For most of the players it killed some of the "realism" or continuity (for lack of better term). Why should all these new character suddenly show up in the middle of nowhere.
This kind of hits on my point of view. And, when I say we aren't "dungeon crawling" style of campaign I don't mean that in the way I think you think I mean that.
My campaign is "plot-centric". And each character is usually tied directly to the overarcing plot. In fact, I don't even develop a campaign plot until I know what each character is and their backstory. Then, I develop a story that incorporates EACH of those characters in turn. Every character has a major tie to the plot and if one of those character's die, it's very important. It's on the same scale as a major NPC who NEEDS to live.
THIS is what keeps the intensity, suspense and challenge. The players feel the NEED to live. It's not some sort of "well, if this character dies I don't care I have this dragonborn paladin I've been wanting to play." Nope.
Each character has a lot invested into the storyline and if one of the PCs die it's a MAJOR event.
If that does happen, it takes a lot of work to introduce a new character, and somehow explain how the campaign is going to go on without that other important character who just died. It's doable, I've done it. And, it works. But, it's a major shift in the campaign. Not just another character who has died.
I hope this makes sense. It doesn't really have to do with "roleplaying" I guess. But, "plot centric roleplaying and character development".
As you can tell, I rarely use published modules, and if I do, I modify them heavily or adapt them to my campaign.
Yeah, see I wouldn't like to play in this game. But to each his own - that's all cool.
Honestly, I think you would. I'm not trying to boast or anything, but I think you'd enjoy my game, even if it's not your usual style of play you are comfortable with.
pming made a great post with several excellent points I should like to debate.
As others have mentioned, some times "get the hell outta Dodge" is a good tactic.
I enjoy playing a heroic character that does not run when things get bad. A character willing to give his life to stand his ground. This often causes me to forget the better part of valor.
On the other hand...I still am amazed at how many current RPG'ers see a TPK as a "super-bad thing" and somehow the DM's fault.
I am amazed at how many gamers see killing characters as a good thing. If you have a stable of characters waiting to step in as soon as one falls, how is character death any more poignant? If the dead PC’s player has to make up a new character I see good reason to min/max this new character to increase chances of survival. If the dead PC’s player has to make up a new character but with some XP penalty, death should cost something, I see even more reason to min/max not to mention this seems like you are setting someone up to fail. A couple of deaths and you are spiraling into unplayable.
"Adventuring" is dangerous. If you decide to try your hand at "adventuring", you are almost guaranteed a horrible death.
I have to min/max just to survive. Why would I make a sub-efficient build?
(3) when the PC's are in a life and death battle against a foe who is trying to kill them...the DM should try and kill them.
You do not think this creates a GM vs. Player philosophy? Someone has to loose so that someone can win.
Nothing sucks the fun out of a game faster than when the players realize that no matter what they do, the DM won't "let their character die".
I disagree. Nothing sucks the fun out of a game faster than when I realize I am in the middle of a tactical simulation and the only important thing is how many hit points I have and how much damage I can dish out.
The two main reason I see for this sort of DM mentality is either that they are mistakenly under the impression that their story/NPC/whatever is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and there is no way they are going to 'let' the players make choices that would screw that up (including getting their characters killed).
I concede there are fledgling authors out there who would be better served writing their epic novel all on their lonesome. The players choices are The Story. This is part of my problem with published modules. When the players go off track, I have to adlib anyway.
The second reason I blame mainly on certain newer editions of the game (re: not 1e): that the players are *supposed* to win, and if they all die, they loose, and it's the DM's fault if they all die.
One of the biggest things that originally attracted me to role playing was that it did not have to be about winning or loosing. To me, role playing is co-authoring a story. Most of the time, not always, I do not want to create a story about death or even failure. I want to recreate themes from cinema and literature where the good guys triumph over adversity.
Made some very good points
Hopefully, this isn't some chick track where losing your character leads to inappropriate negative emotions. Death including the dreaded TPK, is great in the game as long as your players have fun while it happens. If they do, maybe you can create something as a co-author of the story like- Because of a group of Adventurers known as the Seven Wanderers the residents of the town of Winter Haven were spared. Upon hearing the horrible news ....." Pick up where the story left off with the new party (or what remains of it), if that what the players want to do. They might decide that they want a different story, and it is up to you as the dm, to make that story blossom with the players help.
Thats the whole point. If the player wants to be fool-hardy, brash, or even down right heroic thats fine. It just might come with a consequence.
I had a guy who lsot a high level character to a sphere of annilation becuase he stuck his head down the hole it was in. It sucked, but years later he now laughs about it (and is overly cautious around holes).
Now, if you really want to save the party you could always use a tried and true cliche. Make what happened a dream (especially in a party of new people) and roll back to the last extended rest.
I had a guy who lsot a high level character to a sphere of annilation becuase he stuck his head down the hole it was in. It sucked, but years later he now laughs about it (and is overly cautious around holes).
Why do you think there is a gaming cliché, “I listen at the door…I check for traps” or the dreaded rest for 8 hours after one encounter.
Now, if you really want to save the party you could always use a tried and true cliche. Make what happened a dream (especially in a party of new people) and roll back to the last extended rest.
When my group recently wiped last week, this was brought up as an option. I'll tell you what I told them.
I do believe Dallas was cancelled. ;)
Now, if you really want to save the party you could always use a tried and true cliche. Make what happened a dream (especially in a party of new people) and roll back to the last extended rest.When my group recently wiped last week, this was brought up as an option. I'll tell you what I told them.
I do believe Dallas was cancelled. ;)
Dallas?
Dallas?
I think this was a soap opera that had a whole season which turned out to be a "dream" or something...
Dallas?Now, if you really want to save the party you could always use a tried and true cliche. Make what happened a dream (especially in a party of new people) and roll back to the last extended rest.When my group recently wiped last week, this was brought up as an option. I'll tell you what I told them.
I do believe Dallas was cancelled. ;)
Dallas an old tv show notorious (among many notable people consisting entirely of myself) for having an entire season be a "dream sequence". :)
Edit: Beaten by P1NBACK!
Dallas an old tv show notorious (among many notable people consisting entirely of myself) for having an entire season be a "dream sequence". :)
And some people think the Great Wheel got raped.
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Dallas an old tv show notorious (among many notable people consisting entirely of myself) for having an entire season be a "dream sequence".
WHO shot J.R.?
We were blatantly told that there was no escape once the fight outside the waterfall happened. Irontooth and his short little friends were faster on foot than our party and we were far enough away from the town that there was no way we'd reach safety before getting run down and killed.
I'll have to go back and check my copy, but I'm fairly certain that the adventure, as written, had a statement that the bad guys behind the waterfall wouldn't come out to pursue fleeing foes. Your DM may have decided otherwise, of course...
The group of 6 that I ran survived due to only minor fudging of die rolls on my part. However, two (of the six) had used pretty significant Daily/Encounter powers unnecessarily in the outside portion of the fight, the warning had been given successfully by the bad guys, and when the PCs pursued in through the waterfall, two PCs were left behind. One was the dragonborn paladin, who was immobilized (save ends), and none of us realized that someone could have helped him with a Heal check, so they just left him. By the time he got free, he ended up dealing with a handful of baddies on his own for a while before he was able to come help vs. the BBEG. The other isolated PC was the Warlord who decided to use one of the side entrances all by himself, and got cut off from the others for most of the fight - and the warlord's powers don't do much if he has no buddies around. So lack of experience with the new rules definitely increased the difficulty of this scene.
The group of 6 that I ran survived due to only minor fudging of die rolls on my part.
What do you think the result would have been if you had not fudged at all instead of the minor fudging you did?
My best guess - I'd have definitely killed 2 of the PCs, but I doubt I'd have killed more than 4 (out of 6). The rest would probably have needed to retreat rather than tough it out, though - if they'd stayed no matter what, once those first two PCs went down, it would have had good odds of becoming a TPK.
In the Waterfall encounter, my group wiped our first try (our Warlock ran away an lived, and the Rogue stablized on a 20 and popped up after the enemies left, but the player was leaving town and didn't return)
Our second try, last night, resulted in both of our Defenders (we're a party of 6 now that the Rogue's player left) going down, unconscious but stable, thanks to Heal checks. All the monsters were defeated except for that rascally Goblin, who chased off the rest of the party.
We returned to find the Goblin gone, leaving the lair unguarded ... but he took our friends with him! :O
WHO shot J.R.?
I did.
We were blatantly told that there was no escape once the fight outside the waterfall happened. Irontooth and his short little friends were faster on foot than our party and we were far enough away from the town that there was no way we'd reach safety before getting run down and killed.I'll have to go back and check my copy, but I'm fairly certain that the adventure, as written, had a statement that the bad guys behind the waterfall wouldn't come out to pursue fleeing foes. Your DM may have decided otherwise, of course...
A quick glance...no. It says that they stay inside the waterfall, believing that the kobolds outside can handle it. On top of that, our DM gave the skirmisher a horn to warn the monsters inside (not that he wouldn't have been able to double move inside from where he was, but he didn't run).
Are TPKs intentional? No. They are evidence of incompetence -- either the DM's, PCs' or module designer's.
Evidence sure. I agree.
But its not an open and shut case - we roll dice, the dice are not always kind.
The biggest danger is with incapacitating saves. Statistically speaking if 6 players all have to make a DC whatever save against the Medusa chances are more then half of them make it...but what happens when you get six players that all roll saves between 1-7 on a d20? Now you have 6 statues in the Medusa's lair.
...The Irontooth encounter has almost turned my players again 4th edition all together. Even when I told them that I later realized the fight was higher than appropriate for a party of their level, they now have the idea that 4th edition is even deadlier than 3rd ever was. "We're being killed by Kobolds and Goblins," they pointed out. "What will happen when we face the TOUGH monsters?"My point is, I never thought they were just whining, because the encounters were indeed incredibly deadly. So the question remains: are the TPKs intentional? (in particular the Irontooth encounter in Keep On The Shadowfell?)
I feel you might well be on to something here. There appear to be a lot of issues with this adventure and I guess I can't say I'd be surprised if there was one more.
We know that they made the final encounter in the 4E game day adventure one that was supposed to be a TPK. They had something to prove (that characters could die in 4E). Maybe they just got carried away in the same mindset in this encounter. If so then they screwed up, but I could see them screwing up like this.
The only thing I can suggest is you never truly trust an adventure module. I love Paizo's work and they have a lot of talent and a lot of experience with making good modules - they still screw up and make encounters that turn out to be unreasonably hard. I'd not trust WotC to be perfect in this regard, in fact, due to less editing experience and the fact that they are dealing with a new system just like the rest of us, I'd trust them less.
Maybe fate points are not a bad idea and should be continued? I mean there are going to be mess ups. I bet even if you make the adventures yourself you'll still screw up occasionally in this regards. I certainly have over my career as a DM.
Wasn't there a roper (EL 11) in "The sunless Citadel," the first 3.0 adventure? If I recall correctly, the purpose of that encounter was indeed to teach players that there were tough things out there.
Roper is just about the worst monster to use to teach this lesson. It fires off 6 touch attacks a round - if your hit you need to make a really high DC save or loose 2d8 strength. It can't miss with those touch attacks and you just screwed when your hit. This isn't a big brute that kills a player, weakens another and the PCs run away - they'll never have a chance to run. It'll be all over except for the dice throwing after the Ropers first turn.
I kicked a 10th level party of 7 characters ass with a single Roper. Calling it CR under estimates its CR. Now most (but not all) of my players lived but they were 10th level and full of cheese and by lived I mean most managed to escape, they never went back for the Roper - they were far to scared of it to tangle with it again, even prepared. Usually my players want revenge! But not against this.
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In the Waterfall Encounter, my group survived. Key was fighting like those damn monsters did...defenders in front, support (ie cleric) and artillery in the back. Once the first lines were cleared of minions and brutes the rogue got to slide in and assplode with sneak attacks.
It was dodgy at first, since by Dborn Pally got held back by minions (although he kobold-cicled like 6 of them with breath weapon) while the Warlord and Fighter held the line at the entrance. When the warlord went down, my Dborn switched to his position, popped the fighter back up with a successful daily and tore Irontooth several new holes.
We almost got the guy that got away. Would have been slightly easier since the AoE would have reset to clear the minions.
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As a GM, I cannot recall having a TPK in D&D..Cthulhu Dark Ages..yah, a few. I have had some dramatic deaths. I used to give players a chance with a successful save (v Death Magic, Fort) to get one last dying attack if there was an opportunity. The best death was in an OA (Kara-tur) campaign where a player let his knight get scooped up in a dragon's maw, and then smote the dragon down while they were in flight. The player did not survive the fall,but he was cool with that. (Later the PCs took his ashes and as per his dying request tossed them into the Trackless sea north of Waterdeep)
The closest recently was in Burnt Offerings vs Malfeshenkor. Both fighters got taken down, and the ranger, cleric and rogue had to finish him. They go lucky with many successful hits on the 50/50 blur effect, and had the right (magical, no DR) weapons.
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Dallas an old tv show notorious (among many notable people consisting entirely of myself) for having an entire season be a "dream sequence". :)
Showing your age there kemo sabe?
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I've only TPKed once in a home game. The players decided they were going to stay and fight the troll army. Didn't work out so well for them.
In LG, I've TPKed 6 times. I've TPKed twice in Blackmoor and once in Arcanis.
In all the instances above save one, the parties were sub-optimal and poor combinations for the mods in question OR were given the option of playing up APL/ATL or down and chose to play up.
Organized play adventures HAVE to be played the same each time, so if the scripted fight calls for a specific sequence of spells and attacks, then you deploy them. The design for organized play is one size fits all and well, it doesn't. It is cool having a portable character that you can play with different people all the time, however. That's your trade off.
In homegames you can tailor encounters and designs to your players. You can also adapt tactics to suit the players.
If the table full of kids that I ran through Keep on the Shadowfell had run for it, I would have allowed the kobolds to let the players split and then collect their gear and make a beeline for the Keep. Makes for a better story AND is realistic.
Irontooth says, "Boss! Dem humies gacked duh kobolds what ambushed dem on dah road and duh wonz I sent to jump dem when deh left town. Den dey cums to me crib and gacks half me BOYZ. Me figured you should knows all about dem so you can get EM afore dey sneaks up on you too!"
This let's the player play smart, is a completely reasonable response by the bad guys, but still punishes them for losing te encounter asn now the bad guys know more about tehm and that they are coming.
I think you can build realistic narrative pressure and still challenge players without running every bad guy like he is a fanatic who wants to fight to the death.
Of course, my number one rule when I ran Blackmoor was, "Don't gack the newbies!" :-)
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Wasn't there a roper (EL 11) in "The Sunless Citadel," the first 3.0 adventure?
Roper is just about the worst monster to use to teach this lesson. It fires off 6 touch attacks a round... It can't miss with those touch attacks and you're just screwed when you're hit. This isn't a big brute that kills a player, weakens another and the PCs run away; they'll never have a chance to run. It'll be all over except for the dice throwing after the Roper's first turn.
Yeah, but the Roper is slow. If I recall, it was obvious and far enough away that it served as a test of wits for the part to get around it.
Honestly, I think you would. I'm not trying to boast or anything, but I think you'd enjoy my game, even if it's not your usual style of play you are comfortable with.
Hey - missed this message before.
You may well be right. I'm amenable to many different play styles, but if I start to get the idea that the DM is faking it to keep my PC or other PCs alive, then it puts me off a bit.
Yeah, but the Roper is slow. If I recall, it was obvious and far enough away that it served as a test of wits for the part to get around it.
Their good at hiding however. That said I can see how one could make a pretty good scene where the PCs are warned about the terrible Roper and have to come up with some way of getting through the area without being wacked by the Roper.
Roper is just about the worst monster to use to teach this lesson. It fires off 6 touch attacks a round - if your hit you need to make a really high DC save or loose 2d8 strength. It can't miss with those touch attacks and you just screwed when your hit. This isn't a big brute that kills a player, weakens another and the PCs run away - they'll never have a chance to run. It'll be all over except for the dice throwing after the Ropers first turn.
This might be off topic a bit, but do you suppose Ropers might work better as "usable monsters," if their attacks were more like Improved Grab? That they would have to actually punch through the armor class before they inject their sea-anemone poison or whatever?
This might be off topic a bit, but do you suppose Ropers might work better as "usable monsters," if their attacks were more like Improved Grab? That they would have to actually punch through the armor class before they inject their sea-anemone poison or whatever?
Roper is just about the worst monster to use to teach this lesson. It fires off 6 touch attacks a round - if your hit you need to make a really high DC save or loose 2d8 strength. It can't miss with those touch attacks and you just screwed when your hit. This isn't a big brute that kills a player, weakens another and the PCs run away - they'll never have a chance to run. It'll be all over except for the dice throwing after the Ropers first turn.
I think this is the wrong question to ask on the 4E forum. You want me to do the monsters turn by having me conduct six independent grapples? Uh...Thanks, but I'll pass.
I think this is the wrong question to ask on the 4E forum. You want me to do the monsters turn by having me conduct six independent grapples? Uh...Thanks, but I'll pass.
Well, no, grant you, that might be the wrong forum, but that's not what I meant, anyway. I meant... would the roper be a more balanced monster if it actually had to score honest to goodness hits (like with poison,) rather than touch attack hits.
Then again, this is a 4E forum, sorry. Just that people started talking about 3.5 ropers. Don't mind me.