In your opinion, what's the best way to make the players lose?

[UltimaGabe]

In a game session I'm going to be running soon, I plan on having a so-far-unseen NPC show up, steal a powerful artifact the players have, and also subdue and kidnap a PC or two (as well as two NPCs that are with them). I've been planning on this happening for a while, and it's fully within the story (and I've consulted the soon-to-be-kidnapped PCs beforehand to make sure it's okay with them).

My only question is, what's the best way to do it, in your opinion?

I plan on having the PCs get ambushed while traveling by a very well-informed NPC (think a very powerful Diviner) who knows exactly what to do and the best way to do it. It's very likely that I can have the NPC and his group of cronies show up while the PCs are sleeping, since so far none of them seem to be very concerned about setting up magical protections and keeping close watch or anything.

I could very easily just say, "So, you wake up the next morning. Your McGuffin is gone, as well as PC 1 and NPCs 1 and 2," but I'd rather not have it be a complete hand-wave. If possible, I'd like for a battle to take place, so that the players at least feel like they had a part in it.

But then what do I do? Do I just throw a whole bunch of super-powerful NPCs at them that there's no chance they could beat? Or do I throw one super-duper-powerful NPC and a bunch of minions at them? Something about that just sounds like it would seem way too DM-ex-machina to my players. Are there any monsters that have an easily-spammable stun or daze attack that I could throw at them (appropriately levelled, of course) to incapacitate them through rules and mechanics rather than DM handwave?

In my experience, it's very difficult to take down a D&D group without specifically setting out to do so (that is, without specifically sending enemies that are far too powerful against them). Does anyone out there have any advice?

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

As you said, stun and daze are your friends.

According to my DDI search-fu there are 772 creatures with daze powers. Quite a few of them are single target at-will powers.

Also, there's 401 creatures with Stun powers. I doubt many of these are at-will powers, but it might be worth a look. What level are the PCs?

 

[UltimaGabe]

The characters are level 4 at the moment. If the best option is to simply subdue them, that certainly won't be difficult, but if possible, I'd at least like to make an almost-balanced encounter.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This kind of scenario is generally GOING to be a railroad. I mean it is basically so by definition! You know what the outcome is already. Another issue is that its hard to create a very believable scenario of this type. If the bad guys are THAT powerful why don't they just wipe out the party? Why leave survivors to make trouble later? You really have to engineer an answer to that question first to make it satisfying.

If this whole scenario isn't already totally cast in stone my suggestion would be to create some sort of challenge that the party CAN overcome. If they don't, and it can be quite difficult to do so, then some of them get captured. Another option is to dupe some of the party somehow, or put them under a magical compulsion or something like that. Still, all railroading basically sucks. Far better that such a scenario be a negative consequence of some failure by the characters. Of course then you need to prepare a story arc that will work even if nobody gets kidnapped, but that will be a better adventure in the long run if you can pull it off.

 

[Mengu]

Not quite what I thought this thread was going to be about.

When you run combat, you always run into the risk of PC's doing something unexpected.

The most predictable outcomes are accomplished through distractions to split the party's attention. A damsel here, a prize that's getting away there, and suddenly have players torn between objectives. Taking into account the personalities of the PC's you should be able to devise a scenario where a certain PC will take a likely course of action, and that's where you spring the trap. Maybe a bulette busts out of the ground separating the PC from the others. Or an Umber Hulk smashes through a cave wall with an entourage of drow who drop darkness all over the place making it difficult for a separated party to get back together.

That's when you pull out the lurker who paralyzes/grabs the PC you want, and flees.

I know some of this is a bit vague but without knowing the tendencies of the PC's it's hard to create a scenario where the probability of the trap working would be high.

You'll want a contingency plan for hand waving. For instance using the drow example, if all else fails, and the PC's win, they might fall asleep during their short rest due to some delayed reaction to drow poison, and wake up with one of the PC's gone.

 

[jcayer]

I've done this twice to my players and both times, they never saw it coming. When we started playing, I told them I was going to run a character as well. Little did they know, he'd betray them night 2 and steal the artifact they were sent to recover. It was a railroad. Once they got to the artifact, a dozen of the NPC's villainous friends became visible. The party had no chance, so they surrendered the artifact.

Just recently, I kidnapped a player. He's an accountant, so he was going to miss the next couple sessions because of tax season. I cleared it with him and he was fine with it. They were tricked, by the same guy mentioned above, to release Osterneth(Open Grave pg 208). Instead of killing the party, she grabbed my cousin's character and teleported away. You should have seen the looks on everyone's faces when it happened. What do you mean our healer is gone?!?!

Needless to say, that NPC has been worth his weight in gold and mere mention of his name draws nasty looks.

 

[mneme]

One thing -- if you do run this as a combat (and I think a pretty cool combat can be made that's stacked against the deck for the PCs to lose a couple of their number in the middle of it), run it fairly, and if the PCs manage to, against the odds, get through scot-free, let them and let the story go in a different direction than you've planned.

After all, if they do manage this, it'll be a nice epic fight. And if you cheat at that crucial juncture, and they figure it out, it will likely sour things. Don't let your plot get in the way of the game -- the plot isn't your story -- but the one all the players (including the GM) make together.

 

[fba827]

introduce a delima.

choosing one choice over the other.
the trick is finding choice a that will 1) entice the players 2) entice the characters and 3) be more enticing than choice b

choice b is the option that (indirectly) saves the artifact and other PCs.

as an example (though not one that would necessarily work in your case): going to help victims in a landslide nearby or hurrying off to get the artifact. but while on the slopes of the mountain they can see the NPCs going after the artifact... thus, getting the lead on them. perhaps even the NPCs caused the landslide in the first place. and even more so, perhaps some of the NPCs are still back at the landslide such that as soon as the party gets even slightly separated to help different landslide victims (or if someone starts to run back after the NPCs first) they can get ambushed and kidnapped/dissapear)


another option is separation. as they go after the artifact, in a cave or something, there is some combat(or trap or hazard) that results i a cave-in. the pcs that are fated to be kidnapped are stuck on one side.. the other pcs on the other. but there needs to be some sort of timelimit to make the PCs on the side nearer the artifact to say "okay, we can't get through, let's just hurry on to the artifact now before those rivals do" -- and that's the last the PCs at the entrance-side of the cave-in hear of thier allies. if they ever do break through the cave-in, there is no sign of the friends, the artifact, or the NPCs (they'd have to have portaled out or something).

 

[UltimaGabe]

This kind of scenario is generally GOING to be a railroad. I mean it is basically so by definition! You know what the outcome is already. Another issue is that its hard to create a very believable scenario of this type. If the bad guys are THAT powerful why don't they just wipe out the party? Why leave survivors to make trouble later? You really have to engineer an answer to that question first to make it satisfying.

If this whole scenario isn't already totally cast in stone my suggestion would be to create some sort of challenge that the party CAN overcome. If they don't, and it can be quite difficult to do so, then some of them get captured. Another option is to dupe some of the party somehow, or put them under a magical compulsion or something like that. Still, all railroading basically sucks. Far better that such a scenario be a negative consequence of some failure by the characters. Of course then you need to prepare a story arc that will work even if nobody gets kidnapped, but that will be a better adventure in the long run if you can pull it off.

While I agree that railroading is never fun, I believe that the opposite is also not fun. True, it's unfair to throw an encounter at the players for the sole purpose of screwing them over, but what fun is a game where every encounter the PCs come across is beatable? What's the point in trying to establish a working, breathing game world when the DM is forbidden from letting the PCs encounter anyone more powerful than they can defeat?

I don't like the idea of railroading one bit (particularly because when I first started playing D&D, it's all I knew how to do, and I have been trying to prove to myself for the last ten years that I'm no longer such a terrible DM). However, I also like telling a compelling story, and I know that the most compelling story is NOT one where the heroes always win. Some of my most memorably D&D experiences were with one of my previous DMs, where several encounters he ran were ultimately lost by the players- but the reason those encounters were memorable is because when he DMed, the consequences for failure were rarely death. The consequences were often far, far worse.

Player characters in 4e, in my experience, are very difficult to kill. As such, any big bad that I introduce is going to be seen (at least this is what I'm afraid the players will see) as a challenge, but ultimately a push-over, because 4e is about balance and teamwork and making the players very difficult to take down. Not that I don't like that aspect of 4e- I love it. I love feeling invincible as a player. But because of this, as a DM, it gets hard writing NPCs with realistic plans and expectations when I know that their ultimate goal is to be taken down by the PCs.

Long story short, I'm trying to write a compelling story, and part of that story involves the (temporary) loss of a plot-related artifact, and by forcing the loss of an NPC or two at this point in the story allows me to bring about a sideplot later on. (If I end up running an encounter and the players ultimately win, I can always refrain from kidnapping the NPCs and discard that plotline, though I'd prefer not to have to. Stealing the McGuffin, however, will be necessary.) While I realize that this is a game involving several other potential writers, rather than a single work of fiction, I'd rather not have to sacrifice the quality of a story because of how durable the player characters are. The PCs are not the most powerful characters in this fictional world, and therefore I don't want to treat them as such.

 

[Zaran]

Why not give them an encounter and while they are defeating those foes someone else sneaks in and snags the prize. That way they don't lose the encounter but lost the war sort of thing. And they would have to rest to get back their healing and such giving the villians more time to get away.