D&D General Playing to "Win" - The DM's Dilemma

[Reynard]

Maybe we can talk about an example and folks can use it to illustrate how they prefer to do things. I will use a real world actual play one.

In a dungeon, two PCs wandered off on their own to scout while the others short rested (I know, I know, but they wanted to). They ended up encountering a hungry grick, which attacked. By some luck, the thing dropped one PC to 0. I decided to have the grick grab the PC and retreat to its lair to eat the PC, becuase it was a hungry predator. The other player ran and the captured PC was devoured.

Would you have done it differently?

 

[ezo]

Would you have done it differently?

LOL, nope. Yum yum yum

 

[Reynard]

LOL, nope. Yum yum yum

The player was quite cross.

 

[ezo]

Maybe we can talk about an example and folks can use it to illustrate how they prefer to do things. I will use a real world actual play one.

Here is my upcoming situation:

Soon (in the next session or two) the PCs will encounter a Hag (green) Coven. I know by changing a handful of spells, including something like wall of force, I can separate the PCs into two groups. Even at 9th level (which they should be by the time the encounter happens), a trio of hags (at CR 5) is a Deadly+ encounter. However, if I separate the party into two groups of two PCs each, this becomes much closer to a TPK while within the hags' lair.

Certain other spell options make this almost a certainty. One PC in particular is all about survival--so he might manage to escape death if the others fall.

The party is currently in the hags' domain and the Grannie leader has had spies watching the PCs, so they are becoming more aware of which PC is going to be most problematic and in what way.

Now, their is an NPC werebear which is helping the party (the hags killed his mate years ago and he as been waiting for a chance to avenge her) but they still have about half a dozen encounters to go before the reach the lair. With attrition, I doubt they will be at full force when they arrive.

Of course, they are not bound by any means to do all this. They were sent to these ruins to investigate and want to help the werebear, and are hopeful with his help they can somehow rid the land of these vile creatures.

 

[ezo]

The player was quite cross.

Understandably so, but well, as you said, they went off scouting while half the party rested--- are they too young to have watched Scooby-Doo growing up?

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't think it is, if the GM is following the rules of the game in setting up encounters and in play. Of course the GM can always throw 1000 tarrasques at the party, but that isn't what we are talking about here.

I’m talking about using tactics to nearly always kill PCs, for a normal encounter. I’m explicitly not talking about the DM sending 1000 tarrasques at them.

 

[Reynard]

Here is my upcoming situation:

Soon (in the next session or two) the PCs will encounter a Hag (green) Coven. I know by changing a handful of spells, including something like wall of force, I can separate the PCs into two groups. Even at 9th level (which they should be by the time the encounter happens), a trio of hags (at CR 5) is a Deadly+ encounter. However, if I separate the party into two groups of two PCs each, this becomes much closer to a TPK while within the hags' lair.

Certain other spell options make this almost a certainty. One PC in particular is all about survival--so he might manage to escape death if the others fall.

The party is currently in the hags' domain and the power Grannie leader has had spies watching the PCs, so they are become more aware of which PC is going to be most problematic and in what way.

Now, their is an NPC werebear which is helping the party (the hags killed his mate years ago and he as been waiting for a chance to avenge her) but they still have about half a dozen encounters to go before the reach the lair. With attrition, I doubt they will be at full force when they arrive.

Of course, they are not bound by any means to do all this. They were sent to these ruins to investigate and want to help the werebear, and are hopeful with his help they can somehow rid the land of these vile creatures.

Are the hags able, in the fiction, to change up their spells as they see fit? If yes, they should do whatever they can to win. But if they can't, it would be "unfair" to swap out a tactically superior spell.
I think hags are essentially warlocks, so I would not be inclined to swap spells out willy-nilly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Maybe we can talk about an example and folks can use it to illustrate how they prefer to do things. I will use a real world actual play one.

In a dungeon, two PCs wandered off on their own to scout while the others short rested (I know, I know, but they wanted to). They ended up encountering a hungry grick, which attacked. By some luck, the thing dropped one PC to 0. I decided to have the grick grab the PC and retreat to its lair to eat the PC, becuase it was a hungry predator. The other player ran and the captured PC was devoured.

Would you have done it differently?

I'd have to move it back at least a step or two:

1. Why was the grick there? I don't mean in an in-setting sense, but why did the GM place it there (and yes, there's always a reason, even if the reason is something about verisimilitude or using a random encounter chart to force pace)?

2. Given the above, what intention did the GM have as to how that was going to work? Was a grick an appropriate encounter for the party as a whole, and the problem was the small subset of the PCs was too weak to deal with an encounter not-inappropriate for the whole party?

I won't put out any sort of expected encounter that I don't think the PC group can't probably handle if they go about it smart anymore, so the answer to the first part was "Because I expected the PCs to hit it, and it was part of the gameplay loop going on." It'd have been a fairly appropriate encounter for the PC group (maybe even a weak one depending on the game involved). I'd certainly have warned the two players that it was manifestly unsafe wandering off from the rest of the party, but at the point they insist on doing so, they're choosing a deliberately hazardous tactical choice and if they pay the price for that, they do. If I'm going to run a game with potential death in it at all, this is the sort of case where it seems appropriate.

Frankly, its been many years since I GMed for a group that would do something like this other than as a reconnaissance operation, and then they'd have been sending people set up to do that well, and with the rest of the group as ready to respond as they could be and keep their distance.

 

[Reynard]

I’m talking about using tactics to nearly always kill PCs, for a normal encounter.

What sorts of tactics? Like ambushes and traps or something else. I am having a hard time understanding your concern or perspective here.

 

[Stormonu]

Maybe we can talk about an example and folks can use it to illustrate how they prefer to do things. I will use a real world actual play one.

In a dungeon, two PCs wandered off on their own to scout while the others short rested (I know, I know, but they wanted to). They ended up encountering a hungry grick, which attacked. By some luck, the thing dropped one PC to 0. I decided to have the grick grab the PC and retreat to its lair to eat the PC, becuase it was a hungry predator. The other player ran and the captured PC was devoured.

Would you have done it differently?

Sounds similar to a Giant Weasel encounter I ran back in Saltmarsh. PC found a hole in the abandoned house's garden big enough to crawl in, and started to do so. The two Weasels inside attacked the interloper and tried to drag him deeper into the warren so they could eat him. There was quite the tug-of-war and much spell blasting before the remaining PCs could drive off the weasels (one was downed, the other then reconsidered and retreated) and recover the chewed up PC (who survived, but only just).

So yeah, would have run pretty much the same.