Author Topic: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?  (Read 5761 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Colin-ICE

  • ICE Business
  • *
  • Posts: 233
  • OIC Points +0/-0
How often do you have your group confront obstacles they cannot possibly overcome (failing an amazing critical)? How do you manage these encounters and what happens when the PCs try to overcome it?

Offline tbigness

  • Navigator
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,517
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2018, 09:17:27 AM »
This happens quite often in my campaigns as I don't level the area based on character level. They have to figure out a way to get past it using tools in the game itself (hire someone high level, get a magic item which requires a quest, Make contacts with the underworld for an item or a skilled NPC, Find a person who knows something about the event). when I say the game is not scaled to the PC's, My average level of major obstacles is around 10-20th level while the players are Neophytes to the world. Common fold average between 3rd and 7th Level and in bigger cities this can range 3rd to 20th level in areas. The encounters and creatures are more to the character level if they stay on path but not fixed for going off the path. They learn to avoid dangers or they roll new characters. I do have things that will help characters along the way but they have to be searched out for to overcome some of these obstacles.
Knowledge is unimagined Power

Offline Hurin

  • Loremaster
  • ****
  • Posts: 7,347
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2018, 11:10:00 AM »
I very rarely put characters up against insurmountable challenges. I actually very strongly dislike the Kobayashi Maru style of GMing. I'm not trying to say it is bad -- if you like it, all power to you, and you should play the way you want. I just very much dislike it personally, and find that my players do not enjoy it either. I hate the way 5th Edition DnD has very poorly balanced encounters. Both Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Princes of the Apocalypse have broken encounters at early levels that can easily result in a TPK: one was the result of the fact that Wizards changed some of the monster stats before HotDQ was released, and there is no excuse whatsoever for the one in PotA (which is at level 1 to boot!). I consider those sorts of encounters to be terrible game design.

That said, I do occasionally have the Big Bad Evil Guy of the campaign make an appearance before the characters early in the adventure, to provide the characters with a motive/incentive to fight him -- though I don't usually have the characters fight him directly. And of course, if the characters do something stupid, like try to take on the entire town guard after starting a fight in a tavern, or head out to take on a red dragon at first level, then the PCs will suffer the consequences and might be killed. But if they play smart and don't try to bite off more than they can chew, I don't generally put them up against impossible challenges; or at least I give them a reasonable chance (e.g. lore checks to find out that this creature is much more powerful than they thought) of figuring out that this challenge is too great for them, and that they need to figure out how to disengage or solve the problem another way. I might also drop hints like, 'This spider is really enormous; your attacks don't really seem to be hurting it much'.
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

'Every party needs at least one insane person.'  --Aspen of the Jade Isle

Offline Peter R

  • Navigator
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,850
  • OIC Points +480/-480
    • Rolemaster Blog
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2018, 11:18:20 AM »
I am very much in the Hurin camp on this one. My world contains many creatures, NPC and even places that would kill the party outright but their adventures do not lead there at the moment.
Rolemasterblog http://www.rolemasterblog.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/RolemasterBlog
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/rolemasterblog/

Spectre771 A couple of weeks ago, I disemboweled one of my PCs with a...

Offline dagorhir

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 571
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2018, 12:23:32 PM »
I never put insurmountable obstacles before my players. I always provide the means to get around them.

My world and campaign has many big bad villain that can easily defeat the characters if they are not ready, and I generally introduce these antagonists to the players when they are not ready. But that villain leaves the fighting to his minions and exits the scene. That serves to introduce the villain and give a reason for the PCs to go after it.

It does happen that an encounter is designed to defeat the characters. That's part of the story either because I want them to be captured and their eventual escape continues the story.

On some rare occasions, players do get themselves in serious binds that my design did not anticipate. Players will boldly go where no game design has gone before, and chaos ensues. They'll suffer whatever consequence their blunder got them into, that's just part of the game.

If there wasn't any risk there wouldn't any fun.

Offline tbigness

  • Navigator
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,517
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #5 on: May 29, 2018, 01:49:56 PM »
Yeah this is what I try to go for with the Big Bad not getting involved personally until later in the campaign I will provide them with a vision or whispers or some other mechanisms that will provided a clue. On my grand campaign I had strange visions come into the party as they rested before meeting the big bad. It laid out what each character had to do to be victorious but did not allow others to know of these visions until it came into play. I gave a 7 in 8 chance of success. But they did not all take head to the clues and ended up dooming the world to the Apocalypse scenario. Funny thing is that they survived the encounter but the world as they know it no longer exists.
Knowledge is unimagined Power

Offline Majyk

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 477
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #6 on: May 29, 2018, 02:12:32 PM »
When GM’ing, tasks with higher difficulties would either have extra time or research required in order to bypass them.
Skill use was never 100% fail until a house ruled “three strikes” occurred and you’re too exhausted or exasperated to continue and it is finally beyond one’s ken(physically/mentally).
AD&D4e finally picked up on this kinda thing with their extended challenges system needing 2x Successes before so many Failures.  E.g. 12 Successes before 6 Failures, 8 Successes before 4 Failures.
So if you want to make something take time, or thwart immediate failure with a single failed skill check, have the PCs use old RM2 Complementary Skills to add a +15/+20 to main skill use(akin to Lore(Lock/Trap) checks adding to Skill(Pick Locks/Disarm Traps) checks.  Add rounds, minutes, hours, etc. for every check.  This adds suspense if there is a time crunch and is awesome to see fear set in if failed checks are approaching the end of days threshold!


At the same time, don’t be afraid to let those locks go unpicked, or traps disarmed.  It makes for a great story of what the PCs must do next to bypass something giving them fits.

For combat, I am quite close to the norm expressed above but have no compunctions about introducing a new PC to the story due to valourous hints being ignored.  LOL!

Always-always intro your BBEG early, whether in disguise for a big reveal later, or outright as above so the carrot is targetted!

Offline Spectre771

  • Revered Elder
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,384
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #7 on: May 29, 2018, 02:45:33 PM »
I don't go for the Kobayashi Maru style either.  I will present them with obstacles they have to figure out.  I tailor the baddies to their PC levels, but I will also present them with obstacles they may not be able to handle yet.  They may need to level up a couple of times, find help, or simply leave it until they can come up with a solution. 

I'm along the same lines as Peter R here.  There are areas that are simply too challenging for the party and the adventure I put them on leads them around those areas, but the players have free will and sometimes they wander off the yellow brick road.

... and I also introduce the Big Bad Boss who will have the minions fight the party so the party can extrapolate how challenging the boss may be.  The level 1 group I have now is experiencing this exact thing with the Cabin in the Woods adventure.
If discretion is the better valor and
cowardice the better part of judgment,
let's all be heroes and run away!

Offline jdale

  • RMU Dev Team
  • ****
  • Posts: 7,099
  • OIC Points +25/-25
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #8 on: May 29, 2018, 04:31:07 PM »
One of my friends told me he had a door which could only be opened by despair. The characters literally had to give up for it to open. It took hours. :)

I generally don't put the characters up against certain doom but I also don't try to plan their solution for them. That's their problem. It's possible they might not think of one. Often the opposition has objectives, not merely "kill the PCs", so if the enemy wins, that's ok, the story just goes a different way. Lately I've been having trouble because the PCs having been doing too good a job, stopping things I didn't expect them to, so that kind of makes the enemy less worrisome and takes some urgency out of the plot, but I certainly had room in the story for the enemy to capture the things the enemy was trying to capture.
System and Line Editor for Rolemaster

Offline Jengada

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 409
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #9 on: May 29, 2018, 05:02:21 PM »
There are NPCs in my campaign that the party could seek out, who are insurmountable at their present level. There are places they could go where they couldn't survive, just from natural hazards. But in terms of what I put in front of them, there's always a degree of success they can achieve. It may not be what they consider success when they first look at the situation, but they usually realize that full success, based on first look, isn't really going to happen.
Right now they're in a scenario where they have friends trapped in the middle of a turf war between two gangs. They very quickly realized the complexity, and spent over an hour of table time debating the ethics of various options. Do they intervene? If so, how? What happens to the citizens after they leave, either way? The initial idea of success (take out the gangs, or one of them) led to questions of what would happen next. And then discussions of what steps they can take over the long term, or whether they really had the right to show up and do anything.
We ask the hard questions here, because they keep us too busy to worry about the hard questions in the real world, and we can go with the answers we like the best.

Offline intothatdarkness

  • Navigator
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,879
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #10 on: June 09, 2018, 10:53:41 AM »
I very rarely design adventures with insurmountable obstacles, but like Spectre and others I also favor a very "sandbox" world design. If players wander too far into the wilderness, they might run into something they simply can't deal with and the best option is to run away. While I don't level my world, I do base their opposition on the amount of fuss the party causes on their adventures. So on occasion they do run into something along the lines of the movie "End of Watch" (in other words their actions might accidentally attract the attention of someone quite powerful with serious consequences). But even then they don't run into the major baddie right away...just a horde of henchmen.
Darn that salt pork!

Offline OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol

  • Revered Elder
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,221
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #11 on: June 13, 2018, 06:59:44 AM »
Isn't overcoming insurmountable challenges the mark of true heroes?
In all of my campaigns, the actual adversaries of the PCs are absolutely insurmountable challenges, beings that cannot be defeated by the PCs, ever, in any possible way. Considering that gods exist and the world at large is nothing more than their playfield with all sentient beings their toys, my players have learnt for a long time that everything, in the end, is nothing more than politics and their personal victories are tied with victory of the divine side they choose. Heck, they after all know that even the lowest level divine servant (the "angels" since an "angel" is just a divine "messenger") are absolutely insurmountable challenges and beings no human being (or group of human beings) may ever defeat in combat.

At least, that's the theory.

Merely being able to surprise the gods is most often considered overcoming an insurmountable challenge. You may not defeat any one of them, but you may surprise them. This is enough and doing so marks you as a true hero.
The world was then consumed by darkness, and mankind was devoured alive and cast into hell, led by a jubilant 紗羽. She rejoiced in being able to continue serving the gods, thus perpetuating her travels across worlds to destroy them. She looked at her doll and, remembering their promises, told her: "You see, my dear, we succeeded! We've become legends! We've become villains! We've become witches!" She then laughed with a joyful, childlike laughter, just as she kept doing for all of eternity.

Offline Mordrig

  • Initiate
  • *
  • Posts: 116
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #12 on: June 13, 2018, 10:51:21 AM »
I have an open world, the players go where they will.  Face what they will, yes there is an underlying campaign, and they ignore it at their peril.  Yes, there are things that with a look could give a TPK, but I try to prevent players from facing certain death.  Already in my current campaign the characters encountered a situation that was certain death.  They were confronted with 20 city watch that were better armed, ready for a fight, and had them almost entirely surrounded.
A few of the players had a look at things, decided it was hopeless, and did a fade into the crowd, two decided to fight anyway, and two tried to get out by wits and talking.  Those fighting and talking where subdued and arrested for the trial.  Those who faded escaped.  They then worked out a jail break for those captured and the party is now on the run.  They encountered the BBEG and didn't know he was the enemy, they helped him out of a jam and he left them in the lurch facing another bad situation that they could escape from.  Now at least they have seen the enemy and really hate him for playing them the fools.

Offline GamemasterAlf

  • Neophyte
  • *
  • Posts: 28
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #13 on: June 15, 2018, 05:24:38 PM »
i am like Mordrig  I have an open world and the players go where they may. I give them a path and clues to others adventures that are within their abilities should they choose to pursue it.

There are also locations where the bad guys rule and it is not always hidden or a secret
I do try to give clues again on how tough it is if they are heading the wrong way, but they have not always listened, and have paid the price

Offline Cory Magel

  • Loremaster
  • ****
  • Posts: 5,615
  • OIC Points +5/-5
  • Fun > Balance > Realism
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #14 on: June 17, 2018, 10:28:31 AM »
There's nothing we can't overcome, we just sometimes die before doing it!

It's unusual our gaming groups can't figure something out. We've got a fairly intelligent bunch with broad spectrum of knowledge and skills between us. Also, the various people who GM the groups I play with these days know when to adjust things when they discover it's beyond the group. I used to game with a couple people that didn't have that ability (one guy literally gave us a calculus problem that only one person really even had a chance of solving it), but over the years I just learned I didn't want to play in those games.
- Cory Magel

Game design priority: Fun > Balance > Realism (greater than > less than).
(Channeling Companion, RMQ 1 & 2, and various Guild Companion articles author).

"The only thing I know about adults is that they are obsolete children." - Dr Seuss

Offline Spectre771

  • Revered Elder
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,384
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #15 on: June 18, 2018, 06:34:04 AM »
(one guy literally gave us a calculus problem that only one person really even had a chance of solving it), but over the years I just learned I didn't want to play in those games.

That's the beauty of roleplaying.  You roll Advanced Math skill.  You don't have to actually DO the advanced math.  That's not roleplaying, that's high school math homework.  I don't expect any of my players to actually hit me with a battle axe to demonstrate the damage they do to my NPCs!! :o  You game with a dedicated group of gamers, Corey.

If discretion is the better valor and
cowardice the better part of judgment,
let's all be heroes and run away!

Offline Cory Magel

  • Loremaster
  • ****
  • Posts: 5,615
  • OIC Points +5/-5
  • Fun > Balance > Realism
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #16 on: June 18, 2018, 07:21:23 PM »
(one guy literally gave us a calculus problem that only one person really even had a chance of solving it), but over the years I just learned I didn't want to play in those games.

That's the beauty of roleplaying.  You roll Advanced Math skill.  You don't have to actually DO the advanced math.

This GM was ugly. ;) It was a riddle that you couldn't just roll a skill against (this was also 2nd Ed D&D days).
- Cory Magel

Game design priority: Fun > Balance > Realism (greater than > less than).
(Channeling Companion, RMQ 1 & 2, and various Guild Companion articles author).

"The only thing I know about adults is that they are obsolete children." - Dr Seuss

Offline Spectre771

  • Revered Elder
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,384
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #17 on: June 21, 2018, 01:17:34 PM »
(one guy literally gave us a calculus problem that only one person really even had a chance of solving it), but over the years I just learned I didn't want to play in those games.

That's the beauty of roleplaying.  You roll Advanced Math skill.  You don't have to actually DO the advanced math.

This GM was ugly. ;) It was a riddle that you couldn't just roll a skill against (this was also 2nd Ed D&D days).

That's probably why I never got into D&D early on.  I didn't have an advanced math degree yet!  :laugh1:
If discretion is the better valor and
cowardice the better part of judgment,
let's all be heroes and run away!

Offline arakish

  • Navigator
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,579
  • OIC Points +5/-5
  • A joy of mine
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #18 on: August 31, 2018, 03:35:09 PM »
Like Hurin, I do not like the Kobayashi Maru.  I tend to create "open" worlds where the characters can go where they wish.  Now if they go somewhere that is overwhelming for them, well, they are the ones who did it.  I also usually have players intelligent enough to realize, "Uhm.  I don't think we should try this yet."  For my new world of Onaviu, I did kind of start their new character in a place where they were completely out-matched, but they were quick enough to realize they needed to escape and get further experience and then come back some time in the future.

I have been a player with a GM who was always TPK in the first or second sessions.  That is not for me as a GM.  Where is the fun in that?

rmfr
"Beware those who would deny you access to information, for they already dream themselves your master."
— RMF Runyan in Sci-Fi RPG session (GM); quoted from the PC game SMAC.

Offline intothatdarkness

  • Navigator
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,879
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: How often does your group confront obstacles they cannot overcome?
« Reply #19 on: September 03, 2018, 11:32:33 AM »
Like Hurin, I do not like the Kobayashi Maru.  I tend to create "open" worlds where the characters can go where they wish.  Now if they go somewhere that is overwhelming for them, well, they are the ones who did it.  I also usually have players intelligent enough to realize, "Uhm.  I don't think we should try this yet."  For my new world of Onaviu, I did kind of start their new character in a place where they were completely out-matched, but they were quick enough to realize they needed to escape and get further experience and then come back some time in the future.

I have been a player with a GM who was always TPK in the first or second sessions.  That is not for me as a GM.  Where is the fun in that?

rmfr

The first time I encountered RM2 it was with a group that did TPK as soon as you hit fifth level. There was no reason for it I could ever determine, but the second a character hit fifth level we'd start running into ancient dragons (not just one, mind, but two or three) and the party would die. Or the one character who was fifth level would run into the dragons alone and die. Didn't matter. It didn't sour me on RM, though...I had enough gaming experience to understand it was a flaw in the group's GMs (there were three guys who took turns running games, and they all had the same TPK obsession) and not the rules.
Darn that salt pork!