D&D 5E Egregious TPK retcon in Hoard of the Dragon Queen

[Reynard]

Ok, I have to chime in here. I dont think TPK's are actually good in almost any case. Why do I say this? Because I play to have a story. A story doesnt make much sense or hold much appeal if the Protagonists are all wiped out.

I guess I have to wonder how much of a story Star Wars (Episode IV) would have been if instead of outrunning the Star Destroyer, Han, Chewie, Obi Wan, Luke, r2D2, and C3P0 would have been blown away by a group of Tie Fighters. What happens then? Some other group with a Jedi, and some droids, and smugglers take up the quest? How many cycles of protagonists can you kill and still keep people engaged?

I get that some people like that DM vs PCs angle. Or like to play the game where you have to be uber cautious about everything you do, the rogue must search every 10' before anyone walks on it otherwise a trap might TPK the party.
I personally just dont get enjoyment out of those styles of games. If a TPK is possible, for me it better be story related and the PCs better have a clear idea that no one might make it out alive. Its one thing when you finally get to the BBEG and you know it is powerful and will have to use every advantage possible....But 12d10 vs low level characters? Come on.

~Desh

Emphasis mine.

The idea of allowing for the possibility of a TPK isn't necessarily a result of or connected to a DM vs Player mentality. For a lot of us "killer DMs" the real issue is that we want Story to emerge organically from Play. Rather than setting out with the intent of telling the tale of Luke, Han and the rest, for example, we prefer to have a setting and situation in which player characters have adventures and talking about those adventures later are the stories. Sometimes the story ends eaten by a garbage disposal monster; sometimes the story ends with the heroes blowing up the Death Star. In either case, IMO, the story is better when we don't know how it is going to turn out until it is resolved.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Why do you need game mechanics/ a resolution system to tell a story with a known outcome? I can get a group of people together and tell them how they all kicked butt, defeated the BBEG and went on to rule the galaxy without cracking a rulebook. I enjoy reading stories but I play these games because they are not stories, or rather, they are only stories once play has ended and the events of the game become the recorded history of fantasy land.

Sometimes the story of epic failure can be just as entertaining and memorable as those of victory. The chance that the story could go either way is what keeps the game engaging for me.

You desperately need to read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

I mean, really, you're basically claiming people who don't love TPKs "aren't RPGers", which is completely invalid, objectively speaking.

 

[ExploderWizard]

You desperately need to read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

I mean, really, you're basically claiming people who don't love TPKs "aren't RPGers", which is completely invalid, objectively speaking.

Loving TPKs isn't the issue. I would not say that a group that doesn't clap, cheer, and pat themselves on the back after getting their PC's wiped out are not RPGers.

I WOULD say that those going through the motions of action resolution that can only have one ultimate outcome are not actually playing a game.

 

[Li Shenron]

Ok, I have to chime in here. I dont think TPK's are actually good in almost any case. Why do I say this? Because I play to have a story. A story doesnt make much sense or hold much appeal if the Protagonists are all wiped out.

I can't argue with story tastes.... But for my own tastes, a bunch of 3rd level brats being burnt to a crips because they foolishly attacked a dragon makes for a more amusing story than a bunch of 3rd level brats being spared by such dragon because...? To hell with plot protection and PC's entitlement!

 

[Grazzt]

Emphasis mine.

The idea of allowing for the possibility of a TPK isn't necessarily a result of or connected to a DM vs Player mentality. For a lot of us "killer DMs" the real issue is that we want Story to emerge organically from Play. Rather than setting out with the intent of telling the tale of Luke, Han and the rest, for example, we prefer to have a setting and situation in which player characters have adventures and talking about those adventures later are the stories. Sometimes the story ends eaten by a garbage disposal monster; sometimes the story ends with the heroes blowing up the Death Star. In either case, IMO, the story is better when we don't know how it is going to turn out until it is resolved.

Yep. This. And the SW analogy is a bit weak as it's a story (movie, book) controlled by the author. I don't think Lucas (or most any other author) sits around rolling dice when combat happens. (Well, except maybe GRRM. Now that guy's a killer DM with DM vs. player issues.)

 

[the Jester]

So I think that saying, "Oh, actually that doesn't happen..." isn't a terrible thing to do, since TPKs are not much fun for anyone, and they do kind of mess up the campaign something fierce.

It depends very much on your playstyle. For me, any time a DM says, "Oh, that didn't actually happen", I'm walking away from that table. To me, that is the worst, most game-disrupting, character-disrespecting, player-enabling (in a bad way) act that a dm can perform, for my playstyle.

Fundamentally, rewinding like that tells the players that they can do anything, however stupid, and not worry about the consequences. It takes away a lot of the pcs' freedom to be stupid and face the consequences. Instead of letting the story of the campaign evolve naturally as the pcs act, it puts them on a specific track. Ugh, not for me, not at all, not one bit. Any DM retcon makes me feel like it doesn't matter what I do, the results end up the same; I want to tell the DM to go write a story, instead of running a game, since he's already chosen how things turn out.

As for messing up the campaign something fierce, again, it depends on your playstyle. For some of us, the campaign isn't a pre-written adventure or adventure path, it's the milieu as a whole, and "That didn't happen" moments are far more harmful to the integrity of the campaign than any one party's actions, deaths, etc.

Which isn't to say what you did was wrong; only that it isn't always right, and it really depends on the group you're playing with. It certainly sounds like you made the right call for your group, but I know most of mine wouldn't be back for another session. We like combat as war, we like real consequences for our pcs, we like it when we hit 8th level and feel like it was not a given that our characters would survive.

(For the record, I feel strongly about this playstyle issue as both a player and a dm, and have the same stance regardless of my role in the game.)

They only serve as a "valuable lesson" if they make sense and flow from a chain of poor decisions.

I disagree. TPKs serve as a valuable lesson in any case, but the lesson is different each time. Sometimes it's "watch out who or what you pick a fight with"; sometimes it's "your pc is just another guy in the world, so don't think you have plot immunity"; sometimes it's "this DM sucks and is a tool". But there is always something.

Again, it's all about playstyle. Some groups have the whole campaign rough-plotted as a group from start to finish before they throw a die, and have specific arcs in mind for their pcs. Nothing wrong with that! But there's also nothing wrong with sandbox, combat-as-war groups where the pcs at 6th level have no original members left in the group.

 

[pkt77242]

It depends very much on your playstyle. For me, any time a DM says, "Oh, that didn't actually happen", I'm walking away from that table. To me, that is the worst, most game-disrupting, character-disrespecting, player-enabling (in a bad way) act that a dm can perform, for my playstyle.

Fundamentally, rewinding like that tells the players that they can do anything, however stupid, and not worry about the consequences. It takes away a lot of the pcs' freedom to be stupid and face the consequences. Instead of letting the story of the campaign evolve naturally as the pcs act, it puts them on a specific track. Ugh, not for me, not at all, not one bit. Any DM retcon makes me feel like it doesn't matter what I do, the results end up the same; I want to tell the DM to go write a story, instead of running a game, since he's already chosen how things turn out.

As for messing up the campaign something fierce, again, it depends on your playstyle. For some of us, the campaign isn't a pre-written adventure or adventure path, it's the milieu as a whole, and "That didn't happen" moments are far more harmful to the integrity of the campaign than any one party's actions, deaths, etc.

Which isn't to say what you did was wrong; only that it isn't always right, and it really depends on the group you're playing with. It certainly sounds like you made the right call for your group, but I know most of mine wouldn't be back for another session. We like combat as war, we like real consequences for our pcs, we like it when we hit 8th level and feel like it was not a given that our characters would survive.

(For the record, I feel strongly about this playstyle issue as both a player and a dm, and have the same stance regardless of my role in the game.)



I disagree. TPKs serve as a valuable lesson in any case, but the lesson is different each time. Sometimes it's "watch out who or what you pick a fight with"; sometimes it's "your pc is just another guy in the world, so don't think you have plot immunity"; sometimes it's "this DM sucks and is a tool". But there is always something.

Again, it's all about playstyle. Some groups have the whole campaign rough-plotted as a group from start to finish before they throw a die, and have specific arcs in mind for their pcs. Nothing wrong with that! But there's also nothing wrong with sandbox, combat-as-war groups where the pcs at 6th level have no original members left in the group.

I think that there are ways of fudging the results without having to pretend something didn't happen such as "rolling" low damage when it would kill someone. I think in the OP's case he could have "rolled" low damage and let them know that the blast mostly missed them but that the damage was say 25 points (enough maybe to kill 1 player but most would have survived or would have had to make death saves but still could easily survive).

I am generally against TPK unless the players are warned off their path multiple times or that do something just beyond the pale stupid. Now PC's dying is fair game, and my group rarely made it to 10th level without half of the six member party dying and being replaced but it was usually 1-2 characters at a time.

 

[drjones]

My players 4e characters were built rather defensively and because it was 4e in general tended to get knocked down a lot but never close to killed. They never scouted or used stealth, and often picked fights unnecessarily. Since we played the 5e starter bit and had a character killed suddenly they have rediscovered caution and are much more attentive in general to the game. A bit of danger lends excitement.

A TPK is a bit of a different matter, depends why it happened. I think a TPK just from luck is pretty damn unlikely even at level 1. You would have to design an encounter outside the usual guidelines or as with the OP take a non-combat set piece designed to set a scene and make it into a combat for it to be likely. And there is always the CN barbarian who decides it would be fun to attack the king in front of his guards or the like that basically forces the DM to either go to extreme lengths to not kill the party or just be like to heck with it, everyone who didn't surrender is dead. There is such a thing as positive metagaming. Finding reasons that your character, whatever their alignment, would work with the rest of the party, use a little tactics and further the story instead of constantly sabotaging it is an example.

Everybody makes mistakes though, DMs and players, sometimes you just have to hit rewind.

 

[the Jester]

I think that there are ways of fudging the results without having to pretend something didn't happen such as "rolling" low damage when it would kill someone. I think in the OP's case he could have "rolled" low damage and let them know that the blast mostly missed them but that the damage was say 25 points (enough maybe to kill 1 player but most would have survived or would have had to make death saves but still could easily survive).

I am generally against TPK unless the players are warned off their path multiple times or that do something just beyond the pale stupid. Now PC's dying is fair game, and my group rarely made it to 10th level without half of the six member party dying and being replaced but it was usually 1-2 characters at a time.

I agree that there are ways to fudge behind the screen where the players will never know you did it. That is absolutely fine in my opinion, though I prefer a hardcore 'let the dice fall where they may' approach (again, both as a dm and as a player). I've definitely both killed characters and had my own character killed through such means.

Again, though, I have to emphasize that it's all about the style that a given group enjoys. (There are groups where nobody dies without consenting to it- someone even used to use (and maybe still does) a "death flag" system where a player can raise the death flag on a pc to enable killing his or her character, I think to gain some kind of high-drama effect or bonus. I can't recall who runs that- they post around here, or used to- but I think it's a great system for that playstyle, and would never use it myself.)

I guess I'm a lot more pro-TPK than many gamers, in that when I was coming up through the editions, most of our groups ran until a TPK happened, and then we'd roll up a new batch of characters. Nobody ever threw a fit or had a tantrum, and our games were tons of fun; TPKs did not ruin our fun. I can certainly see how they could do so for groups that are on the opposite end of the spectrum, though.

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

I'll throw this out there. I get that a TPK should be a possibility, but I would say with any death, lets make it meaningful to the story.
I am not advocating that characters be immune to death.
I dont know about the module being discussed, but was there another obvious choice?

Would it have been more fun/smart if the "heroes" said "Screw that, I'm not going up on the castle wall" and just let the Dragon wipe out tons of NPCs while they cower in a basement somewhere? That doesnt sound like fun to me. Seriously, what was their best option knowing that 1 attack could kill them all?

It would be more fitting if the characters (or even an NPC) said "I know I may be going to my death, but we must try and drive that Dragon off" and then made a clear suicidal attack in desperation.

And even then, what is the resolution of the story. There are no more characters to experience it, so I guess what does it matter?

Someone mentioned about learning a lesson from TPKs. Well what lesson would I learn if the plot drove me toward the 1 round TPK monster?

I've had that happen, the Big NPCs say "your group must go fight X now, its the worlds only hope for survival" scenario. And when we arrive, the party gets dusted in 3 rounds. What did we learn, we shouldnt have trusted the plot or the NPCs steering it?

I just dont get the attraction to TPKs, and I get that other people dig them, just start over and make a new character.

I am in a group where the DM constantly throws the party (Pathfinder) against CR +6 or more challenges, and is surprised when PCs bite the dust. However, once it has gone down that road, I will admit I would rather him just play it out than suddenly have the BBEG do something non-characteristic and let the PCs kill him.

(p.s., the CR+6 is not just BBEG, it could be a wandering monster/ the "warm-up encounter").

For me, when all the PCs are dead, that's end of story/campaign.