Clicked a recently resurrected thread hoping for something interesting only to discover something best left in the grave. But more to the point of what I was hoping for when I went searching: what is the best way?
Understand that by "best" I mean most narratively appropriate and satisfying to the many egos at our tables, not most brutal/efficient/quick. And by "TPK" I don't mean planning an encounter or series of encounters with the specific intent to wipe out the party; I mean a critical moment in the campaign which is intentionally very difficult takes a turn against the PCs and they all go down.
Where have you had times that you as a DM look at something you've designed and go, "Huh. Yeah this could kill everyone. But it'll be a worthy demise, because ..."? Alternatively, where have you had moments where an unexpected TPK happened and everyone still came away from the table emotionally satisfied?
Personally, I like dragons for this. It is Dungeons & Dragons after all. What about the rest of you?
The only time I've deliberately TPKed a party was in a vision (they were seeing how some ancestors died), which I pretty much just did by throwing stuff at them until they eventually died. Accidental TPKs were generally a combination of the monsters being luckier than the PCs and me overestimating what the PCs could handle.
Not a tpk, but we’ve had times where one character has to sacrifice themselves. Trapping an evil god, blah, blah, you know the drill. I could see something similar, where it would take multiple characters to pull it off.
The funny thing to me is... any time there's a big, dramatic fight that I'm worried will be too difficult for my players, they end up curb stomping it. What ends up actually nearly wiping out the players is always something innocuous, like a group of bullywugs and a shambling mound.
Yeah, I'm on the side of I never plan for TPKs. There's very little point because it represents you taking agency away from the players.
Now on the other hand preparing in case a character (or worse the whole party) die? That's another matter. I tend to prepare an epilogue. I narrate it as if it's the end of a movie. Watching the way, the world changes without the characters in the it. I highlight the key locations and NPCs that the party encountered. So, in one case...it went like this:
"If you were watching this on some kind of magic sphere or box, you'd see the broken and fallen bodies of the party being swarmed with the creatures that attacked after SINGHORN fell asleep during their watch. From here the image zooms out of the ruins the party had stopped at and over the world. We fly across fields and trees to the town of Gefeill where we see the villagers celebrating their monthly ritual: liberating the town of the burden of tax by killing the new tax collector. We fly again across to the stronghold of Bothar An Rii where there are a troop of gnomes working to reclaim the accursed fortress supported by a rank of druids, clerics and paladins all doing their best to clense the last traces of evil. On again to the hamlet of Norwhere and into a one room hut where an orphan sits writing their weekly letter to SALLIOR a smile on their face and a bag of toffees recently unwrapped in front of them.
Finally, we fly again to the island nation of Drumorai and the chalk cliffs and towers that dot its landscape. In the biggest of the structures we see, a Queenly figure is issuing orders to her troops. We watch as they sweep across the lands of the world. Town after town, village after village, either submit to her reign or burn at the hands of her soldiers. The immense army marches onwards razing Gefeill to the ground, pulling down the walls of Bothar An Rii with horrific siege machinery, then finally arriving at the hamlet of Norwhere. Here we see the villagers forced onto their knees swearing fealty to their new queen and that lone orphan you rescued so long ago once more thrown to the gutter. The orphan sits alone, in the mud, wet to the bone with the force of the terrible rain. Her fist clenches, she stands, deftly pickpockets a knife from a passing guard and swears to find the group of adventurers who build her a home. The world will soon move on and forget about the plucky group of adventurers from Norwhere, but she never will.
And that, that is the end of our story."
As to the mechanics of a TPK, a dragon ain't really going to cut it. Big large scary monsters actually are pretty easy to take down. If you were really setting out to kill the party you'd do it with a swarm of creatures. Though, I'm not sure why you'd do that intentionally.
Strangely, the recent fights that have/nearly wiped parties were:
kobolds and a quicksand pit
orc warparty
a hag, a quickling, a boneless and a stone cursed
The one commonality was that the party didn't have to choose combat, but they did. I exceedingly-rarely ever strike first with monsters or NPCs. My one exception to not stiking first is with Dragons. I find it more useful for the party to choose combat or diplomacy. But as for planning for a TPK, nope. I'll engineer a deadly combat encounter, but the party has to do abysmally to wind up in a TPK. Generally, I feel that TPKs happen as a result of overconfidence on behalf of the party. Each of these fights happened right after a level up, and the party was eager to try out their new super-suits. Any other combat encounter, they usually excercise caution, but not these three. I've sense learned to watch for that vibe from the party and more gently remind them of their PCs mortality.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I've started a campaign with a TPK of premades. The Easiest way is use tactics in combat for the monsters. A mated pair of hunting Owlbears might use ambush tactics, one is driving prey towards the other one that is hidden. A squad of well organized Bugbears using infantry tactics can decimate a party in a few rounds.
As to the mechanics of a TPK, a dragon ain't really going to cut it. Big large scary monsters actually are pretty easy to take down. If you were really setting out to kill the party you'd do it with a swarm of creatures. Though, I'm not sure why you'd do that intentionally.
Well, a sufficiently overpowered dragon will do the job, though it won't be a particularly interesting encounter (it's up there with "I modified the spell selection on this archmage, turn 1 he casts meteor swarm")
As to the mechanics of a TPK, a dragon ain't really going to cut it. Big large scary monsters actually are pretty easy to take down. If you were really setting out to kill the party you'd do it with a swarm of creatures. Though, I'm not sure why you'd do that intentionally.
Well, a sufficiently overpowered dragon will do the job, though it won't be a particularly interesting encounter (it's up there with "I modified the spell selection on this archmage, turn 1 he casts meteor swarm")
I mean sure, if you throw an ancient dragon at a low level party that'll do it, but by the time a party want to be going after a dragon they're likely strong enough to handle themselves.
Which raises the question for the OP. What would happen if the party chose to run away instead of taking up the combat encounter? Would they still tpk?
And by "TPK" I don't mean planning an encounter or series of encounters with the specific intent to wipe out the party; I mean a critical moment in the campaign which is intentionally very difficult takes a turn against the PCs and they all go down.
I feel the need to restate my position.
Again, I am not talking about premeditated TPK. Although I did find the idea of starting a campaign with a planned TPK of premade characters to be an interesting one. Interesting, but not what I'm talking about.
I know how to kill a party if the point is to kill them, but I agree that intentionally killing the party should almost never be the point. Even when the point is something else, sometimes the whole party is killed because of luck or miscalculation. Or death wishes. Whatever. We've all been there. Sometimes you choose between altering the verisimilitude of your game world and letting all the characters in the party die.
So there it is put another way. What makes it worth keeping them alive? What makes it worth letting them die? Do you narrate your way out of unheroic deaths (e.g. falling down a hole) and let the heroic ones stand (e.g. striving mightily against the great wyrm xyz the terrible)? Do you just say, "Oh well, you guys did roll terrible numbers at this session, so hopefully you'll be rolling better next session when we all roll up new characters."?
What do you think is the best way to deal with a TPK? How do you and your players come away from that emotionally satisfied? Maybe you avoid it by bending the rules to keep them alive, having them inexplicably healed and taken prisoners by their former enemies, etc. Maybe you lean all the way into it and elevate them to the pantheon as local folk heroes, play them as ghosts, etc. Maybe it's something in between, or in a totally different vein. But whatever your preferred solution to the event at our tables that is the TPK, why is it the best way to TPK?
As to my views on dragons, when I say "a dragon" I mean "the entirety of the ecosystem surrounding a dragon's lair, including minions, natural hazards, etc., the greatest of these being the dragon per se".
What makes a PC death worthwhile is the decision to put oneself in a position of risk vs. reward, and the stakes are living or not. Every monster that would try to kill a PC, might act accordingly. Maybe even on purpose. Especially when the stakes are high, and the lives of some meddling do-gooders don't mean anything in respect to the goals of the larger forces at play in the world. So the idea of *trying* to intentionally kill a PC, yes, all day. Planning a surefire TPK, nope.
Dealing with the aftermath is party/game dependent and absolutely a custom response. There is no *one right* answer to this event. I let the players make quick descriptions of things that were significant in the PCs life, both good and bad, during the death save process. In the event of a TPK, I won't Deus Ex the party, so long as they chose combat, or to try to cross a hole that was deep enough to kill them. If they are aware of failure equating to death, they chose the way of the warrior and live or die by that success or failure. If I feel that I failed to telegraph the threat, I might back the threat level down to cause the feel of lethality, but not cause it outright. I've used the previous parties as rumors of what happens when things go badly. Stories of rumor that are told in pubs and inns that are used so that the new PCs know some of what the old PCs knew. In the end, the best way to TPK is unintentionally and respectfully while allowing for the players to decide how their PC demise is resolved.
Dragons are decidedly an entire ecosystem. If they are used as such, they can and do wreck house. My current party just narrowly avoided a horrible outcome with an adult green, today. One dead-dead, one down two death saves, three at half health, and one at 15hp. They are 10th level, and were in round 8 when combat resolved. I managed this with water, lair action and legendary actions, darkness and difficult terrain. No overbuilt homebrew needed, didn't add a spell list either. The sigh of relief when success was realized was palpable. Then realization that the *rest* of the dragon's lair was also aware of what happened. They aren't finished fighting the ecosystem, but they've conquered a major obstacle. There's still time for an epitaph.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The best TPK is an organic one which takes place by the actions and decisions of the players.
For example:
The party find the BBEG's fortress and can immediately see that it is well guarded with heavy, shut gates. The towers bristle with archers. The DM asks them what they do, and they decide to march up to the gates and try to knock them down. The DM advises that the gates appear sturdy and reiterates that there are archers covering the entrance, and asks if they are sure. The party says they are, and in the subesquent rush at the gates, they all die from being peppered with arrows.
This was entirely on the party, because they could have tried all manner of other things, or retreated when things went south.
I'm against anything that's set up to kill the party outright. For example, if I decide to run a drowning trap, then I will instead run it as a flush trap which relocates the party into a more dangerous place - because saying "you failed to unlock the door, so you all died" is a rubbish ending. Setting up an undefeatable encounter which can't be bypassed, avoided, or disarmed is not going to be fun for the party.
A dramatic final battle in which the goal is to stop the BBEG's macguffin and not to simply survive the fight and kill the BBEG is an excellent TPK moment. Narrating the last thing a character sees as the macguffin whirling out of control and exploding because they set off a fireball beside themselves to nobly sacrifice their lives to save the world is a feel-good TPK. Just losing the boss fight is less so, but an allowable consequence. Random dice rolls causing the day 1 goblin ambush to kill everyone is something a DM should tweak their game around to make it less TPK-esque.
Because spoilers for Critical Role - (Campaign3 , ep 33. It's up on YouTube for free) ...
The recent ep of Critical Role (Campaign3 , ep 33. It's up on YouTube for free) had a very tense and near TPK. But how Matt Mercer handled it was really fascinating, and I only got a hint of what he was doing at the very end of the episode. I'm not sure if Matt planned a TPK, but he definitely sent in a bad guy very capable of slaughtering the whole party (and man, it was a slaughter. It was so fun to watch!), but was also connected to a larger narrative that gave the players an out. Though, perhaps not all of them. ;)
And by "TPK" I don't mean planning an encounter or series of encounters with the specific intent to wipe out the party; I mean a critical moment in the campaign which is intentionally very difficult takes a turn against the PCs and they all go down.
I feel the need to restate my position.
Again, I am not talking about premeditated TPK. Although I did find the idea of starting a campaign with a planned TPK of premade characters to be an interesting one. Interesting, but not what I'm talking about.
I know how to kill a party if the point is to kill them, but I agree that intentionally killing the party should almost never be the point. Even when the point is something else, sometimes the whole party is killed because of luck or miscalculation. Or death wishes. Whatever. We've all been there. Sometimes you choose between altering the verisimilitude of your game world and letting all the characters in the party die.
So there it is put another way. What makes it worth keeping them alive? What makes it worth letting them die? Do you narrate your way out of unheroic deaths (e.g. falling down a hole) and let the heroic ones stand (e.g. striving mightily against the great wyrm xyz the terrible)? Do you just say, "Oh well, you guys did roll terrible numbers at this session, so hopefully you'll be rolling better next session when we all roll up new characters."?
What do you think is the best way to deal with a TPK? How do you and your players come away from that emotionally satisfied? Maybe you avoid it by bending the rules to keep them alive, having them inexplicably healed and taken prisoners by their former enemies, etc. Maybe you lean all the way into it and elevate them to the pantheon as local folk heroes, play them as ghosts, etc. Maybe it's something in between, or in a totally different vein. But whatever your preferred solution to the event at our tables that is the TPK, why is it the best way to TPK?
As to my views on dragons, when I say "a dragon" I mean "the entirety of the ecosystem surrounding a dragon's lair, including minions, natural hazards, etc., the greatest of these being the dragon per se".
After perusing a number of threads todays, I am convinced at least 50% of responders don't even bother reading the initial post before commenting...
I agree with Kaavel here. As I recently posted in a thread about my LMoP game where my party TPK'ed. They had a blast and no one was upset. They are a party of 4 kobolds, and they all acted within the scope of there PC's. They had multiple indicators that everything was going south, but they kept pressing on. In the end they new it was their choices that lead them to their deaths. This will likely change with each table and group to some degree. However, my group thought it was hilarious as their "mighty" troupe of kobolds were hewn before their eyes.
With that said, it depends on your table and the vibe of your game. Is it a beer and pretzel game like mine was? or is it a dark gritty RP heavy survival horror Icewind Dale game like my main campaign. What it should never be is a 1 decision and your dead kinda thing.... take your falling in a whole example for instance.
In the case of the hole, the player/party may stumble into the manhole trap. If its deep enough to kill them outright, there should be saves, that are narrated. this builds tension and gives them added opportunities to... not die.
E.g "The ranger steps forward, unknowingly triggering the pitfall trap. Suddenly the floor begins to crumble away beneath your feet. Make a DEX save. 9. Caught flat footed and off balance by the sudden shift, you stumble forward towards the growing maw. Deftly though, your experience takes over as you use your momentum to propel yourself across the gap. Make another Dex save. 7. Your chest slams hard against the opposite ledge, knocking the air from your lungs. As you franticly try to grab hold of anything to pull yourself up, you simultaneously look down and dread registers. If I fail here...this fall will surely kill me. Roll a STR save. 12. You frantically scrape and grab at whatever you can get your hands on, finally, a small crack in the stone. Your decent begins to slow as you begin pulling yourself up, exhausted. CRACK! Your handhold crumbles, and your scream slowly fades away as the craggy maw consumes any record of your recent existence."
this is vastly superior, for all involved, rather than... "you trigger the floor trap and fall down a 100' hole and take 52 points of damage." "welp im dead."
Remeber, in this example, if the whole is only 20' deep and they are only going to take 2d6 bludgeoning dmg... then none of this is really necessary.
Clicked a recently resurrected thread hoping for something interesting only to discover something best left in the grave. But more to the point of what I was hoping for when I went searching: what is the best way?
Understand that by "best" I mean most narratively appropriate and satisfying to the many egos at our tables, not most brutal/efficient/quick. And by "TPK" I don't mean planning an encounter or series of encounters with the specific intent to wipe out the party; I mean a critical moment in the campaign which is intentionally very difficult takes a turn against the PCs and they all go down.
Where have you had times that you as a DM look at something you've designed and go, "Huh. Yeah this could kill everyone. But it'll be a worthy demise, because ..."? Alternatively, where have you had moments where an unexpected TPK happened and everyone still came away from the table emotionally satisfied?
Personally, I like dragons for this. It is Dungeons & Dragons after all. What about the rest of you?
I have never planned to wipe a party. I don"t see the point.
When ever would a GM think that the best way to end a campaign was to kill everybody?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
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"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The only time I've deliberately TPKed a party was in a vision (they were seeing how some ancestors died), which I pretty much just did by throwing stuff at them until they eventually died. Accidental TPKs were generally a combination of the monsters being luckier than the PCs and me overestimating what the PCs could handle.
Not a tpk, but we’ve had times where one character has to sacrifice themselves. Trapping an evil god, blah, blah, you know the drill. I could see something similar, where it would take multiple characters to pull it off.
Halo: Reach
The funny thing to me is... any time there's a big, dramatic fight that I'm worried will be too difficult for my players, they end up curb stomping it. What ends up actually nearly wiping out the players is always something innocuous, like a group of bullywugs and a shambling mound.
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Yeah, I'm on the side of I never plan for TPKs. There's very little point because it represents you taking agency away from the players.
Now on the other hand preparing in case a character (or worse the whole party) die? That's another matter. I tend to prepare an epilogue. I narrate it as if it's the end of a movie. Watching the way, the world changes without the characters in the it. I highlight the key locations and NPCs that the party encountered. So, in one case...it went like this:
"If you were watching this on some kind of magic sphere or box, you'd see the broken and fallen bodies of the party being swarmed with the creatures that attacked after SINGHORN fell asleep during their watch. From here the image zooms out of the ruins the party had stopped at and over the world. We fly across fields and trees to the town of Gefeill where we see the villagers celebrating their monthly ritual: liberating the town of the burden of tax by killing the new tax collector. We fly again across to the stronghold of Bothar An Rii where there are a troop of gnomes working to reclaim the accursed fortress supported by a rank of druids, clerics and paladins all doing their best to clense the last traces of evil. On again to the hamlet of Norwhere and into a one room hut where an orphan sits writing their weekly letter to SALLIOR a smile on their face and a bag of toffees recently unwrapped in front of them.
Finally, we fly again to the island nation of Drumorai and the chalk cliffs and towers that dot its landscape. In the biggest of the structures we see, a Queenly figure is issuing orders to her troops. We watch as they sweep across the lands of the world. Town after town, village after village, either submit to her reign or burn at the hands of her soldiers. The immense army marches onwards razing Gefeill to the ground, pulling down the walls of Bothar An Rii with horrific siege machinery, then finally arriving at the hamlet of Norwhere. Here we see the villagers forced onto their knees swearing fealty to their new queen and that lone orphan you rescued so long ago once more thrown to the gutter. The orphan sits alone, in the mud, wet to the bone with the force of the terrible rain. Her fist clenches, she stands, deftly pickpockets a knife from a passing guard and swears to find the group of adventurers who build her a home. The world will soon move on and forget about the plucky group of adventurers from Norwhere, but she never will.
And that, that is the end of our story."
As to the mechanics of a TPK, a dragon ain't really going to cut it. Big large scary monsters actually are pretty easy to take down. If you were really setting out to kill the party you'd do it with a swarm of creatures. Though, I'm not sure why you'd do that intentionally.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
Strangely, the recent fights that have/nearly wiped parties were:
The one commonality was that the party didn't have to choose combat, but they did. I exceedingly-rarely ever strike first with monsters or NPCs. My one exception to not stiking first is with Dragons. I find it more useful for the party to choose combat or diplomacy. But as for planning for a TPK, nope. I'll engineer a deadly combat encounter, but the party has to do abysmally to wind up in a TPK. Generally, I feel that TPKs happen as a result of overconfidence on behalf of the party. Each of these fights happened right after a level up, and the party was eager to try out their new super-suits. Any other combat encounter, they usually excercise caution, but not these three. I've sense learned to watch for that vibe from the party and more gently remind them of their PCs mortality.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I've started a campaign with a TPK of premades. The Easiest way is use tactics in combat for the monsters. A mated pair of hunting Owlbears might use ambush tactics, one is driving prey towards the other one that is hidden. A squad of well organized Bugbears using infantry tactics can decimate a party in a few rounds.
Well, a sufficiently overpowered dragon will do the job, though it won't be a particularly interesting encounter (it's up there with "I modified the spell selection on this archmage, turn 1 he casts meteor swarm")
I mean sure, if you throw an ancient dragon at a low level party that'll do it, but by the time a party want to be going after a dragon they're likely strong enough to handle themselves.
Which raises the question for the OP. What would happen if the party chose to run away instead of taking up the combat encounter? Would they still tpk?
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
I feel the need to restate my position.
Again, I am not talking about premeditated TPK. Although I did find the idea of starting a campaign with a planned TPK of premade characters to be an interesting one. Interesting, but not what I'm talking about.
I know how to kill a party if the point is to kill them, but I agree that intentionally killing the party should almost never be the point. Even when the point is something else, sometimes the whole party is killed because of luck or miscalculation. Or death wishes. Whatever. We've all been there. Sometimes you choose between altering the verisimilitude of your game world and letting all the characters in the party die.
So there it is put another way. What makes it worth keeping them alive? What makes it worth letting them die? Do you narrate your way out of unheroic deaths (e.g. falling down a hole) and let the heroic ones stand (e.g. striving mightily against the great wyrm xyz the terrible)? Do you just say, "Oh well, you guys did roll terrible numbers at this session, so hopefully you'll be rolling better next session when we all roll up new characters."?
What do you think is the best way to deal with a TPK? How do you and your players come away from that emotionally satisfied? Maybe you avoid it by bending the rules to keep them alive, having them inexplicably healed and taken prisoners by their former enemies, etc. Maybe you lean all the way into it and elevate them to the pantheon as local folk heroes, play them as ghosts, etc. Maybe it's something in between, or in a totally different vein. But whatever your preferred solution to the event at our tables that is the TPK, why is it the best way to TPK?
As to my views on dragons, when I say "a dragon" I mean "the entirety of the ecosystem surrounding a dragon's lair, including minions, natural hazards, etc., the greatest of these being the dragon per se".
What makes a PC death worthwhile is the decision to put oneself in a position of risk vs. reward, and the stakes are living or not. Every monster that would try to kill a PC, might act accordingly. Maybe even on purpose. Especially when the stakes are high, and the lives of some meddling do-gooders don't mean anything in respect to the goals of the larger forces at play in the world. So the idea of *trying* to intentionally kill a PC, yes, all day. Planning a surefire TPK, nope.
Dealing with the aftermath is party/game dependent and absolutely a custom response. There is no *one right* answer to this event. I let the players make quick descriptions of things that were significant in the PCs life, both good and bad, during the death save process. In the event of a TPK, I won't Deus Ex the party, so long as they chose combat, or to try to cross a hole that was deep enough to kill them. If they are aware of failure equating to death, they chose the way of the warrior and live or die by that success or failure. If I feel that I failed to telegraph the threat, I might back the threat level down to cause the feel of lethality, but not cause it outright. I've used the previous parties as rumors of what happens when things go badly. Stories of rumor that are told in pubs and inns that are used so that the new PCs know some of what the old PCs knew. In the end, the best way to TPK is unintentionally and respectfully while allowing for the players to decide how their PC demise is resolved.
Dragons are decidedly an entire ecosystem. If they are used as such, they can and do wreck house. My current party just narrowly avoided a horrible outcome with an adult green, today. One dead-dead, one down two death saves, three at half health, and one at 15hp. They are 10th level, and were in round 8 when combat resolved. I managed this with water, lair action and legendary actions, darkness and difficult terrain. No overbuilt homebrew needed, didn't add a spell list either. The sigh of relief when success was realized was palpable. Then realization that the *rest* of the dragon's lair was also aware of what happened. They aren't finished fighting the ecosystem, but they've conquered a major obstacle. There's still time for an epitaph.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The best TPK is an organic one which takes place by the actions and decisions of the players.
For example:
The party find the BBEG's fortress and can immediately see that it is well guarded with heavy, shut gates. The towers bristle with archers. The DM asks them what they do, and they decide to march up to the gates and try to knock them down. The DM advises that the gates appear sturdy and reiterates that there are archers covering the entrance, and asks if they are sure. The party says they are, and in the subesquent rush at the gates, they all die from being peppered with arrows.
This was entirely on the party, because they could have tried all manner of other things, or retreated when things went south.
I'm against anything that's set up to kill the party outright. For example, if I decide to run a drowning trap, then I will instead run it as a flush trap which relocates the party into a more dangerous place - because saying "you failed to unlock the door, so you all died" is a rubbish ending. Setting up an undefeatable encounter which can't be bypassed, avoided, or disarmed is not going to be fun for the party.
A dramatic final battle in which the goal is to stop the BBEG's macguffin and not to simply survive the fight and kill the BBEG is an excellent TPK moment. Narrating the last thing a character sees as the macguffin whirling out of control and exploding because they set off a fireball beside themselves to nobly sacrifice their lives to save the world is a feel-good TPK. Just losing the boss fight is less so, but an allowable consequence. Random dice rolls causing the day 1 goblin ambush to kill everyone is something a DM should tweak their game around to make it less TPK-esque.
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Because spoilers for Critical Role - (Campaign3 , ep 33. It's up on YouTube for free) ...
The recent ep of Critical Role (Campaign3 , ep 33. It's up on YouTube for free) had a very tense and near TPK. But how Matt Mercer handled it was really fascinating, and I only got a hint of what he was doing at the very end of the episode. I'm not sure if Matt planned a TPK, but he definitely sent in a bad guy very capable of slaughtering the whole party (and man, it was a slaughter. It was so fun to watch!), but was also connected to a larger narrative that gave the players an out. Though, perhaps not all of them. ;)
@Androcus_Divinicus
After perusing a number of threads todays, I am convinced at least 50% of responders don't even bother reading the initial post before commenting...
I agree with Kaavel here. As I recently posted in a thread about my LMoP game where my party TPK'ed. They had a blast and no one was upset. They are a party of 4 kobolds, and they all acted within the scope of there PC's. They had multiple indicators that everything was going south, but they kept pressing on. In the end they new it was their choices that lead them to their deaths. This will likely change with each table and group to some degree. However, my group thought it was hilarious as their "mighty" troupe of kobolds were hewn before their eyes.
With that said, it depends on your table and the vibe of your game. Is it a beer and pretzel game like mine was? or is it a dark gritty RP heavy survival horror Icewind Dale game like my main campaign. What it should never be is a 1 decision and your dead kinda thing.... take your falling in a whole example for instance.
In the case of the hole, the player/party may stumble into the manhole trap. If its deep enough to kill them outright, there should be saves, that are narrated. this builds tension and gives them added opportunities to... not die.
E.g "The ranger steps forward, unknowingly triggering the pitfall trap. Suddenly the floor begins to crumble away beneath your feet. Make a DEX save. 9. Caught flat footed and off balance by the sudden shift, you stumble forward towards the growing maw. Deftly though, your experience takes over as you use your momentum to propel yourself across the gap. Make another Dex save. 7. Your chest slams hard against the opposite ledge, knocking the air from your lungs. As you franticly try to grab hold of anything to pull yourself up, you simultaneously look down and dread registers. If I fail here...this fall will surely kill me. Roll a STR save. 12. You frantically scrape and grab at whatever you can get your hands on, finally, a small crack in the stone. Your decent begins to slow as you begin pulling yourself up, exhausted. CRACK! Your handhold crumbles, and your scream slowly fades away as the craggy maw consumes any record of your recent existence."
this is vastly superior, for all involved, rather than... "you trigger the floor trap and fall down a 100' hole and take 52 points of damage." "welp im dead."
Remeber, in this example, if the whole is only 20' deep and they are only going to take 2d6 bludgeoning dmg... then none of this is really necessary.
Best way to TPK?
Let the party do as they will; and have the world respond accordingly. Eventually they will "bite off more than they can chew".