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<blockquote data-quote="Gentlegamer" data-source="post: 5045406" data-attributes="member: 2425">Like I said, there should be clues, strong clues even, such as listening to the NPC wizard:&quot;You can't win, but there are alternatives to fighting.&quot;or&quot;Fly! Swords are no more use here! This foe is beyond any of you!&quot;If combat is always the &quot;safe fallback&quot; option for an encounter, once discovered, the players will almost always choose it as the easiest option, human nature being what it is. Challenges are often constructed by getting someone out of his comfort zone. Games are no different.In terms of &quot;hopeless&quot; combat encounters, the two players whom the Tomb of Horrors was designed to challenge, neither Ernie Gygax nor Rob Kuntz actually defeated the demi-lich; each grabbed as much treasure as possible and beat a swift retreat rather than &quot;test&quot; their characters against the thing in the vault. So they &quot;beat&quot; the tomb without fighting the &quot;boss&quot; at the end. On the other hand, a group playing it in a tournament came up with an unanticipated method (unanticipated by Gary even) of destroying the demi-lich (involving the crown and scepter for those who know the module): they were awarded first place. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />You don't need a DM for that type of game; Candyland is ready to play out of the box. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue&nbsp; &nbsp; :p"&nbsp; data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gentlegamer, post: 5045406, member: 2425"] Like I said, there should be clues, strong clues even, such as listening to the NPC wizard: "You can't win, but there are alternatives to fighting." or "Fly! Swords are no more use here! This foe is beyond any of you!" If combat is always the "safe fallback" option for an encounter, once discovered, the players will almost always choose it as the easiest option, human nature being what it is. Challenges are often constructed by getting someone out of his comfort zone. Games are no different. In terms of "hopeless" combat encounters, the two players whom the Tomb of Horrors was designed to challenge, neither Ernie Gygax nor Rob Kuntz actually defeated the demi-lich; each grabbed as much treasure as possible and beat a swift retreat rather than "test" their characters against the thing in the vault. So they "beat" the tomb without fighting the "boss" at the end. On the other hand, a group playing it in a tournament came up with an unanticipated method (unanticipated by Gary even) of destroying the demi-lich (involving the crown and scepter for those who know the module): they were awarded first place. :) You don't need a DM for that type of game; [I]Candyland [/I]is ready to play out of the box. :p [/QUOTE]

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