How do I get rid of my PCs' arrogance?

[Banjoman42]

So in our last few sessions, I have discovered that my PCs are very bad decision makers. We have had 2 players die in the span of two encounters, and had two come close to death. They only fled the first encounter because I was practically shouting at them "You are all going to die if you don't leave". When an ally dies, they are unwilling to admit that the challenge was to difficult for them and instead blame it on one player (who, honestly, is some of the problem). I have had to feign dice at least 3 times to prevent a TPK. No matter how many clues I drop about how powerful the enemy is, they charge head first into every encounter.
How do I get rid of this rash behavior? Is a TPK in order? Or just a strong encounter to scare them into fleeing and admitting they are not the most powerful people in the universe?

[TheCountAlucard]

Try talking to the players. Out-of-character problems are unlikely to be solved in-character.

[Banjoman42]

Try talking to the players. Out-of-character problems are unlikely to be solved in-character.

Well, I have told them that if they don't prepare for adventures properly and know when to run that it will result in a catastrophe. This was just before an encounter where a player died, and yet they still have yet to listen to me. Should I be more direct when I speak to them?

[Geddy2112]

First, I am assuming you are balancing and designing encounters that the party can handle. These are things the party is going out of their way to fight that are obviously more powerful, correct?

If so-TPK.They are arrogant enough to go into situations way over their heads, but by even one party member surviving that just makes them more arrogant. They think they can get away with it-show them that lethal actions have lethal consequences.

If not-tone down the encounters. It is one thing for a low level party to be unprepared against a few orcs or skeletons, but if the low level party is not prepared to fight an elder dragon(that they did not go out of their way to look for and challenge) that is on the DM.

[Umberhulk]

I'm having a hard time deciding how to answer because of all the unknowns. A battle with CR four above the party's level is not the same as a party with no good will saves fighting an enchanter, or when no one in the party rolls higher than single digits for three consecutive rounds, or when the party is basically out of resources when another fight begins.

I suppose I agree with Alucard that you'll have to talk about it out of game. Maybe its time to change the tone of the game. Just explain that sometimes - not often - a fight will be too difficult and it's up to them to have a sense of self-preservation for their characters. Or sometimes they need to talk to creature - even ones with a figurine on the battle map.

[Mr.Moron]

Open Stats.

I generally find players behave much more rationally when they know what they're up against. One way to do this is with flavor descriptors

Player: +10 (Mod) + 15 (Roll) vs AC 28 Miss: "He easily dodges your attack, and your swing lands only on empty air almost throwing you off balance"

The issue is that sometimes this is a vague, or doesn't communicate what you want, and sometimes it just makes it look like you're trying to make the NPC 2KOOL4U rather than just a challenge they're not up to at the moment.

However open stats make things Crystal clear.

Player: I want to attack him
You: OK. Roll to hit, AC 28.
Player: Crap, I need an 18.

You: He attacks. *roll in the open*, "He got a 8, that's a 26 Total. What's your AC?"
Player: "20"
You: Ok. That's a hit then.

I've had players charge through a doorway at a monster that clearly can't get past the doorway easily and isn't paying them any attention even though they were low level and I described it as "At least 15ft tall, with giant spike fists the size of cows", and stick with that fight even as they get ground to dust.

However they're far more than willing to pack it in and try a different approach once they know they've only got like a 30% chance to land a hit or whatever.

[erikun]

Why are you, the person running the encounter, telling them to run away from the encounter? Shouldn't it be their job to decide to run away?

Why are these characters dying in encounters? It is because they were more difficult than expected, or because of terribly poor planning and tactics? After all, while a character dying would significantly make everything harder, that still doesn't explain how everything got to the point where the characters start dying.

What kind of game do the other players want to play? Are they looking for some sort of kick-in-the-door, while you are trying to go with some sort of tactical Tucker's Kobolds system? Are they expecting to curbstomb everything, while you are throwing them up against nearly impossible challenges?


I mean, my usual response to arrogance is just to smack the party around with normally cannon-fodder enemies. A large horde of kobolds - just enough to fight two-on-one, and keep them coming out until the party is hurt - is usually enough to stop most beginning players from thinking they are just walking XP bags. Some simple battlefield tactics, like goblin archers on a cliff, is usually enough to point out that the party isn't a bunch of indestructable superheroes. However, I'm not too sure that your players are displaying any sort of arrogance by your description. Recklessness? Sure. Infighting sounds like it's a problem, as well. But especially if they are new players, it just sounds like they don't have a good sense of what is an overpowering encounter and what isn't.

And if you play the game where all everything gets killed off after every fight, then it shouldn't be surprising if the characters end up fighting to the death. I mean, if every other fight ends with them killing everything and if stuff chases them down when they try to move away, then why would they think that just turning tail to run would have any result other than being clawed in the back?

[JAL_1138]

I gave this as joke advice in another thread, but I'm half-serious here. Run Tomb of Horrors. The original version, not the watered-down ones of 3rd or 4th. Instant Death aplenty. Fix the lootable-doors problem, though.

If they get through it and don't spend the rest of their D&D-playing career with a slight obsession with 10ft poles, and always getting a little nervous about doorways, long hallways, and treasure laying in the open, and always leaning back or off to one side when opening chests, there's no helping them.

[Banjoman42]

First, I am assuming you are balancing and designing encounters that the party can handle. These are things the party is going out of their way to fight that are obviously more powerful, correct?

Yes. I mention a temple of Lolth once, and suddenly all they want to do is kill the high priest of the temple. This has been the last two sessions.

I'm having a hard time deciding how to answer because of all the unknowns. A battle with CR four above the party's level is not the same as a party with no good will saves fighting an enchanter, or when no one in the party rolls higher than single digits for three consecutive rounds, or when the party is basically out of resources when another fight begins.

Party consists of:
Sorcerer, focused on blasting
Necromancer, trying to get True necromancer (Libris mortis)
Rogue, who tries to solo every encounter
Cleric, very low op
Fighter (the one being bullied)
Barbarian, who is ironically the only one with common sense
Paladin
Bard
This is 3.5. They are all 5th level

Why are you, the person running the encounter, telling them to run away from the encounter? Shouldn't it be their job to decide to run away?

Why are these characters dying in encounters? It is because they were more difficult than expected, or because of terribly poor planning and tactics? After all, while a character dying would significantly make everything harder, that still doesn't explain how everything got to the point where the characters start dying.

What kind of game do the other players want to play? Are they looking for some sort of kick-in-the-door, while you are trying to go with some sort of tactical Tucker's Kobolds system? Are they expecting to curbstomb everything, while you are throwing them up against nearly impossible challenges?


I mean, my usual response to arrogance is just to smack the party around with normally cannon-fodder enemies. A large horde of kobolds - just enough to fight two-on-one, and keep them coming out until the party is hurt - is usually enough to stop most beginning players from thinking they are just walking XP bags. Some simple battlefield tactics, like goblin archers on a cliff, is usually enough to point out that the party isn't a bunch of indestructable superheroes. However, I'm not too sure that your players are displaying any sort of arrogance by your description. Recklessness? Sure. Infighting sounds like it's a problem, as well. But especially if they are new players, it just sounds like they don't have a good sense of what is an overpowering encounter and what isn't.

And if you play the game where all everything gets killed off after every fight, then it shouldn't be surprising if the characters end up fighting to the death. I mean, if every other fight ends with them killing everything and if stuff chases them down when they try to move away, then why would they think that just turning tail to run would have any result other than being clawed in the back?

I usually tell them to flee when they are all around 3 hp left and someone has died. Poor planning is usually what kills them. I'm going for kick in the door (they aren't big on role playing). However, many a foe escapes (successfully), so I don't think that fleeing seems impossible to them.
I think Ill try the cannon fodder method you mentioned.
Thanks for all the replies!

[Lord Torath]

Yes. I mention a temple of Lolth once, and suddenly all they want to do is kill the high priest of the temple. This has been the last two sessions.

They've told you their goal. Now your job is to give them adventures that will prepare them for that goal. AKA give them the XP and Loot they will need to be able to take on the temple.

So give them rumors of things that might help. There's an anti-drow weapon in the hands of an adventuring party that vanished in the Deadly Swamp. The local good-aligned temple will give them some holy magic items that will help protect them from the drow priestesses' magic if they retrieve a lost Icon from the Sahuagin who stole it 30 years back. They can acquire some Darkvision Amulets if they visit the dwarven outpost across the Forbidding Wasteland.

Note that this doesn't help at all with their issue of taking on things above their pay grade and refusing to retreat. But it does give you pretty good direction on where the PCs want the campaign to go.

[VoxRationis]

Give them warnings that show in a very specific way what kind of power the enemies possess. Leave journals of the enemies' victims that mention abilities that those victims possessed—high-level abilities that still didn't avail them. Warnings about the "dangers in the ruins" or the "haunted forests" are part-and-parcel of the RPG genre; after a while, they stop sounding like warnings and more like the classified section of the newspaper. If you show PCs that previous adventurers far better than they are didn't survive the threat, it'll warn them not to go after that threat at the moment.

[Umberhulk]

8 players and a GM? Whoa... I don't know how you get anything done. Perhaps the problem has to do with chaos at the table. Let one or two characters die every now and then. Maybe they'll start being more careful.

[Red Fel]

I'd actually kind of tend towards JAL's advice here. Here's why.

Some players, when they're told that something is dangerous, have the sense to step back and decide if they're prepared. The more they are warned, the more cautious they are. Others have the opposite reaction; when they see a sign that says "Danger," to them it says, "Adventure and fat loot, this way!" The more you warn them away, the more they become convinced that it's the right direction - after all, why would you keep bringing it up (and the fact that they should avoid it) if it wasn't important and awesome and clearly where they were supposed to go and what they were supposed to do?

This is borne out by the fact that you basically have to urge them to flee - vocally - after an ally dies. You have to fudge rolls to ensure that they survive.

That has to stop.

Now, you could take the players aside and explain that this is a problem. That's always my recommended first course of action. You mention that you've told them to "prepare more," but I don't think that got through. You absolutely should be more direct, explain to them that they keep on challenging things that are too strong for them. Hopefully, that will strike a chord.

If it doesn't? Time to take action.

Step one is to adopt a new policy. Let's call it "tough but fair." It works like this: You, as DM, will not fudge things anymore. You will give the players fair warning if they're entering an area or confronting a threat above their pay grade. If they persist, it's on their heads; if there's a TPK, there's a TPK. No fudging of rolls, no begging them to flee in the middle of combat, no nothing. Play it straight and let them reap the consequences.

Step two is to explain this to them, clearly, before the next session. Explain that they keep challenging things that are too hard for them. Explain that you're going to play fairly with them from now on - and this means the new "tough but fair" policy. Explain that TPKs are now officially on the table, so if they get reckless, they will be rerolling characters.

Step three is to be willing to carry out that promise. Because, if they don't hear your message, they will continue to be reckless. And this part falls heavily upon the DM. You cannot fudge those dice rolls. You cannot beg the players to flee. You cannot keep giving the PCs plot armor - because that will only contribute to their recklessness. When the time comes, you must let the PCs die.

That's it, chief. That's the bottom line. Try communicating, but if that doesn't work, be prepared to be lethal. Stop making excuses. They can't learn to be more cautious if you keep using kid gloves.

[BWR]

Joke answer: bad PC decisions are one thing but if your players die during sessions you might want to cut back on the immersion in the game

Serious answer:

*snip*

What he said.

[BayardSPSR]

I'd actually kind of tend towards JAL's advice here.
...
They can't learn to be more cautious if you keep using kid gloves.

If the players don't seem to care whether or not their characters die, let them know that you're going to let them die, and then let them die.

[Maglubiyet]

You're kind of shooting yourself in the foot by fudging dice rolls after you tell them that an encounter is too deadly. Now your opinion on their abilities is no longer valid.

"Last time he said we were going to die, but we survived okay...we'll be fine this time too."

I'd recommend minimizing the secrecy. Give them a warning and, if they opt to ignore it, roll the dice out in the open. They'll be able to see for themselves when they're outmatched.

[Sith_Happens]

No matter how many clues I drop about how powerful the enemy is, they charge head first into every encounter.
How do I get rid of this rash behavior?

Give them the chance to charge headlong at a foe that

1. Outclasses them so severely that there's no room to say "Well we could have won if..."

2. Isn't going to kill any (or at least many) of them.

That way it's clear that their first and only mistake was in starting that fight in the first place, they get to experience the full consequences of having done so in all its (pseudo-)TPK glory, but you don't have to basically restart your campaign.

Yes. I mention a temple of Lolth once, and suddenly all they want to do is kill the high priest of the temple. This has been the last two sessions.

This is a perfect opportunity. Clergy of Lolth would be perfectly happy killing the PCs, of course, but they'd at least as much want to subdue and enslave them.

[Tvtyrant]

Trounce them with realistic reactions. They enter Lolth's temple to the sound of screaming alarm spells and get attacked by a new group of drow warriors/slave soldiers every 1d6 rounds as they arrive. Have them fling tanglefoot bags and sneak attack with alchemists fire, have their casters put Wall of Smoke between party members, Evards Black Tentacles on the casters, etc. Cities have the advantage of numbers and surviving in a brutal world, they should act like it.

[Stellar_Magic]

Well if they are so insistent on smashing down the doors and gunning for the Lolth clergy... Let them do it.

They smash down the doors, alerting the drow, their slaves, and everyone in a square mile of their appearance. The drow throw some minions at them in the form of low level warriors, spiders, and slaves to slow them down a bit, while they setup a kill zone ahead of them...

The party find themselves surrounded by drow firing poisoned crossbow bolts from within the shadow of a darkness spell. The floor is covered with impromptu traps like caltrops, nails, and debris... all coated in drow poison along with a smattering of spider poisons. The barrage of various attacks eventually where down the party, and one by one they are incapacitated or killed.

Then, when most of the party are either blissfully asleep from the poison bolts, dead, or incapacitated. The lolth cult leader steps out, and orders the survivors to be secured.

Those that survive are striped of their gear, and thrown into the group of slaves the drow have assembled. Now they have to escape. Any new characters start out as mere slaves without gear, but are the same level as the rest of the party.

[TheCountAlucard]

No, seriously, them verbally abusing one of the other players is unacceptable. Don't allow that **** at your table. That's an OOC problem and you're never going to solve it IC.

[goto124]

...it's an 8 PC group?

Why are they losing encounters? Are the encounters that hard?

And yes, that is a huge party. Sounds like exceptionally poor tactics.

[jaydubs]

I'm with the people who say - just play it straight. If something is going to kill some characters, it kills some characters. Give them a warning the kid gloves are off, and then let the dice fall where they may. Two other points though:

1. Don't go into a situation thinking "I'm going to teach them a lesson," no matter how well-meaning you are. The moment you design an encounter thinking "wow, this is going to be a great opportunity to show them why they need to play this other way instead," your chances of coming off as patronizing multiply tenfold.

2. Sometimes the reason players are reckless isn't because they don't understand the risks. It's because they're willing to accept those risks. Some people like coming close to dying, and just scraping by. Even if they lose a character half the time, they might enjoy it more than playing cautiously. Alternatively, maybe they aren't invested enough in their characters. That can happen in large groups, where each individual character gets less screen time.

[NichG]

Well, let me put it this way: you've already tried encounters which were overpowering for them, and it didn't work. So more of that is also unlikely to work.

The key thing is how to make it really hard for them to put the blame on someone else - to make them face the responsibility for how things turn out. If you throw a CR+8 encounter at them to teach them humility, they can put them blame on you ('man, this guy is a killer DM, he's totally unfair' or 'don't you know that its impossible to flee in D&D?'). If someone dies in a fight they can put the blame on that player. So you need something where they really get themselves in trouble purely from their own choices and you can point and say 'look, you had the information before you got into this, and you were the ones who chose to go down this path'.

In that sense, the attack on the temple of Lolth is a good opportunity. It's something which was in the world, and they aren't there yet, so you can provide plenty of information to suggest 'this is way above your CR' ahead of time and you can also make the point that you didn't force them into this quest but they decided it on their own. If they still push forward, just let them fail. Don't soften the blows, but don't specifically go out of your way to kill them.

Personally though, I'd try for something other than overwhelming force as a demonstration. I think futility is better than extreme power to make the point that just pushing on things randomly doesn't get things done. For example, a group of PCs can usually easily kill someone if they decide to do so, but killing a priestess of Lolth just means costing the priesthood a honking big diamond. What do the PCs do when there's a grueling battle that they barely emerge from having killed the priestess, and then she's back the next day in a new location and its business as usual?

[D+1]

You and your players are playing different games, wanting different things from the game, and YOU'RE NOT TALKING TO THEM ABOUT WHY. That is your problem, not one stemming from your players. Fix THAT and the rest of the issue will resolve itself.

COMMUNICATE.

[Telok]

This is a perfect opportunity. Clergy of Lolth would be perfectly happy killing the PCs, of course, but they'd at least as much want to subdue and enslave them.

My guys pretty much decided to be professional evil-temple looters at one point. But we were 12th level semi-famous heros with the first ever built flying ship in that world. It caught up with us at level 16 when we got bad initative rolls during one of our scry & die fights (they were prepared for our usual m.o.).

But Lolth clergy? Get them KOed, captured, tortured, gelded, and sent to the gladitorial pits as slaves. It'll either be awesome or they'll want to avoid that sort of thing in the future.

Of course I've also seen people run out of 5' x 5' hallways into a large open area to fight a 20' x 20' gelatinous cube. And then stay there trying to melee it while it swept them up one at a time.

[McStabbington]

So in our last few sessions, I have discovered that my PCs are very bad decision makers. We have had 2 players die in the span of two encounters, and had two come close to death. They only fled the first encounter because I was practically shouting at them "You are all going to die if you don't leave". When an ally dies, they are unwilling to admit that the challenge was to difficult for them and instead blame it on one player (who, honestly, is some of the problem). I have had to feign dice at least 3 times to prevent a TPK. No matter how many clues I drop about how powerful the enemy is, they charge head first into every encounter.
How do I get rid of this rash behavior? Is a TPK in order? Or just a strong encounter to scare them into fleeing and admitting they are not the most powerful people in the universe?

Honestly, my first question is what exactly are you doing with your world-building? When I wake up in Irenicus' dungeon in Baldur's Gate 2, I have yet to find the room with the Balor. What I do find is mobs of goblins that are dangerous for individual players, but pose no problem for a capably-handled group. Which is by design: the dungeon is there to help teach me group mechanics.

It's a video game, but you'd be surprised how much you can learn about story design from video game rpg's, starting with the idea that a lot of people will assume that if it's in the game, it's there to be killed even if they have to use human wave attacks to do it.

In this case, if you've got really novice strategic thinkers, give them novice strategic challenges, and then slowly escalate the difficulty. Give them challenges that teach the basics of formation and terrain. Reward them generously when they hit on stuff even by accident. If you have to throw challenges above their skill level at them, make them recurring villians who specifically taunt them as not worthy of death. In that case, it's not you who is trying to force them to be better; it's **** Dastardly who is challenging them to be more and better to defeat him.

The last and final thing is talk with your players to figure out what kind of campaign they want to play. Are they happy with a campaign where character turnover is constant? Because if they are having fun (bullying aside, gotta cut that out), then it strikes me that you may be a DM on a snipe hunt for a better campaign.

[Talyn]

It sounds to me like you've got a disconnect between what YOU want out of the game and what your player's want.

You seem to want an old-school, cautious, actions-have-consequences, gritty game, while your players are expecting a gloriously blood-soaked, empowering, kick-in-the-door and be badasses kind of game. You are trying to run Nethack. Your players are trying to play Diablo. No wonder people are getting frustrated.

This is not a thing that can be fixed by punishing your players for their different expectations. This is something that will have to be fixed out of game or not at all.

[Ettina]

Of course I've also seen people run out of 5' x 5' hallways into a large open area to fight a 20' x 20' gelatinous cube. And then stay there trying to melee it while it swept them up one at a time.

Actually, running back into the hallway wouldn't help, because the gelatinous cube is gelatinous. It could easily turn itself into a 'gelatinous rectangle' and follow them through the hallway.

[Segev]

Actually, running back into the hallway wouldn't help, because the gelatinous cube is gelatinous. It could easily turn itself into a 'gelatinous rectangle' and follow them through the hallway.

Actually, it specifically can't. Its shape is fixed; its gelatinous quality mostly lets it pick things up inside it.

[Spore]

Let's just say I had a DM that gave me a thick plot armor (making it impossible for my PC to die) and I abused the living crap out of it. (Not my proudest moment but being a daring adventurer at least fit the character).