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<blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 2649230" data-attributes="member: 9254">The choice between TPK and party capture isn't always in the GMs hands. I was in one group where the players were tired of the game and forced a TPK.&nbsp; We had plenty of opportunities to retreat but chose not to.&nbsp; We were given options to surrender and chose not to.&nbsp; We knowingly fought to the not-so-bitter end.&nbsp; I've been in near-TPKs where&nbsp; players made the same suicidal decisions out of some belief that the DM wouldn't kill characters or that death wasn't a justified result of their action.&nbsp; I think &quot;the characters deserved it&quot; is a perfectly valid reason to kill off characters.&nbsp; Causality should exist within a campaign and if the characters deserve killing they should expect some serious attempts on their lives.&nbsp; IMO a &quot;good&quot; TPK is one where no one is surprised that it happened and where the key decisions leading up to the TPK were made by the players.&nbsp; In a decent campaign causality is reasonably predictable.&nbsp; The surprise should come in the form and individuals involved in the consequences but not the general nature of the consequences themselves.&nbsp; E.g. try to overthrow the king and you should expect to be hung if caught.&nbsp; Breaking that causality cheapens the whole setting, far moreso than the use of resurrection magic.&nbsp; I won't disagree but then I've only had 3 characters brought back from the dead over the 5-year life of my current campaign.&nbsp; I generally play it that clerics who bring individuals back from the dead bear some degree of responsibility for the revived's future actions in their god's eyes.&nbsp; As a result, it isn't a willy-nilly affair.&nbsp; Hence my innate hatred of all things Ravenloft.&nbsp; I've never once been asked to play in a Ravenloft game and yet I've played in 5 of them, each time resulting in an infuriating TPK, with the possible exception of the time we forced the TPK on our terms.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="kigmatzomat, post: 2649230, member: 9254"] The choice between TPK and party capture isn't always in the GMs hands. I was in one group where the players were tired of the game and forced a TPK. We had plenty of opportunities to retreat but chose not to. We were given options to surrender and chose not to. We knowingly fought to the not-so-bitter end. I've been in near-TPKs where players made the same suicidal decisions out of some belief that the DM wouldn't kill characters or that death wasn't a justified result of their action. I think "the characters deserved it" is a perfectly valid reason to kill off characters. Causality should exist within a campaign and if the characters deserve killing they should expect some serious attempts on their lives. IMO a "good" TPK is one where no one is surprised that it happened and where the key decisions leading up to the TPK were made by the players. In a decent campaign causality is reasonably predictable. The surprise should come in the form and individuals involved in the consequences but not the general nature of the consequences themselves. E.g. try to overthrow the king and you should expect to be hung if caught. Breaking that causality cheapens the whole setting, far moreso than the use of resurrection magic. I won't disagree but then I've only had 3 characters brought back from the dead over the 5-year life of my current campaign. I generally play it that clerics who bring individuals back from the dead bear some degree of responsibility for the revived's future actions in their god's eyes. As a result, it isn't a willy-nilly affair. Hence my innate hatred of all things Ravenloft. I've never once been asked to play in a Ravenloft game and yet I've played in 5 of them, each time resulting in an infuriating TPK, with the possible exception of the time we forced the TPK on our terms. :D [/QUOTE]

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