In the event of a TPK...?

[The Shaman]

Leesee...the TPK in our AD&D game was on the characters' second adventure, and we picked up with new characters in the same game-world with a different adventure.

The TPK in our Modern game ended the campaign - the bad guys won, plain and simple. We moved on to a M&M game.

 

[devilbat]

Generally, we start a whole new campaign in different setting. Sometimes it's a whole new system.

 

[MaxKaladin]

I've only had one real TPK. The party (save one member whose player hadn't made it there that night and who was thus left behind) pretty much got pulverized -- it was pretty ugly. We ended up just deciding that game was done and restarting with new characters in a different part of the world.

If I had a situation where the party got taken out by being reduced below 0 but not below -10, I'd probably try to arrange one of those "you've been captured and enslaved" type scenarios.

Otherwise, well, I'd probably just start a new game of some sort.

 

[Ravilah]

It was against my better judgement, but I let my players have their lives back--after a LONG and HARD series of sessions.

We had an accidental TPK (flesh golem + already low hit points + no cleric + some idiot cast darkness = TPK). I described to each of the players what their afterlives were like, then I described them being ripped from the outer planes by a powerful summoning spell. Another party had used an artifact to bring them back 30 years after they had died. The mission the original party had been on was one to save the world from a green dragon who wished to become the avatar of the dark god Krarch. Since they died, the dragon succeeded and the world was plunged into decay, despair, and darkness.

After several sessions of despair, desperate odds, exhausting journeys, and 50,000 opportunities to die all over again, (sorry for how cheesy this is) I let them time travel back to only 2 months after they had died. They lost all of their equipment, but the campaign could go on.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

As either a player or dm I pack a major sad & someone will be held to account.

My aggressive reaction is based on the fact that either way I have invested effort to create memorable characters that have foundation in the campaign. I place a premium on survival over heroism as a player & as a dm I do not throw overpowering encounters at the pcs that they _must_ fight.

Last time my pc was killed in an effective tpk (1 survivor with little long-term hope) I told the dm that that session was one of the worst I have ever played & all hell then broke loose. After the dust cleared it became apparent that players & dm had different expectations that had not been discussed openly & thus the campaign had been doomed.

I've never tpked the pcs but on one occasion they won a fight I had calculated as too tough, I then warned the players that if they had suffered a tpk against such difficult odds I'd be taking a break from dming for a couple of months.

 

[jtone]

The one TPK I've had was due to a bunch of sloppy mistakes on my part and on the players' part. They were dead, dead, dead. It was a fairly straightforward encounter so I just rewound and we played through the encounter again.

 

[pogre]

knocking loudly on wood here...

I have not had a TPK in the last 20 months or so. Previously, my last two campaign ended in TPKs at 5th level. Each time we restarted at 1st level - although I did make a new homebrew campaign world for the current campaign.

 

[NewLifeForm]

I have no idea...

I have never witnessed a TPK as either a player or GM in all the 28 years I have been gaming. Can't even imagine one. My campaigns just don't work that way and my players aren't that dumb.

NewLifeForm
"Mostly Harmless"

 

[Nifft]

Yeah, no idea -- never happened. Had a few PC deaths (as a DM & player), but not yet a TPK.

-- N, resolved to try harder

 

[arwink]

Low-Level TPK: Start with entirely new heroes, investigating the same plot hooks as the original party. Whether these heroes are somehow connected to the previous group or not is up to the players, but I usually push for a different tone (If the first group was cheerful paladin types, I suggest making the new group pragmatic mercenaries) to avoid the feeling that people have just respawned.

Mid-Level TPK: Variable. Either a mini-dventure where players take on the roll of allies recovering the bodies of their former characters, or just restarting the game with the characters raised if they took reasonable precautions.

High-Level TPK: As above, but with one extra option - the bad guy wins. Th dragon-king takes over the land, the world is sucked into hades, the apocalypse comes roaring down. We start a new campaign with low-level characters in the aftermath.