Enchantment as the GM

[LankyOgre]

I’m mulling over some different adventure ideas and I’m wondering how you would respond if your GM did this.
The adventure starts off fairly typical; goblins or bandits or something are riled up and attacking the town or roads. You and your fellow PCs storm off to defeat them. Everything is going according to plan, though there are hints that something is controlling or egging them on. You get past the leader and encounter a high level spellcaster/demon/dragon/undead that casts mass suggestion and tells you all to flee and tell of his coming glory or demand tribute. The DC is high enough that a few PCs will likely fail, even if some pass. The duration may or may not actually take you back to a town, but it will get you out of the dungeon.
Now, you know that there is something big going on, but you have a clear example of how much stronger than you it is.

[Koo Rehtorb]

So long as you tell them the DC they have to hit before they roll so it's all fair and above board it seems fine.

[JAL_1138]

There’s potentially a bit of a problem in presenting a threat too big/challenging for the PCs to feasibly take on. Mainly whether it’s within reason for the PCs to face it at all.

Let’s say you’re a level 1 PC. You discover the Big Bad is an Ancient Red Dragon. If you attempt to fight this thing in the next, oh, eight levels or so, you will die. Chance of success against it is nil. You’re either going to need a noncombat solution, or you’re going to need a rather large number of military troops, or you’re going to need to grind up about fifteen or sixteen levels to still be fighting something with a Challenge rating way above your level (but with the right tactics and spells your party might be able to take on anyway).

Unless a solution that doesn’t involve directly fighting it presents itself PDQ, your character might as well go home, because the alternatives are either not getting anywhere near it because of its fear aura, or getting Breath Weaponed to ashes.

But an enemy that’s in a more reasonable range of power disparity could instead prompt the players to start strategizing immediately and investigate means of thwarting it (potentially including getting stronger until they can feasibly take it on directly).



There’s also a potential issue with removing player agency. It can certainly be done, but it can also potentially be really un-fun to have your character flat-out taken over and made to do something (whatever that something is). It’s a fine line between engaging and annoying, and I don’t know of any general advice to help separate one from the other.

None of this is to say not to use your setup, just to approach it with caution. It can work well, but it could also fail hard if not handled/balanced appropriately.

[LankyOgre]

So long as you tell them the DC they have to hit before they roll so it's all fair and above board it seems fine.

Outside of Fate games, I’ve never really told players what DCs to expect like this. I’m not sure it would mollify those upset by it and would possibly annoy others, “what do you mean DC 25?”


There’s potentially a bit of a problem in presenting a threat too big/challenging for the PCs to feasibly take on. Mainly whether it’s within reason for the PCs to face it at all.

That’s an interesting take that I will have to remain aware of. I feel like gather resources, allies, and tools to defeat the coming evil is a common trope in fantasy.
You do bring up a good point though, in that I will have to have a plan for the creature while the PCs are leveling up.

[Particle_Man]

If by some chance they all make the saving throw do you tpk the party or is there a plan B?

[JoeJ]

You didn't say what game this is, but in 5e a realistic save DC would be in the range of 16-18, depending on exact value of the casting stat. It's possible for a low level character to make that, but most of them won't.

It seems that this BBEG is creating some sort of organization, so it would make sense for the PCs to be mostly battling minions and lower level lieutenants until they become powerful enough to challenge the BBEG directly. As long as they feel they're making progress - stopping some (not necessarily all) of the evil plans, eliminating organization operatives, and gradually working their way closer to the center - you should have no trouble keeping the overall direction of the campaign going.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Long as enchantment is kosher on my side of the screen, I've got no room to complain about it on the GM side.

The problem you'd have with me is that when I recognize enchantments in play with the minions, I'm gonna immediately think we need to get protection from evil up when we face the boss. With the suggestion hard countered, I doubt we'd flee on our own unless I recognized the creature out of character and metagamed it.

[JoeJ]

Long as enchantment is kosher on my side of the screen, I've got no room to complain about it on the GM side.

The problem you'd have with me is that when I recognize enchantments in play with the minions, I'm gonna immediately think we need to get protection from evil up when we face the boss. With the suggestion hard countered, I doubt we'd flee on our own unless I recognized the creature out of character and metagamed it.

Whether or not that would work depends on what game the OP's group is playing. In 5e, Protection From Evil and Good only protects one target, requires the caster's concentration, and doesn't help at all if the BBEG is not an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead.

[BreaktheStatue]

If by some chance they all make the saving throw do you tpk the party or is there a plan B?

If the BBEG is high enough level to cast Mass Suggestion, and not inclined to just kill the party (which seems the case), they could just Dimension Door out of there or something. They'd be powerful enough to be able to ignore or escape from even those who passed their save.

(Assuming this is 5e)

[Kaptin Keen]

I would skip the dice rolling entirely. There's no point - they can't win, they're not supposed to win, you should simply tell them what happens.

Also, have some plausible reason why it happens the way it does. The the Bad Guy has his underlings try to stop or kill the PC's - until they reach him, at which point it's no longer important to stop or kill them, and instead his uses Suggestion. Why? Why didn't he kill them? Why didn't he do so at the start, saving his underlings in the deal?

Since the PC's are clearly stronger than his underlings, why does he send them away - why doesn't he 'recruit' them?

[Florian]

Personal opinion? While this kind of foreshadowing is pretty cool, I would handle it off screen and as the initial background for the whole campaign.

[Quertus]

The problem you'd have with me is that when I recognize enchantments in play with the minions, I'm gonna immediately think we need to get protection from evil up when we face the boss. With the suggestion hard countered, I doubt we'd flee on our own unless I recognized the creature out of character and metagamed it.

This certainly sounds like one of the smart ways to handle it.

So, OP, why would this powerful creature stick around long enough to be seen in the first place? This sounds like a suboptimal strategy.

Unless you're intentionally trying to set it up as a powerhouse idiot (or possibly a chess master doppelganger / shapeshifter, trying to frame someone else) perhaps you should rethink the strategy.

[DeTess]

I don't think you need to be this unsubtle about it. Just have the players do their usual adventuring, and gave them encounter the ocassional cultist/altar/signet ring/signed portrait/etc. that's linked to your big bad. By the 2nd or 3rd encounter with the same name or symbol your players will start looking into it themselves, and find out everything and more your encounter was supposed to teach them.

[Name_Here]

I like it. One of the biggest challenges as a GM is the group meeting the big bad. The players are conditioned by the game to believe that any enemy they face can and needs to be defeated so you put an enemy in front of them and no matter what one of the players will step up and take a swing at the BBEG who no matter how much bling and obvious capability you try to describe hanging off him they will try to fight.

Then of course you have the choice TPK or do I have him defeat the PCs and then say something fundamentally silly like "I'll let you people who attacked me live for whatever reason." But having him kill only one member of the party seems arbitrary and a little too mean.

Of course you can just GM fiat that they can't do that which players really really hate.

Overall it's a difficult thing to do well and I think it's a pretty good middle ground having most of the party hoof it at his orders.

[LankyOgre]

Thank you for all of the thoughts. For what its worth, this will most likely be a Pathfinder game, but I wanted to focus on the enchantment side of it more than the mechanics first.

You guys have given me a lot to think about regarding what the BBEG's motivation and plans are. I need to really have a clear goal and endgame to make this work and explain why he is sending this group of PCs away. As an initial thought, Suggestion might not be enough to get a bunch of different creatures working together, so even if the PCs have trashed his first group of minions, they won't make the best replacements. He would most likely be looking for another group that he can dominate or suggest the leaders into telling the entire group to follow him.

I do think skipping the dice roll or having it occur before the campaign starts would be even more frustrating as a player. I could be wrong there though.

I've been focusing on this idea as individual scenes or set-pieces and I need to tie the whole thing together and give the BBEG a purpose. There's a bit of one, but I need to shake it loose.

[DeTess]

I do think skipping the dice roll or having it occur before the campaign starts would be even more frustrating as a player. I could be wrong there though.


It depends. I agree that skipping the roll is bad, but having it occur before it starts can work. In the best case it can look like a commitment to never fudge dice or railroad by having the one fudgy/railroad event happen before the players get control of their characters. It's similar to having the players start in jail (because that was needed for the adventure) and have them explain how they got there, rather than contriving circumstances to have all of them captured to properly start the adventure.

[JNAProductions]

Get player buy-in.

Outright tell them what you plan on doing (at least for the first session-no need to lay out the WHOLE thing) and see if they're cool with it.

If they are, great! Have fun.

If not, aw well. Try a different idea, and have fun with that.

But it's better to ask them and find out right away if they'll have fun, than to go through a 3-6 hour session and only at the END have players start complaining.

[LankyOgre]

I completely disagree with starting off with this or asking before hand. It would kill any buy in or investment and require even more contrivance to set up. The entire point is that it’s near the end of the first “chapter” and the PCs have had a chance to get to know each other before the twist gets sprung.

As was brought up, I think my biggest challenge is making sure that the PCs don’t just turn around and try to attack it again.

[KillianHawkeye]

You get past the leader and encounter a high level spellcaster/demon/dragon/undead that casts mass suggestion and tells you all to flee and tell of his coming glory or demand tribute. The DC is high enough that a few PCs will likely fail, even if some pass.

In my experience, those PCs who don't fail the Save will be too stubborn and/or overconfident to flee with their compatriots and will still probably challenge your BBEG to a fight they're unlikely to win. Might be just how my group is.

[Man_Over_Game]

There’s potentially a bit of a problem in presenting a threat too big/challenging for the PCs to feasibly take on. Mainly whether it’s within reason for the PCs to face it at all.

JAL hit a lot of good points here. Having an enemy who's too strong will either end up causing one of these scenarios:


Attack him, and the party ends up dead.
Don't attack him, and nothing we do really matters.


The first bullet is only ever justified if the players already had ample reason to believe he was too strong of a target. If they're not aware of how strong Mass Suggestion is, or they just didn't understand that this was a cutscene for dramatic flair, then they're going to die. And if they can't blame their deaths on them, they're going to blame their deaths on you, so make sure to have a lot of clues so they know exactly what will happen if they take on the BBEG.

The second bullet is justified ONLY if the players are given the means of advancing their mission/plot/livelihood in a direct way. Saying "An evil boss has stolen your town and you can't stop him" doesn't seem like that much fun, but "An evil boss has stolen your town and you can't stop him, but his son found you and wants to make it happen anyway" gives a lot more direction and hope.

TLDR:
Provide ample clues that the boss is too strong. Like, a lot. The players won't think you're stupid, they'll just realize more and more that they're outmatched.
Provide a solution despite the situation. A benefactor or a fatal flaw in the boss's plan is revealed and gives the players the next step.

[kyoryu]

While there's lots of good points about attacking the bad guy and agency and all that (to which I'd just ask - why can't people RUN after a fight starts? That's a thing!), I'd just add this:

For control, if you don't want to have complete control, I'd highly recommend taking a page from Apocalypse World and using some sort of soft control. For the equivalent action in AW, the way it works is that the character can implant a suggestion/directive, and has a certain number of "points" they can use. So long as the character is following the directive to a reasonable degree, they controller can't do anything. However, if they do not, then they can exchange one of the points to do a Bad Thing (which is defined) to the non-compliant character.

This is really cool because it retains player agency, and can do a good job of modeling fighting off the control, while putting the crux of it onto player decisions rather than RNG.

Yeah, it's not a standard spell, but it's still a useful way to do "mind control" while still letting people, you know, play.

[Man_Over_Game]

You gave me an interesting idea:

Rather than forcing the players to do something against their will or not, separating the party, and potentially risking a TPK because they're stupid, what about just some kind of Geas effect?

They take damage every time they move closer to the boss or whenever they attempt to attack or cast spells against him, and everything against him has an increased chance to fail. That way, the players actively know what attempting to kill him will do while still being able to make the active choice to fight or not.

[Tanarii]

I completely disagree with starting off with this or asking before hand. It would kill any buy in or investment and require even more contrivance to set up. The entire point is that it’s near the end of the first “chapter” and the PCs have had a chance to get to know each other before the twist gets sprung.
FWIW, I'd rather a DM put me in a contrived pre-game start than put me up against something far too powerful in a situation I'd been led to believe would be a showdown, with a plan they'd use a super powerful ability I had almost no chance of resisting to "communicate" I shouldn't mess with this guy.

That's anti-telegraphing. You're sending players the wrong message intentionally just to force the situation to happen.

[Spore]

I’m mulling over some different adventure ideas and I’m wondering how you would respond if your GM did this.
The adventure starts off fairly typical; goblins or bandits or something are riled up and attacking the town or roads. You and your fellow PCs storm off to defeat them. Everything is going according to plan, though there are hints that something is controlling or egging them on. You get past the leader and encounter a high level spellcaster/demon/dragon/undead that casts mass suggestion and tells you all to flee and tell of his coming glory or demand tribute. The DC is high enough that a few PCs will likely fail, even if some pass. The duration may or may not actually take you back to a town, but it will get you out of the dungeon.
Now, you know that there is something big going on, but you have a clear example of how much stronger than you it is.

I feel it is well done in Carnival of Tears, a short sweet campaign based on a short-range enchantment that forces the people surrounding an legendary magic item to revel in happiness, regardless of how grim reality is.

DC is 25 will save(so an average NPC does need incredible conviction AND a natural 20), for 5e the DC would be 20ish. Basically you have a slight chance of succeeding but the story provides a way to circumvent its effect if the PCs were heroic enough in Chapter 1.

What you need however is a reason to release the PCs from the enchantment once it hit. Why would the BBEG let go some of the best murderhobos around? They should either be dispatched or permanently enslaved. So they should shake off the spell by themselves. Have each PC roll two wisdom/will saves and pick the two highest results. Those break the enchantment first. They wake up their friends, they should realize they are amidst brainwashed minions and they should NOT fight the villain but high tail out of there.

But no confrontation with the BBEG. He should be an enigmatic force off screen. Because if you show them the puppet master, there is always ONE PC that hates being controlled and rushes off to fight the guy. And if you make him "insanely powerful" chances are the group just relinquishes the job to a faction more capable, dropping the campaign premise entirely (our DM once telegraphed a vampire doom fortress for us to explore...we asked the queen to remove the threat because "we are not idiots, we will not deal with vampires").