Why Are We Fighting?

okay this is one of those videos where I can talk about the problem and I can talk about Alternatives but I don't really have a solution per se because the solution is tied to how your group behaves which I don't know and also how the actual game is designed which I I can't do anything about right now but also about how adventures and encounters are designed and that is something we can change but in general just being aware of this problem will make a difference so let's get started folks often complain about how combat and fifth edition isn't Fun and there are many reasons why this might be so players often say it takes too long but I think that's backwards it's not boring because it takes too long we think it takes too long because it's boring right a good movie can't be too long a bad movie can't be over fast enough and there are lots of reasons why combat might not be fun I mean obviously I'm gonna say the monsters are boring right because mcdm is literally making a better monster book for you click on the link below to pre-order and while that might be a Pitch I literally believe it and I'm Not Alone by the way but there are lots of other reasons players often basically ignore what's happening until it's their turn so they spend their turn reading the battle because I have to since they weren't paying attention and then they spend more time figuring out what they want to do which they have to do on their turn because they weren't thinking about it before but while that might sound like blaming the player which I am almost always opposed to the system doesn't really encourage players to pay attention there are no shared resources or combos the design doesn't really give you any reason to pay attention unless you happen to be the kind of player who likes strategy and tactics which is not everyone and Encounters in d d tend to be pretty static it's usually correct me if I'm wrong it's usually here's a bunch of monsters kill them all to win and that I think is a problem I think that is the main source of what's called slog because the game does not have real objectives in combat I'm thinking about Left 4 Dead and how I'm not sure there is a single level where you even can kill every zombie it's always flip this switch and kill zombies until Evac arrives that is a good objective it is clear and dramatic and gives the DM a lot of power to dial in a really dramatic moment how often do we do that as DMs well I think the answer probably is rarely but again I'm not sure it's really our fault the game isn't designed that way or or really it's the adventures and encounters that aren't really designed that way and I'm not sure why so this video is about that state at the end of a typical combat where everyone at the table knows the heroes of one but they are still expected to just keep bashing monsters until they're all dead and this is bad it's just bad I can't fix it all in one video but we can talk about it why is it bad well for a lot of reasons for one thing fifth edition is all about draining resources you start with all your resources and you spend them over time you spend spell slots to do cool you spend hit points to stay in the fight so battles Get By Design more boring the longer they go because you already did all the cool and now you've just got hit points and sneak attack awesome the problem with this fight to the death objective is that the game gives us nothing to replace it with if the bad guys just cut and run because they know they've been beaten the players often feel let down why they won they beat the bad guys they get the same XP either way the same rewards but many players would feel let down if they won this way they want that feeling of completion they don't like ambiguity fight to the death means we know we won because we can see their corpses we have ground down every last hit point to zero and that is a real objective number bad guys run away well that means there's Loose Ends they're still out there can't we chase them run them down and I think the reason the players feel this way is because they're focusing on killing monsters as the only objective because the game provides no other objective in combat think about it this way outside of DnD how often do the heroes have to literally kill every bad guy I think um yeah kung fu movies superhero movies sometimes but these are you know there's a point in most superhero movies where I I check out oh look it's an entire Army of nameless faceless bad guys and the heroes just need to do different stunts until the DM decides okay that's enough you've killed all the bad guys so lazy so our players like kill every bad guy because it gives them an objective sense of completion but the game is also designed to get more boring the longer combat goes and this creates something I think is bad for play there's that moment right in every combat where the heroes know they're gonna win I mean not every combat sometimes you gotta fight like the black Iron pact where it goes down to the wire and actual characters are actually dying on both sides but you know what I mean we know we're gonna win but we need to grind down every last hit point so that means we are decoupling the moment of Victory from the end of the battle this is bad that distance between we know we've won and the last monster dying is slog this is slog we want this moment as close to this moment as possible because then the players get their reward in their moment of Victory they feel triumphant in their moment of Triumph now you can just say at that point the bad guys surrender or they run away and that can work but surrender just makes things more complicated and run away means the players don't feel like they've won because their only measure of Victory is killing every bad guy so what can be done well that's what I meant when I said I can talk about the problem and I can talk about Alternatives but I don't really have a solution per se but one solution is designing encounters so we're fighting for some other reason a lot of DnD combat boils down to there's a bunch of monsters here they want to kill us so we need to kill them to proceed but we have so many better examples from everywhere like I said Left 4 Dead is almost never about kill every monster because it's a zombie game and there is literally infinite zombies you could just play Left 4 Dead Or maybe better back for blood the modern version of the same game and get tons of ideas for how to build scenarios so that we're fighting for some other reason see that's the real problem why are we fighting because there's a monster here trying to kill us well that means we're just going to grind it out until one side has no hit points left but we're trying to survive long enough to get out is way better focusing on why are we fighting coming up with better reasons to fight monsters I submit would go a long way towards solving this problem look at the classic go-to example Indiana Jones how often is Indy trying to kill every Nazi almost never he's always trying to do something or stop them from doing something he's trying to stop them from getting the Ark of the Covenant on the truck he's trying to escape with the notebook that holds the secret of the Grail you'll notice often when the reason why we're fighting is stop the bad guys from doing something the bad guys often have a way to escape once they've done what they're trying to do in the movies the Nazis have a truck and if they can get the Ark of the Covenant on the truck they can get away because the heroes are on foot this is good design and we have even better tools the bad guys have horses or their allies the hawk Lords swoop down and grab them once they got what they want or eventually the bad guys have teleport or even better a patron with teleport which means lower level bad guys can blink out thinking about how can the bad guys get away after they got what they want goes a long way toward deleting this gap which we call slog you already have an entire lifetime of examples here movies Comics other games sometimes we need to kill every bad guy sure but that's because in this moment that is the most dramatic thing to do we are trying to escape the Nazis and we thought we were clever but they bordered the Zeppelin and asked for our tickets and now we have to fight our way out and the final moment is when the very last Nazi plane crashes we had to kill every last Nazi following us but since that is not the default State we only did it when it was really exciting and this is a fantasy game we got so many cool ways to give combat objectives like grab the night dust potion from the altar before the high priest can drink it or destroy the orb of a Million Suns before the Scion of Corsica can drain all of its power and summon the ultra Lich a good objective gives the players that feeling of we did it we won without needing to kill every monster because the objective is the reason we're fighting you don't care if the bad guys get away because you've already won you achieved the objective and that was the point does that make sense the objective isn't just an excuse it's the reason good objectives like stop the Nazis from getting a religious artifact that would make them Invincible are things the players want to achieve anyway because they have a positive meaningful effect on the world on their story on their characters not just their character sheets some objectives are just fun because they give us a chance to create a cool encounter that's fine but the best objectives are the ones the players want to achieve because of the positive effect the objective has on the world the story their characters isn't that why we do this if literally all we want is to fight monsters well go play glue Maven it is way easier than running d d no DM needed there has to be some greater context to this whole fighting monsters thing otherwise we're spending a shitload of prep time just to let our players grind stacks of hit points down to zero so that's it I think alas the game itself doesn't do a lot of work here so it's up to us you know your table and your game I don't only you know what kinds of objectives would really motivate your players but I think once you get started down this path it gets easier and easier until eventually you're a level designer this is what level design or Mission design is about why are we fighting here what is the objective and does it matter and once you start thinking this way I think the game gets better you spend less time on combats that don't matter your players have more fun the bad guys can cut and run not just because they were losing but because they saw the heroes win by achieving their objective and that achievement is what gives the players a feeling of victory that's it folks that's the video the real lesson here is do not continue the battle once it's obvious the bad guys are gonna lose then the only question is how can you make this fight Fun by focusing on objectives that are fun or have meaning instead of just kill every single enemy I think we've got all the building blocks now to do a video or even a series on designing your own adventures and encounters but that's probably going to be a little while and I got other stuff in the pike before them thanks for watching folks if you liked this video and you want to support the channel you can come by our store there is a link in the doobly-doo and pick up this kingdoms and warfare signed hardcover bundle this is the book signed by me along with the mcdm GM screen which I think you will really like it's about 50 useful fifth edition stuff and the other half is domain and warfare stuff you get the special unit deck that has like Centaur units and Demon units there's one unit in here that's just a sea of black puddings in case your players are fighting an ooze master who summoned an army of fungi and puddings and you get one of our most popular minis Trudy the Rudy wormling both cool and adorable like me yeah who wrote this kingdoms of warfare is sort of the ultimate political tool for your game it has rules for 16 different kinds of enemy organizations normal stuff like an orc Clan or a hag a coven but what about an undead Dominion or a draconic Empire and your players can decide what kind of party are we are we a noble court or a martial regiment or maybe a Mystic Circle and the entire party gets access to new powers and new cooled shared resources for being their own domain and we have our own proprietary Warfare solution for your game in here it is super robust tons of different unit traits the rules are simple enough you could absolutely fight a battle in your campaign without it feeling like you're playing a whole other game it's not like Warhammer for instance but it's robust enough to almost be its own game we are really proud of this product actually the signed limited edition does have the misprint in it we're not super proud of that but I can assure you the misprint does not affect your ability to use this book if you want to have cool organizations operating in your game if your players want to be a cool organization and if you want epic battle battles in your game this is literally the product for you and we got a dope bundle for it buy it now about to go on winter break so I think that's it for 2022 folks we made some good videos this year and a bunch of dope monsters I look forward to seeing you all in the next year lots more videos in the pike we hope you all have a great holiday folks until next time peace out

Channel: Matthew Colville

Views: 183,112

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Id: sAfPoOxIVm0

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 19 2022