DMs: Fight to Win or Fight for Fun?

[Raven Crowking]

The sequence is FREQUENTLY this...

1 the situation is setup that we have to fight the set of bad guys and there is little we can do before hand about it.
2. the bad guys should mop the floor with us given even amatuer tactics. they have one to two traits we simply have no counter for.
3. in character, we discuss this and try and find ways around it but there are usually little to no options.
4. engagement rolls along and we start getting clocks cleaned.
5. gm realizes this.
6. Enemies start playing really stupid and making idiot mistakes and sometimes just doing nothing while we get the upper hand.
7 we win what was a "tough fight". We pull it out dramatically after everything seemed lost.

Honestly, swrushing, I think that our positions are not really that far off here. I fully agree that the DM has to set up things to give the PCs a reasonable chance. The PCs should be able to get information about foes before being forced to commit...unless the foes are significantly weaker than the PCs. This might be through gossip, spells, or obvious monster signs.

If the game is "DM vs. Players" the DM is going to win every time. Simply keep dropping anvils from the sky. Boring for everyone.

It sounds to me like your DM hasn't figured out two fundamental tricks of the game yet:

(1) Setting up balanced encounters.

(2) And I will deny this if you tell my players I said it ! Devising means for the campaign world to aid the PCs without making it obvious that it wasn't pre-planned.

Your described scenario should never happen in an optimal game. If the DM realizes that you're getting your clocks cleaned, something else should happen that forces the battle to be abandoned temporarily. A third party enters the fray. The clock strikes midnight. The babysitter phones. The point is that neither side wins, and the PCs now know they have an enemy out there that they ought to start preparing for.

And even that should only happen if the DM realizes absolutely that he flubbed the set-up for the encounter. If the encounter is reasonable, then the DM risks too much by intervening. Not only does he risk the potential of PCs expecting that they can just sit back and everything will work out (which, unfortunately, I have witnessed first hand from both sides of the screen), but he risks the players catching onto his use of Trick #2, above.

So, in any conversation, I am always on the side of not pulling punches. The above is just a small digression between you and I.


RC

 

[Pielorinho]

One option to allow this: during a "Mexican Stand-Off" (as the term goes), the one preparing the Coup de Grace has an initiative of 20+initiative modifiers. Then, roll initiatives for the party if someone decides to "break" the stand-off. Ever see those action movies where someone gets a shot in before the bad guy can make his threat good? This would work.

THat's a very good idea for a rule; I've never been clear on a good way to handle such situations before.

In any case, as I said, I've never seen a hostage-taker succeed either in real life or in a game. It's perfectly plausible that a ghoul would have that same experience, I think.

Daniel

 

[Old One]

THat's a very good idea for a rule; I've never been clear on a good way to handle such situations before.

In any case, as I said, I've never seen a hostage-taker succeed either in real life or in a game. It's perfectly plausible that a ghoul would have that same experience, I think.

Daniel

That Henry is a pretty smart feller...consider that yoinked...

~ OO

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

Honestly, swrushing, I think that our positions are not really that far off here.

I agree.

I fully agree that the DM has to set up things to give the PCs a reasonable chance. The PCs should be able to get information about foes before being forced to commit...unless the foes are significantly weaker than the PCs. This might be through gossip, spells, or obvious monster signs.

certainly, in most cases at least. Although i do tend to add thw rod USEFUL before information, since sometimes it seems Gms and players mistake information for USEFUl information.

It sounds to me like your DM hasn't figured out two fundamental tricks of the game yet:

(1) Setting up balanced encounters.

definitely. he was fine at lower levels when magic wasn't as much an issue but he has little grasp on the impact of magic by level 10. heck, he had trouble dealing with my silenced monk (defender) chasing down and grappling/pummeling his legates at level 3.

(2) And I will deny this if you tell my players I said it ! Devising means for the campaign world to aid the PCs without making it obvious that it wasn't pre-planned.

exactly.

I always tend to script encounters with reasonable "reserves" on either side, a reserve not necessarily being extra people but a swing in fortune due to plauisble influences.

the easiest of which is actual reserves. if unsure about encounter balance, aim low on the side of caution with other nearby forces which can (or cannot) enter the fray if things go one way (or another.)

I think he sees himself as a simulationist gamer but really isn't good enough or doesn't spend the time enough to work it out so it plays out right.

Your described scenario should never happen in an optimal game.

i'd have to say it would never happen in an average game, or at least not so damned frequently. Again, he isn't bad at normal stuff but as the levels have advanced and his time gotten shorter he has not gotten a handle on the needs for this level. the game is winding down so it wont be an issue much longer.

but it occured to me to be a good opportunity to show an example or two.

Not only does he risk the potential of PCs expecting that they can just sit back and everything will work out (which, unfortunately, I have witnessed first hand from both sides of the screen), but he risks the players catching onto his use of Trick #2, above.

We have hit that point sorta in our game. While my character still tries and work out pre-event plans and such, at least one player is now actively trying to derail such saying "lets just get on with it. it will all work out once we get going." The player is perfectly willing to rush in blind since he knows the events will unfold in our favor.

So, in any conversation, I am always on the side of not pulling punches. The above is just a small digression between you and I.

I am in favor of pulling punches if and only if:
it seems like I as Gm am responsible for the mismatch
2. it can be done without glitch.

I have been doing this long enough that I can usually manage that WHEN NEEDED but rarely need to.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

My problem is that my players roll like crap while I can bang out 15+ rolls all night long. It's all honest rolling and such but it's bad. So we usually roll everything out in the open, last session the players were all level 1 characters and they failed thier Wis checks to find the weak section of flooring they were about to walk over, so they walk onto it and I give them a Dex save to jump off before it falls, they rolled 4-4-5... So they fall through and they make another save to avoid being hit by the falling debris from the collapse of the tunnel...and they all fail again. So now they are all going to have to take 2d6 damage. I roll a 12, 11, 6, 10 damage out in front of them. So now half the party is out and the other two have 3 HP between them. So I tell them I better do my rolling behind the screen...which they take as a challange and tell me to keep it honest! So they now have a load of goblins looking for them, and they have to fight thier way out with 3 HP. They manage to sneak past one crew then bolt for the door where there were 2 goblins with a wolf standing guard. The table was tense as battle started and they got lucky on thier initial rolls and took out the goblins, while the wolf hit the fighter for a very lucky 1 point of damage, and they killed it next round and ran for the door. They made it out barely. The Wizard was a -9 HP, the NPC cleric was at -3, and the rogue and fighter were both at 1 hp. Fun was had by all, and the tense rolls were a blast since they knew that if they didn't get a good d10 roll for initiative they were hosed, since I'd surely hammer them. I rolled poorly and they were ok and got lucky again on thier attack rolls.

The weird thing is that anybody who sits at the table with this crew rolls horribly. They are cursed by the RPG Gods somehow. I'm going to have to ask Gary if he can do anything about this.

 

[Kelleris]

You realize you've made a mistake equivalent to people equating risk of dying to little risk. You seem to have equated risk of dying to that being the only risk.

I am entirely unsure where you got this from my post, as my entire point is that the risk of dying is not only risk, and is not even my preferred risk when DMing to use to keep the game exciting. Then again, the sentences I quoted are confusing to me so I may be misinterpreting.

Equally tho, the scene at point here, paralyzed foe, intelligent adversary, friend actively defending helpless target, situation dire, etc... has almost nothing to do with "hands-on saving" the PCs bacon.

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. To give an example of how it would work in one of my games...

If the PCs jump off a 200-foot cliff and expect me to reroll the 20d6 several times to get a roll low enough to save them, well, they're going to die. This has never happened, though, since my players either don't think that way at all or are sufficiently impressed with the danger level of my DMing (Cutter's "sweet spot", either way, I suppose).

The PCs are caught in a pitched battle, begin to lose, and one of the PCs is unexpectedly separated from the rest. He needs to retreat, so he tries something daring - leaping off the cliff at his back, a cliff which I have not mentioned the height of. Now, it may say in my notes that that cliff is 200 feet tall and has spiky bits at the bottom, but I'm almost certainly going to change that on the fly to 50 or 100 feet, whatever would be required to probably batter the PC severely but most likely not kill him. The image of the cliff escape is cool enough to me, and the situation it creates is interesting enough to me (the PC is badly wounded and separated from his friends), that I'm not likely to make the attempt fatal.

In the example at hand, I can see a number of more interesting possibilities that CdGing the fallen PC, so I do think the OP made the wrong call. I doubt I'd go with the hostage situation (don't see it as very ghouly), but I would tell the players that the fallen PCs seconds are numbered. Some of the best sessions I've had have been adjudicating the heroic and bizarre stunts that PCs will try in situations like this. It's fair to say that watching players improvise a solution and helping them enact it is quite possibly my favorite part of DMing.

You can't use a rookie DM's mistakes as a reason for a seasoned DM to make decisions. Sure, newbie DMs make mistakes like that. I've been DMing for over a decade now, and I don't expect that that will be a problem. So, I think I'll stick with my current way of doing things. My players want it that way, and so do I, so I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Nothing wrong with that. Whatever works for you and your players is the cardinal rule of DMing, after all. It just seems that whenever this topic comes up, some people seem to be strongly of the opinion that a game with little risk of death is not a fun game, or is bad D&D. In other words, they seem to see something wrong with how I DM. I'm not trying to change anyone's play style, as long as it's working, just get them to acknowledge that being relatively unwilling to kill people doesn't make your game a cakewalk.

Honestly, swrushing, I think that our positions are not really that far off here.

Well, this is the Internet, so I'm fairly sure we agree on most things in principle and are taking exception to certain emphases over anything else. So, yeah, I agree that our positions are not really that far off here (since I seem to be agreeing with swrushing for the most part).

One option to allow this...

--snip a great idea--

Ah, Awesome! *le yoink*

 

[ThirdWizard]

I am entirely unsure where you got this from my post, as my entire point is that the risk of dying is not only risk, and is not even my preferred risk when DMing to use to keep the game exciting. Then again, the sentences I quoted are confusing to me so I may be misinterpreting.

Probably the same place Raven Crowking got it when he said:

LOL. Having "other things to worry about besides/in addition to dying" has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you're hands-on saving the PCs' collective bacon or not. So, yes, obviously a vibrant, colourful game with different types of problems & potential scenarios occurring is infinitely better than one in which the only problem is dodging the anvils falling from the sky.

You said "games where I made sure there were other things to worry about besides/in addition to dying were better than ones that I played in a more hands-off style." But, the thing is, noone here ever said that PCs only worried about dying and not other things. Your post seemed to inferr this from people who think death should be included as a risk in games.

I can accept that that isn't what you meant, though. I'm just pointing out how it sounded.


swrushing, it seems we arn't too dissimilar, just disagreeing on particular circumstance and semantics. In this particular case I would probably kill a PC and you probably wouldn't. But, this is a very specific case, so obviously people are going to have differeing ways of handling it. On the generics, I don't think we're too different.

 

[StupidSmurf]

Here's the rules/observations that I've incorporated into my DMing style over the past few decades:

1. "Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you." There will be times when the players will walk all over me, but there will be times that I'll walk all over them. As long as it's a level playing field, everyone should be happy.

2. Let's face it; while most players are reconciled to the fact their PCs might die, the grander or more meaningful the death, the easier it is to stomach. Spitting in Yeenoghu's eyes as his triple-headed morning star crushes your skull in, but the battle buys time for your wounded comrades to escape, is a far more glorious and satisfying a death than if you trip over a rock, get knocked unconscious, and a kobold senior citizen with a slight limp crushes your skull with a rock.

3. Coup de Grace is a fancy word, and it seems to conjure images of some clever fighting style or organized combat or such. For me, the phrase can mean anything from that, to what happens when an animal goes for your throat and rips it out while you're helpless. With that in mind, a hungry ghoul could administer a coup de grace not because it's mindful of rules of combat, but it's simply helping itself to a snack by tearing out the throat of a helpless victim.

3A. There are intelligent enemies that are so rotten and mean-spirited that they just may kick a PC when (s)he's down, so to speak, by giving the ol' knife-thrust to make sure the downed PC is really dead. I'm thinking specifically of opponents like followers of Cyric, followers of Loviatar, assassins, or generic mean creepy sadistic jerks. After all, if an opponent is going at a PC with the intent to kill, and the PC is dropped, will the victorious enemy say "Well gee, that Paladin's down, but still alive, as evidenced by the continued bleeding. I'll just walk away and wish like mad that the Paladin's allies don't rush over and cure him. That would be a bummer." Bag that.

4. PC death must be taken seriously/feared. I knew things were getting bad at one point in my 3.0 campaign when a player recommended that they KILL ANOTHER PC in order to cure the PC of a disease because, hey, they can simply pay for a Resurrection and bring the PC back healthy! Yikes. To the rest of my group's credit, the idea was shouted down.

5. If there is no risk of death, then where is the tension, the drama, the challenge? Why not just go to the Temple of Magic Item-Crapping Fluffy Bunnies That Love To Give Hugs? Without risk, there's no excitement. PC death is a risk. Cheating death is a far better accomplishment than cheating "relative inconvenience."

6. Fudging dice is a slippery slope. Beware. There have been times that I've overridden a die roll because I have this Unwritten Rule that says "If the player has taken the time to come out with a really really great, creative idea, it would be a crime to let a random roll of the dice determine whether it actually works." But this is sparingly used.

7. Although I do like the way 3.5 makes raising the dead a more expensive proposition in terms of GP, I miss the original AD&D way of doing things, with a Resurrection Survival roll, and a Con loss regardless of how you came back.

8. Sometimes, a DM's hands are tied. For instance, in a recent adventure, one of the party members, a dwarven 2nd level Fighter/2nd level Cleric of Moridin, charged ahead of the group and engaged four (!) ogres by himself. They were all in his threat areas. Sure, they saw the rest of the party, thirty feet away, but hey, there's this DWARF right under their noses. So, what did they do? Naturally, they pounded the dwarf into sludge. Considering that ogres and dwarves aren't what you would call the best of friends, it made sense. To do anything else would be playing against type, and the player admitted as much. I DID profusely apologize, though...

Anyways, those are my thoughts.

 

[Kelleris]

You said "games where I made sure there were other things to worry about besides/in addition to dying were better than ones that I played in a more hands-off style." But, the thing is, noone here ever said that PCs only worried about dying and not other things. Your post seemed to inferr this from people who think death should be includedas a risk in games.

Hm, I meant that avoiding killing PCs and trying to come up with other risks, rewards, and penalties led to more interesting games for me than always and in every situations letting the dice fall where they may or trying for some kind of gritty verisimilitude. Unless you mean that I'm unjustly accusing you of having no other risks in your games besides death? That wasn't my intention, and I apologize if that's how you took it.

5. If there is no risk of death, then where is the tension, the drama, the challenge? Why not just go to the Temple of Magic Item-Crapping Fluffy Bunnies That Love To Give Hugs? Without risk, there's no excitement. PC death is a risk. Cheating death is a far better accomplishment than cheating "relative inconvenience."

Now it's comments like this that make me Mr. Cranky-Pants. I happen to believe in fates worse than death, and enjoy cultivating them for my players to discover. In any case, it's been my experience that there is almost always a fate more interesting than death.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

5. If there is no risk of death, then where is the tension, the drama, the challenge? Why not just go to the Temple of Magic Item-Crapping Fluffy Bunnies That Love To Give Hugs? Without risk, there's no excitement. PC death is a risk. Cheating death is a far better accomplishment than cheating "relative inconvenience.

this is the place where the fundemental divide happens. This philosophy leads to a game I would be annoyed, unhappy and yes, bored with. ANyone who thinks that a game without player fear of character death* is the magic item crapping fluffy bunnies, doesn't get my play style at all.

*I could have a GM flat out tell me "I hate to kill characters and will avoid it if possible", and this wouldn't cause me to take stupid character actions because of this great thing called 'roleplaying'. I am playing a character with whatever degree of foolhardiness or caution that my character concept requires, buffered at either end by the background of having a) become an adventurer and b) lived this long. If the 3rd level party charges the great red wyrm because "the DM won't let us die" they have had a complete meta gaming spasm and sould be sat down & straightened out forthwith.