Hello my dear fellow DMs, I hope this post finds you well. I imagine you’ve seen my “Change My Mind” meme post let’s just say the number of responses far exceeded my expectations lol, you guys are amazing <3.
However, I think it’s important to make a few clarifications. I’ve been a DM for about 6 years now, and I'm running my longest campaign for around 3 years now. In my long “career” I’ve seen pretty much everything, but this is the first time I’ve taken an active and serious party like the one I currently have to such a high level as 14, and I can’t deny that I’ve encountered some serious difficulties in balancing. Obviously I love D&Dif I hated it, I wouldn’t have spent all this time on it. I was interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic; now I’ll share my honest and highly debatable opinion.
D&D is a terribly unbalanced game and that’s okay, I mean, it’s not meant to be competitive like Warhammer or other wargames and obviously, calling the game unplayable is an exaggeration. . However, it has to be said that as the adventure progresses, the core game does very little to help the master out. I know there’s a solution to everything, but it’s quite difficult to balance those “solutions” with the relationship between the players and the DM.
Another thing that bothers me is seeing how, as levels go up, players seem to almost become “lazier.” For example, at level 7, a party trying to infiltrate an hostile outpost really feels the weight of having limited spells and resources, so they try to use them wisely and make up for the lack with roleplay and creative ideas.
At level 13, instead, the scene turns into a sad “I cast, I cast, I cast, I cast” boom, zero RP, zero cool ideas. Of course, I’m the one who needs to adapt, but sometimes I really feel the weight of it.
What do you think?