Speeding up a game of DnD 

Dungeon Craft sent me!

@@c30f$p@d3z I agree.

My solution is a touch mean but it usually gets the point across. I have had some very jumpy players who will announce they're rolling for something and roll their die straight away. They tell me the number and I say, "Sweet roll! But you didn't explain what you were doing, nor did we call for a roll. Tell me what you want to do and we'll see if it needs a roll."

@Golden Griffon See I hate this because as a player I want to make my own rolls (that's half the reason I'm playing D&D is to roll shiny dice let's be honest), and as a DM I don't want to have to keep track of all the players' bonuses all the time. I'd rather they make the roll and know the failed, and unless you have a serious party of meta-gamers it doesn't really matter anyway. All it does is take agency away form the players, and often lead to arguments over "well I have this bonus to detect this thing, did you factor that in?" or the classic "I would have been actively looking for something like that." I understand the idea behind making secret rolls for your characters, but in practice I think its bad design, and bad play. Also this kind of "passive" secret checking is what lead the people I played with to constantly demand perception checks. They wanted to make sure they weren't being cheated (we had a real scumbag DM in high school). If you take this idea of secret rolls to its logical conclusion really the only thing a player should ever roll for is their attacks. They shouldn't know if they failed a skill check, or flubbed a knowledge roll so bad they're getting bogus information. They shouldn't roll for their hitpoints, its gamey so lets take that out of the equation, I'll roll for them and keep track of them for everyone (extra DM work). You really shouldn't even know your stats or bonuses, you know what in fact just give me your character sheets. I'll play this game my damn self. Okay, I'm being hyperbolic, but it really just goes against my core ethos of DMing. If that's how you and your group enjoy D&D I'm not suggesting you're "playing it wrong," but that's a fundamentally different game to me, and one I would not enjoy, so I do not impose it on my players. The thing with me is, and I tell this to my players, I'm not trying to trick them or get them in a GACHA moment. I will warm them ahead of times to expect traps, I'll tell them when they have to make checks, and often I won't ask for checks if I don't think they require it. I try to be a very transparent DM because I had my share of really shady DMs that didn't tell you things, sprung traps on problem characters in places someone else had already been, and really seemed to enjoy nothing more than making you write up a new character every week. I hated it, and I don't want it for my players, and I don't want to foster the mentality that I am opposed to them.

I do passive perception scores from 4e - and just tell players if they notice something then for harder things, the player has to actively describe "running their hands along the wall" or "picking up the chest and looking under it" etc like in OSR games to make things more immersive and interactive rather than the feeling of just pressing buttons with skill checks

I dont think my players would like that, they really enjoy rolling the dice and are already pissed at me for just taking away the insight checks from them lol

Another way is to roll it for the players - cause you know they get excited at times when they FAIL a perception roll and you tell them "oh, that was nothing"... and the movement comes to a complete stop untill the players pry at leas some info out of GM )))

Cool. EDIT: I just sent my girlfriend through my own piece of crap homemade dnd knock off with her running four characters. She talked to herself through the characters. Was kinda retarded, but cute. Cause like she never played before. I myself only have played one campaign of pathfinder. But yeah my first time "DM" ing went well. Even if it was mostly me making stuff up because I hadn't finished the game yet.

Legends speak of a man named Jimmy D who's still standing up to this day. His followers promised they'd bury him upright when the times comes.

attar81 Scrolled through to see if anyone else brought this up before I brought it up myself. My favorite way of handling initiative in any D&D variant where a player could have a bonus or advantage on initiative.

@@JohnCarr yeah. I can't remember where I got this from. I call it lazy initiative.

This is actually brilliant

@@attar81 I'm stealing this. And the name.

I use a simultaneous system based on weapon reach that goes, missiles, magic melee. Combat is so fast, even faster than a simple D6, and it makes a lot more sense. Replacing initiative experiment: New Combat Order of attacks. 1. Initial missile attacks: bows and crossbows, then thrown weapons such as spears, hand axes, daggers, etc. 2. Magic: Wands, staves, rods, rings and other items with stored spells go first, then cast spells, and finally spells read off scrolls or straight out of spell books 3. Melee & middle missile attacks: Weapons with the longest reach will go first-This order will repeat for character with multiple attacks unless circumstances dictate otherwise-for instance the party is in a very tight press and long weapons are too unwieldy. • Pole weapons that are 8+ ft. (pikes excluded for obvious reasons) • Long weapons: Two handed swords, great axes (Dane axes), pole axes, 6’ spears, quarter staff, etc. • Medium weapons: Bastard swords, long swords, maces, any one-handed weapon between two and a half feet and four feet long. • Short weapons: Short swords, clubs, daggers, iron spikes, etc. • No weapons and small hand weapons, fists, claws, bites, improvised weapons such as held rocks, crockery and broken bottles in bar fights, etc. 4. End of round missile fire: bows and crossbows, then thrown weapons such as spears, hand axes, daggers, etc.

Dude level 17 is to high after level 8 it just gets boring for me. You should just bring them into the tomb of horrors.

Legendary Actions are a tough one because they can take place on any turn so you have to constantly be aware of them.

All my players murder surrending enemies. Last time I weakened a good aligned magic item and removed victory conditions for the war they are in for the barbarian throwing an incapacitated enemy off the gate house. We will see how that plays out.

I don’t think it makes sense for the monsters/villains to surrender because the players always end up murdering them rather than taking them prisoner unless their patron specifically says capture but don’t kill the bad guys. But it does make sense for the bad guys to run away if they can

I wonder if they got rid of morale checks and alignment in 5e? The last time I played was 2e.

@@iamtimorama ya, specific mechanics are pretty much gone.

@@AlternityGM This is a matter of play style and it depends on you as well as your players! If you're dealing with Murder Hobos then they probably will kill the surrendering enemy - and they should gain a reputation in the area for that. "Don't show them any mercy because they won't do it for you." On the other hand, I've had plenty of games where the PCs took prisoners to question them, ransom them, and even befriend them. If you don't want to play a Murder Hobo game, I'd suggest having an NPC talk to your players about the BENEFITS of taking prisoners OR having an out of game discussion about the fact that there are other options.

Isn't initiative based on dexterity? Therefore why treat it as a separate ability?

And ugh stay blocks @ end of adventure is killing me running my first 5e campaign! Yes i Could& should prepare around it but will look for “better module UX” in the future.

I'm creating a similar campaign. I find that West Marches meshes well with OSR type play.

AH I LIKE this! (LOL a tip I probably forgot long ago!) Let the party know who's likely to get attacked makes a big difference in tactics, rather than having them feel the enemy is just choosing their PC at random.