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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pickles JG" data-source="post: 6358694" data-attributes="member: 61501">I am mostly on the dice should fall whare they lie side of things. I have argued (well demonstrated) how sports are more dramatic than plays as the drama in sports in real & unscripted. This does not go down well with Thesps. I think the same applies to games - they are less dramatic if the DM starts fudging things either to keep them interesting or to avoid crushing the players (especially if he veers from one end to the other in the same fight). Doing that sort of fudging invisibly is a skill I admire but I would rather threats are reasonably appropriate or telegraphed as very dangerous than have DMs need to fudge. TPKs seems an easy out - it is much easier to just kill the players than think up an interesting & meaningful other way for them to be defeated. A TPK in a story with a strong narrative risks giving you the sensation of stopping reading a mystery story half way through. You want to find out what happens but never will. I played this particular module on Sunday having looked at the monsters in greed for knowledge & read the starter which I will be running. I know how riduculously dangerous dragons are.  My maybe does not know this (then again how does he know that at 10th level he can survive dragon breath but at first he cannot?)The missionman says that he needs to drive off the dragon & the PCs can assist the regular soldiers in doing this. It is obviously suicidal to try this if the dragon is out to get us. The plot protection seemed to be that the dragon stafed NPCs as a priority. It was the most "videogamey" bit of adventure I have played in - specifically recalling the start of Skyrrim & IIRC one of the Witcher games. Our DM did not play it very well. I think there is scope for splitting the NPCs & PCs into a number of treams & "randomly" seeing which one is attacked each time (but fixing it so only NPCs get hit). It would probably pretty transparent but done with gusto you might swing it. He should also narrate volleys of arrows from the Guards (a ballista as my PC helpfully pointed out would have been a good idea).On reflection I do not think it is quite such a dreadful scenario as I at first thought but it certainly carries a large danger of being unsatisfying (as it was for us).</blockquote>

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