When Your Group Jumps the Shark

[tomBitonti]

Not necessarily wrong ...

As soon as the fight started, the mistakes started piling up...

Followed by the players charging different wraiths ... which was a bad idea since the wraiths regenerate.

This is not necessarily wrong, just wrong in those circumstances. The question really is, should the players be expected to know at their level that wraiths regenerate, and that the key to the encounter is to concentrate on the individual wraiths? I don't think so (absent meta-knowledge). Then the question becomes what is the mechanism for the players to learn or figure out that the wraiths are regenerating, and to adjust their tactics? The point here is that many encounters will introduce unique features. Even more to the point: That is a large part of the fun -- figuring out and adapting to the unique features.

I'd say a better editorial would have focused on making sure the DM properly informs the players, appropriately, what is happening, and to coach them on their observation and problem solving skills.

EDIT: As well, this is a key point for encounter design: Players may very well start the encounter not knowing some important features that will only be revealed as the encounter progresses. Players will likely be harmed initially because they don't know those features, and that is to be expected. The measure of the encounter difficulty has to take this into account.

Starting an encounter incorrectly is not a problem ... failing to learn and adapt is a problem.

 

[Mallus]

With my friends, the whole campaign is one, long glorious arc through the air above an infinitely long pool of sharks, some of which do, in fact, have lasers strapped to their heads.

I wouldn't play D&D any other way.

 

[renau1g]

Followed by the players charging different wraiths ... which was a bad idea since the wraiths regenerate.

This is not necessarily wrong, just wrong in those circumstances. The question really is, should the players be expected to know at their level that wraiths regenerate, and that the key to the encounter is to concentrate on the individual wraiths? I don't think so (absent meta-knowledge). Then the question becomes what is the mechanism for the players to learn or figure out that the wraiths are regenerating, and to adjust their tactics? The point here is that many encounters will introduce unique features. Even more to the point: That is a large part of the fun -- figuring out and adapting to the unique features.

I'd say a better editorial would have focused on making sure the DM properly informs the players, appropriately, what is happening, and to coach them on their observation and problem solving skills.

EDIT: As well, this is a key point for encounter design: Players may very well start the encounter not knowing some important features that will only be revealed as the encounter progresses. Players will likely be harmed initially because they don't know those features, and that is to be expected. The measure of the encounter difficulty has to take this into account.

Starting an encounter incorrectly is not a problem ... failing to learn and adapt is a problem.

100% agree. If the players all say to each other "Hey, remember we gotta be careful with these regenerating wraiths" without their PC's rolling appropriate knowledge checks, it's metagaming. It's also part of the reason I don't like iconic monsters, it's so hard not to metagame. But I digress. Last session our PC's had performed very well in fights (Tower of Spellgard) as we fought individually for the most part (our fighter went off and fought a goblin, while I [swordmage] was left to try and defend our warlock [who then teleported away at the first sign of trouble and hid for a good portion of the fight] & ranged ranger.However, we only incurred minor damage, nothing a few surges didn't fix. Our next encounter we survived by the skin of our teeth, and ended the session there. When we start again this Sunday, I know my PC will be suggesting we change tactics to try and focus on 1 or 2 enemies at once. My swordmage in the previous encounter was taking on 4 fire beetles by himself...

 

[The Ghost]

Maybe Chris Youngs is actually a subtle genius? I mean, he wrote an editorial about how the players in his campaign made a series of dumb decisions because they did not know what a wraith could do. So, he made a dumb decision, to use a term that he did not know the meaning of, in order to make his point. Or am I really stretching with this?

More to his point.... I can really go both ways on the advice he gives. On one hand, a lot of work was probably put into the characters and the campaign, and it is hard to discard all that work. On the other, part of the fun of the game is seeing the consequences of your choices, and sometimes a TPK is the right call. I guess it comes down to knowing your players and how they would act to a TPK.

 

[S'mon]

More to his point.... I can really go both ways on the advice he gives. On one hand, a lot of work was probably put into the characters and the campaign, and it is hard to discard all that work. On the other, part of the fun of the game is seeing the consequences of your choices, and sometimes a TPK is the right call. I guess it comes down to knowing your players and how they would act to a TPK.

I agree - I think it's generally best to allow a TPK to occur, particularly in the Final Battle With the BBEG, unless maybe you're running some heavily narrativst game in which case D&D seems like the wrong ruleset (or use Fate Points etc to give players a get-out-of-jail-free card). These 4e wraiths seem like badly designed monsters to me, though. Why half damage AND regeneration? Trollish regen is unlikely enough, why do incorporeal critters get it?

Anyway, the obvious solution: TELL the players they see the wraiths reforming. Let them see the regeneration. Give them the chance to revise tactics - to flee, or focus all their attacks. Only if they insist on idiocy do they get TPK'd.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Followed by the players charging different wraiths ... which was a bad idea since the wraiths regenerate.

This is not necessarily wrong, just wrong in those circumstances. The question really is, should the players be expected to know at their level that wraiths regenerate, and that the key to the encounter is to concentrate on the individual wraiths? I don't think so (absent meta-knowledge).

A Religion Check or some observation (in-game, just by looking how the Wraith react) could have alerted them. And of course, a lot of his players are probably DMs, designers and so on and probably know this stuff anyway.

Even without the Regeneration, splitting up your attacks this much is often a bad idea. And that is something higher level players should already have learned.

I know from experience that sometimes the entire group suffers a big brain fart and screws up. (To be distinguished from the times where the group just suffers from failing to roll more than 5 over 5 rounds.)

And sometimes, the DM makes a big mistake... In an OA campaign, the DM accidentally pitted us with a Giant far stronger than he planned - he just looked into the wrong column (remember the Giant Stat Blocks of the DMG 3.0), ending with a TPK within 1 and half rounds or so. Unfortunately, he figured his mistake only days later (after we had rolled up new characters), so there was no opportunity to correct his mistake...

 

[frankthedm]

Man, that's a pretty cruddy article on a few levels.

#1: Misuse a term
#2: Give advice that robs all the challenge from the game.

Awesome.

Man, I gotta submit something to Dungeon, they must be reaching if they're publishing advice like this...

I read the article as "Take it easy on the players, we don't want to lose book sales."

 

[rkwoodard]

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

You were probably confusing the memory with the 1st big cliff hanger in the Happy Days show where Fonzi to regain his "Cool" jumps over trash cans at Arnolds (then owned by Arnold not Al of later years). I don't remember if the sharks were before or after the Dude Ranch spectacular.

Lord, I am so glad D&D came into my life.

RK

 

[tomBitonti]

A Religion Check or some observation (in-game, just by looking how the Wraith react) could have alerted them. And of course, a lot of his players are probably DMs, designers and so on and probably know this stuff anyway.

Even without the Regeneration, splitting up your attacks this much is often a bad idea. And that is something higher level players should already have learned.

Definitely, for the first point. And then the editorial should be about: When players fail to gather information, for example, through knowledge checks, and how to coach players to make use of opportunities to do so.

As to the second ... I agree, mostly. That is basic concentration of force, pretty much first principles. Although, there are are likely times where engaging each of the opponents is important, at least early on, so to keep the opponents from engaging your squishies, or from ganging up on one of the you, so I can't say that engaging all of the enemies is a bad idea as an initial tactic.

Edit: For example:

Necrotic Burst: Encounter: Necrotic; Fort DC 10+1/2 Level + Base Cha Bonus
You pulse with necrotic energy. All creatures within a 10R take an immediate 5 necrotic, and onging 5 necrotic. (Save avoids and ends)

You would want to avoid that pulse from hitting all party members, so keeping the enemies engaged and apart from each other would be a good idea.

Thx!

TomB

 

[catsclaw227]

OK... now that we've established (over, and over) that the title of the article should have been different....

I am on the fence about the advice. I think the body of the article is mostly set-up to ultimately give advice that says, when the game isn't going well, and the players are getting frustrated and not coming together, it's OK to end the current encounter and segue into something else, or have a discussion about what might have gone differently.

I agree with the comments that, with regards to his specific scenario, there should have been more informational clues given the players (and there may have been... we don't know that the players learned that the wraiths have regen). But when things start to go downhill because of a badly planned or goofy encounter, and a TPK looks to be the result, I have no problem giving up an "out" for the players.

Not many groups like the idea of a long running campaign going TPK because the players were a bit off that day.

When I distill the article down, it's basically a couple of sentences: The game is supposed to be fun to play, not a series of frustrations. If you can get a bad session back on the tracks with some in-game changes, then do it.