Finally started my new campaign. Where did I go wrong?

[Talakeal]

So I finally started the campaign I have been asking for help with for the last couple months. I ran two adventures, the first went really well, the rest went really badly.

So the players are young people who have been raised in an isolated farming village on the edge of a great forest, yearning for something more out of life. They go on an expedition into the forest and find an ancient haunted tower.

They slowly discover that the land they live in was, three hundred years ago, a Murder like wasteland and domain of the BBEG of my previous campaign. Two centuries ago a crusade attempted to cleanse the wasteland, defeated a powerful lich who lived in this tower, and then succumbed to the environment, dying in this tower unable to leave and eventually resorting to cannibalism.

They found the liches tomb, as well as documents talking about how they imprisoned the lich and then bound his phylactery, though they don't find the phylactery itself (they are injured and decided to turn back with only a single room unexplored, the one where the phylactery is hidden.)

They kill some monsters, get some loot, explore a haunted castle, and overall have a great time. So far so good.


The second adventure starts with them back in their village recovering from their previous adventure. A massive host of savage humanoids appears in the night on the hill overlooking the village and gives the villagers three days to disperse before they destroy the town. The townsfolk are vastly outnumbered, and the local lord tells the people to flee and tells his soldiers not to fight, then disappears to his hunting lodge.

Now here is where the problem arose, as the game went into a more sandbox mode without clear direction, I let the PCs come up with their own plan. I wrote out a few of the more likely scenarios, but was open to accepting other good plans.

The scenarios I planned for:

The PCs somehow use magic to compel the ghosts haunting the dungeon from their previous adventure to defend the village.

The PCs track down rumors of a nearby bronze dragon and enlist its help.

The pcs free the lich and use its phylactery to compel it to destroy the invaders.

The PCs track down the druid who purified the land and bound the liches heart in the first place. (The PCs kind of ignored the plot hook, a cursed grove, that would have led them to the druid during the previous adventure, getting creeped out and leaving rather than investigating).

I also anticipated the possibility of the party (all of chaotic alignment) joining the raiders rather than fighting them, and had a scenario for that planned out.

And lastly convincing the local lord to stay and fight, which would have been the hardest option, but still doable.



Ok, so the first day the players spend convincing e local sheriff and many of the local farmers to stay and fight for their land and booby trapping the town. The sorceress spends all of her magic making animated objects to defend the town. The party sends a runner to the nearest city and ask the local king for help, he tells them that he won't risk his army defending a relatively unimportant farming town, but its people are welcome to hole up in his castle and he will then help them rebuild when the danger is past.


The second day the players do nothing and wait until nightfall. They sneak into the raiders camp and burn their tents, killing a few and leaving them low on supplies. The party is caught on the way out and taken before their leader. He tells them that humans have controlled the world for the last thousand years, and that he has been chosen by the gods of the humanoid races to cull the human population and bring the various races back into balance. He lacks the strength to destroy major cities, so instead he will destroy the farming communities across the empire to bring about a famine.

The players try and argue the morality, ho or, or logic of his actions and pull a captain Kirk, but he tells them that his task was given to him by the gods and is built into his very nature, he doesn't care about the deeper philosophical implications, he is running on instinct. He offers the party a place at his side and lets them, go, telling them they have one day and two nights before the attack begins.

The third morning the players, with a little ooc nudging from me, decide to investigate the local lord. They find him drunk in his hunting lodge. Long story short, he made a deal with an outsider to save his dying daughters life many years ago in exchange for him doing nothing when this day came. The party lacks the social skills to convince him to break his pact.

The lord has a pack of hunting griffons. One player wants to ride them, and I explain that griffons in this setting are much smaller than normal than d&d and can't fly while carrying a full size human. He then wants to steal them and make them defend the town. I tell him it is a good idea, but the party lacks any sort of ability to deal with animals, and indeed the sorceress has a background element that animals dislike her innately. They won't be able to command the griffons, and attempting to retrieve them will likely get the players beat up for no good reason.


The next morning the local sage returns from a visit to the library in the nearest city. She tells the players a bit more about what she has learned about their attackers, and that they are much more dangerous than they seem, having apparent supernatural backing. She tells the players that the town can't hold out against them on its own, a d that they players need to do something desperate if they are to save the town.

Then comes the hurt. The players spend about two hours OOC doing nothing. Eventually they give up and I give them an OOC nudge that maybe they should go back to the haunted tower.

They do, and they find the phylactery. One player suggests freeing the lich, but the others shout him down. They spend another hour doing nothing but half heartedly trying to find a way to communicate with the then decide to leave and go fight the invaders to their last breath, at which point I reach across the screen and tell them that the NPC wasn't lying, if they try and fight without help they will all die.

Eventually they give in and wake the lich like the one player wanted.

Long story slightly less long, the lich drives off the invaders and the party defends the town without a single casualty. But at this point they are too frustrated and pissed off to really enjoy the battle or the victory that follows.


So we ended the session. All of the players assured me everything was ok at the time, but in talking to each of them one on one since they have explained their frustrations. Here is the thing though, they each told me something completely different.

Player A said they didn't like the feeling of helplessness. They play RPGs to be a hero, and doesn't like the idea of a problem to big for the PCs to handle alone, and therefore dismissed any plan that involved asking an NPC for help, and was frustrated that the scenario didn't cater to that style.

Player B wanted me to railroad more. He felt that by letting them waste their precious time limit (he was also pissed that there was a time limit and said that makes everything more frustrating) doing minor things, and when the sage told them it wouldn't be enough he completely stopped caring and didn't even bother to try coming up with more plans. He told me in the future he wants me to make it plainly obvious which paths will be successful before letting the players waste their time trying to find their own solution.

Player C, on the other hand, said I railroaded too much. He was mad that there seemed to be only certain resolutions I had in mind and didn't let them explore other options. He was mad that, for example, I told them their griffon plan wouldn't work rather than letting them try. In other words, almost the complete opposite of player Bs complaint.
This player also wanted to simply abandon the mission like half a dozen times throughout the session, basically every time there was a setback no matter how minor, and got pissed when the other players said they wanted to see it through and I said that this was the only adventure I had planned.


And now I am kicking myself. I planned. This adventure for so long, and I saw the weakness of this decision point, but I couldn't figure out a way to fix it.

So, anyone got any advice on how I can avoid similar situations in the future without going full on railroad or improv DM? Nothing kills a session like the players not knowing where to go, but I can't think of a way to eliminate such points in RPGs while leaving the players with even the illusion of choice.

Help?

[GloatingSwine]

Player A was probably closest to the underlying idea they were all having.

They didn't win the adventure, they just pressed the button that turned on the winning machine (the Lich). (Player B wanted the button to be clearly labelled so they didn't "waste time" with nonfunctional plans, and Player C wanted their plans to be able to work at least sometimes, all of your prepared scenarios are "the players get someone to win their battle for them".)

The setup for your adventure suggested a Seven Samurai type outcome where plucky villagers plus a few experienced hands stave off the bandit army (and this is clearly what the players were attempting to do, convincing the villagers to stay and setting up defences), but that wasn't what came out of it, and what did come out was something where the players didn't feel like their characters mattered too much because the big bad Lich did the real work.

Giving them the expected Seven Samurai scenario wouldn't have been bad, especially for a new group of adventurers, they would feel like their plan bore fruit, and they have a reasonable jumping off point as characters to move away from their village to make their fortunes in the big bad world.

[Talakeal]

Player A was probably closest to the underlying idea they were all having.

They didn't win the adventure, they just pressed the button that turned on the winning machine (the Lich). (Player B wanted the button to be clearly labelled so they didn't "waste time" with nonfunctional plans, and Player C wanted their plans to be able to work at least sometimes)

The setup for your adventure suggested a Seven Samurai type outcome where plucky villagers plus a few experienced hands stave off the bandit army (and this is clearly what the players were attempting to do, convincing the villagers to stay and setting up defences), but that wasn't what came out of it, and what did come out was something where the players didn't feel like their characters mattered too much because the big bad Lich did the real work.

Giving them the expected Seven Samurai scenario wouldn't have been bad, especially for a new group of adventurers, they would feel like their plan bore fruit, and they have a reasonable jumping off point as characters to move away from their village to make their fortunes in the big bad world.

So your saying it has to do with not meeting expectations rather than a matter of railroading? Hmm, had not thought about that, good point.

The idea was that there was all this ancient history and power around the region that the adults had never bothered to notice or even believe in. The players were the only ones with the courage and curiosity to actually explore their homes.

While the seven samurai is a good idea for a game, that wasnt what I had intended to run. The players werent seven samurai, they were three local teenagers. I even told them when they were making their characters that the game would be more like "The Goonies" than the "A-team".

Any idea how I can communicate ideas like that better in the future, or how to prompt the players to tell me they arent interssted in playing the game I am pitching?

[CharonsHelper]

I think that both B & C are sort of right.

You should have either

1. Had a single obvious answer to the problem so that the players knew what you wanted.

2. Given the players option and have the players figure out what they wanted and worked with them to make it work.

3. Have a fight be inevitable (perhaps at a pass where opposing numbers are limited), but have all of the secondary things that they do give them bonuses towards said fight.

It sounds like you fell into the (easy to do) trap of wanting to do a sandbox, and planning out what you thought would be the obvious solutions, and trying to steer them towards your planned solutions. It's the method that sandbox video games go with, but it's a different medium, and I don't think that it translates well to tabletop.

Frankly - I think that sandbox games are freakin' hard to pull off well, so I generally avoid them. I need stuff planned out and can't figure out major things on the fly, but I know people that swear by them, and it seems to be more of working with the players to come up with a story than trying to plan out all potential options they might pick. (I'm not sure D&D is the best system for that method either.)

[OldTrees1]

To extract and restate the players' frustrations:
1) The power gap between the side they were allied with and the side they allied against was larger than they liked.
2) There was a time limit that created pressure magnifying frustrations.

3) The players were lacking information to have their choices be meaningful choices(impact + information).
4) Your handling of plans that would not work.
5) Unanticipated plans had spot DCs too high for your players.

#1-2 are more about playstyle and play preference than about DM skill so while you should remember them, I am going to skip them.

#3-5 are quite interconnected and can be reduced through DM skill. They are also frequent problems to surmount when it comes to sandbox and sandbox-like campaigns. It boils down to sufficient communication that the players can draw conclusions. This is an area I am still working on myself.

First, most anticipated details follow the rule of 3 hints:1 conclusion (but have some variety for verisimilitude). The Druid option was invisible to the players since the 1 hint about the druid being an option was in the grove that they skipped. Remember that you need enough of these (your 6 was a good number) anticipated options that it doesn't seem like you have "only one" in mind.

Second, you need to detail your world well enough that plans you don't anticipate/see can be visible to the players. This is hard and is the area I am still incrementing on. My current solution is to know my world well enough that I can quickly derive answers to player questions thus giving answers untainted by metagame concerns. However that solution requires the players to imagine possible solutions and then ask to see if something like that exists so it relies on creative & curious players and does not play well with hard time limits (so instead I have soft time limits where taking too long results in degrees of failure but being faster results in degrees of success).

Third, for all options be they anticipated or unexpected, your description of the scenario needs to convey some pros/cons and the relative chance of success but needs to do so by showing relevant information not directly telling. Player C felt you were telling them it would not work. Player B felt he could not judge chance of success based upon your attempt at showing relevant information.

[GloatingSwine]

So your saying it has to do with not meeting expectations rather than a matter of railroading? Hmm, had not thought about that, good point.

Yeah, with a side order of "the DM's awesome magic macguffin beats the DM's invincible foe"

While the seven samurai is a good idea for a game, that wasnt what I had intended to run. The players werent seven samurai, they were three local teenagers. I even told them when they were making their characters that the game would be more like "The Goonies" than the "A-team".

No, they'd mostly be in the role Katsuhiro was in the film, the eager inexperienced one who wants to learn. You could have adapted it into eg. the local lord does nothing about the bandits because secretly he's being paid off by them, which he doesn't have to pay scutage out of to his liege so it fattens his pocket directly and so he's double dipping on taxing the villages, but there are a few good men left among his knights and they come to help in secret, giving the players a bit more punch (make them a resource the players can use themselves, not DMPCs, again you aren't trying to outshine the players)

Really though, what they wanted was a win of their own, which is not unreasonable for a new group of adventurers, and I think that's the big source of Player C's complaints, because he wanted one of their plans to be able to win.

[GrayDeath]

Overall it seems to me that it was a combination of not being on the same page regarding the intended feel/Mood of the Campaign (something that happejned to me a LOT when Is tarted, I always planned a far more detailed, research-heavy, deeper Story than the players experienced until I learned to put out 3times as many clues as I thought needed), and the old "only the DMs Characters/Maccguffins/Ideas will solve the plot".
WHich, unless it is a purely investigative Campaing, is bound to cause trouble.
Yes, even in a "beginners" campaign.

My suggestion, if you and your players continue, would be to make it clearer ooc what you all want to experience, and adapt accordingly.
Also do not shut down players Ideas just because you did not think of them. That cannot be said often enough.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I think that both B & C are sort of right.

What this boatman says.

Puzzle-like situations in RPG's are hard. There are a lot of pieces on the board and the players rarely have a good overview of all of them. They usually miss even pretty major things about the world. Like how griffons are like falcons, not flying horses. That's not a bad thing, but it does add to the difficulty of figuring out how to use this environment to win.

In fact, the griffon situation as a whole is probably a good example. You give the players the hint that they should go check out this dude in his hunting lodge. All he can give them is the reason that he's not helping (to be fair, you planned for them being able to convince him with better dice rolls, but they don't know that). They look around if there's some way in which they could use that information, or if there's something else here they can use. After all, you gave them the hint to go look. They see the griffons. First it turns out that you're using the term griffon to mean something completely different from what they're imagining, but they're still dangerous creatures that might be able to help. But their attempts to get them to help are pretty much preemptively shot down.

And that's the point where you could have thrown them a bone. Let them talk the guy into sending these animals with them, or let them lure them with food, let them find a stable hand in the village who can help them win the animals' trust. Or just let the gryphons fly up in fear as a large dark shape flies over towards those dark caves a little further on.

Because that's another example. It's not enough to have a dragon, the PC's need to be able to find out there is one without going looking for it. This problem does not immediately scream "maybe a dragon lives nearby who can help us". (How clear were the rumors? Did they scream "hint, hint"?) All in all, I think that's the main factor here, not that there aren't enough ways to achieve their goals, but that there are too few paths (for this group of players and characters in this setting etc) to them. They have to make some pretty big mental leaps to conclude that maybe yesterdays ghost would be powerful enough to beat today's challenge, even though they won yesterday and today they're being warned they can't win this. If you have to make it as unsubtle as NPC's almost literally pointing them towards solutions, so be it. The session becomes legendry if they figure the perfect solution out completely unprovoked, but it's no fun at all as long when they don't figure anything out. Things happening that push them in the right direction are way better than 2 OOC hours of doing nothing.

[sktarq]

In part, I think a change of presentation at the beginning could have been a big help. You pulled a bit of a bait a switch on the PC (unintentionally) you gave them a problem to solve (the 3 day warning humanoid army) and a semi-closed list of solutions (almost all of which involved bringing in a third power). Thing is 3 to 1 on good defensive ground with time to prep is not impossible odds. It is with a reach (if a stretch) with palisades etc. If you had gone bigger and basically made clear that they were doomed from the get go unless they get help. Then the adventure is about finding options, selecting, and convincing the help. "You must find help young ones-go" is a totally fair adventure seed, but you let them think they had other options which really they didn't have.

[Jay R]

I wrote out a few of the more likely scenarios, but was open to accepting other good plans.

Being open to accepting the PCs' plans isn't enough. You also have to actually accept one of them. Their plans were:

Ok, so the first day the players spend convincing e local sheriff and many of the local farmers to stay and fight for their land and booby trapping the town. The sorceress spends all of her magic making animated objects to defend the town.

The party sends a runner to the nearest city and ask the local king for help, ...

The players try and argue the morality, ho or, or logic of his actions and pull a captain kirk, ....

The lord has a pack of hunting griffons. One player wants to ride them, ....

... then decide to leave and go fight the invaders to their last breath, ...

These were their plans, and you wouldn't accept any of them.

Eventually they give in and wake thr lich...

Note that this was originally your plan, and that you had to reach across the table and tell them to go do it.

A is correct. They were helpless, because everything that used their abilities failed. None of your possible endings required the fighter to draw a sword, or the wizard to cast a spell.

B is correct. They spent lots of time spinning their wheels trying things that couldn't work, without any way to know that they were wasting their time.

C is correct. Everything they tried was ruled out, and they were nudged into your plan. They obviously didn't get enough clues that a druid or dragon might help.

If you are going to let them come up with their own plan, something they should come up with should work. If you have a set plan, or set of possible plans, then they should include their abilities, and they should have more clues to it.

[Talakeal]

Being open to accepting the PCs' plans isn't enough. You also have to actually accept one of them. Their plans were:




These were their plans, and you wouldn't accept any of them.



Note that this was originally your plan, and that you had to reach across the table and tell them to go do it.

A is correct. They were helpless, because everything that used their abilities failed. None of your possible endings required the fighter to draw a sword, or the wizard to cast a spell.

B is correct. They spent lots of time spinning their wheels trying things that couldn't work, without any way to know that they were wasting their time.

C is correct. Everything they tried was ruled out, and they were nudged into your plan. They obviously didn't get enough clues that a druid or dragon might help.

If you are going to let them come up with their own plan, something they should come up with should work. If you have a set plan, or set of possible plans, then they should include their abilities, and they should have more clues to it.

I'm confused here, it seems like you are saying that I should accept every plan the players come up with, even when it would make no sense.

All of the plans you quoted either relied on skills the players didnt have or things that were simply too small to have an impact on the situation.

Hypothetically, what would you do if the players in your game decided to slay a red dragon by throwing a stick at it (despite it having hundreds of HP), hitting it with a fireball (despite it being immune to fire), talking it into giving the players it hoard without a fight (despite only having a six charisma and no social skills), or casting power word kill on it despite being only a second level mage?

[CharonsHelper]

I'm confused here, it seems like you are saying that I should accept every plan the players come up with, even when it would make no sense.

All of the plans you quoted either relied on skills the players didnt have or things that were simply too small to have an impact on the situation.

Hypothetically, what would you do if the players in your game decided to slay a red dragon by throwing a stick at it (despite it having hundreds of HP), hitting it with a fireball (despite it being immune to fire), talking it into giving the players it hoard without a fight (despite only having a six charisma and no social skills), or casting power word kill on it despite being only a second level mage?

Except - in those cases it's obvious that they would fail.

The things which the players in this case attempted were NOT obviously doomed to fail, yet you treated them as such. Either you should have made it so that they WEREN'T doomed to fail, or made it far more obvious that they were hopeless gestures. As it was, it sounds like your players spent a lot of time spinning their wheels doing things which you'd already decided were pointless (but were in no way obviously pointless).

[The Glyphstone]

Then you scripted the campaign poorly from the beginning. You, as the DM, decide both the scope and scale of the opposition. To counter your hypothetical example, if the best weapon your players personally have is a stick, and they are only second level, then you screwed up on a gigantic scale by making them fight a CR13+ dragon (the range at which hundreds of HP on a Red Dragon start). It doesn't matter that they could go ask the CR13+ Gold Dragon in the next cave over to do their fighting for them, or go to the level 20 wizard in a nearby tower and ask him to do their fighting for them, or perform a summoning ritual to awaken the forgotten ghost of the level 20 barbarian king to do their fighting for them. All are pre-scripted solutions that force the players into pre-determined outcomes (player C hates this), none of which actually give the players any agency (player A hates this).

You say you pitched the campaign to them as the Goonies. The kids did not run away and get their parents to fight the Fratellis for them - they defeated the bad guys and found the treasure all by themselves. If that is what the players were expecting, you didn't deliver, so this one is on you unfortunately.


(My initial reaction before reading was going to be "you went wrong by playing in Bizarro Gaming World, as usual", but the players are honestly coming across as pretty reasonable this time.)

Now, for constructive advice...learn from this. You now know how your players think, what they expect and what they like. Prepare for that. You'll do better in Round 2.

[AMFV]

I'm confused here, it seems like you are saying that I should accept every plan the players come up with, even when it would make no sense.

Not every, just at a minimum one. If your players are coming up with as many varied and interesting plans as yours were, you should encourage that. Even if those plans don't completely resolve the situation you can have them help, or have them provide insight that may resolve the situation. If your players want to ride griffons for example, help them figure out a way to help.

All of the plans you quoted either relied on skills the players didnt have or things that were simply too small to have an impact on the situation.

Not necessarily, booby trapping the town is certainly liable to help. Talking and diplomacy is likely to help, pointing out to the non-human leader that the town isn't going to be the easy mark he thought it was when he made the deal may cause him to reconsider (after all battles are risky, they consume resources, if he might lose some of his forces, he may move on to an easier mark). Sending for help isn't likely to be too small either.

Those are ALL workable solutions to the problem, admittedly some might require some additional stuff on part of the players, but then you'd just need to let them know that. You basically only accepted one set of actions, those that you devised.

I would recommend this:

Don't, I say again, DON'T Plan ahead. Create the basic scenario, then organically develop it, it'll be more difficult, but if this is your problem, then the answer is to force yourself out of the mindset that only one solution will work, create a problem that you don't know the solution to. Then if the players come up with something that won't work, talk to them until they figure out a way to make that solution work. After all a fireball may not work on a Red Dragon, but a Ball of Cold might. Throwing a stick at it won't, but shooting a sharpened black one through it's weak point would. Finger of Death is unreachable to 2nd level mages, unless they have a scroll., So they quest to find said scroll. Even a person with a Charisma of 6 can make a compelling argument if the argument is a bribe, or a sufficiently interesting threat. A person with low charisma could still figure out what the Dragon wants and bribe them.

[DaveOTN]

It can be very difficult in a pen & paper roleplaying game to realize where the gap is between what you're imagining and what the player are imagining, especially since both mental images are coming from the same words. For example, one of the most frustrating roleplaying sessions I've ever played in (as a player) involved our party facing off against a major villain, who was busy making some sort of evil concoction in a foul-smelling bubbling cauldron. The battle raged on, the fighter fell victim to a hold person spell, the ranger was knocked out, and my wizard had run out of useful spells - so, in desperation, my character ran up and tried to push over the cauldron, spilling out the evil liquid and at least disrupting whatever ritual the villain was in the middle of. Or at least he tried to, only to be told, "You can't budge it. It weighs hundreds of pounds. [The bad guy] casts Inflict moderate wounds on you."

Remember, the players expect to be challenged, but they expect you to give them beatable challenges, and they will generally try their best to beat them in ways that make sense to them. I wouldn't have wasted a turn trying to push over a cauldron if I realized it was actually a solid stone unholy water font - which was what my DM had in mind - and your players wouldn't have wasted their first day on a Seven Samurai scenario if they hadn't thought that might have been a reasonable response to your scenario. That means your players probably underestimated what exactly a "massive horde" meant - did you give them numbers? Do they know how many people are in their town? 5000 orcs may seem beatable to a player that thinks that a "small farming town" has 2500 adults in it (as it might, in modern Indiana) and doesn't realize that in the middle ages that town has about 50 people able to lift a sword. If you realized this was happening, you could have just pointed it out directly ("hold on, guys, I don't think I explained this very well") or you could put it in to the mouths of the villagers ("There's no way we'll beat those orcs - we're outnumbered 100 to 1"). After all, their local lord ordered them to flee - so essentially every villager the PCs persuaded to stay behind was reinforcing their belief that "staying and fighting" was a realistic bet to make.

Second, as other posters have said, the sabotage attacks on the raider camp, and the moral arguments with their leader, were both good plans and the players had no way of knowing otherwise. Sure, you knew that the orc chieftain had received word straight from his god, but I doubt you mentioned that to the players - so their second night's work should have been rewarded somehow. I think this is where the players got frustrated - not so much that they guessed wrong, but that guessing wrong didn't get them any closer to an answer. I can see two possible ways to reward the players here, depending on how much you wanted to wing this adventure. If you decide in the moment to go the Seven Samurai route, then let the chieftain give his speech about his god, but let the players know that there seems to be some dissension in the ranks. Although the chieftain is firm in his belief, they notice small bands breaking off and riding home every so often over the course of the next two days - it seems their preaching did have some effect after all. Now they have to see if it was enough... On the other hand, if you want to stick with your original plan, have the orc chieftain let slip that no living man could dissuade him from his quest - he fears nothing that breathes - he knows he'll win this fight because the town has no necromancer - etc. etc. You may have to ladle it on pretty thick here. Remember that PCs will tend to think there's no connection between adventures unless you make it explicitly clear that there is one - your party probably has closed their mental file on that whole lich incident and is prepared not to think of it again unless you hit them over the head with it. In this case, though, you're trying to let the characters make that last connection - the chieftain is scared of undead - the lich! It's always easier in hindsight, of course, but if you can think of a few ways to have NPCs make the suggestion instead of just hinting at them out of character, it'll help preserve their agency.

Finally, just remember that the PCs know almost nothing of your plans, which means they can be changed right up until the moment they're revealed. And you can always stash them away for later. If it becomes apparent that the PCs think they've got a winnable fight up ahead against 200 bandits, but you actually had 1000 trolls led by a demon in mind, don't be afraid to just stash those trolls away for later and play the bandit fight the players are preparing for. You can always lead them back to the lich tower a couple adventures later.

[Anonymouswizard]

Hypothetically, what would you do if the players in your game decided to slay a red dragon by throwing a stick at it (despite it having hundreds of HP), hitting it with a fireball (despite it being immune to fire), talking it into giving the players it hoard without a fight (despite only having a six charisma and no social skills), or casting power word kill on it despite being only a second level mage?

Honestly? I'd let them try. Maybe they have a cunning plan to steal a scroll of PW: Kill from the local mages' guild, maybe the stick is made of a highly acidic substance (...they also stole really tough gloves when raiding the mages guild), maybe they have the cash to buy a potion of glibness. Or maybe they fail and die, I don't actually know until they try. Maybe they get a massive critical with a bulk-standard twig.

You're also not letting players have A WIN when the PCs can't get THE WIN. The horde overruns the kingdom's towns, but the PCs protect the village until harvest time. The villain kills the king, but the PCs spirit away the crown with the gem of royal power. Lesser victories, but still victories, all without Archemage Overshadow coming along. The important thing is to let the players try their plan even if it shouldn't succeed, because when has a story made 'and the powerful wizard single handedly saved everybody including the protagonists' entertaining? (LotR doesn't count, he brings an army with him)

[Jay R]

I'm confused here, it seems like you are saying that I should accept every plan the players come up with, even when it would make no sense.

Don't be silly. It's impossible to accept every plan; you're only going to play the scenario once.

But something they come up with should work, or they aren't part of the game.

All of the plans you quoted either relied on skills the players didn't have or things that were simply too small to have an impact on the situation.

If anything, that's understated. In fact, anything that could solve this situation relied on skills or powers the players didn't have, because every ability they had was too small to have an impact on the situation. Look at your original set of possibilities. Each one is finding somebody else to solve a situation the PCs are incapable of affecting.

Hypothetically, what would you do if the players in your game decided to slay a red dragon by throwing a stick at it (despite it having hundreds of HP), hitting it with a fireball (despite it being immune to fire), talking it into giving the players it hoard without a fight (despite only having a six charisma and no social skills), or casting power word kill on it despite being only a second level mage?

Exactly - a perfect analogy. If I send a red dragon after a party with only sticks for weapons, no social skills and only a second level mage, nothing they do should work. But that's not their fault; it's because I sent a red dragon after a party that can't face it.

Yes, maybe they can talk a Lich, ghost, bronze dragon, druid or lord to come fight the red dragon instead. Then that high-level character (the lich, in this case) is playing D&D, while the 2nd level mage and his friends get to watch.

[neonchameleon]

I'm confused here, it seems like you are saying that I should accept every plan the players come up with, even when it would make no sense.

All of the plans you quoted either relied on skills the players didnt have or things that were simply too small to have an impact on the situation.

All the plans quoted are perfectly sensible ones based on a reasonable assumption of Goonies level opposition and information that would be available to the PCs. Shut them down the way you did and you'll get player-PTSD where they never try anything interesting. Reasonable looking plans don't have to work - they just have to have a chance of working and to not lead to utter catastrophe when they fail.

You say you wanted to run a Goonies style adventure? Your description of the adventure really doesn't fit - as others have pointed out neither the massive host nor the "Watch the NPCs be awesome" fit. So I'm going to give you one.

A group of ogres the size of the party kidnap the kid brother/sister of one of the PCs, planning to eat them tomorrow (make it an ogre religious celebration if nothing else).

Why?

First, none of the PCs is a match for an ogre. For that matter two PCs should struggle badly against an ogre - but the party working together should be able to bring an ogre down without too much trouble. It's a bullying and intimidating threat without being utterly overwhelming. The PCs need to even the odds.

Second, ogres are stupid. This makes them fun. It also means that they are vulnerable to relatively silly threats. The plans need to be plausible, not necessarily good and slapstick comedy works (very much in keeping with a Goonies style).

So how do the PCs handle it? Basically you do not plan this part. The challenge is manageable with a relatively generous GM but the PCs need to plan and even the score.

If the PCs go to help from the militia, the militia's busy (and has written off the kid - meaning the PCs will be even bigger heroes when they come back) - but a good enough diplomacy roll will get help from the town drunk. Who turns out to be a retired soldier and when the rescue starts he turns up in full plate with a heavy shield. Sure, he can't hit the broad side of a barn door. But the ogres are going to struggle to hit him (especially as he fights defensively), and he's foul mouthed enough to attract attention from at least one (effectively lowering the ogre numbers by one because one of them's busy pounding on him). If he survives he either tries to sort himself out or gives the PCs his armour as loot, and if he dies his last words involve thanking the PCs for letting him go to Valhalla.

If the PCs try to trap the ogres, ogres are stupid. They won't get them all. But whittling numbers down by one is good. The same goes for starting fights using ventriloquism.

The basic point here is the PCs want plans and several of them, all with a good chance of success but without ending the adventure. And if the PCs come up with something ridiculous like two PCs, one on the shoulders of the other, wearing a flaming storm cloak to take advantage of the ogre religious rites, go for it! That sort of stuff is hilarious when it works - and even more hilarious when it fails* (preferably after the kid brother is free).

But whatever you do for this sort of plot, let the PCs come up with the plans. Don't pre-prepare them. And make the opposition look manageable. A DMPC should never ever be the one solving the problem.

* The version my PCs managed was dressing up as emissaries of Blipbloppool, God of Troglodytes (with the hard part being getting themselves to smell bad enough to pose as emmissaries). It was working ... until they realised none of them spoke the right language.

[John Longarrow]

The scenarios I planned for:

The PCs somehow use magic to compel the ghosts haunti g the dungeon from thekr previous adventure to defend the village.

The PCs track dowm rumors of a nearby bronze dragon and enlist its help.

The pcs free the liche and use its phylactory to compel it to destroy the invaders.

The PCs track down the druid who purified the land and bound the liches heart in the first place. (The PCs kind of ignored the plot hook, a cursed grove, that wouls have led them to the druid during the previous adventure, getting creeped out and leaving rather than investigating).

I also anticipated the possibility of the party (all of chaotic alignment) joining the raiders rather than fighting them, and had a scenario for that planned out.

And lastly convincing the local lord to stay and fight, which would have been the hardest option, but still doable.

So you never thought the party may try to gank the leader? That's the first thing several groups I know would try. Take out the leader early then see if you can get rid of the rest. Evil hordes tend to fall apart quickly without firm leadership.

It also makes a very big statement about your style of play. You had it in your mind before the players showed up that nothing the characters do can directly affect the outcome. There are very few times a DM should bring out this kind of action.l For the most part this screams 'plot requirement' and the players should have a LOT of foreshadowing it will occur. If you had been seeding the party with information about all of the big guys they could call on for several sessions plus gave them a solid reason why they are the ones to choose the towns savior, this could be workable. From the sounds of it the players had no clue their direct actions would be useless.

As DM though, how would you have handled the party trying to sneak in and assassinate the head of the horde? What would you have done to either help or hinder the party? What would have been the fall out from their leader being killed? If the players had a solid enough plan, they may have been able to get help from either the King or the local lord's estate. An attack by griffons in the evening as cover while the party (helped by the kings head of espionage) should be a workable plan. One the religious leader is out of the picture, who's next in charge? Are they also on the holy crusade? If it won't work, how can you make sure the player find this out without wasting a day trying?

Also, just so everyone is actually clear on what you had planned, how big was the town, how many defenders could it actually muster, how big was the attacking force, and what special resources did it have?

From the players perspective how much of the above was known/knowable?

These are not questions I actually have much need to know. As DM, they are questions you should be able to answer quickly. Working through what your players may need and figuring out how you want to give it to them should hopefully aid you immensely in avoiding this issue.

[Elxir_Breauer]

Honestly, using something along the lines of the Victory Point system from Red Hand of Doom (a 3.5 module for 4-6 level 5+ characters) would be a good idea for this kind of scenario. Set up a laundry list of secondary or even tertiary objectives worth 1 or 2 VP each, and a few major objectives worth 3-4 each, then have the running total kept up on the side. If you really feel like giving them a rough time add in some way to LOSE VP, like if they fail to achieve certain objectives then the enemy not only doesn't get weakened or their side get strengthened, just the opposite happens! I have similar problems with some of the players in my groups occasionally, and giving them a list of things they feel they CAN accomplish at their power level (even if it may be a stretch of resources) gives them more direction, even in a sandbox style game.

[Talakeal]

Lots of good responses here, and a lot of things to think about. I will respond to individual points this weekend when I have some time and a keyboard, but a couple of general comments:

First, I didnt say I was planning on recreating a "Goonies" themed game, I just mentioned the goonies one time as a guideline for the type of characters the party should be trying to create.

Second, let me ask a questions: how do you introduce a major villain early on in the campaign? One who is meant to be a credible threat and a recurring antagonist, but without being so distant and inactive they become like Orcus on his throne or without making them look so incompetant they become a joke like most 80s saturday morning cartoon villains?

Finally, let me ask how the following scenario would go over: The players are in a city that is under seige by a superior force. They are tasked with delivering a message to a nearby kingdom to beg for them to send their army and break the seige. The players are their kingdoms only hope, and they must slip past the beseiging army and cross the monster infested wilderness to deliver the vital mesage before it is too late.

It is basically the same set up, but with a lot more telegraphing, and the players have about the same amount of impact, but I imagine it would go over a lot better. Why?

[goto124]

I'll take a guess: it gives the players a simple goal, you set up the situation, the plot is really barebones. The players don't have to do certain things in a specific way, they're presumably free to do anything they like as long as it gets the message to the other side.

[Vitruviansquid]

I think others have adequately analyzed what went wrong, so I'm going to give a suggestion about how to do this right. Here's how I would've run a scenario like yours:

I would definitely prepare some potential solutions to the raider problem, but none of the solutions I have cooked up are going to perfectly solve the battle by itself. The PC's must do the brunt of the fighting and be the central heroes of the story. For example, if the PCs get the Lich to fight for them, the Lich may tell them that he has been weakened by centuries of imprisonment and will only be able to cast a spell or two from the sidelines. Instead of a bronze dragon, there is something significantly less powerful in the forest, or the bronze dragon may cast a "buffing" magic on the players, or loan them a magic item to help in the fight. Instead of the local lord bringing his full might against the raiders if he can be convinced, he will reluctantly send a small contingent of volunteers who the players have to find a use for. So on and so forth.

All of your prepared solutions will be *safety nets* for yourself to OOC-ly suggest to the players if they don't quickly get to grips with the problem. You should by default prepare to be open-minded about the solutions that your players come up with, and under no circumstances should you allow the players to bum around for even 5 minutes, much less 2 hours, not knowing what to do. All of your prepared solutions are strictly in case your players admit to having no clue what to do.

If a player suggests a stupid idea to you, your default response should be to find a way to allow it, not shut it down. If a player's idea seems stupid to you, subtly change the idea, don't simply shut the player down. For example, if a player wants to ride hunting griffons to fight the bandits, but you REALLY insist on them being too small, you could say "well, you can't ride them, but perhaps you can train them to claw and peck at the raiders, distracting them during your fight."

Also, if the players fail to have the necessary skills to pull off their solutions, like they have no social skills to convince the lord, don't shut them down, but complicate the matter. For example, "the lord says he will not send his soldiers to defend the village, but as he looks over your party, he suddenly gets a gleam in his eye and puts on a wicked grin, 'well, I *could* deign to do something for you enterprising lads and your little hovels, but you'll need to do me a favor first...'" Get out of the habit of seeing the players fail a check and shutting everything down - always think about compromise.

At some point, you need to plan for multiple *combat* encounters in the session, whether they are random beasts encountered in the forest, an advance party from the raiders, or whatever. Whatever version of DnD you are playing, the entire franchise is built around combat. That's what the players are here for, and that's where the meat of the game is. Don't give your players a session without combat.

If the players are arguing over their plans for a long time, STEP IN and resolve it for them. Once the debate over freeing the lich has gone on for a few minutes, you can tell the players they should simply vote on what to do. Nobody wants to drag the game out with long debate over something (anything) happening.

[1of3]

Honestly, using something along the lines of the Victory Point system from Red Hand of Doom (a 3.5 module for 4-6 level 5+ characters) would be a good idea for this kind of scenario.

I agree. The PCs did something. They rallied the villagers, they set traps. How should they know, that wouldn't be enough? GM can tell them of course, but then it feels wasted. It should count for something, right? If fortifying the village is some points for the tally, that is much better already.


To do this, players need some information.

a) A rough idea, what there is to gain. Let's say:

We assume all villagers die. For every token, gain 1d2. On a success, 10% survive.

b) Some ways to get tokens. In this situation, I suggest one definite end point, so something like:

Gain tokens for:

- Recruiting men (depending on number)
- Recruiting wizards or monsters (depending on power)
- Assassinating or undermining their leadership (depending on how many key figures)
- Other useful things
- Choose the number of foes to engage in showdown battle: Moderate, Hard, Epic enemies facing your PCs. Gain 2, 4 or 8 tokens respectively, no matter the fate of the PCs.
You can leave the area at any time before the showdown.

The scenario should include some obvious points. That was alright. Coralling the villagers is an obvious thing to do. And they did.
Some items might offer bonus points for good rolls. Like recruiting, giving an extra point on a high Charisma check.

Put those information on a hand out. That is very important. Even the player who wouldn't want to recruit NPCs will probably suck it up, if it's black on white that this is an expected thing to do. Especially because, he knows there will be heroic fighting at the end.

With such a system, you can be very generous and improvise easily. Like, a player wants to pray to the gods. - That sounds like a useful thing to do. Answer: "No problem, the village has one prayer at the local shrine. Someone make a Religion check. Get 1 save-the-village token for every ten points on the roll." And react to other suggestions in that manner.

[NichG]

Second, let me ask a questions: how do you introduce a major villain early on in the campaign? One who is meant to be a credible threat and a recurring antagonist, but without being so distant and inactive they become like Orcus on his throne or without making them look so incompetant they become a joke like most 80s saturday morning cartoon villains?

You don't. Almost the only way for a villain to be stable is to be hidden. Think of it this way - there's a limited bandwidth of information about the world from you to the players. Anything that is on-screen is sharing a very limited shelf space with other things. When there's a problem, the mental process of the players will be to take whatever is on the shelf (that is, whatever the handful of things they know about the world are) one by one and ask 'does this thing solve it?'. If the major villain is on the shelf, then they'll say 'ah, the solution is to kill this guy'. And then will either succeed or fail horribly, within one or at most two sessions of when that actor entered the scene.

The issue with recruiting NPC help isn't just 'we want to be the heroes' although there's an element of that. It also has to do with this immediacy and limited bandwidth factor. If there's an immediate threat and I have a time limit, the last thing I'm going to do is to set out in random directions and try to explore on the off chance that I might find powerful allies. I don't know that there will be such allies, nor do I know that they'll be sufficient - that's all stuff that you might have planned, but given the limited bandwidth the players are going to at best have a few adventure hooks about those forces. When you place an immediate threat in front of players, that's communicating to them 'stop mucking around and exploring and deal with this', but you had conceived that the only way to resolve the immediate threat was in fact to go mucking around with exploring - following up on seemingly random leads in the hope that it would resolve this apparently unrelated problem.

Now, if you had run this scenario such that the players had already made alliances or at least tentative friendships with these various forces in the region, and only then had presented the army, in that case the players might think 'oh, I can make use of this ally I made previously'. It makes more logical sense: 'I collected a resource during my explorations (an ally), now that things are getting serious it's time to expend that resource (calling in aid)'. Even though its an NPC doing things, that can still feel a little bit like the players are actually making use of 'their' resources, if those alliances were made previously and independently of this current threat. But if you flip it around, it doesn't make sense anymore - why would anyone investigate a local lord's drunk behavior or a haunted tower when the invaders are at the gate?

[HammeredWharf]

Second, let me ask a questions: how do you introduce a major villain early on in the campaign? One who is meant to be a credible threat and a recurring antagonist, but without being so distant and inactive they become like Orcus on his throne or without making them look so incompetant they become a joke like most 80s saturday morning cartoon villains?

Here I'll disagree with NichG and claim that you can do it well with enough creativity. However, what you don't do is have that villain attack the PCs directly. In your scenario, the leader of those invaders could've come to the village, trying to intimidate them into surrendering. He could kick the PCs around a bit if they decided to attack him. Of course, if PCs got really lucky and/or creative, they could murder him there and then, but that's cool. Villains are replaceable and killing a big bad early is memorable. Anyway, after the visit he could leave things to his lieutenant, because the big bad has better things to do than siege an unimportant village.

That's an easy way. However, there are other options. You could have a dragon attack the village and the big bad would come to its aid and occupy the village in the process. You could have the big bad attack the capital and cut off the village's access to help that way.

The important part is giving the PCs a formidable, but manageable opponent to fight, because NPCs shouldn't solo the adventure. In my examples, that opponent could've been the lieutenant or the dragon's minions.

Finally, let me ask how the following scenario would go over: The players are in a city that is under seige by a superior force. They are tasked with delivering a message to a nearby kingdom to beg for them to send their army and break the seige. The players are their kingdoms only hope, and they must slip past the beseiging army and cross the monster infested wilderness to deliver the vital mesage before it is too late.

It is basically the same set up, but with a lot more telegraphing, and the players have about the same amount of impact, but I imagine it would go over a lot better. Why?

Unless the players would have to go beg a nearby lich for help to have any chance of success, it's not the same setup.

Who goes to a lich for help, anyway? Or to a cursed grove? A copper dragon I can understand, but the other options sounds like they'd result in something as bad as getting conquered by an army of savages. At this point, if I were a player in your game and nothing seemed to work, I'd do as the lord said and abandon the village.

[Mystral]

Aren't you the guy with that horrible campaign and DM?

[neonchameleon]

First, I didnt say I was planning on recreating a "Goonies" themed game, I just mentioned the goonies one time as a guideline for the type of characters the party should be trying to create.

Which implies that they are set in the same sort of universe. Asking for Goonies characters and dropping them into Aliens is a bait and switch - characters reflect their environment. And unless you are a lot more skilled than you are don't run a bait and switch campaign. (And even then there are only a couple of times it works).

Second, let me ask a questions: how do you introduce a major villain early on in the campaign? One who is meant to be a credible threat and a recurring antagonist, but without being so distant and inactive they become like Orcus on his throne or without making them look so incompetant they become a joke like most 80s saturday morning cartoon villains?

By not having them confront the PCs directly. The minions whose wiles the PCs thwart mention the villain's alias/name and are quite clearly more scared of the major villain than they are of the PCs even when the PC has them at swordpoint.

Finally, let me ask how the following scenario would go over: The players are in a city that is under seige by a superior force. They are tasked with delivering a message to a nearby kingdom to beg for them to send their army and break the seige. The players are their kingdoms only hope, and they must slip past the beseiging army and cross the monster infested wilderness to deliver the vital mesage before it is too late.

It is basically the same set up, but with a lot more telegraphing, and the players have about the same amount of impact, but I imagine it would go over a lot better. Why?

It's the same setup to the extent that Rambo and Predator are the same setup. Uber-powerful guy wanders into an environment full of armed enemies and blows them away.

First the PCs are not automatically less awesome than the DMPC. "We need help from an army" isn't remotely the same as "We need help from Uber 733t kewl DMPC who is going to show us what but one person can actually do".

Second, there's a huge difference between framing the story and uncovering during the story. The old man in the tavern in the opening scene saying "You need the Sword of McGuffin to fight the Evil One" is very different from a random urchin half way through the adventure saying "You're going to fight the Evil One without the Sword of McGuffin? Well aren't you stupid. You've just wasted all this time." And what you were doing was the random urchin nonsense.

Third, what the PCs do matters relative to their goals. You (and the problem normally sits in the DM's chair) left them with the impression that they had the army to deal with. And they couldn't. They failed.

Fourth, you aren't going to no-sell the PCs plans in the same way. You're unlikely to have to say "No, you can't just flap your arms to fly" - people don't try that. But things like dodging or fighting patrols? The PCs can do however they like (and remember to make a dodged patrol worth as much XP as a fought one). Whether they borrow/steal horses or continue on foot? Etc.

[GloatingSwine]

Second, let me ask a questions: how do you introduce a major villain early on in the campaign? One who is meant to be a credible threat and a recurring antagonist, but without being so distant and inactive they become like Orcus on his throne or without making them look so incompetant they become a joke like most 80s saturday morning cartoon villains?

Make him inaccessable personally, but still make it feel like when the players win they thwarted him.

An example could be:

At early levels the players hear of an evil cult trying to summon a demon into the world via unspeakable rituals, since stopping this is a good way to pick up renown (and chicks/dudes) they swoop in and stop it. As they do so they hear a departing voice swearing vengeance and a vile presence departing to the north/east/wherever, a fragment of the demon's essence made it through, surely this will be trouble down the line!

After a few adventures they start hearing about a bad dude, bad enough to rescue the president, who seems to be behind some of the things they've been putting a stop to. As they get closer they find they're facing a Blackguard, turns out the demon's soul found a mortal champion/vessel and is stirring up trouble. They defeat him and the demon is truly banished, hooray!.

When they're higher level they get a nasty surprise, the demon found another way to the prime material, and he has it in for them. But now they're a high level adventuring party who can give the demon the whuppin' his daddy never did.

At every stage they get to own their victories* but there's a clear thread of who is causing all the trouble and a clear sense of level appropriate escalation.


In your campaign you already sowed the seeds that could have led to the players winning in the way they were trying, you let slip that the evil doom army wasn't at full strength and that's why it was picking on farming villages. You could have let them mount their defence, give them a few resources (the griffons, even if they can't control them they're still dangerous, ornery, and hungry so they'll do some damage if released at the right time, some of the Lord's knights breaking rank to support them) and let them hold long enough that the doom army retreats and goes to find some softer villages that plucky young adventurers haven't just spawned in.

That means that the threat is unsolved, but it has departed for now and the players can be sent off to warn the lord's liege that this is happening and that the lord isn't living up to his feudal contract and needs a word in his shell-like. Leaving their village for adventure but also to rally forces because the evil doom army will grow over time.

They can then intermittently face lieutenants of the big bad or raiding parties of his army (without the resources now so their own growing power shows out more) who are stirring up trouble before they're high enough level to actually deal with a big doom army and its big boss.


* Always try and figure out ways for players to own their victories, this is the real downside with the "press here to win campaign" type solutions. The players don't own the victory because it doesn't come from any property of their characters. Their characters are their projections into the campaign, so success or failure should come out of the capabilities and properties of those characters, that makes the players feel like they own the victory.

[Comet]

This is why I just design areas and NPCs and let the players figure out how to make an interesting story out of it. Trying to nail it down to a story, or even multiple potential stories, before the game starts is just too much stress for me. I much prefer a chaotic, sprawling mess of sequential events that might or might not form a cohesive whole to a pre-defined, carefully thought out story arc that might or might not interest the players.