I was thinking about the possible TPK in the works in my game.
I don't spare a lot of time thinking about the plight of my PCs. They'll figure out what they want to do, and we'll roll dice to see how it turns out. My job ends with presenting the challenge - it's up to them to find a way out, or roll their way out.
But this deeper level of my dungeon has some traits of the rest of my dungeon, only more so because of the depth:
- monsters are more dangerous, even if the base monster isn't especially so.
- monsters are bigger. Yes, the deeper you go the bigger stuff gets. Like in 50s monster movies, the big stuff is down in tight tunnels.
- the treasure the greater. The 5000 in emeralds they found last time was pretty close to "no treasure found" by the standards of where they are delving.
But is the party capable of handling that?
It's a big maybe. Even amped up with a lot of buff spells, magic items, and one-use enhancements they're having a tough time. They knew this going in, after the last session's "entry room" fight with one and then two more purple worms. They know how easy they've gotten off when I dump a huge pile of dice over the screen and do much less than average damage. But the game is about risks.
I think the level is only about as lethal as it should be - and yes, it gets more lethal from here. The water entrance rumors they followed up on found them a way into a dangerous area. They knew it went deep, and that deeper = more risk, more reward, in a dungeon where levels much higher up had plenty of risk already.
So I don't feel like it's too much. It's going to be tough - and if they survive, I expect they'll be less likely to return. Out-maneuvering the orcs might be trouble but it'll be better than grappling with purple worms and giant trolls and unholy cleric ghosts.
But even if there is a TPK, I know someday there will be PCs back to this level, and the players will have a much firmer idea of what they'll want to bring with them to risk it. For their sakes, I hope they find a way out. But I'll keep rolling the damage in front of them and adding trolls to the fray until the level key says there aren't more to add.
That's where the fun is.
Well, I volunteer as tribute if you need more players :)
ReplyDeleteI remember when I used to post on the SJ Games forums saying that I like to stick Cthuloid monsters in my dungeons and the people there said DF is not supposed to be like that. They said that DF is about playing a hero and wading through armies of orcs to collect huge treasures. I always felt that players know what is up and if they go and try to fight Cthulhu well they are taking a huge risk with their PCs lives. So they tend to settle on defeating the cult that is trying to summon Cthulhu before he is able to manifest in the Prime material plane. It is sort of like your dungeon where the players know there are monsters out there that can slaughter their PCs pretty easily so they have to be careful and I feel that makes the game more fun.
ReplyDeleteI havent read the posts, but I feel like you probably arent dealing with their concerns.
DeleteReally tough monsters are not like Cthulhoid monsters.
You can fill your dungeon with powerful or even unkillable monsters, you've always been able to do that. They may indeed draw inspiration from Cthulhu. Dragons, demons, eldritch monsters may require fright checks, drive your PCs insane and need special rituals to hold them off.
The Cthulhu mythos (cosmic horror)though is all about monsters that arent beaten by chipping their HP away. Indeed the real horror is the inevitability of them winning by us becoming them.
The minute Cthulhu gets a HP bar or can be killed by a special sword you lose the cosmic horror.
Yeah. It's not "in DF, the heroes always win" but "in DF, the heroes don't go insane and inevitably lose trying to keep the horror down." In DF, tentacled horrors are just insanely tough treasure-guarders, not things that make you insane.
DeleteIf the PCs never visit a level because its too hard does it even matter if it exists?
ReplyDeleteI'd say yes. You need to have something out there that is so hard no one will go - but can, if they get a wild impulse to. It puts bounds on their actions (you're not unkillable, you're not undefeatable) and puts an aspirational goal in front of them. It's like giving stats to the gods - you may never fight them, but now you know what's potentially at the far end.
DeleteAlso, in your campaign,having a few levels that are really tough will be good if you should ever happen to have all 7 players show up on the same day. Need somewhere to go that can give enough challenge and loot for em all!
DeleteEach level should be potentially lethal to the level of party expected to be adventuring there.
ReplyDeleteI've found (at least in OD&D were there is less of a power curve) that number of characters is much larger determining factor in preventing TPK. To the point that we require min of 8 to "run a session". 8 actions per round, 8 targets. It means Mu's and Clerics survive long enough to do their thing. If someone gets smacked hard they have chance of taking cover behind the others. 0-3 people die each session. But, they have to play very badly to earn a TPK.
The number of characters is critical in GURPS, too. It's generally hard to overcome numbers with ability unless you have a lot of ability. We couldn't wait for 8 PCs unless I let each person run 2 apiece - it's just too hard to get 9 of us into the same room at the same time.
DeleteOverall, though, I feel like the presence of potential lethality is just right - GURPS fights can go horribly wrong horribly quickly, and once things start going wrong it tends to spiral out of control for the losing side. So TPK is always a risk, even with good play, given the level of danger in a game where you're betting your characters on a session by session basis that you can out-do the guardians of the treasure.
So far it feels like I've balanced it well - and the threat of a too-small party getting overwhelmed seems reasonable. I wish we could get more of our friends together more often, but we play with who we get, and sometimes it's not enough people to ensure both safety and potential profit for the PCs.
I have no answer to the direct question. I'm just chiming in to say that if they don't make it out of this alive, I'm really going to miss Vryce. He's been the anchor and backbone of these stories for so long it just won't feel the same without him.
ReplyDeleteWith all the times Red Raggi has been on death's door, it would be interesting if he's the lone survivor from the earliest days. At least he will be around to provide some continuity; the new party won't know about Mungo, but they'll be able to get the most pertinent facts from Raggi about the rest of the dungeon.
I hadn't thought of that. Galen and Raggi would be the old men of the party.
DeleteNo, your dungeon is not to deadly. The players decided to dive deeper than they should have. I'm facing the exact same thing in my Castle of the Mad Archmage game. Only, I'm a player. We dove too deep, and it could become a TPK quickly. The trolls are brutal.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit, I like that the lure of loot and fear of potentially dangerous but poor foes pushed the PCs to risk a lot.
DeleteNot at all. Your dungeon's lethality seems completely appropriate. The danger level has increased as the party got further in. You have a very high survival rate, which is reasonable when the system discourages high turnover (characters are more detailed and take longer to create than D&D characters, for example). I think of it like the random stocking and wandering monster tables of D&D. At the start you were dealing with orcs and hobgoblins and they just took the hidden entrance directly to the 8th level where there are giant trolls, purple worms, and ghosts. Seems right in line with what D&D does.
ReplyDelete