TPKs; Where do you restart?

[Mercule]

I don't know that I've overseen a true TPK. The times I've come close, though, it was just the end of the adventure/campaign and we started a new one. That's how Curse of Strahd ended (actually, we liked the characters enough, we reconned/meta-gamed enough that we decided the characters were ejected from Ravenloft, instead, and built a campaign in a brand new world around the characters.

Edit: I just remembered that the other exception to "move on" was the 3E Return to Temple of Elemental Evil. My character was LG and fairly cold/calculating about it. The group had a bad day and, when it got down to him and one other character, he was close to the door and the other guy was across the room. So, he did the math on odds of being able to save his friend, realized they were really low and that if they both died no one would know about the cult until it was too late, and walked out. He then recruited a new band of heroes.

Note that this character was almost foolhardy in his bravery and no coward. He just ended up almost fanatical in his opposition to the cult.

 

[Draegn]

Generally I would start over with a future "mystery" being; What happened to this other group of heroes? However my current group is in the habit of nearly always splitting the party. Now I have the predicament of having three main characters who are also the highest level in a situation where they can be killed in various nasty ways after having been captured.

 

[5ekyu]

New chars, new game.

No follow up

 

[Lidgar]

End of the adventure/campaign and on to a new next one, typically with a new DM since our group rotates DM's.

TPK's aren't too uncommon with our group. Maybe 1 out of 5 campaigns end that way. Though they seem to have gotten rarer under 5e.

 

[Immortal Sun]

Generally we don't. We go switch off DMs and someone else starts running a new game in a new setting, sometimes even a new system.

I've done it once or twice. Generally speaking the party restarts a few levels lower (usually half) and a couple weeks later being hired by some "concerned citizen" who may have been an NPC associate of the previous party. The approach is generally "Hey, these guys were gonna do a thing, and they never returned." would you go look for them and if they're dead, finish what they started?

It really depends on player interest in the setting. Sometimes folks just aren't feeling it.

 

[S'mon]

My attempts to restart with same players in same campaign after TPK have always gone badly, I definitely find leaving it a couple years works best.

 

[Zardnaar]

I might retcon it especially if I screw up as the DM. If the PCs are stupid back to level 1.

 

[Blue]

TPK ends the campaign. We might start up a new campaign, possibly even in the same world / same time. But it will be a new campaign, with character arcs and focus based on what the new set of characters are interested in.

Of course, I try to run so that there are more plots then the characters can follow anyhow, so some plots (the ones the party was dealing with) going unfinished (or finished by NPC adventurers) is just part of the existing dynamic.

I would be open if my players wanted to have a Deux ex Machina sort of bring back, but at both high campaign and character cost. Like they are reanimated two years later by a force in the campaign that needs the original problem dealt with because it's gotten world-threatening, with the Death God holding onto their souls until they perform three tasks for her that will interfere with them trying to deal with the problem.

As a player, overcoming actual risk brings the most enjoyment. I've told several DMs to ramp up the danger before. I can't handwave away the risk of a TPK, that cheapens all the players do to avoid it.

As a side note, each campaign is different and the above is a general case. As a player we had a TPK in a game where each player had an existing stable of characters, so only some characters died and the campaign continued. And we were even able to retrieve the bodies eventually and resurrect the fallen characters. That was fine, it made sense. And had a lot of consequences.

 

[Shiroiken]

Depends on the type of game. My current game is a West Marshes style, so there are more characters than just the TPK. In most campaigns, the story simply ends with the death of the party; I may give an epilogue of the effects of their failure. In an epic game, I may take this a bit further, narrating the failure, but use that as the premise for the next campaign, giving them another chance to finish the tale (if in a different manner).

 

[cmad1977]

First: you need an alibi.
Second: Dispose of the bodies.
Third: When dealing with Law Enforcement always... wait... you weren’t LARPing.


...never mind.