Why High Stakes Matter for Your DnD Game

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#dnd #osr #sandbox #ttrpg #dungeonsanddragons
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[yourseatatthetable]

Normally I don't fudge dice rolls, but, and there's always a but... sometimes, you have people at your table who need a boost now and then.

[RIVERSRPGChannel]

I roll in the open.
I think it’s up to the DM to make 5e dangerous. Since 5e is easier to learn or teach newbies are drawn towards it.
I still enjoy playing 1AD&D at conventions and 3.5 once every two or three months.

[Sirwilliamf]

More Danger = braver characters and more excited players.
My players consistently reminisce over the most dangerous situations they got themselves into.
10 months into the campaign, and those tense moments were it all came down to one die roll in the open are epic.

[billcedarheath]

As a forever DM going back to D&D first edition back in 1977 or so, I discovered that as a GM/DM it is better to let my players roll all the rolls that I would make. When something goes wrong they know it was me pushing a narrative with a false dice roll. They also know that combat is going to be deadly as the dice cast is the result they get. Another great aspect is it keeps them engaged in the game as they are the ones rolling when with other GM/DMs they would be sitting on their hands waiting for their turn. I call the monster attack rolls player defense rolls. Same math and rules, just a different perspective with the name to create engagement.

I also love the fact that it removes me being seen as an adversary and allows me to be the referee and story teller. The dice and their hand that cast them are the bad guy. I’ll never do it any other way once I discovered how powerful this way of playing is.

[worldbigfootcentral]

I've been playing OSR since thats all there was. THANK YOU for bringing up one of the main elements missing today. OD&D had NO training wells, safety vests or water wings. If your character died, they died. NONE of the early DM's I played with fudged die rolls to tell a story, because it was a GAME, not a STORY.

[sleepinggiant]

Absolutely agree! I switched to rolling in the open and I don't plan on going back.

I'm a big fan of appropriately designing encounters to challenge the party. Not all encounters should be deadly, but they should be well designed with the party's capabilities in mind, especially boss fights. No saving them dues ex machina either.

[EriktheRed]

In a sandbox, the players can, to a considerable degree, choose the difficulty they want. If they really want to raid kobolds and goblins until they can cast Raise Dead, so be it. If they want to take a chance and see if they can get a heap of treasure and XP, they should be able to do that too.

[Cuthbo]

Agree so much with all of this. Unfortunately I DMed for years using narrative style plots, which were fun sometimes but lacked that spicy danger. Sandbox is the way!

[anon_laughing_man]

This is why the sandbox open world hexcrawl playstyle is king. No story is dependent upon any PCs in the game. Any one character can die, the player makes a new character and the play just continues. With ultimate player agency comes ultimate player danger. ROLL ON! 🎲🎲🎲

[TalesFromElsewhereGames]

Great video! I think if a game is up-front about the lethality and stakes it uses, the players can be more accepting of those fail-states.

I will say, when I run D&D I probably fudge one roll every-other-session. I do so for D&D simply because the d20 is such a swingy die that it can create a feeling of lack of control by the players...so I very rarely NUDGE things in the right direction to keep the narrative going.

As far as stakes, I'm with you 100%. If there's nothing on the line, nothing that's being fought for, then really it's just a miniature combat simulator. Both the players and their foes should have something they're fighting for!

[Lanessar]

I remember for a 5E duet (my first game run since taking a hiatus in 2005) I used a Sword Spider (CR12) against two players at level 3. They wiped the walls with the sword spider, who should have killed a party of much higher level. Realizing how broken the "challenge rating" system is in 5E sent me to look for another game to run a campaign, and I found the OSR was actually a thing thanks to youtube.

I realize that this is a make-believe game where the rules shouldn't matter, but if your published system purports to be balanced and events like the above occur, I consider that an intrinsic flaw in the game system.

[nutherefurlong]

Yeah, you'll hear advice elsewhere encouraging fudging, I think they're more about narrative, in which case as long as it's sort of understood that that's the goal then maybe it's OK? But I remember when I experimented with that that it felt like a waste of time and took the thrill out of the random number generation. Doesn't mean less of a reliance on dice is a bad thing, but if the dice are used they're sort of in the place of the GM's decisionmaking. Everybody gets to have a bit of fun discovering what will happen

[telarr]

Ilike the 5e death save mechanic.
That cushion means i can go hard with the monsters and not hold back.
If a PC goes down to zero i roll their saves behind the screen and keep the result secret.
When the players dont know how many death saves are left or if ive rolled a nat 1 it makes them scramble
High stakes abound!!

[CeeLoGreen]

he keeps getting closer to the camera... next video i wanna see nosehairs

[Drudenfusz]

For me high stakes are really interesting, I prefer to go with personal stakes. Thus despite being very much on the narrative end of the hobby, and rejecting the hollow OSR style of play, I can completely agree that fudging dice ruins the experience. The uncertainty is for me not a game feature, but a drama feature.

[Grambo]

How do you handle rolling trap detection? (Or any other situation where the player shouldn't know if they failed a roll or if there is nothing for them to begin with. Like listen at doors)

[lexington]

1:59 exactly. but still stay off my lawn 😀.

[jyelambert]

My main issue is I don't like eliminating players and having them be bored at the table, it is not always logical to have a backup character suddenly appear from nowhere. What solutions do people have to deal with this problem?

[dane]

In 5e you pretty much have to target a downed character or go way over the recommended CR or use disintegration before someone will die. Basically, you have to do something that will give the players justification in calling you a "Bad DM". That's by design 100%. 5e is a narrative RPG masquerading as a strategy or hybrid RPG. Pretending the stakes are high is not the same as actual high stakes. This is also why WoTC prefers long form "epic campaigns". Are you really going to do all that prep and just let them die? Of course you're not.

[Zarion]

I agree that GMs shouldn't fudge for one simple reason, it's cheating. I doubt many GMs would be okay with the players fudging rolls.

As for the stakes thing, PC death especially in D&D really isn't a big deal, people can come back from the dead. Hell, in BG3 they give the group a companion very early in the game who can easily resurrect PCs at will.