Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
DMs: How Do You Clue Players In That...
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Tequila Sunrise" data-source="post: 5906070" data-attributes="member: 40398"><p>"You can't survive this monster"?</p><p></p><p>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 <em>are</em> 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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p>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?</p><p></p><p>I saw an OSR blog somewhere with a chart demonstrating the general relationship between size and HD, which I thought was nifty.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tequila Sunrise, post: 5906070, member: 40398"] "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 [I]are[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
DMs: How Do You Clue Players In That...
Top