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DM of the Rings XXXVI:
Hates the Dice! Hates Them Forever!
Previous in DM of the Rings: DM of the Rings XXXV: A Dubious Victory | Next in DM of the Rings: DM of The Rings XXXVII: Intervention Interruptus |
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The most terrifying part of any campaign is when the players at last wiggle free of your grasp and escape the railroad plot you’ve devised.
This marks the first time our hapless group has broken from the plot as set down by Tolkien himself. What does this mean? Is the whole thing going off the rails now? Has our hapless DM finally lost control? Will he cheat in order to stick to his predetermined script?
Beats me.
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Previous in DM of the Rings: DM of the Rings XXXV: A Dubious Victory | Next in DM of the Rings: DM of The Rings XXXVII: Intervention Interruptus |
I bet you won't even read all 104 comments before leaving your own.
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101 comments:
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[...] why, when I see a comic strip like the one here at DM of the Rings, while I’m laughing I’m thinking “Oh, what a glorious bunch of bastards those [...]
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[...] I had managed to charm Cruguer had a nice party conflict building up…. Oh well so much for interesting plot twists! See Lillee’s take on it [...]
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[...] on the joy of the unpredictable pen & paper RPG (the linked comic is [...]
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That’s a good shot…you know, for a girl.
As a level 17 Female Dwarf Fighter, I take great offense at that.
Everyone knows there’s no such thing as female dwarves, partially because the beards make them impossible to differentiate from the male ones, and paritally because so few women play DnD and the ones who do never play dwarves or half-orcs, and almost always play elves or half-elves. :-p
I dunno if there is really a lack of girls playing, or if they just don’t want to play with you. ‘m sure it depends on your personal hygiene. But as a girl I have a goliath, dragonborn, and a diva. So it isn’t necessarily an elf all the time. I mean, when a girl is in the mood to “SMASH MOAR BLOODBAGS” pretty much anything but an elf will do.
Yeah, I made a halfling Barbarian once (3.5) and to this day she was my favorite character!! I wish dearly to take her out of retirement!
Ha!
XD
I can really see that happening. Hell I’m pretty sure I’d do it too… itchy trigger finger…rolling hand…
>_>
i’ll be going now
Nice shot!
This is when true resurection comes in handy. :D
Ooh! Teh thot plickens!
You’re having way too much fun with these “DM of the rings” comics :D
Thanks!
Always a tough situation. On the one hand, one of things I enjoy most as a DM is when the party does something completely clever and unexpected, and I need to figure out how the various NPCs react to it, and how events play out. On the other, killing a vital villain and derailing the whole story is a real pain. Sometimes you need to bend the rules (e.g., give the bad guy more hit points) to keep the story on track, but balance that with breaks in the party’s favor sometimes (to keep things reasonably fair).
Not even a reponse to the oh-so-subtle hinting yesterday?
Oh, and this comic is less funny than some of the others, but probably even more accurate than most, unfortunately. I wait (im)patiently to see what you do with the plot now…
Oh, and you should have had him check for concealment. Of course, in that situation, he would probably pass that, too. You know, like the arrogant player of a paladin who walked straight up to the massive dragon, said he would kill it (at level… 5, was it?), then proceeded to roll 3 natural 20s in a row (house-rule auto-death)… with the DMs own d20, no less. Oops.
I had a player do a similar thing at lev 6 to a balor… Grabed a sword from the guy’s own loot pile, threw it at the balor and got the 3x 20. Still nearly killed the party with the death throes. One blind bard and a psudodragon who was just out of the room were all the concious party members left
I bet Gollum has a twin brother!
This one got a good laugh from me. Wins the funniest Title award from me.
Funny funny title. Got me giggling going in.
This one cracked me up. Reminded me of a game I ran in which I’d set up an encounter with two NPC goblin slaves: weaponless, dressed in rags and there solely for plot exposition. At first sight, one of my players shot one of unfortunate wretches through the head and killed him dead. After a moment of stunned disbelief, I had the other goblin shout, “No, not Morty!” (the best name I could come up with at the moment) just before he was killed as well. For their trouble, the players got a single gold coin as loot.
OK, that’s the best one yet.
I’m guessing the DM has just decided that Deagol survived being strangled by Smeagol and had spent the last 500 years *also* trying to get the ring. Guess who just got shot?
First off, this is funny, and it happens even to good DM’s… but it is avoidable.
First off… all the DMotR stories showcase a singular fault of the DM in question… he never rewards the PC’s for story related role playing. His players need remedial training. Basically, if the PC’s play along with his story they should be rewarded. If you do this enough, they behave better.
I recently had some fairly low level good PC’s run into a young adult silver dragon who’s father had been killed. Being young he had little experience with humanoids and little emotional control. So he was rampaging around the countryside. The PC’s were rewarded with half the XP the dragon was worth in combat for calming him, at risk of their lives, and getting him to behave more acceptably in his quest for justice. Had they fought the dragon it probably would have resulted in a TPK (total party kill)- if only because he had two younger sisters hidden nearby watching his back and ready to jump in the fray. The party might have managed the young adult… but there’s no way they could manage a young adult and two juveniles.
So what about a villain that critical to the plot ? Well, he should be well protected with a skill set to match his role in the story. In Gollum’s case the protection is simple- he stays away from the attack range of the PC’s and he remains stealthy at all times. Give him enough levels in Rogue to accomplish this almost constantly against the party.
He should also have the durability so that only a concerted effort by the PC’s should derail his role in your plot. There should be no way a single attack should slay this character. Even at 3x critical with Max Damage, plus any spell stored magic the characters can muster or their most powerful slaying magic. Of course, if the PC’s come up with a cunning plan to lure him in and capture/kill him it should have a chance of working… don’t frustrate them just for your own story thrill.
All this aside… this sort of an event is a planned encounter, and should be run as such. With the DM cautious to control the thing. Always engineer encounters so they can further the plot as planned… but so PC’s can’t gain too much of a boon.
The DM’s purpose for this encounter is exactly the same as Tolkien’s… to inform the audience/PC’s that they are being watched. The puzzle for them is to figure out who is tracking them, which should tell them why, and maybe how Gollum is tracking them and why they can’t get away.
In the telling of the tale above… Legolas never did check the range.
“You shoot a prefect precise shot…. but the arrow falls into the water well short of your target. Its just out of range. Who or whatever was trailing you disappears below the waters and you lose track of their location.”
The shot should be beyond extreme range. Gollum isn’t stupid and he knows how tricksy elves can be. He’d also know how good elves are with bows… and he might even know that Legolas seems better than average even for an elf. He’d stay at maximum observation distance, and out of attack range.
So… how did Legolas see him ? His spot range is only so far after all. Well, Gollum did something that caused a light to reflect towards the PC encampment. It wasn’t the PC camp fire or any such that illuminated him, but rather the moonlight. You might even rule that what Legolas really saw was the water moving unusually near the log.
OK. So what about XP rewards ? The PC’s should be rewarded for figuring out it is Gollum, for figuring out how he’s tracking them, why they can’t get away. I’d assign a fixed XP reward for the encounter of between 250 and 500 for each part of the mystery they solve. If you are playing with higher level characters… then you might grant as much as 1000xp per piece of the mystery. Remember this is a task more for the players than their characters abilities… as such it gets no easier at high levels.
In this case, Legolas by shooting at Gollum, has prevented the party from finding out any of the above… so the PC’s gain no experience. If they didn’t know there was XP to be had by solving a minor mystery… well tell them as blatantly as your table style allows.
Finally always have a back-up plan. If Gollum is killed or otherwise prevented from destroying the Ring in the Mt. Doom scenes… then have another method ready to accomplish this. The mountain could start the earthquake thing. The ring might fall off of Frodo… or Frodo might fall to his death as Gollum would have. You may also have another of Sauron’s lieutenants get involved.
Ummm… right. Anyhoo, nice shot Lego-Lass…?;o)
Teloric Says:
December 1st, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Ummm… right. Anyhoo, nice shot Lego-Lass…?;o)
Yeah, um, sorry about that. I didn’t realize I typed so much!
Oh for the ability to edit my post… in this case for brevity. Next time I’ll save it for DMG III
I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten a belly laugh out of these… well, actually it’s been three, but I’ve really needed them at the time!
Thanks!
This is actually one big reason I really like the DM I’ve been playing with for the longest time. He lets his campaign world be totally fluid, so that it adapts to whatever actions the characters take.
That being said, this strip was totally hilarious. Always the perennial question; “How much XP?” ^_^
This has soooooo happened to me. Sounds to me like a good time for the King Ring Wraith to make a power play near Mount Doom, about the time Frodo shows up.
And for Legolas to have his bow break :)
I just LOVE the hand poking out of the water as Gollum goes down…
Man, I laugh at just about all of these. Always lookin forward to the next one. Can’t wait to see what’s coming after FotR.
Of course, I could do without the mechanics lessons in the comments…
I know I shouldn’t say this in a room full of Tolkein fans, but if the characters had been a little more forward thinking like LegoLass here, we could have been spared the entirety of The Two Towers. Shields up!
That’s great.
Steven: EVIL twin. You gotta remember the EVIL.
BeckoningChasm: but how would Frodo have thrown away the ring?
Jeremy: In that case, wouldn’t this twin have to be the good one? Or are you saying that “Gollum is twisted and misunderstood, but his twin is genuinely evil”?
Clearly, Gollum is the good twin.
If he’s evil, where is the goatee?
BeckoningChasm: “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” How’s that for a shot across the bow?
ngthagg
Not only is he missing the goatee, his name is also clearly not Chad. This means only one thing: gollum is clearly the good twin!! I have charts and graphs to prove it. ;)
Priceless, a great choice of frames too for this one! And oh so true. *grins*
Well since Gollum is a skitzo, does smeagol count as his good twin/half?
Also, one of the best ones yet. Keep em coming ;D
…I think I’ve managed (with help) to totally de-rail the plot of every RPG I’ve ever played in. No matter how well a game is scripted, the plot outlined for all occurences, or how much the players might enjoy the story….sooner or later they are going to find a way to escape from the box. They can’t help it! About the best thing I’ve found to do as a GM at that point, is too suck it up and start making the game up as I go. Then things really get fun!!!
From tests on the board game:
Summon Eagle.
Pick up Frodo.
Fly to Mt. Doom.
Drop Frodo (with ring) into crack o’doom.
Go to sleep soundly.
Sometimes things do get out of hand like this, but that does not mean that weird and unusual things can happen. (Like Boromer gets so greedy that he turns into a second gollum and Frodo does not want to kill him because he knows who “Gollum” really is).
lol
This one was really amazing. Solution: give Gollum the Diehard feat :) Your rock as always! Keep up the good work!
What can I say ??
Excellent Comic…keep it up ! :D
Players often kill things they shouldn’t, but normally their second in command turns out to be equally as hard…..but thankfully you’ve described it as “think” it’s gollum, could just be an orc scout…..
Keep up the good work !
33 comments and nobody took a shot at me for my obvious and goofy typo “Toklein” instead of “Tolkien”.
I have very polite readers.
Sadly, this only makes me more inclined to point out the “absoloutly”…
Let’s see… using the D&D rules for NPCs, Gollum should be near-epic levels. He’s a few thousand years old, and has lived a life of danger and fighting that should be worth a few thousand XP a year at least.
Even a critical from some elf-chick wouldn’t kill him.
LOL! I fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard! Good thing Im the only one at work! :P
Oh gods… Once, I put a party against a lich and someone threw a helm of opposite alignment on his head that he happened to have carring around. Completely screwed up my story line.
Do you know the first Eberron adventure module, part of that Grasp of the Emerald Claw or whatever? There was a villain central to the plot who was a shapechanging magic user pretending to be a vampire. The PCs were supposed to figure he was much too powerful for them and attempt to surrender or bargain while he went on a long villainous exposition of his dastardly plans. If they did attack, he was supposed to cast Obscuring Mist and drink an invisibility potion to mimic the vampiric gaseous form ability. This is what actually happened:
Turning from his brainless skeletal servants digging in the cemetery, the necromancer faced our heroes. Red eyes glaring in his white skin, he smiled, revealing pointy fangs.
“Ah,” he said. “Look what we have here…”
“OH FUCK, A VAMPIRE!” Alim cried in a panic. He waved his hands and muttered something, and two little white balls of force streaked out to hit the villain.
“Ow!” the necromancer cried. And again “Ow!”
LX011 charged in as quickly as his heavy metal body would allow, bringing his enchanted longsword down on the necromancer’s shoulder.
“Ow!” the black-clad villain exclaimed. He muttered something and the area became filled with fog.
Ever-quick Sandefur decided this would be an ideal moment to find someplace to hide.
Meanwhile Aldemar voiced an imprecation to the Pantheon praying that divine force would hold the foul vampire in his tracks, but to no avail.
Alim could no longer see the dreaded foe. He sent his snake, with which he communed in arcane and eldrich ways, to seek him in the fog.
LX brought his sword around to strike again. Despite the fog obscuring his target, he felt his sword connect with flesh.
“Ow!” cried the now familiar voice of the necromancer. There was a strange clinking and glugging sound from the fog, and the vague form of the villain disappeared altogether.
Aldemar decided that the skeletal servants should be dealt with. She called on the power of the gods to disperse their blasphemous forms, and they shattered into fragments.
Alim could feel the presence of the vampire through his snake, but could not see to attack him and did not want to get too near the rather dim Construct still swinging his massive blade.
LX could not see the vampire but took a swing at where he would be if he had started to run away. Once again he felt his sword impact unseen flesh.
An eerie, bodiless voice called out from the mist: “Bastard!” Then there was the sound of a body hitting the ground.
“Cut its head off before it recovers, it’s a vampire!” the still panicked Alim called, dropping to his knees and groping around in the fog. “Where’s the head?”
LX011 probed around with his sword, finally finding an invisible form on the ground. He raised his arm, causing Alim to scurry backward, and brought it down with all his force, splattering himself and all around him with warm fluid. A brief and unusual glimmer of intelligence flickered in his metal and flesh head. “Something’s not right about this.”
Meanwhile Aldemar had managed to find the head and began sawing it off with her own sword. Alim bespoke a spell to detect enchantments and found a vague enchantment coming off the area where the invisible body lay. He started searching it and found his hands inside a warm body cavity, not unlike a freshly butchered pig. Thoroughly repulsed, he withdrew his arm.
Several minutes later the fog lifted and the body became visible shortly thereafter. All the heroes were covered in blood and gore. The headless body of the necromancer lay before them, with the head crushed beyond recognition by some warhammer blows LX had added to be on the safe side. Viewing the copious amounts of flesh and blood and reflecting on the ease with which he had been defeated, it started to occur to the heroes that perhaps he had not been a vampire, after all. Surely vampires don’t say ‘ow?’ Or have warm blood? And it also occurred to them that he had merely started to speak to them, giving no sign of attacking. Perhaps he had been about to tell them something useful?
Sandefur came back over, mouth agog. “What in the Abyss have you people done?”
You have to imagine our DM laughing until the tears rolled down his face during this. He later said that this was the most stupid NPC tactic and plot rail device he’d seen and the NPC deserved everything he got.
Tirgaya, all is forgiven, your lengthy scrivening is utterly diminished by yon Antiquated Tory.
I also happen to appreciate a lucid reality (um, D&D, I mean) check, such as you provided.
Alas, due to alignment issues I haven’t resolved, I MUST side with Evil Otto.
Dead Deagol, yes – Smeagol lives!
Imagine seeing that ^ as graffiti on your way home from a game?
Antiquated Tory–
I think I played in that module… that was the campaign where one of the other PCs ended up freeing the elemental from an airship and setting the whole bloody thing on fire… we then decided that a little adventure to Xen’drik was in order, until that little incident blew over.
heh.
I have this RPG I’ve been beta-testing for a quarter-century, off and on (lately off – I just can’t seem to get into it again), in which I had a close friend who was confident enough to GM my game. So I rolled up a character, and we went at it. Okay, I *wrote* up a character (his stats), and then rolled the rest of the stuff as appropriate, which was cool. No, it’s me as a character, so the stats weren’t outrageous — the physical strength sucked, the wisdom sucked, but the dexterity and intelligence were acceptable.
anyway.
So here I am, armed with a $LIGHTSABER and a laser rifle, trying to go after this idiot in a Saab 9000 Turbo (white). I jump on top of the car.
“He starts to drive off.”
“I plunge my $LIGHTSABER through the roof.”
“It’s deflected. You fall off the car and he speeds off into the distance.”
“Okay, I roll and grab my laser rifle. I get a round of attacks — two shots–”
“ONE. You get a pot-shot.”
“Okay…” (Rolls a d30:30 (we use d30 for hit rolls)). “SUPERCRITICAL HIT!”
“Argh. Roll on the SuperCritical Hit With Missile Weapon table.”
*rattlerattlerattle* “Double zero! INSTANT DEATH! YES!”
“Arggghh! This isn’t supposed to happen! Well, ” *sigh* “the car explodes. And…” (d30:1) “All the shrapnel misses you.”
Or…
“The creature comes at you.”
“How big?”
“He’s about eight feet tall–”
“JEEZUS! Okay…um…I cast Create Pit!”
“roll a d10…”
(d10:6) “6 feet.”
“Well, he falls in, but he’s getting to his feet.”
“Fill Pit With Cement!”
“Roll a d30 for how long the Cement takes to set…”
(d30:1)
“um…one?”
[*smacks forehead*] “In One Second…the creature is trapped in cement before he can get up all the way.”
And like that. Good times.
ah, i laughed so hard the walls rang
Excellent choice of screen caps.
This stuff is just too good! As a regular gamer, I’ve seen this happen a few times. Usually ticks the GM off no end :)) Keep this up Shamus! It’s great!
I just started a campaign, and the first thing the guys do is go to the local inn and bash in the head of the old lady working there… sigh… at least it got them out of the starting town pretty quick
To Craig – that is how all our quests began when I did this stuff years ago. There was also a woman with a herd of poodles that diminished in ever amusing ways every time we arrived in town.
To Shamus – The way your characters act is just how we did, I’m getting all my old roleplaying mates to read this for happy memories. this strip in particular? I’ve only just stopped crying with laughter…
“Outstanding. How much xp?” Well, at least he cares about what’s important. I can’t blame him for killing the 1st thing he saw, though. Given the lack of monsters that they can kill, I’d be trigger-happy too.
ROFL @ the screen caps, it’s perfect.
drop a nazgul on the pointy-eared git.
how many xp do you get for that, nancy bow-boy????… and somebody get tirgaya some proportion in which he can keep things
You killed him??? :( You jerk legolass! How could you. *Shakes head* I love it when dice screw up.
“No battle plan every survived five minutes contact with the enemy.” The same goes for detailed rpg plots. Make ‘em simple and open, and then run with whatever pops up.