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Post by donosaur on Mar 14, 2016 19:16:00 GMT
I was prompted to create this topic by this article at Sly Flourish: slyflourish.com/nine_fantastic_encounter_locations.html You can give it a quick read if you want, but the thing I noticed is that most of these locations carry the risk of instant, permanent death. Like, swinging on a giant rusty chain over an abyss is exciting, but you're introducing the possibility that one or all of your PCs could fall...and then what? I know that a lot of DM advice is centered around making consequences stick and letting characters die if they make a mistake, but if you put your party in a situation where they can flub a DEX check and then die a meaningless death...you seem kind of like a jerk. Right? I'm trying to reconcile how to make the game exciting and seem like it has consequences without setting the party up for a game-ending failure. In a video game you can have a bottomless pit or instant death trap because you just restart, but what about in D&D? If a character falls and they catch a ledge or get saved by a deus ex machina pegasus or something, you've shown that they're not really in danger, and now they can all swan dive in to the abyss and ride pegasuses. I want to introduce cliffs to scale and flying cities and rivers of magma because they're cool, but how do I make them a challenge and not just a set dressing while also not risking ending the game? Maybe the Sly Flourish style just isn't for me and my party, but I wanted to put it to the forum anyway. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2016 19:48:25 GMT
Sometimes (often, I would posit) it's important to state the consequences of failure for an attempted action, not just ask for the ability check when the player states his intent. In this way, players will have an easier time accepting the consequences, even if they are fatal. Furthermore, failure doesn't have to mean deadly or catastrophic failure, just that they don't succeed as well as they'd hoped. An example of both principles in play:
Player: I'm going to make a running jump to catch the rope hanging from the ceiling and swing across the chasm to the other side.
DM: That will require first an athletics check, then an acrobatics check. If you fail the athletics check, your jump will deliver you at a point too low on the rope to complete the swing, and you'll be stuck hanging in the middle. If you succeed on athletics, but fail on acrobatics, you'll harm yourself in the process (rope burn, bad landing, etc.), but make it to the other side. If you fail athletics by more than 5, and fail acrobatics by any margin, you'll plummet into the chasm.
Player: Geeeeeeeeronimooooooo!
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Post by ino on Mar 17, 2016 18:50:30 GMT
It's hard to put design danger that only relies on the pc's. It's still possible, but it requires a little planning, forethought, and narrative. I generally put things in as a safeguard, but with consequences. A bottomless cavern has a web and dangerous spiders at the bottom, or a canyon has a river where the fall would knock the character out and carry them to meet someone/something down the river.
To set a tone, I generally use things that are dangerous that pc's can interact with. A very powerful but dangerous dragon has taken an interest in the party, luring out people they meet, changing into its true form, and interrogating the npc's about the pc's. Foreshadowing something on their trail that circles around them at night. It's something they can fear and run from, but talk to or fight in case they do something stupid. And it has an intelligence, so it can react to them.
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Post by joatmoniac on Mar 18, 2016 6:24:42 GMT
I read the ideas, and they would definitely need more fleshing out before they could hit a table. They are fantastic inspiration, but as long as you are clearly stating the danger and giving the players options, or allowing for them to use different options. If they simply see the chain, and attempt to use it despite your warning then there are heavy consequences associated with that. If you put life or death situations into your game and the dice/ player ideas come up in death you are going to need to honor that. It will help set the tone going forward, and make your players think more about what they are doing and how they are doing it. It is difficult to set tone at times, but hopefully you figure out the best way to make your players feel it, and as I typed that it made me think of finding what your players find vital for "survival" in your game and see about stretching them in that regard (i.e. healing spells so no rest, or some magical effect that limits healing, so on so forth.
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Post by friartook on Mar 18, 2016 14:52:03 GMT
This is something I've dealt with as well in a past campaign. My players got themselves in a situation where the possibility of instant death was very real (stuck at the top of a 1000 foot tree, which then began collapsing due to fast forward rot from the inside out). I had to figure out some way to bring home the danger without just killing off a couple PCs. I'm not afraid to kill a PC, but I want the death to have some drama and meaning. What I ended up settling on was a variation on the Death Save mechanic from 5e. I had them each tell me what they wanted to do to escape the situation they were in. They then needed to roll skill checks depending on what they chose to do. Three successful checks meant they made it to the ground safe. Three failures mean they died in the attempt. It was super tense and dramatic, as we went round for round in initiative order. Everyone ended up surviving (some by the grace of Inspiration and lucky rolls) and much high drama occurred. It ended up being one of those "remember that time when..." sessions. If you'd like to read my initial post requesting help, you can review the advice I received, and eventually a breakdown of how the session went. |
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Post by lasersniper on Mar 30, 2016 16:58:45 GMT
This is something I've dealt with as well in a past campaign. My players got themselves in a situation where the possibility of instant death was very real (stuck at the top of a 1000 foot tree, which then began collapsing due to fast forward rot from the inside out). I had to figure out some way to bring home the danger without just killing off a couple PCs. I'm not afraid to kill a PC, but I want the death to have some drama and meaning. What I ended up settling on was a variation on the Death Save mechanic from 5e. I had them each tell me what they wanted to do to escape the situation they were in. They then needed to roll skill checks depending on what they chose to do. Three successful checks meant they made it to the ground safe. Three failures mean they died in the attempt. It was super tense and dramatic, as we went round for round in initiative order. Everyone ended up surviving (some by the grace of Inspiration and lucky rolls) and much high drama occurred. It ended up being one of those "remember that time when..." sessions. If you'd like to read my initial post requesting help, you can review the advice I received, and eventually a breakdown of how the session went. So essentially a 4e skills challenge? |
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Post by friartook on Mar 30, 2016 17:05:22 GMT
Dunno, never played 4e. However, I have heard folks speak highly of the 4e skill challenge mechanics as something great from that system. I based my mechanic off Death Saves. I figured the best way to show that failure=death without just making it a one roll and you live or die scenario was to imitate the same mechanic you'd use if you were bleeding out.
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Post by paulhodgson777 on Apr 2, 2016 7:13:38 GMT
I love that death save and skill check idea, will definitely be using that! I hate that situation where my dragonborn paladin can fall 60' and just be "ah 6d6 damage, that's nothing, I have over 200 hp!"
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Post by friartook on Apr 2, 2016 13:53:13 GMT
60' isn't so unreasonable. The situation where I used that mechanic had them stuck at the top of skyscraper-sized tree that was collapsing from the inside out. A fall=death for sure. So I had each of them tell me what they wanted to do to survive this, assigned a skill for each attempted survival technique, then had them do multiple saves. We went around like initiative order, so everyone had to wait their turn. It was more tense and dramatic then I would have thought!
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Post by abstractleaf on Sept 1, 2016 1:44:41 GMT
I had a paragon encounter on a bridge in the underdark where the bridge spanned a huge 400 ft drop to the bottom. The monsters had a few knockbacks and throws. The party didnt think too much about it untill the tank got knocked off. It made the group have a huge eye opener that one of the most important part of there group is a puddle of jelly on the ravine and they eventualy found his body already looted. ( i had a npc use the the items against the group)
Death is normal. In my opinion if you go beginning to end with out any deaths the dm isnt chalenging the group enough.
In flavor text have emphasis on stuff that is life or death. Give warning (aka talking to townfolk or what not) or have somthing die infront of the pc party.
Tbh if the group just doesnt get it that its a life or death situation, in my mind, go ahead and try to kill them.
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Post by dmsam on Sept 1, 2016 7:12:42 GMT
There is a video on Extra Credits that talks about difficulty vs punishing that has some application to DMing. Now, keep in mind that in D&D, death is often permanent for most parts of the game (level 9 for raise dead with the exception of revivify) and requires a lengthy "iteration time" for the dead player to start playing again. Likewise, several of these topics won't fit into the D&D environment, but they are nevertheless worthy of scrutiny. When Difficult is Fun - Challenging vs Punishing GamesThe video hits on several major topics on challenging vs punishing, including: 1. Consistency of Rules 2:07 2. Giving the Player Enough Tools to Work with 2:55 3. Telegraphing (Informed Choices) 3:16 4. Iteration Time 4:12 5. Usability (Accessibility) 4:56 6. Difficulty Curve 5:59 Enjoy! |
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Post by donosaur on Sept 1, 2016 17:57:19 GMT
I'm glad this thread popped back up, as our session last night had some interesting hazards at play. The party was attempting to cross a mostly collapsed suspension bridge and got attacked by harpies living in its towers. Most of the party avoided the falling risks by using a Water Walk spell to just walk along the river; of course, the river was still moving, even if it was solid to them, so they had to make Dex saves to keep their footing. Falling prone slowed them down and had them start to drift towards a waterfall, but wasn't an instant Game-Over (I was going to have them wash into the bay if they fell, I wasn't anticipating Water Walk). I had ettercaps hiding under the bridge to snatch players from the water if they got dunked, but they didn't wind up being necessary.
The players who attempted the climb instead found themselves facing harpies who tried to hypnotize them with song and lure them to fall. While the height would be enough to kill a PC if they fell straight down, I had several harpies circling ready to pluck them out of the air if they did. They would take damage and be grappled, but they wouldn't have fallen to their death. No one fell, but one did get pulled off a tower by a harpy grapple. The player used Ensnaring Strike in mid air, so I judged that the harpy got tangled in suspension lines and allowed the player to climb back to safety.
So overall, it *looked* like the players could've fallen to their deaths or gone over a waterfall, but in either case there were measures in place to "catch" them while still punishing them. I think the encounter worked pretty well, although multiple rounds spent climbing and doing repeated athletic checks are pretty tiresome.
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Post by blakeryan on Sept 9, 2016 17:37:25 GMT
Sounds like a good game you've got going there Donosaur.
You can always have the Ettercaps show up later 'we misssssed you at the bridge but we won't missss you thisss time!'
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