DMs: How Do You Clue Players In That...

[Tequila Sunrise]

"You can't survive this monster"?

Players are notorious for getting into fights, and fighting until a bitter TPK. Seems to me that this is largely due to a lack of communication. Unless at least one of the players has read the MM and has a good head for numbers, there's no established way for players to know when to back down. Most encounters with monsters are written to be overcome in a glory of blood and battle, so players naturally and quite reasonably assume that any monster they come across is killable. Bash WoW all you want, but it gives players some idea of what they're getting into.

So if you've ever had a monster that you knew would curb-stomp the PCs if they picked a fight with it, how did you clue your players in? A skill check? A friendly NPC with prophetic insight into the PCs' prowess? Metagame comments? Telling your players to metagame? (Had a DM do this, myself.) Or maybe you're just old skool, and you let your players learn which monsters aren't killable at level X by trial-and-death?

I saw an OSR blog somewhere with a chart demonstrating the general relationship between size and HD, which I thought was nifty.

 

[Daztur]

Well when I tried to do that before the players figured out some bizarre means of killing the damn thing anyway...

 

[Quickleaf]

"You can't survive this monster"?

Well, there's a difference between surviving and defeating. I've never put in a monster that could not be survived - the PCs always have an "out" of some kind.

Monsters that can't be defeated in combat at the party's current level I have used. I don't particularly subscribe to the "balanced encounter" philosophy. However I do like to telegraph what's ahead if the players care about that sort of thing (often they don't ). So I've used sagacious NPCs, clues acquired during investigation, skill checks, hints in the monster's lair, anything really, to hint that a monster is seriously powerful.

If all else fails then I let the dice fall and the asses get kicked.

Though, like [MENTION=55680]Daztur[/MENTION], I have had games where the players came up you unlikely ways to beat monsters many levels above them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In our group, we've learned to detect the subtle clues that we are outclassed.

Phrases like "it has the drop on you", a lengthy description of a creature's majesty and awe-inspiring presence are clues, for instance. Or its cavalier acceptance of our party's appearance.

Because no DMs on our group hold back.

 

[Wik]

Generally, the PCs look at the fight, and say "hey, guys? We're boned".

I had two last session. One they fought (and barely survived) and the other they turned and ran from immediately.

I rarely tip off the PCs. But I set things up so that if bad stuff happens, they can usually run.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

For my group, it's usually environmental cues.


E.G. for a Dragon...there are claw marks in stone and metal veins as if they were butter. (The important part)...even with your (+3, keen) magic longsword, it'd take you days or weeks to make even a single mark like that.


or....


For NPCs (who are trickier than monsters, IMO) I use rep.

Fhaaalingarrdeznan the terrible, destroyer of worlds is the master of Jobu the pitiful... Remember how you almost had a TPK from Jobu the pitiful? Are you SURE you're ready to attack the master?



EDIT. Those first two are "on the fly". If I have built it into the story there is always the "competent henchman(men)" who kills a fairly powerful monster (e.g. ogre) and then goes to fight the next thing only to be mercillessly wasted (perhaps even as a group of identical competent henchmen).


"We just saw one of you waste an ogre; a challenging ogre for us....then we see seven of you go into a cave, with only blood and gore spewing out from the cave." If they don't get that "subtle" message...I don't think they'll get any message.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Well, of the seven players in my group five of us DM from time-to-time and the other two each have twenty-plus years of gaming experience so we mostly rely on our metagame knowledge.

That said, monsters do leave footprints on their environment which should offer the PCs some clue as to what lies ahead (similar to what [MENTION=64209]Aberzanzorax[/MENTION] mentioned above). The only part that is tricky for us is with PC-classed humanoids and monsters; they tend to be a little harder to gauge their actual power level (this is especially true when dealing with monsters with nonassociated class levels). In these cases we rely mostly on trial-and-error.

 

[Libramarian]

This kind of thing is why you need a solid association between fluff and mechanics and why I don't like monster roles or monster leveling rules.

If a player bothers to read the monster manual they should be rewarded for that I think. Of course they can't actually have the book out to study during the game, and have to rely on my descriptions of the monster to recall which one it is. If they do that, and make a correct inference about their chance of success against it, and then make a smart decision based on that inference, that's pretty good gameplay and not something I would want to discourage by calling it metagaming.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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[Dordledum]

Sometimes it's obvious, e.g. when a Mountain Troll walks by and the party is only level 3, they should not attack, but hide or run.

Other times, when they don't get the hint, I let the monster deal massive damage to a PC (but not one shot killing him/her). Often that gets the message across

Finally, if they really stand still and are at the point of getting slaughtered, I'd say something like: "you could run away, you know?"

IF all fails, they die.