As DM, ever TRIED a T.P.K. -- and FAILED?

[jgsugden]

Sort of.

I had an adventure where the PCs were hired by an NPC to accompany him while he destroyed an artifact of evil. The PCs traveled with the NPC, but before they could destroy it, the artifact was activated by a demon lord and brought about Armageddon. All the demonic planes merged with the PMP causing a literal hell on Earth. Suddenly, the PCs were surrounded by demons, devils and all sorts of nasty creatures.

The idea was for the NPC to then use the power of the artifact to reverse time for the PCs so that they'd know what the demon lord was planning and would be able to stop it. They were supposed to be killed by the demons and devils around them before they saw how the NPC used the artifact (so that they would not know how they survived, why the world was back to normal until they figured out that they had been reversed through time and would not know how to use the artifact's time powers).

Unfortuantely, the party wizard was well prepared for demons and devils. He managed to get to the NPC and protect him while the rest of the party fought and died. In the end, I had to go ahead and have the NPC use the time power in the presence of the PC which ruined all the mystery.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Sort of; while playing the adventure down in my signature, the party was ambushed by demons and mercenaries while stepping through a portal. It was really hopeless, but the wizard's familiar managed to fly away carrying his spellbook. That turned out very useful later, in helping them escape!

Well, while I'm in the role of "annoying person who points out flaws in plans that have already worked," I'll casually mention a Monty Python quote: "It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut!"

Ok, shutting up now...

 

[Pants]

But what if it's a MAGIC bird?

 

[Zappo]

Well, while I'm in the role of "annoying person who points out flaws in plans that have already worked," I'll casually mention a Monty Python quote: "It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut!"

Ok, shutting up now...

The familiar is an Imp, smart guy.
It could carry a backpack full of books if need be. In fact, if I were the player, I would have given it the components pouch as well.

 

[Dragonblade]

I have never had a TPK as a DM. But had a similar experience as a player.

The party was exploring a Lich's dungeon and we were all torn up by fighting through his minions. Desperately looking for a place to rest and heal the party enters a corridor with two rooms. The party opens one of the doors and finds themself face to face with the Lich himself!

The party was pretty much all neutral or evil. One of the party Rogues runs away to the other door, goes inside and locks it, locking everyone out to face the Lich!

Half the party stood their ground and fought a hopeless fight. The other half started banging on the door for the Rogue to let them in. He refused and then to make things worse, dribbled contact poison through the lock! Killing another Rogue when she tried to pick the lock and failed her save!

The first Rogue fled and escaped. The rest of the party died to the last man fighting the Lich.

However, my character was an evil mage with an Imp familiar. And the DM ruled that familiars like Imps grant their masters some of their special abilities like Regeneration. I believe this was actually the rule in 2nd Edition but I can't remember. Since the source of the regeneration was not me, and since the Imp escaped the Lich. The DM ruled that my character regenerated back to life after some time passed. All of this was done with note-passing so no one knew I had an Imp familiar or actually survived that encounter.

Later, in that same night, while everyone else was busy rolling up new characters, the DM was doing one on one's with the Rogue's player since he survived.

He was sitting in a bar, drinking his ale, and counting all the coinage he had secretly pilfered from the rest of the party. Suddenly my mage bursts into bar and confronts him! The DM ruled that regeneration didn't totally heal all the fire damage I took from the Lich's spells so there I was in tattered robes, my body covered with blood and charred flesh, eyes wild with rage and the Imp cackling madly in my ear, "There he is! Kill the traitor, master!"

All of my character's activity was done with notes in secret. You should have seen the look the Rogue player's face! Oh, it was classic.

He tried to go for the exit, but I won initiative and just fireballed the whole taproom! He failed his save and the rest is history. One of my favorite game memories of all time.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I was running a mixed group of players (newbies to old farts) in a campaign based on Timothy Zahn's book Blackcollar.

Oooooh... that's my absolute favouritestest book.

Damn you, Zahn! Write book 3!

They weren't paying too much attention to secrecy...

... but...?

... had any of the players actually read The Blackcollar?

-Hyp.

 

[S'mon]

That said, I'm not sure my players would be at all pleased if I made them suffer 5d6 points of damage for jumping through a window, so I'd probably let it slide, as did you.

"Jumping through plate glass would be suicidal" is definitely pushing it IMO - I grew up on University of Ulster campus where my mother was a lecturer & campus warden, looking after the students. Drunken Irish students would often fall through plate glass windows and doors (plate glass doors & drunken students, great combination), and they pretty much all survived, though usually hospitalised. For D&D something like d6 dmg, equivalent to a shortsword thrust, might be ok - I'd say d10 at most, so high-levellers ought to be able to do it.

 

[Steverooo]

The Origin of the Phrase...

I once played in a four person 2300 AD adventure... On the second session, only my Contact specialist and the Space Pirate's players were present. After messing around in the basement of the (aptly named) Battlefield Mall, looking for the infected ship's crew that we had tracked there, the GM sent in a dozen plus of the local crooked cops to flush us out the other end, and hurry us along...

This is where the now-famous catch-phrase "Players always run the wrong way!" comes from, among our group. Instead of hurrying out the other end, the old Space Pirate fires off a plasma burst at the wall, misses it, and hits the cops! (This was the GM's fault, as he made it difficult to hit the wall, and routine to hit the cops, but I didn't argue, as the SP had enough skill to only miss on a Fumble... which, of course, is exactly what he rolled!)

So the "dirty cops" are down, and we go in to check them out. The plasma burst should have killed them, but the GM said they were all alive, just unconscious. I said we patched them up, as best we could, and I radioed the ship to call for an ambulance. Since one of the PCs (whose player was absent) was a Doctor, he and the other PC (whose player was also absent) went off with the ambulance.

After that, the GM, again, sent in another dozen cops to hurry us along... He learned! This time, the old Space Pirate went down to talk to them, while I hid (I'd tried to talk to some of them before, and they weren't being helpful). The cops took the SP prisoner, were questioning him, and their leader then pulled a gun on him...

Now I could have run, or perhaps caused a distraction, but my PC was the "chosen leader" of this team... They chose me, and then ignored any orders I gave! ;-p Anyway, back in those days, I hated all the focus on combat, plasma rifles, bombs, etc., so I had had my PC take some engineering skill, and work out an Autoinjector Magnum pistol, which fired the 24th-century equivalent of tranquilizer darts. So, I sat on the steps, calculating how many I could hit with an area fire burst, and found it was 10 of the 12.

When the officer drew his gun, I opened up on everyone except him, the SP, and the one other guy outside of range. I hit all ten, for enough stun damage to make them pass out, and the SP managed to use the surprise to deck the officer holding a gun on him, draw his gun, and blast the other guy across the room!

As deadly as combat is, in 2300, you'd expect two dozen cops to be enough to toast four adventurers, even with surplus military weapons. Fortunately (for us) they didn't! Our remaining two PCs managed to go on to find the infected ship's crew, and the SP (true to form) killed both of them. We cleaned up the mess, and quickly left the planet!

 

[Darklone]

My group attacked the headquarter of a political group in town... without scouting. The barracks (one big building) housed about 600 man at arms (by my usual campaign rules, soldiers rank level 2-6, officers around level 8; less magic equipment than appropriate). On the roof: 6 dudes with javelins of lightning. Group level average: 7; 8 group members (9 due to a guest player).

One PC had been captured and dragged to the dungeon there for torture. Two other group members followed his tracks to the house... they saw 4 door guards and some guards on the roof. They didn't know much more about the house. Ergo: the whole group charged into the building after shooting at the guards on the roof and incapacitating the door guards. One replacement char and the guest player played two NPCs who had been shadowing the party so far (and were told by their superiors to support them).

The attack came to a halt in the second room, a big hall where the party met 3 level 8 fightertypes with some mooks with crossbows, a pit trap right after the entrance and some bottles of alchemist fire. They nearly took them by surprise, but still got a sound beating and had to retreat into the first room again... then they cleared the room with fireballs (partially from a necklace of fireballs) and similar spells (flame strike).

In the meantime the alarm was ringing, upstairs (the building had three floors above the ground and several levels below) the army was getting into their armour, the officers gathered their soldiers, the dudes on the roof with the javelins of lightning who had retreated without throwing one got healed...

So the players got entrenched into the main hall, the door to the dungeon entrance was blocked by two dwarven mercenaries, from upstairs came wave after wave of soldiers, outside two groups climbed down from the roof to block the main entrance (these two groups got stopped by the two replacement chars...)

It got worse and worse for the PCs, their resources got used up with increasing speed, one guy survived a Hold Person and a CDG attempt (I still let everyone roll the attack roll to allow Power Attack, that NPC rolled a confirmed fumble).

The groups wizard ran. He barely got outside, the two helpers proved to be very able to keep the way clear... impressive for two level 5 chars against 12 level 2-4 warriors (each). Instead of following the wizard, the rest of the group tried to push on.

The first few waves consisted of mostly light troups, after about 20 rounds the heavies started to show up... as well as some more important officers (the leaders of the whole political group, officially low nobles with a lot of money... from somewhere). Till then, only one PC had bitten the dust (he tumbled into the three fighters in the beginning and got mowed down for more than 120 points of damage in one round).

By chance, a monster summoned by the PCs unveiled the disguise of the "noble": These guys were powerful undeads, something the players had had no idea of.

That saved them. The Undeads retreated into the cellar, "recruiting" the guards down there, the soldiers retreated upstairs, led by the remaining officers, the PCs took advantage of the confusion to get out... soon later the city was in uproar and every available cleric and man at arms was called to help against the undead.

Downstairs the captured PC freed himself (wildshaping druid) and was able to barr the door... as the first undead showed up. How he survived... is another story.

 

[Thanee]

I never plan TPKs, so this cannot happen!

Bye
Thanee