Thread titleThis is an RPG, not fucking rocket scienceWhy do you need to take five to make a decision in combatNext time I'll scream "JUST FUCKING ATTACK", I swear
>>96613313Bloated video gamey fake choise systems.
>So, uuuuhhm, I shoooot...>what's the distance, wait...>yeah, I shoot that guy over there?>what guy?>that guy>okay, that's 16 meter, how do you fire at him>I, uuuuuhmmm... what does full burst firing do again?>it's a full action>uh-huh>and you roll with - 20, but he's suppressed>- 20, uuuuhhh, maybe...>no, wait, I do full burst firing anyway>yeah, he has cover>cover?>yeah, these sandbags count as cover, you get a...>wait, let me check what the malus was for this>it's medium cover>medium cover?>yeah, should be medium cover>okay, and that's...?>another - 20, but you don't expect to hit him anyway, right?>yeah, I just want to suppress him>okay, I roll>...>...>...>you rolled your ranged skill>huh?>you need to roll on your weapons profile, but it's okay, it's not a hit anyway>okay, he's suppressed, which does... *flips pages*>me, over there, waiting to do a full melee attack that is resolved within 30 seconds
>>96613313Have you tried not playing D&D? Because it's really annoying when (you) retards have only ever played D&D and shitty D&D clones and then suddenly assume all TTRPGs are that bad.
>>96613313Go sit patiently on the Translator's Stool, dum tsundere rabet
>>96613356The funny thing is the raging homosexual that is OP is only playing with 5e where the combat is resolved in 2 dice throws, which means he is a friendless loser who is forced to play with literal retards arguing about who gets advantage.
>>96613313Most of the time, I couldn't tell you why they take so long. When the stakes are not high, you have a lot of freedom to do things that are sub-optimal but potentially fun. So do what makes sense for your character. And you can settle on your decision while waiting for your next turn. Only real disruption is if something important changes just before your turn, like your intended targets dying, or an ally ending up in grave danger, or the battlefield shifting.Then, sometimes the stakes are high and there are a lot of factors to juggle, so you might need extra time to figure out what moves seem most optimal. "Ah, shit, we've stumbled into a major fight we were not prepared for. How do we even out the odds right away, or open up a hole so we can escape?" Or perhaps "Two of the party are vulnerable. I can do X, but that might interfere with their plans. I can do Y, but that has a risk of dropping my allies. I can do Z, but I need to determine which enemy is closest to death." Those, I can understand needing extra time to think through, but in most of my groups the players will just do a quick huddle to encourage one course or another.But then, I also try to actually read and remember the rules. Like >>96613353 points out, not everyone does.
>>9661352495% of the D&D 5e audience don't give the slightest shit about the actual rules and are just there to do play-acting and improv theater. No joke I've joined some 5e games from the actual game finder thread we used to have here where even the fucking DM hadn't read the rules and was basically doing gay freeform bullshit.
>>96613313I've been in a couple really slow D&D 5e groups before. Here's what I think is happening:>group gets together, some players more casual than others, maybe too many players>Limited number of rulebooks, lack of knowledge/will to pirate>Players intimidated by large rulebooks>DM, influenced by previous factors, falls for "You don't have to read all the rules/You'll learn faster through play" meme>In time, not reading all the rules will become reading hardly any of them.>Players go slowly because they aren't knowledgeable about the characters and the game>They frequently must stop the game to check the rules>When other players spend much of their turn merely thinking and checking rules, the easily distracted zone out. It simply isn't reasonable to expect certain people to stay focused while waiting 10+ minutes for their turn.>When their turn comes, they too go slowly since they don't know what's going on, creating a viscous cycle.>All of these factors can be made exponentially worse if there are too many players (Most define this as over 6)Here's some ideas on how to mitigate this:>The single most important one is to make sure the players learn the basic rules of the game and all the abilities of their characters.>Copy the texts of their characters' abilities and spells *in full* into booklets so they don't have to go through the big rulebooks.>Strongly consider splitting or shrinking large groups. Maybe consider splitting even if you have a slow party of 4. It's not illegal to play with less than 4 characters.>Use timers to limit the players' time to decide on their actions.>If you're having issues with players figuring out whether ranged abilities are within reach, consider making little templates out of paper, cardboard, or with string.>Some players might focus better with a periodic break or intermission.>Consider switching from Theatre of the Mind to a Grid and Minis, or vice versa. One may work better for your group than the other.
>>96613313We're playing pathfinder, i need to demoralize to trigger fear to trigger -1 to saves which includes armour somehow so i can economize the first hit of my twin-feint which is normal MAP but makes the guy automatically off guard to the second attack at -5 (actually -1 because of fear, off guard and agile on the off-hand weapon), Bypassing the standard feint rules since hes an undead creature type which is automatically immune to visual/psychological effects. Its worth it because its the only way i can trigger sneak attack for an extra D6Wait, are fear or demoralize psychological? Go back like 20 pages>>96613353Im sorry, it was me. I did the supressing fire
>>96613313Just do it in real time like how the game of Paranioa suggests."So Bob, six traitors turn the corner, running at you, chanting Commie propaganda and firing wildly. What do you do?""Um, I erm, can you give me a minute?""Ok Bob, so your character is frozen in indecision. Dave, what does your character do?""I dive for cover and prepare a grenade!""Ok Bob, all six traitors fire at you, three hit, killing your character. You had best activate clone number 2, let's hope he is quicker of the mark, yeah?"A couple of deaths like this and the slowcoaches will soon learn to stop wasting everyone's time, to react more quickly and to plan ahead.
This happens because players were distracted while waiting for their turn. That video by that one guy covered it pretty well: Keep your players engaged. Don't just sit around and roll, describe an absolutely tiny scene of what's going on in the combat every few minutes or so.And music. Play music. Good music, not shitty AI-generated royalty free slop. Pull up some Dwarf Fortress Simon Swerwer Dagger Dance shit. Not *epic orchestra*, but light-harded and fantasy skirmish. Really, I can't stress enough how the Dwarf Fortress soundtrack is a great example.This will keep people engaged, off their fucking phones and paying attention so when their turn comes up, they are READY and EXCITED. And if they're not, and you actually tried, they're not a good player.
>>96613313Have you tried talking to them about it instead of just complaining to strangers on the internet?
>>96613849Paranoia makes frequent character deaths expected part of gameplay. Doing the same in DnD and actually having the player sit out the rest of the dungeon should be far more effective.
>>96613904Character deaths are not allowed in 5e and the average 5e player will break down into an autistic shitfit if you actually kill their super special donut steel.
>>96613375>>96613552>>96614018OP didn't say what game he was playing, you're just completely obsessed with 5e huh.
>>96614202Lurk more. If no system is mentioned, it's D&D. Anyone who's been here more than a week knows that.
>>96614202>>96614234If the game is shit for really stupid mechanics or really stupid players, it's usually D&D.
>>96614018You must be playing on a lot of 5e tables for someone who hasn't read the PHB.
>>96613313>>96613353I've seen players take upwards of twenty minutes to make a single attack, and then watch the GM resolve twenty different NPC combat turns in under a minute.Then the players have the fucking gall to tell the GM to hurry up so the players can get back to their turns.These players can't even be assed to read their own character sheet, let alone the game rules. Tell them to read anything, and they'll start crying. Actually mentally disabled.
>>96613313Because they don't know the rules and don't care about the rules.Play with people who want to play a game.
>>96614702You mean the typical 5e player?Unironically, join any random 5e game online and I guarantee that half the players haven't read the PHB and it's coin flip chance the DM hasn't either.
>>96615286>You mean the typical 5e player?I mean the faggot I replied to.>Unironically, join any random 5e game onlineOnline open recruitment games are not representative of the totality of game tables. And you should at least make some effort to see if everyone's expectations are compatible. The online tables I played at were fine save for a single player who ragequit when another PC killed her newly adopted pet goblin.
>>96613353Why are you using such a bad system?
>>96613524If the character don't have time to do a huddle in the world, then neither do the players.
>>96613849A couple deaths like this and you won't have a group lmao
Shoutouts to our caster who won't write down their prepared spells and has to sidebar with the GM every time they want to cast something.I'm not normally one for the caster-martial debate but damn if they aren't trying their hardest to radicalize me.
>>96613592Mathfinder doesn't count, that system's inelegant as fuck.
>>96614981I hate GMs who try to acomodate this, some do it without anyone asking them to. The end result is stuff just happening with no explanation or context or anything besides maybe moving numbers because he was in a rush .
>>96614234Wrong answer. You WILL specify which game you're discussing, at all times, or I'll kill you.
I play Fighter because I barely understand how to play the game and want my turns to be as simple as possible.
Bring out the cherades timer.
>>96614202>>96613313It's 5e/2024 because as a martial you have no incentive to not just slap someone with your turn.Other systems have more depth, which requires more tactical thought than just "run at the enemy and slap it until it dies".
>>96614981>I've seen players take upwards of twenty minutes to make a single attackGod I love my group more the more I read stories here. Whenever one of the two wallflowers get slow they immediately get rushed by the others into just doing anything at all, and it works great.
>>96626032>Other systems have more depthName ten whose combat is more deep than maxing DPR.
>>96626223>Name [arbitrary amount] of [thing] or you have no argument!Retard talk.>Misconstruing my statement from "5e has flat, boring combat" to "If a system isn't about dealing damage to your enemy it's just 5e"I said requires more tactical thought. Obviously, in most systems, doing damage is the end goal. You want to reduce the enemy's hp down, but even in 5e there may be encounters where killing everyone is still a failure state, or where going for the kill will cause your enemies to flee. It's just that 5e has nothing baked in to encourage players to think during their turns in combat.Anyway, games that aren't 5e - including older editions of D&D - have deeper, more tactical combat that is infinitely more fun and exciting than what 5e offers. Here's a few.>Unofficial RWBY TTRPGYou just can't hit things eventually unless you get creative and earn Stunt Dice.You need to use teamwork, take advantage of Dust, Semblances, and the shared initiative with your party to earn extra d10s to push past higher enemy defense thresholds. You're also often better off using your Crits to debuff the target than doing more damage.>TSR D&DCombat is a failure state in TSR. Just starting a fight is tantamount to death. You don't want to just rock up with a fight, if you're going to have a fight you want hirelings to soak hits for you, an environment where you've set up traps to take out foes before they can hurt you, or really just ways to avoid combat.>4e D&DEven the previous edition has more interesting combat, controversial as it was. Martials actually had things to do other than take the attack action 2 times per turn with their Powers.
>>96626561>>96626223>Star Wars D6/West End GamesEspecially unarmed combat, which has a ton of cool tricks it can do to make the fight easier, you'll want to consider the environment and the fact that scale between individual characters and vehicles is a thing meaning that getting into a vehicle is a huge advantage, reducing damage you take and increasing damage you deal, particularly if you're just one guy with a blaster staring down a walker.>Vampire The MasqueradeAs with TSR, fighting is a last resort and usually a failure state. You're better off avoiding it in favor of using cunning, guile, and charisma to talk your way or sneak your way out of problems.>Basically every Supers RPG (ICONS, Mutants & Masterminds, Prowlers & Paragons)You're not aiming to maximize DPR, you're aiming to complete your objective which usually involves saving civilians or otherwise interrupting a villain's plans, and often characters in such systems are so overpowered that you won't be just beating someone to death in one round.>Big Eyes, Small MouthIt's a reskin of M&M 2E so see the supers section.>LANCERUltimately, you have a mission. Finish your mission. Don't focus on upping your kill count unless that is in fact the mission. If you fail your mission, you lose.That's 11 RPGs, possibly 12-13 depending on how you divvy up TSR. Suck my cock you nogames faggot.
>>96626561>RWBYNever played.>TSR D&DNope, you win by maximizing your DPR.>4ENope, you still win by maximizing your DPR.>>96626584>SWEGNever played.>VTMMaxing damage is the only way to win in that game because it has a death spiral.>M&MDPR maxing is still the name of the game, always.>BESMSee above>LANCERSee above.So you've got 2 games, that nobody cares about, and which you're probably lying about anyways since the other 9 were lies.Damn you're bad at this.
>>96613313I dont run 5e but one of my players takes so much longer on his turns its crazy. We've been playing the system for years now and everyone else has gotten shorter turns as they master things but it just.... didnt happen for him.Eventually he wants to take up DMing after I'm done and I dont know how to be nice and say "if you take this long on turns as a GM we will never finish a combat ever"
>>96626593Just because you haven't played it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.Also, as we established, you took "5e has no tactical depth in combat" and somehow twisted that into "If a game at all requires you to do damage to anything, it's automatically just about maximizing DPR", so you're a retard and your opinion goes in the trash.You're a nogames faggot who hasn't actually played anything, and if you have it has exclusively been 5e D&D where yes, the only thing that matters is DPR because it's got the depth of a puddle, and non-combat options are irrelevant when you can just murderhobo your way through everything with no consequences.Please leave the board since you don't play traditional games.
>>96626629>Just because you haven't played it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.See I would've been inclined to believe you, if you hadn't given me 9 false examples.>If a game at all requires you to do damage to anythingIncorrect. If a game has a combat system where you win by doing damage faster than the enemy can, it's just about maximizing your DPR. Of course even 5e has exceptions like where you can use Sleep to effectively win an encounter without going for pure damage, but that doesn't stop it from having no tactical depth.
>>96626642Not that anon, but I do think its fair to say 5e has a larger focus on buildcraft to get a higher DPR compared to some other RPGs, where its more about picking abilities to use (often in tandem with others) based on the current board to get a higher DPR.
>>96626667That's a fair distinction. Though I think it's mostly meaningless, I've never played an RPG where it wasn't extremely obvious as to which actions in a given turn would maximize my DPR.
>>96626684I think it can be impacted by the GM - the system I run encourages diverse battle variety (height, terrain type, etc) and enemies can have pretty different 'lines of play'.Combined with the way a lot of player tools give/inflict statuses, and how enemy statuses can meaningfully impact players without just being "you cant do anything", players are regularly talking to each other about how best to deal with the current situation, and what to do when a lucky crit or unlucky status ailment means their current plan is no longer optimal.Compared to when we ran 5e, where it really was "who does the most damage, we then target that guy and use our Do Good Damage attacks/spells" until a rare status or player-drop forced maybe one or two turns of different behaviour to 'return to the main line of play'.
>>96626702>the system I runThat being?
>>96613313Most people are brainless idiots.
>>96626709ICON, made by the guy who did lancer's art and mechanics (not the lore). Its in development, and honestly while I've been playing the current version for a while now I much prefer what we've seen of the upcoming edition.Its a lot more 'gamified' (for lack of a better word) than a lot of other systems, but thats why I like it. Not for everyone though.
>>96626720Not familiar with ICON, but I'll give it a look sometime.
>>96614981>I cast a spell!>Alright, which one?>...>Which spell do you cast?>Um...>Where is that on my sheet?>The section that says "spells".>...>This one here.>Um...>...>...>...>I cast Earthbind!>Okay, on who?>...>Um...>I want to cast Earthbind on this guy.>He doesn't fly, you know.>What?>That guy can't fly.>...>You know what Earthbind does, right?>It traps them and keeps them from moving, right?>It keeps them from flying.>...>They can still move, they can't fly.>It doesn't stop them from moving?>No.>I don't want to do that, then.>Um...>...>...>...>I want to cast Hypnotic Pattern.>Okay, where?>...>Um...>...>I want to cast it on that guy.>Centered on him?>...>I want to cast it on him.>It's an AoE spell, you know.>It is?>Yes. 30 foot cube.>Oh.>In fact, you could probably get some of the other guys if you aim it between them.>Um...>...>...>...>Okay, I do that.>What's your save DC?>...>Your save DC?>...>Um...>Should be written near your spells.>Where are my spells?
>>96613313Average IQ is 80, champ
>>96626593>Never playedYeah, we can tell.
>>96627143You can tell I've never played obscure garbage after I told you I've never played obscure garbage??? No way...
>>96627168Whoosh.
>>96627376nice reddit meme, updooted!
>>96627018This would never happen if the same person had to play another system!
>>96627432You're too much of an idiot to have caught it, so the joke obviously went over your head>reddit memeI wouldn't know. I don't spend time on reddit like you.
>>96613554so does anyone have any feedback for my advice..?
