T-P-K - has it happened to you?

[Forealms]

I really hope this is completely OOT. This thread is titled "TPK", and ... the beans ...

Well, in some ways, it is on topic. Our friend is a DC 50 Gas trap, so it was a close call

[keybounce]

Bump
Should we mention Erfworld here?

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I had an (almost) TPK on a first encounter due to some really odd die rolls, and unfamiliarity with the (new) system (and forgetting some player abilities in that system). I just rampped the difficulty up to unbelievable level, let the survivors "disbelieve", told the players that they woke up and decided to never have chili pizza before bed again. Then toned that encounter down when they went through for real :-).

[dps]

This is embarrassing. It was a very long time ago, and I don't remember the details, but it was a new campaign with a group of 1st level characters--I think there were 6 of us, and only a couple of us had ever played a RPG before. I'm not sure the DM had ever DM'ed before either, though what happened wasn't his fault. Anyway, we heard a rumor of a dungeon that might contain treasure, and started out for it. On the road, the DM rolled a random encounter, and we got attacked by a pack of wolves. Not werewolves or anything like that, just a small pack of like 5 regular wolves. Again, I don't remember the details, but the combination of most party members not really knowing what they were doing and some really bad luck with rolls lead to our being wiped out. I don't even think we managed to take a single wolf with us.

[Aken0008]

Near T-P-Ksaved by a nice DM
just started, 3 sessions into a campaign, as newbies, were investigating a village attacked by orcs, when me, the ranger,went ON MY OWN to find the camp. got ambushed by 4 orcs, killed two, and got kidnapped by the rest.
Orcs then followed my trail to our camp, beat watch (a mage) in one turn. they then surprised the rest of the party whilst they were sleeping. woke up prisoners in the orc camp, saved by friendly ghost and escaped, but not before we coup de graced 2 orcs

[David Argall]

Died several times this way. Most recently, the DM didn't bother to tell us an optional tough encounter was at all optional. Of course we made it easier to die by first finding one of the better strategies, and then abandoning it.

[Drevius]

I have one campaign that I thoroughly enjoyed, with essentially tpks, 3 of them to be exact where my joke character a halfling factotum with a napoleon complex and a sadistic streak would end up surviving each tpk through sheer luck, the purchase of contingency spells as well as WELL hidden items for breaking free of capture and jail. This was also an evil campaign so we had a few rules that were kinda quickly developed:

1. We knew this was a thoroughly evil campaign and pvp was bound to occur and did alot so no one should get too attached to a character or complain when they were cheap shotted when sleeping, rings of sustenance were a must usually.

2. Rarely did we have a cleric or heal bot and were working with crit rules and limb/organ damage rules etc, so we also said "weak and injured get left behind and only the healthy move on".

3. If someone requested healing in a rare occasion they were promptly introduced to a Russian medic, or headshot with a great crossbow for those of you not in the know.

There were other "rules" our lawless savage crazy party lived by but all in all it was hilarious how many characters were generated in that game and died especially the ones that were introduced as captured by opponents we were supposed to dispatch, we tended to snipe those characters and carry on travelling, while the character creator just laughed and said "just had to make my character from Thay". Apparently we were supposed to buy him or something lol.

And nobody threw a fit when a character died or were backstabbed or wanted revenge etc, etc.

[donkyhotay]

I once had the enemies perform an almost complete TPK themselves. I was DM'ing just a few nights ago when the heroes encountered 3 enemy guards armed with swords. It's a sci-fi campaign with modified GURPS rules and the enemy managed to get the drop on the PC's so they went first. I rolled so badly as the DM that the battle went something like this:

"The first guard rushes up and swings with his sword"
<roll>
"He's a little unbalanced and swings wide, you don't even need to try to dodge it. The second guard rushes up and attacks as well with his sword"
<roll>
Umm...
<roll again>
"The second guard swings with his sword, it completely slips out of his hands and hits the third guard"
<roll>
<double & triple check my notes>
"It manages to hit in a vital spot and the third guard drops to his knees bleeding and..."
<roll>
<sigh>
"...he collapses entirely, unconcious and bleeding heavily"

With one of the guards essentially dead and the other disarmed before any of the PC's even took their first turn my challenging combat scenario turned into a walk in the park for them.

[casper]

You can find it really strange, but for 5 years of playing D&D I can't remember a game, that DIDN"T end with TPK (ok, apart from modules that were given up in the middle for some reasons). Only twice it was done by main villains themselves, mostly it were random encounters or just usial fight with ordinary enemies.
We play, so to say, realistic D&D. Adventurers have a chance to succed, but it's extremely low. So if you choose the dangerous live of adventurer, prepare to be happy that you just survive another day.
Besides, you know, TPK is an only logical conclusion of adventure, because otherwise adventurers would never stop - there is always someone to fight left...

Again, I understand, it sounds strange. But we play so...

[casper]

Oh, just remember one game with happy ending. But it was not D&D, just roleplaying. And whole module took hardly two hours. And most of us were drunk. And there was a party of orc with a greatsword and boomerangs, loving yoghurts, grenade launcher man hating and blowing up all McDonalds buildings, mage with spells from "Harry Potter" and necromancer with a spell "Idontcareatall" (funnier in my language version), granting total invulnerability. So I doubt this game counts :-)

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: This thread's been necromantized enough. Locked. Please see the rules on thread necromancy.