GM Rant: Style of Play

[Save Vs. Death Ray]

Lost some PCs last night to the War of the Witch Queen. They strode into what they thought was a corridor ............... and things went downhill from there in every sense of the word.

An ounce of prevention could have saved them all. All the clues were there. (Room full of skeletons and magical equipment = Red Flags!)

Anyone who has played True Dungeon knows how scary "real" adventuring is. Yer pulse is pounding as you inch forward terrified of what lurks in the darkness ahead. You're cautious. You're scared. You're careful.

How come so few players play this way? It's like since they invented ELs and CRs everyone is convinced that every encounter is going to be balanced to their level.

How different is this from when we all knew Gygax had a treasure chest with no save contact poison in every module? We acted scared because we knew we could all die if we looked the wrong direction.

I try to expect my PCs to act intelligently. When the dice go massively wrong I'll fudge the rolls for the PCs, but if it's a stupid mistake on their part .......... what do you do?

Maybe it's time to bring back no save contact poison.

[JediOre]

I think you are right. I've noticed my gang assuming that modules are written with only EL they can tangle with. (The exception is Necromancer modules). Prior to 3.X we played first edition AD&D. Folks were more careful then. The modules published from TSR weren't written to be easy for the PCs, but truly an adventure.

Many gamers seem to have become lax in the thinking department. Feats and skill checks will save the day.

I remember being a PC in DCC#1. We found the hidden room at the end and two of the players, despite all evidence to the contrary, would not believe a vampire could be involved because the module is a low-level module.

Sloppy playing can lead to messy deaths.

[Warduke]

That vampire has killed more than her share of PCs. Nasty, nasty, nasty encounter.

Sometimes we PCs just have to run away.

[Mike_Ferguson]

How come so few players play this way? It's like since they invented ELs and CRs everyone is convinced that every encounter is going to be balanced to their level.

Agreed. Particularly because ELs and CRs are indicators of how powerful monsters are ... but they're certainly not gospel.

You can take a single low-level orc fighter, and with the right combination of feats, two or three low-powered magic items (nothing better that +1), and combat terrain, that fighter can single-handedly whip a party of 8th-level characters. Ask me how I know. But if you go by the CR of said orc fighter, it's no higher than 5.

It's why I like using monsters in my game that start with a low CR - it's easy to adjust the CR much higher. When my players encounter a group of three kobolds, they have no idea what they're going to get - an easy fight, or a bloodbath. It forces them to play smarter, and that makes for a better game overall.

[Warduke]

Ask me how I know.

Puts on Ren Faire voice:

How.

Do.

You.

Know?

[mythfish]

How come so few players play this way? It's like since they invented ELs and CRs everyone is convinced that every encounter is going to be balanced to their level.

So true. I specifically told the last group I ran for that I would sometimes put them in situations where they'd be up against things TOO TOUGH FOR THEM and that RUNNING AWAY IS OKAY. Did they ever run away? Did they ever exercise caution? Well, a couple times maybe. But rarely.

Things have to be balanced toward the party to a certain extent to keep the players happy and keep things running smoothly, but I never bought into the "I'm 4th level therefore everything I meet should be beatable by a 4th level character" philosophy.

Hmm, what would have happened if the Fellowship of the Ring decided to take on the Balrog? Or if the hobbits decided to take on the nazgul in the shire? Or if Frodo & Sam decided to take on the army of orcs between them and Mt Doom in Mordor? Even the greatest heros run away or sneak sometimes.

[JediOre]

My problem when I get to run PCs is everytime I think retreat is a good idea, I always hear the knights in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail:

"RUN AWAYYYYYY!"

Then I have to pause and rethink my retreat idea. The very idea if immitating them scares me....

"When danger reared its ugly head, Sir Robin bravely turned his tail and fled. Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin."

[trancejeremy]

Well, shockingly enough, most people don't like having their characters killed and having to make new ones every adventure. And when its basically by GM fiat, like poison or something out of the blue with no save, then you aren't going to have many players. It's a small enough hobby to begin with. (And no offense to Mr. Gygax, but I doubt his famous characters would have survived very long if they went through his published modules)


As to monsters, back in the 1e days, most people seemed to have the MM pretty much memorized.

Nowadyas, it's hard to tell when something is too powerful for a party, thanks to character levels for monster and templates. A party doesn't know how tough it is until they attack, and then they can't really flee successfully unless it's an immobile monster (or the GM takes it easy on them).

[Save Vs. Death Ray]

Trance,

I totally agree with you. It sucks to loose any PC. And I think your point was right ........... if Gygax had sent ol' Mordekainen through his modules, Mordy would have been morty.

But still I'm an advocate for PCs running away. So often they just resolve to keep whacking at Monster X until it dies. Sometimes all those spells and powers should be used to hide/outrun the beastie. It's a wide, wide world out there, and PCs should rightfully be afraid of things that go bump in the dark.

Or at least, that's how I would like to run my games. Other games for other players.

[joeforan]

The scary, pee-your-pants, encounter that you can't hope to beat is a valuable plot element. I did something very similar to the hidden room in DCC1 myself. I had a party of third- and fourth-levelers, nearing the end of their first dungeon, find a crypt with ancient warnings written all over it, in the fashion of a BIG WARNING SIGN. Sure enough, the PCs opened it anyway, just hoping for some leet lewt and a ghoul or some such to beat up for it. What they unleashed was none other than Strahd Von Zorovitch, whom everyone thought finally dead after the last campaign (same players, different characters, same world), where the heros wiped him off the face of the map after heavy losses and great difficulties running through I6.

Encounters like this don't have to be deadly to be terrifying... Strahd leaped out of the coffin, back-handed three characters to the ground while striding out of the chamber, and snickered as they tried to gang-beat him. . The one PC outright killed was the one PC who wouldn't let up, despite every opportunity, and he was snapped in half as an example and nothing more. Such obivously inexperienced characters were of no threat, or interest, to one who is "the ancient" and "the land", and who has his own agenda and more important concerns than some free PC blood.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that the impossible-to-defeat challenge may be just that, impossible-to-defeat, but it doesn't mean that the challenge wants or cares enough to get into a fight. Down the road, Strahd proved a persistent villain, appearing in a few other adventures before they party went to Ravenloft to challenge him again. Serrenna, when my DCC campaign gets to her, may just be a similar case for my group. A few of the current players date back to that old game, so they may even appreciate it.

That and sometimes it's good to remind players that the world doesn't care what level you are... just like a toon in World of Warcraft walking from Tirisfal Glades into the Plaguelands next door will soon learn. BLAM! Level 1-10 to Level 55-60... say hello to your innards on the way down.