Has a dm I realize that i played pretty loose and fast with the rules and this has led me to disaster
let me give you some instances
1. i once thought of a belt that triples the damage to the attacker that attempts to hit the wearer. my rogue killed the rakshasha that was wearingit and was basically invincible the rest of the campaign. he also got a hold of a lightsaber and was also unbeatble.(before startwars 3.0)
2. had my party in a demon infested world they had to hide from demon patrols i had balrogs doing patrols and one of my pc's rolled a one and he and the whole party were eaten by balrogs in the first 5 minutes.
3. once had my party go to mathog (gotham backwards) and they met a level 18 monk named batman who they started a fight with and he killed them all.
4.once had the bard in my party have a fiddle contest with a stranger in the middle of the night(any charlie daniels fans ut there). he lost and was cursed into a were-squirrel.
now i have grown up and am more Raw orientated and not so naive but am i the only one? any dm horror stories? you would like to regale us with?
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A player we brought into a game once ended up running his own games after the group broke up. I recall sitting in on one of his games.
He had given the 5th level Fighter an artifact sword, that once per day could break any barrier, even a Wall of Force.
The party came up to a door, and was told it would not open. Couldn't unlock it, couldn't break it open. So the Fighter said 'I use my sword's ability on it!'
Took the poor guy completely by surprise, and the wizard that was hiding behind the door, intended to be met much later, was thrown into battle. An early lesson for a new DM. :)
My first foray into DMing Pathfinder, I allowed my players to roll their stats using any method they wanted from the CRB, but they had to be consistent. They would roll three sets, and take their pick of the three. In doing so however, there was a great disparity in power. Rather than change it all over to point buy (which none of them were eager to use), I told them to pick the best set among the four and roll until they felt they had something comparable...
The best set they chose had an ability modifier total of something like 12 or 13 (meaning, the modifiers of all stats together totaled 12 or more). Mind you, this was before racial modifiers. Rather than go back on my word, I allowed it.
However, the rogue did not fare so well with hit points. He "dumped" Con (and Str) and rolled 1s for 2nd AND 3rd level. So while they had facerolled the first module, by 3rd level, the rogue (a rapier wielding duelist) could stand to spend maybe one or two rounds in combat with anything more threatening than a goblin. We ended up with a disparity in the stats anyway, only now, my players have ridiculous stats and not the HP to stand up to things that challenge them.
First campaign I ever ran was a "The gods walk the earth and the good gods have choosen their champions and will pit them against the evil gods' champions" campaign.
I made this known pretty early in the campaign and told the characters that they were the most important people in the world. Also, the idea of killing a character terrified me as a new GM("How will they have fun if I kill them?). This led to the PCs turning to the gods every time they ran into trouble.
Me: Where are you heading?
PCs: Someone go pray and find out where we're supposed to go next.
Me: That's 135 points of damage in one hit. You're dead.
PC: No prob. I'm the champion of a god. He'll resurrect me. I need to be at the final battle. The GM said so.
ME:*Sigh*
PC: Do you honestly think that my god would let me be cut down by a kobold in the middle of nowhere?
Me: You worship the god of "Death by Random Encounters"
PC: Yeah, but I didn't think he meant me.
Me: Uhh...It's the highest honor that a priest of Deewonhundred could hope for.
PC: You have no idea what you're doing, do you?
Me: *Grabs moster book* Roll for initiative.
I like to think that I've grown since then.
OT
i am discalculate i am bad with numbers and forgot the maximum point buy system for pathfinder and ended up letting my players make a 35 point buy new character. they have been able to breeze through most encounters in ravenloft so far sigh....
My DM pulls out a deck of many things at some point during every campaign ... and I mean every campaign.
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My DM pulls out a deck of many things at some point during every campaign ... and I mean every campaign.
Oooph. Very hard to run that artifact without screwing it up, and it needs to be very very rare. I think I've used it twice in twenty years.
Once in college, wherein it ended oh so badly because none of us really understood how poorly it could go. It ended so badly that I allowed the Chronomancer to go back and time and stop the party from using the deck... to which he promptly proceeded to pull more cards from the deck ("how could it go so wrong twice in a row?" he asked). That was a baaad idea...
Once two months ago because I was running the Return to Elemental Evil (heavily modified). I kept the scene with the Deck of Many Things but modified to make more plot sense. Someone needed to pull a specific card in order to pass to the upper levels. The four players who have been around since the first time were smart, no more cards than absolutely necessary... based on a spontaneous mathematical algorythm (frakkin' engineers can't just play the game?).
The two younger players on the other hand grabbed five cards each, hoping desperately to gain that 50k or a free level. Neither survived...
The number of cards I take usually depends on how much I like my character. On several occasions, I simply didn't draw any although that's not always an option.
On the bright side, we have fond memories of a couple characters still stuck in the Abyss.
My DM pulls out a deck of many things at some point during every campaign ... and I mean every campaign.
I had a DM use that in a game and it turned out really "good" for me and not so goods for my party member.
Fighert (party memberr) pulled the "enemity from an outsider card." No immediate effect then pulled "A friend turns against you" to no immediate effect..
My halfling rogue then pulled "you're body goes comotose and you're sould gets pulled to the Abyss" card. I fall over comotose.
Few minutes later my party members realize my body is no longer where it once was.
Later My halfling rogue returns with the half fiend template and proceeds to gut the fighter. He rolls new character.
I wanted a template and he wanted a new character, so it kinda worked for the players, but not so nice for the characters.
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a dm once said "deck of many things", and the players drew something like 18 cards... Only 1 bad effect happened(loose all wealth), immediately followed by "gain a bunch of wealth and a +3 or 4 weapon".
the dm was dumbfounded. the group drew almost half the deck and got all the good cards.
luckily it was a 1 shot at a 'con. the dm just scratched his head and sat slack-jawed for amoment
So, the players were tracking down a werewolf cleric of a primitive wolf-god. The players were well armed with magical weaponry and spellcasting, so I thought: "Hey, nullify the magic stuff and force them to go toe-to-toe with a werewolf with mundane gear. I'm so evil!"
Long story short, werewolf cleric has an artifact that creates an anti-magic field in an area. I had overlooked that a werewolf's shapechanging ability falls in line with things that get nullified. This was brought to my attention as soon as the cleric activated the item...
The BBEG boss fight turned into the party beating down a defenseless old lady(cleric was elderly and female).
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The BBEG boss fight turned into the party beating down a defenseless old lady(cleric was elderly and female).
So, that's when you look at your players and say "you know, you guys are right--that's stupid. She doesn't have that item." and continue the encounter without it. Because, really, no one with half a brain would carry such an obviously self-nerfing artifact, unless it were cursed or they'd just gotten it and didn't know yet what it did.
I once ran an encounter in a room with floor tiles which changed color when a creature stepped on them- the PCs had one color and the enemies (four imps) had a different color. Every round, at the start of initiative, there was a chance that a new imp would spawn somewhere on the imps' color and start 'claiming' more of the squares. So the PCs had to claim all of the squares while fighting off the imps. Seemed simple enough. However, I chose to keep track of the squares with little squares of paper- which got really annoying when players started sunning in circles to touch as many tiles as possible. I also messed up how the imps' DR worked, so they died much faster than they were supposed to.
C'est la vie.
The very first time I tried to DM, was June of 1990, 2E D&D. Everyone had just created there characters. Me being the very green and inexperienced GM, let alone player, decided that 1st level characters could face an Adult Dragon and win. I remember being completely dumbfounded that I TPKed the group 45 minutes into session. I was told, quite appropriately, "You're a f#%$ing boob!!!" and then wasn't allowed to try my hand at GMing for two years.
Fast forward to the release of 3E. Me being the lazy GM, used the ORC as listed, GREAT AXE and all. Made other mistakes with the (still feel the same way now as I did then)frustrating-overly-tactical-crunchy-everything-defined-for-you (hated it when I first deciphered it, hate it now) combat system. Well, needless to say, the damned system forced me to do something I despise as a DM - sit down and actually plan sessions so I could avoid having to say "And then you wake up."
The crunch of d20 has me returning to the less crunchy games, retro-clones such as BASIC FANTASY, OSRIC, SWORDS AND WIZARDRY, and most recently MYTH AND MAGIC (New Haven Games).
The BBEG boss fight turned into the party beating down a defenseless old lady(cleric was elderly and female).So, that's when you look at your players and say "you know, you guys are right--that's stupid. She doesn't have that item." and continue the encounter without it. Because, really, no one with half a brain would carry such an obviously self-nerfing artifact, unless it were cursed or they'd just gotten it and didn't know yet what it did.
I'm leaning more towards the cleric just got the artifact and didn't quite know how it worked yet. When I DM, if I make a mistake that winds up in the party's favor, I just try to roll with it. I hate retconning things in the middle of combat, or right after the players discover a blatant weakness to something, no matter how blatant and overlooked it was. In this case, it was one of my more rules-savvy players who pointed it out.
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The BBEG boss fight turned into the party beating down a defenseless old lady(cleric was elderly and female).So, that's when you look at your players and say "you know, you guys are right--that's stupid. She doesn't have that item." and continue the encounter without it. Because, really, no one with half a brain would carry such an obviously self-nerfing artifact, unless it were cursed or they'd just gotten it and didn't know yet what it did.
If that's what everyone do, then this thread wouldn't exist and I wouldn't be laughing at all. I support DM fiasco.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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One of my 'didn't think it through moments' (that don't relate to Marriage!)
Running a mid level game, party is trapped in a demi-plane, exit guarded by a geased dragon. They actually present a logical compelling argument to get the dragon to let them kill him so they can tote his body through the portal, thus collapsing the demi-plane and ending the geas, and then casting Raise Dead/Restoration on him.
So it goes from difficult fight to mercy kill/escape, and then cast raise dead and they now have an adult Saphire dragon who owes them a favor for freeing him.
Did I mention the BBEG was a psionic character?
Biggest mistake I made as a DM? My first campaign, I told my closest buddy (who I had just been teaching the game to, shortly after learning it myself) all of my campaign ideas, including the BBEG's name, appearance, and abilities. He hadn't learned yet what in-game knowledge was as opposed to out-of-game knowledge, so after the first adventure when he sees a red-haired guy in robes pass by, his character suddenly and eternally wanted to kill that guy. Every time he'd show up, even if he hadn't done anything at all, my buddy's character would attempt to kill him in any way possible.
Second biggest mistake? Giving in to an annoying player who insisted I let him play a half-demon vampire because "the player's handbook races are too boring". I didn't let him play a half-demon vampire (I let him play a changeling instead, since they're actually balanced for PC use), but I realized soon afterwards that he just didn't know how to make an interesting character. His character (changeling monk, befriended an imp early on) was far less interesting than the human druid another player had made, just because the second player in question actually knew how to make an interesting character.
Has a dm I realize that i played pretty loose and fast with the rules and this has led me to disaster
Well, it was a published adventure that has led my party to disaster both of the times I have tried to run it. This being WotC's Star Wars adventure in the Secrets of Naboo book. Both times I tried to run it, my groups get to the point where a droideka rolls around the corner, out of blaster range and unfolds... Now, all I can assume is the writer's intent was for players to go "OMGWTF a droideka! Run awaaaaaaaaaaaay! Run awaaaaaaaaay!" as Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon do in Phantom Menace. But, both times players didn't assume their characters knew what it was, so they either waited for it to close into range, or closed with it. Both times the droideka did what droideka do, and this thing with 2 heavy repeating blaster rifles (guns that a non-droid would need a tripod to fire just one of the things) and multishot feats proceeded to wipe out the entire party in one round. Now, sure I could have had it only fire one shot each round, but.... they don't do that... both times I actually had to show the players the droideka encounter and they both times were like "OMG WTF was the author thinking putting a droideka in a 1st level adventure?"
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I used to have a bad habit of looking at a feat/spell/etc on its own, without thinking about how it interacted with other abilities and allowing it, only to regret it later.
Made a bet with a friend that was playing in my game that I could pull off having the Deck of many things in my game without screwing up the game. My reasoning "I just had to obey the rules on it"..... Needless to say a thief with a mansion isn't a thief anymore. (It was a thief campaign)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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oooh funny DoMT story.
Sure enough... He knows what the deck is walks over shuffles the deck and draws one card.
The Idiot.
I think I had the Gem and the Moon on top before he shuffled.
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both times I actually had to show the players the droideka encounter and they both times were like "OMG WTF was the author thinking putting a droideka in a 1st level adventure?"
One of the early lessons I learned when DMing: The players will never run away. And, when presented with something that they should run away from, they won't, and then complain when the fight ends in disaster. "If I can fight it, I can kill it" seems to be a player mantra.
Now, yes, sometimes someone wises up and runs... but cordinating a withdrawal with multiple people is REALLY HARD.
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During a 2nd Ed. Game I ran once I tried to re-write the way arcane and divine spells worked because I didn't like Vancian magic. I accidentally created a system where the party cleric basically could do ANYTHING he wanted if he had enough time: he could cast a 9th level spell if he had a several months or so to devote to prayer, no matter his level. I thought the time limit would keep things under control, but I scaled the system incorrectly and he was able to get away with all kinds of crap.
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Now, yes, sometimes someone wises up and runs... but cordinating a withdrawal with multiple people is REALLY HARD.
Indeed. I had a game once where my character opened a door while trying to find his way to the party. The DM described a vargouille flying around in the room and asked 'what do you do?'
My answer was 'scream and shut the door'. :)
I find that explaining to your players that not every fight is meant to be winnable before the game is a good idea.
I find that explaining to your players that not every fight is meant to be winnable before the game is a good idea.
Remind me to tell this to my future Its Always Sunny In the Stolen Lands group. I hear the Stolen Lands can get to be a pretty scary neighborhood if you take a wrong turn or if I roll jackpot on those wandering monster tables.
I find that explaining to your players that not every fight is meant to be winnable before the game is a good idea.Remind me to tell this to my future Its Always Sunny In the Stolen Lands group. I hear the Stolen Lands can get to be a pretty scary neighborhood if you take a wrong turn or if I roll jackpot on those wandering monster tables.
Note taken.
both times I actually had to show the players the droideka encounter and they both times were like "OMG WTF was the author thinking putting a droideka in a 1st level adventure?"One of the early lessons I learned when DMing: The players will never run away. And, when presented with something that they should run away from, they won't, and then complain when the fight ends in disaster. "If I can fight it, I can kill it" seems to be a player mantra.
Now, yes, sometimes someone wises up and runs... but cordinating a withdrawal with multiple people is REALLY HARD.
Right, which I found was a common problem with many WotC adventures... they were written by WRITERS not PLAYERS. Sure some of the adventures were written by guys like Greenwood, Cook, others. But, most weren't and so they had stuff where the thing intended by the writer for the party to do is contradictory to what 99.99% of players would do. That's what I think makes Paizo's adventures so great. They were players first, and still are. They didn't look at a once great company imploding under it's own bad decisions and see $$ in saving it like WotC did with TSR, they took a game they loved and improved upon it and that distinction shows.
Oh, and as for how we "fixed" that adventure? We reset to the beginning, the STR 24 wookiee jedi used Force to enhance his STR even more then tossed the droid over the wall of the city, then climbed up and helped the other players do so too, then fixed and hopped on the ship crashed on the other side of the wall and they left. Something he'd thought of at first, but I was like "What no you can't do that then the adventure is over, the adventure is fighting and sneaking your way through the city". The first time I ran it, I did GM fiat and had them rescued by they all had to get some cybernetics.
I find that explaining to your players that not every fight is meant to be winnable before the game is a good idea.Remind me to tell this to my future Its Always Sunny In the Stolen Lands group. I hear the Stolen Lands can get to be a pretty scary neighborhood if you take a wrong turn or if I roll jackpot on those wandering monster tables.
OH yeah. Look at the Forgotten Realms random encounter tables sometime. I find pretty much leaving a major city before level 10 is a bad idea. Seriously is every merchant caravan in Faerun guarded by level 15 adventurers?
Well, it was a published adventure that has led my party to disaster both of the times I have tried to run it. This being WotC's Star Wars adventure in the Secrets of Naboo book. Both times I tried to run it, my groups get to the point where a droideka rolls around the corner, out of blaster range and unfolds... Now, all I can assume is the writer's intent was for players to go "OMGWTF a droideka! Run awaaaaaaaaaaaay! Run awaaaaaaaaay!" as Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon do in Phantom Menace. But, both times players didn't assume their characters knew what it was, so they either waited for it to close into range, or closed with it. Both times the droideka did what droideka do, and this thing with 2 heavy repeating blaster rifles (guns that a non-droid would need a tripod to fire just one of the things) and multishot feats proceeded to wipe out the entire party in one round. Now, sure I could have had it only fire one shot each round, but.... they don't do that... both times I actually had to show the players the droideka encounter and they both times were like "OMG WTF was the author thinking putting a droideka in a 1st level adventure?"Has a dm I realize that i played pretty loose and fast with the rules and this has led me to disaster
I think I played that adventure too. What made it worse, is that there were only 2 players and the GM, so we weren't even a normal sized party. We were all brand new to the system, and, like you said, we tried to fight the droideka and got smeared. Good times.
One of the early lessons I learned when DMing: The players will never run away. And, when presented with something that they should run away from, they won't, and then complain when the fight ends in disaster. "If I can fight it, I can kill it" seems to be a player mantra.
This, this, OH GOD THIS. If there are players that will run away, I have never, ever gamed with them. I hear stories about them all the time, but I have never had a player run away unless there was some serious meta-game shenanigans going on (as in, one of the players knew that a fight was supposed to be unbeatable). The problem is, nobody ever thinks a fight is unwinnable- they always just think it's really, really difficult. So when they walk in and get their entire HP taken away in one attack, they think, "Hmm, there's got to be some trick to this." And so instead of running away, they stay. And die. And then cry foul, just as this poster said. And the way that D&D is, typically by the time you realize how powerful an enemy is, you're within one hit of dying- and also within melee range, meaning that if you run away, you're dead. So of course players in that situation end up just throwing caution to the wind and hope for a crit.
You can use Knowledge skills to get a sense of how hard a monster will be to fight, but most players I've met never bother.
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If i want to make an encounters my player should run from, i damn well make sure to show them some signs. Maybe the creature/npc drops a npc cohort or a hireling with a single blow/spell. Maybe he casts a spell that the wizard of cleric recognizes as something that he couldn't cast yet...or would soon learn to. or something similar. If the players press on after those obvious signs, i slaughter them without mercy or remorse.
If i want to make an encounters my player should run from, i damn well make sure to show them some signs. Maybe the creature/npc drops a npc cohort or a hireling with a single blow/spell. Maybe he casts a spell that the wizard of cleric recognizes as something that he couldn't cast yet...or would soon learn to. or something similar. If the players press on after those obvious signs, i slaughter them without mercy or remorse.
Ha I did that... it backfired. Horribly. Possible 7th Sea spoilers, so I'm hiding it. Read at your own risk.
If i want to make an encounters my player should run from, i damn well make sure to show them some signs. Maybe the creature/npc drops a npc cohort or a hireling with a single blow/spell. Maybe he casts a spell that the wizard of cleric recognizes as something that he couldn't cast yet...or would soon learn to. or something similar. If the players press on after those obvious signs, i slaughter them without mercy or remorse.
See, players have become so jaded these days (at least in my experience) and so used to popular fiction that nothing "warns" anybody anymore. Toss a bunch of corpses outside the lair of warriors who died? Pssh, every dragon has a pile of corpses outside. Takes down a hireling in one hit? Pssh, that was probably a story-related blow or something. I used to think that if a player could damage an enemy, then they assumed they could kill it, but I learned a while back that even that's not true- because of all of the video games where an enemy is invulnerable until a "weak point" is discovered, most gamers I've played with will even go toe-to-toe with an enemy they can't hit except on a 20 because they assume there's some trick to it.
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I find that rolling the dice in the open can work towards scaring the players off.
When you see the DM rolling 7d6 with his ranged touch attack, your 3rd level character tend to realize they're in over their heads.
I think there was an Order of the Stick comic where the guard monster flicked Roy and announced "2". The party realized that was what he rolled for the attack, and immediately turned tail.
It's in the first print-volume. (Rich Burlew felt that a book needed a more proper introduction than just the character page - probably correctly.)
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Once I wanted to give the PCs one of the moral quandaries/stand offs you see in television and movies so when one of them got dropped into negatives I had one of the bad guy mooks crouch down with their blade at the downed PC's throat. He warned them, "Surrender or I gut him".
Needless to say I learned that day that PCs (or at least my PCs) don't care much about each other and when they tried rushing the mook he made good on his promise and finished off the downed PC. Once player was dead, the whole group was frustrated, and I was disappointed. I never tried that again.
Needless to say I learned that day that PCs (or at least my PCs) don't care much about each other and when they tried rushing the mook he made good on his promise and finished off the downed PC. Once player was dead, the whole group was frustrated, and I was disappointed. I never tried that again.
Yeah, been there too. Because D&D has no "knife to the throat" insta-kill mechanic, I've seen players blatantly abuse that fact. I was playing in a game once where one party member (a dwarven monk) was asking too many questions around the bad part of town, so a rogue shows up and puts a crossbow to his back, telling him to come with him or he'd fire. The monk simply laughs and says, "Go for it." I suppose it fit character-wise, but it's times like those I wish it was possible to coup de grace in more situations.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, I once had a character (who was particularly tough to kill) who tied up in prison, with guards stationed on either side of me with a knife to my throat, in case someone tried to bust me out. (I was the prime suspect in a murder case. The prince of a warring country was found dead, and all signs pointed to me. And to top it all off, I had failed a will save the previous day and blacked out, so for all I knew, I could have done it.) Sure enough, my party tried to break me out- only to see the two guards at my side perform coup de graces on me. Amazingly enough, I actually survived (a combination of terrible damage rolls and amazing fortitude save rolls). In that case, though, I feel it was more a matter of me surviving through sheer luck rather than abuse of the game system.
Needless to say I learned that day that PCs (or at least my PCs) don't care much about each other and when they tried rushing the mook he made good on his promise and finished off the downed PC. Once player was dead, the whole group was frustrated, and I was disappointed. I never tried that again.Yeah, been there too. Because D&D has no "knife to the throat" insta-kill mechanic, I've seen players blatantly abuse that fact. I was playing in a game once where one party member (a dwarven monk) was asking too many questions around the bad part of town, so a rogue shows up and puts a crossbow to his back, telling him to come with him or he'd fire. The monk simply laughs and says, "Go for it." I suppose it fit character-wise, but it's times like those I wish it was possible to coup de grace in more situations.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, I once had a character (who was particularly tough to kill) who tied up in prison, with guards stationed on either side of me with a knife to my throat, in case someone tried to bust me out. (I was the prime suspect in a murder case. The prince of a warring country was found dead, and all signs pointed to me. And to top it all off, I had failed a will save the previous day and blacked out, so for all I knew, I could have done it.) Sure enough, my party tried to break me out- only to see the two guards at my side perform coup de graces on me. Amazingly enough, I actually survived (a combination of terrible damage rolls and amazing fortitude save rolls). In that case, though, I feel it was more a matter of me surviving through sheer luck rather than abuse of the game system.
Well, as GM you always could GM fiat a coup de grace in a gun in the back situation, as long as it's done the same for the players. Explain that you are counting him as helpless in that situation. Now, if he survives the coup de grace, then great! If not, he was warned. Players might object, but if you make it clear that should they get the jump on an NPC in the same way, you will treat the situation the same, and do so, it should be ok with most groups.
This wasn't exactly a backfire, but in one of my homebrew campaigns, just before the boss fight of that part of the story arc I threw a Frost Giant Barbarian at my players to soften them up before going up against the main villian. I really didn't think anything of it because these guys were literally destroying all the giants the witch had as her servants, but this guy gets a surprise round, I roll all 20's on his attack on the fighter. That turns into a dead fighter. Next few rounds he kills all the players due to some lucky rolls on my part.
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This wasn't exactly a backfire, but in one of my homebrew campaigns, just before the boss fight of that part of the story arc I threw a Frost Giant Barbarian at my players to soften them up before going up against the main villian. I really didn't think anything of it because these guys were literally destroying all the giants the witch had as her servants, but this guy gets a surprise round, I roll all 20's on his attack on the fighter. That turns into a dead fighter. Next few rounds he kills all the players due to some lucky rolls on my part.
I have similar luck on a fairly regular basis. My dice hate players. When I'm a player, I have entire sessions where I don't roll higher than a 5. But when I DM, they don't roll under 17. Cannon-fodder random encounters turn into knockdown, drag out, last man standing matches. It's crazy.
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I have similar luck on a fairly regular basis. My dice hate players. When I'm a player, I have entire sessions where I don't roll higher than a 5. But when I DM, they don't roll under 17. Cannon-fodder random encounters turn into knockdown, drag out, last man standing matches. It's crazy.
DUDE! Me too! It doesn't matter which of my dice I was using, or even what game! I thought I was going insane.
What's really creepy? I bought a new set of dice because I forgot my dice bag, and they rolled evenly. I went from skeptical to superstitious in one session. Now I don't let my new dice touch the BAG OF [DICE] HOLDING, and they roll just fine.
Maybe it's because my dice bag was sewn by one of my Evil Ex-Girlfriends...
Maybe it's because my dice bag was sewn by one of my Evil Ex-Girlfriends...
That's all the evidence I'd need.
This, this, OH GOD THIS. If there are players that will run away, I have never, ever gamed with them. I hear stories about them all the time, but I have never had a player run away unless there was some serious meta-game shenanigans going on (as in, one of the players knew that a fight was supposed to be unbeatable). The problem is, nobody ever thinks a fight is unwinnable- they always just think it's really, really difficult.
Haha - you should meet my players. In the latest campaign, the ran from various encounters: from Rot Grubs to Myconids to a Lamia and from the Ivy Heart and Firbolg Shell in Tomb of Horrors. Oh, and from the Kraken.
I always roll all attack and damage rolls in the open, so I can only second TOZ' suggestion.
both times I actually had to show the players the droideka encounter and they both times were like "OMG WTF was the author thinking putting a droideka in a 1st level adventure?"One of the early lessons I learned when DMing: The players will never run away. And, when presented with something that they should run away from, they won't, and then complain when the fight ends in disaster. "If I can fight it, I can kill it" seems to be a player mantra.
Now, yes, sometimes someone wises up and runs... but cordinating a withdrawal with multiple people is REALLY HARD.
This is a lesson I taught my players early. I'm not just going to throw 'appropriate level' encounters at them all the time like it's a video game. Now running or avoiding an enemy is always an option they discuss.
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This is a lesson I taught my players early. I'm not just going to throw 'appropriate level' encounters at them all the time like it's a video game. Now running or avoiding an enemy is always an option they discuss.both times I actually had to show the players the droideka encounter and they both times were like "OMG WTF was the author thinking putting a droideka in a 1st level adventure?"One of the early lessons I learned when DMing: The players will never run away. And, when presented with something that they should run away from, they won't, and then complain when the fight ends in disaster. "If I can fight it, I can kill it" seems to be a player mantra.
Now, yes, sometimes someone wises up and runs... but cordinating a withdrawal with multiple people is REALLY HARD.
You taught... but whether or not we *listened* is up for debate...
You taught... but whether or not we *listened* is up for debate...
Ok, you weren't there but the entire CR5 group spent 3 hours trying to avoid a patch of water underground that had these little CR1 ameoba leeches in it.(can't remember the name from one of the monster manuals) Just because of how disgusting I described them.
They looked like uncooked eggs except where the yoke was they were blood red with little red veins running through the clear part.
It was taking so long for them to figure out a way around that I practically blurted out that they were CR1 and not a threat. But I was having too much fun watching them squirm and wrack their brains for a solution.
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I once made 75% of a dragon hoard turn out to be copper pieces. It wasn't the end part of the dungeon and all the treasure was mixed together. Refusing to abandon the coins, the party spent six real world hours coming up with a plan to get all the treasure. The volume was monstrous.
They tried to seperate the coins, then realized that it would take weeks, while sitting around in a populated dungeon.
In the end, they grabbed every valuable they could and used it to buy bags of holding. MANY bags of holding. It would still take hours to shovel it into the bags, so they ended up using stone shape to funnel the hoard into the bags.
By the end we were all in absolute mental anguish. One of the players threatened to abandon the hoard all together and to gut the next person that used the word "treasure". Some of them still shake uncontrollably if I mention the word "hoard".
On the bright side, they haven't bugged me about my "low treasure to party level" ratio's in a while. So I guess it didn't end ALL bad...
I once made 75% of a dragon hoard turn out to be copper pieces. It wasn't the end part of the dungeon and all the treasure was mixed together. Refusing to abandon the coins, the party spent six real world hours coming up with a plan to get all the treasure. The volume was monstrous.
They tried to seperate the coins, then realized that it would take weeks, while sitting around in a populated dungeon.
In the end, they grabbed every valuable they could and used it to buy bags of holding. MANY bags of holding. It would still take hours to shovel it into the bags, so they ended up using stone shape to funnel the hoard into the bags.
By the end we were all in absolute mental anguish. One of the players threatened to abandon the hoard all together and to gut the next person that used the word "treasure". Some of them still shake uncontrollably if I mention the word "hoard".
On the bright side, they haven't bugged me about my "low treasure to party level" ratio's in a while. So I guess it didn't end ALL bad...
I still hate you for being the only DM I've ever known that could turn treasure and reward into grueling hardship....