How willing are you to risk TPK?

[Dark Kerman]

Hi all,

So, I've been wondering, how willing are GM's in the Playground to risk player death or TPK during there sessions?



I've been planning my next game for my players, and I've been looking at how I build my sessions. The odd thing I noticed is that I am a lot more willing to risk a character death than I used to be.

When I first started GMing, I was very careful to avoid TPK or player death, but have progressively gone more to the thought that in order for the players to have real challenges, there has to be a (non-zero) chance of player death.

My players are a resourceful bunch, and I generally feel that they're able to handle what I throw at them, and that they enjoy when the overcome a real challenge. I think we've all had a situation where we knew the GM was fudging rolls, and (IMO) it does take something from the enjoyment.


But yeah, I guess I'm just curious to hear what everyone else's views are. :smallsmile:


Best regards,

DK

[Eldariel]

Depends on the style of the game and the group. With less experienced players as well as in worlds where resurrection is difficult to come by I'm more likely to rig things in the favor of the PCs while in a game anywhere near the basic expectations of the system with a competent group I'll place the onus of survival squarely on the players. Generally I prefer to let the players be masters of their own fate - both sides tend to find it more fulfilling when they live or die by their sword rather than by unseen coddling.

Death in and of itself isn't the end in this game anyways; players can and do come back to life, for a price. The possibility of PC death certainly adds a different kind of thrill to the game and I've found it helps a certain type of a player to get in-character and to think things from their characters' point of view more. I do love it when my party is composed of experienced players playing characters suited for adventuring so I can rely on them to raise up to whatever challenge I throw at them: this frees my hands up to play up the natural tendencies and ecologies of the world and focus less on the players and the PCs. This tends to result in deeper immersion and a more varied and interesting world that doesn't feel like it revolves around the PCs.

[ekarney]

Very much depends on the campaign, in more narrativey ones I'm less inclined to leave death to chance but if it's a campaign where quests are only an excuse to fight things then yeah sure, whatever the dice say.

That being said, when doing campaigns at neither end of the gradient, any sort of story or main quest usually has the possibility of being more lethal than an equivalent non-story quest.

[GreyBlack]

As a GM, it's a constant struggle. You want to create interesting encounters, but you also don't want to be That DM (tm). You know, the one who only tries to kill the players for the sole reason of showing who's in control.

To me, it all depends on the needs of the story. If the story I'm trying to tell requires a high potential for lethality, then I'm all for it. See my current Dark Souls game, which uses memory as a reason to stay alive and not die.

Other games? You just want your players to feel like gods, raining death and destruction in their wake. You want the players to feel challenged, but godlike in their accomplishments.

Every DM tends towards one extreme, but usually isn't at one or the other. My comfort zone is more towards high lethality, but others aren't. And that's fine. As long as everyone has fun? It's all good.

[Kelb_Panthera]

How willing am I? Infinitely so. How much or how little risk the players put their characters in isn't really up to me. It's up to them and the dice.

I setup the campaign setting and I arrange the plots that the players choices might bring them to intersect. Then I set things in motion and let the players do what they will. Good judgement and relative caution can lead them to success and reckless stupidity can lead them to ruin. In either case the dice fall where they may and we all stand by them.

I -try- to follow the DMG guidelines as far as the difficulty of individual encounters go, that is; the majority are of appropriate or lower CR than the party's level calls for while some are higher and a scant few are flee or fall scenarios.

[Sword-Geass]

In my campaing the lethalty will be decided by the players and the place they are in. From the very first session I had the setting planned and several different stories that would happen in different places of the world, with different antagonist, which obviously represented different levels of threats. They have also been warned that not everything in the world is going to be of they CR. For example, I placed an aboleth city near the cost of one of the island that is in the south of the setting. If they want to go there I won't stop them, but they should be ready to die, as they are only level 3 atm. The reverse is also true, if they would be around level 15 and wanted to make a trip through the east coast they could easily butcher anything in their path, as that place is rather peaceful and quiet, and not very densely populated, which translates to some (rare) only humanoid threats.

All in all, the dice is the one who decides when someone should or shouldn't die, and this is true both for players and NPC, even if they are important to the plot.

[martixy]

Always in the service of the players.

If they are attached to their characters, I would not be willing to risk much harm. However I do tend not to pull my punches as much as I can and enjoy pitting player ingenuity(incl. their willingness to optimize) vs the world.

Though I tend to relax my restrictions when it comes to climactic moments, where a death is likely to be as epic as a resounding victory.

[BowStreetRunner]

When I run my games I tend to use the 'give them plenty of rope' principle. Throw them lots of lifelines and plenty of ropes with which to hang themselves.

I've found that when a player dies because the DM put them in a no-win situation, most of their reactions seem to indicate that they feel they got screwed by the DM. When a player dies because they ignored every lifeline the DM threw them and took an inordinate number of risks, it is far less likely they are going to blame the DM. They are more likely to get back up, shake it off, and move on to rolling up a new character.

Of all of the campaigns I have run, one of those that always got talked about in the most positive light by the players for years afterward was a CyberPunk: Night's Edge game in which the entire campaign was set up to create a terrible feeling of paranoia - no one ever seemed to know who to trust and even ended up doubting their own senses when things got really weird. There were vampires, werewolves, voudonistas, and other nightmarish things mixed in with the usual dark future stuff and the party made a whole series of terrible choices that eventually led to a near-TPK. I say 'near' because in the end there was a single PC surviving. He made his way to a cheap motel, locked and bolted the door, sat in a chair facing the door with a shotgun in his lap, cigarette in one hand and glass of liquor in the other just waiting for 'them' to come. At that point the player told me he just wanted to fade to black with that scene and retire his character there, without ever really knowing what would happen next. That is how we left the game and everyone surprisingly agreed afterward that it had been one of the best RPG experiences they had ever had. I would never have expected a TPK situation would be the one they tended to rate highest, but that's how it came out in the end.

[LooseCannoneer]

I'm completely willing to do so if the players fall into that trap. I'm running Continuum right now, which gives the players ample ways to avoid being killed if they are smart enough to use them. I'm not going to say "a narcissist hid up in a belltower and sniped all of you simultaneously, roll up new characters," that's just rude.

That being said, if all of my players think that its a great idea to all attack the narcissist in Hiroshima at 8:15 on 8/6/1945 without researching the significance of that date/time, they're going to get a warning from an unknown source. If they ignore that warning, they die. Player stupidity and unpreparedness alone causes TPKs in Continuum.

[Grand Poobah]

As others have said, it depends on the campaign, group mood, level of player experience.

In my current group, which is the first group I've properly DM'd for, I said from the outset that they wouldn't always be facing level appropriate encounters and enemies will play to their intelligence/motivations rather than randomly striking out.

That being said, I pulled my punches a few times while they were at levels 1-3. I think I subconsciously didn't want to kill any of them because I'd never killed a character before. I guess it's true what Virgil (James Gandolfini's character in True Romance) said that the first one is always the hardest :smalltongue:

Although I now have three notches on my stick-o-death, I'm still inclined towards leniency, even more so if it's a case of unlucky rolls but the gloves come off if the party act stupidly.

[Pugwampy]

I love making interesting encounters and stretching , making strong monsters , sometimes pounding players . DM needs to have fun too ya know . Its been my experience that players can handle a lot more then DM usually expects .

I never had a TPK ever and even if i did I would make all players roll dice and the highest gets one hit point and he can slowly bring his buddies back .

My game style is .... I usually warn players to retreat if one player goes down . Heck I actually pretend I love killing them and cheer when someone goes down . This can actually help players to be more cautious .

Players have an escape route and I dont chase them . I roll dice to see what monster attacks which player . Easy access to temples and not too expensive healing . Boss monster no more then one level higher then player but fully equipped and feated up possibly X2 or X3 HP . Now I can as DM go a little nutz on my uber monsters . Players get fun , I have fun and if player annoys me just switch to tactical and get even more fun .

[BWR]

I never set out to kill PCs, certainly not TPKs. I do play with dangerous enemies where PC death is a significant risk on a regular basis but the PCs almost always have a good chance to win or escape the encounter unless they insist on doing really stupid things and ignore my warnings.

I'm rarely willing to throw TPK-level mook encounters at PCs. Really dangerous boss monsters, sure. TPKs haven't happened yet though it has been close on numerous occasions. The one time TPK 'occurred', I realized I had made a mistake and retconned the issue. Sure, this meant the players had some unfair metaknowledge but if a TPK is to occur I want it to be honest, not through screw-ups on my part. Bad tactics, unlucky dice rolls etc. are good reasons for a TPK. TPKs because the GM did not give knowledge the PCs should have or misread notes or whatnot is not fun.

[Someguy231]

I like to make challenging experiences from time to time, and I mainly like to have the players immerse themselves into the world that they are in.

That being said, Only when angered or if there is a powergamer in my presence that I will bring the hammer down, cut the strings loose, and unleash the murder machines to wreck havoc across the lands.

[Quertus]

I hail from the old school meat grinder days, and believe in letting the dice fall where they may. And "balanced encounters" is simply not realistic - what's there is there, deal with it. So, yeah, TPK is a thing - especially if the party is unprepared.

Of course, I prefer games of slow attrition against large numbers of foes that are generally inferior to the PCs, so this makes TPKs rarer than they might otherwise be.

About the only time I'll pull my punches (on the world-building side, that is) is when dealing with new players. I figure they deserve a chance to learn the rules before I throw them in the deep end.

[tsj]

I prefer to have 80% focus on story, puzzles etc...
and about 20% focus on encounters and battle

I would go very far to avoid player death or TPK

I am actually considering using some kind of
Stone of returning mechanism like in neverwinternights

[Melcar]

Hi all,

So, I've been wondering, how willing are GM's in the Playground to risk player death or TPK during there sessions?



I've been planning my next game for my players, and I've been looking at how I build my sessions. The odd thing I noticed is that I am a lot more willing to risk a character death than I used to be.

When I first started GMing, I was very careful to avoid TPK or player death, but have progressively gone more to the thought that in order for the players to have real challenges, there has to be a (non-zero) chance of player death.

My players are a resourceful bunch, and I generally feel that they're able to handle what I throw at them, and that they enjoy when the overcome a real challenge. I think we've all had a situation where we knew the GM was fudging rolls, and (IMO) it does take something from the enjoyment.


But yeah, I guess I'm just curious to hear what everyone else's views are. :smallsmile:


Best regards,

DK

Every time my players sit down, they know, that it is up to them to survive. I very rarely botch rolls to keep them alive... I only do that, if I have missgauged the challenge... if I see that its the players who are not up to par or dont think, then its totally up to them to flee or die!

[Geddy2112]

In my experience, there is no "risking" a TPK. TPK either happens when the DM sets one up with an encounter that the party simply cannot handle, or the party does something incredibly boneheaded. If the DM intentionally sets up at TPK, they are That DM as said above. However, sometimes you accidentally set up an encounter that the party cannot handle through no fault of their own. In this case, I tend to dial it back on the fly if I see the encounter is going to TPK the party otherwise. If the party does something incredibly risky or foolish, then they get what's coming.

However, I am not above killing a PC and I will never plot armor or deus ex a PC from death unless it would be my being a bad DM as said above. I don't intentionally do it, but I want the threat of death to be ever present. Even a low level encounter can be lethal if the PC's don't use their heads, or if the dice favor the enemy.

[Wonton]

Depends on the group, of course, you've heard that a thousand times.

Example:
One group, I killed a girl's character (not randomly mind you, but during a big climactic battle) and she burst into tears and ran out of the room crying.
My current group, players are joking around from session 1 "if this character dies, I've got X and Y planned already".

As a general rule, I'm only willing to risk it in big climactic battles. It makes for an interesting story if a group of heroes was outmatched by huge odds and fell in battle. It doesn't make for an interesting story if a group of heroes walked into a bear in the woods and just died**. Even then, I always prefer "some PCs die", rather a TPK, it lets the story continue easier, and makes the characters who survived more interesting.

And, yeah, I fudge/"hand of god" things if it looks like a TPK is coming when I don't want it. Might be ugly in the moment, but better in the long-term.

**Well... it sort of does, in a "table talk" kind of way. "Remember when that bear killed our level 1 party?" makes for a funny story. But not for the most memorable campaign overall.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If it happens it happens.
I do sometimes play through challenging encounters on my own first if i'm not sure about them, but once the players are engaged i let the dice fall where they may. The risk is part of the fun.
If they get a bunch of bad rolls i'm not going to fudge anything to keep them alive. It happens, and my players generally prefer to survive on their own merits or not at all.

If my players are going into a situation they can't handle they get a "are you sure you want to do this?", but if they ignore the warning i'm not going to stop them or tone down the consequences.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I usually structure normal encounters in the "stay on your toes" zone where it's possible that a character could die in the "everything went wrong for us and we screwed up big time" scenario but there is not really any chance of a TPK. I structure climactic encounters to be a little more challenging. A character could potentially die just through bad luck and a TPK or loss is possible if the players screw up AND luck goes against them.

Occasionally, I will misjudge my party or depart from those guidelines. The random encounter with a wyvern in my Red Hand of Doom game was one of those. That was a random encounter with a pretty high chance of character death and non-zero chance of TPK. Ordinarily I wouldn't do that but the party was exploring an area that I plan to take them back to later in the campaign and the encounters needed to bear some resemblance to the ones that will threaten them in six levels.

Likewise, I will sometimes put encounters in the game which stand a good chance (or will almost certainly) TPK the group, but those are usually structured as encounters where the group has options other than fighting. In my Red Hand of Doom game, I've already used a couple of those: A Chimera on a level 3-4 understrength party (but if they stayed out of its way it would eat the cow and fly away), a Glabrezu trapped in a summoning circle a little later (the right answer was to either negotiate with it (well, that wouldn't end well but it wouldn't be a TPK) or leave it alone and inform the powers that be about it so they could deal with it.) These kind of encounters are good because it reminds the players that their characters are in a world that isn't all tailored to them and in this particular case, they prepare the party for: realizing that they probably can't take on the whole Red Hand Army at Cinder Hill or even Drellin's Ferry as well as realizing that the Ghostlord is not necessarily a foe they can defeat (my Pathfinder adaptation will not be nearly as weak as the standard RHOD version) so fighting is much riskier than negotiation

[StreamOfTheSky]

I actually don't want a TPK -- I consider that a huge failure as a DM (unless it came about b/c the party was colossally stupid or ignored blatant signs not to fight or to flee) and my ability to create fair challenges. Also, the plot is important in most campaigns (especially the one I'm running now), and losing the characters for new ones would ruin everything that's been built up.

But if the players know you don't want it, they won't take things as seriously, so it becomes a delicate balancing act. The golden ideal is for the players to genuinely fear for their PCs' demise, to take them right to the brink....but for them to just barely overcome and survive. For hard fights...not every battle will be tight.


Every time my players sit down, they know, that it is up to them to survive. I very rarely botch rolls to keep them alive... I only do that, if I have missgauged the challenge... if I see that its the players who are not up to par or dont think, then its totally up to them to flee or die!

I roll in the open so I can't fudge even if I wanted to beyond maybe "forgetting" some situational bonuses. What I do when I've misjudged how tough enemies are is to have them start making subpar tactical choices. Spreading out attacks more instead of focus firing; giving up full attacks to go move and attack someone else; power attacking for obscene amounts that nearly guarantees a miss; using a normal attack instead of a strike maneuver readily available or using a weaker attack/spell than the best ones the NPC could; etc... Bad guys in control get cocky, you know? :smallwink: