I have a pet peeve, and it's that a lot of tactical games aren't very good about teaching GMs how to be tactical and how to think tactically as monsters about to face a party of PCs.
1 DM vs a party of 5 PCs working together tactically will never be a fair fight, as 5 brains are better than 1. And that's fine, it should always swing for the PCs anyway.
Rules can be clear. Rules can be complete. But if the game doesn't teach how it's meant to be played, it is not a very good game.
@newbiedm I think heavy tactics on the GM side are overrated. Players want to see their characters so awesome stuff. Good enemy tactics can often get in the way of that.
@slyflourish@newbiedm GM tactics also don’t have to be brilliant. The monsters will try to split the party, getting some to go up to the second level. May or may not work, fun either way. The monsters will try to light exploding barrels on fire with obvious means the party can stop. Obvious tactics can be fun to stop.
@Alphastream@slyflourish@newbiedm I know there are corners of the D&D where its heresy to talk about learning from video games, but I honestly think boss fights where you have to solve a "puzzle" in order to harm a villain, and framing that "puzzle" as precautions they have taken, feels more like what I want out of a "genius" boss. "There's no way you'll shut down on the runes that are protecting me, and I'm protected because I'm a genius that created them."
@slyflourish@newbiedm I think having one tactic per encounter (i.e. the orcs are going to use missile weapons from behind a portcullis) is sufficient. Trying to counter the players’ tactics is where I think players get annoyed or frustrated.
@newbiedm When I used to play those kinds of games, if pulled out my full tactical acumen as a GM it would always be a bloodbath for the players. That's not even because of "system mastery"—most of them just weren't good at making tactical decisions.
@Tim_Eagon yeah. It's a heavy amount of bandwidth for me lately. Too much. Especially at high levels. My monsters are not very bright. Just dumb brutes.
@Tim_Eagon@newbiedm I wonder if the way players like to optimize, some DMs (like me) enjoy figuring out how the monsters become a formidable team and challenge?
@Tim_Eagon@newbiedm Like, in 3E, many people wanted to write for organized play and would pitch an “idea” of “a half-fiend half-troll black dragon” and we would need to explain that this is not an adventure premise.
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