When you as DM cry foul in the players' favor

[CruelSummerLord]

On another gaming website a few years ago, I read a post by a DM who told how he had read the combined Slavers modules (all four modules included in one booklet), and how the plot required the players to be captured, wtihout giving them any chance at all to escape capture. He noted how the Slavers would go out of their way to destroy the PCs' most cherished heirlooms and their most precious possessions. It's supposed to motivate the PCs and get them mad at the Slavers, but the DM concluded that it would only make them mad at him. It's important to note that these aren't just their most powerful magical goodies; role-playing trinkets that might be worthless in-game but are still very important to the PCs, such as pictures of loved ones, family crests, and other things like that would be destroyed just to distress the PCs.

He panned the module and IIRC decided not to run it as written, since he thought the players should at least have a chance to evade capture and be able to keep their precious treasures, especially the ones that mean a lot to them.

Similarly, in reading through the 3E Forgotten Realms campaign setting, I read of a lich who wasn't statted out but was described as being able to cast spells that could steal memorized spells right out of a victim's mind. This time, I was the one who cried foul, stating that sort of tactic was grossly unfair. It's also dangerous; this is a wizard spell, which means that if the lich can cast it, the PCs probably can too. Can you imagine a spell that would allow the PCs to steal the BBEG's memorized spells?

Me either, and this is a situation where, if I ran that encounter as a DM, I would strip the villain of that power. I know full well that Bad Guys Don't Fight Fair, but to me there's a difference between giving villains and monsters powers that the PCs respect and fear, and just being cheap and unfair.

Have there ever been times, in reading through a module or monster description, you as a DM cry foul and change things in the players' favor? This wouldn't be giving them a free ride-the module or monster could still have many challenges-but you as DM are acting to make things fairer for your players. I'm just talking about those times when you think something is underhanded and unfair even to players who've played well.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Yes. Blasphemes from Libris Mortis are a CR9 monster with a bite attack at +18 which, if it hits automatically dazes the victim for one round and deals 1d6 str damage. If they are equal or greater in number to the party that's almost a total lock as they'll be hitting virtually all the time. I changed the effect to allow a Fort save.

 

[frankthedm]

PHB

Grapple: Can't attack with one handed weapons, Can't two weapon fight and light weapons suffer -4 to hit. I switched it to one handed weapons suffer the -4, light weapons do not. Two weapon fighting in graple is an option.

3E MM

Shadows: 1d6 str damage per hit vs touch AC :\ . They come in packs . I've skipped using them most of this edtion because of that.

Aliip: 1d4 perm wisdom drain at CR 3? Yet if you mentally contact these insane undead you only suffer wisdom damage? I switched their touch to do wisdom damage and mind linking to cause the wisdom drain.

Warahammer FRP 2E: An adventure is set up to where the PCs can chose to rescue a young girl. If the players decide to help the girl out and try deliver her to her true parent, at the end of the adventure they find out the parent passed away 'accidently' and she can no longer claim any birthright without said parent to vouch for her. The written suggested endiing is they leave her with an elderly associate of her father unsuited/unskilled to care for her [Illo below] and recieve a nice cash reward for themselves. The alternate ending was for the PCs to call in the solid favor they are owed from a family man the players saved from hanging earlier in the adventure.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

On another gaming website a few years ago, I read a post by a DM who told how he had read the combined Slavers modules (all four modules included in one booklet), and how the plot required the players to be captured, wtihout giving them any chance at all to escape capture. He noted how the Slavers would go out of their way to destroy the PCs' most cherished heirlooms and their most precious possessions. It's supposed to motivate the PCs and get them mad at the Slavers, but the DM concluded that it would only make them mad at him. It's important to note that these aren't just their most powerful magical goodies; role-playing trinkets that might be worthless in-game but are still very important to the PCs, such as pictures of loved ones, family crests, and other things like that would be destroyed just to distress the PCs.

He panned the module and IIRC decided not to run it as written, since he thought the players should at least have a chance to evade capture and be able to keep their precious treasures, especially the ones that mean a lot to them.

I agree with most of this. I might railroad the PCs into capture, but only with the players' permission. (In effect, start with them in prison.) Smashing their items is a no-no.

I've actually gone through a similar homebrew adventure like that; we got to fight our way out, after being forced to participate in a gladiatorial arena.

Similarly, in reading through the 3E Forgotten Realms campaign setting, I read of a lich who wasn't statted out but was described as being able to cast spells that could steal memorized spells right out of a victim's mind. This time, I was the one who cried foul, stating that sort of tactic was grossly unfair. It's also dangerous; this is a wizard spell, which means that if the lich can cast it, the PCs probably can too. Can you imagine a spell that would allow the PCs to steal the BBEG's memorized spells?

Yes. It's called Dominate Monster. As long as there's a save involved, I see nothing wrong with this.

 

[Fifth Element]

Casting defensively for a low-level wizard: very few spells in a day, not many ranks in Concentration. Failure means losing the spell; harsh. I give them the choice of which is more important each time: casting the spell or avoiding the attack. If casting the spell is more important, the wizard does not lose the spell if he fails the Concentration check; he simply draws attacks of opportunity as usual. If avoiding the attack is more important, a failure resolves normally.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Have there ever been times, in reading through a module or monster description, you as a DM cry foul and change things in the players' favor? This wouldn't be giving them a free ride-the module or monster could still have many challenges-but you as DM are acting to make things fairer for your players. I'm just talking about those times when you think something is underhanded and unfair even to players who've played well.

I haven't, but I wish I had in at least one case.

I had just restarted DMing after years away from it and I was still scraping a lot of rust off my skills. I ran a published adventure where the Macguffin had to be stolen from the PCs to get into the heart of the adventure. I pulled off the grab OK, but the PCs chased the thieves and one player came up with a great strategy to catch up with them. It was a smart, creative idea...but I panicked that it was going to kill the adventure, so I "rewarded" his creative thinking by coming up with a lame excuse why it didn't work and the thieves were able to get away.

I pretty much lost that player's trust in me as DM. It took me a long time to get him to again trust that smart thinking would not be nerfed because it might make things harder for me as DM.

 

[Arnwyn]

Have there ever been times, in reading through a module or monster description, you as a DM cry foul and change things in the players' favor? This wouldn't be giving them a free ride-the module or monster could still have many challenges-but you as DM are acting to make things fairer for your players. I'm just talking about those times when you think something is underhanded and unfair even to players who've played well.

Oh, absolutely and all the time. Your two examples above are definitely biggies, but there have been a whole slough of modules throughout the years (many of them 2e, a significant number of them crappy Ravenloft) that frustrated me to no end because I thought they would be grossly unreasonable to my players.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I had just restarted DMing after years away from it and I was still scraping a lot of rust off my skills. I ran a published adventure where the Macguffin had to be stolen from the PCs to get into the heart of the adventure.

Why is this so common? As far as I can tell about 98% of published adventures with plots suck due to railroading.

 

[Numion]

The whole "Dying of the Light" WFRP adventure from Hogshead publishing. Horrible piece of railroaded crap. I cried foul as a DM and threw the thing away, having wasted the money. I'd never spring something like that on my players.

It was so bad that I wouldn't try to sell it because then I would've been an accessory to a series of horrible RPG sessions without even being present. And if I ruin a session I want to at least be there

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Have there ever been times, in reading through a module or monster description, you as a DM cry foul and change things in the players' favor?

One that I am immediately mindful of is an appalling encounter in the original Adventure Path module Speaker in Dreams. In an adventure for 5th (to 7th?) level characters this is an EL12 encounter and I cannot comprehend what James Wyatt was thinking when he wrote it. It is an all-but-guaranteed TPK. Against what should be a 4 character party of (at this point in the adventure) 6th level characters, there is an Ogre Mage (CR 8), a Ranger3/Assassin3, two Rogue5/Assassin1's, three Rogue4's, a Cleric4, a Lemure (CR1), and a Sorceror4. The encounter is set up as an ambush that has no reason not to succeed unless the PC's are insanely paranoid (and there is no preparation in the adventure to place them in that mindset). There is a statement that, "The party's goal for this encounter should be to escape alive."

I just couldn't see how that would be at all likely if even possible. IIRC I omitted several of the opponents and kept their level of aggression a bit low. It wound up being a reasonably interesting but far from deadly encounter... or sequence of encounters really as they pursued one or more of the enemy as they fled the scene. Then when the party attempted to return to their base of operations I recall I had those survivors make a second assasination attempt. THAT made the PC's appropriately paranoid.