DM's tears (AKA unintended almost TPK)

[Ohiohi]

Just because I feel the need to write this out: almost TPKed my entire party.
Sure, they did tactical errors, rolled poorly whilst I've rolled pretty well... but I still feel sad and a little bit anxious. They went all uncoscious after a well-placed fireball, and just one "minor cleric" NPC (that the players specifically asked to bring with them as a backup stay-the-f-out healer) saved them, just as they were making the deciding death saving throws (like, 2s-2f or 1s-2f).
I'm quite the lenient DM, but I won't ever let an intelligent enemy waste such an opportunity: they were grouping up for the fireball that every wizard dreams about (and nobody, not even the rogue, made a DC 14 saving throw).
How do you recover from such a moment? How do you feel about unintended almost TPKs?
Sorry about the long banter, I just thought that writing it out would make me feel a little better

[Keravath]

AoE spells are probably the most likely way to get TPKs. The saving throws depend on chance and sometimes that chance goes poorly for everyone.

Fireball is one example. Hypnotic pattern would be another and fear a third. If the entire party fails any of these at the wrong time, a TPK can easily result.

Try not to feel bad about it but remember that the players don't know everything about the bad guys. If the entire party goes down but isn't dead the scene fades to black. The characters have no idea what is going on until when or if they wake up. Many villains might decide to keep these obviously hopeless adventurers as prisoners, hostages, or sell them as slaves. Perhaps, the villains have something in mind for the characters. In any case, a near TPK can be the inspiration for a spontaneous and unexpected change in plot line. The DM just needs to think quickly about how the opponent is likely to react and what they might want to do with the characters.

[loki_ragnarock]

Just think about all the times you put together something while thinking to yourself, "surely this will kill them," and then watching it all burn down in play as if it wasn't even a speedbump. Think about all the times they've done this to you.

Relish now how the tables have turned.

[Pex]

There's a reason players joke about being in Fireball formation and sometimes seriously actively avoid being in it. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but they clear out as soon as they can. Starting 10th level or so players might want to be in Fireball formation on purpose provided the paladin is in the middle for his auras. A Fireball still hurts but survivable. However, it's more important to get that buff to saving throws than worry about damage. The other auras could be important too, such as fear immunity, charm immunity from Devotion, etc.

[Sigreid]

Don't stress over it too much and certainly don't feel bad about it. It's these moments, where they have characters a hair's breadth from death and knowing that this can happen that makes the game exciting and interesting. It's usually the near deaths or actual deaths that make the stories that get retold.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

IMO the best way to recover is to laugh about it with your friends and group.

[da newt]

Maybe start the next session with a prompt from the NPC cleric like "Well guys, what did we learn from that near death experience?" This is an opportunity to learn, and then laugh about it.

Resist the temptation to feel guilty - you did nothing wrong.

[Reevh]

Honestly, I think it's a good thing for almost TPKs to happen, and even rarely actual TPKs. It raises the stakes for the players a bit, make combat feel a little more real and less pro-forma. In the campaign I'm currently playing, my first character died in a TPK (maybe? he was actually the only character to go unconscious but stabilize in the enemy's lair while everyone else died, so he may still be out there somewhere), and my second character's head was smashed in by a lucky Duergar warlord.

My DM felt guilty, and even offered to retcon some stuff in order to prevent the death of my second character, but I refused. Instead, I made my new character, who is now one of the favorite characters among the players in the whole campaign thus far, and because I know the consequences in combat are real, I take it seriously, and it never feels pro forma.

[Kurt Kurageous]

How you handle death is a session zero topic. What did you tell them? Follow through.

What, you didn't talk about this in session zero? Yes, you and almost every other DM forgets this. I did just last week.

Death by bad play is a possibility. Death by bad/overkill encounter design is another. Every non-climax encounter should not be deadly in and of itself, but due to the cumulative depletion of resources. You simply cannot let them rest after every encounter. You won't need to if they completed more encounters that just burn off 1 or 2 resources/spell slots.

Death should come from a choice made, the result of a thousand papercuts, or the death of a hero in a climax of the story. It should not be an oops of dice or because non-optimal play.

[Corran]

Characters can fail, and that failure can even lead to character death or even a TPK. They can fail because of poor decisions, or even because they were just unlucky. Most often because of a combination of the two. I like approaching the game like this, both when I am a player and a DM. That said, there is a degree to it. I can't talk for your players, but I wouldn't enjoy a game where there is simply no chance of a TPK regardless of how foolishly I have my character act or how the dice roll. And while this cannot be something that will hold true for everyone, given time playing the game, I think it will hold true for most people after some getting used to.

On another note, and just in case it has anything to do with your encounter. Having a caster who can hurl a fireball against a low level party is not necessarily a bad idea for an encounter. But it's a very simple encounter that will be decided by initiative. And in all likelihood some of the pc's wont even get to act during this encounter. In other words, it is a risky, brief and anticlimactic deal. So make sure you don't mistake your players' frustration as the result of only a character death instead of as a result of your encounter set up, again, just in case your encounter was something along the lines of a stand off between your players' characters and a single enemy glass cannon caster.

[MrStabby]

Excitement is a result of not knowing how things will unfold. If players know everyone will survive it diminishes the excitement. A TPK is refutation of a complacent party believing that the game cannot kill them.

A near TPK helps a little as well.

Sometimes players fail saves. Sometimes a lot do. The game is set up around dice rolls; people who cannot embrace uncertainty should not be playing a game where the outcomes depend on the roll of a die.

There are rules for death saves for a reason. Death is a possibility for characters. You did nothing wrong.

[HappyDaze]

\
How do you recover from such a moment? How do you feel about unintended almost TPKs?


https://www.magicalquote.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/I-know-now-why-you-cry.-But-it-is-something-I-can-never-do..jpg

I never set out to kill off player characters, but I never feel bad about it either. For me, it's a game, and we go with the dice, win or lose.

[Misterwhisper]

I have a few firm beliefs when dming and I would love it if a dm I play under would use:

Guidelines and real game examples.

1. If you do something stupid, expect it to end badly.

Ex.
You are in a city that is blindingly lawful evil, to the point that the only punishment for crimes is either death or slavery, and you attempt to steal from the evidence locker, in the local courthouse, during a meeting with 15 people in the room. I am not going to carebear you a way out when you screw up.

2. If you outsmart the villains plans or find a way around it. Awesome. The dm should not make up some bs reason to still have what was planned happen.

Ex. Whole group is captured and every piece of gear is taken, all spell pouches, foci, weapons, etc. they are then thrown in a cell.

The cleric in the group points out that the spell Command is only verbal as he makes a guard Unlock his cell.

Great plan and strategy.

Not the time for the dm to randomly have another guard to just happen by.

3. The dice roll as the dice roll, do not roll behind a screen unless it is a roll the party does not even know about.

Ex. If the main villain misses 4 attacks in a row or flubs an easy save, oh well. If they also crit you on back to back attacks, sorry.

Likewise: if you are rolling to lie to a guard to get by a gate, sure you can roll deception, but no matter if the guard believes you or not, you wouldn’t know, so I will not tell you if you succeeded or not I will just rp the guard accordingly.

[Sigreid]

Btw, you should never intend for a TPK. You set the challenges. They do their best to overcome or avoid them. Sometimes TPK happens. You dont even really need to balance every possible encounter as long as not facing it is an option open to them until THEIR actions close it.

[Pex]

Characters can fail, and that failure can even lead to character death or even a TPK. They can fail because of poor decisions, or even because they were just unlucky. Most often because of a combination of the two. I like approaching the game like this, both when I am a player and a DM. That said, there is a degree to it. I can't talk for your players, but I wouldn't enjoy a game where there is simply no chance of a TPK regardless of how foolishly I have my character act or how the dice roll. And while this cannot be something that will hold true for everyone, given time playing the game, I think it will hold true for most people after some getting used to.

On another note, and just in case it has anything to do with your encounter. Having a caster who can hurl a fireball against a low level party is not necessarily a bad idea for an encounter. But it's a very simple encounter that will be decided by initiative. And in all likelihood some of the pc's wont even get to act during this encounter. In other words, it is a risky, brief and anticlimactic deal. So make sure you don't mistake your players' frustration as the result of only a character death instead of as a result of your encounter set up, again, just in case your encounter was something along the lines of a stand off between your players' characters and a single enemy glass cannon caster.

Clarification needed. A PC dying because the player did something stupid is one thing, but that doesn't mean it should be a TPK. If the whole party, sure, but Leeroy Jenkins shouldn't happen in an RPG.

[Corran]

Clarification needed. A PC dying because the player did something stupid is one thing, but that doesn't mean it should be a TPK.
Agreed. I said TPK while I should have said character death at one point by accident.


If the whole party, sure, but Leeroy Jenkins shouldn't happen in an RPG.
Sometimes it can happen though and it's out of your hands. The closest example I've got, is from a campaign a very long time back, when the pc's had acquired a small barrel filled with gunpowder. We had stored it in a bag of holding that the cleric was carrying around. Over the time we had it, we had considered using it in various occasions, but we would always hold on to it for something really special. Turns out our cleric thought that this was when we were fighting a dragon. Long story short, the dragon used its breath before the cleric had a chance to use the barrel -after he took it out of the bag of holding, and the blast caught 3 of the pc's and killed them on the spot, 2 of them before they even had a chance to do anything after the cleric took the barrel out. I am okay with things like this happening.

I used to think that if my characters didn't do anything stupid then they shouldn't die. But I've changed my mind to that my characters could just die because they are unlucky, and by unlucky I don't just mean rolling poorly. During a deadlands reloaded game some 5 or 6 years back, I had a character framed by a dirty sheriff (whom we were investigating) and to be hanged the following day. After a failed attempt to break my character out of jail (there was not really much of a chance of accomplishing it btw), and seeing how likely it was for my character was to die, the game paused and we started talking ooc. The GM eventually had to tell us lots of things he was holding from us. How and why this happened. There wasn't really anything we had done wrong. It was more like that the baddies did something right. Bottom line was that the game world was a dangerous place, and the enemies we were up against were intelligent and capable, which was along the lines of what the GM said at some point. There was no bias at how my pc was chosen either. I argued back that I shouldn't have to have my character die just for the GM to showcase how dangerous his game world was. I got my way and my character lived on, but looking back I would have done things differently now. And that's cause I've realized that how that GM approached things is actually the way I like to play dnd, and games like dnd, for some time now.

[HappyDaze]

Clarification needed. A PC dying because the player did something stupid is one thing, but that doesn't mean it should be a TPK. If the whole party, sure, but Leeroy Jenkins shouldn't happen in an RPG.

Why not? If the players are stupid enough to associate with the LJ, they get what they deserve. Let the peer pressure correct the idiot player or have the rest of the group agree to boot them if they don't like it.

[BoringInfoGuy]

How you handle death is a session zero topic. What did you tell them? Follow through.

What, you didn't talk about this in session zero? Yes, you and almost every other DM forgets this. I did just last week.

Death by bad play is a possibility. Death by bad/overkill encounter design is another. Every non-climax encounter should not be deadly in and of itself, but due to the cumulative depletion of resources. You simply cannot let them rest after every encounter. You won't need to if they completed more encounters that just burn off 1 or 2 resources/spell slots.

Death should come from a choice made, the result of a thousand papercuts, or the death of a hero in a climax of the story. It should not be an oops of dice or because non-optimal play.
If my Strategy was bad resulting in my death, fine. My choice. If instead the Dice turn against me, resulting in my characters death, ALSO fine. Be it my rolls or the DMs.

If my strategy was bad or the dice turn against me resulting in the DM preventing my character death, that is not fine.

Why not? If the players are stupid enough to associate with the LJ, they get what they deserve. Let the peer pressure correct the idiot player or have the rest of the group agree to boot them if they don't like it.
If the players find themselves in front of an obvious threat far beyond their means to handle, and one of them provokes said threat into attacking, the response should be appropriate to the nature of the threat. A Red dragon I’d expect to simply fry the party with his breath.

But if the Dragon needed some disposable fools to get a treasure from a dungeon too small for the dragon to enter, maybe he would start by only eating the loudmouth.

Depends on the nature of the threat and the situation. But note that I would not create that fetch quest on the spot to justify avoiding a potential TPK.

[Kurt Kurageous]

If my Strategy was bad resulting in my death, fine. My choice. If instead the Dice turn against me, resulting in my characters death, ALSO fine. Be it my rolls or the DMs.

If my strategy was bad or the dice turn against me resulting in the DM preventing my character death, that is not fine.

If the players find themselves in front of an obvious threat far beyond their means to handle, and one of them provokes said threat into attacking, the response should be appropriate to the nature of the threat. A Red dragon I’d expect to simply fry the party with his breath.

But if the Dragon needed some disposable fools to get a treasure from a dungeon too small for the dragon to enter, maybe he would start by only eating the loudmouth.

Depends on the nature of the threat and the situation. But note that I would not create that fetch quest on the spot to justify avoiding a potential TPK.

This presents some fun ideas. What if the dragon wanted witnesses to its awesomeness so it could rest on its reputation? Horribly burns/mutilates loudmouth, lets rest scurry away in fear. Or it kills everyone BUT the loudmouth, then turns them loose to live the rest of their life with a broken spirit wallowing in despair (dragon marked?).

[Misterwhisper]

I have been playing dnd or some other form of TRPG since 1997, I think I have seen maybe 5 TPKs in dnd.

1. Where one player in the group got pissed and essentially suicided the whole group. It was for good rp reasons so I didn’t care.

2. The dice just were horribly rolled all night for us and we just plain lost.

3. 3.5 cocky wizard/encantatrix/chosen of my star just divided that there was nothing the dm could throw at the group that he would be worried about because he was so broken. The dm has the new psionic book and proved him very wrong, and the wizard killed everyone else in the party with 1 spell as soon as he knew he was going to lose because if the dm was going to kill him he would just kill the game.

4. Group wiped in 3.5 due to just being a garbage group. 2 monks, a ranger and a rogue.

5. Running Rappan Athuk the first time... bad choices were made.

Been quite a few though where everybody died but 1.

[HappyDaze]

I have found that 5e can be very swingy... an encounter that looks balanced might be deadly or a total breeze depending on a few early rolls. The biggest contributor to this is the randomness of a single d20 for task resolutions along with the relatively narrow range of static values d/t bounded accuracy. While expectations are made on "average" attack and save rolls, there really is no such thing as each is an independent instance.

[ad_hoc]

Just because I feel the need to write this out: almost TPKed my entire party.
Sure, they did tactical errors, rolled poorly whilst I've rolled pretty well... but I still feel sad and a little bit anxious. They went all uncoscious after a well-placed fireball, and just one "minor cleric" NPC (that the players specifically asked to bring with them as a backup stay-the-f-out healer) saved them, just as they were making the deciding death saving throws (like, 2s-2f or 1s-2f).
I'm quite the lenient DM, but I won't ever let an intelligent enemy waste such an opportunity: they were grouping up for the fireball that every wizard dreams about (and nobody, not even the rogue, made a DC 14 saving throw).
How do you recover from such a moment? How do you feel about unintended almost TPKs?
Sorry about the long banter, I just thought that writing it out would make me feel a little better

A TPK needs to be a possibility.

They aren't a bad thing.

If characters can't die then that ruins the tension. Players won't be cautious as they explore. They won't feel heroic for taking on monstrosities.

A TPK doesn't mean you need to stop playing D&D. People make new characters and then you're off again.

[Avonar]

The almost changes everything. You have nothing to feel bad about whatsoever. As a DM you always have the chance to fudge things a little if you want to keep your PCs alive, but the most memorable combats are often the ones when the party felt the most threatened. If they almost died but made it through, good. They'll remember that happening.

[ad_hoc]

The almost changes everything. You have nothing to feel bad about whatsoever. As a DM you always have the chance to fudge things a little if you want to keep your PCs alive, but the most memorable combats are often the ones when the party felt the most threatened. If they almost died but made it through, good. They'll remember that happening.

Does it 'almost' happen if it never or cannot happen though?

[Expired]

A TPK needs to be a possibility.

They aren't a bad thing.

If characters can't die then that ruins the tension. Players won't be cautious as they explore. They won't feel heroic for taking on monstrosities.

A TPK doesn't mean you need to stop playing D&D. People make new characters and then you're off again.
Emphasis mine.

I cannot agree more. In a recent session I was playing a Fighter and was knocked unconscious (the DM doesn't use a screen and rolls in front of us) by enemies before the BBEG's turn. Did the BBEG hold back? No, he immediately focused his attacks on me and finished my character off. No one in my party had Revivify so my character is now officially dead. I was able to RP a quick, but fun and memorable death before the BBEG proceeded to massacre my party (I was the tank and the only optimized one in my party). When we made new characters the next session, the DM had news spread about a failed attempt on the BBEG's life and had it reflected in the world.

We already know that the DM will not fudge rolls for the sake of the narrative (plot armor is boring) and will now mercilessly slaughter us if we err. Does this make for tense sessions and a looming threat of possible death? Definitely. Is it fun? It is, at least for me.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Does it 'almost' happen if it never or cannot happen though?

Didn’t happen to me, but someone I used to game with told me about his old Starwars RPG group. It had been a long running game, when someone eventually realized that no one had ever died. They decided to see if it was even possible.

Deliberately opening the Airlock to be sucked out into space, telling the DM that no, they were not holding onto the airlock door to avoid being sucked out into space. Just to be told that a Tractor Beam pulls them back into the ship. That type of thing.

Player Character Death was simply not an option.

That killed the game.

“We almost died” is a game session with impact.

“We almost forced the DM to quickly come up with something to explain why we did not die” is not.

[Sigreid]

Emphasis mine.

I cannot agree more. In a recent session I was playing a Fighter and was knocked unconscious (the DM doesn't use a screen and rolls in front of us) by enemies before the BBEG's turn. Did the BBEG hold back? No, he immediately focused his attacks on me and finished my character off. No one in my party had Revivify so my character is now officially dead. I was able to RP a quick, but fun and memorable death before the BBEG proceeded to massacre my party (I was the tank and the only optimized one in my party). When we made new characters the next session, the DM had news spread about a failed attempt on the BBEG's life and had it reflected in the world.

We already know that the DM will not fudge rolls for the sake of the narrative (plot armor is boring) and will now mercilessly slaughter us if we err. Does this make for tense sessions and a looming threat of possible death? Definitely. Is it fun? It is, at least for me.

When I DM the players know I will kill a character. They also know in rare instances they can argue for DM intervention if they make the case that I botched the handling of a situation. I'm not out to kill them, but if they get themselves killed without me being totally unfair; that's part of why the game is fun.