My players wiped after I stopped rail-roading and now I feel bad. (Story)

[dusty lark]

Hello,

So the title says it all. I ran à game for a group of players that involved uprooting à gnôll empire that's grown out of control. The King has captures the phylactery of à lich and was possessed as a result. The empire has been underground growing like a cyst until the players got involved.

They didn't get inside. I put à lot of love into the gnoll Kingdom with a route the players can take that was less difficult than storming the Castle

A player asked me "How many gnolls can we expect to encounter if we attacked the front gate?"

Me: "You will die."

Player: "So we should sneak-in?"

Me: "You can try that."

Player: " Will it work?"

Me: "You can try it."

Player: "Okay, I try sneaking-in"

Me: I describe the entrance in my original détail, highlighting the poor quality of the foundation and the many flaws.

Player: "Okay so there's no way in?"

Me: "I think you can see a way in through the foundation. However, you'de be committing to making that choice if you choose to go that route."

Player: "Well I'm not going to risk my life crawling through the floor boards, If we got captured we could circumvent all of the security."

Me: "If that's what you want to do... I won't stop you."

Player: "Is there another way in?"

Me: "If there was, you haven't found it."

Player: "Okay. Let's take out à patrol and try to disguise ourselves as gnolls and get inside."

The party surprises the gnolls, steal uniforms and use Stealth to get inside. There were emergency situations along the way but they handle them by killing off guards and hiding bodies.

I rolled perception for the guards to follow the scent of blood because the players made no attempt at masking it. Alarms were raised while they were outside the Gnoll King's chambers.

Player: "We can't leave. So we have to go after the king now or we wasted all of this time."

Me: "That's up to you. What are you doing?"

Players went into the encounter with half resources and most of the party injured. They were killed during the encounter and I enjoyed the combat, but at the same time I FELT HORRIBLE.

I feel like I deserve it, but what do you guys think?

https://tenor.com/view/omniman-blood-hands-gif-24468869

[shell cairn]

Is it your first TPK?
Yeah, feels bad, but you made it very clear that the situation was extremely dangerous and the players proceeded anyway. Of course, haven't heard the other side of the story, but given the information here "That's what I woulda done" - as you said yourself, there's still enjoyment in the game.
One of the beauties of dnd, at least I believe, is that consequences are actually real and when you're risking it all you're really dancing on the knifes edge. A true fail only serves to reinforce that - especially if the players are willing to play with you again.

As long as the players are aware of this and you haven't told them it was supposed to be a mellow game or that the world wouldn't be dangerous then you're in the right.

If you're worried, you can always, always talk to your players about it. Though, if you're expecting someone to get emotional over their character dying perhaps wait a bit before doing so, lol

[honest kiln]

Consequences are important to have for the choices that players make. Sometimes those consequences lead to a TPK. And yes, if it's your first TPK or even your first player death, it can be a bit daunting

But understand that combat in D&D is always "life hangs in the balance".

While characters shouldn't die often, if they make decisions that lead them to a point where they die.. they have chosen that path.

[stark bloom]

Well, not quite always, but often.

[stark bloom]

Sounds like you gave them several heads-up chances to avoid this fate. The ultimate answer to the question is really more about whether or not your players accepted the consequences and are ready to play with you again or not. I can't speak for them. This could be a learning moment, this could be an epic tale to tell for years for all involved, it could be a tragic case of poorly communicated expectations.

From the sounds of things, you had fun, and played out the story as it was meant to conclude based on the actions the players partook. They gambled on being able to take out the king, and lost. :p

[supple briar]

I mean, that's part and parcel of TRPG: Players have agency. They have to be able to make choices, and have those choices have weight. That means reasonable consequences to their actions, including TPK's.

No harm, just roll up some new characters, now with a vendetta against the Gnoll King

A revenge plot sounds like it would be a blast.

[regal mesa]

Something I really enjoy doing is giving my players a problem, and absolutely not having any solutions lined up for them. Just letting them figure out a plan that might work. I find that doing it this way means I'm never in that awkward situation of "I planned this big Castle Dread and I know the ways that I put for them to get in, but they need to figure that out" that regularly seems to lead to "well they aren't doing the plan that I laid for them, they're doing something else entirely that's crazy". To be honest, I like seeing those crazy plans, and if I stay flexible as a GM, I can easily make it so those plans of a realistic chance of failure.

I also always leave the PCs an out; very directly I always make retreat an option but with the knowledge that it will cost them something in the storyline. I usually say if my players TPK it's because they made the choice to do so, because at any time if all players agree we drop initiative and they tell me how they escaped, everybody still alive.

[tranquil jetty]

I would actually say it is always - the dice can even line up that a L1 wizard might beat a L20 Fighter in melee. I had this when I played the Warhammer 40k RPG's (Rogue Trade, Black Crusade and Deathwatch). In these you can play as a literal superhuman (Space Marine). the game has a bloodloss mechanic. a normal human has a 10% chance of death if called to make a Bloodloss roll. A Space Marine has a 5% chance. it is possible to set the Space Marine to re-roll that chance. In 1 session of 5 hours I had 6 Space Marines with a Re-rollable bloodloss check die to bloodloss caused by some weak thing that got a lucky hit on me. To this day I am terrified of Bloodloss checks in any game now.

[stark bloom]

There's about eight asterisks to put on "not quite always, but often". Asterisks that typically invoke game system, DM style, player behaviour, et cetera.

As a general rule of thumb, though, most games trend toward variable difficulty in combat. Using D&D as an example, the difficulty of a fight against common, low CR bandits is intended to be lower than against a high CR dragon. The only job the bandits have is as a road block to burn resources. The dragon is the real lethal threat. If your party is getting wiped by bandits on the regular, something odd happened.

That said, those asterisks come back out of the box again: Some campaigns and systems are meant to be perpetually lethal in every encounter, in which case, the but often clause is invoked. Same applies if freak accidents of luck occur--like rolling seven nat 1's in a row.

So yes. Definitely the spectre of death is always there. It's just that when his odds of collecting a soul are trending toward absolute zero, I simplify to not always and slap the asterisk on it. :)

PS: Those space marines need to have their gene seed checked, clearly.

[dusty girder]

Ah... the first TPK. You never forget your first...

[honest kiln]

Well, it also depends on the character levels. Characters at levels 1-3 are way more likely to TPK over dice shenanigans compared to higher levels

Additionally, the higher level the party is the less likely TPK happens because reviving spells and spells that can instantly transport a party out of combat (plane shift, teleport, word of recall)

My first TPK ever came in a one-shot. To be fair, it was a rather challenging one-shot

(For one person. xD)