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

[Dausuul]

I didn't want to state whose fault it is, just how it happens most of the time.

Possibly I am overly touchy on the subject.

The problem of estimating encounter difficulty (from the player perspective, deciding whether or not to pick a fight) is one I've been thinking about a lot lately. Partly this is due to playing the War of the Burning Sky adventure path, which has some... ah... challenging encounters, shall we say, presented in such a way that you really can't tell beforehand that you're getting in over your head.

One thing I've realized is that the minion mechanic, if applied inconsistently, can make it virtually impossible for players to get a handle on how powerful their PCs are relative to the world they're in. We see a gang of seven or eight enemy soldiers, and immediately we start trying to guess if they're minions or not. If they are, we can take 'em, no sweat. If they're not, we're in for a rowdy time.

I don't think this means minions need to be got rid of; the important thing is to be consistent in using them. If random street toughs and infantry grunts are minions, then they should always be minions. Conveying an NPC's minion-ness is tricky, but I'm starting to believe it's vital if you intend to use the minion mechanic in anything but the most tightly scripted game.

 

[TheClone]

If you intend to have mixed encounter level in a game it surely is vital. We usually have our minions look somewhat nondescript and usually we have them pointed out after one or two rounds, sometime even before combat. And if you have similar types of monsters in several combats, they can easily be recognized again. But to me it has always bee na problem determining the strength of any creature, even your own PC. How do I as a PC look like if I'm level 10 compared to level 3? Some part of it may be about self esteem, looking more self confident and stuff, but thats difficult, except with sense motive. But that would let sense motive grow to strong. One other point is magic equipment. It should definitely look more fancy than normal equipment.

 

[MarkB]

A simple form of 'threat assessment' would be Monster Knowledge checks. If the PCs manage to get to the second-tier info level on the check (DC 20 at Heroic tier), then let them also have a reasonable idea as to whether the monsters pose an overwhelming threat to them.

Of course, persuading them to act upon that knowledge is another matter.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The easiest way for a novice DM to handle something like this is to begin in media res - 'you are all sitting in the High Church's Inquisitorial Prison, for consorting with, abetting, or the active practice of the high crime of sorcery. The guards have just arrived to take you to your questioning, if convicted, you know to expect execution, at best.' Don't try to capture them in game, begin with them already being captured, heck, make it part of how the group comes together.

An experienced GM has a big advantage, he knows what clues to leave - 'Take them alive! The high paladin wants a word with them!' 'Can I kill the elf?' 'NO!' And there is a good chance that if he is running for his regular group then the players know a bit of how he thinks. (My players might well let the paladins capture them, in part because they trust me to make the game fun. For my part, I will have plans in place for the event that the do escape.)

The Auld Grump

 

[TheClone]

A simple form of 'threat assessment' would be Monster Knowledge checks. If the PCs manage to get to the second-tier info level on the check (DC 20 at Heroic tier), then let them also have a reasonable idea as to whether the monsters pose an overwhelming threat to them.

Of course, persuading them to act upon that knowledge is another matter.

Okay for gamists, but I wouldn't like a single check solving that problem without the players to even think. It's like "Hey, the dm wants us to make a check, it's again one of those encounters that are too tough to handle."

 

[MarkB]

Okay for gamists, but I wouldn't like a single check solving that problem without the players to even think. It's like "Hey, the dm wants us to make a check, it's again one of those encounters that are too tough to handle."

It's a simple application of PC knowledge and experience. Any reasonably competent group should be able to get a bead on the relative competence of the opposition with a little study and expertise. Sizing up the opposition is standard practice in advance of any real-world battle.

 

[Dausuul]

Okay for gamists, but I wouldn't like a single check solving that problem without the players to even think. It's like "Hey, the dm wants us to make a check, it's again one of those encounters that are too tough to handle."

What if the players had to ask in order to roll the check?

 

[Obryn]

It crashed the game. Hence the title.

I dunno. I'm torn, here.

For me, I'm very forgiving of newbie DMs - I was one, once, too, and I know I was godawful in elementary school. I'm also very forgiving of bad DMing if it's my only chance to play for a while. I probably would have asked, out of character, "Is this basically going to have to happen for the rest of the adventure to take place?" And if so, I would have grumbled and gone along with it.

Blowing up a (railroad) adventure isn't how you teach a bad DM to become a good DM. Walking them through their mistakes works much better.

I don't know that you accomplished much - other than losing a chance for a day of gaming. Maybe you'd rather not game at all than face a silly railroad non-choice; I'd rather let it go, and give it a shot.

Now, an experienced DM would know better. An experienced DM also could have invented stats on the fly, if need be. But this guy's a newbie, and if you want to cultivate him into a good DM, he'll need the experience.

-O

 

[Cute-Hydra]

I see this as three problems:

Firstly, DM's on the whole sometimes feel that the PC's have it too easy and need to be brought down a notch. Therefore, throwing them into jail occasionally is something many novice DM's do to show the PC's that they are not the axle that the world revolves around. I would advocate that if a DM wan'ts to do this then they should have a few really really tough encounters where all pc's are on 3 hp at the end after using all encounter and dailies. The classic you are all under arrest is a bit demeaning for any PC.

Secondly, the DM didn't take a PC's backstory into account. It is a roll-playing game and it is the same problem that makes fear such a nasty mechanic. The fighter who is a veteran of a dozen wars runs away from a goblin casting fear... The same thing, a PC will often feel that their PC would go down fighting. This is one reason that Backstories are so important as it is the chance for the PC to tell the DM what he has in mind for his character. From what I understand, it was more frustrating that the Sorcerer in question had not even used magic, so it was an unfounded arrest which makes rail roading so much more obvious. The DM could have waited for them to cast an arcane spell, then teleported the palladins in.

Thirdly, if you are going to have a group of people who are so powerful that they will overwelm the pc's so effectively that the PC's are obviously not supposed to fight make it melodramatically obvious. Say "A dozen palladins, carrying clearly holy weapons in magical armour, with a wizard with an insignia as a hostower archmage, teleports into your midst." If they still want to fight, then take them down with a hold person mass, if one pc manages to save the really high dc then have them beaten to submission. But atleast that pc can have the self satisfaction of not coming quietly. In the case as point, it could have been quite cool to have the leader turn up to escort them from their cells with a patch over one eye and a poison-green face. A good DM should never make the NPCS untouchable. (I once rolled for an army of 200 looking into 2 mirror of life trapping's. I didn't nerf it by saying they are wearing mirrored glasses or they don't look into it. I let the PC have the fun of thinking they made a difference).

Just my thoughts,
Cute-Hydra

 

[Wolf1066]

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.

IMO, this is so right that it should be the opening chapter of the RPGers' Bible.

Not being able to tell if the opponents are useless minions trained at the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy or Elite Supersoldiers with laser designated targeting is not unique to D&D, pretty much every game I've ever played has its degrees of ambiguity. And most gamers expect to have to fight their way out of bad situations sooner or later - whether they're playing D&D adventurers, Edgerunners or questionable "merchants" plying the "space lanes".

There should be no ambiguity about the situation, especially if the party contains at least one member who is going to have every reason to fight unless such an action would clearly be suicide.

It's up to the GM - who is, after all, the only one there who really knows what the world looks like and is charged with the responsibility of conveying that to the players - to convey to the players that the situation is inescapable and that resistance is, indeed, futile - if not downright suicidal.

The players do need to keep their wits about them and listen to the GM, but they shouldn't have to hunt for subtle clues ("but you should'a' known by the fact that they were wearing different-coloured shirts that they weren't going to be the same pushovers as you met before...")

Having one of the opponents articulate "If you come quietly, I promise you will not be harmed but we will kill you if you resist" probably would not cut it for some PCs - it still boils down to "Surrender or Die!" and if "surrendering" is going to mean dying later in chains at the hands of torturer/executioner for one of the characters, that's not gonna happen if (s)he thinks there's the remotest chance of escape - "there's only a few of them, we can take 'em out and escape..."

The only answer, IMO, is to ensure that the players can see that initiating hostilities will quite literally be the last thing their character ever does...

If they then elect to go out in a blaze of glory, it's TPK with da woiks and extra pepperoni - and anchovies, whether you bloody like 'em or not.

And unless the party does something that warrants it, I would not have a clearly superior force initiate hostilities - and I suspect that if the players did do something that warranted a death squad, they'd probably feel they have no reason to expect a "fair trial" and good treatment and initiate hostilities anyway - "at least go out fighting..."

When I'm playing, my expectation is that I should be able to assess the level of risk and react accordingly, based on what my character - whose background motivations and such are known to the GM - would realistically do under those circumstances.

That would include resisting being arrested by a smallish group of soldiers working for an inquisitorial organisation that's rounding up and slaughtering the likes of me.

In the case of the OP, if it crashed the game due to the GM being so inexperienced that (s)he didn't even create stats for the opposition, I'd say "cool, well let's call a break to give you time to come up with some basic stats, I'm heading outside for a coffee and a cigarette, we can get back into the action after that and see if they succeed in taking us."

Hell, I'd even be inclined to yak with the GM while I'm having my break and give him/her some ideas for the characters or how to retrieve the situation - but I'd still have reacted as per the OP and fought rather than submit to capture, torture and execution.