr they hit the boss with a cannon stuffed wkth magic weapons
I like to give my characters easy encounters right after they level up. It's a great chance for them to test new stuff out and show off their new abilities to the other players.
The beautiful and refreshing sensation when you understand you did all of this in the correct way in your limited experience of GM-ing. Luckily, otherwise I would be worried about Guy biting my nose in rage :)
@@joshuaperrine2019 He's first and foremost a storyteller that tries to make systems work for him. Guy, as a person, needs a narratively focused system.
Guy seems to be better suited for the roleplaying where people take turns typing a story at each other, since he distastes all aspects that make rpgs games.
I am somewhat guilty of over-rolling myself but that is because I never wanted my PCs to feel like oh yeah so he just wants this guy to win no matter what if we don't intervene. But what you said makes a lot of sense, all it does is waste time, especially in the mass combat department because I just freakin' love city assaults :D
Great video! A couple of notes from my own experience: 1. Keep the number of monsters/villains restricted. Make them more powerful and less in numbers. More monsters means more actions. If, due to any reason, you need to have a lot of NPCs (like in a battlefield) make sure to use mass combat techniques in handling the battle. Another good thing is to use minions (1HP, low AC, etc.) 2. If the battlefield is vast and PCs need to engage in different parts which are far enough, run each group of PCs separately. 3. If you are a grid-based GM, use it only for small and medium-sized combats. Large combats need a lot of prep and mostly, due to numerous amounts of stuff that GM should do, the gaming experience quality will decline. 4. In general, prioritize the tasks, remember and think about what will happen and how it should be handled. If your PC's are going to engage in a battle/fight, you better know why NPCs will engage in the fight, how they engage and when they engage.
Starting a session with 9 on Sunday (yes.. 9) so combat in that is going to be very, very interesting. The solution I’ve got at the moment is giving enemies different roles, for example I’ll have 2 blockers, a damage dealer and maybe a rogue to sneak up on the ranged pc’s
I imagine Guy’s neighbors are very concerned sometimes when he records these videos. Thanks for the great content! Getting ready to run my first game as a GM and I’ve been watching every video I can.
for mass combat use MAtt Colville's stronghold's and followers. I usually run such a large scale before the session. then narrate it as background during the session. I had a firbolg ranger running around town. circling around the outskirts to the tavern. where the rest of the group was fighting against devils. protecting priests during their ritual. improvised how the firbolg could alarm and help warn and evacuate people as he ran around town. or when the party split up. three went into the woods hunting down orc stragglers. after they had defended against an orc raid. the other half stayed in town to shop and heal up. having relatively little to do. I felt bad for that half of the group.
A little tidbit I learned for NPC vs. NPC: As a GM, you spend your whole time adapting to how the players roll, how they approach scenarios, etc. NPC vs. NPC is literally the 1 time as a DM where you can predetermine the outcome of the encounter without undermining the fun of anybody at the table, where you can contrive whatever dramatic resolution you want, and you are going to give up THAT for rolling every action round by round?
I completely agree with where you are coming from in regards to having a PC have to catch up to join a fight.however I would argue that it is a wonderful way to teach players they should limit the amount of time they spend away from the whole party. Separating can be very dangerous. thank you for these incredible tips. They've been helping me on my journey to become a game master that I can be proud of
It hasn't really inspired me to re-examine it per-se, but it has given me inspiration as to how I can run such a scenario... which is good, considering I am a first-time DM with plans for a fairly early Mass-Combat battle. (Assuming those plans aren't derailed, of course)
I have a 3.5e DFI bard (dragonfire inspiration). I toot my horn and cast greater invisibility on myself and stand still tooting my horn maybe doing some AOO with my whip which basically never hits. But in an average battle my DFI deals about 200d6 dmg so tooting my horn is good.
Needed this :) I'm really new and thought I was doing a bad for not simulating more. My players walked away from certain backgrounds conflicts feeling wary but entertained but I felt bad for essentially giving them an interactive cutscene. But now I know, THAT'S PREFERRED :)
After having first-time-DM'd 3 of my brothers through 7 sessions of LMoP and most of the Redbrand hideout at this point, I thank all the various people and channels, specifically including this channel and it's creator, for their tips. I apparently managed to avoid most of these errors. Let me just highlight whoever it was I heard the tip of rolling once for initiative for a group of enemies. I don't always use it, especially if the opponents are diverse, but it's quite effective at speeding things up.
Early in my current campaign (based on Fantasy Flight's excellent End of the World system), I had a group of maybe a dozen bandits invade a village festival. While nearby bandits engaged with the PCs, the rest started pairing off against random townspeople. I handled this by rolling two d6s at once: one white and one black. The white die determined who "won" that round (even for the townsperson, odd for the bandit), and the black die determined the strength of their attack. No modifiers, no fancy combat actions, and none of them moved unless their opponent died or the PCs got involved.
This is great information! I have a friend who I role-play with and to make battles more interesting I have added NPC's to help him and have fallen into this issue without even thinking about it... This is definitely something I'll have to take into account in the future. It will also speed up battles exponentially. On another note I was playing as a bard in another GM's campaign and battles as a "support character" got very boring because I spent the whole battle "singing" and not being musically inclined myself well I didn't add actual song to the campaign... The party of player characters (5 in that battle) were in a goblin lair and we were getting swarmed by them through two enterances we were using as bottlenecks. I stood off in a corner out of sight of either door chanting the whole battle long to provide a buff for the party... I wasn't allowed to do anything else without breaking the chant. At the end of the session I was voted MVP of the session as the chant allowed multiple critical hits that would not have been had I not been chanting the whole battle long. However it felt very hollow to me and I felt cheated out of participation in the session. Dexterity rolls etc would have been a way of allowing me to participate even if it cost the party a critical hit or two...
On another note that same bard had a disadvantage of being a heavy sleeper... So to engage my character in battle when he was still waking up I would roll initiative just the same and every time my turn came around I would tell people to shut up they were making too much noise or the one instance that the enemies were gasts and I was choking on their stench I was telling the groups barbarian to stop passing gas. Which added a comedy aspect and got me recognition for role-play based experience bonuses.
In mass combat settings or settings where the PCs have several NPC allies the closest I get to rolling for NPC vs NPC is rolling a D100. I pick a baseline 40 or lower = bad, 50 or lower = bad or something like that. Just enough to add a level of randomness to make it feel like the battle is not scripted. With simple rolls, it adds just enough randomness that it can add those clincher moments for the PCs. Anything more than that is just playing with yourself. I have been known to throw erroneous die into the throw that I don't count, just to watch my players eyes widen as they hear handfuls of dice rolling. Always makes things interesting.
I am also a fan of if you really want to have a mass style combat give your Players squads of units that they can decide what they will do also. This allows you as the GM to have lots of people involved in the combat that you want and it gives the players something else to do and switch things up for them.
I know what you mean about running. As a player recently I spent two entire sessions running. The first week, we were leading a battle, and I realised my men and I were on the wrong side of the city as the attack was stronger on the side we'd not defended well, so I led my men across the city, spending rounds and round running, and missed the entire battle. The next week, we teleported into the chamber of a demon, and I rolled badly and appeared on the far side of the chamber. So spent rounds and round running towards the demon, and got to roll one single attack as I got there at the end of the battle, and I rolled a 1.
My current GM has it set up so that if we end up in a situation where NPC’s are fighting one another he gives us control of one or all of them. That way the outcome is still controlled by the dice, but so that we have some sort of hand in it.
Had a DM that did the "oh it takes 10 turns to get there!" thing. Although it was partly a player's fault, he decided to fire on the otherwise engaged goblins while we were 120 ft out in difficult terrain. NPC's vs NPC's... only time I did that was in a campaign I'm running for a single player, and thus 2 varying party members where around who were essentially my "PC's", created in accordance with the char gen rules. EDIT : Nevermind the following, I misunderstood what was meant. ((Combat only... Guilty... Sort of. My players signed up for a dungeon crawl campaign, and the dungeons will have puzzles and the like, but most monsters there are mindless creatures defending the dungeon, and thus have to be slain. For intelligent opponents outside of it, there will be other resolutions should they seek it, of course. And I'm hoping they follow the hints to buy the land around a dungeon so they become owner of the town that will be build around it, which will give the two players that have crafting skills beside their combat ones more to do with that half of their character. (We're running Gestalt))
I have an NPC that I didn't expect to join my players party, and when we got around to combat I let my players play out the NPC so I wasn't having NPC vs NPC combat where I was fighting myself. They actually used the NPCs skill set in a way I hadn't expected and they seemed to have more fun that way.
I get the feeling that Pathfinder deals a lot on those mentioned mechanics-based problems at the beginning of the video. Rules for running makes you cross a shit ton of terrain (like 4 times, 3 with heavy armour, 5 with a feat, I think), to the point when 20 turns just become 2 or 3. In the last session I had, a super dangerous fey archer (Wild Hunt Archer) started an ambush 120 feet away, an mostly everyone who wanted to close on him just used the running action and fair enough, in a turn they were there (it ended up in a diplomatic end because the fucking archer seemed to be able to down a player per round). Being overruned by multiple enemies? Troop rules is fantastic for that, I have used them lately and they are both terrifying and cool for the players. But I 100% agree with NPCs making attack other NPCs. Generally if the party love to bring along a fighting capable NPCs, I make them roll and choose their combat actions themselves, alongside with giving them their sheet. Also I have made like almost every single time that there is multiple NPCs fighting just saying clues at the end of a round that resumes into "this side seems to be winning right now", giving the PCs the option to intervene to sway the battle one way of the other, or to keep fighting their own part of the battle.
The worst mistakes I ever made as a DM all stemmed from the same place, if a player asked me a question about character options (Usually homebrew) or custom rules on the fly, and myself answering on them before allowing myself to be able to adequately think on them, before coming up with a solution. Mid-game this can be hard, but often I will flip between players and switch perspectives if a player asks a question I need time on, such as "Hey player, great idea, let's look at what this player is doing and get back to this in a minute" and then try and think about it as best as I can
Think of the senses. What do they look like, talk like, smell like. Same for environments. What do they see, hear and smell. Is the air static. Does the person have a strong aura, striking fear into the players or they're calmed by the calm look of a leader
I've run NPC vs. NPC because my group, that I've played with for years, often like to hire out aides to go along with them for various reasons. How I do it is I roll, if it hits then all their attacks hit and I don't roll damage - they just do average damage. Their turn is over in 30 seconds. The aides are rarely more powerful than they are as the group can't often afford to hire someone, or a group of someones, that can do more than they're capable of doing. It's more of a safety in numbers thing as my settings often revolve around dangers of the wilderness and traveling long distances.
Some good advice in this video. Though I if I can point out that the first 3/4 of the video felt a bit like a slight against anyone who has ever done that stuff. The examples and ideas on how to solve some of the problems were mostly reserved for the end bonus section.
I also have to say combat only focus games is not a noob dm combat mistakes if the game the party is playing is a heavy combat focus game. Examples of this is Warhammer 40k Only war and Deathwatch. Now I totally agree with you on the combat only idea is a huge mistake if you are playing a game that is heavy focus on non combat. When I say heavy I am talking a 80/20 in one direction.
My players tend to enjoy adopting NPCs. One fav of theirs is a goblin whose become a barbarian, gains exp half as fast as the party. I tend to do my best to make her rounds go the fastest
If I really want to to roll out an NPC vs NPC moment then I will do it on a players turn, especially if I know it's a player who takes a few seconds to figure things out for themselves. This way I still get my self-interested rolls in but I'm not taking up time at the table doing it.
3:30 I don't know we had a small battle in a recent game with 18 NPCs involved. And at least I thought it was enjoyable. Especially since one non named guard fighting on out side ended up killing two vampire spawns and getting the nickname hero guard by the party.
I agree with most of this. However there are reasons and situations that do come up in which npcs are fighting with and arround the PCs in which the numbers are important and do make a difference directly to the PC's story.
I am a newer DM, only run 4 sessions in 1 campaign (and have now run as many sessions as I have played) and I am prepping to have a great big siege, which I thought would be a big concern.....and yet I don’t think I am about to make any of these mistakes, honestly I was planning on really MAYBE one roll per round of combat to see how damage in done to the defending npcs. Combat already takes forever if you have 4 or more PCs, so why bother adding more rolls? I find combat the most tedious part of the game, more a necessary evil. Kind of why I am very interested in converting my group over to Wrath and Glory (Loved u Guy in premiere btw). The ability to have large groups of easy to use and ultimately be killed mobs is VERY appealing to me. Really hoping to reprint comes out in December like they say
LOL. I certainly made the distance mistake, before we even knew about dash. The first five rounds of combat were a bunch of people yelling as they charged. Great first fight... Except.... Not so much. I would dump that memory in a heartbeat.
I do roll my npc vs npc battles ahead of time to figure out who would win and if the ally survives or gets avenged, and roll a list of 20s for npc vs pc battles that they are basically stuck to because it's a lot faster for me
Basically, a DM could easily get caught up in process or progress. They are getting caught up in nuts and bolts of the likes of combat etc rather than keeping the goal of the overall story arc. I did this a little with my zombie game. The hane works really well and the narrative seems to just happen. However a random event happened and a zombie hoard appear at a random board edge. Great. Next turn, totally randomly another random event occured (events on average occur twice a game) and it happened to be a police unit that randomly entered on the table at exactly the same point as the horde had previously. So I piled in and with the 3 police firing at point blank I decided to roll each of their turns separately. It took nearly 5 minutes of 'roll to hit, roll to wound, roll for effect, repeat for each NPC'. Factoring in weapon jams and reload it was unnecessary and my mate just sat there and said "I don't know what's going on" as all I was doing was rolling dice. You're on the money there 👍🏻
Unfortunately, I typical go to the other extreme and avoid throwing combat at my players.The one time I did a large scale battle, I chose to use percentile dice and followed Call of Cthulhu style rules for opposed rolls. It works good as just two extra rolls per round and then you can warn the players that the tide of the battle may be turning for them or against them. It added the extra tension of their own fight.
Had a Christmas one shot where Krampus had the Beholder ability that his line of sight stopped magic, if you came within 5ft. Of him, you lost all your class abilities... oh, and you could only damage him if your alignment was some kind of Good. I was a neutral good fighter with Polearm Mastery, so I could stand ten feet away and hit him, and I was literally pretty much the only one who could hurt him at all. It pissed everyone off so badly that people were leaving.
the only time I rolled NPC vs NPC in my fresh campaign was when my players managed to get a troll on their side for a brief combat. Maybe I should've let the players roll the attacks that troll did, but the reason I rolled those was simply to show off what that monster was capable of. For first time players that just got one attack and never saw anything bigger than an orc on the battlefield I think it had some impact seeing those 3 attacks and the damage it could do. I only did this the first round of combat though, just for that one "oh shit" moment for them to see what their efforts brought them in terms of impact, they went out of their way to get this troll and now they get to see what havoc it can wreak, and judging from their reactions I think it went well. Regarding the attacks against the troll and how long their meatshield lasted I just ticked some of his HP off whenever it got hit and told the players "that guy did X damage, the troll roars in pain and fury" and went on. I could've cut more if it because there were a lot of combatants and the fight took very long, but I think when a NPC is in this combat either as a result of the PCs doing something or if something happening to the NPC would impact them (ie, the troll dying means losing a meatshield and having all the attention of the enemies on them) rolling for those is fair game, within reason. Having 12 arbalesters take shots at the dude would have been overkill, but aslong as it's only the major players and not every minion I think it works fine.
Man, if I was the GM who prepared this session and then I saw this guy absolutely destroying me on his TH-cam channel I would never play with him again.
Characters should also be able to adapt to the situation. My character was a bookworm forced into group combat in the first scene and ran for cover, then tried throwing rocks at enemies. I knew she'd probably be ineffective, but I had her try anyway to add to the story and to justify her learning how to fight later. Some of it comes down to the player being proactive.
Yeah, I made that first mistake earlier this year. There was a "Rugby" tournament the PCs were entered into (something to keep the in town while a plot line I completely stole from "Who Framed Rodger Rabbit" unfolded) with some team v team rules I came up with. I was bright enough to pre-roll a sh*t-ton of aggregate 'team' rolls into a list which I rolled a d4 to decide which one came up next; but I set up a full double-elimination bracket and rolled NPCs teams against each other. Even calling each NPTeam vs NPTeam roll decisive for each point (games were to 3, final was to 5) instead of each play, there was a _lot_ of sitting around while I played with myself... I should have just let the team the beat first meet them in the final (When they stomped the first team and were mocking them I half-assedly threw out that they had the power of friendship to buck themselves up after the loss, at which point the players pointed out that that made _them_ the baddies who the heroes finally beat in every sports movie ever. I completely dropped he ball on that one. They got knocked out by the warforged team that finally met the PC team in the finals...)
How I handle NPC vs NPC battles is I have the PC's roll a d20 and I roll a d20. Who ever has the higher roll, their side is gaining the advantage. It is rolled at the bottom of each round. For each round won they receive a +1 to their side roll. That way the players feel like they are still involved and have a little control with the NPC allies battles.
I can understand wanting to roll for NPCs that aren't engaging with PCs, but the key is to do it in a streamlined way. For example, you have two NPCs fighting each other while the PCs are fighting something else. Instead of rolling multiple attacks and tracking damage, just roll a d20 twice. Which ever NPC got the higher roll wins that round of combat and you can narrate what happened however you like. Now you just need to decide how many losses each NPC can take before they go down, maybe it only takes one hit or maybe they need to take three or four to lose. If you want to complicate it you could make it a sliding scale, so that the rolls have to be more than ten apart or else neither one made any progress. However you do it just make it fast and simple, if you're spending more time rolling and doing math than describing what happened then you're doing it wrong.
Regarding the bit about "Rolling for all NPCs" - sometimes you DO want to have off-stage combat occurring (like recently when the PCs were fighting on one ship of a fleet and their NPC allies were fighting on another), and simulationists may want something good or bad to happen depending on the outcome of that separate battle. In which case, I've come up with a relatively simple method to figure this out quickly and painlessly: 1) Pick up a D20. Just one. 2) Decide how powerful/overwhelmed the allies are in general; this translates into a static value/penalty on the D20 (max +5 or -5). This value DOES NOT CHANGE over the course of the battle! 3) Come up with a target number to roll against based on the power of the opposing force (minimum 10, max 20). Same as before, this value DOES NOT CHANGE over the course of the battle! 4) Roll at the very end of each turn and determine success/failure. 5) If the allies ever get 3 successes in a row, they win the battle and come help the PCs. If they ever get 3 failures, they lose and surviving enemies appear as reinforcements against the PCs. 6) Keep rolling until the PC's battle ends or until a condition in 5) is met. That's it. Super quick, relatively simple, and still allows there to be consequences for PCs taking their sweet time in a simulationisticly random fashion.
(little late but....) Vampire LARP, I was brought in as an NPC for a big event. Before the game, we're talking to the GMs about what's happening, and "oh, we've also had the NPC anarch (local punk) character capture the NPC Justicar (global power character)". Say what now? "Well, we (the GMs) played it out and it happened. But it kind of messes with the game, we're not sure what to do about it". Well (a) you already told me about two bad rulings you made during the fight, and (b) you're the gamesmasters, so that's not what happened. Let's rewrite the scene. They seemed shocked they didn't need to actually play it out, and predetermine the results of the confrontation. Thankfully, they didn't do it with PCs sitting around watching, and I rewired it back to a not-stupid story beat.
My PCs brought the leader of Waterdeep into a dungeon with them. I had her sit back and take notes like a performance evaluation for the party, because if she had joined the fight, she would have wiped out everything and the PCs would have nothing to do.
As someone who's made the too many dice rolling mistake, id say my biggest fear was that the players would feel like im railroading them by just deciding what happens. Like if I kill an npc they like because i thought it would be a good story beat i would fear theyd get upset that they never had a chance to save them (even if they did and didn't know it) Like if theres 20v20 on a battleground just having abritrary characters dropping based on how I think the battle should go i figured was a mistake so I assumed that rolling for everyone would be the most fair way of doing things. I kind of got around this by just saying to my players that I """Prerolled""" before session where in reality I did just pick whatever seemed most interesting (not that i think my players would be upset about this kind of thing in the first place, Im just paranoid)
the NPC vs NPC may be interesting to play out so the outcome does not feel to arbitrary - especially if NPC quality in the battle was prior influenced by the players. (Not just to defeat my self in an internal battle - but that should be done in a way that is engaging also players - if players are not invested in the outcome of NPC vs NPC struggle - there is not point)
I included an NPC in a combat not too long ago. I think I did it right: He only appeared because he had been sleeping till 2 rounds before when the Wild Magic sorcerer had a surge that poisoned 1 person within 60 feet (they were inside of an inn with several NPCs). The rest remained asleep. When his turn came around, I had him ask if they needed help, they said LOUDLY, "YES!" I just had the big foe target him, but fake-rolled 2 attacks every time he came up so he was ineffectual "because of the poison". My games are 100% about the PCs and I am willing to kill any/all NPCs in my stories just to add drama or inspire my players to continue like in most books or movies (AVENGE MEEEEEEE!!!)
Both GM I played with did that First one, I had a Paladin, which I intended somewhat as a balanced guy, but the rest of the party was woefully DPS oriented and literally always ended up dying, so since I had one healing spell, I was support class. My spell sucked ass, and failed quite a lot, but the GM never tred to change it, or reduce the difficulty. The GM mostly got us out of the bad fight by divine intervention of one particular character/guide. Want to do something creative like bashing someone with your shield/push them away ? Lol, it's not pre-planned, and your shield does 0 damage. Second did that less, but battle were way too roll heavy.
Oh, man. So much agreement re: NPCs vs. NPCs (and having those NPCs be more epic than the PCs). I played in a Doctor Who game once. The GM played the Doctor. And there was this other villain. And eventually the the Master showed up. "There you are, " the GM said, "and in front of you is the Doctor, the Master, and (the villain). WHAT DO YOU DO?" All I could say was, "Nothing. I watch and listen." And I did, as this GM had a conversation with himself and himself. And I put down my pen and my dice and felt incredibly frustrated and bored. Our party could have just excused ourselves while the three of Him hashed out the monologues. Yawn!
NPC means non player characters they should never roll unless its extremely necessary for plot. (I don't label any character Npcs in games because most could become enemies but thats entirely different). And about combat i love the idea of milestones xp it discourages murderhobos and people who just want an xp farm. Although most players (ive played with shun milestones for some reason)
Holy shit this video is just riddled with ads! I literally had 6 bloody ads during this video. That's gotta be some kind of record. Great video, but its really hard to enjoy it when I'm getting interrupted every 2 minutes.
'Nobody cares, except for you.' False. If you've built the NPCs correctly, your characters will care when their Undine pirate boyfriend fails his death roll, or when the Tortle captain kills one of the enemies on the field, or when the entire ship they've built the quest on befriending is dying around them. And you have to roll for individual combat situations that they are not always a part of because you never know when one of the PCs is going to finish the enemy they are working on and come to engage in an NPC on enemy fight, and you need to be able to know what both unit's health and situation is when that happens. What you're saying makes sense in combat where it's just roll and hit, but not in every situation. I do roll NPC rolls against monsters ahead of the game so that I can just describe a bit without bogging down with rolls, but there's still a major chance a player engages in that and mixes up the rolls which would change things quite a bit and is completely unpredictable. You keep saying nobody cares for a lot of these things, but I think you really underrate a certain player's level of engagement by making the assumption it's true of all players. What you're saying isn't true for every party.
Speaking of NPC focused, I actually read a dnd horror story on Crit Crab where the DM made these level 20 NPCs who did everything. It was exactly as horrible for the PCs as you'd expect.
3:09 This is great but kinda sad that it needs to be said. 6:57 | I am running a game using FGU so none of this is an issue anymore. | 12:30 the good stuff.
Well for Mass Combat my Group thought about using simplified Warhammer Combat rules if they command a troop else I let them roll a d20 for the troops and I roll a d20 for the enemy troops. I then just describe the battlefield, I also include things like if they have a tactic in mind for the troops and how well that works out for them. But after every charge they make I let the losing troops retreat and they have time to accomplish their main target. If they are not actively involved in this battle I might give them a place where they can overview the battlefield for example they are in a castle and look out of one the windows and then they see the battle and maybe after they complete the task they can see their impact on the battlefield. But then again if I wouldn't get a stage fright every time I gm, I might be better in narrating those things.
so while my druid and the rest of my 7th/8th level group were on our way to the amber temple in Curse of Strahd, my DM decided to throw a Roc at us. I suggested running from the Roc and making a dash for the temple entrance, because my group didn't have a better idea. Well while i took my wild shape to draw it's attention, they ran but only being able to make it to the end of the map… Thus began several rounds of literally me getting grappled, picked up 120, dropped to the ground (thank Strahd i had winged boots), and repeat To the point that two of us fell unconscious, even after using both my forms with the highest HP, and taking over 135 damage. It was one of the worst combat experiences I've had because it just felt like a slug fest, and I don't understand why we couldn't just rush our way to the temple.
Extremely well-done, and well-presented video! Love the points you brought up...now for me to come up with a way to "subtly" send this video to my GM... hmm... ;;>_>
nothing bothers me more at a table than unequality. rolling behind a screen for something involving a player or outright just deciding things because hey I'm a GM, really gets under my skin, so yes I roll for everything important. At the same time large fields I simply say that others caught up in time to be apart of things... where the rest are maybe not; but they will particapate. I often play my own characters treated as PC so they do not give stuff away; but normally I hold actions in favor of PC's so I am last and so it indicates turn change if nothing else; and yes for fairness I play them with real stats. If foes are accidentally strong enough to one shot I show that on my own first so they can continue as they wish (run or slaughter).
My players are weird in that they actually WANT me to roll every NPC during combat, because they're kinda meta gamers. Not tin the sense they can't roleplay or anything, they do, but they also like to make plans based on things like "hope much HP does that creature have? Ok, we have this much time to save him from NPC 2 over there" I know my group is an exception, but just thought I'd point that out. I feel like if I just said "Oh, this NPC gets stabbed and dies" during combat without rolling they'd feel cheated somehow
I'm not sure where the idea is from but the system I use is basically advanced minion rules, depending on what kind of NPC it is it can take X hits before it goes down. A random villager, small animal etc is basically a one-hit creature. Most hits would deal more than 5 points of damage and most level 0-1 creatures have about that level of points. Something more durable, an orc bandit or a random guard that got called to the scene gets 2-3 hits, major plot characters or actual highlevel monsters get more depending on how strong they are, up to the point of just straight up using their original hit points and doing the math normally. If the creature is strong or important enough tracking their rolls/HP doesn't take too much time bc usually there is only ever one or two of those around and not directly engaged with the players. Also, if it's a low-level NPC that is important to the group and wouldn't survive a single hit it's stormtrooper rules, the first shot always misses. Of course there is nothing wrong with playing strictly by the rules and roll out every roll if that's a part your players enjoy, personally I only ever roll for NPCs when the creature in question acting or being acted upon is something that would influence the players, the immersion of the rules applying to every NPC as they do to the players is valueable but I try to not use too much time on it.
The party members shouldnt let themselves fight alone 1200 feet from the rest of the party if they will need help. Handwaving that distance is a ridiculous solution to that problem
my combat... rule #1: get rid of initiative rule #2: engage all players rule #3: nothing is impossible, maybe improbable and unlikely to succeed, but not impossible. rule #4: don't be afraid to hurt the PC's - not intentionally try to kill them, but definitely get a bit bloody. rule #5: finally NO RULES LAWYERS !! not the players or the GM. learn how to improv and make sh1t up. if the game is a one-shot, then use the world to keep them on task. if you are playing in a sandbox and world building, then make sure to take notes for future sessions. the whole point of the game is the fun factor. "if you don't enjoy what you are doing then you shouldn't be doing it"
To sum it up: "It's Roleplay, not Rollplay"
That could basically be Guy's motto
So don't let the rules and the dice suck the fun out of the game. Fun should be the focus of the game. The rules & dice should only be treated as guidelines, not rigid laws.
Brat me to it by a lot lol
I was going to say exactly the same thing. :)
Guy sounds like he is letting some personal frustration out lol. Great video. :)
Every D&D player has personal frustration with something in this video
Personal experience is an excellent teacher! Could be that GUY has faced these issues in person when playing a PC. You can learn a lot, even from "BAD GM's".
@@hobbyknight9962 As Buddha said: No one is useless. One can always serve as a bad example.
lol I get that feel with every video he posts
Travis Nelson - It is surprising that systems do not show the basics and are built to formal.
"Nobody cares, except - " "This little bra right here"
Sometimes ads can be really weird.
Mine was, "So you can decide which one of them... (In Portuguese) arrived from the United States..."
Mine was a mind training ad
DRAGON FORCE POWER METAL!
And it engaged all of the PC- XBox One startup sound.
"Buy new generation oven!..." in polish
I've definitely done rolling for every NPC and learned that beyond one or two NPCs it's really not worth it. If you don't have a planned outcome for this situation it's easier to just flip a coin to see which side has the upper hand and narrate it at the end of the initiative order.
I subverted expectations in the final battle. Had 6 allies role... Only to do 0 damage due to immunity on the bosses side. It was a last "your the only ones who can kill this" moment
I like a percentile, just to see how well one side did against the other.
chiepah2 I like the idea of a percentile roll. I might try that.
@@chiepah2 mine was a scripted battle. The winning side had 5 epic tier heroes, and 6 level 15 adventurers. This is one top of expert soldiers. The battle was gonna be won, it was more to get the players a happy ending and for their prebattle planning to have felt worth it whilr they hit the boss with a cannon stuffed wkth magic weapons
Aren't there rules for mass combat, anyway?
3 Noob DM Combat Mistakes You May Be Making.
Alternate Title: Unbridled, emotional rant about the RPG version of PTSD.
I love salty Guy.
Rightfully salted, I might add.
"Rightfully Salted" sounds like a great rock album
I'll add one: No Tension.
Like combats specifically designed so a two year old blindly rushing in could explode the encounter with no effort.
I like to give my characters easy encounters right after they level up. It's a great chance for them to test new stuff out and show off their new abilities to the other players.
Tenseless combat turn into roleplay scenarios. You are not in need of maximizing your action's efficiency
Somebody has a case of boring NPC vs NPC combat PTSD. :)
The beautiful and refreshing sensation when you understand you did all of this in the correct way in your limited experience of GM-ing.
Luckily, otherwise I would be worried about Guy biting my nose in rage :)
Guy I love your videos and this is a good one as well, but who hurt you lol
Everyone that's not him. xD
Yeah, he seems to be a not very good GM. Advancement? Doesn't matter. Rules? Don't matter. Dice? Nope! Realism? Psh, whatever. Petty? You betcha!
Bad GM's hurt him. It is why he has such a vendetta against them!
@@joshuaperrine2019 He's first and foremost a storyteller that tries to make systems work for him. Guy, as a person, needs a narratively focused system.
Guy seems to be better suited for the roleplaying where people take turns typing a story at each other, since he distastes all aspects that make rpgs games.
Man, the last time I was this early I was running away from a Smilodon.
I am somewhat guilty of over-rolling myself but that is because I never wanted my PCs to feel like oh yeah so he just wants this guy to win no matter what if we don't intervene. But what you said makes a lot of sense, all it does is waste time, especially in the mass combat department because I just freakin' love city assaults :D
Great video! A couple of notes from my own experience:
1. Keep the number of monsters/villains restricted. Make them more powerful and less in numbers. More monsters means more actions. If, due to any reason, you need to have a lot of NPCs (like in a battlefield) make sure to use mass combat techniques in handling the battle. Another good thing is to use minions (1HP, low AC, etc.)
2. If the battlefield is vast and PCs need to engage in different parts which are far enough, run each group of PCs separately.
3. If you are a grid-based GM, use it only for small and medium-sized combats. Large combats need a lot of prep and mostly, due to numerous amounts of stuff that GM should do, the gaming experience quality will decline.
4. In general, prioritize the tasks, remember and think about what will happen and how it should be handled. If your PC's are going to engage in a battle/fight, you better know why NPCs will engage in the fight, how they engage and when they engage.
Starting a session with 9 on Sunday (yes.. 9) so combat in that is going to be very, very interesting.
The solution I’ve got at the moment is giving enemies different roles, for example I’ll have 2 blockers, a damage dealer and maybe a rogue to sneak up on the ranged pc’s
Good luck!!!
I imagine Guy’s neighbors are very concerned sometimes when he records these videos. Thanks for the great content! Getting ready to run my first game as a GM and I’ve been watching every video I can.
for mass combat use MAtt Colville's stronghold's and followers. I usually run such a large scale before the session. then narrate it as background during the session.
I had a firbolg ranger running around town. circling around the outskirts to the tavern. where the rest of the group was fighting against devils. protecting priests during their ritual. improvised how the firbolg could alarm and help warn and evacuate people as he ran around town. or when the party split up. three went into the woods hunting down orc stragglers. after they had defended against an orc raid. the other half stayed in town to shop and heal up. having relatively little to do. I felt bad for that half of the group.
Howzit from Cape Town, as a new DM I was recommended your channel by a mate and have been binging ever since ^^ great stuff
Dude, your American accent is perfect when you do that "tool" character, lol. Maybe you know that, but if not - perfection!
Thank you so much, most of my progress as a DM has been almost entirely from your videos. My players have noticed a significant difference
A little tidbit I learned for NPC vs. NPC: As a GM, you spend your whole time adapting to how the players roll, how they approach scenarios, etc. NPC vs. NPC is literally the 1 time as a DM where you can predetermine the outcome of the encounter without undermining the fun of anybody at the table, where you can contrive whatever dramatic resolution you want, and you are going to give up THAT for rolling every action round by round?
I'm a new DM and I needed to hear this. Thanks!
This was very helpful for me. I'm a noob dm and was making a few of these mistakes
I completely agree with where you are coming from in regards to having a PC have to catch up to join a fight.however I would argue that it is a wonderful way to teach players they should limit the amount of time they spend away from the whole party. Separating can be very dangerous. thank you for these incredible tips. They've been helping me on my journey to become a game master that I can be proud of
It hasn't really inspired me to re-examine it per-se, but it has given me inspiration as to how I can run such a scenario... which is good, considering I am a first-time DM with plans for a fairly early Mass-Combat battle. (Assuming those plans aren't derailed, of course)
I have a 3.5e DFI bard (dragonfire inspiration). I toot my horn and cast greater invisibility on myself and stand still tooting my horn maybe doing some AOO with my whip which basically never hits.
But in an average battle my DFI deals about 200d6 dmg so tooting my horn is good.
Onus! Great word! Just getting into D&D and your videos are helping a lot!
Needed this :) I'm really new and thought I was doing a bad for not simulating more. My players walked away from certain backgrounds conflicts feeling wary but entertained but I felt bad for essentially giving them an interactive cutscene. But now I know, THAT'S PREFERRED :)
After having first-time-DM'd 3 of my brothers through 7 sessions of LMoP and most of the Redbrand hideout at this point, I thank all the various people and channels, specifically including this channel and it's creator, for their tips.
I apparently managed to avoid most of these errors.
Let me just highlight whoever it was I heard the tip of rolling once for initiative for a group of enemies.
I don't always use it, especially if the opponents are diverse, but it's quite effective at speeding things up.
Early in my current campaign (based on Fantasy Flight's excellent End of the World system), I had a group of maybe a dozen bandits invade a village festival. While nearby bandits engaged with the PCs, the rest started pairing off against random townspeople. I handled this by rolling two d6s at once: one white and one black. The white die determined who "won" that round (even for the townsperson, odd for the bandit), and the black die determined the strength of their attack. No modifiers, no fancy combat actions, and none of them moved unless their opponent died or the PCs got involved.
This is great information! I have a friend who I role-play with and to make battles more interesting I have added NPC's to help him and have fallen into this issue without even thinking about it... This is definitely something I'll have to take into account in the future. It will also speed up battles exponentially. On another note I was playing as a bard in another GM's campaign and battles as a "support character" got very boring because I spent the whole battle "singing" and not being musically inclined myself well I didn't add actual song to the campaign... The party of player characters (5 in that battle) were in a goblin lair and we were getting swarmed by them through two enterances we were using as bottlenecks. I stood off in a corner out of sight of either door chanting the whole battle long to provide a buff for the party... I wasn't allowed to do anything else without breaking the chant. At the end of the session I was voted MVP of the session as the chant allowed multiple critical hits that would not have been had I not been chanting the whole battle long. However it felt very hollow to me and I felt cheated out of participation in the session. Dexterity rolls etc would have been a way of allowing me to participate even if it cost the party a critical hit or two...
On another note that same bard had a disadvantage of being a heavy sleeper... So to engage my character in battle when he was still waking up I would roll initiative just the same and every time my turn came around I would tell people to shut up they were making too much noise or the one instance that the enemies were gasts and I was choking on their stench I was telling the groups barbarian to stop passing gas. Which added a comedy aspect and got me recognition for role-play based experience bonuses.
In mass combat settings or settings where the PCs have several NPC allies the closest I get to rolling for NPC vs NPC is rolling a D100. I pick a baseline 40 or lower = bad, 50 or lower = bad or something like that. Just enough to add a level of randomness to make it feel like the battle is not scripted. With simple rolls, it adds just enough randomness that it can add those clincher moments for the PCs. Anything more than that is just playing with yourself.
I have been known to throw erroneous die into the throw that I don't count, just to watch my players eyes widen as they hear handfuls of dice rolling. Always makes things interesting.
I am also a fan of if you really want to have a mass style combat give your Players squads of units that they can decide what they will do also. This allows you as the GM to have lots of people involved in the combat that you want and it gives the players something else to do and switch things up for them.
I know what you mean about running. As a player recently I spent two entire sessions running.
The first week, we were leading a battle, and I realised my men and I were on the wrong side of the city as the attack was stronger on the side we'd not defended well, so I led my men across the city, spending rounds and round running, and missed the entire battle.
The next week, we teleported into the chamber of a demon, and I rolled badly and appeared on the far side of the chamber. So spent rounds and round running towards the demon, and got to roll one single attack as I got there at the end of the battle, and I rolled a 1.
My current GM has it set up so that if we end up in a situation where NPC’s are fighting one another he gives us control of one or all of them. That way the outcome is still controlled by the dice, but so that we have some sort of hand in it.
Had a DM that did the "oh it takes 10 turns to get there!" thing. Although it was partly a player's fault, he decided to fire on the otherwise engaged goblins while we were 120 ft out in difficult terrain.
NPC's vs NPC's... only time I did that was in a campaign I'm running for a single player, and thus 2 varying party members where around who were essentially my "PC's", created in accordance with the char gen rules.
EDIT : Nevermind the following, I misunderstood what was meant.
((Combat only... Guilty... Sort of. My players signed up for a dungeon crawl campaign, and the dungeons will have puzzles and the like, but most monsters there are mindless creatures defending the dungeon, and thus have to be slain. For intelligent opponents outside of it, there will be other resolutions should they seek it, of course. And I'm hoping they follow the hints to buy the land around a dungeon so they become owner of the town that will be build around it, which will give the two players that have crafting skills beside their combat ones more to do with that half of their character. (We're running Gestalt))
I have an NPC that I didn't expect to join my players party, and when we got around to combat I let my players play out the NPC so I wasn't having NPC vs NPC combat where I was fighting myself. They actually used the NPCs skill set in a way I hadn't expected and they seemed to have more fun that way.
I get the feeling that Pathfinder deals a lot on those mentioned mechanics-based problems at the beginning of the video. Rules for running makes you cross a shit ton of terrain (like 4 times, 3 with heavy armour, 5 with a feat, I think), to the point when 20 turns just become 2 or 3. In the last session I had, a super dangerous fey archer (Wild Hunt Archer) started an ambush 120 feet away, an mostly everyone who wanted to close on him just used the running action and fair enough, in a turn they were there (it ended up in a diplomatic end because the fucking archer seemed to be able to down a player per round).
Being overruned by multiple enemies? Troop rules is fantastic for that, I have used them lately and they are both terrifying and cool for the players. But I 100% agree with NPCs making attack other NPCs. Generally if the party love to bring along a fighting capable NPCs, I make them roll and choose their combat actions themselves, alongside with giving them their sheet. Also I have made like almost every single time that there is multiple NPCs fighting just saying clues at the end of a round that resumes into "this side seems to be winning right now", giving the PCs the option to intervene to sway the battle one way of the other, or to keep fighting their own part of the battle.
The worst mistakes I ever made as a DM all stemmed from the same place, if a player asked me a question about character options (Usually homebrew) or custom rules on the fly, and myself answering on them before allowing myself to be able to adequately think on them, before coming up with a solution. Mid-game this can be hard, but often I will flip between players and switch perspectives if a player asks a question I need time on, such as "Hey player, great idea, let's look at what this player is doing and get back to this in a minute" and then try and think about it as best as I can
Hi, thanks for another great video :)
Can you please make one about making good descriptions of npcs, enviroment, rooms etc. to the players?
Think of the senses. What do they look like, talk like, smell like. Same for environments. What do they see, hear and smell. Is the air static. Does the person have a strong aura, striking fear into the players or they're calmed by the calm look of a leader
I've run NPC vs. NPC because my group, that I've played with for years, often like to hire out aides to go along with them for various reasons. How I do it is I roll, if it hits then all their attacks hit and I don't roll damage - they just do average damage. Their turn is over in 30 seconds. The aides are rarely more powerful than they are as the group can't often afford to hire someone, or a group of someones, that can do more than they're capable of doing. It's more of a safety in numbers thing as my settings often revolve around dangers of the wilderness and traveling long distances.
The "my imaginary creature fight better..." part had me rolling :)
Some good advice in this video.
Though I if I can point out that the first 3/4 of the video felt a bit like a slight against anyone who has ever done that stuff. The examples and ideas on how to solve some of the problems were mostly reserved for the end bonus section.
I also have to say combat only focus games is not a noob dm combat mistakes if the game the party is playing is a heavy combat focus game. Examples of this is Warhammer 40k Only war and Deathwatch. Now I totally agree with you on the combat only idea is a huge mistake if you are playing a game that is heavy focus on non combat. When I say heavy I am talking a 80/20 in one direction.
My players tend to enjoy adopting NPCs. One fav of theirs is a goblin whose become a barbarian, gains exp half as fast as the party. I tend to do my best to make her rounds go the fastest
If I really want to to roll out an NPC vs NPC moment then I will do it on a players turn, especially if I know it's a player who takes a few seconds to figure things out for themselves. This way I still get my self-interested rolls in but I'm not taking up time at the table doing it.
3:30 I don't know we had a small battle in a recent game with 18 NPCs involved. And at least I thought it was enjoyable. Especially since one non named guard fighting on out side ended up killing two vampire spawns and getting the nickname hero guard by the party.
I agree with most of this. However there are reasons and situations that do come up in which npcs are fighting with and arround the PCs in which the numbers are important and do make a difference directly to the PC's story.
I am a newer DM, only run 4 sessions in 1 campaign (and have now run as many sessions as I have played) and I am prepping to have a great big siege, which I thought would be a big concern.....and yet I don’t think I am about to make any of these mistakes, honestly I was planning on really MAYBE one roll per round of combat to see how damage in done to the defending npcs. Combat already takes forever if you have 4 or more PCs, so why bother adding more rolls? I find combat the most tedious part of the game, more a necessary evil. Kind of why I am very interested in converting my group over to Wrath and Glory (Loved u Guy in premiere btw). The ability to have large groups of easy to use and ultimately be killed mobs is VERY appealing to me. Really hoping to reprint comes out in December like they say
LOL. I certainly made the distance mistake, before we even knew about dash. The first five rounds of combat were a bunch of people yelling as they charged. Great first fight... Except.... Not so much. I would dump that memory in a heartbeat.
I do roll my npc vs npc battles ahead of time to figure out who would win and if the ally survives or gets avenged, and roll a list of 20s for npc vs pc battles that they are basically stuck to because it's a lot faster for me
Basically, a DM could easily get caught up in process or progress. They are getting caught up in nuts and bolts of the likes of combat etc rather than keeping the goal of the overall story arc.
I did this a little with my zombie game. The hane works really well and the narrative seems to just happen. However a random event happened and a zombie hoard appear at a random board edge. Great. Next turn, totally randomly another random event occured (events on average occur twice a game) and it happened to be a police unit that randomly entered on the table at exactly the same point as the horde had previously. So I piled in and with the 3 police firing at point blank I decided to roll each of their turns separately. It took nearly 5 minutes of 'roll to hit, roll to wound, roll for effect, repeat for each NPC'. Factoring in weapon jams and reload it was unnecessary and my mate just sat there and said "I don't know what's going on" as all I was doing was rolling dice.
You're on the money there 👍🏻
That voice at 7:30 was fantastic
Unfortunately, I typical go to the other extreme and avoid throwing combat at my players.The one time I did a large scale battle, I chose to use percentile dice and followed Call of Cthulhu style rules for opposed rolls. It works good as just two extra rolls per round and then you can warn the players that the tide of the battle may be turning for them or against them. It added the extra tension of their own fight.
Had a Christmas one shot where Krampus had the Beholder ability that his line of sight stopped magic, if you came within 5ft. Of him, you lost all your class abilities... oh, and you could only damage him if your alignment was some kind of Good. I was a neutral good fighter with Polearm Mastery, so I could stand ten feet away and hit him, and I was literally pretty much the only one who could hurt him at all. It pissed everyone off so badly that people were leaving.
the only time I rolled NPC vs NPC in my fresh campaign was when my players managed to get a troll on their side for a brief combat. Maybe I should've let the players roll the attacks that troll did, but the reason I rolled those was simply to show off what that monster was capable of. For first time players that just got one attack and never saw anything bigger than an orc on the battlefield I think it had some impact seeing those 3 attacks and the damage it could do. I only did this the first round of combat though, just for that one "oh shit" moment for them to see what their efforts brought them in terms of impact, they went out of their way to get this troll and now they get to see what havoc it can wreak, and judging from their reactions I think it went well.
Regarding the attacks against the troll and how long their meatshield lasted I just ticked some of his HP off whenever it got hit and told the players "that guy did X damage, the troll roars in pain and fury" and went on. I could've cut more if it because there were a lot of combatants and the fight took very long, but I think when a NPC is in this combat either as a result of the PCs doing something or if something happening to the NPC would impact them (ie, the troll dying means losing a meatshield and having all the attention of the enemies on them) rolling for those is fair game, within reason. Having 12 arbalesters take shots at the dude would have been overkill, but aslong as it's only the major players and not every minion I think it works fine.
Man, if I was the GM who prepared this session and then I saw this guy absolutely destroying me on his TH-cam channel I would never play with him again.
Characters should also be able to adapt to the situation. My character was a bookworm forced into group combat in the first scene and ran for cover, then tried throwing rocks at enemies. I knew she'd probably be ineffective, but I had her try anyway to add to the story and to justify her learning how to fight later. Some of it comes down to the player being proactive.
Yeah, I made that first mistake earlier this year. There was a "Rugby" tournament the PCs were entered into (something to keep the in town while a plot line I completely stole from "Who Framed Rodger Rabbit" unfolded) with some team v team rules I came up with. I was bright enough to pre-roll a sh*t-ton of aggregate 'team' rolls into a list which I rolled a d4 to decide which one came up next; but I set up a full double-elimination bracket and rolled NPCs teams against each other.
Even calling each NPTeam vs NPTeam roll decisive for each point (games were to 3, final was to 5) instead of each play, there was a _lot_ of sitting around while I played with myself... I should have just let the team the beat first meet them in the final (When they stomped the first team and were mocking them I half-assedly threw out that they had the power of friendship to buck themselves up after the loss, at which point the players pointed out that that made _them_ the baddies who the heroes finally beat in every sports movie ever. I completely dropped he ball on that one. They got knocked out by the warforged team that finally met the PC team in the finals...)
How I handle NPC vs NPC battles is I have the PC's roll a d20 and I roll a d20. Who ever has the higher roll, their side is gaining the advantage. It is rolled at the bottom of each round. For each round won they receive a +1 to their side roll. That way the players feel like they are still involved and have a little control with the NPC allies battles.
I can understand wanting to roll for NPCs that aren't engaging with PCs, but the key is to do it in a streamlined way. For example, you have two NPCs fighting each other while the PCs are fighting something else. Instead of rolling multiple attacks and tracking damage, just roll a d20 twice. Which ever NPC got the higher roll wins that round of combat and you can narrate what happened however you like. Now you just need to decide how many losses each NPC can take before they go down, maybe it only takes one hit or maybe they need to take three or four to lose. If you want to complicate it you could make it a sliding scale, so that the rolls have to be more than ten apart or else neither one made any progress. However you do it just make it fast and simple, if you're spending more time rolling and doing math than describing what happened then you're doing it wrong.
Regarding the bit about "Rolling for all NPCs" - sometimes you DO want to have off-stage combat occurring (like recently when the PCs were fighting on one ship of a fleet and their NPC allies were fighting on another), and simulationists may want something good or bad to happen depending on the outcome of that separate battle. In which case, I've come up with a relatively simple method to figure this out quickly and painlessly:
1) Pick up a D20. Just one.
2) Decide how powerful/overwhelmed the allies are in general; this translates into a static value/penalty on the D20 (max +5 or -5). This value DOES NOT CHANGE over the course of the battle!
3) Come up with a target number to roll against based on the power of the opposing force (minimum 10, max 20). Same as before, this value DOES NOT CHANGE over the course of the battle!
4) Roll at the very end of each turn and determine success/failure.
5) If the allies ever get 3 successes in a row, they win the battle and come help the PCs. If they ever get 3 failures, they lose and surviving enemies appear as reinforcements against the PCs.
6) Keep rolling until the PC's battle ends or until a condition in 5) is met.
That's it. Super quick, relatively simple, and still allows there to be consequences for PCs taking their sweet time in a simulationisticly random fashion.
(little late but....) Vampire LARP, I was brought in as an NPC for a big event. Before the game, we're talking to the GMs about what's happening, and "oh, we've also had the NPC anarch (local punk) character capture the NPC Justicar (global power character)". Say what now? "Well, we (the GMs) played it out and it happened. But it kind of messes with the game, we're not sure what to do about it". Well (a) you already told me about two bad rulings you made during the fight, and (b) you're the gamesmasters, so that's not what happened. Let's rewrite the scene. They seemed shocked they didn't need to actually play it out, and predetermine the results of the confrontation. Thankfully, they didn't do it with PCs sitting around watching, and I rewired it back to a not-stupid story beat.
Righteous passion in this video
My PCs brought the leader of Waterdeep into a dungeon with them. I had her sit back and take notes like a performance evaluation for the party, because if she had joined the fight, she would have wiped out everything and the PCs would have nothing to do.
As someone who's made the too many dice rolling mistake, id say my biggest fear was that the players would feel like im railroading them by just deciding what happens. Like if I kill an npc they like because i thought it would be a good story beat i would fear theyd get upset that they never had a chance to save them (even if they did and didn't know it)
Like if theres 20v20 on a battleground just having abritrary characters dropping based on how I think the battle should go i figured was a mistake so I assumed that rolling for everyone would be the most fair way of doing things.
I kind of got around this by just saying to my players that I """Prerolled""" before session where in reality I did just pick whatever seemed most interesting (not that i think my players would be upset about this kind of thing in the first place, Im just paranoid)
Great advice thank you :)
My pcs keep hiring npcs to come along so this is perfect for my campaigns :)
the NPC vs NPC may be interesting to play out so the outcome does not feel to arbitrary - especially if NPC quality in the battle was prior influenced by the players. (Not just to defeat my self in an internal battle - but that should be done in a way that is engaging also players - if players are not invested in the outcome of NPC vs NPC struggle - there is not point)
I included an NPC in a combat not too long ago. I think I did it right:
He only appeared because he had been sleeping till 2 rounds before when the Wild Magic sorcerer had a surge that poisoned 1 person within 60 feet (they were inside of an inn with several NPCs). The rest remained asleep. When his turn came around, I had him ask if they needed help, they said LOUDLY, "YES!" I just had the big foe target him, but fake-rolled 2 attacks every time he came up so he was ineffectual "because of the poison".
My games are 100% about the PCs and I am willing to kill any/all NPCs in my stories just to add drama or inspire my players to continue like in most books or movies (AVENGE MEEEEEEE!!!)
So if you aren't rolling anything at all, how do you decide the outcome of the battle? Do you just decide who wins as the DM?
Both GM I played with did that
First one, I had a Paladin, which I intended somewhat as a balanced guy, but the rest of the party was woefully DPS oriented and literally always ended up dying, so since I had one healing spell, I was support class. My spell sucked ass, and failed quite a lot, but the GM never tred to change it, or reduce the difficulty. The GM mostly got us out of the bad fight by divine intervention of one particular character/guide. Want to do something creative like bashing someone with your shield/push them away ? Lol, it's not pre-planned, and your shield does 0 damage.
Second did that less, but battle were way too roll heavy.
7:16 As an American, excellent American accent there. We Americans need to step up our game!
Oh, man. So much agreement re: NPCs vs. NPCs (and having those NPCs be more epic than the PCs).
I played in a Doctor Who game once. The GM played the Doctor. And there was this other villain. And eventually the the Master showed up.
"There you are, " the GM said, "and in front of you is the Doctor, the Master, and (the villain). WHAT DO YOU DO?"
All I could say was, "Nothing. I watch and listen." And I did, as this GM had a conversation with himself and himself. And I put down my pen and my dice and felt incredibly frustrated and bored. Our party could have just excused ourselves while the three of Him hashed out the monologues. Yawn!
NPC means non player characters they should never roll unless its extremely necessary for plot. (I don't label any character Npcs in games because most could become enemies but thats entirely different).
And about combat i love the idea of milestones xp it discourages murderhobos and people who just want an xp farm. Although most players (ive played with shun milestones for some reason)
+1 for non-combat characters. Very few channels even acknowledge that as a possibility.
Holy shit this video is just riddled with ads! I literally had 6 bloody ads during this video. That's gotta be some kind of record. Great video, but its really hard to enjoy it when I'm getting interrupted every 2 minutes.
'Nobody cares, except for you.' False. If you've built the NPCs correctly, your characters will care when their Undine pirate boyfriend fails his death roll, or when the Tortle captain kills one of the enemies on the field, or when the entire ship they've built the quest on befriending is dying around them. And you have to roll for individual combat situations that they are not always a part of because you never know when one of the PCs is going to finish the enemy they are working on and come to engage in an NPC on enemy fight, and you need to be able to know what both unit's health and situation is when that happens. What you're saying makes sense in combat where it's just roll and hit, but not in every situation. I do roll NPC rolls against monsters ahead of the game so that I can just describe a bit without bogging down with rolls, but there's still a major chance a player engages in that and mixes up the rolls which would change things quite a bit and is completely unpredictable. You keep saying nobody cares for a lot of these things, but I think you really underrate a certain player's level of engagement by making the assumption it's true of all players. What you're saying isn't true for every party.
Speaking of NPC focused, I actually read a dnd horror story on Crit Crab where the DM made these level 20 NPCs who did everything. It was exactly as horrible for the PCs as you'd expect.
You do the worst jokes ever and they are not cringe somehow. Loving it!
how would you deal with mercenary rolls? Let players play their mercenary or something alike?
3:09 This is great but kinda sad that it needs to be said. 6:57 | I am running a game using FGU so none of this is an issue anymore. | 12:30 the good stuff.
Just love your rants Guy xD
Nice video. Good analysis.
Well for Mass Combat my Group thought about using simplified Warhammer Combat rules if they command a troop else I let them roll a d20 for the troops and I roll a d20 for the enemy troops. I then just describe the battlefield, I also include things like if they have a tactic in mind for the troops and how well that works out for them. But after every charge they make I let the losing troops retreat and they have time to accomplish their main target. If they are not actively involved in this battle I might give them a place where they can overview the battlefield for example they are in a castle and look out of one the windows and then they see the battle and maybe after they complete the task they can see their impact on the battlefield. But then again if I wouldn't get a stage fright every time I gm, I might be better in narrating those things.
so while my druid and the rest of my 7th/8th level group were on our way to the amber temple in Curse of Strahd, my DM decided to throw a Roc at us. I suggested running from the Roc and making a dash for the temple entrance, because my group didn't have a better idea.
Well while i took my wild shape to draw it's attention, they ran but only being able to make it to the end of the map…
Thus began several rounds of literally me getting grappled, picked up 120, dropped to the ground (thank Strahd i had winged boots), and repeat
To the point that two of us fell unconscious, even after using both my forms with the highest HP, and taking over 135 damage.
It was one of the worst combat experiences I've had because it just felt like a slug fest, and I don't understand why we couldn't just rush our way to the temple.
Hahaha, your rant videos are my favourite.
Great video, loved the intensity :)
I often do the memorable NPCs better than the PCs because they usually dont respect or like weaker NPCs 😕
Extremely well-done, and well-presented video! Love the points you brought up...now for me to come up with a way to "subtly" send this video to my GM... hmm... ;;>_>
How big are your maps? How many NPC's do you use? Why do you hate rolling dice? Why have all these "Actors" taken over D&D?
I loved the angst!
Definitely, dice are made to make noise behind screen master
nothing bothers me more at a table than unequality. rolling behind a screen for something involving a player or outright just deciding things because hey I'm a GM, really gets under my skin, so yes I roll for everything important. At the same time large fields I simply say that others caught up in time to be apart of things... where the rest are maybe not; but they will particapate.
I often play my own characters treated as PC so they do not give stuff away; but normally I hold actions in favor of PC's so I am last and so it indicates turn change if nothing else; and yes for fairness I play them with real stats. If foes are accidentally strong enough to one shot I show that on my own first so they can continue as they wish (run or slaughter).
My players are weird in that they actually WANT me to roll every NPC during combat, because they're kinda meta gamers. Not tin the sense they can't roleplay or anything, they do, but they also like to make plans based on things like "hope much HP does that creature have? Ok, we have this much time to save him from NPC 2 over there"
I know my group is an exception, but just thought I'd point that out. I feel like if I just said "Oh, this NPC gets stabbed and dies" during combat without rolling they'd feel cheated somehow
I'm not sure where the idea is from but the system I use is basically advanced minion rules, depending on what kind of NPC it is it can take X hits before it goes down. A random villager, small animal etc is basically a one-hit creature. Most hits would deal more than 5 points of damage and most level 0-1 creatures have about that level of points. Something more durable, an orc bandit or a random guard that got called to the scene gets 2-3 hits, major plot characters or actual highlevel monsters get more depending on how strong they are, up to the point of just straight up using their original hit points and doing the math normally. If the creature is strong or important enough tracking their rolls/HP doesn't take too much time bc usually there is only ever one or two of those around and not directly engaged with the players. Also, if it's a low-level NPC that is important to the group and wouldn't survive a single hit it's stormtrooper rules, the first shot always misses.
Of course there is nothing wrong with playing strictly by the rules and roll out every roll if that's a part your players enjoy, personally I only ever roll for NPCs when the creature in question acting or being acted upon is something that would influence the players, the immersion of the rules applying to every NPC as they do to the players is valueable but I try to not use too much time on it.
The party members shouldnt let themselves fight alone 1200 feet from the rest of the party if they will need help. Handwaving that distance is a ridiculous solution to that problem
THANK YOU!
Solution for multiple NPC battles: make the horde of enemies into one character. High power, but can be scared off.
I've experienced all this in a single session.
No more.
my combat...
rule #1: get rid of initiative
rule #2: engage all players
rule #3: nothing is impossible, maybe improbable and unlikely to succeed, but not impossible.
rule #4: don't be afraid to hurt the PC's - not intentionally try to kill them, but definitely get a bit bloody.
rule #5: finally NO RULES LAWYERS !! not the players or the GM.
learn how to improv and make sh1t up. if the game is a one-shot, then use the world to keep them on task. if you are playing in a sandbox and world building, then make sure to take notes for future sessions.
the whole point of the game is the fun factor.
"if you don't enjoy what you are doing then you shouldn't be doing it"
Countercode?
truly nobody care at that point except for... Grammarly
ads can have such good timing man