Is the death of players characters a final end to the story?
It has been on my thoughts for a long time. From one perspective it is logical. People die, their story ends and some other story starts, the cycle continues.
But, does it really make the game more interesting. What if the players could go back several steps and come up with a better solution.
What are your views on permiting re-tries?
What would be the pros and the cons of such home rules?
In the best campaign I've ever been a part of - which was a weekly game in 1998-99 back in 2E days - we had something like that happen, but probably not quite the same as what you thought.
We were dealing with a long-term prophecy in the campaign and were in the midst of a climactic showdown maybe halfway through the campaign. My ranger, and a few other PCs, in a party of 10 PCs were dropped by this evil fey creature in a ruined forest temple. It was ugly. A very creative player (student at Yale going for his Master's there - so he had smarts) scribbled some remarks down on a paper & handed it over to the DM on his turn. He was playing an elven cleric/mage, and he had invoked the prophecy in an attempt to save the party... the DM said something like, "Well, that wasn't what I had in mind for the Miracle of the Weeping Trees, but I like the idea so much, I'll allow it!" And, it was basically the cleric/mage invoking his deity for divine intervention (A miracle in the forest, the trees were weeping because my ranger, a friend of the forest, was dead) and we turned back the clock a few rounds in game. The "save" ended up winning the battle for us because we rolled better the second time around (my ranger was famous for rolling poorly, so any hits were like a bonus...)
While I may not have written it out all that well, it played out great at the table at the time. It was one of many memorable showdowns from that campaign.
The end of that same campaign ended up with a TPK minus 1 - all of the party sacrificed themselves so one PC could do her job and prevent the Apocalypse. (the 9 PCs engaged a Pit Fiend, which really over-matched a level 8/9 party in 2E)
But, I also think it depends on how the TPK goes as well. If it's a real blowout, the party might not relish the idea of coming back. And, if it at the end of a grueling set of encounters in a long campaign, the players might be too spent emotionally to want to return from a TPK. Or, they might feel it cheapens things if they come back.
