We came this close to a total party kill in Dungeons & Dragons the other day, which means our whole group was nearly wiped out. And it really rattled me. I think it rattled the whole group. Even the Dungeon Master seemed shaken by it, which I didn't expect. And when he told us that in the 12 years he's been DMing, he's never had an entire group go that close to a total wipeout before, I began to understand why. He was convinced we were done for. I think we all were.
Honestly, I never realised a TPK, as the cool kids call it, was such a big deal. Or so rare. I mean, obviously I knew dying was a bad thing, because when is it not? But I'd never thought about what would happen if it did happen, if that makes sense - what would come next. And I'd never thought about it because I never thought it would happen to us, which probably sounds arrogant but I don't mean it that way. What I mean is I never thought it would happen to us because I always believed our DM would save us before it did - find some way to pull us back from the brink. Remember, the DM plays as all of the enemies in the game so really, it's up to them if they kill you. It's by their hand you will die. And that always made me feel safe - until the other day.
The other day, the safety net I imagined had vanished, and in its place was a very concerned-looking DM frantically cross-checking things we couldn't see. He didn't want to kill us, he was just playing the character in the way it was written, which I admire by the way. And I - we - were suddenly facing the very real possibility of losing many weeks of progress in the Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign, and the characters we'd created for it. My stomach lurched.