Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="GlaziusF" data-source="post: 4469705" data-attributes="member: 74166">Sometimes the onus is on the players for using "but my character!" to cover up a lack of creativity. But these times are really few and far between. The onus more usually is on the DM for using "but my setting!" in a similar way.The solution to this dilemma is for the wealthy NPC who's hand-picked these heroes to make sure they'll all show up. It's perfectly reasonable for a rising hero to be smart and capable but still working-class a la Spiderman and not have the ability to get out into the world. I would argue this onus is more on the DM, who could have either said at chargen "make sure your characters can get to location X" or looked over the starting characters, realized that his intended method of intro wouldn't work too well, and had Mr. Mansion and his staff get around the country in their scramjet code-named, I dunno, "Nightingale" picking people up.DM onus. If an NPC is rude and unapologetic then absent force it's reasonable for a player not to want to help the NPC solve their problems. In this case the solution is not to apply force but introduce someone with the same problem who's a more sympathetic character, and establish him as such by acknowledging that Mr. Rude was being rude: "I saw you talking with Digbar. Believe me if, we'd known someone was coming he would be locked in the back room of the inn. [Problem X] is a real pain for all of us, even if Digbar's the only one who rants about it to anybody he sees."DM onus. This does look like a player problem on the surface. You were worried about where a guy might have gotten off to and you didn't even try to look? No tracking, no scrying, no divination? But if the DM had plans for where this guy had run to, he would also need some kind of fallback for getting you that information. A rider comes up to the dungeon and says "man, I hate being right. I saw your buddy getting dragged away by Baron Goatface's Evil Pants Brigade, and Marco, he says 'that can't be him, he's out in the old catacombs'. Least Marco owes me a couple rounds now." Similarly, if the DM was going to have this guy run away and never come back, that's his fault for not having the guy come back on his own when it becomes apparent it's holding up play. This one's on you. Why not just plunk down a solid iron door on the exits deeper in? Somebody saw a crazy ranger incoming and activated the emergency lockdown.Maybe stick some mystic runes on it so it can reliably just kinda stand there while the ranger whales on it. Once it becomes evident he can't get through on his own the ranger will either have worn himself out or put his sword on the mage's neck and start pushing it toward the door and it's up to the mage if he follows.If you're still worried about this being a TPK, just say it's going to take a while to get the runes off and let the ranger bleed off his frustration. Then when the door's open the ranger can storm in with a revitalized party to back him up.</blockquote>

Verification