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In many "is this fight fair" threads there have been several GMs making a comment to the effect of: "players should be well informed and prepared for fighting; if not they deserve to have their characters killed." My question is: who out there is gaming with Seal Team 6?
My buddies are all board gamers, tactical types, and have played RPGs for a while now. They fit the mindset of "seasoned adventurers." Yet here's the current plotline and my players' prep for it:
2. I ask the players what their PCs are doing to get ready. Players look over their sheets, decide they have the gear they need and declare through shrugs and grunts that they're not doing anything.
3. The party sets off and enters the woods where they find a few zombies controlled by a kobold cleric. They proceed to wail on the encounter suffering a couple HP damage and end the session nearly at the shrine, objective 1 almost complete.
There was no elaborate planning and intel gather session. There rarely is w/these players. Yet they manage just fine by knowing the basic numbers and strategies of the game. They're having fun, as am I, so I don't see a need to change.
Do your players or gaming groups do extensive planning for adventures? If so, how does the GM introduce the info and how detailed does it get? I'm trying to understand the mindset of the uber-planner players.
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The campaign I'm currently in has divergent strategies among the players. I'm currently playing a wizard and, as our level has gone up, I've added more divination spells to the planning stages, getting as much of the general dungeon layout as I can. We also have a tendency to over-talk some things, which triggers our easily-bored Player's urge to go kick open a door and see what's on the other side.
On the other hand, that player is now on his fourth character, so there's that to consider.
I think that, as the APL goes up, the "rocket tag" factor encourages a more intelligence-driven approach to encounters. At the higher CR-ratings, there are simply too many things that will grease half the party if they fall upon them unawares.
It's not alway just a player issue; my current GM doesnt realy allow us any scouting; 90% of encounters start in the suprise roud (for the enemy) and whenever you do try to do some planning the answer is generally "no information is available". However, the PFS groups I play with are generally more tactical, taking the time to scout & divine & buff.
I'm wondering if my players just don't know what info is available. Perhaps I should force the issue a couple times and see if they'll bite? For example the current area I described is called the Needlefall and one of the PCs asked me, with his skills, what he knows about the place in general. He's level 1 and he decided not to take a 10 but didn't end up rolling all that high (18 as I recall) so I told him some basic stuff and said skeletons are known of there, though there could be other stuff since not a lot of folks adventure there.
Maybe what I should've said was that he doesn't know any more, but he knows someone who does, then build in an RP scene with some NPC they have to tap for more info like a general map of the Needlefall and some of it's prominent denizens.
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Yeah, I think a key point you mentioned in your post and then ignored in your example is the "high level" part. Low level parties don't plan because the extent of their possible planning is probably "roll a knowledge check" or, if they're bad at that and clever otherwise, "find a sage or some other NPC to make a knowledge check for us." Frankly, though, even if they knew exactly what was coming, they don't really have the resources to change what'd they'd do in response to that knowledge anyway.
But, once you hit the 5th-8th level range, I would expect to start planning a lot more-it's pretty important, frankly, for the spellcasters to have the right things prepared and that's also when you can start affording random magic items with very specific effects you might need (a specific scroll or a set of bane arrows, etc.).
I'll give you an example--I was playing a 5th level Druid in a group that was intending to travel for several days from one city to another. Before traveling, we asked around town to figure out what sort of crap was going on in the wilderness nearby (what kind of bounties were out, if there were missing people, etc.) and found out a nearby forest that'd we'd have to pass through was formerly home to a logging camp, but the lumberkjacks all recently fled due to an infestation of fire elementals.
So, for the day I knew we'd be passing through the forest, I prepped a bunch of Resist Fires and Quenches and, well, actually the GM was really frustrated with me because of how easily we dealt with the encounter, but he had his own issues.
If we had found nothing out, I think I would have probably stopped at the edge of the forest and cast something like Commune with Birds (or, if I were high enough level, Commune with Nature) to see what I needed to prepare.
Oh, and during the journey, every night, I prepared Hide Campsite before we slept since we heard about dangerous wandering threats.
I don't know--I can't imagine not planning for this stuff, but then, that's one of the things I enjoy most about the game. I don't want to just blunder into a dramatic fight to the death--I want to use my intellect to turn potentially dangerous fights into cakewalks. If only I could find a GM that appreciated that...
One of the limiting factors of 1st level is a lack of information-gathering opportunities. Add to this that most 1st-level PCs hoard wealth like they're not going to able to afford a hot meal. Getting them to spend coin on things like maps or information is a hard sell.
No joke. On the subject of meals, I wince every time I end up in an overland travel situation before level 3 or 4. Reason? Rations are freaking expensive, and we usually can't afford to move half speed and make Survival checks.
I wish PF had rules on how much food you can get from a slain boar and the like. We've been kind of winging it thus far.
Ok, but I still contend it's my players vs other players. My last campaign before this one made it to 6th level. Our adventures even then were:
Me: Ok, so you're done w/your downtime. You've got these larger themes hanging out there...what are you doing?
Player 1: I'm at the bar
Player 2: Umm...what's going on in the town?
Player 3: I keep making another weapon
Me (to player 2): Ok, so you're not looking into anything specific? (Player 2 says they're not)Ok...then, there's a widow who's asked for your help...
The result of that was a 5-room dungeon side quest that turned into an entire session that the players did very little prep for. They walked out of town, fought some goblins, found the widow's cabin, followed a trail to the goblins' lair, and wailed on the things until, predictably, they walked into a situation FULL of enemies they weren't prepared for. They barely escaped and lost a fair bit of treasure. I was asked later what kind of research they could've done. Off the top of my head I came up with:
- Using a familiar to scout
- Scouting via invisibility and fly spells
- Talking to the town's noble about local history
They hadn't done ANY of that. It was just the NPC telling them her hubby had a nice book she has to sell, but it's out of town at the old cabin, and they set out right from her parlor to the adventure site.
So is this normal? The players were all well experienced and the PCs at the time were 6th level. I mean, what the heck man?
I guess Mark that that is something you need to teach them; my own current GM isnt a huge fan of letting us scout; 90% of our fights begin in the surprise round (for the enemy) and when we do try to scout, the information is generally pretty sparse/we arent able to scout because of XYZ (the drow have detect magic, or there's a wall that doesnt let invisible people pass, etc.). The only time where scouting "worked" was when the GM clearly didnt want us to go in one direction (we where level 6 and "found" a 10-headed pyrohydra). It depends as much on the GM to demonstrate the value of scouting/preparation, because it's not universal.
Then again, your group plays once a month doesnt it? Maybe they just want to mess around and dont feel like using their time on something they dont consider fun (IE skulking around, gathering info). I guess you could see it as the difference between playing an FPS & playing a stealth game.
The only group I have known to consistently scout are PFS players; a great many of them ARE very careful, because of the time spent to advance one's characters.
I wish I was a better teacher. Once, long ago, the players in my last campaign were headed up a wooded ridge. Tree cover was bad and they knew there were goblins in the area. I strongly encouraged them to do any kind of scouting and finally the one player w/the familiar did so. One Perception check and a series of simple questions later, the party was happily aware of 3 goblin Rageslammers
I was very proud and told them so. I praised them in the post-game wrap up email. I lauded the scouting again in a post for the game blog. It was the first and last time they scouted.
I must just be a terrible GM.
I'm sorry if I came out snippy Mark, and I didnt want to imply you where a poor GM. I guess some players just arent interested? In most of your posts (on the boards in general) you seem to be a very reasonable/constructive GM, this might be just one of those things your current players arent picking up on. I really dont know what to say, sorry if I came off negatively.
I'm starting to GM myself next year and I know I'm going to have one hell of a time getting used to all the non-rules based stuff.
No, now I have to apologize W.O. My last comment wasn't an indictment of you; far from it. I'm chastising myself.
See this is a chronic issue with multiple sets of players w/me now. I'm genuinely starting to question my GMing skills. I've run games for 30+ years now, but 8 years ago I moved and lost my long-time group. Since then I've been through 4 iterations of gamers; some I've hung out with the whole time, some who've come and gone.
In this last 8 years I've not had players who prep. Not to the point these boards would suggest they should anyway. For example every thread I go into that revolves around character preparedness for combat suggests that "EVERYONE" should know about swarms at low level and plan for them - splash weapons, AoE spells, etc. My current group are seasoned players and all have encountered swarms at low levels and understand the danger. Among them right now they have a single casting of Burning Hands prepped.
That's why I think I may be doing a bad job. I don't know; maybe I DO coddle my player per the tenets of another thread on these boards. I haven't had a place to drop a swarm in the first couple sessions but now they're headed for a an area w/them and they're out of town w/no real knowledge of what they're about to get mixed up in. I find myself nervous to drop the monsters I'd thought about for fear of being considered a killer GM.
I've tried positive reinforcement; should I go negative? Start crushing them/killing the PCs until the players learn to be more prepared? Isn't that just going to cheese off my players and leave me w/out a gaming group?
Oak Man, now you see my dilemma...
Indeed I do... while my own philosophy is generally not to have the players die, I have little shame in scaring the hell out of them (as long as they arent complete newbies). I'll see what I can get away with next year. I guess the only question I could have is: why are your players playing in the first place? That can help inform the appropriate reaction, or maybe even show that they "arent the group for you".
Edit: your willingness to GM in the first place shows some good at least;
The amount of preparation I do depends on the class of character I play. The wizard I'm currently playing always preps, starting with using all appropriate knowledge skills. My halfling fighter was typically only interested in prepping creature comforts.
Mark, your issue might simply be that you don't have a player that enjoys scouting.
Or the person who would enjoy it is playing a class that's bad at it.
A scout is enormously useful to have, but not every party has someone suited for it.
For example, in my Carrion Crown campaign, while a number of people in the party eventually had huge perception checks, the only PC actually good at stealth had one of the worst perception checks in the party.
So the party just stuck together and counted on their perception checks to beat possible ambushes.
The cleric had a domain power that let her create a scrying sensor on the other side of a door or wall, but that had limited utility, since it was only DC 21 to notice the sensor - so at higher levels, using it immediately tipped off whatever was in the next room that the party was incoming.
Now, they'd do their research on dungeons that they knew they were going into, but sometimes there just wasn't much to know. They researched the hell out of Renchurch (which I figured the Knights of Ozem and the Palantine Eye had records on), but a lot of other locations require going in blind, since the folks who know what's there are NOT on your side.
And in other campaigns we've had excellent scouts, who could get into a place, get details on the enemy forces, and come back to the party undetected.
But only a few people (including myself) in my group have written up characters who can do serious scouting in the past few years. I suspect others just don't find it interesting.
It's not alway just a player issue; my current GM doesnt realy allow us any scouting; 90% of encounters start in the suprise roud (for the enemy) and whenever you do try to do some planning the answer is generally "no information is available"...
My GM tends to be the same way. He says it is the way the AP is written. But I don't know if the AP specifically said to not give the PC's any info. Or if the AP just didn't say specifically that X can be learned if you talk to this person, Y can be observed with a scry, Z is general info that anyone with a good Knowledge Local roll can find out, etc...
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It's not alway just a player issue; my current GM doesnt realy allow us any scouting; 90% of encounters start in the suprise roud (for the enemy) and whenever you do try to do some planning the answer is generally "no information is available"...My GM tends to be the same way. He says it is the way the AP is written. But I don't know if the AP specifically said to not give the PC's any info. Or if the AP just didn't say specifically that X can be learned if you talk to this person, Y can be observed with a scry, Z is general info that anyone with a good Knowledge Local roll can find out, etc...
I think it's more like a case of the DM not reading ahead and not adapting to what the players want to do. The Ap is written a certain way true but like they said, adapt it, change stuffs, encourage your players in being creative. Because if you just play it like it is totally scripted...you are most likely not going to enjoy yourself.
Also some dm don't do the passive perception checks or any passive rolls for that matter, normally only rolled by the dm and then told to the players who noticed something.
This isn't to bash but just saying that it could be handled better.