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Nerdarchy Can you guys include a OR UR LOCAL GAMEING OR HOBBY STORE in that message cuz we all know those kinds of stores are dying out, and thats because most people my age 20 and younger dont even know you can buy dnd stuff there, I told a friend to go to a hobby store to pick up a player guide and he was like what? Dont stores like that only carry models and stuff, I gave him a dumb look and asked all my other players and they went to either book stores, or shopped online, and I found everything cheaper at the local hobby shop, so plz support local game stores, I would even like it if you did like a PSA about that :)
No worries gentlemen, it certainly wasn't you guys hahaha. Also, communication with your players is the most important tool a DM has, totally agree with you guys. Thanks for the kind words-- you guys rock! Cody
Nerdarchy guys will never give such advices. Thank you to you guys and Taking20 for a whole lot of wise words and advices. New DM here....God bless you all for doing these vids for newbies like me
Unfortunately. At least back in my day we had an excuse for being bad GMs. The internet didn't exist tons of resources to being a better GM. Now a days no excuses. -Nerdarchist Dave
There was no excuse back in the day even without the internet. In some cultures failing at a task requires you to fall upon your own sword in hopes of an honorable death. GMs that ever plan a TPK that do not fall upon their own blade have no honor. If they fight poorly and die in combat against a monster they should be able to handle that is one thing.
No excuse is a good excuse Dave, just because the internet didnt exist doesnt mean you couldnt come up with better options on your own. I picked up novels and such to help me figure out a better way when I realized I was a shitty DM.
My groups first DM ever and even still when he runs campaigns (we switch around) he makes a DM vs. Player campaign and always tries to kill us which is honesfly terrible.
I gave my 4th level players hints for a giant creature hiding inside a glacier (White Dragon), that they should avoid. They were of the idea that any encounter was winnable. They got annihilated by it inside it's lair.
That is a 3.x mentality for sure. Though in this day and age i wouldn't TPK them I'd have them wake up from unconsciousness stuck in the ice Luke Skywalker style. Far more interesting and perhaps they'd learn their lesson. Next time though I wouldn't hesitate to murder their faces. -Nerdarchist Dave
Yeah seems like good advice I normally give them an out like "The dragon looks at you and you can almost see it is laughing at you as I goes back to sleep" Something along those lines then when they attack i (Let us be honest they would) it would wipe the floor with them and maybe just throw them out or force them into doing something or if they kept going just eat them..
Rene a good way around that is invisible walls. "You go to the large frozen den of some creature but the large cavern is empty void of life and nothing around. It seems that at some time there was a creature here but at the moment this is just a large empty cave." Wait until they are of level and let them go back tothe cave. "As you walk up towards the cave you had visited a long time ago you see claw marks and broken branches that hint recent activity at the caves entrance." Dragons can relocate their liars. At the start of the story that Dragon could be on an entirely other continent or even plane of existence. But now that you can lay your head down on a pillow at night and not have them get one shot you allow them to poke the beast with their sticks.
"No plan survives first contact with the enemy" - Dwight D. Eisenhower. That wisdom is as true on the battlefield, as at sea, as at the gaming table, no matter how many or how few prepackaged modules you attempt to run, the nanosecond your first player interacts, you are already off-book. That fact is why most DMs do not really attempt them anyway, sure a lot do use them for inspiration, sometimes only for the maps, and why amongst Dungeon Masters, more respect is given to other Dungeon Masters that home-brew primarily or exclusively. Every DM, young or old, new or veteran, should want to be able to go off book, for extended periods of time, perhaps even outright abandoning the book as a whole, and run the game in the direction the players want to take it, at any given moment. I have had sessions I have made take 30 minute breaks, because the party was so far off what I had planned that I needed time to build in my head, and that is totally OK. Just understand, your party just wants to have fun, the module you or they bought may have sounded interesting, but maybe its just not their cup of tea after all, or maybe they are the kind of players that love to derail things, just to see if and how you react. Don't get discouraged, don't give up on yourself or your party, but be OK with the realistic possibility that your party isn't into the book and are willing to let the failure conditions of that scenario take effect in exchange for the freedom to do their own thing. *USE THE FAILURE OF THE MODULE SCENARIO TO SHAPE YOUR NEWLY MINTED HOME-BREW UNIVERSE* ...and have fun.
Minor correction: The quote isn't from Eisenhower, it's from Prussian field marshal Helmuth Von Moltke Sr., the father of German general Moltke from WW1.
I'm running a campaign right now where one player of a group of three insists on going off on his own pretty much constantly. It's hard for me as a DM to fairly distribute time among all the players then but I also don't want to just say 'no'. One night, this lone wolf player decided to pursue a bounty on a group of orc bandits on his own, and despite me giving several opportunities to get off a round of surprise or prepare properly, this player ended up losing his first character. Thankfully, this is the first campaign I was running with these players, so their characters are only low level, but it's actually had a positive effect on the player. With his new character, he's started adventuring with the party again. Despite this, I would never promote a full party kill. Players shouldn't be punished for the actions of others, and if I as a DM can show one player a way to enjoy the game where all the other players can participate, it's my job to do so. A TPK is rarely justified, because players are rarely, If ever, In the wrong. A TPK is a failure on the DM's part, not the Players'. Just my two cents.
I'm glad you guys weren't the ones that advised a TPK. I'm just getting back into DnD after ten years since my last campaign dispersed and I've been watching Nerdarchy, Take20, and Dungeon Dudes nonstop.
Cody is 100% on point with hsi video. GMs who think it is them vs the players are completely missing the point and are there for the ego trip. These are people who are toxic to the community and really just need to stop playing RPGS.
Well... I have to say.. I agree lol. They're missing the point to what D&D is if they think the players are 'wrong' for not playing the game the DM wants them to play.
Some of them might just be oldschool DMs. Until the early 90s, most adventures were just incredibly challenging dungeon crawls where a "DM vs. players" mindset was simply part of the challenge. Now, I certainly don't recommend that mindset - unless you're players crave a really tough dungeon crawl - but that mindset doesn't automatically mean that the GM is toxic.
@@Taking20 I think DnD can be "anything". I've been dm'ing for a few years now and I personally believe it's a good thing when the GM try to get the player when there is a combat encounter going on. I also think he should "moderate" his strategy when he plays simple créature such as wolf and chaotic creature such as gobelin. While Kobold on the other hand tend to be a lot more strategic as they are used to work together. Why is it a good thing ? Well, players do enjoy having a challenge. If at any point the players feel like the GM is "cheating" to make them survive some encounter, they will quickly believe their action got no impact as the GM will "save them" anyway. That's the only time where it's a good thing of having a GM that plays the encounter to get at them. I always tell them "I'm not the one trying to kill you.... The gobelins are." which is truly the case, I don't get off trying to kill them, but I like the players to create their own story... Having their decision, action, and dices narate it. Not every DM will agree on this but I don't think "I'm missing the point of DnD". I just dm it differently, I'm sure "some" player would prefer my way while some other players will prefer yours.
There is a bit of DM vs the players.... its the players vs the DM's world. (or the DM's multiverse if the campaign goes that long) The Player characters grow and evolve. The world does too. Player characters are the ultimate people able to modify the path that the world will take They are essentially tasked with making it a better (or worse) place than it wuld have been without their influence. The world (BENBG and their minions) is resisting the efforts of the party to make those changes. I look at any campaign as if they are on a LOTR style "stop Sauron" quest to save the world. (or maybe help Sauron... and oppose the Fellowship's efforts) The opposition WANTS The PARTY DEAD or made to be ineffective. Whatever the party does will have repercussions, and the party should see and hear of the butterfly effect due to their actions or lack of actions.
I ran into this issue with my first campaign as a GM: Horde of the Dragon Queen. My suggestion: let the players decide. As long as you're telling a story everyone enjoys, then there's nothing wrong... I had built up a cold war of sorts between a pair of black dragons and a lich in the Mere of Dead Men. Both sides were vying for lost artifacts, and the players were caught between fetching the items. The players kept going much further than I had anticipated. I left subtle hints that there were time sensitive events related to the campaign. Eventually, the players wanted to get back to the main story. In the meantime, they helped both the dragons and lich each gain artifacts, and I've narrated that the High Road is now a war zone between both sides. The plot hook is always there. When the players want, I can get back to it later. I especially like this, because then the players might be able to go up against the big bads instead of underlings.
Bernard Lis oh the Mere of Dead Men lol. My last DM had a lot of trouble running my old group through that and eventually quit and moved us to Curse of Strahd. The finishing problem was in the Mere, where we couldn't figure out where to go from the kobold camp, so my druid used Speak to Animals and found out about the dragon's cave from a crow. We had no other hints, so just went with the cave. Got there and killed the dragon, which was quickly followed up with the brother flying overhead yelling angrily and trying to find us. After resting, we decided to try and kill the second dragon too, but ended up all dying to it. That was when our DM just said eff it and quit that campaign. We found out after that all we had to do was take the boats and go straight through the lake, and apparently we were overthinking it... would've been nice to get a few hints at that, but it's in the past so w/e. PS the cold war idea is brilliant, great job on that
I came across your video because I’m prepping for this campaign currently and I feel like Harshnag is a great railroad option. He can appear and disappear at the discretion of the DM, and eventually he will lead the party back to the Oracle at the Eye of the All-Father temple. I think also that if you are already past this point, a compelling impetus for action could be Iymrith attacking Zephyros in his tower (depending on the sensitivity of your players, you can even kill Zephyros in this way to really boil their blood towards the dragon).
Kudos to you guys for responding to the video. It doesn't look like it was your advice, but you handled a response with class. Thanks for giving great advice on how to handle the situation. I'm a new DM and have players that want to explore back story. I'm sure it'll be huge fun, but I'm using set campaigns because I just don't have the time, or experience, to home brew sessions. Taking 20's scenario is my nightmare.
The notion that you the party can, and sometimes NEEDS to retreat is one of the hardest lessons to learn. Video games teach that there is almost always a way to beat whatever you are up against, if you look close enough.
New to DnD this year. Watched a fair number of your guys’ vids and thought you were kinda high on your own farts. But I gotta be honest. This vid is super down to earth and real. Earned a lot of respect with this one guys
I would simply have the module continue running in the background. The more the players ignore the module, the closer the villain gets to their win condition(s). If the players complain about the villain winning, gently remind them that the world continues moving, regardless of their action/inaction.
I like the idea of taking a prepackaged plan and taking stuff from it if you don't like the entire thing. We're doing Curse of Strahd now and so I won't want to go through that again soon but it has some cool elements like the maps, many of the NPCs etc. As you have said many times, communication is the key.
It needs to be said, SKT is such a sandbox it almost begs for the party to go off book. So be prepared. I was having to rearrange things as early as session one!
I TPK'd a party that did that. The party was told by their Patron organization just to do reconnaissance on a very powerful army but they didn't even try to hide, and just blatantly stepped out in front of the demon warriors and even though they could hear an Orc Bard calling for reinforcements with drums, they kept fighting...so ...only one survived...the new guy turned tail and ran, lol
William that definitely sounds like a more legitimate situation. There’s definitely ways around having to kill everyone (knocking the players out or having the enemy demand their surrender, putting them through a prison break situation, etc.) but if they made the decision to fight to the last man and not bail, they had to expect it.
Thankfully with Storm King's, you can totally TPK people back into the book. Giants like to take prisoners, the ordinance is a mess and everyone has something to prove. Your TPK turns into a robust underlying storyarc for players to escape or be rescued by one of the factions. My group has a Zhent and several players that would interest the Harpers, both very prominent factions in this adventure. There are more options, but those are the couple that apply for us. Now for my group, there WILL be consequences; you drop to 0 we have a chart to work with to disfigure and maim the party members.
One GM advice I hear a lot is that players should constantly feel their character's lives are at risk and they could die any moment. Supposedly it builds up tension and therefore should make the game more fun. Well, I consider that bad advice, really bad. I mean sure, there are players who enjoy tension and this can make a fun game for those people. But it differs from person to person, and even from day to day, and therefore should be applied only when it's good for the game, not all the time. For one, I can attest that every time I played with a GM who had PCs die often I didn't enjoy those games. On the contrary, when I played more "cinematic" games and systems, where players are assured their character isn't going to die, I enjoyed those games a lot more. Secondly, sometimes I wanted to just relax while playing a game because I was really tired after a hard day of work or something, and I'd much rather roleplay a tea party where nothing exciting happens, rather than an epic battle or somesuch, simply because I wasn't in a mood for excitement. I can definitely imagine a few hours of session where all we do is friendly talk with NPCs, in-character jokes, and stuff like that. Thirdly, constant threat to PCs life actually makes building tension harder. You won't have those epic "oh shit, things just got real!" moments, if PCs are dying or about to die all the time.
As Adam Koebel once said "I can do much worse things then kill your character." Dont destroy your toys get them where it hurts most. That Elf Ranger in the party cares about his loved ones and his home in the tree city he was born? Oh man that Red Dragon that burnt those forests to the ground is a real dick... you should probably get revenge on him guys. Let the dice decide if they TPK or if anyone dies, focus your inner sadist to making their character watch others die for their lack of ambition by going to the potion shop and wasting time haggling over 2 gold.
I'd say: - Focusing your inner sadist to roleplay a sadistic villain = could be a good idea. - Focusing your inner sadist to make the game miserable for players = always a bad idea... unless your goal is to lose players, that is. Or if your players are masochists. I suppose that is a possibility.
I always took that bit of advice to mean that every monster should be a credible threat. Even a couple of goblins could wipe a party if they forget to set a watch. Also, sometimes it just makes more sense for people to die...
First... have a like. I get and appreciate your overall message. However, I wouldn't consider it "really bad advice"... And here's how it's dependent. RELEVANCE... If the total mood of the campaign world is (in point of fact) dangerous ALL the time, then... being relevant to that, the players should be able to assimilate that tension as a constant thing. I've had to deal with it in a couple campaigns, and while it's not exactly my stable "cup of tea" in every game, for DJ Villareal's version of the Underdark, it works HORRIFYINGLY well. It's his forte, and those campaigns were awesome, dark, terrible, gruesome and beautiful... But I've always taken the general advice about "tension" as a relevant control over the mood of the game or session and setting at hand. If it's already a lull in plot, a time to rest between all hell breaking loose, and the PC's have found a bastion of civility in the otherwise wretched, brutal, and sophisticated world of deathly threats... Then civility it shall be... not because I'm going to be "lenient" or for some weird love for PC's that other people have poured heart, soul, or considerable time and effort into... BUT because it's RELEVANT... and that's it. On the other hand, when you're lurking through the shadows of one of my mysterious dungeon crawls, it won't take ten minutes for the neurosis to start creeping up the back of your neck, so Players BEWARE... I'm a horribly twisted fiend with a dark and morbid sense of humor. I delight in confusing and demoralizing those who dare to cross the evils of my villainous and nefarious infamy... ...and my bands of kobolds are among the fiercest of the nether-realms. :o)
Well, it certainly depends on what kind of campaign you're running and its length. If you're just doing a short 1-shot (1-3 sessions tops), keeping the players on their toes by constantly looming possibilities of character death might actually raise the stakes and make things more enjoyable. Same goes for a longer adventure if it's just meant to be a challenging dungeon crawl with little to no actual roleplaying (without actual danger, you're just farming mobs and looting chests, Diablo-style). For longer campaigns that put a lot of emphasis on roleplaying and sometimes weave character backgrounds into the narrative, it obviously sucks when player characters die - so there should be very few moments when that's actually a possibility.
It actually says in Storm Kings Thunder book that a TPK is a workable solution to an over zealous group. But instead of death they advise unconsciousness.
What I did was play to their characters to bring them to the main adventure naturally. They originally veered off, managing to join the Zhentarim. So one treasure trek later to give them a substantial amount of money and switching to Milestone Rules, I gave them a reason to work with Harshnag. Rather than a sudden discovery, Harshnag reached out to the Zhentarim and "hired" the services of the party; whatever treasure the giants he slays along the way to his destination, they are welcome to.
If my players get off track I just leave clues or move the encounters to them. or have alternate NPCs that are there just to antagonize and make the players want to destroy the enemies and follow the story.
@@VestedUTuber Henderson requires actual divine intervention to survive that long, he must have RNGeesus on speeddial Similar for the OMH inspired Herr Schnitzelnazi
Unwinnable is a word that should never be used by a DM. If a fight cannot be won then you as a DM have no right to even make it happen. A Red Dragon is the threat they need to deal with? Well his army is a good start to have them chew through for gear and levels until they are able to fight such a beast. Never have a party have the ability to fight an unwinnable battle without an ace up your sleeve. As the party starts to die and they feel all hope is gone. *Poof* A wizard appears in the middle of your group. With a few motions of his hands as the Dragon is moving down to bite at Billy Barbarian. A puff of smoke fills your vision and as it fades you find yourself in a tower with all of your party members nearby. "You really should not be facing such a beast without a proper plan or even weapons." The old wizard says hoping they will get the hint and also hoping that shitty DMs that allow parties to fight unwinnable fights would either man the fuck up and do their job better or quit doing their job and making the game have such a bad name.
+Chris D And then the players attack the wizard. ... happened to me once. An NPC saved the PCs, then they attacked him. Anyway, as a player, I don't mind having unwinnable encounters every now and then. It's good enough to have an option to exit the encounter without dieing, to return later better prepared.
Having an EVENT where an unbeatable creature puts the party in their place but they have the ability to run away is completely different then what I meant. And if your players are attacking wizard npcs that help them then you are running with murder hobos and why are murder hobos attacking dragons? If you are running a murder hobo game their main issue should be out running the town guards that are chasing after them.
Well... it was a short game. I didn't know what sort of players I was dealing with, but soon enough they started pillaging and raping villagers. Not much later, they were chased by the militia (standard pitchforks and torches mob, no need for guards) and died quickly. They were 1st level PCs after all. I decided to give them another chance, so a friendly wizard resurrected them wanting just a simple favor for the trouble. They attacked the wizard. Suffice to say, he didn't feel like resurrecting them a second time. And I went looking for new players. However, that was many years ago when I was just a teenager without much GMing experience. Now I'm usually able to find (and avoid) murder hobos during "session zero" discussions.
LOL, this guy....... callls out other DMs for being "shitty" when sometimes there is literally nothing you can do to prevent a player (or entire party) from doing something unwinnable. Example: Party walks into a tavern filled with what seems to be experienced soldiers, barbarian proceeds to pick a fight with the captain. Dm tries to diffuse by putting the barb into a grapple from 4 different soldiers. Party attacks soldiers. DM pauses and says "Look guys, you are all level 2..... there are 14 soldiers in this tavern that are all level 3 or higher. You WILL NOT win this, please walk away or your will be forfeiting your lives". Unpauses, party proceeds to fight anyway. DM shows mercy and knocks party out instead of killing them. Party comes to, bound in a camp. Party break bonds, and instead of leaving fight their way towards the captain's tent, determined to spill his blood. DM pauses once again saying "you guys lost to 14 soldiers, you are now in THEIR CAMP where there are 50 of them, YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE THIS UNLESS YOU STOP NOW" Unpauses, barb runs into tent and attacks captain anyway. Party dies, party cries, barb says "DM you suck, you made this encounter way too hard, how are we supposed to fight a lvl 5 captain and all his level 3 soldiers?"...................................................... when the only reason they fought these men is because the soldiers were at the tavern having a drink, and the barb decided the captain was "in his chair" I as a DM shouldnt have to have a wizard save my party from a dragon unless they accidentally stumble upon it. If I give them the knowledge or warnings of the danger and they do not heed it, it is their fault they get killed. It doesnt make me a shitty DM. In fact if I were a member of the party dying to the dragon, I would be pissed the DM saved us using some random bullshit wizard. It takes away from the immersion of feeling like my choices have consequences. Moreover it completely strips away the idea of player agency from that campaign and makes it harder on the DM because he has set the precedent that he will never let the party get in over its head so they never have to worry and now IF he does ever actually let them die it becomes his fault because he isnt following the same guidelines he started with.
I've had one TPK in the time I've been playing the game. The party split up. One by one, the encounters intended for the group to face killed them off individually.
Super late to the party, but yeah, I'd totally say to just break up the book into parts and just sprinkle them around. Frankly I find it really hard, and even kind of annoying following the book, and while my group is even being super helpful in staying with the story, it takes little to no real roleplay to actually ruin all of that stuff, so it'll probably end up being more direct and fun for everyone if you do just use the book as random flavor bits instead of the full adventure. (For reference, I'm running Hoard of the dragon queen, we're about half way through now)
there are only 3 occasions to have a tpk. #1 accident (bad luck, shit happens), #2 stupid actions on the part of the players (party of 1st levels rushing the adult red dragon), #3 scripted event. (part of the story)
Couldn't a DM just have a monster or enemy take the body of the player that looks like it is going to die. ( IE: Two failed death saves) Twist player wakes up alone in a dark prison cell suprised to be alive. ???? What do you think???
What's a game without communication? A bunch of weird folks sitting around a table staring at one another. With that being said, one of the most effective in-game tool for keeping players on book or getting them back into the the meat of the campaign is a timeline of events. Day 1 - X Occurs Day 5 - If X was not dealt with Y occurs. If X was dealt with A occurs. Day 9 - If X and Y occur, a rival group of NPC adventurers arrive and start meddling. More bad things happen, etc. Make them understand that they are missing out on cool stuff, burn things, shift constellations, make pigs fly, dogs and cats live together in harmony, do whatever you have to do. If you are conscientious, fair, and have it down in pencil in your notebook then it's all good and official.
So me and my buddies are playing storm kings thunder and we got a random encounter were there was 3 fire giants in the area. So we followed the tracks they left found them in a makeshift dam complex looking for a thing that they were looking for. So needless to say we were gonna ambush them. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. We ended up fighting 3 fire giants 1 of which is the new siege variant, 20 hobgoblins, with 2 captains and 1 commander. Some how we managed to "live", mostly we had to revive the ranger. But we were very close to a tpk.
There isn't anything wrong with a close TPK hell I think a TPK that is created because you simply went ahead and fought something you shouldn't have is okay if done correctly and there are alternatives. I always feel like there should be ways out. A friend of mine that is DM'ing once put us up against 3 very strong but idiotic orcs. Truth be told we nearly died but if we had just left we would have simply lost our horses/we could have simply gone in stealthly and stolen them or tried to trick them since they where so stupid but we ended up fighting them (Mostly because one of the PCs fucked up so badly on litterally all the roles before we went to the fight and I had to save his sorry ass..) We ended up winning by pure luck but truth be told if we had been knocked out, played dead, started to confuse them with speech or any other way we could have easily gotten away non the less most likely without dying.
oh yea stupidity follows stupidity but the thing about that encounter was that didn't all appear at once. They were all down in this hole, then when we started attack they all came out. So it was a war of attrition for us. We didn't keep track of how many we killed until we won.
My DM TPK'd us with a Tarrasque last weekend, because we where becoming "too powerful" from magic items and homebrew stuff. We did destroy a Kraken with 5 at lvl 12.
It couldn't have been you guys because you advocate thinking, logic, reason and building a fun story together. Not the DM is GOD and all players will be smited should they blaspheme against the DMs desires and whims (explained or not). DMs need to think of fun first, and last. keep up the great videos guys!
I had a total party kill in the adventure module Labyrinth of Madness twice same car same as group of gamers two different parties two different scenarios but they all eventually died off is one of the most difficult Adventures I've ever seen
Unless for some reason the players want to go out in a blaze of glory at the end of the campaign, or its a game where dying is normal, you should never, *never* **NEVER** plan a TPK. What the actual fuck.
sometimes its just fair as a player to die because youve donee stupid shit. im mostly playing warhammer 40k and shadowrun wich we run very deadly. so you fuck up you die. but we talked about that before and its fun when the danger is real. but never should the gm just decide beforehand that a char is gonna die unless the player wants his char killed of. that would feel higghly unfair as player.
My group of three level two players managed to slaughter the mound... this is how most encounters with them work out (they killed Strahd in 2 rounds; I promise, I tried really hard to play him as tough as possible). They are currently playing characters who have very efficiency based mindsets to fit their own: a stalwart, no-guff druid; a Polite Evil, busy wizard; a focused vengeance paladin.
TPK's? I've got a lot more than average for sure. Almost always brought on by the players doing something like breaking the law then attacking the guards with lethal force, attacking the not hostile dragon, etc etc. go go bloodthirsty characters/players.
Here's a not so hypothetical question: My PCs are currently walking into a trap. There are 4 of them and they are all level 3 (a paladin, a warrior, a rogue and a druid) and find themselves in a situation where the bad guys are manipulating them into going on a quest to fight monsters that can definitely kill them. A pair of mated manticores and their young live on a rocky hill from which a river flows to a swamp below. The manticores are also worshiped by a band of misguided goblins who follow an insane leader. I'm not worried for their safety, the goblins are relatively easy to handle or sneak past and the young manticores have half HP. If the players work together and use their abilities and the terrain (rocks for cover from the spike attacks), they will win. Providing of course that they don't roll horribly. However there is a slight problem. One of the adventurers (the saltiest rogue ever) realizes this but hasn't said anything. Instead he hints at it constantly like he's in on some joke. Based on what he's said so far, I suspect that: when the time comes, he will run away and leave the others to die. Its his style, he just likes playing cowardly backstabbers with little to no redeeming qualities. The paladin often lectures him on the virtues of bravery and honesty. He does that in character and its hilarious but lately the rogue player has been getting tired of hearing it. In the past I have stopped him from running and leaving by blocking paths of retreat. It kinda forces the party to stay together, but that old trick is getting old and railroading is something that I promised the party that I will not to do on this campaign.(with fingers crossed behind my back) Should I just let him run and see what happens for once? I think that if I allow that to happen, it would impact the story and the rest of the players would be kinda pissed at him. I will talk to him about it but I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter as well. How would you handle cowardly players?
Since you know he's a problem player, just tell him that your not going to tolerate him ruining the game for everybody else, including yourself. D&D is designed, mechanically, for the player's characters to cooperate and work together as a team. It's OK if his character screws over every NPC in the world, but you don't screw over the PC's, because that's not fun for anyone else. If he still doesn't warn the party and runs from the boss battle, let him run, just far enough that the other players won't be able to interfere, when he runs face first into a manticore all by his lonesome (or the evil NPC's who sent them into this trap and followed to make sure that they died); and nerf the encounter for the other PC's (failed morale check or whatever) since it was scaled for 4 and not 3. If you don't want to actually kill the problem players character, just make sure that the other PC's survive/win their encounter but the coward doesn't get any XP; he'll stop running once that's happened a couple of times. Another option, since its a common conceit of the game that you get to play whatever character you want to, so you often end up with adventuring partys that don't make sense (Paladin/Necromancer, Backstabbing Coward/ Everybody Else ...); tell all the players, that if there's someone that their character's wouldn't have in their adventuring party (lack of trust or whatever reason) they're free to boot them hand hire someone else for the position, turning down anyone who doesn't meet their standards until the problem player comes up with a character acceptable to the other players (no more untrustworthy sons-o-bitches dumbass). I am of course assuming that your problem player is a friend that you don't want to just boot from the game and never invite to come back.
I wouldn't discourage running away since you usually want the group to consider a strategic retreat. I also don't like bending the world just to foil one particular players plan. If you want to avoid the death of the party, you can nerf the encounter and buy some time. However, I would prefer that the betrayal had the possibility of killing the party. That kind of radical freedom is part of the game. You could finish the campaign as a great tragedy and discuss what you want to do next. Maybe you want less inner party conflict the next time, maybe the players actually enjoyed the conflict, but decide that a character should just leave when it becomes too intense. Or they even enjoy this kind of ending. You didn't railroad them to victory and they were the creators of their own doom. Generally, I like to use lurking enemies and enemy scouts. If a single character separated from the group, those kind of enemies would use the opportunity and attack that idiot. These also are the kind of enemies who engage when the players forget to have a nights watch.
my advice is let him run, and when the party win and get the rewards ( thanks from the King / Princess Villagers etc ) he doesn't get any. also when he runs hes going to have to sit there while the other players have the encounter which is going to be as boring as F**K.
Well the thing is, it seems like he is the kind of person to play out as if he is going to help, so he will be part of the encounter but at a limited amount with no commitment. It doesnt sound like a "the encounter started so now I run away" type of person. It seems like the character is built on being a detriment to the rest of the party, specifically designed (or changed into) a character to harm the rest of the group in some direct or indirect way. What I would do, as the GM is have a one on one chat with him/her, then have a chat with the rest of the group without him/her about how they feel about the character's actions/intentions. Then I would have a full on discussion with everyone. While D&D is built on player freedom and playing what you want, it is also held together by unity and cooperation. If a player is playing something that causes strife between players it usually doesnt end well. Not only in the campaign but in inter-personal relationships as well. So if you see it as a problem bring it up to the player and discuss with him/her that they are riding a fine line of unacceptable character behavior and that you will require a new character (or even player) if they dont stop/change their unacceptable actions
Always ask the players, or they might decide they don't like the game any more and quit for good, especially new players, the whole point of playing a game is to have fun that's all that matters, don't just TPK after players have worked so hard to get to where they are
hey guys I'm in a game and our rogue is constantly hogging the spot light both in game and our of game. The player never shuts up, and even worse never stops talking about loot. I've asked him out of character, is the an in character solution you can come up with? I don't wanna leave the group because I like all the other players a ton.
In a storyline game, sure. In a sandbox, though, not necessarily. In a good sandbox, there will be rumors and hooks leading to adventures that the characters won't be ready for when they first hear about them. The GM should NOT nerf content that is beyond the characters' current ability so that there is "always a chance to succeed." His responsibility is to present the players with hints and intelligence to realize that content is too high for now BEFORE it's too late. If the party chooses to press ahead, despite the warnings, then a TPK may be the inevitable outcome. Low-level characters shouldn't assume that just because they've HEARD about something that they must be able to beat it. Some encounters take careful planning, and some just take leveling up in preparation. Of course, this is off-topic from this video, and from the original Taking20 video. Those videos were about the bad advice to wipe a party because they weren't following the adventure path the GM expected and planned for, which is totally different than them biting off more than they can chew and not having the good sense to run away.
Not true. Player expectations may vary widely. If you run a heroic campaign, and most people do, players expect to be heroes. And heroes do not run. Individual heroes may die honourable deaths in combat, but even in death, the heroes always win. Your role, as a game master in a heroic style campaign, is simply to make their win incredibly costly and not-exactly-guaranteed if they mess up. If you tell your players, at the start: "Hey; I'm not planning on doing a heroic-style campaign, so there might be encounters you either shouldn't rush into or maybe attempt to evade, if you feel you're not up to snuff, because I won't hold back if you don't," then you have changed the expectation pattern for your players. In stories, the Heroes Always Win. If you do not want to run that kind of story, that's great! But make sure your players know that before you passive-aggressively spite-murder them. (Example: A Party of Heroes was asked, by commoners, to come visit a castle because there were problems there. Everything was normal, but we weren't allowed to go to the top levels because of reasons. Then something happened, and we had to investigate. We found a secret door, but didn't start out doing things with that right away. Then people got murdered, so we investigated. We found Ogre Guards, who were bad and attacked us on sight, and then fought our way to the top of the castle, where we were awaited by a Lich who immediately cast Time Stop - Horrid Wilting - Horrid Wilting. Our level 9 party died to this lich with 20 caster levels (effective level 24) in a single round, and we all felt cheated, aside from the GM, who felt he was justified in killing us all. So what happened? Different expectations. The players assumed that the story would be fair. We were the heroes, the story was well within the context of this single castle, and so we assumed that we were tuned for it, or the castle was tuned for us. The Game Master, meanwhile, did not want us to fight the Lich quite yet. To which the players responded with 'Why did you put it there, then? And why did you make us go after it?" Who was right? The players. We were right. You should not present the players with a situation where they feel they have no choice but to engage with that situation, and then expect them not to engage it, unless you have made it very clear that you will present your players with unwinnable scenarios from the get-go.)
Talespinner Systems your example is an example of a shitty GM because he made very direct invitations to you to go there and gave no real warnings through the game about the dangers ahead. He did a bad job. But subtle hooks for future games with plenty of warnings and signs that it’s something they can’t deal with yet and giving them opportunities to wait to fight is perfectly fine. And if they ignore all the signs the warnings and managed to figure out the small hints for later in the game somehow figure out early . And ignore all the hints (I’ll make some pretty obvious hints) and they die. Well that sucks but there were plenty of opportunities to avoid this death. And I don’t think it’s a non “heroic” game. Maybe something to not do to newer players but players aren’t always going to be able to take on everything at a low level. And characters in game would know that. They would know at their limited experience a massive dragon in a mountain is something to leave alone for a while if they somehow managed to come across it. It would be metagaming if the characters thought “hmm this dragon is crazy powerful but it’s here! Must mean we can kill it!”
3:31 Give them motivation to do the frikken adventure What are you characters interested in, give it to them but offer them something that ca further their goals even further. The motivation cant be to essential because that can detract from the quest but has to be charming to go for it. For power players seas. Power and famous magic item. For souls (people who role play their character) their character is into music or art? offer them connection and audience. Or rare places and local food to taste, rare vines or painting materials. For builders: Gold and local connection for license to build a house or what they are into. Maybe thy need local help to build their things. Maybe the local gods need to be pleased or the local thief guild so the building an be built. My best advice is give them something thy heaven though about in their background story that can be found where the quest is. Or if that's not enough give them problems where the solution is the quest. The first is more fun do.
During the whatever spin-off you are doing, Have giants attack the party. During an extended rest, or in a town. Have the giants kill the horse the party had, or take something from the party. Have the giants run away afterwords, so that when the party is strong enough they hear about these giants again in one of the 3 cities. Then just pick up the campaign from there! not exactly rocket science haha
Why didnt the giants eat them? Why are they not in shackles serving the giants as slaves now? Your heart while in the right place fails to rationalize the true concept that you are dealing with a race that has no mercy. MSMS is a motto I live by in life in roleplay and in writing "Make Shit Make Sense"
Chris D in the adventure itself it states that damaging a giant enough causes them to retreat, specifically the fire giants of the triboar encounter. why not setup a lone encounter the party vs 1 giant. some party members will be dropped, and the giant should hit a threshold and run. the party is stuck reviving eachother and having made an enemy. You then make it play back into the main story then. finding the attack plans on triboar, the party then must rush to save the town! each member teaming up with one of the locals. My apologies for not being wuite so clear, but MSMS is fulfilled if im just following the adventure, and would like to get my party on track without any deaths or further spinoffs. leave the deadliness to the town encounter when they make it there.
I saw that rant... AND no... I doubt it was you guys. It's just not the kind of response I could imagine coming from you... maybe if you were already salty over something AND fairly drunk or something... but no... I did have a thought though on revisiting this thing... As a GM, I've only run a few modules or kits... BUT whenever I did, I'd already pretty well picked them apart, built quick-references and at LEAST a fairly comprehensive flow-chart for the plot-line(s) in general terms... SO when (not "if") but when Players went "off book" I usually had a reference somewhere relatively easy at hand to draw the game back around to more or less where it needed to go... I always considered that sort of thing "commonly pre-staging" work for GM's... or does NOBODY do that anymore? Anyways, there are lots of good ideas... I even tossed a couple over in the comments under Cody's rant... I just thought this was worth posting here-abouts... I dunno'... Maybe it's worth "talking up" in a vid' and maybe not... Just something I was "coached" about WAY back in the day... :o)
If accidental TPK, make your game world go to shit in noticeable - but solveable - ways, and have them bring those same CS's to next game. Have an Angel resurrect them and put them back on track to save the world and, who woulda thunk it, back on book.
Nathan Riggins if they’re playing badly maybe. By doing things that would get them killed. But not following the expected storyline? That’s just players being players.
I easily have a few dozen TPKs now but during campaigns in my 10 years or so I have only had two during a campaign past the 4th level and even before then its stuff like players running deeper into a crypt full of undead to get 1 player who decided to run deeper into it that caused most early TPKs. I usually get TPKs in a one shot I do to teach people not to try to fight everything and to realize when fighting is obviously a bad idea. Its a simple series of events the Tarrasque is a very well known creature on the island you guys live on however it has slept for several generations, it is said when it wakes the ground with shake with every step and its mighty roar can be heard even in other lands and your only hope of survival is to run. The first part of the one shot is escaping the town they start in. Players tend to decide to try to fight it and die, then I restart and the try to help everyone and die because while they were helping everyone it gets to where they are and they die... and then they run [usually saving only those along the way requiring the least work]. They then are stuck guiding a group of townsfolk to the other end of the island to escape with several encounters along the way most of which cannot be won by brute force alone. I have had 1 TPK happen in the dozens of times I have used it at the end because the way out they found was to become slaves and they decided to fight the slavers only hours after they left and ended up sinking the ship because they caught it on fire. However, players rarely make a lot of the bad decisions after the one shot which is its job. It serves as examples for each lesson so every encounter after its done I explain its purpose.
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Nerdarchy Can you guys include a OR UR LOCAL GAMEING OR HOBBY STORE in that message cuz we all know those kinds of stores are dying out, and thats because most people my age 20 and younger dont even know you can buy dnd stuff there, I told a friend to go to a hobby store to pick up a player guide and he was like what? Dont stores like that only carry models and stuff, I gave him a dumb look and asked all my other players and they went to either book stores, or shopped online, and I found everything cheaper at the local hobby shop, so plz support local game stores, I would even like it if you did like a PSA about that :)
Also sorry for bad grammar
No worries gentlemen, it certainly wasn't you guys hahaha.
Also, communication with your players is the most important tool a DM has, totally agree with you guys.
Thanks for the kind words-- you guys rock!
Cody
Nerdarchy guys will never give such advices. Thank you to you guys and Taking20 for a whole lot of wise words and advices. New DM here....God bless you all for doing these vids for newbies like me
Best advice I could ever give: push the obelisk over.
you evil, evil person
Can't trick me boi
Puffin Forrest already told me that's a bad idea
@@hyhena-gaming9986 You mean a good idea.
@@ferociousmaliciousghost if you're.a maniac
"Players are off the rails -> TPK" is almost stereotypically bad GM behavior.
Unfortunately. At least back in my day we had an excuse for being bad GMs. The internet didn't exist tons of resources to being a better GM. Now a days no excuses.
-Nerdarchist Dave
There was no excuse back in the day even without the internet. In some cultures failing at a task requires you to fall upon your own sword in hopes of an honorable death. GMs that ever plan a TPK that do not fall upon their own blade have no honor. If they fight poorly and die in combat against a monster they should be able to handle that is one thing.
No excuse is a good excuse Dave, just because the internet didnt exist doesnt mean you couldnt come up with better options on your own. I picked up novels and such to help me figure out a better way when I realized I was a shitty DM.
My groups first DM ever and even still when he runs campaigns (we switch around) he makes a DM vs. Player campaign and always tries to kill us which is honesfly terrible.
A DM vs Player campaign is not a campaign because it takes exactly one minute: "You die because I say you die, I win."
I gave my 4th level players hints for a giant creature hiding inside a glacier (White Dragon), that they should avoid. They were of the idea that any encounter was winnable. They got annihilated by it inside it's lair.
That is a 3.x mentality for sure. Though in this day and age i wouldn't TPK them I'd have them wake up from unconsciousness stuck in the ice Luke Skywalker style. Far more interesting and perhaps they'd learn their lesson. Next time though I wouldn't hesitate to murder their faces.
-Nerdarchist Dave
Nerdarchy planning on something similar. I tend to not be bloodthirsty. the dragon was supposed to be a later encounter.
Nerdarchy planning on something similar. I tend to not be bloodthirsty. the dragon was supposed to be a later encounter.
Yeah seems like good advice I normally give them an out like "The dragon looks at you and you can almost see it is laughing at you as I goes back to sleep" Something along those lines then when they attack i (Let us be honest they would) it would wipe the floor with them and maybe just throw them out or force them into doing something or if they kept going just eat them..
Rene a good way around that is invisible walls. "You go to the large frozen den of some creature but the large cavern is empty void of life and nothing around. It seems that at some time there was a creature here but at the moment this is just a large empty cave." Wait until they are of level and let them go back tothe cave. "As you walk up towards the cave you had visited a long time ago you see claw marks and broken branches that hint recent activity at the caves entrance." Dragons can relocate their liars. At the start of the story that Dragon could be on an entirely other continent or even plane of existence. But now that you can lay your head down on a pillow at night and not have them get one shot you allow them to poke the beast with their sticks.
"WADDA YA MEAN WE GOT ONE SHOT BY THE DRAGON?!"
At level 1.
-Nerdarchist Dave
Mainly in reference to players that assume that everything is there for them to kill, regardless of their abilities or remaining resources.
AlmightyK
If you stat it, they will try to kill it.
Schwarzer Ritter true but the players are also stated
+BigsZone This remains true to the rule.
So when is Ted going to release Sky King's Thunder? The fans demand this amazing module!
I know right!
-Nerdarchist Dave
"No plan survives first contact with the enemy" - Dwight D. Eisenhower.
That wisdom is as true on the battlefield, as at sea, as at the gaming table, no matter how many or how few prepackaged modules you attempt to run, the nanosecond your first player interacts, you are already off-book. That fact is why most DMs do not really attempt them anyway, sure a lot do use them for inspiration, sometimes only for the maps, and why amongst Dungeon Masters, more respect is given to other Dungeon Masters that home-brew primarily or exclusively.
Every DM, young or old, new or veteran, should want to be able to go off book, for extended periods of time, perhaps even outright abandoning the book as a whole, and run the game in the direction the players want to take it, at any given moment. I have had sessions I have made take 30 minute breaks, because the party was so far off what I had planned that I needed time to build in my head, and that is totally OK.
Just understand, your party just wants to have fun, the module you or they bought may have sounded interesting, but maybe its just not their cup of tea after all, or maybe they are the kind of players that love to derail things, just to see if and how you react. Don't get discouraged, don't give up on yourself or your party, but be OK with the realistic possibility that your party isn't into the book and are willing to let the failure conditions of that scenario take effect in exchange for the freedom to do their own thing.
*USE THE FAILURE OF THE MODULE SCENARIO TO SHAPE YOUR NEWLY MINTED HOME-BREW UNIVERSE*
...and have fun.
Minor correction:
The quote isn't from Eisenhower, it's from Prussian field marshal Helmuth Von Moltke Sr., the father of German general Moltke from WW1.
I'm running a campaign right now where one player of a group of three insists on going off on his own pretty much constantly. It's hard for me as a DM to fairly distribute time among all the players then but I also don't want to just say 'no'. One night, this lone wolf player decided to pursue a bounty on a group of orc bandits on his own, and despite me giving several opportunities to get off a round of surprise or prepare properly, this player ended up losing his first character. Thankfully, this is the first campaign I was running with these players, so their characters are only low level, but it's actually had a positive effect on the player. With his new character, he's started adventuring with the party again.
Despite this, I would never promote a full party kill. Players shouldn't be punished for the actions of others, and if I as a DM can show one player a way to enjoy the game where all the other players can participate, it's my job to do so. A TPK is rarely justified, because players are rarely, If ever, In the wrong. A TPK is a failure on the DM's part, not the Players'.
Just my two cents.
I'm glad you guys weren't the ones that advised a TPK. I'm just getting back into DnD after ten years since my last campaign dispersed and I've been watching Nerdarchy, Take20, and Dungeon Dudes nonstop.
Cody is 100% on point with hsi video. GMs who think it is them vs the players are completely missing the point and are there for the ego trip. These are people who are toxic to the community and really just need to stop playing RPGS.
Well... I have to say.. I agree lol.
They're missing the point to what D&D is if they think the players are 'wrong' for not playing the game the DM wants them to play.
Some of them might just be oldschool DMs. Until the early 90s, most adventures were just incredibly challenging dungeon crawls where a "DM vs. players" mindset was simply part of the challenge.
Now, I certainly don't recommend that mindset - unless you're players crave a really tough dungeon crawl - but that mindset doesn't automatically mean that the GM is toxic.
@@Taking20 I think DnD can be "anything".
I've been dm'ing for a few years now and I personally believe it's a good thing when the GM try to get the player when there is a combat encounter going on. I also think he should "moderate" his strategy when he plays simple créature such as wolf and chaotic creature such as gobelin. While Kobold on the other hand tend to be a lot more strategic as they are used to work together.
Why is it a good thing ? Well, players do enjoy having a challenge. If at any point the players feel like the GM is "cheating" to make them survive some encounter, they will quickly believe their action got no impact as the GM will "save them" anyway.
That's the only time where it's a good thing of having a GM that plays the encounter to get at them. I always tell them "I'm not the one trying to kill you.... The gobelins are." which is truly the case, I don't get off trying to kill them, but I like the players to create their own story... Having their decision, action, and dices narate it.
Not every DM will agree on this but I don't think "I'm missing the point of DnD". I just dm it differently, I'm sure "some" player would prefer my way while some other players will prefer yours.
There is a bit of DM vs the players.... its the players vs the DM's world. (or the DM's multiverse if the campaign goes that long)
The Player characters grow and evolve. The world does too.
Player characters are the ultimate people able to modify the path that the world will take They are essentially tasked with making it a better (or worse) place than it wuld have been without their influence.
The world (BENBG and their minions) is resisting the efforts of the party to make those changes.
I look at any campaign as if they are on a LOTR style "stop Sauron" quest to save the world. (or maybe help Sauron... and oppose the Fellowship's efforts)
The opposition WANTS The PARTY DEAD or made to be ineffective.
Whatever the party does will have repercussions, and the party should see and hear of the butterfly effect due to their actions or lack of actions.
Level-draining undead is worse than TPK's because the dead guys can hope to be resurrected.
And that is why I will NEVER use Wights and their ilk.
I ran into this issue with my first campaign as a GM: Horde of the Dragon Queen. My suggestion: let the players decide. As long as you're telling a story everyone enjoys, then there's nothing wrong...
I had built up a cold war of sorts between a pair of black dragons and a lich in the Mere of Dead Men. Both sides were vying for lost artifacts, and the players were caught between fetching the items. The players kept going much further than I had anticipated. I left subtle hints that there were time sensitive events related to the campaign. Eventually, the players wanted to get back to the main story. In the meantime, they helped both the dragons and lich each gain artifacts, and I've narrated that the High Road is now a war zone between both sides.
The plot hook is always there. When the players want, I can get back to it later. I especially like this, because then the players might be able to go up against the big bads instead of underlings.
Bernard Lis oh the Mere of Dead Men lol. My last DM had a lot of trouble running my old group through that and eventually quit and moved us to Curse of Strahd. The finishing problem was in the Mere, where we couldn't figure out where to go from the kobold camp, so my druid used Speak to Animals and found out about the dragon's cave from a crow. We had no other hints, so just went with the cave. Got there and killed the dragon, which was quickly followed up with the brother flying overhead yelling angrily and trying to find us. After resting, we decided to try and kill the second dragon too, but ended up all dying to it. That was when our DM just said eff it and quit that campaign. We found out after that all we had to do was take the boats and go straight through the lake, and apparently we were overthinking it... would've been nice to get a few hints at that, but it's in the past so w/e.
PS the cold war idea is brilliant, great job on that
I came across your video because I’m prepping for this campaign currently and I feel like Harshnag is a great railroad option. He can appear and disappear at the discretion of the DM, and eventually he will lead the party back to the Oracle at the Eye of the All-Father temple.
I think also that if you are already past this point, a compelling impetus for action could be Iymrith attacking Zephyros in his tower (depending on the sensitivity of your players, you can even kill Zephyros in this way to really boil their blood towards the dragon).
Kudos to you guys for responding to the video. It doesn't look like it was your advice, but you handled a response with class. Thanks for giving great advice on how to handle the situation. I'm a new DM and have players that want to explore back story. I'm sure it'll be huge fun, but I'm using set campaigns because I just don't have the time, or experience, to home brew sessions. Taking 20's scenario is my nightmare.
The notion that you the party can, and sometimes NEEDS to retreat is one of the hardest lessons to learn. Video games teach that there is almost always a way to beat whatever you are up against, if you look close enough.
New to DnD this year. Watched a fair number of your guys’ vids and thought you were kinda high on your own farts. But I gotta be honest. This vid is super down to earth and real. Earned a lot of respect with this one guys
i always give my players the following advice: running is a power too.
I would simply have the module continue running in the background. The more the players ignore the module, the closer the villain gets to their win condition(s). If the players complain about the villain winning, gently remind them that the world continues moving, regardless of their action/inaction.
I like the idea of taking a prepackaged plan and taking stuff from it if you don't like the entire thing. We're doing Curse of Strahd now and so I won't want to go through that again soon but it has some cool elements like the maps, many of the NPCs etc. As you have said many times, communication is the key.
It needs to be said, SKT is such a sandbox it almost begs for the party to go off book. So be prepared. I was having to rearrange things as early as session one!
Temporary Plot Kerfuffle
TheDMGinfo Something like that... lol
Love that
I TPK'd a party that did that. The party was told by their Patron organization just to do reconnaissance on a very powerful army but they didn't even try to hide, and just blatantly stepped out in front of the demon warriors and even though they could hear an Orc Bard calling for reinforcements with drums, they kept fighting...so ...only one survived...the new guy turned tail and ran, lol
William that definitely sounds like a more legitimate situation. There’s definitely ways around having to kill everyone (knocking the players out or having the enemy demand their surrender, putting them through a prison break situation, etc.) but if they made the decision to fight to the last man and not bail, they had to expect it.
Thankfully with Storm King's, you can totally TPK people back into the book. Giants like to take prisoners, the ordinance is a mess and everyone has something to prove. Your TPK turns into a robust underlying storyarc for players to escape or be rescued by one of the factions. My group has a Zhent and several players that would interest the Harpers, both very prominent factions in this adventure. There are more options, but those are the couple that apply for us. Now for my group, there WILL be consequences; you drop to 0 we have a chart to work with to disfigure and maim the party members.
One GM advice I hear a lot is that players should constantly feel their character's lives are at risk and they could die any moment. Supposedly it builds up tension and therefore should make the game more fun.
Well, I consider that bad advice, really bad. I mean sure, there are players who enjoy tension and this can make a fun game for those people. But it differs from person to person, and even from day to day, and therefore should be applied only when it's good for the game, not all the time.
For one, I can attest that every time I played with a GM who had PCs die often I didn't enjoy those games. On the contrary, when I played more "cinematic" games and systems, where players are assured their character isn't going to die, I enjoyed those games a lot more.
Secondly, sometimes I wanted to just relax while playing a game because I was really tired after a hard day of work or something, and I'd much rather roleplay a tea party where nothing exciting happens, rather than an epic battle or somesuch, simply because I wasn't in a mood for excitement. I can definitely imagine a few hours of session where all we do is friendly talk with NPCs, in-character jokes, and stuff like that.
Thirdly, constant threat to PCs life actually makes building tension harder. You won't have those epic "oh shit, things just got real!" moments, if PCs are dying or about to die all the time.
As Adam Koebel once said "I can do much worse things then kill your character." Dont destroy your toys get them where it hurts most. That Elf Ranger in the party cares about his loved ones and his home in the tree city he was born? Oh man that Red Dragon that burnt those forests to the ground is a real dick... you should probably get revenge on him guys. Let the dice decide if they TPK or if anyone dies, focus your inner sadist to making their character watch others die for their lack of ambition by going to the potion shop and wasting time haggling over 2 gold.
I'd say:
- Focusing your inner sadist to roleplay a sadistic villain = could be a good idea.
- Focusing your inner sadist to make the game miserable for players = always a bad idea... unless your goal is to lose players, that is.
Or if your players are masochists. I suppose that is a possibility.
I always took that bit of advice to mean that every monster should be a credible threat. Even a couple of goblins could wipe a party if they forget to set a watch. Also, sometimes it just makes more sense for people to die...
First... have a like. I get and appreciate your overall message.
However, I wouldn't consider it "really bad advice"... And here's how it's dependent. RELEVANCE... If the total mood of the campaign world is (in point of fact) dangerous ALL the time, then... being relevant to that, the players should be able to assimilate that tension as a constant thing. I've had to deal with it in a couple campaigns, and while it's not exactly my stable "cup of tea" in every game, for DJ Villareal's version of the Underdark, it works HORRIFYINGLY well. It's his forte, and those campaigns were awesome, dark, terrible, gruesome and beautiful...
But I've always taken the general advice about "tension" as a relevant control over the mood of the game or session and setting at hand. If it's already a lull in plot, a time to rest between all hell breaking loose, and the PC's have found a bastion of civility in the otherwise wretched, brutal, and sophisticated world of deathly threats... Then civility it shall be... not because I'm going to be "lenient" or for some weird love for PC's that other people have poured heart, soul, or considerable time and effort into... BUT because it's RELEVANT... and that's it.
On the other hand, when you're lurking through the shadows of one of my mysterious dungeon crawls, it won't take ten minutes for the neurosis to start creeping up the back of your neck, so Players BEWARE... I'm a horribly twisted fiend with a dark and morbid sense of humor. I delight in confusing and demoralizing those who dare to cross the evils of my villainous and nefarious infamy...
...and my bands of kobolds are among the fiercest of the nether-realms. :o)
Well, it certainly depends on what kind of campaign you're running and its length. If you're just doing a short 1-shot (1-3 sessions tops), keeping the players on their toes by constantly looming possibilities of character death might actually raise the stakes and make things more enjoyable.
Same goes for a longer adventure if it's just meant to be a challenging dungeon crawl with little to no actual roleplaying (without actual danger, you're just farming mobs and looting chests, Diablo-style).
For longer campaigns that put a lot of emphasis on roleplaying and sometimes weave character backgrounds into the narrative, it obviously sucks when player characters die - so there should be very few moments when that's actually a possibility.
It actually says in Storm Kings Thunder book that a TPK is a workable solution to an over zealous group. But instead of death they advise unconsciousness.
"Boulders rain from the sky, you can only dodge for so long, your part dies." Now get your stuff and get out of my house.
What I did was play to their characters to bring them to the main adventure naturally. They originally veered off, managing to join the Zhentarim. So one treasure trek later to give them a substantial amount of money and switching to Milestone Rules, I gave them a reason to work with Harshnag. Rather than a sudden discovery, Harshnag reached out to the Zhentarim and "hired" the services of the party; whatever treasure the giants he slays along the way to his destination, they are welcome to.
If my players get off track I just leave clues or move the encounters to them. or have alternate NPCs that are there just to antagonize and make the players want to destroy the enemies and follow the story.
IMO the only time a GM should plan a TPK is in a Call of Cthulhu or Paranoia game where its pretty much the norm.
I wouldn't use CoC for that specifically. There's too high of a risk for Old Man Henderson to show up.
@@VestedUTuber Henderson requires actual divine intervention to survive that long, he must have RNGeesus on speeddial
Similar for the OMH inspired Herr Schnitzelnazi
I try to let my players know if an encounter is unwinnable. sometimes they don't listen
Unwinnable is a word that should never be used by a DM. If a fight cannot be won then you as a DM have no right to even make it happen. A Red Dragon is the threat they need to deal with? Well his army is a good start to have them chew through for gear and levels until they are able to fight such a beast. Never have a party have the ability to fight an unwinnable battle without an ace up your sleeve. As the party starts to die and they feel all hope is gone. *Poof* A wizard appears in the middle of your group. With a few motions of his hands as the Dragon is moving down to bite at Billy Barbarian. A puff of smoke fills your vision and as it fades you find yourself in a tower with all of your party members nearby. "You really should not be facing such a beast without a proper plan or even weapons." The old wizard says hoping they will get the hint and also hoping that shitty DMs that allow parties to fight unwinnable fights would either man the fuck up and do their job better or quit doing their job and making the game have such a bad name.
+Chris D
And then the players attack the wizard.
... happened to me once. An NPC saved the PCs, then they attacked him.
Anyway, as a player, I don't mind having unwinnable encounters every now and then. It's good enough to have an option to exit the encounter without dieing, to return later better prepared.
Having an EVENT where an unbeatable creature puts the party in their place but they have the ability to run away is completely different then what I meant. And if your players are attacking wizard npcs that help them then you are running with murder hobos and why are murder hobos attacking dragons? If you are running a murder hobo game their main issue should be out running the town guards that are chasing after them.
Well... it was a short game.
I didn't know what sort of players I was dealing with, but soon enough they started pillaging and raping villagers. Not much later, they were chased by the militia (standard pitchforks and torches mob, no need for guards) and died quickly. They were 1st level PCs after all.
I decided to give them another chance, so a friendly wizard resurrected them wanting just a simple favor for the trouble. They attacked the wizard. Suffice to say, he didn't feel like resurrecting them a second time. And I went looking for new players.
However, that was many years ago when I was just a teenager without much GMing experience. Now I'm usually able to find (and avoid) murder hobos during "session zero" discussions.
LOL, this guy....... callls out other DMs for being "shitty" when sometimes there is literally nothing you can do to prevent a player (or entire party) from doing something unwinnable.
Example: Party walks into a tavern filled with what seems to be experienced soldiers, barbarian proceeds to pick a fight with the captain. Dm tries to diffuse by putting the barb into a grapple from 4 different soldiers. Party attacks soldiers. DM pauses and says "Look guys, you are all level 2..... there are 14 soldiers in this tavern that are all level 3 or higher. You WILL NOT win this, please walk away or your will be forfeiting your lives". Unpauses, party proceeds to fight anyway. DM shows mercy and knocks party out instead of killing them. Party comes to, bound in a camp. Party break bonds, and instead of leaving fight their way towards the captain's tent, determined to spill his blood. DM pauses once again saying "you guys lost to 14 soldiers, you are now in THEIR CAMP where there are 50 of them, YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE THIS UNLESS YOU STOP NOW" Unpauses, barb runs into tent and attacks captain anyway. Party dies, party cries, barb says "DM you suck, you made this encounter way too hard, how are we supposed to fight a lvl 5 captain and all his level 3 soldiers?"...................................................... when the only reason they fought these men is because the soldiers were at the tavern having a drink, and the barb decided the captain was "in his chair"
I as a DM shouldnt have to have a wizard save my party from a dragon unless they accidentally stumble upon it. If I give them the knowledge or warnings of the danger and they do not heed it, it is their fault they get killed. It doesnt make me a shitty DM. In fact if I were a member of the party dying to the dragon, I would be pissed the DM saved us using some random bullshit wizard. It takes away from the immersion of feeling like my choices have consequences. Moreover it completely strips away the idea of player agency from that campaign and makes it harder on the DM because he has set the precedent that he will never let the party get in over its head so they never have to worry and now IF he does ever actually let them die it becomes his fault because he isnt following the same guidelines he started with.
I've had one TPK in the time I've been playing the game. The party split up. One by one, the encounters intended for the group to face killed them off individually.
Super late to the party, but yeah, I'd totally say to just break up the book into parts and just sprinkle them around. Frankly I find it really hard, and even kind of annoying following the book, and while my group is even being super helpful in staying with the story, it takes little to no real roleplay to actually ruin all of that stuff, so it'll probably end up being more direct and fun for everyone if you do just use the book as random flavor bits instead of the full adventure. (For reference, I'm running Hoard of the dragon queen, we're about half way through now)
there are only 3 occasions to have a tpk. #1 accident (bad luck, shit happens), #2 stupid actions on the part of the players (party of 1st levels rushing the adult red dragon), #3 scripted event. (part of the story)
Couldn't a DM just have a monster or enemy take the body of the player that looks like it is going to die. ( IE: Two failed death saves) Twist player wakes up alone in a dark prison cell suprised to be alive. ???? What do you think???
What's a game without communication? A bunch of weird folks sitting around a table staring at one another.
With that being said, one of the most effective in-game tool for keeping players on book or getting them back into the the meat of the campaign is a timeline of events.
Day 1 - X Occurs
Day 5 - If X was not dealt with Y occurs. If X was dealt with A occurs.
Day 9 - If X and Y occur, a rival group of NPC adventurers arrive and start meddling. More bad things happen, etc.
Make them understand that they are missing out on cool stuff, burn things, shift constellations, make pigs fly, dogs and cats live together in harmony, do whatever you have to do.
If you are conscientious, fair, and have it down in pencil in your notebook then it's all good and official.
So me and my buddies are playing storm kings thunder and we got a random encounter were there was 3 fire giants in the area. So we followed the tracks they left found them in a makeshift dam complex looking for a thing that they were looking for. So needless to say we were gonna ambush them. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. We ended up fighting 3 fire giants 1 of which is the new siege variant, 20 hobgoblins, with 2 captains and 1 commander. Some how we managed to "live", mostly we had to revive the ranger. But we were very close to a tpk.
There isn't anything wrong with a close TPK hell I think a TPK that is created because you simply went ahead and fought something you shouldn't have is okay if done correctly and there are alternatives. I always feel like there should be ways out. A friend of mine that is DM'ing once put us up against 3 very strong but idiotic orcs. Truth be told we nearly died but if we had just left we would have simply lost our horses/we could have simply gone in stealthly and stolen them or tried to trick them since they where so stupid but we ended up fighting them (Mostly because one of the PCs fucked up so badly on litterally all the roles before we went to the fight and I had to save his sorry ass..) We ended up winning by pure luck but truth be told if we had been knocked out, played dead, started to confuse them with speech or any other way we could have easily gotten away non the less most likely without dying.
oh yea stupidity follows stupidity but the thing about that encounter was that didn't all appear at once. They were all down in this hole, then when we started attack they all came out. So it was a war of attrition for us. We didn't keep track of how many we killed until we won.
My DM TPK'd us with a Tarrasque last weekend, because we where becoming "too powerful" from magic items and homebrew stuff. We did destroy a Kraken with 5 at lvl 12.
It couldn't have been you guys because you advocate thinking, logic, reason and building a fun story together. Not the DM is GOD and all players will be smited should they blaspheme against the DMs desires and whims (explained or not). DMs need to think of fun first, and last. keep up the great videos guys!
Even though you guys didn't know if it was your advice he was using, you didn't try to retaliate. Kudos to your responses. Keep up the great vids.
5:00 In the words of Dcotor who "Until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning.... Sit! Down! And Talk!"
Praise be the flowchart
Ah. The classic Instant Death Invisible Walls type DM. The worst possible DM.
I had a total party kill in the adventure module Labyrinth of Madness twice same car same as group of gamers two different parties two different scenarios but they all eventually died off is one of the most difficult Adventures I've ever seen
Unless for some reason the players want to go out in a blaze of glory at the end of the campaign, or its a game where dying is normal, you should never, *never* **NEVER** plan a TPK. What the actual fuck.
what my group did was just have Zephuros find them and take them back to the plot
sometimes its just fair as a player to die because youve donee stupid shit. im mostly playing warhammer 40k and shadowrun wich we run very deadly. so you fuck up you die. but we talked about that before and its fun when the danger is real.
but never should the gm just decide beforehand that a char is gonna die unless the player wants his char killed of. that would feel higghly unfair as player.
good on you guys for making this despite the the fact it sounds like it wasn't u. respect for u guys owning a mistake even though u didn't do it
No recent TPKs? You obviously have not played in Strahd's death house.
My group of three level two players managed to slaughter the mound... this is how most encounters with them work out (they killed Strahd in 2 rounds; I promise, I tried really hard to play him as tough as possible). They are currently playing characters who have very efficiency based mindsets to fit their own: a stalwart, no-guff druid; a Polite Evil, busy wizard; a focused vengeance paladin.
TPK's? I've got a lot more than average for sure. Almost always brought on by the players doing something like breaking the law then attacking the guards with lethal force, attacking the not hostile dragon, etc etc. go go bloodthirsty characters/players.
This is not a TPK. It's natural selection.
Here's a not so hypothetical question:
My PCs are currently walking into a trap. There are 4 of them and they are all level 3 (a paladin, a warrior, a rogue and a druid) and find themselves in a situation where the bad guys are manipulating them into going on a quest to fight monsters that can definitely kill them. A pair of mated manticores and their young live on a rocky hill from which a river flows to a swamp below. The manticores are also worshiped by a band of misguided goblins who follow an insane leader.
I'm not worried for their safety, the goblins are relatively easy to handle or sneak past and the young manticores have half HP. If the players work together and use their abilities and the terrain (rocks for cover from the spike attacks), they will win. Providing of course that they don't roll horribly.
However there is a slight problem.
One of the adventurers (the saltiest rogue ever) realizes this but hasn't said anything. Instead he hints at it constantly like he's in on some joke. Based on what he's said so far, I suspect that: when the time comes, he will run away and leave the others to die.
Its his style, he just likes playing cowardly backstabbers with little to no redeeming qualities.
The paladin often lectures him on the virtues of bravery and honesty. He does that in character and its hilarious but lately the rogue player has been getting tired of hearing it.
In the past I have stopped him from running and leaving by blocking paths of retreat. It kinda forces the party to stay together, but that old trick is getting old and railroading is something that I promised the party that I will not to do on this campaign.(with fingers crossed behind my back)
Should I just let him run and see what happens for once?
I think that if I allow that to happen, it would impact the story and the rest of the players would be kinda pissed at him. I will talk to him about it but I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter as well.
How would you handle cowardly players?
Since you know he's a problem player, just tell him that your not going to tolerate him ruining the game for everybody else, including yourself. D&D is designed, mechanically, for the player's characters to cooperate and work together as a team. It's OK if his character screws over every NPC in the world, but you don't screw over the PC's, because that's not fun for anyone else.
If he still doesn't warn the party and runs from the boss battle, let him run, just far enough that the other players won't be able to interfere, when he runs face first into a manticore all by his lonesome (or the evil NPC's who sent them into this trap and followed to make sure that they died); and nerf the encounter for the other PC's (failed morale check or whatever) since it was scaled for 4 and not 3. If you don't want to actually kill the problem players character, just make sure that the other PC's survive/win their encounter but the coward doesn't get any XP; he'll stop running once that's happened a couple of times.
Another option, since its a common conceit of the game that you get to play whatever character you want to, so you often end up with adventuring partys that don't make sense (Paladin/Necromancer, Backstabbing Coward/ Everybody Else ...); tell all the players, that if there's someone that their character's wouldn't have in their adventuring party (lack of trust or whatever reason) they're free to boot them hand hire someone else for the position, turning down anyone who doesn't meet their standards until the problem player comes up with a character acceptable to the other players (no more untrustworthy sons-o-bitches dumbass).
I am of course assuming that your problem player is a friend that you don't want to just boot from the game and never invite to come back.
I wouldn't discourage running away since you usually want the group to consider a strategic retreat. I also don't like bending the world just to foil one particular players plan.
If you want to avoid the death of the party, you can nerf the encounter and buy some time. However, I would prefer that the betrayal had the possibility of killing the party. That kind of radical freedom is part of the game. You could finish the campaign as a great tragedy and discuss what you want to do next. Maybe you want less inner party conflict the next time, maybe the players actually enjoyed the conflict, but decide that a character should just leave when it becomes too intense. Or they even enjoy this kind of ending. You didn't railroad them to victory and they were the creators of their own doom.
Generally, I like to use lurking enemies and enemy scouts. If a single character separated from the group, those kind of enemies would use the opportunity and attack that idiot. These also are the kind of enemies who engage when the players forget to have a nights watch.
my advice is let him run, and when the party win and get the rewards ( thanks from the King / Princess Villagers etc ) he doesn't get any. also when he runs hes going to have to sit there while the other players have the encounter which is going to be as boring as F**K.
Well the thing is, it seems like he is the kind of person to play out as if he is going to help, so he will be part of the encounter but at a limited amount with no commitment. It doesnt sound like a "the encounter started so now I run away" type of person. It seems like the character is built on being a detriment to the rest of the party, specifically designed (or changed into) a character to harm the rest of the group in some direct or indirect way. What I would do, as the GM is have a one on one chat with him/her, then have a chat with the rest of the group without him/her about how they feel about the character's actions/intentions. Then I would have a full on discussion with everyone. While D&D is built on player freedom and playing what you want, it is also held together by unity and cooperation. If a player is playing something that causes strife between players it usually doesnt end well. Not only in the campaign but in inter-personal relationships as well. So if you see it as a problem bring it up to the player and discuss with him/her that they are riding a fine line of unacceptable character behavior and that you will require a new character (or even player) if they dont stop/change their unacceptable actions
Where can I get that red hoodie?
He said most said to kill the party not all and that's what he was mad about. That too many DM's said just kill the party. Still not bad
8:13 Nails it. There are supposed to be things you aren't meant to fight.
Always ask the players, or they might decide they don't like the game any more and quit for good, especially new players, the whole point of playing a game is to have fun that's all that matters, don't just TPK after players have worked so hard to get to where they are
Cool the way you guys answered the video! Just got my subscription! =D
Now, let me check here what you guys have in this channel...
hey guys I'm in a game and our rogue is constantly hogging the spot light both in game and our of game. The player never shuts up, and even worse never stops talking about loot. I've asked him out of character, is the an in character solution you can come up with? I don't wanna leave the group because I like all the other players a ton.
Cursed ring of banging silence. He can't speak but his foot steps are superloud. And it's cursed so he can't remove it without help
Kaleb Beasley kill him in game.
Running is always a viable option. If the players can't figure that out, maybe a tpk lesson is needed...
Better part of valor, better part of valor!
-Nerdarchist Dave
Running is always an option, but if running is the only viable option then you are failing as a DM. The chance to succeed should always be there.
In a storyline game, sure. In a sandbox, though, not necessarily. In a good sandbox, there will be rumors and hooks leading to adventures that the characters won't be ready for when they first hear about them. The GM should NOT nerf content that is beyond the characters' current ability so that there is "always a chance to succeed." His responsibility is to present the players with hints and intelligence to realize that content is too high for now BEFORE it's too late. If the party chooses to press ahead, despite the warnings, then a TPK may be the inevitable outcome. Low-level characters shouldn't assume that just because they've HEARD about something that they must be able to beat it. Some encounters take careful planning, and some just take leveling up in preparation. Of course, this is off-topic from this video, and from the original Taking20 video. Those videos were about the bad advice to wipe a party because they weren't following the adventure path the GM expected and planned for, which is totally different than them biting off more than they can chew and not having the good sense to run away.
Not true. Player expectations may vary widely. If you run a heroic campaign, and most people do, players expect to be heroes. And heroes do not run. Individual heroes may die honourable deaths in combat, but even in death, the heroes always win. Your role, as a game master in a heroic style campaign, is simply to make their win incredibly costly and not-exactly-guaranteed if they mess up.
If you tell your players, at the start: "Hey; I'm not planning on doing a heroic-style campaign, so there might be encounters you either shouldn't rush into or maybe attempt to evade, if you feel you're not up to snuff, because I won't hold back if you don't," then you have changed the expectation pattern for your players.
In stories, the Heroes Always Win. If you do not want to run that kind of story, that's great! But make sure your players know that before you passive-aggressively spite-murder them.
(Example: A Party of Heroes was asked, by commoners, to come visit a castle because there were problems there. Everything was normal, but we weren't allowed to go to the top levels because of reasons. Then something happened, and we had to investigate. We found a secret door, but didn't start out doing things with that right away. Then people got murdered, so we investigated. We found Ogre Guards, who were bad and attacked us on sight, and then fought our way to the top of the castle, where we were awaited by a Lich who immediately cast Time Stop - Horrid Wilting - Horrid Wilting. Our level 9 party died to this lich with 20 caster levels (effective level 24) in a single round, and we all felt cheated, aside from the GM, who felt he was justified in killing us all.
So what happened?
Different expectations. The players assumed that the story would be fair. We were the heroes, the story was well within the context of this single castle, and so we assumed that we were tuned for it, or the castle was tuned for us.
The Game Master, meanwhile, did not want us to fight the Lich quite yet. To which the players responded with 'Why did you put it there, then? And why did you make us go after it?"
Who was right? The players. We were right. You should not present the players with a situation where they feel they have no choice but to engage with that situation, and then expect them not to engage it, unless you have made it very clear that you will present your players with unwinnable scenarios from the get-go.)
Talespinner Systems your example is an example of a shitty GM because he made very direct invitations to you to go there and gave no real warnings through the game about the dangers ahead. He did a bad job. But subtle hooks for future games with plenty of warnings and signs that it’s something they can’t deal with yet and giving them opportunities to wait to fight is perfectly fine. And if they ignore all the signs the warnings and managed to figure out the small hints for later in the game somehow figure out early . And ignore all the hints (I’ll make some pretty obvious hints) and they die. Well that sucks but there were plenty of opportunities to avoid this death. And I don’t think it’s a non “heroic” game. Maybe something to not do to newer players but players aren’t always going to be able to take on everything at a low level. And characters in game would know that. They would know at their limited experience a massive dragon in a mountain is something to leave alone for a while if they somehow managed to come across it. It would be metagaming if the characters thought “hmm this dragon is crazy powerful but it’s here! Must mean we can kill it!”
Funny that I just saw the video you're talking about. It certainly wasn't you guys.
I just watched that video and WHAT! again if this story is true, NO! A TPK is not the solution-manipulate the story back to where you want them.
He said it was MOST not all
A-fuckin-men to checking the comments too found lots of great advice and ideas in many of your videos there
3:31 Give them motivation to do the frikken adventure
What are you characters interested in, give it to them but offer them something that ca further their goals even further. The motivation cant be to essential because that can detract from the quest but has to be charming to go for it.
For power players seas. Power and famous magic item.
For souls (people who role play their character) their character is into music or art? offer them connection and audience. Or rare places and local food to taste, rare vines or painting materials.
For builders: Gold and local connection for license to build a house or what they are into. Maybe thy need local help to build their things. Maybe the local gods need to be pleased or the local thief guild so the building an be built.
My best advice is give them something thy heaven though about in their background story that can be found where the quest is. Or if that's not enough give them problems where the solution is the quest. The first is more fun do.
During the whatever spin-off you are doing, Have giants attack the party. During an extended rest, or in a town. Have the giants kill the horse the party had, or take something from the party. Have the giants run away afterwords, so that when the party is strong enough they hear about these giants again in one of the 3 cities. Then just pick up the campaign from there! not exactly rocket science haha
Why didnt the giants eat them? Why are they not in shackles serving the giants as slaves now? Your heart while in the right place fails to rationalize the true concept that you are dealing with a race that has no mercy. MSMS is a motto I live by in life in roleplay and in writing "Make Shit Make Sense"
Chris D in the adventure itself it states that damaging a giant enough causes them to retreat, specifically the fire giants of the triboar encounter. why not setup a lone encounter the party vs 1 giant. some party members will be dropped, and the giant should hit a threshold and run. the party is stuck reviving eachother and having made an enemy. You then make it play back into the main story then. finding the attack plans on triboar, the party then must rush to save the town! each member teaming up with one of the locals. My apologies for not being wuite so clear, but MSMS is fulfilled if im just following the adventure, and would like to get my party on track without any deaths or further spinoffs. leave the deadliness to the town encounter when they make it there.
I saw that rant... AND no... I doubt it was you guys. It's just not the kind of response I could imagine coming from you... maybe if you were already salty over something AND fairly drunk or something... but no...
I did have a thought though on revisiting this thing... As a GM, I've only run a few modules or kits... BUT whenever I did, I'd already pretty well picked them apart, built quick-references and at LEAST a fairly comprehensive flow-chart for the plot-line(s) in general terms... SO when (not "if") but when Players went "off book" I usually had a reference somewhere relatively easy at hand to draw the game back around to more or less where it needed to go... I always considered that sort of thing "commonly pre-staging" work for GM's... or does NOBODY do that anymore?
Anyways, there are lots of good ideas... I even tossed a couple over in the comments under Cody's rant... I just thought this was worth posting here-abouts... I dunno'... Maybe it's worth "talking up" in a vid' and maybe not... Just something I was "coached" about WAY back in the day... :o)
Yall know this wasnt about you
One of us did. Nerdarchist Ted was being a bit silly.
Nerdarchist Dave
i love you humans
You less scripted videos are much more enjoyable to watch.
If accidental TPK, make your game world go to shit in noticeable - but solveable - ways, and have them bring those same CS's to next game. Have an Angel resurrect them and put them back on track to save the world and, who woulda thunk it, back on book.
Jacob Lyon railroading at its finest
Cody's videos have a lot of bad advice.... He has one where he blames the system for his players lack of imagination!
just geas the ringleader/face back into the adventure
I feel like that might have been me... Sometimes the characters have to die for the players to learn
Nathan Riggins if they’re playing badly maybe. By doing things that would get them killed. But not following the expected storyline? That’s just players being players.
- " *I don't think it's us, if it's us we apologize* "
Lol yeah sure man... Sure..
taking 20 confirmed in a comment they were not the advice givers. Whether you believe him is up to you.
wow a whole lotta nuthin...
1st
I easily have a few dozen TPKs now but during campaigns in my 10 years or so I have only had two during a campaign past the 4th level and even before then its stuff like players running deeper into a crypt full of undead to get 1 player who decided to run deeper into it that caused most early TPKs.
I usually get TPKs in a one shot I do to teach people not to try to fight everything and to realize when fighting is obviously a bad idea. Its a simple series of events the Tarrasque is a very well known creature on the island you guys live on however it has slept for several generations, it is said when it wakes the ground with shake with every step and its mighty roar can be heard even in other lands and your only hope of survival is to run. The first part of the one shot is escaping the town they start in. Players tend to decide to try to fight it and die, then I restart and the try to help everyone and die because while they were helping everyone it gets to where they are and they die... and then they run [usually saving only those along the way requiring the least work]. They then are stuck guiding a group of townsfolk to the other end of the island to escape with several encounters along the way most of which cannot be won by brute force alone. I have had 1 TPK happen in the dozens of times I have used it at the end because the way out they found was to become slaves and they decided to fight the slavers only hours after they left and ended up sinking the ship because they caught it on fire. However, players rarely make a lot of the bad decisions after the one shot which is its job. It serves as examples for each lesson so every encounter after its done I explain its purpose.
kingknotts you use tpks to teach players to play the way you want them to? Glad your not dming in my game.