Am I a Bloodthirsty Director?

On Saturday I directed my first ever T.P.K. in a game (for non-gamers, that stands for Total Party Kill, a session in which every single player's character gets killed). It's one of those things that makes you take stock of yourself as a director and ask some hard questions: (1) did I put the PCs in a no-win situation? (2) did I role-play the NPCs realistically? (3) did I handle the combat fairly & correctly? and, in a larger sense, (4) am I just a bloodthirsty director? The T.P.K. is odd, in that I feel bad about it, but at the same time I thought it was a great session and I don't think I would do anything differently. This is, of course, rationalizing after the fact--but hopefully some searching introspection will help mitigate the guilt ;)

For question # 1, my best answer is: maybe. The PCs learn that their employer, whom they seem to like, and an NPC companion, have been kidnapped by a trio of hill-billies who have been terrorizing the small village of Dunwich. The locals are terrified of the Potter Boys and aren't willing to lift a finger to stop them, so the PCs are left in the unenviable position of letting their acquaintances die or trying to mount a rescue. Now, the PCs know where the Potter farmhouse is, so they have some options: break in, guns blazing; try to lure the Potters out one by one and assassinate them (or some variant); bargain & ransom their missing companions free; do something really dramatic, like set the house on fire or crash a vehicle through it; or just decide the cause is hopeless and prepare to get out of Dodge while the getting is good. For most games, pitting three or four PCs against three NPCs doesn't seem unreasonable, but in Call of Cthulhu any combat is deadly, as a single gunshot wound is enough to kill or incapacitate most characters. I full expected that if the PCs went in commando style (which they did), one or two of them would die. But on the other hand, the encounter served as the capstone to the second story arc of the campaign (the 8th session) and there'd been very little combat up to that point, so it seemed like the right time to escalate the danger and excitement of the game.

For questions # 2 and # 3, I feel good. The Potter Boys are cannibal serial killers, and they have no mercy. Dice-wise, I rolled in front of everyone, and luck was simply with the bad guys. The PCs were clever enough to get the drop on them a couple of times, but their shots missed, and a little bad luck can be very lethal in CoC. To be fair, characters in CoC aren't action heroes--they're "regular people" caught up in dangerous events, so it's certainly not the players fault that a brothel madam, a circus dwarf, a doctor, and a hobo found themselves outgunned. Even the best min-maxers would find it impossible to make really tough characters, especially given 3d6 straight-down-the-line ability scores and the need to allocate skill points in a fashion that fits the character concept.

As for the fourth question, I can readily admit that I want combat to be risky--I want it to be exciting and seem dangerous, and one of the reasons I wanted to run CoC is my memory of playing in a CoC campaign and feeling vulnerable, paranoid, and exhilarated because I knew the only thing between my character and a quick, grisly death were my wits and his pitiful snub nose revolver. It was nerve-wracking and thrilling, and that's the experience I'm trying to convey.

I suppose another way to approach answering the question of whether or not I'm simply a bloodthirsty director is to look at the casualty rates in past campaigns. Here are the major campaigns I've directed & PC deaths:

The Night Below Campaign: This is hard to tally, because death in D&D is different, since PCs (at least when they get to mid-level) have access to resurrection magic. Of the three players who played through from the beginning to the end, one had to create a new character due to PC death.

Buffy/Angel (24 sessions + one-shots): No PC deaths.

Clone Wars (53 sessions): Four PC deaths (I think--Krevlax, Array, Bel Sekand, & arguably 8P-MD-4, who was involuntarily trapped in the Anomaly)

Cthulhu (8 sessions): Five PC deaths (4 on Saturday)

Having a T.P.K. also, of course, creates some interesting challenges for the campaign. I plan to continue with new characters on the theory that the story continues even if particular participants enter at a later chapter. I think I have some good ideas for the rest of the campaign, but we'll have to wait and see whether they work out--and, most importantly, whether my players want to continue!