The Art of DMing: Campaign Ecology

[D'karr]

Sadly Mistaken

Several years ago I converted the original Ravenloft Module (I6) to 3rd Edition rules. My group agreed to have a Halloween Ravenloft game. So they merrily went ahead and created characters for the adventure and readied themselves.

The party was trapped in Barovia, traveled the countryside, met the gypsies, had their fortunes read and happily journeyed to the castle to battle the Count. Halfway into the 3rd room of Ravenloft Castle the party encounters a vampire. It was classical. The cry went up, "It can't be Strahd. It's too early for it to be Strahd." Unfortunately for the party, they were sadly mistaken.

To this day we still laugh about that encounter and the few survivors of Castle Ravenloft.

Spoiler

For those not aware the module uses random generation for the location of important NPC's and special treasures.

So I think that allowing the chips to fall where they may is a good option and usually far more enjoyable and memorable. The player's now know that not all encounters are designed for their benefit.

 

[D+1]

Where were those dragons when the PCs were 1st level? Where are all of those goblins now that the PCs are 15th?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but it has been my experience that the PCs almost never run from an encounter because it has been ingrained into their heads that encounters have been designed to be relative to their own power. Am I the only one that sees this as a problem? Where is the drama or mystery in such an environment? Does this smack of DM fiat?

It smacks of FAILURE. In running 3E "correctly" you still want to overpower the PC's occasionally with encounters, even truly lethal encounters, specifically to PREVENT that perception of "everything is geared directly to our level." And then on top of THAT there is the matter of using static encounters in addition to dynamic encounters.

So I ask, do any of you consider these things when crafting your worlds? Are you willing to deep-fry some PCs who think they are the de facto heroes and granted a certain layer of immunity?

Yep I consider these things. The problem is that pushing the principle too far only leads to a succession of TPK's and HIGHLY frustrated players. Some things to remember:

If you know the PC's at their current level will die when they come up against the beastie that they DON'T KNOW is there you must properly warn them about it and/or be prepared to give them a sporting chance to at least escape alive.

You need to have areas where the PC's can be reasonably assured about the dangers they are LIKELY to face, as indeed the NPC's need to be able to live and even prosper somewhere/somehow in a monster-infested world.

 

[mythusmage]

A Few Things to Consider

1. Keep critter and DM knowledge separate. Those 30 orcs may not know how good the party is.

2. Most animals don't fight to the death. Once the orcs loose a few members they're going to look for a way to escape.

3. Being hurt lowers an animal's chance of survival. Which ties in with #2 above.

4. Always give your enemy a way out. With certain exceptions of course.

5. Never give your opponent an even break.

Of course, I do prefer a more realistic game where behavior is concerned. Keep in mind why the Pierson's Puppetters engineered the meeting between Humans and Kzinti (to domesticate the Kzinti) and apply it to orcs, goblins, and dwarfs.

Paladin: Aren't your people supposed to be irredeemably evil?

Orc Merchant: You go through 8 or 9 generations of having your most violent members slaughtered before they can breed, and you see what it does to racial alignment.

 

[Hanuman]

Heh heh heh......... my players still run if the Goblins march. This is mostly due to the time when they were at 16th level and came across a Goblin army preparing to go to war and somebody said " Hey dudes there are only like a few hundred of these little runts lets take them!" Well not what I expected but what the hell why not?
Anyway they learned a few lessons
1. The wizard found out that it is hard to concentrate on spells when a Goblin shoves a packet of fire ants down your back.
2. The Rogue found out what flanking really means.
3. The Monk discovered that not all arrows can be deflected.
4. The Paladin realized that the Grease spell and nets used as a combo attack make one mean cocktail.
5. The Cleric observed that Goblins have no qualms using feces as a in your face style weapon.

Moral- Lots o' weenies can make one brutal encounter.



-I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.-Truman-

 

[UniversalMonster]

I don't really agree that much. The whole philosophy of setting the encounter level without regard to the party level seems to assume a large pre-keyed area or a lot of randomness in encounters. And if you disregard encounter balancing, you don't really get verisimilitude- you get a lot of dead PCs and frustrated players.

Part of my disagreement is in structure. Characters that stumble onto encounters simply don't happen that much in my game. Rather, they go looking for threats, go on missions, etc. While on a mission, they may stumble on an encounter or three, but it basicly fits together. But it's generally structure so that the players identify the threats and missions they are willing to go on, and then carrying them out.

I'd specifically disagree with 'training' your players to avoid kicking in doors every once in a while. All tactics are open game. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but really it's best to let the players come up with their own tactics. Plus, I enjoy mayhem. I mean, whats fun about sneaking around avoiding trouble all the time? I've seen this taken to extremes with partys spending 30 minutes spent deciding whether to try to open a door or just listen to it.

I usually don't use random encounters at all, because there's simply too many monsters to choose from, and I don't even have a good table. I used to use random encounters for wilderness areas, though. I guess I still use small random tables in certain areas, but those encounters are carefully chosen. I'm a hollywood director and a Homeric epicsmith when I DM! Thats my philosophy.

When pre-keying an area, I try to make the ecology work out. If there's a totally bad ass dragon in the area, everyone knows about it, and it doesn't live alongside goblins, unless those goblins are working for it, or enslaved by it. In either case, I have no problem throwing warrior levels and classed NPC leaders into a goblin tribe when I want them to be more of a tuned encounter. And anyway, there has to be some reason the dragon didn't just eat them all.

Other than that, I have an island based campaign, so I can conveneiently compartment really tough monsters on an island-by-island basis. I guess if they decide to go randomly sailing around they copuld end up on an island with Polyphemus or something, but even that will probably be a very well thought out adventure.

 

[conanb]

There are a few things that happen in my game that does sometimes throw players up against really powerful creatures, but rarely unless they're part of the landscape. Occassionally, we have large creatures that do run across the environment that are far too powerful for beginning players, but they don't go away after the players increase in levels either. Players in my games learn pretty quick that they often run into NPC's and other things that they don't have a chance of beating. These NPC's usually act as if the players are not a threat or what not, it's in these circumstances that sometimes new players will throw themselves at these powerful NPC's or creatures. If they do, you can see what i say in the TPK thread somewhere around here. "Goodbye players."

To craft a real world, you are going to have creatures and NPC's that are very powerful. Now the players aren't going to run into them all the time because powerful people only meet with other powerful people. How many times do you see the president or the mayor sitting at the starbucks with you? It's rare, and one of those things where you go "Wow. That's the mayor." Players should get to have these experiences once in awhile. I like to do this then later have them meet up with the local ruler again who's like "Do I know you?" and the players get to go into this diatribe about when they passed or what not.

Creatures are the same. Stumbling upon large creatures in the wild is one of those things where the players should stop and go "Ok let's back up." If they don't, once again they're going to get mauled. My players learn to approach wild creatures with a certain amout of fear and skepticism. It's your job as a DM to break them of the "It moves lets kill it!" If you don't teach them there are repurcussions from their actions, they'll never know.

 

[Chimera]

5. The Cleric observed that Goblins have no qualms using feces as a in your face style weapon.

I feel that you place the monsters where you think they should be and let the players worry about what happens when they run into them. However, they should get some basic knowledge and warning of such things. You don't wander past a peaceful farming village, past peasants in the field, only to encounter a nest of Trolls 100 yards into the nearby forest.

The Geography section of my Player's Guide gives some basic knowledge, such as;

> There are Trolls in the Southern Uplands and a few stragglers in the northern hills.
> The region west of Rivermarch is infested with Kobolds.
> The Vasta river basin is so heavily infested with Ankhegs that merchants call the road that passes through that area "the Horse Killer".
> The Dimwood is so heavily infested with Shadows and other undead that no sane person will camp within two days march of it.

From there it's up to the players. If they're stupid enough to camp near the Dimwood, they're going to be swarmed with Shadows. Whether they're first level or 15th level. Without mercy.