DM vs. Players

[Ser Loras]

In my current group, we're playing with a smattering of players from all shades of experience. Those who are D&D vets but new to 5e; those who are 5e vets but new to large, in-person groups (moi!), and some who are sitting down to their first ever game of D&D and are learning on the job (my buddy who I brought along to bring the party up to a whopping 7-person platoon).

Our DM has been excellent with the new player, patient and merciful by turns while not exactly giving her stabilisers. In a recent skin-of-the-teeth boss battle he actually threw her several very obvious lifelines to make sure her character (just 2 sessions old!) wouldn't bite the dust. Nobody minded, not even the player whose character HAD bought it that session. I can safely say we trust and respect his instincts and he does a damn fine job at the captain's chair.

...But this has me thinking about stuff I'm seeing ALL OVER THE INTERNET, about DMs who play as if they're out to kill their players. Speaking personally the idea seems totally toxic - at its heart, to me, D&D is a collaborative story that uses dice to provide a bit of randomness and excitement; a DM breaching that sort of social contract with his or her players just seems to break the thing that makes the game so fun. And on the other side of the equation, the players can't exactly fire back at the DM - they're not there holding a ball waiting to be sacked; they're omnipotent (cue deflategate and fog machine jokes).

Out of sheer naive, innocent curiosity, I'd so love to hear some horror stories of DMs who played "versus" their own parties. I'd be fascinated to hear what you guys and gals have to say about it!

[BoringInfoGuy]

I am not going to tell a horror story, because that can be very subjective.

But I do remember a new DM asking me about the issue. Was he supposed to be trying to kill the party? If not, then what should he be doing?

Since he was running a group of experienced players (myself included) I gave this advice.

The DM should never be trying to kill the party. However, the DM is often running characters who ARE doing their best to kill the party.

Part of the DM’s job is to figure out the diffence between a murder minded NPC and murder minded DM.

[Arcangel4774]

Im pretty much with BoringInfoGuy. The dm himself shouldnt be trying to kill pcs but certain characters may. If a smart and powerful enemy kills a pc because he is smart and powerful, its by all means fair. If pack of stupid enemies work tactically to out maneuver the pcs, well maybe its the dm and not the characters hes playing that are trying to off pcs.

[Malifice]

Your job as DM is to challenge and entertain the players.

Its an art, not a science.

[holywhippet]

In our last session one of the PCs died. The fight was bit unbalanced since we had one PC off doing something else at the time. Problem is, after the character went down the DM deliberately went after him and he lost all his death saves from being attacked on the ground. I think that kind of goes against a general code of conduct.

[Chugger]

I am very unhappy with the AL death curse, for the most part, and DM's going after players and bragging about perma-deaths. There's a point where it crosses the line ... and then crosses the line again.

I started playing DnD long ago when almost no one used minis. We did theater of the mind or make a quickie map on paper and worked off that. But DMs knew they were supposed to explain positions and terrain very well and not force things on the players. If a player did something really stupid an old school DM would ask, "wait, did you not visualize the pool of lava? You're about to walk into it. Here, let me sketch it out for you." And the player would say "Ohhhh, no, I thought the lava was over there for some reason."

See, the DM knew the character would never just blunder into the lava and did the right thing - realized the player was having trouble seeing the room from his description. But when I run into DMs who do theater of the mind now, they all universally suck at it. They do a horrible job of describing, and when players say "I do this" these bad DMs seem to always pounce - and try to kill the character for making a mistake that is really the DM's fault for doing a horrible description of the room - not the player's fault. I am reaching the point where if I don't see a grid and minis, I'm leaving.

I recall one encounter where a weird NPC stepped out ahead of us and warned us not to go any further. A girl at the table said, "I investigate" - and meant by that I look around.
"The monster attacks you," said the DM. "Does a 19 hit you?"
"Wait," she said, "I didn't go up to it - I thought it was 50 feet away."
"You said you investigate the room, and that means you walked up to it."
"But I never said I walked up to it. I would never have gone that close to it."
"You never said you weren't, so I'm just reacting to what you said - and the monster has done 14 points of damage to you."

This was so effed up - on so many levels. We weren't surprised; no initiative was rolled. The DM gave the monster a free attack - which zero'd this low level character. The player had had no intention of going close to the monster, but the DM forced an excessive interpretation of their words ... forced something they absolutely had not intended. A cool DM would not have been doing theater and would have drawn the room on a grid. Would have put down a mini for the npc/monster - or a coin or a pistachio shell or something to mark it - would have said when she said "I investigate" to put down your minis (to the party) and "show me how you investigate - you can't see the entire room from your side." Or something more like that. This jump the player because she ... I hate this kind of DMing and tolerate it no more.

[Malifice]

I recall one encounter where a weird NPC stepped out ahead of us and warned us not to go any further. A girl at the table said, "I investigate" - and meant by that I look around.
"The monster attacks you," said the DM. "Does a 19 hit you?"

My response would be: 'No it doesnt. My AC is infinity at present, because you havent rolled initiative for this encounter yet.'

Your move.

[Chugger]

My response would be: 'No it doesnt. My AC is infinity at present, because you havent rolled initiative for this encounter yet.'

Your move.

I was still learning 5e - I knew something was wrong but was trusting this DM - and he has no clue what he's doing. Poor kid - she was a good sport about it - but he was wrong. Next time I see her I'm going to tell her - but she's probably forgotten this incident. I haven't. It's a big strike against this DM.

[Malifice]

I was still learning 5e - I knew something was wrong but was trusting this DM - and he has no clue what he's doing. Poor kid - she was a good sport about it - but he was wrong. Next time I see her I'm going to tell her - but she's probably forgotten this incident. I haven't. It's a big strike against this DM.

It's one of my bugbears with DMs.

Attacking 'outside of initiative.'

DnD even has rules for being attacked by hidden creatures (roll intiative, creature unaware of the enemy are surprised and cant take actions or move on round one, meaning the hidden creature always attacks first - maybe even getting 2 attacks in before you do if it rolled well enough on initiative).

It's still important for reaction timing and stuff though. I might be able to act fast enough on round 1 to get a shield spell off or something. Also; some PCs are immune to surprise (Alert feat etc) and might even be able to act before the hidden creatures attacks get resolved.

[smcmike]

Im pretty much with BoringInfoGuy. The dm himself shouldnt be trying to kill pcs but certain characters may. If a smart and powerful enemy kills a pc because he is smart and powerful, its by all means fair.


Maybe.

Part of the DM’s job, I think, is to steer the party towards enemies that present appropriate challenges for them. Players can reasonably be angry when the DM fails to do so, and in-game logic like “the enemy was really smart and really powerful” doesn’t answer that complaint. Imagine a DM who sends Strahd at the party, with the intent to kill, the moment they step into Barovia.

[Sigreid]

Maybe.

Part of the DM’s job, I think, is to steer the party towards enemies that present appropriate challenges for them. Players can reasonably be angry when the DM fails to do so, and in-game logic like “the enemy was really smart and really powerful” doesn’t answer that complaint. Imagine a DM who sends Strahd at the party, with the intent to kill, the moment they step into Barovia.

I consider it the party's job to decide who is an appropriate enemy. It's the DM's job to give them enough information and opportunity to make that choice.

[smcmike]

I consider it the party's job to decide who is an appropriate enemy. It's the DM's job to give them enough information and opportunity to make that choice.

Sure. The information and opportunity is the steering I was referring to. Also, players don’t always get to pick their enemies. It’s not like players have a menu of options of who is standing between them and the McGuffin.

[HandofBlades]

Yeah been dming for several years now and I can safely say it is a hard line to walk between the dm trying to kill the players and the npcs trying to kill them. Two of the best examples of my own gaming are as follows.

We did a world creation to make a home brewed world and I set up an avatar known as the wanderer. He usually appeared to low level heroes and gave them a respite from the dangers they faced and a good nights sleep. If the pcs thanked him and gave something of their own to him to help him out he would often give them either a small boon or a magic item. However for the first session of the game they came across what looked to be the wanderer but he did not say the phrase that he usually said when offering shelter. Something I stated in world creation and had a bard telling the story of the wanderer in the tavern they had left that morning. Only one player got the clue but he was also playing a dumb person so didn't say anything. Needless to say the party fell for the trick and were knocked out via poison food and then bound up and brought to the slave markets. They were able to escape but several players claimed I was unfair as they didn't think I would expect them to remember said details about world creation. However other players really enjoyed it and went back and reread the world creation notes.

Another example when running my game this past Sunday night the players went into an abandoned wizards sanctum to reach the bottom of some ice cliffs as there was stairs in the sanctum to get them down. No one stealthed or did any searching even though they were warned that kobolds had taken over the sanctum. They set off the wall of ice mephits and the two kobold guards were alerted to their little attempt to move through. One guard ran to warn the other kobolds while one took a ready action to shoot anyone coming around a bend in the hall. He missed but he watched the party Druid wreck all the mephits with a windwall. So he fled as well. It was a race as one kobold ran to warn the others and the other ran to the library where he knew the wizard kept scrolls. They killed the one going for help but the other got to the libarary and got a scroll. He unrolled it and began to cast the spell. Wish. Only one pc knew draconic and he heard him say quite calmly I wish you were all dead and nat 20 to use the scroll. The party freaked everyone was like duck duck duck duck!!! Arcane power swelled and gathered around the kobold till it built to a crescendo before the kobold winked out of existence. The party stood confused and going wtf before one person looked the spell up. They all thought I was trying to kill them (session before Halloween and all) but I followed the rules of the spell and since he didn't give a condition he was thrown through time to a point all the pcs are dead. It was a great scare for the party but showed that I wasn't aiming to kill them but if they had followed the intel and even been a bit stealthy they would have possible scored a scroll of wish.

All in all like I said a fine line to walk. Both instances the bad guys were smart but not overly so and the pcs didn't think through their actions. Never try to kill your players. They will usually do it on their own on my experience.

[Sigreid]

Sure. The information and opportunity is the steering I was referring to. Also, players don’t always get to pick their enemies. It’s not like players have a menu of options of who is standing between them and the McGuffin.

I sandbox, so it's much more "This is the third devil in 5 minutes, maybe we shouldn't go to the evil Lord's castle at level 5."

[EvilAnagram]

In the halcyon days of 4e, during a living FR campaign, we would switch out DMs for every adventure. One DM had decided that my character (a shielding swordmage) and another character (berserker) were OP, so he told us he wanted to kill us. To do so he upped the CR of a dragon and conveniently forgot restrictions on how reactions work. We won because he was a terrible player and couldn't think tactically, but it left a sour taste in my mouth and I left the campaign.

[Sigreid]

In the halcyon days of 4e, during a living FR campaign, we would switch out DMs for every adventure. One DM had decided that my character (a shielding swordmage) and another character (berserker) were OP, so he told us he wanted to kill us. To do so he upped the CR of a dragon and conveniently forgot restrictions on how reactions work. We won because he was a terrible player and couldn't think tactically, but it left a sour taste in my mouth and I left the campaign.

That is BS. If a character dies when I DM it's because of a decision the players made.

[Zanthy1]

See I as a DM have no problem killing a PC. What that means is that if they go into an encounter and die, I do not feel remorse. However, there have been times in my past (like my first couple sessions DMing ever) where I absolutely let the power get to my head. What I do now is if I notice that I've made an encounter too hard, like ridiculously too hard, then I'll slightly nerf the NPCs. This can be removing some hitpoints, not making all their attacks, and even being more prone to following the PCs tactics (as in, the fighter starts banging his shield, the NPC might lay off the wizard an attack the fighter, even if the NPC would normally finish the wizard off). I do not have my NPCs attack downed players, and I will not make any changes that are obvious. Sometimes PCs die, thats fine, but I do not (at least not anymore) see it as a me vs them game, which is often the case I have noticed with younger players, or player's whose nature is too competitive for cooperative.

I will note that one thing that helped me, aside from just general gains in maturity, was players taking the time to talk to me and helping me figure out a more fun way to play the game. Yes creating the story is great, but the players cannot discover all my great content if I keep killing them. 7 years later and I feel like I am a much better DM, and all my players prefer me to many of their alternatives.

[kivzirrum]

I don't have any horror stories, but I think in general a DM's job is to provide a fun game for the players, and also to have fun with the players. Some people like a brutally difficult, everything-out-to-kill you game. Heck, on rare occasions, I can even see the appeal. But when I DM, that's not my style. I don't care if no PC ever dies in my games, I just want to have a good time with my pals and make a story together. And hopefully kill some monsters.


In the halcyon days of 4e, during a living FR campaign, we would switch out DMs for every adventure. One DM had decided that my character (a shielding swordmage) and another character (berserker) were OP, so he told us he wanted to kill us. To do so he upped the CR of a dragon and conveniently forgot restrictions on how reactions work. We won because he was a terrible player and couldn't think tactically, but it left a sour taste in my mouth and I left the campaign.

Wow. To outright state like that the intention to kill the PCs just 'cause he thinks they're OP... man, I just do not get that. I guess for some people DMing is about acting out a power fantasy.

[LeonBH]

That is BS. If a character dies when I DM it's because of a decision the players made.

Well... it's really because you, as the DM, decided that the character should die for that decision they made. But it is very important that the players think it's their fault or their character's fault, to avoid any of these issues.

[LeonBH]

As my contribution to this thread, I'm going to play in a game where the DM has said he is out to kill us. The players voted to up the difficulty to the max. In exchange, every PC gets high stats, max HP die, high levels, and three magic items of their choice for free.

I feel it's fair. I haven't played it yet (I will this weekend), but I'll let you know how it goes. I think it will be fun to have the DM targeting us like that since we've been fairly warned and prepared.

[kivzirrum]

As my contribution to this thread, I'm going to play in a game where the DM has said he is out to kill us. The players voted to up the difficulty to the max. In exchange, every PC gets high stats, max HP die, high levels, and three magic items of their choice for free.

I feel it's fair. I haven't played it yet (I will this weekend), but I'll let you know how it goes. I think it will be fun to have the DM targeting us like that since we've been fairly warned and prepared.

Yeah, if it's mutually agreed upon ahead of time, it can be totally rad. Kinda give it that old-school, AD&D vibe.

[Sigreid]

Well... it's really because you, as the DM, decided that the character should die for that decision they made. But it is very important that the players think it's their fault or their character's fault, to avoid any of these issues.

Nope, I set up circumstances. It's the party that decides how, or if they interact with them. An exception would be if they undertake a course of action that closes off some of their choices. That's still player choice. I don't find it satisfying if they're just victims of my whim.

[LeonBH]

Nope, I set up circumstances. It's the party that decides how, or if they interact with them. An exception would be if they undertake a course of action that closes off some of their choices. That's still player choice. I don't find it satisfying if they're just victims of my whim.

I know what you mean, because I do the same. I was just making a jovial dig at the fact that even at the very last moment, before the character dies, you can use your power as the DM to prevent it with a deus ex machina. Or, you could immediately resurrect them after their death. These things may sound not as impactful as a real character death, but they are options.

It's useful to note that in some tables, character death is banned, so deaths are just not expected. It could be a cool plot device the DM implements (look up Angry DM's post on character death), a desire on the DM's part to keep the story ongoing with the same characters (I'm doing this right now in one campaign), it could be because your players are kids, etc.

[Sigreid]

I know what you mean, because I do the same. I was just making a jovial dig at the fact that even at the very last moment, before the character dies, you can use your power as the DM to prevent it with a deus ex machina. Or, you could immediately resurrect them after their death. These things may sound not as impactful as a real character death, but they are options.

It's useful to note that in some tables, character death is banned, so deaths are just not expected. It could be a cool plot device the DM implements (look up Angry DM's post on character death), a desire on the DM's part to keep the story ongoing with the same characters (I'm doing this right now in one campaign), it could be because your players are kids, etc.

I get it. I just think it's also unfair to the players to do the DM save. When I play, I consider that just as much a taking of my agency as railroading. I'm aware I'm weird.

[Rallicus]

What I do now is if I notice that I've made an encounter too hard, like ridiculously too hard, then I'll slightly nerf the NPCs. This can be removing some hitpoints, not making all their attacks, and even being more prone to following the PCs tactics (as in, the fighter starts banging his shield, the NPC might lay off the wizard an attack the fighter, even if the NPC would normally finish the wizard off). I do not have my NPCs attack downed players, and I will not make any changes that are obvious.

I ran into this situation in my last session. Made the mistake of pitting 5 Shadows against 3 level 4 PCs in DnD 5e. Theoretically it's medium encounter, and thus far they've been doing hard to deadly x2 with no real issue. How an enemy with resistance to practically everything and a 2d6+2 necrotic damage attack with a no-save 1d4 strength drain is only a CR 1/2 is mind boggling, but I digress.

Within the first turn I knew I messed up. Big time. Barring a miracle they weren't going to destroy all of these things. So I dropped all their HP to 9, had one attack an NPC and kill her outright, and from there they had a chance. It was still ridiculously imbalanced, but I refrained from having an NPC barge in to help them, as tempting as it was. The tank would have died on the final strength drain had it rolled a 4. The bard was down and out. They were surrounded on all sides.

But they managed somehow. It was an impressive display of rolling, and while I found it to be one of the worst encounters I've ever set up, they really enjoyed it. I feel the rogue player was slightly disappointed, though. He had a feeling something wasn't "right." He was curious as to if I threw the encounter, ending it prematurely to avoid the TPK. I was honest; I told him I'd lowered the Shadows' HP during the first round of combat. He was okay with that, but I think he felt slightly cheated. Like their victory wasn't as amazing as it should have been. Even though... 9 HP or not, it really, really was.

So I agree with some of your statements -- mainly lowering HP early on without players' knowledge, up playing PC tactics, not attacking downed PCs -- but stuff like the 'refraining from using all attacks' and the like I'd advise against, at least if your group is anything like mine. They may feel cheated, especially when it's something that obvious. "Wait a second... why is he only doing one attack now? He was doing two last turn..." may detract from the sense of accomplishment they feel when beating an unexpectedly difficult encounter.

[LeonBH]

How an enemy with resistance to practically everything and a 2d6+2 necrotic damage attack with a no-save 1d4 strength drain is only a CR 1/2 is mind boggling, but I digress.

It's because its strength drain feature isn't weighted when calculating the CR. Its offensive CR is only 1 and its defensive CR is only 1/8, averaging 0.56 CR or 1/2 CR rounded down.

That said, you never throw Shadows or Intellect Devourers at a low level group. Despite their low CR, they can instantly kill high level characters. That wizard with 8 Strength will die instantly with two lucky hits from a Shadow, whether they're level 1 or level 20.

[EvilAnagram]

It's because its strength drain feature isn't weighted when calculating the CR. Its offensive CR is only 1 and its defensive CR is only 1/8, averaging 0.56 CR or 1/2 CR rounded down.

That said, you never throw Shadows or Intellect Devourers at a low level group. Despite their low CR, they can instantly kill high level characters. That wizard with 8 Strength will die instantly with two lucky hits from a Shadow, whether they're level 1 or level 20.

They're solid mid-level mooks, but I've also used them in horror campaigns against low level parties. Their outsized danger makes them perfect for it.

[Sigreid]

It's because its strength drain feature isn't weighted when calculating the CR. Its offensive CR is only 1 and its defensive CR is only 1/8, averaging 0.56 CR or 1/2 CR rounded down.

That said, you never throw Shadows or Intellect Devourers at a low level group. Despite their low CR, they can instantly kill high level characters. That wizard with 8 Strength will die instantly with two lucky hits from a Shadow, whether they're level 1 or level 20.

A bansidhe can tpk a surprisingly high level party if the dice are against them.

[malloc]

In my current group, we're playing with a smattering of players from all shades of experience. Those who are D&D vets but new to 5e; those who are 5e vets but new to large, in-person groups (moi!), and some who are sitting down to their first ever game of D&D and are learning on the job (my buddy who I brought along to bring the party up to a whopping 7-person platoon).

Our DM has been excellent with the new player, patient and merciful by turns while not exactly giving her stabilisers. In a recent skin-of-the-teeth boss battle he actually threw her several very obvious lifelines to make sure her character (just 2 sessions old!) wouldn't bite the dust. Nobody minded, not even the player whose character HAD bought it that session. I can safely say we trust and respect his instincts and he does a damn fine job at the captain's chair.

...But this has me thinking about stuff I'm seeing ALL OVER THE INTERNET, about DMs who play as if they're out to kill their players. Speaking personally the idea seems totally toxic - at its heart, to me, D&D is a collaborative story that uses dice to provide a bit of randomness and excitement; a DM breaching that sort of social contract with his or her players just seems to break the thing that makes the game so fun. And on the other side of the equation, the players can't exactly fire back at the DM - they're not there holding a ball waiting to be sacked; they're omnipotent (cue deflategate and fog machine jokes).

Out of sheer naive, innocent curiosity, I'd so love to hear some horror stories of DMs who played "versus" their own parties. I'd be fascinated to hear what you guys and gals have to say about it!

Dungeons and Dragons is a collaborative storytelling game, and the objective of the DM should be to progress the story, offer the players the best possible opportunities to engage in telling the story, and come up with a fair and satisfying conclusion to any conflicts involved therein (including traps, battles, and player on player disagreements).

[Easy_Lee]

One of the DMs I'm playing with now speaks of creature actions in the third person but rolling in the first person and delights in critting players. For example, "Ooh, I just crit you! The giant bashes you in the head for 42 points of damage." He also gets frustrated when we significantly outplay his monsters, and sometimes changes things on the fly to make encounters more deadly.

I think this stems from two things.

1. DMs play creatures as if they're playing a character. Players like to kill things and have their plans work out. DMs, if they aren't careful, can fall into the trap of treating creatures like DM PCs. This makes the DM want the creatures to succeed, and therefore want the players to fail.

2. There's this pervasive idea that old fashioned D&D was all about killer DMs and players with PTSD. Some people encourage DMs to act like that.

It's a problem.

[kivzirrum]

1. DMs play creatures as if they're playing a character. Players like to kill things and have their plans work out. DMs, if they aren't careful, can fall into the trap of treating creatures like DM PCs. This makes the DM want the creatures to succeed, and therefore want the players to fail.

I can only speak for myself, but as a DM, I feel a sense of dread whenever I roll the dice for a creature attack. I don't fudge the dice or manipulate events to save the PCs, but I am always rooting for them in my heart.

[Contrast]

We did a world creation to make a home brewed world and I set up an avatar known as the wanderer. He usually appeared to low level heroes and gave them a respite from the dangers they faced and a good nights sleep. If the pcs thanked him and gave something of their own to him to help him out he would often give them either a small boon or a magic item. However for the first session of the game they came across what looked to be the wanderer but he did not say the phrase that he usually said when offering shelter. Something I stated in world creation and had a bard telling the story of the wanderer in the tavern they had left that morning. Only one player got the clue but he was also playing a dumb person so didn't say anything. Needless to say the party fell for the trick and were knocked out via poison food and then bound up and brought to the slave markets. They were able to escape but several players claimed I was unfair as they didn't think I would expect them to remember said details about world creation. However other players really enjoyed it and went back and reread the world creation notes.

Meanwhile in another reality a DM is lamenting how his PCs refused to go along with the plot hook he clearly set up in the background and reinforced earlier in the session because the NPC didn't mention in passing something written in a story about him so the PCs beat him up and turned him over to the local authorities as a vagrant.

I'd have been very unimpressed if you'd done this to me mostly because based on the (admittedly limited) information you've set out, it seems like you set up that encounter on purpose knowing you had lulled the players into a false sense of security. The phrase seems put there as a get out clause so when the players complained you could go 'aha well actually...'.

[Jamesps]

I'm probably in the minority, but one thing I like to do as a DM is set up a world where the universe doesn't care whether the characters live or die. It's highly sandboxy and the characters, depending on what they do, could end up in a nearly impossible situation or one that's ridiculously easy. Right and wrong decisions are rarely based on their morality (being the hero isn't always the right thing to do), and sometimes completely unintuitive, and often make sense only after the fact when the players finally get a bird's eye view to everything that happened.

As an example, I'm currently running a survivalist game where the players are trying to live through an ongoing apocalypse where the food supply of the entire world is nearly destroyed. At present all of their quests involve gathering and protecting their resources.

During the last session two of the players with more social characters decided to infiltrate one of the other factions to figure out where they were keeping their secret underground mushroom farms. Meanwhile I had decided that their stronghold was going to be attacked at 3pm on a certain day regardless of anything else going on. Because of how they timed their self-made quest they were originally going to be absent during this time and lose all of their collected food supplies. However, during the mission the players misinterpreted some NPC actions and decided they had been found out despite having pulled off their infiltration successfully. On the verge of success they nonetheless fled the rival faction and went back home, arriving just in time to ward off the attack and keep hold of their accumulated food.

The only reason they succeeded was because they failed. From a standard "gamist" perspective this is entirely unintuitive, but in the real world it happens all time.

Since I started running the game this way the metagaming has dropped off markedly, and not because I've banned or even openly discouraged it. Players no longer even discuss where/what they think they're "supposed" to go or do. They've immersed themselves much deeper into the game than I've ever seen with any group before. They argue and discuss as if they were really inside the world. From a DM's perspective this is a whole lot more fun for me than the more traditional games I've run in the past.

It's not a fair game in the traditional sense, but they seem to be having fun.

[Zanthy1]

So I agree with some of your statements -- mainly lowering HP early on without players' knowledge, up playing PC tactics, not attacking downed PCs -- but stuff like the 'refraining from using all attacks' and the like I'd advise against, at least if your group is anything like mine. They may feel cheated, especially when it's something that obvious. "Wait a second... why is he only doing one attack now? He was doing two last turn..." may detract from the sense of accomplishment they feel when beating an unexpectedly difficult encounter.

Usually if I am going to lower the amount of attacks they do, I supplement it by them taking other actions. My group started with 3.5 and still get mixed up with some of the rules, so they view it mostly as the NPC not taking a Full Attack due to other actions (which was a thing in 3.5). However, I will say that that will not work for everyone. I do like the refraining from the rescue, thats my least favorite. I would rather have my character die and start a new one than have an NPC come save me, unless it was already stated in the plot. For example: "You need to hold off the assault on the gate for 1 minute for your reinforcements to arrive." That way I as a player know that in 10 rounds reinforcements are coming. Or if another player (a PC) who wasn't in the encounter makes it in time. This has only worked once, and I was the DM, but it was epic.

The player was running very late, said to start without him. So we start and have his character remain unconscious in the cart, sleeping until the player gets there (it actually made sense from where we left off the previous session). About 2 hours in the party gets into an encounter they're struggling with. This dude shows up finally, probably a round or two before the TPK and straight up saves the day. It was epic.

[mephnick]

If it's a life or death situation (which most fights are) I am 100% attempting to kill the PCs if that's what my NPCs want. To do anything else is disingenuous.

Now, that stems from the NPCs wanting to survive, so they won't fight to the death unless the monster info tells me they will fight to the death (owlbear) or have no fear of dying (fiends on the material plane). I take no joy in killing characters per say but I do take joy in running a world that seems alive. Wolves will track a party and try to down a single PC and drag them off. Raging beasts will tear into a weak opponent regardless of whether they drop unconscious or not. Zombies will begin consuming a downed PC unless they are stopped. Assassins will attempt to actually assassinate people. I'm not trying to kill my PCs, but the world sure as hell is.

[HandofBlades]

Meanwhile in another reality a DM is lamenting how his PCs refused to go along with the plot hook he clearly set up in the background and reinforced earlier in the session because the NPC didn't mention in passing something written in a story about him so the PCs beat him up and turned him over to the local authorities as a vagrant.

I'd have been very unimpressed if you'd done this to me mostly because based on the (admittedly limited) information you've set out, it seems like you set up that encounter on purpose knowing you had lulled the players into a false sense of security. The phrase seems put there as a get out clause so when the players complained you could go 'aha well actually...'.

In my defense I did give other hints such as the ones mentioned here. Also world creation was a collective group effort where players and myself as the dm rolled to see how many points we could spend each turn shaping the world. The wanderer npc was a prominent character that was brought up several times and his mo mentioned multiple times. The player who knew something was up rolled an insight to see if the guy was trustworthy but he rolled a one. The guy trying to trap them offfered to share his food with them and they could have refused at any point. Furthermore the wanderers appearance was written down in the world creation notes and his signature weapon (a spear) wasn't being held by the guy pretending to be him. Then only one character asked if he remembered the story of the wanderer and in a history check (rolled a 3) remembered the vague details but knew something seemed a bit off from the stories he was told growing up. Overall the players had world creation (which I had full notes on and encouraged players to make their own notes) the party face hearing the tale of the wanderer before they left town. An insight check to see if the guy was trustworthy and perception checks to notice his weapon and clothes were a little different than the legends plus a history check which the guy knew he failed and something was off. Then the offer of food which they accepted when they didn't have to as everyone had rations and they had killed and harvested parts from some wolves earlier in the session so they didn't need food. Also they didn't have to share the camp if they didn't want to. Lots of subtle hints that something was off but no one but the guy who rolled bad on insight figured it was a problem.

Admittedly. Probably would change a few things about the whole encounter if I did something similar but after the fact all but o e player still laughs about how their careers in saving the world began with them getting drugged and sold into slavery on their first camping night together.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I recently ran a campaign involving a lot of fourth wall breaking where I was playing the role of a vicious killer DM. To make up for this, the players had infinite, automatic resurrection capabilities (with some XP penalties), and I balanced every possible encounter fairly by the DMG, also avoiding cheesy things like intellect devourers.

To properly convey the idea of a killer DM, I created a card system. At the beginning of every session, I drew four cards. Each card could in some way let me 'break' the game behind the scenes against the players. The players were allowed to know what all of the cards could do, but never what I presently had on hand until the end of the session, where I'd reveal each card and where/when I used it.

I also had a sub deck for when a player complained. At even an accidental insult thrown my way, they had to draw a card. This sub deck was basically the Deck of Many Things on steroids, with exactly as many horrible effects as incredibly beneficial ones. To keep players from overdrawing as a kind of fishing, any additional complaints during a session past the first simply let me, as DM, draw another player-killer card.

I did, in fact, get a lot of players killed like this. No one seemed to mind due to the basic premises and infinite resurrections.

The best incident involved a toilet. Just a few rooms ago, the party had a conversation via sending stone with the cocky leader in charge of the dungeon they were in. Later, while the rest of the party was helping free captives, the party wizard decided to investigate a latrine, not willing to believe that I would simply add latrines for verisimilitude. When he peered into it, I played a card to make him pratfall. He managed to make a rather difficult Dex save to prevent going face first into it, followed by a 'damn you, DM!'.

The party looked in horror as I smiled, grabbed the sub deck, and placed it in front of him. He sighed, grabbed the top card, and checked the printout I had on what each card did. This one? "Unambiguously identify a creature as soon as you draw this card. It immediately dies."

The boss had just introduced himself by name not five minutes earlier.

And so did a wizard enter a bathroom, almost fall head first into it, and ended up killing the boss.

[Citan]

I am not going to tell a horror story, because that can be very subjective.

But I do remember a new DM asking me about the issue. Was he supposed to be trying to kill the party? If not, then what should he be doing?

Since he was running a group of experienced players (myself included) I gave this advice.

The DM should never be trying to kill the party. However, the DM is often running characters who ARE doing their best to kill the party.

Part of the DM’s job is to figure out the diffence between a murder minded NPC and murder minded DM.
Allow me to quote this, very well said. And it's indeed a line that can be hard to distinguish at first. :smallbiggrin:


I can only speak for myself, but as a DM, I feel a sense of dread whenever I roll the dice for a creature attack. I don't fudge the dice or manipulate events to save the PCs, but I am always rooting for them in my heart.
This is soooo true too... :smallsmile:
On that regard, I find that using average damage is a great management tactic especially in large groups or against low-level parties, because it speeds up "your" turn as a DM and helps players get a relatively good idea of the threat level of creatures.
Note that it speeds up things because we play on Roll20 and I (nor my DM pals) never have time to prepare the NPC related macros. If you have all configured on d20, it would be actually quicker to roll damage. ^^
In "face-to-face" games, I think it would end globally the same.


The drawback is that it makes those weapon attacks (especially crits) much less "interesting emotionally", so that's why I always keep a few monsters (with bosses first) rolling damage (obviously "by groups": if you made one Ghoul A hitting always the same damage, and an exactly alike Ghoul B hitting variable damage, it would give incoherent feedback.

I don't pretend it's the best or anything, but so far it worked well at my table at least.

Another thing I tried but generally don't use because it's time-consuming, although I found it interesting and "fair", is taking average as the base damage but adding 1 point of damage per extra point above required to hit (without, of course, going beyond what would be a maximum damage roll). It does require a bit of quick mental gymnastic, but not that different from normal imo. However, I tried to push the idea on my players, they didn't like it both for practical (they don't like on-the-fly maths) and emotional (more thrill with two different rolls ^^) reasons, so I dropped it.

As for the topic core, sorry, I may just be lucky but I never had antagonistic DM, so no DM horrific bias story to tell. ;)

[guachi]

It's because its strength drain feature isn't weighted when calculating the CR. Its offensive CR is only 1 and its defensive CR is only 1/8, averaging 0.56 CR or 1/2 CR rounded down.

That said, you never throw Shadows or Intellect Devourers at a low level group. Despite their low CR, they can instantly kill high level characters. That wizard with 8 Strength will die instantly with two lucky hits from a Shadow, whether they're level 1 or level 20.

Ran a converted D&D module, B10 Night's Dark Terror, that has shadows in it. The six player party was level four at the time with maximum everything as it was their first combat of the day.

Oh, wow, were the shadows nasty. One of the more shockingly difficult combats we've had.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Allow me to quote this, very well said. And it's indeed a line that can be hard to distinguish at first. :smallbiggrin:


Please do, thank you.

[Pex]

What the DM says, goes.

If he says enough stupid stuff, the players go too.

[Tanarii]

Our DM has been excellent with the new player, patient and merciful by turns while not exactly giving her stabilisers. In a recent skin-of-the-teeth boss battle he actually threw her several very obvious lifelines to make sure her character (just 2 sessions old!) wouldn't bite the dust. Nobody minded, not even the player whose character HAD bought it that session. I can safely say we trust and respect his instincts and he does a damn fine job at the captain's chair.Thats awesome. New players need a little time to get up to speed and decide what they want out of the game.


Speaking personally the idea seems totally toxic - at its heart, to me, D&D is a collaborative story that uses dice to provide a bit of randomness and excitement;Speaking personally, D&D is a game where tou get to play a fictional character making decisions in how to interact with a fictional environment. That absolute last thing I want is to play with people that think it's any kind of storytelling, collaborative or otherwise. I want to either provide my players with an interactive environment in which the can make meaningful decisions that have outcomes and consequences. Or have my DM do the same. I'm not there to drive an underlying plot forward, or determine outcomes based on narrative necessity. Nor would I want to play with a DM that's doing that.

I want to play a fictional person and see what happens to him, and how he develops, as a result of game play. Not see what happens with a story my character is living in. I'm okay with kibitzing the emergent story after the fact with the other players, but that's not the same thing as storytelling. Any more than living my life is living or telling a story. I may have stories to tell from the events of it, but again, that's a different thing from considering the living of it to be storytelling.

There are some game systems I'd be interested in doing that with, but D&D isn't one of them. Apocalypse World looks like a fun one for that.


a DM breaching that sort of social contract with his or her players just seems to break the thing that makes the game so fun.Any DM or players making narrative decisions about outcomes or consequences are breaching their contract with me as a player by denying me fun.


Out of sheer naive, innocent curiosity, I'd so love to hear some horror stories of DMs who played "versus" their own parties. I'd be fascinated to hear what you guys and gals have to say about it!Players being challenged and risking death due to consequences of their actions is not the same thing as a killer DM.

It's one thing to play with a DM, for example who trying to be a neutral arbiter DM and who is running a combat-as-war game. Telegraphing when you're going to get in over you head, but allows you the freedom to do exactly that if you choose to. Or one who provides difficult but not insurmountable Combat-as-sport challenges, with the understanding on the part of the players they're far more likely to die due to difficulty.

It's another for a DM to put insurmountable challenges in front of the players without providing them with sufficient warning or information on what they'll be facing, and no chance of escape. Or to take a rocks-fall-you're-dead approach, obviously.

Personally there are times when I'm happy as a player to face almost certain death for my characters. I've played BECMI very close to BtB, and it's lethal as all get-out. The challenge of just trying to survive is fun. Since I like developing characters during play, as opposed to big back stories beforehand, losing a newish character wasn't a huge problem.

Other times I'm fine with pizza, sodas and throwing dice for the fun of it, with some challenge, but not overwhelming challenge. 4e combat-as-sport official play single-session adventures were great for that.

Once in a while I'll get into deep character development and exploring the world play. I don't think D&D is the best game for that, but it's okay in a small group. In those cases, I don't want to get smeared out of hand, because the fun isn't the challenge of 'winning' by surviving. I want actually surviving to be easy mode in that case.

[EvilAnagram]

I want to play a fictional person and see what happens to him, and how he develops, as a result of game play. Not see what happens with a story my character is living in. I'm okay with kibitzing the emergent story after the fact with the other players, but that's not the same thing as storytelling.
I would argue that this is precisely the same thing as storytelling. The fact that you don't know where the narrative is going does not make it cease to be storytelling any more than telling a child a bedtime story you make up on the fly is not storytelling.


Any more than living my life is living or telling a story. I may have stories to tell from the events of it, but again, that's a different thing from considering the living of it to be storytelling.
I would also argue that people construct stories to frame their lIves as they live out their lives, not after the fact.

Basis for my authority: I am a man on the internet.

[rigolgm]

The glorious Paranoia RPG is a good tonic for DM vs player tension. Everyone expects the DM to kill most or all of the PCs during a Paranoia session and it's fun. Also Dungeon Crawl Classics is virtually an ironic take on the deadliness of Dugneons and Dragons (you start by controlling a few PCs each and they quite rapidly die off).

But yeah, I've never witnessed antagonistic DMing. An antagonistic DM is a cr*p DM. Simple as that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've not really seen much intentional antagonistic DMing. I've heard stories, but never seen it. Like with many things, I can understand how it could be fun if you went in eyes-open and fully accepting--see how far we get before the DM manages to crush us all. I don't find that fun myself, and see how it could devolve into bad times.

Personally, I see this attitude arising when players (including the DM) identify personally and competitively with the characters. Having the desire to "win," and more specifically for the other side to lose, they start taking failures personally. This happens in discussions as well--people attack ideas and others take that as a personal attack. This usually spirals into bad times pretty quickly.

I try to follow the Apocalypse World idea of being a fan of the characters. This means that I design situations that will allow them to do their thing--situations that have interesting consequences both for failure and for success. The NPCs and world are explicitly foils to the characters and exist to help the characters be themselves and face interesting situations, where interesting is defined at the individual player level. This means that I treat different players differently. That player who demands strong consequences and high difficulty--I'll push him and let the chips fall where they may. The one who cares strongly about their character's specific contributions? I'll help them experience things, even if that means diverting enemy attacks once their character goes unconscious. The one that likes combat? Will get combat. The one that likes talking? Will have a chance to make a difference by talking. Balancing all of this is an essential DM skill.



I would argue that this is precisely the same thing as storytelling. The fact that you don't know where the narrative is going does not make it cease to be storytelling any more than telling a child a bedtime story you make up on the fly is not storytelling.


I would also argue that people construct stories to frame their lIves as they live out their lives, not after the fact.

Basis for my authority: I am a man on the internet.

It's clear to me that Tanarii uses a different, incompatible meaning for "story" and "storytelling" than most of us. I certainly agree with you that the actions that I see at the table fit my personal definition of storytelling, but this is strongly off-topic and liable to cause a long digression so I'll stop there.

[Tanarii]

I would argue that this is precisely the same thing as storytelling. The fact that you don't know where the narrative is going does not make it cease to be storytelling any more than telling a child a bedtime story you make up on the fly is not storytelling.It's the exact opposite of storytelling. "Living" the life of your fantasy character is no more telling a child a bedtime story than living actual life is. I mean, let's not get confused here. It's not a real character, it's not a real environment. Down that path leads only insanity.

But making decisions for your fantasy character in the fantasy environment and having outcomes and results is agency, just like me living life is exercising my free will. None of the steps involved are determining or determined by narrative. Unlike a child's bed-time story being made up on the spot.


I would also argue that people construct stories to frame their lIves as they live out their lives, not after the fact.I find people that use the phrase "living the story of my life" very disturbing, on a personal level. It implies they believe there is some underlying narrative or outside agency or theme or purpose tying their life together and driving it. That seems like it is, in effect, denying their own agency / free will. As well responsibility for their own actions.


Basis for my authority: I am a man on the internet.:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin :
The best kind of authority!

(Edit: tried to tone down my comments a tad. They were starting to go down the path towards insulting.)

[Contrast]

Snip

I feel like you're adhering to what seems to be a very narrow definition of what constitutes a 'story'.

Just because its a story doesn't mean it has to have a moral or teach you something or even really mean anything at all. Compelling ones usually do but not all stories are good or satisfying.

I agree there's a difference between running a game with a strong narrative approach guided by the DM and running a game without a strong narrative guided by the DM but either way if you were to sit down at the end of the game and recount the events that happened to the characters - that would be a story (and as such, in the process of making those decisions and actions you are in the process of telling a story).

[Tanarii]

I agree there's a difference between running a game with a strong narrative approach guided by the DM and running a game without a strong narrative guided by the DM but either way if you were to sit down at the end of the game and recount the events that happened to the characters - that would be a story (and as such, in the process of making those decisions and actions you are in the process of telling a story).
That's emergent story. And it's a totally different thing from considering the actual gameplay to be storytelling.

Storytelling gameplay is playing the story, not playing the character. There's something of a fuzzy line, because unlike RL there's two separate 'entities' involved: the player and the PC. For example, in storytelling (determining what happens due to narrative necessity) the player can still have agency over the story, if it's collaborative. But if you're instead determining what your PC does in the fantasy environment, and the outcomes and consequences are being determined by the DM based on logical results for that fantasy environment (possibly aided by dice if it's uncertain) instead of narrative necessity, then it's not playing the story.

You can certainly generate one based on events. But that's not the same as playing the game with an express goal of creating a story as you go.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's emergent story. And it's a totally different thing from considering the actual gameplay to be storytelling.

Storytelling gameplay is playing the story, not playing the character. There's something of a fuzzy line, because unlike RL there's two separate 'entities' involved: the player and the PC. For example, in storytelling (determining what happens due to narrative necessity) the player can still have agency over the story, if it's collaborative. But if you're instead determining what your PC does in the fantasy environment, and the outcomes and consequences are being determined by the DM based on logical results for that fantasy environment (possibly aided by dice if it's uncertain) instead of narrative necessity, then it's not playing the story.

You can certainly generate one based on events. But that's not the same as playing the game with an express goal of creating a story as you go.

Agreed, if and only if we accept your definition of "story". I for one, don't. Without a shared definition, further discussion is not only off topic but fruitless.

[Sigreid]

For the not much it's worth I'm with Tanarii on this one. When a game is collaborative story telling, that tells me that there is an underlying narrative tying the whole thing together. That's not what I look for when I play.

To go back to real life, lots of stories can be told from my life. Some of those stories tie together. Some don't. The only thing they all have in common is one particular character, me. I don't live my life as the hero of my own story. I live my life, and stories can be told about what happened.

[mephnick]

If a DM saved me from death because "I wasn't supposed to die yet", I'd quit the game immediately. I don't play DnD for plot armour while a story unfolds. I play it to see if my decisions and rolls kill me or make me rich.

[Tanarii]

Agreed, if and only if we accept your definition of "story". I for one, don't. Without a shared definition, further discussion is not only off topic but fruitless.fair on the disagreeing, which is why I called out emergent storytelling, because I know for a lot of people they include it under the general umbrella of "story". And obviously even I think it's under the broader umbrella, otherwise I wouldn't name it a certain kind of story.

I don't "storytelling" as a whole is necessarily off topic. The OP made it pretty clear what kind of gaming they're into, and their comment on collaborative storytelling seems fairly key to that.

I'm not into that certain kinds of story, and while it doesn't flat out contradict parts of what I'm occasionally into, others it does. So it got included in my bloviating.

My key point though was: Risk of character Death, even almost certainty of death of some older editions at low level, is an enjoyable challenge for some people to overcome some of the time. And therefor fun for them.

And for others getting other kinds of fun out of the game, it's not fun at all. I'll go so far as to say most people don't find BECMI levels of lethality fun. 5e is right not to make that the default.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If a DM saved me from death because "I wasn't supposed to die yet", I'd quit the game immediately. I don't play DnD for plot armour while a story unfolds. I play it to see if my decisions and rolls kill me or make me rich.

I agree that unilateral plot armor is wrong. How would you react if the DM asked “how do you want to play this” when you died? I’ve had one player who was was the “if I die, I die” type, and another who has expressed strong feelings the other way. Would a policy of letting the player choose die/no-die (but out of action for a while) work for you (assuming the DM respects that decision)?

[mephnick]

I agree that unilateral plot armor is wrong. How would you react if the DM asked “how do you want to play this” when you died? I’ve had one player who was was the “if I die, I die” type, and another who has expressed strong feelings the other way. Would a policy of letting the player choose die/no-die (but out of action for a while) work for you (assuming the DM respects that decision)?

Anyone in my party being allowed to cheat death just because they didn't want their character to die would really cheapen the experience for me, but I'd probably live with it without comment while I found a group that aligns with my style a bit more.

[LeonBH]

I agree that unilateral plot armor is wrong. How would you react if the DM asked “how do you want to play this” when you died? I’ve had one player who was was the “if I die, I die” type, and another who has expressed strong feelings the other way. Would a policy of letting the player choose die/no-die (but out of action for a while) work for you (assuming the DM respects that decision)?

My style is something I call Optional Death. When you roll a death save, roll one in secret. Absolutely let no one else see it, including the DM. Report the result.

If your style is "if I die, I die" then you are free to report the result honestly.

If your style is "player character death sucks" then you are free to report a natural 20.

[Honest Tiefling]

To each their own. I think the horror stories of DMing where the DM goes on a power trip (Such as my favorite, the Legend of the Tower of Exagerrated Sorcery) stems from three things:

1) The DM not informing anyone how the game is going to be played, so they try to make flavorful characters over optimized ones and get screwed over royally

2) The DM not adhering to some sort of guidelines. Having interesting and challenging combat is one thing, having to fight a CR 25 custom made dragon with at-will spells is probably not so fun for most people. Basically, the difference between a DM using smart tactics to win versus someone trying to win by simply being more powerful.

If the game was 'DM versus Players' with some sort of communication and guidelines set out, I don't see why it couldn't work. Some people love a challenge.

[LaserFace]

I don't like pulling my punches, and I don't like DMs pulling them for my sake, either. I feel like the game is sort of designed in a way where players are supposed to be generally successful, but you should never get too attached or invested in winning 100% of the time, because anything can happen.

Ultimately I think anything is fair game, so long as the players get opportunities to make meaningful choices. This could be deciding to continue a fight or run away, or to use nonviolent methods when violence would be very dangerous, things like that. I make it part of my personal code to never introduce enemies that are absolutely impossible for the players to fight, and I always try to keep my mind open to alternative solutions and outcomes I didn't previously consider.

That said, I kinda enjoy putting my players through hell by beating the crap out of their characters. Miraculously, I don't think I've killed a single one of them. Seems like it works. I think we all have a good time, actually.

I don't really have any horror stories of DMs being harsh with the rules. Any bad experiences I've had with DMs are when they just make stuff up on the spot. Just the same-old Auto-lose scenario. Maybe they have a round of dice-rolling, but you know they're just putting on a show to pretend they're not jerks. Thankfully these guys seem to be in the minority, and it's not particularly hard to ditch them for something better.

[Easy_Lee]

Most of my bad experiences with DMs have come down to control.

The DM dictates a player's action.
The DM makes a change on the fly to ensure a character fails, takes damage, or similar.
The DM doesn't allow a mechanically valid plan to work because he doesn't like it.

Having been on both sides of the fence, it's hard to suspend my disbelief. I know what the DM is doing, and I can pretty quickly figure out his motivations. When a DM either wants full control over the world or delights in harming the PCs, those are the worst campaigns.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Agreed, if and only if we accept your definition of "story". I for one, don't. Without a shared definition, further discussion is not only off topic but fruitless.
The lack of a shared definition is what makes discussion necessary, not fruitless.

English is a living, fluid language. There is no one set meaning for playing D&D as a story telling game, or a co-operative storytelling game that is universally accepted.

So different people will always think of different game elements - which they may have a positive, neutral, or negative view of - when they hear “storytelling game”. The undermining assumption that a specific set of mouth noises (or squiggly lines) always has the same meaning for everyone is a major contributor to needless conflict on forums.

Only through honest discussion where we are trying to see where the other person is coming from can we get past those assumptions. Does not mean we will suddenly find we agree on everything, but at least we will know what game elements we are actually in disagreement on. And from this type is discussion, reader’s can draw their own conclusions, finding ideas to improve their own games.

[lperkins2]

So, I have played the killer DM before, and it can work quite well. The key is to set up rules for how you will go about it, and make sure your players are good with them. Also, above all, make sure your players know up front that the mortality rate will be high, that way they don't spend lots of time making a character to which they get very attached. If you do it right, it'll be loads of fun for everyone.


Don't cheat; don't fudge the rolls against the party; don't have the monsters act on information they shouldn't have, or against their nature. More subtly, don't change the setting to screw over the party you have. For example, if you hadn't included monsters with flight, but notice the party doesn't have ranged weapons, don't add flying monsters.

When I did it, it was a grimdark mystery campaign. I knew I'd have 4 players, but specifically avoided finding out what types of characters would be used. I then sketched out the entirety of the setting, including possible monsters and their numbers. In this case it was an isolated village locked in by winter, but a dungeon crawl works too. Many of the resources were under the influence or control of a malevolent spirit, so they had a high degree of coordination. The secondary threats were often hungry creatures of some type, so while they could potentially be driven off, they would happily munch downed PCs (stirges, mimics, ropers, et cetera). Often the best solution was to retreat and barricade doors.

Once you're done setting up super deadly encounters (which often weren't by the CR tables), and the game starts, it's time to stop trying to engineer the PCs' deaths. Expect the players to catch on to the patterns you used, and bypass large portions of your death traps, don't fight it, enjoy it. You can expect to kill a few PCs while they learn the ropes, so make sure you have a way to introduce reinforcements without straining verisimilitude. In my case, the PCs were part of a scattered military unit; if any died, they could easily be replaced as more stragglers made it into town.


The OP wanted stories, so here's an excerpt from the campaign.

The party (2 druids, a sorcerer, and a fighter), had gotten separated from their unit, and found their way to a roadside inn, about 5 miles from the town. As soon as they saw it, they knew something about the place was off, but they couldn't put their finger on exactly what. The only person there was the barman, but there was what looked like a banquet laid out on a table. They're told they can have any room the like, but the master suite is closed for 'maintenance', that the temperature controls were broken. The tables and chairs were pretty much perfect duplicates of each other, but weren't quite 'square'. As the evening went on they noticed other little oddities. A bit freaked out, but not wanting to spend the night out in the bad weather (and warned that camping out is exceedingly dangerous in the setting), they rented a single room and set up to hunker down for the night. 1 of the PCs sacks out on the floor, and they grab a bed from the room next door. Along with the two in the room, this means 3 PCs are planning to sleep in beds and one on the floor. They also notice several of the doorways are too small for the beds to have fit through them.

One of the PCs decided to go get some ale from the barkeep, and brought several tankards back to the room. Upon returning, he realised the room lacked any chairs, so went to fetch one. That's when all hell broke loose. He got back with the chair (from out in the hallway), and checked to see if there were markings on the floor consistent with chairs normally being in the room. There weren't, but he was certain the table had moved an inch or so while he was out of the room. After asking the other party members if they'd moved it, he firebolted the table. It (the table) jumped, so the party all blasted it, and it dissolved into a puddle of goo. The one PC who had turned in early then tries to get out of bed, only to find the blanket on the bed trying to grab him. He shrugs it off as just being tangled in the blanket, since it didn't pursue him, and wasn't obviously animated. The ruckus got the innkeeper to come upstairs, so they start trying to pressure information out of him. He continues to be evasive, but basically tells them they're welcome to investigate anything they want, since he has nothing to hide. Then he says he's going back downstairs to have a cup of tea and turn in. The party decides to let him go, and go investigate the master suite.

The first thing they notice is the temperature is fine, then they notice a fine banquet laid out on the table, including a lightly steaming chicken. Three PCs go to investigate the side rooms, while one of the druids shapeshifts into a direwolf and grabs the chicken. The chicken grabs him back; the players kinda freak at this point. The druid breaks the grapple and throws the chicken against the wall, where it starts sliding across the floor towards him. The party then decides its high time to get out of there, since it's just too creepy. As they come running out of the side rooms, the rest of the room wakes up, the chairs, plates, and tables all start moving toward them, making pseudopod attacks at the closest of them, and in the background 'Be Our Guest' starts quietly playing.

None of the PCs died in this encounter, in part because two druids are capable of a fair amount of healing, and in part because I rolled badly the entire time. It was a near thing, since they kept outrunning the horde of mimics, stopping right next to another piece of furniture, only to have it come alive and grab at one of them. The second or third time this happened, the chair that came alive grabbed the fighter and dropped him to 0. That was when I think it sunk in for the players that I wouldn't be pulling punches, since the mimic didn't let go of him, and on its next turn proceeded to take its auto-critical 2 death-save failures. Fortunately, a druid was next and could drop healing on him. Even with that, the PC told his companions to leave him, since they were all getting pretty beat up and the horde was about to catch up to them again. The sorcerer managed to burn off that mimic, letting them run again.

All in all, the players all loved it. It's pretty rare in D&D to have an encounter that is neither solved by a straight fight, nor results in an instant TPK. The thing about mimics is they are slow, so if the party can figure out how to kite them, they can be easily defeated. The players had joked about the inn being full of mimics about 5 minutes into the session, but the PCs reaction when they realised it was indeed the case was an amazing mix of surprise and terror.

[Anonymouswizard]

Dungeons and Dragons is a collaborative storytelling game, and the objective of the DM should be to progress the story, offer the players the best possible opportunities to engage in telling the story, and come up with a fair and satisfying conclusion to any conflicts involved therein (including traps, battles, and player on player disagreements).

Eh, if you want that look up games like Fate where you're actually supposed to be simulating a story. There are games out there designed around simulating a story with conflicts having end points where the PCs lose and don't die, to the point of having actual rules that organically generate ups and downs.


The glorious Paranoia RPG is a good tonic for DM vs player tension. Everyone expects the DM to kill most or all of the PCs during a Paranoia session and it's fun.

I've never run it, but it's one of those games that has always been on my list. Especially as with proper planning you can kill off up to two clones per player and render them equipmentless before the mission starts (give one of the players a live grenade when collecting equipment, then state that if their clones want equipment they have to report to the armoury).


I personally like the Fate model, where losing means something bad happens, and you can concede before you're out to have a say in what happens, although that doesn't work as well with D&D style hp.