DM Events: Intent to Kill VS Enjoyable Encouters
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I think a major problem with DM events are that… well, the stigma that you HAVE to complete the event.
Very rarely do players have their PC back down or retreat in the middle of a DM event. At least from what I've seen.
Myself included with this. Even though many of our characters are Roleplayed as intelligent, tactical, skilled/powerful etc. we the players have it in our minds that we need to power through and finish, for the loot. Again, perhaps I'm only speaking for myself here. There have been times when I thought briefly, "Maybe I should back out of this" but continued onward anyway with the lure of phat lewts. Very rarely have I seen DM events turned down or stopped midway despite the characters getting shrecked. Maybe it also is the PC's themselves being too prideful or overconfident...
I don't know. I think the DM events are fine as they are, challenges are always good. While I think majority of the time the "heroes"(PCs/Players)should have a decent chance of winning, there should be that overwhelming, nearly impossible event that can only be overcome by sheer luck or divine intervention. As well, I'm a big fan(from when I ran tabletop)of times where the PC's would just steamroll everything. They should feel powerful, too, because they are, in fact, more powerful than mere commoners or run of the mill adventurer's.
I think the problem with this sort of approach is that, especially on events these days, if you get even halfway through a DM quest you are in the hole for THOUSANDS of gold in supplies. A lot of PCs will try to power through them because the alternative is to walk away with nothing but a huge deficit save for that RP Xp.
The point being made here is that while the Dms keep saying they don't want to kill pcs the standard of difficulty has risen higher than a lot of players are comfortable with.
I like a challenge, but I do not like feeling like every single event I go on is a desperate fight for survival, especially when looking at party compositions in the very recent past.
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@RedGallant:
You have to very carefully make sure that you stock everything, and missing just one or two, or being a bit short on gold at the time, means that you die, lose a level or two - and for higher levels a lot of gold in raises - and then the reward at the end, even if it was geared to recoup your losses, can't possibly recoup the loss, so you end off worse than you were and still in the same poor position. People actually seem to sometimes avoid DM events occasionally for this exact reason, and I've been cautioned not to go on some of them for this exact reason. I do it anyway, but then I get caught by it and despite my best efforts sometimes do end up both dead and poor, but I find expressing optimism to be less depressing than holing myself away from fun.
I normally go out of my way to avoid DM events unless I am a very central/important character to the plot the event is around, for this exact reason. There have even been times when I've gotten random DM spce that seemed insanely difficult with copmensation that didn't touch 5% of what I used, and ended up just logging after it was over for the day and moving on to another game.
For these reasons, I generally prefer to keep my DM interaction in the form of non-combat roleplay, puzzles, NPC interactions, etc. And only go on "DM Events" if I have to.