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NOhara24
2011-10-23, 06:29 PM
We had a player make a "test run" as a DM in our current group. Minor NPC encounter, and a battle based around 2 PC's history. They're wanted, in a sense.

The encounter starts out easy enough, plain and clear that this humanoid confronting the party is no ordinary person. Over the course of the battle, it becomes apparent that we're doing huge amounts of damage in a really short period of time.

The Cleric does 108 damage on her first turn. (DMM shenanigans)
Crusader gets a crit on an attack of opportunity, for 50 damage.
Over the course of the battle, we learn that we did 384 damage.

Everyone is excited, myself included. That is, until I learned that the temp DM wasn't expecting the party to be so powerful (although he plays in it...) and threw HP out the window.

He quite literally had his NPC stop taking damage, and just decided to end the battle based on when he felt like he had beat up the PCs enough.

Thoughts? Opinions? I know what mine are, but has anyone else done this when running a game?!

Nigel the Hobo
2011-10-23, 06:34 PM
Running a battle for role play purposes instead of optimization comparisons? Sounds good to me.

Shadowknight12
2011-10-23, 06:42 PM
I think the issue here is that the DM isn't playing under the same rules as the players (I know, Rule Zero and all that, but Rule Zero trumps everything). I understand the sentiment and I wouldn't do that myself. I believe that everyone at the table should play under the same rules. Not saying that people who don't do this are playing wrong or anything (there's no such thing as 'playing the game wrong'), so no need to get up on arms about the dissenting opinion.

Chaos rising
2011-10-23, 06:44 PM
I generally try to avoid this, as it is unfair to the players. If a party is stronger than I expected, I'll just use stronger enemies in the next part of my campaign plan instead of retconning an enemies HP because I want to make the fight harder. The only time I might do this is if the party is about to defeat an enemy easily due to extremely lucky circumstances, like repeatedly getting critical hits and natural twenties.

BRC
2011-10-23, 06:49 PM
I do this sometimes, but only with Boss Fights that serve a dramatic purpose, and I never just say "I will have the boss survive for X more rounds, then drop dead". Usually I'll give the Boss additional Hitpoints, and even then it's usually only enough to last them an additional round or so before the PC's bring them down.

That said, I can think of a perfectly legitimate reason for a DM coming to a new party to do this: Testing the PC's strength. Put them up against an enemy with reasonable defenses, and keep careful track of how often they hit, how much damage they do each round, what means they prefer to use to deal their damage, ect.
Have the fight go on for four rounds or so, then have the baddie die. Now you know what you're up against when planning future encounters.

Dusk Eclipse
2011-10-23, 10:29 PM
Running a battle for role play purposes instead of optimization comparisons? Sounds good to me.

That sounds really condescending to people who like to optimize, you make it sound as if all optimizers care about is having big numbers. Fun Fact we also play the game for the Role playing aspect, we just like to mess with the ruleset:smallannoyed:


I do this sometimes, but only with Boss Fights that serve a dramatic purpose, and I never just say "I will have the boss survive for X more rounds, then drop dead". Usually I'll give the Boss additional Hitpoints, and even then it's usually only enough to last them an additional round or so before the PC's bring them down.

That said, I can think of a perfectly legitimate reason for a DM coming to a new party to do this: Testing the PC's strength. Put them up against an enemy with reasonable defenses, and keep careful track of how often they hit, how much damage they do each round, what means they prefer to use to deal their damage, ect.
Have the fight go on for four rounds or so, then have the baddie die. Now you know what you're up against when planning future encounters.

I understand on boss battles as they are supposed to be epic and meaningful in their own way; but the way the OP described the situation made it sound as if the DM in question just didn't care about the rule-set.

And I have to disagree with the second part of your post, he should have talked with the party about the power level he was expecting and the power level the party were building in. If they (accidentally or otherwise) are more powerful than what he expected, he should have talked with them and found a resolution before the game starts. IMO nothing is more frustrating than having invested time and effort into something for it to fail due fiat "just because I wasn't prepared".

Sidmen
2011-10-23, 10:35 PM
I often find myself doubling, or even quadrupling my NPC's health in order to prevent unsatisfying kills. Nothing is worse than an epic 3-session leadup to a major battle, and one-shotting the guy with a crossbow on the first round of combat. But at the same time, I am willing to halve HP if fights start to drag on forever.

This is little different than what your one-shot ST did, and its a perfectly valid tool to use (especially when he underestimated your power). It probably shouldn't be used often - and you should have never been allowed to break the illusion of triumph, but it can enhance the fun of the fight - so why wouldn't you do it?

Sucrose
2011-10-23, 11:04 PM
Running a battle for role play purposes instead of optimization comparisons? Sounds good to me.

Running a game with no consideration for the numbers does not facilitate roleplay any better than running the mechanical aspect simply by the mechanical aspect. In fact, given that all combats, regardless of how hard the characters actually try or attack end in an amount of time commensurate with their narrative importance, I would say that it actively hinders roleplay, by preventing immersion through the blatant telegraphing of narrative conceits. In other words, it makes it obvious that you are in a story, and so prevents you from getting immersed within the story.

I agree with the OP that trying to negate player effort is just about never really a good thing. Note it next time, and have the boss-type actually have the HPs or defenses to withstand their attacks, even if their classes wouldn't normally permit it. Homebrewing is fine. Throwing out the stats that you have prepared within the fight itself is railroading the fight, forcing narrative control back into your own hands.

CarpeGuitarrem
2011-10-23, 11:08 PM
That's pretty bad. Essentially, he completely negated any player input from that point on. It sounds like, regardless of how much damage you were doing after that point, it really wasn't making a difference.

It's one thing to fudge the rules. It's an entirely different thing to fudge the rules to make things miserable for the players.

There's a few things he could have done, and all of them boil down to "roll with the punches". For instance, the DM could've said that more minions show up to help their pal, or that the enemy gets taken down faster than planned, and the plot moves from there, or perhaps some event happens to throw a monkey wrench into the fight. That's all better than just saying "The NPC doesn't have HP, and he's gonna stay alive until he beats you guys up enough." So...why keep fighting?

It really just sounds like the DM was unhappy that he "lost".

And that shouldn't be the case, because the DM really wins when the players are having a good time, and sometimes that means wiping the floor with a boss. Especially a minor NPC.

BRC
2011-10-23, 11:10 PM
And I have to disagree with the second part of your post, he should have talked with the party about the power level he was expecting and the power level the party were building in. If they (accidentally or otherwise) are more powerful than what he expected, he should have talked with them and found a resolution before the game starts. IMO nothing is more frustrating than having invested time and effort into something for it to fail due fiat "just because I wasn't prepared".
I don't see this as the DM deciding he can't handle the party, and so making the enemy invincible at a whim.

I see it as a single, deliberate, planned decision by the DM using a random encounter with no real impact on the story as a whole, a deliberate tool the DM can use to gauge how the PC's function in an actual battle so they can better plan other encounters. Something the DM does once, early on, so they can get an idea of what type of party they are dealing with. In this case, the "Don't let the monster die" thing is more of a failsafe, to make sure each player gets a couple rounds of action that the DM can study.

Heck, the DM could even do this as a non-canon fight with the Player's knowledge. Everybody makes their character, and the DM says "Hey, lets see how much damage you guys can deal to a monster in Five rounds". Maybe the players get some bonus in-game depending on how well they do, and the DM gets to see how the PC's fight.

I agree that DM's Fiating player plans into not working because of a "Lack of Prepardness" is a bad idea. If a DM MUST fiat something away (as in, downright, no justification besides "I'm not prepared for that, don't do it"), they should do so apologically, and before the players invest time and effort into making it work.

of course, if there is a legitimate reason why whatever the player is trying to do won't work, that's another story entirely.


That said, making encounters more difficult when you underestimate the party is fair game in my book, provided it's done in a way that makes sense in the story (Like, say, reinforcements arriving for the enemy), and the DM is doing it to give the encounter the challenge they intended it to have, not to punish the players for doing well. They may manifest the same way, but those are two very, very different mindsets. If my Rampaging Horde of Orcs looks like it might go down in two rounds, I may send in a second wave of Orcs, Simply because epic battles are supposed to take more than twelve seconds.

Grod_The_Giant
2011-10-23, 11:13 PM
I will very rarely do this kind of thing, but mostly with big boss fights. And even then, mostly for solo villains, and only if the party burns through the maxed-out HP in a round or two. Off the top of my head, I think I've done it once for the climax of a semester-long campaign, and...erm... that may be it, actually. My players started getting REALLY desperate before the end :smallwink: I didn't say what I was doing until later. They were all pretty impressed that they managed to kill the villain two times over, but agreed that it had been a good, epic fight.

Kol Korran
2011-10-24, 02:43 AM
i did that when i was younger, but never again. it makes the players feel as if their actions don't matter, and there is nothing worse for a player. there is no real reason for the player to play- he might as well read a book.

i had my players nearly die due to miss planning (near TPK), and my players killed villains way ahead of "their time". at one fight one spelled neutrelized a boss, in another 2 players were down at the 2nd round.

but the players feel that the threats are real, and so are their characters (as much as possible with roleplay games).

Totally Guy
2011-10-24, 02:51 AM
i did that when i was younger, but never again. it makes the players feel as if their actions don't matter, and there is nothing worse for a player. there is no real reason for the player to play- he might as well read a book.

My feelings are the same. That's the kind of thing that's just not sustainable. If the players were to see that happening in my group then someone else would GM some other game instead.

Knaight
2011-10-24, 03:01 AM
My feelings are the same. That's the kind of thing that's just not sustainable. If the players were to see that happening in my group then someone else would GM some other game instead.

I agree as well. This sort of stunt is very much taking the "my game" attitude. I hate the "my game" attitude, its toxic to the vast majority of groups, and "our game" is simply more sustainable. However, there are people who like "my game" even when it belongs to someone else, and for them this would be fine. Dressing "my game" up as "our game" however is just asking for problems.

ILM
2011-10-24, 03:42 AM
I can understand the sentiment but would probably try to deal with it upstream (this being a test run, of course, the DM didn't have the option). If my players are optimizing, I'm confident I can optimize more. If they deal tons of damage, I'll start tacking on Contingencies, miss chances, battlefield control, synergies and so on - up the difficulty in ways other than just increasing the levels or giving free hp to my NPCs. I have a level 2 barbarian in my campaign going for massive chargepouncepowerattack damage, and I've already plotted out how to keep him from single-handedly breaking all my encounters for the next 10 levels. All within the rules, and without singling him out in obvious and frustrating ways. He gets to play what he wants and obliterate stuff in one swing, I get to challenge my party in hopefully balanced and fun ways.

If it looked like their level of optimization was really getting out of hand (which, by the way, would be my mistake), I'd sit down and have a talk with them, possibly with a view to rebuilding their characters at lower tiers.

Killer Angel
2011-10-24, 03:51 AM
I generally try to avoid this, as it is unfair to the players.

That's pretty bad. Essentially, he completely negated any player input from that point on.

i did that when i was younger, but never again. it makes the players feel as if their actions don't matter, and there is nothing worse for a player. there is no real reason for the player to play- he might as well read a book.

My feelings are the same. That's the kind of thing that's just not sustainable. If the players were to see that happening in my group then someone else would GM some other game instead.

Normally, I could agree with you, BUT:


We had a player make a "test run" as a DM in our current group. Minor NPC encounter, and a battle based around 2 PC's history.

This "test run", is meant as a mini-campaign of some months, or a simple adventure going for 2 sessions?
If the latter, i don't see the problem: it's not a "real" campaign, but, as said, a test. It's just the PCs, showing how much damage can deliver in a short amount of time, and for how many rounds they can sustain this "rate of fire".

My suggestion to the OP is to speak with the DM, and ask for explanations.

turkishproverb
2011-10-24, 03:51 AM
Running a battle for role play purposes instead of optimization comparisons? Sounds good to me.

Yes, you're absolutely right. Players should have no effect on the story. :smallmad:

The GM was being a jerk, especially for not thinking to discuss this kinda thing beforehand.


Me? I'd have allowed it even if he were the BBEG. then another guy would have filled the power vacuum. One much more optimized.

Killer Angel
2011-10-24, 03:56 AM
The GM was being a jerk, especially for not thinking to discuss this kinda thing beforehand.


It was a test, and the first session. Calling him a jerk, without giving the benefit of doubt, seems a little ungenerous from you.

Totally Guy
2011-10-24, 04:00 AM
Yeah... I'd call it a failed test.

We did something similar with a new GM. In the 3rd session he pulled this trick and and we stopped playing and agreed on who'd go next. No hard feelings or anything.

Killer Angel
2011-10-24, 04:04 AM
Yeah... I'd call it a failed test.


Ah, no doubt it failed, but at least this could give a logic reason behind it.
It better a reasonable DM that simply failed a test, than a DM stuck with its own idea of fun.

erikun
2011-10-24, 04:12 AM
I'd be inclined to give the DM some leeway, especially as it is his first time DMing and this was specifically a "test run" for the game. I would recommend pointing out that seeing this all the time in the game would get very annoying and make the players feel insignificant at the table, but for here it seems like it was to gauge the damage potential of the party.

I also find it very interesting that the players were perfectly fine with this random NPC having 384 HP and only became disappointed when they discovered the opponent resisted damage due to DM fiat rather than resisting damage due to a +10 CON/+0 LA DM fiat template. Just pointing that out.

PersonMan
2011-10-24, 04:18 AM
I also find it very interesting that the players were perfectly fine with this random NPC having 384 HP and only became disappointed when they discovered the opponent resisted damage due to DM fiat rather than resisting damage due to a +10 CON/+0 LA DM fiat template. Just pointing that out.

I think their thought process went something like:

"Hey, cool! This is a great fight and we're doing really well!"
"Wow, man, this guy is tough!"
"Wait...he wasn't tough or anything? You just cheated? Meh."

Killer Angel
2011-10-24, 04:33 AM
I also find it very interesting that the players were perfectly fine with this random NPC having 384 HP and only became disappointed when they discovered the opponent resisted damage due to DM fiat rather than resisting damage due to a +10 CON/+0 LA DM fiat template. Just pointing that out.

If my cleric wanders around with DMM shenanigans, I expect a high powered campaign with powerful NPC (well, not minor one in random encounter, but you get the point).
But a DM that applies fiat template and stick to it, it's different from a DM that changes things basing on its personal feeling at the moment: that can be forgiven for a test out of context, but shouldn't be the basis for a regular campaign.

Yora
2011-10-24, 04:36 AM
I do this all the time.
The only mistake the DM made was to let the players realize it.

erikun
2011-10-24, 04:59 AM
But a DM that applies fiat template and stick to it, it's different from a DM that changes things basing on its personal feeling at the moment: that can be forgiven for a test out of context, but shouldn't be the basis for a regular campaign.
True; a fiat +200 HP is probably better than a fiat immunity-until-I-say-otherwise.

However, I'm pointing out that the party didn't have a problem with the results, or even with the DM fiat itself. They just had a problem with the particular flavor used in this case. :smalltongue: Also, what Yora said.

elpollo
2011-10-24, 05:03 AM
I do this all the time.
The only mistake the DM made was to let the players realize it.

You clearly realise that this isn't what your players want, or they'd know. Isn't assuming that you know how to let them have fun better than they do extraordinarily patronising?

It's not acceptable in my eyes. DMing higher level D&D characters requires that you know what the characters can do, and plan for the worst as well as the best. Handwaving HP is just a way of not actually having to take the PCs' abiltiies into account, and at that point why even bother playing D&D (that might seem a little extreme, but if you don't care what the total of the player's handful of d6s is then why get them to roll it?)?

Thyrian
2011-10-24, 05:04 AM
There's an information gap here- was it a 'test run' in the sense of a one-shot session for him to try DM-ing? Or was it a 'test run' in that it's his first time DM'ing for the next saga of the campaign?

Did the DM obtain useful data he wouldn't have other wised gained from the extended encounter?

Did the DM 're-adjust' the enemies health or simply stop recording damage taken?

Were your hits still serving a purpose to reach a new goal line or was the goal line simply determinant on round time?

My initial GM session health adjustment during battle was needed after I'd made a mistake of pairing a strong ability with large hp, where only one was needed to ensure a difficult fight. Even then that was a set 'ok their HP is now 30 instead of 60', which while I let the group know later, I felt no need to break session to inform the group 'I've messed up dudes so I'm changing stats during combat'.

Since then I've never needed to re-adjust healths mid-battle. I may give a villain a few levels in having health (level 5 Barbarian/5 levels in don't die first turn) but never mid battle. Small fights if the party kills them exceptionally quickly so be it, major fights if I feel the need to 'change' stats mid fight- I have failed my job as a DM and not given the world the attention and care my players have shown for it.

Kol Korran
2011-10-24, 05:07 AM
The GM was being a jerk, especially for not thinking to discuss this kinda thing beforehand.


though i disagree with his methods, i do like his approach- he wanted to give the players a memorable experience.

we all make mistakes as DMs, as players, there are only two things that are not ok in my book:
- doing whatever you did knowing that this makes things no fun for others (which is what i call being a jerk)
- not willing to learn and improve (which i call being a lazy bumpkin)

Morph Bark
2011-10-24, 05:19 AM
Ah, no doubt it failed, but at least this could give a logic reason behind it.
It better a reasonable DM that simply failed a test, than a DM stuck with its own idea of fun.

It was his first time DMing. Any DM likely has a few stories of how they did something that they later realized wasn't the best thing to do in that situation. That's how you learn: you make a mistake and then figure out how to improve on that.


I do this all the time.
The only mistake the DM made was to let the players realize it.

Yes, this is actually how it goes for a lot of DMs. Certainly not all though, and most of the time a DM (like me) simply sticks to the rules, but fiat just happens. If it didn't, DnD would look a whole lot different and DMing would be a whole lot harder.


EDIT: Also this:


though i disagree with his methods, i do like his approach- he wanted to give the players a memorable experience.

Knaight
2011-10-24, 05:38 AM
It was his first time DMing. Any DM likely has a few stories of how they did something that they later realized wasn't the best thing to do in that situation. That's how you learn: you make a mistake and then figure out how to improve on that.

Exactly. However, regardless of how much DMing experience he had, it was a pretty big screw up. Those happen, and moving past them is a good thing to do, but they remain screw ups. Not "running a battle for role play purposes instead of optimization comparisons" as was stated earlier in the thread.

GnomeGninjas
2011-10-24, 06:25 AM
You clearly realise that this isn't what your players want, or they'd know. Isn't assuming that you know how to let them have fun better than they do extraordinarily patronising?

It's not acceptable in my eyes. DMing higher level D&D characters requires that you know what the characters can do, and plan for the worst as well as the best. Handwaving HP is just a way of not actually having to take the PCs' abiltiies into account, and at that point why even bother playing D&D (that might seem a little extreme, but if you don't care what the total of the player's handful of d6s is then why get them to roll it?)?
I wouldn't like it if my DM did that but I also don't like it when my DM fudges dice rolls. DM cheating annoys me but It happens and I still am able to enjoy D&D. The DMG says that fudging dice rolls is okay but you should keap it secret from your players, I don't see how handwaving HP is any worse

drakir_nosslin
2011-10-24, 07:54 AM
I'd say that it depends on the players and what kind of game they want. In this case it seems like they want to go 'by the book', but I've DM:d for people who valued the feeling that there were part of an awesome, tough battle more than knowing that I followed the rules to the letter.

That meant that I never told them anything about NPC stats, and if a battle seemed to go badly (i.e boring) I'd fudge a little to make it more memorable. Not every fight, but enough so that they'd feel that they risked something every now and then. However, and this is why I just didn't throw high CR enemies at them and let things play out, they didn't like dying (unless they could be raised). They wanted to play the entire campaign with the same characters, essentially writing a cool story together with me. Also, they were terribly unoptimized :smalltongue:

But we discussed all this beforehand, and I adjusted my DM:ing to their playstyle, so when a player came to me and explained that he felt that his character had done his part and needed to make room for another I let him go out in a blaze of glory, a memorable last stand against a horde of demons.

That was a deal between me and the player and the other's didn't know about it, so they thought I was breaking our 'no killing PC:s deal, but they all agreed that it made the whole campaign more thrilling, thinking that they might be the next 'victim'.

It's hard to explain, and I know a lot of this looks strange, but it all depends on what kind of people you play with. That was the only group I've ever met that wanted to play like that, the rest have all followed the rules, DM and player alike, but there are exceptions out there.

Basket Burner
2011-10-24, 08:06 AM
Sounds like a terrible DM.

Altair_the_Vexed
2011-10-24, 08:07 AM
I've done this - sort of.

When you've built up a bad guy boss over a few sessions, and the party dish out enough damage to kill them in the first round, that's anti-climactic. It pays to have the bad guy reel around a little, dish out a scary (but easily recoverable) amount of damage, and make a break for it.
In this sort of situations, whatever you do, you have to let the party win. They've already beaten your bad guy - now you just have to make it feel exciting.

Example from play: For several days, the party have been shadowed by a winged silhouette in the dusk. Finally, after they're good and scared of the sound of wings inthe distance, the wyvern-riding sorceress, with hasted ogre minions, attacks the party with flyby lightning bolts. The party kill the sorceress in round one. If I let her die, the players don't feel like they achieved anything special. So I had her land, sic the wyvern on the party, and coordinate the ogre attack. Now the PCs were divided in their attacks, and she got away without being targetted for a round or two - they felt like they'd really worked hard to get her.

So, handled well, a story-based number of HP is legitimate. You mustn't do it with every encounter, and the bad guy must die eventually. Of course, I think I handled it perfectly. :smallbiggrin:

Tengu_temp
2011-10-24, 08:31 AM
It is perfectly acceptable to "cheat" as a DM in order to make the fight more memorable instead of having a gigantic anticlimax. However, it must not be done in such a clumsy way.

Sometimes, I fudge the dice to the bad guy's advantage. My golden rule is: for every time I do that, I also fudge the dice once to the players' advantage. That's the best of two worlds: dramatism of the fight preserved, but not at the PCs' expense!

NOhara24
2011-10-24, 08:46 AM
To answer some questions:

As far as the definition of "test run" goes, it was his first time DM-ing and it was only for a one-shot session. That being said, he's played long enough and done enough research to know that doing something like this is just wrong. It could be marked up to a side quest.

I know someone mentioned adding in minions to make things harder. Oh, he HAD minions, but they were low-level commoners (he described them as farmers.), and as soon as the first one was killed the other 5 ran away in fear.

To all the people that said "it completely negates player input." Those are my feelings exactly. Thankfully, he won't be returning as DM in our current campaign.

I'm glad I'm not wrong to feel this way about what I see as the epitome of DM-ing.

Knaight
2011-10-24, 09:04 AM
I know someone mentioned adding in minions to make things harder. Oh, he HAD minions, but they were low-level commoners (he described them as farmers.), and as soon as the first one was killed the other 5 ran away in fear.

The bolded part actually seems quite reasonable. Untrained combatants that don't necessarily want to be there (see: farmers) tend to dissolve quite quickly against a real force.

Cogidubnus
2011-10-24, 09:15 AM
If I've made a hideous mistake with building an encounter and the PCs are walking all over it, and it is VITALLY important that it's tough - whether because the plot will be less interesting if they win in one round, or because it's supposed to be a Big Bad or whatever, I will optimise it on the fly, giving monsters fresh HP, more abilities, or reinforcements, but I always have rules when I do it and I'm very sparing with it. Mostly, if PCs can put out insane amounts of damage, kudos to them. Especially as it often happens because the target is in the niche they're designed to fight in (paladins against evil, etc.) I've built Paladins [using fixes] who could take on an entire party's worth of evil creatures and I'd feel cheated if that were taken from me by the DM. Equally, I wouldn't mind half so much if I got into real trouble against Neutral enemies - they wouldn't be who I expected to defeat.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-10-24, 09:18 AM
Thoughts? Opinions? I know what mine are, but has anyone else done this when running a game?!
This violates Maxim 12 of Oracle Hunter's Maxims for Mastering: "Roll dice only when they matter." If the DM was just running the combat until the PCs were "beat up enough" then he should have just told the Players how much damage their characters took and saved everyone an hour.

As for general guidance, consult Maxim 7: "Only cheat in the Players' favor, and even then, not often."
It is very hard for a DM to correctly judge when cheating the PCs for the sake of "his story" is a good call; he simply has too much invested in the set-up and running of campaign to use that power well. Cheating for your Players' benefits, on the other hand, correctly balances the natural inclinations of the DM and will rarely raise your Players' ire -- something that plot armor and sudden escape hatches will. However, cheating too often for your Player's sake robs them of their Autonomy and can turn a game very boring.
In regards to combat situations, I am prone (in 4e) to declaring enemies "dead" when they are hit for an attack and end up with a handful of HP left -- but then, only when the combat is "winding down" and only for the purpose of saving ourselves time. But that is the extent of the "cheating" I do, barring those times when I realize a situation I created is unfair or not fun in practice. But those are mistakes I made, so only I have the power to fix them -- Maxim 3: "DM mistakes demand DM fixes."

Tyndmyr
2011-10-24, 09:40 AM
We had a player make a "test run" as a DM in our current group. Minor NPC encounter, and a battle based around 2 PC's history. They're wanted, in a sense.

The encounter starts out easy enough, plain and clear that this humanoid confronting the party is no ordinary person. Over the course of the battle, it becomes apparent that we're doing huge amounts of damage in a really short period of time.

The Cleric does 108 damage on her first turn. (DMM shenanigans)
Crusader gets a crit on an attack of opportunity, for 50 damage.
Over the course of the battle, we learn that we did 384 damage.

Everyone is excited, myself included. That is, until I learned that the temp DM wasn't expecting the party to be so powerful (although he plays in it...) and threw HP out the window.

He quite literally had his NPC stop taking damage, and just decided to end the battle based on when he felt like he had beat up the PCs enough.

Thoughts? Opinions? I know what mine are, but has anyone else done this when running a game?!

Sounds terrible.

Here's the thing...your supply of NPCs as a DM is literally infinite. There is no need for you to BS ways for them to survive. If they pull out the stops and rock an encounter in one round...let them have the win, and high five each other. Just dial up the difficulty a touch on later things until you have it about right.

Killer Angel
2011-10-24, 09:43 AM
As far as the definition of "test run" goes, it was his first time DM-ing and it was only for a one-shot session. That being said, he's played long enough and done enough research to know that doing something like this is just wrong. It could be marked up to a side quest.


Now don't be too much unfair. To be a player since long time, don't equals to be a good DM, especially when it's your first time and you're evaluating the difficulty of an encounter, dealing with some optimized characters.
He did 2 errors: setting the encounter's DC, and the way he tried to fix the things on the run (both due to lack of DM's experience).


I'm glad I'm not wrong to feel this way about what I see as the epitome of DM-ing.

Trust me, this is nothing, compared to some stories you can hear around here.

Telonius
2011-10-24, 09:56 AM
I think a big part of the problem here is that the DM jumped in without a clear idea of how powerful the party was. Not asking to see the character sheets beforehand is a rookie mistake. Since the DM is a rookie, that's understandable. He (predictably) found himself in over his head. I'm guessing his thought process went something like:

"Well, they're going to off this guy in a round. So either the fight is meaningless and not enjoyable, or I could try to mix it up and at least give them a challenge."

So he tried to make it a challenge. That's fine, as long as the players don't know you're doing that and actually end up having fun. Unfortunately he made another rookie mistake and clued the players in to a fudge after the fact. So instead of bored players, he has bored and possibly upset players.

So a couple of bad errors on his part. But all in all, not completely awful for the first time out. I like his instinct for trying to make things meaningful, and not being afraid to make things up on the fly if necessary. He just needs to learn how to do so more competently.

BRC
2011-10-24, 10:11 AM
More or less, my opinion is that he made three mistakes.

First of all, he made an encounter that the Party would steamroll. This is excusable for a first-time DM.
Extending the encounter in of itself is not a bad thing, provided he doesn't make a habit of it. But from the OP's description, he made two other HUGE mistakes. First, he decided to end the encounter not when he felt it had gone on long enough to be satisfying, but when the PC's had taken enough damage. And secondly, he told the Players what he had done.
The worst mistake a DM can make, in my book, is to make the PC's feel powerless. If they feel they have no agency, no ability to succeed or fail depending on their choices, then they are not going to have fun.
Even if it's only the Illusion of Agency, even if you intend to have the encounter end after four rounds no matter how much damage they do, that's still better than telling them that their actions have no effect on the outcome. Once the PC's feel they can't influence the story, they might as well just sit back while you tell them whats going to happen.

leegi0n
2011-10-24, 10:16 AM
[QUOTE=BRC;12084408]I do this sometimes, but only with Boss Fights that serve a dramatic purpose, and I never just say "I will have the boss survive for X more rounds, then drop dead". Usually I'll give the Boss additional Hitpoints, and even then it's usually only enough to last them an additional round or so before the PC's bring them down.

yeah, I'll fudge hit points now and again to really bring it home in a boss fight. However, the moment one of the PCs really starts getting it handed to them, I will back off the pseudo-buffs quickly and let the party bring it home.

NOhara24
2011-10-24, 10:23 AM
I could get into more details, but ultimately I'm pretty sure it would just be more of the same. "Yep, that's bad DM-ing right there." (one shotting the party monk at the end of the fight, offering no explanation how or why he took the monk from nearly full HP to zero based off of a rogue build.)

Between that and him broadcasting his attack rolls. "You don't have an AC better than 38, do you?"

He also told me that this rogue-based humanoid had a BAB of 20...we're a level 9 party.

Just...so much facepalm.

NOhara24
2011-10-24, 10:31 AM
Once the PC's feel they can't influence the story, they might as well just sit back while you tell them whats going to happen.

Exactly. A lot of other people here have mentioned that. I was talking to him (temp DM) about how he chose to run the encounter. Among the other issues (he just "chose" for the main enemy to have a BAB of 20, against a level 9 party.)

I brought up the point that the entire party's actions were inconsequential. The Cleric dropping all 9 of her turn attempts into one spell, the monk critting 3 times over the course of the fight, the crusader doing massive damage on an attack of opportunity. All of it, meaningless. It didn't seem to bug him. That coupled with the fact that he really just hit the "you die" button at the end of the fight, makes me think that he's got the DM vs. PC mentality.

ILM
2011-10-24, 11:00 AM
I know someone mentioned adding in minions to make things harder. Oh, he HAD minions, but they were low-level commoners (he described them as farmers.), and as soon as the first one was killed the other 5 ran away in fear.
In all fairness, that's not minions, that's really scenery.

Tyndmyr
2011-10-24, 11:17 AM
Exactly. A lot of other people here have mentioned that. I was talking to him (temp DM) about how he chose to run the encounter. Among the other issues (he just "chose" for the main enemy to have a BAB of 20, against a level 9 party.)

I brought up the point that the entire party's actions were inconsequential. The Cleric dropping all 9 of her turn attempts into one spell, the monk critting 3 times over the course of the fight, the crusader doing massive damage on an attack of opportunity. All of it, meaningless. It didn't seem to bug him. That coupled with the fact that he really just hit the "you die" button at the end of the fight, makes me think that he's got the DM vs. PC mentality.

Point out that it's a game. With rules. Yes, the DM is given a lot of flexibility within those rules, but rules and guidelines exist for a reason. Just ignoring fundamental bits of them, like hp and death, is going to have a lot of wild effects on the rest of the system that he almost certainly hasn't forseen.

Just for starters, it'll make defensive options a lot more important than offensive ones.

Knaight
2011-10-24, 11:22 AM
Point out that it's a game. With rules. Yes, the DM is given a lot of flexibility within those rules, but rules and guidelines exist for a reason. Just ignoring fundamental bits of them, like hp and death, is going to have a lot of wild effects on the rest of the system that he almost certainly hasn't forseen.

Just for starters, it'll make defensive options a lot more important than offensive ones.

And, for that matter, if the reason rules are being ignored is that there are too many of them and it is felt they get in the way - this being a common reason - there are who knows how many thousands of other games that could be played instead.

PetterTomBos
2011-10-24, 11:39 AM
In all fairness, that's not minions, that's really scenery.

Possibly good scenery :)

I have done something along the lines of this, hmm, once or twice? And then I have simply doubled or tripled the HP the monster has gotten. Nothing I'm proud of, or do often.

Tyndmyr
2011-10-24, 11:39 AM
And, for that matter, if the reason rules are being ignored is that there are too many of them and it is felt they get in the way - this being a common reason - there are who knows how many thousands of other games that could be played instead.

Agreed. When I get invited to a game of D&D, I expect that it will actually be D&D...not Joe's Fantasy Story Hour.

Knaight
2011-10-24, 11:45 AM
Agreed. When I get invited to a game of D&D, I expect that it will actually be D&D...not Joe's Fantasy Story Hour.

Exactly. And if I get invited to Joe's Fantasy Story Hour, it had better not turn out to be D&D.

leegi0n
2011-10-24, 11:52 AM
it's like second edition all over again....

valadil
2011-10-24, 12:05 PM
I used to do that kind of thing. At the time it felt justified. Never again.

I think my justification was that I didn't have enough control over how the combats played out. 3.5's CR system was pretty wonky and I couldn't always tell if a supposedly level appropriate encounter would be challenging or a cakewalk. If a boss fight was over in half a round, I'd extend it.

Having switched to 4e, I found enemies behaved as advertised. They did what I wanted and fudging wasn't necessary. Now that I've played that way I couldn't go back to fudging combats. If it "feels necessary" that's a case of a lack of system mastery. A GM who can't run a combat as expected needs to learn the system better or switch to a different system.

Knaight
2011-10-24, 12:09 PM
Having switched to 4e, I found enemies behaved as advertised. They did what I wanted and fudging wasn't necessary. Now that I've played that way I couldn't go back to fudging combats. If it "feels necessary" that's a case of a lack of system mastery. A GM who can't run a combat as expected needs to learn the system better or switch to a different system.

Its a lack of system mastery or poor design. For instance, consider the notion that one fudges dice to, say, not kill PCs easily. A half decent Fate Point or Artha style mechanic would handle that easily, and prevent fudging from being necessary, which indicates sloppy design more than anything else.

Telonius
2011-10-24, 12:09 PM
Exactly. A lot of other people here have mentioned that. I was talking to him (temp DM) about how he chose to run the encounter. Among the other issues (he just "chose" for the main enemy to have a BAB of 20, against a level 9 party.)

I brought up the point that the entire party's actions were inconsequential. The Cleric dropping all 9 of her turn attempts into one spell, the monk critting 3 times over the course of the fight, the crusader doing massive damage on an attack of opportunity. All of it, meaningless. It didn't seem to bug him. That coupled with the fact that he really just hit the "you die" button at the end of the fight, makes me think that he's got the DM vs. PC mentality.

Okay, forget what I posted earlier. Bad DM! No pizza!

Tyndmyr
2011-10-24, 12:33 PM
Having switched to 4e, I found enemies behaved as advertised. They did what I wanted and fudging wasn't necessary. Now that I've played that way I couldn't go back to fudging combats. If it "feels necessary" that's a case of a lack of system mastery. A GM who can't run a combat as expected needs to learn the system better or switch to a different system.

Would agree. And test sessions ARE a good assist on this...but the whole point of testing is to find problems. You found one, good! Now, don't just ignore it.

drakir_nosslin
2011-10-24, 12:35 PM
Exactly. A lot of other people here have mentioned that. I was talking to him (temp DM) about how he chose to run the encounter. Among the other issues (he just "chose" for the main enemy to have a BAB of 20, against a level 9 party.)

I brought up the point that the entire party's actions were inconsequential. The Cleric dropping all 9 of her turn attempts into one spell, the monk critting 3 times over the course of the fight, the crusader doing massive damage on an attack of opportunity. All of it, meaningless. It didn't seem to bug him. That coupled with the fact that he really just hit the "you die" button at the end of the fight, makes me think that he's got the DM vs. PC mentality.

Wow... That's bad. Like, really really bad. One of the most important things is to make sure that the DM and the players play the same game. You don't, drop the DM.

Morph Bark
2011-10-24, 12:52 PM
Exactly. A lot of other people here have mentioned that. I was talking to him (temp DM) about how he chose to run the encounter. Among the other issues (he just "chose" for the main enemy to have a BAB of 20, against a level 9 party.)

I brought up the point that the entire party's actions were inconsequential. The Cleric dropping all 9 of her turn attempts into one spell, the monk critting 3 times over the course of the fight, the crusader doing massive damage on an attack of opportunity. All of it, meaningless. It didn't seem to bug him. That coupled with the fact that he really just hit the "you die" button at the end of the fight, makes me think that he's got the DM vs. PC mentality.

In that case then yes, it's shoddy DMing. I've fudged my way through many an encounter but always quickly assembled reasonable BAB, saves, hp, HD, skills etc. together based off the party CR (enemy BAB never higher than party CR+4 for instance) so that the encounter was decent but still beatable even if it was tough. My players know this as well and due to the reasonable rates (I had them written down post-battle once) they didn't mind it.

DMs also need to take to mind the tactic of fleeing rather than invincibility-fiat, but keep limits to this! An enemy that flees two times in a row when both times he should have died leaves players with a grudge.

Killer Angel
2011-10-24, 03:07 PM
(one shotting the party monk at the end of the fight, offering no explanation how or why he took the monk from nearly full HP to zero based off of a rogue build.)

He also told me that this rogue-based humanoid had a BAB of 20...we're a level 9 party.


err... those are details that were worth mentioning since the beginning, You know?
I can condone the HP part to a novice DM at its first session, handling a powerful group, but this is just... bad. No excuse around it.

NOhara24
2011-10-24, 06:48 PM
err... those are details that were worth mentioning since the beginning, You know?
I can condone the HP part to a novice DM at its first session, handling a powerful group, but this is just... bad. No excuse around it.


That's true, but the "running it till it feels right" bugged me more than anything. I know the rest of is just bad DM-ing.

turkishproverb
2011-10-24, 09:20 PM
makes me think that he's got the DM vs. PC mentality.

Not really. Even most people from that era followed the rules and had some sense of fair play. This guy was just horrible. A decent DM vs. PC DM will give the players a chance to win, simply by obeying most of the rules.

DwarfFighter
2011-10-25, 08:50 AM
He quite literally had his NPC stop taking damage, and just decided to end the battle based on when he felt like he had beat up the PCs enough.

Thoughts? Opinions? I know what mine are, but has anyone else done this when running a game?!

I can see why players would balk at such a fundamental change in the encounter structure: I would think most of us are used to exchanging attack rolls until one side is dead. And this is the root cause of what many GMs consider to be detrimental to the game:

Since the PCs represent the driving force in the game they need to be constant. In order to remain constant they need to survive. In order to survive they need to win their combat encounters without dying, and the most reliable best way to do this is to deal as much damage to the enemy as quickly as possible. The more rounds an encounter lasts, the higher the risk of PC death.

If the players suddenly learn that the PCs need to fight the ogre for a set number of rounds in order to win then this turns everything up-side-down. I bet they would feel cheated if their characters were killed after having dealt enough damage to kill a "normal" ogre!

But on the other hand it seems to me that setting a time limit or other victory conditions to an encounter could make for a great experience. However, the important thing is to make the PCs efforts meaningful in this context. Simply fighting an ogre for as long as the GM thinks it's fun seems like a bit of a cop-out on part of the GM. But throw in some victory conditions and some win-draw-lose consequences, and it actually makes a lot of sense.

For example: "To defeat the ogre the PCs need to deal at least 150 points of damage within 5 rounds (or 50+ points of damage in any single round) before the ogre knocks out any of their number. The ogre wins if he manages to knock out one or more PCs. If the PCs win the ogre is defeated. If the ogre wins the PCs retreat to the Fountain Room to regroup. In case of a draw the ogre retreats to the Prisons and joins up with his brother."

Of course, it should not be set in stone. If the PCs manage to trick or disable the Ogre, that might count as achieving their objective. If the PCs block the Ogre's escape path this could add a few more rounds to the combat, or completely change the effect of a draw: The Ogre decides to negotiate instead.

-DF