TPK by Execution?

[Scalenex]

Ever happen before to any of you? We came reasonably close to it in the game I'm playing now but the extenuating circumstances of our crime led us to an irritating attonement quest instead as sentence instead of TPK.

[Tempest Fennac]

How did that happen? (It's never happened to me, but I don't have that much practical experience.)

[nargbop]

Hmm. I hope your DM has some NPC who wants you alive. I hope one of your PCs is a Blufftastic Diplomancer who can get you out of prison before execution. That would suck. "OK, Krothgar now too ceases twitching on his cross. Game's over. You all lose." I don't know what the situation is. When I was first a DM, I was all straight-and-narrow, and that's simply not fun. For anyone. "Why didn't you take the path I clearly mentioned to you earlier, and have been trying to get you back on ever since?"

"You all lose."

[shadow_archmagi]

I executed my players to finish off the campaign.

"Well done, you've defeated the Necromancer Lord, who actually turned out to be your former ally and whose army would've killed everyone in the country."

"Thank you Lord Ritievan, what do we get?"

"A chance to make 30 grapple checks."

"Aaargh! Why?"

"Because you %#*(ing killed a zombie army and their leader! My alignment is Lawful Pansy for a reason! Besides, even if you weren't corrupted, there is every chance one of your enemies would obliterate the whole bloody country, just to annoy you."

[John Campbell]

Happened to our Shadowrun group once. We totally deserved it, too... the innocent-bystander body count from that team's last run was pushing five figures.

The sammy (for no particularly good reason) demolished a stadium while it was fully occupied for an internationally-televised event, and most of the team managed to get their faces on said international television in the process. Then, as the stadium was collapsing, the rigger drove the team's armored van in against the flow of fleeing people to make pickup, using the thing's weight and concealed machine guns to make a path. The group actually got out of the stadium alive - unlike almost ten thousand other people - only to be promptly arrested, and executed with all due haste. Except for the rigger, because his actual meat-body had been kilometers away while he controlled the van by remote, and so he didn't get his face on TV... and he immediately skipped the country, changed his name, face, and apparent metatype, and lived happily ever after, until a couple months later when his cabaña mysteriously exploded.

[TheOOB]

The general rules of drama and heroic fantasy is that heroes don't get executed, the heroes get saved at the last second by either a) and old friend, or b)a mysterious stranger who they now owe a favor.

In fact, as a general rule, heroes only die when in pitched combat. You should try to make a heroes death as dramatic as possible.

Of course, if you aren't going to drama, then executing one or more of the PCs is a perfect way to shock everyone.

[LibraryOgre]

Ever read "Shadows of a Dark Queen" by Raymond Feist? Two characters kill the half brother of one of them... who happens to have been made Baron by the death of their father. They get captured, put to a show trial and marched to execution. They see several other groups of criminals get executed before them. They're marched up the gallows, have the rope put around their necks... and fall to the ground when the trap is slipped.

They are now officially dead. They may be killed at any time, for any reason.

But they've also joined an elite strike force.

[disorder]

I executed my players to finish off the campaign.

Damn. And I thought executing their characters was mean...

[SolkaTruesilver]

Damn. And I thought executing their characters was mean...

That's going into my Golden Book!!

[Eldariel]

The general rules of drama and heroic fantasy is that heroes don't get executed, the heroes get saved at the last second by either a) and old friend, or b)a mysterious stranger who they now owe a favor.

In fact, as a general rule, heroes only die when in pitched combat. You should try to make a heroes death as dramatic as possible.

Of course, if you aren't going to drama, then executing one or more of the PCs is a perfect way to shock everyone.

I can't really think of a more dramatic way to go than an execution, especially by guillotine, one at a time. Kind of like the "Game over" to the "You ****ed up... Bad" or "For greater good/Heroic sacrifice for everyone". Sometimes the execution may even be victory for the players.

I have yet to have players **** up bad enough to have them detained by local laws, let alone executed, but I'm sure if I ever run an evil game, we'll get to that (local law enforcement and military isn't completely incapable, at least in my games).

[Corrin]

Heh. My all-time favorite character is still the one who died tied to a sacrificial altar, his throat cut by an evil cult that was sacrificing him to their dark goddess. Of course, it was all part of the plan - he martyred himself to give his own dark god a chance to steal their goddess' power. We had to work for almost two months to set it up too, including starting and winning a civil war. Worked though.

Man, when that party set out to do things, we didn't do them halfway. :)

[Koolzo]

Close...

So, the party had been investigating the poisoning of some Duke Somethingorother, and had tracked down the person they had thought had done it. They had checked around the slums and finally found this guy, and they knocked him out, tied him up, and started interrogating him. They ended up finding out that the Duke's sister was behind the whole thing, and that the antidote could only be found in a far off location, where, if they were to go there, or try to ship it by any conventional means, the Duke would die from the poison because it would take too long. Anyway, the party used some black market connections that the Avenger in the party (Avenger = Good Assassin) had, and managed to get a hold of the antidote. They went back to the Duke's and gave him the antidote. Anyway, the Duke's sister came in, acting so happy that they had saved her brother...

Anyway, the party, who is apparently not too bright, nor too subtle, immediately start accusing the Duke's sister of poisoning the Duke, and start threatening her. Well, the Duke gets pissed, the sister gets defensive and makes an easy bluff check to fool all NPCs, and a couple of the PCs, too (we'll get into how later). So, the guards rush in and try to lock up the PCs. The Duke's sister tries to turn it around so that it seems as if the party was the one who poisoned the Duke.

This is where the party started royally getting f***ed. Well, since the avenger is, well, an avenger, he had multiple poisons on his person. They were found. That didn't help the party's case. So, all three were locked in the dungeon.

Soooooo, while the party is serving some time, waiting for their trial, the Duke's sister comes in for a visit. Turns out she's a mid-level sorcerer with enchantment spells, and casts charm person and some other spells on the party fighter and wizard (the wizard failed her will saves, it was a joke). The avenger was the one framed. During the trial, the fighter and wizard gave testimony that the Duke's sister was a good person and never would do such a horrible thing, and the avenger was put in a straight jacket, gagged, and given a Calm Emotions spell because he was freaking out during the trial because of his "friends'" actions.

When they were released from prison, a few half-orc bodyguard types "escorted" the fighter and wizard out of town, on behalf of the Duke's sister. The avenger was sentenced to death. He was later busted out the night before his execution, but the avenger hasn't since gone back to that town.

Good times, good times.

[Prometheus]

My PCs confronted a corrupt Djinn named Vorjitsu, who said he would cut them a deal if they killed an important but evil guy who Vorjitsu owes money. This guys is a Fire Giant give some sort of stewardly protection over the Fire Plane. Naturally they took the deal, but it got them hauled off to extraplanar court by an inevitable. The penalty for their crime is not execution, but permanently being sealed away so they cannot be resurrected. Fun stuff. In any event, Vorjitsu offers them the ability to get out legalistically, if they comply with his story and put the blame on even more of this guy's opposition. They took the offer, but they also could have complied with the opposition and gotten out.

Then again, I there's the old "tribal-culture-thinks-you're-gods-than-tell-you-about-the-ritualistic-sacrifice" gag I played on them. They weren't close to dying though.