TPK: When is it appropriate?

>>48301938
>I've been fudging rolls

Cheater.

Roll the dice in the open, so the players can see the consequences of their decisions.

TPKs are appropriate when they happen.

>>48302030
this

>>48302030
This honestly, if they die when they aren't checking for traps it's their fault

>>48301938
Plan ahead.
Not every enemy wants to kill them.
Maybe someone has more to gain if they enslave the players and get them to do something.
Maybe some monsters will put them aside for a later meal (spiders, for instance).

So here's what I suggest: the next time, don't fudge rolls. Let them be defeated, but be knocked unconscious instead of dead. Then, put them through something unpleasant and scary. That will teach them caution, hopefully.

>>48302064
Addendum: I suggest this because it sounds like your group is having fun, and nothing kills the buzz like a TPK because the GM thinks the players are having badwrongfun.
I think my suggestion is a good middle ground to teach them the game.

Another way to have them check for traps a bit more is to actually put clues that there are traps.
Maybe they're not the first ones to explore that tomb and a previous adventurer is now a skeleton at the bottom of a spike pit.
If they fail to search for trap doors after that... then yeah, go ahead and kill them.

bamp

>>48301938
What >>48302030 said, but also keep in mind they are probably expecting a scaling world, and will be murderhobos. Scaling world meaning it's like a video game in that every encounter is winnable (unless the dice aren't with them at all), as opposed to an organic world which has unwinnable battles for example. If you want roleplaying and to not tailor every encounter to them so they can beat it, maybe find a different group. Keep in mind though, even a scaling world has impossible encounters depending on context, where to make it doable you need to recruit NPCs, disable traps, spy for intel etc. If they just rush in, even in a scaling world, they could easily die. But if they don't want to be challenged on a tactical level or anything, and they do just want to murderhobo, they're not going to like a TPK at all.

Depends on the style and tone of the campaign.

There is no one true way to play an RPG, despite what people like >>48302030 might think.

Do what works for you and your group. Are you up for an old school hardcore experience? Then roll openly and TPK freely.

There's a broad gradient from there, and I likely fall on the far opposite end. For me, RPG's are about the story of the characters, and death is often an unsatisfying end if it comes out of nowhere. Personally I'd view a TPK as a failure on my part. This doesn't mean PC's never fail or suffer, but in the groups I play with, the PC's have things they value just as much or sometimes more than their lives, and complications related to those can be just as effective and far more interesting than killing a character.

But again, there is no right way. Work with your group to figure out where on the scale they lie and run in the way you all most enjoy.

>>48301938
You don't need to TPK, just kill like 2 of them. And have one of their ghosts haunting them whenever they don't check for traps.

>>48302064
>Let them be defeated, but be knocked unconscious instead of dead. Then, put them through something unpleasant and scary. That will teach them caution, hopefully.

Or they'll come on to /tg/ and complain about the time their DM knocked the party unconscious, they were taken prisoner, etc. etc.

So here's the sad truth, OP. Being a DM is a balancing act. You're going to have to manage the expectations of the players; if they're kicking down the door rather than looking for traps, if they're brazenly running into fights, then you're going to have to come to terms with that being their preferred play-style right now. You might want to run a game where caution and planning reign supreme, but if your group isn't on board with that, it's not going to work - not because there's something wrong with caution and planning and careful tactical engagements, but because that's clearly not what your players are looking for.

Communication is key. If you didn't really set out what you wanted from the game as the person running it, or what you expected the players to do, or find out what the players were wanting to do, then this sort of situation is going to occur. So just talk to them, say that you're wanting a game that's a little more tactical / careful / whatever, find out what they want to do, and come to some sort of compromise. Killing off the party because none of you agreed on the style of game beforehand isn't going to solve the problem.

>>48302030

This.

Is it possible to implement "cartoon physics" in this particular game? Allow even fatal events to just incapacitate them, but for a prolonged time, then allow the party to regroup. It still makes things challenging through depleted numbers during heavy mistakes, but there is no game over.

Since the players have gone full Jackass, give it to them. It would help in keeping your GMing frustrations at bay.

>>48305370

Absolutely, if that's the intended tone of your game.

>>48304844

This guy knows what he's talking about.
GMing is not a matter of teaching people how to play, it's a matter of providing entertainment. You can't force events, you can't force morals, hell, you can't force anything to be quite honest.

A campaign works when everyone is having fun. If the GM is having fun but the players aren't, it's not working.
If the players are having fun but the GM isn't, well, it's not working either.

It doesn't mean you need to let them win, but that you need to understand when you're being fair and when you're objectively being an asshole.