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Greatest Hits 2010: Embracing The Total Party Kill

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2010. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

Until recently I’d never played in a game where a character, let alone an entire party, was willing to accept their own death in order to ensure the accomplishment of the greater good. When Wimwick wrote this article I thought it made for an interesting discussion, but I never expected to ever see it happen during play. After all, you work so hard and so long to earn XP and build up your character that I just couldn’t see anyone willing letting that character die. And then I actually saw it happen. Twice.

The first time I saw this kind of self-sacrifice was as the DM. Our campaign was about to reach its final climax. The PCs were about to complete a quest that spanned 20 levels. However, in order to accomplish their task someone had to sacrifice them self in order to stop a powerful evil from escaping an arcane prison. As the DM I had three important NPCs ready to step in since I knew none of the PCs would willingly make this sacrifice. I was stunned when everyone in the party agreed to do it. I only needed one volunteer, but all the players were willing to give up their PC to accomplish this goal. In the end the Wizard, the PC who had been with the campaign the longest, made the ultimate sacrifice. I never expected any of the players to feel so strongly about the story that they’d be willing to do this, yet they all stepped up. I finally understood what Wimwick was talking about in this article and it was awesome.

The second time I experienced this was as a player in a one-off game. Although we just met these characters and liked them a great deal, it became evident that our mission was too important to fail. We didn’t set out on a suicide mission, but when certain events transpired and we realized that our own mistakes were going to spell failure for the mission we decided to do whatever was necessary to get the job done. In the end that meant a total party kill as we took on a task that we knew we’d never return from. It was one of the most exciting adventures I’d ever played in and even though I’d only played that character once, I’ll always remember him.

If you’re the DM and you make the players care enough about the story then there is always the chance that they’ll make the ultimate sacrifice and embrace the TPK. It’s one thing for a party to face overwhelming odds and get wiped out, it’s an entirely diffident circumstance when the players realize that they’re facing death and do so honourably in order for good to prevail.

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Editorial

What Makes An Encounter Legendary?

Five hours. One Encounter. A near total party kill. Three characters only one strike away from death. One character dead.

The DM began the encounter by taunting us. “You’re the ninth party I’ve run this adventure for since GenCon started and so far none of them have survived past the first encounter.” He continued his challenge by saying “This is by far the most difficult encounter I have ever seen in any LFR adventure.”

That did it. The players were committed, hook, line and sinker. We were going to complete this encounter even if it killed us. And it almost did.

The events of that night beg the question, what makes an encounter legendary?

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Embracing The Total Party Kill

It’s not something we like to think about, the death of the party, the end of the campaign. On occasion it is the right thing to do. Earlier this week we discussed Avoiding The Total Party Kill. This task falls jointly on the shoulders of the DM and the players. Embracing The Total Party Kill, falls on the players and is a decision that only they can make.

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Avoiding The Total Party Kill

The party is in the middle of combat and the plan of attack quickly falls apart. Within rounds the party finds themselves with several PCs making death saves. Things have gone from bad to worse and a total party kill is looking imminent. Options begin running through your head, do you go down swinging? Is it still possible to defeat the encounter? Is retreat the best option? If you do retreat what about your already fallen companions?

No matter the cause of a total party kill, it can have devastating consequences on your campaign or adventure session. From derailed campaigns, frustrated players and torn up character sheets every TPK is going to have it’s own ramifications. The key to avoiding these difficult situations is to avoid the total party kill in the first place.

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2009: Avoiding Death

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2009. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

This was one of the very first articles I wrote for Dungeon’s Master. All of the examples came from actual events that took place at my gaming table. And in the months since I wrote this article, I’ve seen all of these things happen over and over again whenever I play with new gamers.

My intent with this article was to highlight (in a humourous way) the dumb things we’ve all done as PCs. If you avoid making even one of these mistakes after reading this, then I’ve done my job.

A few of these tips and reminders are less pertinent today then they were when this article was first published thanks to Character Builder. Since Character Builder does all of the math for you, you’re a lot less likely to miss or forget modifiers.

If I had to add #11 to this list it would be to use your daily powers every day. But as a more general reminder, the only other piece of advice I’d offer is to just play intelligently. It’s the stupid things that get your PC into trouble.

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DM Resources

More Than Just Minions

Killing minions feels good. So good in fact players do weird things in order to kill minions. Controllers who normally hide behind the defenders will charge with wild abandon to unleash a close blast spell if they believe they can drop more than one minion on their turn. Likewise, strikers will move into the thick of a group of enemies they don’t consider a threat to get their shots in on some easy minion fodder.

Here are a few fun things you can do to exploit the PC’s perceptions of minions.

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Humour Player Resources Top 10

Avoiding Death (Part 2)

In Avoiding Death, Part 1 we covered these five recommendations for how to avoid needless character death.

  1. Don’t chase monsters
  2. Know you character
  3. Check for traps every time
  4. Take a short break
  5. Pay attention

Now we’re going to add five more ideas to the list. Most of these tips rely on you keeping your cool and not doing anything stupid. Sometimes that can be harder than you think.

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Humour Player Resources Top 10

Avoiding Death (Part 1)

I think it’s fair to say that everyone who plays D&D has experienced character death at some point. Hopefully your character has gone down swinging or sacrificed himself in such a way that people will be telling and retelling the story for years to come. But in reality I think we all know that more often than not character death is the result of someone (often the character himself) doing something stupid.