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No, no, it wasn't mine. I'm too much of a marshmallow, it seems, to TPK. Or even bring about a single character death. However, my friend and erstwhile GM is not. He followed tactics and several things happened that weren't in the party's favor. Very strongly not in the party's favor.
- First of all, the characters were all bunched together, and the zombies didn't help them unbunch. They hadn't approached the combat very carefully.
- And Luscilia's a cleric. Her channel energy was essentially what took them all down. She was rolling 10s, 11s and 12s, and even with them making their saves, it wasn't long before all but one of them died this way, what with the party's cleric being afraid to channel positive energy for fear of healing her.
- The last, who was out of range of her channelling due to being on another deck—a bard I believe—died under her flail.
This GM felt pretty bad about it all, but interestingly nobody else at the table did. Many of them saw it as a chance to make new characters, but overall the reason was that they had fun, and that's really what I want to happen at my events. I shook his hand, congratulated him on being the first GM at my event to be at the helm when a character died, and called for a round of applause. He got a standing ovation from his table.
I've yet to have a TPK, but I have to admire his willingness to play the NPCs well and I'm sure having the players appreciate his GMing softened the blow a bit.
It's sort of an "Old Yeller" moment -- you know it has to be done and it might as well be somebody that the players like and respect. In my character deaths, I'd always rather have a fair shake and know I did my best than get killed by a GM who had it out for me or have my character live by some hand-waving.
Well handled, well played.
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We just had our very first TPK here. Tide of Twilight.
It was 100% self inflicted. A group of 2 ninja's, 1 rogue and 1 loremaster. We did give the final encounter time to prepare - and then the ninja's rushed in without any tactics.
Add some dice-rolls that went against us ...
The GM felt pretty bad as well - and I think this is the important part. That a GM isn't gloating to show players their mistakes but feels with them.
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A TPK in the Devil You Know Part 1? Shocking. :)
I don't look forward to my first TPK, in my experience of 30+ years of GMing, it's never truly gone well and slows down momentum. For my current home game, it would mean starting new PCs and tbh I like high level play much better than low level play (mostly due to having limited exposure myself to it).
Whenever I read the word Albuquerque, I can't help but to hear Bugs Bunny's voice in my head. You waskilly wabbit.