How far do you go in planning solutions to problems?

[Rel]

As a brief hijack, I know NOTHING about BardStephenFox's campaign, but let me offer one bit of advice to Macbeth: Don't do what my players did when faced with a similar challenge (large band of Gnolls).

Mine decided that the best idea was to challenge the Gnolls to single combat. You know "Our best guy fights your best guy", winner take all.

Long story short is that the Gnoll champion beat the party champion straight up and caused the first PC death of the campaign. But that DIDN'T MATTER. The Gnolls were prepared to break the agreement as soon as their guy lost the fight anyway. They were CHAOTIC EVIL after all!

Now that may sound kind of "metagamey" but it really wasn't. The party champion was a Ranger whose favored enemy was Gnolls. I dropped several hints about how brutal and ruthless they were and how they were not to be trusted. But they went through with the fight anyway.

If it hadn't been for a timely Fireball scroll by the party Sorcerer then I might have had a TPK on my hands there.

 

[BSF]

Trust me, the party has a very good idea exactly how ruthless these particular gnolls are. Nor do they have any area affect evocations. Macbeth figures his PC can take 4-5 of the gnolls before he dies if they go melee. Since his PC is one of the front line fighters, the ranger is archery, that bodes ill for the group.

Back on topic.
Before telling the group about the gnoll company, I decided what the gnolls would do if they were allowed to act unimpeded. I know how many are on watch at any given time. I know what they will do during the night. I know what they will do during the day. I know where they will go after this.

All of that is assuming nothing causes a change of plans. The PCs are the wild card in this case. It is all hinging on what they do to change any of those events. Maybe they will do nothing? Every option is valid. The gnolls aren't stupid, but the PCs are far enough away that the gnolls don't know they are there yet. It's possible the PCs will 'run silent' for the time being.

My point is that I don't need to do anything except understand what the gnolls will do, and what their motivations are. That way, I can quickly decide how they will react to anything the party decides to do. I don't have a storyline to pursue, so I don't feel like I need to railroad any particular encounter or result. I have a story arc where I know what the goals are and what the current plan is. I'm just waiting for tension to be applied and the gnolls have to react to the PC's presence. That is when the fun begins. When the PCs force a change in the gnolls' plans, they will have affected the game world.

 

[Macbeth]

Since BSF's gnolls have become somewhat of any example, let me give you a little insight into how the PCs (myself and the others) are handling it:

At first we spent a long, LONG time trying to find a combat solution. We had all kinds of strategies, but none looked valid. Assuming my character had no buffs, I would predict him taking down 4-5 gnolls. We are, after all, 4th(ish) level. So, after we realized any combat was doomed, I suggested another plan, taken from the Princess Bride.

Our idea is to cobble together a simple costume disigned to burn while keeping my character (somewhat) safe inside. While using the burning suit in the middle of the night my character would make an intimidate check, trying to intimidate the gnoll leader. The cleric suggested that he could also cast Cause Fear. The Shaman suggested he enter the leader's dreams, to scare him there. Since we believe the gnolls revere fire, we now have a fiery 'demon' appearing in his dreams, then, when the leader wakes up, the same 'demon' will be standing, burning, on the hill nearby. We figure, with a good intimidate check, we might be able to make the leader order his men... dogs... whatever to run away, leaving the captives behind.

 

[Rel]

Our idea is to cobble together a simple costume disigned to burn while keeping my character (somewhat) safe inside.

You guys have a Holocaust Cloak? Sweet!

Remember to say, "I am heeeere. But sooon yooooou will not be heeeere!"

 

[BSF]

The PCs engage the gnolls and they came out of it alive. Heck, they even have a bunch of people they rescued in tow.

They did leave me with a couple of problems I need to resolve regarding the gnolls, but I have already decided that the response will be one of two options. I just haven't decided which will make a better story between the two. I will leave Macbeth to tell the story, if he wants, but I am fairly sure nobody would accuse me of railroading anything on this one.

With a company of militaristic gnolls nearby, it would have been easy to justify that a scouting party found the group and attacked. I could even have arranged that they all be captured or something. But anything along those lines would have been arbitrary and negated any of the efforts that the PCs put forth. Besides, it wouldn't reflect the attitude and characteristics of the gnolls right now.

The PCs have applied some tension, and done so in a creative manner. Now the game will begin to see adjustments to accomodate that tension. Overall, I was very pleased with the session last night. I had a good time and I hope all the players did as well.

 

[Macbeth]

Great session, BSF. I'll post something about the session tomorrow sometime.