Why Defeat, Death, and TPKs Are Good for Dungeons & Dragons
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2020
- Should D&D include the possiblility of defeat, death, and even TPKs for the player characters? Or are dungeon masters better off if they leave those things out of Dungeons & Dragons? Would the game be better if the heroes always won and there was never any real risk to their lives? In this video, I discuss why death, defeat, and even TPKs are GOOD for D&D and why dungeon masters should be okay when those things happen in their games. A DM might feel bad when they happen, but ultimately they improve the game and make it more exciting and fun for players. (Well, for most players.)
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What do you think? Are TPKs good for the game?
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Personally I think they can be but I question whether or not to allow a new party member as in pc to have knowledge how the previous party died like the related and some weird connection to the last person thing always struggle with that decision as a dm when a pc dies so yeah.
I feel a TPK should only be due to party mismanagement rather then a total necessity. I play pathfinder but I believe Death should be permanent unless you of course have the ability to bring them back but it’s still an expensive process and should be as such but there is one situation I’ve been in, and to this day still hate, but death should not be due to a GM incorrectly running a creature. Playing in Society, we lost a member fairly early on. We got told that only a wish spell could bring him back after we destroyed the creature. Turns out we should have fixed him up with a standard resurrection spell and he’d continue on but we didn’t find that out until after the session and by then, it was too late and the GM refuses to fix his blatant mistakes/disregards of the game.
You are very welcome, Ronando! 😁
What I cannot kill I will corrupt 💔😈😁
I've yet to have a TPK, I've had PC deaths but is usually 1-2 at a time and not in bulk.
My current players have stablished, since the beginning of the campaign we're running, that: Even tho our PCs didn't knew each other beforehand they understand that teamwork and helping others is that way to go.
Ofc I know that'll go south someway down the road, more like I intend it to go south haha. After this video I didn't even consider TPKing their party but now my mind is trying to come up with some scenario for that to happen.
Thanks Luke!
I saw the wizard say I cast fireball during the battle montage scene.
And only once... Bad wizard. Lol
@@theDMLair I CAST SEVERAL FIREBALLS!!!
@@cthulhufhtagn2483 and several illusionary fire balls for good measure
@@Jakkgusa
And toss your whole necklace of fireballs in for good measure.
Still do not think enough fireballs were cast in this thread. Good thing I made spell scrolls.
One of the good things about a TPK is that the next campaign can be set in the aftermath of the BBEG winning.
"Because if we can't protect the world, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it."
I’m a rookie DM that was worrying for a bit about the possibility of my players just straight-up losing the final fight.
Thank you for saying this, it got me thinking.
Have this planned out for Tyranny of Dragons, if the party fails the world is taken over by dragons, pushing the surface dwellers underground for 50 years, new campaign start, Out of the Abyss but with the backstory of that happening, where the players want to find a way to bring everyone back to the surface world
I got that reference
Breath of the Wild anyone?
This is true, but hopefully it doesn’t make the players lose hope.
the only tpk my group had was when someone crit failed when throwing an explosive and hit all of us with the blast radius
The only times I have TPKd the party have been when they made really bad choices or had really bad rolls.
Once they decided to become farmers instead of going to fight the evil wizard so he succeeded and they were killed in a demon invasion, I let them try to fight though
and that kids is why explosives are on saving throws
Well that’s a bad ending. The dm should’ve fudged the roll. I’d be frustrated with that tbh, at least it sounds like they’ve learned their lesson
This is why you don't toss grenades in an out house... I'm sure someone has tried before
Please get this video out of the feed of my DM
Is he that evil?
Sending to your DM now... 😈😎
Oh no
Jonathan P oh God, he found it
@@nlmrpolo please tell me you're joking
"but my charachter has a +30 Plot Armor!"
Guess your PC gets a pass then... 😂
@Liam Johnson oh, so just Magic Missile that dude.
@@blazingreaperx1394 20 level 1 wizards (60d4+60 force damage)
So that's why the rogue survived in this skit.
I don’t know about plot armor but I got an AC of 42 and saves of 12+ at level 11, I’m good
My DM/GM just sent this to the discord chat and now I'm worried
Just say no for the entirety of the next session. Retire your character to running a nice tavern and roll up one that you don’t care about 😂
@@idrisabdullah3492 yeah but that's no fun, plus the one thing the DM actually doesn't like is players just not participating.
@@CommissarPhantom sooooo did your dm kill someone?
@@grayfulbester actually that DM didn't (we have a system where everyone can DM a session but there are two main dms) and the other main DM had a dungeon crawl planned where it was fight after fight and eventually it was 9 saytrs vs 4 people that were all out of spells and the battle master spent every dice so we just got tpk
Edit: we also all had below 10 hp and the saytrs all had bows and 31hp
The problem I have with a TPK is that it kind of disrupts the game flow. Everyone has to get new characters and all characters have to meet each other again. And if it starts with a “you meet in a tavern” again, it seems like you started another campaign that just happens to be set in the same world.
I simply make my players already have met in the past. Boom!
Spare characters honestly should be in every players kit
@@davidholmes3728 Yes, but the problem he was referring to is a TPK, when every character is new, and therefor none of the characters, who had achieved things like info, equipment and relations to the world are gone, therefor becoming like a new campaign.
Yeah, it kinda sucks to end a campaign with a TPK, but it is possible to tie in the new group with something along the lines of "A party went missing, go and rescue them". A large part of the old campaign can generally be salvaged.
On the other hand you can also starts off from a thread the players left dangling before they died. The first characters of a campaign will "create" (or seed) the campaign world, the next ones are "taken" (or harvested) from the world instead, growing it. It's a storytelling skill you only develop if you actually like... had TPKs.
Just a thought from my personal experiences. Sometimes it is the reverse. There are people who have dealt with the death of loved ones in reality already, and this can be why they don't handle the death of their character or any of their adventuring group very well. Because they've been there already in reality and they don't need that to be a part of the game that they play for fun.
That is true, and a very important conversation to have during session zero. As a rule of thumb, people should start at a PG 13 level of things that may happen (LOTR levels of violence and death), since D&D is recommended for people 12 and up, but they can amp it up to an R rating or lower it down to a PG or even G level (you don't kill, you just knock enemies unconscious, for instance). You can also use safety resources such as lines and veils (a line is a hard limit, a veil is a thing you're ok with as long as it's not explicit) and the X card (you cross your arms in front of you or write an X in the chat if you play online) and that means you stop and move on, no more discussion on the situation. I think that can be helpful for players who don't want to face certain topics and want a more "just for fun" experience.
Good points.
I have to agree with this. And will add that sometimes it may only be a temporary thing.
The campaign my group was playing a couple of years back, I was completely fine with the knowledge that PC death was possible. Buuuut then in Real Life I found the body of a friend of mine who had likely died 1-4 days beforehand. 2 days later we had our game, and I asked my DM if we could not find any dead bodies this week (we'd found a heap of them last session). He was fine with that... except then a PC was ambushed in his bed one night, and didn't survive the encounter. Which meant the party was going to have to find his body the next morning. We ended up skipping over the finding of the body (DM was apologetic once he realised, and the other players didn't know), and I had to leave the room while the funeral happened. If the DM had just put off the ambush for a session, I would've been fine.
My thoughts as well
Okay?
Then don't play the game if it's going to trigger you.
I totally agree, but I'd add that death to the heroes isn't the only threat of defeat.
Superman is a very good example, which can be applied on higher levels. Killing PCs on higher levels is hard, sure you can throw a cursed blade that sucks their soul hence resurrection spells may not work etc but how many individuals have such means?
On the other hand, the world and people around them are expendable. Remember, they are the heroes. The reason they do what they do is often to protect. What happens when a favourite NPC dies on their watch? Or the village they tried so hard to protect is burning as a result of them not dealing with the threat in time? Then let's get personal, backstory linked NPCs that have emerged, this would affect specific characters, yet the players and PCs would've longed to meet those NPCs, and losing them will hurt. If the players (and subsequently the PCs) care for such things I believe any of these examples will suffice to raise the stakes even when death for them is not on the table.
Most groups I’ve been in and run we/they are not heroes, but adventurers. Rarely ever do the characters actually care if the world around them is burning as long as they make it through alright.
@@mackormychunter1712 make it so that if the entire world burns to the ground there would be no where left for them to go/adventure, no more npcs, no more quests, no more loot, no more enemies.
@@Ghorda9 It really depends on the game. I rarely try to make a story that makes my players heroes, if they go for that sure, but currently my main group is just seen as very reliable to the king of the kingdom they started in. They've done heroics for sure, but forcing players to be heroes by going "Look, I'll burn everything down and apocalypse the world if you guys don't start being heroes." would just make me quit the game.
True. There can be worse things than death.
@@mackormychunter1712 If you don't have any investment in the world why did you start adventuring in the first place? It sounds like a paradox to me. Money surely doesn't cut it when it comes to facing avatars of deities and/or virtually unbeatable threats.
Anyone' should have connections outside their adventuring group except for extreme cases. People and places they like or despise. I used Superman as an example of invincibility yet mental vulnerability, not as a 'hero' framework to put your groups in :)
In my first campaign I ran I summoned like a cr 18 monster to try and create a kind of chase sequence through some corridors having to solve puzzles and choose directions to run etc. Under a time constraint, which sounded all well and good in my head. That is until we actually reached the point in which it got summoned, and the entire party decided to fight this thing head on. It could make like three attacks a round that could each 1 shot a character, and had a 20 to hit. I had to do everything I could to try not to just destroy them, but I still wanted it to feel like it wasn’t just a big pin cushion that was incapable of killing them. What I ended up doing was making it grapple characters, and using an underground river that the floor of the dungeon had collapsed into, then started holding the hero’s underwater and slamming them into the bottom, to slowly beat out their breathe. I kind of rotated through the characters and swapping out after they hit a damage threshold. Eventually I just said the demon was summoned back into whatever realm it came from so the fight didn’t go on too much longer. I’m thinking of maybe bringing it back once they’re strong enough as a kind of round two. All in all a pretty messy session but I learned a lot from it, and all my players said they had a ton of fun, so that’s good.
Lol. Very nice. I'd probably try to attack it too. 😂
Matt Colville has a whole video about that. He says something like if you expect players to retreat or surrender, you don't know players. I'm a DM though, so I woulda ran lol
Yeah, a good thing to do with 'oh shit we gotta run' moments is to maybe have a NPC with them, make it known the NPC isn't a pushover, maybe they're even stronger than the party and then have the monster show up and just demolish the NPC like it was nothing. Would definitely create that 'we gotta get outta here' feeling in players.. or maybe they'll fight it anyway.. Can't predict players afterall.
My usual play group is less combat focused and more into talking their way out of things and intrigue so I'm used to a party who will run lol I never played with people who would just attack anything and be a murder hobo. My players faked their own deaths once to get away from a bbeg
I know Matt Mercer has lamented (probably a better word for it) about how difficult it is to convey to players "you aren't meant to fight this one" when you want them to sneak around or run away.
I think his best example of doing this was when they had a quest to get a white dragon to breath attack some mythril for a crafting ingredient. They were considering fighting or negotiating with the dragon until it was revealed to be an Ancient White dragon and they all realized they had 0 odds of winning a direct fight. (Especially when the wizard was on autopilot as Liam was absent that session)
It definitely isn't easy to convince some groups to do an "Indiana Jones running away from a boulder" style scene when they want to fight the boulder which is actually a monster or army that is 10x what they can actually take down.
Hey Luke, because all the party members got killed except for rogue, will we see new classes in the skits?
Or the next video will be about resurrection and how it affects campaigns.
NO THE BARBARIAN CAN NOT BE REPLACED.
Yay I'm safe from the auto mod
Is time for the ranger, warlock, Artificer and Sorcerer.
@@TheDiegiset we already had a warlock
So the Ranger, Artificer, Sorcerer, Bard and Monk?
I feel like deaths can be cheap though and add little to the story. Especially if it's by the "Knocked out at 0, dead by three failed death saves" rules for death. The characters just fizzled out and no real tension was added from their deaths. Or you can have the "Walking Dead" effect and because you know death is probably on the table you're likely to not get attached to anyone or anything. There are also ways for the heroes to lose outside of them dying.
The evilest way to make them lose without killing would be to kill an important NPC they are attached to, like their Mom or Dad.
Also just simply failing a mission and not getting the reward. Say they are competing against another adventuring group to get some relic for a king, and the DM roles to see how fast their rivals are and if the PC party is slow they either find an empty vault or both enter the same combat and compete to actually get hands on the relic first. (Optionally hired adventures can't attack eachother directly)
The most upset my player was when his character lost in the tournament which could get him to knighthood. The humiliation felt far worse then death. Also I should add that his rival was in single digits but managed to roll 20 on his last attack...
@@hekilightbringer298 , I like your example of the PC who lost a tournament. The stakes were high for that PC and for that player, even though the possibility of a character dying probably wasn't even an issue. I'm much more in favor of the tournament/wants-to-be-accepted-by-an-elite-group-of-NPCs rather than the oh-you're-all-in-a-dream or oh-you're-all-fighting-illusions, because the dream and the illusions don't raise the tension when the party's hit points start plummeting. Well done!
Its a game before its a story. If there isn't death or threat of death, the character sheets are pointless.
Wait, if you tpk your players, who will give Gary his annual review?
Crap didn't think of that! 😬
I call this the “Tasha Yar” effect. After Tasha died in TNG, you could never be sure if this weeks disaster on the Enterprise would really be solved... it was unintentionally brilliant and created so much more suspense for 8 year old me.
Yes great example. Once once viewers saw that it was possible for a main character to die it made all the other circumstances that much more tense and dramatic.
@@theDMLair It only holds for so long like in Critical role when Molly died, I thought wow they play serious. Then as dozens of episodes aired and no one else died I began to think it was a planned death. I stopped watching the combat and just fast forwarded past it because I knew combat lost its edge and was just part of the story without any real stakes.
@@paulhodgdon3952 they had many near misses in that campaign, the real reason Molly died but then nobody else did was that
1. They didn't have a cleric to heal the guy who hurts himself for power ups
2. They had 2 clerics after that arc (rest of the arc was full of fear) and had reached the point where they had the funds to ensure that they could perform resurrections.
In that death scene Matt did say they he doesn't like killing PCs but he also won't refuse an obvious instance where the enemies would kill them. Most enemies are either too dumb or smart enough that once a PC is downed they will get distracted by or prioritize the remaining PCs who are attacking it.
C2 started out with basically no healing, see jokes about jester not being a healer. After Molly died they had 2 Clerics, and ended up with a ton of healing, probably an overcompensation for having such little healing at the start.
Why would it be *unintentionally* brilliant?
I was a little older at the time and knew Tasha died because Denise Crosby wanted off the show, so it didn't have that affect on me. I also knew that because of the episodic nature of the show and the way scripts were commissioned that writers were under orders not to kill or even significantly change the characters. Which explains why I got bored with the show and stopped watching it after three or four seasons.
In most shows (and movies for that matter) the production team tries to build suspense that just misses me, I know [main character] is going to survive and beat [the bad guys] so there is no drama and I just watch to see how silly the "solution" to the BBEG of the week is.
"If you kill my character I'll rage quit!" "So, do you want to just leave now or wait until it actually happens?"
I'd kill their character out of spite at that point lol
The only thing I would add to that is that sometimes, it makes more sense to let a character survive but let him be in horrible danger needing to be saved by the others and maybe even having a permanent injury. Realistic Consequences are what makes this even better. And if the person just created a new character, you can have a little mercy with them, but they still need some consequences to learn
I personally hate TPKs, not for any of the reasons you said. I tend to have players that will make really fun and nuanced characters at first, then a TPK happens and they go "Welp, time to power game. What is that build that summons like 300 zombies again?"
Yeah I understand. And I feel like if tpk's are super super common then yes you're definitely going to get players who are power gaming and min-maxing in order to make sure they don't die. So I advocate the tpk's should not happen very often. In the five years that I've been running 5th edition I've only had three tpk's and that's with four or more groups running at the same time. That's not that many. It's the threat of death or a tpk that's the important element. I actually don't want my groups to tpk for a variety of reasons. But I will allow it to happen from time to time.
TPKs should be the result of the party's actions or inactions.
DM after TPK: "You're second level, did you really think you could take on a trio of Ancient Red Dragons?"
Party: "Then why did you put them in the game?"
DM: "I was setting up (far) future plot lines".
Party: "How were we supposed to know that?"
DM: "You're second level, they're three Ancient red Dragons who just finished wiping out an entire army -- even a moments thought should have told you that going up against them would get you killed".
7:45 If a player tells me that they will ragequit if their PC dies... their PC will die.
I take that as a challenge which must be accepted.
They then return next game with a Glock 18.
If a player tells me that they will ragequit if their PC dies I ask them to give their seat at my table to someone who wants to play D&D ;-)
I'd just tell him not to play.
Player: "I'll ragequit if..."
GM (me): "Don't let the door hit you on your way out." ;o)
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE
I’ve only ever had 1 tpk, and it was a very memorable one.
They were all new players with level 3 characters. They had just left town to go on a long mission, but forgot to stock up on some necessary supplies.
So I thought this would be the perfect chance to bring in one of my favorite npcs. A crazy traveling salesmen that goes to the most dangerous of places to upscale necessary supplies.
He’s an npc I use when my players are in a spot of trouble and need something generic, but don’t have the time to go to a town. So I’ll have him conveniently show up to sell them stuff at a much higher rate.
These new players, thought it would be a good idea to try and jump him to steal his wagon. This left me shocked, and I asked are you guys sure you want to do this?
They said “yes.”
I said “are you absolutely sure you want to jump a random traveling salesmen that chooses to travel without security?”
They said “yes” because it’s his fault for not being prepared.
I had them roll initiative, and the fighter goes first. He swings his sword, and the traveling salesmen catches it in mid swing. I have the traveling salesmen look the player in the eye and ask “are you sure you want to do this kid?”
He nods defiantly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you”
They salesmen goes next, casts lightning bolt. Instantly killing the fighter and severely injuring the rest of the party.
He than asks again “are you sure you guys wish to continue?”
They all take there turns to attack, each one missing.
On his next turn he gives them one last chance to surrender, no one does. So he casts fireball, instantly killing the rest of the party.
At this point I take a moment for everyone to understand what happened. Then I explained to them, “if your going to attack someone, make sure you can beat them”. At this we all had a good laugh.
For sake of convenience I allowed them to use the same characters just with different names and stories. Since we really didn’t feel like making new characters for everyone.
From then on, they really took there time to make sure they were prepared for fights ahead. And they never messed with that npc again.
I had a similar idea for a merchant who scavenged items from fallen adventurers, and selling their gear to other inspiring adventurers.
Next time your players run into that merchant, I would totally have them find their old characters equipment for sale.
Erik Schaal haha that is an awesome idea. I may just do that, thank you.
You're leaning a little hard on the "it's just a game" mentality around 8:20. I like exploring grief and heavy themes in my games, but you've gotta have your safety tools available. If someone's character dies, if it's someone they've come to inhabit and someone who's served as an outlet to deal with their bigger issues, letting them leave the table is a proper reaction. Rage quitting for a session is good, as is having a conversation to check in with them afterwards. There are also other systems like BOLT that handle what happens when you hit 0 HP a bit differently, meaning that "death" doesn't have to mean death. Death as a possibility for foolish actions is one thing, but GoT'ing your PCs leads to less emotional engagement with the world.
+
Yup, I pretty much only make disposable characters for this very reason unless I know the DM.
I find it hard to agree with You on this topic.
It all comes down to why and how people want to play games. I play games for escapism and to have fun, not to prepare myself for real life drama. If players wish to have a heroic R. A. Salvatore style campaign then DM shouldn't consider killing anyone of them unless players are really going out of their way to get killed or are behaving like total idiots.
The thing is not every GM can just make a short campaign on the fly with disposable player characters. Some GMs need a long time to come with a good and long campaign that is based around characters and their backstories. Having them killed would make all the effort GM had done to create the campaign go to waste. And filling the holes with replacement made on the fly characters won't feel the same. Also some players need a long time to make a character they feel good playing especially if the group prefers a social-heavy style of playing. Some people just won't make a new character, they will quit the game because they need time to think of a new character they want.
I've been playing for over 15 years various systems and in my group not a single character had died in that time. We still had a great time, the plots were solid and difficulty was rewarding. We don't think we missed anything by not having our characters killed.
Oh and RPG is not a linear, closed story like a book. Death of a character in a book is always planned and serves a purpose. Death of a character should never be planned IMHO.
I respect the personal choice - but like you said, it heavily depends on the story. Any deliberate killing of a PC should be a joint effort between that player and the DM and serve to either be a good exit, or an intro of a new character, or to serve as part of the plot. But for UNplanned deaths... that can change things, sometimes for the worse, and sometimes for something truly momentous. Best example I can think of is Mollymauk in Matthew Mercer's campaign. One PC dies because of a disastrous campaign, only slightly more than 25% of the way in, and his death has had a massive impact for the entire campaign. Taliesin has effectively had the impact of 2 characters from that point on, because of Molly's last moments as well as his masterful playing of Caduceus. So, sometimes it works out, but there's no way to know unless it is allowed to happen. It's a special moment that is almost impossible to artificially create.
@@curtisholsinger6023 I agree that death of a PC can have a huge impact in the campaign especially if players are ready for it and GM knows what is he/she doing. But I think in our group we found a solution for having the same level of impact without forcing player to create a new character - killing an NPC.
Just think about it. Players often get more attached to NPCs than to their own characters. A good GM can create a world full of people players really care about. Just as we care for our friends and loved ones in real life in D&D we can build similar relationships with fictional characters. Those bonds are even stronger than bonds we have to characters from books or movies because we shape those relationships by our actions. Those NPCs are often more vital to the story than our characters are and killing the right NPC in the right time can impact players, their characters and whole story in the same way as killing a PC or maybe even better. Not only GM has full control over it but no player feels like they were the victim of storytelling. We can feel more safe that our characters will experience the full story while at the same time knowing that lives of our favourite NPCs depends on our actions.
In 5e this is really an academic discussion only by level 5 any Cleric can revivify and can gentle repose by level 3. I have only had one Character ever end a session dead and that was because I was the only caster in an AL module that was almost exclusively Zombie Beholders and I forgot about my +2 save bonus when I rolled for the disintegration eye ray. (I was one below the save) and that only mattered because of the mechanics of disintegrate as I had several raise dead scrolls on the character. Every other time the Cleric takes care of it. So unless the DM has decided they are killing a PC it really doesn't happen. Now if you are playing Monsters true to type you will be more likely to get a DM kill but most don't play monsters optimally for fear of a TPK.
Exactly my opinion
The first time I played DnD my dungeon master started the campaign by killing us all and then the adventure was us fighting our way through the underworld.
Ooo! I've tried something very similar while DMing. My backup plan (in case of TPK) was that their usual campaign setting would suddenly become a Planescape campaign until they could at a later date (if they so chose) find a legitimate and hard-earned way to return to the Material Plane.
The players couldn't easily return to anyone or anything or any loose plot threads for several levels after dying, but they got to continue using their characters. For them, death wasn't that they stopped existing, it was that death prevented them from being around the familiar people, places, kingdoms, quests which they were in. A sense of loss would be felt, but the weekly game sessions could still continue.
The hurdle ended up being that sometimes, a party manages to not die for chapter after chapter of a campaign.
I took part in a campaign where the party was hired to investigate a haunted town. We barely escaped alive, and when we reported back to our benefactor, he told us to go back and finish the job, on penalty of death if we refused. We collectively said "screw it" and attacked him. As it turns out, he was a 13th level Dark Knight(and we were still 1st level). The funny thing is that we were one hit away from finishing him off before he systematically ended each of us.
No one was sour, though. We gambled and lost. Good times.
For the longest time I couldn't cope with character death. I did everything I could to avoid the situation. I don't know what changed for me but I'm pretty much okay with the thought now.
I never threatened to rage-quit, but I didn't always handle it well when it happened. Being quiet by nature the worst reaction I had was to just go quiet, not say anything.
If you have such a player in your group, please don't treat them as though they are broken or not worth having around. Some people just have a harder time handling certain themes than others. Some aren't mature enough to come to terms with a part of themselves being declared dead.
They can grow.
I think it really depends on what kind of game you're playing. Some people play D&D as described in the video and I totally agree with Luke there, but some people play D&D as a way to "escape" the real world for a little bit and to just have fun. Those groups might not like death in their games.
So TPK's (and death itself for that matter) are a great way to show that there is a possibility of loosing, but not all groups might like to play a D&D game where they can loose.
Also it might be really interessting to look at other ways the players might 'loose'. (Other than death or TPK's)
+
+dragondrummer3257, writes _"Those groups might not like death in their games."_
Where is the challenge in a game where you can't lose? Where is the fun in combat if you know you will always win?
Holy shit, amazing timing. Today, my DM TPK’d my group and I was feeling terrible. This video really helped me out and gave me hope and excitement for future sessions and characters!
The most exciting thing for me when a PC of mine dies is thinking of the next PC I'll play. I get pumped about that.
Just one suggestion, “why death, defeat and TPK’s *can* be good”. This really depends on the group. I have some players that would have left the game if they had too difficult of a time because they have different needs. It’s always best to talk with your players and ask them about what they are looking for in the game. If they are ok with TPK’s and defeat, then that is great! If they want to be the invincible heroes, it is not too hard to put them in a situation that feels more dangerous than it is. Disregarding what players want out of the game is something I think is irresponsible and kind of immature. Not everyone likes George Martin’s books, not everyone likes Salvatore’s books, but they are both valid ways to enjoy reading. Same thing goes for railroading. Some players actually like being handed a linear story, but others may not. Always talk with your players, and respect what they want out of the game or figure out a compromise.
Hey, good video! just a small comment:
I do feel that sometimes, some players will not be emotionally ready to deal with character death, and that should be OK if previously agreed upon.
I also feel that the possibility of death adds a lot of emotion to the game, but outright saying that people who don't want do deal with that in the gametable, where the objective should always to have fun, is "completely ridiculous" maybe a shortsighted.
we never know what the other players are dealing with, and what they're trying to get away from when going into the game, and there's a good match of playstyle for everyone.
EDIT: It was a great video anyway, and i do use the danger of death in my own table, because i know my players are OK with it, and it's great for us!
You started dnd because of Drizzt? Was your first character a moody drow?
No but my first manuscript for a book featured a dark elf that wielded 2 swords AND was a powerful magic user. I wrote that in high school. Nothing happened with it. (Thankfully). 😂
I still remember my first PC death.
Our DM dropped a dragon on our lv 3 party, uses his breath weapon straight away, and instakill my wizard.
I experienced 5 stages of grief in that session.
1. Denial ( can't believe my PC just got 1-shotted)
2. Anger ( mad because my PC can't even fight back)
3. Bargaining ( maybe visiting the nearby city to resurrect me)
4. Depression (the party not having enough money to resurrect me)
5. Acceptance ( Accept that Death is okay in DnD, and move on with a new character, more reason to try other classes)
I did that with a young blue dragon as a DM. Didn’t realize how powerful that breath weapon is and accidentally killed... an NPC. After that, I had the dragon just take all their gold coins and tell them to piss off (there was a bandit camp one floor above, he was in a good mood).
After that, though, I think my players got the idea that I was not pulling punches... even though the whole thing was an accident. XD
I dwelled on the second stage for quite a bit with my first character. I was told to create a deep rich backstory so I did. As such, I got attached to the character. We played 3 sessions and reached 3 level. Up to this point I had probably only landed 5 total attacks due to bad dice rolls. We encounter a blind dragon and have to sneak around it. It has a very low perception where it is almost impossible to not succeed. I rolled a freaking 1. The dragon attacks with a breath attack and I get to roll my save with advantage. Both rolls were below 5. My character basically screams as he is reduced to ash. I scanned the rulebook for anything that would undo what had happened and was pretty angered by the death mostly because of all the effort I put into the character. After the group finished and arrived back at town, the session ended and I was told to make a new character with a new detailed backstory. I showed up at the next session and handed him a 3 sentence backstory. I've pretty much made disposable characters ever since with few exceptions.
"Did i intentionally tpk them? Of course not" says the man who put a group of level 5s against a CR15 creature
To me that is bad DMing it's rocks fall you die with extra steps
This is how I see death in dnd "Death is not the end its just the beginning of a new adventurer"
The problem with this is, if you do it too much, it encourages your players to make disposable characters rather than actually get invested in them. There's no point in putting the effort into making an interesting character if they're just going to die anyways.
I'd forgotten all about the term of "disposable characters". You're right that if a campaign is too difficult, players might decide to treat each PC as just another arrow to be fired out of a quiver. "Maybe if I throw enough of my filled-out character sheets at tonight's monster, eventually the monster will reach 0 hp and the survivors of our party can level up."
While that might describe a lot of wars throughout history, few players want to spend their limited free time in a D&D campaign where the only successful players are the ones who show up with a stack of character sheets, each ready to fling another page into the fireplace when they're one-shotted in turn two. Why bother getting attached to a character or developing a backstory if you know you're cannon fodder?
For a more comical comparison, I've never quite understood why several Space Marine miniatures in Warhammer 40k even have names.
That said, I'll admit I did like the video's point that if the players believe that their PCs can die in tonight's game, it makes for a more memorable and satisfying game session. (ex. spectators would rather watch a basketball game where the outcome is in doubt, as opposed to watching a basketball game where one team is clearly dominating the other team for the whole game.)
Do you know WHY???
Yes. Because people hadn't deduced the main protagonists of A Song of Ice and Fire by now xD
Always winning protagonists sound boring. But losing doesn't have to mean dead protagonist. All the potential for character development in a defeated protagonist...
Character death shouldn't be just a tool to tension the situation. You have to explore the consequences of this death. That is something GRRM does really well. A Death of a major player changes the dynamics of the world.
But that is theory for constructing a story. In a D&D game it's much more fun, if the players don't feel invincable, so let them die from time to time is a good tool 😁
You must have looked back at the old TPK video and pulled out an Uno reverse card and went *no u*
You’re legit inspiring, man. Thank you.
What a good video Luke, i think this may be the best or one the best videos you have created. The advice heres is not only for DMs and players, is for life too! Keep up the good work
5:30 THIS Luke, all of this. 🙏😎
Thanks! 😁
One of my Dm's in a Seriously homebrewed campaign tpk'd us. Keep in mind we were lvl 20ish. 2 Astral Behemoths. We killed 1, hurt the other a little, and then we all perished. It turns out that it was to move to the next part of the Campaign. (In the Void) idk if that counts, but managing to powerword kill a cr 21 creature felt like 13 waves of Euphoria.
Could you do a video on how you prep your notes or a peek behind your Dm screen? Would love to see it!
I have. Check out the dungeon creation video from2 weeks ago and the live stream that Friday. That's basically how I make my notes.
The only true TPK I've ever been part of was when one of the characters in the party was an evil bard who purposefully pushed the party toward mistrusting an NPC that led the party forward. This led to inter-party conflict (on whether to trust her), the burning of a sacred grove (to a deity that one of the characters [me] revered), and walking headlong into the ending boss battle with no knowledge of how to defeat him. Oh, and the evil bard ran away before the boss battle, leaving the party to die.
So, yeah. TPKs can be useful. But sometimes they show issues within the party that should be addressed outside of the game.
Uhhh, so I hate to break it to you, but that's not a TPK. The Bard lived... Cool story though, evil Bard sounds terrifying.
@@supersmily5811 In my mind, if the Bard leaves the party to die, he ceases to be part of that party. The party died.
I was sure the Evil Bard was just Evil in-game... (I mean it's more fun when people have their own agenda)
Having your pc die is like losing in chess; you lost, you loser, total skill issue, but then you get another game, no harm no foul. Losing to a tpk in the other hand: well, everyone lost lol. Shame about the money you chipped in to get the module. The next 6 month campaign will be spent bringing to life the consequences of your inability instead.
Of course this is the first video I see, coming off my very first session where a PC died.
Sorry? 😬
@@theDMLair nah, you're good - frankly, he had it coming. Tried to murder an innocent civilian out of nowhere, and wouldn't surrender when the city's knights showed up. I'm just happy the other players were smart enough to not get involved themselves.
This was an impressive video worth bookmarking! (I might not agree with every point, but I admire how you presented your ideas.)
With campaigns I've played in, one downside to having a believably-yes-our-PCs-can-die session is that outside of the game there are weeks/months/years where one or more of the players are IRL going through hard times.
ex. Taking care of an elderly family member, going through a divorce, undergoing multiple surgeries which don't seem to be working, rumors of layoffs at the workplace, etc. It's like watching a little kid in swim lessons as the kid becomes more and more afraid of the water. (and the friends I'm thinking about aren't in their teens. They're in their forties.)
That said, I still agree that much of the we'll-be-remembering-tonight's-awesome-battle-when-we're-old of great RPGs sessions are when everybody present (including the DM, come to think of it) knows and believes that their favorite PCs can get killed tonight.
I agree that failing and even losing a PC can build character, literally and figuratively, can help players and DMs to cope with that sensation IRL. (Granted, I don't think I'd want to play for a whole campaign with a PC who is always at 1 hp, either. Walking along a narrow ledge is good for the soul, but being dangled over it for session after session isn't healthy.)
I figure that not everybody who makes a Drizzt clone gets to be as successful as Drizzt nor start out with Drizzt's plot armor. Some of our carefully-picked alter egos and hand-painted miniatures don't survive to Level 2, and that stings.
All those skulls adorning the throne rooms of BBEGs had to come from somewhere, probably from previous adventuring parties who got TPK'd. I agree with you big time that an upcoming battle with no safety net makes a genuine victory feel worth it.
Confronting one's own mortality is an essential lifelong skill, no matter what century it is, and sometimes it really sucks even though it's good for us in the long run. Sure, players don't want their characters to go down like chumps, but you've already noticed that they don't really want a cake walk, either.
BTW, your examples of the different authors was downright effective. Well done!
That shirt is awesome brother - great points in the video, I don't try to TPK my players, but as you said, if they don't work together, they don't adapt, then that's basically what they get, sucks but the fun thing is you just roll up a new character and Tango on.
Your videos are great and I agree with the TPK point. By the way I love your rogue character!
In one of my groups I play a character who is pretty old for an Adventurer (around 50). Yes he survived that long. But they didn't always win. Until now he has lost a lot of friends, party members and even one of his parents. Now he has a (only somewhat irrational) fear of loosing people he loves or even being the cause they have to die while he escapes death, which he did several times- by sheer luck.
My point is: yes it's interesting if the characters can die. For me it's also an interesting roleplay opportunity if one or some of them survive and live to tell the tale.
Yes totally. Being the one that survives and live to tell the tale can be totally cool as well.
I’ve had a party member die as a player. We’ve gotten close to a TPK before, but have always found a way out.
Edit: To add further context, we do have a kind DM, but he makes clear there consequences to our actions, as our poor tiny rogue found out.
RIP Gnomeo.
Not necessarily related to my own character’s death, but related to the idea of not being able to handle D&D deaths: One of my characters who was technically Lawful - Neutral at the time was interrogating a prisoner that we had captured, and he didn’t want to give up any useful information. I was trying to intimidate him by letting my psychotic grung ally point his rifle at that guys face, and I started counting down from 3. The DM described his frantic reaction trying to justify why he can’t just tell me what I want to know, but when I hit 1, he just said something along the lines of “Glory to the Empire”, and I told my ally to pull the trigger. The man died defenseless in a prison cell. And I, as the player, felt horrible. I actually wasn’t able to continue roleplaying with my all after that because it was distracting me so much. And after the session, I cried because of it. But I did come back with more resolve, and a better attitude. I worked with my DM, and we decided that due to that and some other things that had happened, my character had a much better idea of who he wanted to be as a person, and he alignment shifted to Chaotic - Good.
as playing with the whole crew (DM+2PCs) is hard in these quarantine days, I gave each player a solo session. one of them was a prequel session with my high-schooler, who played as his PCs dad, who was already dead.
even though he knew his pre-gen character would die in the end, he role played him the best he could & his death was deeply felt by both of us. later in the same in-game day, we played his baby PC being found by his future master in his burnt down village, which ended up being a tear jerker.
he loved it & loved trying to beat death against all odds.
The intro is hilarious, Love your characters! I totally agree with your points and this may be ahead of my group. Lol
Thanks! Glad you like the intro. 😁
I absolutely love the intro on this one lol.
At least their good friend the old man commoner will be waiting on the other side of the veil of death waiting for his ghost pay.
That's possibly the deepest you've gone down the rabbit hole which is "the psychological effects of a game of D&D" and I mostly agree with your opinion. I think I know someone else who would have agreed with you. Jim Henson.
Remember the "Death of Mr Hooper" episode of Sesame Street? I remember hearing about the conference they had about how to handle the sudden death of Will Lee who played the part of "Mr Hooper" and there were suggestions to have him suddenly retire to California or somewhere, but "someone said" (and I think we can guess who that "someone" was) that children have to deal with death. Pets die and grandparents die, so a special episode should be made, to show children that death is a part of life and dealing with it is normal, and to show them how to deal with it.
So you're in fairly good company, teaching younglings how to deal with real-life situations through fantasy. :)
I agree possibility of death should be a real threat in any encounter. I will say from experience though that dying too frequently does get a bit old.
I was with you until you said something along the lines of "If you can't handle death in a game, how can you expect to handle the stress of the real world?"
I think a lot of people play RPGs to get away from the real world. I don't think this is even remotely a fair assessment of why someone might be opposed to having their character die in a game. Sometimes players just want to feel powerful, like they're in control, and that's okay. Not everything has to have the same risks as Game of Thrones.
DnD is also used in therapy sessions tho, especially for some who don't know how to react in certain social situations and either have a breakdown or in some cases either completely freeze or go catatonic.
It allows the scenerio to be generated in a controlled environment that has staff on standby should things go wrong, while at the same time teaching the person how to react and hopefully minimize the chance of an incident.
@@cheesaliciousable sure, but unless you’re a therapist using dnd for your practice, that’s still not a good reason for normal ppl to do it. Some people want to play something fun to escape from stress, and that doesn’t mean they can’t handle stress in real life.... they already do handle stress in real life LOL.
This is why discussing your expectations before you begin playing is so important. Sometimes you'll have to make concessions for the other players at the table. Sometimes you'll realize that your interests are too disparate and you should not play D&D together. And that's okay, too. Better not to figure these things out the hard way.
Meanwhile, I showed my DM all my backup characters and they went "your character is never dying. I'm more scared of the backup characters."
I have youngling players around the same ages as the ones you are talking about at the time you posted this over a year ago. They are doing Rime of the Frostmaiden and only 1 player is new to D&D; the girls playing are all vets at this point. They have currently wrapped up the Foaming Mugs start quest and are trying to determine what to do/where to go next and I definitely wouldn't hesitate to TPK them if everything goers that way. And for exactly the reasons you sate in the video. If they can't handle fantasy hardship, goodness gracious will they ever be able to handle RL situations??? Great vid man!
I'm a new DM, but I've been in a TPK and a battle that took out over half the party. Two different GMs, both said they weren't expecting so many to die and thought it'd be an easy encounter.
This is so accurate. My players were starting to get kind of full of themselves because up until level 6 I think, they hadn’t lost a single battle. There were some touch and go moments but they always won. So I wanted to set up an encounter that would really test them. They went to the hunters guild to get a hunting quest to take care of some Displacer beasts. I made sure to give plenty of foreshadowing, showing that half the guild was injured and many had died trying that quest. They still gladly took the quest and immediately headed towards the area the Beasts were rumored to be. A couple bad perception checks by the party later they were surprised by the Beasts. After only a few
rounds 2 of them were dead, (I was actually starting to worry that id TPK them) but they ended up escaping with some really clever use of illusionary magic. They eventually went back with more people and ended up winning after a hard fight in the end. Ever since then my players have taken encounters far more seriously
If I were to ragequit just because of my character dying, why, I would've ragequit gaming, oh, I dunno, somewhere in the high double digits number of times by now.
Not all deaths were the DM's fault, not all were my fault, not all were the dice's fault...
Still a bit sore about the party member who yeeted my character off a cliff and down into a demon-infested pit... -_-
You're only in double digits for deaths? What's that like? I forgot
@@YooranKujara Did I say "gaming"? I meant "some campaigns". ;)
(But seriously, my personal record for character deaths would be dying eight times with four characters in a setting with no resurrection magic. The fourth character was an Assassin who accepted the boon of Immortality at the end of the campaign from the Goddess of Death herself, so that he could get her most holy church back in order after it'd been subverted - he'd (technically) died, what, four times by that point, including a very confusing event involving a TPK and the use of a Wish - "I wish I hadn't a-done that" - that rewound a combat six seconds and brought everyone back to life in a highly creeped-out state... it was something of a brutal campaign...)
@@BrazenBard oof...
I feel so bad for the Player whos Character died at the beginning
"You know they're dead dead and not just captured by a demon and rescued." You leave Wulfgar Son of Beornegar alone! LOL. I loved that you used this reference.
Dude I love wulfgar. I just don't like what R A Salvatore did to him. And I feel like somebody as awesome and heroic is wulfgar would have figured out a way to come back from his horrific experience a little bit faster. It was like just I felt like way too many books dealing with wulfgar has traumatic experience and his recovery from it. I don't know that was just me. I like the idea and the concept but I just feel like I don't like how Salvatore implemented it. But wulfgar is great. Love that guy.
Imagine if the next skit was actually only the Rouge. That would be amazing.
I literally got NERD CHILLS from this rant!! YEESSS!
A Robert Jordan reference, I just had a mini mental dance.
I can't say I entirely agree with this, but you do make a good point!
I just can't see myself wanting to play a game knowing its ultimately up to the whims of the GM and their plot/encounters whether I get to keep a character and thus, ruin a huge part of my enjoyment for it. I'd rather not get attached to something, and I wouldn't end up making a good, developed character as a result.
Of course, that's just me, seems like there's plenty of people who are down with TPK's and I say more power to'm!
I like this video a lot, because it helps reconcile one of the few differences I've had with the opinions on your channel up to now: That it's -never- "DM versus Player" -- while I understand the mentality behind it, that a DM should not be outright trying to "outplay" their players in a sort of competition...I feel like preaching it in terms of "You should never be the DM against your Players" comes with an implication of...not necessarily toning down difficulty or pulling punches...but being a bit more timid in finding ways to outright dial the difficulty up in the first place. This video better reconciles my opinion with the overall message of your other videos, especially your encounter building ones...
I don't believe a DM should, as a goal be attempting to TRY to TPK the party, especially through brute force of high CR monsters, inflated stats, or simply sending in mages that do nothing but cast high level spells...but when it comes to combat, -especially- with groups of players more familiar with the game who already seem to have a solid handle on combat tactics...I feel they should seek to subvert the players' characters strengths and expectations in the fight to try to deliver an encounter that -can- TPK them if they act recklessly...or build encounters designed to push them to or beyond their limits.
Your party wants to walk into a fight in a specific marching order that keeps your mages in a back line? ...well, that Wizard on the other side just sequestered all your tankiest members with a Wall of Force. You have no access to Disintegrate. How are you going to deal with this?
I know this ultimately boils down to, "Design good encounters for your players" but I feel having at least a hint of a killer instinct in mind when you design them will help amplify the experience as a whole. If you don't test your players and players' characters' limits by fighting back hard, how can you give them truly epic fights? There's definitely some bias on my end, coming from a background in competitive gaming, as well as most of my play group being power gamers...so I know they're generally up for challenges as it is anyway, but I feel like going in with a "I want my encounters to be built to kill them." helps push the difficulty floor up and ensure encounters built to thrill don't fall short.
All this said, I think player deaths are something that, outside of major encounters, should not happen without either significant warning or severe misplaying. If you're pushing the wrong person's buttons, the player should have opportunity to back off. If you're moving into an area too high leveled for you at the time, narrative/description are the DM's best tools to deter a player from being a victim to their own curiosity. Tomb of Horrors gets a pass because...well...why are you in the Tomb of Horrors if you aren't prepared to die? If a player is wandering off on their own, beyond other deterrents, and then picking fights on their own...it's consequences of their own actions when they pry too far. "Never split the party." and all that jazz.
Every one of my characters has either been dead or undead by the end of a campaign. Usually it happens right towards the end of them
I feel like the video is more about why the risk of death, defeat and TPKs is important in a DnD game rather than the TPK itself. I agree that having TPKs and character deaths are a very good way of showing the PCs you aren't going to hold back. Another way of doing it, though a bit riskier, would be to roll all combat (and some non-combat) related dice in the open. This will of course create a bunch of other difficulties and it's not for everyone but it IS another way of showing that you're not going to hold back. Just resist the urge to call in Deus Ex Machinas.
I'm not sure if I agree with your example of the black mage. The two characters that couldn't take a hint and died trying to Talk No Jutsu? That's fair. But as for the two who tried to do the smart thing and retreat, the bad guy teleporting after them and proceeding to Cone of Cold to the dome... that seems like an intentional kill at that point. Maybe you didn't go in with the intent of TPKing them, but as soon as the bad guy commits to teleporting after them and firing off another powerful spell, I don't think that's an accident anymore.
I agree with the necessity of stakes, and how making the threat of death feel real engages people. I even agree that an evil mage probably would mercilessly murder the party if given the opportunity. But I don't feel like you can call it an accident at that point. I know I personally would contribute a solid eye roll if the evil mage killed my retreating character via Dimension Door and Cold of Cone and then I was told this was unintentional.
I loved the Wheel of Time, although I never finished it so I got the full set and began to reread them, though it is only now I notice they are aimed at the teenager I once was...
I'm running Phandelver for 3 vet players and one relatively new. In Cragmaw hideout, they completely ruined their element of surprise, allowed foes to escape and warn the rest of the goblins in the den. The Goblins then ambushed them in the dark and retreated to where Sildar was being held prisoner. There are 5 players and they were Level 2 (supposed to be lvl 1 at this stage) so I upscaled the battle, including and extra goblin and goblin boss. The sorcerer was ambushed and reduced to 1hp, but instead of fleeing and taking cover he tried standing in the middle of an ambush circle where the goblins had cover and bows. He got a 22 on Intimidation, but bc of how much an advantage the goblins had I declared a fail, then he got downed twice, only spare death bc I kept rolling terribly for the attacks. The player then got salty, but I explained the situation and they're still steadfast I should have "shown a greater appreciation for a high roll and brave move". The move was stupid and he really should have died, so in future the enemies will be out for the kill, and if it's likely the party will win, the foes will try their damned best to take a PC or 2 down with them (provided it makes RP sense for the creatures to).
The campaign I'm working on may be my first time hosting, but I'm not really holding back since "it's not the destination, but the journey"; full power will be granted through multiclassing/subclassing (even multi-subclassing) upon transport to the final destination.
I have a question for any experienced DM's. I'm still new, running my first campaign with 5 people compromised of family & friends. So I dont actively try to kill them but I'm also trying to make encounters exciting like this one while also having real stakes. They always tell me they are having a great time & the battles have been good but I just feel like they aren't being challenged enough. Like the 'a few of us dropped to 0 HP' challeneged. Is that something that needs to happen every battle? How do I balance some encounters for a greater challenge?
i'm currently running curse of strahd, players nearly TPK'd at old bonegrinder until i decided the hags would much rather serve the party (with ireena with them) to strahd, so the hags proceeded to stabilize the two dying party members as Strahd showed up, invited the party to dinner, then left.
party is now returning to bonegrinder with ezmerelda by their side after a brief period exploring castle ravenloft, and i've warned them recently that the moment they do something to piss off strahd (like say..he find out they have the tome should they defeat old bonegrinder) the gloves come off and he will not show up to bail them out again, if they die, they die.
I like to reminisce about a game where we were rescuing kidnapped slaves from an Underdark force... There were drow, trolls, and some upgraded goblinoids... a weird alliance to say the least.
We'd managed a very clever jail-break, but cut our losses to save a few at a time, so the GM couldn't just "crash us out" all at once... BUT I could tell he was hell-bending to get a full on battle going, and (okay a tad meta) I turned back... to face off the coming army.
There was an exchange between me and the Priestess who'd tried hard to get rid of me before (alignment antics) and I assured her I knew what I was doing... Told her to get my noble letters of merit to my sister two towns east of where we'd started... AND proceeded to start trapping the "bottle-neck" in that part of the cave...
Yeah, it split the party... or rather, I knew I was splintered off alone...
What followed was an epic battle between my Lawful Evil Orc Mercenary, and a huge onslaught from the Underdark... AND a Role Play session that define heroism to the rest of the Table. With the first three rounds of battle between me and oncoming goblinoids (considered expendable so sent forward to probe enemies)... The party and captives were reaching the "twilight zone" in the cave. BUT it was getting obvious the Priestess' Player was growing uncomfortable...
Six rounds of battle (total)... AND the Priestess confronted the Ranger for his bow and arrows... She "didn't feel much like a hero, running away and leaving a friend behind"...
As interested as the other Players might have been about getting people rescued and finding reinforcements to go back, EVERY SINGLE ROLL in thew battle had the Table's collective breath held. There was coaching for us, two... and arguing on our behalf...
Keep in mind, this was a fairly powerful leveled Party (9 - 12th -ish)...
In the end of it, it wasn't a TPK. I'd managed to thwart quite that level of carnage. I even finally convinced the Priestess to get out of there and come back later... I scrapped my Character. Being the "veteran", I could let thew GM kill me to illustrate the very real risks to life and limb... AND as I was brought down the cavern to the feet of the Drow General... I could explain that it no longer mattered what happened to me. I'd wasted enough time and resources that my friends were gone... out of reach... AND they'd be back with thousands more like me. This operation was over, and nothing left but the crying, so this General better enjoy whatever he gets to do to me... He'll spend all the rest of his days looking over his shoulder for the one who finally gets him...
Leaving the imminent threat of death on the Table keeps the tension in the Game. Even that a Player might scrap a PC, it's an investment in RP... The Party did right by my Orc Mercenary, even getting violently confrontational about the backpack that was meant for his Sister... whom the GM had to create on the fly just to shut the Players up with a short sidequest... ;o)
Love the wulfgar reference
Aa. TPK...then player like me are born that over prepares for literally everything. Utility wants for majority of occasions including never needing sleep for the next 50 day. Aramorm and invisibility Laramie to not get sneaked up with a clear spindle to avoid all possibilities of even needing to eat any food. Never going anywhere without a clear backup plane and having every party member roll perception every 30 ft for traps.
Serious question, how many TPKs before the players say "i'm not having fun"? I'm deadly serious. Because of the COVID-19 thing there seam to be a plague (no pun intended) of DMs with control issues infesting the online arena (Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, etc) who are TPKing parties simply as part of their therapy. They don't know that's what they're doing, because self reflection seems to be a weak point in their personalities. Here, I'll answer the first question, 3. After 3 consecutive TPKs with obviously overpowered encounters (not to mention breaking some printed rules in favor of the monster with little more than an "oops, my bad" when called out on it). During this time when people are in real life pain, some have lost decades long careers, some have lost relatives, I'd say the opposite is needed. People need a little pampering, just the opposite of TPK, they need some Oprah Winfrey give aways, some Monty Hall game show freebies. If people wanted gritty reality they can simply watch the news, lets not ruin their last escapist entertainment as well.
As someone that's reading the wheel of time. I enjoy the writing style. It builds this world from different viewpoints. Also, while the main character may live, he's not unscathed.
I feel like the first five books in Wheel of Time are absolutely amazing. Robert Jordan really kills it. However somewhere around the sixth book there are so things really seem to stall out a little bit. It's like the plot and action and characters and events are all super super amazing and I love them. But I definitely get this feeling around book 6 that he's trying to extend out the series in order to fill a certain number of books save 12 or 14. I just get that feeling you know like why are things taking so long you're just filling up Pages. That's what it feels like when I get to those later books. But the series as a whole and everything in it the characters the the ideas the plot all of that is amazing and I love that series.
@@theDMLair I can see that. I never got that feeling myself. There is just a lot going on between all the factions that he fleshes out. Including Rand's descent into madness.
I'm really on the fence about it, because I can see the validity of the points you bring up. I think it cuts to the heart of the question: is D&D a game or is it a shared story experience? If it is a game, then it needs some kind of a fail state and consequences for actions - which defeat and death definitely provide. If it is a shared story experience, then more often than not death (especially a TPK) cuts the story short and just annoys players and DMs alike.
Ooooh an Uruz rune great choice! Untapped potential!
Having lost 16-18? characters(two might have only been knocked out) in just the last year of playing through 1-shots or long campaigns, I usually make a pretty disposable character until I get a good reading of the DM. There's nothing more annoying than being told to make a deep backstory for a character only for the DM to TPK everyone by lvl 3. That's the unfortunate fate of my first two characters and 3 others. Having lost characters throughout my learning process over the last 2 years has really opened RP possibilities. If you know death is a possibility, you don't have to worry as much about NPC interactions. Often times a DM will railroad players into being scared or cautious of an NPC. If you accept death as part of the game, you don't have to always go down that route. If you die, you just roll up a new character anyways.
Quality video:)
In one of my most memorable sessions in the campaign I'm currently wrapping up, my 5 level 4 players faced off against a single Beholder. They fought hard and tried to deal as much damage as possible while one or two teammates went to sleep thanks to its sleep ray; in an empty room without cover, they struggled to tank its rays. In the end, only a potion of death that dealt TONS of necrotic damage in a 3x3 square, they managed to kill the monster, at the cost of two of their companions who unfortunately were in the blast radius.
As they started to bolt their way out of the dungeon, they immediately started to think of ways to bring back their companions. Unfortunately for me, the DM, I basically said "Puff, you are alive again" and had a powerful cleric resurrect them.
I think that resurrection should not be possible, so in the next campaign I'm planning to use this logic: once u ded, u ded.
I think it all depends on the style of gameplay you are going for, and the consistency in which you apply difficulty. Cranking your super casual game up to hyper deadly out of nowhere is a bad idea, but if you are upfront about it then it is okay.
1:18 the drow didnt have to kill the kitty
I have an idea for a half lich character would that work?
I think that you have a few very good points, and I will definitely be keeping this video in mind for my future as a DM. That being said, I think it is important to remember that different groups expect different experiences, and D&D has room for multiple styles of play. I personally expect to run my entire current campaign without truly, genuinely killing the PCs anywhere that they don't have access to resurrection magic, for a few reasons.
The first is that I really enjoy alternative consequences, such as capture, favors owed to rescuers, or even a deal with the devil that prevented your demise. A dead character merely becomes a memory, but being put into manacles or saved by a potent wizard allows The characters to stay in the plot with suitable consequence for taking risks or being reckless.
The second is that my party signed on to tell a story and to enjoy a hero fantasy, and while I trust the dice and my own creativity to keep things fun and interesting, I don't intend to do anything remotely gritty or grimdark to them that they don't consent to, because they want these characters to end up as legends rather than stepping stones. I understand that there are many players that make characters with ease, ready to pull one from standby at the first hint of TPK, but as my players are all new to D&D, I want to give them the ideal experience according to the desires they came to me with.
The third reason, and this might be very subjective to my group, is that almost all of them have various disorders or conditions, and they play these games to escape the expectations or assumptions people have of them. While the majority of people need to be able to handle something as simple as character death, I don't feel that i need to put my players through that simply for the sake of raising the stakes. If they find that they aren't quite as desperately attached to their character, or they grow to better understand the inherent danger of sending a mortal adventurer into impossible odds against extraordinary beings, then we will come to an agreement on what their character might go through, but for the moment I am perfectly willing to provide the obstacles they wish to overcome on their way to riches and glory.
Wise words...although I have to confess I have not killed a single PC in 20 years 🤓 but I will remember what you said. I often play with older people ... they experienced loss and they have problem solving skills..I have the impression they maybe want to stay in control and want to tell a meaningful story, wile roleplaying, when real life sometimes makes no sense.
Had a character death that was almost a TPK last night. it was a very close battle. But I rolled well and they didn't. I wasn't planning on a character death but its what happened.
Party was low on resources and the min-maxing fighter/barbarian (literally built the character to break the system and was open about it) was fighting his backstory nemesis, a loup garou, who had class levels in barbarian because he was balanced against the min maxer. Loup garou got down to 30 hit points. But then the fighter/barbarian went down... And the party didn't heal him, so the loup garou demanded the party surrender or he would kill the fighter/barbarian. Party refused, and the loup garou used his multiattack to finish off the downed PC. I think they didn't expect me to actually go through with it. The player whose character died was actually the coolest one with what went down (including me the DM) and said now he got to roll up a character specifically for revenge on that loup garou
How are you going to make a video about TPK when I TPK’d my party last night lol. The timing is too good
For my first ten years of DnD I never got past level 1. Haha. So many TPKs. It sucks to die, but the stories are great.
I think my blood pressure permanently raises by 1 or 2 points every time I hear someone pronounce "Golem" like "Gollum."
That aside, fantastic videos. Subscribed.
So, I'm opposed to the TPK mainly because a good heroic story doesn't wipe out all the protagonists and then start over. Can you imagine if the Uruk Hai had caught the Fellowship and slaughtered the whole group of them? Story over- book one.
I also don't kill characters due to bad die rolls. Bad luck is a plot device. But if they do something dumb, death is waiting.
He would come back with a laugh regaining all legendary actions, legendary savings throws, and lair actions. Not only did the lich havelegendary and lair actions but so did 2 of the red dragons. Had they not gotten Halaster Blackcloak to help them by getting his attention using wit and tact then summoned him with a seed pod designed to do so they would have TPKed for sure. As it was it was still epic. Grungy grilling grueling combat at its finest.
Wait.. can I get the recipe to that Matcha Cake?
On the topic, I though I would ask for some advice. I'm a bit of a new DM, and slowly getting better I feel, and I am very timed about killing PCs. I know that they are aware that death is a possibility, but I have a hard time fallowing through with that. Even when I increased the difficulty, and even letting them know that things will get harder because they are skilled and smart players, I still feel a little bit scared about killing there characters before there character's arcs ever finish. What should I do?
Excellent advice. Death is always on the menu in my games. :)