Talking your way out of the boss fight

[Nevvur]

Two case studies:

1) I'm a player in a game where the party was on a quest to forge the Supercool Sword that would be a symbol of office for a would-be king of the Eladrin. Part of the quest involved obtaining the essence of a primordial elemental. The location/owner of said essence was revealed to us, but we were not to told how to obtain it. I was personally prepared for a "fight the boss, loot the body" situation, but one of the PCs opened the scene with some dialog, which led to more dialog and some social skill checks, which led to the primordial fire elemental willingly lending its essence to the construction of the sword.

Part of me was deflated, because how many times do you get to tackle a primordial fire elemental? Part of me was relieved, because how many times do you want to be the main melee character in a fight staged over lava in an active volcano?!

2) I'm DMing a game where the players were on the trail of a dangerous werewolf. This led them to discover a location where an ancient wolf spirit had been trapped. A different, friendly NPC afflicted since birth with lycanthropy has devised a way to use the spirit's power to undo his curse, and the PCs opt to help him. Doing so will require bringing the spirit into the material plane and destroying it bodily. I seasoned the adventure with some pre-modern church legends about lycanthropy, suggesting this setting's moon god and this particular spirit had a "prior relationship" that ended poorly. One of the PCs is a cleric of that moon god, and my intent was to enable him to engage the spirit as a proxy.

Throughout the ensuing fight, I narrated the wolf as being particularly focused on said PC. The party ended up hacking it to pieces without the cleric ever attempting dialog, but it was entirely possible for him to radically alter the course of the fight. That is, to reconcile the differences between the moon god and the wolf spirit and create a peaceful outcome. After the session, I mused aloud, "Why do you think it was so focused on you?" to the cleric. He responded, "It probably knew I worked for Madrizod (moon god) and I was 'guilty by association.'"

Which is kinda true. The wolf spirit had confused the cleric for an avatar/likeness of Madrizod and believed she was literally facing the lover who scorned her. I was a little disappointed the cleric didn't think to try dialog, but the players were still pleased with the fight and overall resolution of that adventure.

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Now to the questions.

When you create a "boss fight" scenario, do you plan for non-combat resolutions? All of the time, most of the time, some of the time, hardly ever, never?

As a DM, does it ever feel anticlimactic when you've got this big set piece ready to roll and the players flip it on its head? Examples? As a player, have you ever felt disappointed when diplomacy prevails?

 

[iserith]

I think this comes down to scene-framing. At the point where I'm preparing a "boss fight," it's because the goals of the PCs and the goals of the boss (or whatever) are diametrically opposed and are likely to resolve only through the defeat of the other side. Only if those goals change, which mean one or both sides relent, does it mean that combat can be avoided. Typically, at the point at which I'm preparing said boss fight, that ship has sailed. Attempts to defeat the boss via social interaction simply fail. I try to telegraph that when describing the environment.

However, in general, I do try to think of ways in which each scene has elements of combat, exploration, and social interaction whenever possible. See, for example, my short-form scenario The Laboratory-Tomb of Dr. Viktor Vampenstein. Each of the three scenes has opportunities for all the pillars. However, when it comes to Vampenstein himself, there is no way to resolve the conflict short of violence once he is awakened. Social interaction can provide advantages to the PCs during the fight though.

 

[Oofta]

Whenever I set up encounters (boss fights or otherwise) I try to think of motivations and goals of the NPCs and monsters. Unintelligent monsters generally are protecting their territory or are looking for food for example which affects how they respond. Intelligent creatures are, of course, a little more complex, but I don't go into any scenario thinking "there's no way this bad guy would cooperate" or "this guy will surrender if ...." because I have no control over the PCs. I have no idea what cool/stupid thing they will say or do.

At the same time, people generally assume that most encounters with opponents will end up with "kill the bad guy, take his stuff". This has kind of a bad reputation amongst certain folks, but it's a completely legitimate attitude and works for a lot of games. If you want to encourage your players to try to think out of the box it's something you need to broadcast, or nudge them during play. So in the case of the werewolf spirit, you needed to give your cleric a lot more background or hints that there was an alternative. I may have gone so far as to have a message from their god in the form of a vision the night before, or the ever-handy oracle/sign. Or even just a simple wisdom/intuition check in the middle of combat.

But ultimately it's up to the players whether or not they want to attempt dialogue and in most cases that's perfectly OK. I'm not the author of the story of the campaign, I set up the environment and NPCs. It's my job to make sure I make clear what's happening, it's not my job to tell the players how their PCs "should" react.

 

[Nevvur]

Whenever I set up encounters (boss fights or otherwise) I try to think of motivations and goals of the NPCs and monsters. Unintelligent monsters generally are protecting their territory or are looking for food for example which affects how they respond. Intelligent creatures are, of course, a little more complex, but I don't go into any scenario thinking "there's no way this bad guy would cooperate" or "this guy will surrender if ...." because I have no control over the PCs. I have no idea what cool/stupid thing they will say or do.

At the same time, people generally assume that most encounters with opponents will end up with "kill the bad guy, take his stuff". This has kind of a bad reputation amongst certain folks, but it's a completely legitimate attitude and works for a lot of games. If you want to encourage your players to try to think out of the box it's something you need to broadcast, or nudge them during play. So in the case of the werewolf spirit, you needed to give your cleric a lot more background or hints that there was an alternative. I may have gone so far as to have a message from their god in the form of a vision the night before, or the ever-handy oracle/sign. Or even just a simple wisdom/intuition check in the middle of combat.

But ultimately it's up to the players whether or not they want to attempt dialogue and in most cases that's perfectly OK. I'm not the author of the story of the campaign, I set up the environment and NPCs. It's my job to make sure I make clear what's happening, it's not my job to tell the players how their PCs "should" react.

As I said, with the werewolf scenario the players were pleased with the overall outcome, so I am too. I hope my description didn't sound like a complaint.

For the record, I do feel I telegraphed appropriately. Honestly, it felt like I was beating them over the head a bit, but my overall goal was to present a moral dilemma: vanquish the spirit to end the curse of lycanthropy, or free the spirit to right an ancient wrong. Dialog would have produced a third outcome, the "most good outcome," with both the curse ending and the spirit freed.

The PCs are all members of a church special forces task group. In the dialog preceding the ritual which would summon the wolf spirit, I advised the players of the church's official position on such matters, namely that the church would prefer the spirit were destroyed and the curse of lycanthrope ended. The party just went along with the position of their benefactors, so I consider their decision to fight to the end appropriate. A more nature oriented group (rangers/druids) not affiliated with the church may have had a very different perspective!

The only thing that really surprised me was the killing blow narration on the wolf spirit, awarded to the bard's player. "I hesitate a moment but eventually fire a silver bolt from my crossbow, piercing her chest and breaking her heart just like [the moon god] did thousands of years ago." This player had been relatively quiet most of the session, and if I had to guess I'd say he had the least emotional investment in this leg of the adventure. Still, his narration brought a moment of silence to the table that I'm not sure was entirely the relief of winning a tough fight. It was more like realizing you've just killed a "sympathetic villain." Mission accomplished, but still...

 

[5ekyu]

Usually dialog and dealing are options for any encounter excepting ones with non-intelligent foes.

Its not usually deflating to see one resolved socially as that often sets up future stories, but sometimes some do see it that way.

I have on numerous occasions had big bads reach out say 3/4 the way thru to negotiate.

Even had one use intermediary to hire PCs to go off on another quest that took them out of his hair for weeks while plans advanced rather than try and redeploy/commit forces to stop them.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

With my group, and just in general, I've stopped thinking up the ways that players could overcome a fight, challenge, or boss fight. If I even attempt to try, I am ALWAYS 100% OF THE TIME blindsided by something I could never have thought of but also has a very reasonable chance for success. Or is at least very cool and thematic. While I do prepare my games, I often find I'm throwing out all my notes within 5 minutes of the game starting. So no, I never prepare a non-combat solution because I've learned not to try and prepare solutions.

But yes, it has led to frustration in the past. I had a really mean big bad set up as the boss for the first arc of a campaign. Despite using the benefits of terrain and having minions, the players managed to roll like crazy with a couple of ranged attacks and one player even managed a super crit (I maintain 3.5 edition critical hit rules with confirming the critical) with an acid attack, resulting in him melting into goo.

The boss literally went down in like round 2, with all his minions watching in astonishment. But, as frustrating as it was, it made for a cool story and some good laughs, so I guess it wasn't all that bad.

 

[Blue]

My players have often talked or otherwise "evaded" their way past boss fights (or big fights, I don't have as many disposable 'bosses' as sees the norm). I mention evaded because there are times they have worked their way around those battle in other ways besides just talking as well.

Actually, usually boss fights with intelligent foes start with tense conversation. Now, often it's irreconcilable or the big bad has demands the PCs won't give on, but my players have surprised me with more non-combat resolutions then I would have expected. But they get full marks from me.

They have also engaged the battle just long enough to fulfill other goals.

On the other hands, there are some foes they know just won't end in any other way, or they aren't satisfied unless the foe is dead.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I actually sometimes plan for the opposite – when conversation/skill check encounters to go pear-shaped and end in a boss fight.

As for boss fights unexpectedly being resolved by diplomacy and clever thinking, much of that depends on respecting player agency, whether the boss is even open to what they’re saying, and the tone of the group. If everyone is rearing to fight and one person just wants to talk it over, that’s a different story from the whole group loving the gonzo idea of the bard talking the lich out of her nefarious plan.

The end of the Glacial Rift of the Frost Jarl turned into them bribing and sweet-talking Jarl Grungnir into becoming an ally. I was surprised as heck, but it was so clever that I had to go with it.