D&D General Orcs on Stairs (When Adventures Are Incomplete)

[edosan]

Not to belabor it, but I feel like the "who cares how far the distance is" misses the point in this case - that based on the anecdote, there is a chance a character will basically be sucked into a Sphere of Annhiliation with no hope of return and no appeal. Nobody likes to have their character killed by narrative fiat, it smacks of Tomb of Horrors-style capriciousness - "you touched the wrong doorknob, you die, no save possible, too bad."

 

[Lanefan]

If something has a stat block, it means it can be fought. If it does not, it's invulnerable. The attacks have no effect.

Which in terms of realism* is jarring as hell, in that there's no such thing as an invulnerable creature.

Sure it might seem invulnerable to the PCs, what with its 4537 hit points and AC 63, but at least give me the damn numbers so I-as-DM know what I'm trying to run and how to narrate what happens to the archer's shots at it.

* - and yes I know 4e didn't give a fig about realism, but I do; and I expect adventure writers to give it some thought also.

 

[Mannahnin]

Other examples others have given, like having a creature that theoretically is present for combat but has zero combat stats (not even initiative) are similar good examples.

Although my recollection of that specific example is that the creature isn't actually present. It's on the other side of the opaque interdimensional portal, and its presence is limited to an occasional tentacle poking through. The only effect it has on the fight is to try to pull through heroes who get too close to the portal.

 

[Lanefan]

I think "Orcs on Stairs" is being used to describe several problems in adventure design.

1) players who don't make actions anticipated by the writer. Given that there are many, many, many actions a group can take, and you can't foresee what classes or abilities they might have, this one is almost forgivable.

To a point, yes; but I'd like the writers to at least anticipate some obvious alternative PC approaches and account for them.

The one most commonly missed - as in, all the time! - is flight. It's a relatively low-level ability (and baked in from the start for some PC-playable species these days) yet writers of mid- and high-level modules almost invariably assume the PCs will approach on the ground. There's no mention of what happens should the PCs go in through the roof, or fly up the tower rather than climb the stairs, etc.; yet it's just so bloody obvious as a PC tactic! Grrrrrrr.....

2) important details are missing. My Murder in Baldur's Gate campaign ran into this halfway through, when my party chose the "wrong" faction. The adventure never says this is the "wrong" faction- you need to read ahead to find that out, and I was running it week by week, so I didn't think I needed to.

My bugaboo with missing details is where an author, probably writing sequentially, adds something in to a later part of the module that would have left clues in earlier parts - except the writer didn't go back and add those clues in.

An example I've actually DMed: an adventure where the PCs are following a hidden forest path to the enemy's hideout; it's the only way in. The author writes the track-through-the-woods piece, then later writes the hideout piece - and in the hideout includes description of horses and wagons used to supply the place but doesn't go back and note that said horses and wagons would have left obvious tracks and marks on the path! (never mind the path would have had to be made wider and smoother to accomodate their passage)

3) the players manage to "sequence break" the adventure. Most adventures are written with the idea that players will proceed from one area to another in a more or less linear fashion. Dungeons have their areas numbered, and usually, the higher numbered areas have the more dangerous encounters.

This is fine. The author lays out the adventure and the PCs approach it as they will.

It's assumed the players will search the dungeon logically- and there's nothing really wrong with that, if the players skip areas, that's sort of on them. But a few adventures present barriers to keep the party from advancing- a locked door that requires a certain key, a missing bridge, a collapsed section of the tunnel. What makes this point different from point 1 is, the players might find a way to circumvent the obstacle with a lucky die roll, or worse, using resources in the adventure itself. I don't remember the adventure, because this was a long time ago, but I was playing with some friends, and we came upon a portcullis that was too heavy to lift or bend the bars (remember when Strength had a feature just to do this?) and the only way we could see to raise the portcullis was a level on the other side, out of reach. The adventure wanted us to take the long way around by eventually finding a secret door.

But after an early encounter, we discovered a potion of gaseous form, so the magic user cast invisibility on our thief, she turned into a cloud of mist, waited for the potion to end on the other side, then, naked but invisible, crept to the lever and opened the portcullis, allowing us to bypass 25% of the adventure. When we didn't have important information later, the DM said "well, technically, it was your fault for not exploring the lower levels before going through the portcullis".

And this is also fine. Sometimes you really do need to go through B en route from A to C, even if it doesn't seem obvious at the time.

Were I the DM here I wouldn't say it's the players/PCs' fault; instead I'd let them figure out on their own that maybe - just maybe - they'd missed something somewhere, and they had to go back and find it.

4) the players break the narrative. This is, again, related to 1. During one of the adventures leading up to Lolth's attempt to subvert the Weave, we were on a pub crawl throughout the Realms and ended up in Shadowdale, where Elminster telepathically contacted us and asked us to pursue the bad guys because he was "busy".

In the final battle, there was a drow wizard on the other side of iron bars casting spells at us. He was the big enemy, and apparently, it's scripted that he is meant to escape to reappear in the next adventure. He gave his villain speech and said "hahahaha, you can't catch me!" and turned to go, whereupon which our Eladrin used his Fey Step to appear in front of him and cut him down. "Where do you think you are going?"

Needless to say, the DM of that adventure was nonplussed, but later said the guy was a decoy, obviously, lol.

I'm not a fan of the "decoy" idea here. I'd far rather let the players/PCs have this victory - I mean, hell, they earned it through smart play and risk - and then in the background as DM I'd have to think what would happen to that "next adventure" if the BBEG wasn't in it. Yes it's very possible this might see the next adventure turn out to be rather anti-climactic, but so be it.

 

[Lanefan]

There absolutely is a reason. Once you fall, how far do you go before landing on your feet?

More importantly - and the DM would have to determine this on the fly - what is the wind doing, and how far horizontally do you get blown while feather-falling all those many feet?

(we long ago ruled that the way feather-fall works is that you in effect become the weight of a feather and that your fall speed is measured vs the air around you rather than vs the ground, meaning a high wind can put you in Kansas by the time you touch down)

 

[Lanefan]

Although my recollection of that specific example is that the creature isn't actually present. It's on the other side of the opaque interdimensional portal, and its presence is limited to an occasional tentacle poking through. The only effect it has on the fight is to try to pull through heroes who get too close to the portal.

The illustration shows it being considerably further through than that, and that's what I went with. (I covered over the writing and showed the illustration to the players so we'd all be working on the same description)

 

[Retreater]

More importantly - and the DM would have to determine this on the fly - what is the wind doing, and how far horizontally do you get blown while feather-falling all those many feet?

What Is the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow?

 

[James Gasik]

To a point, yes; but I'd like the writers to at least anticipate some obvious alternative PC approaches and account for them.

The one most commonly missed - as in, all the time! - is flight. It's a relatively low-level ability (and baked in from the start for some PC-playable species these days) yet writers of mid- and high-level modules almost invariably assume the PCs will approach on the ground. There's no mention of what happens should the PCs go in through the roof, or fly up the tower rather than climb the stairs, etc.; yet it's just so bloody obvious as a PC tactic! Grrrrrrr.....

My bugaboo with missing details is where an author, probably writing sequentially, adds something in to a later part of the module that would have left clues in earlier parts - except the writer didn't go back and add those clues in.

An example I've actually DMed: an adventure where the PCs are following a hidden forest path to the enemy's hideout; it's the only way in. The author writes the track-through-the-woods piece, then later writes the hideout piece - and in the hideout includes description of horses and wagons used to supply the place but doesn't go back and note that said horses and wagons would have left obvious tracks and marks on the path! (never mind the path would have had to be made wider and smoother to accomodate their passage)

This is fine. The author lays out the adventure and the PCs approach it as they will.

And this is also fine. Sometimes you really do need to go through B en route from A to C, even if it doesn't seem obvious at the time.

Were I the DM here I wouldn't say it's the players/PCs' fault; instead I'd let them figure out on their own that maybe - just maybe - they'd missed something somewhere, and they had to go back and find it.

I'm not a fan of the "decoy" idea here. I'd far rather let the players/PCs have this victory - I mean, hell, they earned it through smart play and risk - and then in the background as DM I'd have to think what would happen to that "next adventure" if the BBEG wasn't in it. Yes it's very possible this might see the next adventure turn out to be rather anti-climactic, but so be it.

I didn't much care for the "fake drow mage" either, but really, replacing the guy with an identical "man behind the man" in the next adventure wouldn't be any better.

 

[Lanefan]

I didn't much care for the "fake drow mage" either, but really, replacing the guy with an identical "man behind the man" in the next adventure wouldn't be any better.

No, it wouldn't. Replacing the guy with another different person who would have been a logical successor, however, is quite OK. Often modules do take this into account (unintentionally) by noting who the second-in-command(s) are. In this case just promote a 2IC to (acting) commander, but otherwise leave its abilities etc. the same as they were; yes this weakens the adventure a bit but at least you'll still get to run it.

 

[pukunui]

My bugaboo with missing details is where an author, probably writing sequentially, adds something in to a later part of the module that would have left clues in earlier parts - except the writer didn't go back and add those clues in.

Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine too! An example I just noticed from Tomb of Annihilation: when you encounter the Red Wizards camp in Omu, it talks about how there are still four Red Wizards alive in the city. When the PCs rescued the scribe, Orvex, I had him survey the carnage in camp and explain to the PCs that there were still four Red Wizards unaccounted for.

However, when I read on, I discovered that one of the encounter areas contains the petrified remains of another Red Wizard, so I had to retcon Orvex’s info to be five Red Wizards unaccounted for.