Initiative typically settles into blocks - a group of players goes, the bad guys go, another block of players go.
So, why can't I turn to the first 3 players, in the first block, and say, "OK, what are you guys doing? You can go in any order you want, you can try and coordinate".
They tell me, I assign additional skill rolls and targets if needs be, they all roll attacks, skills, damage all simultaneously. Multiple players resolving actions and results, in parallel.
Bard: I'm going to try and engage the Ogre, I might not be able to hurt him much, but I want to keep his attention.
Fighter: Right, and then I'll see if I can charge, side-slip, and get in behind him to flank!
Paladin: I want to cast Heroism on the Fighter before he does that.
DM (counting squares): Yep, you could totally do that, you've got the movement. OK, Bob, you get +3 temporary HP, topped up and the start of each combat round, and you guys would be able to flank, so both of you get advantage on your attack. Everyone roll attack and damage.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Initiative typically settles into blocks - a group of players goes, the bad guys go, another block of players go.
So, why can't I turn to the first 3 players, in the first block, and say, "OK, what are you guys doing? You can go in any order you want, you can try and coordinate".
They tell me, I assign additional skill rolls and targets if needs be, they all roll attacks, skills, damage all simultaneously. Multiple players resolving actions and results, in parallel.
Bard: I'm going to try and engage the Ogre, I might not be able to hurt him much, but I want to keep his attention.
Fighter: Right, and then I'll see if I can charge, side-slip, and get in behind him to flank!
Paladin: I want to cast Heroism on the Fighter before he does that.
DM (counting squares): Yep, you could totally do that, you've got the movement. OK, Bob, you get +3 temporary HP, topped up and the start of each combat round, and you guys would be able to flank, so both of you get advantage on your attack. Everyone roll attack and damage.
No reason at all why you couldn't do this and in theory, it would speed up combat and make it more of a roleplay scenario than a mechanical one. The only issue is; if you have multiple players, rolling multiple attack and damage rolls together, how would you know which roll was which. You would have to have different colour dice for everything. I know that most people who have been playing a long time, tend to acquire dice LOL but its just something to watch out for as you'd have to either provide the dice or make your players aware they needed different colours.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Dice trays are good for keeping player rolls separate, but what about when players get 2 attacks? If you are going to roll for all attacks and damage at once, you would still need different dice - 1d20 and xd-attack that matched each other.
This is important because if players roll for two attacks at once and only one attack benefits from their proficiency modifier, how do you decide which attack was which. Or if one attack misses and one hits, how would you decide which damage dice went with which attack?
The player is naturally going to want the higher number and the DM is naturally going to want the lower. Either way, there has to be some fair way of deciding. So different colour dice would help with that.
lets say the blue d20 misses but the black d20 hits - the black damage dice goes with the black d20. This makes it easy and fair to say, you do 5 damage, when the attack that missed potentially did 10.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Oh, I see what you're saying - yeah, the party is 6th level so many of them have more than one attack, and then throw in the non-proficient off-hand attack, so yeah - I see your point about multicolored dice.
Fortunately, all my players have about a pound of dice each, with a variety of colorful dice bags.
Maybe I need to go down to the local maker-space and lasercut some multi-lane dice trays for everyone ;)
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
People's attention spans are getting shorter, it's our modern world, instant access, instant gratification, same day delivery. We are losing the ability to pay attention while we wait. Maybe we all need a refresher course in the benefits of good manners.
I don't personally disagree with you - although I suspect that we tend to suffer from incorrectly idealizing the past, seeing it in a way it never really was.
Still - it's easier to tailor the system and the gameplay to the people, than it is to re-program the people. Plus, it keeps them off my lawn...
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Initiative typically settles into blocks - a group of players goes, the bad guys go, another block of players go.
So, why can't I turn to the first 3 players, in the first block, and say, "OK, what are you guys doing? You can go in any order you want, you can try and coordinate".
They tell me, I assign additional skill rolls and targets if needs be, they all roll attacks, skills, damage all simultaneously. Multiple players resolving actions and results, in parallel.
I'd be wary of regularly letting multiple players decide their turn orders from round to round. First, player actions being automatically synchronized can be devastating when they combine the right spells or class features, especially if they're not subject to the rules of the Ready action and can just shuffle their turns around within the block as they see fit. Secondly, it'll probably create weird edge cases with features that last until the start or end of your next turn, and other creatures triggering reactions in the middle of resolving a block.
Personally I roll initiative once for all NPCs that aren't a specific player's companion, and group up monsters into at most 3 groups, but otherwise follow the usual initiative rules. My players are generally good about not taking long turns though.
For what you're trying to do, I'd consider trying out the Speed Factor initiative variant in the DMG. Everyone chooses an action at the start of the round and initiative is rolled anew each round. This forces them to coordinate with each other and makes the turn order unpredictable so not paying attention isn't an option. There's also the Greyhawk initiative variant from Unearthed Arcana, which has some similarities.
Alternatively, maybe you just need to work on making combat more exciting, or maybe consider that your players aren't that interested in combat in the first place. Depending on why they're not paying attention, adding breaks to long sessions where they can check their phone, get some food, or talk to each other can improve their focus during the game.
It absolutely would create some side effects that I don't expect right off the bat. You sound like a coder ( based on the name ), I definitely am; you don't usually change systems without there being some unforeseen side effects for which you'll need to tweak the system ( that's why we have regression testing, no? ).
I'm somewhat puzzled by the apparent stance that "players could get away with stuff they're not supposed to".
Let's take a step back. The combat rules are meant to sequentially and orderly manage a group of events that would - in reality - being completely parallel and simultaneous, and thus chaotic. If this were real then having a character momentary hesitate a split-second to allow a colleague to do something they could leverage to their advantage seems completely plausible; in so-called reality they could absolutely shuffle their action order around as they see fit ( within reason ). Rules for action readying, only being able to hold attacks and not actions, declared triggers, and hard initiative order, are there only so that the management of an artificially imposed linear sequence doesn't get overly complicated.
Throw out a rigidly locked sequence, and you only need to synchronize and coordinate at certain points of the process flow. Think parallel processing, or the Actor Pattern with message queues and transactions, to borrow from software development. Sometimes you can run things arbitrarily in any order you want, or even simultaneously, and sometimes you need to stop and synchronize the process flow.
That's kind of the pattern I'm following here - initiative blocks can be free-form, but passing from block to block is only possible if everything inside the initiative block is resolved.
That may cause players to be able to come up with new combinations, and be able to more easily leverage colleague actions, to a level of effectiveness not possible under a more traditional hard initiative sequence.
I don't see that as a defect, it's a feature ( sorry, old joke - but accurate here ). It allows for more dramatic, more role-play based, and more complex & interesting combat - and it doesn't result in less plausible results; if anything, it adds to plausibility.
Effects only lasting until the end of a character's next turn aren't hard to figure out; they last until the end of the initiative block they're in. Does that mean that there are other characters that get the benefit of those effects that would not normally do so in a traditional rigid linear sequence? Yes it does. Is that a problem? I don't think so - you may disagree - as the benefits apply both to the party, and the "bad guys" in their initiative block. I think it balances.
That does means that the "bad guys" and the DM both have to adapt; so what? The "bad guys" get the same free form action within their initiative blocks as well. It should roughly balance out, but if it doesn't, it requires the DM to fine tune how they build encounters. Shouldn't we be examining, learning, and tuning what we do anyways?
Implementation should follow design, which should be based on process, which is matched to the underlying problem. Don't get caught in the trap of trying to create process based on design, and trying to force the results - badly - onto the problem ( happens all the time in IT development ).
The Speed Factor variant sounds like a whole lot more book-keeping and dice rolling - which is the exact opposite of what we want to introduce if we're trying to streamline combat. It likely does allow for more creativity and player coordination, within a rigidly locked initiative sequence - but I don't think one needs to cling blindly to the idea of that sequence, when relaxing order of resolution can create the same results with less book-keeping, not more.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I don't personally disagree with you - although I suspect that we tend to suffer from incorrectly idealizing the past, seeing it in a way it never really was.
Still - it's easier to tailor the system and the gameplay to the people, than it is to re-program the people. Plus, it keeps them off my lawn...
Escapism ain't like what it used to be.
When I am a player I spend other people's turns planning what I'm going to do. Then I roll a one.
I'm somewhat puzzled by the apparent stance that "players could get away with stuff they're not supposed to".
I'm more coming from a place of pragmatism. It's really easy to tinker with the rules, but that'll almost always create problems for you and adds overhead to the players. All I'm saying is that this is a big change and it may not be the simplest way to fix the problem (or even be addressing the root cause at all.)
Effects only lasting until the end of a character's next turn aren't hard to figure out; they last until the end of the initiative block they're in. Does that mean that there are other characters that get the benefit of those effects that would not normally do so in a traditional rigid linear sequence? Yes it does. Is that a problem? I don't think so - you may disagree - as the benefits apply both to the party, and the "bad guys" in their initiative block. I think it balances.
Be careful with this line of thought. D&D combat isn't symmetrical. Monsters only have a fraction of the tools the players have. Some monsters aren't intelligent. Most importantly, monsters are expendable. The PCs are the protagonists of the story.
As an extreme example, you could rule that melee attacks instantly kill surprised creatures. Your players are going to die a lot more often as a result of that rule. Yes, they also get to kill monsters that way, but they were already killing monsters all the time.
I think it's unlikely that a rules change like this will affect both sides equally.
I think giving Players more freedom always results in more overhead for them; it's almost like managing choice was work, or something.
My free-form block initiative block idea may not be the simplest way to resolve the sole problem of player involvement, which was the original ask - it's adding additional features of more dramatic and role-play based combat ( yes, I know - feature creep ), which I believe would also increase player involvement, but those added features may, or may not, be desirable for a given table.
I think your symmetrical instant kill example is a tad contrived, but I get - and agree with - your underlying point; rules which apply to both groups don't always have commensurate effects.
I still think it's an interesting experiment worth playing with - and I probably will in tomorrow's session.
But I agree that a) we don't - and can't - often foresee all the possible side effects of changing a system and that b) the unforeseen side effects might not be acceptable once the rubber hits the road.
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I think this got a bit off the rails. My players do not get bored when it is the monster's turns. Even if I have a dozen or more. It is a case that they have no reason to pay attention while the wizard is casting their spell or while the monk is attacking 6 things other than good manners. I do NOT want to punish anyone for not paying attention. Instead, I would prefer to REWARD people for staying on task. I like the ability to identify spells with reactions. I am also considering making the help action a reaction as long as they describe it with the narrative and calling it "Combo".
"Combo" cannot be just "I use Combo to give Klarg advantage" but instead needs to be "I sweep my tail at the orc leader's legs as Klarg attacks with his axe" and then Klarg gets advantage. What do you think?
I think combo is awesome and balanced with it taking up a reaction and having to make sense (can't use a tail to help if you're 60 ft away or something).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
I find that making attack and hit and spell descriptions as vivid and graphic as possible helps. Check out Matt Mercer's DM tips on Youtube, they've helped me enormously.
There have been many suggestions said already in this post but I will just add a couple of things.
Off-load initiative tracking onto one of your more fidgety players, this will give them stuff to do basically every turn as they help keep everyone on track.
Depending on the group and players you might even be able to off-load running some of the monsters as well. This takes a more mature player and one that has a pulse in how monsters act and can act as it would and not in the groups best interest.
Encourage art from the other players too, maybe drawing a particular scene that was special.
The last bit I could suggest is make some of the combat encounters special. I ran a "play" fight where some of the players became the narrators, actors of the play, and the monsters they were fighting. I got to sit back and describe some of the cooler moments of the fight, and the actions brought about by the narrators.
Lots of good advice and great ideas posted already. The help as a reaction is something I might steal just because I like it, not because my players need focus.
On topic though, the reason for poor attentiveness is really what should be addressed or clarified as all the solutions in the world won't help if the problem is not being addressed.
Vivid dramatizations of attacks and spells might BE the problem, causing the person to zone out during flowery combat.
A player might have some sort of attentive disorder (I have a player with ADD and some days she struggles, it's just a thing that happens).
The worst possible factor is that they're just not into what's going on (or in worst case scenario the game itself) and no fix you make is going to have an effect.
As this is something that I struggle with time to time I hope you find what works, it always sucks having to wrangle player attention in addition to running the game. I hope the issue at your table is something that one of the great suggestions people have posted will help fix.
We're playing online and my combats lasts longer than 1 hour. 5min for us? impossible. Besides, I would not have the time to prep for a session where combats lasted for only 5 minutes. As a DM is very good to me when the combat hangs, because means less prep time for the week to come. My players (all of them, except my nephew) stay engaged with the combat. I use animated maps and I try to create nice combats with various "things" to make it more dynamic. I also narrate each other's actions with emotion to make players feel powerful. When someone starts to delay too much to decide, I start to pressure them. Usually, everyone tells their action in less than 30s. But there's no timer.
My nephew doesn't stay engaged because he's a 19y old and hyperactive. He does his turn and waits the rest of the players while he looks at his phone - I don't like that. But the best course of action for me I think it's just TALK to him and say: "Look, you like when you do cool stuff with your character right? But what if noone was paying attention? Would be it fun? No, right? Then, please try to pay more attention on other's turn because they too are doing cool stuff that need to be noticed by others.."
Something I'm also considering:
Initiative typically settles into blocks - a group of players goes, the bad guys go, another block of players go.
So, why can't I turn to the first 3 players, in the first block, and say, "OK, what are you guys doing? You can go in any order you want, you can try and coordinate".
They tell me, I assign additional skill rolls and targets if needs be, they all roll attacks, skills, damage all simultaneously. Multiple players resolving actions and results, in parallel.
Bard: I'm going to try and engage the Ogre, I might not be able to hurt him much, but I want to keep his attention.
Fighter: Right, and then I'll see if I can charge, side-slip, and get in behind him to flank!
Paladin: I want to cast Heroism on the Fighter before he does that.
DM (counting squares): Yep, you could totally do that, you've got the movement. OK, Bob, you get +3 temporary HP, topped up and the start of each combat round, and you guys would be able to flank, so both of you get advantage on your attack. Everyone roll attack and damage.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
No reason at all why you couldn't do this and in theory, it would speed up combat and make it more of a roleplay scenario than a mechanical one. The only issue is; if you have multiple players, rolling multiple attack and damage rolls together, how would you know which roll was which. You would have to have different colour dice for everything. I know that most people who have been playing a long time, tend to acquire dice LOL but its just something to watch out for as you'd have to either provide the dice or make your players aware they needed different colours.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Dice trays; we has 'em :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Dice trays are good for keeping player rolls separate, but what about when players get 2 attacks? If you are going to roll for all attacks and damage at once, you would still need different dice - 1d20 and xd-attack that matched each other.
This is important because if players roll for two attacks at once and only one attack benefits from their proficiency modifier, how do you decide which attack was which. Or if one attack misses and one hits, how would you decide which damage dice went with which attack?
The player is naturally going to want the higher number and the DM is naturally going to want the lower. Either way, there has to be some fair way of deciding. So different colour dice would help with that.
lets say the blue d20 misses but the black d20 hits - the black damage dice goes with the black d20. This makes it easy and fair to say, you do 5 damage, when the attack that missed potentially did 10.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Oh, I see what you're saying - yeah, the party is 6th level so many of them have more than one attack, and then throw in the non-proficient off-hand attack, so yeah - I see your point about multicolored dice.
Fortunately, all my players have about a pound of dice each, with a variety of colorful dice bags.
Maybe I need to go down to the local maker-space and lasercut some multi-lane dice trays for everyone ;)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
People's attention spans are getting shorter, it's our modern world, instant access, instant gratification, same day delivery. We are losing the ability to pay attention while we wait. Maybe we all need a refresher course in the benefits of good manners.
I don't personally disagree with you - although I suspect that we tend to suffer from incorrectly idealizing the past, seeing it in a way it never really was.
Still - it's easier to tailor the system and the gameplay to the people, than it is to re-program the people. Plus, it keeps them off my lawn...
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I'd be wary of regularly letting multiple players decide their turn orders from round to round. First, player actions being automatically synchronized can be devastating when they combine the right spells or class features, especially if they're not subject to the rules of the Ready action and can just shuffle their turns around within the block as they see fit. Secondly, it'll probably create weird edge cases with features that last until the start or end of your next turn, and other creatures triggering reactions in the middle of resolving a block.
Personally I roll initiative once for all NPCs that aren't a specific player's companion, and group up monsters into at most 3 groups, but otherwise follow the usual initiative rules. My players are generally good about not taking long turns though.
For what you're trying to do, I'd consider trying out the Speed Factor initiative variant in the DMG. Everyone chooses an action at the start of the round and initiative is rolled anew each round. This forces them to coordinate with each other and makes the turn order unpredictable so not paying attention isn't an option. There's also the Greyhawk initiative variant from Unearthed Arcana, which has some similarities.
Alternatively, maybe you just need to work on making combat more exciting, or maybe consider that your players aren't that interested in combat in the first place. Depending on why they're not paying attention, adding breaks to long sessions where they can check their phone, get some food, or talk to each other can improve their focus during the game.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
It absolutely would create some side effects that I don't expect right off the bat. You sound like a coder ( based on the name ), I definitely am; you don't usually change systems without there being some unforeseen side effects for which you'll need to tweak the system ( that's why we have regression testing, no? ).
I'm somewhat puzzled by the apparent stance that "players could get away with stuff they're not supposed to".
Let's take a step back. The combat rules are meant to sequentially and orderly manage a group of events that would - in reality - being completely parallel and simultaneous, and thus chaotic. If this were real then having a character momentary hesitate a split-second to allow a colleague to do something they could leverage to their advantage seems completely plausible; in so-called reality they could absolutely shuffle their action order around as they see fit ( within reason ). Rules for action readying, only being able to hold attacks and not actions, declared triggers, and hard initiative order, are there only so that the management of an artificially imposed linear sequence doesn't get overly complicated.
Throw out a rigidly locked sequence, and you only need to synchronize and coordinate at certain points of the process flow. Think parallel processing, or the Actor Pattern with message queues and transactions, to borrow from software development. Sometimes you can run things arbitrarily in any order you want, or even simultaneously, and sometimes you need to stop and synchronize the process flow.
That's kind of the pattern I'm following here - initiative blocks can be free-form, but passing from block to block is only possible if everything inside the initiative block is resolved.
That may cause players to be able to come up with new combinations, and be able to more easily leverage colleague actions, to a level of effectiveness not possible under a more traditional hard initiative sequence.
I don't see that as a defect, it's a feature ( sorry, old joke - but accurate here ). It allows for more dramatic, more role-play based, and more complex & interesting combat - and it doesn't result in less plausible results; if anything, it adds to plausibility.
Effects only lasting until the end of a character's next turn aren't hard to figure out; they last until the end of the initiative block they're in. Does that mean that there are other characters that get the benefit of those effects that would not normally do so in a traditional rigid linear sequence? Yes it does. Is that a problem? I don't think so - you may disagree - as the benefits apply both to the party, and the "bad guys" in their initiative block. I think it balances.
That does means that the "bad guys" and the DM both have to adapt; so what? The "bad guys" get the same free form action within their initiative blocks as well. It should roughly balance out, but if it doesn't, it requires the DM to fine tune how they build encounters. Shouldn't we be examining, learning, and tuning what we do anyways?
Implementation should follow design, which should be based on process, which is matched to the underlying problem. Don't get caught in the trap of trying to create process based on design, and trying to force the results - badly - onto the problem ( happens all the time in IT development ).
The Speed Factor variant sounds like a whole lot more book-keeping and dice rolling - which is the exact opposite of what we want to introduce if we're trying to streamline combat. It likely does allow for more creativity and player coordination, within a rigidly locked initiative sequence - but I don't think one needs to cling blindly to the idea of that sequence, when relaxing order of resolution can create the same results with less book-keeping, not more.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Escapism ain't like what it used to be.
When I am a player I spend other people's turns planning what I'm going to do. Then I roll a one.
Yup
I'm more coming from a place of pragmatism. It's really easy to tinker with the rules, but that'll almost always create problems for you and adds overhead to the players. All I'm saying is that this is a big change and it may not be the simplest way to fix the problem (or even be addressing the root cause at all.)
Be careful with this line of thought. D&D combat isn't symmetrical. Monsters only have a fraction of the tools the players have. Some monsters aren't intelligent. Most importantly, monsters are expendable. The PCs are the protagonists of the story.
As an extreme example, you could rule that melee attacks instantly kill surprised creatures. Your players are going to die a lot more often as a result of that rule. Yes, they also get to kill monsters that way, but they were already killing monsters all the time.
I think it's unlikely that a rules change like this will affect both sides equally.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Good points.
I think giving Players more freedom always results in more overhead for them; it's almost like managing choice was work, or something.
My free-form block initiative block idea may not be the simplest way to resolve the sole problem of player involvement, which was the original ask - it's adding additional features of more dramatic and role-play based combat ( yes, I know - feature creep ), which I believe would also increase player involvement, but those added features may, or may not, be desirable for a given table.
I think your symmetrical instant kill example is a tad contrived, but I get - and agree with - your underlying point; rules which apply to both groups don't always have commensurate effects.
I still think it's an interesting experiment worth playing with - and I probably will in tomorrow's session.
But I agree that a) we don't - and can't - often foresee all the possible side effects of changing a system and that b) the unforeseen side effects might not be acceptable once the rubber hits the road.
The only way to really know is to try.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I think this got a bit off the rails. My players do not get bored when it is the monster's turns. Even if I have a dozen or more. It is a case that they have no reason to pay attention while the wizard is casting their spell or while the monk is attacking 6 things other than good manners. I do NOT want to punish anyone for not paying attention. Instead, I would prefer to REWARD people for staying on task. I like the ability to identify spells with reactions. I am also considering making the help action a reaction as long as they describe it with the narrative and calling it "Combo".
"Combo" cannot be just "I use Combo to give Klarg advantage" but instead needs to be "I sweep my tail at the orc leader's legs as Klarg attacks with his axe" and then Klarg gets advantage. What do you think?
I think combo is awesome and balanced with it taking up a reaction and having to make sense (can't use a tail to help if you're 60 ft away or something).
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Reaction used to take the help action. That is pretty solid
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
I find that making attack and hit and spell descriptions as vivid and graphic as possible helps. Check out Matt Mercer's DM tips on Youtube, they've helped me enormously.
There have been many suggestions said already in this post but I will just add a couple of things.
Off-load initiative tracking onto one of your more fidgety players, this will give them stuff to do basically every turn as they help keep everyone on track.
Depending on the group and players you might even be able to off-load running some of the monsters as well. This takes a more mature player and one that has a pulse in how monsters act and can act as it would and not in the groups best interest.
Encourage art from the other players too, maybe drawing a particular scene that was special.
The last bit I could suggest is make some of the combat encounters special. I ran a "play" fight where some of the players became the narrators, actors of the play, and the monsters they were fighting. I got to sit back and describe some of the cooler moments of the fight, and the actions brought about by the narrators.
Excellent insight
Lots of good advice and great ideas posted already. The help as a reaction is something I might steal just because I like it, not because my players need focus.
On topic though, the reason for poor attentiveness is really what should be addressed or clarified as all the solutions in the world won't help if the problem is not being addressed.
Vivid dramatizations of attacks and spells might BE the problem, causing the person to zone out during flowery combat.
A player might have some sort of attentive disorder (I have a player with ADD and some days she struggles, it's just a thing that happens).
The worst possible factor is that they're just not into what's going on (or in worst case scenario the game itself) and no fix you make is going to have an effect.
As this is something that I struggle with time to time I hope you find what works, it always sucks having to wrangle player attention in addition to running the game. I hope the issue at your table is something that one of the great suggestions people have posted will help fix.
We're playing online and my combats lasts longer than 1 hour. 5min for us? impossible. Besides, I would not have the time to prep for a session where combats lasted for only 5 minutes. As a DM is very good to me when the combat hangs, because means less prep time for the week to come. My players (all of them, except my nephew) stay engaged with the combat. I use animated maps and I try to create nice combats with various "things" to make it more dynamic. I also narrate each other's actions with emotion to make players feel powerful. When someone starts to delay too much to decide, I start to pressure them. Usually, everyone tells their action in less than 30s. But there's no timer.
My nephew doesn't stay engaged because he's a 19y old and hyperactive. He does his turn and waits the rest of the players while he looks at his phone - I don't like that. But the best course of action for me I think it's just TALK to him and say: "Look, you like when you do cool stuff with your character right? But what if noone was paying attention? Would be it fun? No, right? Then, please try to pay more attention on other's turn because they too are doing cool stuff that need to be noticed by others.."