Do you like being saved? Or the Dues ex machina in action

[S'mon]

I didn't say you were, I said perhaps, as I don't know you, or your circumstances. Mine aren't bothered by such things, so I don't feel the need to hide when I screw up, and I do screw up. I'm not perfect by a long shot.

You clearly don't understand - if a GM must fudge, he doesn't conceal it for *his* benefit, but for the players, so that if possible they still have some sense of challenge.

But far better not to fudge and give them a real challenge in the first place.

 

[gamerprinter]

You clearly don't understand - if a GM must fudge, he doesn't conceal it for *his* benefit, but for the players, so that if possible they still have some sense of challenge.

But far better not to fudge and give them a real challenge in the first place.

Of course! I would rather never screw up. When I lessen the challenge, I don't lessen it so much that the party can't all be killed still. I just don't make it so they can't win at all. I don't do it for my benefit ever. (Spock says, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - or the one", as in 1 DM).

What benefit am I getting, from doing that? Remember, I'm a player too, 1/3 of the time.

Luckily, I don't make such mistakes often, perhaps once in the last 3 years - and we play practically every weekend. So once in 400+ games, isn't too bad a record (that's over 3 campaigns).

Edit: let me add that the OP's situation was doing it wrong. The automatic exploding gas tank killing the NPCs without the player's participation was not the way to do it. That's not lessening the challenge, that's removing it altogether. I, as a GM and player would not approve.

To be clear, in the encounter where I lessened the threat, somewhat, we were playing Epic (I don't care for epic, and won't play it again, but) the PCs had AC in the 70's, and placed a monster with an AC of 90. It turned out nobody could hit it at all without a critical. So, I fudged that one of the spells protecting him (the bad guy) ended, so his AC was in the 80's so he could get hit. That's all I did, and 3 PCs still died in that encounter.

 

[Elf Witch]

Last Sunday I killed 3 out of 4 PCs running the 'Black Fang's Dungeon' from the Pathfinder Beginner Box.

The PCs had fought Black Fang the dragon, wounded him badly (to 17hp), driven him off (as per the module GMing instructions), and cleared the dungeon, garnering heaps of magic and gold. Their big mistake came when they then decided to hunt down the wounded dragon. They found him after two days (healed to 29hp) holed up in a cave by an icy riverbank. *This* time he was ready for them - surprise, breath attack, charge, full attack - and it was all over.

I don't regret it; the dragon was objectively less tough than before (29/54hp), but in reality much deadlier, because it was at bay; it had learned to fear them, it set up a simple killing zone and gave them everything it had.

I was sorry the PCs got slaughtered, but I'd do it again anytime.

In that case the party got themselves killed you didn't set out to kill them.

There is a difference when PC do dumb things and when a DM has made a mistake and the PCs are outmatched.

As a DM I will pull my punches, fudge, save them if it was my mistake. If the PCs just insist on doing the dumb thing then their fate is in their hands.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think on rare occasions being saved from certain death is good for the game (just like on rare occasions killing a character is good for the game). It is true that actions need to have consequences, and random and uncontrollable events need to happen to give the world credibility. But against that backdrop, a piece of deus ex machina can work.

As a player, I like feeling that someone is watching over me, both in the in-game and metagame sense.

 

[Niccodaemus]

I think a more elegant idea would be to have an enemy hit a canister close to the PCs, but actually out of range to injure them. That way the players make the connection that there's a way to help themselves, and it doesn't feel so much like you add an emergency button to escape a fight they can't win.

Generally, I don't have PCs die because a random or generic encounter turns unexpectedly bad. But they can lose a fight in many ways without being killed. That seems much better to me.

Yep, I like your's better!

 

[S'mon]

In that case the party got themselves killed you didn't set out to kill them.

True, I never set out to kill them - your example with the beholders was terrible vindictive DMing. Quite often though players make mistakes or are unlucky without really being foolish.

 

[Elf Witch]

True, I never set out to kill them - your example with the beholders was terrible vindictive DMing. Quite often though players make mistakes or are unlucky without really being foolish.

That's true too.

I have said this before that if I see it coming down to a matter of the players just being unlucky then I have been known to give them a helping hand.

And since I have started using an action and fate point system in my game it is much easier to handle things without having to fudge or use Dues EX Machina.

On one hand it still bugs me a little with what the DM did. Even after he apologized and told me it wasn't my character he wanted dead. But I will say this rolling all those saves one after another was exciting my heart was pounding and my palms were slippery.

If lady luck had stayed with me I would have made it. I failed the last roll by one.

 

[jbear]

I don't like to be saved. I don't like to have DMs plan out encounters for me either. Let me be the one to misjudge the difficulty of the encounter; then it's my poor choice that leads to my PC's death.

If I were to play a game where the DM was choosing which encounters we faced, then sure, save my PC's ass.

I'm not really sure what you mean here.

So, let's say at the end of a session the PC's have entered a dungeon. They've found some peeled snake skins about the place, xxl size and a few other clues that they know they aren't walking into a rabbit hole.

DM has a week ... maybe 2 before the next session. So, as a DM, you wouldn't prepare the next game session? You'd ... make it up on the fly?

Personally, once that decision was made by my players, I'd make good use of that time to properly give body and life to the place they had just entered. Yep ... I'd plan. And then I'd see what the PC's did with that.

I don't have time to build a world where every little detail is worked out before hand. Big broad brush strokes for me and then I flesh things out when the need arises.

And I really don't think there is anything wrong with that. I really don't understand what you mean by 'I don't like DMs to plan encounters out for me'. As a DM, it's what I do ... plan encounters. And that planning helps make them well thought out and memorable. I can assure you that they wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting or challenging if I didn't do any planning.

And I won't make excuses for thinking that battles in rooms or corridors with nothing in them, and hacking at the 1d8 orcs that were rolled on the random table suck, and badly.

But different strokes for different folks. But I'm pretty comfortable with admitting that the game I play is ... you know ... a game. So on that basis I plan to make it a fun one.

As for the OP: I also don't like being bailed out. But being a DM is not easy. I'm quite happy killing my players PCs if I think the situation is fair or they were fairly warned that the situation they were getting into was not going to be fair and they persisted. If I thought I had made an error of judgement and the PCs suddenly found themselves in an unfair situation and had no chance to make a decision on whether to be involved or not ... well ... I wouldn't enjoy that. I don't know how I'd get out of it, probably my out wouldn't be quite so transparent, but I think your DM can be forgiven for pulling punches on this occasion.

 

[Water Bob]

What do you think? What's your preference? Do you like being saved?

As a player, I dislike it. I want my GM to be skilled enough to make me believe the event was going to happen anyway--and it just happens that the event saves our behinds, even if the GM is saving us and had no plans for the saving event to occur.

As a GM, I try never to pull this type of thing. But, I've certainly misjudged the strength of encounters before, especially before I'm comfortable with a new game system. I certainly don't want to kill off the PCs willy-nilly--especially if it's my fault for making the encounter too hard.

I mostly GM in our group, and when we sit down to play (I'm acutally running a game tomorrow), I try to have the session planned and ready to go, giving myself room to ad-lib should the players do something unexpected. And, I always try to have a few light contengency plans. I don't put a lot of work into these, but I do have an idea of what I can do should the PCs go in a direction that I'm not prepared for them to go.

For example, tomorrow, I expect the session to revolve around combat and exploration. So, I have the entire dungeon planned out, and I'm real comfortable with it--as I like the dungeon to feel like a living place rather than bad guys waiting in a room to fight whatever comes through the door. Sometimes, my dungeons will have all the action take place in just one or two rooms because, as the game played out, the entire inhabitants of the place came to where the noise was taking place and ended up fighitng the PCs.

My contingency plans for tomorrow's game has to do with the PCs reaching the outside of the cave. I don't expect this to happen, but you never know how a game is going to go. Once they get out, they've got, basically, three directions they can go. Directly East is where they'll want to go--back to their village. But, in that direction lies a lot of danger. The PCs know this because they came through it to get to where they are now. I think they'll not be too eager to go through that territory again.

But, if they do, I've got a single NPC I've made (and will duplicated him in the game, as needed) in case I've got to pull something out of my butt.

If I need to buy time, I've always found it easiest to spring a combat scenario on the players. This eats up time, is fun, and buys me time to end the session, go home, and better prepare that direction for next time. During the game session next, the goal is to make it look like everything that happened was supposed to happen--no matter what. But, since I didn't get "stuck" last game, I was able to go home and make up some cool stuff for the direction the players did take.

I don't think the players will go North or West because, well, that's the direction of the bad guy's territory. Plus, it's in the exact opposite direction of their home village.

But, just in case they do....I've done the same thing as I did with the East. I made up exactly one enemy NPC, and I will use him and duplicates of him while ad-libbing an encounter if the PCs go that direction. Combat will typically ensue...and, boom! I've bought time to prepare that direction for next game session.

The third way to go, South, is the way I expect the PCs to go. I've set up an enounter there and put a little more meat on it than I did for the others. With regards to the game, that will be the most rich, story-laden way to go.

So, any way they do go, if they get that far next game session, I've got combat for them--which buys me time to develop the direction they end up going in-between games.





EDIT: Out of curiosity, what game system are you using that you hate?

 

[LostSoul]

I'm not really sure what you mean here.

So, let's say at the end of a session the PC's have entered a dungeon. They've found some peeled snake skins about the place, xxl size and a few other clues that they know they aren't walking into a rabbit hole.

DM has a week ... maybe 2 before the next session. So, as a DM, you wouldn't prepare the next game session? You'd ... make it up on the fly?

I wasn't very clear. What I meant by "I don't like to have DMs plan out encounters for me" was that I want the option to determine which encounters my PC faces, not the DM. To clarify further, I don't want to design the specific encounters myself, I want to be able to pick the adventure: Let's avoid the snake hole for now and check out the old temple ruins.