>Stand-in keeps warning that she is powerful and that she might be useful to us later.
>Dwarf1 & Dwarf3 step inside the hut
>Steps on runed floors which was something the bard saw with his perception roll, but still didn't warn them because he thought they'll be fine
>all 3 dwarves failed their saves and are trapped in place
>Witch gives them final warning to get out or become snails for her stew
>Elf frees 1 dwarf. Orc stays outside gathering mushrooms, said freed dwarf tries to throw spear at witch, mentions action-surge for some reason despite the failed roll and using a turn to get out of the bind.
>fuckit.png
>witch turns him and another dwarf to a snail after another constitution saving throw failure and then disappears with the rest of her equipment, leaving an unmarked purple bottle behind. About a bit bigger than a test-tube small Erlenmeyer-flask.
>"[DM] the difficulty of this campaign is unfair. How are you supposed to fight a boss that will one-shot you instantly regardless of rolls?"
>"Yeah [DM], what the fuck? This isn't fun."

They never figured out that the purple bottle is supposed to reverse the snail transformation by pouring it over the snail. but instead the orc said he's willing to drink it to check if it's poison.
Half-Orc doesn't feel any different. I was close to saying that because he's not a snail, it gives him some internal damage and he needed to drink one of the many potions in their inventory.
The bottle is half empty and that's where we left off. I am tempted to say either "It has enough potency to reverse one of you back to your dwarven form." or "Half is not potent enough unless you drown them in it. Both of you make new characters."
What did I do wrong? Or is it just murderhobos being murderhobos?
(2/2)

>>97912030
>>97912033
It's hard to say what went wrong without hearing the players' perspective on this, and obviously sitting down with your players and asking them just what the fuck were they thinking should be your next course of action. It doesn't sound like you did anything wrong, but it sounds like maybe your players were expeting a more linear experience where they're, you know, supposed to go to places they encounter as they encounter them. Were this players enw to RPGs, maybe ones with more experience with vidya? In a situation like that, Í might just broken immersion, talked to the players OOC and asked just what were they hoping to achieve with all that.

>>97912030
The heroes went in to fight the evil snailing witch. Thats what they thought. Imagine it from their perspective:
>evil witch makes people snails and eats them
>We have to defeat said witch as we are heroes
>GM guides us to witch place, and the poor villager is terrified of her.
>Let us kill her (as retardedly as possible, we are dnd players after all)
Are they dumb as bricks? Yes.
Is this their first time facing an enemy they cant stomp? Probably.
Are they murder-hobos? Adventurers are by nature.
Did you do wrong? No but also yes.

There was clearly a misunderstanding, after which you should have switched your plan around. However, you are also a player in your game, so your party should also try to understand.

Its no-ones fault, go to next session and make the witch make them do a task for her so that she makes them unsnailed

>>97912057
Their overarching goal was to kill the lord of the dead/lich, who has engineered a plague to corrupt and kill the town. Straight up warcraft 3 inspired. The band wanted weapons and gear to go straight to the lich. The mayor said he'd reward them over time by doing quests that actually had an impact. They helped clear a guard tower of plague rats and cultists and got benefits from it. The said the throne wanted to try curing the plague and sent an experienced apothecary (stand-in) go to the forest with them to find mushrooms and other herbs of life. In the forest, besides the witch who will be relevant later on as either a deuteragonist or secondary antagonist depending on the decisions they make in that forest.

The real combat was an undead assassin squad trying to kill the apothecary, but now I have to bring it down because their 2 dwarves are snails.

But fair point, I should have probably asked if they're used to linear or vidya.
>>97912057
>>97912072

>>97912033
OK, for a start - don't penalise any attempts to discover what the potion does. Give them skill/attribute rolls, and on success they find out and fail they think "Hmm, that's probably not right." Don't let them use up their only dose of the potion.
Making them guess exactly what you thought up for the potion and using it up if they guess wrong is not a good puzzle.

Past that, maybe have a chat with them about what kind of game this is. Do you do "boss monsters" or should threats be evaluated more like real life (i.e. some things you should avoid or flee from). How will the PCs be able to assess peril? They need a good honest way to do it, otherwise they can't fight what needs to be fought or flee what needs to be fled.

It sounds like your fault. You map out the world, so why did you put the mushrooms directly outside of the witch-who-is-not-important-till-later's hut?

>>97912030
>>97912033
Did you try actually asking them rather than us? "Why did you think you were strong enough?"

>>97912033
>>They never figured out that the purple bottle is supposed to reverse the snail transformation by pouring it over the snail
Was there any way to figure that out beyond reading your mind?

>>97912088
>>97912165
>Half-Orc doesn't feel any different.
I should have been specific and said BECAUSE he's not a snail, he doesn't feel any different. That one I admit is my fault.
Honestly the witch is a "boss" for their level, but they fought off cultists and rats just fine. Yesterday, when being the stand-in I said:
"It's best not to disturb or cross her. Although she has not attacked us directly, nor ransom our safety, be it best for us not to cross her. I have no need to be a shelled dish for her like the many that disturbed her."

also before the witch encounter.
D2: Why didn't his majesty get rid of her then?
SI: We're here for ingredients. Let's keep her in a good mood.
D1: If she's kept in that hut, and [Tax-collector who was key when the plot started] was turned to a snail, I want what she has for myself.
SI: Please don't, I need all of you and [HO]'s help in gathering the ingredients and protection.

>>97912151
They sure as hell didn't want to attack the guards despite them saying don't cause trouble for the apothecary.

>>97912163
They gave 2 complaints:
1. Why did I instigate a TPK without warning?
2. Why did I put a boss they cannot kill (They then started talking about the warden in minecraft for some reason)

The original plan was that depending if they bring the bbeg's also evil daughter to the witch, she'd give them a special spell or gear each, since it was a oneshot. None of them are evil but 1 is chaotic neutral when they told me their campaign characters, so I prepared the other option to bring her to the mayor/clergy for town rep, blessings and good gear to prepare for fighting the bbeg.

I know this doesn't detract from the overall point but Bards are absolutely casters in 5e OP.

>>97912433
>They gave 2 complaints:
That's not what I asked. Did you ask them questions yourself, or sit there mutely like a retard? Did you actually try to learn from them why their expectations did not match yours? Because it sounds like you're annoyed that they didn't read your mind and now you've come here to ask us to read theirs for you.

>>97912489
Tell that to him. Unfortunately he didn't use it that much, correctly. I can try to nudge him to be more of an offensive character instead of support who only sticks to bonus/free action.
Maybe nudge him to use/learn dissonant whispers instead of just mockery or inspiration. As I type this I remembered he had fucking dispell magic homebrewed in to work when he saw the runes. Why the fuck didn't he do that?

>>97912496
I did ask ooc "[D1], you know you don't need to attack the witch. [HE] freed you and you can go.[SI] needs you back."

I already did write that my mistake was not asking them beforehand how experienced they were in this ttrpgs in general. They were familiar with WHF/AoS since they told me before the campaign that they liked the idea I pitched in where you fight rats and cultists.

As for "reading my mind" thing there's definitely a miscommunication there in my part. Things were a lot smoother-ish in previous sessions.

I'll take the advice though for the next session that the HO gets hints that the potion can be used to reverse the snail transformation. It's a shame none of them are druids who can wildshape.
Nor to a Haung, but I just want to prevent something dumb like this from happening again.

>>97912554
No, what you need to ask is "guys, what were you expecting to haopen exsctly' or better yet, before they start the dangerous encounter "how do you expect this will go?". People have expectations on their heads and get baffled when they aren't meet.

>>97912554
>I did ask
And how did they respond? The point isn't that you need to tell them how to play properly, but you need to understand how and why their expectations fail to match yours.
>I'll take the advice though for the next session that the HO gets hints
Never hint unless you're prepared for them to be missed or ignored. What happens if the orc doesn't get it? Are you going to sit there giving out more clues until he does? Make them play snails until it clicks? Have them make new characters, then wonder what to do once they do work it out?

>>97912030
Bad DM, try hard next time. Also things that never happened for 500, Alex. Maybe recruiting three autistic spergs who are playing dwarf stereotypes as their entire character was a bad idea.

>>97912030
You are getting a serious beating in these replies, dont take it to heart, this is a game, you cant be a perfect GM, this is all hindsight

If this thread is any indication of your capabilities at conveying information, yeah, it was your fault.

>>97912730
Lets be honest, OP came here to ask "players didn't act nor react as expected to a challenge that end up being above their heads" and everyone is telling the OP that if he wants to understand why their players act illogically the only way is to ask what their logic at that moment was.
Is a communication issue, from OP expecting that hints will be taken as clear information, to the players expecting that every challenge in front of them will result in success.

The DM controls 99% of everything, and can also control the 1% that the players can control too thanks to Rule 0, so yeah, it is the DM's fault for whatever happens in a D&D campaign.

>>97912730
>this is a game
D&D isn't.

>>97912955
Even if you don't like it, it is.

>>97912033
>>"[DM] the difficulty of this campaign is unfair. How are you supposed to fight a boss that will one-shot you instantly regardless of rolls?"
>>"Yeah [DM], what the fuck? This isn't fun."
This was your cue to ask "what made you think this was a 'boss' that you were supposed to fight?"
Plenty of players come into DnD with the idea that every enemy is someone they should fight straight up. This is your opportunity to teach them that isn't the case.

We had a new player join my group last year and in the first session we came up against some weird lizard people. When we couldn't immediately communicate with them the new players instinct was to draw his weapon and charge. The rest of us players all gave him a quick "dude, wtf?" ooc and asked if immediately charging into combat really made sense given our characters' culture, the risk of dying if combat breaks out and the complete lack of violence shown by the strange creatures so far. The new player took a moment to reevaluate his actions before getting really into trying to come up with ways to communicate with the lizardy cunts. Sometimes people just need a reminder that violence isn't always the answer. You obviously tried to do that with the NPCs reminder and that didn't cut through, hopefully rolling up new characters will though.

Don't feel the need to change the campaign to work around the players mistakes. That just cheapens things and saps future decisions of any sense of drama because they'll know you'll bail them out. Death should always be a potential consequence for acting like an idiot.

>>97913085
The challenge to guessing how the DM will fuck you over isn't a consistent rule structure, and isn't based on player skill or luck.
Not a game.

The challenge to sitting through DM script reading and retard voices isn't based on player skill or luck.
Not a game.

The challenge that the DM can either change AC or spell saves of targets whenever he wants or increases them before an encounter based on the party's attributes isn't based on player skill or luck.
Not a game.

Anons telling you to ask bluntly and directly your players have a right idea.
Even if they're being silly, a mishap like this can be avoided with proper communication.

>>97913122
Nothing on that post has anything to do with D&D and its rules or this thread in general.