What to do about half the pc's party dying

[Delak]

I will be most likly running into a situation where more then half the pc party will die in battle, and I am not sure what should be done in the aftermath.
Several options that i have or have been thinking about if the surviving members dont or cant get them resurrected.

1. Divine intervention
2. New characters and contuine the story.(not sure on this one as it will take away from the story)
3. New Campaign with New characters based off of them failing.

Any thoughts or advice would be great.

 

[Man-thing]

1. Divine Intervention

I hate this result. I recently ran the old Curse of the Azure Bonds module and it became clear to the PCs that they could always be saved by a plot that was more important than their characters. It was not fun for any.

2. Some new characters then carry on...

We've done this on a number of occassions but the risk is that characters that originally survived will die and the link they have to the story will be diminished.

3. New characters and new campaign after the failure...

We have done this on seperate occassions although I usually change campaign worlds or adventure locals to begin with. This allows the players some time to get re-energized after a loss before coming upon similar themes.

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What do your players think?
Is it a story driven game or a player driven game?
Are the characters heroes or the world or are they adventurers in the world?

(I run a fairly difficult game so mine are adventurers until they can prove that they are heroes; some never do)

 

[philreed]

This could be seen as an opportunity to try the Ghostwalk campaign.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Kill 'em all. Why bother with a 1/2 TPK?

 

[Man-thing]

I only vote for a TPK when the party does something really dumb.

For example: I was using the DCC6: Temple of the Dragon Cult

My group is reasonably experienced most having played 8+ years but on this occassion they put on their stupid hats like never before. The party knows they face a Red Dragon and yet they do no prepare or purchase any fire protection or memorize any cold spells.

They also have an annoying habit of turning left. Whenever possible they turn left. This lead them quickly to the dragon skipping most of the complex. Allowing all the dragon cultist to show up middle battle to help the dragon. The slaughter was spectacular the stupidity and unpreparedness was unforgivable and thus TPK.

 

[Delak]

Thanks for the advice, I aggree with Man-thing and feel if the surviving members dont ress the others then I will be doing number 3

 

[Tom Cashel]

Ugh! Might as well kill them all.

"Okay, you survived, but you can't play your characters anymore" isn't really that great a thing for a DM to impose upon the group without consent.

...and how do you know in advance that they're all going to be killed? Sounds kinda weird without the full story.

 

[IronWolf]

I would probably go with option two or three depending on which seems most appropriate given the current campaign. I would avoid Divine Intervention. I think it sets the wrong precedent and the next thing you know the players think they will always be rescued by some divine intervention.

 

[Delak]

The PC's were ambushed by a group of NPC monsters that they pissed off earlier in the campagin. This group has been scrying them for several weeks looking for weakness and where they were heading to setup an ambush which they did. The players have been very very lucky and have gotten out of encounters that should have left them more hurt. This encounter is going very bad for them.

If the surviving pcs dont or cant ress the others its not much fun for the dead players. And I dont want to bring in new ones because the link to the story is already getting weak. There are only three members of the group that are the orginal characters and those are the ones in danger of dying.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Ah, I see. That clears it up.

All I'll add is that in my experience, TPKs or partial TPKs are notoriously hard to predict, especially with a group that has "been very very lucky and [has] gotten out of encounters that should have left them more hurt." Whenever I've thought they were all going to die, they live...only to get wiped out by something I never could have predicted.

(Are you sure you're not setting up something a teeny weeny bit unfair? Just asking.)