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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 1188153" data-attributes="member: 99">While I feel sure that the players "learned a lesson", it's not because I was out to teach one.  I don't generally game like that.  I try instead to simply come up with the backdrop for the world and populate it with individuals who have their own adgendas, goals and dreams.  Then they implement those goals to the best of their ability, sometimes to the detriment and sometimes to the benefit of the PC's (and very frequently in utter secrecy to no clear detriment or benefit at all as far as the party is concerned).With that in mind, if it were the primary goal of the enemy Druids to kill the party then things would be different right now.  If that had been their primary goal, I'd have probably scrubbed the encounter entirely, knowing that to proceed with it would have likely meant the certain deaths of a pair of characters who were being roleplayed fairly well and just got a tad careless at a bad moment.  It's not much fun being beat down with virtually no chance to defend yourself.  It's far worse to have your character get killed with virtually no chance to defend yourself.  In the case of it being the first night of the campaign with one character that had just been made and another that was the primary link to the previous campaign, it just wasn't worth having that encounter if it was going to be an almost certain slaughter.I just had a lengthy conversation with the player of the Druid.  The unintended consequence of this encounter is that the Druid in the party is now convinced that they have run afoul of enemy Druids of at least 17th level, the level that would be required to cast the 9th level Shamblers spell.  This could be considered a bit "metagame" in terms of thinking, but not much.  I have no trouble imagining him saying, "Oh crap!  The only person I know who could summon that many Shambling Mounds was the head of the whole Druid Order!"He is therefore certain that his enemies have the means to kill him (and probably the rest of the party) whenever they want.  The only thing holding them back is that they apparently lack the will to do so.  He is afraid that by continuing on their quest that he may give them the necessary will and the party will be slain out of hand.And this is where my normal style of play kind of falls apart.  Because clearly the campaign is designed with the primary goal of the party being to continue on their quest.  But doing so could well provoke an attack by a force far more powerful than they are and result in their deaths.  For me, as the DM, to just say to him, "Trust me." is to violate the basic philosophy that my campaign world is built upon.  He has some (small) evidence to support the idea that there could easily be high level Druids out there that want him to not continue on his quest.  For me to just wave such concerns away by saying, "Trust me." runs counter to the way I've been trying to run things.Fortunately, the rest of the party has strong motivations for continuing the quest and here's where their unfamiliarity with the party Druid helps out.  While he may have some misgivings about continuing in the face of a possibly overwhelming threat, they can just as easily write those off as the paranoid ramblings of a man who clearly has spent most of his adult life in isolation and may be a touch crazy.So, "Voila!".  My campaign is simultaneously screwed and saved on the first night by good roleplaying surrounding an encounter that was botched by the party and questionably handled by the GM.Weird, huh?</blockquote>

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