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<blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7452016" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I don't think a TPK should never happen....I realize my posts may sound that way, but I think they can serve a purpose. However, I think that it would likely be very rare where a TPK can add to a game. By nature, it subtracts. Generally, a TPK amounts to a lot of wasted effort for everyone in the game. All the work put into these characters and the story they are building so far is simply gone. Any story hooks the DM has put out for them.....gone. Any ideas that the players have brought to the characters in terms of long term goals....gone. If the DM had taken those long term goals and incorporated them into some of the ideas he had for the game....gone. Now, some of this effort can of course be salvaged or repurposed. But I think the question is more &quot;is this TPK worth all that effort?&quot; And my answer would almost always be &quot;no&quot;, especially not if the same lesson could be taught to the players with a lesser punishment. Or when such a defeat could be the springboard to new avenues of adventure. And for me, the idea that each player would come up with a character that would simply resume the goals of their previous character....a brother or another relative or whatever....then what's the point of even having a new character? If PCs are this interchangeable, then why change? I suppose that it could be that instead of a dwarven fighter looking for the lost city of Hammerhold, now the player will have the fighter's cousin a dwarven cleric looking to find the lost city if Hammerhold.....but is such a change really worth it? If the players were that unhappy with what they had chosen to play, then there are other issues. Again, I am not against bad things happening to characters. Especially not when the players have them do something foolish. Nor am I against having high level threats be encountered by lower level groups. But I think it's bad advice to the OP to say &quot;oh well, TPK those fools&quot; rather than come up with an alternative approach.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="hawkeyefan, post: 7452016, member: 6785785"] I don't think a TPK should never happen....I realize my posts may sound that way, but I think they can serve a purpose. However, I think that it would likely be very rare where a TPK can add to a game. By nature, it subtracts. Generally, a TPK amounts to a lot of wasted effort for everyone in the game. All the work put into these characters and the story they are building so far is simply gone. Any story hooks the DM has put out for them.....gone. Any ideas that the players have brought to the characters in terms of long term goals....gone. If the DM had taken those long term goals and incorporated them into some of the ideas he had for the game....gone. Now, some of this effort can of course be salvaged or repurposed. But I think the question is more "is this TPK worth all that effort?" And my answer would almost always be "no", especially not if the same lesson could be taught to the players with a lesser punishment. Or when such a defeat could be the springboard to new avenues of adventure. And for me, the idea that each player would come up with a character that would simply resume the goals of their previous character....a brother or another relative or whatever....then what's the point of even having a new character? If PCs are this interchangeable, then why change? I suppose that it could be that instead of a dwarven fighter looking for the lost city of Hammerhold, now the player will have the fighter's cousin a dwarven cleric looking to find the lost city if Hammerhold.....but is such a change really worth it? If the players were that unhappy with what they had chosen to play, then there are other issues. Again, I am not against bad things happening to characters. Especially not when the players have them do something foolish. Nor am I against having high level threats be encountered by lower level groups. But I think it's bad advice to the OP to say "oh well, TPK those fools" rather than come up with an alternative approach. [/QUOTE]

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