What does "TPK" mean?
- Thread starter bardolph
- Start date
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
Blackbrrd said:Oh, we scrapped the whole campaign.
That's the end result of most TPKs, IME. I have seen some DMs work some kind of a story hook to get the PCs resurrected, which can avoid the end of a campaign but every "Ok! Draw up some new charcters and start over!" or "Draw up some new characters and we'll just rotate them in as the new heroes!" effort I have seen to date has killed the campaign dead in short order.
While I have no issues killing most of the party, I actively try to avoid killing them all for this reason: players don't like it. If players don't something, when the DM says "To hell with them!" and does it anyhow, they'll soon find that they suffer from a lack of players. I like playing D&D, so I try to work with the players (because, without players, D&D is pretty boring).
Last edited:
Keeper of Secrets
First Post
I think all players are better off not knowing what a TPK is.
Edena_of_Neith
First Post
TPKs remind me of the ultimate failure in that ancient video game known as Space Invaders.
Not the failure where you run out of ships. The failure where ... the aliens land.
TPKs I was involved in resulted in everyone having to create new characters.
I remember a TPK where the DM insisted we take 1st level characters into I6 Ravenloft (except for someone's 10th level druid ...)
It wasn't a quick TPK. No sir. No easy one-battle-you're-dead TPK. As usual, Ravenloft isn't so merciful. This was a drawn out, agonizing TPK, where Strahd himself had to intervene to put the party out of it's misery.
(Our map was beyond TPK, though. If you've ever looked at the map of I6, you'll see it's extremely complicated. Our map was ... shall I say inaccurate? No, not sufficient. Definitely a case of needing to be put out of it's misery ...)
Not the failure where you run out of ships. The failure where ... the aliens land.
TPKs I was involved in resulted in everyone having to create new characters.
I remember a TPK where the DM insisted we take 1st level characters into I6 Ravenloft (except for someone's 10th level druid ...)
It wasn't a quick TPK. No sir. No easy one-battle-you're-dead TPK. As usual, Ravenloft isn't so merciful. This was a drawn out, agonizing TPK, where Strahd himself had to intervene to put the party out of it's misery.
(Our map was beyond TPK, though. If you've ever looked at the map of I6, you'll see it's extremely complicated. Our map was ... shall I say inaccurate? No, not sufficient. Definitely a case of needing to be put out of it's misery ...)
Weregrognard
First Post
There was an excellent Dragon magazine article on what to do with the campaign when the bad guys "win". For the life of me, I cannot remember the issue. I'm pretty sure the issue was during the late 90's before 3rd edition. Help?
Edit: 50th post! W00t!
Edit: 50th post! W00t!
Doug McCrae
Legend
Last time it happened I ended the campaign. My feeling is that for combat to be worth running there has to be something at stake, whether it's forcing the player to make up a new PC or the cost of resurrection. Some people use stakes other than death though, like if the PCs lose it means the enemy escapes or the NPC princess is kidnapped or something else meaningful to the players.Ziana said:
Snoweel said:
Snoweel - in terms of character flaws, being new is a whole lot less egregious than being as rude and unwelcoming as you are right now.
Let me be clear to everyone - that is not an acceptable way to treat people around here. Low postcount or lack of knowledge about a particular topic is not an excuse to treat people badly. Even if it was a joke, it gives the wrong impression to anyone not in on the joke. We have a whole lot of new folks around here, and we expect you to threat them with respect.
