If the party doesn't want to be proactive, make turtling result in an automatic fail condition. Like give them a time limit to actually hunt down and stop the BBEG before they activate the artifact that will kill and reanimate everything in a five mile radius, which includes the party. Or things like that.
For extra motivation, you can start adding ever more powerful types of undead the longer they take. So there's incentive to find and barbecue whomever is responsible as quickly as possible.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The older module "Red Hand of Doom" does this, but in in-game days (gm discretion). I may abuse this mechanic, but I love adding a time constraint, otherwise, I could understand as characters that they want to sit back and wait for as long as possible to see if someone else intervenes...
ie: "let's call the avengers".
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I'm not big on punishing players with time constraints, but as a GM, my time is valuable to me. If they're not going to respect the time and effort it takes to both set up and run a game by showing up and then just not doing anything? Well, if they won't got to the adventure, the adventure is going to hunt them down, beat them senseless, and steal their spell components.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Lots of people have commented on ways to stop the party from bunkering down in their tiny hut, so I won't add too much to that chorus, except to say that you should try to make them move!
If they are set on bunkering in the tavern, I would go for a few options:
• There's something upstairs or downstairs - if they haven't checked, then have something be upstairs or in the basement, conveniently on the floor above or below when they cast tiny hut, so they were inside when they cast it. Make it a serious threat, not just a shambling corpse, like the lickers in resident evil, and then they have to face it without making too much noise. Maybe have it suspiciously smart, dragging the caster out of the hut to dispel it.
• Have a monster with dispel magic in some way - an undead sorcerer with a scroll, or an undead ogre with a talisman. That'll put the wind up them - an ogre zombie shuffles into the pub, they hunker in their hut, staying silent. It looks over the hut, and then slowly lifts its hand, and you see, branded on its palm, the rune of dispel magic. It slaps its hand down on the hut, and the hut flickers and disappears.
• Play it out to the inevitable end. The zombies are commanded to kill everything, and 7 hours and 59 minutes later, an army of them are waiting around the tiny hut for it to disappear. they can keep casting it if they want, but help isn't coming - sooner or later, they will need a new plan. This method might be a little dull, but it also teaches them that taking the boring route is boring - spicing up their dull decision is positive reinforcement - "we don't have to go adventuring, if we stay here something will happen anyway!".
Duck's ideas are all good, in-character ways to make the PCs move.
But I still think, given the "hide in the inn" motif that is recurring here, that there may need to be a conversation with the players. I would ask them, do they not want a game in which there are risks? Do they not want challenges and adventures? Why do they keep hunkering down waiting for things to blow over and for "someone else" to take care of the problem?
The whole point of D&D is that the party IS the "someone else" - they're the ones who take on something when no one else can. If they refuse to take things on, then there is very little point to playing.
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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.
Duck's ideas are all good, in-character ways to make the PCs move.
But I still think, given the "hide in the inn" motif that is recurring here, that there may need to be a conversation with the players. I would ask them, do they not want a game in which there are risks? Do they not want challenges and adventures? Why do they keep hunkering down waiting for things to blow over and for "someone else" to take care of the problem?
The whole point of D&D is that the party IS the "someone else" - they're the ones who take on something when no one else can. If they refuse to take things on, then there is very little point to playing.
I was thinking about this earlier, and I think I've got a solution:
The party is keen to hide from the enemy instead of facing them - so why not adopt this playstyle and build your games around it?
• Instead of fighting through a dungeon of enemies, find a way to drop them in a dangerous place where the enemies will kill them if they engage, and let them work out how to get out.
• Instead of having them slaughter their way through a horde of the undead, leave them to hunker down and let them work out how to get out once the town is overrun and the zombies aren't leaving any time soon.
• Instead of giving them dramatic battles that they don't want to engage with, give them tasks to perform whilst avoiding the fights.
• Add some sort of "sanity" measurement to the game, and then start adding more horror-based situations where they need to get out, not where they need to fight.
• Bouncing off the "add a stat" aspect, why not capitalise on the modern humans mental conditioning for increasing numbers (in the same way that all mobile games companies do) and give them a "renown" statistic, which will represent how well liked they are by the common folk. Every time they make these cowardly decisions, drop their renown. Make renown affect buying prices, NPC helpfulness, and the caliber of quests given out - "Don't ask them to do it, they just hid in a tavern when those zombies wiped out Avernath!". As soon as they have a measurable feature to measure their actions against, and it starts affecting their game, they might start rethinking: "We'll just hide here and let it blow over." - "You can do, but it's not going to look good to the common folk..." - "wait, no, we'll try and escape? maybe save some people?" - "oh, they'll like that...".
IF -- the DM is able and willing to modify the game this way. And IF the DM wants to run a game like this.
I would not. If I offered these ideas and they all said yes, we'd rather play in a game like that instead of traditional heroic D&D, I'd have to say, "OK, who wants to DM?"
I want to GM for heroes. If the players aren't going to be heroic, that's fine, and it is a valid way to play, but it's not the sort of game I want to GM.
Simple example: in Champions, when I bought the Great Super Villain Contest (GSVC), which I still regard as the best RPG adventure I've ever run... The author (Dennis Mallonee) encouraged the GM to let players make up villains and to run it as a super villain roleplaying game, rather than superheroes.
I refused to run a game of villains. I modded the GSVC so that it could be run without that, and let the hero PCs pretend to become villains to infiltrate the contest. But they were always heroes; in fact the two who infiltrated risked their lives to do so, and they just got lucky that the ubervillain who figured them out (Overlord) was on their side because he didn't trust the guy running the contest (with good reason -- the Crimson Claw was up to no good, even as villains would regard things).
So... doing all the things Duck suggests could work great, if the GM is willing to run a game like that. But if not, then again, you need to have a talk with the players about what sort of game you want to play.
Honestly, the warlock player just sounds like a coward to me... whether he is RPing a coward, or whether the player is a real life coward (at least as far as games are concerned), I can't tell from the story so far.
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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.
IF -- the DM is able and willing to modify the game this way. And IF the DM wants to run a game like this.
I would not. If I offered these ideas and they all said yes, we'd rather play in a game like that instead of traditional heroic D&D, I'd have to say, "OK, who wants to DM?"
I want to GM for heroes. If the players aren't going to be heroic, that's fine, and it is a valid way to play, but it's not the sort of game I want to GM.
Simple example: in Champions, when I bought the Great Super Villain Contest (GSVC), which I still regard as the best RPG adventure I've ever run... The author (Dennis Mallonee) encouraged the GM to let players make up villains and to run it as a super villain roleplaying game, rather than superheroes.
I refused to run a game of villains. I modded the GSVC so that it could be run without that, and let the hero PCs pretend to become villains to infiltrate the contest. But they were always heroes; in fact the two who infiltrated risked their lives to do so, and they just got lucky that the ubervillain who figured them out (Overlord) was on their side because he didn't trust the guy running the contest (with good reason -- the Crimson Claw was up to no good, even as villains would regard things).
So... doing all the things Duck suggests could work great, if the GM is willing to run a game like that. But if not, then again, you need to have a talk with the players about what sort of game you want to play.
Honestly, the warlock player just sounds like a coward to me... whether he is RPing a coward, or whether the player is a real life coward (at least as far as games are concerned), I can't tell from the story so far.
I suppose you could integrate "get a new DM" with the "renown" stat.
I'm picturing it as something on the player-side of the DM screen. At one end you have the word "heroes", and at the other end you have the words "get a new DM", and then you have a slider which you actively move as they do things you consider too cowardly to be worth narrating.
I think that's a large part of what it boils down to - if there a guards in the town doing more heroic deeds than the heroes, you'd prefer to narrate their goings on than "and the party sat quietly in their impregnable tiny hut, again...". I do agree - I'd much rather a party which does stuff. I'm guessing (as this party has cropped up before) that the OP is enjoying playing with them and simply finds their antics a bit difficult to plan for!
Well, I took one approach and asked a player one simple question "Do you feel at the end of the last game the group is being 'heroic' by bunking down in your huts while the city is being overrun?". He has not responded yet but I want to see if there is a player perspective that I am not accounting for or maybe something I've said to get the impression 'Tavern Camping' was the best course of action.
Right, and if the OP is having fun with them and enjoying their antics -- great. It's all down to what the folks at the table like.
I am sure many people ran the GSVC with "villain roleplaying." And had great fun with it. It's just not for me.
Am I having fun? Yes, because I am playing D&D with my friends across four states that I never imagine could be done a year ago.
Am I enjoying their antics? Yes/No. I'm using "Player Agency / Railroading" as a crutch I know and I'm telling myself I can try and be creative on what will happen next based on what they've done so far so that is fun. It's not fun when the plot is glaring right at them and they get scared to do anything. The last game ended with them in the tavern putting up the Hut's so it is possible things can change at the start of the new game I'm hoping with the talk I'm going to have with one of the players that maybe we can move in the intended direction.
I'm not a good DM, well not true, I'm a fairly OK DM, my players seem to be having fun to which they come back to the VTT nearly twice a week. So stuff, like I've been running into and running to all of you, is what gave me the key to gain experience and level up to improve my abilities.
IF -- the DM is able and willing to modify the game this way. And IF the DM wants to run a game like this.
I would not. If I offered these ideas and they all said yes, we'd rather play in a game like that instead of traditional heroic D&D, I'd have to say, "OK, who wants to DM?"
I want to GM for heroes. If the players aren't going to be heroic, that's fine, and it is a valid way to play, but it's not the sort of game I want to GM.
Simple example: in Champions, when I bought the Great Super Villain Contest (GSVC), which I still regard as the best RPG adventure I've ever run... The author (Dennis Mallonee) encouraged the GM to let players make up villains and to run it as a super villain roleplaying game, rather than superheroes.
I refused to run a game of villains. I modded the GSVC so that it could be run without that, and let the hero PCs pretend to become villains to infiltrate the contest. But they were always heroes; in fact the two who infiltrated risked their lives to do so, and they just got lucky that the ubervillain who figured them out (Overlord) was on their side because he didn't trust the guy running the contest (with good reason -- the Crimson Claw was up to no good, even as villains would regard things).
So... doing all the things Duck suggests could work great, if the GM is willing to run a game like that. But if not, then again, you need to have a talk with the players about what sort of game you want to play.
Honestly, the warlock player just sounds like a coward to me... whether he is RPing a coward, or whether the player is a real life coward (at least as far as games are concerned), I can't tell from the story so far.
I suppose you could integrate "get a new DM" with the "renown" stat.
I'm picturing it as something on the player-side of the DM screen. At one end you have the word "heroes", and at the other end you have the words "get a new DM", and then you have a slider which you actively move as they do things you consider too cowardly to be worth narrating.
I think that's a large part of what it boils down to - if there a guards in the town doing more heroic deeds than the heroes, you'd prefer to narrate their goings on than "and the party sat quietly in their impregnable tiny hut, again...". I do agree - I'd much rather a party which does stuff. I'm guessing (as this party has cropped up before) that the OP is enjoying playing with them and simply finds their antics a bit difficult to plan for!
Bilgewater is pretty much a lawless city so there are no 'guards' so to speak to defend against attacks like this and I've established that fact a few times in past sessions so it would seem out of place that some authority group starts appearing. That said there are factions within the city that I can use as retaliatory forces against this attack acting as a militia.
If the party does end up 'Tavern Camping' I have consequences that impact the city as a whole but I cannot justify saying "Your inaction destroyed the city!". As I said there is a challenge here from the DM side of the screen that I want to see where this goes and what I can do to either nudge them out of their Hut to get them to more heroic action.
IF -- the DM is able and willing to modify the game this way. And IF the DM wants to run a game like this.
I would not. If I offered these ideas and they all said yes, we'd rather play in a game like that instead of traditional heroic D&D, I'd have to say, "OK, who wants to DM?"
I want to GM for heroes. If the players aren't going to be heroic, that's fine, and it is a valid way to play, but it's not the sort of game I want to GM.
Simple example: in Champions, when I bought the Great Super Villain Contest (GSVC), which I still regard as the best RPG adventure I've ever run... The author (Dennis Mallonee) encouraged the GM to let players make up villains and to run it as a super villain roleplaying game, rather than superheroes.
I refused to run a game of villains. I modded the GSVC so that it could be run without that, and let the hero PCs pretend to become villains to infiltrate the contest. But they were always heroes; in fact the two who infiltrated risked their lives to do so, and they just got lucky that the ubervillain who figured them out (Overlord) was on their side because he didn't trust the guy running the contest (with good reason -- the Crimson Claw was up to no good, even as villains would regard things).
So... doing all the things Duck suggests could work great, if the GM is willing to run a game like that. But if not, then again, you need to have a talk with the players about what sort of game you want to play.
Honestly, the warlock player just sounds like a coward to me... whether he is RPing a coward, or whether the player is a real life coward (at least as far as games are concerned), I can't tell from the story so far.
I definitely believe the Warlock player is RPing as I've seen other characters he's played take more assertive action than this one. It's just that Warlock has been able to convince the rest of the party on inaction has been what bothers me the most. Yeah, maybe I need to have a talk with him as so far the two cases-- No explore Pirate Town and Hide in Tavern-- have been interfering with the significant plot of the game.
Have they ever really played their characters in a heroic way? What I mean is, perhaps they don't truly understand the power of their characters? Do they have experience enough to assess an encounter and decide if they are match for it. Have you routinely beat the ever loving crap out of them with overpowered encounters they weren't ready for? Did you prime them with a small group of these zombies so they could gauge their strength, and not be coming up against a hoard of unknowns? Would the party stand a chance if they did the heroic thing, and if so, is this apparent to them?
I've seen DMs incredulous that players don't run away from an obviously unwinnable encounters. Are we now calling them cowards for not running into similar encounter? Are your players in a lose-lose situation by trying not to be dumb and reckless in the face of insurmountable odds? Perhaps they talk amongst themselves after the games "I'm enjoying the game, but dammit, BKT forced us into hiding with an unbeatable mob AGAIN. I wish we'd get a chance to actually flex our muscles a little." Obviously I'm not sat at your table so I can't say if that's happening or not, just that it's an possibility worth considering.
If I flooded a city with a zombie hoard so large that the party obviously didn't stand a chance, I'd be prompting exactly what your party has done. A strategic retreat, roleplay a high-pressure survival situation, while formulating a plan of attack. Of course, they'd hopefully protect as many civilians as possible in the mean time by bringing the tavern staff/patrons into the Tiny Hut with them.
It's good to tell your players that they are expected to be heroic, but also important to remember that they are reacting to the world and situations you built.
Have they ever really played their characters in a heroic way? What I mean is, perhaps they don't truly understand the power of their characters? Do they have experience enough to assess an encounter and decide if they are match for it. Have you routinely beat the ever loving crap out of them with overpowered encounters they weren't ready for? Did you prime them with a small group of these zombies so they could gauge their strength, and not be coming up against a hoard of unknowns? Would the party stand a chance if they did the heroic thing, and if so, is this apparent to them?
I've seen DMs incredulous that players don't run away from an obviously unwinnable encounters. Are we now calling them cowards for not running into similar encounter? Are your players in a lose-lose situation by trying not to be dumb and reckless in the face of insurmountable odds? Perhaps they talk amongst themselves after the games "I'm enjoying the game, but dammit, BKT forced us into hiding with an unbeatable mob AGAIN. I wish we'd get a chance to actually flex our muscles a little." Obviously I'm not sat at your table so I can't say if that's happening or not, just that it's an possibility worth considering.
If I flooded a city with a zombie hoard so large that the party obviously didn't stand a chance, I'd be prompting exactly what your party has done. A strategic retreat, roleplay a high-pressure survival situation, while formulating a plan of attack. Of course, they'd hopefully protect as many civilians as possible in the mean time by bringing the tavern staff/patrons into the Tiny Hut with them.
It's good to tell your players that they are expected to be heroic, but also important to remember that they are reacting to the world and situations you built.
Very valid point and one that I definitely take responsibility for as the storyteller. Maybe when I described what they saw from out the windows up and down the street that it was enough that they went "Nope, nope and nope."
Yes, I've seen them be heroic on many occasions so I do get baffled when they've taken this hunker-down approach. While it may have been lost in this thread, I'm talking about a 5th level party of five so they have the means to hold their own, at least I believe so.
So I talked to a few of the players asking the 'Heroic' question and both agreed that their current actions were not heroic but it was a practical decision. A couple of things swayed these two one was the Warlock saying we should not go out or we'll get killed and the tavern owner NPC saying don't go out there as he was scared. It was the latter that was the capper as they metagame thinking if the DM is 'saying' don't go out they should not go out. There was also the concern since this was more of a lawless town if there been some sort of local law enforcement group, or military, or even a band of drunk pirates massing together to fight off the shadows, that could have swayed our decision. Another factor is the party was at 2/3 of their character resources/features/spells and they felt if they faced anymore of the undead they would not be able to make it to any destination within the city to help.
Next, I ask if they think the party as a whole is heroic and one player said not really as the party falls more into Patron telling them what to do and they go do it. So it looks like I've set up a campaign where it's more of an Employer/Employee relationship.
So what happened in the game last night?
I took the Patron/Party knowledge and worked out that a survivor NPC came to the tavern and said the high priestess and her acolytes at a temple were able to hold back the undead though not for long and there is a call to arms to help attack the focal point where all the undead is coming from. Using this information a few of the party members started to lean towards going to the Priestess Temple. But...the conversation started to go back and forth to the point where it was just a rehash of the end of the last game for doing something or nothing.
It was some good RP that ran longer than it should so after 30 minutes and it looked like they were getting nowhere so I sent in the zombies.
High Points:
One of the party members did the smart thing and asked the tavern owner since there is only one way out and it was overrun with Zombies how do they get out and he gave them the idea of the third-floor window and cross over to another building.
The party took out 23 of the 35 zombies before fleeing to the upper levels. I'll say the party spent more time in combat than I thought they would even with waves and waves of zombies coming through the various openings to the tavern.
On the 3rd floor, there was a large gap between the tavern and building they could cross over to. The Wizard used his last spell and levitated a table in the middle of the gap so the party could hop from window to table to roof.
The tavern burned down. The wizard cast a Fireball spell and took out many of the zombies but he also cast it close to the barrels of ale that exploded and caught the tavern on fire. (I'm getting them out of this building whatever it takes.) The result was the fire spread all over the ground floor and slowly worked its way to the upper floors.
Group Stealth checks to make their way to the temple.
It was somewhat a better outcome than I expected even the nice twist of the tavern catching fire. The talk with some of the players was beneficial as it helps me understand how they see the game with their characters as I took that knowledge to push the characters (via NPC) in a proper direction since they seem deadlock in what to do.
Feedback after the game was positive so I'll take it as a successful game.
I love a ticking clock. Fantastic motivator.
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For extra motivation, you can start adding ever more powerful types of undead the longer they take. So there's incentive to find and barbecue whomever is responsible as quickly as possible.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The older module "Red Hand of Doom" does this, but in in-game days (gm discretion). I may abuse this mechanic, but I love adding a time constraint, otherwise, I could understand as characters that they want to sit back and wait for as long as possible to see if someone else intervenes...
ie: "let's call the avengers".
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I'm not big on punishing players with time constraints, but as a GM, my time is valuable to me. If they're not going to respect the time and effort it takes to both set up and run a game by showing up and then just not doing anything? Well, if they won't got to the adventure, the adventure is going to hunt them down, beat them senseless, and steal their spell components.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Lots of people have commented on ways to stop the party from bunkering down in their tiny hut, so I won't add too much to that chorus, except to say that you should try to make them move!
If they are set on bunkering in the tavern, I would go for a few options:
• There's something upstairs or downstairs - if they haven't checked, then have something be upstairs or in the basement, conveniently on the floor above or below when they cast tiny hut, so they were inside when they cast it. Make it a serious threat, not just a shambling corpse, like the lickers in resident evil, and then they have to face it without making too much noise. Maybe have it suspiciously smart, dragging the caster out of the hut to dispel it.
• Have a monster with dispel magic in some way - an undead sorcerer with a scroll, or an undead ogre with a talisman. That'll put the wind up them - an ogre zombie shuffles into the pub, they hunker in their hut, staying silent. It looks over the hut, and then slowly lifts its hand, and you see, branded on its palm, the rune of dispel magic. It slaps its hand down on the hut, and the hut flickers and disappears.
• Play it out to the inevitable end. The zombies are commanded to kill everything, and 7 hours and 59 minutes later, an army of them are waiting around the tiny hut for it to disappear. they can keep casting it if they want, but help isn't coming - sooner or later, they will need a new plan. This method might be a little dull, but it also teaches them that taking the boring route is boring - spicing up their dull decision is positive reinforcement - "we don't have to go adventuring, if we stay here something will happen anyway!".
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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Duck's ideas are all good, in-character ways to make the PCs move.
But I still think, given the "hide in the inn" motif that is recurring here, that there may need to be a conversation with the players. I would ask them, do they not want a game in which there are risks? Do they not want challenges and adventures? Why do they keep hunkering down waiting for things to blow over and for "someone else" to take care of the problem?
The whole point of D&D is that the party IS the "someone else" - they're the ones who take on something when no one else can. If they refuse to take things on, then there is very little point to playing.
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.
I was thinking about this earlier, and I think I've got a solution:
The party is keen to hide from the enemy instead of facing them - so why not adopt this playstyle and build your games around it?
• Instead of fighting through a dungeon of enemies, find a way to drop them in a dangerous place where the enemies will kill them if they engage, and let them work out how to get out.
• Instead of having them slaughter their way through a horde of the undead, leave them to hunker down and let them work out how to get out once the town is overrun and the zombies aren't leaving any time soon.
• Instead of giving them dramatic battles that they don't want to engage with, give them tasks to perform whilst avoiding the fights.
• Add some sort of "sanity" measurement to the game, and then start adding more horror-based situations where they need to get out, not where they need to fight.
• Bouncing off the "add a stat" aspect, why not capitalise on the modern humans mental conditioning for increasing numbers (in the same way that all mobile games companies do) and give them a "renown" statistic, which will represent how well liked they are by the common folk. Every time they make these cowardly decisions, drop their renown. Make renown affect buying prices, NPC helpfulness, and the caliber of quests given out - "Don't ask them to do it, they just hid in a tavern when those zombies wiped out Avernath!". As soon as they have a measurable feature to measure their actions against, and it starts affecting their game, they might start rethinking: "We'll just hide here and let it blow over." - "You can do, but it's not going to look good to the common folk..." - "wait, no, we'll try and escape? maybe save some people?" - "oh, they'll like that...".
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Again, these are all great suggestions.
IF -- the DM is able and willing to modify the game this way. And IF the DM wants to run a game like this.
I would not. If I offered these ideas and they all said yes, we'd rather play in a game like that instead of traditional heroic D&D, I'd have to say, "OK, who wants to DM?"
I want to GM for heroes. If the players aren't going to be heroic, that's fine, and it is a valid way to play, but it's not the sort of game I want to GM.
Simple example: in Champions, when I bought the Great Super Villain Contest (GSVC), which I still regard as the best RPG adventure I've ever run... The author (Dennis Mallonee) encouraged the GM to let players make up villains and to run it as a super villain roleplaying game, rather than superheroes.
I refused to run a game of villains. I modded the GSVC so that it could be run without that, and let the hero PCs pretend to become villains to infiltrate the contest. But they were always heroes; in fact the two who infiltrated risked their lives to do so, and they just got lucky that the ubervillain who figured them out (Overlord) was on their side because he didn't trust the guy running the contest (with good reason -- the Crimson Claw was up to no good, even as villains would regard things).
So... doing all the things Duck suggests could work great, if the GM is willing to run a game like that. But if not, then again, you need to have a talk with the players about what sort of game you want to play.
Honestly, the warlock player just sounds like a coward to me... whether he is RPing a coward, or whether the player is a real life coward (at least as far as games are concerned), I can't tell from the story so far.
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.
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I suppose you could integrate "get a new DM" with the "renown" stat.
I'm picturing it as something on the player-side of the DM screen. At one end you have the word "heroes", and at the other end you have the words "get a new DM", and then you have a slider which you actively move as they do things you consider too cowardly to be worth narrating.
I think that's a large part of what it boils down to - if there a guards in the town doing more heroic deeds than the heroes, you'd prefer to narrate their goings on than "and the party sat quietly in their impregnable tiny hut, again...". I do agree - I'd much rather a party which does stuff. I'm guessing (as this party has cropped up before) that the OP is enjoying playing with them and simply finds their antics a bit difficult to plan for!
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Right, and if the OP is having fun with them and enjoying their antics -- great. It's all down to what the folks at the table like.
I am sure many people ran the GSVC with "villain roleplaying." And had great fun with it. It's just not for me.
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.
Well, I took one approach and asked a player one simple question "Do you feel at the end of the last game the group is being 'heroic' by bunking down in your huts while the city is being overrun?". He has not responded yet but I want to see if there is a player perspective that I am not accounting for or maybe something I've said to get the impression 'Tavern Camping' was the best course of action.
Am I having fun? Yes, because I am playing D&D with my friends across four states that I never imagine could be done a year ago.
Am I enjoying their antics? Yes/No. I'm using "Player Agency / Railroading" as a crutch I know and I'm telling myself I can try and be creative on what will happen next based on what they've done so far so that is fun. It's not fun when the plot is glaring right at them and they get scared to do anything. The last game ended with them in the tavern putting up the Hut's so it is possible things can change at the start of the new game I'm hoping with the talk I'm going to have with one of the players that maybe we can move in the intended direction.
I'm not a good DM, well not true, I'm a fairly OK DM, my players seem to be having fun to which they come back to the VTT nearly twice a week. So stuff, like I've been running into and running to all of you, is what gave me the key to gain experience and level up to improve my abilities.
Bilgewater is pretty much a lawless city so there are no 'guards' so to speak to defend against attacks like this and I've established that fact a few times in past sessions so it would seem out of place that some authority group starts appearing. That said there are factions within the city that I can use as retaliatory forces against this attack acting as a militia.
If the party does end up 'Tavern Camping' I have consequences that impact the city as a whole but I cannot justify saying "Your inaction destroyed the city!". As I said there is a challenge here from the DM side of the screen that I want to see where this goes and what I can do to either nudge them out of their Hut to get them to more heroic action.
If everyone is having fun then your a fine DM.
And asking your player if they felt “heroic” was a good move on your part.
I think you’re probably a better DM than you give yourself credit for.
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I definitely believe the Warlock player is RPing as I've seen other characters he's played take more assertive action than this one. It's just that Warlock has been able to convince the rest of the party on inaction has been what bothers me the most. Yeah, maybe I need to have a talk with him as so far the two cases-- No explore Pirate Town and Hide in Tavern-- have been interfering with the significant plot of the game.
Have they ever really played their characters in a heroic way? What I mean is, perhaps they don't truly understand the power of their characters? Do they have experience enough to assess an encounter and decide if they are match for it. Have you routinely beat the ever loving crap out of them with overpowered encounters they weren't ready for? Did you prime them with a small group of these zombies so they could gauge their strength, and not be coming up against a hoard of unknowns? Would the party stand a chance if they did the heroic thing, and if so, is this apparent to them?
I've seen DMs incredulous that players don't run away from an obviously unwinnable encounters. Are we now calling them cowards for not running into similar encounter? Are your players in a lose-lose situation by trying not to be dumb and reckless in the face of insurmountable odds? Perhaps they talk amongst themselves after the games "I'm enjoying the game, but dammit, BKT forced us into hiding with an unbeatable mob AGAIN. I wish we'd get a chance to actually flex our muscles a little." Obviously I'm not sat at your table so I can't say if that's happening or not, just that it's an possibility worth considering.
If I flooded a city with a zombie hoard so large that the party obviously didn't stand a chance, I'd be prompting exactly what your party has done. A strategic retreat, roleplay a high-pressure survival situation, while formulating a plan of attack. Of course, they'd hopefully protect as many civilians as possible in the mean time by bringing the tavern staff/patrons into the Tiny Hut with them.
It's good to tell your players that they are expected to be heroic, but also important to remember that they are reacting to the world and situations you built.
Very valid point and one that I definitely take responsibility for as the storyteller. Maybe when I described what they saw from out the windows up and down the street that it was enough that they went "Nope, nope and nope."
Yes, I've seen them be heroic on many occasions so I do get baffled when they've taken this hunker-down approach. While it may have been lost in this thread, I'm talking about a 5th level party of five so they have the means to hold their own, at least I believe so.
Thank you!
Follow-Up
So I talked to a few of the players asking the 'Heroic' question and both agreed that their current actions were not heroic but it was a practical decision. A couple of things swayed these two one was the Warlock saying we should not go out or we'll get killed and the tavern owner NPC saying don't go out there as he was scared. It was the latter that was the capper as they metagame thinking if the DM is 'saying' don't go out they should not go out. There was also the concern since this was more of a lawless town if there been some sort of local law enforcement group, or military, or even a band of drunk pirates massing together to fight off the shadows, that could have swayed our decision. Another factor is the party was at 2/3 of their character resources/features/spells and they felt if they faced anymore of the undead they would not be able to make it to any destination within the city to help.
Next, I ask if they think the party as a whole is heroic and one player said not really as the party falls more into Patron telling them what to do and they go do it. So it looks like I've set up a campaign where it's more of an Employer/Employee relationship.
So what happened in the game last night?
I took the Patron/Party knowledge and worked out that a survivor NPC came to the tavern and said the high priestess and her acolytes at a temple were able to hold back the undead though not for long and there is a call to arms to help attack the focal point where all the undead is coming from. Using this information a few of the party members started to lean towards going to the Priestess Temple. But...the conversation started to go back and forth to the point where it was just a rehash of the end of the last game for doing something or nothing.
It was some good RP that ran longer than it should so after 30 minutes and it looked like they were getting nowhere so I sent in the zombies.
High Points:
One of the party members did the smart thing and asked the tavern owner since there is only one way out and it was overrun with Zombies how do they get out and he gave them the idea of the third-floor window and cross over to another building.
The party took out 23 of the 35 zombies before fleeing to the upper levels. I'll say the party spent more time in combat than I thought they would even with waves and waves of zombies coming through the various openings to the tavern.
On the 3rd floor, there was a large gap between the tavern and building they could cross over to. The Wizard used his last spell and levitated a table in the middle of the gap so the party could hop from window to table to roof.
The tavern burned down. The wizard cast a Fireball spell and took out many of the zombies but he also cast it close to the barrels of ale that exploded and caught the tavern on fire. (I'm getting them out of this building whatever it takes.) The result was the fire spread all over the ground floor and slowly worked its way to the upper floors.
Group Stealth checks to make their way to the temple.
It was somewhat a better outcome than I expected even the nice twist of the tavern catching fire. The talk with some of the players was beneficial as it helps me understand how they see the game with their characters as I took that knowledge to push the characters (via NPC) in a proper direction since they seem deadlock in what to do.
Feedback after the game was positive so I'll take it as a successful game.
Good to know it worked out :).
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