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I'm going to kill my party... But they're going to come back.
I've been hinting for a couple months now of what would happen when they die, that they'll come back in an ascended form in order to continue the story, though thier previous selves will go down in history as having one of the most epic deaths ever.
So, what is the most epic way to TPK? I really, really want my players to feel the pure epic-ness of the encounter. Heck, if you even thought of good music to go along with it, that'd be awesome (currently thinking of using Divinum Music you-tube channel to set the feel).
They're currently finishing a quest, so there's room to even set up the perfect, epic reason for taking such an epic task.
I was thinking of fighting an unending horde of weak creatures until they die, but I fear that would put perhaps a little too much strain on moving pieces around and battle tactics and take away from the epicness of the moment.
Ideas?
An ancient Dragon awakens and sets it sights on a large Kingdom, the party ends up fighting it away from the Kingdom so they don't risk the people located in it.
When the Dragon dies/when it's on it's last legs it explodes in a large radius(to insure it hits everyone) and does a ridiculous amount of damage enough to kill them all, later the King(Queen, Emperor, etc) sets out to where the battle took place finding nothing but a crater and a single item that would show that the party killed the Dragon; later the crater will be renamed to Hero's Valley(or another name based around the party).
Hecatoncheire. Or make that two of them for good measure.
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Honestly, it won't be too hard for a scenario to come up that the characters are willing to come through on. I'm kind of thinking of a betrayal of some kind, though I'm not sure how drastic I should make it (They have a trusted NPC they've been working for, that detects as lawful good. Perhaps a mind control spell leading them on a quest to their deaths? Or perhaps the NPC just turns evil, or tricked the detection spell O.o).
So, I guess the main decision here is what kind of epic: The sad, they were betrayed or they failed gloriously epic. Or the happy, they choose to die the heroes death and fought to protect others. Mood is ever so important!
Would you, as a player, prefer a sad ending or a happy ending? Would you prefer your heart to be wrenched out of your body? Perhaps a few tears at how sad the moment is? Or would it be a happy occasion, where the heroes have brought on a new beginning?
And after the fact, since the campaign does continue (They are ascending, in a sense...), do you think I should have them attend their own memorial?
Hmm...
I'm all for the "nuke riding" idea. Brings bak memories of that old first Gothic game ending - sure you kill that BBEG, now his temple is crumbling..no this time you're not going to make it to the exit before the roof falls down.
Or more like the beginning of Might & Magic 6 - you've actually gotten yourselves heads over heels and making a run for it. Only way is through something that doesn't look any safer than facing certain death from the hands of the enemy - like jumping off a high waterfall or any other leap of faith.
By the way an unending horde can be handled like swarms.
Perhaps the quest needs a gate to another world closed? oh did I i meantion that can only be done with magic crystals just in the same ammount as the party size? and that they're broken? and that they need life energy to reactivate? Heroic self-sacrifice for the greater good right there..won't work if your party is not the good "lets save the world at all costs" type
I've always preferred the Hero's Sacrifice trope played straight. The only 'good ending' in my eyes are the ones in which the Hero in question goes out on their own terms. You made it into the underground temple but stumbled onto something well beyond the scope of what you or the cavalry can handle, the only hope is to bring down the roof and all hands are needed. They get their say (still set a 'doom clock').
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Self Sacrifice (or at least what they will be thinking of what they are going through) will always make the PCs feel like heroes. At least from my experience. The "battle" of the event (if there is any) shouldn't be something you put too much emphasis on , I think, it's the description of the tragic events and conditions around it that should be really well-detailed and described. (really, it can be anything)
Epic music always helps especially if you can time it well with the events.
This one has worked for me, while closing the session and describing the final sequence, leaving them unsure of being alive or not.
And since you too are of the music-type:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHPYOcgde98
In around 1:50-1:58 of the song you should be starting your last sentence/comment of the session.
Just be sure to end the session before they know what happens next, so as they are full of questions and eager to see what happens next.
If you want, I can share what they went through back then.
Slowly replace them all with Dopplegangers. Give the PC's extra XP for good Doppleganger roleplaying.
I agree with CLufaS. The only way it's going to be a satisfying death is if the players made the choice to die. They'll need to feel their deaths meant something in order to be epic. You don't want them to feel like they had a bullseye painted on their backs and that that there was nothing they could have done to prevent the death. That cheapens the experience and just makes it feel like the GM was gunning them down.
Give them a chance to be heroes in the most classical sense. Put a choice in front of them that will make them want to put their lives on the path to a certain demise.
Maybe a beloved NPC is at risk (don't make them regret having formed a relationship with the NPC though.)
Maybe there's a price to pay for serving the greater good. Bringing an entire cave system down around a staging army of under-denizens is a good suggestion. Maybe the PCs need to track down and slay the monstrous carrier of a deadly disease before it infects the entire countryside with an incurable plague. Perhaps PCs can chase a bad guy through a planar gate and have to stay on the other side to make sure he can't make it back either. If any of the PCs are divinely connected, have an agent of their god visit them during their final moments. Perhaps Torag lends a dwarven PC his hammer once the decision to crumble the cave is made. Perhaps a contingent of Iomedae's heavenly knights arrives to hold the horde back just long enough for the PCs to finish their task and save the day. Whatever assistance they receive though, it needs to be the PCs actions that ring out as the most heroic of the day. The show of assistance is just that, a show that they are not abandoned in their final moments.
Maybe they could become eternal guardians of some unspeakable evil and the process of binding themselves to a mythic prison of some kind imbues them with diefic energy too, allowing them to cast aspects into the mortal world above, in effect giving birth to their new selves?
The best of endings involves player agency.
The best player agency normally involves victory, at least of a sort - especially against overwhelming odds.
I would probably write something where the PCs know that they are opposing some sort of overpoweringly horrific enemy, who knows all of their tricks and all of the proper counters, but their alignment and world view cannot comprehend that the PCs would be willing to sacrifice everything to end them.
Let the PCs monologue to the villain to end (that part of) the campaign for once.
"This is where we differ. Our victory is predicated not upon our own successes or glory, but upon your defeat - a victory for the forces of good, that we are buying - gladly - with our lives so that your evil cannot harm another innocent."
-TimD
As far as music goes, it's pretty easy:
I'm not sold on the horde though. I believe players would rather die to an epic ennemy (above all if they're coming back for him after death) rather that to pawns. Even if there are thousands of them. But maybe that's just me.
Besides they should feel like their death meant something. Like they actually sacrifice their lives so a population was saved or bought time to escape.
I remember a friend of mine died jumping on a dragon that was there to scare us AND NOT MEANT TO BE FOUGHT before several levels.
The whole thing was epic with an intense chase scene, and the player was so brave and courageous, the GM actually made the player and the dragon die together. Everyone remembers that scene, and our friend actually feels better about that character than if he survived the encounter but the Dragon escaped.
We later played a few games just finding a way to bring him back to life.
That was awesome.
Heroically rescuing children who can't read good. Children with diseases.
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Village they spend the night in turns out to be full of cannibals. They get awoken in the middle of the night while they sleep. The squishy spell casters will probably go down first letting the rest of the party know it's go time. Martial classes will probably last longer, but being caught without their gear on will make them much easier to deal with. Make sure they are sleeping on the second floor and their windows lead out onto an alley they can be trapped in.
Cat looking for attention hopping onto table is a good game-ender. For players :)
Hallway of slashing blades and salt raining from above.
They almost make it to the end...
Here is an idea.
The heroes (PCs) hear tales of an epically powerful demon ravaging the land in a far away country. Unfortunately they have more pressing issues in their own homeland to solve (invading army, plague, natural disasters, etc.). These local issues are enough to occupy them fully.
One night the heroes all awake with horrible wounds.
Several days later day they hear that a city has fallen in a far away land. The problems in their homeland worsen and they don't have time to dwell on the demon far away.
Weeks later they have all have horrible nightmares and awaken with terrible wounds. Another city falls to the demon. But the issues in their homeland are getting worse and nothing they do seems to have any lasting effect.
The cycle keeps repeating, the nightmare, the wounds, the cities being destroyed, their problems escalating, meanwhile the demon is getting closer and closer.
Eventually they work out that all these things are connected and that it is up to them to stop this demon somehow.
When they confront the demon every wound they inflict on the demon damages themselves and vice versa. They see themselves reflected but oddly distorted in the demon. They have two choices either try to contain the demon without destroying it or sacrifice themselves and destroy the demon permanently.
Give an item for the spell caster to close powerful portal from the inside. Have them arrived at a place where an evil sorcerer sacrificed himself to created a small space where it connected both material plane and realm of daemons. Then have thousands of daemon rushing to go through the portal to the material plane. The sorcerer last will be "I will have the whole world die with me, not even you can stop me now, *random name*."
Then the party will hold as long as they can inside that realm while the spell caster will use that item he got early to close the portal. Of course the team can leave the spell caster to do it himself, but then the spell caster will die in a round and unable to close the portal. Or even run away together, but it will be the same. Then the daemons will kill all the PCs and destroy the world. Then they can come back in a world full of daemons, to atone their sins of leaving the portal open, they must rid all daemon.
If they choose to go in as a team together to close the portal, have them kill a lot of them first, then they will start dying. One by one, until the spell caster left, he can choose to keep closing the portal as it will be close this round, or to fight back while knowing he won't stand a chance. Of course he will close the portal, so the team will come back as heroes and trying to solve the mystery of why the sorcerer tried to end the world with daemons. And if the spell caster tried to fight back instead, same thing will happen as if they left the portal open.
when it comes to mood I'm a fan of the bittersweet:
One of my favorite sci-fi books (the name of the series escapes me) has an incredible ending with psycic wars, time travel, ascension and all manner of crazy stuff and in the end the main character has pretty much saved "everything and everyone", but relizes he can save one last person (the antagonist) by pushing beyond what he should be capable of.
as a results he ends up lost in the past, on the most despicable lawless planet, weak as a kitten, in a backalley where he is set upon by robbers.
After he is dead they even steal his boots.
The reason why this is heartbreaking is because 1.) he knew this would happen, it's actually one of the things that plague him throughout the series with visions. 2.) he could have avoided it, but chose it because it was "the right thing to do".
now that is an ending: you fought the whole world and saved it, but got knifed by a drunk thug in a backalley. it's almost suicide-by-fate.
..or maybe that's just me?
Final BBEG invokes 'obscure rule' allowing him to sacrifice himself to spew all hate and vitriol into the PCs. The final dying breath of his failure, torment, and loss of unrealized goals is recognized by his divine patron.
Asymptotic Curse or Quadratic Curse: Catastrophic curse only delayed 1 day by mythic wish. Every day the PCs lose 1/2 of each ability score. STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA all rapidly are approaching zero. The PCs feel the wasting effects of the curse, and the local clergy are powerless to help them.
- Within 3 days they can no longer lift their weapons or remember what they had for breakfast the day before. All they see is the face of the BBEG cursing them with his final breath.
- Within a week all are bedridden in the same hospital or temple, approaching 0 for all ability scores: Immobilized, incoherent, and isolated in their own bodies, death is welcomed as a friend. Their own final visions are haunted by the sneer of the BBEG.
Day 0: 32 Str
Day 1: 16 Str
Day 2: 8 Str
Day 3: 4 Str
Day 4: 2 Str
Day 5: 1 Str
This option works regardless of power level, but the resources available to the PCs can be expended at different rates to protect themselves. However, the difference between the stats of L20 characters and L1 characters is about 1 day of the curse.
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What would be pretty awesome is if the BBEG was able to magically tie his own life force to the party, so that by killing him they would be killing themselves. (Think the reverse of Dragonheart.) Said BBEG then attacks the innocents, 'knowing' that the heroes won't even try to stop him, as doing so would spell their own demise.
You could even tie that into why they're reborn. Their sacrifice so impresses some planar being that he chooses to use them as his avatars back on the material plane.
Conan: Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, Crom... so grant me one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!
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A single night in a foreign port, followed by party wide "super gonorrhea"....
A single night in a foreign port, followed by party wide "super gonorrhea"....
Gather round for the most epic TPK ever...
The tale of Old Man henderson
Not PF but totally the most epic TPK ever.
Oh...my...god...
May I never do such a poor job as GM that my players decide that this is their best option.
That is seriously hilarious and epic.
Henderson is legendary. His exploits are so well-renowned, that there is a plot derailment scale named after him, The Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment.
I love that Henderson story.
Major throw down inside a huge volcano on a volcanic island. Toss something in there that would 1-hit the baddie (an ancient red dragon maybe) by causing the volcano to erupt. Being fire immune doesn't help with debris.
OMH is a great read.
I've always liked the way the 300 Spartans went out. Bottleneck in a small corridor and taking on thousands of dudes. All for the defense of their homeland.
If I were you I'd do a day long session or so with them building defenses first. Then getting the fight on. Eventually they will all die as the enemies get a bit smarter and some might be uber tough to take out like giants or something.
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It's a bit too railroady for me.
1. I don't like to force my players to make choices like this. The exception would be a one-shot adventure. Preferably one where they have to kill eachother in the end.
2. My players create solutions for unsolvable problems. This includes Use Magic Device with the activate blindly option, a mysterious artifact and a sudden plane shift to the demiplane of dread to escape from a devil who wanted a mysterious artifact.
In other words, what happens when they just won't die?