A game where every NPC acts as realistic as possible and will respond.plot to their very best ability...

A game where every NPC acts as realistic as possible and will respond.plot to their very best ability. Even bandits will have clevery hidden pitfall traps, scouts, ambushes, maybe even a bandit leader Wizard with a familiar that will track party everywhere. If the enemy sees a PC dressed as a Wizard, you can be sure archers are targeting that fucker first. A game where if a PC sounds suspicious or makes mistakes all consequences will be thrown at them without any kids glove on, i.e Red Wedding. No saving graces whatsoever; of the party happens to run in to the BBEG early on he will annihilate them all and party wipe. Nobles are perfectly willing to fuck you over with plots if you try to get in to political intrigue or they decide you are becoming a threat and maybe too powerful.

Have you played a game like this, and has there ever been one that goes well? The main problem being of course is that party members always fuck up and they will mess up somewhere even if they are playing their best and intelligently. And of course, not all players can deal with the idea of failing and dying.

>players
>intelligent

I'm in a campaign that I believe is like this, though we're only one (very short) session into the main campaign.

The GM has made it clear that your actions do have consequences. There were two other players who got kicked before I joined for various reasons.

In game however, their characters made stupid decisions in their solo session 0s with the GM (RPing out various backstory scenes and how they got to the starting point of the main campaign) and it bit them in the ass. I don't know too many details but they thought that since they were in the main campaign already they were invincible in their backstory and ended up making very powerful enemies. This worked out well when they ended up getting kicked from the campaign because there was an excuse to have them get killed off in the story.

>BBEG

Ugh.

Playing every character as wildly competent gets boring after a while, not least because you're walking on eggshells the entire time trying to account for every single scenario at all times.

Sometimes, a nigga's just dumb, and that's okay.

All too often "everyone acts realistically" makes everyone act extremely unrealistically, and just conspire to fuck the party over.

I vary the competence of enemies.

Is EVERY group of bandits going to be crafty rogues that turn the hunters into the hunted? Or are they just shitass yokels who decided they would rather swing steel at men rather then the other?

An enemy that is familiar with the party would probably have their general roles scouted. If the rogue sneaks off to shoot arrows at people every fight, the guy in the back raises his staff to throw a fireball and the dwarf runs in to fight shit every time then it wouldn't be very hard. If they fight the same group twice and survivors escape the first encounter then they should absolutely have a trap ready that preys on character specific weaknesses.

An especially wary opponent might even comment or act on the suspicion that anyone in party not visibly armed or armored is a VIP.

The general trope of "bad guys who do their own dirty work are oafs, bad guys who send those guys to do the dirty work are masterminds" tends to work out in real life as well as the tabletop. Obviously there can be subversions but most creatures are not terribly bright and the ones that actively try to fight PCs tend to be on the lower end of the scale.

What the fuck kind of DM lets someone make stupid decisions in a solo session 0? The entire point of doing that is to avoid literally everything else you described.

Everyone being competent is extremely unrealistic, for starters.

To be fair, I really don't know any of the details. It could have been that they made powerful enemies as a part of their backstory and the GM just used that as an explanation of how their character died when the player was kicked. As an example with my character, she's on the run from her family under an assumed identity so if I ever had to leave the campaign the GM could use the excuse that my character's family found her and took her back home or something.

It is, in principle, called Tucker's Kobolds. Play the monsters and enemies intelligently (or at least as much as their INT scores allow), rather than as somehow knowing they're disposable. Have them play to their strengths and the party's weaknesses. Give them the competence and ingenuity that actual people have shown throughout history.

I always play my NPCs like this.

>And of course, not all players can deal with the idea of failing and dying.

THAT is something that I file in my trusty mental cabinet under "that is neither my fault nor my problem."

>Play the monsters and enemies intelligently (or at least as much as their INT scores allow), rather than as somehow knowing they're disposable.

Agreed. I don't expect a group of bandits to keep attacking a group of adventures after seeing one of their own get cleaved in half by a paladin. No amount of loot is worth death, they'd have better luck robbing defenseless peasants.

>Have you played a game like this, and has there ever been one that goes well? The main problem being of course is that party members always fuck up and they will mess up somewhere even if they are playing their best and intelligently. And of course, not all players can deal with the idea of failing and dying.
See, the big problem with your grand idea of actions and consequences is that the PCs are blind and deaf and relying on Braille passages to decipher the world around them, while everyone else is treating them like they can see and hear perfectly.

Tucker's Kobolds is a dungeon specifically built to fuck players that happened to have kobolds running around behind the scenes. It's like giving goblins power armor and using it as an example of how tough goblins can really be.

My last D&D campaign followed a similar approach to what you propose. It's a difficult tone to GM, but if you remember and follow three general rules you'll do fine.

#1: You are not the players' adversary. If traps and ambushes would raise the CR of the encounter too high, compensate somehow. Give them fewer encounters before they rest and recover. Let them have consumable items or better equipment to even up the odds. Don't throw them into deadly fight after deadly fight and expect them not to get sick of your bullshit.

#2: The player characters are awesome. They're capable, powerful individuals and doubly so at anything they specialize in. Those archers targeting the Wizard are going to get roasted by the Fireball headed their way. When they make a mistake it'll hurt, but they're tough enough to take a beating and keep kicking ass. Treat them like the heroes they are. Learn how to say yes when you'd otherwise shut an idea down unless it's totally insane or impossible.

#3: Your NPCs have weaknesses. Those bandits have set up a log trap and the barbarian can swing it into them with devastating results. That noble looking to fuck over the party has his share of skeletons and secrets they can find and exploit. The villain who can wipe the party needs an artifact, or has to overcome an ancient binding ritual, or has some other restriction that stops him from killing everyone immediately. Every challenge has some way to overcome it more easily or to circumvent it for a time until they're strong enough (or prepared enough) to finally face it.

Every campaign I run is like this to at least some extent. I have to try really really hard to come up with plausible reasons not to kill my parties. What ends up happening is most of my campaigns last a few months until everyone is either dead, we had scheduling issues, or we decided we found a new shinny. That being said me and my gaming group is atypical and we tend to like shit like dark souls.

I am inclined to agree with .
I am all for having intelligent opponents, who will work around player strategies, think smart, and know when to cut and run if things go badly. But Tucker's Kobolds aren't that. Tucker's Kobolds are literally "I want to fuck over these players" The original post about TK's reads very, very much like "And then the players did something I hadn't planned on, so I added an exact counter to what they're doing", rather then a well thought out dungeon.

Especially considering that said kobolds are acting well above what their baseline INTs should allow. Kobolds are little retarded cavemen, not master dungeon builders.

It's not just the INT score, you have plenty of other things that go into tactical acumen. Way back, I had a lair full of bugbears set out for my players, I forget exactly why they were fighting the bugbears, but it doesn't really matter when you're just looking at the tactical concern.

Bugbears average in at 10 int, same as humans. They have a leader who is probably a little smarter than average, and as a result, they set up some (relatively basic) network of traps, small scale fortifications across access points in the cave network, other prepared defenses.

When the players go in, they run into the defenses, start fighting, make a lot of noise, and some of the bugbears go running over to the fight, even though it was a better idea (and they were ordered) to stay and man their own defenses while sending signals back to the "headquarters". Because even smartish creatures that are chaotic evil on average, and have a property ownership system of "Take what you loot", will often break discipline in battle to engage in behavior that will benefit them (or so they think) at the expense of the lair as a whole.

High INT characters can still do stupid things, especially if they're presented with a set of incentives that rewards irrational behavior.

>BBEG

Bleh.

We get it, you don't need to samefag just like you do with the guild threads.

...

NPCs being realistic and intelligent doesn't mean everyone will do everything they could to fuck up the PCs. They'll have their own motivations and may end up working with or against the PCs. In a setting of, say, court intrigue a group of adventurers could be either an opportunity or a threat. Even if they're more of the latter then the reaction will be to use just enough resources to mitigate the threat to an acceptable level, not staking everything you've gained and built in your life on destroying them utterly.

Realistic intelligent enemies will be open to negotiation, and will run away from a losing battle rather than fight to the last man.

In such a game the "BBEG" is more likely to be a man great authority/wealth/connections than some demigod that eats adventurers for breakfast. It's even entirely possible the party interacts with him on a regular basis - while plotting his downfall.

I would like to point out that this massively exacerbates balance issues.

Your GM is a piece of shit, does he really kick players when they die in game? he seems like a power faggot, I don't mind a campaign as OP suggested, in fact I prefer it, but with this type death is a given so players can assume other characters, it actually makes more sense since all NPCs are involved in the plot so people can join and help the party.

The issue with playing like this is that the GM is effectively omnipotent and omniscient in terms of the game, and there's a very narrow line between "Enemies are competent" and "Enemies have the perfect counter to your shit because I say so".

Any time I tell stories of competent NPCs who know what they're doing, I'm called a faggot because Veeky Forums needs their power fantasies.

No it doesn't. Using all your options is to be expected.

No, he killed the characters after the players were kicked or left for unrelated reasons.

The number of competent people in the world is so far from what you have described in your post that it would make the hypothesized game less realistic then the actual magic makes it.

>A game where every NPC acts as realistic as possible
So everyone takes levels in wizard if they don't take levels in cleric or druid

>Even bandits will have clevery hidden pitfall traps, scouts, ambushes, maybe even a bandit leader Wizard with a familiar that will track party everywhere
You mean, shadows, as intelligent intangible undead bastards who reproduce by killing people will genocide the entire land by murdering entire villages in the night and then swarming towns and cities

Sounds great.

>No saving graces whatsoever; of the party happens to run in to the BBEG early on he will annihilate them all and party wipe.

But why is everyone diametrically opposed to the protagonists? Surely you'd have battles where the protagonists are fucking up a battle against the BBEG, and then suddenly 200 arrows fly out of nowhere and skewer the fucker because the noble who hired the heroes is smart and knew the best time to launch a sneak attack with 50 expert rangers trained in gorrilla warfare would be when he's attacking the heroes?

>and has there ever been one that goes well?
No
Players don't like playing against intelligent enemies. 90% of the time they don't even notice when enemies act like MMO mobs and fight to the death for no reason.
Also there is the problem of DM playing NPCs as "intelligent" when they are actually just metagaming.
Then there is the ever present problem of NPCs can only ever be as intelligent as the DM is. A 1000 year old being with 30 INT, how the fuck is the DM supposed to roleplay that properly?

By acting retroactively

But that falls under the metagaming problem

The DM cannot metagame, he IS the game.

>realistic as possible
>Every bandit is a tactical genius
>bandits are all hardened criminals and Killers instead of broke ass farmers and miscreants
>bandits will track and harass the party for their limited wealth instead of breaking and running from anything approaching a stand-up fight

>A 1000 year old being with 30 INT, how the fuck is the DM supposed to roleplay that properly?
By playing the "just as planned" cliché to the fullest, or steal from other resources.

IMO I think that putting a genius in the campaign is basically death sentence, anybody who's smart enough will hire an army then engineer the perfect trap by sending assassins, messing with the party's food and equipment, wait when they're in the worst shape and place then hit them with the army, and probably nuking them with spells and set everything on fire just to make sure.
Either that or use time magic to kill them before they were born.

>mfw I close my eyes
>mfw when my party drags me under
>mfw my legs are tired
>mfw I am beyond redemption

Yes it fucking does, it means that doing anything less than optimally puts your party at risk. That includes class choice.

I often promise myself to try to be at least partially like that, but I always end up going easy on my players, at least in campaigns. I mean, it's not much fun if they die on first session