Question for maps & minis DMs

It still all boils down to the same thing.

Once you’ve compartmentalized all the DM knowledge and have reduced things to “what the snipers know” - and given that they’re Malkavian, they know some darn scary things! - in a tactical minis environment, you’re left with a certain number of options from which you can either choose the one you think is most likely to lead to you achieving your objective or choose something else.

That you can’t have the snipers aim for Achilles’ heel because they don’t know it’s the sweet spot just reduces your options. Nothing else has changed.

Also: The trees in my games are now all going to do 1d6 damage. I’ll direct any complaints the players might have Darthwards …

Sure. Tersidian pointed out that the creatures represented by the DM shouldn’t have all the DM’s information available to them. I agreed.

And this is a rule the DM has to follow, just like any other rule. It doesn’t change the DM’s position in the game.

Also, ttotally agree that determining the rules NPCs have to play by is a craft, and will vary from NPC to NPC.

Yeah I would choose what they think would help to achieve their objective best
considering their personalities and everything else

was a fun battle ^^

to sum it up:

you’re welcome :palm_tree:

What they think would help to achieve their objective best is what the DM thinks would help to achieve their objective best, minus DM-exclusive knowledge.

Their objective is the DM’s objective, obviously.

let’s put it differently:

If I would dm a game with players that know me well, and
if they actively persue a TPK-ish situaltion, and
if I gave them a check to see if their characters might realize that this would be a TPK-ish situation
then I would not insta-mod the enemies less effective than they are

I :black_heart: choice & consequences in RPGs after all

OK, that makes sense.

Does that then imply that if they’re not actively pursuing a TPK situation, let’s say in a “balanced encounter,” you’d play the enemies as less effective than they are?

no … unless it evolves into a TPK-ish situation and they stlll want to press on
then I might give them a free check,
e.g. to realize that running away in this situation might be the best option
or that they could still negotiate (out of a weakened position)
etc. etc.

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Gloves off with an escape hatch if things go south. :slight_smile:

“chance of an escape hatch”, but yes exactly :slight_smile:

also defeat might not be the end:

in the 1st RPG session in summer after the 1st lockdown-waves
the party fighter (level 2) wanted to duel a mindflayer

I made his character realize that this might be a fight too tough for him,
but he had very lucky rolls, so he still pressed on

let’s say it did not end well
and the entire group got captured

so everyone made new characters and their job was to rescue the old group
after the adventure they could choose which of those two characters to keep
(except of the fighter, whose :brain: got eaten)
we kept the other characters around as friendly NPCs

and those saved characters they did not want to play anymore,
had been taken over by intelect devourers

That is a good example for why critical fumbles should not be a thing in my opinion. Regardess of whether it is in combat or out of combat :slight_smile: . I have quite a few experiences of games that were ruined by critical fumbles (although, admittedly, not by running into a tree due to a fumble…)

Try Rolemaster!

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to be fair the chance of rolling that kind of fumble was 1:8000
fumbles can be fun … still felt that this situation could have been handled better