Quote from: CRKrueger;884993Said every losing general, ever.

Not every losing general. A lot of losers didn't get second chances.

Quote from: Doughdee222;884992Sometimes though losing can be so very annoying, particularly when it's not your fault.

20 years ago I was at a convention and played a miniatures game, crusaders vs. Muslims in the Mideast. The battle lines clashed, it was give-and-take but my side was ahead. Suddenly, the GM called for morale checks. In one turn due to a domino effect a series of bad dice rolls caused my line to crumble and we lost. It was a fast game so we played a second round. My side was decisively ahead, we had the enemy's flank surrounded. Once again came morale checks. Once again bad dice rolls caused a domino effect and we lost. Most of the game was alright. But even the GM admitted there was something wrong with the morale rules. We should not have lost twice like that.

Friggin' annoying.

In gaming, we always called that FBD: Fucked By the Dice.

Cascading morale failures are an atrocity when they happen to your side and friggin' hilarious when they happen to the enemy.

Dice shit happens.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;885020Cascading morale failures are an atrocity when they happen to your side and friggin' hilarious when they happen to the enemy.

Dice shit happens.

In real life too...

More often than not, Alexander the Great was outnumbered, however won using superior tactics.

Boudica Lost even though she outnumbered the Romans 5-1.

See also: This is Sparta! or how to defeat a million man army with just three hundred Spartan warriors by inducing repeated morale check failures.

By the time they had to face another 10,000 Greek warriors united, the million man Persian army of Xerxes simply evaporated.

Someone explain to the guy who was born in the 80's what exactly a D&D Tournament entails?

Is it to see who gets furthest in the Tomb of Horrors? Something like that? Are you timed? Are their points awarded? Do you face other players directly?

And how the hell do you account for differences in Dungeon Masters for this?

Quote from: Orphan81;885030Someone explain to the guy who was born in the 80's what exactly a D&D Tournament entails?

You gather at a table with 6 players - maybe strangers, maybe friends, maybe a mix. The strongest competitors usually hung out together and entered as a team. Good players get a reputation at cons pretty fast so other good players invite them to their tables.

Depending on the size of the tourney, there may be a few other tables or many other tables playing the same adventure at the same time.

The setup for Tourneys was generally this:
1) You have 4 hours to finish (or get as far as possible).
2) Each adventure gave points for various objectives.
3) Some adventures gave roleplaying points.
4) The tables with the most points got promoted to the next round.
5) Tourneys can be 1 or more rounds, sometimes each round would be connected in a storyline, sometimes unrelated.
6) The table which scores the most points in the final round gets prizes.
7) Back in the day, TSR provides some nice swag. Over the years, I got several box sets as prizes for running tourneys.

Quote from: Orphan81;885030And how the hell do you account for differences in Dungeon Masters for this?

Ah, you nailed the big problem!

A well written tourney gave the DM explicit instructions to try to homogenize how rulings were made during the tourney. For instance, there would not be wandering monsters. Instead, if the PCs took no precautions to hide their presence (a list of options was provided), then 30 minutes into the adventure, they would be ambushed.

A good tourney author could make this work because the PCs are all pregens, so the author knows what each PC's gear and spells would be.

But, the behavior of individual DMs? Oy vey.

In theory, all GMs for the event gather, run the event once together, bang out any problems, chitchat out any issues, and support each other to make sure we're all on the same page.

In practice, you do the best you can with who volunteers. Sometimes, that means GMs who suck ass and fuck up the entire experience. The key here is to listen to player feedback, kick out bad GMs, and fix up points from tables who had bad GMs.

In later years, I took over running tourneys solo. I would run 3 rounds of the same adventure and the team who got the most points would get the goodies. There was almost always a waiting list to get a spot. Some RPGers enjoy the competitive aspect of "beating the dungeon"

Quote from: Spinachcat;885032You gather at a table with 6 players - maybe strangers, maybe friends, maybe a mix. The strongest competitors usually hung out together and entered as a team. Good players get a reputation at cons pretty fast so other good players invite them to their tables.

Depending on the size of the tourney, there may be a few other tables or many other tables playing the same adventure at the same time.

The setup for Tourneys was generally this:
1) You have 4 hours to finish (or get as far as possible).
2) Each adventure gave points for various objectives.
3) Some adventures gave roleplaying points.
4) The tables with the most points got promoted to the next round.
5) Tourneys can be 1 or more rounds, sometimes each round would be connected in a storyline, sometimes unrelated.
6) The table which scores the most points in the final round gets prizes.
7) Back in the day, TSR provides some nice swag. Over the years, I got several box sets as prizes for running tourneys.




Ah, you nailed the big problem!

A well written tourney gave the DM explicit instructions to try to homogenize how rulings were made during the tourney. For instance, there would not be wandering monsters. Instead, if the PCs took no precautions to hide their presence (a list of options was provided), then 30 minutes into the adventure, they would be ambushed.

A good tourney author could make this work because the PCs are all pregens, so the author knows what each PC's gear and spells would be.

But, the behavior of individual DMs? Oy vey.

In theory, all GMs for the event gather, run the event once together, bang out any problems, chitchat out any issues, and support each other to make sure we're all on the same page.

In practice, you do the best you can with who volunteers. Sometimes, that means GMs who suck ass and fuck up the entire experience. The key here is to listen to player feedback, kick out bad GMs, and fix up points from tables who had bad GMs.

In later years, I took over running tourneys solo. I would run 3 rounds of the same adventure and the team who got the most points would get the goodies. There was almost always a waiting list to get a spot. Some RPGers enjoy the competitive aspect of "beating the dungeon"

Fascinating really. Sounds like fun. I don't see why Tourney events at a con couldn't coexist with non-competitive play at home or at cons as well.

I can understand it most likely being a financial issue now. Putting out Tourney modules and coming up with prizes and all isn't as economically feasible these days I'm guessing.

One I participated in at GenCon felt more like a standard adventure. Im not even sure if there was scoring or a winner? I think someone scored a prize. A module? But I have no idea what the criteria was. Everyone got a mini though. Still have mine.

Quote from: Orphan81;885035Fascinating really. Sounds like fun. I don't see why Tourney events at a con couldn't coexist with non-competitive play at home or at cons as well.

I can understand it most likely being a financial issue now. Putting out Tourney modules and coming up with prizes and all isn't as economically feasible these days I'm guessing.

Theres usually 100 times more standard sessions at cons than tournaments. And most arent competitive. Seems like the majority of the tournament modules were not competitive either. You scored points and had to work as a team.

Some of the early tournament modules I was shown looked like they were photocopied sheets stapled together. Others looked to be simple print runs. They were and may still be dirt cheap to make vs the attraction aspect they garner. No clue as my exposite to them was very limited.

Came across a funny endgame account of the Tomb from apparent an Origins tournament session. Apparently the PCs dropped the crown on the skull and then tapped it with the death end of the rod. The judges werent sure if that would work and called in a TSR member. Gygax. Who said "Yes. That would destroy him." and thus the villain was done in by his own cleverness.

An approach that didnt occur to us as we never knew the crown was trapped other than being stuck on till touched.

Quote from: Omega;885049Apparently the PCs dropped the crown on the skull and then tapped it with the death end of the rod.

Guess that answers this comment about low-level characters beating the module:

Quote from: Exploderwizard;884601The tomb? Quite possibly.

Acererak?  If he practiced hard every day?  No.

Incidentally, I actually have in actual play (home brew adventure) used a cursed crown against the big bad evil guy. If our party was unfortunate enough to find out what happens when you tap the crown with the silver knob of the scepter, I don't doubt for a second that using the crown as a weapon would have been the very first thing that crossed my mind.

Our solution was more round-about.

We made it to the skull and one of the still pretty intact fighters decided hed smash the skull before it had a chance to awaken!

The DM didnt even get to finish saying "the skull starts to rise up" and I had yelled out "Wall of Iron between us and IT!!!" That covered most of us. But said fighter was out in the open and got his soul sucked out. Ranger was next. Guess magic arrows werent enough.

Daffy though got the idea from watching that of fighting fire with fire. The skull had gems that couldnt be broken by normal weapons. But we had the hardest ammo on the planet. So he popped out from behind the wall and pelted Acerak in the face with a diamond. Then darted back before the skull did its scan thing and eventually settled again.

This in turn gave me the idea. Id packed Tensors Floating Disk for things like moving bodies or treasure. But now me and Daffy hit on a plan. He boinked it again with another diamond and this time I settled the disc under the skull.
Sure enough it settled down onto the disc. We still had the Efreet with is and I asked him to make us a tunnel from here to the entrance. And we marched the thing all the way back to a certain green devil portal. You can probably guess where this is going right?

Thus having re-disposed of the monster... Exit our heroes... back to the treasure room to loot it all!

I wonder how a Tarrasque would succeed against the Tomb, providing someone would lure the beast inside of those ghastly corridors. Now, I realize the size mismatch and similar obstacles, but heck, I'd love to see that. :pundit:

The Tomb was not that big of a deal when I ran it a decade ago or whenever.  The players thought it was kind of easy, given that they had as much time as necessary to slowly inch their way through it.  Many an animal from a bag of tricks met its demise, but no PC died (though they did just flee Acerak instead of staying to fight).  

I do not think the Tomb deserves its reputation as a killer dungeon.

Quote from: Omega;884576A lowly level 6 character has a chance of beating the Tomb.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;884601The tomb? Quite possibly.

Acererak?  If he practiced hard every day?  No.

Well, he'd just have to get really really good at Joust, which is more a player skill than a character skill tied to level, right?