When Your Group Jumps the Shark

[ProfessorPain]

Actually, I think it was more the motorcycle vs waterski issue.

I edited that in. The point is, while his details were fuzzy, he was correct about the origin of the term.

 

[ppaladin123]

When I read the title of the piece I was expecting it to be advice on how to gracefully bring a campaign to an end when it is clear that it has lost its luster, run out of threads to pursue, become stale (i.e. jumped the shark).

"Winning" D&D means having fun and character death is not always a bad thing (it could be epic, memorable, and satisfying).

 

[Fenes]

"What to do if your players are having a bad day" would have been more precise.

 

[avin]

I don't think it's really useful. I mean, who really need this kind of advice? I think every GM around knows what to do, nerf the dice to save story or keep it rolling for the sake of a combat oriented campaign...

 

[S'mon]

Wow, seems to me like badly designed monsters and grotty GMing. Player tactics were sub-optimal, guess they didn't know to break out the Monster Manual...

 

[Nebulous]

I wouldn't even really call that an "article", seemed more like a frustrated DM just expressing his feelings. He didn't want the campaign to end in a TPK because of suboptimal PC decisions, which i can understand. A gaming group could be disbanded by something like that, depending on the players. Unlikely, but possible. Or there might be a lot of ire pointed his direction, rather than, "hey, thanks for the fun night."

 

[roguerouge]

Wow. That's a complete failure to understand the meaning of the term, "jump the shark".

Jumping the shark is not failing, or having a bad day. Jumping the shark is doing really outlandish and nonsensical things in order to generate interest in a flagging storyline.

Beat me to it. This article should have been about when DMs trot out sharks in acid pools with wands of scorching ray strapped to them.

 

[DandD]

How about battle chariots in form of hammerhead sharks with twin-linked magic wands of scorching rays driven by sahuagins and pulled by dire weresharks?

Oh, and the scorching rays look like sharks too. Who shoot lasers...

Man, sharks are cool.

 

[Umbran]

Umbran... sorry but you're wrong.

It happens. I was conflating it with this, in my memory...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI5RRrb39EA]YouTube - Fearlless Fonzie[/ame]

 

[Brown Jenkin]

When I read the title of the piece I was expecting it to be advice on how to gracefully bring a campaign to an end when it is clear that it has lost its luster, run out of threads to pursue, become stale (i.e. jumped the shark).

That was my first thought as well. Which then brings up the question whether Dungeon jumped the shark with this article.