Trigger Warning: If you looooove D&D 5E, you're probably not going to like this post. I mean, you do you, man. Whatever gets you to the table is great for you. But you're likely not going to like this post.
Events in original version of The Fellowship of the Ring are admittedly different than the movie; in some ways vastly different, in other ways more subtle. The scene in Moria at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm is no exception. The movie, of course, compresses time and does not allow for the same explication that the book provides. Be that as it may, one thing is common: the Fellowship are pursued by orcs. Lots of orcs. In the movie version, they all flee once the Balrog appears, in the book version, they move clear out of the way, but do not flee altogether. They watch, along with the Fellowship, as Gandalf declares his title, gives his command, and seals his own fate.
But the thing I'd like to emphasize here is the sheer number of orcs. I'm sure some enterprising nerd with all kinds of time on their hands has already figured out exactly how many orcs appear in the movie scene. Hundreds, to be sure. The book doesn't elaborate, but states that when they begin to fight their way out of the Chamber of Records "how many there were the Company could not count". I'm guessing they weren't stopping to count. Even with the power that the Fellowship represented, with one of the most powerful wizards of Middle-Earth (not even a human - people forget that Gandalf was, essentially, a demi-god), a Ranger of renown (who wants to guess at Aragorn's level as a ranger? 10th? 12th?), a great warrior in Boromir, a heroic dwarf and elf, and a smattering of halflings (they might be bordering on 2nd level at this point . . . mmmmmmaybe); even with all this firepower, what was Gandalf's reaction? "Fly!"
Remember, this was before the Balrog showed up. With so many orcs giving chase (Okay, they had a cave troll and a big chieftain orc - who doesn't even get a mention in the movie), the leader of this very capable group of adventurers felt it best to just get the heck out of there!
Back in 1983 (I only remember because I watched the Twilight Zone movie on HBO at the Recreation Center right before the game I'm about to tell you about), I played a game of Traveller run by an older gentleman whose name I can't remember. He would run games (D&D and Traveller, mostly, though I only got in on a few of his games) for us kids (I was 13 or 14 at the time - most of the others were a year or two younger than me). In this game, I had a character with a leadership skill of 5, which is absolutely ludicrous. I rolled him up openly and honestly using Mercenary, Traveller Book 4. This guy legit had Leadership - 5. Unfortunately, as a 14 year old kid, I did not.
The scenario was a ticket to assist in training and acting as "observers" (read: people who shoot guns at other people for money) on a backwater planet that was trying to establish its hegemony against, you guessed it, the Imperium. We had visions of glory and took a good part of the session planning the tactics and training the group of rebels in how to fight using guerilla tactics, for the most part. My Leadership score gave us some hints as to how to better prosecute our battle plan, though the GM left it mostly up to us to plan and execute the plan.
Things started out great. We took out an APC using, of all things, cow manure (flushing the soldiers out and gunning them down, then taking the APC for our own use). Then, we downed an Air Raft and were able to repair it enough for our use. We had a few successful strikes against the local Imperial garrison, wiping out several platoons of surprised low-ranking Imperial navy personnel.
Then the Imperium got serious. They brought in the Marines in a trio of ships boats from ships that were orbiting the planet. And . . . a meson accelerator.
Oops.
Seeing our trainees being needled like swiss cheese with gauss rifles and watching the meson accelerator disintegrate an entire village (and surrounding environs), we felt it wisest to flee.
But it was too late at that point. We had picked our fight. And the fight picked us. Or, rather, the ravens picked our bones clean. It was an utter disaster.
And I'll never forget it. We were devastated that we had been so callously and easily wiped out by the Imperial Marines. But we were elated to be a part of that story, even if the Imperium's data logs would register perhaps one sentence on the incident. We had made history.
Since that time, I've not been afraid to die in an RPG. I've lost countless characters in a number of different games. I'm kind of proud of those graveyards and even more proud of the few characters who made it through adventuring to live to a ripe old age. Okay, one of them was artificially-aged by a ghost, but that's beside the point.
But I do still get a thrill when my party is outnumbered. Especially when it's *really* outnumbered. These situations can combine the best of hack 'n' slash, puzzle solving (aka: strategy), and roleplaying. Which is more exciting: a group of adventurers ganging up on a big baddie and using their various skills and powers to defeat a single monstrous foe, or having to puzzle out a way to get away when faced with hundreds of little baddies? I can go either way, to be honest. But the prospect of dying at the hands of hundreds of kobolds is, somehow, more terrifying than facing Lolth and knowing you are going to be toast, in all likelihood. I think it boild down to statistics. When my analytical mind boils the situation down, I'm faced with a 5% chance every time one of those little critters attacks that it's going to be a critical hit. And in the games I play (and run), the critical hits tables are absolutely ruthless.
Same with that Traveller game. When it dawned on us that those three long cylinders dropping from the skies were filled with Imperial Marines (using Gauss Guns, no less) and a Meson Accelerator. Well, we knew the jig was up. And yet, being early teens, we fought on. Stupid. Just plain stupid. We should have fled. We might have had a chance to escape. Or at least to be captured by Imperial authorities and be "re-educated," if the local noble was feeling in a generous mood. Being stuck in that situation could have forced into some great roleplaying. Alas, we were young and inexperienced. But we learned from it.
Now, full disclosure: I have not played 5e yet. It's been out how many years? I dunno. Many. I have plenty to keep my plate full between my regular AD&D 2e game, my semi-regular DCC game, and any games I might randomly run once in a while (usually DCC, MCC, Traveller, Delta Green, or Call of Cthulhu). Plus with all the con games I play in (I usually try to get at least one DCC game, one CoC game, one EPT game, one miniatures game, and one game I've never played before) I really have no need to play 5e. Yeah, it's what all the cool kids are doing, but I never was a cool kid, ESPECIALLY when I was young and into gaming, when mentioning that you played D&D was liable to get you taped to a locker room pillar and have the entire football team punch you in the arms - yeah, that happened to me. Tell me all about bullying . . .
Anyway, I haven't played 5e, so shoot me. I have lots of friends who have, and they are still cool people. So I've got nothing against others playing 5e. Whatever makes the hobby grow, I'm cool with it, honestly. But I've learned enough about 5e that I can say that I have intentionally avoided 5e. At last Garycon, I sat down to the table thinking I was playing Mothership, when the GM said "we'll be playing a 5th edition version of this scenario". Thankfully, two other players spoke before I did, saying that they came to this session intentionally to learn Mothership. I'd played Mothership a few times before, and that's what I was looking for, too. So I threw in my 2 cents, as well. The GM graciously switched gears and we played using the Mothership rules. Phew! That was a close one!
My two big problems with 5e, and I'm speaking from a stance of relative ignorance here, I admit are: 1) the fact that you have to try really, really hard to die in 5e, from everything I've heard from people who play the game and 2) Challenge Ratings for monsters facilitate this, more-or-less guaranteeing a "balanced" encounter where the difficulty of defeating the monsters is commensurate with the power of the PC party. This is purely a preference. If you play that way, I'm not knocking you. You do you, man. But as for me and my house, we will face enemies that are well beyond our power to defeat and, usually, we will die.
Now is the part where you type up comments telling me I'm sociopathic (if you've ever met me, you'll now how far from the truth that is) and that I'm a boomer (false: my parents were boomers. I'm as Gen-X as they come and I've got the credentials to prove it). But what I'd really like to know are: have you ever faced overwhelming odds, in terms of sheer numbers, as a player? Or have you thrown impossible odds at your players as a DM? And most importantly, how did you handle it? Has it ever gone horribly wrong (for the players, not for the characters)? And what are some of the best solutions you've seen come out of those situations?
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The Exalted and the Abased by Damian Murphy
