Dungeon Master Inspiration
DMI is a podcast made to share the tricks of the trade of DMs with a wide range of experience levels, from fresh, new DMs to wisened masters of the position.
We focus on exploring topics within the world of DnD that consistently pose problems to DMs, such as developing characters, the use of monsters & NPCs, and combat. You'll hear from a variety of DMs speaking on a plethora of intriguing controversial issues in-depth.
No matter where you are in your DnD journey, we've got something worth listening to.
Dungeon Master Inspiration
Beginning to Unravel the Secrets of Effective Battle Maps
Calling all Dungeon Masters and RPG enthusiasts, today's show is a treat just for you. We're thrilled to have Jay, a seasoned map-maker, join us as we tackle the beautiful complexity of designing battle maps for tabletop role-playing games. Brace yourself for an engaging discussion on the importance of clear paths, adequate cover, and the role of the game's setting in your map design.
We didn't stop there. We ventured into the labyrinth of designing dungeons and combat maps, highlighting the dramatic impact of multiple exits in boss fights and the immersive potential of starting players off the map. Jay also shared his favorite tools for map-making, from dry-erase maps to bespoke programs like Dungeon Alchemist and online platforms like Roll20 and World Engine.
Our conversation took a thrilling turn when we delved into the contentious terrain of traps in Dungeons & Dragons. From managing players who make rash decisions to designing escape routes for those unforeseen events, our lively debate had it all. We agreed on one thing though - the importance of maintaining a balance and ensuring open communication with players. So, grab your dice, pull up a chair, and immerse yourself in our wonderful world of map-making! You're bound to walk away with some game-changing ideas.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. If you are interested in seeing more content like this check out our YouTube! We also post weekly game articles on our Patreon and have an active Discord community.
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Alright, welcome back to our next episode of DMI. Today is gonna be a really, really fun one for me. I absolutely adore designing battle maps, and that's gonna be our topic for today. Today. I've got Jay with me yet again, as per normal. Yeah, I know Sometimes maybe Sometimes, maybe when you have those days you do, battle maps can be really complex, and I think that they're very adaptable for basically every situation. I don't know. I don't like big battle maps, though. Personally.
Speaker 2:So for those big battle maps to me this is one of my. I've seen some people do it, where they, because you get a castle siege or something as a battle map, a one, the normal, what one inch by one inch is five feet, it's like one inch is 30 feet and they do these massive, almost warhammer type combats instead of doing a normal one just because then you can have those big picture fights.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that's a good idea. For every battle map, though, there's gotta be like key staples. So what would be your key staples for every single battle map?
Speaker 2:So, for me, one of the things I always try to include is the path, because for a battle map, there's an intended path for your enemy and for your party to take, whether that be a literal curvy road or anything like that because sometimes you'll have a fight that takes place on a road.
Speaker 2:So you're expecting okay, they're gonna come from this side, the other team's gonna be on this side and here's where they're gonna meet and making sure those inner areas where people are gonna be fighting have a little more a simple complexity as opposed to well, there's 27 bushes in this area where we're all going to be fighting, and kind of leaving these areas where this is where a fight is going to be at and this is where the melee of the fight will be, and leaving that space open enough for your players and for your monsters and little friends to make their way and have their fun in the fight.
Speaker 1:See, for me, I actually really like to include more cover and have less open spaces, because I feel like it creates more cinematic moments, almost and at least when I play with people, everybody's looking for that legless cinematic moment where they can jump off of a cliff and shoot somebody with an arrow.
Speaker 2:Which the big thing is, though. Making sure, especially if you're doing a little less physical, if you only have a grid or something making sure those areas aren't overly complicated to where every turn is gonna be. How far is the nearest enemy from me? Yeah, how Where's the nearest cover? And then you have to keep all of that either already drawn or in mind, while your players are also trying to keep it in mind, and both create this image of the map.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of one of those things. Also, it's like it depends if you are doing an actual physical battle map. If you're not doing a physical battle map, it's probably easier to give less cover and not be like there are 25 around you. That being said, if you're already a pre-drawing the map, just some little squiggles for people to hide behind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you always wanna add something to make sure every ability can be used and make sense to be used, for instance the Rogue's cunning action, for, like hide, I stab him and I just hide right behind him and they can't see me they won't know I'm here. The Rogue should be able to, like, duck behind something, duck under something, and kind of be able to be sneaky without overly complicating it In my mind at least, because if it's too complicated, then it's gonna be too complicated for everyone.
Speaker 1:Well, like there's the Druid spell on I know it's in a couple other spell lists as well, I just know it's in Druid Pass without a trace. It makes no sense to pass without a trace and then you magically walk through an entire just plains and nobody notices you're following them. That doesn't make thematic sense to me, so that's why I always kind of like try to add more cover rather than less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you wanna include it. It's just a you don't wanna overcrowd is the big thing, and it can be easy, especially if you have an area where, as they say in like movies, the death pit where everyone's gonna die. You don't want that space to be full of stuff, but you want it to feel not empty. It's a weird middle ground too.
Speaker 1:Now to kind of keep that death pit from happening, where literally everyone dies there. If you're gonna have cliffs and whatnot, personally I think you have to have more cover. If you're gonna have like cliffs and hard terrain that people are gonna have to climb Cause otherwise you go to climate and you've already taken six shots as you're trying to climb it, If you don't make that first climb, you're done, it's over, no questions asked.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'm just making sure. It also is going to be highly dependent on what type of area you're in. If you're on the road to the big city and you get jumped by bandits, it's probably gonna be pretty empty there. Might there'll be some cover to the sides, but in that main space there's gonna be emptiness and that's where, like, your fighter's gonna probably end up being.
Speaker 1:And even if you can like consider like, for example, the D&D movie that battlefield scene that they showed was really great. That being said, it was very reminiscent of like a World War II battle scene where there were trenches and whatnot and there's gonna be death zones in that like regardless. But if you're fighting in just like a little village or a bandit out camp, that's a very different story and you need to add a lot more cover, because no bandit camp or no village is going to just have no places to hide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially if you're in like a village or camp. Your camps are gonna be organized but they aren't going to be clean. So you have these clear pathways on your maps, but by a pathway there's gonna be a little booth. You know, maybe it's where they have a shop or it's a bandit camp where the you know weird old guy with the ladle of soup is to hand out all the soup and you can duck behind those and use those as cover as well.
Speaker 1:And if you're gonna like fight in a little village, I mean somebody's grandma's got a rose bush that your players can duck behind. And I think that that is a great image in my head because if they fail that stealth role against the old person, I can just imagine like one of those scenes of get off my lot as they're trying to survive Just in the middle of an actual fight.
Speaker 1:I can imagine that that could be really amusing, but there's so many ways to include cover. I think that cover, though, is incredibly important to remember, because if you don't give enough, your party just gets TPK'd and with a bunch of abilities, like in some feats.
Speaker 2:I that are, I'm, they're still around a little bit, at least where it's you ignore Half cover, the three quarters cover. By not including cover it's then making those feats actively useless. And something I like to add that can add some cover and Kind of change the battlefield a little bit as multiple heights on your map where, oh you're, especially if you're in like a tap, like a building.
Speaker 2:It's not going to be a one floor building, no upper areas necessarily. It could be even if but if it's like a dungeon or anything like that there can be upper levels where you can have something standing there. Your party can get up there and use it as a like vantage point and making it a little more engaging for them as well.
Speaker 1:That's kind of an interesting point, because it leads into Something I wanted to talk about, which is, when you have multiple, when you have those indoor combats, should there be multiple entrance ways? Should there be ways for your Characters to escape in case something goes wrong, or do you just have them walk into a death room where there's one way in and one way out and if it gets blocked they're screwed?
Speaker 2:inside. It's for me at least, it's very Particular on what they're going into. If you're going into like, say like, because this is an campaign, I've been watching a church of some kind where the you know evil emperors being crowned or the evil king is having a wedding with some random person, I don't know. There's probably going to be one or two entrances or they're all going to be in the same area and by using those entrances and you want to either leave them open or lock them, depending on where this is in your story, because if it's your big final fight, you don't want your party to run away and the party isn't going to want to run away.
Speaker 2:So by making it so now they can't, it makes the battle map feel more Confining, which can add to that suspense for everyone.
Speaker 1:And I think with with final boss fights, definitely those situations where they only need one exit.
Speaker 1:That's very true for me, unless it's like a really small village. I tend to try to include as like a staple and this is just like my own Funny brain math I include three ways out from every situation. So like, let's say, they're fighting in a tavern, there's three ways out of the tavern there's the front entrance, then there's the one where you have to go through the kitchen and then there's the one that's like back through the pantry and then through the wine cellar and then through this, that and the other, so that my players don't, if they have to run away, they're not trapped, but also they don't just have like three in one room. Because I feel like, if I think about real buildings and I'm trying to add that immersion Most places don't have just one exit. Usually they have a couple, just in case of a fire or something, and I know that's not as historically accurate, but I feel like, especially with what we grew up with, it makes it feel more real because it's more like what we know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's when designing buildings, especially if you're designing like a dungeon. This is an issue I have with a lot of dungeons Is they don't make sense based on how buildings work. If you ever walk into a building, right, there's going to be a hallway and every room is going to be connected to that hallway. That's just how buildings function normally Given. If you're making a dungeon to protect something, that's not how it's going to work. But if you're a bad guy's living in a dungeon, it should be functioning similarly to a house, and that doesn't mean there's not going to be layers, but it should be very traversable to where an entrance can't be blocked fully as Far as like oh well, you can cut through this space and cut back around and get out.
Speaker 1:So I think dungeons are something where I I would say that their own Beast almost oh yeah they're very much their own special thing, because there should be multiple ways out of a dungeon.
Speaker 1:There should also be like dungeons are almost this thing to me where they're, they should be treated like they're a maze Basically, and you can get lost in them really easily. But the deeper you go, the less chances for escape you have, the more you're stuck in, crammed into those, because it should become become more like a death pit the deeper that you go.
Speaker 2:And for what I try to do. For if I'm designing a dungeon is I try to make it like Like someone whose house you've never been in and that's just super weirdly to set up. So it's a little confusing, a little like chaotic to you because you don't know what it's set up as, but it makes still functions and makes sense to somebody who's looking at a house, especially if it's like the bad guys castle. There's going to be these chambers that are down paths and down offshoots, but there's going to be that central area where a lot of it comes together and you might have to go through a little bit to get to that space.
Speaker 1:So when I design a dungeon, I think of the old German Castles, where there may be four doors on every room leading into a different room, but if you go too far in, you're getting lost, regardless of how well you think you knew your path. Um, and that's how I build dungeons is I want there to be a ton of choices, and those choices eventually you'll be like was I here before?
Speaker 2:Where am?
Speaker 1:I and unless you're really paying attention to the map, I want to confuse my players even in real life, looking and being like it's basically a maze for me. Um, but I I do want to move kind of away from dungeons because, honestly, I don't know about you. But I think we could talk for a whole hour just on dungeon theory.
Speaker 2:Dungeon theory is fun, we should make a series and this is uh, as of this recording being like claim what's ours now called dungeon theory Matpat can't steal it, we're taking it and we're making a dungeon podcast.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, okay, but yeah, no, um, with dungeons, they're always super insured. With dungeons, they're always super interesting because of the fact that they are so different from other battle maps. Now do you I personally like to start my party off of the map and then have them walk onto the map for, like, combat settings, unless, like, obviously, it's a tavern brawl or something. But, like, let's say, my party, I like to have encounters where it's like they're going to the village to help the village from Goblin raids so they walk in as the raid is happening rather than being there. I, I like that aesthetic and that's how I would do a majority of my Combat, because it gives a bigger picture when they're walking into it and there's a little more mystery. That being said, like things happen sometimes, combat maps are meant to be like in the moment, but, like, personally, I like to have my players walk in. What are, kind of, your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:so for for those, for being able to walk in, that's a very easy way to like, especially if you're starting a mission, set of missions, is to have them walk into it and just approach the combat, not necessarily knowing there's a combat there. But another really nice way to do it is if you can almost Trap your not literally trap, but like trap the party as like an idea, in a spot where there's going to be an encounter. So then instead of just oh, we're on the start, on this edge of the map and walk in, everyone's already in the middle, and then stuff can be happening around, especially with something complex. Then you can see, oh well, over here there's the town guard fighting off you know the bad guys, but there's another detachment coming in from behind them going for them, and then it lets the players both be walking in and be in the middle of it without kind of feeling like either is happening and there's so many different ways to to draw battle maps.
Speaker 1:I know before the episode you really wanted me to Mention hex maps, but I hex max are superior, especially as a DM. Yeah, I have actually never used hex maps. I almost exclusively used tile maps and that's because of a lot of the resources that I have over the years Accumulated for map making.
Speaker 2:They're all swear, so a lot of them are square, which, like I get why it's like the classic. It looks the most D&D. But for me, using those hexes makes it feel a lot nicer for everyone. Because now for, if you're going out of angle right, it's five, then 15 and five, like five, ten, five, ten or so. Every two blocks you're moving 15 feet, which is not how the world works Realistically. So it allows then that map to feel more Alive, because you're not. We'll have to move forward to and then left to, and then it's I can move towards the enemy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for me, I just let people move kind of diagonally regardless. That's kind of one of those moments where I'm like, eh, it's okay, it is what it is. I've just never used hex maps because, like even me, when I had a Dry erase map, it was a square one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you kind of have to look for the hexes if you want to do hex maps, but as somebody who's being makes maps for it, it's so much easier. You don't have to have the little a, the little like a unit measurement circles, triangles for your cones. You can be okay, it goes 30 feet, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, 25, 30, 30 connect them.
Speaker 1:That's fair. No, I definitely understand that, and there's so many different ways to make maps now. It's so much nicer. We're not in the days where your only option is a dry erase map, and that's kind of exciting.
Speaker 2:I've seen a couple of them and I personally I know you brought over to my apartment one day tiles for map building so those tiles are also like the dry and race and and tiles are nice if you are building out like a space, like an interior space, because then you him, instead of having to draw your walls on the map and be like, well, this is the inside, that's the outside. There's just no outside Because you place, let's say, you have your central chamber, you have your tile in the middle at your central chamber and you can build off-hallways.
Speaker 2:All that's really going to matter that much is that central area, and you can then use a space outside still, but it gives a very Definite image of what this like out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that that's something that I'm very excited to be able to play with, so I'm glad that you brought them over so that I can mess around with them and see what I can make out of it. I also ended up getting a program called dungeon alchemist, which is Very convenient. It's so nice because if I forget to play in the battle map, it's done in five minutes.
Speaker 2:But it unfortunately. This is the one thing I hate about dungeon alchemist it doesn't support hex maps.
Speaker 1:No, it doesn't support hex maps and I will say my real, only complaint with it and I enjoy this and if the people who make it listen to this, please label more clearly what type of paper prints on, and just like right printer paper, because I really struggled to figure out which one it was just like standard. Yeah, cuz there's like they put in there like 22 different types of paper. I'm like, but what? What kind of paper is my printer paper and like we'd like Google search it.
Speaker 2:I'm like, really, what's the standard paper size which, given like super minor, like oh Well, we had to spend 30 seconds Google searching something, but Just like put in parentheses standard printer paper.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be so nice, but realistically it is a really nice tool because everything you can change the objects in the room too, which is really nice, and I like it for um I For online campaigns, because you can literally make an infinitely sized map and just have a gigantic battle map. I just haven't found a good way to print one yet, which is a challenge that I'm running into myself.
Speaker 2:You can almost have to go somewhere special to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's no like supported like frames for it, so it's like it would be a very weird game of like. I could do it like I used to printing from staples on a giant poster and that would probably work. But there are other options for online campaigns other than just dungeon alchemist. I know you've used roll 20 a bit. I don't personally like roll 20, so I'm not super educated on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, roll 20 is how we got through COVID. We just played on there instead, which is pretty nice because you can just kind of draw. It's essentially a fancy dryer, a sport with the text chat, so you can roll and do all that. You can build character sheets and all the preset character sheets, so it's just basically a sandbox for D&D or any tabletop game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just know that it like I didn't really like the user interface personally. That being said, I've heard really good things. I also know for their premium version. It's a paid subscription.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can. I have yet to pay for the subscription. If one person has it really only one person needs it and if you have a group of four or five people and you're playing online because you know nowadays who cares about where you are anymore you might have somebody out in like Florida, someone in India, something like that, you know, and you can just all jump on everyone. Venmo's, one at one person, five bucks or whatever. I don't remember what the pricing is, a couple bucks. You have one account it's the DM account and just have that basic level of. I don't go into your campaigns, you don't go into my campaigns on the DM account.
Speaker 1:That's fair and like. I know there's other ones for for using maps, like there's one that I found for lore. That's a it's called like world engine or something. I really like world engine because I can just take my, my premade Electronic maps and just port them in there and I can just use little tiles for everybody. But I just I don't know roll 20. When I first tried to use it, you had to do coding to do some of the backgrounds and some of the tiles and stuff in the HTML, and I was like this was a long time ago, mind you, and I was like nope, I'm not doing it. I've never revisited it since like.
Speaker 2:Sometimes roll 20 can be at least. This is like a couple years old now, but you used to be able to like Because you can import pictures for your backgrounds. So you can use your dungeon alchemist, make a background and put it on there.
Speaker 2:It also supports whatever type of grid you want, so you can use those hex grids and be real good, but it lets you, and then it has a system to align them as well. I don't remember the exact way to get to it, but you essentially can draw a square on your map as to what the tiles are on the map, and then it'll line it up.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. That is really cool. I might have to go and play with that myself. That being said, there is one that is like Itching at me, and I was. I haven't shown this to you yet because it's. It's something I found on my Instagram a couple of days ago. There is now a printable subscription when you pay for the subscription and it's just unlimited access to 3d printable models and then, if you have a 3d printer, you can print houses and whatnot, and it's just literally, it's the tiles, and then you just click them together.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've seen those ones.
Speaker 1:I really want to get a 3d printer just for that now. That way I can get one of the normal. Have you seen like the just the blank hex or the blank x maps that are just like solid ground? Roll that over out over a huge table and then use these printed models to snap together and create the dungeons physically.
Speaker 2:You can also another, somewhere you can like input your stuff In, like they have a preach. They have a system I don't remember what it's called up top of my head, but where you can then have them print out like chunks of buildings. So then you can have a module house. Yeah so you can use it for your taverns or houses, your castles, whatever, and Then you just have it and you can just click it together. It's a 3d model, the full thing.
Speaker 1:That's what I want to get one of these principle subscriptions. But before I do that I have to get a 3d printer. My friend who has one has told me that it is the single best thing for D&D on the planet. I can either confirm or deny this yet, but it will eventually be an avenue that I take, because I would do really want to get into those like click together maps, and I looked at the old way of doing it where you carve it out of foam, and that is a very good method if you have the patience.
Speaker 2:I do not have said patience and that, like coordination, sometimes will just end up slightly wrong. And Even if this is with anything, when you're modeling, you as the person who's making it is gonna look at it every time, see that it was slightly wrong. It's going to bother you, but if you can like chill with that, then more power to you. I can't personally know would bother me with forever.
Speaker 1:I love all the people who have done it that way and I have so much respect for them. But, man, I mean I've seen a fully built castle out of like hand sculpted foam that they stacked three layers high. I don't know how that thing stayed together Probably like dowels yeah, going through I. Respect the, the craft that some people have for their battle maps, but I do want to get into those like 3d battle maps where you can take them apart and you can snap them together.
Speaker 2:This is from a recent Like this is throwing some like attention to them dimension 20 campaigns where they had a I'm not gonna say what was, but they had a map where they Sat it down on the table. Then it reached over, lifted the top half off and showed what the actual map was that's really cool.
Speaker 1:Yet that's the kind of stuff that I want to get into. I just know that it has a big price curve on it and it has a lot of technical skills that I will need to learn for that, but it is. It is a really cool idea for those looking for things to do for a map. That being said, nobody's ever gonna complain about hand drawn maps. Hand drawn maps are a staple and I wish more people did them.
Speaker 2:And if someone's getting actively upset over your hand-drawn maps, you're not the problem. They're complaining about you trying to be nice.
Speaker 1:Now I will say I've actually tried a couple of different papers. I don't know if you have. Have you seen the papers that are meant for like journaling and whatnot, where it's just dots instead of lines? I love that for making maps, so much more than even graph paper.
Speaker 2:I think you can probably somewhere online or there's like printablepapercom and stuff. I don't know if that's the actual website, but if you look at printable paper, you can probably find something that will just print one by one grid on a piece of paper and you can just print, like you know, a bunch of those. All of this is paper and ink.
Speaker 1:At one point I had an obsession with making like the 3D maps, where it was like a two layer map but you could like it looked like an actual 3D room. Yeah, those dot papers way easier to use than the 3D graph paper. I don't know if you've ever played with that stuff, but that stuff is annoying to play with. There's so so much in battle maps and there are so many great ways to make them that people don't expect, but there's always that one staple of every battle map. And I want to really say and I want to kind of introduce an episode we're going to do later down the line with traps how sparing should traps really be? And my answer is kind of controversial to that question, so I'd like to hear yours first.
Speaker 2:If you're thinking traps as in, like the tripwire, it goes off arrow shoot Only in like dungeons that are intended for it. There's a little asterisk there If you're out in the woods somewhere, someone might have to make a dex check to not get smacked in the face by a bird, like something like that, you know, because things are going to change. Oh, there's this giant fight going on. An animal might jump out of its burrow and run and you know your fighter it might not just trying to get away from it.
Speaker 2:hit something and you can have something a little more interesting. Won't be as like you take 1d6 of damage. It'll be like, oh, you take a point of emotional damage because you just kicked a beaver.
Speaker 1:I will say personally, my answer for how sparingly traps should be used is all the flippin' time as much as you can, any time where you have an excuse to put in a random trap. If your group is falling behind bandits, there will most likely encounter at least one pitfall that those bandits have dug if they've been there for a while. That is how I like D&D. I like my players to have to have that constant stress every time that they're trying to hunt a bandit group of. Oh my God, where are the?
Speaker 2:spikes, which I know this is just like a keep in mind is the passive perception skill with. If you're doing traps everywhere, anywhere in the world. It's just so that you can see okay, my players have a passive perception of like 13, 14. Is this a well-hidden trap or not? If it's like if you're running, you're gonna miss it trap, you can call something to be like as you're walking, like roll like a luck check or something, and be like, okay, you've doesn't matter what the roll is.
Speaker 2:it's just to kind of give it all. It's re-excuse, be like oh well, while you're walking you notice a couple weird things. I'm like oh, there's like just a lot of leaves there.
Speaker 1:So I have I mean slight rule for you no meta gaming. With this knowledge. There will always be like a black or a red outline somewhere on my map, and that is usually a trap, and how I decide the DC or the passive perception of whether or not you notice it is the intelligence of the monster that set the trap. So if it's a goblin that has an intelligence of eight, as long as your passive perception is above eight, you'll see it. But if it's like, for example, a mind flare with a intelligence of 15, it's gonna be a little bit harder.
Speaker 2:You do just want to make sure your players don't feel like you're saying, screw, you get trapped on, because then it's like why do I, why am I coming? We're walking through a random forest and suddenly, out of nowhere, I fall into a pit of spikes. When they give them something, give them like a dex check, make sure they have a chance to avoid the trap.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. I'm just saying like for the, for the. If you see it, it's just based off of wisdom versus intelligence, your wisdom versus their intelligence. Now, if you step on the trap, there's always going to be a saving throw. I hate abilities where, just Right off the rip, your hit no questions asked. That sucks.
Speaker 2:That makes it just unfun, makes it a little boring, makes it it makes it so it feels like the DM versus players, as opposed to the DM and the players telling a story, which For some cases doing the DM versus players can be fun, especially doing like a monster campaign, like a fight night or something. But in general, if you don't want to have that adversarial dynamic for most campaigns Between the DM and the players and if it's gonna be a super deadly campaign, let your players know before you start so that way somebody who's like I'm gonna put a ton of time into my character and I'm gonna make them super interesting in their character I care about the doesn't then immediately die and like go, my character is dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for me that comes down to the fact of, like, if you're going into a bandit camp and they've been held up there for months, there's probably gonna be three traps, but you're gonna be able to come in from any single side. So it's, it is a little bit luck-based, but on top of that, I Always build an intended escape route for my players. I don't like combats where there's no way to get out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a super common thing with combats, where it's either they die or we die, and that's how the combat ends, which I think we talked about this earlier already about when should your enemies retreat, and sometimes you're like wolves If they're getting beaten up by the party, are gonna be like nope, I'm out of here.
Speaker 2:This is now I'm not here for anymore and just book it and give your players that opportunity to. Don't make it, so your players are stuck. Don't make it. So there's a hundred wolves around them and then ten of them come and to fight you and Then, if those ten lose, the rest go be believe and what.
Speaker 1:What I specifically mean when I say build an escape route. There should always be a route for your players to escape, some way to get out. Now, if there is a pit with 20 wolves in it and you have a player who chooses to jump into the pit, that Is not a situation where that player needs an escape route.
Speaker 2:Sometimes this is a thing with any, in any situation. Sometimes someone's gonna be stupid, and if they're stupid they should feel stupid for, and Usually when someone's stupid, I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt. They're trying to be stupid. Oh, I'm gonna jump. I'm gonna jump the guy with a like Giant great sword. I'm a level 2 monk. The guy with the giant great sort of might kill them or at least beat them up and take some of their money and and when you're building your battle maps.
Speaker 1:Obviously you don't want to plan for somebody to be stupid, but you still want to give away that if something happens wrong, like, for example, in one of dimension 20's campaigns. They had a Campaign where they started calling themselves the band of twos because they just kept rolling twos, and in that situation there needs to be a way to run away, and sometimes this is like.
Speaker 2:I've watched a lot of the dimension 20 stuff so I'm gonna reference it a couple times, and one of there's it's a crown of candy there's a intentional fight when this was a game of thrones style campaign, so play your death was Probable. There was a fight in which it was intended for only two of them to survive and Everyone had a backup character. Everyone knew the characters might die, but by having but, the DM Brennan made sure there was a way for them to get out and only and the only one of them, like, ends up dying. And it still hurts the whole party that the one person dies, but they can still escape this Super dangerous fight. That's supposed to feel like a somebody is pulling the Like lever over on the trap door you're standing on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in those situations it can be a lot of fun. You just have to be really careful with your planning. But that is all that we do have for this week. If you did enjoy this, check out our other social medias, including YouTube, where we post exclusive content, and be prepared for next week when we get back here with Intelligent Creatures, which should be a lot of fun.