How to handle a TPK

[Sanael]

On the whole, I am not a fan of TPKs. I don't think they often have a place in a game that is meant both to tell a story and to be fun for all.

 

Having said that, I do not believe they should not ever happen, and I definitely do believe in PC death, just not ALL the PCs in one fell swoop.

 

As a GM, I roll behind a screen and fudge liberally. If a PC is about to get killed, and it will either make the game less fun or it will be a disservice to the story we are trying to tell together, I will fudge rolls. If a party is about to get decimated, I will fudge rolls to lessen damage and make it possible for some PCs to escape.

 

The last TPK I experienced, I was playing, rather than running, the game. I was playing a PC with acres of backstory (because that's how I build them), and it was the third session of the game. There were four PCs in the encounter, all 3rd level. We found ourselves up against a CR 6 or 7 encounter, involving four monsters, one of which was size large and wielding a 1d12+4 weapon. Our party makeup? Bard, cleric, fighter and monk. Potentially, one hit from that weapon could render our bard unconscious, and two would do in the cleric. The GM concentrated firepower on those two PCs first, soaking a lot of damage from the tanks, rolled several crits, and fired on the tanks at range with great success. The party's dice were cold. The room was coated in a slippery substance that made it difficult to move without a high balance skill, so the fighter spent some time prone. After the bard and cleric died (and yes, the gm made sure to finish them to -10 hp even after they fell unconscious), the fighter and monk weren't too much longer for the world, either. After the session, the GM said, "Sorry, guys, but there was no way I could have fudged any of those rolls! The dice were just too hot!"

 

We were livid. The GM could have fudged rolls; she uses a screen. More importantly, the GM could have concentrated fire on the tanks, which would have made sense, as they were dealing damage. Instead she made the monster take atks of opp to wade past the tanks and hit the two weakest party members, then continued beating on them until they were dead. As a GM, I usually leave characters at unconscious, because they are no longer a threat to the monster. The GM could also have lowered the DC of the slippery floor to better balance it for the lower level party. She could even have extended the size of the dungeon so we could take out a few more lower level encounters and level up before facing the boss.

 

The point is, there are ways of avoiding TPKs, and I usually think it is best to do so. As for your situation, I would definitely take the mulligan if it's offered this time around.

[Gimp]

The most important thing in gaming is to remember that it is a game played for fun.

 

If the group wants to redo the encounter, it isn't wrong to do it. Even if it's only because the DM wants to redo things without their mistake, it isn't wrong.

 

There is no wrong way to play if the people playing are having fun.

[joshuaslater]

Get rid of resurrection and raise dead spells. They're for wussies. People play differently when death is final.

[sethohman]

I am a GM, and run everything on the tough side. If there is no fear of death, why bother? But, I try to make everything beatable.

 

I did have one time, I attacked the group. Wasn't too difficult, IMO. But they proceeded to consistently roll 3s and 4s to hit - we went 4 rounds without a PC hit. At that point it was obvious that thye were going to lose this fight. I wussed out, and made the attackers 'hunting for the fun of it'. It was a random encounter to fill the time between two cities - not anything to do with the story line. I just had the PCs wake up afterwards, all their gear intact, at 1 HP. Not the best solution, but the group lived and the story didn't suffer. they got 2/3 XP for giving it a good shot - no one can win if the dice dieties go south like that for the entire group.

 

And I was fudging rolls behind my screen - but I couldn't go that many rounds without hitting them. That just looks fake.

[Reaperbryan]

If the GM admitted to an unintentional mistake, not gleefully killing everyone and then backing down due to complaints, and offered to either replay (properly) or skip the encounter, then I would say take him up on it. If you believe his word is law, transcendent of space and time in the game, then take him up on his offer of using that power. If the mistake was bad enough to be the largest deciding factor - even combined with his hot dice rolling and your cold dice - then I say let him fix the mistake with a mulligan. If the correction is made and everyone still dies, then so be it. Everyone learns from the experience, no one hates the GM and he's not embarassed to the point where he's afraid to make a mistake. AA timid GM is no good to anyone.

Agreed. The GM admitted to a mistake that he feels is unbalancing and may have been critical. Goodness knows as both Player and GM I have made mistakes and afterwards been - "oh, holy! That was wrong, it shouldn't have... oh well, next time we'll know." My players usually forgave, just as I forgive them when they misread and misuse a power - provided that once the correction is revealed they play it right.

 

As it was a GM error, I say you should feel confident taking him up on his offer to correct it - Not every GM Mistake will cost you your lives, and not every one will garner a re-do, but this at least is a nice way to keep the game going.

 

If it was TPK with no GM error involved, I would say no re-do. Consequences, or there are no heroes.

 

 

As for balance - I've been converting some old material to 4e and while I'm trying ot balance most encounters to the new systems' way of crafting balance, Not every encounter is balanced. There's a room or two where the PCs don't want to go, and they don't really know that yet.....

 

As for bad player rolls - Tuesdays I run a game with my kids as players, and some of their school friends. My youngest son and his best friend, in a 6-round combat, missed every roll but the very last attack roll of the combat for each of them. In each case, they managed to deal the killing blow to one monster, but otherwise whiffed the entire rest of the night. If that wasn't bad enough, the players that did all the hitting were the casters.... the two that missed all night were the melee fighters!

[joshuaslater]

Sensible approach, from a mature crew. GMs who aren't sociopathic, make believe gods of their own world, really want to create a story with the group's characters acting out the scenes, and usually go to great lengths to try to see the story arc through and have the characters succeed, or else, no heroic story.

 

Let's not forget that everyone on stage is dead at the end of Hamlet.

 

It's just something that happens on occasion with roleplay games. GM's feel awful when it happens, and players ain't happy either, but even a game of make believe with dice can't all be peaches and cream.

[Samedi]

I've seen my share of TPKs both as a GM and a player. However, in my old group game balance was almost nonexistent and even sensless deaths of favorite characters, while sometimes leading to heated arguments, were ultimately ok and are remebered fondly now.

 

In my opinion there are two ways to handle the situation: If the group feels that it's more of a game and the GM applied a rule incorrectly (like he admitted he did) I'd pretend the fight never happened and move on with the adventure, maybe with an alternate encounter to get back on track - I think replaying the fight would give the party too big of an advantage because they already know what's about to happen and they will manage their resources better.

 

If it's more like a shared storytelling experience for you (and I interpret your post that way) I'd decide the players have run into a nastier version of foes than the one described in the MC and have, indeed, died. Make new charakters (possibly about the same level) playing friends and relatives coming for revenge and trying to find out what was so important for the dead group that they gave their lives for it - this being my preferred version.

 

But that's just my 2c, YMMV and all that.

[Qwyksilver]

A dead character is just another chance to play from a different perspective. I usually don't worry much if my character dies, or the entire party dies. Of course, I can whip together a cohesive character with backstory pretty quickly because of experience. I like to play reckless characters. There are times when I am playing, and things are going badly for me that I just start rolling a new character up on the spot so when the death is official, I am ready for the DM to start looking for a new way to bring me in. And usually, that means I don't die, but just spend yet another battle waiting until I am at -9 HP for a Cure Minor Wounds I've been involved in a few TPKs. None have been because of a gleeful DM abusing his power and killing us on purpose. They've always been a combination of bad decisionz compounded by bad dice.

 

More often than not, there is usually an almost TPK, where a single player survives because they weren't there to physically play, or their character was not there for whatever reason. Then the party reforms and you either go in another direction, or the surviving member seeks out a troop to exact vengence, continue the quest, etc.

 

One campaign I was in, by the time we decided to call it after 5-ish years of playing, and multiple character deaths by many of the players, we all realized. None of the characters original to the quest had survived. In fact, the last original character was dead for a bit, and whenthe party came to a particular cross road, we all were like, umm, why are we here, doing this? The driving force of the original party was gone, and we were just chasing legacy. The party disbanded, and we went our seperate ways, and restarted the campaign in a different part of the world, in a different time line, ad followed a different path.

[chronoplasm]

We had a TPK in a game I was in, but rather than roll up new characters, the party continued on into the afterlife.

We all ended up in hell and had to try and escape. Eventually we were able to get into the dream word where we were able to communicate with this recurring NPC and get him to resurrect us. We then rolled up a new party of characters charged with a quest to retrieve our previous character's remains so that they could be brought back to life.

That second party got TPK'd as well though, so with our last chance blown we really did have to start over. :(

[kristof65]

I think Greyhorde said it well already, but I'll add my $0.02, too.

 

I'm not a big fan of PC death, but on the other hand, as both a GM and a player, I'm not afraid of it either - if there's a good reason for it.

 

In the campaign I'm currently playing in, my PC has died twice. The first time an evil Cleric did him in when I made a heroic gesture in an attempt to save the other members of the party. The Professor died, but the party got away.

 

The second time, my PC failed a roll to detect a trap, and was hit with not one, but TWO disintegrate spells. One disintegrate spell was likely to kill him, the GM hitting him with two was sheer overkill, and IMO, completely unneccessary.

 

Can you tell which PC death I accept as a fun part of the game, and which one I'm perturbed over?

 

 

As far as I'm concerned, the possibility of character death is a necessary part of making the game feel challenging and fun. But it should never be massive overkill just because. If a PC dies, it should be either because they've done something completely stupid (and possibly heroic) - like a 1st level PC charging an Ancient Dragon with a dagger, or should be just barely - like they had a chance in the first place, things just went bad. Killing a PC off just because the dice and/or module said to, IMO is not good enough reason. So if a GM makes a rule mistake that is going to result in a TPK - or in fact does result in one - I'm going to be pissed off. Either at myself for making it if I'm the GM, or at the GM if I'm a player.

[GreyHorde]

As a GM, I have experienced plenty of character deaths, but never once a TPK. Had a couple of close calls, though. I remember one pitched battle in an AD&D game where even with fudged dice rolls, reduced damage and poor tactics on the part of the bad guys, only 2 of 12 PCs and NPCs were still standing (6 dead, 4 unconscious or otherwise incapacitated). Part of it was that I overestimated the strength of the party, part of it was they forgot to use a couple of items and weapons in their arsenal, and they also had a lot of lousy lucky with their dice.

 

For whatever reason, though, as a player I've never once had a character resurrected. 'Dead is dead' can sometimes get boring, too. One GM I know treats death exactly the same way in every no- or low-magic campaign he runs. Fantasy, sci-fi, horror, it doesn't matter, he runs it the same way. Dead is dead. No afterlife, no plane travel, no miracles, no exceptions. He's pretty close to being a 'killer' GM, too. The only example I can recall where he allowed a mulligan was when he was running Rolemaster and he rolled something like 5 open-ended critical hits for a rabid flying squirrel. He realized there was something wrong with the system that could generate a decapitation of an armored man in a single round by a squirrel bite. He reduced the damage, limited criticals or something based on size, and replayed the encounter. Beyond that, sometimes we have just retired some of our better characters rather than get them killed by needless 'adventuring'.

[Dwynter]

In my 20+ years of DMing I have only had one TPK and it was complete player failure (ie low health, no heals...."Lets check out one more room").

On the other hand my last game night I was running a group of mostly new players and ALMOST had a TPK for there 1st level group. I didn't want the pc's dead on the second encounter so I fudged 'alot of rolls' and they managed to survive with one PC at 3hp and the rest at -'s and falling. The remaining PC fought hard to keep them all alive and it made for an intresting RP experience. The group now realizes that if one fighter is at -4 (stable ,thanks to a Cure minor), heals are gone, and the remaining 'fighters' are low on hp....its time to flee.

As far as your DM letting you replay the scene I think thats really cool on his part and shows he is flexible. I like that kind of DMing and fits my style. What ever your group decides I hope it works out and that you have fun doing it.

[SIGIL]

My most fond memeories of gaming have been in instances where the whole damned party bit the dust, or only one of us managed to limp away................

 

Oh the Tomb of Horrors. Love those hallway traps of insta-kill with no way out.

 

For me it is not how the characters live that make them memorable, it is how they die.

[King Tiger]

I agree TPK's can be "fun" in that cataclysmic ends can make memories for lifetimes for players and GM alike. I have been GMing for over 20 years now and I have crushed many parties. I dont say that with any sense of pride or malice, I just have. I have killed high level and low level parties, and the thing I have learned from it is not to look at it as a disaster, but as an opportunity. When I design an adventure their is often a climactic battle at the end. This battle is always designed to test the characters to their limit. That means their is the real chance at least some or all PC's may get killed, realizing that I prepare for that eventuality. For example if a powerful enemy kills the party you have an instant sequel on your hands! Have another party make a run at the baddy, perhaps from a different perspective, I have had players create brothers or sisters of fallen characters even lovers and tell me "we want another shot at that guy!"The story almost writes itself for ya then! I have surprised players by reintroducing a "slain" character as an NPC in later adventures saying the PC was actually captured and not killed, then give the player the option to resume playing their old PC. Anyway its all a matter of being prepared as a GM, be realistic if their is a real danger of death in an encounter you need to ask yourself "how do I handle that?" BEFORE it happens in the game. I remember I had a player approach me one night after a session, he said " Your final encounters are always so challenging, but that's what so fun! When we beat one of your badass bosses it feels great because of the sense of accomplishment I feel." That is one of the best compliments I was ever given and it reinforced for me the belief that dangerous encounters really make the game exciting, remember to use them in moderation of course and have a plan for what happens if the PC's fail, that's my 2 cents on this!

[Yoshi]

Watch the film "Gamer-Dorkness Rising" to see how TPK is handled. Make new charecters, start the adventure from the begining, and go off knowledge your previous charecter had. Then when you run into Nodwick, charm him to get your stuff back.

 

Seriously, we once had a TPK, except my charecter who survived. It looks REALLY bad when a group of adventurers go out, and only the drow comes back.