Mess With the Players’ Expectations
In keeping with yesterday's theme regarding combat, I thought I would share another story about an encounter that didn't go the way a player thought it would...
There was this one time, while my players’ characters were adventuring through the Jungles of Chult, when the party encountered a tribe of blue-skinned goblins. The highest level character in the group was around 10th-12th level Fighter who dual-wielded cutlasses. He was accompanied by a 7th-ish level Evoker, and a second fighter who also around 7th level.
There was this one time, while my players’ characters were adventuring through the Jungles of Chult, when the party encountered a tribe of blue-skinned goblins. The highest level character in the group was around 10th-12th level Fighter who dual-wielded cutlasses. He was accompanied by a 7th-ish level Evoker, and a second fighter who also around 7th level.
The player immediately
(and sarcastically) quipped "Oh no! Not goblins! Whatever will we
do?"
That's when
the goblin leader, a psion of no small level, dropped most of the fighter’s
party with a mind blast. The rest of the fight suddenly became much more dangerous
than he had originally expected. The fighter did manage to hold off the goblins
long enough for his companions to recover from the psychic attack and together,
they defeated the goblins but the sudden unexpected reversal was absolutely
wonderful to behold.
The sudden
change in stakes was incredible. The
players talked about the battle for months and “Oh no! Not goblins!” became an at-table warning for
times when the group had reason to doubt the information I was providing them.
Have you ever
done this to your players? Have you
presented them with what seems like an easy encounter and then flipped the
table on them? What happened? Let me know in the comments below.
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