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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4620357" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think that is very true.'Tucker's Kobolds' in their own way teach a similar lesson to 'Tomb of Horrors' and it is a very important lesson.  I think every DM needs to encounter at least the idea of 'Tomb of Horrors' and 'Tucker's Kobolds'.  Every DM needs to mature past the largely empty 30'x40' room and 'roll initiative'.  Seeing how to challenge the players with things that would in the context of a straight up fight is an important part of that maturation.  For me this experience was with longbow equipped Gnolls in a forest.  The DM took a wandering encounter with Gnolls, which we would have easily defeated in a straight up fight, and instead of grouping them together, liberally sprinkled them about a forest setting and had them snipe at the party.  Although we eventually triumphed, I still remember the initial confusion bordering on panic when we players were thrown this unexpected twist.  What were we supposed to do?   Here we were, 7th level characters, huddled on the ground behind the boles of trees completely terrified by mere 2HD monsters.  We actually had to interact with the environment, instead of just picking up dice and throwing them, and the enemy was actually resisting effectively instead of just trading blows with us.  It was novel, and it was exciting.But 'Tucker's Kobolds' goes way beyond that toward some really antagonist DMing if you aren't careful about it.  If you aren't careful, 'Tucker's Kobolds' or something similar will end up being a DM PC in a small distributed disguise.   The problem I get with reading about 'Tucker's Kobolds' is at somepoint I get the feeling that DM is so vested in his creation, that he simply won't let them lose.</blockquote>

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