What to do and where to start after a TOTAL PARTY KILL?

[Klaudius Rex]

Hello again!

In the last session of my Tomb of Annihilation, my group fell victim to a TOTAL PARTY KILL!

(Characters have died in my games before, but this is first TPK ever after decades of DMing!)

Despite that, they all still had a good time and want to continue with the game. However, they died at a pivotal point in the game during a boss fight. So my question to you is: what do i do and where to i start after a total party kill?

I plan on getting the new characters caught up to speed by having Grandfather Zitembe from the Temple of Savras inform them of all the relevant knowledge that they would otherwise be ignorant of, just to make the game run smoothly. But I wonder if i should have the new players face off against the boss battle that ended the previous groups lives? this would be sort "rematch", and I'm not all that convinced it would be that fun. What do you think? Should they have a "rematch" against the boss with the new characters? Or should i say that that boss was killed by someone else or died in some other way or just left the scene (or something else?), and just let the players skip it and proceed further into the game?

Btw, I dont necessarily think that the boss fight is unbalanced or anything, and neither do the players as well. It was just a stroke of bad luck, and poor party organization during the battle. So it wasnt a matter of being too hard or anything. I just wonder if it is sort of cheesy or otherwise lackluster to have a "mulligan" of sorts...and the element of surprise gone...

Maybe im just overthinking this....
tell me what you think.

 

[TwoSix]

ToA has to do with weird magic around souls and resurrection, right? Maybe have the spirit of one of the old PCs get "stuck" to one of the new PCs. It can't do anything, but it can communicate with them enough to give them advice and fill in backstory that the new PCs wouldn't be aware of.

I'd probably let them skip the boss unless they really want to get some revenge (maybe egged on by the ghost of the old PC?). If they do go back to face the boss, maybe have the bodies of the old PCs raised as zombies or some other kind of undead?

 

[hastur_nz]

I'd ask my players, or at least do my best to gauge their preferences.

Personally, as a player I'd want to have another go at the BBEG, but it doesn't makes sense to arrive at that point with a brand new group of PC's; also, a brand new group of PC's needs some time to get up to speed as an actual group. So I'd want to start over at some prior point, and spend a little bit of time working towards "Revenge". I'd also want it to make sense, as far as the overall Campaign Plot goes.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'll almost never restart a campaign. No matter how hard players try, there's gonna be some meta knowledge there. So most of the time we'll start up a brand new game, but when we don't... Usually I'll pick up with the new party where the old party left off. I don't know how well ToA supports that. Since time is of the essence in ToA, I'd probably not resume the adventure several days later, which is an approach I often take in homebrew. Maybe a rival adventuring party was following in the PC's footsteps, letting Party A clear the way only so Party B could take all the loot in the end. Maybe Party B was carrying some important information and trying to catch up to Party A.

 

[Rabbitbait]

I'm starting ToA on Thursday and I am preparing for the possibility of a TPK. I will ask the PCs to report in everytime they go into town to update Syndra's map and to report on what they have found. That will mean that if a new party starts, they will get the information up to the last town visit. They can make their choices from there. So effectively, going into town is a save-game point, except that if you load the last saved game you are doing it with different characters.

 

[Eltab]

Ask your players what they want to do, since you are unsure yourself.

Port Nyanzaru is a good "save spot". They can get caught up to speed (except for the final fatal trip) from the existing informant / patrons. They could be sent off to find the missing party and told to try to pick up the trail and continue - the Soulmonger 'clock' is still ticking, after all.

Whatever killed the old group ... would it work to have a Zombie T-Rex near by the site (as a "random" encounter), and disgorge the old group as its zombies? ToA is supposed to be a bit creepy; this could help to bring out the Death-Is-Messed-Up theme.

 

[Unwise]

I do much the same thing as Rabbitbait, in dangerous campaigns I try to have the PCs become a part of an adventurer's guild. They report in each time they come back to town. Any new characters are assumed to have heard the stories up to the last time the PCs came to town.

In OPs situation, I would have a ghost of a clerical PC appear to the new PCs to fill them in. It could do this in a ghosty way, sort of mind melding/possession. Or a religious vision if the PC is religious. Or it appears to a wise-woman/shaman/witch-doctor who the new party consult. If the new party are mercenary, the ghost could even point out that all of their gear now resides with the bad guy. In ToA I would have the new party have the death curse so they have a very valid reason for wanting to pursue the end goal themselves. The visiting ghost could even point out that those under the death curse are being sucked into something horrible, rather than moving on to the afterlife. So it is in the new PCs best interest to get that sorted out.

As for fighting the bad guy again, definelty don't kill him off screen. Just move him to later on in the adventure. The players will love having another go at him once they are levelled up or in a better position. Add some extra sting to their deaths by having the bad guy now wield items that belonged to the old party against the new party. As an added bonus they can get the items back if they defeat him.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

One option would be to have them start with new characters in a location that would lead to them taking a different direction toward the site of the boss fight. One advantage of TOA is the size of the sandbox: even if they started a ways away from the boss fight, they could have all new adventures. I would lean toward having them engage the boss in question (eventually) but talking with the players would be wise. I would likely start them at or just slightly below the level of the characters who died. That would depend a bit how how far away from the boss fight they start. Starting a ways off would let them gel as a group. If timing is an issue (I.e. You don't want to penalize them in terms of the count down of the death curse), you could decide the new group starts before the old group died, in such a way that they arrive at the boss fight sometime shortly after the the first group died.

 

[5ekyu]

Hello again!

In the last session of my Tomb of Annihilation, my group fell victim to a TOTAL PARTY KILL!

(Characters have died in my games before, but this is first TPK ever after decades of DMing!)

Despite that, they all still had a good time and want to continue with the game. However, they died at a pivotal point in the game during a boss fight. So my question to you is: what do i do and where to i start after a total party kill?

I plan on getting the new characters caught up to speed by having Grandfather Zitembe from the Temple of Savras inform them of all the relevant knowledge that they would otherwise be ignorant of, just to make the game run smoothly. But I wonder if i should have the new players face off against the boss battle that ended the previous groups lives? this would be sort "rematch", and I'm not all that convinced it would be that fun. What do you think? Should they have a "rematch" against the boss with the new characters? Or should i say that that boss was killed by someone else or died in some other way or just left the scene (or something else?), and just let the players skip it and proceed further into the game?

Btw, I dont necessarily think that the boss fight is unbalanced or anything, and neither do the players as well. It was just a stroke of bad luck, and poor party organization during the battle. So it wasnt a matter of being too hard or anything. I just wonder if it is sort of cheesy or otherwise lackluster to have a "mulligan" of sorts...and the element of surprise gone...

Maybe im just overthinking this....
tell me what you think.

I would not following a tpk drive the new gane into the same hole, but rather start a new game.

The same thing with different pcs drives you, imo, too quickly to the same point rather than setting up a new set of characters.

If you want to keep the same story, bring back the old characters.

If you want new characters, new story.

Seems pretty obvious to me.

But for my games "the story" is the story of "the PCs" not "the NPCs."

 

[Quickleaf]

Hello again!

In the last session of my Tomb of Annihilation, my group fell victim to a TOTAL PARTY KILL!

(Characters have died in my games before, but this is first TPK ever after decades of DMing!)

Despite that, they all still had a good time and want to continue with the game. However, they died at a pivotal point in the game during a boss fight. So my question to you is: what do i do and where to i start after a total party kill?

I plan on getting the new characters caught up to speed by having Grandfather Zitembe from the Temple of Savras inform them of all the relevant knowledge that they would otherwise be ignorant of, just to make the game run smoothly. But I wonder if i should have the new players face off against the boss battle that ended the previous groups lives? this would be sort "rematch", and I'm not all that convinced it would be that fun. What do you think? Should they have a "rematch" against the boss with the new characters? Or should i say that that boss was killed by someone else or died in some other way or just left the scene (or something else?), and just let the players skip it and proceed further into the game?

Btw, I dont necessarily think that the boss fight is unbalanced or anything, and neither do the players as well. It was just a stroke of bad luck, and poor party organization during the battle. So it wasnt a matter of being too hard or anything. I just wonder if it is sort of cheesy or otherwise lackluster to have a "mulligan" of sorts...and the element of surprise gone...

Maybe im just overthinking this....
tell me what you think.

How and where exactly did they die? There are 2 endgame "bosses" in ToA, if they died in the titular tome.