Should I make sure my players succeed no What, or should I let them keep failing until they figure out how to work together and learn the true meaning of friendship?
On the one hand, I get that it's the GM's job to facilitate fun, and I kind of get the feeling that they're not smart enough to be able to work together, and will just get frustrated.
On the other hand, I'm getting a little sick of running Crabs and Buckets 5e every week. Wut do?
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>I'm getting a little sick of running Crabs and Buckets 5e every week.
Are you sick of it to the point where running it is a chore? If yes, dismantle the game politely. If not, proceed reading.
>Should I make sure my players succeed no What, or should I let them keep failing until they figure out how to work together and learn the true meaning of friendship?
I'd say you start having some random NPCs drop some not-that-subtle hints about teamwork, failing that having them provide some little help, failing that start having hints more obvious than a neon sign saying "work together you wankers."
But don't degrade your game to kid mode "everyone wins by doing nothing!" garbage. Unless your players are kids, obviously.
a) Don't do DnD. It's a railroady game. Unless you want powerlevel combat encounters and not much else, the game will be frustrating no matter what. At best you can play in spite of the rules, and then why not just use mechanics that work for you?
b) Provide hooks and incentives that facilitate the kind of game you want to play. Encourage your players with story elements. Teach them how to use the rules with tutorial missions. Take the time to go through the tactics of combat step by step. Have them see another group use successful tactics. Have a veteran NPC teach them the tricks. The trick to avoid a didactic tone is to present even basic functionalities of the mechanics as expert lore and thereby raise the sense of achievement.
No game ever runs perfectly. It is always a gradient and on many different scales. As the GM it's your job to recognize where the group is at and then take it from there. The only measure of success is the people in the room and their game experience, there won't be a test and nobody will grade your adherence to a formula.
>don't Do d&d
I Wouldn't if I could. My players refuse to learn anything else. My preferred system is GURPS, and there's no way in he'll they'd be able to sit through character creation
>making it worse
Do your friends just have non-cooperative attitudes? Just ask them to OOC metagame and work together and not bicker or sabotage each other. Give them a central bad buy that they hate and want to defeat and it will keep them off each other's case.
If they are just crabby bickering people outside of game, then give up because you won't be able to change their fundamental personalities and make them behave differently in a role playing game.
Is Crabs and Buckets a new term for something?
> D&D 5e
Spotted your problem. Very few good teamwork opportunities in a game with little interaction between character features and the same level of caster supremacy from 3.5.
Learn something new every day. Thanks.
So what kind of changes would you recommend to encourage teamwork? My first thought was chronic trigger style "techs", but I have no idea how that would work
I would suggest you stop playing D&D altogether and switch to Dungeon World. It's pretty much objectively one of the best currently out there. It has fast easy to use mechsnics and is perfect for beginners, it's a lot cheaper than most of these other rules bloated systems that cost fifty dollars. There is no reason for extra rules when it is he role playing that matters. Dungeon World is fast and innovative and still feels exactly like the spirit of ADND before DnD 3.5 destroyed the hobby and ruined a generation of role players.
You want fast, intuitive combat? Dungeon World does that.
You want real, deep roleplaying mechanics? Dungeon World does that.
You want great mechanics that reward diversity of play? Dungeon World does that as well.
My last session of Dungeon World my human fighter wrapped a vampire in a bear hug and wrestled him out a window. This is real roleplaying we are talking about here, not babby 3.5 shit. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Dungeon World today, it is an evolution and perfection of the half-formed ideas in Apocalypse World (the game it is derived from)
It also has great teamwork mechanics (bonds, which are adopted from AW's Hx which were a shit mechanic but Dungeon World makes them a lot better).
>Caster supremacy
>5e
Nigga you what, have you even played 5e? There is extremely little to none of it in there.
>Dungeon World
>Good
Pick one DW shill.
I picked both. And yes, D&D 5e DOES have caster supremacy, unlike Dungeon World which is almost perfectly balanced due to its tight design and concrete mechanics.
Explain how there is caster supremacy
Concentration checks matter, you can't stack spells, and several spells have provisos against them, also you make saving throws against save or sucks every round.
Also explain these "tight design" and "concrete mechanics"
>dnd 5e is bad
>seriously
>DW is good
>I won't explain but it's good
> why is DW good?
reddit.com
1000d4.com
Just a small smattering of the HUNDREDS of reasons to play Dungeon World.
I'm sure those essays are fascinating, but how about in your own words? It'd be easier to just say what you feel than keep linking other people saying it.
>Just a small smattering of the HUNDREDS of reasons to play Dungeon World.
Lists a bunch of websites as an aggregate way of not having to articulate why it is good out of lazyness.
"Three things DW does"
i.e common sense shit any good DM does anyway, Degrees of failure, not railroading, and describing your actions. DW didn't invent those things.
Also, these are possibly cherrypicked as fuck sources m8
I have two friends from different groups who shill Dungeon World so hard, and I really can't be assed to give a single fuck. I have no clue why.
that's no reason, fucking tell me yourself as if you're a human instead of some shill for a shitty game no one wants
also great job explaining why dnd 5e is bad you fucking faggot
>Dungeon World which is almost perfectly balanced due to its tight design and concrete mechanics.
Is this a bait post? I have a hard time believing it's not from a script.
I can't even tell if this is some sort of elaborate ruse by people that don't actually like Dungeon World, or is actually an honest to god shill.
Anybody who shills that hard just becomes annoying and puts people off.
>tfw you want advice about how to run your campaign, but everyone would rather just bitch about dungeon world
Feelsbadman