No, no, those are just good capitalists.
While I understand the desire on a DMs part for verisimilitude in monster handling, I think it’s wise to keep in mind that, like designing a computer AI, the ultimate purpose of your monsters is to lose entertainingly.
While I enjoyed Tucker’s Kobolds when it was written about many moons ago, even at the time I realized that it wasn’t a good design for most adventures.
In real-life, if you meet a well-prepared defense with actually intelligent defenders, you don’t attack.
The reason Hollywood is successful is because it constantly allows a small group heroes to “outsmart” even the “super-intelligent” villains. That’s fun.
Building on that (at least for me), the trick of being a DM was to make the players believe that I had tried my best to prevent them, that they had outsmarted me, and that were it not for a combination of their smarts and tremendous luck, they would have failed.
(Manipulating luck wasn’t always possible, but it’s a lot easier when people assume you are unhappy with the outcome.)
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I think this depends much on the nature of the game. A strong role-play (as opposed to roll-play) oriented campaign where violence is frequently lethal or permanently damaging for most involved is one in which violence is either a last resort, and has great dramatic flair, or establishing the terms of engagement (e.g. a la the The Black Company) is where the actual gaming comes in.
Contrast with “Everyone’s here? Ok, roll for initiative,” style games.
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Or you have to use some really unorthodox tactics:
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Very good point (and a beautiful example of unorthodox tactics).
I’ll admit that in my days as DM, I made a point of not reading up on every spell in the AD&D players handbooks. I knew all the basics, and I designed the defenses so that the bad guys could defend against the expected fireballs and sleep spells.
What this meant was that the players (who lived and breathed their character classes) could use some of the more unusual spells to truly surprise me and the bad guys, leading to the incredulous “What? You can’t possibly have that spell. Let me see your spell list!” moments that players (and secretly, I) enjoyed so much.
But a truly “good” defense prevents players from being able to exercise creativity and funnels them into death-traps. Sure, if they can outsmart that, it becomes a story they’ll take to their grave, but like Hollywood, I’m aiming for the remarkable every 2-3 play sessions, not once a lifetime :-).
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I just read it for the articles.
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Especially “the”, “a” and “an”, I take it?
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