Narrative Combat is NOT good in Dungeons and Dragons, but there ARE ways to fix it
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Hello! My name is Jay, and I am a long-time veteran of storytelling and a semi-seasoned DM! I began playing Dungeons and Dragons roughly 5 years ago and began my first ever game as the DM. I figured things out by watching online games and fumbling my way through the rules, and never looked back! I’ve fallen in love with TTRPG’s in general and want to share my experience and thoughts with the world and community I love so much. I currently DM two separate games regularly, and continue to learn every day.
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"Why D&D sucks". I fixed the title for you 🙂
pssst You forgot to put the Geek Tank link in your description.
I don't see link to the sponsor.
Great video! I definitely agree that letting players know the outcome if they fail their roll before they choose to take that course of action does help raise the stakes and makes allows players to feel more satisfied with the choices they have made.
I sometimes even tell my players the DC of a give check before they choose to make it as I thing that can help them to decide strategically and makes it more tense if they do choose to roll.
I've had DM who took the spirit of what I was trying to do even if the mechanics didn't allow it. Like one time, I was trying to use minor alchemy to create a reflective surface in combat. The DM said there wasn't enough time to do that, but they said I was able to find a polished metal platter.
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Here's a system I use: a dnd channel said a near miss is not a complete failure. You fail the DC15 Athl check with a 13? I allow you an extra roll to see if you can hang onto the edge of the chasm you were jumping over.
Great video, and I think a topic that no one can ever get enough tips on. D&D rules as written is difficult to make combat intense and narratively appealing with. I think this is a very good suggestion, and one I plan to try and lean into more in my future games for sure.
D&D let's you roll using different, more relevant stat mods. Like rolling for Intimidation using Strength/Athletics in a a competition
7:10 An example: can the spellcaster upcast Silence to make it into Zone of Secrecy, where audio can’t escape rather than be emitted by anything within? Allow the players to make a little huddle where conversations can’t be overheard.
I mean the simple answer is you're the DM you have freedom to bend any rule that you see fit, which is what I've done to change things I didn't like about 5e many times. But sometimes people need to be told that they are allowed to bend the rules as a DM which is the true value of this video
Ultimately, D&D got its start as a tabletop war game, and it never forgot that. For all the attempts to incorporate narrative and non-combat elements into it, it is – at its core – a combat simulator, and the rules as written are going to push you towards that. (Which is a big part of what makes stuff like CR being broken such an embarrassing problem; in a game about punching things to death, your combat mechanics should absolutely stick the landing).
With that said, I’ve had a game that’s been running sporadically for a few years now. In that time, I can count on one hand the number of times my players have chosen combat; it’s a fail state for our table. If your dice go horrifically enough, fisticuffs are the end result. Knowing that that’s how they want to play, would I have chosen D&D if I had it to do over again? Never; it would be near the last game I’d choose for them, but it’s manageable, in part because I negotiate actions with them in a manner similar to what you’re suggesting. They’ve talked a dragon into releasing the person it had stolen, negotiated a peace treaty between an archfey and an environmental activist wanting to punish the people for what they’d done to the trees (Yule game), and pulled a bunch of political favors to bring a halt to a death sport they were kidnapped and to be subjected to. About the only time I’ve seen them not try to find a solution that didn’t involve some creative solution that avoids violence was when I threw the guy who didn’t handle rejection well and instead sold his soul to a dark god to give him the power to take the woman he felt was his at them. That guy they turned into paste and reveled in it.
D&D doesn't suck at balancing combat and roleplay. Your DM just sucks at balancing combat and RP.
And there's no reason that combat can't combine RP anyway.
Great take! I use a variation where I do not specifically outine the consequences but will say, "You can do it, but there there are factors you may not be aware of at play. Ultimately, it is up to you." If I'm peevish that day, I will simply say, "Are sure you want to do *that*, absolutely sure?"
When it comes to my players making skill checks they aren't necessarily good at, I make a point to keep their PC's stories in mind to decide if they would be good at something specific that they aren't proficient in. For example, I currently have a paladin who has been turning to dark places for an edge against the forces they seek vengeance against. While this PC isn't the smartest in the party, I will generally give them a small bump to Intelligence rolls related to fiends (usually a +1 to +3 bonus, depending on what they want to know) because that's something the player specifically wrote about for this paladin's background. It's not a flat bonus towards Arcana or Religion so much as a specific section of those skills that applies to that paladin specifically. I've found that it sends to work out pretty well and lets the players feel like the pages of backstory they write are adding something to the game.
I feel it matters about gaming style for this. For those approaching it more as a game then the challenge of players making the rules do the most the rules can is part of the fun. If you've put effort into optimising your character and having the most useful set of abilities for your build to work as part of a coordinated team then having those rules disregarded or mutable negates that to a degree. Additionally some players are not good at improv so they may be stuck at rules as written and feeling impaired when other players are more creatively shaping their relationship between the narrative and the rules. "My barbarian attacks and then attacks again" can feel pretty crappy when the bard has just summersaulted off the chandelier, dropping a cluster of minions.
Personally I prefer improv and narrative shaping of rules in my games with the thought that you've either built up to the shenanigans through previous roleplay, the DC is appropriately high, or failure is more consequential.
At first blush straight up telling the players the DCs and consequences if they fail beforehand should be counter-productive for facilitating immersion–in other words, metagamey. In practice, however, doing so not only lets players get a good grasp of the situation and prevent a discrepancy between the player and GM's understandings of the situation, but also greatly enhances the actual roleplaying as well. It asks not only the player but also the character if they willing to take that risk. Two rolls with the exact same DC with the exact same skill with the exact same chance that the character will succeed can invoke two wildly different narrative stakes, and what the character chooses to do depends on what they value–or at least, what they think they value.
Not only that, but knowing the DC beforehand activates that lizard brain reaction to big numbers. It gives the entire table suspense before the check is rolled, and the emotion of the result is felt immediately, be that succeeding by a wide margin, just barely making the DC, or falling just barely short of it.
I already work like this ! I'm happy ! It works really well with my group because we've always been rule of cool
Giving players choice and telling them the result before they roll help them gauge whether they want to go through with their actions. And that's always a smart idea! I've doe this in my Star Wars Game.
I think this is a pretty straight-forwarded issue: just play Fate, or Blade in the Dark, or World of Darkness.
If D&D doesn't work for you, why not try other systems?
I’ve found that nearly every situation where 5e falls short is either bc the DMs forget that they can do literally anything, or they just don’t apply that knowledge logically in/above game; to be fair, it can be a lot of work.
I just did a worksheet, a one page chart for players and DM's on this topic. Would you like to review it and give improvement feedback? This is a version of Jill Chamberlin's nutshell technique you can google. I adapted it for RPGs. Let me know. Cheers Jay.
Don’t feel bad about askin for likes or subs. We love you and your videos. We are also forgetful. Regardless it’s ok to ask for your needs to be met
Love the video
thanks jay
I would have loved that so speak about this issue from the player side to, i played alot of pnp rpgs but when a battlemap is there, stats etc. like in Lancer or D&D i as a player struggel so mutch more to make the combat feel alive and not number pushing, while when we play in theater of mind it comes allmost natural.
Pros and cons of pathfinder, they give mechanics for narrative elements. There's formulas for calculating almost every kind of social DC you will need. And there are mechanics for using them in combat. It may take a feat or two to be good at it, and you'll need to invest, but you can do things like running around debuffing enemies simply my being scary.
Sounds less like a system issue and more of a DM issue, ngl.
Seeing here pathfinder and i must say after playing a few times (tbh one shots or short campaigns whit rabdos) .i must say path 2e isnt builrd for rp..its one of the most gamey ttrpgs out there. Which is great for a super combat focus game(like lancer ) but tands to fall out whan trying to fuck whit it or trying to move away from it. Lancer has the problem thats close to 0 mechanics to rp(and there new ships game is pretty much a wargame). Path has the problem off too many things..and too many things that hold the dm and too many things thats makes rp gamey (tbh im not agains some mechanics for rp..but i think its should be build from the start abd have a good focuse . having an ability thats allow you to intimidate people whit a glare is horrible idea for rping because its taking away a very basic favour from the players )
I think that Call Of Cthulhu is good system for more RP leaning games. I think that people just need to be introduced to new kinds of systems if they think that 5e isn't working for the way that they want to play their TTRPGs. Getting a pulse on what your players want to do is always a good thing, if your table would rather lean towards RP heavy narratives and not have to deal with spells or something. It's just a thought XD
This is something I really like from the fantasy flight Star Wars and Legend of the Five Rings games. Rather than use numbered dice, their dice have symbols, and each system has two symbols for good outcomes. One is the “success” symbol, which is what you need to actually accomplish what you are trying to do. The other symbol can be spent to get additional good outcomes. These can be used even if you failed, allowing the player to still make something good come from the roll. The Star Wars system also has “bad” dice that have opposing symbols, and the difficulty of the challenge comes from how many bad dice you are rolling. This means that you could get the bad bonus result, which means that even if you succeed it can still cause problems. If you’re wanting something more narrative, those are probably the most narrative focused games I’ve played, and I’m pretty sure they have a generic version of the systems of you don’t want to play in the settings.
I'd honestly make the enemy have the artifact somehow attached to them most of the time.
yo this has nothing to do with the viseo but with the pathfinder logo you can turn down the contrast a bit to make the red stand out you probably turned the saturation for it way up so it turned in to that aside from that great video
unless it's a DC given by the game itself (like AC or a spell DC), I don't use DCs, I do use the scale of DC 5 to DC 30 as a rule to measure how good was the success or how bad was the failure.
The reason i hate “The Holdo Maneuver” in the star wars universe is exactly what you said about create water in the lungs of the opponent lmao