Hey y’all, I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I was wondering if there was any advice here, perhaps people who have been through something similar.
I’ve been DMing 5e for a while; I started maybe 7 or 8 years ago in college. I ran LMoP for my roommates to begin, and I had a campaign that lasted two semesters for a different group of friends. That second one was super homebrewed, and hugely successful in that it seemed like everyone had fun. But throughout that campaign I realized there were a lot of things in my game I wasn’t satisfied with, especially in regards to combat and the “difficulty” of the game. PCs blew my encounters out of the water and took long rests whenever they felt like, and I wanted there to be stakes, dilemmas, etc. That stuff has been pretty widely discussed online and I have learned a lot since then.
Since then I’ve only had one group stay together for a reasonably successful campaign, and I thought I could do more or less the same as I had done before, but better. I had one player from the previous campaign as well, which I thought would be a boon. He’s my best friend and I love the guy, but I realize now he just doesn’t like the way I have evolved my DMing. He doesn’t like how there’s not always time to take a long rest or fighting without all his resources, he doesn’t like encounters more complex than running into the fray to swing swords and cast spells, and he doesn’t like that the characters might die now. He’s been pretty open about this, and he’s told me that in his opinion, the way the game should go is the players face some obstacles but they overcome them, and it’s unsatisfying if they don’t, and character death is unsatisfying and unfair, and imo if I read between the lines he basically wants to be able to run his warlock into an Annis Hag and know that he will come out the other side alright.
To be clear, this isn’t a bash-my-friend post or a problem-player post, I appreciate his honesty and how he knows what he wants from the game. The problem is I am having a lot of fun with the things I’ve learned, and I don’t wanna go back in the playhouse. So the question is how do I handle this and AITA? Would I look for a new group, or is that me thinking the grass is greener with folks I don’t know very well? I don’t want to run a game that my friend will get tilted in, but I am so bored with running simple encounters that get exploded by a party that gets a long rest between every fight. Help please.
I might be able to shed some light here. See, I generally DM in a way that generally appeals to players like your friend. I’m going to try and explain my reasoning and it might help you understand what he’s looking for.
In my games, the PCs generally succeed in their broad aims. We play to find out, not if they can, but how they do it, and what does it cost them. Character death is rare, and if I can help it, it’s never due to a single missed roll. Players get the opportunity to adjust their plans, sneak out when they are obviously outmatched, and are able to make miraculous escapes in the nick of time. When things go really wrong, are knocked unconscious and left for dead, or are captured. (If you are wondering how to run this, look at fate points in wfrp 2e, the idea is you give them a negative consequence and take them out of the fight instead of killing them outright).
This does not mean characters never die. A campaign that doesn’t end without a pc sacrificing themselves for the greater good is boring, but this makes it a conscious choice of the player.
This does not mean the PCs can just fail their way to success. They get plenty of opportunity to figure out a strategy that gives them the upper hand, to out-talk, out-plan, out-number or out-think foes too powerful to take on head on. But if they are dead set on doing it the stupid way, and I am satisfied I have provided enough information telegraphing the way it will end, then yeah, TPK away.
The problem, as I read it, is that it’s only 1 player feeling this way. The rest of the table seems to enjoy themselves. Or, that’s my take on it, since they don’t really get mentioned.
I think the rest of the table enjoyed themselves, but I do think part of it is that they weren’t as invested as the player in question. They would show up to the session, put themselves in danger, and don’t really seem to get the same anxiety about their character dying because I don’t think they would really care that much.
Frankly I think that amplifies the issue because we only have one player that might want to spend time on a plan to try to guarantee success and the rest of the party is more “fuck it we ball” types. Furthermore the anxious player was the most frontliner of them all so the party’s lack of planning is most likely to bite him in the ass out of any of them.
Thanks for this, I’m interested in your take on what you do to make your games interesting for you as a DM. My issue isn’t so much that I can’t run a game my friend enjoys, it’s that I don’t really enjoy it because I feel like I know exactly what’s going to happen. I enjoy DMing with more complex and difficult encounters because I get unexpected situations out of it.
It’s interesting that you mention Fate because I’ve actually run it before at a retreat, and that same friend recommended Fate as a more beginner friendly, easier to set-up TTRPG. And when I ran it I thought of him because the whole system seems to almost guarantee the players’ success, and the drama is in the “complications” or whatever the jargon for Fate is. D&D by comparison doesn’t seem to lend itself to that success-but-at-a-cost.
I like FATE, but in this particular instance I was referring to the fate point system in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2. It’s a more traditional system than FATE.
What I like about it is that it’s pretty brutal, but it has mechanisms like this to give the players more say about what happens to their characters. Often it’s a bit of a Sophie’s choice situation but agency is agency.
What I try to do is prepare situations not outcomes.
To take an example from my last session, the players are looking for evidence that a noble is secretly a vampire and is involved in a cult. He owns a town house in the city and evidence of his involvement is likely there. They can sneak in at night, try to get an invitation to a social gathering there, pose as a delivery man, whatever. Also one of the servants might know something. They can follow him home and intimidate him or kidnap his pet or whatever.
I prep just enough of the house and retainers to be able to fill in the blanks on the fly. I know my players, so I know they are probably going to try and gain entrance to a social function. They love upscale parties. So I prep that route a bit more including a few of the invitees they can either try and pressure out of an invitation or run into at the function.
They take the party bait (of course) but to my surprise, they decide to ambush the band playing at the event and take their place. But that’s ok, I have prepped the mansion, the servants and the party in enough detail to adapt. A few hilariously botched play instrument rolls later a few sneaky party members peel off to gain entrance to the upper floor while the others run interference downstairs.
It supports many play styles, but in the end you need all to be on the same page. If you and the rest of the table want to play a game that focuses on tactical combat and one person doesn’t, you’re going to have to talk about it and figure something out.