Hey! This is the DM Discourse, a podcast about D&D, focused on the experience at the table from behind the screen. I'm your host Darrell, and today we’re going back to the campaign and talking about a scenario where fleeing can appear to be the only viable option for your players, but also how you can communicate your intent to players while maintaining verisimilitude.
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Adrift at sea with only their parcel to deliver and worries for company, land came into sight toward the end of the second day. Our trio of adventurers set to rowing with renewed fervor towards the derelict port, with only an unkempt sign proclaiming a name long faded off and not a soul in sight greet them. The sun was passing into the west as they tied their worn vessel to the docks and took to exploring.
“We should stop somewhere for a drink,” Pedwar said as they strolled through the swamp town. “This monk could use a refill, long overdue.” He fiddled with the stopper of his empty cask.
The cleric, Sq’Gee, nodded. “And maybe some directions. I don’t know where we are but I doubt it to be Soothwater.”
But no window was alight and no folk about their evening business. The planks that most of the town was raised in over the swamp were in varied states of decay and much had been claimed again by wildroot. This place gave all signs of desertion long before their coming and an unease began to set in.
“Quiet. Did you hear that?”
Olrune shook his horned head and scanned the darkness and smirked. “You’re being paranoid again my friend, nothing but empty buildings here.”
“Do not doubt me sorcerer - Oolmund reveals much before my eyes. There, down this street!”
A towering shape amidst the alleys and corners manifested, a twirl of shadow with malevolence in its glowing eyes. It scanned its domain and crept along forgotten paths. Where it walked no moon- or starlight penetrated, an opaque void of quiet dread.
“Reveal yourself fiend, by the light of the All Seeing God!” Sq’Gee brandished his mace and holy symbol, an eye surrounded by cardinal points.
The figure turned, and as it did swept a kind of hand through a tenement a story above them. The force of the blow crumbled the buckling wood to splinters that scattered unseen in the night. It seemed to grow even greater and in its eyes a hunger for the life within these new arrivals.
Olrune hurled a mote of fire at the writhing mass of darkness. It simply pressed on towards them, unphased.
“My mistake.” The cleric turned to his glaring companions. “We should run.”
Their foe gave chase through its home, and would’ve had them were it not for a pair of the Dawn Guard surveying the area, an order of knights sworn to a bygone dynasty and fighting a war long lost - but that is a story for another time. With a trick of a sunbomb and a guiding hand, the trio followed this helpful stranger into an empty tavern - only to be met by crossbow readied and leveled at them. Their momentary savior turned, her sword drawn, and asked, “Let’s do names. Tell us yours first.”
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I think my players were a bit worried when the last session ended with them lost at sea without any real way to guide themselves to shore, but through some circumstantial sleight of hand aka DM fiat I had already prepared the next few parts of their introductory adventure. I know there’s plenty to be said about picking a low level module and having your players follow along with that for a while, so it may just be a stylistic choice that I like to chain together specific scenes before opening up the options to them. And the campaign does open up, I promise - I don’t think I even noticed that habit of mine until I started talking about this particular session.
So the party’s boat drifts on over to the edge of the Drifting Isles, which was the region of their objective, but without any idea of where they were. This particular village was a piece of a shattered island village that was separated across the swamp, and had been abandoned for nearly a decade at this point. During that time a wraith, which is a Challenge Rating 5 monster in the Monster Manual, had taken to it as its abode for the memories of suffering and misery that lingered in that place, claiming it as its own domain.
There’s a couple things that stick out about throwing such a strong creature at my players. If you don’t know anything about the D&D CR math, the idea is, basically, that a party of 4 level 1 adventurers should be able to handle a CR 1 creature, and while that math doesn’t necessarily hold up that’s the basic idea. There’s plenty of folks who talk about the Action Economy elsewhere, but one of the big things about 5e is that the more characters that one side has, the more likely they are to win. Again, doesn’t really apply here, for a few reasons.
A wraith has damage resistance to non-magical attacks from non-silvered weapons, but an armor class still low enough for level 1 players to likely hit. This ends up being a two fold lesson to demonstrate that creatures also have their own set of immunities and resistances, and, more importantly, you don’t need to stand your ground and fight to win every encounter. Numerically, after you fudge a couple things behind the screen, you can demonstrate the strength of an enemy without needing it to even damage the players. If you want to paint the scene for your players outside of numbers, describe the enemies they face attacking the landscape around them or devouring some unnamed NPCs, just to name a few options.
Between the sorcerer casting a spell and a couple hits of some non-silvered weapons, I think the players got the point: it was time to retreat, and find some other solution to their problem. I guess looking back I still had the other situation covered, because even if they stayed and fought the NPC that had been watching from a distance, Andrea Blackblade, still probably would’ve intervened in some way to aid the group. Not the most intricate ways to preserve the illusion, but hey it worked. They ducked out from the wraith into a bar indicated by their new savior, only to meet the other NPC, a dwarven arbalist named Wort, and she had her crossbow trained at them as soon as they entered.
Now the Dawn Guard started as a player faction I had for my last campaign, this group of pseudo-knights dedicated to protecting the human kingdom that was still around at the time. In the centuries since that campaign and a political coup, now they are more like a force of skirmishers and infiltrators in defiance of a long defeat. Since they’re still around, however, they can give the players an idea of the political landscape without needing them to enter it themselves. If they’re content to remain unsworn to any lord or noble, that’s fine - people who are involved still exist in the world and you can get a lot out of just simply saying, “Yeah these guys? They hate the king.” Now they know somebody hates the king for some reason, throwing an extra layer on your campaign cake.
After trading names both the NPCs and the party figure the best thing to do is get the hell out of this literal ghosttown, so they check the basement for a way out and find a large cask that leads into a tunnel beneath the swamp. After a quick encounter with a single rust monster and low level demon, they find a rowboat to take them further into the swamp with a couple of new allies to serve as their initial guides as they start making their own way. These other encounters were, in a way, similar to what I set up with the wraith from earlier. The rust monster, which is a classic D&D monster from I think the oldest editions, ended up wearing down some of the equipment the party had, but definitely within their level range - still makes for an encounter they wouldn’t forget when they’re weapons started doing less damage. The little maw demon also had resistances to certain magical damage, just like the wraith, but without resistance to non-silvered and non-magical weapons which would make an encounter much more difficult for a melee focused party this early on in their adventuring careers.
One flight from combat led to further flight through a hidden escape hatch, and I, hopefully, didn’t need to signal it to my players by showing giant warning signs saying “You Need To Be a Higher Level for this Content” - because really smart players could come up with some creative solutions to the encounters you have. If, say, my players had tried luring the wraith to the other side of the town in order to sneak out, kinda like in a modern horror video game, thereby passing by the tavern escape route they found, then that’s totally fine. I may have had to pull something out of my ass, but that’s something you’ll get better at developing as time goes by.
So, big highlights: there’s plenty of other ways you can show your players your intent of an encounter, but don’t ever expect them to just surrender or flee from them. You can signal to them the level of danger they’re in without having to directly damage or turn it into numbers to compare. And if your players do still engage or come up with a solution that goes haywire, you’ll still be fine to rework things to save them your players getting themselves into more danger than they’re ready for. Whether that’s some friendly NPCs show up, or maybe they’re imprisoned rather than outright killed, I think that depends on the situation at hand. I’d say it’s a bad idea to outright kill characters if they make a wrong decision with the limited information you gave them, especially if they’re in a situation where they don’t have an opportunity to gather more information. At that point it feels like punishment, so probably just to avoid situations like that altogether.
Alright that’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks for dropping by, giving me a listen, feel free to leave feedback wherever it is you get your podcasts, and feel free to even send questions or comments my way at dmdiscoursepodcast@gmail.com or @dmdcpodcast on Twitter. Take care, have a great week.
