A closer look at small decisions

In the aftermath of last night's session, Sean and I got into a good conversation about how seemingly small decisions by the player characters can have a profound affect on the outcome of the game. A few examples:

• Audric's decision to charge in at the outset of the encounter felt questionable, and even by Sean's admission (given his intent at the time), it was. But while Audric put himself at substantial personal risk by taking on six of the creatures at once while thwarting the missile attacks of his allies on his side of the battlefield, a key positive result from this was that it kept the creatures from reaching Zeb and Selben, who used the borrowed time to fire off multiple spells at their enemies in the ensuing rounds. If Audric doesn't close this ground and all the fish-creatures converge, the culminating melee begins much earlier, possibly to a disastrous end for the party.

• Zargon leveraged the grace of Tymora (goddess of luck, for the uninitiated) to roll several natural 20s (not to mention other high attack rolls) throughout the encounter. But, had the party not thought to explore the riverbank where the bandits' boat was overturned and specifically to question me about the presence of weapons left behind from their cargo, Zargon would still have been dealing damage with his dagger (1d4 melee, 4 points on a natural 20) vs. a longsword (1d8 melee, 8 points on a natural 20). In hindsight, this seemingly minor gain (what's a longsword worth, 15 gold?) may actually have saved the life of at least one PC, if not all.

• Zeb's casting of taunt, while also self-sacrificing, probably saved Audric from death. At the time, Laerch had rushed into melee with several fish-monsters, hoping to drag Audric's body away and stabilize him from bleeding out. As it stood, Laerch would have drawn opportunity attacks from each enemy upon attempting to pull Audric from the fray, very likely falling himself. Whether intentional or not, the taunt spell was timed perfectly, and instead of Laerch exiting the melee, the fish-monsters darted up toward Zeb, drawing their own opportunity attacks from the characters. With the foes out of the way, Laerch was able to tend to Audric's wounds unimpeded.

I'm sure others can think of more examples, but these few stood out from our discussion. It's easy to look back after a session and not think about to how much any lone decision may have altered the game, but failing to do so makes it hard to understand the roots of success and failure, the line between which in AD&D is often so thin that every ounce of advantage you can gain for your side is of critical importance.

The onus is on the party to win every time; the bad guys only have to win once.