I am doing something wrong and I don't know what

[ChudoJogurt]

So, I'm in a bit of a strange situation, and I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong and I have no idea what exactly and how to fix it.
Hoping people have some advice.

I'm running a homebrew campaign. Same people, about one and a half to three times a month, for more than three years now. Players are interested, there is roleplay, there's combat, there's lore, its all, seemingly good. Not great, but, all things considered, pretty good.

Over that time we've had four TPKs. Four times, either some or most of the party has died, the plot had to be stopped and restarted with new characters. Plot threads (mostly) cut, npc relationships have to start from scratch, deeper lore and deeper plot aren't uncovered, etc.
Its bad, but in itself, I think 4 TPKs in 80+ sessions is not completely unreasonable. Things happen, dice are cruel and all that.

The thing is, it happens the same way every time.
We start at level 5-6. Characters fight their way through the plot, level up, play cleverly (to an extent), and overcome the odds, but at about level 9-ish, soon as things go even slightly not in their favor, they find the biggest bad guy around, and go and just throw themselves at them.
And then they die.

And there's, like, no reason to do that? I tell them, in-game and, lately directly OOC that this is not a challenge to be fought head on, that there are cleverer ways to approach this, that they have options (that I list). I'm not opposed to switching out characters either, in fact the last TPK happened when we just discussed the potential to change characters, and one of them actually did switch out an artificer for a wererat rogue.
They are also pretty happy to re-make new party and continue the campaign from a new starting point.

So... One time is a chance, two times maybe a coincidence, but now it's a I suppose if everyone is having fun, it's not necessarily a problem, but I'd like to have a continuous story and get past the level 10 for once.
How do I break it?
Why does it happen?
Any ideas?

[Biggus]

I think your players are the only ones who can answer that.

One thought, for what it's worth: why do you keep restarting at level 5-6? I'd restart them at the level they died at, at least that way you can move the adventure on even with an all-new party.

[Twurps]

Just breaking out the clichés (they're clichés for a reason right?): Have you talked to the players about this.
I don't mean presenting them with options, but expressing your hopes/desire to make it past lvl10, and asking them what their motivation was for whatever led to the TPK?

without that I'm left guessing:
-You like complicated encounters which require strategy/planning, the party likes a more direct approach?
-You like complicated/deep relationships between players and npc's, players like a more superficial/emotionally shallow game? (A game can actually become too good. My local chessclub lost a member couple of years ago because 'winding down' from a game took him too long. As in: if the guy played a really good game but lost, he wouldn't be able to sleep for multiple nights, as he was 'reliving' the game in his mind.)
-You're hints are lost on them, and your party was actually convinced they'd win?

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Hmm, 9-10th level is where the gameplay really starts to become "high-level". Magic starts scaling exponentially, mundane power continues to scale linearly, and monster numbers keep rising (potentially leading to longer combats). Perhaps they just prefer the mid-level range? And once the game passes that point, they realize they're not having as much fun (probably without even knowing why) and the idea of starting again with new characters starts to sound increasingly attractive. You could ask if they'd prefer an E8 format, where once you reach level 8, instead of gaining new levels, you gain a new feat; this keeps the power level much more constant while still allowing for growth, letting the game stay in that sweet spot once you reach it.

Or maybe they just get bored of their characters. That tends to happen a lot in long-running campaigns in my experience, at which point the player will seek an excuse to retire or kill off their character. Usually doesn't happen all at once like you're describing, but it could. If that's the case, you could borrow from a game called Wyldermyth and have generational adventures, where once the current squad gets old, the mantle is taken up by a combination of their children, other younger people they've saved/otherwise interacted with, and unrelated fresh adventurers. That lets you keep a sense of continuation, and allows for generation-spanning stories with villains that remember the previous generations and characters that have a stake in the long-term consequences of previous-generations' actions.

[pabelfly]

Maybe the option is a shorter campaign. If things tend to go from around level 6 to 9, try to create your campaign based on that.

Alternatively, set up your plot so that there's a break in the campaign that would reasonably allow some, or even all, characters to drop out and be replaced with other characters, but you get to continue a narrative arc you're happy with.

[Efrate]

Two statements stick out to me OP. Something goes slightly wrong and they find and throw themselves at it. Despite warning in and OOC and after you are listing their options.

The second I understand a bit. No one likes even a well meaning dm to say this is what you can do. It is taking away agency, or at least can be perceived that way.

The other side of that is the do not push the red button situation. You tell most pcs that they will rush to press it. Had a similar situation in a game of mine recently, bbeg revealed, party fought knowing it was bad, but he specifically knocked them out. His goal was soul harvesting and they weren't strong enough. They were level 9 at the time. By making the bbeg announce that as he was knocking them out they got to have a vendetta against him, become more involved and have a reason to get stronger and face him later. It's an option. I specifically did not kill them nor take their gear other than some holy water which is a minor consumable at this point.

The former point sounds like players being petulant. You know your group, but your phrasing seems to indicate that. If that's the case it's a hard and fast out of character chat as the only option to fix it. Bad stuff happens. If your players go suicidal with characters after that that's a maturity issue and should be addressed. Adventuring is dangerous.

If the players are having fun, I say express concerns to them. If their preference is a different story than you enjoy, step out from behind the screen. Be a player for a bit. Let one of them run, give yourself a rest and then have a new session 0 when you are ready about everyones expectations and build from there.

[Crake]

Have you considered, as a DM, that there are better fates than death for your PCs when they go up against a foe above their weight class? The PCs can be disabled rather than killed, or forcefully brought back as undead of some kind. TPKs are only the end of the story if you want them to be. D&D is a collaborative storytelling medium, you can play it how you want.

[Mechalich]

Since I imagine characters level up at roughly the same rates in each given campaign, and your suicide-via-BBEG scenarios happen at regular intervals, that the issue is simply one of campaign length. It looks very much like your players get bored at around the twenty-session mark and try to force the campaign to come to an end at that time. Since they seem willing to restart the campaign with new characters, it's entirely possible that they get bored of their characters, possibly due to a lack of new abilities - going from level 6 to level 9 over ~20 sessions means they are leveling up only once every 6-7 sessions, which is a lot of real time in a twice per month campaign - or possibly some other reason.

I'd suggest trying a campaign structure that naturally wraps in about twenty sessions with the characters at levels 9-10 and see what happens. If you, as the GM, want to have a continuous story, link the campaigns together. If you want higher-level play then start the characters at a higher level or up the reward level so the characters level faster.

[Zaq]

I understand not wanting to pull punches and not wanting to feel like the world is perfectly tuned around the players, but if it's a recurring issue and you're specifically concerned about it, maybe try not putting in TPK-level threats for the party to crash into in quite the same way?

[Zanos]

Could you give some more details on the TPKs? Because it sounds like you told them they would die and they just went and died which is...very strange. Did your encourage them to go mess with these dangerous folks?

[Psyren]

I understand not wanting to pull punches and not wanting to feel like the world is perfectly tuned around the players, but if it's a recurring issue and you're specifically concerned about it, maybe try not putting in TPK-level threats for the party to crash into in quite the same way?

This. You control the game's difficulty, and it sounds like these TPKs have a real-world cost (the "new" party needing to re-establish backgrounds, NPC relationships etc.) That sort of backtracking is time that could be spent on actually furthering the game's plot and getting the players to be invested in their current characters. 3e/PF (not sure which one you're playing) are games more conducive to long-term continuity with a character build than constantly rerolling.

I'll also point out that "TPK" does not have to mean "you're dead, make new characters" either. Even if the PCs "died" during the fight, you can have them black out and wake up somewhere with tended wounds - a dungeon, a laboratory, a temple etc, with different consequences and plothooks to deal with instead. That way, combat can still be lethal without them (or you) having to start from scratch every time.

[icefractal]

but at about level 9-ish, soon as things go even slightly not in their favor, they find the biggest bad guy around, and go and just throw themselves at them.
And then they die.

This stuck out to me. Two questions -
1) Do things not go against them earlier in the campaign, or do they not mind it when it happens earlier?
2) By "not in their favor" do you mean tactically (they have to retreat, they lose items, etc) or larger scale (one of their allies is killed, their city is damaged, etc)?

Depending on these, there could be several motivations. Maybe they don't like having to act carefully and remember things being more care-free at the start of the campaign, thus wanting to return to it. Maybe they get strongly attached to NPCs and it ruins the campaign for them when they fail to save one. Maybe they feel like being cautious is ok for lower levels, but by 9th they "should" be able to go kick down the door and win. Not enough info for me to guess, but maybe one of these fits what you've seen.

[ChudoJogurt]

Could you give some more details on the TPKs? Because it sounds like you told them they would die and they just went and died which is...very strange. Did your encourage them to go mess with these dangerous folks?

Right.
I'll try to be brief, but this is like 4 years of playing, so bear with me.

So, TPK-1
Characters (started at level 4, but level 8 at the time, with extra feats due to rewards) were leading a tribe of orcs through the dangerous and unexplored lands. There, they stumble into the lands of the evil Orcus-worshipping necromancers, and after a few fights, they decide that their tribe, which is not very well armed or trained, shouldn't get into war, and should just escape. They know there is a secret mountain pass up north and head there, but as they do, they are chased by a powerful Bone Knight riding an Ulgurstasta. He is described as very powerful, the other necromancers they have struggled to fight before all say that he is stronger then them by far.
The Ulugurstasta is fairly slow, but, as an undead, it never tiers, so it can travel 24/7 -- during the day the characters can gain distance, but during the night it catches up, slowly, but inexorably. Also, the Bone Knight sends forward small arrays of relatively low-level minions, in order to harass them.
Thus they have to (in my mind), force-march, make decisions such as if they want to leave the wounded and sick behind, whether to forage or go hungry, etc.
By my calculations (and as I've implied to the players), they should be able to make it.

They follow it for a few days, gain some distance, but as the Bone Knight and Ulgurstasta gain on them, they go "**** it" and attack the guy.
And not in a clever way either -- there is not even attempt to scout it out, prepare an ambush or anything.

Even though I told them "guys, you will literally die". End quote.

I then understood that they wanted to sacrifice themselves for their tribe, gave them last-second power-ups from their gods, and described them preparing to die like good samurai.

They at least find the Ulungurstasta in a canyon, so they jump on top of it, and engage the BK directly.
BK sics his minions on them, while he buffs himself, and when the Paladin finally fights through the minion, the BK hits him, getting a crit on his War Pick attack, dealing 200+ damage. The rest engage him, but when the Warblade falls too, they just choose to run, and in the post-mortem we decide to start a new party.

When I asked them why, they said "we thought we could take him."


not-TPK-2
After TPK-1 we decide that now they will play as the agents of the evil empire, in a city on a new continent. They've been summoned because there is some unrest due to a rabble-rousing sorcerer who wants to overthrow the evil regime through sort of anarcho-communist Kropotkin-style terrorism and populist rhetoric. We start at level 7, to make TPK felt, but not go all the way back to level 4.
They deal with the sorcerer, but they discover that there is a deeper plot and the Sorcerer terrorist was but a pawn of the cities Regent who intended to use the war against terror(ist) to usurp more power for themselves. (I swear, there wasn't really political subtext or anything, not intentionally).
As they do, the player playing Beguiler decides to switch for a Warmage, which I allow.
They uncover the plot, gather some evidence, losing one of the PCs captured by the Regent's Dragon (not a literal dragon).
I kinda expect them to gather evidence, get some weapons (like they knew the Sorcerer almost managed to steal from a secret vault), try to make contact with the terrorist-rebels promising them amnesty, or contact the capital. They also have an option of joining the Regent, or being double or even triple agents.
However they decide to get their closest allies, formally accuse the Regent of High Treason against the Empress and siege his castle.
Now this bit was expected, so they infiltrated the castle while their allies distracted the main forces and ambushed the Regent.

They won, though by the skin of their teeth, but in the final moments the Regent used his Wish to teleport the whole honking castle to who knows where. Everyone had an option to escape (they were near windows/doors) or at least roll Will save, but one of the guys insisted he wanted to intentionally allow the spell to affect him. He vanishes without a trace.

So with three out of four PCs no longer the original ones, we once again go (sort of) back to the drawing board.

not-TPK-2.1
We keep the Warmage, and the temp-character Duskblade that was a substitute for the captured PC, and add two new guys at the 9th level, which was the last level reached by the previous party.
With the Regent and his allies escaped or killed and few more key NPCs killed by the anarchoSorc, there is a lot of of power vacuum in the city, so the Warmage being the hero who killed the Regent and helped stop the Sorcerer, they decide to try to leverage that to get a position on the City Council - in fact, together they want to put every PC in the positions of power to control the city.
There is a bit of political play, as they secure funding, attract allies, complete missions for the City or their patrons to demonstrate their prowess, etc, competing against four NPCs for three key positions (Spymaster, Sheriff and Master of Rituals).

Somewhere few sessions in, instead of continuing the social and intrigue, they decide to just ambush their competitors in the forest.
I tell them that would count as an incredibly bad form in their Lawful Evil society, and I'd rather they didn't. They insist, I decide I can't stop them, so there's a fight.
Everyone dies. Well, three of their competitors and three PCs. It was a fairly well-mirrored match.
We decide to roll that back and not do that.

TPK-3
We social some more, and at the end of it, they reach level 10. The Warmage is a clear favorite for Sheriff, the new Bard is about par with his competitor for Master of Rituals, while the Warlock is way behind in her ambition for the Spymaster. The Duskblade, not being as ambitious as his comrades, found himself a less important but fairly nice position in the Military.
So, I indicate that the assignment of roles will happen soon, and give them their feeling for their relative favor with powers that be.

So they decide to do a desperate, ill-thought out gambit, by inviting all their competitors under false pretences to one of their (competitors) houses, summoning a pretty nasty demon there, and hoping in the ensuing chaos either blame one of the parties for it, have their competitors kill each other, or maybe at least kill someone themselves.

I ask them if they want to give it a bit more thought - after all, if they are found out, such attack on a prominent NPC in their own home would surely destroy any favor they have and would make them criminals.
They insist.

A chaotic all-against-all fight ensues, but Warmage dies in the process (she split from the group and got ganked), the Warlock is noticed and witnesses will identify her, so she has to go on the lam, but the Duskblade and Bard escape, with Bards competitor killed.

Again, half the party is dead/hiding, the others' plans arederailed, as the Bard will still have to deal with the deal he made with the Devil they summoned, which he hoped, but failed to repay with something from the competitor's house, so the players want to switch again.

TPK-4
We switch back to the Orc tribe from first party, as it escapes through the mountain pass, their previous PCs sacrifice having temporarily stopped the BK and giving them time to enter an underground lost city and destroy the entrance.
One picks up his old PC - Wildshape Variant Ranger who turned into a bird to escape the previous TPK, others pick up assorted level 5 orcs.
They serve as scouts and vanguard for their tribe, as they make their way through the lost underground city of not!Moria.

Long story short, they make it through, though they get separated from their tribe, and end up in a steppe with a bunch of city-states ruled by various Were-orc clans (werewolves, wererats and wereboars), with the knowledge that the whole army of undead will probably follow them few months later. They are by then level 8, though somewhat under-equipped.

In the first city they stay in (a Werewolf-controlled-one, which they understand by seening bunch of wolf totems and decorations), they get into a fight and surprisingly easily kill a surprisingly obnoxious and aggressive guy calling himself "Dragon", though he's just an orc with some dragon-like scales, and they learn that the fourth tribe-the Dragons- terrorise all the city states, and that they are now (or will be soon) targets of blood feud from said dragons, as well as possibly the city that gave them hospitality.
They escape the city, to not make it a target, and sort of vaguely run to and fro for a session, avoiding everyone.
In the end they decide to fight the Dragon-tribe and use that to unify the cities. They send the message to all the cities they can reach that there is an army of undead coming, and that they are going to fight the dragons

I tell them that they are pretty powerful by local measures, but there's _a lot_ of those "dragons", so if they attack head-on with no help, they will most likely die.

Next sessions, a NPC catches up to them. He's a pretty bookish sort of boy, not well equipped, not well trained, super naive, wants to fight the bad guys "like they do in songs". The PCs take him in, start going towards the Dragon's den. During the night they are attacked by wolves, who are clearly werewolves.
I intended this to be a classic Marvel team-up. The werewolves think that those strange guy stole the prince of their city (the new kid), and want to get him back, so I assume they'll fight for a bit, and either they will down one of the werewolves, and recognize them from the city, or the kid will wake up and stop the fight, and they'll chat, and persuade the wolves join them and get others on board.
The party figthter rolls a crit, max damage, kills the main werewolf, and the daughter of the chief of the Werewolf city dead. Like, waaay super, "yep, totally" dead. On, like, round two.
That kinda kills their chance at a meaningful alliance. So they decide to go fight Dragons by themselves.
I repeat my warning, they insist. Again, no clever plan, no trying to split the enemy forces, no sneaking, no trying to call out their leader to a single combat - they go through the main door, and start kicking names and taking butt. And they almost succeed, killing like 50 NPCs of CR 1/3 to 7, but in the end they have just not enough mojo to get the work done, dying to the main boss.
One PC is dead, two are captured, one player wasn't on session, so his character escapes.

Now we are making our 3.5ths party, at level 6, which will probably try to save the captured PCs and stop that undead horde.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

"Wait, why is the BBEG using nonlethal damage?"

"He's planning to knock you out. He laughs maniacally. 'I'm going to devour your souls and use your bodies to place a horrible curse on your lineages!'"

"Well, crap. We'd best start rolling up our next party, then."

"Just one problem with that; for the next game, we're playing the children of your current characters. I don't think you'll like what happens if the BBEG succeeds in cursing them..."

[Wintermoot]

Next Game:

The Paladin and Warblade from TPK1 are now an AntiPaladin Deathknight and, I don't know, Mummy or something. Turned into undead by the Bone Knight and now in command of a large swath of the Bone Knight's forces. They are sent ahead to begin the assault on the Orcan/Lycanthrope nation under the mountain.

As they depart, the sky rumbles behind them and they turn just as a Castle appears out of nowhere and plummets onto the Bone Knight's head. This is the missing Castle from TPK-2. As the rubble settles, the missing PC from TPK-2 tumbles out, coughs and gets to his feet.

The "Paladin" and "Warblade" are now free-willed because the Bone Knight is crushed to powder. They can team up with the new PC and lead their undead troops to aid the orcs or destroy the orcs, whatever they want to do.

Meanwhile the character who escaped the 'Dragon' clan works his way back to the Orcs new underground kingdom hoping to find new allies to go back and save his old allies. He gets there just as the other three show up and they decide to lead their mini undead horde back to attack 'the Dragons'

There. Four PCs. Level 9ish Death Knight Paladin, Level 9ish Mummy Warblade, Level 9ish whatever and Level 9ish whatever. All with history from the prior campaigns.

new Goal - defeat the 'Dragons' and free the other PCs.

ONLY it turns out the 'Dragons' have a powerful ally. A demon from a far off evil empire who has sent his Bard and Duskblade minions to enchant the other two captured PCs from TPK-4 and turn them into his new evil minions.

Boom. Old party (TPK-1, TPK-1, TPK-2, TPK-4) vs New Party (TPK-3, TPK-2/3, TPK-4, TPK-1/4 - assuming this is the wildshape ranger?). Every couple of sessions switch between the good party and the evil party. Good Party want to defeat the Dragons and convince the Lycanthropes to aid the Orcs. Bad Party have to do the Demon's bidding (who wants to annex this all for the distant evil empire) until they can figure out a way to free themselves from his control.

Complication arises when the Evil Orcus worshipping necromancers come a calling to figure out what happened to their Bone Knight. Now they are trapped between the Dragons and the Necromancers.

Even more complications arise when they find out the Regent ALSO climbed out of the castle ruins, made his way forward to Lycanthrope-ville and is now in charge of one of the clans. Because recurring bad guys are the bomb.

[icefractal]

Right.
I'll try to be brief, but this is like 4 years of playing, so bear with me.

...

I'm seeing a common factor here.
PCs run into a situation where they can't get a clean victory - either because of their choices or just because the odds are too much against them. The best they get can is a mixed result with some bad-feeling parts, or a more complex situation they can't really predict.
They attempt to solve the problem in a straightforward way that removes complexity, and will give them a solid win if it succeeds.
You warn them that this will likely be fatal.
They do it anyway.

Unsaid: "We would rather TPK (and start a new campaign where we have a chance of doing everything right) than survive in an unsatisfying way."

Details:

Spoiler

Show

TPK-1: They don't want to " force-march, make decisions such as if they want to leave the wounded and sick behind, whether to forage or go hungry, etc.", they want their entire tribe to survive, and are willing to risk a TPK for even a small chance at that.

TPK-2: The web of alliances and double-agent/triple-agent is rather complex and the results are uncertain. Attacking the Regent directly is simple.
Not sure why the one PC stayed behind. Maybe thinking the Regent wasn't quite dead and this was an escape plan? Or just wanted to see what would happen?

TPK-3: Political play is again, complex, and they don't want to accept a partial-success result, which it seems like is all they're going to get. Killing the rivals is simple and would give them 100% success ... if it worked.

TPK-4: Ok honestly? I would have been dispirited by this one too, and might have voted for "win so hard the ****up doesn't matter, or die trying" with the rest of them. By unluck, they lost the alliance of a city they were trying to cultivate, in a way that feels extra-bad. Every sensible option at that point is going to somewhat suck.

There's a spectrum of opinion on this. At one end, that tragedy, loss, facing tough decisions with no good answer, recovering from and making amends for your failures, and accepting limited success are all key dramatic elements and of course you'd want those in your RPG. And at the other end, that those things mostly suck to experience and be reminded of, and we didn't come here to feel bad, so there should always be a Kirk-style solution to Kobayashi Maru problems.

If my phrasing sounds like it's favoring one, that's my bad, this is purely a difference of aesthetics with neither being "better". It's just a difference to be aware of.

It sounds like you're closer to the first end and your players are closer to the second. So when things start pulling harder in the direction of "consequences", their engagement is reduced.

[Fizban]

Even though I told them "guys, you will literally die". End quote.

I then understood that they wanted to sacrifice themselves for their tribe, gave them last-second power-ups from their gods, and described them preparing to die like good samurai.

Good samurai do not throw their lives away unnecessarily. The enemy had not caught up, they had no surety that the enemy would catch up, and did have every reason to believe they would not survive. I would not have given them last stand bonuses- not unless they had actually managed to convince me that what they were doing made sense with their information. They made no attempt to do so. Rewarding/supporting this idea may not have been responsible for further problems, but supporting their decision here probably damaged your credibility and chances of convincing them not to do so again and again.

However they decide to get their closest allies, formally accuse the Regent of High Treason against the Empress and siege his castle.
Now this bit was expected, so they infiltrated the castle while their allies distracted the main forces and ambushed the Regent.

They won, though by the skin of their teeth, but in the final moments the Regent used his Wish to teleport the whole honking castle to who knows where. Everyone had an option to escape (they were near windows/doors) or at least roll Will save, but one of the guys insisted he wanted to intentionally allow the spell to affect him. He vanishes without a trace.

Your players are beginning to show a pattern.

Somewhere few sessions in, instead of continuing the social and intrigue, they decide to just ambush their competitors in the forest.

Your players have locked in a pattern.

So they decide to do a desperate, ill-thought out gambit, by inviting all their competitors under false pretences to one of their (competitors) houses, summoning a pretty nasty demon there, and hoping in the ensuing chaos either blame one of the parties for it, have their competitors kill each other, or maybe at least kill someone themselves.

Your players continue demonstrating the pattern.

We switch back to the Orc tribe from first party, as it escapes through the mountain pass, their previous PCs sacrifice having temporarily stopped the BK and giving them time to enter an underground lost city and destroy the entrance.

Aside- the brief minute or two it took the uber undead to mulch the PCs would not affect their pursuit schedule of an entire tribe in any way, which is why their "sacrifice," with no justification whatsoever, was dumb.

The party figthter rolls a crit, max damage, kills the main werewolf, and the daughter of the chief of the Werewolf city dead. Like, waaay super, "yep, totally" dead. On, like, round two.
That kinda kills their chance at a meaningful alliance. So they decide to go fight Dragons by themselves.

This is the second time a crit has been involved.

I repeat my warning, they insist. Again, no clever plan, no trying to split the enemy forces, no sneaking, no trying to call out their leader to a single combat - they go through the main door, and start kicking names and taking butt. And they almost succeed, killing like 50 NPCs of CR 1/3 to 7, but in the end they have just not enough mojo to get the work done, dying to the main boss.
One PC is dead, two are captured, one player wasn't on session, so his character escapes.

Your players demonstrate the pattern yet again.


Okay, so what have you done wrong? Well, supporting bad decisions in the first TPK for starters. If you want a world that runs on rules and logical decisionmaking rather than narrative fiat, suddenly giving out narrative bonuses to try and save the players from their own folly is a bad idea.

Second thing is crits- or rather, the first crit was fine, the second crit was a problem. One of the party getting critted by the BK just takes a fight you expected them to lose and makes it even dumber that they actually stood and fought for any amount of time. The second time, you let critical NPCs walk into combat where they could be critted, or fail a save or die, etc. Never ever let plot NPCs exist in any harmable capacity until the plot can handle them dying.

But other than that, this is on your players. Specifically, they seem to either be buying into char-op hype of some sort, or more likely just playing like they're in a video game. They expect some sort of big uber boss fight or massive throwdown, and if they don't have one, they make one, intentionally throwing themselves into situations you've told them are lethal. They also seem to do so fairly suddenly, which suggests that you might have say, two players who are ambivalent, and one who goads the rest into doing stupid things because they're bored. But regardless your party keeps throwing themselves into death. Part of this can be "blamed" on the fact that DnD is a combat focused game and thus combat is the first thing PCs expect, usually rightly so, to solve their problems, but that only goes so far. It sure looks like every time you have a stretch of roleplaying, they suddenly get bored and decide to force a fight, expecting to win because they're the PCs. But even if you shorten the roleplaying and sprinkle in more encounters that are supposed to be "boss" fights, I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't see them as boss fights (incidentally, the DMG's encounter difficulty ratios give about a "boss" fight per level, though there is no requirement that the PCs actually win an overleveled fight).

Thus, you need to stop having status quo encounters. If you don't want this group to TPK, you simply have to stop running encounters where they can TPK. It doesn't matter if you've statted up X, Y, and Z, and the players have now drawn all three down on their heads. You are unfortunately outnumbered and can no longer run games that are backed by logic and stats. Maybe you need to tease some friendly faction to deus ex machina bail them out. Maybe you keep multiple versions of each foe so that you have a solo-boss-fight version and a players-screwed-up version. Maybe you need to switch to entirely status-quo dungeons with no individual foe that can beat the PCs, and no "programming" that will allow them to team up against the PCs.

Or, you can recognize that gamers need to be punished. Specifically, games that never apply punishment tend to inspire "hardcore" gamers to make up their own punishments. In DnD, as with nearly all combat based games, death is the big punishment. If the PCs never die, the players do not feel like they're playing a game- they feel like they're just faffing about and can beat anything. And they can't die, because 3.5 lays ridiculous punishments on them- none of your TPKs are actually even TPKs, but rather the acceptance that dead characters must be discarded. And when it happens, they just make new characters or even a new party and continue playing, no punishment.

Funny thing is, as I've written in the Limited Resurrection thread, 3.0 doesn't seem to have had this problem. In 3.0 getting Raised is cheap, so you can die about once every three levels (the rubber banding 3.x Xp system gives around +1/3 if you're a level below the party) with the XP not being a problem and the gp really not being a problem. 3.5 completely ruins this. What you might need is what I described there: a fix to the costs and usable time windows of raising spells to redefine character death in the game. It might sound backwards, but I bet if your PCs died more often, they would be less interested in throwing themselves into an obvious grinder. Because they would know how easily they can die, that their usual threats cause one temporary death fairly frequently, and thus increase their awareness that pushing too far will get all of them killed.

IIf you want to get rid of level loss by having windows shorter than a week but longer than "screw yourself over in the middle of combat," change the window sizes and gp costs. "Revivify" works within say 1 min/level: long enough that you can definitely finish a combat, or even retreat, regroup, and retrieve if you move fast, but not long enough for you to even Teleport back to town unless you can go to the exact building (or even room) of the person you need who you already know has the spell prepped, and it costs say 500gp (enough that maybe you should Stoneskin instead, not enough that your WBL falls apart). Then Raise is say, 1,500gp (in 1 day/level, no level loss): enough that you would really, really rather Revivify, but it still won't annihilate WBL if you fail, and a time constraint that means people without access to Teleport who die too far from a Cleric still stay dead. Rez can be 3,000gp (for a new body and full heal) and anywhere from 1 week to 1 year/level depending on taste, remembering that the main limit on access is the number of people who can cast 7th level spells.

And these can be combined with the other common death penalty suggestion (a negative level that doesn't go away until you level up), if the idea of low level aristocrats just being raised over and over out of their plot-tier funding needs a limit. They do bring the question of what/if should be True Rez, but the latter is already provided for: True Rez reaches back a ridiculous amount of time, 10 years/level, and lets you target people for whom no trace of their body even remains. That's literally enough for a plot on its own, digging up the information and spell required to bring back a lost hero who knows what/has the unique abilities needed to deal with a problem from generations ago. Only if you write your campaign setting on the scale of millenia (admittedly quite common, and maybe even appropriate for races like Elves), does the reach of True Rez seem small- and expanding that range to 100 years/level would make it a spell capable of truly epic feats.

• Delay Death and Revenance: removed.
• Vivify: 4th, usable within 1 min/level, return at -1hp as Raise Dead but with no penalties, 500gp.
• Raise Dead: 5th, as normal (within 1 day/level) but 1,500gp, and instead of losing a level you gain a negative level that sticks until you level up.
• Revive: 6th, as Vivify but target returns at 1/2 their full hit points (still 500gp).
• Resurrection: 7th, as normal but 3,000gp and instead of losing a level you gain a negative level that sticks until you level up.
• True Resurrection: 9th, as normal but 5,000gp.

Making it so combat includes a certain amount of quickly reversable death again means they can fail, even intentionally within certain limits, and the game continues. With those characters, because you stop jumping to new games just because one of them died. And with those consequences of starting and losing stupid fights.

If you want to have a long-running game, you need to run a long-running game. Though if such changes still have the party attempting mass suicide or wanting to make a new party every 5 levels, then at that point you've got nothing else but accept these players won't play a game that runs for more than 5 levels (at whatever session rate it is that's getting you there of course). Make your plots complete satisfactorily within that time frame.


Edit: icefractal's take is also a possibility. I myself prefer simpler goals that are actually attainable within my character's abilities. The Paladin's true response to most "moral dilemmas" is "nope, Paladin" and then fight and if the DM presented something they couldn't Paladin their way through then the DM has told their story of how Paladins fail. This is why a lot of people go nuts over spellcasters, because the only way they can be absolutely sure that they can enforce their will on the game is with a spell that says they do X, period.

[Mordante]

Why not start with level 1 characters? maybe this way the get more attached to them and not suicide.

[JoeNapalm]

First, allow me to congratulate you on achieving something many GMs never do -- a self-sustaining, multi-year campaign.

So, you've got that going for you.

Here is your golden raiment, scepter, and orb of getting more right than wrong!

Now with those administrative details out of the way, the matter at hand:


TPKs.


SITUATION: The PCs have repeatedly charged headlong to their doom, in spite of dire warnings.

RECOMMENDATION: Drill down to isolate root cause of this behavior.

You are the DM, the omnipotent arbiter of your world.

A TPK can only happen if you A) cause it to happen, and B) allow it to happen.

I understand that you are allowing your Players free will (bold...perhaps even noble...but fraught with peril) and you feel as if they are charging ahead to their doom. There are a few things at work here.

First, you are offering your PCs a challenge that they cannot overcome.

Second, they are meeting that challenge head-on.


Q1: Why are you presenting them with a challenge they cannot overcome?

Understand that this is heroic fantasy -- it's D&D, unless you have overtly stated otherwise, that is the assumption -- and therefore absolutely rife with a ragtag group of heroes overcoming overwhelming odds.

Simply telling your players they cannot defeat this BBEG is accompanied with a flashing neon subtext that they MUST DEFEAT THE BBEG!

If you really want to put a foe out in front of them that they simply cannot overcome, you need to demonstrate this -- object lessons, have them stomp an army, throttle dragons, kick around a tarrasque, SOMETHING to show that, no, really, you cannot take this foe.


Q1b: What is your INTENDED outcome, if setting the challenge of this confrontation beyond their ability to overcome?

You put a fight on the table that they can't win. Maybe you meant it that way, maybe it just went poorly.

Worry less about the power level of the fight and the die rolling and focus on what story you're trying to tell -- how do you get there from here?

Maybe they get captured. Maybe they get rezzed. Maybe the foe-meant-to-turn-ally calls for parley in the middle of a fight, or you need the calvary to suddenly arrive.

You are omnipotent. You control the outcome, do what you need to do to tell a good story, even if it didn't go as planned.

Most importantly, understand that NOTHING ever goes as planned and have contingencies.


Q2: If you put the unwinnable fight on the table, what other options are your also offering?

Yeah yeah yeah. Player agency, free will, yadda yadda yadda.

Pro tip -- the illusion of free will is just as good as the real thing. Just ask any quantum physicist.

But if you really, really want to turn over that much power to your Players, you need to do it like asking a six year old what they want for dinner?

Do they want the poison liver and radioactive onions? Or do they want to just skip to dessert?

If you don't want them to pick Annihilation for $1000, Alex, you need to give them other options. Preferably with flashing neon lights.



Anyway -- long-winded enough, but you get the point. You're Loki, and this is the Battle of New York. It's all on you.

Yeah, your Players might have a proven history of poor decision making, but it's you that are setting up the board. You control the very fabric of reality itself...don't just look upon your Players with dismay, craft the moment.

Heck -- if they insist on going big, let them. Just remember that what does not kill them makes them stronger. Either they get their epic moment, or they get revenge down the road. Tell the better story.


-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[Zanos]

-Information-

Based on the information provided, I'm going to make an educated guess, tell me if I'm wrong. Did each one of these situations occur during a period where the characters had not had combat in a long time? I ask because I know that some players do rather like combat and may get frustrated or bored if they go a long time without killing something; so they prefer to just take a swing at the closest available baddy rather than continue to be bored.

[JoeNapalm]

Throwing some well-known examples of how to properly handle when your PCs decide to pick fights they simply cannot win:

Luke Skywalker vs Darth Vader --

Man, Luke tried to go up against Vader in every single move of the original trilogy!

Ep IV, DM sacrifices beloved NPC mentor and throws a squad of minions in between Luke and Vader, has him physically dragged away from the confrontation while sealing the blast doors.

Ep V, Vader toys with Luke until BIG REVEAL (I won't spoil it for anyone who's been in cryosleep for 30 years) and when Luke tries to go out in a blaze of glory in spite of being slapped down, repeatedly and forcefully, DM deux ex's him to safety and escape.

Ep IV, by now, DM has realized that Luke is just straight up suicidal. He's never gonna learn he can't win this fight, in spite of Vader having killed EVERY SINGLE OTHER GODDAMN JEDI he's still not getting the point. So he deflects Luke with the power of Plot, redirects one indominable BBEG into another -- killing two BBEBirds with one stone and letting Luke think that somehow he's really the hero. This is S Tier DM @#$% people.


More to come...

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You could always simply make the BBEG inaccessible until it's time for the PCs to go against him/her/it/them/whatever. Hiding in a demiplane or otherwise locked behind "you must fulfill these prerequisites to enter." Then make those prereqs part of the plot of the campaign.

[JoeNapalm]

Example the Second


Serenity:

Again, spoilers for anyone who's been stranded in the vasty nothingness for decades.

Mal vs the Operative. Crew vs the Reavers. Everybody vs the entire gorram Alliance Fleet plus fully power-armored kill teams.


Man. Really stepped in it here. I mean, this fight isn't just unwinnable...it's not even going to be close. They're just gonna get slaughtered. The Operative smashed the transmitter...duh...so no path to victory. Why wouldn't they just RUN?!

Oh, right, Wash rolled a whole BUNCH of ones.

How did we even GET here? You TOLD the PCs Miranda was beyond Reaver space! The whole Mr. Universe thing -- how could they NOT realize those comm channels were not secure?! You showed them that they were in the feeds at the beginning of this adventure!

Even reinforced that point when you GRUESOMELY MURDERED everyone they spoke to on those comms -- now there's no one to come to the rescue.

Okay. Deep breaths. Take a break to get a drink, buy some time. We can fix this.


The Operative smashed the transmitter, so...new SECRET transmitter. Will have to be hidden...hard to get to...to explain why it survived. One hurdle down.


Oh. Great. Now they wanna split the party! Because THAT always fixes everything! I should just kill them. Just kill them all.


No, no, You are the master of my own table. You put a lot of work into this. You can save this. You *will* save it!


The Reavers. Did they really have to piss off literally every one of the biggest baddest boogeymen you could devise? You're supposed to RUN from Reavers! You only made them to have a reliable scary thing you could use to move them along and keep them out when you wanted to! Gorram it PCs!

They're going to need a chokepoint, some seriously favorable ground. That should hold them awhile as long as nobody...GORRAM IT!

Okay okay...You've got that whole unresolved plot point from River's voluminous backstory that she insisted on having. You figured the "killed them with math" scene and maybe that bar fight was the end of that but what the heck, desperate times.


Oh. Man. You wish you hadn't made this Operative so tough, but he was supposed to fight the whole party, not just Mal! Crap. Wait wait wait...what's this useless Flaw he took at CharGen to get that Quick Draw Feat? He lost a nerve plexus...how useless...

...unless...

It. Just. Might. Work.




-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[JoeNapalm]

Example the Third


The Avengers:

It wasn't supposed to play out like this. Why...why are they so bad at this?

Sure, Loki's evil plot was to turn them all against one another. You spelled it right out for them, clear as day!

But...somehow it's still working.

Stark, I swear that guy does this every time. Me me me me me! Picking fights with Steve. Picking fights with Fury. He's even trying to pick a fight with Banner, knowing that's just gonna get EVERYONE killed! Now he's hacking SHIELD!

SAME TEAM, TONY! GAWD!

Now he's got Cap running around on some harebrained side quest. Thor's doing Odin knows what. Only Natasha is even trying to move the plot forward, but she's not even LOOKING for Hawkeye. Great teamwork, folks!

Then when it hits the fan, they really DO start fighting one another! Banner's straight up swinging for the fences vs his own party!


Fine! Fine fine fine. If Banner won't lay off, just draw him out with some expendable resources, get him off the board for now.


You threw Hawkeye back in the mix, since nobody was even trying to save him, now Natasha's trying to kill him. Then Thor fell for the same damn trick...again...and he's gonna definitely die. I made that trap to scare them, and he goes and steps right in it!


Thor, you dumbass. Fine, ONE more saving throw, try to roll double-digits this time.


Once the smoke starts to clear, the party still is scattered and beaten. Probably will slink off to their respective lairs to wallow in self-pity. Gonna need something to get them focused back on Loki instead of their own selfish egos...


Hmmm. Everybody really took a liking to that NPC, Phil....

[ChudoJogurt]

Hi guys.

Wow. Genuinely thankful for all the opinions and advice. And sorry for being sluggish in replying in this thread - my schedule is super-hectic atm.

Q1: Why are you presenting them with a challenge they cannot overcome?

Well, it's not that they can't overcome it, it's more that they shouldn't be able to win just by charging head on. And often when they get their Leeroy Jenkins moments, they have no plan at all, or at least either poorly thought out and vague, or really bad one.
Like, in the last TPK if they wanted to fight the dragons by themselvdz there really were cleverer ways to do it than just going in through the front door and charging the first couple of guards.

And there's definitely other options. As I said, in TPK-1, the main line of the plot was them escaping the bad guy through the mountain pass - perhaps losing some NPCs to the forced march and hunger at the worst. In TPK-2. 1/3 they could've walked away with a partial win.

So, yeah, I think I have options, some implicit, some explicit, and I'm always happy for my players to surprise me, just in a more pleasant way.

And once they choose to fight... Its kinda hard to make it non-lethal without either serious dice-fudging, contrivance or making the NPCs ridiculously powerful. It is all within my remit as DM, but I am a bit reluctant to go that path. And again, if the players know that PCs won't die, I think that would encourage them to Leeroy Jenkins even more.

Did each one of these situations occur during a period where the characters had not had combat in a long time?

Thats a good guess, but I don't think so.
TPK-1 happened when we had a bunch of relatively lower level "harrass" fights. TPK-2.1 happened literally in the middle of a dungeon. TPK-4.. Maybe that one counts? We hadn't had a big fight in.. About five, maybe six games.

However, thinking back, there was, maybe some frustration from the players feeling that they are loosing ground? Like ice fractal said, these incidents do happen when things start going great for the players for a bit.
In TPK-1 they had a giant monster gaining on them, while they were harassed every night which drained their resources and hampered their rest.
In TPK-3,they felt they can't easily get a decisive win against their competition.
In TPK-4, they had two fairly annoying (from their pojtn of view) semi-accidental kills that spoiled their diplomatic prospects.
But I can't have it always going the players way, right? There can't be a game without at least some hardship.
And I think I provide ample wins, so it's not just lose-lose-lose all the time.

Hmmm. Everybody really took a liking to that NPC, Phil....

Hm. Actually, the Avengers analogy rings true. Like, in the first movie, the Avengers see Phil dead, and they go and kick Loki's butt. And it works.
But in my case, it's more like Endgame?
They get pissed off, bum-rush Thanos, Quill gets a bad saving throw against being a douchebag, and before you can snap your fingers the whole group is dead.
Next thing you know we're generating a talking raccoon, coming up with a hasty retcon for Captain Marvel coming back from space and nerfing Thor to fit in with them.
It could work, sometimes, but I think would prefer it to be more like the last movie, where they suffer the setback, but actually come up with a plan to beat the bad guy.
[granted, this case the deus ex machin time heist would have probably been provided by the DM, but you know what I mean]

[Thane of Fife]

To throw out my own reading of the situation:

I think at your players (and you) are giving up too easily. First of all, none of these were actually TPKs - every time, at least one PC survived, and in most of them, at least two did. Then the group decided there had been too much PC death, and so you restarted.

But even inside of the individual scenarios, the pattern appears to be that the PCs suffer some kind of setback, after which they seem to decide that they can't win and thus they need to either make a last-ditch desperate effort or go out in a blaze of glory. But in most of these cases, I don't think (and it sounds like you don't, either) that they were in such bad shape before the "TPK," and honestly, I generally don't think they were in such bad shape afterwards either.

Some things you could try to address this:

1. Have back-up characters. In a game like Pendragon, which is an RPG where character death is expected, players track their characters' families, so if one PC dies, the player can take his their sibling or child or something. This is not dissimilar to how older D&D was intended to work, where your character might have sidekicks, so that if you died, you could take over playing as one of them. This may help you to have available PCs on hand who still have a connection to the plot in the event where you have deaths like this. That said, I'm not sure it will solve your main problem, which is your players losing hope, because now they're probably playing weaker characters in the same situation.

2. Run shorter adventures. Most of what you mention seems to have lasted 3-4 levels and not really been near completion when the TPK happened. I feel like that's fairly long for a D&D adventure with an imminently threatening adversary. If you run shorter adventures, you may be able to give the players more meaningful victories and keep the BBEG out of Leroy Jenkins-ing range.

3. Meta-currency. Some games, like Fate, Savage Worlds, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer compensate players with meta-currency when bad things happen to them. It's sort of an in-game way of saying "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." The idea is that when you, as the DM, do something that makes their lives harder, you compensate them for it (examples would be like having the undead close in on them despite their efforts, or having them get in a fight with the werewolves they're trying to befriend). You aren't compensating them for the TPK - rather, you want to compensate them for the stuff that is making them feel like TPK is the best option. As a note, you may want your meta-currency to have more narrative rather than combat powers, because otherwise you risk making the Leroy Jenkins approach more appealing. But ideally, this makes them feel like they still have options and that their situation is not unsalvageable.

[pabelfly]

So reading your explanation, it seems like your players prefer to face challenges head-on without trickery or planning (at least no planning beyond character creation). You don't want to have players feel like there is no risk in combat. The compromise here might be to plan on killing one of your players in a big combat. That would keep combat feeling dangerous without it leading to a TPK.

Alternatively, they could have a permanent scar or disability. If they lose an eye, they have a permanent negative to Spot. Or if they have a scar, penalties to Persuasion, Disguise and a bonus to Intimidate. Stuff like that would mean combat has stakes and consequences without requiring a TPK.

[Thurbane]

To me, this definitely sounds like a player issue, rather than a DM/campaign issue. Although I would agree with what others have said: if it's a TPK, let the players generate new characters at the same level, rather than resetting them to lower levels.

But to the issue at hand: as a DM, I don't feel I should have to make truly powerful beings inaccessible or non-existent because the party keep going at them head first, despite explicit warnings and personal experience. It's like saying there should be no active volcanoes in a world, just because the party would insist on leaping into them head first with no magical protection.

Also, as others have said, maybe try having the BBEG knock them out or otherwise incapacitate them, then hold them prisoner or force them into service. Or have a scenario where they are imprisoned awaiting ritual sacrifice, and give them a chance to escape and reclaim their gear.

I mean, end of the day, it's up to you and your group to find what works best for you, but if my players pulled this kind of stuff, I wouldn't feel compelled to switch the difficulty down to easy setting just because they insist on biting off more than they can chew. First time it happens, sure, you can chalk it up to inexperience and/or poor decision making. But if they keep doing it, I would refer back to my volcano analogy.

[edit] OK, read some more posts: I thought it was literally the same being TPKing them each time. From what you've described, you may need to tone down the challenges the party might potentially face, since they seem unwilling to accept there is anything they can't handle. If you have a party of overly heroic lemmings, the game play style and campaign may need tweaking to make it all work. Personally, if I were on the player side of this, I'd have a good hard look at the appropriateness of my play style fitting in with the campaign I am playing in, but if it's a group thing, sounds like some settings need major adjustment to make it all work. [/edit]

[edit 2] Yeah, OK, on a more detailed read through, you seem to create interesting, political/intrigue/nuanced adventures, and the players seem to prefer a kick-in-the-door type playstyle, with no planning or subtlety. Personally, I think your adventure arcs sound amazing, and I'd love to play in them, but this really seems to be lack of compatibly in the game style offered by DM and the play style preferred by players. It seems like a waste of your creativity, but your group may prefer dungeon grinds, or battlefield type scenarios. Even then, their lack of planning and tactics is still likely to get them in over their heads, but hopefully less so. Also, to be fair to the players, these issues seem to have been sparked, or exacerbated, but a lucky or unlucky crit roll on at least two occasions - sometimes you just can't help bad luck. [/edit 2]

[Wintermoot]

To me, this definitely sounds like a player issue, rather than a DM/campaign issue. Although I would agree with what others have said: if it's a TPK, let the players generate new characters at the same level, rather than resetting them to lower levels.

I'm disappointed you didn't comment on my next campaign idea combining all the dregs from prior campaign. Oh well.

I feel like there's nuance here and it's not simple either the DM's fault or the Player's fault.

Yes, the DM should be able to build a world with threats too powerful for the PCs to deal with. Look at ANY campaign set in Forgotten Realms ever.

That being said, campaigns in Forgotten realms may make reference to, I don't know, Hallister the Mad Mage, but they don't A> have Hallister slowly chasing the Party who have the enforced goal of protecting a bunch of commoner's from him, nor B> have the party engaging in a PTA election war with Hallister with the enforced goal of finding a way to beat him. No in forgotten realms, Hallister is hidden in some unreachable location and you are dealing with his consistently level appropriate minions.

While it's the DMs purview to make a rich world, it's also his onus to present the party with challenges they can realistically deal with. This DM is not.

Take TPK1. He has a too-powerful, unbeatable enemy pursuing the party. He has given the party the goal of keeping a group of commoners safe while being chased. He has staged it so the too-powerful, uber-enemy sends waves of level-appropriate encounters at the party to "slow them down" while inching closer. He has told US that he has made it clear to the players that they CAN escape if they just keep going.

But how clear was that to the players? You see something I've noticed time and time again on this forum is that what the storyteller telling us the story believes is true is not always true.

It sounds like he kept ramping up the tension until the players no longer believed they could actually achieve their goal. So they took the desperation leap of sacrificing themselves to try and save their wards coupled with just being fed up with what felt to them like an unwinnable scenario.

How many sessions where they running away. Sounds like quite a few if they went up 5 levels. How many encounters with the Skulllord's minions had they fought off. How many charges had already been lost? How much closer was the Skulllord?

If we knew that, it might seem REASONABLE to us to do what the player's did. who knows. Sometimes, as a player, you just need to do something to change what has become a tiresome and unending plotline.

The fact that this happens over and over again, probably means that change needs to happen on both ends. DM and player.

For the DM, my advice is to stop even letting the players interact with the IMPOSSIBLE. Hard is fine. Difficult is fine. Impossible is not fine. Not for your players.

Also, shorten your campaigns. They get bored after 5 levels consistently. So do campaigns that only last that long. With goals they can attain within 5 levels. You've gotten pretty good as short campaigns all connected in the same world, lean into that strength.

You also may improve your experience by lessening the player agency component. There is NOTHING wrong with a game where the players are given a job to do (that's within their ability) rather than figuring out what to do by themselves. In fact quite a few players (including potentionally yours) enjoy mission-games.

Instead of freeballing "Here is a tribe of Orcs. There is an unbeatable Skulllord, Way over there is a safe zone. Figure it out"

Instead have the Orc Tribe leader NPC be like "We need to get to mountains. There is a powerful enemy following us. We need you to follow us on the right flank and deal with whatever he sends to ambush us" one week and then "We need you to scout ahead through this swamp and clear the path for us" the next.

For the political campaign, you could've inserted an NPC campaign manager to act as a tamper to their ambitions and guide them to better options when they got off track.

And, oh yeah, someone up thread made the advice "Sometimes players need to be punished."

At the risk of whoever that was telling me what a tool I am, Do NOT listen to that advice. Never listen to that advice. That is terrible DMing.

Sure, there need to be consequences for players actions, both positive and negative, but those have to be natural, not forced. "Punishing them" can ONLY ever mean "you aren't playing the game the way I want you to play it" and that's asshattery.

Punishing players is vindictive. You are not their parents. You are not their teacher. You are their friend playing a game with them. If they push the edge and die, there's a world of difference between if that just happened because of a die roll or a bad decision or if that happened because you wanted to teach them their place.

[ChudoJogurt]

Thanks everyone to your responses.

I think my main akeaways here are:
1)I'll make sure I provide party with some clean, unambiguous "you guys did an excellent job" wins. I think I was raising even winnable challenges too much, so that blurred the border between what they can and cannot win.
2)I will keep the party on a somewhat shorter leash, giving at least some simple missions where they know exactly what to do, without relying on them to come up with unexpected options or complex plans. I think this is what frustrated them a lot.
3)I will make sure that the threats from the Big Bads is not perceived as absolutely immediate, and I will keep them at a longer distance away from the party, such that if they do want to kill themselves, they would have to get to them first.
4)I will make sure that when the party does face the BBEG, they have ample chance to retreat if they change their mind, or be captured instead of TPK.

I will also see how that goes, and report back here, in case someone is interested.