Why 90% of D&D Combat Is Boring

A turn lasts 6s, so if you can’t think of something to do in 15s, your turn’s over

I heard an idea on TikTok yesterday. It said that if your players take more damage than half of their Max HP they lose a body part of the dms choice. (You may have to switch up the numbers here if you’re high lvl but idk) Now that’s awesome I believe and it can give you new story arcs, character development etc. For Example, a player loses an arm in battle. Another player bandages him up and the damaged player just has to live with only one arm (eg he can only wield one handed weapons or whatever else you can think of). The players may spend time getting him a new arm, human, kybernetic, golem (yes that’s a reference) or whatever else they can think of.

I don't understand the argument against railroading and expecting player agency to win out over everything, it's just objectively wrong and makes me feel like people who say it aren't really playing the game and are just talking out their ass about it. There's a balance you have to strike as a group when playing DnD. When players deviate too far from that balance it's your job as a DM to push them back towards that, or to at least let them know there will be consequences for ignoring it.
When you play DnD you're usually playing a module, which means you and your players already have a set time period and plot that you've agreed is going to play out in your game. This isn't railroading, this is called having a plot. Plots give your game purpose and structure, otherwise what are you even playing? The DM should have read the entire module and already knows what's to come, obviously, or they wouldn't be able to plan all of this stuff out in the first place. The worst thing that can happen in this game is a surprised DM. The players being part of that story is the entire reason they're playing at all, you don't just sit down and go "let's play DnD!" and start rolling random dice because that wouldn't make any sense. There needs to be a plot for the game to have any type of structure, and giving your players 100% agency over the game itself can destroy that structure very quickly.

The engagement you're looking for comes directly from this too, players want to beat the module and the bard wants to bed the dragon, but they have to make that happen within the scope of the module as whatever character they rolled, and failure is always an option. Just because your plot points and story are all preset doesn't mean the outcome is, understanding that is the hallmark of a good DM. Improv is a big part, but relying on it as the 100% end all be all of the game is foolish.
As a DM your role is to play as the "console" so to speak. For PC games you wouldn't have a DM because the computer can do all the math and background stuff for you, but in a table top setting your DM is who gets to do all of that instead. They cannot do that if they don't know what's going to potentially happen, and if they're pulling it all 100% out of their butt you're going to have a bad time. The DM is basically the playwright and the module is the play, but in D&D the players get to choose what their characters want to do within the scope of that play and can alter the outcome as a result. You do not get to jump from performing Hamlet to suddenly performing some other play mid performance though, that just doesn't work or make any sense.

(Spoilers ahead for Dragon of Icespire Peak.)


For example, can you just ignore Phandalin entirely and immediately walk off waaaay down south to Baldur's Gate to go boot shopping while your group is playing Dragon of Icespire Peak? Assuming your DM allows this, which they might do if your stance as a player is that your DM is "steppin' on muh agency!!!" otherwise, you as the player are actively choosing to leave all the adventure behind and abandoning all of your DMs planning. You would also be leaving Phandalin to its fate while it gets ransacked, which obviously will have BIG consequences for your players world if they continue to ignore it and choose to traipse about doing nothing instead.
Meanwhile, what are your players even doing? Roleplaying a boot shopping adventure in some town miles away from the action you spent forever planning out? What do they get from that? I don't see any engagement whatsoever there.


(Icespire Peak spoilers over.)

I would not allow my players to deviate this far in my game, I would simply ask them if they truly want to play the module or if they want to play something else instead. Otherwise this campaign will simply devolve into the adventures of a band of murder hobos who don't have any goals.
I'd kick you out of a play as well if you suddenly started acting out some other random role, you're ruining the play for the rest of the actors at that point and it's not even what people came to see in the first place. That's basically what D&D is, a group of people who decided to perform their own little play. Been that way since the dawn of D&D, which makes some of these arguments like quantum ogres and railroading just make absolutely no sense if you actually think about them for 2 seconds. Those are requirements to give your game structure and meaning, otherwise you're just rolling dice for no reason.

When this whole agency argument goes to such extremes, which is unfortunately becoming more and more common online alongside a bunch of other similarly false maxims about D&D, it starts to feel like a cop out for players who simply want none of their actions to have negative consequences. By behaving this way you're also expecting your DMs to be superhuman machines that can just improvise a story out of literally nothing at your whim, which will never fly no matter how skilled your DM is.
You can choose to ignore the house fire and go boot shopping if you want to, but don't get mad at me when the house burns down and the family living in it dies as a result of your choice. You chose to let that happen. Your agency is over whatever character you chose to create and is limited to the scope of the module that character exists inside of. Your agency ends there, it does not overwrite that of the flames or any other plot hooks that were planned.
Cry railroad at that in one of my games and your characters are going to meet some beholders in the underdark while I eat your die and character sheets, and then I'll tell you to go play Warhammer 40k or something instead if you want tiny mechanical battles without a plot or story. There are all kinds of table top games like that available. D&D isn't the only one and simply just isn't for some people, which is perfectly fine. Go find what's fun for you instead of expecting everything to bend to your idea of what is fun.

Having to constantly make new characters sounds exhausting, not dieing easily doesn't mean everything is easy.

For dnd, I think the minimalist sandbox approach is the best. Just have complex characters but dont have predetermined storylines for them. Build those stories as you go along. You are the actor aswell, imagine what your npcs would do. It’s supposed to be a sandbox rpg.

I kind of disagree with the idea that a story based campaign isn't fun. Yes, if every decision is planned out by the DM, then yes he's just narrating a book. But if he's actually responding to what the players are doing, making sure that they don't die, then there's nothing wrong with it. Consequences don't always have to mean death, and when they do, that just makes the stakes more intense and fun. But if every threat is death, then you're just playing a dungeon crawl like tomb of annihilation. Plus death isn't the end, there's resurrection and revivify. Raise dead and maybe the character becomes an undead version of themselves. Lots of different role-play opportunities without having to make a new character and end a characters story

Just run 2e and don't do too many rules additions

I always aim for a TPK, I want to see them squirm 😈

That's why I can't stand critical role, Because every footstep is a committee discussion!

"How do you kill [it]?" and "How does [it] die?" are two of my player's favourite questions to hear in combat. The description depth they get into when answering those is generally way more visceral than when they describe their own actions

Because every rule set past AD&D 2nd sucks. And because most USA GMs use miniatures.

I run emergent storytelling im a simulationist. I do have key plots an example is lile bbeg when he does get to it does he have any particular hurdles. It allows me to rp when it arrives the hurdles an example might be the hurdle was pcs stole an item he have get it back.

So I work backwords does then what players do. Specific slots have stuff where the bbeg rp always succed (unless pcs interrupt) running this way dpes allow me to account for player choices slowing down the villians by player actions and i know where it happened.

An example if bbeg rolled a 1 on last roll he failed the ritual

i feel 5e went completely backwards in combat. 4e had all this depth, and they threw it out the window in favor of simplicity. idk, seems pretty bad.

How about this, our party goes and finds some rats and kills like 20,000 of them. Now we are level 20 and ready to take on your level 3 dungeon. What? The players are being smart and cautious, isnt that what DMs like you wanted? Screw adventurering, lets farm. So, DM, how did our crops do?

I thought it was dumber when TPKs happened so much that you dont have anyone else from the original crew left alive to see the end of the story. If you want real consequences, stop the campaign and end it there. Isnt rolling up new characters equally immersion breaking? The only people I hear complain about this are old DMs.

For players not in combat, let them play one of the enemies.

An idea i want to try is a dark souls respawn mechanic. The players carry around an object that scts as their respawn point. if they die, they respawn 7 days later at the object naked. Whereever the object may be 7 days later..

If my players die, there dead you can revive them, they can come back as there child (if they have one) they can hire new party members (which would be the dead pc rerolling) they could just reroll and I introduce them or they can introduce themselves in the situation

Yes but creating a PC is a pain in the bottom. And it is fun to no one