So I've been reading around the "Gamer Talk" forum and looking at some of the stuff that some of the posters consider status quo for their games. Stuff like killer plants, fish and exotic wildlife all supremely adapted for murder, plus APL +1 to +2 on every standard encounter, etc. Not one at a time mind you, but CONSTANTLY.
Am I too soft on my players?
My last few gaming sessions have been 2-6 fight scenes on average (some with none; some with 8) but said fights have been APL, APL -1 or APL +1 or +2. I have provided a few instances of terrain hazards such as slopes or loose rocks and cover/obstacles, but that's it. Within these sessions I've had maybe 2 Fort saves and no other types, combats the PCs had plenty of options to either win or flee from, and journeys through a tangled forest with nary a hazard or natural foe in sight.
I'll ask again; am I running on easy mode right now?
"Are your players having fun?" Yes, they are; that's not the point. This is more a question about me to find out more about what kind of GM I am.
Ultimately how much you should be throwing at your PCs depends on how well optimized your PCs are and how much they like tough gritty fights.
If you want to make your PCs play on "hard" mode you could throw CL=APL+4 at them all the time, but if they are having fun at the moment they probably won't anymore when the party TPKs every other session due to the increased difficulty.
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I'd say you're running on "normal" mode.
I tend to have nastier encounters because my players optimize well - so what's technically an APL +2 fight is every bit the trivial speed bump that an APL -2 encounter would be. And so I have to go higher than that if I want a challenging combat.
APL +2 is fine for challenge if your party actually functions at APL.
Depends on if having harder encounters would increase happiness. Try a few and get feedback.
Anyway, I wouldn't say you're too soft for not making every encounter life threatening.
Edit: I used to make every encounter life threatening. Those campaigns did not last very long.
Thanks Mighty J. The PCs aren't very well optimized and the players are enjoying the combat level so I don't think its that. I guess I was wondering if I should be throwing more at them. Like there's this tangled creepy forest that looks 1000 years old but only regrew over the area over the past century. In the setting info I've talked about how dark and mysterious it is but should I have things like
- plant hazards
- plant/animal monster attacks
- fights with weird terrain obstacles like giant mushrooms or shrubs as dense as walls
I just feel like my game is a lot of fluff but then the crunch amounts to: You go here... fight... you crawl back out. Hooray, you survived. Count your loot in town.
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As others have said, that sounds fine.
I personally tend to go for quite a bit higher difficulty encounters than you seem to, but I also have somewhat more optimized PCs, and have a significantly lower total number of fights per session (I think 6 is as high as I've ever gotten, with 2 to 4 far more typical).
So...not precisely comparable situations.
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Numbers, such as APL, are merely guidelines. For some groups (such as mine) anything less than an encounter with several monsters or an extremely powerful (APL +3 or so) monster with maxed out HP is a speedbump. The melee types can bash for like 150 damage per round together on level 10, enough to kill just about any single CR 10 or less foe in 1 round. For other parties, level-appropriate encounters are great.
The question shouldn't be about APL and such, but about the actual events of the game: are your players feeling as challenged as they want to feel?
Easily winning fights is fun. The players get to be awesome, they feel empowered and rewarded for their descisions, and for the most part things like PC death are not a problem.
However, I know my players enjoy the sense of real danger of losing. They feel even more satisfied after taking down a tough fight with a close call or two. For the entire duration of the AP we are playing now I have not killed a single PC, yet my players perceive the campaign as deadly, perhaps even over the top. So when they come out ahead time and time again, they feel good about it.
If your players like the level of challenge in your games, that's great. Continue as you are. You could mix things up every now and then, try easier or tougher encounters and see how the group responds.
One thing that the strength of encounter affects is the number of encounters you can get through. I've noticed that using a similar pattern to what you use means my group gets through more fights in a session and we get a lot more done. When I throw the big fight/challenge at them we spend a lot more time on the fight and it essentially becomes the focus of the session.
Also, as Zhangar pointed out, how optimized your group is can greatly affect the level of challenge that your party can face.
You can always increase the difficulty by a notch and see how the players respond. If they don't like it you can always go back to what you've been doing.
Ultimately though, as Jiggy says, you're doing it right.
Thanks Mighty J. The PCs aren't very well optimized and the players are enjoying the combat level so I don't think its that. I guess I was wondering if I should be throwing more at them. Like there's this tangled creepy forest that looks 1000 years old but only regrew over the area over the past century. In the setting info I've talked about how dark and mysterious it is but should I have things like
- plant hazards
- plant/animal monster attacks
- fights with weird terrain obstacles like giant mushrooms or shrubs as dense as walls
I just feel like my game is a lot of fluff but then the crunch amounts to: You go here... fight... you crawl back out. Hooray, you survived. Count your loot in town.
Variety is the spice of life. None know this more than Muad'Dib.
I think weird animals and monsters break up the predictable types of strategy that come with bipedal monsters.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I just feel like my game is a lot of fluff but then the crunch amounts to: You go here... fight... you crawl back out. Hooray, you survived. Count your loot in town.
Aaaahhhh.... That sounds less like "too soft" and more like "too plain". Not the same thing. ;)
Google "big list of RPG plots". You should find a wonderful list of condensed plot hooks, each with at least a couple of variations/twists. Find ones that involve the PCs not understanding something or trying to figure something out, and try those.
Now instead of "go here, fight, go home, shop", it becomes "raise questions, pay attention to the setting, try to find answers, have a satisfying revelation, and oh yeah some combat happened in there somewhere too but whatever".
Maybe that could shake things up for you. :)
So I've been reading around the "Gamer Talk" forum and looking at some of the stuff that some of the posters consider status quo for their games. Stuff like killer plants, fish and exotic wildlife all supremely adapted for murder, plus APL +1 to +2 on every standard encounter, etc. Not one at a time mind you, but CONSTANTLY.
Am I too soft on my players?
My last few gaming sessions have been 2-6 fight scenes on average (some with none; some with 8) but said fights have been APL, APL -1 or APL +1 or +2. I have provided a few instances of terrain hazards such as slopes or loose rocks and cover/obstacles, but that's it. Within these sessions I've had maybe 2 Fort saves and no other types, combats the PCs had plenty of options to either win or flee from, and journeys through a tangled forest with nary a hazard or natural foe in sight.
I'll ask again; am I running on easy mode right now?
"Are your players having fun?" Yes, they are; that's not the point. This is more a question about me to find out more about what kind of GM I am.
I think you are running it on normal mode, but I don't know your group either. If they are cruising through the APL+2's then you may need to alter the way you run them or bump the APL range up by one if you want to make things more difficult.
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I'd let your players determine your aplomb or firmness and not the forums Mark. You might be searching for a problem where none exists and when folks start searching for problems they usually find one. In this case, you may harden your GM style, but your players stop having fun. Listen to Jig and spruce up the encounters in other ways than difficulty.
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I think Jiggy has the real gist of your feelings. It sounds like you are throwing a steady stream of encounters of about equal level. A few that are softer and a few that are harder, but none very far out of a certain range of difficulty or encounter type. I agree that maybe mixing it up a bit might add some spice to life; but from the sound of it you don't really need to go harder on your players. Just try a few variations and an occasional out of left field they'll never expect this type encounter to keep the variety up there and the excitement high and you won't have to crank the thumb screws on your players.
You're doing good.
I don't think the solution is plot hooks—it sounds to me like the encounters themselves need to be more interesting. Is that what you're asking, Mark?
I think the fluff in your settings is one of the greatest things you've told me about, so no worries there. And Jiggy has a good idea with the Googling of plots. I'm going to use that one, myself.
From the sound of it you're doing everything pretty much right along the mark (pardon the pun). APL +1 or +2 is pretty challenging and if they're wading through it then it's too easy. But if there's at least a couple of scrape bys and skin of teeth moments in the encounters they're just right.
I hope I made some sense there. It's been an off day.
No you folks are probably right; I don't think it's challenge so much as variety that I'm missing. Pan, I hear what you're saying as well. I've gotten some feedback from my players in past campaigns that my game finds a rut easily and I can be kind of boring so I guess I'm just being paranoid.
I suppose what's fueling all of this was looking over threads I've posted in and realized there's a lot of cool ideas out there. Stuff I've liked, stolen and built on in my own campaign notes. But then in looking over the adventures I've written for my actual homebrew I'm seeing a definite pattern.
Jiggy, thanks for the link. I need to change things up. Not just so my players can still have fun but so I can enjoy the stuff I'm putting on the table.
No you folks are probably right; I don't think it's challenge so much as variety that I'm missing. Pan, I hear what you're saying as well. I've gotten some feedback from my players in past campaigns that my game finds a rut easily and I can be kind of boring so I guess I'm just being paranoid.
I suppose what's fueling all of this was looking over threads I've posted in and realized there's a lot of cool ideas out there. Stuff I've liked, stolen and built on in my own campaign notes. But then in looking over the adventures I've written for my actual homebrew I'm seeing a definite pattern.
Jiggy, thanks for the link. I need to change things up. Not just so my players can still have fun but so I can enjoy the stuff I'm putting on the table.
Having lower APL encounters give your players a sense of who they are, how powerful they are, its empowering for them.
Not a fan of Challenge Ratings, I prefer the story to determine how tough or easy an encounter is.
I have created encounters that are APL +6, an encounter such as this lets the players know they are not the toughest kids in school.
Not all encounters need to be fun, they can be profound, and when they are, the players talk about them for many years after.
Am I too soft on my players?
As long as you and your players are having fun, then you're not too soft.
For me, combat is fun, but the best parts of the game are about storytelling and decision making. These are the things you remember years later.
I wouldn't compare yourself to other GMs, some GMs have the problem of making their fights too difficult. When every fight is a slugfest, it gets tedious. And it makes the boss fights less special.
My players in one campaign said 'Why are we here? This is far beyond our capabilities. We're just barely making it. Not fun'.
Other GMs make things too hard and then fudge. When you fudge, your players know, and everyone reacts to it differently. I know my players don't like it.
So really, there is no right or wrong answer, there is only a right and wrong answer for you and your group.
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Thanks Mighty J. The PCs aren't very well optimized and the players are enjoying the combat level so I don't think its that. I guess I was wondering if I should be throwing more at them. Like there's this tangled creepy forest that looks 1000 years old but only regrew over the area over the past century. In the setting info I've talked about how dark and mysterious it is but should I have things like
- plant hazards
- plant/animal monster attacks
- fights with weird terrain obstacles like giant mushrooms or shrubs as dense as walls
I just feel like my game is a lot of fluff but then the crunch amounts to: You go here... fight... you crawl back out. Hooray, you survived. Count your loot in town.
It doesn't just need to be monsters and loot Hoover. In the example you game - creepy ancient looking forest that recently grew - you can make the fluff into something palpable. Imagine them finding a newer construction in that forest - with trees uprooting mortar and stone - somewhat new mortar and stone.
Journals and records - even a painting found inside the structure (say a keep) could be methods to communicate to the players that this forest was not always so. This way fluff becomes function - it physically intrudes and impacts the players world.Even in passing the players will: note something very weird/wrong has occurred, if inquisitive then they will also ask how, why and what. Again, the aspects of the forest can be minor fluff or a puzzle piece to the bigger picture.
Back story and fluff does two things for the GM: it can provide tremendous depth when designing further encounters, situations and furthering events/plots based on prior events/plots...and it can be personal entertainment for the GM. The latter being less useful to a gaming group.
Creative endeavors tend to fall into patterns - you shouldn't beat yourself over it - just examine the pattern and find a way to break it/shake things up. We fall into patterns of creativity (as GMs) for several reasons - we may have a fixed audience and we are writing to that audience, we may have story inside we want to tell and we tell it with some variation or we may just fall into a comfort zone adventure writing and not want to leave it (for various reasons).
Before you go radically changing your play/game style.... Communicate with your players first, ask them for they want to see in a game, warn them if you do use what they have asked you will use it with your own twist. Then let them know they may see changes in the game style and they are welcome to provide feedback. Then try stuff out, have fun, and explore new stuff.
Nothing more off putting as a player than a GM going 180' in style without warning.
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This is more a question about me to find out more about what kind of GM I am.
The kind of GM every player deserves. The kind of GM that creates a fun atmosphere that people enjoy playing in.