D&D CATCH-ALL because Baron is dumb

Cayne wrote:

So my players have just run into a pair of werewolves, and their 3 worg pets... at level 3... i doubt they can win this fight but since in my world Russia is dominated by myths and legends, i was thinking of having the werewolves working for a druid in red (Little red), who in turn works for grandmother (Baba Yaga)... too cliche or just the right amount of stupid to be hilarious?

Basically the were's wont be interesting in just straight killing the players but perhaps cursing them and bringing them before Little Red. So if the party falls i have backup plans.

Is this an encounter that they ran into by ignoring some warning signs and making poor decisions? If so, I think it makes a lot of sense to go ahead and turn it into a capture encounter if the dice don't go their way. Plot advancement > TPK any day of the week.

If they haven't made any particular mistakes, I'd try to set something up in the encounter that gives them a chance to win, even though they are many levels lower than the challenge rating. I had a level 5 party that was just three members, and they took out a Mindflayer Arcanist (CR 8), partly by using a clever plan and their environment well, but also by not holding back at all with their powers. Most parties can box above their weight and it makes for some great, tense it encounter... it'll just drain their resources a bit.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

I'm peeved at Han being on the Chaotic Neutral shirt. He may put on a Chaotic Neutral face, but he's clearly Chaotic Good.

Well, it depends on where you're measuring. He's CN as all get out until the last 5-10 minutes of New Hope.

So he's faking CN for about 20 minutes of his 150+ minutes of screen time?

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:
Cayne wrote:

So my players have just run into a pair of werewolves, and their 3 worg pets... at level 3... i doubt they can win this fight but since in my world Russia is dominated by myths and legends, i was thinking of having the werewolves working for a druid in red (Little red), who in turn works for grandmother (Baba Yaga)... too cliche or just the right amount of stupid to be hilarious?

Basically the were's wont be interesting in just straight killing the players but perhaps cursing them and bringing them before Little Red. So if the party falls i have backup plans.

Is this an encounter that they ran into by ignoring some warning signs and making poor decisions? If so, I think it makes a lot of sense to go ahead and turn it into a capture encounter if the dice don't go their way. Plot advancement > TPK any day of the week.

If they haven't made any particular mistakes, I'd try to set something up in the encounter that gives them a chance to win, even though they are many levels lower than the challenge rating. I had a level 5 party that was just three members, and they took out a Mindflayer Arcanist (CR 8), partly by using a clever plan and their environment well, but also by not holding back at all with their powers. Most parties can box above their weight and it makes for some great, tense it encounter... it'll just drain their resources a bit.

It's mostly that werewolves are immune to physical damage and the majority of my players are not casters so they'd be able to bring them down eventually but i like having layers, so if they decide to talk it out I think i'll give them that option.

To pick a nit, Lycanthropes are vulnerable to silvered weapons. Any weapon can be silvered for a reasonable fee (google says 100gp). Not that I'm saying that combat is always the answer, but it's definitely an option, even for low-level adventurers.

Oh i know but they didn't have the funds or the pre-warning since they didn't scout.

They ended up being able to slay the 2 werewolves and 3 worgs with only 2 of them being infected, what i hadn't counted on was a full group of 7 showing up instead of the 4-5 i usually get.

So now the druid in red will haunt the dreams of the 2 that failed their saving throws for the curse.

So...somehow I now find myself the proud(??) owner of the Fantasy Grounds Ultimate Upgrade.

Guess I will have to actually run some games with it if I don't want it to go to waste...

Indeed you will! I have heard Curse of Strahd is pretty good.

Sounds like a great opportunity. I haven't been able to justify that purchase to myself... although I have come close a few times.

On a side note.

Had my fist 'bad dm' experience lately and it really depressed me. Mostly because I had high hopes for the new game shop in town being close and seemingly very active.

They are running this thing called dungeon crawl classics. It was supposedly 5th ed so I thought I would bring the baby by and try it out while learning how to be a dad on the go. Baby part went great... the game did not. It was some hybridized simplified 1st edition rules to supposedly run the brutal dungeons from the past. The DM seemed to think that this meant it was DM versus the players and was actively disappointed when we didn't fall for obvious traps but belittled and made fun of others that did. I do have to admit that the ones that died did so because of bad decisions, but one of them does have some social issues and gets legitimately attached to characters at level 1. She would have been upset normally, but the chiding only made it worse. It left a bad taste in my mouth... The DM did tell us that the goal was something like 75% character death, so she shouldn't have used the character she made last time if she liked it. He handed out 'funnel' characters for those that died so they could keep going.

Also, he kept describing rooms with detail, but getting mad at us for looking for traps and stuff in those details and then gleefully killing people with the traps we missed because we were 'overanalyzing' things.

I wanted to rekindle the group for a chance at running the new giants story line when it comes out this fall, but it looks like I might have to DM again to get away from him running it.

Yeah, Dungeon Crawl Classics is a certain type of old-school D&D with D20 rules. I haven't played it myself, so I can't say if it's all a Gygaxian-tournament-style death-fest.1 Though I suspect that most of it might be down to a particularly vindictive DM, of the sort that a number of later roleplaying games2 were designed to explicitly neuter...

Spoiler:

1. Some people like the idea of the character funnel. Though there are other, much less lethal old-school flavors, so I never buy the excuse that it's "how the game was really played". Unless you were one of the players who was there (and there are several players from the '70s who are active online) or have studied the actual history, the the dynamic was often different than the late-80s orally-transmitted mythology in the gaming culture of stereotypical high-school AD&D players. (Here's one recent-ish oldschool campaign that might interest some people. Death happens, but not as much as you might expect. The legendary Fellowship of the Bling starts on page 8.)

2. My favorite being Burning Wheel, which requires the DM to explicitly spell out the consequences for failing a roll before you roll. I borrow that one a lot not matter what system I'm using.

It also has a couple of other features that short-circuit any "you didn't read my mind" suck-fest. Like, you can give your character an Instinct of "Always checks for traps" and the character is assumed to always do that even if you don't describe it, breaking the cheesy gotchas that aren't much fun for anyone in my experience.

When I play Dungeon Crawl Classics I play several characters, I personally love the system but any time the DM is against the players everyone loses.

Character funnels are great if you are expecting this type of thing.

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

Character funnels are great if you are expecting this type of thing.

Agreed. Definitely needs everyone to be on board with the play style.

Even without the DM being against the players, DCC is intended to be incredibly lethal. At 0 level, you create 4 characters, and usually only one survives per player due to the lethality of official adventures.

Arkon wrote:

Even without the DM being against the players, DCC is intended to be incredibly lethal. At 0 level, you create 4 characters, and usually only one survives per player due to the lethality of official adventures.

Yeah, he explained this, but then let the group take characters from a previous adventure which were intended for building on through. Lost a few quest type items.

Cross post from Perdita.

I do really think the new Giant themed pre-made adventure (Storm King's Thunder) looks interesting. Anyone here willing to DM that on a highly variable schedule? Mostly Tuesday or Wednesday nights from 8pm to 10pm CST and possibly a little every third weekend broken up by baby stuff?

EDIT: I know this is a selfish ask, but hey you never know.

So next week, I kick off a new campaign, DMing for a party of eight people. I've created a world, a campaign that at this point has over 150 pages of detailed notes, and spent about an hour last night sealing parchment scrolls with wax seals in preparation for the first session.

I might be going a bit overboard...

trichy wrote:

So next week, I kick off a new campaign, DMing for a party of eight people. I've created a world, a campaign that at this point has over 150 pages of detailed notes, and spent about an hour last night sealing parchment scrolls with wax seals in preparation for the first session.

I might be going a bit overboard...

Dammit, couldn't you have stayed in NYC? We like scrolls and wax here!

trichy wrote:

So next week, I kick off a new campaign, DMing for a party of eight people. I've created a world, a campaign that at this point has over 150 pages of detailed notes, and spent about an hour last night sealing parchment scrolls with wax seals in preparation for the first session.

I might be going a bit overboard...

Pft. Overboard? I've done more work for campaigns with no players!

trichy wrote:

So next week, I kick off a new campaign, DMing for a party of eight people. I've created a world, a campaign that at this point has over 150 pages of detailed notes, and spent about an hour last night sealing parchment scrolls with wax seals in preparation for the first session.

I might be going a bit overboard...

Damnit... stupid life, family, long distances, work getting in the way of awesome stuff like this.

Makes me want to get back into tabletop RPing.

Is it bad that I created an element of back story in this world that cartography is a rare and seldom seen craft because I'm sh*t at drawing maps?

trichy wrote:

Is it bad that I created an element of back story in this world that cartography is a rare and seldom seen craft because I'm sh*t at drawing maps?

This is the opposite of bad. I'd have gone with "all mapmakers are drunk 24-7 by law" myself, but your story works a lot better, and makes for a more mysterious world!

IMAGE(https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ-_QXE1OUxxdhsT9YMn1JjfMiWHWFeGxqY9p34SDrHTYXiGP3tIA)

trichy wrote:

Is it bad that I created an element of back story in this world that cartography is a rare and seldom seen craft because I'm sh*t at drawing maps?

http://rpgvirtualtabletop.wikidot.co...

trichy wrote:

Is it bad that I created an element of back story in this world that cartography is a rare and seldom seen craft because I'm sh*t at drawing maps?

That can be a great flavor element!

The Roman Empire got along just fine without maps and could give you some inspirations. People traveling by land would use an itinerarium listing what towns and cities were along a given road and how far it was from each one to the next. By sea, you'd use a periplus that did the same thing for ports along a coastline.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
trichy wrote:

Is it bad that I created an element of back story in this world that cartography is a rare and seldom seen craft because I'm sh*t at drawing maps?

http://rpgvirtualtabletop.wikidot.co...

There are also tons of free maps on RPGNow and the G+ gaming maps community. I've recently started trying to build a collection of maps just so I have something handy when needed.

As much as I've wanted to, I've not been able to find time to do a consistent game night. Anyone here a) be interested in doing a D&D campaign as a PBEM (play by email (I think that's the acronym, I'm fairly ignorant)) and b) have any experience in translating D&D rules to work via email?

I'd be game for something like that.

I'd also be game for a floating type game as well. Schedule the time when people are available as opposed to on a consistent time. Although this would most likely be a much less frequent game.

Question for other DMs: What do you do if an encounter goes south really fast for your party? My group was playing today and ran into three giant centipedes in a tunnel, nothing that seven level three characters shouldn't be able to handle. But three rounds in, a combination of terrible dice rolls on their part and a pair of critical hits left two of the party rolling death saving throws, two others below five HP, and the centipedes nearly untouched. It was just supposed to be a minor interim encounter, but it nearly wiped them out. What's the best way to avoid / deal with that?

trichy wrote:

Question for other DMs: What do you do if an encounter goes south really fast for your party? My group was playing today and ran into three giant centipedes in a tunnel, nothing that seven level three characters shouldn't be able to handle. But three rounds in, a combination of terrible dice rolls on their part and a pair of critical hits left two of the party rolling death saving throws, two others below five HP, and the centipedes nearly untouched. It was just supposed to be a minor interim encounter, but it nearly wiped them out. What's the best way to avoid / deal with that?

It depends on the type of game your running and what your players expect. If it's a beer and pretzels game, they all fall unconscious, then wake up hours later trapped in cocoons or webs with a chance to break free. Maybe some of their gear gets eaten. Or maybe an awesome party of NPC PCs rolls in and beats up the bugs, then pats them on the head and moves along, providing a rival party for your group to try and one-up later on in the adventure.

If it's a churn, then let the dice fall where they may. If somebody dies, so be it. Let them bring in a new character the next reasonable chance the group meets new people.

However you choose to play it, i'd say the most important thing is that there's some sort of lasting change (not necessarily a detriment, just a change). An unwanted debt, an unexpected tattoo, a lost limb, a favorite family sword broken, a curse, a long-acting poison. Maybe there's a dimensional probability split and your characters both die and live at the same time, and after they move on they find that they're haunted by their own ghosts.

trichy wrote:

Question for other DMs: What do you do if an encounter goes south really fast for your party? My group was playing today and ran into three giant centipedes in a tunnel, nothing that seven level three characters shouldn't be able to handle. But three rounds in, a combination of terrible dice rolls on their part and a pair of critical hits left two of the party rolling death saving throws, two others below five HP, and the centipedes nearly untouched. It was just supposed to be a minor interim encounter, but it nearly wiped them out. What's the best way to avoid / deal with that?

Also remember that death is a speed-bump in D&D, not a dead end. Waking up and finding that some magnanimous benefactor has resurrected them, and they only need to accomplish a few small tasks to pay their debts. Sure, they may find out later that their mysterious helper is a devil with an evil agenda, or a power hungry rich patron who needs some muscle, but they will live and have a nice, interesting story.