The TPK
There is nothing quite so iconic, quite so talked about, and quite so unique as the TPK. Everyone dies. End of story. Game over. TTRPGs are the only games that have this. What is it? What does it do? Why does it happen? Is it good or bad? What do we do when it happens? Can we prevent it? Should we prevent it?
What is a TPK?
T.P.K. stands for Total Party Kill. When all the members of the party and any NPCs that could reasonably save or assist the party are killed or incapacitated. The bad guy wins. Fade to black. Story over. No retry. No continue. No reloading from your last save and trying the boss battle again. Achievement Unlocked: Bad Ending.
Why does it happen?
Dungeon Master Mistake: Maybe the DM misjudged the power level of the encounter. It was impossible or almost impossible to win, but the DM didn't realize that until the encounter was almost over.
Bad Dice Rolls: Everyone was rolling poorly and the DM was rolling well. The 3 goblins scored 8 crits in 4 rounds and all of a sudden the druid is down and he's the only healer and the rogue is bleeding out and failed his last save and now the squishy wizard was the only one left and he stepped on a trap running away and he was already at 2 hp but took 1d4 damage. And you rolled a 2.
Poor decisions: There are 2 types of bad decisions in D&D. Poor player decisions and poor character decision.
Poor Player Decisions: This is the most common, in my opinion. Players, especially new players to the game, often are more aquanted with video games, which limit the scope of a player's decisions. Even sandbox games that limit it as little as possible, such as Breath of the Wild or GTAV, have mechanical limitations that D&D, as an improve storytelling game, does not. In fact it is exactly this capacity for unlimited posibility that draws people to the game of D&D. But this has it's complications. Players aren't used to having the consequences of their actions impact serious loss in a game. The worst case scenario is that they die to Dracula but then they have to start Castlevania all over again. Not so in D&D. You can't try again. So it takes new players a little to learn how to take their choices more seriously. As a DM, it is your job to explain this and help them learn if they need help.
Poor Character Decisions: This is how a perfect TPK is made. This is what you should strive for. A TPK that is born from the direct consequences of the characters when fully informed and capable to face the foe, died because they just weren't good enough. If there is a TPK, this is what you want.
What Now?
This is this question. What do we do after a TPK? We all want to play D&D. Now we're here staring at character sheets of dead characters, wondering what to do. Get up and go home? There's 5 more houre of the session left. We don't want to go home. How do we keep playing D&D?
Backup Characters:
The best way to handle TPK in my opinion is Backup Characters, so most of my experience is with this method, so this is my opinion, but not the only way to play. My Players are told to have backup characters ready every session, and to level up those characters whenever they level up their main. This way we can drop the new character into the story ASAP if their character dies. I even allow 1 Backup character to arrive during a battle, as another adventurer who heared the fighting and came to help. In this case, a player who has a character die doesn't even miss a round of combat. It also serves to help avoid bad TPKs because it adds basically an (extra life) mechanic to the game. But only once per battle, otherwise it gets too much like a video game. And that's once per battle for the whole party, not once per player. It would strain the imagination if a party of 4 adventurers were fighting a battle and every time one of them died they were replaced by 4 different people who just happened to be in the area. So then when the party still TPKs, only one player, the one who's main and backup both got killed, has to make a 3rd Character. In this case in my games, we usually roll up a random character to use for the remainder of the session, and then the player will make whatever characters they want for another main and another backup between sessions.
Yeah, but still What now?
Yeah, we all have backup characters. But we all died. Where are we? When are we? How much time has passed? Do we play the same module? Do we restart from the begining? If this is homebrew, is my game destroyed? Do I start making a new campaign from scratch? What even is D&D?
Relax. If you're playing a prewritten adventure, then ask your players what point in the story they want to start from. It's kind of like reloading a save, but not exactly. This is going to be a conversation, and I highly recommend that you put it in your session 0 prep for your games. The important part is that you and your group agree how to restart a prewritten module if you choose to do that. At that point they will start from there with their backup characters already established as an adventuring group of friends who have come this far together, not strangers who have to introduce themselves to each other. This avoids much of the more cumbersom introduction RP that stalls restarts much of the time.
If you're playing Homebrew, then the DM decides, so my recommendation to DMs, and what I do, is I continue the story from the same point I had it prepared, and I drop my new party into world at a time and place that will allow me to use all the content I already have prepared, and I railroad my players into that content if I have to for the session to continue, and then I can adapt new content between sessions that will allow the party to get back off the rails if they want to explore other plot elements. I tell my players that the rest of the session will be a little railroady, almost like running a 1-shot, and make sure they understand why and are okay with that playstyle for the rest of the session. Thie important thing here is to run a fun game so that everyone can keep playing and process the events of the TPK.
Whatever you do, don't freak out that your character died. It's an imaginary friend, and there are ressurection spells.
After the session:
Between the session with the TPK and the next session, your group will need to be talking about how they want to tie their character's story lines together, and how they want to handle inserting their characters into the story. This is different for every group. More casual groups may just wave it away, not worry about it, and play D&D with tons of plot holes where nothing makes sense if you really try to analyse it. This is my prefered method. More serious RP groups will write tones of shared backstory material for their own and each other's character, creating a detailed cooperative story. Beautiful works of art come from the D&D community when this happens, and I applaud it, but I don't have the time for such attention to detail. The important thing here is to have fun telling a fun story.
Is a TPK Good or Bad?
I've already said that there is such a thing as good and bad TPKs, so you certainly aren't surprised when I say, it depends.
A TPK is bad if it is followed by a toxic environment of complaining, arguing, pouting, or any sort of overboard behavior that is unreasonable for the loss of an imaginary pretend character in a game.
A TPK is good if it followed by a group of friends all talking about how epic the fight was, congradulating each other for their efforts, reminiscing on how close it was, and being excited to keep playing with their new characters to discover what crazy things will happen in the story next.
How you avoid the first and get to the second is largly an issue of group maturity. And that's not the same as a group of mature people. As groups, especially co-operative improve gaming groups, get to know each other better, and form a better relationship and group dynamic, the group itself becomes more mature in it's interactions with each other. That's what I'm refering to. So even the most mature people, when they are getting to know each other, start off with a low group maturity with respect to each other. This is why new groups need all the things in a Session 0. It is important not to neglect the maintenance of the group relationship.
Should we prevent Bad TPKs?
So you're the DM, you're basically god of your little story. You can do anything. Should you use your powers to prevent a TPK? Does a powerful NPC come to save the party? Do you fudge the numbers? Do you have them all wake up, alive but in prison?
My recommendation is that, if you want to do anything to avoid a TPK, that the ONLY thing you ever do is fudge the numbers behind the screen and never tell your players that you did it.
The other two options frequently cause horror stories that often lead to groups disbanding. Not all the time, and they can be done well, but that's an uphill battle, so just be careful.
And ultimately my answer is no, a DM shouldn't try to prevent a TPK. The only exception is for TPKs caused by the DM's failure. Of course you should design and run your encounters in such a way that your players have a reasonable chance of victory based upon you're groups desired difficulty level. Beyond that, I believe that D&D is the most fun when bad rolls cause a well balanced encounter to turn and then experienced players make informed choices that make their character's story dynamic and interesting, resulting in a TPK.
What are our other options?
Ultimately how you handle a TPK is a discussion that you need to have with your entire group. Some campaigns end, and the DM starts fresh. Depending on your style of homebrewing this is easier or harder. DMs who lean more on improv, and follow methods such as the ones suggested in the "Lazy Dungeon Master" may enjoy this style of play. Other DMs, who focus on a vast detailed world of their own, like Matt Mercer's Wildemount, might pick up the story 20 years later with the new group. Groups that are running a module may decide to change modules or restart the same one from the beginning or the same point in the story. And finally, there's ressurection.
Ressurection Quest:
Okay, I understand, everyone is really invested in these characters and story. We as a group don't want the bad ending. But we want to keep the integrity of the story in tact. We want to play out the TPK. We want to RolePlay this. What now?
The Backup character are now a group of hired adventurers who have to go on a quest to find the MacGuffin that can ressurect the Main Characters because they were the chosen ones and only they can defeat the BBEG.
That's the basic gist of th story arc you have to go on now. Personally, I don't care for this, but if my group all wanted to handle it this way, I wouldn't mind. I could run that story arc easily, and then they could swap back to their main character. They might even end up with their Backup characters living at the party's home base, and I'm sure it would be funny in the off chance that players end up playing 2 characters at once in some scenes. I think this sort of approach is best saved for groups that have a very high group maturity.
Play a game that is fun for everyone
The important thing to remember is that D&D is a group activity and it is the responsibility of everyone involved to be respectful, polite, and encouraging. You are here to have fun. Some of my fondest memories of D&D are TPKs that bring a smile to my face when I think about them. Even years later players would bring them up sometimes when reminiscing. This is the type of D&D you want. A game where live or die, everyone has fun and makes a cool story.
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