What normally happens after a TPK?

[Lanefan]

The difference between one character surviving and no character surviving is that with a TPK, there is the end of plot continuity and there is nobody around to raise/ressurect the fallen unles sthe GM wants to pretend there is and does something cheesey like raises the party through use of a NPC.

When it's less than that - it's character death, but not the end of plot continuity death. It's a MASSIVE difference, as the party continues if it wants to.

That's not a technicality; it is, in fact, a distinction with a massive difference.

It's a TPK, or it isn't.

Fully agreed, and while many is the time I've wiped out over half a party I've never in 26 years of DMing managed to pull off a full-ride TPK. The bloody parties are just too resilient!

Nearest I ever got to a full TPK was during my last campaign. Of a party of 10 there were 2 survivors: one was teleported (as an effect of the encounter) about 1000 miles away and the other, on realizing the party was doomed, teleported himself out with as much expensive gear as he could quickly grab. He later used said expensive gear to buy a wish and get everyone back.

As everyone has backup characters in my current game (in fact, there's two entire backup parties out there!), a TPK now would represent a likely end to that story arc but no threat at all to the continuation of the overall campaign.

Lan-"which also means I don't need to pull punches"-efan

 

[Jeff Wilder]

We've (almost) always started a new game or campaign. (Back in early 3E, I tried to keep going after a "TPK less 1" at 5th level, but it didn't work out well.)

Generally speaking, the session in which a TPK occurs isn't much fun for anybody, so the adventure/scenario/campaign is sorta "tainted" ("those taint-shooting bastards!") by the TPK. Personally speaking, GMing a TPK actually depresses me, so I'm usually wanting to move to something new ASAP.

 

[Richards]

I've only ever had one TPK, and we just rolled with it and kept playing. The PCs "woke up" in the Abyss with no memories of their previous lives (the mission they were on when they were killed was trying to stop this device which sucked up the souls of the recently deceased and transported them to the Abyss, so we kind of lucked out there), before Orcus himself. He told them they had been his trusted lieutenants who had attempted to revolt against him and take over his domain, so he wiped their memories and changed their forms. For the next several adventures, they believed they were demons trapped in human and elf bodies and went on various missions for Orcus, doing all sorts of evil things across the Planes. When they finally got their true memories back, they then had to go undo all the evil they had just done in Orcus' name, and the rest of the entire campaign has been focused on destroying Orcus permanently in his own Realm.

We've had so much fun as a result of that TPK, that should anything similar occur in any future campaigns, I'll probably try to do something similar.

Johnathan

 

[Chainsaw]

Back in middle and high school, when I would DM 2E, and we played on the weekends or after school, we'd just do something else after a TPK. No big deal, same as if someone lost a game of checkers or something. Characters died all the time and no one's real life identity was jeopardized or anything. There was a pretty good chance we'd either decide to watch Bloodsport, Cyborg or the Metallica tour documentary again (if it were night) or go outside to play football or catch or something (during the day). If we were lucky, we'd either have a parent (in middle school) or a friend (in high school) to drive us into town to screw around at the mall. We might pick up again the next weekend with new characters in a new dungeon. We might not. D&D was just a game that we'd play sometimes when we didn't have something else to do.

More recently, when I have played newer editions, TPK has been a pretty scary concept that people only mentioned with wild eyes, but ultimately it never actually happened - people had invested so much time writing a history or optimizing builds that they would have been really upset if they died. Our DM knew this and so there were never any TPKs. I'm not sure we were ever really in any danger, to be honest.

I doubt it's necessarily editions specific though. My experience is that it's more age correlated - back we were younger, we really didn't give a crap. We were just filling empty time. As adults, I have found that people use the game more as an escape, so they maximize the fantasy and invest more emotionally.

 

[Vegepygmy]

You may have experienced both game effects after a TPK, but what do you consider the norm?

I had to vote Other, because in my experience neither effect is significantly more common than the other.

 

[fireinthedust]

I almost had a TPK last game, but I as GM forgot a rule that allowed the party to escape. Basically they could move across country only so far, so they ended on a hex area with the encounter in it. They triggered a zombie horde, and then bolted. Now, they shouldn't have been able to run back (ie: across this frozen lake for two or three additional hexes) simply because they were out of hex-movement for the day. However, in the heat of the chase I forgot that, and they got away.


I imagine they'd be pissed, as we've been working on this one plot for some time. Two years, actually, on and off games by schedule. The party is level 6 now. They've really delved into this setting of mine, and are doing something really important (revealing the identity of the new gods of the setting, to replace the dead ones in a no-gods setting). I'd likely scrap at least... well, the plot, if they die. The setting I'd change to what I'm working on.

and I've got other systems I'd like to try on them (Pathfinder, M&M, and my own creations). It's the same, I think, as if we completed the big quest; just more opportunities to do that each session!

but in 4e there are soooo maaaaany ways to not die, or come back. I really have to screw them over if I want to kill them off. I've seen them bludgeon stupidly powerful enemies in a round or two, and they're not that powerful. Mostly what does it is area traps and conundrums

Me: "you see a golden sword chained to a bomb with a lock on it; if you fail to pick the lock successfully before removing the chain, the bomb will explode."
Them: "hmm... well, I guess I better not risk it by picking the lock! Okay, I break the chain"
Me: "You're breaking the chain? You're not picking the DC 20 lock first with your +12 Thievery?"
Them: "no way. I break that chain and remove it ftw!"
Me: "you explode"
Them: "...um, can I action point this away?"

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, in my group a TPK (which happens every couple of years, or yearly), results in a largely new game, though it depends on the game that got TPKed. If the adventue was going great, new characters (which I like to do anyway) in the same story, often mysteriously beaming down into the same fight, or one room away from it.

But most times, it is a new game new level, workld, situations and we prefer it that way. We are not sup@er-serious about plot and such, jsut like to run a little wild nad do some fun stuff, so the newness fades, and the fun stuff becomes less fun.

Time to reboot!!!!

 

[The Ghost]

The difference between one character surviving and no character surviving is that with a TPK, there is the end of plot continuity and there is nobody around to raise/ressurect the fallen unless the GM wants to pretend there is and does something cheesey like raises the party through use of a NPC.

When it's less than that - it's character death, but not plot continuity death. It's a MASSIVE difference, as the party continues if it wants to.

That's not a technicality; it is, in fact, a distinction with a massive difference.

It's a TPK, or it isn't.

Sigh. There was a reason I qualified the usage of TPK in my post. I was just using the most recent campaign to illustrate what we do - it is the one most fresh in my memory. I assumed readers would extrapolate from that example.

 

[ReeboKesh]

I voted Other because of the following examples

D&D Game #1 - One player goes overseas on a holiday, the rest of the high level group are killed in an adventure, he comes back and they decide to start a new D&D campaign. He retires his high level character.

D&D Game #2 - TPK by the black dragon in Forge of Fury. Start a new D&D campaign.

Star Wars Game - Two players frozen in carbonite, other two forced to Hyperspace Jump away.Effectively a TPK due to circumstances. Start a different campaign with a different system.

Earthdawn Game - Party are TPK'd fighting the big bad. New campaign with different character set a year after the events of the TPK.
Reebo

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Other."

I've only been involved with one TPK in my entire history of playing D&D...and it was my first game. I won't rehash it here, but the answer is, for me at least, "you move away over the summer and never see that group again."

And the only other TPKs I've been involved in were in a game called The Fantasy Trip/In the Labyrinth.

Since PC gen takes all of 5 minutes, the answer was everybody makes new PCs and starts over. But TFT/ITL was a stripped down RPG- just barely above its fantasy beer & pretzel wargame roots that you rarely got attached to your PCs. You often didn't have time.