Continuation of campaign

[Brawldennis]

Hey playground I'd like some advice.

I'm a fairly new dm running pathfinder for some friends, we're really having a blast though now I've got a bit of a problem with keeping the campaign going. My players have been in a big city for most of the campaign, they enjoyed the city so much that they made it their base of operation. To keep it interesting I decided to have an evil group infiltrate the city to get some conflict, would they fail at stopping them, the evil group would destroy the city.

Now the problem is, that during the fight with some members of this organization everyone but 1 player in the party died, this wouldn't have been as much of a problem were it not for the fact that this was a new character from a player who had rerolled during the session before which had no connection to the city whatsoever. Long story short: The character did what every sane man would do, he ran away.

So now I'm really struggling with what direction to take in the campaign, I've got one character running of to who knows where and a couple of players rolling new characters. What would be a good way to let them meet? I was thinking of just having the lone character end up in an inn where he meets the rest, but that seems so cliche. I'm also struggling a bit with how to continue, seeing as my whole plot has been destroyed with the city.

Thanks for your help!

[Chronikoce]

What were the motives of those infiltrating the city? Is there any way that their plans can be altered so that the city the party failed to save was just step 1? If so then you could try to tie the previous character with the new ones by having them witness (and hopefully stop) an attempt on his life.

Maybe the bad guys from before sent someone to finish him off when he fled. The new party (if they are good aligned) could be good Samaritans who step in to save a stranger that gets assaulted in front of them.

[KillianHawkeye]

Well, when you put yourself into a situation where the two possible outcomes are the PCs successfully defeat the danger or the PCs get defeated and the central focus of your setting gets destroyed, and you actually allow either option to come true based on the actions of the PCs and the roll of the dice... then what you've really done is set up two different directions that the campaign could go and you need to be prepared to act on either one.

The alternative is to let the campaign end with all but one of the heroes dead and the last one fleeing into a life of anonymity and the city destroyed, and then start up a completely unrelated adventure with all new characters.

[Brawldennis]

What were the motives of those infiltrating the city? Is there any way that their plans can be altered so that the city the party failed to save was just step 1? If so then you could try to tie the previous character with the new ones by having them witness (and hopefully stop) an attempt on his life.

Maybe the bad guys from before sent someone to finish him off when he fled. The new party (if they are good aligned) could be good Samaritans who step in to save a stranger that gets assaulted in front of them.

Chasing him might be a good idea, though I'm not really sure the new pc's will help him because it's the right thing to do, seeing as they've rolled a neutral gunpowder addicted kobold alchemist and a neutral halfling bard of whom I'm sure prefers to stay out of harm's way if possible.


Well, when you put yourself into a situation where the two possible outcomes are the PCs successfully defeat the danger or the PCs get defeated and the central focus of your setting gets destroyed, and you actually allow either option to come true based on the actions of the PCs and the roll of the dice... then what you've really done is set up two different directions that the campaign could go and you need to be prepared to act on either one.

The alternative is to let the campaign end with all but one of the heroes dead and the last one fleeing into a life of anonymity and the city destroyed, and then start up a completely unrelated adventure with all new characters.

I hadn't even imagined them being able to die to this, usually they're very calculating, always finding ways to trivialize my encounters within a couple of turns, laughing loud as they destroy bosses as if they're goblins. And now they suddenly just ran headfirst into enemy territory, not caring that their HP has been reduced by previous encounters as if they were a tribe of raging barbarians.

I've already suggested starting a new campaign, but they've told me that they don't mind the fact that they had a near TPK and really enjoy the world as it is and are eager to explore more of it.