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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 6984173" data-attributes="member: 6785785">If it's the conversation I am recalling, and I could be wrong, but the OP of the thread described what would (read: should) be an incredibly dangerous encounter based solely on the enemies the party was going to face. The PCs in question defeated the enemies easily. The OP in question didn't seem to mind....so in that sense, more power to him at his table. But some folks suggested that in order for the enemies to be the threats that they should be, they need to be run by the DM as such. Other posters then literally said "I want X monster to be threatening as is" meaning tactics and environment should not matter. Which I can somewhat understand the sentiment...but I think this stance taken to the extreme is absurd. I mean, to be a threat, a creature must behave in some way, correct? So the DM must apply some tactics. Since that's the case already, why not simply try and make those tactics be effective? Instead, the "need" for tactics was seen as a design weakness.This led others, myself included, to draw the conclusion that it seemed that such folks want to be able to do as little work as possible with the monsters and villains. And maybe that isn't entirely accurate to what actually happens at those tables...but based on the info shared, that's how it seems. And I am not even saying that playing the MM stars straight from the book with little else applied to an encounter is bad in and of itself. Just that to complain that higher level monsters are easily defeated when the DM certainly can do things to mitigate that seems a bit odd. Sure. I would say that folks generally didnt just say "you're doing it wrong" it was more along he lines of "what if you try this" or "how about if you modify that". These suggestions are sometimes considered and become part of the discussion. Other times they are dismissed because they "should not be necessary" or because it means we're doing Crawford's homework for him or something. I don't try to railroad my players at all. I try to leave things up to them as much as O can. However, there is going to be some form of narrative thread that must be followed to at least some extent. Not sure if that's a railroad or not. For me, to use the Star Wars example I gave...I'd likely see what the players did as the closed on the Death Star and realized their peril. The tractor beam would likely be my way of forcing the issue of it seemed they were going to do something foolish or something like that. Perhaps a bit railroady....but sometimes it doesn't always have to be a negative. Well I never said I wanted to trick the players. I think that in general, when I set things up like this, the threat is clear. They're closing in on the Death Star...they've created a hill to see an entire orc army. They've encountered rival adventurers who seem far more powerful than they are. My goal is to leave such decisions in the players' hands. I present the info and they decide what to do with it. If they don't seem to realize then I'll add more comments to try and make it clear. It's not an attempt to trick them. One of the reasons I do this is in order to affect how they view other encounters. That's fair. I prefer a more "show don't tell" approach when possible.  Yeah, I would agree. I try to do both of those things at almost all times.</blockquote>

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