DM'ing is a skill, not an art.

[Varis]

We took 10 on the Skill Challenge, but the DM was grinning like a cat stalking at a canary, the way he does when I'm rolling a Death Save with two saves crossed off.

Whenever I imagine ways to kill your character, I always start grinning

 

[Varis]

I disagree with everything you say. You should know this by now

Lol, true,..so true

 

[Shadeydm]

I think I would have not made it a challenge at all (as there could be no successful outcome for the adventurers)

Not falling to your death is a successful outcome in my book!

 

[Charwoman Gene]

So basically you and some other members of your party decided something the rest of the party thought was stupid and you came on here to get people to massage your ego. i liked the dressing it up in philosophical terms. DM's are under no obligation to customize an adventure on the fly.

 

[jbear]

Not falling to your death is a successful outcome in my book!

Hmmm... you climb in congratulations, you've arrived! Nothing to see here. Move along. Hey you climbed out. Awesome and you're still alive!

Ok, from this point of view, they have achieved being able to come to the game again next week. Fair enough.

I don't think that was the kind of result the players were attempting to acheive. Here, at this point for the sake of fun/fluidty/group cohesion I would incline towards smoothing this situation over with a brief narrative of their wasted attempts and get the game back towards the action.

 

[Varis]

Tricky. I can see both sides of the story. I really value gametime too as it's a titanic struggle to coordinate gamenights with all my players (myself included) sometimes. I can understand the disappointment of not having done anything cool.

I can also see the DM's stance that the drainpipe wasn't a weak point that the players were able to sneak in through when conceived.

What would I have done? Not sure. Having the benefit of hindsight and the differing opinions/experiences, I think I would have not made it a challenge at all (as there could be no successful outcome for the adventurers) and moved thoses 5 hours of wasted time along very swiftly or even let the PC's know that very early on they realise its going to be 5 hours of tiring climing spent fruitlessly.

Then give the others a chance to prepare/do something til the climbers get back with the bad news. 2 minutes of game time later everyone is back together and putting their heads together for a new course of action.

I find it to be a real balancing act.

With some quick questioning, players could metagame the significance of a particular road for example, by the manner in which I give or don't give information, if I am in the habit of only paying 'real' attention to the 'important parts' of the plot.

Some DM's might be fine with this. To me it doesn't seem right. If they want to know about a rock, I'll give it the same attention as the road. If they press for more details, I'll give them more details - its a volcanic red rock, probably thrown clear of that volcanoe in the distance,..it's a seldon travelled road, used, you judge by the faint cart tracks, by the occassional travelling merchant or perhapse farmer.

In my mind it's a neutral approach. Of couse, if its unusual or out of place, I'll mention it, because I assume its very nature draws the PCs attention e.g. A shadow races past you along the ground, glancing up, you see far in the sky, a great blue dragon flying towards the horizon.

Is this the best way to do it?

You tell me.

 

[Gimpoloshe]

I would have done it the same way as the DM, and, as was already pointed out, resolving the climbing part did only take about 15 minutes, which is an acceptable time span for the other players to wait.
What I cannot understand is, that the group decided to split up. My players would never split in such possibly dangerous terrain and rather rest at the pipes entrance, waiting for their two climbing friends to return, successful or not. What would've happened if the two would have been able to break into the dwarven fortress? Fighting alone against other orcs?
IMO, the players didn't really act wisely to split up and go completely seperate ways, both in a character view (party strength is divided, no matter if the pipe is a dead end or not) and a player view (2-party gaming means half of the players always have to wait for the others to play their scenes).
The players could've done way more to avoid the problem than the DM (Because it perfectly makes sense that the vault is not penetratable from the bottom side!).

 

[Cadfan]

Hi Korjik,

Thanks for your thoughts.

To answer your questions...

I made it plain as day that it was a pipe that carried waste water out of the mountain with significant pressure. They climbed up the mountain side and checked it for archers and traps...and found none

You are correct in saying that they did not know that the pipe was a dead end.

However, I disagree when you use the defense 'they did not know' and therefore were justifed in pursing that course of action.

Lets look at what they did know. They knew, for instance, that it would require a significant 3 - 5 hour journey up a mountain side, inside a cramped tunnel, crouching at half speed, in a pipe filled with 'gunk', where even if they did meet a 'nasty', they could not effectively fight or if they had their rope cut (which had the situation occurred, I would definately target), they would effectively fall to their deaths. Only one of the two had darkvision, so a lightsource was used.

More importantly though, in my opinion, is the fact that they willingly left three other party members without a care in the world as to what they do or what becomes of them. This was completely in their control (and had I been a player, I would of considered this completely selfish behaviour and unacceptable). They could of easily been killed in this fashion.

Btw, they roleplayed aprroximately 15 minutes exploring the pipe (I switch back and forth 3 times), although it did result in the party being seperated for half the game and the other three players fighting orcs alone.

Interestly, the other two players (which were in the pipe) believe they should also be awarded xp for the fight that the other three players were involved in. They believe it would be 'fair' and prevent uneven distribution on player xp.

I'd love to know your thoughts in this.

My thoughts are that you're making a classic Dungeon Master mistake.

You proudly proclaim what the players knew, and proclaim that obviously they knew enough not to waste fifteen minutes of game time pursuing nothing at all. Technically they didn't know it was a dead end, but you claim that they knew enough to know they shouldn't pursue it.

But obviously you are wrong.

If they HAD known, they wouldn't have wasted the time. The fact that they pursued the red herring for so long conclusively proves that they didn't know it was a red herring.

DMs, particularly DMs with simulationist bents, tend to forget that the game world exists only within their head. And by "their head," I mean the DM's. Not the player's. The details of the game world have to get from the DM's head to the player's heads, and that doesn't always go as well as you think. Clearly, in this case, you failed to get across what you had hoped to get across. The proof is undeniable- had you communicated what you intended, this never would have happened; it did happen, therefore, you did not communicate what you thought.

At least in this situation you only lost fifteen minutes of game time. Change a few words, and your post becomes a classic "The TPK was totally the players fault and not mine and they're mad at me anyways!" post. We see those about every other week around here.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I wouldn't have changed the pipe. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if I knew it was a dead-end, I would've shut the PC's down right there and then.

Some DMs (me, for example) don't believe it's our job to tell the players where they should go or how they should get there. And just to be clear, we also don't think it's our job to drop hints about those things, either.

But I also wouldn't have led them up a path with no recourse to a solution, whether that solution was beneficial or not. That is the reward. Negative or positive.

My guess is that Varis doesn't think he "led them up a path" at all. There was a "path" (the water pipe), but he didn't tell anyone to take it. They chose that all on their own.

My understanding of sandbox gaming isn't that you change things on the fly to suit the players, for me it's that you put what should be logically there for the setting and scenario, there, regardless of what the players do.

That's just simulationism. What a "sandbox" implies is that there is no railroad whatsoever, no expected path for the players to take. They can go anywhere they want in the world, and do anything within the limits of their abilities, the world's physics, etc. Not even the DM knows what is going to happen next, because what happens is entirely dependent on what choices the players make.

If, however, you say, "There's a path..." you also don't say, "But don't go down it 'cause I don't want you to." That's not sandbox gaming either. If you put a path in front of the players, you have to expect them to follow it.

If you put a path in front of the players at all, you're not "sandbox gaming." It would never even occur to a sandbox DM to say "But don't go down it," because there is no path.

In our argument (between Varis and I), he used the example of "So you're saying if there was a wall and the players wanted to go through it, I should provide a door?" No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that if you show the PC's a door, don't have it be a concrete wall behind it

But sometimes, there's a reason for that concrete wall to be there. (Incidentally, in 1e D&D, false doors like that were incredibly common. But that has nothing to do with my point.)

 

[Umbran]

... and you came on here to get people to massage your ego.

And you came in here to be rude and insulting?

You know the rules - don't ascribe motives to others. You owe an apology. Don't post in this thread again unless you offer it.