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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AnotherGuy" data-source="post: 9216165" data-attributes="member: 7029930">In SKT the players, through their characters, decide from which giant ruler they wish to acquire a Conch of Teleportation.Now the DM IMO can "screw" them over legitimately of course via<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The massively obese hill giant chieftain falling through a weakened floor (area attack spells...etc) and cracking her conch;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The duplicitous cloud giant countess tricking them and locking them up, but which allowed them to rescue an ally dragon and escape her cloud fortress; and</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The possessed/brainwashed stone giant thane purposefully smashing the conch once discovering the characters' true motives for being there.</li> </ul>Why would a DM do this, I can answer for my own reasons - to maximise the use of the material within the AP. I did all the above three, but I did play the AP in an unorthodox way, in that we had multiple parties attempting quests and it was meshed with other modules and APs.With the hill giant chieftain, the players discovered the Conch and its use only after it had sustained a hairline crack. The hairline fracture could be fixed but required re-attunement to the teleportation site (the site the players were needing to go by using the conch). The purpose here was discovery and not really to screw over the players;The cloud giant countess saw the emergence of another group of characters, which saw the PCs discover how duplicitous the countess is, which is RAW, but they did rescue a VIP dragon for the broader campaign; With the stone giant thane, a PC made an error by revealing their intentions after all the clues were given about the thane's instability and being in service to another. Other players at the table groaned as soon the error was made by the PC because they understood what was going to happen next. Also there had been an in-game warning not to go there (as it fulfilled a prophecy of failure).One can argue that what I did was illusionism, one can also argue the above tells a cogent story. I do not get the feeling from the players that they were hard-done by. As a DM I always attempt to move the story forward even with failures, so even when they did not succeed in acquiring the conch they still won major victory points within the game for taking out the hill giant chieftain and the stone giant thane.In mechanical terms, the earned +1 for each giant defeat on the ToD Council Scorecard.</blockquote>

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