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7 Ways to Recover from a TPK in D&D
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- Опубликовано: 19 авг 2024
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Character death and Total Party Kills (TPKs) in D&D happen. But what should a dungeon master do when a TPK happens?
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WE had a TPK in our 5E Orc campaign, due to bad luck(My orc necromancer was killed by a fireball), without even seeing the elf king our party attacked! Our DM had our characters wake up in prison and after a failed escape attempt, the elves sold us to Drow slavers that led us to playing part of Out of the Abyss!
You didn't have a TPK you had a TPW, Total Party Wipeout, probably because the DM didn't want to end their campaign there.
Did you prefer that situation, where you had a chance to continue with your character's or would you have preferred to have being all killed outright?
I was in a group once that had some flaky members, so the DM did something brilliant (or what I thought anyway). At the start of the game he worked it in that players would flake on some game sessions, so the first encounter was with a low level bog witch that cursed the party and throughout the campaign he would randomly pick a player that would "phase out" for a short amount of time. Basically, they would shift to the ethereal plane, so they can see what's going on, but they can't interact. This was so they could stay with the group even though they couldn't directly interact with them. So, when a member (or members) couldn't make it to a game, the game went on without them and they were just the ones effected by the curse at that time. the next time they showed up, they were brought up to speed as to where the story left off, the others bragged about the loot, etc. that they missed out on collecting. surprisingly, it seemed to cut down on the flakiness.
I can be this type of DM, though I'd rather have to whole party present on every session but I guess if you want to not commit to being present when you're called for attendance then fine go ahead and miss free pizza Friday or slutty Saturdays sinful Sundays magnificence Monday Tavern Tuesday wicked Wednesday thirsty Thursday Tavern 😂 oh look it's already free pizza Friday
I love how « how to deal with a tpk » is almost the same as « how to deal with relationship problems » :P
Imagine your wife can't make it to the dinner date and you say “Oh, I'm not cancelling it. I'll just call one of the backup girls I have in line" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
When my players bite off more than they can chew, I always add a moment that basically gives the party a chance to escape. A wizard 's fireball blows open a hole in the wall, or a knocked over cauldron creates a smoke screen. If they don't take advantage of this opportunity I play it out no matter the outcome. After that they can start with new characters, but time will have passed, the place where they died may have changed hands, their gear sold or looted by others. The enemy they faced will have set up another better defended hideout.
The "That's how it could have happened" works best when you make it a vision of events to come, and should only come in dramatic situations.
Party about to fight a deadly battle? Maybe that TPK was a vision the cleric's God sent.
If used, it should only be used very very rarely, and as a story element if anything
When it comes to TPKs (or even just character death in general) what I'm a fan of is 'You come back... at a cost'. Maybe some powerful entity brought you back but now owns your soul. Maybe you're now all undead! Maybe you're a robot duplicate (My artificer has this one ready to go with a Ring of Mind Shielding and a slot in the brain of their Steel Defender).
As a player it lets you keep going with a character you love. But it's an option, so if you want you can roll up someone new. As a GM, it lets you keep everything you have planned for that character in play, plus lets you add new complications and storylines for the players. Win-win.
I like to bring the players back at a cost but with a special boon! It makes the dead player/s not feel like “they lost”. Death can still be a “failing forward” moment and can move the story as well.
Agreed, I wouldn't have the cost be anything mechanically detrimental. That just increases the chance of a death spiral! @@CaseyWilkesmusic
Everyone levels DOWN. The players themselves get to decide what they have to discard to meet the new level stats. They can choose just to reset the character back to their old level, or they can mix things up so they still meet the stats but it isn't the same old-same old.
It is important to discuss character deaths and consequences at Session Zero though.
Sorry but... that option kinda sucks. I get where you're going with it, but having cool abilities then have them taken away is rough. Plus, if it happens too many times, well, looks like the BBEGs gonna win as the PC's get reset back to level 3!@@rhisands2063
@@rhisands2063 played a curse of strahd campaign and that was the rule from session 1. fun way to play if you want some real stakes.
I only ever had one tpk. The players had been trying to prevent two evil wizards from summoning a powerful demon which would be used to crush all opposition.
The new characters started out as villagers under the oppressive rule of the wizards after they had crushed all opposition.
I have only had a TPK twice in my experience of D&D. Both at different points in the same campaign.
The first one we were at level 9 and our Barbarian did something stupid and died, and the rest of us were about to get TPK’d. This was our DM’s first campaign so he was still a bit of a novice. But he let it play out in a very specific way as to avoid a full on TPK by giving one of our characters a slight boost in power for a moment, like they could do something not usually possible thanks to the adrenaline of the situation. So our Barbarian had just touched some Soul Eating fire that was going to steal the souls of our party. So our Barbarian was already dead. Then it went for our Druid. And then, right before it came to kill by Bard, our DM let me cast Reincarnate on our Druid before it took me and our Druid was able to escape. It allowed our Druid to continue on and pick up our new player characters that I and our Barbarian had to make. It also provided a lot of character work for the Druid. Why did my Bard decide to reincarnate her rather than our Barbarian. How is she going to reconcile the fact that she was an elf and is now a human, now knowing her lifespan has decreased dramatically. And along with the survivor’s guilt she had. It was super fun for the campaign to be honest.
Then we TPK’d against the BBEG. It was the final battle of the campaign, there were several things that could have happened and we just fucked it up. If we had won it would have been the end anyway, so whilst it was disappointing, that was the outcome based on our decisions.
I really hope that when the 2024 DM's Guide comes out there's a new Rule 0 and that is "Communicate with your players". It's probably the single most important element when running a game and should be mentioned in the book.
Reading Candela Obscura (played once) and I love the concept of scars and I would like to try to give that option to a player with a dead character in d&d or Pathfinder. Basically, your character can come back with an explanation that has a mechanical cost. The mechanical cost must have a down side but can have an up side too. It could be like an aspect from fate. Invoke it to have advantage or the DM can invoke it to impose you disadvantage.
Magic users mentor scries the scene and sends a minion to recover their bodies. They have of course been looted. Send the bodies to the temple holding their funds and have them repaired. Then ask the players "Now what"?
The BBEG animates (skeletons/zombies.) the bodies and sends them back to the temple, or patron of the party either as a joke or a message. Use magic mouth to deliver any message..
One thing I will do, for 5e and other RPGs, is I will roll death saves(or similar things) secretly. This adds to the tension of the scene for everyone involved.
At the same time, if all the characters fall unconscious, that's when I stop the scene. I will roll any death saves that are appropriate, but still have the villains capture the PCs, if they want to do so.
This sets up that the PC deaths matter, and shows that I'm not coddling the players. But it also sets up the personality of the enemies. For example, I will often have black dragons capture PCs, with the intention of torturing them for the dragon's sick pleasure, since that shows just how terrible they are.
However, this combination means that the players can often survive in interesting scenarios, let good death saves still matter, and unique features like the ability fight without special equipment shine in these moments. I've also let characters that should die instead take maiming injuries instead, so that they can still play the character, but also use the lingering injuries in a fun way at the table.
My favorite advice from this vid Luke was never reschedule. You have never said truer words. The games over once you do that to many weeks in a row. I had some work things I had to do for a few weeks and a month later the games over people start dropping out, or start coming up with their own emergencies mysteriously. I only cancel when it extreme situations
Reschedule? Nah I try again next week then I don't here from anyone on it anymore its like did yall forget or yall something better to do? Idc either way but damn I already most people I already know don't give a damn and the ones that do are too far away to make it and I didn't give a damn to make a world anvil r20 and other things you posers say to use because yall Jenks are hogging everyone like pigs in shit.
Nigel my apologies but that's how this community makes me feel
Having started playing with Original D&D, Basic and then AD&D, we all learned really fast that combat was not always the answer. That negotiation, bribery or just running away to live another day could be the best course.
I really can't think of a single time when all our party members were killed. Someone was always able to get away one way or another.
In fact, if any one character got killed, we started to rethink our options. Did we think that we could still win? If not, then a retreating option was put together. Because sometimes it is better to run away and live to fight another day. And that day could be after a good days rest and different spells memorized.
Losing is part of the game you know. If you never lose you aren't really playing the game.
Just roll up some new characters and try, try again.
The group I'm currently DM'ing TPK'd at the end of the Death House, which was resolved by as yet unknown party dragging their unconscious behinds out. That's not something I'd want to use again, but for context it was being run as a one-shot which turned into "Well you mob seem to be enjoying this. I don't have time to run a full campaign, but if you want I could probably hammer some sort of pseudo-campaign together out of one-shots". Having someone drag them out (one of a couple of scenarios I had lined up depending on what they did in the house) served a couple of purposes in that the one who didn't want to continue with his one-shot character could get left behind, it got them out of Barovia, and served as a plot hook for the over-arching campaign in terms of who saved them and why. Admittedly not the most elegant approach, but it got the job done.
.
On the upside, the group is effectively captive (we work FIFO, so it's not like we're doing much else with our evenings whilst on swing), which at least makes scheduling easier.
When you mentioned restarting the fight after a TPK, I immediately thought of a magic item idea. Imagine a consumable artifact that attunes to several creatures. If every one attuned to it dies, time is reset to 1 hour before their deaths and the artifact shatters.
contingency spell within a artificer device.
@@edwardbirdsall6580 That would be cool, but Contingency is only a Wizard Spell and can only target yourself even if it can normally target others.
I planned a TPK that wasn't a TPK. But it was. What it meant was I could send them to the time they needed to be in to help these angels that wanted them to help. They then awoke on a ship and instantly distrusted everything. Took them a whole session to leave the room lol
We didn't have a full-on TPK (half of the group died and others ended up into the rather complicated situation), and we could continue playing, but the DM didn't really like the campaign, so he just decided that NPC employed us got scared of what we to do and asked us to retreat (the story actually got a pretty sweet ending, but not the one our characters wanted).
We had "it could go different" twice, but one was baked into the game and we knew about it (also, it was the fight we couldn't really win and couldn't avoid without reading the DMs mind... Not the best episode overall) and another time... It was a huge mess for all of us in real life, not going into too personal details; yes, I normally wouldn't like it either, but at that moment... We just needed to succeed.
I have a plan in place for my current party, should they ever TPK, but it's going to be threading a narrative needle, so to speak.
I have an NPC in reserve, connected to a PC backstory, who is essentially a prodigy divine caster, favored child to the religious figurehead of the faith. Thusfar, the NPC has been relegated to the background and has not appeared in person, being off in another region of the world.
The big, overarching threat of the campaign is being left a mystery, something the players will gradually piece together over time. But, once they are aware of it, and hopefully decide to actively oppose it, it opens up a window of opportunity.
Should the players TPK, I would have them keep their character sheets. Maybe next session comes along and we are making new characters. I suggest sitting down with each player individually to help them build the new character.
But when we sit down, I will address them by the name of their deceased character, returning to a semblance of consciousness, but lacking their full individual will. The NPC mentioned earlier, has tracked down the site of the party's TPK and wants to know what happened. Time has passed in-game, and things are looking bad as a result of the TPK.
As I meet with each player individually, they are the subject of a Speak with Dead spell as the NPC tries to piece together what has happened. The final question each of them is asked is, "what would you do with a second chance?"
If the answers to that question are satisfactory, the NPC will bring them back. But this is a narrative once-off. Their only redo. And it has consequences on the narrative.
My first campaign i played an Aasimar paladin of Tyr after almost a year of playing we had a TPK and next week was spring break for all of us so for the entirety of that week our DM did sessions with each of us one on one describing the afterlives we found ourselves in. Some of our party had to beg their God or ruler of where ever they ended up to he sent back because the world still needed the party our paladin of bahamut who was a silver dragon bor had been reincarnated as a platinum dragonborn, my character expected to awake in the court of tyr in the foothils pf mt celestia but instead he awoke infront of his celestial father close to the peak he was sent back with a ring that would allow me to cast planar ally once and summon hum and then the ring would turn to dust, to ensure thst next time me and my friends were in dire straits he could assist
I love using death in my games. Getting a chance to defeat an avatar of death to get back up. Instead of simply rolling a d20 and passing a turn. Making deals with the reaper or an unsavory fiends. Trying to escape the underworld. Rewarding pious clerics and paladins. Maybe the gods have chosen them and they suddenly have been restored to life but now have a new mission to accomplish or return to the grave. Just a few things to keep the game going.
As in everything it all depends on who’s at the table with you. The one time I’ll use my own version of the “That is how it could have happened” is with a group of newer players, and I’ll usually prebake it into story by having either a member of the party or the party as a whole receiving extra-planar guidance. If the group runs into a TPK situation, and only for their first, I’ll have this outside force step in and rewind the clock for them. As a part of this it is explained that this was a one time thing, the being cannot do it again without risking the weave of reality.
Actually love the idea of a new party going to rescue the old heroes!
We did a funny thing once.
After a bunch of TPKs in D&D we, all together, translated the encounter into another game system and played it again. After that, we took some encounters we had played in that game system and translated them into D&D.
Long story short, we found the "problem"; whenever we had recently played "another system" the GM and the players had problems with judging the danger level of actions and encounters.
The two system's main difference was in the combat system.
So, it might also be an idea to continue the campaign with another system or edition.
What I would love to see is that the GM changes after a TPK or after the campaign/adventure ends.
My late best friend and I played D&D forever. We started playing in Junior High and our last gaming session was when he was 52. When he became too sick because of GOD DAMN cancer! Sorry. We talked about D&D adventures. The one we talked about the most was a TPK we had when his tough ass fighter named Fred Fright missed his saving throw. We were in 9th grade in the late 1970ies. Our 5th thru 8th people were so Monty Hall I am not kidding. If you did not do 4-40 damage you ain't s**t! In the early part of Dungeon, we slayed Asmodeus and Demogorgon together. We were up against some gawd super lich and his 50 golems. We were down to the last IRON GOLUM. All he needed was to beat a 4 on a save to half the poison damage.!!!!! The DM held his ground. For 40 plus years every time something stupid would happen we would laugh like idiots. Damn! Another 3!!!!! His final words for me were. I guess I rolled another 3. That 5 years ago. I still laugh and cry. Years later. If done right. A TPK can flavor to D&D adventures.
Our party is staring down the barrel of a tpk next session and while I don't care if I lose my character just having the party tie to some random goon unrelated to the big bad feels so anticlimactic. I don't feel like I have the right to tell the GM I don't like that outcome but it's still really bothering me.
As the DM lair and so many others say all the time:
COMMUNICATION IS KEY.
Don't keep that to yourself. Talk to your DM. Tell him how you're feeling. Give a chance for you and the DM to come to an understanding about what's going on. Maybe it's because of your bad choices and so on and so forth. Maybe it's the DM underestimating the situation. Maybe it's just perception differences.
BUT TALK TO YOUR DM. Nothing kills a group faster than people staying quiet when they have concerns to address.
I love it when TPKs happen in Planescape. It's an excuse to regroup them in the mortuary in Sigil & if players want to make a new character of an equivalent level they can, then after a small break and re-gear they can go find a portal that can take them back to where they where when TPKd. But again you need to check with players with what they want to do.
Just got my alt cover copies of Loot and Lore and Lairs and Legends. So excited to read through. Merry Christmas to me..the forever DM lol
I have not had to many experiences with TPKs, but I know this, each campaign happens once, if the party is killed, its likely game over, bad guys won, new campaign next week.
I suppose if you are running a module RAW this could be true.
I’ve never run a module. I am currently playing in two different modules run by different GMs. That said, my current campaign is based off of no less than three modules from at least three versions of D&D and playing in yet another version (5e). I have modified and rewritten what I needed to fit the narrative of my world.
I’ve not seen anything in any module that would prevent me from continuing the campaign after a TPK if that’s what the players wanted. My world is living and dynamic. The actions of the PCs have lasting effects (As my players recently found out. And are about to find out again. They have unknowingly tipped another domino. One that I didn’t see coming and have no idea where it will lead.)
All that to say, if the GM and the players want to continue the campaign I see no reason why that can’t be the case.
As a player and a GM I sometime tell people, “I have a masters in MSU.”
(Making Sh!t Up.) And so do you.
Grab your ketchup and crunch away my friends.
I've got things structured right now to support this. We've capped every character at level 15, we're not even pretending to be targeting high level play. This means that for the most part, anything a party can get up to (for good or ill) will only have effects one one planet. Therefore it's fine to just say "the bad guys won, here are the consequences, roll your new first level party". If it's Ultimate Failure and the whole planet is lost (as in rendered uninhabitable), we move on to a new planet. The complete absence of 8th and 9th level spells in our game limits the damage.
I've had to do a little houseruling over Teleportation Circles because otherwise it would be trivial to hop between planets (they're all on the same Prime Material Plane, which is actually a galaxy), but this also offers a good way to hook in multiple DMs agreeing to a basic structure on how characters are constructed and how much magic loot they're allowed to carry. Once we set up a baseline, each DM can have their own world with its own lore and inhabitants -- to a point. There is only one set of planes, so anything that happens in the Feywild or Abyss or wherever in one DM's setting has to be reported in detail, as this is "common ground". But all that necessarily can only happen from levels 13 to 15, so it's pretty easy not to step on another DM's toes. It was harder when we had 17th level spellcasters throwing Wishes around.
BTW the houserule on Teleportation Circle is that while on the Prime Material Plane, you can only target Circles that are within 100,000 miles of you. That takes care of planet-hopping. If the players _want_ to move to another planet, they have to use a 7th level spell. The full-blown _Teleport_ spell does not have the 100,000 mile limitation.
I'd just add that I find them all valid ways to deal with TPKs, even the "this is just one way it could've happened" method. It's just that some of them should not be overused and you should find a narrative reason to explain it.
An example of the "this is one way it could've gone" that could fit is if the party (assuming high level) know a powerful entity that could be showing them the possible future through a scrying mirror. After the TPK the DM sets the scene that they are actually with this entity that is showing them what they are up against... Of course if you do this too much (more than once is most likely too much) then, I agree that it'll become a bit boring.
So I'd rather divide the various ways to deal with TPK as the regular ones (continue with new characters, restart a campaign, etc.) and the more circumstantial ones (prisoners, do-over, and the likes)
Overall, great information.
Thx
Time for a Valhalla campaign...
I once engineered a campaign around a TPK at the beginning of Session 1, and it's been in my back pocket ever since.
3:00 is prolly the best comeback ive heard in a Long time
My dm just had us “wake up” after everyone died, it was all a dream 😂
I miss the old skits, like that time Barbarian went into the forest, will you ever do one again?
Agreed, I would like to see these return, even if it is not every episode. Having it happen sometimes will still be cool.
My first ever battle in my first ever session was a tpk. We did the rewind and I was happy in that circumstance.
I personally love the leveling process, and play more of a mind set it is about the journey not the distinction. So while I would still go along with the consensus of the table, I still prefer a lvl 1 restart for a TPK and letting players roll up a lvled character in the case of a player death.
I would also add, I think overall, unless it is really early is the session, it is always best to give players time by talking about it and ending the session a bit early after a death or TPK. I have seen some players die and start rolling the new player, to jump back in right away. but often it is best to take some time, figure out what you want to play next, who that character is, and get some back story there. Character creation is often my favorite part, I don't want to be rushing it, distracted by a resent death, and just not get it right. It's best to take some time to really process things, and refresh with a new character.
A level 1 restart is okay in some scenarios, but deeply impractical in others. Like, if you're 3/4 of the way through a 1-10 campaign like Shadow of the Dragon Queen when a TPK happens, your new level 1 party would be completely useless and helpless against anything being fielded at that point in the campaign's progression.
If you are 3/4 of a way through a Campaign, your DM skills should be enough to create your own, new start, and then meet up where you left off by the end.
If I want a congruent story I would read a book. But a party needs time to gel and develop, and a totally new party of high level characters misses out on the party bonding that happens in the first 2 or 3 levels, before they start getting powerful. Leveled parties miss out on a lot of that early growth that makes the end game all that much more memorable.
It comes down to what is more important, sticking to your story you have all planned out, or adapting to have a better playing experience as the new party develops. Of course I would listen to the players, and do what they want, but all things being equal, I'd try to restart and adapt.
Puzzles do suck!! All I can say is thank you for what you do and also, you're awesome!
In the spirit of giving Luke his engagement here is my experience.
I DMed Lost mines of Phandelver (light spoilers ahead).
Somewhere along the way I accidentaly killed a PC with a bugbear crit, that apparently did enough damage to outright kill him, which was the first PC dead in our friendgroup. The session after that the players decided to go fight the young green dragon. They had told me before that session that they were going to that place so I did some googling into how they were supposed to win that fight because it looked way to hard for my party. Since the answer to how to beat it basiccally boileded down to Luck I decided to let the dragon flee if the players were smart about it they weren't (one PC just fleed in the first round of combat and the rest did not have a plan) so the dragon won the fight. The dragon then gave them a choice between dying and doing a quest for him (that we never got to). That didnt feel good, also not for the players but I didnt have a better plan. The party then just went on with the rest of the campaign and in the final dungeon they messed up again. We gave them some options and they collectively decided to just make new PCs and play the dungeon again. This also felt weird since there was only one session left which did not get a nice ending since the Characters had virually no motivation for going through that dungeon and completing the plot. I am about to DM a new campaign and actually still dont have a plan for if the players tpk.
part of me loves that you talk in p2e or just-not-D&D terms now
We had a TPK as a part of a semi-tournament arc in my prior campaign. We made it to round three as our party went up against another group of adventurers. Having to deal with failing in combat was rough, but we were happy that we weren't dead. In addition, we were able to watch the party that beat us take on the final round and some of us learned skills from the victors during the following downtime. If the TPK happened any other time, I don't know what we would have done.
Excellent!!! But I think there is another solution ( that resembles the one that resets from the last saving point, or the being captured solution): The Gandalf like option. Suddenly the PCs are resurrected, inside the battlefield at that very moment to continue fighting or when their enemies are gone. This is done by a superior entity that wants to give them a second chance, at a cost: They can survive this to try to win their campaign but they also have to serve the entity's interests as well. So the entity is testing them in order to see if they can prove themselves worthy of its favour since resurrection may also come at a cost that this entity has to pay.
Another slightly diferrent option is the same as above but being brought back as undead. That might require some modification of the characters sheets and stats, but can be a great twist, trying to balance the good goal of this campaign, the entity's interests and demands, and the fact the PCs are being undead so there is a diferrentiation in their abilities, skills, magic, etc.
What about the second chance approach, when the PCs die they get to their respective afterlife. After feeling unsatisfied, they choose to live again. Their deities give them a mission to send them back, or limited time. They can even steal their lives back. It could be pretty interesting and fast. No need for a lot of personal missions. A single session should suffice. A celestial deity agrees to send the paladin back but they need to change their oath to vengeance. A feind agrees to a contract to send them back for limited time, until the warlock completes their mission, or dies again. A rogue steals a powerful artifact from Mask and is able to manifest in a body again, but their race changes as in the reincarnation spell. Now Mask is after them and thieves distrust him. A wizard with their last magic clings to life and is transformed into a mimicry of life and undead. Now he counts as an undead but if their animated body is destroyed, so is their soul.
The second chance approach is a second life but at a great cost, and players that got attached to their characters and their missions will accept the consequences and make their story even more challenging instead of feeling like they're immortal.
So, you're dead? Now I as DM will laugh, Muwahahahahaha!
Im coming up with a historical fantasy naval campaign set in the Caribbean and if I end up TPKing them (at least at sea anyway) I plan of having them awaken to a man saying "Do ya fear death? Do ye fear that dark abyss?" Im going to give my players the opportunity to make a deal with Davy Jones in exchange for their lives. Only a one time thing though.
Just had a tpk at level 9, got killed from full health from one attack from a werewolf oathbreaker paladin. 75 hp to 0. Felt pretty shitty, wasn't a crit or anything. And it felt like the DM was metagaming by choosing to bum rush my character incurring 3 opportunity attacks to do so. Other players were pretty new so I watched them die after throwing cantrips at the boss. Quite salty ngl
You wanna talk about salty?
I'm in a group, we had spend the last 5 hours, of real time, trying to figure out a way to find evidence on a crooked judge.
We come up with a plan and decide to do it that night, in about 10 hrs in-game.
As a group, we prepare and take a long rest at the inn. The frikken GM says "Everybody roll a wisdom save".
Everybody rolls below a 10. The GM says we all take 36 points of damage as the entire inn explodes, flinging our bodies into the streets, completely leveling the inn and disintergrating ALL of our gear.
We then got death saves. We were 3rd level.
I was pissed. That was some BS. It just blew up for no reason, without any warning. At least if we had a fighting chance I'd have been ok with it but that had me basically just getting up and walking out once we were done.
No small talk, no "good game". I just left.
I also think that in some ways, with a TPK, you need to handle it, with how much the person is invested in that character, in mind. Does a person want to keep playing that character? Did they have a lot of fun with that character? Was that character very important to them? “You wake up lying on an alter, stained glass visages of your religious figures surround you, and your otherwise cloudy mind is vividly and vibrantly fixed on a memory of you standing before your god. You have only simple white robes. “You my child, are not done with this world yet, so i am giving you a second chance”
Of course you cant do this with an entire party of beloved characters, and you might want to provide an single god’s choice ability score bump of +2 to offset the sting of losing any loot the character had.
If you had an entire party of such beloved characters… you might want to have the most religious one (a cleric or paladin… etc) come back, and then the have to “collect” the new PCs to go find remnants of the old ones to bring them back
I've played DND for somewhere four years, and I experienced a TPK on my very first game as a player. The DM simply had a blip in time and we got to go at it again. I'm not a fan of that approach either. I want death to be a real threat.
In ~2.5+ years of me DMing for a consistent party and a few scattered one-shots, there's never been a TPK. We've come close on several occasions, and my terrified table has asked me what would happen if we TPKed. To be honest, I've never thought about what would happen. I want the game to be a scary challenge at times, but I want them to "win." I'm on my players' side, and my players have made it very clear that they want to play games that have happy endings. I calculate their strengths and weaknesses carefully: I've never had to fudge rolls to protect them. There's always a way to succeed the encounter, be it combat, social, or exploration. As long as there's verisimilar narrative explanation for the party to avoid a TPK, it won't happen.
Okay dang that chess move about feelings was pretty slick ♟️♟️
It was all a Dream. Especially when a single 'CR3' monster TPKs the 5th level party.
Thank you! I like what you said about loading your last save point invalidating the whole thing
One thing I would consider about the last approach if the party likes it is that the situation was a nightmare and if they fail again then it’s all over
It even makes sense as a vision by a cleric: bad ideas by his companions, terrible luck, etc. all things that would represent the fear and dangers of their line of work
I think 'you end up in Hell, have fun figuring out how to get back' can work as a way to continue the adventure with the same party without having to retcon events. Obviously only works once.
Our rule is that if you lose a character, individually or as a TPK, you get a new character that is one level lower than the one you lost. That keeps them roughly in the same zone as before, they can keep up with the BBEG and rest of party, but they have to work for it, and it makes them RP their player as a new guy rather than just picking up the same dynamic as before.
It is a decision you need to talk over at Session Zero, so it doesn't blindside anybody. Having a good Session Zero saves so many tears later.
After a TPK many groups I play with use it as an opportunity to change things up with new Settings, Genres and Systems and even GM's and player groups.
How do you handle a TPK? A hearty jig on the game table.
Great Video.
One time, I noticed we were on the edge of a TPK. With my character at 2 fails and 2 successes on death saves, I knew if I could just get up with 1hp, the tide would be turned. I was playing a Tiefling, so I asked the DM if she was OK with me making a devil pact to come back with 1hp. She let me, and the day was saved, but not without a lot of high costs on the party all around.
We started the next session by talking about it because there were a lot of heavy feelings about essentially TPK ing. It helped, but the campaign did fall apart.
They walked back the new PF2e dying rules in day 0 errata 🤔
We had a boss battle in our current campaign that we could just not overcome. We'd tried to take out the Big Bad and his minions twice before, and managed to narrowly escape when the battle turned against us. We took a third shot at it, and this time TPK'd. Everyone was frustrated and ticked off -- we had spent a lot of time planning our attack, and felt like we'd really given it our all, but still came up short. Nobody (including the DM) had any enthusiasm for trying again, either with these characters or new ones...we were just over it and wanted to move on. Since this had been a side-quest, not related to the main plot of the campaign, the GM decided to hand-wave it away. He charged us a bunch of money for "resurrection spells", and any resources we'd used during the battle were still gone, so there was at least some consequences for our failure. But otherwise, we just picked up and carried on with the rest of the campaign, and assumed that our Big Bad Guy had succeeded in whatever his Big Bad Plan was, and was off living happily ever after in his Big Bad Kingdom...over there somewhere. Definitely not a Luke-approved, immersive approach, but for us, it was the best way to dispense with a quest-line that we all agreed had been a mistake in the first place.
This video really shows why having a TPK surprise a group can be an issue. Even Luke's suggestion of starting new characters at current level has several pitfalls. The party has no history with each other now, and the initial wealth of a tier 2-4 character is very subjective in 5e. This is even more difficult to determine if that character can get some or all their current items back. Newer players may struggle when they switch classes, or they may just make a new character that is basically the same as the one that was killed to avoid struggling. John the wizard becomes Johan the wizard (He's from another place now.) Should the DM allow that?
If you're the type of DM that has frequent character death, up to and including a TPK, you really need to have a well-defined system in place at the very beginning. Don't wait until a TPK happens after a dozen gaming sessions to determine next steps.
I remember DMing a campaign where the players were battling a group of goblins that they had encountered in a dungeon and the rogue decides to sneak off to try to see if he can find the treasures, but he ends up finding more monsters instead and brings those monsters upon the party ending in a TPK. As you can imagine, the other players were very angry with the rogue for causing a TPK. We discussed why the TPK happened, what could have been done to prevent it, and what we would do going forward. I asked the players if they wanted to roll up new PCs at their current level, or roll up new PCs and start at a lower level. As for the rogue, I eventually had to kick him from the group because he was causing too many problems.
Our group had a TPK from a Yuan-ti Pit Master with everyone failing all our con saves (we didnt hit 13, our rolls were literall dirt that game) and getting knocked out by Merrshualks Slumber... Not very fun but it was fair in my eyes.
The Revised Pathfinder dying rules haven't changed. They posted a clarification about it.
DM: Well, you got TPK, what do you think happened
Players: You killed us you jerk
Never had a TPK, running is always an option. I was a sole survivor once though. I use that character as an npc sponsoring parties that will rescue his friends. They are imprisoned in Hell! Groups have yet to volunteer.
Only done a reset ONCE and that was only because the party was not picking up the hints they were moving to the very last encounter of the campaign and i had other fun things i wanted them to experience before. In exchange for ALL of their inspiration i decided they would get the temporal anchor and a chance. Of coarse the final encounter they were not ready for kicked their shit in and only by luck did any of them manage to escape. We did the vote we did the reset they did not dive ass backwards into what they were not truely prepared for. I still have mixed feelings on it and i don't think i would do that again.
inform the party that the campaign is Hardcore.
a. start with 5 level-0 characters (per player)
b. no death saves
c. zero hp = dead
d. no short or long rests
e. heal ONE hp per day
f. successful medicine roll, character can add con bonus to the days hp healed.
g. only cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock and wizard can cast spells... no other classes get any spell casting abilities, spell like ability.
h. elf, dwarf and gnome have low-light vision. nobody has dark vision.
I. upon advancement to the next level, character adds 1 + con mod hit points. no tank characters.
I like idea of playing out a one shot of your afterlife. Then the player has a second chance when reincarnated.
For that last one, it sort of makes me think of the concept of Quantum Immortality, where if you die in something like a car crash, your consciousness transfers to a you that instead had a near death experience. It’s been used as an explanation for Mandela Effects and deja vu.
Could use this to great effect. Let people who want to roll up new characters do so. In this new timeline they’re the ones who were adventuring with the old party. Describe a near killing blow somehow miraculously missing. Let the character in session feel a sense of deja vu. Maybe that shopkeep they love once wore glasses and had a fancy twirled mustache but now has perfect vision and a full beard. Change other subtle things about the world like slight misspellings of names and towns.
I’d only do this for a TPK and if the players all unanimously voted for it though. I do agree it makes death pointless if you just reload your last save as you put it.
Almost had a TPK but one player survived we spun that into a new campaign where he rounded up a new party to go to hell to rescue the souls of his sain friends went really well
Side note I made them decide at the end to either leave the old PC dead or sacrifice the new PC in resurrect their dead one most chose to keep their new characters as they started getting attached to them
We have fully moved both gaming groups to Castles & Crusades and everyone loves it. Very simple game to run. Rules-lite with a nice balance between modern and older play-styles. Where death is a real risk but not constant and classes make sense instead of everyone just having magic or magic-like abilities to fill the gaps. The bonus is that it's super easy to use 5e content as-written, only having to alter a couple of monster stats, just the HD number and damage output.
Ghostwalk. Best way to go...
I had a session 2 TPK with my players. They just made every stupid choice in Curse of Strahd. Because it was so early i homebrewed undead/aberration versions of their characters that Strahd had Frankensteined together and they then worked for him. I put in a karma system called redemption/corruption that they could use to regain their humanity or embrace their new dark nature and gain better monster abilities/upgraded monster race. It wound up being a blast until the rona fucked it all.
Back when I was in the army, we were playing in a Dark Sun campaign. Sometimes you needed two or three back up characters in that game often just to make it through one game session. The DM was overall very good, but he really didn't like magic--many times it was, "Okay, I failed my saving throw. What happens?" "You disintegrate." Often the player would ball up his character, throw it in the DMs face, with a very loud, "YOU SUCK!!!" And pull out his next character in the tree, and if he didn't have one prepared, started rolling one on the spot.Those were really fun games but you didn't get attached. Very good times. And you learned character death wasn't the end of the world. Sometimes it was one failed save and you were toast. If the dice are against you---they are against you.
Yet DMs wonder why the players don't want to invest in a background and keep making loner/silent characters who live to fight.
Recently, I was a player while one of the players was trying his hand as DM. I gave him all my encounter building tools, and anything else I use to shorten prep time like a script that takes Donjon maps (which are 10' per square) and converts them to the more useful 5'-a-square format. He was insistent that "there's nothing wrong with the rules" and that I fudge and curate far more than is necessary. He also brings his little sister into the campaign which has probably been the best part of all this, but anyhow he insists on lots of lore and backstory and worldbuilding. We get to level 4, and in the very first round of the very first encounter when we hit the misty forest: beholder zombie, disintegrate ray, one failed save, and the sorlock is perma-dead. The remainder of the party completes the encounter, then walks out of the forest the way they entered, packs up shop, and moves out and lets the vampires take the city.
At that point, the DM realized that maybe there _are_ some things wrong with the rules, and retconned the sorlock's death into an ordinary death that could be remedied by means of Raise Dead. Investing emotionally in a character is incompatible with a game where your entire existence could be wiped by one failed saving throw. We now have a rule which the other players haven't been told, it's just between us DMs: no PC death prior to level 5 is permanent. Stupid and pointless PC deaths are also not permanent. I always run with the understanding that there are TWO ways a character can perma-die. One is a TPK where the most reasonable interpretation of the outcome is that everyone stays dead -- say the bodies are incinerated and scattered. The other is that they encounter something that can perma-kill them, and they decide to press on in spite of a warning shot. There will be times when your character's life is on the line without a safety net, but you should _know when those times are._ They shouldn't be "you failed a save on a random encounter, now you're dust in the wind".
Mind you, we _also_ do brutal one-shots where perma-death is absolutely on the table, but we know going in that this is the case and don't waste our time building a world around them.
@@mal2ksc I actually think it's a mistake to craft a story around specifics in a character background---using those specifics as little Easter eggs from time to time is interesting and rewarding, but the over all game...not a great idea.
The first philosophical problem I have with running games that are deeply dependent on character backstories is that you wind up singling out certain PCs to essentially be the star of the show, at least for a few sessions. This relegates your other players to playing the supporting cast. While I think it is essential that each character has their moment in the sun, this comes in moments--not entire game sessions. This can quickly become very unfair to the rest of the players. Remember, you're dealing with an ensemble cast of characters where the star of the show is the whole party as a collective--it's not dependent on one single character.
Next, there is the question of what happens if a character dies and you have lots of game scenarios that depend on that character being present? That's when game elements of the game are being sacrificed to provide the characters plot armor. I've always seen that as a mistake. I'd much rather have one failed roll end a character then have characters who are protected by plot armor.
And if you take death off the table, how much of the game really a game anymore? Part of the fun of running low level characters is surviving those early levels---you get to push your characters to their breaking point and sometimes beyond. These are truly some of the very best adventuring levels--when you're fighting like every combat could be your last. One of my players used to joke that ever even numbered level was one the party spent on it's knees, spitting blood. So if you make it to 4th level, you've earned it.
From my perspective, death or worse always have to be a possibility. (As I've been working on undead lately, worse than death is a real possibility) Even if it's because of one failed roll. That's akin to, the only reason you got shot was the sniper happened to see you first. You don't have to be doing anything wrong or tactically unsound. You just botched a roll and he caught you in his sight.
When I was a teen and in my early 20's I allowed spells like raise dead, but not anymore. In my 30s I made moves to take it off the table by saying the gods of death demanded that another soul must take the risen character's place in the halls of death. So someone, somewhere will die as a result of bringing a character back to life, and the priests don't get to choose whose life gets taken. Most priests of goodly deities won't even entertain such a request, no matter how much gold is thrust at them. (Though evil priests might) What happens if the king's infant son or daughter is as taken by death as the price bringing Nimble Nell the 5th level thief back to life? I don't even do that anymore. For death to have meaning it needs to be permanent.
@@andrewlustfield6079 Then we're playing two different games, we just happen to be sharing part of the rule set. Perma-death is on the table, but not at every waking moment which would more closely resemble being infantry in a trench war. The players don't want the stress of having to be 100% on their game at all times. I've made the mistake of waiting until the players get inattentive to spring something deadly on them. It just makes them paranoid and resentful. I'd rather have ways to say "alright, spa time is over, so put on a helmet". That's when perma-death appears on the table, and sometimes the players say "nah, not today".
We've played through so many campaign arcs at this point, and know our builds so well, that we can find it difficult to come up with a character that is in any way memorable or unique. But it's part of the bargain that they'll live long enough to make the effort worth it, otherwise screw it, I'm just gonna recycle something.
@@mal2ksc By the by, Happy New Year. And I'm sure we are running very different styles of games. That said, my game is not super deadly. We have had two character deaths in roughly a year-and-a-half of gaming on a once a month schedule. Both character deaths were a result of dumb luck situations where the monsters rolled nat 20s.
Most of the time in combat, I'm not rolling behind the screen, and I'm not tracking character HP either. It's rolling without a safety net to be sure. Unlike PDM on Dungeon Craft, however, (excellent channel by the by), where characters die at zero in his games, I'm more forgiving than that. At zero--you're on the ground, bleeding out 1-2 hp every round. At -10---you're dead. So if someone can't stabilize you in (x) number of rounds, you'll have bled to death. That can create some dramatic and intense moments in combat where characters have to leave the combat order to apply direct pressure to the wound while other characters have to pug the hole in the battle order that opened up.
So with this kind of death mechanic, depending on the damage roll, a nat 20 can get you to -10 instantly. Just as one example: an orc's battle axe does 1-8 then add 3 for strength (16 is not an unreasonable Str. for an orc)--say you roll a six. So that's 9 HPx2 for a nat 20--you have 18 HP in one hit.
Nat 20's can happen in any combat. So if you're rolling in front of your players, there's never a time when the helmet comes off.
My players are quite different than yours. They would pissed at me if they thought I was fudging dice for them.
Our current main party is fourth on their way to fifth level now. The back-ups are all still first.
I'm doing the reload at the last save situation right now. It's a family game with mostly brand new players and a young kid, so i figured we'd start here for the first few levels of the campaign, and then the training wheels come off.
Death doesn't have to mean the end of the campaign. There's a project called "The Black Ballad" that crowdfunded a while back that uses this exact problem as a starting point for its story and approaches it from a clever angle by continuing the party's story in an afterlife.
So, about 0:20 and Pathfinders "new" Dying rules. They were actually supposed to be that way from the start. *However* due to feedback they have published an Errata that made it "back" to how most people used it.
This is outrageous! Talking about it won't solve anything and feelings should not be discussed! Look at me, I'm raging at you right now and it.. It does actually help..
Okay I feel better now, thanks for letting me vent a little ❤
So in a Digimon campaign I was running the party had a few TPKs. Due to the setting the party would come back to life after this. Which to the party was more unnerving then dying because the BBEG stopped death so he use all the digimon souls to make a god third impact style. So the party was actively trying to find a way to bring death back in the world. (Though less drastic as it is IRL.)
And in the sequel the BBEG made their kids unable to die for long as it want to use them to self actualize which resulted in mental scaring every time they died. So the party would do their best not to die or else risk loosing their sanity.
So I know that in most systems being immortal would be a benefit and prevent TPKs but in this setting it was a worse fate cause the party was really good at role playing.
Their sponsor, an Archmage clones them. Sends them back for revenge, and to get their stuff back.
Starting over at 1st level never feels good, but bringing in a new party at the same level can make the deaths of their previous characters feel cheap, their characters easily interchangeable.
In some games, it might be better to make a new party out of characters whose lives have been touched by the old group.
The blacksmith whose daughter they rescued...
A member of the militia they have been training...
The Elf prince from the neighboring country who they freed from the evil lieutenant's dungeon...
The rogue's rival from the local guild...
Start this new group 2 or 3 levels lower than the old group.
They know they are not as powerful as their heroes, but those heroes cannot save them now...
Someone has to step up...
How many players do I need to run a session, just 2. I can only see myself rewinding to redo something is where if I as the GM horribly messed up in how I was running something and that is what led to their demise. Otherwise it's a conversation of "are we still feeling this campaign and want to make new characters" or "do we want to do something new?"
I remember once when my players tpk'd, I had them go to hell and continue adventuring in baator. It was a funny solution, and made sense given my plan for the campaign and who their characters were
Good on you for mentioning other methods even if you're not a fan of them. I'm personally not a fan of the mindset that "without death, there are no stakes" because this suggests the only thing that matters in your game is the lives of the PCs, I don't think I need to explain why this is bad. Sometimes this mindset is accompanied by "there is no difficulty". But this is a fundamental misunderstanding about game design. Difficulty is the required effort to succeed. Punishing is the amount of effort lost by failing. You can still have a difficult game when it isn't very punishing. Just look at games like Elden Ring. It's not very punishing since you never lose anything other than some currency (that you can get back), but it's difficult enough to make people give up entirely. It also neglects to honor the time you and your players spend at the table. If you spend an hour or two on an encounter that ends in a TPK, that is already a big loss of time. Then you have to make new characters, and do the whole introduction/quest thing again. You've easily wasted your entire game session right there with nothing to show for it. I think for a game, that's already pretty high stakes. For many people, losing 4 hours of progress in a game can be enough for them to just give up entirely.
We had two TPKs in a row in our AD&D 1e game just last week. Lost 7 leveled characters to two different save or die poison traps. We tried to search for the traps but failed and triggered them. We have to roll up new level 1 characters since they cannot be raised.
The only time that I am dead set on everyojne being at the game table is for session 1. After that, sessions will only run if more than half the players can make it.
I ask what they want to do. Do they wanna start over, new characters, or just reset the encounter. It’s a game so I don’t care what happens ultimately so long as I’m not bored, in video games, you can do whatever. Personally it’s up to what the PCs tell me they want. I just take the consensus
I personally let righteous kills stand, the times when I’m cool with resets and captures is when other PCs or guest were attempting to sabotage the other PCs for whatever reason. I’ve had players who wanted to be assholes to the party and didn’t try when all hands were needed on deck, or a guest player comes in, does the stupidest shit possible, gets everyone killed then doesn’t come the next week. In scenarios like that I endorse do overs or captured. Though I will do the consensus either way
Luke: "because you the GM over tweaked your pathfinder 2 adventure"
Me: "in my defense I came into game session and got told 'so we were talking and since there's a good chance that covid is going to confine us to our homes we'd like you to wrap up the campaign next week so that we can start a new one online.' So I spent a week trying to figure out how to have a satisfying ending with a campaign that was suppose to still have months of content and several level ups left. How has I suppose to know that a severe fight against a solo creature would end in a tpk for my 4 players?"
Have you done a video on how to handle a session where people have to miss? How should the dm handle it? Character is just "gone." Other PCs play basic attacks etc. What if two players are gone?
My rule on that is that they could "check out" if there's a reasonable way for them to leave the party temporarily, and this can usually be arranged if they let me know in advance. But if they just don't show, the character is still there and the remainder of the players get to decide what they do. I'll veto acts that are obviously exploitative like having the character give all their gear away, but otherwise the absent player just has to live with the consequences of what was done in their absence. Miss enough sessions and the character effectively becomes a disposable NPC.
Aside from one agreed upon narrative TPK to shift a campaign from one campaign to another(taking our pre-written module into homebrewed mythic levels in PF1e), I've only presided over 1 TPK(several nailbiters, though). And it was entirely my fault. I made a bad rules call and it led to the party dying.
Because I'd truly screwed up, we rewinded to before the fight.
Also, we do reschedule. But it's just me and my roommates at the table. If schedules change, we're reliable enough to plan on playing another day.
I am 100% in agreement with a DM saying "I made a bad ruling, it probably led to a bad result, so you get to replay it from the point of the foul". That's just playing fair. In exchange, the players have to accept your rulings, knowing that they'll get a replay or some other compensation if you screw up.
What about the idea of a god, or godlike being ie the Raven Queen or a very powerful devil, intervening at a cost?
Relatable; I too like solving puzzles. I too am bad at creating the. Frustrating.
Personally I use Baldurs Gate logic to basicly turn back time before tpks. If at least one person survives then we just continue the game.
I have done a few TPKs, I think magic items should not be safe and a few have backfired on the PCs. A PC used a wand of fireballs because he thought it was an arrow..... Oooops!
The last TPK I ran was a non D&D game I ran at our local RPG convention about 10 years ago... it was a series of missed opportunities, bad choices and worse dice rolls by the payer characters and extremely good rolls by the giant chickens. Even though it was a complete wipe, everyone had fun... and we still talk about it when we get together at the event.
restart a couple of levels lower, with limited magic items and the first task being to retrieve some of their stuff and maybe even find one PC that lived
Do the rolls for 2 characters in the first session. Submit just the 1st character, and finish up the 2nd character on. If a charter death happens. You are already prepared. You may even be able to swap those characters between sessions. Which shouldn't have any in game contact, or association. Its not like a television show, or a novel. A player with multiple characters is unique feature that can work in TTRPGs.
@DM Lair Paizo explain dying rule in day one errata, it is like it was before Remaster
I literally JUST TPK'd my party last night on our very first session, very first combat XD I seriously didn't try at all but I rolled 4 nat20's on them and they got wrecked. It's kinda hard for me to hide the results on FGU lol. Since it was a literally the very beginning and my group are people I play with all the time, we all agreed to do a Final Destination style reset under the agreement the reset will not happen again. We all laughed so hard and we don't really take TPK's very seriously.