Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nevvur" data-source="post: 7359179" data-attributes="member: 6783882">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.---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?</blockquote>

Verification