So You Accidentally Built a TPK: Balancing at the Table

My Wild Beyond the Witchlight game has taken a turn into the Abyss - it’s a long story. Which has resulted in Mad Max-style vehicle construction, combat and soon a race! It was on the way to the grand event that I had planned a potential vehicle combat encounter to test the semi-homebrew SW5e conversion which I was using.

The only problem was, by the start of round two I knew I had made a mistake, overtuning the encounter to where the parties newly cobbled-together vehicle, lovingly named Stacey, was in trouble. This situation, I think, raises an interesting question: Should I begin to step down the challenge, and if so, how should I do this and to what level of subtlety? Or does difficulty which oversteps the intended circumstance become the new reality of the game?

When to Avoid Balance

For tabletop roleplaying games and the purposes of this discussion good balance doesn’t always need to mean an equal challenge; encounters can be what they are presented to be in context of the fiction and for the fun of the game. If we have a set of powerful level 9 heroes walking down a road and a group of hapless robbers jump out and attempt to rob them, the balance of this encounter should be heavilly in favour of our heros. Similarly, if our heros disturb an ancient dragon, its power and ferocity should be representing, overriding concerns about balancing the encounter for a fair fight.

When Encounters Need Balance

But what about that final battle? Or the climactic encounter with the beast in the woods after spending a session hunting it down. There are many cases where trying to land a balanced encounter will be the best for the fun of the table. Not only is a difficult fight fun, it allows players to try out their characters that they have built and push their abilities to the limit. Some systems demand these kinds of encounters for certain more sacrificial or chance-based abilities to be impactful.

The thing about encounters, of any type, is that they are for most game masters designed and then played out with little or no testing. Sometimes they are even created on the fly during the session. This means that even with encounter preparation, one of the more essential steps for balance and fun can’t really be done in a table setting like you might a published adventure or video game. What makes tabletop games so great though is that they are live, and the designer (the game master) is there at the table and has ways of adjusting or signposting (more about that later) to the players depending on in world situation or intent.

When Encounters Are Too Deadly

What matters here is intention and in-world definition, if the gamemaster realises that the intention and importantly the player understanding of the world has not been met in an encounter (where it should have in the fiction) and the fun of the table is falling, some intervention might be needed. I would not use these ideas if the encounter is difficult or deadly and is understood to be this way, or the players accidently walked into the situation due to some poor decision making. Death of a PC should be a real threat (for tables which want that), but where I might do some intervention is when the player character deaths or failure may result due to some bad design or encounter construction on my part and would feel as such.

Next I'll talk about a few ideas for how to tweak an encounter on the fly without overtly changing the defined abilities/mechanics or the known narrative.

Let it Ride!

The first way to handle a balancing issue is to simply let the encounter continue. This is often a better idea when the combat overtuning isnt so overraught that the players are feeling like you have put them in an unwinnable position or the fun is falling away at the table. For many games letting a perhapse unbalanced encounter for the situation but playout can result in unexpected and interesting decisions, revealing some real player creativity.

It can often also be a good idea to take a moment to relook at the game state. There can be players who have not used their “big” abilities or are setting up for a combat defining move. Pulling back the difficulty in response to a precieved strong inbalanace and design mistake too early can rob a player of these moments. While this is not exactly a strategy for handling the encounters with a true balance problem, taking a light hand with adjustments is important.

Give More Information to the Table

Giving more information to the table and ensuring that everyone is on the same page about the game state can be a useful technique when combat is going sideways. I will often take a moment at the top of the round if things are looking a bit down for our heros to atleast summarise what is happening on the field. Information in many Tabletop roleplaying games are often very valuable and help players make meaningful choices which can tip the balance in their favour.

Some of the information I may share at the top of a round might be:

• Highlight problems within the encounter, draw attention to the different threats and give a brief summary at the top of the round. This can both be dramatic and help remind players of key issues they are facing after a long round.
• If the players have potentially lost sight of combat goals, gently resummarise what they are trying to do (get the maguffin, rescue X or kill Y). This is especially useful if they have gotten cought up killing a monster which is really inconsiquential.
• It can be easy for players over long rounds to lose understanding of the overall health and status effect picture in a game. You can highlight if the whole party is looking injured and the enemies are looking strong. This ofcourse depends on how much you share at the table about health points.

Avoid telling the players what to do, ultimately giving this information should be to empower them to make more exciting and impactful decisions not making the choice for them.

Retune

There has been times when I have created creatures, mechanics or abilities which I realise when running the encounter are just too strong: "maybe 6d10 damage is too much damage". If I do decide to make some tweaks on the fly I do this with a light touch and try and contextualise the changes in the story or mechanics of the game. Don't change elements already known by the players.

Instead any changes should be in the mechanics and abilities which has not been presented to the players yet. This will depend on the system, for Dungeons and Dragons for example a few options might be to:

• On the second round make this ability rechargable on a 6 or 5-6 (D6). This doesnt remove the threat but gives an element of chance to it and reduces the use.
• Give the players a way to mitigate the deadly ability, describe how perhapse there is an environmental component which could be nullified or make known a weakness which can be exploited to reduce the damage/effect.
• Describe to the players before the creatures turn how it is preparing to do the ability and who or what it will be targetting. This might give the players enough time and infromation to try and setup to avoid it.

Other less mechanical options might be to:

• Introduce new aspects into the environment or narrative. Perhapse reinforcements arrive for the players or a catapult launches a stone against the wall nearby weakening it and if it is damaged by a player it will rain rocks down onto some enemies.
• Remove yet to be introduced monsters or an even more powerful yet to be used out of wack ability from the encounter. If combat is already incredibly difficult to the point of a dragging slog, removing the next wave might be a good idea.
• Lean into the rule of cool! Players can be very creative when their character is looking like they are going to die, it creates very memerable moments so allow these ideas to flow.

Have a light hand and a slow reaction time with retuning and personally I try to avoid it in favor of the other methods above. Player characters in many systems are well equipped and very good at getting out of bad situations. You dont want to rob that moment from them from them. Clever problem solving and fun ideas can come out of these situations.

But What about Failure?

Failure in tabletop rpg’s can be tempting to avoid but failure doesn't have to mean the end. When planning an encounter or even during the session when the chips are down and everything is going sideways take a moment to think about what failure will look like. Does it mean death, does it need to? Why not capture, or, do the enemies even care enough about the characters to kill them, just get what they came for and leave the player characters to their fate on the ground.

Sometimes failure and down beats in the game can be great for the right table. Not shying away from consiquences will keep things exciting and unexpected. Perhapse that cultist ritual will succeed, what will happen then? The world state has changed and now something new and unexpected for the whole table has been introduced. How the player characters fight to survive another day can depend on the circumstance or even for creative tables be left open for the players to describe.

All this to say that it is important to identify when to react and make tweaks to perhapse overtuned encounters and when to let things flow and be comfortable with where it will lead. However if things are slowing or you have truly made a bit of a mistake putting 4d10 damage on that monster statblock there are things you can tweak and keep the game flowing smoothly.