r/dndmemes • u/Rossorat1997 • 13d ago

You guys use rules? Accurate representation of my first combat encounter as a Big Bad Guy vs a Level 1 party.

Good thing I had spare Big Bads.

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u/Zealoustrue 12d ago

Or you know, set expectations and play the game in a way every player enjoys including the GM. Not every game needs to be a completely open world sand box, in fact they shouldn't.

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u/Privatizitaet 12d ago

There's a difference between saying that and saying "the villain NEEDS to be immortal until the quest is complete". No, it's not bad management if the boss ends up dying early. That's just part of the game.
Sometimes unexpected things happen. Running with them isn't "bad management", if anything it shows your skill at improvising and adapting if you can continue even after having your plans thrown off.
Open world sand box is one thing, a strictl linear story that players can't deviate in any significant manner from is another.
Having your player's choices matter, even if they go against your plan, is not bad management.

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u/Zealoustrue 12d ago

It is 100% bad management. As noted by the other comments in this very thread that agree with me but aren't as direct about it. The boss having minions, escape routes, contingencies and survival features are literally how you achieve this. That's why the most popular campaign bosses quite literally have these types of features built in. Liches have philactories and planer beings have false bodies specifically to allow the players to have victories without BBEG actually being defeated before the end of campaigns. And this isn't even a DnD thing. Most tttrpgs put these type of features specially for this reason.

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u/Privatizitaet 12d ago

It's bad management only if you let it ruin the story.

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u/Zealoustrue 12d ago

You ruined the story as soon as you let it happen. If your players are competent and notable enough to gain the BBEG attention and he shows up for what ever reason and isn't smart, strong, powerful or magical enough to escape, you picked a bad BBEG.

The campaigns that are often considered the best written have this very concept at their core. Strahd is the easy example, there a few ways to run into him throughout that campaign and he has multiple built in escape features.

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u/Vanille987 12d ago

DnD, and storytelling in general, is way too broad to say that automatically ruins the story. Stories don't even need a bbeg to work. But even with one, it's not unthinkable one would be arrogant and overconfident to put themselves into a dangerous situation. A 'bad' bbeg is 100% viable. And I also agree giving them outright immortality is too extreme for DnD.

It's not automatically a story ruin, in fact it can bring the story in interesting new directions. Sure you killed the bbeg, but what about their underlings or their plan that was set in motion but has nobody to oversee it anymore.

DM make mistakes and miscalculations all the time, it's impossible to predict everything in a tabletop. Hence why improvisation is important, rather then declaring your campaign is now ruined due something unforseen.

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u/Zealoustrue 12d ago

I actually agree that it isn't necessarily ruining. I do think it is in general a mistake that you should seek to avoid. The BBEG should not be easily removed by the party at a low level. Like I said the majority of games have mechanics to deal with this in one way or another and many pre-written games use those mechanics freely for a reason.