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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pants" data-source="post: 1253659" data-attributes="member: 8849">I wonder if getting your player's frustrated is really a bad thing?  <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=";)" /> Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil Spoilers[spoiler]The party just attacked the Main Gate to the Crater Ridge Mines last weekend which resulted in a battle that lasted 4 hours!  They tore through the Howler, the Ogre, Mereclar and the human guards, but most of their time was spent fighting Terrengyit the Trog Priest.  They just couldn't hit him, he had an AC of 29, the Dwarven Paladin Tank had been blinded and it eventually turned into a wrestling match between the Trog and the Monk.  However, throughout the course of the battle, everyone was low on Hit Points and the battle definitely frustrated the players.  However, when they finally took the Troglodyte down, everyone was happy.  So I think it was a frustrated in a good way kind of thing.[/spoiler]Some of my failed DMing experiments:My First Quest - I tried to do some political intrigue along with a pair of stupid NPC's including, the Fat King who instantly became a 10th level Wizard whenever one of the PC's thought about attacking him, the Halfling Fighter named 'Tiny,' and the Human female Cleric who was well endowed with 'large tracts of land.'  I also tried to introduce mystery, behind the scenes plots, and politics.  Include a static Dungeon environment and you're set for the lamest quest ever.  And it all happened in one quest.  <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=";)" /> My Long Running Villain Idea - This started out rather well, but since I had the villains planned ever since day 1, it eventually turned into a Rail Road-athon.  I have vowed since then to plan campaigns in 'plot arcs,' ie the players will play through varied stories throughout the campaign and depending upon the outcome, I'll introduce another plot hook.  These maybe related or may not, but I don't think I can handle a long term villain from level 1 to level 20.The Magic Item Grab Bag Idea - Humorous, but nothing more.  Helped to introduce more problems into my rail roading campaign.  Ugh.Building a Low Magic World - I tried, I really tried.  I wanted to run a low magic world where the players would cherish their magic items, that their +1 longsword would be a trusty companion for many moons. I did that for a while, but I just can't seem to properly manage a low magic world, so it turned into a semi-above average magic world.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, I'm still running the game now and I'm having a blast.The My First 3e GamePC: "Does the Strength bonus on these Gloves and this Belt stack?"DM (me): "I don't see why not..."</blockquote>

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