TLDR: I changed my DM style significantly in a way that I don’t like but dramatically improved the fun factor for my players. It comes down to them only liking combat and me liking role play. If you have had a similar experience, did it ruin the game for you?
I am currently DMing my second campaign. My first was Curse of Stahd with some of my friends from work, my current is a home brew campaign with my brother and some of his coworkers.
My CoS campaign was heavily role play driven (which I prefer). There were plenty of fights, but they were story-driven and took a relatively small amount of time per session. My party worked together, talked to each other in character, and got into the story pretty much every time. For my first time playing D&D (I have never been a player, only a DM) it seemed to go really well.
I tried to do the same thing with my current players and have run into significant issues. Despite the fact that my current players are smarter (in terms of sheer mental horsepower) than my previous party, there is an unbelievable amount of handholding that I have to do every session. My players don’t work as a team despite my repeated encouragement to do so, choosing instead to make their own decisions and stare at me as I ask the rest of the party what they want to do. Most of them stop role playing as soon as they fail at something, like they assume that they can’t go through a door if it’s locked (they could pick the lock, break it down, find another door, look for a key, bribe a guard, etc.). A lot of stuff like that.
Ironically, I did far more to explain the game and the campaign to my players this time around. I met with all of them individually beforehand to create characters and teach them the basics of gameplay and had a good session 0 list of things we went over together as a party to set up expectations, ground rules, etc. I never did that with my first group, and they did way better with far less experience. I felt good walking away from the individual sessions beforehand, but when it came to game day the whole operation fell apart.
So for my most recent session I made some changes that I had hoped to not have to make. First, I made roleplaying success automatic, with good rolls only determining the degree to which you succeed (the thief will tell you where his loot is no matter what, a good roll will make him more specific, etc.). Second, I made combat a guarantee. Whereas before they could go to an area and theoretically not fight at all, now their mere presence in an area means that combat will certainly occur. Third, I took everything out of the story of the campaign that wasn’t there in service of getting to the fight. Like a bad action movie, now the plot only exists in order to justify the next fight.
I am exaggerating slightly, but I did do basically all of those things. And, to my surprise and slight disappointment, it totally worked. It seemed like everyone had a pretty good time, enjoyed the combat, we didn’t have any weird drama like before. I changed the style to meet the players’ preferences, and just like that the game become fun for them again.
And it’s not like I had no fun at all, it was still a good time. I enjoy combat, and it dominated the session. My complaint would be that since they respond poorly to RP scenarios, the thing that I spent a lot of time creating is basically in the trash now. All the characters I wrote, the plot lines, the cool scenarios, the exciting revelations...it’s pretty much worthless now because I can’t get them to have conversations with people unless it gets them to a fight. Had I known this going in, I wouldn’t have spent so much time developing the world, but I did and now it’s a massive amount of time wasted.
I plan on continuing the campaign through to the end, and now at least I can guarantee they will make it through to completion (since they no longer fail at RP moments ever). My concern is that this will make me not want to play the game any more. Since my favorite part of the game has been sacrificed in order to make everyone else’s experience better, my desire to play could wane.
Sorry for the book, I just wanted to explain the context for the changes I’ve made. My question for the group is whether you have had an experience like this before and, if so, did it make you want to stop playing? I love D&D and don’t want to stop playing, so if this is a universal no-no, I would rather know now and prevent that loss.
The first thing that springs to my mind is that all your character creation and world building is not wasted, it provides a lot of material to slot into later campaigns (probably with other people).
The obvious approach is to try voicing your concerns to the group and see if it is a lack of interest, lack of confidence, or something else that is stopping the RP. If you get the impression they are falling back on the combat because they are struggling with the other aspects, then Youtube has a load of channels dedicated to helping with that sort of thing, you can find a few advice videos to try and help ease them into a bit more RP. Also if there is no teamwork then I would start dropping in combat encounters where they need to start working as a team to win. It may also be worth thinking up a shortcut, so that if after a few sessions you feel your love of the hobby waning you can quickly skip to near the end to provide some sort of satisfying narrative conclusion despite the style mismatch.
It may also be worth considering starting another group with people more interested in the RP side than your current group, that way you will have a combat heavy game and a more involved RP game, letting you continue to enjoy that side of things. But running 2 sessions weekly can easily be overwhelming so if you do try that solution then it is probably worth running each group on alternate weeks(or months, whatever your current schedule is).
Hopefully others have some more suggestions too, and hopefully something works to make sure everyone is satisfied.
TLDR: I changed my DM style significantly in a way that I don’t like but dramatically improved the fun factor for my players. It comes down to them only liking combat and me liking role play. If you have had a similar experience, did it ruin the game for you?
I am currently DMing my second campaign. My first was Curse of Stahd with some of my friends from work, my current is a home brew campaign with my brother and some of his coworkers.
My CoS campaign was heavily role play driven (which I prefer). There were plenty of fights, but they were story-driven and took a relatively small amount of time per session. My party worked together, talked to each other in character, and got into the story pretty much every time. For my first time playing D&D (I have never been a player, only a DM) it seemed to go really well.
I tried to do the same thing with my current players and have run into significant issues. Despite the fact that my current players are smarter (in terms of sheer mental horsepower) than my previous party, there is an unbelievable amount of handholding that I have to do every session. My players don’t work as a team despite my repeated encouragement to do so, choosing instead to make their own decisions and stare at me as I ask the rest of the party what they want to do. Most of them stop role playing as soon as they fail at something, like they assume that they can’t go through a door if it’s locked (they could pick the lock, break it down, find another door, look for a key, bribe a guard, etc.). A lot of stuff like that.
Ironically, I did far more to explain the game and the campaign to my players this time around. I met with all of them individually beforehand to create characters and teach them the basics of gameplay and had a good session 0 list of things we went over together as a party to set up expectations, ground rules, etc. I never did that with my first group, and they did way better with far less experience. I felt good walking away from the individual sessions beforehand, but when it came to game day the whole operation fell apart.
So for my most recent session I made some changes that I had hoped to not have to make. First, I made roleplaying success automatic, with good rolls only determining the degree to which you succeed (the thief will tell you where his loot is no matter what, a good roll will make him more specific, etc.). Second, I made combat a guarantee. Whereas before they could go to an area and theoretically not fight at all, now their mere presence in an area means that combat will certainly occur. Third, I took everything out of the story of the campaign that wasn’t there in service of getting to the fight. Like a bad action movie, now the plot only exists in order to justify the next fight.
I am exaggerating slightly, but I did do basically all of those things. And, to my surprise and slight disappointment, it totally worked. It seemed like everyone had a pretty good time, enjoyed the combat, we didn’t have any weird drama like before. I changed the style to meet the players’ preferences, and just like that the game become fun for them again.
And it’s not like I had no fun at all, it was still a good time. I enjoy combat, and it dominated the session. My complaint would be that since they respond poorly to RP scenarios, the thing that I spent a lot of time creating is basically in the trash now. All the characters I wrote, the plot lines, the cool scenarios, the exciting revelations...it’s pretty much worthless now because I can’t get them to have conversations with people unless it gets them to a fight. Had I known this going in, I wouldn’t have spent so much time developing the world, but I did and now it’s a massive amount of time wasted.
I plan on continuing the campaign through to the end, and now at least I can guarantee they will make it through to completion (since they no longer fail at RP moments ever). My concern is that this will make me not want to play the game any more. Since my favorite part of the game has been sacrificed in order to make everyone else’s experience better, my desire to play could wane.
Sorry for the book, I just wanted to explain the context for the changes I’ve made. My question for the group is whether you have had an experience like this before and, if so, did it make you want to stop playing? I love D&D and don’t want to stop playing, so if this is a universal no-no, I would rather know now and prevent that loss.
First, I would start adding back some of the RP. You can do this in a lot of ways, including figuring out which characters their enemies would want to focus on and why. It could include tactics that would hopefully lead the party to work together.
Second, I would make sure to populate magic items that are primarily combat oriented in nature, but gate them behind RP triggers and moments. The majority of these I wouldn't have automatic success on, but allow for different ways to accomplish the RP, including a quest to get an item to trade for the magic item or the knowledge about where it is or how to get it.
Third, reward their roleplay moments with combat. Perhaps a rival party won't fight them unless they persuade them, intimidate them, or deceive them (with the flavoring being that they understand what they are trying to do, they just get made enough to actually do something about it.)
Fourth, get the party caught and get them thrown in prison. They have to RP/ work together to get out. Whether they escape, sweet talk, or whatever other method they use can be completely up to you and them, but no fighting (outside of maybe a duel, but have them be without gear. There can be deterrents in place to contain spellcasters much like there are for mutants in the various Xmen movies, cartoons, and comics. This could be in the form of an antimagic field, a zone of silence, or some other method.
Fifth, mix up the sessions. Let your party know that you enjoy RP and you understand that they enjoy combat. Then let them know that you will thread in a RP heavy session periodically to help you stay motivated. These sessions can have the awesome combat rewards attached to them and then the party gets to reward themselves with sweet gear.
In the long run, you may not get enough out of the experience to merit the continuation of the campaign. This is fine, particularly if you follow dmneiloid's advice to shortcut to the end battle.
Keep the preparation you've done for another party, for inspiration while doing other campaigns, and any other reason that it will come in handy in the future. You haven't completely wasted your time with the preparation that way, just when it comes to this party.
I echo the fact that nothing is wasted as you can recycle in to other sessions/campaigns/games so don't worry about that. To be honest each time you start a campaign you never know what to expect and as general rule I only set a bear minimum of story until I see which way the players are going with their characters. This is more difficult with a whole host of new players but eventually you get to read them and what works. It seems that you have found something that works, see that as a platform to experiment from. If it falls flat, don't worry and laugh it off. For instance to introduce more RP in to the encounters try just dropping it in before the fight, even if it cliche (like the attacker saying "I'm going to enjoy this!") and get everyone to roll initiative. To promote more team work suggest combinations of tactics that you can see. Hopefully this would inspire them but don't worry if not. Another thing that I have found works, and is a possible suggestion you can use; what about asking if someone from your other group of players can join? They could help coach the new players?
The new players, are they experienced? I've found some new players really struggle with the wide open nature of D&D. Not all of them, but some are so used to linear quest style things that the idea of being able to do absolutely anything is a bit confusing. They usually come around to it.
First, don't stop RPing you NPC's. Make combat as interesting as possible, giving the bad guys personalities, tactics. Let the bad guys run away if they need to. It'll be frustrating for your players, but it'll just make them want to chase them down and finish them off even more, which opens up avenues to RP. They'll have to track them, question people, find clues etc etc. And yeah, the hook is the fight, but that's not a bad thing. RP takes time to build confidence and cohesiveness. Sometimes you get lucky with a group, but often not. My group has been together for about 14mths and we have just had 2 straight 3hr RP only sessions. The closest we got to combat was a bare knuckle fight in a dock side tavern for gold. And even that contained RP. But there is absolutely no way we could have done that in the first month of playing together. So for now, I would keep it moving, reward RP, get rid of the automatic gimmes, if they miss something, they miss it. You'll have to do the heavy lifting RP-wise for now. But they'll come around.
@ctdndbeyond Everyone from my first campaign is now gone, so unfortunately they can’t join this session.
@MajorPuddles My new players are not experienced, but neither were my old ones. My first group just fell naturally into roleplaying whereas my new one struggles with and dislikes it.
@Jhfffan I’ve tried some of that stuff, and the main problem isn’t getting them into a roleplaying situation, it’s getting to roleplay when they’re in one. I do like the idea of mixing up the sessions like you described, and have tried it a little, but they’ve made it clear that they aren’t going to enjoy it.
@dmneiloid I had already started going down the shortcut road, you read my mind. I agree that my time wasn’t wasted if I use this stuff later, it just sucks now.
Thanks everyone for the advice, I’m gonna try a bunch of it and see what sticks. And hey, if it ends up just being combat all the time, it’s far from the worst thing in the world.
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TLDR: I changed my DM style significantly in a way that I don’t like but dramatically improved the fun factor for my players. It comes down to them only liking combat and me liking role play. If you have had a similar experience, did it ruin the game for you?
I am currently DMing my second campaign. My first was Curse of Stahd with some of my friends from work, my current is a home brew campaign with my brother and some of his coworkers.
My CoS campaign was heavily role play driven (which I prefer). There were plenty of fights, but they were story-driven and took a relatively small amount of time per session. My party worked together, talked to each other in character, and got into the story pretty much every time. For my first time playing D&D (I have never been a player, only a DM) it seemed to go really well.
I tried to do the same thing with my current players and have run into significant issues. Despite the fact that my current players are smarter (in terms of sheer mental horsepower) than my previous party, there is an unbelievable amount of handholding that I have to do every session. My players don’t work as a team despite my repeated encouragement to do so, choosing instead to make their own decisions and stare at me as I ask the rest of the party what they want to do. Most of them stop role playing as soon as they fail at something, like they assume that they can’t go through a door if it’s locked (they could pick the lock, break it down, find another door, look for a key, bribe a guard, etc.). A lot of stuff like that.
Ironically, I did far more to explain the game and the campaign to my players this time around. I met with all of them individually beforehand to create characters and teach them the basics of gameplay and had a good session 0 list of things we went over together as a party to set up expectations, ground rules, etc. I never did that with my first group, and they did way better with far less experience. I felt good walking away from the individual sessions beforehand, but when it came to game day the whole operation fell apart.
So for my most recent session I made some changes that I had hoped to not have to make. First, I made roleplaying success automatic, with good rolls only determining the degree to which you succeed (the thief will tell you where his loot is no matter what, a good roll will make him more specific, etc.). Second, I made combat a guarantee. Whereas before they could go to an area and theoretically not fight at all, now their mere presence in an area means that combat will certainly occur. Third, I took everything out of the story of the campaign that wasn’t there in service of getting to the fight. Like a bad action movie, now the plot only exists in order to justify the next fight.
I am exaggerating slightly, but I did do basically all of those things. And, to my surprise and slight disappointment, it totally worked. It seemed like everyone had a pretty good time, enjoyed the combat, we didn’t have any weird drama like before. I changed the style to meet the players’ preferences, and just like that the game become fun for them again.
And it’s not like I had no fun at all, it was still a good time. I enjoy combat, and it dominated the session. My complaint would be that since they respond poorly to RP scenarios, the thing that I spent a lot of time creating is basically in the trash now. All the characters I wrote, the plot lines, the cool scenarios, the exciting revelations...it’s pretty much worthless now because I can’t get them to have conversations with people unless it gets them to a fight. Had I known this going in, I wouldn’t have spent so much time developing the world, but I did and now it’s a massive amount of time wasted.
I plan on continuing the campaign through to the end, and now at least I can guarantee they will make it through to completion (since they no longer fail at RP moments ever). My concern is that this will make me not want to play the game any more. Since my favorite part of the game has been sacrificed in order to make everyone else’s experience better, my desire to play could wane.
Sorry for the book, I just wanted to explain the context for the changes I’ve made. My question for the group is whether you have had an experience like this before and, if so, did it make you want to stop playing? I love D&D and don’t want to stop playing, so if this is a universal no-no, I would rather know now and prevent that loss.
The first thing that springs to my mind is that all your character creation and world building is not wasted, it provides a lot of material to slot into later campaigns (probably with other people).
The obvious approach is to try voicing your concerns to the group and see if it is a lack of interest, lack of confidence, or something else that is stopping the RP. If you get the impression they are falling back on the combat because they are struggling with the other aspects, then Youtube has a load of channels dedicated to helping with that sort of thing, you can find a few advice videos to try and help ease them into a bit more RP. Also if there is no teamwork then I would start dropping in combat encounters where they need to start working as a team to win. It may also be worth thinking up a shortcut, so that if after a few sessions you feel your love of the hobby waning you can quickly skip to near the end to provide some sort of satisfying narrative conclusion despite the style mismatch.
It may also be worth considering starting another group with people more interested in the RP side than your current group, that way you will have a combat heavy game and a more involved RP game, letting you continue to enjoy that side of things. But running 2 sessions weekly can easily be overwhelming so if you do try that solution then it is probably worth running each group on alternate weeks(or months, whatever your current schedule is).
Hopefully others have some more suggestions too, and hopefully something works to make sure everyone is satisfied.
First, I would start adding back some of the RP. You can do this in a lot of ways, including figuring out which characters their enemies would want to focus on and why. It could include tactics that would hopefully lead the party to work together.
Second, I would make sure to populate magic items that are primarily combat oriented in nature, but gate them behind RP triggers and moments. The majority of these I wouldn't have automatic success on, but allow for different ways to accomplish the RP, including a quest to get an item to trade for the magic item or the knowledge about where it is or how to get it.
Third, reward their roleplay moments with combat. Perhaps a rival party won't fight them unless they persuade them, intimidate them, or deceive them (with the flavoring being that they understand what they are trying to do, they just get made enough to actually do something about it.)
Fourth, get the party caught and get them thrown in prison. They have to RP/ work together to get out. Whether they escape, sweet talk, or whatever other method they use can be completely up to you and them, but no fighting (outside of maybe a duel, but have them be without gear. There can be deterrents in place to contain spellcasters much like there are for mutants in the various Xmen movies, cartoons, and comics. This could be in the form of an antimagic field, a zone of silence, or some other method.
Fifth, mix up the sessions. Let your party know that you enjoy RP and you understand that they enjoy combat. Then let them know that you will thread in a RP heavy session periodically to help you stay motivated. These sessions can have the awesome combat rewards attached to them and then the party gets to reward themselves with sweet gear.
In the long run, you may not get enough out of the experience to merit the continuation of the campaign. This is fine, particularly if you follow dmneiloid's advice to shortcut to the end battle.
Keep the preparation you've done for another party, for inspiration while doing other campaigns, and any other reason that it will come in handy in the future. You haven't completely wasted your time with the preparation that way, just when it comes to this party.
I echo the fact that nothing is wasted as you can recycle in to other sessions/campaigns/games so don't worry about that. To be honest each time you start a campaign you never know what to expect and as general rule I only set a bear minimum of story until I see which way the players are going with their characters. This is more difficult with a whole host of new players but eventually you get to read them and what works. It seems that you have found something that works, see that as a platform to experiment from. If it falls flat, don't worry and laugh it off. For instance to introduce more RP in to the encounters try just dropping it in before the fight, even if it cliche (like the attacker saying "I'm going to enjoy this!") and get everyone to roll initiative. To promote more team work suggest combinations of tactics that you can see. Hopefully this would inspire them but don't worry if not. Another thing that I have found works, and is a possible suggestion you can use; what about asking if someone from your other group of players can join? They could help coach the new players?
The new players, are they experienced? I've found some new players really struggle with the wide open nature of D&D. Not all of them, but some are so used to linear quest style things that the idea of being able to do absolutely anything is a bit confusing. They usually come around to it.
First, don't stop RPing you NPC's. Make combat as interesting as possible, giving the bad guys personalities, tactics. Let the bad guys run away if they need to. It'll be frustrating for your players, but it'll just make them want to chase them down and finish them off even more, which opens up avenues to RP. They'll have to track them, question people, find clues etc etc. And yeah, the hook is the fight, but that's not a bad thing. RP takes time to build confidence and cohesiveness. Sometimes you get lucky with a group, but often not. My group has been together for about 14mths and we have just had 2 straight 3hr RP only sessions. The closest we got to combat was a bare knuckle fight in a dock side tavern for gold. And even that contained RP. But there is absolutely no way we could have done that in the first month of playing together. So for now, I would keep it moving, reward RP, get rid of the automatic gimmes, if they miss something, they miss it. You'll have to do the heavy lifting RP-wise for now. But they'll come around.
@ctdndbeyond Everyone from my first campaign is now gone, so unfortunately they can’t join this session.
@MajorPuddles My new players are not experienced, but neither were my old ones. My first group just fell naturally into roleplaying whereas my new one struggles with and dislikes it.
@Jhfffan I’ve tried some of that stuff, and the main problem isn’t getting them into a roleplaying situation, it’s getting to roleplay when they’re in one. I do like the idea of mixing up the sessions like you described, and have tried it a little, but they’ve made it clear that they aren’t going to enjoy it.
@dmneiloid I had already started going down the shortcut road, you read my mind. I agree that my time wasn’t wasted if I use this stuff later, it just sucks now.
Thanks everyone for the advice, I’m gonna try a bunch of it and see what sticks. And hey, if it ends up just being combat all the time, it’s far from the worst thing in the world.