What do you do when there's a near-TPK?

[Saeviomagy]

This is basically up to the survivors and the players of the dead characters.
Maybe the survivors will try to rescue their compatriots without getting reinforcements (in which case the players of the dead characters get to play the monsters trying to stop them).

Maybe the survivors will return to town for reinforcements (in which case it's "roll new characters time") and then:

a) Retrieve and resurrect the fallen (in which case the player can choose to continue on with the new or old character)

b) Go somewhere else, in which case there's probably no option to continue on. This is pretty rare unless they were totally outclassed: most people can't resist the temptation of their old character's loot, even if they don't want to resurrect the character.

Maybe the survivors will decide they're going to abandon the whole thing and sod off for totally different adventures... in which case as DM I'll either run whatever they decide to do (if I'm interested and feel like it) or write those characters out and have them reroll for what I'm intending to run along with all the other PCs.

 

[Jhaelen]

This is something I've been wondering about. Eg would it be legitimate for the DM to call it on the campaign, even though 1-2 PCs survived the lost battle?

Well, as I said, it's mostly up to the players. If I as the DM feel it would be better to call it on the campaign, I'd discuss it with the players and give them my reasoning. If they'd still prefer to continue, I'd probably be fine with it _unless_ it really couldn't work with a new party because of some information that isn't available to the players.

I have a different anecdote regarding TPKs: My 3e campaign basically started with a TPK, which isn't that unsual for me (my 2e Darksun campaign also started with a TPK, although it happened in the second session). A TPK that happens so early in a campaign isn't a problem, imho.
In the 3e campaign I turned it into an opportunity to give the players some meta-knowledge:
The villain that had been responsible for killing the first party was the employer for the second party... that turned out to be great fun and my players really enjoyed getting the chance for a 'revenge' when they 'discovered' his evil allegiance

It was also a good lesson in separating player knowledge from character knowledge.

 

[S'mon]

I have a different anecdote regarding TPKs: My 3e campaign basically started with a TPK, which isn't that unsual for me (my 2e Darksun campaign also started with a TPK, although it happened in the second session). A TPK that happens so early in a campaign isn't a problem, imho.

I agree, my FR Loudwater campaign started with a first session TPK and the players seemed to really enjoy it! OTOH they might not have been so happy if they'd TPK'd again on the 2nd or 3rd session; and the 3rd was pretty close.