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What do you do after a Total party kill?
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How do you "ROLL" after a total party kill happens
New campaign, same GM Same system
20%
 20%  [ 7 ]
New campagin, new gm same system
2%
 2%  [ 1 ]
New campaign, same gm, new system
5%
 5%  [ 2 ]
New campaign, new gm, new system
2%
 2%  [ 1 ]
Make new pcs for current campaign, just set elsewhere
20%
 20%  [ 7 ]
Other (see below)
17%
 17%  [ 6 ]
we don't get no stinkin' TPKs around 'ere!
29%
 29%  [ 10 ]
Total Votes : 34

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Whill
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PostPosted: Sat May 14, 2011 4:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
We dont practice party-socialism in our games...

Quote:
I can't recall a PC killing another PC on purpose in our games.


In junior high my gaming group took turns being DM for the other player's PCs. When all our PCs got to about 15th level, we had a big battle royale with no DM, just every PC against the rest. I don't remember most of the details but I remember my half-elf PC was the last man standing. Since I was the most generous DM back then (the other PC all had better magic items than mine), I don't know how I "won". Maybe we made a rule of no magic items. The other players were a little disgruntled with the outcome but we were all ready to move on to other games and so we did. That was the only time I remember playing in a game with intentional intra-party killing, except for Paranoia in which that is encouraged.

As far as Star Wars, I've always ran it where it is encouraged and expected to work as a team. In RAW the GM gives bonus CPs for good teamwork and the GM can even penalize PCs for bad teamwork. And I've always gone by the rule that the second a PC crosses over the the Dark Side he becomes a GC with no chance of redemption. I guess I am a party socialist. But I'm not calling anyone who does it different a jerk. To each his own.
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Random Numbers
Commander
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PostPosted: Sat May 14, 2011 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Having internal fun and party teamwork towards a common goal doesn't really have to be opposites.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Sat May 14, 2011 5:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Random Numbers wrote:
No, Killer Hasse shot a scholar that I was introducing to the party. The GM described rustling bushes and a character who stepped out in front of the party. That was a totally innocent character and Killer Hasse was just his ordinary "I SHOOOOT!". He did that to anything that moved.
Ah, reminds me of why Ragnar the Red, my very, very strong fighter used to break archers' bows over his knee if they shot at or hit the wrong target firing into melee. Ragnar thought that was a lot nicer than option #2 - breaking the archer over his knee. Laughing
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Bren
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PostPosted: Sat May 14, 2011 6:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Random Numbers wrote:
Having internal fun and party teamwork towards a common goal doesn't really have to be opposites.
Well if not opposites, working at cross purposes for selfish or ideosyncratic reasons is at least 90 degrees away from party teamwork.

But I don't really see a need for a party to always engage in teamwork. Some difference of opinion and goals can be fun and is certainly true to real life and to space opera.
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Random Numbers
Commander
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PostPosted: Sat May 14, 2011 6:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bren wrote:
Random Numbers wrote:
Having internal fun and party teamwork towards a common goal doesn't really have to be opposites.
Well if not opposites, working at cross purposes for selfish or ideosyncratic reasons is at least 90 degrees away from party teamwork.

But I don't really see a need for a party to always engage in teamwork. Some difference of opinion and goals can be fun and is certainly true to real life and to space opera.


Well, all party members might think that the empire needs to be undone, but they might have different views of how to do it. It could also be that some people would want to start a Ferrari dealership while some of the group could be fanatic environmentalists. OK, it's 90 degrees away. With a group of fantasy heroes fighting the Chaos Gods, having a demonologist in the party would be 95 degrees?

To me the story about the characters often supersedes adventure plot. Off course it's best if the two coincide... But I'll take a party wipe before I play a game with 6 characters playing as a hive mind with nothing else but the end of the adventure in mind. If that was all I wanted I would be doing instance runs in World of Worldcraft. Sometimes the mission is not all that matters...
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Random Numbers
Commander
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PostPosted: Sat May 14, 2011 6:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bren wrote:
Random Numbers wrote:
No, Killer Hasse shot a scholar that I was introducing to the party. The GM described rustling bushes and a character who stepped out in front of the party. That was a totally innocent character and Killer Hasse was just his ordinary "I SHOOOOT!". He did that to anything that moved.
Ah, reminds me of why Ragnar the Red, my very, very strong fighter used to break archers' bows over his knee if they shot at or hit the wrong target firing into melee. Ragnar thought that was a lot nicer than option #2 - breaking the archer over his knee. Laughing


Hehe. The countless times we wanted to do the option 2 when Killer Hasse got his thing going. Killer Hasse is one of the renowned characters in our playing history. And to be fair, he mostly shot mutants and other various bad guys. That was several years ago and we still yell "I shooooot!" trying to sound as the original Killer Hasse. Clearly the stuff of legends!
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ZzaphodD
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PostPosted: Sat May 14, 2011 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Random Numbers wrote:
Bren wrote:
Random Numbers wrote:
No, Killer Hasse shot a scholar that I was introducing to the party. The GM described rustling bushes and a character who stepped out in front of the party. That was a totally innocent character and Killer Hasse was just his ordinary "I SHOOOOT!". He did that to anything that moved.
Ah, reminds me of why Ragnar the Red, my very, very strong fighter used to break archers' bows over his knee if they shot at or hit the wrong target firing into melee. Ragnar thought that was a lot nicer than option #2 - breaking the archer over his knee. Laughing


Hehe. The countless times we wanted to do the option 2 when Killer Hasse got his thing going. Killer Hasse is one of the renowned characters in our playing history. And to be fair, he mostly shot mutants and other various bad guys. That was several years ago and we still yell "I shooooot!" trying to sound as the original Killer Hasse. Clearly the stuff of legends!


The only reason he mostly shot mutants and other chaos monsters were because those were the ones mostly sneaking up on us. Basically he always shot first and asked question later. Add an insane ability to roll 'open ended' damage dice and you have Killer Hasse.. (The same player now plays the 'Space Dwarf' and generally want to shoot everyone up now too...) Laughing
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Bren
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PostPosted: Sun May 15, 2011 2:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Random Numbers wrote:
To me the story about the characters often supersedes adventure plot. Off course it's best if the two coincide... But I'll take a party wipe before I play a game with 6 characters playing as a hive mind with nothing else but the end of the adventure in mind. If that was all I wanted I would be doing instance runs in World of Worldcraft. Sometimes the mission is not all that matters...
Yes!!! The plot is just part of the characters' stories. The characters are primary, the plot is very important, but is secondary to the characters.
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Volar the Healer
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My game is very challenging. (If you don't want a challenge, play SWTOR online.) The Rebellion does not always win. The players understand the odds are heavily stacked against the Rebellion, so when the Empire wins, it isn't unexpected. This makes their victories all the more glorious. The players have learned sometimes they must withdraw. As Director, I told them the odds are against them, so they never blame me.

When the "full might of the Empire" prevails, the normal response from my players is: "Well, THAT didn't work. Rebel Command will have to try something different next time".

On those rare occasions where they know they shot themselves in the foot it's: "I can't believe you did that! You killed us all! Now, we all get to make up new characters, but YOU will bring the pizza!" My players are mature enough they know when one of them screwed up.

Without the risk of failure there is no hope of glory.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well said.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 5:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bringing this one back up for our newer folk..

In the rare case you get a TPK..
Do you start afresh in the same realm with the same GM
Change out GMs but keep the realm/story as is?
Change story, but keep GM
Change both story and gm
Change system??
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 22, 2015 7:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think this happened once. The new party picked up the same story, but with different motives and from a different angle.
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taedae
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 25, 2015 1:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Seeing as how I am the only one that knows how to run a campaign (as little as that is) I would ask them if someone else wants to run a campaign and if so great. If not, I just start a new one with new ideas or continue where they were from.
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Dredwulf60
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This has happened a few times in my group, but with D&D, AD&D and most recently last year in D&D 3.5.

In every case it was due to a player stubbornly deciding on a course of action and sticking with it despite every indication that its doomed...and other players standing alongside out of loyalty.

Afterward we typically have a round table discussion about how and why things went pear-shaped. Like an after-action review.

Once we went with the..."it was all just a dream...a prophetic one...now let's try again."

Another time we pulled the pin and switched game systems.

The last time it was left open-ended; it was presumed everyone was killed, but because it happened in a magical time rift where time passed much slower the longer you were in it, there was a chance that a new group of PCs, including one of the PC's children might be able to go out and find out what happened to his father and company...and show up in time to save them.

When the PCs had first gone to the castle they were told there would be a time anomaly...but didn't know the degree. The shock I had in store was that when they left, they'd find 30 years had passed. But then they got into the TPK situation.

I toyed with the idea of suddenly having the now-adult son show up as an NPC with his NPC friends to save the day "Dad I found you at last!"...but thought it'd be a little too ex machina.

So we started the new game with the new generation. With the idea being when they got to a high enough level...they might be able to rescue their previous characters.

3 or 4 sessions in it became apparent that it was too jarring to go from the high-level game to the low level. The players were still thinking on a macro scale...geo political stuff...when they really needed to be focused on how not to be ambushed by goblins on the road.

So that's when we went back to my version of Star Wars with a mandalorian based story.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 11:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It depends a lot on the circumstances, both in game and out of game. Usually it's time for new characters. Especially if the players realy brought it on themselves. A frontal assault on Vader and Palpatine plus Imperial Guard with a group of beginning characters isn't going to get much sympathy from me.

On the other hand, I'd done a "reset" a couple of times. Once when a player pointed out something major that would have significantly altered the course of a battle, and another time when I was rolling so hot there wasn't much the group could have done to survive.

In one Pendragon campaign,w here the PCs did everything right but where most of them were going to die off from their wounds (including a young NPC Modred who I needed to keep around for major campaign reasons), I had the Holy Grail appear and heal the characters.


In one Star Wars campaign I actually cloned the dead PCs. They had been captured in an earlier adventure by a Separatist scientist who was trying to make his own Clone Troopers and Jedi, and I had planned for an adventure involving the clones. Instead in turned into a great way to keep the characters around, ala Paranoia RPG.
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