GM complaints

They never use their special abilities. No matter what system it's just "Hit thing with sword" or "Shoot thing with gun" or if I'm lucky "Fireball, magic missile, firebolt, shocking hand" over and over. I don't understand why my players don't use their special abilities. You can make undead cower in fear! You can buff your party with extra armor and speed! You can punch people so hard they catch on fire! You can make yourself invulnerable to all energy damage while walking through walls! Why don't the idiots use their cool stuff? Did I somehow make it more fun to just use their weapons even when they have plenty non-weapon abilities?

Or GM complaints general.

Your game is too easy user.

I know what you mean. I can sympathize about not wanting to spend resources because you never know what's coming, but my players make things more boring than they have to be.

I try to counter this by giving them toys or having their enemies pull out new shit, but the party just sticks to attempting the same stuff.

>I don't understand why my players don't use their special abilities.

Because you're likely not giving them a reason to.

I mainly play casters that buff party members for combat and some utility stuff. Is that special enough?

I guess you could use an enemy that nearly requires the usage of a given ability, with the first encounter with that enemy designed to be more forgiving so they can get the idea into their heads?

>You can make undead cower in fear!
Are they facing undead with either enough power or numbers to require weakening and scattering?
>You can buff your party with extra armor and speed! You can punch people so hard they catch on fire!
Are they facing foes against which either of those is truly necessary?
>You can make yourself invulnerable to all energy damage while walking through walls!
Are they facing an obstacle or enemy that inflicts heavy energy damage, or have need to phase through a wall to achieve something?

People generally avoid utilizing limited resources until such a time when the resource is needed. It's basic logic.

Basically learn to design encounters better.

Ever finish a game with 99 of everything? Thats your players, give them enemies that require those spells. Skeletons from an acient empire covered in heavy stone armor. The weakpoint of the armor are the straps on the back but since theyre undead they dont want to expose what is now their only weakpoint. Turning undead would make them turn around, or a big fireball would burn the straps because the flame explodes inside their armor causing it to burn and fall apart.

>Ever finish a game with 99 of everything?
Every time I play a video game. I refuse to use consumables. If I have to use a consumable in order to get past an enemy, I will level grind until I can get past it anyway.

It's 100% an insane compulsion, and yet I still can't get over it.

Thats their mindset, you need to present a couple puzzle enemies until they are able to integrate their abilities into normal combat.

Players who try and solve every single encounter through violence even when it does not make sense in the context of the story.

I tried to GM a game in which was horror centered around them just being normal people (think /k/ skinwalker stories) and them trying to talk to normal townsfolk turned into them torturing and attempting to murder townsfolk.

When I played Vampire the Masquerade with them it was about 5 minutes before they all lost so much humanity that they frenzied

Thats a perfectly rational response toward the first scenario. The minute you find out The Thing is running around you cant trust anyone.

If you're playing 5e, you know resources are limited. A paladin gets only 3 spells for most of his starting levels to split for all of his smites and spells. Warlocks may have unlimited cantrips, but just a few level ones. Stuff's limited, and bosses can eat that up. If they don't save for said boss, they dead.

I feel you bro. My group is getting better at it, but they still go the dumb dumb way sometime.

Have the party routinely get fucked by lower level enemies using those powers against them until they get the message

This is long long before they even get the thing after them. It's like during world building segments. They meet other campers and are exceedingly violent

Dang, you're all right. I am making this too easy.
The last time I remember them being smart was when I put half the enemies on overwatch while a few fired so that they couldn't charge in the open. They actually had to think about how to use smoke bombs, movable cover, and buffs to solve that one. I guess I just need to throw more enemies that need to be killed with abilities rather than mundane methods.

Thanks for the advice.

Then dont spoil so much of the story before it starts.

Maybe they're the horror?

I get that feeling user. I do the same thing.

What is the point of collecting resources if you knowingly will not use them under any circumstance?

Because what if you need them later? You have to suffer through the situation they could solve now because MAYBE they can be more useful later. It's not a logical mindset.

I know that mindset from personal experience
The main reason is "I don't want to waste it, in case I need it later"

So basically you always think "I could use it now, but what if something big comes up and I need it?", where "it" can be that potion you have, your spell slots, special abilities, etc.

Because you always think that you'll need it later you try to get through without it, and before you noticed you already finished the Game/mission/plot line/etc.

Because I want to HAVE them. It's the same thing about most other types of treasure that I'll never use.

I tend to get this bizarre cycle of

>Players go to new area
>Hear that some NPC is really tough
>Go out of their way to pick a fight
>Surprise, the tough NPC is actually tough
>Players either lose or get into some kind of trouble .
>Complain that I make things too hard

There's not a whole lot I can do about it, but I have one player that's just a God at rolling dice. No matter how tough I try to make things, he'll roll those dice to victory. It's actually a little scary, but mostly frustrating since even the toughest challenges perish before his unstoppable dice rolls.

I can't make things too tough though, because this guy steals everyone else's luck. Two of the other four can't roll well to save their lives. It's a pain for those two and also me.

I'm pretty much at my wit's end regarding the issue.

Do you know how shit it feels to actually go face some difficult enemy and find yourself lacking in resources?

Usually I try to hold on to whatever I have until I make to a "boss" fight, but even then there's still the danger of something else coming along when you think its safe.

My players can't stay serious at the table.

Pretty much anything said by one person is followed by a joke from another.

This makes tone impossible.

I cope by not playing any serious games anymore.

That's me. as GM. I actually have to nerf myself because I would TPK everyone constantly due to my rolls.

It's really uncanny, since it spreads to other games. It's to the point that no one wants to sit next to me when we play Betrayal at House on the Hill because drawing a "The player on your right rolls a might 4 attack on you" card is more or less a death sentence around me.

When I am a player I can bestow upon my friends the ability to roll just high enough on any important roll. DMs have a lot of trouble killing characters when I'm around. It sucks because that means nothing is ever life-threatening.

>No matter what system it's just "Hit thing with sword" or "Shoot thing with gun" or if I'm lucky "Fireball, magic missile, firebolt, shocking hand" over and over.
Because those are my only reliable tactics
>You can make undead cower in fear! You can buff your party with extra armor and speed! You can punch people so hard they catch on fire! You can make yourself invulnerable to all energy damage while walking through walls!
Because what if I do that now but then have need for it later?

Really, vancian/per day abilities are the problem. Vancian systems make abilities/spells an "oh shit" panic button rather than a "do this cool thing" button.

Frankly it is fear of the unknown for prepared casters. If they have zero prior knowledge of an up coming encounter they will almost always default to damage spells or extremely generic utility spells..


Why prepared a bunch of situational spells if you might end up not using them?

Give the party an opportunity to gather info about an upcoming challenge.