Has mocking a DM's upcoming bad guys ever been a good idea?

[NewJeffCT]

I've been DMing a 3.5 campaign for about 16 months now. The party is just now hitting level 11 (we play every other week...)

But, a few sessions back, the party learned that the evil high priest that they expected to face at the end of the campaign is employing a pit fiend as a bodyguard/enforcer. So, one of the players scoffed and made the out of game comment that pit fiends only have 225 hit points...and then stumbled to recover, saying something like, "well, the average ones in the Monster Manual..."

Hmm, methinks that was not a great idea, but I could be wrong? But, I'm not a vengeful person.

Then, last night, on the yahoo email group we have set up, I normally will send out an email after the session about XP from the prior night. I then later asked if anybody had made level 11, and two responded that they had...

So, I made a joking comment like, "Mental Note: More Vampires and soul-eaters," or something like that... knowing that vampires and soul-eaters both drain levels.

The woman playing the cleric that made level 11 responded to my email saying, "Bring 'em on!"

Now, I've been a player many times before, and I hated my levels getting sucked more than a character dying... and I could certainly send a bunch of vampires into their midst next session, but nope, I wouldn't take advantage of them like that.

However, I'm starting to think I need to put a bit more fear into them. Gee, and the woman playing the cleric got taken out by one hit from my evil duskblade a few sessions earlier (down to -3) - you'd think she'd know better than to ask me to bring 'em on?

 

[OchreJelly]

Tread carefully. That's the best advice I can give. IME, the more exasperated a DM is, or the more worked up he gets over plot device X, or villain Y, the more the players egg him on or antagonize him. It could just be the type of people i choose to play with. I tend to play with the personality types where if you throw the gauntlet down, they pick it up and throw it right back in your face. It's not meant as hostility -- they do actually like a good challenge.

That said, these could also be signs of burnout. Maybe the players don't feel invested in the story or their characters anymore for whatever reason. I've seen players get suicidal with their characters and then were happy when they died. It was only then that I realized they wanted to try a different character.

 

[Herschel]

Bring

Them

On

Hard

Hey, she asked.

I'm a firm believer a little (or a lot) of fear is a good thing for a party, I find otherwise they get bored more easily. That's probably my favorite thing about 4E: fear of most battles going terribly against you.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Tread carefully. That's the best advice I can give. IME, the more exasperated a DM is, or the more worked up he gets over plot device X, or villain Y, the more the players egg him on or antagonize him. It could just be the type of people i choose to play with. I tend to play with the personality types where if you throw the gauntlet down, they pick it up and throw it right back in your face. It's not meant as hostility -- they do actually like a good challenge.

That said, these could also be signs of burnout. Maybe the players don't feel invested in the story or their characters anymore for whatever reason. I've seen players get suicidal with their characters and then were happy when they died. It was only then that I realized they wanted to try a different character.

I know - I would not take it out on the players. I generally try to be pretty even-tempered as DM when it comes to that stuff... but, sometimes, it is tempting when I think about it.

 

[Zaukrie]

Bring

Them

On

Hard

Hey, she asked.

I'm a firm believer a little (or a lot) of fear is a good thing for a party, I find otherwise they get bored more easily. That's probably my favorite thing about 4E: fear of most battles going terribly against you.

I shall endeavor to remember this tomorrow night when you are facing the BBEG.

 

[Venport]

In 3e the thing that strikes the most fear into players is loss of magic weapons, send in somthing that has improved sunder or a trap that will drain the magic from their weapons for a time. I've alwasy found that when they player get full of them selfs you need to strike a little fear into them.

Good luck

 

[Simm]

I'll see that and raise you one. In the last 3.5 campaign I played the DM was running the Eberron AP, and asked me to rebuild most of the named enemies. I did. Particular fun was had with the warforged, I thought the standard humanoid model was a little limited so I dug up my old copy of Savage Species and included a winged warforged and a light-warhorse-tauric warforged. I had to use all my restrain to prevent myself adding a double-spark guardian-symbiotic warforged (mmm... aircraft carrier). My character was nearly killed multiple times by some of these.

 

[fba827]

The tone makes a big difference on whether it was an actual challenge or if it was just the player's nervous "i'm brave on the outside but scared on the inside" type thing.

The fact that one person commented on the pitfiend's hp is the biggest worry to me, too much meta thinking will remove any fear.
At the very least, I'd make an off-hand comment "just a general note that not all monsters are exactly as they are in the MM, some might have some tweaking." it can be a bluff on your part (or it could be true) but at the very least removes some of the assumptions that the players are finding sfatey and comfort in.

 

[Scribble]

I've said "bring it on" before not out of fear or any type of mocking... It's just part of the fun of the game. Trying to survive.

Maybe they just assume that you're trying to run a fun game, and not just trying to outright kill them for no real reason other then just cuz.

 

[Treebore]

Or they can be playing in Ravenloft I6 like I am and know dying is a given...