TPK, total party kill

[Nephew of Mentor]

How do you/your players handle a total party kill? Almost unbelievably, the only dying my players do is during the first quest, however, if the player are all wiped out, say in the third quest of Return of the Witch Lord, do you act as though those characters(their equipment, stats, gold) is saved at strategic check points in the game? For examples of check points I mean between quests or between quest books? Or do you make them start over again?

[Thrawn]

I've never had a total party kill in the standard quests. Outside of quest #1 or once you get out to the frozen horror or mage in the mirror sets of quests, the only deaths I've even seen were a dwarf who'd always run off on his own to try and loot all the treasure.

With that said, I would likely not use "save points". I'd likely start a new party, not running through the standard quests.

[cynthialee]

The way I handle it is to let them start again and I write on the back of the charatcers # of deaths/wipes.

Alternatly the Emperor hires tougher dudes and equips them for the journey. (unlike the loosers the Emperor sent the last time he vested no money into.)
IF the party wipes it is Mentor and the Emperor's fault when you think of it. What Mentor? Would it kill you to loan out some artifacts and provide some potions to these stalwart hereos who are suppossed to be saving the kingdom?

[Nephew of Mentor]

Yeah, after the players learn to bottleneck the enemies in doorways and hallways they usually mow them down pretty easy. I did, however, have two new groups get completely annihilated in The Trial when they kept splitting up. I had another group that was just really unlucky during The Trial. They couldn't make a beneficial dice roll for the entire quest, killed maybe two goblins, and were decimated before ever reaching the gargoyle. They didn't split up either, so it was just really bad rolls. I think when there were only two players left they even tried retreating back to the stairs and couldn't roll high enough to make an expedient retreat, again resulting in their deaths before ever seeing the exit. I honestly had to apologize to them that day.

[Daedalus]

Naturally any evil wizard is entitiled to do as they want, but I'd stick with the rules and require freshly-named recruits with starting items and no treasure. Such accumulated booty is generally only saved by other Heroes who can be in the same room or corridor before the dead Hero's next turn (US Instruction Booklet, p. 22). The next page tells Zargon to modify any Quest that is reattempted, including cases of TPK. Time to make a new map and adventure.

Your last instance of bad luck followed by an apology...well the designers should have prepared one for you. The Trial comes too early. I once came up with a system to value the first 14 Quests. Correctly placed, The Trial should have occured as Quest 7!

[Sjeng]

Never had it happen to me, but I think we'd just replay the quest. I'd change the quest map perhaps, to keep it new, but I don't really kill off a hero and his/her equipment. In computergames you also have savegames, and those games hardly change when retrying. I might add some form of penalty (like XP or gold loss in games), such as losing the gold they were currently carrying, and/or losing one item on their person. I think that's harsh enough.

[Thrawn]

I try to keep my tabletop gaming from being computer gamey.

[cynthialee]

I try to keep my tabletop gaming from being computer gamey.

QFT

If anything I bring somewhat of an RPG feel and mechanics to my table.

[torilen]

I would try hard not to have the party killed off - if it looks like it might happen, maybe try to weaken
the monsters, or play the monsters stupidly to give the heroes an advantage.

Sometimes, it just can't be helped - and of course, there is a much greater chance of a single hero dying
and the rest making their escape.
In the case of the whole party - have the players make new heroes, beef them up a bit, and wade back in,
possibly even allowing them to find the belongings of those who fell before, giving a little bonus for sticking
with the game, even after such tragic losses.
If it is just one hero who died - perhaps have a nice role-playing portion where the other heroes seek out a
new member of their party...perhaps having to explain why they need a new member of their party. Could be
fun. Just have the Player of the dead hero make a new character, pretty much the same as the dead one...maybe
with a bit different personality and equipment make up. You know...if it is a wizard or elf, maybe he will have
different spells from the dead hero...something like that.

Oh...and a different name, of course.

[Thrawn]

When single characters have died, that's actually where I opened up custom character classes. It made dead players not as upset since they got to try something new, although I made them start from scratch for gold/equipment. I only tried this one time, and although it was fun, I still have a place in my heart for keeping the original 4, so I tend to stick with that.