Considering Starting a Game with a TPK

[Alchemist 23]

That's right, you read that right. I'm going to kill my players session 1. I noticed that Hellfire Ray damns all souls killed by it. I'm thinking of having them start the game kind of normal.

"You are contacted by Sir Paladin Mc Goody pants to help him go smash a evil cult who's threatening to raise a dark army and take over the world."

Then WAM! They show up and Sir Pally gets paralyzed and dies HORRABILY. Then they all get blasted by the main villain (Wizard 7 Diabolist 7). Since they all get sent straight to hell I'm thinking of dorpoing them in the purple sands of Voiporl and have them have to fight their way back up Dante's Inferno style so they can get raised by someone in the heavens and go back at a higher level to get revenge.

Thoughts?

[avr]

Cute. Make sure you look at the stats of outsiders before using them, more of them seem to be unusually weak or strong for their listed CR than other monsters. But yes in Hell you should have easy inspiration/justification for the magical deserts and similar hazards which fit your preferred game style.

[Bob Bob Bob]

So there's a couple thematic things you'd need to change and a whole host of little problems with actually running it but it's a decent twist on an old classic. The way I've seen it done (including an ancient module) is essentially starting with one-shot characters who die at the villain's birth/rebirth and then bring in new characters to stop them. This honestly sounds like a better version in that the players don't have to work on a character who is just going to disappear soon (though the old module avoided that by having them play pregens).

So on to the thematic stuff. First, souls aren't judged in mortal timeframes. If someone is revived then their soul never left the Boneyard. I think it can't, otherwise they couldn't be revived. So your players would land in Hell... 10,000 years later. Second, whatever acid wash they dump souls through to make petitioners would normally remove the player's levels. You'd need some explanation for that too. Likely the two would be solved by the same handwave. Hellfire Ray bypasses the line but leaves their abilities intact, or something similar. Might even let them find/fight the paladin later, depending on how they were killed.

Then all the little fiddly bits. If you're taking all their equipment then certain classes (alchemist, gunslinger) will need new stuff specific to them immediately. Others (wizard, fighter) will need new stuff specific to them very quickly. It's simpler to warn them ahead of time but if for some reason you don't want to you need to replace their gear quickly or allow them to retrain to use the new stuff for free. Similarly, certain classes (gunslinger and alchemist again) need the ability to resupply regularly. Some abilities are much stronger (anything that counts as silver), some much weaker (anything fire based). Oh, and because of your other thread, no environmental challenges will survive more than a level or two because there's usually a spell or feat they can take (or throw some points in survival) to deal with it. You're better off having the challenges scale by what part/layer of Hell they're in.

Short answer, players don't like spending time doing stuff only to have it fiated away. Either let them know what's going to happen or let them know circumstances might rapidly change and you should be fine. Tell them nothing and you might end up with some pissed off players whose time and effort was just made worthless.

[ryric]

I've done this before; it worked pretty well, but I warned the players that the start would be a little odd and they needed to trust me. This was a 3.5 homebrew game so I let the PCs transfer their class levels to various alignment-appropriate outsiders.

If you want to maintain Golarion canon cosmology and take into account the issues raised by Bob Bob Bob, you could always have the initial encounter cast them bodily into Hell without killing them. That way they get to keep their "stuff," but low level PCs have no easy access to planar travel so you can still do the long journey home plot.

[Val'bryn2]

Considering Hellfire Ray damns them, it's entirely possible that it skips the judgement of Pharasma, which also ties in with her letting victims of it keep their power. If they only wound up in Hell because they were the target of that spell, let them cause trouble for the devils. Serves them right for sticking a toe in her domain.

[pauljathome]

I'll give my usual warning about "Bait and Switch" games. It can work with the right group and will end the game AND the group with the wrong group.

I know that I'd be peeved if I spent hours lovingly crafting my bard character, giving them lots of plot hooks, dithering over whether the duettist archetype was right and then having GM fiat put me in hell with no familiar.

I'd be less peeved if I'd spent 5 minutes creating GenericFistyGuy who was a L1 unchained monk with no backstory.

[Alchemist 23]

I was thinking about just letting them keep everything they had on them, only with broken condition that they can't permanently fix unless they bless or salvage new equipment. (I've got an NPC that can help bless their stuff after a short quest.)

There are no spell books so there's no worry about that.

As for "I'd be pissed if I spent all this time building a back story." its not hard to still work with that. I've got a guy hunting for his wife's killer. Finding her soul in the afterlife might be a good motivation to keep moving and explore the environment.

I could also do like an Angelic intervention since they're band had a high level Paladin and several clerics. They could bring them equivalent gear.

[ShroudedInLight]

Do the Paladin and the Clerics come with them into Hell? If not, You'll need an explanation as to why the villain decided to damn the bunch of level 1 noobs and not the powerful paladin. If so, you'll need an explanation as to why the Paladin isn't headlining the group through hell.

[j b 200]

ShroudedInLight wrote:

Do the Paladin and the Clerics come with them into Hell? If not, You'll need an explanation as to why the villain decided to damn the bunch of level 1 noobs and not the powerful paladin. If so, you'll need an explanation as to why the Paladin isn't headlining the group through hell.

BBEG Speech:

"HA HA, I see you have brought friends with you this time Goody McGooderson! Now that you are paralyzed for 2d6 minutes I shall torture you by forcing you to watch me damn your puny friends to the BOWELS OF HELL!!!! MWA HA HA HA HA!!!"

[Val'bryn2]

Or alternatively, they were all damned, but the stronger beacons of the souls of higher level characters meant that they got snatched as they fell to the Hells, allowing an eventual goal of rescuing the clerics, etc

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Hellfire Ray wrote:

Any creature killed by this spell must attempt a Will saving throw; failure means the creature’s soul is damned to Hell as a burst of brimstone appears around its corpse.

What will you do if someone rolls a 20 on their Will save?

[Dave Justus]

I am generally opposed to any sort of absolutely pre-determined GM fiat show combat. If you want the campaign to be about 1st level PCs fighting their way out of hell, all well and good but advertise it to your players like that and put the backstory of how they got there where it belongs, in the backstory. Don't pretend to play out the backstory as that just robs the players of control and tends to erode trust in the GM.

If you are willing to determine the results of one combat, why should they trust that you won't determine the results of others? How can they believe that you are a GM that is providing the tools to let the players create their character's story, rather than a GM that is just telling a story with their characters as nothing more than props.

Of course you know your players and your group, but I doubt it will be a good start to a campaign.

As for the campaign itself, their are quite a few potential difficulties that need to be considered, things like purchasing stuff which is expected in most games but might not be available to how you will deal with a PC that dies while in hell. Can they be brought back? If not, where will a replacement come from? There a quite a few things like that, nothing that can't be worked out, but you will probably want to consider them ahead of time.

[Alchemist 23]

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

Hellfire Ray wrote:

Any creature killed by this spell must attempt a Will saving throw; failure means the creature’s soul is damned to Hell as a burst of brimstone appears around its corpse.

What will you do if someone rolls a 20 on their Will save?

Double tap.

[Themetricsystem]

Dave Justus wrote:

As for the campaign itself, their are quite a few potential difficulties that need to be considered, things like purchasing stuff which is expected in most games but might not be available to how you will deal with a PC that dies while in hell. Can they be brought back? If not, where will a replacement come from? There a quite a few things like that, nothing that can't be worked out, but you will probably want to consider them ahead of time.

For this bit I think it might make some narrative sense to allow the players to escape back to the material plane every so often, something along the lines of each ring of hell they traverse through they can pass through a gate directly back to their own reality having regained a portion of their soul-thereby allowing their physical selves to exist on Golarian (Or wherever).

This would allow them to deal with downtime stuff like shopping, crafting, getting serious medical treatment and spellcasting services, check in on the pets, that whole thing. It would give the players (At least initially) a sense of false security having battled their way home already too.

The next step would be to have greater devils and other nefarious type eventually hunt the PCs down and drag them all back to Hell to fight once more for their souls to escape. These encounters should be 100% NON DEADLY but overpoweringly organized and methodically deployed, their goal as a lawful evil entity would be to capture the characters and drag them back to serve out their damnation NOT to kill you again as then part of the characters soul would be "lost" to them as it had already been "saved" or recovered when they defeated the previous ring.

In general however I agree with Dave here, the players need to know what is going on and if this setup is what is desired skip the combat altogether and place that encounter in the session 0 content to setup the adventure instead of session 1.

[pauljathome]

Alchemist 23 wrote:

As for "I'd be pissed if I spent all this time building a back story." its not hard to still work with that.

You (presumably) know your players and what they will find fun so this MAY not apply to you. That said, I stand by my assertion that Bait and Switch has been known to raise such angry reactions as to end groups. Ie, I totally agree with Dave Justus above.

You asked for thoughts, those are mine :-). Its not just what YOU think fun and acceptable that matters. Lots of players HATE to lose agency. And you're taking that away, big time.

[lemeres]

ShroudedInLight wrote:

Do the Paladin and the Clerics come with them into Hell? If not, You'll need an explanation as to why the villain decided to damn the bunch of level 1 noobs and not the powerful paladin. If so, you'll need an explanation as to why the Paladin isn't headlining the group through hell.

Here is my answer- divine intervention that protects the paladin's righteous soul. When he dies, an angel comes and snatches it away so that the devil doesn't get it in his grasp (Actually- if we aren't too attached to the 'no good prophecies' setting by Paizo, you could make the paladin destined, and make it an epic tale where his struggle against that devil as the cornerstone of the world's fate).

...unfortunately... that divine intervention doesn't cover the party. And there is a ticked off devil looking for something to take his frustration out on.

Another 'fun' thing to do with this is to have the paladin come back as an angel to kill steal and take all the glory at the end off the campaign.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Alchemist 23 wrote:

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

Hellfire Ray wrote:

Any creature killed by this spell must attempt a Will saving throw; failure means the creature’s soul is damned to Hell as a burst of brimstone appears around its corpse.

What will you do if someone rolls a 20 on their Will save?

Double tap.

You'll... fire another Hellfire Ray at their corpse to kill them again? Hoping this time they get damned?

[Matthew Downie]

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

You'll... fire another Hellfire Ray at their corpse to kill them again? Hoping this time they get damned?

Well, obviously you need a bunch of scrolls of Raise Dead.

And maybe an ally with a Misfortune ability so they have to make the save twice.

[Matthew Downie]

You could reduce Bait & Switch syndrome by advertising the campaign as one where "you get to explore another plane", or something like that. Encourage them to make PCs who are not too tied to one place, without giving them the specifics.

[OmniMage]

Well, I have a few suggestions.

1. Does the spell have to be a hellfire ray? Perhaps you have some other spell to do the deed. It could be a spell you made up for just this encounter. Maybe it could be like the sleep spell, where it could affect multiple low level characters (like the PCs) and not high level characters (like the mentioned Paladin).

2. Why not start the game in Hell and have the PCs not remember how they got there? Perhaps its a side effect of a hellfire ray. I don't think very many evil wizards summon back the spirits of their victims to ask how was the trip.

Maybe you could make it a game where the players try figure out how they got there. Maybe one of their stories winds up being better than yours.

[Claxon]

My advice is to tell the players the point you want to start at, they're souls that have been damned and the backstory you envision.

Just start after they've died and been damned to hell.

Don't hide where you want the campaign to go.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Claxon wrote:

My advice is to tell the players the point you want to start at, they're souls that have been damned and the backstory you envision.

Just start after they've died and been damned to hell.

Eh, it can be fun to play out a scripted starting session, as long as everyone knows the script.

[Claxon]

Knowing the script and knowing it's supposed to play out with you losing are important things going into it.

If I as a player don't know that information, I would get super frustrated because it betrays the normal paradigm of the game. Which is that players are supposed to be challenged, but win.

[nicholas storm]

I once played in a star wars game where the GM put in special opponents that you couldn't kill no matter what. That sort of sounds like what you are doing (GM fiat overriding player's).

So I would go with Claxon's suggestion that you start the campaign in hell rather than playing through a battle that you have an expectation of how it's going to go no matter what the players do.

[Kimera757]

I would let the players know their characters are going to "die" before session one, and the killing sequence is just something scripted, so it's like watching a cutscene to explain why they're all in hell. (Not only would this be a horrible surprise if you don't tell the players, but there's a chance a PC might survive the encounter, if only to run away!)

Hell is ... hell. The environment isn't exactly great. There aren't people there, not exactly. You can't go to the grocery store or tavern. If you go hunting, you find the prey are trying to eat you. I hope this isn't for 1st-level characters. Even if warned, I would think my character is going to die in-game, because the environment is going to kill them.

There won't be interesting low-level NPCs to fight, either. IIRC most very low CR fiends aren't very intelligent. They can't plot, or plan surprise attacks.

[Reckless]

Make sure the guy has a pugwampi familiar so they have to make their saves twice and take the worst. If they make two 20s, they win the game and you do something different. :)

[Derek Dalton]

I like the idea of playing in Hell. However to get there the PCs have to die. That right there is railroading and most players don't care for it. Smart players are going to try and prevent this simply because that's what they do. You probably have covered all the angles to prevent them from escaping this horrible fate. Again railroading. I have played and read modules that do this. One and only one did it where I had fun the rest made me less then thrilled. So you may want to consider other options for getting PCs to hell.
Issue number two Hell. There is plenty of source material describing Hell. The material I have read all suggest the character be fairly high level at least tenth to even consider some of the more friendlier safer places. You want a group of first level players stranded in a dessert in one of the 9 levels? Now to make matters worse you want them to have all their gear broken? Almost all devils have resistances, immunities or damage reduction. Uh why? I read to encourage them to complete a short quest. Again I'm sensing railroading. The first fight if we are lucky we can scavenge non broken gear more then likely not enough for everyone.

[chopswil]

search for "Vecna Lives!" and see what people thought about that module

[JDawg75]

I think it's an interesting idea. Know your players though, you may want to run something like that by them ahead of time if you think it'll tick them all off. You can say it in very general terms, so you don't give away much. You'll also want to determine if it affects their stats, as death and raise dead does.

I have thought about running an evil campaign, since several folks want to. In the prelude/1st adventure they unknowingly kill someone who is the servant of someone uber-powerful, like Baba Yaga. In my campaign she would put them under a geas until they'd made it up to her, and it'd be a way for them to be forced to worked together also, since that would be part of the terms. It seems there is a parallel somehow, with your campaign idea.

J