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

[Tormyr]

I have never had a TPK (and only a handful of character deaths), but one of the things I am going to be trying with War of the Burning Sky to help with this potential scenario is having a "B" team. The "B" team is composed of the player's backup characters, and they go on some of the bonus missions and side quests that are presented in the campaign. This allows the backup characters to be fleshed out more, and if someone's character (or the whole party) dies, the resistance has more seasoned adventurers that they can turn to.

 

[Imaculata]

I have never had a TPK either (not for lack of trying though), but I would probably continue the campaign, and follow the consequences of this epic defeat to their logical conclusion. The bad guy gets to continue with his evil plan, the situation is now more dire than it was before, and a new group of heroes rises to the cause. Perhaps the spirits of the last party reach out to them, and get to share one piece of crucial information with each new PC?

 

[delericho]

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

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?

Normally after a TPK I'll take the opportunity to go and do something radically different. The one time when I've tried to continue a campaign with new PCs just never really worked.

However, since you do wish to continue, I would be inclined to offer three possibilities:

One is just to bring in new PCs and put them in a different bit of the sandbox. You might want to hook them into the old group somehow - maybe this is the rescue party?

Alternately, there's a lot of value in [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s suggestion of having one of the old PCs get stuck, and thus serve to bring the new group up to speed.

Or you could just rule that the whole existing party got stuck, have them come back, and pick right up where you left off. Of course, you'll want there to be some significant consequence of this event. I'm sure you'll come up with something suitably evil...

 

[Coroc]

Let them roll up a new Group and meet the ghosts of their old characters, do some mocking going with it of course e.g. mimic some of the traits of their old chars.

 

[Quartz]

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?

Have them wake up in Alpha Complex: the whole thing was a simulation by The Computer and it wants to know why they failed. Once they twig, watch them gleefully betray each other.

 

[5ekyu]

I have never had a TPK either (not for lack of trying though), but I would probably continue the campaign, and follow the consequences of this epic defeat to their logical conclusion. The bad guy gets to continue with his evil plan, the situation is now more dire than it was before, and a new group of heroes rises to the cause. Perhaps the spirits of the last party reach out to them, and get to share one piece of crucial information with each new PC?

There was a d20 rpg named Midnight or Aftet Midnight which had a fsntasy setting based off "the bad guys won"!

So it was years after fairly widespread bad guys takeover with good oeople kilked or slaved and heroes working as resistance trying to undo the big things, restore relics etc (or if run lower tier to do smaller resistances efforts.)

Was fun for a change.

Move plot a couple generations down and there you go.

 

[Imaculata]

So it was years after fairly widespread bad guys takeover with good oeople kilked or slaved and heroes working as resistance trying to undo the big things, restore relics etc (or if run lower tier to do smaller resistances efforts.)

Was fun for a change.

Move plot a couple generations down and there you go.

One of the advantages of continuing the campaign in this way, is that you raise the stakes, and give the players even more reason to fight (and fear) the bad guy. The new group of heroes might not have all the information that the previous party had, but the players can learn from their mistakes and make sure they are better prepared the next time they do battle with the bad guy.

It will make their eventual victory all the more earned and satisfying. Of course you'll have to introduce new things for this second group of characters. I wouldn't just repeat the exact same campaign that you played earlier.

That said, I have been in a similar situation before. I ran a short Call of Cthulhu campaign, that concluded with a bad ending, due to the poor choices of the players. When I later ran the same campaign with a different group, it included one player who was also a part of the original group. But this particular player got to experience sides of the story that he didn't get to see before. He visited different locations, made different choices and faced different perils. This ultimately let to a whole different ending.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

Note that if one is running TOA “by the book,” neither resurrection nor ghosts of previous players is really an option.

Personally, I would find moving this a generation or two later to be complicated and a lot of work. Plus, one of the main incentives/time pressures is gone. (This all presumes that Chult survived the BBEGs end game with no one to stop him)

On the other hand, TOA is written in such a way that it makes all sorts of sense for there to be multiple parties of adventurers trying to deal with the crisis.

As Quickleaf indicated, it would be helpful to know which boss where in the module. (in a spoiler block so those who don’t want spoilers are protected). If you start them at Port N, how are you going to deal with the count down? Or had they not gotten far enough for that to matter? (Or did you dispense with that aspect?)

 

[Li Shenron]

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 would declare their quest failed.

I would (of course) let them create new characters in the same fantasy world.

Next session, I would briefly narrate the dread consequences of the previous party's failure. It depends on the nature of the BBEG they didn't defeat, but perhaps said BBEG took over the kingdom, and made life miserable to everyone.

My preference at this point, would be not to let the new characters start off at the same time when the previous ones were killed, but fast-forward the timeline a few years at least or even decades. Make the region more grim that it used to be, because 'good' has lost last time (this kind of assumed the PCs were good and BBEG evil). Make the BBEG be still there in charge, so he's still the BBEG the new party has to defeat, but perhaps grown a couple of levels in power so that it has new surprises to the players. If you have the new PCs start at a lower level than before, make them go on a few minor quest before they have the chance at challenging the BBEG.

(mine are generic considerations only because I don't actually know the story behind ToA... maybe the BBEG was just a classic lich trapped there for ages and is not supposed to gain anything)

 

[Oofta]

You have 3 basic options that I see.

The party gets magically reformed somehow and the old PCs carry on the fight.
I only know the basic concept of the campaign, but you never have to run things by the book. Not everyone is going to want to do this, but you could have the PCs brought back. Either it was a dream/simulation, a warning sent by someone that they could easily fail and die. Or there could be some other being that gives them a one-time-only get out of jail (death) card. Perhaps the group wakes up to find themselves dead and trapped in some kind of prison that they need to escape. Of course there's always the old "the BBEG captured them and really just knocked them unconscious" bit.

There are a lot of ways of doing this, but it's not going to be for everyone.

A new party picks up basically where the old one started off.
This has already been alluded to, and is probably what I would do. As far as knowing things, one of the party could simply be a relative of one of the dead party members, come to search for him. The party member, unbeknownst to the others was sending back messages (possibly using magical sending stones). This accounts for some knowledge that the players will know that the PCs will not.

Alternatively you can just have spirits pass on information in dreams, etc. Even if the mod forbids it, you're the DM and if you can come up with a reason, then it happens.

You start a new campaign arc.
Honestly, this is generally what I've done when I had TPKs. The world goes on, the bad guy wins or partially succeeds if it's an end of the world kind of thing. Then again I don't use published campaigns very often or heavily modify them for my own use so you may want to get more use out of the book.

Combination
The BBEG has won, or is winning because the heroes failed. You play a session or two with a different party and the aftermath and potentially a pretty desolate world. Some divine being/god decides they don't want this and send a party back in time to pick up where the old group failed. Show the players the consequences of their failure before they get a chance to fix it.

Good luck!