Catastrophic Failure | Running the Game 

Yeah.... That lead my three level 1 players to stumble into a cliffhanger after angering a wizard and (by proxy) 13 skeletons...

The 4e Redbox has a solo adventure for you and your first player to build their character based on the actions they want to take. It begins with the PC in a horse drawn wagon next to the driver, who gets hit by an arrow and falls unconscious. What the player does next is supposed to help guide them down a path of healer (I cast lay on hands and heal the driver), some kind of fighter (I draw my sword and charge), offensive spellcaster (Magic Missile), or rouge/ranger (I throw a dagger or shot my bow or something). What did my first player want to do? Take the reigns from the driver, and start a chase scene to get away from the goblin bandits before they could steal the cargo. The box doesn't have anything ready for that, so I literally had to go off the rails from the first turn and we made a bunch of stuff up as we went before we could get back on track. I had the Monster Vault with the Essentials MM which had stats for a horse, made a DC for animal handling (knowing how to control the horse and cart), made a check for the cargo on the bumpy ride and so forth.

@@Alresu lx

I literally write two even three possible general outcomes to encounters. Even some non-hostile ones. Expecting players to go down one path can cause problems. I always try to leave elements of realism. Yea a knight or paladin has high AC and HP, but, if a player can “present” a situation where they may have advantage I go with it. I never try to limit things too much. My general thinking is as such: If an encounter or npc that is meant to further the narrative of the campaign is played out and they don’t get the info they need or whatever, I try to implement it in a cohesive coherent way natural to the story flow. Example, they kill important npc… maybe some drunk commoner has the same info. Or a shopkeeper. I admit, it’s hard if you’re not using modules (I’m not at the moment) but the potential for both the PC’s and the DM is only limited to your imagination. I genuinely may have to beef up some mobs because my players owned last session. But personally I don’t want a combat encounter to last too long. An hour and a half spent fighting one group in a six hour session is a lot of combat. Transversely, it must be long enough to give them the insight as to how to approach future encounters. Everything said, it’s a balancing act.

@@phishinround420 When I started seriously running games around 12 I used a few modules that were complete duds and haven't touched them since. I like setting up premises that can grow or contract to how I feel a game should go (full bore multi-year campaign or three session adventures) and then leaning heavily on improv. So heavily that at this point I only write setups and bad ends. Combat is tough. Continuity is my drug with D&D. The first time I cashed in on a year of subtle and pervasive foreshadowing that my players understood but didn't see coming was when I decided I was a tried and true Dungeon Master. But a part of this is the dice and stat blocks. If the rules aren't being used at a time when the dice can decide the direction a story goes I find that the DM has robbed everyone at the table of an integral aspect of D&D; everyone being shocked at what just happened. I find combat to be useful in three ways mainly; plot advancement (kill the lich!) precise gameplay (find the invisible rogue that stole your mcguffin before he gets away!) and most importantly; tension building. This is why I refuse to run modules. When you are tailoring a story to fit a group you can really get them to engage with it and as a result the combats themselves feel like the obstacles rather than the monsters in them. So hitting your party with a bandit ambush as they are on their way to confront Lord Voithos about the letter correspondence between him and the vampire they just slew feels like a lid being clamped on the boiling story-pot the tables abrewin'. The players fight desperately to get beyond the engagement and you fight back because the visceral moment to moment engagement pays off with every miss and crit while simultaneously increasing the stakes of the whole plot with every minute the party is dallied. Then, after the dust settles and the bodies are being looted they find orders to kill the party, signed with an ominous and obvious "-V". "That motherfucker! Verily we shall project some sharp words towards this lord!" This can backfire and/or lead to burnout, but after four years my party still has gut reactions to the phrase "loud buzzing" because of the time that I ran six consecutive sessions of trekking through the jungle, lost, encountering almost exclusively bugs. They got burnt-out, and when they realized it wasn't going to end anytime soon they were forced to set their jaws and persevere for the sake of survival. Its all about the kind of game you are running and how willingly the players (DM included) compromise and conspire for it's sake. Me and my long running players agree that combat, while slow, is a necessary sacrifice to charge the back-to-back-to-back roleplay sessions with an air of severity and as you said; realism. Sometimes that means a four hour combat sadly. EDIT: checking with my players after the fact, they think I'm onto something but overall say that its the way I bring realism to the battlefields I lay out (slopes, difficult terrain, verticality, unknown optional enemies, striking set pieces, ect)

He's a witch! Burn him! :p

Build a Bridge out of him!

He turned me into a Newt!

A newt!?

They got better...

Roger Sy 1,200 exp, he leveled his beard into LV 9 now

I know. Damn his player's are dumb assholes.

Warlord M woah. Wtf why

@@knightofglory5045 "Nobody goes to the privy..." is pretty much the same as saying: "Sorry, you are going to be arrested." People get nervous waiting to see the prosecutor for interrogation. Even if they expect to be a witness for the prosecution. So waiting to see them is a natural time to need to go.

Literally sounds like a monty python sketch

Godfather reference?

hahahahaha i had the same thought.

Have you got any post-D&D Sun Tzu quotes?

"I didn't say that." -Sun Tzu, D&D 6e

"The Druid can wildshape into a fucking Owlbear if I say it can" - Sun Tzu, Post- D&D

This comment chain is underrated

rule of cool says he can Sun Tzu, not just you my guy. It shall always be considered. @@gabrielforsberg8744

Thanks Kenneth. :D A lot of folks have said similar things but the problem is: my novels aren't lighthearted fun. The videos are entertaining, funny, edited to keep them engaging. The books have a lot of ethics and psychology and philosophy in them and they're about pain and death and no one ends up happy or together. So when people hear the audio they often respond with "Oh. Wow, this isn't what I expected. You're so much more animated in your videos!" Or "in real life!" or whatever. But that's really a reaction to the tone of the book. And that tone, I think, requires some acting chops. Which I ain't got! :D ALL THAT BEING SAID! I did do this over the weekend. www.squaremans.com/Priest%20Part%2001_01.mp3

Sweet! Super cool! Can't wait to listen to you in the shop tomorrow, man. Keep doing what you do, you're great at it. Thanks for the replies!

True story. I'm doing that now while world building for next years campaign.

Kenneth Lyon ik

Just a thought, but the classic novel Dune is nearly completely political intrigue and and inner monologue but it quite enjoyable as an audio book. I agree, my life in the armed forces doesn't allow me to really sit down with a book and so audio books are great. Give it a try and if it doesn't do well, I don't think you'll have lost much. Hell, if your just too uncomfortable with your voice acting, you might hire someone you do prefer

Also never be afraid to say something like "as an experienced fighter, your instincts tell you this situation is pretty dire" or whatever.

@@NevTheDeranged true, its okay to tell natural feelings. Thats literally part if insight. Intuition and natural instincts

​@@NevTheDerangedPassive perception is maybe the most underutilized DM tool. It's such a logical way to feed your players hints.

Task failed successfully.

Fair point. Though I will point out that everything before getting to the city was a kind of prologue as the internal city politics are the meat and potatoes of the campaign. Tom's character was always meant to be Boots (and no not like the memes about it) and Phil never wanted to be the leader which is why his character also dies at the earliest opportunity. But as I said it's a bad way to frame a concept that you have issues with in your own DMing style.

Yuuuuup

guilmon182... hell, yes. As soon as I get money (I am broke and unemployed), I am buying this man's fiction work. (Not audio books, however. He talks too fast!😃)

It's brilliant really, they achieved a super unique outcome. At the time as Matt says it probably didn't feel this way. But to us this is a great unexpected outcome. Bad outcomes can be just as entertaining as good ones if you know what you're doing.

Sure but he didn't make the mistake, they did and they need to learn from it.

@@sploofmcsterra4786 They all do. Its a collaborative experience, after all.

@@sploofmcsterra4786 ahh yes shame new players for making a mistake in dnd...a hobby they are new to...just like kids need to be shamed for making anatomy mistakes in art desite being new at it...definitly not a toxic mindset made from a lack of empathy for new players.

@@sploofmcsterra4786 How did they make the mistake? Literally Matt's point of the whole video is that he didn't explain how he ran games, and that he hinged the experience on expected players acting a certain way and forgetting how players often act and react to circumstances, especially those that are intended to be out of their control or having a fixed output.

@@tylerp.5004 the only mistake I see them making is not asking the dwarf player what they learned why they got on the horses, just hearing it might've changed everything. But I can't blame them for it.

Something similar happened in a game i played in. We were a group of 7th level adventures on a mission from a secret agency to investigate a cult, which was said to have an ancient artifact of definite destruction. An agent from the secret agency had set us up with an informant from the cult, in the nearby forest, in 3 days. Next session, our DM described to us, as we entered this corrupted glade, with skulls on pikes surrounding it, we saw in the middle were 2 hooded figures. One of them a hunchback. My character, a human vengeance paladin, immediately sensed strong evil as he neared the one standing upright and put a single hand on the greatsword at his back. We started a conversation with him, and after a bit of back and forth, he gave us an ultimatum. If we wanted any information from him, we had to give him something in return. He then looked at me for a couple of seconds, as if sizing me up. "And what do _you_ want?" he asked me. I grunted at him and said we were here for the information we had been promised. "No, what do you _really_ want?" he answered, "My lord is capable of granting any wish or desire one might have, mind you". A sinister smile had begun to form on his face. My paladin, not the sharpest tool in the shed with his 8 int, told him a bit of his backstory and how he needed to get revenge on a gang called The Frosty Boys. "Ah, revenge... I'm sure my lord would see to it that you had some help from him in some form. However, as I'm sure you know, nothing in this world is free..." He stretched his right arm out towards me. A piece of parchment was birthed from flame in his palm. "After you sign this contract and 3 moons have passed, He will come to you in your sleep. Oh, and don't worry about what this says, it's just a formality." One of other PCs placed his hand on my shoulder. "Wait a minute, at least think abou...". Too late, I had broken free and was already signing the contract with a pen very kindly distributed by the cult guy. Afterwards, he gave us the information we needed and wished us good luck with our mission. To not make this much longer, I have to boil the story down a bit for now. Throughout the rest of the campaign, I had a pact with Asmodeus, and I was now part warlock. At the climax of the last dungeon, the main stronghold of the cult, Asmodeus came to me and said that I would be made lord of a quarter of his realm if I hindered the party. In the final room stood a cult leader guy (he wasn't really important) and Asmodeus said GO. Ultimately, I was slain, the cult stopped and the artifact, which was revealed to be a Monkey's Paw, was turned over to the secret agency. The remaining party members were paid a huge sum by for the completed mission. As a new player, this was fucking amazing to be a part of and I hope other people have similarly awesome experiences in DnD. Sadly the group parted ways and I can't find new one. Well this was a block of text, but fun to write. Thanks for reading!

Rule 0 of DMing: it's always the DM's fault. In a situation like this, Matt was the only person who had all the pieces to know what was going to happen, so he was the only person who was in a position to intervene to keep things from falling apart. Of course, even he didn't know how things were actually going to go, but he was the person who could notice that they weren't going like he expected. On the other hand, while, in the moment, it definitely would have felt like a disaster and a failure, the final outcome is anything but a disaster - everyone's got a story they'll be telling for years, the players have connected more with the campaign lore, and the heroes achieved their objectives (albeit at a higher price than they might have preferred)

DnD Basement Okay, if the DM and the players have the same ideas about how the world works, and how a given NPC will react to a given situation, then the players should be able to reliably predict the outcomes of their actions, and bear primary responsibility for keeping unwanted outcomes from happening once the DM has explained the situation to them. The catch there is that the DM has to explain the situation to the players well enough for them to understand it well enough to be able to anticipate the consequences of their actions. That doesn't even sound simple, let alone being easily done. Scenario: the players' third-level characters enter a room occupied by several heavily armed men wearing unfamiliar armor. There's a tense silence broken by one of the characters stepping forward and saying "hello". Unfortunately, it turns out that the armed men are high-level warriors and the Common word for "hello" is a deadly insult in their native tongue. A brief demonstration of advanced combat capabilities later, and the party is rolling up new characters. I hope we can agree that in this situation, the DM bears some responsibility for the TPK... More generally, it's the DM who is primarily responsible for the success of a given session - not success or failure in terms of slaying dragons (or whatever the party's current goal may be) but rather in terms of everyone enjoying themselves and feeling like the game was fun to play - the DM gets that responsibility partly because they're the person who can do most to influence things, and partly because they have the most information about what is or might be happening in the game. If things go wrong, almost all the time, the DM is not clear of all fault.

DnD Basement Sure, the players misunderstand things sometimes, but that misunderstanding comes across in their actions. In the misread hostage situation, when the guy declared his intent to shoot the rescued prisoner, the DM had the opportunity to get him to hold off on rolling and check he knew what he was doing. On the other hand, that sort of confusion is exactly what happens sometimes in real life - it's a tense situation, someone thinks they see a weapon, and someone ends up shot. When it isn't something that's all over in an instant, if the players are misunderstanding something significant, then it is going to turn up in their actions and their discussions - and it's the DM who knows the actual facts that he intended to convey, so it's up to him to correct matters (either by making things clear(er) to the players, or by changing the facts behind the scenes) - if he does it right, the players may never realise they misunderstood something... As for Matt's situation, I disagree that the players believed that they had to sacrifice a character - they may have had a plan for the paladin's escape that would have worked if he hadn't been summarily executed, or they may have believed that they could stage a daring rescue at the public hanging, but they definitely weren't expecting the guard to murder the paladin immediately. If they'd known that the guard might kill an unarmed prisoner, they probably would have tried something different, and the result would have been something different. The failure was not in the players reactions to the world they thought they were in, nor the DM's handling of the events of the world he thought they were in, but in the DM's failure to tell the players the sort of world they were in - one where surrender is a viable option, but death is a real possibility, but also where death is not the end.

DnD Basement Yes, I do believe the DM should always work for the players' benefit, but that's not the same as working for the characters' benefit - the DM's goal should be for everyone to have fun and enjoy creating a good story. That doesn't mean describing everything in detail, but it does mean making sure that the players have the information they need to make their characters' decisions intelligently. You don't have to tell someone they're facing a high-level vampire, but if you're going to let low-level characters walk into a room with a high-level vampire in, you should have a good reason why the vampire's there - and that reason will shape what information you should give the players, and how. As DM, you can have a room set up with an undetectable trap that will instantly kill anyone in the room 30 seconds after the door is closed which wipes out the entire party with no chance for them to avoid it. It'd be pretty lousy DMing to do that, but it's an option that's always open to you. As for your executed prisoner, I did say that in real life, that's the sort of mistake that happens in that sort of situation, which I intended to convey that I thought letting the guy shoot the prisoner was a reasonable choice in that situation. Here's another scenario to consider: The palace is a prominent landmark, clearly visible from most points in the city, and from the surrounding countryside for some distance. As the party arrived in the city the previous day, they picked an inn on a street with a clear view of the palace to the east. The next day, the party leaves the inn, with a stated intention of going to the palace, they stop outside the inn to check their surroundings and estimate how long it would take them to reach the palace on foot. The party leader, a ranger with ranks in navigation and a map,says its time they got moving to get to their appointment at the palace and, glancing at the map on the table, the player says "okay, we set off west along the road". Should the DM say anything about the fact they're headed away from the palace, or should he just let the players do what they said and not mention what should be completely obvious to their characters? Based on what you /said/, you would let them walk out of town and not do anything until they run into a random encounter or something - you told them what their characters saw already, and it's their mistake. If that's actually what you'd do, then I agree that neither of us should play with the other. Me, the moment it's obvious that the players stated actions are inconsistent with their stated intentions given the information they have, I'd query it and probably remind them of the information. In this case, I'd probably say something like: "Okay, you turn your back on the palace and start walking toward the city walls." expecting them to realise something's wrong and interrupt. You don't tell the players every detail, but the characters, who've grown up in the world, will know all sorts of things about the way the world works that you just don't have time to tell the players in advance. If some of that information becomes relevant, then it's absolutely the DM's responsibility to share it with the players. For example, if the characters know that they're in a world where armed warriors standing guard over condemned prisoners who've just insulted them and who may be able to escape by unknown means if you take your attention off them, warriors in that position are liable to kill the prisoner rather than risk another escape. If the characters know that, then they might not be so keen to insult the armed warrior guarding them and a companion so that the companion can demonstrate their ability to escape without trace. And if the characters know that about the world, it's the DM's responsibility to make sure that the players have been told that at some point before they find out by one of their characters being killed in that manner. That doesn't mean that they can't kill the character off - just that they should tell the players that their characters can die if the situation warrants it.

DnD Basement The example isn't something that's actually happened - it's something I made up to illustrate my point more clearly - the map was overkill, but it was in there to make it 100% clear that the player was making a bonehead mistake, despite having all the information to make the right one - simply because he confused east and west. I've played games where the DM conspires to avoid player death, games where a couple of bad rolls mean it's new character time, and games where incidental encounters can't kill you, but plot-relevant choices can. All of them have been good in different ways. Minor point about the prison: I strongly disagree that, when chained against the wall, it can be said to be a mistake to stay where you are rather than use abilities you don't have in order to phase out of the manacles (or whatever else you think the Paladin should have done to get away from the guard). You enjoy approaching combat as a strategic exercise; I've played with groups that just enjoy rolling big numbers and mowing through enemies - and where taking ten minutes to decide the best tactical option is regarded as bad role-playing because you couldn't stop a real fight while you decided what to do next. The important thing is not how the group has fun, but that players and DM have a common set of expectations of how the game works, so they can have fun together rather than being miserable at cross-purposes...

Absolutely... they were told point blank: DO NOT TAKE THE SHIELD TO TOWN. They took the shield to town. At that point they could have been accused of being in league with the people who killed the baron, since none were trying to claim the title. Why carry that thing to town if you aren't going to claim the throne?

Exactly. The DM creates the setting of the adventure. If the players are gonna make poor decisions or not pay attention, then they should be accepting of the consequences.

At the same time though it may have been still poorly communicated by the DM. Like sometimes this stuff gets lost between the DM and the players even though it would be obvious to the characters that (for example) some fight is unwinnable. Or that some characters are shady AF. I would personally - before the fight for capture - make it clear that the characters winning is an extremely unlikely scenario, and that they know it. "Are you sure you want to do it this way?" That'd give them at least *some* option to abort at the last minute after everything else failed. Same for the jail scene - make it VERY clear that the players are putting their characters' lines at stake and if anything goes even a tiny bit wrong they WILL die.

He was justified...

@@fhuber7507 johnny gnome cash sang " don't take your shield to town boy "

We only hear his side of the story though, so of course we will assume that his version of events is the correct one. It's quite possible the players were doing their best in their circumstances. Sometimes allowing players pure free reign just means they end up doing dumb things. And not telling them beforehand this is how he runs his campaign might also have clued us in that there wasn't a lot of communication going on. Added on to this some of the players were first timers you can start to build a different picture about what was going on. Some of the players were just entirely ignorant as to how the campaign might end. Some literally didn't know that a character's death doesn't mean the end of a campaign.

Many of the players here were playing D&D for their first time. Also Matt's talking about things like session zero and communicating expectations which is both necessary and easy to forget about. At the end of the day if you are still willing to play with the DM after words you probably don't blame your DM all that much and you still trust them. Also if somebody is conveying their sense of guilt or culpability and you decide to respond with a no you aren't listening to what they're saying to a degree.

I think one small tweak which would have saved it would have been to swap to the Dwarf's perspective once the two were captured. According to his retelling, it went from fight to them being held captive (1d4 hours RAW I believe). The dwarf could have gotten in to find them unconscious, perhaps even rallied with the party members who escaped. That way it would have not led to the party members being held prisoner, which suggests they should try and escape on their own. If someone is coming to help them, their idea would be to just wait, or do something which could get them killed. Now, hindsight is 2020, not to discredit Matt, but perhaps it was not handled in an ideal way.

@@Fam0usFarm3r He said the other players met up with the dwarf player, and when he tried to tell them about the key they basically said "we don't care we are running." Maybe he should have stayed with those members of the party, but the players were basically panicked and not thinking straight at that point. A better thing to have done is called a 5 minute break, calm everything down, and start with the free players after the break.

I wish I could even get a group together to play anywhere. Being an adult really sucks sometimes.

I wish I could play on the clock at work.

@@tidioute06 I recommend you visit roll20.net, a website where D&D can be played online. It also has a forum for DMs to look for players, or players to look for DMs :).

@@tidioute06 one of the big things people forget about being an adult is " you set the rules and how your life gose" if you want to do something you must make time for it

I literally changed my workplan around playing every Wednesday lol

Right but the DM said earlier that these knights just wanted to keep them prisoner until dawn to hang in front of a crowd. Given that they play a very sandbox style it's possible the players imprisoned felt they had no choice but to try and break out when they had a chance. When the wizard insulted the guard he might have expected a combat encounter with the guard but instead the guard just strolls up and executes the player. Or he might have expected the guard to give him a beating. he might not have expected the guard to be an evil paladin. He might also have expected the druid to try and bail him out and gang up on the guard. or hoped that he was just providing a distraction for the druid to escape so he could get to the rest of the players to stage a breakout attempt in the night. Straight up executing him for reasons unknown to the players here wasn't a mistake exactly, the DM tells us this was how the Paladin would behave. But somewhere along the line someone didn't communicate what they were trying to do.

The issue with your opinion is that you have forgotten Matt's own words, that he very rarely tells the players why an NPC would act the way they did. He did decide to share as tempers running hot to open up and explain but one should never expect that from the DM. The guard in the story was likely to simply rough the wizard up a bit. It wasn't until the druid escaped that the guard felt pressured to prevent any further escape. A logical reaction if you take a minute and think what would happen if you do action X. It is not the DM's job to give detailed insights to the inner workings of every NPC. Some common sense is expected from the players.

@@lordhawkeye I'd have combat begin, give the prisoner disadvantage at initiative, so that I never, ever take away the agency of the player. You want to execute the player, DM? Then just like the players, you have to earn it.

@S R Exactly this. It doesn't make sense to me for the guard to execute the wizard considering they want to frame them and publicly hang them specifically to pin crimes on them. Wouldn't executing the wizard make her boss even more upset? But it makes sense in the way that she's evil and when she's angry she might do drastic things.

@@Sh4rkQueen Players need to understand that there's this thing they need to do: Trust. If you're not going to trust your DM or feel like you cannot trust your DM: Find a different group. D&D isn't a PC RPG with poor AI where every NPC follows a strict set of logic. They can have their own reasoning and decisionmaking. I think it's good that Matt's group talked it over and that the players told him to let them be mad for half an hour. I see no fault from Matt's side.

+kikedragoon Agreed. They weren't picking up what he was putting down. He gave them clues as to what was going on, they didn't bother to investigate/question their motives, but that may be b/c they are inexperienced. They didn't know how they should have been acting, and didn't realize they were getting into trouble.

They were planning to run at some point, which would have been the best course of action. They just decided not to, it's not like they were forced.

I think the point is that the game is for the players. If the players aren't getting it, and they aren't having fun because of that, then the DM is doing something wrong. (At least that's what I've picked up from Matt's videos.)

Yes. Even if something is overwhelmingly obvious to yourself as the DM or even a casual observer, that doesn't necessitate the players will notice. D&D is not a game about being right, it's a game about having fun, and your job as a DM is to entertain your players, not punish them for bad decisions. By all means, let bad decisions play out, but try to drop hints to your players when they are on a roll of bad decisions they may not be (or don't seem to be) aware of. The way I will typically do this is when I feel something is character knowledge, but the player isn't aware of it, I will have them roll often an intelligence or wisdom check, whatever seems most applicable. Charisma if it relates to a social encounter. I'll then use the results of that roll to relay some sort of hint to them. For memory I'll typically use wisdom. Rolls aren't always needed. If it's something that character clearly knows, I can just tell them, "By the way, you know this." If it's something they may or may not know, or something they probably know but may or may not remember it right at this crucial moment, I'll have them roll for it. Bottom line, inform and engage your players. Telling them once isn't always enough to inform them, and there's no fun or point in faulting them for a missed communication. It's not about fault. It's your job to inform them, and if that fails, just keep trying.

Ah, good, I thought it was just me.

Luke True, but the players being new to D&D and not knowing the DM’s style may have contributed to them feeling like they had no agency. My group of third level adventurers just picked a fight with a death knight and were surprised they lost. They had assumed I wouldn’t put an adversary in front of them that they couldn’t face. Fortunately, I had planned for them possibly making that choice, so even though we almost had a permadeath through a botched death save, the death knight didn’t even see them as enough of a threat to make sure they stayed down.

@@Seoulwanderer I assume asking the players "Do you surrender or do you attempt to resist ?" before the combat start would have put the idea of surrendering as an option in their mind.

@@vukkulvar9769 What happened is that they inadvertently caused the awakening of this death knight who had been slumbering for centuries. The death knight didn't care about them, he was just going to walk out of the tomb. The wizard player positioned himself in the doorway of the tomb so the death knight just cut him (and the thief who was also in the way) down and kept walking. I thought with all the build-up and clues that they'd realize a death knight was a bit above their challenge rating but nope. They went for it. It was a sobering moment for them (which I think is a good thing).

​@@Seoulwanderer I agree.

@@Seoulwanderer "They had assumed I wouldn’t put an adversary in front of them that they couldn’t face." This right here is *exactly* the meta-gaming that the DM guide warns against. This is the thing that so many people don't realize when it comes to meta-gaming. People come in with the perception of "this is a game that our friend designed for us to win." Whereas in reality, the game is only designed to be played, and can very well be won or lost. People think that because this is a game where they only have one life that there should always be a way out. Sometimes the way out of the prison was to avoid going to prison in the first place.

I'm guessing the wizard wasn't expecting to die right there and was thrown when he did. Given the DM said earlier "these guys don't want to kill you, just kill you at the next day at dawn" suggests the wizard had some free reign to try another breakout attempt later on. I think up and executing him on the spot was out of left field for him in that moment.

I know this is thread necromancy, but I agree with you so much I had to post. Maybe it's a cultural bias - I'm from a culture that values noble suffering and considers making the ultimate sacrifice ultimately honourable - but I would have absolutely loved the character's arc as described. Yes, I would be upset at his death and I would mourn him, but I would never forget this RP experience in the way one forgets much longer lived chars that just murder-hoboed through to the end game.

+LordSephleon Are you me? Seriously, all the stuff that you just wrote could have come straight out of my mouth. The only thing I would say Matthew did wrong was not telling the players in advance what kind of game he runs. I always tell my players before campaigns: "Look guys, I am going for a realistic game world where NPCs have their own personalities and agendas and many things are happening at the same time. Your characters are not the centre of the world unless you manage to make them the centre of the world. I will make it hard for you to win, but not impossibly so. And I will give you all the options you want as long as you earn them in character." That said, I do mostly play with experienced players. While I do play many oneshots with new players I tend to only play campaigns with people who have played at least a couple of years already. That might be a mistake on my part, but currently that is how it is. I agree with you, LordSephleon, on the last paragraph 100%. I run my game worlds as giant sandboxes. The current one is the size of a continent (although realistically it is more like 3-4 realms that the PCs can experience at the moment, but that is still very big). My players enjoy the freedom and feel of a living, breathing world, although that sometimes means that they will be hit with nasty things without them being to blame. I hate being accused of railroading. Of course I do it sometimes, but only whith minor things. The pride thing is definitely something that happens to me too. There is a voice in my head sometimes screaming "How dare they ruin MY game? Ungrateful players!" And even though I know rationally that it is the players' game as well and I am doing it so that they have fun with me that voice is not always easy to silence...

+True Mask Games I also play with experienced players. Longtime group of 20 years, actually. Unfortunately, we each want something different out of our games nowadays (me being the most passionate about gaming now) and it has become harder and harder to run games for them as time goes on since my tastes (heavier on roleplaying with less frequent but more dangerous combat, grim/dark fantasy, horror, investigation, exploration), have sort of turned me into the black sheep of the group even though they still consider me to be the group's main/primary DM. Hmm... Perhaps someday we should join forces and lay the epic story smackdown on some poor PCs. Or I could just play in one of your games, or vice-versa. :)

LordSephleon That sounds very much like my story, although I have to say that I am fortunate enough to have atleast half a dozen people who like my games, so I continue running them! :) You are welcome to join one of my online-oneshots anytime! I have recently started running one nearly every week!

....we shall talk. :)

Added you in a circle with my actual Google+ account. The account with Lord Soth as the avatar. :)

Arizona Jonson... all life is God playing D&D. (He's a horrible DM.)

According to "The X-Files", there are aliens that pretend to be people so they can play baseball. Sounds like aliens don't have a good home life, and need to visit us for fun.

@@irosencrantz882 Funny, most of the problems come from the players being wangrods to each other. :)

I know this is from 4 years ago, but I love *"Illuminato confirm",* it made me happy

@@arigadatred5395 illuminato

Exactly. Honestly to me it made less sense, logically, to kill him. Emotionally it does make sense though, and realizing you shouldn't while trying to be in character in the moment can be hard.

Think it was perfect. Phil had already called him out multiple times for taking it easy. There was a cost to the heroic action. I think going forward the players will never forget to not take their actions frivolously.

That won't work. Once I ran a Blue Planet campaign where six players were discovered infiltrating an enemy base, and amongst them they had one gun, one crossbow and one could spit acid. Two battle helicopters were lifting off and aiming their missile launchers at them, and they were still rushing to get within battle distance... All the while I was thinking "Why aren't you running? is it still not obvious that this is hopeless?".

​@@NikkiWolver Yeah, sometimes even that is not enough. E few years back I simply told my players: "Just because I put a dragon in your path doesn't necessarily mean I believe you can defeat a dragon. It migth be there for numerous other reasons." That has actually let to a few situations, where PCs run away from fights I was planning on (because my decribtions were a bit too dramatic). But I can much better adjust the plot to such behavior than to them blindly running into their deaths.

No, a DM never has to describe the situation so that they understand the gravity. Your advice is a terrible one. The players take the lion's share of the blame for not paying attention, not listening to advice given and not reading the scene when things got weird. By taking your stance the players will continue to play assuming that the DM will never try to trick them, only protect and cradle them from anything serious when it is warranted. And that is exactly what happened. Those players didn't think this might be a trap due to the assumption "The DM will let us know if we are being trapped".

@@lordhawkeye no, what he meant was about the right communication, not telling everything going on. The players had no clue because of inexperience and this inexperience led to them not having any clue what is actually described to them. They would most likely had acted differently if what mat said actually got understood.

I agree here, my players snuck into a Dwarven fortress that had been captured by Goliath’s and they were trying to retake it. Before the session began I explained exactly how dangerous of a situation they were in. They re evaluated and decided to do as much damage as they could without being too far from an escape route and they lived.

Yeah, I couldn't help but think as Matt described the scenario, "you telegraphed the stakes and their implications on multiple occasions", letting the players make a poor decision is still allowing player agency. Players actions (or inactions) should have consequences.

Nerdarchy Well, fancy meeting you here...

Thing is, as Matt explained, it's overwhelmingly hard to put a player in a fight scenario and expect them to surrender, no matter how obviously outnumbered the players are, how many signs you give, and that's a shame.

I know this is an old thread, but it's actually fairly understandable why people would feel this way. As was repeated several times in this video, these guys are mostly new players. They probably never even considered retreating or surrendering as an option, not necessarily out of stubbornness but because this is a game, and we typically approach games with the mindset that they're meant to be beaten. The player characters are the heroes and the heroes always get the girl... or get away from the girl as the case may be here. If you were playing an analogous videogame, for instance, you'd never be able to get into that prison in the first place unless there were an easy and near-immediate way out that was clearly communicated to you. When they get more acclimated they'll probably remember to think more real-world-y and less video-game-y and they'll get themselves into less no-win situations as a result.

video games do that to you all the time, and no one likes it either.

I know this is a comment from 2 years ago but I would do the following: If the players are about to die just straight up ask them "do you want to keep this character or would you like some divine intervention to keep them alive? Perhaps you might enjoy making a new one with the quest to avenge the fallen player character?" Different people will have different preferences though. So it's a good idea to explain up front how death works and have a discussion about if the players are comfortable with their characters dying in dangerous situations or not. Just a quick 30 minute chat about this could help reduce some of the tension and fear of losing a character someone spends a long time working on. But at the end of it all, it's entirely up to you as the DM what occurs. It's your world to show off, if the players dying gives more richness to the story then by all means throw the hammer down on them when they screw up. Just make their deaths mean something, give them some narrative purpose in the grand scheme of things. Even if they only live on in a magical item or a memory of a loved one.

Also, for the record, as a player I am usually the first one to bring up the idea of surrender if things are going south - at least if it seems like that's a viable option. I get what you're saying about "it never works," and that even you as a player have a hard time allowing your agency to be taken away, but I think it comes down to whether you can relinquish control for a few minutes. It's doable. Really not that bad. Fun sometimes even.

+Gavin Ralston I think the DM of any group often ends up being whichever one is most well read.

It was cool how that worked out. Credulous party hands over damning evidence, then betrayed by the authorities and framed. I think I'd dig this way of winding up without gear and spells than I would be with the usual "So you're shipwrecked on an island..." introduction that most published adventures take. Speaking of which, thanks for finally reminding me to open up and read my Night Below box. I've been putting it off for a few decades.

"What kind of character, what kind of person commits to a new ally every time an old one dies?" Answer: The Doctor's travelling companions

I know this is 11 months later but I’m resurrecting this comment both because I think it may help you and because it may help someone else who reads your comment and relates to it. I think there is a mismatch between what you want from the game and what the other player wants from the game. You want to experience the process of building trust, of playing your character and interacting with other characters and forging a bond together. The other player doesn’t seem to want that. They want to already have the trust of the other characters so they can show off and do cool stunts and try new things. That’s why this guy is always rolling new characters, and why he always expects to be integrated into the party immediately with no problems - because he’s not interested as much in the “forging a bond” part of the game, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone plays the game for different reasons. I’d be surprised if you’re still playing with this guy, and if you are, even more surprised if you haven’t fixed this problem yet, but for anyone else who’s reading and wants to figure out what to do, the solution is this: talk to the other player. Tell them how you’re feeling, that you’re frustrated that they keep expecting that you’ll just accept them when their previous character just died or abandoned them or whatever. LISTEN to their point of view, and work out a compromise. Maybe they didn’t think of it that way before, or maybe you just have to deal with (in your mind) an unrealistic situation so that everyone can keep having fun. Maybe this isn’t the right group for you or for them, and that’s fine. But don’t blame other players for having fun in a way that’s different from yours, especially if they’re ruining your fun unintentionally. If they are doing something to intentionally spite you, or if you talk to them and they say they’re going to change their behavior and they don’t make any effort to change, those are completely different situations. But it sounds like these two players are just approaching the game from different angles, and there’s really nothing wrong with that.

@@elizabethlockhart2103 in the end, he left us for Pathfinder. After committing to the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, then quitting 4 sessions in. You're definitely right, we're very different players. In the end, we agreed to disagree and go our own ways.

+Austin Brownewell I second the notion of an alignment video being helpful.

+Austin Brownewell I third it! :D

Lawful good is pretty stupid... but not in the sense that you call it stupid. If you have a thief or a warlock or anything like that, a lawful good paladin can't let what they do as a normal day to day operation slide. It makes it very hard to work together with them.

You can disagree with someone's choices without condemning them - a Paladin can seek to reform his associates by example while letting them continue to rob and pillage (though he may say something about suitable targets for such depredations)

+rmsgrey except he reports illegal activity due to loyalty to the State.

+Michael Swanson I was very attached to Skoros and truth be told I suspected they might not kill him based on the fact that they have been capturing wizards and taking them 'somewhere.' I started the night with the goal of doing whatever I could to get the Sheild of Anderim out of the keep before the baron knew he had it, with a secondary goal of doing whatever I could to get the party out...being a spellcaster I figured they would haul Skoros off to wherever they were holding the captured spellcasters. What I didn't consider was Matt's NPC would allow rage and pride to overcome the value of captive spellcasters. Looking back I'm actually pretty satisfied with the narrative. Skoros died completely 'in character' in that he helped get the Shield of Anderim out of the reach of the Baron and all of his friends escaped. I imagine Skoros blood stained grin as he died knowing he had a hand in foiling the bad guys.

+Phil Robb I agree intirely. Just saying that I don't know if I could have done it. As for narratives, I would love to see his brother come for vengeance.

+Michael Swanson The new character (warlock) isn't related to Skoros. One of the things I took into consideration for the second guy is how he would fit in the party. The party had a decidedly mercenary quality to it. Skoros, was Lawful Good, and was constantly having to play the moral compass for the party. The new character, Graves, is a much darker character, and fits with the rest of the characters better.

+Phil Robb Awesome. Yeah role playing the only lawful character in a party would be tough. But I just meant from a narative stand point. something that a new player or Matt could NPC along the way