Dungeon Master: Impossible Situations

I don't think I've played with a Dungeon Master that didn't at least consider putting their party up against an impossible to win situation. However, the large degree in variance I have seen got me thinking about the difficulties of doing so. In books, movies and video games we often see final blazes of glory and valiant last stands. Naturally, it makes sense that we would try to replicate such situations. However, as with all things, there are effective ways and ineffective ways to create such a situation.

Do I Really Want to Do This?

From my experience, if you are asking this question you probably should not put your players in an impossible situation. From my experience, it usually doesn't go smoothly from a role-playing game perspective. One of the most memorable campaigns I played in had an impossible situation in our very last session so it is possible to run effectively. However, I feel that if you are going to try to run an impossible situation you should be confident before trying to run it and fix elements you have doubts about. It doesn't guarantee success but from my experience things don't go smoothly if you aren't happy with the high level outline.

What Is an Impossible Situation?

Defining and being aware of what makes the situation impossible is extremely important. Even if the players immediate goal is not possible (the players are out matched and can't fight their way to the person they were trying to assassinate) the players should still have options. Sometimes the only option that makes sense is to run away. Sometimes they might be able to accomplish their goal through more clever means than an upfront assault.

Generally I define an impossible situation to be one where the players cannot accomplish something. In such a situation, for the short term it is perfectly fine for the players' goals to change to survival if needed. In this kind of situation they will not be able to save the princess, kill all of the bad guys and live to tell the tale but that is fine. The important part is that the chances of the situation going completely the players' way is very small so the best they can hope for is to avoid a complete loss.

The players should still have something to achieve. If they do not, the Dungeon Master is basically killing their party the long way around. The situation should be desperate but still have a purpose, even if it is for the players to escape the ambush with their lives. If there is nothing left to achieve, the Dungeon Master is just taking the long way to slaughter their party.

Context

When looking at any element of a role-playing game session it is extremely important to consider the context and the tone of the adventure that is taking place. If for the last 4 months the players have always put into situation where they can reasonably win (maybe by the slightest of hairs) and they never ran away, retreat may not even cross the players' minds. Not everyone likes tragedies and not every situation should be an “impossible situation”.

This kind of situation also shouldn't feel cheap or forced. It should make sense based on the decisions the players made, the decisions the non-player characters made and the world the Dungeon Master built. In the situation I mentioned earlier from my playing experience, my group was told from level 1 that we will probably not survive and our chances of succeeding on our quest were slightly better. We succeeded in the end, but we did not survive.

Conclusion

I hope that this discussion helps the get the creative juices flowing for running these kinds of impossible situations. They are not easy to run but they can still be used to great effect. Please feel free to share similar situations.

Examples

Sealing Hell

Due to failure on the part of the players, a demon army threatens to destroy the entire realm. The players must journey to hell and destroy the [Insert Thing Here] in order to close the demons' method of attack (most likely a portal).

If the players are a level 20 party and have only one spell-caster, they may need to use their one and only 9^th level spell to enter hell (either going through the demons' method of attack will be even worse odds or the portal is one way). Acting in this case would put the players in an impossible position. However, they still have options. They can fail or die as heroes. They can also make their way to hell and try to have smaller section of the party deliver the finishing blow on the item as well as hold back the horde for other members of the party to get away. They may also decide that such an approach is too risky and that they should all die together trying to close the portal.

Two Objectives but not Enough Resources

There are two generals that are opposing the army the players are a part of. They have the resources to stage an assassination attempt lead by the players. However, there is only enough resources for one operation and within a week the enemy will attack. Removing both would make the situation far easier for the players but instead they must decide on the best way to weaken their enemy. This is kind of an edge case since I can see it being an impossible situation (we are forcing the players to choose) or simply a more limiting situation.

The City Will Fall

The players have been helping in the defence of a city for a long stretch of time now. They know that sooner or later that the city will fall but are trying to do their best to weaken the enemy, hold for a little longer and are looking for a way to escape and fight another day (hopefully it goes better that time).