Making all the players die, opinions?

[Belladonna Took]

Recently we had a session where the players were intended to fall unconscious to be captured. I do not enjoy combat that is overly difficult where you are near dying each turn, struggling to beat all the creatures, only to have yet another wave of creatures come. We easily wasted four hours on this one combat where we were struggling and losing the whole time. Have other DMs designed encounters where you intend for the players to die/fall unconscious?

Is there any way you've done it in the past where you didn't leave a sour taste in your players mouths afterwards?

[Kane0]

Practice your maniacal laugh, you’re gonna need it.

[Anymage]

If the goal is to have the PCs captured, leaving it to the dice means that too many little things can go wrong. Better to just narrate it and have the action start later on.

First, though, ask yourself why you want to have the PCs be captured in the first place. If you want to tone down their power level by taking away gear, don't. Players get understandably miffed if you take away their toys. If you want to make the PCs really hate the bad guys, you can target other things that they're invested in. It can sometimes be easier to siege their home base than it is to capture a PC who focuses on being evasive. If you want them to have an inside look at the bad guy's keep, talk with the players and promise them that they'll get their goodies back very soon. You may be able to get them to be okay with having their characters fiat-captured. They may even voluntarily, in-character throw the fight, since their characters might figure that getting captured would let them have a go at the inside of the enemy's base.

But why you want to do this is at least as important as the plot you want to write. And if you're doing this to take some murderhobo players down a peg, stop right now. There are ways to engage murderhobo player types, but punishing players rarely goes over well.

[LeonBH]

Well, don't kill the players.

But I think it's a valid method to present the players with an impossible scenario to see how they will conquer it.

[Tanarii]

If you're playing it out, then the DM either wanted the players to feel sense of impending doom and despair, or there's a chance the players can do something clever to escape the situation. Or possibly one might be likely to escape and come back with reinforcements to rescue the others later.

If I'm DMing a situation the players are going to lose because it's going to happen no matter what, I either summarize it, or give them a chance to surrender first then summarize it when they mouth off. Players will always mouth off, so I just assume that's going to happen if they're asked to surrender.

I couldn't tell from your post if you were the DM or a player, but it reads more like you were the player with a sour taste in your mouth who considers the time wasted. Maybe the DM was going for that? Feeling the slow crushing despair of realizing there's no way you can win is a different experience for many players, and some will object to a summarized "you're all knocked out" as railroading.

Edit: obviously the easiest way to do this quickly and still play it out is to just use an enemy that will crush them quickly no matter what.

[Slayn82]

After a few short battles, tell the characters they notice the area is still surrounded, and the endless enemies hold position covering the escape routes. They are feeling exhausted, maybe tense, maybe confident in defending their ground. The enemy demands their surrender. Players try shenanigans. Maybe they mouth off the enemy, maybe they kill the envoy, thinking he is the leader and this will demoralize the enemies.

Then the enemy side aswer with superior firepower. Just narrate it. Thunder blasts any cover they have, several fireballs explode around them, and the enemies shoot arrows all over them. At distance, large and menacing creatures advance on their position. They fall down.

And awake, body covered in blood, all useful gear taken away, chained and locked.

"So we could only take you prisoners over your dead bodies? It's fine, fine".

[Avonar]

From experience of this, it's very unsatisfying. Just going through and through combat until we lose, we all figured out that we had never had a chance and it ended up feeling like a wasted session.

Do it through narrative. If you want to give them chances to escape then let them but doing it in turn by turn combat is boring and uninteresting.

Give them an obviously overwhelming scenario. Too may people, too powerful creatures, let them know they're screwed. That way if they fight they know it's they're fault.

[Laserlight]

I suspect every DM has an urge, at least once, to beat the PCs unconscious and capture them. I would tell them in advance: "For plot reasons, you're going to get captured. Would you rather surrender to overwhelming force and move ahead with the story, or spend a session to go down fighting and maybe take a boss with you?"

[Cespenar]

It all comes down to the reason.

If it creates or serves a meaningful narrative, why not?

Or if it's thematically accurate within your setting and the PCs have knowledge about it, yet they still go and face that challenge, why not?

If the reason is rather petty instead, then of course: meh.

[mephnick]

You definitely have to narrate it in a way where it is obviously hopeless and the PCs are fighting to the last because they're badasses, but even then it only works for certain groups.

I love combat so I'd probably be happy to spend a session seeing how many bad guys I could take down with me, but there still needs to be a "victory" in the loss. The PCs go down but they take down a lieutenant that should have lived, or gave a town enough time to evacuate or something. It sounds like your loss was completely hollow and pointless. No doubt many players would view it as a wasted night. There's almost always a fun way to do anything, but you have to do it right.

[Elbeyon]

A fight to the death should be an option. Let the game end when they all die.

[Mikal]

Recently we had a session where the players were intended to fall unconscious to be captured. I do not enjoy combat that is overly difficult where you are near dying each turn, struggling to beat all the creatures, only to have yet another wave of creatures come. We easily wasted four hours on this one combat where we were struggling and losing the whole time. Have other DMs designed encounters where you intend for the players to die/fall unconscious?

Is there any way you've done it in the past where you didn't leave a sour taste in your players mouths afterwards?

What was the party composition (Classes, levels)
What were the opponents used against you? How many?

How did the encounter get triggered? What led up to it?

How do you know the encounter was meant to have everyone fall unconscious or be captured?

Right now, we're not getting all the facts, so hard to respond to your question beyond giving basic answers.

[Kintar]

I hate these types of encounters. To me they should always be narrated so that everyone can quickly get back to the heroic stuff, like the prison break or whatever was supposed to occur after the railroad “death”.

Maybe it’s because I’m an older gamer/dm and not only do I have to carve out time to play, but so do my gamers. Now, when I plan a session, my goal is that my players feel at the end of the session that they had more fun playing than watching tv or hanging with their kids/wives. I also have some players that now live in different states and have driven to my home for the game. Nothing kills a campaign faster than when the players leave feeling that the game was a waste of their time.

Don’t get me wrong. Characters still die in my campaigns, and I don’t pull punches. I roll in front of the screen so my players know that I won’t fudge to save them just as much as they know their hold person spell actually worked or that I truly did crit hit them. I have never felt the desire to open the monster manual and unleash proverbial hell on my players just because ‘I’m the DM’.

[Lombra]

If you plan for a fight to drop everyone unconcious then make the fight last as long as you want then take initiative and start describing how the enemies are overwhelming the characters, then proceed to the next narrative arc.

[Elbeyon]

Also, let the players say their character dies in the transition. Not everyone wants to get captured.

[Rynjin]

Planning for a single outcome is bad GMing, simply put. Planning for an outcome where the PCs lose (and you expect them to just accept their loss, no less) is both poor GMing and really, really bad social skills. Players just don't work like that.

By all means, create a difficult encounter, but you want to have a plan for at least two scenarios. Give them a chance (if a slim one) to win if their plan is tactically sound and the dice are on their side, and plan for what happens if they win.

Plan for what happens if they lose. Easy enough to set up: Why would this enemy take them prisoner? What purpose does it serve? These things should be established when you come up with the NPCs.

Plan for what happens if you have a PC that just refuses to quit. Maybe they have Die Hard (or the 5e equivalent, if any) and refuse to go down. Do you have the enemy kill them? Are they the type to respect the party's spunk and let them go, do they circle and wait for him to drop on his own, or maybe they throw some nets on him and haul him off stll kicking and screaming while weakened?

Creating an encounter that can't be won because of fiat is just boring. it's boring for you to design (because there is no design, just brute force). It's boring for the players, who have one of two outcomes: You skip the formalities and just say "You lose" (which is never fun) or you have them play out the encounter and waste their time with a boring slog of a fight (especially in 5e, which has arguably the slowest and least interesting combat of any D&D edition) that slowly marches to a predetermined outcome.

The whole scenario of "the PCs MUST be captured" is cliche, lazy, and boring.

[Sigreid]

My advice is don't do it. If you must have them all captured, have an overwhelming force demand surrender and be prepared to wipe the party when they don't.

I consider it bad practice to force an outcome of any type. It's not really a game at that point.

[Lombra]

Planning for a single outcome is bad GMing, simply put. Planning for an outcome where the PCs lose (and you expect them to just accept their loss, no less) is both poor GMing and really, really bad social skills. Players just don't work like that.

That's false and pretentious. There are many examples out there where character choices didn't matter in the end but the story was perfectly coherent and intreasting. Sometimes you just can't win, and it's fine to represent that in D&D, it's not always just about fairytales and heroes in shiny armor. Failure can build as much interest as success.

[Pex]

Players do not like to be railroaded into capture. They hate it. Doesn't matter everything will be ok, and that it's only a contrivance, players will hate it. To do it right you have to make it obvious. When the PCs are confronted by a few orcs the party knows it's a fight. When surrounded by the orc army, the hobgoblin generals, and the Necromancer Lieutenant of the BBEG, it's a plot device. When you do make it so obvious, never, ever take the PCs' stuff! Not all players will be comfortable with the situation, but they'll listen to what the BBEG of the encounter has to say and trust you're not screwing them over by fiat.

[strangebloke]

Planning for a single outcome is bad GMing, simply put. Planning for an outcome where the PCs lose (and you expect them to just accept their loss, no less) is both poor GMing and really, really bad social skills. Players just don't work like that.

...

The whole scenario of "the PCs MUST be captured" is cliche, lazy, and boring.


Players do not like to be railroaded into capture. They hate it. Doesn't matter everything will be ok, and that it's only a contrivance, players will hate it. To do it right you have to make it obvious. When the PCs are confronted by a few orcs the party knows it's a fight. When surrounded by the orc army, the hobgoblin generals, and the Necromancer Lieutenant of the BBEG, it's a plot device. When you do make it so obvious, never, ever take the PCs' stuff! Not all players will be comfortable with the situation, but they'll listen to what the BBEG of the encounter has to say and trust you're not screwing them over by fiat.

I'm with these guys.

'kobayashi maru' is not a fun game to play. Even if there's no solution as you see it, you should allow for the possibility that they'll succeed.

At one point a group of assassins were targeting the players. They were lower level than the party, but were pretty crafty and they had lots of time and resources. As a DM I crafted the best assassination schemes I could think of, and just... threw them at the party. Some of the siutations I put the party in were as I saw it impossible to survive. Even though I allowed for saves and checks, I just didn't think they could survive the stuff that was being thrown at them. Two of the party actually did die over the course of a dozen encounters, and eventually this led to the players taking time off the main quest 'to hunt those bastards down.'

I wanted the whole party to die (actually, I wanted most of them to get captured), but most of the players outsmarted my Assassins. It was fun! Instead of them waking up in the BBeG's lair, they rolled up some new PCs and later on stumbled across the old PCs when they tracked the assassins back to their hideout. Railroading, sure, but I kept it light as possible. The players need to feel that their decisions matter.

That said, sometimes "infinite reinforcements" is something you'll wanna do. Take a page out of games that actually do this, like left4dead, and make it fun. Have a bunch of 5-hit point wonders who grapple and and inhibit the players, and a couple 'miniboss' guys with various powers. Since I mentioned left4dead, try this:

Zombies: mostly to grapple and inhibit the players
Ogre Zombies: suck up a lot of hits, deal a lot of damage.
Exploding Zombies: Like regular zombies but they explode in a 10-foot radius for 4d6 damage when they die. The game here is hitting them before they get close. Lets the players feel like they're winning at times, but ultimately they're just wasting resources.
Necromancer: shows up, casts stinking cloud, throws out Toll the Dead every round after. Counterspells.
Ghoul with offensive CR buff: Bonus points, make him look like a zombie so that the players don't target him. This is your assassin, as if he paralyzes a target, that's game over.

Overall, high offensive CRs and low defensive CRs are the way to go.

[Scripten]

I planned one of these situations before, actually. The players had been making a ruckus and had drawn the attention of a very powerful empire. I fully expected them to be captured. So the players got word that the Empire's forces were approaching and, instead of running, they decided to fight. They spent an entire session preparing and shoring up defenses.

And they won. It was a hell of a battle and only two of them were still standing, but they won. Of course, after the fight the entire group was exhausted and ready to end, but you could feel the sense of pride and accomplishment. One of my favorite memories.

[Easy_Lee]

At its core, D&D is a game about player response to the DM's world. Everything the players do is reactive.

When you decide what is going to happen to the players, you've taken away their ability to choose. Stripped of their agency, players will lose interest in your campaign if this is done with any regularity.

DMs, do this at your own risk.

[Tiadoppler]

If it has stats, the players will find a way to kill it. This applies to any supposedly overwhelming encounter just as much as it applies to any statted demigod.


At low levels, if the party has to be "captured", it can be done through narration without ever rolling initiative. This is important because dice are random and the unexpected will happen, and because the players have pride. Choosing to surrender to a larger force (and not wasting time) is more appealing than an hour or two of combat encounter that cannot be defeated.

"This overwhelming force has you surrounded, and you're almost out of spell slots for the day. The squadron of griffin-riding crossbowmen 400' overhead doesn't look immediately hostile, nor do the cavalry in the trees. A voice calls from immediately ahead of you, although you cannot see the source. 'This is Colonel Railroad! We have orders to bring you in for an audience with the Minister of Road Repair and Plotholes. Lay down your weapons and you will not be harmed.'"


At mid- to high- levels, DON'T. Experienced adventurers can be invited places, or tricked into showing up, but should not be expected to surrender to most forces. By level 15+, a D&D party might have more immediate resources available than some nations' militaries, with amazing mobility and ability to escape. Gameplay and Story Segregation is not appropriate. This is not a video game cutscene. An alert fighter wearing a plate helmet with 150 hp and a CON save of +10 will not take kindly to "you're tapped on the back of the head with a cosh and fall asleep".


Edit: I prefer to keep "capture" as a way of recovering from a TPK, not as a standard plot device. If there's some random encounter that the party flubs, they may wake up in a ditch with their gear missing, or dumped in a prison with a single bobby pin/lockpick. Maybe they wake up as slaves on a ship.

[Mikal]

At low levels, if the party has to be "captured", it can be done through narration without ever rolling initiative. This is important because dice are random and the unexpected will happen, and because the players have pride. Choosing to surrender to a larger force (and not wasting time) is more appealing than an hour or two of combat encounter that cannot be defeated.

All aboard the roleplay railroad... Choo Choo!



"This overwhelming force has you surrounded, and you're almost out of spell slots for the day. The squadron of griffin-riding crossbowmen 400' overhead don't look immediately hostile, nor do the cavalry in the trees. A voice calls from immediately ahead of you, although you cannot hear the source. 'This is Colonel Railroad! We have orders to bring you in for an audience with the Minister of Road Repair and Plotholes. Lay down your weapons and you will not be harmed.'"

To which I reply "Top of da world, ma!" and go in (and likely out) swinging.

[Sigreid]

One more thought. If you really want a particular event to happen to set up an adventure, be honest about it and ask your players to simply play along for a bit. Don't do this often and don't be too put out if they refuse.

[Tiadoppler]

All aboard the roleplay railroad... Choo Choo!


Yep. It's not usually a good thing, but if it's necessary, or you've run out of ideas as a DM, it might be acceptable once per campaign. Don't waste your players' time. If you're gonna railroad, at least build a hyperloop :D


Edit: I wasn't being sarcastic. Call the guy Colonel Railroad, hang a lampshade on it and ask your players to just go along with it this time.

[Mikal]

Yep. It's not usually a good thing, but if it's necessary, or you've run out of ideas as a DM, it might be acceptable once per campaign. Don't waste your players' time. If you're gonna railroad, at least build a hyperloop :D


Edit: I wasn't being sarcastic. Call the guy Colonel Railroad, hang a lampshade on it and ask your players to just go along with it this time.

If you've run out of ideas as a DM maybe you should be a player for awhile to recharge those batteries.

[Tanarii]

That's false and pretentious. There are many examples out there where character choices didn't matter in the end but the story was perfectly coherent and intreasting. Sometimes you just can't win, and it's fine to represent that in D&D, it's not always just about fairytales and heroes in shiny armor. Failure can build as much interest as success.
Not to mention, players can and will get themselves in over their heads, unless a DM is going out of their way to make sure the world has beatable encounters in it. Or reacts to the PCs actions with beatable encounters.

That's especially relevant in 5e, where a big enough army of mooks can take out quite high level characters if they stand and fight.

I'm specifically referring to the players having already made choices here, and those choices having consequences.

An example: I opened a Keep on the Borderlands recently campaign with the 1st level PCs, of brand new to D&D players for 2 of them, guarding base for a couple of 3rd level NPCs that blindly bum-rushed the goblin/ogre caves. 2 PCs got to observe the last NPC getting thrown out of the cave, and many goblins and hobgoblins and Ogres coming out capturing the NPC and scour the area. Following that was the PCs having to make a run for it. They could have stood and fought the big groups, but I made it clear they would lose, in which case I would have captured them, since their choice would have consequences. But that wasn't my goal. My goal was for them to see the caves as dangerous if careless, and to understand that fighting isn't always the best choice. They did get to have several small encounters while retreating back to the keep with smaller groups. But their objective was always get past unseen, or eliminate as quickly and quietly as possible.

[Tiadoppler]

To which I reply "Top of da world, ma!" and go in (and likely out) swinging.

Not all campaigns revolve around high level Klingons and murderhobos. Let's imagine that a rational, low level adventuring party has

> committed a crime, or been accused/framed of one.
or
> attracted the interest of someone with great power who wishes to meet them.

and the party

> is generally lawful, and the civilization they're part of is one in which authority is respected.
or
> recognizes that they are not yet the top dog of the world.
or
> has friends/family or owns businesses that they do not want captured/threatened




Saying that your character would never surrender to any government, or that your character would always fight to the death is completely reasonable, but many other campaigns have different types of PCs with different personalities.

In my campaign, the characters are cautious but generally lawful, recognize that they cannot defeat all opponents all the time, and generally try to minimize risk to themselves by being clever.




In some cases, having a low-level adventuring party arrested or captured is the natural, logical progression of events.

> They are not superpowered yet, so the city watch/army/mages guild/league of extraordinary assassins does have the resources to capture them without risk.

> They are growing in power, and therefore becoming threats/persons of interest to those who are currently in power.

> They are citizens of nation, and they have been behaving as vigilantes, or even potentially murderers and thieves, and there is an investigation into their affairs.



This is not the case for every campaign, but it is also a reasonable part of some campaigns in which the PCs are roleplaying as part of the world they're living in, and there are functioning governments and organizations.

[Sigreid]

Not all campaigns revolve around high level Klingons and murderhobos. Let's imagine that a rational, low level adventuring party has

> committed a crime, or been accused/framed of one.
or
> attracted the interest of someone with great power who wishes to meet them.

and the party

> is generally lawful, and the civilization they're part of is one in which authority is respected.
or
> recognizes that they are not yet the top dog of the world.
or
> has friends/family or owns businesses that they do not want captured/threatened




Saying that your character would never surrender to any government, or that your character would always fight to the death is completely reasonable, but many other campaigns have different types of PCs with different personalities.

In my campaign, the characters are cautious but generally lawful, recognize that they cannot defeat all opponents all the time, and generally try to minimize risk to themselves by being clever.




In some cases, having a low-level adventuring party arrested or captured is the natural, logical progression of events.

> They are not superpowered yet, so the city watch/army/mages guild/league of extraordinary assassins does have the resources to capture them without risk.

> They are growing in power, and therefore becoming threats/persons of interest to those who are currently in power.

> They are citizens of nation, and they have been behaving as vigilantes, or even potentially murderers and thieves, and there is an investigation into their affairs.



This is not the case for every campaign, but it is also a reasonable part of some campaigns in which the PCs are roleplaying as part of the world they're living in, and there are functioning governments and organizations.

I think 2 different things are being talked. The OP seems to be in a situation where they have a particular story in mind that requires the party be violently captured.

You seem to be describing a situation where the party's actions lead to a serious attempt to capture them.

The difference between the two is whether it's an attempt to capture the party by a force that would reasonably try or the equivalent of "rocks fall, everyone dies".

[Mikal]

I think 2 different things are being talked. The OP seems to be in a situation where they have a particular story in mind that requires the party be violently captured.

You seem to be describing a situation where the party's actions lead to a serious attempt to capture them.

The difference between the two is whether it's an attempt to capture the party by a force that would reasonably try or the equivalent of "rocks fall, everyone dies".

Exactly. I generally don't go out in a blaze of glory if there's a logical reason for it.
Magically having shock troops appear to take me into custody just because I'm currently weakened in such a blatant manner that the post I replied to had provided isn't logical, and my response would therefore be proportionate.

[strangebloke]

That's false and pretentious. There are many examples out there where character choices didn't matter in the end but the story was perfectly coherent and intreasting. Sometimes you just can't win, and it's fine to represent that in D&D, it's not always just about fairytales and heroes in shiny armor. Failure can build as much interest as success.

Yeah, a story where the characters' action don't matter can make for a fine story. If you're writing a novel that's fine.

But you aren't.

You're running a board game about making choices for your friends as a means of entertainment. If you have some beautiful story in your head, too bad, because 'telling a beautiful story' is not something dnd is designed to do. Most dnd campaigns make for (at best) pulpy and kinda silly stories. Read any of the dnd books by Salvatore or anyone else to get a feel for the sort of story that dnd is capable of. (and Salvatore could control the actions of his protagonists. You can't except by excessive railroading.)

Like what self-respecting fantasy story (that isn't a game or based off of one) has a cast of six guys who are all uniquely magical and are from different genres and have different weird races that are never seen elsewhere in the story?

[Arcangel4774]

If you intend for them to lose combat, but they fight on, i think its fair to reward their efforts.

If they thin the horde of enemies make the enemy base less staffed, allowing for eqsier escape. If tbe fight particularly valianlty maybe have some enemies fear them or have fellow prisoners revere them as heroes. If they beat up a big inportant enemy make a point of having this be a setback for him.

[tieren]

Thats not to say unwinnable fights aren't perfectly appropriate, especially in sandbox campaigns where the party gets in over their heads.

I think the key is having player agency so they can make decisions they feel will have a meaningful impact.

for example I am running Curse of Strahd campaign now. Strahd is supposed to appear a few times and completely demoralize the party. I had him announce that he would spare anyone that stopped fighting and knelt to him. Some players recognized the overwhelming power gap and knelt right away, some of the more righteous refused and fought until knocked unconscious or killed, but they had a choice and to an extent still got to choose their fate.

[strangebloke]

Thats not to say unwinnable fights aren't perfectly appropriate, especially in sandbox campaigns where the party gets in over their heads.

Totally agree. If the team chooses to teleport directly into the middle of a camp of 100,000 orcs, they should lose.

[Tiadoppler]

Exactly. I generally don't go out in a blaze of glory if there's a logical reason for it.
Magically having shock troops appear to take me into custody just because I'm currently weakened in such a blatant manner that the post I replied to had provided isn't logical, and my response would therefore be proportionate.


Agreed, completely. My example was poorly worded and I apologize for the lack of clarity. I didn't intend to imply a magically-appearing group of never-before-seen NPCs, so much as a "this existing organization has been attempting to capture the party for some time, and has finally pulled off the ambush it's been working towards".

I agree that a party should never be automagically captured because the plot says "you are now captured". On the other hand, a sufficiently powerful organization that has been provoked by the players shouldn't automatically fail simply because "the PCs are awesome and would never surrender or be captured!"

[Mikal]

Agreed, completely. My example was poorly worded and I apologize for the lack of clarity. I didn't intend to imply a magically-appearing group of never-before-seen NPCs, so much as a "this existing organization has been attempting to capture the party for some time, and has finally pulled off the ambush it's been working towards".

I agree that a party should never be automagically captured because the plot says "you are now captured". On the other hand, a sufficiently powerful organization that has been provoked by the players shouldn't automatically fail simply because "the PCs are awesome and would never surrender or be captured!"

Ok. That I can go with... it can be a stretch that it happens at the worst possible moment, but then most fiction is like that. Thanks for the clarification.

[jaappleton]

Well, don't kill the players.

Speak for yourself!

[Tiadoppler]

Ok. That I can go with... it can be a stretch that it happens at the worst possible moment, but then most fiction is like that. Thanks for the clarification.

The assumption for my bad example was that "the group had heard which quest the PCs were going on, and set up their ambush outside the dungeon, for when the PCs were done with their adventure and headed back outside".

I like having clever NPC organizations to keep my players on their toes.

[Avonar]

Thats not to say unwinnable fights aren't perfectly appropriate, especially in sandbox campaigns where the party gets in over their heads.

I think the key is having player agency so they can make decisions they feel will have a meaningful impact.

for example I am running Curse of Strahd campaign now. Strahd is supposed to appear a few times and completely demoralize the party. I had him announce that he would spare anyone that stopped fighting and knelt to him. Some players recognized the overwhelming power gap and knelt right away, some of the more righteous refused and fought until knocked unconscious or killed, but they had a choice and to an extent still got to choose their fate.

Completely agree. When Strahd showed up we knew how powerful he was, so I just stepped back and let him do whatever he wanted to. If I had fought I may well have died, can't win that. And that's fine.

On the other hand in a different campaign we fought a boss. We has been building to this, everything we did and the DM said made us think we were ready. And we got destroyed over 5 hours. When the DM told us the stats afterwards we could never have won that fight. Everyone hated it. It ended the campaign, no one really managed to stay interested.

[MaxWilson]

Recently we had a session where the players were intended to fall unconscious to be captured. I do not enjoy combat that is overly difficult where you are near dying each turn, struggling to beat all the creatures, only to have yet another wave of creatures come. We easily wasted four hours on this one combat where we were struggling and losing the whole time. Have other DMs designed encounters where you intend for the players to die/fall unconscious?

My current adventure-design method is: for every complication introduced by the DM, award XP to the players as soon as it is introduced. That XP is proportional to the difficulty of the second-easiest DM-anticipated method of resolving the complication.

For example, if the players are looking for Angerboda's Hut so they can buy some potions from the hag Angerboda, but when they get there, there are twenty trolls camped around it... that's a challenge introduced by the DM. It's not a consequence of a player choice, not something that would reasonably be expected based on prior play. They could kill all the trolls (worth 20 * 1800 XP = 36,000 XP), or decoy all or most of the trolls away with one PC (plus a horse or other escape route) while the others sneak past (they're stupid and hungry so it's pretty easy, call it 4 * 1800 = 7200 XP), or negotiate/trick/bluff the trolls into letting them past (hard to assess because it could go wrong so easily and turn into a fight; call it a 50% chance of them winding up in a fight, and therefore 18,000 XP), or wait a few days and see if the trolls go away (trivial, 0 XP). Of these methods, the second-easiest is worth 7200 XP, so when they turn the bend in the swamp and see Angerboda's Hut surrounded by trolls, I immediately grant them 7200 XP (split among PCs as usual). That's what they get, no matter what happens--they don't get extra XP for murdering every troll, and they don't lose XP if they turn tail and run away--no matter what happens, stumbling upon a warband of trolls around Angerboda's Hut is something that happened to them, and they gain that experience from it. This also serves to force the DM to think through possible resolutions to the challenges introduced (even though the players may and often do invent a new and different method of resolving the challenge) and also to telegraph to the players that they're not expected to fight their way through everything: if you run into a legion of ten thousand hobgoblins but get only 1000 XP for it, there's OBVIOUSLY a better way to handle the encounter than by fighting them all--at least two better ways, in fact.

So anyway, I'm perfectly fine designing encounters that COULD TPK the party, but I won't design encounters that will unavoidably TPK the party. If the second-easiest resolution is "rocks fall, everybody dies, nothing you do can possibly save you" then that is infinite difficulty and logically worth infinite XP, which is stupid and not something I would create.

I can conceivably imagine introducing a complication that is likely to subdue the party and take away all of their equipment and leave them in chains/captivity, on a short-term or a long-term basis. But the XP gain for short-term captivity (duration of one adventure) would be predicated on calculating how the PCs can get out of it and would presumably be pretty hefty, while the XP gain for DM-induced captivity on a long-term basis would have to be truly massive (you're basically turning the campaign sideways, a la Curse of the Azure Bonds) because of the difficulty of resolving it. If a 9th level party is ambushed in their sleep (in their home base) by a hobgoblin legion of ten thousand hobgoblins, beaten unconscious, branded with magical glyphs that prevent escape, and thrown into captivity without any of their equipment, and expected to fight in gladiatorial contests until they die... that's probably worth something like 50,000 XP per PC, if I even decided that would be a good idea in the first place and if I had an awesome story in mind that results in them eventually winning their freedom through palace intrigue.

[Rynjin]

That's false and pretentious. There are many examples out there where character choices didn't matter in the end but the story was perfectly coherent and intreasting. Sometimes you just can't win, and it's fine to represent that in D&D, it's not always just about fairytales and heroes in shiny armor. Failure can build as much interest as success.

Indeed, failure can be interesting. One of my favorite Pathfinder sessions of all time happened this past weekend, and 2/3 characters died (including mine).

The reason it was interesting was because we had choices, we had a chance...and things still just didn't quite work out.

Had the DM said "You lose" or even just "You can't win", and then we lost, there would be no tension.

That's the thing about failure: You don't fail if you never have a chance. You only get to fail if you get to try. If you never had a choice or a chance, it's just a thing that happened, not a failure. And "things that just happen" aren't interesting.

[Tanarii]

For example, if the players are looking for Angerboda's Hut so they can buy some potions from the hag Angerboda, but when they get there, there are twenty trolls camped around it... that's a challenge introduced by the DM. It's not a consequence of a player choice, not something that would reasonably be expected based on prior play. They could kill all the trolls (worth 20 * 1800 XP = 36,000 XP), or decoy all or most of the trolls away with one PC (plus a horse or other escape route) while the others sneak past (they're stupid and hungry so it's pretty easy, call it 4 * 1800 = 7200 XP), or negotiate/trick/bluff the trolls into letting them past (hard to assess because it could go wrong so easily and turn into a fight; call it a 50% chance of them winding up in a fight, and therefore 18,000 XP), or wait a few days and see if the trolls go away (trivial, 0 XP). Of these methods, the second-easiest is worth 7200 XP, so when they turn the bend in the swamp and see Angerboda's Hut surrounded by trolls, I immediately grant them 7200 XP (split among PCs as usual). That's what they get, no matter what happens--they don't get extra XP for murdering every troll, and they don't lose XP if they turn tail and run away--no matter what happens, stumbling upon a warband of trolls around Angerboda's Hut is something that happened to them, and they gain that experience from it. This also serves to force the DM to think through possible resolutions to the challenges introduced (even though the players may and often do invent a new and different method of resolving the challenge) and also to telegraph to the players that they're not expected to fight their way through everything: if you run into a legion of ten thousand hobgoblins but get only 1000 XP for it, there's OBVIOUSLY a better way to handle the encounter than by fighting them all--at least two better ways, in fact.So, in your campaign the PCs can run away from every encounter, and go find the next one somewhere else, and gain significant XP? I mean, there seems to be no downside to doing that unless it's particularly hard to find encounters elsewhere and you make them play the in-game time looking for them, using up session time for it.

[MaxWilson]

So, in your campaign the PCs can run away from every encounter, and go find the next one somewhere else, and gain significant XP? I mean, there seems to be no downside to doing that unless it's particularly hard to find encounters elsewhere and you make them play the in-game time looking for them, using up session time for it.

Despite your snarky tone I'll answer you as if you had been serious.

Scenarios should always be designed in such a way that the DM knows what to do if the PCs fail. The consequence for abandoning their goal to reach Angerboda's Hut due to troll infestation is the same as it would be for failing to beat the trolls, or offending Angerboda, or any other failure mode: they don't get the potion they needed from Angerboda (e.g. to turn someone back from stone to living flesh) and they therefore don't gain whatever motivated them in the first place, e.g. the love of a princess or a big promotion in the Ranger organization. They may lose some social status in the process too, and maybe boost the prospects of a rival. And then the campaign goes on. (Or doesn't. Sometimes the situation is so irretrievably lost due to repeated failures that the result is, "You lose. End of campaign. You live out the rest of your lives as moderately successful goat-traders, hiding under false names to avoid Edgewalker's attention.")

Players who flee like cowards from every threat will quickly generate enough complications for themselves that the DM won't HAVE to toss complications at them. In practice though it's not really a problem--no one DOES flee from every threat. They just pick their fights (and pick their method of engagement, which doesn't have to be a fight).

Likewise, players who attempt to "find encounters" by picking fights with random monsters, etc., as you imply, are not facing DM-created complications at all, and don't gain XP under this method. They may gain XP under other methods for completing character goals, e.g. a Hunter gains XP from seeking out and defeating things that are stronger than he is. But seeking out a dragon and trying to kill it is a player-generated complication, and running away instead of fighting it results in zero XP gained. But if you're fleeing from a dragon after changing your mind about hunting it, and ANOTHER dragon (the first one's visiting brother-in-law) spontaneously shows up to cut off your retreat... that's a DM-generated complication and you will get XP for that exercise of DM fiat, proportional to the difficulty it introduces.

[Honest Tiefling]

Well, don't kill the players.

...Unless they do things like double dip, use other people's dice, or wear socks with crocs. Then you may proceed.

Personally, I don't PLAN to capture all of the players. If I think of a fun scenario involving such, I just file it away for later. Sometimes I run games where the players don't want characters to die, and that's cool. But if there's a TPK, then I need to whip out a good scenario other than the PCs all being in prison because the BBEG is an idiot. But that's only because of the player's stated preference in session 0.

If someone changed their mind and wanted to have their character die, I'd probably accommodate it as long as we didn't have the issue of a 3 hour long combat with only one player character being active. Of course, they could get a brand-spanking new PC, and of course, I'd love to tie them to the plot so the player has some knowledge/advantages to give to the party. That will also help smooth out any issues of rapidly accepting a new person to their gang.

[Tanarii]

Despite your snarky tone I'll answer you as if you had been serious.Any snark is entirely in your mind.

As to your explanation, it seems to hinges on several things:
1a) In-game situations preventing just running away and going to find other things to do.
1b) The players/PCs desires to accomplish goals preventing them from just running away and going to find other things to do.
2) You have to be on the DM's planned adventure / set of encounters to gain XP when the encounter starts.

(I'm assuming here from what you said that you still give out XP for what you call "player-generated" obstacles that they successfully overcome, after the fact.)

Personally I wouldn't do it your way. But I'm sure we want to reward and encourage different behavior, and are willing to accept different factors as counter-balances to various aspects of what behavior is encouraged.

[Slayn82]

You definitely have to narrate it in a way where it is obviously hopeless and the PCs are fighting to the last because they're badasses, but even then it only works for certain groups.

I love combat so I'd probably be happy to spend a session seeing how many bad guys I could take down with me, but there still needs to be a "victory" in the loss. The PCs go down but they take down a lieutenant that should have lived, or gave a town enough time to evacuate or something. It sounds like your loss was completely hollow and pointless. No doubt many players would view it as a wasted night. There's almost always a fun way to do anything, but you have to do it right.

Agreed. It's ok to be defeated due to a good cause.

[MaxWilson]

(I'm assuming here from what you said that you still give out XP for what you call "player-generated" obstacles that they successfully overcome, after the fact.)

False assumption.

You get rewards for success, but you only get rewards in the form of XP for (1) fulfilling archetype goals (out of scope for this discussion, but the example used previously was that a Hunter gets XP for defeating foes mightier than he is), or (2) overcoming DM-generated complications.

If you decide to seek out a dungeon and loot it for treasure, and you're not of the Treasure Hunter archetype, you can still gain XP for things the DM does to make your life miserable, but if the DM for some reason gives you no complications you will gain no XP, but perhaps lots of treasure[1]. If you turn tail and exit the dungeon the first time the DM tosses a curve ball your way ("I thought we were here for goblins--why are so many buildings uninhabited, and why is this goblin captive babbling about 'claws from below'?!"), as Tanar'ri suggests, you'll have wasted all your travel time and supplies in exchange for no treasure and only one encounter's worth of XP. You're on your way to a story which eventually makes you a famous, high level, poverty-stricken coward who has met every monster under the sun (and then fled). If becoming Volo is the kind of story you enjoy participating in, more power to you--keep playing the game that way.

[1] And if you're seeking treasure but aren't of the Treasure Hunter archetype, I'd ask, "Why are you seeking treasure anyway?" potentially followed by "It sounds like getting magic stuff is really important to you. Why AREN'T you a Treasure Hunter?" Conversely, if killing things is what really motivates you, "Why aren't you a Hunter?"

Archetypes exist to encourage PCs to be proactive about pursuing goals, so the DM can introduce complications w/rt fulfilling those goals. But that's really out of scope for this thread.

[willdaBEAST]

You're running a board game about making choices for your friends as a means of entertainment. If you have some beautiful story in your head, too bad, because 'telling a beautiful story' is not something dnd is designed to do. Most dnd campaigns make for (at best) pulpy and kinda silly stories. Read any of the dnd books by Salvatore or anyone else to get a feel for the sort of story that dnd is capable of. (and Salvatore could control the actions of his protagonists. You can't except by excessive railroading.)

I fundamentally disagree with this stance, it's like saying animation is only for children. If the group is onboard and you have a good session 0, I see no reason that you can't tell a story with a lot of nuance and meaning. If all the fluff and crazy abilities are distracting from that, the group could choose to only allow humans in a low magic world with some of the crazier classes not allowed. Is that going to be fun for everyone? No, of course not. You could run an entire campaign without a single instance of combat, it could be a story of intrigue set in some version of Pride and Prejudice. Some players will love that, others will be bored to tears. Should you try that approach at a game store? Almost certainly not, but if your players buy into the concept I don't think there's any limit to the genre or tone of the story you can weave together.

As far as your last question:
Like what self-respecting fantasy story (that isn't a game or based off of one) has a cast of six guys who are all uniquely magical and are from different genres and have different weird races that are never seen elsewhere in the story?

The Stormlight Archives aren't far off. It's played very seriously and while there aren't crazy humanoid races, all of the flora and fauna is flavored. The protagonists have extreme magic abilities and the ability to summon 7 ft swords from the ether isn't all that surprising for people.

Malazan Book of the Fallen or the Kharkanas trilogy would also apply. Crazy races right and left, gods literally walking the earth and messing with mortals. The setting is based off of DnD and it shows, but the themes are extremely serious.

Even A Song of Ice and Fire grows into this, despite starting very low magic and striving for realism. You have the others, children of the forest, stone men, dragons, rumors of demons, etc. In the latest season of the show that excursion beyond the wall felt like a DnD adventure.

[KorvinStarmast]

Re: Making all the players die, opinions?
First, you have to make the rocks fall. :smallcool:

[TheCrowing1432]

5e has rules for non lethal damage, as your party gets whaled on by a swarm of foes and they drop to 0 hp, the player begins the death saving roll only to be stopped by the DM and say "the damage is nonlethal, you fall unconsious instead"

This is also the situation where you pull out sleep/stun spells, tranq darts, sleep poison (If you're using drow)

Hell, use Hold Person to capture the PC's.

Theres lots of ways to do this.

[MaxWilson]

5e has rules for non lethal damage, as your party gets whaled on by a swarm of foes and they drop to 0 hp, the player begins the death saving roll only to be stopped by the DM and say "the damage is nonlethal, you fall unconsious instead"

Just don't try to inflict nonlethal damage with spells or ranged weapons or you may end up killing the target accidentally.

[Tanarii]

False assumption.

You get rewards for success, but you only get rewards in the form of XP for (1) fulfilling archetype goals (out of scope for this discussion, but the example used previously was that a Hunter gets XP for defeating foes mightier than he is), or (2) overcoming DM-generated complications.Oh. You're definitely using XP to encourage some very specific player/PC behaviors with full on awareness of what they are, for sure. That's very cool, even if they aren't the ones I usually try to encourage. :smallbiggrin:

[strangebloke]

I fundamentally disagree with this stance, it's like saying animation is only for children. If the group is onboard and you have a good session 0, I see no reason that you can't tell a story with a lot of nuance and meaning. If all the fluff and crazy abilities are distracting from that, the group could choose to only allow humans in a low magic world with some of the crazier classes not allowed. Is that going to be fun for everyone? No, of course not. You could run an entire campaign without a single instance of combat, it could be a story of intrigue set in some version of Pride and Prejudice. Some players will love that, others will be bored to tears. Should you try that approach at a game store? Almost certainly not, but if your players buy into the concept I don't think there's any limit to the genre or tone of the story you can weave together.

Heh, maybe I'm just a crappy DM.

But, in my experience, you got two sorts. The first sort is just there to bash goblins' heads in and have a good time and/or mess around. They want to win, they want to laugh, and they want to escape for a little while. They're not overly concerned with anything like a plot. The second kind of person is concerned with the aesthetic of their character. They find a cool drawing devArt or some other site, roll up a character, and just... be that person. But that character in the devArt drawing exists in Amber. He doesn't really change or grow or develop. He gets tortured, loses his brother, and he's still just... as he was. At most they'll have a route they want to take their character down. "I want my paladin to change faiths during this story." That kind of thing.

I've had one player genuinely make their character undergo development as a result of something that happened in game. One.

Any story I was trying to tell lost a lot of the heart right off the bat, because my protagonists were wooden badasses who never doubted any of their decisions once. The story was complex, and the characters and set pieces were cool, but the actual plot ran something like a dark souls game.

"And then the chosen five went up to the cool dragon with a lot of lore behind him and defeated him easily."

Maybe that's me, I don't know. Either way, a good story has characters suffer the consequences of their actions. A ****ty story has stuff happen because the author wanted it to happen. Even if you're looking at this as a novel, railroading is a bad thing to do, since it takes PCs out of the game.


As far as your last question:

The Stormlight Archives aren't far off. It's played very seriously and while there aren't crazy humanoid races, all of the flora and fauna is flavored. The protagonists have extreme magic abilities and the ability to summon 7 ft swords from the ether isn't all that surprising for people.

Malazan Book of the Fallen or the Kharkanas trilogy would also apply. Crazy races right and left, gods literally walking the earth and messing with mortals. The setting is based off of DnD and it shows, but the themes are extremely serious.

Even A Song of Ice and Fire grows into this, despite starting very low magic and striving for realism. You have the others, children of the forest, stone men, dragons, rumors of demons, etc. In the latest season of the show that excursion beyond the wall felt like a DnD adventure.
I'm not going to start arguing specific examples here. Suffice to say that I see your point, but that I also disagree with some of your examples. The works you listed (I haven't read Malazan) are not stories where the plot is the key thing. The books are much more about the setting pieces and the development of individual characters moving through the world. There is a sort of meta-story in AsoIaF, about how all these pointless squabbles are wasteful and might lead to the downfall of civilization, but 99% of the aSoIaF is about people whose hearts are in conflict with their own self-image.

[MaxWilson]

Oh. You're definitely using XP to encourage some very specific player/PC behaviors with full on awareness of what they are, for sure. That's very cool, even if they aren't the ones I usually try to encourage. :smallbiggrin:

You'd be free, as a player, to pick a different archetype. If you want to be a Benefactor (doer of good deeds to strangers, changer of lives), or a Protector (combat-oriented like a Hunter, but more about making friendlies survive than bringing enemies down--a Protector can be perfectly happy with a stalemate or defeat as long as no friendly is permanently harmed), or an Inquisitive (seeker of background mysteries), or a Romeo (motivated by relationships and/or desire for social status), all of these are fine. You're essentially choosing which type of "hook" you want the DM to dangle in front of you for adventures and/or sandbox locations. And if you want to change your archetype, or make your own up (subject to DM tweaking/veto), that's fine too.

Just like a real family, a party has to reconcile the different motivations (archetypes) of its members while overcoming common obstacles. The Protector (Lore Bard) may not care whether they defeat the Giant Ape or just sneak around it and steal its treasure, as long as no one gets killed, but the Hunter (Battlemaster/Rogue) wants everyone else to stand back while he fights the Giant Ape solo in order to fulfill his archetype (and gain XP). Meanwhile the Inquisitive (Necromancer) wants to mind-probe the Giant Ape to get a lead on the hieroglyphics that the island's former inhabitants scratched all over the place, and the Benefactor (Paladin) is on the lookout for any more ragged children who need rescuing from the island and/or for treasure to help establish them in new lives. And all of them want to avoid dying in the process.

[Honest Tiefling]

But, in my experience, you got two sorts. The first sort is just there to bash goblins' heads in and have a good time and/or mess around. They want to win, they want to laugh, and they want to escape for a little while. They're not overly concerned with anything like a plot. The second kind of person is concerned with the aesthetic of their character. They find a cool drawing devArt or some other site, roll up a character, and just... be that person. But that character in the devArt drawing exists in Amber. He doesn't really change or grow or develop. He gets tortured, loses his brother, and he's still just... as he was. At most they'll have a route they want to take their character down. "I want my paladin to change faiths during this story." That kind of thing.

I've had one player genuinely make their character undergo development as a result of something that happened in game. One.

I think you're not a bad DM, I think you've had bad roleplayers. I'm not going to pretend that I'm some sort of super-duper awesome roleplayer, but I at least try to have attachments, flaws and respond to events for crying out loud.

How many games have you DMed for, and how many different people out of curiosity?

[willdaBEAST]

Heh, maybe I'm just a crappy DM.

But, in my experience, you got two sorts. The first sort is just there to bash goblins' heads in and have a good time and/or mess around. They want to win, they want to laugh, and they want to escape for a little while. They're not overly concerned with anything like a plot. The second kind of person is concerned with the aesthetic of their character. They find a cool drawing devArt or some other site, roll up a character, and just... be that person. But that character in the devArt drawing exists in Amber. He doesn't really change or grow or develop. He gets tortured, loses his brother, and he's still just... as he was. At most they'll have a route they want to take their character down. "I want my paladin to change faiths during this story." That kind of thing.

I've had one player genuinely make their character undergo development as a result of something that happened in game. One.

Any story I was trying to tell lost a lot of the heart right off the bat, because my protagonists were wooden badasses who never doubted any of their decisions once. The story was complex, and the characters and set pieces were cool, but the actual plot ran something like a dark souls game.

"And then the chosen five went up to the cool dragon with a lot of lore behind him and defeated him easily."

Maybe that's me, I don't know. Either way, a good story has characters suffer the consequences of their actions. A ****ty story has stuff happen because the author wanted it to happen. Even if you're looking at this as a novel, railroading is a bad thing to do, since it takes PCs out of the game.

We're starting to derail the thread a bit and I apologize for that.

I totally agree with you here, it can be a real struggle. I'm dealing with it in the campaign I DM for. I'm honestly surprised some of my players respond to their character's name, their investment in the game seems mostly social. My personal solution is that I'm going to be more selective about my players when we wrap up Curse of Strahd. I think there's a type of person who is going to be more inclined to deeply role-play, but it's also a skill you can teach. My guess is that figuring out a way to demonstrate character growth, or finding individuals already keyed into that aspect of fiction, will go a long way towards creating a much deeper gaming experience. Maybe having a NPC that completes some kind of transformation or arc can jumpstart players, but I think ultimately you need to populate your game with people who are very invested. I have one player who thinks about the campaign all the time and I can have long conversations about it with him, others won't even respond to or read emails. Finding more players like the invested one, might solve all of my problems. Another possibility is that a party of 4 or more players just isn't conducive to any kind of storytelling depth.

PS. I think being willing to question if you're a bad DM is a strong indication that you aren't one.

[Tanarii]

Any story I was trying to tell lost a lot of the heart right off the bat, because my protagonists were wooden badasses who never doubted any of their decisions once. The story was complex, and the characters and set pieces were cool, but the actual plot ran something like a dark souls game.

"And then the chosen five went up to the cool dragon with a lot of lore behind him and defeated him easily."

Maybe that's me, I don't know.Naw, it's pretty common for players to not consider the consequences of their actions.

Especially common when they can easily defeat whatever they face by hitting it with a weapon or spell until it stops trying to crawl away desperately.


Either way, a good story has characters suffer the consequences of their actions. A ****ty story has stuff happen because the author wanted it to happen.I don't know about story, because I don't like that word in relation to RPGs. But I know I consider it a good game when characters have to suffer the consequences of their actions. Good or bad consequences, as the case may be.

[History_buff]

Speaking for myself, I don’t think I’d even want to play really if there was nothing my character could do for a good ending. Heck even if it’s a crap sack world and things are generally just bad all around that’s fine, but if there’s no real opportunity to make things better, then a lot of motivation is just gone.

Things happen, dice fall badly, heroic sacrifices can be made but if the only outcome is “all you did was worthless and you had no chance of winning” then that sucks. Majorly.

[Tanarii]

Things happen, dice fall badly, heroic sacrifices can be made but if the only outcome is “all you did was worthless and you had no chance of winning” then that sucks. Majorly.Don't ever play a game based around the Cthulhu Mythos. :smallwink:

[Finlam]

The closest I've come to running this was a "defend the town scenario." The players had interrupted the town's ritual for warding off dark forces and the Big Bad Dark Entity (a demon-god of Sacrifice and Darkness) had noticed and sent forces to purge the town.

Specifically he sent Umbravaren - creatures that appear to be normal forest dwelling wolves until they are damaged. Once they take damage their head unfolds like the petals of a flower, revealing row upon row of teeth leading into a single, salivating maw, their pelt turns black, two tentacles sprout from their back ending in spines of bone like butcher's knives, and they no longer make any sound, even when struck with weapons.

The first wave nearly killed the PCs, who had assumed they were in for an easy encounter fighting off some forest wolves. They survived and managed to prevent town casualties. Then they attempted a long rest. So far so good.

So I rolled the dice to determine how long before the next wave. It was 20 minutes short of a short rest.

As the PCs rested, hoping for the night to pass quickly, they heard a sound like the beating of drums fill the air. Over the tops of the village cottages, for they had camped in the village center, they saw a huge and disturbing visage approach.

Two veined hands, each the size of a cottage, adjoined at the wrist, the lower one walking upon its fingers, the upper hand clutching a large bowl inscribed with magical runes. This was none other than the Lesser Cup Bearer of Sacrifice to the avatar of the demon god of Sacrifice.

As it approached, crawling over a cottage, the PCs attacked it with everything they had. Low on spells and HP, they intended to Alpha strike it into oblivion, a normally sensible tactic.

What the PCs did not know was that the Cup Bearer did not bear an empty cup, rather it was filed with collected sacrifice of years from the town. Each time the Cup Bearer failed a saving throw, 1d4 oozes spawned as the distilled, liquid sacrifice spilled from the cup.

Drums beat. Fireballs exploded. Oozes began dissolving cottages and villagers. Cottages are in flames. The PCs are running out of spells and HP even as they try to rescue villagers and save themselves from a desperate situation.

At this point, the PCs and the players begin to began to truly wonder if there was an end to the enemies. If there was an end, how many PCs would survive?

Just when it looked like a TPK was eminent, they felled the lesser Cup Bearer, the giant hands crashed to the ground and the cup turned over, spilling its foul, msgical contents into the ground. The PCs helped put out the fires and destroy the remaining oozes.

By the time they had finished, dawn broke and all the bodies of the corrupted servants of the demon god of sacrifice dissolved like ash on the wind. The village elder was able to use the Cup Bearer's bowl as a the source of a new, powerful magic that would protect the town. A sense of relief and joy settled over the town and the players alike.

And the players never forgot that combat. They had earned their sense of relief, saved the lives of the villagers, and prevailed when their characters were a stiff breeze away from a TPK.

If you can make an encounter seem unending and have the PCs prevail in their darkest hour, the players will treasure the experience, but it takes the right balance of challenge, immersion, motivation, and combat duration to make it work. Too easy, too hard, too short, or too long and it falls apart.

The goal is never for the PCs to fail, but to come so close to it that they think it's hopeless, and then to overcome anyway, earning valuation of their characters and tactics.

It shouldn't be done frequently and should not be attempted by overly adversarial or novice GMs, but if you can pull it off, it can be one of the most rewarding and memorable moments of an entire campaign.