>Players are leading an army.
>They enter a forest. Even after I warned them.
>The forest is full of swamps, monsters and barbarians who worship demons.
>The players know this.
Should i show mercy or not? I think about a not!Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
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>Be adventurer
>Have a fucking army
>"Don't go to this forest, it's dangerous"
Bitch, "dangerous" is my job.
>2 sessions later
What fucking battle? Shieet nigga, leading an army into a swampy forests is a poor tactical choice at best and a fucking suicide at worst, monsters or not.
Men tire easily, bugs crawl underneath your clothes, carts either stuck or moving at the snails pace, provisions goes bad fast because fuck, everything is wet and dump in this place all day everyday. Making bonfires is a fucking nighmare, because there's hardly any wood suitable for It and most of the time It's also fucking wet. A party of adventures could get themselves a nice bonfire. Good luck with warming up a fucking army.
Seiously, think about those poor motherfcukers. They are going to be so mad.
Oh shit, this tree fell down a few months back and blocked this beck right here so now we have to wade in this newly made lakelet and somehow transport of our wheeled shit on the side.
And THEN you have barbarians and monsters, turning this shit into Jurassic Park. A guy went to take a piss? Alone? Oh. Bad choice.
>forest is full of swamps
is it really a forest then?
Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is, Don't push their shit in. Let them suffer slowly. Whatever is going to be left out of that army, once It gets out, is going to be fucking decimated next battle, unless they get a suitable time of getting back into shape.
And why would the locals fight them in an open battle? Just kite the army with occasional volleys of arrows each night and sic monsters on them.
Seriously, It's that bad of a choice. It's a choice so bad, a fucking no name lieutenant should be begging your PCs to reconsider
>Even after I warned them.
Are you sure you adequately explained the risks?
I dunno. On the one hand, punishing players for their stupidity is a long and storied tradition, and I feel like if the players are leading an army, they should have to deal with the problems that such a role brings with it.
On the other hand, passive-aggressive punishment like suggests leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. I dunno, OP. If you really have warned them already, then I guess you should punish them? It's hard to say without having heard your warning myself.
I agree with this guy.
Have a no name lieutenant in the army explain with details why it's a very bad decision that will get the army killed. Don't play it like they're incompetent, don't play the lieutenant like an antagonist, but like a guy that want to follow the leaders but just doesn't want to die a slow and painful death in a fucking swamp.
If after that they keep going, slow and painful death it is.
Show the fuckers the of Viet on Earth.
this
but if the players come up with some harebrained scheme to minimize the damage, like sending a group of magic-type soldiers ahead of the rest to drain the swamp and dry the ground before the army walks through it, at least give it a chance to work, or help a little, if it seems plausible
punishing players for doing what you didn't want them to do = public masturbation
showing players real, serious problems and asking them to find a solution = TTRPG
As long as you have clear and fair mechanics to adjudicate how an army would be worn down by environmental factors and hunger over time alongside fair mechanics to adjudicate hit and run tactics then just run it by the rules and see what happens. The players will be at a disadvantage but might pull through.
However if you've arbitrarily decided the players are going to lose because they didn't heed the warning of 'dangerous place is dangerous' in a game where the literal goal is to 'go to dangerous places with dangerous things in them for profit ' then your game sounds pretty railroaded and not fun to play.
Being in a forest doesn't mean automatic defeat (using your example of teutoburg, Romans came back after a few years and won). Just have some fair system to use, like said, otherwise as a player I'd feel quite bad
Unless you have some genius idea of how to traverse a forest you never do it with an army. Even in the real world. In fantasy all the problems are multiplied many times due to forests being much more dangerous.
That swamp that normally would have just drowned some guys and slowed army march to a crawl? There is a cabal of hags in it that are going to throw some magic your way and will try to snatch some soldiers for sacrifices at night.
That deep crease in the land that is normally just an untraversable terrain? There some monstrosity with more teeth than any creature has any right to have sleeping there. And your soldiers were too loud.
That big tree? It's an ent and one of your soldiers just pissed on his leg.
And so on.
Players enter the forest. Ten years go by. Players emerge from it. Maybe even on the other side.
I like this idea. They can handle all the combat encounters handily, but they slowly lose a chunk of their force to disease and desertion.
If they're smart enough to run the numbers, they can decide if it's worth whatever tactical advantage they hope to gain. If they can still do what they need to do at 60% of their starting strength, then maybe it's worth it.
>While you were off slaying the monster that ambushed your scout, ten more men succumbed to swamp fever, and at least fifty deserted with rations and supplies. You're moving slowly as men take turns carrying their sick comrades in makeshift gurneys and stop to bury the dead.
I'd err on the side of assuming they made a mistake based on faulty info. Alot of modern people have never been in a really gnarly wild forest without a well marked path.
Best make it a challenge like any other. Give them a way to overcome it: local scouts for hire, an old elven highway runs through it (haunted of course), ther's a an ancient portal in the swamp (gotta kill demon lord first) etc.
Its a plothook like any other
The problem is when players don't perceive a problem. You can either ram your fist down their throat trying to indicate something isn't going to be as simple as they expect or you can, after a point, let them do the stupid and get shit on for it.
At a certain point an idea can be so bad that the plot cannot support the weight of its stupidity.
Just tell them that it's going to be a problem.
>not!Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
Yes. Bueno
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I'll admit that, but it's always a balancing act between reasonable story and will of the players. A "rocks fall, army destroyed"-scenario probably won't make your party very happy.
Have them first slog through it in a way this guy put it Then have the barbarians pull off a series of attacks similar to your battle of Teutoburg plan.
btw, how did you tell them this was a bad idea? Did you do it in game as some sorta tactician NPC who gives them tactical advice or did you say it out of character as a "btw, this is a bad idea guys"?