My first TPK in a while

[Sneak Dog]

I agree that their choices stink but that's usually how I run my games, it's not roses and rainbows all the time. Sometimes it boils down to hard choices and the law of unintended consequence.

I fully understand that there is more than one way to run a game. I can treat every encounter as combat as sport and have them level appropriate and never have any meaningful choices except what monsters butt to kick next to take their treasure. This is a fine way to run DnD but not my way.

It's a fine way to run a game. It will create these scenarios where TPKs happen. With the additional context provided, it's an excellent example of how to run this kind of game and what the outcome can be. I'd genuinely say well done. Now my only remaining question is whether the players want to play this kind of game. Considering its your first TPK in a while, they probably do. Good. Just go on as you were, right?

I'm giving my perspective on the decision making of the players, and how I can sympathise with them. I'm not in any way trying to call you a bad GM, and with the additional context I'd like to do the opposite. Doesn't change that the players got into a stinky situation which sucked :P

[RazorChain]

It's a fine way to run a game. It will create these scenarios where TPKs happen. With the additional context provided, it's an excellent example of how to run this kind of game and what the outcome can be. I'd genuinely say well done. Now my only remaining question is whether the players want to play this kind of game. Considering its your first TPK in a while, they probably do. Good. Just go on as you were, right?

I'm giving my perspective on the decision making of the players, and how I can sympathise with them. I'm not in any way trying to call you a bad GM, and with the additional context I'd like to do the opposite. Doesn't change that the players got into a stinky situation which sucked :P

Nah my players know what kind of games I run. I make that clear on session zero. I think I was just a little flabbergasted on their decision to charge. I mean I was there and gave them all the time to reach their decision and I listened to their discussion. Majority of the players thought that charging was a bad idea but somehow the paladin player managed to convince them.

You see the Paladin takes a little time to reach their groove in dnd 5e. When they hit level 5 it's a huge power spike for them. They double their smites and get their second attack and suddenly the paladin player felt his character was invincible as he could now smite for 8d8+10 in damage if he hit with both his attacks and he had decent armor class as well. What he failed to understand is the casters carry him a lot by buffing him and debuffing their foes and controlling the battlefield. The druid/monk often casts faerie fire or entanglement before changing into beast. The Wizard uses haste on the paladin or even blindness on strong foes to debuff them. The Cleric often has bless going to boost their saving throws and attacks or makes use of hold person on strong foes when applicable. Without the rest of the party doing their job the paladin isn't as useful.

So the cleric, the rogue and the wizard had been downed multiple times during the campaign the paladin and the druid/monk had maybe had the easiest time with moon druids being ridiculously tanky at lower levels and Paladins maybe the best tanks in the game. So I guess the Paladin player was maybe a little drunk on power.

[Lord Torath]

The 'hostages' were waiting at the entrance to the dungeon while the PCs went inside, right?

Did you give any consideration to having the hostages flee into the dungeon when they first caught sight of the BBEG's forces, and thus avoid becoming hostages? They could have warned the PCs about the BBEG's presence outside the dungeon, adding additional weight to Wizard's and Cleric's position on Long Resting before exiting. Hind-sight's 20/20 and all that, but having the 'hostages' behave intelligently could have avoided the situation as well.

[RazorChain]

The 'hostages' were waiting at the entrance to the dungeon while the PCs went inside, right?

Did you give any consideration to having the hostages flee into the dungeon when they first caught sight of the BBEG's forces, and thus avoid becoming hostages? They could have warned the PCs about the BBEG's presence outside the dungeon, adding additional weight to Wizard's and Cleric's position on Long Resting before exiting. Hind-sight's 20/20 and all that, but having the 'hostages' behave intelligently could have avoided the situation as well.

I gave the hostages 50/50 chance of avoid being captured and allowed the players to roll for it. The hostages didn't want to go into the dungeon as one of them had almost died after triggering a trap at the entrance but they would have legged it to town.

[Lord Torath]

Okay. Fair enough.

[MrStabby]

Oh, thank you for the additional context. It sounds like the party didn't consider that the enemy would show up to take what they wanted on a short timescale and got themselves in an awful situation. It's the consequences of their own actions fueled by greed coming to bite them.



But I'd still say that by this point in time, their choices stink. A likely gets them backstabbed anyway. B sort of forfeits their hostages' lives. C at least lets them die following what they believe in, in a universe where they believe in interventionist deities and have made a bunch of allies to boot. (They probably should've tried to get the figurine out and away though. Let one of them attempt to run off with it into the sunset.)

The hostages are the real stinger here. If they had long rested in the dungeon, the necromancer wouldn't have sat idly by either. Use a message scroll to get the message across, or send in some disposable zombies. Without answer, they can just leave and take the hostages to their fortress, or kill and raise them as undead to rub it in the PCs faces.

My take on situations like this is that the players could make good choices, just at a level removed. The consequences of making a poor choice where a good choice was available is that the next choice you have to make is between bad options.

Poor resource management, lack of alacrity in securing the loot, poor information gathering on likely respoinse times, a failure to secure allies, an instruction to NPCs to remain in an exposed place. I think D&D should be somewhat forgiving of unforced errors but having real consequences for a failure to prepare is a perfecly valid gamestyle.

[LecternOfJasper]

I agree that their choices stink but that's usually how I run my games, it's not roses and rainbows all the time. Sometimes it boils down to hard choices and the law of unintended consequence.

As someone who runs the same sort of game, bravo. Poor decisions require poor consequences. My players do seem to lean into it a bit more purposefully than I thought they would, though.

Releasing a maniacal snake king from 1000 years ago? Probably some consequences there, should you part ways. Fomenting revolution in front of him, calling him ugly and telling him to beat it? He certainly doesn't like you, but probably won't dedicate a large portion of his resources to your demise. Actively attacking him when another group asks you to bring him to them? Bet your ass he escaped and will have your houses burned down, your parents shot and will send hit squads after you for the rest of your days.

Weird way to deal with a crazy immortal king, but whatever.

Sounds like your players (and their characters) had all the information they could need to make an informed decision in the moment (I would assume that at least one hostage would die if they ran back into the dungeon, but that's what makes the decision difficult). They chose super death, and got super death.

[Pauly]

The situation reminds me of a TPK I had many years ago. We’d just finished a 9 month D&D campaign and switched to a short Dieselpunk 1930 (A home brew of Cyberpunk 2020 reset to 1930) Film Noir themed campaign for a bit of a change before the next stage of the D&D campaign.

In the second session the party was confronted by the BBEG and his goons with their weapons drawn. I’m in film noir mode where this is obviously a parley situation. My players are still in D&D mode where it’s obviously a combat situation. If you’re aware of Cyberpunk’s combat mechanics close range gunfights are stupendously lethal and the half the BBEG’s goons go down, but the entire party as well. At least it set up a second campaign where the femme fatale was a wife of a missing private investigator who wanted to know the whereabouts of her husband [and make sure he was dead]

Sometimes players will think that if there is a combat map and enemy minis on the board, even if it’s theater of the mind, that there must be a path to success by combat. I find you often need more emotionally mature* players to get a party willing to find the non-combat solution to a problem.

*calendar age and emotional maturity are not linked.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Did the players know the stakes? Yes, probably.

Did the players do a good job assessing the risks/threats you laid out for them? No.

Did the players have a reserve in case they misjudged the relative power? No.

Did the players plan for a retreat if things didn't do exactly as hoped? No.

IMHO they got what they deserved. Now to your side of things.

Did you ask them how they felt about character death in session zero?

Did you communicate the stakes effectively? Probably.

Did you present the risks/threat? Yes.

Were there narrative foreshadowings/omens/"I got a bad feeling about this." Yes.

Your party never read Sun Tzu. They knew neither themselves or their enemy. And the battle was lost before it was begun.

If you need absolution, in the name of the Gygax, the Mountain Dew, and the Rolly Twenty, I absolve you of your trespasses, imagined or real.

IMHO you called a fair game, and the BBEG won.

[gbaji]

I think you managed it fairly well. I would probably have given the party members an opportunity to make a tactics/battle/whatever roll to learn that "Um... You have about a zero percent chance to win here, so attacking would be suicide", but then I'm a bit of a softie in that way. If you play a bit more of a grim game, then the warnings you gave them were absolutely acceptable.

One of the key things to remember as a GM is that character knowledge is always better than player knowledge. The player is merely playing the character. The player is not actually the character. The player does not actually swing the weapon, suffer the damage, have the skills, etc that the character has. They're just numbers and words on a sheet of paper to the player. Thus, players can often make mistakes when assessing their characters in-game capabilities in ways that if said character actually existed, and were actually alive, and actually in the exact situation, would never make. For this reason, as a GM, I often err on the side of pretty blatantly just telling the players if I think they are about to do something that is automatically going to fail and/or get their character(s) killed. They're free to ignore me, but I have a clean conscience then.

But that's me, in my game. As long as you are consistent, and your players know how the game runs and feels, any threshold for such things is fair. And it's obviously going to be very different if you're playing in a high-fantasy game, versus gritty/grim game, or silly game (I'll gleefully let players do totally suicidal things when running a game of Paranoia, for example).

I'll also add that in my experience, there are two things that players will resist doing to sometimes ridiculous degrees: 1) Surrendering, and 2) giving up something to the bad guys. Although, this was a macguffin and not loot (don't ever take precious items from players. Just... don't), so that's not as terrible, but still. In this case, you presented them with another option to fight or surrender/parlay, so that was sufficient IMO. I'm also somewhat baffled why they didn't retreat into the (now somewhat known) tunnels. I agree with other posters that it was the hostages that did it, so maybe also take that as a lesson as a GM. Not that it's right or wrong to put players in that situation, but how the players are likely to react when put there.

Maybe next time, they wont just leave two beloved NPCs alone in a known location, previously inhabited by a bbeg's minions (before the players captured it), after the party has already upset said bbeg (and stolen his macguffin), and have a reasonable expectation that he's going to come looking for revenge (and his macguffin). Adventuring against a bbeg tend towards two phases. Initially, as the party encounters the bbeg's minions and thwarts some minor activities, they are unknown to the bbeg (and he may be to them). This allows the party a degree of freedom to act against the bbeg and his evil plans. If they can sustain that all the way to a final defeat of said bbeg, that's wonderful for them. Well played. But if the bbeg becomes aware of their actions, and worse, their identities, you move into a more dangerous phase where it's the players who have to prepare and defend themselves against the bbeg as well. This can make for some very fun and dynamic play, but it sounds like your players entered that phase, but didn't take appropriate actions as a result. Not so well played.

They'll do better next time. Maybe.

[Spo]

I can see my current gaming group doing the same thing your party did here. In fact, I am predicting a TPK in our next session (ended the game in mid-fight three rounds into combat). Our hopeless fight started with our bear totem barbarian running into a room when he saw two guards standing there with their backs towards us without looking to see who else was in that room.

Like your situation, our party is low on hit points and spell slots. If we don't make it I don't think we will be angry because we know the actions that have gotten us into this situation in this state is our own doing. IF we are "saved" by some type of deux machina (sp?) it would cheapen the last several sessions for me at least.

[Kurt Kurageous]

IF we are "saved" by some type of deux machina (sp?) it would cheapen the last several sessions for me at least.

DM can have patron/deity send message to follower, "Flee now! I have bigger plans for you than this." That's about as deus ex machina as I can see without cheapening it hugely. They ignore their god/patron? SMH, TPK.

[Mastikator]

DM can have patron/deity send message to follower, "Flee now! I have bigger plans for you than this." That's about as deus ex machina as I can see without cheapening it hugely. They ignore their god/patron? SMH, TPK.

But then the DM needs to deliver on the "I have bigger plans for you than this" part.

[Lord Torath]

But then the DM needs to deliver on the "I have bigger plans for you than this" part.

That's... But... I mean... what DM wouldn't have further plans for their PCs? That's what DMs do, plan (hopefully fun and exciting) encounters and adventures for their players. I find it very unlikely that any given DM wouldn't have bigger plans than "you all die fighting this thing I thought you'd be able to defeat or avoid. Let's go play Monopoly."

The whole point of the message from the patron/deity is to prevent the TPK. If the DM didn't have anything further planned, they wouldn't be concerned about avoiding a TPK.

[gbaji]

The whole point of the message from the patron/deity is to prevent the TPK.

And if it's obvious to the players that this is why it's happening, then it leads to exactly the sort of cheapening that Spo spoke of and (presumably) doesn't want from the GM.

[Mastikator]

That's... But... I mean... what DM wouldn't have further plans for their PCs? That's what DMs do, plan (hopefully fun and exciting) encounters and adventures for their players. I find it very unlikely that any given DM wouldn't have bigger plans than "you all die fighting this thing I thought you'd be able to defeat or avoid. Let's go play Monopoly."

The whole point of the message from the patron/deity is to prevent the TPK. If the DM didn't have anything further planned, they wouldn't be concerned about avoiding a TPK.

You gotta up the stakes to justify a deux ex machina which can really spoil the current stakes. That's one of the many prices you must sacrifice to prevent a TPK. Another huge- almost insurmountable one, as both I and Spo have mentioned, is that it cheapens the players choices. It sometimes is the better choice to have the PCs all die and lose.

Yeah of course I have cool plans for all my PCs in my game (some of them have super cool backstories that I want to explore!), but that has to take a back seat to their choices. The choices the players make must be respected, even if it means a bitter end.

[Pex]

You gotta up the stakes to justify a deux ex machina which can really spoil the current stakes. That's one of the many prices you must sacrifice to prevent a TPK. Another huge- almost insurmountable one, as both I and Spo have mentioned, is that it cheapens the players choices. It sometimes is the better choice to have the PCs all die and lose.

Yeah of course I have cool plans for all my PCs in my game (some of them have super cool backstories that I want to explore!), but that has to take a back seat to their choices. The choices the players make must be respected, even if it means a bitter end.

I'm in a campaign where the DM said in Session 0 he does not like and will not have TPK. PCs can die and have over the course of the campaign, but there will never be a TPK. I don't remember the details since it's been a while, but vague recollection says there have been two Deus Ex Machina to avoid a TPK in the campaign. They happened when the DM used the enemy waves strategy of a combat, and he sent in one wave too many. No, make that three Deus Ex Machina. I just remembered an incident where we completed a mission and were just trying to leave the area in an underground complex, but then we were cut off no means to escape to then have NPCs rescue us. That one was bitter because it was deliberate. The others had plausible deniability he under estimated the difficulty of the fight.

[gbaji]

I'm in a campaign where the DM said in Session 0 he does not like and will not have TPK. PCs can die and have over the course of the campaign, but there will never be a TPK.

Wow. Um... That's something a GM should never say. Ever. Don't get me wrong, the GM can privately commit to that as a goal, and as a GM I try to avoid TPKs (cause no one likes them), but to actually say that? Wow.

The problem with doing this as a GM is that you have just made a promise to your players that no matter how monumentally dumb of an idea they come up with, and no matter how many warnings and hints you give them that what they are doing is a really really bad idea, if they continue anyway, you will come up with some contrived way for them to survive. It's even worse with the second part added in, because as the players realize that they can die due to individual choices but not group ones, they may start to intentionally make mass group decisions that should cause them all to die and thus force the GM into doing something to save them.

If one player decides to foolishly charge into a room of instant death, that character will die. But if we all charge in, the GM will prevent us from dying. So everyone gather around the possibly trapped chest close enough that anything dangerous will hit us all while the rogue tries to disarm it, right? Let's all jump across the chasm while roped together so if anyone falls, we all fall. There are a million ways a group of players can abuse that. Ok. Maybe a bit cynical (or a lot cynical), and mainly tongue in cheek, but still; it's a terrible thing for a GM to say.

I don't remember the details since it's been a while, but vague recollection says there have been two Deus Ex Machina to avoid a TPK in the campaign. They happened when the DM used the enemy waves strategy of a combat, and he sent in one wave too many. No, make that three Deus Ex Machina. I just remembered an incident where we completed a mission and were just trying to leave the area in an underground complex, but then we were cut off no means to escape to then have NPCs rescue us. That one was bitter because it was deliberate. The others had plausible deniability he under estimated the difficulty of the fight.

And did any of those "saves" make you feel good as a player? RPGs are an interesting form of game in that it's not just success that drives satisfaction, but the choices, actions, dialogue, and other RP things that make it fun. But if the player choices aren't what determine outcomes, then the players aren't really playing. They're just following the GM's script. And that takes a lot of the enjoyment out of the game.

It sounds like this GM is relatively inexperienced with the game he's running and not sure now to properly balance encounters. As a GM, assuming you don't actually want to TPK the party, always err on the side of less. Some game systems are easier to figure out real party power than others (or better able to detect when party resources are depleted and how that affects power). It's actually not an easy thing to do as a GM. Usually wave strategies work to alleviate this though, which is odd that he had such issues.

I usually ensure that I've had a sizeable number of minor encounters in an adventure before I toss the party into a serious throw down. Part of that is for dramatic heightening of tension or whatever, but it's also really about me learning what this particular combination of PCs in this particular party can actually do in a fight. If I've done this properly, then by the time a real serious (and dangerous) fight breaks out that could remotely be in the realm of something that could TPK, I've got things pretty well nailed down. It becomes more about forcing choices with regard to their use of per-fight/per-day/per-adventure powers/items/spells/whatever and the "hard ones" are really about them expending resources they might want to save for later.

[icefractal]

I usually ensure that I've had a sizeable number of minor encounters in an adventure before I toss the party into a serious throw down. Part of that is for dramatic heightening of tension or whatever, but it's also really about me learning what this particular combination of PCs in this particular party can actually do in a fight.

This. Especially in 3E, but even in systems like 4E that tie PC power more tightly to level, just knowing the level and classes of the party only gives you a rough guess about their true power against various types of foes.

[Mastikator]

I'm in a campaign where the DM said in Session 0 he does not like and will not have TPK. PCs can die and have over the course of the campaign, but there will never be a TPK. I don't remember the details since it's been a while, but vague recollection says there have been two Deus Ex Machina to avoid a TPK in the campaign. They happened when the DM used the enemy waves strategy of a combat, and he sent in one wave too many. No, make that three Deus Ex Machina. I just remembered an incident where we completed a mission and were just trying to leave the area in an underground complex, but then we were cut off no means to escape to then have NPCs rescue us. That one was bitter because it was deliberate. The others had plausible deniability he under estimated the difficulty of the fight.

I've found I'm way less likely to TPK (when I GM) if I have many encounters over the day and either stagger opponents in big encounter, or make sure that enemies try diplomacy. It's also more interesting if enemies want to talk and have something to say. TPK should be something the players have to actively strive for.

I think my DM is slowly learning the same lesson as well. It's also more fun when the players have to consider their resources, everyone going nova is for big confrontations with the big bad evil guy.

[Selion]

Sometimes I wonder about decision making in RPG's. I know that players don't want their characters to loose anything, be it item or anything else.

This resulted in TPK in my last session I was running.

The group had been thwarting a necromancer villain they knew was more powerful than them. They had met him twice before but never fought him. They had fought his minions on a number of occasions. Stolen the McGuffin from under his nose and were just general nuisance for him.

The necromancer had an operation on a dig site where a dragon knight was supposed to be buried. The PC's ended his operation and hired their own workers to dig up the side which led to a large tunnel and into a tomb complex. After getting through to the burial chamber, tussling with some guardians and deadly traps the PC's get the magical armaments of the dragon knight and return to the surface only to find the villain waiting for them.

The villain is willing to trade the McGuffin for the lives of two npc's he has hostage, one a friend of the group and the other a mentor to one of the PC's. The villain has a superior force in superior position on top of the dig site, surrounding the PC's. The PC's are beaten and battered after going through the tomb, low on resources and mostly out of spell power. Behind the PC's is a deathtrap dungeon with tight corridors and lot of active traps that the PC's have avoided but know about and can avoid. The group is a level 5 in dnd.

The Paladin, drunk on his own smiting power: "We can take them I still have a second level spell slot"
The Wizard: "You sure? I have only one first level spell slot, then I'm down to cantrips"
The Cleric: "I'm almost out of juice as well"
The Paladin: "I have a ring of jumping, I jump up on the top of the dig site and smite that villain, the moon druid still has her wild shape this will go splendidly"
The Rogue: "You sure about this? They have us bottled up, higher ground and surrounded! Shouldn't we rather either give up the McGuffin or retreat down the tunnel again?"
The Paladin: "Shut up man you always have your sneak attacks, don't worry"

The group: "Charge!"

The group gets paralyzed, entangled and fireballed and peppered with arrows and promptly die.

I'm sorry, i'm being a bit too harsh in respect to a person i think has honest feelings.
As a general rule of narrative there should be a way out, if you think your PC "should have" surrendered you are removing players from their agency (and usually PCs don't surrender, they are the heroes of your story, after all!), unless they are purposely, pig-headedly putting themselves in a situation without ways out.

It doesn't seem the case, it seems you thought your PCs had no possible choices, and instead they had a choice, and they died following it.

I'm telling this because when i was a DM I was prone to railroading. I had in my mind this theatrical images of what should have happened, because it felt epic, and i forced my hand toward that point.
TBH i've never been accused of it, even after years i asked explicitly how it seemed, and they said they felt they had choices, but nevertheless i know it wasn't true, at least not every time

This is what your story remembers me. I think you would have had a more beautiful outcome in your mind if your BBEG recovered their mcguffin, and if your players graciously saved the hostages, and you forced your hand. If you really needed for it, i don't think there would have been anything wrong just telling your players "guys, this is not an encounter you are supposed to win", it's better than "oh, you didn't make the choice i thought, you are all dead".

EDIT: at least these are RPG as i usually play, if you and your players are used to a more survival approach, then, why not.

[gbaji]

Yeah. I blame film and TV media for creating tons of adventure stories where the heroes are captured or put into some serious disadvantage by the moustache twirling villain, only to make some sudden move, create a distraction, or whatever and then magically be able to fight their way out with far more skill and ability (with the bad guys magically becoming completely incompetent) and being able to escape. It's so commonly used that we the viewers expect it to happen that way and in many cases the plot of the story actually depends on it happening that way (players get some important clue, grab the important item while escaping, or whatever other thing is needed to advance the plot and which they'd never have gotten had the bad guys not "captured" them in the first place). It's bad writing, but it's nearly ubiquitous.

It's a bad idea for the GM to set up scenarios like this, precisely because the players will likely react the way their TV/film action heroes always do. And expect similar results. Unless you intentionally play your game this way (which can be fun, of course). In most games, the players will get themselves killed. The exception, of course, is when the player characters do actually seriously outmatch the NPCs. it can be amusing to have the local gang "trap" the PCs as their exiting some dungeon, or whatever, appearing to have the high ground and hold all the cards, and demanding they give up their loot or whatever, meanwhile not realizing that they're basically a group of middling power no-names, while the PCs have powers and abilities that make this a trivial encounter. But as the GM, it's helpful to give clues to the players as to what the actual threat level is and then let the players make decisions.

In one adventure, we had a pretty powerful group of characters out looking for some evil warlord/priest guy, who was raising armies of bad guys, using some found "evil" power source that made him extra powerful (and apparently able to convince others to follow him in droves). We ran into a company of his soldiers marching about, and they demanded that we surrender. Of course, PCs will avoid surrender at all costs, so we talked about it. The funny thing is the possibility of actually losing to even a large number of regular soldiers was not even considered in the conversation. A fact which was, of course, overheard by the soldiers (they're like... right there, right? They get to make listen checks when they're ten feet away). So they're nervously awaiting our reply. In an odd act of non-normal playing, we decided to surrender, figuring they'd take us to their encampment (which is what we were looking for anyway), and we'd maybe find a clue there that would lead us to the main guy we were after.

Our plan was to allow them to take our items and whatnot, and then use various other skills and abilities to break out of the "jail" (more of a semi-secure and locked/barred room) they were holding us in. We were taken one at a time to remove all our items (we'd already given up our weapons). This plan ran into trouble at the point of one character refusing to take off one specific magic item, which had zero combat or escape powers, but that gave a nice boost to a stat, but cost another stat every time it was put on (so you basically had to wear it all the time, I guess). The rest of us were still under heavy guard, with half having already given up all items (and none with weapons). So the one character decides he's not going to take off his item, and happens to have a special (and very powerful) sword. One of the abilities of which is that he can summon it to himself. Summon, whack, dead captain of the camp. Proceeds to go on a killing rampage of the guards in the area (even without armor, and just his powerful sword, he's more than a match for any group of random soldier types). We hear the ruckus, and proceed to break out and overpower the guards (again, even without weapons, we're more than a match for them).

It was pretty much a slaughter of the whole camp. And we were able to find some paperwork with maps that gave us an idea of where to go looking for the main bad guy. I guess the moral here is that as a game writing exercise, it's useful to allow the player characters to have a good feel for relative power of opponents and be consistent with it. Random bandits on the road? Should be in a narrowish range of toughness. Group of soldiers? Again, just the economics of NPC fighters somewhat tells us how powerful the average should be. Where the power levels can be more broad is "special" opponents. The elite guards of the king. The grand magus of the kingdom. Special groups of bad guys assembled for doing more than being guards/speedbumps. There should be powerful NPCs, but at a certain level of power, the NPCs are not going to be employed as "trooper #17", or "bandit #5", or "temple guard #12".

In the encounter described, one can assume that the bbeg did in fact bring a group of powerful minions to oppose the PCs. And the PCs should be aware of that and not take the encounter lightly. Just as not every encounter should be difficult for the PCs to overcome, some should, and some should even be impossible for the PCs to overcome directly. The trick is making sure the players are aware of these facts, and cluing them in on which they think they're actually in.

[Lord Torath]

Yeah. I blame film and TV media for creating tons of adventure stories where the heroes are captured or put into some serious disadvantage by the moustache twirling villain, only to make some sudden move, create a distraction, or whatever and then magically be able to fight their way out with far more skill and ability (with the bad guys magically becoming completely incompetent) and being able to escape. It's so commonly used that we the viewers expect it to happen that way and in many cases the plot of the story actually depends on it happening that way (players get some important clue, grab the important item while escaping, or whatever other thing is needed to advance the plot and which they'd never have gotten had the bad guys not "captured" them in the first place). It's bad writing, but it's nearly ubiquitous.

And now I'm remembering Shindig from Firefly, where Badger and his thugs take the crew captive to prevent them from rescuing Mal.

"That, right there. Exactly the sort of die-version we could've used."
Later:
"We was just about to spring into action in a cunning plan to escape and rescue you!"
"I was going to watch. It was going to be very exciting."

[gbaji]

Lol! Yeah. Loved the character of Jayne all the way around. It was a quote from that character that got me hooked on the series in the first place. I hadn't intended to watch it (advertisements didn't do it justice at all), and the only reason I saw the opening scene was because my roommate and I had just watched a show we were interested in that season (John Doe), and just left it on the same channel when that show ended. The pilot wasn't aired, so the opening scene was from "Train Job". The quote:

"Damn yokels, can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it" (after Wash the pilot had just swooped in and threatened to blast said yokels to bits).

Told me that this wasn't a stereotypical space adventure show, where the heroes are flying around in the flagship of a mighty federation, or their ship has something unique about it (special organic ship, stolen jump drive, infinite improbability drive), or something else that made them objectively more capable in some way. Nope. Just a regular ship. Stated so directly. Perfect.