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I think "Never" is a bit steep. "Monsters shouldn't ALWAYS attack first" is very different to "Monsters should NEVER attack first." And is absolutely correct. For all of the reasons presented in the video. I think the issue is less about DM's seeing the title and thumbnail and getting annoyed and rushing to post their angry responses. I'm more concerned that players will see it, and not watch and just assume it's another of the "New Rules" as set by social media and start judging DMs as a result. I had a player a while back tear me a new arse because I had had the audacity to plan a campaign that involved the party being given the task of saving the world... Apparently that's "Railroading" now... He had no clue what he was talking about, but he'd seen enough snippets on the internet to be outraged by my terrible DM'ing. If one of my players gets this idea of "Monsters should never attack first" into their head and I drop a Green Slime on him, and he then bemoans me as not being a good DM for having a monster attack first, or I spring an orc ambush on them and they complain about lack of agency, the subsequent conversation would carry a Classification Warning that "The following contains Strong Language and Violent Imagery."
This is a valid concern. One way in which I counter these types of player complaints and misconceptions is I have my players watch a few specific videos on railroading (one by Luke himself, and another by Matt Colville), as well as a few other videos about how to be a good player, etc. If any of my players came to me talking about this idea, I'd tell them to go watch the rest of the video. I cover this in our session zero and ensure they understand how I run my game and monsters. Which, btw, I let them know I play my monsters realistically (and I use The Monsters Know What They Are Doing book, btw).
@@theolddm I read the first line in the notifications and was going to say, "There's also a good one by Matt Colville" but that kind of applies to most things D&D related. To be honest, I have stopped doing Pick Up Parties on roll20... its more grief than its worth. All my regular players know how we will be playing a campaign. But as with most things on the internet, there's always someone looking for a reason to complain...
Oh man! I killed a brand new player in the middle of the first meeting/argument with a stealth bugbear javelin 😱🪡 fluffed the damage and nerfed the next couple sessions
Just day before yesterday almost one-Shotted a PC in their first combat of the campaign before their first turn due to random encounter with a single bugbear. Dangerous creatures. Turned into a very memorable battle from there.
In my last game, a Troll and some Goblins came across some ruins the party had just cleared a Hydra out of. It was a random encounter the night after they beat it, they would've been in a rough position if they'd fought them. Instead, the Troll just wanted to munch on Hydra meat with the Goblins following suit. It made for a tense situation where some hungry wandering monsters didn't immediately gun for the party because they could get easily available food. The party even gave up some cheap treasure they couldn't carry themselves so that the monsters felt like they got one over on them.
Speaking of reducing prep time... If your monsters don't attack first, that creates player generated content that makes it look like you did more prep than you actually did. It may even lead to the spontaneous creation of side quests.
“Monsters should NEVER attack first!! -Ok, now that I have your clicks & angry comments feeding the RU-vid algorithm, I’m now going to explain to you why _Some_ monsters can attack first, and why it’d be silly for them not to….”
I would say ambush predators should “just attack” but basically no one else. Bandits should ask for your money or your life. Enemies you’ve encountered before should have a dramatic entrance, even if they have reason to kill you on sight, because players deserve that moment in the story.
Same with mindless predators, such as giant vermin and automatons (mindless contructs, etc.). At least, if they haven't been spotted first. Players should get the opportunity to spot them and even circumvent them if they are careful and clever enough. Of course, that is a much harder feat with ambush predators specialized in stealth, such as a giant trapdoor spider, for an example.
@@Harrowed2TheMind that is exactly what I meant by ambush predator. I would argue that even mindless predators like giant vermin and constructs deserve a dramatic entrance to allow the party to assess the means of approach. Maybe attacking is a certainty, but you should still give them a beat to take the moment in. And MAYBE you THOUGHT attacking was a certainty but the caster packed exactly the right spell for this situation.
@@ThePareidolian That's a nice thing about mindless creatures from an adventurer's point of view: they are predictable. A construct guardian will simply follow its programming, allowing you to lure it with an illusion or a fast creature as a distraction while your party sneaks in and evades notice or retaliation and you can throw a goat at that giant spider that almost jumped you so that they return to their burrow, satisfied, with the poor creature paralyzed and all wrapped up in webbing to slowly consume it. Speaking of exactly the right spell for this situation, I believe the easiest way to defuse an animal attack is simply to cast Create Food and Water and summon a food appropriate for the animal in question. As long as the animal recognizes it as food, it will almost always take the easiest solution with the least risk to itself (in this case, because it's not stupid).
I agree. I also don't think the attacking first is actually the big issue. The big issue is that some attacks feel like they randomly come out of nowhere. For example if they happen like "you turn the corner... roll initiative, you are attacked by a band of goblins" But if you allow the players to hear some skittering, they roll a perception check, but fail to find out where it comes from, then they sneak up to that corner and when they turn that corner they fail their stealth check and now they are attacked, that would feel much less random, and be more interesting - and the monsters still attack first.
Goblins lie in ambush Party fails perception checks. Goblins don't attack. Encounter over. Don't get me wrong 100% agree with you. But never say never. Variety is the key. Having a social interaction with every single encounter you come across would probably really bog down the game too
It's not the problem that the game will be bogged down. Combat can bog down games way more than a social interaction. Monsters should only not attack if they have a reason not to attack. And the reasons shouldn't be forced. A fire elemental isn't gonna sit and wait for someone to communicate with it. It's a force of nature without much rhyme or reason. A band of bandits might be more inclined to talk.
As someone else stated. It was probably to grab people's attention so they would click on the link. It worked :p Although I have already clicked on that "Subscribe" button so his videos always pop up on my feed. I just need more time to watch all my subscriptions.
@@Blitzwaffen Unless, for whatever reason, the elemental was in the material plane OR the party was on the border of the elemental plane of fire. Unlikely, sure, but I think it is reasonable to assume certain events (like, for example, a volcano erupting) could be explained by the elemental plane of fire tearing through the material plane, and at this crossover point elementals could enter the material plane. Just food for thought, not every elemental needs to be summoned :)
Luke: writes clickbait title designed to imply that the video is about wether enemies should get the highest initiative or not, rather than about incorporating RP oportunities before the combat Also Luke: plese dont instantly react to my clickbaity title designed to prompt emotional opinionated responses triggering the urge to comment emidiatly... Not sure you thought thatone through mate but OT, you're deffinatly right and i'ts something you just helped me realise that i need to consider more when designing my encounters.
I got from the title exactly what he is explaining in the video. But the vide itself gave not enough good reason to "never" do it. Not having time to react, is its on form of depth. It adds that players might over prepare or are scared of entering a place because they dont know what they will get.
How many clicks did he get on the video and comments of "WELL AKSHUALLY"? RU-vid algorithm 101: clicks and comments. Luke knows exactly what he's inviting.
This is why a lot of people deem Dungeons as "Boring", nowdays a lot of new DMs think about the 3 pillars as stagnant compartments, back in B/X, 1e etc it was a given that every approach was possible within an encounter, especially cause monsters were more powerful than PCs sometimes so stealth and/or a Silver tongue was needed! In OSR roleplay often happens in the dungeon, potentially with every enemy you encounter
In most of the old softback rulebooks, the examples of combat began with those initial interactions. Surprise is rolled, and before initiative there is debate and interaction. Languages were important for that very reason. The players say something, Reaction checks are rolled and Charisma was REALLY important in that part of the game. And it didn't just need to be trying to talk your way out of a situation... sometimes it was beneficial to draw the enemy into a charge, giving the party the opportunity to use ranged attacks during the first round and set to receive the charge... (and so simple to run...) A couple of years ago I dug out the old Moldvay BX books and ran a small campaign, all my players over the age of 40 loved going back to such simpler times, the game ran so quickly... my kids £^%%ing hated it. "Bonus Actions? Sorry, what's that? Attack of Opportunity? No... sorry there's none of that... but on the plus side, the fight will be over in a matter of minutes and we can move on to the good stuff... TALKING TO EACH OTHER!"
@@andrewtomlinson5237 As someone possibly closer to your kids' ages, I have fallen in love with the B/X rules from Old-School Essentials and am moving away from 5e for future campaigns.
@@TaberIV I play 3.5 as standard cause it's what I grew up with. All my in person players also play 3.5. I do play 5e online but 3.5 is my go to and favorite edition. The amount of customization for players is just amazing. If your looking for a different edition I'd recommend it. One word of warning is it can seem intimidating given the amount of material but it wasn't too hard for me to figure it all out when I was younger.
@@TaberIV - If you want to spice it up with a little extra PC variety, check out Dungeon Crawl Classics and pull some inspiration from the Class extras you want. There's some cool stuff in there, but keeps the OSR feel. I particularly like the Deeds die for fightin types and a simplified roll-to-cast/keep spell modification; gonna inject a bit of those into my OSE. Goodman Games has had a DCC beginner package deal on their site for a little while. It's a steal.
A part of this is that most creatures aren't going to fight to the death. If the players are facing a group of goblins, and the party demonstrates that they can quickly kill their foes, the goblins will likely retreat. Perhaps they are headed for reinforcements, and the party has to decide whether to hunt them down, or let them go. It adds to believability if hoards of creatures don't blindly run to the their deaths at the hands of superior foes
Yup, and it presents some strategic options in large combats. Killing key leaders, or just a significant number of a group, will usually be enough to demoralize a rather large group of intelligent creatures and prompt a mass retreat. We need only look at real historical battles to see countless examples of this. Typically, battles didn't end when EVERYONE on one side was dead. In fact less disciplined or more demoralized groups would even retreat the moment a battle didn't look like it was going exceedingly well. Even disciplined groups would retreat the moment they realized the losses would outweigh the potential gain. (What we call a pyrrhic victory) How this translates in DND is kobolds fighting like hell, until the Dragon they were following died. Suddenly, this massive group of Kobolds might retreat, even if they technically could have won against the injured and depleted party. This is because a lack of leadership and an unwillingness to be one of the creatures that throws themselves on the enemies blade to win. Even beasts will have a point where the chance of fatal injury makes it not worth pursuing such dangerous prey. Very few creatures with any semblance of intelligence will rush to their deaths knowingly. If someone wants that, they should use the correct type of enemy. Namely undead, constructs, and extraplanar beings that don't technically die when killed outside of their home plane.
Reminds me I have encounter planned where a green dragon will mistake the party for members of a demon army Me expecting the draconic sorcerer to talk their way out of out of it
I think mixing it up is always good. If everything was always friendly or always hostile the game would get very dull very quickly. Having a scale that you use to to randomly decide the attitude of a creature towards the PCs can make the game interesting, regardless if an enemy goes first in combat. We had a Demon that attacked the party in one of our games, but the demons personality was it's own downfall - it gloated and lorded it's power and ablites over the PCs giving them plenty of opportunities to socially interact with it to point it got mad and accidentally let slip it's real name, which the party wizard used to entrap it and use it later as a summoned demon under their control. It wouldn't have been possible if the demon just attacked and didn't act like a believable creature that could be interacted with in-between the combat being played out. Sure this is also player dependent on if they wish to interact with said foe, but I've never had a party who's been against talking an agressive foe down mid fight to end up with them as a temporary ally or doing everything in thier power to make a non agressive NPC turn on them because they thought it would be funny (and run out of town in the progress) if the opportunity is given, players will always take it.
Not sure how 5e handles it, but older editions (especially 1 and 2e) had an "NPC Reaction Chart" in the Charts and Tables section... In those days, there was an "adjustment" attached to Charisma... AND when the GM rolled according to the chart, that Cha adjustment could alter the roll, where a higher score would tend to be more friendly, and a lower score would tend toward more hostile... AND of course (on a D20) 9, 10, and 11 were relatively ambivalent... This could be employed for individual interactions, with a single PC's CHA taken into consideration... OR it could be employed with an "average" score or some similar rating attached to the Party... There were modifiers, too... Based on racial disparities, or politics, religious biases, and other things... Including the GM's obviously custom mod's for "enemies" based on the likely best and worst case scenarios for an NPC or Monster reaction... Not everybody even used it, and even those of us who did, didn't necessarily use it all the time. It was a useful mechanic in the Game when the GM wasn't sure what he needed or wanted to happen. ;o)
I played a game where every combat was always stacked heavily against the players and we barely won any encounters: "This combat, the Rogue starts in the middle of the enemies and the Barbarian 2 turns away." This combat, no one has weapons and the enemy crits with every attack. This combat, you need to roll an extremely high Perception, or you are surprised and the enemy has enough hit chance and damage to take most characters down in one round, also he can teleport."
This has changed my view of combat! It’s not often that you hear a fresh tip that changes the way you play the game. Thank you very much for that Luke!
“Monsters should never attack first” First example of a good encounter: monsters attack first Me: Oh, it’s a title that’s intentionally poorly worded title as a means to click bait.
A bit of click-bait with "never" in the title, but that was probably the point. You're better than this Luke. But, yes, give the players options to not be murder hobos. Part of this is on the players however. Before they open the hatch, they should declare they are using stealth or wearing a disguise, etc etc.
I couldnt agree more with the point that your favorite encounters were the ones that didnt start with them attacking. I have a time that on watch we were found by a cyclops but instead of instantly fighting it went “foood?” and so I just closed an eye and said “no food” and that was the encounter
I will admit i didn't understand the title at first and thought "Don't let them have the first turn in initiative." And i was curious how you could make sure at least one of your player rolls well or if you were ready to fudge the roll to keep them somewhere in the middle of fight. Glad i watched the video before making the comment !
The only times where I have monsters "attack first" is when the combat is not with the party, but with other NPCs. The players can choose to save the NPCs, who to help, etc. Alternatively, if the players are intentionally doing "suspicious actions" (like breaking in through the window of a barracks instead of trying to talk their way in), then my monsters are more likely to attack on sight. Despite this, almost all my combats have the potential to be talked through (even when combat has started already). One of our most memorable moments in the current campaign is of a social encounter that turned combat, and then suddenly resolved when the Cleric decided to talk to the enemies to try and figure out why they were doing what they want to do
I agree that even after combat has begun the opportunity to negotiate still exists. After all talking is a free action. It's entirely possible for the paladin, while swinging their sword, to ask, "Who are you people? Why are you attacking us?" Just bear in mind that each round of combat is only supposed to be 6 seconds long. The creature, on it's own turn, might return the paladin's blow while grunting, "There's a price on your heads and we aim to collect." And the paladin will need to wait until *their* turn before following up on that. Don't let the players 'pause' combat to have a long back-and-forth with the enemy.
@@studentofsmith indeed. We have a limit of 25 words in you turn (as a group we calculated that our average words is about 25 per 6 seconds), so my players (and me in turn) keep to that we talking.
Ok that was a good argument for not having monsters just attack. An instance where this was fun, The characters find out that the Imp that is taunting them in a wizards tower has been alone and held prisoner to guard the tower for hundreds of years. They convinced the Imp that he had been abused by the wizard and they would treat him as an equal. They were hunting the wizard down for indirectly destroying there village. The Imp became a permanent NPC in that game.
This is definitely something that depends on the PCs. MY group, I know from experience, would not have engaged that hypothetical ogre in conversation. I know that because I have tried such encounters before, and they always resulted in combat almost immediately. The ogre would have said "What're you doing here?" and someone (or all of them) would immediately attack. Some groups genuinely want to just kill ALL the "bad guys." My group gets antsy and bored if they've played for 2 hours, and not fought anything. They like RP and exploration too, but they get bloodthirsty pretty quick.
Luke here is a good story. I recently added your red rum story into a campaign I've been running for over a year as a little side quest for my druid. She was invited to a birthday party where her friend then told her that some grey colored gnomes had been stealing her crops, that didn't bother her but they now have stolen a statue depicting her deity. So led them to the gnome town and eventually they hear of the cockitrices and follow the trail to the stone tree stump where my druid commenced to scaling the tree and ended up as an elf feeling sympathetic towards the harpies decided to have the gnome making the delivers find some mushrooms or other things to make rum out of that won't turn people into stone. So they essentially talked them into killing the cockitrices and made absinthe and started a liquor company that has now grown to 1000gp a week in profits for the party
One encounter I'm particularly proud of was kind of similar to your example: I had a trio of "giants" (a Troll, an Ogre and a Half-Ogre) capture an NPC companion of the party. The party tracked them down to their cave without knowing about the exact type and number of the monsters (they are pretty bad at tracking). When they arrived, Half-Ogre and Ogre were preparing a fire outside the cave, obviously for cooking the captive, while the Troll was out of side in the cave. When the Ogre left, one of the PCs tried to bribe the Half-Ogre, who was complaining about his lazy companions, by throwing basically all of his provisions at him. It worked, and when the Ogre came back out, the Half-Ogre started a fight. When the party joined I had both the Ogre and the Troll make Intimidation rolls against the Half-Ogre to bring him "back on track". The resulting chaos was pretty funny and memorable. Also: The "giants" were reffering to each other by relative size. So the Troll was called "big one" by the others and the Half-Ogre "little one". The twist was the name of the Ogre. From the Half-Ogre's standpoint, the Ogre was the "little one", because the "big one " was the Troll. Similarly, the Troll called the Ogre "big one", because the "little one" was the Half-Ogre. So when the unseen Troll shouted for the "big one" from inside the cave, reffering to the Ogre, the party thought (as I planned out) that the shouter also had to be a "little one" / Ogre. Oh boy, were they surprised when the even bigger Troll joined the combat. :D
That's great GM advise, thank you. Not having the option to talk to "enemies" in encounters has to be my biggest gripe in my years of playing - I think you expressed this concept well here.
Reminds me of the time my players convinced the guards of the dungeon to let them explore by quoting Bushes of Love Guard: What are you doing here? Party: uhh, we're here to clean the floors Guard: the floors? Party: well you see some blood has drained into the boards and we have to clean 'em
yeah usually my monsters don't just automatically attack right away, unless they are there specifically to ambush them and attempting a surprise attack
I'm gonna be super middle ground and say do a little of both. Sometime it's cool to have a chance to talk/sneak past enemies, other times being ambushed and caught off guard creates an interesting encounter. But I would lean towards allowing players creative options more often but sometimes it's nice just to have a rogue show up and steal some kidneys
If monsters should only attack first when it's logical and enjoyable, like assassins, mimics, and hydra and such. Then the title is misleading. Not why monsters should never attack first, but why monsters shouldn't always attack first
This makes so much sense. Now I wish that the blue guard Drake digging it's way into the city wouldn't have just attacked; it wasn't ferral, it had a harness! (Even if it had just killed its previous masters)
One of the best encounters I had in my Princes of the Apocolypse ended up not having any combat inside the dungeon to the point they didn't even know it was a dungeon. At Feathergale Spire they were rather friendly at a point when the knights were having a good moment which led to my players seeing them as friends. When they were going to leave, I had the leader ask them to hunt down a traitor who stole something important, but left it vague enough to not let them know what he was really after. When they found the traitor the next session, he was alone and they ended up speaking to him as well. He was very open and willingly handed the map to the players, saying he only took it out of spite due to him feeling the Feathergale Knights had lost their way and joined with the Howling Hatred cult. He brought up a couple of good points that made the Knights look kind of sketchy and pointed out a few holes in the Knight's story. They ended up convincing him to help gather information in return for not telling the Knights about where he is. Now they are in a situation of being conflicted with who they should trust. The knights who let them join a large banquet, gave them a valuable ring as a prize, and were nothing but friendly, or trust the traitor that stole from those people, but correctly pointed out how vague the Knights were, was willing to scout out information for them, and told the group that the Knight had connection to the Howling Hatred Cult. Gonna be interesting to see how they react from this point forward.
Sterling advice. I like to think of immediate attack encounters more like traps than anything. This lets put "traps" in areas where thematically there shouldn't be anyone with an int score over 5. Like exploring a swamp, stepping into the wrong patch of water without looking first gets your leg caught by a giant crocodile, roll initiative.
This is great advice and it hit me at just the right time. The players chased an enemy into a tomb and I had the enemy immediately attack, exactly what you say not to do. Well the next 3 encounters are likely to be of the mindless or ravenous undead type, which doesn't allow for much variety. You got me thinking I need to alter at least some of those encounters to mix things up.
I had a dungeon where my players had to sneak past a pair of bone Nagas. They were fairly underleveled and so waking them up would have ended in a very close call. They later heard some wights up ahead playing cards, and instead of killing them, befriended them and started a music group that eventually broke up as they left the dungeon
Okay, I see where you're going with this, and to that I'll agree. Having the encounter work out until actual combat occurs (and then rolling init then) is usually the way we go too. However, if there IS an ambush, or the monsters have no interest in discussion / interaction beyond 'kill the thing', then yeah, initiative is rolled, and the monsters can go first, and I'm totally fine with that. Really, though, context is important when it comes to encounters, definitely.
Luke, I love ya but you CAN flip the script! If the players NEED a social interaction and the monster comes out swinging they can almost ALWAYS use persuasion to de-escalate things and move out of combat! Players ALWAYS have agency, even in combat. They can opt to talk EVEN IN COMBAT. Now if you as a DM deny them that? That's railroading.
I feel like a lot of players don't quite realize that, though, especially if they're new and/or more used to videogames where the talky parts and the fighty parts are clearly separate. So they might need it spelled out for them once or twice that just because there's a hostile NPC in front of them, that doesn't mean they _have_ to fight it (or that even once they are fighting it, they don't _have_ to just silently wail on it until it's dead).
I as a player absolutely love it when we can talk to enemies before all out war begins. It gives our charisma based players a chance to persuade or trick enemies into becoming temporary allies. For example we infiltrated the base of operations of a very prominent slave ring. As we stalked the hallways we found a few sleeping guards quickly taking them out, our rouge and sorcerer came up with the idea of dressing up as slavers to get through the base without issue. I'll always remember those sessions, if we just went full on murderhobo and annihilated the entire base I probably wouldn't remember it.
A combat I did recently I think perfectly reflects this. The players came across a slaveship, which they decided to attack and free the slaves. What they noticed was that the ship was flying the flag of a nation belonging to the alliance they were working for, so they went for deception and diplomacy instead of attacking. They asked to see the captain, and were let into his cabin; which is when the real encounter started. The ranger noticed that the finely dressed man had inversed hands, tipping him off that the captain was in fact a disguised Rakshasa. What ensued was a very tense conversation as the players thought this enemy was out of their league, as did the rakshasa. Eventually the tension erupted into combat as the ranger launched an attack, but that buildup to the fight made it much more intense than if anyone had attacked on sight. In a way, the buildup was more fun than the fight itself.
An RP driven start to combat can be a great way to move a campaign forward with good story. Had a great DM many years ago, when we were still using homebrewed AD&D, where we managed to get in a few flat foot attacks on a beholder because of eight months (three sessions) of in game role playing infiltration on a black market it ran from the shadows and a quickling rogue using invisibility. With that we'd managed to RP our way into focusing the critter's attention on one spot at a time for single round. Took us three rounds with six characters, three trusted henchmen/guards and two in a meeting with the beholder with the quickling sneaking in from above while invisible, in melee/grappling range on all sides to end it. The quickling literally got the drop on it and played rodeo through the first round. We took heavy damage, but came out on top. Then we spent a week secretly sabotaging the operation while getting word to the king to move on our location. Good times.
So yeah, wouldn't say never - sometimes parties get ambushed - but definitely agree about how you can make your game more engaging and feel more rewarding by introducing monsters more dynamically.
I was thinking of one particular scenario were the players are being stalked by monsters and they fail their perception checks. The default seems to be "well you failed your perception so the ambush happens and you are surprised" but I would like to suggest turning it into a running battle with an unknown foe rather than a static combat. If they succeed their perception rolls they are alerted early and have more options to misdirect, hide, evade or lead the monsters into more favourable terrain. The better the roll the more information they get on their pursuers. And this would play out similarly to a 4E skill challenge with the monsters taking pot shots and trying to isolate party members as they flee through the terrain.
Maybe have a reaction check? 1d4 1=immediate attack, 2=offensive stance with further interaction at disadvantage with failed attempt entering combat, 3=confusion with additional persuasion or other interaction attempts available, 4=Confusion with persuasion/other verbal communication with advantage. Or something to that degree based on dm and player preference on play style as a group.
A new thing: human resources armor. Oh, I've seen lots of employees do something that is a terminatable offense and have gotten away with it because of corporate.
I am fortunate enough to have players who like to interact with most of my encounters. Just as you say, sometimes combat ensue and sometimes they have an unexpected ally. Last week, my party came back into town and found that all the inhabitants were gone. In stead, they saw a group of Orcs walking through town, looting here and there. They didn't attacked immediately, but went to talk with one of the Orcs and got him to bring them to their leader. They had a discussion with the leader and convinced him that the party could start an investigation into "why" the inhabitants of the town disappeared. Who knows, our bard is even considering to make an alliance (in the form of a marriage proposal) to the Orc Queen whom is said to arrive shortly. You know: it's good to know some people in power...
I've been in groups where we've defused what could have been big conflicts with powerful foes multiple times! Fuzzy on the details as these stories are from more than two years ago at this point. First time was when we met an imprisioned Behir, who we convinced that we meant no harm. We freed the Behir from his cell, and helped us find the wherabouts of his master that abandoned him, who was also on the run for murdering the Mayor's daughter. Second was when we broke into a witch's mansion and stumbled across a Lich that killed her. The lich was intending to kill us at first, but we managed to negotiate a deal of some sort and so he decided to spare us! It was a lot of fun talking our way out of dangerous encounters.
One thing I would add is that rolling initiative is NOT just for combat. One of the things I have my players do is roll initiative anytime they have to do some tactical movement. There could be no NPC encounters but I still have them do this. What this allows me to do as a GM is have the players act in a certain order. It makes sure every player gets to do 'something' as well as an easy way to keep track of what is going on. How many times have you all had players enter a building or dungeon or whatnot and they all announce at the same time what they want to do? Tell them to roll initiative and then act on their initiative counts. Then they must move at their normal rates through squares/hexes. What this allows to happen is traps and obstacles become encounters in themselves. Lets say you have a room, its 35x40' room. Or 7x8 squares. You have a trap in the middle. Without initiative count, a normal DM would spring a trap if perceptions failed. There's no player agency there. Just a dice roll. With initiative you still have passive perception, but players can tell you where they are moving and where they are looking. If they never find the trap. But never step in the square it is in. It doesn't go off. The trap isn't sprung on them arbitrarily. One of my biggest pet peeves are the ideas that traps and obstacles don't exist until a player searches for them. Many GM's do this. There's nothing planned until a player asks, "I'm looking for x, is there any." And the GM goes, "oh um, let me see." Which means that room that was otherwise perfectly safe, now isn't. Its kind of a cheap way to make player abilities 'useful' but it punishes bad rolls. And in such cases, players may even purposively not ask to avoid such problems. But then imagine if the trapped square I mentioned earlier is asked about specifically. Player gets a hunch, says, "is there anything unusual about this spot?" In which case unless there is some heavy trickery (Spot/Perception DCs of 20+ for example), you can tell them pretty much what is there without a roll. Can say they see a pressure plate or brick seems to be raised. Now the player feels clever, and is engaged. Just remember when they do roll search, spot/perception, investigate, etc. Those abilities have ranges. So don't force them to do every square/hex. And possibly give bonuses when they do search particular squares or hexes. Initiative movement outside combat makes for some interesting shenanigans when they bypass a trap on the way in. Didn't see it. And then step on it on the way out. Usually a trap done in this manner seems arbitrary. But the players who are in control of exactly where their characters are moving will not feel such a thing is cheap or unnecessary. Just a, 'oh I never moved there before.' Initiative also works for non-combat encounters with NPCs. It allows for order in the same way as before, especially with multiple people speaking. In purely social encounters, you can even elect to have CHA mod apply to initiative as well, calling for a new roll of initiative counts if it goes south and into combat. But make sure you let your players know ahead of time that initiative isn't just for combat. So when they encounter the old man giving them a quest, and you say "roll for initiative.." They don't go for blood right off the bat!
Hah! Good! I even allowed for parlay with Gnolls in Temple of Elemental Evil. (Gnolls were supposed to attack on sight.) Lareth was sooo bad to them that they put aside their hatred for the crew and listened.
We did this in an underground complex inhabited by troglodytes. and we told them they'd failed the safety inspection because one of the traps exploded. Imagine if one of your own group had been there! You need to go up three levels to the office of Fees and Fines and pay 3 gold pieces to take it off your record. (Really good bluff rolls ensued. though they did catch on after a while. LOL)
This is great advice, as it always is from Luke, for my game. It’s a zombie outbreak scenario so most of the enemies will just attack, but I try to design the encounters in a way that the players can sneak around or negate the encounter altogether. If they keep running head first toward the zombies one of them is going probably going to get bite at some point.
In the first year Original D&D (1974) there was no initiative roll. That rule came later. Players usually just went first, at least the way it was played by Dave Arneson in the Twin Cities.
I agree. Surprise attacks should be an actual surprise. If every encounter begins with "And the monster attacks you, and hits for X damage. Roll for initiative!" then your players who designed their characters for social interactions will be disappointed. Your sneaky-types who like to turn their enemies into allies, so they can overpower the BBEG with shock troops will be disappointed. Also, the encounters will become BORING, as they are all basically the same, but with different enemies/scenery, so that you need different tactics, but the strategy is always the same. Duck, roll for initiative, attack, talk later IF you take them alive. I saw a story, once, about an Adventurer's League game, where it was designed to be heavy combat, and 9 out of 10 tables played heavy combat, but that last table actually talked their way through EVERY encounter, and never rolled for initiative, once. They found it incredibly satisfying, and the DM was utterly shocked, but also just had to brag about his awesome players, with their awesome diplomacy antics. Another reason to give them a chance to talk their way through combat encounters is that it means you can beef up the other combat encounters, because they'll have more hit points and spell slots left to use on them. If you have 5 encounters planned for that adventure day, and they talk/sneak/trick their way through or around four of them, just imagine the epic battle that will happen for the fifth one! I'm talking EXPLODING COWS levels of EPIC!
This was a good video. The first campaign I ran I DM'd the monsters pretty loosely and it was great. My current one is more strictly writen and I think it's suffering from it. I'm going to start relaxing the enemies a bit and give my players a chance to act first. Thank you.
One of my current campaigns: We walk into a study, I (rogue) pick up a coinpurse off a couch. Suddenly an air elemental flies down the flue of the unlit fireplace, ready to attack. I turn to it, say "Sorry, is this yours? You can have it back. We don't want to fight you for it." (We were very underleveled for the dungeon. Lvl 1 facing stuff like mimics and medium elementals) So after being a bit dumbfounded for a bit, the elemental just accepts the bag and flies away.
The sad thing about the opening Sketch is that since this is 2021, its impossible to tell if its only a joke or if some people actually attacked him with thate "ageism" argument...
My first observation was seeing the prominent d&d board game boxes in the background. Those games are infameous for always having the monsters getting the first attack when revealed :D
I do a mix, depending on the details, and player prep can effect it as well. They've also managed to diffuse or alter combats while they're going. I usually try to incorporate roleplay even during the combats, and will reward players who think to roleplay during combats. This often amounts to the tank taunting or somebody trying to intimidate for advantage, but often enough something a lot more interesting comes from it. Here's an example: I had my players fight a dracolich who had some undead minions. As they approached the dracolich, he told the players that they were nothing more than self-righteous bandits after his hoard, as he flew up & breathed in, rolling initiative. He was second in the order, so the Rogue was able to throw a dagger at him before he exhaled his breath weapon attack on them all. With each Action and Legendary Action he made, he threw more insults and assumptions at the players. On their turns, they started responding & replying. As they conversed, the players eventually learned enough to stop fighting and offer to help the dracolich instead. As they talked (some of this during the combat and some of it after), they learned that the dracolich was transformed against his will, and each time he respawns is immediately teleported to this forest, unable to damage his own phylactery to finally move on to the afterlife, as he's wanted to do for over a millenia at this point. On top of that, some cult keeps stopping by to kill him and his minions every 100 years (and they steal what small hoards he's able to gather in those intervals). Being a dracolich, he respawns and re-raises his undead minions each time. He's been bound to the forest, unable to leave it, turning his once beloved home into a decaying prison. (Not to say that he was ever Good... His undead minions are mostly his former slaves from when he was an Ancient Green Dragon.) The players offered to go destroy his phylactery for him and come back in exchange for the Tome they needed for their quest, and the dracolich found that acceptable. He even gave them some magic items with the book after the deed was done and he knew he'd finally be able to pass on. (When they destroyed his phylactery, the rogue used his subclass ability (Phantom subclass) to grab the dracolich's soul, and brought it back to the dracolich as proof of the deed, before breaking the trinket to release that soul.) Some combats are hard to put a social spin on though (like one with a bunch of monstrosities or beasts), but I try to keep encounters from just becoming a combat encounter and nothing more... Add something else in to make it interesting. Social stuff is an easy way to do that sometimes, but sometimes I'll put something else on the board that complicates the encounter instead, like civilians that the monsters might harm if the players aren't strategic, or conveyer belts (I actually took tiles from RoboRally for the Construct Factory), or a storm that moves around the map and has an effect, or portals everywhere (this one had the platforms arranged like Star Trek's 3D chess, and the portals gave line of effect if shot through), or whatever else.
So, Luke almost immediately walks back his title claim as soon as he's trying to defend it. He quickly goes from, "never attack first" to, "mix it up now again, okay?" Because "never attack first" isn't really a defensible opinion and was a kind of click baity headline to get people's attention. I would say it's good to be in a habit of starting encounters with something like, "the creature sees you and moves to attack." The players can say, "I want to talk this enemt down before things escalate." Or they can roll for initiative. Enemies don't have to act ignorant when strange PCs approach with weapons drawn.
So, when I read the title, I admit I was thinking more tactically- "Why Monsters Should Never Go First in Initiative Order." =) Some monsters just attack, but yes- if the mob has some intelligence, there should always be an opportunity to interact in other ways. And not just before combat. In one instance, we had a player, during a long protracted combat, get tired of swinging his sword, and invite one of the mobs for an ale, and the two of them sat there watching the rest of combat and having a nice chat. Take, for instance, the fight scene between Inigo and Westley in "The Princess Bride." The social interaction occurred throughout the battle, and we learned things about both combatants that may be of use later on.
In the game I run for my kids, they try to be friends with almost every monster they encounter. They found an ogre who loved to stack rocks and liked soft things. He now builds stone walls for their town and takes care of their sheep. He isn't that bright, so he needs a bit of supervision when building walls.
Agreed. I am new at the DM thing but I have found that everyone has more fun when the players decide to roll initiative. Doesn't change much on my end. And if they are are low intelligence beasts and there won't be any talking. I put them on a timer, let them each take a turn or two and then start combat. The shit they have come up with before combat is far more entertaining then what can be written and it allows me to watch and laugh.
unless the monster/enemy has a good reason to attack first(such as have previous beef with the party) i ALWAYS allow the players try to talk to the monster/enemy to prevent a combat.
While I agree with all of this, its kinda deceptive to title this "Monsters should never attack first" then literally saying sometimes monsters attacking first is sometimes the only logical action
Definitely a good watch. I can’t even tell you how many times my Dms or myself has done this without a second thought. Good wholesome game play right there
I agree that there are a lot of encounters that could go like this, but there is a story to be told about WHY an enemy would attack on sight. What if the first encounter was an AOS encounter, but then the second one wasn't? Why did the first one just attack mindlessly? Maybe they got an instruction from the boss that they're interpreting differently. Maybe, "Let no one come in" might mean "Kill everyone" to one ogre and to another it might mean "be a goal keeper and stop all entry". It could highlight how one guard might be more aggressive than another, or how one might be smarter than another. Additionally, if you never attack on sight, the players will know to expect a chance to avoid combat, example; "As you exit the compound you see an ogre, he doesn't yet seem to notice you." Now they COULD run up and attack him or escape him unnoticed, or they could risk trying to trick him for an added ally in the boss fight, but they don't know if he'd even listen to them. There's always a risk he could just attack on sight if they try to talk to him, or he might be an easy fool to trick into fighting alongside them.
In my last game my players walked in invisible or disguised into the hobgoblin boss having a staff meeting with his gnoll underlings. The boss told them to wait by the wall, and because I had told my players earlier that the gnolls don't really like working for the hobgoblin the wizard disguised as a gnoll prostrated on the ground in front of the gnolls telling them to betray the hobgoblin. I had the hobgoblin swing his sword and asked everyone to roll for initiative. So the hobgoblin attacked first, but it was a consequence of the wizards poor social skills. Luckily the wizard rolled a 20 on initiative (so did the hobgoblin but he has lower dex) so the wizard was able to misty step away before getting 1-shot by a hobgoblin warlord at lvl 6. We didn't finish the combat but the barbarian was able to disarm and critically wound the Ogre on the last turn, my hobgoblin boss's muscle, so when we return I'll have the barbarian roll a gradient intimidation check to scare the gnolls into backing down.
In LMOF, I rewrote the Redbrand random encounter as a road robbery that, if they had surrendered, would have had them captured for Glassstaff/Blackspider. There was a social aspect...when the party balked at the robbery, the cleric at the back was almost dropped by the bugbear hiding in the hay field. They killed all but one Redbrand and he decided, after answering a bunch of questions, that Triboar must be nice this time of year. Bye Zak, see you in Triboar. Make better choices or we won't be so kind next time.
So, random encounter in the jungles of Chult. A party is walking at a brisk but leisurely pace through the jungle, almost as if the land was making way for the ranger (revised) leading them. All of a sudden, there is a sound ahead. To the casual observer, it seemed like a flock of birds. To the trained ear of the ranger, it was a pack of velociraptors. *DM calls for initiative, and the ranger rolls highest* "I step forward with my hands out and try to calm the beasts, using my Primeval Awareness." Say the ranger (who had recently watched Jurassic World). DM responds: "That'll be an animal handling check." Ranger: *gets a 23* DM: "you get the clear indication that they are hungry." Everyone else: *holds their action* Velociraptors: *don't attack, but look curious* - Top of the round - Ranger: "I cast goodberry and throw the berries to the raptors." Cleric: "I cast prestidigitation, flavouring the berries to taste and smell like meat." DM: Technically that's two effects, but I'll allow it. Everyone else: *holds actions* Velociraptors: *Eat the berries* And that's how my party made their way through Chult. (Next session, ranger ends up getting chewed on by a Z-rex...)
I've used both roleplaying and straight combat tactics, and for anything other than the basic 'this happens, now roll initiative' route, you kind of have to have a team who actually are interested in more than just combat. A lot of my players come to game nights for end-of-week catharsis, and after particularly rough weeks, mostly they just want to kill things in new and different ways: heroic kills, gory kills, accidental kills, ludicrous kills, etc. As a GM, I adore social scenes and roleplaying NPCs, but you also have to cater to what your players want/need. And in my case, that means warning some of my players before the next session if it will definitely involve social scenes and they might need to be prepared for that. The days when they're switched on and prepared are usually pretty good, even if it did need a disclaimer.
As for the main argument, I totally agree. I've been game mastering since the 80s, darn near every game I came across. Getting on track with D&D games, especially in older editions of the game, this greatly increases survival, in 5e it averts a host of problems, and in every edition, it increases chances for roleplaying. (In older editions, players should really be trying to bluff their way out of more fights, but seldom will anyway.) I have the reverse problem in my 5e game - they bluff their way out of a fight and then sneak attack the baddies as they're departing. The solution is of course larger groups that won't be at as much of a disadvantage when they do that, and word spreading of their nefarious tactics and untrustworthiness, which has other effects.
I have had players use social rolls during combat and I have had it succeed. In my game last night, one round of combat started, one party member was looting the dead that were already in the cave. I had invisible monsters with intelligence guarding the dead. The first character to loot the dead was attacked, however, the party socially ended the combat and convinced the monster to guide them through the cave to the actual enemies, (common enemies between the monster and the party). What would have been a hard encounter, was ended socially and the party saved precious player resources for the deadly encounter waiting for them.
I often go a step further, letting the PCs find out (via scouting or interrogations) what monsters are ahead so they can plan how they want to engage them.
My group played this week. Level 3. We come up against something I think they were called boneless. Surprise round, they downed the other player. So on her turn she started rolling death saves. So the kobold rogue rolled a perception check, initiative, and two death saves (one success, one failure). Gained two failures from attacks. And dead. Only thing that saved my character during the encounter was damage reduction because I played a barbarian. We encountered 4, I killed 3 of them. And limped away while the 4th feasted on the kobold's remains.
So this is definitely one of those things that boil down to a group and a playstyle. Even more so it also comes down to what kind of monsters you use, not every enemy is intelligent, not every enemy speaks the same language, some enemies like to ambush. Yes if you have your pcs facing off bandits or guards give them the opportunity, but it's also on them to remember talking is a free action. Just because a fight starts doesn't mean it can't end until the other person is dead.
This is why I miss Reaction Rolls. I recently implemented them at my table, and rolled a Panther that noticed them, but was curious. They assumed that it wanted to eat them and/or their oxen, with the Rogue sneak attacking the Panther. He was so stunned when the Panther started trying to escape and looked at him with pleading eyes. The players loved the change even tho it sucked in that moment, and I think it works so much better to make the world feel real.
I'm happy to say that my campaigns are packed full of things like the ogre social encounter. I mean, sometimes yes, it makes sense for the monsters to just attack first. That's just the nature of some encounters. But when plausible, I always like to have more involved with it than attack on sight.
I agree with the point that monsters should talk first if there is not going to be any surprise, but I think that there is a place for monsters that attack first as an ambush. That keeps players on their toes.
The problem with this is the "Never" bit. If you always do this, "never have them attack first", then it invites group conflict if you have one or more players that prefers RP, while the rest prefer combat that now almost "NEVER" happens.
Honestly, its good to have monsters not attack first until you have a player already declare some attack or spell before the creature even finishes their line of text you wrote for them. Sometimes, hand must be thrown first before a resolution is reached.
Another way to consider integrating this approach is to think about your encounters (and entire game) cinematically. What would all this encounter to be the best and most engaging movie? Then you get to consider movie genre (horror, buddy cop, rom com, adventure, super hero) and think about how best the RP would fit into this in engagement in the story arc. Give your player s a chance to choose their own adventure for real and use a cinematic approach to bring their choices to life. Or just give your players choices before hitting them with sticks.
