Combat

My weakest link is combat, basically because as a Shadowrun DM I encourage my players to do extensive legwork and negotiations, so combat is usually quick ambushes. Of course sometimes they are taken off-guard and open fight ensues but it's not the thing we are all best at.

Exploration.

I'm fantastic at Interaction, and pretty good at Combat, but I can't run Exploration to save my life.

Interaction. Point me at the loot and baddies and let fly.

Combat, hands down
for some reason (I really don't know what I was thinking) I sent one and a half udoroots at a party of third-level adventurers who don't even have a cleric with them

we left off (for reasons of time constraints) right as the fighter lost half his HP to a Mind Thrust, and now I have to figure out how to get them out of there without a TPK

>combat
Combat is just another form of interaction, what the fuck are you smoking, user?
>b-buh muh tactics!
Are fucking irrelevant.
Just because major RPGs like DnD have drastically different mechanics for combat and non-combat parts, to the point where the two feel like two entirely different systems tacked on together, doesn't mean that combat is an essential part of RPG experience.

Probably combat. I like playing characters that try to weasel their way out of fights creatively more than ones who bash their way through problems.

>Combat
My encounters are either too easy or too hard. The entire process of creating encounters is frustrating and confusing to me. It's the most rules-heavy and fundamental part of the game - allowing for the least improvisation of the three.

IMO, it's far easier to botch combat design in a game than any other aspect of an RPG. If it were a class it would be Math & Science - whereas Exploration and Interaction would be the blow off classes like English or History.

I'll take D. Puzzles.

I'm vaguely shit at everything.

Exploration. No questions asked.

As a DM its interaction. I just have a hard time making interesting NPCs that players want to interact with.

As a player its combat, not because I dislike combat but because I had several DMs who were bad at everything BUT combat, so the whole campaign ended up being a bunch of boring combat encounters. After that combat just seemed so boring unless its related to the plot.

>Shadowrun DM
not sure if i should sigh or just act generally triggered

Same as you. I rely on improv a lot, and I'm good at it, which makes interaction and exploration pretty nice, I think, but I'm too lazy to build proper encounters most of the time, so I rip them off directly from the manual.

Exploration, specialy the transition betwen it and combat/interaction

I'm equally horrible at all three.

Definitely interaction. I'm not the best at designing combat encounters that don't feel cookie-cutter, either, though.

I honestly don't think I have a particularly weak link, but if pressed I'd have to say Exploration.

Interaction, well, about 50% of my game sessions are just five hour long in-character conversations, and nobody has ever expressed discontent about that. I often allow for one-off private sessions between characters and specific NPCs who they want to talk to, which most of my group are happy enough to take me up on that I have to keep a waiting list.

Combat, I enjoy encounter building, and I enjoy flipping systems on their head to produce a more interesting experience. My general philosophy is that 'Party versus 12 orcs' is boring shit and if it doesn't contribute to the narrative, it should be cut out. As a result, basically every fight is some form of boss or miniboss fight, and the minor skirmishing is glossed over in descriptive passage. My players love this, and have repeatedly told me horror stories of DMs who refuse to skip over combat, even when it becomes clear that the party is in no danger, and nothing interesting is actually happening save for both sides taking turns rolling dice at each other.

But for the life of me, I can't find a way to make exploration interesting. I can describe areas really well, I can make pretty good maps, of both worlds and regions within them, but I'm bad at judging things like scale, and I can never seem to make the players really want to see what is over the next horizon.

Creativity.
If I've got an obvious path I'm golden, or if my first plan is good, but if things don't go as planned I'm not good at thinking on my feet.

I wanna play a bard or other outgoing character, but I don't think I'd be good at it.

All three pillars are something I have to juggle--usually in relation to the players. I run two groups, and typically they prioritize Exploration/Interaction/Combat. It's a balancing act to appeal to their preference, yet diversify enough to prevent their "favorite" from getting stale.

In regards to the three pillars, my weakest area is probably interaction, since while I do attempt to broaden my NPC appearances/mannerisms/backgrounds/voices/roles, they go oft-unseen, leaving a roughly similar impression behind. I think setting up combat setpieces is pretty easy, but adding colour to descriptions while maintaining a good pace is tough. It's easy to get tedious. And as for exploration, I think I have a decent world and array of environments, but I think a particularly investigative player would give me some trouble.

In general, I tend to think out the early stretches of my campaigns out the most, and so they boast the most diverse locales, brightest bunches of NPCs, and most distinctive fights. I'm working on keeping a more 'regular' sense of quality.

Exploration as a DM.
Combat as a PC.

Kain refused the sacrifice

Of those three not a lot, I'm good at combat and good at being a face, and I'm always happy to explore shit.

Problem is that I'm fucking horrible at trap finding and puzzles.

>As Player
Interaction. Now before you scream murder hobo, it's not that I dislike interaction, but if it's excessive and without the other two to break it up, then you've lost me. Give me a handful of NPCs exploring ancient lost ruins ala THE MUMMY style and I'm a very happy man.

>DM
Exploration definitely. Every time I think I am building an interesting setting to be delved into, explored and mapped, it just feels tacky and cliche. Idk, that might just be my own critique as my players seem to love my games. I wanna run a West Marches game via hex-crawl so badly. But it'd have to be online for the ease of tracking.

Combat without a doubt. I feel I can make a decent cast of varied NPCs for the players to interact with and a backdrop interesting enough for a player to give a damn about the city, town or wherever they are. But combat, fuck I fall apart at combat. It's either laughably easy and the players don't break a sweat, or they get stomped on turn one.

I can't play good characters. They are boring to me.

Exploration. My combat system is pretty well defined and balanced, and the social interaction rules are pretty simple and straightforward. Exploration is more vague and, honestly, I don't really enjoy search/spot checks AT ALL as a GM. If the players search a place for clues they're going to find everything they need to solve the puzzle or make an educated decision about what to do next. Likewise, if a character is good at finding traps I just roll that passively and tell them if/when they notice something hidden and dangerous.

I think there's a place for combat tactics in an RPG, just as there's a place for spinning a good lie or coming up with a great plan outside of battle. The problem is that a lot of games have 200 pages of rules for combat and 20 pages for exploration and social interaction.

I'm a fiend for detail and addicted to complexity.

Combat, and with good reason:
You want to put the player characters in danger or else it's not very interesting.
You don't want it to be so challenging that the characters die because that's lame as shit when that happens.
It's tough to find that inbetween.

Exploration as a DM and PC. Trying to get the PCs to follow along the path that leads to progress in exploration is difficult, as they'll often try to explore something I've barely fleshed out if I don't make it obvious/straightforward. Coming up with subtle hints if difficult because I'm always afraid that the PCs will not pick up on it, ignoring something cool that I had planned for them to find. And god hep me if they come up with a way to circumvent an obstacle that I hadn't thought of or planned to deal with at all.

As a PC, I either spend too much time making Notice/Perception/Search/whatever checks to try and decipher secrets in exploration that ends up being pointless because the GM had nothing extra planned then, or I end up missing huge details that were laying in secret because I wasn't making constant checks of my own initiative because I missed a hint.

I've found that the best way to get around those problems is to make character death something that doesn't immediately occur at 0 / -10 hit points. Remember, a fight that knocks four PCs down to 75% HP could also just reduce one PC to 0% HP. I tweak the rules so that characters only die if (1) everyone in the party is knocked to 0 HP or (2) character attempt a surge of heroic power that gives them combat bonuses and extra HP, but leaves them vulnerable to killing blows.

Any fights the party doesn't think it can handle, it can either run away from or try to go all out with, or surrender I suppose. Getting knocked to 0 HP doesn't put you in danger of death automatically, so I can throw out tough and powerful enemies without being too afraid of accidentally killing everyone.

I pretty much just removed the Search and Spot/Listen/Perception skills from my game. The 'perception' skill is now just a passive stat to see if you notice someone trying to sneak up on you, and whether you sense any kinds of traps around you. Any clues in the environment can be found if the player bothers to look where they are. Just describe all the major objects in the room and let the players describe how they pick up, prod, or investigate them in-character.

If the players manage to circumvent an obstacle in a reasonable way, just let them do so but tell them the same trick won't work twice.

Oh hey, it's the Triforce of GMing. It even fits LoZ canon.

Ganon is Combat, Zelda is Interaction, Link is Exploration.

Exploration.

I can maintain flow during combat and interaction but sometimes it feels as though I'm just glossing over the exploration part of my games simply because nothing's happening that would warrant a description or two.

A lot of people will say that co-DMing is for faggots but I've played in campaigns with co-DMs who work it out like this and they actually go just fine, the co-DM who handled the bookkeeping was also kind of new to DMing in any capacity so he also got a sort of taste of what DMing would be like before having to throw himself into it. I never had that myself so I thought that was kinda neat.

neat

Are you guys me? Why is exploration so hard to work with? I feel like it's practically the most important part, which makes it even worse -- how can you have an adventure without exploration?
I really like reading little blurbs of scenery but it's painfully obvious sometimes that I care about them far, far more than my players do, even when it feels like I'm barely setting up the scenery, and when it comes to worldbuilding itself I just feel constantly overwhelmed about what level of detail to make everything and how to make it all consistent. It's daunting and it really bothers me that I can't seem to get it right at all.

I'm bad at having combat be meaningful or compelling in itself, but I'm aware of it so I can usually mitigate it pretty well. I try and keep combats fairly short and savage and if it's longer I'll have interaction be either a fairly obvious option or an important element. It's helped make sure everybody's got something to pay attention to and some way to bring things to the table, plus it comes off as more novel or interesting because it's not just pure fighting mechanics. Still, I'm not sure I've ever run combat that really left an impression when compared to things like "Arkin the Maimed" and his impossible tower, or his body-snatching spiders.

I actually enjoy GMing 3.5/Pathfinder more than 4e: it's trivial to bullshit things together in the former and have it be fun and feel right so long as you're mindful of how it'll interact with your party's capabilities in the broadest terms, but in 4e you need to have a much better understanding of its framework and put in a lot more time in the end--it's so much more specific.

Combat
Holy shit Combat
My players beat a CR 10 encounter at level 3

Through your own craftiness or simply because you made the monsters make tactical mistakes? Because if its the former than that reflects well on your players, not badly on you.

Everything, but I enjoy running combat the least. It just feels futile and silly and like I can't come up with admiring interesting.

But then again, I'd just run slice of life rp and character interaction, if I had a choice.

The problem is that the best part of exploration is different for different people. My favorite part is finding weird quirks and interactions that don't go anywhere except itself, like that orchid with a fake wasp on it to trick wasps into pollinating it, or weird bits of mythology or art or whatever. Most people aren't interested in weird details, at least in my group, so I and the other GMs stick to the broad strokes and the important bits, which I feel is a gutted version of what exploration should be.

>mfw noone interested in game about exploring a world's speculative ecology and cultures
>mfw no GM to run it and aversion to playing with randos

>game about exploring a world's speculative ecology and cultures
This could be awesome but the amount of prep work or improvization required would make it almost imposible to run for me

Unironically came here to say this