D&D 5E I NEED HELP ON SOME CAMPAIGN PROBLEMS!!!

[ccs]

That makes sense. One thing is though that not every encounter is really either they die or win but I do want them to think that. I’m a lenient dm and personally don’t like player death. It is a hard position but one necessary for the tone of the game and the high stakes.

Those are some really high stakes if they require potential player death. Perhaps you've overshot the mark?
Anyways, I can see why you'd hope deaths don't occur. Even just one will probably screw everything up.

Now if you're talking about player character deaths....
Well that's different. Just refrain from killing characters until the cleric is high enough lv to raise them. Then kill everyone but the cleric as often as you please.

 

[Benji]

The player who complains there's no threat and no one dies - change your plans. Kill off their character. Then ask them that's what they wanted.

Or I guess you could opt to re-think the plot so it's not a problem. It's only set in stone once you let it be.

The player who complains about realistic cities. Tell him the next city will be a totally realistic medieval town -you've done some research. Then have all the villagers go screaming away if any of the players are anything outside of medieval europe (elves, dwarves, orcs, mages, anything). The gently remind them that game is not set in a medieval world it's set in a fantasy world. Those things are very different and magic allows a city to support this many people. Or all the halflings and elves eat less and use less water.

Or maybe you can have a word and suggest that searching for economic and geopolitical realism in a world with Beholders in it kind of misses the point.

I suppose, even better, just show them this reply and they will figure there are DM's (like me) who would be a far worst fit for them and they are lucky to have you.

(Some of this post is meant to make you laugh/commiserate. Please don't take most of it seriously).

 

[Charlaquin]

So I need help I’ve posted about this ongoing game before but it seems more problems keep sprouting up...

To start on if my players seems to have a mixed relationship with the nature of the game claiming that it is too “player centric”. They say that since I’ve said a couple times “Hey it would be really bad if any of you die” I have the framework of the story and how certain characters affect the end and they know this but they don’t know how the story goes obviously. He has a problem with this but I said that this is similar to having a pre written module with higher stakes. If someone could help with this that would be nice.

Secondly speaking of higher stakes this is a game where screwing up would lead them to dying. So I am having a hard time balancing the story with the fact that the players could die easily.

Never point your DM gun at something unless you’re willing to pull the trigger. If character death is at stake, then you need to follow through when a PC gets that third death save failure. That might mean editing your story to account for the change in party makeup. If you don’t want to kill off any PCs, you need to be up-front about the fact that character death is not a possible outcome of failure in this campaign. You could try leaving character death on the table and making resurrection magic easily available at all levels. But then you have to be prepared for the possibility of the players choosing to play a new character rather than resurrect one that dies. That’s part of being DM, you have to be prepared to adjust the story on the fly based on the players’ choices.

Lastly one of my players is trying to make this fantasy campaign way to realistic. For example he asked how big the capital was and I said “I don’t know like Phoenix Arizona” and he responded saying that the city could not feasibly hold that many people. He’s done this multiple times saying that parts of the city couldn’t possibly exist in medieval times, or that the world population is ridiculously small and that the distances between cities make no sense. I need help because this is becoming quite irritating because I’ve constantly said “Hey this is a fantasy game don’t overthink it but he won’t stop and it’s quite irritating.

I would love some help on any of these problems!!

Sounds like a case of mismatched player and DM expectations. Personally, if I had a player trying to grill me on my worldbuilding and try to correct me when I answered, I’d tell him, “ok, you DM then.”

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Sounds like you are running a highly story-focused campaign. You want the party of characters to be the heroes with a predefined story that they play through, with none of them dying unless something goes badly wrong. Lots of players would be on board with that. It's a pretty popular style.

Sounds like you have players, on the other hand, who want a campaign more focused on exploring a consistent and believable fantasy world. They don't want to feel like the world revolves around their characters, but rather like it is place to explore where their success or failure is primarily based on the objectively obtained results that their actions and presence would have on an "uncaring" world.

If you're willing to try running a game like that, be grateful that you have players than are into it. In my opinion, it is one of the things that D&D is more able to support than any other RPG because of the vast amount of established D&D material that already exists to help you with that. It's a highly satisfying experience to which too few players this millennium have been adequately exposed in order to allow them make a meaningful assessment as to whether or not they like it.

However, if you have a strong campaign vision already (which it sounds like you do) that is premised on the first style, then you'll need to have a talk with the players about the style differences and what this campaign is about. Worst case scenario tell them that if they really aren't into it you'll put it on the back burner for now (maybe they'll be interested in the future, or maybe a different group will). Of course, there is no reason you should feel compelled to run a campaign you don't want to by the same token. If they aren't interested in playing in what you want to run, perhaps one of them would be interested in running something else, and you might be interested in playing it. The group needs to be playing something everyone involved appreciates, but that doesn't mean you have to compromise a strong creative vision to do so. There is more than one way to get everyone on the same page.

 

[BeaniBum]

The player who complains there's no threat and no one dies - change your plans. Kill off their character. Then ask them that's what they wanted.

Or I guess you could opt to re-think the plot so it's not a problem. It's only set in stone once you let it be.

The player who complains about realistic cities. Tell him the next city will be a totally realistic medieval town -you've done some research. Then have all the villagers go screaming away if any of the players are anything outside of medieval europe (elves, dwarves, orcs, mages, anything). The gently remind them that game is not set in a medieval world it's set in a fantasy world. Those things are very different and magic allows a city to support this many people. Or all the halflings and elves eat less and use less water.

Or maybe you can have a word and suggest that searching for economic and geopolitical realism in a world with Beholders in it kind of misses the point.

I suppose, even better, just show them this reply and they will figure there are DM's (like me) who would be a far worst fit for them and they are lucky to have you.

(Some of this post is meant to make you laugh/commiserate. Please don't take most of it seriously).

That was great I love this!!! I actually might do the running and screaming for a comedic one shot.


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[BeaniBum]

Ok so upon reading these posts and discussing with my other player and we decided to show him that player death is a real threat in this game. We agreed that I pull punches when I dm and I should stop because it hurts the story. We also agreed that the world and story were good it was just a poor reasoning of the stakes of the game (which means i need to dm stricter). And we also figured out that I can kill every single one of the pcs at anytime and the story would be fine! So it seems that things are getting better! That quote from the dnd 5e handbook about it being ok for players to die and lose really helped. I just have a fear I guess of players getting mad at me if they lose but I fixed it!


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[TerraDave]

As an aside, the real issue with being overly dependent on particular PCs is real life: the character won't die, their player will miss the session where they had a major role to play or stop playing all together, again just at the point where their PC was key.

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this happen over the years.

 

[doghead]

... I just have a fear I guess of players getting mad at me if they lose but I fixed it!

Cool. Character death is not the same as losing. Over my years of gaming I have had a few characters die. Not many, but a few. And I can probably tell you the tale of every single one of them. Death of a character in a game is often, in my experience, something of a dramatic highlight.

That said, there is a house rule I read somewhere (I can't recall where and my google fu failed me) called The Black Flag. Essentially, characters cannot die unless the player choosing to do so to Hoist the Black Flag. With this rule, in the normal course of events, characters don't die, they are merely incapacitated. However, if the player chooses, they may hoist the black flag, opening their character up to the risk of death in return for a advantage of some sort for the duration of the encounter. The exact nature of the advantage obtained by raising the black flag I would establish though discussion with the players. If they are fairly relaxed about the idea of exposing their characters to the risk of death then the advantage my be smaller than if they are inclined to only do so at critical junctures in the game.

thotd

 

[GMMichael]

To start on if my players seems to have a mixed relationship with the nature of the game claiming that it is too “player centric”. They say that since I’ve said a couple times “Hey it would be really bad if any of you die” I have the framework of the story and how certain characters affect the end and they know this but they don’t know how the story goes obviously. He has a problem with this but I said that this is similar to having a pre written module with higher stakes. If someone could help with this that would be nice.

Players don't want to get to your grand finale; they want to show up and have fun. This particular player will not be having fun if he feels that you are in control of his character, and his job is just to watch the plot that you've written.

Solution: tell the players that they have lots of "choices," but not that all of the choices lead to your phenomenal end scene.

Secondly speaking of higher stakes this is a game where screwing up would lead them to dying. So I am having a hard time balancing the story with the fact that the players could die easily.

Saving Private Ryan had a lot of screw-ups leading to death. Not sure I'd call that a fun role-playing session, though.

Solution: throw more softballs.

Lastly one of my players is trying to make this fantasy campaign way to realistic. For example he asked how big the capital was and I said “I don’t know like Phoenix Arizona”

You're going to lose fans any time you mention Phoenix. Just sayin'.

See the above point on how players have fun. If you can throw some statistics into the game, maybe this player will have a better time? You were on the right track to tell him not to take it so seriously. But sometimes, you just can't win.

Edit: ...but you've already fixed it? Wha? Must have been some top-notch advice on that first page...