Another TPK - Sigh.

[Raven Crowking]

How many ogre casualties were there? Not mentioned? Were there any ogre losses? If we knew that, we might have the beginnings of the ability to assess whether it was close or not.

From his short version in the opener, and the elaboration on page 3, it doesn't seem like a close fight where the PCs had much of a chance.

If he now wants to reverse/rephrase his statements and turn this into a thread about "a close fight where the PCs unfoirtunately died", thats fine, but thats not the impression i got.

Nor I.

The impression that I got was "This would have been a fairly matched battle had the PCs even taken the most rudimentary precautions to make it so. Had they taken even reasonable use of the advantages given them by the DM, they might have mopped the floor with their opponents."

The fact is that, even under the unfavorable circumstances the PCs put themselves into, they still managed to get within two die rolls of winning the fight (which may not be an easy fight, but it is a close one) and some of the PCs might have escaped.

Did the PCs put themselves into unfavorable circumstances? I think it is clear that most (but not all) people agree that they did.

Did that mean that the DM had to have the ogres kill them? Obviously not. The DM could have had the ogres capture them, could have had the ogres suddenly reform, could have used divine intervention, etc. He did not. While those kind of duex ex machina saves might be some people's cup of tea, they are clearly not ForceUser's, and his players clearly knew that.

ForceUser clearly has players who want to play in his game. He clearly cares about a detailed, logically consistent world. It is a given that his DMing style isn't for everyone, but after granting this, what he did was consistent with, and a logical extrapolation from, what had occurred previously. Had I been a player, I wouldn't have complained.

My general rule of thumb is this: The DM is not always supposed to be impartial, but the DM always has to appear to be impartial. If the DM does something that is obviously partial, it not only robs meaning from the encounter/victory/whathaveyou at hand, but from all future encounters, etc. The players will be forced to wonder if they won, or if the DM won for them. Worse, some players will lean upon DM partiality, and drag the game down for everyone else. YMMV.

In ForceUser's case, had he done anything else, he would have been obviously saving the PCs. They already knew his playing style well enough.

Were I ForceUser, I would consider slowing down progress, perhaps by halving (or quartering) XPs, and give the players a number of low-risk scenarios where they can see their opponents using clever (or just normal) tactics and the results thereof without a significant risk of character loss. Then, when they seem to "get it", he can start throwing harder encounters at them.


RC


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

It appears to me that character and player are being fuddled together. Allow me to use myself as an example. I have a bad tendency to fall into formal language and logical argumentative strategies even when playing an Int 8 Cha 8 character. Unfortunately, my DM rarely pays attention to that and will allow my character to dominate the social situation even though other characters would be better at it. My knowledge and skill, as a player, directly impacts the character that I play and that is a bad thing. As a player, I could have made this mistake. I might have had many reasons for doing so, anything from "my character has little experience in the wilderness" to cocky self-assuredness. Even if *I* knew it was a bad idea, my character may not.

The reverse is equally true. When I play a rogue with Knowledge: Streetwise I may do many unstreetwise things without my DM assisting me in what my character knows to do. I come from a middle class suburban background, and simply will not be as on top of things as a city dweller would. Like many players, I may also have difficulty understanding the nature of the city we adventure in as it relates to modern day cities - assuming it does or does not have attributes a modern city would have. In this case, as a player I lack knowledge my character has and it's important for the DM to inform me when my character's knowledge comes into play.

Knoxgamer,

Your point is certainly valid. If you were in my game, you could use your logical arguments to your heart's content, but people would still listen to the bard with the less adept player but the higher Charisma. Likewise, as pointed out, I would try to work your Streetwise knowledge into descriptions, and use the "Are you sure you want to....." in a way that (hopefully) implies or explicitly states the consequences your character could reasonably expect from the action.

That said, if you still said, "Yes, I'm sure," then I'd shrug and let you do it.

But, then again, you'd never have made it to 7th level in my game if you didn't understand the concept of short distances, angry NPCs, and a revealing fire. After a certain point, I will not restate things that have been stated repeatedly. For example, in a recent game, I was asked by the bard PC: "Do I know anything about this place?" when they came to a new town.

I replied: "You should. I've been telling you about it for months."


RC

 

[Knoxgamer]

Knoxgamer,
That said, if you still said, "Yes, I'm sure," then I'd shrug and let you do it.

If I were in Forceuser's game, if it was a gritty realistic game, and if I camped with that knowledge in mind, then I would be perfectly content with the death. Otherwise, my character would never run away or retreat knowing that things will always work out ok in the end.

For example, in a recent game, I was asked by the bard PC: "Do I know anything about this place?" when they came to a new town.

I replied: "You should. I've been telling you about it for months."

That once again seems to be a player knowledge vs. character knowledge issue. A bard is very likely to be able to recall the tales of the place he has been traveling to. A player with a fairly stressful job and family concerns, such as myself, is far less likely to be able to recount specific information from past sessions. By not informing the player about what his character knows, again, are you punishing the player for not taking accurate notes?

 

[DragonLancer]

For example, in a recent game, I was asked by the bard PC: "Do I know anything about this place?" when they came to a new town.

I replied: "You should. I've been telling you about it for months."

Thats a problem with the player. When names and such come up, they should listen and make notes.

When I (rarely) play, I hate note taking, but its a nessecary evil.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

The impression that I got was "This would have been a fairly matched battle had the PCs even taken the most rudimentary precautions to make it so. Had they taken even reasonable use of the advantages given them by the DM, they might have mopped the floor with their opponents."

Not knowing more about their resources and such, as well as the opportunities to make the advantages into real tactical gains, i cannot agree or disagree. Certainly forceuser expected them to be on the initiative more than they were.

i for one dont see the early day raid as bad, except that they seemed to expend a lot of resource (mage low on spells) for a little gain. had the raid and dead sentry left them in a position to set up an ambush for when the ogres returned later that day, imagining catching the ogres tired or weakened and surprised, that would have been cool and a good start.

Why didn't that happen? beats me. But the low level of magic left over tells me somehow the jumping of the one ogre was tougher than it should have been.

they still managed to get within two die rolls of winning the fight (which may not be an easy fight, but it is a close one)

See, thats not what forceuser said, and where we differ in our perspective.

he said "Had those spells landed...the fight may have had a different outcome. "

thats not saying "Had those spells landed... they would have won the fight."

I see this as had both hit, they would have had a chance. With both missing, it was still no chance.

thats not a close fight.

thats where we differ.

but, if it was a close fight after all and forceuser misspoke when he said they had no chance, if he meant to say "two bad rolls from victory" or somesuch, then thats cool.

if thats the case, this entire thread would have run a different course, wouldn't it?

if its not the PCS all died because they made bad decisions and were forced into "by the logical conclusions" to a no chance fight" but rather "and were in a close fight but a pair of bad rolls killed them", if thats really what he meant to say...

wouldn't this have been a thread focusing on say adding action points or hero dice mechanics to help mitigate the flukey dice killing PCs?

Everything i got from forceuser and his posts and the responses indicates to me that this thread is about a "no chance" battle after the players "made mistakes", not a close fight within two flukey rolls of victory.

Did i and a lot of other people miss something?

 

[takyris]

It also misses out the fact that the ogres couldn't care less about the darkness... To them, it's basically daylight.

Actually, not true. I looked in the SRD for any indication that Darkvision cancelled out the penalties to Track checks under those circumstances, and did not find any.

"It's basically daylight" doesn't hold true -- there are no colors and no shadows, and as somebody who has no idea how tracking works in real life, I can tell you that I don't know how important being able to notice slight color differences or notice faint imprints by the change in the play of shadows upon them... but if I don't know it, my inclination is to go by the book as the rules are written.

But that's still primarily a side note.

Backing off from the running barrage from both sides, I'd suggest that a lot of this would be answered by a bit of helpful information from ForceUser -- how he started the ogre encounter. If, as swrushing suggests, ForceUser started the encounter by just assuming that the ogres succeeded in getting close enough for an ambush, then that's an advantage to the ogres -- and I don't think anyone can argue against that point successfully. If the GM says, "I don't want to bother doing the complex and extended series of Spot/Listen and Hide/Move Silently checks -- I'll just assume they get this close and then get their surprise round", that's putting a point toward the monsters.

Is this a bad thing for the GM to do? It depends on the campaign, and the circumstances. If those were goblins, people would be much less concerned. If this were a strict-rules strategy game, then yeah, that's bad, because the GM is giving the monsters a free advantage and then holding the players to the letter of the rules. If this were a less rules-strict game, where there were precedents of fudging things for dramatic effect, then allowing dramatic effect justify "getting ambushed" is great, provided that the GM also allows dramatic effect to work the other way -- letting the PCs light the Entangling plants on fire to quickly escape the spell, or letting a missed Scorching Ray hit a tree and start a fire that illuminates the ogre's positions and scares one or two of the ogre minions into making a mistake.

On the other hand, if ForceUser didn't fudge things to allow the ogres to do the ambush, then either ForceUser overlooked a rule that would have helped the players somewhere, or the ogres rolled well. Overlooking a rule is a bummer, but honestly, having consistently screwed up wilderness encounter rules a bunch of times myself, I don't really wanna cast stones. If the ogres rolled well... it happens. I just nearly lost a PC last night because my bad guy couldn't roll below 14 and the player's PC couldn't beat 8. And this is M&M, so that includes Damage saves. :\

And ya know, fundamentally here... ForceUser started the thread. It's not like he doesn't know that something's not going right somewhere. Even if he's completely following the rules in all respects and his players are just dumb and unlucky, something still needs to change. The dumb, unlucky players need to find a DM who will go easier on them -- unless they're enjoying multiple TPKs. ForceUser needs to find players that can play at the level he demands and still have a good time. Or there needs to be more compromise.

Even if everything else is kosher, there's a playing-style gap that needs to be fixed. Whether that means that ForceUser keeps playing things as intelligently as he's played them up 'til now, but he's hitting PCs of that level with goblins instead of ogres -- or if he institutes Action Points in his campaign to give the players a chance to save themselves from bad rolls every now and then. Something. Anything.

ForceUser wouldn't have started the thread if he didn't think that himself on some level. (Uh, or maybe he would. In which case, he should mention that. )

 

[ForceUser]

And ya know, fundamentally here... ForceUser started the thread. It's not like he doesn't know that something's not going right somewhere. Even if he's completely following the rules in all respects and his players are just dumb and unlucky, something still needs to change. The dumb, unlucky players need to find a DM who will go easier on them -- unless they're enjoying multiple TPKs. ForceUser needs to find players that can play at the level he demands and still have a good time. Or there needs to be more compromise.

Even if everything else is kosher, there's a playing-style gap that needs to be fixed. Whether that means that ForceUser keeps playing things as intelligently as he's played them up 'til now, but he's hitting PCs of that level with goblins instead of ogres -- or if he institutes Action Points in his campaign to give the players a chance to save themselves from bad rolls every now and then. Something. Anything.

ForceUser wouldn't have started the thread if he didn't think that himself on some level. (Uh, or maybe he would. In which case, he should mention that. )

I started this thread because I was bummed my players got wiped out, and I was concerned that there was something more I could have or should have done as a game master. Generally, ENWorld is great for thoughtful critique, not to mention supportive (incidentally, I stopped reading swrushing's comments several pages ago. He's got to be the most negative, annoying poster I've seen on this board in months.)

I appreciate the solid input I've gotten from others! I've given my players the option of ignoring the TPK - storywise, someone would wake up from a horrible nightmare about getting wiped out to see their quiet, darkened camp several miles away from the ogres' lair. It's damn cheesy, but I do feel like I erred. Not in the application of my "spetznaz" ogres' tactical skills, but in the application of my NPC ranger's survival skills. The ranger's player was absent that night, so I was running him as an NPC. The rest of the players assumed I was going to run the ranger with the same level of care as any other NPC, so even though the rogue's player felt uneasy about leaving the fire going that night, she didn't say a word. She reasoned "My character wouldn't know anything about whether or not its dangerous to leave a fire going. The ranger seems okay with it, so I guess I'll go to sleep." I feel her logic was flawed (there's nothing wrong with reacting to common sense), but I admire the fact that she stayed in character even though she was worried it would prove dangerous.

I tend to fade NPCs attached to the party into the background, letting the players who are present make the important decisons. My group, on the other hand, tends to treat NPCs and PCs the same - I.E., they stay in character! In essence, I punished the rest of the group for trusting that I would run the absent player's character consistent with how he'd have run him. That was my mistake. Their mistake was perhaps not asking enough questions when they harbored misgivings. It doesn't take ranks in the Survival skill to note that a fire might draw attention.

I've given them the option of ignoring the wipeout or forging ahead with a new campaign. Regardless of what comes next, I'll take pains to think things through and fairly apply the rules.

 

[drothgery]

who says this btw? I'd agree with unsubtle, big , and even Evil.... but who says they were designed to be stupid?

They've got a -4 to Int. Have you ever seen a 6 Int PC protrayed as anything but stupid?

obPeeve: Fantasy authors who think they're doing something clever by creating races of smart ogres, good orcs, nature-hating elves, and the like. All they're really doing is messing with their readers' heads.

 

[Piratecat]

Sounds wonderful. And on that note, at this point we can close this thread if the thread originator would like us to. Forceuser, if you want this thread closed, you're still welcome to start a new thread to discuss the aftermath later on.

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind folks that positive and constructive posts are far, far more interesting and useful than negative ones. Even if you don't agree with a member's position, being nasty or rude to them or others doesn't accomplish a whole lot. This thread got less polite than we would have liked to have seen, and we'd prefer a little more gentility in the future.

Thanks.

 

[takyris]

...I stopped reading swrushing's comments several pages ago...

That's too bad. I think his tone started out defensive because other people were saying things like, "Stupid players. They deserve to die. And then you should charge them for screwing up your storyline. And pelt them with four-siders," and people on both sides were getting heated.

For the record, he does bring up some good rules questions. If you didn't read those, that's a bummer example of the honey vs. vinegar approach for the rest of us to note and remember.

I appreciate the solid input I've gotten from others! I've given my players the option of ignoring the TPK...

I think, under the circumstances, that's fair, mostly for the reasons below...

...the application of my NPC ranger's survival skills.

Arrrrgh. That stinks. I hate those situations. An encounter, scenario, important plot point, whatever, that is a perfect opportunity for one character to shine and show off their class abilities, skills, feats, and so forth... and the the player isn't there, and you're left with the choice of a) trying to shoehorn in some other situation somehow, b) letting the PC shine and looking like a GM with a Pet-PC, or c) fading him and losing out on his abilities... which can often prove ugly.

And yeah, the ranger's character was the one who could have objected, or, if the player was a newbie, you could have rolled a secret Survival check... but then you would have felt like you were saving the PCs by having "your" PC tell them to move somewhere safer. With the player absent, that's a no-win for you.

And cool on your players for staying in character, even to their detriment.

Anyway, sounds like this will work out better one way or another. Good luck.