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Nerd By Northwest #365 – “Players Plotting Perfidy”
If players aren't plotting ways to break the DM's plans, that means they aren't trying hard enough...
Nerd By Northwest #365 – “Players Plotting Perfidy”
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When my D&D group last played through this adventure, we didn't have too hard a time taking on the dragons, even being a small party of four. Apparently in the 5th edition version of this adventure the dragons are on the young side, so they didn't have the strength or legendary action powers that older dragons possess. And yes, I'm sure it also helped that we didn't charge in blindly like a bunch of noobs!
Our heroes here could potentially have an even easier time of it, having six adventurers and with four of those being higher-level spellcasters. Yeah yeah, some haters might point out that one of those casters is "only a bard", but he still technically counts. And if the show Futurama has taught us anything, it's that "technically correct" is the best kind of correct...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIzMuPMicGc
So Dan the Dungeon Master made the encounter harder... not by changing the encounter via increasing the strength of the opponents like an amateur, but by introducing hostages in the mix. And while some in the party like Pete's character Sir Marko might have a more mercenary attitude, Dan knows some of the others wouldn't be quite so heartless as to blast away hostages along with the dragons (or would at minimum recognize the value of having two more experienced adventurers on their side).
But for every clever & devious Dungeon Master, there is often two or more equally & devious players around to throw a spanner in the works. So I'm afraid the numbers just aren't in Dan's favor... 😏
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Replies (8)
That is a great title XD
I loved it when players unfamiliar with how I ran games tried to mess up my plans (I have plot points I try to nudge them towards and what they do each session helps me work out what should come next so my "plans" are very difficult to really mess up/derail). I don't play DnD though, from what I've seen and heard there seems to be a lot more finangling involved o_O
I expect some people play these games at a high level. It's meant to be a challenge. Your dungeon master needs to anticipate how people can avoid their traps.
Having finished Stranger Things recently I am surprised that they did not emphasise the D&D stuff more. It was there at the start, but then hardly mentioned until right at the end.
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I've played a host of tabletop RPG's, and D&D really isn't any different than any other game when it comes to the constant struggle between the Gamemaster's plans and the players' knack for breaking them (and yes, having if-this/then-that plans ahead of time sure helps). I think some of our worst story/encounter derailments or cheesing actually happened more often in our Call of Cthulhu and Shadowrun games than D&D...
I kinda understand them not emphasizing the D&D analogies in this last season, especially with the physics, exotic matter, and wormhole plot points... fantasy D&D can only go so far in making analogies with that.
But they did have that final D&D game in the last episode, so they gave us that at least.
Agreed!
Aaaahhh Shadowrun I have very fond memories of that from uni days XD
I was accidentally the VIP of an encounter when I wasn't even there. I had cast Heroes' Feast at the start of the day during our previous session. Then I was missing from the table for some reason at the next session. But there was a great big fight the DM had surprised the party with against an ancient Green Dragon. Two of the effects of the Heroes' Feast is immunity to fear bye-bye dragon fear and immunity to poison bye-bye dragon breath. Totally nerfed the dragon without meaning to. It was no doubt divinely inspired by my cleric's deity.