DMs Advice - Player's bad assumptions

[ExploderWizard]

There are times I think players of many different styles get into D&D combat and suddenly spend too much effort thinking of the game as a game to be won or lost, live or die, rather than as a role playing game inspired by a literary genre with genre conventions to use. The Villains and Vigilantes reference highlights one genre, 4 color superhero, that has some pretty strong conventions that ameliorate setbacks and other problems that occur when overmatched in combat or when the dice turn against the players. What supervillain ever simply kills the hero he defeats? Hardly any. They'd rather capture the hero so they can monologue at them, put them in death traps, show they're the alpha male, whatever they want to do. And that gives the heroes the opportunities they need to escape and turn the tables on the villains.

Fantasy has similar conventions. In the Conan movie, did Thulsa Doom simply off Conan when he found him infiltrating in disguise? He did not. He monologued, showed off his power, and then condemned Conan to a slow death that enabled his companions to find and rescue him. Even in the bloody Song of Ice and Fire, killing off protagonists isn't always straightforward. Ned Stark could have been allowed to take the Black. Jamie Lannister is captured and, in effect, ransomed despite a lot of people wanting him dead. Later, he's maimed rather than outright killed, enabling him to escape and live on. And characters who don't follow conventions have been paying some pretty steep prices for their perfidity. Red Weddings, public executions of just men, and just being mountainous brutes all have costs that are being paid as the series goes on.

Let the players know that you'll use reasonable genre conventions and that all isn't lost simply because the last hit points keeping PCs conscious are whittled away.

There are also practical reasons to capture instead of kill in some cases. The possibility of ransom,or the old idea that you can shear a sheep many times but but only skin it once would be applicable to bandits who managed to overcome the PCs. Game events feel more natural if there are reasons for doing something that would make sense to someone within the setting.

 

[GSHamster]

In my opinion, if a player is operating under a bad assumption, your best choice as a DM is to assume that you made a mistake in communicating, and clarify things.

As a DM, you have the big picture in your head, and it is clear and full of details. But the players often receive just a fraction of that picture, maybe 10%. Players are the proverbial blind men trying to describe an elephant.

So my advice would be to clarify any bad assumptions as soon as they arise. It may not have been your fault, but it is better to act as if it was your fault.

 

[Omegaxicor]

Sorry I haven't posted back I have been really busy, [MENTION=20187]GSHamster[/MENTION] you might have a point there
[MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] and [MENTION=66434]ExploderWizard[/MENTION] I like that sometimes but I find that if the players never die when they are beaten then the players are quite happy to wade into combat regardless of their condition because if they win, they win big but if they lose, they will be fine because they will always be captured instead of killed.

Batman and Joker are a great combination, as are Superman and Lex Luthor but in both films you know no matter what happens neither Superman nor Batman are in any danger nor will they fail to save the world. The only time Superman failed he was able to obliterate the laws of physics and turn back time by flying around the world superfast. The whole idea of D&D is that the players are mortal and can die, fail, or succeed or even die nobly in securing victory with their characters life. Many on these boards have said that without the possibility of death then their is no challenge.

Though in most fights I allow retreat or even capture (the party will be taken before the leader to be executed personally, then free themselves and kill him and his guards, the fight is harder because he has lots of guards instead of just a handful) but some fights, usually where the party have been ambushed then there is no retreat but the party can still surrender.

each fight is different, some the players can succeed/fail and the consequences are the same except that the enemy lives, most entail fighting the enemy again later in a worse position. This is a convention of D&D though a lot of the time, defeat means death because otherwise failure means little to the players.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Sorry I haven't posted back I have been really busy, @GSHamster you might have a point there
@billd91 and @ExploderWizard I like that sometimes but I find that if the players never die when they are beaten then the players are quite happy to wade into combat regardless of their condition because if they win, they win big but if they lose, they will be fine because they will always be captured instead of killed.

Npcs involved in encounters should behave in ways that make sense for them. Why should the PCs think that surrender to a pack of dire rats or a stone golem would get them anywhere? The game world and the things that inhabit it are more than just piles of statistics. Only enemies capable of thought that think there may be some value in keeping captives alive, will do so. It is a reason that encounters with undead are more frightening than one with humanoids of the same rough power level. Those orcs might capture you and take you to their chief, but that unit of skeleton tomb guardians will just mow you down literally without thought.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think anyone has suggested that "failure = TPK".

I took [MENTION=95351]Omegaxicor[/MENTION] to be suggesting just that with the remark upthread, twhich I quoted in my post, that "Common sense is an easy fallback but if the battle isn't going to kill them but just deplete their resources enough to have the next fight kill them, since they don't know what the next fight will be".

There are times I think players of many different styles get into D&D combat and suddenly spend too much effort thinking of the game as a game to be won or lost, live or die, rather than as a role playing game inspired by a literary genre with genre conventions to use.

<snip>

Let the players know that you'll use reasonable genre conventions and that all isn't lost simply because the last hit points keeping PCs conscious are whittled away.

This is all reasonable advice, but I don't see it borne out in much D&D material. I don't remember the AD&D DMG, or the 3E or 4e ones for that matter, discussing much about the stakes of combat beyond life or death (the 4e DMG2 is a bit different in this respect). The only module I can think of which is set up to contemplate capture of all the PCs is A3 in the Slave Lords series, and mechanically it is presented as a GM cheat.

There may be more modules that contemplate one PC being captured and then rescued (though even there I'm drawing a blank at present) but this has its own issues - D&D's action resolution mechanics don't handle geographically separated protagonists very well.

 

[Omegaxicor]

I took @Omegaxicor to be suggesting just that with the remark upthread, twhich I quoted in my post, that "Common sense is an easy fallback but if the battle isn't going to kill them but just deplete their resources enough to have the next fight kill them, since they don't know what the next fight will be".

I realise that was poorly worded, what I meant was that the party are not going to die in the fight against the elementals they are just going to lose Hp/Heals/Action Points/Spells (whatever resources aid in battle) and then fight the Archmage and then die (if the final fight is against a human, for example the Archmage, then the party can be captured but if the party are fighting something that is guarding a relic they need then it probably won't capture them. Even so the party can't guarantee that the Archmage won't just execute them, they don't KNOW that they will be captured)