TPK Group Destruction!

[Azure Trance]

And I think that the TPK nearly destroyed my group. I've calmed down since the session ended an hour ago (From thinking, They CANT BE SERIOUS after I just got all these books and counters and dice!).

They attacked Broken Spire Keep. They were kicking ass royally against rogue and warrior guards until eight zombies and a cleric showed up. Whoomph. Psionic warrior held and beaten to a pulp. Zap. Bard (with the wand of cure light wounds with 30 charges). The Dwarven Martial Artist fought, and fought, and fought, and fought. Actually got most of the zombies. But the cleric, whenever he wasn't casting spells he hit with an amazing attack bonus and damage. And that got the Psy Warrior in. And, eventually, the Martial Artist. The zombies were simply spaces to block people from approaching the cleric.

I should mention that I think one of the players was frustrated. Yesterday night we had a very good conversation about introducing roleplaying in his character regarding religion. How he saw more along the axis of lawful/chaotic instead of good/evil, and how it would be odder then not for him not to worship any diety, even one such as war or strength. He even was the first one to fill out the 55 question questionaire sheet on the same night. I thanked him for that very much.

But then he, and everyone else, gets killed. The problem arised when asking for rerolled characters, he said 'No thanks.' He said he had five other games he was playing in, and even mentioned playing in another PC's game (who wasn't there at the time; only 3 out of 5 were present). FYI, my game was the first out of those five lasting until today for about three months of weekly gaming.

And with his polite refusal, the other two politely decided to hold off making a new one until the rest of the group decided. The other two nonpresent players were in the process of making a new character anyway (unhappy with current character concept) so at the moment it's not as if they still have anything vested into the current game.

I fear the game will end for an indefinte amount of time until a free slot opens up for me who knows how long from now. But there's nothing I can do about it, really. The player who refused first was the first to join up and I feel like I disillusioned him or something. And he was a very, very good player too, bringing another good player with him in the game.

My D&D collections just looks very ... large and obtuse now. Like it just lost it's entire purpose without a group. I'll still type up some notes in a player friendly almanac intended for those who may join and reroll again, but I'm sure eventually I'll just subside from it for a while unless something happens.

 

[dkilgo]

I do feel for you. I have not had that happen to me, yet. But, I am sure it will happen eventually.

Could I ask, why did he not want to reroll a new character?

Did he give you any explaination on this, or did he just give the simple response as you posted?

This, to me, would be very disillusioning to me as a DM. I would probably begin to doubt my abilities to entertain my role playing comrades.

I am sorry that something like this was brought upon you. Hope the next session goes better.

Also, don't ever be afraid to kill some characters. That is part of the fun about the game.

 

[dcollins]

That's always a painful situation when that happens. I may not have anything helpful to say except that I've been in the same situation before.

The biggest problem with PC loss is that there's a reasonable reaction to the loss of a creation that someone has spent time generating. Frankly, I run a tough campaign by the books, and let the dice fall where they may -- but supplemental to that, I tell players to not spend a lot of time creating background to PC's, and emphasize that the PCs should grow and become defined through their experiences during gameplay.

If you actually require a 55 item questionnaire to be filled out prior to play, then the loss of that PC is going to hurt quite a bit. Many posters on these boards will recommend that next time, you bend the rules and fudge dice rolls to avoid this situation. That's an arguably defensive option. However, I go the other way, and set an atmosphere where players don't get attached to fresh-out-of-the-box PCs, and accept that some new PCs will get the axe starting out, while still retaining a sense of playfulness.
Then, those PCs that do survive are that much more valued and organic.

For next time you may want to seriously consider DMG p. 8, and consider which of the two opposed styles of play you and your players really want -- there defined as "Kick in the Door" ("rules and game balance are very important..."), or "Deep-Immersion Storytelling" ("rules become less important in this style..."). Unfortunately, the two expectations are really not fully compatible.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Well, it's part of the fun about the game for some. For others, like me for instance, the fun of the game is in developing a single character's life/personality/power through the levels, from insignificant to legendary.

For those players like me, constantly re-rolling PCs isn't fun, it's annoying. It means having to find another character concept you like, while having to abandon one you never got to explore. It means trying to get attached to another persona, when you're still bitter about losing the previous one.

For gamers like myself, a game in which a TPK or near TPK is normal simply isn't fun. I tend to enjoy a game that is dangerous (perhaps occasionally a PC will die, but not every session, and a TPK is very, very, very unlikely) but not overly so. It sounds like your player is the same. He was excited about the RP prospects of his current PC. He may have already started imagining/planning things his PC would do/explore/take an interest in. Then suddenly the PC is dead and you say, "okay then, roll up a new guy!" It's just not that easy, or that fun.

I'm not sure why the other two players did what they did. Perhaps they felt the same way. Or perhaps they just followed the first player's lead. I don't know.

It seems like the problem is that you and your players are interested in different types of game. If you still want to DM, I'd talk with the players and ask them about it, particularly the first player. If it turns out that the problem was, indeed, that your game is too lethal for their tastes, offer to "erase" the previous session and start again, this time knowing how much danger the players are comfortable with.

 

[caudor]

In many cases, I allow a TPK to be a TPK. But in a case like yours in particular, I might have reached for my Dungeon World or some other supplement along those lines. Then I would say, "You have died, but don't put away those character sheets just yet. You are in a dark place..."

It is also one of the reasons I can't wait until Ghostwalk is released (June, I think).

Sometimes...death can be a beginning instead of an end. For me, it always pays to have that ace in the hole (something prepared) just for when such an occasion arises.

Anyway, just an ideas that might or might not work in your situation. Good luck with your future sessions.

 

[mmu1]

Well, it's an occupational hazard... A game goes sour, and then you're left there feeling like tossing the material out the window because it all seems like a huge waste of time... However, you've got to realize that your player is probably just as frustrated at all the potentially wasted effort and dashed hopes as you are.

Requiring a 55 point questionaire and allowing the player to get into creating the character's background, then destroying the character with no hope of recovery and brushing it away with "well, just make a new guy" is not particularly respectful of the work involved, even if it that work doesn't come close to the amount you need to do as a DM.

DMing is about keeping everyone, including yourself, entertained, "DM integrity" be damned - you're playing to have fun, not for someone's left kidney. If it looks like everyone is going to have a better time if you fudge...

 

[jdavis]

Fudging is always a option to stop a TPK, they can be devastating if your game is role playing intensive, I have a friend who quit gaming entirely after a simular situation. Killing one or two of the players and then having the third finding a way to get them ressurected is ok, characters die, it's part of the game, but a TPK is normally the big finish for a campaign. Now if you play a action oriented hack slash campaign then it's a whole different story, having put any time into a starting characters background can be a waste of time and a TPK is just one of the risk, particularly at low levels.

 

[Azure Trance]

The questionaire wasn't required, and certainly not before play. It was only used to be a helpful background on the character on which I gave an XP bonus for. The game was three months old, starting sometime in September of last year. They were almost 5th level when they died. The questions were only from a week ago and was actually to let the hack and slash element of the campagin to be not as prominent. I was running Night Below with the Caves of Chaos, and after 1/2 way through Book 1 of Night Below and 2/3 through Caves of Chaos, the PCs and I were beginning to feel the effects of combat overdrive. Heh, and I choose CoC because it was recommended that before the PC's really get into the nitty gritty of the book (Broken Spire Keep and onward) they should be of a certain power level, which the CoC propelled them to.

I thought for sometime on whether a deus ex machina (in the form of a nearby powerful NPC coming to save the day), but decided against it. It felt by that time they would realize I'd be going out of my way to save them (feh on that idea now). Everyone enjoys combat though; they even demanded random encounters after I went a wee bit RP heavy for the first half of a session (whammo! Ask and ye shall recieve ... a Bulette! But they survived). It was probably that character death wasn't expected.

You know, now that I look at it, it would've been like me running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and slowly asking you to build up your character's history and RPing juuuust before they hit the outer fane.

Exercise in futility is the phrase that comes to my mind, but I think there's a better one to describe what I did.

 

[Tom Cashel]

I think you should dump the questionnaires in favor of just discussing the player's character with them before play.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The zombies were simply spaces to block people from approaching the cleric.

I'm curious about this, especially since the party included a monk - why didn't he just tumble through the zombies and attack/take out the cleric? If he was ~5th level he could easily have a +10 tumble check by now.

Did poor tactics on the parties part influence the TPK in your opinion?

Thinking of which, since the psy-warrior is perfectly capable of manifesting his powers even when held (since it just uses his mind), why didn't he do something about it while he was held? I suppose he could have used up all his pp, or he didn't have useful powers to use, but a 2nd level Levitation would have been great - or bust out a lot of daze cantrips (or in desperation far punch cantrips). I wonder if the 1st level Biofeedback would help against CDG?


It seems to me that you share part of the blame - you had the creatures kill a held character when they could have ignored him and gone for the other active opponents, or he could have been captured and held hostage.

Still, that's all water under the bridge now.

In the final instance though - I do hope that your gaming group will get together with you again before too long. Do you play in the other groups that they play with? At least you'll be kickin' heads as a PC for a little while, and I'm sure that they'll get back to you as DM again. It is such a fine line between "memorable fight that everyone talks about for years" and "massacre which kills the entire party.

best wishes