How soon do you see warning signs of a TPK?

[Celebrim]

I see 20 TPK's coming for 1 that actually happens. Which is to say, I don't really see any warning signs at all. I recognize when things are going wrong and the threat of a TPK is there, but I don't know any real way to tease those potential TPK's apart from the ones that actually happen because once things start to go wrong the game is skewed such that if the PC's are lucky they'll still survive.

Almost all TPK's in my experience begin with a break down in party cohesion or group communication.

a) The party splits up.
b) The party members start working toward different sometimes contrary goals. This effectively splits up the party.
c) One or more party members become confused, because they are unable to assess what is going on in the game in terms of concrete game rules. That is to say, they become use to making decisions on the basis of numbers and stat blocks that they can mentally assign to the things the DM describes and then encounter a situation where they can't easily do this. This effectively splits the party up.
c) One or more party members become paralyzed with indecision, often because they fear to risk their own character's life to provide assistance to another player's character. This effectively splits up the party.
d) A string of bad luck or bad decisions negatively impacts the party's resources as a whole. The party nonetheless makes the decision to press on despite no longer having the resources to deal with the threat they are pursuing, because to stop now would 'suck'. The players don't discover how little they have left as a group until after they get into combat and people start reporting that they are out or almost out of spells, hit points, potions, etc.

Other causes:

a) There is a miscommunication at some level between the DM and the players concerning the tropes of the game. For example, it's common for players to make the assumption, "I don't know what is going on, but that's the most obvious dungeon in the environment. Therefore, it's where we must go." This often works well because 90% of the time that's how the game effectively works, but when it doesn't work well it fails spectacularly. Likewise, 90% of the time, the villain is predictable from story elements, and any thing you encounter in a 'dungeon' is something you are supposed to kill and take their stuff. But when those meta-assumptions fail, and the DM either fails to communicate that such assumptions might we wildly wrong in this case or equally often doesn't think that they have a responcibility to do so, then you end up with TPKs.
b) The DM is so used to the players being able to handle everything he throws at them, that he doesn't actually think through the odds of getting passed some scenario he invents.

 

[S'mon]

b) The DM is so used to the players being able to handle everything he throws at them, that he doesn't actually think through the odds of getting passed some scenario he invents.

I had big trouble GMing high level 3e. Running 1e I was always a killer DM by modern standards, even when PCs got to deity-levels there were still frequent permanent deaths. But my players learned, they got very (very) skilled, they generally really could handle whatever I threw at them. So I got used to that.

Then, later, I ran 3e with different players, and I was regularly and unexpectedly killing PCs with such frequency that it was No Fun. And the players didn't seem to learn from experience either, they kept listening to one player, Peter, and following his disastrous tactics.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

TPKs are an uncommon occurrence in my campaigns, although my players seem to consider me a rather ruthless DM. In any case, my observations about when TPKs are likely to occur are similar to prior posters':

1. Poor resource management by players;
2. Poor tactical decisions by players;
3. Statistically unusual string of poor rolls by players/good rolls by DM;
4. Poor encounter design by DM.

Nevertheless I find that, in 4E at least, encounters with some of these flaws will not usually result in a TPK. However, the only TPK I've had in my current 4E campaign was as a result of poor tactical decisions by the players - an encounter intentionally designed to be difficult (it was the first and only encounter for the day), in which the PCs failed to pay attention to the orc Eye of Gruumsh and his archer minions standing on the balcony for most of the encounter. Of course, every time one of the PCs was targeted by the Eye of Gruumsh's -4 AC curse, all of the great-axe wielding warriors would hit that PC, and the minion archers would just add a few extra hits for good measure.

That said, TPKs have the potential to appear quite suddenly, and it's thanks in large measure to the way in which PCs resources attrite over a combat. Essentially, there is a close temporal connection between each PC running out of encounter powers, magic item powers, hit points, healing surges etc. That is, all of the PCs will find themselves running out of resources at about the same time (say, within 3-4 rounds of each other). The other point to note is that, once healing powers have been used and a PC has been reduced to 0 or fewer hit points, the resources lost to the party are staggering. Not only have you lost the unconscious PC's set of actions and all of the goodness that comes from them, another PC has to spend most, if not all, of his or her actions to get the unconscious character up again, or stabilised. If another PC goes unconscious in that same round, the party is really up against it. The surviving PCs might be best served by running and leaving their unconscious buddies to the mercy of the bad guys. However, I, like many in this discussion, am yet to see that happen.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[clip]

Thinking about it, I think that one of the surest symptoms of an oncoming trainwreck of a TPK is when one player starts to lead the party's direction by taking a lot of unilateral decisions - sometimes dressing them up as roleplaying, sometimes not. In groups I have DM'd, this is also the source of player unrest and the myth that 4e is purely a combat game.

The most obvious example of this is when the party knows that an encounter (not necessarily a fight) is imminent - say the party is around the corner from a group of yuan-ti, and is planning what to do next. There are ambush options, avoidance options, a straight up fight - even parley options. Whilst these are being discussed, one player says something to the effect of "I run round the corner and hit the nearest creature with my sword.", the party is thrust into a combat without planning or consent, and has to take it from there. The player starting it all will then try and retrospectively justify it with "roleplaying" saying some nonsense like "Well, I'm a barbarian,".

Stupid decisions in combat, poor general party balance and poor party balance for a particular encounter all play their part, but as outlined above, one of the surest signs is being put into a bad tactical situation from the beginning of a fight. Just about the only thing that can save you then is a mass retreat and regroup (very unlikely, and can quite possibly accelerate a TPK if badly organised) or in 4e - having a battle saving power (maybe Wall of Thorns or some kind of mass slow/immobilise to give the party breathing space) or one of the many Warlord powers that gives mass shifts/charges.

 

[MrMyth]

a) There is a miscommunication at some level between the DM and the players concerning the tropes of the game.
b) The DM is so used to the players being able to handle everything he throws at them, that he doesn't actually think through the odds of getting passed some scenario he invents.

I had a near TPK largely due to (a), but with (sorta) a bit of (b).

In this case, it was a game (Dark Heresy) were the players were investigators sent to infiltrate a cult and learn some specific information. During an attack on the cult by a different cult, they found someone with the information they needed and the way was clear to escape. But, because the group is stuck in D&D 'destroy everything' mentality, they decide to start fighting their way through the base to try and blow it up.

I try throwing one tough fight after another at them, while giving larger and larger hints for them to leave - the character with cult info (a new player) keeps hinting that its too dangerous to go in deeper, and that he can tell them everything they need, and they don't pay any attention at all.

Finally, they reach the center of the compound, by now the other cult is defeated, the enemy is alerted to their presence, and I make it obvious that beyond the door ahead is overwhelming force. And one PC continues to talk everyone into going forward. At this point, I basically step back and say this is a guaranteed TPK, and we instead figure out a scene where one of the players (for whom it was the last session anyway) sacrifices their character to let the others escape.

I later asked one of the players why they kept pushing onwards in the face of overwhelming force, and he admitted that he figured it was going to be a TPK, but assumed I just had balanced the encounters poorly, rather than thinking it meant it wasn't a fight they were intended to tangle with...

 

[Nagol]

I see 20 TPK's coming for 1 that actually happens. Which is to say, I don't really see any warning signs at all. I recognize when things are going wrong and the threat of a TPK is there, but I don't know any real way to tease those potential TPK's apart from the ones that actually happen because once things start to go wrong the game is skewed such that if the PC's are lucky they'll still survive.

Almost all TPK's in my experience begin with a break down in party cohesion or group communication.

a) The party splits up.
b) The party members start working toward different sometimes contrary goals. This effectively splits up the party.
c) One or more party members become confused, because they are unable to assess what is going on in the game in terms of concrete game rules. That is to say, they become use to making decisions on the basis of numbers and stat blocks that they can mentally assign to the things the DM describes and then encounter a situation where they can't easily do this. This effectively splits the party up.
c) One or more party members become paralyzed with indecision, often because they fear to risk their own character's life to provide assistance to another player's character. This effectively splits up the party.
d) A string of bad luck or bad decisions negatively impacts the party's resources as a whole. The party nonetheless makes the decision to press on despite no longer having the resources to deal with the threat they are pursuing, because to stop now would 'suck'. The players don't discover how little they have left as a group until after they get into combat and people start reporting that they are out or almost out of spells, hit points, potions, etc.

Other causes:

a) There is a miscommunication at some level between the DM and the players concerning the tropes of the game. For example, it's common for players to make the assumption, "I don't know what is going on, but that's the most obvious dungeon in the environment. Therefore, it's where we must go." This often works well because 90% of the time that's how the game effectively works, but when it doesn't work well it fails spectacularly. Likewise, 90% of the time, the villain is predictable from story elements, and any thing you encounter in a 'dungeon' is something you are supposed to kill and take their stuff. But when those meta-assumptions fail, and the DM either fails to communicate that such assumptions might we wildly wrong in this case or equally often doesn't think that they have a responcibility to do so, then you end up with TPKs.
b) The DM is so used to the players being able to handle everything he throws at them, that he doesn't actually think through the odds of getting passed some scenario he invents.

A cause for many of the TPKs I've presided over has to do with over-confidence or at least reaching past their limits. This is similar to (d) above, but the group is aware of the general lack of resources before pushing just that little bit extra. The group's resources are depleted and the group has been talking about withdrawl, but "we'll clear just one more area" or "we'll fight one more round, maybe they'll drop". Then a bad encounter is found or a few rolls go wrong and suddenly the group's fortunes turn quickly for the worse.

 

[korjik]

I had a near TPK largely due to (a), but with (sorta) a bit of (b).

In this case, it was a game (Dark Heresy) were the players were investigators sent to infiltrate a cult and learn some specific information. During an attack on the cult by a different cult, they found someone with the information they needed and the way was clear to escape. But, because the group is stuck in D&D 'destroy everything' mentality, they decide to start fighting their way through the base to try and blow it up.

I try throwing one tough fight after another at them, while giving larger and larger hints for them to leave - the character with cult info (a new player) keeps hinting that its too dangerous to go in deeper, and that he can tell them everything they need, and they don't pay any attention at all.

Finally, they reach the center of the compound, by now the other cult is defeated, the enemy is alerted to their presence, and I make it obvious that beyond the door ahead is overwhelming force. And one PC continues to talk everyone into going forward. At this point, I basically step back and say this is a guaranteed TPK, and we instead figure out a scene where one of the players (for whom it was the last session anyway) sacrifices their character to let the others escape.

I later asked one of the players why they kept pushing onwards in the face of overwhelming force, and he admitted that he figured it was going to be a TPK, but assumed I just had balanced the encounters poorly, rather than thinking it meant it wasn't a fight they were intended to tangle with...

You do know that when the players are being clueless, and their characters wouldnt be clueless, you can simply inform them in no uncertain terms that they are doing something dumb?

On the other hand, if the players were using meta-assumptions to drive the in-game decisions, they probably deserve to die.

 

[jimmifett]

In 4e, I find the warning signs of adding more notches to my dice to be around the time when the party has an average of 2-3 remaining healing surges during an encounter, and a striker has already used a second wind.

If they can keep the squishy striker up, they stand a chance, if at least one striker falls and has no second wind, it tends to cascade downhill from there.

 

[MrMyth]

You do know that when the players are being clueless, and their characters wouldnt be clueless, you can simply inform them in no uncertain terms that they are doing something dumb?

Yeah, I definitely regretted how things played out and wished I had spoken up sooner - at the time, I didn't want to just say, "No, guys, you can't do this, you are supposed to just take the information and get out".

I'm a pretty firm believer in letting players make mistakes that will come back to haunt them - I just didn't expect them to make one quite so significant, and was hoping hints and warnings would be enough to let them come to the decision to turn around on their own, rather than rely on me force-feeding them what they needed to do and where to go.

As it was, I was pretty much ready to let the party get killed (or captured) and that be the lesson... but was nonetheless glad when the departing player came up with a plan that offered them a way out.

 

[Wolf1066]

About now, I'm glad my current players can take a hint when they hear/see one. So far, they have never failed to take heed of insurmountable odds and decide that discretion has a longer retirement plan than valour. They don't play cowardly - they've charged into a brawl where they were outnumbered by a minor amount and taken on people in a fire fight - but they don't get needlelssly reckless, either. I'm confident I could send them into a situation akin to the one MrMyth described and have them just grab the info and leave.