Zombimode
2017-05-03, 07:41 AM
At the end of yesterday's session, we left in a situation that will likely result in the PCs failure down the road.
Which got me, the DM, thinking about the difficulties of providing a gameplay that makes the PCs decisions meaningful, and if I did set them up for failure.
Background:
The premise of the campaign is that the PCs are rewarded for past deeds with the Lordship over a County.
The Queen hopes that the PCs impartiality concering political matters combined with their proven "drive" will bring significant and much needed change to the underdeveloped and isolated County.
There, they have to prove their authority to their subordinate Barons, deal with the Ex-Count, establish themselves and makes politcal decisions in a timeframe of months and years.
And of Course deal with the counties other problems.
I pitched this premise to the players beforehand together with several other campaign ideas, most of them of a more traditional sort. This is what they have chosen.
So far their political accumen wasn't very impressive, but it is still early. This is not what concerns me at this moment.
This backround is still important because is puts their recent Actions into perspective.
The City of Exag:
Besides the Barons Holdings the County also holds a City. It is not part of any barony, but still part of the County and thus subject to the PCs. The City is Exag, and while the campaign is not set in Greyhawk it is the same City as feutured in the Seeds of Sehan Adventure arc. This Adventure arc is incorporated into this campaign.
In short, Exag is both magnificent and the most miserable place at the same time. It is magnificent because it has an indestructable City wall, 3 great (and indestructable) pyramids of mysterious origin and an (indestructable) aqueduct providing the City with an unending supply of fresh and clean water.
It is miserable because it has practically no infrastructure. The relatively few People that live there are drug-addicted xenophobics. Famine always lurks above the City because few People work the fields. The City is rule by a fanatic brickhead, the Prophet of the Pyramid.
The City and its People are not beyond saving, however. Even if the doctrin of the cult preaches to resist Change, most people know that the situation is bad. And while the Prophet holds significant influence, the People as a whole are not fanatic.
Even the Prophet himself is not an unredeemable villain. The slow but constant ruination of all Buildings other then the wall, the pyramids and aqueduct is nagging on his Soul and faith, but he hasn't admitted to that yet. He also doesn't endorse the heavy use of drugs by his People.
He does distrust strangers, especially considering that he recently allowed a stranger to examine a old temple Building - which resulted in the temples structural collapse. Needless to say, he doesn't want stranges to meddle with the Buildings anymore.
The current Situation:
After arriving in the City, the PCs visited the Prophet revealing themselves as the new Lords of the County and even managed to create a somewhat positive Impression of themeselves within the Prophet.
They also learned about the Prophets recent misplaced trust in strangers and experience (in a non-agressive Fashion) that the locals really dont take it well if strangers meddle with the buildings especiall the pyramids.
Having learned all that they immediately set out the same night to break into one of the pyramids (they have discovered a secret entrance during the day)... :smallsigh:
The only precaution they took was to use the cover of the night. They rolled for stealth, the still existant two locals that kept watch rolled Listen/Spot and while unlikely the PCs got noticed.
They pressed on and tried to "shake off" the watchers by... walking arround in the same area and then walking arround the pyramid...
By the time they turned the second-to-last corner of the pyramid (thus getting a view on the area they started) the locals had gathered in numbers (about 2 dozen) with torches and crude weapons.
The PCs pressed on nevertheless. They reached for the secret entrence trying to cover them with an illusion... which WOULD have worked if it werent for the loud and distinctive noise of the opening secret door (as per the description in the Exag Backdrop article of Dungeon Magazine). They proceeded into the pyramid while trying to cover the entrance with another ilusion, this time a Major Image (meaning that the illusion reacts to touch). Which was very good idea but natural 20s for two of the locals meant that this illusion will not hold the locals at bay.
I had not prepared the pyramid as a dungeon for this campaign, relying on the short description of it in the Exag Backdrop article instead.
Going by this, the entrance chamber is guarded by (an undisclosed number of) Clay Golems with Fast Heal 10. The only other information I have is that the main chamber holds a "Portal of World" which is guarded by two Battletitans.
With the sentence "Just as you hear locals entering the tunnel behind you, you see that the large clay statues are starting to move." we called it for the night.
Now, personally I consider the investigation of the pyramid at this point to be an enormously stupid move. If your goal is to gain the trust of the locals doing the precise thing they despise (and similar to what the last strangers did) is exactly not what you should do.
Yes, they could have pulled it of without being detected. But it always carries a risk and this time they got caught.
Being the only strangers in town at this time and having a rather distinct Elven Hound with them they have more or less revealed them to be the culprits.
But it doesn't end there. By going by the description of the pyramids guardians they are pitched against at least two enhanced clay golems. In the heat of the moment I declared that there are four "lagre clay statues, each one at every wall", but I was somewhat vague at describing them starting to move. That leaves me the option to only send two Clay Golems against them.
Viewed in a vacuum, the party should be able to handle two Clay Golems: a Spirit Shaman 11, a Wizard 5 / Mage of the Arcane Order 6 and a Ranger 11 with a stronger-then-usual Elven Hound chompanion. But Golems, thanks to their magic immunity, usually require somewhat of a preparation for magic-users to fight them. I don't think that either the Wizard or the Spirit Shamane is especially well prepared at this moment to fight Golems. And the Rangers supply of Adamantine arrows is also rather limited. The cramped quarters and zero preperation time will work against them as well. But even if they manage to overcome the Golems, there is no way they succeed against the Battletitans.
I'm not concerned about the PCs survival. The wizard has a teleportation spell prepared so they can always cut loose.
What I'm concerned about is the almost inevitable failure of the PCs. Failure of revealing the pyramids secrets and failure in the political game: effectively cutting the ties with 20% of their subjects and loosing access to the largest unused potential of the whole county (there is no other urban center).
I'm making this thread to 1) gain other people's opinions on this specific situation, possible avenues for me to take from here, if I'm myself to blame and 2) to discuss this matter on a more general term: how you can provide a gameplay that is challenging and make the players decisions meaningful without becoming miserable when things don't turn out as successful.
To me there can only be challenge if there is a possibility for failure.
Similar a choice only has meaning if there are directly related consquences.
Combining challenge with meaningful choices means that there are "wrong" choices, meaning those that result in undesirable consequences.
But on the other hand, roleplaying games are about having an engaging and fun experience. And if employing consequence to actions result in a misarble experience, you should do something else instead.
"Failure" can still be fun. But I think it is more difficult to craft a fun experience out of failure than out of success.
So, how can you provide "bad" consequence that are called for in the name of meaningful choice and plausibility without the game becoming worse for it?
What are your experiences on that matter?
Or do you hold a completely different opionon on this?
Which got me, the DM, thinking about the difficulties of providing a gameplay that makes the PCs decisions meaningful, and if I did set them up for failure.
Background:
The premise of the campaign is that the PCs are rewarded for past deeds with the Lordship over a County.
The Queen hopes that the PCs impartiality concering political matters combined with their proven "drive" will bring significant and much needed change to the underdeveloped and isolated County.
There, they have to prove their authority to their subordinate Barons, deal with the Ex-Count, establish themselves and makes politcal decisions in a timeframe of months and years.
And of Course deal with the counties other problems.
I pitched this premise to the players beforehand together with several other campaign ideas, most of them of a more traditional sort. This is what they have chosen.
So far their political accumen wasn't very impressive, but it is still early. This is not what concerns me at this moment.
This backround is still important because is puts their recent Actions into perspective.
The City of Exag:
Besides the Barons Holdings the County also holds a City. It is not part of any barony, but still part of the County and thus subject to the PCs. The City is Exag, and while the campaign is not set in Greyhawk it is the same City as feutured in the Seeds of Sehan Adventure arc. This Adventure arc is incorporated into this campaign.
In short, Exag is both magnificent and the most miserable place at the same time. It is magnificent because it has an indestructable City wall, 3 great (and indestructable) pyramids of mysterious origin and an (indestructable) aqueduct providing the City with an unending supply of fresh and clean water.
It is miserable because it has practically no infrastructure. The relatively few People that live there are drug-addicted xenophobics. Famine always lurks above the City because few People work the fields. The City is rule by a fanatic brickhead, the Prophet of the Pyramid.
The City and its People are not beyond saving, however. Even if the doctrin of the cult preaches to resist Change, most people know that the situation is bad. And while the Prophet holds significant influence, the People as a whole are not fanatic.
Even the Prophet himself is not an unredeemable villain. The slow but constant ruination of all Buildings other then the wall, the pyramids and aqueduct is nagging on his Soul and faith, but he hasn't admitted to that yet. He also doesn't endorse the heavy use of drugs by his People.
He does distrust strangers, especially considering that he recently allowed a stranger to examine a old temple Building - which resulted in the temples structural collapse. Needless to say, he doesn't want stranges to meddle with the Buildings anymore.
The current Situation:
After arriving in the City, the PCs visited the Prophet revealing themselves as the new Lords of the County and even managed to create a somewhat positive Impression of themeselves within the Prophet.
They also learned about the Prophets recent misplaced trust in strangers and experience (in a non-agressive Fashion) that the locals really dont take it well if strangers meddle with the buildings especiall the pyramids.
Having learned all that they immediately set out the same night to break into one of the pyramids (they have discovered a secret entrance during the day)... :smallsigh:
The only precaution they took was to use the cover of the night. They rolled for stealth, the still existant two locals that kept watch rolled Listen/Spot and while unlikely the PCs got noticed.
They pressed on and tried to "shake off" the watchers by... walking arround in the same area and then walking arround the pyramid...
By the time they turned the second-to-last corner of the pyramid (thus getting a view on the area they started) the locals had gathered in numbers (about 2 dozen) with torches and crude weapons.
The PCs pressed on nevertheless. They reached for the secret entrence trying to cover them with an illusion... which WOULD have worked if it werent for the loud and distinctive noise of the opening secret door (as per the description in the Exag Backdrop article of Dungeon Magazine). They proceeded into the pyramid while trying to cover the entrance with another ilusion, this time a Major Image (meaning that the illusion reacts to touch). Which was very good idea but natural 20s for two of the locals meant that this illusion will not hold the locals at bay.
I had not prepared the pyramid as a dungeon for this campaign, relying on the short description of it in the Exag Backdrop article instead.
Going by this, the entrance chamber is guarded by (an undisclosed number of) Clay Golems with Fast Heal 10. The only other information I have is that the main chamber holds a "Portal of World" which is guarded by two Battletitans.
With the sentence "Just as you hear locals entering the tunnel behind you, you see that the large clay statues are starting to move." we called it for the night.
Now, personally I consider the investigation of the pyramid at this point to be an enormously stupid move. If your goal is to gain the trust of the locals doing the precise thing they despise (and similar to what the last strangers did) is exactly not what you should do.
Yes, they could have pulled it of without being detected. But it always carries a risk and this time they got caught.
Being the only strangers in town at this time and having a rather distinct Elven Hound with them they have more or less revealed them to be the culprits.
But it doesn't end there. By going by the description of the pyramids guardians they are pitched against at least two enhanced clay golems. In the heat of the moment I declared that there are four "lagre clay statues, each one at every wall", but I was somewhat vague at describing them starting to move. That leaves me the option to only send two Clay Golems against them.
Viewed in a vacuum, the party should be able to handle two Clay Golems: a Spirit Shaman 11, a Wizard 5 / Mage of the Arcane Order 6 and a Ranger 11 with a stronger-then-usual Elven Hound chompanion. But Golems, thanks to their magic immunity, usually require somewhat of a preparation for magic-users to fight them. I don't think that either the Wizard or the Spirit Shamane is especially well prepared at this moment to fight Golems. And the Rangers supply of Adamantine arrows is also rather limited. The cramped quarters and zero preperation time will work against them as well. But even if they manage to overcome the Golems, there is no way they succeed against the Battletitans.
I'm not concerned about the PCs survival. The wizard has a teleportation spell prepared so they can always cut loose.
What I'm concerned about is the almost inevitable failure of the PCs. Failure of revealing the pyramids secrets and failure in the political game: effectively cutting the ties with 20% of their subjects and loosing access to the largest unused potential of the whole county (there is no other urban center).
I'm making this thread to 1) gain other people's opinions on this specific situation, possible avenues for me to take from here, if I'm myself to blame and 2) to discuss this matter on a more general term: how you can provide a gameplay that is challenging and make the players decisions meaningful without becoming miserable when things don't turn out as successful.
To me there can only be challenge if there is a possibility for failure.
Similar a choice only has meaning if there are directly related consquences.
Combining challenge with meaningful choices means that there are "wrong" choices, meaning those that result in undesirable consequences.
But on the other hand, roleplaying games are about having an engaging and fun experience. And if employing consequence to actions result in a misarble experience, you should do something else instead.
"Failure" can still be fun. But I think it is more difficult to craft a fun experience out of failure than out of success.
So, how can you provide "bad" consequence that are called for in the name of meaningful choice and plausibility without the game becoming worse for it?
What are your experiences on that matter?
Or do you hold a completely different opionon on this?