On Choice, Consequence and the Right to Fail

[Reynard]

I allow the TPK, then typically continue the campaign later (anything from next week to years later) with a different PC group. Which may have the same or different players.

It's more common in my non-AP campaigns, but I had a TPK at the end of book 1 of Rise of the Runelords. I had Sandpoint burned to the ground then continued with new PCs, players and rules system a couple years later. In the example I'd impose a negative consequence & likely have the same players roll up new PCs to continue.

This gets into that definition of "campaign" @Umbran was talking about. I don't consider new players with new PCs years later in a different game system to be the "same campaign." There's no real continuity between them, except for the GM.

 

[prabe]

Yeah. Putting aside my distaste for published big adventures, I think there's a good case for keeping things going, even if the players fail out one way or another. Either pick up where they failed out, with characters of an appropriate level, or start over. Y'all bought in, literally and metaphorically; might as well give it more than the one chance.

 

[Celebrim]

If you suffer a TPK, as a DM you can handle it in one of several ways. Two ways that appeal to me are:

a) If it happens early enough, simply declare that the party never was the protagonists of the story, and that in fact what they've witnessed is just that interlude at the front of the story where the doomed mooks suffer a terrible fate in order to show the reader how real the danger is. Roll up a new party and start over, if needed with a slightly altered insertion point to the story. Hopefully the new party will make better choices.

b) If it happens late enough in the campaign, declare that the bad guys won and start a new campaign in the aftermath of the bad guys victory.

 

[Umbran]

What I meant to convey was that in the style of game that is a contained campaign (to maybe explain a little for @Umbran ) it seems like the consequences of failure ramp up

Why?

So, you have a group of players - they are engaged with an adventure you bought. All the PCs die.

Contrast with the same group of players - they are engaged with an adventure you made up. All the PCs die.

Why does one have more consequences than the other? I mean, they're all dead, either way, right? Is there some other meaningful consequence here?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't want it to sound like I think a TPK is the only definition of failure based on choices. What I am really talking about is how choice and consequence interact with any failure that creates undo problems with the coherence of the game.

To use a very basic example: the PCs walk into town in search of a clue to the next stage of the adventure. There is one NPC in town that has that information. Because they are a bunch of murder hobos, they kill that NPC and steal his boots before they realize he is the one with the important information.

There are a few basic ways to deal with that choice. First and most obvious is to let the consequences stand. The PCs have gated off the rest of the adventure, and maybe after doing some investigation they learn their mistake. Now they have to figure out how to go forward, maybe going so far as to getting the murder victim raised so they can get the clue. This is, broadly speaking, the way I would normally handle such a situation. The players created this mess, so they can deal with it. Unfortunately, as much as it might lead to interesting play (where are we going to find a cleric that can raise this guy?) it might just as easily end the adventure right there, which is a drag.

Another solution I see as a common suggestion is to just transfer the information to a different NPC. After all, the murder hobos did not know what their victim knew, so they'll never be the wiser. While this maintains the forward momentum of the adventure, it gets very close to railroading for me. If the adventure goes forward no matter what the players choose, what they choose doesn't matter. Plus, it seems to absolve them of consequences for their behavior. I am generally disinclined toward a solution like this.

I think in the example you give, you have to look at it a few different ways. Okay, that NPC had the information.....is there anyone else who would conceivably have it? Or some other means the PCs may find it? I usually never allow for their to be only one path to proceed. Maybe this guy would have been the easiest way to find out, but there's someone else who knows....but that person's in prison. So how do the PCs deal with that?

I don't think that the dichotomy you've suggested really needs to exist. Let the consequences stand, but allow for alternate methods. Maybe the PCs have just made their job harder.

Generally speaking, I look at such "chokepoints" as something to avoid. Always give more than one route to success, and you won't really have to work about subverting agency.

 

[Arilyn]

Why?

So, you have a group of players - they are engaged with an adventure you bought. All the PCs die.

Contrast with the same group of players - they are engaged with an adventure you made up. All the PCs die.

Why does one have more consequences than the other? I mean, they're all dead, either way, right? Is there some other meaningful consequence here?

I think it's just the money spent on a hard cover book. Seems a waste if it gets shelved because party died early. Danger that wind is taken out of players' sails, so might not be eager to try again with new group. Or they might, in which case, no problem. But I've seen groups lose interest in an AP that they TPKed in.

 

[prabe]

Why?

So, you have a group of players - they are engaged with an adventure you bought. All the PCs die.

Contrast with the same group of players - they are engaged with an adventure you made up. All the PCs die.

Why does one have more consequences than the other? I mean, they're all dead, either way, right? Is there some other meaningful consequence here?

Speaking about my experiences, playing some of Paizo's APs. There's a feeling, at least in my Pathfinder group, that success = finishing the AP. So, we play in such a way as to not put that at risk. I think the GM runs the game with that in mind; I know he's been editing the AP we've been working on for the past few years (we're grinding slowly). At some point, there's enough investment in it that there's a real reluctance to just write it off. In some ways, it feels different than a homebrew adventure, where if the party crashes and burns you can start another campaign, maybe bounce it off the end of the previous one. I think that's harder to do from inside one of the big hardcover adventure books.

I might not have explained that well.

 

[Umbran]

I think it's just the money spent on a hard cover book.

So... the adventure costs maybe $50?

How long did they play before they all died? An hour, maybe two? Let's say two, for the sake of argument.

A 2-hour movie ticket costs you roughly $10. For five people, going out to the movie for entertainment would be... $50.

So, the perspective - having them all play for 2 hours and then die... is like you took your friends out to the movies. Maybe it wasn't a great movie? Still, you're not lamenting too much, "Oh, my god, the consequences of choosing a crummy movie!"

Viewed this way, it doesn't seem like a great consequence. At worst, you are down some money and a few hours of time, that were probably enjoyable in their way anyhow.

 

[prabe]

So... the adventure costs maybe $50?

How long did they play before they all died? An hour, maybe two? Let's say two, for the sake of argument.

A 2-hour movie ticket costs you roughly $10. For five people, going out to the movie for entertainment would be... $50.

So, the perspective - having them all play for 2 hours and then die... is like you took your friends out to the movies. Maybe it wasn't a great movie? Still, you're not lamenting too much, "Oh, my god, the consequences of choosing a crummy movie!"

Viewed this way, it doesn't seem like a great consequence. At worst, you are down some money and a few hours of time, that were probably enjoyable in their way anyhow.

So, what about if the group has been grinding away for a few years of real-world time? At this point I think most of my Pathfinder group would be ... irked? Disappointed? Angry? Something in that area ... if we stumbled into a TPK, or even just something that left us unable to finish the AP.

Myself, I wouldn't feel bad at all, but I've been tired of the thing for a while, now.

 

[Umbran]

So, what about if the group has been grinding away for a few years of real-world time?

If I'm working for a couple years on a campaign and its plots, and my character dies without resolving those plots, yes, I am irked... But I am irked whether or not it was published or homebrew content. I am irked because the story reached an unsatisfactory, anticlimactic end, not because the adventure happened to be published and bought.

I am not saying TPKs don't suck. I am questioning how the published nature of the adventure makes a difference in it sucking.