You’re an advisor.

@@jinxtheunluckypony that could be true. I’ve laid out good tactical plans and had other players derail them, but I roll with the chaos because I’m just as guilty of going off the rails. My characters are usually have a kit built for utility and fill what ever need we may have since I play rangers most of the time.

The fact that you make adjustments based on your group means you're being more effective than someone who thinks there's a right way and a wrong way! Cheers to you!

@@AdventuresInAgility I agree with this sentiment. However, I think you conflate planning with action. Some people who are tacticians both plan and take action. Some people take action without planning. Some people plan, and plan, and plan some more. The 2nd and 3rd examples of players do not work well together. Whilst we could claim that the 3rd person is simply a "bad tactician", that depends on the GM and rest of the table. If the GM is unwilling to present conflicts to the party when they overthink certain things, then they become "good tacticians", because they will win through sheer analysis. This has happened to me on multiple occasions, both as a player and GM. It wasn't fun for anyone, but the party never lost a fight. Maybe that's WHY it wasn't fun. However, if they become "fun tacticians", then it's fine someone to be a tactician. But its not the planning that makes them fun to have at the table. Its the actions taken.

@jinxtheunluckypony that's a great insight. You've touched on servant leadership which is an aspect of getting buy-in, which I'm working on next. Do you mind me including your comment in that video?

i am playing with a group of new players/dm. I like to build highl effective characters but i didnt want to overshadow any of the other players with 500 damage per round at level 3 so i did exactlywhat you described, build a supportive cleric with bless, enhance ability, healing spells and many more supporting options. This worked very well for the team dynamic and i am glad to see, other have had the same idea!

@@AdventuresInAgility Go ahead.

This is why I've been a Support main in most team based games for going on two decades... It can be easier to "lead" with providing tactics when your teammates are incentivized to help you because you are helping them.

Same here. I like to play Wizards, Druids, Bards etc, and be a facilitator. Look for things that would elevate another player, or help shore up one of their weaknesses. With those goals, I always feel rewarded personally because I know how much I contributed, while never feeling like I took fun away from the other players.

@seasnail2589 Awesome stuff! You seem to know a lot about what makes your table tick, and you also have skills that make your party buy into your play style. It touches on something I have cooking for my next video. Would you mind if I took a quick screenshot of your comment and reference it there?

@@AdventuresInAgility Oh yeah, go for it!

100%! The key is having a nurturing, rather than an overbearing disposition. Thanks for the insight!

Well, there are the occasional players who enjoy having their characters meet a tragic ending so long as it's dramatically appropriate, although they tend to be drawn to games like Fiasco or horror RPGs rather than D&D.

@jacobbissey9311 Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'm working on the next part of this advice, which would hopefully give some tools to help you communicate better and smooth out the friction you may feel. But you already seem to know quite a lot! Owning up to your error and apologizing is awesome, and not many people have the guts to do it. Kudos to you!

Amazing insight! Thanks for sharing. Indeed, praise - and being genuinely happy for the success of your fellow players - is quite powerful for building influence. Damn, I would have loved to include your comment on the next video on the section that deals with just this topic! Unfortunately it's gonna take quite a lot to edit. But on behalf of the people you play with (who may or may not have said this to you), thanks for being awesome!

Sounds like you had an awesome game at an awesome table :)

Thanks for your kind words! Glad to see a fellow agile practitioner who is also in the hobby, and who also has tactician tendencies! I created this video as a loveletter to my younger self, when I also had those tactician tendencies that I hope I have gotten better at by now 😊

Sounds like you have a well-functioning group and a DM who lets things ride!

Well said! Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I actually raise very similar points in the follow-up video. Have you checked it out? :)

Awesome insights, thanks for sharing! This entire comments section just proves that there are a lot of tacticians who have the skills to do well at their tables, and these skills can be explained, discussed, learned, and developed.

Thanks for sharing! I am happy you found a good table, and your table found a gold tactician in you!

Awesome stuff!

Thanks for sharing! I hope your party then learned to appreciate you more after that harrowing experience :)

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. Indeed there are times when people just don't mesh, and that's ok. It's nobody's fault. And with something like D&D, the stakes are fairly low anyway. Happy you were able to find a great group to play with now! And I hope my next video helps a little with social situations.

Thanks for your kind words! I really hope it helps, and I wish you a group that also appreciates the work you put in!

@S4R1N An in-game training session! What a treasure you are! And if I were your DM I would be pretty happy too because I just need to prepare the battle map and watch the game unfold because the players are making their own fun. Your technique of asking questions is also next level, and touches on something I will cover in part 2. Do you mind me grabbing a screenshot of your comment and including it there?

I love it! Alignment, consent, and open communication. How is your game going so far?

@@AdventuresInAgility well enough, so far. We keep evading combat outright, and for most fights so far I've been the designated driver (our gm gave us a jeep and likes combat while we're moving). For one encounter, however, I was able to less loose and show the party that the rest of them don't need to worry about optimizing anything, that I'll be there to buff them and make them feel awesome regardless of their build choices.

It's cooking in the oven! I hope it turns out to be useful for you. But the fact that you're out there trying to learn how to fit your style with the other players at the table means you're well on your way.

You're in a very cool position of being able to teach them :) How old are your players, if I may ask? Regardless, I've observed (just anecdotally) that people newer to the game also have the tendency to surprise the DM more with their creativity, so there's still much fun to be had while they get used to the system! Maybe there's something there that you can lean on to enable your PCs to fight against tactically sound enemies.

@@AdventuresInAgility we are all in our 20s, and sadly don't get to play as regularly as I'd like. I'd say maybe 3-4 times a year. This lends itself more easily to a series of 1 shots, as the group also enjoys trying out all the different classes. There are a couple of re-occuring characters, but usually we start fresh each time. Because of this, each time they sit down, they have to not only re-learn how combat works (action economy, cover, concentration, conditions etc) but they also have to learn their new class. I love my group, I have blast teaching new players about this fun game, and as long as they're happy, I'm happy! Usually I run 1 "get to know the game" combat with just a bunch of trash mobs. Then I'll throw a more complex fight at the end.

Definitely! Character choices for me aren't really suboptimal choices because they are intentional and thought through. It's great that you lean into them because it gives the game flavor. I made this video in response to how many people tend to think tacticians are something to handle. You said it yourself, it's something to adapt to. Now while the rest of the world adapts to tacticians, I would hope we can arm them to adapt to their tables too, while being the best they can be 😁

You summed it up quite nicely! My philosophy on getting buy-in revolves around exactly that: servant leadership :) thanks for sharing!

Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm working on part 2 right now, and it should be out next Thursday :)

I'm so glad to hear about a DM getting inspired to use it! I only spent a few seconds in the video sharing how DMs would also benefit from this knowledge. I hope you get some good insights about your players when you sit down and think. I'd love to know what creative idea you come up with because you took a holistic perspective :)

It's cooking in the oven! Coming next Thursday :)

I had to google what nonce meant (sorry, not a native speaker). I probably wouldn't go that far - seems criminal -_-; but I do agree that in a game of D&D, it is not what you play but how you play that determines if the table has fun!

100%! Thanks for sharing your insight! D&D is not for everyone, and that's ok :) sometimes the optimal choice is to just not play together, or at least play a different game.

Oh, I feel for you! I hope you one day get to play all those builds in your head. One person here commented that they DM for a campaign where they gave their players builds of characters they wanted to play themselves, but couldn't because they were also the DM. It works for their table, maybe you could look into how they described it and see if some variation of it would work for yours too so that you can at least see the builds working :)

Oh, I wish you find happy tables and happier times in life. I couldn't imagine coming to a hobby and have despair be the most dominant feeling it leaves behind.

Thanks a lot for the kind words!

Thank you so much for the sub and your kind words!

Thanks for your well-considered thoughts! It shows that there is nuance that is needed for each and every table. Indeed I could easily imagine your counter examples working better at some (if not most) tables. I believe I said as much in the video - the point is not to repeat the exact same actions in my examples but to spend the time and effort getting to know your table so you can know how to best act upon your tactician tendencies. The only note I would have on your comment is your point about how if you're not a people person, then your observations will likely be wrong anyway. I believe it is a skill that can be developed, and it is in consciously trying to observe that one can improve. I know that a non-people person who has at least tried to observe and inspect their table has a better chance of having a good time than someone who just didn't because they thought it's pointless anyway. I love how you pointed to very short iterations. Such a thing could be followed by non-people persons too and thus learn and get better!

I wish you happy gaming, and I hope the table appreciates your service!

I love how you differentiate between a boss and a leader! Thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much!

My friend, you just said in a few words the key thesis of this video and the next one that I am working on! Thank you so much for sharing!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and supporting the channel! (EDIT) It seems that since the video was addressed to tacticians, people may have gotten the impression that only tacticians are responsible for using these techniques to make their game tables better. I would love to clarify that every player - every member of a group - can use these techniques to help bring their groups together and have an overall better playing experience. (/EDIT) Respectfully, I disagree with the thesis that people will by default be envious of your skill/numbers/understanding by default. Sure, some will, but not all people. A lot of people (me included) would rather not be the smarterst person in the room because it means there's a lot I can learn and people who can help me. A grasp of the rules of a TTRPG cannot be equated to the luck of being born into a rich or poor family because improving one's grasp of the rules is a lot easier. Nobody can stop someone who is motivated to learn the rules, while there are lots of societal barriers that actively hinder a person born into poverty from pulling themselves up. Someone who has the leisure time to play a TTRPG will definitely have the time to learn the rules, and the longer they play, the more of it they will potentially learn. Especially if in a supportive environment, they can flourish. Regarding the collision between your own ego against your playmate's, and the quetion of "why can't they adjust for the whole table to have more fun" - it kind of assumes that they've not made adjustments on their side already, right? In the formation of every group, every team, a period called the Storming phase exists where disagreements would happen as each person's working style is further exposed to everyone else's, and conflicts arise where there are incompatibilities. Groups need to navigate this well to get to the next stage of development (Norming) or else they will fall apart. It is everyone's responsibility to make it happen if they want to succeed, but people with more knowledge and more awareness can and should contribute more. I do these techniques for work, where egos are bigger, livelihoods are on the line, people may not be friends, and stakes are higher. This is not fantasy land. Applying it to TTRPGs is actually easier because you always have the opportunity to walk away without much impact. If your priority is to "be right" and for the rest of the table to recognize you as "right" and therefore cater to you, then it's much easier for you to leave and find a group that does if your current group can't accommodate it. If your priority is to make your game group the best it can be and have the most fun, then learning how to influence people, working to build them up, teaching them so they get to your level of knowledge, and incrementally guiding everyone so you can all adjust to each other is work that is ahead of you. Knowing more about how to do that can only help. I wish you great gaming at a table that makes you happy!

​@@AdventuresInAgility First of all, thanks for giving a detailed answer! I understand that the video is not exclusive to a certain type of player, and perhaps most of the viewers do as well. However, the players who think they were addressed in the video are most likely to voice opinions on the matter)) I have also felt a lot like sitting at a company meeting while watching, which is not inherently bad - just wanted to mention that the "work ethic" shows through. Sorry in advance as this may be a little rambly, but I'll try to edit before posting. As to the points discussed, I agree to disagree. I've played a lot, all the way through my later school and uni years and a dozen years over that. So, maybe I'm speaking from experience of mostly playing with people 20 to 35 years old, but I've noticed a pattern that roleplaying games - as a sub-division of escapism entertainment, - attract a certain type of people. I'm not profiling here, just sharing statistics. Most people over my roleplaying career (which is about 600 to 700 people we've had more than one game with) had reasons to engage in the hobby beyond the fun of creative co-writing: some personal problem or complex that prevented them from engaging in "real" activities (historical reconstruction, active sports, drama/theatre, creative writing, etc). Yes, there were a lot of people who were actually creatively active - but they had different things to run from. Escapism isn't called that for no reason, after all. About 80% total of the people had really fragile egos, or had anger issues, or other self-control problems up to and including substance abuse. Which is ways more than in any other area I've experienced, and I've worked in tech support for 15 years. I know this digs a bit deeper than the topic of the video, but noone ever discusses the taboo theme of the average player's mental health and "normalcy". Especially taking into account that the tabletop RPGs only really exploded in popularity during Covid, leading to the dilution of the player pool by the influx of "normies". What I'm leading to, is that most people come to the table searching for personal fulfillment and personal gratification. It is thus reasonable, that most care about their own person most and foremost. Long term planning, altruism and real collaboration strategies (not being a Boss or Know-It-All, but being a Leader) are naturrally discouraged, since people will just take what you give. Green beard altruism is a working strategy, however, but it requires patience, experience, and a great deal of personal sacrifice as well. And I really think that, when you say - "I do these techniques for work, where egos are bigger, livelihoods are on the line, people may not be friends, and stakes are higher." - in that very example the seriousness and the responcibilities of the situation work in favour of working out a resolution. You can walk away from a game, it's harder to walk away from work. Most people are not emotionally invested in their work, but they are heavily incentivised to deal, cope and improve. With a roleplaying game it's in reverse: people are heavily emotionally invested, and not at all held responcible by the consequences. So, no, I don't assume that others don't budge to make room for one player's comfort. I postulate that they budge as far as they can, without their hobby/entertainment becoming catering to anothers' whims. And some budge even further. As the saying goes - the freedom of one man ends, when the freedom of another one begins. I also postulate that, according to all the previous wall of text, that people searching for personal fulfillment, gratification and entertainment tend heavily to lean towards egoism. Leading to all the stuff in my 1st comment: envy, bad attittude towards those whom they consider overachievers, etc. When I was making analogies of being born into a rich family - I didn't mean players envying other players' mastery over a system, I meant players envying other players' characters' abilities and effects. It can't be easily fixed, because obtaining system mastery requires diligence and work, and some people come for other things. There are also lots of tangential things that could be mentioned here: crab-bucket effect, dislike towards "upstarts", "competitive" roleplaying, et cetera et cetera. Roleplaying is a world of it's own, with it's own problems. What I want to keep reminding people of is - that people are flawed, and people are fragile. And people psychology is way, way harder than just "being friends and working to be better together" mentality. You talk about the bright side of the coin, sure, but there's also the grimy one that's been lying in the mud. Thanks for having patience to deal with a random commenter on youtube. I'm not really looking to exchange essay length answers, it was just surprising to be talked to seriously. I'd be glad, if what I'm telling sheds some light, provokes thoughts and helps in understanding some issues better, through discussion or however else. You're doing excellent work, and it's impossible to expect all the possible nuance in a single video, but I'm interested if you could possibly tackle some of the things I've mentioned earler - as a work ethic problem: not a situation that people can walk away from because it's cheaper for them to find a new group, but for someone who wants to actually be invested and work through the rough spots with their current table. Gods know there are lots of those.

Wow, thanks for taking the time to lay all of these things out! Indeed my point of view didn't cover the needs of neurodivergent people, or people who are suffering in some way and are looking to ttrpgs as some form of treatment or at least escape. I would work on being more sensitive to these perspectives moving forward, but I don't have the expertise and have much to learn, so please bear with me (and also keep raising your points so I can learn!). As an agile coach, my training and sort of foundational belief when working with teams is that everyone is doing the best they can and want to achieve something good, and it is in guiding these intentions towards the same direction that the group can work well together. This is, as you say, the bright side of the coin. Especially because there is an assumption that the people themselves are motivated by their need to keep their jobs to work well with others. Finding the right group to join in ttrpgs is tough, because as you say, people may not bring to it the level of "professionalism" that they would to their work. I've been ruminating on this topic for a bit: what does it mean to behave in a "professional" manner at the gaming table? And when does it become worth it for someone to spend the effort to do that, rather than be as selfish as possible? What I would love to convey, and still don't know if I have found the right words to do so, is that the techniques or efforts I am sharing aren't required of anyone to do. They're extra effort that gives you a better chance of having a smooth experience at the table. My video releasing tomorrow explicitly says that the techniques are widely used in the industry but are not 100% effective, so don't expect it to be a silver bullet. Sometimes people and personalities just don't mix, and that's ok. For gaming groups, it's not satisfying but I haven't found an answer yet aside from leaving to find a new one if there's an unsolvable conflict, or if the table is asking more from you than what you can give. Finding the right group is hard, especially if one's in the world of playing with numerous random people and groups all the time. I feel for you, it sounds like you've had a rough go at it at some points in your gaming career. Thanks again for explaining your thoughts in more detail! Really interesting and gave me stuff to think about.

@mcguirecsr Not yet. What about the wangrod makes you curious? Perhaps there's something in my toolset that could be useful.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Having an adversarial DM would be quite tough for most groups, whether they have a tactician or not. I wish you find a group that better fits with your style!

Well said, thanks for sharing!

Thank you so much! You really made my day!

Letting - or better yet helping - other players shine is one of the keys to getting people to follow you!

@@AdventuresInAgility yeah, it's more facilitating. I usually say something like "what do you think, x?" and making sure every specialist is respected in their field. Don't rush in front of the rogue in a dungeon. Getting people to follow me is never the problem. I just tend to end up in that role unintentionally because when I get enthousiastic, i get ideas.

100%! The game is played with other people, and knowing them is key :)

I got you on Thursday next week! And as you say, it involves a lot of work outside the game, not just within the game :)

How is he affecting the rest of the table? Seems like things are still fun, right? He sounds more like an optimizer / power gamer, and looking for how the rules can best serve them is his jam :)

@@AdventuresInAgility The game kinda demands that any major plants need a cooperation from many players so very much so also a tactician. Effects vary. the first game he was in he completely destroyed it because he teamed up with another player to create a weird feedback loop where they made each other immortal as long as one of them was alive. It caused the other players to riot and collapsed the game. The next games he did more harmless things and they mostly just resulted in some aspect of the economy getting broken and a fun story for later. Generally he's a postive presence because his shenanigans help shake things up and to 'failureproof" the system.

Oh, that's very unfortunate. Without any other context on how the conversations happened, I would say as a DM it is also possible to lean into the cool things the players come up with. If they guessed the plans of the enemies correctly, did the proper preparations, and made the corresponding rolls, playing out an overwhelming victory on the players' side would still make a compelling and enjoyable game. I said as much on my first video about how to stop overprep by planning with user stories (shameless plug). A game that lasts 30 minutes instead of four hours because the players completely and utterly destroyed and embarrassed a villain is still bound to be a good game. It's not something I personally would be sad or mad about.

@AdventuresInAgility it was the waterdeep module. I was playing the inquisitive rogue. I was coming up with a fake solution to the fireball scene and explained my "Theory" about there being 2 killers 1 on the roofs and 1 that snuck up in the man and ran away down the alley. I never read the module and the dm told me I was wrong and explained why.... then flipped the page and read that I was right. He ended the session there and the game because he felt mad that I got it right when he didn't prep the game.

What a creative way of running a campaign! I'm happy you found a group of players who like to play this way. I can imagine it's fulfilling to see your builds in action and put through their paces (most especially if you're a forever DM who rarely gets to be a player, but has tons of build ideas)! Thanks for sharing :)

@@AdventuresInAgility yeah that's where it started from. I was going into a game with this character I made. I realized his weaknesses even with how powerful he would be. Then I made characters around him and realized how much of a good support he would be to some heavy damage dealers. So I made more characters. I played that campaign then the next campaign I was DM and gave them those sheets, except to the player who was the previous dungeon master. Really taking the time to explain what those important first cantrips ( minor illusion, control water, produce flame, etc ) can do. I had a powerhouse group of players. Now they were going to conquer my powerhouse world.

"just don't be condescending" goes a long, long way! Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!

and i don't min max my build

That sounds like a cool way to play :) I really admire people who can make characters with flawed stat sheets and who can lean into those flaws.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I do agree that as you say, the best tactics in the world won't make up for DMs who don't know how to run tactical encounters. At the same time, that DM could learn to run tactical encounters if they were made aware that this is what their players want, and if they were supported in that journey. The point I am trying to make is that as a tactician (as defined in Matt Colville's video), there are more productive ways to influence your game towards the direction you want. Achieving this influence is better served by the two points: coming up with good plans, and then generating buy-in so that the rest of the table goes along with the tactician's plans / requests in a smooth way. Rather than the two sides getting upset at each other, I believe there is a way to find some sort of balance that brings the group's cohesion and dynamics forward. Coming up good plans requires knowing the table, and I covered a technique to do that in this video. Generating buy-in uses that knowledge as a basis for other techniques which I covered in the succeeding video I released yesterday. This advice would be for people who have found a group they are willing to invest the time and effort in to develop and grow. As this is a TTRPG where the stakes are not very high, sometimes people might instead opt to just go find another group that already fits their personalities and playstyles rather than put in the work to educate, build, and influence the people in their current table.

Cool hint, I would put it on my to-read list! TBH I got the references from Matt Colville's video on player types, where he indeed referenced Robin Laws but did not mention the actual book it was from.

Thanks for leaving your feedback. I refer to the tactician as discussed in Matt Colville's video on player types. You can find it here, starting at the 7:10 mark kzfaq.info/get/bejne/grejfbai052Vdqs.htmlsi=s9LtFzThxZP59XwD

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It really shows the diversity of opinions and preferences that exist among all the people who would like to play.

There is nothing wrong with not being a tactician, and no need to try to be one if you're not :) I wish you happy gaming!

Related, look up the video, It's Rude to Suck at Warcraft

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I would love to see your ttrpg when it comes out, as you seem to have put a lot of thought in game systems. Will it be a tactically-oriented game? You are right, not every person goes into D&D or any other TTRPG with the same definition of fun. D&D is not for everyone, and that is totally ok. Maybe I'll make a video about that some other time :) but the point I hoped to share with this video is that as a tactician player, there is still a way for you to "optimize", but it has to be according to what your table can bring, not according to the table you think is "right" or "correct". The first step to that is spending the time to take a look at the people you're playing with, observing them as people, and figuring out their boundaries. It's not about making the absolute best builds or strategies, it's about making the best move you can with the table you have.

@@AdventuresInAgility ... man, has it really been 11 days? I have been meaning to respond to this. I did not realize it had been so long. Much agreed; what is optimal in practice is always relative to the context, not a universal absolute. While D&D's contexts are unfortunately so flat and homogeneous that they are often one in the same, that distinction is vital, and instructing people on the _social_ context is vital. My system is less of a game in itself per se than it is a system for creating games. The embedded perspective is that we actually rarely play the system (outside of large-scale social network games such as Adventurer's League) as the game itself but use the mechanical framework to run our individual game. The mechanics and abilities are modular and can function both independently and interdependently, with an emphasis on subsystems over rules embedded in specific instances and the tools to generate the mechanical structure of situations and challenges rather than a catalogue of specific instances (eg an enemy generator rather than lots of rigid, specific enemies). As it relates to the video topic, I already designed PC abilities and subsystems around distinct goals, such as making debuffs from injuries more common to push healer characters into triage (a common desire among players of healer characters in MMORPGs and MOBAs from my research) rather than making them DPS/general mages that occasionally sacrifice some damage for an unengaging healing ability. Similarly, I think existing systems could do a lot to make tacticians comparatively _more_ viable by ensuring there are multiple competing goals or choices for each character a lot of the time, especially those whose build and/or desired role differs from the mainstay of DPS. Implementing better use of terrain, varied enemy types, information constraints, etc can do a lot to help with this.

Your comment really warms my heart! I hope you know you made my day.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your kind words!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! While I haven't experienced people who are annoyed by the attempt at coordination itself - not the delivery or method but the actual thought that someone would try to coordinate - I have no doubt they do exist. I hope there's not a lot because that's just sad for everyone involved. But for the case of the rude tactician, I hope the next video I am working on about generating buy-in would help smooth things out on the gaming table.