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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ffy" data-source="post: 5717629" data-attributes="member: 6667124">It is a good idea for the DM to have contingencies in place. For example, you are questing to help the ruler of the kingdom to defeat the incoming evil horde of necromancers. Once in a while when you are talking to him, he drops hints that some of his other agents managed to secure this information; or that some other hirelings will support your assault on the opposing camp by cutting off the reinforcements. If all goes well, the players never meet those background characters. But they are already built into the story. Now with such a backup plan in place, should the party suffer a TPK there will be another group of adventurers already built into the story that the players might jump into. Maybe the ruler both groups are working for found the first group of adventurers of enough importance, that the 'background' group is called back in and sent on a mission to reclaim the corpses of the old party and bring them in for resurrection (or reanimation or whatever suits the campaign/characters). All kinds of stuff might happen, but resurrecting the old party or not - the world and the campaign is now much darker/more difficult, due to the group having failed an important task (during which they got the TPK).Even if the first group gets resurrected, maybe the players enjoy the new characters enough to keep them on as guest stars, playing them every other session or so. I think it makes for an awesome final scene, with the players taking part in the final confrontation of the campaign arc playing two characters (two characters at different points in the battlefield, or hell, having a huge battle with all the PCs on the table at once!).The other choice the DM has is to just bring totally new characters into the same campaign from a different point of view. They might start at the same time in-world and during their travels hear stories of what the previous group did. The story might develop in a way that leads them to the same point as the other party was at when they all got killed. I believe there are many ways for a DM to keep his campaign going without cheating for the party in order to avoid a TPK. Actually, I think challenges like this are what keeps the game fun for the DM. If i wanted to make a story and have it develop exactly as I imagined it I would just sit in my hammock and imagine the story unfolding all day long. The element of chaos that dice and players introduce are what makes it fun to see your world develop and your plot turn out much deeper than you imagined.Then again, if the gaming group really wants a game in which total failure is a definite option (the party dies, the world ends) they should play shorter adventure paths (super-adventures), rather than long campaigns. That way the DM will not be wasting times fleshing out worlds and plots that can end at every moment.</blockquote>

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