D&D 5E Player feedback: Deserved Easy Win or a Satisfying Win?

[Blue]

The current big bad that they are dealing with in my Masks of the Imperium campaign is a elf-hating duke who has made a deal with an Oinoloth in order to gain the knowledge of a genocide ritual, and for protection again his (PC) nephew who has killed him once before (in backstory).

(Note that the people of the dukedom are not evil - guards are most likely doing their job. Oh, and the party's patron is the Child-Empress currently without power because of a regent was imposed by the Council of Nobles, who has warned them that "Regicide is not a habit we wish to encourage my citizens to partake in", so killing the Duke without exposing the Oinoloth to the people won't work.)

The party has spent sessions setting everything up right. The found out about the Oinoloth (which was oriiginally planned ot be a surprise), researched it's powers, figured out how to expel it from the duke's body, were brilliant in putting that together with the fact that he would be at the dawn blessing of a Opympiad-expy at the hallowed shrine invoking th gods, and that they have a very good bard with them who can lead the spectators in a chant of exorcism for force the Oinoloth out of the body and to materialize.

They've gotten the loan of some items that will be particularly useful. They approached the head of the local clergy and let them know something is up, even if they were worried work would get back so they didn't tell them exactly. They've spread rumors among the people. They even found out that one powerful supposed ally of the duke will not help defend him.

Basically, they will be going into a fight that would have been a multi-stage boss battle with lots of surprises instead fully rested, prepped, with consumable magic up, knowing the foe and what they can do. And as the first fight of the day where you know it's a big one, PCs can punch well above their weight class.

So I expect this to turn into a meaningful but fairly pre-determined fight, that the PCs will have the upper hand.

And I worry that after putting sessions into lining all of that up, the players will feel cheated if they were able to turn it in a fight without a lot of tension. I could make it harder so that it feels like they worked to turn it from nigh-impossible to possible, but that's ignoring player actions in a way I don't like.

So, if you were a player and had invested several sessions in getting allies, information, and such about a big bad, and using that turned the conclusion of the arc into a fairly short fight because you were Batman-level prepared, would you feel great about it or would you feel like you wasted time and shouldn't have put in that much research and prep?

 

[prabe]

I think that if you can make clear the connections between the preparations and the curbstomping you see coming, the players will be more likely to see them as something other than wasted time. Possibly you can find a way to make it meaningful in any event.

 

[iserith]

I'd be fine with the battle being a cinch. It means all the grueling planning sessions had a point to them. Plus it means I can harvest the most amount of XP and treasure in the least amount of time. (Or at least make up for the XP and treasure I wasn't earning during the planning sessions, if that was the case.)

 

[Stalker0]

I think that if you can make clear the connections between the preparations and the curbstomping you see coming, the players will be more likely to see them as something other than wasted time. Possibly you can find a way to make it meaningful in any event.

This. The key is to make the players feel the win. When you describe the custom magic item cutting into the enemy's special defenses, the party will feel great.

If you do a cutscene where the bad guy's reinforcements are now minutes (instead of rounds) away because of the player's distractions, again they will feel smart.

Use roleplaying to sell it. Have the BBEG look frustrated, screaming out "how, how did you do this!!!" Now the PCs can lord over their victory and watch the bad guy squirm.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’d feel awesome about it. That was the point of all that prep, right? Always feels good to see your own hard work pay off.

 

[Vaalingrade]

We don't spend three sessions in Shadowrun planning to have a fair fight is all I'm saying.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

@prabe has the right of it. Give them the easy win, but do what you can to show the connections between the effort they put in and the result that has come out. Bear in mind, it's also possible to put too fine a point on it, so don't go overboard with those links. But, overall, think of it as being like a great video game, where you've been gathering allies, doing all the sidequests, saving every little boy's kitty and building alliances with every queen/chieftain/priestess/etc. When the final showdown comes, all that effort you put in pays off. Those people show up, ready to do their part, proud to be able to give back.

I had a similar sort of situation happen last year with a (relatively) short side-mission. The party had to deal with a weirdo cult using an elder oblex to mind control people. They called in LOTS of help to deal with that stuff: their artificer ally and her fiance who has influence with the priesthood; the Bard's connections to the "Robin Hood" underworld folks; the Battlemaster's connections with the army and political structure; the Ranger calling on his (extremely massive) extended family to get additional mercs and greymarket connections. Between the three of them, they rallied like three quarters of the city's various groups and factions and managed an excellent precision strike that threatened essentially zero innocent people, saved all the victims of the mind control, and managed to recover some of the bizarro psi-tech that the oblex and its human host/shell was using, which could prove useful later.

Don't be too worried about an "easy" win. If you can show that their work made it an easy win, it will be a badge of honor: "Remember that time we curbstomped the Oinoloth?"

 

[Arilyn]

As a player, with all that intelligent prep, I'd feel like a somewhat easy victory is the payoff.

 

[Musing Mage]

Let them have their Hannibal Smith moment if they've earned it...

 

[iserith]

I’d feel awesome about it. That was the point of all that prep, right? Always feels good to see your own hard work pay off.

I'm reminded of a situation in my last Eberron campaign. The characters, backs against the wall, had to hand over a schema to the villains to save their skins. This schema would allow the archvillain to complete construction on a warforged colossus and have it open a seal to the Realm of Madness, unleashing heck upon the world.

Only the crafty Cannith artificer in the party was able to make a duplicate schema and design into it a fatal weakness: a small thermal exhaust port which led directly to the reactor system, only about two meters wide, where the colossus's butthole would be. (We're 13 years old in terms of maturity.)

Many sessions later when the villain completed his triumphant machine and set into motion what he thought would be his final act, the characters - with the help of a dragon and a purloined airship - crawled right up that exhaust port and laid waste to the villain's doomsday device and his plans for world annihilation without hardly breaking a sweat. (The cleric's divine intervention perfectly timed to clear the path to the colossus of swarms of aberrations didn't hurt either - 01 rolled on the d100!)

The payoff on these sorts of things is huge for the players.