So... my party managed to talk their way from the entrance of a 'dungeon' to the.... 'Throne room' I guess. They posed as people they weren't and got to be escorted to the leader. However the leader immediately knew they weren't who they posed to be. They were completely surrounded by soldiers deep inside a keep, probably with more soldiers lurking within. Fighting would be hard if not impossible.
There was no immediate attack, however the players let it slip that they knew about a Dragon which the leader and his people desired to keep quiet. So the leader made a decision: The players will meet the Dragon and if he chooses not to kill them then they can live. If they do, they can talk further business. Perhaps be allies.
The players agreed (I allowed about 5-10mins of discussion between them since this was a crossroad of sorts) and begrudgingly let the soldiers take away their weapons. They were then escorted to where the Dragon was, in another keep miles away in a secret location. This is when it happened.
The party is 4 players each level 6. Fighter, Paladin, Druid, Wizard. They were disarmed and surrounded by 8 soldiers, all keeping an eye on them.
1 CR 4, 2 CR 3, 2 CR 2, and 3 CR 1/2. (They did not know the CR of the enemies or what they were. Some had different tokens showing they were probably stronger than the average schmuck.)
They then decided... To try and escape. The Wizard is a necromancer and keeps skeletons in his bag of holding. He decided to let them loose. I told him the soldiers are going to try to stop any movement like that and he needs to roll stealth.
He rolled 6, immediately being grappled and forced to not open his bag. The others went off that and started attacking/casting spells.
To make a long story short, they lost. The one holding their weapons sprinted away so they couldn't catch him, running ahead to the keep to get help. He rolled good initiative so he got a fair amount of distance by dashing before they could try anything.
They managed to take out the lower CR enemies and bloodying the other half before losing. I told them they were KO'd and are to be brought to the enemy keep. Their future relies on what the Dragon decides to do with you.
We ended the session there. Now I have a question:
Was that my fault for putting them in a situation where if they didn't submit they have an extremely low chance of victory. Or their fault for making a bad decision?
I could tell by the tones of their voices that by the end of the encounter they seemed rather annoyed it didn't work out. One sounded a little aggravated saying the only reason they lost was 'cause the Wizard got grappled and KO'd very early.
Was it your fault for having that situation? I don't think so. But I'd have an issue with the wizard interaction if I was one of your players. From what I can tell, he tried to pull a skeleton out, you asked for stealth, the necro rolled a 6, and then was immediately grappled? No grapple check? Also, even while grappled, he can still interact with bag, since he wasn't restrained. (Actually, even restrained he could still technically interact with the bag per the condition description.)
There should have been a grapple check on the wizard for sure. Or, going another route, a disarm check to pull the bag out of his hands.
But even with that change, the end result could have been the same. Either way, players will, from time to time, be upset when things don't work out for them. I'd recommend putting some thought into the upcoming meeting with the dragon. Don't let it rely on a single charisma check. Maybe a group check, using the average or total number. Or use it as a quest opportunity. The dragon lets them go if they do something for it. They got themselves into a tough spot, now they have to work their way out of it. Don't make it too tough or too easy, and they'll probably be fine once they have their equipment back and are on their way.
There were checks for the bag thing, I just shortened the explanation to get to the points. Whatever he was trying to do with the bag, they reached out, grabbing his arms stopping the initial opening of it then the initiative rolls went off because the others decided to try and fight off the failed bag opening.
He was able to open it later and the skeletons did come out, it didn't make them win though.
One of the most important things to know as a DM, maybe the most important thing is, no matter who is playing with you, no matter what other details may apply, the one universal among all groups of players is that the players hate to lose. It doesn't matter if the situation was reasonable, fair, a situation of their own making, etc. Players hate to lose.
So in a sense it really doesn't matter what the details of your encounter setup were, or how much blame there is on the players. Even if the wizard had opened the bag and drawn out a skeleton platoon, if you had run a completely fair encounter rolling all dice on the table in front of the players and the enemies had defeated the skeletons and the players, they'd still have been frustrated and angry by the end of the session.
Players expect to win each and every encounter. And for the most part, they are usually right, because probably 95% of all encounters in a D&D adventure (if not 100%) are designed (by the DM or the module writers) to be won by the party. Sure they can still mess up, but it's rare, because by design, the players are supposed to win. Nearly every time.
This type of basic design has consequences for the mind-set of the players. They are conditioned that all encounters are designed this way (for them to win) and they start to naturally assume that somehow, they will win, no matter what. So they are completely unprepared for an actual defeat, and they are not used to watching their friends go down one by one, and the party dwindle to nothing. It's almost always the other side having that happen. Therefore they are unpracticed at RPing defeat, or experiencing it in D&D, and many players have a hard time taking this in stride.
As a DM, you need to be aware of this and prepared for it, if you intend to let the party suffer the consequences of bad choices and legit lose a fair fight. Your players will find the experience decidedly unpleasant while it is happening. They may, later, after the adventure is over and they have escaped and ultimately won in the end, acknowledge that the defeat was narratively good and worked for the story. But while they are losing? They hate it. Again, this is universal.
Consequently, I don't think there was anything you could have done in this situation that would have made them NOT be annoyed. The guy who complained about the wizard grapple, had that not happened, would have found something else to complain about -- if only you hadn't rolled those 2 nat 20s for the villains. If only he hadn't rolled that nat 1. Etc. Players don't like to lose, and every time they do, they will react the way you described. Even the best, most experienced, most mature players, get frustrated when they lose, because again, nearly all players experience legit defeat in combat so rarely, that they have little practice at dealing with it.
I don't think you did anything wrong, leaving aside interpretations of grapple and retrained because I am not well versed in those conditions, at least enough that I could second-guess your rulings. I'll let others discuss that.
My point here is that if you are going to set up a situation in which the party can be defeated, and you are going to let the dice fall where they may (and I think you should do that), you need to be prepared to take some player ire that session and maybe into the next, until they escape. Once they start winning again, they should get into a better mood....
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Biowizard is very wise. There is an expectation of winning every encounter in this edition, so since they lost, your players probably feel like either you cheated, or they failed. Neither of those if a good feeling. Personally, I hate the players always win model. During my session 0, I usually tell them I like to follow the older guidance of: You should expect to flee from about 5% of encounters. And then I occasionally remind them of that on game days. Personally, I find it makes the world more alive and the story better when they occasionally meet something out of their league, and then it’s much more satisfying when they do come back and beat it.
For your current situation, you could do like sigvard said. the dragon could just say something like, I like your moxie, you crazy kids. Prove yourselves and maybe we can work something out.
Yeah I'm going to chime in with the others saying I don't think you really did anything wrong. The players were the ones who decided to try to con their way to the end of the dungeon knowing that they could be found out at any time. Good creativity, but they should have prepared better. The only thing I think I would have done differently is not having the guy run off with their gear. Sure, that's the smart thing for him to do, but even IRL people don't always do what's good for them. Maybe his brother or girlfriend is one of the other guards and he's reluctant to abandon him or her. That could have tilted things more in the players favor where maybe they'd feel they had more of a fighting chance. I usually like to use these kinds of fudges when I DM instead of outright fudging dice rolls.
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So... my party managed to talk their way from the entrance of a 'dungeon' to the.... 'Throne room' I guess. They posed as people they weren't and got to be escorted to the leader. However the leader immediately knew they weren't who they posed to be. They were completely surrounded by soldiers deep inside a keep, probably with more soldiers lurking within. Fighting would be hard if not impossible.
There was no immediate attack, however the players let it slip that they knew about a Dragon which the leader and his people desired to keep quiet. So the leader made a decision: The players will meet the Dragon and if he chooses not to kill them then they can live. If they do, they can talk further business. Perhaps be allies.
The players agreed (I allowed about 5-10mins of discussion between them since this was a crossroad of sorts) and begrudgingly let the soldiers take away their weapons. They were then escorted to where the Dragon was, in another keep miles away in a secret location. This is when it happened.
The party is 4 players each level 6. Fighter, Paladin, Druid, Wizard. They were disarmed and surrounded by 8 soldiers, all keeping an eye on them.
1 CR 4, 2 CR 3, 2 CR 2, and 3 CR 1/2. (They did not know the CR of the enemies or what they were. Some had different tokens showing they were probably stronger than the average schmuck.)
They then decided... To try and escape. The Wizard is a necromancer and keeps skeletons in his bag of holding. He decided to let them loose. I told him the soldiers are going to try to stop any movement like that and he needs to roll stealth.
He rolled 6, immediately being grappled and forced to not open his bag. The others went off that and started attacking/casting spells.
To make a long story short, they lost. The one holding their weapons sprinted away so they couldn't catch him, running ahead to the keep to get help. He rolled good initiative so he got a fair amount of distance by dashing before they could try anything.
They managed to take out the lower CR enemies and bloodying the other half before losing. I told them they were KO'd and are to be brought to the enemy keep. Their future relies on what the Dragon decides to do with you.
We ended the session there. Now I have a question:
Was that my fault for putting them in a situation where if they didn't submit they have an extremely low chance of victory. Or their fault for making a bad decision?
I could tell by the tones of their voices that by the end of the encounter they seemed rather annoyed it didn't work out. One sounded a little aggravated saying the only reason they lost was 'cause the Wizard got grappled and KO'd very early.
Was it your fault for having that situation? I don't think so. But I'd have an issue with the wizard interaction if I was one of your players. From what I can tell, he tried to pull a skeleton out, you asked for stealth, the necro rolled a 6, and then was immediately grappled? No grapple check? Also, even while grappled, he can still interact with bag, since he wasn't restrained. (Actually, even restrained he could still technically interact with the bag per the condition description.)
There should have been a grapple check on the wizard for sure. Or, going another route, a disarm check to pull the bag out of his hands.
But even with that change, the end result could have been the same. Either way, players will, from time to time, be upset when things don't work out for them. I'd recommend putting some thought into the upcoming meeting with the dragon. Don't let it rely on a single charisma check. Maybe a group check, using the average or total number. Or use it as a quest opportunity. The dragon lets them go if they do something for it. They got themselves into a tough spot, now they have to work their way out of it. Don't make it too tough or too easy, and they'll probably be fine once they have their equipment back and are on their way.
There were checks for the bag thing, I just shortened the explanation to get to the points. Whatever he was trying to do with the bag, they reached out, grabbing his arms stopping the initial opening of it then the initiative rolls went off because the others decided to try and fight off the failed bag opening.
He was able to open it later and the skeletons did come out, it didn't make them win though.
One of the most important things to know as a DM, maybe the most important thing is, no matter who is playing with you, no matter what other details may apply, the one universal among all groups of players is that the players hate to lose. It doesn't matter if the situation was reasonable, fair, a situation of their own making, etc. Players hate to lose.
So in a sense it really doesn't matter what the details of your encounter setup were, or how much blame there is on the players. Even if the wizard had opened the bag and drawn out a skeleton platoon, if you had run a completely fair encounter rolling all dice on the table in front of the players and the enemies had defeated the skeletons and the players, they'd still have been frustrated and angry by the end of the session.
Players expect to win each and every encounter. And for the most part, they are usually right, because probably 95% of all encounters in a D&D adventure (if not 100%) are designed (by the DM or the module writers) to be won by the party. Sure they can still mess up, but it's rare, because by design, the players are supposed to win. Nearly every time.
This type of basic design has consequences for the mind-set of the players. They are conditioned that all encounters are designed this way (for them to win) and they start to naturally assume that somehow, they will win, no matter what. So they are completely unprepared for an actual defeat, and they are not used to watching their friends go down one by one, and the party dwindle to nothing. It's almost always the other side having that happen. Therefore they are unpracticed at RPing defeat, or experiencing it in D&D, and many players have a hard time taking this in stride.
As a DM, you need to be aware of this and prepared for it, if you intend to let the party suffer the consequences of bad choices and legit lose a fair fight. Your players will find the experience decidedly unpleasant while it is happening. They may, later, after the adventure is over and they have escaped and ultimately won in the end, acknowledge that the defeat was narratively good and worked for the story. But while they are losing? They hate it. Again, this is universal.
Consequently, I don't think there was anything you could have done in this situation that would have made them NOT be annoyed. The guy who complained about the wizard grapple, had that not happened, would have found something else to complain about -- if only you hadn't rolled those 2 nat 20s for the villains. If only he hadn't rolled that nat 1. Etc. Players don't like to lose, and every time they do, they will react the way you described. Even the best, most experienced, most mature players, get frustrated when they lose, because again, nearly all players experience legit defeat in combat so rarely, that they have little practice at dealing with it.
I don't think you did anything wrong, leaving aside interpretations of grapple and retrained because I am not well versed in those conditions, at least enough that I could second-guess your rulings. I'll let others discuss that.
My point here is that if you are going to set up a situation in which the party can be defeated, and you are going to let the dice fall where they may (and I think you should do that), you need to be prepared to take some player ire that session and maybe into the next, until they escape. Once they start winning again, they should get into a better mood....
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Look for story opportunities. Ask yourself what can happen now that couldn't have happened before?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Biowizard is very wise. There is an expectation of winning every encounter in this edition, so since they lost, your players probably feel like either you cheated, or they failed. Neither of those if a good feeling.
Personally, I hate the players always win model. During my session 0, I usually tell them I like to follow the older guidance of: You should expect to flee from about 5% of encounters. And then I occasionally remind them of that on game days. Personally, I find it makes the world more alive and the story better when they occasionally meet something out of their league, and then it’s much more satisfying when they do come back and beat it.
For your current situation, you could do like sigvard said. the dragon could just say something like, I like your moxie, you crazy kids. Prove yourselves and maybe we can work something out.
Yeah I'm going to chime in with the others saying I don't think you really did anything wrong. The players were the ones who decided to try to con their way to the end of the dungeon knowing that they could be found out at any time. Good creativity, but they should have prepared better. The only thing I think I would have done differently is not having the guy run off with their gear. Sure, that's the smart thing for him to do, but even IRL people don't always do what's good for them. Maybe his brother or girlfriend is one of the other guards and he's reluctant to abandon him or her. That could have tilted things more in the players favor where maybe they'd feel they had more of a fighting chance. I usually like to use these kinds of fudges when I DM instead of outright fudging dice rolls.