TPK as a "literary" device?

[Desdichado]

Here's an idea I had for a campaign I'm starting Thursday -- although that doesn't give me much time to develop it, of course.

You know how in movies and books there's often a prologue, in which you see some non-core characters running around doing something, and often (depending on the genre, naturally) they might even all get killed? Then you flash to the real story of the protagonists?

So I'm thinking about doing that as an introduction into my campaign; only for about an hour or so tops, ending in a combat in which three 5th level characters go up against a CR 66 dragon from the Monsternomicon after having been savaged by dragonspawn already. Naturally, my expectation is that no one will survive. And if they do, I'm also using the Sanity rules from CoC/UA, so I can keep him around as a crazy NPC if needs be, who might even be useful for clues.

After running this for a little while, I'll shift gears to a completely different part of the setting, have them pick up their regular 3rd level PCs that they came up with and start the campaign proper, having already had a taste for the homebrew, and hopefully been instilled with a sense of some wonder, dread and atmosphere for my effort. It'll also be a lead-in, via a convoluted method, naturally, for the rest of the campaign.

And, if it goes poorly and they all think a TPK with these pregens sucks, at least I haven't wasted much time on it, right? Not even half a session.

Anyone else ever tried anything like this? I'm curious, if you have, how it went.

 

[MerricB]

Yes, it's been done before, and in a published module, no less.

Check out Vecna Lives!

It begins with the Circle of Eight (played by the players) investigating a strange magical cairn. Then they all get killed by the reincarnation of Vecna. One of the more railroaded starts I've seen, though with a little work it'd be quite effective.

Then the players play the cohorts (henchmen) of the Circle of Eight for the remainder of the module, trying to work out what happened and how to stop it.

Cheers!

 

[hong]

I thought at first you were talking about killing off the players' normal PCs to start a campaign! That would be interesting.

But what you actually said sounds interesting too. Heck, I might try that.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It sounds like an interesting idea. However, I'd be more than a little wary of sending the pregens up against a CR 66 beast. There's not enough time for real despair and drama during an escape attempt--just the DM rolls a few dice and everyone's dead. Maybe if it were pretending to be weak, they might last a round or two but as a player I'd want my TPK to be a little closer than that. And as a DM, I think I'd want a TPK that let me show off some of the uber powers of the world's big baddie.

(Maybe pregenned 20th level characters would be in order).

 

[MerricB]

Hong... your title...

Never mind.

Cheers!

 

[Matafuego]

It seems like a good Idea...
I know of several campaigns that started with a TPK, although the one's I DM'ed were unplanned TPK's with good and unexpected results.

 

[Kai Lord]

Anyone else ever tried anything like this? I'm curious, if you have, how it went.

Now this is the kind of gaming I like to see. I love expirimenting with different kinds of forumlae, and I've actually done this one in the past, though not intentionally from the beginning.

The very first Cyberpunk session I ever GM'd was a solo adventure where the PC Nomad tried to stop an all-chrome cyberbaddie named Deadpool from causing Mayhem on a downtown city block. Since the guy was covered in polished metal from head to toe, the PC had a hard time even injuring him. The nomad was unarmored, and this first session really drove home how vital armor was to the game of Cyberpunk.

Well this was just a quick character my friend made up and I could see he really had no way of seriously harming Deadpool so when Deadpool made his final killing strike I decided to draw it out a bit. I had him punch the PC straight through the gut, lifting him off the ground like Arnold does to the punk in the beginning of the first Terminator film. Then Deadpool drops the PC on the ground after pulling his bloody armored fist out of his stomach.

I describe the nerve-wracking pain the PC was feeling as Deadpool turned his back on him and began to walk away. Struggling to stand, the PC stated he was going to muster all of his strength to raise his heavy pistol and shoot Deadpool in the back of the head. It was then that I described the beeping noise coming from his stomach. The PC looked down to see that Deadpool had stuffed a small disc-shaped grenade in his open gut. Before the PC could scream his upper body disintegrated in a mass of gory mist.

The PC actually liked his quick death, but we took some more time to learn the rules before trying again with an additional player. Needless to say, when I had Deadpool show up about halfway through the second session the first PC about crapped his pants and went nearly hysterical trying to get the other PC away.

Through a stroke of luck the PC's killed Deadpool but yeah, a TPK can be a great way to establish your villains.

You might want to go the way I did and set up that first session with only half the players present. Then after they all get killed and start over with the other PC's you can enjoy the glee of watching the first group of PC's building up your villains to the rest of the players for you.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

I haven't run anything quite like this, but I'm considering it as well (as a way to introduce the uber-lich I've been workng on for a while). However...

In a Marvel game, I had the players play a set of heroes & a set of villains. They played the villains 1st. Basically, the villains' actions (basically terrorizing a local mall) affected the lives of the PC heroes--some of the heroes were present & gained their powers from the event (being blasted by 1 villain who had radiation control with mutagenic side-effects). A couple of other PC heroes lost a friend or family member due to the villains' actions.

Unfortunately, the game didn't really progress far due to an unstable game group, & the campaign pretty much just fell apart. However, I like to try & connect things with the PCs as much as possible. Next time around, I'll have the players just select an existing Marvel villain, albeit a lower-tier one like the Ghost, Eel, Shocker, Vermin, Man-Killer, & similar characters. (Then again, the PCs are supposed to be starting/newbie heroes, so their experience & power levels aren't going to be too high as it is.)

I'm thinking of having the players play a group of 12th-level pre-gens (maybe higher, up to 16th or so) who are a bit more powerful than average (which will be made up after the players create their own PCs--this way I can possibly link these pre-gens to the PCs). This high-power group will stumble across the uber-lich that I designed, along with a few of his notable henchmen/cohorts/lackeys/hirelings (one of them being Warduke), who will basically annihilate the higher-level party. After this prologue, the PCs will begin their adventuring careers, & eventually learn bits & pieces of the other party's fate.

However, I'm thinking about not having it begin with the battle between the powerful party & the lich w/ his entourage. I may have them go through 1 or 2 adventurers prior, so the players can get a nice appreciation of the power level of their characters (and therefore, possibly get an idea about how powerful the lich is when this party gets wiped out).

 

[Ricochet]

I did that a few years ago to kick of 3e when the group bought it.

One of the characters survived, become crazy and all that.

I fast-forwarded the campaign 50 years, and then their REAL characters entered the game, and the events that where happening now where tied to what took place 50 years ago.

The crazy old ranger would eventually be involved (it was on purpose he survived), but the campaign lasted almost 2 years, and it worked like a charm

 

[dreaded_beast]

From a player point of view, I think this is an interesting idea and should be done before the actual campaign starts.

My old DM tried something like this before, but during the middle of an already established campaign. The first half of the session was spent playing "other characters", who eventually met their demise.

It was entertaining for the first few minutes, however, the players as a whole agreed that they would prefer spending time playing their own PCs. When you wait a whole week to play DND, sometimes you would rather play the characters you made instead of "throwaway ones".

However, I think this is a good idea, if done during the beginning of the campaign. I know that as a player, I would be "cowering with fear" if I saw the BBEG that TPKed the party during the first session.