What to do after a TPK?

[Buufreak]

This thought just occurred to me. It isn't exactly like a game where you just load your last save, right? So what do players/dms here tend to do if and when a full party wipe happens? Can you just go back, or roll a new party? All the logistics of it seem to me that the campaign has potential to just end.

[MadBear]

This thought just occurred to me. It isn't exactly like a game where you just load your last save, right? So what do players/dms here tend to do if and when a full party wipe happens? Can you just go back, or roll a new party? All the logistics of it seem to me that the campaign has potential to just end.

This is literally up to you and your players. Popular choices in my game are:

1. Campaign ends in failure, roll new characters for the next campaign.
2. Roll new characters, pick up from where old characters left off.

If players are really invested in characters:
3. Have a powerful ally resurrect them (kinda boring)
4. Have them roll commoners/other people who are risking their lives to recover the previous characters bodies to have them revived (can be fun, and can even showcase the PC power as these commoners are terrified of things the PC's find trivial).

[NOhara24]

This thought just occurred to me. It isn't exactly like a game where you just load your last save, right? So what do players/dms here tend to do if and when a full party wipe happens? Can you just go back, or roll a new party? All the logistics of it seem to me that the campaign has potential to just end.

Honestly, I'll admit. I myself have never thought about it before. A lot of what I've heard from other DMs (not myself) though is that they treat death pretty lightly - the trope of the party paying to revive a character is pretty common. But as far as every member of the party being dead...that's hard.

I would want to tell my players. "Well, that's it. You've failed. Campaign over." but that leads to the possibility of not playing anymore, and I'd rather be playing than not of course. And obviously a TPK has a certain finality to it.

I think what I would do is likely conclude the campaign for the night and hand out fresh character sheets. Tell them that they're rolling new characters from level 1. Their new party is in a different place in the same world and obviously the plot is still happening - I'd just give them a new plot hook to get re-involved. Maybe even have the new party come across the old party's corpses to emphasize the fact that they were TPK'd.

But, their experiences wouldn't just be a re-do of the last party's. That adventure died when the first party did. This the same plot with a new adventure.

[Jay R]

I favor having the PCs wake up almost naked, with no items, chained to the oar of a ship.

Escaping from being a galley slave is a great adventure. And presumably the pirates (or whoever) still have all their stuff, plus more treasure, plus a ship.

[Darth Ultron]

I favor having the PCs wake up almost naked, with no items, chained to the oar of a ship.



I've done this type of thing a lot. There are tons of ways to have the group continue. As ghosts or zombies or vague undead or countless other things. Sometimes they get help, some times they get enslaved, and sometimes they are all on their own.

And for higher level play it's a great way to get rid of items the characters have. Like if a character has that dumb broken kobold relic super portable hole....and they die...'pop' it is gone. Then they have to adventure without it....or decide to scrap the adventure and just do the ''recover the hole'' not really a quest.

[Pleh]

I've always wanted to set up a true blue dark souls campaign where the players just lose some souls and revive.

[Uncle Pine]

The few times that happened, we rolled up a new campaign with new characters and played that, except for that one time when instead of a total party kill almost everyone got killed. In that case, the only survivor retired from adventuring and started working at a restaurant, only to assemble a new party "a few years later".
You can apply the same logic to a TPK, but have a friendly NPC fill the role of the survivor.

[Jay R]

Can you find any players who didn't have characters in that party? In original D&D, I once rescued an entire party that had been turned to stone.

They had many items, including a useless Bag of Duplication. If you put something in the bag, you would get a useless duplicate: swords that didn't hold an edge, magic items that looked identical but weren't magic, food that tasted bad and didn't satisfy, etc.

This party was turned to stone by a bunch of cockatrices. My "paladin" heard about them, and went out to rescue them. (My character at the time was an ex-Paladin who was turned Chaotic (evil), but no other players knew it yet.)

Some time later, they woke up back in town, having been rescued by a paladin, who (of course) refused any kind of reward. But for some reason, none of their magic items worked. I understand they spent a fair amount of time trying to find out how being turned to stone would neutralize their magic items, and looking for a way to reverse the result.

Meanwhile, my ex-paladin had several new magic items. They never came looking for him, because they never realized that their real magic items had been stolen.

[Sian]

It depends very much in a number of factors

How involved are the players to their characters.
How satisfying would be a "well, the bad guys won" ... I.E did the TPK come from the Villain outgambiting them or random encounter being overtuned.
Would it thematically make sense to make a DM saving throw either making them 'wake up' in the divine realms getting a quest of some kind to retrieve their souls (or some such) stolen by an Abyssdweller?
Would it make sense for the encounter in question to handwave them into capturing them, leading into a prison break with a (partially?) spilled bag?

... In most cases a reroll into a new campaign (optionally with a game of musical chairs to decide who's DM for a change of pace) is the best option, and then use the rest of the session to create the new characters, and a bit of group-wide brainstorming about where you'd want to go for the next game (as to give the DM a few ideas as to which direction he can get creative with)

That is, unless its an epic campaign with a lot of work put into it, and/or deeply involved players, in which case the DM should probably call for a time-out to figure out which kind of save is the most proper or if its best salvaged with a handwave of "and you wake up and after a few discussion figure that the villain used some kinda of Nightmare figment", throwing them back to a previous 'save-state'

[Vogie]

If that's something you're genuinely worried about, talk to the DM about having a built-in Lineage style. Each PC also has a secondary character tangentially related waiting in the wings - Old lover, younger sister, cousin, twin, Best friend, #1 fan, another member of the guild/coven, et cetera - That would be following in their metaphorical footsteps. By already having that contingent, the PPK or TPK doesn't immediately have to halt the investment into the game.

Also, it's significantly less cheesy than "Your diety has revived you all" but doesn't burn the investment each person had put into their characters.

[Pugwampy]

I never ever played so rough that more than one or two die . If they do i tell em to run for their lives . I also have escape routes and my monsters never chase after them .

I always imagined if there was TPK , I would have all players roll the dice and the highest roll player for some unexplained reason wakes up with 1 hp .

Then its up to Mr 1 hp to slowly revive the others either selling possessions or their homebase or if they were all looted and have nothing to sell , pledge their service to whomever revives the rest of them until debt is paid off .

[Kelb_Panthera]

I don't pull my punches since it's the gamist elements of D&D that appeal to me. Consequently, TPK's happen occasionally.

I offer a choice to any player who's character bites it; do you want to roll something new or continue playing as your spirit? Naturally, that would apply to TPK's as well. I took some fair time and effort to include elements of Ghostwalk into my campaign and tweaked the cosmology in a way that I think works reasonably well. Not much point if I don't let the players use it.

If, however, they all opt to roll new on a TPK then I give them the choice to continue the campaign as a new interested party or just scrap the whole thing and start over. The latter choice usually ends the session for the night and I'll probably reuse bits they never saw from my notes but there's no sense forcing them to continue with something in which they've lost interest.

[Peat]

Order a round of drinks and see what people want to do.

My group's TPKs have usually involved someone being a complete bellend, so we usually bring the session to end and do something new next session without telling them.

[SangoProduction]

You can also use their deaths as stepping stones in the campaign, whether rerolling with new characters, or having their characters "defy" death in some way. For instance, you could turn the campaign (temporarily) in to an extraplanar campaign, where they have to try and find a way to return to their own bodies, racing against time before the BBEG does his thing (or "Eh, why not" if you are playing an "open world" game).

You can think of it like Goku in DBZ. Death is real, and has consequences...but is ultimately temporary, and grants opportunities....that you wouldn't think would be in the mortal realm, but are because DBZ.

Or you could have a new group of people take up the banner that's been dropped...sometimes more literally than others. I once had it so that the party's new group was a group of common hunters, who found their bodies, and were imbued by the characters' souls. (Not direct reincarnation, but rather new characters that have been granted the mission, and great power by this "handing of the torch".)

[Rhyltran]

This is interesting. In D&D? That would be the end. The group has failed and the players party has been wiped out. I know my group would stand by me on this decision so what would end up happening is either:

A) We move to another campaign.

B) They continue in the same world that has suffered the consequences of their defeat (if it isn't an open sandbox game.) now trying to fix the mess the other party failed to solve.

In another roleplay entirely, not D&D related, I actually had three to four groups when I didn't have a job functioning at once. Some of these groups featuring 2-4 people. One of the strongest players died and another character wished for her back after hearing of her deeds. She never knew it was a player character of a different group who brought her back to life though her group was overjoyed that she mysteriously returned.

[Azoth]

I haven't had this happen too often. Usually, once bodies start dropping, someone decides that they are glad that they are faster than the guy in heavy armor. I also tend to have players that pack a personal escape method (scrolls of Dim Door, Teleport, ect.).

When it does happen usually one of three things happen:

1) New game. Roll new characters and start a new campaign.

2) New Characters, same game. They will build characters that were associates of the former party, and go to investigate what happened to them.

3) Contingencies kick in. Some of my player's are paranoid, and have set some elaborate means for their corpses to be recovered (or parts their of), and turned over post haste to parties capable of reviving them. Once they have been resurected, they set about securing the revival of their allies.

[Quertus]

Well, I've never had a character resurrected, so that limits what I consider valid options.


Can you find any players who didn't have characters in that party? In original D&D, I once rescued an entire party that had been turned to stone.

They had many items, including a useless Bag of Duplication. If you put something in the bag, you would get a useless duplicate: swords that didn't hold an edge, magic items that looked identical but weren't magic, food that tasted bad and didn't satisfy, etc.

This party was turned to stone by a bunch of cockatrices. My "paladin" heard about them, and went out to rescue them. (My character at the time was an ex-Paladin who was turned Chaotic (evil), but no other players knew it yet.)

Some time later, they woke up back in town, having been rescued by a paladin, who (of course) refused any kind of reward. But for some reason, none of their magic items worked. I understand they spent a fair amount of time trying to find out how being turned to stone would neutralize their magic items, and looking for a way to reverse the result.

Meanwhile, my ex-paladin had several new magic items. They never came looking for him, because they never realized that their real magic items had been stolen.

I've been meaning to ask: how did you pull that off? I mean, you've got a statute. How did you extract the magic items from the statute to duplicate in the first place? Heck, how did you even know which items were magical in the first place? I don't understand the logistics of this story.

[jmax]

4. Have them roll commoners/other people who are risking their lives to recover the previous characters bodies to have them revived (can be fun, and can even showcase the PC power as these commoners are terrified of things the PC's find trivial).


I favor having the PCs wake up almost naked, with no items, chained to the oar of a ship.

Escaping from being a galley slave is a great adventure. And presumably the pirates (or whoever) still have all their stuff, plus more treasure, plus a ship.


Can you find any players who didn't have characters in that party? In original D&D, I once rescued an entire party that had been turned to stone.

They had many items, including a useless Bag of Duplication. If you put something in the bag, you would get a useless duplicate: swords that didn't hold an edge, magic items that looked identical but weren't magic, food that tasted bad and didn't satisfy, etc.

This party was turned to stone by a bunch of cockatrices. My "paladin" heard about them, and went out to rescue them. (My character at the time was an ex-Paladin who was turned Chaotic (evil), but no other players knew it yet.)

Some time later, they woke up back in town, having been rescued by a paladin, who (of course) refused any kind of reward. But for some reason, none of their magic items worked. I understand they spent a fair amount of time trying to find out how being turned to stone would neutralize their magic items, and looking for a way to reverse the result.

Meanwhile, my ex-paladin had several new magic items. They never came looking for him, because they never realized that their real magic items had been stolen.


In another roleplay entirely, not D&D related, I actually had three to four groups when I didn't have a job functioning at once. Some of these groups featuring 2-4 people. One of the strongest players died and another character wished for her back after hearing of her deeds. She never knew it was a player character of a different group who brought her back to life though her group was overjoyed that she mysteriously returned.

These are all fantastic! Definitely getting tucked in my back pocket.



3) Contingencies kick in. Some of my player's are paranoid, and have set some elaborate means for their corpses to be recovered (or parts their of), and turned over post haste to parties capable of reviving them. Once they have been resurected, they set about securing the revival of their allies.

Hey, I resemble that remark! :-P



My contribution:

If the PCs have done anything noteworthy enough to attract the attention of powerful beings, have a contingency ready in which one of said powerful beings has effectively taken out a life insurance policy on the party. The party revives in the being's demesne to discover that they now have a blood debt to the being in question, and they must serve that being in a specific endeavor or suffer serious consequences - something along the lines of their souls being devoured or imprisoned eternally with the being.

A more mundane version is that the party just owes some multiple of the cost of the resurrection to the mortal who took out the "policy" on them. That's less interesting though.

Even more mundane than that, "Adventurerer's Death Insurance" as a thing the PCs can purchase. Instead of paying premiums up front, when you die you pay the multiple.

[Jay R]

I've been meaning to ask: how did you pull that off? I mean, you've got a statute. How did you extract the magic items from the statute to duplicate in the first place?

I was worried about how to extract them from the statues, too. I asked the DM if the players would be conscious when they were first de-stoned. Since there was no rule about it, and they were badly damaged when they were turned to stone, and they'd been that way for a week, he decided that they'd take some time to come out of it.


Heck, how did you even know which items were magical in the first place?

One of the players had complained to me about their TPK. He had previously told me about the magic bag. That gave me the clue to go look. Detect Magic did the rest. (My party included a wizard.)

[This was before anybody started complaining about meta-gaming, and it was very common.]


I don't understand the logistics of this story.

I suspect that that's because you are used to are far more rules-defined version of D&D, and are trying to figure out the rules that would make this work. The rules for original D&D were on 29 sheets of paper folded over. It was more a framework for the DM to build a game with than a complete game.

In that environment, if the DM really likes the idea, then it's much easier to make it work. I was rescuing a party for him, and he didn't ask too many details.

[prufock]

1. The PCs rise as undead under the control of a necromancer with new goals.

2. You take up new characters working for the BBEG.

3. You take over the roles of your previous character's familiar, animal companion, cohort, etc.

4. You adventure in the afterlife.

5. Your characters are raised by a local temple who want you to complete a quest for them as repayment.

[Efrate]

They die. That adventure ends. Sometimes this happens if one key member dies, the paladin who was questing to save whatever and was helped by those who were sympathetic or drawn in by his charm or mission. If they do not feel a compulsion to continue, then that campaign ends. And that is the characters, not the players.

What's next? Talk to the party, same world, new team, dealing with consequences? Maybe the necromancer lord the paladin was trying to stop has killed half a continent, undead are everywhere, and he rules his kingdom of the dead with an iron first keeping the few people left alive as chattel. Now you have a tone change and the players see their impact (or lack thereof) on the world. They can be a few survivors fighting back, a group of other heroes from far away who are trying to stop the menace before it spreads, or minions of the necromancer king who either willingly or unwillingly serve him, and may or may not be planning on usurping him.

Or something new, new DM, new setting, new story. Trade chairs with someone and get to be on the other side of the screen.

I despite "you god saves you", unless its an end of the world type of deal, your heroes are the only ones who can do anything, and you are at least level 17 or so. And that comes with a hefty cost, tons of divine mandates, gaeses, blessings, and sacrifices of your characters in order to continue. Never have an ally saves you, or a commoner, or someone unrelated, it is way to heavy handed.

Death and TPK don't have to end it but they need to have some sort of impact or else struggle becomes meaningless. If you cannot fail where is the challenge? I do not pull my punches almost ever, the dice fall as they will. For me as a DM and for you as a PC.

[Stealth Marmot]

Wel you have 2 options: Fudge it or don't.

The Fudge it option is when the players don't die as a group and instead are whisked away on some sort of adventure where they have to escape captivity or some other twist that leaves them alive. You could even have a deus ex machina come in, but be careful and make sure the players feel actual consequences, and I dont just mean a deduction in gold or levels.

Or you don't fudge it and the characters stay dead forever. Now, that does not mean that the whole thing is over (though it might). It first depends on how involved the campaign is. As a DM, if you create a villain, you have to consider what happen if the villain wins.

Now if the players are just doing a "investigate or defend a town" scenario, the town could die, but the world spins on. On the other hand, there may be more dire circumstances if you have a much more long term campaign planned. So consider rewriting the story of the villain so that they end up crossing paths with the NEW party, but they are further along in the plan and the stakes may already be climbing, and some losses may already have occurred. Perhaps the last person the party spoke to learns of their demise and decides they need to find someone else to take on the villain. Or perhaps the villain succeeds, but it is only step 1 in his plan.

Either way, your story will require serious rewriting and it would be fair to get a week off to work on it if you have a weekly game.

Be sure to get your players input on it. If they REALLY like the characters, they may be okay with a fudge, if they are not as attached or even like the end their character had, or feel that the dice should fall as they may, then they might prefer they stay dead. Give the players choices.

Remember, giving the players CHOICES is not the same as giving them what they want. If you fudge, the characters should have to face some form of consequence.

[Pugwampy]

Quote Originally Posted by Buufreak
This thought just occurred to me. It isn't exactly like a game where you just load your last save, right? So what do players/dms here tend to do if and when a full party wipe happens? Can you just go back, or roll a new party? All the logistics of it seem to me that the campaign has potential to just end.


Yes you can load your last save but probably only once . "The players wake up from a mass hallucination blah blah blah ...."

I did that for a broken game . I was in a very fortunate position that players had a wild party before they set out .

It will work for TPK

[BWR]

It depends. In some cases it was game over, start a new and different game. In some cases we've had 'you wake up in chains'. When we failed Red Hand of Doom the other PCs in the same setting came in and finished the job. Once a PC's level 20 sorcerer grand-uncle came and saved the day, preventing the wipe (and leading to another interesting adventure).
We've even retconned a couple of wipes, mostly because they were largely the fault of the DM giving faulty information to the players or making mistakes. While we usually gloss over mistakes, if they lead to a TPK we feel it's not fair to the players to kill the PCs if they should have lived.

[Azoth]

Hey, I resemble that remark! :-P


Yeah, one of the least complex methods for that I have dealt with was amusing. Player figured out the true name of an outsider, and would use Planar Binding 1/week to summon it. He would make it spend time to share a meal and chat with it about general things. At the end of the meal he would task it to if he didn't summon him again in a week's time, use its Commune SLA to learn if he had died, and if so where his corpse was. It was then to Plane Shift to the plane his corpse was on, retrieve it/part of it, and finally get that to a certain Cleric that he left a few diamonds suitable to cast resurection spells with.

Best part was that the party had no idea about it. The TPK happened, and the party was bummed. He stood up, chuckling, and loudly said, "Relax guys, I got this!"

Another time in a Pathfinder game, one of my Player's had set up a Contingent Create Undead to turn himself into a JuJu Zombie. He Bluffed to play dead while the enemies looted them. Once they left, he stood up, bit a finger off of each party member and then left to get them resurected.

[Calthropstu]

Only time I have suffered a tpk was in pfs, where they have written procedures for it.

Might be worth going over tpk procedures at the start of a campaign.

[jmax]

Yeah, one of the least complex methods for that I have dealt with was amusing. Player figured out the true name of an outsider, and would use Planar Binding 1/week to summon it. He would make it spend time to share a meal and chat with it about general things. At the end of the meal he would task it to if he didn't summon him again in a week's time, use its Commune SLA to learn if he had died, and if so where his corpse was. It was then to Plane Shift to the plane his corpse was on, retrieve it/part of it, and finally get that to a certain Cleric that he left a few diamonds suitable to cast resurection spells with.

Best part was that the party had no idea about it. The TPK happened, and the party was bummed. He stood up, chuckling, and loudly said, "Relax guys, I got this!"

Another time in a Pathfinder game, one of my Player's had set up a Contingent Create Undead to turn himself into a JuJu Zombie. He Bluffed to play dead while the enemies looted them. Once they left, he stood up, bit a finger off of each party member and then left to get them resurected.

Ok, I absolutely love this and may have to steal it. Definitely sending to one of my DMs for approval - the character in that game just got access to lesser planar binding, and it's just one short level more before standard planar binding becomes available.