Considering engineering a TPK

[BroccoliRage]

While the advice in your post is sound, I strongly disagree with this assertion. I have, in fact, never seen the aforementioned behaviour in person, and I only read about it online infrequently in horror stories by GMs.

I knew someone would. ::shrug::

 

[billd91]

In Savage Tide, they could have joined the pirates. I take it they didn't go that route?

Don't kill them off. Table the game and play something else. It may never come back up to be played but it's always there as an option iif they get a hankering for something more serious.

 

[Gregor]

The good thing about the Savage Tide AP is that it allows for evil / neutral groups.

Spoilers Below.

*****
At the end of There is No Honour, Rowyn Kellani (leader of the lotus dragons) can offer to employ the PCs. Also, in each of the adventures that follows, there is a sidebar that details what the PCs can do if they are working for Rowyn. Your group may enjoy this approach to the AP instead of the do-gooder approach?

 

[Bad Paper]

Let someone else DM.

 

[BadMojo]

I would create a new ending to the Savage Tide, bringing the series to an early but at least somewhat satisfying conclusion.

Ask the players what they want, and if it's something you're interested in doing, go with a less heroic campaign. The TPK will probably just create a lot of ill will among your players. Hopefully you can find something they will like to play and you will like to DM.

 

[werk]

So, I'm at a point where I'm seriously considering just throwing an overwhelming encounter at them, wiping out the party, and starting a far less serious game.

Any advice? Thoughts? Anyone want to point and laugh?

Do just what you said, except without the TPK stuff.


EDIT: and/or what Bad Paper said.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not sure if I'm asking for advice, or just ranting to blow of steam...

Well, it depends on whether you are willing to run the campaign that the players sound like they want to play.

At best, you are dealing with a party of players who wants to cut their teeth or which is nostalgic for old school dungeon crawling in mega dungeons packed with treasure and beasties and lots of wierdness. Since it sounds like they don't have alot of tactical competance, that might be a good thing in the long run. Mature the party up on typical dungeoneering problems until they have the competance to handle a more serious campaign.

In your typical dungeon crawl, alignment rarely means anything and that friction between you and your players will go away. Let them play 'chaotic greedy' regardless of what is on thier character sheet and don't sweat it too much. Save the moral and philosophical challenges for later. Eventually, a year or two down the line, your players will have done that been there when it comes to tomb raiding, and they'll probably be hungry for the sort of purposeful, role play heavy, plot driven game that it sounds like you want to play.

So drop the current campaign for a while, have them start new characters of any alignment that they want, give them a boat (nothing says freedom like a campaign in which the characters have a boat), give them a treasure map, let them play pirates searching for the lost gold of Captain Bluetooth the Stone Hearted in the Endless Accursed Caverns of Bilgaturoom, or whatever you want to call it. Or, let them decide to go murder and plunder peasants in coastal villages and have the deal with the consequences of that. If your PC's aren't having fun, its very hard for you the DM to have fun.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not familiar at all with Savage Tide, but in general I'd say just keep plugging away. If each player goes through 3 characters in process of completing one adventure, so be it; just make it easy to bring new ones in and you're set. (you might want to streamline the character generation process, though; your players will thank you for it) I'd strongly recommend against the engineered TPK, however.

And if they want to do in-character things that aren't the least bit related to the adventure itself, let them; that's what CN's are for! So what if the adventure takes 8 sessions to play instead of 3...if they're (mostly) having fun, sit back and enjoy the ride.

Lanefan

 

[jollyninja]

Here's the thing, by wiping the party you have done nothing to change the style of play that your group will want to play. It's just going to keep happening time and time again. Let them play their characters but emphasize the social/political aspect as much as you want. Punish them for not "wasting" ranks on diplomacy or having characters with any natural charm. I'm unfamiliar with savage tide but I'm assuming that there are situations where it's nice to have npc's on your side. If the characters cannot buy magic items, start getting charged more at inns and pretty much start seeing their costs rising steadily because the local merchants that deal with such things simply do not like them, suddenly it's an issue even for that type of player.

I force diplomacy checks for important social situations just for this reason. the player can be as eloquent as he wants but if he's playing a character with a 6 cha and no ranks in diplomacy, that's not how it's going to come out of the character's mouth.

 

[BlackMoria]

Candid talk works....at least for our group.

Simply, tell them the problem - that the party composition is of concern to you and that you feel they will not be able to handle some of the stuff that is upcoming. Identify the problem areas (like they need a 'face' man for the diplomacy and interaction stuff, and whatever else you deem is a problem) and then allow them to roll up new characters or retcon old characters somewhat to address the problem areas.

Whether they rise to the occasion or totally ignore you, keep playing. If the TPK happens, it happens - you gave them notice of potential problems and they ignored you. If the TPK happens, then have a discussion of whether to pick up the pieces and continue or to try something different.

Most players (but I don't know yours) usually will take note of concerns of the DM and will work it out somehow.