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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7453345" data-attributes="member: 97077">The goals of play to be clear are a meta thing - this refers to the goals the players and DM are pursuing in terms of the game experience. The game sets forth two specific goals (paraphrased): everyone having fun and creating an exciting, memorable tale during play. Groups may add to those goals and I think it's a good idea to be specific about them so that the group has a clear focus on what it's trying to achieve. This informs which house rules and table rules might be implemented to help achieve those additional goals.You stated: "So for my group, the resolution of that scenario is the goal of play. Denying any sense of resolution by having a TPK would ruin that goal of play." If I were you, I would formally add the bolded bit to the goals of play for the group. I would then set up mechanics that would push toward that end, specifically but not limited to, removing the threat of a TPK by changing the rules for what happens when you get to 0 hp. Something like Spirit of the Century's "Taken Out" might be appropriate here. What I would not do is say or imply a scenario contains life-or-death stakes, then not follow through on that by fudging, suddenly changing the monster's motivation from kill to capture because it's not going well, etc. That's an inconsistency I could not abide as DM and that bothers me as a player as it means my decisions don't matter as much as they could.It depends on how you think of the word "plotline." I would consider an adventure path to be a plotline - there's a largely pre-determined narrative to see to its conclusion that usually allows for some variation based on what the players choose to do. The plot may be linear or non-linear. The basic conceit is that the players are there to see the end of the scenario.Contrast with an adventure location where stuff is going on (a "situation," I would say) and there's no pre-determined narrative that the players are meant to see to a conclusion. What emerges when the players interact with this situation is "the story." That story might include all the PCs dying under the default goals of play. With your added goal of play of "resolution of the scenario," that's a no-go as it's been pre-determined that the narrative must be seen to its conclusion.To be even clearer, I'm not judging that you choose to include this goal of play in your games. It's fine. How it was implemented would be what I would care about if I was running a similar game or playing in one.Sure, lots of DMs don't make the stakes clear at the outset. I'm advocating that they should for many reasons that I've already stated. I get why people like to leave things vague - that gives them the option to ease up on the PCs or cut them a break if things are going in a direction that will interfere with a goal of play (e.g. seeing the end of the planned narrative). But then you get into these weird situations where you're putting spheres of annihilation in your game that don't actually annihilate anyone because you don't want the whole party to die when they jump in. Why on earth was this put in the adventure in the first place then? Are folks really giving any serious thought to what they want to achieve and how they want to go about that, then implementing the necessary approaches? It doesn't seem like it, by and large.I'd much rather change the rules to fit the goals of play for the group, then make the stakes clear at the outset of the conflict. This has the effect of making clear what the PCs stand to win or lose, allows the players to buy in or renegotiate the stakes by their actions, or opt out. It informs them, based on their personal goals, how hard they need to try for success or whether failure is actually not too bad (or maybe even desirable). It also frames the challenge clearly so that when a result is achieved, the players know that no fudging was going on and that their decisions really mattered.</blockquote>

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