So does it count as a TPK if one little squirrely mofo ran away from the fight while everyone else died?

Nope. Try harder as a DM.

~SE++

Killed more PCs than you!!

Now step into my bar.

I swear, I'm gonna petition miss_bun for that CT....

~SE++

Im raising the bar son... all you do is drop it!!

Gonna be out most of today as well, sorry I've been rather absent the past few days. In all fairness, today is my wife and my anniversary, so I think I have an excuse for today.

~SE++

So the automated lady on the Comcast line that calls you to confirm appointments and such... sounds just like the Hyperion robot from the New-U stations and such in Borderlands.

Hey, what about determining a substitute player to move your character if you cannot move it on time? It sounds a good idea to keep things moving.

Are you talking about me in particular, or for everyone in general ?

Probably not a good idea. People tend to get attached to their characters, and allowing others to toy with them goes against most people's ideals.

~SE++

Haha. The DM's in both my games seem logical enough that they can handle my character for a turn or two.... but I'm not so sure about handing the reigns off to some of the crazy players around here.

Hell half the group in Iron Skies is suicidal.

Asmo was only going to go for it if he could try for a kill on the dragon. But I don't get how an exploding bag of goo only functions for 1 to 2 turns, so that was a no go. The more I explore 4E, the less logical it seems.

~SE++

My exact thoughts while figuring out the rules on the crazy charge moves my barbarian player was trying to pull today.

I think it is a good idea. Especially when you need to be absent for sometime (and who will not be absent sometime). Of course no RPing (unless permitted and necessary), only in temporary status and with proper authorization.

How do players feel about media res? Like, starting an adventure in the middle of an encounter, with the background information and initial role playing and blah blah blah bypassed? You think that would give more enjoyable immediacy to the PbP games, or would it not be worth it given the RP in setup?

Well, Keep on the Shadowfell starts the group out on the road and gives them a group backstory and before too long throws them into an encounter. I've ran the game twice now and both times the group was in combat in the first 30 posts.

It has its pros and cons, people are excited to fight and to use their abilities, but it does slow the game down a ton. If you have that one player who pushes the time limit on their turn it can burn out the other players desire to be super active if the game is slogging.

Hm. I think I'm going to try it, almost like a novel, where you're in the action and you don't find out until later what brought you there. Nothing says this has to be a linear narrative!

I would consider it as well if I ran a game, I've never been super fond of the stereotypical tavern scene opening. I just dont think I have the time these days to DM and I'm almost glad KotS fizzled out. I just wish I hadn't died without even making it to the keep.

I'm running Tomb of Horrors, which will put all you wannabe TPK DMs to shame. I'll TPK my party, raise them, TPK them again, and then swallow their souls so they can't raise. Then I'll turn their soulless corpses into ghouls and have the ghouls chew the faces off their new characters resulting in another TPK.

All this is assuming they even make it to the Tomb in the first place. Which they might not. XD

I kill parties in adventure modules for level 1s aimed at going easy on people learning the game. I don't need all you guys' fancy schmancy sandbox worlds with exploding bars, and dungeons known to be the deadliest in the game.