Sunderstone
First Post
you are cruel! but being that your also a local (Im in Brooklyn) then you're ok.Nifft said:
Another TPK - Sigh.
- Thread starter ForceUser
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GlassJaw
Hero
First off, I think you handled the situation correctly. If this the third TPK, your group should have learned by now your DM'ing style and adjusted accordingly. Regardless, they were just asking for it.
Going back to the original post, I would first ask if your players were veru upset at another TPK. If they were, then before everyone started to make new characters, I would probably talk to them and go over what happened, what they should have done, what type of game they want to play, etc.
Now if they weren't upset at all, then no biggie! If they like the full frontal assault/kill or be killed campaign, then you have nothing to worry about it.
Going back to the original post, I would first ask if your players were veru upset at another TPK. If they were, then before everyone started to make new characters, I would probably talk to them and go over what happened, what they should have done, what type of game they want to play, etc.
Now if they weren't upset at all, then no biggie! If they like the full frontal assault/kill or be killed campaign, then you have nothing to worry about it.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Raven Crowking said:
Mmm, that's why we hang game and venison before eating it, and love doing so (so it's not just red meat, it includes game birds too)
Obviously if you are going to keep meat a long time you salt it BTW (or perhaps smoke it). Something else that not many people do nowadays.
However, my point was a story issue and not a dietary issue, and still stands.
Cheers
Raven Crowking
First Post
Plane Sailing said:
Homer Simpson Voice: "Lousy moderator, not sharing his venison with the posters...."
Rel
Liquid Awesome
It sounds like Force User runs the same sorts of games that I do. I am a Tactician at heart and I am very big on exploiting whatever advantages I have and minimizing any disadvantages within reason and capability. This varies of course depending on the type of character I'm playing at the moment but it is one reason that I almost never play dumb PC's because it is hard for me to resist my tactical urges.
But my players are well aware of this and they like this style of play. If yours aren't and don't, then you probably need to alter the way you run games, the way they play your games or let somebody else DM for a while.
But my players are well aware of this and they like this style of play. If yours aren't and don't, then you probably need to alter the way you run games, the way they play your games or let somebody else DM for a while.
having the ogres decide to track the raiding party makes sense.
having the ogres find them, then sneak up on them in the night and get surprise makes sense for a rewasonably smart, organized and at the least moerately stealthy bunch.
Ogres, however, are INT 6 and if in their normal hide armor mm stats have a hide and silent check of about -8 (-1 for dex 8, -4 for size large, -3 for hide armor.)
The normal modifier to listen checks for sleeping people is -10, so all the sleeping guys have a base d20-10 vs d20-8 to hear the ogres approach. A sentry, if they had one, should have had an easy time hearing or maybe spotting (light issues are a concern here) the approaching ogres.
As a GM you do need to take into account the monsters cr, sure, but it helps to look at what that cr comes from. In the case of the ogre, you have overwhelming melee brutality but this is hindered by everything else. He is unlikely to ever get an ambush or start at close quarters because he is so pathetically easy to spot and be heard. he is also not all that bright, so you don't expect great organization and sophistication from him.
Deciding the ogres go to hunt down their prey is fine.
Deciding the ogres spot the prey and then stop, think about it, fall back to plan and prep, organize a coordinated assault, and then manage to stealthfully sneak up on them without being heard is a bit too much for ogres IMO.
Once you, by running these ogres so smart and stealthy, got rid of the main ogre weaknesses, you raised their threat level by amazing amounts.
In the DND game i ran, as an example, i used ogres quite a bit. Over 90% of them died without ever reaching the PCs. The few that did hurt the PCs like no tomorrow, causing their prodigious damage. The majority were heard or spotted on approach before they saw or heard the PCs, sometimes they both spotted each other though at longer ranges. While the basically no-ranged ogres rushed in (usually with the disorganized mob "get 'em" tactics) the pcs usually managed to throw spells and use ranged weapons to divy up the incoming forces.
had i instead started using uber-ogres who could sneak up well, could hide well, and who used intelligent tactics well above their INT 6, who were orgnaized and coordinated... then they would needed to have been considered far more than cr2, as they would be almost always playing to their strengths.
*********
Now, aside from the potential uber-ogres deployed, sticking to your guns and making sure the heroes paid the ultimate price is fine and dandy, that is, if you all enjoyed that. it sounds like either you or they or maybe both did not enjoy that. if thats the case, and given this is a repeated thing, you need to think about what you can do differently.
The most obvious thing, beyond using ogres as less "savvy, stealthy, big-commandos" and more "-8 to hide, int-6big-hulking-brutes", is to not have them kill the PCs immediately. Think of any number of action/adventure movies where the bad guys capture the heroes. In how many of them did the bad guys just off the starts as soon as they had the chance? Most? Some? Any? None? Yeah, thats probably mostly a none.
A party failure is an OPPORTUNITY for you, the GM. Sure, you can decide to use that opportunity to just slaughter the PCs, but do you have a story followup for that? if the movie you paid to see ended that way, would you walk out going "gee, great, i love the realism!" or would you walk out saying "man, what a gip!"?
How would the Homer's epic have played out ic the cyclopes had just killed Ulysses men instead of taking them prisoner?
How good a film set would it have been if the nazi's had just killed indiana Jones in any of the myriad of times they had him as prisoner?
How much better would Star Wars have been if han Solo had just been killed by Jaba or if Vader had killed Luke when he turned himself in?
Do you want to be the guy that players walk away from going "wow, that was as good as star wars" or the guy whose players walk away saying something a lot less favorable?
Easy alternatives to the "slaughter" option for your opportunity include...
1. ogres take them prisoner for fun and games. (hopefully you could have foreshadowed this with evidence at the ogre camp when the pcs raided.)
2. ogres take them prisoner for cutting a deal. There is something the ogres cannot do or do not want to do themselves, and they will bargain to get the pcs to do it for them. (sure, this sounds lime smart savvy ogres, but thats what you threw at them anyway in the slaughter option.)
3. The ogres take them alive back to cam because they want to sacrifice them or maybe cannot agree on a good split of the meat... everyone wants to be the one to eat the elf, so they head back to camp to decide by contest who gets the elf. this provides several opportunities: the pcs get a chance to outwit the int-6 ogres, possibly enabling those with social skills and chrarisma to pu them to good use, or even give the big burly fighter guy a chance to impress the ogres in their own games of brutality, or all of the above.
As a GM, you need to have plans "on deck" for what happens if things go wrong, if you cannot wing it. usually, some small touches (like having the PCs find a sort of "combat challenge ring" (a huge pole with two ropes tied to it and lots of blood on the ground), cages for holding prisoners, and the like when they first passed thru the camp) can act not only as good flavor but as foreshadowing for your opportunity later.
having the ogres find them, then sneak up on them in the night and get surprise makes sense for a rewasonably smart, organized and at the least moerately stealthy bunch.
Ogres, however, are INT 6 and if in their normal hide armor mm stats have a hide and silent check of about -8 (-1 for dex 8, -4 for size large, -3 for hide armor.)
The normal modifier to listen checks for sleeping people is -10, so all the sleeping guys have a base d20-10 vs d20-8 to hear the ogres approach. A sentry, if they had one, should have had an easy time hearing or maybe spotting (light issues are a concern here) the approaching ogres.
As a GM you do need to take into account the monsters cr, sure, but it helps to look at what that cr comes from. In the case of the ogre, you have overwhelming melee brutality but this is hindered by everything else. He is unlikely to ever get an ambush or start at close quarters because he is so pathetically easy to spot and be heard. he is also not all that bright, so you don't expect great organization and sophistication from him.
Deciding the ogres go to hunt down their prey is fine.
Deciding the ogres spot the prey and then stop, think about it, fall back to plan and prep, organize a coordinated assault, and then manage to stealthfully sneak up on them without being heard is a bit too much for ogres IMO.
Once you, by running these ogres so smart and stealthy, got rid of the main ogre weaknesses, you raised their threat level by amazing amounts.
In the DND game i ran, as an example, i used ogres quite a bit. Over 90% of them died without ever reaching the PCs. The few that did hurt the PCs like no tomorrow, causing their prodigious damage. The majority were heard or spotted on approach before they saw or heard the PCs, sometimes they both spotted each other though at longer ranges. While the basically no-ranged ogres rushed in (usually with the disorganized mob "get 'em" tactics) the pcs usually managed to throw spells and use ranged weapons to divy up the incoming forces.
had i instead started using uber-ogres who could sneak up well, could hide well, and who used intelligent tactics well above their INT 6, who were orgnaized and coordinated... then they would needed to have been considered far more than cr2, as they would be almost always playing to their strengths.
*********
Now, aside from the potential uber-ogres deployed, sticking to your guns and making sure the heroes paid the ultimate price is fine and dandy, that is, if you all enjoyed that. it sounds like either you or they or maybe both did not enjoy that. if thats the case, and given this is a repeated thing, you need to think about what you can do differently.
The most obvious thing, beyond using ogres as less "savvy, stealthy, big-commandos" and more "-8 to hide, int-6big-hulking-brutes", is to not have them kill the PCs immediately. Think of any number of action/adventure movies where the bad guys capture the heroes. In how many of them did the bad guys just off the starts as soon as they had the chance? Most? Some? Any? None? Yeah, thats probably mostly a none.
A party failure is an OPPORTUNITY for you, the GM. Sure, you can decide to use that opportunity to just slaughter the PCs, but do you have a story followup for that? if the movie you paid to see ended that way, would you walk out going "gee, great, i love the realism!" or would you walk out saying "man, what a gip!"?
How would the Homer's epic have played out ic the cyclopes had just killed Ulysses men instead of taking them prisoner?
How good a film set would it have been if the nazi's had just killed indiana Jones in any of the myriad of times they had him as prisoner?
How much better would Star Wars have been if han Solo had just been killed by Jaba or if Vader had killed Luke when he turned himself in?
Do you want to be the guy that players walk away from going "wow, that was as good as star wars" or the guy whose players walk away saying something a lot less favorable?
Easy alternatives to the "slaughter" option for your opportunity include...
1. ogres take them prisoner for fun and games. (hopefully you could have foreshadowed this with evidence at the ogre camp when the pcs raided.)
2. ogres take them prisoner for cutting a deal. There is something the ogres cannot do or do not want to do themselves, and they will bargain to get the pcs to do it for them. (sure, this sounds lime smart savvy ogres, but thats what you threw at them anyway in the slaughter option.)
3. The ogres take them alive back to cam because they want to sacrifice them or maybe cannot agree on a good split of the meat... everyone wants to be the one to eat the elf, so they head back to camp to decide by contest who gets the elf. this provides several opportunities: the pcs get a chance to outwit the int-6 ogres, possibly enabling those with social skills and chrarisma to pu them to good use, or even give the big burly fighter guy a chance to impress the ogres in their own games of brutality, or all of the above.
As a GM, you need to have plans "on deck" for what happens if things go wrong, if you cannot wing it. usually, some small touches (like having the PCs find a sort of "combat challenge ring" (a huge pole with two ropes tied to it and lots of blood on the ground), cages for holding prisoners, and the like when they first passed thru the camp) can act not only as good flavor but as foreshadowing for your opportunity later.
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Sunderstone
First Post
Very good points but all it takes is one smarter Ogre (the raiding party leader for example) to tell the other 6 INT Ogres what to do. Maybe thats why he's the leader. Typical Ogres, ok Ill grant you that. Leaders and Shamans are another story.swrushing said:
Remember that the various MMs give you stats for the average creature of that type, for example the averaged out Hit Points under their entries.
Maybe a +1 or +2 EL adjustment would have been better, or smaller party of the raiding ogres.
These things do happen though
d4
First Post
note that one could just as easily say that if this is the third TPK, the GM should have learned by now the players' style and adjusted accordingly.GlassJaw said:
of course, the best situation is for the GM and players to both compromise and come up with something mutually enjoyable.
Raven Crowking
First Post
d4 said:
I don't know if you DM, d4, but from my point of view, the DM invests a lot more time, energy, and money in the game than any given player, or all of the players as a group. Not only that, but if one or two players aren't having fun, there is still a game. If the DM isn't having fun, there is no game.
I would say, the DM sets the table. If no one wants to eat, then he shouldn't DM. But, given that anyone wants to eat from that table, they need to take into account what table they are eating from.
RC
Chimera
First Post
d4 said:
Which really isn't doing them any favors.
They go on to their next game just like a guy in one recent group who expressed shock at suffering logical consequences of his character's actions by saying that no previous GM had ever done such a thing.
I don't have a lot of sympathy or support for the "My PC can do anything I want, whenever I want and I'd better always win" style of gaming.
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