D&D 5E When it all goes wrong

Reynard · Jul 8, 2024

First, duergar are slavers. A defeated party doesn't mean a TPK, it means being captured and forced to farm mushrooms or whatever.

Second, was the cave in a random event? A result of play? A railroad?

Broadly speaking, playing for keeps is a perfectly valid style but the players should know ahead of time that is what they are in for.

Ralif Redhammer · Jul 8, 2024

If you're feeling unsure about that session, it might be worth talking to your players about it. See what they thought about the session and use their feedback to make changes, if you need to. If it did indeed all go wrong, it's important to learn from what happened and use it to be a better DM.

I'm generally of a mind that sometimes you need to put the PCs through the ringer, and sometimes you need to throw them a softball so that they can feel cool and relax while thrashing some monsters. It's when every encounter is tough, or easy, that it's a problem.

Umbran · Jul 8, 2024

James Gasik said:
As for a plan, given that they had earned a long rest, they could completely tailor their spell lists (I have three prepared casters, a Fighter, and Sorcerer/Warlock) and they knew that they would probably have to fight their way out.

Yeah, but "fight their way out" is too broad for a plan beyond "Get 'em!" They didn't know how many forces, of what kind, with what defenses. They can't choose counters to things they don't know will be there, and so on.

Vaalingrade · Jul 8, 2024

Sorcerers Apprentice said:
D&D really needs mechanics to let the PCs be defeated in combat but not all die. Retreating or being taken prisoner allows the story to continue even if the bad guys won this fight, but the system makes a TPK the most likely result if the PCs lose in combat.

Currently working on it.

I've got a section for more interesting alternatives to death in defeat and then a Came Back Wrong mechanic where your character does die, but they come back... changed like you might be ghostridden, transformed by the elemental power that brought you back, etc.

overgeeked · Jul 8, 2024

Sorry, but I don't see where the problem is.

Things didn't go as you planned. Okay, that's par for the course with RPGs. This isn't a fail state. It's literally how the game works. No plan survives contact with the enemy. No, the players/PCs aren't your enemy. That's not what I'm saying.

The PCs nearly TPK'ed. Okay, sometimes that happens. This isn't a fail state. Even if they'd TPK'ed, that's not a fail state. It's a high fantasy game, you can bring those PCs back in a dozen different ways and continue the campaign. Or you can send another group to complete their mission. Etc. TPKs don't end campaigns unless you want them to.

No one did anything wrong. Not you, not the players. Set up the world and run it. That's all you have to do. Prep situations, not solutions. Solutions are for the players to come up with. And definitely don't prep plots. If the PCs decide to fight when they should run, that's on them. If they face-pull another encounter when they're already in the middle of one, that's on them. Either they'll learn or they won't. It's neither your job to punish them or be hard on them, nor is it your job to coddle them or take it easy on them. Moving encounters out of their way because they would have a hard time is just as bad as forcing encounters no matter what choices they make. They're both versions of the quantum ogre.

Sounds like a fun and harrowing experience.

James Gasik · Jul 8, 2024

Umbran said:
Yeah, but "fight their way out" is too broad for a plan beyond "Get 'em!" They didn't know how many forces, of what kind, with what defenses. They can't choose counters to things they don't know will be there, and so on.

I guess that's fair, though they did have the information gleaned by fighting the Duergar previously. Upon reflection, I was really hoping for more teamwork- each turn, each player kind of does their own thing, with the only exception being the Cleric and the Druid who will stop to heal party members once they've fallen down, lol.

Even though they could do things to support the group, sometimes they make these odd decisions, like the Druid casting flaming sphere in a tunnel and refusing to stop concentrating on it even after it did damage to an ally because they had nowhere to go to avoid it, or a similar scenario when someone used darkness.

You know, the little things the players do like not remembering how their abilities or spells work or forgetting "oh yeah, that monster resists poison damage" when casting a poison spell.

I suppose putting them in a dangerous scenario and hoping that would make them strategize better was very wishful thinking.

payn · Jul 8, 2024

James Gasik said:
I guess that's fair, though they did have the information gleaned by fighting the Duergar previously. Upon reflection, I was really hoping for more teamwork- each turn, each player kind of does their own thing, with the only exception being the Cleric and the Druid who will stop to heal party members once they've fallen down, lol.

Even though they could do things to support the group, sometimes they make these odd decisions, like the Druid casting flaming sphere in a tunnel and refusing to stop concentrating on it even after it did damage to an ally because they had nowhere to go to avoid it, or a similar scenario when someone used darkness.

You know, the little things the players do like not remembering how their abilities or spells work or forgetting "oh yeah, that monster resists poison damage" when casting a poison spell.

I suppose putting them in a dangerous scenario and hoping that would make them strategize better was very wishful thinking.

I think part of the mode of 5E is that players dont need to optimize team work. They will, of course, benefit from doing so, but its not going to TPK them unless they really ask for it.

Games like 4E and PF2 focus more on the PCs working together in combat and punish play that doesn't. YMMV.

James Gasik · Jul 8, 2024

overgeeked said:
Sorry, but I don't see where the problem is.

Things didn't go as you planned. Okay, that's par for the course with RPGs. This isn't a fail state. It's literally how the game works. No plan survives contact with the enemy. No, the players/PCs aren't your enemy. That's not what I'm saying.

The PCs nearly TPK'ed. Okay, sometimes that happens. This isn't a fail state. Even if they'd TPK'ed, that's not a fail state. It's a high fantasy game, you can bring those PCs back in a dozen different ways and continue the campaign. Or you can send another group to complete their mission. Etc. TPKs don't end campaigns unless you want them to.

No one did anything wrong. Not you, not the players. Set up the world and run it. That's all you have to do. Prep situations, not solutions. Solutions are for the players to come up with. And definitely don't prep plots. If the PCs decide to fight when they should run, that's on them. If they face-pull another encounter when they're already in the middle of one, that's on them. Either they'll learn or they won't. It's neither your job to punish them or be hard on them, nor is it your job to coddle them or take it easy on them. Moving encounters out of their way because they would have a hard time is just as bad as forcing encounters no matter what choices they make. They're both versions of the quantum ogre.

Sounds like a fun and harrowing experience.

It wasn't fun for me, I guess is the issue. Grinding my players into paste wasn't the intent, and I always worry that I'll start hemorrhaging players if things become too grueling. I wanted the session to feature other things besides combat, combat, combat- there are interesting places to see and explore in the caverns, and even if negotiations broke down, interacting with the duergar chieftain could have led to some fun roleplay.

Sure, there should be consequences for being too reckless, but without really thinking about it, I gave my party no option for retreat, because that's what I felt the Duergar would do. Players tend to not think about retreating until it's too late to begin with- here, I knew they wanted out of the dungeon, but instead I made it harder for them.

That's the kind of thing that might reinforce the notion that retreat is impossible, because it's already very difficult in a lot of scenarios.

James Gasik · Jul 8, 2024

payn said:
I think part of the mode of 5E is that players dont need to optimize team work. They will, of course, benefit from doing so, but its not going to TPK them unless they really ask for it.

Games like 4E and PF2 focus more on the PCs working together in combat and punish play that doesn't. YMMV.

Yeah, and I think I miss that, lol. 5e is pretty far down the list of the game I want to be running, but it's what everyone agreed on, so here I am.

MarkB · Jul 8, 2024

James Gasik said:
I guess that's fair, though they did have the information gleaned by fighting the Duergar previously. Upon reflection, I was really hoping for more teamwork- each turn, each player kind of does their own thing, with the only exception being the Cleric and the Druid who will stop to heal party members once they've fallen down, lol.

Even though they could do things to support the group, sometimes they make these odd decisions, like the Druid casting flaming sphere in a tunnel and refusing to stop concentrating on it even after it did damage to an ally because they had nowhere to go to avoid it, or a similar scenario when someone used darkness.

You know, the little things the players do like not remembering how their abilities or spells work or forgetting "oh yeah, that monster resists poison damage" when casting a poison spell.

I suppose putting them in a dangerous scenario and hoping that would make them strategize better was very wishful thinking.

One scenario won't get them there. To a certain extent, working together is an attitude issue, but it also just takes time to see how the party's abilities can synergise with each other.

Especially with spells, a player can see a shiny new option and get it into their head how perfectly it'll work for them, without having given much thought to circumstances and collateral. Generally, once the shine wears off they'll learn to use them more judiciously and tactically.

D&D 5E When it all goes wrong

Reynard

Legend

Ralif Redhammer

Legend

Umbran

Mod Squad

Vaalingrade

Legend

overgeeked

B/X Known World

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun

payn

I don't believe in the no-win scenario

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun

MarkB

Legend

Similar Threads

Voidrunner's Codex