ccs
41st lv DM
Of course there was no warning.
Fishermen, Fish, and Bait (read: "GMs, Players, and Gold")
Of course there was no warning.
ccs
41st lv DM
Of course there was no warning.
But where's the fun in that?
Getting all of a mountaineering team to the summit, alive, is totally an occasion for high-fives all around.
Some people enjoy playing heroic PCs, in the sense of mature people who overcome significant obstacles to accomplish worthy goals, or who perish in the attempt. Others would rather play PCs who get each other killed, with "hold my beer and watch this" on the tombstone. It's a matter of personal preference.
So one of my groups is running through Carrion Crown. At one point in the first module, they’re exploring the grounds outside a haunted prison. While making their rounds, they see a bag on a section of a partially submerged wall. They decide to investigate (with the sorcerer chanting “shiny” without even seeing the contents). Long story short, several almost drown while trying to swim to it, and that’s before the undead rise to attack. No one died, but they ALMOST died for a bag full of waterlogged books with no value... Sometimes the APPEARANCE of treasure is as enticing as the real thing.
There is a saying in my gaming circles - If you cannot do something smart, do something stupid. Either way, something gets done.
Eltab
Lord of the Hidden Layer
In White Plume Mountain (Yawning Portal), one room has a Wizard's spellbook with a classic Explosive Runes booby-trap. I decided to use Arcane Trickster's enhanced Mage Hand from across the room to check it out. While the rest of the group was in the middle of the room looking around at whatever had survived the fight. (Oops.)
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
If the goal is to get to the summit at all, then losses along the way are fine as long as someone makes it to the top...and back down. Party goal beats individual character goals and the end justifies the means.
If the goal is to get everyone to the summit and back down, that's a whole different approach which may lead to the overall goal not being achieved at all should it prove impossible to do so with all hands surviving. Individual survival beats party goal and the end takes second place to the means.
Fine for a while but eventually it loses its appeal. Also, games like this tend to end up taking themselves far too seriously; to the point where laughter and entertainment are frowned upon and everything has to be high drama. No thanks.
I'd rather play in a game where I can be entertained, be entertaining in return, and share some laughs along the way.
This, exactly!Umbran said:
Lan-"hold my beer, and it better all still be there when I get back"-efan
On the former point: your experience differs from mine. I'm playing in a game in which the PCs are playing for high stakes. No PC deaths so far. We've managed to save some NPCs from horrible deaths, but not all. And then, when the PCs are returning from a mission, we play out campfire conversations, and so forth, in which the PCs razz each other, playfully... which IMO is all the more fun, because they're blowing off steam from something important. We've had a session which spent substantial time on what happens when the team's Barbarian tries a double shot of super-enhanced liquor. He had a good trip, and the rest of us kept him from doing too much damage, at worst he would have trashed the bar or fallen into the latrine, TPK was not on the table for that scene, a game can include both high-stakes scenes and low-stakes scenes.
We had also had a scene in which the PCs were in a high-stakes combat, and the sorceror cast Enlarge on the dragonborn paladin, so the players made kaiju jokes. The PC had an experience which caused post-mission nightmares (the PC woke up screaming for several nights afterwards.) Players are making kaiju jokes, and then puns riffing on those jokes. These can happen in parallel. Mood at the table != mood in the story.
If you say there are any gamers anywhere, who DON'T want "entertained, be entertaining in return, and share some laughs along the way" - well, if you've met them, then I cannot contradict your experience; but so far as I can tell, we ALL want that. We just vary, in how to accomplish it.
Fauchard1520
Adventurer
Just had a run-in with some exceptionally enticing loot last night. 5e Out of the Abyss game. During the second half of the AP there's a maguffin with the personality of the One Ring. It looks like a crazy valuable hunk of treasure, but it comes paired with a Wisdom saving throw. It draws you in... It makes you want to touch it... Then it drives you straight up mad when you do.
Sometimes the bait is the trap. Those are not good days at the office.
Sometimes the bait is the trap. Those are not good days at the office.
