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Mika1560
2018-10-06, 12:58 PM
So, I have a player who has been playing D&D and Pathfinder for several years longer than I have. He’s not a problem player. He doesn’t even play a problem character.

My problem is that, because he’s played in so many campaigns with different groups before, he’s able to sidestep or completely overpower almost every encounter or threat I throw at him. He’s especially adept at avoiding challenges or conflicts through interesting roleplay.

How can I challenge a more experienced player? Any advice or direction to resources would be greatly appreciated.

To be clear, I am happy with the roleplay and my player! I want to be a better DM and challenge him more.

hymer
2018-10-06, 01:25 PM
Maybe you should ask him. For one thing, he may not particularly want to be challenged any more than what he's getting right now. For another, getting the two of you on the same page about what's going on is generally a good idea.

That said, you may want to look into dynamic challenges. By that, I mean ones where you hold something back. If the PCs are wiping the floor with a particular challenge (the goblin highwaymen), you can spring the second one on them (the goblin's bugbear masters) while the first is still going on. And by not revealing it at first, you don't have to account for it, just in case the PCs are actually turning out to have trouble with a given challenge. Things aren't really there until the players know about them.
Concrete example: The PCs need to talk the alderman in a guild as soon as possible. The main challenge is to deal with the bureaucrats who would prefer to send them away with an appointment for some later date. If a player gives a good speech about urgency and civic duty, and then rolls a good roll, you can let them straight in, without needing to deal with the rest of the challenge you anticipated. But to give them some bit of challenge, you can have the alderman passed out drunk in his office. Normally, the bureaucrats would have caught this and straightened it out before latting someone in to see the alderman, but now that they've cut the knot, they need to deal with this problem before they can proceed.

Another classic way to increase the difficulty without just adding more monsters is adding a time limit to a challenge. Maybe there is another group of adventurers looking for the same macguffin, so the PCs have to speed up and take some chances, rather than always doing the safest, most reliable thing.
Another is to run multiple problems at the same time. The PCs are unlikely to be able to deal simultaneously with both the outbreak of undead in the cemetary, and at the same time catch the cat burglar plaguing the merchant district. But maybe this particular player will be able to do both, and he can then feel appreciated and clever.

Thinker
2018-10-06, 01:47 PM
You could also try out another system to challenge your player. There are tons of options across most any genre you can think of - Powered by the Apocalypse, White Wolf, Fate, Shadowrun, 7th Sea, Savage Worlds, GURPS, Deadlands, Mutants & Masterminds, Dread, Call of Cthulu, Star Wars (FFG), Star Wars Saga Edition, and hundreds more. Some have mechanics that promote narrative-based decision-making and actions. Others focus on trying to emulate how a character interacts with a world according to genre conventions. Others instill suspense. A new system would make the player less sure about his character-decisions and would even the playing field for you about the mechanics.

Mika1560
2018-10-06, 01:59 PM
@hymer - Yes, he would like to be challenged. He's the one who suggested I try posting on the forums.

I've tried to run multiple challenges at the same time to, I believe, a decent effect. One of the things he tends to do with his characters as quickly as possible is find a method to get from one place to another very fast. Unless things happen simultaneously, he's generally able to stop multiple problems.

I do like the idea of time limits and dynamic challenges, though. I think they might work, but there's still the problem of him just circumventing fights through RP and sidestepping challenges in ways that make adding monsters on top of monsters less viable.

Again, not complaining about him, but he wants to be challenged and I would admittedly love to challenge him.


@Thinker - I had the same thought and I have started picking up other systems to try. However, we have a few campaigns still running that we don't want to just abandon for something else. I also want to do better within our current campaigns and challenge him there as well.

hymer
2018-10-06, 02:28 PM
One downside to circumventing fights is that there's a bunch of unfought enemies still hanging around. So you convinced the guards you're here on inspection, bypassing two encounters that way. But what happens if the guard captain shows up, realizes what has happened, rallies two encounters worth of guards, and goes after the PCs?

Darth Ultron
2018-10-06, 02:42 PM
Well, it depends what they are doing. What exactly does the player do, and what do you do?

For some basic ones:

1.A wide world. Open the world up a lot so it is not obvious where to go. You want it to be that any time a player must make a decision of about where to go, without any hard evidence, is a random guess. You want to avoid the ''well the goblin bandits came from the goblin caves" type thing. You want it more, ''the goblins could have come from any of 25 places that we know of" (and like 25 they don't know of).

2.Lots of Clues and hints, but avoid solid evidence. So don't have the goblins have a map on them that says ''evil lair with an x". You want too keep things much more vague. More like, each goblin has a bag of apples....and their are apple orchards to the south of town. So...maybe...the goblins came from the south, but still that is not hard proof. It might be true, but maybe the goblins got the apples in some other way.

3.Deep Role Playing. Give foes deep, detailed role playing reasons for doing anything. This makes it unlikely that the character can just ''role play" them away. Make the orcs blood thirsty killers, so when the character just does ''peace and happy happy"...the orcs still attack. Plenty of foes can't be ''talked out of things".

4.More Weird. Try to avoid the common bland stuff. Avoid like humans and goblins. Flip open a monster book and pick anything else. The weirder, the better. Lets take Yithians (Beastery 3), they are so 'alien' you can't just talk to them like a 'normal person'. The same is true of lots of insect races where the fighters are just drones.

5.More complexity. The more complex you make things, the harder it is for the players.

Kaptin Keen
2018-10-06, 03:16 PM
How can I challenge a more experienced player?

What I do is: I never use anything anyone else has made. While I may use the fluff from the Monster Manual, the stats and abilities are never the same. And mostly, I invent all monsters myself.

Not that everything is about monsters. It's the thought: You cannot meta-game with me as a GM, because nothing I use is described anywhere.

BarbieTheRPG
2018-10-06, 08:20 PM
1. What is his class?

Fighters are challenged by whatever attacks oppose their skill; good at melee, use ranged, good at ranged, use melee. Spellcasters are always challenged by melee attacks or ranged from cover.

2. What is his race?

Human weaknesses are defined by class. Elves & small demihumans struggle with melee, usually. Half-Orcs and similar races struggle with ranged attacks.

The best built characters can't resist a well-designed encounter that focuses on their weaknesses. Use surprise, positioning and deception (social skill checks). Keep in mind most 'monster NPCs' like goblins and orcs are from martial communities that use TACTICS: they don't just 'charge'; they charge a few and flank the PCs with the rest.

Study small unit combat tactics. E.G. Gygax told all of us old GMs to do this in order to handle experienced players who like to anticipate what comes next during combat.


SURPRISE THE PLAYERS WITH YOUR NPC ACTIONS.

PastorofMuppets
2018-10-06, 09:48 PM
One thing that may make things more of a challenge to someone good at RP is to make him need to pick sides. Have some nobles fighting over a thing without either being obvious bad or good and promising different support for some quest the party can’t really do without help. Make the point of contention something mutually exclusive like the one that gets to host the visiting ambassador or who gets to become the next king after the last one died with no legitimate heirs.

You could also combine some standard things in new ways to throw him off, a doomsday cult devoted to a more wrathful aspect of a “good” god that will summon an avatar of the light for some righteous cleansing of the city, killing anyone that is not actively following it’s holy tenets.

If they are in a port town have those undead come not from the graveyard but the ocean rising out of the ruins from the old city this one was built on. Maybe some recent arrivals are descended from the ancient army that leveled the first city and the spirits feel the targets of their vengeance oaths within their grasp at long last and slaying them might finally let them move on. The ones that still have some intelligence might even be able to relay to the adventurers how they were heroes of the time bound by oath magic to destroy everyone of the (nation name here) that entered the town after the invasion, possibly explaining some bizarre disappearances in the past.

YohaiHorosha
2018-10-07, 01:11 PM
Overall good rules for DMing
1) ask your players what's fun
2) ask them what's missing
3) ask then what challenges they want their characters to meet/overcome

If your player just wants a better tactical challenge, then raise the CR of the monsters they're facing. And as per a prior poster, make the enemies be strong against the strength of the character. (E.g. resist fire vs a blaster sorcerer, resist physical damage, only hit by magic items, have invisibility, have an attack that targets the character's weakest saving throw). Make the tactical choices matter, and less about movement (if that's the character's strength).

Also, based on the answers you get, tailor the playing experience.

Frozen_Feet
2018-10-07, 01:58 PM
@Mika1560: give specific examples of his tactics. What enemies has he overpowered and how, what conflicts has he sidestepped and how?

A potential way to up the challenge is to do the same thing as before, but with either higher numbers or minor tweaks to counter specific tactics. For example, if he overpowered a single minotaur? Try two minotaurs. He talked his way past a guard last time? So what if the next guard's boss is expecting that and has given the guard false info, so they will unknowingly lead him to an ambush.

Point is, don't kill a fly with a cannon. Don't try to approach the problem in a vacuum and rework your whole scenario design style before you've tried smaller, incremental changes.

Mika1560
2018-10-07, 02:54 PM
Okay, so it seems like there’s a bit of a misunderstanding, so I will do my best to clarify.

First, for the people asking specific questions about the campaign or characters; we play multiple games in multiple campaign worlds with many different characters. Specific tactics against a specific class, race, or campaign setting won’t help. I need more general ideas.

Second, I have made encounters too difficult for him to fight through. He talks through them. He manages to appeal to even the evilest creatures at times, giving them incentive to work with him. And then, with similar bravado, manages to get the things he promised to them, though I never try to make it easy.

One example is when he descended into a Fey Lord’s domain and, through the bluff skill, convinced not the Fey Lord, but his wife that he was a powerful Fey Lord, himself, that could protect her. He didn’t even do it on purpose, since his goal was convincing the Fey Lord not to mess with him. However, IC, the wife was not there willingly and was, thus, an avenue he was supposed to be able to take. So, accidentally, with a high enough bluff roll, he convinced the wife of the Fey Lord to stab her husband in the back. This was an avenue that was meant to be hidden; something that he could work on after being captured, but he stumbled into it by not giving the Fey Lord time to get more dissenting elements out of the room before he started making his bluff rolls. This is a good example of when I had a deep roleplay encounter, a very dangerous mechanical fight, and he circumvented it through good roleplay and a lot of luck. He keeps doing this. It’s not always or even usually luck; it’s often creative thinking. He bargained with a Bog Witch that was going to kill him and the humans in the bog, but, instead, she now rules the bog as a Governor, reaping taxes by doing very little more than she was doing already.

Now… this was an amazing story! We loved it! But I still want to challenge him. I want to make these amazing stories with harder challenges.

Sometimes I give him a villain he doesn’t want to work with or can’t work with, IC. In those, I find moderate success in circumventing his ability to circumvent my ability to challenge him in roleplay… but then he uses tactics to simply overpower, outmaneuver, or escape and then later ambush the villains I create. When I design encounters specifically to counteract his strengths, he changes tactics. If he’s playing a ranged character and I have him facing off against someone who makes his ranged abilities rather useless, he will find a way to use the environment, tripping up the opponent to gain an advantage.

I do not want to curb his ideas. He never demands that the environment change to his whims; he uses what I give him in creative ways. I also don’t necessarily want to make him fail. Simply put… much as I hate to admit it… he outsmarts me. With experience and good roleplay, he regularly outsmarts the challenges I give him. I need a way to outsmart him. He knows when to hold ‘em, he knows when to fold ‘em, and he knows when it’s best to run away.

So… what do you do with a player who is better than you? This is my problem.

And for those of you who are wondering, I have spoken to him directly about this and he says that he likes my DM style, and he likes my stories, but would be happy with a more challenging game and is, in fact, interested in such.

Right now, the only solution I can think of to stop him from always winning with a 100% perfect score in every scenario is to simply say “no” to things that are reasonable in the campaign – such as getting the guards to assist when their town is in danger, or convincing an evil, but selfish, character to serve their own interests with good deals. I really don’t want to do that.

@Darth Ultron – (1-2) I’ve done this to moderate success in the past. Like multiple challenges, this sometimes manages to trip him up at first, when he doesn’t know what parts of the world are important or not, but he knows my style very well. After four or five of the twenty-five options, he will narrow things down, using naught but the smallest of clues.

(3) See “Fey Lord” above. I try to give detailed reasons for the characters to do anything. The problem is, in your example, he would very much enjoy having the Orcs be bloodthirsty killers on another group of enemies that he has, since I am running multiple challenges at once. He would plant false evidence or simply outright convince the Orcs that the Bandits are the more interesting challenge and then, to make certain the Bandits aren’t slaughtered wholesale, he would find a way to warn them, making it an even fight. Finally, he would pick off the survivors. I know this, because when I asked him what he would do about a group of monsters that want nothing more than to kill people and fight, he asked if there were any other dangers or monsters in the area, like Bandits, cults, or undead.

(4) I could definitely use some of that; thank you!!

(5) He feeds on complexity. The more complex and deep my characters are, the more fuel he has to manipulate them. The more complex and dangerous the challenges, the more he prepares ahead of time. I try. I do try, and it does kind of work. Put all together with everything else, I may be able to challenge him…. Once. But then he’ll adapt. He’ll learn.

@Kaptin Keen – I try this. I really do. But when a player knows the system so well that he can reverse engineer mechanics in a game within a few rolls, what do you do? I’ve tried other systems, but he learns them faster than I do. I’ve tried changing things on the fly, but he relearns what they do. He rarely uses it to full-on meta game, but he rarely uses characters unintelligent enough to not take advantage of what he is learning, either.

@PinkSpray – When I challenge him with those kinds of tactics, he takes a different route. He will literally find a way around it. I gave him a tunnel full of kobolds, who were ready to trap him up, and he avoids the fight entirely by sneaking through. Unless I outright lie about my dice rolls, he succeeds.

He likes to make characters with versatility. They are never the best at ranged, melee, or magic, but they can do all three to some degree and, considering that he runs solo through most of my games as well as encounters I find online made for entire groups, I don’t begrudge him the optimization.

@PastorofMuppets – I think this is a great way to keep him from simply circumventing things with roleplay. By giving things three sides, instead of two, and all sides simply unable to reconcile their differences, I see that as a very good challenge for him.

I also really like your specific idea of the cult; I think I’d like to use that at some point!

@Frozen_Feet – I have actually found success in giving him false information through NPCs he trusts (or has no reason to distrust, at least)! If there’s one downside to the characters he makes, it’s that they are overconfident and rarely ever check on the information they receive. Admittedly, his ability to roll with the punches is good enough that, even then, it only manages as a moderate challenge for him.

Quertus
2018-10-07, 08:16 PM
Ask him to run a game or two. See what you can pick up from his style.

Darth Ultron
2018-10-07, 08:58 PM
So… what do you do with a player who is better than you? This is my problem.


You don't have many options:

1. Sit back and let him run the game

2. Use the ''No" method you mentioned you don't want to do.

3. Rise up and become a better player then him and then outsmart him.

It might be that your just stuck in a permanent mismatch: he will always out smart you. And you can't just ''become'' smarter, or ''become" more cleaver.

Though your examples also seem to make it seem that you like the player and want him to outsmart you, so you are letting that happen. There is nothing wrong with that, but you should try to be aware that you are doing it.

Kaptin Keen
2018-10-07, 11:07 PM
@Kaptin Keen – I try this. I really do. But when a player knows the system so well that he can reverse engineer mechanics in a game within a few rolls, what do you do? I’ve tried other systems, but he learns them faster than I do. I’ve tried changing things on the fly, but he relearns what they do. He rarely uses it to full-on meta game, but he rarely uses characters unintelligent enough to not take advantage of what he is learning, either.

Well. Hm. Actually, my games aren't particularly challenging anyways. Fun, I hope, but it's not like characters tend to die a lot if they're less than professional.

I did something, once. It's years and years ago, and in those days playing RPG's was all about the combat. Say there'd be a guard room, and on the wall of the guard room there'd be a ... you know, a handle on a wire, right? So the PC's would look at the guard room, see four guards, and decide 'we can beat four guys'.

They barge in like fools - rather than try to get surprise - and the nearest guard pulls the string, raising the alarm and summoning reinforcements.

Or if it's a partol, each grunt has a whistle.

In other words, if you can't challenge him by being more clever than he is - challenge him with numbers.

If it's a mage, he has summons. My players have learned over time to fear anything a mage tosses on the ground - a handful of tin soldiers immediately transforms into five kinda-sorta-golems. Stuff like that.

Surprisingly, they haven't yet asked if they can learn that trick themselves, so I haven't had to come up with a reason why they can't yet.

M. Arillius
2018-10-08, 12:04 AM
You don't have many options:

1. Sit back and let him run the game

2. Use the ''No" method you mentioned you don't want to do.

3. Rise up and become a better player then him and then outsmart him.

It might be that your just stuck in a permanent mismatch: he will always out smart you. And you can't just ''become'' smarter, or ''become" more cleaver.

Though your examples also seem to make it seem that you like the player and want him to outsmart you, so you are letting that happen. There is nothing wrong with that, but you should try to be aware that you are doing it.

I don't think I've ever heard an answer try and sound nice while still being so condescending. It sounds like she's dealing with a way more experienced player, not that she's dumb, and it seems like she's trying to become a better player right now by doing the smart thing and asking other more experienced players what to do. If you don't have anything nice to say, dude...

Anyway.

@Mika1560: If your player is that smart, then you need to leverage what you have over him. Time. Plan out plans, backup plans and backup plans for those backup plans. Study tactics online, watch more experienced players in podcasts, and leverage the system you have to your advantage. But most of all take time to plan things out and then take away that time from him. Give him time limits, not just in RP but Out of Character, to force quick decisions. Not all the time, but saved for critical moments it can be a real killer and really ramp up the tension.

Numbers are a good option. As Kaptain Keen said, an alarm right next to guards, or whistles, or how the very comic this sight is based on does it with Dancing Lights in the sky (low level spell) can make any combat go from a simple encounter to a dangerous one. Summoners are very powerful characters that can leverage quite a bit.

If you really must play with goblins, play them really smart. Never let their guard get down, they're evil little backstabbers after all so they're always plotting something. Two casters, one to summon and one to buff, can turn a piss poor frontline into something deadly. But if you have the option for other races then really have fun. Hordes like giants, orcs, trolls, etc. They can be really deadly. Demons and Devils have a lot of versatility in their own ranks and are reeeeaaally easy to turn into reoccurring villains with a quick invisibility/teleport. Elementals might have bigger, badder, more intelligent brothers and sisters who want revenge and who can cause a lot of collateral that gets your player in a hot mess. And humanoids? They're the worst of all. A crime gang has blood sorcerers on pay roll, necromancers have spirits and dark magics.

To challenge your player, explore the system, experiment. Don't even worry about getting it right the first few times, just throw things at him and see what works and what doesn't. Then go from there, rebuild, plan a new encounter.

Another option is, if you don't want to sacrifice depth, then take a good hard look at some of the more serious fiction going around. I got it on the brain right now myself but the new season of a Marvel show is coming out and they have a pretty complex villain who simply can't be reasoned with because of issues. Spice them up. Make them arrogant, confident, and unrelenting. Make them people who think a deal is beneath them, or who might be willing to deal but only to stick it into the guys back just when he's least suspecting it.

Play with the idea that not everyone wants to barter, and not because they're stupid, but because this little fly is bothering them, buzzing around demanding attention just because they took a few guards... And make sure they have contingencies for escape. Nothing says a planner like a guy who knows how to get out of a place when the getting is good.

Darth Ultron
2018-10-08, 12:58 AM
I don't think I've ever heard an answer try and sound nice while still being so condescending.

Ok?



If your player is that smart,

So this is my number three: rise up and become a better player.

Pelle
2018-10-08, 03:24 AM
I do not want to curb his ideas. He never demands that the environment change to his whims; he uses what I give him in creative ways. I also don’t necessarily want to make him fail. Simply put… much as I hate to admit it… he outsmarts me. With experience and good roleplay, he regularly outsmarts the challenges I give him. I need a way to outsmart him. He knows when to hold ‘em, he knows when to fold ‘em, and he knows when it’s best to run away.


This sounds like a player who plays very opportunistic. I would try to challenge him to make a character who cares more deeply about some things, so that running away isn't always an option. What would it take for his character to take a great risk upon himself?

I also have a player in my group who is quite good arguing, and is usually making good tactical choices, including running away. This is good play and fun most of the time. But he has a tendency of making characters that have very little other motivation than self-preservation, which can make it hard to challenge him. Something similar here?

TeChameleon
2018-10-08, 06:13 AM
To throw my two cents in, if I were in this situation, I would start leaning heavily on misdirection and fear of the unknown. Admittedly, I haven't had a lot of experience DMing (less than I'd like to, actually, but that's mostly due to outside circumstances), but an example from the handful of sessions I've run would be convincing my players that there was an invisible monster in the tunnels with them- completely by accident, honestly; I was trying to give clues out that there were tiny enemies that were using cover and speed to stay unseen.

Simple psychological tricks will often work wonders; for example, players will tend to fixate relentlessly on the unique. My players in that same session locked on to a gold pen that I mentioned in my description of the main room. It was utterly unexceptional, outside of its obvious value, but because it had been mentioned in the scene description and it was the only one around, it must have been important. I didn't even feel bad about directing their attention to it, since it was a shiny thing sitting out in the open, and their characters' eyes would have been drawn to it pretty naturally. Just... don't be too obvious about it. The gold pen stood out, for sure, but the main focus of the room was the gigantic sacrificial circle in the middle of the room, complete with victims from 50 years past.

As somebody else mentioned, don't be shy about dipping in to the weird end of the enemy pool; Outsiders too alien to be communicated with effectively, with senses that don't work enough like a human's to reliably avoid, could make for an interesting challenge- just make sure that they're mechanically consistent and that you have an explanation for why they work the way they do, if you're going to homebrew them. Or give him a big stack of non-sentient constructs guarding an area he needs access to. Tough to persuade something that doesn't even have a concept of communication beyond an IFF tag from an empire seven hundred years gone. And even if you can snag a proper IFF tag, some of the constructs have degraded receivers that no longer recognize the signal, and fighting one will make all the others turn hostile...

If you have any talents in the area of practical joking, maybe approach some challenges from that perspective- maybe the enemy wizard they need to deal with has a nasty sense of humour, and if he scries the party just diplomancing past his initial guardposts, the next 'person' they encounter will be an illusorily disguised gibbering mouther, and even trying to communicate with it will incapacitate them. For that matter, any illusionist can make a merry hash of a party if they're creatively applied.

As a final thought, take a look at how medieval siege warfare worked. If the next batch of goblins your player has to fight past have murder holes, ambuscades, hidden punji pits, know how to perform a fighting retreat, and use hidden small-creature sized tunnels, he might not have quite such an easy time of things (check out the old Tucker's Kobolds story for an example of this kind of thing in action).

NichG
2018-10-08, 07:34 AM
Rather than aiming to challenge with difficulty, for an experienced player it's better to challenge with decisions. That is to say, it's easy to win something where victory is a defined state, but when everything is about making tradeoffs in order to make the world approach one's vision, it's less about winning and losing and more about making choices whose effects you can be satisfied with.

A classic example would be two 'good' forces in conflict with each other because there is no option which doesn't sacrifice the wellbeing of the constituents of one or the other, and such that compromise would actually be more damaging than holding the conflict. For instance, two artistic visions pitching their concept for leadership of a project, where the committee compromise project would be soulless.

One trick is to make the cost of conflict itself fairly cheap, compared to e.g. indecision.

Mika1560
2018-10-08, 11:08 AM
@Kaptin Keen – I love the tin soldiers! That does sound like a fun character concept, as well. I’m surprised that your players have never asked.

Challenging with numbers is advice that I’ve seen a few times since I started looking into better options and will definitely give a shot.

@M. Arillius – Guerilla combat with Kobolds and Goblins is something I have heard elsewhere and definitely want to try. I do love that people are taking the old fallback enemies and giving them new life as a surprise for more experienced players; that’s something that will help me a lot, I think. My player can usually give me the stats for various monsters the moment I tell him what’s coming… which is why I’m also taking Kaptin Keen’s advice (from his earlier post) and custom creating a lot more of my own enemies from now on.

Escaping enemies have… not gone well, in my experience. He knows that letting them escape spells Bad News for later, so he tends to chase them down with undying persistence. I need to let him chase fleeing foes into worse trouble next time, I think.

@Pelle – Some of his characters are like that, but surprisingly not in most cases. For those campaigns, I try to “attack” those characters where it hurts, like going after the few people or places they do care about. Actually, the problem I generally have is that his characters will hyper-focus on what they do care about – rescuing captives, for example – to the exclusion of all else. That is when he’ll sidestep the main problem and rush to the rescue, only to then go back and sweep up the rest of the mess afterward, when the stakes are much lower. That’s what I generally have problems circumventing.

@TeChameleon – Haha, I had that happen to me, as a player, the other day. I spent twenty minutes inspecting something weird because I thought it might be important, only to get nothing out of it. Even after moving on, I felt as though I was missing something important. I’ll try to do more of that to him, as well.

The constructs idea is a great one, as well! And the idea of an illusionist wizard with a nasty streak is fantastic. Thank you for the advice and ideas; I haven’t been playing long enough to get through all of the old standby stuff, let alone figure out how to use it in new and interesting ways.

@NichG – Yeah, I definitely like the idea of making him deal with opposing good forces who don’t want to – or can’t – compromise. I think that’ll be one of the best character challenges that I could throw at his diplomancer.

DMThac0
2018-10-08, 11:10 AM
Well met Mika,

First off, I'm in the same boat as your player; I am the "forever Dm" who finally got a chance to come out from behind the screen. You know what we DMs want to do when we get out from that spot? Stretch our muscles, take all that hard earned knowledge and pour it into one character, just one, only one voice, only one set of actions, no more, no less. Then we take all of those hours of game play, the tedious days of planning and concocting, the hundreds of quest and plot developments, and we try to put them in a little box where it won't interfere with your DMing (re: meta game). The crux of the problem though, is that we have all of those memories on how plots work, how creatures interact, what skills can do what, and we use it all to influence how we play.

---
I remember in one session of Curse of Strahd that had me in stitches, but my DM(wife) wanted to beat me with her bag of dice. Imagine you're playing in a group of 6, none of you are over level 3, 4 of the players are still fairly new to the game, one of the players is a self-proclaimed veteran who will do blatantly dumb things to "help the newbies learn how to play", and then me a DM turned player. This sounds like a riot, and for the most part it was, I mitigated the antics of the "veteran" and tried to lead by example. Then I decide to pull a dumb, an in character dumb, and somehow managed to make a dragon appear...an adult blue dragon...and we're level 3. I spent the next 15 minutes talking to the dragon, eventually it flew off with a new friend (an NPC) as a rider, I had a ton of information I gathered from it and no one got hurt.

How does a level 3 Ranger/Rogue talk a dragon out of killing them and how does this make the DM want to murderize you? Well, during that conversation, I brought up stuff I remembered from sessions we'd played, and because I can't forget what I know about dragons from being a DM, I did it in such a way that I was flattering the dragon. I stroked it's ego and pride like a Blacksmith wields his hammer, and I danced my words almost was well as a bard plucks her Lyre. At one point in time the DM stopped, broke character, and asked me "Did you read the module?". I had touched almost every key point that the module had listed as ways to defuse the situation, and almost in the same order that they were listed. The best part is I never had to roll a Deception check once, every word I said was truth and/or fact.
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In a simple response; you can't challenge your friend, but don't stop trying. As DMs turned Players we have too many tools to use, to many possibilities that we can see, and we just plain know more than a new DM. You will almost never surprise us with a monster, we can probably remember the stat block of all the classic monsters like you remember your login credentials. You can rarely pull a plot twist that we won't see coming, we've run so many modules, built so many homebrew quests, that we know the flow of stories too well. Mechanically there's very little you can do to pull a fast one on us, the rules, structure, and numbers of the game are burned into our minds like the alphabet. You have to challenge us in a different way; you have to challenge the character, not the player. The hard part is it's not so simple as to challenge the character without taking the player into account. This is where you have to talk to your player and express some of the difficulties you're running into. He was right to turn you to the forums to look for help, it was his way of saying "I don't want to ruin the surprise". He is unfortunately making a mistake at the same time which is a hard one to see; he's tying your hands by having answers to everything.

We won't be able to give you what you need, we haven't had the experience of playing with him to know his play style and methods of problem solving. We can toss out all of the ideas we've tried with our players and our experiences. I'm rather stuck on the notion that he's going to have to do as much work on making the game a challenge as you.

I play a Swashbuckler/Hunter that is almost impossible to nail down in a fight, not min/maxed but definitely optimized for survival. He is the bane of my wife's existence as a DM because she can't figure out how to challenge him in combat. I realized this and I gave her a tool she can use so that she can still challenge me. I came up with an RP reason for him to make decisions that were able to make him vulnerable. I gave him a flaw, a glaring and obvious flaw. Something that we tend to forget as DM turned player, our characters need flaws otherwise we're just playing an optimized character who will win. Think hard about your friend's characters and ask yourself: what glaring flaw did he give his characters that you can use. If there aren't any, then that's the first thing I would suggest talking to your friend about. You can't challenge a player/character who has given you nothing to work with.

I know it's not a direct answer, I know it's not a "Do this then that" type of answer, but this kind of thought exercise is what helps a DM grow to be great.

Mika1560
2018-10-08, 11:33 AM
@DMThac0 – You pretty much described him, as you described yourself! Our initial idea to fix the problem I’m facing was to have me run Rise of the Runelords, since it was something neither of us had ever played. And you’re totally right; he’s able to recite entire stat blocks from the book, smashing through adventures like they’re made of tissue paper. Admittedly, I ran the first two adventures straight from the book, no alterations, just to see where we stood. Still, it was an eye-opener.

Your point about flaws is a very good one. We both tend to give our characters flaws, but I don’t think I’ve been utilizing them as well as I should be, as the DM. I need to do that a lot more, in the future.

The other thing I do agree with you about is talking to him more, but about how to fix the problem from both sides. If we give his character more flaws during the character creation, mechanically or IC, then it will hopefully be more of a challenge for him and a lot more fun for the both of us in the end. Thank you very much for the advice!

Also, fun side story: during my first-ever time playing, with him as the DM, I pulled something similar to your Dragon story. My little Halfling Bard talked down the first big Boss of his custom campaign, after we’d spent over an hour gathering allies (to keep from getting wrecked by a higher-level opponent) and making various other preparations. The memory of his expression, a mix of frustration and delight, is still one of my favorite moments in all my time playing.

Amemnon91
2018-10-08, 12:44 PM
I've seen several points mentioning to talk to the players and this is 100% effective so long as the players aren't completely unreasonable i.e. I want to unlimited wish 3/day because I'm awesome.

You can also look at adjusting your encounters as you see fit. Does every ettin have 65 hit points? Does every young red dragon have exactly 25 strength? Adjusting things like that appropiately can be a way to legitimately make a fight harder without simply adding more monsters though that can work as well. It all depends on the story you want to tell while also making things fun for the players.

Aneurin
2018-10-08, 01:06 PM
One way to challenge this player more might be to make scenarios more complex. They don't have simple succeed/fail conditions, and the players have to work harder to achieve their chosen goal.


One example is when he descended into a Fey Lord’s domain and, through the bluff skill, convinced not the Fey Lord, but his wife that he was a powerful Fey Lord, himself, that could protect her. He didn’t even do it on purpose, since his goal was convincing the Fey Lord not to mess with him. However, IC, the wife was not there willingly and was, thus, an avenue he was supposed to be able to take. So, accidentally, with a high enough bluff roll, he convinced the wife of the Fey Lord to stab her husband in the back. This was an avenue that was meant to be hidden; something that he could work on after being captured, but he stumbled into it by not giving the Fey Lord time to get more dissenting elements out of the room before he started making his bluff rolls. This is a good example of when I had a deep roleplay encounter, a very dangerous mechanical fight, and he circumvented it through good roleplay and a lot of luck. He keeps doing this. It’s not always or even usually luck; it’s often creative thinking.

I'm going to have to make some assumptions here, because there's not many details on how you actually handled this. I apologize if they're incorrect.

So, here's how I'd make this more complicated.

Basically, a single roll wouldn't be enough to get the Fey Lady to throw her lot in with a complete stranger. Especially when the roll isn't deliberately intended to achieve that. So, instead of automatically siding with the PCs, she wants to test them - just because she thinks they can protect her doesn't mean she thinks they will, or that she trusts them not to sell her out if she makes overt contact. So she reaches out through an emissary who isn't obviously connected to her - the characters need to convince the emissary they won't sell out the Lady, they really can protect her, and that they aren't a worse option for her. If they decide they do want to sell her out, well, they're going to have to figure out just who she is first, too.

And of course the Lady isn't going to tell the PCs everything. You don't stay Fay nobility being being bluff, honest and true to your word even when it works against your best interests.

If they get caught by the Lady in their lies when they try to get her onside, then she might choose to reveal them to her husband.

Social checks aren't magic. There are limits to what people will and won't do, no matter how convincing you are.


I can't comment on the bog witch governor, given there are almost no details.

Another example would be the traditional bandit encounter. Your player decides to talk their way out of an overwhelming fight, but, well, why would the bandits just let them go? Sure, that great social check means they're willing to consider letting the PCs go without collecting a "toll", but only if they set up some other poor sucker - oh, and they'll be keeping a hostage... you know, just in case the PCs have a change of heart about the deal.

Your players then get to think their way through a sticky dilemma - fight an overwhelming force, set up someone else to get robbed/killed, or try and figure out how to double-cross the bandits without getting the hostage killed in the process.



Sometimes I give him a villain he doesn’t want to work with or can’t work with, IC. In those, I find moderate success in circumventing his ability to circumvent my ability to challenge him in roleplay… but then he uses tactics to simply overpower, outmaneuver, or escape and then later ambush the villains I create. When I design encounters specifically to counteract his strengths, he changes tactics. If he’s playing a ranged character and I have him facing off against someone who makes his ranged abilities rather useless, he will find a way to use the environment, tripping up the opponent to gain an advantage.

So, he's thinking his way through encounters and getting creative? That... basically sounds like what you want here?

Make notes on his tactics, and try to use them yourself some time, perhaps? That might help some with challenging him directly in combat. Though it sounds like you're better off challenging him on a meta-level, by getting him to plan and strategize through things.

You said you'd had luck giving him incomplete and incorrect information? Capitalize on that. Make scenarios where he has to make critical choices with only partial information. The village's scouts report that a band of orcs are getting ready for a war, and the village is certain they're the target - but the village seer, who is typically stoned out of their head, is sure they're going to war with the kobolds in the hills, but that there's a flood coming. The village can either prepare for a war, or it can prepare for a flood - if it tries to do both, it'll do neither well enough...

Kaptin Keen
2018-10-08, 03:06 PM
@Kaptin Keen – I love the tin soldiers! That does sound like a fun character concept, as well. I’m surprised that your players have never asked.

Heh - I'm glad you like them =)

There's another thing I do. I'm not sure if it's any use, but ... I tend to toss out things I don't really know what are, yet. One group of mine is currently accompanied by a musical, poetic killer automaton composed mainly of swordblades. It's just there. I don't know why it's there yet, I just felt it was interesting, so ... yea.

But if he tends to see through your plans, not having any might challenge him =D

noob
2018-10-08, 03:30 PM
A problem with small opponent tactics is that some people are prepared for them because it is too much a common thing.
An easy way is just knowing that small cramped spaces are small and cramped and therefore easy to fill with toxic smoke or fill with molten steel and other simple tactics like that.
A good combination when there is an army that wants to make sure the adventurers does not win is hostages at multiple places + fast communication unless your player is a spontaneous divination wizard using eyes of stone and metal spheres abuse and other tactics like that then that player will have trouble even with his team to manage the multiple hostage situation.
In parallel 50 different cults are trying to summon their evil god or trying to create evil plagues or making their elder evil manifest all that while being hidden in varied planets deep underground permanently in lead cages with anti divination spells(and they are all close to completion) and also the material plane is in fact a giant monster which is slumbering and at the same time each country was making a dozen of different doomsday weapons which are all nearing completion due to a recent increase in intelligence of many people caused by yet another phenomenon.
All that is happening one day before the creature imagining the entire multiverse is on the point of losing interest in it because there is too many doomsday cults and it finds that boring.

Basically a truly skilled person research all the problems on its own through the entire multiverse because any single mistake in countering any world ending threat could mean the end of everything.

If you are letting problems make themselves known on their own you are helping your player so much he does not needs any sort of investigation skill.

Darth Ultron
2018-10-08, 08:56 PM
My player can usually give me the stats for various monsters the moment I tell him what’s coming…and custom creating a lot more of my own enemies from now on.



Pathfinder does make it easy to change things. First off, just scroll though the PSRD...it's huge. There are hundreds of monsters, items, spells and magic items.... and don't forget to check the third party pages.

Templates are a quick and easy way to boost any creature, and a lot of them can't be ''seen''. Magic items are another great way to give a boost, and again, is one the player can't just ''see and figure out''.

Class levels are a great quick and easy way to improve any creature, even things like animals or vermin or such. An owlbear that is a 2nd level fighter can shake things up....and magic can really shake things up. A 2nd level fighter/2nd level druid owlbear can be quite an encounter. (technically not 'casting spells', but more supernatural abilities).

An it gets better when you describe things with color. The plain owlbear is boring...but when.."the creature gives a hoot and it's body is covered in hard bark feathers!" A lot of players will get confused right there as ''bark feathers'' will not compute for them(it's just a colorful description of barkskin, of course) and you can go better with ''the owlbear then shoots off a sharp bark feather covered in acid1" they will be beyond confused.


Another big thing to do is drop the 21st human stuff. Like with your bog hag example, sure he was able to talk the bog hag into being ''mayor'' and just ''collecting taxes", like a good 21 st century human solution.

But what if....

Say the bog hag...feeds on nightmares. So it has to scare humans and such so they are afraid and have nightmares for it to eat. Of course, nightmares do have a positive spin of making people cautious...so they are not all bad. Now see this hag does not want money or to be mayor, it just wants to eat and live. And lets make it worse and say the folks are under a curse: if they have some strong bad nightmares....they will summon a nightmare(the fiendish horse..but wosre)...but the bog hag ''eats'' just enough of the folks nightmares so that does not happen. Now, see that is a nice pickle for a player to find some solution......

Thinker
2018-10-09, 08:10 AM
Another big thing to do is drop the 21st human stuff. Like with your bog hag example, sure he was able to talk the bog hag into being ''mayor'' and just ''collecting taxes", like a good 21 st century human solution.

But what if....

Say the bog hag...feeds on nightmares. So it has to scare humans and such so they are afraid and have nightmares for it to eat. Of course, nightmares do have a positive spin of making people cautious...so they are not all bad. Now see this hag does not want money or to be mayor, it just wants to eat and live. And lets make it worse and say the folks are under a curse: if they have some strong bad nightmares....they will summon a nightmare(the fiendish horse..but wosre)...but the bog hag ''eats'' just enough of the folks nightmares so that does not happen. Now, see that is a nice pickle for a player to find some solution......

This is excellent advice. Not all monsters are people, nor do they have human motivations. Oftentimes, they should be alien in their needs, wants, and goals. Your bog hag might have even gone along with your player's solution while planning to ditch the arrangement as soon as the party left. They might hear about the terrors from the swamp yet again.

Also, I strongly recommend changing from a passing roll as a perfect success. Saying "yes, and" or "yes, but" are perfectly acceptable. Yes, the hag is willing to parley, but only if the party leaves their weapons and armor with the villagers. Yes, the warlord agrees to settle down and become King and will even make the party his sherrifs, but now he needs his sherrifs to acquire some object to prove his legitimacy.

Mika1560
2018-10-09, 11:43 AM
@All – Thanks so much for the responses, everyone! I’m blown away by how helpful and kind this community is!

@Amemnon91 – I have messed around with individual stats before, but usually not by more than a couple points in either direction. The exception being HP, which I’ve gone so far as to double, before.

@Aneurin – Haha, it was more like an entire string of rolls and actual convincing dialogue, as well as a story relevant situational bonus and various other actions aligning just right. I neglected to explain the nuance of the situation in the original post because I figured it would just be background noise, but I can do so if it would help!

The Lady had several reasons for her betrayal, in that moment: she was a captive and not naturally Fey at all, she thought that the Fey Lord’s stupidity was going to get them all killed (the Fey Lord was the only one who doubted the player’s bluff and was calling him on it) and the method of gaining her freedom (which she’d been searching for across centuries and was meant to be an item my player could acquire that would paint a huge target on his back) had just been revealed to her and lay discarded on the floor, free for the taking. The initial plan was that she was going to betray the player and run off, with her captor dead… except that, once the Fey Lord had been disposed of, the player told her the truth and passed another several difficult diplomacy rolls. So, she became an ally, instead.
Again, I don’t have a problem with his play style. I love that he’s able to be creative to get through encounters. The problem is that he does so without any trouble and would like to be challenged more. I want to make the campaign's problems more interesting for him to solve. Again, this is a problem with me, not with him. Though, I can understand the confusion because every time I searched online forums elsewhere for someone else with a problem similar to mine, it was a problem with the players rather than the DM.

@Kaptin Keen – I did try pure improvisation for a while. It was a pretty even 50/50 whether it turned out amazingly well, or absolutely horrible. The problem was that I’d work myself into a corner and have no tricks left, which would let the story fall completely flat. xP

@noob – I think I understand what you’re saying here, but I could be mistaken. Just for clarification, you’re saying that I should set up a huge scenario, so that he can’t possibly figure it all out or stop all of it before it happens? I do like the idea of “countdown timers”, where problems get worse as they go unsolved. The problem I have with the scenario you’ve described is that I can’t possibly imagine anyone stopping enough of that to avoid the end of the world… but maybe I’m mistaken or maybe the point of your example was hyperbole? It’s admittedly hard for me to read tone online, sometimes, so I apologize if I got it wrong.

@Darth Ultron – I had never considered giving class levels to creatures; that sounds like a fantastic idea! That, alone, gives me a lot more customization options for monsters and combat.

I also love the alterations you’ve suggested for the bog hag. I wish I hadn’t gotten to that part of the campaign yet, so that I could enact them! I’ll keep that in mind for later though, for sure. I will admit that I like using monsters that are actually people, because it leads to more roleplay options, instead of just another monster hunt… but that can be to my disadvantage, too. I need to switch it up!

@Thinker – Thank you for the advice! I think I will be using that more, in the future; it could lead to a lot fewer straightforward, linear paths.

Darth Ultron
2018-10-09, 01:26 PM
I had never considered giving class levels to creatures; that sounds like a fantastic idea! That, alone, gives me a lot more customization options for monsters and combat.

I have done it forever and it has always worked out great. And one of the best things about it, is the PC can't see classes. There is no way for them to know that owlbear is a 4th level druid. And Pathfinder has like a hundred options per class, so it is easy to make just what you want. An owlbear makes a good Nature Fang archtype druid (so are Wildfire Druids).




I also love the alterations you’ve suggested for the bog hag. I wish I hadn’t gotten to that part of the campaign yet, so that I could enact them! I’ll keep that in mind for later though, for sure. I will admit that I like using monsters that are actually people, because it leads to more roleplay options, instead of just another monster hunt… but that can be to my disadvantage, too. I need to switch it up!


You can have monsters be "people", just don't make them "human" (or worse 21st century humans).

Maelynn
2018-10-09, 02:19 PM
First off, good of you to want to challenge this player and do so with his consent. It's not outsmarting him to prove yourself better/smarter than them, it's outsmarting them to give them a challenge of their own level.

A few ideas that came to mind while reading this thread, maybe they're of some use - and forgive me if I repeat something already said, I'll admit I skimmed some paragraphs.

- set possible consequences for actions that you hadn't intended. Say he skips an encounter, then make sure the enemies they were supposed to face turn up somewhere else wreaking havoc. Say he successfully convinces a guard to let them pass, then make sure they later on encounter said guard in a band of thugs that attacks them - the guard was caught letting them pass, lost his job, blames the character. Say he manages to sweet talk a blue dragon who then departs with an NPC as its rider, then make sure you later on find the limp and broken body of said NPC, with injuries that imply he fell from a great height.

- give monsters different motives than you'd normally expect, so as to create dilemmas. The nobleman who wants you to rescue his kidnapped daughter isn't the good guy, and you find that his daughter's kidnappers are in fact her friends who have rescued her. The town wants you to kill a murdering lycanthrope, when it turns out that he hasn't killed any humans but just a sheep every now and then when wild prey was scarce - and the only one he's ever bitten was his love, who knew him for what he was and willingly joined his fate so they could be together. A Wizard has abducted another's Homunculus, not out of rivalry as the other accused him of but because the creature's bite poisoned their love who doesn't regain consciousness after the bite's effects have worn off - all he wants is to research the poison in hopes of finding a cure.

- create subquests to make it more difficult to circumvent entire plots. The Fey Lord's wife needs an item that just happens to be laying on the floor? No way it's that easily retrieved, that requires at least a trip to some other area where the item is located behind a puzzle or a difficult monster or a string of ability checks. The guard can be convinced to let them pass? Well, a colleague of his will notice what he did and go after the party with backup.

- use his creative out-of-the-box thinking to your own advantage. I had a random encounter where the party found an upturned cart by the side of the road, with a statue in a sitting position underneath and a large cage that has been unhinged. The idea was just to warn the party that a basilisk was roaming free, but they decided to take the cart and the statue with them and one of the players is making it his life's work to some day turn the poor cart driver back to his flesh form. Oh, and in the meantime use the cart as a nifty means of transportation.

Mika1560
2018-10-09, 02:32 PM
The Fey Lord's wife needs an item that just happens to be laying on the floor? No way it's that easily retrieved

In my defense, the player was the one who got it and, subsequently, threw it on the floor to make a point. It wasn’t just sitting there the whole time, haha. Poor explaining on my part, earlier.

Subquests are a good idea and something that I had been experimenting with recently. Rather than talking his way into powerful items that he needs, the owners send him off on "errands" of horrendous difficulty and pay him with the items after he's finished.


The nobleman who wants you to rescue his kidnapped daughter isn't the good guy, and you find that his daughter's kidnappers are in fact her friends who have rescued her.

We love stuff like this! Unfortunately, it's not so unexpected anymore, because of that. I will have to think of something interesting and really weird, so he won't see it coming!

Kaptin Keen
2018-10-09, 03:03 PM
@Kaptin Keen – I did try pure improvisation for a while. It was a pretty even 50/50 whether it turned out amazingly well, or absolutely horrible. The problem was that I’d work myself into a corner and have no tricks left, which would let the story fall completely flat. xP

Oh yea - it's horrendously dangerous, like an angry lion. Is it going to eat you? Well - maybe it's a 50/50, right? Maybe it isn't hungry, or just can't be bothered.

But over time, you get enough practice to get kinda comfortable with improvisation. I guess a requirement is to be as lazy as I am. But then, yes, eventually it becomes safer. Should you play around with angry lions until you naturally develop the skills of an angry lion whisperer? I couldn't say =D

denthor
2018-10-09, 03:48 PM
One of my favorite things what do you do now!? Make him or someone lead.

You are in dungeon crawl. This was in a 1st level dungeon.

30 foot hall way. You see a door at the end.

If they go 15 feet anywhere in the hallway a 30 foot long split in the floor opens. They fall 25 feet into a cold 8 foot deep by 30 foot long by 10 feet wide pool of water.

Damage 2d6-4 for the water. Medium Armor or more sinks you.
Chained to the wall is a Medusa. She is laughing but does not turn a party to stone if they do not attack. She is an ally if released lawful evil. Behind her in a nitch is a flesh to stone potion and scroll.

In case the party needs persuasion to help.

Incorrect
2018-10-10, 06:13 AM
How about creating a bbeg with the main motivation of hurting his character or a similar directly opposing goal. An abandoned lover, or someone he cheated before. Maybe the victim of his characters earlier clever deals.
This enemy has survived and gathered a bunch of wealth/influence and allies.
When the party meets these guys, there is nothing they want more than to hurt the character or ruin their plans. They are well informed, they know who he is, and what he can do.

Another idea could be to introduce something so alien that it is impossible to reason with.
The undead invasion wishes for nothing but to destroy all life.
The floathing eye from the 9th dimension is only motivated by spreading the taste of the color purple.


On an out of game comment, it sounds like this guy is really good at convincing you that his plans are a good idea.
Try saying no a bit more, or at least get the enemies a better deal.
Example, yes the hag now collects taxes, but why doesn't he collect them for her? She also wants a small child once a year.

Mika1560
2018-10-10, 06:09 PM
@Kaptin Keen – I generally have to improvise when my player goes completely off the track I expected him to follow, which always leads to interesting results. My method, when that happens, is to act as though I totally had it all planned out and just… roll with it until I can’t. Only then do I admit that I didn’t have it all set up ahead of time, haha.

@Denthor – If my player saw a gorgon chained to the wall, who didn’t try to hurt him first, he’d definitely, without a doubt try to talk to her before launching his own attack. The only way I could see him not releasing her and gaining another ally would be if she were imprisoned for something awful, in which case he would just walk on. That does sound like a good trap for the “kill everything in sight” parties, though!

@Incorrect – Yeah, some other commenters have suggested monsters who can’t be reasoned with, as well as bringing back those he’s screwed over with his sidestepping. I will want to utilize those methods, but I don’t want to become a one-trick pony of a DM; he’ll be able to adapt to that very quickly, very easily.

And it’s not that he’s just convincing me that he has good ideas that should work, it’s that he successfully implements them with good roleplay and through his rolls during encounters. He’s good at coming up with ideas that might work and then making them work. It is not a problem on his part. Saying “no” is only going to limit the stories we can make. I’d rather become a better DM with more intricate challenges suited to his level, instead of just refusing to let him do something that makes sense.

That said, I have no problem telling him when something won’t work. I’d just rather it was when something actually doesn’t work, for one reason or another. It has happened; usually when he hasn’t yet gathered all the information that he needs. Or I’ll let him try his idea, fail, and then learn from there. That can be interesting story.

@ALL – If anyone else has read the rest of the thread and has any more ideas for me – either general methods or more specific stuff – I’m still very much open to suggestions! Anything like Adventure Paths to study, interesting Traps and Puzzles, or even Guides would all be welcome.

TeChameleon
2018-10-10, 11:55 PM
Glad my suggestions were maybe of some help, Mika!

I tend to be fond of the 'misdirection' school of DMing- subverting expectations is great fun. I already suggested the illusionist wizard with a nasty sense of humour; another trick that can be fun is the 'this trap looks like one thing, but is actually another'- either because the trapmaker is deliberately trying to screw with the trap's victims (even more so than usual) or because it was hastily improvised (or built by gnomes :smalltongue:P)- for example, a pressure plate that sets off a fireball centered on itself... that scanned as totally non-magical, and has no discernible mechanisms. It's actually just the weight of the person stepping on the thing that's enough, when added to the weight of the (lead) plate, to crack the bead from a necklace of fireball that's underneath it.

Something that might work, too, depending on how much time you have to devote to it, would be to make your worlds a bit more alive- the NPCs are doing their own thing, and your player being a cleverdick might upset a centuries old balance of power, or inadvertently block a pass that's a vital trade route, smooth the path of a doomsday cult that's working on making the world go 'boom', or even do something as simple and disastrous as make a trickster deity get bored.

That last one could be amusing- player does a quest for some harmless-looking quest giver, only to discover that said quest giver is a quiescent deity of mischief and chaos, and that whatever problem the player just solved is a conundrum that s/he's been trying to solve for the last three hundred years. Now they've got a trickster god who's vacillating wildly between gratitude and irritation, because now they're bored. And they think that the best way to deal with it and pay off their debt at the same time is to provide the player with 'entertainment' as well. Could get interesting in a hurry, given that tricksters are generally utterly insane anyways, so simple diplomancy isn't going to get you out of this one...

Mika1560
2018-10-11, 12:08 AM
@TeChameleon - I love all of that! Do you have any more? :D

I could see any of those ideas throwing him for a loop and his character who is hardest for me to deal with would be extremely susceptible to either of your last two suggestions. Love it!

TeChameleon
2018-10-11, 01:35 AM
More? Hoo, boy, lesse...

Don't be shy about pulling from outside source material for your homebrew monsters; the most memorable critters I ever threw at my players were a mashup of Raggedy Anne and the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who (with the point of commonality being that neither can move while being looked at, of course)- in-game they were a sort of tiny golem with magical claws, made from toys and used as a desperation defense against an oncoming horde of angry (incarnate) spirits... and powered by the blood-magic sacrifice of the previous owners of the toys. "Sadly" the **** who performed the ritual only programmed the Weeping Raggedies to defend the place from outsiders, and he was promptly identified as an outsider and shredded by the understandably pissed-off toys.

The Weeping Raggedies ended up being basically an automated construct defense force that my players had to figure out, then beat, in an adventure that creeped the living daylights out of them (feel free to use the vicious little buggers in your own game, if you want).

I guess what I'm saying here is that a good homebrew monster can be both a combat and a puzzle encounter, with a timer sort of built-in to the puzzle, and that setting and tone can go a long way towards making a mechanically sort of 'eh' fight incredibly memorable. One of my proudest achievements as a DM is having my players in an amazingly tense state for an entire session, acting like they'd been sucked into a horror movie... on a gorgeously sunny summer day, playing in a well-lit room with comfortable chairs and big windows... and where nothing actually happened other than them walking down two different corridors.

Other ideas:

Gnomish brothers tag-team- one an Illusionist caster, the other a Tinker Gnome trapmaster. Anybody that wanders into their labyrinth isn't coming back out sane. Optical illusions, psychology and clever construction hiding illusory treasure and magical traps, illusions hiding mechanical traps, illusions hiding other illusions...

Put objectives in terrain that puts the players at a disadvantage- brutally steep, narrow, crumbling, treacherous mountain paths where one wrong step... or even just a mis-timed right step means having enough time to watch your life flash before your eyes twice before you hit, or negotiating a truce with merfolk in the lightless depths of the ocean, or trying to find a treasure in a swamp that could swallow entire civilizations without a ripple- basically, this is a variant on 'give them more than one objective/problem to solve at once'.

Set him up against an enemy diplomancer. You'd be amazed how badly that scrambles some diplomancer players.

Run them up against an Implacable Man- it is somehow the duty of the I.M. to capture or kill the player. Persuasion falls on deaf ears, crippling wounds are shrugged off like they were mosquito bites, fatigue is ignored, and they just. won't. DIE. Boot them off a cliff? They'll somehow turn up around the next corner. Blow up the building they're in? Five minutes later, they're back, smouldering and looking faintly annoyed. Drop a mountain on them? They'll be back. Basically, in a lot of ways, a horror movie villain/monster chasing the party to do unspeakable things to them. Bonus points if they aren't mindless, just completely devoted to their duty (Javert rather than Jason Voorhees).

Bump up the scope of their objectives (sometimes)- they've got twelve hours to figure out how to save a town from a tidal wave, or they have to get an entire army clear of a volcano that an enemy sorceror has managed to trigger (armies do not move quickly, especially without warning), or there's an enemy force that's too big to fight coming, they're hostile in the extreme, and nobody knows where they came from or why they're there.

Bring history to life, it'll almost never be happy- a lot of people don't think much about just what it means to have races that are far longer-lived than humans around, or ancient curses that never actually expire. I mean, what happens to the player when his character bumps into an elf who is under a blood-oath geas to kill him... because his greatx15-grandmother was the honey trap that a rival clan used to betray and enslave the angry elf for nearly a century? How many people have the first clue what their ancestors were doing five or six hundred years ago? Or (as an example I saw recently... I think on these very same fora..?) there's a rash of unexplained disappearances in the immigrant quarters of the capital. Turns out that the disappear-ees are descendants of the people who nearly wiped the city out a thousand years ago, and the city's ghostly defenders from that era have been roused by the curse laid back then to systematically exterminate them. Even superficially good things can go a bit weird simply because values change- say the player is gifted an ancient, super-badass sword that makes them nearly unstoppable in battle... that works in part by subtly increasing the PCs aggression towards everyone not of their clan.

Hrm... think that's all I've got for the moment, at least. Hope that helps!

noob
2018-10-11, 05:40 AM
@noob – I think I understand what you’re saying here, but I could be mistaken. Just for clarification, you’re saying that I should set up a huge scenario, so that he can’t possibly figure it all out or stop all of it before it happens? I do like the idea of “countdown timers”, where problems get worse as they go unsolved. The problem I have with the scenario you’ve described is that I can’t possibly imagine anyone stopping enough of that to avoid the end of the world… but maybe I’m mistaken or maybe the point of your example was hyperbole? It’s admittedly hard for me to read tone online, sometimes, so I apologize if I got it wrong.

Doing stuff of this scale makes sense if the adventurers are at high level(for example level 15)
but if your adventurers are lower level then you should probably scale down unless your player is very experienced and starts convincing good and evil outsiders to help him with the varied problems(the hard part is investigating and getting enough proof for convincing outsiders)
One quite fun thing about stuff at the center of planets is that people targeted by imprison are brought in the middle of the planet so it makes the center of the planet an interesting place in itself so investigating the center of the planet is something that comes as natural for some people(so the cults I am speaking off are not the best hidden cults).

Proactive players fare much better than reactive players in cases of adventures that are quite hidden but on the other hand proactive players often thinks "I want to make a tunnel toward the center of the planet to free people who have been imprisoned unjustly" (which gives them a chance to find a cultist cult at the center of the planet then once they found one they can suspect there could be other cultist cults in the centers of other planets) and other weird ideas like that.
but they might also think "we should destroy all the 666 layers of evil afterlife N"

The superweapons are more or less a distraction: since the adventurer is quite diplomatic he might think "I need to be here and try to get the countries to not annihilate each other mutually" but even if there is a major diplomatic failure there would still probably be some percents of the creatures on the planet that survives.

The kidnapping is a distraction too: if they do not manage the kidnapping some nobles will dislike them but it is probably not too bad.(and it create another plot hook for a calmer campaign once the adventurers saved the world)
so it is hard if the player wants to solve everything at once and could not find any cults but if the players find one of the cults managing the other cults could be a formality of asking some outsiders to help if they are paranoid enough for suspecting there could be other cults.

Or they get clerics of each god and starts using communion (the senses of the gods are not stopped by lead) spam to spot the cults since it is well known that the end of the world is often caused by apocalypse cults (it is a common trope) and they would call that organisation "the protectors of the universe" or whatever they want.

Aneurin
2018-10-11, 06:29 AM
@Aneurin – Haha, it was more like an entire string of rolls and actual convincing dialogue, as well as a story relevant situational bonus and various other actions aligning just right. I neglected to explain the nuance of the situation in the original post because I figured it would just be background noise, but I can do so if it would help!

The Lady had several reasons for her betrayal, in that moment: she was a captive and not naturally Fey at all, she thought that the Fey Lord’s stupidity was going to get them all killed (the Fey Lord was the only one who doubted the player’s bluff and was calling him on it) and the method of gaining her freedom (which she’d been searching for across centuries and was meant to be an item my player could acquire that would paint a huge target on his back) had just been revealed to her and lay discarded on the floor, free for the taking. The initial plan was that she was going to betray the player and run off, with her captor dead… except that, once the Fey Lord had been disposed of, the player told her the truth and passed another several difficult diplomacy rolls. So, she became an ally, instead.
Again, I don’t have a problem with his play style. I love that he’s able to be creative to get through encounters. The problem is that he does so without any trouble and would like to be challenged more. I want to make the campaign's problems more interesting for him to solve. Again, this is a problem with me, not with him. Though, I can understand the confusion because every time I searched online forums elsewhere for someone else with a problem similar to mine, it was a problem with the players rather than the DM.

Hmm. Okay, with more context that one ran a little differently than I thought. Again, what I'd suggest is still that things don't happen neatly just because of a roll - talking to people is not magic, and if you're having problems with magic it's probably for the best if you swap systems to something that doesn't have trivialize-the-scene abilities freely available. I'm not saying to make social skills worthless, but just to have limits on what they can achieve.

Also, I'm not sure how much the Fey Lord scenario here is the player effortlessly handling the situation - it sounds more like they just got really lucky.


Perhaps you'd benefit from a change of basic premise - so far, it sounds like you run games for free-ranging adventurers who basically have freedom to act however the hell they want with no repercussions. Which is fine, but it means your players have total freedom in how they handle a situation - which kind of seems like it's your issue here. So put them in situations where they don't have total freedom to operate - make them soldiers, or ambassadors or investigators.

The Fey Lord scenario would have gone very different had the PCs been ambassadors - they couldn't just jump in and help the Lady, because their job is to... I dunno... make a trade agreement. Negotiate an end to a war. Stop a war starting. Even if they do want to jump in, they've got to figure out which side to jump in on - which side will give them the best advantage in their actual mission? And if they didn't think to do a bit of information gathering before hand (which'll give them biased info depending on who they speak to) they won't have a clue.

Similarly, the Bog Witch would work differently if the PCs were soldiers. If they set her up as a ruler of the swamp when they were supposed to kill her, it would go very poorly for them when they got back. Let them have freedom in how they achieve a given objective, but they don't have a choice in the objective itself. If the captain says kill the witch, they're going to have to try. If the captain says take that hill, then they're going to have to try.

Mika1560
2018-10-18, 09:02 AM
@TeChameleon - Sorry it's taken me so long to reply (life got crazy), but thank you so much for the ideas! They all sound awesome and I am starting to work some of them into our current campaign :D

But I will say, without a doubt: those Weeping Raggedies sound absolutely terrifying.

@noob - Ahh, that makes sense. I suppose that none of my plots have progressed to that grand a scale, just yet. I will confess that I am generally a fan of the lower fantasy stories when reading and that leaks into what I write or plan.

@Aneurin - That is a good idea! His diplomancer does have an unparalleled freedom of movement in the campaign at the moment. Taking that away by giving him a more restraining role sounds very interesting to me.

@All - I just wanted to thank you all again for your help and advice. However general or specific the ideas I've been given, I feel as though it's all helping me create a better game. The last session we had, the various challenges were more difficult and also stranger, which created a great time for all involved :)