They may not have. DMs are imperfect, too, and it may not have been communicated. There’s also the problem where D&D is a game and people will have certain expectations. I’ve got our DM to now include the occasional meta note when it comes to changes in how the world works mechanically so we don’t fuck everything up based on previously set precedent.

If the DM had never shown them suicide bombing NPCs and this was just a mage who happened to have fireball(i.e.: not a fire mage) and then went straight to a no-warning TPK then buddy can get fucked. If that setup was in place, then it’s party’s fault. We don’t know this from their comment.

It’s not fudging, it’s setting expectations and following through so everyone can have a fun time. If you act one way for months and then suddenly start blaming them for a TPK because “the system doesn’t have a mechanic for interrupting spellcasters” then you’re just a massive piece of garbage and should write a book because being a DM just ain’t it. People get very invested in their characters and ending it all over that is such a fucking awful thing to do. Frankly, the entire idea that it’s fun to be an evil DM needs to die because too many mouth-breathers forget that being a DM comes with certain responsibilities.

Anyway, we know that a DM or a system or whatever has not planned for every single possible event and cannot just immediately drum up highly complex interactions with the world in ways where every single person can be guaranteed to have understood precisely the same thing from a spoken description. We can’t all pick up on the fact that this dude’s a fire-bug from the fact that he cast a few standard-issue firebolts, and the mage blowing himself up over this is pretty fucking extreme behaviour.

“Play a different system” go fuck yourself, actually.

Sure, and why I put it in quotes. Maybe it’s because I’m in a bad mood, but can I write just one comment on an imagination-driven-TTRPG thread just once and not have to spell out every single detail so precisely?