I think a fun way to handle a TPK would be to jump forward some amount of time with the big bad having won. The heroes were trying to stop the evil necromancer from taking over the Kingdom with a horde of the undead. Despite their glorious, heroic deeds, ultimately they failed. The heroes were defeated, the evil necromancer won. The Kingdom is now a ruined land of the undead. Years later, a new band of heroes arise to challenge the necromancer once again and take back the Kingdom from his evil forces. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like this idea since it allows the PCs to really have an impact on the direction of the story, even if they fail. After all, there are plenty of fantasy stories where the heroes of the past may have failed and now new heroes must arise to finish what they started. It could be even more interesting if you can somehow incorporate something the heroes did manage to accomplish as a lynchpin to how the new party might succeed where the former heroes failed. That way they don't feel like their former exploits were entirely in vain.
@@jokhard8137I would go with: The party wakes up with the Necromancer having completed a resurrection spell, now the party has to figure out if they are alive or undead and have to figure out how to get their souls back from the Necromancer to regain control of their destiny.
i give my players an option they can roll new characters, or they can do a mission for the god of death to be resurrected in exchange, in the one TPK i had that was the players choice and it was an awesome 3 sessions of life and death as the players let it all go as they literally had nothing to lose. when they woke up, they were in the middle of a goblin den who dragged them off for food and scavenged their gear, so they had to break free and get their stuff back
I've actually had a similar idea, based on the descent to avernus adventure to use more as a setting book for hell to have the players all die and try to literally claw their way back from the afterlife. "You awaken to a feeling of immense heat, slowly and groggily raising your head up from a rough stone flooring you find a blazing orange sky burns down on you, to either side stand tall but damaged houses with clear marks of being burnt, you can hear pained groans and screams in the distance that definitely aren't from your group starting to regain consciousness. Soon you see a thin spiny winged figure turn the corner and looks into the alleyway you find yourselves in. "Hey boys! Seems the new ones have finally come to!" It yells in a shrill voice gesturing around the corner..." (based on sending the party to elturel as thats the lowest level part of the adventure so probably the msot versatile. You could even send the party to heaven and have them try to rebel against or convince angels to let them back down to resolve their unfinished battles.
I recently had a mid level adventure go to a tpk, they were around 1½ years into the campaign of biweekly play, I asked them at the end of the TPK session, to go home, to consider if they wanted to continue to play the setting and the characters, and write to me personally if they wanted to continue, and if they all wanted continue we would. They choose to continue. It was a pretty heavy roleplay table with a decent amount of lore in a complete homebrew. When we came to the table two weeks later, I spent almost 15 minutes monologue and reading progressively horrifying battlefield and spy reports from them, as the world started to fall apart, until I swapped into them being revived by some npc's they had gotten close to, but a 20 year older version of them. It was without a doubt my favourite session we had ever had, and my players all gave me really good feedback for it. Of course, that will only work in a homebrew world, and with adventurer there is high enough level to actually know and befriend high level npc's.
In the campaign where I put together a plan like this, two of my characters had some connection to fae creatures - one due to her family's secret ancestry, and the other because of some shenanigans I pulled which resulted in a selkie taking a liking to her. So if either character died, I was going to describe, at the end of the session, how she wakes up under unfamiliar skies, and gradually comes to realize she's in (basically the equivalent of D&D's Feywild). There's obviously a bunch of ways to get that character back, making it a main quest, or the goal of some one-on-one sessions with that character, or leaving it as something that will enter the plot later in a natural way. I never had to use this plan, but it came close enough often enough that I was pretty motivated to give it serious thought. The third PC in that campaign had been turned into stone a long, long time in the past, and if he ever died, I was going to present him with a scene with two of him looking into each other's eyes - his stone body, and his original human form - and then ask him which one he is. I didn't have any plan for what would be animating the other body, just planning to improvise whatever seemed the most suspenseful at the time. I actually DID use this one... when he intentionally allowed an arcane entity to absorb itself into his stone body, instead of fighting it. I think the player wanted to take a break anyway, but didn't want to mess up anything by asking me to create a way out for his character. So the idea I had to save his character from permadeath turned into a way to create a peaceful ending to his character's story, where he can retire to live out a normal life (and as a bonus, it put a very weird ally and/or villain out there that I might use in some future campaign).
I'm my group's DM and our only TPK happened about.. 5 years ago? when we all first started playing. It was a pretty hard situation and the party made some choices that ended up unfavorable OH and a deck of many things was pulled from. Needless to say it was pretty wild although I was a bit green at DM'ing and storytelling we wiggled our way into the aftermath. In my game today, we have... well a lot of player deaths but nothing close to a TPK yet, and I started this video thinking "well... surely a TPK won't happen, its been close but we've survived" and it struck me. I... Should probably make a few red envelopes for when the consequences of hubris surely rear their ugly head. Awesome video!
You could always have a "Hell Arc" TPK leading to a quest in hell where they have to find the Devil or the Demon overlord of where they are. They make a pact with that figure and it turns out the BBEG is a nemesis or old friend of the Demon Overlord/Devil that they want dead to bring them "Home". Maybe one player has to make a pact with them and they gain revival uner the watchful eye of that Devil/Demon Overlord.
First time I played dnd, the first combat was a tpk. Third encounter (last time I played) was against some ghost thing that was too high level for us to beat and we were stuck in a hallway between a pit and the ghost thing.
Dang dude, sorry to hear about the covid troubles and glad things are on the upswing. I've actually seen a surprising (though maybe it shouldn't be given the circumstances) number of folks that I follow on YT having come down with it in the last month or so - both folks here in the US and overseas as well. But again, glad that you're feeling some better, I look forward to your videos each week and really appreciate the effort you put in and the insightfulness of the perspectives you've presented.
I feel like not all TPKs are created equal. A bandit raid might kill some people, but also they might just konk you on the head and nick all your shinies rather than making sure all of you are dead.
Ideas to get new characters together after a tpk if they died trying to overthrow some kind of tyrannical threat. In this case let’s say they were hired to take care of a local orc problem and died. Have the orcs make a spectacle outside the town, leaving the bodies if the slain heros on pikes or otherwise on display. This could spark the adventuring spirit in the new characters to go and try to wipe out the orc camp. If it was a political campaign, likewise have the dead players made a spectacle of. Dead bodies mocked and put on display likewise sparking a new wave of freedom fighters to join the cause.
my mind for a red envelope scenario immediately went to ‚let them work for the potential bbeg of the campaign‘. for the one i‘m running there is a way my players can go to bust a ring of slavers after one of the pc‘s sister got captured by them. wouldn’t it be funny if they got ressurected by the slavers and now have to work for them in order to not get either sold into slavery or killed by them? i mean not for them but for me it would be.
Really like this idea, especially since the last game I GM:ed ended with two dead PCs 😅 Got any suggestions for non-magical settings or settings where resurrections don't fit/can't happen? Currently running a low-tech sci-fi game.
Depending on how deep into sci-fi you want to go, there are lots of options (time travel, alternate universes, bacta tanks, the dumb superblood from Star Trek Into Darkness, “It was all a dream”/a vision granted to the heroes), but honestly? The lowest-tech solution is also the simplest: Just do a Frankenstein. They wake up and they’ve had their wounds stitched closed and had electricity pumped through their veins and brought back to life. And depending who did it, there could be a chance for them to help someone in need, or escape a villain. (Check out the zombie experiments from “Invincible,” or that time the Punisher got killed and put together into “Franken-Castle”.) The second option, equally as low-tech, is to rip off Crank 2 and hook up a car battery to their hearts.
I heard Tyranny of Dragons and I mind immediately associated it with, "That module is GARBAGE!" Ok, clarification: Hoard of the Dragon Queen is garbage while Rise of Tiamat actually has some interesting ideas going on. But to cannonically GET to rise, you need to slog through Hoard and... its a super unflexible, hard as balls module to run. You either need to have PCs at level 5 or make BIG changes to how things operate and how powerful the opposing forces they come across are.
I personally would still hold up a red envelope on screen, but that may be a bit too dramatic for most lol. If you’re using a VTT, maybe you have a page prepared with an image of one of those “break glass in case of emergency” signs, and use that as the landing page as you discuss whether to continue the game?
I'm confused about what it means to "pick up the same campaign with different characters". How would that work? That doesn't seem like it would make sense in-world. Especially if they're already in a dungeon or behind enemy lines, or if they have many complex NPC relationships. If your team wants to finish the same quest, you might just as well respawn with the same characters, like a quick save or time-rewind. I like your red envelope idea.
It depends on the state of the setting and the approach of the players to their characters. In an old school dungeon crawl campaign, or in the early phases of a campaign, player investment in the characters and character entrenchment in the setting are generally weaker. If these five sell-swords sent by Earl Matthias are lost in the Deeping Woods, well, he still needs to resolve the disappearance of his logging camp and perhaps he can find a bit more change to hire this new party, fresh off the boat from Cargader. Alternatively, if the original characters are more a part of the community, and the players are amenable, the new characters can be tied to the old ones and their legacy. We haven't heard from Matthias' Main-Gauche in the three weeks since they entered Caer Amnut, and the Eorl-Seer cannot find them in zir looking glass. At the insistence of Sir Henwick's brother, the Earl and friends of the Main-Gauche have assembled an expedition to seek and assist their missing heroes.
It isn't uncommon for some siblings and friends to join a rescue party, accompanied by new characters. I've also toyed with allowing key NPCs to be converted, like the local Priest the party saved from a vampire, the local Illusionist they consulted with for a mystery, or the Chief Stablehand who found new interest in the world through the exploits of these adventurers.
Not quite the same, but I actually set up a "planned TPK" for my players that occurred when they had reached the transition from first to second level. They wound up in a situation with too many spiders, which took them down. However, the poison of spiders doesn't kill, but rather holds them in a state of paralysis. Some scary, yet portentious, experiences and dreams occurred during which the characters advanced to 2nd level. One of these characters was a moon druid who found he could now mentally wild shape into a giant spider, escape, and surreptitiously web walk about and rescue his friends. So now they have a near death experience to deal with and some near death toxin visions to provide some clues, while I have some nice calibration on how truly effective they are as a fighting group
That is really neat! I planned a TPK for the end of my prequel campaign to really establish the BBEG and show off his rise to power. But then the party didn’t wipe. They beat him sore. I’ve had a lot of re-writing to do 😂
I like the idea of just bringing out the red envelope and having my players ask, "What's that?" I would ominously respond, "Pray to whatever gods you hold dear that you never find out."
I agree with Michael. You are a channel I send to people who are interested in D&D, I also use it because I am a new player and soon to be DM. So thank you for all the work you have put into this channel.
I love the idea of taking the random envelope idea even further. Have introductory descriptions for different scenarios in separate envelopes that only paint part of the scene. When the time comes, fan out the envelopes in front of your players and have one of them draw it like a card from the deck. That player then tears it open and reads the introduction inside. You then, having more complete corresponding notes behind the screen, take over and transition smoothly into role playing that scene. I can see this being such a cool moment for the players as they not only choose to continue, but then they are the ones who determine their fate. Having the player rip open the envelope and read what's inside is incredibly tactile and visceral. I can't think of any D&D player who wouldn't be immediately invested in something that feels like such a MOMENT. Great video and terrific idea. I run a fairly improv style based on intense worldbuilding behind the scenes to allow me to just react, comfortable in the knowledge that I know how the forces of my world work, so that an unplanned game retains logical and thematic consistency. This kind of gimmick (I use the term lovingly) is perfect for my table. I'm putting it into my bag of tricks immediately.
For those that play remotely, if you want to have a Red envelope, you could find a stock image of one that you could toss up on the screen in place of the map; I will probably do this, since we don't use cameras, and it is JUST the VTT shown.
Deck of many deaths Every time new character joins the party I ask player to write on a card what could happen after death based on character beliefs. Then I make one by myself and add another one with just "Nothing" on it. Together those cards form a deck, from which I pull in case of TPK. Anything could happen - enemies spared them, knight patrol came by and rescued players, a fey creature grabbed their souls into feywild or... nothing happened - just death. I use mtg cards with custom descriptions and by far we used this deck only two times. In one case it was death card and another time they woke up in colorless world with their bodies laying below. A familiar devil enters that shadow realm and offers a deal which is hard to reject...
ooh.. my first and only TPK was also in Tyranny of Dragons. Xonthals Tower, Our Rogue got teleported into the village while the rest of us was inside the tower. and he stood alone against a certain Blue Dragon... and when we came to the fight we couldnt barely hit him. But our DM decided that we had been so god damn effective att rallying the factions up against the cult that our Silver Dragon buddy "saved" us and brought us back to Waterdeep for resurrection :P
I like the idea of multiple options, but also like the drama of a single envelope. So I would/will probably put 6 or so options on one page in one envelope. If I want randomness, I’ll roll a d6 to select one of them, or I’ll pick whichever fits best with where they die. The difficulty is not letting them know that they have a safety net, lest they go about throwing themselves of cliffs, and to ensure that their is punishment for death.
Honestly, if my party were to decide to keep playing, I would prefer to do it in a way that's specific to the way we failed. Like in the goblin example you presented in the video. Having a "catch all" situation that the DM has prepared months ago that could have been applied to any situation, would not feel as satisfying to me. You might be upset that you needed to "wing it" in the goblin scenario, but I still think it was preferable to what you present as an alternative in this video. Btw, don't take this personal. I may disagree with this one video, but in general, I really like your channel. Keep up the good work!
I think a TPK is actually a really good story telling opportunity. Most D&D stories have some main villain, and by the nature of the game the party is usually all that stands in the way of the villain achieving their goals. What would happen if the heroes failed? What would happen if the villain got what they wanted? Of course this depends on what the villain actually wants. For example it probably wouldn't work if the villain wants to destroy the world. However if you have a villain who wants to kill the king and take over the kingdom, then you can follow up a TPK with a new story where the villain does just that. The story shifts from saving a good kingdom to overthrowing an evil one. You can also use the TPK as an opportunity to create a plot twist. What if the antagonist who takes over the kingdom is actually a better ruler? What if they aren't as evil as they first seemed?
In my campaigns, i've let warlocks, a class that sell their soul for power, broker a deal with their patron to stay alive/keep their party alive, but in return they give something else up, tilting the contract further in the patrons favor. I have 1 in universe warlock patron that specifically eats sanity, so I allowed the Warlock to stay alive, but taking 2 points of madness each time they did, rolling on a homebrew madness table each time. by the time the campaign ended, they had 6 points of madness, meaning they had 6 different madness effects. They couldn't feel sadness, over anything. They HAD to spend money anytime someone asked them if they'd like to buy something. They were a FORCED kleptomaniac, putting themselves in harms way if it meant stealing something they saw. The first time they were dealt damage by a creature, they became feared by that creature for 1D4 rounds. They Could only rest for half a long rest due to paranoia, so they only gained half benefits from a long rest. and They would seek out rotten meat, eating it, and gaining negative effects from eating it. (all of this with the players consent of course, because they really wanted to keep playing the character, and loved the roleplay of selling sanity to keep from dying/party wiping)
Neat! I wanted to do this anyways, as players can (unknowingly) collect TPK-shields in my campaign. But the whole _"Red Envelope"_ thing is really good flavor, and randomizing the results even for me as a DM sounds exciting.
That's an awesome idea. Something that stood out to me was when you mentioned that if the party gets wiped in a remote location then it wouldn't make sense that the clergy got them, but I think that on the contrary, it makes for a fantastic scenario in and of itself - how did they get to us all the way here, how did they know we're here, and what's going on?
The way I handle TPK in a campaign, we take a session hiatus and discuss what happened then as a group we decide if we want to continue with that arc with backup characters or we move on to a different arc with new characters. The new characters intentionally have a connection to the original party built into their backstories so it’s not out of the question to revisit the campaign arc at a later date with the new characters with some changes based on the outcomes if that is the way it works. I had a TPK in @ v3.5 campaign that went that route, the party was killed due to bad decisions and even worse dice rolls. We told a session off and talked about the TPK over a few drinks. At the end of the night we decided to start a different arc with the back up characters…. Three months later the new characters ended up in an arc that revisited the TPK arc because three of my players were playing relatives of the original characters and wanted to figure out what happened to them since they had only heard “rumors” about the party when they were in a village near the area where the arc ended in the TPK. A few sessions later they were finishing what the original party started before moving on to finish the arc they had started. We never finished the campaign in total but the echos of that campaign is used in the lore of my home brew in 5e.
I like the idea. For my aesthetics, I'd want the envelope to be a deep burgundy with maybe gold decoration or lettering if you need to label it. Alternatively, black with silver (or white tippex presenting a skeletal aspect. You wake up, or so it seems, but all around you is darkness. You see spectral forms around you. Tensing for battle, you look down and see that your own form is similarly ghastly. No breathing can be heard and no odours reach your nose, if indeed you still have one. You realise that those around you are your fallen companions but before any of you can try to speak, another figure appears and a single word fills your head: "Come!". Unable to resist, you start to follow the ghostly stranger along a silver-etched path that you now notice beneath translucent feet. It may occur to you to ask whether you are dead and the eerie 'voice' tells you, "I am no philosopher. I can assure you that your bodies are safe and stable...for now...and should remain so long enough for you to complete your task"
The PCs die, defeated. Their rival becomes powerful and becomes the God King of the land. They become legends, of someone that fought the evil demigod. Hundreds of years later they are resurrected by the resistance, who thinks they are mighty heroes, their legend having grown out of proportion. But they are only level 3-5!!!
Wtf people end their campaign after the tpk? Wow total losers, the tpk is such a phenomenal tool to interesting changes: Times goes forward for a while and the situation evolve, things get worse and you have a new party to fix things starting from a different place and with a different perception, find the dead character while having some ties with the new one is also a phenomenal roleplay moment, recovering your old equipment and keep it forward to remember the dead character. It's just so good
Yes, this is so cool! The theatrics of a red envelope are totally my jam. As a player, I would be totally unable to refuse. Thanks for the microphone, Michael! I agree, this is the best D&D channel 💖
I try to weave my players backstories into the main story arch as much as I can. Trying to balance a good challenge and not kill them so they can see that through is a difficult dance and this is great food for though as to coming up with the "what if" scenario. The onus needs to be with the players on this too though. Having a back up character; family member, friend or followers that would take up their previous characters charge. I totally disagree with the idea that it should be fine for the players to want to just drop the campaign entirely after TPK though. The DM has put in a bunch of work, even if your just running prewritten adventures but especially if it's homebrew. Expecting the DM to just pull another campaign out of a hat and run it is rude and disrespectful to there time. There definitely needs to be a discussion there that's not one sided.
"Where the vibe was much less 'heroic fantasy', and much more-[ad for Tears of the Kingdom plays]". That might be one of the best accidental ad transitions I've ever had.
So I’m getting a group together and about to start DMing for the first time ever. My current plan is to bring the group together by having them all have individual reasons to fight in a Colosseum then there put together as a team. Then I’m going to “TPK” them the colosseum is staffed with soldiers and clerics so there’s no true danger but I’m going to knock them all out and have them dragged back and healed. I feel like it’s a good way to test how far I can push them in combat without killing them by accident and letting them know upfront their characters don’t necessarily have plot armor
That makes sense to me, I think you might have even better results if they have some victories along the way. Even a simulated TPK can be distressing and one way to encourage players to continue past defeat is to revel in their success to that point, as well as make every defeat seem explicable.
@@aaronghunter so my thought was to throw a couple wolves at them which they would be able to handle then something a little more challenging and just keep going up in difficulty. I also wanna set up some kinda reward system for how far they get like if they get 3 rounds in then they have impressed the local regent or maybe a local blacksmith offered them a sponsorship
I don't know if this is something that could work in a TTRPG, but I've long been intrigued by the video game mechanic of "talk to the priest to save the game." It shows up in *Dragon Quest* / *Dragon Warrior* and basically you can always reset to the last time you talked to him, because he'll basically have written down or memorized the details or whatever. But it got me thinking... what if someone killed the record-keeper? I'd never have the time or energy to devote to making a game that could play off this concept, but imagine if the whole game through you've been talking to this one priest/mage guy so that if Bad Things Happen, he can use Time Magic (effectively) to pull back to the time before you entered the dungeon or whatever. However, near the end of the game -- or campaign -- the players find that the priest/mage has been killed. Or perhaps they had a chance to save him but couldn't. And then the stakes are up because he can't restore the story. *However:* Imagine if, somehow, the details *did* get passed down to some future priest/mage of similar power, who then could restore the characters to life (perhaps at the same time as before)... but with corrupted data. So the characters each wake up with things that are subtly different about their character sheets. These two have switched races. This one switched genders. This one switched age categories. This one has switched to a similar class (e.g. a Wizard becoming a Sorcerer) or has a completely different spellbook. This one is now recognizably the son of a notable noble or craftsman. Etc. Kinda like the Reincarnation spell but broader. I think it'd be hard to pull it off and you'd have to be careful to figure out if your players are the type to appreciate the chaos or hate the GM messing with their characters that way, but it's something I would love to see happen.
One nuance to TPK is how crucial the moment was for the campaign as a whole. We once were playing an evil campaign and ran a bank heist that went to hell. We'd managed to set the bank on fire, trigger a massive trap in the vault, fight about who carried what loot (the party could've carried like four times as much loot if the alchemist had trusted me enough to make *me* big instead of making *himself* big -- this is where I learned why evil teams fall apart due to lack of trust), pick up a cursed amulet... then we teleported across the street to an apartment or something, saw the town guards rushing into the bank (and ignoring the apartment), thought we were in the clear, took a sigh of relief... ...only for one party member to throw Glitterdust on the rest of us and run out screaming "The robbers! They're in there!!" Blind and lit up like Christmas trees, we fumbled around trying to flee or hide, and were entirely brought down by the town guards in a way that probably would've ended the campaign. GM took pity on us and had us all wake up the day before going "Man, what an ominous dream! Guys, I think it would be a bad idea to attempt this heist." And we sallied on. I don't typically think the "it was all just a dream" is a good literary trope, and I doubt it would've gone over well had the sequence been important to the campaign as a whole. But as a little two-session heist, it was easy to set it aside and go "nope, that never happened" and get back to the main adventure.
Neat idea! I had a similar idea years ago on a smaller scale. We were nearing the end of the campaign (one of the few that made it there) after 2 years of play. I knew the last few fights would be tough, but the PC's had put in a lot of effort to make the final encounter more of cinematic event than encounter. So I wanted to make sure everyone would be there at the end. In the last true fight I knew the possibility for death was high. The "miniboss" was a Paladin-Warlock in armor inspired by the Berserker Armor from the Manga Berserk, so she would only be killed by a Crit (similar to a Zombie). She also summoned Vrocks periodically as a Lair action with her Scepter. There were a lot of ways to die, including being thrown off the platform into the Abyss...which is what happened to a player. She grappled him and dragged him over 3 rounds (he kept failing the Athletics check) and tossed him off. He was pissed. But I had written several letters the night before in case of this event. The players had freed a Pit Fiend previously in the "dungeon" and the Fiend offered a deal to anyone who died. This brought the player back at full health in the middle of the fight and turned the tides...but he also was now bound to this Pit Fiend (and had a level of Warlock). I feel this idea, similar to yours, is a good way to keep the game going but not giving the player(s) a free pass.
Honestly, I would do the Red Envelope scenario, but with that, I would also use a black envelope. So the players have three choices: to play something completely different, to open the Red Envelope and continue the campaign with their old characters, or open the Black Envelope. Creating a new full party which, once they're done with their own business, will pick up where the previous party left off. Those heroes are dead for good, but they will never be forgotten.
dealing with a cat less than a year old who last month gave birth to kittens. we lost the last one on sunday it is 5am wensday... I am not ok the cat is better but not ok she was to young and we found out in the last week she was prenet... we are dealing with lose and it is much like a tpk... one who's falt is it even if it was no ones... two how do you deal with the whole left? that is the is both the GM and players problem! even if death is a know conaquince for what is happing it is not ok at the start. if you PTK you are morning a litter that die young no matter how old the indvuales were. gm and players need to give breath to that. everyone might know what was wrong and the fixes but souls were lost! even if the player know why morring and a reset is needed
DM: rolls a d20 and grimaces, then rolls for damage. *sighs* "... the giant crab crushes Dildor in it's mighty claw and Joxler the thief, gravely wounded, barely escapes. He grabs the dead mage's books, knowing she had taken copious notes of their time in White Plume mountain. He manages to make it to the entrance, but falls to to the sickness he contracted after being bitten by one of the rats they met early on. He curls up in pain, a telltale sign of tetanus, and dies clutching the heavy book close to his chest. Whomever finds this book will have a much easier time than his group did. Days later, another party finds the entrance and Joxler's body and, most importantly, the mage's book. These bandits had set out in pursuit of the previous party, hoping to ambush them and grab whatever riches they found. Why work hard when you can work smart? But instead of money, the find the book. One member of this party had studied magic a bit and was familiar with the wizard way of writing. The notes were complete and detailed. There's even a map! With this info, it might not be much work to find the loot hidden in White Plume. Armed with this knowledge, the party decides to go in search of fame and fortune." OK, roll up new characters and they can take a turn at White Plume Mountain, or maybe they can head back to town and make another plan after reading the book. What do you want to do guys?
Do you have any advice on running gambling in D&D? I want to put a cursed casino in my game, but just having PCs make skill checks to see if they win the game doesn't seem very exciting. I know I'm going to include a big flashy roulette wheel which will be fairly simple, but, I'm not sure how to make poker interesting without actually playing poker at the table. I may end up making up some of my own games of chance with simpler rules...
I like this idea. It sent my creativity into overdrive and instantly made one aspect of my BBEG’s right hand man even more awesome. I really need to work on building a campaign now
Great talk, also really good incentive for the Patreon. Not everyone uses it well, Anna that's a cool way to incorporate it in a great way. Rock on man
My party had a similar situation where we died from goblins really early, so we ruled it that our characters from a previous campaign who were still around adventuring saved us from the goblin cave
my long lost brother gets a letter and a mystery package with a magic spear that introduces itself "if I am talking to you your brother is dead it's up to you avenge him and save the world"
so we had a near whip but it was a tpk I lived and one other guy lived because we. but I'm not playing her now. we are moving to a new part of the world with a new PC. My PC lived and is still adventuring in the world but She Is running she is wandering around the world depressed and trying to find a way to bring her friends back. she may even show up in our new game as a villain at least for a bit.
I am so glad I watched you made this video, and thank you to Michael for the new mic ! This gave me an awesome idea for the red envelope. I wrote a oneshot for times when people cant make it... where a certain mildly hidden space has a cursed town where the dead rise once a year. The town solves and milks this by having a zombie killing festival. HOWEVER, they run out of bodies eventually when the festival gains popularity and found a way to poison festival goers so they can refill the bodycount and keep the belongings of those fallen. I can certainly imagine that they would also have outside hyenas looking for more interesting bodies,loading them in a cart and taking them to the town,to rise there. Most of this undead died in Evervale and their souls left them.. but some souls are tied to a higher destiny and wont leave their body alone.The players could come back as zombies and try to break the curse in their zombified forms or they could be saved By Their Own characters that they have Already played in a one shot... or have the one shot After and have them meet a zombie party of adventurers asking for help to break the curse. I guess I know what im writing in the red envelope now (?
This is the video that spurred me to join SuperGeekMike's patreon on a whim. Afterwards, found his Critcal Role Demystified series. 🤩 I'm 100% happy to continue my patronage.
I've only had 1 TPK but it was with new players so it was a "everyone gets 1 moment". They ended up getting captured and that's when I could really hook them to what was going on. I figured if it ever happened again, I'd have them have to fight there way out of the abyss or the nine hells. Maybe a completely different type of campaign would develop. I have a few different ways they can get resurrected without necessarily having certain spells which helps them not think they have to have certain classes in the group and opens the door for small kinds of side quests.
Throwing dice, swearing, insulting players, storming out of the house, coming back with beer and pizza 20 mins later to make a new character. That guy, we have.
New guy trying to grasp the concept of D&D, but would a suicide squad type of party work. Like a band of misfits trying to work off life sentence by taking on dangerous quests.
Interesting idea. I planned to end our curse of strahd campaign if the group TPKs against strahd himself. But, I had no plans for a TPK while they work their way up there.
It feels like Tyranny of Dragons is just an absolute player mulching game, at least in the first half of the game. I really wish WotC had gone back and really, firmly rewrote that whole Tier 1 experience when they did that recent "remaster" but that was an entire wash.
I made an adventure where the players make their characters up from level one all the way to level 20. With magic items/outfitted them. we played the module backwards deliberately had a total player kill with the level 20 during the end boss, I just threw them in battle disorientated. then we went to the level 15 characters, and played a portion in the middle of the campaign and deliberately had a total player kill. Then I start the campaign off at level one for the players to go through and find the items/gear from the Tpks
We almost TPKed two weeks ago, in an underwater fight, so we were drowning... my beast companion got us out of the water and allowed the player who rolled a 20 on death save to bring everyone else back to life. I will not accept anyone dunking on beastmaster anymore
one time our "Rise of the Runelords" campaign ended with a TPK on the final battle. Personally i was all for ending the campaign there and just letting the bad guy win, needing to deal with the consequences of that in future campaigns. But the DM and other players didn't want to do that, so instead we re-did the fight, with each player either bringing in one character of the same level, or two characters one or two levels lower. Think some just brought back the same character they had just lost, which was confusing as i think this 2nd attack was supposed to take place after the 1st, but meh. in a different campaign, we TPK'ed on a fight against a Pheonix and basically just re-did the fight a few times. effectively loading a save point and starting the fight over again with the same characters. Unfortunately things didn't work out too well and after a few attempts, the game fell apart. Still think my plan could have had a solid chance if we actually carried it out, but nobody wanted too :/
I'm purposely having my players take quests that and do things that will secretly change their alignments to lawful evil so that if they get TPK they will make up in the nine hells and we and pick up from there
My most recent TPK was subverted by DM improvisation, where we were saved by a hostile faction, who then captured us. However, that TPK was a product of the system (PF2E) and adventure (Abomination Vaults), and those problems persisted, so the game still ended prematurely. PF2E is a product of combat balance testing, and everything revolves around optimization which is more crucial because options have been whittled down to avoid exploits. In this case, our party was ill-constructed for undead and aberrations, without enough role synergy - no tanks, no arcane casters - and with glaring individual weaknesses - I was a swashbuckler, enough said. I think the circumstance of the TPK is very important when it comes down to offering a red envelope, and what the envelope contains. Averting the TPK only staved off the end of this game until my character nearly died again, because there were real scenario/alignment problems that persisted. In my opinion it would be wise to keep evaluating the game as it proceeds, and try to identify issues with the status quo, so we can put solutions into the red envelope scenario where feasible. In the case of my example, in my DMs position, I could have tried to give the players the choice to come back in as someone else, or constructed the scenario to send the party on a separate, more suitable quest to gather resources.
Watching this actually also gave me the idea to have the PC's captured, if the players choose to continue with the same characters, and have them build PC's for a one shot, where they would go on a mission to rescue the main characters. If one of the players decided to change to the new PC after they recovered everyone, that would be fine, but everyone would have the choice to either play the original character or the new one moving forward.
I also experienced a TPK in Tyranny of Dragons, right at the end of the first book. The party managed to get the attention of nearly every enemy on an entire floor of the dungeon, then did little to try to run or hide until it was much too late. We picked up with a new party at the start of the second book, being briefed on the general situation and the disappearance of the other party. The campaign fell apart for unrelated reasons shortly thereafter.
Huge fan of your content, Mike! Been tuning in for each upload for awhile now. Looking forward to watching you steadily grow into being the next big channel. Plus, as a DM, it's nice listening to someone who shares a lot of the same philosophy regarding D&D. Keep killing it.
I seriously wish I could really get into it. Since watching CR, I've wanted to play DnD and give it another go. But I have no groups to play with at the moment. I enjoy these videos though.
Critical Roll started because Liam asked Matt for a birthday DND one-shot. Ask around. My son and I watched “Son of a Dungeon” by the guys from Corridor Crew, and when I asked “is that a game you would like to play?” And he said “yes!” I roped my brother into playing. So now we’re all learning, me as the DM and them as players.
TPK always get me mad butthurt. My first and current only one is where we got killed bc no one could roll above a 10 against enemies with an ac of like, 11, and the option offers to us was reviving the characters as their thralls and basically become their minions, or to abandon the campaign and do something else. We did the later. In hindsight the thrall take may have been kinda interesting, but after such an awful defeat from entirely bad luck, and with us realizing this homebrew setting was far too difficult for a bunch of Newbies (we haven't successfully killed a monster in 3 combat based sessions.), We were probably just super done with the world.
I think a fun way to handle a TPK would be to jump forward some amount of time with the big bad having won. The heroes were trying to stop the evil necromancer from taking over the Kingdom with a horde of the undead. Despite their glorious, heroic deeds, ultimately they failed. The heroes were defeated, the evil necromancer won. The Kingdom is now a ruined land of the undead. Years later, a new band of heroes arise to challenge the necromancer once again and take back the Kingdom from his evil forces.
It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like this idea since it allows the PCs to really have an impact on the direction of the story, even if they fail. After all, there are plenty of fantasy stories where the heroes of the past may have failed and now new heroes must arise to finish what they started. It could be even more interesting if you can somehow incorporate something the heroes did manage to accomplish as a lynchpin to how the new party might succeed where the former heroes failed. That way they don't feel like their former exploits were entirely in vain.
How about... the Necromancer uses the former PC's as his elite undead minions?
@@jokhard8137I would go with: The party wakes up with the Necromancer having completed a resurrection spell, now the party has to figure out if they are alive or undead and have to figure out how to get their souls back from the Necromancer to regain control of their destiny.
i give my players an option they can roll new characters, or they can do a mission for the god of death to be resurrected in exchange, in the one TPK i had that was the players choice and it was an awesome 3 sessions of life and death as the players let it all go as they literally had nothing to lose. when they woke up, they were in the middle of a goblin den who dragged them off for food and scavenged their gear, so they had to break free and get their stuff back
I've actually had a similar idea, based on the descent to avernus adventure to use more as a setting book for hell to have the players all die and try to literally claw their way back from the afterlife. "You awaken to a feeling of immense heat, slowly and groggily raising your head up from a rough stone flooring you find a blazing orange sky burns down on you, to either side stand tall but damaged houses with clear marks of being burnt, you can hear pained groans and screams in the distance that definitely aren't from your group starting to regain consciousness. Soon you see a thin spiny winged figure turn the corner and looks into the alleyway you find yourselves in. "Hey boys! Seems the new ones have finally come to!" It yells in a shrill voice gesturing around the corner..." (based on sending the party to elturel as thats the lowest level part of the adventure so probably the msot versatile. You could even send the party to heaven and have them try to rebel against or convince angels to let them back down to resolve their unfinished battles.
I recently had a mid level adventure go to a tpk, they were around 1½ years into the campaign of biweekly play, I asked them at the end of the TPK session, to go home, to consider if they wanted to continue to play the setting and the characters, and write to me personally if they wanted to continue, and if they all wanted continue we would.
They choose to continue. It was a pretty heavy roleplay table with a decent amount of lore in a complete homebrew. When we came to the table two weeks later, I spent almost 15 minutes monologue and reading progressively horrifying battlefield and spy reports from them, as the world started to fall apart, until I swapped into them being revived by some npc's they had gotten close to, but a 20 year older version of them.
It was without a doubt my favourite session we had ever had, and my players all gave me really good feedback for it. Of course, that will only work in a homebrew world, and with adventurer there is high enough level to actually know and befriend high level npc's.
In the campaign where I put together a plan like this, two of my characters had some connection to fae creatures - one due to her family's secret ancestry, and the other because of some shenanigans I pulled which resulted in a selkie taking a liking to her. So if either character died, I was going to describe, at the end of the session, how she wakes up under unfamiliar skies, and gradually comes to realize she's in (basically the equivalent of D&D's Feywild). There's obviously a bunch of ways to get that character back, making it a main quest, or the goal of some one-on-one sessions with that character, or leaving it as something that will enter the plot later in a natural way. I never had to use this plan, but it came close enough often enough that I was pretty motivated to give it serious thought.
The third PC in that campaign had been turned into stone a long, long time in the past, and if he ever died, I was going to present him with a scene with two of him looking into each other's eyes - his stone body, and his original human form - and then ask him which one he is. I didn't have any plan for what would be animating the other body, just planning to improvise whatever seemed the most suspenseful at the time. I actually DID use this one... when he intentionally allowed an arcane entity to absorb itself into his stone body, instead of fighting it. I think the player wanted to take a break anyway, but didn't want to mess up anything by asking me to create a way out for his character. So the idea I had to save his character from permadeath turned into a way to create a peaceful ending to his character's story, where he can retire to live out a normal life (and as a bonus, it put a very weird ally and/or villain out there that I might use in some future campaign).
I'm my group's DM and our only TPK happened about.. 5 years ago? when we all first started playing. It was a pretty hard situation and the party made some choices that ended up unfavorable OH and a deck of many things was pulled from. Needless to say it was pretty wild although I was a bit green at DM'ing and storytelling we wiggled our way into the aftermath. In my game today, we have... well a lot of player deaths but nothing close to a TPK yet, and I started this video thinking "well... surely a TPK won't happen, its been close but we've survived" and it struck me. I... Should probably make a few red envelopes for when the consequences of hubris surely rear their ugly head. Awesome video!
"Our plan would have worked if we hadn't rolled like crap."
Mike at his dice: That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me!
I appreciate the Ghostbusters reference 😁
You could always have a "Hell Arc" TPK leading to a quest in hell where they have to find the Devil or the Demon overlord of where they are. They make a pact with that figure and it turns out the BBEG is a nemesis or old friend of the Demon Overlord/Devil that they want dead to bring them "Home". Maybe one player has to make a pact with them and they gain revival uner the watchful eye of that Devil/Demon Overlord.
First time I played dnd, the first combat was a tpk. Third encounter (last time I played) was against some ghost thing that was too high level for us to beat and we were stuck in a hallway between a pit and the ghost thing.
Dang dude, sorry to hear about the covid troubles and glad things are on the upswing. I've actually seen a surprising (though maybe it shouldn't be given the circumstances) number of folks that I follow on YT having come down with it in the last month or so - both folks here in the US and overseas as well. But again, glad that you're feeling some better, I look forward to your videos each week and really appreciate the effort you put in and the insightfulness of the perspectives you've presented.
Really enjoyed this video. Haven’t had a tpk yet, but this idea sounds fun just in case.
I feel like not all TPKs are created equal. A bandit raid might kill some people, but also they might just konk you on the head and nick all your shinies rather than making sure all of you are dead.
Umm how about a adventure where your party claws their way out of hell.
Ideas to get new characters together after a tpk if they died trying to overthrow some kind of tyrannical threat. In this case let’s say they were hired to take care of a local orc problem and died. Have the orcs make a spectacle outside the town, leaving the bodies if the slain heros on pikes or otherwise on display. This could spark the adventuring spirit in the new characters to go and try to wipe out the orc camp. If it was a political campaign, likewise have the dead players made a spectacle of. Dead bodies mocked and put on display likewise sparking a new wave of freedom fighters to join the cause.
I really liked this idea. Got yourself another subscriber
Some wise words here.
Michael sent Mike a mic???
Critical role might need that envelop soon
😬😬😬😬😬😬😬
my mind for a red envelope scenario immediately went to ‚let them work for the potential bbeg of the campaign‘. for the one i‘m running there is a way my players can go to bust a ring of slavers after one of the pc‘s sister got captured by them. wouldn’t it be funny if they got ressurected by the slavers and now have to work for them in order to not get either sold into slavery or killed by them? i mean not for them but for me it would be.
There might just be a “wake up in the gladiator pits of the villain’s city” scenario in the document I wrote up… great minds ;)
Really like this idea, especially since the last game I GM:ed ended with two dead PCs 😅 Got any suggestions for non-magical settings or settings where resurrections don't fit/can't happen? Currently running a low-tech sci-fi game.
Depending on how deep into sci-fi you want to go, there are lots of options (time travel, alternate universes, bacta tanks, the dumb superblood from Star Trek Into Darkness, “It was all a dream”/a vision granted to the heroes), but honestly? The lowest-tech solution is also the simplest:
Just do a Frankenstein.
They wake up and they’ve had their wounds stitched closed and had electricity pumped through their veins and brought back to life. And depending who did it, there could be a chance for them to help someone in need, or escape a villain. (Check out the zombie experiments from “Invincible,” or that time the Punisher got killed and put together into “Franken-Castle”.)
The second option, equally as low-tech, is to rip off Crank 2 and hook up a car battery to their hearts.
@@SupergeekMike Thanks dude, there are already cybernetics in the world, so some mad scientist experimenting with them would fit perfectly 👍
Curious to see you DM a game. Maybe one-shot and incorporate your knowledge
I heard Tyranny of Dragons and I mind immediately associated it with, "That module is GARBAGE!"
Ok, clarification: Hoard of the Dragon Queen is garbage while Rise of Tiamat actually has some interesting ideas going on. But to cannonically GET to rise, you need to slog through Hoard and... its a super unflexible, hard as balls module to run. You either need to have PCs at level 5 or make BIG changes to how things operate and how powerful the opposing forces they come across are.
Any advice for the virtual equivalent of a red envelope for those who play online?
I personally would still hold up a red envelope on screen, but that may be a bit too dramatic for most lol. If you’re using a VTT, maybe you have a page prepared with an image of one of those “break glass in case of emergency” signs, and use that as the landing page as you discuss whether to continue the game?
Critical Role after episode 33 of campaign 3:
I'm confused about what it means to "pick up the same campaign with different characters". How would that work? That doesn't seem like it would make sense in-world. Especially if they're already in a dungeon or behind enemy lines, or if they have many complex NPC relationships.
If your team wants to finish the same quest, you might just as well respawn with the same characters, like a quick save or time-rewind.
I like your red envelope idea.
It depends on the state of the setting and the approach of the players to their characters.
In an old school dungeon crawl campaign, or in the early phases of a campaign, player investment in the characters and character entrenchment in the setting are generally weaker. If these five sell-swords sent by Earl Matthias are lost in the Deeping Woods, well, he still needs to resolve the disappearance of his logging camp and perhaps he can find a bit more change to hire this new party, fresh off the boat from Cargader.
Alternatively, if the original characters are more a part of the community, and the players are amenable, the new characters can be tied to the old ones and their legacy. We haven't heard from Matthias' Main-Gauche in the three weeks since they entered Caer Amnut, and the Eorl-Seer cannot find them in zir looking glass. At the insistence of Sir Henwick's brother, the Earl and friends of the Main-Gauche have assembled an expedition to seek and assist their missing heroes.
It isn't uncommon for some siblings and friends to join a rescue party, accompanied by new characters. I've also toyed with allowing key NPCs to be converted, like the local Priest the party saved from a vampire, the local Illusionist they consulted with for a mystery, or the Chief Stablehand who found new interest in the world through the exploits of these adventurers.
Not quite the same, but I actually set up a "planned TPK" for my players that occurred when they had reached the transition from first to second level. They wound up in a situation with too many spiders, which took them down. However, the poison of spiders doesn't kill, but rather holds them in a state of paralysis. Some scary, yet portentious, experiences and dreams occurred during which the characters advanced to 2nd level. One of these characters was a moon druid who found he could now mentally wild shape into a giant spider, escape, and surreptitiously web walk about and rescue his friends. So now they have a near death experience to deal with and some near death toxin visions to provide some clues, while I have some nice calibration on how truly effective they are as a fighting group
Hella Neat
This is great 👍
That is really neat!
I planned a TPK for the end of my prequel campaign to really establish the BBEG and show off his rise to power.
But then the party didn’t wipe. They beat him sore. I’ve had a lot of re-writing to do 😂
I like the idea of just bringing out the red envelope and having my players ask, "What's that?"
I would ominously respond, "Pray to whatever gods you hold dear that you never find out."
I agree with Michael. You are a channel I send to people who are interested in D&D, I also use it because I am a new player and soon to be DM. So thank you for all the work you have put into this channel.
I love the idea of taking the random envelope idea even further. Have introductory descriptions for different scenarios in separate envelopes that only paint part of the scene. When the time comes, fan out the envelopes in front of your players and have one of them draw it like a card from the deck. That player then tears it open and reads the introduction inside. You then, having more complete corresponding notes behind the screen, take over and transition smoothly into role playing that scene. I can see this being such a cool moment for the players as they not only choose to continue, but then they are the ones who determine their fate. Having the player rip open the envelope and read what's inside is incredibly tactile and visceral. I can't think of any D&D player who wouldn't be immediately invested in something that feels like such a MOMENT.
Great video and terrific idea. I run a fairly improv style based on intense worldbuilding behind the scenes to allow me to just react, comfortable in the knowledge that I know how the forces of my world work, so that an unplanned game retains logical and thematic consistency. This kind of gimmick (I use the term lovingly) is perfect for my table. I'm putting it into my bag of tricks immediately.
You and I have a very similar affection for theatricality 😁
For those that play remotely, if you want to have a Red envelope, you could find a stock image of one that you could toss up on the screen in place of the map; I will probably do this, since we don't use cameras, and it is JUST the VTT shown.
Deck of many deaths
Every time new character joins the party I ask player to write on a card what could happen after death based on character beliefs. Then I make one by myself and add another one with just "Nothing" on it. Together those cards form a deck, from which I pull in case of TPK. Anything could happen - enemies spared them, knight patrol came by and rescued players, a fey creature grabbed their souls into feywild or... nothing happened - just death. I use mtg cards with custom descriptions and by far we used this deck only two times. In one case it was death card and another time they woke up in colorless world with their bodies laying below. A familiar devil enters that shadow realm and offers a deal which is hard to reject...
ooh.. my first and only TPK was also in Tyranny of Dragons. Xonthals Tower, Our Rogue got teleported into the village while the rest of us was inside the tower. and he stood alone against a certain Blue Dragon... and when we came to the fight we couldnt barely hit him. But our DM decided that we had been so god damn effective att rallying the factions up against the cult that our Silver Dragon buddy "saved" us and brought us back to Waterdeep for resurrection :P
I like the idea of multiple options, but also like the drama of a single envelope. So I would/will probably put 6 or so options on one page in one envelope. If I want randomness, I’ll roll a d6 to select one of them, or I’ll pick whichever fits best with where they die. The difficulty is not letting them know that they have a safety net, lest they go about throwing themselves of cliffs, and to ensure that their is punishment for death.
How many envelopes the players think there are, and how many there actually are, does not need to be the same number.
@@zipzop6000 I would be worried about slipping up while packing up and scattering 6 envelopes for the world to see, personally, but to each their own!
Honestly, if my party were to decide to keep playing, I would prefer to do it in a way that's specific to the way we failed. Like in the goblin example you presented in the video. Having a "catch all" situation that the DM has prepared months ago that could have been applied to any situation, would not feel as satisfying to me. You might be upset that you needed to "wing it" in the goblin scenario, but I still think it was preferable to what you present as an alternative in this video.
Btw, don't take this personal. I may disagree with this one video, but in general, I really like your channel. Keep up the good work!
I think a TPK is actually a really good story telling opportunity. Most D&D stories have some main villain, and by the nature of the game the party is usually all that stands in the way of the villain achieving their goals. What would happen if the heroes failed? What would happen if the villain got what they wanted?
Of course this depends on what the villain actually wants. For example it probably wouldn't work if the villain wants to destroy the world. However if you have a villain who wants to kill the king and take over the kingdom, then you can follow up a TPK with a new story where the villain does just that. The story shifts from saving a good kingdom to overthrowing an evil one.
You can also use the TPK as an opportunity to create a plot twist. What if the antagonist who takes over the kingdom is actually a better ruler? What if they aren't as evil as they first seemed?
In my campaigns, i've let warlocks, a class that sell their soul for power, broker a deal with their patron to stay alive/keep their party alive, but in return they give something else up, tilting the contract further in the patrons favor.
I have 1 in universe warlock patron that specifically eats sanity, so I allowed the Warlock to stay alive, but taking 2 points of madness each time they did, rolling on a homebrew madness table each time. by the time the campaign ended, they had 6 points of madness, meaning they had 6 different madness effects.
They couldn't feel sadness, over anything.
They HAD to spend money anytime someone asked them if they'd like to buy something.
They were a FORCED kleptomaniac, putting themselves in harms way if it meant stealing something they saw.
The first time they were dealt damage by a creature, they became feared by that creature for 1D4 rounds.
They Could only rest for half a long rest due to paranoia, so they only gained half benefits from a long rest.
and They would seek out rotten meat, eating it, and gaining negative effects from eating it.
(all of this with the players consent of course, because they really wanted to keep playing the character, and loved the roleplay of selling sanity to keep from dying/party wiping)
Neat! I wanted to do this anyways, as players can (unknowingly) collect TPK-shields in my campaign. But the whole _"Red Envelope"_ thing is really good flavor, and randomizing the results even for me as a DM sounds exciting.
That's an awesome idea. Something that stood out to me was when you mentioned that if the party gets wiped in a remote location then it wouldn't make sense that the clergy got them, but I think that on the contrary, it makes for a fantastic scenario in and of itself - how did they get to us all the way here, how did they know we're here, and what's going on?
The way I handle TPK in a campaign, we take a session hiatus and discuss what happened then as a group we decide if we want to continue with that arc with backup characters or we move on to a different arc with new characters. The new characters intentionally have a connection to the original party built into their backstories so it’s not out of the question to revisit the campaign arc at a later date with the new characters with some changes based on the outcomes if that is the way it works.
I had a TPK in @ v3.5 campaign that went that route, the party was killed due to bad decisions and even worse dice rolls. We told a session off and talked about the TPK over a few drinks. At the end of the night we decided to start a different arc with the back up characters…. Three months later the new characters ended up in an arc that revisited the TPK arc because three of my players were playing relatives of the original characters and wanted to figure out what happened to them since they had only heard “rumors” about the party when they were in a village near the area where the arc ended in the TPK. A few sessions later they were finishing what the original party started before moving on to finish the arc they had started. We never finished the campaign in total but the echos of that campaign is used in the lore of my home brew in 5e.
You could say it’s your… Mike-rophone:)
I like the idea. For my aesthetics, I'd want the envelope to be a deep burgundy with maybe gold decoration or lettering if you need to label it. Alternatively, black with silver (or white tippex presenting a skeletal aspect.
You wake up, or so it seems, but all around you is darkness. You see spectral forms around you. Tensing for battle, you look down and see that your own form is similarly ghastly. No breathing can be heard and no odours reach your nose, if indeed you still have one. You realise that those around you are your fallen companions but before any of you can try to speak, another figure appears and a single word fills your head: "Come!". Unable to resist, you start to follow the ghostly stranger along a silver-etched path that you now notice beneath translucent feet. It may occur to you to ask whether you are dead and the eerie 'voice' tells you, "I am no philosopher. I can assure you that your bodies are safe and stable...for now...and should remain so long enough for you to complete your task"
The PCs die, defeated. Their rival becomes powerful and becomes the God King of the land. They become legends, of someone that fought the evil demigod. Hundreds of years later they are resurrected by the resistance, who thinks they are mighty heroes, their legend having grown out of proportion. But they are only level 3-5!!!
Wtf people end their campaign after the tpk?
Wow total losers, the tpk is such a phenomenal tool to interesting changes:
Times goes forward for a while and the situation evolve, things get worse and you have a new party to fix things starting from a different place and with a different perception, find the dead character while having some ties with the new one is also a phenomenal roleplay moment, recovering your old equipment and keep it forward to remember the dead character.
It's just so good
Yes, this is so cool! The theatrics of a red envelope are totally my jam. As a player, I would be totally unable to refuse.
Thanks for the microphone, Michael! I agree, this is the best D&D channel 💖
I try to weave my players backstories into the main story arch as much as I can. Trying to balance a good challenge and not kill them so they can see that through is a difficult dance and this is great food for though as to coming up with the "what if" scenario. The onus needs to be with the players on this too though. Having a back up character; family member, friend or followers that would take up their previous characters charge. I totally disagree with the idea that it should be fine for the players to want to just drop the campaign entirely after TPK though. The DM has put in a bunch of work, even if your just running prewritten adventures but especially if it's homebrew. Expecting the DM to just pull another campaign out of a hat and run it is rude and disrespectful to there time. There definitely needs to be a discussion there that's not one sided.
"Where the vibe was much less 'heroic fantasy', and much more-[ad for Tears of the Kingdom plays]".
That might be one of the best accidental ad transitions I've ever had.
So I’m getting a group together and about to start DMing for the first time ever. My current plan is to bring the group together by having them all have individual reasons to fight in a Colosseum then there put together as a team. Then I’m going to “TPK” them the colosseum is staffed with soldiers and clerics so there’s no true danger but I’m going to knock them all out and have them dragged back and healed. I feel like it’s a good way to test how far I can push them in combat without killing them by accident and letting them know upfront their characters don’t necessarily have plot armor
That makes sense to me, I think you might have even better results if they have some victories along the way. Even a simulated TPK can be distressing and one way to encourage players to continue past defeat is to revel in their success to that point, as well as make every defeat seem explicable.
@@aaronghunter so my thought was to throw a couple wolves at them which they would be able to handle then something a little more challenging and just keep going up in difficulty. I also wanna set up some kinda reward system for how far they get like if they get 3 rounds in then they have impressed the local regent or maybe a local blacksmith offered them a sponsorship
I don't know if this is something that could work in a TTRPG, but I've long been intrigued by the video game mechanic of "talk to the priest to save the game." It shows up in *Dragon Quest* / *Dragon Warrior* and basically you can always reset to the last time you talked to him, because he'll basically have written down or memorized the details or whatever. But it got me thinking... what if someone killed the record-keeper?
I'd never have the time or energy to devote to making a game that could play off this concept, but imagine if the whole game through you've been talking to this one priest/mage guy so that if Bad Things Happen, he can use Time Magic (effectively) to pull back to the time before you entered the dungeon or whatever. However, near the end of the game -- or campaign -- the players find that the priest/mage has been killed. Or perhaps they had a chance to save him but couldn't. And then the stakes are up because he can't restore the story.
*However:* Imagine if, somehow, the details *did* get passed down to some future priest/mage of similar power, who then could restore the characters to life (perhaps at the same time as before)... but with corrupted data. So the characters each wake up with things that are subtly different about their character sheets. These two have switched races. This one switched genders. This one switched age categories. This one has switched to a similar class (e.g. a Wizard becoming a Sorcerer) or has a completely different spellbook. This one is now recognizably the son of a notable noble or craftsman. Etc. Kinda like the Reincarnation spell but broader.
I think it'd be hard to pull it off and you'd have to be careful to figure out if your players are the type to appreciate the chaos or hate the GM messing with their characters that way, but it's something I would love to see happen.
One nuance to TPK is how crucial the moment was for the campaign as a whole. We once were playing an evil campaign and ran a bank heist that went to hell. We'd managed to set the bank on fire, trigger a massive trap in the vault, fight about who carried what loot (the party could've carried like four times as much loot if the alchemist had trusted me enough to make *me* big instead of making *himself* big -- this is where I learned why evil teams fall apart due to lack of trust), pick up a cursed amulet... then we teleported across the street to an apartment or something, saw the town guards rushing into the bank (and ignoring the apartment), thought we were in the clear, took a sigh of relief...
...only for one party member to throw Glitterdust on the rest of us and run out screaming "The robbers! They're in there!!"
Blind and lit up like Christmas trees, we fumbled around trying to flee or hide, and were entirely brought down by the town guards in a way that probably would've ended the campaign.
GM took pity on us and had us all wake up the day before going "Man, what an ominous dream! Guys, I think it would be a bad idea to attempt this heist." And we sallied on.
I don't typically think the "it was all just a dream" is a good literary trope, and I doubt it would've gone over well had the sequence been important to the campaign as a whole. But as a little two-session heist, it was easy to set it aside and go "nope, that never happened" and get back to the main adventure.
Neat idea! I had a similar idea years ago on a smaller scale. We were nearing the end of the campaign (one of the few that made it there) after 2 years of play. I knew the last few fights would be tough, but the PC's had put in a lot of effort to make the final encounter more of cinematic event than encounter. So I wanted to make sure everyone would be there at the end. In the last true fight I knew the possibility for death was high. The "miniboss" was a Paladin-Warlock in armor inspired by the Berserker Armor from the Manga Berserk, so she would only be killed by a Crit (similar to a Zombie). She also summoned Vrocks periodically as a Lair action with her Scepter. There were a lot of ways to die, including being thrown off the platform into the Abyss...which is what happened to a player. She grappled him and dragged him over 3 rounds (he kept failing the Athletics check) and tossed him off. He was pissed. But I had written several letters the night before in case of this event. The players had freed a Pit Fiend previously in the "dungeon" and the Fiend offered a deal to anyone who died. This brought the player back at full health in the middle of the fight and turned the tides...but he also was now bound to this Pit Fiend (and had a level of Warlock). I feel this idea, similar to yours, is a good way to keep the game going but not giving the player(s) a free pass.
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
I'm starting a Tyranny of Dragons campaign in 2 weeks. Now I'm scared.
Mike thanks Mike for a new mic.
Honestly, I would do the Red Envelope scenario, but with that, I would also use a black envelope. So the players have three choices: to play something completely different, to open the Red Envelope and continue the campaign with their old characters, or open the Black Envelope. Creating a new full party which, once they're done with their own business, will pick up where the previous party left off. Those heroes are dead for good, but they will never be forgotten.
Ooooh
your channel is the first thing i check when i get on youtube - so, like, keep being cool or whatever
That red envelope is a unique idea! I like it.
Ya I totally didn't just become a patron because I wanted the PDF...not at all. Seriously, I love and enjoy your content, I hope you keep making it.
Thank you so much!! 😁
All your videos gives me some awesome ideas to trying to add (and perhaps adapt) into my campaings. Thank you so much to help me to be more creative.
dealing with a cat less than a year old who last month gave birth to kittens. we lost the last one on sunday it is 5am wensday... I am not ok the cat is better but not ok she was to young and we found out in the last week she was prenet... we are dealing with lose and it is much like a tpk... one who's falt is it even if it was no ones... two how do you deal with the whole left? that is the is both the GM and players problem! even if death is a know conaquince for what is happing it is not ok at the start. if you PTK you are morning a litter that die young no matter how old the indvuales were. gm and players need to give breath to that. everyone might know what was wrong and the fixes but souls were lost! even if the player know why morring and a reset is needed
DM: rolls a d20 and grimaces, then rolls for damage.
*sighs*
"... the giant crab crushes Dildor in it's mighty claw and Joxler the thief, gravely wounded, barely escapes. He grabs the dead mage's books, knowing she had taken copious notes of their time in White Plume mountain. He manages to make it to the entrance, but falls to to the sickness he contracted after being bitten by one of the rats they met early on. He curls up in pain, a telltale sign of tetanus, and dies clutching the heavy book close to his chest. Whomever finds this book will have a much easier time than his group did.
Days later, another party finds the entrance and Joxler's body and, most importantly, the mage's book. These bandits had set out in pursuit of the previous party, hoping to ambush them and grab whatever riches they found. Why work hard when you can work smart? But instead of money, the find the book. One member of this party had studied magic a bit and was familiar with the wizard way of writing. The notes were complete and detailed. There's even a map! With this info, it might not be much work to find the loot hidden in White Plume. Armed with this knowledge, the party decides to go in search of fame and fortune."
OK, roll up new characters and they can take a turn at White Plume Mountain, or maybe they can head back to town and make another plan after reading the book. What do you want to do guys?
Do you have any advice on running gambling in D&D? I want to put a cursed casino in my game, but just having PCs make skill checks to see if they win the game doesn't seem very exciting. I know I'm going to include a big flashy roulette wheel which will be fairly simple, but, I'm not sure how to make poker interesting without actually playing poker at the table.
I may end up making up some of my own games of chance with simpler rules...
I like this idea. It sent my creativity into overdrive and instantly made one aspect of my BBEG’s right hand man even more awesome. I really need to work on building a campaign now
Great talk, also really good incentive for the Patreon. Not everyone uses it well, Anna that's a cool way to incorporate it in a great way. Rock on man
Thank you!!
Red envelope could also have the TPK party wake up as Reborn. Keeping their original class and race look.
My party had a similar situation where we died from goblins really early, so we ruled it that our characters from a previous campaign who were still around adventuring saved us from the goblin cave
my long lost brother gets a letter and a mystery package with a magic spear that introduces itself "if I am talking to you your brother is dead it's up to you avenge him and save the world"
so we had a near whip but it was a tpk I lived and one other guy lived because we. but I'm not playing her now. we are moving to a new part of the world with a new PC. My PC lived and is still adventuring in the world but She Is running she is wandering around the world depressed and trying to find a way to bring her friends back. she may even show up in our new game as a villain at least for a bit.
I can’t add my like as we are at 420, love this concept and also not used 👍
I’ve never been a part of a TPK…I’ve been missing out 😁
Amazing stuff. Thanks Michael!
I am so glad I watched you made this video, and thank you to Michael for the new mic !
This gave me an awesome idea for the red envelope. I wrote a oneshot for times when people cant make it... where a certain mildly hidden space has a cursed town where the dead rise once a year. The town solves and milks this by having a zombie killing festival. HOWEVER, they run out of bodies eventually when the festival gains popularity and found a way to poison festival goers so they can refill the bodycount and keep the belongings of those fallen. I can certainly imagine that they would also have outside hyenas looking for more interesting bodies,loading them in a cart and taking them to the town,to rise there. Most of this undead died in Evervale and their souls left them.. but some souls are tied to a higher destiny and wont leave their body alone.The players could come back as zombies and try to break the curse in their zombified forms or they could be saved By Their Own characters that they have Already played in a one shot... or have the one shot After and have them meet a zombie party of adventurers asking for help to break the curse.
I guess I know what im writing in the red envelope now (?
This is the video that spurred me to join SuperGeekMike's patreon on a whim. Afterwards, found his Critcal Role Demystified series. 🤩 I'm 100% happy to continue my patronage.
Thank you so much!
Mike sent Mike a mic!
Hahaha oh my god how did I not make that connection lol
I've only had 1 TPK but it was with new players so it was a "everyone gets 1 moment". They ended up getting captured and that's when I could really hook them to what was going on. I figured if it ever happened again, I'd have them have to fight there way out of the abyss or the nine hells. Maybe a completely different type of campaign would develop. I have a few different ways they can get resurrected without necessarily having certain spells which helps them not think they have to have certain classes in the group and opens the door for small kinds of side quests.
Throwing dice, swearing, insulting players, storming out of the house, coming back with beer and pizza 20 mins later to make a new character. That guy, we have.
Yikes
New guy trying to grasp the concept of D&D, but would a suicide squad type of party work. Like a band of misfits trying to work off life sentence by taking on dangerous quests.
Exactly 😁
Interesting idea. I planned to end our curse of strahd campaign if the group TPKs against strahd himself.
But, I had no plans for a TPK while they work their way up there.
I think that’s a great approach!
It feels like Tyranny of Dragons is just an absolute player mulching game, at least in the first half of the game. I really wish WotC had gone back and really, firmly rewrote that whole Tier 1 experience when they did that recent "remaster" but that was an entire wash.
Oof yeah the beginning of that adventure is real rough especially
I made an adventure where the players make their characters up from level one all the way to level 20.
With magic items/outfitted them.
we played the module backwards deliberately had a total player kill with the level 20 during the end boss, I just threw them in battle disorientated.
then we went to the level 15 characters, and played a portion in the middle of the campaign and deliberately had a total player kill.
Then I start the campaign off at level one for the players to go through and find the items/gear from the Tpks
Hee hee hee
I am totally making the red envelope thing.
We almost TPKed two weeks ago, in an underwater fight, so we were drowning... my beast companion got us out of the water and allowed the player who rolled a 20 on death save to bring everyone else back to life. I will not accept anyone dunking on beastmaster anymore
Heck yes!
This is a fantastic idea. Stolen!
I love this idea, utter genius
Thanks Michael
one time our "Rise of the Runelords" campaign ended with a TPK on the final battle. Personally i was all for ending the campaign there and just letting the bad guy win, needing to deal with the consequences of that in future campaigns. But the DM and other players didn't want to do that, so instead we re-did the fight, with each player either bringing in one character of the same level, or two characters one or two levels lower. Think some just brought back the same character they had just lost, which was confusing as i think this 2nd attack was supposed to take place after the 1st, but meh.
in a different campaign, we TPK'ed on a fight against a Pheonix and basically just re-did the fight a few times. effectively loading a save point and starting the fight over again with the same characters. Unfortunately things didn't work out too well and after a few attempts, the game fell apart. Still think my plan could have had a solid chance if we actually carried it out, but nobody wanted too :/
Just found your channel and really like your way of thinking around these topics. Subscribed.
oh theyre gonna make a fat deal with the devil
Yesss that’s the best
I'm purposely having my players take quests that and do things that will secretly change their alignments to lawful evil so that if they get TPK they will make up in the nine hells and we and pick up from there
My most recent TPK was subverted by DM improvisation, where we were saved by a hostile faction, who then captured us. However, that TPK was a product of the system (PF2E) and adventure (Abomination Vaults), and those problems persisted, so the game still ended prematurely.
PF2E is a product of combat balance testing, and everything revolves around optimization which is more crucial because options have been whittled down to avoid exploits. In this case, our party was ill-constructed for undead and aberrations, without enough role synergy - no tanks, no arcane casters - and with glaring individual weaknesses - I was a swashbuckler, enough said.
I think the circumstance of the TPK is very important when it comes down to offering a red envelope, and what the envelope contains. Averting the TPK only staved off the end of this game until my character nearly died again, because there were real scenario/alignment problems that persisted. In my opinion it would be wise to keep evaluating the game as it proceeds, and try to identify issues with the status quo, so we can put solutions into the red envelope scenario where feasible.
In the case of my example, in my DMs position, I could have tried to give the players the choice to come back in as someone else, or constructed the scenario to send the party on a separate, more suitable quest to gather resources.
Watching this actually also gave me the idea to have the PC's captured, if the players choose to continue with the same characters, and have them build PC's for a one shot, where they would go on a mission to rescue the main characters. If one of the players decided to change to the new PC after they recovered everyone, that would be fine, but everyone would have the choice to either play the original character or the new one moving forward.
I also experienced a TPK in Tyranny of Dragons, right at the end of the first book. The party managed to get the attention of nearly every enemy on an entire floor of the dungeon, then did little to try to run or hide until it was much too late. We picked up with a new party at the start of the second book, being briefed on the general situation and the disappearance of the other party. The campaign fell apart for unrelated reasons shortly thereafter.
Huge fan of your content, Mike! Been tuning in for each upload for awhile now. Looking forward to watching you steadily grow into being the next big channel. Plus, as a DM, it's nice listening to someone who shares a lot of the same philosophy regarding D&D. Keep killing it.
Such a good idea, this is something I haven't thought about for my campaign. I'm going to write a few red envelopes now 😁
I absolutely love this. I am going to totally implement something like this for the games I'm running.
you channel is so useful!
love from brazil!
I seriously wish I could really get into it. Since watching CR, I've wanted to play DnD and give it another go. But I have no groups to play with at the moment. I enjoy these videos though.
Critical Roll started because Liam asked Matt for a birthday DND one-shot. Ask around.
My son and I watched “Son of a Dungeon” by the guys from Corridor Crew, and when I asked “is that a game you would like to play?” And he said “yes!” I roped my brother into playing. So now we’re all learning, me as the DM and them as players.
I like this idea. My group isnt used to character death and I've wanted to change that so this could be a good way to ease them into the idea
Do you already have a video on tips for playing online?
Not presently but that is on my list to do at some point
TPK always get me mad butthurt. My first and current only one is where we got killed bc no one could roll above a 10 against enemies with an ac of like, 11, and the option offers to us was reviving the characters as their thralls and basically become their minions, or to abandon the campaign and do something else. We did the later.
In hindsight the thrall take may have been kinda interesting, but after such an awful defeat from entirely bad luck, and with us realizing this homebrew setting was far too difficult for a bunch of Newbies (we haven't successfully killed a monster in 3 combat based sessions.), We were probably just super done with the world.
First