The Total Party Wipe

 16 April 2023 shall live in infamy as the day I murdered my party.  After four sessions spanning over two and a half months the party made their way into Quasqueton. I linked the printed material from B1 into the Forgotten Realms mostly because I know the pantheon and I had a few NPCs I wanted to use. I worked out a few introductory bad guy NPCs. I let the party chase threads that were satisfying to them. Honestly, I wondered if we would ever make our way into the printed source material. 

There in lies the problem. I wasn't thinking through scaling the dungeon encounters. With four players I needed to dial things down a bit. I failed to do that. We got a wipe on the first real combat encounter with a group of barbarians. 

For a moment I thought I could bail them out with an Obi-Wan like intervention. No one had created a rogue (a terrible sign going into a dungeon crawl) and I had answered this need by creating a pacifist, loot-loving halfling. She was a dungeon technician, and I handed her over with a sense of satisfaction. She was a hybrid of a character that a friend played with me in a Storm King's Thunder campaign and Rannie, the thief from Dragon's Crown. 

As I watched the party fall, pick members up, and fall again I really considered having the halfling start imitating the roar of a dragon using some quickly faked device that came from her backpack. I mean that and a couple of smoke bombs could easily send a group of barbarians retreating at least long enough for the surviving party members to stabilize the fallen and retreat. It really did cross my mind. I knew it would work because I am the DM. 

At this point there was still some small hope. 

Then a thought went through my brain. Just because the entire party falls unconscious and helpless doesn't necessarily mean that the enemies, who are thinking humans themselves, have to slit their throats and split their loot. Wouldn't it be interesting to have enemies show mercy? 

In our last session an enemy had done exactly that after the party fell into an obvious trap. One of the "bad" NPCs who had been tormenting the party relentlessly had the entire party naked and trussed up for slaughter and chose instead to tell his side of the story. Since the character in question was a devotee of Gruumsh with no love for human barbarians from the Spine of the World. I considered sending him and a few of his Orc followers rescue the party. That may or may not have happened after the party fell. We may never know... depending on what I decide to do. More on that in a minute. 

DMs love a chance to replay a scenario that works. Once upon a time I killed an entire party intentionally at the end of the first hour of our first session. I did this so the characters could adventure in the afterlife. With a little abyssal intervention in the form of a Balor who wore a leisure suit and talked like a game show host, I struck deals to have the players serve temporarily across various planes of existence in exchange for an opportunity to return to their mortal lives in full possession of the memories and experience gained on the other side. They made the deal eagerly, and like any good adventuring party (even one who didn't really understand what a Balor was) they set about to double cross the bad guy and come out on top. 

This scenario works better when characters have a bit of time invested. We had only earned two experience levels in four sessions which isn't a horrible rate of advancement. Still, everyone was enjoying the story. Because I was weaving a tale heavily tapping into the gods Tymora and Gruumsh, I was fairly certain some games in a purgatorial state would have added a good spice to our gaming stew. I might have envisioned an arena where the pantheon would look on while the party was put through challenges devised by the gods to determine their worthiness to return to the prime material plane.  

With all these thoughts circling through my head, I let the dice decide the player's fate. No one was outright dead. We took a break away from the table. I made apologies for the deadly encounter. DMs make mistakes too. Lesson learned on my part. Then I let the players make a choice about what happened next. We took a vote. I again let fate decide my part. The d2 voted the characters had survived in one way or another and that we should continue the campaign... in one way or another. Honestly, I knew my enthusiasm for all of the above ideas would have had me push them toward doing what I wanted to do. 

That is exactly what a good DM should not do. Pushing the group to do something that you enjoy will always create one-sided games. Players lose investment. I might have a few mechanics of fate type rescues to fix my mistake, but that doesn't mean the players aren't ready to reroll. Zach even tossed out the idea of continuing the game by being another party sent by their patron to check on the first group. This probably was a simple idea.  

The players all voted to let their characters die and reroll. We had about another hour and half of game time. I cleared away my DM kit. I grabbed my pocket notebook and my Steam Deck. I helped a little with the reroll, but mostly let them work out their own thing. I was asking a few questions about what they wanted to play. The second party mixture is worse than the first. 

Let me explain. 

You can play Dungeons and Dragons 5E with as few as two people. One person runs the game as the Dungeon Master. The other is a player. If a single player is present they will need a couple of followers. I believe there are three absolutely vital roles in the game. The most important of these is Cleric. You could potentially solo well as a beefy cleric if you roll well. Your followers are probably going to end up being a rogue (the aforementioned dungeon technician good for opening locks, finding traps, and getting into and out of places others cannot) and an arcane character preferably a Wizard (for doing important heavy party lifting with handy spells like Detect Magic.) A really talented cleric will just be frustrated with a tank that they have to keep healed. It is best to just add a few potions to the pack and wade in without an athletic tank unless of course you want a bipedal pack mule. 

It stands to reason then that up to three party members you want to make certain to have someone playing Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue. You can shake things up. Have your Cleric be from the streets and know their thieves cant and have proficiency with thieves tools. Take a Mystic Cleric, Arcane Trickster Rogue, and any of the meat shield classes (Monk, Paladin, or Fighter) 

Once you hit a fourth player you can begin to get fancy if you have the bases covered. Now you can create highly specialized characters... or at least one of them. You need your healer. Maybe now you can get away with a Druid (clerics who believe God is in the trees and rocks)  and a Paladin (Cleric who liked to dress up in armor more than actually pray)  to go next to your Wizard and Rogue. 

After four players parties are able to really diversify. That is where Sorcerers (wizards who know nothing because the spells are in their blood), Warlocks (the magic isn't even in the blood it is stolen from Something...likely Cthulhu), Rangers (racist fighters), Monks (Naked Fighter who learned karate and thinks armor and weapons are for wimps... some Bruce Lee imitations are mandatory) and Barbarians ( Naked Fighter who doesn't know karate, but knows crazy for one minute per battle...also yells a lot right before the cleric has to pick them up) get to see some game play. 

Then there are bards. This doesn't need a parenthetical explanation. It needs the full treatment. Bards are party members that want to be fantastically mediocre at every aspect of fighter, wizard, rogue, and cleric (only with a lute or flute.) No. Bardic inspiration doesn't make up for the fact you are the Swiss Army Knife of characters. Swiss Army Knives are great, but even the Monks unarmed strikes put out more damage than you. The occasional heal or detected trap doesn't cover up bards being the C student of the adventuring party. The only time to play one of these highly stylish, but ultimately too diluted characters are when you want to be the know-it-all sixth man of the group. We cannot all be Dandelion from the Witcher. You certainly cannot pull it off without Geralt!  Frankly, unless you are bringing your own strong poetry or musical game to the table, just don't. Spoony Bard!

Anyway, the new PCs rolled up didn't a real party make. I didn't kick up a fuss. I haven't formulated my next adventure idea. I have a couple of weeks to noodle on it. I know I need to dial down my story telling complexity just a bit. I also think I want to move away from a published storyline. With the next session on my birthday, I will make something fun happen.

I tell you though an unsatisfying Dungeons and Dragons game is the worst. It is more frustrating than not playing. Since our game only happens twice a month it leaves you feeling cheated out of your fun. I looked up from running the encounter and saw the sadness on the faces of my players and knew that we were not having a great session. That sucks from every seat. Maybe the twist of fate would have been a better outcome than rerolling. 

I have to think more on it. Right now I think I am going to roll up two characters a day this week before designing a new David's Death Trap Dungeon. The explanation on that may have to wait for another post. The thought has me pretty excited about playing again which is exactly how I like each D&D session to end.