D&D General Kobayashi Maru: Should the fate of the character always be in the player's hands? POLL

[iserith]

I think that's the disconnect.

For the most part I don't see combat and non-combat encounters, I see encounters. Sure there are encounters that are very likely to result in combat, but it's still an encounter.

If I force a combat onto a group for the express purpose of making them run? - Yeah that's kind of crappy. And likely not great DMing, frankly.

But if the group forces a combat in an encounter and finds themselves way over their head (so have to run)? well that's on them.

Yeah, I see it as situations. Hostile creatures guarding treasure, for example. Whatever happens next depends on what the players have their characters do and might involve any of the pillars or more than one.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I have a difficult time answering this question, because I believe the character’s fate is always in the player’s hands, since the player makes decisions for the character. Yes, randomness is an element of the game, but if you’re in a situation where unlucky rolls could result in your character’s death, it’s your decisions as a player that lead you to that situation. The only case where it’s unfair is if the DM didn’t give you enough information to make decisions that would lessen your risk of character death. I think Save or Die effects, for example, are perfectly fair, as long as they’re sufficiently telegraphed. If they come out of nowhere and the players had no way of knowing about them or preparing for them, then they’re aren’t fair.

I'd say that provided the GM is decent, that's fair enough to say. However, not every GM is decent. A GM can technically sieze control of a character's fate at any time, and at that point the player doesn't have much of a choice other than roll with it, or take their dice and go home. It's simply that a good GM won't abuse that power.

There was one game I played in (Gamma World using the 4e ruleset) where in the first session the mission was to track down an alien artifact. We knew we weren't the only ones hunting for it. We managed to retrieve the artifact, but a high level BBEG showed up and used an AOE stun to disable most of the party members. (However, he didn't manage to land it on everyone, so he used it again in the second round (it was at-will).) He then absconded with the artifact.

Now, this is technically within the GM's power to do. It was just so heavy handed and off-putting that I simply walked away from the table then and there, having no more desire to play that campaign.

There was no risk of death. Nothing bad happened to our characters. All that happened was that we lost the McGuffin, which is undoubtedly what was supposed to happen so that the GM's plot could continue as he intended it to. Yet it felt so extremely unfair that it killed my desire to play. I didn't (and still don't) believe that any choices or rolls could have altered that outcome.

 

[Umbran]

In D&D, specifically...

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. I think there's a range of perfectly valid choices to be made here.

I, personally, and not a fan of killing characters with things, as in the OP, over which they have no control. I tend to avoid things that will act this way in my adventure design, and if somehow a situation has fallen into place where the PCs really have no chance to make a meaningful decision to pull themselves out, I'm typically going to ease up on the throttle and start removing threats.

 

[Mort]

I'd say that provided the GM is decent, that's fair enough to say. However, not every GM is decent. A GM can technically sieze control of a character's fate at any time, and at that point the player doesn't have much of a choice other than roll with it, or take their dice and go home. It's simply that a good GM won't abuse that power.

There was one game I played in (Gamma World using the 4e ruleset) where in the first session the mission was to track down an alien artifact. We knew we weren't the only ones hunting for it. We managed to retrieve the artifact, but a high level BBEG showed up and used an AOE stun to disable most of the party members. (However, he didn't manage to land it on everyone, so he used it again in the second round (it was at-will).) He then absconded with the artifact.

Now, this is technically within the GM's power to do. It was just so heavy handed and off-putting that I simply walked away from the table then and there, having no more desire to play that campaign.

There was no risk of death. Nothing bad happened to our characters. All that happened was that we lost the McGuffin, which is undoubtedly what was supposed to happen so that the GM's plot could continue as he intended it to. Yet it felt so extremely unfair that it killed my desire to play. I didn't (and still don't) believe that any choices or rolls could have altered that outcome.

Yeah, this is ridiculously heavy handed and stomps on player agency. It's the kind of thing my friends and I grew out of doing by High school.

If your going this route then better to just have the players arrive to find out that the BBEG has already absconded with the artifact (and maybe left a nasty/insulting note) which the players now have to chase. Still a tad heavy handed, but not ridiculous.

If the DM insists on the "grab from the players" scenario then probably best to just talk to them about it and have a cut scene - at least there's no bad faith going on there (though this is still pretty cheesy).

 

[Reynard]

I think both of these problems are solved by proper telegraphing. Yes, it sucks to get told you have to take damage because you stepped on the wrong square when there was no indication that the square wasn’t safe to step on, and it sucks to randomly wander into a fight you have to run from or die. But, if the DM gives proper clues in their description of the environment, you get the opportunity to discover and engage with the trap. If the powerful enemy is well-foreshadowed, or found in a place that is known to be full of such powerful enemies, you can take steps to avoid it, and know to run if it finds you.

How close to the danger does the telegraphing have to be? How precise? Does it matter if the players ignore it?

For example, imagine a scenario where just a couple rooms in to a dungeon that find a long dead adventurer. The body is missing a foot and its armor is covered in darts and there is a crude drawing in dried blood on the wall of something that looks like a little dog man.

If the PCs move forward they have been warned of the kobold Warren full of traps in mt opinion.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'd say that provided the GM is decent, that's fair enough to say. However, not every GM is decent. A GM can technically sieze control of a character's fate at any time, and at that point the player doesn't have much of a choice other than roll with it, or take their dice and go home. It's simply that a good GM won't abuse that power.

There was one game I played in (Gamma World using the 4e ruleset) where in the first session the mission was to track down an alien artifact. We knew we weren't the only ones hunting for it. We managed to retrieve the artifact, but a high level BBEG showed up and used an AOE stun to disable most of the party members. (However, he didn't manage to land it on everyone, so he used it again in the second round (it was at-will).) He then absconded with the artifact.

Now, this is technically within the GM's power to do. It was just so heavy handed and off-putting that I simply walked away from the table then and there, having no more desire to play that campaign.

There was no risk of death. Nothing bad happened to our characters. All that happened was that we lost the McGuffin, which is undoubtedly what was supposed to happen so that the GM's plot could continue as he intended it to. Yet it felt so extremely unfair that it killed my desire to play. I didn't (and still don't) believe that any choices or rolls could have altered that outcome.

Well, yeah, that would be what I consider unfair. I don’t do that.

 

[Mort]

How close to the danger does the telegraphing have to be? How precise? Does it matter if the players ignore it?

For example, imagine a scenario where just a couple rooms in to a dungeon that find a long dead adventurer. The body is missing a foot and its armor is covered in darts and there is a crude drawing in dried blood on the wall of something that looks like a little dog man.

If the PCs move forward they have been warned of the kobold Warren full of traps in mt opinion.

IME the telegraphing has to be a minimum of at least twice as obvious as the DM thinks it should be.

Concepts are not nearly as easy to convey as most DMs think.

 

[Vaalingrade]

you get the opportunity to discover and engage with the trap.

I really don't want to derail the thread into trap talk, but that's not a plus seeing as engaging with traps in D&D is 'are you a rogue? Y/N' if N, get the rogue; this encounter isn't for you.

 

[CleverNickName]

I really don't want to derail the thread into trap talk, but that's not a plus seeing as engaging with traps in D&D is 'are you a rogue? Y/N' if N, get the rogue; this encounter isn't for you.

I think traps are appropriate for the thread, since a lot of them can result in character death. Especially in older editions. "Surprise, poison needle! Save or die!"

(I'm not done harping on that. The game has come a long way since the 1980s!)

As for engaging with a trap being reduced to a single question ("Are you a rogue? Y/N") I think this was also more of a problem in older editions. In the edition I grew up playing, traps could only be spotted and disarmed by a thief. Nowadays in 5E,proficiency with Thieves' Tools, Investigation, Perception, etc. can be acquired in a variety of ways, not just from class features. And the traps, when triggered, usually just drain a handful of resources and the group moves on--rarely do they ever result in a character's death.

Then once the trap has been spotted, there can be more to engaging with the trap than "roll to disarm it." You might decide it's safer to find an alternate route around it, you might want to trigger it safely from a distance, you might wish to weaponize it against the Thing That's Chasing You, you might want to dismantle it and sell the poison or explosives contained therein...it's really up to your imagination and the DM's judgment.

Traps get a bad rap these days. They can (and should!) be so much more than "roll to spot, roll to disarm, roll to save, move on."

 

[Charlaquin]

How close to the danger does the telegraphing have to be? How precise?

Generally, the further into the dungeon/adventure, the less direct the telegraphing needs to be to feel fair. I’m usually very overt the first time I telegraph something, and then get subtler and subtler with repeat instances of that thing.

Does it matter if the players ignore it?

If the players ignore it, that’s on them. That’s kind of the point, ideally you want it to feel like they could have avoided it, if they had been paying closer attention. That’s how you create that classic Dark Souls feeling of “hard but fair.”

For example, imagine a scenario where just a couple rooms in to a dungeon that find a long dead adventurer. The body is missing a foot and its armor is covered in darts and there is a crude drawing in dried blood on the wall of something that looks like a little dog man.

If the PCs move forward they have been warned of the kobold Warren full of traps in mt opinion.

I think that’s a great way to start a dungeon, as it tells the players exactly what they can expect to find - dart traps, leg-cutting traps, and kobolds. But I wouldn’t consider that sufficient to telegraph any individual trap. To do that, I would first of all want to add some detail that indicates the presence of each kind of trap, that the players might be able to pick up on if they pay close attention. For example, maybe the leg scythe traps are triggered when you step through a doorway, but only doors with brass handles. Maybe there are frescoes throughout the dungeon, and there are only dart traps in rooms where the frescoes depict someone with a missile weapon. That’s good dungeon design.