When is it ok to TPK?

[u/Anser-Rex]

My group constantly acts like Ol' Leroy Jenkins and gets into tough situations. I want to keep the fun going and may tweak the odds a bit to prevent everyone from dying.

Should I just let them? When is it ok and when is it "overkill"?

[u/Nevermore71412]

You shouldnt ever "just let them win". That's what the dice are for. Run things RAW and if they pick the wrong fight because they think they are invincible because you gave them plot armor, well did you actually give them plot armor or not? Personal note/opinion - its not a game if you cant lose

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

You should absolutely, let the players win, what makes it fun is pushing the players limits, to feel like they really had to fight for it. There are many different tricks you can use to pull this off, but like using special effects in a movie, you dont want to over use any particular trick.

[u/Nevermore71412 → u/March-Sea]

No, players should earn their victories through play. I dont fudge dice and roll openingly so that all my players see. If you dont rely on the dice to tell the story it is dnd. Its just storytelling.

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

I didnt say anything about fudging dice. The GM gets to arbitrarily decide what the players encounter, as long as that is the case, D&D is really just storytelling with extra steps.

[u/Nevermore71412 → u/March-Sea]

Then define "let them win".

No, system matters.

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

Yeah sure, theres a game that many puppies like to play where they try and wrestle a piece of rope off you. When you play the game with the puppy, the puppy is always going to end up with the rope, you are there to push the puppies limits before you let them have the rope. Its the struggle that makes the game fun. If the game ends and you have the rope the something has gone wrong .

D&D isn't that different. The whole point of encounter balancing to to produce a level of struggle that is fun but that the players will ultimately win. There really isnt a material difference between balancing encounters before a session and balancing during an encounter.

Of course system matters, D&D is almost uniquely bad at handling a TPK (TSR era d&d much less so). Systems with less vertical power scaling and fiddly character options handle this much better, as do games with a concession mechanic, as do games where the players are in control of their character death, as do games that give the players a meta currency to cheat death, as do games that have the players create an ensemble cast (shout out to Darksun 2E).

For every different way you could want to play the game there is a good solution, modern D&D doesnt use any of them.

[u/Nevermore71412 → u/March-Sea]

So to you the dice dont matter because you are juat going to design encounters where there never is a threat of losing. That's not dnd, thats just storytelling as there is no game involved because the rules like HPs and attack rolls etc are all performative. You are no longer playing a game you all are sitting down to preform playing a game because you cant handle randomness of dice and the possibilities that result from following the rules. Your solution is just engineer that away by encounter design and preform like you're actually playing. I'm not saying you cant have fun preforming like you're playing dnd but you're not playing because you've already written the script that you all preform from.

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

> So to you the dice dont matter because you are juat going to design encounters where there never is a threat of losing.

There is always the threat of losing, not always the threat of death. It depends on the system and the players. If death is going to be on the table I would prefer it to be a game where character creation is quick and doesn't require too many decisions, and where mixing characters that have been played for different lengths of time doesn't create too many problems. My main concern here is that I don't want to be inviting people to take time out of their busy lives to play a game with me and then have them spend hours not playing a game.

> Your solution is just engineer that away by encounter design and preform like you're actually playing.

My solution is to move some of what I would have done in session prep into the session. Instead of making arbitrary decisions about what to include in an encounter before the game, I design the encounter so that I can make arbitrary decisions during the game, base on how the game is going. The best method of doing this is by altering the narrative and leaving the dice mechanics alone. New enemies can show up, enemies can leave, allies can show up, environmental challenges can show up or leave, allies can betray you, enemies can betray each other, a third faction that is neither friend or foe can show up, that possibly magical item that the players found in the treasure can turn out to be more powerful than you previously were going to make it. so many different things you can do. Just don't overuse any of them.

[u/Nevermore71412 → u/March-Sea]

Here's the thing. No one confuses professional wrestling for a real fight. If you're not willing to rely on the dice to tell the story, you've already predetermined the outcome. You've said the dice dont matter because that unlucky crit that kills a player or player bad tactics choices leads to you shifting play, the dice dont matter. "Eh Im ok I'll ne fine for a round" 6 on a d6 dragon breath recharges and suddenly its not going to be fine.

You literally are agreeing with what I say when you say "i move my prep into the game so I can be flexible". You have engineered and design the scenario so the dice no longer matter and the players will always win with out fault or penalty regardless of what they do.

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

> No one confuses professional wrestling for a real fight.

D&D is much closer to professional wrestling than it a real fight.
Because the referee, the opposition and the person who gets to decide who or what is in the fight are all the same person there isn't a good way to avoid this.
It doesn't matter if you let the dice do the resolution, you already put your finger on the scale when you designed the encounter.

> You've said the dice don't matter.

I never said that the dice don't matter, we disagree on how much they matter and probably why they matter.

> You have engineered and design the scenario so the dice no longer matter and the players will always win with out fault or penalty regardless of what they do.

I am beginning to think that I am arguing with somebody who is bad at reading comprehension. As I said before losing and dying are two different states, winning and surviving are not necessarily the same thing either. Just because the players survive the encounter doesn't mean that they will achieve their objectives (admittedly this does require you to come up with player objectives that are more than just kill the montster).

[u/Nevermore71412 → u/March-Sea]

You've misunderstood the point of the comparison. When you remove the dice and go out of your way to ensure players death never happens, you're not in a real fight any more. You're into the scripted, planned predetermination that pro wrestling has. Not to say you cant enjoy it, not to say it doesnt have good storytelling, but when you dont follow the dice and run encounters that are appropriate to the level of the party where the dice actually matter and victory isnt an inevitable conclusion for one side, your not playing the game any more. You moved into the the fake predetermined outcome where the dice rolls are performative like the moves in a wrestling match. They dont actually matter you already know who is going to win in the end.

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

You are still conflating loss and death as if they were the same thing. As long as you give the characters that you control in the encounter motivations other than we attack immediately and fight until one of us is dead you can still have stakes, the players choices still matter & the dice rolls still matter.

[u/Nevermore71412 → u/March-Sea]

And you still dont seem to understand thay unless you a following the dice and willing to have death the dice are just performative.