5th Edition Combat IS Boring, But Emotionally-Stunted, Entitled Narcissists Don't Know Why

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Pretentious performance "gamer" Hannah asks why is 5th Edition combat boring? I don’t play it. Never have aside from the earlier playtest versions—back when there was hope that sorcerers and warlocks would actually be interesting—but I suspect a few major factors are the lack of overall danger, and the ease of both dispatching enemies and recovering from injury.

Where 3rd Edition was a refinement and reorganization of 2nd Edition, retaining elements such as level drain, monsters that required weapons with minimum plusses to harm, loss of a level or point of Constitution when being raised/resurrected, 4th Edition discarded all of that, making combat far less lethal (and death more of a speed bump).

5th Edition didn’t do much to swing the pendulum back the other way. What makes combat exciting, tense, is not just the threat of death, but even loss of resources, so long as it’s not a trivial effort to replenish them: in 3rd Edition every single hit point mattered, because barring a cleric or druid with their handful of healing spells per day, you either had to rely on healing potions, or rest for days on end.

In 5th Edition? You get more spells, and nearly half the classes have access to healing magic (and 2nd-level fighters get access to a constantly recharging self-heal). You can spend healing sur—, er, I mean Hit Dice to heal. You fully heal up every night. Healing potions are on the standard gear list. This is just from the original Player’s Handbook: it might not be everything, and who knows what other bloat has since been heaped on.

Also, barring an energy immunity you can hurt any monster with any attack. Sure, they might take half damage, but it’s still doable. Oh, a ghost popped up? Just smack it until it’s dead, and then burn through some Hit Dice if you really need to. Or take a long rest and get all of your hit points back. No biggie.

A 2nd Edition ghost was a big deal: they’d age you just by seeing them (the 5th Edition ghost can do this, but only you fail the trivially low Wisdom save by a wide margin, and it can be fixed), and need silver or magical weapons to hurt, period. Vampires drained your levels every time you got hit, and barring a restoration spell you had to grind more XP to get them back. Oh, on that note, it also took longer to level up.

That’s one of the areas where 5th Edition fucked it up: they kept the difficulty pared down and removed virtually all consequences. If 3rd Edition was Normal, 5th Edition is like playing a game on Very, Very Easy Mode. And while it might seem fun at first, if you aren’t completely retarded you’re going to get bored really quick.

It also doesn’t help if you’re a lazy narcissist with no impulse control or patience, which is apparently all Hannah has ever gamed with. She, at least I think it’s a she. I can't be sure, as this is the bog-standard Twitter-tier corporate-style graphic she chooses to represent herself with for...some reason:

Why the monstrously large nose? Why the manly jaw and incredibly thick neck? Is she really that fat (you can only see her upper body in the video)? Does she really paint miniatures like that, with a massive brush and paint literally dripping off in huge gobs, somehow missing the top part of her mis-matched tits? How did she get any on her face? Was she eating it?

This isn’t the only reason I question her gender identity, as later she shows off this:

Anyway, Hannah opens up her video with the unsubstantiated softball statement that “it’s no secret that a lot of DMs don't really like the combat system in 5e”. Really? Did you poll a bunch? Did you even ask any? To be fair because of everything I said at the start I could believe this, but the Homely Hobbit has a different theory, and that is that combat is boring because it’s “clunky and slow, and it’s just not all that much fun”.

Hannah doesn’t explain how the system might be clunky or slow. She doesn't even blame the mechanics—even though mechanics would be directly responsible for a clunky system, which could also contribute to the slow factor. Spoiler alert: she'll end up whining about this, too, but until then her assertion is that 5e combat is just no good because...

Now you might be confused. After all, Dungeons & Dragons isn't a “storytelling” game, no matter how much pretentious posers pretend otherwise, but conflict is a key element of the narrative structure. But don’t worry, Hannah is prepared to attempt to rationalize her foregone conclusion through the use of agonizingly disingenuous and pretentious rhetoric, regurgitated between bouts of exaggerated expressions and tone, and insincere laughter.

Her first claim is that combat breaks immersion. How? I have no idea, and Hannah utterly fails to provide anything resembling evidence (which as you’ll see is an ongoing theme). Apparently she’s fine with you rolling dice to see if you can pick a lock, sneak past a monster, bribe a guard, but the second you want to see if you can hit an orc, as well as how hard you hit said orc? In her words it’s not just out of place, but super out of place.

She smugly utters the words “the concept of like being your character in the middle of that conflict never comes out”, without any explanation or elaboration, and then brings up creativity, how you’re somehow discouraged from being creative—without providing any examples, of course—as if you need to be creative when trying to bury an axe into an orc, or blast him with a lightning bolt.

I guess to Hannah it’s not enough for my fighter to just try and stop the threat before he’s injured or even killed me (the chaos of combat making it difficult if not outright impossible to strike with, I guess, "creative" precision), especially as that means the rest of the party is then at risk. To me that makes sense, it sounds very much “in character”, it evokes the overall concept of being a fighter.

But, no, that’s not good enough: I need to slay the orc "creatively"...whatever the fuck that means.

Her second claim tells you quite a bit about who she is and the assholes she purports to game with, and that is as follows: players do not care about other players’ turns. Fortunately I’ve already seen and dealt with these perpetually angry, self-absorbed narcissists for years, otherwise this would be a both disturbing and surprising revelation.

After managing to say these words without an ounce of self-awareness, Hannah immediately veers off to ramble about cell phones, which, yeah, when you don’t really give a shit about the game, when you only pretend to play? When you’re a self-centered egomaniac with no attention span or impulse control? Of course I’d expect you to whip out your cellphone the second the proverbial spotlight shifts to someone else.

It would surprise Hannah to learn that normal players don't behave this way. They are engaged. They care. Not just because they actually enjoy gaming and have an attention span that’s at least on par with a goldfish, but because what the other players do can impact them, affecting your immediate decisions, the fate of your character, and it's because of that that I'd expect even a self-centered psychopath to pay attention, but Hannah and her gang are apparently somehow worse.

Not their turn? They aren't the ones talking? No one's paying attention to them? They immediately mentally clock out to go check their Twitter feeds, see how many Likes they got on some insipid tweet. Imagine living like that, constantly shifting your focus from one possible source of attention to another. Anything to convince yourself that people care about you, that you're interesting. Sounds terrible.

The third claim is that "the players have no idea what their character can or should do". This just further cements the theory that neither Hannah nor her group actually play, and if she even has a group I'd be surprised if she doesn't have to heavily bribe them just to tolerate her mere presence (because they certainly aren't hanging out for the gripping entertainment).

I find it amusing that Hannah phrases this as “players” in general, as if but one of the delusions she’s suffering from is that all or even most players just have no clue what their character is capable of. As if they robotically go through the motions of character generation, write down attack bonuses, weapons, damage, spells, all that, but beyond imaginary pronouns, horn and tail shape, and skin color, have no fucking clue what they just did, or even why.

I like to imagine that, come game day, if it ever comes, that, I dunno, an albino goblin with a MAGA hat ambushes the group, waving a flail that the they/them/it/zir/zit/zor/zoop/zuul/zardoz demiqueer blue-skinned tiefling paladin's pansexual black gender-neutral government sanctioned life partner mistakes for a noose. The character utters a thank you to Obamad-Hai for this opportunity to build back this world, to make it better, but when zhey look at zheir sheet become paralyzed with indecision: do you...attack? With...your sword? No, wait...is that "creative" enough?

Well, you’re an inept poser that only pretends to play, so you probably only took the one weapon anyway, but even that is apparently enough to overload your intellectually and emotionally deficient brain. I’d suggest they play something like Troika, but even a system ripped off from a choose-your-own-adventure series might be too much for them to handle. Plus there's no blue-skinned gay tiefling class. Or maybe there is. Probably on itch.io somewhere for five bucks, because fuck capitalism.

Ironically, even though Hannah just claimed that players don’t know what the hell to do, that even when there's just the one thing on their sheet it's still somehow too much crap to sift through, her fourth bullshit claim is that there...isn’t enough to do in combat. Specifically, there aren’t enough “roleplay” options for actions. This actually makes sense if you're a millennial, as their entire worldview is built upon contradictions. It's why they get so mad when you ask questions: their ideology cannot withstand any amount of scrutiny.

So, too much to deal with, but also not enough, and Hannah thinks that in combat there should be “...opportunities for your character to come out and do something creative that maybe only your character would know to do”. I'm trying to wrap my head around this, and for the sake of brevity let's just say it's a party consisting of a fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue.

Yes, yes, I know, so boring. Not a tail or set of horns in sight. If it helps, imagine that they're all fat, ugly, varying shades of brown and varying parts of their hair shaved off.

They find...zombies. White zombies, also with MAGA hats because why not? So...how does this work? What creative crap that "maybe only your character would know to do" comes to mind? Because it's zombies. If the players are smart they'd hang back and hit them with arrows, spears, rocks. But this is all common sense: zombies are slow and easy to hit. This isn't something that only one sort of character could come up with, and it doesn't require the DM to permit it.

If you're in a dungeon, you could do the same thing, but if the passage is narrow you could also use spears and polearms to keep them at bay. Seal a door. Light them on fire. Pour out some marbles or grease and make them slip. Lure them into a pit. If there are loops, you could also just walk away, go around. But then again, none of this requires permission from the DM. None of this is contingent on a specific character or archetype. It's just bog standard common sense ideas that anyone could come up with, so long as their eyes aren't just oscillating between their sheet and cellphone.

Is that what Hannah is getting at? Because I can't think of any creative way to deal with zombies that only a specific class or character could possibly conceive of. The wizard could hit them all with burning hands, but that's just using his spells. It's also pretty obvious; no one is going to go, "Wow, you came up with the idea of using an area effect spell on a huddled horde of slow, stupid monsters?"

Frankly, if any player knows you took burning hands and has more than a couple of neurons bouncing around their skull, they're probably going to tell you to do just that.

Where the previous claims were just pretentious drivel, her last one is so...I don't know if Hannah is just being absurdly disingenuous or she's just that stupid (or both), but either way it's astounding.

Here's the shot:

"DMs put the monster before the story."

And the chaser (which she actually said word-for-word):

"Oh man here’s a tarrasque and there you go and we’re in combat now and roll initiative."

Because we've all been there, right? Just 1st-level characters heading out to their first crawl, and then bam! Tarrasque shows up with nary a warning. But then, if it did...what's the problem?

I know in a normal game, where players actually give a damn and play to have fun, use the game as intended, this wouldn't be an issue. Going to a dungeon, or back to town, and the tarrasque all of a sudden shows up? Sounds like a blast: at lower levels you'd obviously need to run and hide, do something akin to a disaster movie like Godzilla or Cloverfield.

Wouldn't even have to be in a city: you could be exploring a dwarven megadungeon, and find out that they captured the tarrasque thousands of years ago, and now, a few levels in, it's woken up. So you get to try and hide, all while dealing with whatever monsters still live, with whatever traps still function, trying to grab whatever loot you can while praying that the tarrasque doesn't drag you out of a hall, or crush you as it rampages about.

(And I'll just be making a note in my adventure idea document for later...)

In a crybaby casual "new school" game, though? If it's not part of their backstory? No, not going to fly. The tarrasque? Attacking? That wasn't in the script. What about prooom night? How will you awkwardly roleplay through your idealized assumptions of what a sexual encounter is supposed to be like, with all that excitement going on?

Come on man, this is Dungeons & Dragons: it's not a dungeon crawler game, but serious business. A lifestyle. Therapy. A nonlinear storytelling platform about trying to momentarily forget about your miserable life of missed and wasted opportunities, to forget how much of a loser you are for as long as your fellow pathetic, mentally-ill, hate-filled sex pests can tolerate you.

Hannah also hates random encounters. She believes, or at least claims to, that if you don’t “carefully” tie everything together “into our story” you are breaking immersion, which simply demonstrates that she doesn’t understand what the word means (among many others). She’s saying it, but only because to her it's a "big word". It makes her sound intelligent, that the tenuous claim she is desperately trying to make has any sort of merit.

But she has no point. If she did she would make it. How does it break immersion if you’re walking through a forest, and goblins ambush you? It’s a forest, and it’s what they do. What about if you stumble across an owlbear or ogre? A dragon? Something unexpected, like a fire giant? Hannah apparently wouldn't have an issue if the DM deliberately planned any of that, but because he rolled some dice and that's what came up, that magically makes it "bad".

Random encounters reinforce immersion, they make the world feel alive, unpredictable. You know, like real life...which is probably why Hannah hates them: she needs at least the illusion of control. Honestly I'm surprised she even bothers rolling dice. Should just flip a coin. Not to see if you succeed or fail, but to see whether you win normally or amazingly. 

Actual players like them, though. They add more of that tension, keep you on your toes, especially if your DM isn't making everything "level appropriate". Going through some mountains, maybe you'll run into a band of orcs (maybe even too many to fight), a giant, dragon, chimera, wyvern, those stupid monsters that are just boulders that try and run you over. Maybe you'll find a cave or ruin that you weren't expecting? Maybe a volcano erupts and you get to deal with that.

Or it could just be window dressing that reinforces the fact that not every single little thing revolves around your character, that some things exist without any higher point or purpose (at least, not in a way that's immediately obvious). Maybe during your trip from A-to-B you get attacked by bandits. Maybe you help a traveler fix his wagon. Maybe the weather takes a turn for the worse.

Now as stupid, frivolous, misleading, and erroneous Hannah’s reasons for finding combat boring were, her “fixes” are just as bad if not worse.

Remember her first issue? How combat somehow breaks immersion, and then she never bothered to explain how? The solution, as she sees it, is to “ask character-driven questions”, which basically translates to asking “how does your character respond” instead of “what do you do”.

She then rambles about “activating” different halves of your brain, doing her best to sound as intelligent and authoritative as possible, but again never even beginning to explain how combat breaks immersion. It just does because she says so: don't question it, just nod your head and do what you're told. Repeat her phrase. Tell others to, and most importantly donate to her Patreon.

She does give a cliched example about asking how your character responds after seeing another character use necromancy magic, because that’s something you’ll want to comment on during combat and it’s certainly never been done before. I’m sure it won’t go along the lines of one character saying how it’s bad, or he thought it was bad, and then the other character will say that it’s just a tool to be used for good or evil, and then the game will continue on and it will just be a waste of 15 minutes.

Hannah also suggests doing this when your players, naturally so bored and self-absorbed that they can’t bear to not be the center of attention for all of two minutes, start scanning their phones. Gotta treat them like the apathetic children they are, constantly throwing them scraps of attention, asking them questions that they fumble to answer and won’t even remember 10 minutes later.

Seriously: she describes this as a “teacher technique”, a strategy used on children in school. Keeping them engaged with stupid questions whenever you think they've lost focus. Sounds better than trying to get them to genuinely give a shit in the first place.

Hannah unsurprisingly completely forgets about the third issue, and just skips over to the fourth, that there are understandably no trivial “roleplay” combat actions. She initially handwaives it away, saying that she could totally give you examples, no problem...but she won't because it really depends on you and your group. So like, just, you now, figure it out or something. But then instead of moving on to prattle ambiguously about something else, she does provide all of one example, which is to let a ‘cowardly” character hide as a bonus action.

Now, a normal player will just roleplay a coward. They won’t want to be first in the marching order, or even the last if they think something will get them from behind. They won’t want to check a door for traps, or even open it, and will only engage a monster when it’s sufficiently distracted. Ideally the character grows out of this pretty quickly, becoming more steadfast and reliable. A simple, straightforward character arc.

Of course for a lazy, disinterested poser this just won’t do. Roleplay your character? In a roleplaying game? You need those mechanical carrots, those incentives. Otherwise what's the point? Play someone forgetful? Just because? Pffft, no way. Not without some sort of payoff. Like a bonus feat or some sort of perk. It's like roleplaying capitalism, but you're demanding compensation just to have a little character personality and depth. 

The last “fix” is, as Hannah puts it, to “always lead with the story”, which just translates to making sure that there are signs of the monster’s presence. Always. Doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not. Doesn’t matter if the monster wouldn’t normally leave any signs, or is intelligent enough not to, or cover them up afterwards (or even create false signs to mislead).

Her example is a loup garou, because that sounds fancier than a werewolf and she needs you to think she is intelligent and authoritative. You "can’t" just spring a werewolf on your players. Why not? Because Hannah said you can’t, obviously. Gotta have a “story”, first, and even if that story is that a werewolf fled from other place, happened upon the characters, and ambushed them?

Or, given that werewolves are generally as smart as a person, track the party and try to pick off a straggler. Why would you strike while they are on guard, suspicious? Assuming you were still hanging around the house that you apparently smashed into (why?), you'd have far better odds of waiting until one of them wanders off alone, or they hunker down for the night. Heck you could even throw on torn, blood-stained clothing and pretend to be the victim of an attack.

But no, no no no, that won’t do. Gotta give them some signs, so that they can feel clever when a werewolf attacks and they declare, "Aha, that explains the claw marks!" Gotta treat your players like retarded children (which, to be fair, sounds like Hannah’s group).

Remember that part of Preacher, where Cassidy just gets attacked by a vampire? Terrible. Awful. Talk about putting the monster before the story. Remember almost every issue of Hellboy, where lots of unexpected stuff happens? I'm kidding of course: I don't expect Hannah or anyone like her to know any of this. They aren't real fans after all. They don't really care. They're just along for the grift, and once it's played out or they get bored they'll just try another.

While I think this video is mostly for attention and money—it's why she blathers on about "story", because that's what other, more popular fake gamers do—some part of it feels like Hannah projecting her failures and shortcomings. Specifically, here, as a player and DM.

Why else would she impart such obvious, amateur DM advice, like including signs of a monster's presence? At the latest this was explained in the 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, and I've seen it in real issues of Dragon, blog posts, and social media.

It's nothing new, but despite all this, it's prevalence, I'm guessing Hannah was the sort to just plop monsters in empty rooms without rhyme or reason, to which more cunning and interested players might have asked, why couldn't we smell the zombies before we saw them? Why weren't there any remains on the lower levels of the grell hive? 

Of course she still fucks it up. Signs don't always make sense, or would even be obvious. Sure, stirges might leave drained corpses where they drop, and ankhegs leave all those tunnels, but what of a vampire? An even baseline-intelligent vampire isn't going to leave corpses lying about. He's not going to do anything overt that would clue anyone into his true nature. Unless he just doesn't care, is too stupid or overconfident, or is simply on the move.

I don't think this is a case of, say, Hannah losing characters to sudden monster appearances. I'm not convinced she plays much, or at all. I'm guessing she just read posts and articles by angry, entitled, story-centric casuals on the internet about how they did something stupid and/or overlooked obvious clues, their character died, and now their 10-page backstory is somehow more of a waste of time than it already was.

5th Edition combat probably is boring. The solution is to play a game where there's actual tension, danger, and consequences. And also play with people that genuinely want to play, that can pay attention and be bothered to know even the basics. That's it. Don't need to use any retarded gimmicks or heed retarded advice. That's just going to make it worse.

Play something better, and while you're at it stop trying to force fake "story" and drama: just play the fucking game, and see what sort of stories and dramatic events naturally develop.