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?
This is one reason I tend to prefer Dungeon World. You can use monster moves to do things that simply complicate the situation instead of simply dealing damage. That said...
Assuming you're looking at a party wipe, I'd start thinking about the monsters motivation for fighting. Are they intelligent? Would the have any reason to actually finish off a downed player? I'd either do as Dryden suggested and have them wake up imprisoned somehow, or maybe just have them consider their objective fulfilled when the party is downed and wander off, then start on the stabilization rolls which I might even confer an advantage to the players if I could find an excuse to do so. Or even say that because they're out of combat, they can "take 10" on stabilization and automatically succeed. Or if there's a cleric/paladin in the party, have their god decide it isn't their time to die and grant them a boon. Finally, Dungeon World has a "death's door" move that is pretty interesting and worth reading up on. The basic idea, though, is that player deaths should be heroic, and so rather than just killing them the instant they hit 0 HP, you say they're dead at the end of combat and allow them one last dramatic act before they go, which could be turned to a self-sacrificing move to save the rest of the party.
With combat in general, I find the more you embellish the story aspect of what's happening the more opportunity you have to influence the outcome using narrative tools. Maybe a critical miss from a player causes a minor cave-in that separates the party from the monsters, for example. Or the sound of fighting lures something even bigger and scarier into the fray, but that thing likes the taste of centipedes. Or perhaps a player can be encouraged to try some crazy idea that you can basically just say automatically succeeds because it's a cool idea. Remember that dice and rules are there to support the story, not dictate it.
What's the best way to avoid / deal with TPKs?
I'm of the old school-ish opinion that this is a harsh learning experience. Roll up new characters and don't make the same mistakes next time.
That needs to be combined with a fair assessment of cunning plans that the players come up with to avoid combat as well, to work (in contrast to encounter-centric design). Dungeon crawling, for me, is about desperate characters trying to achieve a goal (maybe just getting sweet loot), and fights are just one tactic to help you. Don't start a fight you might lose!
Something a lot of players either forget our just never think about is running. Since half the party is still conscious they could grab the downed members and run. Maybe the centipedes are not interested in chasing prey that can run or during the chase the party gives them the slip or the centipedes get distracted. It is not something a lot of gamers are not trained to think about as we are taught every encounter is something we can win but sometimes running is the best option.
What's the best way to avoid / deal with TPKs?
Depends on the game, really. But since this is a throw-away encounter that just went way south for no reason (bad dice, nu?) I would be okay saying to the group "That got way out of hand. You were supposed to stomp that in three rounds, not TPK. Is everyone okay calling a mulligan on this? Just this once. It was all a bad dream or something." I wouldn't want to break that out often, but I would be okay doing it once.
If the thing isn't actually interested in eating them, you could just have them automatically stabilize and wake up a few hours later. Unless they insist on dying, this should be fine. They'll pay some resources (time, potions, etc.), but won't have to reroll new characters. That seems like a happy medium.
If they've rested at any point, maybe roll back to camping and declare the Wizard's brain to be leaking. Like, he had a nightmare where everyone died, and he's magic so it affected everyone. And from now on it will continue to affect everyone whenever he sleeps until he gets some kind of magical medicine.
Or, just... Deus ex it and have the cleric's patron deity come down and say "You're destiny is bigger than this. Don't throw it away again."
What's the best way to avoid / deal with TPKs?
I started using a variant of the destiny point system from the FFG Star wars games. Basically I give the party four destiny points, two are DM points and two are Player points. The players can transfer a point to the DM to do something "crazy". This could be an automatic critical hit (boring) to doing some crazy stunt, or some Goldberg machine like luck. It works great, the party can get out of sticky situations if they feel overwhelmed in a flashy fashion.
I use the GM points to keep the players on track, basically saying "you can't do that because of some sort of DM magic" which allows me to railroad the game a bit.
The system works great for my D&D games. Strangely enough though, the same group plays my Star Wars game and they always forget they have destiny points.
I very seldom retcon things. If everyone misunderstood a critical point and we were miscommunicating, that's a problem that is worth dealing with if everyone is on board. But if it was just tactical mistakes, I prefer playing it as it lies. (I also tend to state the potential outcomes of rolls before the dice are thrown, so everyone is on the same page.)
Interesting options for dealing with a TPK that I totally want to try but have never had the chance:
- Everybody's dead? Now they're in the afterlife. They can try to find their way back to life, or go exploring. Bonus points for using interesting cosmologies and eschatologies, like the Egyptian one where the souls of the dead get weighed and you bring your possessions with you.
- D&D has ressurection for a reason. Is there someone who wants them alive? Or, more fun, is there someone who wants them in their debt? Have a mortal enemy pay for their resurrection but send them on a quest.
- Timeskip. They've become the heroes of legend and everything they were fighting to prevent has come to pass. A desperate group of resistance fighters has managed the secret ritual to resurrect the lost heroes and fight the great evil in the new post apocalyptic world.
A lot of this depends on what kind of campaign you've had so far, what stuff you can grab from the established story to create a tie-in, and so on.
Gremlin's ideas are pretty much in how I like to roll.
I think figuring out how to make defeat compelling is one of the main skills of a good DM. It is hard with D&D, because the game is somewhat built on throwaway encounters. In film or TV, a pointless scene that doesn't advance the story, reveal information about the characters, or add to the themes would be viewed as something that belongs on the cutting room floor. If it made it into the final product, it would detract from the experience.
D&D meanwhile is built on the random encounter, in some ways. But it - like many games - has evolved and gotten better at being narrative and character focused. As a result, I think there is an odd tension between its roots and between our modern sensibilities about story, character, and plot.
13th Age has a good mechanic for this- you can always flee an encounter, but you take a "campaign loss" as a result. This is some sort of general setback or disadvantage- maybe some of the treasure you're after is stolen by monsters, or the evil cult completes the ritual you were trying to stop. Nothing critical, but it's clearly a bad result (but not as bad as a TPK).
Like everything else, it depends on your group.
If the TPK is happening and everyone is having a great time with it? let it ride. You can figure out what comes next together.
If your group plays for the win and sees a TPK as a failure, you can always fudge things to allow them to escape. I'm a believer in changing the campaign and adding an event that saves them: floor collapses as the enemy attacks, bigger enemy shows up and engages one the group is fighting, etc. That can be made to feel like a set piece rather than fudging rolls to allow the group to escape or win.
In my experience as a GM and a player, players know when you're adjusting things because they're going badly.
That said, if the entire group enters into play, regardless or the game or system, with the goal of, "let's tell a good story together," then you don't have to worry about a TPK as those characters are there to be part of a story. Let someone sacrifice themselves to save the group. That's great! Rez them later.
If that group is playing to get cover their avatars (notice I didn't say characters) in loot and glory, then you need to be careful about setting them up for failure. I don't like those kinds of games tbh.
Roll 20 is getting officially licensed content!!
Ok, I want to run that new giants campaign starting in September. My schedule will be random. Who wants in? (Ideally I would be a PC, but DM's are hard to find with my schedule.)
I just read about this. I would love get in on some of that action!
Roll 20 is getting officially licensed content!!
Ok, I want to run that new giants campaign starting in September. My schedule will be random. Who wants in? (Ideally I would be a PC, but DM's are hard to find with my schedule.)
Depending on when (and how many) I could be up for this.
Roll 20 is getting officially licensed content!!
Ok, I want to run that new giants campaign starting in September. My schedule will be random. Who wants in? (Ideally I would be a PC, but DM's are hard to find with my schedule.)
I'd be interested as well
That's 3. I am looking for probably 5 max with maybe an alternate or two should someone not be able to meet.
My schedule is weird, but I am looking for once a week when possible (probably not always) from 8-10 PM CST. Weekends are still not viable due to baby watch for the most part, but I might be able to do a longer session on some random weekend day to either get us started or take us through the bigger battles. I prefer google hangouts and will most likely use the new roll 20 content.
Ideally we would only ever leave one person out if scheduling gets difficult. If we end up with only 3 either 1 or 2 people can run 2 or I can run the extras.
I would be interested, but probably only once every 2 or 3 weeks.
I am also, once my kids start school again and after school activities settle down, be interested in running something through Fantasy Grounds. (Note that I have the Ultimate Upgrade, so anyone who plays would only need the demo version of FG.)
I would be interested, but probably only once every 2 or 3 weeks.
I am also, once my kids start school again and after school activities settle down, be interested in running something through Fantasy Grounds. (Note that I have the Ultimate Upgrade, so anyone who plays would only need the demo version of FG.)
Id be down for that as well. I've got the Ultimate as well.
I am interested in roleplaying things. I have Fantasy Grounds. Someone's venn diagram should intersect with mine somewhere. Should there be a space I could fill, please message me! I had fun in the couple of FG forays I've entered on here even though both games petered out without a conclusion.
I am interested in roleplaying things. I have Fantasy Grounds. Someone's venn diagram should intersect with mine somewhere. Should there be a space I could fill, please message me! I had fun in the couple of FG forays I've entered on here even though both games petered out without a conclusion.
I can testify that BigHoppa is a great player and very reliable. I tried to run the games online and after about 3 sessions - had players begin to drop out etc... A good core group is there, but the scheduling is nightmarish.
Yeah, I think I will get one of those sign up websites set up so that we can see the venn diagram of availability.
I can move the game to biweekly if that's the difference between you being able to do it or not mudbunny, or I can try to join your thing as well. I just really want to play Storm King's Thunder. Like a whole adventure.... I have never made it through a whole one other than Phandelevar (sp?) when I was the DM.
I would love to get in on some D&D, I have DMed quite a lot via Roll20, but would love to get a chance to be a player instead.
Thankfully my life has calmed down considerably in the last few months.
I am interested in roleplaying things. I have Fantasy Grounds. Someone's venn diagram should intersect with mine somewhere. Should there be a space I could fill, please message me! I had fun in the couple of FG forays I've entered on here even though both games petered out without a conclusion.
I have Fantasy Grounds as well. Of course scheduling has always been the big problem with my games in the past.
Well, today I played my first session of D&D in over 20 years. I joined a local D&D Adventurer's League, and it was a total blast. We had a full table of 7 players plus the DM, who was really a great guy and very good at leading a group. I had read up on the 5th edition rules, but the other players were helpful and eager to have more people join in.
Our group ran a low level 4-hour module involving a sinister carnival that was doing harm to the villages it visited. The final battle was fascinating. It wasn't going well, our noobs were dropping like flies until our barbarian landed a critical hit on the boss, then rolled maximum damage on both dice rolls, killing her. The whole table erupted in cheers and all I could think was, 'This kind of fun just can't happen through a computer screen.'
It was a great re-introduction to an old obsession, and I can't wait to play with these guys again.
The humble book bundle has a bunch of vampire the masquerade books.
Just going to leave this here...
Not really digging Harmon Quest, i get that they are essentially doing improv but the DM controls everything and I'm not buying him as a story teller.
I'm digging it on an improv level, but not as any sort of D&D adventure.
I heard a rumor that with 5th edition game sales have improved by like 40%, not sure about the metrics on it, but it sounds like D&D is having a sort of renaissance these days. I played about 12 hours last weekend, got my cleric to level 3. It's felt very rewarding so far.
I may have mentioned it already but Critical Role (on Geek and Sundry) is fantastic.
I am loving Force Grey and the new Acquisitions Inc Series. They are shorter and more digestible than Critical Role to me. I can't do 3-4 hours a week just to keep up especially if it is not in audio form.
you can make crit role audio format it's not like you need to watch the nerdlings rolling dice you can just listen in.
Granted Travis Willingham in the last episode holding stone form for.... 8 minutes or so was priceless 
So, I will probably, in about a month, kick off my attempt at a 5E game via Fantasy Grounds. I have the ultimate Upgrade, so people would not need to pay for it to play.
It will be on thursday nights, probably starting around 10PM (EST) and going until midnightish, and will happen every 3 or 4 weeks. It is my first time DMing, so I expect things to be rough.
I am not sure what I will use for voice communications, possibly Skype or Curse, whichever is easiest for others to use/setup.
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