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Post by Scott on Dec 1, 2014 16:35:16 GMT -5
After a recent battle at the Duchess’s mansion in Dungeonland, I was reminded how susceptible my players are to attacks in waves. The start small and get bigger battle will get them every time. The first room on the Forgotten Temple, the Greater Temple in the ToEE, and now most recently the Duchess and company, have really been bad news for my players. Two separate parties got TPKed in the Forgotten Temple. Another barely made it out of the Greater Temple. And now an encounter that started out as 1 bullywug almost resulted in another TPK. Once the reinforcements started showing up the bullywugs proved surprisingly annoying because they could hop over the initial line of defense and get right to the soft targets in the rear, which resulted in a lot of spoiled spells. Another round or two and it could have been the end of Maylin.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 1, 2014 19:26:59 GMT -5
The details of the total death battles would likely shine a light on why they all were killed.
Let me try to think of some things.
Did they try to retreat?
Did they have a caller who was in charge or is it all player turn by player turn?
How many party players/NPC players/hirelings/henchmen/monsters -to- enemy monsters/NPCs ratio?
Are they reacting to ratios or is it the old "we're plowing forward to get it done" mentality?
How many magic items per PC/NPC each?
How many healing items per PC/NPC each?
Are healing NWPs being used and lightly supplementing for heavy magic (for instance scrolls)?
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Post by Scott on Dec 1, 2014 23:19:51 GMT -5
I don't recall them trying to retreat until it was too late. We don't usually have a caller.
The ration of party vs. enemies shifts as the battle progresses, and I think the party fails by not recognizing this shift for the danger it presents soon enough. If the party encountered a hoard of norkers, gnolls, ogres, giants, and trolls, their mindset would be much different, but when the encounter starts out as a handful of humanoids, they rush in expecting an easy encounter. And they don't take a few more humanoids seriously, and then a bigger mob of humanoids, and then a few ogres, and a troll or two, and a hill giant. And before they know it, they're surrounded. The damage has added up. Spells are low, and spell casters are now in danger of being hit as they try to cast spells.
I'm not a stingy DM, the party is usually pretty well decked out with magic items. They don't always use them wisely, but they have them.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 2, 2014 9:09:53 GMT -5
A lot of players have this bandwagon mentality where retreat isn't an option or its cowardly. As to the cause who knows? Video games? Post-Gygax story-based rpgs? Every conversation that I had with Gary about combat was pragmatic not in a realistic sense but in a way that if you made mistakes it was from free choice in a common sense setting. I think the fear of withdrawal as cowardly running away with a fake character is probably the biggest overlooked aspect in rpgs.
That said, one character dying per session on a regular basis is a possibility but I don't know if the TPK is a post-modern trend. D&D was always about survival when I started so if you ran it was normal.
One thing that I've seen in the "pure good vs. pure evil"/"low fantasy cheap" type campaigns don't use is capture/ransom as a concept that works many different ways and vise-versa. Equivalent xp for a living creature based on value of treasure or traded captive.
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Post by Scott on Dec 2, 2014 9:47:50 GMT -5
Gronan recently opened a post with "Wow, well, we ran away so much...". This is definitely not something a lot of gamers I know expect. I've heard a player tell another player in a game I was DMing, "He's not like our other DMs; he will kill us'. I don't know if it's appearing cowardly as much as it is assuming that the DM wouldn't put use something that could kill you. My regular players will run if they come upon something they think could kill them, but as I said upthread, they have a hard time recognizing when the pushover encounter turns into an overwhelming encounter.
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Post by Scott on Dec 2, 2014 10:10:54 GMT -5
They've all been in wide open areas too, limiting the effect of area of effect spells and allowing the monsters to fan out and have more attacks.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 2, 2014 11:37:42 GMT -5
I believe it with Gronan as even Gary told tales of withdrawing as a player.
On that note, I think that Rob Kuntz's style is one of "shut up I'm the DM". While some might say that is the way to be "old school", in my opinion, it might have once been the way to be but only in a rational wargame atmosphere. I believe that Rob doesn't (didn't?) realize (or care) that the entire RPG point of view had changed around him. That is why at Lake Geneva Gaming Convention in 2007, his DMing was erratic and weird. "Petulant" would ultimately describe what I was experiencing as I played my evil cavalier Stunnzor in the corridors of El Raja Keye but I think that he was overwhelmed with what he sees as bad players which are actually just modern era "get on the wagon" types.
As a DM, if the players don't get what you're saying and you punish them then you lose the art of Dungeon Mastering. There is no "old way authority", all that DMG Gary jive is talking to hard-nosed wargamers for disputes they don't apply to entry level play. I never heard Frodo or Conan say, "Lets sweep that fort out of every last coin!". Adventure and risk over partitioned narrative is one thing classic adventure gamers can all agree on (danger over railroading) but the foggy area is where should the game always be from table to table.
I don't know, off the cuff list from my view:
1) According to Gary in the DMG, never give a free lunch but nobody said anything about DMs not placing/rolling treasure anymore in those same essays which happened in second edition.
2) Killing should always be a convenience and a large loss. Capturing should always have the potential for xp twice once for defeat and again for sale (xp and monetary gain) or surrender (xp and allied support and/or monetary gain).
3) If the game is overloaded with skills and low magic then mundane classes must have built in magic disguised as mundane skills or the game is broken.
4) Slavery doesn't exist in the medieval period. The conditions for the modern concept doesn't exist in countries where no one is free except the wealthy. You go from being a unit in one lord's demesne to be traded to another lord's demesne if need be. Even the titled are given away to exist elsewhere. This must be right on your table or the feel goes right down the toilet. I've had so many "quasi-American" type players where they say "yes milord" but they don't grasp the concept.
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Post by Scott on Dec 4, 2014 14:59:19 GMT -5
I like Rob's adventures, but some of his non-combat challenges are a little much. And he does get frustrated when the players struggle. Do you remember the Dark Druids area that had the riddle and the different colored inks and quill? Even as a DM, having read the encounter from that side, I don't see how players could figure that out. One time I was pressing him for details on how players could figure some of these things out, and he couldn't tell me and just said I'd be dead if I played in Lake Geneva.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 4, 2014 19:25:44 GMT -5
Yeah, I think that he changed a bit from the 2002 through 2007 with all the action he was getting from players not knowing what to expect from him year after year of him attending these "ye olde revivals" and being quaintly "different".
The action reminded me of the worst types of DMs when you feel like you have no options almost like "I CAST A SPELL! YOU DIE!NEXT PLAYER! I STAB! NEXT PLAYER! I STAB! NEXT PLAYER! I STAB! NEXT PLAYER! I RUN! YOU DIE! NEXT PLAYER! I STAB! NEXT PLAYER! I STAB! NEXT PLAYER! I SUBDUE! YOU DIE! NEXT PLAYER! I STAB! NEXT PLAYER! I LOO... WAIT! I STAB! NEXT PLAYER! ad nauseum. Instead of the DM being indifferent and neutral as he should there was more of spoiled child that you see in nerd culture games. I don't know if it was a reflection of him being influenced by "geeks" but it was definitely not the same game. He was making sport of bad behavior before and afterwards he was catering to it.
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Post by GRWelsh on Dec 5, 2014 9:42:38 GMT -5
Yeah, one of the most frustrating things in gaming is when the DM thinks a challenge (or puzzle) is easy, or at least doable, and the players can't see any logic in it.
Sometimes the things that are the players' demise aren't what you would expect.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 5, 2014 10:50:02 GMT -5
The best example was my brother DMing in 1984 who was about 12 or 13 at the time came up with a 3 by 3 key pad on wall with no clues except directly telling us to punch something in as a favor.
That was priceless and of course, his famous surprise attack from three "lesser" gods (Anubis was one) got him booted off the rotating DM roster and his game was annulled.
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