Dark Eternal
First Post
Let me start by saying that I normally frown on such tactics. But when a party of high level characters begin to get inflated egos, it's the DM's job to bring them back to reality.
Of course, the most well-intentioned act can get wildly out of hand under unusual circumstances.
I'd like to point out that I didn't just drop a TPK encounter on them. In fact, it was never supposed to go that far. They had plenty of hints and warnings; but, hyped up on the fumes of their perceived invincibility, they turned a blind eye to even the most obvious signs.
It didn't just come out of nowhere, either: this particular goblin had been shadowing the pc's for years - they had first heard hints about him clear back when they were around 7th level. Somehow, the party and the goblin had just kept missing each other, never quite in the same place at the same time. They'd seen plenty of his handiwork, though.
So, really, there's no rational explaination for their refusal to consider him a serious threat when they finally enountered him face to face. They had the advantage; if they had just worked together, and treated him like the dangerous and unpredictable enemy he was, things might have gone differently.
In their defense (as they've protested quite loudly since that fateful night), what party of 16th level pc's would consider a solitary goblin to be a real danger? Especially after dropping two dragons and a powerful mage just last session...
I'll spare you the tedium of posting his full stat block (although I'll gladly do so on request, if anyone wants to know); suffice it to say that Ragu (not that the players ever asked - or learned - his name...) was a Rgr. 3/Ftr. 6/Tempest 10 goblin. He had benefited quite nicely from his near-encounters with the party; in one dungeon adventure only a few months ago, I had barely been able to keep a straight face as the party narrowly missed encountering him half a dozen times over the course of the adventure, always through some quirk of fate or happenstance. Among the treasures that the party somehow missed on their way through the dungeon was a Luck blade, which Ragu - who was being much more cautious and thorough about searching the place - found.
All that aside, the final climactic encounter between Ragu and the party was a comedy of errors, compounded by bad luck. As a sign to my players that they are entering a serious encounter, I will remove half of my DM's screen and roll all dice where they can see them; this is my way of letting them know that an encounter is significant enough that their characters may actually be killed (I don't believe in killing PC's in anticlimactic battles or pointless accidents - only heroic deaths are allowed in my campaign.) So as the battle got underway, things took on a definate tone. Two PC's were down and dying/dead before the party realized that this goblin meant business - and from that point on, everything went wrong. For them.
Ragu's rolls were unreal. He couldn't miss an attack, fail to confirm a critical, or fail a saving throw. The PC's, on the other hand, were reaping some kind of bad karmic reward: every d20 roll seemed to result in a 10 - or worse.
In a mere seven rounds of combat, Ragu had pulled off a TPK.
It wasn't supposed to happen that way... but I guess we all (myself definately included) learned a lesson or two that session.
Anyways, on to the point of this thread.
Dungeon Masters: has anything like this ever happened in your games? If so, did you interfere, or allow the dice to fall as they may? If not, is it because you carefully plan ways to prevent it, or has the Lady of Luck simply never stuck her finger into one of your games in such a fashion?
Have you ever had an NPC who seemed charmed, or around whom things seemed to happen strangely? Have you ever had some weird feeling that fate was working behind the scenes to bring some event or character to center stage, despite your intentions? (Because in retrospect, all of the times that the party didn't quite manage to encounter Ragu now seem highly suspicious...
)
Do you think I should have allowed this travesty? Why or why not? And most importantly: What, if anything, could have been done to prevent the disaster without catering to the players' sense of immortality?
Players: has anything like this ever happened to you? If so, how do you feel about it? Do you resent the DM for allowing it, or do you feel like you brought it upon yourself? If not, how do you think you would feel if it did?
All input is welcome - particularly stories of similar gaming disasters. It would be nice to know that as bad as this session was on my DMing ego, I'm not alone.
Of course, the most well-intentioned act can get wildly out of hand under unusual circumstances.
I'd like to point out that I didn't just drop a TPK encounter on them. In fact, it was never supposed to go that far. They had plenty of hints and warnings; but, hyped up on the fumes of their perceived invincibility, they turned a blind eye to even the most obvious signs.
It didn't just come out of nowhere, either: this particular goblin had been shadowing the pc's for years - they had first heard hints about him clear back when they were around 7th level. Somehow, the party and the goblin had just kept missing each other, never quite in the same place at the same time. They'd seen plenty of his handiwork, though.
So, really, there's no rational explaination for their refusal to consider him a serious threat when they finally enountered him face to face. They had the advantage; if they had just worked together, and treated him like the dangerous and unpredictable enemy he was, things might have gone differently.
In their defense (as they've protested quite loudly since that fateful night), what party of 16th level pc's would consider a solitary goblin to be a real danger? Especially after dropping two dragons and a powerful mage just last session...
I'll spare you the tedium of posting his full stat block (although I'll gladly do so on request, if anyone wants to know); suffice it to say that Ragu (not that the players ever asked - or learned - his name...) was a Rgr. 3/Ftr. 6/Tempest 10 goblin. He had benefited quite nicely from his near-encounters with the party; in one dungeon adventure only a few months ago, I had barely been able to keep a straight face as the party narrowly missed encountering him half a dozen times over the course of the adventure, always through some quirk of fate or happenstance. Among the treasures that the party somehow missed on their way through the dungeon was a Luck blade, which Ragu - who was being much more cautious and thorough about searching the place - found.
All that aside, the final climactic encounter between Ragu and the party was a comedy of errors, compounded by bad luck. As a sign to my players that they are entering a serious encounter, I will remove half of my DM's screen and roll all dice where they can see them; this is my way of letting them know that an encounter is significant enough that their characters may actually be killed (I don't believe in killing PC's in anticlimactic battles or pointless accidents - only heroic deaths are allowed in my campaign.) So as the battle got underway, things took on a definate tone. Two PC's were down and dying/dead before the party realized that this goblin meant business - and from that point on, everything went wrong. For them.
Ragu's rolls were unreal. He couldn't miss an attack, fail to confirm a critical, or fail a saving throw. The PC's, on the other hand, were reaping some kind of bad karmic reward: every d20 roll seemed to result in a 10 - or worse.
In a mere seven rounds of combat, Ragu had pulled off a TPK.
It wasn't supposed to happen that way... but I guess we all (myself definately included) learned a lesson or two that session.
Anyways, on to the point of this thread.
Dungeon Masters: has anything like this ever happened in your games? If so, did you interfere, or allow the dice to fall as they may? If not, is it because you carefully plan ways to prevent it, or has the Lady of Luck simply never stuck her finger into one of your games in such a fashion?
Have you ever had an NPC who seemed charmed, or around whom things seemed to happen strangely? Have you ever had some weird feeling that fate was working behind the scenes to bring some event or character to center stage, despite your intentions? (Because in retrospect, all of the times that the party didn't quite manage to encounter Ragu now seem highly suspicious...
)Do you think I should have allowed this travesty? Why or why not? And most importantly: What, if anything, could have been done to prevent the disaster without catering to the players' sense of immortality?
Players: has anything like this ever happened to you? If so, how do you feel about it? Do you resent the DM for allowing it, or do you feel like you brought it upon yourself? If not, how do you think you would feel if it did?
All input is welcome - particularly stories of similar gaming disasters. It would be nice to know that as bad as this session was on my DMing ego, I'm not alone.
Sounds like they had it coming. Karma goes around.
