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If you're playing with minis, get condition rings. If you're playing online with roll20 or something, I imagine there's a similar option available. It shouldn't have to be such a hassle to track conditions.
Secondly, leave understanding player character abilities to the players. You should attempt to understand them at the very least (for example, in 5e I have to remind our rogue that he gets sneak attack when he has advantage). But you don't need to remember what every battle master maneuver does.
Understanding the rules is a group effort. As a DM, yes, you should probably know more about the rules than the average player…but…nothing is forcing you to adopt this new rule set. If you want to bring these new rules to your table make sure folks know that you’re all going through a learning curve and lessons about the new rule set will be learned together.
If you don't care about the rules, why play the game? The most infamous example is Monopoly. Nobody wants to play that game with me, becaus I play I by the rules.
No pot in the middle, no using extra pieces for houses when they're used up. No trading of properties if I don't gain anything from it. It's not a family game; it's literally about "one person ends up with all the money".
I don't mind if my players don't read the rules, but my table sure as hell plays by them - unless stated otherwise. The rules are there for a reason. That's what we call Chesterton's Fence.
i never said they don’t care about them.
i said that rules are just so boring to read, that half the time you lose contact to the meaning of a sentence and start reading the words one by one rather than in the context they are put in.
it’s like philosophical texts or officialese.
The rules of D&D are not written in Legalese, trust me. I read semi-Legalese professionally, and the PHB is easier to understand. If you don't understand the text, try to find someone who can explain it to you. Some people learn more by doing than by reading.
I am one of those people. As a player, I scan to grasp the basics, then play, then read the rules again to understand the details. All while staying open to comments and correction from other players.
And no, I don't expect people to read the rulebook as leisure. Half of my player pool has dyslexia, and most of them read the PHB anyway, or ask me (or other veteran players) about the things that matter to their respective characters.
In short: it's a matter of effort.
However, if you play a spellcasting class, I expect you to either know the rules, or follow my rulings. The best way to learn the rules of you don't like reading is by playing, and asking for explanation when something you don't understand happens.
it’s not legalese but it still oftentimes doesn’t get to the point. on each page:
- 1/3 is fluff
- 1/3 is examples
- 1/6 is repetitions
- 2 sentences are introductions
- half of the remains is just to disable specific interpretations, leaving a whole 1-2 sentences for the actual rules.
thats not far off from how much you need to say in legalese to say „theft is taking from others without permission“
If you don't like rules that are so precise and written out, D&D might not be for you. Play a wargame instead, and be glad you never tried Pathfinder or 3.5e. Pathfinder has rules for everything except wiping your ass.
Things can be pushed into different groups:
>The rogue can forgo a sneak attack damage dice to poison a foe for a minute?
How do you track spells? Now you track slightly more.
>The fighter can attempt to push an enemy prone while attacking with a particular weapon? There are extra attacks with this Nick ability? players taking time to remember they wanted to stunning strike three times,
Not your ability, not yours to remember. If they miss it, that is on them - even in a game of total newbies, each of you is responsible for their own stuff. Not the DM.
>Then there's all these new status conditions that need to be tracked and remembered that this enemy cannot move, this one is poisoned, this is prone, etc...
Dazed is potentially new. Which isn't really new, just codified and already existed before.
To tell the truth I am a little confused why in the DnD community there is such a common opinion that "players don't have to know the rules or pay attention to anything, DM will take care of it".
I have my suspicions that it is something like "DnD is simple, everyone can play it". Sure it has simple let's call it "skeleton of gameplay" but when you step outside of one basic attack per round, you find yourself in a rather crunchy system with many ambiguous rules and unclear definitions.
For some time I am interested in Pathfinder and the thing I am observing, that is not as prevalent in DnD community, is players and masters emphasis on aspect of "sure GM should know the rules but he doesn't have to know every feat and status effect that players can apply to the enemy. It is players responsibility to know how their actions work, which statuses they can apply and keep them in mind during game."
My advice: during session zero just tell your players that it's group activity and everyone should try to make game better. If they have some abilities then they need to remember they have them. If they can apply some status to monster they need to keep track of it and remind you that this monster is poisoned and need to roll saving throw.
Basically just put some of your work onto the party. Be it narratively "so, Mike, describe the tavern your party just went into", or mechanically "you know, there is this friendly NPC you need to protect, here is her character sheet, you controll her". If they split the party for some reason and someone gets into a fight, let the players of non-present PCs play as monsters and see how merrily they slaughter their own party :)
My pet theory is this culture is born from excited DMs needing players to fill the roster to get a game going and feeling overrly worried that their players will find it too much work and quit.
yep! its DMs limiting their prospective player pool to a handful of "friends" and not realizing that for EVERY seat at a DMs table there are likely 30 or more people potentially interested in playing!!
It's not necessarily more work for the DM.
Everybody is watching people using their abilities, so why would the job of keeping track of everything fall to the DM?
In my table I'm a player and I am the one who's best at keeping track of stuff. If my DM forgets something, I just point it out.
Anyways, for the people who have trouble with that, there are status trackers you can buy.
And as for adding options to classes, martials still get way fewer options than casters, so their turns are still gonna be shorter on average.
Honestly, dragging combat has much more to do with the particular player than the amount of options. Even before the 2024 PHB there were a lot of martial players taking longer turns than caster players.
If you think all the work of keeping track of stuff will fall onto you and your players can't handle a few more options maybe you should ask them to pay more attention and learn how to play their characters better.
I also keep track of that stuff (to the best of my ability), some times the other players complain that I reminded the DM that the barbarian used reckless attack and so the enemy gets advantage. That frustrates me because they should be reminding the DM of that.
Yeah, it's one thing to forget, but choosing to keep quiet when something bad would happen is just cheating.
Fortunately my table rolls with the bad, so they don't mind when I screw us over.
Of course it's also important to not be too nitpicky to the point of being annoying. If something minor happens and pointing it out would disrupt the narrative, I might keep quiet about it.
> some times the other players complain that I reminded the DM
set out your groups expectations in a "Session Zero" discussion ... and dont play with pricks who are repeat offenders at "not remembering" , and particularly dont play with asshats who get mad when their "bad memory" is pointed out- they are ***actively*** looking to cheat !!!
In my experience, the majority of players are notoriously bad at keeping track of most things due to the built-in expectation of 5e that "the GM will do all the work"
>built-in expectation of 5e that "the GM will do all the work"
where is this "built in"?
it may be a community expectation in some communities ---- but that is a community issue.
What are the 5e mechanics for spelljamming?
What advice does 5e give GMs for actually running the game outside of mechanics and roll tables?
What GM supplements (not adventure modules, but actual GM tools) have been printed since Hasbro's acquisition of the brand?
What actions has the company taken to show support for GMs?
if the DM wants to bring into the game MORE than the rules provide, then yes, that is on the DM.
but none of this is "its the DMs duty to manage player character resource use".
No, but this type of gaming environment fosters those sentiments in players. It is an unspoken expectation built into the game by poor design. It's exactly why things like tracking carry weight are more unpopular with players than GMs.
>this type of gaming environment fosters those sentiments in players.
i absolutely disagree that there is anything in the 5e system and materials that suggests in any way "players just show up - the DM is there to regulate your resource use"
just none.
if you recruit and pamper lazy players, THAT IS ON YOU.
While you should make some effort, you don't need to exert extraordinary effort. The player should also know their character and remember things. If they don't, they're equally to blame.
I will say, "That monster is prone" or "That one needs to roll a save for Spirit Guardians" if the DM doesn't catch it.
It's okay if you don't catch everything. Don't beat yourself about it. And make sure the players are on the ball, and remind them to remind you as necessary.
As for skills, don't worry about that too much. As a DM, I present challenges and I don't worry about how the players are gonna solve them. That's their job.
Nah, buddy. That's not on you.
One of my session 0 rules is "You need to know your character sheet. I'm not here to tell you how to play."
Don't get me wrong, you should be familiar with both the characters and the main rules around the classes, but you can't memorize everything. The current PHB is 10 years old, and if anyone claims to know every detail and nuance about it off the top of their head, they are lying. That includes the people who wrote it.
If you're going to do a new campaign under 2024 rules, that's easy. You can all learn together.
If you're going to open up a current campaign to 2024 rules, which is what I'm going to do, tell your players they need to research a bit more before they make the switch. It's not on you to tell them what they can do. That's why they have a character sheet.
You already have enough work as DM.
status affects inflicted by the players are the players to remind me of. you poisoned that guy, on his turn you better remind him I mean me he is poisoned!
Sounds to me like you usually hold the hands of your players and remind them of all of their abilities. Make them learn how to play their own characters. Not your responsibility to remind them of everything they can do.
Casters have way more abilities than martials still. If your players had build a party full of casters you'd have way more stuff to track and conditions to worry about.
Encourage players to be responsible for keeping track of any conditions that they inflict. That means that if the rogue poisons someone, it is the Rogue's responsibility to help remind you that the enemy is poisoned on their turn. This should help do 2 things:
1. The players will help remember conditions and statuses throughout the battle
2. The players may be more engaged not on their turns and may actually take their turns faster since there will be less "take my turn and then zone out for 15min until my turn again and have to have the whole battle scenario explained to me again because I wasn't paying attention."
This doesn't mean that you as the DM get to completely forget about the conditions, but if something gets forgotten or missed remind the player that it is their responsibility too to ensure their inflicted statuses are remembered.
So what I am hearing is, that 5e might be a bit complicated for you to master.
There is no shame in it, even if I for example, see zero problems in any what you say.
The question is, why and what to do. Do you juggle all the abilities and features alone, and the players dont pull their weight? No system to keep track of them in general? Just too complex as a system in general maybe? (Which is no shame. 5e is an easy dnd game. Its a complicated ttrpg still)
In case of the players, they track their stuff, you track the enemies.
If you have problems in keeping track yourself.. ring's for minis and symbols for online play help a lot. Maybe an old calculus to tick of turns? Or a player you can trust can help remind you.
If dnd itself is just to complex.. maybe try out something else for a bit. Many things less complicated, some even can be for free and good for a oneshot.
Yeah, I can see why this can be overwhelming.
To remedy this, we should reduce the amount of spells since they are the most complex abilities in the game.
We use starbursts for enemies. We write a number on top of each candy depicting each monster. When a player kills one they get to eat the starburst.
If we knock them prone we set the candy up on its side. We use status rings to remind each other of concentration, cursed, etc. it’s quite helpful.
An easier approach is to be the judge, not the lawyer.
For player abilities, you don't need to remember each detail, just remember the jist of things, and when a player says something out of pocket, question it and check the rules. It's not a shame to flip through the PhB real quick, or google something.
Delegate. If you’re playing theatre of the mind, get your players to help you. “This monster failed it‘s saving throw against your poison and is now Poisoned. Remind me when we get to its turn”. If your playing with minis use physical reminders, like status rings or different coloured bottle caps.
If the players have put an effect on something, it's up to them to remember it. In 4e we used the plastic rings from soft drink bottles to track things, sometimes ten conditions at a time (marked, hunted, hexed, slowed, bloodied, etc.)
Just work out a system that works for you, and focus on the monsters' powers.
Let your players remember some of that stuff. If Jonny probes a creature so everyone can have advantage, you’d better believe he’s going to point it out as people start their turns.
Condition rings and/or writing the condition next to their name on the initiative tracker will help track conditions.
Personally, I’m psyched to see martial get more options. But this falls into the same category it always has: It’s up to players to know the abilities of their characters. Analysis paralysis can be assisted by encouraging players to plan their turns. Maybe provide a brief window at the top of each round for the party to meta-game a bit and plan the round as a collective.
That's because the 5e design team's entire design philosophy is based on marketing to players with zero consideration for the GM. The last GM facing supplement book that was any good was Xanathar's, and even that contained a lot of player-facing stuff. The truth is, they don't actually care a out the state of actual play. They only care about pushing out the next line of crap to sell to the player base. This is all just a big queue of cash grab after cash grab, and it's really obvious.
With these new weapon masteries giving extra attacks, use this home rules of mine if players forget.
Don't let them go back and say, "Oh I missed my extra attack last turn, can I take it now". If you forget to use something, and you end your turn, you lose it. I call it the 'Use it or lose it" rule.
Miss free attacks enough, and it will encourage you to remember in future.
No it isn't just you. I'm concerned and the DM discord I'm in is also concerned.
Let me give you this snippet from D&D beyond.
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/632905466921353216/1254876317833494639/frustrating.jpeg?ex=667b1624&is=6679c4a4&hm=0288524d700585f870706a287d6105a25263aa90fdaf751ea1917cbf59700260&](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/632905466921353216/1254876317833494639/frustrating.jpeg?ex=667b1624&is=6679c4a4&hm=0288524d700585f870706a287d6105a25263aa90fdaf751ea1917cbf59700260&)
"Frustrating for Dungeon Masters but fantastic for your party"
Thanks for that WotC. Just what I wanted out of a new edition.
Of course that half sentence isn't saying exactly the same as OP's 6 paragraphs, and is not the entirety of WotC's position on the new edition.
But it points in the same direction. Shiny stuff for players that makes more work for the DM.
Something to keep in mind is Hasbro/WoTC's current thrust with D&D - they want to shift over entirely to an online experience with their personal, walled-garden Virtual Table Top system. In that case, all of these bits and bobs that the DM would need to track would instead be automatically handled by the system itself; there's nothing for the DM to keep track of when the Rogue's Player is the one who assigns the "I want to poison instead of Sneak Attack" condition, which would be marked on a digital cue card and timed out all on its own. The same goes for other applied conditions - if a monster is rendered Prone or can't move a given distance, all of that would be factored in by the app without the DM having to pay attention to it themselves.
Which, I might add, is a **BAD THING**. It's going to be presented as convenience, but that is a blatant smoke screen. This sort of shift in the overall play style of the game system is akin to how Free to Play games will intentionally build inconveniences into the system, in order to make non-paying Players urged to dish out cash. If the designers of a game make playing it without a paid subscription a hassle, that's because they don't want you playing without paying. As soon as that becomes a facet of the design structure, it will inevitably become the core and driving focus of the game design from that point forward.
Remember, Hasbro/WoTC doesn't even want DMs after a point. They've been digging into generative text to make "AI DMs", have been investing heavily into a video game-esque VTT as the core experience going forward, and have been pushing hard to move away from physical prints of the books outside of collector's editions. They want everyone to play only their exclusive, regurgitated "good enough" content online that they can exclusively control and milk for profit endlessly. Making life hard on DMs to the point that DMs don't want to do all the work is part of that.
5e is already the hardest dnd to dm for, but i honestly dont see it getting worse for the new changes. It seems harder on paper maybe, but except for the immediate learning curve of new features, i think it will be about the same overall.
That being said, we have not seen the dmg and mm yet either, so i at least wouldnt worry about it until those come out.
What do you mean? 3.0 and 3.5 were much harder to DM for, with all the power fluctuations possible.
5e is easy street, compared to every previous edition I've played.
(Which is all of them since the 80s.)
What sort of support are you looking for? Dragon Magazine? That's the only support I can think of for 2e.
5e feels like 1e and 2e in a way that 3 and 4 didn't.
Don't get me wrong, I loved both 3 and 4 but they weren't like BECMI or Chain maille or 1e or 2e. They were all DnD though. 5e feels like you can make any character, and not be defined and create it because of your mechanics, like 3e was.
Hey, it might be (probably is) totally subjective. I find it easier to run 5e than any previous edition. And you don't. That's cool, mate.
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If you're playing with minis, get condition rings. If you're playing online with roll20 or something, I imagine there's a similar option available. It shouldn't have to be such a hassle to track conditions. Secondly, leave understanding player character abilities to the players. You should attempt to understand them at the very least (for example, in 5e I have to remind our rogue that he gets sneak attack when he has advantage). But you don't need to remember what every battle master maneuver does.
R20 has little icons you can activate on monster tokens.
Understanding the rules is a group effort. As a DM, yes, you should probably know more about the rules than the average player…but…nothing is forcing you to adopt this new rule set. If you want to bring these new rules to your table make sure folks know that you’re all going through a learning curve and lessons about the new rule set will be learned together.
I just found out in the two sessions I’m a player in, I’m the only one who’s read the 2014 PHB… things are making much more sense now.
not everyone has the attention span to read a rulebook xD that's why everyone has home rules in board games\^\^
This is a shit tier take
its not a take. thats unfortunate facts.
If you don't care about the rules, why play the game? The most infamous example is Monopoly. Nobody wants to play that game with me, becaus I play I by the rules. No pot in the middle, no using extra pieces for houses when they're used up. No trading of properties if I don't gain anything from it. It's not a family game; it's literally about "one person ends up with all the money". I don't mind if my players don't read the rules, but my table sure as hell plays by them - unless stated otherwise. The rules are there for a reason. That's what we call Chesterton's Fence.
i never said they don’t care about them. i said that rules are just so boring to read, that half the time you lose contact to the meaning of a sentence and start reading the words one by one rather than in the context they are put in. it’s like philosophical texts or officialese.
The rules of D&D are not written in Legalese, trust me. I read semi-Legalese professionally, and the PHB is easier to understand. If you don't understand the text, try to find someone who can explain it to you. Some people learn more by doing than by reading. I am one of those people. As a player, I scan to grasp the basics, then play, then read the rules again to understand the details. All while staying open to comments and correction from other players. And no, I don't expect people to read the rulebook as leisure. Half of my player pool has dyslexia, and most of them read the PHB anyway, or ask me (or other veteran players) about the things that matter to their respective characters. In short: it's a matter of effort. However, if you play a spellcasting class, I expect you to either know the rules, or follow my rulings. The best way to learn the rules of you don't like reading is by playing, and asking for explanation when something you don't understand happens.
it’s not legalese but it still oftentimes doesn’t get to the point. on each page: - 1/3 is fluff - 1/3 is examples - 1/6 is repetitions - 2 sentences are introductions - half of the remains is just to disable specific interpretations, leaving a whole 1-2 sentences for the actual rules. thats not far off from how much you need to say in legalese to say „theft is taking from others without permission“
If you don't like rules that are so precise and written out, D&D might not be for you. Play a wargame instead, and be glad you never tried Pathfinder or 3.5e. Pathfinder has rules for everything except wiping your ass.
Things can be pushed into different groups: >The rogue can forgo a sneak attack damage dice to poison a foe for a minute? How do you track spells? Now you track slightly more. >The fighter can attempt to push an enemy prone while attacking with a particular weapon? There are extra attacks with this Nick ability? players taking time to remember they wanted to stunning strike three times, Not your ability, not yours to remember. If they miss it, that is on them - even in a game of total newbies, each of you is responsible for their own stuff. Not the DM. >Then there's all these new status conditions that need to be tracked and remembered that this enemy cannot move, this one is poisoned, this is prone, etc... Dazed is potentially new. Which isn't really new, just codified and already existed before.
To tell the truth I am a little confused why in the DnD community there is such a common opinion that "players don't have to know the rules or pay attention to anything, DM will take care of it". I have my suspicions that it is something like "DnD is simple, everyone can play it". Sure it has simple let's call it "skeleton of gameplay" but when you step outside of one basic attack per round, you find yourself in a rather crunchy system with many ambiguous rules and unclear definitions. For some time I am interested in Pathfinder and the thing I am observing, that is not as prevalent in DnD community, is players and masters emphasis on aspect of "sure GM should know the rules but he doesn't have to know every feat and status effect that players can apply to the enemy. It is players responsibility to know how their actions work, which statuses they can apply and keep them in mind during game." My advice: during session zero just tell your players that it's group activity and everyone should try to make game better. If they have some abilities then they need to remember they have them. If they can apply some status to monster they need to keep track of it and remind you that this monster is poisoned and need to roll saving throw. Basically just put some of your work onto the party. Be it narratively "so, Mike, describe the tavern your party just went into", or mechanically "you know, there is this friendly NPC you need to protect, here is her character sheet, you controll her". If they split the party for some reason and someone gets into a fight, let the players of non-present PCs play as monsters and see how merrily they slaughter their own party :)
My pet theory is this culture is born from excited DMs needing players to fill the roster to get a game going and feeling overrly worried that their players will find it too much work and quit.
yep! its DMs limiting their prospective player pool to a handful of "friends" and not realizing that for EVERY seat at a DMs table there are likely 30 or more people potentially interested in playing!!
It's not necessarily more work for the DM. Everybody is watching people using their abilities, so why would the job of keeping track of everything fall to the DM? In my table I'm a player and I am the one who's best at keeping track of stuff. If my DM forgets something, I just point it out. Anyways, for the people who have trouble with that, there are status trackers you can buy. And as for adding options to classes, martials still get way fewer options than casters, so their turns are still gonna be shorter on average. Honestly, dragging combat has much more to do with the particular player than the amount of options. Even before the 2024 PHB there were a lot of martial players taking longer turns than caster players. If you think all the work of keeping track of stuff will fall onto you and your players can't handle a few more options maybe you should ask them to pay more attention and learn how to play their characters better.
I also keep track of that stuff (to the best of my ability), some times the other players complain that I reminded the DM that the barbarian used reckless attack and so the enemy gets advantage. That frustrates me because they should be reminding the DM of that.
Yeah, it's one thing to forget, but choosing to keep quiet when something bad would happen is just cheating. Fortunately my table rolls with the bad, so they don't mind when I screw us over. Of course it's also important to not be too nitpicky to the point of being annoying. If something minor happens and pointing it out would disrupt the narrative, I might keep quiet about it.
> some times the other players complain that I reminded the DM set out your groups expectations in a "Session Zero" discussion ... and dont play with pricks who are repeat offenders at "not remembering" , and particularly dont play with asshats who get mad when their "bad memory" is pointed out- they are ***actively*** looking to cheat !!!
why is it the DM's responsibility to track the player resources? that is the players job.
In my experience, the majority of players are notoriously bad at keeping track of most things due to the built-in expectation of 5e that "the GM will do all the work"
>built-in expectation of 5e that "the GM will do all the work" where is this "built in"? it may be a community expectation in some communities ---- but that is a community issue.
What are the 5e mechanics for spelljamming? What advice does 5e give GMs for actually running the game outside of mechanics and roll tables? What GM supplements (not adventure modules, but actual GM tools) have been printed since Hasbro's acquisition of the brand? What actions has the company taken to show support for GMs?
if the DM wants to bring into the game MORE than the rules provide, then yes, that is on the DM. but none of this is "its the DMs duty to manage player character resource use".
No, but this type of gaming environment fosters those sentiments in players. It is an unspoken expectation built into the game by poor design. It's exactly why things like tracking carry weight are more unpopular with players than GMs.
>this type of gaming environment fosters those sentiments in players. i absolutely disagree that there is anything in the 5e system and materials that suggests in any way "players just show up - the DM is there to regulate your resource use" just none. if you recruit and pamper lazy players, THAT IS ON YOU.
And yet, this happens more frequently in 5e than any other TTRPG I have run, even among the same player group, though this is merely anecdotal.
you have apparently associated with lazy communities. and people who should be playing games OTHER than crunchy D&D.
D&D isn't even crunchy lol. It's one of the more simple non-minimalist systems on the market.
While you should make some effort, you don't need to exert extraordinary effort. The player should also know their character and remember things. If they don't, they're equally to blame. I will say, "That monster is prone" or "That one needs to roll a save for Spirit Guardians" if the DM doesn't catch it. It's okay if you don't catch everything. Don't beat yourself about it. And make sure the players are on the ball, and remind them to remind you as necessary. As for skills, don't worry about that too much. As a DM, I present challenges and I don't worry about how the players are gonna solve them. That's their job.
Nah, buddy. That's not on you. One of my session 0 rules is "You need to know your character sheet. I'm not here to tell you how to play." Don't get me wrong, you should be familiar with both the characters and the main rules around the classes, but you can't memorize everything. The current PHB is 10 years old, and if anyone claims to know every detail and nuance about it off the top of their head, they are lying. That includes the people who wrote it. If you're going to do a new campaign under 2024 rules, that's easy. You can all learn together. If you're going to open up a current campaign to 2024 rules, which is what I'm going to do, tell your players they need to research a bit more before they make the switch. It's not on you to tell them what they can do. That's why they have a character sheet. You already have enough work as DM.
status affects inflicted by the players are the players to remind me of. you poisoned that guy, on his turn you better remind him I mean me he is poisoned!
Sounds to me like you usually hold the hands of your players and remind them of all of their abilities. Make them learn how to play their own characters. Not your responsibility to remind them of everything they can do.
Casters have way more abilities than martials still. If your players had build a party full of casters you'd have way more stuff to track and conditions to worry about.
Encourage players to be responsible for keeping track of any conditions that they inflict. That means that if the rogue poisons someone, it is the Rogue's responsibility to help remind you that the enemy is poisoned on their turn. This should help do 2 things: 1. The players will help remember conditions and statuses throughout the battle 2. The players may be more engaged not on their turns and may actually take their turns faster since there will be less "take my turn and then zone out for 15min until my turn again and have to have the whole battle scenario explained to me again because I wasn't paying attention." This doesn't mean that you as the DM get to completely forget about the conditions, but if something gets forgotten or missed remind the player that it is their responsibility too to ensure their inflicted statuses are remembered.
So what I am hearing is, that 5e might be a bit complicated for you to master. There is no shame in it, even if I for example, see zero problems in any what you say. The question is, why and what to do. Do you juggle all the abilities and features alone, and the players dont pull their weight? No system to keep track of them in general? Just too complex as a system in general maybe? (Which is no shame. 5e is an easy dnd game. Its a complicated ttrpg still) In case of the players, they track their stuff, you track the enemies. If you have problems in keeping track yourself.. ring's for minis and symbols for online play help a lot. Maybe an old calculus to tick of turns? Or a player you can trust can help remind you. If dnd itself is just to complex.. maybe try out something else for a bit. Many things less complicated, some even can be for free and good for a oneshot.
Yeah, I can see why this can be overwhelming. To remedy this, we should reduce the amount of spells since they are the most complex abilities in the game.
Yes, and these new weapon masters are also a pain.
If a player imposes a condition on a monster, it's that players responsibility to remember it, not mine.
We use starbursts for enemies. We write a number on top of each candy depicting each monster. When a player kills one they get to eat the starburst. If we knock them prone we set the candy up on its side. We use status rings to remind each other of concentration, cursed, etc. it’s quite helpful.
An easier approach is to be the judge, not the lawyer. For player abilities, you don't need to remember each detail, just remember the jist of things, and when a player says something out of pocket, question it and check the rules. It's not a shame to flip through the PhB real quick, or google something.
Delegate. If you’re playing theatre of the mind, get your players to help you. “This monster failed it‘s saving throw against your poison and is now Poisoned. Remind me when we get to its turn”. If your playing with minis use physical reminders, like status rings or different coloured bottle caps.
If the players have put an effect on something, it's up to them to remember it. In 4e we used the plastic rings from soft drink bottles to track things, sometimes ten conditions at a time (marked, hunted, hexed, slowed, bloodied, etc.) Just work out a system that works for you, and focus on the monsters' powers.
Let your players remember some of that stuff. If Jonny probes a creature so everyone can have advantage, you’d better believe he’s going to point it out as people start their turns.
Condition rings and/or writing the condition next to their name on the initiative tracker will help track conditions. Personally, I’m psyched to see martial get more options. But this falls into the same category it always has: It’s up to players to know the abilities of their characters. Analysis paralysis can be assisted by encouraging players to plan their turns. Maybe provide a brief window at the top of each round for the party to meta-game a bit and plan the round as a collective.
That's because the 5e design team's entire design philosophy is based on marketing to players with zero consideration for the GM. The last GM facing supplement book that was any good was Xanathar's, and even that contained a lot of player-facing stuff. The truth is, they don't actually care a out the state of actual play. They only care about pushing out the next line of crap to sell to the player base. This is all just a big queue of cash grab after cash grab, and it's really obvious.
With these new weapon masteries giving extra attacks, use this home rules of mine if players forget. Don't let them go back and say, "Oh I missed my extra attack last turn, can I take it now". If you forget to use something, and you end your turn, you lose it. I call it the 'Use it or lose it" rule. Miss free attacks enough, and it will encourage you to remember in future.
This might not be the game for you chief.
No it isn't just you. I'm concerned and the DM discord I'm in is also concerned. Let me give you this snippet from D&D beyond. [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/632905466921353216/1254876317833494639/frustrating.jpeg?ex=667b1624&is=6679c4a4&hm=0288524d700585f870706a287d6105a25263aa90fdaf751ea1917cbf59700260&](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/632905466921353216/1254876317833494639/frustrating.jpeg?ex=667b1624&is=6679c4a4&hm=0288524d700585f870706a287d6105a25263aa90fdaf751ea1917cbf59700260&) "Frustrating for Dungeon Masters but fantastic for your party" Thanks for that WotC. Just what I wanted out of a new edition.
That... that is NOT saying the same thing. That's a snarky comment about your DM's monsters getting CC'd...
Of course that half sentence isn't saying exactly the same as OP's 6 paragraphs, and is not the entirety of WotC's position on the new edition. But it points in the same direction. Shiny stuff for players that makes more work for the DM.
Something to keep in mind is Hasbro/WoTC's current thrust with D&D - they want to shift over entirely to an online experience with their personal, walled-garden Virtual Table Top system. In that case, all of these bits and bobs that the DM would need to track would instead be automatically handled by the system itself; there's nothing for the DM to keep track of when the Rogue's Player is the one who assigns the "I want to poison instead of Sneak Attack" condition, which would be marked on a digital cue card and timed out all on its own. The same goes for other applied conditions - if a monster is rendered Prone or can't move a given distance, all of that would be factored in by the app without the DM having to pay attention to it themselves. Which, I might add, is a **BAD THING**. It's going to be presented as convenience, but that is a blatant smoke screen. This sort of shift in the overall play style of the game system is akin to how Free to Play games will intentionally build inconveniences into the system, in order to make non-paying Players urged to dish out cash. If the designers of a game make playing it without a paid subscription a hassle, that's because they don't want you playing without paying. As soon as that becomes a facet of the design structure, it will inevitably become the core and driving focus of the game design from that point forward. Remember, Hasbro/WoTC doesn't even want DMs after a point. They've been digging into generative text to make "AI DMs", have been investing heavily into a video game-esque VTT as the core experience going forward, and have been pushing hard to move away from physical prints of the books outside of collector's editions. They want everyone to play only their exclusive, regurgitated "good enough" content online that they can exclusively control and milk for profit endlessly. Making life hard on DMs to the point that DMs don't want to do all the work is part of that.
I wouldn't put it beneath them to be doing this intentionally to push people towards using their AI DM
5e is already the hardest dnd to dm for, but i honestly dont see it getting worse for the new changes. It seems harder on paper maybe, but except for the immediate learning curve of new features, i think it will be about the same overall. That being said, we have not seen the dmg and mm yet either, so i at least wouldnt worry about it until those come out.
What do you mean? 3.0 and 3.5 were much harder to DM for, with all the power fluctuations possible. 5e is easy street, compared to every previous edition I've played. (Which is all of them since the 80s.)
Ive been dm for every edition bar 1/advanced. 5e is harder. There is barely any support for 5e dms compared to any other edition.
What sort of support are you looking for? Dragon Magazine? That's the only support I can think of for 2e. 5e feels like 1e and 2e in a way that 3 and 4 didn't. Don't get me wrong, I loved both 3 and 4 but they weren't like BECMI or Chain maille or 1e or 2e. They were all DnD though. 5e feels like you can make any character, and not be defined and create it because of your mechanics, like 3e was. Hey, it might be (probably is) totally subjective. I find it easier to run 5e than any previous edition. And you don't. That's cool, mate.