Friday, June 25, 2010

Another Rhetorical DMing Question

If your setting features Darth Vader's Castle, and a party of beginning 1st level characters played by new players decides to break into said castle; is it the DM's fault if the party ends up TPK'd by lightsaber dismemberment and force-choking?

Feel free to substitude with a Darth Vader equivalent from your preferred genre/mileau. Or perhaps the players suggested it and your group is doing some sort of collaborative worldbuilding (metagame reasoning for wanting Darth Vader in your PC's campaign? Lootable lightsabre...).

15 comments:

  1. I can't imagine how PCs assaulting a much more powerful opponent and losing is the GM's fault.

    Unless maybe he (the GM) made some elaborate pretense to deceive the players as to how serious the threat was.

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  2. If you twisted their arms, yes. If not, and they decided on their own then no. It's up to players to judge their skill and limits and get information on their target of adventure.

    (Now granted, if you have new players who can't really judge what's a suitable encounter and what isn't then I could see droping in a couple helpful NPCs who would mention how powerful Lord Vader is and what happened a couple years ago when a group of petty thieves were caught in his castle, but other than that, the rest is up to them.)

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  3. If the players are new, then tell them a flat NO ...but explain why.

    If these are veteran players with fresh characters, then they should know better. So, have them start re-rolling new PCs pronto.

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  4. Complete newbs should get a clear warning.

    Anything other than complete newbs though, and the answer is "Probably not." I can see it being the DM's fault though if the players got the impression that Darth Vader's Castle was a megadungeon with level 1 challenges at the first level, and Darth Vader all the way at the bottom. It's not like Halaster is in the first room of Undermountain.

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  5. There ought to be clues and ways for them to find out what they are getting into, but if they proceed it's their decision, and the DM is not at fault. And this goes ESPECIALLY for new players... teach them how it works, and why there was a TPK (if that happens.) Don't start fudging to keep them alive now or ever, just be fair and make sure they know you aren't artificially protecting them from finding powerful foes, should they seek them out.

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  6. Did they ask to run? Were they emphatic about how much they wanted to run like hell? If not then they screwed up.

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  7. As I understand the question...
    1) The players are new (i.e. they don't necessarily know how these games work)
    2) The setting features said shiny thing (and by feature, I take it to mean it is prominent in the setting, and thus is something that will draw the attention of players, new or otherwise)

    I'd say yes, the GM bears a fair amount of responsibility for the TPK when the Big Bad summarily executes the party. But I'm pretty staunchly on the side of "Don't set the players up to fail" side of the rails/sandbox debate...

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  8. I'd say "no", but you'd have had to describe the 'impressiveness' of the fortifications and size and might of the Dark Lord suitably before I'd let you off the hook as a DM.

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  9. If it's clearly a stronghold of Lord Dark the ensuing TPK is all on the players.

    The castle of Lord Dark is also a great place to capture low level characters and torment them a bit and give the really clever players a menas to plan escape but most RPG players view capture as a fate worse then death. Again it' s on the players to decide their fates.

    The Lord of The Rings wouldn't have ended well if at the council of Elrond it was decided Frodo would stay in Rivendel with the ring while the rest of the fellowship set off directly via giant eagle to kick Sauron's ass.

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  10. Also, was the castle all there was to do? Was the alternative doing nothing for the night? If all you offer is DV's castle then it is your fault.

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  11. DV's castle should have some healthy methods of discouragement. Even if the party did go in there deliberately they needn't have met DV at the first opportunity.

    However, if they 'earned' their shot at the champ, then give it them. DV can do much more than TPK & force choke.

    Bespin City is just one example and freezing a few folks in carbonite for the next party to rescue is always fun.

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  12. If the players are 'new' (to RPGs, the system, or the game world) then the players have a serious shortfall in their knowledge of the power scaling of the world. However, their characters do not. Even if the player thinks being able to cast magic missile and sleep is badass, their character is very likely to understand the power scaling of magic users in that system/game world.

    I've seen/heard people discuss the problem of players having more knowledge (and intelligence and wisdom) than their characters ought have. There is the mirror of that problem, players with little game/world knowledge playing characters who have lived a lifetime in that universe, and stupid/unwise players playing characters with high intelligence/wisdom scores.

    Perhaps tests each characters' wisdom score, or equivalent, with a suitably large modifier, given the stupidity of the plan, and if the test is passed, inform the player that his/her character realises quite clearly that this plan leads to certain death.

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  13. Judging from the comments, the way you phrased the question was perhaps a little vague. A lot of it comes down to how much information the players have (how new are they to the system, to your game world, were they warned enough about how dangerous Lord Vader was, etc.).

    But assuming they at least know (let's use your example) he killed ALL of the old Jedi Knights, and the players are Junior-Jedi-in-training who even get their butts kicked by the floating training sphere? : ) Then no way is it the DM's fault if the players decide to march in there and try to kill him! (But it might be more fun to have them all thrown into the Death Star Prison Level and make them escape!)

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  14. Well if the carbonite frescos in the entry hall didn't dissuade them, they deserve what they got.

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  15. There is an interesting story lurking behind these rhetorical questions...

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