How did you handle your TPK?

[Cor Azer]

I don't recall running any TPKs as a DM, but I experienced one in the climax of amy first Living Greyhawk adventure. It could have been a rather tough experience too, as most of us had never played together beforehand... but we all had so much fun, we made new first level characters, and struggled on into the next Living Greyhawk module.

Those characters survived 2 modules until they hit a TPK.

On our third LG characters, we actually got some semblence of tactics together and actually did quite good... until we got disillusioned with LG in general.

 

[omnimpotent]

How about...

Spike the winning d20, football style, jump on the table, and do the Mocking-Jig as an impromptu victory dance, and screech "Dual Wield this, you Nerf Munchkins! How's that for broken! Na na na na, na na na na, hey-ey-ey, Goodbye!"

Then flee for your very life. If you stop to pick up your books and dice, they'll probably make you eat your d4s.

Actually, I've never managed a TPK. But should any of you GMs get an unplanned TPK, give it a try and tell me how it goes. I hear that you can type with a pencil stuck in your nose if both of your hands are broken.

 

[Evilhalfling]

two -
Once when down to 3 pcs- no cleric, they got infected with olive slime and failed to notice before being converted. We took a break, and after playing mage for a while, returned to D&D with a new world and a new edition (3.0).

The 2nd we were in the midst of abandoning the RtToEE one pc made it out alive, and we started out with different characters on a new continent.
The one survivor joined the group, when they caught up in level.
This was much easier because we were wrapping up anyway.

 

[shilsen]

Planned for it. I didn't know when/if there would be a TPK, but I figured it was quite likely at some point, since I don't fudge, I roll dice in the open and my group's overwhelming alignment is chaotic suicidal.

So, quite early in the campaign, I threw in a home-brew magical item which provided just enough benefits to the group to tempt them to keep it, despite hints that it might not be as simple/nice as it seemed. But what it did at the same time was establish a link with their souls. When they got TPKed, it swallowed their souls and shifted back to its owner (Bel the pit fiend, lord of the first layer of Baator). Bel used its power to raise some of his fallen minions and the players took over those characters, shifting the campaign from a heroic Greyhawk one to an evil planar one. There would have been more of the plot to unfold, but we had to wrap up just over a month later since I was leaving the US on holiday.

 

[shilsen]

Planned for it. I didn't know when/if there would be a TPK, but I figured it was quite likely at some point, since I don't fudge, I roll dice in the open and my group's overwhelming alignment is chaotic suicidal.

So, quite early in the campaign, I threw in a home-brew magical item which provided just enough benefits to the group to tempt them to keep it, despite hints that it might not be as simple/nice as it seemed. But what it did at the same time was establish a link with their souls. When they got TPKed, it swallowed their souls and shifted back to its owner (Bel the pit fiend, lord of the first layer of Baator). Bel used its power to raise some of his fallen minions and the players took over those characters, shifting the campaign from a heroic Greyhawk one to an evil planar one. There would have been more of the plot to unfold, but we had to wrap up just over a month later since I was leaving the US on holiday.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

double post

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

Well-- we didn't die in the large lizard fight... (I dropped down to -7 once... thank the Light for those silly arrows of cure light wounds!) but now, the time has come to fight the white dragon... (we're fighting it as I type, in fact)... so, the possibility of a TPK is not out of our reach...

... oh lordy, I just took 37 points of damage ...

Boy oh boy, I do love this huge, dangerous, almost impossible battle!

Wish us luck!

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

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

Well, since the only time I've ever been involved in a tpk was when one of the players decided to slit everyone else's throat in the middle of the night and steal their crap (and everyone failed to wake up with his excellent hide and move silently)... we almost threw the player out of the 6th story window and kicked him out of the game. He kept saying he was playing his character (a necromancer) and we replied, "maybe, but if we had been playing our characters all along you'd been dead long ago, but we didn't want to cause interparty conflict so we didn't." He left the game disgruntled and we haven't had a problem since.

 

[the Jester]

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out!

 

[Caliber]

Currently, my group's last two games have ended up in TPKs. As another poster put it, our alignment tends towards Chaotic Suicidal.

The first TPK was at the hands of Beholders. A nest of Beholders had taken over an alien ship, and was using the advanced tech to slowly begin taking over the galaxy (this was in DragonStar). A Wild Magic surge had taken place, causing all creatures who died on the planet we were on to come back as undead, and several party memebers were now adventuring as undead creatures. We only had to kill the party member responsible for the Wild Surge, but we didn't because we felt it would weaken us too much (only a few characters were alive)

We fought several Beholders, but then when a few live ones and the undead versions of the ones we had already killed caught up, we didn't have a chance. The living members were wiped out and the dead members went down as soon as the responsible party member did.

The more recent TPK (in my game ) was in the Lord of the Iron Fortress module. The party thought attacking through the front door was a stupid plan, so they Disintegrated a hole in the back ... right at the spot where the big bad guys hung out. Two party member managed to Teleport away, and another Dimension Doored into the ground, shifting him into the Astral.

We might go back ... but with all but three of the group dead, I dunno how we'll manage it.