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I am not in favor of them but I also don't fudge things to avoid them.
Our group likes the fear of death and while they don't care for TPK's they would rather run the risk of having them sometimes and keep that fear and thrill alive.
As a GM I tend to drop hints when players are getting in over their heads and give them a way out once it is obvious. But if they opt to take the big gamble I let them. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes not. But they know the risk going in.
As a player I will very quickly get bored in a game if I feel I have a safety net. If I don't think the group as a whole can die and it is easy to bring people back to life if one or two die. Then I just get bored typically cause the thrill is gone. Since i know we can't really "lose".
So in the end i try to avoid them but love the extra little thrill they add knowing they are there.
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They have no idea I fudge. I don't tell them, they think they "narrowly escaped"! :-)
Yeah but if you do it enough, they will figure it out. If they always escape just barely and there has never been a tpk ever, then eventually they will notice. I know I always have personally.
In one game we was fighting some wolfweres and it was obvious very fast it was going to be a tpk. I didn't have a problem with it cause we was warned repeatedly by NPC's not to go where we went. There was 4 of them and they took down our two fighters in like 2 rounds. Then took down the cleric and wizard in like 3 more rounds. Finally when it was down to a with a gun mage(this was a steam punk style dnd game) and mechanic (rogue like class) left neither was able to really hardly hurt them and that took 4 more rounds before they died. So the two weakest lasted twice as long as the fighters.
They started hitting a little less and doing a little less damage every round after the first fighter went down in round 1. It was just obvious by the end the GM was fudging things to try and avoid a tpk. Granted we rolled just horrendious for most of the fight which made things worse.
They have no idea I fudge. I don't tell them, they think they "narrowly escaped"! :-)Yeah but if you do it enough, they will figure it out. If they always escape just barely and there has never been a tpk ever, then eventually they will notice. I know I always have personally.
In one game we was fighting some wolfweres and it was obvious very fast it was going to be a tpk. I didn't have a problem with it cause we was warned repeatedly by NPC's not to go where we went. There was 4 of them and they took down our two fighters in like 2 rounds. Then took down the cleric and wizard in like 3 more rounds. Finally when it was down to a with a gun mage(this was a steam punk style dnd game) and mechanic (rogue like class) left neither was able to really hardly hurt them and that took 4 more rounds before they died. So the two weakest lasted twice as long as the fighters.
They started hitting a little less and doing a little less damage every round after the first fighter went down in round 1. It was just obvious by the end the GM was fudging things to try and avoid a tpk. Granted we rolled just horrendious for most of the fight which made things worse.
I'm gonna put this event into a spoiler for length...
I knew we were all going to be TPK, and I had only played this character for 15 minutes before nearly suffocating, I felt this was the poor fate of our characters. Just as the cornered barbarian fell to the gibbering mouthers her sword floated up, exploded into lava only killing the monsters and leaving the cubed PCs unscathed as well as the unconsious PCs and it healed us to full. At this point I'm thinking this is TBS (not the station mind you but total BS). So I went along with it being new.
Next we fought a hundred skeletons and a lich. 4 level sevens, and we couldn't effectively flee. We pretty much died again and were saved by something of deified perportions...
EDIT: One more note of frustration, it wasn't that the players were looking for trouble, they were on the railroad cruising along and got ambushed. I figured this was significant to notate.
Ive had a few TPKs before.
Yes the players made sure they chose a TPK.
Yes it derails your campaign.
Yes it sucks for everyone involved in the end.
Should a party experience a TPK because they went somewhere know to be full of death and danger? Most certainly.
Should they face a TPK because of a random encounter? No.
Should they face a TPK because of a adventure hook (the hook itself)? No.
Its up to the GM to maintain control of his game. Use appropriate encounters*, foreshadowing, clues, etc. But its also up to the GM to respect the choices of the players. If a player decides to do a running leap off of a cliff, over a lava river and land as an armoured, spiked projectile of death on the BBEG then respect that.
If said player rolls a one on his jump check (or whatever) feel free as GM to give the player a last minute chance (reflex save to grab the edge of the cliff as you stumbled right at the edge, etc). If they botch this then the must take massive damage. If your a nice GM maybe this will mean that you will rule the launch themselves haphazardly over the edge, hit the BBEG do massive damage and take the same damage in return (from the fall etc). Or maybe they just plop into the lava.
*Appropriate encounters being ones where if the players use their resources and tactics they have a chance of success. Even if the chance of success is below 100%. Admittedly it should not be below 30% unless the party chose to do something stupid (like hunt for the legendary red dragon Redfang at level 7... which would equal a chance of success at about 2%).
Come to think of it, I've only ever had one TPK as a DM. It was in the old Temple of Elemental Evil, and the players as mere 3rd level bumpkins wandered onto the 3rd level of the dungeon where a 10th level wizard, a 7th level assassin (old style) and an imp were waiting for them (having heard them coming). It was also a three round encounter: round 1) a hold person (again, old-style, as it affected more than one person) and the invisible assassin killed the non-held person, round 2) a very carefully aimed ricocheting lightning bolt (old style again, where they bounced and rebounded), and round 3) the imp familiar tore the throat out of the surviving NPC.
While it was quick and brutal, as a DM, I gave hints that the players shouldn't quite be headed that way (bad feelings, NPC advice, etc.). But it served as an object lesson that bad things can happen. And the one player that missed that night was back in the inn, so the group reformed, and THOSE characters were some of the most memorable that I've ever played with, so it was a happy misfortune.
I generally cut slack (especially if the players were just victims of bad dice rolls), either letting the party (or parts of it) escape or capturing them and letting them escape (if possible), but I punish sheer stupidity mercilessly and to the letter of the rules, or if it's a big end fight.
Hmmm...lately, the party has gotten a little slack...heh.
Now, exploding lava swords and multi-lich fights may be a little too much to handle. Reminds me of games I played with an annoying 'friend' back in middle school.
As a GM, I have never had a TPK. As a player, I have been involved in only one. Frequent and/or pointless character death is reason enough for me to walk. I am not going to invest in my character if they are a bad roll away from dying. If I am not going to invest in my character, I see no reason to invest in the game.
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Speaking from the newbie DM Point of View, how do the more experienced people think of some small degree of Fiat to prevent a TPK.
Not exploding lava axes, I'm not that new, and nothing to save the foolish level 5 PCs that go hunting down Blisterghast (the CR 66 dragon from the Monsternomicon), but more along the lines of a good old human enemies not killing the entire party, but rather capturing them, in a James Bond sort of style.
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I had one (what should have been) TPK and I admittedly changed the circumstances so as not to end the campaign.
The party got their butts handed to them by a Mind Flayer/Psion 3.
Instead of eating their brains. The Mind Flayer made them his agents, using certain psionic compulsions to force obedience.
It became a side plot the the campaign to rid themselves of its control.
Speaking from the newbie DM Point of View, how do the more experienced people think of some small degree of Fiat to prevent a TPK.
Remember that most characters don't die instantly when reduced to 0 hp, and that includes the PCs. They can easily be stabilized and transported by the bad guys.
As for fiat that players don't necessarily notice (OTHER than fudging dice rolls, though I heartily endorse doing that on occasion):
--spread attacks around rather than concentrating on a single character; have weaker bad guys deliberately (though subtly on your part) attack the best defended member of the group;
--clump up multiple enemies to be vulnerable to area effect attacks if the conscious PCs are spellcasters;
--clear an attack of opportunity free path to a fallen friend so the healer can get to him;
--if a bad guy fumbles, make sure it's hard on him;
--slightly lower hit point totals on surviving, unwounded enemies;
--create an environmental (meaning integral) environment or terrain situation that allows the party to escape relatively whole (i.e. a spreading fire, flood or fallen timber, if it makes sense) remember, the DM can use the environment to control the story, just make sure to set up options like that;
--if some or all of the party flees, don't pursue to hard (just enough to give them a good scare);
I'm sure there are many more.
There's a lot of ways through just tactics and environment. Don't forget beneficial help from friendly or even indifferent NPCs (where appropriate): rangers warding a forest, the city guard, another adventuring party in the area. Though it pays to set this up in advance, if it's dangerous.
And even with beasties, the PCs may just be unconscious and dragged back to the lair to be eaten late (think Empire Strikes Back and Luke and the Wampa cave).
PCs can be stupid at times, and it's OK for monsters to do something stupid as well.
Personally, I might kill a character even when I'm letting folks get away after a bad luck day/boneheaded attempt, just as a threat reminder. In the words of Voltaire: "Dans ce pays ci, c'est bon, de temps en temps, de tuer un amiral pour encourager les autres." Or, in English: "In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others."
I left the French in. It sounded cool.
I've GM'ed a TPK once, and that was due to player stupidity, I asked them three times if they was sure their current actions was correct. I've been in a few though, we have one GM in our group that seems to get them alot though. I don't mind, I know not to get as involved with the character when he GMs, and I get to try a multitude of character ideas in his campaigns. And while most of the TPKs in his campaigns could be avoided too, it seems once I'm on the other side of the screen I'm just as big an idiot as any other player (probably bigger :p).
We had one GM that never would kill our characters no matter how stupid we acted, and each time our characters got in danger some high level NPC came to get us out of the jam. I'd much rather die now and then.
Sometimes it can be a bit much. When I ran age of worms, there was never a TPK. At most two characters died at once, but by the time we finished it, the player with the fewest characters were at his third. It kind of ruined the continuity, as we suddenly had all these characters that didn't know all the backstory, and we joked often about why these characters were doing this quest. So I can see how some people are turned off by character death, but I like it to be an element of danger when I play.
...it seems once I'm on the other side of the screen I'm just as big an idiot as any other player (probably bigger :p).
It is a matter of perspective. What is obvious to the GM is rarely equally obvious to the players. This is another reason I cringe at the 'stupid player move' argument.
I'm gonna put this event into a spoiler for length... ** spoiler omitted **...They have no idea I fudge. I don't tell them, they think they "narrowly escaped"! :-)Yeah but if you do it enough, they will figure it out. If they always escape just barely and there has never been a tpk ever, then eventually they will notice. I know I always have personally.
In one game we was fighting some wolfweres and it was obvious very fast it was going to be a tpk. I didn't have a problem with it cause we was warned repeatedly by NPC's not to go where we went. There was 4 of them and they took down our two fighters in like 2 rounds. Then took down the cleric and wizard in like 3 more rounds. Finally when it was down to a with a gun mage(this was a steam punk style dnd game) and mechanic (rogue like class) left neither was able to really hardly hurt them and that took 4 more rounds before they died. So the two weakest lasted twice as long as the fighters.
They started hitting a little less and doing a little less damage every round after the first fighter went down in round 1. It was just obvious by the end the GM was fudging things to try and avoid a tpk. Granted we rolled just horrendious for most of the fight which made things worse.
Hmm I don't remember ever having a TPK but I do remember having all but two character's die in a big party, and the two who were left so totally hosed that one jumped into a spiked pit to commit suicide and the other twisted off his his soda pop cap that was his cranium(very funny, but too long to tell story), and his brains popped out. I can definately see a TPK ending a campaign, but it could be a decent reset point for a group that had gotten off-track and can now design characters knowing more of where the story is going.
It is a matter of perspective. What is obvious to the GM is rarely equally obvious to the players. This is another reason I cringe at the 'stupid player move' argument.
Yes, and no. Sometimes it is, or should be obvious to the players. But players have a tendency to 1)believe that anything they meet should be balanced so that they can defeat it, and 2) do something "stupid" that really is nothing of the sort, but ends up with that result.
Case in point, another Temple of Elemental Evil campaign (I was playing), and someone fiddled around with some 'knobs' on the wall. Well, nothing happened. And suddenly, everyone spooked. They all piled into a hallway, which I as a player thought was outside the room (but I was really just following everyone else because I wasn't paying as much attention), but it ended up being the hallway where the knobs were. Which had a delay on the trap.
So, the entire party panics, hides in this hallway when a MASSIVE lightning bolt shoots down the hallway. Boom. The only person to remain conscious (miraculously, my character stabilized at -1 hp) was a new player. It gave her a chance to defend the party from a really nasty enemy, by herself (thanks to a certain artifact), until I was able to wake up and use some spells to get the rest out.
Now, from DM knowledge: stupid. From player knowledge, stupid, but not mortally so (after all, you have to try out things to see what they do). But what killed was that delay--a nasty trick. The DM managed to pull a really cool encounter out of it, though, with the lone, wounded fighter valiantly and defiantly warding off the big bad.
Yes, some things don't seem stupid from one side of the screen, but much of the time, the players themselves know just as well as you do.
"Ah, we don't need to rest, we can hit one more room tonight!"
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Speaking from the newbie DM Point of View, how do the more experienced people think of some small degree of Fiat to prevent a TPK.
Not exploding lava axes, I'm not that new, and nothing to save the foolish level 5 PCs that go hunting down Blisterghast (the CR 66 dragon from the Monsternomicon), but more along the lines of a good old human enemies not killing the entire party, but rather capturing them, in a James Bond sort of style.
It is common to fudge a little from time to time. Especially if their is a legit reason for it. Such as capture the PC's for info or ransom or something. It is when it always happens or starts becoming obvious that it is a problem.
I personally would rather lose my character every now and again to never see anyone die ever.
From player knowledge, stupid…
How so? Without knowing what any of the knobs do, hiding seems just as reasonable as just standing there.
"Ah, we don't need to rest, we can hit one more room tonight!"
Is the character overly brave? Is the player tired of the 15 minute adventuring day? Is moral high?
There are players that do things purposely to be disruptive. Conventional wisdom seems to be let them suffer the consequences. However, I bet players that are doing things purposely to be disruptive really do not care if they keep dying. Talking to the player may actually resolve this issue.
Everyone at the table may not be at the same level of tactical genius that you are. Some people may not even be the least bit interested in playing a tactical war game. Is that stupid or merely a different perspective?
"Ah, we don't need to rest, we can hit one more room tonight!"
This is enshrined in the number one spot on the monument to PCs' Famous Last Words.
I've never heard that in any of my games. Usually it's more like "Ok I cast magic missile today, so we should rest, because I don't want to enter another combat with only 19/20ths of my spell slots left unexpended."
I have fudged a TPK or two in my early days, but it's always been because I misjudged how powerful a homebrew'd monster was. I'd probably fudge a TPK now even if it were fair, mostly because I don't want to derail games so much like that. As long as one character is left alive, all's good.
"Ah, we don't need to rest, we can hit one more room tonight!"This is enshrined in the number one spot on the monument to PCs' Famous Last Words.
How so? Without knowing what any of the knobs do, hiding seems just as reasonable as just standing there.
Yep. And that example was the DM following the Dungeon-as-Written. Truthfully, though, we were in a very dangerous place, and just fiddling with the knobs wasn't the brightest thing to do. Bunching up in the hallway where the knobs were was a lot less bright. Five feet to one side, and nobody would have gotten hurt, or even if everyone stayed where they were, only one person would have been injured. And the DM even said "Are you sure?" twice.
Is the character overly brave? Is the player tired of the 15 minute adventuring day? Is moral high?There are players that do things purposely to be disruptive. Conventional wisdom seems to be let them suffer the consequences. However, I bet players that are doing things purposely to be disruptive really do not care if they keep dying. Talking to the player may actually resolve this issue.
Everyone at the table may not be at the same level of tactical genius that you are. Some people may not even be the least bit interested in playing a tactical war game. Is that stupid or merely a different perspective?
I'm not claiming to be a tactical genius, nor do I really run a tactical war game. When I say stupid, I don't really mean they practice stupid tactics (though that happens (see below), and I'm usually a little nice to them), but when they charge headlong into extreme danger, even when they know they're weak. (i.e. the example I'm thinking of and quoting is a recent first level adventure when everyone was wounded and the party's THREE healers were out of spells completely). The room happened to not have anything really bad in it, but I was completely prepared to let the dice roll where they may at that point.)
Then there's the sheer bad tactics arguments. I ran the old Bloodstone adventure, the highest level published adventure for, as far as I know, any edition of D&D (18-100 level, really!). This was a long time group, but we were all in our mid teens. A wall of 20th level characters, with a dragon cohort all walk into the first encounter (which starts with a 30th level lich, if I remember correctly). And every character proceeds to do EXACTLY the wrong thing.
The fighter starts attacking the daemon that's immune to swords--with three swords (one was dancing). The wizard attacks the lich with the hefty amulet of spell resistance. The dragon dies in the first round because he's big enough to get hit by all of the wizard's meteor strikes. The cleric attacks a high level elemental and can't damage it.
I repeatedly told them that they were doing no damage, not even scratching their adversaries, and they kept going. If everybody had just changed partners, it would have been a short fight in the player's favor. Fighter on lich? Dead in one round due to the hundreds of points of damage he was dealing. Cleric on daemon? Mace deals damage, dead in a round or two. Wizard on fire elemental? One of the spells should work.
I didn't kill the party (excepting the dragon), but they did run away. Tactically, they believed they were doing everything right, but they didn't adapt, or try something else (or check behind the curtain). It's like repeatedly trying to pick a lock that's jammed and rusted shut when there's a plate glass window nearby and no need to be subtle.
If they'd kept going, they would have died, so at least they had the sense to run away. And it's hard to give people the sense to run away (or at least avoid or be cautious about a dangerous foe) if they never die, even temporarily.
As for TPKs, those are reserved, for me, for rare moments when things go spectacularly bad, usually because the players did something very wrong and were given every chance to back out, run or escape. When the DM asks 'are you sure?' twice, you might want to think about it some more.
As for disruptive players, yes, they usually need a good talking to.
I think that the 'punish stupidity' perspective is less about deliberately hammering characters for being stupid and more about letting the dice land where they land when the players (and characters) should know better.
In my one TPK, they were diving VERY deep into a very large, well defended dungeon, not taking any precautions, and were way too low of a level. I hinted. I told the PCs that the NPC was really uncomfortable going this direction. I mentioned a feeling of foreboding. I kept telling them they were going DEEPER. I was VERY obvious about the hints. And then they walked in and were wailed upon. I did what I could to guide them away, but laid the consequences on them hard (the characters they fought were supposed to be some of the most dangerous in the dungeon). I was even prepared to cut them some slack, but events unfolded.
After that, every victory was sweet. (Even when they stupidly agreed to everything the Big Bad asked them to do and then had to fight her completely unprepared). It happens, and it shouldn't be a matter of punishment, it should be a matter of consequences.
But, even then, if the characters are favorites, you can still have them captured or have their deaths delayed since most don't die right away(heroic escapes are very memorable).
Dark_Mistress - Thanks for the comment earlier.
One of my former players lurking on this thread and pointed out I needed to admit to something here. In my earlier years I almost caused a TPK intentionally to prove a point. I had continually warned the PCs (all playing psions back when it first came out) not to "go nova" or blow through their resources in a single battle to be cocky, that they might want to save some resources just in case. As a DM I got tired of them thinking they could blow through almost every point then camp out in a monster infested area and be just peachy. This works on the video games, but not in real life...
Possible spoilers:
In Age of Worms, I fudged the hell out of the ending encounter of "Three Faces of Evil" to avoid the inevitable TPK. There's an encounter that's realistically CR 10, the PCs are 5th level, and they're out of spells and almost out of hp, and the encounter comes out of nowhere as written; they get basically no warning. That's BS. I did the same thing later on, with the oculus demon.
But later, I left plenty of foreshadowing and warnings that the Spire of Long Shadows made the Tomb of Horrors look like a cakewalk. I told 'em and I told 'em, and I made sure there were 3 full sets of PCs integrated into the storyline, before they ever reached that adventure. And then I started killing parties. The third group finished only by using a wand of speak with dead on the corpses of their predecessors, to get warnings about what killed them and how!
Everyone loved it. Because they weren't dying in random encounters; their deaths proved that the oft-foreshadowed deadliness of the Spire wasn't just hype, and made it a legendary name among those players forever.
About the only other TPK I've had in recent years was a case of player stupidity so egregious, and so irreconcilable, that it would have been an act of hatred against all mankind not to let them die.
I've never heard that in any of my games. Usually it's more like "Ok I cast magic missile today, so we should rest, because I don't want to enter another combat with only 19/20ths of my spell slots left unexpended."
I HATE that! The same party that skipped my one dungeon because it might be dangerous wanted to rest after every room in the dungeon before it. Mind you, there were maybe 8 rooms in the whole dungeon.
** spoiler omitted **"Ah, we don't need to rest, we can hit one more room tonight!"This is enshrined in the number one spot on the monument to PCs' Famous Last Words.
This could be a whole other thread.
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This could be a whole other thread.
I've seen my share of TPKs. Two parties died in one night when I ran Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde, and Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk wiped out another party who just gave up on the adventure altogether. I've never set out to kill an entire party unless I was playing (and that's only because I was young, bored and being a butt.)
I knew going in I was going to hate Vampire: The Masquerade but I had a GM who got on a Vampire/Werewolf kick for a few months and it was the only game in town so I tried it out. Within about four hours I had engineered it so that our party was engaged in a war with my own clan, some werewolves and something called an abomination. Everybody but me died in the ensuing bloodbath and I finished myself off by sitting down in the middle of the parking lot where we had the fight and waiting for the sun to rise. This happened three more times before we never played Vampire or Werewolf again. I figured somebody would eventually catch on to what I was doing but, apparently, none of the other players else wanted to play either so nobody bothered to call me on it.
In my one TPK, they were diving VERY deep into a very large, well defended dungeon, not taking any precautions, and were way too low of a level.
I've never heard that in any of my games. Usually it's more like "Ok I cast magic missile today, so we should rest, because I don't want to enter another combat with only 19/20ths of my spell slots left unexpended.".
Hmmm.
there was 1 knight sometime last year or 2, we were playing shackled city, a certain CR 5 1/2 troll dwarf killed 5 level 1 parties in one knight, the following week, the dm said build level 3 characters, and he applied the attrition factor. the 1/2 troll dwarf kept adding wounds from previous fights (virtually none cause he was practically never hit) said dwarf dies from a pair of critical hits/sneak attacks inflicted by a 12 year old asian girl in a black kimono, as she caught him flat footed with a pair of spring loaded daggers (treated as daggers). both got maximum damage, in other words 46 damage. the guy's heart exploded. her feats, were weapon finesse, 2WF and craven. this is a one of kind occurance were you roll maximum on every die for that round and cause a foe's heart to explode as thier hit points drop below 0. both natural 20's were confirmed with natural 20's, it was an all maximum rolls round that 1 time.