Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Obergnom 07-31-06, 07:09 AM	Hello, I have got a serious problem, and I hope to find some help. I begin to see DMing as more and more frustrating. Why? Because it seems to be to much work. Much more than it should be. You now, in the past (Playing AD&D) I had a rule of thumb: Never invest more than one hour of work into an average gaming session (In my group, that is about 4-5 hours). Being really familiar with the rules, I was able to do a lot in that time (As work I define encounter building, dungeon mapping, choosing treasure, stuff like that, not coming up with a good plot... and pacing, fortunately, comes naturally to me) Today, that rule would be just ridiculous. If you want your encounters to be memorable, you have to invest tons of time for a single session. (Something about 3 hours, I think) I no longer care to draw my own maps, use as much published adventures as possible, but still, creating 2 more Encounters, and you a there. (Recently, I created an encounter with a force from a temple of elemental evil. Some Fire Clerics, (2 level 3, one level 6), some Azer Duskblades, a Fire Elemental and a bunch of level 2 Warriors (I ignored the differences between humans and elfs, who composed this force) It took me 1,5 hours to write this encounter, including treasure. I had to care for balancing (Which is the right size of Elemental, which levels are enough for the Azers to hit the groups fighters, without killing them outright, etc.) and of course, writing up stat blocks, so it would run smoothly without me digging through books... EL was 11... my group never reached this encounter, I had to wing something. Which was just a standard encounter (2 Bullets summoned by an Ogre Mage from the Air temple.) because it is nearly impossible to wing something else but brute monster encounters, everything else requires to much prep time (I hate to say during a session, please wait, I have to read some monster entries... thats like a loading screen). The encounter was fare less interesting... as high level groups have access to magic that makes brute encounters more and more boring. (Hold Monster anyone?)... you need casters in your opposition or carefully selected magic items, which you have to create, which costs a lot of time... you know where this is going... I am playing D&D 3.X since it was available, did my share of tweaking, tried quite a few optional rule books, and build more NSCs and encounters than I can think of. (For some reason, I never built my own monsters for 3.x, only improved and templated existing ones... that was different when I was playing 2nd Ed, but today, it just seems to be to much work) I just want to say, I now the rules, so answers like “Learn to build NSCs faster” wont help. I think I'm quite fast, but I still do not think it is possible to build a 10th level NSC in just 5 minutes (Except maybe a strait Barbarian or stuff like that, casters are really tricky, I think, because they should be unique, and fighter are not that much better.) Now comes the second problem. That encounter with two Bullets and an ogre mage (Mearls variant) who did not more than summon those Bullets, throw a lightning bolt and than escaped, took us 1,5 hours of game time (remember, we play 4-5 hours a week). Most of my players (Not all though) are really good gamers, they do not need long to decide what to do. Mostly, it seems to be the mechanics that bog us down. So, has anybody a solution for these issues? I know that solving problem number two, without solving the first one, would enhance the prep time issue. I do not have the time to create more than 2 good mid level encounters per session, as things are at the moment. Still, me and some of my gamers start to get frustrated by an ever longer battles (We have a second gaming group, where one of my players DMs Red Hand of Doom. He wants us to meet for a longer session to do the finale battle of chapter one... I think it is okay for such a thing to take half a session, but a longer session, because he fears we would not be able to finish it in a regular one? I tried Castles&Crusades Condensed... (too look at the system) and while I like it for me being able to create! Monsters in 5-10 minutes and advancing them on the fly, create NSCs in roughly the same time (Well, one still has to choose spells, thats something one has to live with but not caring about feats speeds things up a lot), I do not like it for not being 100% compatible with D&D3.x but with the older editions. I like a lot of things from 3.x, and my players too. (Unified XP tables, simple multi classing, the idea of prestige classes (Although not always the execution). Feats, which I like as a player, are a pain for the DM (IMO) and they tend to water the importance of classes down. I myself had some characters whose class was for example whirlwind attack... not fighter or rogue or whatever. Currently I play a Power Charging Cleaver... but as I said, as a player, I like those rules. Monster Manual 4 and similar products seem to be addressing some of my problems, but where is the advantage of the D&D system, when I only can use Drow in a EL range of say 5-12, because it would take me to much time to stat them up myself? It is like loosing the advantages of the new system, I could as well go back and play ad&d. Reading MM4 I really got the impression that the wizards staff knows about the prep problem, but the solution seems to be, create books that enable people to avoid the prep time, but only if they want exactly what is given within. Maybe someone around here knows the Villain Class rules form Iron Heroes... I would love to see something like that for d&d. I am rather clueless how to fasten the 3.x game, I would love to see combats resolved in a max. of 30 minutes, if it is an unimportant encounter. Btw. I know that most of these issues do not exist in low level gaming, but I don't want to play campaigns that have reached their end at level 8. (Under the current XP rules, thats something like 20 gaming sessions, I guess) So, what have you done to address problems like I described above? Do you use any extremely powerful computer tools to fasten encounter design significantly? Which ones? How do you speed up combat? Did you remove some of the rules? Changed some of them? I would really appreciate some help.
Arakim 07-31-06, 07:30 AM	My campaign is basically built from scratch. It's a Psionic Gestalt game. Not the easiest to run. I spent days and days figuring out the monsters and such (most are also custom) but once I had the primary bad guys all statted out, and a list of generic baddies, the prep time for the session is under an hour (for a 4 hour session). I also have a couple of templated baddies that I can apply to standard animals to achieve a cool themed monster. They are also further back than what I have planned, so I don't even have to prep for the next few sessions. I do treasure on the fly, and I decide what gets put in so my game doesn't break down into, "Pimp My Fighter." What I'm saying to you is worry about doing it fun, worry less about doing it, "Right."
technochris81 07-31-06, 07:45 AM	you gotta wing stuff a bit more. if you plan everything, not only is that alot of your time, but players won't always take the bait you put in front of them anyway. as far as spells go, there's an interesting strategy in DMG II. it's something akin to: designate spells for the highest two levels a wizard can cast ahead of time. choose all the rest of their spells on the fly. the nice thing about this is that the villain gets a chance to have the right spell at the right time, but only if it's 2 levels lower than the highest level they can cast. as far as feats, i just say F*** it and give them one or two really cool things they can do that players can't. sometimes i'll give them max hit points. sometimes i'll give a creature damage reduction that it wouldn't have normally (variant of the species / knowledge check to discern). if you feel like you really need feats, make a bunch of different "feat ladders". when you whip out a monster, you can decide which "feat ladder" he's on and how high he's climbed it. once you get used to different "feat ladders", using say power attack with all (fighter ladder) creatures with 4 or more feats will become second nature.
razorboy 07-31-06, 07:52 AM	I feel the pain Obergnom. I don't have a problem coming up with a story for an adventure or campaign, and fun NPCs to roleplay, but building fun encounters is another story. There are a few things that help me out (not completely, but they do help). I hope they can work for you as well: 1) Move away from dungeon crawls. Dungeon crawls tend to have many encounters, and it starts to be a drag designing a dungeon and traps in it, and then striving to make each encounter interesting so that the game does not degenerate into "we kick down the door and beat up another group of skeletons." Either use premade dungeons if that's what your group craves, or design adventures in such a way that there would only be two or three encounters per night at most. Most groups - even in 4-5 hours of play - still do not have more than 1 encounter per hour tops. 2) Recycle material. I recycle old NPCs and monsters that I made from previous campaigns, add a few levels, subract a few levels, add another class, change equipment, maybe a race, choose a different selection of spells, and I have a new foe. Doesn't take more than 5-10 minutes (longer if very high level), and although somewhat boring to do repeatedly, it sure saves time. If you have to generate one on the fly, take one from the DMG (they got full level progressions for all core classes, along with gear and spells). They are generic but it can save your butt under pressure. 3) Steal material. Say you are playing in Eberron and you need a villain quickly; pull one out of Forgotten Realms, change name, appearance, allegiance and motivations and some gear and a new villain is born. Steal stuff from wherever you can find it. Dragon magazine, Dungeon magazine, supplements, these boards. 4) Use generic monsters in a new environment. Even another fight against the orcs can become a new sort of unique challenge, when the fight happens on a thin ice that can crack at any moment and send all combatant to their freezing doom in the depths. Research the appropriate terrain rules beforehand and maybe write them out on a note, these 5-10 minutes of copying down information from DMG will save you a great deal more time during the game sessions and help make an interesting encounter. Good luck!
Renvale999 07-31-06, 08:47 AM	Right now I'm running a mid-lvl Eberron game, Level 8-9. Trust me I understand the encounter problem. But I've found a few things that were not mentioned above that might help you. 1. Use the generic NPC's from the DMG. If it's a Wizard, just add a spell-list, some meta-magic feats and there you go. This cuts down my time ALOT. 2. Just right down the part of stats you need. I don't bother with reach unless it becomes an issue, I don't care about their actual ability scores, I don't use grappling. The monsters spot or hear the PC's only if I want them too, I don't bother rolling for spot and listen checks for the bad-guys. If it has spell-like abilties, just grab the ones you know and/or the ones you wanna use and don't bother with the rest. 3. Pre-statted NPC's are the best from source-books. My group just took down Cavellah from the Eberron Sharn book. I took her stats, changed what I wanted and there she was. I don't know, I hope these help, they've certainly helped me.
KJW 07-31-06, 08:55 AM	You just need to guesstimate more. I can create enemies on the fly, for example a 7th level fighter...BAB of +7, attributes +3, feats +1, Weapon +2...so +13/+8, hit points I want his potent so figure 8/HD (includes Con) so 8x7 = 56 hp, armor class...plate mail +1, shield, dex +1 so 23. That right there is all you need: Attacks (just pick a weapon), HP, and AC. The rest is just filling, for saving throws and skills you can wing it, if you think he failed he failed, if you aren't sure give the PCs the benefit of the doubt in any situation, and so forth. Do not run things exactly, just focus on pacing and use your rolls as guesstimates. I agree combat drags in D&D, but if you focus on pacing and making it fun then it will get quicker. I also agree with abandoning dungeons, they are just not worth the effort too much work for too little reward. D&D is bloated right now and with books like the Nine Swords it is just going to get more bloated, so you best strategy as a DM is to just ignore all the feats, combat maneuvers, and the like and wing it. If you want a villain to be able to disarm in a situation then do that and just make a not that he now has that feat. Remember this is not an arms race between the DM and players, let the players have their fancy maneuvers and you just focus on giving them a good story with some entertaining battles.
terrainmonkey 07-31-06, 09:02 AM	okay, i'll bite. your experience with the game is the same as mine was at first. when it comes to 3.x, you have so many options you get overwhelmed, and this leads to looking through book after book after book just to get the right things for an npc/monster/badguy to have and challenge your PCs. it gets a little overwhelming at first so i just came up with an easy solution. stick to the basics. all you really need to stat out a creature is the AC, Hit points, attack bonus, and how much damage that creature does. list any special abilities or powers you want him to use during an encounter, and there you go. this will greatly speed up your prep time, as you go from figuring out every stat block line by line into a 4 line quick stat type of system. another way of doing it is to run combats cinematically, which i do for most of the combats i run. what you do is figure out how many avreage hits it takes for your characters to kill your toughest bad guy, then downscale from there. example: let's say you have a 5th level thug and 4 lower level rogues, level 1 or 2 each. if your thug is a fighter, you know he's going to have around 40 hp. he's also got some good cleave feat and weapon spec, so he's going to do 2d6+6 points, or averaged out 12-14 points/hit. if your characters routinely do between 10-20 points of damage with spells and combat gear, you know he's going to go down in 3 or 4 hits. the thugs will be one hit kills (1HK) so you really don't need to stat them out at all. you know they are going to hit at +2 or 3, do 2-7 points of damage or so, and be nothing more than a nuisance. if they get hit, they drop. most of the prep time comes when you have to create BBEGs. this is easy as well. most of the time, all you have to do is about an hour or so on your main bad guy just to get his abilities, combat stats, etc. most of the time, i'll do what others have said and take one from a magazine, online NPCs, there's a generator for quick npcs online somewhere, and then there you go. easy peasy. 3.5 is so rules heavy that it takes time jsut to get everything right because they added so much stuff for PCs to do and NPCs to have. another thing to do is just get rid of prestige classes for you main baddies. if you liek the abilities of the PRC, just give the npc the abilities, a certain amount of hit points, AC, etc. your characters will never know, and if they ask, just use those words i live by: "I'm the DM, no. you cannot see my notes." (because most of the time they don't even exist.) basically, the story is key, not the rules for your npcs and what every little bonus here and there adds up to. statting npcs is boring, tedious, and most of the time takes longer than is neccessary for what the PCs are going to do with them. and yes, i recently purchased C&C and i'm loving the system. rules light is the way to go. this is what 3.0 should have been.
Obergnom 07-31-06, 06:11 PM	Thanks for all the good advice! Maybe the best one is, don't try to be to correct. It is not a sience but a game. Sadly, I tend to da that. Still, my problem with fudging is, if I just give the NPCs stats as needed, isn't that somewhat like cheating on the PCs? I mean, why do they use all that time to build up characters and select feats, when all they may accomplish, is to raise the oppositions AC by one point, and making it harder to hit for their comrades? Maybe thats my problem, I somehow got the opinion I need to make the time players invest worth it. In a way, that even encourages power gaming, I should stop doing that. You seem to have helped my quite a lot :-) Concerning winging, I just saw that in Green Ronins Advanced Game Masters Guide, there is a system for quickly generating NPCs. Basically, they use 3 tables, (Good, Bad, Intermediate) and you give your NPCs the stats given on that table for saves, attack and skills, depending on class and level. (Fighter is good at attacking, has good in one of his class skills, intermediate in all other class skills, and good fort and poor refl and will saves.) Sadly, the tables are completely off, I compared them to the NSC progressions. But it should be easy to do such tables, attach them to the classes. Doing tables for AC and damage bonus to, as well as a way to estimate hit points. The huge advantage of that system is, you do not need any stats to create your NSC. Sword and Board Fighter would be like Good AC, Good Attack, medium Damage Bonus (any one hand weapon), Good Fort, poor Will and Ref and one good skill, while Two Weapon Rogue would be medium attack, poor dam bonus (2 light weapons, for simplicity) Good Refl, poor Fort and Will, 4 Good Skills. All you have to do, would be adding class abilities (Sneak and Evasion)... feats would best be ignored, as boni from passive feats are in the progression. (All is estimated). Maybe I will find some time to do those tables. It seems easy enough, and would help a lot. The second question remains open. What do you do to speed up game play? Especially combat? We already use Initiative Cards and Necromancer Games Ultimate Combat Sheet (Great tool, btw.). Most players do not need to look up spells during their turn. All the obvious optimizations are done, as well as possible, without having a computer helping out with calculations and maybe even dice rolling. (For those 12d6 Damage rolls and stuff like that, but which player would like that???)
KJW 08-01-06, 08:17 AM	Still, my problem with fudging is, if I just give the NPCs stats as needed, isn't that somewhat like cheating on the PCs? First off, technically, the DM cannot cheat, but this point is a fallacy. The DM must be fair, the trick with fudging is to use it to make things quicker and more entertaining, not to create a result the DM desires. Ley me clarify, if you fudge results to save a BBEG that is, in my opinion, wrong, but if you fudge results to speed or spice up an encounter that is fine. The outcome of the encounter should be determined by your players that is the guiding principle of roleplaying games. As for the point that you want to match the effort placed into their PCs by the players to give them their due, well if you shallowly draw up NPCs your PCs will have more chances to shine as their opposition is more generic and thus more vulnerable to their special attacks and skills. Plus this is more realistic, the DM who designs every encounter against the strengths and weaknesses of his players is creating an unrealistic world and setting up DM v. player hostility. The PHBII also has a quick NPC draw up system in the back. The second question remains open. What do you do to speed up game play? Especially combat? Guesstimating really helps and speeds things up. I also find that one big opponent goes quicker than many smaller opponents, so the less hostiles you are running the quicker it goes. I do initiative fairly often in a combat (which is not a good idea if speed is your concern), but what I do is group most of my hostiles on one initiative. I have all the PCs before that initiative go at once, then do my hostiles, then all the PCs after the initiative. Another thing is just to end encounters, I will often say when the battle is 'over' that the PCs rout the remaining enemies a few flee in terror, but most are fallen on the field of battle. Wrap up engagements, also do NOT have enemies who flee come back seeking revenge, this is unrealistic and contributes to PCs trying to finish off everyone, which really drags the combat in the end of the encounter. Another thing is to only use combat when necessary, I rarely use random encounters and avoid dungeons, because situations with lots of combat mean very little roleplaying and a lot of wasted time. Make your combats important to the story and then if they are lengthy it really doesn't matter. Fighting a band of orcs trying to assassinate Duke Gregor is far more exciting and engaging than fighting a band of orcs wandering the forest. Think that you are making a movie, cut the scenes that really do not further the plot...imagine if LOTR had played out every random encounter, it would have detracted from the story and ruined them. This is the same with your campaign, if pointless battle is taking up time, it does nothing but slow the story and reduce the fun.
Tormsskull 08-01-06, 08:31 AM	okay, i'll bite. Not to derail the thread, but I noticed almost everyone of your posts says "okay, I'll bite". Is that kinda like your slogan? Like the whole "Seacrest Out" thing? To Obergnom: I have to say I spend WAY too much time on D&D stuff. When I am sitting at work I run through scenarios in my head of interesting encounters, when I get home I try to stats some of the enemies out. There's quite a bit of good advice from posters above. Here's some advice from me (some repeated): If you can afford it, get e-tools. e-tools is an awesome program from code-monkey publishing. It allows you to create characters/monsters/feats/magic items, etc. You can then print these things right out; I use it a lot and it saves a lot of time. Especially when it comes to monsters. You can create new monsters by simply taking the old ones and then tweaking them. The tweaks can be saved under a different name, and then you can always use it again if you need to. I've had e-tools for a few years now, and I have PCs/monsters/races saved from all that time. If I ever wanted to pull up a character from a past campaign, I'd simply load him up from the files. It is incredibly useful. Second, exactness is not important. If you guesstimate a stat block in your head for a creature/enemy, don't worry if it turned out to be slightly stronger/weaker than what is should have been. Third, whenever I create an adventure, I make sure to detail the locale the PCs will be adventuring in. If things seem to be getting a bit boring, I'll toss an encounter their way. The good thing about knowing the locale is that I'll be able to place an appropriate enemy for the terrain. Since I know the locale in advance, before the PCs set off in that direction they may learn about certain types of monsters that reside their from RPing or gather info checks. Anyhow, I think this is a good topic, and I hope everything works out for you.
Obergnom 08-09-06, 03:25 AM	At the moment, I am working hard to find a sollution. Especially for the Game Time problem: 1. I converted the Castles&Crusades Combat System to d20. Most of it can be used as written. Itterative attacks are removed, you gain 0.5 extra attacks instead (like in ad&d). 2. I began writing featless classes. All Feats (The bonus feats and the ones you allways get) are rolled into new class abilities. I finished the fighter and barbarian, but the other classes seem to be rather hard. Maybe I will end just removing all bonus feats from classes (and offering a featless fighter of course) 3. I am doing a Castles&Crusades test run, starting today. The Adventure used is The Harrowing (Monte Cook, Dungeon Mag, a 15th level d20 scenario). If that works out really well, I would simply switch the system. This test is for checking if C&C is faster at high levels and how easy it is to convert new modules.
albinomonkeyking 08-09-06, 02:10 PM	Not to derail the thread, but I noticed almost everyone of your posts says "okay, I'll bite". Is that kinda like your slogan? Like the whole "Seacrest Out" thing? Ahahahahahahaa...ah...anywho! Seems like everything is working out for you, my opinion and suggestions are much like the others so...good luck! Hope it works out.