In our D&D game this past Saturday night, the climactic battle of the evening was a real nail-biter. Things looked very bad for awhile, and winning was far from assured.
And around the halfway point, one character’s survival came down to a single die roll. I had to make that roll to save my friend Don’s PC, and Sam, our GM, did something very smart: he talked it out with me.
This one requires some setup, and I’ll include D&D specifics along with more general context. Sam’s technique isn’t D&D-specific in any way.
Our quirky 5th-level party (no cleric, no rogue) was matched up against an invisible mind flayer (CR 8 ) and, a bit later on, two giant snakes (CR 5), and two of our characters had already failed our Will saves to avoid having our minds read (so he knew who to pick on). In other words, a very tough encounter.
After the flayer took down our tank (Don’s PC), we blew our chance to drag his unconscious body away, and the big bad did something very smart: he latched all four tentacles onto Don’s character, and told us to back off or he’d kill him.
That meant we had one full round of actions before, on the following round, our tank’s brain would be sucked out of his head.
We talked it over as a group (minus Don himself, who elected to stay out of the discussion), and decided that we needed to have our strongest character — my wildshaped druid — try to pull our tank away from the mind flayer. If that failed, Don’s character was toast.
Since I was going to gamble his fate on one die roll, I wanted to make very sure I understood my chances. Some GMs would have clamped down on our table talk before that, or refused to help out in any way, but Sam went a different route: he pulled aside the curtain.
We confirmed my current grapple bonus, and he told me the bonus the illithid was getting for having all four tentacles attached (a major factor). He mentioned that I’d be able to spend an action point if I needed to — a nice reminder.
When it was time to roll, I knew exactly what I was getting into.
With the action point, I succeeded and saved Don’s character. We went on to win the battle, and it was an awesome evening overall.
Our group is generally very good about reminding each other of things, even when it’s not in our best interests — our GM mentions things we might miss, we bring it up if it looks like he’s going to forget an attack of opportunity, and so forth.
That approach won’t be a good fit for everyone, but in one situation in particular — when a PC’s life is on the line — it’s one that you should at least consider. It didn’t keep Sam from trying — fairly, and as he rightly should — to hand us our collective asses, and it was exactly the right way to handle the situation.
If you’ve never tried this, give it a shot the next time a scenario like ours comes up. Your players might hate it, but they also just might love it.
Sounds like Sam is the kind of GM I’d like to have as a player! Your story suggests that he has a level of understanding that the GMs role is not to compete with the players directly in combat, but to ensure that the NPCs and mosters are competitive with the players while he as the GM ensures that the combat is done fairly.
I think taking the time to discuss options with a player is good for a scene in which the rules play a big factor. I try to encourage players to make decisions quickly so that the game isn’t slowed down, but if a complex action is being taken I like to spend a little mro time explaining what the roll is for and how it will be influenced.
Martin, you neglected to mention (or notice) how quiet Don was during said discussion. I wasn’t going to input any bias as to what the group should do one way or the other; although my character was clearly affected by the outcome, I did’t think it was appropriate to dictate what the group should do simply because it was my character. The group came up with the idea and the resolution by yourselves and I was happy to accept the outcome. (For the record, were the situation reversed, I would have done the same thing.)
Instead, I was busy thinking about what my next character would be if you failed the roll. 😉
I agree– a few moments spent making sure everything is clear can help prevent hours of problems. Just discussing how much hangs on the die roll can really increase tension too.
On the other hand, it can really break pacing and drop people out of the moment, so be careful about doing it every battle. Also make sure that, as a GM, you aren’t giving specific advice to keep the characters on the railroad tracks.
Cool story, and good DMing.
The more I game, the more I realize that very few things are graven in stone. Official rules, house rules, interpretations, “social contracts”, etc… All are malleable under the proper circumstances. (Including this realization.)
FWIW, I will occasionally act as character subconscious or common sense when a player tries something stupid, whether through lack of knowledge of the situation, or lack of knowledge of the rules. I never dictate behavior, just remind of facts.
In a case like the one above, I think you just gave me another option. 😀
I’m glad this approach strikes a chord, and I agree that pacing is an important consideration.
(Abulia) Martin, you neglected to mention (or notice) how quiet Don was during said discussion.
Good point. I’ve edited the post to include this detail.
I was really surprised that you didn’t speak up, and it’s interesting to hear exactly why that was. I admire your approach, and it’s probably the opposite of what I would have done.
When I DM, I try to have the players feel like I’m on their side during those tense moements as well (not all the time perhaps, but when things are at that nail biting phase). I notice I cheer when they make that save right along with them.
Something I’ve been doing more of lately is trying not to get quite to that one save or die situation. I’ve played some of the more intelligent foes differently since they often can surmise that they can kill a character, but not survive the battle. They go for personal gain in place of killing the PCs. In yesterdays game, the demon used a suggestion, not to try to take out the PC, but to get hold of his nice +3, keen, speed greatsword. Once it had that, it was glad to escape with teleport at 1/2 hp.
The players took it almost as hard as PC death, but they have pulled together and are on a mission to get that sword back. So here the roll wasn’t vs death, but vs gear. Now they have a new favorite enemy. It’s opened up a lot of possibilites for the campaign.
That sounds like an awesome game. It’s a really big change from the classic gaming idea of “Players VS GM”. This way around, it’s all about the players and GM working together to make the evening more fun for everyone.
–Victor
Excellent idea. Here’s something similar that we do in our group: we break the action at the end of every round and I let the players make as detailed plans as they want. Often they don’t have anything to talk about and we simply move on to the next round, but sometimes they come up with complex plans that require looking up rules or a variety of delay and ready actions to effect the plan. We find it helps everyone make maximum use of their class abilities/feats etc and the game rules as well (who wants to hold everything up to re-read the bullrush rules unless all the players are involved in the planning). So far it has worked really well, generating lots of interesting action, and it gives me as the dm a chance to think about tactics for the bad guys too. We balance the planning by prohibiting anything except the “free action shout to your buddy” sort of communication once the round is underway.
That sounds like a cool way to do it Mamawl. You can almost hear the characters practicing at night… “When the mage calls out Blue 32, you Bulls Rush their champion, Jorge, I’ll prepare a magic missile…”
I had a GM who used to do that exact same thing for our Ninjas & Superspies mash-up games. Right before we hit the big bad (if we were really hurting), he’d stop the game, let us calculate experience and level up if we could before handing us the smack-down. His motto was, “I’m going to try my hardest to save you, but I’m also going to try my hardest to kill you.”
I think one way that groups can rationalize helping PCs with rule specifics and strategic suggestions is to consider the acting PC’s intelligence attribute. I’ve always felt it was unfair to expect my feeble brain to properly emulate, say, any massive genius spell-caster PCs I play, because in those cases my PC is waaaay smarter than I am.
Back to the point: in situations like the one Martin describes, if his druid had a high intelligence attribute, then as a DM I would not only openly help, but encourage the whole group — including the player of the disabled PC — to chime in. If the intelligence attribute was normal, maybe make him figure it out himself. If the PC was dumb as a post, make him do something appropriately stupid — or have a good reason why he was acting so smart.
Still, I appreciate the need to “have fun” and the bummitude that comes with losing a good PC. “Do what will make the most fun (in the long run)” is still Rule #1.