Lawful Stupid; you're doing it wrong.


Advice

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James Risner wrote:
Kydeem de'Morcaine wrote:

I very much disagree with this. I personally really hate it when a GM says what my PC does.

There are things in the world that a PC can't realistically challenge

You are missing my point:

The DM shouldn't have put the encounter in the game.

We share the disagreement on the DM telling you what your PC does, I hate it. This particular OP DM has only one reasonable choice. To tell the PC what he does (namely successfully run away.)

John Kerpan wrote:
To only include things that they can beat is really limiting.

It is my strong believe (from experience) that players don't enjoy playing games that they feel outmatched. In the past when I was early in my DM path, I would present these encounters to my players and wonder why they always tried to make them into combat encounters.

So it comes down to this:
If you put encounters not expected to be combat into the game, expect to go through some total party kills until you stop doing that.

I have to disagree with you, James. There are moments in fantasy that should come across as epic and awe-inspiring. Encounters (not necessarily combat encounters) that should leave the PCs in wide-eyed wonder or bone shaking terror. Not so the DM can TPK them or sadistically abuse the players, but to instill in them just how huge, amazing and terrifying their world is. It's impossible to do this if every encounter is tailored for them to be able to fight it.

If, say, I was running a game wherein Orcus was the PCs' secret patron, and at level 8 they learn the horrifying truth, am I expected to believe they're going to throw caution to the wind and attack him outright? Or are you saying that a GM shouldn't do cool things like that, simply because a player might be stupid, and attack Orcus at 8th level? From your viewpoint, there should never be an encounter the PCs can't potentially win? Sorry, but that makes no sense.

Silver Crusade

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Knowledge: Nature covers any curiosities on the natural threat. The druid has it. (Or ought to, at least. I mean...it is what they do.) So an informed decision was available.

As for killing players, over-powered encounters, and a breathing world...:

Let me start out by saying that I am ruthless as a GM and I kill without compunction. I make a point to provide all obvious information and to allow skill use for further details. I encourage the players to independently assess their threats and odds for survival and make their own decision. I always allow my players to make their own decisions. I reward those decisions with appropriate consequences.

When players engage in a situation without the feeling of true danger, that their choices do not really matter, then the game is boring. The adventure is way more of a railroad when I cannot lose, because the story goes one way. Sure there may be some bends, but in the end I'm going to win, and that was never in question. I have found that I get players taking notes, keeping old hand outs, scribbling quotes and biting their tongues in concern by letting them run their own character straight into the grave or to victory. If you decide to ignore this story thread about the missing shipment and instead head straight to the Land of Horrible Death...I have no sympathy when Horrible Death meets up with you. If you decide to spend time in the Land of Butterflies then I have no sympathy when Butterflies happen, either. It was your choice, as a player, to make. Even if it means incredible boredom or instant death, it was your choice. That is what role playing is.

As the GM it is my job to provide a dynamic, rich sounding board for the PC's to bounce off. NPC's that they can interact with and remember. I provide the setting, the arena in which the story gets told. The real story-tellers are the players. Their struggle with the dark forces and their choices on how to handle it. Do they sacrifice the small towns to shore up the defenses of the big city? Do they succumb to tainted power in order to defeat their opponent? Can they hold faith when all their other efforts have failed and persevere through the dark times? These are the elements that make a meaningful story. Struggle, personal decisions, personal courage, personal defeats are all part of making the story matter to the players. When the story matters, the characters matter. When the characters matter you're doing it right.

Otherwise, we're just jerking around the table playing simulation computer game. "I'm sorry, that input is invalid. Please try a different option." "I'm sorry, that will result in inevitable death, please try a different option." "Correct! The blue key unlocks the blue door and inside you see..." I don't go through the effort of table top gaming to play something that is as restrictive as an XBox. I play to use my imagination, because imagination is what it is about. You're never going to capture your players' imaginations if you throttle their ability to explore, to make bad choices, and to reap the benefits of that behavior. Everyone at the table has to feel free to stand up and do something stupid or something brilliant and that whatever the case may be, the only limit was themselves.

The Exchange

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His sensei should never have given this guy permission to go. This particular samurai wasn't ready for the world...

At least death by dinosaur is semi-glorious. It would have been hilarious to see this guy take on a swarm of box jellyfish. "Agonizingly poisonous little blobs of goo, taste my blade! Aie! They are defending themselves somehow!"


If you don't want to kill the PC Samurai (and I can see why you might hesitate), have a 'GM' moment. The rest of the players appear to have got the idea that they should be evading the dino, so how about having Mr Allosaurus tear off a lump of his former opponent and a large lump of offal fly out and splat the Samurai.

Call it non-lethal damage, entangle, or whatever you feel comfortable with, but have the Samurai 'out' for enough rounds for his friends to either persuade him to retreat or to grab him.

Yes, it is incredibly GMey but it might just give the player the chance to reconsider before being bitten in two. If he still struggles to fight, then I'd just have him bitten in two, with the most gruesome description you can come up with.

As for whether the Allosaurus should have turned up?

Damn right it should have! If your campaign area has dangerous animals that need to be avoided, the PCs should sometimes encounter them. A live campaign shouldn't be run like a computer game where you don't encounter anything you can't kill, it should feel dynamic.

Liberty's Edge

Crank wrote:
ShadowcatX wrote:
They may not know that the beast has a 50ft speed, but I know enough to know that if I come face to face with a cheetah I'm not outrunning it.

I hope you'd know that if it's in the middle of a meal, you shouldn't poke it, either!

But the samurai did, and now the dinosaur will have its just desserts. Heh heh...

Actually, if you'll read the original post, the samurai fought the dinosaur, then after a round or two the DM brought in another dinosaur.

Threeshades wrote:
Dense jungle is reason enough for a 30 ft. long dinosaur to be significantly slowed down. Contrary to popular belief an allosaurus can't just tackle trees down in pursuit, it would break every bone in its body, dooming itself to a slow and painful death, even tripping over a slightly stronger branch can be a death sentence, it has to dodge every obstacle carefully.

First, this is the dinosaur's home country, I doubt it will have significant difficulty maneuvering, if it did it would be doomed to a slow and painful death.

Second, large creatures are able to squeeze through places where medium characters can go.

Third, the samurai, at least, is presumably in medium or heavy armor, his speed is 20, not 30.

Fourth, if we're going for realism, the allosaurus would be able to ignore much of the things that would cause the pcs problems (like undergrowth).

As an aside, I don't necessarily disagree with the encounter, I disagree with how the encounter was presented. Sure, have encounters that brute force won't overcome, but don't require a (tactically questionable [at best] to suicidal [at worst]) retreat to be the only option, like the O.P. has said, give them at least 3 outs. This could have been handled in numerous ways (such as by giving it a motivation to attack beings that are less than 1% its size) (Ie. maybe it was protecting a nest and obviously wouldn't leave, or maybe there was a cliff the pcs could climb / feather fall down or perhaps there was a tree the pcs could wrap ropes around and pull down (or let the dino pull down for them).)

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

scrmwrtr42 wrote:
I have to disagree with you, James. There are moments in fantasy that should come across as epic and awe-inspiring.

In books, sure. Plus I'm not telling you what you must do, I'm just saying that when I have done this it has always turned into a combat and I've had to make a choice of either nerfing the monsters to be killable when the PC attack or completing the TPK. I'm simply cautioning you that I've yet to find a party of players that don't make me make this choice.


The Samurai stepped in it. Its one thing to have a situation where a I will hold him off and you guys run situation. Wide open in a jungle where the dino can charge anyone one of them it wants not necessarily the Samurai.

I would have a discussion with the player of the Samurai and explain that the situation might not play out as a noble sacrifice. Animals after all hunt the weak members of the herd. The party is a herd you are presenting strong. Also I would point out that perhaps the other dino made the noble sacrifice in his place. Perhaps you can suggest the druid offer that idea. If the Sammy agrees to run start the campaign mid chase.

If he persists swallow whole and chase the rest of the party.


Threeshades wrote:
Alarox wrote:

Dinosaur hungry.

Dinosaur kill other dinosaur.
Dinosaur spend day eat other dinosaur.
PCs walk away.

/thread

Except that the dinosaur will not start eating with a percieved threat still around, it will try to drive the PCs away, which in turn will probably just make the samurai attempt to attack again.

Based on what I read, and judging by the fact that the Allosaurus is CR&, Huge, and 10,000 pounds, I don't think it did even consider them a threat.


GypsyMischief wrote:
DrDeth wrote:

Calling this “a bit railroad-y” is like calling the ocean “a bit damp-ish”.

Alright, alright *cheap laughter* that's completely valid, I just figured being run down through the woods by a dino was more exciting than some mundane travel through a thunderstorm, making camp, and rolling fortitude against environmental conditions. I suppose I could've thrown a more manageable encounter at the party, but I wasn't trying to challenge them, this wasn't supposed to be a real encounter, it was just meant as a story propellant towards a comfortable ending place. The whole idea may be silly, and it may be a rule of thumb that any encounter has three separate routes to PC victory, but sometimes in life you're forced to deal with a difficult decision that has no happy-shiny solution.

@Threeshades, We're on the same page, groovy. We ended the session with the first beast turning it's head towards the samurai, and roaring triumphantly over it's kill. Naturally now that it has a meal still twitching at it's feet it has no reason to pursue the party, which makes this their 3rd opportunity to safely run away. The rest of the PCs are hiding in the surrounding shrubbery, waiting for something to happen.

@DrDeth, yes, this is a poorly designed encounter, but it wasn't meant to really be an encounter, it was meant as a story propellant...towards the encounters!

Ok, alls well that ends well, Sounds like you have a great group. Yeah, he's likely going to picador you a bit, as long as it's all in fun, then good.

Of course this may cause you to slightly modify your behavior next time you're a player!


Ask the Samurai to resubmit his backstory explaining how he is still alive this far into his lifespan...

That's only half joking. Seriously, Lawful =/= suicidal.


You could also possibly consider this a not-Lawful action and count it as a tick towards Neutral.

As far as the rest of it goes ... if you're not intending for the PCs to fight it, it's not a combat encounter. Don't dress it as one. Don't call for initiative. Don't reach for dice. Don't break out the minis and map (if you use them). Tell the players, straight up, that they KNOW they cannot beat this thing in a straight-up brawl. Consider it a DC 0 common knowledge thing.


Hear, hear, Zhayne!

Liberty's Edge

Typical case of GM-myopism.

Just because the GM knows how the encounter is supposed to go and what the many escape routes are, there is absolutely ZERO way for the players to guess all this. But the GM forgets/ignores this fact.

I believe it is called outsmarting yourself.

Sczarni

@Gypsy Mischief
Next time, try to make a horde of smaller agressive predators. If PC's slaughter few, it will make a difference for them, but they will quickly notice that there is no ending in it. Such encounter is easier to control then one big nasty creature.

Don't concern yourself much with possible negative responses here on forum also. Pretty much every GM did several mistakes in their lives. I loved the idea for your encounter, it's just unpractical when players aren't on the same level of thinking.


Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! It's really helped me identify and analyze some of my mistakes, now if only I can manage to utilize this new knowledge in practice.

@Zhayne, Thanks for that. I definitely didn't present a map or ask for placement of characters, but I may have called for initiative, which would put on player on high alert. If I did so, that was a very inexperienced move that could've potentially avoided this whole conundrum.

@Malag, I may just use that horde concept in an upcoming session, much appreciated.


I ran in a similar situation with my paladin last PF session (kingmaker), when we encountered a single undead creature. It was at a considerable distance so I first checked if it was evil and yes it was. It kept repaeting a phrase and did not seem to listen to questions posed by us.
At that time It got to a distance where we could opt to fight or flee, and since it was just one creature I decided to charge it. As i found out during the charge, the undead creature used a melee weapon with 10 range and managed to score a hit before I was toe to toe with it. Luckily I was smart enough to use Smite evil on it for some extra damage and AC. I was immune to some nauseating effects it had and tried fighting it. Our main fighter failed every save there was and got seriously nauseated and sickened and on top of that the undead monster was regenerating at an alarming rate as well as doing serious damage. We tried for several rounds to gain an advantage, but failed to do so. And one of our casters cast a fog cloud or something creating some mist and announced retreat would be smart. Considering the fact that the single monster just removed over 50% of the hitpoints of the frontline while receiving about 25 pnts of damage and that would be reduced by it's regeneration factor. The party started to fall back. I retreated as well and the undead creature gave chase and managed to score another hit using a charge. After that 2 partymembers including the second frondline fighter ran for it. The remaining characters paladin (me) and a bard were now still in reach of the undead creature's melee attack and retreat would not get us away far enuf, only running would do. That would earn us an attack of opportunity while trying to run for it. So I was left with the choice to run first taking the attack of opportunity and hoping the undead creature wouldn't be able to make multiple attacks of opportunity or trying to slow it down so by staying an other round while my teammate might make a clean gettaway (maybe) and realising that, this had failed once allready. So I took the chance and legged it hoping that the undead creature wouldn't posses multiple attacks of opportunity and not hit me in the process, as it had a serious chance of taking me down if, it hit me one more time. Luckily I didn't go down and the undead monster didn't have multiple attacks of opportunity.
Having faced a serious threat to our survival and making a clean gettaway still trying to the best of my abilities to safeguard the party, I didn't see any reason for my GM to accuse me of not upholding the paladin's code of conduct, as I had put myself in serious danger, while covering our retreat, trying to make a clean gettaway from a superior foe. Even though I wasn't the last character to flee, I can reason quite fairly how my running before my last teammember was a good effort trying to eliminate the attack of opportunity he would have endured otherwise. I maintain that, this is lawfull good behaviour within the code of conduct of the paladin and our GM didn't even question the fact that we were fleeing. He did wonder if I should have stayed last or not, but when I explained that I had done so at first when retreating the first time and the undead countering that with a charge and explained that I tried to eliminate the attack of opportunity for my team member by running first, he aggreed that it was honorable. Luckily I explained the choice I was making when running at the time I started running and not after I allready had done so.


ShadowcatX wrote:
Crank wrote:
ShadowcatX wrote:
They may not know that the beast has a 50ft speed, but I know enough to know that if I come face to face with a cheetah I'm not outrunning it.

I hope you'd know that if it's in the middle of a meal, you shouldn't poke it, either!

But the samurai did, and now the dinosaur will have its just desserts. Heh heh...

Actually, if you'll read the original post, the samurai fought the dinosaur, then after a round or two the DM brought in another dinosaur.

Threeshades wrote:
Dense jungle is reason enough for a 30 ft. long dinosaur to be significantly slowed down. Contrary to popular belief an allosaurus can't just tackle trees down in pursuit, it would break every bone in its body, dooming itself to a slow and painful death, even tripping over a slightly stronger branch can be a death sentence, it has to dodge every obstacle carefully.

First, this is the dinosaur's home country, I doubt it will have significant difficulty maneuvering, if it did it would be doomed to a slow and painful death.

Second, large creatures are able to squeeze through places where medium characters can go.

Third, the samurai, at least, is presumably in medium or heavy armor, his speed is 20, not 30.

Fourth, if we're going for realism, the allosaurus would be able to ignore much of the things that would cause the pcs problems (like undergrowth).

As an aside, I don't necessarily disagree with the encounter, I disagree with how the encounter was presented. Sure, have encounters that brute force won't overcome, but don't require a (tactically questionable [at best] to suicidal [at worst]) retreat to be the only option, like the O.P. has said, give them at least 3 outs. This could have been handled in numerous ways (such as by giving it a motivation to attack beings that are less than 1% its size) (Ie. maybe it was protecting a nest and obviously wouldn't leave, or maybe there was a cliff the pcs could climb / feather fall down or perhaps there was a...

1) Forests are not uniform habitats. There are a variety of habitat patches, from open fields to dense thickets.

2) Allosauruses (allosauri?) are huge size. Also, the PCs could squeeze through an area 2.5 ft wide, hampering pursuit.

3) This one's covered by the last points

4) Large, close-set trees; an exposed root system, monstrously thick vines; etc. There are ways to make almost anything work, we just need some imagination! :D

You make some great points though. I agree with you about proper presentation, and I can't say whether this particular scene was equipped with some of the elements to make it work.

Edit: For disclosure, I'm a fan of the chase scene optional rules, so that may influence my opinion on this somewhat.

The Exchange

James Risner wrote:
...when I have done this it has always turned into a combat and I've had to make a choice of either nerfing the monsters to be killable when the PC attack or completing the TPK. I'm simply cautioning you that I've yet to find a party of players that don't make me make this choice.

I make it a ground rule to warn players new to my table that while they'll generally be fighting in their own weight class, random encounters (as well as encounters that are not intended to be combats) will not always fall into that comfortable zone.

That's the fair warning everybody gets; and once I've given it, I stand by it. If a PC decides he's going to openly Power Attack the Grand Duke of Geoff right in front of his sixty-knight personal guard of giant-slayers, I will feel... shall we say... a rather limited degree of responsibility for that PC's death.

If you are (like me) a GM that likes to keep a world 'reactive and realistic', you should be willing to administer a TPK if necessary. One is usually ample; in fact, most players are bright enough to recognize that willingness without having to personally experience it.


It's good to find out early in a campaign if one or more players are going to do unexpected things. I think it's fun to have a dinosaur encounter that the PCs can't fight, if it's obvious the PCs are not supposed to fight the dinosaur. I make a rule that if I call for an initiative roll the PCs have to have a reasonable chance of winning, but if a dinosaur is within sight and I don't call for initiative the players know they aren't expected to fight. It sounds like the dinosaur was meant to be background scenery, and a PC made it a combat encounter.

It might be worth asking the player how he expects it to be resolved. How much backstory does his samurai have? You could have the spirit of a revered ancestor warn him against throwing his life away pointlessly. The player might be okay with dying. The player could be testing you, if you use deux ex machina every time a PC does something stupid the campaign will be fun for a session or two, then lose credibility.

A story along the lines of the black rhino mentioned earlier- in Alaska, bears are somewhat common near Anchorage (or at least they were 25 or so years ago when I was elementary school). An author spoke at my elementary school, and shared a story about a man who encountered a bear in the woods and simply spoke conversationally with the bear. Bears tend to be curious, and this bear had probably never heard a human voice before. The bear was curious and not aggressive, and let the man walk away unharmed. The author never used this story in his fiction books (he wrote adventure novels for a young audience) because he thought it sounded too incredible/unlikely for most readers to believe. So dangerous creatures don't always have a violence-first reaction to potential threats. If the player recognizes dueling a dinosaur is a bad idea, the dinosaur could treat it more as a thing of curiousness than as a threat.


ShadowcatX wrote:
insaneogeddon wrote:
Make him loose his class abilities until he meditates on things.
And now it is a paladin thread. That didn't take long. . .

Paladins have strictures as well, that hardly makes it a paladin thread unless its about paladins anymore than a comment like that makes it a bad one liner thread.

Liberty's Edge

insaneogeddon wrote:
ShadowcatX wrote:
insaneogeddon wrote:
Make him loose his class abilities until he meditates on things.
And now it is a paladin thread. That didn't take long. . .
Paladins have strictures as well, that hardly makes it a paladin thread unless its about paladins anymore than a comment like that makes it a bad one liner thread.

Paladins have requirements that if they fail to meet them they lose (not loose) their class abilities. Samurai do not. A Samurai who acts contrary to his order's status may lose his order's addition to the challenge feature for 24 hours.

It is also worth pointing out that other than his order the only time a samurai can lose a class ability (again, for 24 hours) is IF HE RETREATS FROM A FOE!

Making a suicidal stand is not against the samurai code of conduct. Retreating from a foe when you know not doing so is suicide is against the code of conduct and can cause a samurai to lose his ability to make a challenge.


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GypsyMischief wrote:

Thank you! That was my point exactly! I tried to take the in character route and convince the player that this sort of foolishness does not reflect his ability scores, or even the tenets of his clan. If he was just trying to draw it's attention so the rest of the party could flee safely before he made a daring escape that would be one thing, but he basically dragged the rest of the players into the fray with him. The only truly sensible one was the druid, who grabbed the Alchemist and Gunslinger and tossed the lot of them in a mud puddle to cover their scent.

Just a note. This doesn't work in real life. I haven't read rules that this somehow works, but in real life getting wet makes it easier for an animal to smell you, not harder.

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