Have any of you ever used "deus ex machina" to save a party or to do some convenient plot tool to advance the party further?
I was thinking about something more than cheating with dice rolls :)
I told my group that I will only use one "deus ex machina" as long as I am a GM :) After that, no convenient "several city guards with silver spears and arrows save you from the lycanthrop ambush" save.
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I've used it before with a level four party who decided to fight a succubus and ended up getting owned when the cavalier got dominated. The succubus grew bored and teleported out and left the party to subdue their companion.
I try to build encounters that are balanced and will only use 'Deus ex machina' if the party are getting destroyed because of a mistake I've made either with throwing them against an overpowered enemy or lack of foresight. If they make poor choices that lead to a TPK then that's their fault and it's all part of the game.
The bonus from the above example though is that I get to use that succubus as a reoccuring antagonist now.
I don't think the succubus was really a Dues Ex Machina. That usually refers to a 3rd party intervening and completing the story for the heroes. If anything, the Succubus story is probably a 'kudos' moment for Naztek - He actually made a meatgrinder experience into an interesting plot point, and I'd personally encourage using defeats not as a 'game over' moment and more as encouragement to succeed in the future.
D.E.M. moments are more like when the party is about to be defeated, and then someone shows up to make it a victory, and I'd highly suggest never doing that.
Either way, the secret to all of this is the same as when cooking goes bad: never admit you screwed up. Burn the muffins? Tell 'em they're chocolate cookies. Party loses a fight to a pack of kobolds? You were looking for a reason to run an 'escape from kobold slave market' module anyways. lol.
D.E.M. moments are more like when the party is about to be defeated, and then someone shows up to make it a victory, and I'd highly suggest never doing that.
One of our old players ran a campaign that had a number of horrifically difficult encounters, and when we reached the point where he knew defeat was eminent, we would be rescued. And now, years later, "Elven cavalry" has become an ongoing joke.
The deux ex machine feels like one has failed as a gamer. Let the dice lay where they fall, right? There are situations it can be used though. Your table needs to talk it out.
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Have any of you ever used "deus ex machina" to save a party or to do some convenient plot tool to advance the party further?
I was thinking about something more than cheating with dice rolls :)
I told my group that I will only use one "deus ex machina" as long as I am a GM :) After that, no convenient "several city guards with silver spears and arrows save you from the lycanthrop ambush" save.
Hmmm, well this triggers a dichotomous response from me.
Note: I almost exclusively GM, Have not played in years.
On one hand I Hate invalidating or undervaluing the choices of my players at my table.
On the other I can think of several times where PC's in my games have been "saved" by outside forces, and fun was had by all.
As an example a campaign I was running for the last several years had just recently died due to the fact that I had to move to Japan for work.
I had lots of questions from the players about different things, and one of the most common was what would have happened in the game world if the party had TPK'ed. This was important due to the fact that at the lvl achieved (lvl 15) and the amount of story woven the PC's were very integral to the plot.
I laughed and told them that they had one get out of TPK free card. One of my players objected strenuously due to hating Dues ex Machina style games, as he said he felt they made anything he did pointless due to the fact that his actions would not determine the story, the actions of npcs would. I agreed and laughing told him why they could escape one TPK.
In this campaign they had several times run into parts of things that combined would have allowed for the creation of a god. Now they were very careful about the disposition of said things and no one even got close to ascension, except...
The sorcerer's ferret familiar. They had taken to storing these items in the parties bag of holding at different rotating times. The items were mostly edibles, the familiar kept a stash of peanuts in the BoH and so...
The familiar had long ago gained the ability to ascend, however did not take up the mantle of godhood as it loved its master and friends so much.
So I explained in the event of a TPK the familiar would simply have taken up the mantle of a god rezzed the dead and teleported them all to safety before having a tearful goodbye scene and vanishing to the plane of the gods to fight the good fight on other fronts.
Now my games have a god whose favored forms are a small girl and a ferret and whose domains are friendship, magic, and peanuts...
*Sniff, Sniff* I get all weepy when I think about it.
Well my point is that "Dues Ex Machina" is generally bad, however sometimes the party gets saved because someone they did not even know about had their back.
Nice story Covent.
I did something similiar recently, though, they ended up attacking their savior.
Tis was hilarious.