So you've killed all the adventurers!

[thedungeondelver]

Do you:

Reset the campaign, same adventures, same locale, same goals, new characters?

...or do you...

Start a different campaign, same campaign world, new goals, same locale, new characters?

...or do you...

Start a different campaign, differeng campaign world, new goals, new locale, new characters?

...or do you...

Switch genres altogether and play a different game?

I'm just keen to know what other Dungeon Masters do in this situation.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

All of the above, depending on the situation.

For one group, I've recently started a new campaign in a new setting with new characters. Mainly because after a fair number of TPKs, I kinda got tired of running/resetting the old campaign (plus, it was an Eberon game, which I didn't have a lot of resources for).

For my main group, I'd either do a new campaign in the same setting, or go to another game if we've been playing the same sort of campaign over & over again (mainly for a change of venue).

However, I generally avoid using the same adventures, mainly to avoid prior player knowledge.

 

[Severion]

We start a new campaign, the specifics are dependant on what we feel like at the time. One TPK took us from a 2e historical ref Greek campaign to my Dungeon magazines "Omega World" game. After i wiped them out we started the "Shackeled City" adventures, when i wrap this one up it will either be SW d20 or more 3e set in Greyhawk.

 

[caudor]

Usually, the PCs in my game have heroic friends, relatives, and other interested parties that are willing to step in and investigate the death of party. If the party is not high enough level to consider raise dead, or such...then the player's will often take on the role of the investigators and pick up where the previous party left off.

This approach works well for our group.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Reset the campaign, same adventures, same locale, same goals, new characters?

That. But I allow the new characters to be of one level less than their dead PC.

 

[shilsen]

I'm just keen to know what other Dungeon Masters do in this situation.

The situation can't arise in my game. PCs get swashbuckling cards or action pts which can be used to stabilize them at -9 if a blow or effect takes them below -10. So, at worst, they can all be beaten down to unconsciousness, with presumably a couple dying if all their cards/pts run out. After that, depending on the particular scenario, they may wake up with all their stuff gone, may wake up as slaves, etc. and have to deal with the consequences of the defeat.

The first rule of torture is that you never kill the victim.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Depends. I've never had a TPK myself, though come pretty close. Usually in that case we'd just start a new group with the survivors as the core.

In case of a TPK, depending on what level the PCs were and how close the players were attached to their characters, I'd probably consider doing an afterlife sort of game. Have their spirits journeying to reconnect with one another and return to life, or even just adventure in the outer planes as petitioners or something like that.

If they were just really low-level schlubs, I'd probably just have everyone remake new characters and start a new campaign. Depending on what sort of campaign I had been running prior to the TPK I might bring in elements of that.

 

[Gilladian]

I've never had a TPK but when we do reboot the game, we usually start over with new characters in a new section of the Campaign World. I'm fond of my world so I don't like to move into something totally new, but I do like to shift from the humid, swampy south where magic is hated to the cold, mountainous north where the hobgoblins are a feared menace.

I like to have the PCs run across elements of previous parties and their effect on the world, though, so for example if my current campaign ever gets really rolling, they may hear about another group in the area that eventually owned a floating island castle. Some of the players will get the history, and others won't.

 

[Felix]

Kill all the players?

 

[greywulf]

I've had (I think) 4 TPKs in all my years of GM'ing.

For my first, I handed the players the stats for the monsters and continued the game. They had a blast making it out of the dungeon and attacking the town before being wiped out by angry peasants That was OD&D.

The second was a superhero game (HERO system) where the villain's death-trap actually worked. Fancy that. The players rolled up new heroes and the world turned a little darker as they battled against the villain (Doctor Malice) where he had the upper hand for a while.

The last two tmes they re-rolled new characters and raided the dungeon again (one was Tomb of Horrors ) seeking revenge for their fallen comrades/brothers/sisters/pets.