Do you "save" the PCs?

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'm the referee. I volunteered for the job so that my friends could play a game. I'm not in the game. It's not my place to be partial, to use my power to rig an outcome. I will get my own turn to play, and someone else to referee.

DM is not just referee. He also chooses the opposition and the location, among other things. If you screwed up and seeded the PCs against a top 5 team it turns out they never really had a chance to beat, that's your fault. If "homefield advantage" works out for team Monsters better than you anticipated, that's your fault.

And even extending it to incredibly bad dice rolling... If one pro basketball team was nailing every 3 pointer it tried while the other team went 5 minutes with a scoring ratio of 2 scores : 18 attempts, as a referee, at what point of ridiculousness would you forfeit (not sure the proper term) the game because clearly something was rigged?

 

[Benimoto]

DM is not just referee. He also chooses the opposition and the location, among other things. If you screwed up and seeded the PCs against a top 5 team it turns out they never really had a chance to beat, that's your fault. If "homefield advantage" works out for team Monsters better than you anticipated, that's your fault.

Exactly. The answer for me depends on the scenario the PCs are in. In at least every other session, I like to have at least one encounter that's pretty far out there, scenario- and rules-wise. Something like infinitely respawning waves of monsters in an escape scenario, or (in an epic-tier example) jumping between astral ships as they are being destroyed by the wrath of an angry god or something.

So, since I don't usually have the benefit of good testing in those scenarios, if one of my creations goes completely awry, I would prefer to "rescue" the PCs, typically by changing the scenario. I've done so subtly, and I've done it in a more Deus Ex Machina style, but I'm not going to kill off a perfectly good party because they were my guinea pigs in something weird and untested.

On the other hand, if it's a more normal fight, and the PCs don't retreat when they're either outmatched or unlucky, then let the dice fall where they may. I feel as though that's the standard answer there.

 

[Pig Champion]

I always tell my players that they can do anything they want, on the condition that they can deal with the consequences of their actions.

Death being one of those consequences.

 

[Somebloke]

If I feel that the looming TPK is due to a mistake by me as a DM, then I might offer advice or fudge some dice rolls.

If it is down to the player's decisions and an out already exists, then I sit back and enjoy some guilt-free carnage. The entire premise of the game rests on the threat of death- you need to be prepared to follow this threat through if you want the element of danger to remain.

 

[Umbran]

I don't have a general policy. The devil, as they say, is in the details. What kind of game are we playing? What kind of mood am I trying to set? How exactly did they come to this point? And so on.

There are games where I won't consider ever saving the party, and games where I'd consider it in certain circumstances. There are other games where I've started with the explicit agreement that no PC was going to die unless the player wanted it to happen.

 

[Woas]

Let 'em die. It's just a game.

 

[ggroy]

In many one-shot pickup rpg games, I usually don't bother saving the players if they get in over their heads and/or I want to end the game before midnight. (I have a hard time gaming when I'm starting to get sleepy and tired after playing for half the day, for a one-shot).

If there's a TPK from the players getting in over the heads in a pickup rpg game, we just end the game and find another game to play, such as a boardgame or a card game.

 

[Ariosto]

DM is not just referee. He also chooses the opposition and the location, among other things.

Uh, no. That's a different game. I happen actually to know what we play, and so am in a position to have something to say about it. Funny how that goes, eh?

 

[Roadkill101]

I run a grim and gritty style game, where even a fight with weaker foes can result in character death. My players know up front that character death, based upon their actions, is a very real possibility.

I let the dice fall where they may, pulling no punches. To my way of thinking if there's no risk of character death, ther's no real challenge in playing the game.

Some of my players have had to roll up new characters several times (mostly by refusing to retreat when in a weakened state) where others have only had to do so only once or twice where a situation resulted in a TPK.

In situations where the party will be overmatched and the party should recognize the fact, I'll give due notice to the effect of "(insert character name here) has a very strong feeling that a frontal assualt on this keep in broad daylight is suicidal (or whatever situation the party is confronted with) and a different approach would be more appropriate." I try to avoid setting up situations where the party will be overmatched and the characters have no way of discovering this fact until it's too late.

 

[El Mahdi]

The dice rolls are bad. The tactics have failed. The situation is grim. Yet, they won't run away. So what do you do?

If you are GMing and the PCs get themselves in a pickle, but through poor judgement, overconfidence or just plain stubbornness they refuse to leave a losing encounter and a TPK or similar fate seems imminent, do you save them? Do you fudge the dice or have some deus ex machina event save them? Or do you leave them to cruel fate?

I will, at times, protect the players from bad luck (the dice) by fudging. But, if they insist on not running away even when tactically necessary, then they are going to die. I will not protect players from intentional stupidity - and if it takes a TPK to teach them, then so be it. If they had an opportunity to save themselves, recognized the opportunity, and then ignored it for whatever reason...they may as well start rolling up new characters - I won't save them.