Surprise Attacks and PC's (semi-rant)

[Choco]

We all know that players LOVE getting a surprise round in against their enemies, in fact a smart group will make sure to get one off as often as they can. However, though they roll with it, my players at least tend to be more than a little butthurt when the tables are turned and THEY are surprised.

For the record, I follow 3 "rules of etiquette" regarding surprise attacks against the PC's:

1) I don't kill PC's in the surprise round unless we are playing a game that is understood by everyone to be of the "players vs DM" variety, the players are being monumentally stupid (more on that later) or the players themselves have made it a habit to do surprise-round kills against most of what I throw at them (I make it a point to let the players get away with their smart, effective, yet cheesy rule-avoiding tactics while telling them that whatever they do then becomes fair game for the enemies).
2) If a fight will break out no matter the results, I let them all roll their own appropriate perception checks. I used to roll them in secret like the DMG suggests until I was accused of fudging so I can railroad them into an ambush.
3) I make sure to at least leave them the opportunity to escape or surrender (or otherwise all get out alive, as appropriate) should the ambush be surprisingly effective (pun intended).

Yet even though I do my best to be "fair" about it, I am somewhat surprised by the sense of entitlement a lot of players have in this regard, that they should somehow be immune to enemies using smart tactics against them. If they don't know about the fight ahead of time and/or don't have time to buff, cast divinations, or get into position, I can tell they are SLIGHTLY pissed. I attribute this mostly because anyone reacts like that to some degree when taken out of their comfort zone, but it kinda annoys me that some players think surprise attacks should be up there with Disjunction and Rust Dragons on the list of things they should be immune to.

Only one time did I not pull any punches in a surprise attack, and that was when the PC's launched an ill-fated (TPK) attack against a well-known military genius (who wasn't even an enemy at that). What did they do? Why, they figured they would use their tried-and-true "kick in the door" approach and attack her castle gates, force their way in, and kill everyone inside. They ignored all my warnings that it seems SLIGHTLY odd that they did not encounter any resistance after their initial slaughtering of the gate guards (who expertly dragged the fight out over a good 20 rounds). The proceeded to (after spending a good 15 minutes looting) charge full speed right into an audience chamber full of archers and casters (a few high enough to cast gems like Fireball) with readied actions...

So yeah, all that ranting aside, how do y'all deal with PC's who get butthurt when you (however correctly) put them in any sort of disadvantage? Do you just remind them that they are not immune to good tactics and tell them to deal with it like I do?

[Oracle_Hunter]

Only one time did I not pull any punches in a surprise attack, and that was when the PC's launched an ill-fated (TPK) attack against a well-known military genius (who wasn't even an enemy at that). What did they do? Why, they figured they would use their tried-and-true "kick in the door" approach and attack her castle gates, force their way in, and kill everyone inside. They ignored all my warnings that it seems SLIGHTLY odd that they did not encounter any resistance after their initial slaughtering of the gate guards (who expertly dragged the fight out over a good 20 rounds). The proceeded to (after spending a good 15 minutes looting) charge full speed right into an audience chamber full of archers and casters (a few high enough to cast gems like Fireball) with readied actions...

Did you tell them that they had left the baddies 15 minutes to prepare?

As a rule of thumb: if your Players are upset with how the game went, you screwed up as a DM.

Personally, I always ask my Players after such an Encounter what it was about it that bothered them. If they don't have anything to say, I point out features of the Encounter I thought bothered them - and that usually resolves things. Either they say everything was fine and fair (which means I misinterpreted them) or they raise objections. If there are objections, I either address them directly or promise to keep them in mind in the future.

ANECDOTE

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In my current 4e game I sent my Players on a quest to clear out a ruined keep that had been overtaken by a Gnoll warband. I told them beforehand (through veteran NPCs) that Gnolls are savage fighters but they can be baited into ambushes if the PCs are clever. In the end the PCs nearly suffered a TPK when they tried to sneak into the keep's tower (where the Big Boss lived) and to fight both his tower guards and the Boss himself in one big fight without taking a Short Rest. I asked them why they did this and they gave me a lot of reasons.

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(1) They assumed that if retreat were always an option, I would have told them.
I explained that I can't be there to tell the Players how to play their characters. There was no reason for them to think retreat wasn't an option. They agreed.

(2) They thought that the main camp would have been alerted due to the fighting in the tower.
I pointed out that the camp was over 100' away at the bottom of the hill and all the fighting had taken place within a tower. They showed their confusion at the layout of the tower so I resolved to be better about describing these things in the future.

(3) They thought Gnolls were tactical geniuses
When I asked why, they said all my enemies fought really intelligently. I pointed out that there was no evidence that Gnolls bothered with such things as "call to arms" alarms and the like and that the NPCs had told them that Gnolls were easy to trick. I told the Players that they might want to do some research on their enemies in the future before designing tactics on random assumptions; they agreed.

Of course, I also noted that my Players seemed uncomfortable with this sort of scenario - attacking the enemy base - and resolved not to present that sort of scenario again in the future.

In short, if you've set up expectations in the minds of the Players they're going to be annoyed when those expectations are violated. If your Players are upset and you don't know why, then you've probably set up expectations in their minds without knowing it and you need to figure those out ASAP.

[Choco]

Did you tell them that they had left the baddies 15 minutes to prepare?

I believe the conversation went something like this:

Players: "we loot the bodies"
Me: "that's a lot of bodies and a lot of search checks, you know it will take upwards of 10 minutes right?"
Players: "yes, we aren't risking someone else stealing our stuff"
Me: "you want to give them all that time to prepare a counterattack?"
Players: "if they are all like these front line trash guards they can do whatever they want"
Me: "you SURE?"
Players: "just tell us what we looted"

As a rule of thumb: if your Players are upset with how the game went, you screwed up as a DM.

I GENERALLY agree with this, but that only goes so far. In any game where there is risk involved there is a chance that you will get the result that you do not want, and you will be upset about it to some degree. That is understood to be a part of the game. Because the players get upset when they get ambushed and/or lose a fight that should never happen? I do believe there is the legendary "sweet spot" where the players always triumph by the skin of their teeth and never realize that you were making sure that always happens, that they were never in any danger of dying, but I have yet to achieve that.

As for expectations, in the gigantic speech before all of my games I tell the PC's that I will play their enemies by their INT score as best as I can, and they know and expect it.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Eh, nothing else to do unless you want to tailor your game to your Players

Unless this is a reoccurring problem, your Players are probably only feeling the chagrin of getting caught out. Nothing to worry about.

[Choco]

your Players are probably only feeling the chagrin of getting caught out. Nothing to worry about.

That is what I think it is too (everyone gets over it and gets back to having fun in short order), just that when I am having a bad day in general, it gets kinda annoying with them being all snippy the rest of the session .

I view this as the player version of when the PC's manage to kill my boss monster (that I had planned as the epic, 1-2 hour session and adventure ending fight) in 1-2 rounds. I get a bit butthurt over it sure, but I get over it and get back to the game.

[Oracle_Hunter]

That is what I think it is too (everyone gets over it and gets back to having fun in short order), just that when I am having a bad day in general, it gets kinda annoying with them being all snippy the rest of the session .

I view this as the player version of when the PC's manage to kill my boss monster (that I had planned as the epic, 1-2 hour session and adventure ending fight) in 1-2 rounds. I get a bit butthurt over it sure, but I get over it and get back to the game.

Heh.

Well, no harm done then.

[ericgrau]

3/4 of the monsters in the monster manual favor ambushes. I thought giving monsters the surprise was the norm. After all the PCs are headed into their territory. It takes work to turn things around. A simple solution is to lower the monster CR so that they don't kill a PC in spite of buffs, surprise round and tactical position.

[manyslayer]

I am reminded of my favorite saying for these kinds of situations.

"No fair, they used brains against us." (In the cyberpunk game I originally coined this in, "We has all our brains removed to make room for guns and explosives." is also added.)

Some players don't like having to think for their encoutners. Me, I would find it boring (and ubelievable) if I slaughter a bunch of orcs in one room, loot their bodies and then open the next door to find more orcs that have no idea there is a fight going on.

Could have been a one-off bad judgement, or they might be the kind of players that cannot understand that their actions have consequences.

[Choco]

"No fair, they used brains against us." (In the cyberpunk game I originally coined this in, "We has all our brains removed to make room for guns and explosives." is also added.)

Dude, that is EXACTLY how I hear it when the players whine!

Could have been a one-off bad judgement, or they might be the kind of players that cannot understand that their actions have consequences.

The specific incident I mentioned? Yeah that was a one-off bad judgment, I just mentioned it as the one time I didn't pull punches due to the sheer stupidity of the PC's.

They mostly get out of ambushes just fine, a lot of them just get annoyed that they got ambushed in the first place

[CigarPete]

Hmm, I dunno. In the campaign I am in currently, it is a rarity when we don't suffer a suprise round by the baddies before we start the initiative order. What really sucks is when they get a surprise round and then go first in the initiative order...

[ffone]

You didn't do anything wrong.

Surprise is fair game. Only thing is, if it's a very cleverly set up ambush, it may warrant increasing the encounter level / challenge rating / XP (the DM recommends this) - like if the enemies found a good hiding spot, maybe used Alarm to warn themselves buff up right before the PCs arrive, etc.

If the PCs' perception/divination/stealth is good enough to foil the ambush, bully for them, that's the reward for investing in those abilities- i.e. don't not raise the EL b/c they turned the ambush around (but don't lower the EL if they get ambushed due to stupidity).

Related question to everyone: how do you handle 'parlays gone south' situations where the PCs and NPCs were already aware of each other's presence but not hostility? My current thinking is you generally can't get a surprise round by being the one to attack first instead of continuing negotiations, but there are certain cases where I allow it: specifically, when the nature of the 'initiating' action is that it's undetectable except through its effects, such as a Stilled Silenced spell or a spell-like ability.

The players will of course say that just except everyone to be hostile as a matter of course, no matter how nice or innocuous they seem, but I figure this can be assumed for everyone in the game world and is therefore already factored into the rules. Generally I allow a surprise round of this sort when the prospect of the other side attacking first (if they won initiative) makes no sense in-character. For example:

Party is parlaying with a succubus (whom they don't recognize as such. Being PCs they always figure any NPC could become a violent encounter, but they have nothing to differentiate this particular NPC form a hundred other village maidens). She uses her Charm Monster spell-like ability. She gets this as a surprise round action, b/c the alternative is to roll initiative, in which case the PCs winning initiative and attacking first seems metagamey b/c they can't tell that she's about to cast it. (Why are they attacking now and not 30 seconds earlier in the conversation?) I was thinking about watering this down by also requiring the surprise attacker succeed on a Bluff, except it feel metagamey to tell the PCs "okay, you can Sense Motive that you *know* she's about to attack; zero chance this is a false positive and you're about to kill an innocent barmaid if you attack first and the Paladin PC Falls". (I wish the game had a mechanic for 'false positives').

Continuing this example, initiative might not even get rolled after the Charm Monster, if it goes undetected (succeeds on its target, and no one else makes the DC 25 Sense Motive to sense enchantment) - in which case she might do some other surprise round thing afterwards, like Charm Monster on someone else, or continue a parlay and invite the guy somewhere with violence never breaking out.

Seeking any thoughts on how to do such situations and when to roll initiative / give surprise actions!