Surrender, Running the Game
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ย. 2024
- Is it EVER a good idea to expect the PCs to surrender? Spoilers: no.
Become a Patron and get a 5E magazine every month! / mcdm
Buy Strongholds & Followers, or Kingdoms & Warfare now! - shop.mcdmprodu...
Follow me on Twitter - / mattcolville
Follow MCDM on Twitter - / hellomcdm
Join the conversation on our Discord - mcdm.gg/discord
Phil's handout! mcdm.gg/YouTub...
#RunningTheGame #MattColville #MCDM
"Condition Immunities Frightened" - not written on the character sheet, but all player characters have it :)
*players have it, the characters are mentally terrified but most players are so stubborn that it doesn't show
you just need to figure out a way to get the players to genuinely fear for their character's lives. make it clear OOC that they don't have a real chance in some fights. throw some scary numbers around (without actually killing them). if none of this gets to them kill a PC (if you don't want them killed off for good make sure that the party cleric has a decently priced diamond).
my players insist that they love my campaign but I'm now able to reduce their IRL selves to nervous wreaks just by playing certain pieces of music because the thing that accompanies that music is burned into their memories.
You could argue that since "frightened" is a condition, anything which doesn't apply that condition doesn't scare them.
Whats hilarious is the group I came up in is so fucking brutal that our group runs like hell anytime shit looks even *remotely* dangerous. To a point that's actually sometimes frustrating to one of our gm's!
Oh Ik your vids
Brave Sir Robin
I've had a similar struggle. my players went to a particuarly brutal areas pretty early on and now the only way I can hope for them to go into anything that even vaguely resembles danger is for the overly reckless Barbarian (the only one that didn't learn their lesson in character. the player certainly did, the music frightens him just as much as the other two) to drag the other two characters into it. it would be understandable if not for the fact that the campaign's danger really toned down after that one area (which I had specifically warned them against going to, both in and out of character, and only planned for them to visit it much much later in the campaign).
@@Eclipsed_EmbersI have a similar issue. Players can really put the crawl in dungeon-crawl
I needed this a week ago, did exactly what Matt said not to do and it ended in exactly the ways he predicted. Listen to this man, he is a prophet.
He is a river to his people.
I'm all for being explicit with the dangers my players face. My group is currently dealing with pirates, and when they decided to go directly to the "pirate island" where the pirates make landfall, I told them that a direct attack against hundreds of pirates is suicide. The result is my players thinking creatively to overcome the extremely deadly challenge. They may not slay 100 pirates by sword-point, but discovering the island is a giant turtle and causing it to dive into the sea's depths, destroying ships and drowning pirates, made them feel just as heroic. Allow players to find a way to overcome a challenge instead of surrendering.
DyneGaming loving this giant island turtle idea!
First off.....Expect me to steal your idea someday. Secondly, players sometimes forget common sense. I'm not saying this as an insult. D&D isn't run entirely by common sense, so I don't always expect players to approach the game using it. Sometimes, the obvious or realistic scenario wouldn't occur to them because they're caught up in being awesome or because they just aren't aware of the calculations in respect to their characters stats.
That's why DMs like Matt actually advocate what you do. I forgot where he said it, but he did say that he doesn't like to withhold information that would be common sense to the characters. I actually practice that sort of transparency with my group, too.
Agreed. That's why I stated that I explicitly tell them the amount of danger they were facing when the arrived on the island. As the DM, personally, I like to make sure they have options in everything that they do. If they can't think of an alternative to the attempted genocide of 100+ pirates, I can always nudge them along with clues to alternative paths they can take.
From my experience, players do not like to "play in the dark." As the DM, I feel it is sometimes my job to illuminate avenues of advancement for the players. Mind you, it is still their choice (with consequences, of course), but I make sure they are clued into their options.
That being said, I find that my gaming group surprises me with the ideas that they come up with. And more often than not, I do not need to illuminate the options for them. I understand that is pretty anecdotal, however.
Good policy. My most recent set piece battle was one where I told they players a few sessions out "I've built the guy you're going to be facing, and if you give him something that even slightly resembles a fair fight he will kill at least some of you if not cause a TPK.". As a result, they planned ahead, figured out how to rouse a couple of his other enemies, attacked with a plan, stacked the deck against him, and they killed him without losing anyone. It was awesome.
@@steveneiman2158 that is excellent phrasing
Completely unrelated to DnD but needs to be said. The 5th Element stones on your shelf are totally amazing!
I know! I wonder where he got them or if he made them
Fettle of kish! new magic item
I had to watch it a few times to confirm that he said that.
Yes! 6:44
exactly my thought
Spoonerisms get me in a mucking fuddle
Fettle of Kish (very rare)
_This armor pauldron belonged to the infamous warrior Kish, who was known to begin all combat with a shoulder-check, regardless of the tactical considerations. The pauldron was heavily reinforced, and when it was fished out from the bottom of the cliff it was discovered by be imbued with magical properties._
This magical artifact gives a +1 attack and damage bonus on charge attacks, and doubles the speed a character can charge.
*Cursed:* The first action in any fight taken by a character wearing the Fettle of Kish is to charge the nearest enemy in a direct line, regardless of obstacles or pitfalls in the path. If the character cannot reach the target with his speed, he falls prone and his turn ends.
I’ve never tried this but perhaps a way to get the party to surrender is to knock a player unconscious in combat, then have one of the bad guys go to kill the unconscious player on their turn, but before he does, he demands that the party surrenders and lays their weapons down. Or else he will kill their unconscious friend
This is where I tell my players before the game even starts. 1) You may die. Bring extra character sheets. 2) Nothing is sacred: You exist in this world. It does not exist for you. 3) Th ink strategically. You will be heavily rewarded.
If my players don't like this, then I cry and water it down.
that is a good and pretty much the only way to DM, unless you have a group of 15yo kids in the group.
@@Internet_Enjoyer exchange 15yo for new players. When I was 16 we had a 15 year old DM who had been playing since he was 12, and running games for like a year.
It's okay to tell your players, "hey - this is the world I want to run this campaign in." But you did the critical thing, which is to give them veto power over thematic choices like that before everything gets rolling. If they want to play in a setting that you find too droll, they need to get a different GM so everyone can be "happy."
"I have not read the whole handout." Said every player ever.
If you stat it they will kill it, or at least they'll try.
There is a video by Noah Antwiler called "If you stat it, they will kill it." Good stuff.
Thats the reference I was making, I think these phenomena are similar.
I love spooney
I miss spooney
I think the only way to get players to NOT fight things, or at least make them seriously consider that, is if you give them another option, a third option that also makes story sense AND feels at least somewhat heroic. It probably also has to have some kind of "we can get back to this fight later on" part.
I'd say having to rescue someone else, get them to safety, or make sure an item or information gets to someone in time might entice them to avoid the fight, for now.
Before i began running my game, my players and I had a session 0 for a sandbox campaign. I told them then, and have to remind every so often: there are many things going on in this world, not every thing will be level appropriate.
CristoTheRanger x this is what I was going to say. This sounds like a session 0 type of thing. Before getting into the story the players and the DM should discuss what type of game will be played. If they decide to do a game where there will the threats that are way beyond their level that they may run into, they should be informed before the game and be told that this will at time be a hard campaign and surrendering or retreating will be the best option. As long as the players know what they are getting into.
There is a difference between your players knowing they can't walk up to the Grand Duke Archmage Von Killington for a fight and expect to live versus having Archmage Von Killington show up in the middle of the ocean with a ship full of his best men and wonder why your players don't want to surrender.
Good point.
"Why didn't I listen? To me." I love asking myself this question.
if your players are fighting a lich/cult/whatever magical or evil with ties to otherworldy evil you can always let them wake up in a slave penn, in a prison waiting to be sacrificed or made undead to serve the evil they once fought. for players that actually lost their character in that encounter this is also a great way to easily introduce new rolled characters that share the same fate.
In my experience, places where one might have the players "surrender" to cause a plot point to occur I simply let them fight the encounter. I simulate a tpk, but have decided that bringing in the party was their goal not the parties' Death. So when the party members are all unconscious, they take them to wherever they're going to and the players woke up in the jail.
They still had fun, and it helped that I've only used this to show off the high end villain of the campaign and not just a random encounter villain.
In my experience, if you want the players to surrender, make it very clear they are surrounded by an army 10,000 strong. They've always interpreted that correctly. :)
My players surrendered yesterday, and their enemies were "only" 8 elves in their own territory (a very deep forest). Basically their enemies used their higher perception, a little bit of magic, longbows, constant use of stealth, some traps, and so on. They never knew how many elves where there, everytime they tried to close the gap between them they would stealth away, and others would shoot them from another direction, and the enemy caster were shutting down the party's casters. Only one elf got hurt in the entire fight and the party ended up surrendering.
Basically, because I wanted them to either surrender or run, I just didn't pull any punches with my tactics.
"Never give up. never surrender!" I love that movie.
Any tips for influencing a certain player to take NPC social encounters a little more seriously instead of viewing them as loot-dispensers and getting pissed when they don't dispense said loot?
In my campaign, a player asked King Hekaton the Storm Giant for a Storm Giant finger and then got kinda mad when Hekaton took it as an insult.
Senor Salty talk to your players, discuss with them to understand why they do what they do and explain the problems your having and try to come to an understanding.
Sounds like a player problem. You can't "fix" a player really, you can talk to them and if they listen and accept what you say good, but you can't change a persons disposition.
It's also a good idea to go with the flow, if the players are not taking the roll playing social side seriously enough, don't have the NPCs react in an extreme manner, yes you want the NPCs to feel real, but the primary goal is not what you want, or how you view your NPCs, it is to have fun and if the players are not having fun because of your super realistic NPC reaction, then what is actually gained? You are not happy, they are not happy, the only one is is satisfied is the imaginary NPC who is not actually playing DnD.
If, as I understand it, the players ask for the giants finger, then perhaps have the giant brush the request off as absurd rather than get angry and insulted. What is gained from having the King react the way he did, what is lost, look at the big picture and try and make the game fun. You are not G.R.R Martin, you are not creating some vast believable world that millions of people will enjoy, you are running a game for a few friends and they are interested in having fun.
Why would the storm giant willingly remove his finger? I think I have to agree with Charlie Ricker on this.
I had a player like this. He'd always be rude to the NPCs. It didn't matter if I had the NPC take offense, or just assume it was a joke. The player still got mad.
I also think it's interesting that Salty said "player" singularly and Charlie said "players" plurally. Just because one player wants to treat NPCs at loot bags waiting to be opened doesn't mean that's fun for the rest of the players.
Senor Salty if one of my players said that I would have king Hekaton Flip him off and presume to say "is this what you want? your race's customs are strange to me, or this" (he then flips off the players character with the other hand as well.) I would be role-role-playing this action by giving said player the bird with both hands. "are we done little man."
To quote my favourite champion in League of Legends, Camille: "Character is revealed by when one retreats."
Fantastic! My boyfriend and I are always excited to see you have a new video out. And I'll be watching it all over again when he's home from work. I've also recently bought your books, I loved them and I'm recommending them to everyone! Love you Matt!
I did this by accident once. The players where taking a ship to another city in a country where slavery was legal, and felt compelled to free the slaves rowing the ship despite the fact they where level 1 and there where a bunch of guards and such that would oppose them.
It's important to figure out the tone of the setting you are using, and making sure that the players are not only aware, but into that type of game. These players weren't all about this gritty dark setting I was running.
Oh my goodness please please please do a video on player psychology this was eye opening for me and my players.
I think there needs to be a clarification of a really hard battle vs an impossible one. I challenge my players with battles I am fairly sure they can beat with great effort. If they die it may seem to them like surrender was the only option, but had they planned better or been more strategic they could have overcome it. To me D&D shouldn't be easy and I expect my players to be on thier toes all the time and some of them will die, but I will never plan specifically for thier death/surrender.
Just be aware that your idea of a good time might not mesh with other people. If your goal is to run your game your way, then that is fine, if your goal is to be a good DM, then make sure the players have fun.
I mean it depends on your players. If your players like the same thing, great. If not, don't do that. Not that complicated. xD
4:22 crazy to come back to this video after watching the chain and realizing that Copper pulled almost the same shenanigans that Mayt did when given the same item
The module saying "do whatever it takes to get the characters to surrender" sounds like it's railroading really hard and that that's its main sin.
This has been helpful. Was considering an initial Kalarel-like encounter come next session to 'teach' my players that surrender is an option. Am rethinking it now. There's probably a better way to introduce their first real threat than simply throwing it in the party's general direction and waiting till they realise they have no chance.
Ky OreS maybe don't have the kraken attack them but if u want to show them the world is dangerous and you like krakens maybe have a big bad evil ship show up that is very much out of their league, maybe it's got magical cannons and it's got clear magical defences. Then a kraken just comes out of no where and crushes it and the pcs use that distraction to gtfo
You could always do the scene, but instead of making your players the targets of "Kalarel", you have another upstart band of would-be adventurers serve as a proxy instead. They refuse to surrender, they get blown apart.
I used it in my game with a death knight and zombies inside a bar. I knew my players would want to fight him. What I did was have him come into the bar and have his zombies start collecting the bodies. When the players stood up to him, I had him say "I'm here for the bodies, nobody. If you try to deny them to me, I will let you live so that you may see what my minions will do to these people. Have you ever heard the sound a child makes while being eaten alive? It's quite lovely". When they realized what their actions could mean to the others, they backed down.
While I think surrender is something people inherently hate doing even when it is clearly the most logical option it can be done.
Rather than just having it party vs a group of enemies have the players take up a spot in the line in a larger battle. Put pressure on the PCs, force them to use their resources, take a little of their health, kill an NPC they've been working with for a while. As you go depict the allies taking losses and being pushed back. Make it clear that they need to at least pull back a little or they'll be isolated and encircled by a larger force as their allies fall back and die to either side. Show their defences being slowly turned into rubble, show friendly allies dying and being wounded with too few medics around to help them all, show allied NPCs have a mental break down. Then at the point you want to surrender initiate dialog when people start talking it triggers the idea to players that they need to do more than just think in terms of combat. Maybe the commander of the city's defences comes to you and says that for the sake of his men, particularly the wounded, he's going to surrender and recommends you do the same. Maybe an enemy officer with a white flag approaches to talk and gives an ultimatum, they're are impressed with your courage so you get a final chance, surrender now and you and your people will be treated fairly, refuse and you'll butcher, soldiers and civilians alike, to the last man.
Yes I find with new players it IS important for them to know they won't win every battle the first time (it is very useful for setting up long term villains), but I always make sure that for the first half of the campaign or so that I make a very clear means of escape and even MENTION to the players as part of the world that they could retreat this or that way.
I think surrender feels much worse to a party because with retreat at least they still have their agency, and with surrender they kind of give that up.
Thank you! This is exactly the sort of video that needed to be made to address an issue that continues to come up. I've made this sort of mistake only once after passing puberty, and considering how awful the end result of that effort went, I have to say that I'm glad somebody put up something to keep people from making the same mistake themselves, and to generally counter this sort of mindset in the industry.
As an example, in the classic module Scourge of the Slave Lords: it's a module that I've read a lot of reviews about saying how great it was. Reading through it myself, though, it's exactly the sort of scenario described here, telling the DM to do whatever is necessary to make the players surrender, or to just take control out of their hands entirely, so long as they end up prisoners somewhere, and lose all their stuff, permanently. In fact, the DM is supposed to have the players' captors taunt the players as they throw the coolest stuff over the side of a slaving ship.
The question that occurs to me from such a scenario is this: how in the great wide world is the DM ever supposed to make any positive outcome, no matter how awesome, make up for the incredible downer that such a module demands? I suppose it could theoretically be possible, but...I just don't know how.
Seriously, even in stories (books, film, etcetera) and such where the heroes get captured, most of the time, if you're being even vaguely realistic, those heroes would either be dead or out of commission forever; it takes the author messing with the universe to change that sort of thing from happening, and it always strains my suspension of disbelief. As an example, Dead Space versus all of its sequels: in the first one, you, the player, never get your autonomy taken away, even in the "cutscenes," but in the sequels, I kept wanting to scream at Clarke to stop taking his darn helmet off, because I knew he was about to do something stupid again. Maybe it seems like a good idea at the time, but, seriously, unless you're running a Count of Monte Cristo scenario, where that's the backstory of the characters, and the prison stuff happened offscreen, then interfering with player autonomy is probably one of the worst things you can do.
The one time I had the players in a most likely unwinable battle- 5 level 2’s against 3 CR 5 Cold Light Walkers- was intentionally to kill off the character of a PC I had kicked the previous week.
The fact it showed just how deadly the campaign can be as well was the icing on the cake
Love your old movie references. Glad someone else remembers "The Last Starfighter".
I had this exact situation happen in a game I was DMing :D The players had to go through (or around, at their prerogative) an orc encampment to get to the tomb that the item they wanted rested in. Strangely enough, despite all my warnings, all the hints that the orcs where numerous and they had to either come up with a plan or circumvent them altogether, THREE of the SIX man group charged the orcs' front gate.
Now the gate was guarded by a couple of orcs, but I explicitly told them that they were yelling something behind them and that they heard an uproar happening in the camp. First two more orcs appeared, still yelling for reinforcements. And it went on and on. They had ample chance for retreat. But they never did.
Soon they were getting swamped by a small horde of orcs. And the players kept slaughtering the 1lvl grunts as I kept rolling so low you would think these orcs couldn't hit a toddler if they tried. The paladin fell, the monk fell, and soon the cleric retreated, finally. He went back to the fighter and the wizard to explain the situation, he healed up, and they rushed back towards the camp.
Now the orcs were pretty miffed but there was still a good chunk of them alive, their leader and his lieutenants as well. What at first I thought would be a slaughter (all my players dying) turned into quite the heroic moment as the orc leader threatened to behead the unconscious, captured paladin at his feet. I gave them a deal. He would give them the monk and the paladin back if they just went away. They declined.
The fighter went before the orc boss. She charged him, critted on her attack roll, confirmed, and took half his health in one hit (they were are a pretty low lvl). Enraged, I thought, the boss ignored his threat of beheading the paladin (they aren't very smart after all) and started trading hit after hit with the fighter. It was a tense fight that could have swang either way on the whim of the dice, but finally, the fighter critted once more and beheaded the orc boss, making any stragglers around flee in fear.
It was an epic fight that I in no way expected to happen. But then again, when the dungeon master makes plans, his players laugh at him ;)
Thanks for keeping it "G" rated Matt! It is one of the things I enjoy about your channel.
Lovin' the fact that we have gotten so many videos from Matt this week. You're a river to your people! Also, enjoyed the Galaxy Quest line at the end, ha ha!
It purely depends on the group and the expectations. If you plan for them to not always fight to the death, either tell them outright in session zero or tell them through mechanics and/or worldbuilding. Something like the optional rule of "Gritty Realism" tells them to be careful, while "Heroism" will tell them the opposite.
Players don't surrender because of how dnd handles death. The game mechanics incentives fighting till the very last moment and then your unconscious.
So the problem is twofold.
1. Any amount of hit points is enough to keep fighting (yes I understand the abstractions of hp as 'will to fight's players do not and neither does the mechanics
2. Once your actually in danger of dieing (negative/death saves) you are now robbed of agency and ability to flee.
This creates a climate that players are never incentivised to retreat because their ability to succeed in a fight has been exghausted or outpaced! They can either heroicly stand against the tide! Or cannot act. Further the way movement is handled makes escape impossible or trivial. The movement rules are so written in stone that the idea of running away is more of running on a treadmill from a scooby doo monster, u never actually get farther away.
In my game I've made two changes to fix this problem.
1. Roll for movement
2. You don't go unconscious when @ negative/death saves you just bleed everywere.
This allows dieing players to crawl away and hope to escape, because they need healing or they will die very quickly (prolong out of combat death saves ~ once an hour!)
As for the idea Matt has proposed about player/DM expectations and letting Ur players kick ass! This is a great viewpoint and I fully support it.... But dice happen and we've all heard stories of single goblin tpk's. There are times players should of by all rights won- give them the opportunity to survive these eventualities instead of getting caught unprepared. Ensure your game enables your players to viably run as a powerful option and they will use it.
Further running need not be for when things fail. Maybe entire encounters are formed around running away from an open portal of demons or a single rouge escaping from three trolls that sooted them or needing to evade the town gaurds. Not every fight is a fight the players want... But they will usually fight because they feel they have no choice- the game deny's them the mechanics to take flight when things go south.
How did you implement rolling for movement?
David Kestler How does rolling for stats work?
What do you think about just applying the "incapicated" condition to a player when they hit 0 HP. This only stops them from taking actions, not movement. Also, they can continue to take damage so now they are incentivised to retreat. This can even allow for a total party wipe, with the entire party still being able to run away.
This is a great insight. Another thing I've noticed is that because progress is tied to XP for combat, players are always incentivized to fight (and that's before we even talk about "loot").
Matt -
in the situation in your video with the pirates; would this be an appropriate place for a SKILL CHALLENGE? Say that the captain (NPC) needs your help to outrun the pirates because he wants to protect his ship, and he knows that they will be wiped out. Still rolling dice; still feel the "Dangerous world" aspect, still get to be heroic, by saving the passengers.... just a thought....
A few days ago, during the session, the players were stalking a group of zombies. I had designed the zombies to be overwhelmingly deadly, as I expected the players to follow them to their master.
During a small encounter with 2 cockatrices (a challenge to the players, as they could potentially lose or alert the zombies), the wizard used thunderwave and the fight escalated quite quickly from there.
They barely survived, but I remember one of them saying "Why are we doing this again?" and I realized a dodged a bullet.
Players don't surrender or flee. Dying for no good reason is frustrating.
You help me better myself as a dm Matt, thank you. You also inspired me to start as one. This is such an enjoyable part of my life now:D
Its far more fun to role play a heroic death than the life of a fugitive coward. Can always roll up another character, apart from the real consequences of death why not take a chance? Especially with the implicit understanding the DM has set up a story in order to make you a hero.
But playing the fugitive for a while can be also fun. Hell, I played a coward wizard for a while and I had a blast! I was always hiding behind the meat shield, and when he charged, I automatically started to hide and think in indirect ways of helping without getting directly involved (generally summoning stuff).
Well, that makes our group a bit unique. We almost instantly ran from a fight once when we faced nigh insurmountable odds. That's the joy of having a group that plays a military deserter (me), a failed assassin, and a drunk gnome who we carry like Yoda when we need to book it.
An alternative that has worked pretty well for me (after making this mistake more than once) is that you can use other means to convey the "world is big and scary" lesson.
I absolutely LOVE the enthusiasm that my players tackle my encounters, and I don't want them to shy away from being heroes.
There are lots of ways in Matt's content where he talks about how to create a vibe/mood/game atmosphere.
Matt, loved the Last Starfighter clips. Thanks for the DM help, always appreciated!
"They're gonna go for it. They're gonna ff-they're gonna attack this thing." @14:24
;) good save
I take comfort knowing that these videos will go on forever. How do I know this you ask? The evidence is obvious. Our teacher is a Mondoshawan! He is keeper of the 5 elements! It explains everything! All the wisdom being past down! Matt thanks for all your videos. I'm working on a setting and plan on starting a West Marches game in the up coming months. Keep up the good work sir.
I am impressed by how little effort Mr. Colville evidently devotes to choosing his videos' thumbnail pictures. I'm looking at several on my TH-cam recommended videos bar right now that have him frozen in a particularly silly pose. I don't know that any other TH-cam creator or channel prioritizes thumbnail appearance as low as Colville does vs. other aspects of TH-cam video creation. As an extremely practical person myself with no fashion sense and who cares relatively little about my appearance on a day-to-day basis compared to many others around me (minus job interviews and other situations where presenting myself a certain way will probably be especially advantageous), I can appreciate Matt's sort of thought process here.
The players want to be Kirk and the kobayashi maru.
The Unconscious Cleric is now a tavern in my campaign.
This is a great video, which I've through on our community forum to the new DM's. Thank you for explaining this better than I could. Players are naturally curious and the second you mention pirate, bandit, dragon etc they run into the obvious danger. Also kudos to Phil on the epic handout. Absolutely amazing.
There are so many variations of this, too. I once designed an encounter where the players got a glimpse at a boss in a labyrinth, they discovered the correct path and when they did it dropped behind them and wrecked everything in its path while giving chase. They were -supposed- to run frantically through, hoping they were following the directions they had devised, but instead stayed and fought in confined spaces with a beast 4 times their size. When I realized they weren't going to run, I had to make the boss retreat. It scared them, like I had hoped, but instead of seeing fear and running and being scared of seeing it again, they were scared and stayed to fight to the bitter end. Players always surprise you.
I have made the "players must run away" encounter work once in my dnd career, but it required very specific design. Probably most importantly of all, both my players were very experienced, as was I, and we've all played together a lot, and we trust each other. But more actionable advice I can give is: "Don't give them the choice to run away, make it the background to the encounter". In this encounter the party was on a ship going towards the adventure location, when they are attacked by a kraken. The kraken is very obviously WAY too strong for them, and so the captain of the ship, who is not one of the players and does not take orders from the players, makes the call to retreat. The players are not given the option to fight or retreat, rather the entire encounter is them trying in vain to see if they can damage the kraken, scare it off, or otherwise slow it down during the retreat. And in the end, after they are thoroughly freaking out, but before they do something drastic, the encounter ends with a Dragon Turtle attacking the Kraken for entering its territory, and the ship gets away safe
One of the nicest things about running a West marches campaign is that the players Runaway. They know when they walk into something that seems beyond deadly that it is beyond deadly and that they have no plot armor at all.
This was eerily timely for me. Last night I ran our Spelljammer 5e campaign and the players refused to hand over an item they didn't realize they had. A powerful NPC had sent a thief and an Invisible Stalker to retrieve the item, and the party was contemplating immediately retaliation. They eventually relinquished a piece of the item (a magic key to level 8 of a Mega Dungeon) along with a note saying they wanted to meet. But it was a long debate on wether to say "screw u" and keep the item they only just realized they had or parlay. They refused to surrender and I'm glad you made this video because it helped me realize some very useful things. You're wonderful.
Very cool video, Matt! I am currently running Hoard of the Dragon Queen and wondered the same thing with the very first encounter the players get into. My players, however, decided to make a run for it without any intervention from me. I actually had a couple of things planned they could do to enable them to fight. Just thought it's of value pointing out, that even one of the official adventures is now considering players standing their ground in a dire encounter.
I just went through this last week as a player. And it speaks true to the adventurer in me.
I also like how you ended your video about surrendering with your usual "never give up. Never surrender."
I remember my 3rd ever session. We didn't put up a guard at night for our camp at the end of the 2nd session. We were surrounded by 300 goblins! I think I was indeed the only one that thought: 'let's not fight.' the rest fought xD
18 seconds later 3 goblins were dead and we were rounded up and tied to poles and brought to their camp.
It was a marvelous escape.
"A whole different Fettle of Kish" 6:40
omg fifth element -elements in the background, ive never seen those. So jelly
a good way to get a party to retreat from an impossible encounter (while still having the encounter) is to start the battle when they are already running for some other reason. Like if the door theyve been looking for is right in front of them and THEN a huge impossible monster starts stomping up from behind. They'll almost definitely start gunning it for the door. If the vibe of the encounter is "this threat is here to give you some urgency to get where youre going" and not "this is a fight in front of you", they'll run. (And even if they dont right away you can keep reminding them of the door while they get their asses kicked until they change their mind)
This is so helpful - there is always a Matt Colville video on point for every DM problem.
I love your videos Matthew, they help me really much in my Dming. Last night online, I put my group in this kind of situation, where a lot of strong ennemies ask them to surrender, but planned for them to try to fight. Instead, I got the paladin and the sorcerer surrender before I could end my description, both for different reasons. Made me think of this video!
I miss Colville making videos like this. We haven't gotten any in forever and the ones we have gotten, are just live streams.
I find that the best way to do the "look how badass this thing that exists in the world is" thing is to have the thing not see the players. In fact have it be in a canyon with the players at the top and the thing at the bottom. I at one point did this with a wyvern it was flying near a cliff that they were at the top of and it was fishing in the river below. I described how it was like how a hawk dives and snatches fish from the water. They realized that it wouldn't be an easy fight and that the wyvern wasn't interested in them. When a wyvern started stalking them a level or 2 later it seemed much cooler because they knew it was there. I also knew that the wyvern was more interested in eating it's fish than fighting the players so while at the time it was a big monster it would have run away.
If the players don’t surrender you can always have a contingency planned (like some type of newer enemy or counter force) like they attack enemies way above their caliber but then a dragon shows up and roasts a bunch of the tough enemies and looks like it’s circling to attack again. The remaining tough guys scramble and your PCs, having just been obviously outclassed by a bunch of enemies the dragon just roasted, will almost certainly scramble as well. It’s sort of Ex machina but also introduces a larger and even more powerful threat. You can also do a friendly ex machina but either way it’s better than punishing players for not surrendering when you wanted them too.
Hey Matt! I recently started GMing for a group of people at my school who wanted to get into the game. I've only played a handful of times, and that was my first time actually GMing. I just wanted to say that my players love the game and thanks to your videos, I was able to make that happen. You rock man, you've earned a sub from me :D
The topics aren’t always the best thing I get out of these videos, even when it’s exactly what I need to hear about.
I’m running my first game as a first experience for three friends and I with one player who’s played a couple small campaigns. They’re coming up on a point they need to sail far away and there’s only one ship they can use in the docks, they’re transporting people in cages and my players didn’t want anything to do with it as they walked through the docks killing time and exploring the city (that I made before they taught me that I wasn’t prepared to make a city). After hearing mention of players on a dingy going up against a ship full of enemies, suddenly one appeared nearby!
I’m excited to find out how they travel across the sea, evil characters fighting an evil greater than themselves.
I missed like the first 30 seconds of the video once I realized the blocks from fifth element were in the background. :-D
In the example you gave of collapsing the ceiling while hiding in a portable hole, I just would have ruled that the characters fail to collapse the ceiling (or maybe only partially succeed) and one of the guards just picks up the portable hole. They fold it up, the air runs out and everyone loses consciousness. They wake up in chains.
This reminded me of a quote I heard a while back "I am tired of even match ups, who would win star destroyer versus enterprise is super boring, why not a star destroyer versus say the Kon Tiki, especially if we can up with a scenario in which the raft wins."
I think that many players have this mentality. I still remember the time my level 5 character was 50 hp off of killing an astral deva I don't remember the 10th goblin my level 1 character killed. I wanted my fight with the angel (who I didn't think was quite that powerful) to be the scenario where the Kon Tiki destroys a star destroyer because that would be an awesome story.
And Kon Tiki almost destroys a star destroyer is a pretty good story on its own.
I've been told by new players that I made the character building process fun, by telling them stories from other games, how things relate to things they might know of, and I come to the table and I see building a character as playing the game, and is part of the playing the game that I absolutely love, and so my energy in that process makes everyone else feel excited! Not trying to take away from your point, of course, just wanted to throw in my personal experience, and how your attitude about said process can influence the other players
The Last Starfighter clip was more than perfect.
Thanks for adding video clips back in to emphasize your point. Love that.
loving the fifth element props in the backround
I was waiting for a clip from Galaxy Quest: "Never give up! Never surrender!"
What I do is on session zero I explain to the players my campaigns tend to have a flavor of gritty realism. There will be times they will be faced with situations that they should run from, TPKs are a real thing, but as the DM I would never force them to run. Sure there is magic and dragons and such but I've found providing a bit of realism only enhances everyone's enjoyment. I have my players either make a basic framework backup character on session zero, or at the very least have an idea in their head of a backup character. Maybe I'm old school.
My hand-outs have run to six pages at most, including new races (eg, adapting 4th-edition Deva to 5th-edition). I think Phil's "hand-out" is just about enough to run a campaign! Thanks, mate!
Hey Matt, here's a video idea that you would be perfect for:
Evil guy monologuing: Maybe something on how to keep it short so players don't start to drift, getting to the point, things like that. I personally love the lich from Adventure time, when he monologues he drops a spell effect with a command word like stop or fall. Then he doesn't say more than two paragraphs if that, but each sentence is full of meaning and weight.
Fantastic advice, Matt! It's so important to remember the players' psychology but it's so difficult as well.
Yeah I have a simple campaign going (playing on twitch every other sunday!) that involve players being prisoners of a gladiatorial arena, in which they frequently need to surrender their weapons. I tried to make sure I made it very clear they were not supposed to fight the guards, by making one guard show off their overpowered weapons before their first opportunity to fight them back. One runaway prisoner explodes instantly when one guard points a mysterious little glowy stick weapon at them! But it is telling that, though this worked and the players never tried fighting them, one player at the end of the first session did ask.... "soo.... we wern't supposed to fight the guards, right?" Like, they still weren't quite sure!
It is definitely very difficult to indicate "boundaries" of a scenario that way to a player, without simply telling them.
At the beginning of each session I ask my players what level of difficulty do they want to play in that day's session. Almost every time they ask for Challenging, which involves more focusing on specific players based on their role, and more ganging up on a single player. Almost every "challenging combat" the players think tactically and pull out a win out of their ass. However, "deadly encounters" I never tell the players ever, they just keep thinking its Challenging. This gives me privilege to adding more of those encounters as much as i want. "Players only complain when they start to lose" ~ Matthew Colville.
My greatest concern in these situations is not the players going for it.
It's when they refuse to take responsibility for that choice and blame me.
I have one player that does that. His choice, his rolls, his fails...but my fault.
That's why I always make tons and tons of hints. That way when one player starts to complain, I remember him about one hint. If he insists, the next one. Until he can only shut up and/or admit it's not my fault.
My most invested players show up to feel smart, not to feel powerful.
This (different) fundamental purpose for coming to the table means that whomever says the four magic words ("Marines, we are leaving!") at the right time, gets to feel smart.
I already come from B/X which, despite any heroic artwork, is survivalist horror.
11:30 he wanted to “unfoop” the situation 😂
Hey Matt! I'm a somewhat new DM and my players have pretty busy schedules and sometimes they can't make it to our Tuesday night games. You should make a Running the Game video about how to handle filtering players in and out of your campaign. Like how to work it into the story and stuff when a player can't make it to a session and what not. That would be helpful! Thanks, keep up the awesome videos!
"Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?"
As always, you're the man! Thank you so much for taking the time to make these videos.
everytime new photo on the wall. now even 5th element's rocks. amazing.
I ran my first DnD session this past weekend for a few friends (my first Dm aswell) in their first encounter a goblin ambush ofc. the first player ran into the woods to avoid combat, the second player killed on goblin then chased him down leaving the final player to deal with the remaining goblins. this was a theme of the night...
I have a good example of the obvious exception to this: When you as a DM know your players and - just as important - the group dynamic at the table well enough, you can actually attempt things like this. Nearly all of us were in our third session of EVER playing DnD but with the exception of one player and the DM. Through excellent storytelling (bodies sprawled about, clearly being instantly killed, wounds from all sides like the thing could strike from anywhere with most not even having noticed the danger) he managed to convince the more prudent voices in the team that proceeding would be a terrible idea. He knew that those with prudent voices were usually the life of the party IRL and so he used them to convince the rest of the group. He had an excellent grasp on how we worked as a group at the table and used that to his advantage to teach the new players that not every encounter in his world is to be faced head-on and that retreating and regrouping are viable options.
Three videos in one week! Amazing.
I did this in my game. Prior to hearing about your videos. I think I got lucky because it worked. The players did run. I had placed 2 high level NPCs with them that they had rescued and one of them was a Genie. They asked the Genie to help get them out and It was something I hadn't considered. Basically I never thought they would even free her but they did convinced the bad guy to free her. So when they beat the bad guy and the PCs allies turned on them they asked the Genie "Can you help us?" I had her teleport the party out of the castle into the city. Then they escaped the city because they asked her to turn them invisible. I tried to tell them before hand that their allies would turn on them once they killed the bad guy but they didn't seem to care or notice. However, I think my situation worked because they found a way out. So I would add to Matt's statement and say don't back them into a corner where fight or surrender are the only options. I didn't realize I gave them a way out but I did and I am glad they found it.
I love seeing Last Starfighter references.
That was a great video, because it was advice (words of wisdom really) that I needed to hear as a DM.
I definitely go the "the world is dangerous and you never know what you'll face, it could be a mouse or a dragon" route, but I also never give them an encounter without some kind of in-game hint that they're about to get creamed. I also tell my players during every session zero that my policy is the world is a living place that doesn't scale to your level, so use caution, do your homework, and heed warnings.
Something that I do is to twist the surrender rule to the debate rule. What I mean by that is when the players have that moment of where "Well, this is impossible. We can't beat this" gently remind them that combat is not always the only way to go about things.
It will get players talking at the table and either come up with a solution that is tactically hilarious or ingenious or more than likely attempt to talk it out with the overwhelming force if they've opportunity. You are right, players are eager to roll dice. That doesn't always have to be attack though. Trap checks, diplomacy, sense motive, ect. They work just as well
I've got a group of players staring down a TPK this week, and they're excited about it.
I have a lot of feelings right now. I've telegraphed warnings to no avail. This is a West Marches-y setting and they've sort of interpolated the idea of "quest" into everything, and to be honest, I'm so fucking proud of them. It's gonna hurt killing them all, but I'm proud that they're so excited about the idea that they have a chance.
And hell, it's possible that they win. What is the difference between bravery and idiocy?
I had my group of level 2 players talk their way out of encounter with level 9 trolls because they had decided to chase single goblin to troll infested forest. Although, they did end up as prisoners for said trolls and something greater controlling the trolls. Players were happy, even if some of them did later argue "We should not have gone all the way to the troll fortress when there was only few of them around" everyone had good time and that castle adventure ended with most ridiculous escape.
How the author thinks the players think: they will see glowing magical items, realise they are out of their depth, and run.
How the players really think: “If we beat these guys we get cool magical loot!”
I really gotta start staying up til 3am again so I can catch these videos when they go up.
Wow. Phil's handout is superbly well done. Another great video too.
My last game was at a con with a group of random people. Started at level 1 and encountered a peaceful "level 6 earth elemental"-DM. Our Goliath barbarian leaped into battle and got splattered on the EE's attack of opportunity. This made the player upset and the DM basically said just cause your not a high level doesn't mean these things don't exist in the world, it's a dangerous world.
Hey Matt, love the videos!
I was thinking while watching this that if the party is indeed outnumbered, surely the enemies will know they have a distinct advantage, and instead of just trying to kill the PCs, instead they might want to capture them, either to sell them off into slavery or use them for some evil ritual.
So here you would introduce the 'non-fatal' blow mechanics, allowing the players to be as heroic as they want, test their luck but at the same time, failure doesn't result in a TPK.
This then leads to an interesting twist where the party have to find a way to escape captivity while separated and with none of their equipment! They'll stay alive, and learn an important lesson about the preservation of life.
I'm so glad that we are getting regular content again. Love the show!
I spent forever making an amazing boss battle at the end of an adventure, and they just ran away and escaped! I couldn't believe it. I even had a huge quest line planned from an item they'd find on the boss. I guess that was a rare exception to this.
Lmao