D&D 5E Your very first TPK?

[DRF]

Hi,

DM's, what brought about your first total party kill? Players, what lead to your first TPK?

I am asking because I DM'ed a one-shot this Saturday and I had my first TPK. I've only DM'ed for about a year, and I have killed one character in a one-shot and had several unconscious ones in my LMoP group, but never anything like this.
I am in the process of preparing Curse of Strahd for my regular group, and I decided to play part of it as a one-shot (for random players) to get practice and try some things. It was a great game, but also dramatic.

Long story short, a new player inadvertently brought about the death of an 8 year old child while trying to rescue him. The group (and the child’s mother) was understandably upset. They kept trying to figure out ways of bringing back the child, and wanted to visit the local priest in hopes he was a cleric who could resurrect the kid. As a random improvisation (because this particular priest was useless), I had the group meet Strahd himself who offered to bring back the child “for a price”. They sort of panicked and thought (reasonably though incorrectly) that Strahd wanted to make the child a vampire. They declined the offer, and as Strahd was leaving in his horse wagon, the new player decided to fireball the back of Strahd’s wagon. Fireball. To Strahd’s wagon. They were four level 5 characters. I am sure I don’t have to spell out what happened next.

This even happened after the group had seen the ghostly procession of dead adventures killed by Strahd who every night wander to his castle pointlessly. It was good fun and the players had a great game; the new player was excited and kept asking about being invited again, so despite the fact that he killed a child and murdered all his friends, he had a good time.

Please, share your stories!

ps: the players were just supposed to fight a vampire spawn in the church's basement.

 

[Nevvur]

First and only TPK in 5e: goblins with grenades against a level 2 party.

The PCs interrupted a caravan raid by goblins. The wagons were secretly transporting dwarven explosives, and the goblins managed to escape with a couple crates. The caravan master divulged the secret manifest, so I felt I had fairly established any future goblins they meet could be wielding grenades.

Fast forward to next session, some goblins have murdered the residents of a farm house outside of town in order to set up a staging area for sewing additional chaos. Unbeknownst to the goblins, they were witnessed by a villager, who reported the incident to the mayor, who in turn beseeched the PCs for help.

Off the PCs go. They basically have the goblins pinned down in the barn, so they can approach the situation methodically. Instead, the wizard goes charging in guns blazing. The other PCs respond by... joining him. In the interest of avoiding a TPK, I decide the goblins won't throw grenades on the first round, but I do end that round with the goblin leader barking out, "Use the boom boom!"

All the PCs have higher initiative, so it's my hope they'll spread out/get out of the barn. None of them do. A grenade gets tossed when the goblins' turn comes up.

The grenade in question is basically a low yield fireball: All creatures in a 20 foot radius must make a DC 15 Dex save or take 6d6 damage, or half that amount on a success. All the PCs are in the blast radius, they all fail their saves, and I roll nearly maximum damage (32, if memory serves).

We talked it over as players. I felt awful about it, but they felt like they walked into it, so we agreed to stand by the TPK and start with new PCs, treating those first 2 sessions as a sort of one-shot/prologue.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Too many years have passed to remember my first TPK in the 1e era. No TPK in the 5e era, got 5 out of 6 but the one managed to flee. A group of 9-10 level PC attacking Yeenaghou almost worked, one more round and they would have taken him down. Alas a couple bad saves that last round and boom it was a slaughter.

 

[delericho]

The first one in 5e came about because I was running "Lost Mine of Phandelver" for 2 PCs, and although I adjusted the number of beasties down a bit it just wasn't enough - they were just worn down too much and then overwhelmed.

My first ever TPK? Actually, it's so long ago I don't remember. Almost certainly player over-confidence, though - the view was generally that if there were monsters they were there to be killed and that any battle should be something they can win. Neither of which was actually true, of course.

 

[Morrus]

Yikes. I literally can't remember it, but I do know we used to have them quite a lot back when we played 1E. I like to think we've grown since then!

 

[iserith]

I can't remember far enough back to TPKs in AD&D 2e, but my first D&D 5e TPK was in Lost Mines of Phandelver. The PCs skipped the goblin cave and started messing with the Redbrands at their hideout when they were a level or two behind. Suffice it to say, they got taken to task.

My next TPK came in my Viking-themed one-shot Fimbulvetr; however, in this one the PCs are incentivized to die by the end as a means of accruing enough points to make it to Valhalla.

 

[jgsugden]

A cut rope. The 5th level AD&D party (~1980) had the wizard fly up and tie a rope at the top of a 200 foot cliff. Then the other PCs climbed up after him. However, he was ambushed by the thief they were hunting and killed with a backstab. Then, the thief waited until the rest of the party was close to the top... and cut the rope.

The wizard ignored warning signs. The PCs were given a chance to try to catch onto the cliff. However, none of these were executed well by me (I was an 8 year old DM - gimme a break) and the remaining PCs all fell and died.

My second TPK was when a 7th level wizard attacked a 5th level party. He was flying and had protection from normal missiles and shield up (also an AD&D era campaign). He took one fireball from the party, but beyond that the PCs could do nothing to him and he had them trapped on a giant plain. It was just an execution. One PC escaped, but fled back into a nearby dungeon and died in the entrance room when he triggered the monsters there.

The most memorable TPK was in 2E. The PCs began the game in a small coastal city - that was attacked by the Tarrasque. The Tarrasque was being treated more like an environment than a monster, knocking over buildings, creating opportunities for the PCs to save folks, etc... However, in the final moment of the session, the PCs found themselves trapped out in the open - face to face with a 200' tall Tarrasque - and it squashed them. I rolled the attacks, but it would take a miracle for them to survive. The next session began with the PCs waking up, raised mysteriously from the dead, with a quest to gather the tools necessary to kill the Tarrasque.

My least favorite TPKs were a real bad call on my part as a DM when I was far too experienced to make the mistake. In the first, the PCs were a bunch of LG zealots. They were trying to outdo each other in terms of heroics - and I put in a monster army that was intended to force them to flee. They stood their ground - 6 heroes versus thousands - and they were overrun far too fast. It didn't feel like a heroic last stand - it felt like a slaughterhouse ending.

In the second, the PCs were infected by something that was draining one hp per round. They were supposed to fight their way to the cure and then take it before they died - but one of the PCs put up a wall of stone in their path without realizing where they needed to go, thinking he was trapping a few enemies in an alcove. Despite hints that they needed to go that way, they didn't figure it out - until after the PCs that could have beaten the wall of stone was dead.

 

[toucanbuzz]

TPK is rare, not surprised in a 1-shot adventure a player might act with more bravado than usual, because, well, what are they doing to do later with the character?

Have not had a TPK in 5E, just close calls. No matter the situation, I never want players saying it was the DM's fault (or bias or fiat) for the TPK, and so far that's how we've been for many years.

First: AD&D, party split up on an island with a dragon after arguing out-of-character about what to do. Wild mage miscast Fly and polymorphed permanently into a crocodile. Two others climbed a cliff. First one visited ruins and charmed (then eaten) by harpies. Second one was slower and arrived as the dragon meandered over. It cast Command as he was pulling himself to the top and said "Jump." He failed a save, jumped, and fell 800' to his death.

Most recent: D&D 3.5, 16th level party drew from a Deck of Many Things on a hostile Negative Energy plane. First two players were Imprisoned, next player tried to save them (by hoping for a Wish), lost his possessions and couldn't cast Plane Shift to get the party home. Last player lost an amulet protecting him from the Negative Energy Plane.

Purest bad luck, but I don't pull punches. Sometimes the best and most memorable stories are exactly because the DM doesn't craft it to be a particular way.

 

[Charlaquin]

My first TPK was in 4th Edition, and was also the first game I DMed. I was running a weird hodgepodge custom campaign using individual encounters from a whole bunch of different sources. I only had two players and was running a friendly NPC for them to help them a bit, but I guess I just didn’t account for the party size well enough.

I had my first 5e TPK on Friday with Lost Mines of Phandelver. Our first session of the campaign, my players defeated the goblins at the ambush sight with no damage and two of their 5 first level spell slots used between them, one of which was a warlock spell slot. So far so good, but since they hadn’t taken any damage, they decided to pursue the tracks to the goblin cave without stopping to rest and get the warlock’s Spell slot back. They avoided the traps, and when they got to the cave, they snuck past the goblins keeping guard outside. Calmed the wolves in the first alcove. Sent a scout up the chimney, saw Klarg without being spotted, and decided to leave him since they didn’t see Sildar or Gundren in the room, so they turned around and continued up the tunnel. One-shorted the goblin on the bridge in the surprise round. Continued up the tunnel around towards Klarg’s room. And that’s where everything went pear shaped. They killed one of the three goblins in the room with the flood pools, and the other two ran off to get reinforcements - one towards Klarg and his wolf, the other towards the sleeping quarters. Klarg came in and knocked their warlock out with one good hit. Luckily the Bard got him back up to full with a Cure Wounds, but at that point they had decided they were not going to stand a chance in a fight and tried to run. With eight goblins, a bugbear, and a wolf pursuing them and another two goblins they had snuck past still at the entrance, they stood absolutely no chance. I even tried to give them the chance to try negotiating, as the goblins came out with Sildar and said to stop or they’d kill him... but, my PCs decided they didn’t know Sildar well enough to risk being captured by goblins for him, so they continued to try to run. It didn’t work.

Kind of a bummer on the first session. Two of my players had never played D&D before, one had only played in online games before, and the other has tried a few times but usually been too intimidated by the other players, so I felt kind of bad about TPKimgbthem in our first session. But they all said they had a ton of fun anyway, so I’m not too worried about giving them a bad first impression. And I had a contingency plan - I had been planning to follow up Lost Mine with Out of the Abyss anyway, so I figured if they got TPKed at any point during LMoP, they’d be turned over to Neznar who would sell them to the drow group in OOTA and just start that campaign. I didn’t expect it to happen quite so soon, so I’m kind of scrambling to prepare as much as I can of that I’m time for next session, but I am glad I had that backup plan.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I don’t remember this, but my twin tells me I killed his first D&D character, a cleric, with a trap when we were nine. He reminds me every chance he gets. Still don't remember it.

The only time I came close to a TPK was early on in 5e, actually. And yes, the PCs made some poor choices. They were up against the BBEG and his dragon ally and they just didn’t work as a team, with some focusing on one and some the other, and no one was in range of the cleric’s healing. The whole group went down and made death saving throws, though only one of them actually died.

To be honest, had I been faster thinking, I could’ve come up with something else, like capturing them or the villain just leaving to let the dragon take care of them. But I was caught flatfooted by the complete lack of strategy and coordination.