I could use some assistance in mending a frail and shattered group dynamic

I could use some assistance in mending a frail and shattered group dynamic.

Earlier, I had run my first session of a D&D 4e campaign. Two players had a smidge of experience with the system, and two were totally new. I had known all four players on as long-time contacts, and they knew me reasonably well.

I had thought that the first encounter would be easy enough, and indeed, I knew to be gentle on the party initially. I even made a conscious effort to avoid any and all action denial effects.

However, try as they might, they could not win. I overestimated their tactical prowess, the enemies had good initiative, and the enemies were exactly the type to capitalize on high initiative results by alpha striking.

It does not help that I am always the type to have intelligent enemies use optimal tactics that I as a player was familiar with, so the players constantly found themselves outmaneuvered and tactically screwed over by these enemies that were not that much stronger by them.

Perhaps an additional source of frustration was that there was just enough hope to pull through and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but those extra rounds of playing out the encounter were futile.

All players were deeply resentful, and one player had quit the game. The group dynamic has all but disintegrated by now.

We tried to discuss potential solutions after the session, but I do not think much progress was made. I am not the type to have intelligent monsters use suboptimal tactics, because it simply does not satisfy me, and my tactical RPG instincts are too strong for me to consciously dial down. I could use weaker monsters or less monsters, but one player has complained that it means that the heroes will *not* be the one using their wits and cunning to take down stronger foes. I suppose I could try to sell that for these enemies, much of their might lies in their keen battle instincts, and therefore, overcoming them in battle is a great accomplishment.

How might I fix this?

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Bullet to the head. Game over, new group, new plot, new starting level.

Normally, encounters are significantly weaker than the party. If the enemy has a 50/50 shot of taking out the party, the party will be taken out once out of every two encounters.

A bit extreme when the group is sufficient, and the players have expressed strong interest in the plot.

I predicted a near-guaranteed victory on the party's part, but I vastly overestimated the party's ability to play characters I walked them through step by step in optimizing.

To expound, somehow, this battle might have been better-received if it started with the entire battle being wiped out. My assessment is that the players were frustrated by how the battle played out over a few rounds, with characters being systematically focus-fired upon to deny them their turns ("It is your turn, and all you can do is roll a death saving throw"), with relatively little ability to fight back. The fact that it was a stretched-out, frustrating ordeal might have been enough to make good acquaintances feel deeply betrayed.

>"I vastly overestimated the party's ability to play characters I walked them through step by step in optimizing."
>wipes party out in the first encounter
>MUH TACTICAL TACTICS
So you want the players cater to your game and your tactical genius even though they evidently have no idea about what they're doing, instead of you catering to the player.
I second 's advice.

Or, you could just first let the players make their characters as they want, then set up initial encounters that will go up in """tactical""" difficulty as they progress, all the while using these encounters to show them how your tactical combat is supposed to work. You can even comment OOC. If your autism is too strong to weaken enemies then just use low intelligence enemies.
And if players complain about being relegated to minor league FOR THE MOMENT, ask them whether they just want to try the same thing over a thousand times and fail, or get gud and have actual chances of winning, earning bragging rights about their wits and cunning.
This is supposing your encounters have actual tactical value to them in the first place and aren't actually based on cheese.

Even if I use low-intelligence enemies, I would still feel the strong compulsion to undertake optimal tactics for each of them.

What I would truly, truly like to do is simply use weaker and/or less numerous enemies. This would let me use optimal tactics and give the party a fighting chance. However, as delineated above, one player has complained that it means that the heroes will *not* be the one using their wits and cunning to take down stronger foes.

Perhaps I should make it obvious even in-universe that the enemies in this adventure are extremely tactically savvy, and thus it is an accomplishment to defeat a squad of them in battle.

OP, are you the guy who posts Touhou and constantly seems to get in situations where the GM and the players have some terrible misunderstanding which completely fucks up the game? Because this seems to happen pretty often.

warosu.org/tg/thread/S52115909

>Two players had a smidge of experience with the system, and two were totally new.

>characters I walked them through step by step in optimizing.

>I am not the type to have intelligent monsters use suboptimal tactics, because it simply does not satisfy me

This is the right answer. Nobody would really want to play another session after that one, and who could blame them? Let it go.

Yes.

Apparently, three of the players are set on staying because they somehow still wish to play under me and they are invested in the plot so far.

>Even if I use low-intelligence enemies, I would still feel the strong compulsion to undertake optimal tactics for each of them.

Don't do that, user. Would you take low charisma enemies and play them as master diplomats? Low dexterity professional tumblers? Especially when it comes to new players, they're still figuring gout the nuts and bolts of playing a roleplaying game, while you're treating it like a game of chess.

Portraying a low-Charisma character as socially inept, or a low-Dexterity character as bumbling, is simply a matter of descriptions.

Handling enemy tactics is another matter altogether, especially for one so ingrained in a mindset of employing optimal tactics and systematic focused fire. It has reached the point for me wherein I more easily think of the best courses possible, rather than plausible-but-actually-suboptimal actions.

Is there some easy method of having enemies take plausible-but-actually-suboptimal actions? Whenever I try to think "If I was fighting here, what would I do?", the answer that immediately springs to mind is "whatever will put my enemies down most efficiently while preserving my own hide," which is what I wind up doing.

Think of suboptimal tactics and write those down beforehand, then stick to them during the game. Roll randomly for who enemies will attack to avoid focus fire. Purposefully flub positioning, like avoiding flanking when possible or whatever.

Just out of curiosity, what enemies did you have them face?

>Whenever I try to think "If I was fighting here, what would I do?", the answer that immediately springs to mind is "whatever will put my enemies down most efficiently while preserving my own hide,"
Right. Think of that, then DON'T do it. Deliberately do something else.

Post some of the characters and encounters, anyway.

Sounds to me like you need to need to roleplay your enemies more because you seem the kind of dude who rolls out a bunch of goblins and goes 'well that's what I'd do' which is kind of the opposite but still dumb 'But that's what my character would do!'
Then again, can't judge before I know more about the encounter and/or setting and shit.

Sounds like your players made the right call.

>It does not help that I am always the type to have intelligent enemies use optimal tactics that I as a player was familiar with


At low levels, be kind.
At med levels, be fair.
At high levels, be cruel.

Don't host or play a game ever again. You MIGHT be able to contain your autism for a few sessions, let the group get comfortable, then they'll come up against the down drunk and his thug mates and next thing you know they'll be pulling the same stunts and tactics you'd see in the big bag's elite kill-teams.

you're a killjoy and cannot be trusted to make or be a part of enjoyable experiences

Assuming your players are willing to give the game another shot you might want to dial down the encounter difficulty a bit. In particular by using lower level enemies.
Why that exactly?
Lower level monsters (relative to the parties level) should give newer player a greater sense of achievement. Their lower defenses mean the players will hit more often and their lower attack bonuses will make the players feel like their defenses are actually protecting them.

An experienced player will probably see through the hollow victory that such encounters inevitably lead to but for new players it's not that obvious. Especially if they've suffered a defeat before or just feel bad about the game in general achieving victory, even if it was actually easy, is something they need to experience.

You should slowly ramp up the difficulty from there. You end-of-dungeon / boss fights to turn up the difficulty. After dealing with one or two encounters with not much difficulty your players should be able to enjoy a fight that isn't totally stacked in their favour if it serves as the last challenge before a succesful adventure.
As time goes on and your players become more experienced feel free to have even more challenging encountes earlier on.

If you're having a hard time playing intelligent enemies suboptimally then don't use intelligent enemies for your earlier fights. Use wild beasts that might flee after a certain number of them have been bloodied or slain, use enemies that falsly think themselves superior thus making tactical errors or use simple creatures that might also follow equally simple tactics.

Focus fire is actually a very selfless action, it would make sense for constructs or hiveminds, but not so much selfish evil monsters. Skirmishes normally descend into 1v1's or 2v1's because a selfish person looking to survive the fight would not ignore the wizard or rogue or fighter hitting them to focus an enemy, they would turn to whoever they deemed most threatening and try to defend themselves.

You also have to consider that no party of PC's will every reach the same level of tactical ability as the GM; you see all, they do not, they must coordinate in character whilst every one of your monsters may as well be telepaths, they have very complex characters and should not be expected to know the nuances of their party members, especially as new players, while you have fairly simple monsters and abilities to employ that were designed to work in union.

Just pretend you're a shitty goblin and play selfishly. Maybe that other goblin in your tribe spat in your food once and you think it would be funny if they died to adventurers, maybe you hate being ruled by the hobgoblin so you hope they die in combat while you escape safely. Monsters are assholes to each other, they shouldn't be working selflessly together.

I dunno if focus firing is "selfless," its just smart. Its not "realistic" in the sense that hit points aren't realistic, but if you had to KILL someone before they would stop fighting, and anything short of death didn't phase people, you'd better believe you'd see focus firing IRL.

>Is there some easy method of having enemies take plausible-but-actually-suboptimal actions?

Do you think what you are doing at the moment is plausible?

Anyway, consider them not as pieces on a board, but as things that get angry, confused, frustrated, flustered, panicky and the like - assign some broad sort of "personality" to the monsters, and have them act accordingly. Keep in mind, for the sake of plausibility that your monsters aren't going to have same sort of information you, as the GM, have to inform their decisions - you've got perfect knowledge from which to base their actions on to decide what is the most optimal thing to do, but the monsters do not.

Also - when designing encounters, ask yourself questions to bring yourself down to that sort of level of perspective. Ask yourself what the monsters are fighting for, what they know about who they're fighting and the like. Don't consider it just in terms of a fight to the death, try and consider what they're there for. This is obviously harder if you're running a game where you're rolling on random encounter tables, but assigning the monsters some sort of goal to achieve can help and thinking about how they might achieve that before the start of an encounter might help.

Sadly, I think the answer is "just practice". Come up with encounters that you're not even going to run just for the sake of trying to think of different ways of doing things. Write down motivations and examples. Once you've done it a lot (ideally in a situation where you've not got players waiting impatiently for you), it becomes easier to do it on the fly.

It depends on how you see the game I think.
If you assume a 3 vs. 3 fight if, instead of become 3 1v1s you'd have 3 people dogpiling one guy the two remaining people could focus soley on offense.
In D&D you're always defending yourself equally well but in a real fight you can't just ignore a compatant going after you, because if you do you'll just get killed.
D&D does not model that through its mechanics at all. The concept of an "unopposed" attack does not exist.
In the system described by the D&D mechanics you're right. focus firing is smart but in a real fight it wouldn't be. Even if it got your enemies killed fast if you're the guy not opposing someone attacking you because you're instead focus firing someone else you'd put yourself at an extreme risk.

Sorry OP. Sounds like your autism is too extreme to allow you to be a decent GM

>Ask yourself what the monsters are fighting for, what they know about who they're fighting and the like.
This is advice every GM should keep in mind.
What is the end goal of the npcs in opposition to the pcs?
What is THEIR tactics, their modus operandi that is by nature not the omnipresent view of the GM?
Just like the players should roleplay their characters natures, not their own, so too should the GM roleplay the nature of the npc, not themselves.

In a real life situation assuming 3v3 and 1 lethal attack per "round" for each focus fire makes no sense. 3 attack one guy and kill him, the other two attack one each and now outnumber the last.

The thumbnail almost looks like she's taking a really sad shit in the bushes.

Part of being a good GM is optimising your enemies suboptimality. You want to have a pretty good idea of when each enemy has a chance of failing and dying. None of those to be the single point of failure that wipes the party because you expected to fail a roll and it didn't or because the players constantly rolled 1s. If the players die they had to work to deserve that death.

Unless you're playing with miniatures and a system that supports skirmish level games running a tabletop RPG isn't about tactical gameplay it's about gameplay that feels tactical. The same way games like Fire Emblem where the whole AI and enemy design is about tricking you into thinking you're making superior tactical choices when really you're doing what the designer expected and occasionally playing around what intellect he/she gave the AI. GMing combat is mostly about deceiving players into doing what you want even if that want is sometimes to wipe the party for some reason.

people smarter than goblins do dumber things for worse reasons.

Anything from rage, past trauma towards particular types of danger, misinformation about the danger of certain things like fire or bleeding or poison, or simply the strong but selfish ordering of a higher authority can all lead to suboptimal play.

You don't know what your teamate is going to do. Most people don't take the time to logically plan out other perspectives in the middle of a damn fight. It's also hard to SEE in a fight, ones' cone of vision can be greatly narrowed when busy dodging blades, and that can distract you from the archer or mage preparing to kill someone important.

Real Life: You shoot 3 people. They are all likely to be hospitalized.
D&D, especially 4e: You shoot 3 people. They are all fine. They shoot you. You are dead.

I agree that monsters making perfect decisions is dumb... but complaining about monsters focus firing, just as a general thing, is not really appropriate.
There's 101 reasons you can think of for monsters not attacking the same guy, but appeals to "that's not how it works in real life" make no fucking sense, since functionality in combat isn't this bizarre binary thing.

>In D&D you're always defending yourself equally well but in a real fight you can't just ignore a compatant going after you, because if you do you'll just get killed.

Defenders & soldiers, marking mechanics in general are about that, imo.

if you wanna have monsters splitting up be more reasonable, I like the idea of more marked mechanics + the Dark Warlock Pact at will thing, of doing more damage to foes at full sometimes.

Hold on let us disect this one a bit

>Earlier, I had run my first session of a D&D 4e campaign
Hey thats nice, welcome to the system mate.

>Two players had a smidge of experience with the system, and two were totally new.
> I overestimated their tactical prowess
In the case of new players, how could you ever overestimate tactical prowess, or even expect any tactics? They are new to this, as are you, in a game many play with classes as barbarian which the strat is ''Hit hard''

> I am always the type to have intelligent enemies use optimal tactics
> these enemies that were not that much stronger
Hold on stop what? In your first encounter the enemies were stronger AND used tactics to counter the group? are you shitting me? thats not how you ease new players into a new system or create a good experience.

> I am not the type to have intelligent monsters use suboptimal tactics because it simply does not satisfy me
Especially in the case of new players, your satisfaction should not be a factor. You are doing this for them first and you second. Their fun should be your fun.

>means that the heroes
This is also wrong. Lv 1 adventurers are not heroes. They are people who just quit they daily job if they had one.
People who just quit a job at a conveniece store just dont overnight gain the ability to beat up a gang or take on Mike Tyson in a boxing match

The OP isn't even vaguely new to 4e.

His "first session" is the first session of a campaign he just started, not his first 4e ever.

>Sorry OP. Sounds like your autism is too extreme to allow you to be a decent GM
This was the first thing I read in the thread.
I thought to myself, "Heh, harsh. I wonder what prompted that exaggeration?"
Then I read OP:
>I am not the type to have intelligent monsters use suboptimal tactics, because it simply does not satisfy me, and my tactical RPG instincts are too strong for me to consciously dial down.
Holy shit!
user was right.
You are not a good GM.

Sometimes the PCs are going to fight weak or stupid foes.
See >At low levels, be kind.
>At med levels, be fair.
>At high levels, be cruel.
If you can't get into the mindset of a scared pack of kobolds or a deeply stupid ogre, you are not going to do well.

>Think of suboptimal tactics and write those down beforehand, then stick to them during the game. Roll randomly for who enemies will attack to avoid focus fire. Purposefully flub positioning, like avoiding flanking when possible or whatever.
This is the most practical advice in the thread.
You absolutely cannot trust yourself to decide what tactics to use.
If a GM can't be romantic and needs a few romance lines of dialogue for the plot, he doesn't improv them on the spot if he doesn't want to suck.
You suck at suboptimal tactics.
Your players need to fight against enemies with suboptimal tactics sometimes.
Plan accordingly.

And I recommend pointing out to that one player that an enemy with superior tactics *is* a stronger foe.

If this is bait, it's finely crafted bait. Kudos OP.

Don't run games Touhoufag. You don't have that skillset.

Cont. Sorry for my rambling, i just found that this case somewhat hit a nerve since i am an upstart gm to myself to this system.

>players have expressed strong interest in the plot.
In that case bless them. Not a great too many do, and that they show genuine interest in something you have made up alone should help you in being a bit more ''Flexible with them''
A gm screen exists for a reason, and dice fudging is a thing.

> I would still feel the strong compulsion to undertake optimal tactics for each of them.
>Perhaps I should make it obvious even in-universe that the enemies in this adventure are extremely tactically savvy

Hold on here, you didnt tell these NEW player that the game would be extremely tactic-heavy? That is like the first thing you drop on a session zero, to hear if they are even interested in playing that. Honestly.

>Using stats is simply a matter of descriptions.
I disagree. A low strenght character who can barely lift his pouch would know this, and try to stay out of close combat. A low Wis or Cha character might be somewhat sheltered or anti-sosial and not be able to trust or follow up on his allies initiations.

>If I was fighting here, what would I do?
But you are not. You are not fighting there. You, the gm, with experience and overview is not fighting there. Kilk The goblin is, and he is not combat trained OR have a psychic connections to his allies.
I hope you are shitting me.

What was the actual encounter?

>I hope you are shitting me.
Touhoufag is the board's resident minmaxer-in-chief4e expert. He does some other systems as well.

...

To put it another way, you have three options:
1. Consent to use suboptimal tactics sometimes, even if it doesn't satisfy you.
2. Be a bad GM.
3. Don't be a GM.

Get busy on one of these options.

>use heavy tactics and combat-intelligent enemies in the first session
>dont let players know you'll be using heavy tactics.
>how do I fix this?
Stop DMing. Let someone else do it, and you play a warlord because clearly that's what you want to do.

>I am not the type to have intelligent monsters use suboptimal tactics
Then don't use intelligent monsters on weak adventurers who don't know how to play the game.

>I am not the type to have intelligent monsters use suboptimal tactics, because it simply does not satisfy me, and my tactical RPG instincts are too strong for me to consciously dial down. I could use weaker monsters or less monsters, but one player has complained that it means that the heroes will *not* be the one using their wits and cunning to take down stronger foes.

>But I don't play a role or collaboratively tell a story, I just want to show-off muh superior system mastery to all my friends!

If you can't lose the "must play optimally at all costs" mindset, don't GM an RPG. It's that fucking simple. Stick to being a player, or just play a tabletop wargame instead.

If you want to actually suck it up and improve as a GM, try this:

>Zombie campaign. Literal brainless monsters. They don't feel pain, they don't coordinate, they don't retreat. They simply run straight at you to overwhelm you with superior numbers, strength, and durability.

>Start with normal hordes of human zombies. Later, escalate it to weird mutant zombies with special powers. Or introduce zombie versions of interesting monsters.
>Use this as an opportunity to build an interesting encounter without relying on tactics.
>Maybe one of the zombie has a mutation that makes it emit a cloud of paralyzing gas in a 15ft radius. So the melee characters have to figure out how to lure the mundane zombies out of the cloud while the ranged characters try to focus the mutant.
>Use big, beefy zombies every now and then, just make the players feel powerful.
>Later on, they can start encountering necromancers who have increasing amounts of control over their zombies. Escalate this until you reach the hyper-savvy tactical genius necros who can individually give orders to a horde of 10 zombies every second.

Obviously, it doesn't have to be zombies. Maybe they're fighting an army of mechanical constructs? Or wild animals that have been corrupted by an evil force? Swarms of gelatinous cubes?

>Swarms of gelatinous cubes
Oh no

You can always walk up to the fourth player and tell him "I'm sorry if this came across as running a game for the sake of crushing you all. If this is being too frustrating I can tone it down a bit, but I won't insult your intelligence throwing thoughtless gnats in your direction. If you are having trouble in combat, I'm here to offer you tactical tips for your class."

4e.
New players.

Come on dude, 5e's the popular entry-level D&D for a reason.