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I'm not sure if this has already been done somewhere, but I was wondering if anyone had any good stories about killing their entire party (or possibly just coming close).
As for me, I was running my very first game last spring. It was Mad God's Key (forget which issue) and I didn't understand most of what I was doing. My entire party was nongood alignment (I had an evil or two I believe). At one point in the cave they had entered they were supposed to fight a corpse rat swarm that was CR two levels above them. I had no one in the party that could turn undead and, as a whole, they couldn't really do much damage. My one evil PC ran away, but the rest were all killed before they had a chance. I felt so bad about killing everyone in my very first session ever. It took me a long time to try my hand at it again (I just ran another one-shot a few weeks ago and am now back on break to gain my confidence again).
as a dm remember 1 thing " nothing is written in stone." if the adventure is to hard for the group, change it. and don't feel bad , players must learn there limits. the only smart player u had was the 1 that ran.maybe now they think its a good idea to have a cleric. over the years i had alot of players die. if they are good sports, they see it as a way to try a new charater.
I'm not sure if this has already been done somewhere, but I was wondering if anyone had any good stories about killing their entire party (or possibly just coming close).
As for me, I was running my very first game last spring. It was Mad God's Key (forget which issue) and I didn't understand most of what I was doing. My entire party was nongood alignment (I had an evil or two I believe). At one point in the cave they had entered they were supposed to fight a corpse rat swarm that was CR two levels above them. I had no one in the party that could turn undead and, as a whole, they couldn't really do much damage. My one evil PC ran away, but the rest were all killed before they had a chance. I felt so bad about killing everyone in my very first session ever. It took me a long time to try my hand at it again (I just ran another one-shot a few weeks ago and am now back on break to gain my confidence again).
Well PhysChic, as a DM, I tend to use almost everything my players throw at me (even dying!). I had a similar experience once, where everybody died in the group and only the paladin survived. I used this to further the character's mental history, so when the "new group" encountered him, he wasn't the brave charismatic adventurer he once was, but a remorseful, sad individual.
I guess you can use this as well. That experience will only add a certain untrustworthyness to that evil player that survived the ordeal. Think of the whole thing as only an intro for that character. This could work well if the characters were somewhat new.
For more experienced characters that the players have played for years, a TPK is most unpleasant. And, I guess, for you the DM as well, as the storyline of your campaign usually revolves around one or two characters in particular. So now your stuck with a goal that means nothing to the surviving character, and your other players are left bitter because their cherrished characters are dead.
One solution for something like this would be to have the group wake up in some laboratory (like say a Necromancers laboratory) a have them find out that they've been "experimented on" as undead (or something). This would create a new side-quest for your players as they would try and find a way kill the necromancer but not before regaining their "live" status. Have them escape the facility and roam about for a few months, slowly decaying as time goes on.
There's always the "Dallas" maneuver, where the whole thing could have been one characters' nightmare. Or, even cooler, a sort of premonition of things to come. Throw the same "story" again to your players and watch them freak as events unfold as before even though they are desperately trying to stop the events from happening.
Hope this helps...
Ultradan
Heh.
Fall of 2000. 2E. Night Below campaign.
While exploring the Underdark, the group discovers an ancient dwarven burial tomb. They decide to explore.
*Note* The cleric of Mystra couldn't play this evening, so he used dimension door and left for safety.
Inevitably, the group gets curious about the tombs. As they proceed, they trip several symbols of death, and the party rogue and cleric of Tempus are slain. All that remain are the elven ranger, dwarven fighter, and human wizard.
They see one particular tomb marked "Great Foe." Intelligence checks reveal that many Melairkyn burial tombs house a great enemy of the dwarven clan. Knowing this, the group investigates the tomb.
Upon breaching the portal, the drow lich entombed within arose amidst much dust and age. The ranger tossed a stone (with silence 15' radius cast upon it) into the room as soon as the wizard opened the door. In the next round, the lich activated a symbol of death, which immediately killed the wizard.
The two remaining heroes charge into the tomb, and the lich teleports away. Knowing that their foe could still be near, they decide to close the portal and chug healing potions.
Once they're ready, they pull open the portal and are almost blinded by the prismatic wall flashing not two feet from the tomb.
In the next round, the drow lich cast cloudkill into the tomb. The ranger soon expired, leaving the dwarf coughing and dying.
Then things got mean. The drow lich stepped through his own prismatic wall to confront the dwarf. With stoneskin cast, the dwarf's axe did little to no damage, and with unnatural strength, the lich wrestled the dwarf to the ground and dragged him through the prismatic wall. The dwarf was obliterated.
***
During the next session, we all gathered to see the cleric of Mystra return to the scene to avenge his fallen comrades and destroy this foul lich.
Due to powerful wards set in place, the lich was unable to leave the burial grounds... at least not yet. With no spellbook, the lich was unable to replenish spells (not that he exhausted them all during the first battle).
The cleric scryed upon the area, opened a portal to the tomb, and dumped four fireballs through the portal and into the tomb (which actually burned off the lich's fire protection). Then the cleric entered the tomb.
The battle was huge. The cleric blackened the lich to a crisp with a gout of silvery fire, turned a dwarven ghost compelled by the lich, and eventually had to pummel the lich to a pulp with his mace. It was a night to remember.
***
That same cleric of Mystra put together a second group of adventurers (played by the other players who lost their characters, of course), used divinations to locate certain items of power, and delved into the Underdark in search of lost comrades and perhaps vengeance.
At the end of their trek, they came upon a drow stronghold. Using the straightforward method, the cleric summoned an elder fire elemental and sent it rampaging through the stalagmite castle (actually Lord Soth's castle from World of Krynn). It killed derro, bugbears, and orcs by the dozens.
With that happening, the group slipped into the castle and scoured the halls, killing several drow. They came upon a sealed door guarded by many drow soldiers, who were soon killed. Thrusting open the door, the group was greeted by a drow high priestess of Lolth, a human lich of Netheril, an elder mind flayer, and a glabrezu demon. The end came quickly.
And with that, the 2E campaign came to a close forever, and 3.0 loomed on the horizon.
***
What's cool is that I brought back the party elf ranger as a drow-made Zin-Carla assassin in my 3.0 campaign a few years later. It was a cool moment for everyone.
Lich dragging the dwarf through the prismatic wall: brutal. Cinematically so, as I sometimes say.
I can't resist putting this up.
About last year, the group consisted of a DM who had been playing for 20 years and four newbies (myself included). Our characters were reaching the end of the sunless citadel and were at the room were a tunnel led down to the inner sanctum of the gulthias tree. The party warmage, played by the local munchkin, takes off his armor to lessen his penalty at climbing the vines down the wall. I learned later on that the DC was 0. The warmage and I (a cleric of pelor) reach the floor. Our companions (an elf ranger and an elf rogue) are still up top, waiting for a response.
Why did they send the two non-stealthy ones of the party? Hey, we were new.
A bug bear charges in from the next room and hucks a javelin at the warmage. Misses. The warmage takes his turn donning his armor, which was splint mail. I try to help, my spells expended for the day after a rousing fight with the goblins above. 2nd round, another javelin, another miss. Warmage continues putting on his armor, and finishes on my round of helping him. The warmage's player exclaims "I have my armor on!" and takes a javelin straight to the gut, putting him in the negatives. I draw my mace. The bugbear charges in and dispatches me faster than a jack rabbit hyped up on mountain dew while going down hill on roller skates while being pulled by an 18 wheeler.
The ranger climbs down and gets clobbered. The rogue starts to climb down but falls the 50 feet and we all wake up in one of the many prison cells. The DM declares game over, but hinted that he could be persuaded to restart the encounter since we were a new group. 2 packs of camels later, and we beat the everliving crap outta that bugbear.
Ah, memories.
Fall of 1998, my old Forgotten Realms Campaign--gamers consist of three gaming veterans (20 + years each under their belt at that point), 1 total newbie (my wife to be), 1 somewhat newbie (another player's wife, who had played a few times over the years), 1 other total newbie (teenage daughter of another player)
Characters were a good mix of classes and included a "Spellfire" capable 13 year old female character. About 5th level, confidence level high after a couple of very successful adventures.
While traveling from Waterdeep towards Cormyr, the party spots what I described simply as "the spires of a distant stronghold barely visible over the hilltop treeline."
Inexplicably, the party does ZERO reconnaissance, even though they have a rogue and a ranger in the party. Three very experienced gamers--and they just walked up towards the castle like they're strolling to a tea and biscuits picnic at the village common lawn.
Well, the castle is inhabited by one of my campaign's major villains. I didn't expect the party to try to just ASSAULT the place...the goal was to have this villain harass them on their trip and provide a fertile breeding ground for future adventure threads...basically, introduce himself and his followers in a dramatic fashion and make the PC's sweat and run a little bit.
After a few rounds of combat, the party is taken out and captured by the villain and his minions. Two PC's are killed and the rest are captured. The party is subsequently belligerent during interrogation and basically give the villain not a single reason to keep them alive.
So, he didn't. My villains are not characters from James Bond movies, so he didn't suspend them over a pool of sharks with laserbeams on their heads, he just slit their throats and threw the bodies to his hellhound pets.
Everyone was really angry with me--they couldn't believe that I did that. One of the fellow experienced players, who also DM'ed another campaign at the time, didn't speak to me for three days, but eventually realized that all the fault for the TPK lay solidly at their feet and all was forgiven.
The spellfire character managed to escape, using her spellfire ability to blast her way out of the prison. New PC's were assembled around her and the villain was eventually tracked down and slain several years later.
My players are again getting lazy about scouting and reconnaissance. They are again finding the tendency to just throw their stuff out there and count on the fact that I try to run balanced encounters to save them from TPK. Three of the six gamers from 1998 are in this current group and if it happens again because of their laziness, I shall gently remind them of 1998.
My personal rules regarding TPK's can be summed up as follows:
--If the characters have no choice but to fight, I try to keep the CR of the encounter no more than 2 above their level.
--If the characters have a chance to retreat if they use proper tactics, but they choose not to do so, anything can happen.
--Greed & Laziness cannot be retroactively justified by claiming that the DM had put in a plot element that made the players think that they were under a time limit (believe me, this has happened to me more than once)
--once the party is above 7th level, random encounters will not be "balanced" to ensure their probable success or probable survival...if you're going to go traveling, have an escape plan, because you "might" encounter a huge ancient red dragon.
---Lack of prior planning or good use of available abilities and spells does not constitute an emergency on the DM's part.
--Just because the DM drops a hint about an adventure possibility, does not mean that this adventure will be appropriate for your character level. Do some research, do some careful scouting, ask questions, talk to those who might have information before you go wandering off, blissfully believing that "this adventure is where we should go, because the DM would not have dropped that hint if he didn't want us to go there."
(My current party is fixin' to find out the hard way about that one)
I ran a long-running Oriental Adventures game in 2nd edition. Over time, the pair of ninjas that constitued the party had been through alot. We really became attached to the two, and had some crazy games.
Unfortunately, it all came ot an end after an encounter with a Psionic lich. I unexpectedly unleashed his full power on them, not realizing they had few defesnes against him. Both PCs went down in a flurry of halluciantions and brain damage.
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Hey,
My example of a TPK is recent and the explanation rather long due to contributing factors that happened during the game. I wrote the whole thing up as a campaign journal and posted it in the Campain Journal part of the forums. The thread title is "A Cautionary Tale".
The odd part was that most of the players have played a while and played in the same group together. And yet, they made several rookie mistakes. What can you do?
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I'm not sure if this has already been done somewhere, but I was wondering if anyone had any good stories about killing their entire party (or possibly just coming close).
Quite close (as a PC). We were playing "scourge of the slavelords" (A1-A4) and we were right in the middle of the gnoll fortress. With 2 or 3 charmed gnolls, we were pretending to be prisonners. The group consisted of 8 PCs (4 human and 4 elf), and an "ethnic" disput errupted : elf vs human. Since the elf consisted mostly of rogues or mages, and the human of fighters or clerics, the elf were losing (I played an elf), right in the center of the central court, and the whole gnoll garrison, awoken and alarmed by the fight, had come on the walls surrounding the court : they didn't do anything at first, just watching those "petty stupid elf and human" quarrel. By the end the fight ended, they just had to take the rest of us prisonners. The DM, tearing his hair off, found only one solution to have the adventure go on : all of us were tortured by the gnolls : eyes burned (1), one leg off (2), one arm off (3), ears cut (4), dick cut (5) (the player spoke with a high pitched voice afterwards), shaven and roots of hair burned (myself, bad for the appeal of a female PC), and I just can't remember the last two. Then, a huge army force of Ulek made us free, but with a cost (most of our equipment was lost), and we named our group "Raiders of the lost member".
That was fun anyway !!!
Contributor
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When I started gaming (1980), a TPK was the expected outcome of our games. The first five or six adventures I played wiped out the whole party. This was mostly just us learning how the game worked (especially our DM, who is now a big softy).
So what's funny or interesting? We finally had a group get out alive having explored a chunk of the dungeon. We had lost a few npcs and we were all wounded, but we had some stuff and we were alive. Well, I figured the game was done and we had won this time, and threw out my character sheet. Then I was totally surprised and had to make up a new character when the DM wanted to continue the adventure.
Don't feel bad about it, especially if you're just learning how to DM. Sometimes TPKs happen and the DM doesn't even have anything to do with it. Take an example from a game I ran LAST NIGHT, believe it or not:
Party enters SMALL (this is important), flooded room in an underground complex. Sees large, vegetative creature rise up from the water.
Party Mage: rolls dice, "I cast Death Spell! And there's no Save, only MR. (we play 2nd ed). HA!"
DM: "OK, what's the area of effect?"
Mage: "Oh... uh..." flips through the book. "30' radius per level. Oh... sh$$!"
TPK.