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Dungeons and Dragons

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tripwire:
I also am no longer DMing D&D (I'm running a game of Urban Shadows), but I DM'ed a homebrew 5E game for about two years. I agree that too much prep time can be a real trap (it's part of the reason I'm playing a PBtA game now) and I also agree to get comfortable improving and allowing your players to add interesting bits to the world. This can be like the subplot cards Kuildeous is talking about, or simply asking them to flesh out the parts of the world your players' characters would know best ("You're part of the thieves guild? Okay, tell me about who runs it? Do they have any competition? Etc.) I find a collaboratively built world is always infinitely more interesting than one I just made, and the players can end up having more investment in it too.

Finally, the thing I hate most in D&D games is constant combat with trash mobs (You are attacked by 5 kobolds! [roll dice back and forth] Next encounter, you are attacked by SIX kobolds!) I find D&D can grind really slowly during combat, so I try to always plan for a narrative turning point in each encounter (the last remaining kobold pulls out a flask and chugs it, he grows 4 times his size!)

Kuildeous:
The combat can be quite the grind, and it is worse if that is how players perceive it as necessary to advance.

Back in the D&D3 days, a friend of mine started up a Midnight campaign. I had been playing Pathfinder Society, which gives 1 XP per adventure, win or lose. I suggested to the GM that we don't track XP. Instead, he tells us when he feels we've done enough to justify leveling. Turned out to be a really rewarding system. We didn't have to worry if we would get dinged on XP for doing an encounter wrong. You play out the encounter as it makes sense. If there's violence, then you resolve it. If it involves stealth or diplomacy, then you resolve it that way instead.

And that model is showing up in more D&D games now. Pathfinder's adventure paths provide XP, but they also advise what levels the PCs should be at certain points, so the GM can gauge milestone leveling. It's actually canon in 13th Age.

It's a weird feeling because in the old days, the GM would reward or punish the players based on how they reacted to the encounters. Feel that the PCs were being cowardly by sneaking past the guards? Give them zero XP--or only a quarter to half if you're feeling generous. Accidentally kill the hostage? Reduced XP. And so on. With milestone, the group gets the same XP whether they choose to fight in every encounter or if they talk their way to the boss. You reward the play style that the players want.

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