Deep down inside, do you eagerly anticipate a TPK?

[mroberon1972]

I think that the true art is finding how close to a TPK you can get without doing it...

My players have some epic battles that they still talk about.

 

[Goblyn]

What's worse than a TPK?

A half-TPK. One which leaves the remainders, exhausted, tapped, and with less HP than fingers.

Then you have the other players feverishly making new characters, who somehow have to get into this group. The remaining characters then have to attempt to remain alive in an area containing dangers that can and will eat them for supper.

The resultant split-party spends a disproportionate amount of time just getting back to the state they were before the HPK.

I guess that's somewhat of a rant, isn't it?
I just find it more annoying than the clean slatesville of a TPK.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

Hmmm....as a player, I don't want my PC to die. I'm the only current player in my current game who has not died yet. I rather like not dying.

I think if a TPK happens, it's fine, as long as it's not planned so that it will definately happen. If a DM plans a combat so unbalanced that he/she knows there will be a TPK, then there's deeper problems at play there that the group needs to work out.

 

[Agemegos]

A half-TPK. One which leaves the remainders, exhausted, tapped, and with less HP than fingers.

Amputate more fingers.

 

[Dyntheos]

I'm interested to know what all the pro TPK DM's do after a succesful TPK?

Do you start a new campaign, or continue with the current one just with new characters?

As a DM I think you derive your fun by entertaining others. It's a giving experience, and a TPK is a taking experience.

You may feel like you "Won" when you kill the whole party, but do the looks on your players faces mirror the flush of victory that you feel when you crush your "opposition"?

 

[pogre]

I've DMed through two TPKs. I hated both.

Nothing ends the momentum of a good game like multiple character deaths. TPKs depress me, and so far I've always had to take some time off DMing following one.

Similar to my experience.

 

[rei jin]

weeeeellllll.... normally after a TPK, i explain to the players why they died, how they died, and ask them what they thought. we do all our dice roles on the table, none are hidden, so they know i didn't fudge anything. then i tell them the ECL, and how i got that ECL.

then, we rewind time to just before the encounter, and as long as they don't use metagame thinking, i'm okay with that. we run the encounter again, and they normally survive.

ok, they normally half survive

ahhh, HPK, how i love thee.

but yeah, my players have come to expect devious thinking from me. what else could you expect from someone who desperatly wants to play a gestalt rakshasa sorceror and isn't allowed to?

 

[StalkingBlue]

I'm interested to know what all the pro TPK DM's do after a succesful TPK?

Do you start a new campaign, or continue with the current one just with new characters?

As a DM I think you derive your fun by entertaining others. It's a giving experience, and a TPK is a taking experience.

You may feel like you "Won" when you kill the whole party, but do the looks on your players faces mirror the flush of victory that you feel when you crush your "opposition"?

Hm, it's a 'Humour'-tagged thread, so maybe don't believe all the people in here who claim they love TPKing.

On a more serious note, I've run only one TPK, couple of years ago (although the party in my Midnight game came close a few sessions ago when they were getting reay to walk into a death trap with their eyes open and no countermeasures planned).

I certainly hadn't planned for that TPK but I saw it coming - and the moment the PCs engaged the BBEG, the players realised how abysmal theri tactics had been and knew they had already lost. One PC could have escaped one round into combat - the player decided to have him make a last desperate charge at the BBEG instead, knowing he wouldn't bring him down. Although at that point the outcome was clear, they all wanted to play out the battle, so we did.

An hour or so later, all the PCs lay dead. We sat for a while in silence, then I broke out the ice cream and we had a good long chat about how cool the PCs had been, where they'd made all their horrible tactical mistakes, and what the players would like to do next.

I made suggestions but gave the players input on what we were going to do. Make new characters and go on playing in that region of the world? Maybe even on an investigation and revenge mission for their previous PCs? Get NPCs to wander in and retrieve PCs' bodies and have them raised, now beholden to the church responsible for that? Or restart with a fresh party in a different setting (which I''d wanted to try out anyway)?

After a bit of talking that's what we settled on: new campaign, in the 'new' setting. Which meant restarting at first level but no one seemed to mind, they all preferred to develop their PCs in play from the ground up.


EDIT: In the Midnight game if there were a TPK I'd hope the players would want to make new characters and continue the Good Fight in the setting. Of course I also hope they'll never force me to kill all their PCs at once! 'Cause I do hate TPKs. Seriously, I do.

 

[the Jester]

Alas, it's been at least 1.5 editions since my last tpk...I keep trying, but the damn pcs are too resourceful.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Yes... a little though I've never run a TPK I do get excited about a particularly tough encounter where there is a very real chance for the death of the PCs.

The DM's Lament

Ours is a life of defeat... every game and every encounter we toil to complete is there for the victory of the players and our own defeat. Sadly, we know this and yet we toil on, never getting the recognition that we should receive. Our players revel in our defeats and yet we must stoically swallow our pride, smile and pat the players on the back for a job well done.