An Explanation Regarding Recent Posts & TPK!

As some of the more astute of the readers out there have surmised, I've been on the receiving end of considerable acrimony from the players in my Encounter Critical game. First the "Cthulhu Door" incident (it was a gate to Cthulhu's tomb in R'yleh!); than a bunch of new players attempt to roll Darth Viraxis in his citadel for his tie-fighter,phasic sword, and immense riches; and finally the third TPK in a row..due to killer flowers!

And I'm completely full of shit. The "Cthulhu Door" and "Darth Vader's Castle" were purely rhetorical, inspired by James LOTFP's post Here, just me picking the brains of other DM's. The Cthulhu door was based on a catchphrase I use in sandbox/dungeon/adventure design "If a door has a picture of Cthulhu on it and Cthulhu is behind it the players were warned and have nothing to complain about" (...and even an encounter with Cthulhu cultists could go pretty damn deep south!). Basically, if something in a Lovecraft/Clark Ashton Smith/Fritz Lieber/Jack Vance/Metal Hurlant/or any of the other "crucially important influences to the campaign" stories is lethal, anything similar in my own campaign bears the potential of lethality.

After reading the discussion that followed, and the discussion regarding James' post, the Darth Vader castle question was picking other DM's brains regarding the subject of "would you let the players slit their own characters' throats," but phrased in other words.

Now I'm not judging other DMs, every group has their own playstyle, and my campaign is explicitly oldschool Gygaxian deathtrap in nature (ameliorated by the presence of advanced power armor, disintegrators, resurrection technology, etc).

[PLAYERS IN MY GAME WHO DIDN'T PLAY IN LAST SUNDAY'S SESSION STOP READING NOW!]

Last game the party of 4 PCs..two beginners and two veterans, were exploring an ancient ruin seeking a hoard of TREASURE! While camping below the ruins for a couple of nights (recovering hp lost to random encounters while seeking the ruins) I described an intense, powerful, sickly floral odor drifting down from the ruins during the night. While exploring the ruins during the day they observed that these ruins were covered with vines bearing massive (watermelon/head sized) closed  blossoms. The party were wary of these blossoms, fearing a Little Shop of Horrors style scene, and steered well clear of them.

They searched the ruins for TREASURE!, eventually encountering two algoids, one of which enraged one of the party with it's mind blast. The enraged PC dropped the 1st-level Sorcerer in the party to negative hit points in the debacle that followed. After the enraged PC recovered from his psychically induced berserkerang, the party decided to camp in the ruins so as to allow the Sorcerer to rest and regain consciousness.

The party found a nice defensible campsite in one of the ruins with excellent sightlines and settled in. Once the suns set I described the floral scent returning, overpowering, making them dizzy, making them gasp. One round of poison saves later and two PCs were on the ground, their lips and tongues swollen, blackened and protruding. The two remaining PCs valiantly pick up their fallen comrades and when they exit their campsite ruin they see that the huge blossoms have opened revealing pulsating fleshy blossoms with writhing pistils, the overpowering sickly smell almost visible as it flows from the unwholesome flowers.

The two PCs, burdened with the bodies of their companions, make a mad, encumbered dash ...deeper into the ruins. Two rounds of poison saves later (the second after the now lone survivor realizes the folly of fleeing deeper into the blossom infested ruins and attempts a proper exit) and it's now officially a TPK.

And when we wound up the night and packed up our cheetos and dice the players thanked me for "Another great session!"

I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that their enthusiasm was sincere...they've always been great sports about catastrophic misfortunes in the campaign (I love these guys!), and hopefully the new player who lost two PCs in the night's adventures will be back for the next session! And fortunately for the party, only two of the deaths were of established, "leveled" characters...there's a bunch more like them!

I don't know if this helps when PCs die, but following the advice of a blog (the name escapes me) I aim to make PC failure/death spectacular. I don't pussyfoot about PC death; I don't wince and apologize; I describe the death situation in glorious, ironic, sardonic detail. I don't revel in it, I don't enjoy killing PCs, but D&D is supposed to be Fun! (without kowtowing to "The Tyranny of Fun") and therefore I try to make PC death Fun! & Spectacular in a Clark Ashton Smith/Metal Hurlant/Weird Tales/Harlan Ellison story/Creepy(Eerie?) Comics fashion. No remorse/No regrets, and the players are usually already rolling 3d6 straight down the line seconds after the demise of their PC...

"If You Really Consider Your Character Very Valuable..."

"...if you really consider your character very valuable and worthy of the emotional investment you placed upon him, then it is your duty to play excellently, whereby ensuring that a single die roll does not result in the death of the character; that the fate of your character does not purely rely upon the scales of fortune or the outcome of a single die roll...."

- Spielmaster/Under A Blood Red Sky

Additional Commentary Regarding "Total Freaking Bloodbath"

Although it was a completely unplanned piece of random sandbox happenstance, the (American) Thanksgiving Weekend Planet Algol Campaign Session saw implications that the carcasses of dead player characters were being feasted upon by avians...

Today's Session: Total Freaking Bloodbath

Hobab the NPC Scapegoat/Guide Lhoyg Man - Clawed to death by albino bird-men.

Kal-Mor the White Jackal, Hyperborean Assassin - Retreated in the darkness of a cave to escape the vat-men, was torn apart in the pitch black by albino bird-men.

Kalervo the Cactoid - Had his head split by the magic axe of a vat-man, was resurrected by the Eye of Restoring Life.

Monster Monagin Earth Man Fightin' Sailor - slain by a vat-man.

Corporal Radar O'Reiley Earth Man Rocket Soldier - cut down by vat-men, bled to death.

Buzz Brazelhach Australian Adventurer and Captain of the Party - Hewn down by vat-men after having his hair burned off by a stray laser blast.

Vrroomish the NPC Dandy Adventurer Tikalg Man - Run through by a vat-man before another stove in his head with a magic axe while making a gallant last stand so the party could escape.

The remaining party members are now hunkered down in the safety of Jakay, looking for more muscle and plotting the recovery of their dead companions remains, wealth and magic items from tunnels dug into a cliff of pastel chalk in the Bornite Mountains...