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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rechan" data-source="post: 4931483" data-attributes="member: 54846">I recently watched a movie that really drove home a point for me. In it, of the monsters the characters faced, 50% were slew only because the characters took things in their environment, put them together, and lured/caught the monster in a giant set-piece and that destroyed it. Yes, the characters had weapons, but they only hampered the foes they faced due to the foes' sheer SIZE and material makeup.The final monster could only be bested by the MacGuffin, used in a specific manner. I loved it in the movie. Characters where wildly swinging on ropes as the environment shifted, or they were suddenly on the edges of dropoffs and desperate! They had to think fast, and things fell into place. They used things just lying around that weren't Obviously The Solution until they looked around and went "What can I do?!"You also see this in tons of media, from the airtank in Jaws, to Hercules causing a cave in to best the Hydra.But the thing is, I rarely if never see this in RPGs. Anything out there can be beaten with your weapons/spells. If it can't, you just need to get higher plusses, or the DM is just throwing something way outside of your level to be "realistic"/make you run away.This also doesn't help that players will do one of three things, no matter the situation: Hit it with sticks until it dies, run away, or hit it with sticks until you get a TPK and then they get mad at you.How do you use giant setpieces/improvisational environment deathtraps, in an RPG? How do you let the players know "You simply cannot use your equipment/abilities alone to best this threat" before they TPK? Or "You need the Macguffin to beat this thing"? How do you telegraph to the players that things in the environment or the macguffin can be used to best the enemy, without straight out saying, "Use This Thing"? And what rules do you use, when you do it?</blockquote>

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