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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chimera" data-source="post: 3044400" data-attributes="member: 2002">Last night we came awful close to what would have been a remorseless TPK on my (GM) part.  Not so much a 'stupidest thing' story, but a near miss.Party is thrashing around too interested in being heroes to actually stop and think about the PLOT that is going on.  Scads of opportunities to talk to people and figure things out are going by with them too interested in fighting first.They've killed the 'advance party' in a battle that took pretty much everything they had.  All but one of the Cleric's spells, all but the Wizard's Detect Thoughts spell, several Dork Tower cards, a bunch of Hero Points.  They foolishly kill the one guy who is begging them not to kill him and could have provided a wealth of information.  They save the enemy cleric from dying only to have her laugh at their foolishness and provide a small amount of information that they've so far lacked.  (Strangely, after mentioning that he has the Detect Thoughts spell remaining, the Wizard doesn't bother to use it on the prisoner!)That was in the morning.  They 'Power Nap' (Dork Tower card) to get their spells back and prepare for the main force, which is coming after dark to perform a large sacrifice on the hilltop they occupy.  They've previously been told, by a prisoner they freed from a Kobold prison, that on one occasion, 3 humans and 24 Kobolds were sacrificed.  On another, it was 6 Humans and 12 Kobolds.  Astonishingly, the players don't "get" the numbers and seem to be expecting a small group to be arriving.That night, a large procession of over 200 Kobolds and their prisoners comes in to view.  Sorcerers, Clerics, Bards, Rangers....  With lots of prisoners (more than needed?), bags of supplies, litters, animal cages, etc.The players leave the enemy cleric on top of the hill, alive, as they head down the back side of the hill and circle around.They spend close to an hour arguing about attacking the Kobold force directly, "in order to save the prisoners".  Got pretty heated at times, with one player ready to walk out the door.I would not have had a single moment of regret for killing the lot of them.  Six 4th level characters against over 200 Kobolds, many with class levels.  Suicide, and I won't pull an entire nerf factory out of my butt to save people from that kind of willful stupidity.Fortunately, they settled on a hit-and-run attempt at the back end of the train, which succeeded only due to some additional card-and-hero point action followed by RUN AWAY!!!That and the fact that, while they managed to free 3 Human prisoners and get them out, the Kobolds still had enough to carry out the sacrifice.You'll see this in my Story Hour next weekend.</blockquote>

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