TPK or not TPK

[spunky_mutters]

You know how it is. You start play with the best of intentions. The encounters are balanced, the puzzles are easy and the treasure is practically out in the open. Then your players muddle in, miss the treasure, get stuck on some puzzles and sleepwalk into combat.

I wanted to hightlight some TPKs we've had as DMs over the years to get an idea of when people cross that line, and how they feel about it. I'll start and number mine for reference.

(1) Players are investigating some murders on the Council of a town. They uncover a prophecy that foretells a horrible undead plague that will be unleashed (details few but extremely grim) if the membership in the Council should fall to 13. When players arrive in town there are 18 people on the council. They fail to stop the next 4 murders despite being present when they occur. Finally discovering the culprit behind these attacks (the mayor), they go to confront him...and they kill him.

So now the players are in the middle of town, in the town hall, and they have just succeeded in invoking the prophecy. I really hadn't expected this, and so I had gone a little overboard in detailing the undead. The party was 1st level, and they didn't make it out of the room.

I figured they would at least think about the prophecy before they killed the mayor, especially since I read it to them again before they confronted him.


This happened in a 1e game near the beginning of my first real campaign. I took a lot of flack for killing them all off, but they respected me for not caving. We were just crawling out of our powergamer/monty haul phase, and my consistency as a DM, providing their first real challenges enabled us to grow as DM/players. They brought this up often over the years, but they still let me ref until we all moved away.

(I have plenty more TPKs, but I'll dole them out to bump).

 

[Limper]

Hey Spunky.... I like it! I never mind death from my own hand... I just hate it when I had nothing to do with it. That is a wonderful TPK.

 

[spunky_mutters]

I hate killing off players. I always feel that they've failed me when they die.

We have a little thing we do whenever there's a TPK. It always results in the formation of a gaming truism. That first one resulted in "Always remember the prophecy." It became sort of a wake-up-and-smell-the-clues saying.

 

[Hejdun]

I would have given them a week before the prophecy is fulfilled. They set it in motion, but it will take time before the town is burned to the ground. That gives them a week to be smart enough to nominate themselves to the council

 

[Altin]

I just have to say that is the first example of a TPK I could see myself finding deeply satisfying from both sides of the table (though, being a bit of a softie GM, I'd probably have given them a chance to leg it). I guess there are just some situations where everyone getting wiped out makes sense, this being one of them, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. However, I must admit I've never had a TPK myself (again, being a softie Gm hasn't helped...)

Yours,
Altin

 

[spunky_mutters]

Okay, here's...

(2) During a Twilight 2000 game, players were negotiating for equipment. One of the players didn't like the prices he was offered. He was eyeing the cache the guy had, and realizing he wasn't going to be able to buy much of anything. So he stomps off back to the vehicle and convinces the rest of the players they can take him.

So, rather than scouting around, asking me questions about their surroundings, or waiting for a good chance, the pc's got in their vehicles, pulled out their weapons, and started a vehicular assault.

I tried to talk them out of it. They're always sure it's the right thing to do. The instigating player could smell all the powerful weapons he was going to get. He just didn't realize he was going to get them fired at his vehicle. A couple of players survived the rollover after they ran over the tire spikes trying to get into town through what looked like an alley.

The sentries did a good job of mopping up the players that scrambled away from the vehicle. In fact, the players were all dead before the gun-runners had even readied their tank (that's not as much overkill as it sounds, remember it was a T2000 game).

So this little episode was responsible for the truism "Never attack a town."

The players also learned another valuable lesson. Never listen to Dave. It's a bit of the school of hard knock, slashes and BOOM!s, but you have to teach them somehow.

 

[Shiv]

I hate killing off players. I always feel that they've failed me when they die.

I hate killing players, too. But this one time, this one guy, man, he just irked me. Never showed up on time. Min-maxed like a super-munchkin. Never shut up. Always stole focus. Punched my girlfriend in the clavicle. Ate my ferrets after roasting them on my burning sofa.

So I had to kill him.

My current players never do any of that stuff. Sometimes you just gotta make an example of someone to get the gaming group you always wanted.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I've never killed a party or PC, the dice did it.

 

[spunky_mutters]

I've never killed a party or PC, the dice did it.

Exactly. When you do it right, that's how it goes. I always give them fair warning, and if they decide to proceed, they should understand the likely outcome of their actions.

 

[Ace32]

I always hate having a TPK, but sometimes my players bring it on themselves.. There's only so many ways to tell them not to do something..

Although, my biggest problem with TPKs is the cleanup afterwards.