Total Party Kill. Just the words together like that harkens to late 80’s/early 90’s sci fi movie techno-thrillers with phrases like MDK - Murder Death Kill or TNP - Take No Prisoners. Cold and scary.
When I was kid, the concept of an entire party of adventurers getting destroyed seemed a bit like an urban legend, and usually a slaughter at the breath weapon of some dragon that was too strong to kill. Back then we didn’t have a term for it.
I personally cannot remember one instance when I witnessed it, but I’m sure I did at some hobby shop or convention game room at some point. But maybe not - I didn’t spend much time at those places once I had my own regular groups and also started getting laid on a regular basis. Having seen it and remembering it would have meant the deaths had meaning, and in my personal games death always had big meaning. Hell, it almost never happens so when it does happen to a player in my game it is bigger than shit.
Am I just too easy-going as a DM? I’m not sure my players would describe me that way, but I’m sure they would say I am a player-friendly DM. In my AD&D games, I have a general rule that no player character will die in their first game – at least by my hand. If they end up into the negatives (as almost always happens in the first game to somebody), I just hold them up at around -5, and when they are healed they have some appropriate set-back (a few games ago a first level fighter got the shit stung out of her by a giant spider. When she got back to the positives in hit points, she had a nice little poison susceptibility). I also tend to molly coddle characters a bit until they hit 3rd level or so, trying to let them expand a bit as a character before they risk true deadly danger.
But we aren’t talking about being a nice guy DM here, we are talking about TPK, which has a tendency to occur at mid to high levels. They don’t always seem to necessarily happen at the climax of an adventure, unless that was the DM’s aim all along.
Columnist Roe Adams described it like this:
"A full TPK (total party kill) is an appalling abandonment of the players to the whims of gaming fate. It is a failure to be worthy of that trust they offered you when they sat down."(Adams III, Roe R. (2003-08-25). "First Night" (in English). RPGA Feature Article - Wizards of the Coast).
Wow. Well, it kind of is on the DM’s head, unless the party makes some foolish mistakes. I imagine it just cannot be helped in some cases. Poor strategy, bad roll, good DM rolls, all kinds of things enter into it. I decided to do a bit of research by starting a thread about it over at rpg.net. It got a big response, with lots of great stories of TPK. Here are a few excerpts from some responses:
… Most more often, one or two characters gets disabled, and the others keep on fighting in an attempt to turn the tide, and one by one they all drop as well…
… the characters completely misread a situation and blunder wildly, causing them all to be taken out of the game. Something like a pit of lava, but the characters somehow get the idea that the pit of lava is a gateway, so they all jump in (and they all die)…
…D&D 3.5 party beset wolves. the players wanted a 'straight up' fight, no DM fudging. nothing behind the screen, all rolls on the table. they lost…
… DnD 2e: Party of 1st-2nd level characters vs. one ghoul. Paralyzed all but the elf due to poor saves and mauled the elf to death. Party assumed to be eaten at leisure…
… Tomb of Horrors front entrance; party vs. a small flock of cocktrice. Failed saves aplenty and ended up with the mage up a tree trying to fend them off with a dagger….
… As GM: 3rd D+D. 5 players (2 totally new). 2nd level PCs, standard orc-ambush turns horribly bad. The scout goes ahead, gets caught in a trap (one he knew was there but wanted to see what happened anyway?). Others rush forward to save him, everybody dies no matter how much I fudge. The longest series of bad rolls ever…
… Cyberpunk 2020: With the smart players dead due to a variety of mishaps (including a headshot from a sniper) the remaining characters smart off to the cops after they get stopped for a traffic violation. After a couple of dead cops and a freeway chase SWAT gets mobilized and toasts the party van with the minigun from a AV-4…
… He wiped out the party at the climax of each of them. Sadly not because of anything the players did wrong but because he liked the whole "you think you've succeeded but you haven't" schtick and was loath to let our characters survive his campaigns. I think he was trying to teach us players something about life. The only lession we learned was how much arbitrary TPKs by a GM piss us off…
In looking at these and many other responses, I’d say the three most common reasons for the phenomenon of TPK are:
3) a miserable, asshole manchild GM with delusions of power who delights in making games shit for players. How do these guys get players coming back?
2) An encounter that is just too much for the groups power level (usually they have the option to run away, but do not.). A creature, like a ghoul or carrion crawler, that can paralyze multiple times, are common things I have heard killed low level parties.
1) A fair encounter, but the players roll terrible and the GM rolls great. Seems to be the single most common thing. More often than not, the players also have a chance to escape things, but often don’t realize how bad things are until too late. Things just happen too fast for them.
Is it best for the GM to fudge and save them? Very often I have heard of the GM just saying “ok, instead of killed you are all captured.” Or, amazingly and it happens more often than you think, the GM starts the entire scenario from scratch and let’s the party have another go at it.
Yeah, I have fudged once or twice, but in very minor ways, and never to save a character. Having said that, a side of me is a die roll purist. If you fudge things too much, you take away a lot of the chance aspect of the game, and as part of that you lose some of the life simulation aspect.
I thought about the whole Total Party Kill concept a lot in the last week, because the party in my AD&D game may be facing the possibility. A first in my games.
You see, in The Rainbow Mounds cavern, a PC hobbit cleric is tied up in a cave with a couple of old enemies, an orc troop leader, and a half elf enchantress, have her at their mercy. The enchantress (a high level illusionist) goes into her private room to freshen her make-up so she will look nice for the nasty things she is going to do to the hobbit. When she and her two charmed fighting men step away, the Orcs offer to let the hobbit go if she helps them “kill the bitch.” She is untied, gets her gear on, and the enchantress steps out with her men. The fight is on! Well, I stopped it there, because things were not going quite how I planned, and wanted to get back to it next time.
You see, the hobbit and the orcs are not much of a match for the Enchantress. As a high level illusionist, she is capable of some powerful things. Luckily, the hobbits friends are charging through the cavern system, knowing of her trouble and coming to save her. I have a certain time-frame, and the party has wasted a bit of time, including doing things like stopping to body search the few orcs they kill on the way, just for handfuls of silver. They know this hobbit chick is in need of help, but they will get there at best around 8 or 9 rounds after the fight has started, when my original “run like hell to help her” timeframe would have had them show up a round or two into the fight.
So what do I do? Fudge? Let them just show up on time, or delay them to show them the consequences of picking up chump change when a friend is in trouble. They will have a chance against the enchantress, but not as good if the hobbit and the orcs are dead when they get there and can’t assist them in the fight.
I think I’m going to let the chips fall where they may. And doing that, I may just be looking at the first TPK in my games.
When I was kid, the concept of an entire party of adventurers getting destroyed seemed a bit like an urban legend, and usually a slaughter at the breath weapon of some dragon that was too strong to kill. Back then we didn’t have a term for it.
I personally cannot remember one instance when I witnessed it, but I’m sure I did at some hobby shop or convention game room at some point. But maybe not - I didn’t spend much time at those places once I had my own regular groups and also started getting laid on a regular basis. Having seen it and remembering it would have meant the deaths had meaning, and in my personal games death always had big meaning. Hell, it almost never happens so when it does happen to a player in my game it is bigger than shit.
Am I just too easy-going as a DM? I’m not sure my players would describe me that way, but I’m sure they would say I am a player-friendly DM. In my AD&D games, I have a general rule that no player character will die in their first game – at least by my hand. If they end up into the negatives (as almost always happens in the first game to somebody), I just hold them up at around -5, and when they are healed they have some appropriate set-back (a few games ago a first level fighter got the shit stung out of her by a giant spider. When she got back to the positives in hit points, she had a nice little poison susceptibility). I also tend to molly coddle characters a bit until they hit 3rd level or so, trying to let them expand a bit as a character before they risk true deadly danger.
But we aren’t talking about being a nice guy DM here, we are talking about TPK, which has a tendency to occur at mid to high levels. They don’t always seem to necessarily happen at the climax of an adventure, unless that was the DM’s aim all along.
Columnist Roe Adams described it like this:
"A full TPK (total party kill) is an appalling abandonment of the players to the whims of gaming fate. It is a failure to be worthy of that trust they offered you when they sat down."(Adams III, Roe R. (2003-08-25). "First Night" (in English). RPGA Feature Article - Wizards of the Coast).
Wow. Well, it kind of is on the DM’s head, unless the party makes some foolish mistakes. I imagine it just cannot be helped in some cases. Poor strategy, bad roll, good DM rolls, all kinds of things enter into it. I decided to do a bit of research by starting a thread about it over at rpg.net. It got a big response, with lots of great stories of TPK. Here are a few excerpts from some responses:
… Most more often, one or two characters gets disabled, and the others keep on fighting in an attempt to turn the tide, and one by one they all drop as well…
… the characters completely misread a situation and blunder wildly, causing them all to be taken out of the game. Something like a pit of lava, but the characters somehow get the idea that the pit of lava is a gateway, so they all jump in (and they all die)…
…D&D 3.5 party beset wolves. the players wanted a 'straight up' fight, no DM fudging. nothing behind the screen, all rolls on the table. they lost…
… DnD 2e: Party of 1st-2nd level characters vs. one ghoul. Paralyzed all but the elf due to poor saves and mauled the elf to death. Party assumed to be eaten at leisure…
… Tomb of Horrors front entrance; party vs. a small flock of cocktrice. Failed saves aplenty and ended up with the mage up a tree trying to fend them off with a dagger….
… As GM: 3rd D+D. 5 players (2 totally new). 2nd level PCs, standard orc-ambush turns horribly bad. The scout goes ahead, gets caught in a trap (one he knew was there but wanted to see what happened anyway?). Others rush forward to save him, everybody dies no matter how much I fudge. The longest series of bad rolls ever…
… Cyberpunk 2020: With the smart players dead due to a variety of mishaps (including a headshot from a sniper) the remaining characters smart off to the cops after they get stopped for a traffic violation. After a couple of dead cops and a freeway chase SWAT gets mobilized and toasts the party van with the minigun from a AV-4…
… He wiped out the party at the climax of each of them. Sadly not because of anything the players did wrong but because he liked the whole "you think you've succeeded but you haven't" schtick and was loath to let our characters survive his campaigns. I think he was trying to teach us players something about life. The only lession we learned was how much arbitrary TPKs by a GM piss us off…
In looking at these and many other responses, I’d say the three most common reasons for the phenomenon of TPK are:
3) a miserable, asshole manchild GM with delusions of power who delights in making games shit for players. How do these guys get players coming back?
2) An encounter that is just too much for the groups power level (usually they have the option to run away, but do not.). A creature, like a ghoul or carrion crawler, that can paralyze multiple times, are common things I have heard killed low level parties.
1) A fair encounter, but the players roll terrible and the GM rolls great. Seems to be the single most common thing. More often than not, the players also have a chance to escape things, but often don’t realize how bad things are until too late. Things just happen too fast for them.
Is it best for the GM to fudge and save them? Very often I have heard of the GM just saying “ok, instead of killed you are all captured.” Or, amazingly and it happens more often than you think, the GM starts the entire scenario from scratch and let’s the party have another go at it.
Yeah, I have fudged once or twice, but in very minor ways, and never to save a character. Having said that, a side of me is a die roll purist. If you fudge things too much, you take away a lot of the chance aspect of the game, and as part of that you lose some of the life simulation aspect.
I thought about the whole Total Party Kill concept a lot in the last week, because the party in my AD&D game may be facing the possibility. A first in my games.
You see, in The Rainbow Mounds cavern, a PC hobbit cleric is tied up in a cave with a couple of old enemies, an orc troop leader, and a half elf enchantress, have her at their mercy. The enchantress (a high level illusionist) goes into her private room to freshen her make-up so she will look nice for the nasty things she is going to do to the hobbit. When she and her two charmed fighting men step away, the Orcs offer to let the hobbit go if she helps them “kill the bitch.” She is untied, gets her gear on, and the enchantress steps out with her men. The fight is on! Well, I stopped it there, because things were not going quite how I planned, and wanted to get back to it next time.
You see, the hobbit and the orcs are not much of a match for the Enchantress. As a high level illusionist, she is capable of some powerful things. Luckily, the hobbits friends are charging through the cavern system, knowing of her trouble and coming to save her. I have a certain time-frame, and the party has wasted a bit of time, including doing things like stopping to body search the few orcs they kill on the way, just for handfuls of silver. They know this hobbit chick is in need of help, but they will get there at best around 8 or 9 rounds after the fight has started, when my original “run like hell to help her” timeframe would have had them show up a round or two into the fight.
So what do I do? Fudge? Let them just show up on time, or delay them to show them the consequences of picking up chump change when a friend is in trouble. They will have a chance against the enchantress, but not as good if the hobbit and the orcs are dead when they get there and can’t assist them in the fight.
I think I’m going to let the chips fall where they may. And doing that, I may just be looking at the first TPK in my games.
You need another category for the Cyberpunk 2020 example above: stupid and/or hard-headed players.
ReplyDeleteI've had groups of players like that. They'll decide their characters aren't going to go explore or adventure, but instead go out and torch the local inn or tavern for fun (and DM-baiting). These are generally the same players who get upset when the townsfolk and city guard then try to apprehend them for this and slaughter their characters when they resist.
I always wonder what they expected would happen. The locals wouldn't care if they were torching the place? It makes gaming with that type of player quite tiresome.
(As an aside, these are the same sorts who just have to play a thief and insist on trying to rob their fellow players' characters blind. I used to just stop inviting them to play after a while.)
I've always had tight knit groups of mostly friends as players, and I never really experienced "DM baiting," with I guess one notable exception. I had a player when I was around 22 yrs. old, who had been a friend for years. He was an example of my poor choice in friends then. I had already kicked this guy out of my life as a friend a couple years before for being a complete liar and asshole in general. Two years later I started hanging out with him and his college friends. I ended up getting a regular game together with a lot of these people.
ReplyDeleteAt one point in a big game with around 8 players, he started being a complete asshole, mocking my DMing and making a lot of fuss to get attention to himself. I told him to get the fuck out. He laughed and said he would stop, but I stood up (I'm 6'2" he about 5'4") and told him he had 3 seconds to go.
He got his shit and took off. The other players cheered and applauded, and he must have heard it. These were his friends before him, and a couple of them are still my friends. the asshole has never reared his head in my life again. This is an extreme example, but it shows the type of bullshit a DM might have to deal with when they are just trying to make fun for everyone.
I don't think I've ever actually seen an anyalysis of tpk before; excellent topic!
ReplyDeleteIn the old days, I always fudged it so characters didn't die. It was ridiculous, actually. When I finally saw the light six or seven years ago and let the dice fall where they may, it was when I was teaching high school English and running two student gaming groups after school. One of them, adventuring in the Caves of Chaos, came close to a tpk---out of five or six characters, one made it back to the Keep still standing, with two others strapped to the back of a mule, both at 1hp each.
The most amazing thing to me: It didn't bother them in the least. They simply rolled up new characters, the survivor became a minor celebrity, and took another shot. And you know what? It was like a great weight had been lifted off my DMing shoulders.
Oh, btw, that graphic would make an excellent t-shirt... :)
I've been in a TPK. Another player with a mage PC for some reason (stoned, deer-in-the-headlights, imp of the perverse?) targeted his fireball in the middle of some miniatures that happened to be his own party. The DM wouldn't let him take it back. Fwoosh, all gone.
ReplyDeleteThere's a bit of your #3 in there but there's also a new category of just outright player stupidity.
My friend Rob has done an incredibly bastardly TPK. The party was planning exploration of an Antarctica-type place. Rob's a stickler for equipment and encumbrance, and through all the complicated equipping the party forgot to buy food. So the ship dropped them off, and there they were on an ice shelf with no food. Instant, pre-adventure TPK.
Though to be fair, Rob's TPK's are seldom total. Usually someone survives to tell about it, at some point down the line. This goes well with Rob drawing the curtain across the scene before it's clear there was a TPK.
This tension of cutting away before the TPK actually works great. In your situation you could close off the narrative of the halfling and only have the main party do stuff. The halfling player doesn't get to play his character until the party gets there mid-fight. Then they won't, OOC, know if the halfling is still alive. And hopefully the halfling player will be yelling at them to hurry the heck up.
There ended up being no player kill at all in my recent game, and due to my not being totally on point in my DM'ing that night, the lady got defeated pretty easily. One particular character was especially vicious about trying to finish her off, and you can read about that can of worms on my recent post about alignment.
ReplyDeleteAs for the enchantress? Oh, there are circumstances here the players don't know about that may mean she is not gone forever...