Never TPK'd

[Fevil]

I hate it when characters in my games die, and I never, ever, go out of my way to kill any of them.
If they are stupid, and go up against something that obviously outclasses them, or they die as a result of unfortunate dice rolling, then it cant be helped.
I have never had a TPK, and would feel very bad should one ever happen.

 

[Berk]

I've only had one TPK in my playing career as a player and dm. Was quite recently too, the group got into a place where the only way out was going through all of it. Funny thing was, it was themselves that killed each other. Not really, they all got possessed by a ghost sooner or later and one by one dropped like fly's. You never want the constructer of the party to get possessed, and then the cleric who doubled as a fighter. =op

 

[Numion]

TPK'ing a party is generally nothing to brag about.

TPK'ing a party with clearly inferior opponents.. well that's another thing.

Kidding aside, I've had several near TPKs. I usually don't pursue PCs too far if they want to escape. I think I've had one total TPK in 3e. The last man standing could've easily escaped, but for some moronic reason stood fast against superior enemy.

 

[Richards]

I just recently had my first-ever TPK, but I didn't let that stand in the way of our campaign. The PCs all got themselves killed trying to stop the construction of an artifact that would suck the souls of the recently slain into the Abyss. So, rather than end the campaign (or continue on with an entirely new group of PCs), I had the slain PCs "wake up" in the Abyss at the feet of Orcus, who informed them they were his demonic lieutenants who had staged an unsuccessful coup against him. They're now working off their debt to him for his generosity, stealing various weapons of power throughout the planes in an effort to "redeem" themselves in his eyes. In a couple more adventures I'll have them regain the memories of the time before their death, and then they'll have a bunch of atoning to do! (Their first act upon returning to the Prime Material Plane was to slay a pair of paladins of Hieroneous for their weapons and armor, and in the course of completing their "mission for Orcus" they made a deal with a succubus and a marilith - via a planar ally spell - that resulted in letting them loose upon the Prime to wreak whatever mischief they wish to get into.)

Now, when they regain their memories, they're going to have plenty to keep them busy on the Prime: making reparations to Hieroneous, taking care of the two demons they set free, plus destroying the artifact that sent their souls to the Abyss in the first place (and which has been functioning all of this time). They'll be especially eager to head back to the site of their deaths, as that's where all of their cool weapons and equipment were left behind. (It's now all in the hands of the evil cultists who constructed the artifact.)

Johnathan

 

[Zappo]

I've had no TPKs. Well... except Call of Cthulhu, that is.

 

[Drawmack]

I have only ever done one TPK. That was engineered to be so. IMLC I would not let the players die cause I wanted to finish the story so when they screwed up a high level NPC (same one everytime) showed up to save them. I have the same players plus some more in my current campaign so I wanted them to know I would not do that again. The first adventure was designed to be a TPK, but it was all an illusion and after the last character dropped they found that out.

I gotta give it to them though, the dungeon was a 4th level dungeon and my 1st level party made it to the final encounter.

 

[Numion]

Q: What is best in life, DM?
A: To crush the PCs, see their character sheets pile before you and hear the lamentations of their players!



not originally mine, it was from Dragonsfoot, or RPGnet perhaps?

 

[Desdichado]

I once killed nine of ten PCs. Of course, that was a one-shot Aliens rip-off, so pretty much everyone was supposed to die.

 

[MerakSpielman]

If you're scaling the encounters properly, a TPK is entirely the player's fault. You just have good players. If they act stupid and get themselves killed, don't consider it your DM-obligation to pull their butts out of the fire. Let 'em roast.

I've never had a TPK either, but believe me, all the fights they've been in could have been a TPK if the players got stupid or sloppy. Most of them have died at least once, just not in the same battle.

 

[incognito]

2. If you are a TPK DM, what's the deal? Why? How does it work?

If you want to place enemies that are a credible threat to players, or actually act like they want to kill the players, then a TPK is possible. Witht eh ECL system, it's not likely, but it's possible:

Here's mine (5th level party, with L4 NPC):

Executive summary
The players got involved in skirmishing with a large (40+) band of Gnolls. The leader of which was slightly above their level. the leader was not meant to get involved in comabt, and the PCs were not meant to take on the entire tribe.

But they did....

The gritty details

Players:

1/2-ling Wiz 5(evoker)
Human Ranger2/Rog1/Cleric of Farlangan 1
Human Ranger 2/Rog3
1/2-Orc Cleric of Obad-hair3/Barbarian2

and an NPC L4 Paladin on a War Horse (NOT a special Mount, Although the party assumed he was)

How it happened:

The ‘scouts’ (The two Rogues) stumbled upon a gnoll war party guarding the moat house from Monte’s RttToEE. One of the Rogues accidentally gave their position away (failed to move silently)

All told there were 40 Gnolls. I broke them up into simple search bands:
5 regular gnolls (2 groups), one gnoll with an obvious signal horn
4 regular gnolls with a CR3 leveled Lieutenant (ranger)

The rest of the Gnolls would stay together, with the Chief (Level 5 barbarian), and other lieutenant (CR3 ranger again)– unless the party threatened the main camp, which would cause the Chief, the other lieutenant, and 3 gnolls to protect the tribe.

The gnolls has some minor potions (aid, CLW, CMW, Enlarge) and the following 3, more powerful magic items:
Quaal’s feather token: whip ->Lieutant#1,
Potion of Fire Breath ->Lieutenant #2,
+1 battle axe ->Chief

The party was putting the smack down on first band of regular gnolls, but failed to address the signal horn. The second search party came, and was quickly down to 2 members, who ran, and blew their signal horn again! Note that they ran back towards the gnoll camp. The third party of gnolls, responding to the signal horn, homes in on the party, and the wizard who had been sneaking ahead invisibly opens up on the lieutenant with Magic Missile (his first offensive spell of the day – he had been conserving). This did not kill the lieutenant, but got his attention – he loosed the Quaal’s feather token: Whip on the mage – who could not wrestle free, and had no Verbal-only escape spells.

Still with the NPC helping, that party was looking ok, and it was only once the lieutenant blew the horn to summon the chief that things got ugly. The party dropped the lieutenant the next round, and there was only a single Gnoll left of all three original hunting parties. He ran and the party chased him 100 or so feet., leaving the wizard behind, for now (they thought).

They ran into the Chief’s band.

The chief had the RUN feat, and ran 200’ ahead of his band (40x5). He provoked 2 AoOs to get into the center of the party. The two rogues tried to flank him, and because he was a L5 barbarian, failed (but still hit him for *some* damage). The chief RAGED, and took his full attack with the +1 battle axe on the Ranger/Rogue in two hands, dropping him in one round (d8+10 x2), proving that CON is always an important stat. STILL things did not look so bad. The party had a single bead of force that they threw at the chief, who took 5d6 and was trapped in the force sphere.

Meanwhile the second lieutenant, drank the potion of fire breath and went to town with it. 3d6 of damage, save for ½ (or none when you are a Rogue) may not seem like much, but to a Paladin in full plate, and a grappled wizard with bad luck, it was ugly. They took all three rounds of it (9d6) – this killed the wizard, the previously injured Paladin, and his Warhose (total damage was 35 – but the last roll was the killer – the other two were average - the paladin went from 12. to -3 in one round).

Now things were looking grim. Two party members faced of against a leveled Gnoll, and 2 Regular Gnolls while the Chief watched, drank healing potions, and grew fatigued.
The Cleric/Barbarian was a strong tank with a low AC. He raged. He dropped one Gnoll a round like clockwork... And then it happened: the lieutenant rolled a 20 to hit and was using light picks as his weapon - that‘s a x4 crit to you and me folks, and it’s easy to confirm a crit vs a shield less raging Cleric/Barbarian 4d4+16 later, the last source of healing dropped with 1 gnoll and the Lieutenant wounded, but up.

The player debated running (he had used his expeditious retreat), but decided to try and tactically circle around the force bubble in an attempt to lure the gnolls away from the downed PCs, so he could RUN in and give the cleric a healing draught. And it almost worked, Trouble is, when you run, you lose you DEX bonus to you AC, which in this characters case, was a LOT (4). He took 2 javelins while scooting over to the cleric, for d6+4, and d6+2, this resulted in 15 points of damage, placing him at -1

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