The TPK that should Have Been

The following sequence arose from events associated with the Campaign Senex, played in succession from February 17 to 24, 2017.

There are many moments when I think I am a very poor DM; when I weaken and do not follow my own precepts, even as I am vigorously flogging those precepts on my blog.  This is just such a time, an occasion where I set up a scene I should not have set up, then bailed the party out of the mess they helped created.  I should not have done that, either.

The scene began when the party entered an abandoned village in Turkey, Pazarli only to meet a single old man who warned them that there was no safe place to stay in the village.  This was the old man's exact words: "Safe? No. Nowhere safe."  He then went on to warn them that there were Turkish Janissaries just beyond the ridge.

This was the error my part.  It was not much of an adventure.  I wanted to get the players into a fight, preferably in the trees outside the village of Pazarli, that could presumably be kept up for a while.  I hoped the players would take the hint and choose to camp in the bushes.  Then, they could run into a small patrol on its way to search the village (they were perpetually searching for this same old man, who I had designated as a wererat), fight them, get some treasure, then wend their way out of the area meeting, occasionally, other soldiers.

If they made friends with the wererat, I supposed, they could find him a helpful ally and scout; but if they did not warm up to him, they could go it alone.  This was my expectation.

Unfortunately, the party was also told there were patrols in the hills. So they took the phrase, "nowhere safe" to mean that they might as well stay in the town as out in the trees.  Moreover, they were tired, they were near to suffering from a long journey (which, too, was part of my plan), and they adopted a helpful, protective demeanor towards the wererat.  This, despite the wererat/grandfather telling them the village had been repeatedly searched, with dogs ~ without, I thought it obvious, finding the old man. Perhaps the party realized this, but it made no difference to their offers to protect the old man nor their decision to settle in the town for the night.

So now the party was exposed, not hidden.  The town was going to fill up with soldiers.  Instead of meeting one patrol in the woods, the party was going to be infested with them.  Sigh.  I sent them conflicting messages and they did not adequately parse their situation. I made it worse by suggesting that the village was not searched every night.

Here I made my second error: I assigned the place the party would rest for the night without drawing a map.  I should have drawn a map.  The party had said they wanted "a single hut."  Anxious to make them feel safe, I put them in a building "recessed back from the main road" ... with a "courtyard outside the residence, a courtyard surrounded by two other buildings with a narrow 8 foot wide lane leading from the road."

Two things.  On my part, I had totally forgotten the party had a horse.  There had been a long recess between games and I simply forgot.  So this was not a good place for them.  The horse was an albatross, that made it difficult for them to sneak out ... which is what I was counting on them to do.  And here is why:

Because I had already intended to have the Turks search the town!  In my head, I had decided on this event when I expected the party to recess to the trees and not stay in the village.  I had to retain that commitment!  I feel very strongly that a good DM, having invented a scenario, must stay true to that scenario, no matter what the party decides to do.  I had settled in my mind that the village was going to be searched that night ... so that was absolutely what was going to happen.

Of course I could have changed that in my mind, and no one would have ever been the wiser. That's one of the deepest, darkest issues with being a DM.  Are you prepared to be true to your first intentions?  OR will you change those intentions willy-nilly, over and over, as the party makes up their mind to do something different. It is a matter of principle.  If you are a DM, and you feel your world can change upon your whim, you will soon be changing it constantly, without rhyme or reason, or consistency, every time the party surprises you.

I don't feel my would can, or should, change because the players make a given decision, whether or not it is one I predict.  BUT ... and I write this with shame ... I did forsake my principles later on, as the reader will see.  And I regret it strongly.  I hope I am never stupid enough to do it again.

I did not forsake my intention at this point, however.  I did have the village searched.  But hold off on that a moment.

I said there was a second thing, apart from my forgetting the party's horse.  The party never questioned the location I chose for them.  They didn't ask for a map, they didn't question the courtyard, they just accepted it.  Okay.  That happens.  I should have made a map and I did feel partly responsible for putting them in a dead end.  On the right is the map I should have given them.

So, there were communications issues ... and as the scene continued, knowing what I knew, I began to be concerned that I was overstepping my bounds.  This concern settled in to affect my choices as DM, as to how to present the situation for the party.  I did not want to trap the party in the courtyard, like the last scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  I wanted there to still be a chance that they could get out alive ~ and towards that end, I began looking for a means to save them.

I should not have been doing that as a DM.  I had warned them, using several phrases that should have raised hackles.  I had introduced them to a mysterious old man who had somehow slipped through previous searches.  The party had chosen to stay in the village, which was an error on their part, and had blithely allowed me to choose their bedstead, when they should have demanded to have more knowledge of their situation.  I did not feel, however, that I had been completely up front with them.  And so I gave them warning of what was coming; the party heard sounds coming from the location of the four yellow patches on the map shown, and the monk, Sofia, went to investigate:

DM: Sofia finds herself at the corner of the lane out onto the street, only to be a little unnerved by the realization that she is about one hex from the guard that begins talking to someone just as she stops. In the starlight, she is likely near-invisible.

"This is the fourth time we've come back looking for this old bastard. I don't think he exists. Every time we surround the town with patrols and what? Nothing. Except that someone chances upon some beast and gets himself ripped apart or winds up running a sword through a compatriot. And now this night; the new moon was only three days ago. Gives me the creeps."

A voice answers, "How long are we here?"

"Til dawn at least. They want to go through the buildings one by one this time ~ the devil knows when that starts. We could miss breakfast."

Sofia thinks she can hear, very far off, the voices of others, perhaps two or three persons, perhaps two or three groups.

The stealth rules indicate that if you can get this close without being detected, you can retreat as well.

To clarify, I tried to make it clear that these were soldiers, that they were not looking for the party, that there had been four attempts to find the old man, making a veiled reference to a "beast" ~ which might have caused a player to connect the dots ~ that the soldiers were bored and that, I hoped the party would understand, probably four pushovers.

Upon rejoining the party, the monk retells the story:

Sofia: "Soldiers, looking for the old man we met today. They apparently have the village surrounded and are preparing to search it, hut by hut. They mentioned being attacked by beasts."

Letting that sink in.

"If we stay put, we will be found but may seem as innocent travelers. If we try to sneak away, we might escape but would appear less innocent if found out."

Letting it sink in further.

"I mistrust large groups of jumpy, armed men. I vote we sneak away now, while we have the darkness with us and they seem to be getting themselves into order."

Letting it sink in even further.

Look what's happening here.  First of all, the player is deliberately ramping the narrative.  It isn't "some beast" like I said, it's "beasts."  The four lazy, bored, grousing soldiers that were overheard were somehow transformed into "jumpy, armed men."  I was pretty confused by that.  Since when are D&D player characters afraid of "armed" men?

And why, when the whole party could read my description of the soldiers, did the monk feel the need to pace the retelling with this "letting it sink in" rhetoric?  Except to amp the tension.  Okay, that's fine with me.  I like lots of tension.  But in the middle of it, there is this strange wondering if the players might not walk out as innocents.  Huh?  The old man has clearly told them that, because of rebellions, a young, 14 year old girl was executed, the country was up in arms.  It was a war zone.  But again, even as they were getting the danger they were in, they were still looking for a way not to consider themselves in danger.

This is a really difficult situation to run.  I had expected the party to realize they were in trouble, mount up, knock down the four pushover soldiers and make a run for it.  Instead, I got ...

Sofia:"Do you think the old man could be a druid or a mage?"

Enrico: "Or a werewolf," young Enrico croaks, eyes wide in the darkness.

Kismet: "Or just a wily old fart that learned not to be stupid enough to sleep in town. If you think there's a way we can pack up and sneak out with our stuff without being spotted we should."

So the "beast" suggestion wasn't missed ~ there was enough there for the party to put it together.  And there was some understanding of the threat level ... with one player saying they ought to sneak away.  Which was fine ... except there was a massive disconnect here.

Though I had said courtyard several times, and described the route the monk had to go to spy on the soldiers, the party believed they were in a single house with lots of exits.  At the time of the conversation above, the party still had not seen a map of their situation.  Which was totally, absolutely, my fault.  And an error I had still not realized I was making.

But by then, we had discovered one of the party had a horse.  Whereupon I launched into a long description of the group of buildings and the courtyard ... which made no sense to the players ... which I didn't realize ... until the monk explained that she had failed to grasp that the only entrance was the one the guards occupied.

Now here is the point of this post.  The party was steadily getting themselves deeper and deeper into trouble, and I was certainly helping by not being a very good DM here.  What was needed was a serious retcon.  Instead, I tried to sort out the situation by giving more information: that the guards out front were not janissaries (effectively saying, please go kill them and run away) ... and this suggestion was seized upon by the party.  The fighter offered to mount his horse, charge out into the street and fight them head on.

Hell, I should have just let him do that.  It would have solved my problems and we would have gotten out of the situation.  Sort of.

Thing was, only one member of the party had a horse.  And it was night.  And Turkish streets are not made for charging horses.  They look like this:

Great place for a horse to break its leg, being ridden at night, with no moon (which was established) by a stranger who has never been in the place before.  And unfortunately, frustratingly, I felt the need to point this out.  Not to mention that a charging horse was going to bring the entire force of Turks down on the party's neck.

That led to hemming and hawing, more discussion of sneaking out, or fighting ... and no consensus.  Finally, we all admitted a map was needed and I made one (the one shown above in this post).

The party must have been very frustrated with me at this point.  I was frustrated with them.  They asked if they could put on their armor.  I consented to it.  I was trying to make amends.

But damn!  I should not have let them put on armor.  Why, oh why, is it that parties just cannot get it into their heads that armor is a huge pain in the neck and that sometimes, every once in a while, they really are going to have to fight without it.  Or leave it behind!  I don't know how many times I have had a party ask to have time stop so that they can put on their turtle shells.

With a search, how rational is it that the situation described above, four bored guards at the top of the courtyard, would still be the situation after taking five minutes to put on armor?  Or pick up gear?  Or generally get ready for a fight?  Why is there no clear comprehension of striking when the iron is hot?

Truth is, I should have stopped feeling, right there, that I was in the wrong.  I had created the context for them to be in extreme danger.  There were guards all around them. They knew it was a war zone.  Despite the disconnect with the geography, they were willing to accept my version once I presented a map.  Yet still they treated the situation casually, as players often do, when they don't happen to have their armor on.

So they talk about armor, and about one of them having their armor on, since they were on watch ~ which really is scraping the bottom of the barrel, but which I accepted at the time (still trying to appease the party) but which is actually quite ridiculous.  How are you supposed to be on watch when every move you make causes the noise of metal grinding on metal?  Armed guards only makes sense when there are a lot of them and they don't mind being found, because they're deliberately standing in the open.  Stealth guards don't wear armor.

And so, five minutes later, after getting packed up and the armor is put on ...

Sofia: ... indicates she will be sneaking down the alley leading to the courtyard, toward the soldiers and waves her companions forward to follow her. She uses stealth, this time equipped with weapons, and moves forward.

Enrico: Enrico is slow and in full armor so presumably he will be easy to hear... especially if leading the horse. How about Kismet and Enrico (with the horse) lead the way and Sofia trails behind? We will be heard and the intruders will come to investigate. Then Sofia can join the fight as a surprise.

Sofia: Or if we're going to do that, how about Sofia stands still and you guys start making a racket?

So as it dawns on the party that putting on armor makes them considerably less stealthy, and as they continue to believe the guards have been standing there since being viewed now ages ago, I'm wringing my hands as a DM because I believe I have created this situation and that it is all my fault.

And it isn't.  Yes, I have made errors.  I have mis-communicated things.  I blew making a clear, direct description of the geography.  And in ways I have dug myself in deeper by letting the situation continue rather than properly ret-conning the thing.

But whatever I have done, once the party decides that, instead of sneaking forward and killing four pushover guards quickly, then possibly making an escape, they should make a racket, I should have considered myself exonerated.  And they did make a racket:

Enrico: Enrico leaves the horse in the courtyard and advances to 0509. He bangs his flail +1 against his shield.

 I remember my jaw dropped.  After frittering away time discussing sneaking out, after long communications about using stealth; after the scene had been set and discussed ... I should have just gone ahead and killed everyone.  The moment was worthy of a Total Party Kill and I should have given it to them.

Instead, feeling guilt, I rescued them.  I had the wererat show up with an army of rats, giving the party a back door and then ultimately restoring the horse to the player.  Damn.  What was I thinking?  I was thinking that it was all my fault, and that I needed to make amends.

I wonder a lot of things about the scene.  Was Enrico deliberately trying to sabotage the situation and, effectively, the game?  Was he trying to create a TPK?  Was Sofia?  Or were they just tired of feeling like unfair situations were being created for them.  I was certainly setting up all sorts of side adventures like this, throughout the campaign.  On the whole, I've found my players liked this sort of thing: battles, a chance to earn experience, a chance to fight an enemy, get into something deeper, possibly find other rebels from the area and lead a charge against the local Turkish governor ... but not this particular party.  Perhaps I went to the well once too often for them.  I don't know.

I ended the campaign just a few months later, for good.  The participation was so lackluster, so distrustful, that I stopped feeling like I could set up situations at all.

Not all the DMing I've done has been good DMing.  I've made mistakes.  Often, the problem is not knowing where the mistakes are.  I've produced this account in the hopes that it will raise some questions in the reader, ring a few bells in the reader's own game situations (which may have produced similar irrational responses, or feelings of needing to appease a party for mistakes made) and act as an identifier that I don't know all the answers, that I'm still learning, like anyone else.