Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6154034" data-attributes="member: 1465">Don't forget one thing tho: if the characters in that horror movie don't make the mistake, there is no horror movie.If you give your players a "clue" that there is a terrible monster nearby, why should you expect them to turn around? Isn't the point of the game to have an adventure? If they roleplay realistically, and let their characters do the most sane thing always, they could end up stay safe in their homes, get a 9-17 job, and live happily ever after, just like the real players do.It's an old problem in RPG, that on one hand we DMs would like to create a "realistic world" which includes some invincible threats (at least invincible at the current level), because it's unrealistic that the world only offers threats tailored to the PC's capabilities all the time...But the players shouldn't be expected to be fully capable of figuring out what is invincible, before they actually start fighting it (and even then, it's not that easy). Unless you are playing a game with the monsters exactly as written and you are expecting the players to know the Monster Manual, at least enough to remember what is the expected party level to have a good chance to kill a Banshee and every other monster!Otherwise, how can you honestly think the players are making a "mistake"? Don't overestimate your own skills in throwing "clues", because what might be "obvious" for the DM (of course it's obvious for her... the DM knows exactly what monsters she's using) it might not be obvious at all for the players.It's quite the same as the old "Schrodinger's chest" problem:- phase 1: the DM puts a treasure chest in the middle of the room, what do the PC's do? (a) the PCs choose to open the chest... stupid players! of course the chest is trapped! (b) the PCs choose to ignore the chest... stupid players! of course it's a normal treasure chest and you just missed it! -phase 2: the DM puts a treasure chest in the middle of the room, this time with a clue, like skeletons around the chest, what do the PC's do?  (a) the PCs choose to open the chest... double-stupid players! of course the chest is trapped, how could you miss the clue! (b) the PCs choose to ignore the chest... double-stupid players! of course it's a normal treasure chest with an illusion to discourage thieves!Look, I'm not saying you did wrong or you didn't give the right clue... I think you did fine! But please, don't say your players were dumb because of what they choose to do, because ultimately players just can't know where the DM has put a trap or an unbeatable (or very risky) monster, they can only try...That, and I could bet that Gygax never thought his players were "dumb" when they put their arm/head/other appendages inside that devil's head statue's mouth. Gygax just loved randomness IMHO, that's why he used those impossible threats sometimes (but yes, I agree he probably would not have changed the rule on the fly to save them, but that's not necessarily wrong... as I said before, it depends on the gamestyle and I think you did the right thing for your group).</blockquote>

Verification