Thread 96903441

>GM runs an encounter specifically designed to curbstomp the players

Is there a right and wrong way to do this or is this inherently a bad idea? I can understand having monsters outside of the PCs' weight class destroying them, but when an encounter is specifically designed to make the PCs look like a chump?

Convince them it's their own fault. As long as players believe they's been warnend and could have avoided it you even total curbstomp is fine.

Yes, it's a horrible idea.
Do you think this encounter would be enjoyable or immersive in any way?

>>96903441 (OP)
yeah, the right way to do it is to have it be obvious
ie players who get fresh off the boat and beeline towards the first dragon deserve to get slaughtered

>>96903441 (OP)
Always a bad idea.
>>96903962
Putting obstacles on the way to the dragon which empower the players to take it on makes for a better game and story. Getting to the dragon lair should not be an easy journey. They shouldn't even know where the dragon lair is.

>>96903441 (OP)
Mine did this. From personal experience it usually happens when the DM is pissed at a minimum of one player and wants to punish them for not playing his way. Killing without initiative/story deaths in early game mean the same thing but typically focused on a single player

>>96903441 (OP)
It's a perfectly fine idea, with the caveats that you should think about what you're trying to achieve with the encounter. If it's just for the sake of novelty then it's not good. If it's to teach them something about the world (so and so thing is especially dangerous and that will be relevant going forward), or about the style of campaign (they shouldn't rush into every combat expecting fair fights, and should rather be attempting to find more creative solutions), or to set up some longer term antagonist (that they will eventually become strong enough to face), then it can be good.
Just avoid springing something that kills pcs without reasonable warning of the risk or any opportunity to escape.

>>96904022
You can achieve everything you listed with more elegant means.

>>96903441 (OP)
"Rocks fall, everyone dies!" is usually a sign of a bad DM, either they are tired of the campaign or are pissed at one of the players.

If you are going to use more powerful encounters (popular in sandbox games where the encounters are unlevelled and preplaced for the players to discover and choose) use forshadowing so they players have a choice of avoiding the instant death encounter.

Example;
A minefield will be surrounded by a fence and posted with "Achtung Minen" signs.
A deadly piston powered crush trap in a corridor will have blood stains and flattened remains splattered everywhere.
A venomous giant spider lair will be surrounded by desicated corpses hanging in webs.
An ork warlord will have hundreds of heads lining the track to his fortress.
A rich wizard will keep a manegerie of exotic pets that follow him everywhere, that he boasts are all the thieves who tried to rob his spell protected mansion.
A passing local will warn the players not to enter the 'Owlbear Wood', as it is the breeding season,

If they ignore the signs, sic em with what they meet and if they die have them roll up new characters, with the intro being their new characters being told a story by a local Bard about what happened to the foolish wanderers last week who took on to much.

Another tip is to give experience points to players who navigate around, negotiate, trick or befriend encounters - if you only award xp for kills, your players will treat everything as killable and will try to kill EVERYTHING.

>>96903441 (OP)
The right way to do this, is make survival the gameplay.
If you just want to kill or overpower them, don't bother actually playing that.
If it's intended to be playable, they need agency. If they have no agency, don't make it playable, it's just wasting everyone's time.
I've had quite a few good encounters with undefeatable, overpowered enemies, because the point was never them getting their cocks flattened, it was always in the context of like, trying to keep the ship intact long enough to make it to a destination, or the party needing to use a combination of stealth & speed to hide, or needing to get some objective done. Never just smashing them.

A fistful of times, I've had a faux round of combat where everyone dies, but this is always in the context of someone making an extraordinarily bad decision, that I usually roll back under the framing of "that's how you imagine that would go", because actually playing the game is a priority. But these are always very quick, often with entirely visual rolls, with predetermined outcomes. I don't especially like these, but sometimes they're helpful to get players on track if they're fucking around too much.

>>96903441 (OP)
When I do this I give EXP based on the percentage of damage they did to the enemies.

>>96903989
the protagonists getting humiliated by superior force makes for a perfectly good story in the appropriate genre. hell, even a power fantasy type game can easily include this, as long as the players get to grow afterwards. the problem is if the characters just all die right there. not much of a game if you just kill everyone in a forced unwinnable fight

>>96904707
Makes for a good story piece but bad gameplay. What >>96904347 said with making survival the gameplay seems like the only good way to approach it.

Genuine question: what's the point?

I don't mean this in a derivative way, it's an important question for every encounter. If you can answer the question in a satisfying way, it can be a good encounter. If you can't, chances are low.
Mind you, the point doesn't have to be anything grand. "It's fun." is a perfectly reasonable point of an encounter, but do you think such an encounter would be fun? If it isn't fun, do the players gain anything from it? Does it set up anything important? Do the PCs learn anything from it? Do they get transported somewhere? If the encounter has no point, really, it's no different than a random wolf attack (other than that the session ends immediately in a TPK).

>>96903441 (OP)
As long as it comes with some obvious sort of "This is a foe beyond any of us. Fly, you fools!" announcement caveat, you can't be blamed if anyone then decides to fight it anyway and get trounced.

>>96903441 (OP)
If a specific person or group that perfectly counters the player characters is sent after them and mops the floor with them them there is only two reasons for that to happen in my mind at least.

One the GM is a bitch and just wants to show off how big and bad he is as well as how big of a nerd he is that he understands the system they are playing so well that they can do anything they want with it without breaking the rules. So screw him he is just being a jerk.

For two the players have fucked up hard in game and they have gained they attention of authority's or factions that have the power and resources to put the players in the dirt where they belong by hiring specialists that excel in destroying trouble makes like the PCs. If the world is full of adventurers out to make names for themselves and gain power and glory well them that also means they are other adventures and hired hit men out there that will take a job to hunt down and kill your players for the sake of there own power and glory. Such a situation happening to the players should be obvious from the start. Nobody is so big and bad that they can not be brought down. That is just as true for the good guys and the players as it is for the bad guys that the players are always killing.

If everyone is immortal then where is the risk and fun in playing the game of adventurous heroes trying to save the world?

>>96904762
>what's the point
Player drew the Nemesis card from the Deck of Many Things, and they just so happened to have a temple assassin that was already at odds with the party.
I followed a logical sequence and used the temple's resources to stage a successful assassination of said pc.

>>96903441 (OP)
It's fine if it's part of the story and the characters have to grow to defeat the enemy.

>>96904903
Sounds like you should be writing a book, not running a game.

>>96904890
So the assassin counter-built for all the things the PC could do? How does the assassin know what he can do? Does this make sense in-world, or only on a meta level? Do the players have any way to find out about this and prepare for it?

>>96905099
boring post

>>96903441 (OP)
If you're just kicking their teeth in, then it's a shitty move.
If it's a moment in your game to pivot the situation, like capturing slaves for the slave pits of Menzoberranzan to kick off an Underdark adventure. You need to be careful with this though and judge your table accordingly.
If it's a known threat and the party just charges head long into a wall, it's their fault. Hearing a rumor that there's a ancient red dragon living in the mountains isn't forcing your players to fight it.

>>96903441 (OP)
System matters here. In D&D, there's no clear way to run a lose condition that doesn't feel bad. Start making death saves? Now you run the chance of a PC dying. Tell them not to? Now they know you put them in a fight they weren't allowed to win. Contrive some excuse for the badass to spare everyone's lives by openly bending the rules? Same as before, only now your players might try to drag out the fight because they aren't used to fights that end with both sides still alive.

>>96903441 (OP)
>Is there a right and wrong way to do this or is this inherently a bad idea? I can understand having monsters outside of the PCs' weight class destroying them, but when an encounter is specifically designed to make the PCs look like a chump?
It's a really good way to build tension. Have the villain cripple a few members of the group, maybe kill someone and then have the party regroup and deal with the repercussions of the encounter.
Just need to hit the right tone. The players need to feel terrified and vulnerable.

Could also work as a kind of unwritten lore drop to get players accustomed to a harsh setting.

>>96903441 (OP)
Here's how to run it well: have the encounter's goal not to be the defeat of the group. The enemies are sctually after something the party has. They know who has the Mcguffin too. Smash, grab, and retreat. Have them specifically spare causing fatalities as "a courtesy from the master. You won't get such mercy again if you follow us". The party now has a plot hook, possibly time sensative, reduced resources from patching up, and know that direct combat is a bad idea. This promotes inventiveness.

>>96903441 (OP)
what's the point?

>>96904061
You can't actually name a single one, of course.

>>96904347
Why is there a track they have to follow?

>>96904762
did you mean "in a derisive way"?

>>96904890
You definitely did not follow a logical sequence. I doubt you could even provide a satisfactory explanation of how logic works.

>>96905331
boring game.

>>96906138
>Effortposting
You must be new here.
This thread is a YouTube contentfarm btw.

>>96906200
Incorrect.

>there should be forwarning
Absolutely fucking gay if it isn't done in a manner that feels organic. "We cannot win this," is forced as fuck. If you have an NPC companion of similar competency as the PCs tagging along, and that NPC gets crushed in a single hit, that is all the warning you should need. But many TTRPGs already have built-in fail safes for dying out of the box, so none of that is even necessary; if the threat can drop you in one or two shots, it's clearly too strong to fight at the moment. Find a way to distract it, control it, or lure it away while someone else picks up the dying PC and gtfo as soon as possible.

>>96906164
Sometimes players are just really curious about the thing you're hyping and want to see it, and it's hard to blame that.
It can also be good to shake out some sillies, which is more what I mean by back on track.

>>96906590
>you have an NPC companion of similar competency as the PCs tagging along, and that NPC gets crushed in a single hit, that is all the warning you should need.
Very much this, any time I have ever "sprung" such an enemy on my players, there is always, always, always a demonstration first. A temporary companion to get pasted, a monster that they would have to take seriously that gets fucked up.
Sometimes size by itself can be enough, but this generally stops being true later into a campaign, and sometimes starts teetering into relying on metaknowledge, so I generally prefer having the proper demonstration anyways, or else use prior information from the campaign to suggest it's out of their league.

>>96903441 (OP)
Your players are your friends, why would you want to do that to them?

>>96906488
Incorrect.

>>96906590
That won't feel organic at all. The players know you only gave them an ally to kill it later, and they know you know they know. You don't really think you're the only person on Earth who reads about GM theory, surely?

>>96907236
No, the players make decisions and the GM adjudicates. End of.

>>96907368
But then the game sucks, and you've wasted everyone's time.

>>96903441 (OP)
Adventuring isn't a friendly scrimmage against your local rival sports team. It's fine as long as the GM properly telegraphs the danger and the players are the ones who ultimately decide to put themselves in danger.
The panic of something you can't handle and the quick decision making to get away can be a lot of fun and make for memorable stories

>>96907501
Just the opposite, rather.

>>96903441 (OP)
You can do it naturally if it's a specific nemesis (or group) that has set out to deal with the characters' known capabilities. If the players become notorious enough then it's only natural that one or more people would set out to deal with them.
Just build the encounter based on the abilities the players have demonstrated around witnesses.
Having an alternative objective of attempting to escape, regroup, and reevaluate their strengths and weaknesses is perfectly valid.

>>96903441 (OP)
Sure...with the caveat that it needs to have a solid point and your players must get something they would enjoy out of it. If they're not masochists, some immediate reward or boon to even the scales.

>>96906590
>if the threat can drop you in one or two shots, it's clearly too strong to fight at the moment
Not if your players are smart enough to fight dirty

>>96903441 (OP)
Signposting
You need signs that something/someone should not be fucked with.

This can either be word of mouth from NPCs, or suggesting skill checks so you can give information to your players.
Or it can be by example; The classic "Did Sephiroth do this?" Have a dead body, or several, that indicate the danger Or have the threat easily kill an NPC that was previously established as very strong.

>>96903441 (OP)
>Is there a right and wrong way to do this or is this inherently a bad idea? I can understand having monsters outside of the PCs' weight class destroying them, but when an encounter is specifically designed to make the PCs look like a chump?
More data necessary to give a full answer. Cause there will be games where this kind of thing is acceptable, and games where it's not, particularly in regards to the consequences of losing. Cause in general, the more you have to lose, the more likely you are to be pissed at finding out you were never meant to win something or be given any kind of out or way to affect the outcome.

But if you mean in general, then it's usually not encouraged for the idea that the players should feel they have a legitimate ability to make proper decisions that affect gameplay, and the idea that in their David vs Goliath scenario that you outright planned to prevent them from winning or ever getting that lucky shot is a very big deterrent to the thought that their decisions indeed matter.

>>96905320
>Does this make sense in-world, or only on a meta level?

In this specific case, I would sum this up as the Deck of Many Fucking Things. That's just the universe fucking with you because you tempted fate.

If specific information about you doesn't literally just happen to fall around the assassin apparently at random, it's the assassin taking sensible (or even random) steps during the combat that JUST HAPPEN to be the exact right attack or counter for the PCs at that given time and place.

>>96907343
My players say otherwise, fake grog faggot

>>96908788
Doesn't help that there's a lot of systems where getting dropped in one or two shots is kinda of expected even of generic mooks.

>>96903441 (OP)
I might get flack for mentioning it as an example, but the Chroma Conclave from Critical Role is actually a good example for something of the sort.

It was immediately clear after one round or two that the party was hopelessly outmatched and the encounter pivoted on escaping and saving as many people as possible (which meant very little but oh well) while evading four fuckoff dragons.

Just "I'm stronger, you die" without context or escape is bullshit GMing.

>>96903441 (OP)
I regularly run 1 encounter per session that will have the party struggling to win without a pc loss. But, my players also like that kind of game. Multiple encounters have ended with one pc at 5 hp, one in need of critical care, and 1 or 2 dead

>>96903441 (OP)

If you give players fair - by which I mean specific, obvious and unambiguous, with no cryptic disingenuous innuendo - warnings that they're going somewhere beyond their abilities, I don't think that there's anything wrong with siccing the consequences on them.

>>96909532
I disagree that rpgs should cater to players being able to do whatever they want and expect to do whatever they want unless a giant billboard say "unbeatable dragon don't go here". They should feel more powerful than the average npc, but not more powerful than the world they inhabit. They should feel a good bit of fear when venturing off well traveled roads.

>>96903441 (OP)
good example
they do dumb shit to tip off the bad guys a who have the means to act on that in universe knowledge

bad example
oops these monsters are all unaffected by yur abilities and also use attacks that target your weakness nin particular. no i dont have an explanation for why they are here. no you couoldnt have known beforehand even tangentially, no you arent allowed to use that clever trick to get out of this even though it makes sense because there isnt a thing in the book about how that clever trick works/that would fall under the clever trick class ability and it does x damage and causes x status effect not the thing it would do in this situation logically.

>>96903441 (OP)
-leave them an escape route that only becomes obvious after a character has eaten shit, but no not actually kill that character, let the party pull them out

-bad guy TPKs the party but doesnt actually kill them. "you wake up in a cell in the dungeon" etc

-if you intend to kill the characters, or at least one character, for story purposes, hint at that beforehand "dont get too attached to this/these characters". killing a players PC in a way they couldnt avoid when they put a lot of time or thought into that character will only get you animosity from players

-make the deaths temporary. the party dies, but now they get to fight their way out of the underworld

those are just a few examples. there are lots of ways to do it, the way not to do it is " hahaha math big, you all die, roll new characters hope you didnt like the ones you were playing too bad git gud" shit like that. you will never lose a group of players faster than pulling some tomb of horrors bullshit on characters the players actually care about.

>>96908963
You don't have any, and they'd be wrong anyway.

>>96908788
Fighting dirty won't help you.

>>96909556
nah fuck off faggot

>>96903441 (OP)
The only way this is actually a good idea was exactly as depicted in The All Guardsmen Party. You roll and stat up a bunch of expendable shitheads, watch as they get chopped into meat, and the ones that actually survive are the ones (and your backups) who start the REAL campaign.

Don't get attached to your characters and you'll be fine no matter what.

>>96903441 (OP)
I didn't design it, they got themselves into a situation by assaulting the neutral caravan, that outnumbered them 10 to 1, and had leading NPCs 3 levels above them! I just ran the encounter as normal.

>>96908953
That's stupid.

>>96906192
Deck of Many Things result compels a powerful entity to take personal interest in destroying you.
The assassin used the background church resources to, rather than prepare to strike at the party, devoted them to killing one pc.
On the other side of it, the assassin was relatively ill prepared to fight the party on the other side when they finally fought.
Not difficult, and everything was by the book.

>>96905320
>So the assassin counter-built for all the things the PC could do?
No, it was a straight up gank.
Misdirected with hired hands (one was a succubus), sneak attack with the best poison money could get him.
>How does the assassin know what he can do?
The party had prior dealings with the temple, and had already fought with them. The party was a known, understood quality.
>Do the players have any way to find out about this and prepare for it?
You mean did? They would have to follow a line of inquiry, and the assassin themselves had not made an appearance, while being unknown except to the highest authorities.
I had planned for the assassin to attack the party and be well armed for it, but instead prepared to gank the pc. When the party finally fought him, it was really one sided. The assassin straight up ran for it, and was fought again later when the party captured the head priest and took him to the duke.
Worked pretty well in the end; the party enjoyed having a real nemesis to focus on.

>>96903441 (OP)
I basically ignored the rest of the thread so possibly the same idea has been given.

There are two major aspects of ttrpg. The RP and the G.

For the Game part, the goal is mostly to provide challenges that can be overcome by using the mechanics of the game intelligently and creatively. Designing an unwinnable encounter does very little, or possibly even negatively impacts, the quality of gameplay. Defining "win" is important here. Because most unwinnable encounters are actually impossible to lose (and therefore, not a challenge and not part of the game side of an RPG) since the DM will step in and roll the "cinematic" that explains why it's just a story piece.

The RP part of RPG is where I think this type of thing has value. It can be an introduction of a major NPC, it can be a motivating factor, it can help build atmosphere etc etc. But in these cases, plot armor is effectively essential. You as DM should basically make it so that player choice might affect *some* of the outcome, the outcome should always be mostly fixed and mostly aimed at continuity of a majority of the party and thus the story. "Scripted" deaths should probably even be agreed upon with the player before doing it.
I can see a very niche case wherein a TPK could be a fitting end to the campaign, but man... Probably work on some great epilogue and make sure the party knows it's fine when it happens by telegraphing something like "it's a suicide mission" etc.

Long story short. It has very little gameplay value to purposefully design curbstomps and trying to put them in front of your party. Talk to your players about lethality in the world before starting the campaign, and explain explicitly (as natives of the world would understand) what kind of stuff is going to get you killed with little hope of escape. Don't spring it on them or try to put it in front of them on purpose unless it serves an RP purpose.

>>96903441 (OP)
I might be boring but I usually simply say something like "you realise that this enemy is beyond everything you have ever faced since now" and then make it clear that their objective is something else like surviving, escaping or stall the enemy enough.

If it's something that I have already decided the player won't have any agency in it I simply don't give them agency in it and just describe the events. My players generally trust me to only do that is there is a big narrative reason that is going to have a payoff later (the before mentioned example where they get taken a slaves to kick off an under dark campaign). And even in these situations if they get some good ideas about things to do that would alter the situation I don't dismiss them outright.

>>96912229
The rp part is where the entire situation lay.
If the players take on more than they can chew, or something bigger and nastier takes interest in the party due to circumstances in the game, it is entirely valid.
I ran a Dark Heresy game where the acolytes purposefully started a feud with the biggest hive gang in the hive, hoping to draw them out as proof of their heresy.
What they got was about 500 guns pointed at them, and no respite since the gang had everyone in the area in their pocket. Even the local priest turned them away.
What happened was a running gun battle with the party desperately fleeing thru hab tunnels and sump pipes trying to get to the upper hive. 2 of the 5 made it.

>>96912177
You're stupid

If your game has discrete "encounters" it's trash.

>>96912886
Continuous combat is a bit too admin heavy for most tables.

>>96909682
What's the point of running every single game as pue power fantasy? In my worlds, there are many, many people who happen to be stronger than (you), most of whom do not travel around with a big sign on their neck saying "DON'T ATTACK ME"

>>96912886
I too enjoy staring at walls and spending every game session going shopping like a metrosexual.

>>96908788
Then why stop them? If they can rig a scheme to take down a threat typically too strong for them to handle under conventional means, then let them. If it fails, they die. Simple as.

Welcome to games.

>>96913044
what's the point of being a faggot, faggot?

>>96911855
Why am I playing if I don't give a shit about what happens to my character? What's my incentive to join the game?

>>96912901
>>96913077
Damn that's crazy, neither of these have anything to do with anything I said. You guys retarded?

>>96913413
Pray tell, what's the alternative to discrete if not continuous.

>>96914530
Not divided into explicit, defined video game mechanics, obviously. You need me to wipe your ass for you too? lol

>>96914543
So... continuous?

>>96914560
Didn't read my post? lol

>>96903441 (OP)
I've never ran an encounter with the specific goal of wiping the party, but I'll absolutely go for single targets in an encounter. The Rogue got unlucky and was gutted by the high level assassin in the rafters, the artificer threatens a powerful paladin and gets stomped, the artificer threatens a demigod and gets saved from disintegration by a death ward. The only time I explicitly tried to take down the party was in a post-campaign one shot where they knew the difficulty was going to be high, but they still won with a degree of comfort.

>>96903441 (OP)
Leave them a clear way to escape
Have the enemy in question act like a responsible adventurer would in his position: You aren't going to drop a fireball into 10 kobold mooks when they're may be something a lot more dangerous in the area

>>96914634
>Have the enemy in question act like a responsible adventurer would in his position
Making sure nobody escapes so you can loot all the bodies?

>>96913091
>Then why stop them?
I didn't saying anything about stopping players.
I was responding to a post that was stating encounters where enemies can 1-2 shot you are too strong for PCs to fight. I was disagreeing with that.

>>96914583
Anon do you not now what discrete means?

>>96916242
Do you? Fucking retard.

>>96916242
>>96916248
NTA, but the word that should have been used is 'DISTINCT', not 'DISCRETE'.
>esl mistakes

>>96916314
No, that wasn't his mistake. He just doesn't understand what is really being said. He thinks the only possibilities are mechanized, rules-delineated encounters, or continuously being attacked, for some reason.

>>96903441 (OP)
Are players informed/granted options to run away from the fight? Are players even aware not all fights are to the death?
If either of those is "no" - then don't do it.

>>96919911
>Are players even aware
asking the real question here

give them hints first

>>96903441 (OP)
I mean I pulled this shit because I swapped systems after getting tired to D&D. Party goes to fight an impossible foe, get beaten into the dirt, can't really retreat because the thing is literally on the doorstep of an allied base containing friends and family.

Record scratch, system swap, the new system has a much higher baseline powerelevel, the party is impowered by divine intervention. Boom, they're now a match for the challenge and the grueling TPK turns into a tutorial fight for the fresh divine champions.

>>96903469
This. The core of gamemastering is gaslighting.