I guess I'm a REAL RBDM now - First TPK

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I've almost had a few TPKs, but usually the threat of everybody coming back with my old Dwarf builds as "The Battlehammer Clan" keeps me in check. Mostly, though, I freakin' hate having to stop a session early and try to wrangle the plotline back into place with new characters and whatnot. My group is VERY VERY good about leaving themselves outs. All of my players equip their PCs with escape-potion packs and the RttToEE group bought a Qual's tree token and a scroll of Teleport Via Plants ... there's now a dead tree somewhere in the bowels of the Crater Ridge Mines, but they got out alive.

The recent game I'm playing in, the GM worked in a converted 1st Ed tournament module into the game ... I'm not sure what module, as I'm not familiar with it, but the thing is DEADLY. Our rogue got level drained and turned to stone in the course of two encounters. Then, after wearing us down with encounter after encounter, he threw a random encounter of 5 ghasts (on accident) on a 4th level party in the middle of the night. TPK narrowly averted there.

I like tense combats, myself. I don't mind losing characters ... I usually get into my PCs, but I have so many concepts that bringing in another one is almost a reward. I just hate having to shoe-horn what ammounts to a campaign re-boot.

--fje

 

[el-remmen]

Am I wrong or do TPK and Rat Bastard DMs not necessarily go hand in hand?

No, a Rat Bastard DM makes the party wish they were dead. . .

 

[Richard Rawen]

Been here . . .

No, a Rat Bastard DM makes the party wish they were dead. . .

The week previous my Wife's character was reduced to 1 HP and then the poor thing took 57 points of damage from a confirmed crit + deadly critical chart rolls...
It was at this point that the party Sorceress (a young woman who's main contribution to RP is saying "I'm So Hot!") looked at me, then my Wife, then her boyfriend and in a tremulous voice "if he'll do that to his Wife then we're all gonna die!"
I was most pleased.
But the party has access to a scroll of True Resurrection and so she's back, although she lost out on the remainder of the evening's EXP and thus is the only party member not to level.

This week they ran afoul of ghasts... and half the group spent much of the evening rolling horribly and thus retching their guts out from the stench in the tunnels...
and my Wife's character was a "Lay on Hands" from death this time.
The Fighter got his butt kicked.
The Rogue never did make his ST and had to be carried even after the Restoration was applied due to muscle exertions from several missed ST's worth of intestinal distress.
The Barbarian barely avoided rabies but did catch 'something' from the gore of slaying undead...
The Sorceress mentioned above was heard to whine alot about the mess on her robes until her boyfriend (The Fighter) threatened to hug her (cut to shreds as he was).
annnnd, the BBEG, a Necromancer with a penchant for claiming that he's just misunderstood, got away.
Again!
Thus, I have aspirations of RBDMness enough to sign my emails to players:
Blessings
M < > <
RBDMit

 

[Crothian]

I have to admit that if I was ever running one of her little adventures and she looked up at me with those big blue eyes and said, "Daddy, you're a Rat Bastard," I'd fall apart laughing. Then I think I'm supposed to make her wash her mouth out with soap or something, right? You can tell I'm marginal at best at this whole parenting thing, can't you?

Take her to a gameday, I'm sure she'll pick up some interesting words there

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

In the future I might try and dial things back just a bit but I'm pleased to see that the players have not adopted a "Min-Max to the Max or we may die!" attitude.

That, in my opinion, is the best part of your story. I plan encounters on a fairly regular basis that I know could potentially kill one or more PCs, which has tended to shift my groups towards munchkin land. I'm glad to see that not every group has that syndrome.

Oh, and Rel, I love the hair

NCSUCodeMonkey

 

[Rel]

Oh, and Rel, I love the hair

NCSUCodeMonkey

What hair?

 

[shilsen]

That's nothing. Try killing the entire party AND their replacement PCs in the same fight and then we'll talk

Funnily enough, as some people have noted above, TPKing the party isn't very high on the list of RBDm things one can do (IMNSHO, of course). I've done much worse things to the party without killing them. After all, when they're dead, they aren't suffering.

 

[KenM]

When ever you DM a new group that you never really played with before, you should always do a TPK the first game to establish athourity.

 

[Sandain]

I too first thought that you had TPK'ed Samantha!

 

[Rel]

I too first thought that you had TPK'ed Samantha!

It's called "tough love" for a reason.


"Next time maybe you'll eat your veggies like I told you!"