[Ralis] No, it won't be like this..

[lev at rpgreview.net]

>From RPG.net on Total Party Kills...

Version #1 from Jeff Hopper
---------------------------

Moldvay Basic D&D game at Righetti High School. Eight 1st and 2nd level
characters played by players with about a year's worth of experience each,
all doing the overland trek to the dungeon of choice. The party was
skirting around a swamp and I decided to let them know what monster they
could look forward to later on in the campaign.

So I let a wandering monster check be a large black dragon flying
overhead, circling and then heading towards the swamp. I made sure to let
the players know that the dragon didn't notice them, or if it did it was
ignoring them. I just wanted the players to know that a black dragon
laired in the swamp they were passing by.

So what do the players do? You guessed it, they drop everything and decide
to go on a dragon hunt. They don't go back to the town and buy more
equipment or get some hirelings, the party just made a beeline for the
swamp.

I tried to give them an indication of how tough this black dragon was. It
talked, had spells, and was 3HD over average because it was large (10HD
total). So I had the party watch from a distance a fight between the black
dragon and a group of eight lizard men. I let them see all of the things
that the black dragon could throw at opponents, and the black dragon
killed the lizard men with ease. This was my warning sign to them, this
critter is too badass for you right now - gain a couple of levels first
and then come back.

The party was undeterred.

So, the party tracked the dragon back to its swampy lair, which was a deep
section of marsh with underwater caves, that was surrounded by 600 feet of
knee-deep swamp/marsh (hampering movement and letting the dragon know of
approaches by the splashing of adventurers through the water) that
provided no cover of trees, shrubs, or grasses that would deter a flying
reptile. I described the location in detail, hinting at how impossible the
terrain was for combat against a black dragon.

The players didn't even make a plan. They just trudged through the swamp
towards the center, and when the dragon attacked (with surprise) from
underwater, they spent the next round charging the dragon.

It was all over in five rounds. Total Party Kill.

Lesson learned? If your players are bound and determined to ignore all
common sense and attack a foe that is not only demonstrably more powerful
then them but also has obvious terrain advantage, then it is your
obligation as DM to fight them fairly and if that means killing the player
characters deader than ratshit, so be it. Because if you win a battle by
being stupid, then you really haven't won anything and your players end up
unsatisfied.

Always pick your battles as a PC, big bad monsters can wait for another day.


Version #2 from Fugitive Unknown
--------------------------------

One in a 3.X game of DND.

Absolutely killer GM and a bit of a sadist. Pretty much the onyl reason he
was allowed to GM was because he ran the game store.

Anyway, he promised a slightly less "screw you" game, where we'd play
peasants and level up from level 1 peasants. Our characters are young -16
year olds.

So we go through a level of being peasants, clearing out a cave of kobolds
that had been harrassing the village. Works out great - we all kick some
butt and gain some XP and gain our first real level. No problem.

Second session, we return to the village to find that it's burning, and a
crap ton of goblins and wargs have enslaved everyone. Not being totally
suicidal, as soon as we see this we turn around and start heading to the
nearest major castle to find some real solgiers to save our people - no
way were fighting a couple hundred goblins at level 1.

Lo and behold, we start hearing wargs calling out in the night. Great. Not
sure how they knew we were there, but ok.

While intiitially we'd been going fairly slow, the wannabe ranger trying
to cover our tracks, now we hightail it at top speed, hoping that they'll
give up or we can out pace them.

The howls get louder, and we realize we can't out pace them. Left with
little option, we try hiding up a tree - maybe the wargs will miss us, or
the ranger can throw them off with his bow.

Pretty soon the party is treed by a pck of wargs. The ranger fires some
shots, but they are tough, and we have damned little light to work with
(we'd extinguished our torch to avoid being detected in the tree), and
pretty soon were out of ammo and we have goblins coming up.

With no other options, we leap from the tree and attack the wargs, and die
horribly.


The GM seems genuinely shocked at our actions - the party is kinda angry -
it seems that this entire session was pretty much a screw job -plus the
last session just got flushed down the toilet.

GM "Well, you could have shimmied over to the next tree and walked across
the branches."
Us "Oh yeah, and the wargs couldn't track us as we slowly edged from tree
to tree - a party of 5 mostly untrained in near total darkness.
If they can track us with a ranger covering our tracks and outpace us
going as fast as possible, 5 people struggling to get from tree to tree
isn't exactly going to be a problem."

GM "You could have used your ranged weapons."
US "You made us start with clubs! We don't even own leather armor! There
is one guy in the party with a shortbow and he only has like 20 arrows. He
fired half of them wtihout doing anything because of the lighting.

GM "You could have surrendered!"
US "To WOLVES? Even surrendering to the goblins - death IS preferable to
that - and if you really wanted that you should have made it damned
clear."

It was not a fun session - but it taught me a valuable lesson about how
not to run a game.