In the event of a TPK...?
- Thread starter GlassJaw
- Start date
Same thing I do too....how about that? 
Bront
The man with the probe
I've rarely had to deal with character death at all, and the closest i've come so far to a TPK is where we charged over the inlet making outselves easy targets for the octopus we didn't know about. We lost several party members, most were NPCs though, and the cleric was able to raise them eventualy.
Agamon
Adventurer
The only TPK I've had was in Living Greyhawk. I killed a party of L1s in a particularly nasty APL2 adventure. Other than that, a recent forray into the Slave Pits of the Undercity killed all but one PC. So technically not a TPK, but we quit there anyway.
Anyway, keeping a game going (especially in my homebrew, where games revolve around the PCs), is both difficult and annoying for both the players and myself once turnover reaches 50% or so. New PCs have difficulty fitting in, usually having no raison d'etre in regards to the current party. My last campaign in my homebrew, I tried to desperately finish, even though the three original players had all moved away. The newer PCs had less and less reason to care about what was happening, and it didn't end all that well. I could have moved in a different dirrection with the new PCs, but you might as well start over if you're going to do that, so you can truly focus on them.
Anyway, keeping a game going (especially in my homebrew, where games revolve around the PCs), is both difficult and annoying for both the players and myself once turnover reaches 50% or so. New PCs have difficulty fitting in, usually having no raison d'etre in regards to the current party. My last campaign in my homebrew, I tried to desperately finish, even though the three original players had all moved away. The newer PCs had less and less reason to care about what was happening, and it didn't end all that well. I could have moved in a different dirrection with the new PCs, but you might as well start over if you're going to do that, so you can truly focus on them.
TPK, party walks out of the adventure, players walk out of the campaign: In any of these cases it depends very much on how far the DM has planned ahead in the now-squelched campaign. Sometimes it's an adventure of a few sessions, or approaching the planned end of the DM's campaign arc, so it's just "OK, we finished early". For a long-term campaign there's usually a way to write in another party to continue the same quest.
TheAuldGrump
First Post
Generally same world, new campaign.
Sometimes a new world, same game.
Very ocassionaly a new game.
If it is Paranoia the new clones come in.
But this is over decades, not weeks. (Except Paranoia...
)
The Auld Grump
Sometimes a new world, same game.
Very ocassionaly a new game.
If it is Paranoia the new clones come in.
But this is over decades, not weeks. (Except Paranoia...
)The Auld Grump
IamTheTest
First Post
Im not sure what my group would do if there was a TPK. Ive only ever killed one PC, but that was a bit of a fluke (orc+crit+low lvl=new PC). We'd probably switch DMs.
Arbiter of Wyrms
First Post
Any player whose character dies must pay the DM a quarter if they wish to continue playing.
Not Nintendo, indeed!
Not Nintendo, indeed!
MonsterMash
First Post
I voted for all four options, except for other. It really depends on circumstances. As in the campaign I run and the one I play in we have a fate points system an unrecoverable TPK is a bit unlikely, but the campaign may continue with the characters as captives of their enemies or left stripped for dead in the garbage.
I should really have voted for all five as it goes.
I should really have voted for all five as it goes.
Last edited:
I voted "other" because the first that happens in a game that there is a TPK is a feedback session between myself and my players. If it was a Desired TPK (One in which all the PCs die at the end of the campaign in order to achieve their goal, usually sacrificing themselves in battle with the Main Bad Guy), then we just chat a bit about what game we want to do next. If it is a TPK due to Player stupidity, I sit them down and discuss tactics with the group - concentrating on where they could have played smarter and made better choices. I then also ask them for their feedback on how I ran the game. After that is done, we discuss the next game we want to play.
The interesting thing that I have seen from doing these feedback sessions is that usually the group will manage itself, if given the chance. If the TPK was caused by a single disruptive player, then the group as a whole will ask that player to not come back. If it was from the habits a player who they want to give another chance to, the group will browbeat the player into trying to play as part of a team when faced with significant challenges.
The interesting thing that I have seen from doing these feedback sessions is that usually the group will manage itself, if given the chance. If the TPK was caused by a single disruptive player, then the group as a whole will ask that player to not come back. If it was from the habits a player who they want to give another chance to, the group will browbeat the player into trying to play as part of a team when faced with significant challenges.
