Need advice, is this a good idea?(pretty long)(my players, stay out or be sacked!)

[Brown Jenkin]

There is nothing wrong with shaking things up. My only concearn (and I don't know the players so I can't judge thier responses) is that they are willing to change campaign styles without warning. If they all want to play heroic and be allied with good and the world is sudenly changed with them on the run against everyone else and evil characters are now allowed there could be problems. As much as the DM has a right to run the world he wants to if he runs a type of campaign the players don't want to play there will be problems. As I said I don't know your players so they may be fine with this. I personally would be upset if the DM changed the campaign without warning to something I didn't want to play, but then I get upset and stop watching TV shows if they overhaul things to drasticaly in ways I don't like.

 

[jerichothebard]

They do have a choice to either stay and fight(600+ well trained warriors can still take a huge chunk out of their enemies) or retreat. However, hopefully they realize that they're outgunned and will make smart decisions.

As my Dm (maerdwyn) has discovered to his surprise and sometimes regret:

Player Characters Don't Retreat.








as a general rule, at least. It isn't something you can ever really count on. The assumption, I believe, is that most DM's (even the Rat Bastards like PC, which I say with much respect) aren't really out to KILL the party (maim, humiliate, torture, but not kill). So, they won't ever throw something at you that it is impossible to beat.

Which means if you PLAN on your party retreating, you may wind up with a TPK on your hands. Or, you may wind up (obviously) Nerfing your villians at the last minute to avoid a TPK.

Or, and this is rare but does happen, the party may just surprise the heck out of you and get lucky and clever at the same time. Which is what happened in our campaign - we killed a villian that was supposed to be recurring WAAY ahead of schedule, because we didn't know we couldn't. (And got his swag, but that is a different story)

But don't count on it.


jericho

 

[Mort]

As my Dm (maerdwyn) has discovered to his surprise and sometimes regret:

Player Characters Don't Retreat.

jericho

That should only happen once. After the DM has killed the characters for not retreating when they should (or if the players are fully aware that they only got by on a lucky break and probably should have died), the players will know better next time.

Back to the thread:

I like the idea of a shakeup in the world order; keeps down the complacency. But as Piratecat said, make sure it doesn't look forced - and being too scripted looks forced.

 

[Manatee]

I agree with Brown Jenkin--this is a situation where you have to know your players. As you say, you would be completely changing the tone of the campaign, from heroic fantasy to something much darker and more horrific. You would also be changing a ground rule (no evil characters) that's important to some people. Some players would be fine with this, or would even like the darker tone better. Others would be very unhappy. (I'd be in the "unhappy" camp myself, though if we'd been playing together a while and I trusted you as a DM, I'd certainly give the "new" campaign a chance.)

 

[David Argall]

forget it

I can easily see you losing a couple of players from this change, and you are not overloaded with them as it is.

If you really love the idea, do it the other way around. Discuss it with your players and either get their permission to railroad them or just start a 2nd campaign where this has happened.

just because an idea sounds cool does not mean it is good.

 

[blackshirt5]

Well gee how in the world can I ignore quality advice like that david?

Blah blah blah railroading, blah blah blah it may sound cool to you but it's not cool. blah blah blah gonna lose players and you don't have many anyway blah blah blah

I've already made clear that my plans are mutable, I just have neither the time nor the inclination to type out every possible minute little scenario. It's absolutely feasible that my players may pull rabbits(of the vorpal variety, a la Holy Grail) out of their collective arses and surprise me, stopping a lot of this. However, as they're all around 6th and 7th level, they won't be able to stop the entire thing.

Tip: Don't read the first post and hit reply. There's a whole slew of replies, and guess what? They need to be read too. Honest. Scouts' Honor.