In-Game Kobyashi Maru

[ondonaflash]

Is this type of thing one might present players with, or is it too much dickery? I mean I could see situations where enemies just kept coming, and coming, and coming, but players don't seem to like that much. Is it too railroad-y? Assume that if they find a way to really, really outsmart you, you let them win.

[Ravens_cry]

If you really want to do this, be open to creativity. If they come up with a solution that reasonably outsmarts you, let them have it. And make sure you have players who enjoy tests of lateral thinking. If they can come up with a plan that would reasonably let them pass, let them do so.

[Maerok]

Everything should be used in moderation at best. Ultimately, what is your exit strategy as DM if they can't beat the test? Just kill them off?


Is this a spin-off from the Paladin thread... I could spend all day studying the branching out effect from just one thread - like the Asmodeus one.

[Saph]

I've played scenarios like this a few times. It can be fun, if done well.

Probably the most memorable was fighting our way through the BBEG's golem production line, at level 10 or so. Our NPC contacts told us that the factory could produce about 15 Flesh Golems, which we reckoned we could just about take. Unfortunately, it turned out that there had been a translation error, and what they'd actually meant was that the golem production line could produce 15 Flesh Golems per day. Oh, and there were a few hundred driders guarding the place, too.

We got all the way into the middle of the factory before we discovered this.

In the end, one of the bosses of the factory switched the golems off and came out to fight us instead. In-character, this was in keeping with her mentality, but I can't help thinking that the DM probably did it because he didn't want to sit through yet another 4-hour session of golem combat. Since we were only playing once a week, we ended up fighting the same battle for somewhere in the region of 2 months. Still, it was fun afterwards, just to be able to say that we'd done it. :)

- Saph

[Maerok]

You have to make sure that the players suspect that they need to actively avert the situation from a different perspective rather than lull them into thinking this is just one long fight or whatever ("what's one more monster? ok, what's one more monster?"). Don't just switch into lateral thinking mode out of the blue if that's never been your style.

But in many cases (Int score depending), I'd probably go right for that kind of solution anyway and never think of it as a whatever you call it.

[Milskidasith]

Well, endless battles are a not too railroady way to get your players for breaking the law or something. I mean, if they are in a big city, and it just got out that they assassinated the king (let's assume that he was evil/not as rich as the guy paying you/got in your demon lord's way and you did it out of honor/payment/was fun depending on your alignment). So it's perfectly reasonable that they did it, but now they obviously should be hiding, not beating the crap out of guards for more items. So you have endless waves of guards come; if this is a city big enough to have a king in it, you just keep sending guards in until the PCs are out of spells and consumables or until they get the message that "escaping, not killing everybody else in town, is probably a better option."

But it all depends on how well you do it and what the context is. There has to be a solid reason why they are fighting an endless horde, and/or an escape route.

[BlueWizard]

Most players I know would be upset. One rule I read way back when in early D&D made this clear distinction: The PCs are the stories heroes, and MUST be provided a way to win. If they fail, bad rolls, etc... alas... but most people like their PCs and don't like seeing them in unbeatable odds. Believe me, I've killed many a PCs, so that is not a problem for me.

[Jerthanis]

The greatest triumphs are only possible once a person has learned failure. The Kobayashi-Maru simulation is meant to test how officers deal with failure, and its presence in the movies was there to prepare the viewers to see Kirk fail to save Spock... but did Spock die just so we could later see him rise again?

What's more than that, most people have played RPGs long enough that they understand that the core conceit of the game is that the numbers are balanced in the players' favor... that even if the players lose Health, Wealth and Time in their battle, somewhere deep inside players are always aware of the fact that 95 battles in 100 would play out in the PCs' favor if you plugged the numbers into a computer to calculate the odds. (Because if the numbers were balanced in favor of the villains, the game ends on the first or second battle)

There is literally no greater tool in a DM's arsenal than the tool of PC failure. It shakes up preconceptions, and allows the stakes to be raised... there's nothing so satisfying as defeating the thing that has defeated you before. Baldur's Gate 2, for instance, had the main villain soundly defeat the PC twice. Once before the game began as a prelude, again midway through the game.

That said, it must be used sparingly, and attention must be paid to the players involved. Some people view it as a game more than a story building device and want to win... or don't just don't like stories where the hero is overcome. Also, if you want the game to go on, the PCs must survive their defeat, which requires its own set of circumstances.

The best way, I think, to making a good "PCs lose" scenario is to force them to make a choice between two things... to save one and allow the other to die or be destroyed. In this way, the PCs themselves survive, but they still suffer a setback. The problem

I did have one idea where a game would follow intrepid heroes struggling against a Dragon's minions for levels 1-4, then when they finally overcome a major antagonist in the BBEG's employ, the CR 27 Great Wyrm Red Dragon swoops in on their celebratory feast and kills them all. They awaken as Petitioners and slowly grow in power as Angels or Eladrin, overcoming extraplanar threats, gaining LA and Racial Hit Dice until they're things like Hound Archons/Outsider6/Cleric 12s or Planetars/Outsider 14/Fighter6... or whatever... then they finally get their second crack at the BBEG who killed them in the first place.

[BlueWizard]

Having two options is good. I am merely saying that giving the PCs a no win or no option challenge is no fun. Having them make a choice can be fun, and I do that.

[Riffington]

Failure is always an option.
In many ways, Firefly is a good model for games. There's days when they get to be the Big Damn Heroes, and there's days when they count themselves lucky to get away with their lives. If you never have the bad days, it doesn't feel that special to be the Big Damn Hero. You have to have skin in the game.

[BlueWizard]

Fleeing is a different success than outright forcing a failure on players.

[Lert, A.]

Fleeing is a different success than outright forcing a failure on players.

Precisely.

A KM scenario would entail a total loss for the players, no matter their actions.

Examples:
Try to rescue the commoners from the fire and you get killed by the goblins. The commoners still die, but maybe not as crispy.

Try to fight the goblins and you lose, plus the commoners burn to death.

Run away from a forlorn hope and get arrows in your back. Plus, the reserves of the goblin army are now blocking your way.


The point of the scenario is to have the players learn to accept that their actions cannot always save the day. This means that they do not die, or in extreme cases they die but get resurrected.

Examples:
Players suffer enough non-lethal damage to pass out (or perhaps a sleeping spell/druggery, etc.). They awaken inside of a cellar below a burned-out house. The rest of the town is in ruins and the corpse of the commoner who saved you lies within the ashes.

The players are entangled and disarmed. As the town is destroyed they are led away to the enemy camp, helpless to assist.

The battle did not go well. The players all remember how they had died, yet now they live again. A cleric walks into the room and says that the town has fallen and the commoners are now slaves.


The players learn that their actions cannot always save the day, nor that running away is always an option. They may get the change to avenge the wrong that they could not stop but they cannot reverse what has happened.

[Saph]

Precisely.

A KM scenario would entail a total loss for the players, no matter their actions.

Well, not completely.

In the original Kobayashi Maru scenario, there was a simple way to survive; retreat. Follow the terms of the treaty, and the Kobayashi Maru is destroyed but your ship survives.

This isn't very heroic, but it's a lot better than the alternative, which leads to your own ship getting destroyed, the Kobayashi Maru getting destroyed anyway, and causing a major diplomatic incident into the bargain.

So a literal Kobayashi Maru scenario is actually a perfectly reasonable situation to put the PCs into. All they have to do is not charge out against overwhelming odds, and they'll be fine. It's a good way of teaching the lesson that there are things out there bigger than you, and you shouldn't pick fights you can't win.

- Saph

[KillianHawkeye]

Well, not completely.

In the original Kobayashi Maru scenario, there was a simple way to survive; retreat. Follow the terms of the treaty, and the Kobayashi Maru is destroyed but your ship survives.

This isn't very heroic, but it's a lot better than the alternative, which leads to your own ship getting destroyed, the Kobayashi Maru getting destroyed anyway, and causing a major diplomatic incident into the bargain.

So a literal Kobayashi Maru scenario is actually a perfectly reasonable situation to put the PCs into. All they have to do is not charge out against overwhelming odds, and they'll be fine. It's a good way of teaching the lesson that there are things out there bigger than you, and you shouldn't pick fights you can't win.

- Saph

That is not techinically true. The Kobayashi Maru scenario was an overwhelming ambush by a small but vastly superior force (and not an endless string of battles as some people have inferred). So, while you're right that ignoring the ship's distress call would have been the only way to avoid getting destroyed themselves, remember that they weren't aware of the enemies lying in wait.

It's not fair to say "Don't charge in against overwhelming odds" when all the enemies are invisible.

The simplest solution to running a Kobayashi Maru style encounter in a game is to capture the PCs rather than killing them. Or rather than killing ALL of them, at least.

Alternatively, since the Kobayashi Maru relied on a false choice (since the two outcomes seen weren't the outcomes really possible), you could modify the scenario along that angle by providing a more visible choice that also ends up being a false one. For example, make the PCs choose between saving the commoners or fleeing the goblins, only the commoners end up being illusions.

[Saph]

That is not techinically true. The Kobayashi Maru scenario was an overwhelming ambush by a small but vastly superior force (and not an endless string of battles as some people have inferred). So, while you're right that ignoring the ship's distress call would have been the only way to avoid getting destroyed themselves, remember that they weren't aware of the enemies lying in wait.

Yes, but given that the location was the Klingon Neutral Zone, there's every reason to believe that going in there is highly likely to result in your ship getting vapourised. IIRC, at least one of the Kobayashi Maru stories had the officer choose to ignore the distress call and avoid getting ganked, so it couldn't have been completely impossible to guess.

It's not fair to say "Don't charge in against overwhelming odds" when all the enemies are invisible.

If you know the enemies have access to long-term invisibility magic, know that they consider the area their home territory, and know that they've probably noticed the same thing that drew you there in the first place, then I'd say that yes, it is fair. You're walking into a trap. You don't know for sure that it's a trap, but there are enough warning signs that you can't claim total ignorance.

- Saph

[ZeroNumerous]

"The only winning move is not to play." - WOPR

Any Kobayashi Maru scenario should and must end in failure unless the players walk away. Ideally, any attempt to fight should end in capture or a mysterious death and mysterious resurrection. It's very good for a plot hook at the beginning of the game, but I'd suggest against using it mid-way or later since it'll annoy players to no end.

[KillianHawkeye]

Yes, but given that the location was the Klingon Neutral Zone, there's every reason to believe that going in there is highly likely to result in your ship getting vapourised. IIRC, at least one of the Kobayashi Maru stories had the officer choose to ignore the distress call and avoid getting ganked, so it couldn't have been completely impossible to guess.

Hmm... did he ignore it because he thought it could be a trap or because he refused to violate the treaty?

Either way, I stand by my statement that there's a difference between walking into an obvious trap and walking into what maybe might turn out to be a trap. Even knowing that it's probably a trap isn't the same as knowing it will be "against overwhelming odds". That's all I was saying.

[Ninetail]

Is this type of thing one might present players with, or is it too much dickery? I mean I could see situations where enemies just kept coming, and coming, and coming, but players don't seem to like that much. Is it too railroad-y? Assume that if they find a way to really, really outsmart you, you let them win.

What you suggest is not a KM scenario. KM didn't have "enemies... coming, and coming, and coming." It had an ambush by a small number of (very powerful) enemies.

It was also designed to be a no-win scenario. This is not something I would present players with. There should always be a way out. That way out might be "run the hell away," or it might be talking instead of pulling weapons, maybe paying tribute... whatever. But it has to be there, and it has to be at least reasonably visible, even if it might not be the approach the players would prefer to take. If they're surrounded by a ring of fire, "But it was an illusion, so you could have run away" is not a valid out. (Unless maybe they have easy access to some form of illusion-revealing magic, but anyway.)

A true no-win situation is railroading. Any choice the players might seem to have is just an illusion: they'll lose no matter what they do. That's poor practice, in a roleplaying game.

Also, if the characters do come up with A Third Option, and if it has any reasonable chance of success, allow it.

[Swordguy]

Hmm... did he ignore it because he thought it could be a trap or because he refused to violate the treaty?

It was either Chekov or Sulu (Sulu, I'm pretty darn sure) and he explicitly didn't go because he suspected a trap. The Maru had no business being where it was, or even anywhere in the area, so he figured it must be being used as bait, since the Klingons could pick up distress calls as easily as Sulu's ship could.

When pressed by the bridge crew, he stood by his decision, stating that not only could it have been a trap, but he didn't want to break the treaty. The possibility of warfare and millions of deaths outweighed the couple hundred people onboard the KM. So...both.


On-topic, I'd be very careful of no-win scenarios. There's two kinds, one the DM dumps on the players, and one the players get themselves into. The second kind is just fine (Your first-level characters charge the Great Wyrm. It eats you. Roll new PCs.), because it's the players own fault. It's not part of the DM's job description to save players (or their PCs) from their own rampant stupidity.

The first kind, though, tends to be considered railroading (as does everything else, evidently, that makes players do what they don't want to do), and players will get extremely frustrated during gameplay - even if they realize what was going on later on. This is doubly true if you've got a group that's accustomed to winning 100% all the time. it one of the unfortunately differences between an RPG and a novel; in the novel, bad things can happen to the protagonist through no fault of his own, and the interesting part is how he gets out of the situation's aftermath. Most players aren't going to give you the chance to show how they can get out of the aftermath, they'll walk when it becomes clear that it's a no-win scenario in the first place.


I'd not try it with many groups; you need groups who are willing to share a story with the DM and go with it, trusting in their DM. Those are increasingly rare, so caution is advised. It can turn out exceptionally cool, but it can also blow up your group.

[Yukitsu]

It's fine if the players can cheat.

[chiasaur11]

What you suggest is not a KM scenario. KM didn't have "enemies... coming, and coming, and coming." It had an ambush by a small number of (very powerful) enemies.

Well, at first that was it.
Thing is, one Montgomery Scott broke that wave in two. And the next wave. And the wave after that.

So they kept sending more, since if they didn't give the Klingons a nigh-unlimited supply...

They'd be out of Klingons.