Was I unfair?

[jdrakeh]

Maybe I'm confused then about how clear I have to be with adults. Their first choices of characters were different - one of them was playing all NPC classes. I said to them "If he plays that garbage, even though there's not a LOT of combat, you will all probably die eventually".

This screams "If you don't do it my way, you're stupid!" (if what you quoted above was what you actually said).

That doesn't spell it out?

It spells out something, but I'm not what I expect you intended it to spell out. After all, you must have approved the characters that you complained about on this thread, because they were playing them. So what if you condemned different characters?

When you give characters your stamp of approval as a GM, the only thing that it spells out is "These characters are acceptable" -- which you cleary didn't think they were, given your mocking references to them in this thread.

If you approved the player characters for deployment, sending the message to the players that they were acceptable, I fail to see how their failure to build "good" characters is their[/i ]fault. For all they knew, their characters were up to your personal standards of excellence.

And I STILL don't think that I'm saying they have to be combat optimized - If they had used some smarts they would still be alive.

Honestly, the way you painted the situation, they would have died no matter what, due to their poor character creeation choices. That's how you came off very early in this thread. Sure, their bad choices (and they did make some bad choices) compounded this perceieved fault, but why did you mention (multiple times) the non-combat effectivenesss of the individual characters and party composition if it didn't matter at all?

Very early on in this thead, it was a big part of why they died. Now that you've been offered some constructive criticism suggesting that you should try cooperating with players to make sure that what they think is cool is also a viable character choice, you're backing off of your earlier complaints in an effor to disown repsonsibility.

Look, the bottom line is this:

It's starting to become very apparent that what your players wanted out of the game and what you wanted out of the campaign was entirely different. You wanted ass kickers and they wanted, well, whatever it was that they wanted -- obviously not tactical ass kickers, judging by their character choices and what you said their first characters looked like.

You said you sense that your players are secretly holding a grudge against you for the way that the encounter in question played out. You said you 'could tell" that they wanted to complain. That kind of secret animosity doesn't exist without reason. You can take my advice or leave it, but mark my words --

If you make a habit of killing off PCs that you don't dig or that don't stack up to the placeholder party that the adventure designers had in mind, your campaigns won't last very long.

Remember, people only play in any given camapign until something better (i.e., more fun) comes along. Raise the bar and head off disgruntled players at the pass -- be that something better

 

[Fishbone]

Cliches? In a Dungeons and Dragons backstory? Perish the thought.
I always thought the CR on the Phaerlin Giant was a little off. A smaller than reccomended party fought a tougher than usual templated creature in an environment favorable to it. It "won" by killing 2 people. The solution? Rather than recruiting new members the players decided to take it on 1-1, on its turf, and fight it on its terms.
Edit: After reading this thread a little closer it seems by jumping down that hole one on one they were flipping you the bird. I hope this doesn't end up costing you guys a fun session or story.

 

[Jubilee]

Yeah you do, in the first post: I wanted a dangerous, scary opponent to hound them throughout the game, but I wanted them to know where it probably was (the sewer) so that when they got powerful enough and tired of the attacks, they could go get it, or try.

I have never played with a group of players that would accept ignoring a dangerous opponent that is killing people in their home town without trying to do something about it. I think it's unrealistic to expect that a party would say "Oh, that's surely too dangerous for us, so we'll ignore it and let it go about killing innocents for a while." IMO, a wiser way to introduce such an opponent would be to have it handily beat them up (with a mechanism in place to prevent a TPK on the first game session) so they will then realize "That's too dangerous for us now, so we better gather more resources quickly to take care of it before it kills more people." This would be especially important if the players are only just settling into a "horror-themed" game.

I would also venture to say that most players have been taught not to trust an NPC when he or she tells the PC not to do something. I also think that if I were playing in a campaign that had a TPK on the first session of the game, I would probably quit.

I won't say you were unfair, because I don't think you broke any rules of the game, but I do agree that you had unrealistic expectations, or at least expectations that were not the same as those of your players.

It also just occurs to me that maybe they gave you crappy backstories because when you told them it would be a horror-themed, scary game with nasty opponents, they figured they would have to be making alot of new characters and didn't want to bother spending alot of time on backstory. Afterall, as an earlier poster said, monsters usually get more backstory than the victims (and in horror, everyone is a victim)..

Oh well, I have only been playing pen & paper D&D for about 5 years..

/ali

 

[Rackhir]

Nicely put Rackhir, I see your points. The only thing is that I didn't know what they were going to do - I just identified ahead of time some possible actions, and wrote results. Like in life, the worst choices yield the worst results (sometimes).

Look, I don't know how experienced a DM you are, but one of the constants I've found in my decades of gaming is that players will do the unexpected and often that means what you might consider the stupidest thing to do.

Also while you may have thought that it was "clear" that going after the monster was "suicidal", there's really little reason for the players to have assumed that. They are the "heroes" after all and "heroes" are "always victorious".

You did also have options beyond just simply wiping out the entire party, especially if you were going for a "horror" vibe. The monster in movies even though it is often perfectly able to do so, never kills off the entire cast in the first five min of the film, because then what do you do for the rest of the movie? You could have had it kill one of the characters and then run off to eat that character and have the remnants of the party find various pieces of the character that had been gnawed on. Most horror films use the whittling down of the cast as an important element to build tension.

I must confess that I am somewhat puzzled as to how you got a TPK with a creature only 1 cr higher than the party. Even if they were minus the paladin. Third level characters aren't nearly as fragile as 1st level characters.

 

[tylermalan]

Very early on in this thead, it was a big part of why they died. Now that you've been offered some constructive criticism suggesting that you should try cooperating with players to make sure that what they think is cool is also a viable character choice, you're backing off of your earlier complaints in an effor to disown repsonsibility.

Woah, I think you're taking this a little too seriously. I'm taking responsibility for setting up the world, as is. The player's make choices for their characters, and bad choices = consequences. I gave them the freedom that they wanted, and the dice fell. How am I not taking responsibility?

What I want my players to play has NOTHING to do with what happened. My personal preferences don't change the fact that unit cohesion gets the job done, while random actions rarely do. My personal preferences don't change the fact that 1 level of bard doesn't do much to augment 2 levels of Sorcerer. My personal preferences don't change the fact that they ignored warnings and made the choice.

I'm not backing down from my opinion that combat-wise they were playing a terrible party. And my words about them dying eventually if they played a specific party isn't me telling them that they're stupid - I know the world because I made it, so I would call that a fair warning. Plus, if one person plays NPC classes and gets the rest of the party killed because of it, you'd be blaming me for that, too.

The "bottom line" is that I DIDN'T kill them off - they killed themselves off. They walked off a cliff - I just put the cliff there. Responsibility?

 

[tylermalan]

I must confess that I am somewhat puzzled as to how you got a TPK with a creature only 1 cr higher than the party. Even if they were minus the paladin. Third level characters aren't nearly as fragile as 1st level characters.

They didn't all die in the first encounter with it, two survived and two died. But, they took damage from zombies the days before that didn't heal completely, and did no research, and no planning, so they had no additional advantages. Couple that with unlucky rolls and that's how it happened!

 

[frankthedm]

One important rule when having a lethal fight to avoid, is to have other options available and visable.

I have seen players, who thought they were being cool to the DM by following a lethal sounding plot hook, because they assumed it was the only option the DM had ready for play that evening. So they wind up in a TPK because they thought that was the option they were supposed to take and did not want to monkeywrench the evening's game.

 

[Crust]

Tylermalan,

I think the fact that you posted shows how guilty you feel, and that's a good thing to see. I think you were quite fair with the situation. If it were me, I'd be totally perplexed if I had players taking that rather obvious bait. Unless the players were completely oblivious to the action/adventure genre, they should have been able to deduce the level of danger. The fact that the paladin (the most capable front-line brawler in the group) wasn't there should have given them immediate pause.

I do wonder why you allowed your players to run such seemingly ineffective PCs. I understand that players should be able to play what they want, but if they want to survive, they need to plan a bit better. A bard/sorcerer? That's only slightly better than a wizard/sorcerer. Way too watered down. The barbarian/cleric is also somewhat watered down. I take an active role in my players' PC creation, thinking ahead and making sure feats, spells, classes, etc. are selected wisely so they can actually be used effectively in combat and in role-playing situations. I suggest trying that when your players roll up new PCs.

 

[tylermalan]

Yeah, I guess you're right... To be honest, I'm not sure how guilty I feel, though I wish it had gone differently. Though, if it had, those terrible characters would still be alive to plague me day and night, so I guess this is another chance that even makes sense from an in-game view point. I'll definitely discuss everything with the party before we start playing again.

I don't know! Maybe I took everything for granted? It just seemed like me saying "Hey! Horror game!" + violent descriptions = enough warning, but I suppose not?

 

[jdrakeh]

Woah, I think you're taking this a little too seriously. I'm taking responsibility for setting up the world, as is. The player's make choices for their characters, and bad choices = consequences. I gave them the freedom that they wanted, and the dice fell. How am I not taking responsibility?

You keep wavering back and forth on the role that their character choices played in the debacle, but now that you're firmly committed to it, let me point out the obvious (again) -- YOU ALLOWED SUCH CHARACTERS INTO YOUR GAME. This being the case, you have little room to complain about them. You let these character choices, choices that you obviously hated, slide -- and then you didn't adjust the encounters to suit them.

Instead, you let the players use characters that you obviously disliked and weren't happy with, while running the adventure for the group of characters that you would have preferred, rather than adjusting it to work the characters that you had available. Now, granted, this initially seems much better than saying "If you don't play what I want you to play, then don't play in my game". . . but here's where the passive aggression comes in. . . .

You deliberately run the adventure in such a way that you know will likely kill all of their characters, thus forcing them to roll up new ones. As the GM, you had every opportunity to tone down the encounters to better suit their charactaer choices and party composition, but you deliberately and knowingly chose to send them into a situation that you suspected would kill them dead, dead, dead.

And ultimately, that's just a different way of saying "If you don't do things my way, then I'll show you!" -- you allowed in certain player concepts, granted them your seal of approval, and then deliberately sent them into the Rankor pit.

Your refusal to accomodate your player's basic wants (i.e., wanting to play a certain type of character) has every bit as much to do with why their characters bought the farm as some of their choices did. And you simply refuse to admit any culpabiility.

Zero. Nada. None.

What I want my players to play has NOTHING to do with what happened.

Quite the contrary, I think it has a lot to do with it.

And my words about them dying eventually if they played a specific party isn't me telling them that they're stupid - I know the world because I made it, so I would call that a fair warning.

You're right. I see more clearly now that you meant "Play my way or diiiiiiiie!"

Plus, if one person plays NPC classes and gets the rest of the party killed because of it, you'd be blaming me for that, too.

If you'd allowed the classes into the game and then deliberately sent the characters into a situation that you knew was more than likely -- or guaranteed -- to kill them (as you did here), yes. If you'd allowed it and appropriately adjusted the encounters to give the party a fighting chance, no.

The "bottom line" is that I DIDN'T kill them off - they killed themselves off. They walked off a cliff - I just put the cliff there. Responsibility?

You didn't just put the cliff (i.e., the encounter) there, you led them to the edge (by approving their character choices, thus suggesting that they were suitable) and then pushed them off (running the encounter for a different type of party entirely).

[P.S. I think that your last remark about "those terrible characters still being there to haunt you" if you hadn't killed them all is terribly telling as to what your real motives were here. The more that you post, the more I'm inclined to go with "Not just unfair, but plain old rotten" ]