DM Scheming
DM Scheming
What's a DM to do? My players have again high-tailed it out of the Tomb of the Lizard King after scoring some major treasure. They have completely cleared the bandits and cultists from the upper level. Sakatha the Lizard King has more minions though. On the second level are almost 100 lizardmen that can be pretty easily avoided. But Sakatha could send them to ambush the PCs and their mercenary army at their camp, or wait at the entrance to the temple for them to come back.
On the other hand, a certain part of me wants to get on with the adventure, skip the more realistic repositioning of forces, and let the players get on with their dungeon-crawling when they return. It's not like I don't have several deadly traps waiting for them as soon as they get back to where they were.
Opinions?
Reposition those forces. That's part of the cool thing about dungeon crawling, having a dynamic environment. Clean out folks from one area, and their neighbors swoop in to shift things around.
ReplyDeleteI suggest you reposition the troops, ambush them, make them re-take the first level, and generally keep the pressure up. Respect the dungeon...
ReplyDeleteIs Sakatha paranoid or overconfident?
ReplyDeleteAgree with Humza Kazmi
ReplyDeletePut some alarm traps, pretty easy to detect ones at first, more difficult to detect ones later.
ReplyDeleteLet them know there is an ambush waiting for them to screw up.
I agree with restocking the "adventured" parts with new troops, perhaps some quickly improvised traps.
ReplyDeleteSakatha was overconfident previously. He would not be any longer.
ReplyDeleteAnd alright, no pulling punches on these stupid PCs. You leave the dungeon, you pay the price.
ReplyDeleteThe benefit of ambushing them at their camp is getting to use the ACKS Domains at War rules for mass combat. And making the ambush happen at night so all the party's cavalry is reduced to fighting as infantry.
my personal philosophy is always err on the side of fun. any decision can be justified if it seems more fun than the more "pure" alternative, be that railroading or plot holes or strict adherence to the rules as written…whatever.
ReplyDeleteand what is fun for your group may be drastically different from what's fun for my group. or hell, you run multiple campaigns, right? what's fun in ACKS may not be fun in deadlands.
there's my totally useless input. ;)
Traps AND flanking maneuver from the supporting forces.
ReplyDeleteNo mercy.
ReplyDeletehttp://goo.gl/S5UtdL
You gotta problem with that?
ReplyDelete(This is why I'm not a DM.)
Casey Garske Hah! "Sweep the flank."
ReplyDeleteYeah, the situation should change, because it's a living place. But don't just jump straight to whatever is the most logical response; think about what's cool/fun, too.
ReplyDeleteJustin Alexander was experimenting with a living dungeon environment, and he restocked with some kind of elementalist with exploding minions because he thought it was cool.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's less important whether the creatures take a certain action or not, and more important that the re-taking of traversed territory have a cost (or the pressure is off.)
Fun is important, at the heart of the enterprise, I totally agree with that. So, I guess I'd temper my response with wondering how emotionally and mentally tough your crew is. If they can't handle retribution or it scares them off (or kills them) then no, that's not useful to the game... Especially if they don't want to play anymore. (I've had this happen to me.)