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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bardsandsages" data-source="post: 3246403" data-attributes="member: 28771">Now as GMs, there are times when we really do try to wipe out the party.  Either because we want to give them a real challenge, or because they ticked us off the previous session  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /> .  But have you ever wiped out a party by accident with a quirky twist of fate?There has only ever been one time I wiped out a whole party, and it wasn't planned.  I suppose you could say it was there own fault, because they wanted to fight something when there was nothing there.  It was a Ravenloft campaign.  The party was searching some abandoned ruins.  Thing is, they really WERE abandoned.  There was nothing there. I had actually deliberately put these ruins next to a town so they could find it and use it as their own little base of operations (because they had been complaining they needed one...).  Short of saying "there is nothing here, you don't need to roll" out of character, I repeatedly described the ruins as being empty and no signs of anything.  But they didn't accept the fact that there was nothing there.  Maybe they thought they were just failing their checks because the difficulty was too high.  I don't know.  But they spent two hours searching for traps and slowly creeping through the ruins to find nothing.So about fifteen minutes before the session was due to end, they started complaining that they didn't fight anything or find any loot.  How could they get experience if they didnt fight anything?  Of course, if they had moved on with any of the half dozen quests they already had, they would have.  But still....So finally I said "Fine, I'll get you a random encounter."  So I had one of them roll for the encounter.  It came up a gnomish vampire.Remember, this is Ravenloft...So the gnomish vampire sneaks up behind the monk, who had declared he was standing off from the group to meditate.  One failed spot check and a failed Will Save later, the monk is paralized.So the other three decide to attack the gnome vampire.  But the fighter drops a one on his first attack roll, and then fails the reflex save...promptly throwing his magical weapon across the room.  The sorcerer had used up most of her spell slots during the searching in fits of paranoia on things like detect magic, mage armor, etc. etc and only had a couple offensive spells left.  And the rogue tried to sneak attack the vampire...forgetting that undead are immune to such things (and yes, they had fought undead previously, she should have remembered this little detail both in and out of character!).It was not pretty.  I've never seen so many ones rolled in one battle.</blockquote>

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