Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories [Archive] - Page 5

kyoryu

2019-10-15, 01:21 PM

Unfortunately that doesn't help me a whole lot as I only game with unreasonable players who think every encounter is a load of crap.

I'm not sure this is entirely true. I'm sure you believe it is. I'm also sure that your players have issues. But I think you would get a lot further if you assumed that complaints held at least some kernel of truth, and tried to figure out what that was.

How about an identical monster that doesn't have the weakness to wibblewoo; it simply gets stronger each time it is attacked no matter what. Is that also a gotcha?

Again, presentation matters.

What makes it stronger? What doesn't make it stronger? How is that communicated? What are the exceptions? Why does it have the immunities and vulnerabilities it has? Is there a way to show that to the players?

And perhaps most importantly, if you're not supposed to beat something in combat, consider not calling for initiative or starting "combat"

As soon as you initiate "combat", you send a strong message to the players that they are now in the "combat" game and it is their job to "defeat" what's in front of them. By not doing that you can avoid sending that incorrect signal.

Again, the hydra works because attacking it "incorrectly" makes it stronger (though the usual "cauterize to prevent regeneration" works, IIRC). But what happens gives clear information as to why it is getting stronger. Like, after the first head double, the players shoud realize "oh, wait we better not cut that thing, or maybe at least we can try to cauterize".

If your "immune" monster reacts with something non-specific "it gets larger and stronger" or something, then it gives no information as to why, or what won't cause that.

If that's what is happening, then at least don't make the monster stronger, or avoid "starting combat".

So, it seems like people are saying that a gotcha monster is anything which is most likely going to be solved through trial and error. Is this right?

I don't think anybody is saying that. i think it is a gross misrepresentation of what has been said.

What is said, mostly, is "things should be consistent, and logical, and information should be given when dealing with the critter to figure out what it actually does." The hydra is fine, though it is certainly trial and error - you cut off its head, two grow back. That's a "mistake", and yet it gives enough information to start cluing the players into the "correct" strategy. And one head isn't really enough to overwhelm the party anyway.

And it's still a challenging encounter even when the players know the "trick". Now they have to be sure to cauterize, or use non-cutting attacks to avoid cutting off extra heads. That changes how the players have to think about the encounter.

IOW: The more "penalizing" a failed action is, the more you need to give information.

So let's say your monster is immune to "attacks", for some definition of "attack". And there are things that they're not immune to, but those aren't "attacks".

If the "immunity" is clearly explained by the action and result (see: hydra) it's reasonably fair to let it give the creature strength. And if the immunity is fairly narrow, but the monster can still be defeated in "combat", then it's reasoanble to start combat.

If the "immunity" is more broad, not clearly explained by the results of the action, and the creature cannot be defeated in "combat", then I would not have the negative actions make the creature stronger, as the party cannot reason through what will and won't work, and will just have to use trial and error.

If so, I really don't see why it is a bad thing. Real life certainly works like that. Most fiction works like that. Heck, most non RPG-games work like that (and in my experience as a player and listening to APs, most RPGs work like that as well).

I fundamentally don't understand what is wrong with trying something, seeing that it didn't work, and decided to regroup and come back with a different approach, and as a PC that sounds significantly more fun than simply being telegraphed the correct solution ahead of time and playing out the optimal script.

I don't think anybody is making that argument.

Again, the hydra does not "give the player the script" and allows for trial and error and learning. It is a good example of an ability like that.

Also note that this is not what actually happened in my game.

The first of the two "gotcha monsters" was only a problem because Bob assumed I was making up powers on the fly to keep him from soloing the fight.

You didn't make anything up, but IIRC, you explicitly chose that encounter because of his predilection for gaseous form. So, regardless of whether it was on the fly or not... you kinda metagamed. Which would be fair in M:tG, but is kind of not cool for a GM. And secondly, you made the 'special ability' one that would basically end the encounter if used (by knocking them off the cliff), and provided almost no clues as to the ability.

This doesn't make you a bad person or a bad GM. It does mean that maybe this encounter wasn't well designed.

The second case one of the players assumed I was actively trying to trick them and ignored the telegraphed solution.

The ghost? By your description, at least half of the responders here didn't see the "telegraph" and presumed that the party's solution was the correct one. That means that, at best, your information was confusing.

In the second, the clues were actively ignored because the players assumed I was trying to trick them, so more clues wouldn't really have helped.

I think your party tried to figure out the clues as best they could, and didn't. I don't think there's any malfeasance involved.

But there is a world of difference between having to summarize an eight hour game session in a couple of paragraphs and missing a few details vs actually misrepresenting what was happening or fabricating scenarios whole cloth.

However, with all respect, you have frequently made posts that seem to misrepresent the position of posters, and focusing on strawmen, etc. Given that the details that come out over time often end up changing perspective, it's not unreasonable for people here to believe that, consciously or not, you're not giving the full story.

Being concerned about a behavior and asking for advice on dealing with it is not the same as being mad / punitive.

Having a "correct" way to play and being concerned that players aren't doing what you think they should, while not inherently bad, is certainly a bit of a flag, especially when the "correct" thing isn't something like "hey, stop murdering all the NPCs in town" but is more like "they're not spending money the way I want them to."

I pretty much agree with this. My only question is why its the DMs responsibility to ensure that the players always get the hints; to me that borders on railroading as it trivializes player choice and skill. Its also kind of condescending, as when you get to the point where you are making them play "Blue's Clues the RPG" you might as well just dispense with hints and print out monster stat cards before the fight.

You control all of the information. The only person that can give the players info is you. That is all under your control. There is no other avenue for authoritative info.

And, again, can we stop with the exaggeration? While I don't think that being transparent with the stats is a terrible idea (as I've previously said), there's a huge gradient between "no information" and "full transparency". While I think, in your case, you'd be well served by going to full transparency (for combat encounters, at least), I think there's fairly universal agreement, based on your descriptions, that you'd be well served by at least shifting your position on that gradient.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-15, 01:59 PM

I pretty much agree with this. My only question is why its the DMs responsibility to ensure that the players always get the hints; to me that borders on railroading as it trivializes player choice and skill. Its also kind of condescending, as when you get to the point where you are making them play "Blue's Clues the RPG" you might as well just dispense with hints and print out monster stat cards before the fight.

I totally agree, and I think too big a mess is being made of gotcha monsters. because nobody has managed a good definition of them that does not entail the group. basically, if the party is a bunch of paranoid whiners, then everything is going to be a gotcha monster.
of course the players should get information after they try stuff, and that information must be clear enough that it should help them figure out the solution. And sometimes you screw up because you can't see it from the other side of the table: I once made the "avatar of DM frustration (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22501962&postcount=14)" as a joke monster spoofing DM adding immunities on the fly; that monster actually had a random chance to be immune to the next attack on the fly, with a silly excuse being used every time. what I failed to consider is that my players, instead of getting the joke, figured it as a puzzle monster, and were frustrated that they couldn't get the knack of it. So I realized my mistake and disclosed the stats of the thing to them. they were also frustrated that the thing was totally random, while I was seeing it as "keep hitting and trust on statistics"; as they didn't like the encounter, I stopped using the monster. that was a case of a poorly designed encounter because I didn't realize how it would look from their perspective, without my knowledge.

So, a monster that has unusual abilities and will surprise you is generally fine, but the players should then be able to piece together the information to fight it better. it's not an enforced failure, not any more than exploring a dungeon and finding a dead end and having to go back is an enforced failure. Just exploration.
As for the party having to run away and regroup, that depends on the game. at some tables it is understood that some encounters will be deadly, in those cases success is not killing the enemies but escaping unscathed. in some other tables that would be unacceptable.
the comment from bob that "if I get attacked, i already failed" shows that he at least was expecting failure to NOT be a part of this campaign.

Changing argument, I realized that Bob may be a playtester, but he's still completely unrealiable.
He had his custom item that dealt damage at any distance and could theoretically solve any encounter, except tal asked him to please not use it that way.
Now, any playtester worth a damn would realize that item is a huge balance problem. Any honest playtester would be the first one to ask the item be nerfed.
That bob is a playtester and yet didn't ask to nerf the obviously overpowered item? he's definitely not honest. he was trying to cheat his way through the game, calling in rules and balance only when it suited him. So, everything he says about the campaign or the difficulty of the monsters cannot be trusted.

kyoryu

2019-10-15, 02:11 PM

that was a case of a poorly designed encounter because I didn't realize how it would look from their perspective, without my knowledge.

Quoted for emphasis.

Always try to think of what it looks like with only the information your players have.

Talakeal

2019-10-15, 02:25 PM

And perhaps most importantly, if you're not supposed to beat something in combat, consider not calling for initiative or starting "combat"

As soon as you initiate "combat", you send a strong message to the players that they are now in the "combat" game and it is their job to "defeat" what's in front of them. By not doing that you can avoid sending that incorrect signal.

Agreed. Is this in reference to something in one of my stories? Because I am not seeing the connection.

What is said, mostly, is "things should be consistent, and logical, and information should be given when dealing with the critter to figure out what it actually does." The hydra is fine, though it is certainly trial and error - you cut off its head, two grow back. That's a "mistake", and yet it gives enough information to start cluing the players into the "correct" strategy. And one head isn't really enough to overwhelm the party anyway.

And it's still a challenging encounter even when the players know the "trick". Now they have to be sure to cauterize, or use non-cutting attacks to avoid cutting off extra heads. That changes how the players have to think about the encounter.

IOW: The more "penalizing" a failed action is, the more you need to give information.

So let's say your monster is immune to "attacks", for some definition of "attack". And there are things that they're not immune to, but those aren't "attacks".

If the "immunity" is clearly explained by the action and result (see: hydra) it's reasonably fair to let it give the creature strength. And if the immunity is fairly narrow, but the monster can still be defeated in "combat", then it's reasonable to start combat.

If the "immunity" is more broad, not clearly explained by the results of the action, and the creature cannot be defeated in "combat", then I would not have the negative actions make the creature stronger, as the party cannot reason through what will and won't work, and will just have to use trial and error.

Again, I agree with all of this, and this is what I am already doing.

I don't think anybody is making that argument.

Again, the hydra does not "give the player the script" and allows for trial and error and learning. It is a good example of an ability like that.

Again, I literally floundering at what people mean with the whole gotcha thing, and that is the best I can come away with what Oldtrees was trying to say in his previous post.

You didn't make anything up, but IIRC, you explicitly chose that encounter because of his predilection for gaseous form. So, regardless of whether it was on the fly or not... you kinda metagamed. Which would be fair in M:tG, but is kind of not cool for a GM. And secondly, you made the 'special ability' one that would basically end the encounter if used (by knocking them off the cliff), and provided almost no clues as to the ability.

This doesn't make you a bad person or a bad GM. It does mean that maybe this encounter wasn't well designed.

Woah, that's not what happened.

I created the encounter before anyone had even made a character for the game, let alone decided on favored tactics. I was designed a monster from scratch, and I knew it would need some sort of energy attack to be a credible threat to a party which could fly or turn incorporeal, and I decided on gust of wind because it complemented his prefered tactic of grappling people and throwing them off the bridge and the image of a monster sneezing on his enemies had the sort of fairy tale vibe I was going for.

Also, it didn't "end the encounter" at all, he only used it once on one single target.

The ghost? By your description, at least half of the respondent here didn't see the "telegraph" and presumed that the party's solution was the correct one. That means that, at best, your information was confusing.

Not quite. I budgeted the encounter for killing for of the monster, assuming they would kill it once out of ignorance, and then once or twice more on accident or to see if the first time was a unique event. The party killed it, realized it would probably split indefinitely, killed it twice more, watched it split from 2 to 4, and then retreated.

The party did research, and I told them that as it is born of violence it cannot be killed by violence. Half the party then assumed I was deliberately trying to trick them, and tried to come up with a bunch of crazy tactics that would involve killing it without violence, while the other half tried to come up with smash and grab tactics to get the treasure without dealing with the monster at all.

However, with all respect, you have frequently made posts that seem to misrepresent the position of posters, and focusing on strawmen, etc. Given that the details that come out over time often end up changing perspective, it's not unreasonable for people here to believe that, consciously or not, you're not giving the full story.

That's just the nature of communication on the internet; myself (and many many other posters) have trouble understanding exactly what people are trying to say without a lot of the normal social cues. Heck, you misrepresent things I have said or done several times in this very post, but I am not chalking it up to a deliberate attempt to deceive.

Having a "correct" way to play and being concerned that players aren't doing what you think they should, while not inherently bad, is certainly a bit of a flag, especially when the "correct" thing isn't something like "hey, stop murdering all the NPCs in town" but is more like "they're not spending money the way I want them to."

Its not "not spending money they way I want them to" its not spending any money (or skill points or feats) AT ALL. And then compounding it by complaining that my encounters are overturned for their under powered characters.

And, again, can we stop with the exaggeration? While I don't think that being transparent with the stats is a terrible idea (as I've previously said), there's a huge gradient between "no information" and "full transparency". While I think, in your case, you'd be well served by going to full transparency (for combat encounters, at least), I think there's fairly universal agreement, based on your descriptions, that you'd be well served by at least shifting your position on that gradient.

What the person I was responding to seemed to be saying is that if the players don't pick up on a hint, that by default meant that the DM's hint was too hard, which by extension means that the appropriate difficulty is one where all of the hints are so obvious they literally cannot be missed. Or am I misunderstanding?

MeeposFire

2019-10-15, 03:08 PM

By and large you should avoid things that only work via trial and error. Trial and error is slow, not fun, not interesting, and rarely if ever gives you a nice pay off for the players because it does not feel like you really solved anything rather you just keep throwing stuff at a problem and hope that eventually it sticks and that is if you succeed. If you don't succeed you feel even worse and if you are forced to rely on trial and error there is little guarantee that you will hit the correct solution before whatever limit you have on the situation times out.

If the players choose to use trial and error to figure something out rather than whatever hints you have given them that is one thing but if the only way you have given a group to figure out something is trial and error that is really a failure on your part.

Note that I am talking about pure trial and error. For instance having a logic problem where yes the first thing you do could be seen as trial and error but that one action then shows off the start of a full pattern that you can logically figure out would not count.

Making them play a game of simon could be ok but making them push random buttons with no clues or indications when they are getting it right just to see if they will eventually hit the right combo would be a bad idea. Just as an example.

Tajerio

2019-10-15, 03:13 PM

Talakeal, I think you're trying to learn too much from the experience that you've had DMing for this group. Because, quite frankly, it's a group with a bizarre and unhealthy dynamic that's gone on far longer than the vast majority of people would let it go. The conclusions you can draw will not be applicable to most gaming beyond some broad strokes, because this experience is such a distant outlier. So I wouldn't go trying to figure out the exact parameters of a "gotcha" monster by using examples from your game and comparing them against other people's understanding, because your game is all clogged up with unrelated toxicity that makes it too hard to see. I seem to recall that you've confessed to overanalyzing before--but if you do it here it's gonna have worse consequences than normal.

Besides what people have said about trust and so forth, I think the big conclusion to be drawn, if you want to become a better DM, is that you are not very good at seeing things from your players' point of view. And, if I am being perfectly honest, you don't seem to be very good at even trying to see things from their point of view. That comes out both in what you have written about your games in your various threads, and in your responses to other posters in these threads. It's by no means a permanent flaw, nor will it necessarily be critical in every game, but I think you will always have some trouble in your games unless you work on it.

patchyman

2019-10-15, 09:40 PM

You have stated categorically that in your campaign world, all dragons breathe (and only breathe) fire:

In my world there is only one species of dragon, and all of them breathe fire.

This is an established fact in your campaign world of which your players are aware:

Are your players aware that there is only one species of dragon and they breathe fire, or is this something that could be changed?

Yes, they are aware.

Despite this fact, in your campaign, you decided to include a dragon that did not breathe fire (out of how many dragons the players encountered?):

Ok, so let's workshop something:
I have encounter coming up with a dragon that is infected with ghoul fever and in the process of becoming undead. It is significantly weaker than a standard dragon, and instead of breathing fire it is going to vomit up a deluge of diseased slime.

When preparing for the final battle, you are bothered that the party seemed to have loaded up on healing potions (i.e. reactive, all-purpose items) rather than on fire resistance potions (i.e. proactive, specialized items).

The problem was not that they weren't using consumables, its that they were upset that they were using too many consumables and I was trying to get them to use them smarter and more proactively; for example buy a potion of fire protection before facing the dragon to save 10 potions of healing afterwards.

They didn't use them proactively, they just had so many of them that they were back at 100% after every encounter no matter how careless they were.

Honestly, I cannot see why your players might consider that healing potions are a better investment than a fire resistance potion. This is truly a riddle for the ages. Perhaps the forum, with its collective wisdom, can help elucidate this perplexing mystery.

On a more serious note, it certainly does appear that loading up on healing potions *was* the optimal strategy for the final encounter, so why are you bothered that the party seems to have worked together to optimize their chances? Contrary to what you suggested, loading up on potions of healing isn't even metagamey: it looks like the party is assuming that the treasure from defeating the villain will exceed the cost of purchasing the potions of healing, and even if that isn't the case, the potions of healing will be useful in all of the adventures the party has off-screen.

At the end of the day, isn't your real problem that you, as DM, allowed the players to purchase 50 potions of healing? Where did the players even find that many potions of healing? That is not a problem with the players. If you tell the players that they can buy whatever they want, why would you get mad if they do so?

Talakeal

2019-10-15, 10:06 PM

@ Patchyman:

The dragon did breathe fire when it was alive and healthy, but now that it is turning into a ghoul its flame sacs are only capable of spraying out diseased mucus.

Spending all of their money on healing potions (and in the mages case a bunch of scrolls of the spells he already knows) was the optimal strategy for the final battle, but it is still meta-gaming as it requires them to know its the final battle. Just like IF I knew I was going to die in a car accident tomorrow I would probably go out and charge several thousand dollars to my credit card, but if I don't die tomorrow it would be incredibly wasteful.

The fire resistance potion was just an example; the players only buy healing potions (and the same couple of scrolls) rather than a variety of tools, and then complain that they are spending too much money on healing potions, and I was trying to explain to them that buying a variety of potions is far more efficient; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that.

kyoryu

2019-10-15, 10:13 PM

Healing potions always work :)

Excession

2019-10-15, 10:16 PM

At the end of the day, isn't your real problem that you, as DM, allowed the players to purchase 50 potions of healing? Where did the players even find that many potions of healing? That is not a problem with the players. If you tell the players that they can buy whatever they want, why would you get mad if they do so?

This is one option, yes.

Another is to not let potions be spammed. If the balance of a system is broken by using too many potions, then you add healing surges, alchemical tolerance, or something else that limits them. Gold price is not a good limiter, because gold is used for more than just potions, making balancing everything together rather difficult.

patchyman

2019-10-16, 12:12 AM

@ Patchyman:

The dragon did breathe fire when it was alive and healthy, but now that it is turning into a ghoul its flame sacs are only capable of spraying out diseased mucus.

No, it didn’t, because the dragon was never alive. You specifically chose to include a dragon that did not breathe fire in a setting in which you established that all dragons only breathe fire. Why are you surprised that your players cannot trust the facts you have established in your campaign and choose to invest in healing potions that will always be useful?

The fire resistance potion was just an example; the players only buy healing potions (and the same couple of scrolls) rather than a variety of tools, and then complain that they are spending too much money on healing potions, and I was trying to explain to them that buying a variety of potions is far more efficient; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that.

So, out of all the examples in the universe you could have chosen, the specific example you chose was one that your own campaign invalidated (fire resistance to protect against dragon fire).

Kane0

2019-10-16, 02:17 AM

Healing potions always work :)
This should have been bolded, underlined and in capslock.

zinycor

2019-10-16, 04:35 AM

Spending all of their money on healing potions (and in the mages case a bunch of scrolls of the spells he already knows) was the optimal strategy for the final battle, but it is still meta-gaming as it requires them to know its the final battle. Just like IF I knew I was going to die in a car accident tomorrow I would probably go out and charge several thousand dollars to my credit card, but if I don't die tomorrow it would be incredibly wasteful.
.

You say meta-gaming as it was something wrong. The only reason it was meta-gaming is because YOU failed at setting up the last session as such. You expect your players to purposefully make bad choices (Such s treating the last session as any other session) instead of the far simplest answers:
1) Accept that players will behave rationally and treat the last session as a hard one, despite any in-character reasons. AKA: Embrace the meta-gaming.
Or
2) Up the stakes in-game in order to justify the players actions.

In my opinion, expecting players to not buy resources like it was the last session, is a weird and ridiculous mistake, that could only be born from an irrational hate of metagaming.

Kardwill

2019-10-16, 04:37 AM

The party did research, and I told them that as it is born of violence it cannot be killed by violence. Half the party then assumed I was deliberately trying to trick them, and tried to come up with a bunch of crazy tactics that would involve killing it without violence, while the other half tried to come up with smash and grab tactics to get the treasure without dealing with the monster at all.

And both of those are perfectly valid response to the information you gave them : Half the group focused on "by violence", the fact that the monster was immune to violence, and tried to defeat it by nonviolent/"love" behaviour (a classic trope I'd call "the Minmay attack") by going full "trial and error" on it. The other half decided that the best way to bypass its invincibility is to try to avoid combat altogether, because they focused on "cannot be killed". Personally, with the information you gave, I probably would have gone for either of those. Using violence to not kill it (chains, wrestling, spells, lasso...) wouldn't have crossed my mind, since it went against the whole "born of violence" schtick

They did NOT ignore the information you gave them. They misinterpreted what you said, and used that knowledge to try and bypass the challenge.

The information you gave them made perfect sense in your head because you came up with this riddle. You had perfect information about which was the important part ("cannot be killed"), which was just fluff (all the rest), what was the most efficient way to tackle it, what wouldn't work (using nonviolent means against a beast born of violence), etc...
The players did not have this information. They had to struggle with the information you gave them and piece it together as well as they could.

The players are not in the GM's head. They don't know the exact meaning of what he says. They don't know which hints are importants and which ones are trivial. They don't know where the useful stuff is hidden, and how to get to it. They don't know the characters, the setting, the circunstances, as well as you do. They will overlook stuff the GM put in his descriptions, misremember stuff that was mentioned 20 minutes earlier, forget to check obvious sources of information, and more importantly, they will piece together clues in ways that the GM did not see coming.

I have fairly smart players. All intelligent, good-willed people, all experienced RPGers, and yet, they are not psychic. Fairly often, they overlook stuff, or come to their own conclusions. Facing this, I can either :

- give additional informations. Telegraph more stuff and give FAR more hints than I think necessary, even if that means introducing stuff in the narration entirely for this. Because they are not in my head, and I know that if I give them 3 clues, they will maybe use 1 of them correctly, if I'm lucky. So, I give them 10. I lay it out thick. I have frequent reminders, additional "nex" hints that bring back old ones to their mind. I'll throw OOC reminders, like "doesn't Daisy have a Miskatonic librarian among her contacts?"
That way, they can still make mistakes, but they'll have a fair shot at doing things right and feel clever about it.

- change my story to fit their own ideas, or so that it fits the particular stuff they decided to investigate. I know some GMs don't like it, but since I'm a low-prep lazy GM that loves cooperative storytelling, stealing ideas from my players and improvising stuff around their characters' actions rather than following my in-universe plot/setting is a pretty nice option ^^
(For this particular example, I totally would have let them overcome the enemy with their "cuddle attack". Sounds like a fun, creative solution to their problem)

- let them struggle with the few informations that seemed "logical" to give them, and have confused, frustrated players that will make bad decisions based on incomplete informations, and end up throwing everything at the problem out of desperation.

Guess which one of the 3 "solutions" I try not to use anymore?

Giving more information to your players is not handholding. It is accounting for the fact that they are not in your head and don't follow your logic, and that "obvious stuff" is NOT obvious for them.

Without information, there is no informed choice.

Without informed choice, there is no RPG.

kyoryu

2019-10-16, 10:19 AM

Again, I literally floundering at what people mean with the whole gotcha thing, and that is the best I can come away with what Oldtrees was trying to say in his previous post.

You keep seeming to miss the important thing for "gotcha" encounters - which is the context and the information that is given to the players. There is no objective list of things that will make an encounter "gotcha" or not. It is how the information is presented and given to the players.

Woah, that's not what happened.

Okay.

I created the encounter before anyone had even made a character for the game, let alone decided on favored tactics.

I said this.

I was designed a monster from scratch, and I knew it would need some sort of energy attack to be a credible threat to a party which could fly or turn incorporeal, and I decided on gust of wind because it complemented his prefered tactic of grappling people and throwing them off the bridge and the image of a monster sneezing on his enemies had the sort of fairy tale vibe I was going for.

I do not argue this. It's a little metagamey, frankly ("I will need to counter xyz tactic" vs "what does the monster logically do?") but whatever. Again, the encounter was made before characters. Nobody disputes that.

The question is when was the encounter chosen. And, from my reading, you chose the encounter after knowing the party, and knowing that the Snogre would counter the gaseous form.

Also, it didn't "end the encounter" at all, he only used it once on one single target.

It ended it for that target, and put the rest of the party at a disadvantage.

Not quite. I budgeted the encounter for killing for of the monster, assuming they would kill it once out of ignorance, and then once or twice more on accident or to see if the first time was a unique event. The party killed it, realized it would probably split indefinitely, killed it twice more, watched it split from 2 to 4, and then retreated.

The party did research, and I told them that as it is born of violence it cannot be killed by violence. Half the party then assumed I was deliberately trying to trick them, and tried to come up with a bunch of crazy tactics that would involve killing it without violence, while the other half tried to come up with smash and grab tactics to get the treasure without dealing with the monster at all.

This has been covered by other posters... but now they could kill it, and it split afterwards? That wasn't given out before.

That's just the nature of communication on the internet; myself (and many many other posters) have trouble understanding exactly what people are trying to say without a lot of the normal social cues. Heck, you misrepresent things I have said or done several times in this very post, but I am not chalking it up to a deliberate attempt to deceive.

This is one of those cases where I think it's useful to consider why I'm saying something, and maybe if others in the Playground have similar opinions (which I believe some have posted).

FWIW, I don't think you're deliberately trying to deceive (or I wouldn't bother posting). I do think that you have some blind spots which cause you to portray things in an incomplete manner.

What the person I was responding to seemed to be saying is that if the players don't pick up on a hint, that by default meant that the DM's hint was too hard, which by extension means that the appropriate difficulty is one where all of the hints are so obvious they literally cannot be missed. Or am I misunderstanding?

Well, what he said was basically this: In an encounter like that, you want the players to figure it out at some point, right? Say, at time X. If the hints are doing what you want, then they'll probably pick it up at time X, and have a fight as tough as you expect.

If they pick it up way earlier than time X (say, first round of the fight or before the fight starts), they'll have an easier time of it. If they pick it up later, it'll be a tougher fight, but still beatable.

If your intent is that people figure out your puzzle, and they don't, then you should strongly consider that your hints may be insufficient.

Again, it's not "good" and "bad". It's not black and white. It's "did I get the result I wanted?" If you didn't, change what you do rather than blaming the others, especially in a situation like GMing where you have a large proportion of the control.

patchyman

2019-10-16, 12:08 PM

- change my story to fit their own ideas, or so that it fits the particular stuff they decided to investigate. I know some GMs don't like it, but since I'm a low-prep lazy GM that loves cooperative storytelling, stealing ideas from my players and improvising stuff around their characters' actions rather than following my in-universe plot/setting is a pretty nice option ^^

I’m a high-prep workaholic DM and I do this too. Even if the answer your players come up with isn’t as clever as yours, if it makes sense, why not use it? Unlike you, they came up with their answer under pressure.

Talakeal

2019-10-16, 01:27 PM

No, it didn’t, because the dragon was never alive. You specifically chose to include a dragon that did not breathe fire in a setting in which you established that all dragons only breathe fire. Why are you surprised that your players cannot trust the facts you have established in your campaign and choose to invest in healing potions that will always be useful?.

I am not sure where you are going with this, if you actually have a point or are just playing word games here. What I meant is that there are not color coded dragon subspecies like in D&D, that a baseline dragon will breathe fire regardless of its scales. I was not making an absolute statement that there are no unique individuals with mutations or other weird abilities.

So, out of all the examples in the universe you could have chosen, the specific example you chose was one that your own campaign invalidated (fire resistance to protect against dragon fire).

I just chose the first example that popped into my head, I went with that specific one because I was just watching a video about farming fire resistance potions for Molten Core in Classic Warcraft.

While the party did actually fight a fire-breathing dragon at one point, fire resistance potions were not something this specific party would or should ever invest in because their sorceress specializes in fire magic and can cast protection from fire all day long.

zinycor

2019-10-16, 02:52 PM

Still isn't clear why having the party buy healing potions on the last session bothers you.

Segev

2019-10-16, 03:34 PM

Still isn't clear why having the party buy healing potions on the last session bothers you.

It bothers him because, prior to now, their MO was to eschew consumables because they were "wasted gold." But because it's the last session, and they won't play these characters again, they have no reason - despite little changing for the characters in terms of long-term reasons to plan - to save any gold for permanent items, they spent everything on consumables, since consumables are as permanent as permanent items, for all intents and purposes.

It's metagaming, and that bothers Talekeal.

Quertus

2019-10-16, 03:41 PM

There's a lot of good stuff being said about gotcha monsters / encounters, and I've not got time to individually call out all the good stuff, so kudos all around.

One thing did strike me, though:

But, and this is important, it only works for me if those failures are legitimately my fault and success at forecasting the trick was not only possible in principle, but happens often enough to make trying feel worthwhile - that probably means that at least 75% of the time, I need to actually succeed and avoid the trick.

This notion of making yourself a metric. 75% sounds good to me. Talakeal, look at all the monsters that the party didn't know going in, and all the encounters with these monsters. Did your players figure out the monsters trick before they encountered it / from its lore and description / by making knowledge checks / by the time initiative was rolled 75% of the time? Alternately, did they encounter any of these monsters 4+ times, so that they would know that particular monster's odd abilities 75% of the time going in?

Or did your encounter design force your players to play pants-on-heads bumbling idiots? Did your encounters rely on gotchas, or would they do work if they hit the 75% metric for "knowing what's going on, going in"?

Now, I might catch some flak for this, but I'm all about encounters that *would* be "gotcha" encounters, except that I try to train my players to play my way. I intentionally make the first session have a "gotcha" of sorts, with plenty of opportunities for the players to foresee the gotcha. If they don't, that's fine - it won't cause a TPK or other fail state - but I then explain the "behind the scenes", and how they could have learned this information. Repeat until they get the style.

Then, once we're on the same page, I *expect* that they'll get *most* of my "gotchas". I like this 75% metric. It feels like a good target. My encounters don't *require* that they "get it" ahead of time - they work either way. Also, the players get the agency to choose their level of difficulty by how much they investigate if they don't "get it" ("oh, hearts missing? It's a…”).

So, a lot of these things that I do (lots of custom content with no foreshadowing unless the PCs look it, trying get the players to play a particular way, etc) other posters call bad. But I will contend that, just like with gotcha encounters (or, rather, *potential* gotcha encounters), it's a matter of how you do it that determines if it's bad.

Kane0

2019-10-16, 03:52 PM

One thing did strike me, though:

This notion of making yourself a metric. 75% sounds good to me. Talakeal, look at all the monsters that the party didn't know going in, and all the encounters with these monsters. Did your players figure out the monsters trick before they encountered it / from its lore and description / by making knowledge checks / by the time initiative was rolled 75% of the time? Alternately, did they encounter any of these monsters 4+ times, so that they would know that particular monster's odd abilities 75% of the time going in?

Or did your encounter design force your players to play pants-on-heads bumbling idiots? Did your encounters rely on gotchas, or would they do work if they hit the 75% metric for "knowing what's going on, going in"?

Another way of considering it is 'Three on a match', again bringing up the all-important Rule-of-Threes.

zinycor

2019-10-16, 04:45 PM

It bothers him because, prior to now, their MO was to eschew consumables because they were "wasted gold." But because it's the last session, and they won't play these characters again, they have no reason - despite little changing for the characters in terms of long-term reasons to plan - to save any gold for permanent items, they spent everything on consumables, since consumables are as permanent as items, for all intents and purposes.

It's metagaming, and that bothers Talekeal.

But, Why? What is wrong about that sort of metagaming? If anything it would be a failure on the GM's part that the party had to metagame in order to play effectively.

Segev

2019-10-16, 04:57 PM

But, Why? What is wrong about that sort of metagaming? If anything it would be a failure on the GM's part that the party had to metagame in order to play effectively.

Let's assume, for a moment, that they could have won the encounter with the final boss even if it hadn't actually been "final" and the game were going to continue on for many more levels/years and so they'd not have spent the money on one-shots, instead doing their usual long-term savings thing to get permanent items.

Given that assumption, how does the GM not fail (in the sense that this was "a failure on the GM's part") when running the last session of a campaign?

Koo Rehtorb

2019-10-16, 05:01 PM

Mr Beer

2019-10-16, 05:05 PM

I don't mind that example of metagaming by normal PCs, I can just increase the adventure's difficulty if I really have to anyway.

I absolutely would mind it from Talakeal's players because of the extended whining, series of temper tantrums and general passive-aggressive rudeness that would ensure from far less egregious examples of 'metagaming' by the GM.

zinycor

2019-10-16, 05:14 PM

Segev

2019-10-16, 05:17 PM

Ah, so you're attacking it from the standpoint that he should metagame his game so they aren't metagaming their PCs. I suppose that's fair enough; I mean, it IS the last thing they're doing. But it's quite possible that the story doesn't support that, necessarily.

Though now I'm picturing the party gathering around to talk about how this is their last adventure together, because Bob's retiring to his farm, Brian's marrying his sweetheart and opening a tavern, and the others are going home to their kids who they haven't seen in years but who will make this hard life of adventuring all worth it. Basically death flags all around.

Talakeal

2019-10-16, 07:12 PM

Has anyone seen Matt Colville's latest Running the Game Video?

It is all about giving monsters custom abilities to make the encounter more exciting / challenging, and doesn't really touch upon how to telegraph them. As this seems to be exactly the sort of thing that always gets me into trouble, it might be worth looking at.

Yes there is a fundamental mechanical difference. How many times did the players fail? How many of those times were unearned?
A 3 headed beast: 0 failures, 0 unearned
Told it was a 1 headed hydra: 0+ failures, 0 unearned
Show a hydra: 0+ failures, 0 unearned
Fight something and "Gotcha, when you cut off its head will be the first time you could have known it was a hydra": 1+ failure, 1 unearned.

The players recognizing the mechanical difference fuels their distrust unless you have earned enough trust to be able to have these scripted failures.

Out of curiosity, does anyone else feel this way?

This is a very different way of looking at the game than I have ever really considered.

Note that I am talking about pure trial and error. For instance having a logic problem where yes the first thing you do could be seen as trial and error but that one action then shows off the start of a full pattern that you can logically figure out would not count.

Yeah, pure trial and error probably doesn't make for great game play or great storytelling. I suppose I was going more for learning experiences.

Although old school modules do seem to have more than their fair share of blind trial and error choices, Tomb of Horrors is full of them iirc.

Healing potions always work :)

They do, but they are pretty wasteful.

IMO a party that has a variety of varied potions to use when needed will, in the long run, save a lot of money on consumables vs. one that just chugs the red ones.

You say meta-gaming as it was something wrong. The only reason it was meta-gaming is because YOU failed at setting up the last session as such. You expect your players to purposefully make bad choices (Such s treating the last session as any other session) instead of the far simplest answers:
1) Accept that players will behave rationally and treat the last session as a hard one, despite any in-character reasons. AKA: Embrace the meta-gaming.
Or
2) Up the stakes in-game in order to justify the players actions.

In my opinion, expecting players to not buy resources like it was the last session, is a weird and ridiculous mistake, that could only be born from an irrational hate of metagaming.

I am not sure if it is an "irrational hatred", but it is a very different style of game than I am used to. I get very deeply in character, and sometimes I have trouble looking at the game from the perspective of the "beer and pretzels" crowd.

Although I will say in extreme cases meta-gaming can indeed border on cheating. For example, going out and buying a copy of the module the DM is running so that you can find all the secrets and miss all the traps is certainly the optimal way to play, but I don't think many people would find it fun or sporting.

The information you gave them made perfect sense in your head because you came up with this riddle. You had perfect information about which was the important part ("cannot be killed"), which was just fluff (all the rest), what was the most efficient way to tackle it, what wouldn't work (using nonviolent means against a beast born of violence), etc...
The players did not have this information. They had to struggle with the information you gave them and piece it together as well as they could.

Here's the thing though, it wasn't a "riddle" in any way, it was me flat out telling them that it could not be killed. If me just flat out saying something to them OOC is seen as a riddle which can be misinterpreted, how the heck could I resolve the situation with clues and foreshadowing?

I do not argue this. It's a little metagamey, frankly ("I will need to counter xyz tactic" vs "what does the monster logically do?") but whatever. Again, the encounter was made before characters. Nobody disputes that.

The question is when was the encounter chosen. And, from my reading, you chose the encounter after knowing the party, and knowing that the Snogre would counter the gaseous form.

The encounter was chosen when I was designing the dungeon, which was about eight months before any of the players made their characters.

I guess it is a little meta-gamey to choose a monster that can fulfil its roll, in this case be a boss for a mid level party, but its the kind of metagaming that the game really needs to function; like stocking dungeons with CR appropriate enemies.

This has been covered by other posters... but now they could kill it, and it split afterwards? That wasn't given out before.

I am not going to go through all of my previous posts to see exactly how I phrased it, but the encounter was set up as follows:

The enemy is the vestige of a dead demon-god of violence that was killed in this area, and its aura suffuses it. It cannot interact with or be interacted with in any tangible way.
When someone enters its shrine, it will manifest an aspect. The aspect has stats so that 4 of them are an appropriate level encounter for the party.
Anytime someone is killed in the shrine, including an aspect (remember I don't play with PC death, and there was nobody else around), it will feed off the violence and grow stronger, summoning two additional aspects on the following round.
After one hour all of the aspects disappear and the process will start over again.

If they pick it up way earlier than time X (say, first round of the fight or before the fight starts), they'll have an easier time of it. If they pick it up later, it'll be a tougher fight, but still beatable.

If your intent is that people figure out your puzzle, and they don't, then you should strongly consider that your hints may be insufficient.

Again, it's not "good" and "bad". It's not black and white. It's "did I get the result I wanted?" If you didn't, change what you do rather than blaming the others, especially in a situation like GMing where you have a large proportion of the control.

I agree with this. But the "result I wanted" is pretty irrelevant. What I want is for the players to be able to succeed, or fail, based on their own merits.

patchyman

2019-10-16, 07:12 PM

I am not sure where you are going with this, if you actually have a point or are just playing word games here. What I meant is that there are not color coded dragon subspecies like in D&D, that a baseline dragon will breathe fire regardless of its scales. I was not making an absolute statement that there are no unique individuals with mutations or other weird abilities.

The point I was making is that from the perspective of the players, only elements they interact with are "real". So while to you, there may have been a justification for why this dragon spit up slime, to them, that distinction is irrelevant. All they see is that despite the fact that you told them that dragons only breathe fire, the dragon they saw spit slime instead. This is far from the only time in the campaign that they have complained that they feel that you "subverted expectations" (in your view) or "pulled stuff out of your ***" (in their view).

With that in mind, the players' rational response is to avoid purchasing proactive items, because purchasing proactive items requires being able to anticipate what is going to happen. Instead, the players are incentivised to buy healing potions, which are useful in every circumstance the players lose hit points, which is most circumstances.

Talakeal

2019-10-16, 07:18 PM

The point I was making is that from the perspective of the players, only elements they interact with are "real". So while to you, there may have been a justification for why this dragon spit up slime, to them, that distinction is irrelevant. All they see is that despite the fact that you told them that dragons only breathe fire, the dragon they saw spit slime instead. This is far from the only time in the campaign that they have complained that they feel that you "subverted expectations" (in your view) or "pulled stuff out of your ***" (in their view).

With that in mind, the players' rational response is to avoid purchasing proactive items, because purchasing proactive items requires being able to anticipate what is going to happen. Instead, the players are incentivised to buy healing potions, which are useful in every circumstance the players lose hit points, which is most circumstances.

Ok, but the statement "all dragons in my world" was given to the forum, not the players.

The players know that I don't use standard color coded D&D dragons, but they also know that cursed and mutated creatures with non-standard abilities exist in the world.

And yeah, I agree that using a potion to counter a specific monster attack and then having the attack changed on you could go bad, that's not really what I am talking about. Its more stuff like not buying holy water / magic weapon oil and then standing around doing nothing when a wraith shows up or not buying potions of flight / spider climb / water breathing / blink that are useful in a plethora of fights where non-standard movement is required.

I don't really even understand it, because Brian used to have a long list of utility potions which he would carry around with him and replace when used and it worked great, but this campaign he just spends all his money on healing potions, complains about how much healing he requires, and then stands on the ground whining about how he can't hurt the flying monsters when he encounters them.

patchyman

2019-10-16, 07:19 PM

Let's assume, for a moment, that they could have won the encounter with the final boss even if it hadn't actually been "final" and the game were going to continue on for many more levels/years and so they'd not have spent the money on one-shots, instead doing their usual long-term savings thing to get permanent items.

Given that assumption, how does the GM not fail (in the sense that this was "a failure on the GM's part") when running the last session of a campaign?

It isn't necessarily meta-gaming: let's take a real example: Curse of Strahd. *Spoiler Alert* You fight Strahd at the end.
(1) You aren't meta-gaming if you load up on potions because you think the fight is going to be brutal and several of you might die.
(2) It isn't metagaming for your characters to consider that they may take a breather after defeating Strahd.
(3) It definitely isn't metagaming for your characters to consider that healing potions are an investment, since you will earn 10 times their value when you break into Strahd's treasure chamber.
(4) Still not metagaming to consider that even if you don't use all of your potions in your fight with Strahd, you will probably need them for your continuing adventuring career.

Of the top of my head, 4 reasons why loading up on healing potions isn't metagaming. Obviously, some of them are campaign specific, but they are still pretty general.

patchyman

2019-10-16, 07:28 PM

And yeah, I agree that using a potion to counter a specific monster attack and then having the attack changed on you could go bad, that's not really what I am talking about. Its more stuff like not buying holy water / magic weapon oil and then standing around doing nothing when a wraith shows up or not buying potions of flight / spider climb / water breathing / blink that are useful in a plethora of fights where non-standard movement is required.

I don't really even understand it, because Brian used to have a long list of utility potions which he would carry around with him and replace when used and it worked great, but this campaign he just spends all his money on healing potions, complains about how much healing he requires, and then stands on the ground whining about how he can't hurt the flying monsters when he encounters them.

I DM more than I play, and trust me, expecting that the party will act the way you want or expect is a sucker's game. Expecting them not to screw up or to play the game optimally, I don't know what is worse than a sucker's game, but whatever it is, it is that.

As a DM, you should respect the players' choices, even if they are suboptimal. You should also scale back the difficulty of your campaign so that sub-optimal choices do not result in multiple TPKs. Honestly, I think you would really benefit from being a player in another person's game for a bit. Most of the stuff that is obvious when you are behind the screen is a lot less clear-cut when you don't have all the info and despite your best efforts, you missed two of the three clues.

Talakeal

2019-10-16, 07:37 PM

I DM more than I play, and trust me, expecting that the party will act the way you want or expect is a sucker's game. Expecting them not to screw up or to play the game optimally, I don't know what is worse than a sucker's game, but whatever it is, it is that.

As a DM, you should respect the players' choices, even if they are suboptimal. You should also scale back the difficulty of your campaign so that sub-optimal choices do not result in multiple TPKs. Honestly, I think you would really benefit from being a player in another person's game for a bit. Most of the stuff that is obvious when you are behind the screen is a lot less clear-cut when you don't have all the info and despite your best efforts, you missed two of the three clues.

Its not so much expecting them to act optimally, its that they give me crap for "forcing them" to play sub-optimally.

And its honestly my time as a player that makes me a bit paranoid about railroading or going too easy on the players as my last DM absolutely refused to let the player's fail at anything (because then we couldn't see how his story ended) and so he would constantly fudge rolls and nerf monsters on the fly, which made the whole game feel like a badly acted farce. Several of my players have come to me with similar stories of DMs doing that to them in the past, and so I try hard (probably too hard) to be neutral and objective.

See also, the Cycle of Stupidity.

zinycor

2019-10-16, 10:26 PM

Personally my whole style of GMing is pretty much copied from Adam Koebel, you should watch him GM and interact with his players since you seem to lack on examples on how to play good.

Kardwill

2019-10-17, 02:29 AM

Here's the thing though, it wasn't a "riddle" in any way, it was me flat out telling them that it could not be killed. If me just flat out saying something to them OOC is seen as a riddle which can be misinterpreted, how the heck could I resolve the situation with clues and foreshadowing?

You didn't say that. You said to them "It's born of violence, and cannot be killed with violence", a 11 words sentence where only 3 really matter and the rest confuse the situation. You didn't hand them the solution (neutralise it nonlethally), you gave them one hint that really sounds like a puzzle that had to be solved. which is not a bad thing. But your players used the information you gave them to devise 2 plans ("kill it with nonviolence" and "don't interact with it at all") that sound perfectly reasonable if this was the only information given to them.

As for the players hitting on the monster after seeing it spawn again, with the descrition you just gave us, the fact that it was their attacks that caused it to become stronger is NOT obvious. You could also take it as a "We have to kill it faster before the altar spawns again" or a "we are in a multi-stage bossfight, and we have to defeat everything the altar throws at us", or "let's kill it quick, so that we can kill the altar.
A hydra regrowing 2 heads is obvious. A monster splitting in 2 parts that fully regenerate is obvious. 2 monsters spawning out of thin air after you killed the previous one is not. Again, information you have makes it obvious, but the players only work on (a small part of) what you show them.

Riddles and puzzles are fine. I love riddles and puzzles and investigation-heavy games. But when you run them, you have to be aware of the fact that the players will massively misinterpret the hints you gave them, and be ready to adapt (give them more hints or play on their "solution") when it happens. Otherwise, it's an exercise of frustration from both sides of the GM screen.

Talakeal

2019-10-17, 10:29 AM

You didn't say that. You said to them "It's born of violence, and cannot be killed with violence", a 11 words sentence where only 3 really matter and the rest confuse the situation. You didn't hand them the solution (neutralise it nonlethally), you gave them one hint that really sounds like a puzzle that had to be solved. which is not a bad thing. But your players used the information you gave them to devise 2 plans ("kill it with nonviolence" and "don't interact with it at all") that sound perfectly reasonable if this was the only information given to them.

As for the players hitting on the monster after seeing it spawn again, with the descrition you just gave us, the fact that it was their attacks that caused it to become stronger is NOT obvious. You could also take it as a "We have to kill it faster before the altar spawns again" or a "we are in a multi-stage bossfight, and we have to defeat everything the altar throws at us", or "let's kill it quick, so that we can kill the altar.
A hydra regrowing 2 heads is obvious. A monster splitting in 2 parts that fully regenerate is obvious. 2 monsters spawning out of thin air after you killed the previous one is not. Again, information you have makes it obvious, but the players only work on (a small part of) what you show them.

Riddles and puzzles are fine. I love riddles and puzzles and investigation-heavy games. But when you run them, you have to be aware of the fact that the players will massively misinterpret the hints you gave them, and be ready to adapt (give them more hints or play on their "solution") when it happens. Otherwise, it's an exercise of frustration from both sides of the GM screen.

Subdoing it would be a solution, but not the only one. They could also trick it, sneak past it, trap it, use terrain manipulation, etc. Actually giving them a solution to me feels like railroading, and also makes it feel less like an actual encounter and more like a video game style puzzle which arbitrarily shoots down any other ideas.

Also, I know I am going to get flak for not saying this before (unless I did) but I actually described it in such a manner that made it obvious it was killing it that caused more to spawn, describing its body shattering like a mirror and then the shards coming back together; nobody in the party didn't make that connection.

kyoryu

2019-10-17, 10:38 AM

Also, I know I am going to get flak for not saying this

Nah, I don't think you'll get flak for not clarifying things that show you were actually doing something that made sense.

You get flak when details are revealed that make the situation not look as one-sided as initially presented.

zinycor

2019-10-17, 12:05 PM

So, what were your exact words?

Btw, If I were in that party I would have either hugged the monster or ignored it too, those seem like the only good solutions.

Talakeal

2019-10-17, 01:43 PM

So, what were your exact words?

Btw, If I were in that party I would have either hugged the monster or ignored it too, those seem like the only good solutions.

So about five years ago I ran a game where the players were trying to save their village that was in the path of a massive barbarian horde. I had expected them to seek allies, and had laid hooks for several allies in the region, but the players had the idea that they needed to save the village themselves and were busy making booby traps and training a peasant militia. In the end, I tried to explain to them that they simply were not powerful enough to allow a couple hundred civilians to defeat ten thousand raging barbarians, and they grew hopeless and frustrated.

When I came to the forum for advice, one of the best pieces I (ever) received was about the difference between ordinary and extraordinary solutions, and how players will seek out ordinary solutions to problems, and if you have a scenario that requires an extraordinary solution, you need to explicitly telegraph it. So, for example, ordinary solutions to a locked door would be locking, picking locks, finding a way around, bashing it, or knocking, while an extraordinary solution is a special key that is the only thing that can open this specific door.

Now, it seems, I have the opposite problem. Players are seeking out extraordinary solutions when none exist, and apparently ordinary solutions just don't occur to people.

patchyman

2019-10-17, 02:33 PM

Now, it seems, I have the opposite problem. Players are seeking out extraordinary solutions when none exist, and apparently ordinary solutions just don't occur to people.

In which case, it would seem that the takeaway is “People vary. Applying the same solution to different people is no guarantee that it will work”.

By the way, the players solution against the barbarian horde totally could have worked. Even barbarian hordes have to weigh whether the supplies they could get from a 200 person village is worth losing 50 warriors to man traps and guerrilla tactics.

zinycor

2019-10-17, 08:03 PM

I asked you a very specific question, I don't really see why you chose to answer it with an I unrelated example of some other group reacting to another situation which was very different.

Talakeal

2019-10-17, 08:07 PM

I asked you a very specific question, I don't really see why you chose to answer it with an I unrelated example of some other group reacting to another situation which was very different.

Oh, sorry, I was responding to the second part about how you would have hugged it to.

My exact words at which point?

zinycor

2019-10-17, 08:10 PM

Oh, sorry, I was responding to the second part about how you would have hugged it to.

My exact words at which point?

When the party faced the unkillable creature.

Talakeal

2019-10-17, 08:17 PM

When the party faced the unkillable creature.

Gonna have to be more specific, no way I can recall, let alone transcribe, everything I said over the course of a multi hour encounter.

zinycor

2019-10-18, 12:06 AM

Gonna have to be more specific, no way I can recall, let alone transcribe, everything I said over the course of a multi hour encounter.

What were your exact words when describing the unkillable creature and how to stop it? As it stands now, the solutions the party arrived to were not only justified, but the only possible thing they could try.

Kane0

2019-10-18, 12:59 AM

Actually giving them a solution to me feels like railroading, and also makes it feel less like an actual encounter and more like a video game style puzzle which arbitrarily shoots down any other ideas.

Would you have allowed any other ideas, such as the ones that they actually came up with?

Also, giving someone A solution is different to giving them THE solution, and providing a solution is also different to forcing the party to take it.

Kardwill

2019-10-18, 01:08 AM

What were your exact words when describing the unkillable creature and how to stop it? As it stands now, the solutions the party arrived to were not only justified, but the only possible thing they could try.
I wouldn't say the only ones. For exemple, sending the party rogue for a stealth-grab or trying to find another way into the treasure chamber to bypass the monster would be classical dungeoncrawling staples to this kind of problem. Diplomacy, too ("it's violence incarnate? Let's confuse it with words!"), but I think Talakeal already said that wouldn't have worked (Which is a pity, because roleplaying a confused avatar of violence during a negotiation sounds like my kind of fun ^^).

But yeah, "hug it to death" and "grab and run like a common shoplifter" are perfectly reasonable solutions, especially with the way the prophecy/riddle framed the conflict and insisted on violence reinforcing the monster. As I said, with the lack of other hints to weight the different solutions, those would have been among the first I would have tried too.
And since trying multiple ways to bypass a problem and having them shot down one-by-one is pretty irritating (one of the reasons stopped playing old point-and-click adventure games on my PC, and am leery of letting some GMs I know run an investigation game for me), it's not surprising the players got frustrated and "locked themselves" on the first solutions they thought of, trying them again and again. It happens even in normal groups when the players get tired of the whole "wrong! Try another way" procedure.
Tal's group simply having a lower threshold before they become frustrated doesn't help.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-18, 01:45 PM

Why are you surprised that your players cannot trust the facts you have established in your campaign and choose to invest in healing potions that will always be useful?

up until the point where you introduce damage that cannot be healed by potions :smalltongue:

seriously, just two days ago my dm threw in a setting with a "corruption" that would deal corruption damage and could not be healed by regular healing (we discovered by tril and error that restoration works somewhat). monsters in there also explode and deal area damage and evasion inexplicably does not apply. and after they explode they leave behind another monster that has to be killed again (finally, this time), and that threw off the fighter charges, and most save or die from the clerics. they were incorporeal, severely curtailing the usefulness of the tripping monk and of most crowd control. and there was an arcane spell failure all around the place, because the corruption fed on magic.
basically, everything in there was a gotcha that could not be figured out beforehand (detailed informations were not available in the world) or a way to remove or curtail the favored strategies of the players.
If I posted that description in a new "player advice" thread, half the people would tell me to quit the group, and the other half to talk to the dm before quitting the group.

And it was GREAT. we all had a blast. one of the best sessions in a long time.

Why? the difference is in the players. we saw all those bad stuff, and instead of whining "poor me, my usual move doesn't work" we were all "oh, a new challenge. we have to figure out a way to adapt". it was a challenge, and a good one. it was also a nice way to do something different.
And at least from my perspective, it was also good that our powers were curtailed because we were being too successful. we hadn't had a really challenging fight in ages. we have developed as a well oiled fighting machine with everyone having a role. and with two cleric, hit point attrition wasn't much of a concern. neither was running out of damaging spells, with three melee types. and all this was making the fighting part boring. instead, here we had to reevaluate and change strategy. I like to be challenged, and this encounter did just that.
Now, of course if every single monster we fought could ignore my evasion and was immune to my tripping I would be mildly pissed. but as long as it's a single adventure where it's thematically appropirate? it's cool.
the DM handbook also says so on negating players power. which is not gotcha, but it's closely related.

so the point is that tal wasn't doing anything wrong with those encounters, as long as not all encounters were like that. it's a big fantasy world, there must be things in it you won't see coming. it's not an enforced failure, it's a challenge to overcome.

and, just because sometimes your expectations will be shot down, it's not good reason to eschew planning entirely. for every dragon that will make your fire protection moot, there must be ten against which it will be successful. it would certainly be stupid to argue that my party should stop npreparing healing spells because we encountered once a damavge that cannot be healed by them.

There's a lot of good stuff being said about gotcha monsters / encounters, and I've not got time to individually call out all the good stuff, so kudos all around.

One thing did strike me, though:

This notion of making yourself a metric. 75% sounds good to me. Talakeal, look at all the monsters that the party didn't know going in, and all the encounters with these monsters. Did your players figure out the monsters trick before they encountered it / from its lore and description / by making knowledge checks / by the time initiative was rolled 75% of the time? Alternately, did they encounter any of these monsters 4+ times, so that they would know that particular monster's odd abilities 75% of the time going in?

Or did your encounter design force your players to play pants-on-heads bumbling idiots? Did your encounters rely on gotchas, or would they do work if they hit the 75% metric for "knowing what's going on, going in"?

Now, I might catch some flak for this, but I'm all about encounters that *would* be "gotcha" encounters, except that I try to train my players to play my way. I intentionally make the first session have a "gotcha" of sorts, with plenty of opportunities for the players to foresee the gotcha. If they don't, that's fine - it won't cause a TPK or other fail state - but I then explain the "behind the scenes", and how they could have learned this information. Repeat until they get the style.

Then, once we're on the same page, I *expect* that they'll get *most* of my "gotchas". I like this 75% metric. It feels like a good target. My encounters don't *require* that they "get it" ahead of time - they work either way. Also, the players get the agency to choose their level of difficulty by how much they investigate if they don't "get it" ("oh, hearts missing? It's a…”).

So, a lot of these things that I do (lots of custom content with no foreshadowing unless the PCs look it, trying get the players to play a particular way, etc) other posters call bad. But I will contend that, just like with gotcha encounters (or, rather, *potential* gotcha encounters), it's a matter of how you do it that determines if it's bad.

+ 1. you can and should throw something unexpected and unpredictable at your players every once in a while.

Talakeal

2019-10-18, 02:08 PM

What were your exact words when describing the unkillable creature and how to stop it?.

The initial description was: "An armored figure rises above you; eight feet tall and clad in golden armor that is the most glorious you have ever seen, both from an ornamental and functional perspective, but blackened by fire and scarred by every form of attack imaginable. It makes a mocking salute and then attacks."

When they asked how to defeat it, I told them that "It is born of violence and can never be killed by it."

As it stands now, the solutions the party arrived to were not only justified, but the only possible thing they could try.

Could you explain that at all? I can think of dozens of solutions that they didn't try, and I am not aware of anything I said that would imply they didn't work.

Heck, after the incident I asked my elderly non-gaming parents if they could come up with any solutions and they were able to think up ten or so ideas that would have worked just fine.

I wouldn't say the only ones. For exemple, sending the party rogue for a stealth-grab or trying to find another way into the treasure chamber to bypass the monster would be classical dungeoncrawling staples to this kind of problem. Diplomacy, too ("it's violence incarnate? Let's confuse it with words!"), but I think Talakeal already said that wouldn't have worked (Which is a pity, because roleplaying a confused avatar of violence during a negotiation sounds like my kind of fun ^^).

But yeah, "hug it to death" and "grab and run like a common shoplifter" are perfectly reasonable solutions, especially with the way the prophecy/riddle framed the conflict and insisted on violence reinforcing the monster. As I said, with the lack of other hints to weight the different solutions, those would have been among the first I would have tried too.

I probably would have given them a chance to overcome the encounter through dialogue, but they difficulty would have been higher than anyone in that party could have realistically made; if they had a dedicated face character on the other hand...

And grab and run did ultimately work, they just through a fit because one of their followers was killed in the attempt.

And since trying multiple ways to bypass a problem and having them shot down one-by-one is pretty irritating (one of the reasons stopped playing old point-and-click adventure games on my PC, and am leery of letting some GMs I know run an investigation game for me), it's not surprising the players got frustrated and "locked themselves" on the first solutions they thought of, trying them again and again. It happens even in normal groups when the players get tired of the whole "wrong! Try another way" procedure.
Tal's group simply having a lower threshold before they become frustrated doesn't help.

That didn't happen.

They killed it once, it split, assumed death caused it, but the rest convinced him to try it twice more. Then they retreated, and found out the above "It is born of violence and can never be killed by it.".

They came up with a plan that the warrior would distract it, the ranger would grab the spear and run, and the mage would trap it with a wall of stone.

The ranger decided I was trying to trick them OOC, so instead of grabbing the spear, she did a bunch of random stuff until the party was very badly beaten up. Also, the mage "forgot" that killing split the monster, and put a DoT on it, meaning it was also going to die soon.

The ranger finally grabbed the spear and ran, the mage cast his wall, the monster made its save (by one point) to avoid being trapped. I described it as evading, but for some reason two of the party members got it in their head that it turned incorporeal and simply phased through the wall.

They killed it and it split. Then they told the ranger to keep running and said they were going to make a human shield to keep the two monsters from pursuing her. They were defeated, and said it was fine because I don't play with death, and then I told them that is only for PCs and that their followers would be killed.

Then they started bitching at me for "tricking them" or "violating the gentleman's agreement" and then started literally screaming at one another for not sticking to the plan.

Would you have allowed any other ideas, such as the ones that they actually came up with?

Any solution that would logically work, yes. The solutions they came up with were not logical ways to defeat an enemy, they were assuming I was pulling some weird trick.

Out of curiosity, if I was playing in your game, would you let me kill monsters by just coming up with random things? Kill a dragon by blowing out a candle, kill an ogre by throwing mud on a wall, killing a wyvern by screaming out my mother's maiden name, etc?

I am not sure if I follow the logic that just because it has an immunity to something that means it should also gain a bunch of random vulnerabilities to normally harmless things.

up until the point where you introduce damage that cannot be healed by potions :smalltongue:

seriously, just two days ago my dm threw in a setting with a "corruption" that would deal corruption damage and could not be healed by regular healing (we discovered by tril and error that restoration works somewhat). monsters in there also explode and deal area damage and evasion inexplicably does not apply. and after they explode they leave behind another monster that has to be killed again (finally, this time), and that threw off the fighter charges, and most save or die from the clerics. they were incorporeal, severely curtailing the usefulness of the tripping monk and of most crowd control. and there was an arcane spell failure all around the place, because the corruption fed on magic.
basically, everything in there was a gotcha that could not be figured out beforehand (detailed informations were not available in the world) or a way to remove or curtail the favored strategies of the players.
If I posted that description in a new "player advice" thread, half the people would tell me to quit the group, and the other half to talk to the dm before quitting the group.

And it was GREAT. we all had a blast. one of the best sessions in a long time.

Why? the difference is in the players. we saw all those bad stuff, and instead of whining "poor me, my usual move doesn't work" we were all "oh, a new challenge. we have to figure out a way to adapt". it was a challenge, and a good one. it was also a nice way to do something different.
And at least from my perspective, it was also good that our powers were curtailed because we were being too successful. we hadn't had a really challenging fight in ages. we have developed as a well oiled fighting machine with everyone having a role. and with two cleric, hit point attrition wasn't much of a concern. neither was running out of damaging spells, with three melee types. and all this was making the fighting part boring. instead, here we had to reevaluate and change strategy. I like to be challenged, and this encounter did just that.
Now, of course if every single monster we fought could ignore my evasion and was immune to my tripping I would be mildly pissed. but as long as it's a single adventure where it's thematically appropirate? it's cool.
the DM handbook also says so on negating players power. which is not gotcha, but it's closely related.

so the point is that tal wasn't doing anything wrong with those encounters, as long as not all encounters were like that. it's a big fantasy world, there must be things in it you won't see coming. it's not an enforced failure, it's a challenge to overcome.

and, just because sometimes your expectations will be shot down, it's not good reason to eschew planning entirely. for every dragon that will make your fire protection moot, there must be ten against which it will be successful. it would certainly be stupid to argue that my party should stop npreparing healing spells because we encountered once a damavge that cannot be healed by them..

That is pretty much exactly how I feel on the matter. Not saying that my feelings are necessarily right, but I agree with everything you said there.

zinycor

2019-10-18, 04:31 PM

So the monster had the weirdest ability to absolutely resist death from damage, but no particular weaknesses, and if it had one, you didn't communicate it. Is this correct?

Could you explain that at all? I can think of dozens of solutions that they didn't try, and I am not aware of anything I said that would imply they didn't work.

Heck, after the incident I asked my elderly non-gaming parents if they could come up with any solutions and they were able to think up ten or so ideas that would have worked just fine.

Ok I'll then rephrase.

"The solutions your party came up with, seem very reasonable to me, in fact I can't think on any other solution to the problem."

Is that a more understandable statement?

Talakeal

2019-10-18, 04:48 PM

So the monster had the weirdest ability to absolutely resist death from damage, but no particular weaknesses, and if it had one, you didn't communicate it. Is this correct?

Its functionally a hydra, if you consider that "the weirdest" then yes.

It had no particular weaknesses or vulnerabilities.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HydraProblem

zinycor

2019-10-18, 04:58 PM

Its functionally a hydra, if you consider that "the weirdest" then yes.

It had no particular weaknesses or vulnerabilities.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HydraProblem

That's no hydra that I have ever seen, nor in AD&D, 3.5 or 5e.

If that was your attempt to create somewhat of a homebrew hydra, am sorry, but it seems like an absolute failure of an attempt.

At the best, you should have made an actual hydra, if only so genre savvy players would have an idea of what to expect.

I did think of another way to approach the battle, like destroying/moving items in whatever place the monster was, in case it was somehow bonded to any of them. That could have been a cool weakness.

Talakeal

2019-10-18, 05:18 PM

That's no hydra that I have ever seen, nor in AD&D, 3.5 or 5e.

If that was your attempt to create somewhat of a homebrew hydra, am sorry, but it seems like an absolute failure of an attempt.

At the best, you should have made an actual hydra, if only so genre savvy players would have an idea of what to expect.

I did think of another way to approach the battle, like destroying/moving items in whatever place the monster was, in case it was somehow bonded to any of them. That could have been a cool weakness.

You are aware that the concept of a monster where you "kill two and take its place" is thousands of years are old and has been replicated thousands of times in many different ways, right? See the link in my previous post for a few examples.

None of my players failed to grasp what was happening, so I am not sure why it was an absolute failure or why I needed to make it look more like a hydra.

Kane0

2019-10-18, 05:23 PM

Any solution that would logically work, yes. The solutions they came up with were not logical ways to defeat an enemy, they were assuming I was pulling some weird trick.

Out of curiosity, if I was playing in your game, would you let me kill monsters by just coming up with random things? Kill a dragon by blowing out a candle, kill an ogre by throwing mud on a wall, killing a wyvern by screaming out my mother's maiden name, etc?

The monster itself was the ghost of the demon prince of violence (which had been killed by the PCs in a previous epic level campaign). It was a fairly strong but not unbeatable monster, but with one catch: It was immune to HP damage and everytime it took damage equal to its HP it would gain a substantial stacking buff. It was not immune to anything else, it could disabled, debuffed, knocked out, put to sleep, grappled, trapped, tricked, charmed, turned to stone, polymorphed into a frog, etc.

So, the player charged in, fought it for a while, and realized that it was only getting stronger rather than dying, so they retreated. All good.

They went back to town, did some reasearch, and found an oracle who told them "It is born of violence. It feeds off of violence and can never be killed by violence."

So the players assumed that this was a puzzle of some sort. They went back to the dungeon and started trying to do all sorts of crazy things; smashing objects in its room, healing the monster, singing to the monster, hugging the monster, talking to the monster, etc. This didn't work, so they decided to just run past it into the room it was guarding and grab the magic weapon and see if it they could kill it with the magic weapon.

Smashing objects near the ghost: If you're genre savvy, Ghosts commonly form and hang around because of someone or something keeping them there. This could well be a nearby object.
Healing the monster: In some RPGs this does actually harm the undead, which is what a ghost is. It is also a literal opposite of causing harm.
Singing to the monster: Singing can be used as a method to calm and soothe, like you would with a baby. It's worth a try
Hugging the monster: Hugging is just a gentle grapple, and if you consider the phrase 'make love not war' it's certainly worth a shot.
Talking the monster down: Diplomacy, negotiation, calling truce, etc is another opposite to hostility. It's the classic counterpart to violence.

Note how none of these are random, such as throwing mud or shouting names (though in fantasy it's not uncommon for a name to hold power, another genre savvy item). They are more logical than you are giving credit, and you denied each and every one. I would have given these a chance to work (at least temporarily), as they all logically COULD work.

zinycor

2019-10-18, 05:23 PM

You are aware that the concept of a monster where you "kill two and take its place" is thousands of years are old and has been replicated thousands of times in many different ways, right? See the link in my previous post for a few examples.

None of my players failed to grasp what was happening, so I am not sure why it was an absolute failure or why I needed to make it look more like a hydra.

Didn't one of your players forget that the monster duplicated when killed?

(...)

The ranger decided I was trying to trick them OOC, so instead of grabbing the spear, she did a bunch of random stuff until the party was very badly beaten up. Also, the mage "forgot" that killing split the monster, and put a DoT on it, meaning it was also going to die soon. (...)

There.

Edit:
Just to be clear, I don't think hydras or hydra-like creatures are bad design. I believe your particular example is bad.

kyoryu

2019-10-18, 06:13 PM

You are aware that the concept of a monster where you "kill two and take its place" is thousands of years are old and has been replicated thousands of times in many different ways, right? See the link in my previous post for a few examples.

None of my players failed to grasp what was happening, so I am not sure why it was an absolute failure or why I needed to make it look more like a hydra.

Note: There's a huge difference between this and a hydra.

If you cut off one of a hydra's 9 heads, it grows another. That's roughly an 11% increase in power.

If you kill this thing, you make two more. That doubles the power.

Also, hydras can still be killed with combat. You just have to not cut them, or cut them off and immediately cauterize the head.

It's also worth noting that the "failure" on a hydra (cutting off its head) also gives hints as to what will work. In your case, it didn't.

Kardwill

2019-10-18, 06:42 PM

Smashing objects near the ghost: If you're genre savvy, Ghosts commonly form and hang around because of someone or something keeping them there. This could well be a nearby object.
Healing the monster: In some RPGs this does actually harm the undead, which is what a ghost is. It is also a literal opposite of causing harm.
Singing to the monster: Singing can be used as a method to calm and soothe, like you would with a baby. It's worth a try
Hugging the monster: Hugging is just a gentle grapple, and if you consider the phrase 'make love not war' it's certainly worth a shot.
Talking the monster down: Diplomacy, negotiation, calling truce, etc is another opposite to hostility. It's the classic counterpart to violence.

Yeah, every one of those sound like pretty reasonable "lateral thinking" approaches with the information they were given. In fact, in my last game (the "Death House" dungeon from Curse of Strahd), my players used several of them when dealing with a haunted house.

"Let's break the altar, I'm sure it's what traps all those lost souls here!"

"I talk to the angry ghost, try to get her to calm down. She's crazy with grief, but maybe we can get to her if she sees we're not the ones who took her child"

"That abomination is probably what is left of the baby... I sing one of the lullabies that was in the old book to appease him and put him to sleep"

And my favourite :
"I... Okay, I just take her hand in mine.
- Are you crazy? It's not a child anymore, it's a freakin' ghost!
- Yes, I know, she'll probably possess me. But her parents asked her to stay in her room and wait for an adult, it's the very last thing she heard before she died. Possessing an adult is probably the only way for her ghost to leave this room. And there's no way I'll leave a child alone in this godforsaken place."

The module described those ghost attacks as (pretty tough) fights or "save or suffer" traps, but the player's ideas were simply too good to shoot them down ^^

Cluedrew

2019-10-18, 06:43 PM

And it was GREAT. we all had a blast. one of the best sessions in a long time.This is called "knowing your group". You enjoyed that campaign but I doubt Talakeal's group would have. Actually I doubt I would have enjoyed it because it doesn't focus on the parts of role-playing I enjoy. Which for reference tends to be the character driven parts.

So maybe this encounter with the one who could not die shouldn't of been in the campaign at all. Actually I'm not sure why Talakeal was expecting them to enjoy it so maybe we were so close to it working out, but my gut tells me it never had a chance at being a beloved memory for the group. And no matter how good an encounter is theoretically, when it comes down to it the only real measure of success is how much fun did everybody have. And here the answer was very little.

Talakeal

2019-10-18, 07:12 PM

Note: There's a huge difference between this and a hydra.

If you cut off one of a hydra's 9 heads, it grows another. That's roughly an 11% increase in power.

That really seems more like nitpicking than a "huge difference".

It's also worth noting that the "failure" on a hydra (cutting off its head) also gives hints as to what will work.

How so?

Note how none of these are random, such as throwing mud or shouting names (though in fantasy it's not uncommon for a name to hold power, another genre savvy item). They are more logical than you are giving credit, and you denied each and every one. I would have given these a chance to work (at least temporarily), as they all logically COULD work.

When you say "you denied each and every one" you act like I went out of my way to shoot them down, when all I did was not ret-con the encounter to make them work.

You might play that way, but that is just not the type of game I am interested in running. Nor or any of my players, that's exactly the sort of behavior my players flip out over (both retconning the game world and making a puzzle with a lateral thinking solution).

This is called "knowing your group". You enjoyed that campaign but I doubt Talakeal's group would have. Actually I doubt I would have enjoyed it because it doesn't focus on the parts of role-playing I enjoy. Which for reference tends to be the character driven parts.

So maybe this encounter with the one who could not die shouldn't of been in the campaign at all. Actually I'm not sure why Talakeal was expecting them to enjoy it so maybe we were so close to it working out, but my gut tells me it never had a chance at being a beloved memory for the group. And no matter how good an encounter is theoretically, when it comes down to it the only real measure of success is how much fun did everybody have. And here the answer was very little.

As I have said repeatedly, the campaign was designed without any specific group in mind. And although in this case it may seem a bad thing, many of the problems in the game were caused because the players thought I was tailoring encounters to their group.

And honestly, if it had rolled a 12 instead of a 13 to avoid being trapped, or if the ranger had communicated with the rest of the party and they were on the same page, it probably would have gone done as a pleasant memory for everyone involved.

Cluedrew

2019-10-18, 08:46 PM

When you say "you denied each and every one" you act like I went out of my way to shoot them down, when all I did was not ret-con the encounter to make them work.But unless you can communicate why it the idea wouldn't of worked in the first place the two are indistinguishable to the person who had the idea/made the attempt. The "wouldn't" is important - at least with a group as paranoid as yours seems to be - in that if they think it doesn't work now because you made changes of some kind that is also a problem. Perhaps a different probably though so it is more the first part.

And I wrote everything else and I couldn't figure out a good way to describe it. Maybe something will come to me later. But for now it basically boils down to if you can't see the reasons it feels arbitrary.

As I have said repeatedly, the campaign was designed without any specific group in mind. And although in this case it may seem a bad thing, many of the problems in the game were caused because the players thought I was tailoring encounters to their group.To explain my point I'm going to use a particularly uncharitable reading of your first sentence: "I did not consider whether or not my group would enjoy this campaign." (I understand that is probably not what you were actually saying.) I believe everyone should be considering what other people enjoy when they make decisions in a game, among other factors like what you enjoy. So you could bring a gauntlet of the best and most tactically varied combat encounters you could make, put it in front of me and I probably wouldn't care because that isn't what I game for. But the opposite true, there are other hooks (a city with an uncertain future and at a tipping point were it could be pushed one way or another) that I might be much more interested in than the average player.

For reference what I think what you are actually saying is: this party doesn't want and is in fact actively afraid of things being adjusted for them as they believe it will be adjusted to beat them more effectively. This is a trust issue and I have no solution for it.

And honestly, if it had rolled a 12 instead of a 13 to avoid being trapped, or if the ranger had communicated with the rest of the party and they were on the same page, it probably would have gone done as a pleasant memory for everyone involved.Makes sense. I suppose I assume the worst of your group because I only know them through help threads. (I'm still open to reading stories of the good times you all had.)

kyoryu

2019-10-18, 08:55 PM

That really seems more like nitpicking than a "huge difference".

Really?

You don't see the difference between "before I figure out what doesn't trigger the special ability, doing the wrong thing doubles the power" vs "it makes it 10% stronger?"

So, let's say we're talking 100damage per round, just for a number.

With the hydra, if you screw up, it's now doing 111 damage per round. With your monster, it's doing 200.

Let's say you're dumb, and do the same thing to the two new heads/ghosts. With the hydra it's now doing 133 damage per round. With your ghost, it's doing 400.

That's HUGE. The penalty for "screwing up" is incredibly higher. That's not nitpicking.

How so?

The head is cut off. Severed. That immediately clues the party in that doing things that won't sever the head probably won't result in this happening. So "attacking with blunt damage" is probably safe. Cauterizing the wound... less obvious, but it's such a common D&D-ism that it's not unreasonable to guess.

zinycor

2019-10-18, 09:20 PM

NichG

2019-10-18, 09:39 PM

Talakeal

2019-10-18, 09:58 PM

Are you seriously defending an unkillable monster? I really don't get it. Even the comparisons with the hydra is absolutely ridiculous, hydras aren't unkillable, they are hard to kill, and force players to find somewhat unorthodox ways to defeat them.

OTOH we have your monster, who not only can't be killed, but gets amazingly more powerful whenever it is killed, independent of whatever tactics or damage is involved. The only way to actually defeat this opponent is to have it be trapped inside a virtually indestructible trap.

Although, I must ask, could the Monster be knocked down?

Yes, I am defending it. There are plenty of monsters, in both RPGs and mythology, that cannot be killed or can only be killed in very specific ways that most parties won't have access to, and there is nothing wrong with an encounter that can't be defeated through combat.

I am not sure if I would say "amazingly more powerful", individually they were significantly weaker than any given member of the party.

Where are you getting this "only way to actually defeat this opponent is to have it be trapped inside a virtually indestructible trap" from? As I said in my initial post, it could be knocked out, charmed, banished, put to sleep, polymorphed, grappled, tied up, trapped in a force cage, trapped in a pit, trapped behind a wall of stone, snuck past, petrified, lured away, plus a ton of other stuff I am not thinking of at the moment. Heck, it probably could have even been killed if the party was willing to bring serious magic

Yes, it can be knocked down. Aside from spawning two more when killed, it had no abilities or immunities not possessed by a standard human fighter warrior.

Really?

You don't see the difference between "before I figure out what doesn't trigger the special ability, doing the wrong thing doubles the power" vs "it makes it 10% stronger?"

So, let's say we're talking 100damage per round, just for a number.

With the hydra, if you screw up, it's now doing 111 damage per round. With your monster, it's doing 200.

Let's say you're dumb, and do the same thing to the two new heads/ghosts. With the hydra it's now doing 133 damage per round. With your ghost, it's doing 400.

That's HUGE. The penalty for "screwing up" is incredibly higher. That's not nitpicking.

Its just fiddling with the numbers though. If we replaced the nine headed hydra with a 3 headed hydra or a 12 headed hydra (I believe that is the range in most editions of D&D) you would have similar variance.

The encounter was mathematically balanced so that the party could easily handed several of them, the exact ratio is, imo, pretty irrelevant to the encounter on a conceptual level.

Edit: Also, going by that logic, a 3 headed hydra (the weakest in D&D) is immensely more powerful than a 12 headed hydra (the strongest in D&D), which neither common sense nor the CR system bear out.

The head is cut off. Severed. That immediately clues the party in that doing things that won't sever the head probably won't result in this happening. So "attacking with blunt damage" is probably safe. Cauterizing the wound... less obvious, but it's such a common D&D-ism that it's not unreasonable to guess.

Again, the mythological hydra was immortal (and I believe Hercules actually knocked the heads off with a club rather than cutting them.)

But in many editions of D&D a hydra cannot be killed by clubbing it to death. 1E and 2E explicitly can only be killed by severing all its heads, while later editions simply make killing it in other ways very difficult.

Excession

2019-10-19, 03:21 AM

But in many editions of D&D a hydra cannot be killed by clubbing it to death. 1E and 2E explicitly can only be killed by severing all its heads, while later editions simply make killing it in other ways very difficult.

In 3.5 cutting off the heads requires an explicitly declared sunder attempt, costing you an AoO each time. It cannot happen accidentally. Beating through the HP of the body, even with the fast healing, doesn't really look that hard. The 4e hydra gets more dangerous as you hurt it, whether you burn off the heads or not. My wizard surviving at 1HP off negative bloodied value (where a 4e PC straight up dies, a very hard thing to do in 4e) suggests that burning the stumps may have been the wrong choice.

Unless 5e has seriously regressed, your "many editions of D&D" is just two old systems that really shouldn't be treated as untouchable paragons of good RPG design.

Makes sense. I suppose I assume the worst of your group because I only know them through help threads. (I'm still open to reading stories of the good times you all had.)

Yes, either Talakeal has the worst RPG group ever, or he's an even worse GM than his own posts make him look. Either way, I remain surprised that the group has continued playing at all. I wonder if, to some degree, one or more parties is enjoying the abuse.

Great Dragon

2019-10-19, 06:17 AM

The head is cut off. Severed. That immediately clues the party in that doing things that won't sever the head probably won't result in this happening. So "attacking with blunt damage" is probably safe. Cauterizing the wound... less obvious, but it's such a common D&D-ism that it's not unreasonable to guess.

Also, it usually clues the Player/Party to stop attacking the Heads and go for the Body (focused fire can beat the Regeneration power), since as mentioned - attacking the creature still kills it. The "can't be killed by violence" would most likely have thrown the majority of even experienced Players off. With this "Hydra-Ghost' combo, unless I had a Caster with Hold/Dominate Monster, Polymorph, Flesh to Stone, etc - even I would most likely have gone for the Shoplifting "Snatch and Run" tactic.

Again, the mythological hydra was immortal (and I believe Hercules actually knocked the heads off with a club rather than cutting them.)

In the new Disney Hercules, he beat the Hydra by literally causing Rocks to Fall, killing it. Same basic effect, doing something that didn't cut the heads off - but still caused enough damage to kill it.

It was more "He's clever, and Strong" that was being focused on there.

It's like asking "Who wins between Superman and the Hulk?"
My answer is "Whoever is in charge of writing that comic."

But in many editions of D&D a hydra cannot be killed by clubbing it to death. 1E and 2E explicitly can only be killed by severing all its heads, while later editions simply make killing it in other ways very difficult.

Yes, but again, there is usually a lot of In Game World stories and myths that can explain what the Monster (Hydra) can do. Even if some Deity has to literally find a way to tell them!!

Going off Mythology, the (original) Medusa was one the most powerful of the majority of the Deific Creations, and in the Clash of the Titans Movie - it took Athena giving a Mechanical Owl that knew how to defeat Medusa for Perseus to actually have a chance to kill her. Since Medusa was immortal, he had to keep her severed head in a bag, and then not look at her face when using it against the Kraken.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-19, 09:02 AM

This is called "knowing your group". You enjoyed that campaign but I doubt Talakeal's group would have. Actually I doubt I would have enjoyed it because it doesn't focus on the parts of role-playing I enjoy. Which for reference tends to be the character driven parts.

yes, which is my point: talekeal wasn't doing anything really wrong. it's just that with his group there isn't much you can do. from what i read, they don't like it whenever things don't go their way, or even when they have to sweat to make things go their way.

Great Dragon

2019-10-19, 10:09 AM

yes, which is my point: talekeal wasn't doing anything really wrong. it's just that with his group there isn't much you can do. from what i read, they don't like it whenever things don't go their way, or even when they have to sweat to make things go their way.

Which makes me wonder why any of the Players are even playing any Game - RPG or otherwise - in the first place.

In a lot of ways, I'm like Talakeal.
I really like playing tRPGs, even if I'm stuck being the (forever) D/GM.
I've tolerated a Bad Player (always the same Race/Class and mostly inept at RP) to to keep playing/running.

But, even I would have serious issues with Bob, and also with Brian if we couldn't hash out an agreement, preferably between games.

zinycor

2019-10-19, 10:55 AM

Yes, either Talakeal has the worst RPG group ever, or he's an even worse GM than his own posts make him look.
I believe both to be close to the truth.

Talakeal

2019-10-19, 12:44 PM

"It is born of violence, but cannot be killed by violence" has a classic riddle structure, and will easily prompt people to think that the solution must be some esoteric idea. So, Talakeal, rather than focusing on how the monster's mechanics could have been different, lets instead workshop how (given the vestige's mechanics as fixed) you could have communicated that better and in a way which would not encourage people to believe that e.g. hugging it would solve the situation.

The flavor of this thing being a spirit of violence is actually misleading here, because as far as I can tell the true mechanics are more like the ghosts being projections of their actual source, and the source retaliates against attacks on the ghost by spawning more of them. That is to say, it is not violence that energizes the ghost to split or anything like that.

So I would say you have two choices here, which you mixed and therefore confused the situation. One choice is - this is a mechanical puzzle, to be dealt with via good use of game mechanics. The other choice is - this is a conceptual puzzle, to be dealt with by understanding the nature of this adversary at a role-play level and then engaging with that. The players thought you were running the second, and tried things to attack the very concept of violence (hugging it, singing to it, etc).

Since you said that there are just mechanics that the vestige has, and you're unwilling to adapt that or change its behavior from what you planned eight months in advance, then what it really is is a mechanical puzzle even if you insist that you're thinking of it like a roleplay puzzle or puzzle with roleplaying elements.

So with that in mind, you should have explained it in a way that does not make it abstract. For example, simply saying: "If one dies, two will take its place."

The party already knew that if one died two took its place. They figured that out about 5 minutes into the first fight.

They then retreated to town and did research on how to kill it, and found that it couldn't be killed because it was born of violence. I tried phrasing it in a way that was a call back to "For you see, Strife feeds on conflict," from Aesop's fables, as I said the encounter was inspired by Hercules.

It was not an in character prophecy or anything like that; and to me it seems really bizarre to assume the DM is giving players riddles OOC. If I thought the DM was actually giving me a riddle, as a player, I would certainly break character to ask them to confirm they were riddling at me and asking me why they were giving me OOC riddles to solve when I just wanted to play the game.

Yes, it was absolutely supposed to be an optional mechanical puzzle. I hate conceptual puzzles, and so does most every player I have ever had, so I only use them extremely sparingly.

If I wanted to be more blunt I could have simply said: It can be killed normally, however because the entity that is creating the avatar is strengthened by violence, any dead in its shrine, including its own avatars, will spawn two more avatars on the following round, so you need to come up with a solution, any solution, that involves bypassing or incapacitating the avatars without killing them.

But again, 3/4 players already got that from what I said.

In 3.5 cutting off the heads requires an explicitly declared sunder attempt, costing you an AoO each time. It cannot happen accidentally. Beating through the HP of the body, even with the fast healing, doesn't really look that hard. The 4e hydra gets more dangerous as you hurt it, whether you burn off the heads or not. My wizard surviving at 1HP off negative bloodied value (where a 4e PC straight up dies, a very hard thing to do in 4e) suggests that burning the stumps may have been the wrong choice.

Unless 5e has seriously regressed, your "many editions of D&D" is just two old systems that really shouldn't be treated as untouchable paragons of good RPG design.

There are 5 editions of D&D. In 1E and 2E it is explicitly impossible, and in 3E the body has fast healing and a note in the monster manual saying that it is intentionally designed to be very difficulty to kill by attacking the body. In 4E there is no mechanic for cutting off heads at all, and in 5E there are no mechanics for intentionally targeting heads or body and heads simply get cut off if you damage it too fast, meaning the party can either hold back and give the hydra more time to beat up on them or go all out and deal with the multiplying heads for as short a time as possible.

None of them have ever favored beating it with blunt weapons or focusing on the body.

Yes, either Talakeal has the worst RPG group ever, or he's an even worse GM than his own posts make him look. Either way, I remain surprised that the group has continued playing at all. I wonder if, to some degree, one or more parties is enjoying the abuse.

Alternate solution, Bob likes to bitch and I am very obsessive and self conscious and discuss (almost exclusively negative) aspects of my game on the forum for weeks or months on end.

For example, the fight with the sneeze ogre was simply one four word comment by Bob that the rest of the group didn't share, and which we never brought up again, but we are still debating it eight months later on here.

Its also a mismatch of styles; Bob (and several of the more vocal people in this thread) favor what the DMG calls "Kick in the door" style of play while I (and several of the more vocal people in this thread) favor what the DMG calls "deep immersion" style of play. We try compromise, but that means that there will be spots of friction now and again, but I don't have the confidence to just chalk it up to that and instead tend to drag it onto the forum for in depth naval gazing.

Also, it usually clues the Player/Party to stop attacking the Heads and go for the Body (focused fire can beat the Regeneration power), since as mentioned - attacking the creature still kills it. The "can't be killed by violence" would most likely have thrown the majority of even experienced Players off. With this "Hydra-Ghost' combo, unless I had a Caster with Hold/Dominate Monster, Polymorph, Flesh to Stone, etc - even I would most likely have gone for the Shoplifting "Snatch and Run" tactic.

Which would have been a fine tactic, if the players had agreed on it before it they were already beaten to hell and then decided on the "human shield" approach.

Didn't one of your players forget that the monster duplicated when killed?

Yeah. That was bizarre. Neither I nor any of the other players understood how he could forget the plot point that they had just spent an hour trying to solve. Most likely he just had a "brain-fart" when he threw up the DoT and was then embarrassed about it.

NichG

2019-10-19, 01:45 PM

The party already knew that if one died two took its place. They figured that out about 5 minutes into the first fight.

No, they knew that if they killed one, two took its place. The fact that they later tried things like singing or hugging them to death says that they believed there were ways in which the ghost could die without splitting.

I tried phrasing it in a way that was a call back to "For you see, Strife feeds on conflict," from Aesop's fables, as I said the encounter was inspired by Hercules.

This is what makes it sound a riddle. Ancient Greek writing and metaphor usage is a particular voice. It's different than your voice, presumably, unless you order pizza by e.g. asking for a disc of golden dough topped with the crushed jewels of the vine.

Using an archaic voice to give obfuscated and unclear information about a situation in a tabletop RPG? Clear signals of a riddle.

If I wanted to be more blunt I could have simply said: It can be killed normally, however because the entity that is creating the avatar is strengthened by violence, any dead in its shrine, including its own avatars, will spawn two more avatars on the following round, so you need to come up with a solution, any solution, that involves bypassing or incapacitating the avatars without killing them.

This would have been much better. I would still leave out 'strengthened by violence' if the only mechanical trigger is the presence of dead. If you say that but would still have corpses of those who died peacefully trigger the effect, then you are giving incorrect and misleading information OOC.

Talakeal

2019-10-19, 06:39 PM

No, they knew that if they killed one, two took its place. The fact that they later tried things like singing or hugging them to death says that they believed there were ways in which the ghost could die without splitting.

That's exactly what I said. Where does the "no" come in.

This is what makes it sound a riddle. Ancient Greek writing and metaphor usage is a particular voice. It's different than your voice, presumably, unless you order pizza by e.g. asking for a disc of golden dough topped with the crushed jewels of the vine.

Using an archaic voice to give obfuscated and unclear information about a situation in a tabletop RPG? Clear signals of a riddle.

I almost always try and speak in a more formal and theatric voice while DMing. Not full on shakespear in the park ham, mind you, but a bit.

It seems really weird to me that the idea that someone is talking in flowery language means they are trying to puzzle or trick you seems odd to me, its not something I have ever considered, and I would certainly break character and question it if I was on the other side of the screen.

This would have been much better. I would still leave out 'strengthened by violence' if the only mechanical trigger is the presence of dead. If you say that but would still have corpses of those who died peacefully trigger the effect, then you are giving incorrect and misleading information OOC.

No, not the presence of corpses, someone has to die by violence in its presence. The idea that someone would die peacefully during an encounter in a monster infested dungeon is such a bizarre edge case its really not worth mentioning unless someone is going out of their way to twist the wording or find loopholes.

Quertus

2019-10-19, 08:01 PM

There are 5 editions of D&D. In 1E and 2E it is explicitly impossible, and in 3E the body has fast healing and a note in the monster manual saying that it is intentionally designed to be very difficulty to kill by attacking the body. In 4E there is no mechanic for cutting off heads at all, and in 5E there are no mechanics for intentionally targeting heads or body and heads simply get cut off if you damage it too fast, meaning the party can either hold back and give the hydra more time to beat up on them or go all out and deal with the multiplying heads for as short a time as possible.

None of them have ever favored beating it with blunt weapons or focusing on the body.

In 3.5, the Hydra has fast healing. IME, the optimal tactic is to kill the body. Preferably at range, in 1 hit, or during the surprise round. (Or use SoD spells).

In 3.0, the Hydra does not have fast healing. Same tactical preference, but easier.

However, the 3.0 lernaean Hydra is explicitly immune to damage targeting the body. It's the only one in 3e where I'd consider attacking the heads the optimal choice.

NichG

2019-10-19, 08:59 PM

That's exactly what I said. Where does the "no" come in.

'If they killed one, two took its place.' implies that as long as it wasn't the party killing it directly, it might not split. This is consistent with the stuff that the party tried - basically, trying to create a situation in which it dies, but it wasn't due to violence or aggression on the part of the party (at various levels of technicality). If this is my belief in how the encounter works, I might try getting it to commit suicide, sealing the room and filling it with inert gas and coming back in a day, creating pitfalls masked with illusions so that technically its death was an 'accident' brought on by its own actions, attempting to find some source of damage reflection such that it's not 'me' killing it but rather it killing itself. If it were D&D, the spell 'End to Strife' is made for this - it imposes non-violence on an area by making everyone in the zone aware that if they initiate an attack, they will be killed (or rather, will take 20d6 damage).

'If one dies, two take its place' means that none of those strategies can work, and some would be disastrous. If for example you seal the room and fill it with suffocating gas, you'd get a growing number of the things. Even if the things killed themselves, for example, they could voluntarily split and increase their own strength - so End to Strife would be the worst possible thing you could cast. If I believed this, I wouldn't try anything which follows the premise that the end state of the encounter involved the vestige not existing, because anything to 'delete' the vestige even if it was non-violent or indirect would trigger this. Even though this statement is closer to the mechanical reality, its clearly not what the party believed (because then even something like healing it to death or hugging it to death would still have the 'to death' part and would trigger the split).

You believe they understood 'if one dies, two take its place', but what they really understood was 'if we kill one, two take its place'.

I almost always try and speak in a more formal and theatric voice while DMing. Not full on shakespear in the park ham, mind you, but a bit.

It seems really weird to me that the idea that someone is talking in flowery language means they are trying to puzzle or trick you seems odd to me, its not something I have ever considered, and I would certainly break character and question it if I was on the other side of the screen.

Variations in voice label how one should relate to the communication going on. If I'm explaining how something works in response to OOC conversation, I'm going to use a voice that is couched for clearly communicating information with the minimum possibility of being misinterpreted. I'm not going to be sparing with my words, will ask for verification if I'm understood, will walk through logic in a very systematic way. Because the purpose of that interaction is to get the player onto the same page as me, not to establish mood or feel.

If I go theatric, it automatically means that the clarity of my communication will drop (in exchange for having a bigger effect in establishing mood or character). Poetry isn't the language you use when you want to be precise. If I was asking about the details of an employment contract and someone responded in limericks, I'd assume they were intentionally trying to obfuscate things. Combine 'revealing necessary information' with 'intentionally trying to obfuscate' and you have 'it's a riddle'.

No, not the presence of corpses, someone has to die by violence in its presence. The idea that someone would die peacefully during an encounter in a monster infested dungeon is such a bizarre edge case its really not worth mentioning unless someone is going out of their way to twist the wording or find loopholes.

Which is what the party proceeded to attempt to do by e.g. singing at it. They operated under the understanding that, in order to kill it, they were expected to solve a riddle and figure out some kind of loophole that would let them lead it to death without violence. Clear and straightforward communication without dancing around or being subtle is needed to address that kind of disconnect, e.g. saying overtly: 'No, it cannot die no matter what'.

Great Dragon

2019-10-20, 01:51 AM

@NichG:
Honestly, saying "It can't die, no matter what" (and where it dying by any means triggers the split) tends to be a disconnect itself.

People are playing a Game where Violence is usually at least one of the options, if not their Go-To.
"Can't be killed by damage" might have been better.

Talakeal listed a bunch of things that would have worked, since none of them "killed" the monster.

Not all, but quite a few, were spells. But, Talakeal failed to give even hints from outside (in world) sources that these spells were even needed by the Mage.

Now, I don't know what Level the party was, but quite a few of those spells were 3rd Tier, and not always chosen by the Player to have, since they all are SoS spells, where it's an all or nothing bet for success.

I'm still wondering why Hugging it (the most non violent grapple) didn't work. Because it wasn't imprisoned by it?

NichG

2019-10-20, 03:26 AM

@NichG:
Honestly, saying "It can't die, no matter what" (and where it dying by any means triggers the split) tends to be a disconnect itself.

People are playing a Game where Violence is usually at least one of the options, if not their Go-To.
"Can't be killed by damage" might have been better.

This is also bad. It implies coup de gras, finger of death, etc should be viable. If such methods aren't going to be viable, you need to make a hard cut.

'Any time it dies, two will replace it' for example.

Furthermore, by Talakeal's description of the mechanics, beating it unconscious via nonlethal damage would work since there would be no corpse, so focusing on the 'violence' or 'damage' aspects are misleading.

Great Dragon

2019-10-20, 05:47 AM

This is also bad. It implies coup de gras, finger of death, etc should be viable.

I still haven't had time to go through the Heart of Darkness, so don't know if Coup de gras is a thing.
But, Coup de gras isn't really a thing in 5e, but an attack against an incapacitated creature does count as a Critical Hit. Which is still damage, just killing it faster.
Or, if the creature is already at Zero Hit Points causes more failed Death Saves.
Although this is usually PCs, since Monsters are dead at Zero Hit Points.

If such methods aren't going to be viable, you need to make a hard cut.
'Any time it dies, two will replace it' for example.

Agreed: I think this works the best.

Although the Hydra has a limit for maximum number of heads.
There wasn't a stated (before or after, that I've seen) limit to the in question Monster's splitting.
For example, kill the first = 2 more. Kill both in the same round = 4?
Kill all those in the same round = 8 more? and so on?

Furthermore, by Talakeal's description of the mechanics, beating it unconscious via nonlethal damage would work since there would be no corpse, so focusing on the 'violence' or 'damage' aspects are misleading.

Misleading indeed. And most likely overlooked because of the focus on 'violence/damage'.

NNescio

2019-10-20, 06:42 AM

I still haven't had time to go through the Heart of Darkness, so don't know if Coup de gras is a thing.
But, Coup de gras isn't really a thing in 5e,

Sure it is. Just take a slab of lard and whack it over somebody's head as an improvised weapon.

but an attack against an incapacitated creature does count as a Critical Hit.

No, it doesn't.

In 5e, any attack against a paralyzed or unconscious creature from an attacker within 5ft is treated as a critical hit only if it hits.

Incapacitated in 5e just means "can't take any actions or reactions [equivalent to immediates]." It's kinda like Dazed, actually.

Though yes, this is supposed to be 5e's adaptation of the Coup de Grâce rules.

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 12:16 PM

I'm still wondering why Hugging it (the most non violent grapple) didn't work. Because it wasn't imprisoned by it?

Because it is still composed of violence and will react violently to most situations. Saying that a trivial amount of pacifism should incapacitate it doesn't really fly with me, its like saying Poseidon, god of the sea, should be held at bay by lighting a match because fire is the opposite of water.

Now, a massive amount of pacifism might be able to weaken it, but not a simple hug.

This is also bad. It implies coup de gras, finger of death, etc should be viable. If such methods aren't going to be viable, you need to make a hard cut.

'Any time it dies, two will replace it' for example.

Furthermore, by Talakeal's description of the mechanics, beating it unconscious via nonlethal damage would work since there would be no corpse, so focusing on the 'violence' or 'damage' aspects are misleading.

Beating it unconscious would have worked.

Coup de grace would not have worked. But if it was in a state where it would have been vulnerable to coup de grace, the fight is already one. Why would they poke the bear at that point? Wait, PCs, nevermind.

Finger of death I am not sure. If the party had access to that spell I would have had to make the call, but they didn't so it never came up.

zinycor

2019-10-20, 12:51 PM

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 01:10 PM

I asked my gaming group what would have they done under the circumstances Talakeal described and the ideas they came up were to either run away from it or sing it a beautiful lovely song.

There were also many complaints at how ridiculous the encounter was, luckily it was just a "What would you do" situation so, no damage done.

From everything you have said, your group has an extreme "kick in the door" "beer and pretzels" style, so that's not surprising.

As I said on the last page, my elderly non-gamer parents were able to come up with close to a dozen solutions that would have worked when I asked them the same question. Maybe its just that gamers are conditioned to solve problems through violence and so other solutions don't occur to them?

And, as I said, my group was able to come up with a working solution, its just for some reason the ranger thought I was trying to trick them and decided not to go along with it.

Great Dragon

2019-10-20, 01:10 PM

No, it doesn't.

In 5e, any attack against a paralyzed or unconscious creature from an attacker within 5ft is treated as a critical hit only if it hits.

Incapacitated in 5e just means "can't take any actions or reactions [equivalent to immediates]." It's kinda like Dazed, actually.

Though yes, this is supposed to be 5e's adaptation of the Coup de Grâce rules.

Paralyzed and unconscious also included incapacitated (and then added more of what you posted), so that threw me off.

Thanks!

Because it is still composed of violence and will react violently to most situations. Saying that a trivial amount of pacifism should incapacitate it doesn't really fly with me, its like saying Poseidon, god of the sea, should be held at bay by lighting a match because fire is the opposite of water.
Sure, I could see not being able to stop Poseidon with a match being a thing.
Or tossing a thimble of water on a Fire Elemental.

But, something being used to restrain a creature in as gentle a manner as possible doesn't really seem the same to me. I could see maybe making grapple checks at disadvantage because it's going to resist as violently as it can, and may take more then one PC to pin it.

Now, a massive amount of pacifism might be able to weaken it, but not a simple hug.

I'm not sure how everyone just standing (or sitting Ghandi style) there doing absolutely nothing would really weaken it. Unless there's literally no violence for it to feed off of, and it gets weaker because of that? Seems like a rather unlikely solution for most Players.

zinycor

2019-10-20, 01:13 PM

From everything you have said, your group has an extreme "kick in the door" "beer and pretzels" style, so that's not surprising.

As I said on the last page, my elderly non-gamer parents were able to come up with close to a dozen solutions that would have worked when I asked them the same question. Maybe its just that gamers are conditioned to solve problems through violence and so other solutions don't occur to them?

And, as I said, my group was able to come up with a working solution, its just for some reason the ranger thought I was trying to trick them and decided not to go along with it.

I would not describe my group as gamers, and maybe your encounter was utterly flawed.

Edit: btw, I don't see how you read "singing a beautiful lovely song" as "conditioned to solve problems with violence"

The Insanity

2019-10-20, 02:12 PM

As I said on the last page, my elderly non-gamer parents were able to come up with close to a dozen solutions that would have worked when I asked them the same question.
List them.

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 02:19 PM

But, something being used to restrain a creature in as gentle a manner as possible doesn't really seem the same to me. I could see maybe making grapple checks at disadvantage because it's going to resist as violently as it can, and may take more then one PC to pin it.

Oh sure, actual grappling would have worked fine.

The hug thing was only suggested half jokingly by my players and never actually attempted, the idea being that if it feeds off of violence they would poison it with affection.

I'm not sure how everyone just standing (or sitting Ghandi style) there doing absolutely nothing would really weaken it. Unless there's literally no violence for it to feed off of, and it gets weaker because of that? Seems like a rather unlikely solution for most Players.

Oh, I agree. I am just saying that I probably would have allowed something like that to work as a response to all the people saying hugging it is the best solution.

I wouldn't actually expect my players (or most anyone else) to actually try that in game though.

Maybe your encounter was utterly flawed.

It does not surprise me that you feel that way.

List them.

Knock him out.
Use a tranquilizer.
Turn off the lights and sneak past.
Send someone in to distract him and draw him away.
Cut a hole in the wall behind him.
Trip him and handcuff him.

There were a few more but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

Cluedrew

2019-10-20, 03:26 PM

It does not surprise me that you feel that way.Of course not, all encounters are flawed, everything everyone makes is flawed, its just a matter of the nature and severity of its flaws. For me the encounter's main flaws are 1 that it feels like a gimmick fight and 2 the presentation makes it a bit unclear how you were supposed to approach the fight. (NichG said a lot on this already.)

So in addition to the people changing, how it was presented could also change the results. The difference in presentation between how you presented it to your players, your parents and how zinycor presented it to his players could be part of it as well. And if you are ever use this encounter (or even this type of encounter) again the presentation is something you can work on. Actually also "work on" the players by only pulling out the encounter for groups that will enjoy it. So do both if you can.

P.S. The gimmick thing is also a matter of style as well. Did I mention that what the flaws are is also subjective? I didn't, that's why I am saying it now.

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 03:42 PM

Of course not, all encounters are flawed, everything everyone makes is flawed, its just a matter of the nature and severity of its flaws. For me the encounter's main flaws are 1 that it feels like a gimmick fight and 2 the presentation makes it a bit unclear how you were supposed to approach the fight. (NichG said a lot on this already.)

So in addition to the people changing, how it was presented could also change the results. The difference in presentation between how you presented it to your players, your parents and how zinycor presented it to his players could be part of it as well. And if you are ever use this encounter (or even this type of encounter) again the presentation is something you can work on. Actually also "work on" the players by only pulling out the encounter for groups that will enjoy it. So do both if you can.

P.S. The gimmick thing is also a matter of style as well. Did I mention that what the flaws are is also subjective? I didn't, that's why I am saying it now.

Its more that Zinycor finds it utterly flawed that doesn't surprise me.

Again, keep in mind that all of the players realized it split when killed the first time they observed that, regrouped, did research, and 3/4 players understood the research and came up with a working plan to solve the encounter.

But then poor dice rolls and the fourth player refusing to go along with the plan led to them adopting the much more stupid "exploit the no perma-death rule and defeat it with a human shield plan".

Note that the players were not mad at me for the encounter or the way it was presented, they were mad at me for "violating the gentleman's agreement" and letting their henchmen die after their human shield plan, and then they began screaming at each other for refusing to cooperate.

Edit: I do agree with you though, there are flaws in the presentation of every encounter, and the fact that one of the players thought I was trying to trick them is definitely a very bad thing. I just don't think the idea of a monster that can't be defeated through standard means or that multiplies when killed is innately flawed or even that unusual as I can think of tons of examples of each in both RPGs and fiction.

Kane0

2019-10-20, 05:07 PM

Knock him out.
Use a tranquilizer.
Turn off the lights and sneak past.
Send someone in to distract him and draw him away.
Cut a hole in the wall behind him.
Trip him and handcuff him.

There were a few more but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

...against a ghost?

I'll totally grant drawing him away, that should work (unless he was specifically lingering near something and unable to go too far from it).

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 05:12 PM

...against a ghost?

I'll totally grant drawing him away, that should work (unless he was specifically lingering near something and unable to go too far from it).

The "ghost" wasn't actually attacking them, the manifestation they were fighting was an ordinary human aside from splitting when killed.

Kane0

2019-10-20, 05:26 PM

The "ghost" wasn't actually attacking them, the manifestation they were fighting was an ordinary human aside from splitting when killed.

The initial description was: "An armored figure rises above you; eight feet tall and clad in golden armor that is the most glorious you have ever seen, both from an ornamental and functional perspective, but blackened by fire and scarred by every form of attack imaginable. It makes a mocking salute and then attacks."

When they asked how to defeat it, I told them that "It is born of violence and can never be killed by it."

:smallconfused:

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 05:33 PM

:smallconfused:

I'm not following.

The Insanity

2019-10-20, 05:38 PM

I'm not following.
Are the ghost and the splitting monster two different enemies or the same? (I was skimming the thread so I'm not sure)

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 05:42 PM

Are the ghost and the splitting monster two different enemies or the same? (I was skimming the thread so I'm not sure)

Yes.

Although "ghost" isn't really appropriate; it is an aspect of a vestige, a humanoid projection of a dead god.

The Insanity

2019-10-20, 05:43 PM

Yes.
Yes to which?

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 05:44 PM

Yes to which?

Sorry, yes they are the same.

The Insanity

2019-10-20, 05:48 PM

Sorry, yes they are the same.
Then I think Kane0 is pointing out that you're contradicting yourself, or there's a miscommunication happening.

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 05:54 PM

Then I think Kane0 is pointing out that you're contradicting yourself, or there's a miscommunication happening.

Yeah, I know, I just don't see what the contradiction is there.

Kane0

2019-10-20, 05:59 PM

If you can't even give us clear, consistent information what hope does your table have?

The Insanity

2019-10-20, 05:59 PM

Yeah, I know, I just don't see what the contradiction is there.

The "ghost" wasn't actually attacking them, the manifestation they were fighting was an ordinary human aside from splitting when killed.

The initial description was: "An armored figure rises above you; eight feet tall and clad in golden armor that is the most glorious you have ever seen, both from an ornamental and functional perspective, but blackened by fire and scarred by every form of attack imaginable. It makes a mocking salute and then attacks."
That clears it up?

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 06:04 PM

That clears it up?

I guess so.

The enemy they are fighting is the mortal aspect of the ghost of a dead god. The god itself is not capable of interacting with the PCs in any tangible way without manifesting an aspect. The aspect mindlessly attacks, and if it is killed two more identical aspects will be formed on the following turn.

The players don't know this; they just know when they walk into the room a big armored guy attacks them, and when they kill him he splits into two. They went to town to research how to kill him for good, and found that he couldn't be.

If you can't even give us clear, consistent information what hope does your table have?

Pretty sure I have answered that many times already in this thread. to repeat, summarizing a multiple hour game session into a post people will actually read is very different than communicating face to face in the moment.

None of my players were confused, except for one who was, for some reason, convinced I was actively trying to trick them and ignored the information I gave.

The Insanity

2019-10-20, 06:07 PM

So... the ghost attacked them.

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 06:09 PM

So... the ghost attacked them.

No?

The "ghost" manifested a humanoid aspect which attacked them. The humanoid aspect was fully vulnerable to all manner of restraint that would affect an ordinary human, and as the "ghost" had no way of actually interacting with the material world aside from its aspect, this would have ended the encounter.

The Insanity

2019-10-20, 06:15 PM

No?
Semantics. The ghost created the thing that attacked them. It attacked them as far as I'm concerned.

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 06:17 PM

Semantics. The ghost created the thing that attacked them. It attacked them as far as I'm concerned.

I agree, it is a semantic argument. But I am not the one who is making that argument.

Follow the thread back, I said the ghost wasn't attacking them in response to Kane0 saying "How could they drug, or knock out, or sneak past a ghost?"

Its like saying "I can't possible fight back against enemy soldiers, because the general who issued the order is in a bunker a hundred miles away!" It just doesn't make any sense.

Kane0

2019-10-20, 06:22 PM

The enemy they are fighting is the mortal aspect of the ghost of a dead god. The god itself is not capable of interacting with the PCs in any tangible way without manifesting an aspect. The aspect mindlessly attacks, and if it is killed two more identical aspects will be formed on the following turn.

Ah okay so we have two separate things here: the ghost/vestige/dead prince of violence and the mindless, corporeal dudes that it spawns

The players don't know this; they just know when they walk into the room a big armored guy attacks them, and when they kill him he splits into two. They went to town to research how to kill him for good, and found that he couldn't be.

None of my players were confused, except for one who was, for some reason, convinced I was actively trying to trick them and ignored the information I gave.

I may have this wrong, but to me it seems the players were researching the latter (because that's what they knew) but got information based on the former (because that's what you knew).

The Insanity

2019-10-20, 06:35 PM

I agree, it is a semantic argument. But I am not the one who is making that argument.

Follow the thread back, I said the ghost wasn't attacking them in response to Kane0 saying "How could they drug, or knock out, or sneak past a ghost?"

Its like saying "I can't possible fight back against enemy soldiers, because the general who issued the order is in a bunker a hundred miles away!" It just doesn't make any sense.
As the post above mine indicates, you weren't very clear that the ghost and what the players fought were actually two seperate entities. You need to try avoiding being so vague or else confusion like this will keep happening.

Talakeal

2019-10-20, 06:46 PM

Ah okay so we have two separate things here: the ghost/vestige/dead prince of violence and the mindless, corporeal dudes that it spawns

I may have this wrong, but to me it seems the players were researching the latter (because that's what they knew) but got information based on the former (because that's what you knew).

They were researching how to kill the aspect for good without it splitting, and found out that it was impossible.

zinycor

2019-10-20, 09:11 PM

They were researching how to kill the aspect for good without it splitting, and found out that it was impossible.

Didn't they find out that the monster couldn't be killed by violence? Not exactly that it was impossible.

Kardwill

2019-10-21, 03:58 AM

Ah okay so we have two separate things here: the ghost/vestige/dead prince of violence and the mindless, corporeal dudes that it spawns

Yeah, for all intents and purpose, the "ghost" didn't exist in the narration since the players had no way to know it existed. But the fact the warrior's existence was tied to that "ghost" in the GM's mind may seep into the hints the GM gives to the player and confuse them.

By the way, grappling/pinning a 240cm, 210-250kg, heavily armored giant avatar of violence is not a solution that would come readily to my mind with those description and hints. Unless I'm playing a greek-mythology/Arthurian Fate game where heroes are expected to do this kind of things routinely. ^^

King of Nowhere

2019-10-21, 04:58 AM

By the way, grappling/pinning a 240cm, 210-250kg, heavily armored giant avatar of violence is not a solution that would come readily to my mind with those description and hints. Unless I'm playing a greek-mythology/Arthurian Fate game where heroes are expected to do this kind of things routinely. ^^

Wait, aren't we? We are playing heroes that routinely go in melee with monsters hundreds of times their weight. A man 2.4 meters high for 200 kg of mass may not even be worth a +4 size modifier

Great Dragon

2019-10-21, 08:55 AM

@Talakeal: Thanks for responding.

Again, keep in mind that all of the players realized it split when killed the first time they observed that, regrouped, did research, and 3/4 players understood the research and came up with a working plan to solve the encounter.

But then poor dice rolls and the fourth player refusing to go along with the plan led to them adopting the much more stupid "exploit the no perma-death rule and defeat it with a human shield plan".

Note that the players were not mad at me for the encounter or the way it was presented, they were mad at me for "violating the gentleman's agreement" and letting their henchmen die after their human shield plan, and then they began screaming at each other for refusing to cooperate.

The fact that they had the no perma-death rule at all is you being "Too Nice", and them not only not appreciating it, but constantly trying to exploit it, is what irks me.

I'm a Friendly Grognard, and a Nice DM: in that I am Gentle on PCs from 1st-4th levels (TPKs are usually 'Party captured'), Death by Accident (Bad planning and/or Rolls can kill the PC/s), and No Holds Barred after 10th Level - but I don't take away even the possibility of Death, even at 1st level.

Edit: I do agree with you though, there are flaws in the presentation of every encounter, and the fact that one of the players thought I was trying to trick them is definitely a very bad thing. I just don't think the idea of a monster that can't be defeated through standard means or that multiplies when killed is innately flawed or even that unusual as I can think of tons of examples of each in both RPGs and fiction.

Player 4 might have misread the presentation; but I feel that they are more likely to have a very extreme Lack of Trust issue. Either that - or they are just a Murder-Hobo Player that is good at deceiving the Group about it most of the time?

By the way, grappling/pinning a 240cm, 210-250kg, heavily armored giant avatar of violence is not a solution that would come readily to my mind with those description and hints. Unless I'm playing a greek-mythology/Arthurian Fate game where heroes are expected to do this kind of things routinely. ^^

Wait, aren't we? We are playing heroes that routinely go in melee with monsters hundreds of times their weight. A man 2.4 meters high for 200 kg of mass may not even be worth a +4 size modifier

I'm lousy at converting Metric to Standard (and reverse).

240 cm = 20' (+/-) tall and 250 kg = 630 (+/-) lbs ?
That's like the tallest, yet skinniest, Hill Giant or Etten - ever!!

2.4 meters = 6'4" ? 200 kg = 500# ?

3x D&D had the second as still being Medium, and the Giant above barely Huge - which only had +2 from Size. Gargantuan was +4 (up to about 50' tall?), and Colossal was +8 from Size.
(it's been more than a decade since I've even read this stuff from 3x)

Kardwill

2019-10-21, 09:47 AM

I'm lousy at converting Metric to Standard (and reverse).

240 cm = 20' (+/-) tall and 250 kg = 630 (+/-) lbs ?

240cm = 2.4m = 8 feet
210kg = around 460lb (I think)

I pictured a 1.80m, 90kg muscular man (6 feet, 198lb), then scaled him up to Talakeal's 8 feet warrior (+33% in height means +135% in mass if we keep the same proportions and density)

I was just scaling up a big guy to see if grappling with him would sound like a logical way to get out of trouble (i.e. "would I be willing to do it if my life depended on it?"). The answer is a very loud NO!! :smallbiggrin:

Sure, "D&D world" has its own logic and power scale ("My halfling monk high-kicks the giant with both feet, Kirk-style!!!"), but it doesn't sound like a mundane solution. ^^

Talakeal

2019-10-21, 10:34 AM

NichG

2019-10-21, 10:38 AM

The party had two characters with the same grapple modifier as the enemy, smaller size but higher base strength. Still, the party didn't have anyone built for grappling, so that isn't the solution I would have gone with.

Given their party makeup I probably would have had the alchemist brew some sedative poison to coat their weapons in and had the hammer fighter stun him and then the ranger manacle him, but that't not really here nor there.

Hopefully this makes it clear why giving results that suggest that violence isn't the answer could be misleading, when the strategy you would use involves violence, as do at least half of the ones you got from your relatives...

Talakeal

2019-10-21, 10:46 AM

Hopefully this makes it clear why giving results that suggest that violence isn't the answer could be misleading, when the strategy you would use involves violence, as do at least half of the ones you got from your relatives...

True, but it involves a lot of inference.

I said it cant be killed by violence.

I never said that it could only be stopped through non violent means or that there was some secret way to kill it without violence.

Although a non-violent sleep spell would have been the optimal way to handle the encounter all things onsidere, but the party didn't have an enchanter or the inclination to hire one or buy scrolls of sleep.

Kardwill

2019-10-21, 11:08 AM

True, but it involves a lot of inference.

That's an inference that has been done by pretty much everybody on this thread (at least all those who bothered to talk about it), so it might be wise to at least consider that the way you described the monster's ability was confusing?

You talked about violence twice in your riddle-sounding explanation ("born of violence" / "killed by violence"). That's enough for some/many/most players to ignore "cannot be killed" and focus on the "violence" that is supposedly feeding the creature as the important part, and try to find some way to cut this power source.

"It cannot be killed by [X]" is usually a signal that the heroes are supposed to find something that is not [X], like the sorcerer-king's "No man shall kill me" prophecy that ended when he fought a woman and a hobbit. It's a classic trope in heroic fantasy stories. It will tell things to players that might be contrary to what you wanted to communicate.

kyoryu

2019-10-21, 11:17 AM

Talakeal

2019-10-21, 02:38 PM

That's an inference that has been done by pretty much everybody on this thread (at least all those who bothered to talk about it), so it might be wise to at least consider that the way you described the monster's ability was confusing?

You talked about violence twice in your riddle-sounding explanation ("born of violence" / "killed by violence"). That's enough for some/many/most players to ignore "cannot be killed" and focus on the "violence" that is supposedly feeding the creature as the important part, and try to find some way to cut this power source.

"It cannot be killed by [X]" is usually a signal that the heroes are supposed to find something that is not [X], like the sorcerer-king's "No man shall kill me" prophecy that ended when he fought a woman and a hobbit. It's a classic trope in heroic fantasy stories. It will tell things to players that might be contrary to what you wanted to communicate.

I only used the word violence once, to provide context. They asked how it can be killed, and I said that as it was born of violence it can never be killed by it.

Personally, if I asked a question like that and I thought the DM was asking a riddle, I would ask the DM why the heck they are riddling instead of providing me the information they asked for, and if I thought the DM was telling me I needed to kill something without violence, I would brainstorm with the rest of the party trying to come up with "non-violent kills" rather than just ignore the plan and flail about randomly.

Also, one of the things she tried was killing the enemy with the magic weapon it was guarding, which doesn't really line up with either interpretation.

But then again, it is the newest and least experienced player in the group, so I should probably take that into consideration.

If a large percentage of people that are told about this scenario come to the same conclusion, then you have two choices, realistically:

1) Assume that your hints and presentation were such that coming to that conclusion is a reasonable thing that might be done by a good proportion of people, and consider how you might present things in another way to avoid that.

2) Assume that everyone else is crazy and bad.

I suggest that the first option may lead to learning and ultimately better gaming - and in fact, better success in many areas of life. If you reject the first option, then I really don't know what help can be given.

A third option is that people are framing their responses retroactively after the solution is already known.

For example, most riddles seem obvious once you already know the answer. I ran a campaign about five years ago that did have a riddle in it (What grows taller when you take the head off?) and the players were unable to come up with a solution, and once I told them the answer (a pillow) they insisted it was a trick question. I took to asking other people that riddle and I noticed something, those who were unable to solve it agreed it was a trick question, those who did solve it found it to be a perfectly fair and reasonable riddle.

Likewise, I imagine those posters who like me/my gaming style are more likely to say they would have agreed with my interpretation and those who dislike me / my gaming style are more likely to say they agree with the player. This isn't intentional, but it is impossible to say how you would read something once the correct interpretation is already known (which is why one of the first rules of writing is to have someone else read it.)

Kardwill

2019-10-21, 03:40 PM

I only used the word violence once, to provide context. They asked how it can be killed, and I said that as it was born of violence it can never be killed by it.

I was convinced you said "born of violence" and "killed by violence" earlier, but sure, I probably remember wrong (our memory is a tricky tool, one of the reasons why I always insist about repeating the hints as much as possible). So let's sum it up in the simplest way possible.

"How can we kill the Monster?
- It's born of violence and can never be killed by it"

If that's the way it went, then you gave a confusing answer.
They asked how to kill it, not whether they could kill it or not. When you answer "it can never be killed by violence" to this particular question, it's perfectly reasonable to understand "but you can look for another way that doesn't involve violence", and go into problem-solving mode. The question was "how", and the qualifier "by it" sounds like the real answer.
Had you simply said "It's born of violence and can never be killed", the "can never be killed" would have been an absolute, without any confusion possible. There wouldn't have been a qualifier after that to confuse the issue.

Your hint was not a bad thing. It has a nice musicality, sounds like a prophecy, which is cool in a fantasy game for mood purpose. I give ambiguous hints all the time. But I'm aware the players will interpret them their own way, and I'm ready to follow them down this path, even change my story if the solution they chose sounds fun. If I want them to interpret it in one specific way, then I'll clarify, repeat the hints or descriptions, ask for their intentions when they do something weird, so I'm sure they're on the same page as me...
"Err, you fireball him? You DO remember he cannot be killed, right? Are you sure?"
"You jump? Into the 30 meters deep snake pit? You sure?"
"Hide under the ferns? You left the forest 15 minutes ago, remember? But there's a corn field nearby, if you want a similar hiding place"

(Oh, and I understand what you're saying about people letting their expectations cloud their view of a problem, but nevertheless, "Every person who disagrees with me does it only because they don't want to understand" sounds excessively defensive. I understand that we're kinda ganging up on you here, and it's probably really unpleasant to defend everything you did in front of a self-appointed, arrogant jury of your peers, but it sounds kinda bad nevetheless.)

Talakeal

2019-10-21, 03:53 PM

I was convinced you said "born of violence" and "killed by violence" earlier, but sure, I probably remember wrong (our memory is a tricky tool, one of the reasons why I always insist about repeating the hints as much as possible). So let's sum it up in the simplest way possible.

"How can we kill the Monster?
- It's born of violence and can never be killed by it"

If that's the way it went, then you gave a confusing answer.
They asked how to kill it, not whether they could kill it or not. When you answer "it can never be killed by violence" to this particular question, it's perfectly reasonable to understand "but you can look for another way that doesn't involve violence", and go into problem-solving mode. The question was "how", and the qualifier "by it" sounds like the real answer.
Had you simply said "It's born of violence and can never be killed", the "can never be killed" would have been an absolute, without any confusion possible. There wouldn't have been a qualifier after that to confuse the issue.

Your hint was not a bad thing. It has a nice musicality, sounds like a prophecy, which is cool in a fantasy game for mood purpose. I give ambiguous hints all the time. But I'm aware the players will interpret them their own way, and I'm ready to follow them down this path, change my story if the solution they chose sounds fun. If I want them to interpret it in one specific way, then I'll clarify, repeat the hints, ask for their intentions when they do something weird, so I'm sure we're on the same page...
"Err, you fireball him? You remember he cannot be killed, right? Are you sure?"

(Oh, and I understand what you're saying about people letting their expectations cloud their view of a problem, but nevertheless, "Every person who disagrees with me does it only because they don't want to understand" sounds excessively defensive. I understand that we're kinda ganging up on you here, and it's probably really unpleasant to defend everything you did in front of a self-appointed, arrogant jury of your peers, but it sounds kinda bad nevetheless.)

I agree with you. Leavin of the last few words would have been clearer in hindsight.

I am not saying people who disagree with doesnt want to understand, although in hindsight it does look a little paranoid / arrogant. What I mean is that people are not very good at figuring out how they came to their concousions and often look for evidence to justify their current views rather than truly going in blind, which can make assessing their actions of a situation in hindsigt somewhat innacurat, and online people are more likely to take a contrary view than agree with you, just like in face to face conversations people are more likely to be polite and agreeable than take a contrary position.

Kane0

2019-10-21, 04:01 PM

A third option is that people are framing their responses retroactively after the solution is already known.

Do you think I was?

Kardwill

2019-10-21, 04:05 PM

I agree with you. Leavin of the last few words would have been clearer in hindsight.

That's the thing with hindsight : It's always 20/20, and we always have enough time to dissect each sentence to find out if it's the best one. But we know that finding the right words in the middle of the game, while under the gaze of 3-6 players, with the stress of DMing on your shoulders and with no time to think things out, is... trickier ^^

Small mistakes happen all the time. Everything makes perfect sense in our head but the words we choose fail to pass that information. That's the reason we have to keep in mind that maybe, the guys on the other side of the GM screen are not being obtuse but somehow managed to completely misunderstand everything we said. And the reason we havee to try and clarify when the players are doing stuff that sounds stupid, because it may not be that stupid in the light of the information they heard.

Communication is HARD. Especially in a game where you're talking and making things up all the time :p

Talakeal

2019-10-21, 05:14 PM

Do you think I was?

I have no idea why any specific person said what they said.

Kane0

2019-10-21, 05:26 PM

I have no idea why any specific person said what they said.

Your tact is noted, please allow me to rephrase: Do you believe I was (and are) posting in bad faith?

Talakeal

2019-10-21, 05:44 PM

Your tact is noted, please allow me to rephrase: Do you believe I was (and are) posting in bad faith?

I don't think you (or 99% of posters) are acting in bad faith.

I was merely observing that it is very hard for people to genuinly act as if they are coming into a situation blind rather than looking to justify their current opinions, so I cant use forum oppinion to figure out what percentage of people would actually be fooled by my "riddle".

Kane0

2019-10-21, 06:03 PM

I don't think you (or 99% of posters) are acting in bad faith.

I was merely observing that it is very hard for people to genuinly act as if they are coming into a situation blind rather than looking to justify their current opinions, so I cant use forum oppinion to figure out what percentage of people would actually be fooled by my "riddle".

Yes, we're dealing with the human condition so absolute metrics aren't possible. But we can get relative ones.

I can't give you anything concrete, only what I feel based on my experience here. What I feel is that you have a tendency to avoid straight answers just in general. This is not in itself a problem, just something to be aware of if true. Especially so if you're planning curveballs for your players in game.

I can't speak for other posters but I'm not here attack or place blame on you nor anyone in your group. I'm just interested in getting to the bottom of it all.

zinycor

2019-10-21, 06:53 PM

Great Dragon

2019-10-21, 06:54 PM

Although a non-violent sleep spell would have been the optimal way to handle the encounter all things onsidere, but the party didn't have an enchanter or the inclination to hire one or buy scrolls of sleep.

Depends on how many HP the foe had when cast.
I suppose that subdue damage still counts for lowing it to a likely threshold and then casting Sleep could work though...

I can't speak for other posters but I'm not here attack or place blame on you nor anyone in your group.

I'm also doing what I can to give what I believe to be suggestions for avoiding a given problem in future games. If someone points out that I've made an error, I own that, and do my best to learn from it and remember the next time it come up.

Talakeal

2019-10-21, 09:05 PM

Ok, lets establish a parallel... Let's say that the monster was a fire elemental instead of what it was, and the party faced a similar situation, like facing it in an ineffective way, retreating and finding out more about the monster, then I as the GM tell you (as a member of the party) : "It is made of fire, it can never be killed by it".

How would you proceed after that?

That's actually a very good point. To me it feels different because I can think of plenty of ways to kill something without fire but, depending on how much you want to play word games, I can't think of any ways to kill something without violence. Still, a very good point.

I wouldn't approach it unless I had a reliable method of killing it that didn't involve fire, or a plan that didn't involve killing it at all. If I didn't know what would kill it, I would find out first rather than just throwing poop at the wall and seeing what sticks, but then again, new player.

NNescio

2019-10-22, 06:16 AM

That's actually a very good point. To me it feels different because I can think of plenty of ways to kill something without fire but, depending on how much you want to play word games, I can't think of any ways to kill something without violence. Still, a very good point.

Convince the creature to let you euthanize it? A lot of classic CRPGs allow this or a similar option.

Or talk it to death/out of existence on cosmologies (e.g. Sigil) that permit it?

Talakeal

2019-10-22, 09:02 AM

Convince the creature to let you euthanize it? A lot of classic CRPGs allow this or a similar option.

Or talk it to death/out of existence on cosmologies (e.g. Sigil) that permit it?

If there were someone in the party who had a legendary skill with words this might have been a possibility, but there wasn't, and I don't know why a nearly mindless avatar of violence would be an easier to talk into suicide than a giant or bandit chief or any other villain.

Kardwill

2019-10-22, 10:20 AM

If there were someone in the party who had a legendary skill with words this might have been a possibility, but there wasn't, and I don't know why a nearly mindless avatar of violence would be an easier to talk into suicide than a giant or bandit chief or any other villain.

Because IIRC it's a remnant, a ghost, a pale, weak, shallow shard of what was once a god. It may remember vaguely what it once was, and never will be again. Other, fully sentient villains have a life to live out, goals, relations with others. This creature sounds like it has nothing but instinct and regrets.

Talking a ghost out of existence, or finding out what chains it to this world, sounds like a classic way of solving a supernatural menace, "fairy tale" style. And a prime opportunity for some sweet roleplay, or for a social combat in games that allow them like Fate, or for both :)

With a bandit, you can find out what he desires. With a beast, you can find out what it is afraid of. With a machine, you can look for its parameters and patterns of action. With a ghost, you can find out what chains it to its pityful nonexistence.

Talakeal

2019-10-22, 12:38 PM

Because IIRC it's a remnant, a ghost, a pale, weak, shallow shard of what was once a god. It may remember vaguely what it once was, and never will be again. Other, fully sentient villains have a life to live out, goals, relations with others. This creature sounds like it has nothing but instinct and regrets.

Talking a ghost out of existence, or finding out what chains it to this world, sounds like a classic way of solving a supernatural menace, "fairy tale" style. And a prime opportunity for some sweet roleplay, or for a social combat in games that allow them like Fate, or for both :)

With a bandit, you can find out what he desires. With a beast, you can find out what it is afraid of. With a machine, you can look for its parameters and patterns of action. With a ghost, you can find out what chains it to its pityful nonexistence.

I could kind of see it, but nobody in the party had the diplomacy score to hit the DC I would have set unless they made an amazing case, and my players don't like to describe their dialogue beyond "I roll diplomacy".

Not that that sort of thing isn't cool, it just has to fit the character. I remember one game I played in years ago when there was an undead horde invading and I needed to infiltrate their base, so I did it under the guide of a diplomatic mission. I came back to find that my bard side-kick, who had an incredible diplomacy score she never used, had negotiated a cease fire and gotten the liches commanding the army to agree to all sorts of terms and concessions that they had no reason to.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-22, 03:20 PM

Convince the creature to let you euthanize it? A lot of classic CRPGs allow this or a similar option.

Or talk it to death/out of existence on cosmologies (e.g. Sigil) that permit it?

oh, yeah. i can see that as a nice option, because it's a trope I've seen somewhere. And it doesn't mattter how realistically viable it is, it's a trope of the genre and so my brain instinctively thinks it is a possible solution. And I can't even name where I've seen it done, except mass effect.
Although giving peace to a ghost is a more common thing. I can remember two different instances, in ice wind dale and baldurs gate, where you have to allow a child ghost to rest by finding their teddy bear for them. So, by that reasoning, hugging this avatar... why not?

Perhaps, talekeal, you have different ideas of what is "logical" because you have been exposed to different tropes and so you have different expectations?

And I don't say that those things should have worked. In the end, there were enough possibilities, it was an optional encounter, and the players quickly enough jumped to the conclusion that you would shoot down any solution just out of spite.
Although I think giving peace to the avatar of violence by hugging it would have made for a far better story than just tieing it up

kyoryu

2019-10-22, 03:29 PM

Kane0

2019-10-22, 04:03 PM

Again, when presented with things that are not what you believed, or planned, or had in mind, or understood, I think there's two things you can do: Reject the idea or information or whatever out of hand, or consider it.

I think you'd be more successful in a number of areas if you defaulted to "consider it" instead of what seems to be defaulting to "reject it".

I would suggest that this would be a good place to start. If you read this and your immediate response is to tell me how I'm wrong, then you're rejecting the idea. And yet, whether or not you agree with me, there is a reason I am saying this.

Being straightforward isn't the same as being easy. To earn trust, give them all the information. All of it. Knowing is half the battle, but it only gets you so far. You might know you have to hit AC 18 and deal 263 damage to drop it, but when push comes to shove someone still has to roll and get it done.
If you want to run a non-standard challenge like a trap, puzzle, intrigue, etc then state that outright and upfront. Don't be coy, batter them with the clue-by-four. If they come up with something that sounds even half as plausible as what you had considered then go with it. Keep the flow of the game going, [half a session] spent opening one door puzzle is [half a session minus 10 minutes] wasted.
Never say 'no'. Get in the habit of saying 'Yes AND' or 'No BUT'.

Agreed. 10char

Talakeal

2019-10-22, 06:18 PM

oh, yeah. i can see that as a nice option, because it's a trope I've seen somewhere. And it doesn't mattter how realistically viable it is, it's a trope of the genre and so my brain instinctively thinks it is a possible solution. And I can't even name where I've seen it done, except mass effect.
Although giving peace to a ghost is a more common thing. I can remember two different instances, in ice wind dale and baldurs gate, where you have to allow a child ghost to rest by finding their teddy bear for them. So, by that reasoning, hugging this avatar... why not?

Perhaps, talekeal, you have different ideas of what is "logical" because you have been exposed to different tropes and so you have different expectations?

And I don't say that those things should have worked. In the end, there were enough possibilities, it was an optional encounter, and the players quickly enough jumped to the conclusion that you would shoot down any solution just out of spite.
Although I think giving peace to the avatar of violence by hugging it would have made for a far better story than just tieing it up

Hugging it wasn't ever actually seriously considered. It might make for a good story, but it would make for a pretty crappy game, and it also establishes a really weird precedent for the cosmology going forward. Essentially, it only hits the N pillar of the GNS pillars of gaming.

Again, this isn't to say that nonviolent resolutions to conflicts like this can't be cool. They are usually the most badass options in video games, like in Planescape Torment when you kill a revenant by convincing it that its world view is irrational.

Talakeal

2019-10-24, 11:30 AM

Again, when presented with things that are not what you believed, or planned, or had in mind, or understood, I think there's two things you can do: Reject the idea or information or whatever out of hand, or consider it.

I think you'd be more successful in a number of areas if you defaulted to "consider it" instead of what seems to be defaulting to "reject it".

I would suggest that this would be a good place to start. If you read this and your immediate response is to tell me how I'm wrong, then you're rejecting the idea. And yet, whether or not you agree with me, there is a reason I am saying this.

This is, of course, all true.

I was not trying to be stubborn and arrogant, I was just stating that I take criticism on the internet a lot less seriously than I would in real life, and the fact that the majority of posters are critical of me does not, in and of itself, mean that I am overwhelmingly in the wrong, just like in real life a session without complaints from the players doesn't mean that you are doing everything right, or in business how they say every complaint is equal to a massive number of satisfied customers because angry people are more vocal than happy people.

kyoryu

2019-10-24, 01:05 PM

This is, of course, all true.

I was not trying to be stubborn and arrogant, I was just stating that I take criticism on the internet a lot less seriously than I would in real life, and the fact that the majority of posters are critical of me does not, in and of itself, mean that I am overwhelmingly in the wrong, just like in real life a session without complaints from the players doesn't mean that you are doing everything right, or in business how they say every complaint is equal to a massive number of satisfied customers because angry people are more vocal than happy people.

No, a large number of posters does not mean that you are overwhelmingly in the wrong.

Two things:

1) Seriously, try to stop thinking about "right" and "wrong". Nobody here is saying "Talakeal is a bad human and a bad DM and should be shunned." People are saying "You know, Talakeal, it seems like you might be more effective and get more of the results you want if you considered these things..."

Life is mostly not "right" and "wrong", when dealing with humans and emotions and perception. It is usually, really almost always, a matter of perception, of incompatible behavior (that is not inherently wrong), of needing to learn to see the other side more. Usually, when conflicts arise, there's some level of contribution on both sides.

So the question should not be "Is Talakeal wrong?" The question should be "is Talakeal getting the results they want, and if not, what could they do differently to get the results they do want?"

2) While a number of posters being critical does not mean you're necessarily wrong, if a number of people are all seeing the same thing it's almost always worth considering why that is. I had a discussion with a manger once who said he was shielding me from some criticism and telling people "yeah, he's not really arrogant, though I get he comes across that way." I told him to stop. Becuase if I don't hear it, I can't learn from it. Regardless of my intent in my communication, if my communication was resulting in an impression that I didn't want, it's my job to understand what I am doing that's causing that impression, and figure out how to fix it (within reason - if someone has just decided that "blonde men" are evil, then yes, they will think I'm awful, but that's not me. But if someone is not that level of irrational, it's worth listening to complaints, even if I know that they are factually invalid, because something led to that perception.

Talakeal

2019-10-25, 09:59 AM

zinycor

2019-10-25, 10:41 AM

So, if anyone is still interested in talking about telegraphing and gotcha monsters, I have a question:

How does this apply to enemy casters?

I am currently reading what Son pf a Lich wrote inthe guy at the gym thread, and he makes some very good points, about how any one spell can fundamentally change the nature of an encounter, and a given caster has dozens of spells memorized at a time and hundreds to choose from.

Well, since spells are well established within the setting there shouldn't be any real problem, unless this caster had spells unique to them, in that case foreshadowing would be good.

Btw, another thing to have in mind is that in order for the party to fight a lich, and not feel like the encounter is BS they already have a good degree of experience fighting casters of various kinds.

Talakeal

2019-10-25, 01:42 PM

Well, since spells are well established within the setting there shouldn't be any real problem, unless this caster had spells unique to them, in that case foreshadowing would be good.

Many people were insisting that the problem with gotcha monsters wasn't the homebrew aspect thiugh.

Segev

2019-10-25, 03:39 PM

Many people were insisting that the problem with gotcha monsters wasn't the homebrew aspect thiugh.

Homebrew comes off as "gotcha" when it subverts expectations. Does it look like an orc, but suddenly self-immolates in a massive damaging aura, triggered when the meleeists charge in? That's subverting expectations of what an orc does.

"Gotcha" is all about tricking the players (usually intentionally, but they still feel like it was done if it's unintentional). Anything that makes normal behavior, or worse, normally-smart behavior, the exact wrong choice is a "gotcha."

The more informed the players are before they commit to a choice, the less "gotcha" it can be.

The less it outright looks like something it isn't, and thus the less it sets up incorrect expectations, the less "gotcha" it can be.

A homebrew monster that the players don't recognize and have no expectations about is almost certainly not a "gotcha" monster, unless it was deliberately designed to give false impressions about what are good and bad ways to deal with it that its actual stats and powers make inverted. Particularly if what it seems by description and behavior to indicate is a good way to deal with it is exactly the worst way to deal with it.

Quarian Rex

2019-10-25, 06:23 PM

So, if anyone is still interested in talking about telegraphing and gotcha monsters, I have a question:

How does this apply to enemy casters?

Even though a spellcasters' capabilities are inherently unpredictable they seem to have counters to being considered a 'gotcha', primarily the Spellcraft skill. Even if the spell has never been cast in your world before, a successful Identify Spell Being Cast check gives the player information on exactly what is currently happening. The players go in expecting the unexpected and have the opportunity to get accurate information on the surprise, letting them have confidence in their response, not to mention other options like readying counter-magic. Even though the specific spell being used on them might not be known, the fact that it is a spell already provides them with options. These are really important factors. The fact that the PCs might be able to loot a new spell off a defeated spellcaster just further weights reward versus the risk in the encounter.

Segev seems to have hit the nail on the head...

"Gotcha" is all about tricking the players (usually intentionally, but they still feel like it was done if it's unintentional). Anything that makes normal behavior, or worse, normally-smart behavior, the exact wrong choice is a "gotcha."

The more informed the players are before they commit to a choice, the less "gotcha" it can be.

Spellcasting seems to have been designed to be capable of surprise yet has been vaccinated against 'gotchas' due to having a built-in transparency mechanic. God job on WotC.

Kane0

2019-10-26, 12:18 AM

So, if anyone is still interested in talking about telegraphing and gotcha monsters, I have a question:

How does this apply to enemy casters?

Gotcha rule of thumb:
“Does this break any previously established consistency?”
If so, follow the rule of threes when providing ‘tells’

Note that its not just your own consistency as DM that you have to consider, make sure to also factor in genre-savviness and similar.

Say you have a dragon. Dragons have precedent for being magical. But the average dragon in your world doesn't use magic. But this one does. This is a gotcha, because you have established consistency (your dragons don't use magic) that you then break (THIS dragon DOES use magic). If you want this dragon to use magic in your game where it is known to the PCs that most dragons don't, provide at least three obvious clues so the PCs can clue into this before the dragon uses magic on them.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-26, 08:16 AM

"Gotcha" is all about tricking the players (usually intentionally, but they still feel like it was done if it's unintentional). Anything that makes normal behavior, or worse, normally-smart behavior, the exact wrong choice is a "gotcha."

The less it outright looks like something it isn't, and thus the less it sets up incorrect expectations, the less "gotcha" it can be.

I think segev hit the nail here. this is the first definition of a gotcha monster that actually seem to make sense: not just something unexpected, but something designed to be misleading, to trick players into doing something and then doing the opposite.

so, a wizard is not a gotcha encounter, because the players know not what spells the wizard has. it can be a gotcha encounter if the wizard has red robes with flame motives and a staff that permanently burns and he's been known to leave behind the charred remains on his enemies... and then he casts ice spells.
And in that case it may be justified, a smart opponent will try to mislead the party. but in that case at least there is a chance for them to find it out in advance.

Talakeal

2019-10-28, 11:41 AM

Homebrew comes off as "gotcha" when it subverts expectations. Does it look like an orc, but suddenly self-immolates in a massive damaging aura, triggered when the meleeists charge in? That's subverting expectations of what an orc does.

"Gotcha" is all about tricking the players (usually intentionally, but they still feel like it was done if it's unintentional). Anything that makes normal behavior, or worse, normally-smart behavior, the exact wrong choice is a "gotcha."

The more informed the players are before they commit to a choice, the less "gotcha" it can be.

The less it outright looks like something it isn't, and thus the less it sets up incorrect expectations, the less "gotcha" it can be.

A homebrew monster that the players don't recognize and have no expectations about is almost certainly not a "gotcha" monster, unless it was deliberately designed to give false impressions about what are good and bad ways to deal with it that its actual stats and powers make inverted. Particularly if what it seems by description and behavior to indicate is a good way to deal with it is exactly the worst way to deal with it.

Ok, by that logic very few monsters fall under the gotcha category.

Now, the sticky issue I think, is "learning encounters".

I often try and use principles of "show don't tell".

For example, take the War Troll, a monster that is explicitly immune to fire, the troll's normal weakness. I could bombard the players with clues, or have the quest giver come right out and say "Careful, these are WAR trolls, they can't be killed by fire, use acid!".

Instead I will make an encounter have it, have the players sent out to face what they think is a normal troll, have them fight it alone in a situation without any real danger or consequences, describe the troll as unusual, and then describe in detail how the fire has no effect. Then they can either safely defeat it using trial and error, or fall back and do some more in depth research.

In my mind the "multiplying ghost" encounter was of this type; it was in an optional side room of the dungeon, it didn't have the damage output to really hurt the party, and it wouldn't travel more than a hundred yards or so from the artifact it was haunting. The players killed it, I clearly explained that death caused it to split, and the party fell back and did some research. This went exactly as intended. The "gotcha" came from one of the players deciding I was trying to trick them and misinterpreting their research, and then refusing to follow the rest of the party's plan as a result, which doesn't really seem to have to do with the nature of the monster and could have occurred in exactly the same way if I had a literal warning sign outside of the monster's lair saying "This monster cannot be killed by conventional means and will split into two if you try!"

MeimuHakurei

2019-10-28, 12:32 PM

Talakeal, I don't know how feasible this is, but you ought to get some playtime as a player (not necessarily with your group) some time. You seem to have a hard time understanding subjective DMing mistakes, so it would help if you had a player's point of view on certain situations.

NichG

2019-10-28, 01:01 PM

Ok, by that logic very few monsters fall under the gotcha category.

Now, the sticky issue I think, is "learning encounters".

I often try and use principles of "show don't tell".

For example, take the War Troll, a monster that is explicitly immune to fire, the troll's normal weakness. I could bombard the players with clues, or have the quest giver come right out and say "Careful, these are WAR trolls, they can't be killed by fire, use acid!".

Instead I will make an encounter have it, have the players sent out to face what they think is a normal troll, have them fight it alone in a situation without any real danger or consequences, describe the troll as unusual, and then describe in detail how the fire has no effect. Then they can either safely defeat it using trial and error, or fall back and do some more in depth research.

That's... basically a gotcha monster.

I'd run that by having the creation of war trolls involve some actual in-universe activities, rather than just being randomly e.g. 'some trolls are immune to fire, surprise!'. Perhaps when normal trolls are put through a shamanistic rite, or fed on a certain diet, or cross-bred in a particular way, then a war troll might come into being. Well in advance of the encounter, I'd drop lots of opportunities to get intel about the troll forces and their operations, including things about this - a prisoner escapes reporting some kind of weird initiation ritual being performed, reports that the trolls have specifically been targeting transports carrying alchemical reagents, maybe the party stumbles upon failed attempts, or there are fragmented notes about the process that could be discovered before the encounter.

The reason I would do all of that has to do with my purpose in using the new monster. Whether or not the players figured it out in advance, I want them to have the feeling that everything clicks and makes sense once they discover the special trolls who have overcome their famous vulnerability. Rather than just being a random gimmick, it should feel like actually it means something and there's a reason why this troll is different.

Also, I would want to make very sure that in those previous hints, its clear that the focus was on fire. Otherwise, I would judge it to be very likely that players would assume that the new kind of troll is just outright invincible and cannot be killed. After all, when they see fire fail, why should they assume that acid would still work? So I want to create a situation where the players (who maybe didn't figure out the stuff about the ritual until they saw the new troll) have that 'click' moment, and can take the momentum from that to connect the dots that every hint about the ritual to create the War Troll involved only fire. That way, if they figure out that acid should still work, it will make for a great moment.

Even with all of that, I'd consider this to be of moderate risk to use - worth doing if it gets me something going forward (such as being a motivation that might get the party to investigate the salamander sponsors of the troll invasion, who themselves were coerced into helping by the manipulations of a BBEG noble efreet in the City of Brass), but not worth doing as just a throwaway gag.

Talakeal

2019-10-28, 01:13 PM

That's... basically a gotcha monster.

I'd run that by having the creation of war trolls involve some actual in-universe activities, rather than just being randomly e.g. 'some trolls are immune to fire, surprise!'. Perhaps when normal trolls are put through a shamanistic rite, or fed on a certain diet, or cross-bred in a particular way, then a war troll might come into being. Well in advance of the encounter, I'd drop lots of opportunities to get intel about the troll forces and their operations, including things about this - a prisoner escapes reporting some kind of weird initiation ritual being performed, reports that the trolls have specifically been targeting transports carrying alchemical reagents, maybe the party stumbles upon failed attempts, or there are fragmented notes about the process that could be discovered before the encounter.

The reason I would do all of that has to do with my purpose in using the new monster. Whether or not the players figured it out in advance, I want them to have the feeling that everything clicks and makes sense once they discover the special trolls who have overcome their famous vulnerability. Rather than just being a random gimmick, it should feel like actually it means something and there's a reason why this troll is different.

Also, I would want to make very sure that in those previous hints, its clear that the focus was on fire. Otherwise, I would judge it to be very likely that players would assume that the new kind of troll is just outright invincible and cannot be killed. After all, when they see fire fail, why should they assume that acid would still work? So I want to create a situation where the players (who maybe didn't figure out the stuff about the ritual until they saw the new troll) have that 'click' moment, and can take the momentum from that to connect the dots that every hint about the ritual to create the War Troll involved only fire. That way, if they figure out that acid should still work, it will make for a great moment.

Even with all of that, I'd consider this to be of moderate risk to use - worth doing if it gets me something going forward (such as being a motivation that might get the party to investigate the salamander sponsors of the troll invasion, who themselves were coerced into helping by the manipulations of a BBEG noble efreet in the City of Brass), but not worth doing as just a throwaway gag.

Which raises the question, why is a gotcha monster a bad thing?

The method you describe, where everything is clearly laid out for the players beforehand, just sounds boring.

Maybe this is because I normally play World of Darkness games rather than D&D, but as a player I rarely ever encountered something where I knew what I was fighting, let alone its weaknesses, beforehand, and more often than not I never learned what something was. And that was great fun because it was interactive, exciting, surprising, and mysterious.

The vast majority of monsters in movies and video games follow this formula.

To me the term "gotcha" has a malicious feel to it, but if all it means is letting the players feel tension and learn by doing, then maybe I do love gotcha monsters.

NichG

2019-10-28, 01:36 PM

Which raises the question, why is a gotcha monster a bad thing?

It erodes trust, teaches undesirable gaming habits, will generally be a negative experience for most players, and is largely throw-away and pointless within the larger framework of the game.

As I've said before, what a gotcha communicates is 'the GM is trying to make me feel that I made a mistake, even though I didn't'. I won't rule out that there might be some rare circumstance where that could be used to good effect, but for the most part it's just abusive.

The method you describe, where everything is clearly laid out for the players beforehand, just sounds boring.

Maybe this is because I normally play World of Darkness games rather than D&D, but as a player I rarely ever encountered something where I knew what I was fighting, let alone its weaknesses, beforehand, and more often than not I never learned what something was. And that was great fun because it was interactive, exciting, surprising, and mysterious.

The vast majority of monsters in movies and video games follow this formula.

To me the term "gotcha" has a malicious feel to it, but if all it means is letting the players feel tension and learn by doing, then maybe I do love gotcha monsters.

As other posters have said, a gotcha isn't just lack of foreknowledge, its direct subversion of expectations in a way which provokes an error that could only be avoided by metagame reading the GM's mind.

Having a big statue of liquid metal, Terminator style, that regenerates from anything but cold damage isn't a gotcha. Having a troll (traditionally vulnerable to fire) that is instead immune is a gotcha. It's using the fact that players expect that 'to fight trolls, use fire' to trick them into wrong actions.

If I'm playing WoD and I encounter a werewolf immune to silver but who takes agg from iron, a fae entity that actually becomes stronger in contact with cold iron, etc - those are gotchas. If I encounter a true fae who is repelled by rhymes, that's not a gotcha even if I didn't know that vulnerability in advance.

Kane0

2019-10-28, 02:44 PM

Which raises the question, why is a gotcha monster a bad thing?

The method you describe, where everything is clearly laid out for the players beforehand, just sounds boring.

Then your problem is not with understanding what they are, but why you don't like them. You like the obscurity and figuring it out yourself, not everybody else is the same.

Talakeal

2019-10-28, 04:11 PM

Then your problem is not with understanding what they are, but why you don't like them. You like the obscurity and figuring it out yourself, not everybody else is the same.

True, but I was only provided with that definition three days ago, and that definition excludes the vast majority of encounters that people have previously referred to as gotchas.

It erodes trust, teaches undesirable gaming habits, will generally be a negative experience for most players, and is largely throw-away and pointless within the larger framework of the game.

As I've said before, what a gotcha communicates is 'the GM is trying to make me feel that I made a mistake, even though I didn't'. I won't rule out that there might be some rare circumstance where that could be used to good effect, but for the most part it's just abusive .

I will have to to take your word for it about eroding trust, my group never had any to begin with, but I could also see it building trust in the same way one would with a therapy patient or small child; something seems scary in the moment but the DM kept you safe in the end.

I don't see how being ready for the unexpected and being prepared for anything are bad gaming habits.

Any combat encounter is largely throw away and pointless within the broader narrative, but if you dont have them the players will get bored and quit / tune out long before you get to reveal the grand meaningful stories and character arcs.

The point of a gotcha encounter is to teach the players in a relatively safe environment, I don't think there is anything abusive about it unless the DM, either in his adventure balancing or ooc conduct, somehow acts like you should have known the twist going into the encounter.

Tajerio

2019-10-28, 07:58 PM

.Any combat encounter is largely throw away and pointless within the broader narrative, but if you dont have them the players will get bored and quit / tune out long before you get to reveal the grand meaningful stories and character arcs.

That's an alarming statement on several levels, not to mention a self-fulfilling one. It suggests strongly that you believe what really matters in the game is the story you want to tell, and not what the players want to do; that you are their benevolent king and they are the uppity peasants you periodically have to appease; and that since you can't be bothered to create a story to which combat encounters can contribute, you wrongly believe that it isn't possible, and your combat encounters therefore suffer from being afterthoughts.

All of those are bad things, some more than others. It also suggests that a big part of your table's problem is you, because what you've expressed here is a horribly condescending attitude that no right-thinking player ought to be expected to tolerate. So I really hope you've misphrased here, and all you really mean to say is that you don't like combat encounters and you can't work out how to integrate them with story.

But I have my doubts.

Talakeal

2019-10-28, 08:21 PM

That's an alarming statement on several levels, not to mention a self-fulfilling one. It suggests strongly that you believe what really matters in the game is the story you want to tell, and not what the players want to do; that you are their benevolent king and they are the uppity peasants you periodically have to appease; and that since you can't be bothered to create a story to which combat encounters can contribute, you wrongly believe that it isn't possible, and your combat encounters therefore suffer from being afterthoughts.

All of those are bad things, some more than others. It also suggests that a big part of your table's problem is you, because what you've expressed here is a horribly condescending attitude that no right-thinking player ought to be expected to tolerate. So I really hope you've misphrased here, and all you really mean to say is that you don't like combat encounters and you can't work out how to integrate them with story.

But I have my doubts.

This post reads like 50 pounds of assumptions stuffed into a 10 pound bag :P

I admit I could have phrased it better, but you are reading way too much into it, to the point where I disagree with almost every word you said.

Its also funny, in the previous incarnation of this thread I was getting accused of almost the exact opposite, as evidenced here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23724662&postcount=103

Cluedrew

2019-10-28, 09:21 PM

I had an idea about the gotcha monster and how is different from "learning encounter". I will admit it is a hard idea to articulate but I'm going to try.

There are many enemies or types of encounters (whole games even) that you need to learn about to deal with effectively. One of the main aspects of a gotcha in my experience is there a point where given the information you have you have all the information you need. It forces "unconscious incompetence" in that suddenly you don't know how little you know again because the unknowns are hidden again.

My counter argument would be "but they will learn again and then continue learning as before", but I have a counter-counter argument. Gotcha monsters actually erode knowledge. Which of these two statements would you consider to have more information in it? "Trolls are weak to fire." or "Trolls may be weak to fire." To me its the first and that is despite the fact that the second takes into account the existence of both trolls and war trolls, because it doesn't actually tell you anything. "Are trolls weak to fire?" "Maybe."

If you can't take your knowledge forward, then I guess it could work as an investigation game. But even then I could make the same arguments about investigation techniques. Imagine after dozens of monsters carefully researched and defeated, you faced a monster that "Feeds on silence and inaction." and later it turns out it gets stronger every day you don't fight it.

I may come back tomorrow and think this is stupid, but for now I think it is good.

Tajerio

2019-10-28, 09:56 PM

This post reads like 50 pounds of assumptions stuffed into a 10 pound bag :P

I admit I could have phrased it better, but you are reading way too much into it, to the point where I disagree with almost every word you said.

Its also funny, in the previous incarnation of this thread I was getting accused of almost the exact opposite, as evidenced here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23724662&postcount=103

I admit to being a tad hyperbolic, but let me walk through the quotation again and show my work.

Any combat encounter is largely throw away and pointless within the broader narrative, but if you dont have them the players will get bored and quit / tune out long before you get to reveal the grand meaningful stories and character arcs.

Ok. The first part (until the "but") tells us that you don't think any given combat encounter by itself is meaningful to the narrative, and strongly implies that "the broader narrative" is the main point of the game. This is really problematic. If narrative's the main thing, why have something that takes as much time as a combat encounter in the game if it's not going to be meaningful? And why aren't you building combat encounters that are meaningful to the narrative? I assure you it can be done.

The second part tells us that the reason these combat encounters are in the game is because the players demand them, because that's what they find fun. And it strongly implies that these combat encounters are tolerated by the DM because they keep the players hanging around for his stories and character arcs. It also strongly implies that the DM has the story worked out, for the most part, beforehand--else how could stories and arcs be revealed--which means that the players have to be at least somewhat on the rails.

The logical conclusion from these points is that there are really two games going on here--one that's the kind the DM enjoys, and one that's the kind the players enjoy, and they don't exactly mesh well. That's obviously a major issue. But what makes it worse is that it falls into that classic trope of "the stupid players just want to smack stuff in the face but the DM wants to weave his masterful story." What you wrote above is what that arrogant, condescending DM would write, with bonus points for strongly implying that the DM has to bait the players into engaging with the story with combat encounter crumbs, and thereby suggesting that the DM's judgment of what is good and enjoyable is superior to that of the players.

What doesn't help your case, I might add, is that the above quotation from you, if an accurate statement of your views, makes Bob's hatred of monologues and desire to get straight to the action make a lot more sense. Because he would know that what you really value is the narrative, and that there are railroad tracks out there in service thereof, and maybe he doesn't want to ride. It would also make some of the conflicts you get into with your table make a lot more sense, because people tend to have a pretty keen sense of when someone is condescending to them, and they tend not to like it.

I think the only deductions you can really fairly quarrel with here are those in the paragraph immediately above. Those are more reliant on the context of the rest of your threads, especially since I have always found the "Talakeal's players are crazy" narrative unconvincing, and "Talakeal's players are crazy, but also deeply annoyed that he displays DM arrogance" is a more robust explanation.

If you have miscommunicated here so profoundly as to enable me to draw these conclusions while meaning something quite different, then I still think you have a very similar problem. Your players may simply have the perception that you are an arrogant my-story-or-the-high-way DM, thanks to your persistent miscommunication, and that itself is enough to screw everything up.

Talakeal

2019-10-28, 11:33 PM

snip.

The thing is, you are drawing all of this out from one sentence I typed on my cellphone at work without really thinking about it. I am not saying that you are wrong in drawing these conclusions, just that it is quite a leap.

I have been gaming with some of these people for over twenty years, so the miscommunication would have to be pretty persistent indeed for them to maintain that idea for so long.

For the record:

I do find fluff more entertaining than crunch, as both a DM and a player.
I do enjoy combat both as a DM and a player, but I enjoy it a lot more as a player as there are actual stakes and you actually want to win.
I do put a lot of effort into making (most) every encounter fun and memorable, we wouldn't have nearly so many issues with "gotchas" and the like if I didn't.
I work very hard to avoid putting railroads in my games, my players, however, wish I would use them more.
My current game is almost a complete sandbox without anything that could really be called a story.

And we can discuss this more in depth tomorrow if you want, but its late and I will leave it there for now.

NichG

2019-10-29, 12:26 AM

I will have to to take your word for it about eroding trust, my group never had any to begin with, but I could also see it building trust in the same way one would with a therapy patient or small child; something seems scary in the moment but the DM kept you safe in the end.

I don't see how being ready for the unexpected and being prepared for anything are bad gaming habits.

Any combat encounter is largely throw away and pointless within the broader narrative, but if you dont have them the players will get bored and quit / tune out long before you get to reveal the grand meaningful stories and character arcs.

The point of a gotcha encounter is to teach the players in a relatively safe environment, I don't think there is anything abusive about it unless the DM, either in his adventure balancing or ooc conduct, somehow acts like you should have known the twist going into the encounter.

So lets consider the behaviors your players have exhibited over the course of your DMing career, which have often left you frustrated, puzzled, and confused. You also have a reputation of somehow always finding the strangest and craziest players, who behave in ways that are totally unlike what other people have experienced in their gaming groups. You've demonstrated difficulty taking your players' point of view or empathizing with their concerns, and often the things you think answer their concerns actually blow up in your face.

Lets consider for a moment that maybe you aren't actually teaching your players what you believe you are.

There's a number of negative behaviors your players exhibit, things you definitely don't want them doing which you've told us about:

- Rather than give NPCs a chance to talk or potentially form alliances, you have at least one player who will initiate overwhelming aggression.

- You have at least one player who wants to fast-forward through all descriptive text, NPC narration, and the like.

- Rather than use strategic and well-reasoned mixtures of consumables to respond to specific situations and needs, your players will use less far less efficient but much more broadly reliable approaches

- Faced with things like final encounters, your players will openly metagame to just bull through the encounter.

- In the ghost situation, rather than taking you at your word and understanding your description of the scenario, you had a player who assumed you must be trying to trick them.

- When a player was absent from the table and you made what, in your mind, were reasonable interpolations of how they would behave when the party needed their assistance, they blew up and assumed you were trying to sabotage them.

To me, all of these behaviors make perfect sense if I had encountered a number of situations where by paying attention to the lore, listening to the descriptions, taking the GM's NPCs on good faith, etc, those actions ended up hurting me more than if I had just totally ignored the GM and tuned out the game. By running a gotcha, you aren't teaching players to play thoughtfully and prudently, you're teaching them that you as the GM are an unreliable narrator, and that the best strategy is to basically prevent you from being able to talk at all - because in the past when they've listened to you and taken what you said as informing them as to the way your world works, as often as not it has been not just uninformative, but in the end actively misleading.

You aren't teaching players to play smart, you're teaching them to detach from the game, because nothing in the game can be trusted. This is what leads to players who will collapse a dungeon with explosives rather than try to engage with it; players who will kill the NPC who is trying to tell the party their sob story because it will prevent that NPC from getting other players on their side just to betray them later.

The constant of Talakeal's bizarro world is Talakeal - consider that it may not just be that you're getting unreasonable players, but that you're actually training your players to be unreasonable. Because being unreasonable and sabotaging the GM's ability to run the game is the only strategy that your players have left to them in a world where the things you've learned will be actively turned against you.

Satinavian

2019-10-29, 02:23 AM

Which raises the question, why is a gotcha monster a bad thing? Because they invaluate the lore the players already have and all strategies based on lore and mechanics.

It does not reward tactical behavior. Instead it punishes it, it basically guarantees a loss in an encounter entered with a sound tacticle plan. Instead it rewards what seems as random trials to find out more about this specific monster and calles that "learning" - only that, when finally done, the learned stuff is pretty useless because the monster was uncommon or even unique anyway.

So yes, that is generally a bad thing.

The vast majority of monsters in movies and video games follow this formula.In horror movies that is common because that is a major horror technique - produce helplessness and hopelessness by making standard tools/procedures useless and hide knowledge needed to produce a viable replacement (until maybe the end of the story)

If your genre is not horror, you only get player annoyance out of it because helplessness and frustration is rarely fun.

I will have to to take your word for it about eroding trust, my group never had any to begin with, but I could also see it building trust in the same way one would with a therapy patient or small child; something seems scary in the moment but the DM kept you safe in the end.Players are not small children and a DM is not a therapist. "Being kept safe by the DM" is not a pleasent experience at all. And considering that this monster only is there because the DM put it there, i don't see how such a thing ever could build trust instead of resentment.

I don't see how being ready for the unexpected and being prepared for anything are bad gaming habits.Because you can't prepare for everything. Either you end up holed in in your base as some kind of superparanoid prepper and are still not prepared enough or you basically stop preparing and take whatever comes because you know that you don't know enough to prepared for what comes anyway, so there is no point in prepairing at all.

Yes, both are bad gaming habits.

And as for story and character arcs : because those surprise monsters don't come naturally out of what is already established about the world, they render game world lore less relevant than it should be. It shows the players that what they knows about the world is less true and certainly less relevant than they thought. That hurts immersion and engagement with your world. It will only lead to players caring less about the story and even their character arcs.

Great Dragon

2019-10-29, 07:39 AM

I have been gaming with some of these people for over twenty years, so the miscommunication would have to be pretty persistent indeed for them to maintain that idea for so long.

I find it rather strange that in 20 years these Players haven't adapted to everyone involved in the game. Either the DM adjusting to the Players - or them adapting to the DM.
Preferably a blending of both these. Old Players showing the New Players the ropes from Day One, so they understand what is going on and is expected in the game from the DM.

For the record:
(1) I do find fluff more entertaining than crunch, as both a DM and a player.

(2) I do enjoy combat both as a DM and a player, but I enjoy it a lot more as a player as there are actual stakes and you actually want to win.

(3) I do put a lot of effort into making (most) every encounter fun and memorable, we wouldn't have nearly so many issues with "gotchas" and the like if I didn't.

(4) I work very hard to avoid putting railroads in my games, my players, however, wish I would use them more.

(5) My current game is almost a complete sandbox without anything that could really be called a story.

1 - Then perhaps showing what the Fluff grants, in all the Pillars of the Game, is needed?
I see lots of really Great Ideas for my games in a lot of places in the Media.
But, unless I can figure out the Mechanics to show the Players how to use them during the game, they just don’t have the effect that I was aiming for.

2 - I agree that Combat is less "rewarding" as the DM. But the answer for me is - designing Villains and not just Monsters. Putting in Personality Quirks and unusual abilities but are obvious and (for New Players) easy to figure out Weaknesses.
Building mystery (Scooby Doo style) by having the PCs encounter the NPCs that talk about the Monster instead of just jumping straight into battling The Monster of the Week can be fun - but not for those players where they got sick of the running around that kind of ‘story’ involves.

(3) You like designing encounters that “Go Against the Grain” (doing the opposite of what is normal) or that break “Cliche trends” (War Trolls) but then you also prefer to hide all the information and that the Players must play 20k Questions (usually involving combat) and providing information only after they have gotten their Butts Kicked and go limping to whatever NPC you decided to have the pertinent information. Where there’s a long Movie Dialog Scene.
That’s your “Gotcha”. I’m not surprised that Bob and Company tend to just go Murder Hobo a lot. This seems to be broken communication on Play style.

(4) Railroading. Now, I tend to use Modules (from all Editions of D&D, and sometimes other Games) where a lot of the ‘story’ is preplanned. But even here, I don’t do the Video Game “You must go to Such-and-Such (person) to learn about The Castle (Location) and get the Oaken Stake (The McGuffin) in order to Unlock the next (Encounter/Location) against Stradhe.”

No, I allow the Players to determine where they go, and adapt what happens through the actions of their Characters. Heck, Half the available Encounters for either of my Groups is still unused!
Will it ever get used? IDK - that’s up to the Players. The Quest Clues are still there, new information/rumors about those Quests can be gotten with investigation and gathering information.

A - Rather than give NPCs a chance to talk or potentially form alliances, you have at least one player who will initiate overwhelming aggression.

B - You have at least one player who wants to fast-forward through all descriptive text, NPC narration, and the like.

C - Rather than use strategic and well-reasoned mixtures of consumables to respond to specific situations and needs, your players will use less far less efficient but much more broadly reliable approaches

D - Faced with things like final encounters, your players will openly metagame to just bull through the encounter.

E - In the ghost situation, rather than taking you at your word and understanding your description of the scenario, you had a player who assumed you must be trying to trick them.

F - When a player was absent from the table and you made what, in your mind, were reasonable interpolations of how they would behave when the party needed their assistance, they blew up and assumed you were trying to sabotage them.

A - Because there are not very many In Game rewards for engaging in Talking.
Heck, to me - For this group, Alliances seem to be very temporary things - even between the Players.

B - Most likely because this doesn’t (directly) involve the PC and there’s not much benefit for doing it. Perhaps just typing up the “Monologue” and handing it out would be better?
Each Player can then decide whether or not they want to read it.
I would Reward those that do, and ignore those that don’t.

C - Use of consumables really shouldn’t be part of any ‘strategic planning’.
The Players only saw Consumables as a Money Sink, instead of a “Healing Potions can save us when the Healer runs out of spells.” or “This can really help my PC if we run into X!”

D - These players seem to never stop metagaming, actually.
Normal Play: “We can’t die anyway, so no point in wasting money on non-permanent buffs.”

Final Battle: “Where the money is mostly pointless anyway? Sure, buy a metric ton of potions, scrolls, wands and stuff - and then burn them up first to mow through the resource draining Traps and Minions and use our actual Powers directly against the BBEG.”

E - Which, as I stated before, is either a Trust Issue - or an undercover Muder Hobo.

F - I refuse to play someone’s PC (especially as the DM), because of this happening too often to me.

And as for story and character arcs : because those surprise monsters don't come naturally out of what is already established about the world, they render game world lore less relevant than it should be. It shows the players that what they knows about the world is less true and certainly less relevant than they thought. That hurts immersion and engagement with your world. It will only lead to players caring less about the story and even their character arcs.

Very nice outline.
On the flip side, a Monster that resulted because of the Arc that a Character created can be cool.
Having the Lore of this Monster's creation be something that can be discovered as the Pc/s both investigate and battle it can be awesome.

But, like Satinavian said, unless it re-enforces the World Lore, it's just a One Shot Encounter.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-29, 08:14 AM

This thread is producing a lot of insight.
You can use those elements of surprise in moderation, the more sparsely the less trust you have from the players. So, in your case, not really. The damage may be beyond mending.

By the way tal, you say that as a player you like to be surprised. But how often? Because if it went to the point where you never understand what's going on, it would get pointless. And most gamers don't share your view either. They want control. They want to understand what's going on to face a challenge. Like a professional athlete, they want to know how the ball and the field will react to make a good performance. They do not want to have a ball that goes in different directions after being thrown the same way. That's the kind of thing that make them stop caring. Because they are inquisitive people, they don't want mistery, they want answers.
As for feeling that 'the dm is keeping them safe', that undervalues their efforts. It is demeaning AND insulting. It doesn't help with trust. I'm not sure what does, frankly.

Last but not least, for the " monsters in movies are rarely statted": we told you time and again that what works in movies and in rpg is different. And most action movies don't make sense in the first place and an rpg group would handle those situations much more efficiently.
You have to shift a bit your expectations. Which is not to say that you cannot have cool scenes, but you have to prepare them differently. Often you have to grab them as they unpredictably arise

zinycor

2019-10-29, 08:27 AM

I take issue with the idea that the "hydra-ghost" was somehow a safe weak monster meant to show a mechanic, after all that monster managed to deal a TPK on the players.

BTW, what are your feelings on running games on easy mode?, seems like some of your players would appreciate it but you don't like the idea of running such a game.

Talakeal

2019-10-29, 10:08 AM

Kardwill

2019-10-29, 11:36 AM

kyoryu

2019-10-29, 11:45 AM

Talakeal

2019-10-29, 12:48 PM

Giving up the ability doesn't make the encounter easy.

Take the exploding orc I mentioned earlier. Yeah, you can hide the ability, and then likely get a use of it that does a lot of damage like dropping down a big bomb card in M:tG. That's a great experience for you as a GM, but less so for the players.

Let's say that you super telegraph the ability, so the players KNOW what the orc can do. That doesn't make it easy.

What it means is that now the players don't want to get close to the orc, and definitely not bunch up on the orc. So you can use that to disrupt their formations and influence where they go and how they move. Instead of it being a one-time damage bomb surprise, and yeah, maybe "gotcha", it is now a factor in every turn, and impacts their thinking all the time throughout the encounter.

That's not easy. That's waaaaay more interesting.

Knowing capabilities does not mean the game is easy. Chess is not easy because you know what all the pieces do.

Question, are you saying that I shouldn't be lowering the CR of encounters where surprise is a factor, saying that surprise isn't a factor in difficulty at all, or that I shouldn't rely on surprises to challenge my players (I don't)?

I agree, a fight where you know what is going on is more tactically interesting. I don't use surprises to make fights better, and ideally the players will figure out gimmicks before the fight gets going.

I use surprises because they are exciting, because learning something on your own rather than being told it is both more interesting and more satisfying, and because telegraphing too hard breaks verisimilitude. It has nothing to do with making better combats or challenging the PCs.

NichG

2019-10-29, 01:07 PM

Out of curiosity, is the gotcha monster one where you do something that is different compared to that monster or compared to monsters in general?

For example, normal bullets will kill most things, but do nothing to a werewolf, for that you need a silver bullet. Does that make a werewolf a gotcha monster? (Assuming your players / characters don't know what a werewolf is going into the encounter).

Gotchas are things which exploit something about expectations to make the impact of the surprise more severe than if you simply didn't know. Those could be expectations in specific, or expectations in general. A werewolf is not a gotcha, but a werewolf that is healed by silver would be a gotcha, because through common culture people expect silver to be a vulnerability of werewolves and for werewolves to be really tough/regenerate/etc outside of their vulnerability.

An enemy that looks and acts just like some random humanoid, but just happens to be immune to damage that isn't silver is a gotcha, because the expectation is that unless there's some reason for it, damage works on characters.

If the reason was that the enemy happened to be a werewolf but was staying in human form, then its more subtle. If for example the locals have been missing livestock, particularly on full moons, then even if the enemy doesn't e.g. transform during battle, I'd say it's not a gotcha for most groups (there's a puzzle: put together that the reason this guy isn't getting hurt is connected with the animal killings). If they find out afterwards 'he was a werewolf, he's responsible for the killings' then it makes sense in retrospect - it was fair game, essentially, and they simply failed a challenge that was possible to pass. If on the other hand this secret werewolf is just some random unit mixed in with others - if the players say 'how should we have known to use silver here?' and there is no good answer - then it's a gotcha.

After all, we could be talking about silver and werewolves, but I could have run an encounter where for example there was some homebrew monster that could only be harmed by bludgeoning damage dealt by a weapon made of sardonyx. If I do that, and don't actually construct a way to somehow discover that vulnerability in advance without just trying every possible material, then I might as well just say 'this monster is immune to damage'. I don't get to say to the players afterwards 'no, no, it was totally solvable, you just had to pelt it with the gemstones from your last haul and you would have figured out the vulnerability!'.

Again, I am not sure what you mean by "things you know are actively turned against you". Could you please give some examples?

I'm going to leave off direct examples from your campaigns, and talk about things from various stages of D&D instead, because otherwise there's context information I can't be sure of.

The troll example: If you're a moderately experienced player (e.g. you've played D&D and computer games, but you don't have encyclopedic knowledge of every WotC web enhancement), you know 'when fighting trolls, they regenerate, and you need to use fire to prevent that'. So now, you have the war troll. Its a troll but fire does nothing. Your prior knowledge has been used to make you take a wrong action that you might not have taken against some other creature.

Similarly, Draconomicon has a bunch of monster build options for dragons to make them defy a really strong pattern that D&D has established over decades. Now, via metabreath and other gimmicks, that red dragon can be immune to cold and breathe lightning! Players, taking the effort to investigate and discovering 'there's a red dragon in the hills nearby', will prep fire resistance and cold attacks. The Draconomicon options basically encourage DMs to invalidate that experience, to make discovering the color of the dragon meaningless. Gotcha!

Caryatid columns are another 'gotcha' in 3ed. Normally, there's no real mechanism for weapon damage outside of intentional Sunder attempts. You can attack an Adamantine Golem with a mundane sword and never have to worry about nicks in the blade. But now, here's a golem - same type of thing, made of the same materials - that just happens to chew up your weapons when you attack it. D&D informs you 'abandon the logic of what materials damage each-other, that's misleading in this system' ... except in this one case, where it will cause you to lose your weapons because suddenly that logic is supposed to apply again. Gotcha!

In older editions, there's a strong suggestion of a particular standard operating procedure for exploring a dungeon. 'Listen at doors checks' are a core derived stat on your sheet, not just some obscure use of a skill. So the expectation is you go corridor by corridor, listen at doors, estimate the threat in the next room, go in smart or don't go in at all, etc. Enter the ear wig, which specifically punishes players who are savvy enough to understand the kind of cautious play that the system is encouraging you to do. Gotcha!

These things don't teach you to be smarter or clever or learn from experience, they teach you that it's not just that sometimes the system leaves out things and is incomplete knowledge of the world (which would be fine) - but rather, the system actively lies to you out of character, and then punishes you for taking it at its word.

How tricksy a DM would you have to be to make players think that a potion of fly wont help them reach a flying opponent, ghost touch oil won't help them hit an incorporeal opponent, cure poison potions won't cure poison, water breathing potions won't help them underwater, etc.? Because that is the kind of stuff I am talking about.

Given a DM that has indicated that they actively want to catch me by my expectations and punish me for them, NOT a normal DM:

If the last time I tried to fly I found that the enemy could sneeze and create an impromptu Gust of Wind that blew me out of the sky, and I believed (because the DM liked the players to experience failure as a 'learning experience') that it was done because the DM anticipated the strong tactical advantage granted by flight and wanted to shut it down, I might just give up flying altogether, assuming that even if the rules allow it, the DM is going to find excuses to make it not work.

I might assume that the next time I get poisoned, it won't be a normal poison, it will be a magical toxin that isn't simply cured by cure poison (or, if the DM wants to make it seem like my fault, it could require a caster level check which is conveniently out of the range of my potions or some other kind of thing).

I might assume that if I get some water breathing, the DM will just not run anything where going underwater would be useful. Or will run stuff where the water is acid, or the waters of an enchanted fountain that slowly transform you to stone, or will use a monster that can Dispel the potion effect and thereby leave me underwater and drowning, rather than slightly inconvenienced from trying to attack from above the surface.

But even beyond the level of that, if I was just sick of the gimmicks and gotchas, I might intentionally make sure that my character can't respond to any kind of nontrivial situation because dealing with those things is taking the bait. If the DM is going to punish me for trying to think or engage with their world, the only power I have (other than walking away, which is actually what I'd do), is to just stonewall that and refuse to care. Let someone else spend the resources to get the potions just to find that they were never needed.

Normally, I would never assume these things with a DM, but that's because I only game with people I trust. But I can empathize with this kind of player point of view because I've actually, once, been in that kind of situation. Maybe a year after I first started playing tabletop games, I had a DM kill my character in offscreen narrative mode. I'd played in another campaign with that DM before, and really enjoyed it, so I trusted them. But they were running a different setting that they had really rigid opinions about (L5R), and 'because your honorable samurai character refused the obvious manipulative deal of the super ninja mafia to become their traitor in the party, they're just going to poison you at night and you die'.

So my next character was designed specifically to care not at all about honor or status - to basically take everything that characters in the setting are supposed to live or die on, the stuff that the DM had told us was so important and asked us to take seriously, and say 'this all doesn't matter, I will do the completely craven optimal thing in all circumstances, because that is the true reality behind how this setting is actually being run'. The DM hated that character. In the end, we were able to regain equilibrium and the last third of the campaign was good, but it was rough and I still remember it (and having had that experience, if something like that happened again I'd just not agree to continue playing the game unless we talked it out and I was satisfied by the conclusion of that discussion). And honestly, I'd probably avoid L5R with that DM even now, something like a decade later.

Talakeal

2019-10-29, 01:47 PM

Given a DM that has indicated that they actively want to catch me by my expectations and punish me for them, NOT a normal DM:

If the last time I tried to fly I found that the enemy could sneeze and create an impromptu Gust of Wind that blew me out of the sky, and I believed (because the DM liked the players to experience failure as a 'learning experience') that it was done because the DM anticipated the strong tactical advantage granted by flight and wanted to shut it down, I might just give up flying altogether, assuming that even if the rules allow it, the DM is going to find excuses to make it not work.

I might assume that the next time I get poisoned, it won't be a normal poison, it will be a magical toxin that isn't simply cured by cure poison (or, if the DM wants to make it seem like my fault, it could require a caster level check which is conveniently out of the range of my potions or some other kind of thing).

I might assume that if I get some water breathing, the DM will just not run anything where going underwater would be useful. Or will run stuff where the water is acid, or the waters of an enchanted fountain that slowly transform you to stone, or will use a monster that can Dispel the potion effect and thereby leave me underwater and drowning, rather than slightly inconvenienced from trying to attack from above the surface.

But even beyond the level of that, if I was just sick of the gimmicks and gotchas, I might intentionally make sure that my character can't respond to any kind of nontrivial situation because dealing with those things is taking the bait. If the DM is going to punish me for trying to think or engage with their world, the only power I have (other than walking away, which is actually what I'd do), is to just stonewall that and refuse to care. Let someone else spend the resources to get the potions just to find that they were never needed.

Isn't that just boarding the crazy train though?

Because you find a single monster that has a single attack you didn't know about which happens to be effective against you, you A: Assume the DM did it maliciously, B: Assume it is going to be a pattern of behavior, and C: Take it to the extreme and decide that since one thing unexpected occurred and therefore all logic is thrown out the window.

Also, that wasn't the player who didn't use consumables. He would turn into an elemental and then scorch the enemy until it was dead, and that tactic worked against 95% of all enemies. It was mostly the barbarian / alchemist who constantly bemoaned the fact that he couldn't hit the enemy and felt worthless any time they fought an incorporeal / flying / climbing / swimming / kiting enemy.

Also, how would you feel (or the hypothetical player) feel about the situation if it played out exactly the same instead of a "custom fomorian with a gust of wind breath weapon to give it a fairytale ogre vibe" is was a "Storm giant strait out of the monster manual using its control weather ability."

Edit: Also, I notice you keep using the word "punish" and I am really not sure what you mean in this context. Also, you put "learning experience" in quotes, which implies you are using it sarcastically. Do note that when I say learning encounter, I am not talking about teaching the players to be better gamers or trying to deliver a life lesson or any of that crap, I am merely referring to using a new or unusual monster in a low difficulty encounter without consequences so that they can figure out how to deal with that specific monster naturally rather than distorting the narrative to deliver a deluge of clues that can't possibly be missed and then throwing them into a fight with normal difficulty and consequences.

kyoryu

2019-10-29, 02:22 PM

Also, how would you feel (or the hypothetical player) feel about the situation if it played out exactly the same instead of a "custom fomorian with a gust of wind breath weapon to give it a fairytale ogre vibe" is was a "Storm giant strait out of the monster manual using its control weather ability."

I wouldn't mind it.

It's a storm giant. Controlling storms makes sense. If it happens, I go "oh, of course, that makes sense."

An ogre blowing his nose to create a gust of wind sufficient to knock people around doesn't. If it happens, I go "WTF?"

Talakeal

2019-10-29, 02:47 PM

I wouldn't mind it.

It's a storm giant. Controlling storms makes sense. If it happens, I go "oh, of course, that makes sense."

An ogre blowing his nose to create a gust of wind sufficient to knock people around doesn't. If it happens, I go "WTF?"

I legitimately have no idea if a 10+ ton giant could blow over a person. If you have any data I would actually love to see it incase it ever comes up again.

But remember, this guy was a fairy, I am not sure if real world logic should really apply to encounters with the fey, and I chose this ability over a more standard ranged attack because it seemed to work with fairy logic.

Also, does your answer change if you didn't know what type of giant it was before the fight? Because the premise is that the player assumes I am adding abilities to screw him over, couldnt I just as easilly, or actually significantly more easilly, swap out giant types on the fly?

Reversefigure4

2019-10-29, 04:13 PM

Because the premise is that the player assumes I am adding abilities to screw him over, couldnt I just as easilly, or actually significantly more easilly, swap out giant types on the fly?

Easily, yes. It's one way a GM can erode trust with players ("Hmm, since I can see the Wizard Pete Pyromaniac uses only fire spells, I'll put this fire immune creature here").

Player Trust is a wonderful thing, and the best tool at the table for being able to create all sorts of interesting plots and encounters. I've played at tables where players will happily surrender, be captured, and hand over all their gear without rolling a single die because they know it will lead to a fun and interesting Escape From Prison encounter - they trust the GM enough to blindly surrender into an unknown fate, because they've done that sort of thing before and know it leads to a fun game. I've played at tables where the characters actively kill themselves rather than submit to any sort of capture by anyone for any reason, because the players know it invariably leads to torture and the character being crippled into uselessness.

With trust, Fire Wizard vs Fire Immune Creature is an interesting and different challenge. With no trust, it looks like the DM is screwing your character. Even with trust, continue to put in a huge number of Fire Immune Creatures, and the interesting encounter becomes a frustrating experience, and trust is eroded.

At a table with enough trust, a gotcha monster can be a lot of fun when using in an interesting way. Even then, they're best only used periodically, and should allow either foreshadowing ("While walking, you notice birds do not go to the top of this mountain because of the strange winds"), or knowledge checks ("You've never seen this type of creature before, but it looks like some sort of fey mutation. It's large nose is likely capable of strange attacks, including blowing harsh winds").

Things like Unique Monsters or certain Plot Twists ("The trusted NPC betrays you"), if used over and over again, erode that trust. Once the 5th NPC betrays them, the players start distrusting every quest-giving NPC.

That trust is already long gone at your table. Correct or not, the players don't trust you on several levels. They assume that they can't rely on the GM for information, because it will only be given in nonsensical riddle format that doesn't mean what it sounds like. They assume their choices in the plot don't matter, because high-powered NPCs will come along to railroad them to the "correct" point of the narrative regardless. They assume their spell and gear selection is of limited purpose, because if you build Fire Wizard the GM will give you Fire Immune Creatures to encounter. It doesn't even matter if this is true - their perception of how the table works is all that matters.

When you start on less than zero trust, where the players assume the worst of the GM - where you and your players are at - you can't use gotcha monsters at all until you've built that trust up again. They trust you much less than any random DM at a one-shot, so you have to work a lot harder to even get back to zero trust. You need a radical change, like shifting genres or systems, or running a pre-written Adventure Path without alterations, or openly telling the players about the monster's special abilities, or the like.

patchyman

2019-10-29, 04:32 PM

But remember, this guy was a fairy, I am not sure if real world logic should really apply to encounters with the fey, and I chose this ability over a more standard ranged attack because it seemed to work with fairy logic.

Were your characters aware that this ogre was a fairy?

Segev

2019-10-29, 04:33 PM

There are a number of ways to do "learning encounters." Some involve "gotchas," hopefully only on the first time.

A monster the party has never seen before, that doesn't look enough like any other monsters for them to assume "it probably has these strengths and weaknesses," can be a mystery, or a puzzle they have to solve. The pitfalls here, if you want to avoid "gotchas," are having descriptive clues that are directly misleading, including making it seem to have an ice motif when it actually is fiery, or seeming too much like a known monster when its strengths and weaknesses are wildly different.
A monster which the party first hears about from people who fought it, or first sees fought by somebody else. A War Troll that isn't vulnerable to fire damage could have survivors report, "It wasn't like a normal troll. We hit it with fire, and it did NOTHING!" or they could watch it charge against a fire-using mage without a care.
A monster which DOES serve as a "gotcha" still can play out much like the first bullet point. The key here is to make sure that you don't keep introducing "gotchas" to the point that they can't learn the proper behavior. The war troll needs to be visibly distinct from a normal troll, sufficient that they know (after figuring it out) whether THIS monster regenerates from fire damage or not. And then you can't keep introducing more trolls that look like ones they already know about, but which have different immunities and weaknesses. It gets to the point that the players are forced to think, "Okay, it's a troll. We know nothing about it, other than it's big and clawy and bitey. Time to start randomly trying things until something works."

The third bullet is, I think, key to the difference between a "gotcha" and a true "learning monster." It's only a "gotcha" once, and it provides enough information that they can react appropriately to it the next time they see it...and they should know it the next time they see it.

The mimic is a gotcha because it makes all the usual tests for traps fail, or worse, counterproductive (due to its glue power that can stick somebody searching for traps to it). The ear worm is a gotcha because it turns a valuable tactic in dungeon-crawling into a dangerous and bad idea, usually with no warning if you didn't already know the DM used them.

Importantly, gotchas warp the behavior of players and their characters into doing apparently-stupid things because they punish apparently-smart things.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-29, 04:42 PM

Note that what I mean by that is sending them on appropriate CR modules AND taking their lack of knowledge about a foe into account when balancing encounters, which I don't think is unusual play at all.
I'm more talking about the whole "death has no consequence" thing.

Out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about the advice people have been giving up thread about how I should pile on obvious clues as to the monster's capabilities, or simply hand out stat cards at the start of every encounter? Because imo those feel significantly more condescending.

depends on what you consider "obvious" clues.
but depends mostly and especially by player trust

As for handing stats, I normally don't do it, but I do it whenever I think the players may feel cheated. which is whenever the monster I use pulls an ability apparently (from their perspective, including some ignorance about the rules) from their ass. or when there is a mechanical option that may not be clear.
For example, when I made the plastic trash mound (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22242709&postcount=1), and that monster has a bundle of fishing nets that it uses as an attack, I straight out told the players that when you are trapped by the nets you can - deal damage to the nets - try to free yourself with a STR check (not efficient) - try escape artist - try use rope. because it's clear what you can try to free yourself when you are entnagled by nets, but it's not clear mechanically.
I also made sure that the party knew of dioxin smoke; they were warned by the druids that asked them to deal with the plastic invasion. those two informations I would have disclosed. Those druids also warned them that most elemental damage didn't work against plastic, but only because it would make sense that they'd have tried to fight plastic themselves and failed. I could have let the party figure those out for themselves otherwise.

Another example is the cute fluffy infernal killer bunnies of cuddly death (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22242709&postcount=1). I made sure they knew the nether planes were full of cute fluffy bunnies that were somehow the worst of its denizens. while I left most of their skills vague, those bunnies were so cute that you need a successful will save to hurt them, and that one I did state it out ooc the first time someone tried to attack a rabbit and was asked a saving throw. Because from a player perspective there's a huge difference between "i tried to attack it and i didn't, WTF?" and "ok, it's just another defence that I have to overcome". also the part where they reform if they weren't hit at least three times, because if the party was to see them reform without a clue as to why and how to stop it, it would have been bad.

As for the malevolent homicidal pineapple (still on the same link), i made sure that they knew most of it. I wanted to insert it to give a horror feel of "there is stuff down there that's just stronger than you" (the party was around level 10 at the time). At the same time, if I had - with no forewarning - dropped a gargantuan pineapple plant on them that would hit them with a pineapple flail, which would explode on impact, and implant them with seeds that would deal increasing damage over time and were resistant to being healed, all the while absorbing their spells and being invisible from a distance... well, my players would have called it bs. And they would have been right. I wanted this thing that needed to be evaded and it had those horrible attacks, I had to make sure the party knew what they needed to deal with it.

Now, in my case some of my players were a bit on the whiny side, though nowhere near like yours (and they do trust me, they just whine). hence why extra care to not throw at them anything that may make them feel cheated.

In the group where I play we have better group dynamics and less whining. And the dm sometimes throws unexpected stuff. But sometimes he still has to fix ooc when he sees something is having undesired effects.
As an example of that, one monster we faced dealt damage as "corruption stacks", and we were terrified by this thing because we had no flippin idea what they meant. I took 4 corruption stacks! How much is that? Am I going to die soon? Shall we escape?
And it was too much. It made the encounter too unpredictable from our perspective, we had no idea if we were winning or losing and it was affecting our decision-making. So the dm declared ooc that we were mostly fine as long as corruption was lower than our hit points. We still had to go through trial and error to find which spells would heal it, though.

long story short: what you're doing is not wrong with the right people, but it was the wrong thing to do with your players.
which is what i've been saying all the time, basically

Reversefigure4

2019-10-29, 04:46 PM

Talakeal

2019-10-29, 06:32 PM

One thought, Talakeal, is to flip all your encounters and narratives around and try and look at them from the point of view of a player who doesn't trust the GM at all.

DM's POV: "So the Rogue will blow out their lantern, leading to a cool roleplaying encounter in the dark".
Player's POV: "Why didn't I get some sort of check to notice this or prevent it from happening? Right, because the GM demands we be disadvantaged to fight his monsters. Must mean combat again."

DM's POV: "The Mind Flayers will turn out to actually be good guys who want to help, but I'd better put a lot of them there in case the players try to attack them."
Player's POV: "Jeez, look how many NPCs are here. They're going to try and force us into something, but only after a lengthy and pointless monologue since we won't have any choice but to go along with them. Also, Mind Flayers are evil, so they'll betray us. Let's see if I can shortcut this BS by just starting combat with them."

DM's POV: "A Sneeze Ogre is a kind of fairy tale type monster, and it will counteract flying creatures."
Player's POV: "WTF? An Ogre with a giant nose that can just magically somehow counter my Gust of Wind ability that I spent spell slots on? How was anyone supposed to see that coming? Gah. Guess there's no point in flying, since monsters will just develop "sneeze" powers to stop me, so I'll steer clear of flight from hereon. Also, this encounter sucks."

It may not be what you intend, but that's what you get when the players don't trust you. If you want to rebuild that trust, whenever you come up with a "cool" encounter or narrative, turn it on it's head and think "Is there a way this could look like I am screwing and/or railroading the players?"

Those specific examples didn't actually play out like that; they did get a roll to notice the rogue, the mind flayers weren't good, there were only four of them, and the player continued to turn incorporeal every fight for the remainder of the campaign.

On a more general principle though, I don't think I can do this. I literally can't think of an encounter that can't come across as a screw job if you take it in bad faith, my players have asked me not to tailor encounters to their characters, and it prevents me from using any sort of "good" challenge.

There are a number of ways to do "learning encounters." Some involve "gotchas," hopefully only on the first time.

A monster the party has never seen before, that doesn't look enough like any other monsters for them to assume "it probably has these strengths and weaknesses," can be a mystery, or a puzzle they have to solve. The pitfalls here, if you want to avoid "gotchas," are having descriptive clues that are directly misleading, including making it seem to have an ice motif when it actually is fiery, or seeming too much like a known monster when its strengths and weaknesses are wildly different.
A monster which the party first hears about from people who fought it, or first sees fought by somebody else. A War Troll that isn't vulnerable to fire damage could have survivors report, "It wasn't like a normal troll. We hit it with fire, and it did NOTHING!" or they could watch it charge against a fire-using mage without a care.
A monster which DOES serve as a "gotcha" still can play out much like the first bullet point. The key here is to make sure that you don't keep introducing "gotchas" to the point that they can't learn the proper behavior. The war troll needs to be visibly distinct from a normal troll, sufficient that they know (after figuring it out) whether THIS monster regenerates from fire damage or not. And then you can't keep introducing more trolls that look like ones they already know about, but which have different immunities and weaknesses. It gets to the point that the players are forced to think, "Okay, it's a troll. We know nothing about it, other than it's big and clawy and bitey. Time to start randomly trying things until something works."

The third bullet is, I think, key to the difference between a "gotcha" and a true "learning monster." It's only a "gotcha" once, and it provides enough information that they can react appropriately to it the next time they see it...and they should know it the next time they see it.

The mimic is a gotcha because it makes all the usual tests for traps fail, or worse, counterproductive (due to its glue power that can stick somebody searching for traps to it). The ear worm is a gotcha because it turns a valuable tactic in dungeon-crawling into a dangerous and bad idea, usually with no warning if you didn't already know the DM used them.

Importantly, gotchas warp the behavior of players and their characters into doing apparently-stupid things because they punish apparently-smart things.

Of course.

As I said, I only use "gotchas" in the case of learning encounters; which people are forming a negative opinion about in and of itself.

Were your characters aware that this ogre was a fairy?

I don't recall. I don't think so, but they learned it shortly after the first encounter.

Also, I really wish people would stop calling it an ogre. It didn't look like an ogre, act like an ogre, have the stats of an ogre, or anything like that. I didn't call it an ogre to the players or on the forum; I merely said that I wanted the encounter to have the feel of a fairytale ogre like the one in Puss and Boots.

kyoryu

2019-10-29, 08:51 PM

Last but not least, for the " monsters in movies are rarely statted": we told you time and again that what works in movies and in rpg is different. And most action movies don't make sense in the first place and an rpg group would handle those situations much more efficiently.
You have to shift a bit your expectations. Which is not to say that you cannot have cool scenes, but you have to prepare them differently. Often you have to grab them as they unpredictably arise

Movies are usually really good about "showing you how the monster works." That's why various minor characters are always the first one to get hit by the monster's ability. That makes the scene with the monsters have internal logic and not feel stupid. It increases tension.

NichG

2019-10-29, 10:05 PM

Isn't that just boarding the crazy train though?

Because you find a single monster that has a single attack you didn't know about which happens to be effective against you, you A: Assume the DM did it maliciously, B: Assume it is going to be a pattern of behavior, and C: Take it to the extreme and decide that since one thing unexpected occurred and therefore all logic is thrown out the window.

Also, how would you feel (or the hypothetical player) feel about the situation if it played out exactly the same instead of a "custom fomorian with a gust of wind breath weapon to give it a fairytale ogre vibe" is was a "Storm giant strait out of the monster manual using its control weather ability."

Not 'because you find a single monster'. I'm describing the mindset that results after repeated exposure to gotchas, betrayals of trust, the DM invalidating their efforts, ignoring their requests, gaslighting them, etc. That 'crazy train' you describe is the natural end state of learning to distrust the DM. Gotchas, individually, erode a bit of trust. Taken together, lots of gotchas totally erode trust.

About every two weeks (as often as you game, I believe?) you come and post another update, and for the last three months at least they've all included some kind of conflict between player expectations and what you've done. The real troublemakers in your group have been gaming with you for, what, 10 years now? If you only run a gotcha once every two months (1 in 4 sessions), that's still 60 gotchas over the course of their gaming career with you if I have my numbers right.

A player who still has their trust intact should generally be able to weather the fairytale ogre without kicking over the table or becoming paranoid. A player whose trust has been eroded by a succession of small things, or who has experienced what has felt to them like a significant betrayal, will pitch a fit even over the storm giant.

Once trust has been lost to this extent, there really isn't anything you can do that is right anymore. They still haven't gotten over the old stuff that they remember you doing, so even if you do something better now they're not going to suddenly turn into reasonable players. This entire discussion about gotchas is meaningful in that, lets say you drop this group as you said you would do and a year from now you start up a campaign with a new group. Those people will, hopefully, be reasonable players rather than already being 'crazy train' players. But if you don't understand how elements of your preferred style can teach people these bad behaviors, I think it highly likely that you would once again find yourself having to deal with this kind of thing all over again.

Edit: Also, I notice you keep using the word "punish" and I am really not sure what you mean in this context. Also, you put "learning experience" in quotes, which implies you are using it sarcastically. Do note that when I say learning encounter, I am not talking about teaching the players to be better gamers or trying to deliver a life lesson or any of that crap, I am merely referring to using a new or unusual monster in a low difficulty encounter without consequences so that they can figure out how to deal with that specific monster naturally rather than distorting the narrative to deliver a deluge of clues that can't possibly be missed and then throwing them into a fight with normal difficulty and consequences.

In a game, things can go well or poorly, sometimes for reasons unrelated to what a particular player did. But a subset of those things are directly tied to the results of the player's choices - those are 'rewards' and 'punishments'. You stand in a dragon's full attack range and get taken out in one round of claw-claw-bite-tail-slam - that's a punishment. You cast Fly and suddenly trivialize a formerly scary foe - that's a reward.

Among those things, we can also distinguish between cases where the system is rewarding or punishing the player, versus where the GM is rewarding or punishing the player. Because the system isn't a person with any kind of relationship with the player, rewards and punishments deriving from the system tend to be perceived as fair, or what are often called 'natural consequences' of actions. Anyone could have done the math and figured out that tanking the dragon's full attack had a high chance of failure, so it really was the player's fault that they opened themselves up to that.

Rewards and punishments coming from the GM tend to be seen as intrinsically unfair, but trust and consistency can alleviate that. These are things that went poorly not just because of a choice the player made, but also obviously because of a choice the GM made. The more the consequence seems to come from the GM's choice rather than the player's choice, the more unfair it will seem.

A 'gotcha' is something where if the player does what would normally be the right thing, they get the bad result instead. And since it's always the GM's choice of what monsters and traps to deploy, it's more likely than not going to be perceived as the GM's choice which caused the bad result, coupled with the fact that it's trying to dress it up as if it were actually the player's bad choice. This teaches the lesson 'in this campaign, making thoughtful choices doesn't matter'.

The reason I put 'learning experience' in quotes is because I think it's spin to make something pretty ugly sound nice and helpful. You've made several statements about difficulty and how you don't know how to make the players seem heroic if they don't struggle, how its more interesting if they fail, retreat, and come back having figured out the monster, etc. Underlying that is the thing that other posters are calling you on: at some level, in order to produce your learning experience, you need the players to fail. Therefore, you design things so that initial success is harder than it should be, or even impossible. You say you don't railroad, but that's actually a form of railroading. It's the same kind of thing as having the BBEG show up early in a campaign, holding back offensively but using overwhelming (for that level) defensive options with the expectation that 'the party should run away', because it will be dramatically cooler if the players have a history with the villain before ultimately confronting them.

Segev

2019-10-29, 11:02 PM

As I said, I only use "gotchas" in the case of learning encounters; which people are forming a negative opinion about in and of itself.

Perhaps it's deceptive, because of the focus of the thread, but it seems that you have perhaps too many "learning encounters." Too many times your monsters are something unusual the PCs need to learn about, and not enough times when what they've learned can be put into practice.

Alternatively - though you've not presented specific evidence of this - it's possible to wreck trust your players have in what they've learned by having their learned behaviors suddenly be wrong. The more wrong, or the more exactly wrong, they are, the more this kind of "gotcha" undermines learning. Again, not saying you did this, just something that came to me as a potential problem if gotchas are used too often or in the wrong way.

Great Dragon

2019-10-30, 03:26 AM

Did I actually say any of that?

Not directly said, no. But, I'm also tending to read between the lines here.

Dropping a few last thoughts on my way out the door:

I don't love designing encounters that buck cliche trends or go against the grain. I tend to give boss monsters one unique ability (about half the time), and I give maybe 10-20% of normal enemies something unique that is purely cosmetic.

Several people have pointed out that the Sneezing Ogre "Boss Monster", as presented by you was a Gotcha.
Looks like fairly normal Ogre (extra large nose not really a clue, as that can happen even with regular Ogres) but still able to create a powerful wind (by sneezing) to blow people off the bridge.

Sure, to you it had only one Unique Ability/Power.
But - in the eyes of the Players - you had chosen the Gusting Sneeze specifically to shut down their main "avoiding" spell (Gaseous Form).

Lots of suggestions for how to telegraph to the players that this Ogre had this power were given.

I can't think of any monsters I have ever used that are the opposite for their species. In the current campaign the closest I have come is using a frost salamander and a rust monster straight out of the monster manual and then the aforementioned splitting ghost.

Because the group is metagaming: Creatures straight from the Monster Manual won't make them feel like your creating Gotchas. Unless, as mentioned up thread, it looks and acts like a regular Salamander and is located in the same areas as one - but when the party engages it with the regular fire resistance and 'cold based' attacks, then they find out it's actually a Frost Salamander.

This can seem like a Gotcha. Especially since no other way to discover that this Salamander was different, in advance. And without the "Party Can't Die Rule" this would most likely have resulted in a TPK before the fifth round. (with escape by non-magical means unlikely)

Likewise, the point of a learning encounter is that the players can either solve it through trial and error or can fall back and prepare. The idea that they get their butts kicked AND fall back is counter to the whole idea. Further, its rarely a specific NPC who has the information, more likely it would be a knowledge or gather information check providing OOC information.

Are the players under the impression that there is no other way to get the information in advance (outside a Random Die Roll against an Unknown DC) and that the best (or only) way is through direct trial and error?

Knowledge checks are supposed to be based on Information normally found in the World.
Everything from recalling Rumors at the Local Bar to having read the correct book at the Library.
(What used to be known as "Bardic Knowledge".)

Investigation is searching a location for Clues (without meeting the Monster) and Gather Information is actually going around asking people (NPCs) what they know about the situation.

I am not sure what a "long movie dialogue scene" means, is that just a dismissive way of describing talking to an NPC?

Once again, I failed at making a Mild Joke.
Sorry, I was referring to the unavoidable Movie-Like Cut Scenes found in quite a few Video Games.
Knights of the Old Republic being a good example here.
Not only could you not avoid these, you actually had to do the correct sequence to unlock a particular Scene to get to the portion of the Game you wanted. Like: if you were playing the game multiple times, and wanted to "unlock" everything for both Light Side and Dark Side Paths. And were forced to watch these Scenes, even if you've seen them a dozen times before, and just wanted to get back to playing the game.

Keep in mind, the monologue in question was two sentences long. That would be a lot of effort (and really jarring) to print out, and I most players hate reading a lot more than they hate listening, and I don't want to punish them by keeping them lost as to what is going on.

I'm sorry. I really don't have anything to offer if a Player is either too impatient (or uncaring) that they can't wait for (the what - 30 seconds IRL?) time that would have taken.

But then, as I have mentioned before - I rarely encounter these problems in my games.
If I do have a problem, it's usually with one person: And I sit down (usually outside of game) and talk to them to figure out if there can be a compromise. If not, we part ways on as friendly terms as possible.

*****
But, it seems that I'm going to need to bow out, at least of this Gotcha conversation.
Since I'm not really being of much Help.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-30, 10:17 AM

keep in mind that bob has a problem with stuff, and sometimes brian. the other players, not so much.

And I already stated that if brian is a game designer, and he saw the issue with the item that dealt damage with no maximum range, and he didn't suggest himself a fix but instead was looking forward to abuse it, then he is dishonest and can't be trusted.

Kardwill

2019-10-30, 10:50 AM

It's the same kind of thing as having the BBEG show up early in a campaign, holding back offensively but using overwhelming (for that level) defensive options with the expectation that 'the party should run away', because it will be dramatically cooler if the players have a history with the villain before ultimately confronting them.

Which is exactly what I'm planning to do in my "Curse of Strahd" game in 2-3 sessions.

The fight is optional (it will break out only if the party decides to become violent), it will mostly be against minions, it has actual stakes beyond "kill or be killed" (so that the players can manage a "win" over Strahd without beating him), the villain has good reasons not to slaughter them on the spot (he's bored, so an actual adventuring party in his domain is a shiny new toy), and my players like drama and monologuing villains. And I need that scene so that Strahd is not simply a name for 90% of the campaign, but an actual character that can be interacted with.

But still, I'm kinda stressed out. I know I can pull off this kind of scene in Fate, no problem. But in D&D, the expectations about "winning" or "losing" a fight are different.
This kind of things needs some serious party buy-in to work out, and can blow up in my face if a player gets frustrated.

kyoryu

2019-10-30, 11:33 AM

But still, I'm kinda stressed out. I know I can pull off this kind of scene in Fate, no problem. But in D&D, the expectations about "winning" or "losing" a fight are different.
This kind of things needs some serious party buy-in to work out, and can blow up in my face if a player gets frustrated.

Never put a piece on the board that you're not willing to lose :)

Max_Killjoy

2019-10-30, 12:23 PM

Never put a piece on the board that you're not willing to lose :)

I learned the hard way to never directly expose an important antagonist NPC to the party unless I could afford to lose them, or the situation hard-protected against a "kill or be killed" fight.

The whole idea of having a villain fight the PCs and win early, to raise the stakes / investment when they fight again later... well, that "works" when you have authorial fiat, but it doesn't work in an RPG unless you have TOTAL player buy-in by a group putting "story" ahead of everything else.

Talakeal

2019-10-30, 02:46 PM

Two comments about communication:

So I tried talking to Brian about some of the issues with my DMing that have been brought up by this thread, and he claims they are absurd, that the party's issues are their own fault for not having anyone who is capable of scouting or casting divination spells, and their refusal to use consumables is merely a mathematical analysis of effectiveness. Further, he does not want me to change my DMing style or refrain from using "gotcha monsters". I am NOT posting this to say "See, my DMing is fine, I don't need to change, you guys are crazy," but rather to illustrate what I said to Kyoru last week; people online are a lot more critical than they are in real life. In real life, people will deny problems to avoid confrontation and appear polite, where as online it is almost the opposite, and the truth usually lies somewhere between.

Second, I think my issue with communication, both in game and on these forums, might be an inability to see how people will "read between the lines" when I talk. I notice that a lot of the criticisms I am responding to in this thread aren't actually based on anything I have said or done, but rather on assumptions that people are taking from things that I have said. Likewise, I think that is often an issue in my game, for example the whole "It can't be killed by violence," line is literally true, but my players read between the lines to assume I was telling them they needed to find some way to kill it without violence, which never entered my mind.

To share an anecdote, I remember hanging out with Brian and his girlfriend back in high school, and I was bored, and asked if they wanted to get lunch, they said no, and I offered to pay to sweeten the deal, but they still said no. That night we went out to dinner, and they expected me to pick up the tab, but I couldn't cover it. Brian's GF was extremely mad at me and we got into a huge fight, as she assumed I was backing out of my offer, but from my perspective I had never offered to pay for dinner, I had offered to buy them lunch 6+ hours before. Brian, trying to be the peacemaker, told his girlfriend that in all the time he had known me, he had never known me to say anything that wasn't to be taken at face value and had trouble seeing the implications. I think that is still very much an issue for me that I need to work on.

keep in mind that bob has a problem with stuff, and sometimes brian. the other players, not so much.

And I already stated that if brian is a game designer, and he saw the issue with the item that dealt damage with no maximum range, and he didn't suggest himself a fix but instead was looking forward to abuse it, then he is dishonest and can't be trusted.

Just a minor correction, it is Bob, not Brian, and he is a video game play-tester, not a game designer.

Several people have pointed out that the Sneezing Ogre "Boss Monster", as presented by you was a Gotcha.
Looks like fairly normal Ogre (extra large nose not really a clue, as that can happen even with regular Ogres) but still able to create a powerful wind (by sneezing) to blow people off the bridge.

Sure, to you it had only one Unique Ability/Power.
But - in the eyes of the Players - you had chosen the Gusting Sneeze specifically to shut down their main "avoiding" spell (Gaseous Form).

It was not an ogre and did not look like a normal ogre in any way beyond "big and vaguely humanoid".

Because the group is metagaming: Creatures straight from the Monster Manual won't make them feel like your creating Gotchas. Unless, as mentioned up thread, it looks and acts like a regular Salamander and is located in the same areas as one - but when the party engages it with the regular fire resistance and 'cold based' attacks, then they find out it's actually a Frost Salamander.

That's kind of my suspicion as well.

Are the players under the impression that there is no other way to get the information in advance (outside a Random Die Roll against an Unknown DC) and that the best (or only) way is through direct trial and error?

Knowledge checks are supposed to be based on Information normally found in the World.
Everything from recalling Rumors at the Local Bar to having read the correct book at the Library.
(What used to be known as "Bardic Knowledge".)

Investigation is searching a location for Clues (without meeting the Monster) and Gather Information is actually going around asking people (NPCs) what they know about the situation.

Those are all avenues that my players use regularly.

Perhaps it's deceptive, because of the focus of the thread, but it seems that you have perhaps too many "learning encounters." Too many times your monsters are something unusual the PCs need to learn about, and not enough times when what they've learned can be put into practice.

Two. In the entire two year campaign, I had encounters where the players losing the first meeting was a likely outcome.

One was an optional "puzzle" monster, and the other was a thematic "storyline" encounter.

The reason I put 'learning experience' in quotes is because I think it's spin to make something pretty ugly sound nice and helpful. You've made several statements about difficulty and how you don't know how to make the players seem heroic if they don't struggle, how its more interesting if they fail, retreat, and come back having figured out the monster, etc. Underlying that is the thing that other posters are calling you on: at some level, in order to produce your learning experience, you need the players to fail. Therefore, you design things so that initial success is harder than it should be, or even impossible. You say you don't railroad, but that's actually a form of railroading. It's the same kind of thing as having the BBEG show up early in a campaign, holding back offensively but using overwhelming (for that level) defensive options with the expectation that 'the party should run away', because it will be dramatically cooler if the players have a history with the villain before ultimately confronting them.

I think you are conflating several things here. Straggling to feel heroic and being entertained by challenge are not in any way related to a learning encounter, its actually kind of the opposite.

A learning encounter is one where it is significantly easier than normal so that players can learn what they are dealing with without facing consequences. What you are describing is more like just throwing them into the deep end and telling them to sink or swim and hoping they have the good sense to get out of the pool before they drown.

To use a video game example, the Resident Evil games tend to use learning encounters. When you first encounter a new enemy, they will typically be introduced in a cut scene, and then you will fight them 1 on 1 in a long hallway where you have plenty of room to maneuver and can always just turn around and leave and come back later if the fight goes bad.

Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time, on the other hand, does not use learning encounters. It typically throws you into challenging fights where you have no chance to practice, and more often than not they lock the door behind you. But, you have a fairy following you around shouting hints at you so you don't actually need to figure out the mechanics on your own, you just need to execute them properly.

In my mind, the Legend of Zelda style of giving the players so many hints before the fight that they can't possibly not figure out how to kill the monster going in is significantly more railroady as you are distorting the narrative to meet your desired outcome and also pushing the players into taking what you consider the optimal solution.

Also, I wouldn't say I don't railroad at all, however I do think I try so hard to avoid railroading that it actually causes problems with my game.

Not 'because you find a single monster'. I'm describing the mindset that results after repeated exposure to gotchas, betrayals of trust, the DM invalidating their efforts, ignoring their requests, gaslighting them, etc. That 'crazy train' you describe is the natural end state of learning to distrust the DM. Gotchas, individually, erode a bit of trust. Taken together, lots of gotchas totally erode trust.

About every two weeks (as often as you game, I believe?) you come and post another update, and for the last three months at least they've all included some kind of conflict between player expectations and what you've done. The real troublemakers in your group have been gaming with you for, what, 10 years now? If you only run a gotcha once every two months (1 in 4 sessions), that's still 60 gotchas over the course of their gaming career with you if I have my numbers right.

A player who still has their trust intact should generally be able to weather the fairytale ogre without kicking over the table or becoming paranoid. A player whose trust has been eroded by a succession of small things, or who has experienced what has felt to them like a significant betrayal, will pitch a fit even over the storm giant.

By the definition of "gotcha" that we are currently working with, I would say I use one no more than once a year.

Once trust has been lost to this extent, there really isn't anything you can do that is right anymore. They still haven't gotten over the old stuff that they remember you doing, so even if you do something better now they're not going to suddenly turn into reasonable players. This entire discussion about gotchas is meaningful in that, lets say you drop this group as you said you would do and a year from now you start up a campaign with a new group. Those people will, hopefully, be reasonable players rather than already being 'crazy train' players. But if you don't understand how elements of your preferred style can teach people these bad behaviors, I think it highly likely that you would once again find yourself having to deal with this kind of thing all over again.

In a game, things can go well or poorly, sometimes for reasons unrelated to what a particular player did. But a subset of those things are directly tied to the results of the player's choices - those are 'rewards' and 'punishments'. You stand in a dragon's full attack range and get taken out in one round of claw-claw-bite-tail-slam - that's a punishment. You cast Fly and suddenly trivialize a formerly scary foe - that's a reward.

Out of curiosity, does simply wasting a spell / action classify as punishment?

For example, if you hit a rust monster with a metal weapon or a flesh golem with a lightning bolt, something bad happens.

If you hit a devil with a fireball nothing happens, except you wasted your turn and a third level spell slot.

Are they both punishments?

Movies are usually really good about "showing you how the monster works." That's why various minor characters are always the first one to get hit by the monster's ability. That makes the scene with the monsters have internal logic and not feel stupid. It increases tension.

To do that in an RPG you need to bring along a lot of red shirts. Also, their henchman dying was exactly what set Bob off about the splitting ghost encounter.

Also, RPGs tend not to be quite that deadly. The consequences for learning of a monsters attack by being hit by it is just some HP loss, not a grisly death.

Defensive abilities, on the other hand, are a lot tougher to showcase.

Scripten

2019-10-30, 03:51 PM

Just a minor correction, it is Bob, not Brian, and he is a video game play-tester, not a game designer.

It's also probably worth adding that video game testing is not in any way, shape, or form similar to playtesting for a tabletop RPG. Video game QA testers spend hours a day performing the same rote tasks attempting to break the software layer of the game. Very rarely do they actually end up doing things that end up as tweaks to the game loop or balance of the game. General purpose beta testers may do so, but those are oftentimes in-house or may even be devs themselves.

Which is to say that Bob probably does not know anything more than anyone here on the forum about playtesting a TTRPG.

Kane0

2019-10-30, 04:28 PM

To share an anecdote, I remember hanging out with Brian and his girlfriend back in high school, and I was bored, and asked if they wanted to get lunch, they said no, and I offered to pay to sweeten the deal, but they still said no. That night we went out to dinner, and they expected me to pick up the tab, but I couldn't cover it. Brian's GF was extremely mad at me and we got into a huge fight, as she assumed I was backing out of my offer, but from my perspective I had never offered to pay for dinner, I had offered to buy them lunch 6+ hours before. Brian, trying to be the peacemaker, told his girlfriend that in all the time he had known me, he had never known me to say anything that wasn't to be taken at face value and had trouble seeing the implications. I think that is still very much an issue for me that I need to work on.

That certainly does seem to match up with what I've been seeing in this thread.

Segev

2019-10-30, 06:27 PM

...

Some people, I just don't get.

"You agreed to pay for lunch! How dare you not pay for dinner, when we turned you down for lunch!?"

Does she also expect that, if somebody invites her to come over to their house for a party and she turns them down due to the time being inconvenient, she has a standing invitation to come over the next day? Is she mad that they aren't at their house to greet her, let her in, and serve her snacks and punch that they promised would be served at the party, but are instead at work?

patchyman

2019-10-30, 07:42 PM

Also, I really wish people would stop calling it an ogre. It didn't look like an ogre, act like an ogre, have the stats of an ogre, or anything like that. I didn't call it an ogre to the players or on the forum; I merely said that I wanted the encounter to have the feel of a fairytale ogre like the one in Puss and Boots.

Hm...I wasn't there, so I don't know how ogre-ish it was. Wait a second! I do know someone who was there and might know. Hey, Past!Talakeal, you were there, how would you describe the encounter on the bridge?

I don't remember precisely, it was many months ago. But here is the description in my notes:

The bridge begins to shake and swing with heavy footfalls. You the party looks up to see a giant creature lumbering towards them, four times the height of a man. It is somewhat humanoid, with a hunched posture, shaggy malformed shoulders, and an almost comically oversized nose. It reminds Lina somewhat of a Goliath. It is clad in hides and holds a large sack in one hand and an uprooted tree in the other, which it swings before it in a sweeping motion.

Well, Present!Talakeal, according to Past!Talakeal, the creature both definitely looks and acts ogre-ish, though an honourable mention for anyone who described it as "hill-giant-like".

NichG

2019-10-30, 07:44 PM

I think you are conflating several things here. Straggling to feel heroic and being entertained by challenge are not in any way related to a learning encounter, its actually kind of the opposite.

A learning encounter is one where it is significantly easier than normal so that players can learn what they are dealing with without facing consequences. What you are describing is more like just throwing them into the deep end and telling them to sink or swim and hoping they have the good sense to get out of the pool before they drown.

Previously in this thread you objected to not running monsters like this because of your views on challenge:

The method you describe, where everything is clearly laid out for the players beforehand, just sounds boring.
...
To me the term "gotcha" has a malicious feel to it, but if all it means is letting the players feel tension and learn by doing, then maybe I do love gotcha monsters.

and this exchange:

I take issue with the idea that the "hydra-ghost" was somehow a safe weak monster meant to show a mechanic, after all that monster managed to deal a TPK on the players.

Running an easy game would be a lot of work, I am not sure how to balance it mechanically or figure out how to make a logically consistent setting where they players aren't facing any real challenges but still feel like they have accomplished something and be treated as heroes. I am also not sure if it would help in the long run or make problems worse; I would imagine it would set low expectations and might even encourage laziness or entitlement.

There's also several exchanges further back in the thread when people were suggesting giving out stat sheets of the monsters where you conflate 'the players know the enemy's abilities' with 'the encounter will be trivial'. So I don't think your feelings about challenge have nothing to do with your use of 'learning experiences'.

In my mind, the Legend of Zelda style of giving the players so many hints before the fight that they can't possibly not figure out how to kill the monster going in is significantly more railroady as you are distorting the narrative to meet your desired outcome and also pushing the players into taking what you consider the optimal solution.

Also, I wouldn't say I don't railroad at all, however I do think I try so hard to avoid railroading that it actually causes problems with my game.

Your definitions seem weird to me, with 'gotchas' being (prior to the discussion in the thread) more about homebrew than about tricking the player, and 'railroading' being about distorting the narrative rather than about player agency. I believe you that you're trying very hard to avoid something that you think of as railroading, but at the same time I'd suspect that you're spending a lot of effort avoiding things which really have very little to do with the things that create the negative feeling of railroading. Avoiding telling the players anything because they might feel like you're pushing them into a course of action isn't avoiding railroading, because withholding information doesn't increase player agency, it actually decreases it.

For what it's worth, I consider just having a random troll be immune to fire be far more of a distortion of the narrative than if that fire immunity has a reason for it which is integrated into the world. A random soldier of the enemy army just so happening to be a werewolf without there being any sort of marks of the fact that the enemy army is travelling with a werewolf in its ranks is more of a distortion than if you take the time to think 'this is an unusual situation, what other consequences would it have on the world?'.

A random vampire that is immune to sunlight is a distortion. A vampire that belongs to a coven researching methods to become daywalkers, and who, after a decade of cult activity, have successfully cracked the formula is not a distortion, its something where the exceptional characteristics of the antagonist exist outside of the tiny window into their existence which is this one particular combat.

Out of curiosity, does simply wasting a spell / action classify as punishment?

For example, if you hit a rust monster with a metal weapon or a flesh golem with a lightning bolt, something bad happens.

If you hit a devil with a fireball nothing happens, except you wasted your turn and a third level spell slot.

Are they both punishments?

Yeah, the same as if you were playing a video game and it made you repeat a 10 minute segment of play when you made a mistake. If you had chosen to just use a basic attack, or something else, then your action would have had some meaning; but because you chose the wrong action, you lost your influence over the encounter for the round (which is likely to be 10-20 minutes of gameplay time). It's a much less severe punishment than something going actively wrong, but someone getting two or three of these in a row over the course of the night is likely to start thinking they're doing something fundamentally incorrect about how they're approaching game and will likely either try to change their behavior or complain.

Talakeal

2019-10-30, 10:59 PM

Well, Present!Talakeal, according to Past!Talakeal, the creature both definitely looks and acts ogre-ish, though an honourable mention for anyone who described it as "hill-giant-like".

What there reminds you of an ogre? Ogres aren't shaggy, ogres aren't hunched, ogres don't have oversized noses, ogres are twice the size of man at best, etc... As I said before "big and vaguely humanoid" are where the resemblance ends.

The only way I could see someone making that mistake I, maybe, if they were familiar with those weird Bullwinkle looking ogres that only existed in early 3E artwork, but even then its a stretch.

Edit: If you want a bit more visual context, the models I used for this monster was the Grenadier Orc Juggernaut, and the models I use for Ogres are Citadel Ogre Bulls. Google image search should show you both of them.

MrSandman

2019-10-31, 07:20 AM

Second, I think my issue with communication, both in game and on these forums, might be an inability to see how people will "read between the lines" when I talk. I notice that a lot of the criticisms I am responding to in this thread aren't actually based on anything I have said or done, but rather on assumptions that people are taking from things that I have said. Likewise, I think that is often an issue in my game, for example the whole "It can't be killed by violence," line is literally true, but my players read between the lines to assume I was telling them they needed to find some way to kill it without violence, which never entered my mind.

I'd be very cautious about regarding it as "people reading between the lines." The thing with language is that words have no meaning outside of context. Every single thing that anyone says needs interpretation. You want to convey something (data, experience, emotion, volition, whatever) and say in a way that you think represents it. The thing is that you're interpreting the meaning of what you're saying as much as the receivers of your message.

My point? Your players did not read in between the lines. "Violence can't kill it but other things can" is a perfectly valid interpretation of "It can't be killed by violence." You didn't simply state that it can't be killed. You stated that violence can't kill it. You interpreted it as meaning that it can't be killed at all, your players interpreted it as meaning that violence can't but other things might.

This sort of thing happens all the time. We all have a different life experience and attach different meanings to words. That doesn't render communication impossible, but it does cause misunderstandings.

Your goal to try and think about how people might understand what you say is very laudable. I would suggest going a bit further and trying to clear misunderstandings when they happen.

E.g. when the ghost thing happened, you could just have said, "Sorry guys, it looks like we had a bit of a communication problem. I meant that this thing can't be killed at all."

What there reminds you of an ogre? Ogres aren't shaggy, ogres aren't hunched, ogres don't have oversized noses, ogres are twice the size of man at best, etc... As I said before "big and vaguely humanoid" are where the resemblance ends.

May I point out two things?

1- You have stated repeatedly that you use your own homebrew system and monsters. People can't know what an ogre in your games looks like unless you describe it. The description of the creature fits the general lines of what people tends to picture as an ogre, that is, "big, ugly brute."

2- Ultimately it is irrelevant if your game world calls that creature "ogre" or not. It still fits the pattern of "big, ugly brute" from which people wouldn't expect a breath weapon. It may not be called "ogre" in your game world, but lacking a better term, it's much shorter than "that brutish, hunched, shaggy creature four times as big as a human that had a comically oversized nose."

Lastly, there's something I'd like to ask. You said somewhere that your players don't want you to tailor encounters to the party. But what does that exactly mean? Does it mean that they don't want you to go easy on them? That they don't want you to adapt publishd modules (that'd be if you played them)? That they don't want you to design encounters that specifically counter some of their strengths?

I'm just asking because Bob's stated preference for encounters full of low-level mooks that he can happily nuke at his leisure seems a rather tailored encounter to me.

patchyman

2019-10-31, 07:41 AM

What there reminds you of an ogre? Ogres aren't shaggy, ogres aren't hunched, ogres don't have oversized noses, ogres are twice the size of man at best, etc... As I said before "big and vaguely humanoid" are where the resemblance ends.

Fortunately, I included the description, so people can decide for themselves how “ogrish” the monster was.

As for me specifically, the height is off (which is why I mentioned “hill giant” like), but you included several other strong ogrish signifiers.

Ogres are large, ugly, dumb and brutish and you presented a monster that is :

1) dumb and brutish (only mastered simple tools, wields a tree and dresses in furs),
2) is ugly (large comical nose),
3) his clothes are ill-maintained and hair is unkempt (i.e. shaggy), and
4) he is brutish (he is introduced swinging a makeshift club to knock people off the bridge without an attempt to speak to them.
5) and he’s a humanoid.

And, just to get back to the initial point, absolutely nothing in your description suggested a fey origin.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-31, 08:54 AM

Talakeal

2019-10-31, 10:13 AM

Previously in this thread you objected to not running monsters like this because of your views on challenge:

and this exchange:

There's also several exchanges further back in the thread when people were suggesting giving out stat sheets of the monsters where you conflate 'the players know the enemy's abilities' with 'the encounter will be trivial'. So I don't think your feelings about challenge have nothing to do with your use of 'learning experiences'..

You stitched together a bunch of quotes about different topics from different times, I am not going to try and go through and respond to each one individually. Instead I will summarize my feelings on the matter:

1: I believe a game with no challenge will be ultimately boring for everyone involved in the long run and will make for a nonsensical narrative.
2: I run games of what I consider to be a standard difficulty, following the CR, encounters per day, and WBL rules or the equivalent in whatever game I play.
3: Full knowledge of an enemy, except in the case of a puzzle fight which I don't like to use, will not make a fight significantly easier.
4: I still don't like the idea of telegraphing too hard as it kills surprise and suspense, and may require me to distort setting consistency to provide obvious enough clues.
5: I do not use surprises to maintain challenge, however if lack of knowledge will put the players at a noticeable disadvantage I will reduce difficulty accordingly.
6: If a monster has a gimmick which will likely spell defeat for the PCs, I always leave them an escape route.
7: I do the above very rarely, probably only once a year or so.
8: My players win 95+ percent of the time, and in a two year campaign with ~6 fights a session they only lost 3. One TPK to a random encounter, one conscious choice to suicide because they couldn't figure out the puzzle, and the "ogre" who threw them over a ledge and who they then climbed back out and killed which was really more of a nonconventional dungeon entry than a loss.

Your definitions seem weird to me, with 'gotchas' being (prior to the discussion in the thread) more about homebrew than about tricking the player, and 'railroading' being about distorting the narrative rather than about player agency. I believe you that you're trying very hard to avoid something that you think of as railroading, but at the same time I'd suspect that you're spending a lot of effort avoiding things which really have very little to do with the things that create the negative feeling of railroading. Avoiding telling the players anything because they might feel like you're pushing them into a course of action isn't avoiding railroading, because withholding information doesn't increase player agency, it actually decreases it.

Telling the players the correct choice to a problem removes agency from them. Again, we may need to discuses what our definitions of railroading are.

For what it's worth, I consider just having a random troll be immune to fire be far more of a distortion of the narrative than if that fire immunity has a reason for it which is integrated into the world. A random soldier of the enemy army just so happening to be a werewolf without there being any sort of marks of the fact that the enemy army is travelling with a werewolf in its ranks is more of a distortion than if you take the time to think 'this is an unusual situation, what other consequences would it have on the world?'.

A random vampire that is immune to sunlight is a distortion. A vampire that belongs to a coven researching methods to become day-walkers, and who, after a decade of cult activity, have successfully cracked the formula is not a distortion, its something where the exceptional characteristics of the antagonist exist outside of the tiny window into their existence which is this one particular combat.

Agreed.

Yeah, the same as if you were playing a video game and it made you repeat a 10 minute segment of play when you made a mistake. If you had chosen to just use a basic attack, or something else, then your action would have had some meaning; but because you chose the wrong action, you lost your influence over the encounter for the round (which is likely to be 10-20 minutes of gameplay time). It's a much less severe punishment than something going actively wrong, but someone getting two or three of these in a row over the course of the night is likely to start thinking they're doing something fundamentally incorrect about how they're approaching game and will likely either try to change their behavior or complain.

10-20 minutes is a long combat round.

Out of curiosity, let me ask you a hypothetical:

A group is playing by the book 3.5. They are exploring a dungeon, and they encounter a Glabrezu. The DM has not gone out of his way to telegraph the Glabrezu or its abilities, they have merely read them the descriptive text out of the Monster Manual and allowed appropriate knowledge religion checks to identify it. The wizard casts a lightning bolt on the glabrezu. Instead of marking down damage, the DM tells the players that the monster appears to be immune to electricity.

1: Is this a "gotcha" monster?
2: Is the wizard being punished?

I'd be very cautious about regarding it as "people reading between the lines." The thing with language is that words have no meaning outside of context. Every single thing that anyone says needs interpretation. You want to convey something (data, experience, emotion, volition, whatever) and say in a way that you think represents it. The thing is that you're interpreting the meaning of what you're saying as much as the receivers of your message.

My point? Your players did not read in between the lines. "Violence can't kill it but other things can" is a perfectly valid interpretation of "It can't be killed by violence." You didn't simply state that it can't be killed. You stated that violence can't kill it. You interpreted it as meaning that it can't be killed at all, your players interpreted it as meaning that violence can't but other things might.

This sort of thing happens all the time. We all have a different life experience and attach different meanings to words. That doesn't render communication impossible, but it does cause misunderstandings..

I am sorry, but I don't follow at all. How does saying "It can't be killed by violence," when read literally, make any statement one way or another about what else can kill it?

Saying "I don't have a dog," doesn't mean I have a cat, saying "I don't have a TV in my bedroom," doesn't mean that I have a TV in my living room, although, depending on context, it might imply it.

Fortunately, I included the description, so people can decide for themselves how “ogrish” the monster was.

As for me specifically, the height is off (which is why I mentioned “hill giant” like), but you included several other strong ogrish signifiers.

Ogres are large, ugly, dumb and brutish and you presented a monster that is :

1) dumb and brutish (only mastered simple tools, wields a tree and dresses in furs),
2) is ugly (large comical nose),
3) his clothes are ill-maintained and hair is unkempt (i.e. shaggy), and
4) he is brutish (he is introduced swinging a makeshift club to knock people off the bridge without an attempt to speak to them.
5) and he’s a humanoid.

And, just to get back to the initial point, absolutely nothing in your description suggested a fey origin.

The player characters had encountered ogres several times before, they knew this wasn't one.

Also, this is why I feel like the whole "gotcha" thing boils down to an argument against homebrew. The monster I used was a homebrewed fomorian; if I had used a standard fomorian straight out of the monster manual every single thing you said would still apply; yet I have never heard anyone rant about how the fomorian is an unfair monster because people mistake it for an ogre or a hill giant due to a lack of obvious clues about its fey ancestry and nothing it does telegraphs its evil eye ability.

alas. when they say that most of our communication is not verbal, it's true. I feel your pain, because i have similar problems in that I am generally very straightforward and I say and take stuff at face value, and I've been through miscommunications because of it.

I have a neurological disorder and am physiologically incapable of picking up on most non-verbal communication. As a result, I may have trouble using it in turn.

NichG

2019-10-31, 10:41 AM

You stitched together a bunch of quotes about different topics from different times, I am not going to try and go through and respond to each one individually. Instead I will summarize my feelings on the matter:

1: I believe a game with no challenge will be ultimately boring for everyone involved in the long run and will make for a nonsensical narrative.
2: I run games of what I consider to be a standard difficulty, following the CR, encounters per day, and WBL rules or the equivalent in whatever game I play.
3: Full knowledge of an enemy, except in the case of a puzzle fight which I don't like to use, will not make a fight significantly easier.
4: I still don't like the idea of telegraphing too hard as it kills surprise and suspense, and may require me to distort setting consistency to provide obvious enough clues.
5: I do not use surprises to maintain challenge, however if lack of knowledge will put the players at a noticeable disadvantage I will reduce difficulty accordingly.
6: If a monster has a gimmick which will likely spell defeat for the PCs, I always leave them an escape route.
7: I do the above very rarely, probably only once a year or so.
8: My players win 95+ percent of the time, and in a two year campaign with ~6 fights a session they only lost 3. One TPK to a random encounter, one conscious choice to suicide because they couldn't figure out the puzzle, and the "ogre" who threw them over a ledge and who they then climbed back out and killed which was really more of a nonconventional dungeon entry than a loss.

I don't see how to square these statistics with the sequence of session reports you've given in this thread, where it sounds like you've had additional 'near-TPKs' - from Bob refusing to have their PC assist, from the mindflayer throwdown, etc.

Telling the players the correct choice to a problem removes agency from them. Again, we may need to discuses what our definitions of railroading are.

More I think we need to discuss the definition of agency. Agency is the ability for one's choices to impact one's future (or more broadly, 'the world'). Giving a player choice A and B where B sustains the status quo (using an attack against an enemy that is immune to that attack) does not measurably increase agency compared to only giving the player choice A, because B is equivalent to inaction. A situation where A is the only correct choice doesn't have much agency to begin with. Telling the player 'A is the correct choice' just reveals that fact, it doesn't decrease any agency that actually existed.

If you have a scenario where there are actually multiple valid and meaningful choices, giving additional correct information about the consequences of those choices always increases agency, because even if the number of options the player had is the same before and after, the ability of the player to correctly choose the option that is in accord with the future they want to bring about is increased.

Out of curiosity, let me ask you a hypothetical:

A group is playing by the book 3.5. They are exploring a dungeon, and they encounter a Glabrezu. The DM has not gone out of his way to telegraph the Glabrezu or its abilities, they have merely read them the descriptive text out of the Monster Manual and allowed appropriate knowledge religion checks to identify it. The wizard casts a lightning bolt on the glabrezu. Instead of marking down damage, the DM tells the players that the monster appears to be immune to electricity.

1: Is this a "gotcha" monster?
2: Is the wizard being punished?

It's not a gotcha monster. Elemental immunities are well within standard expectations for random outsider things (not to mention spell resistance), and the Knowledge: Religion checks are a fallback (and allow players to make a decision as to the degree to which they want to invest resources to ensure they know the vulnerabilities and immunities of such things). In such a scenario, there were multiple ways for the party to reach a judgement that 'casting a lightning bolt on this thing is a bad move'. There's also nothing particular about the Glabrezu's immunity or occurrence that exploits assumptions or expectations the players are likely to make in order to provoke them into making a mistake.

At the same time, the wizard made an error, and that error was punished. But, unlike the case of a 'gotcha' monster, because we can identify a number of ways that the wizard could have reasonably known better, that punishment is fair.

Now, replace the Glabrezu with, say, some kind of sci-fantasy computerized robot golem thing presented in faux medieval terms, and electricity immunity would be a gotcha. Using lightning against it 'makes sense', and so the immunity is placed in such a way as to make someone who is trying to follow the cues presented by the narrative worse off than someone who just views the thing as a bag of statistics.

MrSandman

2019-10-31, 11:13 AM

I am sorry, but I don't follow at all. How does saying "It can't be killed by violence," when read literally, make any statement one way or another about what else can kill it?

That's the thing, it doesn't. Your players were perfectly justified in attempting to kill the creature by non-violent means because you hadn't given them any information about it.

You say that your players "read between the lines to assume I was telling them they needed to find some way to kill it without violence, which never entered my mind." It may have never entered your mind to tell them to kill the creature without violence. It may have never entered your mind to think that somebody might hear that and think, "Hum, if not violence, I'm going to figure out the appropriate means to kill this thing." Nevertheless, it is a perfectly reasonable course of action because you never said that the creature couldn't be killed by non-violent means. It's not reading between the lines, it's taking what you said at face value.

Saying "I don't have a dog," doesn't mean I have a cat, saying "I don't have a TV in my bedroom," doesn't mean that I have a TV in my living room, although, depending on context, it might imply it.

Saying "I don't have a dog" doesn't mean that I have a cat, but it doesn't mean that I don't have anything else either.

Saying "I don't have a TV in my bedroom" doesn't mean that I have a TV in my living room, but it doesn't mean that I don't have a TV at all either.

But where I meant to go with all this is that since language is ambiguous and communication isn't perfect, it's perfectly reasonable to stop the game and say, "Guys, I think we had a bit of a miscommunication there" or "What are you trying to achieve?" or "Why are you doing this?" when the players are doing something that's clearly stupid or contrary to the information they have from the GM's perspective.

patchyman

2019-10-31, 11:39 AM

The player characters had encountered ogres several times before, they knew this wasn't one.

People on this board are calling it an ogre because it fits the conceptual space of an ogre, being large, dumb and brutish. It is also catchier to call it an ogre than to call it “Talakeal’s home brew monster that is a large brute”. The fact that it wasn’t an ogre is irrelevant, since what you said was that “it didn’t look like an ogre or act like an ogre”, whereas it is pretty clear that it both looked and acted like an ogre.

Also, this is why I feel like the whole "gotcha" thing boils down to an argument against homebrew. The monster I used was a homebrewed fomorian; if I had used a standard fomorian straight out of the monster manual every single thing you said would still apply; yet I have never heard anyone rant about how the fomorian is an unfair monster because people mistake it for an ogre or a hill giant due to a lack of obvious clues about its fey ancestry and nothing it does telegraphs its evil eye ability.

This is not the right conclusion to draw from the posts made. Most of the initial posts were extremely sympathetic to you, and were very clear that when playing with a group that doesn’t like surprises, you should avoid surprises. Several posters went out of their way to emphasise that they personally would be OK with your surprises, but that they weren’t appropriate for the group you were in. Nobody is anti-home brew.

To put it a different way, as a DM, play to your strengths, din’t play to your weaknesses. You find it difficult to communicate, so try to avoid monsters that rely on your players understanding the weakness you are communicating to them. Your players don’t like surprises, don’t play with the mentality “but this surprise is EXTRA awesome and will change their attitude”.

Talakeal

2019-10-31, 03:42 PM

That's the thing, it doesn't. Your players were perfectly justified in attempting to kill the creature by non-violent means because you hadn't given them any information about it.

I disagree.

Going into a situation flailing blindly is not wise; just because they know violence doesn't work doesn't mean they are fully justified in going in without a plan and hoping to stumble upon a solution through random action.

This is not the right conclusion to draw from the posts made. Most of the initial posts were extremely sympathetic to you, and were very clear that when playing with a group that doesn’t like surprises, you should avoid surprises. Several posters went out of their way to emphasise that they personally would be OK with your surprises, but that they weren’t appropriate for the group you were in. Nobody is anti-home brew.

To put it a different way, as a DM, play to your strengths, din’t play to your weaknesses. You find it difficult to communicate, so try to avoid monsters that rely on your players understanding the weakness you are communicating to them. Your players don’t like surprises, don’t play with the mentality “but this surprise is EXTRA awesome and will change their attitude”.

Most people were extra sympathetic, although it seems like a few people have been going out of their way to be as critical as possible for over a year now.

But this conversation has really morphed into a discussion of what a "gotcha monster" is and why I love them so much; and my inability to grasp the concept seems to be causing people to go back and blame it for all of my problems.

Again, maybe it is because I am more used to playing WoD games than D&D, but for me figuring out what the monster is and how to defeat it are a big part of the game, which may just be a fundamental mismatch in play styles between my gaming group and, to a lesser extent, the D&D focused GitPG community.

I don't see how to square these statistics with the sequence of session reports you've given in this thread, where it sounds like you've had additional 'near-TPKs' - from Bob refusing to have their PC assist, from the mindflayer throwdown, etc.

How so? I mean, the party had half a dozen or so close calls over the course of the campaign, but that is just the nature of it being a game. Bad luck or bad tactics, especially early in an adventure, can easily create a tough situation.

It's not a gotcha monster. Elemental immunities are well within standard expectations for random outsider things (not to mention spell resistance), and the Knowledge: Religion checks are a fallback (and allow players to make a decision as to the degree to which they want to invest resources to ensure they know the vulnerabilities and immunities of such things). In such a scenario, there were multiple ways for the party to reach a judgement that 'casting a lightning bolt on this thing is a bad move'. There's also nothing particular about the Glabrezu's immunity or occurrence that exploits assumptions or expectations the players are likely to make in order to provoke them into making a mistake.

At the same time, the wizard made an error, and that error was punished. But, unlike the case of a 'gotcha' monster, because we can identify a number of ways that the wizard could have reasonably known better, that punishment is fair.

Now, replace the Glabrezu with, say, some kind of sci-fantasy computerized robot golem thing presented in faux medieval terms, and electricity immunity would be a gotcha. Using lightning against it 'makes sense', and so the immunity is placed in such a way as to make someone who is trying to follow the cues presented by the narrative worse off than someone who just views the thing as a bag of statistics.

Ok, let me try another hypothetical. Instead of a "sneeze-ogre", would it have been a gotcha if I used exactly the same encounter with a regular by the book fomorian, and instead of blowing Bob off the bridge he had defeated (or perhaps killed) Bob with his evil eye ability?

More I think we need to discuss the definition of agency. Agency is the ability for one's choices to impact one's future (or more broadly, 'the world'). Giving a player choice A and B where B sustains the status quo (using an attack against an enemy that is immune to that attack) does not measurably increase agency compared to only giving the player choice A, because B is equivalent to inaction. A situation where A is the only correct choice doesn't have much agency to begin with. Telling the player 'A is the correct choice' just reveals that fact, it doesn't decrease any agency that actually existed.

If you have a scenario where there are actually multiple valid and meaningful choices, giving additional correct information about the consequences of those choices always increases agency, because even if the number of options the player had is the same before and after, the ability of the player to correctly choose the option that is in accord with the future they want to bring about is increased.

Hmm. So what would you call a scenario where there are right and wrong choices?

Like, take an old school module like "Tomb of Horrors," it is filled with traps and dead ends and puzzles and wrong choices.

How would you describe the difference between letting the players figure it out for themselves and telling them the right answers?

People on this board are calling it an ogre because it fits the conceptual space of an ogre, being large, dumb and brutish. It is also catchier to call it an ogre than to call it “Talakeal’s home brew monster that is a large brute”. The fact that it wasn’t an ogre is irrelevant, since what you said was that “it didn’t look like an ogre or act like an ogre”, whereas it is pretty clear that it both looked and acted like an ogre.

And again, I strongly disagree.

As I said, aside from "big and vaguely humanoid" it doesn't look anything like an ogre, and aside from "smashing humans" it didn't act anything like an ogre.

Ogres are motivated, primarily, by gluttony and sadism, this creature is motivated by curiosity and an oath to keep humans from crossing the bridge into fey lands. Ogres speak, this creature doesn't. Ogres generally try and kill, this creature doesn't.

Likewise, it didn't have the stats of an ogre or the attacks of an ogre.

It was a customized fomori; and it looked and acted much more like a fomori than an ogre. People are comparing it to an ogre to talk about how out of place it is to put a gust of wind ability on an ogre, but I don't think they would have that same reaction with "replacing a fomorians lethal evil eye ability with a less deadly gust of wind ability made to push rather than kill."

Kane0

2019-10-31, 04:43 PM

I have a neurological disorder and am physiologically incapable of picking up on most non-verbal communication. As a result, I may have trouble using it in turn.

I can sympathize. I DM someone with Asperger's and work with a guy that's been a coder for so long that conversations with him are more like issuing instructions.

If you know you have trouble with social subtext, I think that reinforces my point before. When you are the one talking, being as clear as possible will help. You may feel that you're giving up the fun of mystery and discovery but you're trading that for clarity; and as I've said before just because the party knows what they can (or have to) do doesn't make actually doing it any easier, nor does it force them into choosing to do it at all.

But that said, we are people on the internet and not doctors. Talk to one of those first.

But this conversation has really morphed into a discussion of what a "gotcha monster" is and why I love them so much; and my inability to grasp the concept seems to be causing people to go back and blame it for all of my problems.

Again, maybe it is because I am more used to playing WoD games than D&D, but for me figuring out what the monster is and how to defeat it are a big part of the game, which may just be a fundamental mismatch in play styles between my gaming group and, to a lesser extent, the D&D focused GitPG community.

The definition is the easy part. The hard part is picking the right time, place, magnitude and audience to make use of them.

Yes, those two games are quite different in genre and tone. Same goes for Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun and Battletech. The vast majority of D&D games are not murder mysteries, the vast majority of World of Darkness games are not sorties.

MrSandman

2019-10-31, 04:58 PM

I disagree.

Going into a situation flailing blindly is not wise; just because they know violence doesn't work doesn't mean they are fully justified in going in without a plan and hoping to stumble upon a solution through random action.

Okay, we're obviously having some communication issues here. Let me try again:

Hey, Talakeal, it's great that you want to be more intentional about trying to see how other people might understand what you say. Following that course of action, another thing you can do is this: when your players have their characters do something that you don't understand or that it is clearly stupid in light of the information they should have, you can just stop the game for a moment and say, "Why do you want to do that?" or "I think we might have a bit of a miscommunication, I meant to say this."

Talakeal

2019-10-31, 05:31 PM

Okay, we're obviously having some communication issues here. Let me try again:

Hey, Talakeal, it's great that you want to be more intentional about trying to see how other people might understand what you say. Following that course of action, another thing you can do is this: when your players have their characters do something that you don't understand or that it is clearly stupid in light of the information they should have, you can just stop the game for a moment and say, "Why do you want to do that?" or "I think we might have a bit of a miscommunication, I meant to say this."

I try. Although this actually seems to be one of Brian's "triggers" as he takes it as criticism and blows up at me.

In this particular case the party had a good plan, and three of them were going along with it. The ranger then ignored the plan, causing the other players to get frustrated with her. As I said in my initial post, the fight was between the players rather than players vs. DM.

King of Nowhere

2019-10-31, 08:31 PM

I have to open a small tangent to say that this forum is very paranoid when it comes to any conflict. there is also a strong tendency to ignore much of what one is saying.
I mean, I opened a thread to ask for ideas to nerf a specific spell because we try to balance to our table, the wizard would like that spell, but the spell is more powerful than the agreed power level. And half the people who posted told me that the wizard is too powerful and should change character, and the other half that the rest of us are too low-op and should change character, and some gave some high-op tactics to counter the spell and make it less strong, and some gave advice on how to fix the balance problem that arise from characters of different tiers.

and only one or two people actually answered what I was asking for. And it was very annoying, because I came to ask a specific and circumstantiated question, and I stated it clearly, and still most people read it and thought they knew my table better than me and decided i needed something completely different from what I was asking.

and it really got me thinking of this thread. don't get me wrong, there is a lot of nice insight on dm-player relationship, but there's also way too much overanalyzing and assuming to know stuff about the specific group of players that we don't. particularly this last tangent about so-called gotcha monsters, which is actually not much useful because it hinges on a lot of expectations. first and foremost, how encounters should play out. and here the average playgrounder is completely different from the average joe, if nothing else because the average joe doesn't know much of monsters and doesn't have many expectations, and may or may not like to play with more mystery. too many "if" to draw any reliable conclusion.
I certainly would not be so assertive in telling to someone who has dm-ed for years how exactly he must change his style to better cater to a bunch of players that i do not know in the slightest, for a game whose tone we don't really get, on a homebrew system we don't know

NichG

2019-10-31, 09:45 PM

Most people were extra sympathetic, although it seems like a few people have been going out of their way to be as critical as possible for over a year now.

But this conversation has really morphed into a discussion of what a "gotcha monster" is and why I love them so much; and my inability to grasp the concept seems to be causing people to go back and blame it for all of my problems.

For me at least, there was a turning point in this thread where things you said changed my view of your last decade+ of horror stories. Previously, the best hypothesis I had was that you had the horrible luck to always pull players worse than anything I've ever seen, every time you form a group - luck so bad as to be implausible, but if there are 10000 DMs in the world flipping coins, and only the guy getting 12 tails in a row comes online and posts about it, I shouldn't necessarily rule it out.

But then it came out that you keep playing with players you know are unstable. And more and more details of how you handle your interactions came out. And, the really big one, that you don't seem to recognize which details are important to say and which are irrelevant - several times, there was some important detail about the session report that made your behavior seem less reasonable and your players more reasonable. So the 'Talakeal is an anti-lottery winner' hypothesis gives way to 'Talakeal is at least partially responsible for the situation, but is unable to identify what he's doing that causes it'

To figure that out, I have to assume that there is relevant information that you aren't sharing, possibly because you don't understand that it's relevant.

Additionally, when people have raised points with you gently, it has been totally brushed off. So I have to assume that if I give any wiggle room, you're going to take it to ignore or misinterpret the point. That's happened several times in this thread already. So I'm trying to use sharper and more direct language to prevent that.

Again, maybe it is because I am more used to playing WoD games than D&D, but for me figuring out what the monster is and how to defeat it are a big part of the game, which may just be a fundamental mismatch in play styles between my gaming group and, to a lesser extent, the D&D focused GitPG community.

This has nothing to do with gotchas.

How so? I mean, the party had half a dozen or so close calls over the course of the campaign, but that is just the nature of it being a game. Bad luck or bad tactics, especially early in an adventure, can easily create a tough situation.

A close call that should have been straightforward (say, against a random encounter or due to bad tactics) feels like a loss. So this could be as high as 9 effective losses in ~24 sessions, which would be a fairly high difficulty game. That would mean that roughly every three sessions one should expect to experience frustration at your table.

Ok, let me try another hypothetical. Instead of a "sneeze-ogre", would it have been a gotcha if I used exactly the same encounter with a regular by the book fomorian, and instead of blowing Bob off the bridge he had defeated (or perhaps killed) Bob with his evil eye ability?

Not a gotcha. The sneeze ogre feels like a gotcha because it's ability to neutralize a character depends on the character doing something that would normally be tactically smart (using Fly against a melee enemy).

Hmm. So what would you call a scenario where there are right and wrong choices?

Like, take an old school module like "Tomb of Horrors," it is filled with traps and dead ends and puzzles and wrong choices.

How would you describe the difference between letting the players figure it out for themselves and telling them the right answers?

I'd just call that a difference of difficulty level. Tomb of Horrors is basically a puzzle game - there's not so much agency to be had in it to begin with, and it's very heavy-handed about that (if you try to dig out the walls, they're made of demons that animate and attack, etc).

When I ran (1ed) ToH as a Halloween event game, I explicitly gave every player five 1st level pregens. For the event to work and for 'figuring out' ToH to make sense as tabletop gameplay, I needed the players to consider characters to be like hitpoints, rather than being what they identified with inside the game.

The Insanity

2019-11-01, 06:12 AM

Talakeal

2019-11-01, 12:42 PM

For me at least, there was a turning point in this thread where things you said changed my view of your last decade+ of horror stories. Previously, the best hypothesis I had was that you had the horrible luck to always pull players worse than anything I've ever seen, every time you form a group - luck so bad as to be implausible, but if there are 10000 DMs in the world flipping coins, and only the guy getting 12 tails in a row comes online and posts about it, I shouldn't necessarily rule it out.

But then it came out that you keep playing with players you know are unstable. And more and more details of how you handle your interactions came out. And, the really big one, that you don't seem to recognize which details are important to say and which are irrelevant - several times, there was some important detail about the session report that made your behavior seem less reasonable and your players more reasonable. So the 'Talakeal is an anti-lottery winner' hypothesis gives way to 'Talakeal is at least partially responsible for the situation, but is unable to identify what he's doing that causes it'

To figure that out, I have to assume that there is relevant information that you aren't sharing, possibly because you don't understand that it's relevant.

Additionally, when people have raised points with you gently, it has been totally brushed off. So I have to assume that if I give any wiggle room, you're going to take it to ignore or misinterpret the point. That's happened several times in this thread already. So I'm trying to use sharper and more direct language to prevent that.

Of course I am partially responsible. It would be ridiculous to think otherwise.

Don't you think its kind of hypocritical to assume that there are things I am leaving out and also to assume I will misinterpret your point?

Not a gotcha. The sneeze ogre feels like a gotcha because it's ability to neutralize a character depends on the character doing something that would normally be tactically smart (using Fly against a melee enemy).

How so? Gust of wind blows you back regardless of whether you are flying or incorporeal, and evil eye damages you regardless of whether you are flying or incorporeal?

The only thing I can think is that you are basing this off the 3.X version of gust of wind which pushes flying and gaseous characters further than normal but, A: I am not using that version and B: The extra distance was not necessary to force him off the bridge.

This has nothing to do with gotchas.

Again, how so?

The definition of a "gotcha" is, afaict at this moment, something that punishes a player by subverting expectations in a way they could not realistically have foreknowledge of; and that punishments include wasting a turn, wasting a spell slot, or being forced to fall back and regroup.

Correct?

How do you have an encounter with a mysterious monster without one or more of these things being true? For example, while out hunting a giant killer wolf and it turns out to be a werewolf and you shoot it without silver bullets, you have wasted your turn, if it turns out to be a gangrel vampire in dire wolf form and you shoot it with silver bullets, you have wasted your money. Either way is a gotcha, right?

A close call that should have been straightforward (say, against a random encounter or due to bad tactics) feels like a loss. So this could be as high as 9 effective losses in ~24 sessions, which would be a fairly high difficulty game. That would mean that roughly every three sessions one should expect to experience frustration at your table.

To me this seems ludicrous.

Following the formula of:

Falling back to regroup = loss.
Narrow victory = loss.
Loss = frustration.
A frustration in 1/6 combats during the session = entire session tainted.

I can't think of many games that would not be "fairly high difficulty". I have certainly never DMed or played in on, or even listened to / read an AP of one.

And if you extend it beyond RPGs it gets even more ridiculous. Video games expect you to try over and over again through trial and error, but when my gaming group plays World of Warcraft we have worse records on farm nights. A "fair" board game assumes a 50% loss ratio. A football team that had a record of 3 losses, 9 close wins, and 13 dominating wins over the course of a season would be an amazing record.

But, again, I think it comes down to personalities. For example, my brother won't play a game that he isn't winning hard. We played lots of competitive games, Warhammer, Magic, StarCraft, when we were younger, and he would forfeit as soon as the game got close, even if he was still technically winning. He did the same thing in HS basketball, giving up and not trying anymore anytime his team was behind even if it was still a very close game. Bob seems to be the same way (and you might be as well, although I am just basing this off what you said, I have no idea what you are like at the table), and there is probably some value in running an easier game for them.

But, as I said upthread, running an easy game is really hard, on both a mechanical and narrative level, as well as socially as you need to keep them entertained and avoid coming across as condescending, and I don't think I know how to do it. Maybe a topic for a future thread.

zinycor

2019-11-01, 01:18 PM

In the end, I believe the whole "gotcha monsters" were a problem at YOUR table. I don't believe these sort of monsters are that bad in general and I have used many to great effect at my games.

But that was because I play with people that I trust and they trust me, which wasn't the case at your table.

Oh! And you hydra ghost was a horrible encounter and in my opinion requires lots of polish and I would refrain from using it in its current form.

NichG

2019-11-01, 02:53 PM

Of course I am partially responsible. It would be ridiculous to think otherwise.

Don't you think its kind of hypocritical to assume that there are things I am leaving out and also to assume I will misinterpret your point?

Um, no, that's a total non-sequitur to me. You have left things out. You have misinterpreted the points of many posters. This already happened, so its not like it's a point of position or philosophy or stance, its just literally what happened already in this thread several times now. Given that it happened, it just makes sense to consider that, going forward, if we interact the same way it will only happen again.

How so? Gust of wind blows you back regardless of whether you are flying or incorporeal, and evil eye damages you regardless of wheth

...

The only thing I can think is that you are basing this off the 3.X version of gust of wind which pushes flying and gaseous characters further than normal but, A: I am not using that version and B: The extra distance was not necessary to force him off the bridge.

The 3.X version doesn't push back medium creatures at all, by the way. And yes, unless you specifically give these details, we're going to assume that the spell by a particular name that is identical to the name of a spell in D&D, which is described by you as being added to the monster in order to give it an answer to ranged fliers, works like the spell in D&D which has a special effect on fliers.

Again, how so?

The definition of a "gotcha" is, afaict at this moment, something that punishes a player by subverting expectations in a way they could not realistically have foreknowledge of; and that punishments include wasting a turn, wasting a spell slot, or being forced to fall back and regroup.

Correct?

How do you have an encounter with a mysterious monster without one or more of these things being true? For example, while out hunting a giant killer wolf and it turns out to be a werewolf and you shoot it without silver bullets, you have wasted your turn, if it turns out to be a gangrel vampire in dire wolf form and you shoot it with silver bullets, you have wasted your money. Either way is a gotcha, right?

The 'exploit expectations' part (exploit, not subvert) is important here. The Glabrezu does not subvert expectations, and furthermore it does not consist of something which the players could not realistically have foreknowledge of. You even mention a Knowledge: Religion check in your description, which is an explicit mechanic that exists to give the wizard that particular foreknowledge they would need not to use the lightning bolt.

Similarly, giant killer wolf = werewolf is a surprise, but its coherent in a way that a player could anticipate it (especially in a WoD game, where players are aware 'werewolves are a thing, and WoD supernaturals tend to be diverse in how they express that'). But if it was, say, a golem made of silver which had been subject to Incarnate Construct and then infected with lycanthropy, thereby literally being a silver creature that is only vulnerable to silver, that would be a gotcha.

To me this seems ludicrous.

Following the formula of:

Falling back to regroup = loss.
Narrow victory = loss.
Loss = frustration.
A frustration in 1/6 combats during the session = entire session tainted.

I can't think of many games that would not be "fairly high difficulty". I have certainly never DMed or played in on, or even listened to / read an AP of one.

I've run, I think, 1.5 TPKs in maybe 12-13 years of gaming. The 1 was the entire party basically walking into a place that, every period of time provoked a ratcheting save vs a mind control effect, and they pressed on despite several rounds of saves - the result was mere embarassment (it was a comedic setting, the controller was fairly benign, but its a technical TPK) but even then it tainted 3 or 4 sessions, despite having no serious consequences. The 0.5 was a player metagaming to punch above their weight class by opening a portal to something they knew existed in the setting but was far above their ability to survive, and in a sort of bizarre Tomb of Horrors sense the rest of the party decided to jump in afterwards so as not to split the group; not a TPK because one party member had a get out of jail free card, but definitely felt like a TPK.

I've had a number of campaigns where a near miss tainted one or two sessions. There's a knife edge between 'that was so close, but look how awesome we are!' and 'that was so close, next time we won't be so lucky, lets quit while we're ahead'. The latter is, in my experience, a potential campaign-killer. An encounter somewhat similar to your hydraghost caused one of the latter in a campaign a few years back, which was likely the reason why one of the players withdrew and left the campaign - the players were facing an enemy who, in any direct conflict, scaled exactly as needed in order to create a stalemate against their opposition. They knew this explicitly, but felt that they could not come up with a strategy that would prevent that enemy from basically trolling their operations and causing indirect failure of things they cared about. And so one of the players basically detached from the game and said 'this is frustrating, its not fun' - which I consider to be a completely fair criticism.

And if you extend it beyond RPGs it gets even more ridiculous. Video games expect you to try over and over again through trial and error, but when my gaming group plays World of Warcraft we have worse records on farm nights. A "fair" board game assumes a 50% loss ratio. A football team that had a record of 3 losses, 9 close wins, and 13 dominating wins over the course of a season would be an amazing record.

But, again, I think it comes down to personalities. For example, my brother won't play a game that he isn't winning hard. We played lots of competitive games, Warhammer, Magic, StarCraft, when we were younger, and he would forfeit as soon as the game got close, even if he was still technically winning. He did the same thing in HS basketball, giving up and not trying anymore anytime his team was behind even if it was still a very close game. Bob seems to be the same way (and you might be as well, although I am just basing this off what you said, I have no idea what you are like at the table), and there is probably some value in running an easier game for them.

But, as I said upthread, running an easy game is really hard, on both a mechanical and narrative level, as well as socially as you need to keep them entertained and avoid coming across as condescending, and I don't think I know how to do it. Maybe a topic for a future thread.

Tabletop games, video games, and sports are not at all the same kind of thing, and they're not experienced by players the same way. They ask for different quantities of your time, setbacks have different levels of permanence, and the way you engage with them is different.

patchyman

2019-11-01, 03:58 PM

And if you extend it beyond RPGs it gets even more ridiculous. Video games expect you to try over and over again through trial and error, but when my gaming group plays World of Warcraft we have worse records on farm nights. A "fair" board game assumes a 50% loss ratio. A football team that had a record of 3 losses, 9 close wins, and 13 dominating wins over the course of a season would be an amazing record.
.

Do you think that RPGs are comparable to board games, sports or video games when it comes to the effect of a TPK? If so, why? If not, why bring up the comparison?

zinycor

2019-11-01, 04:47 PM

Another thing, I don't think anyone appreciattes you judging them from the answer they have given you, I know I didn't appreciatte your judgement.

Talakeal

2019-11-01, 05:02 PM

Do you think that RPGs are comparable to board games, sports or video games when it comes to the effect of a TPK? If so, why? If not, why bring up the comparison?

Of course they are comparable. They aren't a direct 1 to 1 comparison, but the same general principles apply, and the idea that someone can't handle a loss / near loss to the point where they stop enjoying the game doesn't really have anything to do with the game's format and is more a general principle of psychology and sportsmanship.

Tabletop games, video games, and sports are not at all the same kind of thing, and they're not experienced by players the same way. They ask for different quantities of your time, setbacks have different levels of permanence, and the way you engage with them is different.

Could you explain how?

I fundamentally don't see the difference between spending 3 hours playing a game of Warhammer and being frustrated by not dominating your opponent and spending 3 hours dungeon crawling and being frustrated by barely scraping a du an RPG.

The 3.X version doesn't push back medium creatures at all, by the way. And yes, unless you specifically give these details, we're going to assume that the spell by a particular name that is identical to the name of a spell in D&D, which is described by you as being added to the monster in order to give it an answer to ranged fliers, works like the spell in D&D which has a special effect on fliers.

But why would you assume 3E rather than the current edition, especially when I said repeatedly that I wasn't playing 3E?

So, knowing that the gust of wind had no special effect against his opponent (my players knew this as well), does that change your answer?

The 'exploit expectations' part (exploit, not subvert) is important here. The Glabrezu does not subvert expectations, and furthermore it does not consist of something which the players could not realistically have foreknowledge of. You even mention a Knowledge: Religion check in your description, which is an explicit mechanic that exists to give the wizard that particular foreknowledge they would need not to use the lightning bolt.

Similarly, giant killer wolf = werewolf is a surprise, but its coherent in a way that a player could anticipate it (especially in a WoD game, where players are aware 'werewolves are a thing, and WoD supernaturals tend to be diverse in how they express that'). But if it was, say, a golem made of silver which had been subject to Incarnate Construct and then infected with lycanthropy, thereby literally being a silver creature that is only vulnerable to silver, that would be a gotcha.

Ok, I am back to being completely lost then.

I've run, I think, 1.5 TPKs in maybe 12-13 years of gaming. The 1 was the entire party basically walking into a place that, every period of time provoked a ratcheting save vs a mind control effect, and they pressed on despite several rounds of saves - the result was mere embarrassment (it was a comedic setting, the controller was fairly benign, but its a technical TPK) but even then it tainted 3 or 4 sessions, despite having no serious consequences. The 0.5 was a player metagaming to punch above their weight class by opening a portal to something they knew existed in the setting but was far above their ability to survive, and in a sort of bizarre Tomb of Horrors sense the rest of the party decided to jump in afterwards so as not to split the group; not a TPK because one party member had a get out of jail free card, but definitely felt like a TPK.

I've had a number of campaigns where a near miss tainted one or two sessions. There's a knife edge between 'that was so close, but look how awesome we are!' and 'that was so close, next time we won't be so lucky, lets quit while we're ahead'. The latter is, in my experience, a potential campaign-killer. An encounter somewhat similar to your hydraghost caused one of the latter in a campaign a few years back, which was likely the reason why one of the players withdrew and left the campaign - the players were facing an enemy who, in any direct conflict, scaled exactly as needed in order to create a stalemate against their opposition. They knew this explicitly, but felt that they could not come up with a strategy that would prevent that enemy from basically trolling their operations and causing indirect failure of things they cared about. And so one of the players basically detached from the game and said 'this is frustrating, its not fun' - which I consider to be a completely fair criticism.

That's actually pretty incredible. Dice alone should result in more TPKs then that if you are playing D&D "as written". Do you do something to mitigate it? Like have an unusually large or well-prepared group, or play significantly above WBL or what?

Tajerio

2019-11-01, 06:49 PM

I want to remark generally that I agree with basically everything NichG has said above on this particular subject. I generally start out very sympathetic to you in these threads, Talakeal, because you describe absurd and awful situations that I wouldn't wish on any GM. And then the sympathy wears away as a) new details gradually come out that change my understanding of the situations you're complaining about and b) you go to great lengths to dismiss advice and counter criticism, rather than taking any of it onboard in apparent good faith.

On other games and on TPKs (sorry I've mushed all the quotations together):

Of course they are comparable. They aren't a direct 1 to 1 comparison, but the same general principles apply, and the idea that someone can't handle a loss / near loss to the point where they stop enjoying the game doesn't really have anything to do with the game's format and is more a general principle of psychology and sportsmanship.

Could you explain how?

I fundamentally don't see the difference between spending 3 hours playing a game of Warhammer and being frustrated by not dominating your opponent and spending 3 hours dungeon crawling and being frustrated by barely scraping a du an RPG.

That's actually pretty incredible. Dice alone should result in more TPKs then that if you are playing D&D "as written". Do you do something to mitigate it? Like have an unusually large or well-prepared group, or play significantly above WBL or what?

For me, the difference is that I'm not playing an RPG for the sake of competition. Yes, there's a vague competition of entities-I-control vs. the players, but the point is not really for me to "win." The point is to cooperate in having a good time together. If we go all the way to having a TPK, then even if that's maybe "realistic" by the rules of whatever game we're playing, it's a bad outcome. The players lose whatever they invested in their characters and the story, and I lose whatever we invested in their interactions with the world fleshing it out and making it more interesting. Even running close to that risk, if it happens repeatedly, is disheartening and demoralizing, because of what an absolute wreckage a TPK would wreak on the investment of me and my players into the game. That's why I almost always make sure that they know when an encounter is really threatening and could wipe them all out, and why I also make sure to have very very few of those encounters. And if I do have such an encounter, I run it in a way such that there'll still be a way for them to carry on if need be.

In other types of games, generally one doesn't have to worry about a TPK the same way, or even worry about struggling along trying to avoid one, because either a) one hasn't invested cooperatively into a story contingent on a group of characters surviving or b) one can reload. Or both could even be true.

Koo Rehtorb

2019-11-01, 07:37 PM

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a TPK. It's a chance to make fresh new characters and have fresh new stories. And the fact that TPKs are demonstrably possible raises the stakes in all subsequent gaming with that group and makes your victories sweeter.

The DM shouldn't be trying to kill the PCs, but he also shouldn't be trying to not kill the PCs.

Frozenstep

2019-11-01, 07:42 PM

Hi. I haven't read every page of this thread yet, so forgive me if some of my points have been made before, but felt like throwing in some thoughts anyway.

Of course they are comparable. They aren't a direct 1 to 1 comparison, but the same general principles apply, and the idea that someone can't handle a loss / near loss to the point where they stop enjoying the game doesn't really have anything to do with the game's format and is more a general principle of psychology and sportsmanship.

Could you explain how?

I fundamentally don't see the difference between spending 3 hours playing a game of Warhammer and being frustrated by not dominating your opponent and spending 3 hours dungeon crawling and being frustrated by barely scraping a du an RPG.

Classic "it varies from table to table, game to game", but I've found TTRPGs have factors that multiply how badly a loss can feel. It being in front of other people, the amount of time that leads up into that loss, the time it'll be before that loss is made up for, the fact that there's someone on the other side of that loss (the DM), it all can multiply if the situation is wrong.

I can die like a dozen times in dark souls and not really get too frustrated, because within a minute I'm back to trying again, and no one is watching me so I'm not embarrassed or anything about my loss, and no one is really depending on me for anything (while in a TTRPG, a bad choice on my part could cost another person a character in the middle of an interesting story arc). So when something that feels unfair kills me, I roll my eyes and move on, but if something unfair caused an embarrassing defeat in a TTRPG, and then the session ends there and I wait a full week with that experience being the only thing on my mind whenever I think about DnD during that time...it creates a different experience.

The whole learning encounters thing might come from video games, where they use this technique often. Show the player a monster or something in a relatively tame environment (might still kill them, depending on game, but hopefully a retry isn't far back), let them get "gotcha'd" or whatever, and then later start using the monster in more complex patterns/situations that force the players to play around whatever the gotcha is because they can be trusted to know it. Thing is, the video game probably has you spend a few seconds in a state where you get gotcha'd by the gimmick of a certain enemy, but then provide several minutes where you're dealing with an interesting challenge of dodging the gimmicks while also platforming and whatever else the game can throw in combination. The gotcha moment pays itself back many times over for what it enables the designer to throw at the player.

But in a TTRPG, the initial learning encounter probably takes longer, and then whatever it enables you to do now that the players have learned could come much later (next session?), and you may not even use it for that much longer because using the same enemy gimmick over and over could end up being repetitive. So your players might be spending a larger proportion of their time in the learning encounter, losing to something because they didn't know, then they are in the encounters using what they learned from the learning encounter. That doesn't feel good to play, even though it's utilizing something that is considered good design in video games.

Ok, I am back to being completely lost then.

This "Gotcha" thing has gone on for like 3 pages, and the term is kind of loosely defined, so different people see different things as gotchas. Maybe instead we should focus on poorly designed situations.

Players enter each situation, and have to make choices based on the information about the situation, but also based on past information they've received. However, every time the players make what looks like a good choice based on the situation and past information, and are actively punished for it, their ability to trust their information for future choices will go down, though this can be avoided if they can agree they overlooked information that showed their choice was not good. If the player knows nothing about a monster and just uses some ability, they're just guessing and it's not a choice, so even if it ends up the monster is immune it's not poorly designed or a gotcha.

But a situation set up to make certain choices look good, but then actively punishes them can lead to undesired results. The problem is it adds onto the "past information" each player is bringing into judging choices for a new situation. If they've been tricked several times before, they'll keep expecting tricks. If you keep making the decision that seems like a smart decision into a decision that harms the party, they'll stop trusting "smart" choices. Is that...what you want to encourage? If you aren't able to convince the party they overlooked information, you'll end up with problems.

NichG

2019-11-01, 10:44 PM

Could you explain how?

I fundamentally don't see the difference between spending 3 hours playing a game of Warhammer and being frustrated by not dominating your opponent and spending 3 hours dungeon crawling and being frustrated by barely scraping a du an RPG.

Tajerio and Frozenstep gave good answers to this, so rather than repeating I'll defer to their explanation.

But why would you assume 3E rather than the current edition, especially when I said repeatedly that I wasn't playing 3E?

So, knowing that the gust of wind had no special effect against his opponent (my players knew this as well), does that change your answer?

Yeah, that makes it not a gotcha.

Ok, I am back to being completely lost then.

I need more to go on than that if I'm going to try to clarify... What doesn't make sense to you?

That's actually pretty incredible. Dice alone should result in more TPKs then that if you are playing D&D "as written". Do you do something to mitigate it? Like have an unusually large or well-prepared group, or play significantly above WBL or what?

I mean, I try to generally stay aware of the party's abilities and limits, and rather than using things like WBL and CR to balance the game I design encounters around what I know the party can do and how they've been performing in similar situations. I probably also use a higher ratio of fights that aren't 'to the death of the other side' but have to do with, say, controlling some fixed-time window of opportunity in order to decide who gets to have their way, or things like that. I definitely do not use '6 fights a session', which is frankly kind of absurd to me (but I do understand people game like that). I'd say at most one fight a session, and the usual is more like every 2-3 sessions.

The points of challenge in my games center more around situations where its not necessarily easy to make the decision of what outcome each particular player would prefer. Often I do this just by having very open-ended decisions, such as e.g. 'people worldwide are developing superpowers because of this alien artifact, you have physical access and control of the artifact and even though you don't 100% understand how it works, you could try to change something about its function - what do you want to do?'. Other times (which I've had to learn to use more sparingly because they can be demoralizing), its via engineering situations where no perfect solution is logically possible, and leaving it to the players to negotiate the compromise.

I would say that the majority of fights I run are in some way or another 'puzzle' fights that involve figuring things out. As a necessary element to make that style work, I ensure that the game contains lots of tools which can be used to improve one's ability to figure things out, lots of clues, lots of things that have interesting interactions or which can be used to try to build understanding about what's going on, etc. But often the cost of not figuring things out 'correctly' isn't inaction or stasis or wasted turns, but rather it's a lack of precision as to the degree that the desired outcome of the encounter can be achieved. E.g. the party might want to save someone who is bound by a geas into fighting them; they could easily kill the person, but understanding the geas a little bit might let them (for example) transfer it to a sacrificial host, understanding it better might let them transfer it into something inanimate, understanding it perfectly might let them not only break it, but preserve the magic in it and gain the ability to forcibly apply it with changed wording to a future enemy.

(In the interest of clarity, I had both of those situations in the last campaign I ran, but its a custom superhero system and would require a LOT of explanation to dive down into the mechanics; one relevant thing is that the party had characters with very extensive information gathering and analysis powers, as well as the ability to directly manipulate very abstract things like 'the meaning of words', and so there were many many ways for them to actively engage with the challenge in both of these scenarios)

Kardwill

2019-11-02, 12:38 PM

Never put a piece on the board that you're not willing to lose :)

Oh, that's a motto I'm fully behind (I'm a "story" GM, but for me player actions are what always shape the story), and I don't fudge my games unless there's an actual rule for it (like fate points).

But in this situation, I'm not too worried about a level 4 party killing off a CR15 vampire lord with a goon escort.
It's more about having the PC's actions actually matter during this kind of scene. Which is why I will gamble another important NPC's life as a stake in this scene, and see if the PCs can get her through it alive.
Oh, and I'm kinda worried they'll do something stupid and get themselves killed, too. I usually GM with systems far less lethal than D&D, where losing a fight is mostly a twist in the story. But it was them that asked me to run D&D5 by-the-book and I told them several times that they'll sometime encounter enemies far above their weight, so I guess I'll run it and we'll see what happens

And if they manage to actually kill Strahd for good (Unlikely, but hey, **** happens) ? Well, I guess this will become an interesting "Curse of Strahd" campaign ^^

Fable Wright

2019-11-02, 06:15 PM

FWIW:

I think 'gotcha' monsters are fine. They've clearly been a long-enough running theme in Takaleal's game to expect a few surprises from out of nowhere, and the issue I've been seeing is that the gotcha monsters like the hydra ghost were some incredible build-up that was later let down at the moment of payoff.

That said, if you'll excuse my anime references, I think the issue is that your players want to be playing Goblin Slayer while you want to run Made in Abyss. There's just going to be some tonal differences because you're each trying to do something fundamentally different in the game world. Both styles are fun for the right people, but one does not fit in the other.

patchyman

2019-11-03, 11:39 AM

Of course they are comparable. They aren't a direct 1 to 1 comparison, but the same general principles apply, and the idea that someone can't handle a loss / near loss to the point where they stop enjoying the game doesn't really have anything to do with the game's format and is more a general principle of psychology and sportsmanship.

A couple of good answers by NicheG and Frozenstep that I completely endorse. Suffice it to say that to me a TPK is 100% difference from a loss in a board game, video game or a sport.

I would add a couple of nuances I haven’t seen described. In a competitive sport, I’m basically going in with the knowledge that unless I completely outclass my opponent, I’m going to lose about half the time. I have never played a TTRPG where the expectation is that odds are you are going to lose. Rare games that are designed as meatgrinders tend to state it up front and frequently.

Second, when I play TTRPGs, I invest considerably in my character and in the story. If my character dies, I care both because of the higher effort to create a new one and because I was invested in the old one. Even using the “respawning” mechanic you used in your game (where I wouldn’t lose the character), I would still tend to find that mechanic unfun because it would take me out of the story and I would find it unrealistic.

Talakeal

2019-11-03, 05:10 PM

A couple of good answers by NicheG and Frozenstep that I completely endorse. Suffice it to say that to me a TPK is 100% difference from a loss in a board game, video game or a sport.

I would add a couple of nuances I haven’t seen described. In a competitive sport, I’m basically going in with the knowledge that unless I completely outclass my opponent, I’m going to lose about half the time. I have never played a TTRPG where the expectation is that odds are you are going to lose. Rare games that are designed as meatgrinders tend to state it up front and frequently.

Second, when I play TTRPGs, I invest considerably in my character and in the story. If my character dies, I care both because of the higher effort to create a new one and because I was invested in the old one. Even using the “respawning” mechanic you used in your game (where I wouldn’t lose the character), I would still tend to find that mechanic unfun because it would take me out of the story and I would find it unrealistic.

We aren't talking about TPKs or character death though. We are talking about defeating a challenging opponent after a close battle or defeating an opponent on a second attempt after falling back and regrouping.

Also, do you have the same problems with D&D HP that you do with "respawning"? In 5E characters are frequently brought down to zero HP and then back on their feet a few minutes later if a deliberate attempt isn't made to kill them. Isn't that every bit as unrealistic?

zinycor

2019-11-03, 05:48 PM

I don't think realism should ever be a concern, Verisimilute is though.

Again Tal, the encounter you designed was utterly flawed, your PCs acted as expected, even the one who thought there was more to the monster.

Your players aren't bad because they don't understand you well, Your players are bad because they are disrespectful, distrusting, and whinny.

At every table, at some point (Or at every turn in my case) there is a case of miscomunication, specially from the GM to the players, this is to be expected, What I can't believe is how pretty normal cases of miscomunication seem so surprising to you. The party being hostile to someone who turns their light off is to be expected, the Party misinterpreting your words as some sort of puzzle, is also to be expected, The party not liking a monster with an ability unexpected, should be expected.

I believe every GM goes through these sort of things, but your reaction is what surprises me.

Great Dragon

2019-11-04, 09:21 AM

As can be seen, I do check in here, and I'm de-Lurking for a moment.

I don't think realism should ever be a concern, Verisimilitude is though.
IMO realism really shouldn't be in the majority of tRPGs.
Even in some of the "Realistic Modern" ones. The PCs are (eventually, if not immediately) going to be able to go beyond Guy at the Gym capability. I mean, people scaling a Skyscraper while shooting at each other with semi-automatic pistols really isn't something that is done IRL.

IME Verisimilitude can be tricky to maintain - especially for Fantasy games.

For me, it's mainly consistency with the Mechanics of the Game System being used.

But, I can understand that Verisimilitude can be more based on World Lore being consistent. Like if there are Werewolves running around fighting Vampires everywhere, and there aren't any stories about the Fey, suddenly having Faeries and/or allowing Changeling PCs - just breaks Verisimilitude.

Again Tal, the encounter you designed was utterly flawed, your PCs acted as expected, even the one who thought there was more to the monster.

I disagree a little, zinycor.
The idea of the Hydra Ghost wasn't flawed.
The fact that there wasn't any real way to beat it, was.
And certain spells only being a temporary solution isn't really beating it.
(Even petrification, since this only stopped an Avatar, and didn't affect the true Creature)

Take the actual Hydra: finding out that cutting off it's heads only grows more heads, and then figuring out ways to do damage that don't involve cutting off heads - is pretty much classic D&D.

Even the 3x D&D Ghost's "you can't hit me" because of being incorporeal can be dealt with, once discovered. The Ghost Touch spell and weapons with this enchantment being the obvious solution.

Now, the party teaming up and just swinging at it enough times means that eventually they'll get in enough hits, despite the 50% miss chance per attack, that it will be taken down.

But the real goal with the Ghost isn't just killing it. It's doing the Investigation to figure out why this Ghost is here in the first place and then doing some RP with the Ghost for more details, and perhaps the party doing something for the Ghost - that it can no longer do - finally puts it to Rest.

Talakeal's Hydra-Ghost (and yes, I know that's not what it is, or even called) caused conflict in the party. They fought it, retreated, did some research and came up with a plan that Takakeal says could have worked: Except for the the unbelieving (and violent) Player's actions.

The additional part of "Can't be killed by violence" to the Hydra Ghost would have been what I would have used as the Final Boss. Something that needed to be taken out without just beating it down, and something that was going to (eventually) re-spawn when defeated.

Your players aren't bad because they don't understand you well, Your players are bad because they are disrespectful, distrusting, and whinny.

I agree, especially with the Bold part.
-reactivates Lurking Mode-

patchyman

2019-11-04, 12:18 PM

We aren't talking about TPKs or character death though. We are talking about defeating a challenging opponent after a close battle or defeating an opponent on a second attempt after falling back and regrouping.

We were talking about several situations, which included TPKs and character deaths.

Also, do you have the same problems with D&D HP that you do with "respawning"? In 5E characters are frequently brought down to zero HP and then back on their feet a few minutes later if a deliberate attempt isn't made to kill them. Isn't that every bit as unrealistic?

Seeing both your and zincykor’s post, I realize that the word “unrealistic” does not convey the idea I wanted to. A more accurate word would be “immersion-breaking”.

HP does not break my immersion: on the mechanical front, it has been a part of the game since inception. On the narrative front, combats involving gradually wearing down your opponents follows typical adventure tropes. From a hybrid perspective, I am prepared to accept the kludge that HP represents both meat and stamina/vigor.

More specifically, concerning healing from 0 HP in 5e, most such abilities are explicitly magical (like spells or lay on hands). Since I consider that all PCs are exceptional, the use of the “Healer” feat by a PC to bring someone up from 0 also does not bother me.

However, a sort of “respawning” mechanic, where instead of a TPK, characters were inexplicably OK following a battle where they should have been captured or killed would break my immersion.

malachi

2019-11-04, 02:09 PM

That's the thing, it doesn't. Your players were perfectly justified in attempting to kill the creature by non-violent means because you hadn't given them any information about it.

You say that your players "read between the lines to assume I was telling them they needed to find some way to kill it without violence, which never entered my mind." It may have never entered your mind to tell them to kill the creature without violence. It may have never entered your mind to think that somebody might hear that and think, "Hum, if not violence, I'm going to figure out the appropriate means to kill this thing." Nevertheless, it is a perfectly reasonable course of action because you never said that the creature couldn't be killed by non-violent means. It's not reading between the lines, it's taking what you said at face value.

Saying "I don't have a dog" doesn't mean that I have a cat, but it doesn't mean that I don't have anything else either.

Saying "I don't have a TV in my bedroom" doesn't mean that I have a TV in my living room, but it doesn't mean that I don't have a TV at all either.

Statements like that depend largely on the context.

Q: "How is your dog?"
A: "I don't have a dog."
Implication: This is a direct answer to the question, and doesn't lead to any questions about whether I have other pets or not.

Q: "Do you have any pets?"
A: "I don't have a dog."
Implication: it's kind of murky, and doesn't answer the question, but leaves questions about whether I have other types of pets, and that I'm trying to evade answering that for some reason.

Q: "Do you have a dog or a cat?"
A: "I don't have a dog."
Implication: I have a cat.

Q: "Do you watch tv to help you sleep at night?"
A: "I don't have a TV in my bedroom."
Implication: It's almost a direct answer to the question, and mostly doesn't bring up other questions (except for maybe if I sleep in my bedroom or not)

Q: "Did you watch [popular show] last week?"
A: "I don't have a TV in my bedroom."
Implication: it's kind of murky, and doesn't answer the question, but leaves questions about whether I watched the tv in another room, or watched the show through another method, and that I'm trying to evade answering that for some reason.

Q: "Do you have a tv?"
A: "I don't have a TV in my bedroom."
Implication: I have one, but it's not in my bedroom, and I'm being obtuse and annoying in choosing not to answer directly with "yes".

Q: "Can violence kill the monster?"
A: "The monster cannot be killed by violence."
Implication: neat and tidy answer to a very narrow question.

Q: "How do we deal with the monster?"
A: "The monster cannot be killed by violence."
Implication: it can be killed another way, or else the clause 'by violence' wouldn't be needed. I'm being obtuse and annoying by choosing not to answer directly, leaving it up to the group to figure out the real trick.

Q: "How do we deal with the monster?"
A: "The monster cannot be killed."
Implication: No attempt to kill it will work. Some other solution needs to be found. Maybe sneak around it? Bind it with some forbidden ritual?

Talakeal

2019-11-11, 04:56 PM

Sorry for taking so long to respond, I have been sick this past week.

First, the good news: Brian has agreed to take over GMing for the time being, so expect to hear horror stories from the other side of the screen starting next year!

The Bad News: I feel like a junky. Its been a month, and I am already feeling tempted to GM again, and I keep getting inspiration for adventures.

Also, my players apparently are holding a grudge.

So, to explain, I need to provide a little detail about my game structure.

It was designed as a sandbox style campaign. The primary goal of the campaign was to explore the ruins / wilderness around the city of Meridia. There were forty legendary "boss" monsters in the region, each getting stronger the further away from civilization it was, and the players got XP for killing them (or allying with them / driving them from the region). This was the only source of XP. Half the monsters lived in "dungeons", which were the primary source of treasure.

There was also a secondary political goal. The character's home city was in the path of a conquering army that it could not hope to defeat alone, and so the players were to seek out allies in the wilderness to aid them in the coming invasion.

So, coming into the last session I had three adventures prepared: The final dungeon with the last of the "boss" monsters in it, the climactic session that dealt with the invasion of the PCs home city, and an epilogue that was meant to be more of a "stinger" for the next campaign (which at this point probably won't ever actually happen).

Now, I had planned to run them as three separate sessions, and hadn't fully prepped the last two. But, they finished the first dungeon in only a few hours, and then informed me that someone would be unavaiable every weekend for the next month, so I decided to just finish the game that night rather than leaving everyone on a month long cliff-hanger. In retrospect, this was a huge mistake.

Now, during the fight with the last of the boss monsters in the final dungeon, the players whined that it had really high stats. I said something to the line of "of course it has higher stats than anything you have fought before, its the last boss." They defeated it, and though it was a tough fight (the only tough fight of the day) it was not a near TPK.

Then I decided to run the invasion of the city. Now, if you are following my previous threads, you will know that the players had been hoarding all of their money for consumables for this fight, and that during the climactic battle they were rules lawyering me by stating that if you interrupt someone's stated action they lose their turn, which isn't a rule in any modern RPG that I am aware of. After about five minutes of rules lawyering I snapped at them and told them that I am really getting sick of their behavior and would be taking a break from GMing after this adventure. A moment later I calmed down and said "Sorry, but I am getting really frustrated. I am trying to run a climactic and memorable final battle here, and you guys are kind of trivializing it by spending five sessions worth of treasure on consumables for one fight, and then compounding that by turning it into a mechanical and narrative farce by rules lawyering the enemy general into standing there like a slack-jawed idiot instead of fighting."

So, they dropped the rules lawyering and proceeded to mop the floor with the enemy force through overwhelming WBLmancy and their city was saved.

We proceeded to the epilogue, where they fought three high level wizards. There was no adventuring or dungeon crawling or minions, just the three wizard battles with RP between them.

Now, I had the enemy wizards fully statted out, but as I was running the adventure sooner than I anticipated, I hadn't really gotten their tactics down or even memorized their spell lists, so all of them went down pretty easily and I felt that the fights were not as memorable as they should have been. The last wizard had the equivalent of a cloak of greater displacement (50% miss chance) and after a lucky string of rolls the players complained that the item was unfair. It said something along the lines of "He is one wizard against an entire party, without it he would be dead in a round or two, and I want the last fight of the campaign to be somewhat memorable." (Note, after that he had a string of bad miss rolls, and two rounds later he was dead).

In response Bob and Sarah turned to each other, adopted comical expressions of surprise, and in an ultra sarcastic voice said:

"How is that possible! The last fight already happened! Don't you remember!"
"Oh, yeah, the climactic final battle against the enemy general! I remember that! It was the last fight!"
"No no, I was talking about the last fight in the dungeon! Don't you remember!"
"I thought I did! But then, you said that was the last fight, and then this was the last fight, so I must have imagined it!"
"That's right! We couldn't have THREE last fights! That's impossible! So this current fight must be a group hallucination!"

Now, I wasn't sure if they were upset because they thought I was lying / trying to trick them because when I referred to one monster as the "last boss" they legitimately took that as a promise that there would be no combat in the next two adventures or if they were just making fun of my lack of clarity for not clearly specifying the difference between The last of the forty boss monsters, the climactic battle of the campaign, and the last fight that occurred chronologically, but either way I found it extremely rude and disruptive, but I just waved it off and said "Ok guys, I get you, I could have been clearer, let's just move on and finish this game."

And we did.

So then the other night we were meeting over dinner to discuss Brian's upcoming campaign, and at one point I apologized for not sticking the landing of my game. I said that I should have just waited, that the game is only late once but it is bad forever as they say, and by trying to run three adventures in one session everyone, including myself, was kind of tired and cranky and the ending felt rushed. And besides, I really should have done a better job of preparing tactics for the last few fights as you really need to think outside of the box to make a party vs wizard figtht memorable. At which point Bob and Sarah turned to one another and adopted the same surprised face and sarcastic voice and went into a bit of "When you say last fight what do you mean? I just can't tell! There were so many last fights! But I would have thought that was impossible so I am just so confused! When you say "last fight" was it the first last fight, or the second last fight, or the third last fight? No, I think it was the last last fight! But I thought the other one was last! But I am just so confused I just can't tell anymore!" And they went on like this.

So, either they are still holding a grudge over a perceived slight that occurred over a month ago and expressing it through mockery, or they have decided to start actually bullying me long-term over my inability to communicate clearly. Either way, its really not fun.

I can die like a dozen times in dark souls and not really get too frustrated, because within a minute I'm back to trying again, and no one is watching me so I'm not embarrassed or anything about my loss, and no one is really depending on me for anything (while in a TTRPG, a bad choice on my part could cost another person a character in the middle of an interesting story arc). So when something that feels unfair kills me, I roll my eyes and move on, but if something unfair caused an embarrassing defeat in a TTRPG, and then the session ends there and I wait a full week with that experience being the only thing on my mind whenever I think about DnD during that time...it creates a different experience.

The whole learning encounters thing might come from video games, where they use this technique often. Show the player a monster or something in a relatively tame environment (might still kill them, depending on game, but hopefully a retry isn't far back), let them get "gotcha'd" or whatever, and then later start using the monster in more complex patterns/situations that force the players to play around whatever the gotcha is because they can be trusted to know it. Thing is, the video game probably has you spend a few seconds in a state where you get gotcha'd by the gimmick of a certain enemy, but then provide several minutes where you're dealing with an interesting challenge of dodging the gimmicks while also platforming and whatever else the game can throw in combination. The gotcha moment pays itself back many times over for what it enables the designer to throw at the player.

But in a TTRPG, the initial learning encounter probably takes longer, and then whatever it enables you to do now that the players have learned could come much later (next session?), and you may not even use it for that much longer because using the same enemy gimmick over and over could end up being repetitive. So your players might be spending a larger proportion of their time in the learning encounter, losing to something because they didn't know, then they are in the encounters using what they learned from the learning encounter. That doesn't feel good to play, even though it's utilizing something that is considered good design in video games.

That's an interesting take, but I don't think you should be "embarrased" by failing to an unfair surprise, and if you are, that's really a table disfunction.

I can see the time issue, but again, it speaks to a certain assumption that you aren't having fun unless you are winning, which is, imo, a really toxic approach to take to an RPG. Besides, I am not sure if time is an accurate measurement. If I lose five times to an enemy and then finally overcome him on the sixth time, the overall experaince of finally triumphing is a lot more fun and memorable than spending the same time having six basic slaughter the orcs fights.

But again, this isn't a technique I use often; typically only about a year or so when the players encounter an enemy that requires some unconventional strategy for the first time.

Also, these learning fights aren't necessarily about losing and getting beaten up; they are about allowing players to safely experiment until they find something that works and then learning how to employ those lessons efficiently in a standard combat. For example, the "ghost-hydra" fight wouldn't travel more than a hundred meters or so from the artifact it was guarding, and had a pretty low damage output (two sessions later the players would fight five monsters with identical stat-lines except for the splitting and would wipe the floor with them), and the players were able to safely learn its abilities, fall back, and come up with a plan for defeating it; if they had made some different decisions they could have simply defeated it outright on the first encounter (for example, manacling it or trapping it behind a wall spell when it was stunned).

This "Gotcha" thing has gone on for like 3 pages, and the term is kind of loosely defined, so different people see different things as gotchas. Maybe instead we should focus on poorly designed situations.

Players enter each situation, and have to make choices based on the information about the situation, but also based on past information they've received. However, every time the players make what looks like a good choice based on the situation and past information, and are actively punished for it, their ability to trust their information for future choices will go down, though this can be avoided if they can agree they overlooked information that showed their choice was not good. If the player knows nothing about a monster and just uses some ability, they're just guessing and it's not a choice, so even if it ends up the monster is immune it's not poorly designed or a gotcha.

But a situation set up to make certain choices look good, but then actively punishes them can lead to undesired results. The problem is it adds onto the "past information" each player is bringing into judging choices for a new situation. If they've been tricked several times before, they'll keep expecting tricks. If you keep making the decision that seems like a smart decision into a decision that harms the party, they'll stop trusting "smart" choices. Is that...what you want to encourage? If you aren't able to convince the party they overlooked information, you'll end up with problems.

Its a measure of scale.

Yes, I want to encourage the players to keep on their toes and not become complacent.

The goal is for the players to be able to handle any situation.

For example, say 90% of dragons breath fire in this campaign world.

The players should go into an encounter prepared for fire, but shouldn't completely lose their minds and panic the 10% of the time when it does something else.

Just imagine a real life non-gaming scenario; sometimes something unexpected happens and you need to do something different to handle it; that doesn't mean you should throw out your standard operating procedure for the vast majority of times when everything goes according to plan.

At every table, at some point (Or at every turn in my case) there is a case of miscomunication, specially from the GM to the players, this is to be expected, What I can't believe is how pretty normal cases of miscomunication seem so surprising to you. The party being hostile to someone who turns their light off is to be expected, the Party misinterpreting your words as some sort of puzzle, is also to be expected, The party not liking a monster with an ability unexpected, should be expected.

The issue isn't that miscommunication occurs. The issue is that my players expect perfectly balanced fights regardless of what strategy they take, which is something I just can't do. I can't tell if they are going to charge in gun's blazing or ambush, talk their way through or fight, go in as a group or trickle in one at a time, attack in the dark or wait until morning, ambush the enemy on the road or besiege their lair, etc.

I do my best to figure out what the most likely strategy is and balance around that, and most of the time it works. But sometimes the players do something totally surprising, and sometimes it works out in their favor, and sometimes it doesn't. But when it doesn't they players raise holy hell about it, and those tend to be the situations that get discussed on the forum.

We were talking about several situations, which included TPKs and character deaths.

Ok, I fully agree, TPKs and not being able to play a beloved character anymore sucks a lot worse than losing in a video or board game, but that's not really the conversation we were having.

NichG said that close victories or falling back to regroup feel like losses to the players and should thus be treated as TPKs, and I was asking why the "feeling" of losing is such a bad thing. In fair competitions a 50% loss ratio is normal, and that a close game is often considered to be better than a one sided slaughter. So why is it that RPG players can't handle the "feeling of losing" once every few months without it tainting the entire campaign?

Statements like that depend largely on the context.

Q: "Can violence kill the monster?"
A: "The monster cannot be killed by violence."
Implication: neat and tidy answer to a very narrow question.

Q: "How do we deal with the monster?"
A: "The monster cannot be killed by violence."
Implication: it can be killed another way, or else the clause 'by violence' wouldn't be needed. I'm being obtuse and annoying by choosing not to answer directly, leaving it up to the group to figure out the real trick.

Q: "How do we deal with the monster?"
A: "The monster cannot be killed."
Implication: No attempt to kill it will work. Some other solution needs to be found. Maybe sneak around it? Bind it with some forbidden ritual?

Agreed. Here is the thing though, the players in question then took it one step further and then assumed "So the DM also put in some super secret way to kill it that wouldn't kill an ordinary person, so lets just try doing random stuff in its vicinity until we stumble upon it," which is just one level of assumption too far.

Tajerio and Frozenstep gave good answers to this, so rather than repeating I'll defer to their explanation.

Again though, the real issue is about why RPG players feel so bad about losing, a purely psychological issue rather than a mechanical one. From an emotional perspective, I don't see why losing a fight in an RPG (assuming your character is ok) should feel so much worse than losing a game of Warhammer or StarCraft.

I mean, I try to generally stay aware of the party's abilities and limits, and rather than using things like WBL and CR to balance the game I design encounters around what I know the party can do and how they've been performing in similar situations. I probably also use a higher ratio of fights that aren't 'to the death of the other side' but have to do with, say, controlling some fixed-time window of opportunity in order to decide who gets to have their way, or things like that. I definitely do not use '6 fights a session', which is frankly kind of absurd to me (but I do understand people game like that). I'd say at most one fight a session, and the usual is more like every 2-3 sessions.

The points of challenge in my games center more around situations where its not necessarily easy to make the decision of what outcome each particular player would prefer. Often I do this just by having very open-ended decisions, such as e.g. 'people worldwide are developing superpowers because of this alien artifact, you have physical access and control of the artifact and even though you don't 100% understand how it works, you could try to change something about its function - what do you want to do?'. Other times (which I've had to learn to use more sparingly because they can be demoralizing), its via engineering situations where no perfect solution is logically possible, and leaving it to the players to negotiate the compromise.

I would say that the majority of fights I run are in some way or another 'puzzle' fights that involve figuring things out. As a necessary element to make that style work, I ensure that the game contains lots of tools which can be used to improve one's ability to figure things out, lots of clues, lots of things that have interesting interactions or which can be used to try to build understanding about what's going on, etc. But often the cost of not figuring things out 'correctly' isn't inaction or stasis or wasted turns, but rather it's a lack of precision as to the degree that the desired outcome of the encounter can be achieved. E.g. the party might want to save someone who is bound by a geas into fighting them; they could easily kill the person, but understanding the geas a little bit might let them (for example) transfer it to a sacrificial host, understanding it better might let them transfer it into something inanimate, understanding it perfectly might let them not only break it, but preserve the magic in it and gain the ability to forcibly apply it with changed wording to a future enemy.

(In the interest of clarity, I had both of those situations in the last campaign I ran, but its a custom superhero system and would require a LOT of explanation to dive down into the mechanics; one relevant thing is that the party had characters with very extensive information gathering and analysis powers, as well as the ability to directly manipulate very abstract things like 'the meaning of words', and so there were many many ways for them to actively engage with the challenge in both of these scenarios)

That actually sounds a lot like the kind of game I enjoy, which makes it weird that we have this big disconnect.

I generally try and avoid running games like that as, for my players at least, consequences for their actions tend to actively ruin the game for them.

I had one player who would routinely engineer a situation with consequences (use commoners as bait for monsters, go into hostage situations guns blazing, attempt to seduce a monster, stage a rape to lure out a vigilante, order a massacre of enemy civilians, conscript an entire town into his army, etc.) and then when something bad happened to an NPC he would have his character commit suicide and then threaten to leave the gaming group as it was making him depressed.

Yeah, that makes it not a gotcha.

I need more to go on than that if I'm going to try to clarify... What doesn't make sense to you?

The problem is we lack a definition of gotcha, and those that we get involve lots of gray areas. It also involves words like "punishment" or "trickery" which are very loaded and have a big scale.

It seems like it is describing something malicious, like the DM describes an ordinary troll, but then when you hit it with fire it turns into a super troll that then crushes the PCs while the DM laughs at their stupidity.

But then, it could also describe an encounter with a humanoid that the PCs assume is a troll because it sounds kind of like one, and then waste a fireball spell burning its corpse because they assumed it would regenerate when it doesn't actually have that ability.

What I am actually doing is, when the players encounter a new monster type, I prefer to let them learn its abilities by doing rather than by telling (although I still do put in reasonable telegraphs and allow PCs to make lore checks), but I generally adjust the difficulty in accordance with the consequences of ignorance; for example dropping a HD off a bruiser that can shoot magic missiles or making sure that the monster which can't be killed except by a certain attack is in an environment where it is easy to escape from.

So, for the "sneeze-ogre" example:

Most people are saying that giving a big bruiser a ranged attack at all is a gotcha because it surprises players and negates what would otherwise be smart tactics like fly or gaseous form.

You are saying, if I am reading you correctly, that it is only a gotcha if makes those tactics actively detrimental like the 3.5 version of gust of wind would.

Where as I look it like "I want a big bruiser with a fairy tail vibe. A land-locked boss monster for a mid level party needs some form of ranged attack if it is to be fought in the open otherwise fly would trivialize it. The formorian meets all of those categories, but I want him to have a bit more of a whimsical nature and favors non-lethal tactics, so I will reskin him to look more goofy ugly instead of hideous ugly, and replace its "psychic damage evil eye" with a "wind damage giant nose" because the monster favored non-lethal tactics and I wanted it to have a bit more of a whimsical fairy tale feel."

I would add a couple of nuances I haven’t seen described. In a competitive sport, I’m basically going in with the knowledge that unless I completely outclass my opponent, I’m going to lose about half the time. I have never played a TTRPG where the expectation is that odds are you are going to lose.

Again though, we are counting close calls and falling back to regroup as a loss, and are still only coming up with one loss every three sessions / twenty battles or so.

If we are only counting actual losses, either where the players are wholly defeated in combat OR completely unable to stop the villains scheme OR only achieve victory through a severe long term sacrifice this only occurs once every 20 sessions / hundred battles or so.

If we were counting actual TPKs, well those only come up once every couple of years.

To use a bit of an illustrated metaphor, in the comic books that the recent Avengers movies were based on, Thanos has the all-powerful infinity gauntlet, however to impress Mistress Death he decides to give himself a .5% chance of losing to the super-heroes. Now, in the comics this comes across as all but hopeless, the heroes in a fatalistic fight against an omnipotent foe with only the barest sliver of hope.

BUT if you actually run the numbers, .5% is about the odds of any given fight actually resulting in a TPK in my games. That means that, from the villains perspective, the PCs feel like all powerful Thanos coming to wipe them out.

And yet my players, and the forum, still rate my game as extremely hard.

Seeing both your and zincykor’s post, I realize that the word “unrealistic” does not convey the idea I wanted to. A more accurate word would be “immersion-breaking”.

HP does not break my immersion: on the mechanical front, it has been a part of the game since inception. On the narrative front, combats involving gradually wearing down your opponents follows typical adventure tropes. From a hybrid perspective, I am prepared to accept the kludge that HP represents both meat and stamina/vigor.

More specifically, concerning healing from 0 HP in 5e, most such abilities are explicitly magical (like spells or lay on hands). Since I consider that all PCs are exceptional, the use of the “Healer” feat by a PC to bring someone up from 0 also does not bother me.

However, a sort of “respawning” mechanic, where instead of a TPK, characters were inexplicably OK following a battle where they should have been captured or killed would break my immersion.

I suspect that maybe I am giving the wrong impression of my system; please don't take this as condescending if it actually is just a difference of opinions:

I don't know where you are getting the "should have died" part.

Combat in my system, just like in WoD or D&D, is not terribly lethal by default and it is virtually impossible to kill someone (who is not a nameless minion) outright with a single attack. Consider this a cinemetic technique to represent destiny or a an abstract game-mechanic to represent survivorship bias if you like.

Unless you take a critical hit, damage doesn't not equal serious injury. HP represent morale, exhaustion, and pain tolerance, and damage represents this being chipped away by minor wounds and the rigors of combat and other acts of extreme physical exertion.

When someone is at zero HP they are no longer in fighting shape; they are too sore and tired to push themselves any further.

When the entire party is in this state, they must either retreat or surrender.

Now, originally, I had the players roll on a "death and dismemberment" table like is found on so many OSR blogs when this occurred; which represented the consequences of being defeated or of hardships faced on the journey back to town in such a beat down shape. Possible penalties involved permanent injuries, sickness and infection, being robbed, being captured and ransomed, losing or damaging gear, etc. However, the players didn't like how random it was on the one (and only) TPK the group suffered, so I replaced the table with a flat loss of half treasure earned during the mission. The players then started playing extremely cautiously, returning to town to bank their treasure and rest up after every single encounter, which slowed the game down so much that I simply waived any penalty for a TPK; not that it ever occurred again.

Going back through my memory to list near defeats:

The game had ~40 sessions.

The party got in over their heads and went back to town to get help from the authorities on the first session.
The party got scared and sealed off the dungeon on the third session.
The party had a close call and barely survived the sixth session.
The party rolled extremely bad on a random encounter table and got the only true TPK of the campaign on the seventh session.
The party was missing two players due to illness and so the ninth session was a bit rough but they still triumphed.
The party got scared and retreated from a monster during the fourteenth session.
The "sneeze ogre" tossed the party into a pit during the seventeenth session, they climbed out and killed it.
During the twenty-fourth session Bob got mad at me / the rest of the party for allowing enemies to move out of formation during a dialogue scene and refused to participate, as a result the group came very close to a TPK but won out in the end by making some deals with NPCs.
During the twenty-sixth session the party had a close call and almost TPKed.
During the twenty-ninth session the party had one of their number petrified by a gorgon in the first fight and were thus down a man the entire time. If we were playing with permanent character deaths the group would have had to make the choice between retreating or suffering some casualties (although it would not have been a TPK).
During the thirty-first session the players had a tough battle and came close to a TPK.
During the thirty-third session the players encountered the "ghost-hydra" and had to fall back and come up with a plan to deal with an un-killable enemy. They had a plan, but one of the players though I was tricking them and refused to go along with the plan, so the players decided to deliberately TPK the group so that they could get the artifact the monster was guarding without dealing with it.

So, there you have it, 12 "losses" in 40 sessions each with about six combat encounters in them. There is my "extremely hard" campaign.

King of Nowhere

2019-11-11, 05:17 PM

So then the other night we were meeting over dinner to discuss Brian's upcoming campaign, and at one point I apologized for not sticking the landing of my game. I said that I should have just waited, that the game is only late once but it is bad forever as they say, and by trying to run three adventures in one session everyone, including myself, was kind of tired and cranky and the ending felt rushed. And besides, I really should have done a better job of preparing tactics for the last few fights as you really need to think outside of the box to make a party vs wizard figtht memorable. At which point Bob and Sarah turned to one another and adopted the same surprised face and sarcastic voice and went into a bit of "When you say last fight what do you mean? I just can't tell! There were so many last fights! But I would have thought that was impossible so I am just so confused! When you say "last fight" was it the first last fight, or the second last fight, or the third last fight? No, I think it was the last last fight! But I thought the other one was last! But I am just so confused I just can't tell anymore!" And they went on like this.

So, either they are still holding a grudge over a perceived slight that occurred over a month ago and expressing it through mockery, or they have decided to start actually bullying me long-term over my inability to communicate clearly. Either way, its really not fun.

can it be good natured? perhaps a joke?
one common feature of long campaigns are self-referential jokes that are only understandable to the players. they often have to do with something that happened at the table. this "last fight" thing could be one of those jokes, not meant as an offence or complaint.
there's no way to tell from your recounting.

zinycor

2019-11-11, 07:15 PM

IMO, if you said that the last boss, was the last boss... then it should have been the last boss... I also don't get why you decided to place a fight after that...

Anyway... IF you have problems communicating, then you either get players that are more forgiving and you allow people to retcon thir actions when confusion arises because of your comunication... Or... You stop GMing until you get better at communicating.

Seriously, most of GMing is about communicating things in such a clear and entertaining way.

Now, Your group seems terrible, and you should really uit it, not because they don't understand you, or complain about your GMing, but because they don't respect you!

Talakeal

2019-11-11, 07:44 PM

IMO, if you said that the last boss, was the last boss... then it should have been the last boss... I also don't get why you decided to place a fight after that...

The campaign goal involved hunting down forty legendary monsters that we had been colloquially referring to as "boss monsters". I referred to the last of the forty as the "last boss" as in he was the last of the forty boss monsters. My players took that to mean that as a promise that they would never fight anything again, which I really think they should have said something about at the time, because it is weird that they thought that our fairly combat heavy campaign would have two entire sessions with no battles in them, especially when they knew they had an enemy army set to invade their home town in the coming weeks.

Also note that even in video games, where the term originated, there are often fights after you defeat the last boss. Usually they are lesser fights, for example minions who get in your way as you try and escape an exploding enemy base, but sometimes they are actually stronger than the primary boss, typically in the form of an optional boss, secret boss, or surprise boss.

zinycor

2019-11-11, 07:47 PM

The campaign goal involved hunting down forty legendary monsters that we had been colloquially referring to as "boss monsters". I referred to the last of the forty as the "last boss" as in he was the last of the forty boss monsters. My players took that to mean that as a promise that they would never fight anything again, which I really think they should have said something about at the time, because it is weird that they thought that our fairly combat heavy campaign would have two entire sessions with no battles in them, especially when they knew they had an enemy army set to invade their home town in the coming weeks.

Also note that even in video games, where the term originated, there are often fights after you defeat the last boss. Usually they are lesser fights, for example minions who get in your way as you try and escape an exploding enemy base, but sometimes they are actually stronger than the primary boss, typically in the form of an optional boss, secret boss, or surprise boss.

But... there were not two entire sessions after that battle... or were there? Your last boss wasn't even the last boss they fought that session.

Talakeal

2019-11-11, 07:59 PM

But... there were not two entire sessions after that battle... or were there? Your last boss wasn't even the last boss they fought that session.

It was the last enemy that they fought that session. There were two sessions after that.

zinycor

2019-11-11, 08:15 PM

It was the last enemy that they fought that session. There were two sessions after that.

Now, I had planned to run them as three separate sessions, and hadn't fully prepped the last two. But, they finished the first dungeon in only a few hours, and then informed me that someone would be unavaiable every weekend for the next month, so I decided to just finish the game that night rather than leaving everyone on a month long cliff-hanger. In retrospect, this was a huge mistake.

I took this to mean that you didn't run 3 sessions but had a big final session.

Talakeal

2019-11-11, 08:41 PM

I took this to mean that you didn't run 3 sessions but had a big final session.

See, communication is hard for me :smallfrown:

To clarify:

I had three adventures. I had planned on running them on three separate days, but I ended up running them back to back on the same day.

The last of the boss monsters was killed at the end of the first adventure.
The second adventure, with the climactic invasion of the PCs home town, was the second adventure.
The third adventure was an epilogue / teaser for the next campaign that involved fighting three wizards.

I carelessly referred the last fight of each adventure in a way that made Bob and Sarah believe that it would be the final fight of the entire campaign.

Lord of Shadows

2019-11-11, 09:52 PM

First, the good news: Brian has agreed to take over GMing for the time being, so expect to hear horror stories from the other side of the screen starting next year!

Thank the gods...

The Bad News: I feel like a junky. Its been a month, and I am already feeling tempted to GM again, and I keep getting inspiration for adventures.

Write these down, maybe even flesh them out a little bit. Don't let inspiration go to waste.

It was designed as a sandbox style campaign. The primary goal of the campaign was to explore the ruins / wilderness around the city of Meridia. There were forty legendary "boss" monsters in the region, each getting stronger the further away from civilization it was, and the players got XP for killing them (or allying with them / driving them from the region). This was the only source of XP. Half the monsters lived in "dungeons", which were the primary source of treasure.

There was also a secondary political goal. The character's home city was in the path of a conquering army that it could not hope to defeat alone, and so the players were to seek out allies in the wilderness to aid them in the coming invasion.

So, coming into the last session I had three adventures prepared: The final dungeon with the last of the "boss" monsters in it, the climactic session that dealt with the invasion of the PCs home city, and an epilogue that was meant to be more of a "stinger" for the next campaign (which at this point probably won't ever actually happen).

I was able to follow this easily enough... Once I had fought the last boss, I would be expecting a confrontation with the incoming horde. Pretty self-explanatory. The stuff about the next campaign would just be frosting on the cake, so to speak. But then, I pay attention to the Campaign my characters are tromping around in.

The campaign goal involved hunting down forty legendary monsters that we had been colloquially referring to as "boss monsters". I referred to the last of the forty as the "last boss" as in he was the last of the forty boss monsters. My players took that to mean that as a promise that they would never fight anything again, which I really think they should have said something about at the time, because it is weird that they thought that our fairly combat heavy campaign would have two entire sessions with no battles in them, especially when they knew they had an enemy army set to invade their home town in the coming weeks.

I don't think your players pay that much attention to the campaign. Did they have even one ally lined up to help them with the invasion? No, wait, I know the answer: NO! They seem determined to complain about everything and disrupt play - even to the point of refusing to contribute when they get their nose out of joint (Bob strikes again). I don't know where these people learned to play TTRPG's, but they were at the bottom of the class... Do you have a local gaming store that offers time slots for game sessions? Try that instead. Sheesh.

NichG

2019-11-11, 10:42 PM

That's an interesting take, but I don't think you should be "embarrased" by failing to an unfair surprise, and if you are, that's really a table disfunction.

I can see the time issue, but again, it speaks to a certain assumption that you aren't having fun unless you are winning, which is, imo, a really toxic approach to take to an RPG. Besides, I am not sure if time is an accurate measurement. If I lose five times to an enemy and then finally overcome him on the sixth time, the overall experaince of finally triumphing is a lot more fun and memorable than spending the same time having six basic slaughter the orcs fights.

Ok, I fully agree, TPKs and not being able to play a beloved character anymore sucks a lot worse than losing in a video or board game, but that's not really the conversation we were having.

NichG said that close victories or falling back to regroup feel like losses to the players and should thus be treated as TPKs, and I was asking why the "feeling" of losing is such a bad thing. In fair competitions a 50% loss ratio is normal, and that a close game is often considered to be better than a one sided slaughter. So why is it that RPG players can't handle the "feeling of losing" once every few months without it tainting the entire campaign?

Again though, the real issue is about why RPG players feel so bad about losing, a purely psychological issue rather than a mechanical one. From an emotional perspective, I don't see why losing a fight in an RPG (assuming your character is ok) should feel so much worse than losing a game of Warhammer or StarCraft.

What people have said is: time lost to setbacks is a factor, whether the game is explicitly competitive is a factor, the feeling of winning versus the feeling of losing is a factor. You've said "ignoring those things you said were factors, why is there a difference?". Well, we told you why - its those factors you just chose to ignore. You say 'in fair competitions a 50% loss ratio is normal, why can't RPG players handle the feeling of losing?', ignoring when we said that we don't view tabletop RPGs as primarily competitive games, and therefore there are different standards at play. We said 'time matters' and you said 'I'm not sure that time matters'. We've said that winning feels better than losing, and your response was to say 'it shouldn't/you're wrong for feeling that way' rather than 'hm, okay, even though that causes problems with my style it just means I have to figure out how to work around that'.

Generally, when people express how they feel about something, you should take that as evidence rather than as a claim which can be disputed. If you don't feel this way, that's fine, but if your worldview is 'other people don't feel this way' and you hear people say 'this is how we feel', then that's cause to change your worldview, rather than cause to say 'other people must not feel this way because it doesn't make sense'. Psychological effects are much more important to table dynamics than mechanical effects, so saying that something is 'purely a psychological issue rather than a mechanical one' should make you think that it's more significant, not less.

In terms of the winning/losing thing: it helps if you don't structure your campaign to focus so much on direct confrontation. Life or death fights exclude nuance, and from what you've said your campaign is quite combat heavy. Instead, think about agency. Game feels good when your actions bring about forward motion that is at least partially aligned with your reasons for taking those actions. Game feels pointless when your actions result in no motion, such as spending 30 minutes or an hour on a fight that results in a return to the status quo. Game feels very bad when your actions actively bring about motion that is opposed to your reasons for taking the actions, such as in the case of a gotcha or Pyrrhic victory.

As long as players' actions always move them towards some of their goals, there's lots of room for nuance and complexity in the game in how those directions can be compatible with the agency of others, and in how the movement to the side hashes out - things that don't oppose the players' goals, but which are unexpected or which occur as byproducts of the players' actions. And at a high level, there's plenty of tension in the fact that the players' goals can also change in response to their interaction with the world. None of this requires 'losing' or 'near losses' to work. Most of it is difficult or impossible to explore in other media such as computer games, due to the inherent need for flexibility in order to deal with nuance.

That actually sounds a lot like the kind of game I enjoy, which makes it weird that we have this big disconnect.

I generally try and avoid running games like that as, for my players at least, consequences for their actions tend to actively ruin the game for them.

I had one player who would routinely engineer a situation with consequences (use commoners as bait for monsters, go into hostage situations guns blazing, attempt to seduce a monster, stage a rape to lure out a vigilante, order a massacre of enemy civilians, conscript an entire town into his army, etc.) and then when something bad happened to an NPC he would have his character commit suicide and then threaten to leave the gaming group as it was making him depressed.

If we had wildly different styles, there wouldn't be a disconnect because I wouldn't have as much of a context to understand the dysfunction and breakdown of the style. Basically, from my point of view, you're running a game which is close to the style I prefer in theory, but in practice you're doing it in the way that tends to turn players off of this style and make them dislike it in the future. There are potential pitfalls of the style which, having run similar things, I recognize and - in my own games - adjust for in order to reduce the problems.

That makes some of the things you've said particularly alarming. For this kind of style, knowing your players personally and individually and adapting content, theme, difficulty, etc very carefully to their tastes is very important. You're asking for a lot of control and a lot of trust from the players in this style of game, and the responsibility that goes along with that is that you'll use those tools to customize the game to each player to a degree that would be impossible for them to get just grabbing a book off the shelf and running a module. So when you say things like that you prepared individual encounters a year ahead of the campaign start, or give indications that you're basically ignoring preferences that your players express because you don't understand or share those preferences yourself, those are big warning signs for me.

That player who keeps getting depressed due to the consequences of their actions, well, it could be a couple of things. They might really and truly want something where there are no consequences - in which case, if I'm running for them, its my job to figure out how to give them that without making game incompatible with the other players; otherwise, I shouldn't run for them/they shouldn't play in my game. They might have a different sense of the game's theme - if they're expecting silly consequences and they get deadly serious ones (or vice versa), that mismatch will create problems; I need to either make sure we're on the same page on theme, or be able to move the theme towards that player's expectations when it involves them, or I shouldn't run for them/they shouldn't play in my game. There might be a particular type of consequence that they are willing to accept (quite common - some players will accept consequences to others but no permanent malus to their character; some players absolutely can't accept consequences to others but can accept arbitrary misfortune befalling themselves; etc) - if this is the case, I would need to make sure I'm aware of that and run accordingly with an understanding of where that player's boundaries are, or let the player know that I'm not going to be running a game that will match their requirements.

It's also why I keep coming back to the point that the players matter. And not all players are going to enjoy this style of game. I would not run this style of game for your players (well, I wouldn't run any game for your players, but if for some reason I had to...).

The problem is we lack a definition of gotcha, and those that we get involve lots of gray areas. It also involves words like "punishment" or "trickery" which are very loaded and have a big scale.

It seems like it is describing something malicious, like the DM describes an ordinary troll, but then when you hit it with fire it turns into a super troll that then crushes the PCs while the DM laughs at their stupidity.

But then, it could also describe an encounter with a humanoid that the PCs assume is a troll because it sounds kind of like one, and then waste a fireball spell burning its corpse because they assumed it would regenerate when it doesn't actually have that ability.

What I am actually doing is, when the players encounter a new monster type, I prefer to let them learn its abilities by doing rather than by telling (although I still do put in reasonable telegraphs and allow PCs to make lore checks), but I generally adjust the difficulty in accordance with the consequences of ignorance; for example dropping a HD off a bruiser that can shoot magic missiles or making sure that the monster which can't be killed except by a certain attack is in an environment where it is easy to escape from.

The big problem is that you don't recognize when what you're doing is a gotcha versus not, and your habits and preferences for restricting information have a tendency to make you slip into the 'gotcha' region. Since you also don't seem to recognize why this is bad or what harm it can cause, you're not very motivated to make changes to take this risk into account. The result being, your players often end up expressing that they felt things were unfair.

And yet my players, and the forum, still rate my game as extremely hard.

So, there you have it, 12 "losses" in 40 sessions each with about six combat encounters in them. There is my "extremely hard" campaign.

Yes, I consider that to definitely be on the high end of difficulty. I would expect and tolerate that from things like 'Dungeon Crawl Classics' modules for tournament-style play, which are short bursts of high stress activity with a pretty sharp terminator for the consequences of success or failure (in that context, if there even is a 'next module', its going to involve new pre-gens or new characters anyhow). I wouldn't like to play in such a game extending over a period of months or years.

For example, in a tournament event at a local game club we played 'Crypt of the Devil Lich' over three sessions, which has (purportedly, though I'm not sure we encountered all of them when we played) 21 encounters in it, and we made it to the second to last fight and then lost (some died, some ended up fleeing through the Well of Worlds in that room to a random plane). So that's about 5% per encounter, and just a bit higher at session level: one loss per three sessions rather than one per four. The developers of the module refer to it as a 'killer dungeon', a 'meat-grinder', etc (https://goodman-games.com/blog/2017/01/02/forgotten-treasure-crypt-of-the-devil-lich/). Edit: I might count 2 losses, since there was something on the first floor that left a lot of the party strength-drained and at least one character relying on potions and spellslots of Bull's Strength to not be at zero strength and paralyzed, which would make it 10% instead.

zinycor

2019-11-11, 11:33 PM

See, communication is hard for me :smallfrown:

To clarify:

I had three adventures. I had planned on running them on three separate days, but I ended up running them back to back on the same day.

The last of the boss monsters was killed at the end of the first adventure.
The second adventure, with the climactic invasion of the PCs home town, was the second adventure.
The third adventure was an epilogue / teaser for the next campaign that involved fighting three wizards.

I carelessly referred the last fight of each adventure in a way that made Bob and Sarah believe that it would be the final fight of the entire campaign.

I believe you had too specific a plan to how it all should have ended.

Was killing those wizards so important that it couldn't be ignored? or left as a cliffhanger for future campaigns?

Talakeal

2019-11-12, 12:53 AM

I believe you had too specific a plan to how it all should have ended.

Was killing those wizards so important that it couldn't be ignored? or left as a cliffhanger for future campaigns?

The players didn't give any indication that they didn't want to participate in the later adventures until two rounds before the end of the fight with the third wizard.

Frozenstep

2019-11-12, 04:18 AM

That's an interesting take, but I don't think you should be "embarrased" by failing to an unfair surprise, and if you are, that's really a table disfunction.

The point was that the extra time to stew on how the last session went magnifies any feelings about it. I don't remember how I felt dying for the 17th time on some dark souls boss because 10 seconds later I was already trying again. If I had a week to think about each try I'd probably be able to remember each and every time the hitbox didn't fit the animation or something like that.

I can see the time issue, but again, it speaks to a certain assumption that you aren't having fun unless you are winning, which is, imo, a really toxic approach to take to an RPG. Besides, I am not sure if time is an accurate measurement. If I lose five times to an enemy and then finally overcome him on the sixth time, the overall experaince of finally triumphing is a lot more fun and memorable than spending the same time having six basic slaughter the orcs fights.

Meanwhile, if each time I had to wait a week to fight that enemy again, by the 5th loss I'd probably feel things were getting tedious (meanwhile, 21st attempt on dark souls boss, here we go again). There's way more to making a fight memorable and triumphant then how many losses you endured to that point.

Look, people's expectations coming into a TTRPG can vary, but I theorize that many come to (role)play as competent warriors/wizards/whatevers, unless it's a joke character or something. That doesn't mean they always win, some people like worlds and campaigns that are dangerous places where even competent people die. However, nuances in how a situation is set up and presented can mean the difference between feeling like an experienced whatever fighting against something unknown, and just feeling like a bunch of headless chickens scrambling for a solution to an encounter (not pleasant, not fun). Getting that right is completely subjective stuff, and can be difficult.

With your learning encounters, perhaps your players end up spending a lot of time feeling like headless chickens, trying stuff and realizing it doesn't work, and then repeatedly throwing stuff at the wall until something sticks. Rather then say, adventurers who don't recognize a monster, but based on facts about it that they can learn by observing it and the environment its in, can proceed to make somewhat informed decisions. This isn't in the DM's full control, players will be players, but how you set up and present situations matters a lot.

But again, this isn't a technique I use often; typically only about a year or so when the players encounter an enemy that requires some unconventional strategy for the first time.

Also, these learning fights aren't necessarily about losing and getting beaten up; they are about allowing players to safely experiment until they find something that works and then learning how to employ those lessons efficiently in a standard combat. For example, the "ghost-hydra" fight wouldn't travel more than a hundred meters or so from the artifact it was guarding, and had a pretty low damage output (two sessions later the players would fight five monsters with identical stat-lines except for the splitting and would wipe the floor with them), and the players were able to safely learn its abilities, fall back, and come up with a plan for defeating it; if they had made some different decisions they could have simply defeated it outright on the first encounter (for example, manacling it or trapping it behind a wall spell when it was stunned).

Sorry if I missed you explaining this already but what was your players attitude during all this? Were they enjoying experimenting with a new enemy? Or annoyed when they couldn't outright defeat it, and then further annoyed when they had to go to an npc/library/whatever it was to figure out what was up with the ghost-hydra?

Its a measure of scale.

Yes, I want to encourage the players to keep on their toes and not become complacent.

The goal is for the players to be able to handle any situation.

For example, say 90% of dragons breath fire in this campaign world.

The players should go into an encounter prepared for fire, but shouldn't completely lose their minds and panic the 10% of the time when it does something else.

Just imagine a real life non-gaming scenario; sometimes something unexpected happens and you need to do something different to handle it; that doesn't mean you should throw out your standard operating procedure for the vast majority of times when everything goes according to plan.

"The goal is for the players to be able to handle any situation." Let's talk about that line for a second. On its own, the statement can just be taken in many ways, but most of them innocent (have a variety of roles in the party so you can solve a diverse range of problems, etc), but in this case what it means is "If situation X is presented, but then it turns out to be situation Y instead, the party should still be ready to handle it."

Wasn't a big deal like 5 pages back how your players spent a lot on generic healing potions instead of preventative potions like fire resistant potions? But if potions meant to solve situation X, and they're useless for situation Y, then wasn't buying potions that work in situations A-Z (generic health potions) the right call?

But anyway, two DM's can run the situation you described and get completely different result. For one, the players could feel like the DM just changed the damage type to undo their preparation and trick the players into weakening themselves. For the other, it's an unexpected twist that does make sense and fits in with the story. Being able to sell the situation makes a huge difference, and if you can't do that then it doesn't matter that you had a perfectly logical explanation for the switch, it still feels like it was just done to trick the players. "selling the situation" is kind of difficult to explain (it's an alchemy, not a science. A mix of psychology, storytelling, communication, and last second improvising), but basically there's a lot of context between the players figuring out they want to fight a dragon, and finding out the dragon doesn't breathe fire. You don't need to give the players all the answers in that context, but if all the context points to one thing and then it ends up being another, then the reveal may come off as unjustified, like the situation was set up to hide stuff about the dragon so it could properly trick the players.

Meanwhile, a third DM might think they will struggle to sell the situation as more than a trick, but still wants to keep players on their toes. So he has the fire-breathing dragon, but gives him an unexpected ally which greatly changes the dynamic of the fight. Alternative methods are always available.

Kardwill

2019-11-12, 07:52 AM

Now, I wasn't sure if they were upset because they thought I was lying / trying to trick them because when I referred to one monster as the "last boss" they legitimately took that as a promise that there would be no combat in the next two adventures or if they were just making fun of my lack of clarity for not clearly specifying the difference between The last of the forty boss monsters, the climactic battle of the campaign, and the last fight that occurred chronologically, but either way I found it extremely rude and disruptive, but I just waved it off and said "Ok guys, I get you, I could have been clearer, let's just move on and finish this game."

Apart from the passive aggressive bull**** The problem is that you crammed 2 climatic fights, and then another "fight that has to count because it's the last one". People expect to have a resolution after the climax, and not another climax. So when you say "last boss", everybody who ever played a videogame or saw an action-packed cartoon will hear "last fight before the epilogue". By putting several climax back to back, you simply spoiled their effect and created tiredness and frustration in your players. It feels rushed, as in "Tal wants to get rid of this campaign". And the fact that you wanted the minor "wizard fight" to be important just after you played the resolutions of the 2 major arcs of your campaign just added to this. Having that last fight just after a double-climax is uninteresting and cheapens the experience.

Some writers can pull off a "and then, when you come home after the big epic war, you discover it's been taken over by bandits", but let's be honest, neither of us is Tolkien ^^

NichG said that close victories or falling back to regroup feel like losses to the players and should thus be treated as TPKs, and I was asking why the "feeling" of losing is such a bad thing.

Failing is cool when it generates story where the Players get to feel cool, but it feels bad and frustrating when it's just a block where the players will lose their time trying again.

If your defeat means the Wyvern took off with the mule that was carrying the Macguffin, then you'll get to climb up the mountain to get it back, and maybe discover that the monster's lair is a shortcut through the montain.
If your defeat means you're driven back and have to fight the same monster again later to advance in the story, then it feels like you've just wasted an hour.

In one case, failure generated a twist in the story. In the other, it was simply a block, a meaningless waste of time. The second one has its use, but it WILL generate frustration, and ultimately detachement from the players.

Note that the way the players will "feel" the failure is hugely dependant of their perception, and of the level of trust between them and you.
When some of my friends GM, losing and getting captured or grievously wounded feels exciting, because it means we'll get to finally meet the big bad, gather information, and then play an escape scene, or have an interesting choice, or see our PCs relations evolve, or at least an epic ending. With another GM, it feels humiliating because it simply means I'm just closer to lose my character and having to start from scratch, as "punishment" for my bad tactics/stupid ideas/roleplay/bad roll. I'll be confident with the first one, but probably kinda whiny with the second one.

Kardwill

2019-11-12, 07:54 AM

By the way : "Bob", Brian", and now "Sarah"? Not nice comparing your players with the KodT gang :smallbiggrin:

zinycor

2019-11-12, 09:07 AM

The players didn't give any indication that they didn't want to participate in the later adventures until two rounds before the end of the fight with the third wizard.

Again, how was the fight against these wizards so important to happen even after the last boss?

GrayDeath

2019-11-12, 10:24 AM

Just for the sake of comparison: The longst running campaign I ever played inw as a World spanning preprented (but as is usus with older ,stuff, havily adapted/embellished by the DM) Campaign consisteng of 12 Subcampaigns each with 2-4 Adventures. Our group needed around 6.5 years to get to the end.

Excluding myself most of the players played with average amounts of MEtagaming, or lower (I intentionally avoided any in that campaign, as my Charater was made to be rather ...strange regarding world view).

In the Community that campaign has been said to be "hard and deadly, but not too much if you avoid the old school do X and die stuff".

During an approximated (was too long ago to be sure) 120 sessions, we had 4 Player Character Deaths (+1 the Adventure "demanded" to get to the Udnerworld Plot part), and not one TPK.

Yeah, we played rather carefully, about a third was more SOcial Stuff/Exploration and not combat foccussed, yes we lost a lot of NPC`s in the beginning (and hence had fewer later on)and 3 times we simply highballed it.

"Close calls" or "very challenging Stuff (TM)" happened around every 6th session or so.

But that is what I would rate as a good mix of "almost all of it is challenging, but unless you simply pick up everything funny looking you wont simply die, no save, sit down" Campaign.

Talakeal

2019-11-12, 08:27 PM

By the way : "Bob", Brian", and now "Sarah"? Not nice comparing your players with the KodT gang :smallbiggrin:

We have been using KoDT code names for decades.

It actually fits pretty well; I am the beleaguered GM saddled with problem players but loves the game too much to quit and often ruins his good ideas with poor execution, "Bob" is a short, balding munchkin with glasses, "Brian" is a big quiet guy who sits at the end of the table and occasionally rules lawyers or flips a table in anger, "Sarah" is the only girl in the group (although we have had several Sarahs over the years). Unfortunately we lost our Dave, the casual hack and slash gamer who was a jock in his real life, several years ago and the name doesn't really fit the replacement player, although he is currently the most drama-free member of the group and doesn't get mentioned in stories much.

Again, how was the fight against these wizards so important to happen even after the last boss?

It was supposed to be the segue into the next campaign, like the Samuel L Jackson dropping hints about the Avengers at the end of Iron Man.

Apart from the passive aggressive bull**** The problem is that you crammed 2 climatic fights, and then another "fight that has to count because it's the last one". People expect to have a resolution after the climax, and not another climax. So when you say "last boss", everybody who ever played a videogame or saw an action-packed cartoon will hear "last fight before the epilogue". By putting several climax back to back, you simply spoiled their effect and created tiredness and frustration in your players. It feels rushed, as in "Tal wants to get rid of this campaign". And the fact that you wanted the minor "wizard fight" to be important just after you played the resolutions of the 2 major arcs of your campaign just added to this. Having that last fight just after a double-climax is uninteresting and cheapens the experience.

Its just weird that they would hear make that assumption knowing I still had two whole adventures to go, and then chalk it up to malice rather than me simply not choosing my words carefully (or deciding that it was such a screw up that it was worth mocking me about over a month later).

It wasn't my choice to run all three adventures back to back, my players asked me to do so and then informed me that we would have to cancel the next two game sessions, and I made a poor decision in the moment. In retrospect I should have just waited, but as I said above, sometimes I feel like a junky and just can't say no to more gaming.

I wouldn't consider the wizard fight "minor" in any way, the balance of the entire cosmos literally rested on the outcome of that fight. But it was detached from the previous game, it was supposed to be ending the campaign on a stinger with the players realizing they have left their local concerns behind and stepped out into a whole new world.

The point was that the extra time to stew on how the last session went magnifies any feelings about it. I don't remember how I felt dying for the 17th time on some dark souls boss because 10 seconds later I was already trying again. If I had a week to think about each try I'd probably be able to remember each and every time the hitbox didn't fit the animation or something like that.

Meanwhile, if each time I had to wait a week to fight that enemy again, by the 5th loss I'd probably feel things were getting tedious (meanwhile, 21st attempt on dark souls boss, here we go again). There's way more to making a fight memorable and triumphant then how many losses you endured to that point.

I think you are grossly overestimating the frequency and the severity of these encounters.

I don't recall ever having a fight where they players didn't get to attempt it again that same session, usually they are back in action within minutes. Likewise, the "learning" period of an encounter typically only lasts a couple of minutes and only occurs every few sessions at most, depending on how you define it.

Look, people's expectations coming into a TTRPG can vary, but I theorize that many come to (role)play as competent warriors/wizards/whatevers, unless it's a joke character or something. That doesn't mean they always win, some people like worlds and campaigns that are dangerous places where even competent people die. However, nuances in how a situation is set up and presented can mean the difference between feeling like an experienced whatever fighting against something unknown, and just feeling like a bunch of headless chickens scrambling for a solution to an encounter (not pleasant, not fun). Getting that right is completely subjective stuff, and can be difficult.

With your learning encounters, perhaps your players end up spending a lot of time feeling like headless chickens, trying stuff and realizing it doesn't work, and then repeatedly throwing stuff at the wall until something sticks. Rather then say, adventurers who don't recognize a monster, but based on facts about it that they can learn by observing it and the environment its in, can proceed to make somewhat informed decisions. This isn't in the DM's full control, players will be players, but how you set up and present situations matters a lot.

Agreed.

Sorry if I missed you explaining this already but what was your players attitude during all this? Were they enjoying experimenting with a new enemy? Or annoyed when they couldn't outright defeat it, and then further annoyed when they had to go to an npc/library/whatever it was to figure out what was up with the ghost-hydra?

I don't know. As I said up-thread, I have a visual processing disorder and can't read most nonverbal communication, and my players are extremely quiet, rarely talking to each other OOC during the game, let alone me.

"The goal is for the players to be able to handle any situation." Let's talk about that line for a second. On its own, the statement can just be taken in many ways, but most of them innocent (have a variety of roles in the party so you can solve a diverse range of problems, etc), but in this case what it means is "If situation X is presented, but then it turns out to be situation Y instead, the party should still be ready to handle it."

Wasn't a big deal like 5 pages back how your players spent a lot on generic healing potions instead of preventative potions like fire resistant potions? But if potions meant to solve situation X, and they're useless for situation Y, then wasn't buying potions that work in situations A-Z (generic health potions) the right call?

Basically, my players judge their "score" by how far above WBL their characters are (being at or below WBL is a failure in their book). They were complaining that my encounters were too hard because they were spending too much money on healing potions and getting dangerously close to recommended WBL levels.

They also spent fights frustrated because they couldn't all engage with enemies that flew, or climbed, or hid, or swam, or were incorporeal.

I told them that they might be better off in the long run if instead of just buying healing potions they bought a variety of potions and then used them as needed.

I was not recommending they buy consumables to tailor themselves for specific encounters; mostly because their party lacks anyone who specializes in information gathering through various means and they went into most encounters more or less blind as a result. Now, whether or not it is worth it to say, stock up on alchemists fire before fighting a troll and then just writing it off as a loss on the >10% chance it is a war-troll, well, that is another conversation that I am not sure if I have a solid opinion on.

Write these down, maybe even flesh them out a little bit. Don't let inspiration go to waste.

I am, but the more I do the more I am tempted to pick up the GM screen again...

There is an adventurer's league at my local game store, and I am tempted to stop by sometimes, but my work schedule doesn't really allow for it.

I was able to follow this easily enough... Once I had fought the last boss, I would be expecting a confrontation with the incoming horde. Pretty self-explanatory. The stuff about the next campaign would just be frosting on the cake, so to speak. But then, I pay attention to the Campaign my characters are tromping around in.

That is also how I felt about it.

I don't think your players pay that much attention to the campaign. Did they have even one ally lined up to help them with the invasion? No, wait, I know the answer: NO! They seem determined to complain about everything and disrupt play - even to the point of refusing to contribute when they get their nose out of joint (Bob strikes again). I don't know where these people learned to play TTRPG's, but they were at the bottom of the class... Do you have a local gaming store that offers time slots for game sessions? Try that instead. Sheesh.

They were actually pretty good about finding allies (although a couple of times an NPC had to forcefully remind them that this was their job), they were pretty bad about keeping their allies alive however and few were alive by the time the final battle came around for various reasons which have probably already been discuss

What people have said is: time lost to setbacks is a factor, whether the game is explicitly competitive is a factor, the feeling of winning versus the feeling of losing is a factor. You've said "ignoring those things you said were factors, why is there a difference?". Well, we told you why - its those factors you just chose to ignore. You say 'in fair competitions a 50% loss ratio is normal, why can't RPG players handle the feeling of losing?', ignoring when we said that we don't view tabletop RPGs as primarily competitive games, and therefore there are different standards at play. We said 'time matters' and you said 'I'm not sure that time matters'. We've said that winning feels better than losing, and your response was to say 'it shouldn't/you're wrong for feeling that way' rather than 'hm, okay, even though that causes problems with my style it just means I have to figure out how to work around that'.

Generally, when people express how they feel about something, you should take that as evidence rather than as a claim which can be disputed. If you don't feel this way, that's fine, but if your worldview is 'other people don't feel this way' and you hear people say 'this is how we feel', then that's cause to change your worldview, rather than cause to say 'other people must not feel this way because it doesn't make sense'. Psychological effects are much more important to table dynamics than mechanical effects, so saying that something is 'purely a psychological issue rather than a mechanical one' should make you think that it's more significant, not less.

In terms of the winning/losing thing: it helps if you don't structure your campaign to focus so much on direct confrontation. Life or death fights exclude nuance, and from what you've said your campaign is quite combat heavy. Instead, think about agency. Game feels good when your actions bring about forward motion that is at least partially aligned with your reasons for taking those actions. Game feels pointless when your actions result in no motion, such as spending 30 minutes or an hour on a fight that results in a return to the status quo. Game feels very bad when your actions actively bring about motion that is opposed to your reasons for taking the actions, such as in the case of a gotcha or Pyrrhic victory.

As long as players' actions always move them towards some of their goals, there's lots of room for nuance and complexity in the game in how those directions can be compatible with the agency of others, and in how the movement to the side hashes out - things that don't oppose the players' goals, but which are unexpected or which occur as byproducts of the players' actions. And at a high level, there's plenty of tension in the fact that the players' goals can also change in response to their interaction with the world. None of this requires 'losing' or 'near losses' to work. Most of it is difficult or impossible to explore in other media such as computer games, due to the inherent need for flexibility in order to deal with nuance.

If we had wildly different styles, there wouldn't be a disconnect because I wouldn't have as much of a context to understand the dysfunction and breakdown of the style. Basically, from my point of view, you're running a game which is close to the style I prefer in theory, but in practice you're doing it in the way that tends to turn players off of this style and make them dislike it in the future. There are potential pitfalls of the style which, having run similar things, I recognize and - in my own games - adjust for in order to reduce the problems.

That makes some of the things you've said particularly alarming. For this kind of style, knowing your players personally and individually and adapting content, theme, difficulty, etc very carefully to their tastes is very important. You're asking for a lot of control and a lot of trust from the players in this style of game, and the responsibility that goes along with that is that you'll use those tools to customize the game to each player to a degree that would be impossible for them to get just grabbing a book off the shelf and running a module. So when you say things like that you prepared individual encounters a year ahead of the campaign start, or give indications that you're basically ignoring preferences that your players express because you don't understand or share those preferences yourself, those are big warning signs for me.

That player who keeps getting depressed due to the consequences of their actions, well, it could be a couple of things. They might really and truly want something where there are no consequences - in which case, if I'm running for them, its my job to figure out how to give them that without making game incompatible with the other players; otherwise, I shouldn't run for them/they shouldn't play in my game. They might have a different sense of the game's theme - if they're expecting silly consequences and they get deadly serious ones (or vice versa), that mismatch will create problems; I need to either make sure we're on the same page on theme, or be able to move the theme towards that player's expectations when it involves them, or I shouldn't run for them/they shouldn't play in my game. There might be a particular type of consequence that they are willing to accept (quite common - some players will accept consequences to others but no permanent malus to their character; some players absolutely can't accept consequences to others but can accept arbitrary misfortune befalling themselves; etc) - if this is the case, I would need to make sure I'm aware of that and run accordingly with an understanding of where that player's boundaries are, or let the player know that I'm not going to be running a game that will match their requirements.

It's also why I keep coming back to the point that the players matter. And not all players are going to enjoy this style of game. I would not run this style of game for your players (well, I wouldn't run any game for your players, but if for some reason I had to...).

The big problem is that you don't recognize when what you're doing is a gotcha versus not, and your habits and preferences for restricting information have a tendency to make you slip into the 'gotcha' region. Since you also don't seem to recognize why this is bad or what harm it can cause, you're not very motivated to make changes to take this risk into account. The result being, your players often end up expressing that they felt things were unfair.

Yes, I consider that to definitely be on the high end of difficulty. I would expect and tolerate that from things like 'Dungeon Crawl Classics' modules for tournament-style play, which are short bursts of high stress activity with a pretty sharp terminator for the consequences of success or failure (in that context, if there even is a 'next module', its going to involve new pre-gens or new characters anyhow). I wouldn't like to play in such a game extending over a period of months or years.

For example, in a tournament event at a local game club we played 'Crypt of the Devil Lich' over three sessions, which has (purportedly, though I'm not sure we encountered all of them when we played) 21 encounters in it, and we made it to the second to last fight and then lost (some died, some ended up fleeing through the Well of Worlds in that room to a random plane). So that's about 5% per encounter, and just a bit higher at session level: one loss per three sessions rather than one per four. The developers of the module refer to it as a 'killer dungeon', a 'meat-grinder', etc (https://goodman-games.com/blog/2017/01/02/forgotten-treasure-crypt-of-the-devil-lich/). Edit: I might count 2 losses, since there was something on the first floor that left a lot of the party strength-drained and at least one character relying on potions and spellslots of Bull's Strength to not be at zero strength and paralyzed, which would make it 10% instead.

There is a lot in here and I will give you a more in depth response later, but just to clarify one point:

Are we in agreement that challenge and risk are important for games, just merely dickering over the appropriate level?

Because those are too very different conversations, and one of them makes me feel like an old man ranting about kids these days and their participation trophies.

Also, keep in mind that most of my disconnect with you is the idea that a narrow win feels like a loss. In my mind a narrow victory after a close game is the best outcome, regardless of what type of game or what role I am playing, so this opinion is really hard for me to wrap my head around, to the point where I have asked several people their opinions on the matter. My Dad (an elderly non-gamer who nonetheless enjoys sports and gambling) agrees with me and claims that anyone who says otherwise is just a sore loser who is looking to complain, and "Brian" actually laughed out loud and told me to ignore you as you were an obvious troll (I don't agree btw). So I am really having trouble seeing where you are coming from.

I will respond to your specific points in depth tomorrow, but its late now and I need to be up early.