I know this is a bit odd, but I was curious.  I've been a part of campaigns ending with cursed beserking swords, my mage gouged out his eye and replaced it with the Eye of Vecna and was a bit of a douche to the party, possession,etc. Another memorable moment but not quite a party wipe was when our buddy pulled the Jack of Clubs from A deck of many things, defeat a minor death or be destroyed. We came to help and of course all had minor deaths to defeat. It didn't end well.

When I was a young DM a mid-level party insisted on a frontal assault on the Thief's Guild in Greyhawk (used the City of Greyhawk boxset). They all died, many from poison. Their bodies were thrown into the sewers and I couldn't think of a way to continue it from there.

These days I'd have the lich hidden in the sewers either resurrect the players to work for him or perhaps go for them all coming back as undead, or pull out the Ghostwalk supplement.

While technically it was a double-TPK, I was actually running a solo game for my brother at the time in GURPS.

He was playing an Illithid cult leader, who had found himself in an icy forest in the far South being hunted by a horse-sized intelligent white wolf. It was a cat-and-mouse game, which the Illithid ended up losing; he was killed and devoured by the wolf hunting him before he could escape the forest.

Then, my brother proceeded to create a follow-up character (a massive not!Viking slab of a man who wielded a huge warpick) that was a disciple of the Illithid's cult; the 'hook' being that he was ordered to find what had happened to their leader, who had disappeared several weeks ago.

Cue a long investigation along the trail that the Illithid had left from town to town; he also got jumped during a snowstorm by some vagabonds who the Illithid had dealt with and turned away previously, turning them into fine chunky salsa in the process (which he found exhilarating/rewarding). The weather was really the biggest hazard, along with the journey itself, as he wasn't particularly cut out for cold weather survival and had difficulties scavenging on his way down (a warm set of clothes only goes so far). Lots of fun little things happened along the way; fun stuff like hiding in carved-out snowdrifts from predators, I dunno. Lots of little vignette-like stuff.

In any case, he finally found what remained of the Illithid in a clearing of that icy forest; many of the bones gone, the ones that remained were gnawed to stubs; scattered, shredded pieces of his clothing and a badly damaged tome of spells he had been carrying.

The horse-sized White Wolf emerged, and my brother's character turned to face him. The wolf spoke first with a question (of which I can't remember the content), my brother returned a single word: "die."

Cue one of the best knock-down, drag-out fights I've ever seen. The PC buried his pick in the wolf's back as it bit into his vital squishy bits; he passed on his stun/knockdown, elected not to try to free the pick but to instead wrap his arms around the neck of the wolf and begin wrestling it to the ground. Lots of struggling around, snow getting kicked up, biting, punching, and wrenching. Finally, well-bloodied, he bore the wolf to the ground and after several seconds of squeezing his arms around the neck of the massive wolf with all his might, he broke its neck.

Unfortunately, he was too wounded to continue. His meager first aid supplies weren't enough to deal with his serious injuries, which would require some serious surgery skills to even attempt to address. He was out of supplies, and there was no way he would make it out of those woods.

So he left his pick in the back of the wolf, dragged himself to a tree nearby, propped himself against it and sang a few songs from home, enjoying the serene silence of the icy trees and his victory in at least revenge for his leader, until he finally bled to death.

Anyway, we both remember that event quite vividly and fondly.

I have a cool story about a TPK, but it's cool because of what the players did afterwards.

The very first ever D&D adventure I ran at the University of Minnesota in 1973 (yes, pre publication) ended in a TPK. By 4 wandering kobolds.

After the last PC died, there was 10 seconds of dead silence, and then one of the players said "Let's roll up new characters and get those little fuckers!"

Which they did.

Moral: Recruit players whose reaction to a TPK is revenge, not whining.

Here is the oft mentioned example of somewhat low level mortality when its fun.

I was in a rare double blind event that pitted two groups of adventurers against eachother cross country and finally amidst some ruins. Two DMs moderated between the groups so neither side was exactly sure what the other was up to.

I was the Magic User of the group and we were all around level 5 I believe on both sides. I had about 12hp (only 1 at level 1!!!) We were tasked with delivering a magic McGuppin to some temple and the other group was tasked with stopping us. Our group consisted of me as the MU, a Druid, a Paladin and a Bard. The other group we learned later had a Thief, a Ranger a Fighter. Not sure what the 4th member was. Think another Fighter (or maybee another Thief.)

We were plodding along and doing fairly well on making it to the ruins when the other groups Ranger and Thief ambushed us while we were camping and getting our bearings. Needless to say they deemed the MU the biggest threat and filled me full of arrows. I went down and to negative 10 in just 2 rounds. ow...

That would have been it for me had not our Druid been hanging onto a Reincarnate scroll. Something like a 35% chance of failure. Druid makes the roll and the DM has him roll on a modified table based on the locale. Fairly standard, Badger Bear, Elf, Human etc with only a few tweaks. I came back as an... otter... meep... Could not memorize spells, but at least could still cast. I had all of 6 hp.

We continue on and then come to a big confrontation with the enemy group. I zapped their Fighter with magic missile then went invisible as they were focusing on trying to take me out. We learned after the event that the other group, through spying, had seen this otter wandering around with the group. They did not know what it was and assumed it was the dead magic users familliar and did not know what that was capable of. The Thief and Ranger were all over me even invisible. But being small I was in and out of holes and nooks in the ruins walls. Finally the rest of the group was down and they had me cornered so I snapped off my one fireball spell point blank. The last they saw was a very irate little otter. heh... Thief got toasted and think the Ranger or Fighter went down too. The rest were singed pretty good. Think they were able to drag the Fighter off to a temple for a raise after the event. But the Thief was a pile of ashes.

So I was dead again. But it was alot of fun. Don't mess with the otter.

FOOTNOTE: Had the Druid not had the scroll or succeeded the use I'd have been down and out of the game for the rest of the session. Which would have been a bit boring. But we knew the event would allmost certainly have a high body count unless we were really good at avoiding the others. We were not. In fact the other group had all the sneaky characters... But did not have any spellcasters.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;946405Moral: Recruit players whose reaction to a TPK is revenge, not whining.

How the fuck would they know who killed some worthless nobodies who could handle a bunch of sniveling kobolds?  Roleplay much?

And TPK's are easy to cause, why the fuck would anyone want to brag about having monsters bigger than the PC's?

I think the point of the thread is TPKs that happen not because the DM was being a dick. But rather due to the players actions. Or sheer bad luck.

Get a bunch of players who started gaming with AD&D2 and dig D&D3/PF.

Run them through a typical TSR-ish dungeon (I used the first level of Benoist's Marmoreal Tomb from Gygax Magazine #3) using OD&D (technically S&W complete) as the ruleset. First level, 3d6 in order, you know the drill.

Not technically a TPK but 7 PCs walked in and 2 walked out. First to die was the dwarf who charged seven kobolds armed with slings; died before reaching them. Some players rolled three characters that night.

The next day there was a shitstorm over our WhatsApp group (we're Brazilian, we use WhatsApp for everything) and two players announced they weren't coming back.

We replaced them and everyone bought into the increased difficulty. With zero prompting on my part they designated a mapper and a caller and started doing recon and fighting tactically. It was a fun game.

Quote from: Omega;946419I think the point of the thread is TPKs that happen not because the DM was being a dick. But rather due to the players actions. Or sheer bad luck.

Ding ding ding. You got it... The deck of many things fiasco was a friend role playing a curious, yet obviously low wisdom character. Snuck into the thief's pack while we slept and kablammo.

I've been a player in both cases of TPK I've been part to. Both of them D&D.

The first one was Dragonlance, system was 3.5. Our group was at lvl 3 or thereabouts and we weren't equipped with effective ranged weapons/spells. Two flying monstrosities, I forget which type, attacked us and wiped us out.

The second one was a few weeks ago. 5e. We were playing Princes of the Apocalypse campaign and our characters were around 5th and 6th lvl. Some kind of fire druids wiped us out. 8d6 fireballs all around, we were pretty much well-cooked minced meat after 2 combat rounds, but held our own until 4th round, I think.

Quote from: Omega;946419I think the point of the thread is TPKs that happen not because the DM was being a dick. But rather due to the players actions. Or sheer bad luck.

This. And, I would add, the luck of the dice, as well.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;946413How the fuck would they know who killed some worthless nobodies who could handle a bunch of sniveling kobolds?  Roleplay much?

And TPK's are easy to cause, why the fuck would anyone want to brag about having monsters bigger than the PC's?

This is a needlessly aggressive response, particularly since the example centered around kobolds.

Even though I've run Call of Cthulhu for a few decades, I've had precious few TPKs. Usually it's just stragglers getting picked off, here and there over time. But there was one mystery, which I ran about 15 years ago, where a whole group of investigators got snuffed out in one 'encounter'.

We were playing through a canned scenario set in the 'modern' day where the characters were investigating some bizarre murders and acts of arson. A group of fire-worshipping cultists were behind the activities, and, after a few weeks, clues eventually led the investigators to a climactic encounter on the rooftop of a downtown office building. The cultists gathered to summon forth the Great Old One, Cthugha, when the conditions were right. And the investigators 'rushed the scene' without much forethought, and consequently suffered for it. Some were struck permanently insane - all were hacked down with fire-axes and added to the sacrificial pile.

Two of the three players were surprised but handled the TPK well. They smiled and chuckled and said something along the lines of, "well we fucked up." The third player was practically suffering from shock, judging by the look on his face. He asked, "this, this, happens in Call of Cthulhu?", disbelieving the outcome. (He ended up being a very disruptive player to play with - dismissive of less-experienced gamers; antagonistic and uncooperative with the rest of the gaming group. It wasn't a surprise when he left the group because he felt our playstyles didn't match up).

Quote from: cranebump;946449This. And, I would add, the luck of the dice, as well.

Absolutely. A reasonably difficult encounter becomes a disaster with "natural 1 itus", or the Enemy can't miss a save roll...

Quote from: GrabtharsHammer;946457Absolutely. A reasonably difficult encounter becomes a disaster with "natural 1 itus", or the Enemy can't miss a save roll...

I'm usually on the opposite end of this, as GM. It will look like, "Boy, these guys have really fucked up," then they either pull off a crazy series of rolls, or something else happens. Case in point:

(1) Low-level party using Microlite-20 (I want to say they were level 2, but it's been awhile. They're headed down a narrow canyon, seeking the back entrance to the Dwarf PC's home, the normal entrance having caved in (they were there because of rumors "something bad" had happened there, ceasing ore deliveries and such). The architects of the "bad thing" place a pair of giants on the rim overhead, guarding the cut, below. Party comes in, doesn't notice the giants. Giants hurl rocks. Low level party members decide to fight it out. Dwarf charges up a steep hillside, wizard attempts a sleep spell. Sleep spell doesn't work on giants, but dwarf gets caught in the radius and falls down into a snooze, mid-charge. Now, all they have to do is run to the entrance, open the damned door and get int. Unfortunately, the dwarf is the only one who knows how to open it. So now, they're in a pickle. Mage hurls a magic missile. We're making rolls for crits & failures on spell rolls (house rule), using PF crit cards. The mage crits and the attack creates this huge mass of icy ooze (I forget the exact description on the card, but this is what ended up happening). Giants get frozen. They recover their dwarf bud and make their way in.

(2) Same adventure. Once inside, they become aware of a "mandragora beast," a homebrew creature that spins sticky webs, cocoons its meals to devour later. Lore says the moan of the beast is instant death to dwarves (which explains why they find nothing but bones everywhere). They attempt to hide, sneak their way around the thing. They manage to free a cocooned dwarf at one point. Anyhoo, said beast roams about, sniffing for them. They're hidden, though they aren't sure. But a pair of them decide to confront the damned thing, so battle begins. They get INISH and, once again, a spell crit, this time from the cleric, who charms the damned beast in mid-charge. While it sits there, docile, they all hop on it and slice it to shit in one round. Said dwarf-killing moan never gets out (allowing the dwarf to remove the wax he'd stuffed in his ears).

Fucking crit cards...:-)