GM vs Overpowered Heroes

[artisturn]

Well our group is half of our regular RPG group so we are already playing this in that fashion. Banter between the heroes as if they are characters, I think that is why my wife was bummed out that her wizard died.

Plus I have been linking the quest together by making the local Inn the jump points for the story. When we started quest six I had the innkeeper drug the parties drinks and then they awoke in the dungeon,instead of being ambushed. I plan on writing a quest where the innkeeper had to drug them and turn them over to Grak,because Grak kidnapped the innkeeper's daughter and then I will send the party on a rescue mission.


When I was playing this years ago when my daughter,niece and nephews where kids I played strictly by the book. but now we are all adults playing I can be a pseudo GM and have some fun with the quest.

[Gold Bearer]

Or you can react immediately by putting a good-fitting Monster here and there or by other possible means. In that very moment you become Game Master like in D&D. That's not "fair", but if you're doing well, the evening does not get boring. Afterwards, there's still something to talk about regarding changing the rules.

I would hate to play against a GM who's making it up as they go along. The GM should be trying everything to kill the heroes once the quest starts so any rule changes should be made between quests. I've never played D&D but from what I've read on here it sounds really stupid, with the DM just doing whatever they feel like. What's the point?

In order to handle overpowered players I'd first ask whether ANY of the content being used ingame is custom. Custom features tend to be imbalanced. Assuming they're not overpowered because of custom content here are a few suggestions on how I handle powerful Heroes.

Do NOT make Heroes lose artifacts, armor and equipment on a regular basis. That's a HORRIBLE idea and unmotivates your players. If they expect to constantly lose and find armor and weapon pieces frequently, they'll never get attached to things or feel a sense of accomplishment and success. Losing an artifact, like the Spirit Blade, should be a jaw dropping experience. In my opinion, the loss of an artifact shouldn't happen more than about once per quest booklet.

Hero Quests original rules isolate encounters. What that means is that the rules are set up so that Heros basically open a door and deal with the encounter behind it. When a Hero 'opens a door' he effectively 'activates a room'. That room is isolated from other rooms so enemies within it have to fend for themselves without help. This is where most of the problem takes place because a team of 4 well geared and experienced Heroes can dispatch a room with relative ease. Here are a few good ways to improve encounters.

1 - Survive their first attack! Heroes usually attack before you do. They gather by closed doors, open it and you cry as they hungrily dispatch the 5 Orcs you were sure would challenge them. Just about every encounter in your game has to survive that first attack from Heroes so throw in a few weak dummy targets. For example, in that room of 5 Orcs, if each player attacks, they will dispatch about 3 Orcs leaving you with about 1 Orc to attack them back with. Add two goblins to that and strategically place them in the front. On your next turn you'll have a good chance of hitting the Heroes with about 3 Orcs on your next turn.

2. Make your Traps smarter! As Heroes get stronger, more strategically placed traps should be expected. The number of easily discoverable spear traps in a lonely empty hallway should reduce substantially. Instead, set up spear traps in front of your minions so Heroes trigger them when they rush in to attack. They can't search for traps as long as a monster occupies the room so the trap is guaranteed to stay hidden and gives you a 50% chance their turn will end if they roll a skull and get hit with it. Don't abuse this tip though because it can kill Heroes. Each quest should contain no more than about 8 of these strategically placed traps with no more than about 2 per room. Likewise, a strategically placed pit trap can turn the tables suddenly and give your monster a small advantage when he attacks on his next turn. Put a pit trap in front of doors now and again too so Heroes can't search for them and trigger them automatically. Tough Heroes can handle about 2 of these per quest. To mask your evil doings, scatter a few of those 'easily discoverable' traps to give Heroes the illusion they're still finding and disarming some.

3. Improve the number and quality of your rooms! More rooms means more encounters so add more rooms. Also, for each empty room you have in your quest you should improve the encounter within another room by twice it's difficulty. In other words, overall, the quest should hit players with one encounter per room even if it doesn't LOOK like it because some rooms are empty.

4. Start ditching your bread and butter weak monsters for bread and butter medium monsters. In other words, make Goblins more scarce and instead make Firmirs a more frequent face accompanied by a couple of Orcs. When Heroes start to miss Goblins, have them open the next door and find a room full of Goblins with one goblin per square! If you're a fan of Orcs, just make up an in-story excuse and give Orcs the Firmir's stats. Just remember to introduce them in number accordingly as if they were Firmir's.

5. Place more Chaos spells within your quests. In some quests we're introduced to specific monsters who are given chaos spells. No matter who wields them, chaos spells within your quest improve its difficulty. Usually we see chaos spells handed to boss monsters, but we can just as easily hand them to run of the mill Goblins and Orcs. Start introducing magic casting labels to common monsters such as the Shaman Orc and Shaman Goblin. As a strict rule though, don't ever give such a monster more than one spell. You'll quickly notice heroes target your magic casting monsters first, so getting your spells into the quest may become more difficult. Another idea to sneak chaos spells into your quests by having monsters use magic artifacts. An Orc can activate a one time use magic ring that hits a hero with a ball of fire spell.

6. The Alarmist. As Zargon, give yourself a set number of Alarmists per quest between 2 to 3. On your turn choose a monster and state that he is sounding an alarm and activating a nearby room. The monster can activate any room within its line of sight. To do so, open the door within the Alarmists line of sight and set the room up. That rooms monsters become active and can move and attack immediately on Zargons turn. This lets you combine encounters between rooms at a kind of random basis and can really challenge Heroes.

7. Get creative. This is the one idea that will never get old, everything else will. You can get creative and challenge heroes on a huge scale or a small scale. Small scale challenges can be unique traps such as a tar pit that requires a roll of a 6 on 1d6 to escape. A cursed item attaches itself to the Wizard so anytime he casts a spell he must roll a combat die and if he rolls a black shield the spell fails but is not wasted and his action is used up. Heroes laugh when they barge into a room of unarmed Firmir's who fight with 2 combat dice to attack, until their evil wizard casts a unique magnetism spell that pulls weapons to the ground forcing anyone in the room to fight unarmed for this encounter.

Thank god you're here.

[cynthialee]

When I play these types of games I tend to look at the Gamemaster and the Players as the Gods on Olympus and the characters are the Heroes of the Saga. To reflect this I even give the Players collectively one time per game Gamemaster power after a fashion.
They may rewrite a scene, rewind a scenario, introduce a new character or travel unmolested to their next destination. I call it a Story Point or a Plot Twist depending on how it is used. The players must be unanimous in their position and it can only be allowed to effect the scene at play or the one immediately prior to its invocation. This way we are all playing a game we want to play and the Players also have a way of preventing their death prone Thief from yet another death. The Players tend to save this game changer for Hero deaths. We look at it as a way to save the narrative and provide the players a feeling of control over the game. (you should see the look on our Thief's Player when her Character bites the dust and her father starts to weigh their options and discuss if the Thief is really worth the Story Point. LOL)

[Gold Bearer]

UBER fate points.

[Anderas]

I would hate to play against a GM who's making it up as they go along. The GM should be trying everything to kill the heroes once the quest starts so any rule changes should be made between quests. I've never played D&D but from what I've read on here it sounds really stupid, with the DM just doing whatever they feel like. What's the point?

I'm new here but I guess this discussion is not new.
Yes, it's a question of style. Some like it some hate it.
There is a real danger that the GM looses his teeth if he becomes RPG GM - after all, now the Heros are under his responsibility, so it would be his fault if someone dies, right?
This is why I normally don't do the RPG Style - as long as it is going good, I am the enemy, very simple.
For me it is a fall back solution if the Hero Group starts to play the rule and not the game. In this very moment, you can accept it on the price of a boring evening. Or you change something.
In best case, of course, you know what could be done around the existing rules and you have house rules in place to counter that issue - before it appears the first time. For this, I read in forums. I never had the idea to corner the treasure searcher between other Heros in order to make the wandering monster disappear. Now I know this problem could appear, be sure, when I play the next time, there will be a house rule in place.

[artisturn]

I would hate to play against a GM who's making it up as they go along. The GM should be trying everything to kill the heroes once the quest starts so any rule changes should be made between quests. I've never played D&D but from what I've read on here it sounds really stupid, with the DM just doing whatever they feel like. What's the point?

I'm new here but I guess this discussion is not new.
Yes, it's a question of style. Some like it some hate it.
There is a real danger that the GM looses his teeth if he becomes RPG GM - after all, now the Heros are under his responsibility, so it would be his fault if someone dies, right?
This is why I normally don't do the RPG Style - as long as it is going good, I am the enemy, very simple.
For me it is a fall back solution if the Hero Group starts to play the rule and not the game. In this very moment, you can accept it on the price of a boring evening. Or you change something.
In best case, of course, you know what could be done around the existing rules and you have house rules in place to counter that issue - before it appears the first time. For this, I read in forums. I never had the idea to corner the treasure searcher between other Heros in order to make the wandering monster disappear. Now I know this problem could appear, be sure, when I play the next time, there will be a house rule in place.

The heroes in our group do this all the time with the wizard, So when He searches any monsters will have to attack the rest of the party. But the Wizard actually died from a hazard in this fashion, so now when the Wizard player (my Wife) searches for treasure she makes sure the wizard is at full health before searching for treasure.

I see my role as Zargon as combination of Foe/game master, It is my job to try and kill the heroes but it is also my job to make it fun for the players as well.
I pretty much stick to the script(quest book) but I do make adjustments along the way,if the party is rolling good then I will add more monsters to the room or if they are near death I will have them find a heal body scroll in a room but only once they use up their heal spells.

Now the party is all geared up with long swords,battle axe and chain mail,helmets and shields,but they are in for a surprise when the rust casting Fimir shows up,that is our next quest. I am not sure if I am going to rust their weapons or their helmets,right now I am leaning more to the helmets to bring down their defense dice rolls.

[Gold Bearer]

In best case, of course, you know what could be done around the existing rules and you have house rules in place to counter that issue - before it appears the first time.

I totally agree. If the players are taking advantage of the rules then good for them, that's exactly what they're supposed to be doing. It's not their fault if there's a loop hole. It's up to the GM to close them (between quests).

There is a real danger that the GM looses his teeth if he becomes RPG GM - after all, now the Heros are under his responsibility, so it would be his fault if someone dies, right?

Exactly, it doesn't even make sense.

I pretty much stick to the script(quest book) but I do make adjustments along the way,if the party is rolling good then I will add more monsters to the room or if they are near death I will have them find a heal body scroll in a room but only once they use up their heal spells.

I really wouldn't like that. It means that anything that happens is basically meaningless. If the heroes are struggling then they get stuff to help and if they're doing well then more monsters get added. It means nothing can really happen. Once a quest starts I think it's much better to change NOTHING, apart from errors of course. That's how suspense it built up, by the players (and the GM) not knowing what's going to happen.

Now the party is all geared up with long swords,battle axe and chain mail,helmets and shields,but they are in for a surprise when the rust casting Fimir shows up,that is our next quest. I am not sure if I am going to rust their weapons or their helmets,right now I am leaning more to the helmets to bring down their defense dice rolls.

Changing future quests before they start is different. Ideally the campaign should be finalised before it's started but that could mean they find it far too hard or difficult. With the freedom to write or change the future quests the GM can keep it balanced.

[Goblin-King]

I really wouldn't like that. It means that anything that happens is basically meaningless. If the heroes are struggling then they get stuff to help and if they're doing well then more monsters get added. It means nothing can really happen. Once a quest starts I think it's much better to change NOTHING, apart from errors of course. That's how suspense it built up, by the players (and the GM) not knowing what's going to happen.

This deserves to be said again!

[chaoticprime]

The Dungeon Master isn't a referee. He's not playing to win, he's telling the story. The rules are only there as needed--mostly for when combat gets involved.

As for changing Quests in HQ--its not good to dynamically add extra monsters just to mitigate succeeding heroes. Its great. Only responsibly, however.

[Gold Bearer]

The Dungeon Master isn't a referee. He's not playing to win, he's telling the story. The rules are only there as needed--mostly for when combat gets involved.

As for changing Quests in HQ--its not good to dynamically add extra monsters just to mitigate succeeding heroes. Its great. Only responsibly, however.

Then you're just going through the motions. Why not rule that monsters keep coming until heroes reach a certain BP and then heroes below a certain BP can't be harmed? Why keep track of BP at all? Why not just put the board away and read them a story?

Or set up a challenging but achievable objective from the start and try everything in your power to stop them from succeeding so that the players actually feel a sense of danger and achievement.