this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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I once (as the DM) caused a TPK with fireball.
A cultist mage was about to die. He knew fireball. The whole party was around him.
The reasonable thing to do was a con check to see if he had the mental fortitude to follow through, then kill himself for the cause. So he mustered his strength and fireballed himself.
People were mad
To be fair, if the party can’t handle the heat they should get out of the kitchen.
Assuming this is either dnd or pathfinder, if by the time a rando cultist can cast fireball, 6-30 (and half of a save) damage kills your whole party you really shouldn’t be in meele :D
If you TPK your party, that's on you. DnD is supposed to be fun. You know what isn't fun? Getting TPK'ed in a random encounter that isn't a boss fight at the end of the campaign.
Well, you do you.
I talked about that with my players in session 0 and they would rather have consequences and a challenge instead.
So far we had 2 PC deaths in 3 years of pathfinder 1e but many close calls. If I were to TPK them fair and square (either because of unfortunate crits on my part or them getting cocky or just plain old messing up) I would do so. I have 0 interest in pulling some “37 red dragons appear, roll for initiative” bullshit but when, like last session, they choose(!) not to heal between encounters and then continue exploring heads might roll.
I don’t intend to TPK them but if it happened we would have a conversation about how to continue, probably either with a new party or an epilogue.
No, your just a bad DM.
Alright, sure buddy. I’ll tell my players that they aren’t actually having fun.