D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[hawkeyefan]

Sometimes. Not necessarily always, I don't think; and this applies to when things are too easy for the PCs as well as too hard.

No it doesn’t. Things being too easy for the characters is a very different thing.

As far as I know from the "media coverage" lo these many years, the party were utterly and completely outgunned. What I don't know are the specific details as to just how much warning they had - whether for example they saw from a distance the demons standing on the front steps and still tried to sneak past them into the tower. I also don't know how much demon knowledge the players/PCs had - this was early days and they were as yet not at a level where demons would be expected, so it's possible they didn't recognize the demons (either in or out of character) for what they were. I'm fairly sure they had no idea there was a lich in the tower (but could be wrong on that) though the lich's name was, I believe, already familiar to them kind of in a mentor's mentor's mentor way.

Yeah, there are too many unknowns to say for sure… but the gist I’m getting is that this would be problematic at my table.

And yes, the demons were rather casual about how they dealt with these annoying little PCs. I mean, they only killed three...

Who says they even need to kill any at all?

The demons were already in place as door guards.

So what? Was there a reaction roll? Anything else that was used? Again, we don’t know all the details but it sounds like the DM gave the players incomplete information and then punished them for not knowing more.

In my case, I see it as part of what the players signed up for - that fiction and character takes precedence over table concerns; and that what happens in character stays in character.

But it’s not a matter of what’s in character. It’s a question of whether a game is fair or not. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be things that are beyond the characters’ abilities to deal with… but when that’s the case, it should be communicated in a way that’s lends more context than “it’s dangerous”.

Situationally dependent. If for example at least some of the PCs were determined to take on these demons no matter what (which, knowing some of the players, might well have been the case), then what?

That’s when they’ll have made a more informed decision and so the results are on them instead of the DM.

To me this whole scenario is a fine example of character-side trial-and-error adventuring; and had I been the DM I don't think I'd have done anything differently in a broad sense (can't speak to fine-tuned specifics).

Not really… it sounds more like player side trial and error, at least for the players who lost their characters. Now they know, as players, to never know what to expect. Seems like a crappy lesson to learn, and it also seems to shatter your typical views on metagaming.

Why? If "dangerous" is all they happen to have heard then sorry, in the moment they decide to wander over there that's all the information they get. If they're not careful they'll find out by trial and error what "dangerous" means in this context when they get there.

What’s the first question when someone hears a place is dangerous?

“Why?”

Dangerous is typically an invitation for characters in D&D. It’s not enough context to matter.

Welcome to the sandbox.

Seems more like a litter-box to me.

 

[Lanefan]

If you've let them know it's "a dangerous tower", why stop there? In what situation would they have learned that it was dangerous, but not why?

The very situation we're discussing here: while travelling, the PCs happen to see a tower in the distance and ask each other what they know of it. All they can come up with on their own is having heard rumours of it being dangerous.

And even if there is some reason for that, why not then use the opportunity to introduce something more useful as you've suggested? Why just play it out as harshly as possible?

Heh - "as harshly as possible" would not leave any survivors.

Also, it's a matter of honouring the setting. If the prep says there's a lich's tower there, that tower isn't about to get up and move somewhere else just because some know-nothing PCs wander by. Nor is it about to become all nicey-nice for them.

And, in an odd twist, the party didn't know it at the time (and nor did the demon door guards) but the reason they were travelling by there in the first place was in a roundabout way as a service for that very same lich!

There just seems so many opportunities that the DM is passing by in order to punish the players.

If it was punishment, then why do those players* still tell - and laugh at - that story all these years later?

* - those I still see, anyway. Havne't seen some of 'em since about 1982.

 

[Lanefan]

We don't know the whole story, but to me it sounds worse.

The players are told that they see a tower in the distance, and only know that the tower is dangerous. Keep in mind "dangerous" is adventurer speak for interesting and profitable.

That's not the DM's problem. "Dangerous" also means what it says on the tin.

Presumably, they don't have any pressing business or more interesting hooks, so decide to check it out, as adventures do - when presented with something interesting.

This is an odd one, in that they were on a sub-mission they didn't really know about (they had in their possession an item that certain people wanted to see arrive at a certain place, and the PCs were likely to go there) and as far as I know thought they were simply on their way from one place to another between adventures.

We're told that the group didn't do their due diligence in scouting the place, but that's a second hand account. We don't know what they actually did/didn't do or what the DM signposted, if anything.

Yes, and with apologies I can't give any deeper detail on that as I don't have it. All I have to go on is a very brief game log and memory of the stories I've been told (many times).

We do know that they tried to sneak in, met with something and the ones that didn't immediately flee, immediately died.

Pretty much - they didn't even get in the front door, the demons met them on the steps. I'm not sure if the PCs attacked the demons (though knowing some of the players, it wouldn't be any surprise if they did), but I do know the PCs tried and failed to sneak around them.

That to me seems a waste of an interesting adventuring opportunity. Especially if it was a new group where the PLAYERS didn't realize they were in over their heads.

Now, again, maybe the DM flat looked at the group and said: this place seems evil and truly, truly deadly you feel dread just stepping into the grounds something EPICALLY bad dwells here - just so you know. And the group moved on anyway - in which case, well ok. But somehow I doubt it.

And even still, this is the perfect opportunity for the DM, thrown a bit of a curve ball, as opposed to the one usually throwing them, to have a different type of scenario entirely. One where the big bad throws the group for a big loop and recruits/blackmails or otherwise conscripts them Or something to that effect.

In hindsight, all of this is probably valid. At the time, with someone still relatively new to DMing, I'd still stand behind what actually happened even without knowing all the details.

Wiping them out is just a bit too obvious and short sighed for the litch.

Indeed, but they weren't wiped out: there were three survivors.

 

[Lanefan]

But it’s not a matter of what’s in character. It’s a question of whether a game is fair or not. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be things that are beyond the characters’ abilities to deal with… but when that’s the case, it should be communicated in a way that’s lends more context than “it’s dangerous”.

I disagree. "It's dangerous" should be all it takes to either get them going toward it (if the characters are either naive or unwise) or get them asking about it (if they're wise).

Not really… it sounds more like player side trial and error, at least for the players who lost their characters. Now they know, as players, to never know what to expect. Seems like a crappy lesson to learn, and it also seems to shatter your typical views on metagaming.

It's character-side trial and error. The survivors know not to go back there and can warn their new recruits; and have also (one would think) learned that info-gathering might be wiser than just wandering into places.

As players, if they think they know what to expect then I'm probably doing it wrong.

What’s the first question when someone hears a place is dangerous?

“Why?”

And if they're in a position to ask that and do, odds are very high they'll get answers. Maybe lots of answers. And some of them might even be true.

Seems more like a litter-box to me.

Hmmm...insult intended?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I disagree. "It's dangerous" should be all it takes to either get them going toward it (if the characters are either naive or unwise) or get them asking about it (if they're wise).

It's character-side trial and error. The survivors know not to go back there and can warn their new recruits; and have also (one would think) learned that info-gathering might be wiser than just wandering into places.

As players, if they think they know what to expect then I'm probably doing it wrong.

And if they're in a position to ask that and do, odds are very high they'll get answers. Maybe lots of answers. And some of them might even be true.

Hmmm...insult intended?

You weren’t the GM so I didn’t think it’d be an insult. It was a joke.

Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea at all. The players seem to be in the dark about all manner of things. The game seems to be more about the DM’s secrets than about anything else.

I feel like the point largely seems to be to wait until something wipes the party out and then laugh at them and explain all the reasons they didn’t know about which made it happen. It’d rub me the wrong way, for sure.

 

[Aldarc]

We don't know the whole story, but to me it sounds worse.

The players are told that they see a tower in the distance, and only know that the tower is dangerous. Keep in mind "dangerous" is adventurer speak for interesting and profitable.

Presumably, they don't have any pressing business or more interesting hooks, so decide to check it out, as adventures do - when presented with something interesting.

Another point that I would add is that people often talk about the social contract of play, particularly in GM-curated games, that often involves the tacit idea that players should bite at the hooks that the GM gives you since they likely put in a lot of work into prepping for that.

Why? If "dangerous" is all they happen to have heard then sorry, in the moment they decide to wander over there that's all the information they get. If they're not careful they'll find out by trial and error what "dangerous" means in this context when they get there.

Welcome to the sandbox.

Sandboxes require, IMHO, players being able to make informed decisions, which requires good GM-framing of the fiction and the world. Simply signposting a place as "dangerous" sounds neither helpful nor informative to those ends. I'm surprised that you are defending this sort of play since it honestly sounds like how an inexperienced GM would run a sandbox.

 

[clearstream]

That to me seems a waste of an interesting adventuring opportunity. Especially if it was a new group where the PLAYERS didn't realize they were in over their heads.

Notwithstanding how the tower was set up, it need not be a waste to show a dangerous location that might be revisited later. A deferred adventuring opportunity.

I'm curious to know if the surviving PCs might have returned to that tower later? Anyway, for me it shouldn't always be see the thing, resolve the thing. Immediate gratification. You're not saying that, right?

The players are told that they see a tower in the distance, and only know that the tower is dangerous. Keep in mind "dangerous" is adventurer speak for interesting and profitable.

I wouldn't make that assumption, although it might have applied in the example to hand.

 

[Lanefan]

You weren’t the GM so I didn’t think it’d be an insult. It was a joke.

I took it badly as I run my games much the same way, which should come as no surprise given that this is the person who largely taught me how to DM.

Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea at all. The players seem to be in the dark about all manner of things. The game seems to be more about the DM’s secrets than about anything else.

That's kinda been the case all the way along, and I don't mind - there's a lot of solve-the-mysterious-backstory elements baked into that campaign and always have been.

I feel like the point largely seems to be to wait until something wipes the party out and then laugh at them and explain all the reasons they didn’t know about which made it happen. It’d rub me the wrong way, for sure.

You keep referring to "wiping the party out", so perhaps I'd best mention here that in 42 years this DM has never yet run a TPK.

Come close a few times, mind you, but never wiped out a whole party. And that's despite the best efforts of some pretty gonzo players over the years...

 

[Lanefan]

Notwithstanding how the tower was set up, it need not be a waste to show a dangerous location that might be revisited later. A deferred adventuring opportunity.

I'm curious to know if the surviving PCs might have returned to that tower later?

I know various characters and parties in that campaign have since had (very) occasional directly interactions with the lich who lives there, but I don't remember if any of those interactions were in her tower and also don't remember if any of those characters were from that ill-fated early group. I'm pretty sure I-as-player haven't ever had a character go there, but I've not been in every party in that game.

Anyway, for me it shouldn't always be see the thing, resolve the thing. Immediate gratification.

Same here.

I wouldn't make that assumption, although it might have applied in the example to hand.

It's entirely possible the DM says dangerous meaning one thing and the players/PCs take it to mean something else. Which could reflect the characters' thought processes as well: they hear some random NPC talk about something dangerous* so off they go to investigate it, where in fact "dangerous" really means stay the hell clear of the place unless you kill gods in your spare time.

(for a nastier twist, a "dangerous" rumour about a place could be a lure or plant to get the PCs to go there, and thus stand them into extreme danger and-or distract them from something going on elsewhere)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Notwithstanding how the tower was set up, it need not be a waste to show a dangerous location that might be revisited later. A deferred adventuring opportunity.

I'm curious to know if the surviving PCs might have returned to that tower later? Anyway, for me it shouldn't always be see the thing, resolve the thing. Immediate gratification. You're not saying that, right?

Didn't at all sound like that to me. Instead, it sounded like, "this could have still been an adventure of harrowing hide-and-seek then flee to return another day," rather than "and now most/all of you just die."

I wouldn't make that assumption, although it might have applied in the example to hand.

As noted, this assumption is literally as old as the hobby. So even if you wouldn't, a lot of people would have. If DMs are going to lay claim to such great power, it comes with several responsibilities, and one of those is to not leave important things vague or ambiguous. "Dangerous" is both, and expecting "dangerous" alone to prompt painstakingly meticulous research is silly. As I said before, this isn't to say that the players have no responsibility here, they surely do. But the DM's responsibility is both prior and greater, the way this situation has been presented.

That's kinda been the case all the way along, and I don't mind - there's a lot of solve-the-mysterious-backstory elements baked into that campaign and always have been.

I guess I just don't get how this differs from "read the DM's mind." Nothing is told unless you ask the right questions, so how do you even know what questions to ask or even when to ask them? And if you just constantly ask questions about every tiny detail because you never know what is the one and only vague and cryptic clue you'll get before the hammer falls, how does the game ever go anywhere?

You keep referring to "wiping the party out", so perhaps I'd best mention here that in 42 years this DM has never yet run a TPK.

Come close a few times, mind you, but never wiped out a whole party. And that's despite the best efforts of some pretty gonzo players over the years...

It's not really that different if only 1-2 people survived. Doubly so if, after the second or third run, no one of the original crew is still around.

You can extol the virtues of the group self as much as you like, but it won't make me feel more invested when everyone I've befriended has died in six months or less and I'm on my third character that probably won't get any more character development than any of the previous ones did.

 

[Oofta]

Short version: I don't know enough details about the tower scenario so I'll discuss one that happened when I was DM and why it turned into a near TPK.

Long version:
Long, long ago, I would bend over backwards to save all the PCs. That PC that chased after a chest of gold about to fall off the edge of the crashing airship? Give 'em saving throws and options until they make it out alive. That TPK when the group decided everyone in the group should play some variation of wizard? The bandits just sold them into slavery. Been there, done that, got the lousy t-shirt.

Eventually I realized that it never really sat right with me or the group. So we discussed it and I adjusted. I wouldn't go out of my way to kill PCs, but death is never off the table either. Have your PC try to steal something when it's been explicitly stated that the shop owner is watching you like a hawk? The guard is called. Try to fight the guard when they arrive (and you're a first level PC) well, you haven't been playing that PC too long so write up a new one.

Then came the orc encampment. The group had been hired to find out information, try to find more information on the orcish raiders. They found a large encampment with more orcs than they could reasonably take on themselves. They knew they could go back and ask for reinforcements, or perhaps they could have started ambushing patrols to whittle down the numbers. It looked like a direct assault was not a good idea.

One of the PCs decided to sneak into the camp to see what they could steal. They find a big chest mostly full of copper and junk, but quite a bit of treasure. Too heavy to carry off, they start dragging the chest away, alerting the guards. Instead of running when the alarm went off the PC continued to attempt to drag the chest. Hearing the alarms, the other PCs also ran into the camp to save their friend.

In that scenario? The only one who survived was the wizard who ran away. What exactly was supposed to happen here other than the orcs attack the intruders? They didn't know the exact number of orcs, but the PCs were fairly low level and outnumbered. I don't control the actions of the PCs and the orcs were not the forgiving kind.

So now when we start a new campaign we discuss the options in the group's session 0. I tend to run a fairly low lethality game but death, even TPK, is never off the table. Come across a large orcish encampment or seek out a tower simply because you heard it's dangerous? Charge into that encampment without a plan or try to sneak past a demonic guard? You face the logical consequences of what I, as DM have already place there.

There are very dangerous places in my campaign world. Places that will be a threat to even high level PCs. Decide to go into those places without further investigation, without prep? Just try to sneak in past the guard that's way above your pay grade for no other reason than curiosity or greed? You get what you get. Maybe the rumors were just rumors and the demon is an illusion or maybe it's a meat grinder. What it won't be is automatically adjusted to be an appropriate threat level for your group.

The game world doesn't revolve around or morph to suit the needs of the PCs. Because it's a game I'll dangle threads about things they can handle. But I won't give them info I don't think their PCs would not have. If they go off on a tangent and don't pause to assess the danger but go in blindly or ignore the fact that the doorman is a demon? Let the chips fall where they may.

 

[Enrahim2]

It's not really that different if only 1-2 people survived. Doubly so if, after the second or third run, no one of the original crew is still around.

You can extol the virtues of the group self as much as you like, but it won't make me feel more invested when everyone I've befriended has died in six months or less and I'm on my third character that probably won't get any more character development than any of the previous ones did.

I think this touches on a crucial point. You talking about people befriended dying as something to avoid, or getting character development as something you desire. This is a common mode of play today, but not the only. In the purest form of this mode of play it can be argued that perma death should be completely off the table.

However if the mode of play is rather focusing on befriending the other players, and develop the party together, the death of a character is a completely different matter. To what extent lethality should be telegraphed and attempted avoided is highly dependent on mode of play.

One thing granting DM high degree of autonomy rather than binding their hands to avoid "mistakes" alows for is the DM to read the table. That a designer cannot do. From how the lich tower incident is described it is a fond memory for the players, and they angle the talk about it as the players messed up, not the DM. That indicates to me that this was a case the DM read the table correctly, no matter how much warning or signaling the DM might have given in advance.

If playing a system with for instance player known budgets of what a DM could introduce of monsters, that group would have been one fond story poorer. I am also sceptical if the suggested have the characters "auto evade" the monsters, and have a creepy dungeon exploration would have been anywhere near as memorable despite potentially being more "fun" at the moment. In this story the DMs ability to crush half the party based on reading the table was what made this story valuable. This is one of the flexibilities an empowered DM can give the game.

 

[Lanefan]

It's not really that different if only 1-2 people survived.

To me, it's very different: if there's always at least one survivor, even if it's not always the same character, the party can regrow and its story can continue.

Doubly so if, after the second or third run, no one of the original crew is still around.

Nobody who played for the New York Yankees in 1960 plays for them today - at a guess I'd posit the player lineup has completely turned over at least five times since then, maybe more - but the franchise has been in continuous operation throughout and is still just as recognizable today as it was then.

You can extol the virtues of the group self as much as you like, but it won't make me feel more invested when everyone I've befriended has died in six months or less and I'm on my third character that probably won't get any more character development than any of the previous ones did.

Something I see more and more of late - not picking specifically on you here - is people saying they can't or won't get invested in the story of the party as a whole in addition to that of their own character(s). Which seems a bit self-defeating; in that when (not if) something happens to your character that takes it out of play either long-term or forever you don't have that party-level investment to fall back on until your replacement PC can join.

 

[pemerton]

One thing granting DM high degree of autonomy rather than binding their hands to avoid "mistakes" alows for is the DM to read the table. That a designer cannot do.

The intended implication of this seems to be that "reading the table" is not a thing in (say) Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel play. Yet if very obviously is. So this is not something that depends on granting a high degree of autonomy in some "rule zero-ish" fashion.

 

[Enrahim2]

The intended implication of this seems to be that "reading the table" is not a thing in (say) Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel play. Yet if very obviously is. So this is not something that depends on granting a high degree of autonomy in some "rule zero-ish" fashion.

No, no, no! I can't think of any rpg where reading the table is not a thing! However some games put more restrictions on what you can do based on those readings than others. I also believe we have established earlier in the thread that the AW GM do have very high authority, just not quite as unhinged as in old D&D.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To me, it's very different: if there's always at least one survivor, even if it's not always the same character, the party can regrow and its story can continue.

And my question remains: why should I care?

If the party is always dead in six months and nothing ever gets anywhere or has any lingering meaning other than the team jersey (to jump just a little ahead), why should I care? Any investment I put into anyone or anything is definitionally a waste of effort. All due respect to Rudyard Kipling, but within the sphere of my gaming, I have neither the time nor the patience to wager everything on a coin flip on the regular, nor to lose it all "and never breathe a word about [my] loss."

Nobody who played for the New York Yankees in 1960 plays for them today - at a guess I'd posit the player lineup has completely turned over at least five times since then, maybe more - but the franchise has been in continuous operation throughout and is still just as recognizable today as it was then.

A serious problem with the jersey analogy: People essentially never start watching a sport by following one individual player and becoming attached to a team solely because that play happened to play for it, thus transferring allegiance from person to team. They become attached to teams from the word go, usually by that team being their "home" team, and as a result show fear or favor toward players exclusively because of the jersey—never having been attached to the individuals at all, or at least only in the most rudimentary way. Essentially nobody (ignoring the vanishing % of people who are their personal friends/family/loved ones) started engaging with basketball because they were invested in (say) Kobe Bryant or Shaquille O'Neal and only after a good long time of watching Shaq or Kobe play did they become attached to the team. Shaq is especially useful as an example because he switched teams a lot, having played for six different pro teams in his career (Magic, Lakers, Heat, Suns, Cavaliers, and Celtics)—and while he might have been a household name, people would essentially never switch team allegiance solely because he did, and would probably find the very notion bizarre. Instead, Shaq switching teams would be a cause for dislike toward him, having left the team to which one's loyalties had belonged from the beginning.

With a TTRPG group, it's exactly the opposite. You start out with no investment in the group at all, being invested solely in the one thing you know, your own character. You slowly grow attachments to the individuals who happen to adventure beside you, with the (as mentioned) "group self" notion only developing well after as a neat, desirable byproduct of becoming attached to the people who constitute that group. And if a player truly leaves a group, unless it's specifically on bad terms, it's a sadness, and the focus for everyone (leaving or staying) is still on the character(s, but usually singular) that they play(ed). But if this group-self sedimentation process is continually disrupted by metaphorical catastrophic flooding (near-TPK or losing your character that anchored you to your group), it never forms in the first place; without the individual connections, durable and meaningful group attachment is impossible. It becomes a blur, and one you may as well not care any more about than you did the previous blur, nor the blur that will follow it.

For group consequences to have meaning, you must already value the group. Death ever waiting in the wings certainly reminds you that you should pick your choices carefully, but it also reminds you that, due to the vagaries of dice, it probably doesn't matter how careful you are, you'll just lose sooner or later. Defeat assured is just as lethal to investment as victory assured. Hence why I prefer to re-frame things so that "defeat" does not mean "total, absolute loss of everything about a character." Because that means you can still have defeat—indeed, you can make it much more likely!—and yet avoid the problem of statistical inevitability. Absolute defeat is not three bad rolls away, so partial-but-still-devastating defeat can be.

Something I see more and more of late - not picking specifically on you here - is people saying they can't or won't get invested in the story of the party as a whole in addition to that of their own character(s). Which seems a bit self-defeating; in that when (not if) something happens to your character that takes it out of play either long-term or forever you don't have that party-level investment to fall back on until your replacement PC can join.

That isn't what I said though. What I said was, if I know for certain that everyone will die quickly, unceremoniously, and frequently—if essentially total defeat is guaranteed, and statistically speaking it must be, especially in old-school contexts with low numbers and high lethality!—then there is no time nor opportunity for attachment to the group to form in the first place.

Attachment to the jersey can only form well after the group does. It requires becoming invested in the individual team members first, caring about who they are and why they are and what they want. It requires that the individual lines get woven together until the group has taken on transcendent meaning beyond just the individuals who comprise it: the bundle held together long enough, and through enough trials and tribulations, that the group-self identity can actually have meaning apart from the people who fill its roster.

Cut those threads early and often, and no group-self weaving can occur. You just have lots of disconnected individual threads; not a tapestry, but a pile of yarn. The group self supervenes on the bonds between the individual selves, and takes even more time to form than those bonds do.

Or, if you prefer a more visual presentation, the (genuinely!) gripping tale of Slappy the Clown.

Having 2-3 merely near-TPKs before session 40 prevents a scene like this from occurring for most groups. Both because Slappy probably died already, and because everyone else probably already died too. Some players' characters more than once. The jersey lives on, but I have no connection to it—because I never got the chance to build a connection to the people in it.

 

[soviet]

No, no, no! I can't think of any rpg where reading the table is not a thing! However some games put more restrictions on what you can do based on those readings than others. I also believe we have established earlier in the thread that the AW GM do have very high authority, just not quite as unhinged as in old D&D.

But if one of the uses of authority is to occasionally 'read the room', put the brakes on the system, and thus avert disaster... isn't it better to not have that ever present risk of sudden TPK in the first place? Games with no rule zero don't usually have these failure states in the first place.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, no, no! I can't think of any rpg where reading the table is not a thing! However some games put more restrictions on what you can do based on those readings than others. I also believe we have established earlier in the thread that the AW GM do have very high authority, just not quite as unhinged as in old D&D.

I'm not really sure what restrictions PbtA games put on "reading the table" that are so onerous. Nor any other system I've played (which would include, but may not be limited to, 3e/4e/5e/PF1, a couple of retroclones, 13A, Shadowrun 5, Werewolf 20th, and an interesting obscure one called Tavern Tales where I played as an orphan in a group of children.)

And if PbtA is considered to give "very high" authority...yeah, it's hard not to see classic D&D as giving inordinate authority. I'm not entirely sure I think PbtA does that though.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But if one of the uses of authority is to occasionally 'read the room', put the brakes on the system, and thus avert disaster... isn't it better to not have that ever present risk of sudden TPK in the first place? Games with no rule zero don't usually have these failure states in the first place.

Exactly.

Set the bounds on failure so they include deep cuts, not (near-)TPKs, except in the most dire and climactic of events. Then, the party can fail, and fail, and fail, and fail, and yet still adventure onward. No need to wait for a group self to form; indeed, extra time for exactly that to occur, so when the deep cuts finally do include a death, not only does it hurt more, it actually matters, rather than "oh, Bob IV died. Guess we'll be seeing Bob V soon. Cousin this time, or nephew? Oh, niece, cool, cool. Wonder if she'll outlast him. Probably not."

As I said above, guaranteed failure is just as lethal to investment as guaranteed success. And ultra-lethal meat-grinder "guess you should have known better" gameplay is statistically guaranteed to result in failure sooner or later. The Grim Reaper is patient enough to let the dice come to him.

 

[Oofta]

But if one of the uses of authority is to occasionally 'read the room', put the brakes on the system, and thus avert disaster... isn't it better to not have that ever present risk of sudden TPK in the first place? Games with no rule zero don't usually have these failure states in the first place.

I don't think avoiding a TPK at all costs, putting on the brakes as you say, is worth it. I've only had a couple TPKs over the years but I've had far, far more close calls. Depending on the scenario, those close calls can be important turning points in the campaign, or at the very least a reminder how deadly the game can be. But I don't adjust things to be easier once the encounter starts, I don't have sudden unplanned reinforcements arrive. People can tell when you do that, especially when you do it too often. For me it takes away from the game if I know the DM is holding back.

Lack of that failure state, having no chance of a TPK would mean the game looses a lot of tension for me. That tension can be a fun part of the game.