You can't win this encounter

[TheSword]

Hiya!


Uh...you don't? I mean, it's NOT UP TO YOU TO SAVE THEM, simply put. Your question is like someone picking up a 1000pg mystery novel and the first page says "Synopsis: The butler did it, in the Kitchen, with the Candlestick. Enjoy!".

So, you do nothing. The Players will figure it out...or not. Either way, it's not your problem and certainly not your "job" to help them not die.



Ok, I think you're doing it wrong. Y'see...when you're sitting there doing the DM thing, explaining the situation in terms of what the PC's would sense (see, hear, smell, taste, touch), all that information is already "letting your Players know". If they don't recognize the danger, then either they are really not picking up on it for whatever reason...or you just need more practice describing stuff. Keep at it! You'll get there!

Tips: Tone of your voice and "pacing". These, imnsho, you just have to learn/develop. They can't be taught. There is a distinct difference between "The chamber is 40' square, with a vaulted ceiling, 20' or so overhead at it's central point in the middle of the room. The walls have faded frescos of Sir Lightheart slaying various foul creatures...a black dragon being decapitated, a demon being struck down by Sir Lighthearts legendary sword, 'Angle-Kiss', and another of the Evil Ursurper, King Rendwood kneeling in defeat before the knight. In the north west corner is an old Romanesque style couch and footstool. Upon the couch rests the bones of some humanoid, once dressed in fine clothes, now rotted and eaten away. A dust covered golden goblet lays on it's side, just out of reach of the skeletons outstretched hand. Slowly, to your horror, red-glowing embers start to form in it's dark eye-sockets!". ... ...and... ... "The 40' square, vaulted room has frescos on the wall, but your attention is drawn immediately to the skeleton on the small couch in the NW corner...as it's eye-sockets suddenly spark to un-life with a hellish red glow!".

That is an excellent description of a scene. The problem is, it can also be used to describe a CR 1/2 skeleton or a CR 1 wight as well as a CR21 lich. Every skeletal undead is described as having glowing eyes.

The length of the introduction is detailed descriptive text, evocative and interesting... and giving no indication at all that the encounter will be out of their pay grade.

Unless of course you train your players to associate long descriptions with peril. I’m not sure that’s an association I’m comfortable making. Sometimes a long description may denote importance, or a busy scene. Not impending disaster.

 

[TheSword]

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If I present threats beyond the PCs capabilities at the table (more than as the occasional curiosity) then I expect my players to change their behaviour.

I’m concerned that when PCs regularly encounter creatures out of their expected range they are more likely to hedge bets, play extremely cautiously, expect to go into every game fresh and over-optimize characters.

I’m not sure this is the kind of game I want to encourage.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

That is an excellent description of a scene. The problem is, it can also be used to describe a CR 1/2 skeleton or a CR 1 wight as well as a CR21 lich. Every skeletal undead is described as having glowing eyes.

...and this is why the DM needs to be consistent. As the group plays, session after session, they will all develop their own "style" of playing; this will include being able to 'read' the DM and the DM being able to 'read' his/her Players.

Aside from that, yeah, it could be a skeleton, wight or lich. I don't see the problem though. The PC's will see just what was described; the Players should then react, in character, to what they know of the "campaign setting". But I guess that's one of the reasons why the OP posted; he's not sure how to "vibe" the danger to the Players.

My suggestion was sound (ime at any rate! ). Description and pacing. Playing with the same DM over time, with a consistent DM, will naturally result in the Players being able to REALLY "know" what their PC's are experiencing.

The length of the introduction is detailed descriptive text, evocative and interesting... and giving no indication at all that the encounter will be out of their pay grade.

Unless of course you train your players to associate long descriptions with peril. I’m not sure that’s an association I’m comfortable making. Sometimes a long description may denote importance, or a busy scene. Not impending disaster.

I think you missed the part about "pacing". It's not about the length of the description per se, it's about the delivery of the words. There is no way to easily describe it in text. Like acting. You can read the lines, but until you hear an actor act them out, you might have a completely different take on them.

But yes...the DM does have to take care to not fall into the "Oh..the DM just described the hinges and door handle; it's trapped. Watch out!" thing. Consistency. That's the key.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[uzirath]

I tend to avoid leveled game systems, but in most games, there might be threats that are beyond the capabilities of the PCs. I would certainly let them come up with a clever plan to defeat the mafia boss, but I wouldn't expect it. I typically telegraph this sort of thing with plenty of foreshadowing. In a dungeon crawl, for example, there might be evidence of fallen characters who seem to command similar resources as the PCs. I also think about what makes sense from the skill-set of the PCs (rather than their players). For example, if one of the PCs is ostensibly a grizzled veteran soldier, I would probably just say, straight up, "this fight looks like one to avoid." Conversely, in a GURPS game where that PC has the Overconfidence disadvantage, I might be more circumspect. (That does beg the question of how they became a grizzled veteran without something to compensate for their overconfidence; we would address that during character design.)

 

[Blue]

You don't to it subtly. If you are being subtle, the players will miss it.

They say in RPGs that you need to have each clue show up three times to be sure the players get it.

So, after the third character death, I think they'd have a notion they are in over their heads.

 

[TheSword]

Hiya!

...and this is why the DM needs to be consistent. As the group plays, session after session, they will all develop their own "style" of playing; this will include being able to 'read' the DM and the DM being able to 'read' his/her Players.

Aside from that, yeah, it could be a skeleton, wight or lich. I don't see the problem though. The PC's will see just what was described; the Players should then react, in character, to what they know of the "campaign setting". But I guess that's one of the reasons why the OP posted; he's not sure how to "vibe" the danger to the Players.

My suggestion was sound (ime at any rate! ). Description and pacing. Playing with the same DM over time, with a consistent DM, will naturally result in the Players being able to REALLY "know" what their PC's are experiencing.



I think you missed the part about "pacing". It's not about the length of the description per se, it's about the delivery of the words. There is no way to easily describe it in text. Like acting. You can read the lines, but until you hear an actor act them out, you might have a completely different take on them.

But yes...the DM does have to take care to not fall into the "Oh..the DM just described the hinges and door handle; it's trapped. Watch out!" thing. Consistency. That's the key.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I think that you’re right. I’m lucky enough to have been a player in the games of a great DM over the last 15 years or so. You’re right there is a way they convey information that makes no doubt that something dramatic and potential deadly is about to happen. He ran us through a decent chunk of Rappan Athuk and delivered it excellently.

I’m just not sure how to describe it. I don’t think it’s just pacing and description though you are right they have an impact. Maybe it is that flair for the dramatic, the framing, the tone of voice, the looking us in the eye, the way he says ‘roll initiative’.

 

[GMMichael]

Instead of finding a place to lay low the pilot continued to engage the Tie Fighters until they were blown out of the sky.

So, he won?

The forces arrayed against the players were, at least to me, clearly overwhelming. I wound up having to punt and ask the players if they were prepared to go down swinging or if they wanted to make a dash for the exits. Not a great start to a campaign.

What kind of goblin horde doesn't try to ransom their captured PCs, in the process giving the PCs a long (short?) term goal of getting that ransom money back?

. . . Now there are the obvious clues like the dragon being really really big or the player failing to penetrate the monster's armor after rolling a 19. But how would you subtly let your players know they're in over their heads. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you just can't save the players from themselves?

Somehow, a big dragon isn't an obvious clue. I think it's pretty common that the PCs need saving from themselves, but that's not entirely their fault. In D&D anyway, the indicator of how dangerous you are isn't how big or strong you are. It's not even how skilled you are. It's how many hit points you have, and those don't translate into anything empirical. So players don't have any measure of whether they should be running away besides, "I'm down to 8 hit points."

My preferred way to say, "it's time to run away, PCs," is to make their NPC allies run away, to describe the opponent(s) after two or three rounds of combat as still fresh, or to show a respectable combatant as dropping easily to the unbeatable foe(s). But then, I don't usually use D&D, so I can rely on size, strength, and skill to convey the difficulty of a fight.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

Going back to the GM I mentioned before with his 3/2/1 unwinnable/barely-manageable/winnable formula, he said outside the table he didn't understand why the party fled from every encounter. Well, when the descriptions don't vary between the encounters, you've trained the players in that game that there's a 50% chance you will be flat-out making a new character.

This was a campaign where the GM complained no one was engaging in his 'oceans of plot', to any degree, and a friend who was playing flat-out told him, with the group there to back it up, that while there was an ocean of plot (again, he was using his campaign to write his Great Novel), the PCs were trapped inside a train on a rail that passed over that ocean. They could see the ocean but there was no meaningful way to interact with anything, and even if they had a chance, his NPCs stole the spotlight.

He was also, then, a GM who was trying to run a mystery session of Vampire set in London where we couldn't research anything historical. When one PC made a great roll to find something on the microfiche, it was blurred when we'd enlarge it, and also we couldn't find a magnifying glass or anything way to enlarge it IN LONDON PROPER. Now, we're Americans (he was too) - maybe that's how England works?

 

[Mistwell]

Something that I've been seeing a lot lately is that the party should be faced with encounters that they cannot win. That they should run. My question to you is how do you convey this information to the party without being ham-fisted about it? Now there are the obvious clues like the dragon being really really big or the player failing to penetrate the monster's armor after rolling a 19. But how would you subtly let your players know they're in over their heads. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you just can't save the players from themselves?

The problem with "the party should run" is frequently the party cannot run. As in they can run, but the foe can run as fast as they can, or faster. Like your Dragon example. How do you run from a dragon? They fly 80 feet in a single move. The party can run away at 60 feet a round taking no attacks, while the Dragon can keep ahead of the party while still making attacks. So...it's worse than staying and fighting. They cannot actually run away if the dragon wants to pursue...and why wouldn't the dragon want to pursue someone who just tried to kill them and who is on the ropes?

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I think that you’re right. I’m lucky enough to have been a player in the games of a great DM over the last 15 years or so. You’re right there is a way they convey information that makes no doubt that something dramatic and potential deadly is about to happen. He ran us through a decent chunk of Rappan Athuk and delivered it excellently.

I’m just not sure how to describe it. I don’t think it’s just pacing and description though you are right they have an impact. Maybe it is that flair for the dramatic, the framing, the tone of voice, the looking us in the eye, the way he says ‘roll initiative’.

Yup...that's why I said "pacing" (quotation marks) and not pacing (no quotation marks). As I said...there's more to it than just length of description, and it's not something you can just "read up on and do it that way". Tips, tricks and listen to experienced DM's run a game...then try and emulate that and you'll eventually get to figure out that whole "pacing" thing.

It's also the time the group has spent together; trying to do "pacing" in a pick up game at the FLGS is...difficult, to say the least (unless everyone knows everyone, then maybe not so bad).

^_^

Paul L. Ming