TPK Dillema

[jbear]

Having an entire party wiped at a non-climatic point of a campaign becasue of serious bad luck or seriously foolish play would indeed be a disappointing way to end an adventure, but I think as a DM you need to convince your players that the danger is real. All the time.

I've allowed other players to have heroic moments and pull their allies out from the jaws of death using a combination of powers bent by a 'Do Something Cool' card. I certainly wasn't going to fudge something for the dead player. But when it happened a second and third time I regretted it. Suddenly it was the situation the OP brought up; Death wasn't a real possibility because it got in the way of the adventure.

I had a sit down with everyone and explained that I had let the game go down a path I didn't want it to go and asked for their help to find a way back to where we all wanted it to be. In the end those who hadn't had a 'Get Out of Jail Card' free were allowed one. A once in a PC's lifetime card.

But even that was unsatisfactory. The players who hadn't used it didn't feel the same tension as those that had. And I found myself making a conscious effort to take it away from then.

The campaign was awesome. We moved countries recently which brought it to a screeching halt, but we managed to bring it to its climax with an epic series of battles with the hordes of the big bad gal who the PCs just managed to bring down with PCs down, dying and the rest within an inch of their lives. A death would have really messed that up. Still, I have to say, despite that, I'd never go down that path ever again.

The threat of death has to be a real, if its not, every victory won is cheap and meaningless.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Personally:

A lot of my encounters start off poorly for the PCs, and may spend a number of turns unconcious. I don't go for coup de gras, but generally the PCs go out of their way to avoid them anyway (they rarely leave an ally unconcious for more than a turn, so they aren't gaming the no cdg stance, plus it's still in their best interest to have al their party members acting anyway). The general flow of things works out that while the party can heal themselves back to a full party, once monsters start dying, the momentum inevitably swings towards the PCs. If in any of he encounters the PCs stopped using good tactics (i.e. didn't focus fire at all, not using any control, not healing the party) it could easily have gone the way of a TPK.

A single death shouldn't derail things. Once the PCs have gotten to the point where they are invested in their characters, the party should have access to raise dead. In the case of a potential TPK, you should probably give the PCs some sort of 'out' (either point out that some of their friends are dead, and if they retreat now, they may have a chance to live to fight another day ... or the enemies could ask for surrender, or go for capture, etc, etc, etc. Part of this requires that the party break the mindset that they can survive and win every encounter, as not backing down against overwhelming odds is a great way to have a TPK. In the case of a part member that is already dead, you should probably give the party some means of either taking the body with them, or getting the body back, so that it can be raised. (The enemy gives them a chance to "take your dead and leave", or one of the monsters takes the body away to eat it later, so the party can go after the one monster by itself, and the other monsters don't bother to follow, etc).

EDIT:

In a game of MechWarrior RPG we play with a bunch of house rules, the DM allows us some 'outs' like Sixth Sense which get us out of certain life or death situation, but even with a number of waves to save ourselves, there are still deaths. Part of this is thanks to having lots of NPCs on our side, so we still have deaths, even if they aren't for PCs. But, I have been able to find ways to die in spite of everything (falling over and having my mech's head get stepped on when I was in a position where I could not punch out of my mech). It has made it so that while death is less likely, when it does happen, it's often more memorable (and often the result of taking a risk and it coming back to bite you.)

 

[Ryujin]

I allow my players a certain amount of story armour (nice turn of phrase, that), in order to keep things going. Generally speaking if they die, they did it to themselves. "Oh, I can get that shiny thing and avoid the trap easily, using Acrobatics. No reason to look for the trigger." quoth the thief, just before getting flattened by a 10x10x10 stone block. "I can outrun the nuclear blast if I steal that Lamborghini, in the parking lot, instead of stepping through the portal. Treasure! Yay!!" Um, BOOM?

 

[Lord Zardoz]

The threat of TPK is something that should always be present in some form. To guard against it, there are a few things that the DM ought to do though.

First is that the DM should avoid setting up encounters with monsters beyond the players level. Going a little on the high side is ok. Going too far to the high side, especially with durable monsters, is trickier..

Second is that the DM should generally give the players the option to run the hell away when things start to go badly, and if necessary drop some hints or warnings that he thinks the players are about to bite it.

Most importantly though, the DM should be prepared with some kind of backup plan if the TPK does happen.

I like my combat to present risk when possible, so I like to roll my attacks in the open. If I do feel the need to give the players an edge though, I will start doing things that may result in provoking AoO's more often, or maybe choose a sub optimal attack power. I have had some near TPK encounters that worked out though, that had one player use a heal effect and then try to carry away another player.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Blackbrrd]

...
First is that the DM should avoid setting up encounters with monsters beyond the players level. Going a little on the high side is ok. Going too far to the high side, especially with durable monsters, is trickier..
...

I do occasionally create Encounters that are deadly if the players engage in combat. It's is quite clear that it's a bad idea to fight and it does make other encounters that are more reasonable a bit more umph, since the players aren't quite sure the encounter is tailored to them.

99% of the time it should be possible to RUN from an encounter too, but I have only recently thought that to my players. In the early years they never ran or regrouped.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I do occasionally create Encounters that are deadly if the players engage in combat. It's is quite clear that it's a bad idea to fight and it does make other encounters that are more reasonable a bit more umph, since the players aren't quite sure the encounter is tailored to them.

99% of the time it should be possible to RUN from an encounter too, but I have only recently thought that to my players. In the early years they never ran or regrouped.

Exactly!

Not every encounter is meant to be a reason to swing swords. Not every NPC is merely XP on the hoof. Regardless of level, some encounters will kick your ass if your first/only thought is "Roll for initiative!"

 

[the Jester]

- could be a dream (using the inspireds of Eberron this will be easy)
- back in time

Really, either of these will only make the players feel like your game is consequence-free. I strongly urge you to avoid obvious and ham-fisted techniques like these.

The "take prisoners" thing, on the other hand, is reasonable.

 

[nikadeemus327]

My players get to retry the encounter when I TPK them. I just hand wave it and no one minds. I never throw them a bone and mercilessly try to kill them every chance I get without worrying about the campaign ending prematurely.