Too many TPKs?

[Jhaelen]

Allowing 5 TPKs to happen is a DM's problem, not the players' no matter the circumstances. That's because TPK means every single character was killed five times. I cannot imagine that the players are at fault if not even a single pc ever escaped. That strongly suggests to me it's the DM's doing.

Almost all of my campaigns have featured a TPK at some point (usually at the beginning). One TPK is generally fine and can happen in the best of games. I could see a second TPK happening, if the players are acting stupid, but five? No way.

Likewise having lots of 'almost' TPKs is fine and something I'd consider to be nothing more than a sign of a particularly tough camapign. My 3e campaign was like that in the high levels: There was rarely a session _without_ someone dying and frequently there were more than one dead pc in an encounter. But even if they effectively 'lost' an encounter, there was always someone able to get away.

 

[Mort]

What kind of things do DMs do to make fleeing impossible? Elf Witch's "invisible enemies appear" thing sounds horrible.

Personally, IMCs it's usually possible to flee - NPCs often do, PCs too.

I've seen a few things from:

Not giving the PCs anywhere else to go - essentially a version of railroading where the PCs can try to flee but since there is literally nothing else to do and all paths lead to the fight in question - there is litte point. I once had a DM (and it was only once, we didn't let him DM again!) who literally referred to a novel throughout the entire "adventure" there was no deviating because all road led to the next point in the novel, all fights had to be "completed" to move forward!

to

Strictly enforced movement and the enemies are much faster than the party. This kind of thing may be ok a few times, sometimes the enemies are fast and the terrain has little room to go anywhere, but when it's the default condition and the DM limits the conditions etc.- essentially you can't run away.

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The enemies are near omniscient. A particularly annoying one, where no matter how you run, no matter where you flee the bad guys know where and how you are going to get somewhere and they always quickly find you to try and finish you off. Again this may be ok in a fugitive like, or running man like session or adventure but when it is the default condition - it's awful.

 

[Janx]

Allowing 5 TPKs to happen is a DM's problem, not the players' no matter the circumstances. That's because TPK means every single character was killed five times. I cannot imagine that the players are at fault if not even a single pc ever escaped. That strongly suggests to me it's the DM's doing.

Almost all of my campaigns have featured a TPK at some point (usually at the beginning). One TPK is generally fine and can happen in the best of games. I could see a second TPK happening, if the players are acting stupid, but five? No way.

Likewise having lots of 'almost' TPKs is fine and something I'd consider to be nothing more than a sign of a particularly tough camapign. My 3e campaign was like that in the high levels: There was rarely a session _without_ someone dying and frequently there were more than one dead pc in an encounter. But even if they effectively 'lost' an encounter, there was always someone able to get away.

I'm Ok with that assessment.

I'm not a big fan of hyper-neutrality. They make the rest of us decisive folks look myopic.

In courts where Innocent until proven Guilty holds true, crooks do go to jail.
And in courts where Guilty until proven Innocent holds true, innocent people do get cleared.

I expect anybody who thinks the Gm might be at fault to still look for details and be ready to change their mind if review of the actual facts shows the players to be at fault.

 

[DonTadow]

I find that TPKs happen frequently in situations where the DM sees the game as Me vs the Players. So instead of using the tactics a group of NPCs of their intelligence level or organization would use, they use the tactics a DM would use if he could play 10 different characters.

I could never imagine TPKing a 1st level party (especially if I didn't give them extra hit points). I rarely send 1st level parties into lots of combat. It's why I loved the Zeitgeist approach, allowing the party to get their combat feat wet in skirmishes and non-lethal confrontation.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Allowing 5 TPKs to happen is a DM's problem, not the players' no matter the circumstances. That's because TPK means every single character was killed five times. I cannot imagine that the players are at fault if not even a single pc ever escaped. That strongly suggests to me it's the DM's doing.

What if the players are just insane? Perhaps they keep throwing themselves headfirst into a lethal confrontation and keep using the same strategy on the assumption that they are bound to prevail one of these times.

 

[billd91]

What if the players are just insane? Perhaps they keep throwing themselves headfirst into a lethal confrontation and keep using the same strategy on the assumption that they are bound to prevail one of these times.

I'd say it's the GM's responsibility to stop the game and ask why the players are being so dumb and if that's really the way they want to play the game.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Players could consider running away more often.

Insert quotes from [MENTION=762]Mort[/MENTION] on why this doesn't always work out so well.

Thanks for writing my responses for me, Mort!

What kind of things do DMs do to make fleeing impossible?

Well, when the vast majority of enemies has 30' or better movement rates (and often nonstandard movement types, as well), and you've got a dwarf, halfling, or heavy-armor-wearer in your group, then there's no way everyone is escaping unless the DM decides that, against the strong evidence that they are winning this fight, the enemies are just going to give up.

Thus, the decision is not, "Should we try to escape?" but "Should we try to escape and leave Joe's character behind? Sorry, Joe."

That's a harder decision to clear, IME.

This is quite apart from the conditioning problem Mort brings up.

 

[nedjer]

We've had more TPK's than I can even remember over the years. We tend to run games on varying degrees of deadly, and usually in a kind of sandboxy way, so a foolish party might end up taking on a much bigger enemy than they can possibly handle in combat (although, sometimes we have).

And that's just D&D, before we even get to Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer, MERP, Traveller, O.R.E., or Kult.

Mmm . . . I could work with that . . . good opportunities to try-out an Undertakers sub-class - and PCs with an interest in buying property next to graveyards would be made-up

 

[S'mon]

Well, when the vast majority of enemies has 30' or better movement rates (and often nonstandard movement types, as well), and you've got a dwarf, halfling, or heavy-armor-wearer in your group, then there's no way everyone is escaping unless the DM decides that, against the strong evidence that they are winning this fight, the enemies are just going to give up.

Thus, the decision is not, "Should we try to escape?" but "Should we try to escape and leave Joe's character behind? Sorry, Joe."

Unless you're being chased by a horde of cavalry across a flat plain, I don't understand why this is such an issue. In a forest, dungeon, city etc it should be perfectly possible to escape by breaking line-of-sight, especially when the fleers scatter. I've often had slow monsters escape chasing PCs by scattering, the PCs might eg chase the enemy commander and the rest of the enemy escape. If one PC holds off the enemy for 1 round, his friends can often escape. Or even just pausing to finish off 1 PC may well delay the monsters long enough for other PCs to escape.

I don't think I'd really understand this TPK dynamic unless I saw it in action. It's just not making sense to me - if the DM is taking an at all realistic approach it should very often be possible for both PCs and monsters to escape.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Unless you're being chased by a horde of cavalry across a flat plain, I don't understand why this is such an issue. In a forest, dungeon, city etc it should be perfectly possible to escape by breaking line-of-sight, especially when the fleers scatter.

... Split ... the ... party?

Moreover, if the monsters are just as fast as you, and you're engaged with them (in close, if not melee, range), how are you going to break line-of-sight?

If you move around a corner, they can, on their turn, move right around the same corner and catch up to you.

the PCs might eg chase the enemy commander and the rest of the enemy escape. If one PC holds off the enemy for 1 round, his friends can often escape. Or even just pausing to finish off 1 PC may well delay the monsters long enough for other PCs to escape.

So, again, you're back to "Should we try to escape and leave Joe's character behind? Sorry, Joe."