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

[pemerton]

These arguments always annoy me, because both sides are treating assumptions as if they are facts.

Out of a series of excellent posts, I think this is the most important remark. And it is true of a lot of exchanges on these boards: there is a failure to analyse the actual decision-processes that take place at the table - including GM decisions about NPC/monster actions - and that lead to the various outcomes of play.

What makes a "game" is choice and consequence. That's it. Each choice you make has some consequence that either increases or decreases the number and kind of available choices you have afterwards. In a game like D&D, the game rules incorporate the random rolling of dice to add chance as an additional factor in your choices.

<snip>

randomness serves as a confounding factor in D&D, rather than a foundational element of the game.

I'm not sure if the following remark is a contradiction of what you've said, or an elaboration: but I think of the main role of randmoness in RPG resolution being to ensure surprise. Randomness generates parameters within which outcomes must be narrated, which weren't chosen by any participant and therefore can come as a surprise to all participants.

I am mostly on the dice should fall whare they lie side of things. I have argued (well demonstrated) how sports are more dramatic than plays as the drama in sports in real & unscripted.

arguments over whether or not a DM should abide by the dice are pretty stupid.

I think that such arguments are generally about one of three things.

If the funtion of the dice is to introduce surprise/spontaneity, then the GM, by ignoring the dice, is usurping a type of narrative authority that s/he ostensibly lacks. For some groups that might be seen as objectionable.

If the function of the dice is to determine whether the players win or lose, then the GM, by ignoring the dice, is in effect cheating. For some groups that might be seen as objectionable.

If the function of the dice is to simulate ingame causal processs then the GM, by ignoring the dice, is unermining that simulationist aesthetic. Again, for some groups that will be objectionable.

Arguments about whether fudging is good or bad are generally (poor) proxies for discussions about these different playstyles and social contracts.

If death is removed as a possibility though, the sense of mortal danger goes out the door with it.

The question isn't one of moral character at all. It's a game and sometimes things go really wrong. There isn't any loss of actual life. The players can end the game at that point or continue playing.

These two remarks strike me as somewhat at odds. Exactly because it is just a game, and there is no actual loss of life, so there is no actual mortal danger. It's all about emotional investment in a fiction. (Or, if you are playing mostly in wargame-y pawn stance, it's about emotional investment in winning or losing the game.)

And I think it is actually quite easy to generate emotional investment in fictions where the stakes are something other than the life or death of the protagonist. (Or, in the alternative, it's easy to come up with win/loss conditions that don't involve the death of the pawn eg missing out on a whole lot of treasure.)

The missionman says that he needs to drive off the dragon & the PCs can assist the regular soldiers in doing this.

Without having actually read or played the module, this seems like a serious issue.

The blurb for the Starter Set says "This box contains the essential rules of the game plus everything you need to play heroic characters on perilous adventures in worlds of fantasy." Heroes who are confonted by a dragon attacking a town will try to defend the town, which probably includes fighting the dragon. Sacrificing NPCs because, at the table, their deaths are less significant than deaths of the protagonists, doesn't look very heroic to me! How are players meant to realise that they should be playing expedient, rather than heroic, protagonists?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You've missed my point. You are describing a party that has been incapacitated. All are at zero hp. That is NOT a TPK. The party is not TPKed until you, the DM, declare that the monsters have killed them. Your choice. In 5e, the likelihood that none of the seven will stabilize is infinitesimal. They're not dead until YOU choose to kill them all. And that's an expectation (or not) created by each table. It is not a function of the dice or the mechanics for all of the players to die (because statistically it is so rare). It's your choice.

Sorta. In 2E I am describing a party that is dying and will die without being saved. None of this 0HP - they are at negative HP and dropping.

If it were talking 5E only, I agree, and that's an interesting point!

 

[pickin_grinnin]

TPKs early in the game can serve as valuable lessons to players and help them improve their game.

Exactly. If there are no consequences to the decisions they make, they will continue to make poor decisions.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The blurb for the Starter Set says "This box contains the essential rules of the game plus everything you need to play heroic characters on perilous adventures in worlds of fantasy." Heroes who are confonted by a dragon attacking a town will try to defend the town, which probably includes fighting the dragon. Sacrificing NPCs because, at the table, their deaths are less significant than deaths of the protagonists, doesn't look very heroic to me! How are players meant to realise that they should be playing expedient, rather than heroic, protagonists?

That lesson is taught to them at the end of episode one when they must send out a champion to fight a boss monster (or stand there in shame while a guard goes out and gets slaughtered).

Ok "heroes" sent out your best level one scrub to fight a CL 4 half dragon with 57 hit points and a breath weapon. Then you get to see me stomp a mud hole in him and walk it dry. Oh yeah if you DO manage to pull a victory out of your butt my 16 kobold allies will spirit me away because I appear later and you are supposed to hate me.

This was crap adventure design when Dragonlance did it and it's still crap now.