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Chandra Go (ifrit summoner 9) - Likes fire, has fire dragon mount eidolon
Hihachi Belecqua (human fighter 9) - Former bandit with abused childhood, dislikes killing, expert engineer
Selfane Goldbound (human sorcerer 5/dragon disciple 4) - arrogant, self-assured dragon sorcerer
I hosted a game for my friends this past Saturday, but found that it probably could have gone a bit better. I was hoping to get help from the online community to pick it apart in order to determine what went wrong, where, and how the mistakes could have been avoided or improved upon (or could at least be avoided in the future). The game was initially meant to humble the players who, over the last four or five levels, had grown so powerful in the campaign world that they were openly challenging their own country's generals, wiping out local goblin tribes just for fun, and taking other in-game things completely for granted. I needed to do something in order to prevent further incidents of sheer, arrogant hubris.
As it was, the game went something like this:
The party (consisting of the above three characters as well as one guest player who brought a cavalier to the table) and their forces (consisting of about 60 low-level NPC foot soldiers, 20 cavalry, and 20 adepts) left the military city of Ranburry under orders from their Emperor to travel to back their hometown of Landintown (where they had been recently exiled under suspicion of witchcraft) and investigate reports of increased goblin activity that had been interfering with reconstruction projects there. More specifically, the goblins had grown to be too much of a nuisance in the region as of late, and the PCs (newly appointed captains fresh out of the academy) were to go in and annihilate the goblins within the nearby Goblinwood (which resided about a day's march from Landintown).
Their first encounter was only a few hours outside of Landintown. Their forces had encountered a hobgoblin warband traveling from the Goblinwood on a direct course to Landintown. The enemy force had been caught unawares out in the open. The 50 or so hobgoblins were quickly dispatched by Chandra riding atop her dragon-like eidolon utilizing her wand of fireball to great effect.
The party then traveled to Landintown where they were apprised of the situation: Goblins had been making near-daily raids against the town and had all but stopped the supply lines needed for the town's reconstruction. Their objective clear, the PCs enlisted volunteer militia from the townsfolk (who cared little for the heroes, but nevertheless respected the Imperial seal they now wore) and set out to the Goblinwood to wage a little war.
They started by flying over the forest during the day (when they figured the goblins would be least active) and starting massive forest fires in strategic locations designed to not only be nearly impossible to extinguish, but to also trap and route the goblins towards their waiting forces. Thousands of goblins died while only a few soldiers suffered injuries.
A day later, after the fires had subsided due to rain, they marched their soldiers in to finish off the remaining goblinoids. They spent another day extinguishing the lives of a few hundred more goblins and fighting off minor skirmishes and ambushes. Though much of the forest had been destroyed, there was still enough surviving foliage and charred debris to make things difficult on everyone.
When they discovered the entrance to the abandoned mine, the moment I said "it looked a little narrow" one of my players jumped up and shouted "Tucker's kobolds!? You want us to go in there so you can run us through a Tucker's kobold scenario for your own sick enjoyment!? F8ck you! I will not be railroaded into any such thing!"
I (calmly) accused him of metagaming as there was nothing going on in-game to indicate any such thing to the characters (the characters themselves obviously had no knowledge of "Tucker's kobolds" after all). I also told him that I hadn't railroaded anyone as they had not been forced into the mine against their will.
He claimed that he wasn't metagaming because, "as experienced captains of the Imperial military," (a fine example of the hubris I mentioned earlier) "none of the PCs would be retarded enough to go into a tight enemy bunker where enemy forces would clearly have every possible advantage." I agreed with that line of logic (an intelligent PC might indeed readily think that) and that seemed to calm him down.
"So don't go in" I said, "but remember that you ARE under direct orders from the emperor to wipe out ALL of the goblins within the Goblinwood--you WILL have to kill them somehow or else face court martial."
The PCs and their forces collapsed the mine entrance (killing a goblin in the process) and fell back to what they believed to be a safe location (well, at least as safe as you can be in the Goblinwood). They set up camp for the night, put dozens of soldiers on guard, and attempted to get some rest.
It never came. The goblins could be heard in the distance banging on pans and drums and making similar loud noises in order to keep them awake and aware. No ambushes ever came, though when the dragon sorcerer, Selfane, flew up into the night sky and cast light in hopes of finding out how close the goblins were, he got several arrows and few answers for his trouble.
Goblin shouts could be heard in the distance by some of the scouts. When translated, much of it involved statements like "the murderers of the central tribes have returned!?" and "they must die for their crimes!" and...well, a number of horrible goblin curses I'll not post here. Obviously, the goblins remembered the three heroes from their incursions of yesteryear.
It was obvious the goblins were surrounding and massing around the camp. The already weary captains and their forces were readying for a massive assault on their position and had since used magic message spells to call for backup from forces that had been left behind to guard the parameter of the forest.
The attack never came. Instead, patrols and parameter guards began to disappear, seemingly at random. Finally, when Selfane went to check on one of his trusted lieutenants (who was standing guard near the parameter) the lieutenant (an much beloved NPC) fell through a sink hole into a small cavern below. As the party fighter, Hihachi, and Selfane rushed to get a rope and throw it down to their dwarven comrade below, he was dragged away out of sight by a large band of goblins who, judging from the mad shouts of the dwarven lieutenant, had suddenly popped out of a secret tunnel passage in nearby the wall.
There was a brief debate as to whether they should go after him at all, or simply suffer the loss as a casualty of war. Finally, the PCs hopped down. Surprisingly, it was Hihachi's player (the one who objected earlier to a Tucker's Kobold scenario) who was the first to volunteer to go down.
They also took five soldiers with them for the rescue operation, leaving the rest to command and defend the camp above. Once below they began tracking the trail of the goblins and dwarf through the myriad tunnels and caverns (an easy enough task as the struggle seemed to be ongoing). Before long, one of the soldiers triggered a trap which caused the ceiling to collapse upon all five soldiers, burying them and the summoner alive. While Hihachi was forced to dig out Chandra, the summoner, with his bare hands, Selfane was forced to single-handedly fend off a large number of goblins who came down the tunnel to take advantage of the situation.
In short order they rescued their summoner and defeated the goblin attackers, though all five soldiers were killed instantly by the trap.
Three PCs, alone, in the goblin delve, with one guest PC above leading the men against the goblins. The goblins who, once the "murderers of the central tribes" were "right where they wanted them" had brought their swarms upon the Imperial Army in full fury.
The PCs below convinced themselves that moving forward was the only way to go, having completely forgotten that the summoner, Chandra, could have used her dimension door spell to move the entire party out of the goblin gauntlet at any time--a fact I later used to defend myself against accusations of railroading. As far as they were concerned at the time, they had a dwarf to save, many more goblins to kill, and a mission to complete.
They encountered a great many hazards, which I've outlined below for you, chronologically as they occurred, in spoiler blocks:
The engineer, Hihachi, investigated the holes, eventually concluding that it was some kind of specialized opening mechanism and not a lock. Since it wasn't locked, Chandra then used open/close to trigger the mechanism and open the top door. The moment it opened wide enough, a counterweight caused a miniature guillotine blade to rush down into the lower door--anyone peering through the top half of the door or smashing it down would likely have lost their face, or a limb! They opened the bottom door next the same way. A similar spring blade bounced upwards, smashing into the top blade much like the blades on a pair of scissors--anyone kicking in the door would have easily lost a foot. The trap did not appear to reset, so they smashed it apart with their weapons and moved onwards down the tunnel.
Combined with his natural fire resistance, Selfane took only minor damage from the neck dart and from a few vials of acid the ceiling goblins switched to after a few rounds of fruitless burning. The goblins cursed him, calling him a murderer and shouting "for Tribe Greenblood!" In turn he confidently promised them all death in time.
Undeterred, the goblins continued their assault, all the while breaking into song*.
Eventually, Selfane and Hihachi together on either side of the portcullis were able to lift the portcullis, allowing the sorcerer to escape (Chandra could not help due limited space in the narrow tunnel).
Goblins will defend their home
Goblins hide where you can’t hear
Goblins pounce and bite your ear
Goblins hide when longshanks come
Goblins smart and you be dumb
Goblins hide where you can’t see
You can’t run and you can’t flee
You will scream and you will run
Goblins chase you down for fun
Goblins hide where you can’t spy
Goblins snatch and gouge your eye
Goblins creep and Goblins crawl
Goblins come when babies bawl
Goblins hide where you can’t find
And tonight your bones will grind!
The summoner found herself in a natural looking chamber about forty feet below her comrades. With her darkvision, she could see a swarm of grubs hungrily moving towards her, revealing a pile of humanoid bones beneath them as it did so. Despite there being thick lengthy vines leading up the way she came she instead cast dimension door and teleported back to the top of the pit just in time to warn her companions of it. She had, had bad experiences in the past with swarms, and she was not about to let it happen again.
The vines were actually natural terinav roots that would have poisoned her with a single dose of poison for each round of climbing.
Had the rot grub swarm (Bestiary III) reached her, they would have burrowed their way into her skin and dealt constitution damage for each round she was within the swarm and for 1d6 rounds afterwards, in addition to the normal effects of the swarm.
It was at about this time that I hit them with exhaution penalties (as they had not slept in days and had been fighting, climbing, and crawling non-stop for the better part of eight hours).
The party didn't know what to make of it. The otherwise solid emptiness of the room stifled even the summoner's fury. Cautious as ever, (*snicker*) Chandra conjured up some dire rats and sent them into the room to trigger any possible traps. They ran across the room for several minutes, came back completely unharmed, and were dismissed.
Still wary, Chandra inched her way into the room, following the left path, keeping well away from the horizontal spikes along the portcullis on the wall and the vertical sword blades jutting out of the floor to her right. Suddenly, the spiked portcullis to her left slammed down atop her (much like a mouse trap), impaling her and pinning her to the floor. There was a pair of tiny tunnels in the wall that had been concealed behind it. In these tunnels were goblins who had squeezed up behind the portcullises. They waited, quietly watching the rats run around, and then when the "loathed murderer" entered the room, they pushed it over atop her, impaling her beneath it. The goblins then hopped out of their tunnels atop the poor summoner to do battle with the other two characters ("for Clan Razorclaw!").
The goblins were soon dispatched and the heavy portcullis, through team effort, was lifted just enough to allow the bloodied summoner to crawl out form under it.
They then used a lasso to rope the spikes on the other portcullis in the room and pull it down away from the walls as well.
The trick to this room was supposed to be to straddle the swords down the middle of the room to the far door. When the goblins push both portcullises over, they would steeple in the middle, leaving the character unharmed and relatively safe from the goblins trying to come into the room. Obviously, it didn't work out that way. :D
At this point, I started having the summoner roll saves against the terinav root poison in her system each minute. She failed, taking minor dexterity damage. She also failed the next six rolls, growing increasingly disoriented as they moved from one room to the next.
Nothing happened. It appeared to be locked. The fighter, Hihachi, asked to have a look at it and found that it was not locked, but jammed by something on the other side. Standing there in front of the door with Chandra, he pulled with all his strength. After a moment's struggle, the door gave way and exploded open as thousands of gallons of thick viscous mud flooded into the room burying them both in a miniature crushing avalanche. Selfane was merely knocked down, partially impaling himself on one of the short swords. A team of goblins then jumped into the room from the wall tunnels and through the entrance door to attack the injured sorcerer while his friends suffocated under the mud. He killed them all swiftly with fire, but in the course of doing so, hardened the mud, entombing his friends beneath it. During the brief battle, one of the goblins dropped a feather token near the entrance of the room, causing a tree to grow up, blocking all escape routes (with a mountain of hardened mud in one doorway and a tree tightly sealing the other).
Nevertheless, Selfane began trying to break up the hardened mud to dig his friends out before they ran out of air and died.
As he did so, thick volumes of dark gas began to poor into the room through the wall tunnels. The goblins were going to gas them to death with fiery smoke!
As he held his own breath, he quickened his digging pace. By the time he freed Chandra, the smoke was so thick that no one could see for their burning eyes. Unlike Selfane, Chandra did not get a chance to hold her breath, taking big gasps of deadly smoke upon becoming freed from the mud. The sorcerer yelled at him to dig Hihachi free as he tried to "get us some breathing room." He then turned towards the tree and, risking smoke inhalation, blasted a large hole through its center with several staggered rounds of scorching ray.
Chandra wasted rounds choking more often than not, but nevertheless dug (blindly) as fast as the choking smoke would allow, all the while hoping she wasn't already too late to save Hihachi from drowning in the mud.
Blasting a large whole through the center of the tree gave them a little bit of breathing room, allowing a few precious seconds more to save themselves.
After freeing Hihachi, the party began digging at the mud wall at the exit door hoping to move forward. Despite the large air hole blasted through the tree behind them, the smoke pouring into the room was much too thick, and was quickly beginning to build up in the room again.
While she could still somewhat gasp for breath, Chandra took the opportunity to summon a large earth elemental to find them a way out. Coincidentally, it formed out of the hardened mud, clearing the exit door.
Soon after, the tunnel network lead them to another fork. A large central tunnel, with two smaller tunnels (which they would have to squeeze through) on either side. Tired of squeezing, they entered the central tunnel knowing full well it was likely another trap. As a precaution, Chandra sent her earth elemental down the left tunnel as well (though much too large to fit, its ability to earth glide made this possible).
The central tunnel bubbled into an extremely rough natural cavern (difficult terrain) where they were beset by goblins coming from behind as well as from a large number of murder holes to their left and right. Fearing for their lives, Chandra called for her earth elemental to join them in the central cavern. Rather than follow the tunnel back and around into the central chamber, the earth elemental glided from one adjacent room to the other. The creature unintentionally caught several goblins (behind the murder holes) as it did so, crushing the foul vermin through their own murder holes like a some kind of gruesome spaghetti. Seeing what had happened (and more than a little disturbed by it) Chandra nevertheless ordered the earth elemental to do the same thing to the goblins in the right wall murder holes while she and the others fended off the swarms coming through the cavern entrance. When the battle concluded, they found another chute and ladder leading upwards out of the far end of the cavern.
They found their way to a ladder which led to the surface (though that fact was not immediately apparent to them as they had since lost all sense of direction and depth). After much precaution (checking for traps, detecting magic, looking for goblins and green slime), Chandra sent her earth elemental up through the cavern ceiling with instructions to "eradicate anything that moves above."
After a few moments, the cavern began to shake as a violent battle overhead ensued. Obviously, the elemental had found something. The pounding of the battle above soon became so fierce that the ceiling cracked. Fearing yet another cave-in, the PCs rushed up the ladder one by one, stopping only to undue the hatch at the top and, much to their surprise and joy, opening it to sun-filled skies and green (somewhat burned away) canopies.
The joy was short-lived, however. As they came up into a small clearing, they found themselves in the middle of a full scale battle with various goblinoids on one side, their men on the other, and the earth elemental in the middle killing absolutely everything in sight. Chandra, realizing her mistake to her horror, commanded the earth elemental to ignore the soldiers and focus on the goblinoids. The other PCs commanded their men to cease attacking the elemental and likewise focus on the goblin forces. (The men would later talk of how the sudden appearance of Chandra's beauty instantly swayed "the rock monster" to their side.)
Moments after the last PC made it up the ladder, the shaft collapsed behind them and the cavern below caved in. The resulting sink hole swallowed several allied soldiers. (It was later determined that this sink hole and the earth elemental were responsible for more loss of life against Imperial forces than the entirety of the Goblinwood during the conflict.)
When all was said and done, the PCs were all suffering from filth fever, a wide variety of ability damage from poisons, and a large number of injuries ranging from minor cuts and bruises to major burns and impalement. They were covered from head to toe in dirt, grime, ash, blood, and sewage.
And yet, the PCs slew close to 5,000 goblins (over ten-fold what was expected) with less than one hundred men. They lost less than 1/3 of their force in the process. They came to be hailed as heroes within the empire in general and to the citizens of Landintown specifically (who had all but exiled them previously).
And that's how it went.
One of my other players, who had to drive the guy home, later complained about the guest player's incessant whiny attitude (still complaining about the horrid game) which apparently persisted for the entire drive home.
Hihachi's player, who earlier accused me of a "Tucker scenario" continued to give me some subtly nasty stares after the game (more or less having confirmed his suspicions), but otherwise made no further fuss.
Selfane's player, about mid-way through the dungeon, exclaimed "this is beginning to grow tedious!" but seemed to enjoy himself for much of the rest of it.
Surprisingly, it was the summoner Chandra's player who had an absolutely great time, showing no complains whatsoever (the opposite in fact).
Nevertheless, after the game they all claimed to have had a great deal of fun (with the exception of the guest player who, in my opinion, CHOSE to sit it out because "it's what the character would have done" and then complained about it like it was MY fault).
If you've made it this far, then I thank you for your willingness to help me out. Now, how do you think this game might have gone better? What could have been done differently (both for the players and for myself)?
DND TOTAL WAR!
Well it is heavily a military mission. Got to be careful about court martial threats though, if the players do something wrong, it is only a problem if someone knows about it and reports it, then it comes to the players defending their actions, if it goes that far.
It does sound interesting, military battles, dungeons. Goblin guerrillas are a dangerous foe, and sometimes players want an easy victory. As the dm, I don't give it to them. It is up to them to make a victory easy or not.
You could have added more rewards and accolades for their great success. I would have. That is a lot of goblins. Add some npc interactions related to this long battle.
One guy sat out, didn't want to play and complained. Don't waste time with such people. I've had others sit back, not do the quests, not get the xp, then complain they didn't get the xp and were falling behind. They wanted xp scaling so they could catch up.
Keep at it man, maybe smaller events focused on the party.
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This sounds like an extremely fun scenario. Though perhaps a bit too gritty for my tastes (impalement, dismemberment, and killing children) it had variety of encounters and challenges along with chances for PCs to shine(silly goblins and their fire).
I would probably have had an NPC lieutenant come up to the PC who was trying to stay behind and assure him the camp would be well commanded in their absence and encourage him out of game not to split the party. Splitting the party is very frowned upon in my games and outside of downtime I openly discourage it. DM-ing for a split party is very difficult and is generally less fun for someone (and at times everyone) from my experience.
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"it's what the character would have done"
This is subtle code for "Tell me what to do". Next time you run a game for this person and they want to "stay to command the above-ground forces" just tell them straight faced that they will be sitting out the adventure. It solves a lot of problems.
There's a lot here, and it's late, so I will zero in on something I have experience with/am good at, and that is that when the party splits itself (even if it's one guy wandering off), I take care to split the action, as well.
That thought has been given to take the players or the characters down a notch intentionally because they are getting arrogant worries me. But it seems to speak to this notion that somehow the player who kept his PC behind maybe got what he deserved.
I think both are a sign of an unhealthy attitude towards the players, that is antithetical to why you should be there in the first place. Nobody likes arrogance, but then getting even for it is a "two-wrongs-don't-make-a-right" situation. Likewise, somebody who seems like he is not going along with the plan may seem a pain, but getting even again - or even just letting him take his medicine - is not the way to handle it.
I would advise considering handling arrogance through the reactions of NPCs - preferably high-level ones - at the time the arrogance occurs, rather than scheming to deal with it with a big plot club. And I would advise finding some way to keep everyone involved, even when the party gets split up.
Bruunwald: Make no mistake, when they back talk their superiors, they suffer appropriate in-game repercussions. The problem is that, that friendly reminder rarely seems to last.
I think you ran a very good session there RD, I would have been happy to play that. One thing that does come to me is the fact you have some/one player that wants to do what ever they want, go anywhere at anytime. After all all adventures have to be railroaded to some point as with yours going into the goblin stronghold. The GM cant be expected to be able to have something planned for every situation the players come up with and they need to understand that.
As for the guest player I agree with Nipin, coming up with someway to try and get the other player to go with the party. But then you could again have been accused of railroading, some players are just alittle too confrontational.
You said you asked them if they enjoyed the game, but have you spoken to the players as to what they liked and disliked about the game? This could give you a better understanding as to what they are looking for and you can also explain why things cant be done if they come up.
P.S I will be stealing some of your ideas :p
Immortalis: Fair warning, some of "my" ideas were already stolen.
Some nice ideas but my players would skin me for it.
I would have at least entered an intelligent force behind it all (a devil is always good) aka the evil mastermind.
Thus when the PCs defeat the devil they have the feeling of having accomplished something great instead of having nearly died against a bunch of CR 1/3 monsters "unfairly" beefed out of propotions by the GM.
Also I tend to inform my players if they are about to make decisions that will likely result in not being able to participate for the rest of the evening ("you sure about staying outside becaue all the action is very likely to be inside?").
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The only thing I have to say is that if your players are getting arrogant they are not being challenged.
I do not think a bunch of newly trained Captains should be able to take on a general. A general is likely to be a very high level character and surrounded by a competent staff of fairly high level NPCs.
I like the scenario although I usually run a game that is more like an AP (last few years have run several APs). It would be interesting to do the military unit thing but it sounds more like wargaming to me and I am not a big war gamer...
I also get that the way around just a war simulation were the tunnels and saving the dwarf which I think was great.
The one thing that I notoced reading through that was that the goblins seemed to have prepared an aweful lot of traps for people coming from that direction that didn't seem probable given that until the army arrived they needed to move around that area. Other than that it all looked good (although the green slime taking out that much was a bit of a jerk aneuver, if a PC was carful enough to have his (presumably magical) shield there to ward off something falling, I'd rule that only the shield was destroyed).
I think it sounds awesome in theory. The story of it is certainly the stuff of legends.
However, I can easily see how it would be unbelievably frustrating to play through. Hell, they'd probably have been dead 3 times over if you didn't have two PCs with Fire Resistance.
I don't know, I would have enjoyed it had I known ahead of time it was going to be a "Tucker's Kobolds" sort of thing--if it was sprung on me with a character I cared about, I'd be far less enthusiastic.
Yeah, Goblins are actually not the ruling race on Golarion because they are too stupid, too easily scared and too anti-social.
And then suddenly they all grow into special ops agents or manic suicide bombers...
Ravingdork: "The game was initially meant to humble the players who, over the last four or five levels, had grown so powerful in the campaign world that they were openly challenging their own country's generals, wiping out local goblin tribes just for fun, and taking other in-game things completely for granted. I needed to do something in order to prevent further incidents of sheer, arrogant hubris."
I believe that out of game problems, like player attitudes (arrogance), should be discussed and solved out of game. After all you said you wanted to "humble the players" not humble the PCs, which is very different. I would just recomend talking to them out of game whatever is hurting your ability to enjoy the game and work on a solution.
I also had a question about Chandra as an efreeti (Ifrit) don't they have a much higher CR than the humans even though they have the same number of PC levels? Efreeti are CR 8 an equivalent to a human with 9 levels of PC classes. Maybe Ifrit is a homebrew race of something?
This sounds like an extremely fun scenario. Though perhaps a bit too gritty for my tastes (impalement, dismemberment, and killing children) it had variety of encounters and challenges along with chances for PCs to shine(silly goblins and their fire).
I would probably have had an NPC lieutenant come up to the PC who was trying to stay behind and assure him the camp would be well commanded in their absence and encourage him out of game not to split the party. Splitting the party is very frowned upon in my games and outside of downtime I openly discourage it. DM-ing for a split party is very difficult and is generally less fun for someone (and at times everyone) from my experience.
I have actually had a lot of fun, running games of a split party; but, a dm I know is really against it. Another, adapts as I do.
This opposed dm, seemed to view it as an insurmountable obstacle. Running two combats, multiple events at the same time? This bearded dm though, has run games for many years, so it was good to make a high DC profession: dm check and make it roll. Leaving my body behind, I was the world, npcs, and multiple combats across space and time (drugs? Who needs them?). Move and act players, I will be there. The trick was to keep the monsters simple and add a lot of description and meaning to what was around the players.
This other guy though, he doesn't like split parties. Problem is, the pcs often get pushed together, even when perhaps they shouldn't be, or want to go off and do a few things on their own. The party not being split becomes a bit of a sacred cow. It is however, inevitable.
Otherwise, I love the grit.
Arrogant players and player entitlement syndrome are problems every dm faces.
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Really most of the details of the game are not relevant to whether or not the game was a success. Bottom line, when you asked your group that this was designed for if they had fun they said yes. Believe them.
If you know them to lie to you often... well, stop playing with them, life is too short to deal with that. And if not, don't doubt them.
As for the guest guy... sounds like he was a bad fit for this group. Letting someone in who is whiney and not fun to hang out with is not someone you should game (or go to the movies with... see note earlier about life being too short).
There are even people that you enjoy hanging out with that are not going to be good fits in a group. It's okay to protect the cohesiveness and fun of the people already there and not let others in.
You had whole threads on designing this game, you worked on it a TON. Having a guest just show up out of the blue and expect that it be tailored for his type of fun when he is obviously not doing what the adventure calls for is pretty ridiculous.
In my opinion, the only fail part was taking on the responsibility for this guy's fun and then not delivering... shouldn't have taken it on.
Sean Mahoney
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First of all, if the GM let me play a cavalier knowing that I would likely be pressured to run through a bunch of horse-unfriendly tunnels after a bunch of NPCs I don't have any connection to, I'd probably be peeved too.
That aside, I'd probably have mixed feelings about the adventure. There's nothing specifically wrong with any of the traps and encounters, but it does have kind of a forced feeling to me. What was your plan in case they had avoided the gauntlet altogether? And what was your plan in case they had taken a different path through the tunnels instead of the one you listed? Or would you have just placed the gauntlet rooms in front of them in whichever direction they chose to move?
Having said that, I'm not an anti-railroad person; I don't particularly mind if the plot moves in a specific direction. I would just hope this was actually part of a larger plot and not just a one-off thing to say "Be more humble!!".
I would have had fun...
That said if I was GMing I wouldn't have let thousands of goblins simply die in a fire without having them at least try to either save themselves or go down fighting. To be truthful I probably wouldn't have used thousands as their number anyway. At those numbers they probably would have overrun and eliminated the human town long ago.
The dungeon crawl sounds fun however.
The measure of a good game:
Did your players say they had fun? If yes, then good game. If no, then not good game.
Leave the whiner out of it. Everyone's mentioned the few things you could have done to change his part (suggest a non-mounted character, tell him ooc that he'll be sitting out if he sits up there)
The rest of your players had fun. Success.
The measure of a good game:
Did your players say they had fun? If yes, then good game. If no, then not good game.
Maybe I'm unique, but I have been known to tell the organizer that an event was fun even if it was only fun part of the time.
I also had a question about Chandra as an efreeti (Ifrit) don't they have a much higher CR than the humans even though they have the same number of PC levels? Efreeti are CR 8 an equivalent to a human with 9 levels of PC classes. Maybe Ifrit is a homebrew race of something?
I'm pretty sure Ravingdork's use of Ifrit not efreeti was correct. They are a race in Bestiary 2, kind of like tieflings with an fire plane background. Here they are.
They are a CR 1/2 and have no racial HD.
Personally, I trust my players to tell me if they didn't enjoy certain aspects. If they tell me they had fun, I *gasp* believe them.
Honestly, coming on here to ask if it was a good game is largely irrelevant anyways. He should ask his players what they liked and didn't about his game, and converse with them like adults.
But since he's coming on here, all we can really do is tell him it was good or bad based on the info given. and the only relevant info to his entire post was that his players told him they had fun.
Well, I was originally going to answer the efreeti/Ifrit question but I was ninja'd. (Edit: Also, briefly mistaken due to avatar choices.) *shakes fist*
But while I've got the reply box open...
Most of what I would have to say about the game overall has already been said, but aside from the guy who kept his character out of the action and then complained that his character was out of the action I'd advise you to keep in mind that you'd be surprised how often players will find a session frustrating during and immediately after it but once they've had time to decompress will utterly love it. If they're still sore about it at the start of the next session, have a talk with them about it.
Also, I second the suggestion someone made about having an 'evil mastermind' NPC being somehow responsible for a lot of what's going on (it shouldn't be hard to retcon something like that into being). Just be careful not to have them come off like a GMPC and it will give you a lot of leeway to screw with them. Moo-hoo-ha-ha.
Also, if they need to be knocked down a peg or two, don't necessarily go about it by strength of arms. Put them up against someone or something they can't just kill or outmaneuver. A corrupt superior, someone they have to publicly respect but perhaps sabotages them because he feels threatened by their success, would be good for this. It's an oldie but a goodie.
I also had a question about Chandra as an efreeti (Ifrit) don't they have a much higher CR than the humans even though they have the same number of PC levels? Efreeti are CR 8 an equivalent to a human with 9 levels of PC classes. Maybe Ifrit is a homebrew race of something?I'm pretty sure Ravingdork's use of Ifrit not efreeti was correct. They are a race in Bestiary 2, kind of like tieflings with an fire plane background. Here they are.
They are a CR 1/2 and have no racial HD.
I appreciate the clarification Chavamana, thank you very much. I'll just go eat some crow over here in the corner now...
Careful. I think a few goblins have their eyes on that crow.
;D
Careful. I think a few goblins have their eyes on that crow.
;D
LOL!!!
Thanks everyone. A few points:
- I meant to say "humble the characters," not the players. It was late when I wrote that LONG post, and not everything came out quite the way I wanted.
- I considered telling the guest player not to make a cavalier, but I didn't want it to slip out that it was going to be primarily a dungeon crawl game (telling someone not to make a mounted character is kind of a dead giveaway). I threw in a bunch of outdoor encounters specifically for him, but he sabotaged himself at every turn because "it's what his character would have done." As the senior captain* of the quartet, rather than charge into the hobgoblin unit with his cavalry, he asked the summoner to fly in and blast the tightly packed group, citing "it is far less risky to our men." Later on, when they discussed how to go about dealing with the goblins in the forest, he wholly supported another character's forest fire idea as he saw it as the safest and most effective route to take--even though it basically put him on the sidelines (he could neither fly nor readily start large fires quickly).
*:I've played with this guy before and decided to introduce him as "a captain of equal rank, but with far more experience" because his characters always have a level head on their shoulders, often coming up with logical tactics and tricks, acting sensibly and appropriately as a situation warrants, and generally filling out a believable role--unlike my other players who are often completely crazy and like to surprise me at every turn. I figured it would contrast nicely with the others' personality types, and would cause them to defer to his "experience" in most situations. Turns out it did just that. I was quite proud of them all for their (in-game) cooperation.
- The dungeon did turn out very linear, which was unintentional. I was just so preoccupied with trying to build up a sense of dread and excitement that I forgot to make the caverns seem more maze-like.
- This is a homebrew campaign setting. My goblins are not necessarily as stupid or crazed as Golarion goblins. The stat block in the Bestiary tells me they have 10 Intelligence. Average humans have been making traps and using tactics like the ones shown above for hundreds of years. Why not goblins? Except for some of the mechanical doors and finger-slicing traps, much of the dungeons was VERY low-tech (and even the blade doors were simple spring mechanisms and counter-weights). The portcullis/sword room was originally designed to be a mechanical mouse-trap like device. In toned it down by describing it as goblins simply pushing them over. Much less techy that way.
- Thousands of goblins didn't "just die in a fire" (though many certainly did). They were routed out of the forest into a line of archers, pikemen, and flanking cavalry. The vast majority died at the end of a sword, or with a half dozen arrows in their chest., or under hoof. Heck, they even used carefully aimed catapults! It was kind of like modern soldiers charging at a group of machine gun nests. It was simple, effective brutality.
- Normally I don't doubt my players when they say they had fun, but their earlier comments and outbursts during the game makes me wonder if they were simply trying to spare my feelings. Hence the thread.
- I know many of the details in the OP are not relevant, but I wasn't about to pass up the chance to brag about a game I put so much work into.
Some nice ideas thought maybe the cavalier needs a corset that allows his horse to squeeze into tight spaces.
Thousands of goblins didn't "just die in a fire" (though many certainly did). They were routed out of the forest into a line of archers, pikemen, and flanking cavalry. The vast majority died at the end of a sword, or with a half dozen arrows in their chest., or under hoof. Heck, they even used carefully aimed catapults! It was kind of like modern soldiers charging at a group of machine gun nests. It was simple, effective brutality.
The analogy isn't accurate. I am going to guess that you didn't play out that battle. Thousands of goblins charging a readied line of a hundred better armed humans will probably result in a hundred dead humans and far greater goblin casualties, many hundreds for sure. But since they have thousands they would win by sheer numbers. Much like the tactics you used later they would be pulling down the humans and killing them. Even without tunnels numbers would allow this to be an effective tactic. Just the shower of rocks, spears, and poisoned arrows/darts from the more combat worthy of the goblins would be daunting for such a small armed force.
Normally I don't doubt my players when they say they had fun, but their earlier comments and outbursts during the game makes me wonder if they were simply trying to spare my feelings. Hence the thread.
Just to address this specifically...there are many times, specifically in gaming, where we're fairly miserable during play, but afterwards look back on it with fondness. Most gamers have that one game where they look back and go "AND WE WENT THROUGH HELL AND HIGH WATER TO PASS IT!!!" and they see it as one of their best gaming memories. Why? because the harder something is, the better feeling you have when you defeat it.
To me, there is nothing better than a huge challenge where I feel my character is outmatched and going to die, only to slide through based on my personal actions. Thats what these scenarios are about. I'd definitely see the complaints during your game as a sign of that, especially with everyone immediately after saying it was a ton of fun.
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I got to say I love a challenge that the party has to struggle to get through. Put us in severe danger, but if we play smart we should be able to come through bloody, out of resources and unbelievably thankful we are still standing.
If we make a mistake or two someone will probably drop. We make another mistake or two that person is probably dead.
Every game I walk into for the home game I am in, I have a back up character. If I have to break him out I will be surprised, but I will not be shocked.
It sounds to me like your goblin dungeon did just that.
Now to answer your question. I think the plan would have been to either railroad the guest into the dungeon. A goblin raid separates him and he gets captured, or someone else is grabbed and he is pursuing them and winds up in the dungeon. He falls through a sinkhole, whatever. At the bottom of that sinkhole he then has a choice. Climb out or join the party.
As far as the I don't want to do Tuckers Kobold's guy. I'd say bock bock bock booock!! What kind of hero are you? It's just a couple goblins. So walk into the bushes drop trow, find your b#*&%%#s and come on back and walk into the cave!
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Overall that's a fun "Tuckers Kobolds" style scenario. Tricky, but not impossible, and even hordes of goblins pose little threat to PCs of those levels. I'm sure there were aspects the players enjoyed.
Secondly, it's not railroading to say: "The adventure I wrote is here."
PCs can always just sit outside and have a tea-party, but I don't think there's much experience in that.
The analogy isn't accurate. I am going to guess that you didn't play out that battle. Thousands of goblins charging a readied line of a hundred better armed humans will probably result in a hundred dead humans and far greater goblin casualties, many hundreds for sure. But since they have thousands they would win by sheer numbers. Much like the tactics you used later they would be pulling down the humans and killing them. Even without tunnels numbers would allow this to be an effective tactic. Just the shower of rocks, spears, and poisoned arrows/darts from the more combat worthy of the goblins would be daunting for such a small armed force.
You're right, the analogy isn't accurate. I said soldiers were charging a line of machine gun nests, when it was more like unarmed civilians stumbling out in front of a line of machine gun nests.
Many goblins were woken up by the forest fires and were disoriented and unarmed. Most were "civilian" goblins fleeing in panic. A few soldiers were injured because a few goblins managed to raise and throw javelins before being cut down by arrow and sword. Most did not.
Also, thousands didn't rush out at once. It was more like groups of up to 100. The goblins were more or less dispersed evenly throughout the forest and thus came out in staggered groups when they were routed.
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So even though there was enough time for the goblins to come out in staggered groups of about a hundred (clearly the fires weren't very close then considering we are talking about thousands). Why didn't they use the same cunning they displayed in the tunnels? Even goblin children are dangerous if weak. It would have made more sense for the goblins to hang back in the trees till their numbers grew great enough to slaughter the humans. And since they had all this extra time they should have been armed with whatever was at hand... even if it was just throwing rocks. It sounds like you just hand waved the whole battle pointlessly. Reduce the goblin numbers to a few hundreds and play out the mass battle (allowing your bored cavalier to shine in his moment of glory). Who knows after the rush of such a fight maybe he would have happily followed the others into the tunnel... maybe... sometimes a player just can't be pleased.
mmm I read all your adventure, and globally I think you did a good job.
There are a couple of things that I would point out as a DM and a player:
-It was best to find an option for the cavalier to have the army leaded by some npc, giving him the excuse to follow the others. That being said, it looks like he was willing to stay out of the action so I would not say it's your fault, just you could have tried once more (I'm sure he expected to be playing a big scale battle, he chosen the cavalier for this reason, and was demoralized at the idea of being in a dungeon crawling adventure)
-I found it a bit 'forced', if I might say, to have all these traps, corrosive acids, hardened mud, a huge variety of situations to put the group in danger as in a SAW movie; let's say it was looking more as if a high level wizard invited adventurers to pillage his dungeons to enjoy watching them die in his traps, more than the goblin's tunnels and caverns!
-I found the acid's behave with the warrior a bit 'nasty'
that being said, I think you did a good job and ran a good session!
Military, dungeons, a lot of well thought traps and situations for the players to enjoy. Well done.
F
First of all, if the GM let me play a cavalier knowing that I would likely be pressured to run through a bunch of horse-unfriendly tunnels after a bunch of NPCs I don't have any connection to, I'd probably be peeved too.
Cav has that problem though. In tight tunnels, indoors, all your cav feats just don't matter (unless you are a halfling cavalryman on a dog, a brownie riding a border collie/reduced in size). I've been wanting to play a Mongol type horse archer through all his levels, but a lot of settings aren't that much into the outdoors for extended periods. Cav is a lot more suited to something like kingmaker, only parts of runelords and legacy of fire. Dnd really is pushed towards being an infantry with fantasy type game. You can push beyond that, but when dungeons come up, fighting inside castles, the cav character has to adapt, or they are choosing to be left behind. Then, it is not the dms fault. The sulking isn't much of an excuse, because you can always dismount, and only put some of your feats to the cav side, when it comes up.
First, the irrelevant...
...a high level wizard invited adventurers to pillage his dungeons to enjoy watching them die in his traps...
I am totally using this idea one day.
Now, the relevant.
The session as a whole transcends my experience as a GM given its massive scale, so I can't say I know too much about how things went down. But a two of my pet peeves did come up in your description.
-The player OOCly pointing out the Tucker's kobolds scenario comes to mind. It may be a minor thing, but these kinds of proclamations bother me. His justifications for not wanting to go in could have just as easily been done in character from the beginning, rather making a scene out of it.
-The guest player seemed particularly problematic. While it's important to stay IC, there comes times that arguments like "it's what my character would do" become excuses to fight the man by avoiding what he might have perceived as the campaign's rails. As a result, he was left out of what seems to have been the most (and perhaps best) thought out part of the game.
Frankly, I don't think you did "badly," as it's not always possible to cater to everybody's wants and needs.
Mahorfeus: The player with the outburst is pretty hot-tempered at times, true (to the point of having shoved me for a perceived insult once). I think he just likes to look tough and doesn't really mean any harm by it. I've seen his softer side and have never known him to ever advocate "real" violence, much less visit it upon someone. But yes, he is usually the first to start yelling.
I've more or less described the guest player in a post up thread already.
A friend of mine has put it well, roleplayers are sometimes the worst of people.
He is a roleplayer, he likes dnd, but he has seen some people just act so shamefully at games. We all want to come together and have fun, but sometimes selfishness takes over, or petty insecurities, or pride. That can tear groups apart, so good luck dealing with that.
I've had some players get so angry, become so enraged and offended, pure thymos at what they think is an attack on them, their player or what they are trying to make as a character (how dare you not allow this class/monster race!). Turns out, they weren't even listening to the specifics of what was being said, not hearing a warning of an alignment change in the future, instead hearing your alignment is being forcibly changed now. People get offended really easily, and as that song goes "some over fella is always in the wrong". But this is a whole other topic, but so much of a good game is managing people, and if you fail at this, the game can be looked down upon and collapse.
Worst example of player conflict ruining a game? Vietnam game was all going good, then at a party, one male player groped another female player. Who was not happy at all about it, and neither was her boyfriend, who also played in the game. I face-palmed, the dm face-palmed. The offender is his flat-mate.
Well, I DID alert him to the fact that small cavaliers were often desirable precisely BECAUSE they could take their class abilities anywhere.
Firstly I would have loved to have participated in this game. The dungeon crawl sounded awesome, so much that I'd like to request a PDF scan of it to run as a stand alone game for my regular group. If you would be so kind and generous Ravingdork!
Onto the primary question though, I don't believe you railroaded the characters at all.Why wouldn't the crafty goblins have their lair trapped for interlopers? It reads as a great dungeon bash, worthy of any infamous dungeon modules from yesteryear!
As for the cavalier, at some point I'd have thought the action ought have been played out above ground, maybe allowing the dungeon party to control groups of goblins and stage an attack on the above ground forces. This would then enable everyone to continue to be involved in the action without alienating anyone. And have given you the DM a break from the below ground action.
Sorry Bodrin, I rarely keep anything resembling meaningful notes when I GM. I merely open up the PRD in a few tabs for quick and easy rules references, and either rely on memory and/or winging it from there in order to get the PCs from point A to point B and/or from situation A to situation B. I find this somewhat free form style of GMing really works for me--though it rarely leaves me enough to sit and make a module out of.
This thread is easily the most in-depth information I would be able to offer you (and you are welcome to it). The only other stuff I have is a PC cheat sheet and a somewhat vague campaign outline (which doesn't even include this particular adventure).
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The attack never came. Instead, patrols and parameter guards began to disappear, seemingly at random. Finally, when Selfane went to check on one of his trusted lieutenants (who was standing guard near the parameter) the lieutenant (an much beloved NPC) fell through a sink hole into a small cavern below. As the party fighter, Hihachi, and Selfane rushed to get a rope and throw it down to their dwarven comrade below, he was dragged away out of sight by a large band of goblins who, judging from the mad shouts of the dwarven lieutenant, had suddenly popped out of a secret tunnel passage in nearby the wall.
I didn't read the other parts. For me this is where is went wrong. The sink holes and attacks from below makes it seem like serious railroading especially after they refused to go in the cavern. I say that because there was no indication that the goblins had such capability. When I try to spring a surprise like that on my players I give them a couple indirect clues and one direct clue (e.g. a sinkhole with bodies in it.) A smaller attack with the sinkholes near the edge of the forest might have given them an indication that there was an extensive cavern complex. I would have especially given them a good clue before the attack occurred.
Now you could have gotten them into the cavern by making the entrance and first few rooms really roomy and then spring a trap that drives them further in.
The other thing that bugs me is when the lesser races use what seems like advanced tactics and strategy. They have an average intelligence of 10 so they should not be doing anything too fancy generally. There can be elite groups that get really fancy and direct a few other groups. But in general I think their tactics should be poor and their strategy worse.
What would you have done if they HADN'T jumped down after the dwarf? Or just teleported out like you said?
As a player I would have enjoyed the session, but also have been frustrated. The PCs' choices for where to go next seemed a little constrained... this corridor or that corridor... The traps and encounters were clever, but they had a feeling of inevitability that would have offended my illusion of player choice.
Honestly, everything seemed fantastic to me with exception of the Cavalier at the top essentially doing nothing while the adventure went on below. Some have said that you should have convinced him to go down (or given him reason to), but I side more with those who said that it probably would have gone more smoothly had you given him some intermittent action up there.
My parties (I'm GM for my crew, as well) tend to split up often (it's a blessing and a curse with this crew . . . regardless of how bad things get when they do, for some reason they just continue doing it!), and I've found that the players have no problem with it so long as you give everybody some play time. In fact, often times my players will group up so that while I'm working with one group the other will roleplay amongst themselves based on what's been going on to them. For your crew, this may well have worked out well, as they could have been roleplaying as they traversed the dungeon while you were up top running the Cavalier through a combat scenario against the goblins. It could have helped keep your pace going and made all your players content.
Otherwise, I think I'd have loved to participate in this one. =)
The attack never came. Instead, patrols and parameter guards began to disappear, seemingly at random. Finally, when Selfane went to check on one of his trusted lieutenants (who was standing guard near the parameter) the lieutenant (an much beloved NPC) fell through a sink hole into a small cavern below. As the party fighter, Hihachi, and Selfane rushed to get a rope and throw it down to their dwarven comrade below, he was dragged away out of sight by a large band of goblins who, judging from the mad shouts of the dwarven lieutenant, had suddenly popped out of a secret tunnel passage in nearby the wall.I didn't read the other parts. For me this is where is went wrong. The sink holes and attacks from below makes it seem like serious railroading especially after they refused to go in the cavern. I say that because there was no indication that the goblins had such capability. When I try to spring a surprise like that on my players I give them a couple indirect clues and one direct clue (e.g. a sinkhole with bodies in it.) A smaller attack with the sinkholes near the edge of the forest might have given them an indication that there was an extensive cavern complex. I would have especially given them a good clue before the attack occurred.
Now you could have gotten them into the cavern by making the entrance and first few rooms really roomy and then spring a trap that drives them further in.
The other thing that bugs me is when the lesser races use what seems like advanced tactics and strategy. They have an average intelligence of 10 so they should not be doing anything too fancy generally. There can be elite groups that get really fancy and direct a few other groups. But in general I think their tactics should be poor and their strategy worse.
They did find sing holes prior to that scene. One of them contained the body of one of their patrolmen impaled upon the spikes.
RD YOU RAN A GOOD SESSION AND IF YOUR PLAYERS TELL YOU THEY HAD FUN THEN THEY DID. As for your guest player not being active he forgot you not him controls event. And maybe challanging them with a dragon and dragon minions shows there is more powerful creatures to challenge their power. Over keep up the good work.