My group's Paladin was really excited about his recent immunity to 'frightened', so last week I had a devil try to use a 'frightened' ability on him which he proudly announced that he fears no devil. His turn was up next, in which he used 'abjure enemy' to instead frighten the devil and the devil failed its save. It's moments like this that make me so proud of my players.
Please tell me Paladin said one of the following: Resist the devil and he shall flee! Deus Vult! Tis' opposite day! It's over devil, I have the holy ground!
Someone wise once said "a character sheet is a love letter to the DM"- basically, if your players put something on their sheet, it's because they want to see what cool shit you will do with it in your game!
Thanks for putting this into words! I had a thought similar to this when they announced the Plasmid race. I thought they were to over powered because they are goop people that can squeeze into really small holes. They can just go anywhere they want! And then a friend told me, "sure you can't stop them from getting into any room you make, but you can control what's waiting for then in that room when they get there."
I get their initial impulse, but I also sort of don’t get the idea that DMs must be the exact anti-thesis to their players. Like the point of DND isn’t to “win” as the DM, it’s to make a fun game. Challenging is good, but there’s a difference between “How do I make this challenging” and “How do I keep my players at square one forever”
I understand its can be frustrating to have players steam role a monster fight you invested so much in crafting. But thats the expectation, monsters will lose most fights and if a player has a new toy let them play with it for a while before the fire resistant enemies show up when the wizard has been a little fireball happy but he has a chance to pick up some cool new spells of different damage type next level. I think the DM vs Player is a psychology trap involving get attached to creations and having your dastardly plans crushed too often resulting in a desire for revenge. Its best to reframe it as DM makes stuff to cheer the players on as they overcome those challenges.
@@jasonreed7522 It's important to remember that DnD is fundamentally a social game. Goofing off with your friends comes before the "validity and design" of the game. Don't get me wrong - mechanics do influence behavior in a game, but the behavior should end up being fun.
@@jasonreed7522 I don't know if you hit your advice hard enough: *You are making monsters so that the players can beat them up, not so they can marvel at your masterpiece.* If you lose sight of that, things go tits-up.
I get what your saying, but I also feel this is kind of a strawman of very real problems that cause this issue, Poor party balance, if one player's DPR is x3 the others or another character has 1/4 dpr you might want to counter play the strong PC or cuddle the weak NPC, both create problems but the former often becomes how do I "fix" this OP PC, if a player destroys all the doors in your dungeon so they don't have to explore, they are, TEARING APART THE ADVANTURE, you have to build around their refusal to just play like a normal human being. PS. Personally I don't care to much about the issues, I'll talk to the players for the former, and if my players want to wreck the game that's on them. Within REASON let players talk/fight out their own disruptive members, because if the DM does something that's the voice of God, it's a power balance issue.
@@IrvineTheHunter That tearing down all the doors thing reminds me of an anecdote. Players utterly rip apart everything in dungeon, not behaving too believable, but you really can't and shouldn't stop them. Two nights later, crazy illusion-of-a-lich appears before them. She states that the hobkognolls that laired in that dungeon were weak and deserve the fate you gave them. But that was her dungeon. She gives the party an outlandish bill for all the doors they tore off hinges, traps they destroyed, tables they broke, and tapestries they burned. Look, loot is loot and to the victor go the spoils, all that. But the excessive property damage was uncalled for. I'm a patient woman. Eternal even. You have one week to pay.
A milestone in every DM's/GM's life is when they realize they are not supposed to compete with the PCs, but to build one shared experience together with the players. OP powers are there to give that power trip experience for the players they see from movies - if we give them opportunities to shine, everyone will be more happy with the game.
The only spell I've ever really struggled with is detect thoughts, mainly because I run a game that is often shrouded in mystery and espionage. Its hard to find the line between "no you get no information" and "here's the whole plot, this character knows everything." I've been really enjoying Campaign 3 of CR and watching how Matt handles that spell. Great tips all around.
Simply reduce the scope of what players learn out of the character; instead of "this character worries about this plot, here's all the details", go with something more along the lines of "this character is worried about where he'll hide X murder weapon after his vile act, here's what the murder weapon he plans to use is like". You could also reveal the character's motives instead, and possibly open up a way for your players to resolve things differently or pick up on something odd, a greater mystery in your plot. Keep in mind, your mystery is likely composed of answers to many questions, the what, how, when, where and why; with Detect Thoughts you can reveal one of these, but keep the other answers in the dark.
Abusing my psych background, here's how I've handled it: thoughts are rarely coherent or straightforward. Characters using "Detect Thoughts" get a montage of memories, emotions, and impressions that the players then have to piece together on their own, rather than a coherently presented narrative. It usually gets them some helpful hints, as well as even more questions.
Both of these. Surface thoughts are situational and transient. If the BBEG isn't explicitly thinking of the details of their plot at that moment, all you'll get is their shopping list, or what they watched on tv the night before - mundane things like that. And memories are jumbled, confused, and may not be 100% accurate. Much like Mass Effect 1, you could give them the jumble, and then turn figuring out the clues into the quest.
Are you letting PCs cast spells in front of other people with no consequence? I feel like there's a good chance you are. Spell components matter - I'd be mad if someone walked up to me and said SKDABADOOLIE while holding a copper coin and waving it around.
I hardly ever look for ways to prevent my players from using their special "thing" whatever that is (unless it's being abused then it just needs to be moderated but not taken away). I always look for ways to highlight it and make them feel good that it came into play in the game, sometimes making them the hero the party needed at that moment. Mostly it's about making judgment calls, that's what the DM's job is. This comes with the stipulation that my players are not allowed to "hide" their skills and abilities from me. I need to know them going in because I am here to tell a story, not to be the BBEG the party needs to defeat.
IMO the key is to switch up your encounters. Like you can make one thing happen in a forrest where your druid can speak to plants and the ranger has favorite terrain and then the next thing happens in a big city where the rogue can climb onto roofs and the bard knows somebody to make contact and get information and the next part of your campaign is again something else where again other strengths of the players come into play. That way class features and abilities will automatically come up over and over again, just not every time.
8:12 had this happen with a white dragon fight. What I did was set up abandoned ballistas from the soldiers that fought the dragon before that dealt good damage. The two melee characters teamed up having one load and the other shoot for maximum rate of fire. They did this until the dragon landed for bite/claw attacks, then they attacked with their melee weapons.
The way I learned this was simple: being a player and internalizing what I wanted and remembering that when I GMed. Sometimes I designed a campaign around scratching such an itch. When I recruited, having taken the design seriously, it DEFINITELY got responses. Much of what is indicated here is simply philosophical in nature: while there are adversarial, 'versus' *aspects* to the player/GM relationship, and the complete absence of it is likely undesirable to both parties, it cannot completely dominate and dispense with the cooperative elements. Like any game, there are rules, some codified, some spoken and some neither. Perhaps even the best GMs are those for whom it is entirely a facade they masquerade through on the path to entertainment as the penultimate goal. But some would despise that! Preferring a more simulationist experience. The worst table is one where everyone wants something different.
I also think it could be interesting to see how people themselves react to encounters, a villain may not know a certain skill and will learn to adapt making the encounter way cooler. the best example I can think of is from a book I read, a castle is being attacked and one of the queens most trusted men and sword-fighting teacher defends the fleeing people, the villain sees this and simply sends an archer to shoot him, this man deflects the arrow MID-AIR. this obviously shocks most of the soldiers seeing this, the villain however simply sends a second archer to shoot him, again he deflects one arrow but the other one hits him just fine. I feel like things like that can definitely make the characters feel more real and will be a cool way to show off and still see your limits ass a player.
Once I DM’d a horror one-shot inspired by cabin in the woods and other classic slashers, where the players chose the killer that would hunt them down at summer camp. There were a few NPC camp counselors, two of which were possible killers wearing glamoured armor. One of my players wanted to start the game with custom made goggles of true sight. That was the only thing I have EVER told a player “no, I’m sorry that would actually break the one-shot.” And I told them that during character creation, instead of saying yes and then just destroying the item immediately. As a player, I always hate when I’m told I can have a specific ability that never ever comes up in play or just never seems to work, I’d rather be told “no” during character creation if it would actually break anything.
This reminds me of a moment (which admittedly hadn't yet happened when this came out) from Fantasy High. So, Gorgug, the Barbarian, had somehow ended up in a situation where he was simultaneously charmed by one foe and frightened of another. He, in character, asked "Should I go into a Rage, and really f**k them up?" To which the NPC replied "Yes... Go into a Rage... Really f**k them up." And then we got the greatest line in any Actual Play ever: "I use Mindless Rage, which gives me immunity to being charmed and frightened."
It's all about that balance. I always find it fun to figure out this kind of thing. Especially with encounters, it's fun to figure out a way to tailor an encounter for a character to be extra useful in or one they may have to change things up to stay as useful. If I got a character who casts almost exclusively fire spells you bet I'm gonna get an encounter in there with monsters who are vulnerable to fire, but at some point they'll also most certainly face something resistant or even immune to it. Great vid Ginny :) this is always a good reminder
In that example: How likely are oak trees to be. Maybe the player and their party have to take that into account. Especially if the bomebrew class is balanced around it. In moderate climates: plenty. Up in the frosty north? Less so Tropics... getting thin Desert? Forget about it. Elemental plane of fire? Why do you even ask. So many interesting situations could arise where the party has to make decisions, or come up with clever ideas to lure BBEG to the right place. Roleplaying opportunities o' plenty.
I like to take this one step further, by rewarding (or some times punishing) choices outside of class and core game features. For example, Clerics would generally know more about religious topics, so I'd give them advantage when such a thing comes up, even if they don't have features for it. A character that has psychic powers, such as an aberrant mind sorcerer would get to use their proficiency bonus on their intelligence check for detect thoughts, at the same time, the paladin in full plate armor would have a really hard time swimming out if he ever found himself in deep water, or the barbarian with the giant weapon would have to think about how they want to get their giant weapon over a wall everyone is climbing, or across the flimsy bridge.
Great DM tip. This is one of the hardest things for me to do as a GM - because I have meta knowledge on how the characters function, it becomes really, REALLY hard to stop myself from totally nerfing the players by designing encounters which perfectly counter them. But every now and again, some of my enemies do very suboptimal moves which really let the players shine 😁 keep on giving great advice Giny!!!!
Something else to be thinking about: the flip side of "sucks so you never use it" is "so good it's your standard option, so it's boring." E.g.: the standard "attack" action is something that's generally be pretty cool: fancy swordplay or whatever! But because it's *always* the action you take, unless you further embellish it occasionally for extra-special attacks (the classic example being "how do you want to do this"), it's not going to be able to be interesting when it really matters. Or take poison. If most enemies are immune, that's boring. But if it's "fort save or 1d10 damage" then that's also kind of boring - it's just another source of damage, like a flaming sword, so it's not *that* interesting even if it takes down a boss. In order to be *particularly* interesting, an ability has to be *uniquely* useful for a situation. The usual way around this is limited uses, but that can just lead to item hoarding (depending on your players) unless you very clearly signal "yes, this is a good time to use this item." Circumstantial items which have to be used creatively also work (but you have to be careful that that creativity doesn't just reduce to something that can be done for every combat, like the classic "throw sand in enemies eyes to blind them").
If you're worried about power imbalance, sit down with the others to give them special sauce too and then adjust the difficulty level accordingly. Also, while making all enemies and situations circumvent player abilities is dumb and not fun, it can always be cool to put them in an occassional situation where the special sauce won't work. Especially in sidestories that are about a certain character. If a sworn enemy of a monk sends his minions to capture them, I would assume that ranged weapons would not be used against that monk because those minions would already be in the know about their target for example.
(Minor spoiler for Stormlight archive book 2 below.) You can actually take this same premise and link it to writing stories in general. if you have a swordsmaster in your book who cant seem to lose a sword fight, put him in a sword fight but turn the tables on him with some sort of trickery. for anyone that likes stormlight archive see Adolin's fight in the arena as an example of this. Perfect example of an author attacking his characters strengths.
I once played an 18 cha smooth-talking rogue who could (in theory) con the socks off a grand duke. of course, to the DM this meant that just about every street thug, innkeeper and mailman around was completely immune to my charms and/or had connections that meant p. much instant death if I ever failed a charisma roll. what fun.
An experienced dm will utilize the special abilities of PC's in up and down beats, no different than story beats. Sometimes plan an encounter to nullify an advantage to make them feel a little unsure of them self. Then plan an encounter (as you say) to let one of their special abilities save the day or shine. Rotate these amongst the pc's so everybody gets some time in the spotlight. But most of the time just let the situation dictate the opposition without an eye to the pc's abilities. They'll find ways to use them and if it turns out one of their abilities is nullified well that's a down beat for that character for the encounter. As you say Mercer is proficient in this. A further example would be: If a pc is built around fighting undead but your story doesn't involve undead then craft a subplot that comes around occasionally that deals with mostly undead in some capacity. They'll never know you added it for their benefit and that subplot will most likely be their favorite adventures. Also, put some thought into how this subplot can mingle with the main plot and you will most likely find that you have an abundance of material to work with, so much in fact you might not get to use it all. I would also counter that the Chroma Conclave is a subplot, not the main plot of campaign 1.
The balance is important here: bad guys want to win but they also don't know what's on the player's character sheet. They should do things that are smart, but unless you're fighting like Veccna or something, they probably aren't omniscient. Just looking at a monk doesn't tell the enemy they can deflect missiles, so if you're doing that as a DM, YOU ARE METAGAMING. Given how many people you've got to control at a time this is more effort, but you gotta consider what the monster could reasonably know and based on that what they'd reasonably do...and try really hard to not let your perfect knowledge as a DM tip that scale.
I highly recommend using enemies lile Enel from one piece in dnd. Enel had the power to literally be lightning. He could basically teleport vast distances. Super heat objects. Phase through basically all attacks while simultaniously shocking them back. And shoot huge lightning blasts miles away. This was WAY too strong from the protagonist at the time. EXCEPT, he was literally made of rubber. If there was anyone in the world custom designed to take down this bad guy, it was Luffy. The fight was still really hard, but having him take down someone so insane was much cooler then the far weaker villains that specifically countered the main character
A druid in my campaign cast speak with animals, and rolled really low on their survival check to find one, and I ended up throwing in a mole going to meet his friends for tea.
To sum up this video: Enable your players to actually PLAY their characters and use their characters abilities and go out of your way to enable your players to do this. Some examples of my own (to add to the video instead of just summing it up): Ranger with favored terrain in a desert? Well, I guess the ice continent to the far south is now a desert continent to the south. Having a druid, that talks to squirrels and bunnies all the time? Let those little critters help the druid and provide information. Tracking an enemy through a forest, those little creatures could tell the party where that enemy went. Use your monster's and NPC's abilities specifically against players, that have something positive against that (use fire spells against Tieflings, use projectile attacks against Monks, use charm spells against a character, that can't be charmed or gets advantage on those saving throws). In general, enable the characters your players play. Enable your players to actually play the game. We're DMs. It's our job to run the game and it's our job to ensure everyone has fun and gets something out of it. I personally very much enjoy, when players solve a puzzle or discover the big plot twist or kill that dangerous enemy I put before them.
Before watching fully: Any time any DM asks "how I stop ability X?", my instant reaction is "don't". Often it's more nuanced than that. And there will be exceptions. But by&large DMs should work with their players to exercise better judgement and find solutions instead of reasons why X can't/won't/shouldn't happen
Do you have a video on building low level encounters? like first through third level parties where the encounters are as much about storytelling and moving the party forward as well as getting them to higher levels. Its something I struggle with as a DM, especially when my players are at first level. I try to give them fights they can handle but make them both compelling to the story and interesting in play. I've seen the video on making interesting encounters, which helps a bit; its specifically first through third level encounters I'd like to get better at planning.
Yeah I put my players in a fight against 2 hook horrors when they were level 3, but they still were able to beat them because I let my sorcerer use 2 leveled spells in one turn, and I gave my wood elf rogue some tall grass to hide in so he could have sneak attack.
Well said. Being unable to challenge players is a forced falsehood. CR30 exists, so no player is home free. Players just want to feel like the character decisions they made matter, otherwise the entire experience feels like wasted time. And players won't waste their time on you for long.
Good example i play elves a lot. We had this encounter where we touched an orb and got sucked into a demi plane that was ran by a "god" (think the geck from fallout) but the goal of the god was to keep us there by charming us to forget the real world. I continuosly succeeded on the check and managed to lie to the gods face making him think i was charmed it was epic using the ability granted to me and then clutching. Beong able to say i lied to a god and got away with it was great
One of my favorite parts about DMing is when my players use the weird, random things about their classes in creative ways to break my encounters. Player creativity is one of the best parts of the game!
I think having players use their abilities is great, but it also makes sense that smarter enemies will try to outmaneuver them. Especially as the PCs earn more fame. If a villain was up against a hero who was famous for their horsemanship for example, it makes sense that they would force that hero into a situation where they had to dismount, but random bandits might not.
This is also why DM’s shouldn’t use banishment on players, don’t take them out of combat if they build a character made for combat. Learned that the hard way
In my mind the perfect encounter would have every character using their most op ability but still just barely getting, if you stop their powerful abilities then there was no point in them levelling up apart from a bit more health
If you're ever not sure about how dangerous your campaign feels to your players just look at how much time they spend trying to come up with a plan to win combat safely. Great vid as usual Ginny. Gonna hold onto the 'Shoot Your Monks' shorthand bc I just like the phrase. Also very good advice.
What I do for this problem, ironically, is purposefully remain ignorant to player abilities as much as possible and just present tasks and challenges that are thematically simple. An undead necromancer with an orb that contains all his life force, for example. The goal here is to get to the orb and break it without dying to the necromancer first. If you don't take into account character abilities, sure, your boss can get one-shot, but it's more realistic and fun because your players genuinely never know what to expect if you never make character specific abilities part of your planning. It could be easy, it could be harder than anyone thought, and it's more realistic because the monsters that the players fight are not aware of the character's abilities and thus are not going to prepare for them. This is not true however for certain niche character abilities which you definitely do have to pay attention too and cater towards every now and then.
Weirdly, I have a player who decided to go full-tilt on learning poison use. The campaign is set to get further and further into fighting demons. Who are immune to poisons. So we looked up ravages (we play 3.5) and they effect demons, but have such low save DCs that they almost never work. Instead, I find myself trying to find ways to improve the ravages vs. demons.
In the games that I've been running, I have been trying damn hard to keep my players alive! I don't really believe in killing off a character unless the player ends up becoming a murder-hobo. I've had only ONE time in a game where I saw a player get kicked out of a game, and he basically was throwing fire everywhere and killing civilians at random. (Facepalm) that guy was literally a chore to play with. Fortunately in my games, nobody has been going too far... at least, not that I can tell, and I've been trying hard to be fair with my players.
So as much as I agree with these, and it's totally because of bias- I absolutely run games this way. I'm going to bring up a thing about D&D. "If you need to give monsters total immunity, or even resistances and several extra attacks just to make them a challenge to the expected average Strength of the players, you're clearly not a good game designer." WotC are not good game designers. They just have a good marketing team. Don't hate me cuz I'm right.
The difference between creating a situational challenge and being a dick is the player's ability to at least interact with the situation. Even if it's to run away, the party should always have options that move the game forward. No road block should ever be impossible to surmount.
I don't care what my players can do. As the GM, I can do everything better! Seriously, let them do their thing. Simply present the story for them to enjoy. They are *supposed* to be the heroes of the story after all.
Makes me think of Brennan Lee Mulligan talk about building the story for Fantasy High "If you know one of your players wants to be an Inquisitive Rogue and you don't give him a grand mystery to solve, you're an asshole."
Unfortunately, D&D doesn't do mysteries well at anything mid-level or higher unless it uses some of the "fictional editing" tactics Ginny Di rightfully criticizes. Divination magic is OP.
@@bjhale It's the DM's prerrogative to take out feats, spells, subclasses, or even whole classes... that is, to modify D&D to suit their campaign's vision better.
@@danielrodriguezpena6765 I fully agree, but there is an often unvoiced view that the DM exists to facilitate the player's fun. And I do mean, "player's" and not "players'" because "fun" is often contextualized individually rather than collectively.
@@bjhale Actually, divination magic can be super fun for mysteries. There's a lot of videos and articles on that, but as a DM you can actually plan what clues you're going to give them when they use divination magic, so it's not as bad as it seems.
But with adequate power. That way, even if they fail, it will be a heroic one, and if they win, they feel the "spoils of war" well-deserved, and not as like the DM pitying them sothey get some free stuff.
I'd say "Attack everything." Don't let a group get away with leaving big glaring weaknesses, either*. Of course don't attack weaknesses exclusively, or even frequently - but unless their enemies are stupid or don't do their homework, it should happen occasionally. *unless they only take specialized jobs and prepare to exclude some risks - if they know they can't deal with undead, but avoid that by not taking quests that lead them into graveyards, crypts and tombs, it would be kinda dickish to have all the villains secretly be vampires, liches and necromacers.
Also, I'd add, don't meta-game as a dungeon/game master. NPCs should only have counters to the PCs strengths if they would know about the PCs strengths. A witch, watching the PCs make their way through her territory to get to her lair could scry some information, and use a few spells she knows would counter something she's seen the PCs do. But generally, NPCs shouldn't act with knowledge the GM/DM has.
"Shoot the monk!" is probably the best DM advice I've ever gotten... My players ended up enjoying their characters SO MUCH more after I started following this advice. Nowadays I even ask my players outside of the game what they like the most about their characters so I can execute this the best as I can. And let me tell you: it's still possible to challenge players and make things dangerous. The players are just enjoying those encounters more...
i'm playing a bard bc i want to learn how to do social encounters rather than just shooting everything. and last session i convinced a gang of harpies to move house with nothing but my words and some shiny things. i definitely felt that i peaked as an eloquence bard (with a side of magpie) in that moment. such a good feeling.
I love this video! A little story that feeds into this point: Recently, my DM threw a clay golem at our party that was immune to piercing or bludgeoning damage and left me, the rogue, unable to land damage with any of my weapons. So what I did instead was use my superior acrobatics to climb up the golem, sit on its shoulders, and cover its eyes to give my spellcaster party members advantage on attacks and make the golem attack with disadvantage. This went on for three rounds, with the golem trying and failing to shake me off, until our spellcasters killed it. This was one of my favorite moments in the last year of campaigning, and I felt so damn clever for thinking of a way to help without the use of any of my weapons AND allowed me to be a kickass acrobatic rogue. I felt rewarded for my creative problem solving and the whole party had a great time with this fight. I'll definitely be sure to keep this tip in mind in my upcoming campaign!
And I think it was memorable precisely because it was a one-off challenge. If the entire campaign had been about defeating adamantine constructs immune to your weapons that would have been kind of sucky
I love that this took away an obvious strength, forcing you to rely on something else instead. And it wasn't necessarily obvious. If you're going to close a door, you don't necessarily have to open a window, but leave a few unlocked for that player to discover for themselves.
I love this because how you help your team shine and i love that your DM didn't take you out of the fight completely like your hands are too small to blind the golem, he issued the challenge of your normal means of fighting wont work what do you do? and your rose to the occasion and helped your team.
This seems so obvious but you're SO right that it's soooo often a huge problem at tables. Thank you so much for saying it so clearly and way better than I have ever managed!
To be fair, a lot of this kind of BS is also just baked into the game itself. You know how really big monsters aren't really that mechanically interesting, they just have a bajillion hitpoints, do a bajillion damage, and tell your spellcasters to fuck off with legendary and magical resistances? A lot of "no" mechanics, ngl. "No" mechanics are never fun, and rarely necessary.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 Aw c'mon. That pretty hyperbolic. Legendary Resistances are really just there so a Big Bad can last a few rounds instead of being taken out instantly by a silver bullet. Most monsters with resistance or immunity to certain damage types or conditions are for flavor, so fighting an ooze doesn't feel like fighting an orc. Stabbing an ochre jelly should feel different from stabbing something with a fleshy, living anatomy. None of this feels like a big middle finger to a particular player for being "that class" that the DM wants to screw with.
As a first time DM, I can proudly say I kind of had this epiphany myself. Playing a tabletop where all of the weapons have a rank. Reading through the abilities available, I saw one that made the player immune to damage from weapons below a certain rank. And I'll admit, my first thought was; "well if someone takes that I guess I'll just have to make sure their enemies have higher rank weapons " But the more I thought about it I realized, what the fuck would be the point of them taking that ability? I could see myself as the player constantly asking "what rank is that sword" whenever I get hit, and being shot down constantly and just getting damn frustrated eventually. Felt like I kind of taught myself something about running a game in that moment. Glad to find this video expanding on that concept :)
@@FlatOnHisFace Legendary Resistance is just a bandaid to the ultimate nerfing tool: splitting the party. Two ranged, tactical goblins at a covering distance against one opponent will seem like 10 chromatic dragons against a group.
I think a big aspect of allowing players to pick up abilities and then nerfing them in the actual campaign is about giving the illusion of choice. It's really easy to hype D&D around a "be anything, do anything" focus, and then when the DM realizes that an ability or skill annoys them, they avoid letting it come up in play (even subconsciously!). It also acts as a way to shift the blame -- when the DM just bans a skill or ability, then it's very obviously on the DM that it won't get used, but when it just doesn't come up in play, it can feel more like it's the player's fault for choosing a "useless" ability, rather than the DM not letting it be used. Should acknowledge, I'm saying this as a DM who's realized that they're doing this, but I'm early enough into my campaign to correct it!
The illusion of choice is a great way of putting it. That’s the single most frustrating thing for me in a D&D game-when my agency or ability to make relevant choices is removed somehow.
"Why are you letter her take it at all?" This is the question to ask. Occasionally throw in a hiccup to make the character think out of the box, but don't always counter the ability. Amazing advice Ginny, as always. I've been DMing for decades, and I still always learn something from you. You've come across so much wisdom in your time playing/DMing.
Honestly, I agree with Ginny. Don’t nerf a player, make them feel power. Because I’m response you can give them more of a challenging thrall. Give the Monk an ability to deflect spells if they get Mage Slayer but make that Mage Harder to fight.
That sounds awesome, maybe rule it that it only works on projectile spells like fireball and magic missile. (Definitely make a list of valid and invalid spells in advance for such a homebrew, or otherwise have a clear way of resolving conflict for what counts as a valid spell to deflect) Something like cone of cold or disintegrate (a beam weapon) are less able to be grabbed and redirected. But still imagine the rush of using deflect missiles to block magic missile, a spell whose whole thing is being a guaranteed hit. (Useful if your wizard is like 5hp from death and you save him and he gets to counter attack)
@@jasonreed7522 I actually worked it out already. It works on spells that are classified as range spells. Magic Missile wouldn’t count but fireball will. And spells like Eldritch Blast, Chromatic Orb, etc, can be deflected.
Well, i had a dark elf pirate in a... Call it "Morally questionable" alingment campaign, ok? He wasn't an artificer, but the DM put the firearm profiency in the settings for some extra fun (instead of the avarage swords and magic setting he take that as a base, then add a few thousands of years for technology to advance), what he get. Believe me, shooting some werewolves and jackalweres in their stomachs with broken down silver coins totally worth the cost of "ammunition", and the gun's repair cost (it wasn't a shotgun originally, so it's barrel needed to be changed after the fights - after every second shot, i had to roll for ruin it with one higher failure chance). The thing is, a jackalwere is possess an ability, sleep gaze. And - as Ginny said - elves are immune to sleep effects. So, with one of the most effective weapon against them (we didn't had any silvered weapons, only some spells against them - and my impromptu silver-shooting scatter gun), the DM rolled for the jackalweres in every round, as they tried to incapacitate all of us. Technically, that basic race skill save our team that night. (I personally finished off 3 jackalweres, and thee werewolf from the 7 membered pack.)
The one trick I always keep in mind when a players' ability seems too strong: I attack that ability specifically, instead of denying it. E.g. my party's Paladin has an insane AC of 23, heavy armor master, and resistance to fire and Necrotic damage. But instead of having a lot of DEX-saves and ranged attacks that ignore the Paladin, or putting only damage types on the field that he doesn't reduce, I look for monsters with high to-hit bonuses and high damage numbers on those five damage types (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, fire, necrotic). So he gets to feel epic about surviving the onslaught, while still being challenged to do so.
The problems is that your players easily see through this. Because if these 10 dudes two attacks with +15 to hit just targeted anyone of the others instead... so you have to think before doing this too. It's not a magical rule that is easily applicable.
@@nerfherder5211 well yeah obviously, but it's still fun. If you're a tank, you WANT to be hit. That's the whole reason you built the character with all those protections. So when you do get hit but survive, it feels really good knowing that anyone else on the party probably wouldn't have survived it. It's basically the same as the druid being able to learn from the cat that the murderer smelled like pastries, only in combat.
@@nerfherder5211characters might want to attack him because they feel challenged it would b a matter of pride for a warrior known for swordfighting or a shooting fire to defeat him.
I would actually say to be careful with this. Attacking a player's strengths can turn out very poorly if they lose -- they are really good at one thing and you made that thing hard for them to succeed at! Instead, challenge your player's weaknesses. Instead of attacking you paladin with a +15, making them wonder why they even bothered to build 23 AC if the enemies just get stronger to break through it, think of a way to challenge their weaknesses. Make them roll a DEX saving throw or become immobilized. If they fail, you managed to prevent their insane tankiness from breaking the battle, and you did it without making them feel like their build is pointless. They're still good at what they're good at (not getting hit) but they can't just abuse it to dominate the entire combat
I get _really_ annoyed when a DM brute-forces their way past my character's strengths, sometimes. My main example is I had a really weird ranger character in PF1e. My bit was I wanted to play a half-dragon. Y'know, anime dude with dragon features, like wings, patches of scales for defence, claws, and a breath weapon. So I used a really specific combination of traits to create that, and gave him a stupidly high Con score to make sure he could take a lot of punishment before going down. As a side effect of all of these features, and the crazy high Con, this guy had _dumb_ bonuses to saves against specifically paralysis effects. So, naturally, at one point the DM spammed a paralyzing poison against the entire party without allowing us to react until we all failed it, so he could have some villains monologue at us. Making things _worse_ was that I failed on only the second roll due to awful luck, which was even more frustrating. I like when I'm allowed to use my strengths effectively, and when my weaknesses are carefully exploited on occasion. Targeting different characters' strengths and weaknesses, instead of just trying to counter everything the party has, encourages strategy as a party and makes combat more fun.
This is one hundred percent the best thing to do. One of my players is playing an assassin rogue. He’s really into character optimisation and is quite aware of the fact that most of the assassin subclass features are useless in combat and very situational (specifically the infiltration ones at 9th and 13th levels). So you bet your ass there’ll be a political intrigue arc at 9th level.
Also Johnny Chiodini of OXventure. And since his players are CONSTANTLY trying out off-the-wall, sometimes ridiculous ideas to overcome barriers he throws at them, he gets lots of practice at it!
Absolutely! You can definitely see his improv training when he "yes ands" a players idea. He allows for out of the box thinking that can lead to great rewards but he also makes players face the consequences of their actions fully if their big swing ends in a miss. The big failures almost seem more fun for the players to roleplay too!
Absolutely agree, Don't Nerf them, let them use their cool abilities sometimes, but also challenge them to be creative in overcoming their weaknesses and flaws
Agreed. I think that the onus on PCs being creative is on the players themselves rather than the DM. It should be the player running the barbarian who asks whether there are any loose rocks that they can throw rather than the DM giving them that creative spark. It works both ways, and everyone has to work at getting the most out of a game, not just the DM.
Sure! And if a player asks "are there any loose rocks around that I can try to through at the dragon?" the DM should be aware of the fact that they've created a challenge that their Barbarian may struggle to participate in without ranged weapons, and say "yes! there are!"
Also, interestingly enough, show them the power of their cool abilities. I had a Battlemaster who didnt use her superiority die and maneuvers, so I decided to show her how good they can be by having a fight where the enemy leader uses maneuvers. She was like "oh man that's so cool but we're getting ripd" and I allowed her to use her superiority die for "countermanuvers" that allowed her to disable the enemy leader's attacks. She became a great Battlemaster after that. Sometimes, the players need a bit of a push.
I am a fan of letting the players feel confident in their powers: it'll often lead to them getting in over their heads and *that* makes for gorgeous story
Kind of repeating what you already said, but if your players have specific or even niche abilties from their subclass, I highly recommend leaning into them every now and then. One of my proudest moments as a DM was seeing our Fey Wanderer Ranger's face light up when she realized she got to use her Beguiling Twist ability during a fight.
Oh definitely. My cleric I'm playing has See Invisibility as a domain spell. A little ago we encountered a crime family that all had the ability to become invisible. I was overjoyed, when my DM revealed, that he had invented them, so I'd get to use this spell.
@@trombonegamer14 I wouldn't say Beguiling Twist specifically was niche (just somewhat situational because I hadn't been using Charm effects much, which was mostly on me as a DM)
Ginny, you ROCK! I’ve been playing since 1982 and have seen the game (and other rpgs) go through a bunch of cycles. I’m a big fan of the DM being a…big fan of the players. Don’t coddle or Monty Hall them but provide a game for them that is fun and challenging. You share common sense wisdom and your production (which is exceptional) makes you one of my go to channels for thoughtful infotainment. I love your cosplays and just the whole package of what you put out. Thank you!
Absolutely right! Especially that "Holy shit I have something for this!" Moment. I was once playing a bard, feeling useless as a shogoth was steamroller us into what was sure to be a TPK. Many of us were trapped inside apart from our healer, and I was reading through one of my magic items, an olham harp. I noticed that the shogoth was taking up nine spaces, and the olham harp has firestorm. That is nine hits on the shogoth, that's weak to fire. I roasted us all alive, but we managed to stabilise everyone, turning an almost certain TPK, into a memorable fight.
I know I am four months late, but I just want to point out that (to my knowledge) there is nothing in the official rules that makes area of effect spells such as Fire Storm deal more damage on creatures that occupy a larger space. Personally, I might houserule that such creatures could take an "anti half-cover" i.e. a penalty of -2 to their Dexterity saving throw as they are extra hard to miss/wouldn't fit in the "blind spots" of the spell.
@@paulkemp8520 that's not how that works - the *area of* firestorm is those cubes. the cubes are not separate instances of firestorm, so something in the area (that being the cubes) still only takes the damage once. good thinking, though
@@dr.antonius8350 Honestly, if it really does not work that way, it was probably still for the best the GM ruled like that. Definitely made for a more memorable and fun experience than just saying "Yeah, no. You all die."
This is exactly why I'm letting one of my players play a Mystic next campaign. He is so ridiculously overly happy now because he likes playing weird, fucky classes like that, and I'm excited because he always uses his weird, fucky class stuff to push me into being a better and more flexible DM. I love it when my players have a "I have a thing for that!" moment that I completely did not expect and absolutely did not plan for that changes the whole direction of the session. And I love it when I can delicately sneak in things that will surprise THEM with a moment like that. Some of the biggest smiles I've screenshotted have been moments like that.
trust me, those players will cherish those moments for ages. When me and my friends meet we love telling stories about when the paladin uncovered a plot with their divine sense or when primeaval awareness helped the party follow the hiding enemy. moments where we remember a facet of our abilities and lets us shine give us so much serotonin. You understand that, and that makes you sound like a wonderful DM to have.
I assure you, that your players love you for that. My DM gave a crime syndicate the ability to turn invisible, just so that I'd have an opportunity to use "See Invisibility" and I loved that so much.
I'm currently also playing a mystic, and it's a lot of fun, we're only level 3 in the campaign, and my character usually holds back because he doesn't really care about fights, he's more the kind of character to mess with people and calmly walk away from a threat he doesn't deem worthy. I also am roleplaying it in such a way that my character getd enough information on the disciplines he learns before he has access to them. (Like a book on biology, medicine and arcane healing to get the psychic restoration discipline, he spent years messing with people and studio them to get the mantle of awe and psychic inquisition disciplines.) I like it a bit more that way ^^
I think the most important thing when letting players play weird homebrew/UA classes is ensuring they don't overshadow other pcs. Realistically a particular pc's power level doesn't matter (the GM can challenge any group with the right situation and enies), but a pc's power level compared to the other pcs in the group very much *does* matter. If you have players that dominate the group and others that feel pointless or like they are only there to watch someone else's spotlight moments there is a problem.
I decided one time to do that with my dm, but with mundane items. I played a scout rogue and had been allowed the magic item the bag of holding. The dm also gave us starting gold (for context we were starting at level 10). This was great for the clerics wanting better armor and weapons and the wizard to purchase spells to start with, but for me, with no spells, and with the items I wanted being already handled, I choose to use the remaining gold to browse and purchase a bunch of mundane items and stuff them in my bag of holding. This became a running joke as my character would say “I think I have something for that” and dive nearly up to their waist, with mostly just their tail (tabaxi) sticking out of the bag as they dug around for the item they thought of (I thought of) that might help the situation. In the end we won the encounter we were testing, and frankly expected to tpk with (context: we were stress testing a dungeon the dm created for another group). A large part was due to my mundane items, though everyone contributed greatly to its success.
This is just more than DM advice, this is amazing life advice. IRL, it's so much more fun to play co-op with people you care about, rather than PvP'ing them!
I've been having a bad time with my current DM constantly nerfing core aspects of my class like paladin smites completely and I'm truly thinkin of leaving it not just because of that but it was a major influence. DMs this is a real issue
Dude, that's heartbreaking to hear. I hope they're the kind of person you can take aside and have a chat about what you'd like to see in the game, and see if you can come to an arrangement where you're both happy.
I think the number 1 thing I do that make my players invest themselves in the world is: Likable NPCs! When you create a cast of characters your players engage with, it makes them care about the game all the more. If your players care about characters you create, their investment with the quests those NPCs give will be more genuine and real. They care about helping the character, not just getting the reward. But in the same vein as what you’re saying in this video, NEVER make ally NPCs take spotlight from the players. Your players are the heroes of their story, let them feel like heroes!
Unfortunately my “heroes” (regardless of their alignment…) will always just kill any NPC as soon as they see it. I was running an Acq Inc campaign and I literally just gave up on it because they wanted to kill EVERY thing/one. Can’t run a campaign when everyone wants to do nothing but murder hobo, but then also complains that pure dungeon crawls “are boring” 🙃
@@Bonobo_JoJo If you ever dm for that group again id suggest maybe making a campaign themed around combat, Like their all gladiators trying to fight they're way out to freedom, or survivors of an apocalypse and everyone they come across could be hostile or flees fearing the same from them (is this case id also show them some npcs are harmless families trying to survive , might build their trust in npcs :D )
@@sun75 thanks! Trying to put something like this together now while we finish up a campaign ran by another friend of ours. Hopefully this approach works or I might just stop offering to DM for this group because as much as I want them to enjoy it, it’s not worth running if I get no enjoyment out of it.
I definitely feel all of this. I played in a game once where all of the DM's NPCs were characters he had played in other campaigns. They were all level 20+, and it felt like they were either constantly pushing us around or disappearing conveniently when we got into a fight. It definitely felt like we were side characters in his self-insert game. You know a game is good when you're actively seeking out NPCs to talk to because you just like them.
I have never had this, but my players had this with their first attempt. (Why they were a little apprehensive returning) Where basically the NPC's were the heroes and they were the side characters.
I agree with all of this, but would like to add one thing! It's true, that constantly countering the PC's abilities would be bad form, but also keep in mind with things like reoccurring villains, that SOME bad guys will learn from their mistakes and may learn to counter SOME things the party can do (but obviously not all). Of course, I think this is a little different than the DM countering things just to counter them. With this scenario, I usually also add something in that a PC may be able to do to thwart the bad guy as well, to give that moment of "turning the tables". It's definitely a balancing act!
if the party is getting a reputation then it makes sense for an enemy that can plan for their encounter to counter the known abilities of the party. But only do that for enemies that know the party is coming for a fight
@@ratchet1freak It also helps if PC's get overconfident. They are going to pick a fight with someone that is over them or prepared for them. And a reputation is something that can get those who are better prepared for them. Its a balancing act, although I find that enemies I create and using tactics can sometimes be way more influential than countering them directly. Players very often get into the charge forward and use my cool skills and forget that tactics are a thing.
I think that's a different idea entirely. The bad guys want to win, but they don't know everything until they do. Once they know something you should make sure the players understand they know that thing. Villian monologues aren't that cheesy lol
Especially if the players know this is a recurring adversary they'll see again, and that they're learning from experience ("you won't catch me with that same trick again!" "I remember last time!" etc), the party can even make choices to limit themselves so as to preserve a 'gotcha' surprise for the next encounter. I'm in a game where we repeatedly see the BBEG but we're "too beneath him" of course so we get left with the minions repeatedly, and in one encounter we spent about 3 rounds intentionally flubbing rolls and putting on an act of how bad we were at combat until BBEG left the scene, so he would underestimate us in the final battle. It can really add something to the in-game narrative to have long term planning/consequences like that.
Every time Ginny posts a video her eyes get 10% bigger. Also, Thank you for the "shoot your monk" phrase. Its been a core of how I like games but had no name for it. Keep up the good work GD!
Well said, Ginny. I don't get adversarial DMs. Personally, I'm my players' biggest fan, and when their characters get to do something cool I cheer right alongside them.
Dungeon World had some amazing advice for DMs that the Dungeon Master's Guide either doesn't ever state, in any edition, or buries pretty deep. *1: Play To See What Happens.* Don't lead players down a predetermined path. Be creative with what they do and they will be creative with what you do. *2: Leave Lots Of Open Space.* Don't fill in every detail of your maps. People like exploring and discovering what no-one else knew before. In the narrative, don't know all the answers. Six people are going to come up with better ideas than what one does. *3: Be A Fan Of Your Players' Characters.* Make their backstories matter. Lean into their abilities. Want their ideas to work (... then make them roll).
I dont get adverserial when MAKING the world But i do get adverserial as far as tactics. If they get tpked its for mistakes not due to abilities or something
Oh yes, the whole "Your ability ruin my gameplan so it don't work" DM action. As someone who's father who is mostly DM who does this all the time. I can say that it really do ruin the game. I have played a Light Cleric who's anti-darkness magic ability they can use once per day did not work. I have played a flying owlin only for there to be invisible walls 5 feet above ground level. So many tales I could tell. This is why I barely play DnD anymore, DM's please stop. Let your player's do their cool things and find some other way around it.
What about when someone ability destroys opportunities for others? I set up an encounter for my scout based rogue player to scout and do what she does best, but our ranger unearthed arcana just meditated and could tell everything she could have discovered in a 10 minute scouting roleplay in 30 seconds
@@redith137 that sounds like a party balance problem. 2 party members with scouting abilities and one of them being able to do it safely and remotely. Though one option there is to split the difference, have each member be able to discover only part of what is needed. The second player always seeming to find the real key to the puzzle but using information that the first gathered to get there.
@@redith137 Make a missiom where they can't get the information by meditating. Where you have to be physically there and roll if you hear or see something. Not always, just to let both characters shine. If they both have scouting abilities, it's not the ranger's fault that the one used will be the safer one, so please don't punish for it. But playing around it (if you dont make it obvious that you want to counter them) to let everyone shine is fine.
@@redith137 I'm not entirely sure how the meditating works, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be hard to imply that some information can be gathered by meditation. While other information can be discovered by physically scouting
@@redith137 Do you mean the 5th level spell Commune With Nature? If so, spellcasting costs a resource (spell slot, in this case the highest level available for a Ranger) so if you make it clear a combat is likely to follow they may be reluctant to use that resource. Also as mentioned above, it sounds like a great opportunity for the characters to work together, with the Ranger giving the Rogue intel on where to go/best approach and what to prepare for in general, and the Rogue going in up close for more detail. This also happens a LOT in parties where anyone has a flying Familiar, and the solution is very similar. Let the birds-eye-view guy scout the broad details, just enough to tell the party where you've hidden valuable information or items in places only a very sneaky physically present PC can get to.
One of my favorite moments in my last campaign was when my three level 4 players were breaking into a prison camp to rescue one of the adventurers' family. I set it up so the camp was surrounded by a rocky ridge with a single entrance that was extremely heavily guarded, far more than the party could reasonably defeat themselves. The idea I had for the session was that the players would sneak into and out of the camp without alerting the gate guards, but instead our rogue snuck around behind the gate while the other two drew the guards' attention to the front. The rogue was then able to singlehandedly one-shot 2/3rds of the guards via sneak attack while our Blood Hunter tanked the hits and the Bard kept everyone topped up on health and Bardic Inspiration. Each class got to lean into their strengths and the synergy between players was electrifying. By playing to their classes' strengths the party took on an encounter with a challenge XP two times higher than what's considered a deadly encounter. My players got to feel like gods and I was so excited for them I gave them all a point of inspiration. 😝
I think another point that ties into this is acknowledging when you as a DM make mistakes. I did in my last session. I gave all my players a magic item for completing a flyting challenge. Yes we did indeed have a rap battle lmao. There was an oversight on my end though due to how much fun we were all having. I forgot that this item not only gave them a +2 to Charisma but they also gain advantage on persuasion checks… yeah that could be a problem. The thing is even though they can definitely abuse this power it was my mistake. When it was brought up they immediately thought that I was going to change how the item worked or find a way to take the it back, but I said “No, you guys get to keep it. Im not going to take that fun away from you because I was careless”. In the end communication with your group is what matters and acknowledging when you as a DM make mistakes is a key factor into a great D&D experience!
Tbf, I'm not sure not changing the item is a good thing either. I'd say talking with your players and acknowledging your mistakes is fine, but give and take with your players should also exist where you're not perpetually giving and they're not. At the very least, reaching a compromise with your players along the lines of "I don't want to take this away because I think it's fun, so here's what I propose to tweak" is a good way about it. That said, rolling with the punches isn't bad either, you can find interesting ways to challenge them or make their overuse of the item garner unwanted attention. My point being, acknowledging your mistakes and communicating with your players doesn't mean only fixing the mistakes that work against the party nor should it mean not asking your players to meet you half-way for the sake of the game.
@@kylehahn4410 this is very true! Luckily i trust them to no abuse this power and if they do then we shall have to have a talk about it, but im not super worried about it lol plus they earned it, the flyting challenge was just awesome!
i absolutely appreciate when my dm admits a mistake, even if they change things back. i'd take "actually, sorry, i've gotta nerf this item, i messed up" over "it mysteriously disappears and you didn't roll high enough to know why" ANY DAY. playing/discussing in good faith feels a lot more like we're working *together* for the sake of the game, rather than the dm being cagey and not wanting to admit they're like. human? fallible?
Admitting to mistakes is so huge. I don't know why some people treat it like physical harm or something to confront a mistake they made or personal malicious assault when someone else points one out. People can be pointing out a simple mistake and also not calling you a failure as a gm ffs. No need to take it personally if a player has a slight grievance with a thing that happened to occur in a zero-irl-stakes game. We're all here to just have fun.
Bonus to charisma and persuasion isn't really that powerful. Remember, social checks aren't mind control, and the d20 is only for situational uncertainty - not competency uncertainty.
This is great advice. I learned this the hard way when a player left the campaign after feeling powerless. After that I realized that you want to empower people and give them what they are looking for in the campaign. Not make it easy, but payoff whatever they want to experience plying dnd. That's how I start every season prep now : how to give every player something.
I literally did this when my DM started enforcing his rules interpretations to undo or mitigate legitimate damage my wizard was doing by cleverly using spell combos. It had felt from the start like he was trying to make my character irrelevant or to tell me I was wrong about everything I wanted my character to do. I left that game to start DMing, not at all sure that I was ready. Best choice I’ve ever made!
I had a prospective player ask about being a Kalashtar, and little did she know, saving rolls would play a HUGE role in my homebrew campaign. She said she was fine with changing races, but I was like, "no no, it's fine" and immediately started thinking of how great the racial abilities would mess with my planned campaign. I panicked for a few seconds before thinking "this is a huge advantage" and started to feel excited thinking of all the ways I would have to adapt, keeping that ability in mind. Unfortunately, she left after session 0 because of other stuff, but it was neat to think about
The story is about the players. You set the foundation for the story, lore, and characters but it is the players story. Not the DM's. Let them feel powerful! It is funner for everyone.
This can be heavily dependent on how much initiative the players have. One group I have I barely have to think of story sometimes and 80% of the story is just whatever they wanted to investigate. It has led to a sugar fueled bender of rum, sugar, and molasses across the east coast of the British Colonies in piracy where they just stole sugar and molasses from the colonies until they hit icebergs. My other group is much more willing to take plot hooks and stick on the path at times and normally needs a little push to take initiative. That I have much more of the story to make and means I have to have a much more detailed outline. Not that they don't do their own thing, they just stick to it. So, it depends on the group really and a DM has to balance between them. I know fits the 1st rule of DM: Know your players. The 2nd group works way WAY better as a team in combat though and in supporting each other.
@@als3022 to me honestly I think that is a reflection of the DM and not the players. Players should never be expected to always follow the plot you set forth and if it is uninteresting to them and they are doing other things that means the story didn't connect to them. So find ways it can. If they really wanted to investigate more then the plot then integrate that into the story more and make it more significant. From the way you explained it to me this is you want them to play YOUR story and not make THEIRS. You even alluded to this when you mention the plot hooks. Are they invested in the plot hooks? What makes the players interested in it? How does it relate to their character? These are on you as a DM to figure out.
@@the_dunks3770why are you preaching and trying to teach to the guy how to DM? Their comment was clearly about their experience with two different groups of players. They did not mention at any point wanting to force the plot on their players or having problems with players not following the story the DM planned. They simply stated the difference between players who enjoy sand-box games and those who like being guided by the plot planned by the DM. If you think the story should be of the players' only, that's your opinion... but remember people play the game to have fun in the way they have fun.
@@Marco-ev5ve oh not at all wanting to try and teach I was just trying to give my opinion and thoughts on it from my own perspective. But I do agree ultimately that whatever allows to have the group have the most fun is important.
This is incredibly important. I had this instinct when I started out as well, but I'm happy to say it's waned over the years. Great advice and another great video! Funnily enough, I did, in fact, shoot my monk last session. With a cannonball. I let them count it as a projectile and they seemed pretty happy being able to decrease that damage by a decent amount!
I'm playing a monk in my dnd campaign, and we did a quick stint of a ship journey. Also, note that I'm an overconfident bastard type. (and my monk is too) So we ran into a pirate warship. We were on a passanger ship so fighting wasn't really an option, but thankfully we were faster so retreating was easyish. BUT we were getting fired at as we ran out of range. And my monk had this great idea, that he wanted to try to deflect the cannonball. The party laughed, as it was a joke, right? Nope. My character, on the last turn before we got out of range, finally got hit by a cannonball. And by hit, I mean threw himself in front of the ball as it was hurtling at the ship. Then came this tense moment as DM rolled dice where everyone realized this could happen. I could just do it. DM was totally cool with it if the numbers worked out. My character ended up being slammed against the ship and falling into the water. Dm rolled way too high. But the important thing was, I tried something, the DM allowed it, and we had a good time.
This is needs to be in the DMs Guide! First focusing on the enabling player abilities so that they are the solutions to obstacles helps you avoid so many DM pitfalls. Thanks Ginny
i once allowed one of my players to be a shadow sorccerer drow with the elven acuracy feat. meant if they cast darkness on an amulet the darkness stays centered on the character and they had advatage with an extra d20. 3d20 drop lowest two. instead of giving my enemys dark vision i just went with it and it turned out, in really small areas this feature messes with a lot fo the other player features as many spells or abilitys need line of sight. still pretty strong but not impossible to keep the fights interesting.
@@hartthorn the ability specifically says their darkvision works on magical darkness. So just giving normal mobs darkvision would still be pointless in magical darkness unless you gave them devil sight. Which was the entire point
I think (esp. as a new DM) it can be intimidating when you realise mid-session that you forgot a character had a certain ability and now you're worried your whole encounter is "ruined" (i.e. won't go how you expected and won't be a challenge). That might produce the panic response of "oh... this technically isn't a language" or "um actually this is... magic darkness - your darkvision doesn't work." But ime, better to let the players breeze through the obstacle they're specialised for - just throw in some extra or harder ones later!
Ginny Di, Thank you for another great video. My wife and I are big fans. Funny story, I bought her one of your calendars for Christmas, only to find out she bought one for me too. Now we have two in the house.
True. It is more of an issue if players play things that are unbalanced compared to each other. I dm a campaign, where everyone rolled stats, and one player got very good rolls, and another got very bad, the rest vere average. That got hard to balance. It is the first campaign I dmed, and the first game for all the players, soit was a bunch of mistakes in the beginning. People not understanding their abilities, or having 14 as a highest stat in lv 10. I ended up letting them reroll stats, and change classes/subclasses to undo some beginner mistakes or misunderstandings they made. Then it was an ingame timeskip to explain it away. It`s finally more balanced between the party, and I can actually consider the CR ratings a bit more, as I risked a tpk by sending CR appropriate enemies on the party before I let them alter the characters.
@@rineraanakiir i always have my players roll stats but tbh i tend to be fair but kinda arbitrary with rerolls if the total score is to far above or below standard array they reroll to orevent this 3 18s but the rest is under 10? Sure 5 16s? Hell no Nothing above a 14? Reroll unless its all 14s and thats what they want That kinda thing its a game i like the randomness rolling adds(nothing is better than a 6 for role playing or getting start with a 20 in strength even if 3 other stats are 8s) but try to keep everything fun lol
@@mondaysinsanity8193 I agree. But when we were all new, we didn`t really think of it, they all wanted to rush their characters so we could start playing. And I thought combat was unbalanced because I did something wrong, and watched video after video to try and figure something out. I did not think there was an issue with their characters being unbalanced compared to each other as I went straight to blaming my own inexperience.... but we figured it out underways, and the game was always fun for everyone, just sometimes too easy or hard, depending on who tried to do what.
Yes, that's very true - the problems come when you have some players who like really wargame-y tactical builds, and others who like characterful concept builds who aren't geared to being exceptional in combat. (Imagine for example a blade pact warlock who's not a hexblade, or a scholarly barbarian who dumped Dex instead of Int!) Powergamers often don't realise that the non-powergamers still want to feel heroic and be able to achieve great feats - they just don't want to treat D&D like it is Warhammer. There's not much room for those character players to shine if there's even one powergamer in the party. Having learned from long experience, I now curate my player groups to make sure everyone has a similar approach to the game (which, typically, means not running for powergamers). But going the other extreme - an all-powergamer party and concurrently superpowered foes - would work just the same!
This is a subclause of the "Rule of Cool." They have these skills for a reason, a good DM deliberately gives them places to use them. Except that one skill for that one fight. You know the one I'm talking about. Always remember, D&D is a shared narrative experience. The players and the DM are *not* oppositional forces. The DM wins when the players do.
Completely true! I also tend to do this, and I didn´t meant it mean. I was just afraid that it will break the game. After starting watching Critical Role I saw that the players can use pretty cool skills and it doesn´t mess up the game. Now this is also Ginny Di approved, nice!
@@codymarshall587 Oh true. I think their comment was 4 minutes ago and the video had said 9 minutes, but I forgot to consider the video posted time lol
Yes yes yes! I’m preparing to DM a homebrew campaign for the first time, and every time I find myself wandering near nerfing territory, I ask myself why I’m worried about my friends having too much fun/feeling strong and capable. I can always add another monster or indulge in a crazy idea I hadn’t thought of, but I can never un-bummer a player who was excited about something and is told no, or that never comes up at all.
My group's Paladin was really excited about his recent immunity to 'frightened', so last week I had a devil try to use a 'frightened' ability on him which he proudly announced that he fears no devil. His turn was up next, in which he used 'abjure enemy' to instead frighten the devil and the devil failed its save. It's moments like this that make me so proud of my players.
Sick. Turn that shit right around!
He really just pulled an uno reverse on a literal devil, king behavior
That moment where your paladin feels like he's literally the Doom Slayer.
Please tell me Paladin said one of the following:
Resist the devil and he shall flee!
Deus Vult!
Tis' opposite day!
It's over devil, I have the holy ground!
@@christophersanders3252 Ahaha, I'll forward these on so he has them in his repertoire!
Someone wise once said "a character sheet is a love letter to the DM"- basically, if your players put something on their sheet, it's because they want to see what cool shit you will do with it in your game!
Thanks for putting this into words! I had a thought similar to this when they announced the Plasmid race. I thought they were to over powered because they are goop people that can squeeze into really small holes. They can just go anywhere they want! And then a friend told me, "sure you can't stop them from getting into any room you make, but you can control what's waiting for then in that room when they get there."
I get their initial impulse, but I also sort of don’t get the idea that DMs must be the exact anti-thesis to their players. Like the point of DND isn’t to “win” as the DM, it’s to make a fun game.
Challenging is good, but there’s a difference between “How do I make this challenging” and “How do I keep my players at square one forever”
I understand its can be frustrating to have players steam role a monster fight you invested so much in crafting. But thats the expectation, monsters will lose most fights and if a player has a new toy let them play with it for a while before the fire resistant enemies show up when the wizard has been a little fireball happy but he has a chance to pick up some cool new spells of different damage type next level.
I think the DM vs Player is a psychology trap involving get attached to creations and having your dastardly plans crushed too often resulting in a desire for revenge. Its best to reframe it as DM makes stuff to cheer the players on as they overcome those challenges.
@@jasonreed7522 It's important to remember that DnD is fundamentally a social game. Goofing off with your friends comes before the "validity and design" of the game. Don't get me wrong - mechanics do influence behavior in a game, but the behavior should end up being fun.
@@jasonreed7522 I don't know if you hit your advice hard enough: *You are making monsters so that the players can beat them up, not so they can marvel at your masterpiece.* If you lose sight of that, things go tits-up.
I get what your saying, but I also feel this is kind of a strawman of very real problems that cause this issue,
Poor party balance, if one player's DPR is x3 the others or another character has 1/4 dpr you might want to counter play the strong PC or cuddle the weak NPC, both create problems but the former often becomes how do I "fix" this OP PC, if a player destroys all the doors in your dungeon so they don't have to explore, they are, TEARING APART THE ADVANTURE, you have to build around their refusal to just play like a normal human being.
PS. Personally I don't care to much about the issues, I'll talk to the players for the former, and if my players want to wreck the game that's on them. Within REASON let players talk/fight out their own disruptive members, because if the DM does something that's the voice of God, it's a power balance issue.
@@IrvineTheHunter That tearing down all the doors thing reminds me of an anecdote.
Players utterly rip apart everything in dungeon, not behaving too believable, but you really can't and shouldn't stop them. Two nights later, crazy illusion-of-a-lich appears before them. She states that the hobkognolls that laired in that dungeon were weak and deserve the fate you gave them. But that was her dungeon. She gives the party an outlandish bill for all the doors they tore off hinges, traps they destroyed, tables they broke, and tapestries they burned. Look, loot is loot and to the victor go the spoils, all that. But the excessive property damage was uncalled for. I'm a patient woman. Eternal even. You have one week to pay.
Challenges aren't the fun part, overcoming the challenges are. So let your players overcome them :)
Such a great video 🙌
Love this framing!!
Totally! I hate it when the DM waffels on challenges and just gives it to the party.
A milestone in every DM's/GM's life is when they realize they are not supposed to compete with the PCs, but to build one shared experience together with the players. OP powers are there to give that power trip experience for the players they see from movies - if we give them opportunities to shine, everyone will be more happy with the game.
Insightful. Also I heavily appreciate the subtitles!! Thank you for making your videos accessable
The only spell I've ever really struggled with is detect thoughts, mainly because I run a game that is often shrouded in mystery and espionage. Its hard to find the line between "no you get no information" and "here's the whole plot, this character knows everything." I've been really enjoying Campaign 3 of CR and watching how Matt handles that spell. Great tips all around.
Simply reduce the scope of what players learn out of the character; instead of "this character worries about this plot, here's all the details", go with something more along the lines of "this character is worried about where he'll hide X murder weapon after his vile act, here's what the murder weapon he plans to use is like". You could also reveal the character's motives instead, and possibly open up a way for your players to resolve things differently or pick up on something odd, a greater mystery in your plot. Keep in mind, your mystery is likely composed of answers to many questions, the what, how, when, where and why; with Detect Thoughts you can reveal one of these, but keep the other answers in the dark.
Abusing my psych background, here's how I've handled it: thoughts are rarely coherent or straightforward. Characters using "Detect Thoughts" get a montage of memories, emotions, and impressions that the players then have to piece together on their own, rather than a coherently presented narrative. It usually gets them some helpful hints, as well as even more questions.
Both of these. Surface thoughts are situational and transient. If the BBEG isn't explicitly thinking of the details of their plot at that moment, all you'll get is their shopping list, or what they watched on tv the night before - mundane things like that. And memories are jumbled, confused, and may not be 100% accurate. Much like Mass Effect 1, you could give them the jumble, and then turn figuring out the clues into the quest.
Are you letting PCs cast spells in front of other people with no consequence? I feel like there's a good chance you are. Spell components matter - I'd be mad if someone walked up to me and said SKDABADOOLIE while holding a copper coin and waving it around.
I hardly ever look for ways to prevent my players from using their special "thing" whatever that is (unless it's being abused then it just needs to be moderated but not taken away). I always look for ways to highlight it and make them feel good that it came into play in the game, sometimes making them the hero the party needed at that moment. Mostly it's about making judgment calls, that's what the DM's job is. This comes with the stipulation that my players are not allowed to "hide" their skills and abilities from me. I need to know them going in because I am here to tell a story, not to be the BBEG the party needs to defeat.
IMO the key is to switch up your encounters. Like you can make one thing happen in a forrest where your druid can speak to plants and the ranger has favorite terrain and then the next thing happens in a big city where the rogue can climb onto roofs and the bard knows somebody to make contact and get information and the next part of your campaign is again something else where again other strengths of the players come into play.
That way class features and abilities will automatically come up over and over again, just not every time.
8:12 had this happen with a white dragon fight. What I did was set up abandoned ballistas from the soldiers that fought the dragon before that dealt good damage. The two melee characters teamed up having one load and the other shoot for maximum rate of fire. They did this until the dragon landed for bite/claw attacks, then they attacked with their melee weapons.
The way I learned this was simple: being a player and internalizing what I wanted and remembering that when I GMed. Sometimes I designed a campaign around scratching such an itch. When I recruited, having taken the design seriously, it DEFINITELY got responses.
Much of what is indicated here is simply philosophical in nature: while there are adversarial, 'versus' *aspects* to the player/GM relationship, and the complete absence of it is likely undesirable to both parties, it cannot completely dominate and dispense with the cooperative elements. Like any game, there are rules, some codified, some spoken and some neither.
Perhaps even the best GMs are those for whom it is entirely a facade they masquerade through on the path to entertainment as the penultimate goal. But some would despise that! Preferring a more simulationist experience. The worst table is one where everyone wants something different.
I also think it could be interesting to see how people themselves react to encounters, a villain may not know a certain skill and will learn to adapt making the encounter way cooler. the best example I can think of is from a book I read, a castle is being attacked and one of the queens most trusted men and sword-fighting teacher defends the fleeing people, the villain sees this and simply sends an archer to shoot him, this man deflects the arrow MID-AIR. this obviously shocks most of the soldiers seeing this, the villain however simply sends a second archer to shoot him, again he deflects one arrow but the other one hits him just fine. I feel like things like that can definitely make the characters feel more real and will be a cool way to show off and still see your limits ass a player.
Once I DM’d a horror one-shot inspired by cabin in the woods and other classic slashers, where the players chose the killer that would hunt them down at summer camp. There were a few NPC camp counselors, two of which were possible killers wearing glamoured armor. One of my players wanted to start the game with custom made goggles of true sight. That was the only thing I have EVER told a player “no, I’m sorry that would actually break the one-shot.” And I told them that during character creation, instead of saying yes and then just destroying the item immediately.
As a player, I always hate when I’m told I can have a specific ability that never ever comes up in play or just never seems to work, I’d rather be told “no” during character creation if it would actually break anything.
This reminds me of a moment (which admittedly hadn't yet happened when this came out) from Fantasy High.
So, Gorgug, the Barbarian, had somehow ended up in a situation where he was simultaneously charmed by one foe and frightened of another.
He, in character, asked "Should I go into a Rage, and really f**k them up?"
To which the NPC replied "Yes... Go into a Rage... Really f**k them up."
And then we got the greatest line in any Actual Play ever: "I use Mindless Rage, which gives me immunity to being charmed and frightened."
It's all about that balance. I always find it fun to figure out this kind of thing. Especially with encounters, it's fun to figure out a way to tailor an encounter for a character to be extra useful in or one they may have to change things up to stay as useful. If I got a character who casts almost exclusively fire spells you bet I'm gonna get an encounter in there with monsters who are vulnerable to fire, but at some point they'll also most certainly face something resistant or even immune to it. Great vid Ginny :) this is always a good reminder
In that example:
How likely are oak trees to be.
Maybe the player and their party have to take that into account.
Especially if the bomebrew class is balanced around it.
In moderate climates: plenty.
Up in the frosty north? Less so
Tropics... getting thin
Desert? Forget about it.
Elemental plane of fire? Why do you even ask.
So many interesting situations could arise where the party has to make decisions, or come up with clever ideas to lure BBEG to the right place.
Roleplaying opportunities o' plenty.
I like to take this one step further, by rewarding (or some times punishing) choices outside of class and core game features. For example, Clerics would generally know more about religious topics, so I'd give them advantage when such a thing comes up, even if they don't have features for it. A character that has psychic powers, such as an aberrant mind sorcerer would get to use their proficiency bonus on their intelligence check for detect thoughts, at the same time, the paladin in full plate armor would have a really hard time swimming out if he ever found himself in deep water, or the barbarian with the giant weapon would have to think about how they want to get their giant weapon over a wall everyone is climbing, or across the flimsy bridge.
Great DM tip. This is one of the hardest things for me to do as a GM - because I have meta knowledge on how the characters function, it becomes really, REALLY hard to stop myself from totally nerfing the players by designing encounters which perfectly counter them.
But every now and again, some of my enemies do very suboptimal moves which really let the players shine 😁 keep on giving great advice Giny!!!!
That abrupt ending was surprising and refreshing. Interesting...
Something else to be thinking about: the flip side of "sucks so you never use it" is "so good it's your standard option, so it's boring."
E.g.: the standard "attack" action is something that's generally be pretty cool: fancy swordplay or whatever! But because it's *always* the action you take, unless you further embellish it occasionally for extra-special attacks (the classic example being "how do you want to do this"), it's not going to be able to be interesting when it really matters.
Or take poison. If most enemies are immune, that's boring. But if it's "fort save or 1d10 damage" then that's also kind of boring - it's just another source of damage, like a flaming sword, so it's not *that* interesting even if it takes down a boss. In order to be *particularly* interesting, an ability has to be *uniquely* useful for a situation.
The usual way around this is limited uses, but that can just lead to item hoarding (depending on your players) unless you very clearly signal "yes, this is a good time to use this item." Circumstantial items which have to be used creatively also work (but you have to be careful that that creativity doesn't just reduce to something that can be done for every combat, like the classic "throw sand in enemies eyes to blind them").
If you're worried about power imbalance, sit down with the others to give them special sauce too and then adjust the difficulty level accordingly. Also, while making all enemies and situations circumvent player abilities is dumb and not fun, it can always be cool to put them in an occassional situation where the special sauce won't work. Especially in sidestories that are about a certain character. If a sworn enemy of a monk sends his minions to capture them, I would assume that ranged weapons would not be used against that monk because those minions would already be in the know about their target for example.
(Minor spoiler for Stormlight archive book 2 below.)
You can actually take this same premise and link it to writing stories in general.
if you have a swordsmaster in your book who cant seem to lose a sword fight, put him in a sword fight but turn the tables on him with some sort of trickery.
for anyone that likes stormlight archive see Adolin's fight in the arena as an example of this. Perfect example of an author attacking his characters strengths.
I once played an 18 cha smooth-talking rogue who could (in theory) con the socks off a grand duke. of course, to the DM this meant that just about every street thug, innkeeper and mailman around was completely immune to my charms and/or had connections that meant p. much instant death if I ever failed a charisma roll. what fun.
An experienced dm will utilize the special abilities of PC's in up and down beats, no different than story beats. Sometimes plan an encounter to nullify an advantage to make them feel a little unsure of them self. Then plan an encounter (as you say) to let one of their special abilities save the day or shine. Rotate these amongst the pc's so everybody gets some time in the spotlight. But most of the time just let the situation dictate the opposition without an eye to the pc's abilities. They'll find ways to use them and if it turns out one of their abilities is nullified well that's a down beat for that character for the encounter. As you say Mercer is proficient in this. A further example would be: If a pc is built around fighting undead but your story doesn't involve undead then craft a subplot that comes around occasionally that deals with mostly undead in some capacity. They'll never know you added it for their benefit and that subplot will most likely be their favorite adventures. Also, put some thought into how this subplot can mingle with the main plot and you will most likely find that you have an abundance of material to work with, so much in fact you might not get to use it all.
I would also counter that the Chroma Conclave is a subplot, not the main plot of campaign 1.
The balance is important here: bad guys want to win but they also don't know what's on the player's character sheet. They should do things that are smart, but unless you're fighting like Veccna or something, they probably aren't omniscient. Just looking at a monk doesn't tell the enemy they can deflect missiles, so if you're doing that as a DM, YOU ARE METAGAMING. Given how many people you've got to control at a time this is more effort, but you gotta consider what the monster could reasonably know and based on that what they'd reasonably do...and try really hard to not let your perfect knowledge as a DM tip that scale.
I highly recommend using enemies lile Enel from one piece in dnd.
Enel had the power to literally be lightning. He could basically teleport vast distances. Super heat objects. Phase through basically all attacks while simultaniously shocking them back. And shoot huge lightning blasts miles away.
This was WAY too strong from the protagonist at the time. EXCEPT, he was literally made of rubber. If there was anyone in the world custom designed to take down this bad guy, it was Luffy. The fight was still really hard, but having him take down someone so insane was much cooler then the far weaker villains that specifically countered the main character
A druid in my campaign cast speak with animals, and rolled really low on their survival check to find one, and I ended up throwing in a mole going to meet his friends for tea.
To sum up this video: Enable your players to actually PLAY their characters and use their characters abilities and go out of your way to enable your players to do this.
Some examples of my own (to add to the video instead of just summing it up):
Ranger with favored terrain in a desert? Well, I guess the ice continent to the far south is now a desert continent to the south.
Having a druid, that talks to squirrels and bunnies all the time? Let those little critters help the druid and provide information. Tracking an enemy through a forest, those little creatures could tell the party where that enemy went.
Use your monster's and NPC's abilities specifically against players, that have something positive against that (use fire spells against Tieflings, use projectile attacks against Monks, use charm spells against a character, that can't be charmed or gets advantage on those saving throws).
In general, enable the characters your players play. Enable your players to actually play the game. We're DMs. It's our job to run the game and it's our job to ensure everyone has fun and gets something out of it. I personally very much enjoy, when players solve a puzzle or discover the big plot twist or kill that dangerous enemy I put before them.
Before watching fully: Any time any DM asks "how I stop ability X?", my instant reaction is "don't". Often it's more nuanced than that. And there will be exceptions. But by&large DMs should work with their players to exercise better judgement and find solutions instead of reasons why X can't/won't/shouldn't happen
Do you have a video on building low level encounters? like first through third level parties where the encounters are as much about storytelling and moving the party forward as well as getting them to higher levels. Its something I struggle with as a DM, especially when my players are at first level. I try to give them fights they can handle but make them both compelling to the story and interesting in play. I've seen the video on making interesting encounters, which helps a bit; its specifically first through third level encounters I'd like to get better at planning.
Yeah I put my players in a fight against 2 hook horrors when they were level 3, but they still were able to beat them because I let my sorcerer use 2 leveled spells in one turn, and I gave my wood elf rogue some tall grass to hide in so he could have sneak attack.
Well said. Being unable to challenge players is a forced falsehood. CR30 exists, so no player is home free. Players just want to feel like the character decisions they made matter, otherwise the entire experience feels like wasted time. And players won't waste their time on you for long.
Good example i play elves a lot. We had this encounter where we touched an orb and got sucked into a demi plane that was ran by a "god" (think the geck from fallout) but the goal of the god was to keep us there by charming us to forget the real world. I continuosly succeeded on the check and managed to lie to the gods face making him think i was charmed it was epic using the ability granted to me and then clutching. Beong able to say i lied to a god and got away with it was great
Let your players BE their characters......*GASP!!* Inspiration!!!!
One of my favorite parts about DMing is when my players use the weird, random things about their classes in creative ways to break my encounters. Player creativity is one of the best parts of the game!
I think having players use their abilities is great, but it also makes sense that smarter enemies will try to outmaneuver them. Especially as the PCs earn more fame. If a villain was up against a hero who was famous for their horsemanship for example, it makes sense that they would force that hero into a situation where they had to dismount, but random bandits might not.
With all these helpful tips for DM's I'm wanting to see one of your D&D games, do you not upload them?
OMG your ads are amazing! I can't believe I just said that, good job
This is also why DM’s shouldn’t use banishment on players, don’t take them out of combat if they build a character made for combat. Learned that the hard way
In my mind the perfect encounter would have every character using their most op ability but still just barely getting, if you stop their powerful abilities then there was no point in them levelling up apart from a bit more health
dude i love your content!!!! makes my day a little better all the time!
If you're ever not sure about how dangerous your campaign feels to your players just look at how much time they spend trying to come up with a plan to win combat safely.
Great vid as usual Ginny. Gonna hold onto the 'Shoot Your Monks' shorthand bc I just like the phrase. Also very good advice.
2:12 You say that like everything wasn't already immune to poison.
What I do for this problem, ironically, is purposefully remain ignorant to player abilities as much as possible and just present tasks and challenges that are thematically simple. An undead necromancer with an orb that contains all his life force, for example. The goal here is to get to the orb and break it without dying to the necromancer first. If you don't take into account character abilities, sure, your boss can get one-shot, but it's more realistic and fun because your players genuinely never know what to expect if you never make character specific abilities part of your planning. It could be easy, it could be harder than anyone thought, and it's more realistic because the monsters that the players fight are not aware of the character's abilities and thus are not going to prepare for them.
This is not true however for certain niche character abilities which you definitely do have to pay attention too and cater towards every now and then.
Ooh! Garth Nix collection!
''You should give rocks for the barbarian to throw''
My barbarian seeing flying THINGS: So... Nat 20... can i throw the rogue now?
Weirdly, I have a player who decided to go full-tilt on learning poison use. The campaign is set to get further and further into fighting demons. Who are immune to poisons. So we looked up ravages (we play 3.5) and they effect demons, but have such low save DCs that they almost never work. Instead, I find myself trying to find ways to improve the ravages vs. demons.
In the games that I've been running, I have been trying damn hard to keep my players alive! I don't really believe in killing off a character unless the player ends up becoming a murder-hobo.
I've had only ONE time in a game where I saw a player get kicked out of a game, and he basically was throwing fire everywhere and killing civilians at random. (Facepalm) that guy was literally a chore to play with.
Fortunately in my games, nobody has been going too far... at least, not that I can tell, and I've been trying hard to be fair with my players.
Ginny, your eyeballs are everything 🌟
Somebody should nerf that Comments Section character. She is waaayy OP. 🤠👍💕
So as much as I agree with these, and it's totally because of bias- I absolutely run games this way.
I'm going to bring up a thing about D&D.
"If you need to give monsters total immunity, or even resistances and several extra attacks just to make them a challenge to the expected average Strength of the players, you're clearly not a good game designer."
WotC are not good game designers. They just have a good marketing team.
Don't hate me cuz I'm right.
The difference between creating a situational challenge and being a dick is the player's ability to at least interact with the situation. Even if it's to run away, the party should always have options that move the game forward. No road block should ever be impossible to surmount.
I don't care what my players can do. As the GM, I can do everything better! Seriously, let them do their thing. Simply present the story for them to enjoy. They are *supposed* to be the heroes of the story after all.
Completely irrelevant, but I LOVE the Comment Section shirt.
Thank you 😊
Hey Ginny Di, do you have a podcast?
Is that Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series on your shelf? I See You Are A Woman Of Culture.gif
Makes me think of Brennan Lee Mulligan talk about building the story for Fantasy High "If you know one of your players wants to be an Inquisitive Rogue and you don't give him a grand mystery to solve, you're an asshole."
Unfortunately, D&D doesn't do mysteries well at anything mid-level or higher unless it uses some of the "fictional editing" tactics Ginny Di rightfully criticizes. Divination magic is OP.
@@bjhale It's the DM's prerrogative to take out feats, spells, subclasses, or even whole classes... that is, to modify D&D to suit their campaign's vision better.
@@bjhale the mystery aspect of the story happened from levels 1 - 8 so it worked fine.
@@danielrodriguezpena6765 I fully agree, but there is an often unvoiced view that the DM exists to facilitate the player's fun. And I do mean, "player's" and not "players'" because "fun" is often contextualized individually rather than collectively.
@@bjhale Actually, divination magic can be super fun for mysteries. There's a lot of videos and articles on that, but as a DM you can actually plan what clues you're going to give them when they use divination magic, so it's not as bad as it seems.
Good rule of thumb: don’t attack your players weaknesses, attack their strengths.
But with adequate power. That way, even if they fail, it will be a heroic one, and if they win, they feel the "spoils of war" well-deserved, and not as like the DM pitying them sothey get some free stuff.
I'd say "Attack everything." Don't let a group get away with leaving big glaring weaknesses, either*. Of course don't attack weaknesses exclusively, or even frequently - but unless their enemies are stupid or don't do their homework, it should happen occasionally.
*unless they only take specialized jobs and prepare to exclude some risks - if they know they can't deal with undead, but avoid that by not taking quests that lead them into graveyards, crypts and tombs, it would be kinda dickish to have all the villains secretly be vampires, liches and necromacers.
Why not both?
Also, I'd add, don't meta-game as a dungeon/game master. NPCs should only have counters to the PCs strengths if they would know about the PCs strengths. A witch, watching the PCs make their way through her territory to get to her lair could scry some information, and use a few spells she knows would counter something she's seen the PCs do. But generally, NPCs shouldn't act with knowledge the GM/DM has.
Gotta at least tickle their weaknesses so they work to build up their kit... 😎❄
"Shoot the monk!" is probably the best DM advice I've ever gotten... My players ended up enjoying their characters SO MUCH more after I started following this advice. Nowadays I even ask my players outside of the game what they like the most about their characters so I can execute this the best as I can. And let me tell you: it's still possible to challenge players and make things dangerous. The players are just enjoying those encounters more...
i'm playing a bard bc i want to learn how to do social encounters rather than just shooting everything. and last session i convinced a gang of harpies to move house with nothing but my words and some shiny things. i definitely felt that i peaked as an eloquence bard (with a side of magpie) in that moment. such a good feeling.
I love this video! A little story that feeds into this point:
Recently, my DM threw a clay golem at our party that was immune to piercing or bludgeoning damage and left me, the rogue, unable to land damage with any of my weapons. So what I did instead was use my superior acrobatics to climb up the golem, sit on its shoulders, and cover its eyes to give my spellcaster party members advantage on attacks and make the golem attack with disadvantage. This went on for three rounds, with the golem trying and failing to shake me off, until our spellcasters killed it.
This was one of my favorite moments in the last year of campaigning, and I felt so damn clever for thinking of a way to help without the use of any of my weapons AND allowed me to be a kickass acrobatic rogue. I felt rewarded for my creative problem solving and the whole party had a great time with this fight.
I'll definitely be sure to keep this tip in mind in my upcoming campaign!
And I think it was memorable precisely because it was a one-off challenge. If the entire campaign had been about defeating adamantine constructs immune to your weapons that would have been kind of sucky
I love that this took away an obvious strength, forcing you to rely on something else instead. And it wasn't necessarily obvious.
If you're going to close a door, you don't necessarily have to open a window, but leave a few unlocked for that player to discover for themselves.
I love this because how you help your team shine and i love that your DM didn't take you out of the fight completely like your hands are too small to blind the golem, he issued the challenge of your normal means of fighting wont work what do you do? and your rose to the occasion and helped your team.
This character retires from adventuring to be a golem buster in the dnd rodeos. Lol
@@devoncarr3653 Yeah she really nailed it with this one!
Wonderful video. I once heard someone say "Don't attack the character's weakness, attack their strengths."
This seems so obvious but you're SO right that it's soooo often a huge problem at tables. Thank you so much for saying it so clearly and way better than I have ever managed!
To be fair, a lot of this kind of BS is also just baked into the game itself. You know how really big monsters aren't really that mechanically interesting, they just have a bajillion hitpoints, do a bajillion damage, and tell your spellcasters to fuck off with legendary and magical resistances?
A lot of "no" mechanics, ngl. "No" mechanics are never fun, and rarely necessary.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 Aw c'mon. That pretty hyperbolic. Legendary Resistances are really just there so a Big Bad can last a few rounds instead of being taken out instantly by a silver bullet.
Most monsters with resistance or immunity to certain damage types or conditions are for flavor, so fighting an ooze doesn't feel like fighting an orc. Stabbing an ochre jelly should feel different from stabbing something with a fleshy, living anatomy.
None of this feels like a big middle finger to a particular player for being "that class" that the DM wants to screw with.
As a first time DM, I can proudly say I kind of had this epiphany myself. Playing a tabletop where all of the weapons have a rank. Reading through the abilities available, I saw one that made the player immune to damage from weapons below a certain rank.
And I'll admit, my first thought was; "well if someone takes that I guess I'll just have to make sure their enemies have higher rank weapons "
But the more I thought about it I realized, what the fuck would be the point of them taking that ability? I could see myself as the player constantly asking "what rank is that sword" whenever I get hit, and being shot down constantly and just getting damn frustrated eventually. Felt like I kind of taught myself something about running a game in that moment. Glad to find this video expanding on that concept :)
@@FlatOnHisFace Legendary Resistance is just a bandaid to the ultimate nerfing tool: splitting the party. Two ranged, tactical goblins at a covering distance against one opponent will seem like 10 chromatic dragons against a group.
I think a big aspect of allowing players to pick up abilities and then nerfing them in the actual campaign is about giving the illusion of choice. It's really easy to hype D&D around a "be anything, do anything" focus, and then when the DM realizes that an ability or skill annoys them, they avoid letting it come up in play (even subconsciously!). It also acts as a way to shift the blame -- when the DM just bans a skill or ability, then it's very obviously on the DM that it won't get used, but when it just doesn't come up in play, it can feel more like it's the player's fault for choosing a "useless" ability, rather than the DM not letting it be used. Should acknowledge, I'm saying this as a DM who's realized that they're doing this, but I'm early enough into my campaign to correct it!
The illusion of choice is a great way of putting it. That’s the single most frustrating thing for me in a D&D game-when my agency or ability to make relevant choices is removed somehow.
"Why are you letter her take it at all?"
This is the question to ask. Occasionally throw in a hiccup to make the character think out of the box, but don't always counter the ability. Amazing advice Ginny, as always. I've been DMing for decades, and I still always learn something from you. You've come across so much wisdom in your time playing/DMing.
She has a 19 in wisdom and 15 in intelligence
sure is quite a question..
Honestly, I agree with Ginny. Don’t nerf a player, make them feel power. Because I’m response you can give them more of a challenging thrall. Give the Monk an ability to deflect spells if they get Mage Slayer but make that Mage Harder to fight.
Omg I would go take mage slayer the very next chance I got, I'd LOVE to deflect spells. Even if I had to spend ki for it.
That sounds awesome, maybe rule it that it only works on projectile spells like fireball and magic missile. (Definitely make a list of valid and invalid spells in advance for such a homebrew, or otherwise have a clear way of resolving conflict for what counts as a valid spell to deflect)
Something like cone of cold or disintegrate (a beam weapon) are less able to be grabbed and redirected.
But still imagine the rush of using deflect missiles to block magic missile, a spell whose whole thing is being a guaranteed hit. (Useful if your wizard is like 5hp from death and you save him and he gets to counter attack)
@@jasonreed7522 I actually worked it out already. It works on spells that are classified as range spells. Magic Missile wouldn’t count but fireball will. And spells like Eldritch Blast, Chromatic Orb, etc, can be deflected.
Exactly! And not all spells are attacks. Most spells that deal loads of damage are saves and have no projectile aspect at all.
Well, i had a dark elf pirate in a... Call it "Morally questionable" alingment campaign, ok? He wasn't an artificer, but the DM put the firearm profiency in the settings for some extra fun (instead of the avarage swords and magic setting he take that as a base, then add a few thousands of years for technology to advance), what he get. Believe me, shooting some werewolves and jackalweres in their stomachs with broken down silver coins totally worth the cost of "ammunition", and the gun's repair cost (it wasn't a shotgun originally, so it's barrel needed to be changed after the fights - after every second shot, i had to roll for ruin it with one higher failure chance). The thing is, a jackalwere is possess an ability, sleep gaze. And - as Ginny said - elves are immune to sleep effects. So, with one of the most effective weapon against them (we didn't had any silvered weapons, only some spells against them - and my impromptu silver-shooting scatter gun), the DM rolled for the jackalweres in every round, as they tried to incapacitate all of us. Technically, that basic race skill save our team that night. (I personally finished off 3 jackalweres, and thee werewolf from the 7 membered pack.)
The one trick I always keep in mind when a players' ability seems too strong: I attack that ability specifically, instead of denying it. E.g. my party's Paladin has an insane AC of 23, heavy armor master, and resistance to fire and Necrotic damage. But instead of having a lot of DEX-saves and ranged attacks that ignore the Paladin, or putting only damage types on the field that he doesn't reduce, I look for monsters with high to-hit bonuses and high damage numbers on those five damage types (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, fire, necrotic). So he gets to feel epic about surviving the onslaught, while still being challenged to do so.
The problems is that your players easily see through this. Because if these 10 dudes two attacks with +15 to hit just targeted anyone of the others instead... so you have to think before doing this too. It's not a magical rule that is easily applicable.
@@nerfherder5211 well yeah obviously, but it's still fun.
If you're a tank, you WANT to be hit. That's the whole reason you built the character with all those protections.
So when you do get hit but survive, it feels really good knowing that anyone else on the party probably wouldn't have survived it.
It's basically the same as the druid being able to learn from the cat that the murderer smelled like pastries, only in combat.
@@nerfherder5211characters might want to attack him because they feel challenged it would b a matter of pride for a warrior known for swordfighting or a shooting fire to defeat him.
I would actually say to be careful with this. Attacking a player's strengths can turn out very poorly if they lose -- they are really good at one thing and you made that thing hard for them to succeed at! Instead, challenge your player's weaknesses.
Instead of attacking you paladin with a +15, making them wonder why they even bothered to build 23 AC if the enemies just get stronger to break through it, think of a way to challenge their weaknesses. Make them roll a DEX saving throw or become immobilized. If they fail, you managed to prevent their insane tankiness from breaking the battle, and you did it without making them feel like their build is pointless. They're still good at what they're good at (not getting hit) but they can't just abuse it to dominate the entire combat
I get _really_ annoyed when a DM brute-forces their way past my character's strengths, sometimes. My main example is I had a really weird ranger character in PF1e. My bit was I wanted to play a half-dragon. Y'know, anime dude with dragon features, like wings, patches of scales for defence, claws, and a breath weapon. So I used a really specific combination of traits to create that, and gave him a stupidly high Con score to make sure he could take a lot of punishment before going down. As a side effect of all of these features, and the crazy high Con, this guy had _dumb_ bonuses to saves against specifically paralysis effects. So, naturally, at one point the DM spammed a paralyzing poison against the entire party without allowing us to react until we all failed it, so he could have some villains monologue at us. Making things _worse_ was that I failed on only the second roll due to awful luck, which was even more frustrating.
I like when I'm allowed to use my strengths effectively, and when my weaknesses are carefully exploited on occasion. Targeting different characters' strengths and weaknesses, instead of just trying to counter everything the party has, encourages strategy as a party and makes combat more fun.
This is one hundred percent the best thing to do. One of my players is playing an assassin rogue. He’s really into character optimisation and is quite aware of the fact that most of the assassin subclass features are useless in combat and very situational (specifically the infiltration ones at 9th and 13th levels). So you bet your ass there’ll be a political intrigue arc at 9th level.
If anyone's looking for examples of this in play, Brennan Lee Mulligan is amazing at this sort of flexibility with PC ideas!
Also Johnny Chiodini of OXventure. And since his players are CONSTANTLY trying out off-the-wall, sometimes ridiculous ideas to overcome barriers he throws at them, he gets lots of practice at it!
@@ryadinstormblessed8308 OXventure is always amazing. Gotta love Seal Gaiman.
Absolutely! You can definitely see his improv training when he "yes ands" a players idea. He allows for out of the box thinking that can lead to great rewards but he also makes players face the consequences of their actions fully if their big swing ends in a miss. The big failures almost seem more fun for the players to roleplay too!
@@ryadinstormblessed8308 just so you know, Johnny uses they/them pronouns
Good to know.
Absolutely agree, Don't Nerf them, let them use their cool abilities sometimes, but also challenge them to be creative in overcoming their weaknesses and flaws
I think the key word here is "variety". Make your dungeons and your fights appropriate for the narrative, not in response to your party.
Agreed. I think that the onus on PCs being creative is on the players themselves rather than the DM.
It should be the player running the barbarian who asks whether there are any loose rocks that they can throw rather than the DM giving them that creative spark.
It works both ways, and everyone has to work at getting the most out of a game, not just the DM.
@@andrewread3420 Absolutely, let them be creative, as a DM never punish them for it ...
Sure! And if a player asks "are there any loose rocks around that I can try to through at the dragon?" the DM should be aware of the fact that they've created a challenge that their Barbarian may struggle to participate in without ranged weapons, and say "yes! there are!"
Also, interestingly enough, show them the power of their cool abilities.
I had a Battlemaster who didnt use her superiority die and maneuvers, so I decided to show her how good they can be by having a fight where the enemy leader uses maneuvers. She was like "oh man that's so cool but we're getting ripd" and I allowed her to use her superiority die for "countermanuvers" that allowed her to disable the enemy leader's attacks.
She became a great Battlemaster after that. Sometimes, the players need a bit of a push.
I am a fan of letting the players feel confident in their powers: it'll often lead to them getting in over their heads and *that* makes for gorgeous story
Kind of repeating what you already said, but if your players have specific or even niche abilties from their subclass, I highly recommend leaning into them every now and then.
One of my proudest moments as a DM was seeing our Fey Wanderer Ranger's face light up when she realized she got to use her Beguiling Twist ability during a fight.
Beguiling twist is so good, I'm surprised it was a niche ability
Oh definitely. My cleric I'm playing has See Invisibility as a domain spell. A little ago we encountered a crime family that all had the ability to become invisible. I was overjoyed, when my DM revealed, that he had invented them, so I'd get to use this spell.
@@trombonegamer14 I wouldn't say Beguiling Twist specifically was niche (just somewhat situational because I hadn't been using Charm effects much, which was mostly on me as a DM)
Reading this made me smile. It reminded me of my own reaction when my elf character was clawed by a ghoul.
Ginny, you ROCK! I’ve been playing since 1982 and have seen the game (and other rpgs) go through a bunch of cycles. I’m a big fan of the DM being a…big fan of the players. Don’t coddle or Monty Hall them but provide a game for them that is fun and challenging.
You share common sense wisdom and your production (which is exceptional) makes you one of my go to channels for thoughtful infotainment. I love your cosplays and just the whole package of what you put out.
Thank you!
Absolutely right! Especially that "Holy shit I have something for this!" Moment. I was once playing a bard, feeling useless as a shogoth was steamroller us into what was sure to be a TPK. Many of us were trapped inside apart from our healer, and I was reading through one of my magic items, an olham harp. I noticed that the shogoth was taking up nine spaces, and the olham harp has firestorm. That is nine hits on the shogoth, that's weak to fire. I roasted us all alive, but we managed to stabilise everyone, turning an almost certain TPK, into a memorable fight.
I know I am four months late, but I just want to point out that (to my knowledge) there is nothing in the official rules that makes area of effect spells such as Fire Storm deal more damage on creatures that occupy a larger space.
Personally, I might houserule that such creatures could take an "anti half-cover" i.e. a penalty of -2 to their Dexterity saving throw as they are extra hard to miss/wouldn't fit in the "blind spots" of the spell.
@@dr.antonius8350 yeah AoE dosent, but firestorm is multiple cubes, ergo, multiple damage if target gets hit by multiple cubes
@@paulkemp8520 that's not how that works - the *area of* firestorm is those cubes. the cubes are not separate instances of firestorm, so something in the area (that being the cubes) still only takes the damage once.
good thinking, though
@@dr.antonius8350 Honestly, if it really does not work that way, it was probably still for the best the GM ruled like that. Definitely made for a more memorable and fun experience than just saying "Yeah, no. You all die."
This is exactly why I'm letting one of my players play a Mystic next campaign. He is so ridiculously overly happy now because he likes playing weird, fucky classes like that, and I'm excited because he always uses his weird, fucky class stuff to push me into being a better and more flexible DM. I love it when my players have a "I have a thing for that!" moment that I completely did not expect and absolutely did not plan for that changes the whole direction of the session. And I love it when I can delicately sneak in things that will surprise THEM with a moment like that. Some of the biggest smiles I've screenshotted have been moments like that.
trust me, those players will cherish those moments for ages. When me and my friends meet we love telling stories about when the paladin uncovered a plot with their divine sense or when primeaval awareness helped the party follow the hiding enemy. moments where we remember a facet of our abilities and lets us shine give us so much serotonin. You understand that, and that makes you sound like a wonderful DM to have.
I assure you, that your players love you for that. My DM gave a crime syndicate the ability to turn invisible, just so that I'd have an opportunity to use "See Invisibility" and I loved that so much.
I'm currently also playing a mystic, and it's a lot of fun, we're only level 3 in the campaign, and my character usually holds back because he doesn't really care about fights, he's more the kind of character to mess with people and calmly walk away from a threat he doesn't deem worthy.
I also am roleplaying it in such a way that my character getd enough information on the disciplines he learns before he has access to them. (Like a book on biology, medicine and arcane healing to get the psychic restoration discipline, he spent years messing with people and studio them to get the mantle of awe and psychic inquisition disciplines.)
I like it a bit more that way ^^
I think the most important thing when letting players play weird homebrew/UA classes is ensuring they don't overshadow other pcs.
Realistically a particular pc's power level doesn't matter (the GM can challenge any group with the right situation and enies), but a pc's power level compared to the other pcs in the group very much *does* matter. If you have players that dominate the group and others that feel pointless or like they are only there to watch someone else's spotlight moments there is a problem.
I decided one time to do that with my dm, but with mundane items. I played a scout rogue and had been allowed the magic item the bag of holding. The dm also gave us starting gold (for context we were starting at level 10). This was great for the clerics wanting better armor and weapons and the wizard to purchase spells to start with, but for me, with no spells, and with the items I wanted being already handled, I choose to use the remaining gold to browse and purchase a bunch of mundane items and stuff them in my bag of holding. This became a running joke as my character would say “I think I have something for that” and dive nearly up to their waist, with mostly just their tail (tabaxi) sticking out of the bag as they dug around for the item they thought of (I thought of) that might help the situation. In the end we won the encounter we were testing, and frankly expected to tpk with (context: we were stress testing a dungeon the dm created for another group). A large part was due to my mundane items, though everyone contributed greatly to its success.
This is just more than DM advice, this is amazing life advice. IRL, it's so much more fun to play co-op with people you care about, rather than PvP'ing them!
although if they ask for pvp make it true to your games backstory etc
I've been having a bad time with my current DM constantly nerfing core aspects of my class like paladin smites completely and I'm truly thinkin of leaving it not just because of that but it was a major influence. DMs this is a real issue
Dude, that's heartbreaking to hear. I hope they're the kind of person you can take aside and have a chat about what you'd like to see in the game, and see if you can come to an arrangement where you're both happy.
I think the number 1 thing I do that make my players invest themselves in the world is:
Likable NPCs!
When you create a cast of characters your players engage with, it makes them care about the game all the more. If your players care about characters you create, their investment with the quests those NPCs give will be more genuine and real. They care about helping the character, not just getting the reward.
But in the same vein as what you’re saying in this video, NEVER make ally NPCs take spotlight from the players.
Your players are the heroes of their story, let them feel like heroes!
Unfortunately my “heroes” (regardless of their alignment…) will always just kill any NPC as soon as they see it. I was running an Acq Inc campaign and I literally just gave up on it because they wanted to kill EVERY thing/one. Can’t run a campaign when everyone wants to do nothing but murder hobo, but then also complains that pure dungeon crawls “are boring” 🙃
@@Bonobo_JoJo If you ever dm for that group again id suggest maybe making a campaign themed around combat, Like their all gladiators trying to fight they're way out to freedom, or survivors of an apocalypse and everyone they come across could be hostile or flees fearing the same from them (is this case id also show them some npcs are harmless families trying to survive , might build their trust in npcs :D )
@@sun75 thanks! Trying to put something like this together now while we finish up a campaign ran by another friend of ours. Hopefully this approach works or I might just stop offering to DM for this group because as much as I want them to enjoy it, it’s not worth running if I get no enjoyment out of it.
I definitely feel all of this. I played in a game once where all of the DM's NPCs were characters he had played in other campaigns. They were all level 20+, and it felt like they were either constantly pushing us around or disappearing conveniently when we got into a fight. It definitely felt like we were side characters in his self-insert game. You know a game is good when you're actively seeking out NPCs to talk to because you just like them.
I have never had this, but my players had this with their first attempt. (Why they were a little apprehensive returning) Where basically the NPC's were the heroes and they were the side characters.
I agree with all of this, but would like to add one thing! It's true, that constantly countering the PC's abilities would be bad form, but also keep in mind with things like reoccurring villains, that SOME bad guys will learn from their mistakes and may learn to counter SOME things the party can do (but obviously not all). Of course, I think this is a little different than the DM countering things just to counter them. With this scenario, I usually also add something in that a PC may be able to do to thwart the bad guy as well, to give that moment of "turning the tables". It's definitely a balancing act!
if the party is getting a reputation then it makes sense for an enemy that can plan for their encounter to counter the known abilities of the party.
But only do that for enemies that know the party is coming for a fight
@@ratchet1freak It also helps if PC's get overconfident. They are going to pick a fight with someone that is over them or prepared for them. And a reputation is something that can get those who are better prepared for them. Its a balancing act, although I find that enemies I create and using tactics can sometimes be way more influential than countering them directly. Players very often get into the charge forward and use my cool skills and forget that tactics are a thing.
I think that's a different idea entirely. The bad guys want to win, but they don't know everything until they do. Once they know something you should make sure the players understand they know that thing. Villian monologues aren't that cheesy lol
Especially if the players know this is a recurring adversary they'll see again, and that they're learning from experience ("you won't catch me with that same trick again!" "I remember last time!" etc), the party can even make choices to limit themselves so as to preserve a 'gotcha' surprise for the next encounter. I'm in a game where we repeatedly see the BBEG but we're "too beneath him" of course so we get left with the minions repeatedly, and in one encounter we spent about 3 rounds intentionally flubbing rolls and putting on an act of how bad we were at combat until BBEG left the scene, so he would underestimate us in the final battle. It can really add something to the in-game narrative to have long term planning/consequences like that.
Every time Ginny posts a video her eyes get 10% bigger. Also, Thank you for the "shoot your monk" phrase. Its been a core of how I like games but had no name for it. Keep up the good work GD!
Well said, Ginny. I don't get adversarial DMs. Personally, I'm my players' biggest fan, and when their characters get to do something cool I cheer right alongside them.
Dungeon World had some amazing advice for DMs that the Dungeon Master's Guide either doesn't ever state, in any edition, or buries pretty deep.
*1: Play To See What Happens.* Don't lead players down a predetermined path. Be creative with what they do and they will be creative with what you do.
*2: Leave Lots Of Open Space.* Don't fill in every detail of your maps. People like exploring and discovering what no-one else knew before. In the narrative, don't know all the answers. Six people are going to come up with better ideas than what one does.
*3: Be A Fan Of Your Players' Characters.* Make their backstories matter. Lean into their abilities. Want their ideas to work (... then make them roll).
I dont get adverserial when MAKING the world
But i do get adverserial as far as tactics. If they get tpked its for mistakes not due to abilities or something
@@mondaysinsanity8193 cap
Oh yes, the whole "Your ability ruin my gameplan so it don't work" DM action. As someone who's father who is mostly DM who does this all the time. I can say that it really do ruin the game.
I have played a Light Cleric who's anti-darkness magic ability they can use once per day did not work.
I have played a flying owlin only for there to be invisible walls 5 feet above ground level.
So many tales I could tell.
This is why I barely play DnD anymore, DM's please stop. Let your player's do their cool things and find some other way around it.
What about when someone ability destroys opportunities for others? I set up an encounter for my scout based rogue player to scout and do what she does best, but our ranger unearthed arcana just meditated and could tell everything she could have discovered in a 10 minute scouting roleplay in 30 seconds
@@redith137 that sounds like a party balance problem. 2 party members with scouting abilities and one of them being able to do it safely and remotely.
Though one option there is to split the difference, have each member be able to discover only part of what is needed. The second player always seeming to find the real key to the puzzle but using information that the first gathered to get there.
@@redith137 Make a missiom where they can't get the information by meditating. Where you have to be physically there and roll if you hear or see something. Not always, just to let both characters shine. If they both have scouting abilities, it's not the ranger's fault that the one used will be the safer one, so please don't punish for it. But playing around it (if you dont make it obvious that you want to counter them) to let everyone shine is fine.
@@redith137 I'm not entirely sure how the meditating works, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be hard to imply that some information can be gathered by meditation. While other information can be discovered by physically scouting
@@redith137 Do you mean the 5th level spell Commune With Nature? If so, spellcasting costs a resource (spell slot, in this case the highest level available for a Ranger) so if you make it clear a combat is likely to follow they may be reluctant to use that resource. Also as mentioned above, it sounds like a great opportunity for the characters to work together, with the Ranger giving the Rogue intel on where to go/best approach and what to prepare for in general, and the Rogue going in up close for more detail.
This also happens a LOT in parties where anyone has a flying Familiar, and the solution is very similar. Let the birds-eye-view guy scout the broad details, just enough to tell the party where you've hidden valuable information or items in places only a very sneaky physically present PC can get to.
One of my favorite moments in my last campaign was when my three level 4 players were breaking into a prison camp to rescue one of the adventurers' family. I set it up so the camp was surrounded by a rocky ridge with a single entrance that was extremely heavily guarded, far more than the party could reasonably defeat themselves. The idea I had for the session was that the players would sneak into and out of the camp without alerting the gate guards, but instead our rogue snuck around behind the gate while the other two drew the guards' attention to the front. The rogue was then able to singlehandedly one-shot 2/3rds of the guards via sneak attack while our Blood Hunter tanked the hits and the Bard kept everyone topped up on health and Bardic Inspiration.
Each class got to lean into their strengths and the synergy between players was electrifying. By playing to their classes' strengths the party took on an encounter with a challenge XP two times higher than what's considered a deadly encounter. My players got to feel like gods and I was so excited for them I gave them all a point of inspiration. 😝
I think another point that ties into this is acknowledging when you as a DM make mistakes. I did in my last session. I gave all my players a magic item for completing a flyting challenge. Yes we did indeed have a rap battle lmao. There was an oversight on my end though due to how much fun we were all having. I forgot that this item not only gave them a +2 to Charisma but they also gain advantage on persuasion checks… yeah that could be a problem. The thing is even though they can definitely abuse this power it was my mistake. When it was brought up they immediately thought that I was going to change how the item worked or find a way to take the it back, but I said “No, you guys get to keep it. Im not going to take that fun away from you because I was careless”. In the end communication with your group is what matters and acknowledging when you as a DM make mistakes is a key factor into a great D&D experience!
Tbf, I'm not sure not changing the item is a good thing either. I'd say talking with your players and acknowledging your mistakes is fine, but give and take with your players should also exist where you're not perpetually giving and they're not. At the very least, reaching a compromise with your players along the lines of "I don't want to take this away because I think it's fun, so here's what I propose to tweak" is a good way about it.
That said, rolling with the punches isn't bad either, you can find interesting ways to challenge them or make their overuse of the item garner unwanted attention. My point being, acknowledging your mistakes and communicating with your players doesn't mean only fixing the mistakes that work against the party nor should it mean not asking your players to meet you half-way for the sake of the game.
@@kylehahn4410 this is very true! Luckily i trust them to no abuse this power and if they do then we shall have to have a talk about it, but im not super worried about it lol plus they earned it, the flyting challenge was just awesome!
i absolutely appreciate when my dm admits a mistake, even if they change things back. i'd take "actually, sorry, i've gotta nerf this item, i messed up" over "it mysteriously disappears and you didn't roll high enough to know why" ANY DAY. playing/discussing in good faith feels a lot more like we're working *together* for the sake of the game, rather than the dm being cagey and not wanting to admit they're like. human? fallible?
Admitting to mistakes is so huge. I don't know why some people treat it like physical harm or something to confront a mistake they made or personal malicious assault when someone else points one out.
People can be pointing out a simple mistake and also not calling you a failure as a gm ffs. No need to take it personally if a player has a slight grievance with a thing that happened to occur in a zero-irl-stakes game. We're all here to just have fun.
Bonus to charisma and persuasion isn't really that powerful. Remember, social checks aren't mind control, and the d20 is only for situational uncertainty - not competency uncertainty.
This is great advice. I learned this the hard way when a player left the campaign after feeling powerless. After that I realized that you want to empower people and give them what they are looking for in the campaign. Not make it easy, but payoff whatever they want to experience plying dnd. That's how I start every season prep now : how to give every player something.
I literally did this when my DM started enforcing his rules interpretations to undo or mitigate legitimate damage my wizard was doing by cleverly using spell combos. It had felt from the start like he was trying to make my character irrelevant or to tell me I was wrong about everything I wanted my character to do.
I left that game to start DMing, not at all sure that I was ready. Best choice I’ve ever made!
Glad you grew and learned that important lesson
Great advice in this video, but am I the only one who found that ad’s presenting character just pure genius?
I had a prospective player ask about being a Kalashtar, and little did she know, saving rolls would play a HUGE role in my homebrew campaign. She said she was fine with changing races, but I was like, "no no, it's fine" and immediately started thinking of how great the racial abilities would mess with my planned campaign. I panicked for a few seconds before thinking "this is a huge advantage" and started to feel excited thinking of all the ways I would have to adapt, keeping that ability in mind. Unfortunately, she left after session 0 because of other stuff, but it was neat to think about
The story is about the players. You set the foundation for the story, lore, and characters but it is the players story. Not the DM's. Let them feel powerful! It is funner for everyone.
This can be heavily dependent on how much initiative the players have. One group I have I barely have to think of story sometimes and 80% of the story is just whatever they wanted to investigate. It has led to a sugar fueled bender of rum, sugar, and molasses across the east coast of the British Colonies in piracy where they just stole sugar and molasses from the colonies until they hit icebergs.
My other group is much more willing to take plot hooks and stick on the path at times and normally needs a little push to take initiative. That I have much more of the story to make and means I have to have a much more detailed outline. Not that they don't do their own thing, they just stick to it. So, it depends on the group really and a DM has to balance between them. I know fits the 1st rule of DM: Know your players.
The 2nd group works way WAY better as a team in combat though and in supporting each other.
@@als3022 to me honestly I think that is a reflection of the DM and not the players. Players should never be expected to always follow the plot you set forth and if it is uninteresting to them and they are doing other things that means the story didn't connect to them. So find ways it can. If they really wanted to investigate more then the plot then integrate that into the story more and make it more significant.
From the way you explained it to me this is you want them to play YOUR story and not make THEIRS. You even alluded to this when you mention the plot hooks. Are they invested in the plot hooks? What makes the players interested in it? How does it relate to their character?
These are on you as a DM to figure out.
@@the_dunks3770why are you preaching and trying to teach to the guy how to DM? Their comment was clearly about their experience with two different groups of players. They did not mention at any point wanting to force the plot on their players or having problems with players not following the story the DM planned. They simply stated the difference between players who enjoy sand-box games and those who like being guided by the plot planned by the DM. If you think the story should be of the players' only, that's your opinion... but remember people play the game to have fun in the way they have fun.
@@Marco-ev5ve oh not at all wanting to try and teach I was just trying to give my opinion and thoughts on it from my own perspective. But I do agree ultimately that whatever allows to have the group have the most fun is important.
This is incredibly important. I had this instinct when I started out as well, but I'm happy to say it's waned over the years. Great advice and another great video!
Funnily enough, I did, in fact, shoot my monk last session. With a cannonball. I let them count it as a projectile and they seemed pretty happy being able to decrease that damage by a decent amount!
I'm playing a monk in my dnd campaign, and we did a quick stint of a ship journey. Also, note that I'm an overconfident bastard type. (and my monk is too)
So we ran into a pirate warship. We were on a passanger ship so fighting wasn't really an option, but thankfully we were faster so retreating was easyish.
BUT we were getting fired at as we ran out of range. And my monk had this great idea, that he wanted to try to deflect the cannonball.
The party laughed, as it was a joke, right?
Nope. My character, on the last turn before we got out of range, finally got hit by a cannonball. And by hit, I mean threw himself in front of the ball as it was hurtling at the ship.
Then came this tense moment as DM rolled dice where everyone realized this could happen. I could just do it. DM was totally cool with it if the numbers worked out.
My character ended up being slammed against the ship and falling into the water. Dm rolled way too high.
But the important thing was, I tried something, the DM allowed it, and we had a good time.
Kung Fu Panda 2 much?
This is needs to be in the DMs Guide!
First focusing on the enabling player abilities so that they are the solutions to obstacles helps you avoid so many DM pitfalls.
Thanks Ginny
i once allowed one of my players to be a shadow sorccerer drow with the elven acuracy feat. meant if they cast darkness on an amulet the darkness stays centered on the character and they had advatage with an extra d20. 3d20 drop lowest two.
instead of giving my enemys dark vision i just went with it and it turned out, in really small areas this feature messes with a lot fo the other player features as many spells or abilitys need line of sight.
still pretty strong but not impossible to keep the fights interesting.
(Also, creatures with Darkvision can't see into magical darkness anyway, so it's just as well you didn't give them that. :P)
@@subprogram32 Depends on the darkvision. A lot of fiends can use it to see through magical darkness
That's not Darkvision, that's the monster ability "Devil's Sight".
@@stevelycan2962 reread the text of Devil's Sight.
@@hartthorn the ability specifically says their darkvision works on magical darkness. So just giving normal mobs darkvision would still be pointless in magical darkness unless you gave them devil sight. Which was the entire point
Ginny is having a lot of fun recently with the "Comment Section" cut-aways, and honestly, I love that for her.
I think (esp. as a new DM) it can be intimidating when you realise mid-session that you forgot a character had a certain ability and now you're worried your whole encounter is "ruined" (i.e. won't go how you expected and won't be a challenge). That might produce the panic response of "oh... this technically isn't a language" or "um actually this is... magic darkness - your darkvision doesn't work." But ime, better to let the players breeze through the obstacle they're specialised for - just throw in some extra or harder ones later!
Ginny Di,
Thank you for another great video. My wife and I are big fans. Funny story, I bought her one of your calendars for Christmas, only to find out she bought one for me too. Now we have two in the house.
I feel like this can be expanded into if everyone is equally overpowered (enemies included) than nobody is overpowered. It's just fun.
True. It is more of an issue if players play things that are unbalanced compared to each other. I dm a campaign, where everyone rolled stats, and one player got very good rolls, and another got very bad, the rest vere average. That got hard to balance. It is the first campaign I dmed, and the first game for all the players, soit was a bunch of mistakes in the beginning. People not understanding their abilities, or having 14 as a highest stat in lv 10.
I ended up letting them reroll stats, and change classes/subclasses to undo some beginner mistakes or misunderstandings they made. Then it was an ingame timeskip to explain it away. It`s finally more balanced between the party, and I can actually consider the CR ratings a bit more, as I risked a tpk by sending CR appropriate enemies on the party before I let them alter the characters.
@@rineraanakiir i always have my players roll stats but tbh i tend to be fair but kinda arbitrary with rerolls if the total score is to far above or below standard array they reroll to orevent this
3 18s but the rest is under 10? Sure
5 16s? Hell no
Nothing above a 14? Reroll unless its all 14s and thats what they want
That kinda thing its a game i like the randomness rolling adds(nothing is better than a 6 for role playing or getting start with a 20 in strength even if 3 other stats are 8s) but try to keep everything fun lol
@@mondaysinsanity8193 I agree. But when we were all new, we didn`t really think of it, they all wanted to rush their characters so we could start playing. And I thought combat was unbalanced because I did something wrong, and watched video after video to try and figure something out. I did not think there was an issue with their characters being unbalanced compared to each other as I went straight to blaming my own inexperience.... but we figured it out underways, and the game was always fun for everyone, just sometimes too easy or hard, depending on who tried to do what.
@@rineraanakiir oh i know how it can be im still pretty early on at bein a dm and i still find it hard to even get em to ficus lololol
Yes, that's very true - the problems come when you have some players who like really wargame-y tactical builds, and others who like characterful concept builds who aren't geared to being exceptional in combat. (Imagine for example a blade pact warlock who's not a hexblade, or a scholarly barbarian who dumped Dex instead of Int!)
Powergamers often don't realise that the non-powergamers still want to feel heroic and be able to achieve great feats - they just don't want to treat D&D like it is Warhammer. There's not much room for those character players to shine if there's even one powergamer in the party.
Having learned from long experience, I now curate my player groups to make sure everyone has a similar approach to the game (which, typically, means not running for powergamers). But going the other extreme - an all-powergamer party and concurrently superpowered foes - would work just the same!
This is a subclause of the "Rule of Cool." They have these skills for a reason, a good DM deliberately gives them places to use them. Except that one skill for that one fight. You know the one I'm talking about.
Always remember, D&D is a shared narrative experience. The players and the DM are *not* oppositional forces. The DM wins when the players do.
Completely true!
I also tend to do this, and I didn´t meant it mean. I was just afraid that it will break the game. After starting watching Critical Role I saw that the players can use pretty cool skills and it doesn´t mess up the game. Now this is also Ginny Di approved, nice!
Love these, slow adjustments in line with advice is the best way to improve 🤙🤙
… this just came out bro
@@codymarshall587 Maybe they played it in 2x speed
@@DeathnoteBB true enough, they would have been on minute two then! Still not to the changes!
@@codymarshall587 Oh true. I think their comment was 4 minutes ago and the video had said 9 minutes, but I forgot to consider the video posted time lol
Yes yes yes! I’m preparing to DM a homebrew campaign for the first time, and every time I find myself wandering near nerfing territory, I ask myself why I’m worried about my friends having too much fun/feeling strong and capable. I can always add another monster or indulge in a crazy idea I hadn’t thought of, but I can never un-bummer a player who was excited about something and is told no, or that never comes up at all.