Run From Darth Vader -  D&D Expertise Episode 7
Channel: DiceCold
Date: 2022-01-31

How do you create a game where the players feel genuinely threatened and tense? An adversary needs more than just a lot of hitpoints, they need the ability to add stakes. Darth Vader is a great example of someone who will absolutely ruin your day, a force of nature rather than an enemy combatant, and if you see him you'd better start running if you want to survive.

Music is "Revealed" by Ketsa, courtesy of Freemusicarchive.org

The content of this video is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)



Video transcript:

Hi, I’m Casey Grey - Eldritch dabbler, and this is D&D Expertise - Episode 7.

You know what’s scary? Climate change. Including that in you game might be too dark though, so instead let’s think back to that time Darth Vader murdered a hallway full of people at the end of Rogue One. He was an unstoppable monster that annihilated every obstacle in his path. 

If you’ve finished the game Jedi: Fallen Order I’m betting you remember his appearance there too. My experience was coming out of the cutscene and seeing him standing across from me, the same way I had faced off against previous bosses. He had just casually tossed my companion to their doom and this was the Dark Souls of lightsaber games so I imagined this would be a challenging fight, but he was not there to be the final bossfight. His power was on another level completely and to spoil the ending, you win by barely escaping him with your life. Darth Vader doesn’t duel, he lays waste.

This brings us to one of the hardest things to pull off in D&D, convincing players to retreat. I might be the world's greatest game master, because that’s not a legally protected term, but even I struggle to resolve an encounter where the players don’t triumph in combat. Mostly I don’t try to, since playing a character who gets to kick some ass is fun, but every so often you want to establish a threat the players can’t take on and beat, at least not yet. 

When fighting an enemy they reach and harm the task is nearly impossible. If it bleeds they will try to kill it, and they can call your bluff when you threaten a TPK because they know as well as you do that doing so kills the campaign itself and isn’t usually much fun.

They’re right, I hate killing player-characters, but their choices can still cost them dearly. A favorite NPC doesn’t enjoy the same meta-game protections of being a main character, especially if their demise lets them come back as an undead thrall playing for the other team. Make a few things clear: what you are threatening, your willingness to pull the trigger, and the choice they are presented with that lets them decide whether or not to opt in to that consequence. If they do, if they choose not to run, they know what the potential costs are for doing so. They might pull it off and defend the keep with some brilliant strategy and luck that deserves to be rewarded, but if they don’t then the princess they’re all so fond of is going to pay the price. 

With that said, do give them a path to rescue her from the mental control of the lich who raises the team’s slaughtered ally as her necromantic lieutenant against the party. A narrative needs ups and downs, the highs don’t mean anything without lows to contrast against, but at the end of the day we’re here to have fun.