A while back, I got an email
from a follower named Sven who was facing a problem
with his D&D party: They wouldn't fight anything. "We're all modern people with modern feelings towards
the world," he wrote. "So when we encounter a dragon who is an intelligent creature simply pursuing reasonable self-interests, we have a hard time attacking it." He describes the party
always trying to talk first, and in a lot of cases, successfully talking
themselves out of a fight. So, what's the issue? Sounds like fun roleplay, and combat isn't the only way to solve problems, right? But, as Sven wrote, "We have all these great
powers for killing stuff, but we end up just using our words." He wanted to know how a DM
could make players like them feel like a character was evil
enough to deserve violence. That is to say, they wanted to fight, they just didn't want
to feel guilty about it. I can relate to this a lot. In fact, that's why I
always carry a sword. Just in case somebody
ever gives me a reason. I often DM for and play in parties who are hesitant to
attack until we're certain that the conflict can't
be resolved peacefully. But also, combat is fun! It's a key part of D&D, and for martial classes especially, it's your main area of strength, so, it sucks to not get to use it. I think most people would agree that it's a good game
master habit to make sure that some encounters can
be resolved peacefully, because that gives players freedom, and it keeps the game
from feeling repetitive. But likewise, if you
never give your players the chance to justify combat, that can end up being repetitive, too. Players can feel just as trapped
by never getting to fight as they would if they always had to fight. But first, before we
start talking solutions, I wanna clarify that this is different from players who want to
play actual pacifists. If your party is opposed to
harming any living creature, no matter what they do, I
think it's worth considering that D&D might not be the right game. I mean, yes, you could make
adjustments and make it work, but at its core, D&D is
built to include combat. Most of the mechanics
are focused on fighting. There are tabletop games out there that don't center combat,
like Ryuutama or Mouse Guard or Monsterhearts, or countless others, and one of those might be
a better fit for players who would rather cast "restorative
justice" than Fireball. But this video isn't about pacifists. It's more about those players
who won't enjoy a fantasy where they just slaughter
a bunch of goblins for being goblins. Players who try to use Speak With Animals when they get attacked by winter wolves. Players who see a dragon and
think "Hey girl. Who hurt you?" People who wanna fight sometimes, but won't do it unless they
feel like it's necessary. I just realized that you could
summarize this video topic as "How to morally justify violence." Anyway, it's a game, sometimes
you wanna stab stuff! So here are three ways to
design combat encounters that will allow even your
most bleeding heart players to indulge in wanton brutality
with a clear conscience. A few months ago, I got
to travel to Denmark and play in a one shot to
promote the new Lego D&D set. I made a video all about it, which I will link in the
cards in case you're curious. Now, since this was a
family-friendly brand, we were told up front that violence wouldn't
always be necessary. We managed to get out of
fighting two mimics, an owlbear, and a displacer beast, among others. But you know what happened when our bard tried to pacify
a gelatinous cube with music? Nothing. Gelatinous cubes have an
intelligence score of one. Their only directive is to eat. Relatable. You either kill it or you escape it, those are the only two options
where you get out alive. Sympathetic players don't like
to fight sentient creatures without at least trying
to talk to them first. So, try giving them a
creature that isn't sentient, that can't be reasoned with, like a zombie, or a shield guardian, or somebody who answers the phone for Wells Fargo customer support. - [Agent] Thank you for holding. - If the creature can't
be persuaded or pacified because you literally
can't communicate with it, then your list of options for
how to handle the encounter gets much, much shorter. I once created a creature
called the feral merfolk that I really love, and I made it specifically
to be not a villain, but a monster. I wanted this creature to be terrifying, a bloodthirsty predator, not a little mermaid
figure so much as a piranha that happens to have a humanoid torso. They don't have language,
but even if they did, you cannot reason with a feral merfolk because what it wants
is to eat your flesh. I created them this way because I wanted players to fight them. If I wanted to create some sort of sympathetic
mermaid anti-hero, drowning sailors because
she was wronged in some way, I would! But since I was trying to
create a scary monster, I made sure they couldn't be talked down. There are a bunch of ways to make a creature that
can't be reasoned with. Creatures with extremely low intelligence, constructs who were created for a purpose that specifically opposes your players. Creatures like undead who aren't sentient and therefore don't suffer when killed. Basically, if talking them out of violence is literally impossible, you're golden. By the way, if your players are talking their way out of every combat, it might be time to dust off
the ol' Dungeon Master's Guide and have a little refresher.
Specifically page 244, which outlines the mechanics of resolving social interactions. Every creature begins an encounter with one of three attitudes, which, incidentally, are also
my three moods, in order, whenever I'm placed on hold: Friendly, indifferent, and hostile. When we're talking about parties persuading their way out of combat, I think we can safely assume that the creatures in these cases are starting off firmly
in the hostile category. Two things to take away from this section. First, even a very
successful charisma check against a hostile creature will at best make them indifferent. There's a table with conversation
DCs for each category, and even a 20 against a hostile creature only gets a good result if they don't have to risk
or sacrifice anything. That means if the creature gets something out of killing you, even a 20 won't persuade
them to sacrifice that reward by letting you go. And second, a natural
20 isn't mind control. Some creatures are just never
gonna be aligned with you, no matter how convincing you are. It says right here, "A hostile creature might be so ill disposed toward the party that no charisma check
can improve its attitude, in which case, any attempt
to sway it through diplomacy fails automatically." Now, this doesn't mean
you should shut down any attempt to talk
with a hostile creature, but it does give you tools for ensuring that charismatic players can't talk their way
out of every situation. I actually think the
framing of this chapter is really helpful, which is new and exciting for
the Dungeon Master's Guide! It talks about the risks and sacrifices that the creature will be taking on if they do what the party asks. The higher the risk, the
bigger the sacrifice, the harder it will be to convince them, or maybe it'll even be impossible. If a lich is killing innocents in order to feed on their life force and fuel their own undeath, nobody's gonna be able
to talk them out of that, because the sacrifice of their own life is just too great a thing to ask. A minion might not be smart
or brave or even loyal, but if they fear their boss
more than they fear you, it's gonna be really tough to get them to refund that overdraft fee. I mean... to help your D&D character. Thinking about your
antagonists from this angle is also a great way to
create alternative paths, somewhere in the middle between fighting and talking
your way out of a fight. Succeeding on a persuasion
check against a hostile creature doesn't mean that everything
suddenly goes your way. It just means they're
willing to negotiate. Even a persuadable creature
should have limits, and knowing what those limits are allows you to throw your
players some curve balls. If you need inspiration, there's a great section in
Tasha's Cauldron of Everything called Parleying with Monsters, and no, you can't use that as a band name, I'm using that as a band name.
(electric guitar riff) This section includes the things that a monster might want badly enough to be willing to back down over. Most are pretty weak, to be honest, but a few of them are fantastic, like the aberration that will let you go if you 'accept a strange
organic graft onto your body', or the dragon who demands an item from a rival dragon's hoard, or the fiend who's happy to let you live for the low, low price of your soul.
(angelic choir) What I love about these kind of responses is that they don't just say
"Yes, you persuade them" or "No, you don't persuade them." Instead, they introduce new choices, they challenge your players to decide where their boundaries lie, and in some cases, they might even unfold into an
entire new quest or plot arc. Of course, there's one more
fun option worth mentioning. A smart creature probably knows
that it can take advantage of a well-meaning adventurer
who wants to make peace. Don't be afraid to have your baddies smile and pretend to accept a truce, and then turn around and stab
your players in the back. I mean, they're bad guys.
What did your players expect? This is the thing that I think is missing in a lot of these encounters. If you want your players
to fight your bad guys, they need to actually be bad. In Sven's email, he gave me a few examples of encounters where his
party was hesitant to fight. A dragon who was trying
to find its stolen eggs, goblins whose only crime seemed to be existing while goblin. The issue was that even
though a dragon or a goblin might have the evil alignment
listed on their stat block, the players didn't see them actually doing evil in the world. When you describe a dragon
searching for its eggs, you aren't giving your party an evil that needs to be stopped, you're just giving them
a problem to solve. And finding the eggs is the
most reasonable solution. Imagine if your mom was like
"Hey, we're out of eggs." Do you go to the grocery
store and get more eggs, or do you kill your mom? Who cares if the stat block
says a goblin is evil. What does your story say? You can't just point to the Monster Manual and say "See, it says right
here, they're evil, kill them." The modern D&D player doesn't buy that. But if those same goblins are kidnapping children
from a nearby town, roasting them over a spit and eating them, I don't think your players are
gonna be nearly so interested in sitting down for a tête-à-tête
with goblin leadership. In a game where I'm a
player, one of our opponents was literally leading a
human trafficking ring. I can assure you that we
were completely uninterested in negotiating with this guy. I do think it's good to ask yourself what your bad guys want, and
to think of them complexly, but complex creatures can still be evil. Not to get dark, but
look at the real world. Humans are arguably the most
complex creature on the planet, and we are capable of sometimes
astonishingly evil acts, magnitudes worse than a
wolf trying to eat somebody because it's hungry. In order for a band of heroes
to kill and still be heroes, their opponents need to be truly evil, not just, as Sven puts it, pursuing reasonable self-interests. Now, if you want your players to be willing to roll initiative, it needs to be just as much
fun to fight the baddies as it is to persuade them. Unfortunately, in fifth edition, it's way too easy for
combat to turn into a slog. That's why you need to
watch this video next to learn all about how to make combat just as exciting and
narratively interesting as your social encounters.
