Players beyond fucked, Advice?

i could use some help on what to do in my next session.

The players defeated a powerful encounter and have most most of their resources left, however after the fight they decided to stand around and bicker for a half hour, during this half hour i kept periodically warning them that a large group of enemies was closing in, they still didnt respond.

Now the enemy walked in the door and the players are surrounded. these enemies the players have lost to once before and that loss included two of the party members, now the enemy is stronger and the players are weaker.

Should i waken the enemy? have a bunch of allies come in to save the day? make an easy get away path even though they're surrounded?

Normally i would be all for letting them suffer the consequences of their actions, but this is a TPK it looks like, and I'm more interested in the year and a half long campaign than karma.

Players need to face the consequences of their decisions. If they are clever enough, they might surprise you and escape.

Even though they're surrounded they had to have left SOME Avenue of escape.

I don't know OP. It sounds like they led themselves to the slaughter this time and need a railroad to save them.

If your group can handle a TPK I'd give it to them. Teamwork is necessarry to succeed in my games.

There are now too many people in the room, and after a round of rousing combat, or as the two sides dramatically rush each other, the floor supports collapse. Catastrophically. Now everyone is down in the ruined and collapsed cellars, the party perhaps in the very lowest levels with the enemies scattered above or trapped and seperated but still a lethal force.
Make sure there is an obvious escape route through the old drainage networks. Maybe spend the first round of combat driving home the point that the enemy is now stronger than the last time they met, when things didn't go well. Maybe run a straight fight, except that if one of the pcs is about to go down the force of that final blow is what breaks the ground supports?

Alternatively a cave in or flash flood would do the trick. A random hullabaloo that mixes up the fight and changes it from "lolol I surround u while u fight," to something more interesting to run away from/fight.

Fuck 'em, kill the motherfuckers

Let them die an ignominious death by minions, like the inattentive little cunts that they are. Have the minions do their thing and wreck the PCs. They can certainly try to escape or win, but that's their problem, not yours.

Also
>i kept periodically warning them that a large group of enemies was closing in, they still didnt respond.
That's because they don't take you seriously. You probably looked OOC like you were going to have the monsters wait for the PCs to finish their argument.

Does the wizzard have any illusion spells or anything that might help or is he just a broomstick?

the wizard is full of offense spells and heal spells, but no utility spells, one of the two party member claimed was the utility mage who had all the buffs and such. and the other was the tank (only dedicated fighter in the party)

I'm inclined to go with this user. If they were really in such a dire situation they should not have stopped and had such a long chat. Give them a route to escape if they look for it but don't offer it up easily. If it's a TPK, then you can switch the adventure over to an epic escape from the realm of death.

What kind of enemies are those? Mindless zombies, aberrations, monsters? Or are they more intelligent beings? Would it make sense for the PCs to get simply caught?
What are each side's spellcasting abilities (or other trickeries)?

Here's a blind suggestion:
Have the enemies approach with a hail of arrows, spells or whatever ranged attacks they have, and let it be punishing enough for the players to understand shit is getting serious. Hopefully they'll attempt to flee at this point.
If they don't flee, proceed with the fight without restraints, but when a PC is downed refrain from saying "You're dead" even if they *should* be. Once they have had their asses served to them, you may have them come back to their senses in a cage and ... here starts the evasion arc of your campaign. Have them lose something important permanently in the fight and maybe let one or two of the 'deaths' be actual deaths, so they'll know they can't take for granted that you'll always deus ex their asses safe.
If they try to run, have a chasing scene and see if they manage to get away through luck, wits or whatever else. Maybe someone will be caught, and those who escape will have to rescue them in the next campaign arc - aided by some recruited NPCs played by the 'caught' players, so they don't have to just roll their thumbs for hours.

I'm backing this.

>switch the adventure over to an epic escape from the realm of death.

I think we have a winner here.

A wizard with no utility is pointless... you might as well make a sorcerer and even then its good to have a few tricks up the sleeve.

It's probably a stupid idea, but maybe have the two groups fight for a bit before something big and nasty comes in. I don't know what your party killed, but lets say they killed a ten headed hydra. The party (and the bad guys) don't know that the recently deceased hydra had a mate, and said mate is angry as fuck because it see's it's mate dead. Cue everyone running and screaming.

This guy has it right.

The group I'm playing with right now just ran into an encounter that was *way* beyond our means last session, and I made it very plain that I used my monk speed to get the fuck out of the encounter area and stay the fuck out. They made snide remarks about cowardice and such, but after three of them had inhaled poison that was dealing continuous constitution damage on top of them having roughly 10 hit points each, I ran back in, snatched the closest person and ran back out so at least *one* other player could survive.

We ended up making it out okay, but the DM made it abundantly clear that the creatures we were fighting had damage reduction to basically everything we had available, and after the first round when simply touching them caused damage to people, it was pretty obvious that they should have stopped, but they didn't. They had to spend three days worth of rest and healing spells to get back in fighting condition, which cost us a quest that we were trying to complete.

If your players aren't listening to you when you tell them that they need to take things seriously, *make them* take it seriously. If I was in your shoes, I'd roll randomly to pick one party member and kill them irrevocably just to drive the point home. If you don't listen when the DM tells you something is coming and you need to run, you're gonna get fucking dead.

I like the decisions have consequences model. I use it to keep combat moving along, when your turn comes up you either have an action ready or you are overwhelmed by the battle and delay... if you don't beat the narrative to the punch, i.e. you stand around bickering while the horde is surrounding you... chalk it up to lesson learned for next time.

Remember that all games come to an end eventually. It might be better to go out with a bang than for the game to falter because someone's schedule changes or some shit. And there's always the next campaign.

>Hubris gets them killed
>Story of redemption without need of backstory as the players got themselves there already

10/10 would read summary of campaign when done.

Unexpected loveable NPC is at the helm
of the evil horde and the players must either slay him to stop the onslaught, or work together to save loveable NPC from a cruel fate such as being controlled by evil. Or they can just die for being lollygaggers.

I think a TPK is justifiable like others have said. However another alternative is that the party could be taken prisoner, but hell execute one of the party members anyways as punishment for defeating that last encounter

Fuck that, I love rolling evokers.

Frame it into an immediate escape scenario. You're fucking up if you can't design some sort of avenue for your players to retreat through. Or, if they pull one on you and come up with one of their own escape routes, cheerfully humor it.

bump

Fuck them up and capture them, they're more valuable alive to someone than dead.
Prison escape time.

This. TPK is boring and fucks over any plot you may have going. Retreat is perfectly acceptable.

ITT shit GMs and shit players advocate pandering to other shit players by making it impossible for PCs to die because of a string of poor decisions.

This is the ass cancer that is killing Veeky Forums, and part of the reason why so many players are entitled little shits.


>inb4 hurr ur players will quit XD

I'd rather have no game than a shit game, and personally I'd leave a game where it was clear the GM wouldn't let PCs die.

>inb4 hurr le fun comes first XD

There's no fun in a game with no real challenge because the GM will always have an escape pod fired up and waiting for you.

guys i found the faggot who keeps getting kicked from groups

hey tumblr the reason TPK's are bad all around is nobody like when a story is cut prematurely, especially when you've been developing it for well over a year

>Blaming GM for everything
>Never been a GM

You probably think every GM you played with is utter shit. Ungrateful shit, fuck off you reject

This, only less accusatory and mean-spirited.