So last night was the first time I've ever used a Dragon in a campaign with my spouse, our friend @GuyBoy, our friend @PJ Coffey, and our friend @Xethreau. And I kind of had an effecting experience on them because I practiced an important narrator tool that some folks don't know. It's very simple, just five words:
Introduce the Monster 'Over There'.
If you put a big scary monster within arm's reach, your players are going to try and fight it, even if they're not ready for it, 9 times out of 10. Because you put it in front of them on a battlemap, ergo they must fight. You wouldn't have put it nearby if not, right? Which leads to TPKs and frustration, or Deus Ex Machina and frustration.
So. I'm running To Save a Kingdom. We're only really in the first main Act with To Slay a Dragon. Cirothe, the massive magma-looking dragon of the East is flying overhead in the dusk but also a couple miles to the south. Well out of range for the party to do anything about her. There is a treeline nearby in the Southmorland which the party, all 4th level characters, immediately duck into in order to hide and protect themselves. They'd recently bought a spyglass to get a good view of Camp Rotelle from a distance so they employed it.
And saw Winged Kobolds leap from Cirothe's back in raiding parties. Group after group of the little blighters dive-bombing individual farms out in the wide open plains of the Southmorland, with a clear view in the twilight over miles of grass... and when the last batch of kobolds launched, Cirothe dived. She dived toward a lone farm a mile away, but far too close for comfort, and the party saw the flames strike the house moments before Cirothe did. And where there was a house, a life, a family, there was only ruin. Scattering timber and stone, not even screams. They didn't have time to scream. Just devastation.
In the distance, the panicked lowing of cattle and the frightened bleating of sheep or goats were silenced quickly, as Cirothe had her fill of beef and mutton, both blackened.
And when she left, rising up through fire and smoke, so, too, did many kobolds on the wing, returning to her. Latching on with the things they'd stolen. With the people they'd stolen. And just like that she winged over to the east and disappeared into the darkening sky.
It was at this point that Josh Gentry told me he finally felt the power of a dragon and what it was like to be afraid of them. The man's a gamer and a game designer. And in that scene I instilled dragonfear into him.
The party was heading south... so I described walking through the wreckage of the farmland. And how there was no smell of burnt hair, or blackened flesh, only smoke and ash of burning lumber. Nothing else remained to smell. No morsel of flesh uneaten. The party's Herald (A5e's Paladin) Garrac said a prayer for the family for there was nothing to bury.
And all too quickly, they were past it. The orange glow warming their backs until nothing but chill night air remained where the warmth was, as darkness consumed all.
And then the level 4 party attacked a Bandit Camp with 40 bandits, 10 thugs, 6 soldiers, a veteran, a gladiator, an Orcish Cleric, a Wizard, a Goblin Warlock, and some others... Because it was there, with a battlemap. And I wouldn't put a battlemap of enemies in front of them if they -weren't- suppose to fight, right?
So that's my advice. "Put the monster over there" so your party has distance that makes interfering impossible but fear reasonable and affords them a view of the full power of what they know they need to fight, later.
Introduce the Monster 'Over There'.
If you put a big scary monster within arm's reach, your players are going to try and fight it, even if they're not ready for it, 9 times out of 10. Because you put it in front of them on a battlemap, ergo they must fight. You wouldn't have put it nearby if not, right? Which leads to TPKs and frustration, or Deus Ex Machina and frustration.
So. I'm running To Save a Kingdom. We're only really in the first main Act with To Slay a Dragon. Cirothe, the massive magma-looking dragon of the East is flying overhead in the dusk but also a couple miles to the south. Well out of range for the party to do anything about her. There is a treeline nearby in the Southmorland which the party, all 4th level characters, immediately duck into in order to hide and protect themselves. They'd recently bought a spyglass to get a good view of Camp Rotelle from a distance so they employed it.
And saw Winged Kobolds leap from Cirothe's back in raiding parties. Group after group of the little blighters dive-bombing individual farms out in the wide open plains of the Southmorland, with a clear view in the twilight over miles of grass... and when the last batch of kobolds launched, Cirothe dived. She dived toward a lone farm a mile away, but far too close for comfort, and the party saw the flames strike the house moments before Cirothe did. And where there was a house, a life, a family, there was only ruin. Scattering timber and stone, not even screams. They didn't have time to scream. Just devastation.
In the distance, the panicked lowing of cattle and the frightened bleating of sheep or goats were silenced quickly, as Cirothe had her fill of beef and mutton, both blackened.
And when she left, rising up through fire and smoke, so, too, did many kobolds on the wing, returning to her. Latching on with the things they'd stolen. With the people they'd stolen. And just like that she winged over to the east and disappeared into the darkening sky.
It was at this point that Josh Gentry told me he finally felt the power of a dragon and what it was like to be afraid of them. The man's a gamer and a game designer. And in that scene I instilled dragonfear into him.
The party was heading south... so I described walking through the wreckage of the farmland. And how there was no smell of burnt hair, or blackened flesh, only smoke and ash of burning lumber. Nothing else remained to smell. No morsel of flesh uneaten. The party's Herald (A5e's Paladin) Garrac said a prayer for the family for there was nothing to bury.
And all too quickly, they were past it. The orange glow warming their backs until nothing but chill night air remained where the warmth was, as darkness consumed all.
And then the level 4 party attacked a Bandit Camp with 40 bandits, 10 thugs, 6 soldiers, a veteran, a gladiator, an Orcish Cleric, a Wizard, a Goblin Warlock, and some others... Because it was there, with a battlemap. And I wouldn't put a battlemap of enemies in front of them if they -weren't- suppose to fight, right?
So that's my advice. "Put the monster over there" so your party has distance that makes interfering impossible but fear reasonable and affords them a view of the full power of what they know they need to fight, later.
