Another TPK - Sigh.

[Eremite]

While I generally with your choice of how the ogres responded, the fact that they were out raiding for the day does, however, make me wonder whether they have may have been tired, wounded and/or out of spells and other resources?

Should the ogre druid really have had time to prepare the spells he was quite likely to have used while he was out raiding?

 

[was]

I'd have probably done the same thing. Unless, I was feeling really, really generous. In which case, I'd have taken out the sentry, beaten the rest unconscious, tied them up and then sold them off to the highest bidder. Preferably to some insane mage who practices dark arts on living body parts, or maybe to be made into eunuch harem guards. After all, even an ogre raider has the right to make a living.

 

[Mark]

Are you sure he forgot that? It is, after all, the PCs actions that made the encounter as difficult as it was.

Well, that's obvious but according to him, he knows how his players are careless and he is not out to get them, so it stands to reason he must have forgotten how much more dangerous an encounter can get when the circumstances change.

Tonight my players rolled new characters for the third time in ten months of regular play. Twice before they've wiped out. I feel bad about it, and as a storyteller it's frustrating because it seems that we're constantly taking steps backward instead of forward. Evaluating my DMing style, I don't feel that I'm "out to get" my players, nor do I feel like I put them up against unreasonable threats. It's just that the threats they face sometimes require finesse and smart planning, an understanding of the situations they face, and I often get the feeling that my players aren't quite totally aware of the consequences of their actions.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Please be more careful. Those characters are fragile and if you don't handle them with care, they'll certainly break.

 

[wedgeski]

One has to wonder if your players have ever read the Monster Manual. Ogres have Darkvision and Low Light Vision. They favor attacks with overwhelming odds and ambushes.

Perhaps his characters didn't have enough GP to buy Ye Complete Booke of Monsters (Tome The First) from their friendly local gaming tavern.

I think the OP was marginally tight in this encounter, but the value of the TPK is in whether or not the party learned anything from the experience. Truly, lighting a fire was monumentally stupid. But then, why didn't the sentry spot the ogre? That sounds moderately unlucky, unless the fiend was using magic we're not aware of.

To the OP: you take an approach to DM'ing which is not to my taste, but each to their own. If your players continue to play against your style, then either they don't know your style as well as you think they do, OR they're trying to tell you something.

 

[Darklone]

I like eremites suggestion.

DMs should blame themselves more often; after all, they are the ones running the campaign. But instead of taking a hard look at themselves, they act like smug deities looking down upon the foolishness of their players.

Sometimes you guys forget that the whole point of this GAME is to have fun.

Right. Ask your players if they want to play a NWN like dungeoncrawl hack&slash game with instant resting. Of course, that would be boring for me to DM (most of the time, once every other month I like it).

OTOH, players seldom learn. I had a halforc with 3 hitpoints (and horribly low AC) charge after three fleeing fighters and warriors which were not hurt... sadly for him, he was faster and caught up. The player still thinks I did my best to kill his character. If your players are similar... think about providing them instant rope trick items with automatic fireball shooting defenses against NPCs.

 

[Meadred]

One has to wonder if your players have ever read the Monster Manual. Ogres have Darkvision and Low Light Vision. They favor attacks with overwhelming odds and ambushes.

Well, I might be the only one here, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a problem that my players know so much of the MM! IMO, this only leads to metagaming as the players knows things that their characters doesn't. If the characters had never encountered ogres before, I would have required them to have Knowledge (Monsters) as a skill to know that ogres have dark vision and low-light vision.

As for the above mentioned TPK, I agree that the party was too sure of themselves, and perhaps in need of some "education". However, since I'm slightly soft with my players, I would have pulled my punches a bit. I think that Mark's suggestions above (post # 4) were really good; I would have solved the situation in a similar way.

Also, sometimes players make their characters do stupid things because the players themselves lack understanding and/or knowledge concerning the situation. In the TPK cited above, the party only retreated for half a mile before setting up camp, and they also lit a fire. My reaction to this is: Do any of the players realise how far sound carries at night and how far a camp fire that's in the open is visible? Doesn't sound like it to me! In cases like this, I would let any outdoors type of character (bbn, rgr, drd,...) roll a Survival (or Wilderness Lore for the 3.0 crowd) skill check to realise this.

Cheers,
Meadred

 

[Jolly Giant]

The ambush situation raises the level of the encounter. It's not surprising they were TPK'd by that group of adversaries. You didn't really do anything wrong except forget that circumstances can overpower a party as easily as outnumbering them.

The circumstances were that the PCs had every opportunity they could possibly ask for to ambush the ogres. Instead of using that advantage they threw it away and practically invited the ogres to ambush them instead! You can't expect a DM to plan for that..?

I used to have players just like this. Intelligent veteran players, all of them, but obviously used to a different style of DMing. (A kind style that doesn't allow thinking NPCs, appearantly. )They'd attack the orc fortress, withdraw after killing about 1/3 of the orcs and go to sleep around a nice, warm fire 2 miles down the road, even if they had seen the kennels full of war dogs inside the fortress...

That situation ended in the 4th or 5th TPK in 6 months. But the look of dawning realization as one PC said "Ah, so the orcs came out from the fortress and actually followed us!" made it all worth it. We havn't had a single TPK since, and this was two and a half years ago.

 

[Mark]

The circumstances were that the PCs had every opportunity they could possibly ask for to ambush the ogres. Instead of using that advantage they threw it away and practically invited the ogres to ambush them instead! You can't expect a DM to plan for that..?

Sounds like he has to, with the group he has. It also sounds like he knows it but isn't sure how to do so without compromising his own sense of gaming integrity. I made a couple of suggestions in my first post as to alternative options...ways he could have reacted differently to avoid the TPK. That is his goal, afterall, if I have read his post correctly. The problem is that he cannot, with any certainty, change the way the players are going to play. All he can do is change the way he DMs, and he has some obvious restrictions on how far he will go in that regard, as well. It's a tough situation.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I agree it's tricky. What I meant to suggest with my post was that if ForceUser hangs in there and doesn't sell out, his players will eventually get the idea that RPGs are different from CRPGs; monsters and NPCs doesn't just follow their programmed routine and stay where the programmer put them, they have intelligence (yes, even ogres! )and they react to what happens around them.

With 3 TPKs already, the players should be ready wake up any day now...