So I finally got to start up a new house game after moving. We had a session 0, I went through standard warnings of the dangers of the Tomb of Annilhation (that's what we're playing currently), and all that other pregame stuff. It's session two and the party finally goes out into the jungle.
The sorcerer decides to check the perimeter of camp and gets dropped on by a Zorbo. Later a T-Rex ate our rogue and new sorcerer, and almost ended with a tpk with the other two players ending game with 1 hp left.
Should I have made better efforts to keep them alive? The Zorbo death was damn near instantaneous but the T-Rex fight actually lasted several rounds as each party member tried to destract it from their friends.
Edit: one player died twice and one player died once. The other two went below zero before popping back up
It's a pretty dangerous place, which you say you went through with the group.
I expect that the players haven't played in a game that has as many ways to get into mortal peril so quickly.
You could try helping them out a little - either directly, or with descriptions.
Example A
Sorc: "I'm going to go check on the perimeter of the camp." DM: "On your own? Remember my warnings about how dangerous this campaign is."
Example B (my preferred)
Sorc: "I'm going to go check on the perimeter of the camp." DM: "Sure. You get up and start to head past the tents towards the treeline of the jungle, which looms ahead of you. You're not even at the edge of the clearing yet and you have a sense of being isolated, like prey waiting to be eaten.... are you carrying on towards the edge of the clearing?"
The answer starts with the expectations set by your session 0. If you presented the group with a "You're going to die, a lot." introduction, where you laid out that the game was going to be deadly dangerous, the reality of it is that death can happen at any moment, then you're living up to your intentions. If you presented a "This will be challenging, some things will kill you, but with proper tactics and strategy, you'll succeed." introduction, you might want to dial it back a bit, and give them a few outs. If you wanted a lively, challenging, and good natured game, you missed the mark. That's your end of the bargain, and it's something to reflect on, do you really need to change anything.
The next piece is the information that the players have access to, how it's presented, and how they interpret it. Most players have no idea what questions they need to ask, what information is available, and they forget that they need to ask questions. Many DMs forget that what they think are obvious, blinking lights and everything, clues or hints, will be completely missed by their players. Make sure the players have access to all the information that is necessary, make sure you shove some of that information in front of them using pushy NPCs, and prompt them OOC to make sure all their plans are in order before they head out. You don't have to make their plans or decisions, but you can remind them that there may be more to do than just stock up on healing potions and arrows.
Lastly, how are your players approaching the game, do they have the experience necessary for the style of game you are all playing. If you have a relatively new group, then dumping them in the deep end might not be a good idea. Giving them ways to escape, letting them escape, and adjusting ac/hp/damage may be helpful in giving them more ways to deal with bad situations. If they're an experienced group, then the way that things happen should be less surprising, they should understand the inherent dangers of the adventure and be able to adapt to it easier. In the end you'll have to start adjusting the encounters a bit to accommodate level, play style, and experience so that they have a fighting chance in a fairly dangerous module.
----
I don't think you did anything inherently wrong, I think it's just a matter of adjusting knobs and dials to give it the right amount of challenge and enjoyable game play. It may take a little time, as the mod can be fairly harrowing to DM and play.
Without further context, I'd have to say that yes, you've been a bit unforgiving. What level are the PCs? Having trouble with a T-Rex sounds like par for the course, but I'm having trouble imagining how even a low-level PC dies "near [instantaneously]" to a Zorbo. Did the PC get a chance to make death saving throws? Did the other PCs have a chance to intervene?
I think you need to be a bit more careful about what kind of encounters you're throwing at the PCs. It's true that Tomb of Annihilation is meant to be deadly, but you need to give your PCs some clearer signals that the jungle is a dangerous place (as Stormknight suggested). Also, if you're going to throw something like a T-Rex at low-level PCs, you need to make it absolutely clear to them that it's an unwinnable fight and then give them some means of escape. Something that large is also going to leave clear signs in the jungle, so ideally your PCs would get a chance to notice they're in T-Rex territory long before they actually encounter the beast. But if you throw a T-Rex at them as a straight-up combat encounter, of course PCs are going to die, and they're probably going to see this as pretty unfair. Maybe it would have been better not to have them encounter a T-Rex at all.
In other words, do emphasize the dangers of Chult, but don't screw over your players by giving them no opportunity to avoid them. Instead, try turning potentially deadly encounters into fun chases or suspenseful stealth scenes. There's a lot of ways to make the PCs feel like their lives are in danger without actually killing them, and ultimately that's going to make for a better game than if PCs are dying left and right.
It sucks zorbos are worse at night then in the day. In the day the zorbos are in the trees and warn the party away. It requires the party aggressing for them to attack. If you roll the encounter at night they drop from the trees and attack. 2d6, has a lot of swing. a few Zorbos are defeat-able, but 12 will wipe anything but a high level party. The fact that they have AC 17 on the ground and destroy your AC with *every* attack is insane. If the party is high enough level to Fireball them, the whole group of zorbos is likely gone. I wish they were slower so a party could just flee, sadly attacking at night fleeing means leaving gear.
As for the TRex. How? The encounter states that TRex should be 300 yards away and 50% chance of fighting another monster. If it's fighting another monster just... why did they go near it? If it wasn't fighting another monster I assume they failed Group Stealth check at DC:15? Someone in the party *has* to have Survival so they should have Advantage, and only 50% of the party has to succeed.
If you mean unforgiving in the sense of pitting the PCs against challenging (but winnable) encounters and letting the dice fall where they may, then I totally agree. If you mean unforgiving in the sense of setting up incredibly difficult scenarios in which the PCs are very likely to fail, and then giving them no option to retreat or avoid those situations, then I disagree wholeheartedly.
To the OP, make sure you're doing the former and not the latter.
ToA is a nightmarishly dangerous run. It's the DnD version of Dark Souls. The risk of death is massive and it will almost always happen to at least one person. But it's written to be pretty fair. Unforgiving, but fair. That is the catch. The only thing a DM can do to curb death is take different targets but I personally hate that. Creatures strive to win. If you can justify a change from someone who is bleeding out to someone who is attacking you, do it. But if it's more likely that someone who is trying to kill a group of people will kill one before moving on to the next, I'm sorry. I'm adhering to the same rules of roleplaying as anyone else and I want you to find ways to solve the puzzle of death. It's not me against my players, it's my players against that puzzle. But if I change the rules of how I play on you, then you stop knowing what those rules are and those rules are what you need to decipher in order to be successful.
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You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
I agree with jreggers, if you're running ToA as "let the dice fall as they may" I personally think it's designed to be run that way.
In my opinion though, give players outs if they seek them. No party can outrun a T-Rex, but that doesn't mean they might not be near some terrain which might assist in an escape.
Personally, as a DM, I always strongly encourage smart choices. If my players are making a painfully obvious decision that is likely to get one or all of them killed I will basically make it obvious that I don't think its a good idea. After that, if they completely insist I would let them have it. Truthfully, it has never come to the later.
In the end, my goal is to always have fun. If my players are finding my game easy, but are having fun, I let it be. If things are hard and they keep rolling bad, but are making every effort to play within reason, then I give them added opportunities or fake bad rolls myself to aid.
Just my style. Fun is everything.
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"Shadow Hide You..."
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So I finally got to start up a new house game after moving. We had a session 0, I went through standard warnings of the dangers of the Tomb of Annilhation (that's what we're playing currently), and all that other pregame stuff. It's session two and the party finally goes out into the jungle.
The sorcerer decides to check the perimeter of camp and gets dropped on by a Zorbo. Later a T-Rex ate our rogue and new sorcerer, and almost ended with a tpk with the other two players ending game with 1 hp left.
Should I have made better efforts to keep them alive? The Zorbo death was damn near instantaneous but the T-Rex fight actually lasted several rounds as each party member tried to destract it from their friends.
Edit: one player died twice and one player died once. The other two went below zero before popping back up
I'm a witch, so let's burn!
It's a pretty dangerous place, which you say you went through with the group.
I expect that the players haven't played in a game that has as many ways to get into mortal peril so quickly.
You could try helping them out a little - either directly, or with descriptions.
Example A
Sorc: "I'm going to go check on the perimeter of the camp."
DM: "On your own? Remember my warnings about how dangerous this campaign is."
Example B (my preferred)
Sorc: "I'm going to go check on the perimeter of the camp."
DM: "Sure. You get up and start to head past the tents towards the treeline of the jungle, which looms ahead of you. You're not even at the edge of the clearing yet and you have a sense of being isolated, like prey waiting to be eaten.... are you carrying on towards the edge of the clearing?"
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The answer starts with the expectations set by your session 0. If you presented the group with a "You're going to die, a lot." introduction, where you laid out that the game was going to be deadly dangerous, the reality of it is that death can happen at any moment, then you're living up to your intentions. If you presented a "This will be challenging, some things will kill you, but with proper tactics and strategy, you'll succeed." introduction, you might want to dial it back a bit, and give them a few outs. If you wanted a lively, challenging, and good natured game, you missed the mark. That's your end of the bargain, and it's something to reflect on, do you really need to change anything.
The next piece is the information that the players have access to, how it's presented, and how they interpret it. Most players have no idea what questions they need to ask, what information is available, and they forget that they need to ask questions. Many DMs forget that what they think are obvious, blinking lights and everything, clues or hints, will be completely missed by their players. Make sure the players have access to all the information that is necessary, make sure you shove some of that information in front of them using pushy NPCs, and prompt them OOC to make sure all their plans are in order before they head out. You don't have to make their plans or decisions, but you can remind them that there may be more to do than just stock up on healing potions and arrows.
Lastly, how are your players approaching the game, do they have the experience necessary for the style of game you are all playing. If you have a relatively new group, then dumping them in the deep end might not be a good idea. Giving them ways to escape, letting them escape, and adjusting ac/hp/damage may be helpful in giving them more ways to deal with bad situations. If they're an experienced group, then the way that things happen should be less surprising, they should understand the inherent dangers of the adventure and be able to adapt to it easier. In the end you'll have to start adjusting the encounters a bit to accommodate level, play style, and experience so that they have a fighting chance in a fairly dangerous module.
----
I don't think you did anything inherently wrong, I think it's just a matter of adjusting knobs and dials to give it the right amount of challenge and enjoyable game play. It may take a little time, as the mod can be fairly harrowing to DM and play.
Without further context, I'd have to say that yes, you've been a bit unforgiving. What level are the PCs? Having trouble with a T-Rex sounds like par for the course, but I'm having trouble imagining how even a low-level PC dies "near [instantaneously]" to a Zorbo. Did the PC get a chance to make death saving throws? Did the other PCs have a chance to intervene?
I think you need to be a bit more careful about what kind of encounters you're throwing at the PCs. It's true that Tomb of Annihilation is meant to be deadly, but you need to give your PCs some clearer signals that the jungle is a dangerous place (as Stormknight suggested). Also, if you're going to throw something like a T-Rex at low-level PCs, you need to make it absolutely clear to them that it's an unwinnable fight and then give them some means of escape. Something that large is also going to leave clear signs in the jungle, so ideally your PCs would get a chance to notice they're in T-Rex territory long before they actually encounter the beast. But if you throw a T-Rex at them as a straight-up combat encounter, of course PCs are going to die, and they're probably going to see this as pretty unfair. Maybe it would have been better not to have them encounter a T-Rex at all.
In other words, do emphasize the dangers of Chult, but don't screw over your players by giving them no opportunity to avoid them. Instead, try turning potentially deadly encounters into fun chases or suspenseful stealth scenes. There's a lot of ways to make the PCs feel like their lives are in danger without actually killing them, and ultimately that's going to make for a better game than if PCs are dying left and right.
you should be unforgiving as a DM
it helps the players learn to keep their minds open and allows you to make intricate, difficult games/campaigns. i feel nothing was wrong on your end
Free the DMs
It's a harsh campaign.
It sucks zorbos are worse at night then in the day. In the day the zorbos are in the trees and warn the party away. It requires the party aggressing for them to attack. If you roll the encounter at night they drop from the trees and attack. 2d6, has a lot of swing. a few Zorbos are defeat-able, but 12 will wipe anything but a high level party. The fact that they have AC 17 on the ground and destroy your AC with *every* attack is insane. If the party is high enough level to Fireball them, the whole group of zorbos is likely gone. I wish they were slower so a party could just flee, sadly attacking at night fleeing means leaving gear.
As for the TRex. How? The encounter states that TRex should be 300 yards away and 50% chance of fighting another monster. If it's fighting another monster just... why did they go near it?
If it wasn't fighting another monster I assume they failed Group Stealth check at DC:15? Someone in the party *has* to have Survival so they should have Advantage, and only 50% of the party has to succeed.
If you mean unforgiving in the sense of pitting the PCs against challenging (but winnable) encounters and letting the dice fall where they may, then I totally agree. If you mean unforgiving in the sense of setting up incredibly difficult scenarios in which the PCs are very likely to fail, and then giving them no option to retreat or avoid those situations, then I disagree wholeheartedly.
To the OP, make sure you're doing the former and not the latter.
ToA is a nightmarishly dangerous run. It's the DnD version of Dark Souls. The risk of death is massive and it will almost always happen to at least one person. But it's written to be pretty fair. Unforgiving, but fair. That is the catch. The only thing a DM can do to curb death is take different targets but I personally hate that. Creatures strive to win. If you can justify a change from someone who is bleeding out to someone who is attacking you, do it. But if it's more likely that someone who is trying to kill a group of people will kill one before moving on to the next, I'm sorry. I'm adhering to the same rules of roleplaying as anyone else and I want you to find ways to solve the puzzle of death. It's not me against my players, it's my players against that puzzle. But if I change the rules of how I play on you, then you stop knowing what those rules are and those rules are what you need to decipher in order to be successful.
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
XenWithAPen,
I agree with jreggers, if you're running ToA as "let the dice fall as they may" I personally think it's designed to be run that way.
In my opinion though, give players outs if they seek them. No party can outrun a T-Rex, but that doesn't mean they might not be near some terrain which might assist in an escape.
Personally, as a DM, I always strongly encourage smart choices. If my players are making a painfully obvious decision that is likely to get one or all of them killed I will basically make it obvious that I don't think its a good idea. After that, if they completely insist I would let them have it. Truthfully, it has never come to the later.
In the end, my goal is to always have fun. If my players are finding my game easy, but are having fun, I let it be. If things are hard and they keep rolling bad, but are making every effort to play within reason, then I give them added opportunities or fake bad rolls myself to aid.
Just my style. Fun is everything.
"Shadow Hide You..."