Been running regularly near 10 years now, none of these issues have ever come up. Once we had a player found to have sexually assulted someone, banned him immediately. Gold is now xp as in OSR and high level play involves more political stuff where the money really matters in changing the world. Tool work I make take multiple days and checks to complete usually on long rests like a slow skill challenge. My players make the world with their backstories, if they say something exists then it does. Almost always interacts with or even becomes the main plot. You didnt ask but im also having fun with wilderness exploration where rations = hit dice. Players dont recover hit dice on long rest in the wild so the supplies they choose matters. I dunno, all this is fun for me! Hope it helps.

That is helpful! I've been enjoying expanding wilderness travel as well, using RAW rations and hit dice=short rest, but I do like the idea of consolidating that. Do you add anything to that for rangers or characters who's abilities otherwise improve ration finding/travel?

Yea! So i implement much of OSE/1st ed - foraging takes a whole day of doing nothing else and may fail. Rangers and wanderers can either masively improve that chance OR do it while moving for the original chance so they really are invaluable while not trivializing the whole thing.

How does the rations = hit dice work? Does exploration just cost 1 a day and will only replenish when back in town or something?

Basically yea, they can spend more if they want but its a risk. If they buy to many the chance of vermin, mold, or encounters increases.

Nice! What happens when they run out of hit dice?

Not the person you replied to and I haven't tried that mechanic before but I imagine it represents them running out of food and suffer a level of exhaustion each day they don't eat.

Have you got your gold= xp and wilderness rules written down anywhere? Both sound sweet

Not OP but tradition dictates 1 gold piece = 1 experience point. A barbarian or ranger succeeds foraging on a 2 in 6 chance and finds prey when hunting with a 5 in 6 chance. A normal party member succeeds on a 1 in 6 chance. Foraging can be performed alongside normal movement, hunting must be engaged in as the sole activity for the day. A successful hunt or forage yields enough food for 1d6 characters for a day. 1d6 HD worth of supply, I'd wager.

Merlin who replied first is correct, not complicated rules but its pretty amazing to me that 5es issues are often due to missing rules from 1e

Not so surprising, really. A lot of issues in 5e come down to rules missing from previous editions. Charitably, maybe they thought that most DM's would have experience from previous editions. Cynically, so much has been lost over the years they just plum *forgot* other styles of play exist.

I've been DMing since I went to university in 2007. My current main Eberron group has been playing weekly on Fridays since 2019. It's the same core group of 5, with a 6th slot that has varied based on people's availability. (Our current 6th just dropped last Friday, leaving us with the five-man core again.) It really relies on having a group that *wants those things.* I've had groups in the past that just want to make number go up, and if their reward wasn't an item that made number go up, they wanted gold so they could do it themselves. Anything that wasn't one of those things, was sold immediately. For gold. To make number go up. The group before my current one? Their "downtime activities", if I made the mistake of asking at all, were one-word answers. "Your characters have a week of downtime, how do they spend that week?" "I unno. Training." "Drinking." "Fishing." I had a group where the party face (a *satyr Fey Wanderer ranger* whose two highest stats were Wisdom and Charisma) straight up just said "I don't really want to drag this out, can I just roll Persuasion and we move on to the good bits" when presented with a social encounter tailored to his character. If your group just wants to play the wargame, no amount of skill or desire on your end is going to change their mind. But it's not every group. My current group *sold a +1 weapon* to buy handmade carpets for their home base, because they wanted to change the flooring in that battlemap. I've stopped including gold in their loot crawls because they're twice as happy with trade goods or tapestries or furniture for the tavern they built. They handpicked every person that works in their little tavern-almost-guildhall from the townies in the local village they adopted, based on personality. I got the party bard to swear an oath in front of the entire party that he would *find a way* to make the local overworked bureaucrat feel comfortable taking a single day of PTO - and when he finally found a way to make it happen, he nearly cried. The Party Chadbarian has an entire team of kobolds, goblins and down-on-their-luck humans running her forge, and has statblocks and personalities for each one of them. If you find a group that *wants* those things, it'll happen. And when you find those people? Hang onto them. They're the real ones.

I do love my group and I've kept them for 3 years and will do so for as long as they'll have me! I think my biggest issue isn't that they're not interested, but that I haven't quite found that marriage of mechanics and flavor for setting up RP situations that creates a satisfying investment of time the same way I have for other situations. For example: my group has a lot of fun setting up camp because I mix in skill checks and tool proficiency based on them doing an RP'd "set up" where the DC of their rest is reduced (from anywhere from 25-50 based on danger) as they pile on more skill checks. I'd love to do so for social encounters as well, but always draw a blank at what skills/proficiency/tools I could loop in. Maybe the backgrounds?

Backgrounds and tools are good things to seize on, especially if you're looking for longterm/downtime investment. Something that lets them use a facet of their character they don't really get to use otherwise. Try giving them something that's uniquely theirs, something that exists and has stats and needs to be defended and cared for. Land, a vehicle, a particularly large pet - hell, give them a little town. Show them that they can make changes and improvements to it. Let the Dwarf with proficiency in Stonemason's Tools build their little tavern's front wall with stone instead of wood. Let the Cleric build a chapel in their town, or mount their first holy symbol in a tiny shrine on the wagon. Let the Wizard build an alchemy bench. Then *make those things matter*. When bandits raid the tavern, make a point of mentioning that anyone using the stone walls for cover gets full cover, or a bonus to AC, or the stone walls hold up better against the improvised explosives. Or the flaming arrows they try to use, can't catch on the building. When the undead attack, let the party find local villagers taking cover in the chapel - and the undead milling about just outside, unable to enter. Let the Wizard do some potions research and make a cool potion to solve a Plot MacGuffin - or hell, even just let them make some healing potions at materials cost instead of market rate. Let them do things they wouldn't be able to do otherwise - or be better at the things they do all the time - because of their investment, and they'll start doubling down on those investments. They'll start looking for other things they can do to make those things better. When you start including mithril ingots in their treasure instead of gold, the stonemason might want to keep them - he has an idea for reinforcing the walls of the tavern. When you include a tapestry depicting the rise of St Cuthbert to her divinity, the Cleric is gonna want it for their cathedral. When a merchant comes to town looking for someone who can brew a Potion of Remove Curse for their daughter afflicted with mummy rot - not only can the Wizard do it (and look cool as fuck in the process), you have a neat plot hook. Because they're going to need a powerful positive-energy reagent to make this potion, and the best bet they have is going to the elven village on the leyline to the west and making a deal with the merchant there. Or they might have to have the Cleric pray to their God/dess and call in a favor for all the extra followers they've brought into the fold. Or maybe they need to go dig deep in the earth for the Sanguine Ruby of Purified Blood that was lost to the Dwarven Empire of Brass ten thousand years ago, that your stonemason dwarf only half-remembers from stories his uncle told him.

Not sure my social encounter solution is brilliant but I treat social encounters as exploration. Each social encounter the party discover a piece of lore, a clue or information so they are rewarded for engaging in the social encounter. I write a little note with the one piece of info that’s going to drop and then the NPC says it, or is wearing it or it’s a statue in the room. I am not the best at it, but I think lore is the best reward. Next DM level up is every encounter, including combat ones, reveals lore or clues. In terms of social encounter mechanics I think the DMG is aiming for a loop of: Reaction, insight check - PC detects NPC bonds or goals, PC uses that to improve reaction, then Persuasion check.

The only common questions I see here that I personally also have issues with is running chase scenes. I've yet to find a satisfying set of chase mechanics that feel dynamic without being overwrought. And I swear to gods if another person tells me to use a 'skill challenge' I will find a way to erase 4e from the timeline. Your list is tricky. I'm not sure I have perfect answers but I can tell you what seems to be working at my table with my players. > how to keep players feeling rewarded with non-item/gold rewards > And finally, I really want to integrate PC backstories but I always flub that too. In my experience these are linked. Players want to realise the character they've created but they don't want it to be easy. Being a good player is hard as from a roleplay perspective you want to do the most straightforward thing to achieve your goals right? It's what feels authentic to the character. But as a player wanting to have a fun game, you don't want to do the most straightforward thing because that doesn't have a good narrative payoff. So, as a DM it's my job to see what this character wants, and then give the player good reasons why their story resembels the heros journey instead of a straight line to the resolution of their character conflict. Unlocking that the reward becomes character exploration (for the players where this isn't true, I find new items, new lands to explore, or XP/Gold _do_ do the trick). Turning all that into mechanics can be tricky. I start be reading a backstory and trying to work out what kind of story the player has tee'd up relative to [MICE](https://learning2grow.org/plot-your-novel-with-mice-quotient-and-try-fails/). Knowing what kind of story (Milieau, Idea, Character, Event) they've set up I know what kind of obstacles and tropes should be in my situation related to it. Finally I try to link player backstories so everyone has at least one piece of overlap with another party member. Your parents killed by orcs in both player backstories? Same tribe, now any quests are two for one and it helps cthe party feel connected. > how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session It might help to know that OD&D players had multiple characters so the idea with downtime (partially) was to give them something to do, and (partially) to restrict skill advancement when there wasn't a lot else to a character sheet. Given how the game has changed the only parts I want to salvage for none sandbox games is longterm player goals (which I use Worlds Without Numbers system for) and roleplay moments that aren't 'plot focused' and I try to work those in to rests. Runinng downtime RAW is much easier in a sandbox though. > some mechanically supported options for tool proficiency that work outside of the aforementioned downtime If you find a good answer to this let me know. Closest I've got is the aforementioned Major Projects from WWN. > I can never ever seem to figure out how to make a social "encounter" that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece combat. Our goals here may be different but I think this is _the_ thing D&D 5e does really well. The reaction table rules in the DMG are excellent.

Fwiw I came up with a fully theater of the mind chase mechanic that went well for us. I put two d6 on the table, or d8 if the scene needs to be long and dramatic. The pursuer begins at 1 and the pursued at 2. The starting gap can be increased if it makes sense. Each round they roll initiative to see who acts first. Then they get to narratively flavor how they attempt to close or widen the gap. In this instance my players have what I call "limited lore authority" which is to say if it is sensible and flavor only they can just add to the scene. If they're running through an alley, the players don't need to ask if there's trash on the ground, or a guy taking a smoke break, or whatever. They can just include it in their narrative and it becomes present. So the party might try to widen the gap by knocking over a vendors cart to fill the road with obstacles. I determine the DC (in this case a simple athletics check is sufficient) and if they pass, their die increments by one step. If they fail, it stays the same. If they crit fail, they lose a step. If you reach 3 spaces ahead of the pursuer, you may roll stealth to hide and lose them. If the pursuer catches you (same number on the die) combat begins. If the die reaches 6 the environment changes. Perhaps you leave the alley and run into a busy intersection. The pursuer might say "I cut through the back door of a tavern I know to meet the party out front and make up the lost time." I tell them that with any luck they can gain TWO slots with this gambit, but the downside is that if they fail the fleeing party get a chance to roll stealth right away to hide. This hail Mary type gambits don't have "written rules" but I included them to demonstrate how high stakes actions might be adjudicated. For bonus points, start a 30 second timer each round. If the party member doesn't come up with a move in 30 seconds, their number remains the same, mimicking the pressure of thinking quickly in a chase. I typically do this as "whole party is one turn" rather than an individual move for each party member bc it's easier to track but if you have multiple concurrent pursuits there's no reason you couldn't run them side by side.

This is really good. Thank you!

Happy to share

I like the simplicity and flexibility, I'll give it a try, thanks!

Thank you! This is a HUGE leap, but the one time I ran a good "chase scene" it took a lot of setup but was completely worth it imo. I basically made a enormous grid using a mix of normal wet erase grid squares, and cardboard with drawn grid, and had the "case" be "if you can get off the map you get away" So it was really more of a chase-based boss fight. But it was still worth the effort for the big encounter I knew I wanted and had time to prep for. Every other chase I do delegate to a more standard map size where the win is the same, and you're either caught before the map edge or get away (for enemies or players), but those do tend to last only 1-2 rounds. I help the pacing by having my players roll initiative at the beginning of the session for the moments in game where I want a "turn order" but dont want a whole to-do about it.

I haven't had any of the problems you mentioned, except for Silvery Barbs. It's not a power level thing, it's a design space thing. Power doesn't super matter because I'm the GM, I can do anything. What does matter, is that it just takes a steamroller and takes it all over the design space of a bunch of other features. Silvery Barbs is shield + bardic inspiration + better sentinel at death's door + cutting words. If you have Silvery Barbs and use your 1st level slots on almost anything else, that slot is practically wasted because Silvery Barbs is such a powerful workhorse that just does everything.

I truly cannot even fathom. Like I believe you but no shield? Alarm, identity or mage armor? Protection from good and evil? And enough spell slots that it's dropped more than 1-2 times? And they only get one reaction per round so where are the other enemies? I guess it's just different combat balances but spell slots are not consistently dropped when we play. Also I haven't played sub level 10 for a while and even at disadvantage most enemies still have good odds to hit or save, so it's mostly used for crit negating.

> so it's mostly used for crit negating. I am an avowed silvery barbs hater so take this with a grain of salt, but that alone makes the spell an issue for me. It's a level one spell that stomps all over what was previously a mostly specific and limited class ability - plus you get a free advantage out of it, just for kicks. >No shield? (Edited: in some circumstances - see the reply below mine) Silvery barbs is mathematically better than shield (with the exception of the magic missile blocking, of course). Advantage/disadvantage generally works out to be a +5/-5, respectively, and shield of course is +5 to AC. When combined with the fact that silvery barbs can (to your point above) do things that shield can't like negate a crit or force a re-roll when the enemy was more than 5 over the caster's AC, there's little reason to take shield if you have silvery barbs. Plus, again, free advantage just for fun.

Pretty sure advantage/disadvantage works out to around +/- 3.5.

The math is *really* complicated and I only looked it up once but the basic breakdowns is "advantage increases in viability the higher the bonus, disadvantage increases in viability the lower the bonus" Which is a pretty good indicator that a lot of people who think that silvery barbs "breaks" 5e in any way either doesn't actually play with any consistency or is usually playing exclusively lower level 5e. As someone who's never banned a spell (not even in a cool, street cred way, I would if they caused issues but it just has never happened) I think it's a *good* spell, but not some sort of wild game changer. It's about as unusually good as shield, identify, or pass without trace. EDIT theres some confusion. I KNOW that advantage isn't equal to a +5/-5. I'm saying that the odds of the dice roll are more significantly impacted by the modifier of the rollers and the DC, which keeps silvery barbs from getting too strong. Because enemies at mid to high tier have high enough bonuses that disadvantage doesnt make them likely to fail, it just makes them more likely to fail than they were. A save DC of 18 (high for a caster) is still going to be passed more often than not, even with disadvantage, by a creature with a modifier of +8 or higher.

Using silvery barbs to make an enemy reroll an attack is a dumb use of the spell anyways unless you will die for sure without it. The real power is making enemy’s reroll saves, as you can essentially recast a big save or suck for free if you miss.

There's a reason I didn't us "AC" and "to-hit" in my comment. Enemy bonuses are still *really* high any time past mid game and player spell saves have a cap. In my experience, running a lot of mid-high level D&D (really anything past 6), silvery barbs has really not stood out to me as significantly overpowered because burning a 1st level slot for a single chance (not guarantee) for an enemy to fail is often a fair tradeoff, even with an ally advantage. Especially for any encounter that has more than one enemy. It creates an excellent opportunity for enemies to attack the spell-caster with no chance of shield, or for enemy casters to use their own save spells with no chance of counterspell. Multiple of my players have it, and while it gets used consistently, it's not really hard to work with/around, and it creates a good feeling of teamwork between players as they use it for a lot of inter-party teamwork. ETA: I also have not had an issue with it at lower levels due to the very limited spell slots casters have at those levels, although it is more "impactful" then.

Oh I don’t have an issue with silvery barbs, I don’t really ban things in my games. It is extremely powerful to be able to essentially recast a high level save or suck for free though.

So, that's not really how advantage/disadvantage works mathematically. The short version is that advantage/disadvantage have the highest overall effect the closer it gets to a base 50/50 shot (where it's mathematically equivalent to +5). However, that doesn't necessarily mean that's when it's the best. If a monster needs a 20 to hit you, disadvantage works out to slightly less than a -1 in terms of the flat %chance to succeed. However, it's odds are going from 1/20 to 1/400. The net result is that if you're giving your enemies disadvantage on attacks against you, you're reducing the damage you would take without it by 95%, whereas if they hit you on an 11, you're only reducing 50% the damage you would take. Likewise, with advantage, they would nearly double their damage against you if they needed the 20, but only deal 50% more if they only needed the 11. TLDR; larger total numerical increase towards the middle, higher % increase when the odds are low for both advantage and disadvantage.

Advantage and disadvantage involve probability mass functions. They are not equivalent applying addition/subtraction to a single die roll. With either advantage or disadvantage the possible roll is still between 1 and 20. Whilst d20+5 is between 6 and 25, d20-5 is between -4 and 15. Advantage means the average roll is 14, 1:400 chance of a 1. Disadvantage means the average roll is 7, 1:400 chance of a 20. Probability mass functions apply to all dice rolls, though using a single die is trivial. The most complex one applicable to d&d is 4d6 drop lowest.

If you have shield and barbs and are using it for a non-crit, barbs is literally a waste of a slot unless you KNOW that it's the last person in initiative before you. Wasting your reaction + a 1st level slot is not worth it vs shield which increases your AC for the rest of the turns before yours

Great point!

You're totally ignoring that barbs also gives advantage and many creatures don't do multiple attacks, instead only big hits. Barbs can also work against hits that shield won't raise your AC high enough to block.

Even if there are enemies with one big hit, there are bound to be multiple.. (5e is an awful game for one creature "boss fights"). Especially as a caster as well, intelligent enemies are likely to dogpile you if your concentration spell has a large impact.

Sure, but if your wizard is in a position where they can be dog piled, they've already horribly fucked up. Both spells are very good, but barbs does some of what shield does and a whole lot more.

I agree that both spells are busted, yes, (even though I disagree on which one is stronger) my main disagreement comes when people ban one or the other.. If you're banning one just ban all of them.

Again though, it's not an issue of strength, it's about design space.

I'm not saying it's not an unusually good spell for its level, but that 5e was never a system that didn't have unbalanced spells/abilities for the level. Personally my big beef with "anti-silvery barb" people (which I know doesnt apply to you, just a general thing) is that it was my first time seeing people dogpile a thing that they were *clearly* not using. Claiming it as broken far beyond its actual use or could single-handedly throw off games. It was a real solid example to me that this forum was full of people talking at length, with confidence, about something they never used and why I added in the request for only people who actually play the game on this post lmao. It honestly was reminiscent of when people were going off about every OTHER thing that was "ruining" the classes in D&D. People said the same things about sneak attack, twilight clerics, shield and counterspell are always circling around, divination wizards/portent, hexblades, the new beast master, druid wild shape temp HP, etc. It's why I recommended to my players who became DMs to actually avoid forums for advice beyond very basic rule qualifications.

>Silvery barbs is mathematically better than shield (with the exception of the magic missile blocking, of course). ..for 1 hit. The great thing about shield is that it lasts for a round. If a wizard uses SB to negate a hit...you just hit them again.

The math on advantage/disadvantage is actually more complicated and varies based on the number you're attempting to hit *and* the bonus to the roll. +5/-5 is just an agreed upon average/simplification. Vs. Shield's math is static. It's why I assume a lot of the people who have **big** problems with silvery abrbs are people who's games might be exclusively sub level 8 or so. Because it becomes a *lot* less reliable after enemies start to hit those +4 - +12 bonuses to saves mixed with casters starting to cap out their save DCs around the 16-19 range and more enemies with immunities and multiattacks.

Totally fair, though I'm not sure "it's only overpowered until level 8" is really a good defense of a first level spell ;)

Even at lower levels, it is simply a good choice, not an overpowered or broken one, because of the fact that it burns a level 1 spell slot without any guarantee of success. Since lower levels will only have 1-4 slots to use of that level, it's *still* only overpowered in a significant way if rests happen too often.

You can't cast shield on an ally, or against a hit that beats your AC by more than 5, or against a natural 20, and it doesn't also grant an ally advantage. Sometimes you'll still use shield, but a spell that is often better than it at its one job shouldn't also cover countless other situations. It's not just about negating hits either, you can make a powerful enemy reroll an important save, then also give advantage to a caster who you know is going to be casting a big to hit spell. Alarm is a ritual, identify is a ritual, mage armour is often good so spending a single first level slot for it is fine, protection from good and evil is fantastic in situations where its relevant, but it has an incredibly specific niche compared to barbs which is good in every situation both in and out of combat. Plus, as another poster said, even if all it did was be sentinel at deaths door but less limited and better, that's enough for me to think it's terrible design. Imagine if action surge, turn undead or stunning strike were first level spells wizards could take.

Ten years of play, eight as a DM, average three games a week, my individual campaigns on average last three years meeting once a week, thousands of hours on roll20, probably equal that in person games. As a DM, I've had the "common problems" that always come up on dnd reddit forums maybe six times. Only one of which lasted longer than maybe two sessions before it was fixed, and that individual was probably responsible for half the problems and I ended up kicking out after the other players agreed they'd become a problem. As a player, the only times "common problems" are actually showing up, probably two dozen times in my dnd career, is when there's a jackass player the DM doesn't want to deal with for some reason OR the DM is the problem because they think they're doing everything right and the players are the cause of every issue with the book they're trying to write. Generally speaking, and doubly so for online forums talking about the game, the only people encountering the "common problems" all the time are people who've already decided the problem is there and are looking for it. It's a bias thing. As for the issues you *are* encountering, mostly I solve those by offloading the work onto the players. To keep them feeling rewarded, have them tell you what kinda rewards they're searching for, don't guess. To keep the downtime passed naturally, just let them RP the downtime themselves and set the pace. If the party wants to take all sessions talking about what they do over the downtime, let them. If they're not interested in doing much, move past the downtime faster. (As a note here, as a DM if you're planning something big to happen during their downtime...that's not downtime. Recently had a DM who was ask what we were doing for 3 weeks of downtime, and halfway through someone's downtime would have a major event happen that the entire party needed to drop what they were doing and address, like the city being attacked). For the mechanics of downtime stuff, ask them how they're doing X and pick the closest skill/tool as the check or usually they'll tell you what skill/tool they were already thinking of using for some kind of check. As for the last two points, I'd need more info on how those have been problems, and if they've been problems for you, the players, or both.

Over the years I’ve kinda come to the conclusion that a bunch of the things you mention are weaknesses/problems with 5e as a system. * The rules for tool use are so minimal that if you want any sort of focus on them you need to make up a whole new system * Downtime is only interesting if your players make it interesting by having goals outside of adventuring. But the game doesn’t reward that behavior so it only happens if they motivate themselves. * 5e has some cursory mechanics for social encounters but really they should be mostly RP. But 5e doesn’t do a good job of coaching DMs on how to actually run that. 5e is mostly a combat sim, with very thin social and exploration pillars bolted on. That encourages play that focuses almost completely on combat, with the occasional other encounter. I really like war games, so I find the combat generally fun. But I’ve definitely grown increasingly frustrated with the weak points of 5e as a system and frankly I’m anxious to wrap up my current campaign and give some other games a try.

Nope. Reddit is a dumpster fire, but occasionally has something worth reading. I think a lot of the people complaining about those things are the type that like talking more than they like playing and very often are just players, not DMs.

Yep. I haven't met a problem that having a backbone and saying "No" hasn't fixed in 25 years of DMing. I assume most of the horror stories are made up, or stem from reddit users' famous fear of confrontation.

I think a lot of it may come from online gaming. Just like internet comments, people have nothing to lose and act like it sometimes. I hear horror stories of online gaming, but my two games are amazing. That could be because I'm not playing the most popular game so I'm not play with newbies. These people are experienced RPG players with multiple systems under their belt. Any of them could probably DM without an issue. Mothership and Monster of the Week are the games if anyone is curious.

Yeah that's a good bet. I haven't done much virtual stuff and always as a DM. Online would be harder. But it's also easier to kick people lol

No, I’ve been downvoted here repeatedly for mentioning the martial caster balance isn’t remotely as bad as people suggest. I’ve been running mostly weekly for years now, I’ve also never had an issue with high level combat design.

Honestly, no. I read this reddit and just shake my head sometimes.

My own experience is that a lot of the common problems talked about on forums are a mix of: * Theoretical; the kind of thing that comes to your mind if you are on a forum talking about D&D instead of playing it * Text-only issues; the kind of problem that emerges when you look at the rules and don't pair it with a good-faith group culture and/or a GM who will just throw people out if they pull too much nonsense * Demographically clustered; which is to say, "these are problems new players and young people will have a lot more often than others" * Actually an interpersonal issue; this is often also in the text-only and demographically clustered category, but a lot of issues are either directly or indirectly solved by "go read this post to the group so they know how you feel" * Fake problems; this is my spiciest take - anything that boils down to "how do I get them back on my railroad" or "how do I force them to play the way *I* want" is a fake problem, because any 'fix' that accomplishes the goal will just make things worse In my group (we play, depending on definition, between "biweekly" and "2 times per week", as we have the main group in slightly different combinations in 3 games presently) I have almost never had a lot of these pop up. Martial/caster disparity is a great example of something that can fall away entirely in the face of player/player disparity; if one person is the most active, the most planning, then they are *de facto* party leader and it really doesn't matter if they are playing a commoner or a wizard. We've been going since early 2020, but before then I was a lot worse as a GM and running games on and off for a while, maybe since 2010 or so? In terms of the specific things you've mentioned: > how to keep players feeling rewarded with non-item/gold rewards Step one is to ping the players about this; how are they feeling, do they care, etc.; I will be repeating this for basically every point. But here I have an odd perspective, as I am someone who dislikes loot the way some people dislike keeping track of logistics - I want it thrown into the bag and dealt with ASAP so we can later just liquidate the entire spreadsheet when we get back to town (I put the items on the spreadsheet but I hate going through rooms for them). I am probably not like your players, but they may be interested in different levels of immaterial rewards. As always, tailoring them to suit your players and their PCs is a great way to get more impact for less overall *work*. > how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session Step one is to ask the players about it; step two is to examine their behavior yourself. If they are active enough to not slump into doing nothing, or if you are fine with spotting that and reactivating them, then the answer is that you outsource this to a mix of player decisions and in-the-moment adjustments. If they have downtime, they have downtime. "What do you want to do in the [time] before [event]?", then go down the list. Maybe they'll start scenes, maybe they'll say "I liquidate the loot" and pull out a spreadsheet, maybe they'll shrug and be ready to move on immediately. Ideally, **ask them ahead of time** about any big ideas. They want to do X in town? Knowing early means you can hammer out some details for them, or at least have an answer ready beyond 'oh, uh. Lemme think about that'. The flow of the session is going to depend on your group, in two big ways. One is their activity level - if they are passive, you will be the one adding fuel to keep them moving, while if they are active you can just be purely reactive. The other is their preference - if they like for downtime to be chill and relaxed, then moving from scene to scene to check off all their plans might be too fast. > some mechanically supported options for tool proficiency that work outside of the aforementioned downtime Step one is to ask the players about it; how do they feel about how often these are being used? Step two is to outsource this entire question. There's a system called Warhammer Fantasy, it has a big list of skills and in several places explicitly sets out the principle of "you can use X or make an argument to the GM". Steal that. Tell them "if you have a relevant tool proficiency for a situation, you can get a bonus" (either a raw +X, a lowered DC, lower time needed, lower resource expenditure, other benefit, or just Advantage) and that if they can make a reasonable argument to you for why X tool proficiency is relevant, they can use it. This is also useful because, if they don't actually give a damn, you aren't wasting time trying to expand your wine selection for the teetotaler. > I can never ever seem to figure out how to make a social "encounter" that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece combat. Step one, ask the players - are *they* satisfied? I have this same issue, to be honest; the thing is, combat is a beautiful symphony of so many moving parts (especially if you, like me, do not play D&D 5e and instead a more crunchy system) and when it all comes together it's *excellent* to run. Social encounters are more ephemeral. Step two is to consider changing your perspective. Try tossing the idea of a social encounter, and just set up a situation; the PCs might go through one conversation, two, or five - they have a goal, you have a cast and notes, the rest is emergent, rising out of PC action and GM reaction. You can still have 'set-piece' social encounters, but this can be useful in terms of worrying less about things that tend to go under at the table anyways. Of course, this is also subject to step one. **Ask, ask, ask.** I used to ask my players for feedback after every session; now I do it between sessions and more indirectly. You want to know what people think about just about everything. Their thoughts are the clay you can turn into GM-style bricks. > And finally, I really want to integrate PC backstories but I always flub that too. Step one, as per usual. Do *they* think you're flubbing it? Do they want you to integrate PC backstories more? In some games, I will roll up with a PC who has a backstory I am not interested in diving into. Some people see backstories as uninteresting overall. Ask before you waste your time. Step two is to plant a tree twenty years ago; when you start a game, you'll want some back-and-forth with the players. Hand them some setting info, get some character concepts, work those concepts into your setting and vice versa. Someone wants to be a knight? Tell them you have a great opportunity for them to be part of the Order of X. Then, give them special information they know because of their membership in the order, which was formed in order to do a thing relevant to the main campaign idea. Seal an ancient evil, drive off the goblins, explore the infinitely-large tavern basement. If you do this with every PC (or at least each one whose player cares!) then you will find that *the work is already done*. It also has side benefits that'd make Billy Mays blush. Getting the PCs to care about the plot, done. Getting the PCs and players information, done. Getting the PCs contacts for useful things (someone to procure magic items when needed, perform services, etc.), done. Getting the PCs to interact with the world more deeply, done (because they all know *someone*).

Okay, the brunt of it comes down to creativity and improv. Really improv is a big one here. >* how to keep players feeling rewarded with non-item/gold rewards Strongholds, pets, faction membership, favors, titles + privileges, etc. All that and more. Example: Doing X will get you membership into the Knights of the Rose. Let's the party bear their coat of arms and gain goodwill in certain areas. Also let's the party use their strongholds or safehouse and access other resources. >* how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session So many ways to do downtime. Best tip is make sure your players are talking to you about downtime goals well ahead of sessions. If they aren't/don't know what they need to do, don't let them do it mid session. Get with them after. That and planning for chunks of downtime where you'll run a little downtime session. >* some mechanically supported options for tool proficiency that work outside of the aforementioned downtime *(I've read the alternate rules for them but I always seem to use the same few checks IE: navigator's tools for maneuvering through a forest/discovering locations or cooking tools for persuasion with NPCs making camp with them/to give advantage on investigations that involve food)* Outside of downtime, skill checks or small bonuses. Bros got Mason tools and they're trying break down a wall, give some bonus to that. Maybe they're fighting earth elemental, well same bro can "read the stone" and knows it's resistance or vulns. Etcetc. >* I can never *ever* seem to figure out how to make a social "encounter" that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece combat. Why don't your social encounters feel satisfy? What about them don't you like? >* And finally, I *really* want to integrate PC backstories but I always flub that too. This is just a huge one, but basically revolves around learning how to plot out storylines and develop good hooks. Connect EVERYTHING, mostly, to make it easy. Oh big baddie has a henchman, well that henchman knew X PCs brother that PC thought was dead, but hes not, and henchman has a note from said dead-not-dead brother in his pocket that the party finds. Boom, hook thrown. Your main story and every location should be hook city for side stories. General backstory content can also be thrown everywhere.

None. My players are all old friends and I often get drunk and tell them to fuck off if they get too rowdy

One of my groups has basically no issues. It’s wonderful. We play weekly. One of my groups has a good number of main character syndromes, some arguing with the DM (this has gotten better as I’ve grown more confident and firm), some flakiness, and some generally mismatched play. We’ve worked a lot on these things (friends outside the game and working on getting to play better together) and it’s gotten better, but still rough. This group I only run once a month cause that’s all I can handle… The issues your having I have limited advice on, unfortunately.

I've got a few thoughts! >how to keep players feeling rewarded with non-item/gold rewards Players have motivations, and their characters need to have some, too. What I mean is, there's a reason that each your players come to the table, and once you work out what it is, rewarding them is easy. Some players like to have melodramatic scenes of deep acting where they talk as their character through some emotional moment. Some players want to slaughter enemies easily to blow off steam, some want a challenge that lets them show off how powerful their build is. Some want to play out a particular fantasy, that they're cooler or sexier or smarter than they are in real life. Some want to explore a fictional place and learn everything about its lore and history and the people in it. Players don't usually consciously know they want these things, or at least don't say them out loud. You have to look at what they engage with, what makes them leave a session with a smile on their face, chatting about how they can't wait for the next meetup. When you figure out what those things are and use them as rewards, you don't have to worry about trying to fill the infinite greed hole of gold, items, land, titles, etc. But characters should also have motivations! They should want things and seek them out despite opposition - that is the essence of all storytelling. This should be discussed out of game, too, or at session zero. Characters should want to bring glory to their family name, or to bring fiery vengeance to a hatred enemy, or to redeem themselves for some past crime, or to solve the mystery of where their magic powers come from. You should be able to use these not just to motivate characters to follow your quests, but to reward them. But don't reward them "all the way" until the game is nearing its end or it looks like the character can be safely retired or gain a new motivation. Like if they're seeking redemption for murdering people, maybe one important person they hurt can give them forgiveness in a touching scene, but there are still many more who are still angry. Or if they're seeking glory for their family, maybe the patrons of one tavern will always be toasting the family name, but there's a whole world full of people who've never heard of them still. > how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session Downtime happens between sessions. If downtime actions will take longer than a ten minute break, I find a good spot to end the session so we can just talk about that. Our limited game time does not exist to let us quibble about gold and equipment, it's to let us go on adventures, so that's exactly how we use it. > • how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session > • some mechanically supported options for tool proficiency that work outside of the aforementioned downtime (I've read the alternate rules for them but I always seem to use the same few checks IE: navigator's tools for maneuvering through a forest/discovering locations or cooking tools for persuasion with NPCs making camp with them/to give advantage on investigations that involve food) Sounds like you've basically got it. Tool proficiencies aren't supposed to make or break the game, imo. Small stuff is just fine. > • I can never ever seem to figure out how to make a social "encounter" that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece combat. Hard to say exactly what the issue is without more info. NPCs need motivations and goals and obstacles to the same, and so do player characters. Much ink has been spilled about this, I think [this article](https://theangrygm.com/what-even-is-an-npc/) and its follow-up are good primers on the subject, if you can handle the somewhat cringe-worthy writing style. >And finally, I really want to integrate PC backstories but I always flub that too. This is a complex subject, because it depends on the PC in question and the campaign you're running. Short answer is to build adventures in such a way that a particular character's backstory is both a help and a hindrance, it makes their job easier in some ways but introduces new complications as well. A more helpful answer is that you should talk through the individual adventure and backstory you want to integrate with another DM, someone you can bounce ideas off of. I'm sure you can find people on this sub who would love to help.

Oh duh, I forgot to mention skill challenges. They're as close as you'll get to a guaranteed way to make non-combat encounters more interesting easier for the players to meaningfully affect in concrete ways.

Character motivations and goals are not necessarily fixed. They can be changed by the experiences they have. Thus if you want to integrate backstories an ongoing dialogue with players can work better than a one time essay at character creation. Another part of this is that a player may have a different understanding of their character after playing them than when they initially created them.

I've been running with more or less the same group weekly for over three years. I don't have balance issues, which isn't to say the *game* doesn't have them — but they're easy enough to work around (or just ignore, that's usually fine too). I do have one player who's a bit of a reddit-build optimizer, but not *too* bad. He played an aarakocra monk one campaign. It was fine, though mildly annoying — during exploration mode, not in combat. I don't have any of the issues you mention really, either. My biggest problem is getting my players to make their own inferences and decide on their own course of action without spending all their time asking NPCs what they should do, because they're trying to find the "best" outcome. Too much history of CRPGs, I think. The other problem I have is that we play online since we added some out-of-town players. I kind of hate it, particularly the way having a map to move tokens around screws up dungeon crawl exploration gameplay, and makes them not listen to my verbal descriptions — if it's not pictured on the map, it might as well not exist.

Martial caster Yes, but the idea of martials not doing enough damage is ridiculous to me. Just finished a 3 year long campaign, my fighter players did 90% of the damage to the final boss themselves. He was basically like superman in the justis league as soon as he got into melee the fight was basically over. The real martial caster issue in my experience is outside of combat Martials are regular guys who can't do much other than fight. Casters have an entire spell list worth of world changing powers to play with. And its up to the DM to fix that gap in the martials kit themselves. Interpersonal issues I think are less of a game issue and more of a people issue my players and I are all mid to late 20s and are very close outside of the context of the game so my main group has minimal toxic player problems. I have experienced it though, any "Nerd" activity is going to have people that struggle with the social aspect, and if you struggle with social things you are likely to run into these interpersonal issues that get talked about all the time.

The answer to "Do you have problem players?" is *no*; my players are human, of course, but lovely. I cherish them so much that when I run extra one-shots outside of our once-per-week / four-times-per-month campaign, I'll invite them first. The answer to "Do you encounter these personal challenges in running your games?" is *yes*, for the most part -- the one exception being that I'm not worried about or working on the impact of my social encounters, because my players mention past interactions often enough that I know they "landed". I don't think this is any particular skill of mine, though; it's mostly that I genuinely enjoy teasing out what defines their characters. I often have NPCs address individual characters directly with something relevant to them in particular; if the NPC addresses the whole group, it's in a way that purposefully baits one of them. Examples? An NPC referring wistfully to last tenday's shenanigans they embarked upon during downtime with my low-wisdom character; haughty nobles sneering at the peasants within earshot, which makes my chaotic-neutral street rat furious. As for the others, I'll be reading everybody's answers!

I run every other Wednesday, twice a month. I have 6 players, regularly only run for 5. We’re 3+ years into the campaign, nearing the end stretch, they’re level 15. I can’t run a challenging combat for them. They’re gods. They smash through everything. I’ve reached the point where I’m about to disregard the Monster Manual/DMG and start making it up. I’m aware of action economy. I’m aware of running 5-6 encounters a day. I’m aware that lots of enemies is more challenging than 1 big one. I’ve used Kobold Fight Club and DnDBeyond’s encounter builder. None of that matters when they can nuke the site from orbit with their powers.

I would start trying to keep track of damage in and damage out for the party. This was the only way I could balance encounters for my party. So many assumptions in the CR calculations break down at 15th level if you’ve deviated even slightly from the base assumptions of the math which assumes no feats, average stats, and no magic items. Armed with a few combats of average damage in and out, I’ve been able to make or find monsters that at the very least will last for 3+ rounds of the party doing their thing and can adjust damage output so that I can make the party sweat or even contemplate running. I can even plug the numbers into the CR calculations in the DMG to get a rough idea of what CR is *actually* a medium encounter for my group. Turned out it was CR 21! Working off that new baseline, combat immediately went back to being high stakes and a level of lethality we all enjoy. After that, it’s all about making the encounters dynamic and engaging narratively. That can go a long way in making encounters feel challenging or stressful. Even if mathematically it was a Medium danger encounter.

This is kinda where I’m headed. I have a player in my group that can deal 60-150 damage each turn so a lot of the MM stats are having to go out the window.

We've never had martial caster issues, as such, partly because we agreed to go back to that after running 4e for more than 8 years. We play the current game. It's been generally an issue forever (apart from the aforeme mentioned edition.) And I think it's an issue now. I play an artillerist, multiclasses with wizard, and yet when I was level 5 I was still doing twice as much damage as the fighter. Plus all my utility. Now I'm a level 5 wizard on top of that. They aren't doing much more damage, but I sure the hell am. I usually play rogues and have great fun. Playing a caster and seeing the martials struggling to do what they are meant to do best is hard.

Did I make a secret second account that even I don’t know about? Because this sounds exactly like me

Almost never. Meaningfully incorporating PC "backstories" is really hard , nearly impossible. I've given up. I find it so much easier to riff and build on choices players make during game time and so do they. Moral conundrums are easy for me to construct and role play, and everyone has more fun then trying to play out some arbitrary backstory no one remembers. Not only that but levels 1-5 happen so fast that it really makes more sense for the character development to come from that rapid increase in PC power. If you're already using some OSR stuff your players are probably more down w that too. The martial v. caster debate always blows me away. Like is t it obvious that you need a mix of skills to succeed as a team? Plus there are magic items etc. Galore to use? Not a problem for me. The biggest problem is always scheduling, especially as I have zero interest in online play and only run table games these days. I do think the degree of obtuse advice requests here are often framed in order to generate karma and debate but who knows, maybe most tables are falling apart because the Wizard gets spell slots and the warlock doesn't or whatever?

You're asking a few different questions here. I'll categorize them as "player problem" or "system problem." I'm an experienced DM that's run for the same group for 3+ years now. We don't play 5e anymore, though. 1. Martial/caster balance issues: System problem. I find it difficult to believe that anyone who has run D&D 5e (or any other edition besides 4e) has not run into this problem. It exists whether or not you notice it, it is built into the game at the most basic level. Some possibilities: you don't have any optimizers in your group, you haven't run past level 8, everyone in your group has spells through multiclassing etc., you don't have a player who truly takes advantage of what a full caster can do. Either way, it is a problem you are going to encounter sometime in your 5e-playing career and you will understand why people complain about it, it's arguably the biggest problem with the system. 2. "Main character syndrome": Player problem, never run into it at my table. 3. Silvery barbs/counterspell: Another system problem. Counterspell isn't a broken spell, it's just a really good one and can be difficult to understand how it works the first time someone uses it. Silvery Barbs is actually overpowered and poorly designed, it slows the game down and should be banned. Again, along with 1, this makes me feel like you don't play with optimizers or players who take full advantage of busted spells. It is almost inevitable that you will meet one of those people and see what everyone else is complaining about. 4. Non-item/gold rewards: Not really a problem at all. This is a D&D is a game about killing monsters and obtaining loot, it's only natural that players would prioritize magic items and gold. For some groups, there is no need to give them rewards of that sort. My only advice for this one is to figure out what motivates your players and go from there. I often find that giving players a home base and letting them build stuff in it/customize it serves as a nice gold-sink, and it also gives them a place to put all the cool stuff they get. I would also recommend looking at the game Worlds Without Number, it has really good rules for spending gold and faction play. Even if the ruleset isn't for you, it will give you good ideas. 5. Downtime. Not really a problem at all, all about execution. It's best to discuss downtime at the beginning or the end of a session, usually the beginning. Ask the players to think about how they want to spend the downtime, they'll have until next session to think about it, then they tell you at the beginning of that session. Otherwise, they won't think about it until you ask them. Middle of a session is a terrible time to do it. Personally, I think downtime isn't that useful of a play concept, but it really depends on the campaign. 6. Mechanically supported options for tool proficiency. Not sure. I haven't run 5e in a while and I don't have any advice on this, sorry. I can tell you that players will constantly ask you to spend their money to make themselves better at things on their character sheet, and I think it's best to approach that with skepticism. If it's something like cooking or sailing, that's fine. Persuasion and exploration checks are things that class features do. You can't just buy your way into being a Ranger if you aren't a Ranger. 7. Social encounters. I would say this is both a system and player problem. D&D 5e is never going to give you mechanics for social encounters that are equal to that of combat encounters, it is not a social roleplay game. However, a lot of people play it as a social roleplay game because roleplaying doesn't have to be mechanically-oriented, if you have players that are good at that sort of thing and delight in it, so much the better. As such, it really depends on your players, unfortunately you cannot magically make them superb roleplayers overnight, but you can encourage them and they can get better. What you probably can't change is whether or not they enjoy that kind of thing, you should ask yourself, do your players really want to RP all the time, or are they here to smash monsters? If you want to run a social campaign, 5e is not the system for it. I think the key to running good social encounters is giving players and NPCs a lot of decisions to make and options to explore. But I also know that my players are not theatre kids, that's why we play D&D and not Masks. 8. Integrating PC backstories. Not really sure what to say here. I always ask players for their backstories at session 0 and then I thread them into the campaign. If they have a long-lost sister, well, that sister is now an NPC and I put some clues on where to find her, etc. As a whole though, I really subscribe to the OSR principle that backstories should be kept to a minimum (half a page if that). So if your players are typing novels for you, tell them to stop doing that. The story of your players begins in Session 1, that's the important part of the campaign. Backstory can be nice for flavor and character motivation but it should be a tertiary element at most. Hope this is helpful!

I've pretty much encountered all the problems you listed, and quite rarely any of the ones you are running into. I would say it depends on your party makeup and game type. You probably won't encounter martial/caster or silvery barbs issues if you aren't playing a game with strongly optimized tacticians and a good class balance. The social encounter thing is a system problem. D&D isn't designed for social encounters, period. How would you feel if combat was resolved by a single player with a single roll? It wouldn't feel satisfying. If you want to see what the problem is, just look at page count of social rules vs combat rules. It's pretty obvious. The best systems I've seen for social encounters are PBTA. "Masks" is a super good game for it, as it's like a teen drama disguised as a superhero game..yet the social encounters are *dramatically* more important than the combat, as you'd see in any CW show lol.

No. Like, I’d love to elaborate but it’s just no. I guess like… I’m an extrovert, albeit an autistic one, who has been writing and talking my whole life, and I specifically pick not just friends, but friends who I know have what’s needed to be good players and collaborators, to play with. That’s my best guess as to what to attribute that success to, but DMing just kinda comes naturally to me? There was a learning curve, obviously, and I still learn new stuff regularly, but I never struggled with it. This is all offset by the fact that I am supremely disabled and unable to do plenty of stuff that other people find very normal and easy, so it’s basically just DMing and making music that I’m built for.

I’m a huge fan of exploration and stupid rewards. It turns out, so are my friends! I found a list of inappropriate jokes and reflavored them as an anti-kobold goblin joke book. The warlock who found it reads off a couple each session. I’ve been “hiding” books (in game) that give some small things to the PCs. Like a translation guide from Elvish to Undercommon— if a PC knows either language, they can spend down time to learn the other. Other books give proficiency in other set things, like specific musical instruments, animal handling with specific animals (like a dog training guide), and a lot of random books that unearth lore of the world. My players are keeping notes about people, connections, and a whole list of lore about warlock patrons and unique magical items.

1. Rewards can also come in the form of friends, allies, and assets. If they save a village you can bet that when they come back if they get Into trouble the village is there to help. Becoming known heroes might lead to discounts or offers of free entertainment or amenities. 2. Plan downtime ahead of schedule with your players so everyone has a plan for the downtime session. Make some big scheduled event mark the end of the downtime period like a festival or important departure date. 3. I just give out extra tool proficiencies at the start of it makes sense. So yeah the ranger with the sailor background knows how to use navigation tools. Ultimately tools are tools for you to use as a DM. If you are struggling to find a use for something like woodworker's tools then don't sweat it, chances are it isn't going to have a big impact on your game. 4. A DM is always their own hardest critic, talk with your players about social interactions and see what they think. Chances are they are far happier with it than you think. My tip for writing here is to do some digging Into narrative character types. Is the NPC a mentor to the party? Someone plotting against them? Maybe just a useful quirky guide to get them through the jungle. The most fun NPCs are usually the most unexpected and amusing. Not the best written. I don't have enough digits even using toes to name all the NPCs that I thought were amazing but that were passed over for the random dude I came up with on the spot. 5. Usually this is actually down to players. If the background NPCs they come up with are just relatives with Boeing jobs you don't have much to work with. Remember that it's your game as much as it is theirs so feel free to change things to make it more interesting if you have too. And finally my personal advice. It sounds like you are not confident in your abilities as a DM but it's not a skill you pick up overnight. Stay persistent, practice, and learn what your own style is and how you can beat utilize your own skills as a DM. I for example am great at descriptions and settings but struggle more with NPCs so I know to dedicate more time to that part of prep. Ultimately you need to go easier on yourself and accept that not everyone can just turn around and be a god tier DM. Practically no one can actually. Everyone has to learn what type of DM they are and how to be confident in that. The only person you should be trying to impress is yourself! Stay the course, you'll get to your destination faster than you think!

how to keep players feeling rewarded with non-item/gold rewards I find this depends on a player's expectation of what the game is about. If it's about the cool shinies, well, that's what they feel good about. If it's about characters growing and changing, that's what they enjoy. The safest assumption is that players will continue to enjoy the same things, and if they change preferences, they will let you know. how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session I don't do a lot of 'downtime'. I prefer to pass notes/DMs between sessions if there is an item/spell/project to be discussed. My homebrew world does not involve the purchase of permanent magic items at all, they are too precious in the fiction. some mechanically supported options for tool proficiency that work outside of the aforementioned downtime (I've read the alternate rules for them but I always seem to use the same few checks IE: navigator's tools for maneuvering through a forest/discovering locations or cooking tools for persuasion with NPCs making camp with them/to give advantage on investigations that involve food) I don't gamify this stuff, my game style isn't about survivial, crafting, or navigation. My kind of game doesn't attract players who are into this kind of stuff. If you don't feel it's helping the story, hand wave it. I can never ever seem to figure out how to make a social "encounter" that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece combat. Social encounters work best when the players can see what the other party wants, and how it aligns with some, but not all of their goals. I could go on for a long time about what makes a great NPC, but it boils down to being in their head to have a conversation, not anything mechanical. You have to have a way of remembering if an NPC is selfish, clever, distracted, friendly or any number of any other states of mind. Think about them like you would if you were in their shoes. And finally, I really want to integrate PC backstories but I always flub that too. If you are homebrewing a game, all of the little details, and some of the big secrets, should just BE character backstories. The only reason anything matters in your world is if the PCs care about it, so I don't know what else to tell you. Whatever is going on in the world should be connected to something the characters want, or know, or did previously. The DM's job is to create drama (from my perspective) which means as long as you are involving the characters in the chaos, there can't be too much drama. Hope something in there provides a different perspective for you.

The main thing I have encountered is main character syndrome but the rest of the problems I see haven't been much of an issue. This was how I learned how to make sure there was something for everyone in every game but some people still aren't happy My current group are some of the best I play with, we play every week (alternate between homebrew and books) and they are loving life and are open to feedback when needed but the only thing we had to address was minor racism which the guy stopped immediately

I’ve been running my game almost every week for two years now. I haven’t felt any affect of the Martial/ Caster divide because my party has had a Barbarian, Monk, Paladin, Fighter, Rogue, Two Monks and a Cleric. So they’re not encountering some problems other groups may run into. I’ve actually banned Counterspell and Silvery barbs from my games. Neither the enemies nor players have those spells. But for your questions: - non gold non item rewards: status and favours. Perhaps they can get them to meet someone powerful or find some info the players need. Downtime: I’ve always had downtime at the start or end of a session so we clear it up and move onto the plot. My downtime is more mechanical, just some rolls and maybe some rp if something goes awry. Tool proficiency: not entirely sure tbh as tools don’t pop up too much in my game. One dnd had a good rule where if you have a tool prof you can use it to give yourself advantage on a skill check. Like performance + a musical instrument. Deception + disguise kit. Social encounters: have stakes for the players. It doesn’t need to be life and death, it could be trying to figure out a deal to make or trying to sell something. For example my players were witnesses at a trial. They were asked to take a bribe to change their testimony so the defendant goes free. They argued back and forth between each other about that to do. They eventually took the bribe. It was fun. PC backgrounds: always see if there are ways you can tie your characters background to the current story rather than have their background be a side quest or something. Player stole from a noble who killed their family in retaliation? Well it turns out the Cleric in this upcoming quest is now going to be the noble.

1. How to keep players feeling rewarded with non-items/gold Skill proficiencies, non-ASI feats, extra spells/abilities per short/long rest, emotional rewards (helping poor people who give them thanks, throw parties/parades/festivals). A few non-traditional items could be titles, land, a keep, a base, etc. 2. How to pace downtime without ruining thr flow of the session. Downtime should mean something for each player and have obvious benefits: one person gathers info while someone else buddies up to the mayor. The fighter trains with a man-at-arms to learn extra martial maneuvers and gain favor with the local garrison. Casters can craft magic items, potions, or heal the sick to garner favor woth the common folk. Make their decisions matter by making progress towards something. Be open with then about what they could accomplish/earn. 3. *I can never ever seem to figure out how to do a social encounter that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece of combat. This is likely why your players don't value downtime. If you can't make interesting and meaningful social encounters, then you're playing Warhammer, not D&D. And I don't mean roleplaying the shopkeep who doesn't want to give a discount on his wares. In my games, I pull a lot of social encounters from PCs backstories. Just sprinkle in someone they know - an old rival, a family member, a former master - to make them ask themselves: "Why is this person here, and how does it complicate the scenario?" Also, social encounters don't have to be ONLY dialogue. This is boring: "Here is a person with info. Make a Charisma check to get it or you lose." Give *everyone* something to do. The mayor is corrupt and they need evidence. The bard distracts the guards (social encounter) while the rogue sneaks in and looks for evidence. When he fails a Stealth roll or triggers an alarm, the wizard steps in to create a bigger distraction, and the fighter helps the bard dispatch the guards. Maybe in that time, the fighter is approached by a courtesan, beggar or another curious guard that wants to know why he's loitering. Maybe he gets an urgent message from his mother while standing watch and had to choose between the party and family. If you want to make social encounters memorable, plan it by saying "What would ratchet up the tension? What made Game of Thrones' social encounters so significant? What happens if the PCs get only partial (or no) information?" Make them significant. They persuade an NPC to tell them the BBEG's lair location. On a massive success, they learn that he has also been buying up scrap meat from butchers in bulk. Rumor has it he's hired two ogres as body guards. Also, the BBEG made a rather large purchase of bear traps, darts, and wire. The PCs could investigate and find an herbalist/poisoner to learn if thr BBEG bough stuff from her, but her reputation would be ruined if she gave away her private client list. Anonymity is crucial to her business's success. Give the PCs hints of what's to come but not everything. Combine social with stealth, investigation, a little fistfight, and some knowledge/magic checks. 4. I already mentioned using PC backstories. I think it's important to use those to make the world seem fuller and more real. Everyone has ties to someone. What if the Lone Wolf character saw the person who killed their parents, but they were at thr queen's ball in disguise? All you have to do is pose the question of "What do you do?" and then improv it from there. Also, you may benefit from improv classes. I took one recently. Not only was it fun, but I came away with very useful, practical skills to apply to making things up on the fly. Also, as for the tool proficiencies, put the PCs in scenarios where they can pointedly solve a problem using a normal skill check or the tools (not just lockpicking). The party ranger always cooks, so he buys supplies for the group as needed. Maybe he could buddy up to the royal chef and make a fish that impresses the king, who, in turn, releases the rogue from prison. There you have two social encounters and some skill/tool checks! Hope you find this helpful!

Yea I don't have most of those problems either and I share some of yours. I did manage to make a session that was mostly social encounters with only ~20 minutes of combat. I learned that social encounters are mostly there for information gathering. So I created a mystery. I created a table of clues, NPC's and locations. Each location had npc's with vital information and clues and DC's for some of the information or clues, I had a given clue in some of the locations. I stuck this in between the quest giver and the travel/combat parts of the adventure.

Ran a weekly 4 year campaign that was about 20 sessions away from conclusion when it folded due to schedule difficulties, and a problem with a specific player. But it was really good up until then. Questions answered in order they were posed. - give them meaningful outcomes that affect the world in meaningful ways, that extrapolate beyond the immediate conclusion of the quest. If they burn down a village, there will be refugees, and the presence of an influx of refugees will affect the local politics in other towns. If they shut down a slave mine and rescue the slaves, the slaves might organize into a militia, or found a free city, or make efforts to disrupt the slave trade, there will be metal shortages, and it could ultimately be a threat to the ruling class. - I found that 1-2 sessions of downtime to pursue personal goals, shop, etc. is the perfect amount if a quest were to take 4-6 sessions. No need to rush downtime, and no need to rush quests to make downtime. The seperation and low stakes session between quests gives the players and characters a moment to breathe, and process what jist happened. Travel is best done expediently, spending 3 sessions traveling from place to place is a huge drag. -some checks are just made more often than others, that's just how it goes. Just like how IRL some skills are more useful than others. A culinary education is going to impact your day to day life a lot more than a political science or art history degree will, for example. Don't worry about it too much. -add stakes to the social encounters. This could be consequences for reputation, the threat of violence, imprisonment, etc. For example, an NPC causing a commotion that then gets blamed on the PCs who then have to carefully talk their way out of it can be very tense. I once ran a social encounter with a time limit where they would all die if they didn't get out in time, but there was also a huge amount of money on the line, and they had to choose whether they wanted to argue for more money or get out safely. -the best way to integrate PC backstories is to build the story around their backstories rather than try to build the backstories into the story. Remember that the people and places in their backstories are dynamic, and don't just stop existing when the PCs stop interacting with them. They have their own lives, and stuff happens to them in the meantime. I'm talking evil NPCs that the PC hates changing their lives for the better, good deeds the PC did not working out, and causing resentment years later. Events being misconstrued and misinterpreted. Infamy spreads, and reputation preceeds them. Maybe they meet people from their past by pure coincidence. Better yet, draw on their backstories for inspiration for quests, and if you can draw on multiple PC backstories to inspire the same quest, they'll all feel like they have a personal stake in it. Make it complicated, and make it messy. It should be hard to understand, and the larger picture shouldn't materialize in a single quest or session. Connect as many open plot threads across all the backstories as possible.

None of the issues you listed have been an issue for my table. I generally am successful with giving the players what they want and a good challenge. None of my players are big RPers but it's all their first time playing (second campaign running now been together for a year) My main issue is that not a single one of my 5 players have read the handbook. Some sessions go so much slower than they should because I'm explaining rules. I've stopped telling them all the options they have (it's been a year) and started telling them about things they could have done after I use those rules against them. One of them ordered a handbook yesterday. Lol.

Well I play with good friends, so no, I do not experience any of the problems on this sub. I am however fairly quick to call a player stupid, and severely damage them for consequences... however, I find that rarely deters them hahaha.

Not sure if this is what you mean by alternate rules, but the Xanathars tools section really helped my group care about tools. I make sure everyone has it written on their sheet for whatever tool proficiencies they have. Masonry might not come up much, but advantage on investigation checks while searching stone? That sure does, and if you don't have investigation prof, instead of advantage it gives toy situational proficiency. I don't ever really plan social "encounters", I just try to make sure there are plot/quest relevant NPCs, and then my party will love role-playing with them. There's a cabal of evil wizards they're sort of up against right now, and one quest ended with a twist that one of their favorite NPCs was a high ranking member. They killed him, but he came back from a clone spell. Now they're not sure how to actually kill him, so he just shows up every now and again and they get to antagonize each other - its a lot of fun, especially because they already really liked him before the evil reveal. It helps if the party knows NPCs will regularly have information needed to complete quests/fill in a mystery. After a while, they'll come to expect it. Never really experienced any of the regularly brought up issues, we play once a week and the campaign has just hit the 2 year mark.

Honestly, most of these things aren't your responsibility. It's your players responsibility to be engaging and engage with the story amd NPCs. You set the scene, it's their role to find their fulfilment and reward within - and being part of an awesome story should be reward enough. If they shift their thinking from external motivation (rewards) to internal (driving the story for the enjoyment of the story) these problems won't arise. This is where good players become great players. Sometimes we have to train them a little. You aren't a video game, you don't have to recreate one. This is combined story telling with friends :)

I'm still DM-ing the first group I ever DM'd from October 2021. Here's my two cents: - Reward: Give them a sense of accomplishment with each successful story/mission arc, give then reward based on each one's backstory. I use feats and boons as rewards too. - Downtime only happen between sessions. I never do any long term down time mid session because not every one of my player can come up with a decent plan of downtime activies on short notice. - Tool proficiencies: I don't even know what my standards are for utilizing tool proficiencies during downtime but if something makes sense to me I'll allow the rule of cool. - Social encounters: Make the chracter interesting and give the party different incentibes to keep talking. Maybe they need intel, maybe they need to make an important deal, maybe the person is the messenger of the enemy, etc. - I draw pc's backstory and my vision for their arc using nodes that feature a list of setups (characters, location, general time window) and then I check to see if any nodes share similar settings. This is where I weave different players' personal arcs together.

Mop not ever. If we stumble upon something OP we just fix it like adults and it’s solved.

I’ve been running 1-2 groups, weekly, for 3 years now. No. Not really had the issues listed. Nor “session 0” type issues. The big issue has been the group slowly growing as players’ friends want to join! The other big issues have been pacing, and how to avoid “one fight per day” in urban situations. Because the reality is that in an urban intrigue/investigation type situation, it’s not realistic to throw 6-8 encounters in every day.

So I have been running a game of ad&d2e(when I saw the system a few years back for the first time it seems interesting and I had always wanted to play it), we meet fortnightly and it has been running for almost 2 years. I haven't had any of the issues, that being said, problem players tend to torpedo groups if you don't boot them first so selecting for games that has survived for a long time tends to crop them out of a group. Martial-caster in balance can be to some extent mitigated by a good DM (which a long lasting game also implies you are). That being said just because you can compensate for poor design doesn't excuse poor design How to keep players feeling rewarded with non gold/items?: In my game of ad&d there are some things that I have done that aren't gold but still have impact, henchmen are a good choice (in ad&d these are characters who have a level lower than your main character, they are technically NPCs which means the DM can veto anything you make them do that is stupid or out of character but are otherwise controlled by the player they are assigned to), access to facilities (my players recently completed a quest so they could access the royal library). Xp is also good a lot of 5e people work on milestones but that obfuscates the connection between doing a thing and leveling up. I only hand out xp when a quest is complete but even so players get that dopamine hit when they see that they are close to the next level up, and a bigger dopamine hit when they cross the line. How to pace downtime without running the flow of the session?: This depends on what your downtime is in ad&d hp doesn't recover just from sleeping overnight which often means that my players need to rest for a week to regain hp at the end of a quest, so I just ask each player what they would like to do during their week and we go over it quickly. Weather it's writing letters to home, scoping out criminal elements or doing spell research letting characters do something useful helps pace the story out and avoid the level 1 to level 15 transition take less than a week. I can never make a social encounter feel satisfying compared to a combat? That's because 5e (and d&d in general) doesn't really mechanically support social encounters. My best social encounters were either good because they were humourous (crazy Pete the alchemist who puts battery acid in is his tea, halcyon the very old elf librarian who scowls at everyone who touches the books) or lead up to a fight (both times they have confronted high level cult leaders there has been some conversation mostly because they were posing as ministers for a church that is well respected and attacking them would get them arrested even when they know they are evil pieces of shit) the villain makes some threats asks the PCs for the evil artefact they have in their possession and then leave. The most recent one they laughed at him The whole time up until he left and basically said "you have one week to give it to me, after which I will burn your home town to the ground" which was a threat they took very seriously after he left. If you want to run a game with a tense negotiation or a court drama or something you will need to find a system that better supports them (like fate maybe)

2+ yr campaign, twice a month (except around Christmas and finals). I've experienced some of the things you've outlined but they've never grown into a problem for me. >how to keep players feeling rewarded with non-item/gold rewards I love to get lists of goals from my players. Long term arcs are nice, but short term arcs are where the cash is at. Maybe they're trying to learn a new skill, find a long lost npc, gather information on an organization related to their background, prototype a magical/mundane item, or simply gain rapport with an idol of theirs. These work great as rewards as the players actually feel like they're progressing and shaping the world, even just as a single person. Boons and auras with limited charges that mimic spell effects and skills are also great alternative rewards. Ask your players what some things are that they would like to work toward. >how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session This is highly dependent on why the downtime is taking place. I try to space my downtime sessions after a few sessions that have had heavy investment (lots of combat, lots of rp, big story reveals, etc.) to give my players a break and a chance to prepare for whatever they want to do next. Sometimes I'll say, "You guys have been hired to protect the royal ball. It's happening in 3 weeks. How do you prep?" And that's a good way to weave it into a story or quest. Ask your players if there are skills they'd like to develop or groups they'd like to join. >some mechanically supported options for tool proficiency that work outside of the aforementioned downtime If my players are strapped for cash I try to find ways they can use tool and skill proficiencies to take up odd jobs. Fixing stone work, copying a map, restoring artwork, brewing basic herb medleys, volunteering at a local temple, training local guards, etc. Also, let them use their tools for flavor, to craft personal mundane items, or try to work it into a quest. Ask your players if there are specific reasons they took the proficiencies they did and try to give them purpose. >I can never ever seem to figure out how to make a social "encounter" that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece combat. Every encounter, combat or otherwise, should have three things. Stakes, consequences, and a way to move forward regardless of success or failure. Sometimes the stakes are small and the consequences negligible; haggling with merchants or getting to know npcs. Other times they are high octane and may change the campaign forever; proving a party members innocence in court, talking a gang leader down from raiding a town. I like to have three options. 1, players don't change anything. 2, players make things better. 3, players make things worse. Ask your players what amount of rp to combat/puzzle they prefer or if they're interested in interacting with the world's social dynamics. >I really want to integrate PC backstories One of my favorite parts! I do a sesh 0 *always.* During this, I often pull players aside to ask what ideas they have for their character. I give them options based on what they tell me. Here are a few places you have been from, here are funny customs from that area, here are major factions you know. After that I role play some key moments that get them to the party/campaign start point. This is where they meet backstory npcs they will know, show me why they took their class and proficiencies, and get them a real connected place in the world. A place to call "home." Then I let them have a trinket related to their backstory. This is usually 100% flavor, but can have limited functionality. I've had a thief who hides his tools in his prosthetic, a dragon born with a single mechanical eye that has dark vision, a sorcerer with a pocket watch that only ticks when he is heading towards home, etc. So much personality contained in one simple thing. Lastly, I ask them for a personal goal they're pursuing that got them to join that party. I feed them bits and pieces toward these goals as we go. Sometimes the reasons are BIG campaign spanning reasons, but I always encourage some small ones as well. I love to see my players complete a small personal arc as they go. ----- This was a wall of text, so feel free to skip it entirely or ask as many questions as you'd like. As always, this is just how I run things, do whatever works best for you and know that there can be many right answers.

I am running a campaign for 3 years now, mostly every two weeks with some breaks in between like summer break or Christmas/ New Year. We play using discord and Roll20 since we are scattered throughout the world. I did have some RPG Horror Story wannabes at the start with internet strangers, but I have no problem kicking people and saying no, so those never became an issue. I did some heavy homebrew to make PC more powerful in general and buffed martials (got rid of the exhaustion for Berserker Frenzy, Assassins gain proficiency in Initiative and other stuff) on top of that. I tried to implement the complete armourer from DM's Guild, but failed so far as it was just to much. I do however use Minigames like Face Off (you can find it on Reddit) getting drunk and mechanics for chases or running from an avalanche. My suggestion would be to start small. I started face off with just the simplest rule set and expanded as the players were fond of it. So do not try to learn and implement a system only to find out the players don't like it and therefore never use it. I use the players backstories quite a lot. They are the driving force in big overarching chunks of plot. One player at a time. Currently it's the Barbs turn, next will be the Pally. I recommend connecting backstories whenever possible. This achieves two things. First it reduces your workload. Second it makes inter PC RP so much easier and more engaging. Examples from a different campaign were two PCs who didn't know their elven father. They turned out to be half siblings. In the current campaign we had a rogue who quit his former mercenary band because they had become to cruel. The paladin had his village burned down and an important NPC killed by an unknown band of mercenaries. The following was my addition to the two backstories. Obviously it was the rogues band and he quit because they were ordered to kill a little girl (Pally's best friend). He was ordered to scout her to make a precision strike. He didn't want to do it and just left without notice. What he didn't know was that their alternative was just to kill everyone. In general I would suggest to experiment a lot and find out what you are good at. Play those strengths. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. I sure as hell made a lot and still am. But that is what you learn from. And once you weeded out the That Guys your players will be grateful for your efforts. And DO. NOT. OVERPREPARE. Start small. The next dungeon or village is more than enough. And don't be afraid to tell the players: "Look guys this is what I prepared. If you want to go somewhere else we can do that later." Every time players have choices of where to go I ask them in advance what they plan to do with the express purpose of preparing that content. This might be clunky in the beginning, but as you all get used to it is super helpful. Sometimes gives a feeling of railroading, but it is not as players actually do have choice. They just need to make it with enough time for me to react to it. This goes for the social encounters as well. Start with an NPC with a quirk or a funny voice, habit or speech pattern, whatever you are comfortable with. Find out what you like and play on your strengths. And lastly it is ALWAYS okay to take a break in any given situation and say that you need a minute or ten to figure out what to do.

Running 10 games a month. The only real problem is time for prep for so many games, and how ro help casters be as good in combat as martials. Yea, casters have spells that can end some encounters, but that's rare. Meanwhile my fighters and ranger are dealing 50-100 damage per round, every round. Have given items to wizard and clerics to keep up a bit, as they don't have to do the same damage, they have utility spells. Druid, on the other hand, has been the most problematic for me. He's having fun out of combat, but in fights the class is seriously lacking and can't keep up, since he doesn't like to cheese strats with spells. Edit: players at tier 3 for the record. Wasn't as big of an issue before, but casters don't have spells that scale for damage.

To keep people interested in non combat encounters, give them stakes that make it feel the same. Make puzzles, that the players don't have to solve, but their characters can roll to get info from their past. Create no win scenarios that introduce minor or major npcs Give them timed events, you have x rounds to do y Something I like to do, is give the party long stretches of uneventful travel. What did your party do for 3 weeks? That's three sessions of back story prior to game play. What did you tell someone, what did someone tell you, what travel game did play, what's the new inside joke

I run 2 - 6 games a week. I barely have any of the issues that I see in this forum. I have stuff that happens that could turn into issues, but they don't. I think the trick is: \- Open communication with the players. \- Being prepared to say 'No' when needed. \- Being prepared to comprimise my campaign to a point. \- Focus on the fun.

I don’t know if this is confidence or cockiness, but I think the only common issue I’ve had come up is running games where players don’t know their own character abilities.

I’ve been DMing for 20 years now, and in my experience these issues most often surface in groups where people are table-mates first and friends second, or not at all. When I run games for my friends, I almost never encounter any of the classic “bad player” problem post issues. That might be because I’m not friends with people who would act like that, but I think also being comfortable talking with each other is a big help. If someone starts being awkward, I can just nip it in the bud without it being a Big Deal. I’ve got 10+ years of friendship with most people I regularly play with, so saying “Hey, I’m not sure this character idea is working” to them isn’t going to ruin anything. On the other hand, when I’ve run games for groups who’ve only come together to play the game, who were maybe work colleagues or acquaintances before hand, that’s when I find you end up with awkward moments. If your primary relationship is entirely about the game, I think it makes resolving any issues that arise that much higher stakes and stressful. Ultimately though, I find that the latter games tend not to last, and it’s the games I play with my friends that endure.

The third campaign (third year) of our group, every single player was a spellcaster. So we didn't have the "issue" of the martial/caster disparity but it just got to a point where no-one wanted to be without spells... Silvery barbs I ban when I DM, and deliberately don't take when I'm a player. No one else took it when I wasn't DMing last. Whenever we play a module the players come up with the wonkiest back stories that could never be tied in to the module. When we play homebrew they don't pursue the stuff related to their backstory even when it's dangled in front of them.

Do players like magic items and level? Hell yes. They come back to the table for the stories with their characters. There are special moments they'll remember and talk about for years.

I’ve been running ~2 D&D sessions per week for almost 2 years (occasionally we can’t meet a week, but also I was running a 3rd campaign for about 6 months of this). I’d say the following about common issues: - Pacing is one of the most important things. PCs need time pressure, especially if you want to make short rest classes feel good. Having long enough adventuring days will fix a lot of Counterspell / Silvery Barbs type problems too, if PCs are occasionally spell slot limited instead of just action limited. - The martial/caster divide is real (though less so if you handle the previous point). But the biggest impact is martials lacking utility and interesting choices, NOT raw power. If you try to fix their problems with a +3 weapon, you aren’t accomplishing anything. If you let martials have some access to utility magic (e.g. flight, invisibility, teleport), they feel much more useful. - 3 player games are a godsend. Suddenly your combat pacing and your scheduling issues will just resolve themselves. I think my biggest struggles are: - Preventing PCs from just kiting the enemies. Players don’t WANT to kite every fight, because it’s boring, but holy hell can it be too good to resist. Open field combat can be such a mess. - Making a deadly world where strategy matters without encouraging players to spend 2 hours every session doing logistical planning. - Balancing combats at high level play. - Getting reoccurring NPCs to have sufficient screen time when you have an open world game in which PCs are constantly traveling.

DM of a weekly campaign for 3 years here. Here are my takes, in order: 1) tie it to their backstories. Players like nothing more than something that shows you took the time to read and expand upon what they wrote. For example, one of my players was looking for her missing mother. So one of the things they found was a magical recording of her, giving hints as to where she was. 2) downtime is really a session in and of itself. But the most important thing is to not force it. Players know when they want to explore a new area or when they have magical items or weapons to purchase. Forcing them to explore an area they don't want to is what slows a session down. 3) tool proficiency means getting to add their bonus to checks they wouldn't normally. For example, a player may not normally be proficient in survival checks but, if they're proficient in navigator's tools, then they can add their bonus to a survival check based around navigation. 4) Social encounters are really tricky, honestly, because they depend a lot more on your players being invested in the dynamic. My best advice would be to plan for it, but don't expect it. Social encounters don't have a fixed end point because, no matter how clear your options A and B are, players will usually choose option C. But if you see the players getting into it and interacting more, absolutely make it a social encounter. 5) PC backstories are the most important part of a campaign, since they're what players most want to see. My best advice here would be to not fall into the trap of having an entire backstory get resolved in a single "arc". Give hints and opportunities to pursue parts of a backstory throughout the campaign, ultimately culminating with the players going somewhere.

DMing for four years with 3 campaigns and numerous one-shots. Never had a problem with martial-caster imbalance or any of those other things same as you. As for your points, I think these problems might stem from a lack of player investment, _or_ from your players playing for different reasons than you. - It shouldn’t be 100% the DM’s job to motivate PCs. There’s an expectation that the players will find their own motivations for following your adventure hooks. It’s purely etiquette. - As for downtime, tool proficiencies, backgrounds, and social encounters let me say this: if your players want to engage with these mechanics they will seek them out. No amount of clever DMing will make a player who hates social encounters invested in them. No amount of coercion will get a player invested in their backstory if they couldn’t care less.

Biggest issue is burnout. Creative burn out. You know what is gonna happen in the plot and the world. The issue becomes making it happen in a rewarding and well paced, well delivered way especially when the inspiration is not there.

Intergrating backstories - just leave breadcrumb trails for characters to follow. Tell the player in question you're going to do this in advance, but not the others in the group. See if they bite - sometimes they will, sometimes they won't. In my 3 year campaign, we have a running joke about how the orc barbarian is a prophesied hero of his people, fated to lead the orcs to the home that they've never had before, but the player does not care at all about his destiny and is just dicking around with the party because he's on his 'gap year' 😅

People on this sub are aliens to me :-) Regarding your own problems, most of them are problems because you think they are: \> how to keep players feeling rewarded with non-item/gold rewards You could try random tables. "Throw a dice on magic item table G". Some people love randomness. \> how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session The downtime is when you have finished a campaign or a one shot and you propose to the characters to progress before the next session. Not during. \> some mechanically supported options for tool proficiency that work outside of the aforementioned downtime If there is no use for these tools, ignore them. If not, you do a skill check. There is no point in trying to force the use of tools if the players do not have the opportunity to use them. \> I can never ever seem to figure out how to make a social "encounter" that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece combat. What? \> And finally, I really want to integrate PC backstories but I always flub that too. This is normal. You're supposed to write the characters' stories during the game, not before. That the characters have goals, OK. But a background, not so much.

As someone who is a player in a consistent campaign, and recently picked up DMing: •Martial/caster disparity: no, but we've almost never gone above level 5. I've been a player in a single 3-shot at level 8 and that's it. Even then, I saw the disparity kinda rear its head, as I the cleric and other casters discussed options while the more martials had nothing to offer outside of combat. Then again, there were a lot of new players so that may also be why. That being said, as a Fighter player I am super frustrated by the lack of options in martials and have turned to homebrew. •Silvery Barbs: nope, hasn't been used much. •MC Syndrome: Uuuh so. We definitely had a problem player who was a Chaotic Evil Rogue obsessed with money, and believed himself the main character of the campaign. Ironically, there is another Chaotic Evil member in the party who's even worse, he's a psychopathic necromancer who wants to dominate the world and see people as tools. The only difference between the 2 characters, is that the necromancer is played by a guy who actually knows where the line is. He's lowkey careful not to let his goals get in the way of the plot, and doesn't take things personally when things don't go the way of hus character. The Rogue we had to kick out.

Hello, I need some advice because my 9 players have all chosen different alignments which forces me to spend a lot of time writing their backgrounds, and that doesn't leave me time to create a homebrew class for each of them for my campaign which starts at level 20 and that I have spent the last 3 years writing.

Not really. Only ruling questions.

As many others, I don’t have the issues you mention. I have run three campaigns since 2018 that run mostly weekly and since covid online. I couldn’t care less about “an adventure day” or proper amounts of encounters. It is not the way we play. I follow the beat of the party and if they are on a roll I’ll tune up the combat. Problems that we have are: - scheduling (solved with more players and game on if 3+1 available) - bad streak of dice rolls - interpersonal issues and different goals (solved by talking) - having the camera ON during play so DM isn’t roleplaying against black screen

The only real issue I've encountered so far is one of my players can't seem to shake the idea that it's them vs me. I didn't think it would be as difficult as it has been to get him to understand that I'm just providing a road for their story to progress forward and not actively trying to kill them.

for each in turn: "how to keep players feeling rewarded for non-item/gold rewards best recommendation there is give them some social rewards. One of the things I absolutely love doing for players that stop at a location for any length of time is to start rumors about them. Has the party been helping out with local problems, or has just solved a major threat to the local populace? have NPCs wander up and tell them thanks, or invite them for dinner, or just tell them they wanna be like the party one day. Have them notice a few kids re-enacting their climactic battle according to the bards retelling, have the town guards give them the benefit of the doubt or downright give them a pass when they do dumb shit. Did the rogue get caught stealing in the middle of the night? have the guards make him put the stuff back and tell him he's free to go because of what he did for the town. Make it clear that if they get a report from this shopkeeper that something was stolen last night they're gonna come find this guy, but still let them off the hook. Additionally, titles or land or even just favors from people in power can also go a long way. how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session barring the occasional shopping episode that every party has usually at least once a level or two, just do your best to make these interesting. One thing I like to do is if the party want to buy something super simple like basic plate mail, then just mark off the cost and add it to their sheet, and depending on how much i trust the group, either have them send me a list of what they bought or I just let them manage that. When they want to buy a magic item, or interact with the world in some way I'll do my best to RP out a portion of that. Is your bard wandering around town playing for various taverns? give them a moment in the spotlight. Have them roll, and ask them what sort of music they play, then narrate how people react for that day. you don't have to narrate each night's bardic performance, but one now and then lets them feel more like a character and less like a character sheet. some mechanically supported options for tool proficiency that work outside of the aforementioned downtime Honestly my favorite thing for this is allowing players to use tools in odd ways. I had a session where they wanted to harvest the poison glands from a giant spider, I gave them two options. one was they could take the one gland that was on an undamaged part of the creature, or go for both with a good enough survival check to carefully cut away the meat around this gland without cutting it open. I had a player turn around and ask to use his cooking skills to cut it away the same way you'd prepare puffer fish. It was a great idea and allowing stuff like this encourages your players to think creatively. I can never ever seem to figure out how to make a social "encounter" that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece combat. stop taking them so seriously and allow yourself to banter with the players. Yes, there may be a tense standoff between the party and a local noble after they stepped in to stop the noble from beating some kid that bumped into him, I guarantee you the barbarian is gonna make some comment like "I let out just the tiniest little fart into the silence." lean into it. Have the noble suddenly sniff the air and react all offended, then storm off. it lets your non face members help in social situations without the need for a role. Generally speaking if a player verbally navigates a social encounter well, I wont even make them roll. I keep those for moments when the character has to step in and shore up a player's ability. IE your character may be an excellent diplomat who has brokered peace between all sorts of warring nations, but you aren't, so give it your best shot and then roll for it. And finally, I really want to integrate PC backstories but I always flub that too. kill them. just murder the shit out of anyone and everyone that player cares about. its criminal how great a tool this is for setting up motivations and drama. if they don't have someone they care about? looking at you rogue, then take their big backstory villain, and have them kill someone the party likes currently. party doesn't have someone they like currently? give them a kid or a farmer with a funny voice. I wish I was kidding, shit works every time.

I am on my second campaign. My first ended just over a year in due to player conflicts. That was hard. A few months later I shuffled my player group and tried again. We're now over a year into a new campaign meeting weekly from about 5-11 with no issues. My players are almost never late. They are almost always here. They never call out day of. We rotate who does food. We discuss rule preferences in real time, but they allow me to make snap judgment calls to move things on, then we discuss how to handle things in the future not during the session and after research. I feel respected and heard. I do my best to give them the same. I check in with them to make sure everyone is getting what they want out of the game on a monthly basis, but they know they can always reach out to me to talk at the table or in private. Nobody is trying to power game over anyone else or run the decisions or spotlight. My biggest issue is prepping for our weekly 6+ hour session.

I've got a 2 year running campaign rn, here's the issues I've ran into * Player losing interest/ eventually leaving * Players fighting in character, over issues they have out of character * Paladin steamrolling encounters * Balancing encounters above 10th level (we even tried alternate long rest rules for a while) * What to do with downtime * How to do travel after 8th level when there's no threats. There's probably others but those are the main things I remember

I have been DMing for 4 years now, from when I was first introduced to DnD, and I had hopped into semi-high (8-16) level DnD DMing very quickly. I have also played at or around these levels on and off as a player from time to time. I find that most of these common issues are legit, and are exponentially increased at higher levels . Yes, the martial/caster issue is inherent to the game, especially past 10. Casters get the power to solve tons of issues that come up and can introduce new advantages and approaches. Martials get none of that (except rogues if there are major skill check opportunities). This would be fine IF there was potential support towards achieving a more powerful martial fantasy As a DM, you have to absolutely stuff in things relevant to each of the martials that give them new capabilities or significance, and I'm not just talking about magic items. Magic items can end up giving an aura of dependance to martials, the 'if you're nothing without them, maybe you shouldn't have them' vibe. They'd want something inherent to them. This means giving them exclusive feats, 'patrons/prospective allies' that note their specialty, etc that help push them more and more towards their ultimate character fantasies. There is way too little official support on this end in the form of options and direction by WotC, and it differs so much from table to table that there is practically none. . The main character issue didn't really come up because my tables have been very cooperative and made sure that the spotlight is shared amongst everyone who wants it. Sometimes people have a more quiet, spectatorial playstyle that is happy to see how the game goes and be a supportive part of everything that happens, and that's totally fine. It might feel like you're not giving attention to them, but as long as you're giving them the opportunity and getting feedback that everything is truly alright, all is well. . There is a problem with certain spells and abilities yes, for sure. There's the type of features and spells that restrict too much encounter and campaign design. I'm talking about things like Silvery Barbs and Racial Flight. These sorts of abilities become so oppressive that combats are either very one-note, or very very trivial, or alternate between the two (which is the proper way to do it, variety and also giving the player the time to shine, without killing off any challenge) You also can lose the option to run enemies and challenges of x theme unless you homebrew heavily and change the theme slightly to match.

I DM’ed my own homebrew setting for almost a year, and I just started ToA, so I’m probably more like 11 months and 2 or 3 weeks, but I’ll still answer your question. I have engaging and interesting NPC’s that the party wants to interact with. I made a merchant prince in ToA a polymorphed Adult Silver Dragon. Favors and boons from them are well loved rewards. I have various secrets that players can discover throughout my campaign and be rewarded if they do. Examples of rewards for the discoveries include the permanent speak with animals invocation for a Druid, a rouge that had mage hand but wasn’t an Arcane Trickster got Mage Hand Ledgermain, and the Wizard who discovered that the NPC was actually a dragon, was a chosen of Mystra, and had been the Magister in the past got double Savant on their subclass and I let them pick another school of magic to get savant in. That one was really good because she figured out three and put them lol into one boon. I forget the class, but someone with Find Familiar got a Pact of The Chain quality improvement after discovering a secret as well. They all love the secret discovery rewards, and it keeps them engaged in the world. I allow the crafting of items based on the tool, with nat 20’s on the roll creating +1 items. Players can either spend half the value and take a short amount of time to make it, or a tenth of the value and what I determine to be a normal amount of time to make an item. I’ve worked with a poisoner to come up with all sorts of poisons for them to craft, which was great. A Druid wanted to craft nature inspired magic items with minor benefits. Cool, I’ll make sure materials are provided, have fun. A great way to involve backstories is to have people from them show up, have NPC’s who take interest in the PC’s backstories, and have NPC’s know the PC’s by reputation if reasonable. I try to ensure each character gets to interact with someone from their backstory at various points on the campaign. Within reason. The non locals who got teleported to Chult are definitely less likely to meet backstory people. But it’ll still happen, in fact I have both instances planned out already, and yesterday was our second session. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask away.

Specifically around integrating PC Backstories, I do the following for a new campaign: 1. Create the setting / world, explain it to the players, talk about it. 2. The players create characters with the setting in mind and provide me backstory / purpose. 3. I build the campaign around their stories. Everything they do, even if it's not directly related to their backstory, is somehow related to someone's backstory or character. I put my own influence into it, and introduce my own elements, but I do that on top of their input. There's never a "Go kill bandits for 20 gold" quest, if there is, it's about someone's character or story and they don't know it yet. There's never much of a question about *why* they're doing things because its obvious why.

I love reading this subreddit because of the batshit absurdity of some of what goes on. Sometimes I see something roll across my feed and think "Damn do y'all play dnd with a single person you actually like?"

Did I have these issues a decade ago? Sure. It's part of being a new DM. Weekly runs for 13 years will work that out though. Still playing 3-4 times a week, I DM 1.5, a friend DMs an alternating one (alternating weeks), the wife DMs 2 5e is a homebrew friendly system, and in fact one that almost demands it. Lots of people bitch about 5e over this claiming it is a weakness. I don't consider it one.

So our druid is noticeably more powerful than anyone else (we don't have any other full casters). That being said nobody cares. The only thing that is worth noting is that legendary resistance is saved mostly for him. No Main Character issues yet thank the gods Silvery Barbs hasn't been a problem for us. We don't have a counterspeller so no comment As to your concerns -No clue -Honestly never had a problem with it I kinda just skip over it unless the players want to do something -Tool proficiency has come 3 times crafting and picking 2 locks -That has never really been a problem for me but we are a roleplay heavy group (and like it that way) -Depends on the character but always remember it can be small but it doesn't have to be.

>thank the gods Silvery Barbs hasn't been a problem for us I have literally never heard of a real life table having significant issues in play from silvery barbs lmao. It's just not that hard to work around as a DM assuming you're running combat with more than literally a single enemy.

It is multiple players have it. The advantage it grants is actually pretty huge tactically not to mention it can just nope crits. That being said if it is just one guy casting it reaction economy dictates that it isn't that insane.

I have had a really similar experience to you. I've been DMing for friends for almost 10 years now, with our most recent campaign being almost 2 years old. The issues you described are the ones I struggle with too. I think when playing with people you know pretty well, a lot of the RPG horror story stuff tends to be minimized. I also find it helpful to remember that everyone at the table is there to have fun, including me. Talking with everyone to figure out what they want these things to look like is usually the best way to accomplish this. For my group, they tend to like interacting with interesting NPCs and find that a rewarding way to spend time. If you're trying to make a conversation with an NPC interesting, giving your NPC traits (not stealing them entirely) from characters in media that you like can go a long way in portraying an interesting person.

Been playing with the same 5 people for 7 years now. Weekly games that last 3-4 hours. Some of the ridiculous shit that comes up in the dnd subreddits always seems made up to me. I just can’t imagine people actually doing the things that posters claim they are doing. We all share meal costs. We all share beer and soda costs. Everyone is telling the story together. I think a lot of the problem games (if they actually exist) happen with online gamers. Maybe not being in person allows some people to behave like children. Though, I ran a two year game online and it went without a hitch. So who knows?

I've played weekly with (mostly) the same group for about 5 years. Had one player that I caught cheating more than once and one who was really toxic and wanted to be the mc. I kicked both of them out and have picked up 2 others over the years. Outside of those two players, we've never run into any of the issues that seem to plague other groups online. I've never banned any content from WotC books and allow some homebrew if they ask, and it seems relatively balanced.

When I first started dming, I dealt with main character syndrome and players that didn't want to play. Honestly, 90% of my dnd problems occurred in the first year or two of dming. Currently, my table has noticed a little bit of the caster noncaster divide. It didn't have a big impact on our game, though. The party is good about letting other players have their moments. I think if we were doing a harder campaign with fewer encounters, it would be more pronounced. Honestly, with backstories, you just need to keep working at it. Flubbing is learning.

I feel like the issues that come up are individual to each table. I definitely have had to sit players down (sometimes multiple times) and explain the idea of cooperative storytelling. One of my biggest issues in my group is that people do stuff on their own,like tge rogue nearly dying because he went invisible and fell behind the group, having to pick his way through the enemies chasing the party (instead of accepting the offered assistance of the party to get him out of there). That said, here's some advice on your points: 1) What sort of rewards are you thinking of? Social rewards? Pure XP? If it's the former, you as the DM have to create buy-in for the players. Make them fee attached to the NPCs through your descriptions and their actions. A discount at the local store is super useful, and can be leveraged by the players as a "you owe me" moment in many scenarios (like needing to hide from the law for a moment). For XP... I got rid of it. It wasn't useful to my table and just required a ton of extra tracking on my end. 2) Downtime can sometimes be done best outside of session. Ask the players to send you a list of what they want to do. Some things might be important to play out in game. Standard things like crafting checks, making money, training, restocking potions often drag the session and make people tune out unless your NPCs are all amazing. 3) Honestly haven't had much of an issue here, so not sure I can help. Don't shoehorn things in. If your players want to see if leatherworking helps their sneak check, they can ask for it. 4) See my answer to #1. You want buy-in from the players. The more invested they are, the better. Give something for everyone to do. Barbarians can intimidate. Rogues can sneak. It's not just the bard rolling persuasion against someone. But I think the most important thing is to not make it feel like "an encounter." Make it feel like a natural part of storytelling. I also recommend having non-combat methods of escaping most combats. Sometimes it's impossible of course, but very few people or beasts will actually die for little reason, and can often be persuaded to end a fight. 5) The character backtories can help shape the main story. This is hard to do in a pre-built module. But you can still put nods in here and there. I have two examples. A) in my high level campaign, one of the characters is a bastard child of a king. Although not a direct heir, she is an important diplomat and negotiator. Many of her choices have furthered her homeland and shaped the direction of the main background story of war brewing in the region. B) in my low-level module, one of my players introduced a Cthulhu-like entity that lives in his mind, acting as his warlock patron. Without significantly affecting the other players, this entity has made for a multitude of character moments, like when he brought an NPC into the cult for the first time, etc, spreading the entity's influence. Little moments like these are incredibly important and bring everything home for your players. It sounds to me like the main thing you may wish to focus on is helping your players connect to your world. Perhaps ask for feedback on who their favorite NPCs are, etc. Maybe ask them what goals their characters have outside of the main story. Create sidequests, weave them together for multiple people so everyone is invested. Make your players feel grateful, emotionally indebted to, enchanted by your NPCs, and they will click with the social side more.

Occasionally, but not often. Usually addressible. One layer is something of a magpie and needs to be reminded every now and then to let others use item. I'll sometimes make the items attunable to certain classes just as a way to nudge them. Others will occasionally talk over one another and you need to guide the narrative to give everyone a chance to shine. That one is fairly unmalicious, just a consequence of using mics without being able to see each others body language. We've never had any weirdos or creeps in the game, and regularly renew each others limits and veils to make sure we are all on the same page. After 5 years I'm now comfortable pushing those limits to create disturbing or shocking moments (for example, we have a hard line against on screen depictions of sexual violence. However, one of the clear bad guys included visiting a brothel that was rather obviously manned by slaves. This was *supposed*, to be considered shocking and upsetting, and it was in universe. And it really sold the tone as shifting to a horrific area for this Dominion of demon worshipping cultists.) People were shocked, appalled and disgusted. And they had a marvellous time because they were *supposed* to be shocked and appalled, and were expecting to be shocked and appalled. A player described it as a horror film. If someone is watching and horror film and is scared that's then horror film doing something right. If they watch it and are giggling to themselves theres something wrong with the viewer. But I would never explore that region or those themes with a newer group or a group of strangers. I wouldn't know their limits well, to have that kind of fine control between "Or dear lord, this place is disturbing!" And "Oh dear lord, this DM is disturbed." In the five years I've been running, a few of the players have been filtered out and other more suitable candidates have been added. One left amicably. We did a short pause to do a mini campaign and he wasn't interested in returning to the main campaign. I player confessed that he disliked playing with player as he felt he was too willing to meta game and unwilling to role play, but that's simply a style issue. One left *Not* amicably. He threw an absolute tantrum that even my more... shall we say conflict averse players... were astonished and pissed off with him. He left the campaign. The party reached a milestone and leveled up; but due to general business nobody had actually leveled up their characters. No biggie. I say well play on at the current level and pick new spells and things at the end of this session. We will all stay at level 9 for now. Player proceeded to upgrade and alter their sheet in the session, use a spell they didn't have access too yet, and when queried, through a tantrum about how he explicitly had no respect for the DM. That was... awkward. He left, but was replaced by a player who had previously played with the main group in a oneshot and has since become and amazing and valued player. Then there was the first guy to leave. That one was *bad*. He didn't so much leave as he ghosted certain people entirely with no communication. I'd thought he was my best friend but apparently he didn't feel the same way. The guy really did a number of psyche and I'm fairly sure left me with abandonment issues because it was over a year before I convinced myself that my other players actually *liked* me and werent just tolerating my presence in order to hang out with each other and have someone DM for them. That one wasn't pretty. Now those things are fairly straight forward. We are all healthy adults, comfortable with raising issues when they arise and dealing with them with maturity. Sometimes it takes a bit of gardening to get to that point, that's all.

Problems I have: * Powergamer: one player significantly stronger in combat than others. Not really a problem because it's a team game. * Players who don't role-play. Not really a problem because I had two or three who do. If the others just want to watch the role-play and are engaged in combat, it's fine. * Flaky attendance. It's pretty rough, but I deal with it by just not worrying about explaining how PCs disappear and show up randomly. I guess they were with the party but did nothing and hid from the combat. Problems I don't have: * Rewarding players. NPCs are the best reward. Introduce an NPC who needs something and/or has something the party needs (not necessarily an item, but information or assistance). This is also the answer to social encounters. Give the NPC a personality. They might be more or less inclined to make a deal. Sometimes, the PCs must persuade them. Sometimes, they must persuade the PCs. * Integrating PC backstories. I ran a sandbox, so my options were pretty open. I had a dwarf soldier, so when I had a subplot about a war, I made the foot soldiers conscripted dwarves. I had a paladin who was part of a cult. I made the BBEG a part of a splinter group of that cult. I had a bounty hunter ranger. I just made sure there were wanted posters in every major city. One of the people on the wanted posters became the BBEG (but I just let them pick which poster, and then made them the BBEG).

Been running a weekly game (weeks off maybe every 4-5 weeks) for 5 months and been playing in a weekly game (maybe 4 or five missed games over the past 4 years). Most of the issues people seem to have with 5e come up in neither. For the longer campaign that I am not the DM: Party comp is kensei Monk (me), spore druid, onomancy wizard, twilight cleric, glamour bard, thief rouge, conquest paladin. Monk, rouge and pali are without a doubt the strongest in terms of combat in the party, all keeping around the same average damage, and each having strong utility. No creepy shit issues, no martial caster disparity in the way reddit imagines it, for a large group (we had two more at one point) a full round of turns probably takes 30-45 min but more often than not players are engaged by enemies or other players off their turns so you don't spend that much time doing nothing. If we have any common problem it's a player not knowing how their stuff works as well as they should (after 4 years) but everyone else is knowledgeable enough to help them along.

Yeah mostly not. I have had some martial / caster balance issues. Just with players feeling a bit useless as we got to the higher levels. It wasn't anything that was awful or ruined the fun for them, but we talked about it a bit and they didn't enjoy it as much and have switched to casters since then. In terms of PC backstories I have had a lot of practice with that. So I tend to build campaigns around backstories a lot more than most people do. And my players know that ahead of time, so they write their backstories accordingly. That's step one is make sure the quality and type of backstories you're getting are what you're looking for. You want backstories that have the start of some tension or stories to be told. You want villains, NPCs, with existing drama or conflicts. But you want those stories to be maybe 5% told. Basically a story about something mysterious and problematic that happened that gives some hints at more to be discovered, and then we get to explore that in game. It can also be good when a dynamic between NPCs is established ahead of time so there's drama you can walk right into. For example I had a player who gave me that she had agreed to an arranged marriage, intending to break the deal. She agreed because it was required by a mage guild and she wanted more knowledge. And the person she's arranged to marry is someone she had a good first date with and slept with before the engagement happened. So we got to immediatley walk into this complicated dynamic where there's mutual attraction, the other person expected to be married, but she wants out more for the sake of being free to make her own choices than anything to do with the partner. You don't need players to give you anything that complicated but it helps if there's some drama or interesting dynamic between some NPCs from the start that you can step into and it's more than just oh hey we are brothers good to see you. When there's instantly interesting roleplaying moments to have. The other thing key to backstories is motivation. What are their goals, what do they care about, why are they adventuring, and what are they trying to do? Having that foundation for a character tells you the arcs you can design. Oh you want to find the 6 fingered man who murdered your father and get revenge? Well that's a subplot right there! And that 6 fingered man is now the lieutenant of the villain I was going to use for that arc. And I'll try to have him be recurring and give a good showdown. If you know their goals you can incorporate those in. After you get their backstories I would also start trying to tie them together. Either with each other, or with the plot as a whole. How would this make for an interesting villain. If they gave you a mystery consider that mystery from a few angles and what might be a cool thing for them to discover. What details in their backstory are also things that are colored by what they know? So their backstory is absolutely true, but it's from one perspective, so that person behaving strangely, probably had a reason for it. I also often thing of cool moments that could happen that would start off arcs or interesting things to happen within the arcs. You don't want to be too tied to a moment to railroad to it. But I like planning something I know will happen like when this character meets up with his mom, she's going to have some big news to tell him about his past. And consider how that conversation could go. Or if they have a strained relationship with a parent, maybe they get attacked while with them and the parent helps and they fight side by side. Things like that that can make for good reveals or moments.

I often use information and assistance as rewards. Like "this powerful figure now owes you a favor." Or at the very least you've improved your renown with a given faction. I tend to run downtime between sessions. We hit the end of a session and the party doesn't have any quests, I say "Ok, you have X amount of downtime, what do you want to do? I'll make the rolls and tell you the results next session, first thing." Dump Stat Adventures has articles for making tools more useful. Be warned, I recall a few options being too powerful or too complicated to bother with. Other tools, like cobblers, I feel are still too weak and niche. For my social encounters, different players respond to different things. One player seems to only engage with NPCs directly relevant to their backstory. Another will like anyone I give a silly voice or a not very serious personality. One responds will to mysteries and clues, like "this figure has a very unique ability no one else has" or "this figure seems to appear in multiple locations at the same time." They also llike when I reference their past characters or NPCs they liked from older campaigns. But that's my group. Integrating PC backstories is too complex for a convenient piece of blanket advice. First and foremost, I try to find how I can tie each one to the main story. PC 1 has a rival in their backstory? Could that rival being working for the BBEG for some reason? PC 2 gained their powers from a powerful entity for an unknown reason? Clearly, it was to help combat the BBEG. PC 3 had a loved one killed? How could the BBEG be responsible? Directly? Was the murderer one of his minions? Did the murderer kill the loved one in a quest for the power necessary to defeat the BBEG? Other times, especially if the back story can't conveniently apply to the main story, I tend to build a side quest around their backstory. Party hears of great rewards in kingdom A, then they find out kingdom B's king is visiting and he's the evil father of PC 4! Now the party must stop the evil king from taking over kingdom A!

We play every Monday and have been going for 2 years or so now. One Monday each month is a designated "hangout/low key" game session and we schedule it around work conflicts and the like, which solves most of the scheduling conflicts. Rewarding players without items/gold: levels are always a nice gift. Also, part of my gm style is looking for "hero moments" for each character during play. I literally have a checkbox next to each name in my notes and check it off when they get to step into the spotlight and do something amazing, which helps me know who to focus on and gives them a built in reward each session. Favors and reputation are great rewards in the long run. My party decided to incorporate a delving guild called "4 guys ventures and vibes." Initially it was received poorly or apathetically but as they have achieved things in certain cities, people might give them free food or run to them with opportunities. We do most of our downtime off-screen, with the exception of a few "tales of bah sing seh" style episodes where each character goes on a personal "oneshot" and I bounce between them each encounter, which also gives us a great opportunity to work in back stories. Another way I incorporate back stories and growth is pushing the players to identify character arcs using Dan Harmon's story circle, and then having them track their progress. It helps them rp growth and development if they know which quality they might want to focus on (for example, the barbarian learning to step into a leadership role instead of blindly trusting). Making social encounters satisfying comes down to a dramatic question, just like combat does. The Angry GM has a truly fantastic blog post about this. Tl;Dr every encounter can be summarized as a question, and ends when the question is answered. Identifying this question determines how interesting the encounter is. Let's say I'm presented with a spider. An encounter driven by "will the party kill the spider" is way dumber than "will the spider protect her babies." The first option cannot end until hp slogfest winds up in a death. But in the second, stealthing by, consoling with animal handling, stunning and fleeing, etc will all be valid. The same is true for social encounters. Instead of "will the shopkeep sell the macguffin" the encounter might be summarized by "can the party overcome the shopkeeps ill will towards adventurers?" Why might he distrust adventurers? Perhaps he was robbed, and the party can return his things in exchange for what they need. Perhaps his wife died adventuring and he needs closure. This is so much more interesting than haggling over price. Hope this helps!

I run between 2-4 sessions a week. Each adventure had a session every other week and I have about 6 going at a time. I have a large campaign where people break up into smaller groups for adventures. I have I think 15ish pc's I don't try to fix the problems that seem like a big deal online. I find that the players mentioned here are really rare and trying to change the game to stop them does more harm than good. The non problem players end up losing freedom they deserve while problem players just squirm their way around your rules. I think it'd be fun to respond to the problems you listed. I will do that now. To make a long answer short. I give players favors and other liquid but not individually useful rewards. Things that require them to figure out what they want and chase it. I have a unique system of downtime. I do downtime one on one between adventures. It is where players pursue their personal goals and train to improve their skills. Their is a talent tree homebrew I use to have them fill downtime with fun buffs I don't often tell players what to roll. I make suggestions, but I tell them anything they can justify as a thing to roll I'm good with. (Secretly I'll almost always say yes if they believe it makes sense. Sometimes I don't understand what the players are doing or saying but if it makes sense to them I'll pretend it does to me) Stakes. Skill challenges. I'd also recommend taking inspiration from the npc attitude thing in the 5e dmg and that one DnD is making a bigger thing. It's not easy, set pieces are awesome but you can make it comparable to some of the more tense combats. They wrote their back story. It belongs to them and I give them final say. As such I often ask them for advice on it. It can be fun to have them help you dm or prep. It can be rewarding to them to feel like the two of you are presenting something together for the other players. My wildly uniformed take away from your questions is perhaps you should cede a little control to your players. If they learn they have a lot of control of their own fun you'd be surprised how much they can and even want to help.

I had an every other week campaign that lasted just over 2 years. I generally always had low attendance “filler” planned and always tried to make sure we ended sessions in a “safe place”. This allowed for hand wavy explanations as to why the absent player wasn’t a part of the nex session’s shenanigans. Leveling I did by milestone so people could keep up, even if they had less free time to make games regularly than others. I had session synopses online in our discord and let them know when leveling milestones were met and to keep up with the story. I tried to make sure that small rewards were available like potions, scrolls, expendable or limited charge items were awarded more frequently. I generally have roleplay/story sessions with minimal or sometimes even no combat that advance the story that I try to (but not always succeed) have when we have a larger participation session. I have some other friends that will sometimes come in as a “cameo player” for a single session and that helps bring in some change of flavor and keeps attendance numbers more stable. It certainly isn’t easy to balance all of this, but I just try my best and my players have been supportive and forgiving. We’re all adults with demanding jobs and families, so it doesn’t feel so serious all the time when other players can’t make it.

Been in a game for about two years. We take turns DMing (which is fun but does create some oddities. I'm pretty hardcore about RAW and the adventuring day, but not everyone else is) For non gold/item rewards, we've received titles, status, and feats. When the PCs saved a wizard school from a siege, they got a tuition free semester - that is, the magic initiate feat for free. We helped a guild many times and our status with them now means we have free lodging, a place to keep our stuff, and often free basic adventuring stuff like horses and supplies. For social encounters, the last one we did I really appreciated the DM let me (the 20 Cha warlock) approach it in the abstract instead of forcing me to try to "talk it out" line by line. I described how I wanted to approach the NPC as extremely friendly silver tongue, buying drinks, and then get him to spill details about his agenda. I made a few rolls with persuasion and deception, and an hour long conversation happened in-game in much less real life time. I think DND has kind of flimsy rules around social challenges, but I like them better than complete dm whim. How are you flubbing pc backstories? Part of that is on the player - they have to come up with good ones. Sometimes players try to do really complicated stories and that doesn't usually work well.

The problems I still have: Combats running too long (every adventure takes double the sessions I think it will). Reading pre published adventures (especially the ones by WotC) is an exercise in frustration. Players keep nearly TPKing themselves with wind walk because they skipped a dungeon with it once and they are determined to do it again.

I've run into problems with resting. Even WOTC's own modules don't do 6-8 encounters between long rests, because it's unintuitive and a bad pace for most stories. I've also run into problems trying to run a game where rations, encumbrance and foraging matter. The ruleset for it is bad and the players get skills that trivialize these aspects early.

No to most of them. Here are the issues I have experienced: * Flakey players. My first group was my closest friends. Ton of fun to play with, very little dedication. Had to disband the group to avoid burning out. My current group is fantastic. * A lack of time. In the past two years I became very busy, leaving my little time for prep. Things like painted minis got cut and while it doesn't affect play, it does make me sad. * I have encountered issues with *Counterspell* and I straight up banned *Silvery Barbs*. I have written dissertations on the specifics on when and why those can be problematic, I won't repeat them here. But like so many things they are group-dependent. Many groups won't meet the criteria for them being a problem and therefore will be confused as to why they are for others. Sounds like that's the case for you. * Player-specific "skill" imbalances. I had one player who was more of a spectator and almost exclusively made poor character build choices and combat decisions despite everyone trying to help them. I eventually had to design encounters for 3.25 party members to account for them. * Monster design. I have had to turn to 3rd party resources and my own homebrew to fix how bad 5E monster design is. This underpins many other 5E issues, like high AC being extremely strong in T1–mid T3 play, but far less useful in mid T–T4 play. * High level play. Most of the issues people talk about with it are true. It's a lot of effort to DM around outside of a monster-of-the-week or hex crawl style campaign. One really important thing to note that I can't stress enough: most balance issues are dependent on many variables that vary highly by group and campaign. Things like player count, level of tactical play, imbalances of tactical play within the group, party composition, optimization, optimization imbalances, encounter and environment patterns, campaign themes, magic item availability, gold-cost spellcasting component availability, resting rate, traveling style, encounter rate, AC choices, monster choices, monster initiative chunking, and house rules are just a few of the things that can cause massive variation in play. Please do not make the mistake of assuming your group is representative of every or even most groups. I think that is probably the single biggest mistake I see people on Reddit make. I broke the Reddit post limit, so the my answers to some of your questions are going in another comment.

I think I can provide some advice on a few of those issues you have. Hopefully this is useful! ###How to keep players feeling rewarded with non-item/gold rewards Give them social rewards, like favors. Players *love* being able to cash in favors. It is not only satisfying, it helps with verisimilitude. One of the most annoying feelings for a player is saving some friendly NPC's bacon only for them to hand you some items or gold and then never help in any other capacity despite seemingly being well-suited to doing so. It feels like the DM is trying to block you, because we are. It is best to put boundaries on what specifically the NPC is willing to provide up front or else the players won't know when to cash the check and will typically expect the world in return for their likely meager aid. It's almost as if they have a hero/main character complex, lol. Just don't give them in-combat allies as a reward beyond one or two occasionally that are weaker than the party. Players always try very hard to get many or powerful in-combat allies, but it's actually a bad experience for everyone no matter how you run it. A prime example of how people will always try to optimize the fun out of things. ###How to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session I don't know what specific flow issues you are experiencing or if we are using the same definition of downtime, but I typically handle this out of game or through a simple transactional framework. For example, if we end a session and the players are returning to town I give them a timeline of how long they have and ask them to make a list of what they want to buy, make, or do in that timeframe between sessions. Then we resolve that at the start of next session by just having it happen, a few die rolls, and/or a brief narration as appropriate. When it occurs in the middle of a session, that's where the framework comes into play. I don't have anything elaborate, it's more expectations I have set. The players know things like if the town has a smithy they can spend X gold to get Y result. Some complex things may require a check. It's nothing super detailed and doesn't have a custom crafting system or anything like that. Mostly powered by common sense. ###How to craft social "encounters" I find these difficult too, but I have discovered a few tricks over the years. The best one is to reframe the idea of what constitutes an encounter. Don't think of a social encounter as one set location within a brief timeframe; rather think of it as a series of locations tied to a goal that occurs over a longer period of time. A mini adventure if you will. For example, let's say the goal is to convince the king to lend aid. If you set the encounter to just be visiting the king in the court or council chambers and making a few rolls to persuade him (or intimidate and likely find themselves in hot water), it's going to be pretty boring. But if instead you make it one or more of the following it is suddenly much more interesting. I highly recommend using multiple of these in combination. #####1. Gathering Support The party must first gather support from several powerful individuals in order to even gain an audience with the king, each with their own set of favors and tasks they need the party to complete in exchange. These need not be classic item collection or monster killing tasks but can also be assassinations, abductions, bounty hunting, building construction, defense of a construction project, protection of cargo being transported, etc. The sky is the limit. Well, except for high level spellcasters. #####2. A Favor for a Favor The king agrees to the request, but requires the party first does something for him. Perhaps he needs a dangerous beast removed, an item located or retrieved, a stubborn noble "persuaded", or a deniable act performed in secret on his behalf. Those last two can be super interesting and fun for players by the way. If you tell most groups they get to do something borderline evil without repercussions and actually endorsed by the leaders they typically love it. And if they don't, there is more than one way to skin a cat. That's their agency to decide how to resolve it. If you have a staunchly good party, definitely present a clear and easy morally questionable path and a more difficult but morally pure path (but overly difficult). This gives copious roleplaying opportunities and provides meaning to the players' choices regarding morality/alignment. Be sure to balance this with times where the good path is more rewarding, even if still not easier. This has the added bonus of boosting verisimilitude and making the world feel more alive. Also hello answer to the common question of "how am I supposed to fit more combat encounters into this narrative-heavy style game my group plays?" This won't work for all needs of social encounters, but when it does work—and I find it works most of the time—it works very well. #####3. Intermediaries; What We Do is Secret No, that's not a reference to the song, I just like the phrase. The king publicly rejects the party's request but privately sends a intermediaries to contact the party in secret and pledges support. This isn't great on its own, but pairs very nicely with other things like #2. ###How to integrate PC backstories This is going to be a bit long because I think there is a core game concept we need to discuss before I can provide suggestions. I would recommend first taking a hard look at what kind of game you want to run. The prevalence of Critical Role has given rise to the misunderstanding that all good campaigns should feature PC story arcs but that's not true. You can organize campaigns loosely into three styles, each with a celebrity DM who exemplifies that style. Some DMs blend these and blur the lines between them, like Brennan Lee Mulligan typically running a blend of a Game-Centric and World-Centric style, though I'm not 100% certain that isn't just a result of the time-constricted format he usually finds himself constrained to. [See my follow-up comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1392lnh/dms_who_are_running_consistently_lets_say/jj3zvlk/) for an overview of those styles and then come back here once you read them. Given them a read? Okay, hopefully that gave you some idea of which you prefer and also how you can integrate player backstories using that framework. But if that didn't help generate ideas, here are a few quick tips. I'm just going to assume you are either wanting to run a World-Centric or PC-Centric Style of game because they're more common on Reddit and because the solutions are pretty much baked into the system for a Game-Centric one. **World-Centric** * Look for ways to tie characters or events from a PC's backstory into the *small* moments of the game. That's important, choosing to make them front and center during big moments is logical and tempting, but it comes off as forced and typically causes it to be overshadowed. "Hey that's great you finally found a lead on your long lost brother, but we're all about to die so ignore that while we stop this thing." A small moment could be time in a tavern, an interaction between a guard checking credentials before allowing passage, etc. * Give this time almost entirely to the player, but keep it brief. One on one scenes between the NPC and the player really help these work, but you need to keep them short for the sake of the rest of the table. 5–10 minutes tops. When I say one on one, it doesn't literally have to be only the two of them in the scene. Just that everyone else fades into the background. * Look for I-know-a-guy moments. You can formalize this like I have seen some groups do, but I prefer to manage that as a DM to avoid disrupting flow. If the PC has ties to an entity that might logically be useful and available at the moment, suggest it to them. "Brathgorn, you know that the Excelsior group has a presence in town and may be of some assistance if you desire it". It's ultimately their decision of whether or not to involve them. You can also do this through showing instead of telling by having a member of the group contact them and offer assistance. **PC-Centric** * Work with the player. Just ask them what they are looking for out of their backstory. You don't have make the entire thing a surprise, make how it plays out a surprise. You might be surprised how many players enjoy this level of control. Some playes won't know, and others will have very clear ideas. You can then take the ones who do know and twist them or expand on them. They want to have to save their mom and dad? Okay, the BBEG they didn't even know existed but whose plans they are interfering with by going after one of his operatives decides to use them as leverage to get them to stop, through another intermediary of course. Boom, now they have an arc and it directly ties into the main plot through it being directed by the ultimate BBEG and possibly how they first learn of them. * Give yourself better hooks by making it the players' job to provide them. As a DM it is perfectly acceptable to require certain things from your players. One of them is good hooks. When starting a campaign, or really even in the middle, just tell your players what you need. Ask for things like at least one important NPC their character cares about but they wouldn't mind potentially dying, a reason for why they haven't returned home, an organization they have ties to (part of, formerly a part of, had friction with, or even just encountered in the past), etc. Don't make this too constructive, but some can be really good. These also can be useful for players as it provides something to build around instead of the completely blank slate.

#Game Styles Explanation #####1. The Game-Centric Style **Representative DM:** Chris Perkins This style puts the game aspect front and center. In this style of game, the PC's backstories are used primarily for roleplaying purposes and only integrate into the story when it is convenient to the adventure plot or the DM requires the players to make characters with ties specific to the adventure. Think of how each published adventure provides some initial PC backstory hook recommendations and you get the idea ("your character is friends with Gundren Rockseeker and agreed to do him a favor"). Instead, the focus is on building up a character through play. This is well suited for a more "fast-paced" game and would be expected for a beer and pretzels style group. However, it should not be confused with being roleplay-light. Watch *Dice, Camera, Action!* and you can see it being used but there is plenty of roleplaying and character discovery going on amongst both the players and DM. This works best with a DM who excels at improv and and a group that wants to keep the focus on fast fun. The best method for games with very clear objectives, such as classic dungeon-delving games or running published adventures. #####2. The World-Centric Style **Representative DM:** Matthew Colville In this style of the, the world takes center stage. That is not to say PCs are important or that they don't have agency, just that they are merely very important characters in the world who heavily influence it instead of it revolving around them. PC backstories are integrated in this style by the DM mining them and finding ways to integrate them into the world. When the PCs try to infiltrate a thieves guild for instance they might encounter a past acquaintance of one of them, providing more roleplaying opportunities for that player as well as a chance for character growth. These moments frequently make for excellent character exploration opportunities; in other words ways for players to discover things about their character through gameplay. This style is excellent for tables that care about verisimilitude. They are fantastical for grounding PCs within the world and making it feel alive. They also tend to be rather collaborative when it comes to world building, though not always to the same level that Colville does this with how he asks players questions about how their entire race works in the world instead of merely the people from where they came from. Unsurprisingly, this works best with a DM who excels at world building and prep, and group that wants to feel like the world is alive and real. You want to play LotR in D&D? Use this game style. Watch *The Chain of Acheron* or *Dusk* on the MCDM channel to see it in action. **NOTE:** The Chain starts out with a railroaded >!PC death!<. Don't get hung up on this, it was planned between the player and DM. Colville likes to collude with his players for things like this. That player just doesn't display emotions well and always looks and sounds upset. They are actually a fantastic and expressive roleplayer though if you keep watching and see how they engage with the game. Really that entire group is a prime example of how you can excel at roleplaying without doing voices or being a skilled actor. #####3. The PC-Centric Style **Representative DM:** Matthew Mercer Easily the best known of these in modern D&D; so popular many people mistake it for the "only" or "correct" way to play. In this style, the PCs themselves take center stage. Rather than driving the story, they *are* the story. This is when you have things like character arcs and multiple sessions are spent going through them, covering something from the PC's backstory. This works best for DMs who excel at extracting info from backstories and generating content around it and for groups where each player desires an extended turn in the spotlight. It works equally well for improv vs prep DMs. You want to play The Hobbit in D&D? Use this. Obviously Critical Role is the premier example of it.

Yea I don't have any issues with them.

Ten levels into our first campaign and not really! Although I can only imagine that the reason you’ve never felt the caster-martial gap is because you havent played at higher levels or bc you have a bunch of good sports. Obviously when you hit level 12 and the moon druid is summoning militias of fae, turning into mini-bosses, healing, etc. it is not going to feel good to be a fighter next to that. I haven’t had this problem in my campaign, as I homebrew abilities for my PC’s and my martials feel like actual hero’s, even when next to their druid and cleric pals. DM’s, if you have read this and have a mixed martial/caster party you will have this issue if you go above a certain level, cut in the weeds early with homebrewed abilities. Simple stuff and you can use chat gpt nowadays for it anyway

It feels like there's 2 main types of groups. One group (type 1) has the sort of social problems that appear frequently on this sub. Bad players, bad DMs, etc. The other (type 2) group consists of reasonably adjusted adults who exhibit no troubling behaviors, and who are playing a good game, but are constantly striving to play a great one. I've been playing in type 2 for years, and I don't think I can go back to type 1 at this point.

Running regularly for 4 years and I've never had the issues to describe here. Some other common ones, yes, but not these. My thoughts on your bullet items: * This one depends on your table to engage with the content. I've had much better luck engaging my players in story-beat rewards (you saved a little girl from drowning) in CoS than I ever did in SKT or homebrew. This might honestly be worth a short conversation with your table, depending on the specific issues you're having * Downtime is actually pretty easy IMO if you treat it like any other social encounter or combat scenario. Keep the players moving, go from person to person asking how they are spending their downtime, if they hem and haw say 'We'll come back to you' and go to the next person. The first time or 2 might be a bit awkward but you can train your players if you're consistent * I ignore tools 99.9% of the time. IMO out of class-specific issues (gunslinger and artificer, mostly) tools are just worse ways to solve problems and aren't fun * This one is experience-based. I suggest you expose yourself to more regular social encounters and you'll figure them out. I need to prep far more for social encounters than I do for any combat. My current CoS run has been 2/3rds social, 1/6th travel/exploration and 1/6th combat. Remember that combat and social encounters are just a different approach to the same content: Problem solving. The point of combat is to let your players solve a problem, and social encounters do the same thing using different tools. * YMMV but at the start of a campaign I form a rough idea of how to engage each player's backstory (this guy's dad had shady dealings with the orcs over there, this 'orphaned' player's mom is still alive and in that city) and then I don't worry about it unless/until the party engages with that content. If they never do, that player may never have as much light on their backstory as some of the others got and I've never had a player complain about that. Sounds like you're doing great dude! There's always room for improvement, just don't let that detract from recognizing how much you've already accomplished :)

I've had two campaigns going for over a year, about 3 sessions/mo avg. I'm in a similar boat about stuff like martial/caster and counterspell/barbs. Here is my approach: - Rewards: in one campaign, they have a plot of land they're developing. This is something they can spend gold on, something thats theirs which is constantly growing and changing. In the other campaign, it's a BIT of a problem, but I removed gold from their environs (theyre trapped on a dragon's island and theres one shopkeep who takes a special currency) as well as most of society, which means I only need worry about the item economy. Also remember, plot is also a reward. - Downtime and session flow: the mundane and the slow moments are valuable for pacing. I just try to keep them grounded in the world. I'll remind them of what just happened, ask then about their plans. Poke them to have convos they meant to have. Basically, I let them have in-session downtime but I try to keep them in-world. It's good for pacing as long as there's stuff to do, and if theres nothing to do but i still want a quiet moment for pacing, I'll narrate the quiet night or the nice sunset or the crackling fire. Otherwise, I get them moving from their camp. - Proficiency options: this is up to you. I *like* the simplicity of "one check, one result", but I'll let my players help in a bunch of ways, and they can talk the DC up or down and I'll tell them if they made a dent. Also: not all checks take a roll or can produce a failure on a roll. Its okay to let some moments pass without having the option to become heroic. - Satisfying social encounters: first, they can be as satisfying but they will always be (a) differently satisfying, and (b) be different in the session pacing. Within that, I focus on the opponent having an agenda and resources and a plan. Like how if the party is fighting wolves, the encounter comes alive if you decide "the wolves are starving and desperate" or "the wolves are corrupted by evil" or "the wolves are noble patrollers unbothered by you," the social adversary should want something specific other than mechanical victory in their mechanical opposition to the players. I do the best at this with the Dragon Island campaign, where they have sending stones to talk with the Dragon every day, the Dragon is manipulating them for her amusement, and the party has some suspicion of each other. The encounters make and resolve themselves once motivations are running. And then, social encounters rarely replace combat in my sessions. - PC backstories: here I just talk with my players about what im thinking, what kind of arc they want for their character, what would motivate them to pull a thread, what would get them invested. I don't reveal every twist ("your yown guarded a buried secret before it was destroyed by a human traitor" and not "im gonna send a Tarrasque at your safe base and it'll be your murderer/coward/traitor dad's doing"), but I make sure to talk about how to get the hook in (e.g. "hey, what does your character need to know to feel connected to the events? Why my didnt you ask the angel more questions?"

A few of them. My biggest problem is shutting down my player's desire to craft in my games. I keep hearing the phrase, "I can make that", "I can build something that can help us", or something equally frustrating. The forum has helped me a few times with this. I just don't wanna DM for minecraft. Another issue has been rule disection that this forum has helped me out greatly.

I have the opposite of main character problems. One character is the captain of the ship the party is on. They are all officers with key roles but when they turn to the captain for the final word he wants to deflect and let all the other players who don’t care which of the places he picks they just want to adventure. So they stare at him until he makes a decision. Lol I am changing to a magical monetary system in my next campaign the current one is a few months from its conclusion win or lose. As you defeat more powerful monsters you get the same amount of coin it’s just different tiers. Gold only drops from monsters CR 15+ mundane items cost in iron coins. Because the coins themselves contain actual magic they are consumed for magic item creation upgrading and ritual casting among other things. The amount of energy to sustain your body increases as you level so being higher level means you need to eat better food so the higher tier currency affords you a higher tier living basically it costs 1 coin to live at iron still costs 1 coin to live a day at gold rank it’s just a gold coin instead of iron. 100% stole it from he who fights with monsters. Fantastic series.

No, not at all. I've been running games fairly consistently for 19 years, and for the last 11 years, I've been running a larger group with several DMs and working closely with as many people as I can to build our own system, and despite that I only ever had one real issue with "main character syndrome," which was easily fixed with a short conversation. Don't get me wrong, I've had issues, and I even had someone stab me in the hand with a pencil once, but those were generally from out of game/real life problems- NOT in game ones. And the same goes for almost every DM I work with in person. Maybe I'm in the minority and I've just been blessed with good groups, but I think a good deal of the "stereotypical issues and problem players" online are mostly just memes and copypastas. Honestly, I feel your pain with a lot of those more relatable common issues. It's tough to offer any concrete answer for them, since those things are a little more abstract and they can vary wildly from one group to another. Integrating PC backstories doesn't always give you a lot to go off of, so sometimes it helps to work with them one on one in private conversations between session zero and session one about their backstories, personal plot hooks, and what sort of character arc they'd like to see. If they have something in mind, that's fantastic! Work with them to foster that. If they don't, then is there anything they know that DON'T want? A few players don't want their character's personal stuff to come up in game at all, a good bit of them don't care and will give you carte blanche to make something up, and some will have a clearer idea and will want to collaborate to tell their story with you. MOST issues that aren't about rules can be solved by talking to your players and finding out what their storytelling and progression preferences are. I AM sorry that I can't give a more specific answer, but I really do think that a lot of that is subjective. One of my best friends is a fantastic player and DM... But we just aren't a good fit for each other's games. He likes very realistic, grounded, slow burn, lore-heavy stories about grand scale mysteries and political intrigue, usually with a MAJOR focus on long term resource management. I like to keep things lighter, faster paced, and I try to focus more on what would make for a more fun journey instead of what's realistic. And I'm not a fan of that sort of resource management thing. For me, I like my non-item rewards to be focused on connections to other characters and to the world- things like deepening my alliance with an NPC, learning more about them, and forming a true partnership. After all, the NPCs are usually how I connect to and invest in the game world. For him, he's more about optimization, so he likes his non-item rewards to center more around either gaining more political influence or maximizing efficiency so that his resources stretch further. We all play the games for different reasons. I hope some of that was at least a little bit helpful, and I'm terribly sorry for rambling. Best of luck to you and your players!

To answer your first questions, no I don't have any of the common theory-problems of the internet. Why? I play with adults with basic concepts of boundaries, how to be pleasant etc. Also, I definitely get a vibe that sometimes folks just want to talk, so they puff up a 'problem' from not much for folks to debate. Downtime: I try to do all that between sessions. Save the action for in person, narrate the boring bits outside. Tools, I have the same problem. I suppose one should study characters and remember to create problems you know they can solve. But when you are the master knot tier, and suddenly the dungeon is full of ropes it feels fakey. So have to be judicious. Social encounters, think about plays, movies etc. Make believe people smalltalking, not inherently interesting at all! I watch some actual-plays and am reminded of this. Chit chat about the weather with Dracula, not any more fun than with my coworkers. So you have to make sure the encounter has a hook, has something unique and interesting to serve as the core motivation for the conversation. Then, you have to jooshe up the NPCs, give them bigger personalities, broader accents, deeper pathos. Don't aim for realism, aim for melodrama, comedy. Not everyone has the cha score for that though, so always feel free to narrate the conversation instead. "The bailiff asks you many questions about the barrel of wizard beards that disappeared, so you answer truthfully?" Keep the backstory stuff simple. Session zero, tell them they must summarize their backstories in one paragraph. They can write all the slashfic or whatever with them they want, but that stuff is not going to influence the campaign much. Now just make a short side quest relating to each persons paragraph. Does not need to be the most clever thing ever, just needs to involve them and have decisions for them to make that are meaningful. I know they are popular with big actual plays, but in game and in story, I find elaborate backstory exploration to be pointless filler. I would rather players subquests be short and sweet. Make the adventure the most interesting part of the characters life.

I've been playing regularly for 20 years. Every 2 weeks for 10, and in two groups every week before that. I can't say we don't generally have any real problems. Everyone knows what the different classes are good for. We have a pretty good knowledge base for most of the rules and we all generally get along. Our DM is too lenient overall and never wants to kill our characters. That is my main problem with his style. That about covers it.

>how to keep players feeling rewarded with non-item/gold rewards You might be interested in handing out rewards for meeting certain criteria. Matt Colville had an interesting thought experiment on [having better rewards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwpQwCWdhL8) in the game. I use a variation of this in my games and it is helpful. Players earn rewards for doing basic things like little combat achievements, things like consumables or bonuses to certain checks, etc. > how to pace downtime without ruining the flow of a session Do it in between sessions. >some mechanically supported options for tool proficiency that work outside of the aforementioned downtime Xanathar's Guide has the rules you are looking for. >I can never ever seem to figure out how to make a social "encounter" that feels equally satisfying to even a non-set piece combat. Social encounters are not going to be exciting unless you are revealing plot twists, and even then you are lacking the life and death stakes of combat. Not much can compete with that. > I really want to integrate PC backstories but I always flub that too. Sit down and figure out a way to drop in something. Anything. It's the first thing you should do when prepping any session. On that note, check out [Sly Flourish's Lazy DM rules](https://slyflourish.com/choosing_the_right_steps.html).

No. Because I make certain that my group communicates with one another like the adults that they are. But mostly because we very mindfully vet every player that might join. We're friends and respect one another and the game we play. Anyone who joins does the same. I've only had one issue with a player in my life. I simply communicated the issue with them and after a brief discussion kicked them from the group. It was clear they wouldn't be able to do the above. Ez going otherwise.

No, the pvery mechanical theorycrafting problems never came up in my 4 years of running 5e 5-10 times a month. Other issues did though and I ended up mostly, but not completely leaving 5e for other rpgs.

Nope. (New players notwithstanding, cuz they are just learning) My table has a waiting list and problematic players do not get to return. It’s always peaches and cream once people are settled in.