Is this fair? - confessions of a killer DM

[pogre]

Two players have piped in and said they are having fun - enough said in my book.

Your description certainly makes the game sound fun. I might fudge just a bit to let the PCs (at least some of them) make it, but the carnage is beautiful!

 

[diaglo]

player 4 here (loki44, JoeBlank, and Olgar Shiverstone already piped in).

part of the problem is outside influence. we thought we'd have 7 players for session 1 and a very good diverse party. human cleric of pelor, human paladin, human barbarian, human spellthief, elf bard, human ranger, and halfelf elementalist. but we only had the first 4 party members. the elf, ranger, and arcane caster didn't show.

we played with what we had.

session 2 started with the spellthief disabled. and again we thought we'd have a larger diverse party. but ... we ended up with human fighter, halfling cloistered cleric, dwarf druid with badger companion, and elf bard. plus the disabled spellthief. we did run. but trying to stay together as a group and dealing with encumbrance, sleeping in armor vs fatigue, and small size movement... well we got caught. again no ranger or arcane caster.

session 3 started with the whole party from session 2 disabled. no arcane caster or ranger. the cure light wounds spells sucked on the rolls. the cleric was at 1hp too btw. so one guy at -4 and one guy at -5. with 3 PCs at a total of 4hps. and a pack of wild dogs outside. meant we couldn't run still. we did a quick search below. but we lacked the proper tools and equip for a dungeon crawl. and besides it was a dead end. the bard proved that with cutting the rope for the lizardman.

would have liked to run. but it wasn't gonna happen for the whole party. lowering the disabled guys down and the cleric climbing down was all we had time to do before we rolled init.

human fighter in scale and 1hp isn't gonna survive a fall of 40'. likewise dwarf druid with no armor and 2hp. and no way out of the tomb with little supplies. the best we tried to do was hold the cave entrance and hope the lizards didn't find the rope dangling down. and at first it only looked like 3 lizards. but turned out to be way more.

edit: i'm enjoying the game too. but so far haven't had a chance to do anything that i wouldn't do otherwise.

 

[diaglo]

likewise the trapped lid. we knew(players and PCs) that the lid was trapped. but there was no other way out. so the bard's death was just a chance that had to be taken.

 

[Rothe]

It does sound fun, grim and gritty. The first encounter sounds very tough but they overcame it. Fair? It seems fair to me, but a diaglo raised a point above that makes me "wonder"

and a pack of wild dogs outside. meant we couldn't run still

Personally as a DM this would not have been an barrier to players running away if they are normal wild dogs. As animals wild dogs are interested in the easiest meal possible. The dead lizardmen more than fit the bill. Given a lizardman probably weighs 80 kg plus, and a hungry wild dog eats about 3% body weight a day, assuming a 40kg wild dog (very, very big one by the way) were talking about 30 dog/days of food per dead lizardman assuming only about 50% is edible to the dogs.

What does all this mean? It means let the dogs feast on the dead. They'll be stuffed and won't bother the PCs, and most likely they'll head back to their den to feed their pups and relax after the sucessfull hunt. If there is still food, they are likley to come back to finish the corpses. But they won't be the only ones, other scavengers and predators will arrive. They of course are interested in the easy food. If the PCs get out of the way they will leave them alone. Actually, the corpses will probably draw local scavengers and predators to the easy food and away from the PCs as they try to get away.

In addition, animals have territories. If the apex carnivores (e.g., wild dogs, tigers, etc.) get their fill on the corpses the party is not going to encounter another pack of hungry wild dogs until they get out of the first pack's territory. The bottom line, after the wild dogs showed up would be the perfect time to run.

Another question is if the players didn't know this wouldn't the PCs? If you play that way (i.e. character knowledge makes a difference in info conveyed by the DM), I'm thinking a druid would certainly know animal behavior and the DM could drop him a hint about such. An example DM narration,:"The dogs gorge themselves on the corpses. If they are normal wild dogs, as a druid you suspect they will now go back to their den and rest for a day or two. You doubt there is another pack nearby as the territory of such a pack is rather large."

 

[loki44]

Personally as a DM this would not have been an barrier to players running away if they are normal wild dogs.

I don't think the dogs were the primary deterrent to running away, at least for me. We were all severely wounded and/or disabled and hadn't fared well with the overland jaunt previously. I think we were hoping to hang out at least one more night in order to replenish healing spells. If we could've made it til the next morning we would've been in halfway decent shape for a mad dash.

 

[diaglo]

It does sound fun, grim and gritty. The first encounter sounds very tough but they overcame it. Fair? It seems fair to me, but a diaglo raised a point above that makes me "wonder"

dwarf druid. he grew up underground. he did prevent the dogs from attacking us. but his CHa is teh suxx.

we did feed the dogs the dead lizard men. 4 of them plus 2 kobolds. and we were told there were 10 dogs during the encounter.

 

[Rothe]

dwarf druid. he grew up underground. he did prevent the dogs from attacking us. but his CHa is teh suxx.

we did feed the dogs the dead lizard men. 4 of them plus 2 kobolds. and we were told there were 10 dogs during the encounter.

Underground dwarf druids, man am I living in the past. So he may not have known the ways of these surface critters.

With only 10 dogs they should have been busy gulping down hunks of flesh before a lion, etc. came by to take their prey, Can you tell I've watched way too many nature shows? In my view, normal un-trained animals only attack for three reasons (1) food, (2) to protect territory/get mates, and (3) to protect young. If you can stay outside of those, and make falling under the food category too difficult for the predator, you're pretty safe.

 

[Rothe]

I don't think the dogs were the primary deterrent to running away, at least for me. We were all severely wounded and/or disabled and hadn't fared well with the overland jaunt previously. I think we were hoping to hang out at least one more night in order to replenish healing spells. If we could've made it til the next morning we would've been in halfway decent shape for a mad dash.

I can see that. A reasonable gamble to take just making it through one night.

 

[JoeBlank]

dwarf druid. he grew up underground. he did prevent the dogs from attacking us. but his CHa is teh suxx.

we did feed the dogs the dead lizard men. 4 of them plus 2 kobolds. and we were told there were 10 dogs during the encounter.

Right. I was running the dwarf druid, previously played by Olgar, who has now sadly moved away from the group.

We were never very scared of the dogs, and the druid did an adequate job of feeding them and keeping them calm. But with half the party still disabled, we did not think the time was right to make a run for safety.

Again, I am not complaining. The session was tense and the fear of death was real. As the DM and others have mentioned, AoW is supposed to be scary. The PCs may not live to be aware of how grim things can get, but the players will continue with that knowledge.

As I think I said earlier, if you are going to TPK then the beginning of the campaign is a great place to do it. The players are not as attached to and invested in the PCs as they will be after a few levels. As loki44 mentioned, when a PC finally survives the player will feel a real sense of accomplishment. In fact, I suggest that howandwhy99 not go any easier on us, so we can feel that we achieved success legitimately, without it being handed to us.

To me, this is sort of like the beginning of a horror movie, where they introduce a few characters and then slaughter them to let the audience know about the big evil, and set the tone. If this was the goal then I say "well done."

 

[diaglo]

We were never very scared of the dogs, and the druid did an adequate job of feeding them and keeping them calm. But with half the party still disabled, we did not think the time was right to make a run for safety.

the dogs just kept us up all night. yes, we knew that some of the lizardmen got away and would probably get help. but at the same time the limiting cave entrance had helped us survive the battle at the end of session 2. and even to get to the cave we had carried 1 disabled PC (the spellthief) already plus a halfling, dwarf, and fighter in scale (movement 20). so with 2 disabled PCs plus no change in party composition and the fact that we had no spells and only 4hps total between the 3 healthier PCs we weren't outrunning anyone. we weighed the options and gambled. we lost.