Was I unfair?
- Thread starter tylermalan
- Start date
tylermalan
First Post
Ehhhh.... nah. The players didn't make role-playing decisions for me to criticize, they made bad decisions for me to criticize, none of which had anything to do with their character's personalities, except in one case, with the cleric/barbarian.
I agree with the comment about the horror-themed thing but still being D&D, and that was my mistake, though I was more clear with my players than I was here, because its a lot to type.
As for the monster, it wasn't burrowing, just powerful.
On that note, the players aren't random people I picked up for a game - they're my friends, and no one else wants to DM aside from me, which means that not only will we all keep playing together (making the concern that we're 'not right for each other' somewhat less of a concern), but I will also continue to DM. In their defense, they've never played in horror, either.
As for Heroes of Battle, I have Ravenloft books, which IMO are just as good, if not better for that purpose.
I agree with the comment about the horror-themed thing but still being D&D, and that was my mistake, though I was more clear with my players than I was here, because its a lot to type.
As for the monster, it wasn't burrowing, just powerful.
On that note, the players aren't random people I picked up for a game - they're my friends, and no one else wants to DM aside from me, which means that not only will we all keep playing together (making the concern that we're 'not right for each other' somewhat less of a concern), but I will also continue to DM. In their defense, they've never played in horror, either.
As for Heroes of Battle, I have Ravenloft books, which IMO are just as good, if not better for that purpose.
tylermalan
First Post
LostSoul said:
Well, they know they made a lot of mistakes, and not becasue I told them, either. One of them thought they could take the monster, and was mistaken. On that, I wonder why he thought he could take the monster aside from the fact that they're playing D&D. Yes yes I know, D&D is heroic and bla bla bla but that's metagaming, not roleplaying, and its hard for me to really see how that gives them an excuse to make bad decisions if other characters they've played in other universes have never had to deal with consequences.
tylermalan
First Post
Gizmo33, many of those things are addressed in the rest of the thread.
Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
tylermalan said:
You've got the entire campaign pre-written before the players even created characters?
Man, Amtrak could use some lessons ...
Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
GarethC said:
Brilliant. This is the way to start such a campaign.
Ian Demagi
Explorer
Unfair?
No not unfair. BUT, you did miss a lot of roleplaying flavor when they went down the sewer.
Since this was horror, where were the screams they could have heard, muffled cries, aweful stench-even for a sewer, and the grisly bodies they might have found?
Horror in D & D seems best to me when it moves in slow motion because you (DM) must discribe so much for the terror and horror to set into the game enviroment. A consideration might have been to have them find some grissly remains, or someone half dead, to maybe throw another caution out. Maybe even hit them with some type of omen, tell them they will be fighting against dark powers (-2) if they continue. Then if they are hell bent for distruction (their own), let them have it.
Second-your complaining about their choice of PC's. Well, thats up to them. Not taking the whole group is totally on them! This was bad play, really bad play.
By going TPK, though you no longer have horrible monster to torment the PC's for many months; You just have a party restart. It kind of breaks the illusion. Ian.
No not unfair. BUT, you did miss a lot of roleplaying flavor when they went down the sewer.
Since this was horror, where were the screams they could have heard, muffled cries, aweful stench-even for a sewer, and the grisly bodies they might have found?
Horror in D & D seems best to me when it moves in slow motion because you (DM) must discribe so much for the terror and horror to set into the game enviroment. A consideration might have been to have them find some grissly remains, or someone half dead, to maybe throw another caution out. Maybe even hit them with some type of omen, tell them they will be fighting against dark powers (-2) if they continue. Then if they are hell bent for distruction (their own), let them have it. Second-your complaining about their choice of PC's. Well, thats up to them. Not taking the whole group is totally on them! This was bad play, really bad play.
By going TPK, though you no longer have horrible monster to torment the PC's for many months; You just have a party restart. It kind of breaks the illusion. Ian.
wgreen
First Post
tylermalan said:
One problem with D&D, I think, is that there are so many ways to play it (which is good), but the rulebooks don't really spell this out (which is bad), and most groups don't talk about which way they're going with ahead of time, merely assuming that everyone is on the same page (which is very bad).
I get the feeling that you weren't clear enough with your players at the start about how you wanted to play this particular game. It's really not enough to say that it's in the horror genre, and there will be combat, etc...you really do need to tell them, straight up, something like, "There will be things in this game that will rip you to shreds if you try to fight them, or try to fight them too soon." And you need to tell them this because it just isn't safe for a given player to assume that this will be the case.
I don't think you were unfair. As others have stated, though, you and your players did seem to be on different wavelengths, which is pretty much always the result of failed communication between players about what kind of game is going to be played.
-Will
I think you need to think long and hard about possible rules changes if you want a horror game.
Standard D&D rules dont mesh well with horror, unless you keep it at low level. A player with a 150ish HP raging Half-orc barbarian with the strength to bull rush elephants is not often afraid or feeling horror (though his opponents might be).
Or at least is will be unclear to the player why he should be afraid when he knows the character can survive freefalling several hundreds of feet, laugh of multiple strikes by giants, stand in the middle of a raging bonfire for minutes and so on.
Magic, especially Divination magic, will also mess up a Horror campaign. When you can cast Divination, Commune, Find the Path and so on, the great unknown wont be unknown for long. If you can multiple Fireball that tentacled horror to death while your tanking buddy holds it back it wont promote a feeling of horror either.
IMO Horror games require that players feel vulnerable, confused, overmatched and in the dark. That is difficult to promote with standard D&D rules.
Standard D&D rules dont mesh well with horror, unless you keep it at low level. A player with a 150ish HP raging Half-orc barbarian with the strength to bull rush elephants is not often afraid or feeling horror (though his opponents might be).
Or at least is will be unclear to the player why he should be afraid when he knows the character can survive freefalling several hundreds of feet, laugh of multiple strikes by giants, stand in the middle of a raging bonfire for minutes and so on.
Magic, especially Divination magic, will also mess up a Horror campaign. When you can cast Divination, Commune, Find the Path and so on, the great unknown wont be unknown for long. If you can multiple Fireball that tentacled horror to death while your tanking buddy holds it back it wont promote a feeling of horror either.
IMO Horror games require that players feel vulnerable, confused, overmatched and in the dark. That is difficult to promote with standard D&D rules.
