DF Khoramandu Sea - near-TPK

    We played a session last night, and nearly had a TPK (total party kill) situation. Once I knew it was almost certain, I called the game to a halt prematurely rather than continue further toward the inevitable. Why did I do that? Because of the circumstances.

    The party was resting at the end of the previous session (113 - not yet covered in the blog), and we paused just before another fight was about to start. They were attacked by slimes, almost certainly the same ones they had encountered and escaped previously. Only now they were much more vulnerable this time.

    Of the 4 PCs in the party, 2 were still fighting fit, while 2 were very seriously wounded from the previous encounter. Of the two PCs who were fine, one of those players was unfortunately absent for this session. And of the 2 PCs who were badly wounded at the start of the session, one player was effectively a bystander as his PC was already unconscious, while the other player had abysmal luck from the start; he critically-failed his HT check to stay conscious and had to use his Luck to reroll, only to then fail on his next turn anyway. 

    So with 1 player absent, and 2 players forced to be bystanders, it was down to the 1 remaining player (and me playing the 3 accompanying NPCs) to try and save the party. I don't run multiple NPCs to be the saviours; they're not the heroes. Nor do I want to run the NPCs through a TPK-spiral with the players as passive observers. And neither do I want a PC to die while their player is unavoidably absent. Given all that, I decided to pause.

    Could the situation have been avoided? I think so, had the players made different choices. Might the NPCs have done things differently? Also possible, but I don't run them to be the assertive decision-makers - that is the PCs' role. Does that make it fair to let a TPK result happen? Possibly, but only in the harshest sense, under those circumstances. And why play out a result that you know is going to be unsatisfactory for all concerned? That would be the opposite of awesome.

    That's why I paused the game there rather than continue, so that I can reflect and decide how to best handle it next week.