It's been a while since I had my group of players together due to Corona but it seems like we can soon start planning a new session. I want to start out with an intense scene (Lazy Dungeon Master) as a strong start and to get the players more focussed and serious. I don't want to take things too seriously but two out of my three (all new) players are a bit too goofy for my taste. I already have a lot of ideas but would like to gather some advice and tips on creating a semi-scripted scene where you want certain events to happen no matter what. I'm looking for how to steer the players in the 'right' direction while still giving them the feeling of freedom. I want them to want to go in the direction I'm sending them instead of feeling that they're on a rail. One of my pitfalls is to overdesign stuff so I want to force myself to keep my notes as short and to the point as possible. 

Current Idea

The village is about to be overrun by the army of the dead created by Vecna. They need to flee to the docks, board a ship, and get off the island. I want to start off with an entity visiting one of the players in his dreams to warn about the upcoming doom. He then abruptly wakes up. Through the window, he'll see entities(undead) on the rooftops and there's a dragon (Dracolich) in the background. Here I would like the player to wake up the rest and tell them to flee. I think this should be clear but this player has ignored the most obvious and direct hints that I've given him before, so I will need to make some backup events in case he doesn't do the 'preferred behavior'. After that, the players should flee the building and in the opposite direction of the undead (which happens to be the undead). I want to keep the fleeing dynamic by creating lots of tiny challenges/moments which I can pick on the go where they need to dodge stuff, have the option to save an NPC, or have to get rid of undead blocking their path. The focus is experience not challenge and I want to keep each of the tiny moments to a max of 1 round. At some point, a specific NPC, important to the group, will save one of the players after which the dracolich kills him. This will be the first time the players lose an important NPC. 

I'm thinking about having a boss fight on the docks but might kill the flow.

The dracolich will come after them once they boarded the ship. It will first take down one or two other ships while hopefully giving the players the idea that they need to fight this way to a strong beast. The scene will end when the dracolich fires a big ball of fire towards the players. As a reaction one player, not aware that she has such a power, will teleport the ship to the other side of the world. (In my world it's not known that a person can teleport over such a great distance). 

What level are the players?

Now ask yourself these questions and answer them as honestly as you can.

Why won’t they stand and fight to the death rather than run? Why wouldn’t they hide and then attack from behind once the bulk of the army has overrun them?

In my experience, players hate to run, probably more than they hate being taken prisoner. I honestly think you’ll have a problem with this scenario, but you know your players better than me.

Second, as this is a lesser point, the character who can suddenly transport a ship full of people to the other side of the world... is that something they can do all the time now? If not, why not. In my campaign, my players would be frustrated at an inconsistent magical mechanic, and telling them it just works whenever I (the DM) think it would wouldn’t fly at all.

I would also prepare more alternative ways how this can go.

Do not expect the players to get to the docks to get a ship, maybe they want to hide somewhere and get off sometime later.

Maybe they just try to swim away on a plank and not using a boat.

Maybe they come up with something completely different.

The players are of level 4. So far they've only fought small groups of enemies, so I hope they understand that they have no chance to stand and fight. In this case, it helps that they're not the group that does things for honor or to protect the innocent. The one player that might want fight is the one who gets the vision. 

As for hiding, I'm not giving them a chance to do that. Undead will literally tear op the ceiling and attack if they stay in the room. When they go down the inn the fight has already started. It won't be long before the rest of the village will start to retreat to the docks and they can tell the players to go as well. Due to the warnings given, I'm thinking of prepping an unwinnable encounter as last resort, where they can be saved by NPC's and dragged to the ship or have the teleportation happen earlier. 

The whole fleeing scenario was inspired by one of the adventures in the explorer's guide to Wildemount and to introduce the new foe that they have to fight in the future. I don't think it's something one should do often but I see a lot of experienced and famous dm's talk about throwing an unwinnable battle where the NPC's have to feel from time to time. It might be the way in which you present it. I don't want it to feel like failure or frustration. Still, I have never done this before, so I will have to see how it turns out. 

As for the character who can suddenly transport a full ship of people. Having special powers that spike at rare moments is something my previous dm played with and I found it to lead to some very memorable moments. It led to curiosity, excitement, and works as a glimpse into the future of what you can become. It's not meant as a cheap trick for me as the DM to use, but as a special goal for the players. Anyway, at the moment she might not even realize that she's responsible for transporting the ship. I will let her leave the room and tell her about a vision she's getting. She will lose her consciousness before the ships teleport. The other two will see that they're being transported but might not get the chance to see that their fellow comrade had anything to do with it. 

You're talking about a pursuit/flight based skill challenge. Skill challenges are good for that sort of thing, and they keep action and tension up.

However, what you seem to essentially want is a cut-scene. Player free will is a danger to that here. Building a scene around the expectation that the Players will act in a particular way is inherently fragile. If your Players don't take the  'preferred behavior', you had better be ready to improvise around whatever they decide to do. 

I think there's a good risk here that you'll lose at least one Character if the Players try and stand and fight.

"I see a lot of experienced and famous dm's talk about throwing an unwinnable battle where the NPC's have to feel from time to time" - I don't. Can you provide an example? In fact, Matt Colville did a video about how setting up a surrender/flee scenario is a bad idea ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7j1skECRV4 ). Players are there to be heroes; heroes don't run or surrender.

There's ways to do this way to do this, without railroading the Players. Make this an escort mission. Someone in authority, or someone they respect, is with the Characters when things go pear-shaped. There is someone else - likely several someones - who are a) weaker than the party, b) under the protection of the "authority figure", c) are being targeted for some reason. That sets the scenario for a "get them to the boats, I'll hold the undead off!" charge from the "authority figure". It gives the Party a clear direction from an external figure. It's also a common movie trope, so the Players are more likely to fall into it. Heroes don't run or surrender, but they do protect the weak. It also give the NPC a dramatically satisfying heroic death ( or are they ... ? ) moment.

Then the flight through the city is handled by the skill challenge.

It's still not guaranteed that's what the Party will do, however - but it increases the odds.

"I see a lot of experienced and famous dm's talk about throwing an unwinnable battle where the NPC's have to feel from time to time" - I don't. Can you provide an example? In fact, Matt Colville did a video about how setting up a surrender/flee scenario is a bad idea ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7j1skECRV4 ). Players are there to be heroes; heroes don't run or surrender.

Matthew Mercer talked about it in one of his videos and he wrote an adventure, published in the Explorers Guide of Wildemount, where the players have to flee at the start. The starters kit has a couple of battles where they have alternate scenarios in case the party loses a battle. I'm currently in a fairly big D&D server where they say explicitly that it's a valid tactic to run away to fight another day. I've seen it used in games like Final Fantasy and Xenogears/Xenosaga to introduce a big boss you get to defeat near the end of the game to create extra tension. Heroes run and surrender plenty in movies as well. It might be tough to pull off and I don't think it should be used often but I do believe it can be very interesting to create a scenario where the players can't defeat their enemy.

Just to make sure your players will like this, think of two questions. Do they think the NPC is as cool as you do? If not, they may think you're shoving your obnoxious OC into the spotlight. Secondly, will the players still feel like heroes? In a movie, an Obi-Wan or Gandalf is all well and good, but in an RPG, they'd be stealing the cool moments and control over a scene's outcome that should be PC Luke's or Frodo's. Remember, writing games is different from writing stories. You have to make sure your players always feel like the heroes, and in control (even if in control of their failure)! Even the PC with the vision may feel she's had control taken away, because her magic powers made it impossible for her to fail...I probably would.

That said, if you truly think your players will find this as cool as you do, awesome! Go for it.

Alright, back to the original question. Overall there's only one moment where I would like to see specific behavior from the players, that is that I would like them to start running/fleeing at the start. There's no map or anything like that, so I can always let them end up where I want them to be for the final of the 'pursuit/flight' encounter. As suggested I will need to have an alternative scenario in case the group won't start to run. Let me rephrase or change my question to steer away from the 'semi-scripted' or 'cut' scene as I originally described to 'does anyone have any advice on creating a pursuit/flight encounter?' @Vedexent, thanks for giving me a better description on what I'm looking for. 

My own idea was to design a list of transitions between player actions (inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2d1gceeAPw ) which I can choose from on the go. It should be there to guide me but I can imagine there to be a risk of it feeling to rigid or scripted and as I described earlier, my pitfall is to overdesign my sessions. It's more a matter of not enough trust in my ability to improvise. Does anyone have other tips or tools to create tension, agency and/or flow for this type of encounter? 

Here's a fairly robust example of how to set up a pursuit skill challenge: https://theangrygm.com/how-to-build-awesome-encounters/

It's adaptable to make it a flight encounter.

AngryDM's writing style is a bit much to take in, but the ideas and content is solid.

Skill challenges are good for training the DM to not overdesign. You don't design solutions or transitions, you just set up problems. It's up the Players to figure out the solutions. Of course - I think that's how all encounters should be designed :p

You could just start them on the boat. Tell them the story of how the city was overrun and they barely escaped with their lives, along with a few others on this boat and the couple other boats.If appropriate, maybe describe the way they managed to save some other people on the way (I say if, because some characters might only think about themselves).

Lay in the details about them seeing whoever it is you want them to have seen. Tell them the boat is going to wherever it’s going, but once they get off, they’ll need to decide next steps for themselves. 
Otherwise, you’re just looking for ways to trick them, and fooling people you’re playing with isn’t great, and give them some credit that they’ll quickly realize the whole thing is on rails. You want to railroad them, but don’t want them to realize that’s what’s happening. And, Not only are you forcing them to flee, but you are only giving them one way they can flee. Why should they even bother playing if they can only do what you want?

I don't want to sound rude but I'm not asking for opinions (especially on the railroading which I said I no longer want to do) but I'm asking for help on how to design an interesting and tense flight scenario. I know how to start it and give the players agency, am working on alternative scenario's in case the players decide to stay and defend and I have ways to end the scenario but I have trouble with what happens inbetween. Thats where I could use help. What can I do to make sure that they players constantly feel danger and agency? If they come up with all kinds of actions and sollutions for me to react on then perfect. I need tools for when they don't know what to know to nudge them back into action. 

@Vedexent, will need to continue on the article you send me but it had some good stuff/'add ons' in line with other stuff I was working with.

Quote from grootvriend >>

I don't want to sound rude but I'm not asking for opinions (especially on the railroading which I said I no longer want to do) but I'm asking for help on how to design an interesting and tense flight scenario. I know how to start it and give the players agency, am working on alternative scenario's in case the players decide to stay and defend and I have ways to end the scenario but I have trouble with what happens inbetween. Thats where I could use help. What can I do to make sure that they players constantly feel danger and agency? If they come up with all kinds of actions and sollutions for me to react on then perfect. I need tools for when they don't know what to know to nudge them back into action. 

@Vedexent, will need to continue on the article you send me but it had some good stuff/'add ons' in line with other stuff I was working with.

 

 

 

 

 If you want to focus on thinking of stuff that happens when the players do something is to have a flowchart of different things that the players do and the outcomes of what they do. If they do something that isn’t on the chart then maybe something similar to the chart happens if it makes sense or you could just wing it and improv it. BTW if you want this to be a flight scenario then if the players engage the dracolich to fight it, then maybe have his undead hordes chase the players away so that they would need to run (make the players faster than the whatever the horde would be) or die. I think the horde is a more obvious way for the party to realize that not only they are outmatched, but outnumbered. Perhaps when the horde is chasing them the dracolich just watches the players characters and does some evil laugh or something, but the dracolich is acting too arrogant to engage as he somewhat knows it’s hopeless for the party to fight his legions (makes players really want to kill the dracolich but not in the current moment). These ideas are a little railroady but still value lots of player agency if they do something creative as a response.

IDK just some ideas :D

They could be rescuing someone, or a group of someones. NPCs that can't reasonably fight, maybe children, or the sick, or just some shopkeepers, or all of the above. The PCs want to help them get away, since for the NPCs, fleeing is the only reasonable option. But since the town is overrun, there's no way they can make it to safety on their own, so the PCs need to go along. Then you can hit them with a fight or two along the way, to let them actually whack a few bad guys and feel like they're doing something productive and not just losing. Just keep in mind, they won't be able to even get a short rest between the fights, so don't make them too, too hard.

And I'd do a few other things with it. Make at least a few (actually most) of the NPCs unimportant (no plot armor), so if one or two die along the way, it can increase tension without wrecking the campaign. And give them some options for flight. The boats, as you've indicated, but also an overland option or two (the typical choice is one way is faster, but the other is safer). If you tell the players that the boats will leave in 10 minutes whether or not they're there, and they are 8.5 minutes away, that might be enough to lure them to those boats (and give you just enough time for two fights, but if they try to start a third they'll miss out). And stick to the 10 minute thing, if they arrive on minute 11, they see the boats already too far away for these civilians to be able to swim to, and now they need to decide which of the overland routes is going to work best.

Or they may decide that the boats would be cutting it too close, and opt instead for an overland escape. In that case, they still have to fight through a couple groups, and even then some of the enemy might give chase for a little while, but will eventually turn back so they can go about looting the town. By going overland, the PCs ended up choosing the more difficult route, since they've got all these people to protect, while on the boat, they would have been able to just leave them at the next port, knowing they'd saved the people. But now they had agency and their actions have consequences. You could even spell it out having the NPCs talk about how those boats could have gotten them to their family they could stay with, and what will they do now.

In short, give them options for how to escape, something to protect and a ticking clock.

Yesterday I finally got a chance to run the encounter and I was very happy about how it went. The outline of the overall scenario helped me to create a more tense encounter and having a more lose approach with small challenges and options to save people worked out great. Something I took from another DM was to have them describe what happened whenever they defeated an enemy which, I think, gave them these little moments where they could feel powerful, even though they were on the run. It's probably a known tool for many DM's but for me it was new and I liked it a lot. Not having to think about how every enemy dies makes it easier on me too :). 

Anyway, even though the threat started a bit bumpy, the advice and tips I got on the way helped a lot, so thanks, everybody.