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He's not talking I suspect of surprising them in game, but surprising them in terms of game expectations, which is distinctly metagame. One is enjoyable by most folks, the other generally not.That is correct, EWHM, thank you.
Surprising the players with content is fine. Surprising the players with GM style almost always engenders resentment. Communicate with your players about the type of game you run, then surprise them with the details.
Seeing as I have studied many, many different styles and purposefully switch them up on my party, I find the idea that they might resent me a bit surprising. I've always considered it a 'repertoire'. Please, elaborate.
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I think part of why players may not run is because they're incented to fight. They are heroes who fight where other can and will not. Taking away that as the prime reason for combat may help. I think awarding some degree of experience for surviving an encounter also offsets the other major game mechanic incentive to fight (XP).
Another idea to setup an encounter requiring a retreat would be to preface that specific encounter with smaller encounters that deplete your caster resources, healing capabilities and health. This should make them less confident in their abilities to deal with anything and perhaps more likely retreat and then return later at full strength.
I'm looking to build an encounter where the PCs will encounter an enemy that they are not supposed to be strong enough to kill- the hope being that they fight, lose, and then come back at a later time when they're more powerful. But in my experience, parties will never back down or give up until all of them are dead, and nothing short of one-shotting a PC will get the idea into their heads that the enemy is too powerful for them to beat. Has anyone out there specifically ran an encounter like this? And if so, how did it go? Any advice?
I'll be honest. I really HATE ideas like that. There is more frustrating than being the heroes of the story, and being told by the DM to Flee like cowards...
It's an issue I have with 'sandbox' stories. If there are 5 options for the players to do.... and only one is actually FEASABLE... then it may as well be a linear story. Give us just the ONE hook and we can still feel like heroes.
But when I hear about DM's intentionally making unbeatable enemies for the express purpose of 'teaching a lesson' I get cold chills...
NOW... Having gotten THAT off my chest... the ADVICE portion of the post ;)
1)Make Running easy. If the choice is 'get encumbered by fallen ally, and then get 2+ AoO on your back when you try to run.... or Go down swinging and hope you can get lucky.... I personally go down swinging EVERY time.
AoO make fleeing VERY difficult. If the bad guy actually WANTS to kill them, they can usually catch them, what with dwarf/halfling/gnome speeds and of course armor penalties... If they don't think they CAN run... they aren't GOING to.
2) Give them a goal they can accomplish. If you show them a BBEG then tell them they can't beat him... it feels like LOSING. Losing SUCKS. Nobody wants to run away from a fight. HOWEVER... if Beating the BBEG was never the GOAL.. that makes it palatable. Luke and Han did NOT run away from Vadar and the Death Star. They Rescued the princess and escaped!!! Same situation... different outlook. If the plan is to rescue a hostage, plant a bug, spy on his plans... This is all doable and THEN they can get the heck out of dodge.
Give them a choice. If they stay and fight... they MAY win. But if they DIE... then the king will never know about the upcoming attack. Even Paladin's would withdraw for the greater good there.
The key is that EVERYONE needs to have fun. Not JUST the DM. Nobody should ever go home at the end of the night, wondering why they bothered showing up that night at all... If the goal is for the DM to TPK, beat, or otherwise humiliate the players... then there should be some SERIOUS reevaluating of the goal here....
The further into the campaign you are, the harder it is to train players to consider running to be an option. I find the trick is to avoid pulling punches... once players start to realize that crits happen, and that characters CAN DIE, running starts to seem a lot more reasonable. The downside is if the characters have been around for a while, and the players expect "fair" encounters even one death can create hard feelings.
The other thing that can work is obvious no-win scenarios where the enemies won't chase the PCs:
Base assault type scenario where a wave of ranged attacks spread out amongst the PCs (2-4 attacks on each) brings them all low enough that it's obvious that another wave will probably take at least one PC down, and if they were to focus fire...
Have a nasty monster start eating a downed PC, giving the others an obvious opportunity to escape.
Or to create a BBEG that the group will instantly hate (works best if you have one player that is a really good sport). Have the BBEG show up a group of minions that would be a slightly under tuned encounter without him. On the first round have the BBEG somehow one shot the good sport while the minions engage. On the second round have the BBEG cast something (or use a magic item) and hand the PC you one shotted a character sheet with their character beefed up with a couple nasty undead templates and tell them to have fun. Round three BBEG does a Laugh and Leave ;)
Honestly though, just keeping encounter difficulty generally tuned a little high so that there is always a sense of risk, and not saving the players from their own stupidity is the best way to do it.
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I'll be honest. I really HATE ideas like that. There is more frustrating than being the heroes of the story, and being told by the DM to Flee like cowards...It's an issue I have with 'sandbox' stories. If there are 5 options for the players to do.... and only one is actually FEASABLE... then it may as well be a linear story. Give us just the ONE hook and we can still feel like heroes.
but its realistic, and different. hero doesn't mean unstoppable, many of the greatest generals in history used tactical retreats to gain an advantage.
and lets not even start on how effective gorilla tactics are ... in real life.
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Any advice would be most appreciated.
IMO one of the very best, and sadly most neglected, props that a DM can add to his campaign is a party-accompanying NPC -- usually a "wise" or "smart" class such a cleric or wizard (roles often spurned by younger hack-n-slash oriented players). Eventually they will come to trust the advice of this character after getting in over their heads several times.
A phlegmatic old crone witch would be perfect, always scrying into her floating cauldron.
<cackling>
"You are NOT ready to face THEM. Heh-heh-heh....they'd tear you limb from limb. Hah-hah-hah...."
THEN if the PCs ignore her, eviscerate the most stupid person without pity.
"Hah! Told you so! ...I see you brought the body back. Raise him you say? Why? He was a cretin. I can think of MUCH more interesting things to do with the meat! Hee-hee...."
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Make the players fear your world, and the roleplaying will be all the more intense. The should never assume that any fight is a "mediocre challenge". And, as often as they run into something from which retreat is the only option, have then encounter the absurdly easy (i.e., 2nd-level commoner ne'er-do-wells who just happen to be the nephews of the local lord -- of course your kill-crazy PCs will splatter them in a single hit...oops).
While informing them of the bad guy's threat ahead of time is good (they must have the context to know they're likely in over their heads), sometimes it's better to SHOW them- i.e. throw some NPC lambs to the slaughter. While you can learn from a wise man, as the old crash safety commercials said, "You can learn a lot from a dummy".
A belligerent (but not completely buffoonish) NPC that insisted on fighting but getting creamed just prior to their engagement with the villain can give them visual evidence. Be careful this happens prior to the PCs arriving or getting involved, as some may feel duty bound (or just wanting bragging rights) to save the NPC.
Really though, I find it all comes back to the player risk vs. reward assessment. Do the risk of fleeing and the likely benefit of staying outweigh the likely benefit of fleeing and the risk of staying? Not just the in game cost (loot/XP of the bad guys, narrative progress, etc) but also player OOC risks/benefits. Many players, including several I game with, feels like running away makes them lose face as it were ("Heroes never run away.")
Which is why I rarely run games where the plot is absolutely dependent on if they run away or not (in other words, what happens, happens). That being said, there's been a few circumstances when they did choose to flee:
1) After taking significant losses (killing two pcs and downing an npc)
2) When an unknown third party joined the fray. In a hostage negotiation one time, for example, the rogue was exchanging an evil wizard the party captured and were holding hostage in return for a prisoner his minions were holding. As they were exchanging the prisoners, a hidden sniper took out the wizard, causing a significant chaos. In this case, the rogue used the uproar to his advantage, got his man out, and fled in the hoopla. Essentially he just assessed that he had gotten what he had come for, and didn't want to stick around for disputes with unknown enemies. Sometimes the mystery of the unknown can cause players to step back and reassess things.
3) When getting the big bad is not the main objective and the rewards of risks of going after him outweigh the rewards. In another example I recall, the characters were not the ones fleeing but rather the bad guy they overpowered. They could go after him or go free his prisoners (they knew they probably didn't have time for both before reinforcements arrived). In this case, they needed to get some information from some of the prisoners, so this gave them more incentive to go after the prisoners instead of the baddie.
A belligerent (but not completely buffoonish) NPC that insisted on fighting but getting creamed just prior to their engagement with the villain can give them visual evidence. Be careful this happens prior to the PCs arriving or getting involved, as some may feel duty bound (or just wanting bragging rights) to save the NPC.
The trick here is to make sure you show the NPC as competent beforehand, even a badass. This is the Worf Effect.
I'm looking to build an encounter where the PCs will encounter an enemy that they are not supposed to be strong enough to kill- the hope being that they fight, lose, and then come back at a later time when they're more powerful. But in my experience, parties will never back down or give up until all of them are dead, and nothing short of one-shotting a PC will get the idea into their heads that the enemy is too powerful for them to beat. Has anyone out there specifically ran an encounter like this? And if so, how did it go? Any advice?
I'd prefer to stay away from hand-waving (such as just giving the enemy DR 50/- or simply saying "your attacks do nothing"), as I'd like it to be a fair fight for a higher-level party, but at the moment early in a campaign I'd like for the enemy to be unbeatable.
Any advice would be most appreciated.
Kill them. No, really. If they have acquired a lot of knowledge that they are outmatched, they can clearly see the odds are against them, or they know what some BBEG is capable of and they still stand and fight, let them learn the hard way.
After a few PC deaths that were entirely avoidable because you refused to back down, you tend to become a little more cautious in the future. My groups have retreated from a group of four 1st level kobolds because it was going poorly for them; regrouped, then returned.
Your problem is not an uncommon one, and it is something of a trope even in media. You might have someone who's cocky and decides to ignore warnings and such and then try to take on the big bad, only to be the first martyr for his foolish act of blind heroism.
You don't.
Seriously.
Why are you setting the PC's up to fail? This confuses me. You are basically engineering an encounter where if the PC's don't do the one specific thing you want (i.e. run away with tails tucked) then they die.
My advice? Don't. If your PC's screw up and feel the need to run away then they will. Do Not go out of your way to "force" or "teach" your players to run away.
This is the sme thing as having an enemy immune to everything but one tiny little flea spec idea that you had for them to kill it, and then when they do die yuo say "well, if you had used the left-fork of the forked branch of the turning tree you'd still be alive".
Death happens. Running away can happen. Engineering fights to force the PC's to flee because that fits your story better shouldn't happen.
Find some other method to demonstrate the BBEG's power than to twist the arms of the players down the narrow road you have devised. They'll enjoy it far more.
-S
I'm looking to build an encounter where the PCs will encounter an enemy that they are not supposed to be strong enough to kill- the hope being that they fight, lose, and then come back at a later time when they're more powerful. But in my experience, parties will never back down or give up until all of them are dead, and nothing short of one-shotting a PC will get the idea into their heads that the enemy is too powerful for them to beat. Has anyone out there specifically ran an encounter like this? And if so, how did it go? Any advice?
I'd prefer to stay away from hand-waving (such as just giving the enemy DR 50/- or simply saying "your attacks do nothing"), as I'd like it to be a fair fight for a higher-level party, but at the moment early in a campaign I'd like for the enemy to be unbeatable.
Any advice would be most appreciated.
Ive had some success at this by making the bad guy sunder all their weapons and KO the wizard. Without their shiny weapons PCs tend to get a lot less confident. The villain then just laughed at them and told them they werent worth killing. Makes the players really HATE the villain, but you cant use it too often or they'll really hate you too!
Any advice would be most appreciated.
Whether your foe makes you run away, or becomes a TPK, depends entirely on the attitude of the party, period. If the party convince themselves that they cannot run, or that they have a great chance of winning, you have a TPK. It's a pretty tough call, really, and you will ALWAYS find one player, somewhere, that thinks that the Tarrasque is an illusion and tries to melee it ...
You can make the odds clear well in advance, and drop hints; you can present a potential opponent as willing to negotiate; you can give them every hint imaginable ... and it can still go pear-shaped. Don't beat yourself up over player misconceptions.