Total Party Kill -- How do you recover?

[Mr Fidgit]

in my experience, open rolling equals total party kill

the players were used to open rolling from another DM, so i was taking it easy on them in other ways...

i told a player once how fumble rolls were supposed to work, and he said, "you don't have to take it easy on us, we're adults."

that group had TWO TPKs in 5 weeks!

 

[Zaruthustran]

My advice is to have an NPC group rescue them, or just roll up new pcs. No big deal--the "new pcs" can even rescue and raise the original group. After all, if someone was powerful enough to send the PCs out on a mission, chances are, he's powerful enough to send another group on that same mission if the first group fails.

As for open rolling...

My gaming group was used to closed rolling with lots of fudge. Then we switched to an RPGA DM. In the RPGA, it's all open rolling all the time. In the very first round of the very first encounter, the cleric charged a group of horsemen. They surrounded and killed him (-12hp) in one round while the rest of us watched.

Well, that sure set the tone! It was great; we all started playing like our character's lives actually mattered. Much fun. The player of the cleric rolled up a new PC (another cleric) and away we went.

Later, after a tough fight, we got ambushed. The ambushers had a Rogue on the roof top who would Hide, pop up and shoot down at the street, then drop again. Thus, sneak attack dam every other round. Brutal. We were all down to negative hp--except the player of the cleric. The cleric managed to defeat the sniper (barely) and we all survived. It was close, but holy cow it was fun.

 

[roytheodd]

I'm not much of a killin' DM and I'm also the type to hide my rolls. With that said, I would take a look at the events unfolding desperately before you and consider the players. If the gaming group will survive, then let 'em die, but if it'll end the game then it's gotta be good dose of Deus Ex Machina.

 

[Pyske]

Because I'm curious, would you mind sharing the contents of your "contract", Psyke?

Sure, glad to. Just bear in mind (in case I haven't clarified this enough): this is not something in writing. It's just what we generally agree about in my group.

Fudging: permitted in moderation. Expected to prevent senseless or story-killing results. Expected to be as seamless and unnoticable as possible (i.e. we do not use "rewinding time") and fudge behind a screen. Note that I allow this of my players, as well. Matter of trust.

Absences: I expect reasonable notice, 3 days before if possible (and ASAP if something unforeseen comes up). XP is witheld for absences, but if players start falling behind, I will advance them to be at the bottom end the same general powerlevel (or "usefulness level" more accurately) as the rest of the party.

For absences without notice, I call the second time within a month or two to make sure my expectations are clear; after that, I boot the player (rare, as I'm a pretty well-appreciated DM).

Sporadic players are not booted, but are written into a less critical role in the plotlines.

PCs of absent players are in the "gimp suit" (thanks Crothian); they are as passive as the situation will permit; they are left behind (out of danger) at the first opportunity. Death is possible during absence, but I try REAL hard to avoid it.

The session is cancelled if we have fewer than 50% attendance for a session.

Characters: Broken characters get rejected. Niche overlaps are discouraged. Evil characters and anti-party characters by permission only, and discouraged (might allow "slightly variant agenda" or "conflict of interest", never allow "willing to kill other PCs").

"Usefulness levels" are balanced by magic items awarded and DM emphasis on skills & situations. The intent is to share spotlight time among the PCs. If you put effort into some aspect of your character, I will try to have it come up in the game.

Multiple characters by permission only, and discouraged. (We currently have one player with two PCs, and he's managing them fine.)

Rules are very flexible. (i.e., need a few extra skill points to fit your concept? Take them.)

All races & classes are available, but non-Rokugan classes are understood to be very rare, with all the related benefits and penalties.

Ammo, food, and even coinage are not tracked in game (PCs are all wealthy in the current campaign.) This may change in special situations (i.e. stranded on an island). Encumbrance is calculated once, and generally not recalced except for major changes (i.e. armor type, very heavy objects).

Hosting: If you want snacks, bring them; you can almost always count on everyone being willing to share, but there is no obligation. Playing space is based on volunteerism; this is rarely a problem since the alternative is my place, which is a 45+ minute drive for all the players.

Books: never been an issue; everyone I play with owns the PHB and most are DMs and book junkies. I loan books as needed (again, I trust the people I play with).

Table talk: permitted, and governed by group consensus and peer pressure. If the pace of play is bothing someone, they are expected to let you know to shut up. I am easily distracted, so the player remind me to stay on track even when others aren't.

Character background: the more you give me, the more I use. The less you give me, the more I'm allowed to assume.

Goals: I strongly encourage player to tell me what they want to happen in their characters future, how they see them changing, what magic items they might be interested in, etc.

Railroading: As little as possible. Meaningful character choice is very important. Some is permitted, but players dissatisfied with plots can tell me so, and the plot goes away (i.e. player was cursed, didn't like the curse, asked to resolve it quickly, was mostly resolved by end of following session). I cater very strongly to both my players and their PCs.

Play times: 10am-2:30pm, but play can run long if group consensus agrees (and I, as DM, do not veto).

Priorities: Player Fun > Character Development > Story > "Realism" > Rules

Lots of house rules (documented on our web site).

Hmm. Have I missed anything? Hope my answer isn't more than you were looking for...

. . . . . . . -- Eric

 

[ForceUser]

If we had a TPK in my current campaign, I'd have my players roll new characters and I would continue the campaign with a few minor tweaks. Of course, I set mine up from the beginning to allow for the possibility of PC deaths so if they happened it wouldn't be the end of the campaign.

Not that that information would be particularly reassuring to my players.

 

[Rel]

Hmm. Have I missed anything? Hope my answer isn't more than you were looking for...

. . . . . . . -- Eric

Nope. That was excellent.

I have different preferences than you do in a few areas, but I think the "gaming contract" is a fantastic idea.

Just recently we had a brief campaign (ironically one that was ended by a TPK) run by another member of our group. The other players and I had a hard time getting into the game. It wasn't that it was in any way "inferior" to the previous campaign (run by me) but it was vastly different in scope and tone.

If we had had a gaming contract along these lines, the transition would have been much smoother. Thanks for the concept.

 

[Caedrel]

Open rolling

Interestingly, my players have asked me NOT to roll out in the open - apparently, they all believe my black d20 is especially lethal and don't want to see the hurt coming

I've had one TPK (in the Sunless Citadel too) and everyone learnt a good lesson from it - eg. "one more room" is very bad for one's health; one's judgement past 1am isn't real good; etc etc

Still, with -10 being the point of actual "death", most characters can be stabilised by the bad guys and saved for a meal or something. In my above mentioned case, Kerowyn Hucrele (NPC who sent the first party out to the Citadel) is persistent and got together another party to send out on the same mission. The one previous PC who had been really, really killed was now a zombie and the others had been rescued so they could also be made servants of Gulthias.

I had to change the module a little bit so that they could be saved by the destruction of said entity, but I think that's been the intent of other people's suggestions about "changing the story" to suit. Some people went with their original characters: some stuck with the rescuing ones, because they came to like them better.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I lost my favorite Character to TPK

Hackmaster is, without a doubt, the most brutal and fun setting I have ever played.

Well... Rifts... ok some little doubt.

Anyways, whole party got killed. GM tried to save us, but there was no way the Frost Giants and their Ultra Dire Mutant Polar Bears weren't going to destroy us, and we probably couldn't outrun them. They had stalked us for days after we hit them on the random encounter tables.

In the end, our party used all our resources to create a forest fire that destroyed both them and ourselves.

We all felt it was the most fun we had ever had.

Silence ensued and we left.

Next monday, we rolled up characters for the search party that was sent out to find our original party.

The new party consisted of relatives, coworkers, and proteges of the old party, with one exception. I rolled some nice insane flaws and convinced the GM they were the result of my new character being haunted and, occasionally, possessed by the old one.

The story continued, it just had an interesting mid-novel twist.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I always roll open. However, there are other ways to alter the results for a crafty DM. If my party is about to get TPKed by an monster for example I play the beast's intelligence. That means I allow the monster to make a few tactically bad decisions. If the monster is about to kill the tank with a full attack action I have the monster charge the party's second line of defense instead. This way the monster loses a couple of attacks and I get to threaten the characters who mostly hide behind the tanks. I relish in seeing the archer or wizard's face when this happens. In the meantime the tank is healed by the cleric and the party might still pull through.

If the party is about to be TPKed by a BBEG instead of a monster I activate the BBEGs fatal flaw. Whatever that might be. Perhaps he stops fighting to gloat over the PCs and reveal his master plan.

If I have to kill the characters I will. I usually try different things to keep the dead character in the game, though. Sometimes they come to another plane and once the main party fighter returned as a ghost and helped his fellows through the deeper levels of the Temple of Elemental Evil. In D&D anything goes.

 

[Fenes 2]

Like others have already said, It all depends on what you expect from a D&D game. I am a bit extreme in that as a player I expect to play my PC as long as I want, not as long as the dice fall my way, and as a DM I do not kill off PCs. I do not care about challenges or even "fair fights", I only want to have fun with my PC. I put a lot of work in my PCs, with character histories, sketches, background NPCs and plot hooks, and I will not play in a campaign where those hours and hours of work could go to waste due to a bad fight. Others may prefer the challenge, and want to fear for their PCs' life - I would not have fun, and would feel limited in my playstyle. If I want to play a happy-go-lucky swashbuckler that lacks common sense, with a healthy dose of chivlary for any damsel in distress I do not want to end that character's heroic streak by playing it safe or re-rolling a PC every few adventures.

IMC there will be no TPK as long as the players want to continue their PCs.