On not surprising your players

So last night I ran a "Monster Menagerie" level of a dungeon for my players, which was more or less like a zoo where you need to climb into the habitats to murder the animals. My players were able to see the monsters clearly and had time to formulate a strategy before engaging. I've done this previously and I really like it as a nice change of pace from the "monsters attack as soon as you open a door" style of dungeon combat.

The reason is that it gives my players time to go through their spell lists, piles of random potions or wands or whatever, and formulate a plan of attack together as a group. They discuss, debate, settle on a plan, and then get to see how that plan holds up to contact with the enemy. When they simply get attacked, they tend to resort to just hitting stuff with Thunderwave until its whatever attacked them is a pile of mush.

So give it a try. Let you players see and assess a threat before choosing to engage. See what kind of crazy stuff they come up with and see if they have a good time doing it. I bet them will.

Age of Sail rules for 5th ed D&D

So after a lot of work and a good bit of reading and stealing ideas from various places, I came up with a set of rules for Age of Sail combat (Ship v Ship, easily used for Ships v. Big Monsters). They're presented here. I finally ran a combat with them last night, my regular game having gotten around to going to sea after 6 levels of dungeonneering on land. I'll post a postmortem for our first playtest of the rules a bit later.

Age of Sail Rules: For 5th ed D&D. These rules should explain how a ship operates in combat against other ships or sea monsters, using a grid map. They’re intended to be used with the stats for ships and artillery in the 5th ed books, as well as the basic combat rules for things like actions, initiative, etc.

1. General
1. Ship Scale Map is 30 ft per square. Placed on the map will be wind speed and direction, and visibility.
2. A ship moves and takes actions on the initiative count of its Captain.
3. Visibility is dependent on weather, clear sky 10 miles away, overcast 5 miles, raining 1 mile and fog 100 to 300 feet.
4. All checks listed herein are base DC 10, subject to situational modifiers.
5. Ships require a minimum number of crew to move and fire guns. For every 30 HPs of damage a ship sustains, one randomly determined crew member will be removed from active duty. The Surgeon can return them to active duty.
6. People on a ship (crew, passengers, etc.) have 1/2 cover from ranged attacks from outside the ship.
2. Ship Actions & Movement
1. All checks to turn, board, accelerate, decelerate, etc. are made by the Captain using his Pilot skill. In the event the Captain takes no piloting actions, a ship moves on its bearing from its last turn at the same speed as last turn.
2. Pilot is both an Dex and a Cha skill. Dex is used if the ship has a crew requirement of 1 like a Keelboat, Cha is used if the ship has a crew requirement greater than 1.
3. All ships have a speed. Sailed ships go double speed with the wind but cannot move directly into the wind. Oarred ships go normal speed all the time.
4. A ship can move on its initiative as per speed, plus take a Dash (double move) or Turn Action (90 degrees max).
5. Ships can Accelerate or Decelerate in increments of 30, or less, per round. E.g. A ship with a max speed of 60 takes 2 turns to go from 0 to max speed or max speed to 0.  
6. A ship without its minimum crew complement, and a captain/helmsman cannot Turn, accelerate or decelerate.
7. A ship performs a Ram by moving at max speed straight into another ship or monster, thereby dealing Ram damage as per ship. A Ram automatically initiates a Board.
8. A ship performs a Board against another ship by ending its move next to that ship and performing a Grapple action. The Boarding Captain’s Pilot check opposed by the Boarded Captain’s pilot check. If attempting to Board an immobilized ship, the check is made with advantage. An immobilized ship cannot break free of a Board.
3. Ship Hit Points and Conditions
1. Ships have hit points and an AC like a creature, they take damage the same way. They typically have a damage threshold as well.
2. A ship automatically fails any dex save (e.g. against a fireball) and is immune to any damage that wouldn’t affect a ship (e.g. poison, psychic).
3. When a ship is between 100% and 50% hit points, it moves and functions as normal.
4. Between 50% and 25% hit points, a ship is immobilized. It can be repaired at sea to 100% HP using magic and/or conventional repairs. A ship regains mobility once repaired above 50% HP.
5. Between 25% and 0% hit points, a ship is immobilized and can be repaired to 50% +1 HP using magic and/or conventional means at sea. It cannot be further repaired unless put in dry dock. A ship regains mobility once repaired above 50% HP.
6. If reduced to 0 HP, a ship begins to sink. It will sink completely in 10 rounds. Damage dealt to a sinking ship speeds sinking by 1 round per 25 damage dealt. It can be repaired only using magical means. If repaired above 0 HP, a ship stops sinking. It can then be repaired as though it was between 25% and 0% HP, explained above.  
4. Cannons - This is specialized artillery. It is not the only type of available artillery.
1. A cannon takes 3 people 25 rounds to load and aim for firing. It cannot be made ready to fire with less than 3 people. See DMG for cannon  stats.
2. A cannon requires 100g worth of blackpowder and a shot worth 30g per firing.
3. Available shot types are: Ball - Deals 8D10 damage to target hit. Chainshot - Deals 10D10, Cannot reduce ship below 50% HP. Scattershot - Deals 8D10 damage, no ship damage but incapacitates one crew per 15 damage dealt.
5. Officers and Actions - To avoid standing around during ship combat, PC’s can take on Officer roles and have something to do.
1. Captain / Helmsman - One person can perform both roles, or two people can do each separately. The ship moves on the Captain’s initiative, and the Captain makes Pilot checks to have the ship Turn, Accelerate, Decelerate, Board, or negotiate other hazards. If two players perform these jobs separately, and both have proficiency in Pilot, they both add their proficiency bonus to the Captain’s Pilot checks.
2. Master of Artillery - One player can be a master of artillery. This player can do the following as an Action on his/her turn:
1. Order Broadside: All ready to fire artillery on a side of the ship (min 2) fire at once. If a target is within close range, make a single attack roll per 2 firing artillery with advantage. For each 2 firing artillery, target takes normal artillery damage on a hit and half artillery damage on a miss.
2. Hustle Crews: Make a DC 10 Cha check to speed up loading time. On a success, -5 rounds until artillery are ready to fire. Only crews that can see and hear the Master of Artillery can receive this benefit.
3. Spot Weakness: Make a DC 10 Wis check to spot a weakness on a target, giving one piece of artillery or attacking character advantage on one attack roll against that target this round. Attacker must be able to see and hear the Officer.
3. Crew Officer - These officers direct the crew sailing the vessel
1. Rally: Make a DC 10 Cha check to grant advantage to the Captain on one Pilot check made this turn. The Captain can only receive this bonus once per turn.
2. Brace for Impact: Order the crew to hunker down for one turn. Until this officer’s next turn, the crew has resistance to all damage other than psychic, and all Pilot checks made by the Captain have disadvantage.
4. Captain’s Officer - These officers assist the Captain.
1. Recon Target: Make a DC 10 Wis check to learn the current HP, flag, remaining crew, or other information about enemy ship. Requires a spyglass.
2. Signal Flag: Communicate a simple message to another ship that can see you using signal flags. DM should decide what can be communicated. E.g. “Follow us.” or “Surrender immediately”.
5. Surgeon - One player with either medicine prof or healing spells can act of ship’s surgeon, getting crew back on their feet during combat.
1. Triage: Make a DC 10 Medicine check or use a spell to return 1 crew member to active duty.

Using postmortems to improve games

Who's had this happen? Everyone comes over, you play, everyone says "Thanks" and then goes home. You pat yourself on the back, and do it again next week. After a while, your game stagnates and dies or your players lose interest and want to play something else, and that's it for the campaign you were running. I've certainly had that happen, and from talking to other folks, I think it's pretty common.

The problem illustrated by the above scenario is two fold: 1) the players aren't giving the DM effective feedback on how to improve, and 2) the players aren't discussing among themselves how to more effectively play together. Remember that table top RPGs (even if they're played over G+ or Roll20) are social games, and everyone needs to be working together to achieve the result of fun being had. Working together, whether you're playing D&D, playing soccer or building software, requires regular feedback resulting in actionable info enabling continuous improvement.

So, how do we ensure we, as DMs, are making that happen? I like to do a short postmortem after every session, and a slightly bigger one after my group has hit certain milestones in the campaign. So, what's all this look like and what do we actually do?

The session postmortems are short, the idea being to just get some feedback about the adventure. Typically, I ask some questions and facilitate discussion. Remember the goal isn't to tell anyone anything, it's to get their opinions. If your players hit you with some weaksauce opinions like "It was good." then you'll need to dig deeper with more targeted questions.

Questions might look like this: (DM focused) "What did you all like about that session? What didn't you like? How could I have done better? (and more targeted) What did you think about how I set up that last combat? Did you think this NPC reacted reasonably to your actions? What do you think might happen now that you've done X?"

Milestone postmortems are a bit bigger, and I like to use them to get an idea of where the campaign is going, or to make design decisions. These might happen after a boss fight, or at the conclusion of a dungeon. My goal here is to find out how the players liked certain design or encounter elements, or how they feel the campaign is going. This is also a good place to ask what the players might want to do or explore next in the campaign.

Remember though the point isn't to get an answer and stop, but rather to get your players having an honest conversation about the game and their play together. If you're having trouble getting your players to give you honest feedback, the problem might not be them. Consider how you receive the feedback you do get. Do you argue or get defensive? If your players don't seem to want to tell you what they think, it might be because you don't take it well when they do. Keep your own reactions in mind as you seek to improve your game through this kind of discussion.

On treasure

When Hack & Slash wrote up his treasure table for OSR, she requested people using it give it a shout. So now I'm shouting.

My players ADORE this list. I've had them regularly ask me, as I describe a piece of abstract sculpture made of aluminium they just found in a dungeon hoard, "where are you coming UP with this stuff?" This is where: Treasure Tables. Containing quick and easy tables for creating everything from piles of trade goods to furniture to clothing and fine art, this will let you really spice up your parties' treasure hauls (with crates of spices!).

This pays big dividends in world realism as monsters and baddies suddenly have a wide variety of stuff to steal, all of which can be thematically appropriate to the bads themselves. My favorite function, however, is that varied kinds of treasure creates new challenges for the party to overcome. "How do we get all this freaking steel back to town?" "How can we find a buyer for this weird mindflayer art we found?" This basically allows treasure to CREATE adventures, instead of merely being the reward FOR adventures. That is fun stuff.

In short, I can't recommend this table highly enough.

"So that's a dragon fight"

Last session we had our first real fight with a 5th ed dragon, and my players really enjoyed it.

To set the stage, we have a 5th level party of 4 characters, a ranger tank, shadow monk, tempest cleric, and blast warlock. Against them I arrayed a CR 7 Black Dragon, 2 CR 2 Ogres, and an environment that was relatively open. The terrain included multiple 10x10 or 15x10 areas of standing water, open skies, and a single 40x60 building. Mist lightly obscured the area. That might seem like a very difficult fight (actually it comes in just under the "deadly" designation in 5th's xp budget for encounters), but my players are pretty tough and wielding a couple powerful magic items. Plus this was the "big fight" to conclude Act 1 of my campaign, so I was prepared to kill someone. They eventually triumphed without losing anyone and had a great time.

Illustration by Ben Wooten

The fight gave us some strong insights into how dragons work in 5th:

1. Their damage is high for their CR. At CR 7, the Black Dragon is capable of dropping a full hp 5th level character in a single breath weapon or attack round on average dice. I'm talking a breath attack averaging around 50 damage, swings that hit AC 17 on average and do 12-15 damage a piece. Just brutal. Their defense is about where you'd expect, excellent AC and high HPs, but not out of line with their CR.

2. They are highly mobile, which makes them far more deadly than their numbers might otherwise indicate. With Speed 40 and Fly 80, the dragon was able to move easily around the battlefield, picking his targets, lining up breath weapon shots, and taking advantage of weaknesses. While environment and initial positioning are always going to be important to the difficulty of a combat, with dragons this is doubly so. A large space can allow them to make full use of their movement, even flying away while their breath recharges. Compare that to a CR 9 frost giant, which basically has to close to melee and swing away. I know what my party would rather fight. This makes them far more deadly against the typical, melee-oriented party than a comparable CR creature.

3. The Lair rules are great. Mileage may vary between creatures but for the black dragon at least, the lair rules provide interesting changes to the combat field without necessarily causing damage. This allows for more tactical play against the party, and forces them to get outside their base strategies. Importantly, the lair can't be attacked or disabled. An allied wizard could have been disabled by the party, but lair actions are just something the party must endure or avoid, which added to my tactical options as the DM.

4. Dragon fights feel suitably epic. It's "Dungeons and Dragons"; the dragon fights had better be a big deal. Your players want to fight a dragon, you want them to fight a dragon, and so the creature rules had better live up to the hype. 5th ed dragons, especially when combined with lair and legendary actions, do just that. Their high offensive and defensive numbers, combined with their high mobility and tactical advantages from lair and legendary actions, make fighting them a battle your players will remember.

My party is already looking to find and slay more of them. As a little bonus to the treasure, I threw in some of the "Dragon Corpse" rules from Hack & Slash Master, which my players really enjoyed as well.

Delivering encounters that empower player decisions, Pt 1

Players want to engage with your encounters (read: the game) to accomplish some goal, be it one you've given them or they came up with themselves. That's D&D in a nutshell. The problem: DMs often fail to give their players enough information to permit that engagement.

To make meaningful decisions towards a goal, players need to exercise agency. As any number of fantastic essays will tell you (http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/ is a pro at this), information is the key to player agency. If the players don't have information to power their decisions, then they're like fish flopping on the ground. They might go in a particular direction, but they don't know (or probably care) why they went there. Or they may do nothing at all. So, when building and delivering an encounter, how do you make sure to communicate the necessary information to the players to enable them to make meaningful decisions?

The first thing I like to do is make sure the player's have a clear goal available. This might be part of the encounter itself (get the dragon's treasure or save the ogre's captives), or it might come from the PC's (we want to get past this room without waking up the goblins sleeping here). Either way, make sure you're either giving the PC's a clear goal(s) with the encounter, or that you know what types of things they might want to get out of it.

This is important because your map and encounter set up need to convey the information necessary for the PC's to achieve their goal, and everything else is fluff. Fluff is good and all, but by definition unnecessary. If you're giving your players great descriptions of the dragon's lustrous scales, but fail to sufficiently describe the open pit trap in front of its hoard, your players will be pissed.

Second, make clear whatever info the PC's need in your map (if you're using one. personally, I like to just write on the grid things like "15 ft fall, steep climb up"), or in your area description.  Do not wait until a player specifically asks about the floor to mention that it's covered in slime and difficult terrain. Give the players all the info they need up front to understand the encounter area and how to do whatever it is they want to do. Players will appreciate a "Gotcha" moment when it is part of a game mechanic (your friend the NPC was really a polymorphed succubus all along!), but will get furious when that moment is about information you could've conveyed but didn't (you try to walk over to that ogre but fail to reach him because there's a pit in front of him).

Now you may be asking, but what about hiding certain information from the players? What if I want them to fiddle with something, or they need more exploration to get the information they need? Those are totally reasonable things to wonder about. In part 2 of this short series, I'll cover managing player assumptions, which I think addresses this topic.

Good artists steal or whatever blah blah

No one creates anything in a vacuum. No one sits in a cave and just pumps out great adventure ideas ex nihilo. Gygax read like every Robert E. Howard and Fritz Lieber story and a million other things on the way to creating Greyhawk. (As an aside, Of Dice and Men is a great history of the creation of D&D and well worth a weekend read).

So, what that means, for me at least, is to be constantly hoovering up culture and ideas and whatnot and digesting them and turning them into stuff you can use. It's always awesome to stumble across great things you can really use, and trawling r/DND is great for that.

This Post has some awesome ideas for a city built around the living body of the Tarrasque, from which you can grow an entire campaign. Well worth a look.