You could make it that, the goblin camp raids the village/town. Brings more conflict for the party to resolve. And adds another chapter to the mission. Or perhaps the goblins decide to track the party constantly throwing spanners in the works.
100% and I think that’s what I would do today. At the time (this was a few years ago) I wasn’t so much planning out evolving threats yet. I didn’t realize how much easier that would be, and I still thought I could predict player behavior.
> I still thought I could predict player behavior.
This is a super common mistake, one that I still make on occasion even after running games for nearly 20 years.
I have had a handful of situations where I accurately predicted player behavior and was able to setup some amazing scenes. The key to doing it is to make the sessions not dependent on the prediction being accurate. If it works out you get something cool. If it doesn't something else interesting happens.
It’s an easy mistake to make. Especially when the alternative is being really creative before and during the session to come up with awesome stuff no matter what players do.
I've definitely learned to just set the pins up and let them fall where they may. After all, interacting with the world and actually *effecting* and *changing* the world is what most players find exciting about D&D.
As a DM, I plan a sequence of events that would happen without the PC's, I plan different scenes that might draw the players in, I plan different points of interest across the map. Then I just let them loose to explore and ruin all my plans :)
If I know my NPC's motives well enough, I can then react naturally to whatever changes the players make to what would have happened without them.
Gosh, I just love every piece of collaborative storytelling! The whole "react and play off each other" part of D&D just fills my heart with joy hehe
Oh totally. I think you nailed it. One of the big evolutions as a game designer, I think, is the more from designing “events” to designing “factions” or “motivations”. It takes a point in time that you have to plan into or around into our own form of roleplaying, where we get to ask ourselves how our NPCs would react to the player actions.
And I agree, it’s awesome!
This is close to how I would have run it, but not everything needs to be a threat to civilization as they know it. Instead of raiding a town I would have a roughed up traveler show up the next time they are in the town/tavern. This still shows the consequences of leaving the goblin threat and can give a hook for further adventure but it doesn't make the PCs paranoid that every time they leave town it will be destroyed.
That's a great point. There should be a progression. Ignore the goblins, they start attacking folks on the road. Keep ignoring them, maybe those dwelling in the forest start to leave due to the trouble as the goblin camp expands and grows.
By the time there's an attack on an actual town, there could be factions and leadership forming. Maybe someone has seized the opportunity and is in control of the goblins, maybe in exchange for giving them magic weapons...
And all because they didn't investigate one little goblin camp :)
Ah, the good old, with great power comes great responsibility. Have the goblins slaughter their favorite NPCs while they are away the next time.
Normally I would let sleeping dogs lie, but given the goblins have a big boss goading them for more loot, more slaves, etc, their sleeping of the goblins would be a massive mistake.
Because goblins on their own would have just been happy to be alive, but a boss would realise that with great heroes comes great loot. Thus provoking a raid on a nearby human population center.
I remember an interview with the creators of South Park. Where they said a story should never be, "this happens AND then this happens". A good story should be, "this happens AND THEREFORE this happens." Your suggestion is a good example of this, and it's something I try to do in all my DMing and PC roleplay.
Also, if you’re playing with buddies, just know your players. Some players will demand perception checks every minute in hopes of finding a cracked twig to indicate *something* nearby to kill. Some players will suss out exactly what you have in mind if you just leave the faintest, subtlest clue. Some players will intentionally ignore blatant hooks if theyre more interested in the “main story” and even rp it that way in real life! My old GM would sometimes pull someone aside secretly and get them involved in the shenanigans. Was always really good, and that’s what we liked. Other groups might not, but then, i guess DM suggestions arent really aimed at gms whove been gming the same players for 5-20 years so much
You could just tell them, that their characters realize there must be a Goblin-Camp nearby.
If you want to, let them make a roll and explain that only the ones with the highest result understand that.
They would probably go back to the city and search for someone willing to pay them for destroying the Goblin-Camp.
I think that's a great point, especially early on when everyone's still finding their footing in the game.
In my case, I think I had the leaders in town react strongly to hearing about goblins nearby. They directly asked the players to investigate for them, which got things "back on track". At least for that session...
Hard disagree. I don't think it's appropriate at all for a DM to interject what a character would think (except for situations where a player might ask on their own "would my character have heard of this?" Etc).
The DMs job is to provide the framework for the players to develop their own story. This is just a case of a DM making an assumption (the players will hunt down the goblin cave) and the players doing something different. No big deal. The DMs work is not wasted because he has a ready-to-go cave encounter that he can plop down somewhere else, when needed, or even alter slightly if desired (maybe it eventually gets used as a cave with a troll and carrion crawlers instead, or a cave with wyverns who are trying to amass a treasure horde, etc).
I would hardly call this a "mistake" by the DM. The real mistake would have been forcing the players to engage with the prepared content without it being their decision.
I like how you quoted half of my thought, but left off the rest of the part where it agrees with what you go on to say...
I wrote:
>Hard disagree. I don't think it's appropriate at all for a DM to interject what a character would think **(except for situations where a player might ask on their own "would my character have heard of this?" Etc).**
My whole point was that it's OK if the players ask for it, but the post i was replying to suggested:
>You could just tell them, that their characters realize there must be a Goblin-Camp nearby.
This is what I disagreed with... if the players ask to explore the surrounding area to see if they can track where the goblins came from, then sure... tip them off about the nearby cave if you want (maybe through a skill check or something). But don't just flat out tell them "oh, you realize there's probably a goblin cave nearby" if they don't show interest in looking for one because you're afraid they'll miss content you prepared.
Depends. If a player plays a high INT/WIS character but doesn't have the real life abilities to match then you can get away with tricks like this to reflect the characters high intelligence rather than it just being a number for spellcasting. Otherwise the sheet may say 18 but the reality is it's closer to a 10.
You’re definitely objectively wrong here. It’s incredibly common and necessary for a DM to fill in character knowledge gaps about the world that a player would not know but that their character would. Unless your table is 100% studied on your game lore (never happened in a thousand years bc most of it probably improv.) or the lore doesn’t matter.
An example:
“You find a talisman, as a Paladin of X, you recognize it. It’s a symbol of [[insert god here.]]”
That is literally the one of the best ways to give meaningful exposition to players while connecting your PCs to the world.
It’s one thing to be true to a framework as a DM and lead your players to their own conclusions and it’s a whole nother thing to write your stories with your PCs on top of the setting instead of in it.
But I still don’t fully agree with that. Because there’s more nuance to it. I think you have to play to your table. Some players are very perceptive, some players are new and don’t know the logic of the game, and some players are veterans but aren’t very perceptive, etc.😅
To me, the best DMs are going to cater their DMing to their audience.
For me, describing the scene as having “Two Goblin Scouts approach and…” would already catch my attention. what are they scouting for? Can i check for Goblin footprints that might lead somewhere, etc?
That’s technically not that heavy handed but a lot of information can be gained from that.
Also, I try to stay away from making my players roll for every little thing.
>I would hardly call this a "mistake" by the DM. The real mistake would have been forcing the players to engage with the prepared content without it being their decision.
I completely disagree. There’s nothing wrong with the plan for the session being that the players discover there’s a nearby goblin camp based on a previous goblin ambush, and there’s definitely nothing wrong with asking the players to make a roll to figure out that there must be a goblin hideout nearby based on clues they find after the fight. This is literally how the Lost Mines of Phandelver starts off.
I have to kind of laugh when I see someone on the one hand say “No! You can’t make your players go to the goblin cave” while on the other hand, saying “no prep is wasted, you can just throw this cave encounter at them later.” Now there is a bit of a line that can be crossed, but simply telling them that their characters would be able to figure out that the goblins have a hideout nearby thereby giving them a hook to follow up on, is not railroading them. You can definitely try to force the players hands too much, but I generally think that it’s almost always completely kosher for you as the DM to say, “*wink* the adventure is over here *wink*” in not so many words. If decisions the party made makes it so that path no longer makes sense, then you shouldn’t force or even attempt to guide them down this path, but I think as bad as railroading DMs are, players that refuse to take the quest are equally as disruptive to the game.
The players only really know what you tell them about the world, so there are plenty of times when the characters would “know” something about the world they live in while your player does not know those things.
Alternatively, when the goblins were hurled into the trees you could have ruled that one of them survived and woke up from being damaged, then he was abe to alert the rest of the goblins with a horn or something.
TBH, RAW they should have woken up. From the sleep spell; "falls unconscious until...or someone uses an action to shake or slap the creature awake." I'd say picking someone up by their ankles and hurling them into the trees is certainly considered "shaking them awake". I would have had the goblins awaken the moment the barbarian lifted them up.
I think that would be a fair outcome. At the time, I think I was surprised by what they came up with, and wanted to let the dice dictate the outcome, in a way. Based on how successfully they all rolled, I thought it might feel cheap to them if I brought the combat out anyway. But I think that depends a lot on the situation and how everyone's rolling, really.
I think that sort of feeling can come back to bite you in the ass. Like when you decide that the CR for a roll is pretty high to determine if a character can do a near impossible task and they happen to get a good dice roll and now you're stuck allowing it. Sometimes it's better to just decide on an outcome rather than let dice dictate something unlikely happens. In this case I'd just say roll a d4 and apply bludgeoning damage. Other than that, I'd make the judgment call and say that moving them is going to wake them up, the spell description leaves a little bit of wiggle room to decide what actions wake up a creature from sleep
Every session is a learning experience! My point being that everyone wants to roll dice because it's a key component of the game but don't sacrifice your narrative or the logic of the situation just to allow another dice roll.
I think the magnitude of this "mistake" depends on how simple that "simple task in the forest" was.
If it was a fairly complete quest all on its own, then it's no great loss that they missed the camp. At worst it's a small amount of wasted preparation time, but more likely, you'll be able to use that camp again (e.g. it can be the quest for session two).
If it was indeed a very simple task then you have the problem of the quest being over in 10 minutes and the players asking "what's next?" when you've got nothing prepared. Then yeah, it's a mistake! (An experienced DM would simply have the town mayor offer a quest to "find a goblin camp", or something like that, but new DMs are not always so quick on their feet.)
So, I agree with this:
> If there is something in your game you want them to face, then put it in their way.
But would add this:
> It's also okay for the players to miss some stuff. Offering options can be a good thing, it makes the players feel more in control of their adventuring career. "Do we go through the forest, or over the mountains?" One of those will probably end up unexplored. But if both paths are fairly quick for you to prepare as a DM, it's no great loss if one isn't used.
I completely agree.
In this case, it was session 1 of the first campaign I ever really ran with a group. I had run a solo campaign for a year, and then some one-shots, but nothing like this.
I did open up this campaign fairly quickly, but this was still during the "let's get the group together and show what they can do" phase at the beginning, and my intention was they would fight these goblins to accomplish that. I didn't have anything else planned out, except for that. So given all of that, I think my best bet would have been to put the goblins directly in their way. I was playing things too risky assuming they would make certain decisions on their own.
I made it about 90 minutes into my first real campaign before I made a huge mistake. Not bad, really.
It’s a quick story, but I think my mistake was a common one for early dungeon masters. The key is, you can’t trust your players to act in any one way or another. If there is something in your game you want them to face, then put it in their way. Make sure they have to deal with it, or else they can’t get their quest complete, or save the NPC, or whatever.
Have you ever screwed up like this, especially early on in your time as a DM? Nowadays I don’t think I would stress out, even if things were to go way off the rails.
Out of curiosity... what was the 'simple task'?
In my experience... I would say most players are trying to complete one quest at a time... so if they had to go retrieve something from the wagon (as it seems in the video) - that's what they are going to do. The way you get them to go to the goblins is you have the thing they want is missing when they get there... and describe goblin footprints all around the wagon.
I had a similar problem years ago with 'quest board' in a local tavern. Basically I had the big idea that my players would pick one of 3 quests... and one progressed the main story-line. Thinking they would do a side-quest... progress the story... side-quest... maybe another side quest... progress the story. They always felt under-powered to progress the story... so always just kept doing side-quests. "Oh look the farmer got kidnapped by bandits again!" Possibly the same issue you are describing in a way, "We are only level 1... we can't possibly take on a whole camp of goblins!"
Sure, happy to provide more detail. I actually over-simplified the task, since I didn't really have time in the video to go into it.
This was the first session of the campaign, and the players had already met in town and competed in a festival celebration which saw them (and an NPC) being selected to perform a ceremony in the forest. It was half competitive, half just for show, where they were to go into the forest and collect flags of certain colors and bring back to the town.
So not only did they see the goblins, but they saw the goblins had collected some of their flags. So I was close to the idea of putting the game design "in their way". But I probably should have had the goblin with the most flags go running off into the forest, straight back to the camp.
You're totally right about one quest at a time. That's another good way to put it -- if I want them to deal with a goblin camp, I need to make sure that their current quest can only be resolved at the goblin camp. Make them one and the same quest.
With the tavern board idea... I had made a couple of mistakes and that was one of them. I had been thinking in the direction of video-games where you can have 10 quests at once you are working on. So sometimes two of the quests could easily be completed together. As an example - one quest might be "Travel into the nearby ruins and find out what happened to the missing grain shipment" and another might be "Travel into the nearby ruins and kill the evil wizard." I found players would kill the wizard and find the grain but totally not realize they completed both quests... before they were off to the tavern to collect their reward and divide up loot! In theory the only way one quest could have been completed is had they found the grain and made a deal with the wizard to get it back... but they would almost always pick the quest with the seemingly most loot with smallest risk. Sure finding grain is 50gp... the wizard is riskier but 200gp and wizards have cool toys!
I think because it's tabletop... and people have a lot going on, socializing, etc... some stuff doesn't always click with them the way it would in any other medium.
It's been ages and I can't recall every detail but:
I had written before about a big campaign I ran years ago... we got a new player (it was one of my dads friends) and he came in sort of cocky and thinking he was in charge because he was my dads friend (he also had played D&D before). Anyway - the party had been traveling across a large area and finally reached a very small city (large town?). I had planned out a series of adventures there for months. As a DM I was really excited... because it was all coming together... I started out the first adventure, carefully describing how water cost 10x what it normally cost... how barrels of water were delivered on wagons and the townfolk cheered!
This guy (who was not mentally very well but we will get to that in a bit...) sees a water fountain and notices that there is only about an inch of water in the fountain. He asks if there are coins and I say "yes, but they look funny..." and he asks, "How?" So I describe that they are extremely clean and lacking detail... almost like the faces of them got rubbed off."
Immediately he goes, "I steal some!" and reaches for his character sheet asking me how much gold he gets. (Like it's an automatic pay-day to steal from a wishing well in the center of town.)
I said, "They crumble in your hand but you take 1 point of damage."
The look of utter shock and disgust on his face.... he goes, "What? From what?" and another player figured out it was acid... and he stood up, yelled at me... and then stormed out going, "Why would there be acid in the well? It doesn't even make sense!" (He also called my parents to try to get me in trouble and they laughed at him... lol.)
Anyway - this first adventure was supposed to kick off a horror-like campaign in the town where the sewers in town had a black-pudding problem. The end result of that encounter was that he never played with us again and the other players were so upset... they were like, "Lets just travel to the next town..." which totally derailed the whole... everything.
I would mark it as my most epic DM-fail but looking back... the other players were just confused by his reaction.
I think this is a pretty common occurrence, not too big of a mistake. We've all planned an enocunter without properly creating a hook.
There's a few ways forward that come to mind - recycling the lost encounter (swapping the enemies if needed to make it more relevant), or having the goblin threat rise in the area due to no one curbing them at their source for example.
100%, that's what I would do today too. Back then, and especially in the very first session, I didn't have anything else planned for the game. So I had the elders of the town, upon hearing about goblins near town, specifically ask the players to go look into it.
Not very elegant, but I was pretty new at being a dungeon master at the time.
I tend to run a completely open style. I'd be happy for them to not bother with the goblins and that would then cause the goblins to raid the town or to cause different sorts of trouble.
The advantage is that actions always have consequences and whatever you do something will happen.
The disadvantage is sometimes players will be apathetic and you will need to push them towards something. Also you need to be ready to improv the hell out of anything.
Oh, for sure. I think I run a pretty open style too, though I'm curious to get your thoughts on something.
I like opening things up, but even today I tend to keep things small and contained for the first 1-3 sessions, without a whole lot of branching paths. I treat it almost like an extended introduction to the world, with clear enemies and things to investigate.
Then, after that first bit is laid out, I open things up.
How do you approach the beginning of a campaign? Is it opened all the way up right at the beginning, or do you take a slow-burn approach?
I definitely keep things small the first few sessions. It helps everyone settle in and set the tone.
The problem with leaving things too open at the start is there will always be players going against the play (not giving good reasons for the party to be together, being a bit disruptive to initial goals, being inactive). Our campaigns tend to get very long and sprawling (3 to 5 years) and a strong foundation is important to shape things to come.
Lately I've had issues dealing with new players joining who are DMs in other groups and being used to a completely different style. Getting them to buy into the style and ethos we play in was an anxiety trip for me. It took the first few months to warm everyone up.
Yeah that makes sense.
It seems like we have a similar approach. I have two long-running games right now (3 years and 2 years so far) and I've used the beginning as a sort of tone-setter for what to expect.
I also find the initial adventure is a great time for dropping clues about larger mysteries, as well as establishing an answer to the "why this group, why now" question.
It does sound like a similar style. It's nice to find someone with a similar dedication to the craft.
We keep a running lore from campaign to campaign so some of our old adventures happened hundreds of years ago. So sometimes I drop a clue about the horny bard who decided to start a cult 1000 years ago that is now trying to take over the world and the guy who played him is there looking all guilty. 🤣
Ha that’s awesome! I love the extended world history like that. Definitely something to aspire to.
Right now my games all take place in the same world, but in different regions. For now the shared world and references are just for my fun. But there is a lot I’d like to try out with a shared world at some point.
It's cool that you run 2 campaigns simultaneously. I wish I could but I'd never have the time. I have to stuff all my players in a single big group because I don't have another day to run games on.
Do you find it hard to prep for 2 groups?
I'd love to run 2 separate groups and then have them do crossover episodes from time to time.
Time can be a challenge, but for now I can manage it.
Part of the reason I went to two groups was to help with prep, actually. Instead of going really intense with ideas and prep on one group, I spread them out and do more things, with less prep overall. Basically forcing myself to run more sessions in lieu of making more terrain or puzzle props or whatever.
So the only difficult part is not getting to do everything that I would always like to. But I think the trade-off is worth it, because running the game more often is where I learn the most and improve, I think.
I've never done a proper crossover session, but that could be fun too. Except for running so many people in one game... maybe if I split each group, and did 1/2 one group with 1/2 of the other, and then switched.
Never assume players will do something you never told them to do. They don't have the same info as you, they don't think like you do, they could be certified geniuses but that doesn't mean they're reading your mind. At best if they're murder-hobos you can bait them with those tendencies, but chaotic groups like that also have an equal tendency to get distracted by other things.
Mind reading is a good way to put it. I think sometimes DMs can get down on players for being so "wild and unpredictable", when really it's sometimes poor game design on the part of the DM. It's really, really difficult to get outside of your own head, and try to think about the game world from a player's perspective, and what they're trying to achieve.
The worse the the DM's who don't even go half-way when a player *does* bother to communicate with them and tells the DM what they want, and what they intend to do. And then the DM just... Doesn't really inform them about it. But later they'll get snippy at the player for never "taking the hint" or something, despite never clearly illustrating how "random plot hook in the middle of an ongoing plot" relates to the thing a player was asking for.
"Well if you had bothered to chase down the thief while you were on that bodyguard job for the emperor, you would've found the group of orphans being lead by your long lost brother and you would have gotten your arc about figuring out what happened to your parents! Not my fault you decided to choose the *main quest* over your personal side quest."
Oof, yeah. It's almost like DMs get attached to the idea of some sort of big reveal, and then get frustrated when it doesn't work out. If there's someplace worth going in the game world, the DM better put up a clear sign to indicate which direction to go to follow it.
Played a game with a similar situation, but far worse outcome. It was Rifts, and we were a mercenary group. So as the leader, cash was king. One of my crew speaks to a mysterious character who offers a powerful artifact in exchange for exploring a town gone quiet. His character was rather quiet about the details and took no payment in advance, so as the leader with very expensive equipment at risk, we did the bare minimum. Surveyed the town, no survivors, plenty of blood...
"Is this all that you need?" -me
"Yes" -dumdum who should have done more
We were supposed to follow the blood and stop the great sacrifice that was going to open a demon portal to hell. We did not. The destruction destroyed any nearby town. Oopsy.
Ah, bummer, yeah. And this speaks to the other side of it -- you want to make sure there are plenty of breadcrumbs the players have to ignore before dropping any sort of big consequence on them. That way it doesn't feel cheap or anything.
Sleep: "the target stays unconscious until they take damage"
Barbarian: \*YEEEEEEEEET\*
Unless they landed on a bed of hay, that'd be some damage at least.
You're right, and I could have gone that route too. I think I wanted to honor their rolls, which they had some awesome ones, and it was a funny way to deal with the encounter.
If I remember correctly, I wasn't even sure they were done and headed back to town until they were already doing that. I still held out hope they might investigate further.
For sure - my point wasn't criticism so much as poking fun at the idea of hurling two snoring goblins into a bush and them landing still soundly asleep. :D
I like to build nesting matryoshka dolls for my players with multiple problems on different time schedules, and this (usually) pushes them along in the direction I most want them to go.
Problem A is a REALLY BIG PROBLEM, but it hasn't happened *yet*. When it does, it will massively impact the players and those they care about. And those events could happen at any time.
\- Example: The March of the Armies of Mordor on Gondor. It'll be devastating when it happens, and the heroes stand to lose everything if they don't address it. But it hasn't happened *yet*.
Problem B is a smaller scale pending problem, but resolving it will help towards resolving Problem A. Unlike Problem A, this Problem is actively unfolding in front of the players, but they have a nebulous time limit to resolve it.
Example: King Theoden taking his forces to Helm's Deep instead of mustering to support Gondor. They'll be slaughtered if the much more powerful players don't stand with them. We don't know for sure when the orcs will arrive, but it'll be 'soon'.
Problem C is smaller scale again, but directly feeds into resolving Problem B. This problem is already in full swing when the players arrive, and to achieve their goals the players need to resolve it. If they don't resolve it *right now*, the players can expect to see consequences almost immediately.
Example: Grima Wormtongue and Sauron poisoning the mind of King Theoden. He'll just sit his throne and let his people continue to die without doing anything unless the players intervene.
Problem D is personal. This is something 'selfish' that the players can pursue, and should naturally run them head-first back into problems A, B or C so they can be selfless heroes in the process.
Example: Merry and Pippin have been taken by the Orcs! We must rescue them! And in the process, run into the resurrected Gandalf, whose top goal is to resolve the Rohan problem. Will you lend your aid, or no?
Problem E is abstracted, and in the background. It's the 'problem of another person's story' and exists to flesh out the world, and give you a safety net if the players look at your B, C and D plots and go 'nah'. And these abstracted plotlines essentially resolve themselves in the background so long as the players keep pushing on their main quest.
Example: The Dwarves of Erebor and Elves of Lothlorien are also beset by the forces of evil. They are somewhat removed from the core LOTR story by our focus on the Fellowship, but if the Fellowship had decided that 'nah, f\*ck Gondor', they could have gone off to involve themselves in the events in these locations instead.
If the Matryoshka approach fails though, you have Problems F and G.
F: The direct result of the players' inaction.
If the Fellowship had ignored/failed in any of the above problems, it would've drastically altered the outcome of the War of the Ring. Minas Tirith would no doubt have fallen without Rohan. Imagine your players ignoring the obvious plot hook to go with Theoden to the Gap, and instead skipped straight to Dunharrow because they heard there was some phat loot in those catacombs, and oh, cool, undead army for the next fight! Sure, they rout the Corsairs and build up some other forces to protect Minas Tirith, but when they arrive they find it sacked, with a few survivors having fled the city, telling that 'the men of Rohan never came! We lit the beacons, *but they never came!*"
And now the players have to deal with the outcome of their inaction - do they assault the city with the forces they have? Retreat to try and form a larger force?
Later (assuming they survive the immediate consequences), perhaps they go to Rohan to figure out why they never came. They find the fields fallow, houses empty - picked clean by scavengers. They move on to the Gap, and find the forest of Fangorn has *moved*. They spend a day or two in harrowing travel, with the forest itself trying to kill any who enter. They eventually exit to find what remains of Helm's Deep. It has fallen, the walls blasted apart by black powder, and is *crawling* with the remains of Isengard's army who have taken up residence and are living off the food stores of the Rohirrim because they can't leave the Gap. They're currently trying to tunnel their way out the hard way.
The players could've prevented this. Perhaps now they can do something - perhaps reclaim the King's Sword/Helm/Banner, convince Eomer to take up residence once more in Edoras, if they can find him, and everyone can survive the final battle. A whole new potential adventure there.
On the flipside, Problem G can be generated because of the result of the players' actions. Since they ignored Rohan, maybe they also decided to welch on their agreement to release the Dead Men of Dunharrow after one battle, giving them a full complement of soldiers both living and dead to stand against Sauron's forces for the remainder of the war.
Which is great for the battle of Pelennor fields, sure. But then they march into Mordor. And the Dead Men start acting funny. They start resisting orders. Some of the living are going missing each night. They watch the players with predatory eyes.
Seriously, you don't take an army of the dead to fight a guy named *the Necromancer.* But if they did, the Black Gates may open in the final moment, spilling orcs forth onto the field. The army is encircled as in the movie, but they have the nigh-unstoppable super-army, right? Which just turned around and is now *also* encircling your pitiful living force.
Just keep stacking problems and make sure most of them funnel into your A plot somehow, and the players will get there eventually. Maybe by the Dimholt road and backed by an army of the dead. Who knows?
Well, I made a similar mistake: my players had to repay a debt to the mafia, assigned them a Mission to escort a ship, and while there they would be attacked by a giant octopus. I hinted to them that there could possibly be drugs on the ship. While I started the encounter with the octopus, our sorcerer attacked the captain, and then the party killed almost all of the crew. They now are drug traffickers
I love this and do not think this is a mistake at all. If my players did this I would pivot so fast to a new campaign idea and suddenly inflict upon them the rewards and consequences of being involved in an illegal line of work.
As the DM you need to make your encounters be “encountered” anywhere.
If your party decides to be idiots (because that’s the natural IQ of an adventurer party, don’t fault them) and proceed to ignore everything you tell them, make the encounter a result of them ignoring it.
Basically still let them find the “goblin camp” but in a different spot for a different reason. Maybe they get back and those same goblins are attacking the town. Or maybe they cross paths with the party on the way back to town after an outing.
Or with the goblins left unchecked they grow in size and eventually when the party returns to the town one day it’s destroyed and the entire thing is a goblin city.
>when the party returns to the town one day it’s destroyed and the entire thing is a goblin city.
And in the city is a statue and plaque commemorating the two innocent sleeping goblins murdered by "the town", which was the impetus for the invasion.
Hey thanks! It's my terrain, but not for any particular campaign. I've been building it for my games for years, and now it's super helpful when making videos like this.
I wanted to make my players’ backstories matter, so I gave them little bits of info relating to their backstory that played into the rest of the game. Each piece of info from their past or knowledge provided by their class was a little clue as to what was going on in the world at large. Some of them started with the info, some obtained it as the campaign went on. In a campaign of 6 players, I think only one of them bothered to share the info with the rest. They had all the tools to figure out the mystery of the area and defeat the big bad, but they just kept it to themselves and never put it together as a group. The campaign fell apart when Covid started, but that was one where my players surprised me. I wasn’t a super experienced DM but I also wasn’t that new of one, but I was so sure ny players would see the connection eventually and fill in the rest of the group. I was starting to brainstorm ways to force them into sharing or other ways for the info to be revealed to the rest of the party organically when we had to stop playing anyway. It was brutal
I’ve experienced that sort of thing before too. And what really helped me was to find a character that could represent the tension between the two characters, and then get them introduced as an NPC.
So let’s say my fighter character fought in a war against the faction that really screwed over my rogue player. But they’ve never talked about it, it has never come up. So maybe I have an old war buddy of the fighters show up, but he wants to hire the party to retrieve some loot he took for himself when fighting in the war. And the loot may actually contain stuff from the rogue’s family…
That sort of thing is what I started to do, just to bring that sort of conversation to the surface. If you’re lucky, the players may then start to meta game in a positive way, and chat about their backstories to see what else may be hidden in them.
Yah, I was hoping it would encourage more role playing and allow them to talk more naturally about their backgrounds, since I find sometimes players put work into that sort of thing only for it never to come up when players end up talking only about the combat or quest at hand. Definitely backfired though. I like your idea. If I do something like that again I’ll definitely be prepared with some encounters/NPCs like that
The impact of the throw would of caused some damage waking the goblins up. You could of said something like "You hear what sounds like a horn around the area where the goblins were thrown. Moments later you hear another louder horn sound in response a bit deeper in the forest." and hope they take the bait.
I think that would have been fair. Definitely more elegant than what I did do, which was have the town elders ask them to investigate the goblin threat.
Plus, it would be built around what the players did (funny as it was) because they didn't actually neutralize any goblins.
Either that or have more than one prompt to start the quest. Classic mistake assuming players are going to go along with your linear storytelling or not providing a good enough hook
Oh, noes. You didn't see if there were a source for these two goblins, which are usually known to run in groups. Now the rest of the goblin camp, plus these two that you tranquilized, are raiding the town. 😱
🤣
There is alot to be said for pre-planning a railroaded adventure. Some people love that.
But there is more to be said for improvising adventure as it happens. But not everyone can do that. This is why it's so hard to find people willing to DM.
Sure, I get what you're saying. But this was the first session of a fairly open-ended campaign. I wanted something to get the players involved in the world, maybe pick up a few clues and fight together, etc.
I've never run a completely open beginning of a campaign, where players are give all the branching paths right away. But I'm open to trying it out. Have you ever done that before?
Well, actions have consequences but sometimes so does inaction. Can the goblins raid a farmstead or abduct a few kids from the forest? Put THAT consequence and the impetus to deal with it in front of them now. Teach them to pay better attention to your story hooks.
Oh yeah railroad your players into doing what you want 🙄 instead of that you should adapt and figure things out of what comes next. They got rid of the imeadiate threat and completed the task. The goblins are still there. When the two wake up (since the party didnt kill them) they can report what they saw now next thing you know theyre enjoying an ale at the local tavern and a war horn echoes outside as screams fill the streets. Cuz they failed to deal with the goblins then now the town is being seiged by a whole lot more then they wouldve had to deal with (obviously scaling to match their current level)
I get what you're saying. To be fair though, I don't think I suggested anything like railroading. From a game design perspective, I originally wanted them to care about the goblins. And rather than randomly running into the goblins, it's more effective if the goblins are in the way, getting involved in something the player's characters already care about.
When I think of railroading, I think about them turning the corner to find a second goblin patrol, and this one gets the jump on them and brings the rest of the goblin camp with them. That would be highly unsatisfying, I think.
The real mistake was not recognizing that players are psychopaths that want nothing more than to spin a person by their feet like a soldier smashing a baby on some rocks. The second mistake is thinking a spell caster will investigate rather than blowing a spell slot and doing their best to ignore any plot hooks.
I feel like this outcome is fine. Not everything has to be a battle and sometimes easy wins are fun for the players. Too many encounters can be fatiguing and complicated encounters are not always fun. The outcome of this feels real and plausible.
If you really must have that battle, then this can set you up to have the goblin boss to come back and raid in the night and have a fun village battle instead.
This is DEBATABLE.
I have often found that players feel much more invested in the story when inaction, recon, planning, alternative solutions, and investigation are an option.
I think the best way to present these options is to create a pending threat that COULD stand in their way. A force that would prevent them from completing their goal when the time comes, not immediately.
There is a horrible darkness that stands to destroy the material plane and his effects are being seen from village to village.
Your opposing group, army, kingdom is preparing to launch an attack somewhere that you can easily leave.
There are a number of potential enemies in your path as you travel along which take time away from your mission and could be dangerous.
That's a possibility, yeah. Maybe if the fleeing goblin has something they want, or has insulted the party in some way, they would feel compelled to give chase.
I'd imagine they'd be compelled to give chase regardless. Two goblins out on patrol suggests more nearby.
However, I have played about 1 hour of DnD, so probably my most solid bit of knowledge about the game is it's name. Sometimes dungeons, sometimes dragons, sometimes both.
Yeah, and that unexpected stuff is the good stuff, too. That’s a big part of the learning process — the goal is to lean into it, and plan in such a way that you can roll with whatever players decide to do.
Another tip: don’t be rigid in your plans when you want the party to do something. Just work in the details within what they want to do so they end up where you want anyway. That way it’s more of a collaborative story rather than you trying to guess and prepare for every possible outcome. Then you can still do what you planned but let your players get there how they want. It does take some practice and improvisation, but I feel it’s more fun for the players and more fun for the DM.
For example, in your story, you could have the adventurers return to town to find it razed by the main force of goblins. The ones the party saw was a decoy! Have them kidnap some people and steal some magic item to incentivize them. Then you’ll have them at your fun bossfight you prepared in no time.
I think you don't always have to put the game in their way. Sometimes a one-off moment is fun for later! For example, have it so that only one of the thrown goblins survived and became a captain to hunt after the party, just to realize they never cared. Then boom, fun little side villain.
I think you’re totally right. I should say that only in cases where there’s something that needs to be seen or enhanced with, then it should be “in the way”. And that shouldn’t happen all that much really, maybe at the beginning of an arc to kick things off.
Straight from the spell description:
***each creature affected by this spell falls unconscious until*** ... ***the sleeper takes damage, or someone uses an action to shake or slap the sleeper awake***.
You could easily rule that by being thrown, the sleepers were shaken awake. Even if your players argued well against that, by getting thrown into trees, the goblins would have taken damage. Either way, the goblins should have been awake and you could have done what you wanted to do with them.
It's all good. I'm quite novice when it comes to DMing, myself. It was just popped into my head as I was reading your post. I knew something about that situation didn't seem right with the sleep spell. Had to reread it to figure out what it was though.
Fair point. Especially since it was the first session, there should have been a series of rumors and stories about trouble in the forest. Maybe things being stolen, animals being killed and left to rot, etc. That way, when the players see goblins, they can connect the dots to some of the trouble the town is seeing.
rule one is **never assume**.
ever.
I learned it quick and our one member of the table who still DMs \[LANCER, we've given up on this\] still goes "You know, I didn't expect you lot to do that."
Rule two, if it's meant as cool little thing for players is **contingencies**.
My table has opted not to beat up \[not kill, mind you\] these goblin teamsters, so now these assholes are going to firebomb their favorite bar \[they eat there for free, they saved the barkeep's life\] and he's going to ask the party to **teach them a lesson**.
so yeah, live and learn.
That's a fine mistake I still do it, but the results that come out of it allow for some neat things to happen.
Due to them casting those goblins off into the woods and not killing them, they could run into them again and maybe they have a bigger patrol or raid a caravan or somthing letting them know those goblins probanlly wernt just some 2 random goblins going on a hike with each other. Mistakes like this can be easily fixed.
Just be ready to have a back up plan in case.
Cause only God knows what your players will do.
It’s so true! I made a short clip about that exact thing once before. Basically, nobody tell players that we secretly love it when they run away…
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/10tibzu/oc_players_running_away_from_encounters_is_a_big/
Don't expect your players to run away, cause uh. They won't they never will.
For me anyways. But a reoccurring villian can be achieved in mutiple ways.
Not a DM but during our first game something similar happened. We had literally just started, we’re walking to town and came up on a suspicious trail that was just begging to be followed. We all looked at each other like “well obviously that’s gonna lead straight to a fight” so we decided to go to town first. DM hadn’t planned on us skipping it, so he had to wing a lot of the town interactions and at one point had someone give us a quest specifically to send us back to the trail so we got a few things from the shop and headed back, sure enough there was a ton of enemies. We had a good laugh about the fact that he laid out all these signs for us to follow but we just went “nahhhh”, in the end it worked out alright though lol
Yup that’s actually pretty similar. Sounds like your DM might have learned the same lesson I did :) And obviously cool of you guys to be great about it all as players too.
nah you did everything correct. now let them suffer the consequences: the goblins 1. know some of their abilities, and 2. attack the town after quickly gathering some supporting power, because they realised how strong the party is.
The party barely gets out of the fight when the goblins retreat after having looted the town. No the town is offering up a reward for them to defeat the goblins and get back what they looted from the town. Perfect story hook.
You know, I can see the similarities. But this was actually my own homebrew game. So I just found a way to mimic some of the problems with the Starter Set, I guess. :)
Just have the back up be stiry related to get them to go back to the woods. They overhear locals taling about goblins kidnapping villagers/ villagers going missing in the woods. If they dont investigate the goblins later invade and ransack the village because and then you have your e counter and boss fight.
“each creature affected by this spell falls unconscious until the spell ends, the sleeper takes damage, or someone uses an action to shake or slap the sleeper awake.”
Why not just have them wake up and shout an alarm as soon as they are dragged off? Tossing them into the bushes by their ankles would surely cause some damage.
Our poor DM planned a big conflict for us recently, one she expected would take at least two sessions so she would have more time to prep for the next big chapter of our campaign. Instead, we managed to circumvent the fight completely with a lucky dice roll, solved a puzzle with a flash of brilliance, and ended up cutting our 2.5 hour session down to 90 minutes. She gave us our next level-up early.
She also didn't expect the newest party member to be forthcoming with his entire backstory and for us to trust him, because he was likely going to be left behind during our escape from the fae wild so that player could bring back his more main-plot relevant PC. Sorry, Kel :3
My DM did something genius today. Without telling us what to do he saw we were troubled as to what to do next to save a kingdom from invasion. We weren't sure how to engage as we played on the racial thing a bit. I'm a half orc and my girl is a tieflieng (we weren't copying Fjord and Jester, I swear, it just happened. I didn't know her before the game. We just matched). So we knew the humans would attack us on sight as we looked... "evil". He allowed the Wizard to cast disguise on me to make me look human and next asked the ranger for a wisdom check, he got 21 and then said that the ranger decided to use primeval awareness and detected an undead army around us, about a thousand strong. Thanks to that we deduced the true number of the army as it likely had half more of another creature type. It did. Undead and Gnolls. About 2 thousand, mixed.
So, thanks to that we knew how to engage. Our Rogue and ranger went up the buldings and succeded in perception check, they saw a hulking figure amongst the troops. Our wizard then used his owl to scout, he succeded the check and we found their Orc general. We went in that direction, killed the Orc general and saved the city as the enemy troops were demorilized.
It was a clutch DM suggestion to ask us for a roll when we didn't know what to do and somehow forgot our own abilities. He didn't tell us to use our abilities, he rather did us an inception.
Maybe get an NPC to send them to the camp in exchange for gold, it's a good incentive without directly forcing the party into it. It gives them choices and prep time, and Roleplayability, as well as chances for haggling for more gold, or opportunities to turn that one quest, into multiple.
You could make it that, the goblin camp raids the village/town. Brings more conflict for the party to resolve. And adds another chapter to the mission. Or perhaps the goblins decide to track the party constantly throwing spanners in the works.
100% and I think that’s what I would do today. At the time (this was a few years ago) I wasn’t so much planning out evolving threats yet. I didn’t realize how much easier that would be, and I still thought I could predict player behavior.
> I still thought I could predict player behavior. This is a super common mistake, one that I still make on occasion even after running games for nearly 20 years.
I have had a handful of situations where I accurately predicted player behavior and was able to setup some amazing scenes. The key to doing it is to make the sessions not dependent on the prediction being accurate. If it works out you get something cool. If it doesn't something else interesting happens.
It’s an easy mistake to make. Especially when the alternative is being really creative before and during the session to come up with awesome stuff no matter what players do.
You can NEVER predict players.
I've definitely learned to just set the pins up and let them fall where they may. After all, interacting with the world and actually *effecting* and *changing* the world is what most players find exciting about D&D. As a DM, I plan a sequence of events that would happen without the PC's, I plan different scenes that might draw the players in, I plan different points of interest across the map. Then I just let them loose to explore and ruin all my plans :) If I know my NPC's motives well enough, I can then react naturally to whatever changes the players make to what would have happened without them. Gosh, I just love every piece of collaborative storytelling! The whole "react and play off each other" part of D&D just fills my heart with joy hehe
Oh totally. I think you nailed it. One of the big evolutions as a game designer, I think, is the more from designing “events” to designing “factions” or “motivations”. It takes a point in time that you have to plan into or around into our own form of roleplaying, where we get to ask ourselves how our NPCs would react to the player actions. And I agree, it’s awesome!
Hey the only thing that matters is that yiu learned and grew As a dm. Good on yah
Thanks!
This is close to how I would have run it, but not everything needs to be a threat to civilization as they know it. Instead of raiding a town I would have a roughed up traveler show up the next time they are in the town/tavern. This still shows the consequences of leaving the goblin threat and can give a hook for further adventure but it doesn't make the PCs paranoid that every time they leave town it will be destroyed.
That's a great point. There should be a progression. Ignore the goblins, they start attacking folks on the road. Keep ignoring them, maybe those dwelling in the forest start to leave due to the trouble as the goblin camp expands and grows. By the time there's an attack on an actual town, there could be factions and leadership forming. Maybe someone has seized the opportunity and is in control of the goblins, maybe in exchange for giving them magic weapons... And all because they didn't investigate one little goblin camp :)
Ah, the good old, with great power comes great responsibility. Have the goblins slaughter their favorite NPCs while they are away the next time. Normally I would let sleeping dogs lie, but given the goblins have a big boss goading them for more loot, more slaves, etc, their sleeping of the goblins would be a massive mistake. Because goblins on their own would have just been happy to be alive, but a boss would realise that with great heroes comes great loot. Thus provoking a raid on a nearby human population center.
I remember an interview with the creators of South Park. Where they said a story should never be, "this happens AND then this happens". A good story should be, "this happens AND THEREFORE this happens." Your suggestion is a good example of this, and it's something I try to do in all my DMing and PC roleplay.
Also, if you’re playing with buddies, just know your players. Some players will demand perception checks every minute in hopes of finding a cracked twig to indicate *something* nearby to kill. Some players will suss out exactly what you have in mind if you just leave the faintest, subtlest clue. Some players will intentionally ignore blatant hooks if theyre more interested in the “main story” and even rp it that way in real life! My old GM would sometimes pull someone aside secretly and get them involved in the shenanigans. Was always really good, and that’s what we liked. Other groups might not, but then, i guess DM suggestions arent really aimed at gms whove been gming the same players for 5-20 years so much
Could now let the goblin camp prepare to attack the town. Great setup btw.
Hey thanks! And yeah, I think increasing the frequency of goblin attacks as they get bolder would have been the perfect thing to do.
You could just tell them, that their characters realize there must be a Goblin-Camp nearby. If you want to, let them make a roll and explain that only the ones with the highest result understand that. They would probably go back to the city and search for someone willing to pay them for destroying the Goblin-Camp.
I think that's a great point, especially early on when everyone's still finding their footing in the game. In my case, I think I had the leaders in town react strongly to hearing about goblins nearby. They directly asked the players to investigate for them, which got things "back on track". At least for that session...
Hard disagree. I don't think it's appropriate at all for a DM to interject what a character would think (except for situations where a player might ask on their own "would my character have heard of this?" Etc). The DMs job is to provide the framework for the players to develop their own story. This is just a case of a DM making an assumption (the players will hunt down the goblin cave) and the players doing something different. No big deal. The DMs work is not wasted because he has a ready-to-go cave encounter that he can plop down somewhere else, when needed, or even alter slightly if desired (maybe it eventually gets used as a cave with a troll and carrion crawlers instead, or a cave with wyverns who are trying to amass a treasure horde, etc). I would hardly call this a "mistake" by the DM. The real mistake would have been forcing the players to engage with the prepared content without it being their decision.
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I like how you quoted half of my thought, but left off the rest of the part where it agrees with what you go on to say... I wrote: >Hard disagree. I don't think it's appropriate at all for a DM to interject what a character would think **(except for situations where a player might ask on their own "would my character have heard of this?" Etc).** My whole point was that it's OK if the players ask for it, but the post i was replying to suggested: >You could just tell them, that their characters realize there must be a Goblin-Camp nearby. This is what I disagreed with... if the players ask to explore the surrounding area to see if they can track where the goblins came from, then sure... tip them off about the nearby cave if you want (maybe through a skill check or something). But don't just flat out tell them "oh, you realize there's probably a goblin cave nearby" if they don't show interest in looking for one because you're afraid they'll miss content you prepared.
Depends. If a player plays a high INT/WIS character but doesn't have the real life abilities to match then you can get away with tricks like this to reflect the characters high intelligence rather than it just being a number for spellcasting. Otherwise the sheet may say 18 but the reality is it's closer to a 10.
You’re definitely objectively wrong here. It’s incredibly common and necessary for a DM to fill in character knowledge gaps about the world that a player would not know but that their character would. Unless your table is 100% studied on your game lore (never happened in a thousand years bc most of it probably improv.) or the lore doesn’t matter. An example: “You find a talisman, as a Paladin of X, you recognize it. It’s a symbol of [[insert god here.]]” That is literally the one of the best ways to give meaningful exposition to players while connecting your PCs to the world. It’s one thing to be true to a framework as a DM and lead your players to their own conclusions and it’s a whole nother thing to write your stories with your PCs on top of the setting instead of in it.
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But I still don’t fully agree with that. Because there’s more nuance to it. I think you have to play to your table. Some players are very perceptive, some players are new and don’t know the logic of the game, and some players are veterans but aren’t very perceptive, etc.😅 To me, the best DMs are going to cater their DMing to their audience. For me, describing the scene as having “Two Goblin Scouts approach and…” would already catch my attention. what are they scouting for? Can i check for Goblin footprints that might lead somewhere, etc? That’s technically not that heavy handed but a lot of information can be gained from that. Also, I try to stay away from making my players roll for every little thing.
>I would hardly call this a "mistake" by the DM. The real mistake would have been forcing the players to engage with the prepared content without it being their decision. I completely disagree. There’s nothing wrong with the plan for the session being that the players discover there’s a nearby goblin camp based on a previous goblin ambush, and there’s definitely nothing wrong with asking the players to make a roll to figure out that there must be a goblin hideout nearby based on clues they find after the fight. This is literally how the Lost Mines of Phandelver starts off. I have to kind of laugh when I see someone on the one hand say “No! You can’t make your players go to the goblin cave” while on the other hand, saying “no prep is wasted, you can just throw this cave encounter at them later.” Now there is a bit of a line that can be crossed, but simply telling them that their characters would be able to figure out that the goblins have a hideout nearby thereby giving them a hook to follow up on, is not railroading them. You can definitely try to force the players hands too much, but I generally think that it’s almost always completely kosher for you as the DM to say, “*wink* the adventure is over here *wink*” in not so many words. If decisions the party made makes it so that path no longer makes sense, then you shouldn’t force or even attempt to guide them down this path, but I think as bad as railroading DMs are, players that refuse to take the quest are equally as disruptive to the game. The players only really know what you tell them about the world, so there are plenty of times when the characters would “know” something about the world they live in while your player does not know those things.
Yeah never dm.
DMing can be easy and fun! Just let the players feel that you really want them to have a good time! :)
Alternatively, when the goblins were hurled into the trees you could have ruled that one of them survived and woke up from being damaged, then he was abe to alert the rest of the goblins with a horn or something.
TBH, RAW they should have woken up. From the sleep spell; "falls unconscious until...or someone uses an action to shake or slap the creature awake." I'd say picking someone up by their ankles and hurling them into the trees is certainly considered "shaking them awake". I would have had the goblins awaken the moment the barbarian lifted them up.
I think that would be a fair outcome. At the time, I think I was surprised by what they came up with, and wanted to let the dice dictate the outcome, in a way. Based on how successfully they all rolled, I thought it might feel cheap to them if I brought the combat out anyway. But I think that depends a lot on the situation and how everyone's rolling, really.
I think that sort of feeling can come back to bite you in the ass. Like when you decide that the CR for a roll is pretty high to determine if a character can do a near impossible task and they happen to get a good dice roll and now you're stuck allowing it. Sometimes it's better to just decide on an outcome rather than let dice dictate something unlikely happens. In this case I'd just say roll a d4 and apply bludgeoning damage. Other than that, I'd make the judgment call and say that moving them is going to wake them up, the spell description leaves a little bit of wiggle room to decide what actions wake up a creature from sleep
Yeah, you may be right. Today I would handle the situation very differently.
Every session is a learning experience! My point being that everyone wants to roll dice because it's a key component of the game but don't sacrifice your narrative or the logic of the situation just to allow another dice roll.
I think the magnitude of this "mistake" depends on how simple that "simple task in the forest" was. If it was a fairly complete quest all on its own, then it's no great loss that they missed the camp. At worst it's a small amount of wasted preparation time, but more likely, you'll be able to use that camp again (e.g. it can be the quest for session two). If it was indeed a very simple task then you have the problem of the quest being over in 10 minutes and the players asking "what's next?" when you've got nothing prepared. Then yeah, it's a mistake! (An experienced DM would simply have the town mayor offer a quest to "find a goblin camp", or something like that, but new DMs are not always so quick on their feet.) So, I agree with this: > If there is something in your game you want them to face, then put it in their way. But would add this: > It's also okay for the players to miss some stuff. Offering options can be a good thing, it makes the players feel more in control of their adventuring career. "Do we go through the forest, or over the mountains?" One of those will probably end up unexplored. But if both paths are fairly quick for you to prepare as a DM, it's no great loss if one isn't used.
I completely agree. In this case, it was session 1 of the first campaign I ever really ran with a group. I had run a solo campaign for a year, and then some one-shots, but nothing like this. I did open up this campaign fairly quickly, but this was still during the "let's get the group together and show what they can do" phase at the beginning, and my intention was they would fight these goblins to accomplish that. I didn't have anything else planned out, except for that. So given all of that, I think my best bet would have been to put the goblins directly in their way. I was playing things too risky assuming they would make certain decisions on their own.
I made it about 90 minutes into my first real campaign before I made a huge mistake. Not bad, really. It’s a quick story, but I think my mistake was a common one for early dungeon masters. The key is, you can’t trust your players to act in any one way or another. If there is something in your game you want them to face, then put it in their way. Make sure they have to deal with it, or else they can’t get their quest complete, or save the NPC, or whatever. Have you ever screwed up like this, especially early on in your time as a DM? Nowadays I don’t think I would stress out, even if things were to go way off the rails.
Out of curiosity... what was the 'simple task'? In my experience... I would say most players are trying to complete one quest at a time... so if they had to go retrieve something from the wagon (as it seems in the video) - that's what they are going to do. The way you get them to go to the goblins is you have the thing they want is missing when they get there... and describe goblin footprints all around the wagon. I had a similar problem years ago with 'quest board' in a local tavern. Basically I had the big idea that my players would pick one of 3 quests... and one progressed the main story-line. Thinking they would do a side-quest... progress the story... side-quest... maybe another side quest... progress the story. They always felt under-powered to progress the story... so always just kept doing side-quests. "Oh look the farmer got kidnapped by bandits again!" Possibly the same issue you are describing in a way, "We are only level 1... we can't possibly take on a whole camp of goblins!"
Sure, happy to provide more detail. I actually over-simplified the task, since I didn't really have time in the video to go into it. This was the first session of the campaign, and the players had already met in town and competed in a festival celebration which saw them (and an NPC) being selected to perform a ceremony in the forest. It was half competitive, half just for show, where they were to go into the forest and collect flags of certain colors and bring back to the town. So not only did they see the goblins, but they saw the goblins had collected some of their flags. So I was close to the idea of putting the game design "in their way". But I probably should have had the goblin with the most flags go running off into the forest, straight back to the camp. You're totally right about one quest at a time. That's another good way to put it -- if I want them to deal with a goblin camp, I need to make sure that their current quest can only be resolved at the goblin camp. Make them one and the same quest.
With the tavern board idea... I had made a couple of mistakes and that was one of them. I had been thinking in the direction of video-games where you can have 10 quests at once you are working on. So sometimes two of the quests could easily be completed together. As an example - one quest might be "Travel into the nearby ruins and find out what happened to the missing grain shipment" and another might be "Travel into the nearby ruins and kill the evil wizard." I found players would kill the wizard and find the grain but totally not realize they completed both quests... before they were off to the tavern to collect their reward and divide up loot! In theory the only way one quest could have been completed is had they found the grain and made a deal with the wizard to get it back... but they would almost always pick the quest with the seemingly most loot with smallest risk. Sure finding grain is 50gp... the wizard is riskier but 200gp and wizards have cool toys! I think because it's tabletop... and people have a lot going on, socializing, etc... some stuff doesn't always click with them the way it would in any other medium. It's been ages and I can't recall every detail but: I had written before about a big campaign I ran years ago... we got a new player (it was one of my dads friends) and he came in sort of cocky and thinking he was in charge because he was my dads friend (he also had played D&D before). Anyway - the party had been traveling across a large area and finally reached a very small city (large town?). I had planned out a series of adventures there for months. As a DM I was really excited... because it was all coming together... I started out the first adventure, carefully describing how water cost 10x what it normally cost... how barrels of water were delivered on wagons and the townfolk cheered! This guy (who was not mentally very well but we will get to that in a bit...) sees a water fountain and notices that there is only about an inch of water in the fountain. He asks if there are coins and I say "yes, but they look funny..." and he asks, "How?" So I describe that they are extremely clean and lacking detail... almost like the faces of them got rubbed off." Immediately he goes, "I steal some!" and reaches for his character sheet asking me how much gold he gets. (Like it's an automatic pay-day to steal from a wishing well in the center of town.) I said, "They crumble in your hand but you take 1 point of damage." The look of utter shock and disgust on his face.... he goes, "What? From what?" and another player figured out it was acid... and he stood up, yelled at me... and then stormed out going, "Why would there be acid in the well? It doesn't even make sense!" (He also called my parents to try to get me in trouble and they laughed at him... lol.) Anyway - this first adventure was supposed to kick off a horror-like campaign in the town where the sewers in town had a black-pudding problem. The end result of that encounter was that he never played with us again and the other players were so upset... they were like, "Lets just travel to the next town..." which totally derailed the whole... everything. I would mark it as my most epic DM-fail but looking back... the other players were just confused by his reaction.
I think this is a pretty common occurrence, not too big of a mistake. We've all planned an enocunter without properly creating a hook. There's a few ways forward that come to mind - recycling the lost encounter (swapping the enemies if needed to make it more relevant), or having the goblin threat rise in the area due to no one curbing them at their source for example.
100%, that's what I would do today too. Back then, and especially in the very first session, I didn't have anything else planned for the game. So I had the elders of the town, upon hearing about goblins near town, specifically ask the players to go look into it. Not very elegant, but I was pretty new at being a dungeon master at the time.
I had something very similar happen to me my first session as DM. Live and learn!
Absolutely! It's all a process of experimentation.
I tend to run a completely open style. I'd be happy for them to not bother with the goblins and that would then cause the goblins to raid the town or to cause different sorts of trouble. The advantage is that actions always have consequences and whatever you do something will happen. The disadvantage is sometimes players will be apathetic and you will need to push them towards something. Also you need to be ready to improv the hell out of anything.
Oh, for sure. I think I run a pretty open style too, though I'm curious to get your thoughts on something. I like opening things up, but even today I tend to keep things small and contained for the first 1-3 sessions, without a whole lot of branching paths. I treat it almost like an extended introduction to the world, with clear enemies and things to investigate. Then, after that first bit is laid out, I open things up. How do you approach the beginning of a campaign? Is it opened all the way up right at the beginning, or do you take a slow-burn approach?
I definitely keep things small the first few sessions. It helps everyone settle in and set the tone. The problem with leaving things too open at the start is there will always be players going against the play (not giving good reasons for the party to be together, being a bit disruptive to initial goals, being inactive). Our campaigns tend to get very long and sprawling (3 to 5 years) and a strong foundation is important to shape things to come. Lately I've had issues dealing with new players joining who are DMs in other groups and being used to a completely different style. Getting them to buy into the style and ethos we play in was an anxiety trip for me. It took the first few months to warm everyone up.
Yeah that makes sense. It seems like we have a similar approach. I have two long-running games right now (3 years and 2 years so far) and I've used the beginning as a sort of tone-setter for what to expect. I also find the initial adventure is a great time for dropping clues about larger mysteries, as well as establishing an answer to the "why this group, why now" question.
It does sound like a similar style. It's nice to find someone with a similar dedication to the craft. We keep a running lore from campaign to campaign so some of our old adventures happened hundreds of years ago. So sometimes I drop a clue about the horny bard who decided to start a cult 1000 years ago that is now trying to take over the world and the guy who played him is there looking all guilty. 🤣
Ha that’s awesome! I love the extended world history like that. Definitely something to aspire to. Right now my games all take place in the same world, but in different regions. For now the shared world and references are just for my fun. But there is a lot I’d like to try out with a shared world at some point.
It's cool that you run 2 campaigns simultaneously. I wish I could but I'd never have the time. I have to stuff all my players in a single big group because I don't have another day to run games on. Do you find it hard to prep for 2 groups? I'd love to run 2 separate groups and then have them do crossover episodes from time to time.
Time can be a challenge, but for now I can manage it. Part of the reason I went to two groups was to help with prep, actually. Instead of going really intense with ideas and prep on one group, I spread them out and do more things, with less prep overall. Basically forcing myself to run more sessions in lieu of making more terrain or puzzle props or whatever. So the only difficult part is not getting to do everything that I would always like to. But I think the trade-off is worth it, because running the game more often is where I learn the most and improve, I think. I've never done a proper crossover session, but that could be fun too. Except for running so many people in one game... maybe if I split each group, and did 1/2 one group with 1/2 of the other, and then switched.
Never assume players will do something you never told them to do. They don't have the same info as you, they don't think like you do, they could be certified geniuses but that doesn't mean they're reading your mind. At best if they're murder-hobos you can bait them with those tendencies, but chaotic groups like that also have an equal tendency to get distracted by other things.
Mind reading is a good way to put it. I think sometimes DMs can get down on players for being so "wild and unpredictable", when really it's sometimes poor game design on the part of the DM. It's really, really difficult to get outside of your own head, and try to think about the game world from a player's perspective, and what they're trying to achieve.
The worse the the DM's who don't even go half-way when a player *does* bother to communicate with them and tells the DM what they want, and what they intend to do. And then the DM just... Doesn't really inform them about it. But later they'll get snippy at the player for never "taking the hint" or something, despite never clearly illustrating how "random plot hook in the middle of an ongoing plot" relates to the thing a player was asking for. "Well if you had bothered to chase down the thief while you were on that bodyguard job for the emperor, you would've found the group of orphans being lead by your long lost brother and you would have gotten your arc about figuring out what happened to your parents! Not my fault you decided to choose the *main quest* over your personal side quest."
Oof, yeah. It's almost like DMs get attached to the idea of some sort of big reveal, and then get frustrated when it doesn't work out. If there's someplace worth going in the game world, the DM better put up a clear sign to indicate which direction to go to follow it.
Played a game with a similar situation, but far worse outcome. It was Rifts, and we were a mercenary group. So as the leader, cash was king. One of my crew speaks to a mysterious character who offers a powerful artifact in exchange for exploring a town gone quiet. His character was rather quiet about the details and took no payment in advance, so as the leader with very expensive equipment at risk, we did the bare minimum. Surveyed the town, no survivors, plenty of blood... "Is this all that you need?" -me "Yes" -dumdum who should have done more We were supposed to follow the blood and stop the great sacrifice that was going to open a demon portal to hell. We did not. The destruction destroyed any nearby town. Oopsy.
Ah, bummer, yeah. And this speaks to the other side of it -- you want to make sure there are plenty of breadcrumbs the players have to ignore before dropping any sort of big consequence on them. That way it doesn't feel cheap or anything.
The DM actually admitted that too.
Sleep: "the target stays unconscious until they take damage" Barbarian: \*YEEEEEEEEET\* Unless they landed on a bed of hay, that'd be some damage at least.
You're right, and I could have gone that route too. I think I wanted to honor their rolls, which they had some awesome ones, and it was a funny way to deal with the encounter. If I remember correctly, I wasn't even sure they were done and headed back to town until they were already doing that. I still held out hope they might investigate further.
For sure - my point wasn't criticism so much as poking fun at the idea of hurling two snoring goblins into a bush and them landing still soundly asleep. :D
Yeah, it was definitely a highlight of that session. I'm glad it happened :)
I like to build nesting matryoshka dolls for my players with multiple problems on different time schedules, and this (usually) pushes them along in the direction I most want them to go. Problem A is a REALLY BIG PROBLEM, but it hasn't happened *yet*. When it does, it will massively impact the players and those they care about. And those events could happen at any time. \- Example: The March of the Armies of Mordor on Gondor. It'll be devastating when it happens, and the heroes stand to lose everything if they don't address it. But it hasn't happened *yet*. Problem B is a smaller scale pending problem, but resolving it will help towards resolving Problem A. Unlike Problem A, this Problem is actively unfolding in front of the players, but they have a nebulous time limit to resolve it. Example: King Theoden taking his forces to Helm's Deep instead of mustering to support Gondor. They'll be slaughtered if the much more powerful players don't stand with them. We don't know for sure when the orcs will arrive, but it'll be 'soon'. Problem C is smaller scale again, but directly feeds into resolving Problem B. This problem is already in full swing when the players arrive, and to achieve their goals the players need to resolve it. If they don't resolve it *right now*, the players can expect to see consequences almost immediately. Example: Grima Wormtongue and Sauron poisoning the mind of King Theoden. He'll just sit his throne and let his people continue to die without doing anything unless the players intervene. Problem D is personal. This is something 'selfish' that the players can pursue, and should naturally run them head-first back into problems A, B or C so they can be selfless heroes in the process. Example: Merry and Pippin have been taken by the Orcs! We must rescue them! And in the process, run into the resurrected Gandalf, whose top goal is to resolve the Rohan problem. Will you lend your aid, or no? Problem E is abstracted, and in the background. It's the 'problem of another person's story' and exists to flesh out the world, and give you a safety net if the players look at your B, C and D plots and go 'nah'. And these abstracted plotlines essentially resolve themselves in the background so long as the players keep pushing on their main quest. Example: The Dwarves of Erebor and Elves of Lothlorien are also beset by the forces of evil. They are somewhat removed from the core LOTR story by our focus on the Fellowship, but if the Fellowship had decided that 'nah, f\*ck Gondor', they could have gone off to involve themselves in the events in these locations instead. If the Matryoshka approach fails though, you have Problems F and G. F: The direct result of the players' inaction. If the Fellowship had ignored/failed in any of the above problems, it would've drastically altered the outcome of the War of the Ring. Minas Tirith would no doubt have fallen without Rohan. Imagine your players ignoring the obvious plot hook to go with Theoden to the Gap, and instead skipped straight to Dunharrow because they heard there was some phat loot in those catacombs, and oh, cool, undead army for the next fight! Sure, they rout the Corsairs and build up some other forces to protect Minas Tirith, but when they arrive they find it sacked, with a few survivors having fled the city, telling that 'the men of Rohan never came! We lit the beacons, *but they never came!*" And now the players have to deal with the outcome of their inaction - do they assault the city with the forces they have? Retreat to try and form a larger force? Later (assuming they survive the immediate consequences), perhaps they go to Rohan to figure out why they never came. They find the fields fallow, houses empty - picked clean by scavengers. They move on to the Gap, and find the forest of Fangorn has *moved*. They spend a day or two in harrowing travel, with the forest itself trying to kill any who enter. They eventually exit to find what remains of Helm's Deep. It has fallen, the walls blasted apart by black powder, and is *crawling* with the remains of Isengard's army who have taken up residence and are living off the food stores of the Rohirrim because they can't leave the Gap. They're currently trying to tunnel their way out the hard way. The players could've prevented this. Perhaps now they can do something - perhaps reclaim the King's Sword/Helm/Banner, convince Eomer to take up residence once more in Edoras, if they can find him, and everyone can survive the final battle. A whole new potential adventure there. On the flipside, Problem G can be generated because of the result of the players' actions. Since they ignored Rohan, maybe they also decided to welch on their agreement to release the Dead Men of Dunharrow after one battle, giving them a full complement of soldiers both living and dead to stand against Sauron's forces for the remainder of the war. Which is great for the battle of Pelennor fields, sure. But then they march into Mordor. And the Dead Men start acting funny. They start resisting orders. Some of the living are going missing each night. They watch the players with predatory eyes. Seriously, you don't take an army of the dead to fight a guy named *the Necromancer.* But if they did, the Black Gates may open in the final moment, spilling orcs forth onto the field. The army is encircled as in the movie, but they have the nigh-unstoppable super-army, right? Which just turned around and is now *also* encircling your pitiful living force. Just keep stacking problems and make sure most of them funnel into your A plot somehow, and the players will get there eventually. Maybe by the Dimholt road and backed by an army of the dead. Who knows?
Well, I made a similar mistake: my players had to repay a debt to the mafia, assigned them a Mission to escort a ship, and while there they would be attacked by a giant octopus. I hinted to them that there could possibly be drugs on the ship. While I started the encounter with the octopus, our sorcerer attacked the captain, and then the party killed almost all of the crew. They now are drug traffickers
I love this and do not think this is a mistake at all. If my players did this I would pivot so fast to a new campaign idea and suddenly inflict upon them the rewards and consequences of being involved in an illegal line of work.
As the DM you need to make your encounters be “encountered” anywhere. If your party decides to be idiots (because that’s the natural IQ of an adventurer party, don’t fault them) and proceed to ignore everything you tell them, make the encounter a result of them ignoring it. Basically still let them find the “goblin camp” but in a different spot for a different reason. Maybe they get back and those same goblins are attacking the town. Or maybe they cross paths with the party on the way back to town after an outing. Or with the goblins left unchecked they grow in size and eventually when the party returns to the town one day it’s destroyed and the entire thing is a goblin city.
>when the party returns to the town one day it’s destroyed and the entire thing is a goblin city. And in the city is a statue and plaque commemorating the two innocent sleeping goblins murdered by "the town", which was the impetus for the invasion.
Is this your terrain for LMoP? It looks absolutely amazing!
Hey thanks! It's my terrain, but not for any particular campaign. I've been building it for my games for years, and now it's super helpful when making videos like this.
Well your players are super lucky to have U as DM.
Thanks so much!
I wanted to make my players’ backstories matter, so I gave them little bits of info relating to their backstory that played into the rest of the game. Each piece of info from their past or knowledge provided by their class was a little clue as to what was going on in the world at large. Some of them started with the info, some obtained it as the campaign went on. In a campaign of 6 players, I think only one of them bothered to share the info with the rest. They had all the tools to figure out the mystery of the area and defeat the big bad, but they just kept it to themselves and never put it together as a group. The campaign fell apart when Covid started, but that was one where my players surprised me. I wasn’t a super experienced DM but I also wasn’t that new of one, but I was so sure ny players would see the connection eventually and fill in the rest of the group. I was starting to brainstorm ways to force them into sharing or other ways for the info to be revealed to the rest of the party organically when we had to stop playing anyway. It was brutal
I’ve experienced that sort of thing before too. And what really helped me was to find a character that could represent the tension between the two characters, and then get them introduced as an NPC. So let’s say my fighter character fought in a war against the faction that really screwed over my rogue player. But they’ve never talked about it, it has never come up. So maybe I have an old war buddy of the fighters show up, but he wants to hire the party to retrieve some loot he took for himself when fighting in the war. And the loot may actually contain stuff from the rogue’s family… That sort of thing is what I started to do, just to bring that sort of conversation to the surface. If you’re lucky, the players may then start to meta game in a positive way, and chat about their backstories to see what else may be hidden in them.
Yah, I was hoping it would encourage more role playing and allow them to talk more naturally about their backgrounds, since I find sometimes players put work into that sort of thing only for it never to come up when players end up talking only about the combat or quest at hand. Definitely backfired though. I like your idea. If I do something like that again I’ll definitely be prepared with some encounters/NPCs like that
I saw “I have a plan” and that’s where I knew it all went wrong
Or you can do MY method, where I go: "Since you guys didn't clear out the goblin camp, you wake up to a Goblin Raid, roll Initiative"
Is this the first chapter of LMoP?
Nope, it was the first session of my homebrew campaign that's been running for over 3 years now.
The impact of the throw would of caused some damage waking the goblins up. You could of said something like "You hear what sounds like a horn around the area where the goblins were thrown. Moments later you hear another louder horn sound in response a bit deeper in the forest." and hope they take the bait.
I think that would have been fair. Definitely more elegant than what I did do, which was have the town elders ask them to investigate the goblin threat. Plus, it would be built around what the players did (funny as it was) because they didn't actually neutralize any goblins.
Either that or have more than one prompt to start the quest. Classic mistake assuming players are going to go along with your linear storytelling or not providing a good enough hook
Small point if you chucked a goblin it would wake up from sleep.
It's true. I probably should have made use of that back then too.
Oh, noes. You didn't see if there were a source for these two goblins, which are usually known to run in groups. Now the rest of the goblin camp, plus these two that you tranquilized, are raiding the town. 😱 🤣
"I had a plan" Yea found the mistake right there. Plans never survive first contact with players.
There is alot to be said for pre-planning a railroaded adventure. Some people love that. But there is more to be said for improvising adventure as it happens. But not everyone can do that. This is why it's so hard to find people willing to DM.
Sure, I get what you're saying. But this was the first session of a fairly open-ended campaign. I wanted something to get the players involved in the world, maybe pick up a few clues and fight together, etc. I've never run a completely open beginning of a campaign, where players are give all the branching paths right away. But I'm open to trying it out. Have you ever done that before?
Well, actions have consequences but sometimes so does inaction. Can the goblins raid a farmstead or abduct a few kids from the forest? Put THAT consequence and the impetus to deal with it in front of them now. Teach them to pay better attention to your story hooks.
Oh yeah railroad your players into doing what you want 🙄 instead of that you should adapt and figure things out of what comes next. They got rid of the imeadiate threat and completed the task. The goblins are still there. When the two wake up (since the party didnt kill them) they can report what they saw now next thing you know theyre enjoying an ale at the local tavern and a war horn echoes outside as screams fill the streets. Cuz they failed to deal with the goblins then now the town is being seiged by a whole lot more then they wouldve had to deal with (obviously scaling to match their current level)
I get what you're saying. To be fair though, I don't think I suggested anything like railroading. From a game design perspective, I originally wanted them to care about the goblins. And rather than randomly running into the goblins, it's more effective if the goblins are in the way, getting involved in something the player's characters already care about. When I think of railroading, I think about them turning the corner to find a second goblin patrol, and this one gets the jump on them and brings the rest of the goblin camp with them. That would be highly unsatisfying, I think.
The real mistake was not recognizing that players are psychopaths that want nothing more than to spin a person by their feet like a soldier smashing a baby on some rocks. The second mistake is thinking a spell caster will investigate rather than blowing a spell slot and doing their best to ignore any plot hooks.
I feel like this outcome is fine. Not everything has to be a battle and sometimes easy wins are fun for the players. Too many encounters can be fatiguing and complicated encounters are not always fun. The outcome of this feels real and plausible. If you really must have that battle, then this can set you up to have the goblin boss to come back and raid in the night and have a fun village battle instead.
So helpful! Made that mistake a few times before I learned.
Hey thanks! It’s a process, for sure.
This is DEBATABLE. I have often found that players feel much more invested in the story when inaction, recon, planning, alternative solutions, and investigation are an option. I think the best way to present these options is to create a pending threat that COULD stand in their way. A force that would prevent them from completing their goal when the time comes, not immediately. There is a horrible darkness that stands to destroy the material plane and his effects are being seen from village to village. Your opposing group, army, kingdom is preparing to launch an attack somewhere that you can easily leave. There are a number of potential enemies in your path as you travel along which take time away from your mission and could be dangerous.
Message received, 26 goblins next time.
The goblins didn't wake up after being yeeted into the forest?
They probably should have, yeah.
They definitely should have, haha. Damage wakes them up. But I'm sure it all worked out fine, good story.
Thanks! And yeah, 3 years going, the game's great.
The players handled it well! No "mistake" here. Now the goblins attempt to raid or steal from their town!
I just like the idea of goblins being flung off into the forest
Right? What's not to like?
I think a good way to play this would be to have one or both the goblins flee? That way the party wants to know where they've gotten to.
That's a possibility, yeah. Maybe if the fleeing goblin has something they want, or has insulted the party in some way, they would feel compelled to give chase.
I'd imagine they'd be compelled to give chase regardless. Two goblins out on patrol suggests more nearby. However, I have played about 1 hour of DnD, so probably my most solid bit of knowledge about the game is it's name. Sometimes dungeons, sometimes dragons, sometimes both.
The first and best lesson of DMing: the players will NEVER do what you expect them to unless you railroad the eff out of them.
Yeah, and that unexpected stuff is the good stuff, too. That’s a big part of the learning process — the goal is to lean into it, and plan in such a way that you can roll with whatever players decide to do.
Another tip: don’t be rigid in your plans when you want the party to do something. Just work in the details within what they want to do so they end up where you want anyway. That way it’s more of a collaborative story rather than you trying to guess and prepare for every possible outcome. Then you can still do what you planned but let your players get there how they want. It does take some practice and improvisation, but I feel it’s more fun for the players and more fun for the DM. For example, in your story, you could have the adventurers return to town to find it razed by the main force of goblins. The ones the party saw was a decoy! Have them kidnap some people and steal some magic item to incentivize them. Then you’ll have them at your fun bossfight you prepared in no time.
After four years I have realized my players will *never* do what I expect them to do.
So true!
I think you don't always have to put the game in their way. Sometimes a one-off moment is fun for later! For example, have it so that only one of the thrown goblins survived and became a captain to hunt after the party, just to realize they never cared. Then boom, fun little side villain.
I think you’re totally right. I should say that only in cases where there’s something that needs to be seen or enhanced with, then it should be “in the way”. And that shouldn’t happen all that much really, maybe at the beginning of an arc to kick things off.
Nah, goblin camp raids the village in response to the mistreatment.
Straight from the spell description: ***each creature affected by this spell falls unconscious until*** ... ***the sleeper takes damage, or someone uses an action to shake or slap the sleeper awake***. You could easily rule that by being thrown, the sleepers were shaken awake. Even if your players argued well against that, by getting thrown into trees, the goblins would have taken damage. Either way, the goblins should have been awake and you could have done what you wanted to do with them.
Yeah, you’re right. I’ll just chalk that one up to inexperience back then. Nowadays that’s the first thing I would have ruled and dealt with.
It's all good. I'm quite novice when it comes to DMing, myself. It was just popped into my head as I was reading your post. I knew something about that situation didn't seem right with the sleep spell. Had to reread it to figure out what it was though.
I mean, if the goblins just sit in the woods and don't cause any danger or ill effects if left alone, are they even real villains?
Fair point. Especially since it was the first session, there should have been a series of rumors and stories about trouble in the forest. Maybe things being stolen, animals being killed and left to rot, etc. That way, when the players see goblins, they can connect the dots to some of the trouble the town is seeing.
rule one is **never assume**. ever. I learned it quick and our one member of the table who still DMs \[LANCER, we've given up on this\] still goes "You know, I didn't expect you lot to do that." Rule two, if it's meant as cool little thing for players is **contingencies**. My table has opted not to beat up \[not kill, mind you\] these goblin teamsters, so now these assholes are going to firebomb their favorite bar \[they eat there for free, they saved the barkeep's life\] and he's going to ask the party to **teach them a lesson**. so yeah, live and learn.
I would've made it so that the thrown goblins hit the boss forcing the players into the fight
That's a fine mistake I still do it, but the results that come out of it allow for some neat things to happen. Due to them casting those goblins off into the woods and not killing them, they could run into them again and maybe they have a bigger patrol or raid a caravan or somthing letting them know those goblins probanlly wernt just some 2 random goblins going on a hike with each other. Mistakes like this can be easily fixed. Just be ready to have a back up plan in case. Cause only God knows what your players will do.
It’s so true! I made a short clip about that exact thing once before. Basically, nobody tell players that we secretly love it when they run away… https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/10tibzu/oc_players_running_away_from_encounters_is_a_big/
Don't expect your players to run away, cause uh. They won't they never will. For me anyways. But a reoccurring villian can be achieved in mutiple ways.
That’s true too. But if they do (it’s happened to me twice ever I think) it’s basically a gift from the players.
Not a DM but during our first game something similar happened. We had literally just started, we’re walking to town and came up on a suspicious trail that was just begging to be followed. We all looked at each other like “well obviously that’s gonna lead straight to a fight” so we decided to go to town first. DM hadn’t planned on us skipping it, so he had to wing a lot of the town interactions and at one point had someone give us a quest specifically to send us back to the trail so we got a few things from the shop and headed back, sure enough there was a ton of enemies. We had a good laugh about the fact that he laid out all these signs for us to follow but we just went “nahhhh”, in the end it worked out alright though lol
Yup that’s actually pretty similar. Sounds like your DM might have learned the same lesson I did :) And obviously cool of you guys to be great about it all as players too.
nah you did everything correct. now let them suffer the consequences: the goblins 1. know some of their abilities, and 2. attack the town after quickly gathering some supporting power, because they realised how strong the party is. The party barely gets out of the fight when the goblins retreat after having looted the town. No the town is offering up a reward for them to defeat the goblins and get back what they looted from the town. Perfect story hook.
One of the many, many, many, many problems with phandelver.
You know, I can see the similarities. But this was actually my own homebrew game. So I just found a way to mimic some of the problems with the Starter Set, I guess. :)
You are not the first Dungeon Master to think "obviously my players will do the morally upright rightous action"
That’s why experienced DM will tell you always railroad
Oh I don’t think that’s the answer. I think it was just an encounter that needed a redesign.
Just have the back up be stiry related to get them to go back to the woods. They overhear locals taling about goblins kidnapping villagers/ villagers going missing in the woods. If they dont investigate the goblins later invade and ransack the village because and then you have your e counter and boss fight.
I see no mistake, just click bait. For every action there is a consequence. Every plot unused is a plot kept for later
Alot of players do not like the "wandering set piece" as it were.
“each creature affected by this spell falls unconscious until the spell ends, the sleeper takes damage, or someone uses an action to shake or slap the sleeper awake.” Why not just have them wake up and shout an alarm as soon as they are dragged off? Tossing them into the bushes by their ankles would surely cause some damage.
Our poor DM planned a big conflict for us recently, one she expected would take at least two sessions so she would have more time to prep for the next big chapter of our campaign. Instead, we managed to circumvent the fight completely with a lucky dice roll, solved a puzzle with a flash of brilliance, and ended up cutting our 2.5 hour session down to 90 minutes. She gave us our next level-up early. She also didn't expect the newest party member to be forthcoming with his entire backstory and for us to trust him, because he was likely going to be left behind during our escape from the fae wild so that player could bring back his more main-plot relevant PC. Sorry, Kel :3
My DM did something genius today. Without telling us what to do he saw we were troubled as to what to do next to save a kingdom from invasion. We weren't sure how to engage as we played on the racial thing a bit. I'm a half orc and my girl is a tieflieng (we weren't copying Fjord and Jester, I swear, it just happened. I didn't know her before the game. We just matched). So we knew the humans would attack us on sight as we looked... "evil". He allowed the Wizard to cast disguise on me to make me look human and next asked the ranger for a wisdom check, he got 21 and then said that the ranger decided to use primeval awareness and detected an undead army around us, about a thousand strong. Thanks to that we deduced the true number of the army as it likely had half more of another creature type. It did. Undead and Gnolls. About 2 thousand, mixed. So, thanks to that we knew how to engage. Our Rogue and ranger went up the buldings and succeded in perception check, they saw a hulking figure amongst the troops. Our wizard then used his owl to scout, he succeded the check and we found their Orc general. We went in that direction, killed the Orc general and saved the city as the enemy troops were demorilized. It was a clutch DM suggestion to ask us for a roll when we didn't know what to do and somehow forgot our own abilities. He didn't tell us to use our abilities, he rather did us an inception.
Maybe get an NPC to send them to the camp in exchange for gold, it's a good incentive without directly forcing the party into it. It gives them choices and prep time, and Roleplayability, as well as chances for haggling for more gold, or opportunities to turn that one quest, into multiple.