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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nevvur" data-source="post: 7400198" data-attributes="member: 6783882">Whether I do something to avert a TPK is a policy I set during session-0 when we discuss how to handle character death. It's a group majority decision, and I'm perfectly comfortable running things according to the table's preference. Historically, my players have favored a "let the dice fall where they may, and let us dig our own graves" attitude. They never even had an imminent TPK for me to avert, though they amassed 5 PC deaths over about 3 years and 150 sessions.My current campaign is almost entirely driven by PC background elements. It can absorb the shock of 1 or 2 PC deaths at a time, but not in rapid succession, and it would feel weird to me if at least one of the original PCs didn't survive til the end of the campaign. It isn't some plug and play adventure where another group of heroes can just pick up where the last guys failed. Even if another group of heroes did show up to resume the quest, the threats of the day will probably lack the personal and emotional impact they would have had on the original PCs. My players have also provided me some of the most interesting and fleshed out characters I've ever had the pleasure of running a game for. All this is to say that a TPK would be extremely disruptive.We're only 6 sessions in, and I've softballed them on three separate occasions. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty details, but the first one was an incomprehensibly bad decision by one player that would've killed another player's character, the second was a mistake -I- made in setting up an encounter, and the third was a combination of cruel dice and poor decisions made by the party.For these "plot armor PCs," each situation required a different method of handling. In the first one, we stopped the game and talked about the player's choice, and allowed him to retract it. In the second one, I used sub-optimal tactics for the NPCs. The third was a 3-phase encounter where they were on the verge of defeat near the end of the 2nd phase, so I aborted the 3rd (that was never part of my plan, but there was sufficient reason in-game for it to happen)When I look at the frequency of these softballs (50% of my sessions!?) it makes me feel a little uneasy. Then I observe my players and realize they are more engaged, providing more positive feedback, and ostensibly having more fun than any other group I've run games for.</blockquote>

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