Phelanar's Den

A couple of days ago ThadeousC posted a seemingly innocent tweet that asked the following: “In OD&D running from monsters is often a valid option over fighting, does it ever happen in your 4e game?”. The ensuing discussion was spirited and occasionally intense. I wanted to get involved, but 140 characters was far far too limiting for a topic such as this. So as part of a blog carnival, here's my own feelings on the subject. You can read Thadeous' post about it here at his blog.

Here's your blog carnival rules.

1. Your post must be on topic.

2. The first person in the list of bloggers who are participating who replies to each post will be responsible for writing the next piece. (Don’t reply if you are not ready to write it with in the next 24 hours.)

3. You must ad a link to all of the previous authors carnival posts at the end of your post.

4. No name calling.

What the question ultimately boils down to is that do you, as a DM, ensure that every encounter is level appropriate for PCs to fight? Or do you allow for there to be places, encounters, or situations where the PCs are over their head? It further begs the question of ~should~ you do one or the other on a regular basis.

To me, in D&D4e there's a definite feeling that the game wants you to use level appropriate encounters. Every fight should be one that the PCs can win. To that end they've even made some of their most iconic or interesting monsters available at a wider variety of levels so that, for instance, your group of level 5 PCs can fight a beholder or dragon without being in over their head.

This isn't a bad thing, necessarily. In many ways it's a good one. However, I think that in the end it makes for better storytellng, player immersion, and tension if you take away the safety rails and let players know that the world does not revolve around them. The campaign might, but the world does not. When a sign says "Here there be monsters", PCs should be appropriately cautious. Players should be nervous when they head in to a cave to negotiate with a dragon, not knowing if they're powerful enough to come out alive if things go badly. The tension and fear of the unknown can really make a good session into a memorable one and a solid campaign into a great one.

I'll use an example from an old 3e game I was in about 8 years ago. Our party was investigating a ruined city that was being used by an evil cult for nefarious purposes. Our goal was to get in, rescue someone, kill the cult leader if we could, and get out. We learned early on that if we were to try and fight our way through, we were going to end up stone dead very very quickly. So we used stealth, trickery, and well placed ambushes to make our way through the city, knowing that if we screwed up we were toast. The tension was incredible and the sessions were memorable, all because of the threat of doom hanging over our head.

I think that taking the safety padding off a campaign nudges some players to attempt things that they otherwise might not. After all, why would a group try to sneak through an orc stronghold if they can just kill everything in it? Why try diplomacy with the chief of the barbarian raiders if you know you can take him and everybody else in the camp in a straight up fight? It also brings up scenarios that might not come up as much in other games. The heroic sacrifice where a PC valiantly holds off a group of powerful monsters to let the others escape. A fighting retreat from an overwhelming horde of creatures. If every fight is balanced around the idea that the PCs should fight it and win, all of these things might never come up in a game.

However, even though I think it's a good idea to make a game world more of a living place that poses danger to the PCs, I think it shouldn't just be done on a whim. Not every group of players is going to take well to the notion that there are some places they shouldn't go until they're more experienced. They may not want that immersive quality, they may just like to kill things, or they may just want to feel more like high fantasy heroes. Not every campaign even needs to add the more sandbox styling that this adds. If your players are content to follow your campaign well and explore where you intend for them to do so, you may never need to consider what happens if they stray from that story path.

If you're going to do it anyway, make sure you give the players all the information they need to make good decisions and encourage them to gather as much of that information as they can. Let them know before the game even starts that you're going to have this sort of campaign.

Don't try and trick them or give them misleading information. If you throw a beholder at a level 5 party, don't try and make it seem like it's a level appropriate monster when it's really a much higher level one.

If they're going to stumble into the hunting territory of some horrid creature which would feast on their eyes and dance on their corpses, let them make skill checks to notice this. Let them make rolls to learn from a local village that the cave they're planning on going to is inhabited by an elder dragon.

Further, make sure to have an "out" built in to any particular dangerous encounter or area. Something that the PCs can do to emerge alive and (hopefully) wiser. To use the negotiations with a dragon example again, maybe if the PCs absolutely blow their diplomacy they can be spared only in exchange for doing an unpleasant or difficult task for the dragon. Powerful humanoid monsters or enemies may very well capture the PCs instead of outright killing them, allowing for daring escapes, rescues, or other plot twists. As Thadeous pointed out in his post, maybe the monster beating up on your players becomes a target by something even bigger and nastier. This will get the message across as to how dangerous an area they're in quite well.

If the players really are going to make a run from some big nasty that they've stumbled across, let them get away. Make it tense and seem like a close call, but let them go. Running away is a humbling experience in and of itself for most players. If you run them down while their characters are fleeing, there's a chance that people might get upset.

Even though you're making a world where PCs very well might run into something far too powerful for them, you should be careful to limit how many of these hopeless encounters the PCs get into. If players are running away or getting their ass kicked all the time, they'll feel less like adventuring heroes and more like a DM punching bag. The game is still about having fun after all.

Let me repeat that last phrase as my final point. The game is about having fun and everybody, DM's and players alike, should be on the same page before making such a change to what I feel is a primary assumption to D&D4e.

Other posts on the topic:
ThadeousC - Never Fear! Sandbox vs Safety Rails