Crashing the game: When the DM doesn't expect resistance

[IronWolf]

What is out of game about this issue? The in-character actions derived from in-game circumstances that forced the character to react in a specific way.

By out of game I meant out of character / meta-game issues. The majority of this thread has been about a novice DM and an incident of railroading. Those are meta-game issues which are best handled out of character once a player realizes what is happening.

99.99% of players confronted with the same circumstances are going to fight.

Well, 99.43% maybe.

I agree in most cases, especially given the circumstances the arcane caster was put in that the party would try to fight and not turn themselves in.

But again, we are talking a novice DM here and likely his first brush with players not liking to be railroaded. Many have suggested alternate courses that might have helped the game continue and helped a novice DM learn a little more about the art along the way. I don't think "crashing" the game helps a novice DM.

 

[Jhaelen]

I think, had I been in the OP's situation I'd have crashed the game, as well. I would probably have warned the DM OOC about what I was going to do if he carried things through, before acting things out in character, but that's about it.

Newbie DM or not, setting a character up like this is a very bad thing to do.

I imagine there would have been quite a discussion afterwards, but some things have to be learned the hard way.

If my actions deprived the world of a great DM in the making, so be it. Life's hard - and so is DMing.

 

[haakon1]

as a DM, I probably would have had the Paladins do subdual damage or choose to knock you unconscious. Then see if the PCs can pull off some nice tactics and win.

As a DM, I'd have had the rule apply to my NPC's too. That 30 Intimidate should have actually Intimidated them to some extent. I'd go with dialog like, "OK, OK, we're sorry sir, please don't hurt us, we didn't mean any offense. It's just that we're under orders from the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Wouldn't you like to come with us? You can keep your weapons and stuff. If your answer is no, fine, we will have to fight you, and if we die, so be it -- it is an honor to die in his service. But he will know who is responsible for our deaths. Right now, he just wants to talk. Our deaths, though they would bring us only honor and eternal bliss, would make him very angry. Trust me as a paladin, you do not want to make him angry."

 

[Mircoles]

Never expect your players to give up their stuff and go quietly or go quietly period and oftan the more overwhelming the opposition the more they're likely to put up a fight.

 

[TheClone]

Never expect your players to give up their stuff and go quietly or go quietly period and oftan the more overwhelming the opposition the more they're likely to put up a fight.

they always go for glory. That's why heroes usually have a short life. And it'S really difficult to teach players that they're not the center of the world and not every encounter is at most "challenging". That there are also encounters that might kill them. As it is, it's also difficult in most systems to withdraw from combat or give it up without casualties (and giving up... you NEVER give up! ).

 

[Saeviomagy]

On blowing up the game:

We had kind of the opposite - the DM contrived our capture (that's the key - don't expect the PCs to surrender, force them to surrender).

At which point we started looking for a good time to escape: after all, we'd been overwhelmed once so we expected to be trounced if we tried to get away without a really solid opportunity...

What we didn't know was that after capturing us and roughing us up a bit, our foes wanted us to escape. Eventually we staged what we thought was a brilliant stealthy escape plan... but actually it was us sneaking through our prison after all the jailors had left and the security had been shut down.

 

[Starfox]

And it'S really difficult to teach players that they're not the center of the world and not every encounter is at most "challenging".

4E made this one of its central tenets; the players ARE the center of the world, and all encounters ARE balanced. Of course, nothing forces you to play like this, but its how 4E was presented.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Did anyone try asking for a cutscene? Saying that surrendering would be OOC - but ask him to jump forward to the next step he'd got planned, and abandon this scene as a disaster.

 

[Dausuul]

they always go for glory. That's why heroes usually have a short life. And it'S really difficult to teach players that they're not the center of the world and not every encounter is at most "challenging". That there are also encounters that might kill them. As it is, it's also difficult in most systems to withdraw from combat or give it up without casualties (and giving up... you NEVER give up! ).

While I agree to some extent, usually when the party doesn't recognize a potentially lethal encounter as such, it's DM fail rather than player fail.

Suppose you've got a 6th-level party facing a gang of ten orcs with a one-eyed orc leading them. Those orcs could be 1st-level grunts led by a 3rd-level lieutenant, easily cleaned up with a fireball from the wizard and a few whacks from the fighter. Or they could be the 10th-level elite bodyguard of a 15th-level high priest of Gruumsh, a TPK in spades. D&D offers no easy way to tell by looking. Even when DMs think they're giving clues about the encounter difficulty, the clues are usually much more ambiguous and less useful than the DM thinks they are.

D&D characters expect to get into fights. It's part of the game. When presented with what looks like a combat situation, against foes who are not clearly superior, it's hardly surprising that the PCs draw swords and attack. Once the fight starts going badly--as you say, most systems make it tough to withdraw from a fight. Somebody will almost certainly get left behind, and no player wants to do that.

As a DM, there are ways to get the message across, but you have to be unambiguous about it. If my PCs enter a dragon's lair and I want to convey that this dragon is out of their weight class, I don't portray it as Large or Huge. I grab Big Red and bang him down on the table. If they meet an orc warband and I want them to realize a head-on confrontation isn't going to work, the warband isn't going to have twenty orcs in it--it'll have two hundred. Or, after giving them a tough battle against a single monster of a given type, I'll have them run into nine or ten of the same critter.

If, in these situations, they still pick a fight, I'll serve up a TPK sandwich with all the trimmings. But if they get into a fight with a gang of orcs that just happen to be a few levels higher than they expected, I'm not going to claim that they should have somehow known better. And if for some insane reason I have an overwhelmingly superior foe initiate hostilities, I'm not going to blame the players if they stand their ground and die like heroes instead of running away.

 

[TheClone]

4E made this one of its central tenets; the players ARE the center of the world, and all encounters ARE balanced. Of course, nothing forces you to play like this, but its how 4E was presented.

I don't get why 4e should prevent sending some monsters with waaayyy too much XP after the PCs. 4e is surely not made to fight those, but in that case you should not fight, so why should it work perfectly to fight?

As a DM, there are ways to get the message across, but you have to be unambiguous about it. If my PCs enter a dragon's lair and I want to convey that this dragon is out of their weight class, I don't portray it as Large or Huge. I grab Big Red and bang him down on the table. If they meet an orc warband and I want them to realize a head-on confrontation isn't going to work, the warband isn't going to have twenty orcs in it--it'll have two hundred. Or, after giving them a tough battle against a single monster of a given type, I'll have them run into nine or ten of the same critter.

If, in these situations, they still pick a fight, I'll serve up a TPK sandwich with all the trimmings. But if they get into a fight with a gang of orcs that just happen to be a few levels higher than they expected, I'm not going to claim that they should have somehow known better. And if for some insane reason I have an overwhelmingly superior foe initiate hostilities, I'm not going to blame the players if they stand their ground and die like heroes instead of running away.

I didn't want to state whose fault it is, just how it happens most of the time. But your tips should do the trick most of the times. But fitting such encounters into the world and the plot is always a little tricky and has side effects you didn't except.