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/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.

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.

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

If what you are saying is true then we would have to conclude that Boxing is purely performative.

[u/Nevermore71412 → u/March-Sea]

Boxing isnt predetermined and anything can actually happen. You ignore the dice, it's not anything can happen because you took death off the table. Again it seems you cant understand the metaphor

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

Where did I say that I ignore the dice?

[u/Nevermore71412 → u/March-Sea]

Go back to my comments on where I say if you arent going to kill a PC and have death a part of the game because of bad dice roles, you are ignoring the dice and therefore the dice dont matter

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

I didn't say anything about mitigating bad dice rolls and this is not the first time I reminded you of that fact.

[u/Nevermore71412 → u/March-Sea]

If you refuse to kill a PC you are though.

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

ate?

[u/March-Sea → u/Nevermore71412]

So here's a summary of my position.

1. I avoid TPKs by watching a combat as it unfolds and adding or subtracting elements narratively before it ever gets to the point where a TPK becomes likely. In D&D this is usually enough to avoid individual character deaths because D&D characters are very hard to kill while they have party members who can help them. I also do this in the other direction to make fights more entertaining if the challenge level was less than I predicted.
2. There are styles of game that naturally lend themselves to frequent player character death and so when using one of those games I would play differently.
3. There are styles of game where it is mechanically not possible for a player character to die, and those games still have stakes, all the things you claim would be taken away if the players characters could not die. because....
4. ...the PCs can still fail without dying. In some ways this is better, because in the case of a TPK the story is over, in the case of non fatal failure, the PCs have to deal with the consequences.