Ramien Meltides
First Post
Ah yes, the TPK. I figure it probably happens to every GM sooner or later.
Case Number 1: I'm a long-time DM with a lot of experience under my belt. I wanted to show off my own home-brewed campaign setting using the 3rd edition system to create a fun game for everyone! What happened?
Well, my party investigated the jade crypt, and battled with a suspiciously well-organized tribe of goblins living within. After a major battle with the goblins, where the party slayed them all except for the chief, one player was dead.
The chief goblin ran off past a large stone door down a long hallway screaming for help from someone named "Gozzleroth". (Actually, I don't remember the exact name, but it's not important)
Heavy, booming footsteps were heard coming down the hallway soon afterward.
This is the point where my instincts told me to stop for the night on a cliffhanger, and pick up again next week with the players having plenty of time to think about what they wanted to do.
Well, I ignored my instincts as the night was still young. "Gozzleroth" turned out to be the goblin tribe's ace in the hole, a half-dragon ogre. (that thing in the monster manual that's the example Half-dragon... and his CR is WAY too low!!!)
To make this story shorter, a bunch of bad die rolls followed and the party was slain to a man. This effectively ended the campaign, because I was at a loss what to do and at least one player was apocalyptically angry with me for the TPK.
Case Number 2: Recently, I've been playing in a friend of mine's campaign. He doesn't have as much experience with 3rd edition as some folks I know, but he spins very engaging stories and usually knows what he's doing. This time the party fought what looked like a random encounter with gnolls. Finding a map on one of the dead gnolls we translated it as their camp where the riches were held. Without resting (the camp was nearby) we headed out to scout the situation, and found that the gnolls in the camp had an ogre buddy and were eating human prisoners held in a cage.
This was unacceptable to our heroically aligned group, so we made a crude plan to lead some of the bad guys away while others in our party snuck up and released the captives. These plans worked well enough, and we fought another harsh battle which we won. However, our rogue was captured (failed her save vs. hold person from the gnoll shaman) and was about to be eaten in place of the escaped prisoners.
Now extremely low on hp's and spells, we regrouped once more and charged in. This third battle took every single one of the party down into negative HP's except one. Our wizard still stood, with a total of one bolt left in his crossbow. He faced one wounded gnoll. One die roll seperated our group from victory and Total Party Kill.
Luckily for us the wizard rolled well, killed the gnoll, and applied some first aid.
My point is this... I could sense the DM's nervousness as the fight came into that last round. I knew he was feeling the same thing I had felt during my TPK... that feeling of being behind the 8 ball.
You see, both my friend and I are dedicated to Open Rolling... we feel it's the only truly fair and impartial way to run a game, so we refuse to fudge and roll everything where everyone can see it. Unfortunately, that sometimes means that the bad guys win.
As I said, luckily for my friend he dodged the TPK bullet and we'll be continuing his campaign again next week. I wasn't so lucky.
Looking back, I can tell that two factors influenced my own TPK: 1- I should've stopped the game when it felt right, and given them time to plan. 2 - The half-dragon ogre, while a cool bad guy to fight, is way too powerful for the CR listed.
My friend had a similar problem... the gnoll encounter was planned when he had 7 players in mind, and only 5 were able to show up for the final battle. No doubt this influenced our chances of success.
Carpe DM, the DM I admire most, told me that he always had a plan in mind if the party all died. Carpe is very much into the spiritual side of his campaign setting, and I'm sure he thought of a plausible means of getting the PC's back on track without resorting to Deus Ex Machina.
How do you folks out there recover from TPK situations?
Case Number 1: I'm a long-time DM with a lot of experience under my belt. I wanted to show off my own home-brewed campaign setting using the 3rd edition system to create a fun game for everyone! What happened?
Well, my party investigated the jade crypt, and battled with a suspiciously well-organized tribe of goblins living within. After a major battle with the goblins, where the party slayed them all except for the chief, one player was dead.
The chief goblin ran off past a large stone door down a long hallway screaming for help from someone named "Gozzleroth". (Actually, I don't remember the exact name, but it's not important)
Heavy, booming footsteps were heard coming down the hallway soon afterward.
This is the point where my instincts told me to stop for the night on a cliffhanger, and pick up again next week with the players having plenty of time to think about what they wanted to do.
Well, I ignored my instincts as the night was still young. "Gozzleroth" turned out to be the goblin tribe's ace in the hole, a half-dragon ogre. (that thing in the monster manual that's the example Half-dragon... and his CR is WAY too low!!!)
To make this story shorter, a bunch of bad die rolls followed and the party was slain to a man. This effectively ended the campaign, because I was at a loss what to do and at least one player was apocalyptically angry with me for the TPK.
Case Number 2: Recently, I've been playing in a friend of mine's campaign. He doesn't have as much experience with 3rd edition as some folks I know, but he spins very engaging stories and usually knows what he's doing. This time the party fought what looked like a random encounter with gnolls. Finding a map on one of the dead gnolls we translated it as their camp where the riches were held. Without resting (the camp was nearby) we headed out to scout the situation, and found that the gnolls in the camp had an ogre buddy and were eating human prisoners held in a cage.
This was unacceptable to our heroically aligned group, so we made a crude plan to lead some of the bad guys away while others in our party snuck up and released the captives. These plans worked well enough, and we fought another harsh battle which we won. However, our rogue was captured (failed her save vs. hold person from the gnoll shaman) and was about to be eaten in place of the escaped prisoners.
Now extremely low on hp's and spells, we regrouped once more and charged in. This third battle took every single one of the party down into negative HP's except one. Our wizard still stood, with a total of one bolt left in his crossbow. He faced one wounded gnoll. One die roll seperated our group from victory and Total Party Kill.
Luckily for us the wizard rolled well, killed the gnoll, and applied some first aid.
My point is this... I could sense the DM's nervousness as the fight came into that last round. I knew he was feeling the same thing I had felt during my TPK... that feeling of being behind the 8 ball.
You see, both my friend and I are dedicated to Open Rolling... we feel it's the only truly fair and impartial way to run a game, so we refuse to fudge and roll everything where everyone can see it. Unfortunately, that sometimes means that the bad guys win.
As I said, luckily for my friend he dodged the TPK bullet and we'll be continuing his campaign again next week. I wasn't so lucky.
Looking back, I can tell that two factors influenced my own TPK: 1- I should've stopped the game when it felt right, and given them time to plan. 2 - The half-dragon ogre, while a cool bad guy to fight, is way too powerful for the CR listed.
My friend had a similar problem... the gnoll encounter was planned when he had 7 players in mind, and only 5 were able to show up for the final battle. No doubt this influenced our chances of success.
Carpe DM, the DM I admire most, told me that he always had a plan in mind if the party all died. Carpe is very much into the spiritual side of his campaign setting, and I'm sure he thought of a plausible means of getting the PC's back on track without resorting to Deus Ex Machina.
How do you folks out there recover from TPK situations?
