Cogwheel Gaming

Hello and welcome to Crash’s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes.

In this episode I’d like to elaborate more on combat encounters. From 10 rats to a gang of cyborgs to a giant, ancient dragon, fight mechanics are a near universal standard of TTRPGs. Over the years I’ve developed some strong opinions on them, so here’s three of them.

1. Monsters are people, too.

It’s been said that every well written antagonist is the protagonist of their own story, which is a great way to RP any Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG), surely, but this is doesn’t have to be a strategy reserved for the one on top.

Think of any beings you add to your game as NPCs. They don’t all need full backstories, but you should at least have a concept of an underlying motivation. Is the being mostly looking for a next meal? A salary? Distance from something more terrifying than the party?

I love a good mustache-twirling now and then, but the campaign I’m spending the most time in doesn’t really have “evil” beings. Selfish ones, sure, but no party in my game will round a corner to find 5 orcs tying a heroine to a railroad track. Those orcs have their own society and motivations that might not align with the party’s, but given a chance there can be some parlay and significantly less rope involved. Which brings us to…

2. There can be “win” conditions that aren’t the deaths of all monsters.

The party can bargain, trade, scare off, run away from, or in cases of extreme difficulty, simply survive their opponents, and adding that variety to your game can make it more enjoyable for everyone.

I’ve thrown the Tarrasque at my players on two separate occasions. Neither time were they powerful enough to survive a frontal assault, and they knew it. Your encounters might not always be that obvious from the start, so a few near misses (or direct hits) might be needed to put the fear of TPK into them.

And then of course is the trope of befriending or even adopting the enemy. My after school club once defeated a clockwork dragon with – I kid you not – the power of friendship. (Well, a very well done Persuasion check and the power of friendship, but still, that counts.)

One of my current games adopted the first kobold they met. They were part of a group I designated with letters, assuming they’d all be slaughtered fairly quickly. Aye the kobold is now taking levels in rogue and almost certainly not plotting their demise.

3. Encounters never need to go as written.

If things are looking too easy or too hard, adjust them.

Oops, you forgot about that grenade that you certainly didn’t just give the space pirate.

Huh, that special ability might take a bit longer to recharge.

The henchman union seems to have taken this exact moment to strike! The BBEG’s union busting days are over!

The next rotation of guards has shown up 5 minutes early, doubling the number of opponents!

I confess, I may have on more than one occasion accidentally on purpose forgot about an area effect that probably would not have made the fight too hard, but certainly would have added another half an hour to an hour of combat rolls. I’ve also doubled an enemy’s hit points. Neither one was planned, but both worked to balance the fight a bit.

Just don’t do things the same way too often. This isn’t because your players might catch on – some of them will notice first time every time. Instead, using different means for balancing will add a bit more variety to the game play and, again, make it more fun for everyone.

That’s all for this episode, subscribe to just this podcast at is.aaronbsmith.com/@crashscourse or all my D&D podcasts at aaronbsmith.com/cogwheel for future episodes.

Music is Deadly Windmills by JAM from modarchive.org, used with permission, as it’s public domain.

This podcast is distributed under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

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MP3 Download: Crash’s Course Ep 07: Combat Encounters

Helms, the techno-magical devices that make Spelljammer ships fly, were being built on this world. The kobolds are off to find them.

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MP3 Download: Pack Tactics S4 Ep 14: Supply Chain

Music Used: “In heaven everything is fine” by JAM is licensed as Public Domain and can be downloaded from http://modarchive.org

Hello and welcome to Crash’s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes.

Well hey, it’s been a while! In my defense, I’ve been sick since December. I’m just getting over bronchitis! I’ve never heard my lungs creak like an old rocking chair before! I will now blame that for any decline in recording quality.

In this episode I’m not talking about the D&D OGL as enough people have done that already. (Sly Flourish, DnD Shorts, & Sherlock Hulmes made good videos about the aftermath, each is a somewhat different take.)

Instead, I’m talking about next steps.

There’s a variety of takes on this topic, but the thing to remember is they don’t have to be mutually exclusive so long as your group has some level of consensus.

Right now my group is looking into GURPS 4e, Pathfinder 2 (SRD), Cypher System (SRD), and also we might try Monster of the Week. But guess what? Like many people, we’re still playing 5e. Yes, we canceled our D&D Beyond subscriptions, but those were never needed to play the game. [Insert ominous foreshadowing music here.]

When we first got together, I had friends emailing me character sheets that were everything from pdf to Word docs to spreadsheets. I looked everything up in books covered with sticky notes, kept track of initiative and enemy HP on scraps of paper, and we all rolled actual, physical dice. Chances are good that you can do the same.

Yes, there’s some organizational benefits that D&D Beyond provided, but many of those can be replicated with a shared Google Drive folder and a few spreadsheets.

OK, maybe you don’t like Google. That’s fair. There’s also Roll20, Foundry VTT, and if you mainly want a usable online map there’s owlbear.rodeo for all your token moving needs. Oh, I love Owlbear Rodeo.

But what about all those other systems? OK, here’s the thing: Switch to a new one if you want. I intend to do so once my current campaigns wrap up, but don’t think of it as a necessity. There’s still groups out there playing 3.5 and 4e who are very happy. (Maybe not 4e, never mind.) You don’t have to dump 5e, particularly if you already have the books. If you don’t, I suspect more used copies will be entering the market soon so you can build up your library without sending more money to WotC. Or maybe go to a 3rd party publisher like Kobold Press. There’s tons of 5e compatible stuff out there.

If you do switch, don’t make it a unilateral decision. If you’re playing as a group, then it is imperative that the members of your group have input about the system or systems you’re considering. Oh, yeah, systems. Pural. There’s no reason you have to limit yourself to just one. I could have a Cypher System game and Mutants and Masterminds game going on alternate Saturdays and have a lot of fun with both.

Before you switch, plan a one-shot or two with any system you’re considering. A game can look good on paper but be convoluted in practice, or vice-versa. Have a debriefing after each session to discuss benefits and drawbacks of how things went. That’s a good idea for any session, rally, but it’s essential if you’re trying something new.

If you like a new rule set enough, you may be tempted to convert a campaign over. Critical Role did this twice, very successfully, starting with 4e, then Pathfinder, before moving eventually to 5e when they started streaming. Again, this should be a group decision. I floated the idea with my group and there were some misgivings as a different system can have a different feel. As much as I love our current campaign setting, I’ll be creating a new one when we move to our next system. (I already have a few ideas.)

With my after school D&D club, that’s another story. We may actually convert to another system, but I’ll be suggesting the move because I think their play styles are better suited towards something like Cypher or FATE (SRD) where players have even more agency in regards to plot points.

That’s all for this episode, subscribe to just this podcast at is.aaronbsmith.com/@crashscourse or all my D&D podcasts at aaronbsmith.com/cogwheel for future episodes.

Music is Deadly Windmills by JAM from modarchive.org, used with permission, as it’s public domain.

This podcast is distributed under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

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MP3 Download: Crash’s Course Ep 06: Next Steps After the OGL

A logging town would like there to be fewer zombies in the woods.

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MP3 Download: Cause & Effect Ep 19: Forced Plot On Us

Music Used: “Pandora’s Box (FB Mix)” by christofori is licensed as Public Domain and can be downloaded from http://modarchive.org

The party hitches a ride to the moon with some familiar company to find a celestial musician has just woken up their quest item in a pond.

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MP3 Download: Cause & Effect Ep 18: Moon Crystals

Music Used: “Pandora’s Box (FB Mix)” by christofori is licensed as Public Domain and can be downloaded from http://modarchive.org

Help comes from above, but a golden statue is in pursuit and Mauri’s having a breakdown.

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MP3 Download: Pack Tactics S4 Ep 13: Getaway Lizard

Music Used: “In heaven everything is fine” by JAM is licensed as Public Domain and can be downloaded from http://modarchive.org

The party have been invited to a party! Also, Cogbucket Sr. has a quest for Cavil.

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MP3 Download: Cause & Effect Ep 17: Broken Crystal

Music Used: “Pandora’s Box (FB Mix)” by christofori is licensed as Public Domain and can be downloaded from http://modarchive.org

One does not simply walk into the city of HighTemple, unless your earth elemental ride gave out 1/2 a mile back.

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MP3 Download: Pack Tactics S4 Ep 12: HighTemple

Music Used: “In heaven everything is fine” by JAM is licensed as Public Domain and can be downloaded from http://modarchive.org

Hello and welcome to Crash’s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes.

In this episode I want to talk about that horrid thing that affects many a “Forever DM”: Burnout.

You know that pang of relief, mixed with guilt over that relief, that you might feel when a game session has to be canceled, so you spend the time instead playing a video game, reading a book, or staring into the endless void and pondering the futility of all you attempt to accomplish?

Well, that’s an early warning sign of burnout. Like Tennis Elbow, it’s a thing that will likely get worse if the early signs are ignored, but taking proactive steps can keep your games running more smoothly for years to come.

Some of the advice I’ve mentioned in previous episodes has honestly helped me with my own burnout, but let’s focus on new information:

That’s all for this episode, subscribe to just this podcast at is.aaronbsmith.com/@crashscourse or all my D&D podcasts at aaronbsmith.com/cogwheel for future episodes.

Music is Deadly Windmills by JAM from modarchive.org, used with permission, as it’s public domain.

This podcast is distributed under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

Follow this series on…

MP3 Download: Crash’s Course Ep 05: Burnout

Those wacky Oghmanite scientists are at it again! [Cue Laugh Track]

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MP3 Download: Cause & Effect Ep 16: Empty Queue

Music Used: “Pandora’s Box (FB Mix)” by christofori is licensed as Public Domain and can be downloaded from http://modarchive.org