Quote from: LordVreeg;441722same campaign going on 27 years now.  3 TPKs in that time, 5 more near TPKs, just hit 50 full time players (I don't count tourney or short term) and 159 PCs.
Just
call
me
ourtlier....

Jebus.  Some of these groups are online, right?

Quote from: Peregrin;441727Jebus.  Some of these groups are online, right?

a few.  Steel Isle is online.  
Just had session 64.
Here's the main thread.

In recent years, all my campaigns have been planned as short (8-18 session) closed-ended ones. Once X is achieved, the campaign is over. So if there's a TPK, the campaign ends a few sessions early. So far I've only had one TPK, though, the most recent campaign.

Had plenty of campaigns where 1 or 2 PCs die, though. Usually it's one particular player whose characters get killed, he rolls up another and joins straight back in. He only risks his character's life when things are coming to a climax, though, so he only gets to play the new character for a session or two.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;441750In recent years, all my campaigns have been planned as short (8-18 session) closed-ended ones. Once X is achieved, the campaign is over.

So if there's a TPK, the campaign ends a few sessions early. So far I've only had one TPK, though, the most recent campaign. Had plenty of campaigns where 1 or 2 PCs die, though. Usually it's one particular player whose characters get killed, he rolls up another and joins straight back in. He only risks his character's life when things are coming to a climax, though, so he only gets to play the new character for a session or two.

I loved your RQ logs/stories.  they rocked.

It really depends on the game. Sometimes the game lends itself to rebooting after the TPK. One example of this is CoC where the new investigators can simply be looking for what happened to the last bunch.

On the other end of that spectrum, years ago in a Stormbringer campaign I ran the party died at the hands of Pan Tang sorceror and his menagerie of demons and warrior-flunkies. The players decided that it was a fitting end for the characters and we decided to move onto another game. Of course we had been playing the game for about a year so it's not like I didn't get any use out of the material I prepared.

Quote from: LordVreeg;441751I loved your RQ logs/stories.  they rocked.

Thanks.

He got his characters killed in other systems, though, too

Under most circumstances I'd say yes, but its not an ironclad rule.

RPGPundit

In general I think if the whole party dies, that's a good opportunity to try out something new - there are a lot of games and campaign ideas to play with. If the TPK were very early in the campaign I'd be more likely to start a new party of adventurers in the same setting so as not to let the idea go to waste entirely, but if we got several good sessions out of it, I think it's fine to let it have been short and sweet.

I let the group decide. Do we change to something else after a TPK or revisit the developing campaign with a new angle?

Sadly, one of my most successful (by success I mean everyone had a roaring good time) D&D 3.0 campaigns ended in TPK at level six. The group had a remarkably poor die rolling time that night and made enough poor decisions to fill a galleon to boot.

Of the four PCs, two were actually captured in the conflict that ended in "TPK." The group split 2-2 on whether to continue. Oddly, one of the dead voted to keep going and one of the prisoners voted to end it. I had the deciding vote and agreed to end it. There were some other factors in my decision.... BUT....

I've often wondered how things would have turned out if I had gone with my initial instincts and had the two new PCs make a rescue attempt. Water under the bridge now.

I voted know. Although, I must admit, we never had a total TPK. There were usually one or two survivors.

Never start off from where and when the TPK occurred, but if the game is one where it makes sense a new party can begin to pick up the pieces. In CoC it depends largely on where in the adventure the TPK happens; early enough new investigators can investigate what happened to the first group, late in a campaign we just sit back and watch the big horror occur.

No, it usually isn't the end of the campaign, but merely a wrinkle that can explored (or exploited ).

Quote from: 1of3;443513I voted know. Although, I must admit, we never had a total TPK. There were usually one or two survivors.

Yeah, but sometimes that whole one-or-two-survivors is its own can of worms.

RPGPundit

A TPK only ends the game in my group when it's close to the final session of that campaign anyways.

I've never seen a TPK from either side of the screen.  Someone has always managed to get away (some calls closer than others).

I do recall one occasion, GMing, where all the PCs were captured, and that could have turned into a TPK, but at the time it was more interesting to leave the characters imprisoned and have the players run 'backup' PCs who then struggled to rescue their fellows.