Ruins of Hyboria rocks!

[Clovenhoof]

Thanks, Vincent!

I see your dilemma. Well, as I noted in the other thread, I prefer having some entry duplicate over not having it at all. Even if you have one thing in several books, it simply saves time when you don't have to get out the other book to look it up. Hello, not everyone will learn every rule by heart. And it's not like half a book would be made up of recycled content.

And thanks for the heads-up on the demon and the axe. ^^

 

[Belkregos]

bump

 

[Style]

I also noticed that the occupants of one ruin tend to vary greatly in HD. If a party wanted to clear out an entire city, it would have to wade through heaps and heaps of Level 1s in order to get to their Level 8 bosses, not to mention the really mighty demon-god that typically resides in such a ruined city and is best left alone.

When heroes are exploring ruins in a movie, you don't see every corridor they turn down. The mood is set when they enter the dungeon, and then they cut to scenes where the action occurs, or where relative points in the story line are revealed.

Perhaps I'm the only GM that runs my game this way, but I try to follow this same method at my table. I don't painstakingly put my players through listen, spot, search for traps checks, etc in every corridor and outside every door. To me, this is boring and poor story telling. Not to mention it makes clearing out a dungeon take much longer than it needs to, and really slows down advancement of the story line.

In a similar manner, I don't play through every encounter that the heroes are sure to blow through. For example, if they were high level and at a zombie filled ruins, intent on clearing it out, I would run the first encounter where they'd plow through the undead like a hot knife through butter, and then box text a couple days of exploring and zombie bashing, until they got to the next interesting encounter.

A recent, real world example is in my current campaign. The PCs were enslaved gladiators for a few months. They had to fight in the arena every week. We're talking about 6 PCs fighting every week, over the course of about 12 weeks, and usually not fighting as a group. That's a TON of matches! If I played all of those out, it would have been VERY hack and slashy, and gm and players a like would have gotten bored. I think we actually only played out 5 matches, with every one of them having a key impact on the story. Each one revealed turns in the plot, and advanced the story. The rest were boxed text, and only impacted the game b/c of the PCs' growing fame, and the attention they would get as celebrities out in public.

I don't need dungeons with extensive maps where every room is detailed. I just need a good dungeon concept, a history/reason for being there, and a couple good ideas for encounters within. Having said that, Ruins of Hyboria sounds like a good supplement for me. I don't currently have it, but it is pretty high on my wish list.

 

[Hervé]

I completely agree with Style on this one.

I run my dungeons and encounters quite the same way. For me, the flow of the story is more important than the tactical approach of the rules. Multiplying similar combats like in Style's exemples above can get indeed very boring. A good description is often more vivid and can help to keep the adventure pace.

I try to run my campaign in a REH "full of noise and fury" atmosphere, which is quite the contrary of the standard D&D game where the party generally take the time to plan encounters, take rest, heal wounds and regain spells between battles. In Conan I try my best to take my players by the throat, giving them little time to think or rest, in REH high paced style.

We play the game the heroic way, as every Howard character is himself larger than life. I'm tired of these games with high level NPCs taunting the characters and paying them for jobs they could have easily done by themselves. My heroes stand above the lot and I feel they should themselves be able "to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under their sandaled feet".

 

[sgstyrsky]

I also noticed that the occupants of one ruin tend to vary greatly in HD. If a party wanted to clear out an entire city, it would have to wade through heaps and heaps of Level 1s in order to get to their Level 8 bosses, not to mention the really mighty demon-god that typically resides in such a ruined city and is best left alone.

This is similar to an idea I picked up from Thulsa's Mesopotamia sourcebook. Several adventures in it contain foes way over the CR level of the party. This is done to grant the adventure a more "realistic" feel. RPGs tend to scale challenges to the PCs, making players complacent about the danger their characters face (because they assume all adventures are designed to be within their current abilities).

By throwing something at the PCs they have no way of defeating keeps the edge in the game and grants the scenario a bit of reality. Real life is certainly not balanced that way. Sometimes challenges are just too much. In REH's stories, Conan routinely comes upon beings he must flee if he is to survive.

I regularly put a monster in my adventures that cant be overcome by the PCs. It keeps them afraid and reminds them that death is a real possibility.

 

[warzen]

I regularly put a monster in my adventures that cant be overcome by the PCs. It keeps them afraid and reminds them that death is a real possibility.

A simple question, asked without malice: how do they know they have to run (expecting the players are not knowing by heart all the monster stats) ?

W.

 

[Ichabod]

I regularly put a monster in my adventures that cant be overcome by the PCs. It keeps them afraid and reminds them that death is a real possibility.

A simple question, asked without malice: how do they know they have to run (expecting the players are not knowing by heart all the monster stats) ?

W.

That, and: what's the payoff for an encounter the party can't succeed against?

There isn't a way to perfectly balance encounters. And, a CR system only enourages players to optimize their efficiency rather than tell a story. But, what purpose is served by encounters beyond the party's ability? Hard to think of them as interesting, dramatic, really anything. A hard encounter played badly is going to wreck a party, but that's the players' faults, as it should be.

About the only point I could see is setting up something for far down the line where they have no hope now but come back and prove their bodacity later in their careers. If you can get that to pay off, kudos.

 

[Hervé]

Warzen wrote:

sgstyrsky wrote:
I regularly put a monster in my adventures that cant be overcome by the PCs. It keeps them afraid and reminds them that death is a real possibility.

A simple question, asked without malice: how do they know they have to run (expecting the players are not knowing by heart all the monster stats) ?

As a fervent CR hater, I tend to use quite the same tricks. Again, I'm against politically correct fantasy worlds where every encounter is balanced and every character equal. Sometimes it's just too big for you. How do my players know when they have to run? Well, I guess that many years of Call of Cthulhu practice help!

 

[sgstyrsky]

In my experience most players know when the are outgunned.

I don't do it every adventure, maybe two or at most three times in a campaign. I always give them a chance to escape or use a fate point to survive (sort of how I imagine Conan escaped Thog in "The Slithering Shadow.")

But if every encounter is one which the PCs can beat, at least "theoretically," I feel they grow complacent. I'm not a killer DM, and will go out of my way to keep PCs alive as long as they don't make stupid decisions.

The last campaign we played (based on Thulsa's Mesopotamia book) my players knew taking on a giant purple worm at 6th level was not a good idea. (It was also great to see their genuine fear. It was as if they were really there.) However, they did come back at a higher level and collapsed its cave upon it.

 

[Hervé]

sgstyrsky wrote:

In my experience most players know when the are outgunned.

Run a few Cthulhu adventures and they'll learn!

The last campaign we played (based on Thulsa's Mesopotamia book) my players knew taking on a giant purple worm at 6th level was not a good idea. (It was also great to see their genuine fear. It was as if they were really there.) However, they did come back at a higher level and collapsed its cave upon it.

In my campaign, my players stormed the cultist hideout, slashed their way to the prisoners and ran like hell when the worm god appeared. They didn't bother to come back after, as their minds was focused on other problems (as getting the Eye of Ishtar from Nikkartha, handling frenzied Kalabites and preventing a risen Arukurshu to raise an army to swipe Shem...)

 

[Supplement Four]

But if every encounter is one which the PCs can beat, at least "theoretically," I feel they grow complacent.

I agree. I'm interested in PC survival. They're the "stars" of this story we're telling. But, then again, we just might be telling a tragedy.

I won't always figure a way out of scenarios. Sometimes, I just set it up and see what they do with it.

In playing Kovag-Re, I notice that this adventure is set up that way. For example, there's a mountain lion that attacks the PCs as they venture on their journey. Now, Kovag-Re is designed for starting characters. That lion can simply wipe out an entire party of 1st level characters if the situation presents itself (and the beast is played correctly).

Plus, when the PC reach the bandit camp, there are 14 potential bad-guys there--a challenge for any PC part of 1st level characters.

The PCs have to be smart about how they handle things.

If they're not, they die.