How did you handle your TPK?

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

So, at this point, the heroes from The_Universe's Kingdom of Ashes (see sig for link to the story hour) are 12th level warriors in midst a battle with all odds against them...

Though it probably won't result in a TPK, it very well could... so, I was just wondering if, in any of your long-running games, have you experienced a TPK?

If so, how did you handle it? Did you just quit that game? Write up new characters at first level? The same level as the characters that died?

Just curious.

--LizzyB

 

[Crothian]

Sat down with the group and said "What now?"

Their old characters were dead, there was no reasonible way to get them resurrected. They lost and the greoup was unhappy about it. But they wanted the campaign to continue so I advanced the timeline a few years, had the bad guy they couldn't defeat before do more evil things and then they played a new band of characters seeking out the mystery of what happened to the old characters. One thing I did was made a NPC diviner that eventually got killed by the BBG but in doing so, the diviner released a partially done spell that gave knowledge of the old characters to the new characters. Except not to the same player. Each player wroite a up a vague account of hints and mysteries that I edited to make sure it was both vague and informative enough. Then another player got that info slowly over the course of many sessions. It was fun, the players were a little more involved then in a normal campaign and they really enjoyed it.

That's how I handled my one and only TPK.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

The giving of knowledge is a really neat idea... one that would make the prospect of playing in the same world with different characters much more appealing to the players, I'm sure...

 

[Crothian]

The giving of knowledge is a really neat idea... one that would make the prospect of playing in the same world with different characters much more appealing to the players, I'm sure...

They wanted to play in the same world, that was never an issue. I included the passing on of former player knowledge becasue there was a lot of out of game knowledge the players had from the previous campaign. It made a conection between the old and new party, it helped establiush what the new characters knew, and it made it seem like the old party was still around in some way.

 

[Zimri]

DM had the celestial hebdomad resurrect us and allowed us to gestalt our characters. That may have had something to do with us returning a plane that had fallen into the abyss to Celestia and martyring ourselves so it wouldn't fall into evil hands.

 

[Eltern]

DM had the celestial hebdomad resurrect us and allowed us to gestalt our characters. That may have had something to do with us returning a plane that had fallen into the abyss to Celestia and martyring ourselves so it wouldn't fall into evil hands.

Fair enough.

The one time there was a TPK I knew it was coming, planned on killing them all (with a dragon way above their level), was childish, younger, and generally sucked more. They all died while I cackled, making it very unentertaining for them, and then they all woke up, resurrected by an insurgent priest in the heart of the Temple of All-Consumption. It was a good way to introduce the NPC, I suppose, but the way I handled it was poor.

On a side note, I said he resurrected them with a rod of true resurrection, in response to which one of the rules-lawyers (who had started playing with 3.0) sneered at me "To bad those don't exist!" Really should have taken off his face with buckshot, but I think he was only acting that way because of the crappy play situation I had created. :\ If you can't tell, one of my more "Man I'm dumb" sessions. Hence why I generally have bad feelings to TPKs. TPKOs (Total Party Knock Outs) are a different story

However, him saying those don't exist...man, THAT was dumb

Eltern

 

[Zimri]

Hmmm

"Guess the rules lawyer is right and you are all dead roll up new level 1 characters. Except for you Mister Rules lawyer. See you forgot one very important rule, the rule of 0. It says if I say they exist they exist, I say you do not exist in my game world Ta Ta For Now"

Our DM had been planning the TPK for quite some time. He offered us a way out of it twice. Sure there were ways he knew we wouldn't take but they were there. It was a very well RPed event.

We could have not attacked the Raksasha that we knew was a higher level and had an awesomely munchkined body guard when he confronted us with the fact that we had "been sickeningly noble" and done what he wanted us to anyway

We COULD have handed the plane over to him willingly instead of fighting a battle we knew we would lose.

Oh and I suppose I could have tossed the evil half-fiend wizard into the flames of occipitus' fire instead of willingly sacrificing myself.

 

[demiurge1138]

I've had two "TPKs". One of them was a true TPK, instituted because the players were bored of my epic campaign. I warned them that it was a TPK, they excepted, and proceeded to die well so we could start over.

The second one was both incomplete and unintentional- I thought the party could handle the final "boss" of the adventure, and they died trying. All but one of them, that is, who decided that discretion was the better part of valor, fled, and got a new party to continue his old group's work.

Demiurge out.

 

[AIM-54]

In this case it is entirely because of player actions with a clear acceptance of the consequences. While I think a TPK is quite unlikely, surprises do happen. Just want to make sure that it's clear that the DM did not railroad us in any way. Heck, the whole situation is the result of us looking at a plot device and saying "Yeah? Screw that, let's rock!" I, at least, have had a blast with it, so no hard feelings here.

 

[Neo]

Never EVER had a TPK in my 24 years of play... come pretty close a time or two, but I've generally always given the group either enough "hints" in play that something they could meet is potentially beyond them (such as one adventure where the first ever appearance of the BBG in Waterdeep was heralded by Khelben Blackstaff being unceremoniously blasted onto his rump) managed to avoid a TPK there (as that was not the point of the encounter and didn't want the group getting into a scrap with the BBG) by keeping them at bay with minions and a Spirit Wall spell.

Coming quite close in play atm to a number of potential TPK encounters as the group are stuck in an elven prison that dates back to the time of Cormanthor, underneath Hullack Forest. they are in a position where they have to stop the BBG who is currently imprisoned and acting remotely through his cursed brother (now undead), they cannot morally kill the cursed brother as he is not under his own control when forced to do wrong and the only way to properly end the threat caused by the BBG is to open the very seals that imprison him in order that they can try to slay him once and for all. So far its taken them around about 7 months real time to explore the elven prison (was more of a mini cimmunity) and fought many undead, solved many puzzles, triggered many traps etc..

But now they have enough pieces of information that they know what they need to do.. they cannot leave because of the growing army of undead that awaits them outside and have been driven ever closer to the BBG's prison...as they go they have begun to encounter tougher and tougher undead guardians.. and now were in the relams of stat and level draining encounters, so TPK's are a distinct possibility if they get some bad rolls or play out some ill concieved tactics. they have limited healing, only one means to bring someone back from the dead once... though that is something which if they dont use it on themselves will actually benefit them more storywise later by allowing them to do something generous and pure.

I think though I'd probably fudge enough to ensure that no TPK occured even if by rolls it had in order to prevent everything coming to a complete standstill with everyone needing to make characters right before the stories finale.

We did nearly have a TPK once when we played a test scenario for Epic play (the guys were curious...<shakes head>) just after the epic handbook came out. they spent near enough 3 days making the characters from scratch to play in the adventure which was in Dungeon (first one for epic) and they died against the minons in about 3 rounds.. only one PC survived and that is only because he was so fast the enemies couldn't catch him too kill him.